Robert Mueller

Robert Mueller Getty/Saul Loeb

President Donald Trump reportedly told White House counsel Don McGahn that he was not concerned about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation because he could always just "settle" with Mueller, according to a new book by New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt.

"At one point, as the investigation seemed to be intensifying," Schmidt says, according to an excerpt reviewed by Axios, Trump told McGahn there was "nothing to worry about because if it was zeroing in on him, he would simply settle with Mueller. He would settle the case, as if he were negotiating terms in a lawsuit."

It's one of a number of potentially explosive claims in Schmidt's forthcoming book, titled "Donald Trump v. The United States," which will officially be published on Tuesday. Schmidt covered the Russia investigation extensively for the Times, and his early reporting on the probe won a Pulitzer Prize.

Per Axios, Schmidt's book is based on an array of documents obtained from Mueller's office, the FBI, the White House and Trump's personal legal team, as well as hundreds of hours of conversations with current and former officials and others involved in the investigation. It is not immediately entirely clear why these reports, many dating back as far as three years, made it into the pages of Schmidt's book rather than the subscription-based newspaper that employs him.

in an article adapted from his book, Schmidt reported Sunday that former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein blocked Mueller from investigating Trump's personal financial ties to Russia.

"[L]aw enforcement officials never fully investigated Mr. Trump's own relationship with Russia, even though some career FBI counterintelligence investigators thought his ties posed such a national security threat that they took the extraordinary step of opening an inquiry into them," Schmidt reports. "Within days, the former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein curtailed the investigation without telling the bureau, all but ensuring it would go nowhere."

Story continues

Schmidt's article was met with pushback from Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who said that the story was "wrong" in its allegation that Rosenstein authored a secret DOJ order barring a counterintelligence investigation "without telling the bureau."

"Dozens of FBI agents/analysts were embedded in Special Counsel's Office and we were never told to keep anything from them," Weissmann, who is publishing his own insider account of the investigation, tweeted on Sunday.

"Also erroneous is NYT claim 'Rosenstein concluded the FBI lacked sufficient reason to conduct an investigation into the president's links to a foreign adversary,'" Weissmann added, supporting the claim with the text of Rosenstein's memo appointing Mueller, which broadly assigned to him "any matters that arose or may arise from the investigation."

Schmidt, who won a Pulitzer in part for breaking the news that Trump asked former FBI Director James Comey to pledge his loyalty and close the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, also writes that the day after Trump fired Comey, he called John Kelly, at the time secretary of Homeland Security, to offer him Comey's job.

"But the president added something else  if he became FBI director, Trump told him, Kelly needed to be loyal to him, and only him," Schmidt writes in his book, offering further insight into the president's intent when he fired Comey  and before Mueller took over  a question that factored heavily into Mueller's assessment of whether Trump committed the crime of obstruction of justice.

Schmidt says that Mueller never learned about this event because Trump's legal team sealed off his two-hour interview with Kelly. Schmidt has not made clear when he himself learned this information, which would likely have been brought into account as evidence of potential wrongdoing against Trump.

"Kelly immediately realized the problem with Trump's request for loyalty, and he pushed back on the president's demand," Schmidt adds. Kelly said would pledge loyalty to the Constitution and the law, but not to Trump, according to Schmidt.

"Mueller apparently knew a great deal about what had gone on inside the White House as Trump had tried to control, frustrate, and end the Russia investigation," Schmidt writes. "I thought  but was not entirely sure  that one of the main reasons Mueller knew so much was McGahn."

However, Schmidt's new book implies that he himself might have learned more about what went on in the White House than Mueller did.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 31

By Elnur Baghishov  Trend:

As many as 1,642 people have been infected with the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the past 24 hours in Iran, said Sima Sadat Lari, spokesperson for Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Trend reports citing the ministry.

According to Sadat Lari, 109 more people have died from the coronavirus over the past day.

Sadat Lari added that the condition of 3,729 people is critical.

The official said that Iran's Tehran, Mazandaran, Gilan, Qom, Isfahan, Razavi Khorasan, East Azerbaijan, Kerman, North Khorasan, Semnan, Yazd, Zanjan, and Qazvin provinces are considered 'red' zones.

So far, more than 3.23 million tests have been conducted in Iran for the diagnosis of coronavirus.

Iran continues to monitor the coronavirus situation in the country. According to recent reports from the Iranian officials, over 375,200 people have been infected, and 21,571 people have already died. Meanwhile, over 323,200 have reportedly recovered from the disease.

The country continues to apply strict measures to contain further spread. Reportedly, the disease was brought to Iran by a businessman from Iran's Qom city, who went on a business trip to China, despite official warnings. The man died later from the disease.

The Islamic Republic announced its first infections and deaths from the coronavirus on Feb.19.

The outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan - which is an international transport hub - began at a fishing market in late December 2019.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.
The Netflix series showing China's nine-dash line violating Vietnam's sovereignty has been opposed by the Vietnamese people in general and the Cinema Department in particular.

Vi Kien Thanh, director of the Cinema Department, made the remarks Tuesday, after learning "Put Your Head On My Shoulder", a Chinese series streaming on Netflix, includes a scene featuring the nine-dash line in its ninth episode, when a female character reads out a weather forecast on TV.

Many Vietnamese netizens have expressed their anger over the issue.

"I will boycott this series," a user commented in a Facebook group of youngsters with more than 390,000 members.

According to Thanh, since the series is streaming online, the department cannot control or censor its content.

A screenshot of "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" on Netflix.

The Ministry of Information and Communications Department of Broadcasting, Television and Electronic

Information also said it would work with the streaming platform to tackle the issue. The department in July sent a document to Netflix requesting it to comply with Vietnamese law as to broadcasting television services in the country.

Previously, Netflix also caused community backlash after the ancient town of Hoi An was dubbed a Chinese landmark in American series "Madam Secretary".

Last year, Hollywood animation "Abominable" was removed from Vietnamese cinemas after viewers spotted Chinas nine-dash line representing Chinas fraudulent East Sea claim in flagrant violation of Vietnamese sovereignty over it waters.

The nine-dash line, claiming 90 percent of the 3.5-million-square-kilometer East Sea, known internationally as the South China Sea, has met strong opposition from the international community.

"Put Your Head On My Shoulder" was aired in 2019 before hitting the international streaming platform.
US e-commerce company Zebit is looking to raise $US30 million ($42 million) from investors in a initial public offering on the ASX, as it looks to cash in on the buy now, pay later (BNPL) craze in the local market.

Zebit founder and chief executive Marc Schneider said while the company, which he described as the "Amazon of the under-served", had no plans to offer its products in Australia the ASX was a solid place to raise growth capital.

"Australia is very forward in terms of disrupter models and how they've been built before, especially in financial services," he said. "I think Afterpay has done an amazing job of socialising BNPL in the Australian market and even across the world."

Led by the market darling Afterpay, the growing cohort of BNPL outfits on the ASX have all been buoyed by the accelerated consumer shift to online shopping and alternative payment methods.

However, Zebit's BNPL offering is different to that of its peers, as it focuses on the "credit challenged" demographic in the United States, targeting consumers who would normally struggle to get affordable credit.
Dubai Crown Prince and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has issued a resolution regulating establishment of companies by the government entities, reported state news agency Wam.

As per the resolution, a government entity is allowed to establish a company if its main activity falls within the objectives and responsibilities of the entity. It should also contribute to Dubais sustainable development plans and offer products and services of strategic economic importance.

The move is aimed at encouraging investments in various sectors and ensuring strong governance at government-owned companies, it stated.

Unveiling the terms, conditions and regulations governing the establishment of companies by Dubai government entities, Sheikh Hamdan said the resolution standardises procedures for establishing government-owned companies in line with international best practices.

"The continuous development of the emirates legislative framework is crucial to the achievement of Dubais strategic objectives. The enhancement of the legal framework is a vital element in enhancing the growth prospects of various sectors," he noted.

In order to accelerate economic development and promote investments, Dubai places high importance on creating an integrated legislative infrastructure that facilitates equal opportunities for public and private sectors, said the crown prince.

We are keen that the private sector plays a major role in shaping the future of the national economy and achieving sustainable development. A legislative framework that protects their interests is critical to their growth and success," he said.

"We do not want to be a competitor to the private sector, but rather seek to complement it. The partnership between the public and private sectors adds significant value to Dubais sustainable development," he added.

To establish a government-owned enterprise, the government entity must follow the standardised procedures outlined in the Resolution. It should coordinate with Dubais Department of Finance to prepare a feasibility study for the new enterprise and adhere to the articles of the UAE Federal Law No (2) of 2015 on Commercial Companies.

Dubais Department of Finance, in coordination with the General Secretariat of The Executive Council, will review the companys feasibility study, conduct competitor analysis and submit its recommendations to the Chairman of The Executive Council or the First Deputy Chairman of The Executive Council for approval, said the Wam report.

The newly established company must uphold the principles of fair competition. It will not enjoy any advantage or receive any financial support from the government. Government-owned companies should pay all taxes, fees, charges and tariffs specified by federal and local legislations, it added.
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Linkedin Agnes Pedrero (Agence France-Presse) Geneva, Switzerland  Mon, August 31, 2020 10:32 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c4199e27 2 World WTO,chief,leader,leadership Free

As Roberto Azevedo leaves the World Trade Organization Monday, the institution faces multiple crises without a captain -- a situation experts warn could drag on for months.

Any future WTO leader will head an organization mired in stalled trade talks and struggling to curb trade tensions between the United States and China.

It must also help member countries navigate a devastating global economic slump sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

The global trade body faces relentless attacks from Washington, which has crippled the WTO dispute settlement appeal system and threatened to leave altogether.

Many observers fear that intransigent US positions could paralyze the WTO process of designating a new director general, leaving the organization leaderless for the foreseeable future.

"The US demands that the new DG shares US concerns, many of which are about addressing concerns related to China," Manfred Elsig, a professor of international relations at the World Trade Institute in Bern told AFP.

"Given that the DG is chosen by consensus, this tough stance complicates the selection."

The WTO has already presented a timeline for selecting one of eight candidates in the running to replace Azevedo within a few months.

But Elsig warned that "the process is already torpedoed.

"It could well be that many WTO members want to wait until after the (US) election, hoping that the administration changes."

Azevedo's surprise announcement in May that he would end his second WTO term 12 months early forced the organization to speed up its usually lengthy process of selecting a new leader.

Three Africans, two Europeans, two Asians and one Latin American quickly threw their hats in the ring.

'Confessionals'

The organization is due next month to begin three rounds of consultations -- dubbed "confessionals" -- in which all member states confidentially voice their preferences, gradually whittling down the list.

The process, based on consensus, is expected to last until mid-November.

But soaring international tensions and growing politicization of picks to head UN agencies and other international organizations could trip up the tentative timeline.

Members failed last month to pick an acting chief from among four deputy directors -- something that is normally a straightforward process.

Brussels and Washington butted heads over whether German Karl Brauner, or American Alan Wolff, should get the job, in what observers say was unprecedented politicization of an administrative decision.

Elvire Fabry, a researcher at the Jacques Delors institute, said that "the US veto" of widely-backed Brauner was first and foremost linked to President Donald Trump's wish to "increase the power play towards the European Union ... ahead of the elections.

"Making such a concession, even for an interim [chief], would have been too much for him," she said, adding that Washington might also expect the interim period "to be longer than predicted, and does not want to allow a European to settle into the position."

A Western trade diplomat who asked not to be named said there was concern over how far some might be willing to go to prevail.

The candidates themselves appear to be taking the turmoil in stride.

"I have confidence in the selection process and look forward to this concluding in good time," Liam Fox of Britain told AFP in an email.

Kenyan candidate Amina Mohamed insisted in an interview that she saw "no reason to doubt that the timetable [announced for the selection process] won't be realized."

'Harmful power'

"It is difficult to measure the harmful power the US is exerting on this process, to know how far they can and want to go to interfere and disrupt things," remarked Sebastien Jean, head of the French research center Cepii.

"I think that is the great unknown.

"There is a feeling that the United States will probably remain fairly passive and show little good will until November 3," he said.

Some think the wait could last until January 20, when the next US president is sworn in, before things will move forward.

Many say the process has never been so politicized, and some suggest the organization might be forced to ditch its long-held policy of consensus and ask members to vote.

That would mark a big shift. In 1999, when members were unable to unanimously choose who should be given four years at the helm, they opted to hand the two top picks a three-year mandate each instead of resorting to a vote.

But professor Elsig said such a decision would be unfortunate in the current climate.

"Someone with a short three-year tenure might likely be perceived as a lame duck from the beginning."

Topics : WTO chief leader leadership
Gettyimagesbank



By Anna J. Park



It's fair to say the retail banking sector, at least, is already in a "red ocean" because it's been losing trust with its customers rapidly. Amid an era of convergence, as barriers are blurring between technology and traditional banking systems, Korea's leading banks are on track to possibly disrupt their conventional way of functioning thanks to the emergence of blockchain technology.



The technology promises much for the retail, corporate and banking sectors. But it has to satisfy several outstanding conditions before becoming a core mainstream technology in banking. A key point is that with the finance sector digitization accelerated with the pandemic-led social distancing measures, local Korean banks are seeking to use blockchain technology more both in retail and corporate banking.



Based on the blockchain's decentralized ledger technology, banks aim to apply the technology in various ways, such as increasing the safety level of their banking apps and streamlining complicated processes for identification certification. Critics say that most retail businesses haven't taken up use of blockchain technology. As for the banking industry, strict regulatory requirements create high entry barriers for the technology.



Shinhan Bank has recently applied a decentralized identifier (DID) technology to their banking app SOL. The DID enhances protection of users' identification with easier access, while blockchain technology could lower the possibility of theft, falsification or forgery, compared to the nation's prevalent financial authentication certificates. The bank joined hands with blockchain platform company ICONLOOP to develop the service.



Customer ID verification is a necessity for banks to keep check on money laundering. Still, a customer has to repeat this lengthy ID verification process for every new service and bank since the identity verification systems are not integrated.



Shinhan Bank has been relying on blockchain technology to streamline parts of its review process of loan products for doctors. The system will be applied to a larger group of borrowers within this year.



KB Kookmin Bank, earlier this month, signed a strategic partnership with blockchain venture fund Hashed, blockchain digital asset firm Haechi Labs and crypto trading platform company Cumberland Korea. The move was part of the bank's efforts to expand its innovative services and technologies in the area of digital assets. Specifically, the bank plans to develop businesses to manage and trade cryptocurrencies, real estate and art using blockchain technology.



NongHyup Bank is preparing digital asset services based on DID technology, together with other NH Financial Group affiliates such as NH Investment & Securities, NH Savings Bank and NH Capital.



The bank will also adopt blockchain technology in its loan products for government employees. With the decentralized identity authentication, government employees will be able to borrow money from the bank instantly, doing away with a lot of red tape presently required to take out loans.



Hana Bank is another frontrunner in the area. The bank has been selected to join the government's pilot blockchain business programs for two consecutive years. The bank collaborates with Korea Expressway Corporation, allowing users to conveniently pay tolls through its banking app. The bank also applies the blockchain platform in issuing student ID cards with partnering universities.



Woori Bank is also collaborating with the government's pilot blockchain consortium partners, developing a pilot service for mobile electronic identity authentication. The bank has also partnered with Kakao's blockchain arm Ground X, working on B2B token payment services.


In the first eight months of 2020, foreign arrivals into Vietnam reached only 3.8 million, down by 67 per cent compared to the figure of 11.3 million recorded in the same period last year, as the COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted travel.

Japanese experts arriving in Vietnam on June 26 at Van Don International Airport in Quang Ninh Province.  VNA/VNS Photo

The number was announced by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO) over the weekend.

Most of the arrivals were before March 22, the day Vietnam started closing its border to nearly all foreign arrivals in a bid to curb coronavirus spread.

The country only in recent months allows a few exceptions  foreign diplomats, investors, highly skilled workers and experts, along with some flights repatriating Vietnamese citizens. All foreign entries are quarantined for 14 days upon arrival.

Of the 3.8 million, 3.05 million arrived in Vietnam by air, while 580,000 and 140,000 entered the country via land and sea routes.

The agency said while 163,000 foreign arrivals in August is an improvement of 17 per cent compared to July, it still marks a 99 per cent decline compared to the number in 2019.

Visitors from Asia, accounting for more than 73 per cent of the total number of international arrivals to Vietnam this year, fell by nearly 70 per cent over the same period last year.

Arrivals from key markets such as China, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, and Malaysia all posted record losses of 72 per cent, 70.5 per cent, 67 per cent, 68 per cent, 59 per cent, and 70 per cent, respectively, within the eight months of 2020.

However, arrivals from neighbouring Cambodia increased by nearly 71 per cent, according to the GSO.

Visitors from Europe in the past eight months were estimated to fall by nearly 55 per cent over the same period of 2019.

Arrivals from the Americas are estimated to have decreased by more than 65 per cent compared to the first eight months of 2019.

In a cabinet meeting held on Friday, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc asked that the National Steering Committee on COVID-19 Prevention and Control and ministries discuss opening flights to epidemiologically safe countries and regions, including resuming flights to Japan conducted by Vietnamese airlines.

He also urged ministries and agencies to closely monitor and accelerate granting of visas to foreign experts and investors.

Deputy head of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism Ha Van Sieu in a recent recovery-focused tourism meeting said the Government implemented policies early to aid people and businesses hit hard by the pandemic.

Hotels and tourism accommodation businesses that registered to be used as paid quarantine facilities for COVID-19 patients or foreign entries into the country will enjoy a 20 per cent cut in electricity rates, while many fees such as appraisal fee for international travel business licences, domestic tour business licences, and for issuance of tour guide certificates have been cut in half, Sieu said. VNS
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
As many as 3,449 Romanian nationals from abroad had registered as of August 31 on the portal www.votstrainatate.ro for the parliamentary election this year, the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP) informs on its website.

Of these 2,528 opted for vote by mail, and 921 for vote at the polling station.According to the legislation in force, the registration as a mail-in voter or as a polling station voter started on April 1 and ends 15 days from the starting date of the electoral period.By registering as a voter abroad, the Romanian enfranchised citizens having their domicile or residence abroad request the setting up of a polling station in the state and locality where they intend to cast their ballot.By registering as a mail-in voter, the enfranchised Romanian citizen who lives abroad and holds valid documents of residence from the respective state, requests the mailing of the voting documents to his correspondence address.For this parliamentary election, these persons will be removed from the permanent electoral roll in Romania and entered on the permanent electoral roll from abroad or on the permanent electoral roll for vote by mail.
Stock Market Expanding Wedge May Prompt Big Price Correction  Big Top Be Set Up?

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS:

The Monthly S&P500 E-Mini Futures chart is revealing an Expanding Wedge pattern that has been setting up since Jan/Feb 2018.

The VIX has set up a base and begun to move moderately higher over the past 7+ days  above the 20.00 point level and above the GAP created by the initial COVID-19 selloff.

Our Custom Volatility Index chart warns of a bull trap set up, and we may see an 11% to 15% (or more) sell-off in the US and global markets if the Custom Volatility Index collapses below 10 over the next few weeks.

Are These Technical Setups Warning That A Market Top Is Forming?

I want to bring this large expanding wedge pattern to your attention as my research team and I watch the markets continue to push to new all-time highs. This is a follow on to our research from our Special Alert report warning of Head-and-Shoulder patterns in some of our custom charts. We know it may sound a bit alarming to be the one to bring up a potentially devastating Bearish technical pattern at this time, but as technical traders, we must stay aware of risks even if they may not materialize. Trading is a process where we take measured risks in an attempt to generate profits over time. Risk becomes a very big issue if it is not properly managed  just as trading becomes very difficult if one doesnt learn to take profits in good trades.

LONG-TERM EXPANDING WEDGE RISKS  BE WARNED

The Monthly S&P500 E-Mini Futures chart below highlights the Expanding Wedge pattern that is setting up over the past 26+ months (starting in Jan/Feb 2018). The US stock market has rallied after the COVID-19 virus event to push to new all-time highs  rising above the upper wedge channel. Our researchers believe this pattern may be warning of a potential for a very deep price correction  possibly 11% to 18% or more.

There are a number of other technical setups that are starting to confirm a potential break down. The following Weekly Custom Volatility Index chart shows some very interesting price action this week. First, we want you to pay attention to the Standard Deviation Channels that are drawn on this chart  there are two of them. The longer-term Standard Deviation Channel is sloping higher while the shorter-term Channel is sloping downward. We want you to focus on the downward sloping Standard Deviation Channel and how price has risen to the upper 1x Standard Deviation range (the BLUE LINE) and stalled this week (while the markets continue to push to new all-time highs).

This setup on the Custom Volatility Index chart has our research team concerned that these new price highs may actually be setting up a Bull Trap  getting retail and institutional traders to chase the rally, then collapsing into a deep and aggressive downward price trend. If the Custom Volatility Index collapses below 10 over the next few weeks, it would indicate a very strong selling mode has begun where we may see a 11% to 15% (or more) sell off in the US and global markets.

Before you continue, be sure to opt-in to our free-market trend signalsnow so you dont miss our next special report!

Now, pay attention to the long-term Standard Deviation Channel on this next chart. Notice how the current Volatility Index price level has just recently moved above the MIDPOINT of the longer-term Standard Deviation Channel (the MIDDLE of the Green area within the channel). This touch-n-blowoff type of price action suggests price have returned to the MIDPOINT of the longer-term price Std. Deviation range and run into strong resistance. If price is going to continue higher, we would expect this Custom Volatility Index to rally above the 14 level and continue to push higher. Right now, this moderate selloff within the Custom Volatility Index suggests a Peak or Top may be setting up in the markets  suckering in traders as the markets push to new highs on speculative trading in Technology and other sectors.

VIX IS CLIMBING

Lastly, the VIX has setup a base and begun to move moderately higher over the past 7+ days  above the 20.00 point level (above the GAP created by the initial COVID-19 selloff). Our researchers believe the upward price moves in the VIX over the past few days suggest that FEAR is starting to rise again while the US stock markets push to new all-time highs. This suggests that many traders are not comfortable with how the markets are pushing ever higher while economic data and forward concerns still persist. It may be that speculative capital has pushed the US stock market back to new all-time highs while traders chase the Technology Bubble  while more seasoned traders watch and think what are these people doing chasing these crazy trends?

Either way, a spike in the VIX above 25 to 30 would certainly spook the market after we have watched traders pour capital into these new all-time highs. And we believe the potential for the VIX to spike over the next 3+ weeks is substantial given the speed and tenacity of the upward price trend in the US stock market recently.

The upside price rally has been impressive, but is also create a very real risk potential when traders pile into speculative bubbles/trends like this. Weve been through things like this before in 1999 and in 2005~2007. Look at the size of that Expanding Wedge pattern on the Monthly chart. Being on the wrong side of a 25% downside price correction is not a lot of fun. Be prepared and follow our research.

As a technical analyst and trader since 1997, I have been through a few bull/bear market cycles in stocks and commodities. I believe I have a good pulse on the market and timing key turning points for investing and short-term swing traders. 2020 is an incredible year for traders and investors. Dont miss all the incredible trends and trade setups.

If you want to survive the trading over a long period of time, then you learn fairly quickly how important it is to protect against risk and to properly size your trades. Subscribers of my Active ETF Swing Trading Newsletter can ride my coattails as I navigate these financial markets and build wealth. My research and trading team are here to help you find better trades and navigate these incredibly crazy market trends.

While most of us have active trading accounts, what is even more important are our long-term investment and retirement accounts. Why? Because they are, in most cases, our largest store of wealth other than our homes, and if they are not protected during the next bear market, you could lose 25-50% or more of your net worth. The good news is we can preserve and even grow our long term capital when things get ugly (likely soon) and I will show you how. Weve recently issued a Long-term Investment Signal for subscribers of our Technical Investor newsletter. Be sure to become a member of my Passive Long-Term ETF Investing Signals.

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.




Models pose in front of Samsung's new television products at the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) in Berlin, on Aug. 6. / Korea Time file



South Korea's two tech giants  Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc.  on Friday said they will release new home appliance products in Europe to boost sales in the region amid the pandemic.



Samsung said it will begin launching a new laundry appliance with upgraded artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and a new refrigerator highlighting customization features in major European markets, such as Britain, France and Germany, late this month.



The WW9800T washer cuts washing time by up to 50 percent and energy usage by 20 percent compared with its previous models, according to Samsung. Its latest washing machine also comes with EcoBubble technology, which maximizes the effectiveness of detergent by turning it into soft bubbles and allows for faster penetration into fabrics, Samsung said.



With its AI Control technology, Samsung said its new washer can automatically suggest the optimal wash cycle.



"AI Control eliminates the need for users to scroll through cycles to find the right one, or to input their individualized settings each time," it said. "The AI Wash feature uses sensors to detect the laundry load's weight and soilage, to determine the optimal amount of water and detergent to dispense."



Samsung's new RB7300 refrigerator will make its debut in Europe. The bottom-mount freezer (BMF) refrigerator boasts thinner interior walls, offering a larger internal capacity of 385 liters, 18 liters larger than the previous model, the company said.



Samsung's Bespoke refrigerator range will also make its first appearance for European consumers. The product will be first sold in Nordic countries in October and will be available in other European nations over the next year.



The Bespoke refrigerator is built under the company's Project Prism, which aims to reflect consumers' lifestyles and allows them to personalize the materials, colors, shapes and designs of the products. The refrigerator has already been launched in other nations, including South Korea and China.



Samsung said its latest refrigerators and laundry lineup will be further explained at its "Life Unstoppable" virtual event Wednesday. The company will host the online event as a replacement for IFA 2020, Europe's largest tech expo, which it decided to skip due to the pandemic.



LG said three new refrigerator models highlighting better hygienic and AI features will hit the shelves in Europe. Starting with Sweden next month, the refrigerators will be launched in more than 20 European countries by the first half of the next year, according to the company.



LG said its InstaView Door-in-Door refrigerator with UVnano utilizes ultraviolet LED light technology and can disinfect the water dispenser outlets once every hour to remove up to 99.9 percent of bacteria and germs.



The 569-liter refrigerator is also equipped with advanced technologies that can minimize temperature fluctuations and make entire fridge space cooler by distributing airflow from strategically placed vents, LG said. Its ice maker located in the freezer drawer can produce two-inch spherical ice balls.



LG's updated Fridge and Freezer pair is comprised of a 386-liter fridge and a 324-liter freezer. They can be purchased separately, but consumers can buy both of them and connect them to look like a single refrigerator.



"They are designed to fit easily into standard kitchen cabinetry for a clean, minimalist look," LG said. "Their flat door design and zero-clearance hinges are ideal for installing right next to a wall for a seamless, built-in appearance."



Its latest InstaView ThinQ refrigerator boasts a consumer-centric AI platform, LG said.



Any food item placed inside or removed from the refrigerator is automatically tracked via its advanced vision recognition technology, LG said. The company's AI technology also allows the refrigerator to offer meal suggestions after analyzing food items in the fridge and even inform other home appliances what to do.



"It can set a connected oven to the right cooking temperature based on the recipe and even choose the optimal wash cycle for the dishwasher based on the meal," LG said.



LG said its latest kitchen appliances will be explained further at its virtual exhibition hall for the IFA 2020 next week. (Yonhap)


The Keralites are celebrating the most-loved festival, Onam, today. Unlike the previous years, the excitement level is a bit lower for this Onam, as the world is fighting the novel coronavirus pandemic. The Kerala government has canceled all celebrations this year and has requested the public to stay and home and have a low-key Onam celebration this time. Coming to the Malayalam cinema, there are no theatrical releases this year, due to the lockdown. But, this has been compensated with the three direct OTT releases.

The popular faces of Malayalam and Indian film industries, including Mammootty, Mohanlal, Kamal Haasan, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Dulquer Salmaan, Suresh Gopi, and others wished their fans and followers on the special occasion, through their social media pages. Here is what the actors have to say...

Mammootty, the megastar wished his fans and followers a happy Onam, by posting a special video on his official social media pages. The Bilal actor requested the fans to find happiness in little things, and stay safe this Onam. He also added we should stand united to fight this deadly pandemic.

Mohanlal posted a special message on his official social media pages and wished his fans and followers a happy Onam. The superstar reminded the importance of social distancing and following the governments' safety guidelines amidst Onam celebrations, in his special message.

Kamal Haasan, the veteran actor who shares a close bond with Kerala, wished all Mayalis a happy Onam through his official Twitter page.

Onam marks the beginning of prosperity and happiness for every Malayalee around the world. It is one festival that transcends its own connotations.



Priyappatta ellaavarkkum pon ona asamshakal.



May life become colourful and joyful again soon.  Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) August 31, 2020

Prithviraj Sukumaran's social media post

Dulquer Salmaan, who is all excited about the release of his maiden directorial venture Maniyarayile Ashokan, wished the fans with a special video, along with Jacob Gregory.

Suresh Gopi, the actor-MP posted a throwback picture with wife Radhika on his social media pages and wished his fans a Happy Onam.

Nivin Pauly's social media post

Also Read:

Onam 2020 Special: 5 Classic Malayalam Entertainers To Revisit This Festive Season!

C U Soon, Maniyarayile Ashokan & Kilometers And Kilometers: Movies To Watch Out for This Onam!
Fake pastors scam churchgoers out of $28M in Ponzi scheme

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U.S. authorities have charged three Maryland men, who presented themselves as pastors to defraud more than 1,000 church members and other investors in a $28 million Ponzi scheme.

The three  identified as Dennis Mbongeni Jali, 35; John Erasmus Frimpong, 40; and Arley Ray Johnson, 61  allegedly recruited investors at churches, presenting themselves as pastors concerned about the investors financial freedom, U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur said in a statement.

The indictment alleges that instead, the defendants used new investments to further their Ponzi scheme and to fund their lavish lifestyles, including luxury vehicles and private jets."

FBI Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Boone said in the same statement issued by the Justice Department that the accused allegedly preyed on their victims with false hope of financial security at a time when a sense of financial insecurity is prevalent.

They used the victims hard-earned money for luxury cars, private jets and family vacations while the victims ended up with false promises and empty hopes, Boone said.

The three men were indicted on July 27 but it was unsealed Friday. The charges include wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.

The accused raised millions of dollars from approximately 1,200 investors, many of them African immigrants working in the medical field, according to NBC Washington. The indictment identifies nine of the victims, including nurses, an accountant, an engineer and a car dealership manager and residents of Maryland, Indiana and Texas.

A civil action filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission against the three says Jali, who posed as a pastor, spoke in many churches, presenting himself as a self-made millionaire who was an expert trader, NBC reported.

Jali preached at local churches, including the church Frimpong attended, and solicited investments from parishioners during church services, at times giving certain parishioners cash as a sign of his purported wealth and success as a trader, the lawsuit says.

Johnson, a self-claimed Christian minister, knew about Jalis previous alleged fraudulent scam in South Africa but accepted Jalis denial of the allegations and solicited investors, the lawsuit points out.

The third accused, Frimpong, also preached at a church in the Bowie area, posing as a trader in the foreign exchange and cryptocurrency markets.

Jali was the sole owner of The Smart Partners LLC, organized in Delaware on January 12, 2017, and was doing business as 1st Million Dollars, or 1st Million, which was registered as a limited liability company with the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation on January 17, 2019, the indictment says.

The three men allegedly recruited victims to invest in 1st Million by holding promotional events at upscale hotels and event spaces, attending church-sponsored events intended to target investments from churchgoers, and representing themselves as religious men more interested in the philanthropic financial freedom of others than personal financial gain.

The defendants allegedly presented themselves as pastors, and told prospective investors that 1st Millions work was in furtherance of Gods mission as it helped churches and their members achieve personal wealth and financial freedom, the indictment says.

The accused face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for a wire fraud conspiracy and for each count of wire fraud; a maximum of five years in federal prison for a securities fraud conspiracy and a maximum of 20 years in federal prison for each count of securities fraud.

Jali additionally faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison for each of three counts of money laundering.
Former Donald Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn suffered a legal blow on Monday as a federal appeals court ruled the criminal case against him can continue for now, despite the Justice Department's motion to dismiss it.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled, 8-2, to deny Mr Flynn's request to dismiss charges that he lied to the FBI about his communications with former Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak in late 2016 and early 2017.

Mr Flynn had previously pleaded guilty to the charges before withdrawing that plea and asserting his prosecution was politically motivated. The top brass at Mr Trump's Justice Department agreed, arguing Mr Flynn's lies were not "material" to its investigation at the time into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The federal district judge in the case, Emmet G Sullivan, is now free to question prosecutors about why they moved in May to dismiss the charges against Mr Flynn after previously securing a guilty plea, a highly unusual action that outside observers have suggested was undertaken to appease the president.

Mr Sullivan and Mr Flynn's legal counsel have for months been involved in a complicated legal back-and-forth after Mr Flynn backed away from his guilty plea at the 11th hour earlier this year.

At a sentencing hearing in 2018, Mr Sullivan openly expressed his disgust" and "disdain for Mr Flynn's behaviour as an "unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the national security adviser to the president of the United States," referring to another case involving Mr Flynn's previous lobbying work for the Turkish government.

Mr Flynn was never charged with violating foreign agent registration laws.

The case Mr Sullivan is overseeing has taken many turns over the last eight months.

First, in January, Mr Flynn sought to revoke his guilty plea.

Throughout the winter and spring, Mr Trump publicly called for his former aide and friend to be cleared of all charges of lying about his contacts with Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign and Mr Trump's transition period in 2016 and early 2017.

In May, after a four-month internal review ordered by Attorney General William Barr, the DOJ acquiesced, filing a document in court backing Mr Flynn's motion to dismiss and saying the criminal case against Mr Flynn lacked "any legitimate investigative basis."

But Mr Sullivan, now in charge of the case, did not grant that motion, and instead appointed another former federal judge to review the DOJ's motion to dismiss the case.

That retired judge, John Gleeson, authored a scathing amicus brief indicating that the DOJ's decision to drop Mr Flynn's case was politically motivated.

Mr Flynn then appealed to a three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court, which ruled in his favour in June that the DOJ could in fact move forward dropping the case, despite Mr Sullivan's objections.

Monday's ruling by the fuller panel of the DC Circuit Court that Mr Sullivan can continue questioning prosecutors overrules the previous decision.

Appeals court judge Thomas Griffith wrote that his panel would withhold its judgement until Mr Sullivan completed his review.

Today we reach the unexceptional yet important conclusion that a court of appeals should stay its hand and allow the district court to finish its work rather than hear a challenge to a decision not yet made. That is a policy the federal courts have followed since the beginning of the Republic, Mr Griffith wrote.

Allies of Mr Trump have taken up Mr Flynn's legal cause as a stand against the so-called "deep state" of career bureaucrats that they believe is intent on undermining the Trump presidency.

"The truth is that the Deep State and some senior Obama administration officials set up Flynn in hopes of using him and others to cripple the Trump presidency from the start," Mr Flynn's deputy at the National Security Council in 2017, KT McFarland, wrote in a Fox News column earlier this year.

Democrats have pointed to Mr Flynn's case as yet another example of a Trump associate breaking the law and trying to use the levers of the president's power to escape accountability.

"Your tenure is marked by a persistent war against the [Justice] Departments professional core in an apparent effort to secure favours for the President," House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said at a hearing with Mr Barr in July.
Union Minister for Shipping, Mansukh Mandaviya will welcome the barge carrying 50 tonne of cement from Daundkandi in Bangladesh to Sonamura in Tripura's Sepahijala district on September 5 through video conferencing from Delhi, officials said.

The Sonamura-Daudkandi inland waterways protocol route connecting Tripura to Bangladesh would be made operational on the day in presence of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb and Chairman of the Land Ports Authority of India (LPAI), Aditya Mishra, Secretary of Tripura's Industry and Commerce Department, Kiran Gitte said.

The 90-km long Sonamura-Daudkandi route, included in the list of Indo-Bangla protocol (IBP) routes in May this year, is expected to boost trade, Gitte, who visited the spot, told reporters on Sunday.

Director of Land Port Authority of India (LPAI) Ajit Kumar Singh, said that a barge carrying goods would arrive at Sonamura on September 5.

"A floating jetty was constructed just near the integrated check post. The place is beautiful, which has also the potential to be developed as a good tourist spot. At present barges carrying goods would come and later tourists from both the countries can come by using the waterways," he told PTI.

On August 25, Deb had said in a Facebook post, ".... The trial run is scheduled in the first week of September 2020, during which 50 MT cement will be transported in barges from Dhaka to Sonamura. This is for the first time in history that any kind of goods will be reaching Tripura by ship.."

The chief minister said that the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority has given permission for a trial run from Daundkandi in Comilla district of the neighbouring country to Sonamura in Tripura via River Gomati.

Tripura had set up a floating jetty on the river on July 4 as part of the Indo-Bangla international inland waterways connectivity project.

Traders of India and Bangladesh had demanded a trial run of vessels on the Gomati river to operationalise the Indo-Bangla protocol route between Sonamura and Daudkandi, officials said.

A high-level team of officials of the Bangladesh Shipping Ministry had surveyed the riverine protocol route on August 12, Sonamura sub-divisional magistrate Subrata Majumder said.

"Of the 90-km stretch, around 89.5-km is in the neighbouring country," he said.

Gomati is a seasonal river and the water route can remain operational for only 3-4 months in a year and silts should be lifted on a regular basis from the Gomati to keep the route operational, Singh said.
The Queen's cousin Lady Tatiana Mountbatten has shared a glimpse into her glamorous girl's holiday in Corfu.

Lady Tatiana, 30, who lives in Chelsea, is the daughter of the 4th Marquess of Milford Haven and the 94-year-old monarch's second cousin.

The socialite is currently lapping up the sunshine on the Greek island, where she's enjoying the culture, the food, and the scenery with a group of friends including Lady Violet Manners, and sharing snaps of their adventures on Instagram.

The group drank Aperol spritz cocktails in a clifftop bar and dined out on mussels in the sunshine, while Tatiana showed off an enviable selection of swimsuits as she relaxed on the getaway.

The Queen's cousin Lady Tatiana Mountbatten, 29, has shared a glimpse into a glamorous girl's holiday in Corfu

The royal posted enviable snapshots as she enjoyed cocktails at a clifftop bar and dined out on mussels during the glamorous getaway

The royal went on to share other snapshots as she lapped up the sunshine while on the luxurious break

Sharing snaps of a restaurant on the trip, Lady Tatiana posted: 'Every night is date night. This place is my favourite.'

Meanwhile she posted another picture as she relaxed in the sunshine, writing: 'Classic riders tan. Brown arms and paper white legs and a bruised knee.'

Other snapshots showed her jogging through the warm Corfu sunshine as she wrote: 'Running off the hangover.'

Lady Tatiana was appointed as an ambassador to the 'quintessential luxury British fashion' brand Crofton & Hall last year.

The royal has shared a number of enviable pictures on her Instagram page as she explored the Greek landscape

Tatiana was joined by a selection of friends on the trip away, with the group sharing laughs as they lapped up the sunshine

The horse rider, who trained under Olympian Charlotte Dujardin, is the daughter of Lord Milford Haven, who is a cousin of the Queen's, making Lady Tatiana a second cousin of Her Majesty.

Lady Tatiana was educated at the elite 12,000-a year Millfield private school in Street, Somerset.

Horse-mad Lady Tatiana once wanted to be a ski instructor, but now works training dressage horses.

Her polo-playing father George swelled his fortune by founding and selling price-comparison company uSwitch, and is thought to live in Switzerland.

The royal shared pictures with her Instagram followers as she dined out in the Greek sunshine and relaxed by the pool

After stints in Denmark and Germany, Tatty has settled in London, where she runs a very smart horse yard.

Her personal website reads: 'All you really need to know is that I spend every day doing what I love more than anything in the world; riding horses.

'I'm a professional dressage rider based in Windsor. Here, I train a couple of my own horses and some horses which have been put in training with me by some wonderful people who have trusted me with the education and career of their horse.

'I hold monthly dressage clinics at home in West Sussex, Great Trippetts Polo Club to be more precise.'
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Riga, Latvia  Mon, August 31, 2020 20:03 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41b6205 2 Art & Culture latvia,arts,art-and-culture,coronavirus,COVID-19 Free

The coronavirus pandemic has shut down art exhibitions around the globe, but organizers of the RIBOCA2 biennial in Latvia have pushed ahead, reimagining the event to reflect challenging times.

To ensure social distancing, installations by nearly 70 international artists are showcased at the sprawling 20-hectare Soviet-era Andrejsala industrial port in Riga, long abandoned and given up to nature.

Titled "and suddenly it all blossoms", this year's edition of the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art has also been shortened from five months to three weeks that run from August 20 through September 13.

It stretches from Andrejsala's ramshackle port warehouses, past grain silos and old piers.

"Andrejsala is a unique place inside the city, where former port buildings and constructions live together with wildlife but almost no people, which prompted us to think how nature would respond if there were no more people around," Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel, the chief curator, told AFP.

"We prepared the concept, and then, two months before the opening date, an actual pandemic catastrophe hit the world, making us rethink everything," she added, explaining how the spacing of the exhibition was adjusted to the pandemic.

Read also: Japan's renowned artists find inspiration from pandemic

'Stillness and calm'

Due to travel restrictions, only a few of the featured artists made it to Riga.

One is Bridget Polk from New York, whose "Balancing rocks and rubble" installations of precariously balanced stacks of stones and construction rubble evoke a striking sense of heaviness, fragility and grace.

More than a hundred art lovers joined her masterclass inside a vast steel hangar to balance rocks and rubble themselves, creating temporary sculptures, some up to six feet (two meters) high.

"When you were busy balancing these rocks, did you feel stillness and calm inside? Well, then you were going into meditation," Polk told the crowd.

Elsewhere, deep inside a former customs and duty warehouse, piles of clay cover the concrete floor.

Up close, hundreds of small faces, hands, rooftops, arches, dishes and other objects become visible on the clay surface, making it a scale model of an unfinished civilization.

Austrian artist Katrin Hornek's "A Landmass to Come" installation takes viewers on a guided meditation deep inside the Earth and back, then offers them a chance to add their own clay object to the collection.

Other works have come from across Europe and as far as China, but for the most part only Baltic artists have been able to present their installations in person.

Lamarche-Vadel said organisers are making a film to document the biennial and share it with those unable to attend owing to coronavirus restrictions.
Continued Protests in Minsk as Putin Wishes Lukashenko a Happy Birthday

By VOA News August 30, 2020

Tens of thousands protested in the Belarusian capital of Minsk Sunday, the president's birthday, demanding he resign.

Carrying red and white flags, which have become symbols of the opposition, protesters convened around Lukashenko's residence, facing security forces carrying shields and backed by prisoner vans and water cannons.

At least 140 protesters were arrested Sunday, according to the Interior Ministry, before peacefully dispersing in the evening.

Alexander Lukashenko, who turned 66 Sunday, was declared the winner of an August 9 election, amid widespread allegations of voter fraud. Lukashenko, in power for 26 years, denies any election irregularities. He walked around his residence, carrying an automatic rifle, for the second weekend in a row, a photo published by Russia's RIA news agency showed.

The main opposition candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, said she would never accept the election results. She then fled to Lithuania for what she said was her children's safety.

Protests have rocked the country since the election results were announced, but Lukashenko has given no indication that he would consider stepping down. One of his aides, Nikolai Latyshenok, said there would be no talks with the opposition, Russian news agencies reported.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called Lukashenko Sunday to wish him a happy birthday and invite him to Moscow. Putin has repeatedly offered support to Lukashenko as Belarus faces sanctions from the West.

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According to Dr. Alina Sholar, Skin Science Soul is the first plastic surgery and medical aesthetic office in Austin to offer several modern procedures

AUSTIN, TX / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / Dr. Alina Sholar is proud to be the first plastic surgeon in Austin to offer Tetra CoolPeel, VirtueRF and Stem Cell Facelift procedures at her practice, Skin Science Soul.

Dr. Alina Sholar is a plastic surgeon and serial entrepreneur, owning three businesses: Skin Science Soul, Serenity Medical Centers, and Sage Practice Solutions.

Tetra CoolPeel is a non-invasive laser treatment procedure used to treat wrinkles, signs of aging, skin texture, and other skin imperfections. The procedure is completed through unique pulse control, delivering a fractional ablative treatment that causes no thermal damage to surrounding tissues. This maximizes results while minimizing downtime. In the past, this level of skin resurfacing was only accomplished with more painful, less precise laser procedures.

Over the past 5 years, RF Microneedling has grown to be one of the most in-demand and profitable treatments in aesthetics. The VirtueRF represents a best-in-class technology that utilizes a precise Robotic Precision Delivery system of microneedling combined with radiofrequency energy that brings comfort, unmatched results od collagen induction and kin tightening, and with no downtime.

A stem cell facelift procedure uses the regenerative power of patients' own stem cells to potentially provide a more youthful appearance in complexion. Dr. Sholar notes that regenerative cell therapies are simpler and less invasive than surgical procedures.

"While stem cell therapy often provides significant skin regeneration results, and when applied for aesthetic purposes enhances and the maximizes the results for other procedures like the CoolPeel and VIrtueRF. Basically, you have more youthful cells to work with to create new collagen and elastin to make more youthful skin," note experts from Skin Science Soul.

"We are happy to be the first facility in Austin, Texas to be able to offer these services for our patients," says Dr. Alina Sholar.

"We are firm in our commitment to provide the latest innovations in aesthetic medicine."

For more information, please visit https://www.skinsciencesoul.com/.

About Dr. Alina Sholar

Throughout her illustrious career, Dr. Alina Sholar has made a name for herself as a respected plastic surgeon, female entrepreneur, and mentor. She attended Texas A&M University on a full-tuition merit scholarship and earned a B.S. degree in Biomedical Science with Magna Cum Laude honors in 1994. In 1999, she earned her MD degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch, where she was also awarded the prestigious Janet M. Glasgow Memorial Award and Achievement Citation for Women in Medicine. She then completed a full five-year residency in General Surgery at the University of Louisville, where she was awarded Best Resident Instructor and Mentor by the students of the University of Louisville School of Medicine. She also completed an additional residency in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of Tennessee, serving as Chief Resident in 2006. She received multiple awards and publications in research areas such as the efficacy of treatment at Tertiary Care Wound Centers and the advanced reconstructive techniques required after major facial trauma and infections. She was certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery in 2008. Dr. Sholar currently owns Skin Science Soul by Dr. Sholar, her plastic surgery and medical aesthetic practice. She is also the owner and CEO of Serenity Medical Centers and Sage Practice Solutions. Dr. Sholar also provides pro bono business consulting for women entrepreneurs in need. Further, she mentors young female physicians and non-physician entrepreneurs. Dr. Sholar is also a philanthropist and regularly gives back to her local communities, supporting women-owned businesses and organizations that benefit women and children.

Contact:

Dr. Alina Sholar

drsholar@medcenters.org

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-alina-sholar-md-379b0422/

SOURCE: Dr. Alina Sholar

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/604047/Skin-Science-Soul-by-Dr-Alina-Sholar-First-in-Austin-to-Offer-Tetra-CoolPeel-VirtueRF-Stem-Cell-Facelift
A string of mammoth drug busts and low street prices for methamphetamine across Southeast Asia this year suggest COVID-19 has done little to stem the flood of illegal drugs washing over the region, even as the pandemic seals borders.

If anything, the coronavirus has proven just how resilient the transnational cartels dominating the meth trade out of Myanmar truly are, experts say.

"We think it's business as usual in 2020, which is to say that supply is still surging just as it has been in the last few years," Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia and the Pacific chief for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told VOA.

"If Myanmar, Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodia data is any indication  and we think it is  then at least within the Mekong the supply is as high or higher than last year in those countries," he said by phone from Bangkok.

The price is right

Methamphetamine prices across the region last year were already the lowest they had been in a decade, even as the purity of the drugs shot up.

Data compiled by the UNODC during the pandemic show the price of a kilogram of crystal meth, or ice, in Myanmar and Vietnam on par with 2019. In Cambodia, the price of "yaba," a popular mix of meth and caffeine, has actually fallen by roughly half, to less than $1 per pill. The UNODC says Thailand also reported a drop in both ice and yaba prices in late 2019 and early 2020 compared with the same period a year before.

Long a hub of the heroin trade, the Golden Triangle  where the remote and lawless corners of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet  has in recent years seen transnational cartels turn it into one of the world's premier meth laboratories, according to the UNODC. Protected by government-backed militias and ethnic rebel armies in Myanmar's eastern Shan state, the U.N. agency says the cartels drugs pour across Southeast Asia and on to more lucrative markets as far off as Australia and Japan. The UNODC now puts the meth market in East and Southeast Asia at some $61.4 billion a year.

Since the pandemic, drug seizures have kept pace with 2019 as well, or even picked up.

In early July, Thai authorities said they intercepted 1.42 tons of crystal meth on its way to Malaysia. In May, authorities in Myanmar announced Asia's largest drug bust in decades, netting 200 million meth pills and 500 kilograms of ice; they also seized 35.5 metric tons and 163,000 liters of precursor chemicals and arrested 33 suspects.

On their own, more seizures can mean either a spike in production or better enforcement. The fact that prices have stayed low argues strongly in favor of the former, said Richard Horsey, a senior adviser to the International Crisis Group based in Myanmar.

Given the stable prices for the drugs, "there's every indication that big seizures reflect big production, and not that ... somehow the police are winning this and seizing everything that's being produced," he said.

"So, I think the transnational criminal organizations, the synthetic drug trade in Shan state, has shown itself to be extremely resilient to COVID, he told VOA by phone from Yangon.

Plan B, and C and D

Horsey likened the cartels to the relatively few big business winners of the pandemic, such as online retail giant Amazon, using their scale, dexterity and deep pockets to adapt quickly to changing market conditions.

"They have supply chains that are very sophisticated but also multiply redundant. And that means that border closures and so on, they can find ways around that. They've got a Plan B and a Plan C and a Plan D," he said.

"So, they have multiple different routes that they're constantly testing with test shipments and constantly innovating and constantly keeping lots of options open so that if their main preferred channel fails, they've got lots of other options. And that works very well for COVID."

The cartels penchant for innovation looks to be paying off.

Since the string of large busts earlier this year, Horsey said the cartels have started shifting more of their shipments out of Myanmar from northern Shan to the state's east and south. He said there were also early signs that they have started shipping much more ice out of Myanmar through the country's far western Rakhine state, taking advantage of its coastline to reach markets via the Bay of Bengal.

The UNODC says seizures of precursor shipments to Myanmar over the past few years also show the cartels tweaking their meth recipes by replacing ephedrine and its sort with sodium or benzyl cyanide, yet more proof of their flexibility.

Most of the chemicals come from neighboring China.

On Myanmar's side of the border, experts say a patchwork of militias and warlords in command of virtually autonomous fiefdoms helps make the frontier more sieve than wall.

That, too, helps the cartels evade the worst of the border restrictions brought on by the pandemic, said Tom Kramer, a Myanmar-based researcher for the Transnational Institute who studies the nexus of the country's drug trade and ethnic conflicts.

"These illegal routes are still there, and what the government has been controlling of course is the formal trade routes," he said.

Considering the bulk of some of the shipments, he suspects many of them cross formal checkpoints as well but slip through thanks to rampant corruption.

"There's so much money involved, and people can always find different ways of course of getting stuff into the country. The borders are so porous it would be very hard to control them," he said, even under lockdown.

Market share

Douglas, of the UNODC, said the relative ease with which the cartels in Myanmar can continue to access precursors during the pandemic may even help them gain market share over competitors farther afield who source more of their chemicals by sea and air, where supply chains have frayed most.

"They're using the moment in front of them very effectively," he said.

"They never had a problem maintaining production. They had huge chemical stockpiles in place and continuing access to chemicals to ship in to production points in the Triangle, and they kept production at very high levels during the pandemic, and they've essentially just continued pumping that supply out."
Eli Lilly , working with biotech firm AbCellera, early this month started testing whether their antibody can prevent the infections in nursing homes. A separate trial testing the compound on recently diagnosed Covid patients may yield initial data in September or shortly after.

Regeneron, which is working on antibody manufacturing with Roche, expects initial data from ongoing trials of its Covid-19 two-antibody combination in September.

GSK, which in April moved to invest $250 million in Vir and agreed to collaborate on the antibody, is behind some peers in developing the class.

The British drugmaker said on Monday the long-acting single injection will be tested on recently diagnosed high-risk cases for its ability to prevent hospitalization, typically a life-threatening disease stage.

GlaxoSmithKline and partner Vir Biotechnology have started testing their experimental antibody on early-stage Covid-19 patients, entering the race to find a winner in a promising class of antiviral drugs to combat the pandemic.

"We're coming into the clinic a little bit later and part of that is because we spent some time selecting what we believe will be a best-in-class antibody," Vir Chief Executive George Scangos told Reuters.

The antibody is designed to not only block the virus from invading cells but also to recruit immune cells to kill already infected cells, which would otherwise replicate the virus.

It also has been altered to stay effective for several months on a single shot and to cling to a part of the virus's outer spike protein that has shown no tendency to mutate.

After testing the drug on an initial 20 U.S. participants over two weeks for safety, the trial will expand to 1,300 patients globally.

GSK said initial results could be available by the end of the year, complete results during the first quarter of 2021, and early access to patients could be on the cards before June.

GSK's more prominent role so far in combating the pandemic has been in providing adjuvants, efficacy boosters that play a vital role in many vaccines.

The global effort to develop a vaccine against the virus, which has so far claimed more than 800,000 lives globally, has seen recent launches of late-stage trials, but work on treatments has also gone into overdrive.

While one approach has been to quell a dangerous overreaction of the immune system, known as cytokine storm, another has been to block the virus from invading cells with antibodies.

Antibodies, part of the body's adaptive immune system, are normally made by white blood cells in response to a foreign substance in the body.

But pharma companies, also including AstraZeneca and Molecular Partners, are working on manufactured monoclonal antibodies, made in bioreactors from living cells, for a more targeted attack on the virus.

Using plasma from recovered Covid-19 patients, which contains a range of antibodies, is a similar approach but it may be fraught with more complex logistics and less consistent quality than manufactured antibodies.

In future studies, GSK and Vir plan to run more trials on their antibody's ability to prevent the infection and treat patients that are already in hospital care. Later this year, they plan to start a trial of a second antibody from the collaboration.
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Sudanese leaders and rebel commanders agreed Monday on a historic peace deal, a crucial step towards ending 17 years of conflict in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed.

Leaders of the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), an umbrella organisation of rebel groups from the western region of Darfur and the southern states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, raised their fists in celebration after inking the agreement.

Fighting in Darfur alone left around 300,000 people dead after rebels took up arms there in 2003, according to the United Nations, with former government leaders accused of carrying out genocide and of crimes against humanity.

Conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile erupted in 2011, in the wake of South Sudans independence, resuming two decades of war.

I congratulate all in Sudan on reaching a historic comprehensive peace that addressed the roots of the problem and ended the war, God willing, said Gibril Ibrahim, commander of one of rebel groups, the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

He paid tribute to all those killed or affected by the long years of war.

Sudanese paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo  best known by his nickname Hemeti, and who commanded fighters in the war  signed the deal on behalf of Khartoum.

Daglo and the leaders of the rebel movements grouped together and shook hands  and briefly danced together.

We have started the real transformation of Sudan from dictatorship to democracy, Faisal Mohammed Salih, Sudans information minister, told AFP, at the ceremony in Juba, the capital of neighbouring South Sudan.

 First steps 

But while celebrating the deal, he said there was also still a long way to go.

We know that we are going to face some problems when we start to move this (deal) from paper to the ground but we have that political will, Salih said.

Rebels fought troops deployed by now-toppled autocrat Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in the Darfur conflict.

Bashir, who is in jail in Khartoum convicted of corruption, is now on trial for the 1989 coup in which he grabbed power.

Sudans transitional authorities in February agreed Bashir be handed over to the ICC.

Human rights groups say Khartoum targeted suspected pro-rebel ethnic groups with a scorched earth policy, raping, killing, looting and burning villages.

The deal was initialled and not signed, as a way to leave the door open for two key holdout rebel groups to join in a final agreement, officials said.

Forging peace with rebels has been a cornerstone of Sudans transitional government, which came to power in the months after the overthrow of Bashir in April 2019.

Both General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of a sovereign council, and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, were also at the ceremony in Juba.

Sudans rebels are largely drawn from non-Arab minority groups that long railed against Arab domination of the government in Khartoum under Bashir.

The agreement covers key issues around security, land ownership, transitional justice, power sharing, and the return of people who fled their homes because of fighting.

It also provides for the dismantling of rebel forces and the integration of their fighters into the national army.

Rebel members of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) had provisionally initialled the agreement with the government late on Saturday.

However, an SLM faction led by Abdelwahid Nour and a wing of the SPLM-N headed by Abdelaziz al-Hilu refused to take part.
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev sent a congratulatory letter to President of the Slovak Republic, Zuzana Caputova.

"Dear Madame President,

I wholeheartedly congratulate you and your people on my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan on the occasion of the national holiday of the Slovak Republic  the Constitution Day.

I believe that the friendly and cooperative relations between our countries will further develop and expand for the sake of interests of our peoples.

On this pleasant day, I wish you good health, success in your work, and everlasting peace and prosperity to the friendly people of Slovakia," the letter said.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Kanye West has denied speculation he is running for president in an effort to help Donald Trump gain re-election and insisted that no one is bankrolling his campaign.

The rapper discussed his unlikely presidential bid in an interview with Nick Cannon's podcast, Cannon's Class.

In a preview clip of the interview, West brought up rumors that he is in 'cahoots' with Republicans.

'They're saying that they're paying you to do what you're doing to be a distraction,' Cannon said in reply.

West quickly quashed that suggestion, saying: 'Bro, can't nobody pay me! I got more money than Trump!'

Scroll down for video

Kanye West has denied speculation he is running for president in an effort to help Donald Trump gain re-election and insisted that no one is bankrolling his campaign

West discussed his unlikely presidential bid in an interview with Nick Cannon's Cannon Class podcast airing Tuesday. Cannon shared a preview of the interview on Instagram on Monday

The pair shared a hearty laugh before Cannon said: 'But people are saying that you're a distraction, and because they don't want four more years of Trump, maybe you might.

'You want an alternative of four years of Ye. Is that realistic right now in 2020?'

'I'm not running for president - I'm walking,' West replied.

The interview recorded at the West Mountain Ranch in Cody, Wyoming, will be released in full on Tuesday.

West's claim that he's richer than Trump appears to be untrue, as Forbes lists the former's net worth at $1.3billion and the latter's at $2.1billion.

But the rapper disputed Forbes' estimate when it came out back in April, saying that his true worth exceeds $3billion.

West got a big laugh from Cannon when he said: 'I'm not running for president - I'm walking'

West announced his presidential candidacy in early July - just four months before election day.

'We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States! #2020VISION,' he tweeted on Independence Day.

The announcement was met with with mixed reactions of skepticism and excitement, as online bookmakers placed his odds of winning at 50/1 - or two percent.

Since entering the race, West has done little to promote his candidacy and has only managed to get his name on the ballot in ten states so far, per CNN: Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Vermont.

His ballot status is still under review in Virginia and he still has time to file in Arizona, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Rhode Island.

In the remaining 33 states, West either missed the deadline to file for a ballot application or was denied because he didn't have enough signatures.

West celebrated Independence Day by announcing his presidential candidacy on Twitter

Trouble within West's campaign has fueled speculation about his motives for staying in the race - including claims that Trump and the GOP may be bankrolling him in an effort to siphon black votes from Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Concern among Democrats ratcheted up earlier this month after Jared Kushner, the senior White House adviser who also has a hand in Trump's re-election campaign, confirmed that he had spoken with West several times, along with other members of the billionaire's long-shot presidential campaign.

'Kanye's been a friend of mine for  I've known him for about 10 years,' the president's senior adviser said during a White House press briefing.

'There's a lot of issues that the president has championed that he admires,' Kushner said of him.

West publicly aligned with Trump in a series of tweets in October 2018 that sparked concerns over the rapper's mental state.

Soon after, he paid a visit to Trump at the White House - while wearing the president's trademark MAGA hat - and delivered a rambling, profanity-laden speech in which he discussed alternate universes and his diagnosis of bipolar disorder, which he said was actually sleep deprivation.

Speaking to a crowd of reporters in the Oval Office he said the hat was like a Superman cape and said that Trump made him a billionaire.
The Air Force Research Laboratory is developing a family of robotic air vehicles designed to work with manned aircraft in heavily contested airspace.

The program is called Skyborg, a name apparently derived from a cloud-like threat in the Star Trek series so challenging to its adversaries that resistance is futile.

...

Understanding the architecture is vital if you want to grasp why Skyborg could change everything for Americas military and its foreign counterparts. Because like the Star Trek creation, Skyborg keeps evolving indefinitely, overwhelming the capacity of enemies to resist.

That means a completely new design approachan open, modular, platform-agnostic framework in which any qualified contributor can participate at any point across the entire multi-decade life cycle of the effort.

This is not the way Americas military traditionally has bought weapons, and in order to shape the governments foundational architecture the Air Force Research Lab decided a system design agent was needed. That agent is Leidos LDOS -1.8%, an $11-billion technical services firm headquartered in Northern Virginia with extensive experience in integrating autonomous systems.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday said that it has arrested suspended AAP leader Tahir Hussain in a money laundering case in relation to the northeast Delhi riots in February this year.

An ED official said that the agency arrested Hussain under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) and has also got six days custodial remand from a Delhi Court.

Earlier in the day, he was brought to the ED headquarters for questioning, where he is being questioned about funding for the Delhi riots and the hawala operators with whom he was in touch.

The official added that he is also being questioned about his relations with Tablighi Jamaat chief Maulana Saad.

The ED official said that Hussain has been arrested by the agency for his role in money laundering and funding of anti-CAA protests and organizing riots in northeast Delhi in February.

The official said that the case is based on multiple FIRs registered by the Crime Branch and Dayalpur Police Station, Delhi Police under several sections of the IPC, which are scheduled offences under the PMLA.

The official said that during the probe it was found that companies owned or controlled by Hussain and his relatives transferred huge amounts of money to dubious entities which was returned by them in cash.

"The cash received by Hussain was used to fuel the anti-CAA protests and Delhi riots. Probe also revealed involvement of Hussain and his companies in illegal laundering of money in the past too," the official said.

The ED said that searches at his and his family members' residential and business premises in Delhi and Noida and Greater Noida on June 23 led to the recovery of incriminating documents and evidence including fake invoices which were used for the fraudulent transfer of money.

Over the past few days, Hussain was interrogated by ED officers in Tihar Jail while under arrest by Delhi Police. Subsequently he was arrested under the PMLA for his role in money laundering.
Find all of the most important pandemic education news on Educating N.J., a special resource guide created for parents, students and educators.

No air-conditioning in schools on a hot day is bad enough, but teachers are citing the lack of it combined with coronavirus concerns as a reason to push back the start of school.
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Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
A t least 25 people have been poisoned by carbon monoxide at an illegal rave in a bunker in Norway.

Some 200 people attended the event in Oslo, which used portable diesel generators to power the lighting and sound systems.

Police discovered the event after they came across a group of confused young people in the park where the bunker lies.

Emergency services found seven people unconscious in the bunker.

Five people, including two police officers, were taken to hospital in a critical condition, Norwegian news agency NTB said.

Emergency services are seen at the scene of an illegal rave in Oslo / via REUTERS

Two of the five people are no longer in intensive care.

The company that owns the bunker described the illegal rave as a "serious break-in" and said the company did not bear any responsibility, Norways VG newspaper reported.

The entrance to the bunker was previously closed with double-reinforced concrete. However, it was reopened by new owners and only secured with wooden boards.

The organisers said the diesel generators were in a room with ventilation, but several partygoers told Norwegian media that they had to go outside several times to breathe fresh air.
(Alliance News) - Talks between Britain and the EU on a final settlement for the UK's departure from the bloc are not progressing due to London's "intransigent and frankly unrealistic" approach, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian charged on Monday.

Both sides are pushing to have a deal in place by the end of a post-Brexit transition period which ends on December 31, but talks are failing to make headway.A

"Negotiations are not advancing due to the intransigent and frankly unrealistic attitude of the UK," Le Drian said in a speech to French ambassadors in Europe, alongside German counterpart Heiko Maas.

His downbeast assessment is the latest in a succession of negative comments by top figures within the EU about the progress of talks.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said Friday at the close of the seventh round of trade talks that a deal was looking unlikely, with discussions stuck on key issues including fishing rights and competition rules.

Hundreds of negotiators met over several days in the Belgian capital with both sides acknowledging a sliver of progress on technical issues a but not on the main obstacles.

"Those who were hoping for negotiations to move swiftly forward this week will have been disappointed," Barnier told reporters after the talks ended on Friday.

His UK counterpart David Frost countered that Brussels' insistence that London meet EU demands on state aid and fisheries policy before work on other areas made it "unnecessarily difficult to make progress".

Britain left the EU in January, nearly four years after a landmark referendum to end almost 50 years of European integration.

The Europeans are calling for a final post-transition agreement by October, leaving just two more months to find common ground.

If no deal is struck, ties will default to minimum standards set by the World Trade Organization, bringing higher tariffs and making onerous demands on business which threaten chaos on the cross-Channel border.

source: AFP

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
(Natural News) Heres the media lie: A kind and caring man with no criminal background, who was peacefully protesting in the streets of Kenosha, playing tag with his friends, and taking pictures with his cell phone, is now recovering from an undeserved gunshot wound that came from a white supremacist militia member who was intentionally trying to commit homicide toward peaceful protestors.

This is the deceptive narrative that the left-wing media is trying to instill about Gaige Grosskreutz, one of the Antifa/BLM mobsters who was chasing down an innocent young man, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, in the streets of Kenosha.

Only thing is, Grosskreutz has a felony background. In 2013, he was charged with felony burglary, theft, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. In 2017, he was arrested again. Hes a member of the Peoples Revolution Movement of Milwaukee, a radical group that seeks a communist takeover of America.

While chasing Rittenhouse, Grosskreutz was considered armed and dangerous, with his handgun drawn.

Armed protestor intended to empty entire magazine in Kyle Rittenhouse, regrets not killing the kid

Grosskreutz was not wielding a cell phone, as portrayed by the mainstream media. He was brandishing a handgun and closing in on Rittenhouse. Cell phone videos of the chase show that Grosskreutz intended to assault Rittenhouse and even fired the first shot. Young Rittenhouse stayed remarkably patient as he held his rifle in check and tried to retreat from the incoming mob.

After being cornered down on the pavement, being bashed by a skateboard and staring down the barrel of Grosskreutzs incoming handgun, Rittenhouse had no choice but to defend his own life. Rittenhouse made incredible decisions in the heat of the moment. When split seconds mattered, Rittenhouse put down the two immediate attackers and put a hole in the arm of Grosskreutz. The sound of these shots dispersed the incoming mob and neutralized the most pertinent threats to his life, allowing him to get off the pavement and survive. He now faces felony charges for intentional homicide even though it is clear he was defending his own life.

Grosskreutz is recovering from the blow, which left a crater in his right arm. Grosskreutz is now bragging that he should have emptied the entire mag into Rittenhouse.

According to his friend, Jacob Marshall, who visited Grosskreutz in the hospital, Grosskreutzs only regret was not killing the kid. The screenshots of the two friends went viral on social media but have since been taken down by Facebook. The photos were captioned with cant stop my boy with three flexing arm emojis as Marshall put an arm around Grosskreutz. The posts clearly show criminal intent. Grosskreutz admittedly possessed the handgun and intended to kill Rittenhouse. It just turns out that Rittenhouse was more prepared  faster, smarter, more instinctual, and better trained than Grosskreutz.

Marshall tried to defend his friend on social media: yes, after you get shot, you cant drop your gun because your muscles are tensed up. This clearly shows his gun was pulled after the point I originally posted and he was shot after having his hands up! Thanks, this just proves the point more, bud.

But the video evidence is clear. Even clearer is the confession that was made online:

Shouldve killed him right then and there, Marshall said, referring to an image of Grosskreutz with his gun drawn. In the same conversation, Marshall added: so, the kid shot Gaige as he drew his weapon and Gaige retreated with his gun in his hand. I just talked to [Gaige] toohis only regret was not killing the kid and hesitating to pull the gun before emptying the entire mag into him

Keep up-to-date with Antifa/BLM tactics, deception, and crime at AntifaWatch.News.

Sources include:

NationalFile.com

NaturalNews.com
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The laundry detergents market is expected to witness high growth in future, due to increasing e-commerce platforms across the globe. Moreover, growing usage of laundry services in the emerging economies is expected to aid the growth of laundry detergents market.

Based on product type, the global Laundry Detergents Market has been segmented into bars, powder, liquid, pods, and others. The liquid segment accounted for the maximum market share in 2017 and is expected to grow at a higher rate during the forecast period due its increasing usage in residential and commercial sectors such as hospitality industry, laundry services, textile industry, and others. Residential sector includes its usage in household cleaning.

Key Players:

Some of the key players in the global laundry detergents market are Unilever (UK), The Procter & Gamble Company (US), RSPL Group (India), Henkel AG & Company, KGaA (Germany), Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (US), Nirma Limited (India), Lion Corporation (Japan), Kao Corporation (Japan), and Method Products, pbc.(US).

Also Read : https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/laundry-detergents-market-global-overview-size-value-share-emerging-audience-regional-analysis-and-covid-19-pandemic-impact-by-forecast-to-2023-2020-08-17

Segment:

The global laundry detergents market has been segregated, by distribution channel, into store-based and non-store based. The store-based segment has been further segregated into supermarkets and hypermarkets, convenience store, and others. The store-based segment is expected to generate higher revenue, with the supermarkets and hypermarkets sub-segment being the largest due to the strong and widespread network of stores. The non-store-based segment is expected to register the higher CAGR during the assessment period owing to technological advancements in the e-commerce industry and growing consumer preference for online retailing.

Regional Analysis:

The global laundry detergents market has been segmented based on region, into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Rest of the World.

North America is expected to dominate the global laundry detergents market owing to the rising number of e-commerce platforms is expected to be the major driving factor for product growth, particularly among the working-class owing to the convenience and easy accessibility. The e-commerce platform, in the US and Canada is largely acquired by companies such as Target, Amazon, and Walgreen. These companies offer wide range of products, which in turn attracts more consumers. Hence, it is expected to drive the laundry detergents market in coming years

Access Report Details @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/laundry-detergents-market-6949

Asia-Pacific laundry detergents market are expected to grow at a rapid pace due to the increasing population in the countries and consumption of laundry detergents in the regions. Europe is also expected to project a significant market share owing to the increasing disposable income of consumers in the countries, have led consumers opt for different products. Furthermore, hectic schedule of consumers in the countries have led to adoption of products which are easy and continent to use. Hence, this is expected to drive the growth of laundry detergents market.

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Christopher Nolan directed film Tenet has created a huge buzz after the makers released the film in theatres in selected parts of the world. The effects of COVIID-19 have been slowing down thus cinemas in certain regions have begun opening up. Following this, Tenet makers released the film in theatres, and thus India too will see Tenet releasing in theatres. The dates in the past have been pushed forward; however, according to a report by Screen Daily the new release date has been confirmed for the film.

Also Read | When Tenet's Release Was Postponed, Seth Rogen Joked How Nolan Wanted To 'kill His Fans'

When will 'Tenet' release in India?

Also Read | Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet' Release Postponed Once Again

The film Tenet will be releasing on September 18 in India. Several other countries too have received updated release dates and thus fans grow eager to know as to when the film will come to a theatre near them. The film has currently been getting an amazing response after the first few days of its initial release. Tom Cruise himself paid a visit to a theatre to watch the film. Lauding it as a film he loved, Tom Cruise was delighted to head out of his home in full protection and watch the film. Thus several fans too grow eager to watch Tenet at a cinema near them. Tenet release date in India is scheduled to be September 18 and thus fans grow increasingly eager to watch the film as soon as possible.

Also Read | Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet' Team In India Working Towards July 31 Release, Awaits Govt Nod

Several new dates for other countries too have been updated following the new change in schedule for the release. Mexico will be the first country to experience the wide release of a Hollywood film. Tenet will be screened at theatres in Mexico on September 16. Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru will see the film releasing in theatres on September 24. Venezuelan fans will get to watch the film on September 25. The Colombia region, however, will get to watch the film a while later on October 15. Dates for some other countries are yet to be announced due to the pandemic situations prevalent there. These countries include Lebanon and Puerto Rico. The date for Indonesian theatres is currently said to be tentative, which is September 16. The Philippines theatres too have a tentative date pointing towards the end of September, according to various reports doing the rounds.

Also Read | Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet' To Get A Theatrical Release In India

Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment.
Amid the ongoing border tension with India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), China had tried to occupy areas on the southern bank of the Pangong Lake in eastern Ladakh but no physical clashes took place, asserted the government sources on Monday. In a major provocative move, the Chinese Army had tried to encroach and unilaterally change the status quo on the southern bank of the lake.

The movement of the Chinese troops started around midnight on August 29 and they had planned to occupy areas on the southern bank by the morning, said the sources. It added that India was able to deter the move of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).

The Chinese were in sufficient strength as more than 100 Chinese forces tried to occupy the area. The Indian side was on a higher altitude and was able to deter the occupation, added the sources. However, the government sources added that the future possibility of Chinese trying to occupy can't be ruled out. It asserted that not an inch of India's territory will be ceded to the Chinese Army.

The PLA with help of ropes and other climbing equipment started climbing at a table-top area between Black Top and Thakung Heights at the southern bank of Pangong Tso. The Indian Army was alerted and swung into action.

A special unit from Uttrakhand was sent to eastern Ladakh in advance after intelligence report alerted concern about Chinese activities.

Sources also added that the talks between India and China, in the aftermath of Chinese provocative military movement, got over at 4.30 pm (IST). The talks had started at 11 am, added the sources.

At least 500 Chinese soldiers gathered in Thakung area of Pangong with tanks. However, the Indian Army was already ready and China had to kneel before the might of the Indian soldiers. 500 Chinese soldiers were forced to retreat with their tanks. The attempt was thwarted by the Indian troops, the Army said on Monday. This comes more than two and a half months after the Galwan Valley clashes.

Intelligence agencies believe that China does not intend to retreat from Pangong area. Therefore, it is trying to strengthen his military preparedness while pretending to have talks. In view of this, the Indian Army and Air Force have also stepped up their preparations. But it seems that not by dialogue, China will improve by war and it is important to teach China a bigger lesson than Galwan.

The Army spokesperson said troops from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements on the ongoing standoff in eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo on the night of August 29-30.

"On the night of 29/30 August 2020, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo," Col Anand said in a statement.

"Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on the ground," the Army spokesperson said. He said the Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquillity through dialogue but is also equally determined to protect India's territorial integrity.

The Chinese Army had infiltrated the western bank of Pangang Lake in May and captured the area up to Finger 4. From here goes the way of Chushul which is very important for the Indian Army. Chushul leads the way to villages like Demchauk, Koil, Hanley, where the Chinese army often tries to infiltrate. Chushul has an airstrip of the Indian Air Force and is an important headquarters of the Army. The importance of the eastern shore is also more because there are many wide routes to get to Tibet from where tanks or armoured vehicles can also be taken.

In Galwan, the brave Indian soldiers thwarted the plot of China to which the entire world was a witness yet China is not ready to improve. After the bitter defeat in Galwan, now China tried to infiltrate into the Pangong Lake area, but Indian troops are wary of every move of China. Therefore, China's attempt to infiltrate into Pangong failed. On the one hand, the trickster is holding a flag meeting of brigade commander level in Chushul on China border dispute.

It is the first major incident involving the troops of the two countries after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. China also suffered casualties but it is yet to make the details public but according to an American intelligence report it was 35.

India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks in the last two-and-half months but no significant headway has been made for a resolution to the border row in eastern Ladakh.

The two sides began a process of disengagement on July 6, a day after a telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in eastern Ladakh. However, the process has not moved forward since mid-July.

The PLA has pulled back from Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang and a couple of other areas.

At the five rounds of Corps commander-level talks, the Indian side has been insisting on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to April.

The face-off began on May 5 following violent clashes between the two armies in the Pangong lake area. The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in North Sikkim on May 9.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long LAC. It is to be noted that the government has given the armed forces 'full freedom' to give a 'befitting' response to any Chinese misadventure along the LAC.

The Army sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border following the deadly clashes. The IAF has also moved air defence systems as well as a sizeable number of its frontline combat jets and attack helicopters to several key airbases.
Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/31/2020 -- The report "Polymer Emulsion Market by Type (Acrylic Polymer Emulsion, Vinyl Acetate Polymer Emulsion, SB Latex), Application (Paints & Coatings, Adhesives & Sealants, Paper & Paperboard), End-Use Industry, Region - Global Forecast To 2025", The global polymer emulsion market size is projected to grow from an estimated value of USD 25.2 billion in 2020 to USD 38.1 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 8.6% during the forecast period. The growth of the market is driven mainly by the increasing demand from growing end-use industries in emerging markets and stringent regulations regarding VOC emission.



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Acrylics segment is estimated to dominate the overall polymer emulsion market

The acrylics segment accounts for the largest share of the overall polymer emulsion market. The market for this segment is also witnessing the highest growth rate. Acrylic polymer emulsion is used widely in various applications due to its properties, such as low VOC emission and excellent durability. It is also preferred in multiple end-use applications due to its versatility. Acrylics are used to prepare polymers with rigid, flexible, ionic, nonionic, hydrophobic, or hydrophilic properties. They are transparent, have resistance to breakage, provide excellent finish gloss, improved adhesion to non-porous surfaces, and flow and stability. They are also commonly known as polyacrylates.



Paints & coatings is the largest application in the polymer emulsion market

The paints & coatings segment is the largest consumer of polymer emulsion. The growth of the market is attributed to the high demand in industries, such as construction and automotive. Polymer emulsion is used widely in paints & coatings as its manufacturing process has a lower carbon footprint. The high VOC content of solvent-based products and the implementation of government regulations regarding air pollution control has stimulated the development of low VOC paints & coatings. This increased the demand for water-based paints & coatings, which in turn, drive the growth of polymer emulsions in the paints & coatings segment.



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Building & construction is the largest end-use industry in polymer emulsion market

The building & construction end-use industry is the largest consumer of polymer emulsion. The growth of the market in this segment is attributed to the high demand for polymer emulsion in architectural paints, deck & trim paints, and elastomeric wall coatings, among others. Excellent durability and high water resistance drive its demand in the end-use industries.



APAC is projected to be the largest polymer emulsion market

APAC is the largest and fastest-growing market for polymer emulsion. The region is witnessing growth in the polymer emulsion market because of the rapid expansion of building & construction, consumer durables, and transportation sectors. The manufacturers are attracted to the region as skilled labor required for the operation of manufacturing units is available at lower wages. The presence of major polymer emulsion manufacturers and stringent government regulation related to VOC emission are major factors supporting the growth of polymer emulsion in the region.



DIC Corporation (Japan), Dow Chemical Company (US), BASF SE (Germany), Arkema Group (France), Celanese Corporation (US), Trinseo (US), The Lubrizol Corporation (US), Wacker Chemie AG (Germany), Synthomer Plc (UK), and Asahi Kasei Corporation (Japan) are the major players in the polymer emulsion market.



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Recent Developments :

- In June 2020, Celanese Corporation signed an agreement with Megafarma, an Azelis company, to supply emulsion polymers in Mexico.

- In January 2020, Celanese Corporation announced plans to expand the emulsion polymers business globally. Under this expansion, Celanese started the debottlenecking of VAE production facilities in Nanjing, China, and Geleen, Netherlands. Further, the company announced plans to expand the VAE production facility at Nanjing by 65,000 metric tons by 2022 and the Geleen facility by 50,000 metric tons per annum by 2023.

- In September 2019, Synthomer plc expanded acrylic dispersion production capacity by 30%, located at Worms, Germany. The expanded production capacity is 36,000 tons with a fully automated facility. This expansion strengthens the company's position in end-use industries such as paints and coatings, construction chemicals, adhesives and sealants, and technical textiles.

- In April 2020, Synthomer plc acquired Omnova Solutions Inc., a specialty chemical company and a major supplier of water-based polymer solutions. With this acquisition, the company would be able to strengthen the polymer emulsion business and have strong operational capabilities across the globe.

- In May 2017, The Dow Chemical Company signed two agreements to advance Dow's strategic innovation agenda in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The agreements include the construction of a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility to manufacture a range of water-treatment and coatings applications. The new facility will serve the country's need with an innovative range of acrylic-based polymers for architectural and industrial coatings as well as detergent and water-treatment applications.

- In February 2019, Wacker Chemie AG launched Vinneva, a polymer binder based on vinyl acetate-ethylene copolymers for application in the construction industry. These polymer binders were designed to make bitumen emulsion more flexible and more resistant and reduce the tendency to form cracks.



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Doctors have removed the casts from the legs of conjoined twins Hoang Truc Nhi and Hoang Dieu Nhi after a month and a half, therefore allowing them to prepare to take their very first steps in life.

Over a month after their separation surgery, the health status of Truc Nhi was better than that of Dieu Nhi, with doctors therefore deciding to remove the cast from her legs.

Following the removal of Truc Nhis leg cast, Dieu Nhis casts were also removed 10 days later.

The decision made by doctors to remove the casts from the twins will enable the infants to take their very first steps in life.

At present Truc Nhi and Dieu Nhi are enjoying stable health condition. The pair are able to drink milk and eat porridge independently and both have a good digestive system health.

The twins enjoy playing peekaboo with nurses and doctors.

Truc Nhi and Dieu Nhi are allowed to share the same bed while participating in activities together.

The baby girl sits still as she poses for a photo.

She laughs as a nurse carries her around the hospital.

VOV

Conjoined twins recover well after separation The 13-month-old conjoined twins who had surgery to separate them on July 15 at the City Childrens Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City no longer have fever and they are showing signs of good recovery.
As its name implies, evidence indicates that the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO has been instrumental in the development of todays New Manhattan Project. NCAR was founded by many people with serious implications for the New Manhattan Project. NCAR has historically been and continues to be near the forefront of supercomputer atmospheric modeling. NCAR has been heavily involved in the field of meteorological aircraft. Lastly, a former head of the organization has authored books containing New Manhattan Project disinformation. To learn what the New Manhattan Project is, as well as the whole backstory here, please refer to the new, greatly revised and expanded second edition of the authors book Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project available now exclusively at Amazon.

Since its founding in 1960 the National Center for Atmospheric Research has been deeply involved in weather modification and other large-scale meteorological experiments. Being that todays New Manhattan Project is a global weather modification program, this information is relevant. Todays NCAR is operated under contract with the National Science Foundation by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research represents 23 universities with graduate programs in the atmospheric sciences.

The history of todays NCAR begins in 1956 when Detlev Bronk (1897-1975), president of the National Academy of Sciences, appointed a committee to, consider and recommend means by which to increase our understanding and control of the atmosphere. This Committee on Meteorology included such New Manhattan Project luminaries as Thomas F. Malone (1917-2013), John von Neumann (1903-1957), Jule Charney (1917-1981), and Edward Teller (1908-2003). Two years later, this Committee on Meteorology issued a report suggesting that a corporation of universities runs a National Institute of Atmospheric Research, and that national funding for atmospheric research in general be increased. The issuance of the report was shortly followed by a planning conference attended by Malone, Teller, and many other leaders in the fields of atmospheric science and weather modification. The attendees passed a resolution approving the findings of the Committee on Meteorology report as they noted the need for large-scale (global) operations. The resolution reads, a national institute for atmospheric research, operated by an association of universities, should be established to bring together scientists from meteorology and the related physical sciences and to provide research facilities on a scale required to cope with a global nature of the meteorological problem. After reaching out to every university with a meteorology program, another meeting was held about a month later where the attendees constituted themselves as the University Committee on Atmospheric Research. The first meeting for the purpose of formally organizing todays UCAR was held at Pennsylvania State University in July of 1958 where Dr. Malone agreed to serve as the executive director pro tem of the University Committee on Atmospheric Research and assembled his planning staff.

On March 16, 1959 the University Committee on Atmospheric Research was incorporated in Delaware as the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). The first UCAR board of trustees meeting was held a couple of weeks later in Tuscon, Arizona. At this Tuscon meeting, Henry G. Houghton was elected chairman while Dr. Malone was elected as a trustee-at-large as well as a member of the executive committee. Dr. Malone was later to become chairman of NCARs board of trustees. In September of 1959 the National Science Board authorized the National Science Foundation to begin contracting with UCAR and funds were provided for the establishment of a small scientific staff for planning research programs and facilities. On April 26, 1960 the UCAR board of directors appointed Walter Orr Roberts (1915-1990) as the first director of what was still being called the National Institute of Atmospheric Research.

By October of 1960, director Roberts had secured a local business office for UCAR with a small staff in Boulder on the campus of the University of Colorado. On October 11, 1960 the board of UCAR trustees voted unanimously to recommend to the NSF that the permanent headquarters of UCAR be located on Table Mountain near Boulder. On July 18, 1961 the UCAR Executive Committee approved the choice of I.M. Pei and Associates as the architect of the UCAR and NCAR headquarters. NCARs first and temporary headquarters had been established in the University of Colorado Armory.

Other important New Manhattan Project organizations and individuals have been involved with NCAR. Bernard Vonnegut (1914-1997) had a hand in establishing NCAR. Alfred Lee Loomis (1887-1975) was involved in funding and building NCARs High Altitude Observatory. Lastly, at a 1977 meeting held at NCAR headquarters, members of the JASON group produced a climate model which supported the theory of man-made global warming.

Supercomputer atmospheric modeling

NCAR has been and continues to be a leader in supercomputer atmospheric modeling. Supercomputer atmospheric modeling is important to the New Manhattan Project because it allows todays geoengineers to see the most probable outcomes of their interventions as they attempt to modify and control the weather. The atmospheric models are computer programs that are designed to predict the outcomes while supercomputers handle the extremely complex mathematical computations necessary for such predictions.

By April of 1961 NCAR had its first supercomputer: the IBM 1620. The early breakthrough Global Circulation Models were partially developed at NCAR. NCAR was instrumental in the development of the important Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison. NCAR contributed to the development of the landmark Community Climate System Model  a variant of which is probably what is in use today as part of the New Manhattan Project. NCAR has traditionally been a prolific buyer of supercomputers and in 2012 began operations at their new NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center.

Meteorological aircraft

A branch of aviation is dedicated to the production, maintenance, and use of aircraft that have been modified in order to carry out meteorological experiments. These types of aircraft are commonly referred to as meteorological aircraft and NCAR has been deeply involved in this field.

In March of 1964 the NCAR Research Aviation Facility was created. An advisory panel to this facility was also created and a member of this advisory panel by the name of Charles E. Anderson (1919-1994) is of particular note to this investigation. In 1960 Anderson earned his PhD in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Anderson had previously attended the Army Air Forces Meteorological Aviation Cadet Program at the University of Chicago. He later became an executive at the Douglas Aircraft Corporation. The Douglas Aircraft Corporation is important to this investigation because todays RAND Corporation is the product of a collaboration between the Douglas Aircraft Corporation and the US Army Air Forces. As detailed in the authors recent article The RAND Corporation and the New Manhattan Project, the RAND Corporation has serious implications for the production of todays New Manhattan Project. Over the years, NCARs Research Aviation Facility has served as one of the worlds premiere centers for meteorological aircraft.

In the spring of 1969, the National Science Foundation agreed to provide the funds for the construction of NCARs own airplane hangar at the Jefferson County Airport. Construction was completed by December of 1970. Some of the aircraft in NCARs fleet have been: a Beech 99, a North American Rockwell Sabreliner turbojet, and a Queen Air N303D. Scientists at the Langmuir Lab in New Mexico have used NCARs Sabreliner to drop aluminum chaff. This is of particular note to our investigation because evidence indicates that Langmuir Lab has been instrumental to the development of todays New Manhattan Project (NMP). Over the years and decades, NCAR and the Langmuir Lab have worked together extensively.

Richard A. Anthes

A man by the name of Richard A. Anthes was the president of UCAR from 1988 to 2012; during the time when large-scale, domestic spraying operations began. He has also been the director of NCAR.

In 1978 Anthes was published as the co-author of a book containing disinformation about chemtrails. The Atmosphere second edition makes a case for the theory of man-made global warming and tells us that chemtrails are contrails. After providing us with some convoluted nonsense about the formation of contrails, The Atmosphere gives us a full-color photograph of chemtrails that the authors incorrectly label as contrails. The caption reads, Bands of cirrus clouds forming from contrails.

Following up, in 1997 Anthes alone was published as the author of Meteorology seventh edition. In this book, Anthes follows the familiar pattern of making a case for the theory of man-made global warming and providing us with an image of a chemtrail incorrectly labeled as a condensation trail. To spice it up a little bit this time, in Meteorology Anthes also expounds upon how there are too many people on planet Earth and how that is a problem as well. All of these things are common NMP disinformation tactics.

Todays NCAR

Todays geoengineers advocate for something called solar radiation management (SRM) geoengineering which involves the atmospheric spraying of particulate matter (chemtrails). Unsurprisingly, todays NCAR is absolutely up to their eyeballs in geoengineering. The main thrust of NCARs effort here appears to involve their current atmospheric modeling program known as the Community Earth System Model  apparently a variant of the previously mentioned Community Climate System Model. This is all part of their Geoengineering Modeling Research Consortium which involves a slew of the usual suspects such as Harvards David Keith.

NCAR has even gone so far as to produce an extensive modeling effort designed to explicitly show the effects of SRM geoengineering on the Earths average temperature. This effort is known as the Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering Large Ensemble project; and guess what? They found that SRM geoengineering works! Now all they need is more funding.

References

The National Science Foundation a book by Dorothy Schaffter, published by Frederick A. Praeger, 1969

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and the National Center for Atmospheric Research 1960-1970: An Institutional History a report by Elisabeth Lynn Hallgren, published by the Board of Trustees of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, March 1974

The Atmosphere second edition a book by Richard A. Anthes, Hans A. Panofsky, John J. Cahir, and Albert Rango, published by Bell & Howell, 1978

Meteorology seventh edition a book by Richard A. Anthes, published by Prentice Hall, 1997

Links

PeterAKirby.com

My Minds page

My Parler page

My GoodReads page

My YouTube channel

My BitChute channel

Websites

ClimateViewer.com

GeoengineeringWatch.org

NoGeoingegneria.com

StopSprayingCalifornia.com

ChemSky.org

NuclearPlanet.com

GlobalSkyWatch.com

ChemtrailsProject.com

ChemtrailsProjectUK.com

ChemtrailSafety.com

Peter A. Kirby is a San Rafael, CA researcher, author, and activist. Please buy the greatly revised and expanded second edition of his book Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project available now exclusively at Amazon. Also please join his email list at his website PeterAKirby.com.
General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking US military officer, issued a statement Friday declaring that the US military would have no role in resolving any disputes that arise from the 2020 presidential election.

Responding to a letter from two Democratic members of the House of Representatives, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, Milley wrote: In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military.  I foresee no role for the U.S. Armed Forces in this process.

I and every member of the Armed Forces take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and to follow the lawful orders of the chain of command, his statement continues. We will not turn our backs on the Constitution of the United States.

General Mark Milley in October, 2019

Slotkin and Sherrill sent letters to General Milley and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper after a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee in July over Trumps threat to appeal to the military to suppress the protests which erupted after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25.

On June 1 Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and send the military onto the streets of American cities to suppress the protests. After encountering resistance from Esper, Milley and top military officers, both active and retiredbecause they regarded a military intervention as unprepared politically and practicallyTrump pulled back and did not invoke the 1807 law, although he did have troops deployed to Washington, D.C. for several days.

That the top general should feel it necessary to issue a declaration for the record, so to speak, that the military will not decide the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, is an extraordinary manifestation of the political tensions in the United States.

Trump has repeatedly suggested that he will not accept an unfavorable outcome of the November 3 vote, and his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, has said that the military might have to remove Trump from the White House on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021, should he refuse to leave.

Bidens comments and the posture of his supporters like Slotkin and Sherrill make the military, not the American people, the final arbiters of the 2020 election. This by itself demonstrates that neither capitalist party, Democratic or Republican, has any serious commitment to the preservation of democratic forms of rule.

As far as they go, Milleys comments portrayed the military as adhering to constitutional procedures. The Constitution and laws of the U.S. and the states establish procedures for carrying out elections, and for resolving disputes over the outcome of elections, he wrote. State and federal governments have qualified officials who oversee these processes according to those laws. We are a nation of laws. We follow the rule of law and have done so with regard to past elections, and will continue to do so in the future.

Under the Constitution, President Trump has no role in determining the outcome of the 2020 election. The votes are counted under the supervision of state governments, not the federal government, and electors for the winning candidate in each state meet in each state capital in December to cast their votes. Each states electoral votes are formally counted by the new Congress in early January, and the winner of the Electoral College is sworn in as president on January 20.

There are numerous potential disruptions to this process. If the popular vote in a state is close, or if there is a claimed conflict between the in-person voting and the mail-in votinghighly likely given the nonstop vilification of mail ballots from the White Housethe winner of the states electoral votes may be in dispute.

This is particularly the case in those states where control of the state government is divided, or where the party controlling the state government backs the candidate who lost the popular vote in that state. Among those states whose results could be in question are Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, all with Democratic governors and Republican state legislatures, and Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Georgia and Texas, with Republican-controlled state governments but Democrat Biden leading or tied in the polls.

The final decision on accepting the state electoral vote counts rests with the House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Democratic Party. In the event that the Electoral College is deadlocked, the House would select the president, but in a ballot in which each states delegation casts one vote, regardless of its size. Currently, despite their minority status, the Republicans control 26 state delegations to 22 for the Democrats, with two states divided evenly.

As this discussion makes clear, there are innumerable opportunities in this process for right-wing forces, working through both capitalist parties as well as outside them, to intervene and seek to manipulate the outcome.

The questions posed by Slotkin and Sherrill touch on some of these potential land mines. They asked Milley about the fact that the Uniform Code of Military Justice criminalizes mutiny and sedition and the requirement that the military follows only legitimate orders.

Milley replied, I recognize that there is only one legitimate president of the United States at a time. This begs the question of how the military would identify the legitimate president, since that is the very issue posed in the election and the transitional period from election to inauguration.

The top US general was also responding indirectly to an open letter issued by two well-known former officers, John Nagl and Paul Yingling, published August 11 in Defense One, which warned that Trump is actively subverting our electoral system, threatening to remain in office in defiance of our Constitution and appealed to Milley to prevent the once-unthinkable scenario of authoritarian rule.

Nagl and Yingling are hardly paragons of democracy. They came to prominence as lieutenant-colonels during the Iraq War, when they issued a scathing internal criticism of the rigidity and inflexibility of senior officers in the face of a mounting insurgency in the Iraqi population. Nagl went on to draft the Armys official counterinsurgency manual under the direction of General David Petraeus.

Representatives Slotkin and Sherrill issued a brief statement welcoming Milleys response. Their role in this exchange is politically significant. They are 2 of the 11 new Democratic members of Congress who came directly from the military-intelligence apparatus into the House of Representatives in the 2018 elections.

These CIA Democrats, as the WSWS has termed them, have played an increasingly prominent role in party affairs, first in providing a decisive push in favor of impeaching Trump over his delaying military aid to Ukraine for its war with Russian-backed separatists, then in backing Biden for the presidential nomination against more liberal rivals.

Slotkin, a longtime CIA officer who deployed three times to Iraq, cited her experience with the agency in making an assessment of how the president, since late April or early May, has been laying down these seeds of doubt in the outcome of our elections, adding, Theres a long history and a dark history of having law enforcement, or uniform military present at the polls ...

In other words, what the CIA has helped to organize in dozens of countries around the worldthe use of the military and police to suppress democratic rights and overthrow governmentsthe former CIA agent now describes as the direction of US government policy under Trump.

The conflict between Trump and Slotkin is not about democracy vs. dictatorship, but about which form of authoritarianism is to be imposed on the American people: the personalist dictatorship of the would-be Mussolini, or a Democratic administration based on the backing of the military-intelligence apparatus and oriented toward war with Russia, China or both.
Dozens of ravers were rushed to hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning after a party in a packed cave in Oslo, police have said.

Up to 200 people had gathered at a cave in the Norwegian capital for a birthday party complete with sound system, not realising the danger of using diesel generators in so tight a space, Oslo Police said.

A total of 25 people were hospitalised as a result of exposure to carbon monoxide, seven of whom were unconscious on arrival, Oslo's Dagsavisen newspaper reported. Five people were critically injured, police said.

Two of the patients were police officers who were exposed to the deadly gas while helping to evacuate partygoers.

A sound system had been packed into the cave and was powered by portable diesel generators, which combined with the ravers was enough to plunge the oxygen level to around 16 per cent, far below what is safe, Ronny Andersen of the Oslo Fire Service told local reporters.

Recommended Hundreds gather for illegal raves over bank holiday despite new rules

The fire brigade worked through the night to drive fresh air into the cave, pumping oxygen through a tube in the 1x1m entrance, Mr Andersen told Norway's VG newspaper.

"It was a rave in honour of someone's birthday, attendees we have spoken to have been between 20 and 30 years old," said Arve Rotterud from Oslo Police.

Mr Rotterud said police were alerted to the incident when a partygoer waved down a patrol car at the side of the road in Oslo's central St Hanshaugen district.

Carbon monoxide poisoning should be taken seriously, and several there were under the influence of drugs when they left, it could have been a lot worse, Mr Rotterud said.

"We encourage anyone who was at the party and has experienced discomfort to contact the health service," Oslo Police said in a statement.
Lebanons ambassador to Germany is set to become the countrys new prime minister after the entire cabinet resigned in the wake of this months disastrous blast in Beirut that killed at least 190 people.

Shortly after he was chosen, Mustapha Adib vowed to form a government in record time in order to implement crucial reforms needed to regain the trust of the Lebanese and international community.

The decision to make him prime minister-designate was approved by a majority of Lebanese lawmakers and president Michel Aoun just hours before French president Emmanuel Macron was due to land in the country for his second visit in less than a month.

Ahead of his trip, Mr Macron warned that Lebanon, a former French protectorate, was on the verge of civil war and promised to force the countrys fractious leaders to tackle corruption and push through much-needed reforms.

Senior Lebanese officials said that Mr Macrons mediation had been essential in securing an agreement on Mr Adib as a candidate, after a week-long deadlock.

Lebanons ruling parties had been under mounting international pressure to form a new government and make major political changes to unlock millions of dollars of aid pledged to help rebuild Beirut and the country after the 4 August blast and amid an unprecedented financial collapse.

Both crises are anchored in years of corruption and mismanagement.

Recommended France is pushing for real political reform in Lebanon

Mr Adib, a little-known diplomat, was born in the northern city of Tripoli and is a Sunni Muslim, making him eligible to become prime minister under Lebanons sectarian power-sharing system.

On Monday, he promised to form a cabinet of experts to work with the parliament to put the country on track of improvement and to end the dangerous financial, economic and social drainage.

The opportunity in front of our country is narrow, and the mission that I accepted is based on all political groups knowing that. The government should be formed very quickly, he added.

He was first named as a potential option on Sunday when he was nominated by three former prime ministers including Saad Hariri, who heads Lebanons biggest Sunni Muslim party the Future Movement.

Mr Adib was also supported by the powerful Iran-backed Shia group Hezbollah, the Progressive Socialist Party led by prominent Druze politician Walid Jumblatt, as well as the Christian Free Patriotic Movement, which was founded by President Aoun.

The Lebanese Forces, a Christian group, was the only major party not to support him. It backed another ambassador, Nawaf Salam, a choice strongly opposed by Hezbollah.

With a PhD in law and political science, Mr Adib started his career as a university lecturer and later professor before working closely with several cabinets and then being appointed as Lebanons ambassador to Germany in 2013.

He served as an adviser, and is closely linked, to billionaire and former prime minister Najib Mikati, who was among the three ex-PMs to nominate him.

Mr Mikati, named by Forbes in 2015 as Lebanons richest man, was indicted in October on charges of making illicit gains from a subsided housing programme. He vehemently denies the charges.

President Macron, who is set to meet Lebanese politicians in Beirut on Tuesday, apparently helped broker the deal, making a series of phone calls to Lebanese leaders at the weekend that were vital to securing the consensus on Mr Adib.

A senior Lebanese politician told Reuters it was the pressure of his calls to everyone, the pressure of his coming to Lebanon, the pressure of everyone not wanting to upset him.

The last time a government was formed it took several months of political wrangling until Hassan Diab was named as prime minister. Even then Mr Diab did not enjoy the same cross-party support that Mr Adib has.

Mr Diab quit his role on 10 August, six days after the port blast which killed at least 190 people and injured 6,500 more. The explosion, probably caused by thousands of tons of poorly stored ammonium nitrate catching fire, left millions of dollars of destruction, damaging 50,000 homes, nine hospitals and 178 schools.
London: Relatives of the hundreds of people killed when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down will demand compensation from the forces accused of blowing up the plane.

Lawyers have also accused Moscow of compounding the grief of family members by deploying an "obstruction and disinformation" campaign to shield the Russian government from responsibility over the disaster.

From left: Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov, Leonid Kharchenko. Credit:AP

The Boeing 777-200 was flying over eastern Ukraine in July 2014 when it was destroyed by what prosecutors say was a high-powered missile launcher smuggled across the border from Russia.

All 298 passengers and crew died, including 38 Australian citizens and residents.
Economic activity across India has taken a hit due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses and industries have remained shuttered for over two months now amid the ongoing nationwide lockdown. Even as restrictions have been eased across some parts of the country, especially with respect to domestic travel and business operations, states with a higher case burden are struggling to deal with the crisis. Highlighting the grave economic impact of COVID-19, CRISIL has said India is staring at its worst recession since Independence. Here are its impact on key indicators:

India's gross domestic product (GDP) for April-June quarter contracted 23.9 percent against a growth of 5.2 percent in the same period last fiscal. Indian economy officially entered the contraction zone, as economic activity was crippled following the nationwide lockdown that was imposed in March to tackle the spread of COVID-19.

The Indian economy recorded its sharpest drop in 41 years, as all major sectors, except agriculture, recorded contraction.

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India, which imposed one of the strictest lockdowns in the world on March 25, bringing all economic activities to a grinding halt, started unlocking the country in a phased manner since June 1.

Though businesses and economic activity have started picking up since then, India's economy still doesn't seem to be out of the woods.

India will be officially in recession if GDP contracts in the current quarter July-September  too, which most experts reckon would take place.

Recession is defined as a period when economic activities contract for two quarters in a row (or six months). It occurs when there is a contraction in business cycle, caused by shrinking economic activity and followed by a consequent decline in spending.

The contraction in GDP growth would now call for major revisions in budget estimates. In Budget 2020-21, the government has pegged gross tax revenues at Rs 24.23 lakh crore, a 12 percent increase from Rs 21.63 lakh crore in the previous fiscal. As reported earlier by Moneycontrol, the finance ministry's internal estimate pegs revenue contraction for FY21 at around 8 percent, due to the clampdown on economic activity.

A decline in estimated revenue projection, however, is not expected to hit the government's expenditure plans, as it has already ramped up its borrowing programme and may consider increasing it further in the second half of this fiscal.

As private expenditure is expected to be majorly impacted due to the uncertain nature of the COVID-19 and a general appetite for risk aversion by banks, impacting credit availability, it's the government that is expected to up its public spending to revive the economy.

Due to the pandemic, the projected government expenditure would shoot up significantly from budgeted levels.

Sub-optimal economic activity, despite lifting of the lockdown, would mean that the government might have to spend more to revive the economy, over and above the already committed additional expenditure of Rs 2.5-3 lakh crore under Garib Kalyan and Atmanirbhar Bharat announcements.

The government has announced it will increase its market borrowings for FY21 by Rs 4.2 lakh crore.

Economists and experts have been pegging that the fiscal deficit in FY21 could touch as high as 7 percent of GDP. In 1990-91, the fiscal deficit reached the 7-percent mark when India was going through a Balance of Payment crisis.

In the April-June quarter, tax revenue fell Rs 1.3 lakh crore from 2.5 lakh crore in the year-ago period. The revenue shortfall widened the fiscal deficit at the end of June to Rs 6.62 lakh crore, or 83.2 percent of the full-year budget estimate of Rs 7.96 lakh crore, and it is expected to widen further due to the coronavirus-related disruptions.
File image: JD(U) chief and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar

Political parties have started analysing the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on voting percentages in the upcoming Bihar assembly elections and believed that polling in these times could see a drop in voting percentages due to the fear of the coronavirus infection.

The assembly elections in Bihar are likely to be held on time in October-November despite demands by some political parties for postponing the polls in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These elections are being seen as the next big political fight between the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and a combined opposition force.

As indication grows about holding of the Bihar polls on the scheduled time, a section of Opposition leaders claim that this could be to their benefit, reported The Indian Express.

According to the report, a senior leader of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) said the partys reading said the dip in voting percentage is likely to harm the BJP and benefit the RJD-led Opposition alliance.

The fear of COVID-19 is highest in urban areas, and among the rich and the affluent. Urban areas are where BJP is the strongest. The party claims to have the vote of upper-castes and Baniyas, communities that are by and large well to do. Many of these people may feel that it is too much of a risk to stand in queue with so many others to vote, the RJD leader told the publication.

Meanwhile, the Janata Dal (United) is confident of retaining power in the state. A senior JD(U) leader, who is a state minister, told the publication that the issue is something we have to look at and consider, but remained confident that the weight of the caste arithmetic and the face of Nitish Kumar make these conversations irrelevant.

There are three big players in Bihar, and when two of them are together, it is almost impossible for any other government to be formed, the JD(U) leader was quoted as saying.

Internally we are talking about these voting patterns, and we will have to consider them, but the alliance (NDA) also has the support of other sections: the SCs, EBC, and OBCs. If the wealthy BJP voter does not go to vote, will the healthy Yadav go to vote? the JD(U) leader said in the report.

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Sushil Modi also told the publication that only 11 percent of Bihars population is urbanised while admitting there could be a dip in some urban pockets.

However, Modi added that there is still at least two months' time and the panic seen in the previous months is now dissipating gradually, the report stated.

In the 2015 polls, the Congress had won 27 out of the 41 seats it contested, while the JD(U)-RJD-Congress alliance secured 178 seats in the 243-member assembly. The RJD had emerged the leader of the pack with 80 seats while JD(U) bagged 71, both of whom had contested 101 seats each.

While Nitish Kumar became chief minister of the grand alliance government after the 2015 polls, he and his party later switched sides to join the NDA in 2017.

The term of the Bihar assembly comes to an end on November 29.
Even for the busiest predicted hurricane season on record, the Atlantic basin is packed this week.

None of the four tropical waves poses a threat to the continental U.S., but two of them have a pretty good chance of becoming the next tropical depressions this season. The other two are worth keeping an eye on as they make their way west from Africas coast.

One tropical wave, according to the National Hurricane Centers 8 a.m. update, is a few hundred miles south of the Dominican Republic in the central Caribbean Sea. The hurricane center pegs its chances at strengthening into a tropical depression in the next few days at 70 percent. Forecasters warned that Jamaica, Honduras, Belize, Guatemala and the Yucatan peninsula should monitor the progress of this disturbance.

The second wave is about 150 miles south-southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina. It has about a 70 percent chance of forming in the next two to five days and is expected to track offshore, along the northeast coast.

The National Hurricane Center is tracking four tropical waves in the Atlantic Basin this week.

The next two waves are either just off the western coast of Africa or have yet to emerge. The one in the eastern Atlantic is already petering out, and forecasters said further development of this system is not expected.

The final wave has yet to form, but the hurricane center said it could find a favorable climate when it enters the Atlantic in a couple of days. They give it a 30 percent chance of forming in the next five days.

The next two storm names are Nana and Omar.
India's fertiliser sales are likely to grow 10-15 percent in 2020-21, however, the momentum seen in first half of the fiscal is likely to moderate during the second half, India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) said in a report.

The momentum witnessed in fertiliser sales so far in 1H (first half) FY21 is unlikely to continue despite healthy water reservoir levels and better monsoon prospects, owing to the likelihood of increase in the COVID-19 spread to rural areas and higher systematic inventory, it said.

However, fertiliser sales are likely to grow in the range of 10-15 percent for the full FY21 as compared to last financial year, supported by the increase in 1H FY21 sales.

Sales increased in 1H due to increased sowing and acreage in the ongoing kharif season, better labour availability, favourable monsoon prospects for the upcoming rabi season, increase in reservoir levels across key fertiliser consumption areas and better fund availability with farmers, the report added.

India's monthly fertiliser sales have spiked on a YoY basis since the lockdown came into effect at the end of March.

Fertiliser volumes sold during April-July 2020 were 57 percent higher at 22.2 million tonnes (mmt), Ind-Ra said.

The report further said urea was the major contributor to absolute fertiliser sales increase during April-July 2020 owing to lower pricing and varied applicability as compared to other non-urea fertilisers.

However, from a growth perspective, nitrogen-phosphorous-potash-sulphur (NPKS) saw a strong growth of 86 percent, followed by di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) and muriate of potash (MoP).

This was in line with the industry push towards NPKS fertilisers, which are better for improving soil nutrient balance and soil health, the report added.

Fertiliser sales surged during the lockdown as the government identified agriculture as essential sector and increased its spending on the sector and rural development by 126 percent to Rs 1,24,700 crore during the first quarter of FY21.

The spending was increased by various means such as better minimum support prices (MSP) for key products harvested during 4QFY20-1QFY21, higher procurement of key rabi crops, timely payments of rabi crops as well as various fund transfer schemes, it said.

In the wheat marketing year 2020-2021, the government has so far procured 38.9 million tonnes of wheat through state governments and all procuring agencies led by the Food Corporation of India.

Farmers utilised these funds to either purchase agri inputs such as fertilisers, seeds and pesticides or farm equipment like tractors, Ind-Ra added.

The area sown during the kharif season till end-July 2020 increased by a hefty 14 percent compared to last year, whereas the crop acreage also grew by 9.9 percent YoY.

Ind-Ra expects higher annual fertiliser sales to continue during the balance of kharif season, albeit at a lower growth rate, supported by higher sowing and crop acreage and better farmer liquidity aided by continued government efforts on increasing farmers' income.

However, fertiliser sales growth is likely to moderate in the rabi season despite the above positives due to increase in COVID-19 spread.

There are signs of increasing spread of coronavirus in rural areas, which has so far been largely immune, the report noted.

If the virus were to spread in rural geographies the way it has spread in urban areas, it is likely to lead to labour as well as funds shortage with farmers in the upcoming rabi season and affect fertiliser demand, the report added.
Montenegrins go to the polls on Sunday in a parliamentary election that looks too close to call, with neither the long-ruling pro-Western party nor a rival pro-Russian alliance tipped to win a majority of seats.

At stake is the political future of president Milo Djukanovic. He leads the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and has governed Montenegro since the start of the break-up of federal Yugoslavia in 1990 and through the dissolution of its union with Serbia in 2006.

Staunchly pro-western, Mr Djukanovic has overseen Montenegro's ongoing efforts to qualify for membership of the European Union and was instrumental in securing its accession to NATO in 2017.

The vote pits the DPS against an alliance of mainly Serb nationalist parties seeking closer ties to Serbia and Russia.

Led by university professor Zdravko Krivokapic, it is backed by the powerful Serbian Orthodox Church, which holds daily protests against a law adopted last December that allows the state to seize religious assets whose historical ownership cannot be proven.

Montenegrins who identify as Serbs account for about a third of the 620,000 population. Most Montenegrins and Serbs share language and the Orthodox faith, and many Serbian citizens have roots and families in Montenegro.

The DPS has 42 deputies in the current 81-seat parliament, but polls suggest neither it nor the nationalists are on course to secure an absolute majority, making them reliant on coalition partners to form a government.

Polling stations will open at 7am (0500GMT) and close at 8pm. First partial results are due around 10pm.

Opposition leaders and democracy and rights watchdogs have accused Mr Djukanovic and his party of running Montenegro as their own fiefdom with links to organised crime.

They deny this, and Mr Djukanovic  who faces re-election as the country's president in 2023  and his top associates have in turn accused Serbia and Russia of using the Church and the pro-Serb opposition to undermine the independence of the mountainous coastal republic.

Montenegro has also been combating a coronavirus outbreak that has infected more than 4,500 people, caused 89 deaths, and gutted the Adriatic tourism that is a key driver of its economy.

Reuters
Police in Migori over the weekend arrested a woman accused of defiling a Class 8 pupil.

Citizen Digital reported Sunday that area locals found the woman with the 14-year-old boy at her home in Nyamaraga, Suna West Sub County on Saturday evening.

Confirming the incident, Area Assistant Chief Evance Nyarube said he got a report from irate residents who complained about the suspects relationship with the teenager.

The administrator noted that the boys parents had repeatedly warned the two against having a relationship but their efforts were futile.

Mr. Nyarube added that investigations established that the suspect intended to marry the teenager.

The assistant chief said defilement is a crime stating that the suspect will face the law.

The suspect is expected to appear before a Migori court today, August 31.
One of the biggest casualties of The Bat Kiss has been mens fashion.

Research from Roy Morgan suggests that almost a third of all working Australians have been working from home since the start of the pandemic. With no need to scrub up for the office, many men have taken advantage of the situation to dress down in a big way: more baggy jeans and less snappy blazers.

Indeed, with so many fashion brands going under and no vaccine in sight (just yet), were worried that the humble suit will be yet another victim of 2020. Whats going to happen to Australian suit culture if work from home continues indefinitely?

DMARGE had the chance to speak exclusively with some top Australian tailors and pick their brains about where the future of suiting lies.

There has been a lot of talk over the years of the suit being dead and heralding the smart casual or casual office look, Miles Wharton, Aussie style authority and founder of The Bespoke Corner told DMARGE.

Nonetheless, if you consider the various menswear categories outside of activewear, the sartorial or tailored wear category is one of the only categories growing year on year. Why is that? Do the media have it wrong? The answer is YES  completely and utterly wrong.

Suiting is evolving and has always evolved what is the essence of going back to work? We are at work, regardless of the location. The COVID effect is not going to create a new fashion trend of wearing pyjamas to meetings. In fact, quite the opposite Men have had time to review their wardrobe and now look to bolster their assortment to break-out of active/loungewear and have a feel-good and look-good array of quality garments Call it revenge spending or simply getting back to the business of doing business.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Bespoke Corner (@thebespokecorner) on Aug 7, 2020 at 3:52pm PDT



So suits will exist in one form or another, but what might that form look like?

Suits will become more relaxed and more casual, Joe Farage, founder and director of Farage predicts.

Soft shoulders, more contemporary fabrics and styling that can be worn either as a suit or mixed back as separates. The casualisation of suiting was happening prior to COVID-19 [but] fast-tracked significantly due to most people working from home. Whilst I believe the traditional suit will not be dead for good, it will be more of an event-driven business rather than for work.

Patrick Johnson, the world-famous Australian tailor, thinks Australian couturiers will quickly adapt to the growing casualisation in mens businesswear that 2020 has accelerated.

We have seen a move to more casual clothing for sure. Also [brands] beefing up their web presence so clients can safely access their wares, and more focus on other technologies they can use to keep in touch with their clients and suppliers. For example, we usually would be running trunk shows all over Asia and the US but are now using technology to communicate with these clients. The great news is there are some fantastic solutions available I see these as a good stop-gap until we can travel again.

Compared to many other countries, Australia already has quite a laid-back, egalitarian work environment. Were not longer strictly confined to the business burqa: more casual looks are far more common in the 21st-century Australian workplace. We also benefit from being a season out from the Northern Hemisphere  we can take note of the latest businesswear trends in Europe and try them on ourselves six months later, adapting them to our environment as need be.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by P Johnson (@pjohnsontailors) on Aug 3, 2020 at 3:06pm PDT

Australia has always had the luxury of letting the Northern Hemisphere test colours and styles making the mistakes and highlighting the winners, Miles Wharton explains.

[Our] milder temperatures also offer a more substantial depth in ones wardrobe. [We dont] have to worry about 4 seasons and can focus on mainly two or one and a half!

The flexibility of the Australian wardrobe and our unique climate means the way Australian tailors design and create clothes are very different from those in other parts of the world. Its a unique skill set and aesthetic: one that will place Australian designers ahead of the curve when it comes to bouncing back from the trials and tribulations of 2020.

Australian couturiers have a fresh, adaptive and unique approach to everything we do, Joe Farage proudly relates.

The world has now woken up to the importance of supporting artisans. With Australia having two significant events this year, first the bush fires, then The Pandemic, I truly believe there has been a very strong shift to supporting our own and shopping for products that are Australian owned or even better, products that are made in Australia.

These times have put the focus on where your money is spent and the importance of supporting local, Wharton concurs.

Its a no brainer  the best way to keep suit culture alive in this country and to keep on top of trends as a consumer is to purchase suits from local tailors where possible.

The consensus is that while business attire is certainly getting more casual and working from home does threaten the suit somewhat, there will always be a need for a quality suit (or two) in the Australian mans wardrobe.

As much as some of us are enjoying working from home, people need the energy of other people, we are social animals and a video call is a poor substitute for a chat at the water cooler. The suit will always have a place, Patrick Johnson concludes.

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A chicken processing plant in central California has been ordered to shut down after it became the site of one of the largest and most severe COVID-19 outbreaks in the state, health officials said.

The order to close the Foster Farms Livingston Facility came after at least 358 employees tested positive and eight employees died because of the the coronavirus, according to a letter obtained from the Merced County Health Department, the Merced Sun-Star reported Thursday.

The plant was ordered to close last week but Merced Countys spokesperson Mike North said county officials issued a 48-hour stay to the shutdown order that expired Saturday at 6 p.m. to help facilitate logistics associated with any necessary closure.

North said the enforcement stay came after officials received a phone call from the U.S. Department of Agricultures secretary for food safety. He gave no other details.

Foster Farms said in a statement the plant continued to operate Friday, that there would be comprehensive testing and that follow up testing would be done to ensure that COVID-19 prevalence remains minimal. The company did not address the shutdown order.

The company said it has cooperated with health officials and that it has an extensive history of successfully working with federal, state, and local agencies.

Foster Farms has provided weekly data to the Merced County Health Department since June 30, and consistently offered to answer any questions related to that data. We have promptly responded to any and all recommendations and directives from the department, it added.

State Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement that Foster Farms poultry operation in the small city of Livingston has experienced an alarming spread of COVID-19 among its workers.

Nobody can ignore the facts: Its time to hit the reset button on Foster Farms Livingston plant, Becerra said.

The California Department of Public Health also issued a statement to support the countys action, with Acting State Health Officer Erica Pan saying Foster Farms needs to understand it has a legal obligation to comply with public health orders and guidance, as well as an obligation to its workers and to the people of Merced County and surrounding counties.

The outbreak at the Livingston Facility accounts for 18% of COVID-19 deaths in the county under age 65, 7% of total county deaths, and 4 out of 10 coronavirus deaths in Livingston, the health department said.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some  especially older adults and people with existing health problems  it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.

Foster Farms employs about 12,000 people in turkey processing in Turlock and at chicken plants in Livingston, Fresno and Porterville as well as in Oregon, Washington, Louisiana, and Alabama. About 3,750 people work at the Livingston facility, which is one of the worlds largest chicken plants.

In its letter, the state health department said the Livingston plant outbreak was of particular concern because other Foster Farms facilities in multiple counties also are experiencing outbreaks.

The letter did not provide any details about the other plant outbreaks.

In the letter, health department officials say they attempted to curb the Livingston outbreak several times to no avail.

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health visited the Livingston facility along with the county health department on Aug. 3 and noticed the countys initial recommendations had not been adopted. According to the letter, the county reissued testing directives on Aug. 5 and Aug. 11 that went unmet.

As a result, the State Attorney Generals Office, the California Department of Public Health and the county health department worked with Foster Farms to limit the impact of the closure and could not reach agreement, according to the statement.

The closure of this plant is the only way to get the outbreak at Foster Farms swiftly under control. Our hearts are with the eight families who have lost a loved one, Merced County Public Health Office Dr. Salvador Sandoval said in the statement.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics California COVID-19 Agribusiness
This year has brought more than its fair share of communication challenges for Albuquerques largest employers, ranging from keeping workers motivated and engaged during the rapid shift toward working from home, to trying to speak honestly about diversity in the wake of racial justice protests earlier this summer.

I think weve actually had two viruses  weve got a pandemic, and weve got racism, said Michele Reeves, chief inclusion and diversity officer at Presbyterian Healthcare Services. Theyre prevalent in everyones lives  and they carry that over to work.

Presbyterian and other employers have responded by hastily erecting new programs  from impromptu days off to virtual book clubs  aimed at keeping employees healthy and productive during a year that sometimes seems designed to prevent that.

The work is hard, but Reeves said the rewards are substantial. She said employers who support their workers through these challenging times can expect more buy-in from existing employees, which could help cement them as a more attractive place for future employees.

People will really remember how an organization responded to the pandemic, how they respond to Black Lives Matter, and we want that to be an advantage for us, added Joanne Suffis, Presbyterians chief human resources officer.

Communication chaos

Theres little doubt the challenges of 2020 have taken a toll on the psyche of American workers. Monthly surveys published by the American Psychological Association have shown consistently higher levels of stress among the general population since the number of COVID-19 cases began spiking earlier this year, citing a variety of factors including the pandemic itself, job uncertainty and concern about racial injustice.

Within a few weeks of the first cases being discovered in New Mexico, many workplaces in the state had temporarily shut down or transitioned to remote work.

Maggie Tannen, vice president of HR and training for U.S. Eagle, said the credit union was able to move the majority of its employees to remote work with

relative ease, praising the hero effort from the companys IT team.

At Sandia National Laboratories, up to 75% of the organizations New Mexico workers at one point were working remotely.

Valerie Smith, senior manager for communications at Sandia, said the company built a website designed to keep workers informed about the pandemic.

In any crisis, employees want to hear from their leaders, Smith said.

As the pandemic wore on, what began as a disaster response evolved into an accepted way of doing business, with Zoom calls replacing in-person meetings and morning walks around the block replacing commutes.

But as the new stresses of working from home take a toll, organizations have had to find creative ways to keep their employees focused and involved.

Smith said Sandia set up a program that lets workers donate unused vacation hours to other employees struggling with childcare and other needs during the pandemic. Smith said more than 20,000 hours have been donated since the program began.

Renee Holland, director of employee health services at the laboratory, said the organization moved its onsite behavioral assistance program online, and offered options like virtual yoga during lunch to keep employees active even at a distance.

Along the same lines, the University of New Mexicos Health Sciences Center began offering a series of webinars on how mental and physical health are intertwined. The 30-minute webinars, aimed at both students and employees, began in April and target specific areas tied to both areas of health, according to HSC spokesman Mark Rudi.

Tannen said U.S. Eagle took a more direct approach, letting managers offer time off on a rotating basis as needed. In addition to discouraging workers from coming in sick, Tannen said the paid time off has given employees a chance to recharge during a crazy period.

Your mental health is just as important as your physical health, Tannen said.

Protests and policy

The shooting of George Floyd in Minnesota in late May and the wave of protests it sparked across the country also forced some employers to take stock of their approach to inclusivity.

Many large New Mexico employers already had robust diversity training programs before 2020 began, and they agreed that the groundwork they laid served them well.

Neil Reagin, director of human resources for U.S. Eagle, credited the credit unions leadership structure for creating an office culture that helped encourage conversation following the protests.

Theres a lot of organizations that  are still building that culture of communication, Reagin said.

Esther Hernandez, chief diversity officer for Sandia, said when the lab moved to a predominantly remote-work environment, the diversity initiatives followed suit. Hernandez said the company implemented virtual trainings, through group chats and seminar-style classes.

Well continue to foster an organization culture where inclusion and diversity are a cornerstone, Hernandez said.

Presbyterians Reeves said the healthcare provider used the protests as a jumping-off point. After talking to some Presbyterian employees, Reeves said the company is working to eliminate racism across the system, both in its hiring practices and at the workplace itself.

Presbyterian is one of two New Mexico organizations participating in Schwartz Rounds, an international program that allows caregivers to share their experience and connect over the human side of medicine.

I really think Ive seen, more than ever, people wanting to have a place where they can have a safe dialogue, Reeves said.

Additionally, Presbyterian has launched an online book club for employees to read stories about diversity in healthcare. For example, one book on the list, Small Great Things, by Jodi Picault, focuses on a nurses experience with an African American patient.

Beyond the human dimension, Reeves and Hernandez said they expect their organizations approach to pay dividends. Hernandez said the organization feels its diversity  37.4% of employees are non-white, according to demographics published on its website  helps the labs do more innovative work.

That is one of our primary responsibilities at Sandia, is innovative solutions to national challenges, Hernandez said.

Reeves added that she believes that Presbyterians work will lead to greater trust in and satisfaction with the organization, ultimately making it easier to keep current employees and attract new ones.

Theres a real value in helping people feel like they belong to an organization, Reeves said.
Pershing Square Capital Management recently released its Q2 2020 Investor Letter, a copy of which you can download here. The fund posted a return of 28.9% during the first half of 2020, outperforming its benchmark, the S&P 500 Index which returned -3.1% in the same period. You should check out Pershing Square's top 5 stock picks for investors to buy right now, which could be the biggest winners of the stock market crash.

In the said letter, Pershing Square highlighted a few stocks and Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE:QSR) is one of them. Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE:QSR) is a fast food restaurant company. Year-to-date, Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE:QSR) stock lost 14.3% and on August 28th it had a closing price of $55.41. Here is what Pershing Square said:

"Restaurant Brands sales continued to improve through July due to the companys quick response to Covid-19, the benefits of its off-premise and value-focused business model, and the easing of shelter-in-place orders. While Restaurant Brands share price has recovered more than 90% from its bottom in March, it still remains down 13% year to date, and 28% below its high last year prior to the onset of the Coronavirus. In addition to bolstering safety procedures, QSR shifted its marketing to highlight its off-premise business including drive-thru, delivery, and digital ordering. The company is making significant digital investments by expanding its delivery footprint, driving mobile app adoption, and improving loyalty programs. To support franchisees, the company moved from fixed to variable rent at locations it controls, and temporarily deferred rents for certain franchisees. QSR also provided franchisees with additional liquidity from rebates and cash advance programs, and by pausing capital commitment requirements. At Burger King U.S., same-store sales have improved to flat, primarily due to an increase in drive-thru sales. At Popeyes U.S., same-store sales quickly recovered, now growing in the high-twenties percent, even as this years sales begin to lap the launch last year of its highly successful chicken sandwich. While Tim Hortons same-store sales have recovered to negative low-single-digits percent in the U.S., they remain in the negative mid-teens percent in Canada due to a slower pace of reopening, and lower drive-thru penetration. With the easing of shelter-in-place orders, more than 90% of QSRs restaurants are now open. As a result of the companys quick actions and significant recovery in sales along with the support of various government programs, management estimates that the vast majority of franchisees at all three concepts are cash-flow positive in their home markets. The company expects its system-wide unit growth to be flat in 2020 as it works with franchisees to optimize its global footprint, and to return to its mid-single-digit historical growth rate in 2021. We believe that each of Restaurant Brands concepts will emerge stronger from the crisis as its restaurant concepts are competitively advantaged in a socially distant and more budget-conscious consumption environment, enhanced by the companys continued investment in drive-thru, delivery and digital. We believe that Restaurant Brands current valuation does not reflect its improving business fundamentals, strengthening competitive position, ample liquidity, and long-term unit growth opportunity. We believe that as underlying sales trends at each of its brands, in particular, Tim Hortons, continue to improve, QSRs share price will more accurately reflect our view of the companys business fundamentals."

Story continues

Pixabay/Public Domain

In Q1 2020, the number of bullish hedge fund positions on Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE:QSR) stock decreased by about 21% from the previous quarter (see the chart here), so a number of other hedge fund managers don't seem to agree with Restaurant Brands International's growth potential. Our calculations showed that Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE:QSR) isn't ranked among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 185% since the end of 2014 and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 109 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds' poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Below you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

Video: Top 5 Stocks Among Hedge Funds

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost precious metals prices. So, we are checking out this junior gold mining stock.. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in America to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. You can subscribe to our free enewsletter below to receive our stories in your inbox:

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says early fears that Sydney's CBD coronavirus cluster could explode have subsided, with low case numbers and no evidence of it spreading to other suburbs.

Ms Berejiklian said if the numbers remained low, health advice banning visitors to aged care homes could be scrapped ahead of Father's Day on Sunday.

Premier Gladys Berejiklilan says it was pleasing to see people socially distancing at busy Sydney beaches on the weekend. Credit:Edwina Pickles

NSW recorded 10 new COVID-19 cases in the latest reporting period, but six of those were returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

The four cases detected in the community were linked to the CBD cluster, after 14,232 tests.
Scientists have warned that a rush to announce the world's first COVID-19 vaccine could lead to the rollout of an inferior drug, that might not be safe and effective. According to a report in The Guardian, a professor from Oxford University and an adviser to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Sir Richard Peto said that the nationalistic and capitalistic sentiments surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine could force countries to launch less effective drugs in a rush to become first.

Read: Canada Cancels Massive Covid Vaccine Agreement With China As Xi & Co Fail To Deliver

Prof Peto warned that if a less effective vaccine is approved then it will become very difficult to evaluate future drugs for the disease. He said that vaccine is urgently needed but we need a vaccine that works and is also safe.

This comes as the United Kingdom's Department of Health said that it would take emergency measures to push a vaccine as soon as possible before the end of the year. The United States President is also pushing for a vaccine so that he could launch it before the upcoming presidential poll in November.

Peto, who is a member of the WHOs Solidarity Vaccines Trial Expert Group, said that it better to have no vaccine than a poor one as it might worsen the ongoing pandemic as people would wrongly assume they are immune to the disease and would feel that there is no longer a need to not follow COVID-19 restrictions.

Read: US-based Medical College Ties Up With India's BE To Develop COVID-19 Vaccine

Russia recently announced a drug in what it claimed is the world's first COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine candidate named 'Sputnik V' has received widespread condemnation as Russia launched it without conduction advanced trials on humans.

Following criticism, Russia announced a clinical trial on people saying it would inoculate over 40,000 citizens. While announcing the "world's first COVID-19 vaccine" earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that one of his daughters has taken the drug in order to propagate that it is safe and effective for use.

COVID-19 pandemic

Meanwhile, the United States remains the worst-hit nation with over 5.9 million cases and at least 1,83,000 deaths to date, followed by Brazil, India, and Russia. The global tally from the disease stands at 25 million infections with over 844,700 deaths as of August 31.

Read: COVID-19: Two Indian Vaccine Candidates In Phase 2 Trials, Says Niti Aayog Member

Read: Russia Announces Advanced Trials For Its COVID-19 Vaccine, Invites Volunteers


The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation donation row is back, with the alleging on Monday that firms linked with absconders like have donated to RGF, calling the donation a "scam".

" is involved in the Punjab Bank fraud case. Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has received many lakhs of rupees from the Foundation of Mehul Choksi," alleged spokesperson Sambit Patra in a press conference.

He further alleged, " ke naam par Geetanjali Group hai. Under this comes another company M/s Naviraj Estates. This company donated Rs 10 lakh to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation on 29 August 2014 through cheque number 676400." Patra gave these details during Monday's media briefing.

The went ahead and linked another absconder Zakir Naik to RGF, a Fund run by the Gandhis. "His organisation, Islamic Research Foundation, is under investigation under PMLA. The donation to RGF was made from Account Number - 00120200000126 in DCB Bank. This account number is seized under PMLA," alleged Patra while referring to Zakir Naik.

The BJP also alleged that the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation which earlier has been in the eye of a storm for receiving donations from China, has received funds from Rana Kapoor of Yes Bank and Jignesh Shah of FTIL.

Patra alleged that the Yes Bank "scam" which is based on "diversion" becomes even more significant given that Rs 9 cr 45 lakhs was "diverted" from Yes Bank to RGF. "It wasn't Rana Kapoor's money but Yes Bank's which was yours and mine which was diverted to the Foundation of Ma and Beta," alleged Patra.

He also accused the FTIL of donating Rs 50 lakh to RGF on October 27, 2011. Patra said that the company was "already under investigation".

-- IANS

abn/avk/bg

(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.)
UW Ph.D. candidate Craig Calkins works with animal care specialist Cpl. Kathryn Elzen, of Freeport, Ill. The researchers are trying to unravel the mystery of why horn flies target some cattle over others. Credit: Derek Scasta

Two cows. Same University of Wyoming McGuire Ranch pasture northeast of Laramie near Sybille Canyon.

One cow has 383 horn flies sucking her blood; the other cow has four.

Why that remarkable difference?

A Cody High School graduate turned veterinarian, turned Army major, and now a Ph.D. student at UW, Craig Calkins is helping UW Extension range specialist Derek Scasta unravel the mystery of a pestilence that costs the livestock industry billions of dollars in losses.

Calkins is eyeing whether shorter blood-clotting times of individual animals clog a fly's attempts, whether a thicker hide frustrates flies, and if elevation and environmental conditions, such as colder and wetter areas, affect fly parasitism.

Considered a filth fly, horn flies (Haematobia irritans) feast on a cow's blood, leave to lay their eggs in manure, and then fly back to their beef buffet. Eggs hatch after about two weeks, and a new generation begins.

The flies pierce the hide and inject an anticoagulant to help free the flow of blood. Cattle swing their heads, slap their tails and twitch their skin in attempts to stop the biting.

"Seeing an animal with horn flies is a really discouraging situation when you think about that animal," says Scasta, who notes the constant irritation. "Cattle producers suffer production losses because the animal is losing blood, but also because of these annoyance avoidance behaviors. Every time that animal picks its head up and swings, it's not taking a bite of grass, so grazing time decreases."

He says other scientists have found such cows produce less milk, which lowers weaning weights. The biting also slows growth rates of the younger animals, such as calves or yearlings.

Some animals will be bothered more than others in any group.

"They may all look similar as far as you and I can tell, but there will be some cows infested more than others," he says. "We're trying to identify the traits those individual animals have that make them more or less susceptible to parasitism."

Calkins' study began with help from the military. The 438th Medical Detachment (Veterinary Service Support) from Fort Carson, Colo., helped draw blood from UW cattle, and Calkins analyzed blood-clotting times. Hide thickness in three different areas was measured using ultrasound.

"We were kind of surprised how fast some of the cows' blood coagulated," says Calkins, a graduate of Chadron State College who joined the Army in 2012 as a veterinarian. "Sometimes, it would be clotted in the tube before we could even get to the machine to run it."

Army veterinarians have to return to school and specialize to continue in the service. They have several options. Calkins chose public health, and the program in rangeland ecology and watershed management at UW returned him to his home state. After eight years in the military and deployments overseas, including Iraq, Calkins is happy to be where he is.

"I can't think of a better place to be," says Calkins, who lives with his wife and children in Cheyenne, and whose travels take him across the varied vistas of his home state.

Cattle studied include those in the Bighorn Mountains and lower-altitude herds at the James C. Hageman Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension Center near Lingle. Other cattle are near Cheyenne, Cody and on the McGuire Ranch.

Calkins' study requires documenting the extent of horn fly parasitism on cattle. He notes that trends across the state show decreasing horn fly parasitism at higher elevations.

"This is related to colder temperatures as elevation increases," he says.

Full-frame, high-resolution photos of individual cows, taken just after sunup, are analyzed on a computer, and the numbers of horn flies are counted by rangeland ecology and watershed management undergraduate Cora Knowles, of Santa Maria, Calif.

"The sun illuminates the whole side of the cow, so the flies are really easy to see," Calkins says. "You're counting all of the flies over the body. We stratify the head, side of the legs, the belly, brisket and tailhead."

Horn flies are easy to spot.

"They are a different size and, for some reason, horn flies always eat with the head down so their wings are making a "V,'" he says. "Who knew?"

Only one side of a cow is counted.

"So, realistically, whatever number we come up with is likely doubled," Calkins says.

The highest fly count was 383, noted July 4 last year, and that was just one side, he says.

"The next were 319, 280, 229, 219, 205 and 190," he says. "The lowest was four. So, what's the difference between the cows on the top and the cows at the bottom? That's what I'm trying to find out."

The goal is to identify traits that make an animal more prone to parasitism, and then cull it from the herd.

"Potentially removing those outlier cows that you know are super-prone to parasitism could save producers a lot of money," Calkins says.

Producers use various treatment options, Scasta says. Those include a fed-through product containing an insect growth regulator, spraying, ear tags that contain an insecticide and back rubbers that disperse a chemical.

Each has its limitations, including insects becoming resistant to the insecticides, like some weeds are becoming herbicide-resistant, or the need for retreatment.

The data from the study may help develop options that help producers save money.

"If we are going to have an integrated pest management approach, some of these other things will be really important so we can select for certain cows that are less susceptible," Scasta says.

Explore further New trap better at snaring stable flies
SRINAGAR: A Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) of the Army was killed possibly in a sniper attack from across the Line of Control (LoC) in Nowshera sector of Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri district on Sunday.

The Army sources identified the slain Naib Subedar (JCO) as Rajvinder Singh of 1 Sikh Regiment. The sources said that though the exact cause of the fatality is not known it could be a sniper attack, a ceasefire violation or a sneak attack by infiltrators. There could be some other reason behind this killing. Were investigating and trying to ascertain how actually he was killed, the sources said.

An earlier report had said that the facing armies traded small arms fire in Kalsiyan and Jhangar areas of Nowshera sector after suspicious movement was observed by Indian Army near the fence early Sunday. It is likely that Naib Subedar Singh was killed during that exchange of fire, he report had said.

The Indian and Pakistani armies and border guards often clash along the LoC and also International Border (IB) in J&K. As per official statics, 16 Army and BSF personnel, three civilian porters working for the Army, seven militants and infiltrators and an equal number of civilians were killed in the incidents of cross-border firing and shelling, clashes and sneak attacks carried out by militants along the LoC and 198-km stretch of IB with Pakistan in Jammu region-called Working Boundary by Islamabad, so far, this year. After each violation of the November 2003 ceasefire understanding, the two sides have accused each other of initiating firing.
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Two RAF Typhoon jets escorted a Ryanair plane after responding within five minutes after a terror alert was sounded over a 'suspicious item' in the toilet - which turned out to be a mobile phone.

Police have released two Kuwaiti and Italian men without charge and said no terror incident took place on board the diverted flight after realising they were ordinary passengers.

Two Typhoons were scrambled from RAF Coningsby to intercept the Lauda jet before armed police surrounded it on the runway when it landed at Stansted from Vienna at around 7.20pm yesterday.

The crew had alerted police to a potential 'security threat' on board, and after landing two men aged 24 and 48 were arrested by anti-terror police and taken into custody. They have now been released and the investigation closed.

It costs up to 90,000 an hour to run a Typhoon fighter jet. Based on an estimated mission time of 30 minutes, the total cost to launch the two involved would by 90,000. The RAF does not comment on mission times for security reasons.

RAF Typhoon fighter is pictured yesterday being refuelled by an RAF Voyager after intercepting the Ryanair flight

Police have released two Kuwaiti and Italian men without charge and said no terror incident took place on board the diverted flight

The crew had alerted police to a potential 'security threat' on board, and after landing two men aged 24 and 48 were arrested by anti-terror police and taken into custody. They have now been released and the investigation closed

Do you know the two arrested men? Contact tips@dailymail.com Advertisement

Two Typhoons accompanied the Ryanair jet as it landed at Stansted airport in Essex.

Passenger Joanna Czechowska said officers boarded and took away two men after the suspicious items were discovered in the toilets.

She tweeted last night: 'There are armed police all around. They told us to put our seat belts back on. We are parked in a remote area.

'The police have come back on board and taken two men away.

'They found suspicious objects in the toilets and called the police. All seems ok now! That was scary.'

The two suspects were held in custody but released this morning.

A spokesman for the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit, which fights terrorism and organised crime, today confirmed the 'suspicious object' was a phone that was found in the toilets.

RAF Typhoon: Agile fighter with a top speed of 1381mph The Typhoon FGR4 provides the RAF with a highly capable and extremely agile multi-role combat aircraft, capable of being deployed in the full spectrum of air operations, including air policing, peace support and high intensity conflict. The two-seater Typhoon multirole jet fighter belongs to the 29 Squadron of the Royal Air Force at RAF Coningsby. It has a twin-engine and canard-delta wing. Development of the aircraft began in 1983 and a prototype took its first flight in March 1994. Other key facts include: Engines: 2 Eurojet EJ200 turbojets Thrust: 20,000lbs each Max speed: 1381.08mph Length: 15.96 yards Max altitude: 55,000ft Span: 11.09m Aircrew: 1 Armament: Paveway IV, AMRAAM, ASRAAM, Mauser 27mm Cannon, Enhanced Paveway II Advertisement

In a statement he added: 'Officers investigating reports of a suspicious device on a flight landing at London Stansted Airport yesterday have concluded their enquiries.

'Following reports of a suspicious device in the bathroom of a plane arriving from Vienna, Austria, shortly after 7pm, Counter Terrorism Policing officers from the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) detained two men under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act (2000).

'After examination by specialist investigators, the object was found not to be of concern. Officers spoke with the two men and neither were considered to have committed any offences.'

Detective Superintendent Andy Waldie said: 'We understandably take any reports of suspicious objects or behaviour on flights very seriously and thankfully on this occasion there was no cause for concern.

'I'd like to thank those on the flight for their cooperation and understanding while officers conducted their enquiries.'

Ryanair said: 'The crew of a Ryanair flight from Vienna to London Stansted this evening were alerted of a potential security threat on board.

'In line with procedures, the captain informed UK authorities and continued to London Stansted, where the aircraft landed normally and taxied to a remote stand where passengers disembarked safely.

'Passengers in London Stansted waiting to depart to Vienna were transferred to a spare aircraft to minimise the delay to their flight.

The RAF said: 'Typhoon fighter aircraft from RAF Coningsby were launched this evening to intercept a civilian aircraft. The aircraft was escorted safely to Stansted.'

The jets were thought to have then headed in the direction of Cheltenham to be refueled, before appearing to return towards base at RAF Coningsby.

Armed police surrounded the Lauda aircraft, which is a subsidiary of RyanAir, after it landed on the tarmac at Stansted on Sunday

Two RAF Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled to escort a passenger jet at London Stansted Airport yesterday evening

Joanna Czechowksa was on board the passenger flight which was escorted to London Stansted Airport just after 7pm yesterday

Flight radars spotted both jets flying down to the Essex airport from their base at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire

Do you know the two arrested men? Contact tips@dailymail.com
Photo for illustration. (Source: CPV)

Of the figure, 3.05 million arrived in Vietnam by air, while 580,000 and 140,000 entered the country via land and sea routes.



In August, the country welcomed 163,000 foreign arrivals, up 17% from the previous month but still marking a 99% reduction compared to the same period last year.

Over the past 8 months, visitors from Asia made up 73% the total number of international arrivals to Vietnam, down nearly 70% over the same period last year.

Most markets saw sharp decline in number of travelers to Vietnam, such as China (72.3%), the Republic of Korea (70.5%), Japan (67.4%), Thailand (59.2%), and Malaysia (69.5%).

However, arrivals from neighboring Cambodia increased by nearly 71%, according to the GSO.

GSO said total tourism revenue in the eight months was estimated at VND13.1 trillion, down 54.4% year on year./.
Powerful Sky Model, Adaptive Environment Sampling and Over 75 New Materials Now Available for Artists and Designers

PRAGUE, Czech Republic, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Chaos Czech releases Corona Renderer 6 for 3ds Max, a new update that packs more realism, faster rendering and simpler workflows into six new main features. By addressing everything from foam to the sky, Corona Renderer 6 opens up a new level of creative control for artists and designers who want to make their 3D objects and environments stand out.

A new Sky Model can now accurately depict twilight and dawn, now providing gorgeous results down to 2.85 degrees (or roughly 5.4 sun diameters) below the horizon. Because this model is fully procedural, it is also easy to animate, enabling the simple creation of time-lapse sunrises and sunsets. Multiple skies/suns can be also added to any scene, so artists can toggle through options like dusk and afternoon using LightMix.

With the Adaptive Environment Sampler, artists can access cleaner, more accurate environment lighting without adding skylight portals. Noise levels are now 2x better, with some tests showing 9x in special cases.

Corona Renderer 6 also comes with a massive Material Library update that brings 78 additional archviz-ready assets to designers looking for even more photoreal options they can drag-and-drop into their scenes. Three new categories have been added including flooring, carpet and ceramic tiles, along with 13 new additions to the previous concrete library.

Other New Features Include :

New Bloom and Glare Controls  New lens effects allow greater realism and creativity with the inclusion of lens dust, scratches and more.





Texture Randomization  Automatically remove tiling artifacts with the new option in the UVWRandomizer for more believability across a scene.





Phoenix FD Foam Support  Simulate/render foam for more realistic water features (fountains, hot tubs), flowing liquids and more.

Story continues

To try Corona Renderer 6 for 3ds Max now, please visit the Chaos Czech website.

Pricing/Availability

Corona Renderer 6 is available now for 3ds Max 2013-2021 (64-bit). Pricing is subscription-based, with monthly rates set at $28.50 and yearly rates at $330. A free 45-day commercial trial is also available at: https://corona-renderer.com/download.

About Chaos Czech

Chaos Czech are the creators of Corona Renderer, a high-performance photorealistic rendering engine. Chaos Czech is a leader in architectural visualization software, where it offers a simple, yet powerful approach for professional artists. Chaos Czech continues to bring this approach to its development of new tools and technologies for architectural visualization, VFX and broadcast. Chaos Czech, a Chaos Group company, is headquartered in Prague.

About Chaos Group

Chaos Group is a worldwide leader in computer graphics technology, helping artists and designers create photorealistic imagery and animation for architecture, design, and visual effects. Chaos Groups award-winning physically-based rendering and simulation software is used daily by top design studios, architectural firms, advertising agencies, and visual effects companies around the globe. Today, the company's research and development in ray-traced rendering, cloud computing and real-time ray tracing is shaping the future of creative storytelling and digital design. Founded in 1997, Chaos Group is privately owned with offices in Sofia, Los Angeles, Prague, Seoul, and Tokyo. For more information, visit: chaosgroup.com.

Attachment

CONTACT: Colin McLaughlin 5037969822 colin@liaisonpr.com




CHESHIRE  An elementary school teacher in the district has tested positive for COVID-19 and an administrator who has reported symptoms of the virus is awaiting test results, Superintendent of Schools Jeff Solan said Monday.

Solan said the teacher was asymptomatic but underwent testing after learning that a personal friend had tested positive for the virus. The teacher had also been in close contact with several school personnel, he said.

Its going to mean a little bit of juggling at the elementary level while those who were affected quarantine, Solan said. Students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade will be attending school full-time in person, he said.

The administrator was tested yesterday, he said, and should know the results within a couple of days. Solan said the administrator had been in close contact  defined as within six feet even when masked for, 15 minutes or longer  with several staff members from Cheshire High School and Dodd Middle School.

Classrooms and offices that the teacher and the administrator used will be specially disinfected, according to Solan.

A positive test does not require us to close the school nor an entire classroom, Solan said.

Solan notified staff, parents and students about the two educators health in an email Monday afternoon.

More News CT schools COVID-19 case tracker

The news came as teachers were engaged in both remote and in-person professional development sessions for the start of classes on Sept. 8. Although only one elementary school was affected, Solan said district officials decided to have all elementary personnel now work remotely to ensure uniform professional learning.

Solan said despite the news, there are no plans to change the staggered opening that is in place. The development sessions will be done remotely for the next two days before a resumption of in-person training later in the week, minus the elementary school teacher, the administrator and those with whom they came in contact .

Going in alphabetical order, the opening plan has one-third of the students attending the first day, another third starting on Sept. 9 and the final third the following day. Solan said those three days will serve as a orientation for the students on what is expected of them.

Solan said students will attend class in person two days a week and attend classes remotely three days per week.

The students will be split into two groups, Cohort A and Cohort B, with the first group attending school in person on Mondays and Thursdays, he said . Students in Cohort B will attend in person on Tuesdays and Fridays.

All students will engage in remote learning on Wednesdays, Solan said.

Members of the school community, including children, who come in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 will be asked to self-quarantine for 14 days, Solan said. The policy is based upon state Department of Public Health guidance, he said.

luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, MI - Before students returned to Central Michigan Universitys campus in Mount Pleasant for the fall, there were 25 cases of the novel coronavirus among CMUs students, faculty and staff in the nine weeks between mid-June and Aug. 16.

In the two weeks since, that number has grown by 117, for a total of 142 cases among the campus community since June, according to the universitys COVID-19 webpage.

Positive cases at CMUs Mount Pleasant campus grew at a faster rate between Monday, Aug. 24 and Sunday, Aug. 30, than during the week of Aug. 17. The university found 63 new cases over the past week, compared to 54 during the prior week.

The Central Michigan District Health Department reported 134 total cases related to students returning to Isabella County as of Friday, Aug. 28. Those numbers include current and former students, as well as community members associated with them.

In a letter to the community sent Friday, CMU President Bob Davies said most of the new cases are connected to three off-campus houses previously identified as hot spots for the spike. The university will offer on campus testing beginning this week and will start updating its campus case numbers daily on Tuesday, Sept. 1.

At this point, we are not seeing community spread from existing cases, Davies said in the letter. The data seems to uphold our decision to continue to offer in-person instruction. We will continue to monitor this virus closely and to work alongside our partners in the health department and local government to make decisions about our operations.

Saginaw Valley State University reported five new cases over the pasts week, for a total of eight since Aug. 17.

Read more:

Central Michigan University now has 110 coronavirus cases related to students

16 more coronavirus cases linked to students returning to Central Michigan University

Outdoor gatherings in Mount Pleasant limited to 25 after Central Michigan University coronavirus spike
A drone floating serenely off the Florida coast, checking out the beaches and towers, almost gets sliced and diced by a chopper racing by.

"The Federal Aviation Administration has launched an investigation of a near collision off the Hollywood coast," reports CBS Miami.

The hotel you can see at the beginning of the clip is the Westin Diplomat, which is 440ft tall, and the drone is exatly level with the top. The FAA has a 400ft heigh limit on drones, with exceptions. Someone's gonna get in trouble.
By Trend

Uzbek-Azerbaijani relations have characteristics of a strategic partnership, Ambassador of Uzbekistan to Azerbaijan, Bakhrom Ashrafkhanov told Trend in an interview.

"Undoubtedly, the basis of such a high level of relations is a close and trusting dialogue between the leaders of our countries. It is gratifying that recently both sides have witnessed the growth of bilateral relations in all directions, including trade and economic sphere," stressed Ashrafkhanov.

As an example, in 2019 trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan increased by 55.7 percent to $73.4 million.

"No less important is the fact that despite the current crisis phenomena in the global economy caused by the coronavirus pandemic, trade and economic relations between our countries continue to demonstrate positive growth dynamics," he stated.

In the first half of 2020, bilateral trade between Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan increased by 77.7 percent, compared to the same period in 2019, to $47.5 million.

Ambassador Ashrafkhanov stressed that these figures do not reflect the full potential of bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

He also emphasized that both sides are making purposeful efforts to further increase mutual trade turnover.

"For example, during the period from June 9 through June 12, 2020, sides held the Made in Uzbekistan Online business forum, with the participation of representatives of official and business circles of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan," Ashrafkhanov said.

During this event, representatives of Azerbaijan were able to get acquainted with a wide range of Uzbek products in various directions, including agricultural, textile, electrical, automotive, and mining industries.

"The results of the business forum exceeded our expectations. Thus, more than 50 Uzbek producers of export-oriented products established contacts with representatives of more than 100 Azerbaijani companies," said the ambassador.

In this regard, the sides initiated a highly specialized 'Made in Uzbekistan' Textile online business forum in the period from August 25 through August 27, 2020.

Ashrafkhanov said the program of this event envisages intensive B2B meetings.

"In particular, 30 Uzbek producers of export-oriented textile products will have a unique opportunity to establish contacts with buyers, distributors, specialists of sewing enterprises, ateliers, representatives of retail chains, as well as potential investors from Azerbaijan," noted Bakhrom Ashrafkhanov.

"I am confident that this forum will be a milestone event in strengthening and further developing Uzbek-Azerbaijani relations" stated the ambassador.

He also stressed that transportation routes from Central Asia through the Caspian Sea and further through the Caucasus are becoming especially

"In this regard, the widespread use of the Trans-Caucasus Transport Corridor for the transportation of increasing volumes of export-import cargo is in the interests of our states. We also believe that the transport corridor Baku-Tbilisi-Kars, as well as the commissioning of the Baku International Port, establishes new routes to international markets. In this context, we are grateful that the Azerbaijani side is making an effort to form transport corridors and necessary infrastructure," stressed Ashrafkhanov.

Ashrafkhanov noted that at present, the Uzbek side is carefully analyzing the possibilities of increasing its cargo flow through these corridors and an active negotiation process between the involved structures of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan is underway.

"Recently we have been promoting interregional cooperation, taking into account its important role in bringing our brotherly countries and people together. In this context, we are satisfied with the announcement of Rishtan and Ismayilli as sister cities in 2018. Last year's visit of the delegation of the Bukhara region to Lankaran city, as well as to Lerik, Astara and Masalli districts of Azerbaijan was a continuation of our activities in this direction," said the ambassador.

He also added that sides will start working on further expansion of interregional cooperation soon.

According to the ambassador, the Uzbek side is pleased that Azerbaijani entrepreneurs have shown great interest in Uzbekistan, given the large-scale transformations taking place in the country.

"As you know, under the leadership of President of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, special attention is paid to the creation of a favorable business environment for foreign investors interested in realization of their projects in our country. At the present stage in Uzbekistan has one of the most favorable conditions for investments and starting a business," stated Ashrafkhanov.

He also added that these conditions are not just the result of economic liberalization but also sign of professionalism and perseverance of Uzbek people

As he said, currently seven projects worth about $80 million are being implemented in Andijan, Bukhara, Kashkadarya, Syrdarya, and Fergana regions of Uzbekistan, as well as in Tashkent city in cooperation with Azerbaijani Embassy.

At the same time, several other investment projects are under consideration, which covers sectors such as construction, agriculture, energy, IT, food, and others.

"In turn, I would like to note that the Uzbek side does not ignore the large-scale transformations taking place in brotherly Azerbaijan. To date, Uzbek companies have shown interest in different spheres of Azerbaijani economy such as car manufacturing, agriculture, IT, textiles industry, electrical engineering, and others," said ambassador Ashrafkhanov.

According to him some 195 enterprises with participation of Azerbaijani capital are operating in Uzbekistan, 69 of them are joint ventures and the rest of them are operating with 100 percent of Azerbaijani capital.

Moreover, as he said, some 19 new enterprises with participation of the Azerbaijani capital were created in Uzbekistan in the first half of 2020.

"Their main spheres of activity are trade, mechanical engineering and metal processing, finance, and insurance, real estate operations, energy, services, production and repair of jewelry, food industry, light industry. I will also note that we have not only manufacturing companies, but also high-tech companies engaged in artificial intelligence, informatization, e-government, etc.," said ambassador Ashrafkhanov.

"Taking into account the intensification of trade-economic and investment cooperation between Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, we hope that the number of joint ventures will continue to increase," stated the ambassador.

Ashrafkhanov also noted that the development of cooperation in tourism is no less a priority in the Uzbek agenda.

Uzbekistan has 7,300 cultural heritage sites in the country, which makes over 90 percent of all historical monuments in the region. More than 500 of them are included in tourist routes. Among the main pearls are monuments in Bukhara, Samarkand, Khiva, and Shahrisabz.

"Over the past four years, at the initiative of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan has been implementing large-scale reforms in all spheres of life, including tourism, which has been identified as a priority and strategic sector of the economy. As part of this activity, active measures are being taken to improve the tourism potential, including the promotion of pilgrimage tourism, as well as provide many benefits and incentives for market participants," said ambassador Ashrafkhanov.

He noted the increased dynamics of tourist flow from Azerbaijan as well, and according to him, it increases annually by almost 20 percent.

"It is pleasant to note that contacts between administrations of tourism of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan have recently become more frequent, within the framework of which the agreement on promotion of mutually beneficial cooperation in this direction was reached. Important in this context is the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding in July 2019 in Baku on education and science between the Silk Road International University of Tourism and the Azerbaijan University of Tourism and Management," said the Ambassador.

On August 25, 2020, the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Azerbaijan held an event to mark the 22nd anniversary of Uzbek diplomatic mission in Baku. The event was attended by diplomats of the Embassy (including Ambassador Ashrafkhanov himself), employees of representative offices of Uzbekistan Airways JSC, and UzAuto Motors JSC in Azerbaijan, citizens of Uzbekistan living in Baku, as well as representatives of local media.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Puducherry:

The Puducherry government has told the Centre that immediate implementation of digital transactions was not possible as the basic infrastructure required for it was not in place adequately, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said on Sunday.

Digital transaction and demonetisation are absolutely impossible for implementation immediately in Puducherry since basic infrastructures, availability of swipe machines for shops and establishments, branches of banks in rural and semi urban areas were not in place adequately, he told reporters.

Narayanasamy said he had made this clear to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh at the recent inter-state South Zone Council meeting in Thiruvananthapuram and also briefed Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely. Puducherry could implement the scheme only in a phased manner.

The Centre should not take Puducherry for granted and should not use the Union Territory for launching its schemes if they are found to be injurious and unacceptable to the public, he added.

He also said the demonetisation of high value currency notes had caused a setback in revenue generation in the union territory.There was a promising trend of generating more revenue through tourism, industrial development, business and trade sectors.

However, post demoentisation, the trade and business had suffered, tourist flow had come down and revenue through sales tax and excise also had plummeted, he said. He declined to comment on the suspension and subsequent booking of a case against a senior Puducherry Civil Services officer for allegedly circulating an obscene video clip in an official whatsapp group, saying it was an administrative matter.

Lt Governor Kiran Bedi on Friday ordered the suspension ofRegistrar of Cooperative Societies A S Sivakumar.

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As healthcare payment liability continues to shift to patients, it has become increasingly important for healthcare organizations to offer convenient and accessible patient payment options. Prior to COVID-19, the exponential growth of high deductible health plans along with rising consumerism drove the need for more flexible payment vehicles. While those drivers are still valid, the current public health crisis has made payment programs even more essential. The cost of treating the virus is significant, and rising unemployment means more people are coming to the hospital without insurance.

A key component in a patient-centered payment experience is a patient lending program, which allows patients to spread payments over time with little to no interest. These types of programs empower patients to meet their responsibilities while respecting the burden the obligations represent. A well-administered payment plan can also foster a lasting relationship with patients because individuals may prioritize seeking care in a facility that makes it easier to pay. This keeps patients in network, which is not only financially lucrative for health systems but also enables value-based care models.

The challenge with payment plans is that healthcare organizations arent usually set up to administer them effectively, especially over extended periods. If a hospital offers payment plans, they may do so on an ad hoc basis. This leaves the hospital with an assortment of arrangements that arent necessarily standardized and are often hard to manage. As patients seek payment arrangements for higher dollar amounts with longer terms, healthcare organizations are seeing the need to rethink their approach.

Pursuing a better option

Community Health Network, a large integrated health system located in Indianapolis, Indiana, saw the value of retooling its patient payment plans. Although weve offered plans for a while, our approach wasnt standardized, we struggled to accommodate longer terms and we had to offer separate plans for different service areas because of technology constraints, said Chad Bills, network vice president, revenue cycle for Community Health Network. We wanted a way to consolidate different payment plans, transfer the liability outside the hospital and improve the convenience and accessibility for our patients.

Community Health Network turned to CommerceHealthcare for answers. Weve had a patient finance program since 2014, and we are constantly refining it to give greater peace of mind to patients and providers, said Mark Huebner, director of healthcare financing for CommerceHealthcare. Through our program, the patient has access to a line of credit with low or no interest, giving them a way to make smaller payments over time. This mirrors the ease and accessibility of a hospital payment plan with everyone being approved regardless of credit. There is also no paperwork because the provider already has the patients information in the electronic health record.

CommerceHealthcare offered Community Health Network tiered options, so the health system could select the one that would best serve its patients. We chose a program that spans multiple service areas and allows patients to consolidate existing payment plans into one, adding new expenses onto the same line, Bills said. This way no matter where they receive services in our organization, they can add their payment responsibilities to the credit line. The program focuses on longer term payment plans, spreading across 24, 36 and even 60 months.

Not only does the relationship with CommerceHealthcare help patients, it benefits the health system as well. We pay the hospital upfront when we assume existing payment plans, patients add to those plans or a patient opens a new line, Huebner said. We then work directly with the patient to collect on the line. This accelerates cash flow for the health system and improves liquidity while reducing A/R days and bad debt expense  which ultimately strengthens operating margins.

Hospital staff can also get patients set up on a payment plan remotely. Credit line applications can be done over the phone or online, with the patient verbally agreeing to the line of credit. The process is touchless, which is important during the current public health crisis when staff are working from home.

The advantages of working with a bank

In many cases, payment plans with CommerceHealthcare perform better than a hospitals in-house payment plan. Since we are a bank, and consumers are more comfortable and familiar with dealing with banks when it comes to their finances, we have found they are more likely to pay their healthcare bills when they come from us, Huebner said. They also know that we will follow up on any delayed payments, so it is more likely that payment becomes part of their routine.

If a patient misses a payment, CommerceHealthcare sends reminders and late notices. Well work the account for 90 days, Huebner said. Once weve exhausted all efforts to collect from the patient, we give the debt back to the hospital to handle through their bad debt collections process. Note that if we cant collect from the patient, we give back our fee. This means we assume risk to administer the program, which fosters a better relationship with our healthcare clients because we have a financial stake in collecting from patients.

Having a bank administer the lines of credit is also helpful during a crisis. Throughout the pandemic, for example, CommerceHealthcare activated its debt relief policy to help patients who were struggling. They served as a true partner to us in this area, sharing our values and the values of our patients, Bills said. They allowed payment deferrals and extended the delinquent timeline to support people through the crisis.

A straightforward and well-supported implementation

As Community Health Network began implementing the patient financing program from CommerceHealthcare, the bank helped the health system cultivate buy-in. They provided in-person training and curriculum for our client services and cash posting teams, which are the staff who are most involved in payment plan enrollment and payment posting, Bills said. The bank also created content for a roadshow to present to key health system executives across the network, explaining the banks unique advantages. Another benefit was they partnered with us to create call scripts, so that any patient interactions were in line with our values and goals.

Since implementing the program, Community Health Network has seen meaningful results. We were able to expand our patient payment choices and consolidate payment plans while increasing cash on hand for the network, Bills said. Weve also received a lot of positive feedback from patients as they express gratitude for the longer payment plan lengths. We are exploring the banks pre-service collections program because we feel the ability to use the same vendor for pre- and post-service will be helpful in ensuring consistency for our patients.

A continuously evolving effort

Looking ahead, CommerceHealthcare is working to enrich the online aspects of its patient payment program. Were working with providers to implement self-service online access, Huebner said. This allows patients to see their bills online and then choose the line of credit to finance them without having to talk to someone at the hospital about setting up a payment plan. Many hospitals are implementing technology that lets patients see what they owe online and determine how they want to pay with a menu of payment options. Making our line of credit another selection on the menu will further enable patient choice and convenience.

CommerceHealthcare is also retooling its technology to align with price estimates. Generating a reliable estimate has traditionally been challenging in healthcare, and sometimes the estimates are not accurate, Huebner said. We have built our technology so providers can manage price estimates on the back end. Once insurance adjudicates, if there are changes to what the patient owes, the provider can adjust the patients line of credit. There are no penalties for making these changes. This gives providers the freedom to make adjustments and peace of mind knowing they can tweak the lines to match actual costs without penalty. Over time, we hope to refine the patient estimate portion of the offering as the ability to accurately estimate care costs improves.

About CommerceHealthcare

A comprehensive patient lending program is a key element in a patient payment portfolio. CommerceHealthcare offers robust payment plans that ensure healthcare providers can meet patient needs, optimize staff time, increase margin and reduce financial risk. CommerceHealthcare solutions are provided by Commerce Bank.
Montenegro's pro-West ruling party could be knocked from power for the first time in three decades after an election gave a razor-thin edge to opposition camps, results showed on Monday.

The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) led by President Milo Djukanovic is still the biggest party after winning just over third of the vote, according to official results from Sunday's election.

But three opposition coalitions who have pledged to unite could outnumber DPS, in what would be a political earthquake for the small Adriatic nation of 620,000 people.

Djukanovic, often described as a political chameleon, has led Montenegro since the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s to independence from Serbia, and more recently into NATO and towards the EU.

His DPS has never lost an election.

But this year the party faced a stiff challenge from an emboldened right-wing and pro-Serb camp who came in a close second, followed by two other oppositions alliances.

Projections by election monitor CeMI gave the three opposition coalitions a combined lead of just one seat -- 41 in the 81-member assembly.

A period of intense talks are expected to follow, with Djukanovic, in his role as president, ultimately responsible for handing down the first mandate.

- 'Tensions inevitable' -

The results were "good news for democracy", even if the opposition's success is not yet a "done deal", said University of Graz professor Florian Bieber.

The three coalitions span the spectrum from "clerical nationalist Serb parties" to a civic-minded liberal camp, he said.

"The range is so wide that tensions are inevitable and the question is whether a new government would be able to survive these tensions," Bieber told AFP, adding that any small defections could bring DPS back to power.

In a statement Monday, the leaders of the coalitions said they would form a government of "experts" to lead the country and bridge its ideological divides.

Story continues

They also vowed to keep Montenegro on the EU path and continue reforms needed for its accession process.

Analysts attributed DPS's weak showing to a law it passed that sparked huge controversy with the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) and put wind in the sails of Serb nationalist forces.

Passed in late 2019, the legislation opened a path for hundreds of SPC-run monasteries in Montenegro to become state property.

While Montenegro declared independence from Serbia in 2006, a third of its population identify as Serb and the SPC remains its largest religious institution, making debates around identity highly sensitive.

The law ignited months of anti-government protests, led by priests and backed by the pro-Serb opposition who accuse Djukanovic of trying to erase their heritage.

On Monday, several thousand opposition supporters celebrated for a second night outside Podgorica's main Orthodox church, waving Serbian and Montenegrin flags, setting off fireworks and honking car horns.

- 'Struggle is on' -

Speaking at the party's headquarters after the vote late Sunday, Djukanovic underlined that DPS had the "strongest" finish and that the "struggle for the majority is still on".

The president, who has previously served four terms as premier, will not face election himself until 2023.

While he has won plaudits for fortifying ties with the West, Djukanovic's critics accuse him of turning the country into a personal fiefdom built on graft and crime links.

The US-based Freedom House rights group recently downgraded Montenegro from a democracy to a "hybrid regime" under Djukanovic's "strongman" rule.

OSCE election monitors said the poll was transparent, but that "widespread abuse of office and state resources gave the ruling party an undue advantage".

str-mbs-ssm/spm
by Melani Manel Perera

They divide the country, says the Archbishop of Colombo. Religious extremism was behind last year's Easter attacks. Criticism of the authorities failure to identify those responsible. Christians do not need a sectarian party to obtain their rights.

Colombo (Asia News) - Religious and ethnic parties must be banned: they do nothing but divide the country, says Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, in his homily for the National Day of the Sick, delivered in the basilica of Our Lady of Lanka in Tewatte.

Referring to the Easter attacks last year, and to the slow progress in investigations to find the culprits, Cardinal Ranjith recalled that religion must not divide or kill people: "If one religion destroys another, what is its meaning? Show me where such a God is!.

According to the Archbishop, religious extremism has spread dangerously in the country. He wonders if religious leaders are responsible for the attacks. The suicide bombers targeted three churches - two Catholic and one Protestant - and three hotels. The explosions caused about 280 deaths, including 45 foreigners, and nearly 600 victims.

After more than a year, justice has still not been done. "The investigation is underway - underlined Cardinal Ranjith - but the authorities have not found out who planted the bombs, who the organizers are and who financed the raids.

He continued that it is of serious concern that those politicians and officials who failed in their responsibilities have yet to be identified: "We ask and hope that the government will keep its promises to the Church, punishing those responsible".

The previous government was criticized for failing to investigate properly. It behaved like Pontius Pilate - said Card. Ranjith - washing its hands. These politicians and officials do not understand the suffering of the victims; it is a question of humanity. What did Buddha and Mohammed preach about peace and the merciful God?.

About 30 years ago, a Christian group told the Cardinal that the faithful needed a Christian sectarian party to win their rights. "I told them we don't want any Christian political parties," explained the archbishop. "The unity of Sri Lanka was shattered after independence and today we discuss issues such as what is its national language, who is the original people and who owns this country. It is really sad - concludes the prelate - that we are still divided by race, religion and language ".
A statement by Ukraines representative to the TCG Vitold Fokin on a general amnesty and a special status for Donbas does not meet national interests, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said.

He said this following a ceremony of honoring the memory of four soldiers of the National Guard of Ukraine who died as a result of a terrorist act - a hand grenade explosion - on August 31, 2015, the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported.

None of our soldiers should die because of awkward political gambling. Therefore, the statement by Ukraines representative to the TCG Vitold Fokin about a general amnesty and a special status for the entire territory of Donbas is provocative and does not correspond to national interests. We should remember that thousands of our soldiers died for every piece of Ukrainian land in Donbas," Avakov said.

Earlier, Vitold Fokin said in an interview with strana.ua that, in his opinion, the war in Donbas will end and the lives of Ukrainian fighters will be saved when a special status is granted to the entire territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. He also recalled the announcement of a general amnesty.

On August 18, President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Vitold Fokin as the first deputy head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group for the Peaceful Settlement of the Situation in Donbas (TCG).

ish
Witnesses in the area of the crime scene told police a dark colored SUV left the area at a high rate of speed after the shots were fired, according to the release. It is unknown if the vehicle is involved. Florip said police have a photo of the vehicle of interest from surveillance video.
The LGBTQ community in India is a market segment that's not yet been addressed to its fullest potential - both, in terms of continuous engagement and its potential profits. In this blog post, we examine some LGBTQ friendly brands and some brands owned by homophobic promoters. There's a useful editorial calendar and interviews with some of the leading LGBTQ champions who urge brands to go beyond tokenism and educate marketers on possible sustained communication pegs. Click here to read more.
Society bible Tatler has unveiled its hottest couples from the Social Set this summer, including royal pairings, chocolate heiresses and modelling socialites.

While some couples have stepped out in public for the first time by taking lavish trips across the continent, others cemented long-standing commitments by staying at one another's family piles during lockdown.

Royals including Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece and her new beau Hon. Peregine Pearson were declared 'the hottest new pairing of the summer', while Talita von Furstenberg and her boyfriend Rocco Brignon are described as 'getting serious' during lockdown.

Other blue-blooded couples on the list include Princess Margarets grandson Arthur Chatto and university girlfriend Lizzie Friend, as well as Jemima Cadbury, the great-great-great-granddaughter of confectioner John Cadbury, and her beau David Tollemache, the nephew of Lord Tollemache.

Here, FEMAIL reveals the hottest couples to have emerged out of lockdown after a summer of love...

Jemima Cadbury and David Tollemache

Society bible Tatler has unveiled its hottest couples from the Social Set this summer, including royal pairings, chocolate heiresses and modelling socialites (pictured, Jemima Cadbury and her Old Etonian beau David Tollemache)

The great-great-great-granddaughter of confectioner John Cadbury has been dating David Tollemache, the nephew of Lord Tollemache, since 2016.

The couple regularly share snaps of their adventures around the world on Instagram, visiting snowy Amsterdam in January and St Barth last August.

The quirky socialite and chocolate dynasty scion Jemima is part of the Chelsea social set, living just off Sloane Square.

David and Jemima recently celebrated her birthday at the neighbourhood's new hotspot, Stanley's, with the heiress affectionately calling her boyfriend 'Tolly.'

The blue blooded couple have been together for several years, and often share snaps of their adventures on Instagram (pictured left, in Amsterdam and right, at a wedding)

She launched lifestyle website Bee Bazaar was launched in May 2018, revealing: 'The site connects people with the fun things happening in London. Things that I and my friends would want to do  something cultural and artistic.

So many of my friends have companies and exhibitions and launches that you never hear about. I got the website up and running to connect young people to cool brands.

Meanwhile David's relatives Lord and Lady Tollemache live close to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in the ancient, vast and moated Helmingham Hall, where the Queen is a regular overnight guest.

Their two sons are both true Turnip Toffs: banker Edward, Prince Charless godson, and his wife, Sophie, have two young sons; and fund manager James, who was at Eton with William, is married to Princess Florrie von Preussen (of Prussia), who used to style for Oka, the upmarket interiors label owned by Samantha Camerons mother.

Lady Amelia Spencer and Greg Mallett

Lady Amelia Spencer, 38, who is the daughter of Earl Spencer and first cousin of Princes William and Harry, and her long-term boyfriend Greg Mallett recently announced their engagement

Princess Diana's niece Lady Amelia Spencer also makes the list of hottest couples, having recently gotten engaged to long-term boyfriend Greg Mallett following a romantic proposal in South Africa.

The society beauty, 28, who is the daughter of Earl Spencer and first cousin of Princes William and Harry, met her real estate beau while they were both studying at the University of Cape Town.

In July, Greg, 30, posted on Instagram that he'd popped the question to his girlfriend of 11 years, sharing sweet photos of them both from Clouds Wine & Guest Estate in Stellenbosch.

Lady Amelia, whose first name is actually Katya, her twin sister Eliza grew up in the Constantia area of Cape Town with siblings Kitty and Louis.

The society beauty met her real estate beau while they were both studying at the University of Cape Town. Pictured after getting engaged

Greg is well-known by the Spencer clan and is already considered to be part of the family. Pictured in the shots he shared with Amelia to mark their engagement

The three sisters attended the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey in 2011.

While Lady Kitty, Louis and Lady Eliza were present at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's nuptials in May 2018, Amelia was missing.

Amelia is the latest Spencer sister to get engaged, after it was reported earlier this year that Lady Kitty is engaged to her 60-year-old beau, multi-millionaire Michael Lewis.

Greg is well-known by the Spencer clan and is already considered to be part of the family.

Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece and Hon. Peregrine Pearson

Tatler describes Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece, 23, and Peregrine Pearson, 25, as 'the hottest new pairing of the summer'

Tatler describes the couple as 'possibly the hottest new pairing of the summer' with Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece stepping out with English aristocrat, Hon. Peregrine Pearson (Perry to his friends), the son of Viscount Cowdray.

The couple spent some time with her family in Greece earlier this month while visiting her grandparents, King Constantine and Queen Anne-Marie, with the Princess posting a sweet picture of them driving a moped around the coastline.

Peregrine Pearson is the 25-year-old son and heir of the 4th Viscount Cowdray, whose family has a reputed 224 million ($292.55 million) fortune.

Love is in the air: She has spent her summer holidays relaxing with Peregrine Pearson, the 25-year-old son and heir of the 4th Viscount Cowdray

'Things are getting very serious,' a friend told The Daily Mail's Richard Eden. 'He's already met the family and they love him.'

Perry's father owns a significant chunk of the Pearson media empire as well as the 16,500-acre West Sussex estate which is home to Cowdray Park polo club, where Princes William and Harry have played.

Arthur Chatto and Lizzie Friend

Princess Margarets grandson has been with his university girlfriend Lizzie Friend for two years.

Despite his hoards of young fans the Queen's former page boy went Instagram official with Lizzie for the first time in September 2018.

Princess Margarets grandson Arthur Chatto, 21, has been with his university girlfriend Lizzie Friend for two years after meeting while studying together at Edinburgh

The son of Lady Sarah Chatto, who is 23rd in line to the throne, posted a loved up snap of Lizzie perched on his knee with an arm slung around his shoulder.

Lizzie is a fellow Edinburgh University student, where Arthur is studying Geography, and a source previously told the Daily Mail: 'They hit it off straight away.

'She's really sweet and they make a very nice couple. He took her to Royal Ascot this summer as his date.'

She recently greeted him alongside Lady Sarah and his elder brother Samuel after he took part in the GB Row Challenge.

Ella Ross and the Marquess of Granby

Society beauty Ella Ross, 24, and Marquess of Granby, 20, spent lockdown together at his family pile of Belvoir Castle

Society beauty Ella Ross, 24, and Marquess of Granby, 20, were also among the couples named the hottest from the set this summer.

The couple, who celebrated their one-year anniversary earlier this spring, have continued to grow closer after the model stayed with Charles and his family at the Duchess of Rutlands Belvoir Castle estate during lockdown.

She stayed on the estate with boyfriend Charles, his parents and his four siblings.

In May, the Duchess has given a very public seal of approval to model Ella, by selecting her to star in the campaign for her new nightwear collection.

The couple started dating last year after her split from Scott Disick, a star of Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

Talita von Furstenberg and Rocco Brignone

Talita and boyfriend Rocco Brignone, 19, recently enjoyed a romantic getaway in Europe, travelling to the south of France before driving down to Portofino (pictured)

Olympia's cousin heiress Talita von Furstenberg, 21, has also been living it up abroad with her boyfriend Rocco Brignone, 19.

Having been raised in Los Angeles, Talita relocated to the East Coast in 2017, when she started attending Georgetown alongside her cousin, fellow royal Prince Alexios of Greece.

She and boyfriend Rocco were living in New York, where Talita is set to begin her final year at NYU, at the onset of the pandemic, and moved back to Malibu to stay with her parents.

The couple recently enjoyed a romantic getaway in Europe, travelling to the south of France before driving down to Portofino.

Talita recently told FEMAIL that travelling through Europe with her beau has made them 'a lot closer and a lot more serious'

Despite dating for several years, Tatler reports the couple 'started to get serious' this summer, spending their holiday driving across the continent.

Earlier this month, Talita told FEMAIL that being together 24-7 in lockdown has been 'challenging', but has also made them stronger.

'It's been fun for us, it's definitely made us a lot closer and a lot more serious since we've literally been 24-7 together,' she said - adding that wedding bells are 'in the very distant future' for the young couple.

Sawai Padmanabh Singh and Claire Deroo

Low-key love: French jeweller and set-designer Claire Deroo and Indian royal Sawai Padmanabh Singh, 21, have kept their romance fairly private and avoid sharing snaps on social media together

French jeweller and set-designer Claire Deroo and Indian royal Sawai Padmanabh Singh, 21, have kept their romance fairly private and avoid sharing snaps on social media together.

Padmanabh, or Pacho to friends is worth an estimated 500-650 million and was crowned as the unofficial Maharajah of Jaipur in 2011.

He is a member of the former ruling family of Jaipur State, in present-day Rajasthan, India.

It is believed Pacho, who was named in Tatler's most eligible bachelor's list just last year, has been dating Claire for just over a year.

He has strong connections to the UK, having attended Millfield School in Somerset before returning frequently for polo matches.

Irene Forte and Felix Winckler

Like Ella Ross and Marquess of Granby, Irene Forte, 31, and tech whizz Felix Winckler, 40, had their commitment solidified by spending lockdown with their in-laws after getting engaged in January of this year

Like Ella Ross and Marquess of Granby, Irene Forte, 31, and tech whizz Felix Winckler, 40, had their commitment solidified by spending lockdown with their in-laws.

After getting engaged in January, the duo holed up at Irene's family pile of Rye House Farm in Ripley.

Irene and Felix were joined on the 1,800 acre estate by her parents Sir Rocco and Aliai, newly-wed sister Lavita, brother-in-law Dimitri Chandris, nephew 14-month-old Johnny, brother Charles and his girlfriend Georgie.

The Oxford BA French and Italian graduate is Wellness Director at her family's $440 million empire and oversees the spa programs across all 14 of the luxury Rocco Forte Hotel properties.

Alexa Chung and Orson Fry

Alexa Chung, 36, and chocolate scion Orson Fry, 24, have also found love with one another after being introduced by mutual friends

He was described as a 'mystery hunk' when he was spotted kissing Alexa Chung, 36, at a pop festival last summer.

But now chocolate scion Orson Fry, 24, and model and It girl Alexa are rarely spotted without one another.

The pair were introduced by mutual friends and are said to be 'besotted' with one another.

The duo spent lockdown in East London, where they have kept a low profile throughout the summer.
How do naxals procure sophisticated weapons: It was the LTTE which aided them

Abducted CoBRA jawan Rakeshwar Singh Manhas released by Naxals after six days of captivity

AK-47s stolen from COD Jabalpur supplied to naxals, criminals says NIA in chargesheet

Naxals from Telangana were in the process of making grenade launchers, IEDs: NIA

3 naxals arrested, arms seized

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Ranchi, Aug 31: Three Naxals belonging to the proscribed outfit People's Liberation Front of India (PLFI) have been arrested in Ranchi and arms and ammunition seized from their possession, police said on Sunday.

Acting on a tip-off, police teams arrested the Naxals in Namkum and Pandra police station areas on Saturday night, Ranchi Senior Superintendent of Police, Surendra Kumar Jha, told reporters.

"They were staying in rented houses and making extortion calls to prominent businessmen in the city," he said.

Two pistols, 29 cartridges and three mobile phones were seized from their possession, the SSP added.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan congratulated Speaker of Mazhilis of Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nurlan Nigmatulin.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the National Assembly of Armenia, the congratulatory message runs as follows,

Honourable Nurlan Zayrullaevich,

please, accept my warmest and heartfelt congratulations on your birthday.

Due to your professionalism and the experience of a wise and far-sighted state figure, you have earned deepest respect and prestige.

We are grateful for your permanent attention in the development of partnership relations between our countries to strengthen them for the glory of our countries and for the benefit of our peoples.

On this festive day, I wish you, Nurlan Zayrullaevich, good health and further successes in your responsible activities, to the friendly people of Kazakhstan  peace and prosperity.
A former Deputy Director of the Ghana Tourist Development Company (GTDC), Sanaaheneba Akua Manfo, a.k.a Blakofe, has said the biggest mistake of her life was to have campaigned and voted for President Nana Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2016 elections.

Recounting how she got convinced by her ex to vote for Mr Akufo-Addo, Blakofe noted that although she liked the then-sitting President, Mr John Mahama, she was frustrated with his government and, thus, was convinced by her ex to campaign for Nana Akufo-Addo.

According to Blakofe, there is "big-time corruption and nepotism" under the current administration.

She has asked all those who voted for Nana Akufo-Addo because of her to forgive her as she also forgives herself.

In a Facebook post, the former TV and radio personality said: This time 4 years ago, I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life. Although I personally knew and liked Mahama and had encouraged Ghanaians to vote for him, I was frustrated with his government and life in the Asylum.

My ex, thus, challenged me to campaign for Nana because: If Nana can't make Ghana work, nobody can. I'll lay down my head for him. Nana is like you, no-nonsense. He hates corruption. Imagine if you are President how things would be. That is Nana.

So, although I wasn't convinced, I allowed myself to be pushed into campaigning. The rest is history. We all make mistakes. All I can do now is forgive myself and ask those who voted Nana because of me to also forgive me.

As for that ex... I've yet to forgive him for had it not been for him, I would never have campaigned for Nana. Lol. That's the absolute truth. Meanwhile, the word from my street hustlers is they are not voting because I'm not. Sweet. Moral of the story? Follow your gut because everything I told my ex is happening... big-time corruption and nepotism. I was right and should never have listened to my ex. Ah well.

Blakofe resigned from GTDC in May 2018 over what she described as massive corruption at the company.

Shortly after her resignation, she sounded an alarm on her Facebook wall that should she be found dead all of a sudden, it would be because she told truth to power, and, as a result, has been targeted for elimination.

--classfmonline
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday will visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, the city that has seen unrest since a white police officer shot a Black man in the back, a White House official told reporters on Saturday.

Trump will meet law enforcement officials and assess damage in the city where the officer shot Jacob Blake, who is paralyzed from the waist down and remains in hospital, the official said. A 17-year-old boy is being held by authorities in Kenosha on suspicion of shooting three people who were protesting the shooting of Blake. Two of those people died.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Timothy Gardner; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
As part of our Women's Month content feature and in the build-up to our panel discussion with some of this year's Gerety Awards all-female South African executive jury members, taking place in September, Jessica Tennant, senior editor: Marketing & Media at Bizcommunity, interviews this year's jury to find out what a woman has to do to get onto an advertising jury, what the opportunity means to them and the significance of these Awards given the current state of gender equality...

As part of its call for entries campaign, the Awards sent purple moustaches to prominent female leaders in the advertising industry, and asked them to pose for a picture with the question: What does a woman have to do to get onto an advertising jury? How would you answer that question  what does a woman have to do to get onto an advertising jury?

What is your hope for the next or future generations of women in advertising / the advertising industry?

And what is your key message to fellow women in advertising this Womens Month?

The Gerety Awards, founded by Joe Brooks and Lucia Ongay is relatively new, having launched in 2019. It brings together all-female juries from across the globe to shortlist the best in advertising  all advertising, not just advertising made for women  through the female lens.The Awards was named after Frances Gerety, the copywriter who coined the slogan a diamond is forever. So, instead of categories, the Awards are judged by cuts (as in diamond cuts), of which there are 10.This year, there are a total of 180 new jury members from 30 different countries. Pre-Covid-19, judging sessions were hosted in each host city and the shortlists submitted to the international grand jury of creative experts for final evaluation, but of course this years judging sessions are having to take a different format. Joe Brooks explains that the judging would have taken place at the VMLY&R offices, with Jacquie as the ambassador. The date had been set for Monday, 1 June and we would have judged and discussed a number of categories of entries from around the world. The same week judging sessions would have taken place in London, New York, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Melbourne, Milan, Istanbul, Helsinki and Berlin. Due to the Corona, all judging is taking place remotely and online over a four-week period with group calls in the middle of the judging to discuss favorite pieces.This years South African executive jury includes: Jacquie Mullany, ECD, VMLY&R; Mpume Ngobese, MD, Joe Public; Sanche Jansen van Rensburg, ECD, Avatar; Simone Bosman, founder and creative, Osu & Kumalo; Neo Segola, ECD, FCB Africa; Sarah Dexter, CEO, Mullen Lowe; Nadia Mohamed, marketing director, McCain; Emma Strydom, head of design, Network BBDO; Juliet Honey, creative, Freelance; Suhana Gordhan, ECD, FCB; Linda Notelovitz, director/producer and founder, Life Design; Liezel Bygate, marketing director, Bliss Brands; Monalisa Zwambila, CEO, Riverbed; Loli Bishop, producer, Freelance; and Fiona O'Connor, creative director, Havas. Look out for our online panel discussion featuring some of these remarkable women in advertising in September after the shortlists have been announced.Here, freelance producer Loli Bishop tells us that her hope for the next generation of women in advertising is that they go forward with not having to fight for their talent and greatness and believes that there needs to be an open playing field for allLove that you did this. Great commentary on the status quo but do congratulate the Gerety team for having a panel of women judges.That women in the advertising industry go forward with not having to fight for their talent and greatness.I launched the third ever woman director into the advertising industry two years after South Africa got long-awaited for democracy. This was in 1996 so it does upset and amaze me that we are still having to make sure that women get fair chances in the industry. We have to get to the place where the playing field is entirely open to all.I feel honoured and know that with my history in the industry I can make good judgement decisions.
Schools across Auckland reopened on Monday as New Zealand's largest city emerged from lockdown, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expressing confidence a second-wave outbreak of coronavirus was under control.

While Aucklanders were allowed out of their homes, the government limited non-school social gatherings in the city to 10 people and made masks compulsory on public transport nationwide.

The Auckland lockdown began on August 12 after four cases were detected in the city of 1.5 million, ending 102 days free of community transmission when it appeared New Zealand had beaten the virus.

The cluster of infections has since grown to 141, with four new cases of community transmission reported on Monday, making it the largest recorded in New Zealand.

The origin of the outbreak has not been found and Ardern said it was "inevitable" there would be more cases linked to the cluster.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

But even though it continues to grow, Ardern said it was safe to lift the lockdown.

"We have a plan that we know will work," a masked Ardern told reporters in Auckland.

"We just need everyone's compliance and help. If everyone sticks to the guidelines and rules, coupled together with all our public health measures, we can make this work."

Ardern, who delayed New Zealand's general election by a month to October 17 because of the outbreak, urged fellow Kiwis to "do their bit" in fighting the virus.

"It's natural that we feel tired, the whole world is," she said.

"But relative to others we're doing really well. We'll be able to get back in front of the virus if we follow the guidelines."

Follow our full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here
(Natural News) A national housing crisis could hit the U.S. as early as late August, as rent payments resume for many residents across the country. According to a think tank called the Aspen Institute, up to 40 million people are at risk of eviction in the coming months as residents struggle to make rent amid the economic fallout caused by the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. In particular, financial hardship caused by COVID-19, which includes job and wage losses, and the loss of federal and state protections at the height of the pandemic are key drivers for the looming crisis.

Without intervention, the housing crisis will result in significant harm to renters and property owners, the authors wrote in their report.

Renters facing the reality of being kicked out

Renters living in urbanized areas are among those facing the possibility of eviction over non-payment of rent. In Clark County, Nevada  where the city of Las Vegas is located  around 10 percent of the population is at risk of eviction starting next month, according to a report by Las Vegas research group Guinn Center and the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project in Denver.

Government funds have helped many renters pay rent and stay afloat during the pandemic, and a new state law lets courts delay eviction proceedings for up to 30 days to allow mediation between tenants and landlords. Despite these protections, renters in Las Vegas and other cities in the county are more likely to be walloped by the looming evictions crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has kept revelers away from Las Vegas and the rest of southern Nevada, a region known for gambling, partying and networking en masse, often in close quarters. According to Nancy Brune, executive director of the Guinn Center, nearly half of all households in Clark County are renters, and over a third of them are unemployed. (Related: U.S. headed for unprecedented housing crisis as mass evictions loom.)

Bradford Cook Jr., an electronics technician at MGM Grand, is among the 249,700 renters struggling to pay rent in the county. Five months after getting furloughed by the pandemic, his manager emailed him to say that there were no plans to recall him to work. Cook, a Navy veteran, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he received around $3,000 a month in state and federal unemployment benefits at the height of the pandemic. Currently, he said that its down to around $1,300 a month. He already informed his property manager that he will probably move out soon, saying that its better to look for a place now than get slapped with an eviction notice later.

Everything about our lives is pretty much up in the air right now, Cook added.

A similar situation is unfurling in New York City, with 14,500 renters set to be evicted once the citys eviction ban expires in October. According to data from the trade group Community Housing Improvement Program, around a quarter of the citys 5.4 million tenants failed to make rent from April through June, which puts them at risk of eviction. In addition, more renters are expected to be unable to pay rent by September, as pandemic unemployment benefits have ended this month.

This means that renters like Marta Cortez, a restaurant manager who lost her job during the pandemic, will have to burn through what little savings she has left to keep her family afloat. Right now, shes looking into the possibility of moving her family into a homeless shelter when she is ultimately evicted.

Im struggling to stay strong for us right now. The stress is killing me, she added. Aside from losing her job, shes also had to miss her fathers funeral in California, as well as pay for her sons emergency surgery  all while relying on unemployment benefits to keep her afloat.

People have to understand that were all dealing with a lot right now.

The U.S. currently has a COVID-19 caseload of over 5.5 million, with over 174,200 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Sources include:

AspenInstitute.org

APNews.com

ReviewJournal.com

NY.Curbed.com
1. Joe Biden assailed President Trump over the unrest in cities.

As Mr. Trump prepared for a visit on Tuesday to Kenosha, Wis., which has been rocked by protests and riots over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, Mr. Biden gave a speech in Pittsburgh, above, asking: Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is re-elected?

Mr. Trump, you want to talk about fear? Mr. Biden asked. Do you know what people are afraid of in America? Theyre afraid theyre going to get Covid. Theyre afraid theyre going to get sick and die. And that is no small part because of you. He noted that more police officers had died from the coronavirus than were killed on patrol.

At a White House press conference later in the day, Mr. Trump fired back. The rioters and Joe Biden have a side  theyre both on the side of the radical left, he said. The president has tried to make protests and riots his central issue, distracting from the pandemic that continues to kill roughly 1,000 Americans every day.
Italian woman caught with feet in Fontanone.

Rome police fined a 35-year-old Italian woman 400 for dipping her feet in the basin of the Fontana dell'Acqua Paola, better known as the Fontanone , on the Janiculum Hill.

The incident took place at around 22.00 on Saturday 29 August, with the woman allegedly blaming the heat before being handed the hefty fine, reports Italian news agency ANSA.

The Fontanone, whose name means literally "big fountain," is located on the summit of the Janiculum hill.

The monumental fountain was built in 1612 to mark the end of the Acqua Paola aqueduct, restored by Pope Paul V, taking its name from him.

In more recent times the fountain featured prominently in the introduction to Paolo Sorrentino's Oscar-winning film La Grande Bellezza.
A popular Ridgefield Mexican restaurant closed its doors last week after three years of business on Danbury Road.

Prime Taco announced their permanent closure on Thursday, August 27, according to their Facebook page.
NEW DELHI: In a fresh incident in eastern Ladakh, the Chinese PLA carried out provocative military movements to unilaterally change the status quo on the southern bank of Pangong Tso lake. However, the attempt was thwarted by the Indian troops, the Army said on Monday (August 31).

Meanwhile, a brigade commander-level flag meeting is currently in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues, Army Spokesperson Col Aman Anand told PTI.

The Army spokesperson said troops from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements on the ongoing standoff in eastern Ladakh, and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo on the night of August 29-30.

"On the night of 29/30 August 2020, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo," Col Anand said in a statement.

"Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground," the Army spokesperson said.

He said the Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect India's territorial integrity.

It is the first major incident involving the troops of the two countries after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. China also suffered casualties but it is yet to make the details public but according to an American intelligence report it was 35.

India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks in the last two-and-half months but no significant headway has been made for a resolution to the border row in eastern Ladakh.

The two sides began a process of disengagement on July 6, a day after a telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in eastern Ladakh. However, the process has not moved forward since mid-July.

The PLA has pulled back from Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang and a couple of other areas.

At the five rounds of Corps commander-level talks, the Indian side has been insisting on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to April.

The face-off began on May 5 following violent clashes between the two armies in the Pangong lake area. The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 9.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control(LAC).

It is to be noted that the government has given the armed forces 'full freedom' to give a 'befitting' response to any Chinese misadventure along the LAC.

The Army sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border following the deadly clashes. The IAF has also moved air defence systems as well as a sizeable number of its frontline combat jets and attack helicopters to several key air bases.
Hefty tax rises will be needed to deal with the economic aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, but chancellor Rishi Sunak will have to delay as long as two years to introduce them to avoid choking off recovery, a respected thinktank has said.

And the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson, said that Mr Sunak will have to hike rates of the most high-profile taxes, like income tax, national insurance and VAT, in order to raise the really serious amounts of money needed to fill the black hole in state finances.

Rises in levies paid by all would be politically perilous, as their impact would be felt in voters pockets just as Boris Johnson is preparing for the general election scheduled for 2024.

Reports that the chancellor is considering a 30bn tax raid in Novembers Budget have sparked alarm among business leaders and MPs, with the British Chambers of Commerce warning that premature rises in corporation tax or capital gains levies could hamstring the recovery.

Treasury sources refused to comment on the claims, insisting that they would not discuss the content of the Budget in advance of its delivery.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA 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

But Paul Johnson said the all-but-inevitable tax rises are likely to be delayed for as much as two years to allow the economy time to get back on its feet following the massive blow to GDP caused by Covid-19 this year, when the economy shrank by a historic record of 20.4 per cent in the second quarter.

The IFS chief told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: At some point he is going to have to raise taxes, but probably not at this Budget and probably not from next April, when tax rises would usually come into effect.

I think for the next year or 18 months, depending of course on what happens with the coronavirus, the real focus is going to be on supporting the economy - not so much because we're borrowing a huge amount this year but more because the economy looks like it's going to be smaller in the long run and therefore our borrowing is going to be higher in the long run and we're probably going to need to spend more on things like health and social care.

I think he is going to need at some point to look at some pretty substantial tax rises.

The think tank director said that business groups and MPs who warned of the danger of stifling recovery with tax rises now were probably about right, pointing out that the crash of 2008 was followed by a good couple of years of increased government spending and temporary tax cuts to stimulate the economy.

I think we should be looking probably initially at a couple of years where the government is supporting the economy and only really when the recovery is fairly clearly under way and the economy is getting back closer to normal will we be looking at tax rises.

But as I said I think we are going to need some pretty hefty ones.

Paul Johnson

Sunak is unlikely to be able to get away with rises only in levies on business, like corporation tax, which are little noticed by the general public, suggested Paul Johnson. And the chancellor has little scope to cut pension tax reliefs without extending the pain beyond the very rich to the affluent middle classes who provide the Tories bedrock electoral support.

Pension tax relief reductions have been one of the biggest tax increases we've seen over the last decade, particularly for the highest earners, he said. The problem for the government is that further reductions in that begin to hit people on good earnings but not right at the top, people on 50,000, 60,000, 70,000 a year maybe, core Conservative voters.

But if you want really serious amounts of money, then you're looking at doing things which are going to make the geese hiss - increasing VAT, National Insurance, income tax rates. If you want really big amounts of money, those are the places you need to look.

Unconfirmed reports in the Sunday Times this weekend suggested that the chancellor is mulling in rise in corporation tax from 19 to 24 per cent at a cost to business of 12bn, while capital gains could be levied at the same rate as income tax.

But BCC director general Adam Marshall warned that piling taxes on businesses would be a really damaging mistake by sending out the message that "it's not a good environment to invest in, it's not a good environment to take a risk"

Warning that early tax rises would "hamstring the recovery, Dr Marshall said: I very much hope that this is the Treasury flying kites rather than settling policy, because we do not want to make a choice between a strong recovery with lots of investment and risk-taking by businesspeople or a short-term repair of the public finances."

Conservative backbencher Marcus Fysh said tax increases would be the "wrong response" to the coronavirus crisis and urged the prime minister to resist them, warning: "We need to help the economy, not strangle it. These mixed messages are in themselves damaging and must stop."

And former cabinet minister John Redwood told the Daily Telegraph: "You cannot tax your way to faster growth and more prosperity. We need policies to promote more jobs and activity to get the deficit down."

Influential Tory backbencher Robert Halfon, who led calls for cuts in taxes like fuel duty, cautioned against new levies which would hit ordinary workers in the pocket.

Mr Halfon told BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour: Clearly theres going to be some very hard choices that have to be made, both in terms of public spending and in taxes.

"I just hope that whatever they do, they dont put taxes up which hit ordinary folk in terms of the cost of living or hurt small and medium businesses.

"I have no problem with taxes going up for big business or multi-billion pound tech companies or whatever it may be, but we have to be very clear that were not going to be the party that is raising fuel duty or messing around with the triple lock pension, because these do have a big impact on the cost of living.
Many have had to flee to nearby countries as thousands continue to demonstrate against President Alexander Lukashenko over disputed election win.

Several Baltic states have imposed travel bans on senior Belarusian figures, including President Alexander Lukashenko.

The move comes after more than three weeks of protests against Lukashenkos declaration that he won 80 percent of the vote in the last presidential election.

Meanwhile, thousands of people continue to demonstrate against the president, and many have had to seek refuge in neighbouring countries.

Al Jazeeras Bernard Smith reports from the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.
Melanie Olmeda and her son Mason Gutierrez, 6, who are zoo members, drove from Chino for the reopening of the L.A. Zoo last week. Although progress is being made on the coronavirus front, L.A. County must slow its transmission rate considerably in order for more businesses to reopen. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles County public health officials on Sunday reported 1,030 new coronavirus cases and 10 related deaths but said hospitalizations continue to decline.

To date, the county has recorded 240,749 positive coronavirus cases and 5,769 deaths.

There were 1,089 confirmed coronavirus patients in county hospitals as of Sunday  the lowest number since early May  with 32% in intensive care. That represented a decline of about 50% from mid-July, when hospitalizations reached 2,200, officials said.

It is evident we are making progress, and this is a testament to the collective efforts of so many," Barbara Ferrer, the county health director, said in a statement. "As we evaluate how to best continue our recovery journey without experiencing the spikes we saw in July, we need to consider the magnitude of increased exposures created with each sector reopening."

Though progress is being made, the county must slow its transmission rate considerably in order for more businesses to reopen and activities to resume. On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a new four-tier system that requires counties to show consistent success in stemming the transmission of the coronavirus before allowing businesses greater flexibility to reopen.

Los Angeles and most other counties in Southern California were placed in the most restrictive category, Tier 1, which means that transmission of the virus is widespread and most nonessential businesses must be closed. In order to move into a less restrictive tier, a county must have no more than seven new cases per 100,000 people per day and a test positivity rate of 8% or less. The county must meet those benchmarks for two consecutive weeks before progressing.

For the week ending Aug. 18, L.A. County reported a daily average of 12.7 cases per 100,000 residents and a test positivity rate of 5%, according to the state.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday condoled the death of former President Pranab Mukherjee in a letter addressed to his daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee. Gandhi, in the letter said, that the former President played a crucial role both in shaping the course of events as well as actively participating in them, whether as a cabinet minister, parliamentarian or President of India.

Pranabda had been such an integral and prominent part of national life, the Congress party and the central government for over five decades, it is hard to imagine how we can do without his wisdom, experience, sage advice and deep understanding of so many subjects, Gandhi wrote in the letter.

Gandhi said Mukherjee brought distinction to every post he held, he established a genuine rapport with colleagues across the political spectrum, and he served our country with the utmost dedication. His life over the past 50 years mirrored 50 years of the history of India, for he played a crucial role both in shaping the course of events as well as actively participating in them, whether as a cabinet minister, parliamentarian or President of India, she said, condoling his demise.

I personally have so many warm memories of my working with him, and I learnt so much from him, Gandhi said.

The former Indian President passed away on Monday evening after he had suffered a fall at his Rajaji Marg house and had been operated to remove a blood clot in his brain on August 10. Doctors on Monday morning warned that there was a decline in his condition and he was in septic shock due to infection in his lung.

As news of Pranab Mukherjees death emerged, Prime Minister Modi paid tributes to the veteran politician who had guided him when he first came to Delhi from Gujarat in 2014, ready to take charge as prime minister. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society, PM Modi tweeted.
LUDINGTON  The Ludington McDonalds created a special drive-thru lane on Saturday to support the Western Michigan Fairs operational budget and help with efforts toward its return in 2021.

In addition to hosting the drive-thru lane, Ludington McDonalds owner/operator Matthew Schulz donated $1,000 to the fair for a total $2,000 donation.
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While some investors are already well versed in financial metrics (hat tip), this article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE) and why it is important. We'll use ROE to examine TIL Logistics Group Limited (NZSE:TLL), by way of a worked example.

ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

See our latest analysis for TIL Logistics Group

How Do You Calculate Return On Equity?

Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations)  Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for TIL Logistics Group is:

6.8% = NZ$2.5m  NZ$37m (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. That means that for every NZ$1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated NZ$0.07 in profit.

Does TIL Logistics Group Have A Good ROE?

Arguably the easiest way to assess company's 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. The image below shows that TIL Logistics Group has an ROE that is roughly in line with the Logistics industry average (8.2%).

roe

That isn't amazing, but it is respectable. Although the ROE is similar to the industry, we should still perform further checks to see if the company's ROE is being boosted by high debt levels. If a company takes on too much debt, it is at higher risk of defaulting on interest payments. Our risks dashboardshould have the 4 risks we have identified for TIL Logistics Group.

Why You Should Consider Debt When Looking At ROE

Virtually all companies need money to invest in the business, to grow profits. That cash can come from retained earnings, issuing new shares (equity), or debt. In the first two cases, the ROE will capture this use of capital to grow. 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.

Story continues

TIL Logistics Group's Debt And Its 6.8% ROE

TIL Logistics Group does use a high amount of debt to increase returns. It has a debt to equity ratio of 2.34. The combination of a rather low ROE and significant use of debt is not particularly appealing. Debt does bring extra risk, so it's only really worthwhile when a company generates some decent returns from it.

Summary

Return on equity is useful for comparing the quality of different businesses. In our books, the highest quality companies have high return on equity, despite low debt. If two companies have the same ROE, then I would generally prefer the one with less debt.

But when a business is high quality, the market often bids it up to a price that reflects this. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth -- and how much investment is required going forward. So I think it may be worth checking this free this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.

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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Model of the optical component and overall mechanics. Credit: Chen Jinting et al

A research group led by Prof. Wang Jian from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) proposed a continuous-scanning near-infrared sky brightness monitor (CNISBM). It can measure 2.5 to 5 m infrared sky brightness based on an InSb detector and a linear variable filter.

This study was published in Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems on August 13.

Infrared observation is an important method for astronomical research. The level of sky brightness, measured by numerous major astronomical observatory sites in the world, limits the potential of infrared astronomical telescopes and instruments. Thus it is necessary to measure the infrared sky brightness level at an observatory site to evaluate the feasibility of infrared telescopes and instruments.

Due to the absorption of the Earth's atmosphere, ground-based infrared astronomical observations can only be conducted through several observing windows. 2.5 to 5 m is the beginning of the infrared wavelength and there are two observing windows in the 2.5 to 5 m band: L and M.

Because the level of sky brightness is extremely weak, the output signal of the InSb detector is lower than nA order and the lock-in amplification technology is used to extract the signal submerged in the noise.

In order to reduce the influence of dark current, the detector is cooled to below -150. The chopper and optical system adapted to low temperature were designed to overcome the background thermal noise caused by the instrument.

CNISBM can detect the weak signal of infrared sky brightness and provide valuable information for the design and construction of infrared telescopes and instruments in the future.

Explore further Automated observing network inaugurated at SOAR telescope

More information: Jin-Ting Chen et al, Design of a continuous-scanning sky brightness monitor in the 2.5- to 5-m band, Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems (2020). Jin-Ting Chen et al, Design of a continuous-scanning sky brightness monitor in the 2.5- to 5-m band,(2020). DOI: 10.1117/1.JATIS.6.3.036001

Provided by University of Science and Technology of China
FARMINGTON  Amy Henkenius and the bookstore she runs that was bought by her parents 40 years ago have been through adversity before.

In September 2002, she recalled, floodwaters seeped in the back door, soaking and ruining the carpet. For the only time in its history, Amys Bookcase was closed. Henkenius had to move all the books to one side of the store and clean up the mess, then move them to the other side and cleaned up that mess.

But she wasnt alone. As her shop at 2530 San Juan Blvd. in Farmington prepares to celebrate its fourth decade in business this weekend in conjunction with National Independent Bookstore Day, Henkenius recalled how dozens of volunteers turned out to help her because they loved her store and what it represented.

I had forgotten how many people helped us during that time, Henkenius said. That was a great effort.

Nearly 20 years later, Amys Bookcase is still around, having weathered the sharp decline in the number of independent bookstores nationally and the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to the shuttering of thousands of small businesses across America. Henkenius said the outbreak of the virus has been by far the biggest challenge her business has faced.

Its so ongoing, she said. In March, I just cried every night. I didnt know how I was going to do it.

But Henkenius figured it out, just as she has with every other threat to her shops existence over the years. When she couldnt allow customers inside her store to browse because of the governors public health orders, Henkenius started offering pandemic packs  sacks of three books she sold for $5 in specific genres that Henkenius selected herself from her vast inventory. Customers could order the packs over the phone or online, and she would ship them the books or offer curbside delivery.

It was an idea that quickly caught fire. Henkenius estimated she sold at least 100 packs a week for four or five weeks, allowing the business to sustain itself until she could open the doors to customers again. After news of what she was doing went viral, Henkenius started receiving orders from across the country.

(The pandemic packs) were really good for our business, she said. We were able to keep our bills paid, and we didnt have to close for good.

Henkenius said the promotion has had a lasting positive effect on her business. She now regularly fills orders for two out-of-state customers who became regulars during that period  one in Ohio and another in California  but she said she is seeing more in-store traffic now than she was before the virus hit.

People are reading a lot of books, she said. We saw several little microbursts of people today. And I think a lot of people discovered us when we were doing our pandemic packs. I think people really started reading more during the pandemic.

Still, Henkenius is happy that her customers can search the stores titles on their own again. Trying to find books that suited her customers tastes was exhausting, she said, and she knows that a big part of what makes indie book stores so enjoyable is the experience of being able to stroll unhurried up and down its aisles.

Henkenius bought the store from her parents, Dale and Jean Pancoast, in 1998 after they bought it from its original owner in 1980. Henkenius said her father continued to help her with the store nearly every day until his death in 2008, and her mother still drops by to help when she can or visit with longtime customers.

The 40th anniversary celebration she has planned on Aug. 29 originally was scheduled for April 1 but was postponed because of the pandemic. Henkenius said the event will be a scaled-down version of that celebration because she only allows 10 customers in the store at any given time.

Its a fine line were walking, she said. We really want to promote it, but, please dont all come at once.

Henkenius had planned to have a series of local authors make appearances for the celebration, but now they will appear on the Amys Bookstore Facebook page at 10 a.m., 11 a.m. and noon.

She also will be selling some exclusive items that are available only at indie bookstores as part of National Independent Bookstore Day, such as signed, exclusive editions of A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, as well as posters, candles and childrens items.
Widespread reforms are needed to close the discriminatory pay gap in Canadian medicine that sees female physicians consistently earn less than male doctors, a newly published analysis says.

To overcome the systemic bias, the paper, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), calls for more transparency in physician payments, better parental leave for all doctors, and changes to a medical education system that often pushes women into less lucrative, more feminized specialties.

Weve been mired in this debate in Canada about the existence of the gender pay gap. We seem to just be going back and forth on whether or not it exists. Its time to move past that and start actually saying, This exists and its time to address it,  said Dr. Michelle Cohen, a family physician and Queens University professor who co-authored the analysis.

The call to action comes two weeks after a study by the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) found a 15.6 per cent unexplained pay gap between male and female doctors.

The OMAs study analyzed all physicians billings to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan in 2017-18, and adjusted for factors such as days worked in order to make an apples-to-apples comparison between male and female physicians. Its the largest study of its type in Canada, the association said.

Together, the two new analyses shine a light on pay inequity not just between male-dominated medical specialties, such as ophthalmology and radiology, and the less-lucrative specialties such as family medicine or pediatrics in which more women practice; the research also shows a persistent pay imbalance between men and women within those fields.

In 2019, a Toronto Star investigation revealed the names of 194 Ontario doctors whose annual billings  from a high of around $6.9 million to a low of $1.4 million  placed them in the Top 100 at least once between 2011 and 2018.

Despite roughly 41 per cent of physicians in Ontario being women, only nine of the 194 top billers were women  less than five per cent.

The billings are not the doctors take-home pay and do not take into account the often hefty overhead costs physicians pay for expenses like equipment, staff salaries and rent. These costs come out of their billings.

The pay imbalance stems from a bias deeply rooted in Canadas medical system, experts say.

There are sexist discriminations baked into it that start at the first day of med school, Cohen said.

In whats known as the hidden curriculum, women are nudged towards lower-paying specialties.

Youll be hard pressed to find a female doctor who did not hear comments during her training like, This is a more family-friendly specialty...this is really long hours and physically demanding and its really mens work,  Cohen said.

These biases stalk female doctors into their career, she said.

Most doctors in Canada are remunerated through a fee-for-service model that, in theory, should be immune to bias. A doctor performs a procedure or assessment and then bills the insurer, such as OHIP, for the service using a unique fee code listed in whats called a schedule of benefits.

This payment model has a proclivity to give higher remuneration for procedures rather than more relationship-based care, said Dr. Samantha Hill, a cardiac surgeon and president of the OMA.

Studies have shown that female doctors generally take longer with patients, which is often tied to higher satisfaction ratings with patients, Hill said. But that kind of care is time-intensive and can limit billing.

When its about building relationships, such as psychiatry or a lot of the work family medicine does...when those relationships are important, you cant rush human relationships, Hill said.

The fee-for-service system values and pays those procedural, or masculine tendencies, a lot better.

The gender-based discrimination within fee schedules is not always subtle, according to the CMAJ analysis, co-authored by Cohen and Dr. Tara Kiran, a family physician and a clinician investigator at Torontos St. Michaels Hospital.

Female surgeons disproportionately operate on women, and these procedures are often remunerated at a lower level than had it been performed on a male patient, the analysis said.

In Ontario, a surgeon is paid $50.90 for an incision under general anesthetic of a vulvar abscess, while a similar procedure for a scrotal abscess pays $99, according to the CMAJ analysis.

Similarly, reimbursement for a biopsy is $39.60 for the penis and $26.85 for the vulva.

Hill says there is still work to do to unpack the glaring pay gap identified by OMAs research. The study recommends the association should champion revising the provinces schedule of benefits in a way that better reflects the work required to perform each service, as well as launch a campaign to raise awareness about medicines gender pay imbalance.

As a short-term goal, the fact that it is being discussed is already a major win. This is something that has been on the fringes of medical science for over a decade. But its been passion projects for individuals involved...You cant make systemic change that way, Hill said.

Fixing this is going to require societal and social change.

Spurring that change needs commitment from those in power, Cohen said. Beyond the OMAs recent focus on the gender pay gap, physician associations have stayed silent on the problem for far too long, she said.

The fact that our medical associations have completely ignored an issue that is so relevant to the lives of half of their membership needs to be addressed and accounted for, and the government needs to step in as well.

She said medical authorities in the United Kingdom and the United States are light-years ahead of us by putting out policies to try to make things better.

Its time for Canada to stop lagging behind our international peers...and actually do something about it, Cohen said.
Complaints filed by Ontarios four major teachers unions over the provinces back-to-school plans are unlikely to cause delays to Hamiltons reopening dates for public schools, says a local union chapter.

The appeals with the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) were filed by the Elementary Teachers Federations of Ontario (ETFO), Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA), Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) and Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens.

The unions, which collectively represent 190,000 teaching and education workers, say the government has failed to adequately respond to the unions health and safety concerns while attempting to deflect blame for their inadequate school reopening plan by creating division among Ontarians.

Daryl Jerome, president of the teachers bargaining unit for OSSTF in the Hamilton-Wentworth district, says the newly-filed complaints probably wont lead to strike action that delays the reopening of schools.

Based on what I know now, this wont have an immediate impact on school reopening. We may see some members exercise their right to refuse work because conditions are unsafe, but strike action isnt happening, Jerome said.

Were not going to see workers en-masse refusing to go to school.

Jerome said the teachers plans could change depending on how the appeals process at the labour board goes.

The unions have each filed an appeal to the OLRB arguing that the Ministry of Educations Guide to reopening Ontarios Schools does not take every reasonable precaution to protect workers, as required by Section 25(2)(h) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

They also say they were left with no choice but to take legal action after meeting with Minister of Labour Monte McNaughton on Aug. 24.

Following the meeting, the unions issued a request to the Minister of Labour that orders be made requiring the Ministry of Education to set standards around physical distancing, cohorting, ventilation, and transportation, the joint statement said.

It was also requested that the Ministry of Labour review these orders monthly, in case scientific developments dictate more stringent standards, and that school boards be given additional time if necessary to implement proper health and safety measures. As of Aug. 28, the date upon which it said it would respond, the Ministry of Labour had failed to comply with these requests.

The unions will likely ask the cases to be heard on an expedited basis, given teachers are returning to school amid conditions they say are not safe enough.
GAVAR, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS. Tomb raiders have targeted the ancient Sangar Fortress in Dzoraghbyur and stolen materials from three tombs. Culture Ministrys Chief of the Historic Environment Protection Service Gor Gasparyan told ARMENPRESS that the monuments security guard was first to alarm them.

The tombs at the fortress area date back to sometime around the 2nd and 1st millennia BC.

Gasparyan says their regional service has contacted the local authorities.

A tomb robbery was also recorded around two months ago at the Shoghakat community, and the incident is currently under investigation, he said.

It is necessary to spare no effort and jointly fight against these persons who are destroying our important historic values for tomb robberies, he said.

Reporting by Khosrov Khlghatyan; Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
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School reopens next month, in one form or another, as the Central New York community takes another big step to emerge from the coronavirus crisis. For kids, parents, teachers and school staff, its a leap into the unknown.

Today, Syracuse.com is launching an initiative, Educating CNY, to share resources and critical information, connect you with experts and find answers to your questions as classes resume remotely, in person or both.

Weve already been reporting on the long road to this point: the health considerations for students and staff, the changes to school buildings and routines, the struggles of parents to decide whats right for their families.

Weve asked your questions during live Q&A interviews with experts on mental health, epidemiology and education. They offered advice grounded in science and their knowledge and experience.

Now you can follow along, compare notes and be part of the story, too.

We invite you to join our Educating CNY Facebook group, where you can connect with others, share your tips and ideas, and perhaps find some comfort in an unsettled time.

Bookmark our Educating CNY page on Syracuse.com, where youll find the latest news on school reopenings and the resumption of scholastic sports.

Join us at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday on Syracuse.coms Facebook page for a live Q&A with child psychiatrist Dr. Geoffrey Hopkins. Hopkins is chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at St. Josephs Health. He took your questions in May about the mental health challenges children were facing as spring school closings bled into summer. Hell offer advice for parents preparing their children and their families for the uncertain school year ahead. Email me your questions in advance. And if you cant stop by for the live event, you can always catch a replay later on Syracuse.com.

Have a question or a story to share about how youre handling school, family and work in the time of coronavirus? We want to hear from you. Contact Educating CNY reporter Marie Morelli: Email | Twitter | 315-766-6472

MORE STORIES ON EDUCATING CNY

Reopening schools will test kids, families, teachers, community. Well get through it together.

New York state making progress on fall HS sports, but weve got a lot of work to do

How many CNY parents are sending kids back to school, how many keeping them home?

Pandemic pods: When classrooms arent an option, families build solutions together

Coronavirus testing for teachers and other school workers starts Wednesday; signup forms posted
Courtesy Hyundai/PRNewswireFresh off their double MTV VMA win and record-breaking "Dynamite" video debut, BTS is ready for their next trick.

The group and Hyundai have teamed up to promote the car manufacturer's new electric vehicle brand, IONIQ, with the release of a free song called "Ioniq (I'm On It)." Sung partly in English, partly in Korean, the song is now available at Hyundai's website as a free download; there's also a lyric video. The actual music video will debut on Hyundai's YouTube channel on September 2.

Speaking about the video, BTS member RM says in a statement, "For this special project, we have all focused on individual moments that are important to us. For me, time for inner self is extremely important, I believe we all need time for reflection to be able to grow.

While "Ioniq (I'm On It)" is an actual song, all the lyrics were written to reflect what Hyundai describes as "the need for progress and a future full of new possibilities." The website breaks down which member sings which lyric, along with its meaning.

"We hope this song will inspire everyone to find time for what matters most and they can do the right thing for a cleaner future," says Suga in a statement.

There are also interviews with V and Jimin, and with Suga, j-hope and Jung Kook available to watch now, in which they discuss the partnership and the song.

By Andrea Dresdale

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Illegal immigrant families turn themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol to seek asylum following an illegal crossing of the Rio Grande in Hidalgo, Texas, on Aug. 23, 2019. (Loren Elliott/Reuters)

Judge Blocks Trump Admin Policy Delegating CBP Agents to Conduct Credible Fear Interviews for Asylum Seekers

A federal judge on Aug. 31 blocked a Trump administration policy that delegated authority to agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to conduct credible fear interviews for asylum seekers.

Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction that bars CBP agents from further conducting the interviews. In January, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and CBP entered an agreement that delegated the power to agents on the front line of the border crisis.

Migrants applying for asylum due to credible fear must show that there is at least a 10 percent chance that he or she will be persecuted based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

A group of asylum seekers, who face imminent removal from the United States, sued the Trump administration after their negative credible fear determinations by CBP agents were upheld by immigration judges. They sought a temporary restraining order to prevent their removal and injunctive relief to block agents from conducting the interviews.

The asylum seekersfour mothers and their seven children from Honduras, Ecuador, and Mexicoseek to stay in the United States based on what they say are fears in their home countries of kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder by individuals who are connected to politicians or drug cartels. They argued that the agreement between the two agencies violates several federal laws, the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the U.N. Convention Against Tortures protection against refoulement.

In granting the preliminary injunction, Leon said the group had shown a likelihood of success of their claim that the use of CBP agents, who receive less training than USCIS asylum officers, violates the federal Immigration and Nationality Act.

Under the law, Congress requires asylum officers conducting such interviews to have comprehensive training on areas such as an applicants country conditions, asylum law, and interview techniques.

The group argued that the CBP agents who have been assigned to do the jobs of the USCIS asylum officers receive less training than real asylum officers and have received insufficient training to qualify to serve as asylum officers per the statutory requirements.

Meanwhile, the government argued that the CBP agents who conduct such interviews receive training that is consistent with USCIS prior training history and experience. The judge rejected that argument.

Poppycock! The training requirements cited in the Governments declaration do not come close to being comparable to the training requirements of full asylum officers, he wrote in his opinion (pdf).

The judge said the agreement prevents any individual CBP agent from conducting credible fear interviews for longer than 180 days, which means CBP agents are unable to gain the necessary experience to appropriately apply asylum laws and regulations.

These procedures plainly violate Congresss requirements, the judge wrote.

Leon also found that the asylum seekers would suffer irreparable harm if he didnt grant the preliminary injunction.

Brianne Gorod, chief counsel of the Constitutional Accountability Center, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the asylum seekers, celebrated the ruling on Twitter.

This admin has tried to hurt immigrants in so many ways, including by having law enforcement CBP agents conduct interviews that should be carried out by trained asylum officers from USCIS. @MyConstitution & @tahirihjustice challenged this policy in court, & #today we won! Gorod wrote.

The Justice Department didnt immediately respond to The Epoch Times request for comment.
A Melbourne mother has written an honest open letter about the realities of being a mum to a one-year-old during the coronavirus lockdown, and it has struck a chord with parents around the world.

A Melbourne mum has written an honest open letter about the realities of being a mum to a one-year-old during COVID-19 lockdown (Michelle Daga pictured with her son)

Michelle Daga, her partner Jahmin, both 32, and baby Jahlee, 1, live in an apartment without a backyard, and they are three of thousands who are subject to the strictest restrictions Australia has ever seen.

'My baby is turning one this week, and he has spent half of his life in lockdown,' nutritionist and childbirth educator Michelle wrote in the letter.

'Isolated at home with mum and dad, for six months now and counting. He has never played with another child, patted a dog, or had a chance to dig in the dirt.

'He is yet to meet most of his family, visit a shopping centre, or spend a day in the playground.'

Melbourne has been in stage 4 lockdown since Sunday 2 August and this will continue until at least Sunday 13 September.

During this period, residents can only travel 5km from their house, there is a curfew between 8pm and 5am, and people can only leave their homes for one hour each day.

Michelle Daga, her partner Jahmin, both 32, and baby Jahlee (pictured), 1, live in an apartment without a backyard, and they are three of thousands who are subject to the strictest restrictions Australia has ever seen

Michelle (pictured with Jahlee just before lockdown when masks became mandatory in Melbourne) said Jahlee is yet to meet much of his family or play with another baby

While Michelle acknowledged that she knows their situation is 'not unique', she also said that doesn't mean it isn't difficult.

'The only other faces Jahlee sees are hidden behind masks,' she said.

He has no idea food grows on trees or sprouts from the earth, just that it arrives in bags and boxes, left by a man in a mask at the front door

'And he has no idea food grows on trees or sprouts from the earth, just that it arrives in bags and boxes, left by a man in a mask at the front door.'

Michelle and Jahmin recently celebrated Jahlee's first birthday with a party for the three of them, and all 20 of their extended family joined from across the country on Zoom.

'To look at him, you wouldn't know of his sheltered little life,' Michelle said.

'He was a baby when lockdown began, not even able to crawl. Now, he's a walking, talking toddler, with a whole lot of personality and a toothy smile.'

Michelle said she has noticed Jahlee changing a lot during the six months where Melbourne has been in and out of lockdown (Jahlee pictured at the beginning of lockdown six months ago and last week)

What are the stage 4 restrictions in Melbourne? * From 6pm on Sunday 2 August, if you live in metropolitan Melbourne, Stage 4 restrictions have applied. * A curfew is in place between the hours of 8pm until 5am. This means you must be at your home during these hours. The only reasons to leave home between 8pm and 5am will be work, medical care and caregiving. * The four reasons that you can leave home remain, but further limitations are now in place for: shopping for food or other essential items, exercise (applies to outdoor exercise, and with only one other person), and permitted work. * Caregiving, for compassionate reasons or to seek medical treatment also remains a permitted reason to leave home. * As much as you can, you must stay at home. When you leave home, you must use a face covering, unless you have a lawful reason for not doing so. Source: DHHS Victoria Advertisement

In Michelle's open letter, she said while Jahlee is 'happy, healthy, vibrant' and 'full of curiosity and laughter', she has a sense that he is 'longing for more' and that even he knows something 'isn't right'.

'That was confirmed just last week, when he hurriedly crawled across the floor, pointing to the window, squealing, laughing, shrieking with delight,' she said.

'I turned to see two pigeons, perched high on the roof of the building next door. A look on his face of pure joy, and then I realised, these are the first birds my one-year-old has ever seen.'

Michelle said she sat with Jahlee for a while watching the birds who were 'so peaceful, so free', before they flew away and left 'us alone again, in these four walls'.

'There is nothing normal about living half your life in quarantine,' Michelle said.

'There is nothing normal about parenting in a pandemic. And although I'm well aware things could be worse, this is far from easy.

'Millions of others are sharing this strange new reality with us every day. And I'm here to remind you, you're not alone.

'Here's hoping we can all spread our wings, and teach our young ones to fly very soon. Happy birthday, my baby.'

The mum-of-one's post struck a huge chord on Facebook, where over 1,000 people reacted to it and shared their own stories during lockdown.

'In Melbourne too with 3.5 years old, 18 months old and baby born in stage 4 last week... I feel you. This Is madness,' one mother posted.

'Sending strength! Here in WA we are sheltered from the madness happening over where you are right now but I had a newborn in lockdown over here and I can already see the difference between my older son and my younger one,' another woman added.

'My youngest is clingy and won't go to anyone ... why would he when he spent 10 weeks at home with just me.'

Others said they were drawing huge moral support from the mother's post during an 'impossible' time.

Victoria has recorded its deadliest day with 41 deaths and 73 new cases of coronavirus reported on Monday (the figures pictured)

Michelle and Jahmin recently celebrated Jahlee's first birthday with a party for the three of them, and all 20 of their extended family joined from across the country on Zoom (pictured)

Jahlee (pictured with his dad) hasn't had a normal upbringing so far, and Michelle said he saw a bird for the first time the other week

What are Michelle's practical tips for surviving lockdown? * STAY NOURISHED: Use the extra time at home to prepare healthy meals using fresh ingredients. It's tempting to turn to takeaway and comfort foods during tough times, but having these too often can make us feel worse. Remember good nutrition is key to supporting a healthy immune system, and fresh food makes us feel good. * MAKE COOKING FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY: Older children can help in the kitchen with prep work and cooking, while younger ones can help with stirring and setting the table, and babies enjoy mimicking what they see by playing with pots and pans on the floor. * MOVE YOUR BODY AT YOUR PACE: You might be heavily pregnant, a few months postpartum, or juggling toddlers, home schooling and working from home. Its a challenge, but making time to move your body at your pace and fitness level, whether it's a short walk (within your local regulations) or gentle yoga at home, can help break up the monotony of lockdown, and re-energise you for the rest of the day. * GET SOME SUNSHINE: When our skin is exposed to sunlight, it makes Vitamin D. This vitamin is crucial for a healthy pregnancy and infancy, as well as bone health, hormonal balance and mood regulation. So make the most of your time outdoors, as permitted by your local lockdown laws. If you feel tired or unwell, consider getting nutrient levels checked and supplementing deficiencies with the support of a nutritionist. * BE KIND TO YOURSELF: At the beginning of lockdown, a lot of people made grand plans to learn a new language, lose weight, or renovate their homes. The reality is, it can be hard to find energy, motivation and time to achieve all these things while juggling parenting and working from home in these uncertain times. Take each day as it comes, and give yourself permission to just do nothing sometimes, without feeling guilty. Using meditation and mindfulness is a great way to quieten the mind, and children can join in too. * CONNECT WITH OTHERS ONLINE: We might be isolated at home, but so many others are sharing a similar experience. You can use video calls to stay in touch with friends and family, but it's also a great time to meet new like-minded people by connecting in online groups, like my free support group on Facebook called Healthy and Happy Pregnancy and Parenting in a Pandemic. Advertisement

Michelle told FEMAIL that due to 'rolling lockdowns' throughout the majority of this year, Jahlee has only met his uncle who lives in Melbourne and his two parents.

'He hasn't had a chance to meet other babies or make friends,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'I've received hundreds of messages from other parents saying their little ones in that 0-18 month age group are in the same situation.'

Michelle added that it is also 'incredibly isolating' for new mothers, who would usually gather at parenting groups, women's circles and playgroups.

'It's also hard for grandparents, who have to watch their grandchildren grow up on FaceTime and Zoom calls, knowing they can't get this time back,' she said.
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BMRCL has sought to increase the borrowing limit and mortgage its properties to raise money to push ahead with the metro work, amid the pandemic.

Considering the economic constraints faced by the governments, the board of directors of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) recently passed a resolution for increasing the limit on borrowing from Rs 22,000 crore to Rs 28,000 crore.

With this, BMRCL plans to raise Rs 6,520 crore for Phase 1, 2, 2A, and 2B. Secondly, the corporation hopes to raise Rs 1,300 crore through debentures/bonds by mortgaging all or any of the assets, for which it has sought approval of its members, including the Union government.

The corporation has spent Rs 13,845 crore on Phase 1 and the revised cost of Phase 2 is estimated at Rs 30,695 crore. The corporation has already received Rs 13,093 crore from the central and state government, which amounts to 70.56% of their funding. The remaining money, including about Rs 665 crore needed to close Phase 1 accounts, has to be raised through loans.

Losses due to lockdown

In addition to this, the shutting down of metro operations has led to huge financial losses, with officials incurring a loss of Rs 22 crore per month since May. The restarting of trains is not expected to fetch the same fare revenue of about Rs 30 crore a month as the trains cannot carry more than one-sixth of their capacity due to the social-distancing rules.

BMRCL Managing Director Ajay Seth said the move to raise the borrowing limit and mortgage properties was part of the efforts to become self-reliant amid the raging economic crisis.

We dont want any of our projects to be delayed due to financial constraints. From land acquisiton to construction, we want the works to continue in full swing. We are securing the financial needs, he said.

BMRCLs monthly expenditure is about Rs 400 to Rs 500 crore, a major part of which is spent on project financing. Until last year, the corporation had funds to provide for expenditure for the next three months.

This year, the corporation has reached a stage where the funds could finance only the following months expenditure. Of the Rs 1300 crore to be raised through the latest move, about Rs 700 crore will be reserved for the financing of the projects.
The study indicates that hypertension causes damage to the penile blood vessels to such an extent that ED incidence is more than twice as likely to occur.

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is basically the consistent or recurrent inability of a man to attain or maintain a penile erection for intercourse. ED is a type of male sexual dysfunction that causes a lot of distress among men, and yet, awareness about it isnt as widespread as it needs to be, especially in India.

Link between hypertension and ED

A study published in Vascular Health and Risk Management in June 2020 revealed that ED incidence is linked with a number of chronic diseases, including diabetes and hypertension. In the case of hypertension, in particular, its popularly believed that treatments for high blood pressure  specifically medications used to treat hypertension  can either cause ED or worsen it in hypertensive patients showing early signs of ED.

New research presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2020 not only disagrees with this popular notion about hypertension medications but actually indicates that men with untreated hypertension have higher chances of developing ED because they have poor penile blood flow.

Do antihypertension drugs make ED worse?

This new study included 356 men with erectile dysfunction who enrolled at a clinic between 2006 and 2019. These men had no history of diabetes or cardiovascular disease and were divided into three categories according to their blood pressure: normal, high-normal and hypertensive. Of these, 164 patients across the three categories were treated with antihypertensive medications to analyse if the drugs caused ED in men without blood pressure problems too. All the patients later underwent a Doppler ultrasound to evaluate penile blood vessel status and flow.

Penile blood flow is considered to be damaged or deterred when its velocity is less than 25cm per second. The studys results show that penile blood flow was fastest in those with normal blood pressure, and as the blood pressure levels climbed, the penile blood flow kept getting slower and slower. This is the reason why those in the high-normal blood pressure group had slower penile flow, and those with hypertension had the slowest. More significantly, the study showed that penile blood flow velocity was the same among all the patients who took antihypertension medications across the three categories.

The need to handle hypertension and ED with care

The study indicates that hypertension causes damage to the penile blood vessels to such an extent that ED incidence is more than twice as likely to occur. It also shows that the administration of hypertension medications actually improves the blood flow through the same vessels enough to be at the same level as that in men without hypertension.

Additional analysis of the data gathered from this study also indicated that penile blood flow was worse in men who did not have hypertension but were treated with antihypertension medicines. The researchers behind this study, therefore, urged the need for proper hypertension diagnosis and drug prescriptions only after high blood pressure incidence is established. They further called for doctors to treat hypertension patients with ED symptoms with greater care since changing their treatment is clearly a delicate process and may further impede penile blood flow and worsen their ED.

For more information, read our article on Erectile dysfunction.

Health articles in Firstpost are written by myUpchar.com, Indias first and biggest resource for verified medical information. At myUpchar, researchers and journalists work with doctors to bring you information on all things health.
The significance of the Siachen Glacier, nestled high up in the mountains beyond the Shyok-Nubra Valley, has received a shot in the arm given the seriousness of the current face-off between India and China in Eastern Ladakh. Not many can perceive the deep linkage between Siachen, the Karakoram Range, Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) and the Shyok Valley through which the high-profile road from Darbuk to DBO runs.

An article by Brigadier Masud Ahmad Khan (Retd) of the Pakistan Army in that countrys newspaper The Nation datelined 24 August 2020 and titled Siachen is Ours is as much a trigger for this piece as a progressively gleaned perception that Pakistani knowledge of this area is much more than meets the eye. However, this must commence by pointing out the folly of many Indian analysts and others who believed that New Delhi has gained no strategic advantage by spending `1,500 crore every year to maintain its hold over Siachen.

First, let us get to Brigadier Khans claims. His arguments are based on four issues; that after Partition, Pakistan controlled the area west of the line from NJ 9842 to Karakoram Pass; that foreign mountaineering expeditions sought its permission before proceeding to climb in the Siachen zone; that international atlases such as those of the National Geographic depicted the area as Pakistans; and lastly that various books published even by Indian publishing houses showed Siachen in Pakistani territory. Pakistani claims cannot get more bizarre.

Factually, the narrative remains that NJ 9842 was the last point up to which survey of the ceasefire line (CFL, later LoC) was done after 1 January 1949; it was recorded that beyond NJ 9842, the CFL would follow an undefined line north to the glaciers. It would have remained undefined and conflict-free but for Pakistans undercover efforts to take control of the glaciated area defined by the triangle NJ 9842-Indira Col (along Saltoro)-Karakoram Pass. It was providential that India took a timely initiative on 13 April 1984 and occupied the triangle, denying its use to Pakistan.

Pakistan may then have never fully appreciated the strategic value of Siachen. Not many in India did either as the not a blade of grass theory from the 1962 days played into our understanding. Right at the outset, perhaps two things were clear to the government for it to be as proactive as it was in flying out troops to Bilafond La (pass) on 13 April 1984. The first was the fact that the Siachen triangle took us closer to the Shaksgam Valley that had been illegally ceded by Pakistan to China in 1963. It is the second reason that was evident to some but only progressively dawned on many others.

The second reason alluded to above was the fact that Siachen was the immediate flank of DBO. An infantry-based foray through Siachen could access the relatively unguarded Nubra Valley and head for DBO. If captured from that direction, a continuous swathe of territory on the Karakoram Range would fall to Pakistan. This would broaden its boundary with China and offer the two adversaries of India the ability to conduct operations in collusion to capture the entire Nubra and Shyok Valleys.

In that contingency with its western and northern flanks occupied, the Indian Army deployment in Eastern Ladakh would be severely threatened, to the extent of forcing it to retract to the Ladakh Range. The Indian Armys defence of Ladakh resting on the Ladakh Range is an unthinkable contingency; Leh, the capital, would have just one mountain range to give it depth. It is only a deep study of the map and travel experience through the ground that brings this realisation.

For those like me who are fortunate to have commanded an infantry unit at Siachen and then in Eastern Ladakh, the realisation was crystal clear many years ago. In 2013, China commenced talk of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as its flagship arm. Many of us who knew the lay of the ground north of the Ladakh Range wondered how long it would be before China would be tempted by alternatives to the alignment; after all, the Old Silk Route never depended on single arteries; there were always a maze of them and the Shyok route had the potential to recreate that maze.

It was also just around 2012 that Pakistan, after all the failed attempts in Musharrafs time, once again commenced a campaign for mutual withdrawal of the Indian and Pakistan Armies from Siachen Glacier. The huge avalanche on the Pakistan Army unit on 7 April 2012 that took 140 lives was also used to spur the sentiment towards a mutual withdrawal. Like in 2004-5 when similar attempts were made by Pakistan, there were a few on the Indian side who understood the ploy about mutual withdrawal.

There can never be anything mutual about such a withdrawal simply because the only army that occupies Siachen Glacier is the Indian Army, strongly ensconced on the Saltoro Ridge to give the Glacier requisite depth. Thus only one army will withdraw under any such mutual withdrawal agreement. Evicting the Indian Army has proven well-nigh impossible as experienced by the Pakistan Army. Interestingly the Siachen area has witnessed no ceasefire violations by either army since 2003, perhaps an attempt to lull India into accepting mutual withdrawal.

What Pakistans public and its media were never officially informed is the fact that India beat Pakistan to the occupation of the Glacier by a mere six days and that an Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) exists along the Saltoro Range, which Pakistan has never shown on its maps publicly. Besides the strategic angle of posturing for future collusion with China to seek more options for strategic connectivity, the Pakistan Army has in Siachen Glacier a symbol to recover its lost dignity in the eyes of the Pakistani people. It should remain the highest hanging fruit in todays perceptions, not the lowest, the latter being the line that Pakistan was once trying to sell us not so long ago.

Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (Retd)

Former Commander, Srinagar-based 15 Corps. Now Chancellor, Central University of Kashmir

(atahasnain@gmail.com)
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A meeting of six non-BJP ruled states including Kerala on Monday decided to reject both the options put forward by the central government for GST compensation payment.

It decided to expand the debate outside the realm of the GST council and project it as a challenge to federalism.

Other states which participated in the meeting include Punjab, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Delhi and Telangana and the chief ministers of these states will write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking the centre to borrow funds on its own for the compensation payment in full.

The classification of the losses as that due to GST transition and pandemic-related incidents is unacceptable and hence the GST Council can extend the compensation cess period until the money is recouped, the meeting observed.

Kerala's Finance Minister Thomas Isaac said an elaborate meeting with the participation of around ten states will be convened in a few days to devise future plans.

It is learnt that the Congress high command has asked its chief ministers to join the next meeting to put up a joint fight against the centre on the issue.

"The decision to reject the two options was unanimous. We will never accept any attempt to draw a distinction between loss due to Covid-19 and normal losses. The proposal to make a uniform increase in the borrowing limit is absurd since the losses would differ among states. The centre's stand is a challenge to the principles of federalism," he told The New Indian Express.

The meeting observed that the GST compensation is to be paid as per the assurance in the Constitution.

The section seven of the Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to States) Act, 2017 states the manner in which the compensation is to be calculated. "The Union Finance Minister's act of god theory does not find a place in it. Fourteen per cent in GST revenue is promised to states. They have to be compensated in case of a shortfall," Isaac said.

"Monday's meeting decided to communicate the decision to the GST Council in the feedback on the proposed options. The participants also agreed to counter the centre's arguments on the issue. For this, state finance ministers will give interviews, publish articles and statements," Isaac added.

The minister said he expects the participation of Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh in the next meeting.
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - The Libyan General Electricity Company Monday blamed the increasing hours of power cuts in Grand Tripoli on high temperatures, a statement issued here said
JB Financial is ramping up its foothold in Vietnam

The Vietnam State Securities Commission (SSC) has just granted an operation license to JB Vietnam Securities Co., Ltd. with a charter capital of VND300 billion ($13 million).

Accordingly, JB Vietnam Securities is the wholly-owned subsidiary of South Korean lender Kwangju Bank  the banking arm of JB Financial Group.

Last December, VIR also reported that Kwangju Bank purchased Morgan Stanley's Vietnam-based subsidiary Morgan Stanley Gateway Securities JSC for VND382.4 billion ($16.63 million).

The successful deal is expected to pave the way for JB Financial to broker real estate and infrastructure investment in Vietnam for Korean investors.

Also, the firm plans to underwrite Vietnamese firms issuance of mezzanine instruments such as convertible bonds and bond warrants, as well as M&A opportunities through the acquired Vietnamese company.

In 2008, the US-based financial behemoth Morgan Stanley acquired 49 per cent of the stakes in local brokerage Huong Viet Securities and changed the brand name to Morgan Stanley Huong Viet Securities.

Over the past few years, South Korean investors have put great store on Vietnamese burgeoning economy thanks to the countrys young, tech-affine population. Especially, Vietnams financial landscape proves its appeal as a crucial playground for overseas funds to pour cash in, such as the banking industry or the stock market.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) decided to allow exemption and reduction of securities service fees in a bid to effectively support stock market participants.

Teh MoF is also seeking further comments to its proposal to implement intraday trading and short selling, which would be a big bonus for the local market to thrive.

In the first half of 2020, some prominent South Korean brokerages reported the highest margin loan balance, proving their active roles in the field, including Mirae Asset Securities, KIS, and KB Securities.
In the Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing, my co-authors and I talk about TikTok and about its growing trouble with government agencies, particularly in the United States, as of early 2020. We also said that by the time you read this, TikTok may not be available in the U.S. any longer. Despite the best efforts of the Trump administration, TikTok is still available for anyone in the U.S. to download.

Consider recent TikTok headlines that have come rapid-fire.

TikTok has been the subject of takeover talks by Microsoft and Oracle.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been accused of unfairly influencing the Trump administration to ban TikTok. At the same time, Facebook introduced its own TikTok competitor, Instagram Reels, and theyre testing a short video feature in the Facebook mobile app.

TikTok has announced that its going to sue the Trump administration in response to President Trumps executive order on August 6, 2020 that requires TikToks owner, ByteDance, divest its TikTok operations in the U.S. TikTok claims the executive order deprives the company of its right to due process.

All of this is tied to increasing friction between the United States and China over what the U.S. says is a national security threat from the Chinese government. The U.S. government claims TikTok is being used to acquire user data surreptitiously and continuously from its users and send that data to the Chinese government. ByteDance is headquartered in Beijing.

Related: 3 Kinds of Social Media Marketing You Shouldn't Ignore

TikTok has also come under fire from the government of India, which recently banned TikTok and other Chinese apps after border clashes and souring relations with China.

TikTok now has three well-established social networks trying to capitalize on TikToks troubles  and peel off TikTok users. Heres what those platforms have introduced recently that allow you to create short videos and share them with others.

Snapchat

Snapchat is an old pro when it comes to creating short videos. On August 3, the platform announced that it would allow its users to set short videos to music from what the company says will be a robust catalog of music. That catalog includes Warner Music Group, Universal Music Publishing Group and several others that have licensed their music to Snapchat.

Users can add music to their videos before or after they capture their video. Recipients can swipe up to view song information as well as tap the "Play This Song" link to play the full song on their preferred streaming music app.

Instagram Reels

As we mentioned earlier in this article, Facebook introduced Instagram Reels in November 2019 as a direct competitor to TikTok, launching the feature in Brazil and gradually rolling it out to new markets, most recently in North America and the United Kingdom in August.

Instagram makes it easy to access Reels from the apps feed screen by swiping to the right and then tapping "Reels" at the bottom of the screen. Then you can

My co-author, Jenn Herman, has an in-depth article about Instagram Reels on her Jenns Trends blog. Shell tell you what you need to know about it, why she hates it (in its current form) and how to decide if Reels is right for your business.

Facebook

Facebook is going after TikTok with a one-two punch that not only includes Instagram Reels, but has also introduced a new Short Videos function in India.

Facebook has more than 300 million users in India, which surpasses TikToks 200 million, so Facebook is taking advantage of TikToks absence in the country to defeat a rival and grab even more market share.

User reports state that you can upload video up to 26 seconds long. If your video is longer, you can trim the video manually within Facebook. You can also write custom text on your video, but there is no word about adding music. Yet.

Related: Instagram Launches Reels and Tries to Beat TikTok at Its Own Game

There are also plenty of other TikTok competitors including Byte, which is the successor to Vine (remember them?), as well as Dubsmash, Likee, and Triller. Even YouTube is testing a new feature for recording short videos on its mobile platform.

If you feel the need to share short videos with your audience, and you dont want to be involved in the TikTok drama, check out these other social networks to see if any of them is right for you.

Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing by Eric Butow, Jenn Herman, Stephanie Liu, Amanda Robinson and Mike Allton is available now via Entrepreneur Press. Order from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books.

Related:

20 Ways to Make Money as a Social Media Influencer

As TikTok Teeters, These 3 Social Networks Are Ready to Pounce

4 Top Advantages of a Successful Kickstarter Campaign



Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
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A Maryland official was fired after he posted memes and other statements seemingly supporting the 17-year-old who allegedly killed two protesters and wounded a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan's office confirmed that Arthur (Mac) Love IV, the deputy director of the Governors Office of Community Initiatives, had been fired Saturday afternoon, according to Maryland Matters.

Love had been drawing attention throughout the week for posts he made on Facebook, which seemed to indicate his support for Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, who was caught on video as he allegedly opened fire on Kenosha social justice protesters on August 25, using the automatic rifle he'd brought with him from Illinois.

Among Love's posts was a meme showing a white police officer giving the thumbs up with the legend, 'Don't be a thug if you can't take a slug.'

Arthur (Mac) Love IV, the deputy director of the Maryland Governors Office of Community Initiatives, was fired Saturday after his social media posts surfaced

Love had reposted various memes and statements which supported Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse (left), who allegedly fatally shot two protesters and wounded a third

Love's social media posts (shown) began circulating on Saturday morning, leading to calls for his being canned and his eventual firing that afternoon

Another post showed a photo of Leonardo DiCaprio, in character in The Great Gatsby, raising a glass of champagne, accompanied by the caption: 'When you see a skateboard wielding Antifa chickens*** get smoked by an AR toting 17-yr-old.'

Screengrabs from Facebook also showed Love posting a meme of one of the Kenosha shooting victims that said: 'When you get second place in Wisconsin's annual quick draw competition.'

The Baltimore Sun reported that Love's social media posts also seemed to support Rittenhouse's argument that he had acted in self-defense during the shooting.

Love reposted a picture of Rittenhouse cleaning graffiti, which the person who originally shared the photo had said that they were 'grateful that conservatives are rallying behind this kid. He genuinely seems like a good person.'

Other posts, the newspaper reported, included a photo of people marching, paired with the words, 'Defund the police! We can police our own communities' and an image of Rittenhouse carrying a gun, captioned 'policed his community.'

Word of Love's posts began circulating Saturday morning, as did calls for his removal from the position, which he reportedly held since 2015 and involved overseeing Maryland's ethnic and cultural commissions, community service programs and religious outreach.

Love (left) was fired from the job and replaced by Kevin Craft (right), administrative director of the Governors Commission on African Affairs

Among the posts Love reposted was a statement someone had written saying Rittenhouse (right) seemed like a 'good person' because he was pictured cleaning up graffiti (on August 25)

Rittenhouse (seated) is shown in a screengrab from a video taken the night of the incident

News footage shows Rittenhouse (in green shirt) during the night of August 25

Rittenhouse had traveled from his Illinois home to Kenosha while protests were raging. Protesters are seen the night of the shooting on August 25

The protests in Kenosha were sparked by the police shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake on August 23. An incendiary device was set off outside a police vehicle on August 25 (pictured)

Maryland delegate Eric Luedtke tweeted Saturday afternoon Hogan should fire Love, while the chairman of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus, Darryl Barnes, also called for Love to be tossed out.

Barnes told Maryland Matters that 'Theres no sense for it,' referring to Love's posts, and added that 'Theres no reason someone like this should be part of our state government.'

Barnes also noted that Love 'puts us in a bad situation.'

'This type of rhetoric is fueling what were seeing across the country. You see why theres such a call for the repeal of the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights. You see why people of all races are marching in the streets calling for justice,' Barnes said.

Love was said to have written on social media, after this earlier posts were shared, that 'people on the left try to get you fired from your job for speaking truth. its better to be fired for being honest than the LIE.'

While making the announcement that Love had been fired Saturday afternoon, executive director of the Governors Office of Community Initiatives Steven J. McAdams said, 'These divisive images and statements are inconsistent with the mission and core values of the Office of Community Initiatives.'

Love was replaced by Kevin Craft, administrative director of the Governors Commission on African Affairs, McAdams said.

Gov. Hogan's spokesperson also released a statement about Love's firing.

'These posts are obviously totally inappropriate,' Hogan's press secretary, Shareese DeLeaver-Churchill, said. 'We fully support the immediate actions taken by Director McAdams to address this matter.'

A fundraiser set up on behalf of Love stated that his 'career of dedicated service came to an abrupt and public end because he exercised his individual freedom of speech by posting on his private social media account that folks should consider an another side to' the Kenosha shooting.

Love 'suggested that perhaps Rittenhouse was defending himself in what appeared to be an unfortunate situation for all involved,' the fundraiser stated, noting that since his social media posts went public, Love 'has been followed, harrassed [sic] and bullied.'

'He has experience serious fear for his life, considering the circumstances he has been facing. He has been incorrectly called a racist and homophobe in the media,' the fundraiser said, adding that Love 'cannot even walk his dog outside without news networks harrassing him for a comment and/or someone making a threat.'

'In many ways, Mac's life will never be the same for simply standing up for his God-given right of freedom of ideas, speech and expression,' the fundraiser said, describing Love, a Republican, as 'a devout Christian, family man, and public servant for decades.'

The fundraiser is seeking to raise money for Love's defense fund and to help him relocate and ensure his physical safety.

Kenosha has been experiencing heated protests since a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, 29, a black man, in the back seven times during an arrest on August 23 while responding to a 911 call about an apparent 'domestic incident.'

A witness claimed that Blake had been trying to intervene between women who were arguing on the sidewalk.

Blake survived the shooting but has been left paralyzed from the waist down.

The shooting kicked off nightly protests in the city, which have resulted in arson, looting and property damage.

Rittenhouse's lawyers have said that he was defending himself after being attacked by a 'mob' who were protesting Blake's shooting.
The four airports are the Sharm El-Sheikh and Taba airports in South Sinai, and the Hurghada and Marsa Alam airports in the Red Sea governorate

Travelers entering Egypt at any of four airports in the Red Sea governorate and South Sinai can take a coronavirus test upon arrival, which would exempt them from submitting negative PCR test results taken before they boarded their flights.

The four airports are the Sharm El-Sheikh and Taba airports in South Sinai, and the Hurghada and Marsa Alam airports in the Red Sea governorate, according to a statement by the Egyptian civil aviation ministry.

Passengers arriving at these airports can take the coronavirus test for $30 if they do not already have their own PCR test result, the statement said, adding that the decision goes into effect on 1 September.

Earlier this month, the Egyptian authorities decided that incoming travelers must submit negative PCR test results at their port of entry, due to increasing coronavirus infections in some countries. The tests must have been taken no more than 72 hours before the arrival date.

Children under six are exempted from the decision, the ministry said in an earlier statement.

The country's key tourism sector has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, Egypt began a gradual resumption of regular international flights last month, after having shut its airspace in March due to the pandemic.

Foreign tourists in tour groups are allowed entry into the three coastal Egyptian governorates with the lowest coronavirus infection rates in the country  South Sinai, the Red Sea, and Matrouh.

Last week, Egypt said it received 126,000 tourists since resuming international flights.

The government has so far allowed around 600 hotels that have met safety protocols to reopen at a reduced occupancy rate of 50 percent.

On Sunday, Egypt detected 230 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total infection tally to 98,727 since the outbreak mid-February, the health ministry announced. The ministry also reported 23 new deaths, bringing the total deaths from the virus to 5,399.

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It is a response to the earlier actions of Slovakia.

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Three Slovak diplomats will have to leave the Slovak Embassy in Moscow. It is a response to Slovakia's earlier decision to expel three Russian diplomats for violating the Vienna Convention on diplomacy. They are said to be working for the intelligence service, the Dennik N daily reported.

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Related article Expulsion of Russian diplomats signals return of Slovakia to EU-NATO trajectory Read more

The Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry invited the Slovak ambassador to Russia on August 31, expressing the resolute protest in connection with the unjustified expulsion of three diplomats working at the Russian Embassy in Slovakia.

Russia took reciprocal steps and expelled three Slovak diplomats.

Slovakia does not consider the expulsion an adequate and justified response, but its Foreign Affairs Ministry expected the response. Slovakia is sending diplomats to Russia whose task is to try to cultivate bilateral relations, Foreign Affairs Minister Ivan Korcok said.

St Petersburg scandal

Slovakias Foreign Affairs Ministry has recently been dealing with a scandal involving Slovakia's general consulate in St. Petersburg.

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Related article MFA continues inspecting the process of issuing visas after the scandal at a consulate in Russia Read more

Last summer, the staff of the consulate allowed a Russian citizen suspected of being involved in the murder of a Georgian citizen in Berlin into the European Union, the media reported in early July this year.

The Russian was awarded a one-year visa even though it was under a fake identity. Korcok has sent investigators to St. Petersburg to find out whether it was a failure of the Slovak diplomats or if they directly cooperated with Russian authorities.
The Michigan Democratic and Republican parties nominated candidates for the state Supreme Court and university boards at their annual conventions over the weekend.

This years nominating conventions were held virtually Aug. 29 and Aug. 30. The Democratic and Republican nominations will appear on the ballot of the November general election.

Michigan Supreme Court

The Michigan Democratic Party nominated current state Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack and Elizabeth Welch, an attorney, former East Grand Rapids school board trustee and former president of Michigan League of Conservation Voters, according to her campaign website.

Two of the seven seats on the Michigan Supreme Court are up for election. That includes the seats currently held by McCormack and Justice Stephen Markman, a GOP nominee. Markman cant run for his seat again because state law bars judges 70 or older from being elected or appointed.

The Michigan Republican Party nominated Mary Kelly and Brock Swartzle for the Supreme Court. Kelly has worked for the St. Clair County Prosecutors Office for 30 years, according to her campaign Facebook page. Swartzle was appointed to the states Court of Appeals by former Gov. Rick Snyder in 2017, according to his campaign website.

Michigan Board of Education

The Democratic Party nominated Ellen Cogen Lipton and Jason Strayhorn for the state Board of Education. Lipton is a former state House representative from Oakland County who served from 2008 to 2014. She unsuccessfully ran for the state Senate last year, according to the Oakland Press. Strayhorn is a realtor and wants to join the board to ensure every child in Michigan has the necessary tools for a solid education, according to his campaign website.

The GOP nominated Tami Carlone and Michelle Fredick for the board. Carlone is involved with several organizations advocating parental control of their childrens education, according to her campaign website. She is a member of Truth in American Education, U.S. Parents Involved in Education and Stop Common Core in Michigan. Fredericks campaign website says she is a special education advocate. Frederick stated she wants to be on the board to reinstate classical education in Michigan in order to improve educational outcomes for all Michigans public school children with the firm belief that children should be taught how to think, not what to think.

Wayne State University Board of Governors

The GOP nominated Diane Dunaskiss and Don Gates for the Wayne State University Board of Governors. Dunaskisss campaign Facebook page states she served on the board for three terms starting in 1994 and ending in 2018. According to the page, Dunaskiss has three goals in mind: maintaining excellence in education at Wayne State University, to restore one of the nations best urban campuses, and to create a values-based education system that will ensure that every student learns the skills that they will need to be successful in todays job market.

Gates campaign website states he is a retired colonel who served the U.S. Army Reserve for 38 years. He completed three combat tours in Iraq, the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan. Gates career has been in IT security, management and business development.

The Democratic Party nominated Shirley Stancato and Eva Garza Dewaelsche. Stancato is currently on the board and the MDP calls her a seasoned executive and an expert on race relations and a social justice advocate. Dewaelsche is President and CEO of SER Metro-Detroit Jobs for Progress, Inc., a workforce development organization.

Michigan State University Board of Trustees

The Republican Party nominated Pat OKeefe and Tonya Schuitmaker for the Michigan State University Board of Trustees. According to OKeefes campaign website, he is a forensic accountant, a crisis management professional and an experienced leader who has helped large organizations in times of crisis. Schuitmaker is a former state lawmaker who served in both the House and Senate. She calls herself in her campaign Facebook page a conservative champion for a stronger future for MSU, free speech on campus, and affordability for students and families.

The Democrats nominated Rema Vassar and incumbent Brian Mosallam. Vassar is a former K-12 public school teacher, counselor, administrator and parent organizer. Mosallam has an MSU trustee since 2013 and is a financial advisor.

Related: Longtime MSU trustee who backed Simon amid Nassar fallout wont seek reelection

University of Michigan Board of Regents

Two people currently serving on the University of Michigan Board of Regents will seek re-election in November. The Michigan Democratic Party nominated incumbents Mark Bernstein, an attorney who has been on the board since 2012, and Dr. Shauna Ryder Diggs, a physician who has served since 2012.

Berstein served as the Director of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmers Transition Office and served on the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. Ryder Diggs is a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology and the American Society of Dermatologic Surgeons.

The MGOP nominated Sarah Hubbard and Carl Meyerss for the UM Board of Regents. Hubbards campaign website states she was a legislative staffer for state Sen. Nick Smith, R-Addison, and state Rep. Willis C. Bullard, R-Highland. She is pro-life, pro-gun rights and wants to see UM lower tuition, reopen safely and ensure freedom of speech on campus. Meyers is a graduate of UM Dearborns School of Business and is a financial adviser. Hes held positions as treasurer for the Michigan Republican Party and as a former trustee for the Michigan State Police Retirement System. Hes run for the board before, advocating for freezing tuition, increasing in-state enrollment and boosting board transparency.

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Local, state and federal law enforcement partnered last week to deal crushing blows to two significant, high volume drug trafficking organizations, Massachusetts State Police will announce on Monday.

State Police said the three levels of law enforcement cooperation led to the arrest of several people, including one person who was wearing a monitoring bracelet. Authorities confiscated 6.5 kilograms of fentanyl, pills, a gun and a large sum of suspected drug money during the bust, police said.

A press conference is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Monday at the Massachusetts State Police Headquarters in Framingham to provide more information. Representatives from the Massachusetts State Police, Homeland Security, Brockton police and East Bridgewater police are schedule to attend the announcement.
Oishani Mojumder By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is expected to take a decision on Monday, as to how and when Metro rail services should resume in the city.

Unlock-4 guidelines, released on August 29 by the Ministry of Home Affairs, state that Metro services can be resumed in a phased manner. The Metro authorities, however, are awaiting the green signal from the Chief Minister before resuming services.

While HMRL MD NVS Reddy said that he cannot respond with regards to whether Metro services would resume, Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary of Industries said, While the guidelines have been provided, the head of each State has to decide whether the services should resume. We will be meeting the Chief Minister on Monday to discuss how and when we can resume Metro services.

The Home Ministry has asked MDs of all Metros in states to prepare SOPs on how they will start functioning from September 7 onwards. The PPP project has incurred a loss of close to Rs 300 crore in the past five months.

Meanwhile, L&T HMR, the private partner of Hyderabad Metro, is waiting with bated breath to determine the future of their business in Hyderabad Metro. The company, like many other private players in metro projects, has been out of business for over five months, incurring a loss of at least Rs 45 crore every month, and will continue to do so if the services do not resume.

However, well-placed sources from L&T HMR said, Even if the services resume, it will be months or years before the Metro could get back to pre-Covid business. When asked if the government would be able to take up the entire responsibility of the Metros business, if L&T plans to back out like in Mumbais case, Ranjan said, According to an existing clause in the MoU with L&T, we will be providing them all forms of subsidies and financial support to recover their earnings lost during the lockdown period.
Enjoy zero waiting time! SpiceJet flyers can now book cabs mid-air in this city; Details here

SpiceJet launches portable ventilator for patients with moderate breathing issues

India

pti-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Aug 31: SpiceJet launched a portable non-invasive ventilator brand on Monday for patients with mild-to-moderate breathing issues. Engineers of SpiceJet Technic, a subsidiary, designed the 'SpiceOxy' device at its innovation lab, the airline said in a statement.

Since this device is turbine-based and light weight, it can be used at home, in an ambulance, on hilly terrain like army base camps, hospitals, and portable applications like wheelchairs and gurneys, according to the statement.

It said the device was an "effective solution for patients with mild to moderate breathing issues" and could be of significant help for symptomatic coronavirus patients.

Spicejet pilot tests positive for coronavirus

SpiceJet said it had also launched a brand of fingertip pulse oximeter, a handy device making it easier for people to measure the oxygen level of the blood. Both the devices can be purchased from the airline's e-commerce website, it stated.

"I am extremely happy to share that the SpiceOxy ventilator and pulse oximeter that we are launching today is proudly 'Made in India', designed and manufactured by our talented team of engineers," SpiceJet chairman and managing director Ajay Singh said.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says the health advice banning visitors to aged care homes could be scrapped ahead of Father's Day as the CBD cluster is brought under control.

NSW recorded 10 new COVID-19 cases, but six of those were in hotel quarantine. The four cases detected in the community were all linked to the Sydney CBD cluster, after the state recorded 14,232 tests.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced 10 new cases in NSW on Monday. Credit:Edinwa Pickles

Health authorities will also review CCTV from a peak-hour bus from the CBD to Randwick that carried two passengers who have tested positive to the virus to gauge whether commuters were socially distancing and wearing masks.

Ms Berejiklian stressed that mask-wearing had increased and said Service NSW data showed as many as 60 per cent of people were wearing them.
India said its troops clashed with Chinese solders along their contested Himalayan border, the latest skirmish in a conflict that has simmered since May.

The Chinese troops carried out provocative military movements late on Saturday night, Indias Defense Ministry said in a statement Monday. It accused the Peoples Liberation Army of violating diplomatic and military agreements on the undemarcated area.

Beijing was in close communication with New Delhi regarding issues on the ground, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a daily briefing in Beijing on Monday. Chinese border troops always strictly abide by the Line of Actual Control, Zhao said. They never cross the line.

Indias benchmark stock index S&P BSE Sensex plunged 2.1% in Mumbai, the biggest drop since May 18. The rupee weakened 0.3%.

The latest skirmish between the two sides took place along the Southern bank of the Pangong Tso -- a glacial lake at 14,000 feet -- along the 3,488 kilometer (2,162 mile) Line of Actual Control. Both India and China have moved thousands of troops, tanks, artillery guns and fighter jets close to the border.

The number of casualties or captured troops is not yet clear, and while theres a high-level military meeting in progress to resolve the tensions, Indias military is fully deployed along the disputed border.

Deliberate Move

This fresh attempted incursion by Chinese troops is significant and was not carried out by local commanders alone, said retired Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur, the additional director general of New Delhi-based Centre for Air Power Studies.

It appears to be a well thought out and deliberate move, Bahadur said. China, it appears, is trying to change the alignment of the Line of Actual Control and put further pressure on Indian positions.

Indian troops undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground, the ministry said, noting it would not release any further details to maintain operational security.

India and Chinas worst dispute in four decades culminated in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers in an ugly battle on June 15.

Since then tensions have continued to simmer, with India revealing in late July it was positioning an additional 35,000 troops along the border as the possibility of an early resolution to the deadly tensions between the two neighbors faded.
ALBANY  New York Senate candidate Jeremy Cooney wanted to have frank conversations about the issues that matter most to constituents in the 56th District in Rochester.

But knocking on individual doors during the coronavirus pandemic is not advised and true discussion is difficult to have on a Facebook post, the Democratic candidate said.

Enter in Cooneys "Porch Parties."

It just makes that connection between the political candidates and their future constituents much more authentic and genuine, Cooney said. Im hoping this can become a model for state Senate candidates across New York who are looking for a way to connect with voters that is non-digital.

Unable to knock on doors but craving in-person contact, Cooneys campaign over the next several weeks will connect with small groups of constituents through Porch Parties, where a group of 20 neighbors safely gather on a neighbors porch or in a backyard to meet Cooney and discuss pressing issues in their community.

Despite COVID-19 infection rates remaining low across New York, the disease has forced incumbents and candidates to get creative in connecting with constituents as health experts advise continued social distancing measures and masks.

Veronica Ng, vice president of political consulting firm Parkside Group, said the most effective means of communicating with voters is in-person, so campaigns and candidates have had to pivot their approach.

I think all campaigns are trying to tackle the issue of voter outreach and meeting new people, she said. I dont think were tapped out on creative ideas, and as new situations approach we all adapt quickly.

Cooney said the gatherings will be limited to 20 minutes, and attendees will be required to wear face masks and social distance. Hand sanitizer will be made available, and he said attendees will be asked to fill out contact-tracing information.

Without the opportunity to knock on doors or host large campaign rallies, gauging constituent support is challenging and candidates must instead rely on mailers and other print handouts, social media and phone banks to reach voters and gain support.

Republican candidate Mike Barry, Jr., who also is running for the 56th Senate District, said Facebook Live has served as an important and effective tool to connect with constituents for his campaign.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

It is the next best thing to being in someones presence, he said. If we keep in mind safety and service were really doing what we should as elected officials, and thats what were putting forth with our campaign. We want to meet with voters, but we want to do it on their terms.

Where campaign volunteers once knocked on hundreds of doors a day, they are now handing out face masks or hand sanitizer and participating in other community service initiatives, Ng said.

Its a new world, but that doesnt mean we stop talking to voters. We do it in different and creative ways, she said. Campaigning now is volunteering to help you neighbors.

Volunteers may distribute groceries, or, as Cooneys campaign recently did, collect childrens books from constituents and donate them to local schools. Campaign volunteers collected over 6,000 childrens books from constituents, sanitized the donations and distributed the books to the Rochester school district, Cooney said.

I wanted to make sure every child in our community had access to the joys of reading despite this COVID epidemic, he said. We found a community need. We filled the gap. It was a way to engage with constituents without handing out a flyer or asking them to join a Zoom meeting.
Up to 1,900 people could die in Northern Ireland in a second wave of coronavirus this winter, a leaked scientific document prepared for the UK Government has claimed.

The "reasonable worst case scenario" is set out in a paper by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) - although on Sunday night the Department of Health in Northern Ireland appeared not to accept the figure for Northern Ireland.

The Sage analysis warns that the death toll across the UK could top 85,000. The authors stress that they are setting out a worst-case scenario and not a prediction of what is likely to happen, adding that there is "a wide range of uncertainty" about the actual outcome.

However, some are critical of the modelling used to calculate the figures.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health here said on Sunday night: "This modelling was done at a UK level and we are aware of it. The Department of Health has not as yet agreed a reasonable worst case scenario for Northern Ireland."

Prof Carl Heneghan from Oxford University said some of the assumptions made were "implausible" and that the report assumes that "we've learnt nothing from the first wave of this disease".

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On Sunday the Department of Health said 49 more people had tested positive for Covid-19 in Northern Ireland in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of known cases to 7,187.

A further 89 cases were announced on Saturday. The total for the last seven days is 452.

Seventeen people remain in hospital, with two patients in intensive care. The total number of deaths here remains at 560. Separate figures from Nisra, which include deaths outside hospital, put the total at 871 as of August 21.

In the Irish Republic, meanwhile, another 42 new cases of Covid-19 have been diagnosed, the National Public Health Emergency Team said last night. That is the lowest number of cases reported on a Sunday since July 26.

A further 142 cases were reported on Saturday, with confirmed cases now standing at 28,760.

No further deaths were reported. The total number of virus-linked deaths in the Republic remains at 1,777.

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The UK Government's coronavirus dashboard reported 1,715 new cases across the UK - the highest since early June. It reported one more death, bringing the total number of UK deaths to 41,499.

Globally, coronavirus infections have passed 25m, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.

It followed grim warnings from Sage around the potential impact of a winter onslaught of Covid-19 in the UK.

Its paper was prepared to help the NHS and local authorities with planning for mortuaries and burial services if another surge happens.

The document, obtained by the BBC's Newsnight, was drawn up on the assumption that schools will remain open and that the Government's tracing, isolation and quarantine measures will only be 40% effective in cutting the spread of the coronavirus outside households.

The model found that in a worst-case scenario, there could be 81,000 excess deaths due to Covid-19 in England and Wales between July 2020 and March 2021, and around 27,000 excess deaths from non-coronavirus causes.

In Scotland, there could be 2,600 deaths directly due to Covid-19, and 1,900 in Northern Ireland.

This would represent a significant increase in the number of fatalities compared with the first wave of the virus.

However, modelling of death rates as the pandemic began proved wildly inaccurate.

Prof Neil Ferguson's research with Imperial College London colleagues warned that 250,000 people could die in the UK without drastic action before Prime Minister Boris Johnson introduced a lockdown in March.

In Northern Ireland, modelling at the outset of the pandemic predicted 15,000 deaths in what Health Minister Robin Swann described as a "nightmare, worst case" scenario. It was later downgraded to 3,000, then 1,500.

Reacting to the latest figures, Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust health think tank, said the Sage report had "very wide ranges" of scenarios which make it "quite difficult for people to work out exactly what they should be doing".

A UK Government spokesperson said: "As a responsible government, we have been planning and continue to prepare for a wide range of scenarios, including the reasonable worst-case scenario."
Ladakh's Lt Governor Radha Krishna Mathur on Monday met Union Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy amid the Indian army reporting fresh incursion attempts by China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) in eastern Ladakh.

Mathur's meeting with Reddy at his North Block office came in the wake of the Indian Army's Monday morning statement which said that China tried to create fresh trouble at a new point over the weekend even as the talks between the two countries to resolve the nearly four-month long standoff in Galwan Valley have been inconclusive.

However, the details of the 30-minute meeting between the Lt Governor and the Minister were not known immediately but sources said the prevailing situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) was discussed.

It is also learnt that the issues raised by Indian Army came up in the meeting.

In its statement, the Indian Army said that on the night of August 29 and August 30, 2020, People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff and carried out "provocative military movements to change the status quo".

"Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Lake, and undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground," it said.

The Indian Army also stated that they are committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but are also equally determined to protect the country's territorial integrity.

Both the countries are engaged in an around four month long standoff at the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh. Despite several levels of dialogue, there has not been any breakthrough and the deadlock continues.

India has also found that the Chinese side has started troop, artillery and armour build-up in three sectors of the LAC -- western (Ladakh), middle (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh) and eastern (Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh).

China has also mobilised soldiers near Uttarakhand's Lipulekh Pass, a tri-junction between India, Nepal and China situated atop the Kalapani Valley. India had urged China to remove its forces from Pangong Lake and Gogra where disengagement has not taken place.
Classes U.S. Department of Defense government contracting and procurement employees need to meet certain federal training requirements for their jobs can now receive credits toward a University of Dayton School of Law master's degree thanks to a new agreement between the School of Law and Defense Acquisition University.

The first course under the agreement, Contracts 2900, which is equivalent to DAU's CON 290, begins Oct. 1. The 90-minute classes will be online weekdays, supported by government tuition assistance and can be applied toward the School of Law's master's degree in government contracting and procurement. The online class through the UD School of Law also adds scheduling flexibility for those who could not otherwise fit DAU courses into their schedule.

"Government contracting and procurement personnel need these classes to reach Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act levels supervisors use for evaluating job performance and determining raises and how much employees are authorized to purchase," University of Dayton School of Law Dean Andrew Strauss said. "We are happy we can offer additional flexibility and a pathway to a master's degree that will add to their professional credentials."

Government contracting officers and attorneys from the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command and defense industry will teach the courses combining Defense Acquisition University curricula with online learning methods to enhance the acquisition and retention of knowledge, according to Paul Schlottman, director of strategic initiatives for the School of Law.

"The courses emphasize the real-world development of legal discernment and business acumen needed in government contracting and procurement," Schlottman said. "It fills gaps not filled with master's programs in business or public administration, which don't touch on contract law, government data rights, intellectual property, Federal Acquisitions Regulations policies or procedures, or Defense Federal Acquisitions regulations policies or procedures."

While this agreement is focused on government employees, the School of Law began offering government and procurement classes with an M.S.L. program in 2017 to prepare participants for careers buying for or selling to federal, state and municipal governments. M.S.L. degrees differ from the more commonly known juris doctor degree for practicing lawyers. M.S.L. degrees are more similar to master's degrees and geared toward those with a bachelor's degree who need an advanced understanding of a particular area of the law. Graduate entrance exams are not required for admission.

To learn more about UDSL-DAU equivalent courses visit go.udayton.edu/dau.

For interviews, contact Shawn Robinson, associate director of news and communications, at srobinson1@udayton.edu.
A doctor hands out pamphlets to visitors in front of Seoul National University Hospital, Monday, in a bid to gain public support for doctors' nationwide protest against the government's decision to increase admission quotas at medical schools. / Yonhap



By Jun Ji-hye



While doctors have so far been a major target of public criticism regarding their nationwide strike, the government is also being criticized for aggravating the situation by unilaterally pushing for medical workforce reform plans at a time when the country is struggling to fight the second wave of COVID-19 infections.



Some citizens have already fallen victim in the ongoing conflict between doctors and the government  a patient in his 40s who failed to receive emergency treatment in Busan due to the doctors' walkout died last Thursday, while major general hospitals have reduced clinic hours and postponed some surgeries.



Some medical professors said the government should not be free from responsibility for the ongoing conflict that has brought about enormous inconvenience to citizens, as it has pushed ahead with its reform plans without sufficiently consulting the medical sector. The plans include increasing admission quotas at medical schools.



The government has maintained a tough stance even after tens of thousands of doctors across the country, including interns and resident doctors at general hospitals and practitioners at local clinics, staged a nationwide strike. It has reported 10 doctors to police for violating its return-to-work order, issued Aug. 26 in the Seoul metropolitan area.



Kim Boo-kyeong, a professor at Kosin University Gospel Hospital, called on the government to stop its "war" against doctors, so they can return to hospitals and offer proper medical services to citizens.



"Doctors did not start this war  the government did. Thus, it is the government that can resolve the standoff," he wrote in a petition posted to the website run by the presidential office. "Trainee doctors are now in their 20s. The Ministry of Health and Welfare is threatening to revoke their licenses, rather than trying to persuade these young doctors. This is not an appropriate decision when the nation needs medical manpower more than ever."



He added the number of pneumonia patients as well as those suffering from cardiovascular diseases will increase in the fall and winter, warning that the county could face more serious medical disruptions if the government fails to resolve the conflict with doctors.



Choi Se-hoon, a professor at Asan Medical Center, also said, "Young doctors are in particular protesting against the government policies that will bring about a gloomy future for the medical sector, as under such policies, the number of doctors will increase rapidly, and doctors will be easily swayed by the government."



In protest against the government's plans to increase admission quotas at medical schools, establish a new public medical school, extend national health insurance coverage to traditional remedies and introduce telemedicine services, the Korean Intern and Resident Association began the indefinite strike Aug. 21, with participation from thousands of trainee doctors working at the general hospitals.



The Korea Medical Association is also planning to stage the third nationwide doctors' strike, Sept. 7, calling the government's medical workforce reform plans "hasty and unilateral" decisions.



The associations demand the government reconsider its plans from "square one."



In the meantime, some doctors began to raise skepticism regarding the strike, saying the prolonged walkout imperils the safety of patients.



An unidentified trainee doctor wrote on Facebook, saying that not many people would agree with the argument that doctors' approval was "essential" in the government's policy making.



"Through the walkout so far, doctors have sufficiently delivered a message to the government that their opinions should be considered important in policymaking," the trainee doctor wrote. "Patients are waiting for us, and members of the public do not side with us. We need to stop the strike as soon as possible."


Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told U.S. President Donald Trump that the strengthening of their two nations` alliance would be maintained even after Abe`s departure from office, a Japanese government spokesman said on Monday.

Abe announced on Friday he was resigning because of poor health, his long-running battle with ulcerative colitis ending his tenure as Japan`s longest-serving prime minister.

"He wants President Trump to rest assured because the policy of bolstering the Japan-U.S. alliance will remain unchanged," Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Akihiro Nishimura said.

Nishimura was speaking to reporters after a 30-minute telephone call between Abe and Trump, early on Monday in Japan. Trump called Abe the "greatest prime minister in Japan`s history", according to a White House spokesman.

Abe told Trump that Japan would like to cooperate closely with the United States as it draws up a new missile defence strategy, Nishimura said.

Japan in July took a step towards acquiring weapons that can strike North Korea, after a ruling party committee approved proposals to consider acquiring strike capability to halt ballistic missile attacks.

White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement Trump told Abe he had done a "fantastic job" and that the relationship between their two countries was stronger than it has ever been.

"The president called Prime Minister Abe the greatest prime minister in Japan`s history," Deere said.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party will vote on Sept. 14 for a new leader to succeed Abe, Jiji news agency reported.
Courtesy of Saint Louis Art Museum|For The Telegraph

ST. LOUIS  There is one week left to see Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dali  in person, based on capacity guidelines  at the Saint Louis Art Museums exhibition examining the international legacy of the 19th-century French painter Jean-Francois Millet. Originally scheduled to close May 17, the exhibition has been extended through Monday, Sept. 7.

Although the museum is typically closed on Mondays, it will be open on Labor Day, the closing day of the exhibition.
Chinese telecom giant Huawei is ending its oldest major sporting sponsorship deal, blaming a continued negative business environment.

The company has sponsored the Canberra Raiders, the rugby league side based in Australias capital city, since 2012.

Australia has barred the company from involvement in crucial national communication infrastructure in recent years, while China has ratcheted up pressure for an Australian policy reversal.

Huawei will end its financial backing of the Raiders at the end of the current National Rugby League season in October, a year earlier than planned.

The company said: The continued negative business environment is having a larger than originally forecasted impact on our planned revenue stream and therefore we will have to terminate our major sponsorship of the Raiders at the end of the 2020 season.

Huaweis landmark decision to sponsor the team in 2012 came months after the government banned the company on security grounds from involvement in the rollout of Australias National Broadband Network in 2011.

The sponsorship was seen as an attempt to improve Huaweis public image in the eyes of politicians and senior bureaucrats in Australia.

Raiders chief executive Don Furner said the team was very sad to be losing its major sponsor.

He said: The Canberra Raiders and Huawei have enjoyed a fantastic partnership for nearly a decade  they have been by far our longest serving major sponsor.

Huawei is at the centre of a major dispute between Washington and Beijing over technology and security.

US officials say Huawei is a security risk, which the company denies, and are lobbying European and other allies to avoid its technology as they upgrade to next-generation networks.

China, meanwhile, is trying to encourage Europeans to guarantee access to their markets for Chinese telecom and technology companies.
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

A startup energy company in New Zealand believes it can power the world with a wireless electric transmission system that can bring power to hard-to-reach areas and do so at lower cost than with traditional power lines.

The startup, Emrod, has teamed up with a leading power supply company to test power transmission using a series of antennas. The only limiting factor is the antennas must be within line of sight with each other.

The system consists of a power source, a transmitting antenna, multiple relay stations, and a receiving antenna, often referred to as a "rectenna."

Emrod converts electric energy into microwaves, which in turn are transmitted through a cylindrical beam to relay stations. Those stations refocus the beam and guide it along its path to the rectennas, where the microwaves are converted back to electricity.

The concept is not new. In fact, futurist, electrical engineer, and inventor Nikola Tesla envisioned a wireless electric system more than 100 years ago. Transcontinental microwave relay networks opened telephone communications between Europe and America in the 1950s, and recent decades have brought us increasingly efficient wireless network and satellite communication technologies.

What makes Emrod's system notable is its high degree of efficiency and near total absence of energy loss.

"The efficiency of all the components we've developed are pretty good, close to 100 percent," said Emrod founder Greg Kushnir. He said his system uses many of the same elements as the common household microwave oven, which achieves only a 70 percent efficiency. The development of newer materials for energy transmission in recent years helps to minimize energy loss, he said.

"We're not the first [to apply this technology], but we're the first ones to have a commercially viable solution," Kushnir said.

Emrod has tested the system over short distances, up to 130 feet so far. Company officials say there is no reason to believe the system will not work perfectly over hundreds miles. Offshore facilities could transmit power to hard-to-reach destinations. Power could be transmitted easily through mountainous regions or areas that would be too treacherous or too costly to lay traditional wiring through. Wireless power stations could be set up quickly in the aftermath of hurricanes or other natural disasters.

"We can use the exact same technology to transmit 100 times more power over much longer distances," Kushnir said. "Wireless systems using Emrod technology can transmit any amount of power current wired solutions transmit."

Could wildlife, such as birds, get zapped by the microwave beams? Emrod officials say a protective ring of laser beams acting as bodyguards around the microwave transmissions will shut off the beams when objects such as birds, other animals or humans, approach. The momentary outages should not affect overall power transmission. Facilities using sensitive equipment, such as medical devices, would need to have battery backups for the occasional power interruptions where stoppages of even just seconds could be critical.

Besides, the power density is low. "It's not just how much power you deliver, it's how much power you deliver per square meter," Kushnir said. "The levels of density we're using are relatively low. At the moment, it's about the equivalent of standing outside at noon in the sun, about 1 kW per square meter."

He says bad weather or adverse atmospheric conditions will have no impact on transmission. Should there be a failure in transmission, mobile stations attached to trucks could be dispatched relatively quickly.

"We have an abundance of clean hydro, solar, and wind energy available around the world but there are costly challenges that come with delivering that energy using traditional methods," Kushnir said. "I wanted to come up with a solution to move all that clean energy around from where it's abundant to where it's needed, in a cost-effective, eco-friendly way."

"Energy generation and storage methods have progressed tremendously over the last century but energy transmission has remained virtually unchanged" for 150 years, he said.

The joint project with Powerco will begin in October. The company also has plans to beam power across 19 miles of water from the New Zealand mainland to Stewart Island, at what is expected to be nearly half the cost of a traditional wired system.

 2020 Science X Network
By Ben Marks

Collectors Weekly

Would you believe the city of Richmond across the bay from San Francisco - best known as home to a large Chevron oil refinery - was once California's undisputed wine capital?

That's because in 1907, the state's biggest turn-of-the-20th-century wine monopoly, the California Wine Association, built a 47-acre compound there, evocatively named Winehaven. As many as 12 million gallons of wine and brandy a year were once produced at Winehaven.

The location was not a whim: In 1906, 10 million gallons of CWA wine had been spilled in the San Francisco earthquake and boiled in the fires that followed. A 2015 book called "Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California" by Berkeleyside co-founder Frances Dinkelspiel details the story of the CWA, which, at one point, controlled a staggering 84 percent of California's wine business.

In 2000, Bay Area wine ephemera collector and historian Gail Unzelman co-authored a definitive history of the association, "The California Wine Association and Its Member Wineries, 1894-1920," with the late wine historian Ernest Peninou.

Founded in San Francisco in 1894, the CWA was composed of a number of highly influential "someones," including the biggest and most successful wine merchants in San Francisco, who had their hands in everything from the ownership of vineyards across the state to wineries and distributorships.

"In the 1890s, the California wine industry was a mess," Dinkelspiel told me over the phone. The economic panic of 1893, she explained, had created a glut of grapes, severely depressing the price of fruit and wine alike. "The timing was right for someone to get in there and dominate the market in order to stabilize it," she says.

By joining together to form the CWA, the merchants were effectively colluding in broad daylight to create a wine cartel, despite the fact that the Sherman Antitrust Act had just passed in 1890.

The main tactic of the newly formed CWA was simple - wait everyone out. As the biggest buyer of California grapes and biggest seller of the finished product, the CWA could force growers to accept the prices it was willing to pay, lest they get nothing before the fruit rotted. Similarly, if wine sellers in Chicago, New Orleans and New York didn't want to pay the prices the monopoly was demanding for its barrels and bottles of wine, the association could simply hold onto its inventory until the recalcitrant wine merchants had run out of theirs.

Not surprisingly, such strong-arming did not sit well with growers, winemakers and distributors not aligned with the CWA, which is why, by 1897, an all-out economic wine war was raging between the association and an upstart rival, the California Wine-Makers Corporation.

Because of its size and deep pockets, the CWA had the upper hand on the economic battlefield. Under the leadership of President Percy Morgan, the association abandoned its 1893 tactics, which were designed to stabilize the wine market by holding the line on prices.

Instead, it slashed the cost of its wine, undercutting Wine-Makers Corporation wineries. By 1900, that corporation's three most important members, including the Italian Swiss Colony winery of Sonoma County, had raised the white flag and joined the CWA At the turn of the 20th century, membership in the CWA was apparently the only way for a big California winery to survive.

The resolution of this battle between the dueling cartels paved the way for an unprecedented $1 million investment in the CWA in 1901. The equivalent of around $28 million today, the funding infusion was led by an investment banker and Southern California vineyard owner named Isaias Hellman, who just so happens to be Dinkelspiel's great-great-grandfather.

The CWA represented a new investment opportunity for Hellman in a familiar agricultural sector. Hellman may have had holdings and roots, literally, in Rancho Cucamonga (Southern California), where he owned and ran the 600-acre Cucamonga Vineyard, but he could plainly see that the industry was moving north.

Sure, the Mission grapes that produced sweet, fortified wines like port did well in the south - the state's first vineyards were planted in Southern California by Spanish missions in the late 1700s to produce sacramental wine - but the climate was poorly suited to varietals that would produce the dry table wines that were becoming increasingly popular for daily drinking in the late 19th century. Growers quickly discovered that counties like Sonoma and Napa were better for that. Sorry, SoCal.

In 1858, more than 46 percent of all the grapes grown and harvested in California came from the Los Angeles Viticultural District, home to the Cucamonga Vineyard. That year, Napa and Sonoma combined accounted for less than 10 percent of the state's total production. A decade later, though, the two Northern California counties were on par with Los Angeles.

By 1870, more visionary agricultural entrepreneurs were already planting neat rows of Zinfandel grapes in Sonoma. There, and on the other side of the Mayacamas Mountains in Napa, the seeds of the modern age of California winemaking were being sown. And by 1890, Napa and Sonoma could claim more than 50 percent of the state's total acreage in wine grapes, compared to less than 10 percent for L.A. Meanwhile, sweet-wine production was moving to the San Joaquin Valley.

Since its founding in 1894, San Francisco had been the CWA's base of business operations, the place where deals were struck and millions of gallons of wine was warehoused in sites across the city. When the San Francisco earthquake struck on April 18, 1906, this geographic diversification looked like it had been a good idea since most of the CWA's structures survived. But then came the fires, which consumed most of the CWA's warehouses. According to wine historian Charles Sullivan in the April 2006 edition of Unzelman's wine quarterly, Wayward Tendrils, "Of the twenty-eight commercial wine establishments in the city, twenty-five were destroyed."

Immediately after the fires caused by the earthquake had died down, Morgan set out to build Winehaven, which allowed him to consolidate the CWA's activities in one place, strategically located at Point Molate in Richmond, which he believed would be economically more efficient than having lots of warehouses spread all over San Francisco.

It was. The east side of San Francisco Bay, which lacked bridges at the time, was also closer to transcontinental railroad lines than San Francisco, while its rail-equipped deep-water dock anticipated the shipping lane that would open through the Panama Canal in 1914.

In addition, the pier made it easy to offload grapes grown in Napa and Sonoma counties, which could be sent down the Napa and Petaluma rivers and across the bay to Winehaven for the fall crush. Some 25,000 tons of grapes were crushed at Winehaven in 1907, and in 1908, workers handled 45,000 tons of fruit, producing more than 675,000 gallons of wine that year.

Winehaven helped the CWA solidify its hold on the California wine industry. By 1909, the Calwa Distributing Company was formed "to bring the consumer, in glass, the best wines of the California Wine Association," as Unzelman and Ernest Peninou put it in their book. Calwa and Ca-dis-co became two of the CWA's biggest brands of "pure reliable wines," as they were advertised.

Unfortunately, keeping the CWA on its feet after the earthquake and during the construction of Winehaven had come at the price of Morgan's health - by 1911, he would retire from the CWA after 15 years at its helm, retreating to Europe for three years of "rest and recuperation" before returning home to serve on numerous boards (Stanford University among them) and build a three-story mansion south of San Francisco.

Despite Morgan's exit, the second decade of the 20th century began well for the association. "When the 1910 European vintage was virtually wiped out by bad weather," Peninou and Unzelman wrote, "the California wine industry correspondingly prospered."

By the middle of the decade, though, the CWA's future was cloudy. The association's aging leaders were literally dying off, the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 had slowed exports, and, most ominously of all, the growing Prohibition movement in the United States suggested that it was only a matter of time before the CWA's very livelihood - selling alcoholic beverages - would be illegal.

In fact, the association first acted on the threat of Prohibition in 1907, when it began producing grape juice in earnest. As early as 1908, the CWA had been slowing its purchases of grapes from its growers, lest its inventories grow too quickly. By the end of 1917, Congress had passed the 18th Amendment banning the "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors," which was promptly sent to the states for ratification.

All this made Percy Morgan, the man who had done more than anyone to make the CWA the force it had become, inconsolable. On the morning of April 16, 1920, just three months after the passage of the Volstead Act, which put regulatory teeth in the 18th Amendment, the CWA's former leader, still in his pajamas, walked into the library of his mansion, raised a shotgun to his head, and pulled the trigger.

Meanwhile, the increasingly desperate CWA was trying to relocate its grape-juice business from the San Joaquin Valley to Winehaven, but this costly effort failed to generate the revenues needed to keep the enterprise afloat. As for its wine inventory, it was slowly sold as the law permitted - some export licenses were granted after Prohibition, and some of the liquid in the barrels at Winehaven were sold as sacramental wine, bringing the story of California's wine history full circle.

* To read the full, original December 2015 story about the history of California wine - based on Frances Dinkelspiel's book "Tangled Vines" and Gail Unzelman and Ernest Peninou's book "The California Wine Association and Its Member Wineries, 1894-1920" - visit Collectors Weekly. To see more historical images of the California wine industry, visit Early California Wine Trade Museum.

Copyright  2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil (L) is greeted by Taiwans Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (R) upon his arrival at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Aug. 30, 2020. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)

Beijings Threats Against Czech Senator Visiting Taiwan Draws Rebuke From Czech Republic

TAIPEI, TaiwanCzech Republic Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek said on Aug. 31 that he would summon the countrys Chinese envoy, after Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi made threats against a Czech official currently visiting Taiwan.

Milos Vystrcil, president of the Czech Senate, arrived in Taiwan on Aug. 30 to lead a delegation of 89 people that includes business leaders, several senators, scientists, journalists, and Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib.

Vystrcils trip to Taiwan has drawn Beijings ire, as it considers the island a part of its territory and opposes words or actions by foreign government officials that could bolster Taiwans status in the international community. Taiwan is a self-ruled island with its own democratically elected officials, military, and currency.

On behalf of the people of #Taiwan, Id like to extend a sincere welcome to #CzechRepublic @SenatCZ President @Vystrcil_Milos & all the members of the delegation. Our nations share many core values & we look forward to furthering cooperation in all areas. pic.twitter.com/qEKXB3MLPH   Tsai Ing-wen (@iingwen) August 30, 2020

The regime in Beijing also criticized U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar when he visited Taiwan in early August.

Wang, speaking in Germany on Aug. 31, said Vystrcil will pay a heavy price for his official trip to Taiwan, according to Chinese state-run media. He added that Taiwan was an inseparable part of China and the visit was a provocation.

Petricek told reporters in Prague, I expect the Chinese side to explain those words, according to AFP, in response to Wangs threats.

Of course, the journey has an impact on our relationships with China, but I think this has gone too far, he added.

Before Vystrcils arrival in Taiwan, the Chinese Embassy in the Czech Republic issued a statement on Aug. 28, accusing Vystrcil of making a political calculation with his trip to Taiwan. It claimed that the trip was a serious violation of Chinas internal affairs and demanded that the Czech Republic abide by the one-China principle.

Chinas hawkish state-run media Global Times also had harsh words for Vystrcil in an editorial published on Aug. 30, calling him a political hooligan who was trampling on diplomatic civilization.

On Aug. 31, Vystrcil gave a speech at Taiwans National Chengchi University, during which he called on democratic countries to support each other. He also said the most important common denominator between people in Taiwan and the Czech Republic was that they chose to live freely and in democracy.

After his speech, Vystrcil held a media session and was asked about Wangs comments.

Vystrcil responded by saying that everyone in his delegation made their own decision about visiting Taiwan, and that they all believed coming to Taiwan was the right thing to do. He added that there might not be benefits coming out of the visit in the short term, but the trip will be fruitful in the long run.

In the morning, Vystrcil was on hand to witness the signing of three memorandums of understanding wherein the two nations will cooperate on areas such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, smart manufacturing, and medicine.

Vystrcil and his delegation will stay in Taiwan until Sept. 4. Before leaving, Vystrcil is scheduled to meet with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, and take part in a forum hosted by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto U.S. embassy on the island, according to local media.
What just happened? Samsung appears to have sneakily launched its fastest consumer SSD to date: The 7GB/s PCIe NVMe 980 Pro series. The m.2 drive was spotted earlier at CES 2020 with rumors of a late summer launch. Samsung is now listing the drive on its Singapore website and, as expected, has launched it in three storage capacities of 250GB, 500GB and 1TB. There's plenty of technical info this time around, but Samsung has still not revealed the drive's price, release date or availability in other markets.

Samsung gave us an exciting glimpse of the 980 Pro SSD at CES 2020, briefly revealing the drive's underlying technology, read/write speeds and storage capacities. While rumors of a late summer launch have now proved correct, Samsung, in the meantime, managed to find another 500 MB/s increase in the drive's read speeds, pushing it to an impressive 7,000 MB/s at launch.

Famed leaker, Ice Universe, initially revealed details about the 980 Pro, including a new custom Elpis controller and the drive's underlying storage technology. Users also extracted additional information from the 980 Pro's official listing on Samsung's Singapore website, which appears to have now been pulled and is currently redirecting to the site's homepage.

Samsung released 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 SSD, Read speeds up to 7,000 MB/s, new custom Elpis Controller, 3-bit MTC. pic.twitter.com/shLwcsCCXw  Ice universe (@UniverseIce) August 29, 2020

Unlike the 970 Pro with its 2-bit MLC memory, Samsung has gone for 3-bit MLC storage (also called TLC) in the new 980 Pro. The change has significantly reduced the 980 Pro's endurance rating over its predecessor, halving it to 600 TBW for the 1TB model as compared to 1,200 TBW for the 1TB 970 Pro.

It shouldn't worry most users, though, as they'll be getting a 5-year/TBW limited warranty across all three models and unprecedented levels of performance from this drive, provided they have a PCIe 4.0 capable PC with Ryzen inside to fully take advantage, until Intel's 11th-gen Rocket Lake CPUs and supporting boards arrive later this year.

Capacity Max Read (MB/s) Max Write (MB/s) 4KB Random Read/Write (IOPS) DRAM Cache Endurance Rating (TBW) Power Consumption (Max/Avg/Idle) 250 GB 6,400 2,700 500,000 / 600,000 512 MB 150 7W / 5W / 35mW 500 GB 6,900 5,000 800,000 / 1 million 512 MB 300 7.4 W/ 5.9W / 35mW 1 TB 7,000 5,000 1 million / 1 million 1 GB 600 8.9W / 6.2W / 35mW

For now, Samsung is mum about the drive's availability and price. Its closest rivals (PCIe 4.0, TLC-based) are the slightly slower Corsair MP600 and the Sabrent Rocket, both of which currently cost around $200 for the 1TB version. Samsung's SSDs usually demand a premium over their competition and the 980 Pro should be no different.
By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijans export of gold increased by 13.5 percent reaching $96.5 million during the period of January-July 2020, local media reported with reference to a department head at the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communications Nijat Hajizade.

It should be noted that Azerbaijan exported gold worth $85 million during the same period of 2019.

Azerbaijan exported 2,147 kg of gold to the world markets during the reporting period, which is a decrease by 6.6 percent compared to the same period last year. The total volume of gold was exported to Switzerland. It should be noted that Azerbaijan exported 4,802 kg of gold worth $172.3 million in 2019.

Likewise, it was reported that Azerbaijan increased the volume of gold and silver production by 20.3 percent and 40.9 percent respectively in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period last year.

Thus, during the first six months of the year, 28,500 ounces of gold and 62,000 ounces of silver were produced at Chovdar mine in Dashkasan region.

Additionally, AZN 5.5 million ($3.2M) of payments were made to the state budget in the completed half of the year of which AZN 4.5 million ($2.6M) are tax payments and AZN 1 million ($588,235) falls on the payments to the State Social Protection Fund.

Gold mining in Azerbaijan is currently carried out by two companies, AzerGold CJSC, which owns 51 percent in Azerbaijans gold share, and Anglo Asian Mining PLC, with 49 percent of shares.

Extraction of the first gold in Azerbaijan started in 2009, and silver in 2010.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Donald Trump has mocked Joe Biden for 'coming out of the basement earlier than his hoped', after polls showed the president ahead in key battleground states.

Biden will campaign on Monday in Pennsylvania - a swing state vital for victory

In a series of Sunday evening tweets, the president celebrated recent polling, which suggests he is on course to defeat his Democrat rival.

Before the Republican Convention last week, Biden was given an 11 point lead by some polls.

On Sunday a Democracy Institute/Sunday Express poll gave Trump 48 per cent of popular support, and Biden 45 per cent.

In swing states the margin of victory was even higher, with 49 per cent for Trump and 42 per cent for Biden.

Donald Trump, pictured touring hurricane damage in Louisiana on Friday, has mocked Joe Biden's Monday return to the campaign trail, saying it is a sign of desperation

Biden has not campaigned since March but Monday will be in the swing state of Pennsylvania

On Sunday night the president ridiculed Biden for 'coming out of the basement' to campaign

Trump used his frequent line of attack - that Biden is soft on crime

A poll showed Trump ahead in battleground states, among them Pennsylvania

Biden's team is currently making plans for him to get back out on the campaign trail for the first time since the pandemic began in March.

Trump has consistently ridiculed Biden for his policy of respecting CDC guidelines, claiming the Democratic nominee is 'hiding in his basement'.

On Monday Biden will be in Pittsburgh, campaigning in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.

'Joe Biden is coming out of the basement earlier than his hoped for ten days because his people told him he has no choice, his poll numbers are PLUNGING!' Trump tweeted.

'Going to Pittsburgh, where I have helped industry to a record last year, & then back to his basement for an extended period.'

Trump went on to accuse Biden of being soft on crime - a frequent line of attack in the months since George Floyd's May 25 killing, which sparked a wave of unrest that is still roiling the United States.

'His problem is interesting,' Trump said.

'He must always be weak on CRIME because of the Bernie Sanders Radical Left voter.

'If he loses them, like Crooked Hillary did, he is toast, and many will vote for me because of TRADE (Bernie was good on trade).

'Joe MUST always be weak on crime!'

Trump attacked Biden, apparently unaware of Biden's earlier statement condemning violence

He also asked when Biden would denounce the violence that has wracked parts of America, with cities such as Portland, Seattle, Chicago and Kenosha left to pick up the pieces.

Biden on Sunday morning issued a statement criticizing 'the incitement of hate and resentment that led to this deadly clash.'

He continued: 'Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by any one, whether on the left or the right.'

But seemingly unaware of Biden's strong condemnation of the violence only hours before, Trump tweeted: 'When is Slow Joe Biden going to criticize the Anarchists, Thugs & Agitators in ANTIFA?

'When is he going to suggest bringing up the National Guard in BADLY RUN & Crime Infested Democrat Cities & States?

'Remember, he cant lose the Crazy Bernie Super Liberal vote!''

Biden has accused Trump of fanning the flames of hatred to further his own political chances.

On Thursday Kellyanne Conway, adviser to the president, admitted that it helped him, saying: 'The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on whos best on public safety and law and order.'

Biden on Sunday rejected that.

Six hours before Trump accused him of saying nothing about violence, Biden condemned it

'We must not become a country at war with ourselves,' Biden said.

'A country that accepts the killing of fellow Americans who do not agree with you. A country that vows vengeance toward one another.

'But that is the America that President Trump wants us to be, the America he believes we are.'

The Trump team's emphasis on law and order did appear to be having an impact, however, with polls showing a tightening in the presidential race.

A Yahoo News-YouGov survey which was done over the course of this past Thursday and Friday found that Biden maintains a 47 per cent to 41 per cent advantage over the incumbent.

A Yahoo/YouGov poll showed Biden's lead slipping after the Republican Convention

The poll shows about a two-and-a-half per cent shift from Biden to Trump compared to a survey conducted by Yahoo News-YouGov a month ago which showed the Democratic former vice president up by slightly less than nine percentage points.

The latest poll indicates that roughly one per cent of registered voters who last month said they would support Biden now indicate they will back Trump.

But the president appears confident of victory as he tweeted a poll that claims to show him winning both the popular vote and the electoral college - thus securing re-election to a second term in the White House.

Trump on Saturday tweeted: Moving along nicely. MAGA!

He was reacting to a tweet that claimed to show the results of a new survey that has the president winning the national popular vote by 48 to 45 per cent over Biden.

The president also claimed that the poll showed him winning in key battleground states like Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania.

Former Vice President Joe Biden (left) has just a six-point edge over President Trump (right), according to the latest Yahoo News-YouGov survey

But the president appears confident of victory as he tweeted a poll that claims to show him winning both the popular vote and the electoral college - thus securing re-election to a second term in the White House. Trump on Saturday tweeted: Moving along nicely. MAGA!

The latest poll shows a modest post-convention bounce for the president.

Morning Consult also conducted a post-convention poll which showed Trump trailing Biden by just six points.

A separate survey of other registered voters by Yahoo News-YouGov gave Biden an 11-point advantage both before and after the Democratic National Convention.

Morning Consult had Biden leading by 10 per cent after the Democratic convention.

The latest survey shows that 96 per cent of both Trump and Biden supporters have already made up their mind - up two per cent from late July.

Just eight per cent of voters are undecided.

The new survey also found that Democrats have a 49 per cent to 38 per cent advantage in voting for the Congressional elections.

Trump appears to have gained voters in recent weeks who say the president comes across as having strength.

The Yahoo News-YouGov poll found that 96 per cent of Trump and Biden voters have already made up their mind and just 8 per cent of voters are undecided. The image above shows supporters and opponents of Trump in Londonderry, New Hampshire, on Friday

Before the Republican convention, 33 per cent of Americans said Trump had strength. After the convention, that number increased to 38 per cent.

Last month, just 19 per cent of those surveyed agreed that Trump cares a lot about people like you.

In the latest survey, that number slightly increased to 22 per cent.

Those who said they like Trump a lot or somewhat increased from 24 per cent to 28 per cent.

Trump has also seen a slight uptick in the number of voters who approve of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whereas 38 per cent approved last month, that number has now increased to 40 per cent as the number of cases and daily deaths begin to decline.

More than 180,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic started this past spring.

But the poll does not indicate that a mass of voters are shifting their support to Trump in light of the rioting that taken place in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and elsewhere following last weeks police shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake.

In July, 59 per cent said they were either very or somewhat worried about a breakdown of law and order in American cities.

The new survey shows that number remains unchanged.
Alex brings 20+ years of technology, digital communications, media and public affairs experience to Single Grain, and will be able to provide the company with an even greater depth of experience across a wide range of brands and industries.

"I am so excited to join the Single Grain team. As I progressed through each step of the interview process, meeting members of the team and learning more about the agency, I quickly moved from being interested to 'I have to work here; these people and this agency are what's next in the agency space.'" ~Alex Flores

These are just a few highlights of his illustrious career:

7 years with Sapient, a leading, global digital transformation and marketing services firm, in New York City and Los Angeles as Director of Client Services and Group VP, Managing Partner.

and as Director of Client Services and Group VP, Managing Partner. Head of Digital and VP Communications for a leading Public Affairs/PR firm in NYC/ Washington DC managing digital influence, reputation and persuasion campaigns on behalf of political clients and social change initiatives.

managing digital influence, reputation and persuasion campaigns on behalf of political clients and social change initiatives. Worked with, and led, world-class teams delivering on Fortune 500 accounts in the financial services, automotive and consumer industries. He has delivered services for brands like JP MorganChase, Ferrari, Honda and the global drinks giant Diageo on the launches of Smirnoff Ice and Ciroc vodka.

Single Grain achieves success for their clients because they are a team-first company filled with smart, passionate people who love what they do  and Alex Flores is a perfect fit.

About Single Grain

Single Grain is a Los Angeles-based digital marketing agency with a dedicated focus on driving persistent growth for remarkable companies. The agency offers a broad range of services for SaaS and traditional organizations, including SEO, PPC management, content marketing, Amazon and YouTube advertising, and conversion rate optimization. They work with companies from Series A start-ups to tech giants and enterprises, such as Salesforce, Uber and Amazon.

If you'd like more information, or to schedule an interview with Zach Grove or Alex Flores, please call (800) 701-0793 or email [email protected]

Press Contact: Zach Grove, 800-701-0793, https://www.singlegrain.com/

SOURCE Single Grain
GLENS FALLS  After 31 years of serving the local community, Mailings Made Easy, Inc. has transitioned its mail fulfillment services to the Center for Disability Services in Albany.

Pamela Vogel, who started the business with her late-husband Joseph Vogel in 1989, announced the news in a letter to the dozens of businesses the company currently serves.

We are pleased to announce that we will follow Joes dream and will be transitioning to one of the most recognized providers of mail fulfillment in New York state, the letter reads.

The Center for Disability Services provides fulfillment services for municipalities, state government agencies and small businesses throughout New York through its mail center based in Albany.

Around 70% of staff at the Albany fulfillment center are people with disabilities.

The Center for Disability Services is excited to extend the full range of offerings from our mail fulfillment center, which employs individuals with disabilities, to the clients of Mailings Made Easy. We are committed to continuing the high-level of customer service that Mailings Made Easy provided for so many years, a spokeswoman for the center said in a statement.

Its not clear what will happen with Mailings Made Easys Warren Street location. Vogel did not return multiple requests for comment.

The business was locked on Monday afternoon.

A sign on the door, notifying customers of the transition, said drop-offs will be accepted at the Warren Street location the week of Aug. 31 from 8 to 9:30 a.m.

Beginning next week, the sign said, drop-offs must be made at the Prospect Center administration building at 133 Aviation Road in Queensbury from 9 to 9:30 a.m.

The Vogels first opened Mailings Made Easy in 1989 after Joseph, who died in 2012, recognized a local need for private-sector mail services.

The company began in the Vogels home before moving to 19 Park St. a few years later.

In 1994, Mailings Made Easy moved into its permanent home at 80-82 Warren St. The property is still owned by Pamela Vogel, according to Warren County property records.

In her letter, Vogel said it was an honor to serve the citys businesses and said transitioning services to Disability Services will fulfill her late-husbands dream.

The timing, she added, was right.

When we lost Joe unexpectedly in 2012, his dream of retiring from the demands of business ownership, its challenges, rewards and incredibly long hours was cut short. His personal mission of carefully crafting an appropriate retirement transition for Mailings Made Easy was left to another, she wrote.

To do this several years later in the midst of a pandemic may seem an unlikely time. But when it is the best fit, then it is the best time.

Chad Arnold is a reporter for The Post-Star covering the city of Glens Falls and the town and village of Lake George. Follow him on Twitter @ChadGArnold.

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Fleur de Miraval

There's a reason to celebrate at Miraval this week!

The French chateau, whose owners Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have produced award-winning roses since 2012, has finally unveiled its next release -- and PEOPLE has all the exclusive details and photos.

First announced in January, the limited release rose Champagne, called Fleur de Miraval, will debut in U.S. markets on Oct. 15.

For me," Pitt explains to PEOPLE, "Champagne conjures up feelings of celebration, quality, prestige, and luxury. But rose Champagne is still relatively unknown. Backed by our success with Miraval in Provence, I wanted us to try to create the defining brand of rose Champagne, focusing all our efforts on just this one color."

Created by the unique and preferred 'saignee' method, Fleur de Miraval (which by French law must be made within the heavily delimited northeastern Champagne department or it cannot be called 'Champagne') is the result of a five-year-long project, long shrouded in secrecy.

"The result is spectacular and I'm very proud of it," adds Pitt, who was in Miraval this past weekend in part to finalize details on the Champagne's limited first edition release which consists of 20,000 bottlings. He also participated in the 1200 acre estate's yearly harvest as he has in previous years.

Fleur de Miraval

Creating Fleur de Miraval required a marriage of growing regions and techniques, and represents an entirely new Champagne house created by three families: Jolie and Pitt, their rose partners the Famille Perrin, and the Champagne regions' Peters family.

Arriving in a dramatic pink rose coffret packaging holding a classically slender black Champagne bottle, lacquered black to prevent damage by sunlight. It's extremely simple label indicates its originating village name, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, a Cotes de Blanc site where the Peters family has owned vineyards for six generations.

Story continues

Fleur de Miraval

The family's own highly-respected Rodolphe Peters Champagne is sold in over 70 countries.

Aged for three years on the lees of the Peters caves, Fleur was created employing the saignee technique, a unique rose-making process offering optimal quality. Once particular to Provence, France, saignee is the preferred method of creating rose as it builds better, bolder wine by bleeding away a portion of pressed grape juice from contact with the mash.

Longer pressed grapes remaining in contact with seeds and skins, create darker juice, best suited for red wine. The saignee method, drawing off the juice before it deepens is 'old school', more painstaking and one with extreme devotees in the Loire, Rhone and Napa regions.

Fans of vintage and premium rose Champagnes will discover that Fleur's 75 percent chardonnay, 25 percent young pinot noir blend possesses a subtle petal pink color, notes of fresh raspberry and currants and a slight associated salinity.

Fleur de Miraval

Entering a developing field of 'premium' Champagnes is not an inexpensive proposition and bottles of Fleur de Miraval are expected to reach the market at 330 Euros (approximately $390) per bottle. The price is comparable to the cost of other 'celebrity' Champagnes such as JAY-Z's Ace of Spades or 50 Cents' Chemin du Roi partnership.

Pitt is well prepared for the comparison. He has called Chateau Miraval his second home since 2008, he has invested in its production capability. In the eight years since the first award-winning Miraval rose, he has done much to raise rose's profile worldwide while assiduously investing in Miraval's production, regularly expanding its line with new vintages.

Fleur de Miraval

"Miraval isn't a 'celebrity' wine for me," Pitt says. "Above all, it's a wonderful, exceptional estate that I fell in love with, and that I continue to invest in to make it one of the finest estates in Provence. For the wine, I partnered with the Perrin family. They have been winemakers for five generations. Together, we're in it for the long term. Its not just a passing trend."

Pitt and Jolie found the property in 2008 (they finalized the purchase in 2012) and while their 2016 separation fueled speculation they would put their 1200-acre French estate up for sale, sources have consistently told PEOPLE they remain committed to the property, viewing it as "an investment for their children."
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The NYPD has charged a man accused of attempting to rape a woman on an Upper East Side subway platform, the department said on Sunday.

The attack, which NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison decried as heinous and horrible during a press conference on Sunday, happened around 11 a.m. Saturday at the Lexington Av-63 Street Subway Station, police said.

Police released a disturbing video of the brazen and brutal sexual assault in an effort to locate the suspect, now identified as Bronx resident Jose Reyes, 31.

Harrison said Reyes was detained by 23rd Precinct officers just after noon on Sunday at the corner of Lexington Avenue and East 105th Street in East Harlem.

Detailing the crime, Harrison said the 25-year-old victim first noticed Reyes smoking some type of hookah, making weird noises and laughing to himself.

The victim got off the train and saw Reyes on the platform as he sexually gestured toward her, police said. In an effort to avoid him, she moved in a different direction, but police alleged that he followed her before assaulting her, harassing her, pushing her to the ground, climbing on top of her and attempting to spread her legs, Harrison said.

Police say the victim suffered minor injuries.

The NYPD initially released a photo of the man sought for questioning in connection with a rape attempt on a subway platform. (NYPD photo)

The video, taken by a witness, was provided to members of the NYPDs facial recognition team, who were able to place his image in the departments database  which Harrison said only matches faces to individuals who have had previous arrests  and were able to link him to a prior crime.

Harrison also credited three CrimeStoppers tips that were very instrumental in making arrest.

We need the peoples help, Harrison said on Sunday. Its important that everybody understands, in order for us to be successful, in order for us to stop the violence  we have to work together.

Reyes has over a dozen prior arrests, according to authorities, including robbery, assault on an officer, grand larceny and other crimes.

The NYPD said Reyes now faces charges of rape, sexually motivated assault, assault and harassment
File image

In Pranab Mukherjees passing away, India has lost a great statesman. The former Presidents eventful public life, lasting more than half century, saw him serve as minister under Indira Gandhi, Narasimha Rao, Manmohan Singh and, for a brief period, under Rajiv Gandhi.

Mukherjee was initiated into politics through the breakaway Bangla Congress, under the tutelage of Ajoy Mukherjee, and the party nominated a young Pranab to the Rajya Sabha in 1969 as a United Front candidate. After the United Front experiment collapsed in West Bengal, Indira Gandhi recruited Mukherjee to the Indian National Congress in 1972 and, the next decade would see his meteoric rise in the party, ultimately placing him as the Number 2 behind Gandhi.

Starting out as a Deputy Minister in 1973, Mukherjee was Minister of State for Finance under C Subramaniam within a year, and held independent charge of the Revenue and Banking portfolios from 1975-77, during the Emergency years. When Indira Gandhi split the Congress in early 1978, Mukherjee was among the few senior leaders who stood with her.

From this point there was no stopping Mukherjee as he became part of the crucial Congress Parliamentary Board, apart from briefly taking charge of the partys finances as treasurer in 1978. Despite the strictures passed by the Shah Commission against him for his role in the Emergency and a defeat in the 1980 Lok Sabha elections, Mukherjee made it to Indira Gandhis Cabinet as Union Commerce Minister.

After Zail Singh and R Venkataraman got elevated as President and Vice-President respectively, Mukherjee became the unofficial Number 2 in the Indira Cabinet, also taking over as the Finance Minister from Venkataraman in 1982. He also remained one of the only two Cabinet ministers in the eight-member Congress Parliamentary Board, the other being the late PV Narasimha Rao.

In spite of being the ultimate Congress loyalist, how did the top executive position of Prime Minister evade him on at least three occasions?

When Indira Gandhi was assassinated in late 1984, Mukherjee was on a tour of North Bengal with Rajiv Gandhi. After getting confirmation of the Prime Ministers death on the BBC while on an emergency flight back to Delhi, Mukherjee writes in the second part of his memoirs The Turbulent Years what transpired on the aircraft.

The likes of ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury, Balram Jakhar, Uma Shankar Dikshit and his daughter-in-law Sheila Dixit began discussing among them the future course of action and concluded that Rajiv Gandhi be immediately announced as Prime Minister, junking the precedent set by President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan of swearing in interim Prime Ministers following the deaths of Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri. Mukherjee also joined in, reminding others of the precedent (which would have elevated him as interim Prime Minister) but soon fell in line and communicated to Rajiv Gandhi that he should take over.

A mere mention of such a precedent was apparently enough for many within Congress to spin yarns about Mukherjees ambitions to supersede the Gandhi scion, and these stories would see him fall out of favour with Rajiv Gandhi.

After coming back to power with a thumping margin within a couple of months in December 1984, Rajiv Gandhi dumped Mukherjee from his Cabinet, replacing him with VP Singh.

Mukherjee subsequently quit the Congress and floated the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress in 1986, but his fledgling party performed disastrously in the 1987 West Bengal assembly elections. By 1989, Rajiv Gandhi got Mukherjee to come back to the Congress after clearing his misconceptions, but the latter had to start all over again, initially as a spokesperson. Falling behind in the pecking order spectacularly, Mukherjee was nowhere in contention for the top job when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991 and a non-Gandhi had to take over as Prime Minister.

Mukherjee was never a mass leader and derived his clout within the Congress from his proximity with Indira Gandhi and his phase in the wilderness coincided with Rajiv Gandhis tenure, but he was soon back as Narasimha Rao began calling the shots as Prime Minister. Rao first appointed Mukherjee as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, and in 1993, he was back in the Cabinet as Commerce Minister and later, External Affairs Minister in 1995.

While the Congress was out of power (1996-2004), Mukherjee was active in counselling Sonia Gandhi in her initial days as Congress President. Yet, when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government won the 2004 election, Gandhi nominated Manmohan Singh instead of Mukherjee as the Prime Minister, thus depriving him of the top job a third time.

Mukherjee nevertheless played a vital behind-the-scenes role co-ordinating the affairs of the government and the party, and was heading more than 50 GoMs (Group of Ministers) at one point. Despite his less-than-impressive turn as finance minister from 2008-2012, Mukherjee was the chief trouble-shooter and vital to the functioning of the UPA-II government as its unravelling post-2012 would indicate.

Thus, it was only fitting that Pranab Mukherjee was nominated as President of India, capping a political career that began in the late sixties. A textbook President, Pranab Mukherjee will always be remembered as a statesman and his legacy will live on.
For the first time, robot cleaners make a school's returning students and teachers safe from the threat of COVID-19.

Autonomous self-cleaning robots are no longer exclusive to airports and hospitals. The Telegraph reported that this technology is now tapped to sterilize Three Towers Alternative Provision Academy, in Hindley, Wigan, Greater Manchester. For two days, Sterilight Robot cleaned surfaces and corners in each classroom and corridor, blasting its powerful UV rays to kill pathogens.

According to its co-inventor, the machine's UV light can sterilize everything it touches. Whereas before, the process required programming the robot to clean a few meters at a time and then map out the next section to cover. Now, the robots use the latest in technology to allow it to do its job uninterrupted. That means no more manual operation is needed.

The company further said that they had used technology in hospitals to help fight SARS ten years ago. That is the same technology the company is using now to help fight COVID-19. They explained that Sterilight Robot helps in the prevention and spread of infectious diseases and viruses. That is made possible using UV rays that can break down the DNA structure of viruses. The company said that the robots could kill 99.9 percent of bacteria.

How do autonomous robot cleaners work?

To operate the robot cleaners, the user drives it around the room one time to scan and create a digital map of the environment. The operator then maps out the robot's route, including the direction and speed. After that, they leave the robot and let it sterilize the room for 10 to 15 minutes.

Is UV light safe to use?

UV radiation is classified into UVA, UVB, and UVC. Of the three, UVC light has the highest energy, and it's powerful enough to be used as a disinfectant. However, our ozone layer absorbs this UV ray type even before it reaches the Earth's surface.

We "have been using UVC for years now," Henry Ford Hospital physicist Indermeet Kohli told Live Science. She said it could kill several forms of coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, when used at the right dosage. She furthered that UVC can be a valuable tool in the fight against the pandemic. However, UVC should not be used in occupied spaces as it can harm the eye and skin.

This should serve as a warning for those using portable UVC light sanitizer wand or lamp. Never use it to sanitize your hand. Instead, use soap and water and follow the proper way of washing your hands. An alternative is to use alcohol-based sanitizers. Additionally, these devices have low-quality control, the Live Science report noted. While UVC is proven to kill viruses, it takes an expert to determine the right dosage. There is no guarantee that these commercial UVC sanitizers can completely kill pathogens. Hence, to entirely rely on such devices gives false assurances that can do more harm than good.

Read next: Air Purifier Masks Help You Breathe Easier
When youve been writing about home design for as long as I have, certain expressions really begin to wear. Like bring the outdoors in. Please, living in the tropics with three dogs, I spend a good amount of time taking the outdoors back out: sticks, mud, mosquitoes, frogs. Another worn expression is then just add a pop of color.

Next time I hear a designer say, just add a pop of color, Im afraid Ill say right back, Ill give you a pop of color. Where would you like it?

Im sorry, but the words "just" and "color" dont belong in the same sentence. First of all, picking a background wall color is already triple-black-diamond difficult, but selecting a look-at-me accent color, that perfect-pitch purple pillow, is way harder, like making the winning move in a game of four-dimensional chess blindfolded, for me anyway. And would someone please define "pop"? I picture the living room after a game of paintball.

So when a design friend recently introduced me to Minneapolis designer Lucy Penfield and said her specialty was living in color, I thought maybe she could help me with my pop predicament.

I called her up. In under three minutes, words like azalea, parrot green, peacock, mango and jalapeno were punctuating our conversation. The woman can talk color, all right.

Color is experiential, Penfield said. Its about energy and the feelings it brings to your soul. It can lift the spirit, calm the mind, sweep you away or ground you. It can evoke a mood or change one.

I want some of that, I said.

We talked about her new collection of exuberant throw pillows for Missio Home, launched this month, and designed to add, you guessed it, pops of color to a room.

Next, I peppered her with my pressing color questions:

Simple advice for affordable seasonal decor really does exist. Check out this new book Every so often in the world of home design, you meet a refreshing pro who doesnt take herself too seriously, is not afraid to own up to her m

Q: I get so tired of hearing designers tell me to add a pop of color. It sounds so easy, but its definitely an art. Can you offer some guidelines?

A: Be brave. Realize that rooms come alive when they have a color surprise. The pop can be small, like a red bowl, or large, like a turquoise accent wall. The idea is to add something unexpected that introduces a little whimsy. Start with a baby step. If that resonates, go bigger and bolder.

Q: What makes you wince when you walk into a home? What makes you say, "if only the owner knew?"

A: An expressionless home that is void of color. The rooms feel so lifeless and sad. Many people have homes like this because they feel safe. My heart drops, and I just want to say, Honey, you can do it. Try it. Its just a throw pillow or a vase on the table.

I also feel sad when I see homes where the owners felt compelled to do their whole house in gray, because thats what was in style, though it never felt right to them because they didnt go with the green they loved. I wish more people would use their own rudder to steer them to the colors they love, not whats in. People who dont live with color miss out on all the fun.

Q: What are some examples of ways we can add unexpected dashes of color.

A: Surprising color can show up in a hot pink throw, a chartreuse ottoman, a canary yellow desk chair, a gutsy piece of modern art, or a stack of books with all cobalt covers.

Q: Do you have a sure-fire color formula anyone can use?

A: When creating a rooms color palette, think 60-30-10, a base color, two friends, and a wildcard. For example, a strong neutral, like a sandy off white, can be your 60 percent base. Add a couple of friends, say 30 percent blue and green, then toss in a 10 percent wild card of citron. Avoid 50-50 combinations, which fall flat.

Its that unexpected color, that fuchsia that comes out of nowhere, thats your zinger. You could repeat the wildcard color a second time, but its almost better if it stands alone.

Q: Speaking of too much of a good thing, talk about restraint.

A: Picture a woman in that proverbial black dress. Her outfit comes alive when she adds a great hat and beads. But then, she adds a print scarf, leopard-print shoes, and bright red lipstick, and its a fail. You want to be careful the result doesnt look gaudy. Add too much color, and you cant see the accent anymore. Let it stand on its own.

Having a few friends over? Use these 12 tips to help keep everyone safe This past weekend, I engaged in some daring behavior. No, I didnt recklessly speed past a police car or skydive into the mouth of a volcano. 

Q: Does where we live make a difference in the colors we choose?

A: You definitely want to take color cues from your environment. In Florida, where you have a brighter climate, and water all around, you can use those bright, brilliant colors. In Montana or Wyoming, those colors would look garish against the dusty landscape. There you would want to tone it down, maybe use more saddle.

Q: Tell me about your new pillows?

A: They are the ultimate mood lifter. Brightly colored pillows are such a great kick start if you want to change up a room. A great throw pillow is a small investment that yields a high impact and can truly make the room.

Syndicated columnist Marni Jameson can be reached at www.marnijameson.com.
Fewer Chinese companies are expected to go public in the U.S. market once new financial regulations kick in and those that are already listed there may return to China if they cannot comply with the rules, an investor told CNBC.

Alibaba affiliate Ant Group, for example, is preparing for a dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong in one of the most highly anticipated initial public offerings.

"We do expect to see fewer Chinese ADRs listing in the U.S.," Kathleen Smith, principal and co-founder of Renaissance Capital, said on CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Friday. Renaissance Capital provides institutional research and IPO ETFs.

"We are seeing a rush of them now because there are some new SEC rules being put into effect that are going to require all U.S.-listed companies to abide by the financial oversight of the accounting rules here," she added.

The U.S. is preparing rules that could prevent Chinese companies from listing on American exchanges if they fail to follow standards for U.S. audits and regulations. President Donald Trump's advisors have also reportedly asked him to delist Chinese companies that already trade in the U.S. if they do not meet U.S. auditing requirements by January 2022.

Smith said that it's been hard for a lot of Chinese companies to comply, given their corporate structures. As such many of them are expected to move toward Hong Kong. Some are already carrying out secondary listings there as a backup.

Highly-valued Chinese companies including Alibaba, NetEase and JD.com have gone public by listing in the American depositary receipt (ADR) market, which allowed them to trade in the United States. But growing tensions between Washington and Beijing prompted some of them to do secondary listings in Hong Kong.

Electric vehicle maker Xpeng, meanwhile, is the latest Chinese company to go public in the U.S., making its market debut on Thursday.

Chinese financial technology firm Lufax is seeking to go public in the U.S. as early as this year, Reuters reported.

The Shanghai-based company may be one of the last prominent Chinese companies to list in the United States "before we see a change and these companies are going to start to target Hong Kong instead," Smith said.

She explained that it might make sense for those firms to list in China instead: "A company that's well known in its home market, you would hope that the home market can develop the large and liquid marketplace that connects with the companies that are operating there."

Experts have previously pointed out the difficulties in totally cutting Chinese companies off from U.S. investors as the world's two-largest economies have become increasingly interdependent. U.S. financial institutions are increasing their presence in China, where authorities are gradually loosening rules on foreign ownership.
Princess Dianas death shocked the world more than two decades ago. Many people old enough to remember when she passed recall where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.

The days following her tragic death also left the public stunned and nearly brought down the monarchy. Heres more on the royal familys response that left a nation infuriated. And who Prince Charles fought with when it came time to decide whether the Peoples Princess should have a public or private funeral.

Princess Diana | Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images

RELATED: This Is What Princess Dianas Bodyguard Who Survived the Car Accident Kept Repeating After the Crash

When did Prince Charles find out that Princess Diana died?

Princess Diana died following a car crash on Aug. 31, 1997. She was leaving the Ritz Hotel in Paris with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, just after midnight when they were chased by the paparazzi.

The hotels head of security Henri Paul was driving their limousine and traveling at a high rate of speed in an effort to lose the photogs. The limo ended up crashing into a pillar in the Pont de lAlma tunnel.

Paul and Fayed were killed instantly but the princess was still alive. She was transported to La Pitie Salpetriere Hospital.

Readers Digest reported that Britains ambassador to France, Michael Jay, was awoken in the middle of the night and told about the crash. He then contacted Queen Elizabeth IIs private secretary, Robin Janvrin, to notify the monarch. The queen was staying at her holiday home Balmoral in Scotland with the rest of the royal family when she got the news that Diana was badly injured. Prince Charles was woken up right after his mother and told as well. Hours later, they were informed that the princess did not survive.

The royal family received backlash for their response

Newspaper criticizing the queens silence after Princess Dianas death | Dave Gaywood AFP Getty Images

Back in London, word that Diana was killed in a car accident quickly started to spread. The public was expecting a statement from Buckingham Palace or the queen herself but instead, there was silence and that silence was deafening.

Many were outraged when it was reported that the morning of their mothers death Princes William and Harry attended church with Queen Elizbeth.

The business-as-usual approach did not go over well with the public and the queen was viewed as cold-hearted.

E! News noted that Prince William later offered this explanation about his grandmothers behavior saying that she felt very torn between being the grandmother to William and Harry, and her queen role. And I think she everyonewas surprised and taken aback by the scale of what happened and the nature of how quickly it all happened.

Did Prince Charles want a public funeral for Diana?

Prince Charles, Prince William, and Prince Harry | Anwar Hussein/WireImage

While the nation continued to mourn Princess Dianas passing and blame was being tossed around, Prince Charles was at odds with his mother over whether to have a public or private funeral for his ex-wife.

According to Channel 4 News in London (per the Chicago Tribune), the future king fought for Diana to have a public service as the monarch wanted a private one. The station reported that Charles quarreled with the queens advisors and told one to impale himself on his own flagstaff.

In the end, Princess Dianas service was public. An estimated 2.5 billion people around the world watched the funeral
Patients admitted to several Covid care centres in Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) have complained about dirty washrooms, bug infected beds and substandard food quality. The patients have also alleged that complaints to the concerned authorities have fallen on deaf ears and there is no improvement in the situation.

Civic chief Abhijit Bangar agreed that there are issues in some of the centres and action is being taken to resolve them.

The NMMC has set up 12 Covid care centres in Navi Mumbai, including one in Panvel, to quarantine Covid positive patients and also their close contacts. The patients said they have complained against the amenities in these centers. Few have got themselves shifted to private facilities, like hotels, to quarantine themselves.

A woman quarantined at ETC School Centre Covid facility in Vashi said, I was not allowed to be quarantined at home and was admitted here last Saturday. On reaching the facility I found that the toilets were dirty, they were neither flushed nor cleaned. The food that was served was cold. In the night, I was attacked by a locust and there were insects all over. I actually puked seeing the situation.

She added that she complained to those in charge and also a senior NMMC official. No action was taken and I continued to stay here for a few days, however when things did not seem to resolve, I got myself shifted to a hotel in Mahape.

A man quarantined at the Panvel-based NMMCs Covid care centre had a similar experience. There are around 400-500 patients at the facility and I was quarantined on the 9th floor. The washroom was in a pathetic condition and seemed not to have been cleaned since the last person had used it. There was not a single slot of a light bulb in it. The flush tank was not in working condition, he said.

The man added, I was told that the housekeeping staff comes just once a day and later when they did come the next day, they just mopped the floor. They refused to clean the washroom and I was forced to do it myself.

There was no mosquito repellant, the food served was cold, he complained, adding he even found an insect in it. There were no pillows, only one blanket was provided, he said.

Doctors who came to check my temperature did so in a rush and I was asked to go to the doctors on the ground floor for any medicine or treatment as they do not visit the patients. Finally, I got myself shifted to a private quarantine facility, he said further.

Former corporator Divya Gaikwad claimed that she was approached with several such complaints from many patients. Gaikwad said, There have been several complaints about these facilities as the those in-charge at the local level are not doing their job well. The patients are going through a trauma and these additional issues make it worse. There is utter lack of hygiene and adequate care.

The civic commissioner claimed that the complaints are being looked into.

Bangar added, I have received complaints about some Covid centre at Panvel and have verified through independent sources as well. Necessary action is being taken in terms of housekeeping, food and medical checkup. We will also check into complaints of ETC and other facilities.
A Montana man has been charged with criminal mischief after allegedly tearing down Trump campaign flags from outside of a home and setting them on fire on the lawn, while the family and their four children slept inside.

Police say Eric Herrera was caught on surveillance camera footage walking unsteadily up to the family's house in Three Forks, 30 miles north west of Bozeman, before grabbing the flags and setting them alight.

Julia and Robert O'Rourke had bought Trump flags earlier in the day on August 23, and hung them on their porch in the town of 2,000 people.

Julia and Robert O'Rourke said they bought the flags on August 28 and hung them outside

The flags were only on display for one day before they were ripped down and burnt

But they were stunned to wake the next morning to find the flags gone, and a pile of ash on their front lawn.

Julia O'Rourke told MTN News: 'It's insane.'

'None of us knew! We woke up to a charred pile of flag in our yard, and had no idea,' she said.

She said that what worried her most was that the fire could have set the house ablaze.

'I felt violated,' she said.

'I felt that my kids' and my life and my husband's life were in danger. It could have easily burned my house down. There was a fire ban at the time of the burning, and as close as it was to the house, it was very eerie.'

The family checked security camera footage, and saw a man stumbling to their house in the night and taking the flags before starting the fire.

Officers identified Herrera from the footage and he was arrested.

Sheriff Brian Gootkin of Gallatin County said that Herrera has been charged.

A figure, who Sheriff Gootkin said was Eric Herrera, is seen setting fire to the flags

The flags burn brightly, while the two parents and their four children sleep inside the house

'The liberal mob isn't just in cities across the country, it's right here in Montana and it's threatening the safety of freedom-loving Montanans,' tweeted the Montana Republican Party on Friday.

The vandalism of political campaign signs appears to have been a problem in recent weeks in the town, leading the Three Forks Voice to publish an op ed entitled: 'Leave the campaign signs alone.'

'The most important thing is that we still have a roof over our heads, and our children are alive and safe,' she said.
Putin says West looks as if prepared response to Belarus election in advance

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 5:28 AM

Russian President Vladimir Putin says there is reason to suspect that Western countries prepared their rejection of Belarus' recent presidential election result before the vote was even held.

Speaking in an interview with the Russia-1 TV channel that was aired on Saturday, President Putin said Belarusian authorities had invited representatives from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the August 9 elections, which incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko won, but the OSCE refused to send monitors.

"Belarusian authorities have invited the OSCE ODIHR to participate in the monitoring of the election. Why didn't they come? This immediately makes us think that, basically, the position on the results of this election has already been prepared," Putin said, referring to the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

Western countries and Belarus' opposition have rejected Lukashenko's re-election, claiming that voter fraud took place and demanding that the election be repeated. Mass protests have been staged by the Belarusian opposition since the results were announced.

The Belarusian government has rejected the allegations of vote rigging and ruled out a repeat election. Lukashenko has also warned of a Western plot to destabilize Belarus and has turned to President Putin for help with maintaining security.

In his Saturday interview, the Russian president said Belarus' election was an internal issue of the country.

"We believe this is, first and foremost, an internal matter of the Belarusian society and the people of Belarus," Putin said.

But he said Russia was ready to help. Belarus, he said, is "probably, the closest country to Russia ethnically, culturally, and spiritually."

Putin said Lukashenko had asked him to have a group of law enforcement officers on standby to be dispatched to Belarus if necessary. The Russian president said that he expected the crisis to be resolved peacefully but that the group had been formed.

"We agreed that the group would not be deployed unless the situation in Belarus spirals completely out of control," he said.

Putin said Moscow would only involve itself in Belarus if "extremist elements acting under the cover of political slogans cross certain red lines and engage in banditry, start burning houses and banks, [and] try storming government buildings."

On Thursday, the Russian president urged Belarus' government and opposition to resolve their differences peacefully.

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Weve been urged to buy local, and in a food producing nation like ours it would be even better if that message was strongly, Buy Local, Eat Local. Plenty of great ingredients grow and food products are manufactured in the Mahurangi region, so we can feast on fresh, tasty and healthy fare that will get the local tick.

I love it that we have local oysters that can be bought direct from the farm, and personally I can never get enough of these delicacies, freshly shucked and eaten straight from the shell, with not much more than a squeeze of local lemon or lime.

At this time of the year, when winter is almost behind us, some of the sweetest oysters of the year are being harvested. While were used to savoury Bluffies, with a season that runs from March to August, we need to recognise our own local Pacific oysters growing quietly in the Mahurangi and Kaipara harbours.

The subtlety of taste of each oyster varies according to where the oysters are from. I spoke to Andrew and Lisa Hay, of Mahurangi Oysters, who sell most of their harvest to restaurants around New Zealand, about the secret lives of these shellfish. Oysters are filter feeders, with each oyster processing 18 litres of seawater per hour as they feast on algae. This helps to clean the environment, and Ministry of Primary Industry guidelines dictate that if theres more than 25mls of rain over a 24-hour period, oyster farms must close for three days to ensure no runoff from the land contaminates the oysters.

In the hottest summer months, after the oysters have spawned (each oyster can create up to 10 million eggs) they are thin and wan, but soon begin to build up the creamy fat that is much prized by oyster lovers. Oysters are affected by the moon, too. They are crisp when the moon has waned, but become progressively more creamy as we build towards a full moon when tides are highest.

If youre keen to seek out local oysters right now, when they are truly at their best, you can order online from Mahurangi Oysters, head to the Oyster Shed on Leigh Road, or purchase at Orata Marine Oysters at the Matakana Farmers Market, in the shell, half shell or little pottles. One pottle, or 18 freshly shucked oysters, are perfect for this delicious recipe.

Oyster Fritters

1 small onion, finely chopped

4 tbsp butter

2 large fresh eggs

3 tbsp self-raising flour

18 shucked oysters, chopped

Salt and pepper

1 lime, finely grated zest only

Place the onion in a bowl with one tablespoon of the butter and cook for two minutes in a microwave until soft. Beat the eggs in another bowl and whisk in the flour to make a smooth, stiff batter. Stir in the onion, oysters, some salt and pepper and the lime zest and mix well.

Heat a heavy frying pan and melt half the butter. Drop large tablespoons of the oyster batter into the pan, and cook four or five at a time over gentle heat for two minutes until golden, then flip over and cook the other side. Stack the fritters up on baking paper and keep warm while you cook the next batch with a little extra butter. Makes 8-10 fritters.

Lauraine Jacobs

www.laurainejacobs.co.nz/blog/
COURTICE  A former high school teacher accused of sexually abusing a student is facing a disciplinary hearing with the Ontario College of Teachers.

Colin Winslow faces several allegations including engaging in oral sex and other forms of sexual touching with a student in a classroom.

The incidents are alleged to have taken place between June 2015 and February 2016.

The notice of hearing from the Ontario College of teachers does not specify what school Winslow was teaching at during that time.

However, the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland Clarington Catholic District School Board confirms that he taught at Holy Trinity Catholic Secondary School in Courtice.

A spokesperson for the PVNCCDSB said Winslow is no longer a teacher with the board.

Allegations of misconduct came to the boards attention on May 1, 2019 and Mr. Winslow, as per board policy, was reassigned from his school position to home on that date. He has not been a board employee since June 30, 2019, spokesperson Galen Eagle said in a statement.

The school board did not notify parents and students about the allegations because police investigated and no charges were laid.

Protecting the privacy and identity of the student complainant was the boards paramount concern, the board statement says.

The hearing notice lists several allegations related to a female student including: Spending time alone in a locked classroom with the student after hours, picking up the student in his personal vehicle, exchanging electronic messages of a personal/sexual nature with the student, engaging in oral sex with the student, engaging in other forms of sexual touching with the student, and exchanging Snapchat and video messages with the student while one or both masturbated.

The Ontario College of Teachers has not yet scheduled a hearing date.

Possible penalties for professional misconduct include a reprimand, suspension, revocation of a members certificate or the placement of terms, conditions or limitations on the certificate, such as ordering the member to complete a course.
The Inter-Governmental Action against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) is organizing a one-day Regional Virtual Meeting of Chief Compliance Officers of Financial Institutions and Designated Non-Financial Businesses & Professions (DNFBPs) on Emerging Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Issues in Dakar, Senegal on Wednesday, September 2, 2020. Due to the current situation of COVID-19, the program will be organized virtually through the Zoom platform.

The objectives of the program are to provide a platform for participants to share experiences and foster cooperation and collaboration for effective implementation of AML/CFT preventive measures in member States.

Furthermore, the program is to (i) enhance the capacity of participants on current and emerging ML/TF issues; (ii) raise awareness of participants on relevant recent changes to the FTAF standards; (iii) provide a platform for sharing of experiences, and good practices on AML/CFT issues; and (iv) promote cooperation, coordination, and engagement amongst and between private sector operators on how to implement AML/CFT preventive measures effectively.

A total of one hundred (100) participants are expected to attend the program, including senior-level officials responsible for AML/CFT compliance/risk assessment in financial institutions and DNFBPs across member States.

It would be recalled that the outcome of GIABAs first and second round of mutual evaluations reveals a generally low level of compliance by reporting entities, owing to several factors, including lack of in-depth understanding of ML/TF risks and insufficient commitment on the part of the management of financial institutions to the implementation of AML/CFT standards.

For low capacity countries like those in GIABA member States, Covid-19 and new developments in technology and other emerging issues such as virtual currencies, fintech, and regtech, add to current challenges and have far-reaching implications for private sector operators (reporting entities), especially in relation to the implementation of AML/CFT.

In light of the above, it would be necessary to bring the critical players in the financial and DNFBP sectors together to discuss: (i) ways of enhancing effective implementation of AML/CFT preventive measures, and (ii) contemporary and emerging AML/CFT issues that impact on AML/CFT regime in the region.

The program will be delivered by regional and international experts and relevant officials of the GIABA Secretariat through presentations, workgroups, and experience sharing.
Naravane said India had given a fitting response to the (Chinese) conspiracy of attempting to unilaterally change the status quo along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) where India and China have been locked in a standoff for over eight months. I want to assure the country that the sacrifice of the Galwan braves will not go in vain, he said.
New Delhi:

The dense fog has hugely affected trains and flights operations. North India including Delhi-NCR is witnessing thick fog cover. Several trains have also been rescheduled from Delhi area stations including New Delhi Railway Station, Old Delhi Railway Station and Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station.

Poor visibility also affected rail traffic leading to the cancellation of seven trains early morning.

Summary of Trains affected due to fog/other operational reasons

01.01.2017



Trains Arriving late in Delhi area = 48

Trains Rescheduled (Put Back) = 12



Trains cancelled = 1

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Motsi Mabuse has opened up on motherhood, saying she wants 'to spend every breathing second' with her two-year-old daughter.

The Strictly Come Dancing judge is still working out how to split her time between her family in Germany and filming the show in the UK when it returns in the autumn.

Constantly changing travel restrictions mean she 'will have to wait and see' how the international commute will work.

Doting mum: Motsi Mabuse has opened up on motherhood, saying she wants 'to spend every breathing second' with her two-year-old daughter

She told Hello!: 'The most important thing for me is the safety of me, my family and the Strictly team.'

The 39-year-old said she and her husband, dancer Evgenij Voznyuk, were enjoying spending time with their little girl, whose name she keeps private.

'I love this stage of motherhood,' she said. 'It's such a beautiful time because she's learning to speak, she's very expressive, she's a strong girl and very cheeky.

'There's new things happening every day. I want to spend every breathing second with her.'

The South African-born dancer recently revealed she was often in tears when she left her daughter to fly to the UK each Saturday for the live recording of last year's series.

'I cry quite often when I'm in the plane,' she said. 'But I've never missed a doctor's appointment. I've literally come back home for two hours to take her to the doctor and then flown back.

Baby girl: The 39-year-old said she and her husband, dancer Evgenij Voznyuk, were enjoying spending time with their little girl, whose name she keeps private

'I love my job and I'm providing for her. I'm providing for my family so that we have stability. That is so important for me.'

Motsi also added that, in her opinion, her co-star Bruno Tonioli is totally 'irreplaceable'.

The dancing ace hinted on Sunday that the flamboyant judge, 64, will not be replaced by a guest judge during his absence from the show.

Bruno will be absent from the Saturday night judging panel when the BBC One show returns.

He is currently in the US for Dancing With The Stars and will appear full-time towards the end of the series.

Judge Motsi told the magazine: 'I think everybody has a special spot on the judging panel and Bruno is not replaceable.

Overseas: The flamboyant judge, 64, will be absent from the Saturday night judging panel when the BBC One show returns as he will be filming in the US for Dancing With The Stars

Despite his absense, Bruno will still have a presence on the show as he will connect via video link for the Strictly results on Sunday nights.

Speaking about the judges' remote interaction, Motsi added: 'We all have to adjust.

'[Remote judging] may be an aspect of the show that we never knew was missing. We will have to see what works as we go.'

Special: Speaking about her co-star, the professional dancer, 39 said to Hello! magazine: 'I think everybody has a special spot on the judging panel and Bruno is not replaceable'

Motsi reflected on becoming a judge on the show, she said: 'I'm like lightning - I came, did my thing on Strictly and I think I left an impression. This year, I will be able to leave even more'

Out now! Read her full interview is in Hello! magazine, out now

When asked if a guest judge will fill in for him, Bruno previously told The Sun: 'That's up to them, it's not my call.

'On Dancing With The Stars we only have three judges and that works fine.'

Motsi reflected on her return to the show after making her debut alongside Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood and Bruno last year.

She added: 'I'm like lightning - I came, did my thing on Strictly and I think I left an impression.

'This year, I will be able to leave even more 'Motsi' behind.'

The full interview is in Hello! magazine, out now.
President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday extended greetings on the occasion of Onam calling it a symbol of our rich cultural heritage and an expression of our gratitude to Mother Nature at the arrival of the new crop.

President Kovind urged everyone to take care of people belonging to the weaker sections of society and follow guidelines to contain coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak.

Onam greetings to everyone! The festival of Onam is a symbol of our rich cultural heritage and an expression of our gratitude to Mother Nature at the arrival of the new crop. Let us take care of people from the weaker sections of the society and follow guidelines to contain COVID-19, the President tweeted.

Onam greetings to everyone! The festival of Onam is a symbol of our rich cultural heritage and an expression of our gratitude to Mother Nature at the arrival of new crop. Let us take care of people from the weaker sections of the society and follow guidelines to contain COVID-19.  President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) August 31, 2020

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu also greeted people on Onam, hoping that the festival brings peace, prosperity and happiness to everyone.

On this Onam, let us remind ourselves of the values of honesty, integrity, compassion, selflessness & sacrifice which the great king Mahabali espoused, the Vice President Secretariat tweeted quoting Naidu.

May this joyous festival bring peace, prosperity and happiness to everyone, he said.

Greeting the nation on Onam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said this is a unique festival, which celebrates harmony.

Greetings on Onam. This is a unique festival, which celebrates harmony. It is also an occasion to express gratitude to our hardworking farmers. May everyone be blessed with joy and best health, PM Modi tweeted.

Greetings on Onam. This is a unique festival, which celebrates harmony. It is also an occasion to express gratitude to our hardworking farmers. May everyone be blessed with joy and best health. pic.twitter.com/4pjpGRKk6Q  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 31, 2020

Taking to Twitter, Union Home minister Amit Shah said, Warm greetings on the auspicious occasion of Onam. May this festival bring joy, harmony, good health and prosperity in everyones lives. Happy Onam!

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday said,  May the spirit of Onam - the harvest, regeneration & purity of Sadhya inspire to overcome the challenges of Covid19. Let the spirit of inclusiveness & sharing transcend all barriers & add colors of health, happiness & prosperity to all. #HappyOnam!

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal also took to Twitter and wished everyone on the occasion of Onam.

Happy Onam to all my Malayalee sisters and brothers. May you have an abundance of joy in your life, good health and prosperity, Kejriwal tweeted.

Happy Onam to all my Malayalee sisters and brothers. May you have an abundance of joy in your life, good health and prosperity.  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) August 31, 2020

Onam festivities, which started on August 22, will continue till September 2.

Onam falls in the month of Chingam, which is the first month according to the Malayalam calendar. The celebrations spread over 10 days mark the Malayalam New Year and conclude with Thiruvonam.
The exhibition will look back on the different breeds of dogs that have lived at the White House. It will explore their history, highlight specific dogs that were owned by US presidents, and examine the influence these breeds had on the dog world as well as the American public at large.

From George Washington's Foxhounds to Bo and Sunny, the Portuguese Water Dogs owned by the Obamas, this exhibit will examine the role of dogs in American presidential history. The exhibition will contain artwork from the MoD collection, historic documents from the AKC archives, and photo reproductions. Some breeds highlighted in the upcoming exhibit will include Airedale Terriers, Beagles, Cocker Spaniels, Collies, English Springer Spaniels, Foxhounds, Golden Retrievers, Newfoundlands, Portuguese Water Dogs, Scottish Terriers and Welsh Terriers.

Using the AKC Museum of the Dog app (available on Google Play Store and the App store), visitors will be able to vote for their favorite presidential dog featured in the new exhibit.

"The majority of our presidents have shared the White House with a dog and these presidential pooches have become an integral piece of our history," said Executive Director Alan Fausel. "The new 'Presidential Dogs' exhibit looks back at some of the most famous four-legged friends in American History and we are thrilled to welcome visitors back to the AKC Museum of the Dog with such an important historical exhibition."

For more information on the exhibit or the Museum, please visit www.museumofthedog.org.

New safety policies and procedures for the Museum of the Dog can be found in this video.

For merchandise, please visit: www.museumofthedogstore.org

About the AKC Museum of the Dog

Founded in 1982, The AKC Museum of the Dog preserves, interprets and celebrates the role of dogs in society and educates the public about the human-canine bond through its collection of art and exhibits that inspire engagement with dogs. The museum is home to over 700 original paintings, drawings, watercolors, prints, sculptures, bronzes, and porcelain figurines, a variety of decorative arts objects and interactive displays depicting man's best friend throughout the ages. The AKC Museum of the Dog is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization funded mainly by private and corporate gift donations. For more information on the AKC Museum of the Dog visit www.Museumofthedog.org

Become a fan of the AKC Museum of the Dog on Facebook at akcmuseumofthedog

SOURCE AKC Museum of the Dog

Related Links

http://www.museumofthedog.org


The Chinese troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh on August 29 and 30. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo. Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on the ground.

A Brigade Commander level Flag Meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues. "Indian troops detected activity by a sizeable number of PLA soldiers during the night. It was clear the intention was to change the status quo and move inwards but Indian soldiers pre-empted the move and thwarted the attempt by quick deployment of more troops in the area," Army sources said.

Check all the latest updates on BusinessToday.In live blog

1.31 PM: What exactly happened?

On August 29 late night, 150-200 Chinese soldiers' movement noticed trying to change the status quo. China was setting up more camps along the Southern bank, where the clash took place. Indian Army had picked up movements and were able to thwart the Chinese advancements, say Army sources.

1.21 PM: China Foreign Ministry, on border dispute with India, says Chinese border troops never cross the Line of Actual Control, and that the two sides in communication regarding conditions on the ground.

1.14 PM: The release of the Indian statement to the media seems to signal the confrontation was serious, says Brahma Chellaney.

More clashes between Indian and Chinese forces, this time on the southern banks of Pangong Lake. Indian forces foiled a fresh Chinese bid to "unilaterally change facts on the ground." The release of the Indian statement to the media seems to signal the confrontation was serious. pic.twitter.com/ksQQZlH1yV  Brahma Chellaney (@Chellaney) August 31, 2020

1.01 PM: Fresh build-up by the Chinese along the LAC:

12.58 PM: China had earlier said that India should look at the "big picture" of bilateral ties and take concrete steps to bring the relationship back on the "right track of normal development".

12.56 PM: This was a violent clash near Chushul. Hand to hand fighting. No weapons fired and no casualties reported.

More clashes between Indian and Chinese forces, this time on the southern banks of Pangong Lake. Indian forces foiled a fresh Chinese bid to "unilaterally change facts on the ground." The release of the Indian statement to the media seems to signal the confrontation was serious. pic.twitter.com/ksQQZlH1yV  Brahma Chellaney (@Chellaney) August 31, 2020

12.52 PM: BJP leader Subramanian Swamy says that it is sad that the government does not realise the Chinese have made a decision about India. "We must make a decision about China. Get tough, I repeat, get tough and not sit at a table. After sitting with Xi Jinping 18 times in 5 years, Chinese could not care less for Indian leaders," he tweets.

This was a violent clash near Chushul. Hand to hand fighting. No weapons fired & no casualties reported. #LadakhClash  Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) August 31, 2020

12.23 PM: Fresh images show Chinese troops continue to build troop positions along the eastern Ladakh zone. As per India Today, four new camp positions have mushroomed at the Pangong Tso lake area. Earlier, there was only one at the Finger 4 area.

12.20 PM: A brigade commander level flag meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve issues: Indian Army on latest incident in Pangong Tso area.

12.17 PM: India and China had engaged in a bitter face-off in the Galwan valley in June, leading to the death of 20 Indian jawans and over 40 Chinese soldiers.

12.12 PM: Today's confrontation happened in this area.

12.03 PM: The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity. A Brigade Commander level Flag Meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues: Col Aman Anand, PRO, Army

12.00 PM: What we know so far

Chinese posture hasn't even slightly changed following talks

Chinese fully focused on changing lines, occupying territory

Disengagement now virtually meaningless across flashpoint

Chinese build-up in depth areas now showing their use

11.50 AM: The Srinagar-Leh highway has been closed for civilians with immediate effcet and road will be open for defence forces and vehicles only.
Forty-five historic churches and chapels in the U.K. are receiving grants from the National Churches Trust after being financially hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The grant money is hoped to fund needed repairs, maintenance, and the installation of community facilities across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

"The U.K.'s historic churches and chapels are a vital part of our national heritage. During the coronavirus pandemic churches have done so much to help vulnerable local people and boost morale," Huw Edwards, BBC broadcaster and vice president of The National Churches Trust said.

The National Churches Trust website offers four types of grants and has awarded 145 grants totaling more than 1 million pounds. One of the grants is Cornerstone Grants that fund essential structural repair projects and install kitchens and toilets.

"Many churches need to carry out urgent repairs and install modern facilities to ensure their buildings can continue to be used well into the future. But the cost of this work is often far beyond what most congregations can pay for themselves and many are facing funding shortages because of the coronavirus lockdown."

St. Mary's Church in Dallinghoo which dates all the way back to the 14th century is one of the churches receiving grant funding. The grant is expected to help maintain the historic building with extensive repairs to the brickwork, windows of the church, ceilings, pew platforms in the church's interior, and more according to the East Anglican Daily Times.

"Key members of our community have been fundraising for years to keep our church fabric sound," Charlotte Sullivan, churchwarden at St Mary's, told the news outlet.

Another chapel built in 1811 called the Edale Methodist Chapel in Barber Booth is also receiving funding, specifically a Cornerstone Grant, from the National Churches Trust.

Kate Burnett, the renovation coordinator at the church expressed the desperate conditions of the chapel in a statement, "We badly need to get basic facilities - water, heating, toilet and kitchen installed, so that we can bring this lovely atmospheric chapel into wider community use."
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 1)  President Rodrigo Duterte assured the government will provide COVID-19 frontliners residence and food to respond to discrimination concerns directed at them.

Duterte added pandemic frontliners, especially health workers, are summarily dismissed from their leased or rented residence because of the tenants fear of contracting COVID-19 from them.

He emphasized the government intends to place the displaced frontliners in houses, hotels, and motels.

If this happens, you can call directly the office of Secretary (Carlito) Galvez and we will provide you with the necessary billeting and food too. We will choose a place nearest to where you are working, Duterte said in his weekly address on Monday.

The President added he will publicly call the attention of tenants who are forcibly removing pandemic frontliners from their residence.

If they get sick, they should not be accepted in hospitals, Duterte jokingly warned the tenants.

In a statement published on Monday morning in time for the National Heroes Day celebration, the National Task Force against COVID-19 led by Galvez lauded the frontliners efforts and sacrifices despite the many challenges and risks they face, saying they are all considered heroes amid these trying times.

The selflessness, dedication and bravery you have shown during this health crisis put you in the same league as our national heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in order to free our nation from foreign oppressors You are all heroes in the truest sense of the word, the National Task Force said in a statement.

Last June, the House of Representatives passed on third reading House Bill No. 6817 or the COVID-19 Related Anti-Discrimination Bill which penalizes those who commit discriminatory practices against confirmed, suspect, probable and recovered COVID-19 patients, repatriated land-based or sea-based Filipinos, healthcare workers, responders, service workers, and families and household members of the persons mentioned.

The Senate version of HB 6817 is still pending at the committee level, where it needs to be passed also on third reading. Both chambers need to approve the bill before being signed by the President as a law.
A cheese processing factory in East Cork has been granted a discharge licence that critics say will allow almost three million litres of treated fats, oils, and grease (FOG) to be dispensed daily into a scenic waterway.

The Environmental Protection Agency granted the discharge licence to a 70m plant at Mogeely, 2km from Castlemartyr, in a joint venture between Dairygold and Norwegian food processor Tine Ltd.

The decision has angered locals 14km away at East Ferry where the discharge will be released.

Dairygold has been manufacturing Jarlsberg cheese for Tine at Mogeely since 2013 but the new deal, aimed at the EU, US, and Australian markets, potentially increases annual output by 20,000 tonnes.

The project involved construction of a 25m production facility, following permission with 32 conditions from Cork County Council in 2017.

Dairygold said the development enhances Brexit-proof markets for local milk and creates more than 50 jobs.

Residents in East Ferry say they are not opposing the plant. However, they are strongly opposed to a new pipeline carrying FOG from Mogeely, via Irish Waters sewer network near Midleton, for discharge into their local harbour at Rathcoursey.

The discharge point lies between protected sites for migratory birds at Great Island and Saleen Creek.

It is also close to foraging grounds for protected sea bass and is a popular sailing location.

Dairygold said the FOG will be modified to grey water by a 4m treatment plant and, after discharge, will be carried out to sea.

Locals said the harbours southerly gales and return tides will quickly bring it back to shore.

An NUI Galway report indicated it could take more than 70 days for the affected area to flush out.

Cork County Councils planning conditions, meanwhile, include the installation of a remotely actuated valve on the pipe which will close if the quality of the treated effluent is compromised.

We live here and we know the tides will carry the waste back in," said Debby Hayes, spokeswoman for the Protect East Ferry Waters group. "If Dairygold had consulted with us properly, they would know it too.

The decision to grant Dairygold and Tine a licence to use Cork Harbour as their dumping ground for treacherous materials is scandalous.

We will continue to oppose this ludicrous decision and are united in our commitment to protecting our local environment."
GG56 Ltd.

Chairman of Good Neighbors Global Impact Foundation, Hae Won Chung and Founder of GG56 Ltd., Dr. Han Seung-soo

Chairman of Good Neighbors Global Impact Foundation, Hae Won Chung and Founder of GG56 Ltd., Dr. Han Seung-soo

HONG KONG, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On Thursday, August 27, the Chairman of Good Neighbors Global Impact Foundation, Hae Won Chung and the Founder of GG56 Ltd., Dr. Han Seung-soo, signed a Memorandum of Agreement aiming at developing and promoting the social economy. The signing ceremony took place at Good Neighbors headquarter situated at the heart of Seoul.

Along with signing the MOA, GG56 Ltd. donated 10,000 masks to social workers and less-favored households in South Korea, and 10,000 masks for the low-income families in Nepal. The mask to Nepal will be sent to the prime minister of Nepal, K. P. Sharma Oli through the overseas office of Good Neighbors Global Impact Foundation.



Through this agreement, Good Neighbors and GG56 Ltd. plans to start an economic platform based on the technologies of 4th industrial revolution (i.e. Big Data, Artificial Intelligence AI) to support the local communities in developing countries. Additionally, by establishing a mutually cooperative network, and new joint business plans, both parties will make an effort to vitalize the life of the residents of those developing countries. In addition, Good Neighbors and GG56 Ltd. also agrees to build a global donation system that improves the life of the people from developing countries.



The founder of GG56 ltd., and the former Prime Minister of South Korea, Dr. Han Seung-soo said, "The development of a transparent and reliable donation culture by introducing a trust system to the donation culture in the 4th industrial era, GG56 and Good Neighbors will help making a reliable donation system that people will believe and participate in ".



Good Neighbors Global Impact Foundation is a Good Neighbors Global Impact Foundation(GNGIF) is a specialized foundation that designs and implements social and economic projects to reduce poverty and promote independence of communities overseas to achieve SDGs.



Story continues

GG56 Ltd. (Global Good 5 Ocean 6 Continents), is a Hong Kong-based global tourism company that aims to provide information and access to the tourism market by using smart devices (Satisfaction of everything SoeT, FingeRate app, smart Kiosk etc). Its goal is to advance the global tourism industry to the fourth industrial revolutionary technology and realize the Global Good Tourism Ecosystem by returning part of the profits from it to society through donations.





MEDIA DETAILS

Company Name: GG56 Ltd.

Media Contact: Tabassum

Email: info@gg56.world

Website: http://btour.io/

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How Biden, Trump Diverge in China Approach

While both Joe Biden and President Trump differ on a number of policies, theres some overlap in their approaches to China. But if we take a look at what the two have done and said in the past, the contrast is evident.

The Biden and Trump campaigns are saying they want to bring back American manufacturing from China.

According to the Trump campaign, the president wants to bring back 1 million manufacturing jobs.
31.08.2020 LISTEN

Senior Vice President and Policy Analyst at IMANI Ghana, Mr Kofi Bentil has described as terrible and corrupt the controversial Agyapa Royalties deal.

Kofi Bentil stated noted that after careful analysis of the Agyapa Royalties deal, he realised that the deal does not inure to the benefit of Ghanaians.

"...But after analyzing the Agyapa deal, I can say it's terrible and corrupt." part of his Facebook post.

The former Ashesi University lecturer also added that he is in support of any work that will see Ghana's resources revenues yield greater returns.

"I'm in favour of engineering our resource revenues for greater returns as a nation..." he says.

The Agyapa Royalties deal has been criticized by many, including Civil Society Organizations who believe the deal lacks transparency.

Franklin Cudjoe, Founding President of IMANI Africa indicated that the Agyapa deal is a deal made in hell.

Mr Cudjoe said this in a panel discussion on Citi TV's weekly "The Big Issues" program which was hosted by Godfred Akoto Boafo.

---GhanaVanguard
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Linkedin Budi Sutrisno (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 17:10 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41aeb68 1 National TobaccoControl,TobaccoConsumption,tobacco-bill,tobacco-control Free

Several nationwide medical and health organizations have urged the Health Ministry to accelerate the revisions to Government Regulation (PP) No 109/2012 on the safety of addictive ingredients in tobacco products.

The organizations said during a webinar on Monday that the draft revision that began in May 2018 should have been completed in a year, but that the drafting process seemed to have slowed down after eight interministerial meetings.

In accordance with Presidential Decree No. 9/2018, the draft revision targets the pictographic health warnings on tobacco products.

The Coordinating Human Development and Cultural Affairs Ministry has also asked the Health Ministry to review the regulations on online cigarette advertising and controlling the consumption of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), also known as vaping devices.

The revised PP on addictive tobacco ingredients appears in the 2020-2024 National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN), which includes a plan to completely ban cigarette advertisements, enlarge the health warning pictographs, strengthen smoking cessation services and reduce child smokers by 0.4 percent.

The slow revision process shows the governments lack of awareness about the urgency of controlling high cigarette consumption in Indonesia. The Health Minister should immediately complete his homework, said Tubagus Haryo Karbyanto of the National Commission on Tobacco Control (NCTC).

Indonesian Society of Internal Medicine (PAPDI) chairman Sally Aman Nasution stressed that stronger control of tobacco consumption was even more urgent during the COVID-19 health emergency, given that smokers were more vulnerable to contracting the disease.

"Strengthening regulations to control [tobacco] consumption is imperative, said Sally, noting that the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases was increasing, primarily in connection with high tobacco consumption in the country.

Read also: Indonesia fails in tobacco control measures

Echoing Sally, Feni Fitriani Taufik of the Indonesian Society of Respirology (PDPI) urged the government to step up its tobacco control efforts, pointing out that several countries had banned tobacco sales and imports during the pandemic.

According to chairman Aru Sudoyo of the Indonesian Cancer Foundation, cigarette consumption was the leading cause of the high incidence of lung cancer among Indonesian men, with 19.4 cases per 100,000 population. Meanwhile, the overall mortality rate for both men and women in Indonesia was 10.9 cases per 100,000 population.

The Health Ministry does not seem to take the situation seriously," said Indonesian Teachers Association chairman Unifah Rosidi, blasting the regulation for its lax control of cigarette consumption "while our children have very [poor knowledge] on the dangers of smoking.

Separately, Indonesian Heart Foundation (YJI) chairman Esti Nurjadin said that the foundation had sent a letter urging President Joko Widodo to push for the revised regulation. She added that the YJI's letter to the President also expressed appreciation for the 2020-2024 RPJMN, which promoted public health.

Green Crescent Indonesia president Era Catur Prasetya underlined that regulatory policies on advertising, tobacco sponsorship, large pictographic warnings, pricing and underage sales bans in many countries had proven effective in reducing tobacco consumption.

The PP revision is also important so the [public] has access to skills empowerment and smoking cessation programs, he said.

Representing the Alliance of Cigarette Victims at the webinar, Zainuddin, a survivor of laryngeal cancer from passive smoking, said that the revised regulation would help prevent suffering among young Indonesians.

Our request is simple. We dont want the younger generations to suffer like we have. We dont want more victims like us. [...] Minister, you have a very large role to play in saving future generations, he said.
VANCOUVER, BC, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - GoldMining Inc. (the "Company" or "GoldMining") (TSX: GOLD) (OTCQX: GLDLF) is pleased to announce the appointment of John Griffith as Chief Development Officer of its subsidiary, Gold Royalty Corp. ("Gold Royalty"). Mr. Griffith has also joined the advisory board of GoldMining.

David Garofalo, Chairman and CEO of Gold Royalty, commented: "We're delighted to welcome John to the Gold Royalty team. As the former Head of Bank of America's Metals and Mining Investment Banking, John has advised on more than $60 billion of successful mining transactions over the past decade alone. John was a trusted advisor to me and Goldcorp in our US$32 billion merger with Newmont Mining last year, the largest merger ever completed in the gold sector. I am confident that John's wealth of experience in capital markets with one of the largest investment banks in the world will serve Gold Royalty very well as we grow our business."

John Griffith commented: "It is a tremendous privilege to be working closely with David Garofalo, Amir Adnani and the team at Gold Royalty and GoldMining as we set out to build upon an already exciting portfolio of assets to create value for all stakeholders. The royalty and streaming business model has emerged over the past decade to become a critical yet growing part of the global precious metals sector. Whether funding development growth, M&A, or enhancing balance sheet strength, royalty and streaming companies are no longer viewed as niche players within the industry, but as a primary source of capital and efficient vehicles for driving sector-leading investment returns."

Mr. Griffith is a former Managing Director and the Head of Americas Metals & Mining Investment Banking for Bank of America (2006-2020). He brings nearly 30 years of financial services sector experience spanning three continents, including 26 years of global investment banking expertise. He has advised senior management and executive board members in M&A, capital markets, investor relations, risk management and general advisory in the global mining industry.

John's global landmark transaction was representing Goldcorp in its merger with Newmont Mining in 2019. Other notable advisory transactions in the gold sector include Barrick Gold's sales of Yilgarn South, Kanowna Belle and Plutonic for A$400 million, Eldorado Gold's acquisition of European Goldfields for $2.5 billion, Agnico Eagle's acquisition of Comaplex Minerals for $655 million and Yamana Gold's sale of Agua Rica to Xstrata and Goldcorp for an undisclosed amount.

He has extensive structuring and negotiating experience and has led complex multi-jurisdictional transactions. In an industry first  he structured the US$648 million gold stream with Franco Nevada to partially finance, in combination with high yield notes and equity, Lundin Mining's US$1.8 billion acquisition of the Candelaria mine from Freeport McMoRan. Most recently, John worked extensively with Triple Flag Precious Metals Corp., a private precious metals-focused royalty and streaming company backed by Elliot Capital Management Corporation.

Mr. Griffith holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Cape Town and is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada.

About Gold Royalty Corp.

Gold Royalty Corp., a private wholly-owned subsidiary of GoldMining, is a gold-focused royalty company. Gold Royalty's royalty portfolio is expected to initially comprise of 0.5% to 2.0% net smelter return ("NSR") royalties on the Company's interest in 14 existing projects with the opportunity to expand the royalty portfolio through the Company's buy-back rights on existing NSR royalties ranging from 0.5% to 2% held by third-parties on up to 5 of the 14 projects.

About GoldMining Inc.

GoldMining Inc. is a public mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition and development of gold assets in the Americas. Through its disciplined acquisition strategy, GoldMining now controls a diversified portfolio of resource-stage gold and gold-copper projects in Canada, U.S.A., Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Additionally, GoldMining owns a 75% interest in the Rea Uranium Project, located in the Western Athabasca Basin of Alberta, Canada.

Forward-looking Statements

This document contains certain forward-looking statements that reflect the current views and/or expectations of GoldMining with respect to its business and future events, including expectations and future plans respecting each of GoldMining's and Gold Royalty's, business plans and strategies. Forward-looking statements are based on the then-current expectations, beliefs, assumptions, estimates and forecasts about the business and the markets in which GoldMining and Gold Royalty, operate. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including: the inherent risks involved in the exploration and development of mineral properties, fluctuating metal prices, unanticipated costs and expenses and uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future. These risks, as well as others, including those set forth in GoldMinings Annual Information Form for the year ended November 30, 2019, management's discussion and analysis for the three months ended February 29, 2020 and other filings with Canadian securities regulators, could cause actual results and events to vary significantly. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and information. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information, or the material factors or assumptions used to develop such forward looking information, will prove to be accurate. The Company does not undertake any obligations to release publicly any revisions for updating any voluntary forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable securities law.

SOURCE GoldMining Inc.

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By Devjyot Ghoshal

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Twice a day, New Delhi health worker Kamal Kumari receives a flurry of WhatsApp messages from coronavirus patients, containing either a two-digit reading from a tiny medical device or a photo of its glowing display.

She scans the numbers from the 1,000 rupee ($13) oxygen monitor, known as pulse oximeter, checking to ensure they are all above the prescribed 95 mark and then notes them down in her logbook.

"When we didn't have this, we wouldn't know about their oxygen levels," said Kumari, explaining how her team would worry about patients' conditions rapidly worsening when India's capital was badly short https://in.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-india-delhi/criticism-mounts-as-new-delhi-hospital-beds-run-out-amid-covid-19-surge-idINKBN23M1WY of hospital beds. "Now we can find out in time and safely refer patients to the hospital."

Delhi's government has so far distributed pulse oximeters to more than 32,000 people for free, putting them at the heart of a plan to isolate most asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic coronavirus patients in their homes.

The programme was devised in May, when coronavirus cases started surging in the densely populated city of 20 million, sending panicked residents rushing to hospitals.

"If we hadn't done this, there would've been no room to even stand in our hospitals," Delhi's health minister, Satyendar Jain, told Reuters.

With more than 3.5 million infections, India has reported the world's third-highest number of coronavirus cases, and states across the country have deployed a variety of measures to fight the pandemic.

In Delhi, health authorities started noticing "happy hypoxemia" - low blood oxygen levels without any breathlessness - that was leading to complications in coronavirus patients isolated at home, Jain said.

For regular monitoring, doctors told Jain that patients would either have to visit hospitals or use the inexpensive oxygen monitors, many of which are made in China.

Story continues

Delhi has recorded around 173,000 infections with a little over 4,400 deaths. Only 14,700 cases remain active and many hospital beds are now empty.

PROACTIVE MONITORING

Other cities across the world have also deployed the device.

In May, at the height of its outbreak, Singapore distributed several thousand oximeters to migrant workers isolated in cramped dormitories, which had become an epicentre for the virus's spread.

Singapore's health ministry said oximeters allowed workers "to proactively monitor their own health status and reach out for medical assistance if needed".

In India, too, other places have picked up on Delhi's model. Since late July, the northeastern state of Assam has provided nearly 4,000 oximeters to patients in home isolation.

Some doctors are concerned that patients may not always know how to use the device.

"It's very important to train patients properly on how to use pulse oximeters," said Dr Hemant Kalra, a pulmonologist in New Delhi, adding that cheap, sub-standard oximeters flooding the market were also a problem.

Jain, however, said the government's programme had worked effectively, with not a single fatality among the thousands of patients in home isolation the last month and a half.

Oximeters have also helped cut down on expensive hospitalisation for mild cases, Jain said, saving more than 10 times the device's price for each day in hospital.

On a warm, humid day last week, health worker Kumari pulled on a protective suit, a mask and goggles, before walking down the narrow lanes of the Chirag Delhi neighbourhood.

Together with a similarly dressed colleague, she stopped at Satish Kumar Soni's home to check on him and three family members who were ending their 10-day isolation period, and to collect two government-issued pulse oximeters.

Soni, a 59-year-old jeweller, said the device helped the family ease their fears and anxiety as they slowly recovered.

"It's not that big a disease," he said. "If the oxygen level is fine, then there isn't much danger."

(Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal; Additional reporting by John Geddie in SINGAPORE, Zarir Hussain in GUWAHATI, and Saurabh Sharma in LUCKNOW. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
Experts today warned Rishi Sunak that taxes should not be hiked for years, amid claims he is preparing to axe the 15billion aid budget to help fill the huge hole in the public finances.

The respected IFS think-tank said the focus for the government over the next 'couple of years' should be on propping up the economy rather than tackling the deficit.

The intervention came after briefing that the Treasury is looking at increasing big revenue raisers such as corporation tax and fuel duty to bring in 30billion a year.

There are also rumours the Chancellor will drop the legal commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on foreign development as part of desperate efforts to balance the books.

Instead the move - which would delight many Tory MPs - would see cash diverted to Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence projects, according to The Sun.

Speculation has been swirling about the fate of the aid budget, as the government struggles to manage spiralling debt from recession and huge coronavirus bailouts.

As PM, David Cameron enshrined the international goal, first agreed by Tony Blair, in domestic law.

However, some believe the spending should be given the scale of the hit from the pandemic.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak (pictured in Scotland earlier this month) could drop the legal commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on foreign development as part of desperate efforts to balance the books

The Chancellor reportedly wants to use the Budget in November to announce he intends to abolish the lock.

Mr Sunak is said to believe he has the backing of Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab - who is now in charge of the aid budget after DfID was scrapped.

Primary legislation would be needed to remove the existing commitment, and the step would also face opposition from Conservatives.

Former minister Tobias Ellwood said: 'It's shortsighted in failing to appreciate how well targeted aid can strengthen relationships & open up new markets - thus helping the Treasury.

'Cutting aid also fuels instability which impacts on the UK. Let's think strategically.'

The signals come amid claims Mr Sunak is plotting a huge tax raid in to shore up the finances.

Fuel duty, capital gains tax, corporation tax, the pension triple lock and pension tax relief are all said to be in the firing line.

The Treasury insists no decisions have yet been taken by ministers about how to deal with a deficit expected to top 300billion this year.

But the IFS think-tank warned this morning that there should not be any tax hikes for years, as the economy reels from the blow of lockdown.

Director Paul Johnson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that 'at some point' the Chancellor will need to raise more revenue.

He said the government's focus should be on supporting the economy for a 'couple of years' rather than dealing with the deficit.

One Cabinet minister said the Chancellor would face a revolt if he pressed ahead with the tax grab.

'Tax rises of this sort would be the worst possible economic policy to adopt right now,' the minister said.

'It would guarantee a much deeper recession. Large parts of the economy are still fragile  we need to nurture it, not throttle it.'
BEIRUT: Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, head of Lebanons Shiite Muslim Amal Movement, warned on Monday that recent deadly shootings raised the risk of the country sliding back into anarchy and sectarian strife.

He was referring to clashes between Lebanese Sunni Muslims and Shiites last week that killed two people in the Khaldeh area south of Beirut, and an incident days earlier in the northern village of Kaftoun in which three men were shot dead.

I warn irresponsible politicians against continuing with this behaviour because it creates a fertile ground for a return to anarchy and awakens the sleeping devils of terrorist cells which are waiting for the opportunity to pounce on Lebanons security, unity and civil peace," Berri said in a speech.

Lebanon, still scarred by its 1975-90 sectarian civil war, has been pushed to breaking point by a financial meltdown and a devastating Beirut port explosion on Aug. 4.

The Khaldeh violence, in which a Sunni Arab tribe accused members of the powerful Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah of opening fire, which the movement denied, triggered a flurry of contacts among Lebanese politicians, including Berri, seeking to contain tensions.

Berri said political scheming, selfishness and grudges could take Lebanon to the edge of existential danger".

He echoed a call by President Michel Aoun made in a speech on Sunday for a secular state in Lebanon, whose constitution enshrines a division of power between different religious sects.

Lebanons senior Christian cleric, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, also mentioned the Khaldeh incident in his Sunday sermon. He reiterated a call for all weapons to be brought under state control, in an apparent criticism of the heavily armed Hezbollah.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 31

Trend:

Azerbaijan has made a worthy contribution to our common victory. A total of 128 Heroes of the Soviet Union are originally from Azerbaijan. Military hardware was produced in Azerbaijan. The enterprises worked day and night, said President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in an interview with Rossiya-24 and Rossiya-1 TV channels on the occasion of the opening of the Sambek Heights, a new military-historical museum complex of the Great Patriotic War, in the Rostov Region of Russia.

The head of state said that the 416th division also distinguished itself in the capture of Berlin. The Kaiser Wilhelm Palace was captured by soldiers of this division. A group of servicemen led by Azerbaijani Lieutenant Majidov planted the Victory flag over the Brandenburg Gate.
Rock carvings along KKH near Chilas in Diamer district of Gilgit-Baltistan. "Chital petroglyphs." Bulletin of the Asia Institute: 152. Wayne State University Press. (Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

PakistanChina Dam Threatens to Drown Thousands of Ancient Buddhist Relics

Pakistan and China recently signed an agreement worth $14 billion to build a dam that threatens more than 50,000 ancient Buddhist relics in the disputed region of Gilgit-Baltistan.

The much delayed Diamer-Bhasha Dam was inaugurated for the fourth time by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on July 15 after an agreement was signed in May between the Chinese state-run firm China Power and the Pakistan Armys Frontier Works Organisation.

It will inundate more than 100 kilometers of land along the Karakoram highway. It will also submerge rocks and boulders that support valuable petroglyph art and impressions from the Soghdian, Scythian, and Tibetan eras, Senge Sering, director of the Washington-based Institute of Gilgit-Baltistan Studies, told The Epoch Times.

Burzine Waghmar, a Central Asian philologist at the Centre for Iranian Studies, SOAS University in London defined Gilgit-Baltistans petroglyphs as a living rock art gallery.

More than 50,000 rock carvings and 6,000 inscriptions in Sinitic, Semitic Indic, and Iranic languages (Hebrew, Sogdian, Bactrian, Parthian, Sanskrit, Tibetan Chinese) in ten scripts (Brahmi, Kharoshthi, Sogdian, Chinese, etc) were discovered after the Karakoram Highway opened to traffic in 1978, said Waghmar in an email to The Epoch Times.

This keeps increasing since discoveries of new sites continued until the recent past when research work was hampered due to counterterrorism operations in and around Chilas, known since the war on terror began as an easy hideout for militants on both sides of the AfPak border, he added.

Gilgit-Baltistan in the high Asian region is claimed by India as a part of the integrated territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The region is currently administered by Pakistan, which claims it as a disputed territory. India and Pakistan have fought four wars over the region.

China and Pakistan are also building the PakistanChina economic corridor through Gilgit-Baltistan as part of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative.

Adnan Aamir, an independent journalist in Pakistan covering the Belt and Road, told The Epoch Times in an email that the threat to the relics is a grave concern for the natives of Gilgit-Baltistan but is not a major issue in the national narrative of Pakistan.

Not at all. There is hardly a mention of this on the media of Pakistan. One can hardly find a news story on this on a national newspaper or TV channel. It has completely escaped media attention, said the Quetta-based journalist when asked if theres a buzz about the issue in Pakistan media.

A little known local media, Pamir Times, reports that the dam will inundate 95 archaeological sites, including 75 rock art assemblages.

Buddhist petroglyphs near Chilas in Diamer district in Gilgit-Baltistan. (CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikimedia Commons)

Significance

The story of these relics in Gilgit-Baltistan is the story of Buddhisms spread along the ancient silk route, which provided an unhindered road for different streams of cultures and faiths.

The historic significance of Gilgit-Baltistan is its location on the old routes branching off from the famed Silk Road. This unique rock art heritage is situated on the old routes between the lower Indus plains of the Karakoram range and Central Asia., said Waghmar.

Etched on the rocky slopes and boulders of the Indus gorge, stretching for approximately 100 km along both banks of the Indus, is truly the largest collection of images and inscriptions on rocks from the eighth millennium BC to the Golden Age of Buddhism, fifth to eighth centuries AD (and even down to the advent of Islam in the sixteenth century), he added.

Buddhism came to the region 300 years after Buddha Shakyamuni, popularly known as Gautama Buddha, achieved nirvana. Passing through Gilgit because of shorter routes by the second century A.D. the silk road reached as far as the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, according to Daily Times, a Pakistan publication.

Waghmar said many of the inscriptions are graffiti etched by passing by pilgrims and merchants and constitute a visitors book. He said a project, Materials for the Archeology of the Northern Regions of Pakistan was started by a Pak-German group from 1984, four years after it was formed.

The project has been coordinated with Germany based Heidelberg Academy of Sciences which, to date, has published 13 of the planned 20 vols., a complete catalog of all discovered and deciphered finds.

Cry for Help

An old Pakistan public group on Facebook, Save the Buddha Relics Found in DiamerBhasha Dam Site, has long appealed to the global community for help in preserving the relics.

The group said the archaeology department of Northern areas of Pakistan has confirmed the presence of the relics at the site of the dam, and the relics need immediate attention.

Its imperative that these priceless relics must be preserved, the group said, adding that the German company Lahmeyer, working on the project, has recommended that a museum be set up for the statues and stone carvings found on the site.

The team was led by Harald Hauptmann from Heidelberg University, who studied pre-Islamic Pakistan, until his death in 2018. Theres no report of continuity of his work after that, and The Epoch Times wasnt able to reach the rest of the team that the group mentions.

Almost 37,116 petroglyphs, including 3,618 inscriptions on 5,928 boulders (95 archaeological sites), will be forever submerged once the Bhasha dam is finished. Some will be submerged for eternity while others are expected to be partly visible seasonally when the shoreline dips while still others etched on higher elevations will be observable from the newer shoreline, said Waghmar.

Sering said any damage to the relics would mean attacking the identity of the local people.

Locals in places like Manthal, Skardu, pooled money to build protective walls around a large boulder with Buddha etchings. Locals continue to ask the government to reserve funds to protect their non-Islamic heritage since they are proud of their cultural and linguistic relation with Ladakh and Tibet, Sering said, adding that the Baltis share ethnicity and racial makeup with the Tibetans.

Aamir said that the civil society in Gilgit-Baltistan is calling for preservation of the relics, but isnt getting support from the rest of Pakistan.

One reason can be that civil society in Pakistan is busy with more serious issues such as enforced disappearance and corruption of military generals, and hence they are not giving much attention to this issue, said Aamir.

F Manthal Rock (Buddhist inscriptions), Skardu, Gilgit. (CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons)

Politics Around Relics

The geopolitical location of the relics, the disputed status of the larger region, and the current political and economic situation inside Pakistan have made it difficult to preserve the relics.

In Pakistan, the dams are a fragile issue. Pakistan needs them to store water and generate electricity. The choice of Diamer-Bhasha Dam was made after a lot of disagreements on the location of other dams. Therefore, there is a national consensus to build this dam at all costs, Aamir said.

In this context, if a few Buddha relics get submerged or destroyed, then its a cost worth paying, according to the national narrative. I fear that anyone actively campaigning for the preservation of these relics will be labeled as a traitor who wants to sabotage the construction of this dam.

Sering urged the international community to preserve the relics and said the Pakistan government cant be trusted to do it.

Islamabad doesnt have the financial capacity to run daily affairs in Gilgit Baltistan. Pakistan has dropped the project of the first medical college in Giglti Baltistan due to a lack of funds. So expecting Pakistan to create an extra budget to preserve local cultures will be wishful thinking, he said.
The federal government on Sunday reopened the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, for flight operations.

The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, during the official opening ceremony in Enugu, said that domestic flight would start immediately while the international flight would begin on September 5.

Mr Sirika said that the project had cost the federal Government N10 billion.

It is a great pleasure for me to be in Enugu for this August occasion in the mount of August for the reopening of Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu for flight operations.

The local flight can come to start from today and the international flight on September 5, once the COVID-19 Presidential Task Force has opened the gate to come in.

We are proud to say that this project is indeed a testimony to Mr Presidents commitment to infrastructure development in the country.

You may recall that the runway of this essential airport, which is vital to economic development of the region and the whole country at large, was in a very dilapidated stage and worse condition.

This raised serious safety concern. It was on this basis that I approached President Muhammadu Buhari on the urgent need to reconstruct the runway and other associated works, he said.

Mr Sirika commended the presidents instant approval of N10 billion to undertake the rehabilitation of the runway and some associated works.

According to him, the project consists of taxiway, linkway, emergency operation centre, car park, entrance of the gate, perimeter fence, perimeter road, terminal building rehabilitation, pilot lounge, instrument landing system that will allow landing during bad weather.

Others, he said, are communication device, new DHF radio and rescue equipment among others.

The minister said the focus would now be on delivering the Cargo terminal, the international terminal building and many more in the airport soonest.

He said he had approved N1 billion to continue the terminal building expansion being done by the Chinese.

Some of the challenges encountered include, lack of bitumen, COVID-19 lockdown, and even change of hands of company handling the project, removing of abattoir and radio masks among others, he said.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation, Smart Adeyemi, commended Mr Buhari for carrying out infrastructural developmental projects all over the nation.

Nigeria reopens Akanu Ibiam International Airport Enugu. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Twitter handle of the Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika]

According to him, such move by the president will greatly improve the socio-economic status of the country.

Mr Adeyemi said the feat achieved in rehabilitating the runway at the Enugu airport would improve safety in the airport.

Nigeria reopens Akanu Ibiam International Airport Enugu. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Twitter handle of the Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika]

He urged all stakeholders in the region to further work together with the federal government to achieve more developmental goals.

Kudos to Mr President for doing this great work from limited resources available to him in order to ensure sense of belonging in the country.

I believe we will soon come back again to commission another important project, he added.

In his remark, the Director-General, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), said it was a tough decision to close the runway on August 24, 2019, as the airport was crucial part of FAAN operation for revenue generation.

But it was a decision we had to take in the interest of safety, security and economic interest of our people, our stockholders and all Nigerians at large.

Today, we assemble here to confidently reopen the runway to flight operations. I say confidently because we work with confidence in the business.

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This confidence is a necessary ingredient and component of aviation. It runs far and wide in each and every aspect of aviation. Without confidence there will be no aviation, he said.

The director-general said FAAN acted fast when it realised that the confidence started going down regarding the Enugu runway.

Nigeria reopens Akanu Ibiam International Airport Enugu. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Twitter handle of the Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika]

Everything about aviation has to be of high integrity. That is why we worked to restore our integrity here in Akanu Ibiam International Airport runway as it stands today.

This is a land mark achievement, he said.

Meanwhile, the South-East Governors Forum has appealed to Mr Buhari to allow more international flights to the airport.

The forums chairman, Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi, made the appeal during the reopening ceremony of the airport in Enugu on Sunday.

Mr Umahi said that adequate international flight operations would improve the socioeconomic activities in the region.

The governor also commended the president for the reopening and recommencement of flight operations into the airport after the rehabilitation of the runway.

Also, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State thanked the president for approving N10 billion to start and fast track the rehabilitation of the runway and other critical infrastructure at the airport.

Akanu Ibiam International Airport Enugu. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Facebook page of the Ministry of Aviation]

He said: The Enugu State Government, in a bid to ensure a levelling environment to help the project along, completely removed all obstacles and projects, including Emene Market, which attracted birds and was a safety concern.

We completely removed all encroachment at the airport environment. We totally removed the Radio and Television masks from the airport; we constructed a 1.3 kilometres asphalt road.

We removed five units of two-storey houses, 14 units of houses, one church cathedral, 438 shopping malls along Eleme among other things.

We did a number of sacrifice for the Enugu Airport, and now it is a sacrifice that is worth it.

Also, former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, demanded for three things from the federal government for the hub of the South-East.

Ike Ekweremadu

According to him, they include immediate commercial flights, approval of more international flights and completion of the cargo section of the airport.

He said: We want immediate commercial flights to start coming into Enugu.

We also seek the approval of more international flights into Enugu Airport, Emirates and others and we want the president to finish the cargo section of the airport.

Mr Ekweremadu also expressed gratitude to four individuals for their outstanding works to ensure Enugu International Airport became a reality.

Mr Ekweremadu expressed gratitude to the late President Umaru YarAdua, who granted approval for Enugu to be designated as an international airport.

Goodluck Jonathan signing

He also thanked the immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan for ensuring that the airport was gazetted as an international airport and the start of operations.

The former Deputy Senate President expressed gratitude to Mr Buhari for approving N10 billion to see the project through to its conclusion.

He also thanked the aviation minister for keeping to the promise he made to deliver the project within a year.

The first aircraft, a turbo prop with registration marks 5N-FCT landed at 12:50 p.m from Abuja, while another aircraft, an Air Peace Embraer 145- with registration marks 5N-BUV landed at 1:40 p.m. (NAN)
No question, finance and accounting reinvention and transformation are trending topic, states Neil Brown, Executive Director of the Controllers Council

A webcast featuring Brian Sommer, CEO of TechVentive, will share insights and ideas on how finance and accounting teams can reinvent systems and processes to achieve productivity, service excellence, and real transformation.

The complimentary webcast scheduled for Tuesday, September 22, 1 PM CST, is produced by the Controllers Council, a community and platform focused on Accounting and Finance resources and training, best practices information, recognition and networking.

Brian Sommer, CEO of TechVentive, is a leading industry analyst and author on technology, software, and finance topics. The webcast will be moderated by Mark Gervase, Director, Product Marketing at Bill.com, a former CPA and expert on financial technology.

No question, finance and accounting reinvention and transformation are trending topic, states Neil Brown, Executive Director of the Controllers Council. Brian and Marks deep experience will be sure to bring new ideas to managers, Controllers, and CFOs alike.

To register for the free webcast, Achieving Finance Reinvention  5 Steps to Real Transformation, link to:

https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4224807868239793932/?source=PR

About Brian Sommer

Enterprise software industry analyst Brian Sommer covers the ERP, finance and HR sectors for Diginomica and other publications. Brian began his career by re-writing a payroll/time-reporting system for a fast food chain and then repairing/installing numerous financial accounting systems globally. He went on to run Accentures Global Software Intelligence organization where he advised hundreds of clients on software selection and shared services initiatives. Brian has been an expert witness for a major software litigation case and anti-trust matters. Brian has won numerous ERP Writers' Awards, and he is involved in numerous software strategy and selection efforts. Brian is a frequent keynote speaker at software and accounting conferences around the world.

About Mark Gervase

Mark works with accountants and finance professionals to achieve efficiency and intelligence through automation. He is a former CPA with experience in public accounting and corporate finance and has a background in helping companies use financial technology. Mark holds an MBA and BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

About Controllers Council

Controllers Council is a community and platform of controllers, accounting and finance professionals focused on accounting best practices, information and resources, recognition and networking. Programs include a national Career Center, informative articles and whitepapers, ongoing webcasts, and the Controller of the Year recognition program. For more information, visit http://www.ControllersCouncil.org, or call Executive Director Neil Brown at 312-869-2180.
TOKYO, Aug 31, 2020 - (JCN Newswire) - Fujitsu Limited today announced that it has agreed to transfer its shares in the new company which will succeed the mobile phone retail store business of Fujitsu Personal System Limited (FJP) to T-Gaia Corp., executing an agreement with T-Gaia to this end. The companies aim to conduct the share transfer on November 2, 2020.FJP has been selling PCs, servers, software, and peripherals as well to corporate customers through sales partners. FJP will continue these businesses to meet the needs of customers.Overview of Transfer of Mobile Sales BusinessFJP will transfer its mobile sales business, including all shares of its subsidiary Fujitsu Personal Retail Service Co., Ltd., to a new subsidiary company (mobile sales company) of Fujitsu Limited (FJ) through a company split, and it will become a member of the T-Gaia Group by FJ's transferring all of its shares in the mobile sales company to T-Gaia.The mobile sales company possesses a wealth of knowhow concerning the operation of NTT DOCOMO's docomo shops and operates more than 110 docomo Shops nationwide. They also have a track record of selling mobile phones and providing related services to corporate customers. T-Gaia is one of Japan's largest primary distributor for telecommunications carriers operating in Japan and internationally. Going forward, the business base will be expanded, which includes the store network and sales capabilities of both companies. Leveraging synergies between the two companies in the area of enterprise solutions, such as Internet of Things, will also contribute to an expansion of business.Overview of new Mobile Sales Company (Scheduled for November 2, 2020)Company Name: TBDBusiness Overview: Sales of mobile phone unitsHQ Location: Tokyo, Minato WardCEO: Yasuhiro ShiratakiDate Est.: Scheduled for early SeptemberCapital: Ten million yenShareholder: T-Gaia Corp. 100%(Planned transfer from Fujitsu Limited on Nov. 2nd, 2020)No. Employees: Appx. 910About FujitsuFujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. Approximately 130,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 3.9 trillion yen (US$35 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020. For more information, please see www.fujitsu.com.Source: Fujitsu LtdCopyright 2020 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Not all French classrooms can safely reopen Tuesday, the education minister acknowledged Sunday, amid a persistent rise in coronavirus infections that is threatening the government's push to get France's 12.9 million schoolchildren back in class.

It's being decided by a day-by-day analysis based on the health situation of each territory, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said Sunday on France-Info radio. Some classes will remain closed, he said, but as few as possible. A collective of doctors published an appeal Saturday saying the governments' school virus measures aren't strict enough.

It urged mask requirements for children as young as six and a mix of online and in-person schooling. The government wants to reopen all schools starting Tuesday to reduce learning gaps worsened by the spring lockdown and to get parents back at work and revive the economy.

France reported 5,453 new daily infections Saturday, compared to several hundred a day in May and June. The national health service says the growth is exponential, and neighbouring countries have imposed quarantines or testing for people arriving from parts or all of France.
Myanmar & COVID-19 Fears Grow for IDPs in Myanmars Rakhine as COVID-19 Outbreak Disrupts Food, Health Services

Internally displaced people from eight villages in Rakhine States Mrauk-U Township take shelter at the nearby Sin Baw Kaing Village IDP camp in September 2019. / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy

As COVID-19 continues to spread in Rakhine State, the Union governments statewide stay-at-home order and suspension of some activities by international NGOs (INGOs) there have prompted fears for the survival of ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya who are currently residing in relief camps after fleeing armed clashes and communal violence.

As of Monday morning, Myanmar had reported 882 COVID-19 cases in total, of which nearly half were in the western state of Rakhine, whose capital Sittwe has been hit hard by a surge in domestically transmitted cases.

In an attempt to curb the spread of the virus, the government has imposed a partial lockdown on the whole state since last week, urging its more than 3 million residents to stay home and only allowing essential businesses to open.

Rakhine State is also home to nearly 200,000 ethnic Rakhine internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have fled intensified fighting between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army since 2018, according to the Rakhine Ethnic Congress, a local NGO helping the IDPs. Of those, 62,000 are taking shelter at some 150 IDP camps while the rest remain in Sittwe, Ponnakyun, Kyauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Myebon, Buthidaung, Rathedaung, Maungdaw and Ann townships, but with their livelihoods disrupted and requiring support to survive.

Furthermore, more than 100,000 Rohingya IDPs who were displaced by communal conflicts in 2012 are still sheltering at more than 10 camps in Sittwe.

During a televised address to the country last Monday, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi pledged there would be no discrimination on the basis of faith or ethnicity in the governments fight against COVID-19 in Rakhine State. She also promised sufficient food supplies and financial support during a teleconference with the state chief minister last Friday.

As local relief groups have not been able to travel outside of Sittwe for about a week, the war-displaced in IDP camps in other townships are in need of basic food support, said Khine Kaung San, the director of the Wan Lark Development Foundation, which has been providing support to the Rakhine IDPs.

Adding to the problems, the Sin Pyun Kine Rakhine IDP camp in Minbya Township is currently facing flooding, while the Zaydi Pyin IDP camp in Rathedaung Township lacks adequate shelters, according to Daw Nyo Aye, the director of the Sittwe-based Rakhine Women Network.

We planned to transport basic food items to the IDPs in Pazun Phay camp, which is located in a remote area in Mrauk-U, but are unable to send [the supplies] to them due to the COVID-19 restrictions, she said.

Last week, more than 30 people from four ethnic Rakhine IDP camps in Mrauk-U were identified as a possible coronavirus cluster after NGO staff tested positive. However, the camp residents who had close contact with the NGO staff all tested negative, according to State Public Health Department.

Dr. Sai Win Zaw Hlaing, Rakhine States Public Health and Medical Services Officer, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that so far no COVID-19 cases have been found in the IDP camps, referring to both the Rakhine and Rohingya camps.

All Rohingya camp residents who had close contact with confirmed positive cases have been quarantined and have so far tested negative.

However, life has been difficult at the Rohingya camps in Sittwe since the outbreak began in mid-August, as residents can no longer go outside the camps and work as daily wage laborers in farming and fishing. As a result, access to primary healthcare and food has been difficult, said U Osmaan, a displaced Rohingya sheltering at the Ohn Taw South village IDP camp.

He said the clinic operated by Mercy Malaysia, which provides primary health care at the camp, had been closed for the past week.

Dr. Sai Win Zaw Hlaing said the states respective health care departments are taking turns to provide health care to those camps because of limited capacity.

He said that in order to be able to return to work, NGO staff at the camps are required to undergo testing. The Health Department tests them for two days, and they can resume their activities if the results are negative.

The Rakhine State government last week provided 20,000 kyats (US$15) cash support each to more than 29,000 poor families who have no regular income in downtown Sittwe, according to state government spokesman and Municipal Affairs Minister U Myint Win.

However, Rohingya people sheltering at the Ohn Taw North IDP camp in Sittwe said they had yet to receive the cash assistance.

U Aung Kyaw Oo, a Rohingya IDP at the Ohn Taw North camp, said that although rice supplies from the World Food Program arrived last week, some camp residents were not on the list of those entitled to receive the support.

We heard those households in downtown Sittwe received 20,000 kyats each, but we havent received that support yet, said Arafath, a Rohingya IDP at Ohn Taw North IDP camp in the Rakhine capital. Other Rohingya who spoke to The Irrawaddy said officials came to distribute masks and soap last Thursday.

Minister U Win Myint told The Irrawaddy on Monday the emergency cash support is for those poor families in the villages, regardless of ethnicity, who had to stop work and lost income due to COVID-19 restrictions.

The government provided the cash support to all those in Sittwe who are on a list compiled by villages and ward administrators. For the [Rohingya] IDP camps, the life-saving and basic food support has been provided by the INGOs and UN agencies, he said.

Muslim villages, as opposed to IDP camps, will receive the same support as others in the state, he added.

The minister added that the state government is planning to support poor families with no regular income across the state, as the stay-at-home order is in place for all of Rakhine. The state government has asked for 1 billion kyats in emergency funding from the central government, and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has promised to secure financial assistance and food support for Rakhine State.

UN agencies and INGOs have temporarily stopped providing some social services after more than 10 humanitarian workers from at least five INGOs and two UN agencies in Rakhine tested positive for COVID-19.

In an email response to The Irrawaddy, Yao Rachel, the deputy country manager of Mercy Malaysia, which provided primary health care services in the IDPs camps until Aug. 20, when one of its team members tested positive, said: Communities in the camps can still access emergency healthcare services via our free 24/7 tuk-tuk emergency referral service, where patients are able to access the Thet Kel Pyin Station Hospital to receive care.

She added that the displaced Rakhine communities are also still able to access emergency health care at Sittwe General Hospital.

However, concerns about IDPs welfare lingers.

We have crowds of people living in packed IDP camps, and we are concerned about the disease. It has been a week since the Mercy Malaysia clinic closed. There is no checking of health care and it is a big concern. If the virus spreads in the camps, we wont be able to manage the situation, said U Aung Kyaw Oo, a Rohingya at Ohn Taw North camp.

He said each family lives in a 10-foot-by-10-foot room that is attached to seven other rooms in a building, adding that in Ohn Taw North there are 341 buildings housing more than 2,500 households.

Ohn Taw South and Ohn Taw North IDP camps are among the most crowded, hosting a total of nearly 30,000 IDPs who were displaced in the 2012 communal conflict in Sittwe.

The United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF), which supports more than 260,000 children in need in Rakhine State, said COVID-19 presents particular risks in humanitarian settings in Myanmar.

The agency itself had to temporarily suspend its provision of hygiene, water and sanitation after one of its staff tested positive for COVID-19.

[It] is important that children and their families continue to have access to both regular services and COVID-19 risk-reduction measures and services, UNICEF said.

You may also like these stories:

At Least 10 UN, INGO Workers Hit by COVID-19 in Myanmars Rakhine State

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The President does not have absolute, unreviewable discretion to determine what information will be disclosed in response to a subpoena, Rogers wrote. Yet that is exactly the nature of McGahns absolute immunity claim. By asserting that he need not even appear in response to the Committees duly issued subpoena, he in essence contends that the President may unilaterally determine that no information will be disclosed in response to the subpoena.
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It has had stellar success in India with scooters, such as the ubiquitous Activa, but Honda has struggled to crack Indias motorcycle market, despite operating here for a few decades now. Known for its racing heritage worldwide and for its middleweight and premium category bikes in the 600cc-1000cc range, Honda is still trying to get its footing right in India in the motorcycle category. For instance, it still does not have products that can rival the range sold by Royal Enfield.

But the Japanese two-wheeler giant is seeking to remedy that as it tries to revitalise its motorcycle business.

Royal Enfields unchallenged run

Niche bike maker Royal Enfield has enjoyed an unchallenged run for several years now, becoming the cash cow for parent Eicher Motors, promoted by the Delhi-based Lal family. The product market addressed by Royal Enfield has not been efficiently targeted by any automaker till date at those specific price points.

The Eicher company claims to be the global leader in the middleweight category, having motorcycles in the 350c to 650cc engine range.

Enfields bikes straddle the leisure, adventure, retro racer and cruiser segments, with prices starting at around Rs 1 lakh and going up to nearly Rs 3 lakh.

Nothing in the portfolio

Honda has been looking to enter this segment but is yet to launch any product. The Japanese company does not have a single product in its global portfolio that can match the design and styling characteristics of the Royal Enfield range.

As part of its global portfolio, Honda has cruisers Goldwing and Rebel but these do not carry any characteristics that can be likened to the Royal Enfield range.

In an interview with Moneycontrol, Atsushi Ogata, President, CEO and Managing Director, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, said: We do not have that kind of India-oriented fun bike. We have several big bikes selling in India in limited quantities. Of course we must study this kind of new category. Sooner than later you can see an answer on this.

Sources say that Honda is looking for a model that could be modelled around the Ducati Scrambler, a modern-day roadster.

In February, Pune-based Bajaj Auto launched the Vitpilen 250 and Svartpilen 250, both roadsters.

Shifting gears

Honda, Indias second largest two-wheeler maker, has done very well in the scooter segment. Nearly seven in every ten wheelers sold by Honda in FY20 in the domestic market were scooters. But it has not had anywhere near the same success with bikes.

The company ended FY20 with a market share of 14 percent in the motorcycle segment, while its scooter segment market share settled at 57 percent, according to data provided by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.

The Munjal family controlled Hero MotoCorp remains the leader in the motorcycle segment. Riding high on entry-level, budget models such as the Splendor and HF Dawn, the Delhi-based company ended FY20 with a share of 52 percent in the motorcycle segment.

Honda launched the Hornet 200 last week in an attempt to grab a slice of the entry premium segment (150cc to 250cc) pie, which is currently dominated by Bajaj Auto. The Pulsar and Avenger maker commands a share of more than 40 percent in the entry premium segment.

Besides keeping an eye on Royal Enfields niche segment, Honda is also looking to target the entry segment dominated by Hero. The company is working on products targeted at rural and semi-urban buyers.

More rivals for Royal Enfield

Last year, Bajaj Auto joined hands with Britains Triumph Motorcycles to jointly develop motorcycles with engines in the 200cc to 800cc range. The first such bikes are expected to hit the market in 2022. With a rich legacy of over 100 years, Triumph has a product profile similar to Royal Enfield.

Mumbai-based UV-specialist Mahindra & Mahindra is also targeting the same segment with the rebirth of Czech bike brand Jawa. Two other brands  Yezdi and BSA  both on similar lines as the Royal Enfield, are also in the works.

More recently, TVS Motor Company, which recently bought the business assets of UKs Norton Motorcycles, also has the option of developing bikes to compete against Royal Enfield.
A Turkish businessman, Onur Kumral, has been honoured for his job-creation effort in Nigeria.

Mr Kumral has multi-million dollars investments in Akwa Ibom State, Nigerias South-South.

He is the owner of a syringe manufacturing company  Jubilee Syringe Manufacturing Ltd  and two other companies, Kings Flour Mill Limited, and VKS Nigeria Construction Limited.

Two socio-cultural groups in Akwa Ibom State, Afe Mkparawa Annang, and the Supreme Council of Ibibio Youths, in August, honoured Mr Kumral for his contribution to the growth of the countrys economy.

Afe Mkparawa Annang, which presented Mr. Kumral with an award of excellence, said in a letter to him that they were aware that his firms have provided thousands of direct and indirect employment for Nigerian citizens.

The group said Mr Kumrals firms have contributed hugely to the Akwa Iboms Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in the last few years.

The letter from the Afe Mkparawa Annang was signed by its President, Uduak Akpan.

The group called on the Akwa Ibom and the federal government to give special recognition to the efforts of the Turkish national so as to encourage him and other investors.

Potential investors would see Nigeria as being investor-friendly from the way the country treats the existing investors, the group said.

We in Afe Mkparawa Annang are very hopeful that this award will inspire you to continue the good work you are doing in Nigeria, the group said.

The Supreme Council of Ibibio Youths, on its part, presented Integrity Award to Mr Kumral.

Your firm have given Akwa Ibom State a new face and a place of pride among the comity of states in the country, the group said to Mr Kumral in a letter signed by its International President, Samuel Brown, and the General Secretary, Akanimo Lawrence.

We appreciate your steadfastness in service delivery, the group added. It is our belief that this award will motivate you to maintain your integrity.

Mr. Kumral said he came to Nigeria with a goal to contribute to the development of the country.

We are here to build viable business concerns, transfer advanced technology to Nigerians. Train and retrain the people and position them to grow their economy and create more job opportunities in the future.

We are on course with our vision. Our industries: Jubilee Syringe Manufacturing Limited and Kings Flour Mill Limited are already producing and supplying to the local markets.

Jubilee Syringe factory, Akwa Ibom State

The youth have been employed. Some Nigerians were sent to Turkey for advanced training in different areas, and they are doing quite well and training others, he said.

Nigeria is one of Turkeys largest trade partners in Africa, according to Daily Sabah, a pro-government Turkish newspaper.

Overall in the African continent, Nigeria is the sixth-largest commercial partner of Turkey and among the sub-Saharan African countries, it ranks second, the paper wrote.
The three major wildfires that have been ringing the Bay Area for two weeks continued to eat up acreage overnight Saturday and into Sunday, but containment also grew, helped by lower temperatures and the deepening reach of a thick layer of moist fog that has lingered for days.

Those conditions are expected to reverse this week as high pressure builds and brings heat, which will further dry out already tinderbox vegetation. According to the National Weather Service, temperatures will warm by 4 to 6 degrees everywhere Monday, and by the weekend it could be 10 degrees hotter in the inland areas, hitting triple digits.

Air quality is expected to remain bad, with Spare the Air Alerts issued at least through Tuesday Bay Area-wide. Smoke blowing south from both the Woodward Fire in Point Reyes National Seashore and the LNU Lightning Complex fire in the North Bay has forced many people around the Bay Area to stay indoors with the windows shut.

The LNU fires, which surround Lake Berryessa, are the most contained of the three big complexes at 58%, with 375,209 acres burned as of Sunday. The SCU Lightning Complex burning in locations in five counties, including eastern Santa Clara County and southern Alameda County, is 50% contained, at more than 377,000 acres burned. The CZU Lightning Complex fire, burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains, is 35% contained at 84,640 acres burned; 300 California National Guard troops will join the CZU fire lines Monday.

But these numbers are abstractions to people who have been evacuated from their homes and dont know when they can return or what will be there to return to.

This morning its my understanding that the fire is about a quarter mile from the houses in our neighborhood. Thats pretty close, said Madeline Hope, who lives in the hills above Point Reyes Station in an evacuation zone. For a week, she has been in nearby Seahaven, where she and her family have been staying with friends.

Hope owns a boat launch on Tomales Bay, which gives her a daily perspective on the airplanes that have swooped in and skimmed off water to take to the fire. Two planes owned by or contracted to Cal Fire have come as frequently as every 10 minutes all day at times  but not on Sunday because the smoke was too thick to safely scoop water. The plane activity is a reminder of the Woodward Fire, which is just 15% contained, at 3,000 acres burned  far smaller than the complex fires, but still upending life in many communities.

Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

Hope wonders why shes seen tourists venturing closer to the fire zone than she is.

We still see visitors coming out to the area, which is just insane, she said Sunday morning while tending to her launch.

Point Reyes Station itself looked to be normal Sunday afternoon, with people walking around and window shopping even as ash fell from the sky, which glowed orange from the nearby flames.

Bolinas saw its evacuation warning lifted Saturday.

At the SCU Lightning Complex, officials struck a cautiously victorious tone Sunday afternoon. Cal Fire Operations Section Chief Tim Ernst said crews are now focused on an indirect attack to prevent the blaze from moving farther west.

For the foreseeable future, teams will work to close off a control line between a safe dozer line on a ridge and the active fire. The smoke thats choking the air of nearby residents is part of a controlled burn, Ernst said.

Everything is working exactly according to plan, he said.

Teams will continue to assess what Ernst called an extremely complex area, spanning a maze of deep canyons, river drainages and old, heavy fuel.

Cal Fire Deputy Chief Mike Marcucci said teams are working to get those evacuated back to their homes and that he expects to be wrapping up the SCU fire in the next few weeks.

I look forward to getting our firefighters who have been working tirelessly on the line back to their homes, back to their families, he said. Because as we know, this fire season is far from over.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

At the CZU fire, which has destroyed nearly 1,300 structures in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, Battalion Chief Mark Brunton called Sunday a great day of progress and said crews are continuing to focus on the blazes north end.

Brunton said crews are getting a lot of calls for service during repopulation efforts because of the smoke.

We expected that, he said. We know thats going to happen as the weather gets hotter and drier.

Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

Incident meteorologists said mid- to late week, the winds will change to a northerly push, and residents can expect to see a significant increase in the nuisance smoke, Brunton said.

A total of 60,000 people remain evacuated in all three fire zones. Since the lightning siege started Aug. 15, Cal Fire has recorded 14,000 strikes causing 840 separate wildfires, many of which have merged into the three major complexes. In all, more than 1.6 million acres have burned and nearly 3,000 structures have been destroyed. There have been seven fatalities.

Two new wildfires in Southern California started over the weekend, and lightning remains a possibility in the northern part of the state and the Sierra Nevada as temperatures rise again.

Sam Whiting, Chase DiFeliciantonio and Megan Cassidy are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com, chase.defeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the status of Point Reyes Station. The town itself is not under an evacuation warning.
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/31/2020 -- The research report provides a detailed insight into the Global Satellite Transponder Market for the forecast period of 2020 to 2027. The report considers 2017-2018 as historical years and 2019 as the base year. The market size and value has been studied and estimated on the basis of application and major regions. The report is a comprehensive document covering the impact analysis of the COVID-19 crisis on the growth and landscape of the Satellite Transponder industry. The pandemic has adversely affected the Satellite Transponder sector and has brought about a dynamic change in the international economic scenario and demand trends. The report provides a perspective on the current and emerging trends of the industry as well as provides a futuristic outlook about the growth of the Satellite Transponder market.



The global Satellite Transponder Market is forecasted to grow at a rate of 5.8% from USD 20.4 Billion in 2019 to USD 24.5 Billion in 2027.



Get a Sample of the Report @ https://www.reportsanddata.com/sample-enquiry-form/1087



The Satellite Transponder research report is an investigative study containing important information such as value chain analysis, Porter's Five Forces analysis, and an exhaustive overview of the competitive landscape of the Satellite Transponder sector. The study covers market analysis, application segments, and provides a detailed analysis of the market size, growth rate, and trends.



The study provides a comprehensive view of the Satellite Transponder industry based on market segmentation into product types, applications, and regions. The analysis provides present and future trends patterns. Regional segmentation of the Satellite Transponder sector includes North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Europe, and Middle East & Africa.



Global Satellite Transponder Report Scope:



Key Manufacturers of the Satellite Transponder Industry:



Arianespace SA (France), Thales Alenia Space (France), Airbus Group SE (Netherlands), Lockheed Martin, Loral Space and Communications, Inc. (US), Eutelsat S.A. (France), Intelsat S.A. (Luxembourg), Boeing Company (US), Orbital ATK, Inc.(US), INVAP S.E. (Argentina) and SES S.A



Bandwidth Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)



C-Band

KA-Band

KU-Band

K Band

Others



Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)



Commercial Communication

Governmental Communication

Navigation

Remote Sensing

Research and Development

Others



Service Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)



Leasing

Maintenance and Support

Others



Browse complete Report @ https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/satellite-transponder-market



Main Objectives of the Report:



Study and forecast of the market size of Satellite Transponder Industry

Analysis of global players along with SWOT analysis, market value, and global position of the players

Assessment of key regions of the world along with their market potential, advantage, opportunities, challenges, restraints, and risks

Identification of the significant trends and emerging trends of the Satellite Transponder industry

Analysis of the drivers and restraints and opportunities to identify growth segments

Strategic analysis of the growth trends of each market segment

Analysis of the competitive landscapes along with expansions, agreements, new product launches, acquisitions, mergers, and other strategic business plans

Comprehensive profiling of the key players of the industry to provide a competitive edge to the reader

SWOT analysis, feasibility study, investment return analysis, and Porter's Five Forces Analysis to provide a comprehensive study of the key players

Extensive study of key market segments including revenue, CAGR, import/export, supply and demand ratio, production and consumption ratio, industrial chain analysis, and market dynamics

Furthermore, the report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the industry to enable strategic decision making to accelerate the growth of the business. The report additionally presents a complete analysis of the current and future market scenario of the Satellite Transponder industry.



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Dr. Nita Patel, Director of Antibody discovery and Vaccine development, lifts a vial with a potential coronavirus, COVID-19, vaccine at Novavax labs in Gaithersburg, Maryland on March 20, 2020, one of the labs developing a vaccine for the coronavirus, COVID-19.

American vaccine developer Novavax announced Monday that it's reached an agreement in principle with Canada to supply 76 million doses of its experimental coronavirus vaccine to the country.

The company said it expects to finalize an agreement to supply Canada with doses "as early as the second quarter of 2021." The agreement is contingent on the vaccine getting a license from Health Canada, the company said.

Shares of Novavax closed more than 2% higher.

The company's vaccine, called NVX-CoV2373, is currently in phase two trials. It has previously said it could begin late-stage trials as early as October.

"We are moving forward with clinical development of NVX-CoV2373 with a strong sense of urgency in our quest to deliver a vaccine to protect the world," Novavax CEO Stanley Erck said in a statement.

The company did not disclose the financial terms of the agreement.

"This is an important step in our government's efforts to secure a vaccine to keep Canadians safe and healthy, as the global pandemic evolves," Anita Anand, Canada's minister of public services and procurement, said in a statement.

The agreement is the latest example of countries, particularly wealthier Western nations, rushing to secure doses of a potential vaccine for the coronavirus, which has infected more than 25.2 million people around the world and killed at least 846,900 people, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Canada previously announced similar deals with Pfizer and Moderna, two front-runners in the race for a vaccine.

Similarly, the U.S. has so far invested more than $10 billion in six vaccine candidates through Operation Warp Speed, the Trump Administration's effort to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of vaccines and treatments to fight the coronavirus. The goal of the initiative is to provide 300 million doses of a safe and effective vaccine by January 2021.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said last week that vaccine doses will likely be in short supply once a candidate is cleared for public distribution in the U.S.

"At first, there will likely be a limited supply of one or more of the Covid-19 vaccines, because limited doses will be available," Redfield said Friday on a conference call with reporters. "It's important that the early vaccines are distributed in a fair, ethical and transparent way."

Countries are moving now to secure supply for their residents through deals like the one agreed to between Novavax and Canada.

In recent weeks, World Health Organization officials have repeatedly warned that high demand for a safe and effective vaccine is already causing competition between countries and could drive prices higher.

"When a successful new vaccine is found, there will be greater demand than there is supply. Excess demand and competition for supply is already creating vaccine nationalism and risk of price gouging," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this month. "This is the kind of market failure that only global solidarity, public sector investment and engagement can solve."

Tedros has encouraged countries to allocate funding toward the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which is a group launched by the WHO and a variety of philanthropic and scientific groups, among others, to accelerate the development, production and distribution of Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines. He said greater investment in the program will bolster international collaboration and allow for a more effective response to the virus.

"Before spending another $10 trillion on the consequences of the next wave, we estimate that the world will need to spend at least $100 billion on new tools, especially any new vaccines that are developed," Tedros said. "The development of vaccines is long, complex, risky and expensive. The vast majority of vaccines in early development fail. The world needs multiple vaccine candidates of different types to maximize the chances of finding a winning solution."
Hoang Nguyen, the owner of an apartment for lease in District 7 of Ho Chi Minh City, told VIR that he has reduced rental from VND19 million to VND15 million ($826 to $650) per month for his 100-square-metre unit. The tenant, however, is still struggling and requested an even lower rate.

I cannot reduce rent any lower because I still have to pay a bank loan. The rate I offered is the lowest that I can afford right now, Hoang told VIR.

Hoang is still luckier than his younger brother, Huy Nguyen, who has a unit in Binh Thanh district which is leased to a German businessman.

Huy said that his tenant has been stuck in Germany since April and cannot return to Vietnam due to travel restrictions.

My tenant has not been here for more than four months, so I have not received rent for that time. I really do not know when he can come back to Vietnam and how much rent I can charge him, Huy said.

He added that his tenant has suggested that he finds another tenant in the meantime, but the low demand in the current market means such a solution is not that easy to reach.

If the unit is still vacant at the end of August, Huy says he will have to sell the apartment to avoid more suffering.

Nguyen Xuyen, a realtor in Ton That Thuyet apartment building located in District 4 of Ho Chi Minh City, said that due to COVID-19, many foreigners have scrapped their plans to work in Vietnam. The absence of foreign tenants is leading to a serious drop in income for landlords. Despite utilising various methods of advertising and offering more incentives, demand remains low, Xuyen said.

Currently, Xuyen has to carry out extra jobs by shipping goods for supermarkets and online traders.

While the buy-to-lease segment is in a difficult situation, landlords of serviced apartment projects seem to have had better business and are actively seeking alternative solutions in order to keep existing tenants.

Some serviced apartment operators such as Glenwood Suites and Thien Son have applied reductions on rent. Others such as Sherwood Residence and City House Apartment have extended the deadline for long-term tenants for when they can enter the country.

Lew Yen Ping, regional general manager for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar at Ascott  the biggest serviced apartment operator in Vietnam  told VIR that it recently launched the Ascott Cares programme while also partnering with Bureau Veritas Vietnam, which provides independent audits and certification for hygiene and safety standards to reassure both guests and staff.

To ensure that Ascott remains a dominant lodging player in the new normal, we continually adapt new business strategies to future-ready our company. We are evolving our lodging products and services to cater to new customer segments, said Ping. With the launch of Ascotts Work in Residence, we are capturing opportunities on the rising telecommuting trend to offer a comprehensive solution for guests to live and work in a safe and private space.

Ping added that at Somerset Grand Hanoi, Somerset Ho Chi Minh City, and Citadines Bayfront Nha Trang, select apartments have similarly been converted into private workspaces.

Ascott  the biggest serviced apartment operator in Vietnam  recently launched many programmes to enhance guest experience

Apart from this, Ascott is also optimising the use of space at its properties to enhance the guest experience through its "Space-as-a-Service" initiative.

In Vietnam at these apartment buildings, we have converted some of the apartments into yoga studios to attract both instructors and practitioners, Ping said.

Many landlords have meanwhile used this time to renovate and improve their property to be more competitive, preparing for it and when the pandemic is controlled.

Moreover, for some serviced apartment projects, in order to limit the risk of the pandemic, landlords have refused short-term or daily stays, impacting the efficiency of the project.

According to Savills Vietnam, in the first half of this year, Ho Chi Minh City is home for more than 6,400 serviced apartments from 109 projects. This got the occupancy of 61 per cent, reducing 22 per cent on-year. The average rent was $23 per square metre per month, a 19-per-cent fall on-year.

Grade B apartments have been the most affected due to the dependence on short-term stays.

Especially, one-third of projects are offering a discount of 20 per cent of the rent or offering free water and power bills for a maximum of three months.

According to Nguyen Van Dinh, deputy chairman of the Vietnam Real Estate Association of Realtors, many tenants have to move to lower grade residences to protect their budgets at this difficult time.

However, this reduction is to last for the short term only. When the pandemic is controlled and borders open, demand will resume once again, and so will the residences, Dinh said.
Representative Image

Under a complete lockdown with no business for almost three months since the end of March, the organised retail sector, brought down on its knees, has been struggling to get back on its feet. The deal between two giants, Reliance Retail and Future Group, which came about because of the latters massive debt burden, is expected to shake things up in the sector.

Experts expect to see some level of consolidation in the sector as the difficult economic environment forces players to take a hard look at their survival options. In the good times, the retail industry contributed about 10 percent of the countrys GDP. Now, with shops shut and people watching their spends amid layoffs and pay cuts, the sector is staring at a contraction.

Even after the various Unlock phases, business hasnt really picked up for brick and mortar retail outfits. In places such as Maharashtra, while malls have opened, footfalls remain low due to fears over infection and purse strings tightening amid pay cuts.

An analysis by ICICI Securities in March, well before the true extent of the pandemic in India was known, estimated that mall operators would lose 20-25 percent of their annual revenue, assuming that a rent-free period was given to retailers.

According to the Retailers Association of India, non-essential retail sales plunged 80 percent in May after falling 50 percent in March. Essential retail was down 40 percent in April and may slide further given its current run rate, RAI said.

Given this reality, most retail experts believe that there will be a lot of consolidation in the retail space in the medium term, with many smaller and mid-size retailers succumbing to the tough operating environment.

Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India (RAI) said: Consolidation and new creation keeps an industry interesting and healthy. COVID has also got retailers focussed on collaborations and omni-channel retail play. Various category retailers find ability to grow thanks to collaborations and mergers.

We are in the process of evolution as far as organised retail is concerned. So there is enough and more opportunity and headroom for new organisations and new enterprises. At the same time, organised retail has been here for 10-15 years and even more, so that allows for some bit of consolidation. We can see a bit of both in the near future, said Sanjay Vakharia, CEO of Spykar.

However, some retail industry bigwigs are of the view that such mergers will create a monopolistic market.

Such deals [Reliance Retail-Future Enterprises] will also create a monopolistic market, which may not be healthy for the industry in the long term, Lalit Agarwal, Chairman and Managing Director of VMart Retail said.

According to a CLSA report, the Future Enterprises deal strengthens Reliances position as Indias largest retailer by expanding its retail outlets by 15 percent and retail footprint and warehousing area by over 80 percent. This will also increase Reliances market share in the organised retail sector to 17.8 percent.

With this deal, Reliance will grow by leaps and bounds and will definitely gain an edge over other retailers in the country as it has now become the largest retailer in India, said Susil Dungarwal  Chief Mall Mechanic Beyond Squarefeet Advisory Pvt. Ltd. and Beyond Squarefeet Mall Management Pvt. Ltd.

The retail sector, which includes high-street fashion as well as small stores, employs about 6 million people across India.

In June, the Retail Association of India had warned that a significant number of employees working in Indias modern retail sector could likely lose their jobs in the subsequent four months if the government did not intervene. The association had said that small retailers are expecting to lay off 30 percent of their manpower.

Data compiled by Moneycontrol, based on industry estimates, indicate that 200,000 jobs have been lost in the retail sector overall. This includes 20 percent of workers who have gone home and are unwilling to return.

Speaking to Moneycontrol, Govind Shrikhande, Former MD, Shoppers Stop, said: We expect the sector to come back on track in the next 15-18 months. This is year is an aberration due to Covid. But otherwise, organised retail will grow faster compared to the unorganised retail as it gives value to customers.Vakharia of Spykar agrees: The next 18 months seem to be a challenge as far as organised retail is concerned. My belief is that come September 2021, we should be back at 2018-2019 growth levels.
VFS Global, the world's largest visa outsourcing and technology services specialist and the Embassy of Lithuania in the UAE have opened new Visa Application Centre in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, UAE.



Customers can submit their visa applications at the VFS Global centres without having to visit the Embassy of Lithuania. The centres will initially limit its services to accepting applications for Short term Schengen visa (C) -essential travel only - and Long term National visa (D) for study & employment purposes.



VFS Global has established standardized protective measures to be followed across the centre including specific social distancing and sanitation mandates. All customers are subjected to body temperature checks at the entrance of the centre to assess their health conditions.



Any customer exhibiting Covid-19 symptoms, including high fever, cough and difficulty in breathing will not be permitted to enter the centre and requested to return once the health condition improves. Additionally, all customers and VFS Global employees are required to wear a face mask and gloves within the centre.



Managed by professionals trained to provide secure services in an efficient manner, the newly launched centres offer:



 Platinum and Premium Lounge facility

 Mobile Biometric Service to apply for a visa from a location of choice, be it home or office

 Doorstep delivery of passports

 SMS notifications on application status

 Online tracking of application status

 Dedicated website for easy access to end-to-end information including visa categories, requirements, document checklists and applicable fees

 Dedicated contact centre and email support to answer queries and track application status.  TradeArabia News Service


No Ukrainian soldier must die because of absurd political speculation, the minister says.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov labeled as "provocative" a recent statement about the "special status" for the entire Donbas in eastern Ukraine (Luhansk and Donetsk regions) and general pardon for militants.

The idea, voiced by First Deputy Head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on Donbas settlement Vitold Fokin's, does not correspond to Ukraine's national interests, the ministry's press service quoted Avakov as saying on August 31.

"No Ukrainian soldier must die because of absurd political speculation. Therefore, the statement by the Ukrainian representative to the TCG, [Vitold] Fokin, about general pardon and a special status for all Donbas is provocative and not in line with the national interests," Avakov said.

Read alsoKravchuk comments on local election prospects for occupied areasThe Minister called on everyone to remember that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who died for every plot of Ukrainian land in Donbas.

Fokin's infamous statement: background

Fokin has recently said he is in favor of granting special status to the entire Donetsk and Luhansk regions, not just their occupied parts.

The official pointed his stance on the special status, answering the question about the idea of pardon to Russian-backed militants. According to Fokin, many crimes have been committed "on both sides" and they must be investigated, while perpetrators must be punished.

Fokin also noted that he was ready to travel to the occupied part of Donbas to negotiate with the enemy if the president or parliament orders so. He says the move is also supported by Head of the Ukrainian delegation to the TCG Leonid Kravchuk.

Kravchuk and Fokin in TCG

On July 30, President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Leonid Kravchuk as chairman of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk.

On August 4, Kravchuk announced that Vitold Fokin was offered the position of "communications coordinator for all parties" within the TCG.

On August 18, Fokin officially joined the negotiating group.
Good luck getting into your favourite restaurant today, if you haven't booked long in advance.

This Bank Holiday Monday is the final day of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, in which diners can claim 50 per cent of the cost of their meal (up to a maximum of 10 a head) from the Government.

Or rather, from all of us, as taxpayers.

But this is no time for cavilling. Chancellor Rishi Sunak's ploy was regarded by Treasury civil servants as so abnormal that he compelled them to authorise it with a 'ministerial direction'.

Rishi Sunak's Eat Out to Help Out scheme comes to an end today, after a month of discount meals for diners

This is the formal instrument required when a Permanent Secretary (the most senior civil servant in each department) believes a spending proposal is 'improper or represents poor value for money'.

But the sheer scale of its take-up  in the first three weeks, no fewer than 64million discounted meals were claimed in over 80,000 restaurants and pubs  has helped rescue our hospitality industry at a time of unprecedented commercial peril.

Jolt

Perhaps the civil servants believed the scheme would simply subsidise meals that would be sold anyway, or would just shift business to the early part of the week (the discount was available from Monday to Wednesday).

But the extent of the surge in demand, even above levels in normal, pre-Covid times, suggests it has done much more than that.

As David Williams, owner of the Baltic Market, which houses a dozen catering businesses in a converted 18th century brewery in Liverpool, observed earlier this month: 'People, myself included, underestimated the effect it was going to have.

'Most restaurants in Liverpool now, you can't even get a table for the whole of August, Monday to Wednesday.'

The scheme sent a jolt of electricity through a population which was reluctant to eat out at all, not necessarily through fear of infection but just inertia or a habit acquired during lockdown.

David Williams, owner of the Baltic Market in Liverpool, said businesses 'underestimated' the effect Eat Out to Help Out would have

People enjoying some al fresco dining outside a restaurant in Notting Hill, London after lockdown was lifted

But there is a second, much less popular Government policy which must also take some credit for the salvation (temporary or not) of countless small businesses associated with domestic tourism.

This is the sudden imposition of quarantine restrictions on Britons returning from certain other countries.

First it was Spain, then France, then Croatia.

Now even ultra-hygienic Switzerland has been removed from the list of nations with a quarantine-free 'travel corridor' to the UK.

In all these cases, the requirement that returning travellers should self-isolate for a fortnight has been rushed through with little warning, based on reported increases in Covid infections in the countries concerned.

That is the official line, and is justified publicly as a means of limiting further outbreaks of the virus in the UK.

It is therefore odd that, unlike in other countries, the quarantining process here seems to be so ineffectually invigilated.

As the journalist Jenni Russell observed: 'I have come through the e-gates at Heathrow twice this summer and watched fellow passengers passing through en masse without either filling in their forms or being stopped.

'There's no reinforcement of the quarantine message on arrival, no leaflets, no sense that this really matters.'

Hotspots

It is almost as if the real reason for the apparently capricious imposition of these requirements was to deter people from taking their holidays overseas and instead spend their money here  as an additional inducement to Sunak's Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

If so, it has worked  and not just in such obvious hotspots as Cornwall, where one in three private sector jobs are connected to tourism.

Cornwall's coastal paths were in no way crowded during Dominic Lawson's recent holiday

James Mason, the chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: 'We've been doing a roaring trade since July . . . supply can't meet demand and many businesses are saying they're booked into September and October.'

The chairman of the Wales Tourism Alliance, Andrew Campbell, happily reported that 'self-catering is flying. It's been booked out to an unprecedented level'.

In 2018, international tourists spent just shy of 20billion in Britain.

So, given that the big spenders, notably the Chinese and the Americans, were always going to stay away from the UK this summer, it was essential for British families to replace the absent foreign tourists.

That does seem to have happened. Indeed, we have just returned from a fortnight in Cornwall.

In our case, this was standard: in the more than a quarter of a century since our children were born, we have spent all but two of our summer holidays in either Cornwall or the Isles of Scilly.

We were braced for the Cornish roads to be even more busy than usual in August  and they were.

Crowded

But still, the astoundingly beautiful coastal path was in no way crowded, and on our walks from the cottage we rented, we would generally be able to take in those glorious views with no one else within eyeshot.

The point about tourism is that while the most well-known beauty spots are always inundated with holidaymakers, you don't have to go far off the beaten track for less competitive sightseeing.

Some of the most sought-after restaurants in England, including the Heron Inn at Malpas, near Truro, dropped out of Eat Out to Help Out as they simply couldn't cope with the volume of people turning up

But it was noticeable how some of the most sought-after restaurants had dropped out of Eat Out to Help Out: they simply couldn't cope with the volume of people turning up.

So we paid full whack for lunch at the Heron Inn, with its gorgeous estuary vista high above Truro.

Please note, we were not having a 'staycation'.

This term, properly used to describe those who take their holiday while staying at home, is now being applied to all vacations taken in one's own country, which is a nonsense.

Actually, the term 'staycation' describes what millions of Britons did for months during lockdown and furlough.

But now the eating out and holidaying in Britain habits have returned, they need to continue even in the absence of Sunak's ingenious stimulus.

Your nation's hostelries need you.

Was I too catty over wife's wild puma claims?

It was over 20 years ago that my wife claimed she saw it: a puma, that is.

And we weren't on safari.

This beast was by the gate at our house in East Sussex. Or so she said.

I should add that our home abuts Dallington Forest, an ancient woodland, where such a creature could, at least in theory, live off the deer that certainly do inhabit it.

I did, nonetheless, dispute Rosa's claim, and laughed when she described the animal she saw as 'black and loping'.

Dr Andrew Hemmings led a team of scientists examining more than 100 animal remains found in British forests. Some of the tooth bites examined could only have been made a 'leopard or puma,' the study found

Some domestic cats can be pretty big, I told her, and do a certain amount of loping.

But when she insisted this was not an outsize tabby, I named it, sardonically, 'The Puma of Dallington Forest'.

From time to time, I would ask after it when Rosa returned from a walk, querying whether it had eaten any of our dogs whole, or just satisfied itself with a leg or two.

So it was with a certain amount of vindication that my wife last week drew my attention to a newspaper story headlined 'British big cat theory bares its teeth'.

This was a report on findings by a team of scientists led by Dr Andrew Hemmings of the Royal Agricultural University, which had examined more than 100 skeletal remains of animals in British forests.

While the 'black and loping,' creature spotted on the edge of Dallington Forest may not have been a puma, scientists have found potential evidence of big cats living in British woodland

On some of them it had found tooth-bite imprints 'that could only be made by a nonnative cat the size of a leopard or puma'.

Said Dr Hemmings: 'The others are more suggestive of small carnivores, but five certainly do fit the bill [for] puma or black leopard.'

As far as I know, the discoveries were not in our woods.

But, for the time being, I will treat my wife's puma sighting with less levity.
Catholic bishop refutes notion that 'evangelization' is a 'cultural aggression'

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Bishop Robert Barron of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has defended the legacy of a Catholic saint whose statue was toppled earlier this year by social justice demonstrators and refuted the argument that evangelism is a form of "cultural aggression."

Barron delivered a homily last weekend on Aug. 22 outside the Mission Santa Ines in Solvang, California, where a statue of St. Junipero Serra is located.

Serra was a native of Spain who worked to bring Catholicism to the native peoples of present-day California and Mexico

Barron's homily came as other statues of the 18th-century Franciscan missionary located in the state have become targets of vandalism and destruction.

The Church understands the very legitimate concerns of some of the protesters, he said. Yes, we are concerned about racism  oppression (and) righting social wrongs.

Serra was canonized by Pope Francis during his visit to the United States in 2015.

Critics argue that the Spanish missionary epitomized the horrors of colonialism and the mistreatment of Native Americans. During his homily, Barron attempted to assuage the concerns of anti-Serra protesters in the crowd.

The bishop strongly pushed back on the narrative asserting that Serra is to blame for everything that bugs them about 18th-century Spanish colonialism.

He slammed the besmirching of the reputation and memory of this great saint.

I refuse to accept the characterization of evangelization as some sort of cultural aggression, he said.

Barron also took issue with the characterization of Serra as indifferent or hostile to Native Americans.

Do you know in 1773, Junipero Serra made his way, of course, by foot, in constant pain from Carmel all the way to Mexico City to argue for a bill of rights for the Native peoples? he asked.

When the Spaniards first arrived in the New World, in places like Santo Domingo, from those earliest days, there were churchmen who were speaking up for the rights and prerogatives of the Native peoples, who were resisting some of the worst elements of the Spanish occupation.

A 2019 survey conducted by the Barna Group found that the idea of evangelization as a kind of cultural aggression seems to have gained acceptance among millennial Christians.

The survey found that 47% of millennials strongly or somewhat agreed with the idea that it is wrong to share ones personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hopes that they will one day share the same faith.

According to Barna, 40% of millennials either strongly or somewhat disagree with the assertion that if someone disagrees with you, it means theyre judging you.

Younger Christians tend to be more personally aware of the cultural temperature around spiritual conversations, Barna stated in an analysis report. Among practicing Christians, Millennials report an average (median) of four close friends or family members who practice a faith other than Christianity.

Sharing the gospel today is made harder than at any time in recent memory by an overall cultural resistance to conversations that highlight peoples differences, Barna concluded.

Previous Barna research demonstrated that 65% of Christian millennials believe that people today are more likely to take offense if they share their faith.

Barron expressed disagreement with the negative view on evangelization.

Serra wanted to share what he quite rightly took to be the most precious gift you could ever give, he said. Thats what his life was about.

In June, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco called the toppling of a Serra statue in the Golden Gate Park the work of Satan.

"This is the activity of the evil one who wants to bring down the Church, who wants to bring down all Christian believers, Serra argued.
JUNEAU, Alaska - Alaska state Sen. John Coghill said Monday that he will seek a recount in his Republican primary race, which he lost by 14 votes.

A state review board certified Robert Myers Jr. as the winner of the Senate District B primary, with 1,739 votes, compared with 1,725 for Coghill, according to results released by the state Division of Elections.

Coghill, a longtime lawmaker from North Pole who has served in both the House and Senate, told The Associated Press that his expectation of changing the result is really low at this point, but I still think you need to look at it. When its this close, there could have been a mishandling or something didnt get counted properly.

Coghill is chairman of the Senate Rules Committee and part of the Republican-led Senate majority leadership team. Senate President Cathy Giessel, an Anchorage Republican, also lost her primary.

State law permits a defeated candidate or 10 qualified voters who believe a mistake has been made by an election official or by the counting board in tallying the votes to seek a recount.

Myers, a truck driver, said he had expected Coghills decision to seek a recount but said he doesnt think it will change the outcome of the race.

I understand why theyre doing it. Its part of the process, and they dont really have a whole lot to lose, he said.

Myers said he saw the race as being less about him and more of a referendum on Coghill. Myers said one of the big issues was the size of the check distributed to residents each year from the states oil wealth fund.

Myers said he favoured adding to the state Constitution a dividend formula that has not been followed in recent years amid a budget deficit. Coghill has supported a smaller payout, including this years $992 check because of budget and revenue concerns.

Coghill said he was criticized as not conservative because of the dividend, and I just dont know how they come to that conclusion.

Other incumbents who lost their races were Reps. Jennifer Johnston and Chuck Kopp, Anchorage Republicans who hold leadership posts within a bipartisan House majority caucus composed largely of Democrats but that also includes independents and some Republicans. Republican Reps. Mark Neuman of Big Lake and Sharon Jackson of Eagle River, who are in the House minority, and Republican Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, who did not caucus with either group, also lost.

The state earlier this year filed charges accusing LeDoux of voter misconduct and interference with voting related to past elections. She has said she is innocent.
The International Atomic Energy Association(IAEA) and the government of Iran shall soon expand cooperation, said Akbar Ali Salehi, the Vice-President of Iran and the head of Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran.

Read | IAEA chief meets Iran's top nuclear official

Read | IAEA chief arrives in Tehran to seek access to suspected Iranian nuclear sites

The visit comes at a time, when the US has been trying to recouperate the sanctions of the UN over Iran. It has been alleged that Iran had tried to violate the nuclear code with world powers, from which, the Trump administration had decided to withdraw in the year 2018.

"A new chapter of engagement between the IAEA and Tehran shall soon begin," added the Vice President of Iran.

After the negotiations between Tehran and IAEA chief had taken place on Monday, the Vice President of Iran had added that further developments in the cooperation shall soon be happening. (as quoted by Tasnim News Agency of Iran).

During the meeting between the government officials of Iran and the IAEA, the Iranian government mentioned that they won't be accepting any other additional demands beyond the committed deal of 2015.

The IAEA shall be acting in a manner that won't be favouring one over the other and shall operate per the criteria that have been approved internationally and mechanisms following the law, added Grossi.

Read | James Anderson becomes the first pace bowler to take 600 scalps in international cricket

Read | Google launches feature that will enable users to view NASA artefacts in Augmented Reality

During the visit to Tehran, the head of the IAEA shall also be meeting other officials, including President Hassan Rouhani and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif.

The step is a new development between the two after the IAEA had passed a resolution in June earlier this year. The resolution had aimed to enable inspectors access at the location after it was alleged that unregistered activities are happening.

The reason, behind why Iran disagreed to the resolution passed by the IAEA because the charges were baseless and were adopted after Israel and US had built pressure over the organization, said Kazem Garib Abadi, the permanent representative of Iran to international organizations.

At first, the Iranian authorities had objected to change how the cooperation would work. However later, the Iranian President had confirmed the cooperation of the country.

(With Agency Inputs)
She has made a living posing in swimsuits during her 24-year modelling career.

And Alessandra Ambrosio was sure to set pulses racing with her latest Instagram snaps as she relaxed at the Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives on Monday.

The Victoria's Secret model, 39, showed off her sensational figure in a gold bikini from her swimsuit brand GAL Floripa as she enjoyed a sun-soaked outing in the sea.

Wow! Alessandra Ambrosio showed off her sensational figure in a plunging gold bikini as she enjoyed a sun-soaked day in the Maldives in snaps shared on Monday

Alessandra's ensemble fit snugly on her slender frame and showed off her toned abs as well a glimpse of her cleavage, while it had chic tie-detailing.

She added a glittering touch to her look with a gold chain necklace and pearl earrings, while she shielded her eyes with aviator shades.

The model slicked her hair back over her head after enjoying a dip in the crystal-blue ocean, and she wore a light palette of make-up for the snaps.

Accessories: Alessandra added a glittering touch to her look with a gold chain necklace and pearl earrings, while she shielded her eyes with aviator shades

Beach babe: The model let her brunette locks flow behind her as she enjoyed a dip in the crystal-blue ocean

The model flew to the Maldives earlier this week with her two children and boyfriend of two years, Italian businessman Nicolo Oddi.

Alessandra shares her kids, Anja, 12 and Noah, 8 with her ex-fiance Jamie Mazur whom she split from after 10 years though he was not present on the dream trip.

In addition to having a luxurious family vacation, Alessandra and her family were there to celebrate her daughter Anja who turned 12 on Monday.

Paradise found: The GAL Floripa designer posted a loved up snap with her boyfriend of two years Nicolo Oddi as the family enjoyed a celebratory night out at the gorgeous Maldives hotel

The whole extended Ambrosio family was invited to relax and celebrate, as her parents Lucilda and Luiz were in attendance as well as her cousins.

The veteran model paid tribute to her 'ray of sunshine' with a series of posts and documented the celebratory family outing on her social media.

Before jetting to the Maldives, Alessandra and her family had been locked down in their Santa Monica, California home.

Ray of sunshine: Alessandra wished her daughter Anja, 12 happy birthday in adorable photos surrounded by pink, blue and yellow balloons as well as birthday treats during the trip

Last week the swimsuit designer was seen getting a COVID test with her daughter ahead of their international travels to make sure everything was copacetic before departing.

With the modeling industry slowly starting to ramp up again Alesandra will no doubt be back to work soon though she has been loving being at home with her family.

In the meantime she has found ways to get creative with her career and swimsuit line, as she has been modeling her latest designs from the comfort of her own home.
In a Joint Media Statement issued after the 8th East Asia Summit (EAS) Economic Ministers Meeting, which was held in the form of a video conference as part of the 52nd ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting and related meetings (AEM-52), the Economic Ministers from the ten ASEAN Member States, Australia, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the United States underscored the importance of strengthening regional supply chains to make them resilient and less vulnerable to shocks and to advance sustainable economic growth.

They reaffirmed their commitment to promote trade and investment, minimize disruptions to trade and global supply chains and facilitate supply chain connectivity, including for essential goods such as medical supplies, medicines, including vaccines, food, commodities and other essential supplies and services in the region.

They welcomed regional initiatives to mitigate the impact of the pandemic including the establishment of the ASEAN COVID-19 Response Fund, as well as the work towards the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Reserve of Medical Supplies and the Standard Operating Procedures for Public Health Emergencies Response.

They acknowledged the important role of initiatives which aim to ensure the equitable global distribution of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, recognized the importance of facilitating essential movement of people across borders, without undermining each countrys efforts to prevent the spread of the virus, to stabilize the trade and investment.

The Ministers reiterated their support for ASEAN and ASEAN-centred architecture, reflected among others in the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (the Outlook), which could contribute to post-pandemic recovery in the region.

They exchanged views on how to accelerate economic growth, maintain supply chains and market stability, and strengthen the economic resilience of the EAS region post COVID-19.

They also discussed the importance of harnessing the opportunities of digital economy, and how to enhance the application and the utilization of digital technologies in the region to facilitate digital economy.

The Ministers affirmed that this is especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic and this provides appropriate hard/soft infrastructure and human resources development that considers the needs and reskilling and upskilling of persons likely to lack digital skills and access to technology including women, MSMEs and other vulnerable groups, especially those living in remote and rural areas and more likely to lack digital skills and access to technology.

They also underscored the importance of collective efforts in promoting economic and social resilience in the region, and reiterated their support for the necessary reform of the WTO.

The Ministers vowed to continue to work together to realize a free, fair, transparent, nondiscriminatory, predictable, and stable trade environment, and affirmed the importance of agreed upon rules in the WTO, which can enhance market predictability and business confidence.

They agreed that any trade restrictive emergency measures put in place to address the impact of COVID-19 must be targeted, proportionate, transparent, temporary, consistent with WTO rules and do not create unnecessary barriers to trade or disruption of global and regional supply chains.

The Ministers acknowledged the significant contribution of Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) through activities that support economic integration and digital economy in the region.

They welcomed ERIAs paper on "Accelerating restoration of economic growth, maintaining market stability and strengthening resilience of the EAS region in response to the COVID-19 pandemic", and encouraged ERIA to undertake policy-based research to improve trade and investment including making value chains resilient to shocks of EAS economies, effectively address the impending recession, promote new technologies and develop a framework for the EAS regional economic integration and development after overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic, taking into account existing initiatives.
On June 15, Indian Navy sailed out its frontline warship for deployment in the South China Sea much to the displeasure of the Chinese who raised objections over the move during the talks between the two sides.

Acting swiftly after the Galwan valley clash on June 15 in Eastern Ladakh, the Indian Navy sailed out its frontline warship for deployment in the South China Sea much to the displeasure of the Chinese who raised objections over the move during the talks between the two sides.

The Chinese have been objecting to the presence of Indian Navy ships in the region where it has significantly expanded its presence since 2009 through artificial islands and military presence.

Government sources told ANI that soon after the Galwan clash broke out in which 20 of our soldiers were killed, the Indian Navy deployed one of its frontline warship to the South China Sea where the Peoples Liberation Armys Navy objects to the presence of any other force claiming the majority of the waters as part of its territory, government sources told ANI.

Also read: Indian Navy deployed warship in South China sea post-Galwan clash: Reports

Also read: PM addresses 68th edition of his monthly programme Mann ki Baat on caution amid festivities

The immediate deployment of the Indian Navy warship in the South China Sea had a desired effect on the Chinese Navy and security establishment as they complained to the Indian side about the Indian warships presence there during the diplomatic level talks with the Indian side, the sources said.

During the deployment in the South China Sea where the American Navy had also deployed its destroyers and frigates, the Indian warship was continuously maintaining contact with their American counterparts over secure communication systems, the sources informed.

As part of the routine drills, the Indian warship was being constantly updated about the status of the movement of military vessels of other countries there, they said adding that the entire mission was carried out in a very hush-hush manner to avoid any public glare on Navys activities.

Around the same time, the Indian Navy had deployed its frontline vessels along the Malacca Straits near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the route from where the Chinese Navy enters the Indian Ocean Region to keep a check on any activity of the Chinese Navy. A number of Chinese vessels also pass through the Malacca Straits while returning with oil or taking merchant shipments towards other continents.

The sources said the Indian Navy is fully capable of checking any misadventure by the adversaries on either the eastern or the western front and the mission-based deployments have helped it to control the emerging situations effectively in and around the Indian Ocean Region.

The Navy also has plans to urgently acquire and deploy autonomous underwater vessels and other unmanned systems and sensors to keep a close eye on the movement of PLAN from Malacca Straits towards the Indian Ocean Region, the sources said.

The Navy is also taking care of the Chinese vessels present around the Djibouti area and has deployed its assets in the vicinity for protecting national interest.

The Navy has also deployed its MiG-29K fighter aircraft at an important Air Force base where they are practicing missions for conflict over land and mountainous terrain, the sources said.

The Navy is also going to fast track the procurement of 10 Naval Shipborne Unmanned Aerial Vehicles under a deal expected to be worth over Rs 1,245 crore.

Also read: Drug charges against PM Modi biopic maker Sandip Ssingh to be investigated: Anil Deshmukh
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LCD vs LED Television: Whats the Difference

khaskhabar.com : , 31  2020 2:10 PM
Portland, Ore.

The mayor of Portland, Oregon, and President Donald Trump engaged in a real-time argument Sunday as the president sent a flurry of critical tweets about Ted Wheeler as the mayor was holding a news conference about the fatal shooting of a right-wing supporter in his city the night before.

After Trump called Wheeler, a Democrat, a "fool" and blamed him for allowing violence to proliferate in the liberal city, the visibly angry mayor lashed out at the president, addressing him in the first person through the TV cameras.

"That's classic Trump. Mr. President, how can you think that a comment like that, if you're watching this, is in any way helpful? It's an aggressive stance, it is not collaborative. I certainly reached out, I believe in a collaborative manner, by saying earlier that you need to do your part and I need to do my part and then we both need to be held accountable," Wheeler said.

"Let's work together. Wouldn't that be a message? Donald Trump and Ted Wheeler working together to help move this country forward. Why don't we try that for a change?"

The testy news conference followed a chaotic and volatile 24 hours in Portland that began when a caravan of about 600 vehicles packed with Trump supporters drove through Portland and was met with counterprotesters. Skirmishes broke out between the groups and, about 15 minutes after the caravan left the city, a supporter of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer was fatally shot.

Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson identified the victim as Aaron "Jay" Danielson. He called the victim a "good friend," but provided no further details. Danielson apparently also went by the name Jay Bishop, according to Patriot Prayer's Facebook page.

"We love Jay and he had such a huge heart. God bless him and the life he lived," Gibson said in a Facebook post.

Trump retweeted the victim's name and wrote, "Rest in peace Jay!"

It wasn't clear if the shooting was related to the clashes between Trump supporters and counterprotesters in Portland, which has become a flashpoint in the national Black Lives Matter protests since George Floyd was killed in May and an increasing centerpiece in Trump's law-and-order re-election campaign theme.

Trump and other speakers at last week's Republican National Convention evoked a violent, dystopian future if Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden wins in November and pointed to Portland as a cautionary tale for what would be in store for Americans.

Police have released little information and Chief Chuck Lovell said Sunday that investigators are still gathering evidence, including surveillance video from area businesses. Earlier Sunday, the agency released a plea for any information related to the killing, including videos, photos or eyewitness accounts.

Patriot Prayer is based in Washington state and was founded in 2016. Since early 2017, its supporters have been periodically coming to Portland to hold rallies for Trump, ratcheting up tensions in the liberal city long before the national outrage over Floyd's death sparked more than three months of protests here.

Portland has seen nearly 100 consecutive nights of Black Lives Matter protests and many have ended with vandalism to federal and city property, including police precincts, a county jail, the federal courthouse and City Hall. In July, Trump sent more than 100 federal agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to safeguard federal property  a move that instead reinvigorated the protests.

Thousands of people clashed with the federal agents each night for two weeks, turning a two-block area of the city into what felt like a war zone as agents lobbed tear gas canisters and pepper spray at the crowds and some protesters tossed fireworks at the agents and shined lasers in their eyes.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Those agents withdrew July 31 but smaller nightly protests have continued in pockets of the city. More than 600 people have been arrested since late May.

On Sunday, Portland authorities urged people to stay away from the downtown as they try to de-escalate tensions and braced for what promised to be another night of violence. A protest was planned for Sunday night on the city's east side.

Trump earlier Sunday appeared to be encouraging his supporters to move into Portland in the wake of the shooting. After the shooting, the president shared a video of his supporters driving into Portland and called those in Saturday's caravan "GREAT PATRIOTS!"

Wheeler begged those who wanted to come to Portland to "seek retribution" to stay away.

"If you're from out of town and you're reading something on social media  if you're reading any facts on social media  they're probably wrong because we don't have all the facts yet," Wheeler said. "They are still assembling the facts. This is not the time to get hotheaded because you read something on Twitter that some guy made up in his mother's basement."

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf blamed local officials for failing "to protect their communities."

"I'm asking Portland officials, so that's the mayor, that's the governor and that's local law enforcement, to do their job to address any violent activity that is occurring in their streets," Wolf told CBS' "Face the Nation."

Wolf said the federal government was prepared to send agents to Portland and other cities to protect federal buildings and assist police.
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TYSONS, Va., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- True Made Foods, a veteran-owned business committed to making American food nutritious by cutting refined and artificial sweeteners from condiments and replacing them with healthy vegetables, today announced the company will donate 10% of national sales during the holiday weekend of Sept. 3-7 to the PenFed Foundation. The donation will be used by the PenFed Foundation to empower military members, veterans and caregivers with financial stability and opportunity.

"We are extremely grateful for the generosity of True Made Foods as we continue to support the military community during these challenging times," said PenFed Foundation President and retired U.S. Army Gen. John "Mick" Nicholson Jr. "The money raised during this Labor Day weekend will directly support our vision of service members being able to serve our nation free of financial worry and veterans living with a strong financial future."

In 2018, Abe Kamarck, Founder/CEO of True Made Foods and a former U.S. Naval aviator, became PenFed Foundation's first Veteran Entrepreneur Investment Program (VEIP) investment recipient. VEIP has a three-pronged approach to create a robust network for veteran-owned start-ups and businesses:

Investment of seed capital, providing access to other capital investment programs and connecting entrepreneurs to funders; Preparation through the Master's Program, a year-long fundraising accelerator; and Education through virtual and in-person Pop-Up Lab workshops.

The PenFed Foundation started VEIP to help veteran entrepreneurs overcome their biggest challenges: lack of access to capital and a network of support.

True Made Foods products are currently sold in over 7,000 stores across the country, including major grocery chains like Wal-Mart, Kroger, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Safeway, Giant, Wegmans and ShopRite. A full list of retailers can be found here.

The PenFed Foundation, a national 501(c)3 founded by PenFed Credit Union, was created in 2001 and, since then, has provided more than $38.5 million in financial support to veterans, active-duty service members, families and caregivers.

In March 2020, PenFed Foundation became the first national Veterans Service Organization (VSO) to launch a COVID-19 relief program providing emergency financial assistance for veterans and service members. To date, 562 military families have been helped with COVID-19 emergency financial relief since March 17.

Those interested in supporting the PenFed Foundation's mission to help the military community and their support network are encouraged to visit penfedfoundation.org.

About PenFed Foundation

Founded in 2001, the PenFed Foundation is a national nonprofit organization committed to empowering military service members, veterans and their communities with the skills and resources to realize financial stability and opportunity. It provides service members, veterans, their families and support networks with the skills and resources they need to improve their lives through programs on financial education, homeownership, veteran entrepreneurship and short-term assistance. Affiliated with PenFed Credit Union, the Foundation has the resources to effectively reach military communities across the nation, build strong partnerships, and engage a dedicated corps of volunteers in its mission. The credit union funds the Foundation's personnel and most operational costs, demonstrating its strong commitment to the programs the Foundation provides. To learn more, visit www.penfedfoundation.org .

About True Made Foods

True Made Foods is on a mission to turn junk foods into superfoods. They started with America's favorite condiments  Ketchup, BBQ Sauce and Sriracha  removing the added sugars and naturally sweetening their products with real fruits and veggies instead. True Made Foods turned these empty calorie American staples into nutrient dense, delicious, paleo superfoods. True Made Foods was founded in 2015 by a US Navy Veteran and father of four who couldn't get his kids to stop pouring ketchup on their food, so he made a better one. In 2017, True Made Foods partnered with the Legendary Pitmaster and Army Veteran, Ed Mitchell, to launch a line of authentic, regionally inspired all-natural and no sugar added BBQ Sauces. The True Made Foods mission is to bring nutrition back to American staples, cuisines and traditions. Today, True Made Foods products can be found in over 7,000 stores nationwide including Walmart, Kroger, Ralph's, Sprouts, Whole Foods, Wegmans, Giant, Stop & Shop and Safeway. To learn more, please visit www.TrueMadeFoods.com

SOURCE PenFed Foundation
As 12,000 lightning strikes pummeled the Bay Area this month, igniting hundreds of fires, fire spotters sprang into action.Their arsenal of tools includes thermal imagery collected by space satellites; real-time feeds from hundreds of mountaintop cameras; a far-flung array of weather stations monitoring temperature, humidity and winds; and artificial intelligence to munch and crunch the vast data troves to pinpoint hot spots.For decades, wildfires in remote regions were spotted by people in lookout towers who scanned the horizon with binoculars for smoke  a tough and tedious job. They reported potential danger by telephone, carrier pigeon or Morse code signals with a mirror.Now, fire spotting has gone high tech. And the technology to address it is getting exponentially better and faster, trained by a growing body of data about wildfires. Its making firefighters more nimble and keeping them safer. The only question is whether silicon-powered progress can keep up with the climate change-fueled flames.Tech has also made fire spotting more democratic. Anyone can go online to see the satellite and camera images, while interactive maps display the conflagrations locations. Footage from some of the mountaintop cameras went viral this month as they transmitted apocalyptic images of the raging flames that ultimately burned them in the CZU Lightning Complex fires.Its Netflix for fire, said Graham Kent, who runs the AlertWildfire.org system, which has about 550 cameras in California, a number he hopes to double by 2022. The cameras capture a still image every second to make time-lapse videos, using near-infrared technology for nighttime viewing. They give an intimate sense of whats going on. Theres a primal sense like were still living in caves; everyone fears fire.The network of cameras, backed by a consortium of the University of Nevada at Reno, UC San Diego and the University of Oregon, allows authorized personnel such as fire command teams to rotate, pan and zoom to zero in on suspicious plumes of smoke. The AlertWildfire system is adding some mobile cameras  a trailer with a 30-foot tower that can be positioned anywhere its needed.The images from the cameras and satellites, along with footage captured by piloted and unpiloted aircraft, and weather station data, are vital components in the rapidly advancing technology for fire spotting.The new technology is helping us fight more-aggressive fires more aggressively with a calculated level of safety, said Brice Bennett, a spokesman for Cal Fire. Fire-line commanders utilize intelligence from all these different inputs. Situational awareness is paramount  fully understanding the events unfolding around you, not just whats directly in front of your face but what will occur in the next 12 hours.The boots on the ground crews use the detailed data to get information even while theyre en route, he said. The digital maps can show where the hottest spots are, for instance, so they know what areas to avoid and where to construct fire lines.During fire season, PG&E staffs its new Wildfire Safety Operations Center around the clock. Analysts in the room at the companys San Francisco headquarters monitor big-screen monitors displaying data-packed maps and information flowing in from a variety of sources.The company used to spend a couple of million dollars a year on a smoke patrol program. Every afternoon during fire season, seven pilots would fly in set patterns (similar to a lawn-mowers path) over heavily forested areas in its service territory, looking for smoke. But satellite advances meant it could get similar information for a tenth of the cost  and have continuous coverage, said Scott Strenfel, manager of meteorology and fire science at PG&E.Even in a test version last year, the satellite system detected an early-morning grass fire on Mount Diablo in July 2019 about 15 minutes before the first 911 calls came in, he said. PG&E now has systems in place to notify local fire agencies when its technology spots fires.Technology comes into play after fires as well, enabling entities like the Forest Services Geospatial Technology and Applications Center , which uses satellites and other technologies to detect and monitor fire activity, to map burn severity and fire damage  and stabilize the landscape.Technology also helps authorities decide whether and when to evacuate locals.A fire is a dynamic situation with high winds, dry fuels, proximity to populations, especially in California, said Everett Hinkley, national remote sensing program manager at the Forest Service. We can provide rapid updates to infer the direction and speed of those wildfires to help people calling the evacuation orders.Although satellites have been used in fire spotting for about 20 years, a new generation of satellites and onboard tools have dramatically improved their aptitude for the task. More recent satellites with spectral sensors and advanced optics technology now provide finer spatial resolution and data processing.There are two types of satellites: Polar orbiter satellites are closer to Earth and provide higher-resolution images, but capture them only twice a day. Geosynchronous or geostationary satellites stay over a specific geographic area, providing images about every five minutes, but must fly about 22,000 miles above the Earth to synchronize with its orbit, so the images are more coarse.Researchers have lengthy lists of tech improvements they hope to see in the near future.One is unpiloted aircraft that can stay aloft for months at a time, perhaps 100,000 feet above the ground. Another is high-altitude platforms capable of serving the purpose of a satellite but flying in the atmosphere. Several private companies are working on options like solar-powered aircraft or high-altitude airships like dirigibles, but deployment may be one to five years away.Another future upgrade is for computers to get even better at reading the data via improved artificial intelligence, to cut down on false positives. We need better machine learning to process this data overload, because you cant put enough analysts in front of screens to handle it all, Hinkley said.Despite all the high-tech wizardry, many fires are initially reported through a traditional system: 911 calls. Blazes increasingly occur near populated areas so there are essentially millions of potential spotters on the ground.But calls to 911 can mean a deluge of information without the specifics that firefighters need  so the satellites and cameras come into play to home in on exact locations.In cases like we just went through, with the lightning causing 500 fires all at once, and many people calling, that information can be overwhelming, Strenfel said. The satellite detection systems (show) where these fires are in real time.Kent from AlertWildfire said similar things about his camera network.When a 911 call comes in, authorities can turn to a camera and see the ignition phase of that fire, he said. Cameras can also triangulate a fires exact location. Under normal circumstances, they can see 20 miles in daytime; 40 miles at night if there arent obstacles. But hes seen fires caught by cameras as far away as 100 miles in the daytime and 160 miles at night.Sometimes traditional ways re-emerge.Cal Fires Amador-El Dorado Unit recently refurbished two dilapidated lookout towers and now staffs them during fire season with community volunteers.Armed with a two-way radio, binoculars and an Osborne Fire Finder  a topographic paper map with sighting apertures to help gauge a fires distance and location  the volunteers have spotted 85 smokes since June 1, with seven of them being first reports, said Diana Swart, a spokeswoman for the unit.These human volunteers get up in that tower with their old-fashioned Fire Finders from the early 1900s, she said. In these very rural wooded areas, fires otherwise may not be noticed until they get very large. Having a person out there whos actively looking is key.
Russia is interested in cooperation with Vietnam and the enhancement of the two nations friendship, according to a Russian official.

At the event (Photo: VNA)

Yevgeny Primakov, head of Russias Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo), made the statement in his opening speech at an international workshop, themed Vietnam nowadays through Eurasian lens, held on August 28.

The Rossotrudnichestvo organised the function on the occasion of the book "Vietnam takes off" by Grigory Trofimchuk published in the country, gathering about 40 journalists, experts, and scholars from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Vietnam.

Yevgeny Primakov noted projects such as the workshop and book introduction event will contribute to strengthening the bilateral friendship.

Units representing the Rossotrudnichestvo in Vietnam are willing to support business cooperation between companies from Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) with Vietnam and their Vietnamese peers, he affirmed.

At the workshop, participants discussed new approaches to expand humanitarian relations between EAEU member nations and Vietnam, the sides collaboration potential in science and technology, as well as their joint work in education, business connection, and information security.

Grigory Trofimchuk, who is Chairman of the Russia-based Expert Council of the Eurasian Foundation for Support of Scientific Research, considered Vietnam a pioneer in the Eurasian integration progress as it is the first nation to sign a free trade agreement with the EAEU and has helped the bloc spread its wings to Southeast Asia.

In an interview with the Vietnam News Agency on the sidelines of the event, he said that via the workshop, representatives of several EAEU countries have shown their interest in expanding ties with Vietnam in all directions and spheres.

He underscored a need to bolster Vietnam  Russia relations within the EAEU framework through the development of traffic and logistics infrastructure.

His nearly-200-page book, with many vivid illustrations of a modern and innovative Vietnam, was written after the authors field trip to the Southeast Asian nation. The front page of the book states that it was published on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the signing of the treaty on fundamental principles of friendship between Vietnam and Russia, and the 70th anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic ties./.VNA
In a joint filing last week, attorneys for the Internet Archive and four publishers suing for copyright infringement proposed a discovery plan for the case that would extend for more than a year. The filing, known as a rule 26(f) report, lays out a potential road map for the case that would begin with the first proposed deadline for initial fact disclosures on September 11, 2020, and would conclude with expert depositions due by September 20, 2021.

The filing notes that the parties did not agree to any limitations on the number of interrogatories, requests for production, or requests for admission that may be served. The Plaintiff publishers told the court they do not anticipate taking more than 10 depositions, but lawyers for the Internet Archive note that because there are four unaffiliated Plaintiffs they will likely require more than 10 depositions. And while the Internet Archive has demanded a jury trial, both parties indicated in the filing that they expect to move for summary judgment in this case.

Further, the report outlines a litany of issues that will be part of the discovery processa list that suggests a potentially sensitive, and complex litigation. Among the subjects expected be addressed in discovery:

All aspects of the operations of the Internet Archive, Open Library, and National Emergency Library, including without limitation the development and application of Controlled Digital Lending.

Defendants reproduction, display, distribution, and public performance of Plaintiffs Works alleged in the Complaint.

Defendants fair use defense and other defenses.

Defendants justifications for and promotion of Controlled Digital Lending.

Plaintiffs legal and contractual rights in the Works cited in the complaint, and the copyright registration for such Works.

Plaintiffs sales, licenses, or agreements relating to the Works.

Plaintiffs enforcement actions related to the Works.

Plaintiffs actions related to the Works during COVID-19.

Damages, including Plaintiffs claims for damages for willful infringement, as permitted by the Copyright Act.

The copyright infringement lawsuit was filed on June 1 in the Southern District of New York by Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House, and is being coordinated by the Association of American Publishers. The IA's scanning program has troubled publishers and authors groups for years, but tensions came to a head in late March when the IA announced its now ended National Emergency Library initiative, under which the IA unilaterally made its collection available for unlimited borrowing in response to the Covid-19 outbreak. The publishers have compared the IA's efforts to those of the world's largest pirate sites, and are seeking damages for infringement, as well as to shut down the IAs scanning program and to have any infringing scans destroyed.

Lawyers for the Internet Archive counter that their decade-old scanning program is "sheltered by the fair use doctrine" and "buttressed" by traditional library practices and protections. Guided by an untested theory called Controlled Digital Lending, the IA and its partner libraries create scans of books from their legally acquired print collections and make them available for lending under rules designed to mimic traditional library lending: only one user can borrow a scan at a time; the scans are DRM-protected against copying and to enforce limited lend periods; and the scan and the corresponding print book from which the scan is derived are not allowed to circulate at the same time in order to maintain "a one-to-one owned-to-loan" basis. Rightsholders can also opt out of the program, and Internet Archive officials say that all of the 127 books listed as infringing in an appendix to the publishers' initial complaint have been taken down.

In a July 22 online press conference, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle urged the publishers to drop the suit and settle the dispute in the boardroom, rather than the courtroom. So far, that is not happening, although last weeks filing revealed that the two sides spoke about a possible settlement but were unable to come to an agreement.

The proposal would also give the publishers until November 1 to add additional works to the suit, and until December 1 to amend their complaint. The Internet Archive would then have 21 days to respond to any amended complaint.

UPDATE: After this story went to press, the court approved the proposed discovery plan with only minor changes, and set a tentative schedule that would have the case ready for trial by November, 2021.
High office: Margaret Butterly and Kathleen Lenehan take a look at their nephew Bishop Paul Dempseys new ring. PHOTO: John Mc Elroy

Ireland's newest bishop has warned that while a second national lockdown would pose "a challenge" for the Church, the past few months have shown people not to take it for granted.

Speaking to the Irish Independent yesterday following his ordination, the new Bishop of Achonry Paul Dempsey said the church would listen to what the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) and the Government says.

"We have to go by their professional advice as the Church always does. It is a wait-and-see situation and obviously it is about the health and safety of the people," he said.

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"A second lockdown would be a challenge.

"I think perhaps the lockdown actually highlighted for a lot of people the importance of church and gathering for community in around church events and the importance of that.

"In a sense, lockdown, although challenging, it poses an opportunity for the church - in the sense of people not taking church for granted," he said.

Dr Dempsey said while funerals, weddings and baptisms have been affected by the lockdown, "I think people are appreciating the importance of the sacraments and how to celebrate them in a...way within the church context. I think it has highlighted that for a lot of people."

The 49-year-old was ordained in St Nathy's Cathedral in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, becoming one of the youngest priests in his own diocese.

The ceremony was due to have taken place on April 19 but had to be rescheduled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In his homily, parish priest Fr Vincent Sherlock admitted the ceremony took place in the absence of many whom Bishop Dempsey would have wanted to attend, including his two sisters who watched via webcam from New Jersey in the US.

The ceremony was attended by 50 people in a cathedral which has a capacity for 600.

A masked Papal Nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Jude Okolo, was joined by Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam and Bishop Denis Nulty of Kildare and Leighlin at the ceremony.

Bishop Dempsey was formerly parish priest of Newbridge in Co Kildare, one of the largest parishes in the country with approximately 32,000 parishioners.

The Diocese of Achonry has a Catholic population of 34,826 across 23 parishes in Mayo, Sligo and Roscommon.

The new bishop's former parish remains in lockdown and his former parishioners were unable to attend the ceremony.

In his address at the end of the ceremony, Bishop Dempsey appealed to his flock not to be "prisoners of mediocrity, but agents of hope".

He noted the world had "changed radically" since January 27 when the announcement of his appointment by Pope Francis was made in the diocese.

"None of us could have imagined how the pandemic, in the blink of an eye, could change our lives in such a profound way.

"Many lives have become fragmented, uncertain, somewhat fearful. It's all a bit wearisome," he said.

He also paid tribute to the role of online worship in enabling people to be "spiritually close" despite being socially distant because of the various restrictions of lockdown.

He suggested that the Covid-19 crisis posed an opportunity for the Church.

"Perhaps this crisis nudges us to reflect upon our relationship with Christ and with one another," he said and questioned if the Church had become satisfied with a place that was "familiar and safe".
Greece plan to extend territorial waters could cause war: Turkey

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 9:51 AM

Turkey has warned against Greece's controversial plans to extend its territorial waters, saying the move could cause a war between the two nations, which already remain locked up in a dispute over energy resources in the Mediterranean sea.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in parliament this week that the government will extend the western limit of its territorial waters in the Ionian Sea to 12 miles.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reacted to the plan in televised interview on Saturday, saying that Ankara "won't allow Greece to extend their sea border from 6 miles to 12."

He warned that the move "could cause war" in the region.

A standoff has already intensified between Turkey and Greece over oil and gas exploration rights in the eastern Mediterranean. The two have been at loggerheads over overlapping claims for hydrocarbon resources in the waters.

Turkey's discovery of major gas deposits in waters surrounding Crete and Cyprus has further escalated tensions between them.

Cavusoglu also warned France against supporting Greece in the recent escalation, saying that Paris wants to create a security force of the EU against NATO.

"NATO is one of the goals of the current escalation," he added.

The European Union (EU) has taken the side of Greece in the dispute. Last week, France deployed its naval forces to hold joint military exercises with Greece along with Italy, and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean.

Greece and Turkey almost went to war in 1974 over Cyprus, which has since been divided, with the northern third run by a Turkish Cypriot administration and the southern two-thirds governed by the Greek Cypriot government.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 1)  President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday he wanted a public discussion on a proposal to establish a revolutionary government in the country.

Duterte made the remark as he directed newly appointed Philippine Health Insurance Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer Dante Gierran to end corruption in the beleaguered state health insurance agency.

As I said, the revolutionary government should not be discussed in sub rosa (in secrecy). It should be discussed publicly, said Duterte during his weekly address.

The President also said discussions on the proposed revolutionary government in the country should include the military.

If they want to propose changes, then let us hear them out, he said.

Last August 25, Duterte denied ties to the Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte-National Executive Coordinating Committee, a group pushing for a shift to a revolutionary government.

The group pointed out a revolutionary government is the way to go to heal all the ills of our society without amending the 1987 Constitution.

Vice President Leni Robredo called the move illegal and nonsense as a subject of attention amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque assured Duterte will step down as president at the end of his term in 2022.

In 2017, the President threatened to declare a revolutionary government to fix the country's problems. He also previously campaigned on a promise to shift to a federal form of government to spur development in the provinces, but has not actively hinted on his next steps to push federalism in the past years.
In the hours after President Donald Trump accepted the Republican Party's nomination, public attention was largely centered on the president's broadly deceptive speech and the willingness of the administration to violate legal statutes barring the use of the White House for campaigning. So a report from CNN's Jim Acosta flew somewhat under the radar.

Acosta had asked a White House official why there was apparently no effort to implement social distancing measures for the audience at the speech. The official's response?

"Everybody is going to catch this thing eventually," the official reportedly said.

It's a staggering comment, for a variety of reasons. The most obvious is that everyone won't catch the novel coronavirus eventually, ideally; the point of developing a vaccine is to keep that from happening. What's more, even if there were no vaccine, there's a big difference between people catching it now and catching it in a year or two when there might be better therapeutic treatments or potentially a cure. It's like shrugging at people getting infections before the invention of penicillin.

But this was also one comment from one official, and it was not something that we could simply ascribe to the administration overall as a deliberate strategy.

Until Monday morning, when The Washington Post reported that something along these lines is gaining acceptance among White House leadership.

"One of President Trump's top medical advisers is urging the White House to embrace a controversial 'herd immunity' strategy to combat the pandemic, which would entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations, according to five people familiar with the discussions," The Post's Yasmeen Abutaleb and Josh Dawsey report. "The administration has already begun to implement some policies along these lines, according to current and former officials as well as experts, particularly with regard to testing."

Last week, new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scaled back the number of tests being completed for the virus, forgoing testing for those who weren't displaying symptoms but had been in contact with someone infected with the virus. One effect of this would be a political benefit for Trump, reducing the number of recorded coronavirus cases. Another effect would be to increase the transmission of the virus, as asymptomatic people can still infect others if not quarantined.

Trump has for some time insisted that the government's time is best spent protecting those in nursing homes and who are otherwise at risk, an approach to the pandemic that allows for more economic activity and - Trump again clearly hopes - fewer negative consequences for his reelection bid.

He's also repeatedly downplayed the risks associated with contracting the virus. At times, he's insisted that 99% of infections are "totally harmless," a claim that both misrepresents the deadliness of the virus and ignores the body of evidence showing that some infections yield long-term health effects and potentially permanent damage.

Over the weekend, he sought to bolster the idea that the virus isn't really as deadly as experts say by retweeting a QAnon supporter's claim that a CDC report showed that 94% of those identified as dying from covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, had other conditions at the time of their deaths. What the report actually showed was that in most cases, covid-19 killed people who were living with other conditions.

As one expert on cancer put it: "600,000 die of cancer each year. 95% likely have comorbidities. Doesn't mean cancer was not cause of their death."

It's obvious that covid-19 is killing Americans when we consider the number of people who've died relative to prior years. Through the middle of May, data from the New York Times showed 88,000 more deaths in 2020 than in the average number of deaths seen from 2014 to 2019. A report earlier this month estimated that about 200,000 more people had died so far this year than would have been expected from prior years.

It's a reminder, too, that the official tally of coronavirus deaths is likely under-, not overstated.

In other words, Trump's halfhearted assurances notwithstanding, a shift in the White House's strategy to allow for more widespread infections would likely mean tens or hundreds of thousands more deaths than would be seen with containment measures.

Precisely how many isn't clear. At this point, the country has been averaging more than 900 deaths per day for more than a month. The number of new cases is hovering at about 41,000 per day, on average. And since early July, the percentage of deaths relative to new cases two weeks prior has been between about 1.5% and 1.8%.

One projection of the death toll from the virus figures that the country will add another 90,000 deaths by Election Day. That assumes a reduction in efforts to contain the virus - which is reportedly what the White House is embracing.

Trump understood the risks of letting the virus spread without containment back in April, when he was defending the administration's decision to endorse a shutdown of economic activity. At a news briefing centered on the virus, Trump was asked about Sweden's decision to embrace a "herd immunity" approach to it, allowing it to spread widely enough that there would be enough people with immunity to slow the spread.

"I think we could have followed that approach," Trump said of Sweden's strategy. "And if we did follow that approach, I think we might have 2 million people dead."

That figure comes from an estimate developed by Imperial College London. When the White House first announced its support of containment measures, it used an upper-end estimate of 2.2 million deaths to describe what could happen if Americans didn't try to contain the virus's spread.

"Sweden," Trump added, "is suffering greatly."

In July, the Times described the country as the world's "cautionary tale," having tried to both continue operating as normal but allowing the virus to spread. The result was a much higher death toll as a function of population than its Scandinavian neighbors without significantly better economic results.

So what changed since April? At the time, there had been only about 21,500 deaths in the country, and the pandemic was seen as an emerging risk. Now, nearly 180,000 people have died, and a steady daily death toll of more than 900 people has become background noise in the national conversation.

It's an example of the saying often incorrectly first attributed to Joseph Stalin, that one death is a tragedy and a million a statistic. In this case, Trump would much rather focus on one death during violent encounters in Portland, Ore., or Kenosha, Wis., than the 12 daily coronavirus deaths that are happening in those states.

One he thinks helps him politically. The other he knows doesn't. So if everyone catches this thing, so be it.
Qantas must put people before profit

Statement by Australian Services Union

Qantas managements decision to bank a $124 million profit instead of paying workers for money owed to them shows even in a pandemic, people come second to profit at Australias biggest airline.

Qantas has refused to pay approximately 6000 workers between $1500 (part-time workers) and $2000 (full-time workers) owed to them.

The airline announced the cash payment to workers in 2018 to much media fanfare after handing down a record-high profit in that year.

Australian Services Union Assistant National Secretary Linda White said while management would downplay a $124 million profit in 2019-20, the number was an insult to Qantas workers struggling to put food on the table who have still not been paid what theyre owed.

Qantas lapped up the PR when it announced these payments but many workers are still waiting, White said.

Qantas says the business is battling but theyre clearly doing better than their workers.

$124 million is a big number for someone who is owed $1500 by the company.

For someone who has received very little income and has debts accumulating, $1,500 or $2,000 can be the difference between getting food on the table or paying your mobile phone bill.

Qantas tells the market theyre highly profitable and then in the same breath cries poor to its workers  its two faced and unethical.

Announcing a $124 million profit while still withholding money from workers who cant even pay the rent is just plain wrong.

White said Qantas workers had done everything in their power to help the company stay on its feet and deserved loyalty and fair treatment in return.

Qantas workers have borne the brunt of the economic impact of the pandemic and have bent over backwards to help the company get through this. Qantas workers dont just understand financial hardship, they are living it

Theyve agreed to shift changes, variation to their duties and some have not worked at all since March because theyre committed to the companys long-term success.

The loyalty of Qantas workers should be reciprocated by the company, but that is not what were seeing here.

Were calling on Qantas to put its hand into its giant $124 million wallet to pay workers what they are owed.

The amount owed to workers is a fraction of the profit result  it is time to pay workers what they are owed.
El presidente @MartinVizcarraC acudio al Colegio de Enfermeros del Peru, donde saludo y reconocio la esmerada labor de las enfermeras y los enfermeros en la atencion y cuidado de pacientes en la primera linea de batalla frente al Covid-19. pic.twitter.com/kugH4EtofS
If you were watching "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" on August 30, you would've seen a little boy roasting John Oliver over his scathing comments against Danbury.

That little boy happens to be 8-year-old Danbury resident Caio P. Leaf, who has been the face of Caio Ninja News on YouTube.

On the August 21 edition of the show, Caio addressed Oliver's comments on his hometown and even offered to go head-to-head with the comedian for a hosting competition.

I was so mad at him that I invited him to a duel," said Leaf in an interview, alongside his mother Emanuela Palmares, with Hearst Connecticut Media. Ill take the duel anytime, any place.

Oliver happened to see Leaf's commentary on YouTube, and shared a clip of his critique on the August 30th episode of "Last Week Tonight." Oliver went on to compliment Leaf however, he took offense that he kept putting his name in air quotes.

"For the record, that is the first time anyone has ever landed a successful burn that started with the phrase 'according to my mom.' Kudos kid," said Oliver during the segment.

"I was a little bit nervous about making mistakes but I just went through with it and just did it," said Leaf.

When Palmares showed her son the clip from Oliver's show, he was excited.

Palmares has helped her son put on Caio Ninja News since the beginning of the pandemic as a way for him to understand current events. The two put on the show in their Danbury basement and have set it up to mimic a news station.

According to Palmares, Leaf is on the autism spectrum and suffers from a rare lung disease, which has kept him inside for most of the pandemic.

"We started to tell him about [the pandemic] using what they call social stories for the autism community," said Palmares. "He started to say that we need to let everyone know that they cant leave the house and they have to wear a mask."

I want to keep everyone safe. That is why I invented the show," added Leaf.

Leaf is currently doing remote learning for the beginning of the school year as well as producing more episodes of Caio Ninja News. He said he hopes to do two seasons of the news segment and then transition to something else.

Leaf additionally is looking forward to a response to his challenge for Oliver, which would also include a dance battle.

This is for Danbury, you monster," Leaf chuckled.
After years of toying with the idea of launching a drive-thru coffee truck, Kathleen Palm decided to take the leap and debuted Drink Tank on the city's Northwest Side.

Palm, who moved to San Antonio from Washington in 2015, said she got the idea after noticing a lack of drive-thru coffee trucks - a popular trend in the Northwestern United States - in the Alamo City.

READ ALSO: Here are 5 new coffee shops that have opened during the coronavirus in San Antonio

In 2019, Palm said she knew it was time and partnered with longtime local, family-owned coffee roasters What's Brewing to turn her dream into reality.

"They've been a huge help during this process," Palm said about What's Brewing. "That family has just been an amazing support system for this business. We all collaborated during this and it's been a lot of fun."
A political crisis in Libyas UN-backed government has resulted in widespread street protests and raising concerns about the future of peacebuilding efforts. Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj accused his interior minister Fathi Bashaga of acting unlawfully in giving his backing to the calls for improved living standards before sacking him from office pending an investigation to be conducted within 72 hours.

According to The Guardian, Bashagha was critical to the UN-backed government in Libya's handling of the year-long siege of the capital Tripoli by General Khalifa Haftars forces and fostered wider political ambitions. It was further suggested that Haftar was trying to exploit the divisions in the internationally recognised government by setting up checkpoints around the main disputed areas.

Moreover, widespread protests erupted earlier this week in western Libya, which is controlled by forces loyal to the UN-supported government, that led to further divison of ranks between Libyan PM Sarraj and Bashaga.

READ: UN Expresses Concern Over Libya As Prime Minister Sarraj Sacks Interior Minister Bashaga

Militants open fire on protestors

Earlier, the local militants allied with the government were reported to have opened fire on protestors with rifles and truck-mounted guns and even kidnapped some demonstrators in Tripoli. At first, Sarraj and Bashaga accused outlawed infiltrators for instigation of violence. Sarraj said that the protestors did not take any necessary permits for their rally and described the demonstrations as riots.

However, Sarraj suspended Bashaga on Friday and initiated an administrative investigation after the interior minister accused a government-allied militia of attacking the peaceful protesters in a complete flip from his earlier position.

READ: Libya's Tripoli- Based Gov Suspends Minister After Shooting

As per reports, the suspension of the interior minister led the militias in Tripoli to celebrate the decision by firing weapons into the air. In an effort to show up power, Sarraj has appointed a new defence minister, a new chief of defence staff, met up local municipal leaders and set up an inquiry into corruption in the health ministry over the past two years.

The UN mission in Libya, UNSMIL, expressed concerns about the excessive use of forces against demonstrators as well as the arbitrary arrest of a number of civilians. Moreover, reports did not clarify how many people were detained.

The US Embassy in Libya retweeted the UNSMIL's statement and urged the two Libyan leaders to cooperate in the interests of the common people. The acting UN special envoy for Libya, Stephanie Williams, has called for calm and expressed concerns about the turn of events, including reports of excessive violence in suppressing protests in Tripoli.

READ: Media Watchdog Urges Libyan Gov't To Release Reporter

READ: Libyan Commander Dismisses Rivals' Cease-fire As 'deception'
As many as 93,720 foreign labourers have been working in Vietnam as of August 2020, according to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA).

Illustrative image (Photo: https://plo.vn/)

They are mainly working as mangers, managing directors and experts, marking up 77.95 percent. The number of technical workers accounts for 22.05 percent of the total.

Previously, the provincial and municipal Departments of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs nationwide reported that as many as 93,425 foreigners had been working in Vietnam as of June 26, 2020, down 23.16 percent year on year.

Localities and representative diplomatic agencies of countries are asking Vietnam to permit 7,258 foreigner workers, mainly from China, Japan and the Republic of Korea, to enter Vietnam. They are experts working for Vietnams national key projects or projects applying new technologies invested by multinational groups.

The MoLISA will be responsible for granting new working permits or renewing working permits in line with legal regulations, thus facilitating foreign labourers and enterprises using foreign employees./. VNA

Foreigners join Vietnamese in fighting Covid-19 Vietnam is having a difficult time fully containing the spread of Covid-19 and there have been many community infections over the last few days.
FALLS TOWNSHIP >> In an effort to be fiscally responsible while ridding Falls Township Community Park of Canada geese, the Falls Township Supervisors approved a multi-faceted, year-long geese mitigation plan at a one percent savings over 2021. Stepped up geese management efforts began in 2015 and have significantly reduced the number of geese at the park, Falls Township Parks and Recreation...
Bollywood stars have condoled the death of former Indian President, Pranab Mukherjee who died in Delhi on Monday evening. Multiple actors and filmmakers took to social media to share tributes.

Actor Taapsee Pannu remembered how warmly he hosted the team of Pink over dinner. Had the honour of meeting him, watching #Pink in his presence , followed by a very warmly hosted dinner for the entire team. Can never forget the experience, his kind words n gesture that day. You will be missed sir #PranabMukherjee, she wrote.

Deeply Saddened!! A big loss for India. Former President of India Hon Shri #PranabMukherjee Sir will be forever remembered for his work & contribution for the development of India. My deepest condolences to @ABHIJIT_LS ji, the entire family & his millions of followers. https://t.co/nMnLj5g3Wt pic.twitter.com/FZVNEo8eh5  Riteish Deshmukh (@Riteishd) August 31, 2020

Rakul Preet Singh wrote, Deeply saddened by the passing away of former president Shri Pranab Mukherjee! My condolences to his family . Yet another Loss in 2020. #RIP Ajay Devgn paid condolences to his family saying, India loses a great statesman & respected leader My condolences to the family. #PranabMukherjee

India loses a great statesman & respected leader  My condolences to the family.#PranabMukherjee  Ajay Devgn (@ajaydevgn) August 31, 2020

Respected across ideological and political lines .. a true statesman .. Bharat Ratna and former President of India .. a great loss to the Nation #PranabMukherjee Om Shanti  pic.twitter.com/DKcc9en3sJ  Randeep Hooda (@RandeepHooda) August 31, 2020

Riteish Deshmukh shared a photo with the Mukherjee and wrote, Deeply Saddened!! A big loss for India. Former President of India Hon Shri #PranabMukherjee Sir will be forever remembered for his work & contribution for the development of India. My deepest condolences to @ABHIJIT_LS ji, the entire family & his millions of followers. Farhan Akhtar wrote, Deepest condolences to the family of Shri Pranab Mukherjee. @CitiznMukherjee RIP.

Mukherjee, 84, died on Monday in an army hospital in New Delhi, his son Abhijit Mukherjee said. He was admitted to the hospital on August 10. In a series of tweets, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote that in his decades-long political journey, Mukherjee made long-lasting contributions in key economic and strategic ministries and that he was an outstanding parliamentarian, always well-prepared, extremely articulate as well as witty.

I was new to Delhi in 2014. From Day 1, I was blessed to have the guidance, support and blessings of Shri Pranab Mukherjee. I will always cherish my interactions with him. Condolences to his family, friends, admirers and supporters across India. Om Shanti, Modi said.

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Vietnam works to promote role of AIPA

The National Assembly of Vietnam, as Chair of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) in 2020, has taken initiative in organising activities of AIPA in suitable forms, despite the complexity of COVID-19.





At a recent dialogue on the Vietnamese NA and the year of Vietnams AIPA Chairmanship, Vu Hai Ha, head of the AIPA 41 National Secretariat and head of the AIPA 41 content sub-committee, said the Vietnamese NA will make all-out efforts to ensure the success of the AIPA 41. (Photo: VNA)



The 41st General Assembly of AIPA (AIPA 41) slated for September 8-10 and activities during the year will be held online amidst the COVID-19 outbreak.



At a recent dialogue on the Vietnamese NA and the year of Vietnams AIPA Chairmanship, Vu Hai Ha, head of the AIPA 41 National Secretariat and head of the AIPA 41 content sub-committee, said the Vietnamese NA will make all-out efforts to ensure the success of the AIPA 41.



Vietnam aims to raise two initiatives during AIPA 41, one of which is to set up a mechanism named young parliamentarians conference in order to promote the role of youths. The other one is to connect AIPAs activities with those of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the implementation of the UNs 2030 agenda on sustainable development.



According to Nguyen Van Giau, Chairman of the NA Committee for External Relations and deputy head of the standing board of the Organising Committee of AIPA 41, following Vietnams proposal, each AIPA committee will issue a resolution, and proposals sent by countries will be collected and integrated into a joint draft resolution to be submitted to the General Assembly.



Since joining the AIPA in 1995, the Vietnamese legislature has made significant contributions to the organization.



In 2007, Vietnam proposed holding dialogues between leaders of ASEAN and AIPA, with the first informal dialogue held in 2009, and the first official one held in 2010 during Vietnams hosting of AIPA 31. Such dialogues have been held regularly in the framework of ASEAN and AIPA Years since then.



Another noteworthy proposal of Vietnam was that the AIPA Committee on Economic Matters should issue a resolution promoting the development of micro- and small enterprises.



The AIPA was set up in September 1977 under the name of ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organisation (AIPO) with five founding members: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Its name was changed to ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) in 2006.
A 21-year-old man who died in hospital Friday, two days after being shot, has become the city's 31st homicide victim of 2020.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 31/8/2020 (507 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 21-year-old man who died in hospital Friday, two days after being shot, has become the city's 31st homicide victim of 2020.

The victim has been identified as Mohammed Yonis Ali of Toronto.

Winnipeg police responded to reports of shots fired in the 800 block of Aberdeen Avenue on Aug. 26 at 8:45 p.m. Ali was rushed to hospital in critical condition.

It remains unclear how long he had been in Winnipeg before his slaying, or what his connection to the city was, police said.

Anyone with information about the homicide is asked to contact investigators at 204-986-6508.

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.

On Monday, police also announced an arrest in the slaying of Owen Russell Smith, who was shot on the 400 block of Selkirk Avenue just after 8 a.m. on Aug. 4.

Smith, 29, was rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

On Friday, detectives arrested Albert Sam Campeau, 38, of Winnipeg. He has been charged with second-degree murder and detained in custody.

In 2019, Winnipeg experienced its deadliest calendar year on record with 44 slayings. Last year, the 31st homicide was recorded on Oct. 16.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @rk_thorpe




By Lee Min-hyung







JB Financial Group said Monday it has changed the name of its Vietnamese securities arm to JB Securities Vietnam (JBSV), expressing its vision to turn the company into the group's major overseas investment banking subsidiary.







In December 2019, the Korean financial group's banking arm, Kwangju Bank, acquired Morgan Stanley Gateway Securities at $16.5 million, with a view to expanding its revenue streams into the emerging Asian economic powerhouse.







JBSV will focus on finding new investment sources particularly in the Vietnamese real estate market, and help investors here and abroad expand their businesses there, the group said.







"JBSV will spearhead the group's expansion in the Vietnamese financial market by helping JB's key subsidiaries find fresh investment opportunities there," JBSV CEO Kim Doo-yoon said. "JBSV will also focus on the investment banking sector in Vietnam which has huge growth potential, and this will allow JB to diversify group-wide revenue sources there."







The company will also be active in arranging mergers and acquisitions (M&A) there for potential investors and helping companies operating business there issue corporate bonds, JB Financial Group said.







After JB took over the Morgan Stanley subsidiary late last year, the group has been working on winning a license from the country's financial regulators to operate a financial business there.







JB Financial Group is one of Korea's mid-tier financial holding companies. Group Chairman Kim Ki-hong has reiterated his willingness to expand into Southeast Asian territories  such as Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia.







The vision comes as part of JB's group-wide strategy to generate more profits in non-banking sectors. Last year, Kim also expressed his vision to push for aggressive M&As in the Southeast Asian market.







JB is building stable business footholds in Myanmar and Cambodia. The company expects the launch of the Vietnamese investment banking subsidiary to help build a more stable overseas business portfolio.






Some weeks ago, a possible link between a defunct Roanoke manufacturing concern and construction of the Panama Canal was discussed here. No specific link was found, but interesting tangents to the search were examined and described.

Todays update is that the connection between shuttered Virginia Bridge & Iron Co. and the canal continues to be elusive, but those tangents keep appearing.

Contributors to the current discussion include a couple of engineers, one who worked for Virginia Bridge, and a third nonengineer who is a voracious reader and researcher and longtime friend of the newspaper.

To open this box of a freshly delivered potpourri of loosely connected information, we start with speculation about a possible link between the Panama Canal and the Star City introduced by Mike Ramsey.

Being a former member of the board of directors of the Virginia Museum of Transportation and a self-described engineering junkie, Ramsey recalled one of the prized pieces in the museums collection, a electric towing locomotive used for decades to assist international shipping pass through the Panama Canals series of locks.

Dubbed a Panama mule in honor of the pack animal that traditionally served as transportation crossing the pre-canal isthmus of Panama, the No. 686 under stewardship of the transportation museum was said to be one of only three remaining in the world, according to a 1974 article in the Reporter, the newspaper that served the Salem General Electric plant.

The 686 was manufactured by GE in Schenectady, New York, in 1914, the year the canal opened. Reference to the canal in this space prompted Ramsey to reflect on his original fascination with the mule housed in local quarters.

It always seemed odd that we would have such a piece of equipment that had no connection to Roanoke or Virginia, Ramsey wrote in an email.

The researcher speculated that if Virginia Bridge had any role in the canal project, that may have brought the company to the attention of canal financier J.P. Morgan, whose American Bridge Co. did build movable bridges as part of the canal construction.

American Bridge years later bought out Virginia Bridge, perhaps suggesting the Roanoke company did contribute to the canal project. If so, Ramsey posited, perhaps that was the connection that brought the mule to the museum on Norfolk Avenue.

Alas, further investigation through the museums website would seem to undermine that theory. In a description of the 686 exhibit, the connection is identified as GE and one of its Salem employees.

According to the story that ran in the Reporter, the employee was the late Dorn Thomas, who had grown up in the Panama Canal Zone before embarking on a career that ultimately led him to the Salem plant.

The story goes that Thomas was reading a 1972 edition of another GE news organ as he was waiting for a business flight and came across an interesting notice from a New York man who said he had acquired one of the Panama mules when it was retired in 1964 and now was seeking a new home for it.

Its a fascinating little beast: 42 tons of electric motors, gear trains, cog wheels, winches and controls, went the sales pitch in the notice. Its one of the earliest successful applications of three-phase AC electric power to traction equipment. It deserves to be in a museum.

That apparently had been the plan as a museum devoted to electrical power had been proposed for Schenectady.

Thus, through the cooperation of the United States Navy and three railroads, the 686 traveled by sea to Norfolk then to New York by rail. Sadly, the proposed museum of electricity was never built, the mule went into storage, and by 1972 was in danger of being scrapped.

So inspired, Dorn Thomas then spearheaded a fundraising campaign to bring the mule to Roanoke and the museum. The city and the local chapter of the National Railway Historical Society pitched in, and thats how the 686 made its last journey to Virginia.

It is not just an assembly of metal parts, but a commitment made on our behalf by Americans and others many years ago and many miles away, Thomas said in the May 24, 1975, dedication of the mule exhibit.

Although evidence of Virginia Bridges participation in the canal project remains elusive, we do know that it was part of another massive construction effort. The company provided steel materials for construction of the K-25 building that housed the gaseous diffusion process at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as part of the Manhattan Project to produce the first atomic bomb.

Retired engineer Roy Minnix got his start in the mailroom at Virginia Bridge straight out of Jefferson High School Class of 1943.

The 93-year-old Minnix called in to recount his daily duty of each morning driving a company car from the plant at the intersection of Orange Avenue and Hollins Road to the old downtown post office fronting Lee Plaza to pick up the mail. Returning to the plant, hed pick up a carload of fellow employees hitching rides from locations along Campbell Avenue.

Minnix said he wondered at the time about all those packets he mailed from the bridge company to some outfit in Oak Ridge called the Kellex Corp.

We never knew what it was, he says now.

Kellex was a subsidiary of the M.W. Kellogg Co., a chemical engineering specialist that had a lead role in the plant design at Oak Ridge. Kellex was started in 1942 so that Kellogg could keep its Manhattan Project work separate and secret, according to Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb by Vincent Jones.

Somehow, despite thousands of people working on the project at multiple locations, the secret held.

Its no secret Virginia Bridge had projects all over the place, a fact supported by reader and engineer John Ruth, who called in to report a bridge in San Antonio built by the company. M.S. Hanna sent in a picture of the 1922 dedication plaque taken on a 2016 trip to the Texas city.

Ruth, who worked for Hayes Seay Mattern & Mattern when it designed the city jail, recalled that Virginia Bridge had fabricated the bars on the cells.

A bridge to freedom the steel for that project clearly was not.

If youve been wondering about something, call Whats on Your Mind? at 777-6476 or send an email to whatsonyourmind@roanoke.com. Dont forget to provide your full name (and its proper spelling if by phone) and hometown.
The first "historic" commercial flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi carrying officials from Israel and the US, including President Donald Trump's senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner, to discuss the recently agreed normalisation of Israel-UAE ties under American mediation took off from the Ben-Gurion airport on Monday morning.

The development is being also seen as a major breakthrough because the Israeli national carrier, El Al, is likely to fly over the Saudi airspace which is being interpreted by analysts as acceptance of Israel by the Gulf countries in general, and a probable normalisation of ties with some of the other "friendly countries" in that region.

The Israeli Airline Pilots Association released a tentative map of LY971's route on Sunday evening, showing the plane slated to cross through Saudi airspace.

Israel's Channel 12 reported that Saudi Arabia had authorised the use of its airspace after receiving a request from Washington and only agreed to do so because a high-level American delegation will be onboard.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug.31

Trend:

Azerbaijans Gubadli district was occupied by Armenian troops on August 31, 1993, Azerbaijans Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jeyhun Bayramov tweeted, Trend reports on August 31.

Bayramov reminded that ethnic cleansing was carried out against the Azerbaijani population.

"Twenty-seven years without Gubadli... The area was occupied by the armed forces of Armenia on August 31, 1993, and ethnic cleansing was carried out against the Azerbaijani population. All the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, including Gubadli, will be liberated and the Azerbaijanis will return to their homes," he said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, 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 the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - A Star of David-adorned El Al plane flew from Israel to the United Arab Emirates on Monday, carrying a high-ranking American and Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi in the first-ever direct commercial passenger flight between the two countries.

The Israeli flag carriers flight marked the implementation of the historic U.S.-brokered deal to normalize relations between the two nations and solidifies the long-clandestine ties between them that have evolved over years of shared enmity toward Iran.

With the U.S. as matchmaker, Israel and the Emirates agreed earlier this month to work toward normalization, which would make it the third Arab nation to have full relations with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan. Unlike those two nations, Israel has never fought a war against the UAE and hopes to have much-warmer relations.

The American delegation included U.S. President Donald Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as national security adviser Robert OBrien. Israel was represented by national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and other top officials.

At an airport ceremony in Abu Dhabi, Kushner called the visit a historic breakthrough and expressed hope this will be the first of many such flights.

There is great urgency between the people of both countries to break down old barriers, to get to know each other, to form new and hopefully very deep friendships, he said.

State television in Abu Dhabi broke into its broadcast to show the airplane on the tarmac and aired the comments of all officials, including Ben-Shabbat, who spoke in Arabic and Hebrew. No Emirati officials spoke at the ceremony.

We came here in broad daylight and before the eyes of all in a plane bearing the flag of Israel along with our American friends, Ben-Shabbat said. Israel and the UAE have much in common. Our region is full of challenges and threats. But we have the strength and the ability to stand against them.

The El Al flight, numbered LY971 after the UAEs international calling code number, flew into Saudi Arabian airspace shortly after takeoff and later passed over the capital, Riyadh. That marked another historic first for Israel and signalled acquiescence by the kingdom for the UAEs move.

They were very gracious to allow us to fly over their airspace, which theyve never done before, for an Israeli commercial plane, Kushner said.

He said he would be travelling to Saudi Arabia after the visit. Kushner and other officials have said they hope more Arab nations will follow the UAE in establishing ties with Israel, even without a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Saudi King Salman, along with other Gulf Arab leaders to varying degrees, maintain their boycotts of Israel in support of Palestinians obtaining an independent state. Any regular flights between Israel and the UAE would require Saudi clearance to be profitable. Otherwise the three hour, 20 minute flight would have taken more than seven hours.

The plane was decorated with the the words for peace in Arabic, Hebrew and English above the pilots window.

The Israeli delegation will stay in the capital, Abu Dhabi, for one night before returning home on El Al flight LY972, a reference to Israels international calling code.

Private jets have earlier flown between the two nations as part of covert talks, and Abu Dhabis Etihad Airways flew cargo freighters to Israel before to deliver coronavirus aid to the Palestinians. But the high-profile flight Monday looked to place a solid stamp on the surprise Aug. 13 White House announcement of Israel and the UAE establishing ties.

Since then, telephone calls were connected, and the UAEs ruler issued a decree formally ending the countrys decades-long boycott of Israel. Some Israeli firms have already signed deals with Emirati counterparts, and Mondays visit is expected to usher in further business co-operation.

The UAE has touted the deal as a tool to force Israel into halting its contentious plan to annex parts of the West Bank sought by the Palestinians for their future state. It also may help the Emirates acquire advanced U.S. weapons systems that have been previously unattainable, such as the F-35 fighter jet. Currently, Israel is the only country in the region with the stealth warplanes.

The Palestinians, however, have fiercely opposed the normalization as peeling away one of their few advantages in moribund peace talks with Israel. Palestinians have held public protests and burned the UAE flag in anger.

In the West Bank, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said it was very painful to see the flight take place. He also criticized El Al for picking a plane named for Kiryat Gat, a southern Israeli city built near the ruins of what were once Arab villages before the 1948 establishment of Israel.

During the Arab-Israeli war at that time, thousands of Egyptian troops were encircled by Israeli forces, including future Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

It hurts us very much today when an Israeli plane lands in the Emirates, under the flight name Kiryat Gat, the settlement which was built on the occupied Palestinian lands of the town of Fallujah in which Gamal Abdel Nasser was trapped, in a clear and a blatant violation of the Arab position toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, he said.

Shtayyehs government has severed ties with the U.S. and rejected Trumps Mideast plan, saying it unfairly favours Israel.

In a reference to the Palestinians, Kushner said the very few who have been critical of this peace agreement are the ones with a long track record of failure and trapping their people in misery and poverty.

But he also said he sent a message of hope to the Palestinians.

When they are ready, the whole region is very excited to help lift them up and move them forward. But they cant be stuck in the past, he said.

Israelis eagerly anticipate the prospect of mutual embassies, expanding tourism to the Gulf and solidifying business opportunities with another country that shares its penchant for technology and innovation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has touted the deal as validation of his vision that regional peace doesnt require Palestinian acquiescence or come at the cost of ceding land.

But he has come under fire from supporters at home for seemingly giving up on dreams of annexation and tacitly agreeing to the F-35 sale that could undermine Israels regional superiority. Kushner reiterated the U.S. commitment to maintaining Israels qualitative military advantage over its Arab neighbours.

For Trump, the accord delivers a key foreign policy victory as he faces a tough reelection campaign. It also helps solidify an emerging anti-Iran alliance that includes Israel and pro-western Arab governments.

Right now the biggest threat we see in the region is Iran, Kushner said.
These are tax, judicial, law enforcement, healthcare, educational reforms, as well as capital amnesty.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has outlined a list of reforms Ukraine needs, including tax, judicial, law enforcement, healthcare, educational reforms, as well as capital amnesty.

"There is still a lot of work ahead. Its scope is clear  just look at the election programs of the president and the Servant of the People's Party," he said at an extraordinary congress of the Servant of the People's Party in Kyiv, an UNIAN correspondent reports.

Read alsoCabinet announces five Euro-integration reforms in economyAccording to Zelensky, some of the promises have been fulfilled.

"The rest, everything that we promised people, we must fulfill 100%, and we will do it. We must fulfill with you," he said, adding "this is tax reform, capital amnesty, judicial and law enforcement reforms, quality education, healthcare system, and standard of living."

Minimum wage in Ukraine: background
A 15-year-old Tuscaloosa boy was killed and four others were injured Sunday afternoon in a wreck on U.S. 82, authorities said Monday.

The teen, who was not named, was seriously injured in the wreck around 4:18 p.m. Sunday near the 60-mile marker of U.S. 82, about seven miles east of Tuscaloosa, according to Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Senior Trooper Reginal King.

The boy, who was not wearing a seat belt, was ejected from the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado he was riding in after it was struck by a 2007 Ford F-150, King said. The teen was taken to DCH Regional Medical Center, where he later died.

The 62-year-old driver in the F-150, his passenger, the driver of the Silverado and another passenger in the Silverado sustained injuries in the wreck, King said. They were all taken to DCH Regional Medical Center.

No further information on the wreck was available as troopers continued to investigate.
In a recent phone interview from her familys home, Ms. Majimbo reflected on the strangest part of newfound internet fame: People are obsessed with the chips.

She said she gladly shared that she bought her sunglasses from a street vendor outside her school in Nairobi for $2, but now, with so much interest in the chips she eats during her videos, she has no intention of telling anyone what flavor or brand they are. Itll be a big reveal and Ill say something like, Tonight at 7 p.m. Im revealing what chips I eat, she joked. But I wont do it anytime soon.

There are many challenges of trying to grow an audience internationally as a young African woman, Ms. Majimbo said. But these past few months have slowed some of her early detractors.

Im young, Im African, Im a woman, and on top of all that Im dark skinned, so things are way harder than they are for others, especially men, she said. Then there are men  its always men, I dont know why  online who say, Youre in Africa, so you cant do comedy there, which isnt true at all."

Her rose gold iPhone 6 is her most prized possession, an essential tool for her comedy career.

I worked hard and saved up for six months, she said, of getting the phone three years ago. My hard work? For six months I sold my lunch and when I had enough money, I upgraded. (Also a joke.)

Now, Ms. Majimbo is in talks with the cosmetics company MAC Cosmetics Africa. She has worked on two projects with Comedy Central. And as her audience has grown, she is making some adjustments. Most of her Instagram videos used to be in both English and Swahili, but now they are primarily in English.
MIDDLETOWN  A grandmother and her grandson walk through a warehouses garage door, tucked underneath the Arrigoni Bridge in the citys North End.

The sun streams through the grid of the high, foggy, glass windows as the pair are greeted by the masked, smiling face of Kerry Kincy, founder of Free Center, situated at the intersection of art, culture and community organizing.

The goal of Free Center is to act as a vehicle for elevating the intentions and actions of residents, according to its mission.

The two appeared comfortable at the 52 N. Main St. location, the former Gorilla Graphics site. The exposed beams, antique furniture and bold art make for a place begging for community members to bring their talents, artistic expressions, and unique characters.

Come on in, sweet boy! says Kincy, who welcomes the duo into with an elbow bump. The grandson has been working on painting signs for her to display at an upcoming farmers market. His creation is the next addition to Kincys vision for the space.

Free Center is a lot about trying to connect everybody, Kincy said. Everybody wins when theres something going on.

Free Center provides a space for anyone and everyone to gather, share artwork, perform and reflect  free of charge. Community members can reserve the space or just wander in.

This is not Connecticuts first Free Center. Richard Hollant, founder of the Free Center in Hartford, said hes always had an affinity for Middletown and its possibilities. It took Kincy to bring them to life.

Hollant learned on social media about Kincys idea to bring a healing and creative space to Middletown. In May, he decided to visit.

In the midst of a pandemic, I decided to go see what was happening in Middletown, Hollant said. Not necessarily thinking it would be another Free Center  just supporting a kindred spirit.

Every idea Kincy shared about her endeavor aligned with the Free Centers goals. Shes looking to build a spot for inclusivity, exposure and access. Its intended as a place where people are free to be themselves, she said.

This wasnt for me, Kincy said. It was for the community. And learning that Richard had already kind of got the ball rolling with it, I said, How can I extend this here?

Kincy, who owned the one-time boutique Butter Curated Exchanged Goods, on lower Washington Street, invested a lot of her own money in getting the Free Center off the ground. Soon, people started to donate money to help her install drywall and for other construction costs.

Because of the pandemic, programming is limited. There is a stage for concerts, such as Afro-pop. Instead of in front of a lively crowd, these are livestreamed on Zoom. Kincy still welcomes people to come in with masks to share their pandemic-related art and feelings.

Folks are coming and they are filling the space with their gifts, Kincy said.

Hollant pointed out that while there may be other art- or expression-related venues around, they charge a fee. The cost of entry to other venues prohibits folks in the community from seeing a celebration of things they believe in, he said.

The Free Center is also designed as a place for members of the community to advocate for those things they believe in, Kincy said. She hopes people will bring art and photos from the past several months of the pandemic, including protest signs, to adorn the mostly blank walls.

There are all different ways people make calls to action, Kincy said. And I welcome all of those. But, for me, I am about providing that space to give that voice.

Along with the blank walls, the wide-open area upstairs is unfinished. There are a few chairs up there, but Kincy is waiting for the community to bring ideas and suggestions for what it can become.

As we grow and evolve, so will the space that is above, Kincy said.

Kincy hopes Free Center can be healing for a population reeling from two pandemics  COVID-19 and racism  as a place to reflect, share and learn.

Creating the center has been healing for Kincy, who has been unable to do her job as an expressive arts practitioner and community psychology consultant for organizations, schools, hospitals and other institutions. Without her usual purpose, she found herself craving the exchange of ideas and contact with others.

I realized that it was essential to me, as well as those I worked with, Kincy said. Theres sharing, theres touching, and I was unable to do that. I was able to come in here, and make and create and build it for the communities that I serve, which became its own healing for me.

She encourages anyone with artwork or photos they created during the pandemic or for racial justice protests to submit their creations via the website at freecenter.us. For information, check out Free Center on Facebook, call 860-992-8665 or email book@middletownfreecenter.org.
T he UK Government has said the European Union is making Brexit talks "unnecessarily difficult" after France accused the UK of deliberately stalling in negotiations.

It comes as Britain and the bloc remain in a stalemate as they try to agree on future trade ties.

UK-EU talks ended with little progress last week amid warnings of a no-deal Brexit if key issues are not settled within weeks.

With just four months until the transition period ends, both sides have failed to resolve various sticking points, like fisheries and state aid policy.

The UK Government hit back, accusing the EU of making it unnecessarily difficult to make progress / AFP via Getty Images

French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has now blamed Britain for the deadlock, saying talks are not advancing because of the intransigent and unrealistic attitude of the United Kingdom.

He told his countrys ambassadors that the bloc of 27 nations will not buckle under pressure from London.

On Brexit we always showed unity and proved wrong those who saw signs of an overall implosion of Europe," he said.

"It is in staying united that we can stick to our line of a global accord."

The EU's chief negotiator arriving at Downing Street for talks earlier this summer / PA

But Downing Street hit back, accusing the EU of making it unnecessarily difficult to make progress.

A spokeswoman said: We have been clear from the outset about the principles underlying the UK approach: we are seeking a relationship that respects our sovereignty and which has a free trade agreement at its core, similar to those the EU has already agreed with like-minded countries.

However, the EU is still insisting not only that we must accept continuity with EU state aid and fisheries policy, but also that this must be agreed before any further substantive work can be done in any other area of the negotiation, including on legal texts, making it unnecessarily difficult to make progress.

The prime minister gesticulates during a video call to the EU / via REUTERS

We will continue to work hard to reach agreement and look forward to the next round taking place next week.

It comes after Germany reportedly scrapped plans for Brexit talks at the EU ambassadors summit next week after a "completely wasted" summer of negotiations.

The German government, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU council, had planned to discuss Brexit during the meeting on September 2, according to the Guardian.

But an EU diplomat told the publication that Brexit has been "taken off the agenda" due to the lack of "tangible progress".

While Angela Merkel had been pegged as a potential dealmaker when negotiations resume and enter a critical stage on September 7, the diplomat said: Over the recent months Franco-German cooperation has gained new traction.

Given this new reality it would be futile to wait for a white knight from Paris or Berlin to come to the rescue.

Both sides have said September is an effective deadline for an agreement to allow time for it to be ratified before Britain leaves EU rules at the end of December.
This column owes an apology to celebrity cook Adam Liaw. Last month we wrote that his production company was trousering $394,900 from a government diplomatic grant to produce a TV show showcasing Aussie produce in Malaysian cooking. Turns out, that story was only half right. In fact, the TV presenter (who is also a columnist for this newspapers Good Food section) is receiving an additional $367,400 grant to make another, different TV program.

This time, Liaws production company Everday Media has been given a $367,400 grant by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trades Bushfire Recovery: Projecting Australia Overseas Program.

The cash will go towards producing a TV series originally titled Adam Liaws #EmptyEsky Road Trip, which according to DFAT is designed to communicate the trade and tourism recovery of Australian regions impacted by the bushfires, featuring travelogue-style scenery as well as personal stories.

The series has since been renamed Adam Liaws Roadtrip for Good.
The investigation into the death of a man from north Cork at an entrance to a hotel in Killarney on Saturday night is a criminal investigation, gardai have said.

Darragh Sheehan from Doneraile was unconscious when emergency services, called by staff at the Gleneagle Hotel, arrived at about 11.40pm.

Gardai and the emergency services attempted resuscitation but Mr Sheehan died at the scene.

The body of the 26-year old had remained at the scene at the bar/restaurant entrance to the Gleneagle Hotel for much of Sunday while forensics examiners carried out work.

His body was later removed to Kerry University Hospital and an autopsy has been completed.

The results of the autopsy are not being released for operational purposes, gardai said.

The investigation is continuing into the unexplained death outside the hotel, a statement said.

Gardai in Killarney are continuing to appeal for anyone with information in relation to this matter to come forward.

Gardai are also appealing for any road users or pedestrians who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) who were travelling in the Muckross Road area between 11pm and 11.45pm to make this footage available to Gardai.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Killarney Garda Station on 064 6671160, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station.

The scenes from Killarney on Saturday night have been described as 'disgraceful'.

Meanwhile "a significant number of people", including both patrons of the hotel and personnel at the hotel have been interviewed already and those interviews are continuing, a senior garda source has said.

The serious incident at the Gleneagle Hotel a half hour or so before midnight drew garda resources from the town centre when a large crowd of people were filmed partying and drinking openly on Main St without any social distancing.

Questions are still being raised about street partying in Killarney on Saturday night. The footage, which has gone viral, has threatened the towns reputation according to local politicians.

The mayor of Killarney councillor Brendan Cronin described the behaviour as disgraceful. Mr Cronin who is arranging a meeting with the towns Garda Superintendent, the president of Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, and the Killarney town manager, said on Monday that the meeting will have to address questions in relation to where the street drinkers captured on video purchased the alcohol.

It will also have to be determined if any premises which sold the alcohol can be held accountable.

Its an absolute necessity to determine where the drink was being purchased and to identify the hostelry, if any, it came from.

The key thing, Mr Cronin said, was not to allow a group of adults acting recklessly to ruin the reputation of the town and the genuine efforts it had made to operate safely.

Genuine businesses, and genuine staff and livelihoods were in danger of being destroyed.

We cannot allow a small group of adults  and these are adults not teenagers  destroy the genuine effort made in Killarney, Mr Cronin said.

Killarney Independent councillor Donal Grady said: "a fortune had been spent by the council protecting Killarney and making it safe and answers were needed about how such a scene could have occurred".
State Motor Vehicle Commission employees are making headway clearing the backlog of business that piled up after the coronavirus forced facilities to close for three months.

But even though almost two months have passed since agencies reopened, that process hasnt prevented drivers from having to line up early in the morning to get inside an agency to do their business.

Gov. Phil Murphy said the MVC has processed 1 million transactions in agencies and online since MVC agencies reopened on July 7.

I know people are upset about the linesit continues to be frustrating, Murphy said during Mondays press briefing.

MVC have expended online transactions to get people out of line. But those interviewed at agencies said they have business that must be done in person.

One month after the agencys reopening, Murphy said 55% of the three-month backlog had been eliminated. Similar to that milestone, drivers are still posting photos and video on social media documenting long lines and hours spent waiting.

State officials had no answer to questions asked at the governors Monday press conference about whether the MVC could extend the expiration date of documents that have to be renewed in September.

State attorney generals office official had no comment about whether another document expiration date extension or a special exemption for senior citizens was in the works, except that they were working with the MVC.

Murphy said hed like an answer to the senior citizen question. Both could spare drivers from the current ritual of getting to the MVC agency in pre-dawn hours to line up and get a number that reflects what the agencys daily capacity is for transactions.

Drivers on social media posted photos of lines of drivers waiting at agencies Monday morning.

@GovMurphy @1010WINS 6:10 AM 157 PPL on line at Oakland NJDMV! Other locations are even worse than here. Unable to renew online b/c photo is 4 yrs old, no ability to make an appointment. COVID or NO COVID this is #pathetic #njdmv #broken #welcometoNJ pic.twitter.com/3oRVn8knKx  H Sweetwood (@hsweetwood23) August 31, 2020

Legislation that would provide some relief for seniors and teens was approved by the state Assembly and Senate on Thursday and are heading to Murphy for approval or veto.

Those bills would allow teens who pass a road test to use their permit as temporary license and give new residents 120 days to get a New Jersey license and license plates, as long as a COVID-19 health emergency was in effect. Another bill that passed gives senior citizens age 65 and up relief by letting them use license photos for eight 8 years instead of four years.

We have to do whatever it takes to fix the MVC, so you dont have to camp out overnight or wait all day at an agency just to get these simple tasks done, said Assemblyman Daniel Benson, D-Middlesex, chairman of the assembly transportation committee. This bill will give many drivers relief, while helping the MVC eliminate its backlog.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com.
Who better than the man heading Indias largest bank to tell us about what works and what doesnt in a large institution? Steering the State Bank of India (SBI) is a dream job for any banker; at the same time, it is one of the toughest jobs in India. The SBI chiefs decisions are always under close scrutiny of the government and industry every single day. Thats because SBI is a trendsetter for Indias vast banking industry in every sense. Many even see the bank as a barometer of the health of the Indian economy.











For Rajnish Kumar, who hails from a small town in Uttar Pradesh and joined the bank as a probationary officer in 1980, it was a dream come true when the call came naming him as the chairman of the bank in October, 2017.



Now, after serving nearly four decades in the bank, Kumars term will end in October this year. In an exclusive chat with Moneycontrol, Kumar spoke about his professional life; who has inspired him in his career and what his key management advice to young bankers. Edited Excerpts:

What time do you like to be at your desk? My day in office normally begins at 10.30 am and this has been my routine throughout my career. I find morning hours good for meetings and interactions with colleagues, as my normal working schedule often involves long working hours, sometimes stretching into late evening.

Where is the best place to prepare for leadership: at business school or on the job? Undoubtedly, the best place to prepare for leadership is on the job. Although, theoretical grounding does help, there are several things that one cant learn in a business school. New learning happens on the job, every minute of each day. Therefore, a good leader is groomed over the years throughhands on experience ,on the job.

Describe your management style. I firmly believe in leading from behind. As they say, a leader is only as good as his team. I always believe that a good team is essential to make things happen. Fortunately, SBI has no dearth of talent. We have excellent resources across departments to take on challenges and guide the Bank forward. Im firmly behind my team for any direction or guidance they may require.

Are tough decisions best taken by one person or collectively? Tough decisions are best taken by one person. A group of people can debate and offer suggestions but ultimately, the leader has to take the final call andown the responsibility.

Do you want to be liked, feared or respected? As a leader, I would like to be respected by my colleagues. A leader is under the constant watch of his team and the respect earned by him is a direct function of his knowledge, conduct, approach to situations and crisis management skills.
Istanbul:

The search is on for an assailant in Turkey who unleashed a salvo of bullets in front of and inside a crowded Istanbul nightclub during New Year's celebrations on Sunday, killing at least 39 people before fleeing.

Foreigners were among the fatalities, including Indians, an 18-year-old Israeli woman, a 26-year-old man from Lebanon and a Belgian national, according to the countries' respective foreign ministries and a relative.

Close to 70 others were injured in what authorities described as a terror attack. Three of the wounded were in critical condition, Turkey's prime minister said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vehemently condemned "the terror attack in Istanbul's Ortakoy neighborhood in the first hours of 2017" and offered condolences for those who lost their lives, including "foreign guests."

The attacker, armed with a long-barreled weapon, killed a policeman and a civilian outside the popular Reina club at around 1:15 am (local time) before entering and firing on people partying inside, Gov. Vasip Sahin said.

"Unfortunately, (he) rained bullets in a very cruel and merciless way on innocent people who were there to celebrate New Year's and have fun," Sahin told reporters.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack and authorities did not name any suspects. The bloodiest attacks that Turkey endured in 2016 were the work of the Islamic State group or Kurdish militants.

Turkey is a member of NATO and a partner in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group. The country is also facing renewed conflict with Kurdish rebels in the southeast, and across the border in Syria and Iraq.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said a suspect has not been identified and that the gunman remains at large. Soylu, describing the attack as a "massacre, a truly inhumane savagery," said three or four of the Turkish victims may have been employees at the nightclub.

"Our security forces have started the necessary operations. God willing, he will be caught in a short period of time," Soylu said.

Private NTV news channel said the assailant entered the upscale nightclub, on the shores of the Bosporus, on the European side of the city, dressed in a Santa Claus outfit.

Security camera footage obtained by The Associated Press from Haberturk newspaper, shows the male assailant dressed in black and carrying a backpack as he shoots down a police officer outside the Reina nightclub.

Footage taken by a different camera shows him inside the venue wearing different clothes and a Santa Claus hat.

However, Turkey's prime minister denied that the gunman wore a Santa Claus outfit.

"There is no truth to this. He is an armed terrorist as we know it," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters.

Yildirim said the attacker left a gun inside the venue and escaped by "taking advantage of the chaos" that ensued.

Some customers reportedly jumped into the waters of the Bosporus to escape the attack.

Mehmet Dag, 22, was passing by the club and saw the suspect shoot at a police officer and a bystander. He said the suspect then targeted security guards, gunning them down and entering the club.

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Official White House Photo by Shealah CraigheadBy MEREDITH DELISO, ABC News



(MADISON, Wis.) -- Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers "respectfully" asked that President Donald Trump reconsider visiting Kenosha this week amid civil unrest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, saying he was concerned his presence would "only hinder our healing."



White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday that Trump planned to travel to the city on Tuesday to meet with law enforcement and survey damage from destructive protests, according to pool reports.



In response, the Democratic governor penned a letter Sunday urging the president to call off the trip.



"I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state," Evers wrote. "I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together."



Protests have occurred nightly in Kenosha, some 40 miles south of Milwaukee, over the police shooting of Blake, a 29-year-old Black man. The Aug. 23 incident, which was captured on cellphone video, has left Blake paralyzed.



On Tuesday, protests turned deadly, when an alleged 17-year-old gunman shot three protesters, killing two of them.



Hundreds of members of the National Guard have been deployed to Kenosha amid the civil unrest, and a state-of-emergency curfew has been extended through Tuesday.



In his letter, Evers expressed concern that a visit from the president would redirect resources from the city's recovery "at a time when it is critical that we continue to remain focused on keeping the people of Kenosha safe and supporting the community's response."



The letter comes as Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler called for Trump to "support us, or stay the hell out of the way," following a deadly shooting during protests in the Oregon city.



Jacob Blake's uncle, Justin Blake, told ABC News he thinks Trump is partially responsible for what happened to his nephew and for the violence across the country.



"How could they not be feeding on violence when the man in the White House is steadily drumming it up?" he said.



When asked about Trump's planned visit to Kenosha on Tuesday, Justin Blake said that his family has not heard from the president, but they don't want "anything to do with him."



"We believe he incited this violence," he said.



In his acceptance speech during the Republican National Convention last week, Trump painted the election as an existential choice between lawlessness and law and order, and listed Kenosha as one of the "Democrat-run cities" suffering from "rioting, looting, arson and violence."



His challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, charged Sunday that the president is "recklessly encouraging violence" and "fanning the flames of hate and division in our society."



In his letter, Evers noted that on Monday, the Wisconsin legislature will take up a policing accountability and transparency reform package.

"I would welcome your support of these initiatives," he wrote to Trump.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
This news release is not for distribution or dissemination in the United States of AmericaTORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / GreenBank Capital Inc. (CSE:GBC and OTC PINK:GRNBF and FRA:2TL) ("GreenBank or the Company") is very pleased ... GreenBank Capital Inc.

This news release is not for distribution or dissemination in the United States of America

TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / GreenBank Capital Inc. (CSE:GBC and OTC PINK:GRNBF and FRA:2TL) ("GreenBank or the Company") is very pleased to announce that it has entered into a contract with The Substantia Group to assist GreenBank's executive management team in fund raising, investment deal-flow analysis, due diligence, strategic planning, administrative and operational support, marketing and investor communications.

On July 28th, 2020, GreenBank announced its merchant banking strategy going forward, which includes working to raise funds and continuing to grow its portfolio of high potential companies. Today's agreement with The Substantia Group provides a proven, robust infrastructure and powerful additional resources to execute effectively on this strategy.

GreenBank anticipates that the next 90 days will prove to be a period of intense activity for the Company as it endeavors to build out its platform for substantial future growth. Consequently, the initial contract term with The Substantia Group is for 90 days and is renewable at the option of GreenBank. The Chief Executive of The Substantia Group is Mr. Terry Pullen, who also serves as a Director of GreenBank. The contract with The Substantia Group is designed to assist GreenBank in achieving the following:

Update and improve GreenBank's website and internet presence.

Enhance and communicate the potential of GreenBank's existing investments.

Carry out detailed and forensic due diligence in relation to GreenBank's pipeline of potential investments.

Work with the management teams of certain Greenbank portfolio companies in order to produce detailed operational plans and execution strategies.

Raise a minimum of $2,000,000CAD on terms that enhance the strategic position of GreenBank. This may include The Substantia Group leveraging its client base of high net worth and sophisticated investors as a potential source of investment into GreenBank.

Increase market awareness of GreenBank amongst professional investors and brokers to an extent sufficient to spur an average trading volume of at least $25,000CAD per day in GreenBank's common shares. It is GreenBank's belief that this will help ensure its shares become increasingly attractive as a potential currency for future acquisitions.

Story continues

In the event that these objectives are achieved within the next 90 days, The Substantia Group will receive compensation of 48,000GBP (~$84,000CAD as of the date of this release) and 500,000 fully paid newly issued Greenbank common shares. In the event that the objectives are not achieved, then Substantia will not receive any payment.

David Lonsdale, GreenBank Capital's CEO said, "I am delighted to have executed this service agreement with The Substantia Group. It provides us with the additional resources that we need to implement our merchant banking growth strategy and create added value for our investors. We are pleased that these additional resources in terms of infrastructure and execution capability are being provided entirely on a success-only basis, underscoring Substantia's confidence in Greenbank's potential to develop into a large global company".

Terry Pullen, CEO of The Substantia Group said, "Substantia is excited to become part of the team helping to deliver Greenbank's exponential growth strategy as it seeks to develop into a successful global company. The Substantia Group is highly motivated and inspired to be working with GreenBank and will endeavor on every level to over deliver on the services provided, in these changing times of unique opportunity"

About GreenBank

GreenBank is a merchant banking business listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (trading symbols CSE: GBC and OTCMKTS: GRNBF and FRA: 2TL). GreenBank's 100% subsidiary GreenBank Financial Inc. is a merchant bank. GreenBank has a multi-sector, multi-stage investment thesis with a global remit. GreenBank's investment approach is to identify companies with the capacity for rapid growth with a strong management team, that can be scaled and prepared for a public listing over a period of 6-24 months. GreenBank's portfolio companies comprise equity investments in 11 small cap businesses, namely; 19% of Staminier Limited, a United Kingdom Merchant Banking firm; 59.5% of Kabaddi Games Inc, developers of a mobile application game based on the sport of Kabaddi; 52.5% of Blockchain Evolution Inc, owners of the world's first identification based blockchain, and developers of Xbook a user permissioned and revenue sharing social media platform; 22.3% of Ubique Minerals Limited, a zinc exploration company in Newfoundland, Canada; 47.5% of GBC Grand Exploration Inc, a gold exploration company in Newfoundland, Canada; 19% of Inside Bay Street Corporation, a financial news communications company; 34.8% of Gander Exploration Inc, a minerals exploration company; 10% of Reliable Stock Transfer Inc, a Canadian small cap transfer agency; 25.2% of Buchans Wileys Exploration Inc, a minerals exploration company; 10% of The Lonsdale Group LLC, a USA based private equity company focused on small cap investments; and 11.2% of Minfocus Exploration Corp (TSXV: MFX), a mineral exploration company.

For more information please see www.GreenBankCapitalInc.com, or contact Mark Wettreich at (647) 693 9411 or by email Mark@GreenBankCapitalinc.com

Forward-Looking Information: This press release may include forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, concerning the business and trading in the common stock of GreenBank Capital Inc., the raising of additional capital and the future development of the businesses comprising GreenBank's investment portfolio. The forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the company's management. Although the company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because GreenBank can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and GreenBank disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, other than as required by applicable securities laws.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: GreenBank Capital Inc.





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/604014/Greenbank-Capital-Announces-Agreement-with-The-Substantia-Group-to-Help-Execute-Growth-Strategy




QINGDAO, China, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SOS Limited (the "Company") (NYSE: SOS) today announced that it has closed a private placement with a small number of sophisticated non-U.S. investors on August 27, 2020, pursuant to which it has sold 53,580,020 units, with each unit consisting of one Class A ordinary share and a warrant to purchase one Class A ordinary share, at a price of $0.2162 per unit. This represents a price of $2.162 per ADS, which is approximately a 15% premium over the Company's closing trading price on August 20, 2020.

The net proceeds from the private placement are approximately $11.6 million. A warrant to purchase one Class A ordinary share is included in each unit with an initial exercise price of $0.27 per Class A ordinary share, or $2.70 per ADS. The warrants are exercisable immediately upon issuance. Please refer to the Company's Current Report on Form 6-K filed on August 27, 2020 for further details.

Chairman Yandai Wang commented, "It is gratifying to see that investors who both understand the size of the opportunity and potential of our company demonstrate their confidence in SOS through an equity investment in the company."

The Company intends to use the proceeds for working capital and to accelerate its plans for growth and operational investments.

About SOS Limited

SOS Limited, through its operating subsidiary, SOS Information Technology Co., Ltd. ("SOS") is a high-technology company providing a wide range of services to its corporate and individual members, including marketing data, technology and solutions for emergency rescue services. SOS is focused on the research and development of big data, cloud computing, Internet of Things, blockchain and artificial intelligence. We have created a SOS cloud emergency rescue service software as a service (SaaS) platform with three major product categories, including basic cloud (medical rescue card, car rescue card, financial rescue card, mutual assistance rescue card), cooperative cloud (information rescue center, intelligent big data, intelligent software and hardware), and information cloud (News Today, E-Commerce Today). This system provide marketing-related data, technology solutions, and technology-driven big data to clients such as insurance companies, financial institutions, medical institutions, healthcare providers, auto manufacturers, security providers, senior living assistance providers and other service providers in the emergency rescue services industry. SOS has obtained a national high-tech enterprise certification, the title of "big data star enterprise" awarded by Gui'an New District Government, and has registered 11 software copyrights and 2 patents. For more information, please visit: http://www.sosyun.com/

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements made herein are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "believe," "expect," "estimate," "plan," "outlook," and "project" and other similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters. Such forward-looking statements include timing of the proposed transaction; the business plans, objectives, expectations and intentions of the parties once the transaction is complete, and SOS's estimated and future results of operations, business strategies, competitive position, industry environment and potential growth opportunities. These forward-looking statements reflect the current analysis of existing information and are subject to various risks and uncertainties. As a result, caution must be exercised in relying on forward-looking statements. Due to known and unknown risks, our actual results may differ materially from our expectations or projections. All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume a duty to update these forward-looking statements.

Additional information concerning these and other factors that may impact our expectations and projections can be found in our periodic filings with the SEC, including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019. SOS's SEC filings are available publicly on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. SOS disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE SOS Limited

Related Links

http://www.sosyun.com


There's a long list of eligible bachelors eager to take her out on a date.

But Megan McKenna is understood to have found the perfect suitor in her new partner, Josh Riley.

It was reported on Sunday that the X Factor Celebrity winner, 27, is 'smitten' with her new businessman beau after he won her heart over during a series of fancy dinner dates.

New couple! Megan McKenna is reportedly loved up with her new businessman beau, Josh Riley who she met earlier this year at the Hakkasan restaurant in Mayfair, London

Josh is said to have wined and dined the reality star as they enjoyed a date at the swanky Mayfair restaurant Hakkasan, where they originally met earlier in 2020.

He is the company director of the online men's fashion brand, Yelir World, which has been featured in GQ and has been worn by Wayne Rooney.

A source confirmed to The Sun that the pair are now an item and are planning their future together.

Loved up: The X Factor Celebrity winner, 27 is reportedly 'smitten' with her near beau after he won her heart over with some fine dining on a series of dates

They said to the website: 'Megan and Josh have been dating for a few months. Theyre totally smitten, its very sweet to see.

'The pair of them are taking it slow but they have been talking about the future.'

The reality star has been unlucky in love after failing to find romance on the 2019 series of Celebs Go Dating.

Awkward: Megan has been unlucky in love after failing to find romance on the 2019 series of Celebs Go Dating where she joined the dating agency at the same time as her ex, Pete Wicks

During the show, she bumped into her ex-boyfriend Pete Wicks, who had also signed up to the dating agency.

The pair had a tumultuous relationship which came to a head on The Only Way is Essex in 2017.

She also dated tragic Love Island star Mike Thalassitis before the couple separated in July 2018 after seven months of dating.

Devastated: Megan was heartbroken when she discovered her ex Mike Thalassitis- who she dated in 2018- had committed suicide in 2019 and she entered therapy to cope with the shock

Now, the future appears to be looking bright for the X-Factor starlet as she has reportedly entered the next phase of her relationship with Josh by meeting his family.

The source added: 'Megan seems so settled and happy now, Josh has made her feel really happy. She has met his family and they think shes absolutely lovely.

'She spent some time in Leeds with Josh and his relations when they were celebrating his sisters birthday. They have welcomed Megan with open arms.'
LUBBOCK, Texas, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Inc. magazine today revealed that CieloIT is No. 339 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nation's fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy's most dynamic segmentits independent small businesses. Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

"CieloIT is honored to be alongside some of the most successful companies in America. Our record growth rate of over 1329% in the last three years is an incredible feat and our Top 500 ranking is a true testament to the quality of leadership we have steering our company in the right direction," said BJ Carter, CEO, CieloIT. "We look forward to continuing on this exciting path."

Not only have the companies on the 2020 Inc. 5000 been very competitive within their markets, but the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior lists as well. The 2020 Inc. 5000 achieved an incredible three-year average growth of over 500 percent, and a median rate of 165 percent. The Inc. 5000's aggregate revenue was $209 billion in 2019, accounting for over 1 million jobs over the past three years.

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000. The top 500 companies are also being featured in the September issue of Inc.

"The companies on this year's Inc. 5000 come from nearly every realm of business," says Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. "From health and software to media and hospitality, the 2020 list proves that no matter the sector, incredible growth is based on the foundations of tenacity and opportunism."

About CieloIT

CieloIT was founded in 2009 and is a portfolio company of Cielo Global Holdings. CieloIT is a commercial integrator and managed services provider that specializes in providing turn-key project management, implementation and support services for their clients' IT, AV, communications, network security, and structured cabling needs via a world-class SaaS and MSP methodology.

About Inc. Media

The world's most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. For more information, visit www.inc.com .

Contact: Briana Vela

Marketing Director

[email protected]

(806) 410-1304 ext. 134

4747 S. Loop 289, Suite 210

Lubbock, TX 79424

SOURCE CieloIT

Related Links

http://www.cieloit.com


Taapsee Pannu and South actor Lakshmi Manchu have spoken against the alleged media trial of actor Rhea Chakraborty, accused of abetment to suicide in the Sushant Singh Rajput case. Lakshmi shared a note on Twitter in which she demanded justice not just for Sushant but for Rhea as well. Talking about the recent Rhea Chakraborty interview to India Today, she wrote, I thought a lot about if I should respond or not. I see so many people so silent because the media has made a monster out of a girl. I dont know the truth and I want to know the truth and I hope the truth will come out in the most honest way. I have complete trust in the judiciary system and all the agencies that are involved in bringing justice to Sushant.

I didnt know Sushant on a personal level nor do I know Rhea but what I know is, it only takes to be a human to understand how wrong it is to overtake judiciary to convict someone who isnt proven guilty. Trust the law of the land for your sanity and the deceaseds sanctity  https://t.co/gmd6GVMNjc  taapsee pannu (@taapsee) August 30, 2020

She further added, But until then can we restrain ourselves from being evil and cruel and lynching of person and her entire family without knowing the facts. I can only imagine the pain the entire family is going through with these so-called media trials. If something like this happened to me I would want my colleagues to stand up for me at least the ones that know me to say back off hang on leave her alone and I ask all of you to do the same back off hang on leave her alone until the entire truth is officially released. I am pained by what we have become. How are we being authentic if we dont speak our heart when we have a voice to lend. Im standing up for my colleague.

Also Watch l Sushants kin, Ankita Lokhande respond to Rhea Chakrabortys big charges

Reacting to Lakshmis post, Taapsee wrote, I didnt know Sushant on a personal level nor do I know Rhea but what I know is, it only takes to be a human to understand how wrong it is to overtake judiciary to convict someone who isnt proven guilty. Trust the law of the land for your sanity and the deceaseds sanctity.

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajputs health deteriorated after returning from Europe, he would often cry: Samuel Miranda

Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma had also shared a video last week about why the media should stop a witch-hunting against Rhea. He had said the second by second media coverage of the case and passing judgement on Rheas character without any credible evidence was nothing less than a witch hunt against the Jalebi actor.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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Over the past years, the relationship of Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle has been plagued with controversies.

Dubbed as the "fab four" alongside their husbands Prince William and Prince Harry, the royal quartet first publicly appeared at the Royal Foundation Forum in February 2018.

Unfortunately, things went south when rumors regarding the alleged feud between the two duchesses circulated, including the infamous incident during Meghan's royal wedding.

Kate Middleton MIA During Meghan Markle's First Introduction to the Royal Family

The bombshell biography "Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Family" delved into the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's royal exile and their relationship with the members of the monarchy.

Written by longtime royal journalists Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, the controversial biography claimed that Meghan was "disappointed" that Duchess Kate didn't show up for her first meeting with the family, per reports obtained by Fox News.

According to "Finding Freedom," Prince Harry arrived at the Kensington Palace in November 2016 with his then-girlfriend to introduce her to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge/ However, the royal mom was in their Norfolk estate home along with her children.

"Meghan was disappointed she didn't get to meet Kate, who was with the children at Anmer Hall, the couple's Norfolk estate home near Sandringham," the book revealed. "But having gotten along so well with Harry's brother, she didn't think much more about that. William had made his feelings known to his brother when he shared how happy he was to see Harry smiling."

Furthermore, the tell-all book also mentioned that Meghan was anxious meeting Prince William, who is known to be "protective" of his younger brother.

Before meeting the future king of England, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had only been dating for a few months after they reportedly met on a blind date in July 2016.

A year later, the couple surprised the public with their engagement announcement, stating their plans to tie the knot in the Spring of 2018.

"His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, is delighted to announce the engagement of Prince Harry to Ms Meghan Markle. The wedding will take place in Spring 2018. Further details about the wedding day will be announced in due course," the Clarence House said in a statement.

In their first interview as an engaged couple, Prince Harry told BBC that the Cambridges are thrilled to meet Meghan.

"I'd been seeing her for a period of time when I - literally didn't tell anybody at all. And then William was longing to meet her, and so was Catherine," the Duke of Sussex shared.

Meghan Markle Tried to "Break the Ice" with Kate Middleton with a Lovely Present

Moreover, "Finding Freedom" mentioned that the former actress was formally introduced to the royal mom during her birthday in January 2018. She gifted Kate Middleton a leather-bound Smythson notebook as she tried "to break the ice" with the duchess, per Hello magazine.

"The soft leather Smythson notebook helped to break the ice, as did Meghan's cooing over then 20-month-old Charlotte."

READ MORE: Royal Suffering: 'Prince Harry of the North' Ruined After Megxit
In the entire career span of Rajkummar Rao, he has stood out as an actor. From being a next-door boy in Stree to playing Subash Chandra Bose, Rajkummar has given praiseworthy roles that prove the fact he is the king of versatility. Rao made his debut with Dibakar Banerjees Love, Sex Aur Dhoka and the movie buffs somewhere knew that his performances will create a revolutionary moment in the industry.

We have time and again said that Ranveer Singh is the King of versatility but if you look at Rajkummars movie choices and his acting skills, we would like to call him the real chameleon of the Bollywood industry whose boundaries are way too far stretched.

Rajkummar Rao has always broadened his spectrum and never failed to disappoint the viewers. Here are 5 such roles that we feel he pushed himself to become his own best version and prove that he is someone who can pull off tough roles with ease.

1. Trapped

This is one of the Rajkummar Rao movies thats not appreciated to the level it should have been. Its a survival film and it gives you goosebumps to see how Raj pulled off this intense role. He survived on just coffee and carrots for almost 20 days to get into the skin of his character in Vikramaditya Motwanes film. On the trailer launch, he said, It was physically and mentally exhausting for me to live in that space for almost 18-20 days, to eat nothing. Trust me, its scary to hell. If you dont eat for two days you feel so frustrated, angry about everything. There were times when there was a blackout. I used to get up and sit quietly for a moment. But thats the fun of being an actor. I feel very lucky to play such parts and work with such filmmakers.

2. Omerta

Its again one challenging film where Rajkummar left no stone unturned. He essayed the role of a British terrorist of Pakistani descent Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. If you have seen the movie, you cannot deny the fact that he was indeed pure evil. A lot goes into convincing the viewers of the negativity in a character and Raj did that really well. Talking about the film, Raj told IANS, Omar in Omerta is certainly one of the most challenging characters I have ever played on screen. It drained me completely emotionally and physically. I could never have imagined that playing this part would mentally take me to such dark places. It's a journey of one of the most deadly terrorists of our times and Hansal sir pushed me out of my boundaries to explore.

3. Bose: Dead/Alive

This is one of the roles of Rajkummar that I personally loved as he went to a different level to portray Subhash Chandra Bose. He made you feel he is the real Bose and its not an easy task. For Bose, he had to gain 11 Kgs and he also went half bald to play the part of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. There is a sense of responsibility when you play a real-life character because there are people, who will see your work, make comparisons, and judge you. They have all the right to do that because they know the real person. They might have seen that person also, Rajkummar told IANS.

4. Judgementall Kya Hai

Rajkummar is a powerhouse of talent and for those who have seen the movie, you would agree that he did his best in portraying the role which wasnt easy as he had to play someone who has some sort of mental disorder and lived two lives. In an interview with ANI, he said, It's pretty tough as I have never done a character like this. So I pushed all my limits and accepted each challenge of portraying the character. I was enjoying each bit of playing a mad and funny character like this.

5. Shahid

Rajkummar plays the role of Shahid Azmi in this biographical drama. He played the character of a lawyer and human rights activist in the movie, which also earned him the National Award for Best Actor. In an interview with India Today, he said, Shahid was my first collaboration with Hansal Mehta. It's a biopic, so a lot of prep was involved. I spent a lot of time with Shahid's brother, Khalid. It was a spiritual experience.

Have you seen his movies mentioned in the list? Let us know in the comments section below.
Chief Minister



on Monday paid tribute to a block development officer in Murshidabad who contracted COVID-19 during the course of his work and died battling the disease, saying her government would be extending all possible help to his family.

Krishna Chandra Das (51), BDO, Nowda, was undergoing treatment for the past 20 days. He died at a private hospital here on Sunday night, a health department official said.

Describing his death as an "irreparable" loss, the CM said, "Grieved to know about the untimely demise of Krishna Chandra Das, who was posted as BDO Nowda in Murshidabad. A dedicated WBCS (Exe) Officer, Das was at forefront of our fight against COVID-19 & displayed great sense of sincerity & commitment in his work during the pandemic."



Banerjee also extended her condolences to his family.

"I salute his leadership, & his supreme sacrifice for the people of #Bengal... We stand in solidarity with his family & will extend every possible help to them to fight this situation. My heartfelt condolences to them, his friends & colleagues," she tweeted.

At least 13 government officials in the state have contracted COVID-19 in the line of duty and succumbed to the infection, sources in the health department said.

The state government has said that it would provide job to a family member of each of the frontline workers who succumb to COVID-19.

It has also promised to pay a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to every frontline worker who tests positive for the disease, and an insurance cover of Rs 10 lakh in case of death.

(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.)
An Oregon State Trooper makes an arrest while dispersing a violent demonstration in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 30, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Oregon Governor Sending State Police Back to Portland in Bid to Quell Riots

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown is sending state police back to Portland as part of an effort to end unrest that has continued virtually every night since May 28.

Oregon State Police troopers will send personnel and resources to the states largest city, Brown said in a plan released late Sunday. That will free up the Portland Police Bureau to arrest and charge people engaging in violent acts like arson and physical violence.

Brown is also calling on several law enforcement agencies to send officers to Portland, including the Clackamas County Sheriffs Office.

We all must come togetherelected officials, community leaders, all of usto stop the cycle of violence, the Democrat said in a statement.

Gatherings on most nights devolve into rioting, fueled by Black Lives Matter and Antifa activists. Crimes committed include arson, attempted murder, and assaulting police officers.

A supporter of President Donald Trump was shot Saturday after clashes between leftwing and rightwing demonstrators.

A Black Lives Matter protester yells at a supporter of President Donald Trump during a rally and car parade in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 29, 2020. (Paula Bronstein/AP Photo)

Brown blamed the shooting on Patriot Prayer, a conservative group that helped arrange a car caravan that drove through Portland, even though the victim may have been a member of the organization.

The right-wing group Patriot Prayer and self-proclaimed militia members drove into downtown Portland last night, armed and looking for a fight. Every Oregonian has the right to freely express their views without fear of deadly violence. I will not allow Patriot Prayer and armed white supremacists to bring more bloodshed to our streets, she said in a statement accompanying the new plan.

Patriot Prayer has only occasionally ventured downtown in recent months.

Joey Gibson, the founder of the group, didnt immediately respond to an inquiry. In a statement on social media on Sunday, Gibson said he would not make any public statements until after relatives of the deceased, Aaron Danielson, also known as Jay, did. He has in the past denounced white supremacists who sought to affiliate themselves with his group.

We love Jay and he had such a huge heart. God bless him and the life he lived, he wrote.

A man shot in Portland, Ore., is treated on Aug. 29, 2020. The man later died. (Paula Bronstein/AP Photo)

Along with sending law enforcement to try to quell the unrest, the governor said she will convene a community forum with Mayor Ted Wheeler, black demonstration organizers, and community leaders to discuss racial justice and police reform.

The group will create a venue for all community voices to come together, listen to each other, and co-create a just and peaceful future, the governors office stated.

Demonstrators involved in the violence in recent months are calling for drastic measures, including sharp cuts to the citys police agency and the resignation of Wheeler, who also serves as police commissioner.

Brown and Wheeler, both Democrats, have repeatedly rebuffed offers from President Donald Trump for federal assistance to respond to rioting. Wheeler on Sunday blamed the violence on Trump, prompting the president to call him a wacky Radical Left mayor. Brown said last week that Trumps offers were political theater.

Wheeler told reporters at a briefing that he asked Brown for National Guard assistance twice but she declined both times.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler speaks to the media at City Hall in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 30, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Brown and the Trump administration hammered out a deal late last month to send state assistance to Portland after rioters for weeks targeted the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse, repeatedly clashing with federal law enforcement.

The deal triggered demonstrators to target other buildings, including the bureaus North Precinct.

State police withdrew on Aug. 13 in part because of the new prosecutorial policy of not pursuing some criminal charges against people involved in riots and protests, a spokesman told The Epoch Times.

Riots have taken place most nights since then. Some 911 calls have been placed on hold up to 20 hours because of a lack of personnel, as the city deals with a surge in violent crimes, according to police officials.

Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell told reporters at the briefing that police need additional resources to deal with the mayhem.

Asked why the National Guard might be off the table, Lovell responded, I dont have a hesitancy one way or the other.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly described the timing of the shooting. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
Every now and again, when researching a particular topic, you find that you may need to keep digging a little deeper in order to shake loose all of the facts that are pertinent to the topic in question.



Such is the case with last weeks article regarding the opening of the Standard Oil station on the corner of River and Division streets, 305 River St. I concluded the story as such:



In the late 1950s, the original building was torn down with a modern structure that was built for Joe Stefanski constructed on the same lot. The building would continue as a Standard Oil station for roughly 20 years. It was later used as an auto repair service, a tire business and is currently occupied by Memory Lane Detailing."

However, that wasnt the accurate conclusion to the story.



Last Tuesday morning Don Darling, whos father Loyd Darling was the manager of Darlings Standard Service, at 305 River Street, for 11 years, stopped into the museum to provide me with more details on the various buildings that had been constructed on that lot over the years.



As such, the sources I had originally contacted and the documents (photographs on hand, newspapers, maps, etc.) that I referenced did not lead me in the right direction as another building on the lot, which Im sure many remember, was constructed between the 1920 building (which was the primary subject of last weeks article) and the structure that is currently there today.



Regardless, Mr. Darling not only provided me with the correct information but also fodder for this article which I am grateful for.



After the Dellow building (formerly located at 305 River Street) was torn down in 1920, the Standard Oil Co. constructed a filling station on the same lot that was described as ...highly attractive in appearance, with driveways of ample width from both the River and Division street approaches.



As automobiles became popular and highway routes were established, more motorists found their way in and around Michigan. Likewise, more traffic (via U.S. 31) would travel through Manistee on a daily basis making the areas nearest to the highway more attractive to service stations.



As the Standard Oil station on River and Division streets was along the then U.S. 31 route through Manistee, it was decided by the company to modernize the service station by tearing down the 1920 structure and constructing a newer building.



Per Mr. Darlings tip, I was able to spend even more time digging through old issues of the Manistee News Advocate which eventually led me to the description of the second Standard Oil filling station building that was constructed on the corner of River and Division. The following article was taken from the Jan. 31, 1940 issue:



A new, modernistic service station was recently completed on River and Division streets for the Standard Oil Co. of Indiana by Charles Neslon, well-known local contractor.



Modern in every respect, the new station prides itself in its big driveway of more than 7,000 square feet. The building was finished last week. Emil Benson and Cliff Hendricks leased the station from the Standard Oil Co. Benson has been associated with the Standard Oil Co. for almost 17 years and Hendricks for seven years.



The new service station is done in steel and enameled tile and has a brick tile interior throughout. Modern restrooms have been installed with tile walls throughout. All of the equipment of the station is new, making it one of the outstanding service stations in Manistee.



The Nelson firm tore down the old gas station and constructed the new one. The job was completed with the exception of the steel tile front on Dec. 4.

Featuring a full line of products, the new service station will also specialize in greasing. A new grease house has been constructed.



Modern plumbing throughout the building was installed by the Johnston and Goudie Company. A new oil burner has been installed in the building.

The Manistee Paint Co. was the firm in charge of the decorating. The building features blue, red and cream colors. Hardware for the building was supplied by the Meyer and Wahr Hardware Co., Frank L. Schons did the general carpentry and expert finishing, the Ferguson Electric Co., installed the modernistic indirect lighting system and wiring and the R.H. Linke Lumber Co. of Filer City supplied the lumber, cement and other building material.



A feature of the station is a soft drink refrigerator and fountain installed by the Pomeroy Building Works. A complete line of soft drinks will be carried.



On Jan. 12, 1946 it was announced in a brief sentence in the Manistee News Advocate that Loyd Darling was taking over the station from Mr. Lee (who had operated after Benson and Hendricks). Said sentence reads:



Announcement was made today that Loyd Darling, a discharged overseas veteran, has taken over Lees Standard Service, corner of River and Division streets.



An advertisement published on the opposite page makes note that the station was selling Standard Oil Products, Quaker State Oil, Atlas tires, tubes, batteries and accessories. In addition they offered lubrication, car wash and stove and light gasoline at all times.



Loyd Darling operated the Standard Oil Station until 1957.

That same year, he began managing the Sinclair Oil Station located on the corner of First and Cypress streets where he continued to work until 1963.

He then transferred to the Sunoco station in Parkdale where he remained until his retirement.

In 1973, the 1940 building on the corner of River and Division was torn down with another modern service station structure (going under the Amoco banner) built for Joe Stefanski who after working there for several years had become owner of the station.

After operating as a service station until the late-1970s, it was later used as an auto repair service, a tire business and is currently occupied by Memory Lane Detailing.

More archival information from the Manistee County Historical Museum can be found online at manisteemuseum.org, and in person at 425 River Street in Manistee.
Apple recently became the first US company to reach a $2 Trillion market cap. To put that into perspective, thats larger than Italys GDP. It took Apple 42 years to breach the $1 trillion mark. But, then it took the company just two more years to get to $2 Trillion.

Whats even more amazing is that the entire second $1 Trillion was actually generated over the last 21 weeks. So, if you had invested in Apple 21 weeks ago, you would have doubled your investment by now. These are some amazing statistics.

Apples rise to $2 Trillion is interesting because the company has arguable not done a lot of new things over the past two years. The iPhone, the companys best performing invention, has become the cash-generating machine.

This has been backed by the diversification of its revenue streams via the growing focus of the company on its services business.

Apple talked about plans to launch various subscriptions later this year to move away from relying completely on hardware.

Its not just Apple though, over the last few months investors have poured billions into the large technology companies (popularly known as FAAMG), betting that they would continue to grow despite the COVID pandemic. Combined, the value of these companies has grown by almost $3 Trillion since March.

This is the same as the growth in the value of the S&P 500s next 50 most valuable companies combined. Investors believe that these large digital and cash-rich companies will come out of the pandemic even stronger than they were earlier.

Looking at the value creation by these companies begs the question  can the Indian investor afford to be left out of the next Trillion that Apple might add or even the creation of the next Apple or Microsoft? Not anymore.

Earlier one had the excuse that there are no easy options available to them to be able to invest in these companies.

But, in todays technology age one can open a brokerage account in the US and own Apple shares in a manner that was never possible before.

Apples latest milestone is a good reminder for Indian investors to start looking beyond the local markets for wealth creation opportunities and start thinking like global investors!

(Viram Shah, CEO, and Co-Founder, Vested Finance)

: The views and investment tips expressed by experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not those of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
Samsung Galaxy A71

The most recent top of the line smartphone release from Samsung has an opening list price of $1,300 and most reviews, mine included, could be summed up in a few words. Great phone, but so expensive? Now, during a pandemic, when millions have been thrown out of work?

This really comes to home when you consider that there are three fantastic smartphones out now for $400 or less: The Samsung Galaxy A71 and Apple iPhone SE will cost you $399, while the Google Pixel 4A is just $350.

And they are clearly the best bargain-priced phones I've ever seen. Unless you need the latest camera technology with multiple lenses, there is no reason for most consumers to spend more on a phone. You won't be missing out.

All are worth your attention if you're looking for a replacement phone, or a new model for the kids. Meanwhile, new phones are scheduled to be released in a few weeks from Google (a new Pixel) and Apple (several models of iPhones) and are expected to cost way more than $400. So how do the budget phones compare?

Samsung Galaxy A71

The biggest of the phones is a $399 bargain, with a beautiful 6.5-inch screen the size of the $1,099 iPhone Pro Max, and even larger than the $999 6.2-inch Samsung Galaxy S20. You get a second lens with the camera, which the rivals don't have. And while that's a plus, Samsung tends to over-saturate your photos, so if that's a problem, and you want to remain in the Android family, you'll want to look at the Pixel 4A. Both the A71 and the Pixel 4A have the same Qualcomm SnapDragon 730G processor.

Google Pixel 4A

The best bargain in smartphone land, at $349, the Google phone is an Android flagship with a 5.8-inch screen, fast processor, and a terrific one-lens camera that can take some pretty amazing night photos in the dark. Plus there are add-ons like the ability to add live captions to both homemade videos and ones you watch on YouTube, and an instant transcription service using Google's voice recording app. The Pixel 4A is clearly the best Pixel phone Google has made, one so good, I think if the line had launched with this model, Google would have been able to turn Pixel into a mass market brand. Google's market share is under 1%, while most phones sold in the United States are from Apple and Samsung.

Apple iPhone SE

This is the Apple phone for those who didn't like bigger phones, with a 4.7-inch screen, and yearn for the classic iPhone, one with a Home button for navigation, Touch ID instead of Face ID, and a headphone jack. Apple's nod to modernity is a powerful A13 processor, the same one that's in the current top of the line iPhones. It's classic in every sense, but as powerful as the latest iPhone. If you prefer living in an iPhone world to Android, this is the phone for you.

5G ... a concern?

None of these phones are compatible with the new, faster 5G networks. However, know that in our tests, true national 5G service that isn't spotty or as fast as advertised is still at least a year away, if not longer. So you won't be missing anything now by waiting. If you're in a rush, the 5G version of the A71 is available for $599.

Decisions, decisions

Which one is best for you? It depends whether you prefer Android or iPhone. I'd choose the Pixel 4A over the Galaxy because I'm not a fan of Samsung bloatware or the somewhat over-saturation of photos, (notice how the oranges below are "orange orange" in the words of the old Trix rabbit, compared to just orange on the Pixel and iPhone) but these are minor quibbles. I could easily live with either.

On a specs basic, you'd have to go with the A71, for the bigger screen and second camera lens. But if money's tight, the Pixel 4A is fantastic. As is the SE. You couldn't go wrong with any of these phones.

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Under tremendous pressure from New York City educatorswhose profound opposition to Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasios plan to reopen city schools by September 10 threatens to break out into wildcat actionthe executive board of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is expected to vote Monday to authorize a strike, which would be followed by a Tuesday vote by union delegates.

The move to hold a strike authorization vote is a cynical charade, following the same path of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT). The vote in Chicago was clearly orchestrated with city officials, in order to buy time for the resumption of in-person learning. In Detroit, despite 91 percent of educators voting in favor of a safety strike, the DFT reached a miserable sellout agreement with the district last week which entails resuming in-person learning. A similar stunt protest vote is now being prepared in the largest school district in the US, with over 1.1 million students and over 75,000 teachers.

De Blasios plan, under a so-called hybrid model, calls for each school to split students into two or three groups that would alternate between remote and in-person learning. He and the citys Department of Education (DOE) claim that opening under half- or third-capacity would be sufficient to ensure students and educators safety from COVID-19, which has killed roughly 10 percent of the citys nearly 240,000 infected since March.

It is obvious to city educators that reopening is a deadly proposition. Students, especially young children, would necessarily come into close contact with each other and their teachers while navigating hallways and congregating around entrances, regardless of how many are attending at once.

Furthermore, despite Schools Chancellor Richard Carranzas claim that antiquated air filtration systems would be updated in school buildings across the city, only moderate improvements were made this past summer in the small fraction of buildings constructed after the 1970s. The vast majority of school buildings in the city, as in many other areas across the US, are much older and lack central air filtration systems, leaving students and educators vulnerable to airborne spread.

A recent study from the University of Florida confirmed that an infective aerosolized form of COVID-19 particles can become airborne and travel 16 feet or more, well beyond the recommended six feet for social distancing. These aerosols can remain suspended in the air for hours in poorly ventilated spaces. The findings underscore that any classroom with children and teachers is inherently dangerous, particularly in schools that have poor ventilation.

To encourage parents to send their children to school rather than elect for remote learning, De Blasio has made a number of last-minute, impossible promises that have only added to the stress of educators and principals, creating scrambles to hire 400 nurses for every school building and to prepare outdoor classrooms that will become obsolete as soon as winter weather arrives.

On Wednesday, de Blasio announced that each class would require three educatorsone in-person, one remote, and one Virtual Content Specialist to coordinate between thema week after Carranza announced that proposed state budget cuts would force the city to lay off 9,000 of its 75,000 teachers.

De Blasios reckless and homicidal drive to reopen the schools is entirely in keeping with the demands of the Trump administration and the ruling class, which recognize school reopenings as key to forcing working parents back to work. Its time to say, public servants rise to the occasion and answer the call, de Blasio said in a press conference on August 20. Our transit workers did, our first responders did, our healthcare workers did, our grocery workers did.

One teacher on social media responded, Do these Democratic politicians who claim that Trump is the enemy realize that they are aligned with him here? Indeed, the Trump administration had just branded educators critical infrastructure workers two days prior. Another teacher replied, They are aligned with him in way more than this.

Just as they recognize that de Blasio is fundamentally aligned with the Trump administration, New York City educators must also recognize that UFT is fundamentally aligned with de Blasio and the Democratic Party.

UFT president Michael Mulgrew, regarded as a close ally of de Blasio, privately advised him to shut down schools as early as March 7, but did not call out the UFT membership to shut down the schools and save lives. The blood of educators who have since died from COVID-19, including at least 75 school-based employees of the DOE, is on his hands.

A vote for strike authorization would not amount to the immediate calling of a strike. Mulgrew has suggested that the UFT will first sue the state to delay school reopening, sowing illusions in the courts even after a similar suit in Florida proved to be a stunt that did nothing to stop reopening.

Even if it were to call a strike, the aim of the UFT would be to block rank-and-file educators from taking independent initiative. It has framed the strike not as one to stop school reopening until COVID-19 is contained, but merely to delay reopening until schools meet limited safety standards which it has no intention of enforcing, as evidenced by its fraudulent safety walk-throughs of school buildings by union bureaucrats.

The unions demand that all students and educators be cleared by just one test for the virus within 10 days of reopening is entirely inadequate. Its safety standards are fundamentally the same as those of de Blasio, in that they are not based on what is needed to actually combat the pandemic and save lives: a national program of social distancing, mass testing and contact tracing.

The role of the UFT is to isolate and stifle the immense opposition of educators, who seek to prevent the spread of the virus. This was the role all the teacher unions played in the 2018-19 wave of teachers strikes that began in West Virginia. Groups such as the progressive Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE), which advocates for reforming the UFT, are pointing educators down a blind alley of trying to pressure the union to move to the left. The situation is now a life-and-death struggle, and these bankrupt forces must be rejected entirely.

New York City educators must mobilize their collective strength by building independent rank-and-file safety committees in every school and neighborhood to organize a citywide strike to keep schools closed, in coordination with the national Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee. Nothing short of the broadest possible national and international response to the pandemic will be sufficient. Educators must join with the working class as a whole in demanding that resources be allocated for effective mass testing and contact tracing needed to save lives. Those seeking to carry out this struggle should contact us today.
Imperial Valley News Center

DUSA Pharmaceuticals To Pay U.S. $20.75 Million To Settle False Claims Act Allegations

Boston, Massachusetts - Massachusetts-based DUSA Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (DUSA), a subsidiary of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Inc. (Sun Pharma), has agreed to pay the United States $20.75 million to resolve allegations that DUSA caused physicians to submit false claims to Medicare and the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program by knowingly promoting an administration process for the drug Levulan Kerastick that contradicted the product instructions approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and was unsupported by sufficient clinical evidence.

The department is committed to protecting taxpayer-supported health care programs from fraud and abuse, said Acting Assistant Attorney General Ethan P. Davis for the Justice Departments Civil Division. We will hold drug manufacturers accountable when they knowingly promote ineffective uses of their products that undermine patient care or waste program funds.

While this scheme to provide false instructions on the use of its product may have resulted in more sales and bigger profits, it also meant customers endured the frustration of being repeatedly subjected to less effective treatments to try to get their skin lesions to clear, said U.S. Attorney Brian T. Moran for the Western District of Washington. This investigation seeks to restore money to taxpayers and discourage those who put profits over effective treatment.

Drug makers that push the inappropriate use of their products undermine the health of patients and the financial integrity of federal health care programs, said Special Agent in Charge Steven J. Ryan of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. Our oversight agency, working closely with our law enforcement partners, will continue to thoroughly investigate those who engage in such schemes.

The OPM OIG will always seek to hold accountable those prioritizing profits over patient health and safety, said Norbert E. Vint, Deputy Inspector General Performing the Duties of the Inspector General, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) OIG. This settlement demonstrates the commitment of our investigative staff and partners at the Department of Justice to combat health care fraud against the FEHBP.

Levulan Kerastick is a prescription topical solution approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of minimally to moderately thick actinic keratosis (AKs) of the face or scalp. At all relevant times, the Dosage and Administration section of the drugs FDA-approved instructions described a two-stage process involving application of the topical solution to the target lesions and then, following an incubation period of 14 to 18 hours, illumination of the target lesion with blue light.

The United States alleged that, by January 2014, senior management at both DUSA and Sun Pharma knew that administration of Levulan Kerastick employing short incubation periods ranging from one to three hours resulted in AK clearance rates significantly lower than those achieved in clinical trials using 14 to 18-hour incubation. Nonetheless, between January 2014 and December 2016, DUSA allegedly encouraged physicians to use these demonstrably less effective short incubation periods by using, among other things, paid physician speaker programs, paid physician peer-to-peer discussions, promotion by DUSAs sales force, and the dissemination of incomplete or misleading responses to questions from prescribing doctors. The department further alleged that DUSA failed to inform physicians that administering the drug using short incubation periods resulted in significantly lower AK clearance rates than achieved with the longer incubation period described in the FDA-approved instructions, and, in some instances, the company falsely stated that AK clearance rates were the same for the shorter and less effective incubation periods.

As part of the settlement, DUSA and its parent company, Sun Pharma, have agreed to enter into a Corporate Integrity Agreement with HHS-OIG. That agreement provides for procedures and reviews to be put in place to avoid and promptly detect conduct similar to that which gave rise to this matter.

The settlement with DUSA resolves a lawsuit filed under the whistleblower provision of the False Claims Act, which permits private parties to file suit on behalf of the United States for false claims and share in a portion of the governments recovery. The civil lawsuit was filed by Aaron Chung, who formerly worked for DUSA as a sales representative. As part of todays resolution, Chung will receive approximately $3.5 million.

The settlement with DUSA was the result of a coordinated effort among the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Washington and the Commercial Litigation Branch (Fraud Section) of the Justice Departments Civil Division, with assistance from HHS Office of Counsel to the Inspector General, FDAs Office of Chief Counsel, and HHS Office of General Counsel.

The claims resolved by this settlement are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability. The lawsuit is captioned United States of America ex rel. Chung v. DUSA Pharmaceuticals, Inc., No. 16 cv 1614-JLR.
A new MRBI survey commissioned by the Irish Heart Foundation is warning of the dangers of sitting down for long periods and calling on workers to move for a minute each hour during the working day.

They are also asking employers to shorten virtual meetings so workers can get up from their seat and move more regularly.

The survey which was conducted between August 1st and 10th, found that more than half of all workers in Ireland have been able to work from home since restrictions began, with 53 per cent of them sitting down for longer than when in the office or their usual place of work.

One in four of those who are sitting for longer are remaining sedentary for at least three hours more than previously.

Speaking about the survey Tara Curran, physical activity coordinator with the Irish Heart Foundation said:

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Sitting at work all day can increase a persons risk of heart disease and stroke, and it may counteract the benefits of their regular exercise.

As working from home and video meetings become the norm, workers are increasingly tied to their laptops for hour after hour.

We are urging them to get up and move regularly during their working day and would like to see employers make an effort to shorten meeting times on video conferencing.

Staggered returns

Meanwhile, another survey says 85 per cent of Irish bosses have not discussed reducing office space in 2021

Business leaders are planning staggered returns, smaller workgroups and shifted hours as staff come back to the office, but have not officially discussed the prospect of reducing office space in 2021.

Recruiters.ie. surveyed more than 4,000 professionals, directors, business owners and managers in August 2020 about the future of work plans in response to Covid-19.

Only 36 per cent of respondents said they envisage having more than 80 per cent of their workforce back in the office in January 2021.

89 per cent of respondents are planning to split their workforce hours between home and the office with just 11% planning on full working weeks in the office.

20 per cent of respondents said they still dont know when they will have more than 80 per cent of their workforce back in the office, owing to the level of continued uncertainty in workforce planning.

Despite the uncertainty and low levels of full working weeks expected in the office, 85 per cent of respondents have not officially met to discuss office space changes.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 23:20:10|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Monday that China and Indonesia should seize the new industries and models created by the COVID-19 pandemic and open up new cooperation areas to boost their respective development and give impetus to the regional and global economy.

Xi made the remarks in a phone conversation in the night with his Indonesian counterpart, Joko Widodo. Enditem
The swearing in of new citizens often makes news in the U.S., especially if it happens in unusual circumstances such as one partys national convention. Much less reported are the many citizenship renunciations by Americans, and the travails leading up to these life decisions. Almost all those giving up their U.S. nationality are expats. And for each renouncer going through the ordeal, there are countless others thinking about it. Why?
Chicago police divers joined the Chicago Fire Department at 6:40 p.m. Sunday in Monroe Harbor to search for the man who failed to resurface after falling from the boat, according to police. It wasnt clear how long dive teams were in the water before they had to call off the search for the night. The search resumed Monday morning, officials said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 15:52:55|Editor: huaxia

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VIENTIANE, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Lao National Taskforce Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control said on Monday that it has been monitoring 2,709 people across the country amid COVID-19 concerns.

Deputy Director General of the Department of Communicable Diseases Control under the Lao Ministry of Health Sisavath Soutthaniraxay told a press conference here on Monday that 2,709 people have been quarantined at 44 accommodation centers across the country.

The Lao government continues to implement preventive measure and closely monitor people entering Laos. People entering Laos must be sent to quarantine centers for 14 days to prevent the spread of the virus, said Sisavath.

On Sunday, a total of 2,131 people entered Laos through international border checkpoints. Of these, 800 people crossed the border with Thailand.

A total of 28 people entered Laos from China, while 957 people entered Laos from Vietnam, and 346 people entered Laos via Wattay international airport in Lao capital Vientiane.

The temperature of each person entering Laos was checked and no one showed signs of fever.

Laos announced its first two COVID-19 confirmed cases on March 24. Enditem
Daniel McMahon (in 2019), who called himself 'the Antifa hunter,' has been sentenced to three years in prison

A Florida man who called himself 'the Antifa hunter' as he waged an online campaign to terrorize and harass those who opposed his white supremacist ideology was sentenced to more than three years in prison Monday.

Daniel McMahon, 32, of Brandon, Florida, pleaded guilty in April to using social media to threaten a Black activist to deter the man from running for office in Charlottesville, Virginia.

McMahon also admitted that he threatened to sexually assault the young autistic daughter of a woman who protested against white nationalists.

A federal judge in Virginia sentenced McMahon to three years and five months in prison. McMahon declined an opportunity to make a public statement beforehand.

When FBI agents searched the home that McMahon shared with his parents, they seized his computer and several loaded guns from his bedroom. On his computer, investigators found folders filled with evidence of his harassment campaigns and tokens of his obsession with racially motivated killings, prosecutors said.

Most of McMahons cyberstalking victims knew him as 'Jack Corbin.' Under that pseudonym, he posted social media messages intended to deter a Black activist, Don Gathers, from running for a seat on Charlottesvilles city council.

He called himself 'the Antifa hunter,' a reference to anti-fascist, leftist militant activists who confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

McMahon pleaded guilty in April to using social media to threaten black activist, Don Gathers (pictured), to deter the man from running for office in Charlottesville, Virginia

McMahon accused Gathers of 'attacking' a white supremacist group member who later pleaded guilty to attacking counterprotesters at the 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville in August 2017.

McMahon called for using a 'diversity of tactics' against Gathers, which authorities interpreted as a euphemism for violence.

The FBI notified Gathers of McMahons threats. Instead of kicking off his campaign at a January 2019 event, Gathers announced he wouldn't run for office.

'Hail Victory!' McMahon wrote in response.

After McMahon's arrest, a woman from North Carolina called federal prosecutors to report that he had threatened her and her daughter, a severely autistic minor, over Facebook and tried to extort personal information from her about another counterprotester.

McMahon threatened to sexually assault the woman's daughter 'all in the service of his self-assigned 'mission' to hunt down and silence anyone who spoke out against white supremacy,' prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

'The defendants conduct is reprehensible, and it served a despicable purpose. And in the process, his victims suffered real harm,' they added.

Prosecutors say the contents of McMahon's computer revealed his obsession with racially motivated violence and hatred of Black people, including images of white supremacist James Fields plowing his car into a crowd of Charlottesville counterprotesters, killing a woman.

A folder with a racist slur for a title contained photos of dead Black men, including a lynching victim. McMahon also saved graphic images of Trayvon Martin after the Black teenager was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch member in Florida in 2012, according to prosecutors.

Other folders on McMahon's computer contained personal information about his targets, including photos of their children.

One target was a woman whose child had died, a tragedy that McMahon tried to exploit to extort information from her about antifascists, prosecutors said.

The FBI found 278 files with the word 'owned' in the title, signaling that he had harassed that victim to his satisfaction.

All told, prosecutors said, McMahon compiled 35 gigabytes of data that he could 'weaponize' against his targets.

McMahon pleaded guilty to cyberstalking and bias-motivated interference with a candidate for elective office.

U.S. District Judge Norman Moon wasn't bound by sentencing guidelines that called for a prison term ranging from two years and nine months to three years and five months. Prosecutors recommended the maximum.

Defense attorney Jessica Phillips asked the judge to sentence McMahon to a year and a half in prison and give him credit for time served since his September 18, 2019, arrest.

Phillips said her client made 'bad choices' but is remorseful and took full responsibility for his crimes. She attributed McMahon's behavior to an untreated mental health disorder, alcohol abuse and a 'lack of social stability.'

'While he did not realize the impact of his words at the time, he certainly does now,' Phillips wrote in a court filing.

McMahon considered himself an internet celebrity praised by other white nationalists for his obsessive efforts to dig up personal information about political enemies, his attorney said.

Phillips argued that incarcerating McMahon would make him an easy target for white supremacists in prison and lead to a 'reinforcement of his beliefs, not a deprogramming.'

McMahon was unemployed when authorities arrested him. His mother, Roberta Ann Bartish, told investigators that her son exhibited some of the same characteristics she had seen used to describe mass shooters, according to a sheriffs office detective.

McMahon was also known to post on the far-right social network platform Gab under the Corbin handle, identifying there as a 'God d--- fascist,' the Washington Post said.

Tree of Life synagogue shooter Robert Bowers was said to have interacted with McMahon on Gab prior to the October 2018 shooting, allegedly shared Corbins posts encouraging violence against antifa, while also sharing racist, homophobic commentary, including a post McMahon as Corbin wrote stating: 'Whites have a right to exist,' but gay people dont.

Following the shooting, Corbin was said to have 'showered praise' on Bowers. He also praised the neo-Nazi James A. Fields Jr, the man sentenced to life in prison after her rammed his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of counterprotesters at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing Heather Heyer.
Bottles of their favourite alcoholic beverages in hand, gleeful worshippers walked into a thatched-roof hall and sat down to listen to a Sunday sermon.

Welcome to Gabola Church -- South Africa's unorthodox place of worship which allows its members to drink alcohol during services.

Last Sunday's service was held at Bunny's Tavern in the working class suburb of Evaton, 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Johannesburg.

Gabola was founded in 2017 by Tsietsi Makiti, 54, to capture the unchurched people who would ordinarily be rejected by conventional traditional and evangelical churches that frown on imbibers.

Pubs and restaurants generally serve as meeting venues.

Worshippers sip away as they listen to the sermon. By WIKUS DE WET (AFP)

"Jesus has taught us to fish where many fishes can be found. So in taverns, shebeens... that is where you find children of God that are rejected from other churches because of their love for alcohol," Makiti told AFP.

"We accommodate anybody who is in love with alcohol," he added, claiming the church has expanded abroad to Canada, Switzerland, Germany and Brazil.

In the hall, chairs are set a metre apart in line with the coronavirus physical distancing protocols.

Worshippers sip away as they listen to the sermon.

The improvised pulpit is decorated with bottles of gin and lagers.

The leader's black-and-gold mitre is decked with two miniature bottles of Johnnie Walker whisky and a popular South African liqueur called Amarula.

After the sermon, congregants -- who all have to be over 21 years of age -- sang and danced the afternoon away.

'We are celebrating'

Rolling bans on booze sales imposed by the government since March as part of anti-coronavirus restrictions had left the church services stridently dry. The latest ban was lifted in mid-August.

"Liquor is the one (thing) that is connecting us with our God, because if I'm under the influence of liquor I'm under the influence of the holy spirit at the same time," said the leader who calls himself a pope.

"Now that the ban is lifted of alcohol everything is so happy. We are celebrating!"

Rolling bans on booze sales imposed by the government since March as part of anti-coronavirus restrictions had left the church services stridently dry. By WIKUS DE WET (AFP)

He said the ban was a "bitter pill for Gabola Church to swallow. It was so cruel".

The church is not a member of the South African Council of Churches (SACC).

"We don't recognise Gabola as a church of Jesus Christ in the holy spirit. There are many organisations that call themselves 'church'," said Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana, the SACC general secretary, adding that people do have a constitutional right to assembly and association.

Gabola translates to "drinking" in one of South Africa's official languages, Tswana.

They don't read the bible and the leader said they are in the process of writing their own bible.

There is no offering or tithing collected during the service. Members just have to bring their own booze.

'God can judge us'

A follower, Portia Nzimande, is unapologetic about her decision to quit orthodox churches for Gabola.

"Only God can judge us. What we are doing here is our life. We don't owe anyone any explanation," she said outside the hall.

"We enjoy ourselves because we pray and drink at the same time," said Nzimande.

Followers reject suggestions that the gatherings are just a ruse to drink. By WIKUS DE WET (AFP)

Followers reject suggestions that the gatherings are just a ruse to drink.

"It's not an excuse... because we have members here that don't drink," said Siphiwe Mafunisa, a 42-year-old church 'archibishop', who came from one of the church's branches in Pretoria.

"So it's not for drinking only, it's just a church, a normal church, but we call it Gabola because most of us, we are drinking," she said.

For 37-year-old restaurant owner Ephraim Seliane, "there's nothing like Gabola... because you are amongst people who are not judging you, who are allowing you to be who you are."
PARIS (Reuters) - French water and waste firm Veolia is offering to buy a 29.9% stake in its smaller peer Suez from French gas and power utility Engie for 2.9 billion euros, saying it aims to create a "world champion of ecological transformation". If the offer is accepted by Engie, Veolia will formally bid for the rest of Suez, Veolia Chief Executive Officer Antoine Frerot told journalists on Sunday. He added that Suez's enterprise value, which includes debt, was around 20 billion euros (17.83 billion pounds). Veolia said its offer for Engie's stake was in cash, ...
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.




Subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts for the full episode.

Since footage came out last week of a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer shooting Jacob Blake in the back seven times while his children were in the car, protesters have taken to the streets in the lakeside city. Tensions flared as armed so-called militia members joined the scene. They say theyre trying to protect life and property in Kenosha, but on Tuesday, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse allegedly shot three protesters, killing two of them. For Mondays episode of What Next, I spoke with Gina Barton, a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, about whats really going on in Kenosha and how things got to this point. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Ray Suarez: What has it been like in Kenosha since the footage of Jacob Blakes shooting came out?

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Gina Barton: The response was almost immediate. People in Kenosha started taking to the streets. During the day, things have been pretty calm. Families are out there. Younger people are out there. All different races, ages. But then when the sun goes down, you start getting different groups of people who seem to be interested in causing conflict and chaos.

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These so-called militia members seem to be a big part of that conflict and chaos. How did they get involved?

A former Kenosha alderman is one of the leaders of a militia-type group that is called the Kenosha Guard. The Kenosha Guard on Tuesday put out an event on Facebook saying people need to come out and defend life and property. They had 3,000 people say they were interested. I dont think nearly that many came, but that was on Facebook and it also got picked up by Infowars.

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The sheriff, David Beth, has said that armed militia groups on the street are not helping. But law enforcement in Kenosha, at least early on, didnt seem to be making an effort to move them on or get them out of town either.

The armed so-called citizen militias have reached out to both the police chief and the sheriff and asked them to deputize them. Sheriff David Beth, in one of my favorite quotes from him all week, said his reaction to that was, Oh, hell no. The Kenosha city police chief, though, is the one who hasnt commented. I emailed and asked, Did you cooperate with them? because they sent him a personal message. He wont answer that question. And from everything that transpired on Tuesday, it sure seemed like no one was telling them to go home.

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Theres a lot more that were going to end up finding out about Kyle Rittenhouse. Hes been arrested. Hes been charged with intentional homicide. And since that moment, the rumor mill has been on overdrive about this kid. What he did in Kenosha after his mother brought him from Antioch, Illinois, how he moved around the city with an assault-style rifle slung on his shoulder, was not stopped by police. Is the dust settling? Is there a clear picture emerging not only of the events of Aug. 25, but of who this kid is and what his motivations were?

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As far as I can tell, its unconfirmed whether his mother brought him to Kenosha or how he got there. But he says through his attorney that he was there to try and protect some of the local property of a man who owns a car dealership and a couple of auto shops. You can also see him in videos saying that his job is to protect people and hes also there to provide first aid. However, I talked in depth to two people who were out there on Tuesday night and saw these events unfold. And they said that Tuesday night was different because there were so many more white guys with guns out there than there had been the previous evenings. And when they saw Rittenhouse, he gave them an uneasy feeling because he looked so young and didnt seem like he was necessarily handling that weapon correctly.

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There were a lot of stories on social media early on about a kind of chumminess between Rittenhouse and police. They gave him water. They talked to him. They let him pass, even though he was armed. Has any of that been able to be nailed down?

A lot of those examples that you just mentioned have been confirmed. David Beth, the sheriff in Kenosha, said we would give water or Gatorade to anyone who asked us, so hes not denying that law enforcement was giving water to these men with guns. Earlier on Tuesday night, there were civilians taking sniper-style stances on the roofs of buildings. They were clearly out past curfew with guns. We do know that the Kenosha Guard here and Kyle Rittenhouse idolized police and considered themselves sort of supplemental law enforcement officers who were there to help the police.

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How was Kyle Rittenhouse able to pass through a line of law enforcement and go home after allegedly having shot three people with plenty of witnesses around?

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I talked to a street medic the other day. And she was trying to walk through that very same area to get to her car that evening and was not allowed to pass. She is Native American and Japanese. And she said the exact place where Kyle Rittenhouse, a white man with a large gun, walked, she had tried to go and was turned away. So I do think that at least some in law enforcement saw these men as their allies or at least as not a threat. After the shootings on Tuesday, the following day, the Kenosha police chief came out and essentially said if people would have obeyed the curfew, this shooting wouldnt have happened.

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It sounded as if he was blaming the two men who died for their own deaths and blaming the man who is in danger of losing his arm for the fact that he was shot with an AR-15. So the ACLU has called for the Kenosha police chief to resign. And it really has fed into the idea that he, in fact, was sympathizing with the white armed civilians, self-styled militiamen.

Theres a degree to which the tumult on the streets of Kenosha is sort of taking our gaze away from Jacob Blake himself. Whats going on there? Hes been in the hospital since he was shot. Hes said to be paralyzed from the waist down. Its been reported hes handcuffed to his bed. Why? Is he a suspect? Has he been charged with a crime?

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My experience from covering police for the past 20 years is that if they have somebody who is injured while theyre being arrested, then it is pretty much standard operating procedure to handcuff them to the bed. I have even heard stories of pregnant women being forced to go into labor and give birth while being shackled to a bed. There was a lot of outcry about this, and on Saturday, Gov. Tony Evers intervened and Im told Jacob Blake is now no longer handcuffed to his hospital bed.

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Wisconsin has an unusual law. It was one of the first in the country, passed after a previous killing by the Kenosha police. When people are killed by police in Wisconsin, an outside agency reviews the case, but Jacob Blake was not killed. Is there going to be an outside investigation triggered in a case like this one?

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I think its really interesting that our law, which was in fact the first in the nation, was passed largely due to the efforts of a man named Michael Bell, whose son was fatally shot in the head by Kenosha police all the way back in 2004. Michael Bells son, whose name was also Michael Bell, was shot point-blank in the head in front of his mother and sister in their driveway. Kenosha Police Internal Affairs did their own investigation and within 48 hours cleared those officers of any wrongdoing. So that is when Bells father said, This is ridiculous. How can anybody be expected to do a thorough investigation of their own department? That law is only, as you stated, for fatal shootings. In other events, where somebody is wounded or theres a serious use of police deadly force, if it isnt fatal, the department involved can ask an outside agency to come in. So in this case, the Wisconsin Department of Justice is leading the investigation. And the Kenosha County Sheriffs Department was in charge of the scene of Jacob Blakes shooting that night. So I do think that that is one thing that Kenosha police did right in these circumstances: As soon as that shooting happened, they decided were not investigating ourselves. And they called in the sheriffs department and the state Justice Department.

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Kenosha is a city thats, according to the Census Bureau, about 77 percent white, about 10 percent Black. Its not one of these places that has a very large minority presence thats created the kind of tensions that you see in nearby cities in Illinois and in Wisconsin itself.

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Thats absolutely true. And I think one thing that people need to know about the shooting of Jacob Blake, and people need to know about whats going on with policing in Kenosha, is that since 2004, the police have not had a great relationship with basically anyone in Kenosha. Michael Bell, who was shot in the head and killed in 2004, was white. And our review of fatal police shootings in Kenosha since then shows that the majority of the people that police have fatally shot are white also. We know of one Black man whos been fatally shot in Kenosha since 2003. But it seems to me that the police in Kenosha dont have a great relationship with people of any race.

Is it too early to tell where we are in the life cycle of this story? Are things calming down?

What some of us are concerned about is that President Trump has said he is planning to come to Kenosha this week on Tuesday. And I think if he actually does choose to make that visit, that could incite things again. And we could see this cycle continuing and repeating itself.

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LISBON, Portugal - Health authorities in Portugal are allowing the countrys Communist Party to let 16,500 people into its annual open-air festival next weekend -- an unusually high number for a gathering in Europe amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The permit has caused an outcry because officials have for months slashed the number of people allowed into other public events, forcing many of them to cancel.

The announcement came as the centre-left Socialist government is seeking political support from other parties, including the Communists, for its 2021 spending plan.

The festival, called Festa do Avante, features concerts and political speeches in a fenced-off area of countryside south of Lisbon. In past years it has drawn some 100,000 people, of a wide variety of ages, over its three days.

The event is a major source of income for the Communist Party, which has 10 seats in Portugals 230-seat parliament.

The General Directorate for Health announced Monday that 16,563 people can be inside the festival at any one time, even though there is a real risk that, during the event, infected people with or without symptoms may be moving around. The Communist Party had wanted to sell 33,000 tickets per day this year.

Authorities say people at the festival must remain at least two meters apart, unless they share a household; concerts can take place only with distanced seating for the audience; no alcohol can be sold after 8 p.m.; and everyone over age 10 must wear a mask, among other measures.

Health Minister Marta Temido that the rules are well though-out.

We hope the organizers are able to implement them and ensure people abide by them, she told a news conference.

The calculation of how many people can be at the festival was based on criteria used for how many can be on beaches, officials said.
The South Korean government will inspect the commission charged by App Store and Play Store

The South Korean government has most recently announced that it would perform an inspection of their App Store and Play Store for the high revenue-sharing rate under which about 30 per cent of the revenue goes into the giants wallets.

The act took place after several members of the Korea Startup Forum filed related petitions to the South Korean Ministry of Science and Technology.

Newswire The Korean Herald quoted the ministrys representative as saying that the ministry will keep careful track of the platform providers and also prepare measures to cope with them. We will also act as an intermediary between content developers and platform operators to ensure the rights of users.

In the middle of August, Choi Sung Jin, chairman of Consortium, a member of Korean Startup Forum, said that while the 30 per cent commission rate is too high in itself. He explained that this is particularly unfair for small companies because larger firms may allegedly have the ability to negotiate their commission rates. Moreover, Apple and Google could decide to raise fees without consultation.

It is more problematic that they force a specific payment system for app markets, Jin added.

In Vietnam, content developers have faced the same dilemma. Most of them said that the commission is too high while they are mainly individuals who do not belong under the umbrella of any organisation or business.

Apple and Google both launched their app markets in 2008 in Vietnam. Since then, they have been rapidly evolving and are the common point linking independent developers and millions of smartphone users. Both groups use different monetisation models depending on the developer, leaving them with around 70-85 per cent of an apps subscription fee or price.
In effect, Mr. Ratcliffe is providing cover for Vladimir Putins influence operation. If Americans are not aware of precisely what Moscow is doing to sow misinformation, they are more likely to be swayed by it. Congress could subpoena Mr. Ratcliffe to publicly testify about the ongoing operation, and it should. But the Trump administration demonstrated during the impeachment proceedings that it will defy subpoenas. Mr. Trump, who has spoken to Mr. Putin frequently by phone this year  including at least three times since May  showed in 2016 that he will do whatever he can to facilitate and exploit Russias interference. Some might call that collusion.
A small independent Russian teachers union is urging members not to be coerced into accepting shots of the Sputnik V" coronavirus vaccine which is to be mandatory for military personnel.

Moscow clinics last week began receiving supplies of the vaccine, which has been approved for use inside Russia even though the final Phase III tests, involving 40,000 people, began only last Wednesday.

From September, doctors and teachers will be among the first to be offered the jab on a voluntary basis, officials have said, an arrangement President Vladimir Putin has said he supports.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has said shots of the vaccine will be made mandatory for military personnel.

With Russian schools re-opening on Sept. 1 for the first time since March, the teachers union Uchitel has launched an online petition against making the vaccine mandatory for teachers before all clinical trials are complete.

Its likely that school principals will be under pressure for everyone to be vaccinated," the petition says.

Uchitel represents only about 700 of Russias 1.2 million school teachers, a senior union official said, but it says nearly 1,400 people have signed its petition.

The Health Ministry said vaccination would be voluntary and redirected other questions to the Education Ministry, which did not reply to a request for a comment.

The Moscow mayors office said any trials would be on a voluntary basis and that there is no pressure on schools and therefore, no punishment measures towards teachers." Uchitel is the only teachers union known to have issued such a petition.

But Uchitels co-chair, Marina Baluyeva, an English-language teacher from St Petersburg, drew parallels with occasional weekends when staff are asked to help do clean-up work, saying this work was voluntary in theory but that teachers who decline to do the work can get into trouble.

WARNINGS BY WESTERN EXPERTS

Russia is the first country to license a COVID-19 vaccine, calling it Sputnik V" in homage to the worlds first satellite, launched by the Soviet Union. Western experts have warned against its use until all internationally approved testing and regulatory steps have been taken. Moscow has dismissed such criticism as an information war.

One Moscow school has already offered voluntary shots to its nearly 80 teachers, several staff at the school said. One of the teachers, Larisa Ivanovna, said 20 had signed up for the jab but that her decision was driven by fear of losing their job.

I am afraid of taking the risk of an untested vaccine," said Dmitry Kazakov, a history teacher who signed the Uchitel petition and is wary even though his bosses have not asked him to have the jab. Sometimes you get an offer you cannot reject."
B kartheek By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Three Central prisons in Telangana have close to 99.86 per cent occupancy, an increase of 22.92 per cent from the previous year, according to 2019 prison statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

Although it is much below the national average of 123 per cent, it points at the need for decongest the prisons amidst the global pandemic. The available capacity in three jails is 4,196 and it is filled to the brim with 4,190 prisoners which accounts for 62.37 per cent of total prisoners in the State. Telangana has a total capacity of 7,785, and, 6,717 convicts and 4,84 undertrial prisoners are lodged in 37 prisons.

The data also shows that 63 per cent of prisoners are serving life imprisonment against the national average of 53.5 per cent. According to the data, there are 75 foreigners including 10 women, of these 10 have been convicted and 65 are undertrials. Just like the national trend, the data also shows that the number of SCs, STs, and Muslims imprisoned in TS jails is disproportionate to their population. Of the 6,717 convicted prisoners, 1,278 are Dalits, 858 are Adivasis, and 1,673 are Muslims. Surprisingly, there are only 89 convicts in rape (218 undertrials), nine convicts in assault on women with intent to outrage modesty (50 undertrials), and, 151 convicts of offences against women (61 undertrials). There are 54 undertrials under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The data shows that TS produces 73.25 per cent of total goods produced by inmates across the country. Goods worth `599.89 crore were produced by TS prisoners followed by Tamil Nadu- `72.96 crore. The value of goods produced per inmate was highest in TS at `8.93 lakh followed by Tamil Nadu with `49,611, in 2019.
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At least 24 people died across Madhya Pradesh in rain-related incidents in the last two days. The Indian Army, Indian Air Force (IAF) and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have evacuated around 11,000 people from rain-hit districts to safer places.

Casualties have been reported from Katni, Chhatarpur, Raisen and Sehore in the last 36 hours.

Torrential showers reduced during the day on August 30, providing a respite, after pounding for two days.

Rescue operations

Manish Rastogi, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that personnel of the Army and the NDRF were carrying out massive rescue operations with boats and other gear.

Total of 257 people, including 193 from Sehore, 61 from Raisen and three from Balaghat, were airlifted to safer places with the help of IAF choppers on August 30.

On the second consecutive day, Chouhan conducted the aerial survey of flooded areas in Harda, Hoshangabad, Sehore, Raisen and Vidisha districts.

Not received so much rainfall since 1999

Earlier on August 30, he had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the floods.

The chief minister said: I explained the entire situation to PM Modi today morning. We are being given his support. I am happy that we continued the rescue operations overnight.

India Today quoted Chouhan as saying that the state has not received so much rain since the year 1999 and that the deluge has affected over hundreds of villages in Madhya Pradesh.

On alert

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has asked the state to remain on alert on August 31 too.

IMD Bhopal centre's meteorologist Hari Shankar Pandey told news agency PTI that a low-pressure area causing heavy rainfall lies over eastern Rajasthan, adjoining western MP.

Thus, heavy rainfall is expected in Indore, Ujjain, Shajapur, Ratlam, Dewas, Jhabua, Alirajpur, Mandsaur and Neemuch in the next 24 hours.
If the Legislature blocks Gov. Phil Murphys plan to raise taxes on the super-rich again, for the third year in a row, then they really should hand in their membership cards to the Democratic Party.

But the pandemic could save them from that fate, because the need is so obvious today that the momentum is shifting in favor of the hike. Several legislators say they support the hike and want their leadership to at least allow a vote on the measure this year. In past years, Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin have not allowed that, but both are keeping their options open now, given the dire need.

Everything is on the table, says Sweeney, D-Gloucester.

Sen. Troy Singleton, D-Burlington, is among those who see change coming. Its about sharing the pain, he says. Were all going to have to give of ourselves to move New Jersey forward. This year, more than any other, I really believe its going to move forward.

Sharing the pain, not punishing success. We need to increase taxes on the rich not because its wrong to be rich, but because thats where the money is.

The tax hike would hit only the wealthiest sliver, about 24,000 households in a state of 9 million people. It would affect only those earning more than $1 million in a single year, not the much larger group whose homes and retirement accounts put their net worth above $1 million.

For those high earners, the hike would take roughly two pennies from each dollar earned above the million-dollar threshold. Thats not asking a lot, especially in this pandemic, when working-class families are far more likely to get sick and lose their jobs. Among families earning $50,000 or less, nearly two thirds have lost income during this crisis, according to the state Department of Treasury. Among those earning $150,000 or more, just one-third have lost income. Meanwhile, the booming stock market has recovered all its pandemic losses.

Republicans and conservative Democrats warn that this tax will drive the wealthy away from New Jersey and result in lower revenue collections. It would kill the Golden Goose, they say, and ruin the economy. They all know the name David Tepper, the hedge fund billionaire who left Summit for Florida in 2016, reducing his tax burden by hundreds of millions of dollars.

But Tepper is outnumbered by the millionaires who stay, and by the millionaires we grow here at home. The total number of people earning more than $1 million a year has doubled over the last 20 years, according to the Department of Treasury, despite significant tax hikes during that period.

It makes intuitive sense. Ask yourself, if you were that wealthy, would you take your family away from their friends, schools, and jobs to save two pennies of each dollar above $1 million? Would you uproot your life, say goodbye to weekend trips to Manhattans museums and restaurants, and move to Tallahassee for the pennies?

Sweeney and Coughlin have to worry about next years election. Both note that while New Jersey is a blue state, it is also sensitive about tax hikes, especially in the suburbs, where most of their members are based.

But they will face new pressure this year. New Jersey is borrowing $4 billion just to get by, about 10 percent of the annual budget. And even then, Murphy is proposing tough cuts, like reducing state aid to New Jersey Transit, and scaling back plans to remove lead pipes that are poisoning children in our cities.

Deeper spending cuts will slow down New Jerseys economy even more, according to a public letter to Murphy signed by 100 economists and academics, including big names like Alan Blinder, the Princeton economist who served as vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve during the boom of the 1990s.

Maybe Sweeney and Coughlin have a better idea. But if they dont allow their members to at least vote on a millionaires tax, they will have to explain why they are protecting the super-rich at the expense of everyone else. At a time like this, that would be a tough sell.

More: Tom Moran columns

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.
SEOUL: The U.S. military command in South Korea said on Monday it would suspend training at a range after four South Korean civilians were killed in a crash with an armoured vehicle late on Sunday.

An SUV crashed with a military armoured vehicle at about 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, on a public road about 5 km from a live-fire range used by the U.S. and South Korean militaries in Pocheon, between Seoul and the North Korean border, the fire department said in a statement.

All four people in the SUV died, while one U.S. soldier suffered light injuries and was sent to the hospital, the department said.

U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) said the vehicle belonged to the 2nd Infantry Division-ROK/U.S. Combined Division, which was the first division to include both South Korean and U.S. troops, lead by an American commander with a South Korean deputy.

USFK offers its deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the deceased following this tragic accident, they are in our thoughts and prayers," the command said in a statement.

Out of respect to those killed and their families Eighth Army is temporarily suspending training in the area."

The two U.S. soldiers in the armoured vehicle were evaluated and returned to duty", USFK said.

Photos and video from the site showed the SUV with its front badly mangled after apparently running into the rear of the tracked armoured personnel carrier, which showed signs of lighter damage.

About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, where the United States has maintained a military presence since the 1950-53 Korean War.

The allies are in the midst of a dispute over how much South Korea should pay toward maintaining the troops, and South Korea has been pushing for the United States to grant it the right to control all troops in the country in the event of a war.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Residents walk across the street in Taipei, May 9, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

By Tang Hua

As the China-US rivalry is deepening, the US repeatedly manipulates the topic of the Taiwan Strait, deliberately fuel cross-strait hostility and increases the risk of hot wars. As a result, the "Taiwan independence" secessionists on the island seem to see the hope of "allying itself with the US to contain the Chinese mainland" and pushing toward a gradual "Taiwan independence" from China. However, an important multilateral event organized by the US recently excluded Taiwan. Once again, expecting the US to honor its security promise to Taiwan at any cost is nothing but an illusion.

The US-led Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) is underway, but the long-awaited DPP authorities have not been invited. In fact, in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 passed by the US Senate on July 23, it recommended that Taiwan be invited to participate in the RIMPAC. Besides, before that, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex M. Azar "visited Taiwan" and became the highest-level US official to visit the region, once again challenging the bottom line of China-US relations. This series of actions by the US made some people on the island believe that Taiwan's participation in this year's RIMPAC should be very reasonable, but now only to be thrown cold water on.

In fact, the US made this decision after careful consideration. In the US strategic circle, it is the basic consensus to use the Taiwan question as the starting point to disrupt China's established pace of development and block China's rise. However, different factions still diverge on whether to intervene in the Taiwan Strait. Conservative scholars believe that using force against China on the Taiwan question is not in the interests of the US. Daniel L. Davis, a senior fellow at the US think tank Defense Priorities, wrote:An unemotional assessment of the military capabilities of both China and the United States reveals the odds are uncomfortably high that the U.S. forces would be defeated in a war with China over Taiwan. Whats worse, even achieving a tactical victory could result in a devastating strategic loss. Earlier, the US Department of Defense and the RAND Corporation conducted deductions, and it showed that if China and the US have a conflict on the Taiwan issue, the result will be the US's defeat. Senior officials at the White House cannot ignore these research results.

The US has done its utmost to suppress China in the fields of science and technology, education, and media. Still, it maintains a delicate balance with China in terms of military security. On the one hand, the US is under the banner of "freedom of navigation" operations in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. It has continuously sent military aircraft and warships to cause frequent nuisances. On the other hand, it has maintained close contact with the Chinese military's senior leadership and has repeatedly issued signals of "willing to control risks and maintain dialogue." On August 5, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said at the Aspen Security Forum that he did not see China right now as an inevitable threat that the US is going to have a fight with. However, the US will compete with China in all fields, including diplomacy, intelligence, military, and politics. It can be seen that the Trump administration has been cautiously testing and avoiding direct conflict with China during the US-China wrestling.

Not long ago, Senior Colonel Zhang Chunhui, spokesperson for the PLA Eastern Theater Command, said that some major powers have continued to move negatively on Taiwan-related issues recently, sending terribly wrong signals to the so-called "Taiwan independence" forces, and seriously threatening peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. The troops of the PLA Eastern Theater Command will always maintain a high level of alert, take all necessary measures, resolutely counter all provocative acts that create "Taiwan independence" and split the country, and adamantly defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, Zhang stressed. This statement is equivalent to drawing a red line for US interference in terms of cross-Straits relations.

Compared with the visit of US Secretary of Health and Human Services to Taiwan, if Taiwan is invited to participate in the RIMPAC, the political sensitivity and provocative implications of the US in helping Taiwan use force to resist reunification and use force to seek "independence" are obviously much stronger. Therefore, merely excluding Taiwan to cool the increasingly severe regional situation in recent times, or at least not add fire to the tense situation, is a deliberate and rational choice of the US government.

This also allows the world to see what kind of mentality the US has in "fulfilling its defense obligations for Taiwan." It remains to be seen whether some people on the island who have been dazzled by the so-called "Taiwan independence undertaking" can understand the facts clearly.

Disclaimer: This article is originally published on china.com.cn and is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
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SEATTLE  An apartment building at 744 Belmont Place E. has sold for a little over $4.1 million, according to King County records. The seller was Belmont Place Apartments LLC, which acquired the property in 2013 for $2 million.

The buyer was Puget Sound Apartments LLC, which is associated with a private local investor. Public records indicate a loan from JPMorgan Chase





. . .
New York's state university has quarantined all students at one of its upstate campuses for two weeks, after 105 people tested positive for COVID-19 following a series of parties.

The Oneonta site, 165 miles north of New York City, is one of 64 campuses run by the State University of New York (SUNY). Around 3,000 students are based there.

On Sunday the chancellor, Jim Malatras, visited the campus and announced that it would be on lockdown for two weeks, until September 13.

SUNY's Oneonta campus went into lockdown at 9pm on Sunday for two weeks

Andrew Cuomo has sent a 'COVID SWAT team' to SUNY Oneonta to deal with the outbreak

Footage on social media appeared to show a large number of partying students, packed indoors and not wearing face masks.

Five students in Oneonta have been suspended for holding parties, which breaks the college rules.

Three campus organizations have been suspended for staging gatherings.

'We're going to be tough not because we want to ruin their fun, but this is a different time and this goes to what other campuses have been doing,' said Malatras.

He said they were alerted to the problem last week, and found 20 cases of coronavirus.

By Friday that had jumped to 71, and by Sunday it was 105.

Oneonta is a liberal arts college in New York where 3,000 students are currently enrolled

The university on Sunday said that 105 students have tested positive for COVID-19

Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, said on Sunday he was sending a 'SWAT team' of 71 contact tracers and eight case investigators to the campus.

New York State will also open three free, rapid testing sites in the city of Oneonta. The sites will be open to all city residents by appointment, and results back in 15 minutes.

'Colleges are the canary in the coal mine,' he said.

Jim Malatras, chancellor of SUNY, announced the news at the Oneonta campus on Sunday

'A three per cent infection rate is high in a congregate situation - similar to a dense urban environment where you have people taking public transportation.

'I think the Chancellor is doing the exact right thing at Oneonta and I think he's taking the right actions across SUNY, and I think the private colleges should really follow the example.'

Cuomo warned that private colleges needed to be equally vigilant, or else risk being shut down.

'Private colleges, if you are slow to enforce the rules, then the virus will spread and then you will have to take more dramatic action,' he said.

'If a private college doesn't take the dramatic action, the local health department can make the college take close-down procedures.'

The new rules mean that students will be allowed to go outside, but will not be allowed to congregate in groups of three or more people.

College facilities, including the library, Hunt Union and classroom buildings, will be closed to students, and students will not be permitted to leave campus.

Dining services will deliver meals to the residence halls, and all classes will be taught online.

Students were sent emails about the lockdown and alerts went out on social media

Oneonta's classes will all be taught online, and the university buildings will be largely closed

Barbara Jean Morris, president of the university, said: 'To the vast majority of our students who have done everything the college has asked, taken precautions to safeguard the community outside of campus, and consistently been respectful of one another, I am sorry.

'I know this is not the start of the semester any of us had envisioned.'

SUNY's Oneonta campus is not the only one facing challenges. SUNY Plattsburgh, 300 miles north of New York City, suspended 43 students on August 21 after they were caught partying at a closed park.

On social media, some students were questioning how the Oneonta lockdown would work in practise.

'Got an email saying we place orders and food is delivered to the residence hall, starting at Lunch today,' tweeted Thadias McCoy.

'But I don't know when that is, where to place an order or what I am able to order.'

Some students were asking how they were expected to get their food during lockdown

Other students told local media they hoped this would end the outbreak.

Junior Kevin Davidson of South Glens Falls said he was shocked at how quickly it spread.

'I was surprised, taken off guard,' he told News Channel 2.

'Last we knew it was 29 cases Friday, now it's 105 and we're shutting down.

'The way these things grow is exponentially and that's concerning. I think the shut down, or pause as they prefer to call it, will help the spread but it could be a long shut down. It could be, I really have no idea.'

The mother of one student, Laura, was angry that her daughter had fallen ill, despite not going to any parties.

She said she was driving her home, and stopping en route for a test.

Another woman said the students and the management were both to blame.

'While kids behaved inappropriately, so did administration by not having mandatory Covid testing prior to campus return and f/u testing once settled on campus,' she said.

'Unorganized and irresponsible in these unprecedented times! Disappointed!'

The mother of one student said her daughter was sick, and she wanted answers
WASHINGTON  The Trump administration on Monday relaxed strict Obama-era standards for how coal-fired power plants dispose of wastewater laced with dangerous pollutants like lead, selenium and arsenic, a move environmental groups said would leave rivers and streams vulnerable to toxic contamination.

The Environmental Protection Agency regulation scaled back the types of wastewater treatment technologies that utilities must install to protect rivers and other waterways. It also pushed back compliance dates and exempted some power plants from taking any action at all.

The change is one of several the Trump administration has pushed to try to rescue a coal industry in steep decline, extending the life of aging coal-fired power plants and trying to make them more competitive with cheaper natural gas and renewable energy. The move came days after President Trumps son Eric described his father as a champion of coal miners who will fight for you.

Coal industry executives, who had criticized the original restrictions as costly and overly burdensome, praised the changes. Andrew Wheeler, the E.P.A. administrator and a former coal industry lobbyist, described the revisions as more affordable pollution control technologies that would reduce pollution and save jobs at the same time.
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Ontario SC Identification Technician Mike Pennington will be in the Hanover region on Thursday, September 3, 2020, to microchip any horses requiring identification.

Please contact Pennington at 416-580-3683 to make an appointment to ensure his visit to your farm.
ALTON  Musical genres collide and form the gateway to new possibilities for band members of The Plums, a local four-piece ensemble looking to take the world by storm.

Formed in the fall of 2018 by a group of college kids hailing from as far away as Chicago and Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, The Plums have made Alton their home base and just finished a recording session for a new EP to be released later this year.

Its a cool conglomeration, said the bands keyboardist Joey Arlene. Every single person has really varying tastes, which I think is really cool. Thats actually my favorite part of the band  everyones ability to bring different ideas.

With vast musical tastes and influences such as grunge, reggae, funk, 60s British pop, modern, indie, heavy metal, big band jazz, motown, folk, classic rock, electronic and world music, The Plums are high energy when it comes to music and the band members bring that energy to their overall sound.

The Beatles are definitely in there for all four of us, said drummer Ben Willingham.

My biggest influence is the Smashing Pumpkins,  he said. It started out with Van Halen and Rush and thats kind of what got me into drumming, so a lot of my basic root knowledge of percussion and drumming is from those kinds of bands.

Arlene and lead vocalist Wyatt Glave also like to experiment with different instruments.

I love to experiment with just whatever I can find, said Arlene, who started playing keys in high school and would listen to his grandmother playing guitar around the house. Thats kind of how I grew up.

Glave expressed a similar sentiment.

I like to dabble with all kinds of stuff, he said. I wouldnt say Im proficient at most things. But I like to sit down with instruments and just kind of experiment with them.

Brought together by the love of music, the four met at Lindenwood College in St. Charles, Missouri.

Obviously, we were all there for music purposes, said vocalist Wyatt Glave. Ben and I were roommates and we really wanted to do a band.

I think one of the big forces that pushed our band forward in the beginning was when we all watched the Queen movie, he said. At least, speaking for myself, I kind of felt like a new energy. I wanted to get this going.

Glave is also the bands primary songwriter, but he would like to see other members contribute more as they move forward.

I dont really like being the primary songwriter, if you will, he said. I hope that one day we can all kind of write stuff and sing because I like that variety.

I think we are slowly all reaching that point and thats kind of where I would like to see us, he said. As much as I like writing music, I want to see what everyone else has to say.

Band members also are looking forward to doing more studio work.

I think Im more interested in the recording side, rather than the live, said Glave. I like playing live, but Id like to see how far we can go in the studio in terms of experimenting and changing what a song might sound like, being able to mess around with all of the gadgets and stuff.

After recording their first EP at Gaslight Studio in St. Louis, The Plums are already thrilled with the recording experience and plan to be in the studio at least once a year.

The guys down there were really super cool, said Arlene. Rick Wagner was the best engineer and producer you could ask for.

We recorded four tunes and got the rough mixes back, but dont have the final mixes yet, he said. Hopefully well get those in the next few weeks or so.

The EPs songs  Across the World, Future Pending, Right Here, Right Now and Hit the Ground  are definitely on the high energy side said Willingham and are a cohesive, yet diverse mix of the bands overall sound.

Weve been waiting a long time to do just these tunes, said Arlene, who co-wrote two of the songs. Were not super ready for an album yet since were still relatively new. So were just trying to get tunes we think are good and want people to hear.

Aside from the somewhat slower Across the World, bassist Hans Mohr said a lot of their current music is pretty hard.

Kind of makes sense, I guess, he said. In relation to The Beatles, a lot of their songs were really up tempo. Its just really easy to get a crowd involved that way.

Although a full album might be a ways off, The Plums are getting their feet wet with local shows, as pandemic precautions permit. If not rescheduled, their next show is planned Friday, Sept. 25 at the Red Flag in St. Louis.

We did have two or three this month in August, but they kept getting pushed back, said Willingham.

While The Plums recognize the importance of live shows and touring, they also value the personal satisfaction in the music they produce and share.

It does matter what people think. But at the end of the day, its what we created and what wed like to share with the world, said Arlene. To just be happy with what were putting out, not getting lazy and people hopefully liking it  thats the bottom line.

For more on the band, visit their page on Facebook.
Delhi on Monday recorded 1,358 fresh coronavirus cases and 18 more deaths in the last 24 hours, officials said.

With new cases, Delhis cumulative tally of positive cases has climbed to 1.74 lakh, while the death toll has reached 4,444, according to the health bulletin issued by the state government.

The slump in total cases comes a day after Delhi recorded highest number of positive cases in August within a span of 24 hours with 2,024 fresh cases, sparking concerns of second wave among the government. However, authorities on Monday conducted comparatively lower number of tests  14,389 cases as opposed to the daily average of 20,000.

Active cases came down a notch below on Monday at 14,626, from 14,793 of the previous day. Out of these, 7,876 continue to be treated for the viral contagion in home isolation.

At present, Delhi has 15,743 hospital beds available to treat those infected by the Covid-19.

Over 15.8 lakh people have been tested for the virus in the national capital, the health bulletin stated.

The fear of second wave in the city are rife as the Delhi High Court on Monday expressed concern over spike in cases of Covid-19 in the national capital by terming it as worrisome and directed the Delhi government to re-strategise the testing so that maximum number of cases which are turning out to be asymptomatic can undergo a test at private laboratories to prevent spread of coronavirus infection.

The bench expressed concern over the rise in the number of Covid-19 cases, which on Sunday crossed 2,000, and said the way figures are increasing every week is worrisome.

(With inputs from PTI)
Arab League (AL) Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit on Monday welcomed a comprehensive peace deal signed between Sudanese government and armed groups, a crucial step towards ending conflicts.

The deal, reached in the South Sudanese capital Juba, was signed with nine armed movements under the Revolutionary Front Alliance after 10 months of mediation of South Sudan.

"The AL is committed to push all kinds of cooperation and coordination with the Sudanese peace partners in the coming transitional period that will last for three years from the date of signing the deal," Aboul-Gheit said in a statement.

He called for mobilizing the Arab and international support to back Sudan to promote new era of peace and security and achieve the development aspired by the Sudanese people.

"The pan-Arab organization will continue coordination with the Sudanese side for the implementation of programs and initiatives that would boost the developmental priorities of Sudan especially in the war-torn areas," he added.

The peace agreement included protocols of security arrangements, power and wealth sharing, compensation for the displaced people and refugees, land ownership, and realization of justice and development.

It stipulated extension of the transitional period in Sudan for extra 39 months, starting on Sept. 1, 2020.

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BLOOMINGTON  More than 60 people gathered on the Illinois Wesleyan University Quad on Monday to lament the crisis in the humanities on the same day one-year terminal contracts were given to three faculty members whose programs or majors are being eliminated.

Terminal contracts were originally planned to be issued Aug. 1, but the university delayed them for a month to see whether more alternatives would come to light after classes began Aug. 17.

Originally, nine faculty members potentially were impacted by the boards decision to discontinue programs in French, Italian, religious studies and anthropology.

President Georgia Nugent said through many discussions, they were able to work out mutually acceptable resolutions, with some faculty members moving to tenured positions in other departments and others retiring or taking a phased retirement.

She said the university will continue working with the three affected faculty members to make every effort to reach a satisfactory resolution.

Referring to a crisis in the humanities reflected in program cuts nationwide, English professor Michael Theune, said, It turns out that the crisis, which already has affected our university to a significant degree  including, recently, the closure of Greek and Roman studies  has now fully arrived.

Theune, adviser for the first-year humanities fellows, called it a dark and dismal day, but added, We are keeping watch.

Among those keeping watch is the American Association of University Professors, which questioned IWUs actions in a letter to Nugent and board of trustees chair Tim Szerlong.

The letter from Gregory Scholtz, director of AAUPs department of academic freedom, tenure and governance, said, unless there is an appropriate resolution or other information, the evident serious departures from association-recommended principles and standards could result in a recommendation for a formal AAUP investigation.

Nugent said the university will be providing a formal response to the AAUP with additional information about IWUs actions. The AAUP letter was based only on information from faculty sources.

Students speaking at the Heeding the Humanities event expressed concern about what they think will be lost by the elimination of the programs.

Senior Taylor Plantan of Rolling Meadows, an English literature major, said, For the past six months of this tumultuous year, I have been fortunate to lean on the knowledge I have gained throughout my humanities coursework during my time at Illinois Wesleyan.

She said, With the closure of these programs, our Breakthrough moments simply and suddenly become Eh. Good enough moments, adding good enough is not acceptable.

Samira Kassem, a senior in political science from Mahomet, said, with threats from COVID-19, racism, fascism and environmental concerns, Kassem said, we need the humanities now more than ever.

She expressed fear that, without the humanities, IWU would become "a stale, over-priced trade school training corporate zombies."

But Nugent said, I do not agree that there is a turn away from the humanities here.

Although the programs have been eliminated, we intend to continue offering those kinds of courses at the introductory level, she said.

Nugent said if trustees had accepted the original recommendation of the program evaluation task force, the school of music and school of art would have been eliminated. Instead, were committed to developing and improving and enhancing both schools.

See photos: IWU faculty, students, alumni rally for liberal arts

Contact Lenore Sobota at (309) 820-3240. Follow her on Twitter: @Pg_Sobota

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With that being said, he knows Red Onion did this deliberately because of the article, Watson wrote.

In April, Phelps, who wanted to be moved to another state or be placed in protective custody, filed a complaint against two officials at the Pocahontas Correctional Center  where he had once been held  in U.S. District Court in Roanoke. The Department of Corrections will not comment on Phelps pending allegations.

State paperwork filed in court by Phelps shows that the Department of Corrections told him in writing that Phelps did not qualify for an out-of-state placement, that it investigated Phelps claims, and that there is no substantiating evidence to support your claims of your life being in jeopardy.

Phelps said in a telephone interview in early August that he would not have filed a public lawsuit identifying himself as an informant and making himself a marked man if it were not true.

In court papers, state officials denied that Phelps has suffered any injuries or damages as a result of any act by the defendants and, to the extent that Phelps has suffered any injuries or damages, such injuries or damages were due to an act or acts by the Plaintiff.
Kigali, Rwanda: Paul Rusesabagina, portrayed in the film Hotel Rwanda as a hero who saved the lives of more than 1200 people from the country's 1994 genocide, has been arrested by the Rwandan government on terrorism charges, police announced on Monday.

A well-known critic of President Paul Kagame, Rusesabagina had been living outside Rwanda since 1996 and police did not say where he was apprehended. He had been living in Belgium and then in Texas in the US.

Paul Rusesabagina was arrested by the Rwandan government on terrorism charges. Credit:AP

In handcuffs and a face mask, Rusesabagina, 66, was shown to the press in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, on Monday by police. He has not yet been formally charged in court.

"Through international co-operation, the Rwanda Bureau of Investigation wants to inform the general public that Paul Rusesabagina has been arrested, police said in a statement on Monday.
A fast food employee in San Antonio has been fired after allegedly spitting in a police officer's food.

On Wednesday, a San Antonio police officer ordered food from the drive-thru of a Popeyes at 14107 Nacogdoches Road shortly after 9 p.m.

The officer could hear an employee yelling "ACAB" but thought nothing nothing of it, according to a police report. He left the drive-thru and began to eat his food when he noticed the same four letters written in black marker on the inside of his food box.

The acronym stands for "All Cops Are Bastards," the report notes.

READ ALSO: Spurs CEO speaks out about Gregg Popovich, Brooklyn Nets rumors

The officer believed he saw spit on top of his food and immediately discarded the food. An investigator went to the location to take pictures of the markings on the box and his receipt.

In a statement Monday, Popeyes said an employee has been fired in connection with the incident.

"We want to apologize to the guest involved," a company spokesperson wrote.

"The actions of the team member do not reflect the values of our brand nor the high level of service we strive to deliver to our guests. The team member no longer works at the restaurant and the owner has reached out to the officer to personally apologize."

SAPD spokesman Doug Greene said the police investigation is focused on the potential food tampering, not the writing on the box.

"I'm sure that same officer would be there to protect and serve that establishment if it came to it," Greene said. "We're just going to go ahead and investigate it like we investigate every case and hopefully we come to some kind of peaceful resolution."
The mother of a British backpacker who vanished in Canada 31 years ago has been given fresh hope after a cold-case unit revealed it was investigating the disappearance.

Charles Horvath-Allan, who would be 52 this month, was last seen in May 1989 on the Tiny Tent Town campsite in Kelowna, British Columbia.

His mother, Denise, 71, who fears she will 'go to her grave' without knowing what happened to her son, has made 16 trips to Canada to uncover what happened.

Charles Horvath-Allan (pictured), who would be 52 this month, was last seen in May 1989 on the Tiny Tent Town campsite in Kelowna, British Columbia

His mother, Denise, 71, (pictured with Charles) who fears she will 'go to her grave' without knowing what happened to her son, has made 16 trips to Canada to uncover what happened

Three years after Charles went missing, Denise (pictured) received an anonymous note saying that Charles had been beaten to death on the campsite he had been staying at

Three years after Charles went missing, Denise received an anonymous note saying that Charles had been beaten to death on the campsite he had been staying at, but his body was never found and no arrests were ever made.

Under the Presumption of Death Act 2013, Charles was officially declared dead on August 14 after a High Court of Justice hearing.

However, Leeds Beckett University in West Yorkshire are launching a cold-case unit to investigate the disappearance and try to uncover new leads.

After hearing about the new investigation, Denise said: 'I'm absolutely thrilled and privileged that they are taking on my Charles' case, I hope it will provide me with answers on the fate of my son.

'To not know has been cruel, it has been the worst part.

'Families of missing people will never get closure, you will always have lost a loved one, but if I can get some answers I think it will ease some of the torment I have suffered for the last 31 years.

'The brain never rests, it is always asking questions. When did this happened? Why? Who stole my son from my life?

'If he's dead, you can't change that fact, but at least you have the answer and the case is over.

'Some parents go to their grave never knowing, I always thought if I fought hard enough and long enough, I would eventually know what happened to him.

Charles' grandmother died 17 years after he disappeared and Denise said that she has reserved a resting place for her son and one day hopes to bury him with her mother in Cambridge.

The last time Denise heard from Charles was May 11, 1989, when he sent a fax to heir home in Sowerby Bride, West Yorkshire.

Under the Presumption of Death Act 2013, Charles (pictured) was officially declared dead on August 14 after a High Court of Justice hearing

The last time Denise heard from Charles was May 11, 1989, when he sent a fax to heir home in Sowerby Bride, West Yorkshire. Pictured: Charles as a youngster with mother Denise

He had planned to fly to Hong Kong and meet his family for a joint celebration of his 21st birthday and Denise's 40th in August that year.

Denise sold her beauty salon so she could afford to search for her son and she also ran up a 4,000 phone bill.

She believes that Charles could have been murdered by a gang similar to Hells Angels, who were said to have moved to the same campsite as Charles shortly before he went missing.

Denise said that although a body was found in Lake Okanagan, it hadn't been Charles and she hopes that the students at Leeds Beckett can dedicate more time to the cold-case than police have been able to.

Denise (left) sold her beauty salon so she could afford to search for her son and she also ran up a 4,000 phone bill

Kirsty Bennett, a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, is launching the cold case unit from September for criminology students.

They will work alongside Locate International, a community interest company set up to help the families of missing people.

Ms Bennett said: 'It's really important to showcase that we should not forget these cases and we owe it to the victims' families to do something.

'In working on these cold cases, our students are providing a service to the families of the missing, looking for opportunities to progress the cases that might not otherwise get the focused attention that they need.

'This isn't a promise that we are going to solve the case, it's to offer families and police forces the opportunity for other people to have a look at the case in different ways, do a review, and potentially offer a new line of inquiry.'
A body located 30 miles from Fort Hood is thought to be that of Sgt. Elder Fernandes.

According to the Associated Press, the body found in Temple, Texas, points to that of the missing Fort Hood soldier, pending forensic confirmation.

FORT HOOD SOLDIERS ARRESTED IN PROSTITUTION STING: Fort Sam Houston, Fort Hood soldiers arrested in connection with child prostitution sting

The 23-year-old soldier was reported missing on Aug. 19 and was last seen at a residence in Killeen on Aug. 17, according to a Fort Hood press release.

Houston native, Spc. Vanessa Guillen was also reported missing from Fort Hood on April 22. Her remains were found on June 30, and she was laid to rest in a private funeral on Aug. 15.

Natalie Khawam, who represented the Guillen family, is also representing the Fernandes family.

According to the AP article, "the body was found hanging in a tree," and an autopsy was issued.

Fernandes' case is just the latest in a number of tragedies surrounding Fort Hood.

"At least 7 soldiers stationed at Fort Hood have died or been found dead since March, including one who took his life after becoming a suspect in Guillen's disappearance," stated a CNN article.

This case also comes on the heels of two Texas soldiers stationed at Ford Hood involved in a child prostitution sting involving nine men arrested, according to a Chron.com article.

According to a previous Fort Hood press release, foul play is not suspected in Fernandes' disappearance.

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"Our team is dedicated to ensuring easy and consistently dependable access to critical information in situations where every minute counts," said Sandy Dyre, Public Safety Expert at DATAMARK, Michael Baker International. "DATAMARK's solutions are designed to meet the data requirements for NG9-1-1 and ensure accurate emergency response location data. Our experienced team will be a true partner to the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services and the Oklahoma PSAPs as the transition to NG9-1-1 continues."

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Mercury Capital's magazine business Bauer Media is on the hunt for new office space as the lease on its famous 54 Park Street headquarters comes to an end.

The publisher of The Australian Women's Weekly and Woman's Day, which was formally bought by Mercury in July, has occupied the headquarters in Sydney's central business district since the days it was run by the Packer family.

Bauer Media, formerly known as Australian Consolidated Press, has occupied 54 Park St since the 1930s. Credit:Rhett Wyman

Bauer has put a brief out in the market looking for space to lease and sources suggest it could end up in office space once used by Pacific Magazines, Seven West Media's former magazine division. Seven's empty office has been looking for a tenant since the magazine business was acquired in May this year for $40 million.

But Bauer, soon be renamed by its new owners as it nears completion of a management restructure, may stay in its existing headquarters if it can secure a large rent reduction. Bauer's existing lease expires at the end of this financial year.
I(dont)care

Workers rorted, the rich get richer

The 2020 review of the NSW workers compensation scheme interviewed the Icare board earlier this year.

What did it find out?

Out of its 1,200 employees, 200 of them were eligible for bonuses  amounting to just over sixteen per cent of the insurers workforce.

Additionally, eight of its executives were taking home almost $4 million last financial year, including bonuses well over $100,000. Most of the Board were on annual salaries between $500,000 to $800,000 a year.

These performance payments were made despite terribly deteriorating return to work figures for injured workers, and a decline in the funding ratio of the scheme.

It seems all of the senior leadership, as well as the general managers, were all on bonuses.

Furthermore, at least two employees in the NSW treasurers office were being paid for through Icare funds  money that comes from premiums collected from employers meant to be paid to injured workers. It seems that these employees in the treasurers office were seconded by Icare, however, the proper documentation was never provided.

While Icare is meant to be paying out workers compensation, it seems that it is more in the business of paying the huge, head-scratching bonuses to poorly performing senior executives and managers. Perhaps the bonuses were for cutting back benefits for the injured workers and saving employers and the schemes money?

It would be one thing if these bonuses were being paid out and workers were getting paid out fairly and on time. However, many injured workers have had difficulty getting their claims accepted, many have been underpaid for years, and coverage for reasonable costs of medical investigations and treatments is frequently denied.

At the same time, a senior employee/senior fraud officer was raising dozens of complaints about fraud, theft and corruption at Icare, complaints that were being dismissed by those same senior executives. Instead of the whistle-blower being commended for their actions, they suffered constant bullying and harassment until they were hounded out of Icare, ultimately being forced into signing a nondisclosure agreement.

If that wasnt bad enough, former chief executive John Nagle awarded his wife a three year contract worth $800,000 to train Icare staff between 2016-19. How did the board resolve this conflict of interest when it found out? Instead of firing him, or asking for his resignation, they sanctioned him and denied him a short-term bonus. For Nagle, the loss of the bonus was enough for him to threaten to resign but board chair Michael Carapiet convinced him to stay!

The senior executives are very keen to place the blame of ballooning costs of the scheme at the feet of the greedy specialist doctors, but at the same time, see no issue at all with going on trips to Las Vegas paid for by companies that were awarded $200 million IT contracts by Icare.

Our workers compensation schemes are rorting workers; its time to nationalise the scheme.
Trump supporters have been sending me short messages asking, How is your 401(k) doing?

They are making three assumptions:

1. The stocks in my retirement account are doing well.

2. I am happy about that.

3. I have President Donald Trump to thank for my good fortune.

Assumptions one and two are correct. Three is not.

The stock market and the larger economy actually did much better under Barack Obama than they have under Trump.

First off, presidents dont have nearly as much control over the stock market as many believe.

Presidents inherit different business cycles. New technology, such as the internet, for example, influences economic developments, as do black swan events, such as the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

We could add the COVID-19 pandemic to the list of surprises, though in such cases, presidents who meet the challenges can speed up a recovery. Trump has not.

But since Trump and his boosters break out the brass instruments every time stock prices make a notable advance, let us inspect claims crediting the president for these pleasant market closes.

Lets first start with the numbers.

In the first 43 months of Donald Trumps presidency, the S&P 500 index rose about 49%  a nice gain, for sure. But in the first 43 months of Barack Obamas, it was up more than 70%t.

Keep going.

Over the course of Obamas two terms, the S&P 500 rose 176%.

Under Bill Clinton, it absolutely soared, by 211%!

So the idea Trump is some kind of stock market miracle man is  excuse my French  BS.

Then there is the real economy, where misery continues to haunt the land.

The wealthiest 10% of Americans own 84%of the stock, which suggests there are a heck of a lot more working stiffs going broke during the coronavirus recession than stockholders riding high.

The real economy remains in tatters, largely because of Trumps incompetence and disinterest in bringing this virus under control.

At least 22 million jobs were lost, and despite some comeback, only 42% of them have returned.

The unemployment rate remains above 10%.

On that subject, Trump produced 1.5 million fewer jobs in the first three (pre-COVID) years of his presidency than Obama produced in his last three years.

And as the economy boomed, Obama saw no need to push a deficit-exploding tax cut that would have favored the top incomes while producing only a temporary bump in capital investment.

It is true the stock market is not the economy, but it doesnt follow they are unrelated.

Investors rightly are worried the weak economy will come back to bite them. They know most of the gains reflect a handful of tech stocks many Wall Street analysts warn are now grossly overpriced.

Stressed About U.S. Stocks, Investors Are Betting Big on Europe, reads a Bloomberg News headline.

The story cites a survey of fund managers that finds a growing preference for investing in Europe over this country.

The reason is Europe, having brought the virus largely in check, is reopening.

We remain stuck in the jaws of the pandemic.

One other consideration.

I like a healthy 401(k), but I love my country more.

The coronavirus was bound to hit here, but we did not have to suffer this level of sickness and death.

And even as stock prices have held up (so far), the economy remains dreadful for millions of shops, restaurants and other Main Street businesses not listed on any exchange.

Meanwhile, investors who still think Trump is pulling prosperity out of his magic Make America Great Again hat need reminding: They did much better under Obama  and so did everyone else.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com.
A new government-funded sex-ed toolkit is encouraging schools to get children as young as 13 to discuss explicit sexual acts based on the roll of a dice - but this has led to concerns that girls may be sexualised at a young age.

The resource includes a game where children roll a dice featuring body parts such as 'penis' and 'hand and fingers' twice and are then encouraged to discuss the potential sexual acts carried out between them, The Times reports.

The toolkit, produced by the LGBT+ charity the Proud Trust, itself tells teachers to hold their nerve because some of the combinations 'might seem impossible' for children to talk about.

Tanya Carter, a spokeswoman for Safe Schools Alliance, told The Times: 'This 'resource' clearly breaches safeguarding. The tampon tax should be used to educate girls on their rights  not prematurely sexualise them.'

The Proud Trust's Sexuality aGender v2 toolkit (pictured) was launched with funding from the Tampon Tax Fund through the Office for Civil Society. It features a dice game that encourages children as young as 13 to talk about intimate sexual acts

Who are the Proud Trust? The Proud Trust describe themselves as a 'life saving and life enhancing organisation that helps LGBT+ young people empower themselves'. They do this by offering training and resources to educate people about gender, sexuality and LGBT+ issues. They are based at the LGBT+ Centre for Manchester and help organise national and local youth network groups. The Trust say their name is intended to reflect their aspiration that every young person can be proud of their identity, without fear or shame. Advertisement

She said that when teaching relationship and sexual education (RSE), teachers also need to remember that some children will have been victims of sexual abuse and may find the lessons traumatising.

The sex-ed toolkit was launched with funding from the Tampon Tax Fund through the Office for Civil Society.

The Proud Trust was awarded 99,960 in 2017 for their Sexualty aGender project and this latest 'v2' toolkit has been developed using some of these funds.

The MP for Thurrock, Jackie Doyle-Price said that she fully supports the introduction of RSE into schools and 'firmly' believes that it would empower girls to take greater control over their bodies.

However, on the subject of the Proud Trust toolkit she said: 'It is with horror that I see materials being produced which do the exact opposite. Schools should be teaching about mutual respect and consent and safe sex.'

Tory peer Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne has even written to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson about similar courses, saying that it is unsafe to abdicate responsibility for RSE to teachers who then abdicate it to outside groups.

The toolkit itself tells teachers to hold their nerve because some of the combinations 'might seem impossible' for children to talk about (stock image)

The Proud Trust describe themselves as a 'life saving and life enhancing organisation that helps LGBT+ young people empower themselves'.

On their website, the toolkit is outlined as 'a fun, interactive, engaging and inclusive sexual health toolkit, for use in secondary schools, colleges and other youth settings.'

The trust says that the four-lesson plan inside the kit helps meet statutory requirements to deliver LGBT+ inclusive RSE and that it helps meet the needs of all students.

MailOnline has approached The Proud Trust for comment.
Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi  As many as 140 Vietnamese citizens were brought home from South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya and Qatar on a flight operated by the Qatar Airways on August 30.

The passengers included children under 18, students who have finished their study, the elderly, labourers with expired labour contracts.



The Vietnamese embassies in South Africa and Qatar sent their staffs to assist the passengers with boarding procedures at the airports in Pretoria and Doha.



Security, safety and hygiene measures were carried out throughout the flight to protect their health and prevent the spread of COVID-19.



Upon landing at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, those on board received health check-ups and were sent to concentrated quarantine facilities.



More flights are set to be conducted in the time ahead to repatriate Vietnamese citizens with disadvantaged circumstances, depending on their need and quarantine capacity at home.
New Delhi: South Korean Electronics major Samsung has officially said that it will unveil the Galaxy Z Fold 2 foldable smartphone next week, when it will announce further details of the phone.

The event will be held online due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Join us on September 1 for Galaxy Z Fold2: Unpacked Part 2 to explore in depth the groundbreaking features of the Galaxy Z Fold2 Event will be available at Samsung.com and news.samsung.com/in/ at 10 a.m. ET or 07:30 p.m. IST, Samsung has said in a statement.

Galaxy Z Fold 2 was first showcased at the Galaxy Unpacked online event on August 5, though the detailed specs of the as well as the price of the phone was not made official.

Here is what we know so far

The Galaxy Z Fold 2 is the successor to Samsung's original foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Fold, that was launched last year.

Samsung has confirmed that the Galaxy Z Fold 2 features a 7.6-inch screen when unfolded, while having a 6.2-inch cover display, both larger than its predecessor's 7.3-inch and 4.6-inch displays.

It packs a 4,500mAh battery. The foldable handset comes in two colours: mystic black and mystic bronze.

The company added "Z" in the name to consolidate its foldable smartphones under one brand. The Z lineup currently includes the Galaxy Z Flip, a vertically folding phone.

Like the Galaxy Z Flip, Samsung said it will also release the limited edition of the Galaxy Z Fold 2 in partnership with fashion brand Thom Browne.
Lin Tiangui, a representative of Winston Wine, looks at a bottles of wine produced from Winston Wine's own Australian winery at one of its stores in Shanghai, China on October 18, 2011.

China said on Monday it had launched an anti-subsidy investigation on some wine imports from Australia, two weeks after announcing it had begun an anti-dumping probe on such imports.

The investigations come against a backdrop of increasing tensions between the two countries after Canberra called for an international inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus, which was first detected in China's central city of Wuhan.

China's commerce ministry said in an online statement the anti-subsidy investigation was launched on Aug. 31 after a request from the China Wine Industry Association which said the wine imports had received subsidies from the Australian government.

The investigation will be on "wines in containers holding 2 liters or less," and should be completed within a year or be extended to end-February 2022 under special circumstances.

The ministry also said that it would be investigating 37 subsidy items granted by the Australian government to its wine industry players, including "farm risk management", "farm financing loan scheme" and "business growth funding projects."

China is the top market for Australian wine exports and is also Australia's largest trading partner, with two-way trade worth A$235 billion ($170 billion) last year.

Beijing recently imposed dumping tariffs on Australian barley, suspended some beef imports and told Chinese students and tourists it was not safe to travel to Australia because of accusations of racism.

After China announced the anti-dumping investigation, Australian trade minister Simon Birmingham had said China is considering launching an investigation into whether Australia has subsidized wine exports. He denied Australia has illegally dumped wine to China.

News of the earlier investigation had knocked a fifth off the market value of Australia's biggest winemaker, Treasury Wine Estates. They were trading 0.8% higher on Monday amid the broader market's 0.3% rise.

As in the anti-dumping investigation, China will look at Australian wines imported in 2019 and examine the damage done to the domestic wine industry from 2015 to 2019 in the anti-subsidy investigation.
Education Minister Monica Anisie asks Prime Minister Ludovic Orban to sack the president of the National Centralized Procurement Office (ONAC), Cornelia Nagy, after learning about the "disappointing" result of the tender for the purchase of internet-connected tablets for students.

"The Ministry of Education and Research has taken note of the disappointing result of the tender for the purchase of electronic devices with Internet connection organized by the National Centralized Procurement Office. The Ministry has taken steps for the purchase of the 250,000 electronic devices as early as on May 7, when 150 million lei were allocated for this purpose by Government Decision. All the institutions involved, ONAC included, pledged to conclude all the procedures as per the agreed terms, so that the devices be at the students' disposal on the first day of school. Despite receiving full support from the Education Ministry throughout this period, ONAC officials refused to be cooperative and proactive for identifying fast solutions, as proves the catastrophic outcome of this entire process. More than that, ONAC did not inform the Ministry in due time about the stage of the tender, despite being repeatedly requested to do so," the Education Ministry said in a release on Monday.Under these circumstances, Minister Monica Anisie considers that "the disastrous outcome of the tender, after so many months during which all the institutions involved, except for ONAC, have put in efforts for the procedure to be completed on time, is unacceptable"."Those who will stand to suffer from the incompetence of the ONAC officials are the students, teachers and parents. For these reasons, I am asking the Prime Minister of Romania, Mr. Ludovic Orban, to dismiss the president of ONAC, Cornelia Nagy, and wish to resume the tender procedures as a matter of urgency," Anisie said.PM Orban announced on Sunday evening that only 70 - 80,000 student tables of the promised 250,000 can be purchased until the beginning of the school year, as the authorities found that the tender conducted by ONAC is far from being completed.
Hong Kong: CS inspects testing centre

Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung today visited the Community Testing Centre at City Hall to inspect its readiness for the Universal Community Testing Programme.

The Government will launch the programme on September 1 to provide a one-off free testing service for the public at 141 community testing centres.

As of 2pm, more than 526,000 people have registered to be tested.

At City Hall, Mr Cheung was briefed by Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip on the centres design, which comprises areas for registration, waiting, and specimen collection, as well as its workflow.

He was also briefed by Secretary for Food & Health Prof Sophia Chan about the implementation of infection control measures at the testing centre, as well as the provision of protective equipment to personnel working there.

Mr Cheung also learnt about the transportation of the specimens from the testing centres to the laboratory as well as the design of collection boxes installed with an electronic tracking device.

Currently, more than 6,000 healthcare personnel have enrolled to participate in the testing programme. About 4,000 government staff members from 75 bureaus and departments will also take up administrative support and management duties at the centres.

Mr Cheung said the centres are designed to ensure that testing will be safe, convenient and quick with full protection of personal privacy.

"The third wave of the epidemic has lasted for eight weeks. Although the epidemic has subsided recently, the proportion of cases with unknown sources remains high.

The more people that participate in the programme, the higher the chances of identifying asymptomatic COVID-19 patients in the community and achieving the target of early isolation and early treatment.

Mr Cheung added that this would help break the invisible transmission chain in the community and contain the spread of the epidemic so that social and economic activities can return to normal.

He also said that members of the public should take great care to thoughtfully consider the news on the testing programme and refer to information from the Government if in doubt.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
One more COVID-19 death and four new cases reported on Monday evening

A 55-year-old man from Da Nang Citys Hoa Vang District has died of COVID-19 related complications, marking the 34th fatality in Viet Nam.

He had a number of underlying health conditions including Guillain-Barre syndrome, type 2 diabetes and severe exhaustion.

The patient tested negative three times for SARS-CoV-2 on August 1, August 9 and August 14.

On August 27, the patient was tested for the fourth time and his family asked to bring him home due to his worsening condition. He died at home at midnight the same day. On August 28, the patient tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.

The cause of death has been recorded as pneumonia due to COVID-19 complications resulting in respiratory failure and septic shock.

Meanwhile, four new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Viet Nam on Monday evening, raising the country's total infections to 1,044, according to the Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

All of them are imported cases including two in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, one in Ha Noi and one in Phu Tho Province.

The two new cases in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province are two oil experts from India, aged 32 and 33.

They arrived at Tan Son Nhat Airport on flight EK392 on Saturday and were quarantined upon arrival.

They are being treated at Ba Ria Hospital.

The 1,043rd patient is 29-year-old woman in Vinh Phuc Provinces Vinh Yen Town.

The 1,044th patient is a 62-year-old man from India.

Both of the patients arrived at Noi Bai International Airport on Friday on flight 6E8779. They were quarantined upon arrival and are receiving treatment at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases branch in ong Anh District.

Meanwhile, 12 more people have been given the all-clear after making a full recovery. The total number of patients to beat the virus now stands at 707.

33rd COVID-19 death in Viet Nam

A man has died on Monday of COVID-19-related complications, the 33rd fatality in Viet Nam.

The patient, who lived in Hai Chau District, a Nang City, had a number of underlying health conditions including heart problems, type-two diabetes and chronic kidney failure.

He died on Monday morning at the a Nang Hospital for Lung Diseases.

The cause of death has been recorded as COVID-19, complications of septic shock, irreversible multi-organ failure, myocardial infarction, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, type two diabetes and chronic renal failure.

Over the weekend, two other people died of coronavirus-related problems, including a 28-year-old man with leukaemia, the youngest fatality so far.

On Monday morning no new cases of COVID-19 were recorded nationwide. Since the first cases were detected back in January, 1,040 people have tested positive for coronavirus with 695 patients making a full recovery.

Nearly 350 Vietnamese citizens repatriated from US

Nearly 350 Vietnamese citizens have returned home safely from the US on a flight arranged on August 29 and 30 that departed from Houston.

Vietnamese authorities and representative agencies in the US, Vietnam Airlines and US authorities worked together to bring back home the citizens from many States of the US.

The passengers included children under 18 years old, the elderly, the sick, stranded tourists, students who have finished their learning but lack accommodation due to dormitory closure, and those living in difficult circumstances.

Security, safety and disease prevention measures were seriously carried out during the flight.

Right after the plane landed at Van Don International Airport in the northern province of Quang Ninh, all people on board received check-ups and were sent to concentrated quarantine sites in line with regulations./.

HCM City strengthens preventive measures ahead of new academic year

Ho Chi Minh Citys Department of Education and Training has ordered the heads of local educational institutions to strengthen preventive measures against COVID-19 for the opening ceremony for the upcoming new academic year.

In a document sent late last week, the department called on all pre-school, general education and continuing education institutions to continue with a set of criteria to evaluate safety.

They will only be allowed to open if they ensure safety and pandemic prevention and control.

Each needs to set up a committee for COVID-19 prevention and control and develop an epidemic prevention and control plan.

Before the new academic year begins on September 5, they must clean and disinfect classrooms, devices, teaching tools, and toys and ensure there is proper ventilation in classrooms.

They must ensure there are places for washing hands, clean water, hand sanitisers, soaps, paper towels, and trash cans for teachers, other staff and students.

Besides, there must be electronic thermometers to measure the temperature of every entrant, face masks and essential medical supplies and equipment.

They need to prepare documents on epidemic prevention and control so that teachers can provide their students with accurate knowledge and instruct them to strictly comply with preventive regulations.

Everyone should wear face masks outside classrooms and regularly clean their hands with antibacterial soap or sanitiser.

Wearing masks inside classrooms is recommended but not mandatory.

All staff, teachers and students are encouraged to use personal water bottles and hand sanitisers.

Medical workers in schools need to co-ordinate with teachers to monitor students to promptly detect fever, cough or breathing difficulty. If they do find anyone with any of these symptoms they must immediately contact local medical centres for disease control and prevention.

Schools where students are provided all meals must strictly monitor their food sources and ensure the school kitchen and catering services follow all food safety and hygiene regulations.

In boarding schools, principals will be fully responsible for epidemic prevention and need to arrange appropriate accommodation, minimise unnecessary activities and reduce the concentration of students in small spaces.

Students' personal utensils should be kept separate and washed with soap after every use.

Vehicles that are used to transport students must be disinfected before and pick-up and after drop-off and equipped with hand sanitisers.

Schools need to work closely with students' families to monitor their health and ensure any suspected infection is promptly discovered.

Staff and students with fever, cough or breathing difficulty should not attend school and instead immediately report to their school and the nearest medical facility for examination.

No new COVID-19 patients overnight

Vietnam reported no new COVID-19 cases during the past night, keeping the national tally at 1,040 on August 31 morning, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

Taking samples for SARS-CoV-2 testing (Photo: VNA)

Among the confirmed patients, 550 are related to the outbreak in the central city of Da Nang which started on July 25.

The committees treatment sub-committee reported that as many as 695 patients have been given the all-clear and there have been 32 COVID-19-related deaths so far.

Among the active patients, 40 have tested negative for the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 once, 48 twice and 27 three times.

The sub-committee said there are six patients who are in very serious conditions, five of them may die any time.

Currently, 57,097 people who had close contact with COVID-19 patients or came from pandemic-hit areas are under quarantine nationwide, including 1,111 people quarantined at hospitals, 16,006 people at concentrated quarantine establishments and 39,980 at home.

Over 30 tonnes of food presented to epidemic-affected people

People in 10 mountainous communes of Nam Tra My District, Quang Nam Province, have contributed more than 30 tonnes of food including fruits and vegetables to support people areas affected by the COVID-19 epidemic.

On August 28, the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Nam Tra My District transported more than 10 tonnes of food to present people in the epidemic areas of Tam Ky City, Hoi An City and Dien Ban Town in Quang Nam Province; and supported Da Nang City with more than 10 tonnes of additional food.

Also, on the same day, the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Da Nang City held a meeting to praise typical volunteer groups who have actively participated in the prevention and control of Covid-19 epidemic.

At the ceremony, the Organizing Committee awarded certificates of merit to 20 clubs, groups, associations and individuals who represented 60 volunteer groups across the city who have made great contributions to the epidemic fight.

The groups have had many effective activities such as cooking tens of thousands of free meals serving hospitals, isolation zones, and forces on duty at control points; participating in loading, unloading, and transporting goods; providing free trips for poor patients to their hometowns; presenting thousands of gifts, rice and food to needy people; and mobilising billions of dong to support health facilities, and more.

More than 340 Vietnamese brought home from Macau

More than 340 Vietnamese citizens were brought home from Macau (China) on a flight operated by the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines on August 30.

The passengers included children under 18, pregnant women, the ill, labourers with expired labour contracts and stranded tourists.

Security, safety and hygiene measures were carried out throughout the flight to protect their health and prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Upon landing at Can Tho International Airport in the Mekong Delta city of Can Cho, those on board received health check-ups and were sent to concentrated quarantine facilities.

More flights are set to be conducted in the time ahead to repatriate Vietnamese citizens with disadvantaged circumstances, depending on their need and quarantine capacity at home.

140 citizens brought home from Middle East, Africa

As many as 140 Vietnamese citizens were brought home from South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya and Qatar on a flight operated by the Qatar Airways on August 30.

The passengers included children under 18, students who have finished their study, the elderly, labourers with expired labour contracts.

The Vietnamese embassies in South Africa and Qatar sent their staffs to assist the passengers with boarding procedures at the airports in Pretoria and Doha.

Security, safety and hygiene measures were carried out throughout the flight to protect their health and prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Upon landing at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, those on board received health check-ups and were sent to concentrated quarantine facilities.

More flights are set to be conducted in the time ahead to repatriate Vietnamese citizens with disadvantaged circumstances, depending on their need and quarantine capacity at home./.

More than 350 Vietnamese citizens flown home from Japan

More than 350 Vietnamese citizens were brought home from Japan on a flight operated by the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines on August 29.

The flight was arranged by Vietnamese authorities, the Embassy of Vietnam in Japan, and the carrier, together with relevant agencies of Japan.

The passengers included children under 18, the elderly, pregnant women, the ill, labourers with expired labour contracts, students without accommodations, and others in extremely disadvantaged circumstances.

The Vietnamese embassy sent its staff to assist them with boarding procedures at the airport.

Security, safety and hygiene measures were carried out throughout the flight to protect their health and prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Upon landing at the Cam Ranh International Airport in the south-central province of Khanh Hoa, those on board received health check-ups and were sent to concentrated quarantine facilities.

More flights are set to be conducted in the time ahead to repatriate Vietnamese citizens with disadvantaged circumstances, depending on their need and quarantine capacity at home./.

Malaysia to extend COVID-19 control order to years end

Malaysias Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO), which is applied to fight COVID-19 in the country, has been extended to December 31.

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced the decision in a recent televised speech, adding that based on latest developments, more time would be needed to free Malaysia from the pandemic. The RMCO phase was originally scheduled to end on August 31.

He said even though the number of new cases in the country has fallen, the virus is still raging globally.

The PM noted if there is an increase in cases in certain Malaysian locations, the government will take a targeted approach by implementing enhanced movement control order as previously enforced in several locations.

Muhyiddin expressed his support for the Ministry of Health to increase the fines for those who break these laws, to twice or thrice the current amounts.

The Malaysia government imposed the Movement Control Order (MCO) on March 18 after it reported a spike of 125 new COVID-19 infections, making Malaysia the worst hit in Southeast Asia at the time. The stringent phase of the MCO then transitioned into a conditional phase on May 1 before the RMCO began on June 10./.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused the Modi government of destroying the informal sector of the economy and trying to enslave it.

He charged that the government wants to break this sector and called upon the entire country to unite and fight against this.

He cited demonetisation, "wrong" GST and the lockdown as three examples of government's attempt to destroy the informal sector, that provides 90 per cent jobs to people.

"The BJP government has attacked the informal structure. There is an attempt to turn you into a slave," he charged.

"The BJP government has been attacking the informal sector over the past 6 years. I am giving you three massive examples right now- Demonetisation, wrong GST and Lockdown," he said in a new video series on the economy.

"Don't think the lockdown was unplanned. Don't think it was done at the last minute. The aim of these three decisions was to destroy our informal sector," he alleged Gandhi said the informal sector, which comprises the poor, farmers and small traders, has a lot of money which the government cannot touch.

"They want to break this sector and extort this money from them," he charged.

ALSO READ | New seven per cent fiscal deficit forecast shows India's economic sinkhole is getting deeper

"The effects of this attack on the informal sector will be seen soon. The results will be that India won't be able to produce jobs. Because the informal sector produces 90 percent of the jobs. Once the informal sector is destroyed India won't be able to produce jobs," he said.

"You are the ones who run this country, You take us forward and there is a conspiracy against you. You are being cheated and there is an attempt to turn you into slaves. We have to understand this attack and the entire country has to unite to fight against this," he also said in the 4-minute video "Let's talk economy".

The former Congress president said in 2008, the world was hit by an economic storm and it affected the entire world, the US, Japan, China and everywhere.

He said in the US banks fell, corporations fell and companies shut down and banks also fell in Europe, but India was unaffected and the UPA government was in power at the time.

Gandhi said he went to the prime minister and asked Manmohan Singh what is the reason why the entire world suffered an economic crisis but India remained unaffected.

"Manmohan Singh ji replied, Rahul if you want to understand India's economy, you will have to understand that India has two economic structures. One is the formal economy and the other is the informal economy."

"You know the big companies which constitute the formal sector. The informal sector comprises farmers, labourers, MSMEs. Till the time India's informal sector is strong, no economic storm can touch India," he said.

ALSO READ | Vehicle sales up amid unlocks, but auto sector's recovery far from normal

Gandhi's comments come ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament where the Congress party wants to corner the government over the state of the economy, besides other issues including the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Chinese aggression at the border.

The Congress has also accused the government of failing to handle the economy as well as the pandemic, alleging that the lockdown has failed to have the desired effect and has hit the poor and the marginalised the hardest.
Chinas Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) on Monday blamed the Indian army for the latest flare-up in tension at Pangong Tso near the line of actual control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh and demanded that India withdraw its troops from the area.

In a statement issued late on Monday evening, the PLAs western theatre command (WTC) alleged Indian soldiers violated the LAC and crossed over in the south bank of Pangong Tso and the Reqin pass.

It also warned that the PLA were taking countermeasures.

The Chinese military statement did not refer to any ongoing meeting at the ground to douse the new flare-up.

ALSO READ | Forget disengagement, China opens new front along LAC

Official news agency, Xinhua quoted WTC spokesperson Senior Colonel Zhang Shuili as saying on August 31, the Indian army broke the consensus reached at the previous multi-level talks between the two sides and illegally crossed the line again near the south bank of Pangong Lake and the Reqin pass, making a blatant provocation and causing tension at the border.

China is strongly opposed to the Indian move, which grossly violates Chinas territorial sovereignty, seriously undermines peace and stability in the China-India border areas, reneges on its commitments and betrays its loyalty, Zhang said in the strongly-worded statement.

Zhang said India should restrain its frontline troops and withdraw from the region.

We solemnly request the Indian side to immediately withdraw its illegal occupation and control forces, strictly control and restrain its frontline troops, earnestly abide by its commitments and avoid further escalation of the situation, Zhang said.

ALSO READ | Satellite imagery shows PLA building heliport at tri-junction of India, Bhutan and China

The spokesperson further added: The Chinese military is taking necessary countermeasures and will closely follow the developments to resolutely safeguard Chinas territorial sovereignty and peace and stability in border areas.

The tone of the military statement was similar to the statement that the WTC had issued on June 16, a day after the deadly clash at Galwan Valley near the LAC.

The PLA statement from the military was issued hours after the Chinese foreign ministry said Chinese troops troops strictly abide by the LAC with India, refuting the Indian armys statement that said the Chinese armed forces had carried out provocative military actions on the southern banks of the Pangong Tso.

Responding to a question on the Indian army statement, the Chinese foreign ministry said the troops of the PLA never cross the line.

Chinese border troops always strictly abide by the LAC. They never cross the line. Border troops on the two sides have been in close communication regarding the issues on the ground, ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian said.

Asked about any ongoing meetings to resolve this new development, he said: What I said is that the two sides through diplomatic and military channels maintain close communication. As to specific meetings and talks, if there is anything, we will release it in a timely manner.

Earlier in the day, the Indian army accused Chinese soldiers of trying to alter the status quo.

The statement said Indian troops had been able to pre-empt the PLA from trying to change the facts on the ground.

A Brigade Commander-level flag meeting is said to be in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues on the ground.

There have been several meetings between the two sides to disengage after border troops clashed in Galwan Valley on June 15, which led to casualties on both sides.

Chinese troops have been slow to pull back, particularly around Pangong Tso, the saltwater glacial lake spread across 700 sq km.

The Chinese effort to enlarge the border row came just two days after the defence ministry in Beijing told India that it should look at the big picture of bilateral ties and work with it and take concrete steps to bring the relationship back on the right track of normal development.

India has made it clear that China should work on complete disengagement, and then de-escalation of troops in eastern Ladakh, underlining that this can be achieved only through mutually agreed reciprocal actions. The message from New Delhi has been that the Indian army will stay firm on Chinese efforts to alter the status quo and has stressed that the PLA will have to return to their April 20 position.
Key benchmarks trimmed losses after hitting day's low in early afternoon trade. At 12:29 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, slipped 230.26 points or 0.58% at 39,237.92. The Nifty 50 index lost 69 points or 0.59% at 11,578.90.

The sentiment was dented after the media reported that fresh clashes broke out between Indian and Chinese troops at Pangong in Ladakh near Line of Actual Control on the intervening night of 29-30 August. The Indian forces retaliated strongly to China's plans to change the status quo at the LAC, reports suggested.

The broader market witnessed steep correction. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index slipped 2.21% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index declined 3.08%.

Sellers outnumbered buyers. On the BSE, 496 shares rose and 2,173 shares fell. A total of 135 shares were unchanged.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth Rs 1,004.11 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs), were net sellers to the tune of Rs 543.56 crore in the Indian equity market on 28 August, provisional data showed.

COVID-19 Update:

Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide stood at 25,143,423 with 845,414 deaths. India reported 7,81,975 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 64,469 deaths while 27,74,801 patients have been discharged, according to the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

Economy:

The National Statistical Office (NSO) is scheduled to release its estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter of this fiscal on today.

The Government will also announce its fiscal deficit level for the period of April-July 2020 today. India's fiscal deficit stood at record Rs 6.62 trillion in April-June 2020-21 which is equivalent to 83.2% of the Government's budget estimate for this financial year.

The Government will announce infrastructure output data for the month of July 2020.

Derivatives:

The NSE's India VIX, a gauge of market's expectation of volatility over the near term, soared 13.63% to 20.85. The Nifty September 2020 futures were trading at 11,578.60, at a premium of 7.3 points compared with the spot at 11,571.30.

The Nifty option chain for 3 September 2020 expiry showed maximum Call OI of 30.36 lakh contracts at the 12,000 strike price. Maximum Put OI of 26.44 lakh contracts was seen at 11,500 strike price.

The Nifty option chain for 24 September 2020 expiry showed maximum Call OI of 22.53 lakh contracts at the 12,000 strike price.

Maximum Put OI of 25.91 lakh contracts was seen at 11,000 strike price.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Shares of Adani Enterprises were trading 2.17% lower while shares of GVK Power & Infra were up 4.89%. Adani Airport Holdings (AAHL), a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, will acquire debt of GVK Airport Developer (GVK ADL). According to the agreement, AAHL will acquire the debt of GVK ADL from its airport lenders. The GVK Group and AAHL have agreed that AAHL will offer a stand-still to GVK, in addition, to release of the guarantee given by GVK Power and Infrastructure with respect to the debt acquired by it. The Adani Group will also take steps to complete the acquisition of a 23.5% equity stake from ACSA and Bidvest in MIAL for which it has obtained CCI approval. Upon the acquisition of the debt of GVK ADL, Adani Group will take steps to obtain necessary customary and regulatory approvals, as may be required, to acquire controlling interest in MIAL. AAHL intends to infuse funds into MIAL to ensure that MIAL receives much needed liquidity and also achieves financial closure of Navi Mumbai International Airport to be able to commence construction.

RBL Bank fell 5.27% after Vishwavir Ahuja, the managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of the bank, sold 18.92 lakh shares, or 0.37% stake, in the bank on 27th and 28th of August 2020 for about Rs 38.52 crore. Ahuja sold the shares to extinguish personal debt obligations and related servicing burden, undertaken over the last few years mainly to exercise & purchase vested ESOPs (and pay associated tax), as well as to take care of some pressing family commitments. The sale represents approximately 18% of his/family's total holdings and Ahuja continues to retain 80.10 lakh shares (approx 1.6% holding) of RBL bank post the sale. The disclosure was made after market hours on Friday, 28 August 2020. As of 30 June 2020, Vishwavir Ahuja held 1.95% stake in RBL Bank.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With the passing of Pranab Mukherjee, a long and illustrious career, marked by many a political successes and failures, also came to an end.

When the former President of India informed, via a tweet, that he had tested positive for COVID-19, messages wishing him speedy recovery poured in across party lines. From West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and DMK chief MK Stalin to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and Union minister Piyush Goyal, leaders of every hue and ideological inclination prayed for his health.

That, in one sense, was a testament to Mukherjee's influence within the Indian political establishment. Although he remained a staunch Congressman for most of his political career, and stood steadfastly behind former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during times of trouble, like the Emergency of 1975, Mukherjee, like any veteran politician, cultivated friendships across party lines.

ALSO READ: Former president Pranab Mukherjee passes away: A look at his five-decade long political career

Born in 1935 in a village called Mirati in West Bengal, Mukherjee's family supported Congress, and he wrote, in his book, The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years about how it would hoist the Congress flag every January 26. His father, Mukherjee wrote, travelled from village to village, sharing meals with the locals and preaching the Congress ideology.

In the same volume, Mukherjee writes that he was a restless child... and with a penchant for avoiding studies as much as I could. By that logic the little that the future President of India must have studied would have been enough for him to chart his journey as a lecturer of political science and then as a journalist.

Mukherjee's political career began in 1969, when Indira Gandhi made him a member of the Congress party.

ALSO READ: From UPA's troubleshooter to Congress decisionmaker, a look at life of 'Statesman' Pranab Mukherjee

Soon after that, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha on a Congress ticket and rose up the political ladder, becoming a union minister in the Indira Gandhi cabinet for the first time in 1973 and then helming, among others, various important portfolios such as the External Affairs Ministry, the defense ministry, the ministry of commerce and the ministry of finance.

Mukherjee was sent to Rajya Sabha by Congress in 1975, 1981, 1993 and 1999.

Known to be close to Gandhi, Mukherjee had a fallout with the party after her assassination in 1984. He had floated his own party, the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress (RSC) in 1986, claiming, according to reports published at that time, that while Indira was approachable, Rajiv isn't and Congressmen are dismayed.

ALSO READ: Pranab Mukherjee  The veteran Congressman and his uneasy relationship with the party

Stating that these fence-sitters would develop doubts about their leader on the eve of the next election and try to find an alternative, Mukherjee had reasoned that they would join RSC.

Where else will they go? Congressmen have always looked for alternatives within the Congress framework, an India Today report quoted him as saying.

But that was not to be, and three years after its formation, RSC had to be merged with Congress. While Mukherjee continued to be the troubleshooter for the Grand Old Party while serving as a minister during the 90's, the post of Prime Ministership continued to evade him first, after Indira Gandhi's assassination,and then nearly 20 years later, in 2004, when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power. While there was anticipation that Mukherjee could be the PM, the post eventually went to Manmohan Singh.

"The prevelant expectation was that I would be the next choice for prime minister after Sonia Gandhi declined. This expectation was possibly based on the fact that I had extensive experience in government, while Singh's vast experience was as a civil servant with five years as a reformist finance minister," Mukherjee wrote in The Coalition Years, the final volume of his three-part autobiography.

ALSO READ | Pranab Mukherjee: A statesman whose legacy will live on

In 2012, Mukherjee was elected the 13th President of India, a compensation, observers had then said, for missing out on the post of the prime minister.

Many would say that it isn't just his service as the president, politician and a minister that defines Mukherjee, however, and they would be right. Mukherjee was also a man of culture and a voracious reader, reading, according to reports, three books at a time.

Mukherjee also had a seat at the table of various international organisations, with memberships in the IMF, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. He also presided over the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation on various occasions.

A recipient of several awards, including the Padma Vibhushan, Mukherjee was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, in 2019.
A U.S. postal worker rolled through downtown Columbus, Ohio, in late May, stopping to hoist iconic blue mailboxes onto a flatbed truck. Protests after George Floyds death under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer had taken a destructive turn the night before.

In front of the offices of the Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA TODAY Network, a reporter asked the worker why he was taking the boxes. Because of the riots, he told her. In all, more than 30 mailboxes disappeared from the citys streets that day.

They didnt return until Aug. 21, the same day Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified to a Senate committee about postal cuts.

In the meantime, across the United States, missing mailboxes had become a political hot button.

The blue boxes have been disappearing for decades. But between a pandemic, a presidential election and a president who is fanning the flames of suspicion that hes sabotaging the Postal Service to suppress mail-in voting, Americans are now paying close attention to every cut the post office makes.

On average, from 2010 through 2019, the Postal Service reports it removed 3,258 drop boxes a year.

The Postal Service did not respond to USA TODAYs request for records of boxes removed this year. Comparing a list of mail collection boxes the Postal Service released in September 2019 to those listed on the agencys website this month showed a reduction of more than 4,200.

A Postal worker removes mailboxes in downtown Columbus, Ohio on May 29, 2020. He said they were being removed because of damage in the area after protests the night before. The boxes were returned Aug. 21.

Reporters across the USA TODAY Network checked on 271 of those boxes in 20 states and confirmed that 186 were not there. The others had not been removed.

Reporters found boxes had been removed on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Broadway in New York City and on 10 Mile Road in Southfield, Michigan. In Ashland, Massachusetts, four boxes in the post office went offline when the building closed after mold was discovered in the basement. It was supposed to reopen this spring but still hasnt.

In Eugene, Oregon, at least 21 are gone, culled from locations with multiple boxes that now have one or two. Rusty bolts embedded in the concrete are still visible. The Postal Service removed boxes during construction projects in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

Story continues

Even if this year's removals track with historical averages, 2020 has been anything but a normal year. Some voting rights experts question why the Postal Service would remove any mailbox during a pandemic when more voters than ever are expected to cast ballots by mail.

Why now? Why not wait until after the election? said Bernard Fraga, associate professor of political science at Emory University.

Its a lifeline for a lot of people, said Brett Max Kaufman, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Postal Service warns states: Some absentee, mail-in ballots may not be delivered in time to be counted

Seniors, those with disabilities and people with limited transportation often rely on collection boxes in their neighborhood for outgoing mail. They will grapple with the tough choice of voting in-person and risking illness or trying to navigate voting by mail, according to Capri Cafaro, a former Democratic member of the Ohio Senate who now teaches politics at American University.

The removing of mailboxes and sorting machines has a disproportionate impact on underserved communities, where the post office is really relied upon, she said.

In Upper Manhattan, the Postal Service removed a box for construction at Cabrini Boulevard and 181st Street. Now, the owner of a salon near the intersection said, seniors in a nearby building have to walk uphill several blocks to the nearest mailbox.

States are expanding voting access in different ways, including offering ballot drop boxes, allowing people to drop off ballots in person, and in some cases extending the deadline for returning ballots.

State-by-state guide: How to vote by mail in the 2020 election

Fears about voter suppression centered on mailboxes in mid-August when at least one viral tweet purported to show a pile of them at a dump. The photo was debunked, but it was shared more than 80,000 times and coincided with real news reports of boxes being removed.

A damaged and out-of-service mailbox remains outside a store in Vienna, Virginia on Aug. 26.

The combination created a social media frenzy with #USPS as a top trending hashtag for several days along with #SaveTheUSPS and #USPSProtests.

Public concerns reached the highest levels of government. The House approved legislation Aug. 22 to allocate $25 billion to the Postal Service and ban operational cuts until after the election  a move the agency already said would happen. More than two dozen Republicans joined Democrats to vote for the measure, which isn't expected to get a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Trump repeatedly said he opposes federal funding for the post office, which is losing money, and continues to make false claims about fraud related to mail-in voting.

Postmaster General DeJoy  a major donor to Trump's campaign with large financial interests in the Postal Service's private competitors  told a Senate committee that the safe and timely delivery of election mail was his sacred duty. But he also said the Postal Service will not reinstall mailboxes and mail sorters that it has already removed.

As the political fighting intensified, Nathan Story, who runs a website connecting users to the nearest mailbox or post office, started hearing from people concerned about preelection mailbox removals. So, he compared an official mailbox location list hed requested from the Postal Service last year to information from the agencys website this month. Its the same analysis USA TODAY conducted after Story shared the 2019 list hed obtained.

He expected to find more missing mailboxes.

When I crunched the numbers, he said, I felt a lot less concerned about it.

A history of cuts

Postal officials have removed collection boxes to cut costs since the 1970s. Still, through at least the late 1990s, there were years the Postal Service had added as many as 70,000 boxes, agency records show.

The number of boxes peaked in 1973 at 386,000. A steep plunge began after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the anthrax incidents that followed in 2001. Security concerns prompted the removal of more than 20,000 boxes in 2002.

In these instances, if municipal, state, or other responsible officials informed local postal officials that they wanted boxes removed from in front of prominent buildings or other suspected potential targets, the Postal Service complied with those requests, the Postal Service wrote in answer to a legal complaint about box removals in 2002.

At the end of 2002 there were 304,849 boxes in use. By 2006 that number was 211,581 and in 2009 another purge of more than 24,000 boxes brought the total down to about 182,000, Postal Service reports show.

More: Here's why the US Postal Service has been in massive debt for years

New boxes do go in each year, as some cities grow. But the net loss has averaged more than 3,000 each year over the past decade. At the end of fiscal year 2019, the number stood at 142,300.

Under Postal Service policy, any box that receives fewer than 25 pieces of mail per day is eligible to be removed. The local area postmaster must approve the removal and must post a sign on the box for 30 days with an address and phone number so the public can make comments.

Boxes adjacent to senior citizen housing, municipal and judicial buildings, and other public facilities are examples of the types of boxes that may be left in place even if fewer than 25 pieces per day are generated, the policy says.

The Postal Service Inspector General, the Postal Services watchdog, has repeatedly found that boxes are removed without proper approval and notice to the public. The IG also has reported that not every low-volume box is removed.

Only 60 of the 6,371 underused business and residential collection boxes identified in the 2015 national density test were removed or relocated, the inspector general wrote in an audit of the Eastern Areas operations in 2016.

That report found that removing an additional 1,800 boxes in that region could have saved the agency $3.5 million over 5 years.

Dire finances, heated politics

DeJoy became postmaster in June and immediately implemented measures including freezing hiring, eliminating overtime and removing sorting machines from some locations.

Given the post offices dire financial situation, that was to be expected with any new postmaster general, said James ORourke, a professor of management at the University of Notre Dame. The first thing any new executive does with a floundering company is examine expenses and look for cost-cutting, he said.

But with the election looming, the delivery delays that resulted fueled fears that some ballots might not reach election offices in time.

The timing conflated DeJoys cost reductions with Trumps political rhetoric against mail-in voting, according to the ACLU's Kaufman.

Gene Stilp of Dauphin County protests what he believes are efforts by the Trump administration to slow mail delivery, Aug. 20, 2020 in Old Forge, Pa.

Coronavirus and concern about the election has made people really vocal about how much they need and trust the Postal Service, Kaufman said. Thats something that maybe weve taken for granted for a while, and a lot of vulnerable people rely on it.

However, after talking to postal unions and others, he said he has no doubt the Postal Service should have the capacity to ramp up to handle an election.

The Postal Services bleeding started with the Accountability Act in 2006, which required the agency to prefund health benefits for potential future retirees, ORourke said. That requirement cost the agency more than $20 billion from 2007 to 2010 and it hasnt been able to make any contributions since, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The Postal Service also does not receive federal funding and instead relies upon the revenue it generates from postage, which has been declining. The agency reports a 31.4% decline in pieces of mail delivered since 2000.

Now, we are facing a circumstance where the USPS is more important than ever  especially in the context of the election, Cafaro said.

The last year the Postal Service recorded any profit was 2006, and its cumulative losses since then total $83.1 billion.

More: Trump opposes new funds for U.S. Postal Service; doesn't want to expand vote by mail

DeJoy said the measures he has undertaken this summer and initiatives such as collection box removal that were in place before his appointment are all in the service of long-term viability for the Postal Service. Still, he pledged this month to suspend cuts until after the election "to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail."

But trust in the Postal Service has already been damaged, said Patti Brigham, president of the League of Women voters of Florida.

The seeds of doubt have now been sown, she said. We are concerned that this is an attempt at massive voter suppression. Whats going on is too coincidental.

In Florida, for example, 2.2 million people voted by mail in the recent primary election, a 78% increase from the 2016 presidential primary. Brigham is expecting similar increases across the nation for the general election.

Typically, mail-in voters are white, wealthier voters who already know the process, said Bernard Fraga, an associate professor of political science at Emory University. But this year, he said, experts anticipated many first-time mail-in voters even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The question we need to ask, Fraga said, is whether any of these changes will make it more difficult for voters trying to vote by mail for the first time.

Surveys showed many African American and Latino voters had planned to vote by mail for the first time this year, but that may be changing. One poll released Aug. 19 by the Voter Participation center found two-thirds of African Americans in Georgia did not trust voting by mail because they did not think their votes would be counted.

Fraga fears many who were already on the fence about voting will decide not to vote at all.

Anytime youre removing a mailbox or reducing Postal Service to a community thats disadvantaged, Cafaro said, its going to have a deep impact on that communitys connectivity, and in this case, their connectivity to vote.

Reporters and editors at USA TODAY Network newspapers covering communities in 20 states checked mailbox locations for this story.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: USPS mailbox removals drew ire as Trump attacked mail ballots
Researchers at Linkoping University, Sweden, have developed a molecule that absorbs energy from sunlight and stores it in chemical bonds. A possible long-term use of the molecule is to capture solar energy efficiently and store it for later consumption. The current results have been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, JACS.

The Earth receives many times more energy from the sun than we humans can use. This energy is absorbed by solar energy facilities, but one of the challenges of solar energy is to store it efficiently, such that the energy is available when the sun is not shining. This led scientists at Linkoping University to investigate the possibility of capturing and storing solar energy in a new molecule.

"Our molecule can take on two different forms: a parent form that can absorb energy from sunlight, and an alternative form in which the structure of the parent form has been changed and become much more energy-rich, while remaining stable. This makes it possible to store the energy in sunlight in the molecule efficiently", says Bo Durbeej, professor of computational physics in the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology at Linkoping University, and leader of the study.

The molecule belongs to a group known as "molecular photoswitches". These are always available in two different forms, isomers, that differ in their chemical structures. The two forms have different properties, and in the case of the molecule developed by LiU researchers, this difference is in the energy content. The chemical structures of all photoswitches are influenced by light energy. This means that the structure, and thus the properties, of a photoswitch can be changed by illuminating it. One possible area of application for photoswitches is molecular electronics, in which the two forms of the molecule have different electrical conductivities. Another area is photopharmacology, in which one form of the molecule is pharmacologically active and can bind to a specific target protein in the body, while the other form is inactive.

It's common in research that experiments are done first and theoretical work subsequently confirms the experimental results, but in this case the procedure was reversed. Bo Durbeej and his group work in theoretical chemistry, and conduct calculations and simulations of chemical reactions. This involves advanced computer simulations, which are performed on supercomputers at the National Supercomputer Centre, NSC, in Linkoping. The calculations showed that the molecule the researchers had developed would undergo the chemical reaction they required, and that it would take place extremely fast, within 200 femtoseconds. Their colleagues at the Research Centre for Natural Sciences in Hungary were then able to build the molecule, and perform experiments that confirmed the theoretical prediction.

In order to store large amounts of solar energy in the molecule, the researchers have attempted to make the energy difference between the two isomers as large as possible. The parent form of their molecule is extremely stable, a property that within organic chemistry is denoted by saying that the molecule is "aromatic". The basic molecule consists of three rings, each of which is aromatic. When it absorbs light, however, the aromaticity is lost, such that the molecule becomes much more energy-rich. The LiU researchers show in their study, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, that the concept of switching between aromatic and non-aromatic states of a molecule has a major potential in the field of molecular photoswitches.

"Most chemical reactions start in a condition where a molecule has high energy and subsequently passes to one with a low energy. Here, we do the opposite - a molecule that has low energy becomes one with high energy. We would expect this to be difficult, but we have shown that it is possible for such a reaction to take place both rapidly and efficiently", says Bo Durbeej.

The researchers will now examine how the stored energy can be released from the energy-rich form of the molecule in the best way.

###

The research has received financial support from the Olle Engkvist Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary. The National Supercomputer Centre, NSC, generously provided computing time.

The article: "Photoinduced Changes in Aromaticity Facilitate Electrocyclization of Dithienylbenzene Switches", Baswanth Oruganti, Peter Pal Kalapos, Varada Bhargav, Gabor London and Bo Durbeej, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 32, 13941-13953, published online 15 July 2020, doi: 10.1021/jacs.0c06327

https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.0c06327
Shilpa Shinde who became a household name for playing Angoori Tiwari in the comedy show Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain! is all set to make her comeback on TV with Sunil Grovers Gangs of Filmistan. Shilpa will be seen in the show after two years break from acting. However, the actress seems to be re-thinking about her decision. She doesnt seem happy with the shows format.

Speaking to Hindustan Times she said that Sunil is the face of the show and other actors on the sets do not get to do much. I dont mind saying that this show is all about him and others dont really get a chance to do much. I expressed my reservations to the producers but I was told that his portion is separate from mine. But later I found out that he will be a judge and the other actors will entertain him. They have been shooting his gag most of the time, so if this is his show, are we just props? she said.

She added, Mujhe bola mera comeback hai, par mujhe to back mein rakha hai. The producers are exploiting actors because many didnt have any work for the last four months. How can we work like this?

Disappointed with ill preparation of the team, and no scripts in place, Shilpa alleges that female comedians do not get the chance to show their talent on the screen. Calling the genre male-dominated, she called herself and fellow comedian on the show, Sugandha Mishra, showpieces.

Meanwhile, Gangs Of Filmistan will also star Siddharth Sagar, Sanket Bhosale, Paritosh Tripathi, Upasana Singh and Jatin Suri in pivotal roles. The show will have no celebrity guests or live audience. Sunil will play a gangster who wants to be entertained and the other actors will play tenants who will perform for him.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Monday announced her pick to lead the states largest law enforcement agency: Terri Davie, a 24-year veteran of law enforcement in Oregon.

Davie will assume command of state troopers Nov. 1, pending Senate approval, Brown said in a statement.

Terri brings a wealth of law enforcement experience to this role and a strong record of leading by example, Brown said. She brings a focus on inclusivity and is dedicated to listening to community voices  including Oregons Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and Tribal communities  as we work towards a more fair and just law enforcement system in Oregon.

Travis Hampton, the previous superintendent, announced his retirement earlier this month. Davie previously served as deputy superintendent under Hampton.

The change in leadership comes as Oregon State Police are set to take a larger role in patrolling the streets of Portland, where protests against systemic racism and police brutality have stretched into a third month.

Earlier this summer, state troopers played a pivotal role in a deal brokered by Brown to secure the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse in downtown Portland after the presence of federal officers, deployed by the Trump administration in July, seemed to exacerbate the nightly demonstrations and crowds swelled into the thousands.

Protests continued, even with Oregon State Police replacing the federal officers, and troopers eventually withdrew from the city.

Then on Saturday, a man was shot and killed during confrontations between right-wing demonstrators and counterprotesters. In response, Brown announced that Oregon State Police would resume staffing Portland protests, which she said would help allow Portland police to investigate violent crimes related to the protests.

I look forward to her leadership as we do the hard work of transforming law enforcement standards and training and putting the state on a path toward racial justice, Brown said Monday.

-- Kale Williams; kwilliams@oregonian.com; 503-294-4048; @sfkale

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Pak has always abused political parties of Jammu and Kashmir

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 31: Reacting sharply to Pakistan hailing the recent Gupkar Declaration in which six political parties of Jammu and Kashmir vowed to fight collectively against the abrogation of Article 370, National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah on Sunday asserted that "we are not anyone's puppets".

"Pakistan has always abused mainstream political parties of Jammu and Kashmir but now suddenly they like us", the former chief minister said when asked about Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi's statement that the declaration issued by the NC, PDP, Congress and three other parties was "not an ordinary occurrence but an important development".

"Let me make it clear that we are not anyone's puppets, neither New Delhi's nor of anyone across the border. We are answerable to the people of Jammu and Kashmir and will work for them," he told PTI from Srinagar.

In response to a question on cross-border terrorism, Abdullah said, "I would urge Pakistan to stop sending armed men into Kashmir. We want an end to the bloodshed in our state. All political parties in Jammu and Kashmir are committed to fight for our rights peacefully, including for what was unconstitutionally snatched away from us on August 5 last year".

At the same time, the NC leader urged both India and Pakistan to resume their dialogue "for everyone's greater good".

"Our people are being killed on both sides of the Line of Control every time there are ceasefire violations. For God's sake bring a halt to that", he said.

In a declaration issued on August 22, six prominent mainstream political parties came together for restoration of Article 370 and statehood to Jammu and Kashmir after describing as "unconstitutional" steps approved by Parliament last year to end the erstwhile state's special status and slice it into two union territories.

The joint statement is known as "Gupkar Declaration-2", being second declaration on Article 370 issued after meetings held at the Gupkar Road residence of Abdullah which clearly asks the Centre that "there can be nothing about us without us", an indication that the Centre has to take into confidence the people before implementing any constitutional change.
The government should not be running airports and airlines, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Sunday, adding that he hopes to privatise Air India during 2020.

His remarks come at a time when the Kerala government has opposed the Union Cabinets approval on August 19 to lease out the Thiruvananthapuram airport to Adani Enterprises under the public-private partnership (PPP) model for a period of 50 years.

Addressing a virtual meet on Namo app, Puri said, I can tell you from my heart the government should not be running airports and the government should not be running airlines. The Centre-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) owns and manages more than 100 airports, including the one in Keralas capital city. On Air Indias privatisation, Puri said, As a going concern, one that is attractive to potential bidders, we should privatise it (Air India). And I am hopeful that we will be able to complete that privatisation process during this year.

Last Tuesday, the Central government extended by two months the deadline for placing bids for Air India till October 30 as the Covid-19 fallout has disrupted economic activity globally. The process of stake sale in the national carrier was initiated on January 27. This is the fourth extension given by the government for putting in bids. If the government runs an airport or an airline, then they have to follow the government rules like L1 and L2, and that is not how commercial entities can run, Puri said.

When the government issues a tender, the lowest bidder deemed as L1 is the winner.

Puri said he expects that the domestic air traffic would reach pre-Covid levels by the end of this year. Domestic flights resumed on May 25 after a gap of two months due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown. Currently, airlines are allowed to operate maximum 45 per cent of their pre-Covid domestic flights.

The central government privatised six major airports -- Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati -- in February 2019. After a competitive bidding process, Adani Enterprises won the rights to run all of them.

In July 2019, the Union Cabinet had approved the proposal for leasing out three airports -- Ahmedabad, Mangaluru and Lucknow - to Adani Enterprises.

On August 19 this year, the Union Cabinet approved the proposal for leasing out the other three airports to the Ahmedabad-based company. Earlier this month, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi opposing the August 19 Cabinet decision to lease out the Thiruvananthapuram airport to the company. Vijayan stated in the letter that the Centre needs to reconsider the decision as it will be difficult for the state to cooperate.

Keralas repeated requests to entrust the airport management with the special purpose vehicle (SPV) in which the state government is the major stakeholder was also ignored, Vijayan mentioned.

In view of the unilateral decision taken by the Government of India without giving credence to the cogent arguments put forward by the State government, it will be difficult for us to offer cooperation to the implementation of the decision, which is against the wishes of the people of the State, he said in the letter.
Philippines: 2 terrorist widows responsible for twin suicide bombings that killed 15 near cathedral

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The Philippines Army said two widows of pro-Islamic State fighters were behind this weeks twin suicide bombings that killed at least 15 people and wounded 80 others near a cathedral in a southern Philippine island, which is a stronghold of Islamist terror group Abu Sayyaf.

There were two bombers. A suicide bomber was involved in the first explosion. The second suicide bomber blew herself up after she was arrested after the first explosion, military spokesman Brig. Gen. William Gonzales said, according to UCA News.

On Monday, the two women blew themselves up in the attacks that killed at least 15 people  including seven soldiers, six civilians and a policeman  and injured 80 others in the city of Jolo, the capital of mainly Muslim Sulu province in the far south of the country, whose population is majority Roman Catholic.

The first attacker was the wife of Norman Lasuca, the first-ever suicide bomber in the Philippines, and the other was the wife of Talha Abu Talha, an Islamic State bomb expert, who was killed in a clash with security forces in November 2019 in the southern Philippines, according to International Christian Concern.

Bishop Charlie Inzon of the Vicariate Apostolic of Jolo expressed deep grief and sorrow.

We have lost brothers, sisters and friends, and we are in deep grief and sorrow. We are one with their families in this difficult time, for they were also a family to us, UCA News quoted Inzon as saying. They have died as martyrs witnessing to their Christian faith as they braved to stay in Jolo despite constant intimidation and risks.

The Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need also condemned the bombings.

Those responsible for these atrocities are cruel and ruthless, devoid of any ounce of humanity or respect for life and property, the group said in a statement. This crime is even rendered more unconscionable because of the hardships our people are going through during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In June 2018, Catholic priest Richmond Nilo was gunned down in a chapel in Zaragoza town in Nueva Ecija province, at the altar where he was preparing to celebrate mass.

In January 2019, Islamic extremists claimed responsibility for an attack that killed 20 churchgoers and soldiers at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral, also known as the Jolo Cathedral.

In August 2019, pastor Ernesto Javier Estrella of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines in Antipas, Cotabato Province, was shot and killed on the Island of Mindanao.

The region has been under martial law since 2017 following a series of attacks from suspected members of the terrorist group in the area.
Belarusian authorities on August 31 jailed a strike leader and detained a top member of an opposition council aiming to coordinate a transition of power, in the latest attempt by authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to quell opposition to his 26-year rule.



Police from the financial-crimes unit detained Lilia Vlasova, one of seven members of the Coordination Council Presidium, on August 31 after searching her home earlier in the day, her colleague Paval Latushka said in a Telegram post.

Vlasova, 67, is at least the third member of the presidium to have been detained since it was set up earlier this month following nationwide protests in the wake of the disputed August 9 presidential election.



Two members of the presidium were jailed for 10 days while at least six of the seven have been questioned since the prosecutor-general opened an investigation into the council, claiming it is attempting to illegally seize power.

Separately, Anatol Bokun, co-chair of the Belaruskali factory strike committee, was sentenced to 15 days in jail on charges of organizing an unsanctioned protest.



The state-run factory, which accounts for a fifth of the worlds potash fertilizer output, is the nations top cash earner.



Workers at the factory and some other state-run plants went on strike two weeks ago to protest the election results, posing an unprecedented challenge to Lukashenka.



The Belaruskali strike committee spokesman, Gleb Sandras, told AP news agency that the potash mines are now working after state security services pressured workers to end the strike.

Crisis In Belarus Read our ongoing coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election, widely seen as fraudulent.

The authorities have powerful economic instruments. They are blackmailing workers with mass dismissals, Sandras said.

Bokun's detention follows the arrests of strike leaders at two other major industrial plants in Minsk last week.



Deputy Prime Minister Yury Nazarov said on August 31 that all major industrial plants have resumed normal operations.

Lukashenka has shown no sign of giving in to nearly three weeks of protests demanding his resignation, the release of all political prisoners, and free and fair elections.

The authorities have cracked down on the opposition and the media despite international outrage and the threat of isolation.

Eliot Engel (New York), the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Michael McCaul (Texas), the committees ranking member, on August 31 denounced the Belarusian authorities recent decision to strip the accreditation from at least 17 journalists representing major foreign news organizations.

This latest move, along with efforts to disrupt internet access, to restrict access to independent media and to detain and harass journalists, is part of a malicious campaign to silence those opposed to the dictatorship of [Lukashenka] and conceal the horrific stories of the regimes violent crackdown, they said in a joint statement.

With reporting by AP
Just 1 dose of the HPV vaccine may prevent infection: Study Image Source: IANS News

San Francisco, Aug 31 : Elon Musk would be in Germany this week to meet the researchers at the German vaccine maker CureVac and see the progress on portable molecular RNA printers to help produce quick doses of vaccine maker's Covid-19 candidate.

CureVac's printers are designed to quickly create mRNA vaccine candidates against known pathogens and Tesla, as a side project, is building RNA microfactories for CureVac and possibly others.

Earlier this year, Musk announced that Tesla has become the manufacturing partner for biotech firm CureVac who is working on a COVID-19 vaccine based on their RNA technology.

Musk said in a tweet on Sunday that he will also visit the Gigafactory Berlin that is under construction and will be operational next year.

"That & Giga Berlin are why I'm headed to Germany this week. Conversations with Harvard epidemiology confirmed that a high-speed RNA printer has potential be helpful for vaccines & cures in many areas," Musk tweeted.

Tesla filed a joint patent with CureVac on a possibly revolutionary "bioreactor for RNA." RNA is a molecule found within all forms of cellular life, described as a sister molecule to DNA.

Pharmaceutical companies like CureVac are working to create a Covid-19 vaccine using "messenger RNA," which can be manually inserted into cells to initiate an immune response.

CureVac says its mRNA vaccine candidates direct cells to make proteins or antigens against various diseases.

Other companies making RNA vaccines include Moderna and Pfizer and BioNTech.
By Kathryn Knight for the Daily Mail

The work was done by lamplight, over a small kitchen table in North London.

Night after night throughout the early months of 1934, Captain Fred Hill and his 13-year-old daughter Hazel burned the midnight oil, plotting graphs and labouring over complex algorithms.

It was tiring, unrewarding work but they both sensed how vital it would prove to be.

And their instincts would before long be ratified by history because their intricate calculations would go on to help the RAF secure victory in the Battle of Britain  a triumph that many historians now believe changed the course of World War II.

Firepower for freedom: Spitfires in formation. The image is from new book To Defeat The Few

Bent together over their graphs, father and daughter concluded that the new generation of aircraft being built by the Government to prepare for a future war should be armed not with four powerful machine guns but eight  an idea that was seen as deeply radical, even impossible, at the time.

Yet only then, the Hills had come to believe, would the new generation of Spitfires and Hurricanes have sufficient firepower to bring down enemy aircraft.

A scientific officer in the Air Ministry, Captain Hill managed to convince his superior officers of the importance of his and Hazel's findings  and six years later, in 1940, their calculations were put to the test in the skies above Britain as the RAF fought Adolf Hitler's much-feared Luftwaffe in a four-month battle that has been described as the most important military campaign ever fought.

Night after night throughout the early months of 1934, Captain Fred Hill and his 13-year-old daughter Hazel (above) burned the midnight oil, plotting graphs and labouring over complex algorithms

'Without victory in the Battle of Britain, it's almost certain we would have been invaded by Germany,' says military historian Stephen Bungay, who adds that without the Hills' persistence 'it could have been a very different outcome'.

Yet until now the compelling story of the schoolgirl who helped to win a war has been sadly untold. Hazel's only public recognition was in a memoir written by her father's superior officer in the Air Ministry.

Now, 80 years after the Battle of Britain  and ten years since the mother of four sons passed away aged 90  the RAF has publicly acknowledged Hazel's heroic contribution for the first time, paying tribute in a fascinating BBC documentary in which the modest schoolgirl is described as an 'inspiration'.

'It's just wonderful that Hazel's story is reaching the light of day,' says Group Captain James Beldon, the RAF's director of defence studies.

'What a great inspiration to young people today, and young girls in particular, who can look upon someone like Hazel in the 1930s making such an important contribution to our later success in the Battle of Britain, which was vital to this country's survival.'

Few would disagree. In July 1940, the fate of the free world hung in the balance, as RAF pilots bravely fought off deadly attacks from the Nazi air force.

Outnumbered three to one, their victory was by no means certain and depended on their skill and bravery; many were barely out of their teens.

Those magnificent men did have one crucial advantage: their flying machines were the latest generation of fighters  Spitfires and Hurricanes.

That those aircraft carried eight guns was thanks to the persuasive efforts of Captain Hill. Four guns, the RAF had long believed, were the maximum possible  any more and the planes would be rendered too slow and too difficult to manoeuvre, becoming easy pickings for enemy fighters.

Cast-iron evidence was needed to back up the claims that eight guns would work  so Fred had turned for help to his 13-year-old daughter. An only child, Hazel was close to her father  and happened to be a talented mathematician.

'My mother was partially dyslexic, and she had terrible trouble spelling,' her eldest son Robin, 69, recalls now.

German photo of Luftwaffe flying over the Channel. To Defeat The Few, by Paul Crickmore and Douglas Dildy, is published by Osprey and costs 30

'This got her into trouble as she was obviously highly intelligent, so teachers thought she was naughty and lazy. I think when she did mathematics, she had none of these problems, which is why it appealed to her so much.'

Armed with the new 'calculating machines' of the time  to our eyes, very rudimentary computers  father and daughter worked long into the night analysing the data at their kitchen table. Their complicated calculations showed conclusively that each Spitfire needed to be capable of firing 1,000 rounds a minute  per gun.

They also calculated the exact distance the Spitfire  whose top speed was about 360mph  had to be from the enemy to hit them: just 755 ft.

'The biggest thing was the huge increase in speed of the new fighters, which was way beyond anything people had experienced before,' says mathematician Niall MacKay.

'What they had to do was take trials conducted at a much lower speed, then work out what would be necessary for a really high-speed fighter. That would have been particularly difficult.'

Not least for someone just into her teens. 'You wouldn't expect most 13-year-olds to be able to do that kind of maths so she must have been a remarkable mathematician,' says Stephen Bungay.

Their conclusions  presented by Captain Hill in July 1934  stunned officials. 'They called it 'staggering',' Hazel's youngest son Ted says. 'I think some higher echelons of the RAF said that it was going too far.

Most of them had grown up with World War I fighters that had one or two guns. The idea of four guns was radical, and eight was incredible.'

Nonetheless, the generals were persuaded, and as Britain headed inexorably towards war, the planes were put into production.

Finally, in July 1940, the Hills' calculations were put to the test when Britain came under enemy bombardment in a campaign that led to more than 1,000 British planes being shot down. Germany's Messerschmitts and other planes suffered nearly twice as many losses  but the margin of victory proved terrifyingly narrow.

'There are stories of German bombers getting back to France with more than 200 bullet holes in them. The calibre of the bullets we were fitting was only just sufficient,' says Group Captain Beldon.

'While many German bombers may have been damaged beyond repair, they were insufficiently damaged to shoot down.'

In other words, just a slight shift in calculations  and four fewer guns per plane  could have meant a very different result.

A German Messerschmitt after crashing in Kent in 1940. The image is from new book To Defeat The Few

'It's amazing how history can hang by a fine thread,' says Ted. 'If [Hazel] got the calculations wrong, if she hadn't been asked to help, and the decision hadn't been made to go for eight guns, who knows what could have happened?'

Hazel was, at least, briefly rewarded for her extraordinary efforts: after watching a Spitfire in action at the Hendon air show in 1936, she was given permission to sit briefly in the cockpit of the aircraft she had helped design.

After school, she studied medicine at university in London  graduating in 1943 and joining the Royal Army Medical Corps, where she treated injured soldiers who had returned from Dunkirk, civilians injured in the Blitz and returning prisoners of war.

At the end of the war Hazel became a female GP  very unusual at the time  and in 1948 married Chris Baker, one of the soldiers she had treated.

They moved to Wednesbury, Staffordshire, where Hazel took a groundbreaking position in the new National Health Service, setting up a child health clinic before training as a psychiatrist and publishing pioneering research into school phobia, anorexia and autism.

She did all this while raising her four sons Robin, Richard, 67, Frank, 66, and Ted, 64.

Yet while Hazel never tried to hide her contribution to her father's work, she remained modest about it.

'She told us she had helped her father with some important calculations but it was really only after she died in 2010 and we started to go through some of her paperwork that we realised the extent of her involvement,' Robin says.

'She was proud of it, but I don't think it was where her heart lay. If she wanted to be remembered for anything, I think it would be for her medical work.'

Nonetheless, her sons are thrilled to see their mother's contribution finally acknowledged.

'Society is made up of ordinary people making a difference  and she is one of those people,' says Ted. 'We are very proud of her.'
When state fire authorities announced recently that the CZU Lightning Complex fire had quadrupled in size in just one day, an audible gasp rose from the audience.

Although lightning fires have been scorching the state since prehistoric times, the speed with which the SCU and LNU lightning complex fires became the second- and third-largest blazes ever recorded in California has startled emergency officials and strained firefighting resources. The fires have killed seven people, destroyed more than 2,100 buildings and made air unhealthy across the Bay Area.

And things may only get worse in the future, experts say.

"There's a direct relationship between heat and fire, and increasing heat is inevitable for at least a few decades," said Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. "If you like 2020, you're going to love 2050."

So why have this year's fires burned more than 1.4 million acres of the state's scenic coastal mountains and hills surrounding wine country? After all, the Lightning Siege of 2008, when nearly 800,000 acres burned, was the first time the National Guard had been called in to help in 40 years as resources were stretched to the limit.

The answer is complicated.

The destiny of all wildfires is shaped by the fire behavior triangle _ fuel, weather and topography _ according to Craig Clements, a professor at San Jose State's Fire Weather Research Laboratory.

But there were additional factors involved in this most recent outbreak. A summer heat wave magnified by climate change combined with tropical moisture and storm energy to create thunderstorms. The resulting lightning strikes pelted a region with a history of difficult firefighting and another area that's seen numerous fires in the recent past.

The state- and locally-maintained coastal mountains in Central California, where the CZU Lightning Complex is burning, have a history of challenging firefighters. In 2016, in Monterey County north of the current fire, a firefighter died helping contain the stubborn Soberanes fire, which burned 50 homes while flames lived for months in the range's steep canyons and impassable terrain.

In 2003, south of Livermore, where a part of the SCU Lightning Complex is now burning, 53 firefighters were overrun in the middle of the night and used their shelters in what may have been the second-largest shelter deployment by crews in U.S. history, Clements said.

In both instances, just as is happening now, temperatures did not drop significantly overnight nor was any ocean moisture reintroduced into the landscape's higher elevations. In the summer, a high-pressure system settles over the Pacific and rotates, steering warm, dry air over the coastal range's upper elevations while squeezing cool, moist air into the marine layer below, said San Jose State atmospheric scientist Alison Bridger.

"It's basically why we don't get rain in the summer," she said.

Throw in an extreme heat wave, and fire risk rises significantly.

"The fact we got such extremely large, fast destructive fires without any offshore winds is very unusual," said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. "All of this hints at something which we know to be true ... the state of the vegetation, the state of the fuels was pretty extraordinary."

In fact, most of the areas burning in the three lightning complex fires are considered to be in moderate to severe drought, according to the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor report released Thursday. Huge chunks of each fire's footprint include areas that haven't seen fires in decades and were jackpots of dead and dry tinder.

"Unfortunately, as the climate continues to warm, the table is being set for these extreme fires more often," Swain said. "It means the ceiling on how bad these fires can be is continuing to increase."

The night that the hundreds-of-miles-wide lightning storm set all these fires in motion, a "heat burst" before sunrise hit parts of wine country, sending predawn temperatures in areas such as Travis Air Force Base from 80 to 100 degrees in under two hours. While experts say it probably didn't have a direct impact on the fires, it certainly didn't help matters and foreshadowed the challenging conditions to come.

From Tuesday to Wednesday, winds flowed downslope into the Sacramento Valley from the mountains between Oregon and California, shedding moisture along the way. When they hit the wine country hills, they were bone dry and influenced the fire's explosive growth, said National Weather Service meteorologist Cory Miller. The LNU Lightning Complex fire grew tenfold in 36 hours, from 12,200 acres the morning of Aug. 18 to 124,000 acres the following night, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Sarah Johnson and the Emerald Hills Horse Ranch, in Winters, were in the fire's path.

Johnson, 29, is originally from Ohio and knows thunderstorms, so two weeks ago she kicked back in a hammock to enjoy a flavor of the Midwest as lightning flashed across the horizon around Lake Berryessa and Mt. Vaca.

But soon, the storms were replaced with smoke, and then falling ash. Johnson and her boyfriend were glued to their phones, listening to scanner traffic from first responders about the fire's movements. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection website was working only intermittently, overwhelmed by a surge in web traffic from around the globe.

As the fire made its late-night surge Aug. 18 and 19, Johnson's boyfriend's phone began ringing incessantly, the ranch's boarders trying to reach him to warn him of the incoming fire.

The couple woke up and sprung into action, waking neighbors, loading up horses as trailers arrived and helping to knock down small spot fires that dotted the ranch pasture. The ranch lost power sometime during the scramble.

"It was incredibly windy and smoky and you could see a fire tornado forming, and the rate of spread was incredible," Johnson said. "The fire was just so bright, that's how we were able to see everything."

Over the next several hours, their neighbors' homes burned. The fire was fast and the county's emergency alert system didn't reach many of them until it was too late, if at all, Johnson said.

"I remember at one point I just stopped and looked and said, 'Where are all the fire trucks?' and it was just another surreal moment and I realized that nobody was coming," she said.

There's a concern that as these fires hit the same areas again and again, they'll permanently change California, and not for the better.

A moderate fire can clear out underbrush and competing trees, giving a healthy forest room to breathe. But if it visits again and again - as has happened in parts of Napa County in recent years - those native grasses and plants give up the fight and invasive plants move in, similar to what's happened in Southern California. Oftentimes those new species can spread fire faster.

California has choices to make since fire is inevitable and megafires are increasingly possible, said Gerrard, the Columbia climate law director. Building codes can be updated. Utility infrastructure can be modernized and better regulated. Decisions on where homes are built and how forests are managed can be made with fire risk and native ecology in mind.

"It's very much like managed retreat on the coastline," Gerrard said. "The hope is that recurrent, related disasters will be a wake-up call."

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
DALLAS (August 28, 2020)  The Center for BrainHealth, part of The University of Texas at Dallas, was honored this week when its Adolescent Reasoning Initiative was named Nonprofit Team of the Year at the third annual Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship Awards.

This honor reflects the teams work in training teachers to guide middle and high school students in improving their executive function skills. For more than a decade, Jacquelyn Gamino, PhD and her team at BrainHealth have trained teachers in cognitive science-based programming that instills reasoning, problem solving and innovation among students across the entire curriculum.

We are grateful for this recognition of the work the Adolescent Reasoning Initiative does to ensure that students learn to use executive function that not only improves their academics, but also opens the way to a lifetime of problem-solving, reasoning, and innovating. These skills will enable todays students to be tomorrows movers and shakers, filling the workforce with problem solvers and creators for the future, said Dr. Gamino.

Results That Matter

People equipped with strong executive function are better prepared to make thoughtful, informed decisions and to fuel economic growth through career readiness, continued Dr. Gamino. Investing in adolescent brain potential cultivates future communities of young adults with the cognitive prowess to generate workable solutions to overcome the challenges that plague our world  economic, health-related, social inequity and more.

Jonathan Smith, principal at D.W. Carter High School, is a longtime BrainHealth partner. He said, I started working with the BrainHealth team when I was principal at T.W. Browne Middle School. In three short years, we moved from the bottom 5% of the state to the #1 spot in the Dallas ISD, and BrainHealth was an integral part of that work. Now as principal at Carter High School, weve also seen improvement  in many areas, double-digit gains  among students who have participated in the BrainHealth program.

Adolescent Reasoning Initiative Looks Ahead

To date, the Adolescent Reasoning Initiative has trained more than 600 middle and high school teachers, who in turn have reached over 80,000 students  with results that are measurable, significant and lasting.

This summer, the Adolescent Reasoning Initiative team successfully moved from an in-person model to an immersive virtual platform, engaging teachers in active, meaningful learning. Virtual classroom training modules are being finalized to enable the team to maintain their momentum this fall, in the midst of the global pandemic.

The team appreciates the hundreds of teachers and thousands of students who have trusted BrainHealth to improve their brains. Just as importantly, the Adolescent Reasoning Initiative (previously called Middle School Brain Years) is grateful to the many supporters who have helped fund this important work: State of Texas, Simmons Foundation, Communities Foundation, RGK Foundation, Meadows Foundation, AT&T Foundation, Joel Robuck and Friends, and many other generous community members.

About the Awards

The Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship Awards are offered by D CEO in partnership with Communities Foundation of Texas, with the goal of honoring professionals and organizations in the nonprofit world that continue to make a positive impact on the community, often under difficult financial constraints. They also recognize corporations that support the nonprofit community, including this year both corporate and nonprofit efforts surrounding COVID-19 community response.

D CEO managing editor Will Maddox added, I used to be a public-school teacher and Ive got to say that having someone who wants to pour into you as a teacher and educate you is really refreshing, really important.

This years awards attracted more than 510 nominations and included two new categories to recognize efforts in response to COVID-19. Winners in several categories were selected from among 80 finalists.

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR BRAINHEALTH

The Center for BrainHealth, part of The University of Texas at Dallas, is a research institute committed to enhancing, preserving and restoring brain health across the lifespan. Scientific exploration at the Center for BrainHealth is leading edge, improving lives today and translating groundbreaking discoveries into practical clinical application. By delivering science-based innovations that enhance how people think, work and live, the Center and its Brain Performance Institute are empowering people of all ages to unlock their brain potential. Major research areas include the use of functional and structural neuroimaging techniques to better understand the neurobiology supporting cognition and emotion in health and disease.
Two 14-year longitudinal studies found that selfish, combative, manipulative people are not more likely to achieve power in the workplace than are nice people

The evidence is in: Nice guys and gals dont finish last, and being a selfish jerk doesnt get you ahead.

Thats the clear conclusion from research that tracked disagreeable people from college or graduate school to where they landed in their careers about 14 years later.

I was surprised by the consistency of the findings. No matter the individual or the context, disagreeableness did not give people an advantage in the competition for powereven in more cutthroat, dog-eat-dog organizational cultures, said Berkeley Haas Prof. Cameron Anderson, who co-authored the study with Berkeley Psychology Prof. Oliver P. John, doctoral student Daron L. Sharps, and Assoc. Prof. Christopher J. Soto of Colby College.

The paper was published August 31 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers conducted two studies of people who had completed personality assessments as undergraduates or MBA students at three universities. They surveyed the same people more than a decade later, asking about their power and rank in their workplaces, as well as the culture of their organizations. They also asked their co-workers to rate the study participants rank and workplace behavior. Across the board, they found those with selfish, deceitful, and aggressive personality traits were not more likely to have attained power than those who were generous, trustworthy, and generally nice.

Thats not to say that jerks dont reach positions of power. Its just that they didnt get ahead faster than others, and being a jerk simply didnt help, Anderson said. Thats because any power boost they get from being intimidating is offset by their poor interpersonal relationships, the researchers found. In contrast, the researchers found that extroverts were the most likely to have advanced in their organizations, based on their sociability, energy, and assertivenessbacking up prior research.

The bad news here is that organizations do place disagreeable individuals in charge just as often as agreeable people, Anderson said. In other words, they allow jerks to gain power at the same rate as anyone else, even though jerks in power can do serious damage to the organization.

The age-old question of whether being aggressively Machiavellian helps people get ahead has long interested Anderson, who studies social status. Its a critical question for managers, because ample research has shown that jerks in positions of power are abusive, prioritize their own self-interest, create corrupt cultures, and ultimately cause their organizations to fail. They also serve as toxic role models for society at large.

For example, people who read former-Apple CEO Steve Jobs biography might think, Maybe if I become an even bigger asshole Ill be successful like Steve, the authors note in their paper. My advice to managers would be to pay attention to agreeableness as an important qualification for positions of power and leadership, Anderson said. Prior research is clear: agreeable people in power produce better outcomes.

While theres clearly no shortage of jerks in power, theres been little empirical research to settle the question of whether being disagreeable actually helped them get there, or is simply incidental to their success. Anderson and his co-authors set out to create a research design that would clear up the debate. (They pre-registered their analysis for both studies on aspredicted.org.)

What defines a jerk? The participants had all completed the Big Five Inventory (BFI), an assessment based on general consensus among psychologists of the five fundamental personality dimensions: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness. It was developed by Andersons co-author John, who directs the Berkeley Personality Lab. In addition, some of the participants also completed a second personality assessment, the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R).

Disagreeableness is a relatively stable aspect of personality that involves the tendency to behave in quarrelsome, cold, callous, and selfish ways, the researchers explained. Disagreeable people tend to be hostile and abusive to others, deceive and manipulate others for their own gain, and ignore others concerns or welfare.

In the first study, which involved 457 participants, the researchers found no relationship between power and disagreeableness, no matter whether the person had scored high or low on those traits. That was true regardless of gender, race or ethnicity, industry, or the cultural norms in the organization.

The second study went deeper, looking at the four main ways people attain power: through dominant-aggressive behavior, or using fear and intimidation; political behavior, or building alliances with influential people; communal behavior, or helping others; and competent behavior, or being good at ones job. They also asked the subjects co-workers to rate their place in the hierarchy, as well as their workplace behavior (interestingly, the co-workers ratings largely matched the subjects self-assessments).

This allowed the researchers to better understand why disagreeable people do not get ahead faster than others. Even though jerks tend to engage in dominant behavior, their lack of communal behavior cancels out any advantage their aggressiveness gives them, they concluded.

Anderson noted that the findings dont directly speak to whether disagreeableness helps or hurts people attain power in the realm of electoral politics, where the power dynamics are different than in organizations. But there are some likely parallels. Having a strong set of alliances is generally important to power in all areas of life, he said. Disagreeable politicians might have more difficulty maintaining necessary alliances because of their toxic behavior.

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The Maharashtra Police department recorded 341 cases of coronavirus among its personnel on Sunday, taking the total tally to 15,294. Two personnel also succumbed to the virus, following which the death toll in the force surged to 156, which also includes 15 officers. Of the 15,294 personnel who were infected, 12,306 have recovered.

One of the personnel, who died in the past 24 hours, 46-year-old head constable Santosh Zende, was attached to the Chakan traffic division. This is the first death in the newly-constituted Pimpri-Chinchwad commissionerate.

He complained of sore throat and underwent an antigen test on August 24 and was tested positive for Covid-19. Since August 25, he was undergoing treatment at the Birla Hospital (in Pimpri-Chinchwad). As he suffered from high blood pressure, his condition got worse and he passed away on Sunday, said senior inspector Vitthal Kubade from the commissionerate.

Kubade said that Zende is survived by his mother, wife, an 18-year-old daughter who is pursuing the MBA course and a 13-year-old daughter. He was a sincere, honest and disciplined policeman. All his colleagues are in a shock. He was the sole wage earner in his family.

According to the commissionerates Covid officer, assistant inspector Anil Lohar, of the 322 cases of Covid-19 recorded among the Pimpri-Chinchwad police personnel, only 68 are active cases, while the others have recovered.

Meanwhile, 53-year-old assistant sub-inspector attached to the Kulgaon police station of Thane Rural police was the second personnel who died of Covid-19 on Sunday. Shriram Sonawane was undergoing treatment for the virus for over a month at Thanes Vedanta Hospital.

He developed high fever first and was admitted to the hospital. During treatment, he also developed pneumonia and was given oxygen support for over a month. Sonawane also suffered from high blood pressure. His condition deteriorated and he passed away on Sunday, said assistant inspector Sandeep Nigade of Kulgaon police station. Sonawane is survived by his wife, two daughters and a son.
Authored by Bhavya Khatri, Programmatic Senior Manager, Amnet India.

A quick parody on a commercial that features a chocolate ball & a portion size of milk which combines their deliciousness to form the ultimate confectionery experience, Kinder Joy. Print and digital media, in a similar fashion can flourish without each other, however, they perform best in tandem. The key is to strike the right balance and how to creatively engage readers using both platforms simultaneously.

With the evolution of digital, the lifetime of Print was likened to be the Mayan apocalypse, another doomsday that would curse the offline media to eternity, however, the truth is far beyond. According to a FICCI-EY report, it is estimated to grow at 3.4 percent (CAGR) to reach 338 billion by 2021 in India.

While most business investment today has moved towards an Omni-Channel approach, the amalgamation of Print & Digital in the lines of adaptation still looks blurry in India. With that in mind, theres humongous space for this Cross-Channel advertising to reach consumers on multiple platforms.

Recalling the Ford Explorer Interactive Print Ad where QR code-enabled interactive print ads were released to demonstrate different features of Ford Explorer SUV. To view the demo, the readers needed to scan the QR code by placing their phones on the highlighted area. A virtual Explorer SUV would appear on the mobile screen & demonstrate the features using elements from the Print ad.

Print & Digital- Stitching Together The Next Revolution

Imagine the seamless experience that can be driven by having the powerful combination of Print & Digital together in synergy. Imagine the future, where the controlled & exposed groups are not just limited within the digital environment but are also embracing the offline user groups via Print Media. After all, one just cannot ignore the fact that an ad campaign never reaches all users within the target audience because whether a user sees a particular ad depends on their behavior, competitive bidding among advertisers, and numerous other targeting parameters.

So, in order to conduct an ideal placebo testing, why cant the region-specific learnings from a digital campaign be ingested & leveraged to deliver in personalized print communication within a specific district? Why cant the lift calculations in digital environment be carried out for user groups within two districts- exposing with a print ad in one and withholding ad to the other? Of course, all of this gets complicated when it comes to measure the overall impact but bridging offline & online media isnt impossible to achieve. Some kind of orchestration required to measure the direct impact of a print activity to a digital campaign, when ran parallelly. Users scanning QR-code via a print communication can be captured & seen as one way to measure the effectiveness of a digital campaign, to reach out to users who were initially being missed out because of numerous targeting parameters.

The breakthrough of Cross-Screen marketing was an exciting development in the future of addressable television. If not with the advent of programmatic, who would have even thought of collecting data from a users set-top box & sending that out to an ad exchange to help buyers make an informed decision, in real time, syncing TV and mobile for immediate engagement & higher brand lift. The time now is to foresee how programmatic would reap the real benefits of Print & Digital Media to attain the ultimate Nirvana.

The author is a strategic digital marketer skilled in analytical decision making, campaign management, client servicing and publisher prospects. She works at the programmatic arm of Dentsu Aegist Network where the primary focus is to leverage technology to drive creativity and transparency in digital marketing at scale.
The attorney general's office is threatening to prosecute  and seek to jail  Secretary of State Katie Hobbs if she follows through with plan to temporarily take an online portal for candidate petition signatures offline for updating.
Cameron has indicated that the ballistics report from federal investigators was the final piece needed in the investigation of Taylors killing by police on March 13. His office took over the probe into the officers actions in May after the local prosecutor recused himself. Cameron made the first mention of the ballistics report earlier this month, after intense pressure from activists and high-profile celebrities.
State premiers will be urged to embrace a national approach to opening the economy in a federal plan to tell Australians when they will be able to cross state borders.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will take the proposal to a national cabinet meeting this Friday in a renewed bid to phase out border controls that are being blamed for prolonging the recession.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will take a plan to national cabinet on Friday in a bid to get agreement on how to open state borders. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Morrison will put the plan to premiers and chief ministers in the hope of creating a unified approach to removing the barriers as coronavirus case numbers fall below agreed benchmarks.

Unable to force the states and territories to scrap their border checks, the Prime Minister will instead argue for an "exit plan" so Australians know there is a plan to relax the measures that have stopped tourism and trade.
Moves to top up the pay of self-isolating social care staff in North Wales should be part of a complete overhaul in way the sector is funded

This article is old - Published: Monday, Aug 31st, 2020

Moves to top up the pay of self-isolating social care staff in North Wales should be part of a complete overhaul of the inherently unfair way the sector is funded, Care Forum Wales has said.

According to the organisation, the dysfunctional system had led to chronic underfunding for a quarter of a century with many care homes facing the prospect of financial ruin and the threat of closure while having to deal with the enormous challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The chair, Mario Kreft MBE, spoke out after Health Minister Vaughan Gething announced he is planning to top up the wages of social-care workers forced to self-isolate because of coronavirus.

At the moment they are only eligible for statutory sick pay  currently 95.85 per week  if they have to self-isolate or take sick leave due to the virus.

Mr Gething said an announcement would be made soon, adding that my expectation is that we will top-up the wages of those taking time off because of coronavirus to 100% of their normal wages.

The Health Minister also acknowledged there were broader long term questions about the terms of social care workers.

We welcome anything that is going to improve the terms and conditions of care workers, said Mr Kreft.

Providers did have concerns that there were incentives for people not to self-isolate when perhaps they ought to.

The funding care homes receive from local authorities and health boards enables providers to do no more than pay statutory sick pay and nothing over and above that.

If weve got to incentivise people to self-isolate then that money has to come from somewhere  either the local authorities and health boards or the Welsh Government.

We have invited to a meeting next week to look at the detail of how it can work and this is among the issues we will be raising.

What this does not address is the inherent unfairness that has been built into the system over a generation when social care has been largely commissioned by local authorities which has effectively set pay levels at such a low rate.

We have had 25 years of failure and inadequate resources. This is a golden opportunity to right some fundamental flaws that have pushed the social care sector to the brink of financial ruin.

He added: Working in social care is already a career to be proud of but we now need to make sure that it also a career in which our wonderful staff are also properly paid, one that they can afford to go into.

The only way to achieve that is have root and branch reforms to the way social care is funded with an urgent national action plan which recognises that the sector is a pillar of Wales foundation economy as designated by the Welsh Government.

It would be sheer folly to carry on doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. We need a totally new approach, fit for the 21st century to enable us to pay social care workers what they deserve.
PITTSBURGH: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden accused President Donald Trump in a speech from battleground state Pennsylvania on Monday of sowing chaos amid nationwide protests, pushing back on Republican assertions that Trump stands for "law and order."

Biden`s remarks in Pittsburgh come as Trump, who trails his rival in opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 3 election, accuses Democrats of losing control of sometimes violent demonstrations over police brutality and racial inequality that have gripped American cities for months.

"This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country," Biden said from a converted steel mill. "He can`t stop the violence  because for years he has fomented it." Looters and rioters are not protesters and should be prosecuted, Biden added. "Ask yourself, do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?" Biden asked, countering Trump`s assertions that his opponent is weak on crime and catering to his party`s most liberal members.

On Friday, Trump called protesters anarchists, agitators, rioters and looters. Republicans deny he is seeking to exacerbate violence with incendiary rhetoric. Biden`s visit to Pennsylvania, an important swing state that helped propel Trump to victory in 2016, marked an unusual trip afield for the former vice president, who has worked mostly from his Delaware home since March when the coronavirus began spreading widely in the country.

Biden`s campaign has indicated he expects to increase his travel to the states that will decide the election as the vote draws nearer.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are both due to visit the state this week for campaign events.

TENSIONS

In Pittsburgh, Biden depicted an America under Trump that was unsafe, with COVID-19 killing thousands of people a week and an upside-down economy. Samuel DeMarco, the Republican chairman in Allegheny County, where Biden was speaking, said his speech showed "desperation." "We have violent protests for 90 some days and now he`s going to address and try to blame Trump. Good luck with that," he said.

Demonstrations have swept the United States since the death in May of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Tensions between rival protest groups have led to shooting deaths in recent weeks. Trump is set to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday after new protests erupted there last week following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, another African-American man, multiple times in front of his children, paralyzing him.

Democrats have urged the president to stay away from Kenosha. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers sent a letter to Trump on Sunday asking him to reconsider the trip, saying he was concerned his presence would "hinder our healing" and divert first-responder resources needed for recovery efforts.

"Now is not the time for elected officials to ignore armed militants and out-of-state instigators who want to contribute to our anguish," Evers wrote in his letter, a copy of which was seen by Reuters. The White House has said it is making efforts to reach Blake`s family, but has been unable to connect.
A major revival plan of the proscribed terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was thwarted in Jammu and Kashmir and three terrorists were arrested.

The terrorists were in contact with Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) handler Mohammed Qasim who exfiltrated 18 years ago. An FIR was registered in this matter and an SIT formed said SSP Reasi Rashmi Wazir.

The arrested people include a government employee, a labourer and a shopkeeper. "We've verified some of their bank accounts and detected some benami transactions. Some more persons will be arrested in this case. They were trying to lure family members of former terrorists," said Wazir.
So they moved to Maplewood, N.J., this summer.

To give up living in Brooklyn and move to suburbs, we just couldnt see ourselves there, said Ms. Salzman, 39, a lawyer whose office is in Manhattan. But the pandemic helped make this choice for us.

[Home sales are soaring in the suburbs and plummeting in New York City.]

Demand for homes in New York Citys suburbs, including New Jersey, Westchester County, Connecticut and Long Island, has been surging as many companies continue to embrace remote work. Many buyers express worries about the health risks of living in packed urban neighborhoods, and want space and land that New York City often cannot provide.

What does the boom look like?

A three-bedroom house in East Orange, N.J., had 97 showings, received 24 offers and went under contract for 21 percent over the $285,000 price it was listed for. Six people made offers on a $499,000 house in Valley Stream on Long Island even though they had not seen it in person (the house had been shown on a Facebook Live video).

In July, there was a 44 percent increase in home sales for the suburban counties surrounding the city when compared with numbers in 2019, according to Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants. The increase was 112 percent in Westchester and 73 percent in Fairfield County, Conn.
MUNICH, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Daiichi Sankyo Europe, (hereafter, Daiichi Sankyo) today announced one-year results of four sub-analyses from the European and global ETNA-AF (Edoxaban Treatment in routiNe clinical prActice in patients with nonvalvular Atrial Fibrillation) programme, a non-interventional safety study evaluating edoxaban treatment in routine clinical practice in >26,000 patients around the world with atrial fibrillation (AF).[1],[2],[3],[4] New 12-month data from the European and global ETNA-AF registries showed rates of bleeding and intracranial haemorrhage (ICH) were considered low by the authors' assessment in frail and ageing patients in routine clinical care.[1],[2],[3] Findings, which are part of the largest prospective, non-interventional study programme investigating a single direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) to date, are available virtually at ESC Congress 2020, the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology, taking place 29 August  01 September.

In vulnerable populations such as the ageing, frail and those with renal impairment, anticoagulation for stroke prevention is often not prescribed due to the risk of bleeding, despite these patients being among those most at risk for ischaemic events like stroke.[5] However, outcomes from ETNA-AF reinforce the effectiveness and safety of edoxaban in these populations.[1],[2]

"Ageing and frail patients have been underrepresented in certain AF stroke prevention trials, leaving a lack of evidence to support routine DOAC use in these patients. However, these new data should provide clinicians with some confidence of edoxaban's efficacy and safety profile to reduce the risk of stroke for the ageing and frail AF populations," Dr Ameet Bakhai, Consultant Cardiologist & Cardiovascular R&D Director Royal Free London NHS Trust, UK.

ETNA-AF-Europe Registry Outcomes: Frailty and renal function

Anticoagulation presents multiple challenges in patients who are frail, as well as those who are frail and have renal impairment.[5] The first of the two data analyses from the 13,092 patient-wide ETNA-AF-Europe registry assessed key clinical outcomes and risk scores in frail and ageing patients versus non-frail or younger patients correspondingly.[1] Frailty  commonly defined as those at increased risk of disability, hospitalisation, and mortality[6]  was determined by physician perception.[1]

Results from 1,392 patients, who were considered frail, showed:[1]

Rates of intracranial haemorrhage (ICH) remained low by the investigators' assessment, regardless of frailty status or age, despite frail patients being four times more likely to suffer mortality and presenting with higher rates of major bleeding compared to the non-frail cohort

Per year, ICH occurred in 0.15% of patients in the frail cohort, compared to 0.27% of those in the non-frail cohort

Per year, major bleeding occurred in 2.18% of patients in the frail cohort, compared to 0.95% of those in the non-frail cohort

Per year, total mortality occurred in 10.43% of patients in the frail cohort, compared to 2.49% of those in the non-frail cohort

In addition, the analysis suggested that clinician's perception of frailty appeared to be a better marker of clinical outcomes than age.[1]

In the second analysis from the ETNA-AF-Europe registry, 13,021 patients with renal impairment were observed to evaluate baseline characteristics and assess follow-up outcomes at one-year.[2] The presence of AF is linked with a greater risk of developing moderate and severe renal impairment, and clinically, anticoagulation presents multiple challenges in patients with impaired renal function because the pharmacokinetic properties and bioavailability of the treatment are often altered in those patients.[7],[8] Findings of this analysis indicated that across the three groups (moderate to severe renal disease [CrCl 50 mL/min], mild renal disease [CrCl 5080 mL/min] and normal renal function [CrCl 80 mL/min]), who were categorised according to their creatinine clearance (CrCl) levels, patients treated with edoxaban had low rates of ICH and haemorrhagic stroke, by the investigators' assessment, and these results were similar in patients across all groups studied.[2] Regarding renal function, ICH occurred in 0.18%, 0.32% and 0.17% of patients annually, while haemorrhagic stroke occurred in 0.04%, 0.17% and 0.10% of patients in the group with moderate to severe renal disease, mild renal disease and normal renal function, respectively.[2]

Global ETNA-AF: Treatment of ageing patients

Findings from one of two global sub-analyses showed that at 12 months, rates of ICH were consistently low across all age groups, while CV mortality increased numerically with age, but to a lower extent than all-cause mortality.[3] Additional findings from the global registry, assessing the safety and effectiveness of edoxaban given at the recommended or non-recommended dose in AF patients during one-year observation in routine clinical practice, showed that edoxaban is being prescribed at the label recommended dose in the vast majority of patients, but that non-recommended edoxaban dosage tends to occur more frequently when the CrCl or body weight was closer to the threshold of dose reduction.[4]

"AF is common in the ageing population as are comorbidities and higher rates of CV events, including bleeding, which all need to be managed with a great deal of consideration for the challenges they present for both clinicians and patients," said Wolfgang Zierhut MD, Executive Director Medical Affairs and Head Thrombosis and Cardiovascular at Daiichi Sankyo Europe. "These latest data show the consistency of edoxaban treatment in providing benefits to a wide range of patients."

ETNA-AF is one of more than 10 randomised, controlled trials (RCTs), registries and non-randomised clinical studies that comprise the Edoxaban Clinical Research Programme.

All of the ETNA-AF non-interventional study data presented at ESC Congress 2020 can be found here .

Additional edoxaban data presented

In addition to ETNA-AF, data from multiple clinical studies from the Edoxaban Clinical Research Programme were also presented.

ENGAGE AF  TIMI 48 Serial measurement of biomarkers and the risk of stroke or systemic embolism and bleeding in patients with atrial fibrillation in ENGAGE AF-TIMI 48 Oyama et al Is there a role for half-dose anticoagulation in atrial fibrillation? Randomized comparison of 2 doses of edoxaban in 14,014 patients in ENGAGE AF-TIMI 48 Steffel et al ENTRUST-AF PCI Edoxaban in atrial fibrillation with PCI by ACS or stable CAD presentation: a pre-specified analysis of the ENTRUST-AF PCI trial Vranckx et al ANAFIE Risk factors associated with stroke/systemic embolic events in elderly non-valvular atrial fibrillation patients in the ANAFIE registry, the largest real-world elderly AF registry Inoue et al Risk factors of major bleeding in elderly atrial fibrillation patients from the ANAFIE registry Inoue et al Real-world effectiveness and the safety of anticoagulant treatment in elderly non-valvular atrial fibrillation in the ANAFIE registry, the largest real-world elderly AF registry Yamashita et al Gesundheitsforen Leipzig

database Comparison of clinical outcomes with edoxaban versus apixaban, dabigatran, rivaroxaban, and vitamin K antagonist in patients with atrial fibrillation in Germany: a real-world cohort study Marston et al Improved adherence to anticoagulant therapy with once-daily regimen: a real-world study in patients with atrial fibrillation in Germany Yeh et al

About ETNA-AF

ETNA-AF ( E doxaban T reatment in routi N e clinical pr A ctice in patients with nonvalvular A trial F ibrillation) is a global programme that combines data from distinct non-interventional studies in Europe, East Asia, and Japan in a single database. A total of more than 28,000 patients will be included in the ETNA-AF registries and followed for two years (patients in Europe will be followed for four years). The primary objective of ETNA-AF is to collect information on the use of edoxaban in routine clinical practice, including the safety and efficacy profile in non-preselected patients with NVAF.[9],[10],[11],[12],[13]

About AF

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.[14]

AF is the most common type of heart rhythm disorder and is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality.[15] More than six million Europeans are diagnosed with AF, and this figure is expected to at least double over the next 50 years.[16],[17] Compared to those without AF, people with the arrhythmia have a 3-5 times higher risk of stroke.[18] One in five of all strokes are as a result of AF.[16]

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 30 countries and regions around the world.

More information on the edoxaban clinical trials can be found on: https://www.daiichi-sankyo.co.uk.

Media Contacts

Dr. Wolfgang Schiessl

Daiichi Sankyo Europe GmbH

Director Product PR and Communications

Cardiovascular Europe

+49 151 1714 7317

Alistair Gordon

Daiichi Sankyo UK Ltd.

Government Affairs and Corporate Communications Manager

+44 7591 953 681

About Daiichi Sankyo

Daiichi Sankyo Group is dedicated to the creation and supply of innovative pharmaceutical therapies to improve standards of care and address diversified, unmet medical needs of people globally by leveraging our world-class science and technology. With more than 100 years of scientific expertise and a presence in more than 20 countries, Daiichi Sankyo and its 15,000 employees around the world draw upon a rich legacy of innovation and a robust pipeline of promising new medicines to help people. In addition to a strong portfolio of medicines for cardiovascular diseases, under the Group's 2025 Vision to become a "Global Pharma Innovator with Competitive Advantage in Oncology," Daiichi Sankyo is primarily focused on providing novel therapies in oncology, as well as other research areas centered around rare diseases and immune disorders. For more information, please visit: www.daiichi-sankyo.co.uk.

Forward-looking statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements and information about future developments in the sector, and the legal and business conditions of DAIICHI SANKYO Co., Ltd. Such forward-looking statements are uncertain and are subject at all times to the risks of change, particularly to the usual risks faced by a global pharmaceutical company, including the impact of the prices for products and raw materials, medication safety, changes in exchange rates, government regulations, employee relations, taxes, political instability and terrorism as well as the results of independent demands and governmental inquiries that affect the affairs of the company. All forward-looking statements contained in this release hold true as of the date of publication. They do not represent any guarantee of future performance. Actual events and developments could differ materially from the forward-looking statements that are explicitly expressed or implied in these statements. DAIICHI SANKYO Co., Ltd. assume no responsibility for the updating of such forward-looking statements about future developments of the sector, legal and business conditions and the company.

References

Bakhai A, et al. Still on 'aspirin or nothing' for AF patients with frailty? ETNA-AF-Europe shows frailty corresponds to higher mortality but not neurological bleeding with edoxaban anticoagulation in routine care. Poster presented at ESC Congress 2020. de Caterina R, et al. Baseline characteristics and follow-up outcomes in routine clinical practice patients categorised by renal function in the ETNA-AF-Europe registry. Poster presented at ESC Congress 2020. Yamashita T, et al. Edoxaban Treatment of Elderly Patients with Atrial Fibrillation in Routine Clinical Practice: 1-Year Results of the Non-interventional Global ETNA-AF Program. Rapid Fire Abstract presented at ESC Congress 2020. Chao T-F, et al. Recommended and non-recommended edoxaban dosing in patients with atrial fibrillation: one-year clinical events from the Global ETNA-AF non-interventional study. Rapid Fire Abstract presented at ESC Congress 2020. Seelig J, et al. When to withhold oral anticoagulation in atrial fibrillation  an overview of frequent clinical discussion topics. Vasc Health Risk Manag. 2019;15:399408. Pritchard, J.M., et al. Measuring frailty in clinical practice: a comparison of physical frailty assessment methods in a geriatric out-patient clinic. BMC Geriatr 17, 264 (2017). Soliman, et al. Chronic Kidney Disease and Prevalent Atrial Fibrillation: The Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC). Am Heart J. 2010 Jun; 159(6): 11021107. Sciascia, et al. Chronic kidney disease and anticoagulation: from vitamin K antagonists and heparins to direct oral anticoagulant agents. Intern Emerg Med. 2017:12;1101-8. Edoxaban Treatment in Routine Clinical Practice for Patients With Non Valvular Atrial Fibrillation (ETNA-AF-EU). Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02944019. Accessed August 2020 . Edoxaban Treatment in Routine Clinical Practice for Patients With Atrial Fibrillation in Korea and Taiwan (ETNA-AF- KOR-TWN). Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02951039. Accessed August 2020 . Edoxaban Treatment in Routine Clinical Practice for Patients With Non-valvular Atrial Fibrillation (ETNA-AF-Hong Kong). Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03247582. Accessed August 2020 . Edoxaban Treatment in Routine Clinical Practice for Patients With Non-Valvular Atrial Fibrillation (NVAF). Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03247569. Accessed August 2020 . ETNA-AF-Japan. Available at: https://upload.umin.ac.jp/cgi-open-bin/ctr/ctr_view.cgi?recptno=R000019728. Accessed August 2020 . National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute  What is Atrial Fibrillation. Available at: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/af/af_diagnosis.html. Iqbal MB, et al. Recent developments in atrial fibrillation. BMJ. 2005;330(7485):23843. Camm AJ, et al. Guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation: the Task Force for the Management of Atrial Fibrillation of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Eur Heart J. 2010;31(19):2369-2429. Krijthe BP, et al. Projections on the number of individuals with atrial fibrillation in the European Union, from+- 2000 to 2060. Eur Heart J. 2013;34(35):2746-2751. Ball J, et al. Atrial fibrillation: Profile and burden of an evolving epidemic in the 21st century. Int J Card. 2013;167:1807-1824.

EDX/20/0820

Date of preparation: August 2020

SOURCE Daiichi Sankyo Europe
Rajakbhai Kumbhar, a resident of West Kutch in Gujarat, was arrested on Sunday in connection with the investigation of 'Defence/ISI case' of Uttar Pradesh

New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested a supervisor at Mundra dockyard in Gujarat, who allegedly worked as an agent of Pakistani spy agency  Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) an official said.

Rajakbhai Kumbhar, a resident of West Kutch in Gujarat, arrested on Sunday in connection with the investigation of 'Defence/ISI case' of Uttar Pradesh, the NIA official said.

The case pertains to an FIR registered on 19 January at Lucknow's Gomti Nagar police station on the arrest of Mohammad Rashid from Mughalsarai in Chandoli district, he said.

The NIA re-registered the case on 6 April under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), the official said.

During the investigation, it was revealed that Rashid was in contact with defence or ISI handlers in Pakistan and visited the neighbouring country twice, the official said.

He had transmitted photographs of sensitive and strategically important installations in India and also shared information about the movement of the armed forces with his IS handlers in Pakistan, an NIA spokesperson said.

Investigation revealed that Kumbhar worked as an ISI agent and transferred Rs 5,000 through Paytm in the account of one Rizwan which was further handed over to the main accused Rashid, the spokesperson said.

This amount was remitted to Rashid by Kumbhar on the directions of ISI handlers for the information supplied, he said.

A search was conducted at the house of Kumbhar on Thursday and several incriminating documents were seized.

Further investigation in the case was underway.
WALNUT CREEK (BCN)

The Contra Costa County coroner's office has identified two 18-year-old women and a 47-year-old man who died in a crash off of Interstate Highway 680 in Walnut Creek last week.

Terri'nae Williams, of Oakland, and Zakiya Thomas, of Antioch, were identified as the two women, and Dimitri Washington, of Oakland, as the man killed in the crash reported at about 10:40 p.m. last Tuesday near the North Main Street off-ramp from northbound Highway 680.

According to the California Highway Patrol, one of the women was driving a Pontiac Grand Prix that was going too fast and went off the off-ramp and into a dirt vegetation area where it struck a tree. The vehicle caught fire and all three people inside died.

Anyone with information about the crash is asked to call the CHP's Contra Costa-area office at (925) 646-4980.

Copyright  2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
Two workers of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DFYI), the CPI (M) youth wing, were hacked to death by a group of assailants in Venjarammoodu in Thiruvananthapuram district on Sunday night, police said.

The police said the incident took place late Sunday night while both, Mithilaj (32) and Mohammad Haq (28), were returning home. The DFYI alleged that the Youth Congress workers were behind the attack, but the latter has distanced itself from the murder.

The area had witnessed minor clashes between the two in the last two weeks, said the police, adding they suspect the latest incident was a sequel to this. The deceased are block-level leaders of the DYFI. It was a well planned murder. The Congress leadership will have to explain why they took out such a brutal murder on Onam day, said CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.

On its part, the Youth Congress said its workers have no role in it. We condemn the murder in strongest terms. If anyone is involved, we will take strong action. Like CPI(M), we will not shield murderers, said Youth Congress state president Shafi Parambhil. The DYFI has asked party workers to observe Monday a black day to protest against the murder. Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala also condemned the killings.

According to the police, the attack took place around 11.30 pm when the deceased were returning home on their motorcycle. They were waylaid and attacked by a group of five persons. The victims received more than 25 stab wounds. One died on the spot and the other succumbed to injuries at the hospital.

Thiruvananthapuram rural police superintendent B Ashokan said three persons have been detained in connection with the murder. The police are keeping a strict vigil in the area.
A wildfire burning southeast of Mount Hood has grown to over 15,000 acres, and a new blaze west of Eugene has prompted immediate evacuations.

The White River fire, which now covers 15,418 acres, has caused hundreds of residents to evacuate. The blaze has prompted campground, recreation site and trail closures, as well.

Lightning or other natural causes sparked the fire Aug. 17, and its 10% contained.

Meanwhile, several fires started Sunday afternoon in western Lane County. Theyre being managed as one blaze, which is dubbed the Sweet Creek Milepost 2 fire.

Firefighters are working to slow the spread of the 400-acre blaze, which is burning in private forestland about one mile southeast of Mapleton, according to fire officials. The blaze covers steep terrain on the Siuslaw Rivers south side and is burning toward the south, away from the small community, officials said.

Residents of eight homes have been told to evacuate, while residents of 24 others have been told to get set to leave.

The blaze is completely uncontained, and its cause is under investigation.

Cool temperatures are expected for most of the region Monday, and air quality is good throughout the vast majority of the state.

Fire officials said a warm and dry spell arrives Tuesday and persists through the week, resulting in renewed fire danger  particularly in southern Oregon.

Heres a look at some of the states other large blazes.

The Indian Creek fire, which started Aug. 16 along U.S. 20 at Jonesboro, covers 48,128 acres and is 75% contained. The fire is human-caused and under investigation.

A pair of lightning-caused fires, the P-515 and Lionshead blazes, are covering about 12,000 acres near Warm Springs. The former blaze is 85% contained. The latter is at 20%.

The lightning-caused Green Ridge fire is burning about 12 miles northwest of Sisters. The blaze covers 4,338 acres and is 75% contained.

The Beachie Creek fire still covers 23 acres in the popular Opal Creek Wilderness. The blaze has prompted the closure of the Jawbone Flats, Three Pools and Opal Creek areas, two campgrounds and more than a dozen trails. The blaze is completely uncontained, and its cause is unknown.

-- Jim Ryan; jryan@oregonian.com; 503-221-8005; @Jimryan015

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
China Says Czech Senate Speaker's Trip to Taiwan Breaches Sovereignty

Sputnik News

11:32 GMT 30.08.2020(updated 11:40 GMT 30.08.2020)

PRAGUE (Sputnik) - The Chinese embassy in Prague said on Sunday it saw the trip to Taiwan by Milos Vystrcil, the speaker of the Czech parliament's upper house, as a violation of the one-China policy.

"For his own political gains he insisted on a visit to Taiwan, in what is blatant interference in China's domestic affairs and a serious breach of its national sovereignty and territorial integrity", the embassy said.

Vystrcil, a member of the opposition and one of the highest-ranking politicians of the central European nation, has gone to Taipei along with 90 entrepreneurs for a week-long business trip.

Czech Senate Chairman Milos Vystrcil speaks during an interview with Reuters in Prague, Czech Republic, August 26, 2020.

The visit went ahead despite criticism by Czech President Milos Zeman and Prime Minister Andrej Babis who said the country adhered to the one-China policy. It was planned by Vystrcil's predecessor, who died in January.



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Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said he was wary of a COVID-19 spike as displaced Hurricane Laura victims scatter across the state and first responders and volunteers flow into the most damaged areas to help.

The concern comes as more than 300,000 households and businesses remain without power and another 176,000 remain without running water as victims dig out from the damage under a blistering summer sun pushing the heat index to 108 degrees.

Edwards' concern comes just as the state's case numbers drop below the red line. Louisiana reported its lowest single-day number of new COVID-19 cases  326  since June 8, and the White House Coronavirus Task Force reclassified the state from "red" to "yellow" based on new infections.

"We're certainly doing better," Edwards said.

'Like a war zone': Hurricane Laura lays waste to Louisiana's 'Cajun Riviera'

But he said residents must be especially vigilant in heeding mitigation measures such as masking and social distancing to continue to stem the spread and avoid a spike.

"I'm nervous as it is with all of the movement (caused by the storm)," Edwards said. "We're really concerned about that."

Victoria Nelson with her children Autum Nelson, 2, Shawn Nelson, 7, and Asia Nelson, 6, line up to board a bus to evacuate Lake Charles on Wednesday ahead of Hurricane Laura.

Meanwhile, state, federal and volunteer agencies continued to mobilize to help victims. Hurricane Laura's Louisiana death toll remained at 14.

The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services has opened a 24-hour reception center for evacuees seeking shelter.

Evacuees must go to the reception center to be placed in a noncongregate shelter primarily hotels  as one becomes available. Anyone who arrives directly at a hotel will not be admitted and will be required to go to the reception center.

The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services is also launching a program for families to locate loved ones who evacuated from Hurricane Laura to state-provided hotel rooms.

The Army Corps of Engineers is activating its "Operation Blue Roof" program to provide and install fiber-reinforced blue tarps to cover damaged roofs until arrangements can be made for permanent repairs.

Story continues

To be eligible, the houses must be inhabitable after installation.

"It's essential to our overall housing plan," Edwards said.

The governor also continued to encourage those in the six parishes included in President Donald Trump's major disaster declaration to apply for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Those parishes are Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, Jefferson Davis and Vernon. Edwards has asked that 17 more parishes to be included.

'I knew I was going to die': Shrimpers rescue one another from sinking boats while riding out Hurricane Laura

FEMA assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, and low-cost loans for uninsured property loss.

Follow Greg Hilburn on Twitter: @GregHilburn1

This article originally appeared on Monroe News-Star: Hurricane Laura: Louisiana governor wary of COVID-19 spike
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Purdue University and Propel Labs have announced the licensing of a Purdue invention thats being called a game-changer in the biomedical field to help advance cancer identification and patient monitoring.

A team led by J. Paul Robinson, the SVM Professor of Cytomics in Purdues College of Veterinary Medicine and a professor in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, created patented technology to perform spectral flow cytometry. This innovative type of cytometry, which is seeing tremendous growth in the market, can be used for diagnosis and monitoring in health care settings.

Spectral flow cytometry has been a game-changing technology in the field, Robinson said. We spent years trying to engage industry. Innovative technologies can take many years to enter the commercial world. The key aspect of our spectral patent focuses on the role of the spectral signature. That signature tells you everything you know about the cell.

The patent also was licensed to Sony Biotechnology, which first commercialized the technology and brought it into scientific and clinical laboratories. It now has been licensed by Propel Labs, based in Fort Collins, Colorado. Miftek also has an option.

Our engineering and applications teams are excited to take this technology to the market as we anticipate spectral flow cytometry technology will be a driving force for accelerating new discoveries in cell sorting and related areas in the coming decade, said Tidhar Sadeh, president of Propel Labs.

Robinson said that the power of a spectral sorter is that it is the only technology that can successfully physically isolate high-parameter labeled cells.

The Propel technology is absolutely state-of-art, and you cant get any better, Robinson said.

Propel released a new spectral sorter in May using an online presentation, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have seen huge interest in our spectral technology, Sadeh said. We are excited to partner with Purdue to enhance spectral capabilities in the future.

Robinson also is director or the Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories.

The team worked with the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization to patent the technology.

One of our key focus areas for OTC is human health and diagnostics, said Abhijit Karve, director of business development for OTC. The technology from Robinsons team demonstrates the power of the Purdue ecosystem in developing and advancing technologies that make a difference around the U.S. and the world.

About Propel Labs

Propel Labs is a privately held biotechnology instrumentation company headquartered in Fort Collins, Colorado. Our experience and knowledge enables our team to design the next generation of bio-instrumentation tools. We focus on the customer by quickly delivering innovative products, enhancing their research to advance patient care.

About Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization

The Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. Services provided by this office support the economic development initiatives of Purdue University and benefit the university's academic activities through commercializing, licensing and protecting Purdue intellectual property. The office recently moved into the Convergence Center for Innovation and Collaboration in Discovery Park District, adjacent to the Purdue campus. In fiscal year 2020, the office reported 148 deals finalized with 225 technologies signed, 408 disclosures received and 180 issued U.S. patents. The office is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, which received the 2019 Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Award for Place from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. In 2020, IPWatchdog Institute ranked Purdue third nationally in startup creation and in the top 20 for patents. The Purdue Research Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Contact otcip@prf.org for more information.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to todays toughest challenges. Ranked the No. 6 Most Innovative University in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap at purdue.edu.

Writer: Chris Adam, 765-588-3341, cladam@prf.org



Sources: J. Paul Robinson, jpr@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu

Tidhar Sadeh, tidhars@propel-labs.com

Abhijit Karve, aakarve@prf.org
CTBC Investments will invest in Vietnam with its $160 million CTBC Vietnam Equity Fund. Photo: Ho Chi Minh City

Set to bridge the gap between Taiwanese investors and the Vietnamese financial landscape, CTBC Vietnam Equity Funds size is initially committed at $160 million.

CTBC Vietnam Equity Fund is a bridge to help investors in Taiwan (China) participate in investing in the Vietnamese stock market.

CTBC Investments is an investment arm of CTBC Holdings, one of the largest financial groups headquartered in Taipei of Taiwan with over 27,000 employees worldwide.

CTBC Holdings banking arm, CTBC Bank has a total of 152 branches in Taiwan and 111 outlets overseas, including in Vietnam.

Dragon Capital said that it would help CTBC build a stock portfolio in Vietnam, helping the Taipei research team dig deeper with insights and thorough analysis of the local market.

There has been growing in interest in Vietnam among Taiwanese financiers over the past few years and the fund would help speed up investment activities in burgeoning sectors like consumer goods, finance, and property.

The Taiwan-based fund has completed its very first capital mobilisation for CTBC Vietnam Equity Fund from August 17 to August 21. Accordingly, the fund is ambitious to pour cash in well-positioned, sustainably growing listed companies. Its portfolio also includes VFMVN Diamond ETF  an ETF fund that mimics VN Diamond, one of the three indices together with VN Fin Lead and VN Fin Select.

CTBC Investments representatives expressed their optimism in Vietnam, saying the S-shaped country is now the second-largest constituent in the MSCI Frontier Market Index, and even surpasses some emerging markets in terms of capitalisation and liquidity.

However, though it has been expected that Vietnam could be given the Emerging Market status instead of the current Frontier Market, the country still has a number of challenges.

According to a recent VIR report, MSCI cited some major roadblocks that Vietnam should work towards tackling, including foreign ownership limits (FOL), a lack of proper English information disclosure, lack of offshore currency market, limitations in onshore currency markets, mandatory registration of accounts, and more.

The foreign fund also carries positive views on Vietnams banking industry, predicting that by 2025, there will be 3-5 local banks listed in overseas stock exchanges, 2-3 of which will be among the 100 largest Asian lenders.

Furthermore, the Taiwanese investor also speaks highly of Hanoi-based conglomerate Vingroup  a Vietnamese version of Samsung  and the impressive performance of its property subsidiary Vinhomes, the countrys biggest real estate developer.

Mobile World Group (MWG) also looks appealing, according to CTBC Investments, as the leading retailer in the country.

In addition, state-owned credit institution Vietcombank and King of Steel Hoa Phat Group are also high on its agenda.
French President Emmanuel Macron meets visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Aug 28, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

PARIS, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The divergences between China and the United States are not about power, status or social system, but about the choices of multilateralism or unilateralism, win-win cooperation or a zero-sum game, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here on Sunday.

Wang made the remarks when responding to a question by Thierry de Montbrial, president of French Institute of International Relations, about how to avoid the so-called "new Cold War" between China and the United States.

China's position is very clear, which is that all countries are equal members of the international community and enjoy the right to their own development, Wang said.

"We congratulate the United States on its pioneered development. But China also has the right to development and the Chinese people have the right to live a happy life. Our brothers and sisters in other emerging economies and developing countries, including Africa, feel the same way. It is a very legitimate claim and very reasonable one," Wang said.

The top Chinese diplomat noted that China has always believed and maintained that the world is moving towards multi-polarity and that international relations also need democratization.

A healthy and stable world should not be dictated by just one or two countries. The sovereign equality of states is a fundamental principle of the Charter of the United Nations. As a world power, the United States should adopt an inclusive attitude towards the development of other countries and realize that the people of other countries have the same right to a better life as the American people, he said.

"If all the seven billion people in the world can move towards modernization, it will be a huge step forward for the human society as a whole," he noted.

Wang added that the United States may be reluctant to give up its global dominance, but the tide of history is inexorable. "We firmly believe that the day of common development of mankind will come. China never wants a 'new Cold War' with anyone, and in the era of globalization, there is no room for a 'Cold War' as it is impossible to divide the world into two or three factions."

Countries have become so interconnected as a community of shared interests that the future should see the world working together to build a community of shared future for mankind, as has been proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

On China-U.S. relations, Wang shared three basic ideas. First of all, the divergences or competition between the two countries are over the choices of multilateralism or unilateralism, win-win cooperation or a zero-sum game. "That's the nature of the current problems facing China-U.S. relations. It's clear to the world that the United States is on the wrong side of history," he said.

Second, it seems that today's U.S. diplomacy has been reduced to unilateral sanctions and smear attacks. In the face of the groundless accusations against China by the U.S. side, China must make the facts clear with necessary responses. As a sovereign nation, China has the right to do so, said Wang.

"We are not only safeguarding China's national interests and dignity, but also upholding the basic norms governing international relations," he pointed out.

Third, the door for China-U.S. dialogue is wide open. China is ready for candid and in-depth exchange of views with the U.S. side on issues of common concern, said the minister.

"We believe that there are still people in the United States who are willing to be reasonable and that the two sides can reach consensus," Wang said, adding that China also welcomes the constructive role that European countries, including France, can play in soothing China-U.S. relations, and is glad to see Europe adhere to strategic independence and provide stability for this uncertain world.
CEHAT, the Spanish Hotels Confederation, has written to the national minister for tourism, Reyes Maroto, and called for the urgent establishment of a commission to implement an emergency plan for Spain's tourism industry.

The confederation's proposal is for a cross-ministerial commission with representation from the regions. This commission is "essential" in order to "properly" address all the issues which have been "seriously" affecting the tourism industry for months. Ministerial representation would include health, employment and foreign affairs, among others.

The Spanish government is being asked to articulate a plan to reactivate tourism and to address general issues and those which are specific to regions. Such a plan, the confederation hopes, will assist destinations where there is a winter season and prepare all destinations for the next summer season.

Jorge Marichal, the president of CEHAT, insists that the "survival of the Spanish tourism industry is at stake". It is therefore essential that an emergency plan contains health, employment and fiscal measures for an industry that directly employs some 2.5 million people.

There needs to be an ERTE that is specific to the hotel sector. This should be "agile" in allowing employees to enter or exit ERTE terms according to the situation with the tourism market. There should be "total exemption" from social security contributions for those who stay within ERTE. The confederation argues that ERTE should be extended "at least" until Easter 2021 in order to guarantee that companies have the necessary "oxygen" to reach Easter and to maintain employment.

On health, the confederation feels that digital health passports or similar are essential to facilitate tracing and to identify risks while tourists are in destination. CEHAT is also restating its view that tourists should be tested when they arrive in Spain. If visitors arrive in Spain and cannot guarantee that they are Covid-free (by means of a test 48 hours at the maximum before arriving), they should be given a quick test upon arrival, for which they should pay. At the end of the stay, there should be another test to show that visitors are Covid-free. These could be paid for jointly by clients and hotelier.
"Through CWBI, we have developed a unique and deeper understanding of America's most pressing health challenges at a hyperlocal level and further contextualized the critical impact that environment has on one's access to health resources, readiness to change and overall health risk," said Jeff Arnold, founder and CEO of Sharecare. "While this first report is focused more specifically on 2019 state rankings, over the last six months, in particular, we have also examined the well-being impact that critical external forces  such as COVID-19 and racism  are having on our country. By tapping into the power of our action-oriented data and collaborative partnerships to deliver personalized interventions through the Sharecare platform, we can make virtual health a reality, empowering each American to improve their well-being and ultimately inspiring a collective movement to heal our country."

Since 2008, Sharecare has measured well-being through its innovative Well-Being Index (WBI)  for which over 3 million surveys have been completed to date  by analyzing both physical and non-physical individual risk factors across the following five health domains:

Purpose : Liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals

: Liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals Social : Having supportive relationships and love in your life

: Having supportive relationships and love in your life Financial : Managing your economic life to increase financial security and reduce stress

: Managing your economic life to increase financial security and reduce stress Community : Liking where you live, feeling safe and having pride in your community

: Liking where you live, feeling safe and having pride in your community Physical: Having good health and enough energy to get things done daily

In an effort to significantly expand on the datasets and metrics that most health indices track, the CWBI combines Sharecare's original index with a new Social Determinants of Health Index (SDOHi), which measures additional risk factors across five interrelated domains pertaining to one's environment:

Healthcare access : Concentration of MDs, OBGYNs, and pediatric specialists per 1,000 residents

: Concentration of MDs, OBGYNs, and pediatric specialists per 1,000 residents Food access : Presence of grocery stores within one mile of underserved populations, including Black individuals, children, and seniors

: Presence of grocery stores within one mile of underserved populations, including Black individuals, children, and seniors Resource access : Quantity of libraries and religious institutions per 10,000 residents, employment rates for people over 65, and presence of grocery stores within 20 miles

: Quantity of libraries and religious institutions per 10,000 residents, employment rates for people over 65, and presence of grocery stores within 20 miles Housing & transportation : Home values, ratio of home value to income, and public transit use

: Home values, ratio of home value to income, and public transit use Economic security: Rates of employment, labor force participation, individuals with health insurance coverage, and household income above poverty level

Further, in order to collect a larger, more robust well-being sample versus previous years' rankings, Sharecare and BEDAC employed a multi-modal approach, including opt-in data from RealAge, Sharecare's digital health risk assessment that captures well-being within the five health domains tracked by WBI, and further expands insights to include additional health behaviors, reported co-morbidities, and mortality risk. Accordingly, CWBI achieved county-level coverage for the first time since Sharecare began benchmarking the nation's health 10 years ago, enabling visibility into well-being and social determinant risk for communities not previously included in state rankings, and ensuring comprehensive coverage for rural and underserved areas.

"By leveraging sophisticated statistical techniques across small area estimation, multiple imputation, and machine learning, and integrating social determinants of health into our core measure, the CWBI has established a critical baseline that provides a holistic understanding of where we were from a well-being perspective pre-pandemic, while enabling year-to-date and ongoing views of the impact that systemic inequities and COVID-19 are having on our nation's well-being," said Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health. "Further, CWBI will optimize Sharecare's delivery of data-driven interventions to communities and individuals alike, helping each person chart an evidence-based, location-centric health journey that, ultimately, will empower Americans to make the healthy choice the easy choice."

For the combined 2019 CWBI state rankings, Hawaii, a consistently top ranked state in well-being for prior years, continued to demonstrate its status as an elite state in health and well-being, taking the top spot. The Aloha State scored in the top quintile across five of 10 domain rankings: social, financial, community, healthcare access, and housing & transportation. Meanwhile, Mississippi took last place on the CWBI based on bottom positions in three of 10 domains (financial, physical, and food access) and ranking in the bottom quintile in five additional domains (social, community, healthcare access, housing & transportation, and economic security). Further, each of the bottom five states continue the pattern of those with the worst well-being being concentrated in the South.

Community Well-Being Index: 2019 State Rankings

Top States Bottom States 1. Hawaii 41. Georgia 2. Massachusetts 42. New Mexico 3. New Jersey 43. Indiana 4. New York 44. Louisiana 5. California 45. Oklahoma 6. Connecticut 46. Alabama 7. Utah 47. Kentucky 8. Colorado 48. Arkansas 9. New Hampshire 49. West Virginia 10. Oregon 50. Mississippi

"While our previous rankings revealed a great deal about individual resilience, with more communities being represented in our new CWBI data construct, we are seeing shifts in rankings due in part to broadly lower levels of well-being in rural communities," said Elizabeth Colyer, lead for Sharecare's Community Well-Being Index. "Further, on average, well-being scores in rural counties were considerably less than their urban counterparts. We look forward to examining this trend in greater detail, especially in our upcoming rankings report for municipalities and counties that will be released in the fall."

For more information and to access the complete Community Well-Being Index 2019 state rankings report, go to wellbeingindex.sharecare.com.

About the Community Well-Being Index

The Community Well-Being Index (CWBI) is a collaboration between Sharecare and the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) to inform, empower, and unite stakeholders across the healthcare continuum in a collective movement to improve our nation's well-being. Evolving more than 10 years of well-being measurement, the CWBI combines individual risk derived from Sharecare's Well-Being Index (WBI) with community risk from the Social Determinants Health Index (SDOHi) to create a single composite measure that defines our collective health risk and opportunity. Anchored in BUSPH's Biostatistics and Epidemiology Data Analytics Center (BEDAC), the multi-dimensional layering and analysis formulated for the CWBI has resulted in the most expansive, diversified, and dynamic well-being index in the industry. To access the latest CWBI reports and research, visit wellbeingindex.sharecare.com.

About the Boston University School of Public Health

Founded in 1976, the Boston University School of Public Health is one of the top five ranked private schools of public health in the world. It offers master's- and doctoral-level education in public health. The faculty in six departments conduct policy-changing public health research around the world, with the mission of improving the health of populationsespecially the disadvantaged, underserved, and vulnerablelocally and globally.

About Sharecare

Sharecare is the leading digital health company that helps people  no matter where they are in their health journey  dynamically and efficiently manage all their health in one place. Our comprehensive and data-driven virtual heath platform uniquely integrates the messaging, motivation, management and measurement that drives behavior change and makes high-quality care more accessible and affordable for everyone. Designed to help people, providers, employers, health plans, government organizations, and communities alike optimize individual and population-wide well-being, we deliver a comprehensive suite of virtual care and wellness solutions through a unified and scalable platform. From medication adherence to managing a chronic condition such as diabetes to developing better eating habits, improving sleep, and reducing stress, we are committed to supporting each individual through the lens of their personal health and connecting them to the right tools, programs, benefits, and medical professionals at the right time. To learn more, visit www.sharecare.com.

SOURCE Sharecare

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https://www.sharecare.com


Kerry-Jane Dent, 47, pleaded guilty to trespass and assault occasioning bodily harm in company after the incident at Logan Village, south of Brisbane, on March 8

A disability support worker grabbed her neighbour through a gate and pulled 'hair from her skull' following an early morning noise complaint.

Kerry-Jane Dent, 47, pleaded guilty to trespass and assault occasioning bodily harm in company after the incident at Logan Village, south of Brisbane, on March 8.

Police were called to Dent's property at about 2.30am following reports a man and a woman had been shouting, Quest Newspapers reported.

Beenleigh Magistrates Court heard the mother-of-four was 'grossly intoxicated' and 'barely able to converse'.

She told police: 'That w***e next door made the complaint, I'm going to smash her'.

At about 4am, the victim woke to noise out the front of her home and when she went to investigate the disruption she found Dent and another person.

The woman walked to her front gate and told Dent and her companion to leave the premises.

She was standing about one-metre from the gate when Dent reached through and pulled the victim into it.

Dent then pushed her neighbour to the ground and pulled strands of hair from the victim's skull.

Dent's daughter arrived at the scene and pleaded with her mum to go home, while the victim's son came out of the home and tried to break up the scuffle.

He pushed Dent away from the barrier and the 47-year-old fell backwards.

Dent grabbed her neighbour through a gate and pulled 'hair from her skull' following an early morning noise complaint

The person who attended the property with Dent was 'screaming profanities' and shook the gate 'violently'.

The pair were eventually moved on by Dent's daughter.

On Monday, the court heard there had been long-established tension between Dent and one of her neighbours.

Dent had no criminal history and lost her job following the incident.

Defence lawyer Katherine Hanson told the court the clash left both parties 'battered and bruised' as there was 'summary justice'.

Ms Hanson said her client held a family gathering preceding the incident and 'would not have acted as she did' if she had not consumed alcohol.

Dent has not had alcohol since, Ms Hanson said.

The incident was labelled 'very ugly' by Magistrate Clare Kelly, who said the scuffle would have cause significant distress for the children who became involved.

Dent, who now lives at Redbank Plains, was placed on a nine-month probation order and no convictions were recorded.

The person who was with her on the night was fined for trespassing.
AGI

AGI - Heidi Klum, una delle top model piu pagate del mondo e volto di Victoria Secret, ha svelato di aver stipulato una polizza assicurativa sulle sue gambe ma che una di queste e piu preziosa dell'altra. Il totale ammonta a circa 2 milioni di dollari ma la differenza tra i due arti risiede in un incidente che ha avuto da bambina e che le ha provocato una cicatrice. "Una e piu costosa dell'altra", ha detto nel salotto talk-show di Elle Degeneres "prrche quando ero piccola sono caduta accidentalm
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug.31

Trend:

The decisions have been recently made in Armenia to create military formations consisting of civilians, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, Head of Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, Hikmat Hajiyev, told reporters, Trend reports.

Azerbaijan regards this as another example of the demographic crisis in Armenia, the assistant to the president said.

Hajiyev stressed that this decision is evidence of the difficulties faced by the Armenian armed forces in the reinforcement of their personnel, therefore, civilians are involved in various military groups.

"This also shows that the current Armenian leadership, like the Bolsheviks, is trying to create military units to be used for deceitful purposes within the country," assistant to the president added.

During the events in the direction of Azerbaijans Tovuz district, it became clear once again that the Armenian armed forces could not organize their personnel, so they tried to deploy the personnel from the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and mercenaries from the Middle East, Hajiyev added.

"Armenia's policy is to deploy mercenaries on the front line and the facts of their death during the military operations are hidden, assistant to the president said.

They are not registered in the Armenian armed forces and thus, Armenia is trying to present everything in such a way that there are no losses in the Armenian army," he added.

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, 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 the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
The large, anti-military/royalist demonstrations are returning. The government threatened to retaliate ruthlessly if that happened and so far, the government reaction has been timid and cautious. This situation is similar to what caused the May 2014 coup, which came after months of political protests in the capital. The 2014 tensions remain but some things have changed. Another coup is unlikely because the military would be overthrowing an elected military government. That election was only possible because the 2014 coup government changed the constitution to make it easy for the military to win elections and control parliament. The current demonstrators want to get rid of that.

The yellow shirt  royalist and nationalist politicians and parties that lost the national elections in 2011 sought to regain power any way they could. In 2014 they convinced the pro-royalist Constitutional Court to rule that the elected prime minister had to resign and allow the installation of a temporary prime minister until elections could be held. The populists/democrat red shirts saw all this is another illegal ploy by the royalists to thwart the will of the people. At that point red shirt politicians still controlled a majority of the seats in parliament and had the right to appoint a temporary prime minister. Red shirts also pointed out that the Constitutional Court first declared the February 2014 elections (which the elected prime minister called to show that she still had majority support) invalid because some voting places were blocked by mobs of yellow shirt protestors. Its generally agreed that this court decision was absurd and the populists demand that the deposed populist prime minister be reinstated or that new elections be held as soon as possible. While the elected prime minister was accused of corruption, her supporters point out that these legal moves by the royalists are dishonest and just another form of corruption. The army saw a deadlock and stepped in and took power via yet another coup. In other words, the decade old political struggle continues. Both sides have sought to avoid civil war but the possibility of a more violent escalation increases as fewer non-violent options remain. Meanwhile the military has other problems.

Naval Priorities

Earlier in the year t he navy cut its 2020 spending by a third. That led to eliminating a lot of its 2020 ship modernization work and delaying the arrival of two Chinese built submarines. The 2017 order for three diesel-electric submarines was criticized for the high cost ($1.3 billion) and lack of much for the subs to do. Only the first of those subs is actually on order. Purchase orders for the other two subs were expected in 2021 and 2022. If all three subs were actually bought Thailand would be making payments into the late 2020s. In parliament the opposition tried to get the orders for the other two subs cancelled but all they could get was delaying the placement of the orders by a year. Inside the navy many admirals point out the need to address more immediate threats. For example, smuggling via boat is a growing problem. It is worse in the far south were Moslem smuggling gangs used small boats to bring in weapons, drugs and illegal migrants (who were headed for Malaysia, whose maritime borders are better guarded). The senior admirals want the subs, if only to establish closer relationships with China. The first sub wont arrive until 2024.

August 30, 2020: The royalists mustered about a thousand demonstrators who held a pro-government rally in a stadium. Many participants wore yellow shirts.

August 29, 2020: No new covid19 cases were reported for today. As more visitors are allowed in, there have been more infected people in August. Illegal migrants are also a problem. In July Thailand had gone more than 60 days without any new covid19 cases. A disciplined population and an effective national health system made the difference. Thailand so far has 3,400 confirmed cases of covid19 (coronavirus) which comes out to 49 cases per million population and 0.8 deaths per million. Those numbers hardly changed over the last month. Such was not the case with other nations in the region. Neighbor Malaysia had 288 cases per million population cases and four deaths per million.

The stark difference here was because Thailand had a public health system that extended to the lowest levels (villages and city neighbors) with volunteers making up most of the staff and obtaining directions and medical supplies from the government. That meant a strict quarantine was not necessary and compliance was monitored and enforced by locals. In Malaysia some Moslem clerics defied quarantine rules and continued holding prayer services in crowded mosques. Because more people in Malaysia were infected, some Thai Moslems working in Malaysia tried to return home infected with covid19. A screening and approval process was set up to catch most of these virus carriers before they got home and infected others.

Another potential source of infections was the large number of Chinese tourists and commercial visitors that are normally in the country. Foreigners were sent home as soon as possible. While still in Thailand foreigners were forced to self-quarantine for two weeks before they could move freely. Even then they were avoided by most Thais.

August 28, 2020: Over the last few weeks more roads from neighboring Burma have been closed and thousands of troops assigned to patrol rural sections of the border and prevent Burmese job seekers from entering Thailand and bringing covid19 with them. Thailand has been more effective at controlling the epidemic and that means Burma, with a lot more infected people, is now the major source of infected people trying to enter Thailand.

August 20, 2020: A month of popular protests against the paramilitary government and more assertive monarchy resulted in arrests of dozens of entertainers and other suspected organizers of these events. Those arrested were soon released, with warnings that prosecution remained a possibility. The basic demands were for parliament to be dissolved, a new constitution, an end to harassment of government opponents and reforms of the monarchy.

August 14, 2020: In the south (Pattani province) troops found and surrounded an Islamic terrorist camp. Negotiations with the men in the camp failed and a gun battle ensured. Two Islamic terrorists died while three soldiers were wounded. Some terrorists had escaped from the camp and these were tracked down the next day. Another gun battle took place and the bodies of two terrorists were found. After another day two more dead bodies were found nearby. These two men escaped the earlier gun battles but were badly wounded and unable to get away and obtain medical help. The seven dead terrorists were apparently responsible for the bomb used on the 13th to kill a soldier and earlier bombings as well.

August 13, 2020: In the south (Pattani province) Islamic terrorists used a bomb to kill a soldier who was providing security for local teachers. The army quickly moved out to find the bombers. Separatists and Islamic terrorists often attack school teachers on their way to work. The teachers are often Buddhists. Violence like this has declined considerably since covid19 showed up in March. The men responsible for the violence are still around and expected to become more active by the end of the year. In July were several attacks, all in Pattani province, that wounded about a dozen soldiers and civilians. There was about the same amount of violence in August, but more of the casualties were terrorists and separatists. The casualties have remained low since April with most of the violence taking place in Pattani province. There arent many active terrorists left in the south and most are in Pattani. Negotiations with BRN, the main separatist political group, are still stalled. This is mainly because of disagreements within the separatist groups. Most southerners want an end to the violence, which has been going on since 2004 and killed about 7,000 so far.

Elsewhere in the south (Narathiwat province) soldiers escorting teachers to work were attacked with a bomb. One soldier was killed and six wounded.
The WF-1000XM3 are Sony's most popular truly wireless in-ear noise-canceling earphones. Launched in July of last year, they quickly became the most well regarded TWS noise-canceling earphones on the market. For many, it had the same combination of great active noise-canceling and good enough audio quality that the full-size WH-1000XM3 offered, but in a more discreet form.

Now, over a full year later, Sony launched these earphones in the Indian market, which allowed me to do a full review on them. While I had tried them on previously after I briefly borrowed a pair from a fellow tech journalist, it wasn't nearly long enough to form a concrete opinion on them, let alone write a full review. But now that I've had them for about two weeks, I am better positioned to bring this review.

Sure, the review may be a year late from everybody else's. But it was still interesting to visit this product, especially since Sony has yet to replace them, which means they are still their flagship in-ear model, and still very much relevant in their product portfolio. And they have received a few price drops since release, which makes them better value than at launch.

So in this review, I will be discussing if the terribly named Sony WF-1000XM3 are still relevant in 2020 and if you should be buying them.

Design

Aesthetically, the WF-1000XM3 have aged well over the past year. Sony has a way of designing things that lends them an air of timelessness, and the WF-1000XM3 certainly benefit from that.

The case, however, is straight-up chunky. It was a pretty thick case last year and it remains a pretty thick case today. It's a nice design, with its two-tone finish, but it will take up more space in your pocket than competing products.

The case has an interesting design, where the bottom is curved while the lid is flat. I assume the bottom is curved so you can keep them in your pocket and it would curve gently into the pocket lining rather than stick out with pointy edges.

From the outside, you can see a small strip of red LED, which tells you the charging status of the case. Beyond the LED you also see the NFC logo, which denotes the NFC transceiver is right underneath.

The magnetically held lid opens up fairly easily but doesn't open too wide. It stays firmly in place when open and doesn't threaten to fall down on your fingers. The lid movement isn't particularly smooth or satisfying, however, if that's the sort of thing you like. It doesn't quite spring open or click shut as nicely as some other TWS cases but it's not a big deal. Just something you notice after having opened a hundred of these.

Inside, the earphones are placed sideways. They are flush with the edge of the case so you need to place your finger in the gap between the two to pull them out. They come out fairly easily but you do have to be careful with them as they are quite small and easy to drop/lose.

Going back to the outside of the case, the only noteworthy feature here is the USB-C charging port at the bottom. One major feature missing with the WF-1000XM3 charging case is the lack of wireless charging. This would have been a bummer even in 2019 and nowadays almost all premium models have it built-in. For the WF-1000XM3 case to be so big and still lack wireless charging is quite the disappointment and definitely something Sony should rectify into the next-generation model.

The choice of material for the case is also a bit odd. It is a soft-touch plastic that's pleasant to touch but gets covered in grease and fingerprints quickly. You can also see the seams for the plastic molding, which really should have been polished away. An odd bit of oversight for Sony.

Now for the design of the earbuds themselves, they are quite small as mentioned previously. On the side that faces the outside, we see a circular touch-sensitive surface with a microphone next to it. At the opposite end of the touch surface is a LED indicator underneath the plastic.

On the inner side, you see the golden contacts for the charging on one end and the proximity sensor on the other end for wear detection. In between juts out the portion that sticks inside your ear holes.

The shape of the earbuds isn't too thick, so they don't stick out too much from the side of your head. People might not even notice you are wearing anything if they see you from the front. However, they do stick out just enough that you can't lie your side in bed while wearing them.

The WF-1000XM3 lack any sort of ingress protection, which means they aren't ideal for wearing around water or during sweaty workouts. One one hand, one can imagine why Sony didn't bother adding this feature, as the WF-1000XM3 are primarily meant to be noise-canceling earphones that will be used during commutes or air travel, not necessarily during workouts. They don't even have a design that facilitates being held in place securely during workouts. But, enough wireless earbuds had this feature last year when the WF-1000XM3 were launched and a lot more have added it since then, making its omission particularly glaring. It's just something we now expect all earphones to have.

Comfort

The WF-1000XM3 for me are an uncomfortable pair of earphones. I can wear them for at most an hour, usually much less before I have to remove them. The issue is with the rubberized portion below the ear tips, which is designed to anchor the earphones inside the cavum concha portion of your ears and prevent them from moving. Unfortunately, this bit is a bit too large and pushes too hard against the ridge near the opening of the ear canal.

The solution for me is to not wear them the way Sony recommends it. Sony suggests inserting them in your ear so the oval body of the outside of the earphones is angled and then twist them so that the oval is parallel with the ground. This is what causes the round portion to apply pressure on the inside of your ear, which holds it securely in place but at the cost of comfort. Not twisting them and just keeping them angled helps alleviate some of this pressure but also makes them less secure in my ears and could also potentially weaken the seal of the ear tips.

With variations in ear sizes and shapes, you could very well be able to wear these as they are meant to and not experience any discomfort. Or you could have the exact same issue as me. If that's the case, you can try wearing them at an angle and see if that helps.

Software and features

The WF-1000XM3 are compatible with the Sony Headphones Connect app, available on iOS and Android. The app lets you access most of the features of the earphones, so you'd be missing out on a lot by not having it installed.

Before getting into the app, the pairing process for the earphones is pretty straightforward. Out of the box, they will go into pairing mode anyway. If you want to pair more devices, you have to press and hold on the touchpads on both earphones for a short amount of time. If you have an Android phone with NFC, you can also just tap on the case to pair. The WF-1000XM3 do support Google Fast Pair now, so if you have a device in the vicinity that supports this feature, you will get a prompt on screen to pair.

Once you pair and install the app, you get to see the revamped UI of the Headphones Connect app, which was updated recently. There are three main tabs, and the contents of these do change with the model being paired with the app. Fortunately, the WF-1000XM3 does support most of the features the app has to offer.

Starting with the first tab called Status, here you get to see the track that is currently playing with the volume bar below it. Also found here is the Adaptive Sound Control, a feature that adjusts the level of noise cancelation and how much ambient sound it lets in through the speakers based on your location or activity. You can choose from activities like sitting, walking, running, and commuting and each mode has a custom noise canceling and ambient noise profile that can be manually adjusted if required. The app uses accelerometer and gyroscope data from the phone to determine your actions and switches profiles automatically. Furthermore, it can also learn from the locations you visit frequently and you can also manually add locations on the map where you want certain profiles to kick in.



Adaptive Sound Control

All of this may seem interesting but outside of checking if they work or not, I didn't use this feature much. It was just easier to stick the noise-canceling at maximum, turn off ambient noise and not mess with the settings ever again. I wouldn't necessarily call it a gimmick as I'm sure there are people who use it but I'm not one of them.

Moving on to the next tab is where you control most of the noise canceling and audio-related options. You can manually enable or disable noise canceling and also dial in the amount of ambient noise you want to filter in. The EQ feature lets you choose from a range of presets or just set your own values. It also works now with AAC and doesn't require you to switch back to SBC as it used to back in the day. The sound quality mode lets you switch between quality (AAC) and stability (SBC).



Sound control

The app also features Sony's Digital Sound Enhancement Engine or DSEE. On the WF-1000XM3, it's available in the DSEE HX variant, although there are also other versions for other models. DSEE claims to upscale compressed audio and brings them "closer to the quality of High-Resolution Audio". You can either disable it or put it into Auto. In Auto, it automatically detects based on the sound playing whether it should kick in and you would see the DSEE HX logo in the app next to the codec if the feature is active. In my use, DSEE HX would kick in for Spotify but not for Tidal, which made sense. Unfortunately, for the life of me, I couldn't hear a damn difference with the feature on or off on Spotify. Perhaps it's only really effective on extremely compressed music but I didn't have much of that lying around anymore (and neither should you).

Perhaps the most interesting feature in this app is 360 Reality Audio. It's not interesting because of what it does but rather how it's setup. This is yet another Sony proprietary format that they are now trying to make happen. Music mastered in 360 Reality Audio tries to emulate a wider soundstage like the one you'd get with a surround sound speaker system, including having the sound come from above you. Tidal has a few albums and tracks now that are mastered in this format and I gotta be honest, they sound pretty bad. There are very few tracks that sound good in this format, most of which sound like they are demo tracks designed to show off the format. This means there is potential for it. However, most of the 360 music right now are just regular popular songs that have been remastered for the new format and sound quite weird and just not great.



360 Reality Audio settings

But as I said, the setup for 360 Reality Sound is a lot more interesting. Now the feature works on any pair of earphones or headphones in Tidal but with select Sony products, you can have a more customized experience. This involves going into the Headphones Connect app to take pictures of your ears. Yes, you take pictures of both your ears with the app and that data is then used to generate the HRTF information for your specific ears. It's obviously not the ideal way to generate custom HRTF but it's better than to use a generic HRTF. Once the app generates this data it can then send it to one of the compatible apps. For me, it was Tidal but even Deezer and Nugs.net are onboard this tomfoolery. Tidal then processed this data and created a custom profile for me, which would be applied every time I played a 360 song with these specific earphones.

Of course, this was all quite fun but as I said, the actual songs don't sound particularly good. I find the new Dolby Atmos encoded music to be far more convincing in simulating a surround experience, even though unlike 360 Reality Audio you need a phone with native support for the Dolby Atmos codec and doesn't just work on any device.

The last tab in the app is System, where you will find settings that do things like determine whether the earphones will pause music when taken off, change the function of the touchpad, and automatically power off when removed. Some of these changes, such as what the touchpads do, remain stored on the earphone so even if you don't have the app install on a particular device your customizations will still be honored.



System settings

The app also allows you to update the software on your earphones. Sony is known to keep pushing updates that improve and add things so that's another reason to have the app around.

The implementation of touch sensors on the WF-1000XM3 is one of the better ones I've seen, especially with the customization factor. However, it's still a relatively small area you are targeting with your finger without looking at it so it takes a while to zero in on the exact position and hit it consistently.

Performance

Audio quality

The WF-1000XM3 have a single 6mm driver on each side. The earphones support SBC and AAC codec with no support for aptX and LDAC. The lack of aptX support could be down to the use of the MediaTek MT2811SP chipset, which likely does not support the Qualcomm aptX codecs.

The WF-1000XM3 are a good sounding pair of earphones. Unlike some of Sony's other models, these are not part of the Extra Bass series, which means the sound signature isn't slanted towards bass. That's not to say that these have a neutral or flat sound profile. Rather they attempt to have a somewhat balanced but also fun sound.

Starting with the bass, the WF-1000XM3 have a fairly robust mid-bass and upper-bass response. This gives instruments good attack and punch while also maintaining the warmth in male vocals. Unlike a lot of Sony headphones, the upper-bass region isn't exaggerated, which means the WF-1000XM3 don't have the muddy, boomy sound that Sony audio gear is often associated with these days. Instead, the bass region is quite taut and well-controlled. Unfortunately, it seems there is not much in the way of low-bass so you don't get some of that rumble in the lowest registers of the audio spectrum.

The mid-range on the WF-1000XM3 is slightly recessed. It's not aggressively suppressed as you'd find on the typically V-shaped sound headphones but audio in the mid and upper-midrange is definitely pushed to the back of the mix. A lot of the vocals, especially female vocals, live in this range and what this does is cause the voices to get a bit lost in the mix. This often instinctively makes you turn up the volume to hear the vocals more clearly but of course, this raises the entire sound range so it doesn't quite have the desired effect. A better solution would be to use the EQ in the Sony app to adjust the sound to your preference.

The treble, on the other hand, is quite elevated. This is especially the case with sounds in the low and mid-treble range, where most of the high-end lives as beyond that most recordings don't have a lot of information. The WF-1000XM3 can come in quite hot in this region, with a borderline shrill sound on some recordings.

The level of detail in the sound is adequate for a pair of in-ear wireless noise-canceling earphones. The bright treble tries to emulate a feeling of high detail or resolution in the sound but it's just a trick with the EQ. At the end of the day, a tiny 6mm driver and compressed, lossy codecs can only resolve so much detail in the sound. Still, it's good for what it is.

The imaging performance on the WF-1000XM3 is also excellent. The bright sound also does a decent job of generating a sensation of a wider soundstage and the WF-1000XM3 certainly feel less closed off than Sony's full-sized wireless headphones. Of course, you can't get open back soundstage here but they don't sound narrow or completely closed-off, either.

Microphone

The WF-1000XM3 have above average microphone quality. The voice itself sounds decent but there is a fairly aggressive background noise reduction, which introduces artifacts in the sound. The noise reduction is also of middling effectiveness, so it can't drown out a busy street and in the process also messes with your voice a fair bit.

Still, for voice calls in relatively quiet environments, the microphone performance is better than a lot of Bluetooth headsets out there.

Latency

The WF-1000XM3 have average latency performance. I can notice it because I know what to look for but most people should be fine with it for things like watching YouTube videos. It's also passable for playing casual games but for competitive titles and especially those that require a microphone, you should get a wired headset.

Noise-canceling

The WF-1000XM3 have really impressive noise-cancellation for a pair of in-ear earphones. Bigger headphones can physically cover your entire ear, which provides more effective sound isolation but in-ears don't have that luxury. Despite that, Sony's electronic wizardry is able to deftly make up for this shortcoming and provide better noise-cancellation that most full-sized headphones, including several of Sony's own.

Admittedly, in the current situation, I wasn't able to test these on a flight or even a train commute. However, even for someone working from home, there are enough distractions all-round to necessitate a pair of good noise-canceling earphones (one would argue they are almost vital if you need to get anything done at home with the rest of the family around). But despite the harsh nature of this environment, the WF-1000XM3 were able to silence things like people talking in the background, the sound of the television, children playing outside, and also the drumming of the rain. I have no doubt that these would handle air travel or a train commute with ease.

An important thing to note is that in-ear noise-canceling earphones are only as good as the seal of the ear tips. The WF-1000XM3 comes with three sizes of soft, rubbery ear tips and four sizes of long hybrid silicone rubber ear tips, one of which comes pre-installed on the earphones. While testing them for fit, disable the active noise cancelation so you get a better idea of which pair of tips provide a better seal. Unlike the newer AirPods Pro, the WF-1000XM3 have no way to tell if the seal is imperfect so you have to ensure that yourself.

Stability

The stability of the wireless connection on the WF-1000XM3 was imperfect in my usage. There were times where the audio would briefly drop in either one or both speakers. There were also occasions where one speaker would just stop playing for a few seconds and then start working on its own. This was experienced across multiple smartphones so the source wasn't an issue. The issue also happened with the device sitting a couple of feet away on the desk.

I wouldn't say this is a major issue with these earphones but it's also not a non-issue. In ideal conditions where the connected device is sitting just a couple of feet away from you with a clear line of sight, the connection needs to be 100% reliable. That is not the case with these earphones, even if the drops are fairly rare.

Battery Life

The WF-1000XM3 have a rated battery life of six hours (and eight hours with noise-canceling disabled). Once empty, a quick 10-minute charge is supposed to give you 90-minutes of usage. The case provides an additional three charges, for a total of 24 hours of use.

In my testing, the WF-1000XM3 went on for seven hours on a full charge with noise-canceling enabled and ten hours with noise-canceling disabled. When testing the 10-minute charge claim, the WF-1000XM3 went on for two hours with noise-canceling enabled. So in all cases, Sony comfortably beat its own claims.

By now I'm used to Sony Bluetooth products doing this, where they almost always beat their own advertised battery life claims. It seems weird to me that they don't just advertise higher numbers as they are actually selling their products a bit short.

Considering the impressive nature of the noise-canceling on offer here, the battery life with it enabled is quite impressive. Also, with TWS products, battery life isn't as much of a concern as you can just pop them back into the case for a quick charge. The earphones take about an hour and a half to charge inside the case and the case itself takes a slightly lengthy three and a half hours to charge. Again, I'd have liked to see an option to charge wirelessly, even as an optional case.

An important note to make here is with regards to the DSEE HX feature. This significantly reduces the battery life, often for no appreciable difference in sound quality. While testing with the feature enabled, the WF-1000XM3 couldn't even last for three hours so unless you have a compelling reason to use it, it's best to keep this feature disabled.

Conclusion

Even a year after launch, the Sony WF-1000XM3 are still an extremely impressive pair of wireless earphones. The key selling feature of these is the active noise-canceling and it works really well. The sound quality, for the most parts, is also quite good and it's relatively easy to customize it with Sony's comprehensive mobile app. The battery life is also quite good with noise-canceling enabled, even beating some of its more modern rivals. The design is also discreet yet attractive so you don't risk looking goofy wearing these in public.

I do have a few complaints, though. I don't find these earphones comfortable, which is a shame as I do enjoy using them. The connection was also sketchy at times with occasional audio drops. And finally, lack of wireless charging and water-resistance is quite glaring, especially in 2020.

The comfort is the only major issue for me personally but otherwise, I would still strongly recommend the Sony WF-1000XM3 to buyers even in 2020.

Pros

Great active noise cancellation

Good audio quality

Good battery life

Cons
The ongoing global health crisis has left the Vietnamese coffee export industry in the lurch due to continued falls in price.

Global output & Years end stock

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Developments Department for Agricultural Products Processing and Market Development (DAPP), coffee exports in July witnessed an on-year decrease in both price (0.1 per cent) and volume (0.6 per cent).

Since late April, the consecutive decline in export prices has significantly hurt Vietnams coffee exports, especially amid the resurgence of the pandemic. For example, as of late last week, the on-year price fall could be seen in the United Kingdom (24.6 per cent), and China (13.7 per cent). Vietnams average coffee export price hit $1,690 per tonne, down 0.9 per cent on-year.

Output of Vietnam

According to the DAPP, Vietnam reaped export turnover of $213 million for 120,000 tonnes in July, and $1.8 billion tonnes with 1.06 million tonnes for the first seven months of 2020  down 0.1 per cent in volume and 0.6 per cent in export value on-year.

Amid the resurgence of COVID-19 in the country, it is expected that Vietnam may miss the set target of $3 billion in coffee export turnover this year due to an expected decline in export prices.

As per the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association, the average price for exports in the 2019-2020 period has flung to a 10-year low, at times at $1,207 per tonnes of Robusta coffee, and 88 US cents per pound of Arabica.

Figures from Vietnams General Statistics Office showed that last year, Vietnam exported 1.61 million tonnes for $2.78 billion, down 13.9 per cent in volume and 21.2 per cent in value on-year.

In the first seven months of 2020, said the DAPP, the downtrend in coffee prices reflected a decline in global consumption caused by the pandemic and new supplies from Brazil, one of the largest coffee producers in the world.

In addition, coffee prices have also been influenced by the depreciation of the Brazilian real, which created new competition for Brazilian exporters in the global coffee market, and pressured the prices of global coffee including those of Vietnam.

Observers estimated that Vietnams exports in the 2019-2020 period reduced to 26.3 million 60-kg bags, lower than the previously-forecasted volume, due to price differences of Vietnamese coffee in the futures market, prompting importers to turn to buying from Brazil and Indonesia.

In addition, an increase of an extra VND600 (3 US cents) per kg of coffee domestically since late 2019 has also caused difficulties to businesses in purchasing coffee materials for exports.

Stalled export-import activities everywhere caused by the pandemic have forced many ports to close down, making it impossible for the coffee price to recover in the first seven months of this year.

In addition, COVID-19 has forced Vietnams key importers  the EU and the US  to slash coffee imports from the Southeast Asian nation due to feeble purchasing power caused by the governments policies of social distancing, with closure of a series of activities in coffee trading, cafes, and coffee firms.

Meanwhile, stockpiles remain at a high level, found at depots and warehouses of businesspeople, exporters, and farmers. Low prices mean farmers do not want to sell their products, making it difficult for businesspeople and exporters to ensure supplies.

Experts said that currently the average coffee price is hovering at $1,356 for January 2021 contracts. If stock prices  especially in the US market  reduce, speculators will shift to goods, notably coffee as it is one of the main trading floors together with gold and crude oil. With their rich budget, speculators may select floors with good liquidity, and coffee may be selected. VIR

Van Nguyen

Construction engineer pours efforts into organic coffee Demand for high quality agricultural products is increasing and many consumers are looking for organic options.
Chief Executive of Vodafone Ghana, Patricia Obo-Nai, has rallied the youth to give upgrading their skill set serious thought to become indispensable to their organisations lest they end up redundant.



The Vodafone Ghana CEO made the call during this years International Youth Empowerment Summit (IYES) Virtual Conference hosted by Pastor Brian Amoateng.



According to her, she started out her career as an electrical engineer but purposed to advance so acquired new skill sets by studying Law, venturing into Marketing and Business Strategic Management.



Ms. Obo-Nai explained she readied herself for a leadership role and became head of the Customer Operations Team-- running a commercial function which runs the companys fixed business.



She further warned, acquired skills can become obsolete as the world moves at a fast pace. She stressed professionals and the youth must update their skills.



Automation is happening across the world spanning various fields including Legal, Human Resource (HR), and Finance. She added at Vodafone Ghana, Machine Learning is already happening noting an algorithm filters applicants seeking employment, paving way for a video selection and recruitment.



She further pointed out that those who went through Curriculum Vitae (CV) without other skill sets would be without job. Still, at Vodafone Ghana, she submitted at the back office, there are robots helping the team to respond to customers.



Given that 45 percent of tasks will be automated according to a recent report, the Vodafone Ghana CEO noted taxi drivers wishing to be on the Uber platform must learn the use of the app which is an obstacle to old drivers who are not skilled to use the app.



With technology changing literally every two years, when companies think of redundancy, dont think your name will not come up unless you are indispensable to the company, Ms. Obo-Nai stated.



To better prepare herself for advanced roles, Patricia Obo-Nai said she had to acquire new skills, be conversant with stakeholder engagements, work with lateral colleagues and people above your head.



In interviewing her for the CEO, she revealed she wasnt asked about technology nor marketing but how she will execute her role given it was her first time.



As a new employee whos started earning a salary or been on the job for some time, theres a need to keep upgrading according to Ms. Obo-Nai. She stated whether ready or not, other people were inventing which gave them a competitive advantage.



Theres need to build collaborative relationships especially as more workers operate from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our teams at Vodafone Ghana are working in squats without managers but have to liaise and create apps and products. Theres then the need as a worker to influence, to succeed and if lacking, theres need to build it, she added.



In being prepared for the ever-advancing work dynamics and automation, Ms. Patricia Obo-Nai touched on five elements.



The Use of Data



Data is being guarded. Telcos gather data as do the courts. Machines are doing the gathering but the greater task is to comprehend and then ascertain what use to have for the data to enhance ease of life. With organisations having massive amounts of data, those who use data effectively will clearly outperform the rest. What organisations need are people who can extract insights from data and know-how to turn this into valuable knowledge. Without this skill at work, data becomes completely meaningless.



Tech Savviness



Even legal teams have automated programmes to stimulate variables. Smartphones are powerful tools and should not be used to just watch movies and chat. A determined youth or worker can use the smartphones to subscribe to journals and acquire knowledge as well as read on 3D printing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and others. Alexa, Siri, and GPS in vehicles all show that in homes and at workplaces, the new reality is here. Theres a need to understand the major technology trends to be on top of the corporate game.



Adaptability and Flexibility



Its rare for an engineer to lead a commercially driven organisation like Vodafone Ghana but it was no longer about the role but the skill sets. Organisations are in need of people who are able to adapt to new job roles, adopt new technology, and happy to learn new skills. You cannot survive the New Normal without this skill.



Creativity and Innovation



With new problems such as the COVID-19 requiring the wearing of a mask and sanitizing the hands, creatives saw opportunities to leverage, providing masks and sanitisers making money. Creativity is a natural strength that needs to be nurtured. It is not the preserve of creative arts people. Businesses that survive the Corona season are the creative ones. Creativity is a skill that will be increasingly important for jobs and the more it is built, the success can be expected in the future job market.



Building Collaborative Relationships



The New Normal brings extraordinary challenges of completing work whilst working remotely or engaging others to deliver new products and services in a restrictive environment. You must have what it takes to build collaborations within and outside the organization. You need to be that influential and have a network that helps achieve shared objectives, goals, and purpose. Do a self-assessment and begin to deliberately develop it as a vital skill.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Home Minister Amit Shah discharged from the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) in New Delhi on August 31, said the hospital.

"Sh. Amit Shah, Honourable Home Minister was admitted at AIIMS, New Delhi for post COVID care. He was discharged today at 7 am," the medical facility said in a statement.

"He has fully recovered and is fit to resume his routine activities," said the statement signed by Dr Aarti Vij, chairperson, Media Cell and Protocol Division.

Earlier, the AIIMS had said in a statement on August 29 that "he has recovered and is likely to be discharged in a short time".

The union minister was admitted to the hospital on August 18 for post-COVID care after complaining of fatigue and body aches.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

The union minister had been complaining of fatigue and body aches for the last 3-4 days, the hospital had said in a press release on August 18. He had been admitted to AIIMS for post-COVID care, the hospital had said.

On August 2, Shah (55) had tested positive for the novel coronavirus infection and admitted to a hospital. He had undergone treatment at Medanta Hospital and was discharged after he tested negative for the disease on August 14.
Pizza Hut has not been growing at the pace it wishes to see in Vietnam

Facing hefty losses in the global market, the United States-based Pizza Hut has been accelerating investment in Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam. As of the end of 2017, the total investment value of the pizza store chain in Vietnam reached hundreds of millions of US dollars.

Pizza Hut in 2017 pumped about VND400 billion ($17.39 million) to open dozens of stores across the country. In particular, the sum was equal to about 70 per cent of its annual revenue at the time, which was nearly VND600 billion ($26 million), according to local market research company VIRAC.

Since its launch in Vietnam in 2007, the pizza store chain's market share has been modest. Japan-backed market research company Intage Vietnams latest survey on 200 consumers in Vietnam showed that Pizza Huts market share is about 22 per cent, while KFC and Lotteria occupy 52 and 31 per cent, respectively.

COVID-19 has exacerbated Pizza Hut's troubles around the world, forcing its franchising partner NPC International to file for bankruptcy in July and most recently shut 300 stores across the US. The company also put the remaining 900 Pizza Hut outlets on sale as per an agreement with Pizza Hut's parent company Yum! Brands.

NPC currently operates about 1,227 Pizza Hut stores, occupying 18 per cent of the total 6,700 outlets in the US.

Pizza Hut in the UK reported losses of 7 million ($9.28 million) in 2017. Moreover, its sales also dropped 3.3 per cent to 225 million ($298.37 million), which the company blamed on the less family friendly film offerings at cinemas close to its restaurants, according to thisismoney.co.uk. In 2018, the company suffered a pre-tax loss of 6.16 million ($8.17 million), according to data from Statista.

Despite putting the pedal to the metal in Vietna, its blueprint seems ineffective in the market due to the preponderance of street food  the main reason behind the tiny market shares held by overseas fast-food brands in the country.

Newswire CNBC previously reported that Vietnam is home to 540,000 food stores, including 430,000 street food vendors, 80,000 restaurants, and only 7,000 fast food outlets.

According to the latest data published by local market research company VIRAC, Pizza Hut in 2018 recorded VND617 billion ($26.83 million) in revenue, up 6 per cent. However, its accumulated losses as of the end of 2017 were more than VND334 billion ($14.52 million).
Chandigarh, Aug 31 : Amid a sharp spike in Covid-19 cases in Punjab, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday announced that restrictions will continue in urban areas, including a weekend lockdown in all 167 municipal towns of the state, along with 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew in all cities till September end.

The decision has been taken in due consultation with the Centre, as required by the Unlock 4.0 guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, according to an official spokesperson.

Section 144 of the CrPC banning all social, political, religious gatherings, protests and demonstrations will continue to remain in force throughout the state, while gatherings relating to marriage and funerals shall be allowed only for 30 and 20 persons, respectively.

There will be total curfew on Saturdays and Sundays in the municipalities, while movement of individuals for all non-essential activities shall remain prohibited between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. within municipal limits of all cities in Punjab throughout the week, as per the orders of the Chief Minister.

Movement of students and others in connection with all kinds of examinations, admission and entrance tests conducted by universities, boards, public service commissions and other institutions has been excluded from the restrictions.

Amarinder has directed district authorities to facilitate the movement of such persons.

Religious places have also been allowed to stay open on all days up to 6.30 p.m., as have restaurants, including those in malls, and liquor vends. The restrictions on daytime do not apply to hotels.

Amarinder has directed district authorities to strictly comply with these guidelines, said the spokesperson.

He has asked the police to ensure strict action in case of any violation of orders under Section 144 of CrPC.

The spokesperson made it clear that essential activities and services, movement of persons and goods on national and state highways, interstate and intrastate movement of persons and unloading of cargo and travel of persons to their destinations after disembarking from buses, trains and airplanes will be permitted during the restrictive conditions.

These essential services include those related to health, agricultural and related activities, dairying and fishery activities, banks, ATMs, stock markets, insurance companies, online teaching, public utilities, public transport, industry in multiple shifts, construction industry, and both private and government offices.

Giving details of the weekend and night restrictions, the spokesperson said shops and malls, except those dealing in essential commodities, will be allowed to remain open till 6.30 p.m. from Monday to Friday but will be closed in all cities on Saturday and Sunday.

Shops dealing in essentials will be open even on weekends till 6.30 p.m.

The existing restrictions on passengers in vehicles will also continue to remain in force, with only three persons, including the driver to be allowed in a four-wheeler vehicle, and all buses and public transport vehicles to allow sitting for only half (50 per cent) capacity with no person standing.

Government and private offices shall operate with 50 per cent staff strength till the end of the month, the order further said.
They arrived in unprecedented numbers, pushing a strained Sweden to shut its borders as anti-immigration sentiment flared. Five years later, Syrians are still trying to integrate, some more successfully than others.

Abdallah Saleh, a 24-year-old Palestinian who fled Damascus in 2014, finally arrived in the southern Swedish town of Malmo in September the following year after a harrowing journey.

Ten months later, he got his first job as a cashier.

Saleh spent three years learning Swedish and English, taking adult education classes and working on the side.

Now, he's just been accepted into a computer science programme at Halmstad University.

"It's been my dream since high school," he tells AFP, beaming.

In 2015, the Scandinavian country took in the highest number of asylum seekers per capita in the European Union, at 163,000.

A third of them were Syrians.

"Every day the line of asylum seekers was never-ending. At the end of the day, they were knocking on the window, saying 'please, help us'," recalls a former case handler at the Migration Agency.

Experts say it's too early to tell how well Syrians as a group have integrated, citing a lack of data.

But they say the early signs are pretty positive.

Pieter Bevelander, a professor of international migration at Malmo University, points to 2016 statistics: "Of the Syrians who received a residency permit in 2010, 70 percent now have a job."

"We can expect a similar result for those who arrived in 2015," he suggests.

This is especially the case since Syrians' education level is about the same as Swedes', noted Stockholm University professor Eleonora Mussino.

- Tougher rules -

Sweden was however quickly overwhelmed with the huge influx of migrants knocking at its door.

It ended up adopting a temporary law in 2016 making permanent residency and family reunifications harder to get, offering three-year residency permits instead.

Story continues

The law expires in 2021, but the hot-button issue is now up for debate again in parliament, which will likely replace it with a permanent law.

Sweden -- a country of 10.3 million people, of whom 12 percent were born outside the EU -- has welcomed large numbers of immigrants since the 1990s, primarily from the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iran and Iraq.

But over the years, public opinion on immigration has hardened.

The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats party has in two decades grown to become the third-biggest party, hovering around 20 percent in opinion polls.

"It's an analytical mistake to think that the Swedish attitude to immigration was generous before 2015 and that it changed after the migrant wave," Joakim Ruist, an immigration expert at Gothenburg University, says.

"This tolerance has in reality always been fragile: everybody knew that a large part of the population didn't want refugees in the country," he adds.

- Influx slowed -

Jonas Andersson, a Sweden Democrats MP, tells AFP "the temporary law was necessary but it was just a small step in the right direction."

"Sweden needs to tighten its legislation," he insists.

Since the temporary law came into force, the number of Syrian arrivals has plummeted, to just 5,500 in 2016 and even fewer in the following years.

The same trend can be seen in the number of asylum requests granted.

Hala Alnahas knows that all too well.

With a dentistry degree from Damascus University, she now practises in the small Swedish town of Mariestad.

She has only been granted successive temporary residency permits, despite a shortage of dentists in Sweden.

Her request for permanent residency was recently denied because of a single document missing from her dossier.

"It was a shock, because I pay my taxes, I earn a decent living, I have my own apartment and I don't need anybody's help," she says.

- Hurdles to integration -

Other Syrians say they feel like they're living life on the sidelines.

Unemployed since arriving in Sweden, Ali Haj Mohammad, 45, is struggling to get to know Swedes.

"I get the impression they don't want to talk to refugees. My Swedish isn't very good, but how can I improve it with no job and when I spend my free time with other Syrians or Iraqis?", he complains.

According to Teodora Abda, the head of Sweden's Syrian Association, Syrians' integration "has failed" because of a lack of housing and their limited social contact with Swedes.

"Those who arrived five years ago chose to live with members of their own families," often in immigrant-heavy suburbs, "rather than find themselves alone in northern Sweden" where authorities might have placed them, she explains.

Disadvantaged neighbourhoods with strong immigrant populations are rife with social woes and unemployment -- leading to social exclusion, parallel economies and, increasingly, gang shootings.

Sweden -- traditionally homogenous and now with a high-skilled labour market -- can be challenging for people arriving from war-torn countries, especially those with no skills.

For 38-year-old Majda Ibrahim and her family, who came to Sweden in 2013 just before the big migrant wave, the road to a new life has been arduous, but worth it.

"In the beginning, it was really hard, our life was turned upside down," she says at the family's three-room apartment in Skogas, a Stockholm suburb, home to many immigrants.

Her husband works as a cleaner and their five children are enrolled at school.

After numerous hotel stays, social-services meetings and a slew of black-market sublets, they finally have a place to call home.

"It's the first time in seven years that we have a real apartment lease," says her 16-year-old daughter Alia Daoud in perfect Swedish.

"Now we all have Swedish citizenship," smiles Majda.

str-nzg/po/kjm/kaf
Pranab Mukherjee, who passed away at 84 on August 31 after he said that he has tested positive for COVID-19 and underwent a brain surgery on August 10, has had a long political innings, most of which he spent with the Congress party.

In recent years, however, observers have noted that the relationship between the Congress veteran and the Grand Old Party had turned a little uncomfortable if not entirely sour.

These were not just mere murmurs and whispers, but there were public displays of discomfort as well: the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) invitation to Mukherjee for an event, and his acceptance of it; and the Bharat Ratna being conferred upon him under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dispensation must have caused a lot of heartburn to Congress leadership, experts have suggested.

Not that that was the first time Mukherjee has been at odds with his party. While he stood rock-solid with former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, even through the Emergency period, after her assassination in 1984, his relationship with the party became uneasy for some time.

After the 1984 Lok Sabha polls, in which Congress managed to post a thumping victory, Rajiv Gandhi announced his Cabinet minus Mukherjee's presence. 'Pranab da', as he was fondly known, was, in his own words, "shell-shocked and flabbergasted".

"I could not believe it. But I composed myself and sat alongside my wife as she watched the swearing-in ceremony on television," he wrote in his memoir. Following this, he decided to form his own political outfit, called the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress (RSC) in 1986, though it was merged with the Congress three years later, paving way for Mukherjee to re-enter the Congress fold.

Cut to 2018, when Mukherjee walked up the podium to address an RSS event at the organisation's headquarters in Nagpur.

While there, he spoke on the topic of nationalism, patriotism and the nation in Indian context, drawing in on the history of India and the multiplicity of cultures in it. However, several leaders across political spectrum were surprised by Mukherjee's decision to address an RSS gathering, with some even questioning his loyalty to his party and its ideals.

A year later, when Mukherjee was to be conferred with India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, with some clubbing his attendance at the RSS event with the award. While Congress' Rahul Gandhi was quick to congratulate Mukherjee, he decided to skip the ceremony along with his mother, Sonia Gandhi.

The ceremony, however, was attended by other senior party leaders, including Ahmed Patel, Anand Sharma and Shashi Tharoor among others.
Representative image

The Indian Army on August 31 said that it had thwarted an attempt by Chinese troops to unilaterally change the status quo at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the night of August 29-30.

Indian soldiers pre-empted Peoples Liberation Army (PLA)s activity on the southern bank of Pangong Tso and undertook measures to strengthen positions, the army said.

In a statement, the Indian Army said that Chinese troops had violated consensus by carrying out the provocative military movements.

Tension between India and China at the LAC in eastern Ladakh region has been escalating since early May amid skirmishes and leading to a military build-up. The three main friction points were Hot Springs, the Galwan Valley and Pangong Tso.

However, they reached another level when a violent clash broke out in the Galwan Valley on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. The Chinese side is also believed to have suffered casualties but it has not given details.

Confrontation point: Pangong Tso

However, unlike the June 15 face-off, the latest confrontation happened on the southern bank of the Pangong lake, not the Galwan Valley. The expansive lake, sections of which are controlled by India and China, is south of the Galwan Valley. The Valley and the northern tip of the lake are over 80 kilometres away, as the crow flies.

Both sides are locked in a stand-off at Finger 4 of Pangong Tso along the LAC.

The Finger area of Pangong Tso is made up of spurs that rise along the bank of the lake. According to India, the LAC is situated at Finger 8. The large swath of land between Finger 4 and 8 used to be patrolled by both sides before tensions escalated in May.

Map not to scale. Only for representational purpose. (Satellite image courtesy: Landsat/Copernicus via Google Earth)

It was reported in early July that the Chinese military had inscribed a massive Mandarin signage and Chinas map onto the ground they have occupied on the northern bank of Pangong Tso. The Mandarin signage appeared to say "China".

The ground inscriptions located between 'Finger 4' and 'Finger 5' along the lake, reportedly measure approximately 25 metres in breadth and 81 metres in length. These can also be spotted in satellite imagery, which Moneycontrol could not independently authenticate.
Things moved to a boil in Portland, Ore., this weekend after three months of nightly protests, even in the face of police tear gas, federal agents and arrests. On Friday, President Donald Trump tweeted about the city three times, deriding Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler as "very ungifted" and "incompetent" and threatening to "go in and take care of matters" if Wheeler did not get control of his city. The next day, a caravan of Trump supporters drove into the city, and in the resulting clashes, a man was fatally shot, sparking charges and countercharges from Trump and Wheeler.

What began as marches against police brutality have morphed into a mass mobilization against racial injustice, income equality and police militarization and expansion. Such radical demands may seem surprising in an overwhelmingly White city with a history of racial exclusion. But even though Portland has a population that is 77% White, it has long been a center for political organizing where Black and White activists together promoted Black life. This largely invisible history is vital to understanding how the city has recently become a key site for the uprisings and how threatening force is unlikely to curtail them.

Oregon was founded as a white-supremacist haven, gained statehood in 1859 and remains majority White today. Despite an 1844 law banning Black people and other minorities from living or purchasing property in Oregon, Portland gradually attracted African American residents. During the first wave of the Great Migration in the early 20th century, Portland's Black population doubled from 775 to 1,556. African Americans flocked to the city to work as railroad porters, cooks, waitresses and domestic servants.

Portland's small but growing Black community helped transform the city, sparking new civil rights activism. Black Portlanders made their mark by establishing Black newspapers such as the New Age (est. 1896), the Advocate (est. 1903) and the Portland Times (est. 1918), which were not only Black-owned businesses, but also a lifeline through the Black community. The newspapers promoted literacy and told the stories of the city's Black residents.

Beatrice Hulon Morrow, who edited the Advocate, was the wife of its founder, E.D. Cannady. She became the first Black woman to practice law in Oregon in 1922. As an editor, Morrow highlighted news of racist violence committed by the Ku Klux Klan, which was active in the region. She also taught widely about Black history and the challenges faced by Black Americans, lecturing high school and college students, and holding interracial tea parties to educate White people. She filed lawsuits against Portland's school board for its segregation practices and helped create the city's chapter of the NAACP.

In 1925, the NAACP was instrumental in helping push a bill through the Oregon legislature that repealed language in the state constitution denying rights to Black and Asian American residents. From 1920 to 1945, Portland's Black population grew from 2,000 to more than 20,000, partly due to the industrial boom after World War II. War veterans flocked to Portland for shipyard jobs. Portland's NAACP pushed back against racial discrimination and helped end the practice of denying Black people work cards, which were needed to work at Portland's shipyard. In 1953, the organization also helped pass laws prohibiting racial discrimination in public accommodations.

As the city's population grew, Black and White activists joined forces. Facing a housing shortage after World War II, White allies such as Monsignor Thomas J. Tobin, a priest of the Archdiocese of Portland; Bishop Benjamin Dunlap Dagwell; an Episcopal diocese and others collaborated with Black activists like physician DeNorval Unthank to establish a branch of the National Urban League in Portland. The city's urban league worked tirelessly to create new jobs and housing for Black people.

In the late 1960s, Black Portlanders were organizing themselves and thinking radically about social change, including activist Kent Ford. In 1967, when he intervened as police arrested a young man, Ford was arrested, assaulted and held in jail on $80,000 bail on charges that he was inciting a riot. White allies, including Moris Mallin, a radiologist, and Penny Sabin, an heiress of Blue Bell potato chips, paid Ford's bail. He was eventually acquitted and awarded a $6,000 settlement.

Ford's activism also included political education classes. He shared readings on militarism, capitalism and racism, including Kwame Nkrumah's "Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism," Mao Zedong's "Little Red Book" and Huey P. Newton's "Executive Mandate Number One," among others. Lawyers contributed their expertise by teaching activists to know their rights at demonstrations and minor traffic stops. After one of Ford's students was assaulted by police and jailed in 1969, he decided to incorporate a Portland branch of the Black Panther Party. During a news conference on the steps of a Portland police station, Ford said, "If they keep coming in with these fascist tactics, we're going to defend ourselves."

Drawing inspiration from the Black Panther Party's initiatives, Ford and his wife, Sandra Ford, established community programs such as free breakfast for children. Kent's free breakfast program, held at Highland United Church of Christ, fed between 75 and 125 children each school day. In 1970, the Fords, along with Jon Moscow opened the Fred Hampton People's Free Health Clinic. Ford also established the Malcolm X People's Dental Clinic.

All of the physicians at the Fred Hampton clinic were White, except Bill Davis, a pathologist and the brother of actor Ossie Davis. Well-known neurosurgeon George Barton also volunteered at the clinic. The Black Panther Party's health and dental services served Portlanders of all races, reflecting the group's vision of a multiracial working-class uniting to combat capitalism. While these "survival programs" did not uproot systemic racism, these spaces provided convenient and imperative health services at a time when overt racism beset health-care facilities. Despite their radical politics, Portland's survival programs were so successful that they received referrals from the health department.

But Black Portlanders continued to face racism in the majority-White city. In 1985, Lloyd Stevenson, a Black man, was killed after being placed in a chokehold by the Portland police. No charges were brought against the officers. On the day of Stevenson's funeral, two police officers sold T-shirts to their fellow officers emblazoned with "Don't Choke'em, Smoke'em." The officers were fired but later reinstated with back pay.

In 1988, Ethiopian exchange student Mulugeta Seraw was murdered by Kenneth Miesk, a member of a group called the East Side White Pride. Founders of the White Aryan Resistance, Tom and John Metzger were convicted of abetting Mieske to commit violence against Black people. Despite the city's liberal reputation, white-power activists also thrived.

Yet Black Portlanders continued to fight for racial equality and civil rights for all the city's residents. Activists have fought anti-LGBT legislation and have worked steadily to protect Black lives. Among them is Teressa Raiford, who founded Don't Shoot Portland in 2014 to combat racism, which maintains an online archive about Black life in Portland and operates a youth art program. On June 5, the organization filed a class-action lawsuit against the city of Portland for using excessive force against protesters, both Black and White.

Black activists in Portland have always fostered alliances with White Portlanders, and their history should serve as an example of how such solidarity can make social change. The city's huge protests in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd should come as no surprise, given this history. Yet the fact that police and federal agents have worked to crush the uprisings, that the protests have drawn right-wing counterprotests and that Portland remains a potent culture-war talking point on the right are signs of how much work remains to be done.

- - -

Robertson is a writer and Columbia University graduate student studying African American History.
New Delhi, Aug 31 : The government has invited suggestions from the aviation industry for the proposed restructuring of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

The Civil Aviation Ministry has set up a committee in January this year to review the functioning of the DGCA, the sector regulator, along with its current structure and assessing its manpower requirements.

The committee has been tasked to study global practices and to review the functioning of the DGCA along with its current structure for manpower requirement in next 10 years and shortage of skilled resources.

In this regard, the Civil Aviation Ministry has invited suggestions from the aviation industry and stakeholders such as air operators, airport operators, various associations of pilots, cabin crew, engineers, air traffic controllers and drone operators for consideration by the committee.

In a recent development, major pilot associations had sought an immediate replacement of incumbent Director General of Civil Aviation Arun Kumar in the interest of flight safety following the Kozhikode air tragedy.

They had demanded that Arun Kumar, an Indian Administrative Service officer, be immediately replaced with a suitable candidate with substantial aviation knowledge and operational experience, to serve the country as the Director General of Civil Aviation.

In a letter to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) and the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) pointed out that Arun Kumar, in a nationally televised interview conducted moments after the catastrophic accident of Air India Express Flight No IX 1344 at Kozhikode, referred to the deceased pilots as "fellows" and also said: "...and the landing it seems was not appropriate".

"Just as the head of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board cannot be a veterinary scientist and nor can the head of the Medical Council of India be a mathematician - no matter how academically qualified or senior that person may be - every technically sensitive department with public safety ramifications requires a domain expert. The DGCA of India, therefore, stands out as an aberration and embarrassment before the international aviation community," they added.
Hong Kong: SJ promotes rule of law awareness

Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng

The Chief Justice listed six indicators of the rule of law at the ceremony for the admission of the new senior counsel last year. One of which is the public has access to the reasons for the outcome of any court proceedings. He also described that judgments containing reasons in arriving at the legal result made publicly available are a manifestation of the spirit of the rule of law.

At the ceremonial opening of the legal year 2020, I highlighted the importance of reinforcing the societal recognition and implementation of the rule of law in Hong Kong, outlining an initiative which spans over 10 years for the promotion and education of the rule of law. One of the short term targets is strengthening the communitys understanding and practice of it through promotion, education and capacity building. To achieve this objective, the Department of Justice (DoJ) has devised plans to roll out public education projects for various sectors, including the general public.

Rational and constructive exchanges of views on court decisions will help promote the awareness of the concept of rule of law in society. While there are frequent discussions about the outcome of a case, little is reported relating to the reasoning that set out the legal and evidential basis of the judgment. Only by looking at the reasoning of a judgment will one be able to apprehend the basis of the decision and then to participate in an informed discussion. In Hong Kong, judgments are available at the Judiciarys website.

However, judgments are usually thorough and hence inevitably long. Issues involved in a case can be plentiful and complicated, necessitating both factual and legal analysis. They will also contain legal concepts that may not be easy to understand. These features may unfortunately deter some members of the general public from embarking on a perusal of the judgment.

Since 2018, the DoJ has set up a dedicated page Summary of Notable Judgments to provide a brief account of the main points in notable judgments by the High Court (Court of First Instance and Court of Appeal) and the Court of Final Appeal. Cases are selected on the basis that they involve significant legal principles, issues of public interest, or that they are of general interest to the community. We hope that the public, by reading the summaries, will not only be able to grasp the most important aspects of the judgments, but also experience the analytical process undertaken by the judge when dispensing justice.

In each summary, we provide a brief background, legal issues arising from the dispute, and main points of the decisions by the court. However, we do not include our own points of view in the summary so as to enable the readers to get to know the reasons for the decisions in an objective way.

The duty of judges is to adjudicate cases before them in accordance with law and evidence. This is done by taking all admissible evidence in context and applying the same to the law objectively and impartially. Similarly, it is equally important for one to avoid making an over-generalised view or passing judgment on a matter based only on versions from one side. Instead, we should remain in a reasonable and objective manner by adopting an open mind, considering all relevant facts and analysing from different perspectives before we come to any conclusion.

Yet, judges may err too. There may be situations in which the parties have to consider taking the matter further to appeal. When the judges decision in the case was wrong by erring in law, in fact, or in the exercise of his/ her discretion; or if the decision was unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity, the DoJ will have to decide whether or not to appeal or in the case of criminal cases to appeal by way of case stated, or institute review of sentence and so forth. Our decisions have to be made in accordance with legal principles and court procedures and a result of our careful analysis of the case in context.

We hope that the Summary of Notable Judgments on the DoJ website will encourage the general public to be better informed of how our legal system operates and to be more interested in the correct principles of law that are akin to our daily lives. We share the same objective with the Secretary for Education to foster the right values of students by helping them to better understand the Basic Law and the spirit of the rule of law. In the near future, the DoJ will roll out more capacity building programmes and further strengthen collaboration with local and international stakeholders with a view to achieving our mission of rule of law and justice for all.

Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng wrote this article and posted it on her blog on August 30.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Investigation by a British newspaper revealed hundreds of African migrants locked up under terrible conditions.

An investigation by the British newspaper Sunday Telegraph has revealed hundreds of African migrants locked up in Saudi Arabias coronavirus detention facilities under terrible conditions.

The investigation, published on Sunday, revealed photos taken by migrants on their mobile phones showing dozens of emaciated men lying on the floor in multiple rows in small rooms with barred windows.

Its hell in here. We are treated like animals and beaten every day, Abebe, an Ethiopian who has been held at one of the centres for more than four months, told The Sunday Telegraph.

Other migrants said they were beaten using electric cords, with guards hurling racial abuse at them.

At least one teenager took his own life by hanging himself, the newspaper reported.

Photos emerging from detention centres in southern Saudi Arabia show that authorities there are subjecting Horn of Africa migrants to squalid, crowded, and dehumanising conditions with no regard for their safety or dignity, Adam Coogle, deputy director of Human Rights Watch in the Middle East, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

The squalid detention centres in southern Saudi Arabia fall well short of international standards. For a wealthy country like Saudi Arabia, theres no excuse for holding migrants in such deplorable conditions

The newspaper was able to geolocate two of the centres  one is in Al Shumaisi, near the holy city of Mecca, while the other is in Jazan, a port town near Yemen.

There are believed to be others housing thousands of Ethiopians.

In March, the government of Saudi Arabia deported nearly 3,000 Ethiopian migrant workers as it struggled to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.

A further 200,000 migrants were also slated for deportation, but instead were rounded up from various cities within the oil-rich kingdom and have been left in squalid conditions in detention facilities.

Others are African refugees from war-torn Yemen.

We have been left to die here, one migrant said. Everyone is sick here. Everyone has something.
Intrabranding: The Keystone of Corporate Agility Invention is often interchanged with innovation. This is wrong: 95 percent of patents, which are inventions, sit on the shelf -- unlicensed and uncommercialized.

Companies strive to be innovative, to be known as innovative. Why? Because it sounds impressive, doesn't it? CEOs think an "innovative" reputation makes customers believe they can get better products and services from such companies.

Is that true? What does it mean to be innovative? What is an innovation?

Every year, Boston Consulting Group and business publication "Fast Company" rank companies worldwide by nebulous interpretations of innovativeness. Problem is, neither organization properly defines innovation, so the rankings have limited value.

Invention is often interchanged with innovation. This is wrong: 95 percent of patents, which are inventions, sit on the shelf -- unlicensed and uncommercialized.

Marc Rudov's third book on branding -- "Intrabranding: The Keystone of Corporate Agility" -- clearly explains innovation, what it is and isn't. Quite simply, innovation is the continuous process of enhancing customers' lives, ACCORDING TO THEM, with products and services. A product or service that doesn't achieve this, therefore, is NOT an innovation.

The CEO's job, ultimately, is to establish and enforce the corporate brand, which dictates what to innovate, and why. Without the customer-based brand, there's no purpose and direction, and, therefore, no innovation.

And, intrabranding -- the internal communication and leadership mechanism that aligns the employees and management with the brand -- provides the requisite conveyance and feedback loop that enables companies to be agile and innovate successfully.

"Put simply," says Rudov, "Innovation will fail without effective intrabranding."

Ordering information for "Intrabranding: The Keystone of Corporate Agility" is available at Intrabranding.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marc Rudov is a branding advisor to CEOs, media commentator, and author of two prior books, "Brand Is Destiny: The Ultimate Bottom Line" and "Be Unique or Be Ignored: The CEO's Guide to Branding."

Ordering information for "Intrabranding: The Keystone of Corporate Agility" is available at Intrabranding.com.
Two civilians have been killed as a roadside bomb went off in Nad-e-Ali district of Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, Ayub Omar Omari, the district chief, said on Sunday.

According to the district chief, the bomb targeted a civilian vehicle near the district's Noorzo village on Sunday morning. Both of the killed ones were shopkeepers.

The security situation in remains tense. Earlier in August, the Kabul administration agreed to free the remaining 400 Taliban prisoners, which is expected to pave a way for intra-Afghan talks under the US-Taliban peace deal.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Los Angeles Police Department tactical unit responded Sunday to reports that someone may have opened fire near a pro-President Donald Trump rally, authorities said.

In a statement, the department said that three suspects had barricaded themselves inside an apartment building in Woodland Hills, northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

Police said the shooting occurred shortly after 11:30 a.m., when a large caravan of cars were amassed on Ventura Boulevard. A woman who wasnt part of the rally was driving past it and said her tire went flat after she heard what sounded like gunshots, authorities said.

The tire appeared to have been damaged by a bullet or a bullet fragment, the statement said.

A SWAT team responded to an apartment building where police said three suspects had barricaded themselves inside, the statement added. The department later said SWAT officers entered one of the apartments, but the suspects were gone, and investigation is continuing.

There were no reports of injuries on the caravan, which was traveling from Woodland Hills to Studio City, and it wasn't clear if the shooting was connected to the rally.

Video footage posted by a local radio reporter showed pickup trucks with pro-Trump and American flags attached to the vehicles. Supporters could be seen on the street holding signs describing CNN as fake news and Black Lives Matter as Black supremacy.

The alleged shooting comes one day after a man was shot and killed in Portland, Oregon, after a pro-Trump caravan traveled there from Clackamas County. Authorities havent identified the victim or offered any details about the shooting.

A photo from the scene published by Getty Images showed the man wearing a hat with a logo of the pro-Trump group Patriot Prayer. The groups founder, Joey Gibson, declined to comment Sunday on the mans death.
Police released images and a description of the suspect wanted after a statue of the Virgin Mary was decapitated on the property of a Toronto church over the weekend.

The statue was decapitated at 3:18 a.m. on Sunday, on the front lawn of Our Lady of Lebanon Parish at 1515 Queen Street West in Parkdale, police say.

Security camera images of the suspect have been released and police are appealing for witnesses to come forward.

The suspect is described as 5-foot-11-inches to 6-foot-one-inch, thin build, long dark swept back hair, with a clean shaven face. He was seen wearing a black T-shirt with a large white design on the front, a thin red vest over the T-shirt, beige shorts and dark Birkenstock-style sandals, police say.

In a Facebook post the church said it was shocked to discover a horrible act of vandalism on Sunday.

We found that the statue of the Virgin Mary, erected in front of the church, was completely decapitated, the post reads. We couldnt find the head anywhere near the statue.

Mayor John Tory tweeted that he was horrified to see that someone had decapitated the statue. He said he has reached out to the church and that the city deplores any violence or vandalism against places of worship.

With files from Aaron DAndrea, reporter with toronto.com. Reach him via email: adandrea@toronto.com
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GIS  31 August 2020: Our country has been confronted with an unprecedented oil spill following the wreck of MV Wakashio. The concerned authorities took all appropriate actions within our existing resources and assistance from International Organisations and friendly countries, to contain and mitigate the adverse effect of this casualty.

This statement was made by the Prime Minister, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, on Friday 28 August 2020, at the National Assembly, in Port Louis. He was replying to the Private Notice Question pertaining to the grounding of the Japanese bulk carrier MV Wakashio and the oil spill in the region of Pointe dEsny.

The Prime Minister indicated that inquiries are currently being conducted by special investigation teams at the level of the Central CID to carry out a thorough investigation so as to determine the facts and circumstances that led to this situation. Also, under the Merchant Shipping Act, a preliminary inquiry has been instituted by the Director of Shipping. Moreover, a Court of Investigation will be instituted as per section 10 of the Merchant Shipping Act, he added.

According to Mr Jugnauth, prior to the MV Wakashio reaching the Mauritian territorial waters, the bulk carrier was being tracked by the National Coast Guard (NCG) Operations Room since 23 July 2020 at 23.30 hours when it entered our Exclusive Economic Zone at 200 nautical miles, through the Sea Vision Satellite Automatic Identification System.

The NCG continued to keep track of the vessel until it entered the countrys territorial waters on 25 July 2020 at 18.10 hours, the Prime Minister said. He highlighted that the NCG contacted the MV Wakashio from 18.15 hours on five occasions before it went aground at 19.25 hours, on 25 July 2020.

Speaking about the one-day stopover of the French Minister for Overseas Territories, Mr Sebastien Lecornu, to Mauritius on 16 August 2020, he underlined that the visit attests to the warmth and strength of the excellent bilateral relations that exist between Mauritius and France. Minister Lecornu was in Mauritius in the context of efforts deployed to mitigate the effects of the oil spill.

The Prime Minister recalled that the French Minister, during a courtesy, had reiterated the solidarity of France with Mauritius as demonstrated by the urgent dispatch of a team of French experts and equipment to assist in the operations. Minister Lecornu also expressed confidence that the Mauritian authorities would take the right decision following the split of the grounded vessel, the Prime Minister said.

Moreover, Mr Jugnauth indicated that, on 26 July 2020, the owner of the vessel, Okiyo Maritime Corp and SMIT Salvage Pte Ltd signed the Lloyds Standard Form of Salvage Agreement (LOF). Under this Salvage Agreement, the Salvage Team is responsible to salve the vessel and take the vessel to a place of safety, he pointed out. The Salvage Team has the environmental obligation to use their best endeavours to prevent or minimise damage to the environment while performing the salvage services. This is in line with section 147 of Merchant Shipping Act, he added.

As regards environmental personnel, a team was deployed led by a Chemical Engineer from Polyeco Societe Anonyme and supported by a team of 15 persons from Mauritius. Equipment was airfreighted by Polyeco Societe Anonyme, and included fence booms, oil absorbent booms, sorbent booms and skimmers.

The Prime Minister concluded by reiterating Governments gratitude to organisations and countries, as well as volunteers, citizens, NGOs, private sector organisations who have spontaneously come forward to support the lagoon and shoreline cleanup operations.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates  President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plan to discuss the pending sale of F-35 fighter jets by the U.S. to the UAE, Jared Kushner told reporters on board the first commercial flight from Israel to the UAE, which landed in Abu Dhabi this morning.

Why it matters: The White House has hailed the normalization deal it brokered between Israel and the UAE as a breakthrough for the region  but shortly after the announcement, a major disagreement emerged over the UAE's desire to acquire the F-35.

Behind the scenes: Emirati officials considered Netanyahu's public opposition to the deal a violation of the understandings they had reached, and they canceled a ceremonial meeting at the UN to show their displeasure.

The backstory: The U.S. has committed to ensuring the regional military superiority of Israel, which is the only country in the region to possess the F-35.

Kushner and national security adviser Robert O'Brien discussed the issue with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz in Jerusalem on Sunday.

On Monday's flight, Kushner said Netanyahu has full confidence that Trump will do everything he can to ensure Israel can maintain its qualitative military edge.

Kushner added that the U.S. has a 30-year security relationship with the UAE, which it intends to enhance while bringing Israel into their security dialogue. "I know Netanyahu sees the great opportunity that was created here," he said.

The latest: In a press conference after landing in Abu Dhabi, Kushner said he was confident the U.S. could both deepen its security relationship with the UAE and preserve Israel's qualitative military edge.

What to watch: Gantz said publicly after Sunday's meeting that he thinks the U.S. and Israel can find a way to maintain Israel's military superiority even if the deal moves forward.
El Al Flight 971 departed this morning from Israels Ben Gurion Airport and landed three hours later in Abu Dhabi. This first commercial flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was permitted to cross Saudi airspace, which had previsously been blocked to Israeli air traffic.

The historic flight carried an Israeli and an American delegation, set to discuss with their UAE counterparts details of the normalization agreement announced Aug. 13. The two delegations were welcomed by UAE officials. The Israeli delegation is headed by chief of the National Security Council Meir Ben-Shabbat; the American delegation is headed by US national security adviser Robert OBrien and senior US presidential adviser Jared Kushner.

The two delegations will stay in Abu Dhabi until late tomorrow, and are expected to hold a series of meetings on a range of issues ahead of signing cooperation agreements in civil and economic fields, including aviation, diplomacy, entry visas, health, culture and tourism, space, science, innovation and trade. The three national security advisers  Ben-Shabbat, OBrien and UAE national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed  will also hold a meeting.

Israels Foreign Ministry is highly represented in the delegation; its Director Gen. Alon Ushpiz  together with Gen. Ronen Peretz, director of the prime minister's office  will coordinate the work of government ministries in the civil and economic spheres. The Foreign Ministry has had an envoy in Abu Dhabi for several years now, representing the country at the International Renewable Energy Agency. Other Foreign Ministry staff were dispatched to Abu Dhabi following the Aug. 13 announcement. The Israeli delegation arriving today will be backed by these experienced diplomats.

On Aug. 29, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, issued a decree formally ending the countrys boycott of Israel, stating, "The decree of the new law comes within the UAE's efforts to expand diplomatic and commercial cooperation with Israel." He added that the decree lays out "a road map toward launching joint cooperation, leading to bilateral relations by stimulating economic growth and promoting technological innovation."

Israels Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi hailed the announcement, calling it "an important step toward peace, which will yield substantial economic and commercial achievements for both people while strengthening the stability in the region. I praise UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan for this historic decision and call upon other countries to follow the UAEs brave footsteps. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also congratulated the move, stating, I welcome the decision of United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed to cancel the law on boycotting products from Israel and economic contacts with Israelis. This is an important step in promoting prosperity and peace in the region."
NEW YORK, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Codecademy, the online education platform empowering millions of people to learn code, announced two new initiatives for students and teachers, including its first-ever student membership and a new partnership with Clever, the most widely used single sign-on (SSO) portal in K-12 schools nationwide.

With many schools going fully or partially remote this fall, Codecademy is making its learning platform more accessible for students and teachers. For college students, Codecademy is launching a new Pro Student membership, which includes complete access to Codecademy's catalog for a more affordable price.

Codecademy is also providing free access to its online coding courses for high school teachers and their classes via a new partnership with Clever. Codecademy Pro courses will be available in Clever Library, a catalog of high-quality digital resources that teachers can deploy to their classroom within seconds. High school teachers can access Codecademy's interactive curriculums for free, empowering their students to learn how to code in a fun and engaging way online.

"Since the pandemic, Codecademy has been committed to supporting learners and making online education opportunities more accessible, especially for those affected by school closures," said Zach Sims, co-founder and CEO of Codecademy. "Through our new student membership and partnership with Clever, we are proud to expand our work with students and teachers and promote coding education inside and out of the classroom."

"Whether students are in the physical classroom or not, it's important they have the tools and resources to continue learning. That's why we are thrilled to include Codecademy in the Clever Library and provide access to online education experiences that not only help students develop new skills, but learn in an engaging, interactive way," said Michelle Lu, Library Product Manager at Clever.

With Clever Library, educators easily browse learning applications by subject or grade level and read peer reviews. In just a few clicks, teachers safely install applications for students  and districts see what resources have been installed, who's using them and how frequently they're used. Codecademy has agreed to comply with Clever's Universal Data Sharing Agreement, a set of security, privacy, and compliance practices designed to protect student data.

Since 2011, Codecademy has reached millions of learners from 190 countries, making it the largest online resource for computer science literacy and computer programming skills. Through its mix of free and Pro courses, Codecademy makes online learning engaging, accessible, and flexible for its community of learners.

Codecademy Pro Student membership is available to eligible college students for $149.99 annually.

About Codecademy

Since 2011, Codecademy has empowered over 45 million people in 190 countries to unlock their personal and professional potential through coding. To date, Codecademy has raised $42.5 million to make its vision of providing an accessible, flexible, and engaging online education a reality. Codecademy makes it easy for users to start learning instantly with free lessons. Codecademy Pro, a $20- $40/month paid membership with over 100,000 subscribers, includes Skill and Career paths that guide users' professional development. Codecademy also works with businesses like Google, Facebook and IBM to help teams expand their skills and increase employees' confidence. The company, which is headquartered in NYC, is backed by top-tier investors like Naspers, Union Square Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, and Y Combinator. Codecademy has partnered with governments including The White House, the UK, Brazil, Argentina, and others, and has worked with companies like Google and Amazon to create curriculum. Learn more at www.codecademy.com .

About Clever

Clever was founded by educators and technologists to speed the adoption and impact of learning applications in the classroom. Now, more than 60% of U.S. K-12 schools use Clever to deploy leading software applications and provide a secure, personalized learning experience for teachers and students. Backed by Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Partners, GSV Capital, and Y-Combinator, Clever is based in San Francisco, California. For more information visit https://clever.com .

Contact:

Andrea Hackett

[email protected]

SOURCE Codecademy

Related Links

http://www.codecademy.com/


TEHRAN,Iran,Aug.31

Trend:

The private sector is supporting the government instructions in confronting exporters that refuse to sell a portion of foreign currency revenue, said the head of Export Committee in Iran Chamber of Commerce.

"There should be a necessary infrastructure to confront exporters that violate the regulation. A monitoring committee could view the exporter's activity and support real businessmen that already sold a portion of export foreign currency revenue, " said Jamshid Nafar, Trend reports citing IRNA.

"The private sector could help the government and improve the economic situation as well as prevent violations," he said.

"The real exporters should be identified from individuals that are abusing advantages that commercial cards provide and refuse to sell a portion of export foreign currency revenue," he said.

"Iran has rich resources but in the current climate with the US sanction and Coronavirus pandemic the government could not liberalize exports therefore we need to preserve domestic reserves," he added.

"In past months the country's capacity in producing mask and related equipment has increased but exports of these products have been banned although a considerable amount of these commodities have been stored," he said.

"Issuing permit for exports of commodities with sufficient reserve in the country could compensate the drop in the trade that is caused by the pandemic," he said.

The Head of Trade and Promotion Organization Hamid Zadboom has recently announced that out of 21,184 exporters around 2,000 have sold portion their foreign currency revenue to banks which amounted to  13 billion.
As two million students across Ontario get ready to return to school, day camps, which have been running for much of the summer with almost no cases of COVID-19, could provide some insight into how to create an environment where kids can learn and play safely.

Some lessons learned from almost two months of summer camp include the importance of creating cohorts, strictly controlling the environment, increased hand-washing, and being prepared for everything.

In June, when much of the province was in lockdown, day camps and daycares across the GTA were planning programs that could accommodate large groups of children in relatively close proximity, with stringent new health and safety rules in place.

When we began rolling out the CampTO program, it was early on in the summer  and at first we werent even sure if we were allowed to offer it, said Janie Romoff, general manager of parks, forestry and recreation for the city of Toronto. The province was still in Stage 1 of the lockdown, limiting congregations and gatherings.

But towards the end of June, the province put out guidelines for day camps that could be opened when a municipality entered Stage 2.

What we learned is that you can operate programs for children safely, you can implement the appropriate health and safety guidelines, and you can adapt programs so that you can still deliver what the objective of the program is so that you can have some level of return to normalcy, said Romoff, adding that camps had the benefit of being open in the summer, so they could use outdoor spaces whenever possible.

The day camp guidelines from the province included reduced group sizes, use of masks indoors, physical distancing, mandatory health screening and enhanced facility cleaning. Camp groups were also required to stay together in a cohort for the entire week, and not to interact with other campers.

In Mississauga, day camps have been running since early July, with no outbreaks or confirmed cases of COVID-19, said Lisa Boyce-Gonsalves, manager of program delivery with the city.

She said Mississauga has been running camps in 13 areas, with some locations having upwards of 50 kids. The camps didnt require face masks, but relied heavily on keeping the cohorts to 10 and under, she said.

I think what helped our programs was we had cohorts  and they didnt intermingle, said Boyce-Gonsalves. That was a really important piece for keeping track of the kids, and ensuring everyone was safe.

She said the camps also had screening questions for parents every morning, so that gave us opportunity to ask parents and guardians about their health before the kids got to camp. The camps, like many others, also made sure the sign-in happened outside, to limit the number of people allowed to enter the facilities. We had a very, very controlled environment.

CampTO launched its programs in mid-July at more than 120 locations, and went a month before it saw its first and only case of COVID-19 in August, when a participant tested positive for the virus.

Romoff said the staff immediately implemented safety measures, such as shutting down programs at the centre for the rest of the week and notifying the families who had children at the location. In addition, Toronto Public Health notified those who may have come into contact with the child. Those who were at high risk of exposure were instructed to seek testing and self-isolate for 14 days. Those at low risk were simply advised to self-monitor and seek testing if they had symptoms.

It was handled quite professionally. There was obviously some concern, but the process that we had in place controlled the spread, said Romoff. In this case there was no spread at all.

Rules for day camps in Vaughan, which saw no cases of COVID-19, required kids who failed screening or temperature checks to have a doctors note that cleared them from the virus in order to return.

Similar health and safety guidelines were recently introduced by the province for schools, which will require all members of a class cohort to be sent home to self-isolate in the event of a single positive case among the group.

While a controlled camp environment is somewhat different from what schools will experience, Boyce-Gonsalves says being adaptive, increasing sanitization and ensuring limited sharing of supplies between class cohorts are measures school boards could easily implement.

Romoff said the city of Toronto will continue to follow the guidelines from the summer, and the provinces most recent ones, for its after-school programs this fall, and a complete return to instructional program, and swimming programs  many of which have been running all summer.

If Romoff has any advice for teachers and school boards preparing for the year, its simple: Be prepared for everything.

Noor Javed is a Toronto-based reporter covering current affairs in the York region for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @njaved
By Express News Service

KOCHI: This years Onam celebration may not have its usual glory and grandeur for Malayalis, but Jennah and two-year-old Jin from Liberia got to celebrate the festival with a full-fledged Onasadya at Lisie Hospital in Kochi.

The duo, who came to Kochi on March 2 for Jins heart surgery, had been stuck here for over four months due to the pandemic.

Jin is the second son of Jennah and Peter Paye. Within few months of his birth, Jin was diagnosed with heart disease and was not gaining enough weight due to the same. Jin was referred to Lisie by the doctors in Liberia.

After reaching Kochi, he underwent surgery on March 12 and made a speedy recovery. They were ready to go back on April 2 but the pandemic changed all the plans.

The mother and son has been lodging in Lisie Hospital since then. Fr Paul Karedan, director of Lisie Hospital, arranged the sadhya for the duo.The family is set to return to Liberia on Thursday.
Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 732G mobile platform for mid-range gaming smartphones.

Qualcomm has announced the new Snapdragon 732G for its mid-range 7-series family of mobile chipsets. Going by the name, the Snapdragon 732G seems like an immediate successor to the Snapdragon 730G that has powered quite a few smartphones in India like the Realme X2, Poco X2 and the Samsung Galaxy A80. The Snapdragon 732G will also operate in the same segment, unlike the Snapdragon 765 SoC which is meant for high-end smartphones.

Qualcomm also confirmed that the Snapdragon 732G will debut on an upcoming POCO smartphone. Leak doing the rounds in the industry points to the Poco X3, and it sounds perfectly logical considering the previous Poco X2 (review) tasted good success by bringing the Snapdragon 730G at its affordable most price point in the beginning of 2020.

Debuting on the POCO X3?

"Since inception, POCO has been all about listening to user feedback and delivering exactly what they need, said Manmohan Chandolu, General Manager, POCO India. Were thrilled to be working once again with Qualcomm Technologies to bring a sophisticated user experience for our users with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G Mobile Platform. Were hoping all our fans, especially the gaming community, appreciate the offering.

Well, the G in the Snapdragon 732G does stand for gaming, so its safe to assume this upcoming POCO smartphone will appeal to gamers, and try to stick to the under-20k segment. POCO has confirmed this smartphone will come with a 64MP camera, that will bin pixels 4-in-1 to output 16MP images, much like the POCO X2. Previously, a US FCC certification leak pointed to 33W fast charging support and a 120Hz display.

Whats new in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G?

Well, going by the press-note shared by Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 732G is more similar to the Snapdragon 730G that it is different. The SoC relies on the same Qualcomm Kryo 470 cores, with the only difference being that the prime core goes up to 2.3GHz instead of 2.2GHz. The Adreno 618 GPU is also the same as before, and so is the Snapdragon X15 LTE modem.

Qualcomm promises some Snapdragon Elite Gaming features, by virtue of the G in the name. That includes seamless and ultra-realistic gameplay in over a billion shades of colour.

The platform also uses Qualcomms 4th-gen AI Engine which is the same as the Snapdragon 730G, yet the company claims a 2x improvement as compared to previous generations.

We will add more details to the specs of the chipset as and when it becomes available. From what we can see, the Snapdragon 732G simply offers a minor bump in maximum CPU clock speed, and preserves every other feature of its predecessor. Can it really be called an upgrade, in that case?

The POCO X3 will hold the key to that answer. The Snapdragon 730G combined with a 120Hz display propelled the smartphone to success in the mid-range segment, but its unlikely we will notice a generational change with the new Snapdragon 732G in use on the upcoming smartphone.
It took Hurricane Laura only a matter of hours to inflict an impact on Louisiana residents that may be felt even after the season changes to autumn. Six days after the hurricane ravaged the Louisiana coast, 250,000 residents were still without power Tuesday while the death toll had reached 19 fatalities.

A 19th death was reported on Monday by the Louisiana health department who shared that a 49-year-old man in Rapides Parish died when a tree he was cutting fell on him. The death is the 15th hurricane-related fatality in the state.

On top of those figures, countless others have been displaced by the storm and thousands more will be without water for the immediate future due to the "beating" that water-treatment plants took, according to Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter.

Linda Smoot, who evacuated from Hurricane Laura in a pickup truck with eight others, reacts as they return to see their homes, in Lake Charles, La., in the aftermath of the hurricane, Sunday, Aug. 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

"We're going to be working really, really hard on the power outages, on the water systems, on the housing," Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a news conference, according to The Associated Press. "But none of this is going to be easy. It's not going to happen as quickly as most people would like for sure."

On Facebook, Hunter added that if any of those displaced residents are looking to return to Lake Charles, they should be prepared to live in the new harsh reality "for many days, probably weeks."

CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP

As of Wednesday morning, 228,520 were without power in the Bayou State, according to PowerOutage.us. In Texas, another 31,052 were in the dark.

Scott Aaronson, vice president of Edison Electric Institute, said that crews will have to rebuild hundreds of towers and reconnect poles and lines ahead of power restoration efforts, according to FOX Business. Nearly 30,000 workers from across the country and even Canada have volunteered to help ease the power restoration burden.

Story continues

Of the 19 confirmed deaths between Texas and Louisiana from the former Category 4 hurricane, over half have been blamed on carbon monoxide poisoning following the unsafe operation of generators.

Five of the ten deaths reported in Louisiana related to #HurricaneLaura are from the use of portable power generators indoors. Never use generators indoors, including in garages, carports, basements or other enclosed or partially enclosed areas, even with ventilation. #lagov pic.twitter.com/84yZcJpzGG  John Bel Edwards (@LouisianaGov) August 28, 2020

The two most recent carbon monoxide poising fatalities were confirmed on Sunday. The two individuals were an 84-year-old husband and 80-year-old wife in Allen Parish who were running their generator inside. On Friday, another five members from the same household were killed in the same manner according to Lake Charles Fire Chief Shawn Caldwell. The other three carbon monoxide poisoning deaths occurred at a Texas pool hall, according to KNOE.com.

President Donald Trump talks with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, as he arrives to view damage caused by Hurricane Laura, Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020, in Orange, Texas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump visited the damaged areas of Texas and Louisiana over the weekend and spent about two hours in Lake Charles while also visiting volunteers for the Cajun Navy. The Cajun Navy is an organization of volunteer groups consisting of members who use their private boats to assist in water-related search-and-rescue efforts and other charitable endeavors often tied to disasters.

Before he arrived, President Trump approved the state's major disaster declaration request for 23 parishes, thus opening FEMA assistance for impacted individuals and communities.

According to FEMA administrator Tony Robinson, more than 52,500 people had applied for the assistance by the end of the weekend.

During the storm, 19 babies from the Lake Charles Memorial Hospital were brought to different hospitals around the state, according to The AP. According to Dr. Juan Bossano, the babies, some of whom were on ventilators or feeding tubes, managed just fine through the storm.

Leah Upton, director of the NICU unit of Lake Charles Memorial Hospital, told ABC News that the team had just a few hours to move the babies to safer ground before Laura's wrath arrived.

"We had 19 critical babies and we're not just talking about carrying babies across town -- we're talking about the ventilator equipment, feeding tubes, breast milk, all the things these babies would need we had to transport," Upton said. "You have a duty and responsibility to these patients. These babies, we treat them like they're our own."

On Sunday, world-renowned chef Jose Andres and his World Central Kitchen team arrived in Lake Charles to prepare and serve nearly 8,000 meals to residents in the most-damaged areas.

Chef Andres created the World Central Kitchen to provide meals and hope to damaged areas in 2010 after the disastrous earthquake in Haiti.

"As our teams across the country mobilized to prepare for Hurricane Laura, the pair drove into Texas to get the kitchen going," the World Central Kitchen wrote on its website. "We prepared a combination of fresh sandwiches and hot meals to be taken into the locations that sustained the most damage just hours after the storm passed."

In Houston, another group of chefs created a fundraising initiative called "Htown meals for Hurricane Laura relief" on Facebook. Jessica Timmons of Cherry Block Craft Butcher told Eater Houston that the team's efforts raised over $14,000, which helped prepare around 2,400 meals.

"For us to be able to provide that support to another community - that's what hospitality is," Timmons said.

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
Earlier, the court ruled to remand in custody another suspect in the crime.

National Police in Ukraine have put two individuals on their wanted list on suspicion of organizing the arson attack on the car of RFE/RL's Skhemy (Schemes) investigative project in a Kyiv suburb.

That's according to the Kyiv region's PD chief Andriy Nebytov.

"We are searching for the two 'gentlemen' for organizing the arson attack on the car of theRFE/RL's Skhemy show. That's besides the one previously arrested by Brovary Court," Nebytov wrote on Facebook.

The two suspects are Yuriy Protsenko, DOB Feb 7, 1991, and Dmytro Obodovsky, DOB Oct 10, 1986.

Law enforcers say the men could have been acting as part of an organized criminal group.

"It won't be hard for journalists to establish which groups these men belonged to, in which actions they took part and which media outlets covered their activities very actively," Nebytov added, without further elaborating.

According to Nebytov, the police are working to identify those who ordered the attack.

"And these are exactly the persons who benefit off of sowing tension between the government, law enforcement, and the journalistic community by destroying the property of prominent public figures," he said.

Arson attack on Skhemy's car: background

On August 17, the car of the award-winning Skhemy investigative project was set ablaze outside the driver's home near Kyiv.

The President's Office has condemned the attack, calling it "unacceptable".

The U.S. Embassy has expressed concern over the recent incidents targeting journalists in Ukraine.

The police opened criminal proceedings on the fact of deliberate destruction or damage to property and shortly detained two suspects, one of whom the court ruled to remand the suspect in custody, setting bail at UAH 175,650.
Africas largest hydroelectric dam has caused severe tensions with Egypt, which has called it an existential threat and worries that it will reduce the countrys share of Nile waters. Ethiopia says the $4.6 billion dam will be an engine of development that will pull millions of people out of poverty. Sudan, in the middle, worries about the effects on its own dams though it stands to benefit from access to cheap electricity.
Q2 2020 Systemwide Pro Forma Sales, excluding divested non-core assets, increased 1.3% from Q1 2020 to $19m , despite an approximate 10% revenue impact due to the closure of Chicago dispensary in June because of looting.

Company achieves positive operating cash flow starting in the month of August and expects positive adjusted EBITDA starting Q3 2020. Company is poised to show significant operating leverage in 2021.

Company continues to see strong demand across its entire portfolio and anticipates accelerating revenue growth in Q3 and Q4 driven by recreational approvals in Massachusetts , continued expansion in Illinois and strong sales trends in Washington .

Company expects to finalize the divestiture activities of non-core assets with the closing of Maryland in early September.

Funded expansion plans underway in both Massachusetts and Illinois production facilities, as well as opening of second Illinois retail location in Calumet City , remain on schedule to be completed in Q4 2020.

Company remains in progressive discussions to strengthen its balance sheet through a financing/sale leaseback of its affiliated facilities in Washington state .

PHOENIX, Ariz., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - 4Front Ventures Corp. (CSE: FFNT) (OTCQX: FFNTF) ("4Front" or the "Company") today announced its financial results for the Second Quarter of 2020.

Second Quarter 2020 Financial Results Highlights

Total Systemwide Pro Forma Sales for the second quarter 2020 increased 1.3% quarter-over-quarter to $19m .

. IFRS Sales for the second quarter of 2020 were flat quarter-over-quarter at $12.7m .

. Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was a loss of $0.4m .

Business Update

Robust consumer demand continues across all operating markets. Recreational sales in Georgetown, MA progressing steadily since August 12th launch, sales at Mission South Chicago are on pace to climb back to pre-shut down levels since the re-opening on July 31st. Washington experienced record sales in July with that momentum carrying into August.

Company reaches cash flow goals ahead of schedule. Achieves positive operating cash flow in the month of August and expects to generate positive adjusted EBITDA for Q3 2020. Poised to show significant operating leverage in 2021.

All construction and expansion projects remain on budget and on schedule. Fully funded expansion plans at Elk Grove, IL and Georgetown, MA cultivation/production facilities are expected to be completed in Q4. Second Illinois retail location in Calumet City also remains on schedule for a Q4 opening.

Completion of non-core asset divestitures nearing completion. Divestitures of non-core retail assets in Arizona, Arkansas and Pennsylvania are complete. Close of Maryland divestitures expected to be completed in early September.

Washington Financing/Sale Leaseback Update. As of June 30, 2020, 4Front's balance sheet had cash and equivalents of $11.4m with total debt of $78.3m (excluding in-the-money convertible debt of $5.8m). The Company owns and controls highly attractive real estate in Washington state consisting of 176,000 square feet of state-of-the-art industrial space built for cultivation, production and distribution. The Company is in progressive discussions with multiple partners on this transaction.

Management Commentary

Leo Gontmakher, CEO of 4Front, said, "Entering 2020, we have been laser-focused on leaning out and replicating our low-cost cultivation and production model in targeted states. We enter the second half of 2020 with a focused business model, streamlined cost structure and fortified balance sheet that has set the stage for us to accelerate growth across our core markets of Washington, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan and California.

Mr. Gontmakher added: "Our strong business momentum leaving the second quarter will be aided by significant tailwinds as we enter the second half of this year. We welcomed the first adult-use sales in Massachusetts at our Georgetown facility on August 12th and anticipate final approvals for adult use sales at our Worcester facility imminently. Our cultivation/processing facility expansions in Massachusetts and Illinois as well as our second Illinois retail location are on-track for end of year completion. We continue to execute on our plans to flip to cash flow positive during the third quarter and have set the stage to exit this year in a position to drive meaningful operating leverage in our business. We are proving that our success in Washington can be replicated in every state in which we operate and are extremely confident in how the company is positioned as we enter this new season."

(Please see Note Regarding Non-IFRS Measures, Reconciliation, and Discussion below.) (*Please see the Financial Statement section below, and the Company's Second Quarter 2020 Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements and Management Discussion and Analysis ("MD&A"), available under the Company's SEDAR profile, for more information.)

Additional Details

As of the date of the MD&A, there were the equivalent of 506,379,437 Class A Subordinate Voting Shares outstanding when calculated as if all share classes were converted to Subordinate Voting Shares. For further details regarding 4Front's share structure, please see its profile at www.thecse.com.

Conference Call

The Company will also host a conference call and webcast on Monday, August 31, 2020 at 5:00 p.m. EDT to review its operational and financial results and provide an update on current business trends.

To join the call, dial 1-877-407-0792 toll free from the United States or Canada or 1-201-689-8263 if dialing from outside those countries. The webcast, which will include a slide deck, can be accessed at this link.

The call will be available for replay until Monday, September 7, 2020. To access the telephone replay, dial 844-512-2921 toll free from the United States and Canada, or 1-412-317-6671 if dialing from outside those countries, and use this replay pin number: 13708994.

Financial Statements

The condensed consolidated interim financial statements for the three and six months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019, have been prepared in accordance with IAS 34  Interim Financial Reporting. These statements have not been reviewed by an auditor.

4FRONT VENTURES CORP.





Formerly 4Front Holdings, LLC





Condensed Consolidated Interim Statements of Financial Position



As of June 30, 2020 and December 31, 2019 (unaudited)





Amounts expressed in thousands United States dollars unless otherwise stated













June 30,

December 31,

2020

2019 ASSETS





Current assets:





Cash $ 11,434

$ 5,789 Accounts receivable 560

677 Other receivables 261

325 Lease receivables 10,787

9,556 Inventory 12,447

9,138 Biological assets 2,190

2,187 Notes receivable 1,362

1,871 Prepaid expenses 1,845

2,198 Assets held for sale 7,336

- Total current assets 48,222

31,741







Restricted cash -

2,352 Property and equipment, net 40,977

41,822 Notes receivable 520

1,049 Lease receivables 22,876

23,944 Intangible assets 39,888

41,442 Goodwill 28,854

33,988 Right-of-use assets 30,991

20,476 Investments 759

759 Deposits 3,493

6,346 TOTAL ASSETS $ 216,580

$ 203,919







LIABILITIES AND EQUITY













LIABILITIES





Current liabilities:





Accounts payable and accrued expenses $ 6,591

$ 8,138 Taxes payable 4,198

1,609 Lease liability 971

972 Contingent consideraton payable 2,100

750 Notes payable and accrued interest 6,750

7,382 Liabilities held for sale 1,752

- Total current liabilities 22,362

18,851







Convertible notes 45,645

35,607 Notes payable and accrued interest 43,878

44,289 Long term notes payable 1,978

1,903 Long term accounts payable 1,600

1,600 Contingent consideration payable 2,994

4,714 Deferred tax liability 2,014

- Lease liability 31,758

20,976 TOTAL LIABILITIES 152,229

127,940







Equity (Deficiency)





Equity attributable to 4Front Ventures Corp. 238,995

252,656 Reserves 34,111

25,618 Deficit (208,464)

(202,090) Non-controlling interest (291)

(205) TOTAL EQUITY (DEFICIENCY) 64,351

75,979 TOTAL LIABILITIES AND EQUITY (DEFICIENCY) $ 216,580

$ 203,919

4FRONT VENTURES CORP.













Formerly 4Front Holdings, LLC











Condensed Consolidated Interim Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss



For The Three and Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 and 2019 (unaudited)



Amounts expressed in thousands United States dollars unless otherwise stated



















Three Months Ended

Six Months Ended

June 30, 2020

June 30, 2019

June 30, 2020

June 30, 2019















REVENUE $ 12,701

$ 2,518

$ 25,353

$ 4,605















Cost of goods sold, sale of grown and manufactured products (5,034)

(1,494)

(7,849)

(2,349) Cost of goods sold, sale of purchased products (3,012)

(529)

(4,846)

(676) Gross profit before fair value adjustments 4,655

495

12,658

1,580















Realized fair value included in inventory sold (436)

(321)

(573)

(112) Unrealized fair value gain on biological assets 1,480

169

1,853

495 Gross profit 5,699

343

13,938

1,963















OPERATING EXPENSES





























Selling and marketing expenses 5,633

1,359

11,817

3,206 General and administrative expenses 2,873

5,620

8,096

9,277 Depreciation and amortization 1,109

386

2,160

706 Equity based compensation 1,048

459

2,275

709 Total operating expenses 10,663

7,824

24,348

13,898















Loss from Operations (4,964)

(7,481)

(10,410)

(11,935)















Other Income (Expense)













Interest income 8

-

64

- Interest expense (3,685)

(936)

(6,953)

(1,123) Accretion 158

-

331

- Gain on sale of subsidiary 9,559

-

11,211

- Gain on restructuring of notes receivable 281

-

281

- Other income 2,456

2,500

2,456

2,500 Foreign exchange loss (55)

-

(18)

- Total Other Income (Expense) 8,722

1,564

7,372

1,377















Net Loss from Continuing Operations Before Income Taxes 3,758

(5,917)

(3,038)

(10,558) Income Tax Expense (2,179)

(239)

(2,923)

(452) Net Loss from Continuing Operations, Net of Taxes 1,579

(6,156)

(5,961)

(11,010)















Net (Loss) Income from Discontinued Operations, Net of Taxes 127

(351)

(499)

(950)















Net Loss 1,706

(6,507)

(6,460)

(11,960) Net Loss Attributable To Non-Controlling Interest (68)

(24)

(86)

(110)















Net Loss Attributable to Shareholders $ 1,774

$ (6,483)

$ (6,374)

$ (11,850)















Basic and Diluted Loss Per Share $ -

$ (0.02)

$ (0.01)

$ (0.03) Weighted Average Number of Shares Outstanding, Basic and Diluted 506,379,437

340,370,271

506,379,437

340,370,271

Note Regarding Non-IFRS Measures, Reconciliation, and Discussion

In this press release, 4Front refers to certain non-IFRS financial measures such as Systemwide Pro Forma Revenue and Adjusted EBITDA. These measures do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS and may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. 4Front defines Systemwide Pro Forma Revenue as total revenue plus revenue from entities with which the Company has a management contract, or effectively similar relationship (net of any management fee or effectively similar revenue) but does not consolidate the financial results of per IFRS 10  Consolidated Financial Statements. 4Front considers this measure to be an appropriate indicator of the growth and scope of the business.

Adjusted EBITDA is defined by the Company as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization less share-based compensation expense and one-time charges related to acquisition and financing related costs, excluding fair value adjustments for biological assets. 4Front considers these measures to be an important indicator of the financial strength and performance of our business. The following tables provide a reconciliation of each of the non-IFRS measures to its closest IFRS measure.

About 4Front Ventures Corp.

4Front (CSE: FFNT) (OTCQX: FFNTF) is a national multi-state cannabis operator and retailer, with a market advantage in mass-produced, low-cost quality branded cannabis products. 4Front manufactures and distributes a portfolio of over 25 cannabis brands including Marmas, Crystal Clear, Funky Monkey, Pebbles, and the Pure Ratios wellness collection, distributed through retail outlets and their chain of strategically positioned Mission branded dispensaries.

Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, 4Front has operations in Illinois, Massachusetts, California, Michigan and Washington state. From plant genetics to the cannabis retail experience, 4Front's team applies expertise across the entire cannabis value chain. For more information, visit 4Front's website

This news release was prepared by management of 4Front Ventures, which takes full responsibility for its contents. The Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy of this news release. Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

Forward Looking Statements

Statements in this news release that are forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed here and elsewhere in 4Front Ventures' periodic filings with securities regulators. When used in this news release, words such as "will, could, plan, estimate, expect, intend, may, potential, believe, should," and similar expressions, are forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, statements related to future developments and the business and operations of 4Front Ventures, developments with respect to legislative developments in the United States, expectations regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, future revenue or Adjusted EBITDA expectations, statements regarding when or if any contemplated or in-progress transactions will close or if/when required regulatory approvals are attained, and other statements regarding future developments of the business. The closing of the transactions described in this news release, including the divesture of Pennsylvania and Maryland assets and the sale of convertible debt, is subject to customary conditions and there can be no guarantee that such transactions will close.

Although 4Front Ventures has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, there can be other factors that cause results, performance or achievements not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended, including, but not limited to: dependence on obtaining regulatory approvals; investing in target companies or projects which have limited or no operating history and are engaged in activities currently considered illegal under U.S. federal laws; change in laws; limited operating history; reliance on management; requirements for additional financing; competition; hindering market growth and state adoption due to inconsistent public opinion and perception of the medical-use and adult-use marijuana industry and; regulatory or political change.

There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate or that management's expectations or estimates of future developments, circumstances or results will materialize. As a result of these risks and uncertainties, the results or events predicted in these forward-looking statements may differ materially from actual results or events.

Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this news release are made as of the date of this release. 4Front Ventures disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise such information, except as required by applicable law, and 4Front Ventures does not assume any liability for disclosure relating to any other company mentioned herein.

SOURCE 4Front

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The Chinese troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh on August 29 and 30. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo. Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on the ground.

A Brigade Commander level Flag Meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues. "Indian troops detected activity by a sizeable number of PLA soldiers during the night. It was clear the intention was to change the status quo and move inwards but Indian soldiers pre-empted the move and thwarted the attempt by quick deployment of more troops in the area," Army sources said.

Check all the latest updates on BusinessToday.In live blog

1.31 PM: What exactly happened?

On August 29 late night, 150-200 Chinese soldiers' movement noticed trying to change the status quo. China was setting up more camps along the Southern bank, where the clash took place. Indian Army had picked up movements and were able to thwart the Chinese advancements, say Army sources.

1.21 PM: China Foreign Ministry, on border dispute with India, says Chinese border troops never cross the Line of Actual Control, and that the two sides in communication regarding conditions on the ground.

1.14 PM: The release of the Indian statement to the media seems to signal the confrontation was serious, says Brahma Chellaney.
Third-level colleges will be able to charge the full 3,000 in fees to their students even if they severely restrict access to campus and force them to stay at home, Education Minister Norma Foley has said.

Ms Foley has been called on by the Opposition to make clear that where so-called 'blended learning' circumstances will operate that a reduced fee would apply.

People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett called on Ms Foley to say if it will be ensured that those going to third-level education in September in blended learning settings will not have to pay the current level of registration fees.

However, Ms Foley has made clear the colleges will have the freedom to charge what they want up to the 3,000 and, with the entire sector in financial turmoil, there is no chance of reductions applying.

Some estimate the sector could be facing a financial hole of up to 500m because of Covid-19.

Any determination as to the level of fees to be charged is a matter for each institution in accordance with its own particular operational conditions and circumstances in ensuring education provision for students through this pandemic, said Ms Foley.

At present, under the free fees scheme, the exchequer provides funding toward the tuition fee costs of eligible undergraduate students, with students paying the student contribution.

Since the introduction of the free fees system in the 1990s, the colleges were allowed to continue to charge a registration or student contribution, which is currently 3,000. The last change was in the 2014/2015 academic year.

Ms Foley has said planning for models of blended learning in colleges is taking place against a backdrop of an evolving public health environment and will continue to be monitored and adapted as required to ensure the health and safety of all students and staff.

The balance between face-to-face and online will vary across programmes and will depend on factors such as the disciplinary teaching and learning needs and the numbers of students registered on individual programmes as well as the practical/theoretical balance of learning outcomes in the programme, she said.

Mr Boyd Barrett and other Opposition TDs have called for the fees to be reduced in circumstances whereby students are forced to remain at home.

The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has also called for a reduction in fees as a result of academic changes in 2020/2021, and for a wider debate around third-level fees and funding.

At present, the Exchequer pays all, or part of, the contribution on behalf of almost 50% of students eligible for free fees via the student support grant.

Where students do not meet the eligibility criteria of the free fees initiative, for example, full-time undergraduate students who do not qualify for the free tuition fees, part-time undergraduates, or any postgraduate students, it is a matter for the higher education institution, as an autonomous body, to determine which fee rate is applicable for students, said Ms Foley.
At least 21 undocumented immigrants were found hiding inside a cargo train by U.S. Border Patrol agents near the Mexico border with Texas.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the discovery took place early Friday when the Hebbronville Station was contacted by the railroad company about the group of migrants who were in the train.

After coordinating a plan to stop the migrants from being smuggled further into the country, the grain hopper train was stopped near Bruni, Texas.

CBP was tipped off about a group traveling inside a cargo train after it crossed the United States-Mexico border on Friday. A total of 21 undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Cuba, Honduras, Ecuador and Guatemala, and two American minors were detained

The 21 undocumented migrants are citizens of Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador, Cuba and Guatemala

The migrants along with two United States juveniles were safely pulled out of the train and taken into custody, CBP said.

The 21 migrants were natives of Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador, Cuba and Guatemala. None of the individuals were wearing personal protective equipment to protect each other from possibly being infected with COVID-19.

'Smugglers put 21 people inside of a grain hopper, a confined and extremely dangerous space, and are now facing felony prosecution,' Laredo Sector Chief Patrol Agent Matthew J. Hudak said. 'This case highlights how careless smugglers are with people's lives. They are willing to put multiple lives at risk to make a profit.'

Apprehensions at the southwestern border with Mexico have increased over the last three months after CBP registered 16,162 arrests in April.

Border Patrol agents detained 21,553 undocumented immigrants in May, 30,721 migrants in June and an additional 38,347 undocumented individuals in July.
Some four million Canadian workers will no longer worry about falling from the earnings cliff. The federal government will unveil a new $37-billion income-support measure to replace the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).

According to Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough, the new scheme acknowledges the uncertainty beyond 2021. Three temporary measures will go along with the transition to the retooled Employment Insurance (EI) system.

EI transition

The simplified EI will now be available to more Canadians, including those previously ineligible due to insufficient qualifying hours. Anyone eligible for EI who lost their jobs will get $400 per week for a minimum of 26 weeks.

To qualify, you must have worked 120 hours in the prior 52 weeks (or since the last claim). Recipients can work and claim EI, although EI regular benefits reduce by 50 cents for each dollar of earnings, up to 90% of prior earnings.

CRB

Self-employed individuals, contracts, and gig economy workers who are ineligible for EI can apply for the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB). The taxable benefit amount is also $400 per week for up to 26 weeks. CRB and the other two new programs will be available for one year, starting September 27, 2020.

CRSB

Suppose youre an employee or self-employed individual with no paid sick leave. In that case, the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (CRSB) will provide a $500 per week taxable benefit for up to two weeks. You must attest that you cant work either due to illness and must self-isolate due to COVID-19.

CRCB

The Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit (CRCB) is for those who will miss work to care for a family member due to COVID-19. The taxable benefit is $500 per week for up to 26 weeks. While CRCB is sharable among household members, only one household member can apply in any one week. You cant get the CRCB if theres a facility available, but you keep a dependent home.

Permanent substitute

If youre back to work and earning, begin covering your back against another crisis. Save and invest in a high-yield asset like Pembina Pipeline (TSX:PPL)(NYSE:PBA). This energy stock pays a 7.67% dividend. A $50,000 investment will produce $3,835 in permanent income.

Story continues

While the $18.26 billion company is not an oil producer, it provides transportation and midstream services in North America. Pembina counts among the stocks that have increased ordinary cash dividends every year for five years. Its capable of maintaining the same payout for at least two straight years within those five years.

Pembinas highly contracted commercial framework makes it resilient despite the lower activity of oil producers in 2020. Because of the temporary decline in the physical volume of crude oil and natural gas liquid (NGL), revenue and net income in the first half of 2020 fell 22.1% and 42% versus the same period in 2019.

Management expects to generate more substantial cash flows from its take-or-pay arrangements and cost-of-service contracts once volumes pick up in the coming quarters.

Preparation and protection

Youre better off creating permanent income if your resources will allow. Prepare for and protect yourself from a future crisis. Dont expect the federal government to intervene every time theres an economic meltdown.

The post Canadians, $37 Billion CRA CERB Replacement Is Coming Your Way appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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Fool contributor Christopher Liew has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends PEMBINA PIPELINE CORPORATION.

The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2020
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) today announced it is leveraging its new fundraising technology to help support under-resourced students returning to school. Through its first-ever digital fundraising program, Chipotle will support students across the country by donating 33% of fundraiser event sales back to local educational organizations using unique promotional codes. Over nearly a decade, three fourths of the brands in-restaurant fundraisers have been school related and raised more than $50 million for education-driven causes. Due to limitations with in-restaurant dining over the last few months, Chipotle has postponed these activities and is now introducing an online component to accompany the in-restaurant option.

Through its first-ever digital fundraising program, Chipotle will support students by donating 33% of fundraiser event sales back to local educational organizations using unique promotional codes. From August 31 through September 27, guests can round-up their change to the next highest dollar amount on the Chipotle app or Chipotle.com to support Kids In Need Foundation. The funds raised will go directly toward laptops and school supplies that will be delivered in Chipotle-branded backpacks with free meal cards to under-resourced junior high and high school students across the U.S.

To learn more about Chipotle's local fundraising program, fans can visit: community.chipotle.com

"The new digital fundraising program is another example of our relentless push to replicate the Chipotle restaurant experience digitally," said Curt Garner, Chief Technology Officer. "Customers can now contribute to impactful organizations in their community through delivery and pick-up orders."

Chipotle will also leverage its real change feature on the Chipotle app and Chipotle.com to support Kids In Need Foundation (www.kinf.org), a national non-profit organization that partners with teachers and students in underserved schools to provide the resources needed for teachers to teach and learners to learn. From August 31 through September 27, guests can round-up their change to the next highest dollar amount on the Chipotle app or Chipotle.com to support under-resourced junior high and high school students returning to remote learning. The funds raised will go directly toward laptops and school supplies that will be delivered in Chipotle-branded backpacks with free meal cards to students across the U.S.

"As a digitally forward company, we understand the importance of equipping students with capable technology to aid the effectiveness of virtual learning this school year," said Chris Brandt, Chief Marketing Officer. "Our partnership with the Kids In Need Foundation combined with our guests' support through the real change digital fundraising program on the Chipotle app will broaden opportunities for many kids as well as their communities."

"As a society, our reliance on technology continues to grow. With many students learning part-time or exclusively at home, that dependence is mirrored in our schools. Without access to laptops and connectivity, under-resourced students are experiencing a gap in their education," said Corey Gordon, CEO of Kids In Need Foundation. "As a well-known national brand and leader in its local communities, we are grateful that Chipotle is acknowledging the challenges students are facing due to the digital divide and supporting those students with the technology they need to learn."

Computer Access in the U.S.

More than 7,000,000 children in the U.S. do not have computers at home*, and this lack of access disproportionately affects children from Black, Latino and Native American households**. The achievement gap among these households is expected to worsen as the country leans on virtual learning to begin the school year***. Through its support for the Kids In Need Foundation, Chipotle hopes to narrow the digital divide and provide laptops for students without computers across the country.

Continuing to Drive Real Change

From August 8 to August 31, Chipotle spotlighted Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), an American non-profit organization that supports and represents students attending its 47 member-schools that include publicly-supported Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), medical schools, and law schools. Since June, Chipotle has leveraged the real change feature to raise more than $1,400,000 for organizations supporting underserved communities.

ABOUT CHIPOTLE

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE: CMG) is cultivating a better world by serving responsibly sourced, classically-cooked, real food with wholesome ingredients without artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. Chipotle had over 2,650 restaurants as of June 30, 2020, in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Germany and is the only restaurant company of its size that owns and operates all its restaurants. With more than 91,000 employees passionate about providing a great guest experience, Chipotle is a longtime leader and innovator in the food industry. Chipotle is committed to making its food more accessible to everyone while continuing to be a brand with a demonstrated purpose as it leads the way in digital, technology and sustainable business practices. Steve Ells, founder and former executive chairman, first opened Chipotle with a single restaurant in Denver, Colorado in 1993. For more information or to place an order online, visit WWW.CHIPOTLE.COM.

ABOUT KIDS IN NEED FOUNDATION:

Kids In Need Foundation provides the support and tools needed for teachers to teach and learners to learn. A quality education is the best gateway to opportunity and students cannot achieve their full potential without it. With a focus on supporting teachers and students in schools most in need nationwide, Kids In Need Foundation believes that every child in America should have equal opportunity and access to a quality education. Founded in 1995, Kids In Need Foundation, a national 501(c)(3) charitable organization, has distributed $1 billion in school supplies since its inception. For more information, visit KINF.org, and join us on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram: @KidsInNeed.

SOURCE Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.

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(TNS)  More than a decade after experimenting with free municipal Wi-Fi, the city of Dayton wants to give it another try as COVID-19 increasingly forces people to use the Internet for medical appointments, work, learning, communication and staying in touch.The city is looking at using some of its federal coronavirus relief funds to offer free wireless Internet in northwest Dayton to provide access to telemedicine platforms and remote health care services during and after the pandemic, Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said.Dayton in the mid-2000s provided free Internet access downtown and unsuccessfully tried to expand coverage to the entire city. The project failed mainly because the technology was in its infancy and the infrastructure costs were burdensome, officials said.But city leaders believe this time around would be different.The technology is cheaper and better, Whaley said.Dayton has been allocated about $8 million in federal CARES Act money, which Congress approved to reimburse coronavirus-related costs.The city soon plans to issue a notice of funding to let companies and providers know it has at least $1.4 million in relief assistance that it wants to put toward providing free wireless Internet in northwest Dayton, Whaley said. The city wants to see what kind of proposals it gets to provide long-term, municipal Wi-Fi in a part of the city where many residents do not have reliable Internet service, she said.For example, a Montgomery County Educational Services Center survey of school districts conducted in the spring following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic showed nearly 1,500 Dayton Public Schools students  nearly 12 percent of the district  lacked a home computer or tablet, a reliable Internet connection, or both.Not only does northwest Dayton have poor broadband Internet coverage, the area also does not have convenient and nearby access to health care services, Whaley said.That combination is a major concern, she said, because telemedicine can help address gaps in health care services by allowing people to see a doctor or consult with medical professionals over the Internet.CARES money is used for helping during COVID times, but we also know we have a big health care issue obviously, so this is a way we can use telehealth to be helpful, Whaley said.Good Samaritan Hospital closed in mid-2018 in Northwest Dayton.The city has until the end of 2020 to spend its CARES Act dollars, but Whaley said an investment in free Wi-Fi could have much longer-lasting benefits. The money possibly could pay for setting up the infrastructure for municipal Wi-Fi, she said, and then the city might seek to partner with foundations or other organizations to pay for Internet service moving forward.Free Wi-Fi is available in the Oregon District and at library branches, some recreation centers, coffee shops, restaurants and various stores. In the past, other communities, including Oakwood and Vandalia, also offered municipal Wi-Fi.In spring of 2005, Dayton was among the first U.S. cities to offer free wireless Internet service. The pilot program, a public-private partnership, covered most of downtown, including Courthouse Square, Day Air Ballpark, RiverScape, Webster Station and sections of the Oregon Business District and Sinclair Community College. Local company HarborLink Network installed radio transmitters around downtown to transmit the citys wireless signal.People could access the free Internet on streets, sidewalks, green spaces and other outdoor public areas. Generally, the signal strength was not strong enough to penetrate into homes and buildings.The free service was supposed to be funded through advertising. Users were presented ads when they logged onto the system and every 12 minutes as they clicked between websites.By 2006, Dayton wanted to expand municipal wireless service to the entire city. The city sought bids for the project, and HarborLink won the contract in 2007.Under its agreement with the city, HarborLink was to cover all costs of installing and operating the system, and the company planned to make money by selling ads.The project was expected to take a couple of years to implement. But instead, it stalled and fell apart.HarborLink President Rick Tangeman recently told this newspaper that it became clear the project was not financially feasible.Full citywide coverage proved unattainable based on the resources made available for the project, Tangeman said, and installing and maintaining the necessary hardware and technology would have been too expensive.The potential ad revenue simply would not cover the cost of the required investments, he said.The amount of radios and infrastructure ? we were looking at millions and millions of dollars, he said.Tangeman said technology today is much better and cheaper and he believes free municipal Internet could work if it focuses on creating wireless hot spots in areas where people congregate, work and live.The big thing now is hot zones and pocketed areas of Wi-Fi, and I think youll see that more of a trend, especially as a municipal type of offering, he said.
The summers of 2012 in Delhi was unusually hot and humid. The monsoons had hit the Western Ghats. It was a while before the national capital would get its first pre-monsoon showers when a political storm hit the Lutyens zone out of nowhere.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had been in discussions with like-minded parties to finalise Presidential candidate to replace Pratibha Patil in Rashtrapati Bhawan. Deliberations, in true Congress style, dragged for weeks.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee met Sonia Gandhi at 10, Janpath, in the second week of June. She walked out to a posse of cameras waiting outside to announce that she has been informed by the Congress that finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is partys first choice for the Presidents post, followed by Vice President Hamid Ansari.

Later in the evening, Banerjee drove down to SP President Mulayam Singh Yadavs residence on Krishna Menon Marg to hold a joint presser.

The two announced support for former President APJ Abdul Kalam, PM Manmohan Singh or former LS speaker Somnath Chatterjee. Both SP and TMC were in power in their respective states and seemed to be weighing in their combined strength in the presidential collegium.

It remains a mystery till date as to why the Trinamool Leader made public her priviledged conversations with Congress president Sonia Gandhi that afternoon. Inadvertently or otherwise, her pronouncements however forced Congress hands in endorsing Mukherjee for the top constitutional post.

Within hours of the dramatic press conference where alternative panel of three was suggested, Mulayam Singh was in touch with Congress leaders.

The next meeting between the SP chief and Mamata Banerjee never materialised. And Mukherjee was unanimously announced as UPAs nominee after SP chief endorsed Congress candidate then next day.

We will also probably never know whether Mukherjee and Ansari were Congress pick in that order or not.

But Mukherjee looked a relieved man once his name was endorsed by the ruling alliance. In his interactions with journalists thereafter, he would fondly recall his struggle to reach school when the river was in spare. As a child he would plant a coin hoping to reap a rich harvest some day in the future. And how his mother impressed upon him to seek success through education and not by planting coins.

He would share a few trade secrets as well. Especially the mental exercises which helped him develop the fabled elephantine memory. Try to recall what you did yesterday; he would tell those in audience. And then go back by another day; and then another. The longer one can go back in time, sharper your memory becomes, he would say, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief.

Slowly yet steadily Mukherjee built his campaign for the presidential polls. The Left parties had no objection in supporting him. The Bengal CM finally had to endorse the son of the soil. Sharad Pawar was Pranab Mukherjees campaign manager. Former LS speaker PA Sangma was roped in by the NDA to challenge Mukherjee as the joint candidate for the opposition.

Many in the NDA crossed over to support Pranab Mukherjee. Shiv Sena, for instance, broke ranks with the NDA. So did a handful of MLAs close to Karnataka BJP leaser BS Yediyurappa. The two had developed a good rapport after the then finance ministers advice on a personal matter came in handy for the Karnataka CM.

A perpetual number two in many Congress government, Mukherjee finally stepped ahead of the Prime Ministers position in protocol.
Reuters

MOSCOWYegor Zhukov is the face of a new generation of Putin opponents using social media as well as student rallies to stand up to the regime. On Sunday night, he was beaten up outside his home in Moscow hours after posting a YouTube video criticizing Putin. In a statement to the police, he said: I have not suffered any property damage, but my face is broken.

An image of the 22-year-olds bruised face, with bleeding lips and a swollen eye, has already gone viral onlinean instant new symbol of Putins latest crackdown.

The countrys leading opposition figure, Aleksey Navalny, was already comatose in a hospital bed in Berlin, fighting to regain consciousness after what German doctors describe as exposure to a poisonous substance whose effects are consistent with a nerve agent.

This has been a summer of doom for Putins opponents. The Russian president prevailed in a constitutional referendum in July, which is likely to keep him in power until 2036. Since then, Russians have watched bloody police crackdowns on protesters in Belarus, including alleged cases of torture and rape, ordered by Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian dictator now being aided and abetted by Putin. Last week, the country was horrified to wake up to the news of Navalnys poisoning in Siberia. The attack on Zhukovwho is really just a kidonly added to a widespread sense of repression.

On Sunday, Zhukov posted a video on his YouTube channel, which has 227,000 subscribers, about a crackdown against Putins critics at his university, the Higher School of Economics. The school used to be a bastion of free speech in a country where that is increasingly rare.

Zhukov, who was arrested last year during anti-government protests and threatened with eight years in prison, was due to begin his studies on the Masters program this fall.

The video was posted in response to university administrators who abruptly told him that he would not be enrolled this year, even though he had already been accepted and had paid to start the course.

Story continues

Almost 200,000 people online watched Zhukov say: Clearly, no professional person, who is serious about political science, would describe Vladimir Putins regime as effective.

Within hours, the student opposition leader was badly beaten outside his house in Moscow by unknown assailants.

In the two decades of the Putin era, Russia has seen crackdowns on the media, human rights defenders, and opposition parties. Universities are the latest target. Professors and students believe potential students are blacklisted from enrolling at the Higher School of Economics by the FSB, Russias successor to the KGB.

Authorities must be aware of Russias history: students have always united in political movements, former Higher School of Economics professor and founder of Transparency International, Yelena Pamfilova, told The Daily Beast. There is a giant crisis and not only in Russia: people in trouble, like Zhukov, want to call police for help but there is no trust for police and that is very dangerous.

Intellectuals have long used the Higher School of Economics as a safe space where progressive political and economic ideas could be formulated and shared. Recently, all professors with skeptical attitudes toward the government have lost their contracts, Zhukov said. Our opposition student media was deprived of its status as a student organization.

Last summer, Zhukov, who is morer libertarian than liberal, joined protests triggered by numerous violations at Moscow City Council elections. He was arrested and charged with public appeals for extremism. He could have been sentenced to eight years in prison, but he became a cause celebre with thousands of students, professors, and ordinary Russians protesting that the charges should be dropped.

The case against him was eventually dismissed but the university took action to avoid a repeat of the controversy, and in January all students and university staff were banned from making any political declarations in public or engaging in political activity.

Zhukov believes the university was forced to make these announcements by the authorities. The government got scared of our unity, that we were together with the universitys management. It is hard for me to believe that people who for years built the most liberal university of the country, all of a sudden turned into the guardians of the government, he said.

It is unclear who or what scared the university management into the sudden policy change, but some of its best professors stopped working, including Yulia Galyamina, a linguist and opposition leader. Police broke her jaw, cracked her teeth, and gave her a severe concussion when she took part in a protest.

Yelena Lukyanova, another professor who left the university, said kicking out Zhukov had forced the crackdown into the public eye. At least they told the man everything openly, while all we heard was some indirect hints, she wrote on social media. Lukyakova and three other former professors have started the Free University, an independent educational project free of political pressure and censorship.

There will be no disloyal students at the Higher School of Economics, we spoke about these horrible changes six months ago, and here is the nail in the coffin of my alma mater, wrote former student Roman Kiselyov-Augustus on Facebook. They can ban you from studying for your political activity.

Zhukov returned home on Monday still badly bruised, but doctors said there would be no lasting damage from the attack. From the hospital, he had repeated the favorite slogan of former Putin nemesis Boris Nemtsov: Russia will be free.

The Russian opposition leader was assassinated beneath the walls of the Kremlin in February 2015, when Zhukov was 18 years old.

In neighboring Belarus, crowds are also demanding freedom after discredited elections. More than 100,000 protesters marched across the bridge in Minsk to the presidential residence, demanding Lukashenkos resignation on Sunday.

The Kremlin had stayed quiet for the first couple of weeks of the protests, while hundreds of Belarusians were detained, many beaten and tortured. Putin has since signaled growing support for the Lukashenko regime.

To demonstrate Moscows backing, Putin called Lukashenko on Sunday with birthday greetings, while a crowd of protesters was outside chanting, "Happy birthday, Lukashenko, you are a rat!"

Putin has also promised to send men from Moscow to help Lukashenko halt extremist activity in the republic if an urgent need arises, a spokesman said.

Veteran human rights defender and chairwoman of the Civic Assistance Committee, Svetlana Gannushkina, said the two autocrats from the former Soviet Union had been emboldened by President Donald Trumps calls to violently put down protests in the U.S.

Looking at Trump, they think it is OK to solve problems with the opposition outside of the rule of law, she said.

In Russia the first target for the Kremlins reprisal is always the intelligentsia. Until recently, Zhukovs university, the Higher School of Economics, was the source of progressive liberal ideas. Clearly it was an unpleasant place for the authoritarian government.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Taliban prisoners are released from Pul-e-Charkhi jail in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2020. Afghanistan released the first 80 of a final 400 Taliban prisoners, paving the way for negotiations between the warring sides in Afghanistanas protracted conflict, the government said Friday, Aug. 14, 2020. (Afghanistan's National Security Council via AP)

The Taliban have rejected Western objections to a prisoner swap of militant fighters who killed international troops, saying Afghanistan's international backers should not interfere.

Plans to free convicted Taliban fighters who killed French and Australian nationals, as part of a trust-building swap to usher in peace talks, have caused anger in Paris and Canberra.

Their objections are reported to have slowed the release of the prisoners by both sides, delaying the start of official talks between the insurgent movement and the Afghan government.

The Taliban's lead negotiator told the Telegraph the French and Australian government should not interfere and accused the Afghan government of using the objections to break the detainee deal.

France and Australia have no right to interfere in Afghanistan's internal issues, Sher Mohammed Abas Stanekzai, the Taliban's lead negotiator, told the Telegraph. These soldiers are our lions.

"These might have killed a few soldiers but the French and Australians killed hundreds of our Afghans. This is just an excuse. We are very serious about prisoners and we call on the USA to release the prisoners as soon as possible.

February's troop withdrawal deal with Washington outlined the turning loose of 5,000 Taliban fighters in exchange for 1,000 government prisoners.

The swap has recently stalled over the last 320 militants, including some sentenced for notorious suicide bombings and atrocities against Afghan civilians, and a handful accused of killing foreign troops and civilians.

The Taliban has said talks with Kabul to find a political settlement to the conflict will not go ahead until the release is complete.

Those on the list for release are reported to include the killers of Bettina Goislard, a French United Nations worker murdered in 2003, as well as militants involved in the killing of several French soldiers.

The French government has said it strongly opposes the release of individuals sentenced for crimes against French nationals.

Story continues

Another prisoner due for release is a rogue Afghan soldier called Hekmatullah who shot dead three Australian soldiers, L/Cpl Stjepan Milosevic, Spr James Martin and Pte Robert Poate in 2012. Scott Morrison, Australia's prime minister, has said Hekmatullah should never be released.

Three Afghans accused linked to insider attacks on US troops are also reported to be among those up for release, though Washington in its eagerness to push a talks process has not publicly objected.

The UK's Foreign Office has refused to say if any are accused of killing British nationals.

Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president, earlier this month held a grand council to seek a mandate for the release of the final 400 prisoners. He has said while they still pose a threat, their freedom is the cost of peace. Yet after the approval, the releases halted again amid international objections and an Afghan government demand that 20 army commandos are freed.

Ms Goislards family have said news of her killers' release came like a slap across the face".

Her younger sister, Julie, said the Goislard family asked the Afghan government to spare the lives of Zia Ahmad and Abdul Nabi, after they were sentenced to death in 2004.

We did that because Bettina was against the death penalty. But we never envisaged that they could be set free. Its the wheeling and dealing between the Americans and the Taliban that shocks us the most. The memory of the victims is being trampled on for the sake of an agreement. We feel horribly alone since we got this news. I just dont understand.

The top peace negotiator for the Afghan government, Abdullah Abdullah, on Thursday said talks between the warring sides would begin in early September, though made no mention of releasing the final prisoners.

Mohammad Hanif Atmar, acting foreign minister, also said major hurdles including the release of prisoners from both sides were not far from resolution. "It seems that most of the hurdles have been either removed or we are in the process of building consensus on a solution. I am cautiously optimistic that this will not be a further hurdle on the way," he said during an online seminar hosted by Washington-based United States Institute of Peace.
The spread of the coronavirus continued to trend downward Sunday, and officials are urging San Antonians not to party large on Labor Day weekend, traditionally the last fling of summer  and this year, the last day before most schools throughout Bexar County open to in-person classes for small groups of children.

Our students, parents, teachers, schools, families and neighborhoods are counting on us to do our part, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a Facebook post.

The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District reported 110 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, down from 208 reported Saturday and 272 on Friday. The new total for cases in Bexar County is 46,401 since the pandemic began in mid-March.

Metro Health also verified nine COVID-19 deaths Sunday, but they all occurred between July 6 and Aug. 14. None occurred over the weekend.

Required Reading: Get San Antonio education news sent directly to your inbox

The number of new cases Sunday is markedly lower than the seven-day average of 164 new cases, itself a fraction of the 900 or so being reported daily a month ago.

Noting the optimistic trends, the San Antonio Independent School District announced last week that it will reopen schools Sept. 8 to as many as 10 percent of its students as long as the improvements seen in the local COVID-19 health metrics are maintained over the next week. If the statistics continue to look good, the district two weeks later will add another 10 percent of students.

We are grateful for this opportunity to be able to slowly reopen our campuses for in-person learning, Superintendent Pedro Martinez said.

As the wave of coronavirus cases has slowed, officials have continued to issue warnings of caution as Labor Day weekend approaches, typically a time of festive gatherings, which some fear could set off another surge that might set back the reopening of schools.

COVID-19 cases spiked after Fourth of July celebrations, Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff have noted.

Residents are urged to continue social distancing, avoid gathering with others outside their households, cover their noses and mouths with masks when out in public and wash their hands frequently.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio area schools still working to get every student online

The number of patients with the virus in San Antonio hospitals remained steady at 366 Sunday, although 28 were newly admitted. There were 162 in intensive care units, down from 174 the day before, and 103 on ventilators, down from 111.

According to local officials, 16 percent of staffed hospital beds are available.

The deceased reported Sunday included a Hispanic man in his 70s and a Black man in his 60s. The other seven had no race or ethnicity listed: four women in their 70s, two men in their 60s and a woman in her 50s.

Five had underlying medical conditions, and the other four had unknown medical histories, city officials said. Seven died at hospitals, one at home and one at a nursing home.

That puts the Bexar County death toll at 802.

State health authorities put the total much higher; they say Bexar has had 1,078 deaths from COVID-19. Metro Healths count is lower because the agency is still investigating 276 of the deaths listed by the state to ensure the deceased was a resident of Bexar County and tested positive for the virus.

Area reports

Webb County, which includes Laredo, confirmed one new death related to COVID-19, a woman in her 20s who died Saturday. Since the start of the pandemic, 243 people have died in Webb County. There are 900 active cases there and 139 current hospitalizations, officials reported.

A total of 10,814 people have tested positive for the virus in Webb County.

Hidalgo County, farther down the Rio Grande, reported that over the past two days, six more residents died of complications from the virus and 156 more have tested positive.

The deaths were of two men in their 70s, two women in their 60s, a man in his 50s and a man in his 30s. Two were from Hidalgo, and the others were from Edinburg, Mercedes, San Juan and an undisclosed city.

There have been 1,162 COVID-19 deaths in Hidalgo County, giving that border county one of the highest death rates in the state. Since the pandemic started in March, it has tallied 27,408 total positive cases; 2,658 of them were active Sunday.

Alia Malik covers several school districts and the University of Texas at San Antonio To read more from Alia, become a subscriber. amalik@express-news.net | Twitter: @AliaAtSAEN
Guwahati, Sep 1 : The opposition Congress and AIUDF on Monday staged a walk out on the opening day of the four-day session of the Assam Assembly after the speaker disallowed their adjournment motion on the COVID-19 pandemic and its management in the state.

Opposition leader Debabrata Saikia demanded a discussion on the pandemic and related issues, referring to Finance and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's recent statement on the effect on the economy because of the pandemic.

Sarma, on Saturday while talking to the media, had said that the state would suspend a host of freebies given to COVID-19 patients as the state government has been facing financial crunch due to the rising expenditures in Covid-19 management.

The opposition leader told the house that Covid-19 cases are rising in Assam despite the lockdown and various other steps. Opposing the adjournment motion, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said the pandemic has not only affected Assam but the entire country and the world.

"Government is ready to discuss the issue but not through an adjournment motion. I request the opposition parties to bring it in any other form" the minister told the opposition parties.

Rejecting the motion, Speaker Hitendra Nath Goswami said the matter is not of urgent nature as the pandemic is happening for the last four-five months.

After the speaker rejected the opposition motion and went to the other businesses of the house, the members of the Congress and AIUDF (All India United Democratic Front) walked out from the house.

The four-day session of Assam Assembly began on Monday in a very low key manner with just 50 per cent of MLAs present inside the house to maintain social distancing norms for preventing the spread of Covid-19.

Wearing masks, all Ministers and MLAs, senior officials, employees and Journalists attended the house.

On the first day, 20 bills were tabled by the government.

The Business Advisory Committee headed by the Speaker had earlier decided that at any given time, there would only be 50 per cent MLAs inside the house and all parties have allotted time slots to their members accordingly.

Besides using the sanitiser, the body temperature of everyone entering the Assembly complex was checked. A three-day camp was held in the Assembly premises and all Ministers, MLAs, officials, employees and journalists who would cover the proceedings were tested their samples for coronavirus.

In the camp, at least 24 people, including five MLAs, have tested positive for the Covid-19.

However, hardly any social distancing norm was found in the canteen of the Assembly complex with most people jumbled in the crowd.
With employers across the globe still struggling to get people into work quicker while maintaining public safety, we are proud to be able to offer an updated, FDA-EUA COVID-19 testing service.

ClearStar, a provider of Human Capital Integrity technology-based services specializing in background and medical screening, announces the relaunch of its testing service aimed at supporting employers with their COVID-19 return-to-work planning and keeping their workforce safe. The revamped service has received official U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and is provided by ClearStars Medical Information Services (MIS) business through Clinical Reference Laboratory, Inc. (CRL), one of the largest privately held clinical testing laboratories in the U.S.

Employees receive the CRL Rapid Response kit, which is a saliva-based molecular diagnostic test to determine if the virus is active. Employees then register the test online and complete a questionnaire. Samples are self-collected by the employee and sent back to the CRL lab for testing. Those testing positive, meaning they are currently infected with COVID-19, will automatically be contacted by a licensed doctor to discuss the results and next steps. Any employee displaying symptoms also receives instructions on self-isolation.

The companys customers are able to order the tests through its MIS division. Test collection kits are shipped either in bulk to the employer or direct to the employees (or job applicants). The results of the tests are reported via the ClearStar platform within 24-48 hours, on average, of the samples being received by the lab and are provided in the same format, based on employer preference, as the customer receives their other drug or background screening reports from the company.

Robert Vale, CEO of ClearStar, said: With employers across the globe still struggling to get people into work quicker while maintaining public safety, we are proud to be able to offer an updated, FDA-EUA COVID-19 testing service. And by re-partnering with Clinical Reference Laboratory, whose tests are easy to self-administer, we can continue to offer a reliable and quick turnaround. This new servicealongside our existing suite of mobile screening solutionswill help employers make more confident hiring and return-to-work decisions.

To place an order, companies may contact the ClearStar Medical Information Services office at 321.821.3383 or info@medicalreviewoffice.com.

About ClearStar

ClearStar, Inc. is a leading provider of Human Capital Integrity technology-based services specializing in background and medical screening. It provides employment intelligence direct to employers and via channel partners/consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) to support better recruitment and other decisions affecting employees by increasing the quality, reliability, and visibility of information.

A seven-time Inc. 5000 honoree and founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners, ClearStar has provided innovative technology solutions to businesses in the human capital management industry from its corporate offices in Alpharetta, Georgia since 1995. For more information about ClearStar, please visit: http://www.clearstar.net.
Children's paintings warm hearts of neighboring countries

By:Wu Qiong, Jiang Meiqing | From:english.eastday.com | 2020-08-29 14:45

Full of love and friendship, a virtual rendezvous among Chinese, Japanese and South Korean children was held at the eighth China Japan Korea Childrens Painting Exhibition, which kicked off on August 29.

The annual painting exhibition aims to let children from the three neighbor countries have a better understanding of each others culture, history and local customs through paintings, and cherish their common dreams and determination while growing up. Since 2013, the event has been a bridge of friendship among children in the three countries. Due to the pandemic that is still raging across the world, this years opening ceremony was held in the form of a webinar, with the attendees in Shanghai, Fukuoka and Busan.

At the ceremony, kids from China, Japan and South Korea sent messages of hope and enthusiasm to cheer each other up. They also recorded videos of dance performances, traditional music, and Chinese calligraphy to celebrate the opening of the exhibition and share their unique cultures with the audience.

(Click to see the video: https://flashmedia.eastday.com/newsspace/newdate/news/2020-08/fayanheji.mp4)



This years painting exhibition is about staying together and mutual encouragement. COVID-19 has forced people to stay at home, disrupting travel and communication, but there are always signs of hope and gratitude.

(Childrens performances.)

(Kids express their wishes in various forms. Click to see the video:https://flashmedia.eastday.com/newsspace/newdate/news/2020-08/xingyuan.mp4)

A Japanese boy made a painting about Hakata Gion Yamakasa (a Japanese festival celebrated every year from the 1st to the 15th of July in Fukuoka) to pray for the end of the pandemic, hoping that his artwork can bring people happiness and hope.

Lets get through COVID-19 together and I hope to meet you with a smile without wearing a mask, said a South Korean girl.

Taking inspiration from Chinese door guardians (divine guardians of doors and gates used to protect against evil influences or to encourage the entrance of positive ones), a Chinese girl created a painting to pay tribute to scientists, medical staff and those who fight on the frontline and protect us against the novel coronavirus.

As a participant of the exhibition said, It is lucky that art can bring us together, though we cannot meet each other in real life due to the pandemic. To bring the messages of the little painters to more people, this years exhibition, which has collected 302 pieces of childrens artwork, is on display online. (Click here to enjoy the kids artworks: http://www.xiaohuobanhualang.org.cn/)

Hosted by the Shanghai Peoples Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (SPAFFC), the Japanese social education group Bellpo Organization and the South Korean Busan Foundation for International Cooperation, the event was organized by the Childrens Palace of China Welfare Institute, with Eastday.com offering media and technical support.

(Click here to watch the opening ceremony online https://n.021east.com/pvideo/1598422243020635)

(Photographer: Guo Shenglin)

(Video editors: Cao Ting, Jiang Meiqing


The Midland County Adult Drug Court is kicking off national Recovery Month in September by announcing it has received a $10,000 grant from the Midland Area Community Foundation, disbursed from the Esther and Carl Gerstacker Education and Public Safety Endowment Fund and the Midland County Health Initiative Endowment Fund.

The Drug Court operates within the Midland County Circuit Court under Presiding Judge Michael J. Beale. This year also marks the 10th anniversary of the program; however, a celebration of the milestone originally planned for September was canceled because of the pandemic.

"After 10 years in operation, it is so gratifying that we can count on amazing local partners such as the Midland Area Community Foundation to support our mission of helping individuals who are struggling and building a stronger community," said Judge Beale. "We greatly appreciate their generosity as we look forward to another 10 years -- and beyond!"

The Midland Area Community Foundation provides philanthropic leadership to strengthen the community by fostering collaboration and giving today and in the future. The grant funding will be allotted under the Foundation's focus area of "Caring for Our People," which supports programs that address human services, social services, poverty, housing, mental or physical health, or public safety.

The Midland Adult Drug Court is one of 135 drug and sobriety court programs across the state, which boasts a total of 199 problem-solving courts (also including mental health and veterans treatment courts) that are accessible to all Michigan residents and are supported by the Michigan Supreme Court.

"I am so proud of Judge Beale's entire team for not only securing this grant to continue their excellent work, but also for reaching the 10-year milestone of engaging and investing in their community. Their passion and commitment to the residents of Midland County is incredibly inspiring," said Justice Elizabeth T. Clement, the MSC liaison to Michigan problem-solving courts.

The Midland County Drug Court began in November 2010, and addresses the needs of nonviolent felons who are 18 years or older and whose primary drug of choice is opiates or methamphetamine. However, all offenders meeting eligibility criteria are considered. The program incorporates a team approach between criminal justice and treatment professionals who work together to provide supportive services that help guide participants in the recovery process.

Its mission is to enhance public safety and promote personal responsibility by a collaborative judicial effort, comprehensive case management, and the rehabilitation of individuals with substance use disorders into law-abiding, healthy, and productive members of society. Since its inception, 69 individuals have graduated from the program.

- Processed by Victoria Ritter, vritter@mdn.net
Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 06:58:24|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Security Council, in a videoconference meeting, on Monday announced that a draft resolution aimed at advancing measures to prosecute, rehabilitate and reintegrate foreign terrorist fighters did not pass owing to a negative vote by a permanent member.

With a vote of 14 in favor to one against (the United States), the 15-member organ failed to adopt the text, which would have repeated calls for continuous implementation of measures regarding prosecution, rehabilitation and reintegration of foreign terrorist fighters, as laid out in previous resolutions.

By the draft, the Council would have re-emphasized that women associated with foreign terrorist fighters returning or relocating to and from conflict may have served in many different roles, including as supporters, facilitators or perpetrators of terrorist acts and therefore may require special focus when developing tailored prosecution, rehabilitation and reintegration measures.

The Council would have also asked for such measures to include long-term methods to counter violent extremism conducive to terrorism, and incitement to commit terrorist acts.

The Council would have recognized the significant challenge of radicalization to terrorism and terrorist recruitment in prisons and acknowledge the need to prevent these facilities from serving as potential incubators for radicalization to terrorism and terrorist recruitment, as well as ensure that prisons can serve to rehabilitate and reintegrate prisoners.

Security Council resolutions are currently adopted through a written procedure vote under temporary, extraordinary and provisional measures implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as set out in a letter by its president for March, which was China. Enditem
This move puts the ball back in Donald Trumps court. The U.S. president may need to contend with the real possibility that TikTok doesnt find a buyer, and hell have to decide whether one of the nations most popular products should be removed from the app store of its most valuable company.Trump may think that strong-arming China will boost his re-election chances, but being outplayed could backfire. Its also possible that if TikTok ends up being banned altogether, there will be a backlash by the apps fans.With U.S.-China trade talks inching slowly forward, Beijing has found itself a bargaining chip. Whether or not Trump is found to be bluffing, both sides now think they have the stronger hand.
Senior Tories last night urged Rishi Sunak to abandon plans for a 30billion tax grab over fears it could throttle an economic recovery.

The Chancellor is said to be considering a huge fiscal raid in this autumn's Budget to plug the gaping hole in public finances after record spending on coronavirus.

Many of the proposals would hammer the middle classes and better-off.

Fuel duty, capital gains tax, corporation tax, the pension triple lock and pension tax relief are all said to be in the firing line.

Senior Tories last night urged Rishi Sunak (pictured) to abandon plans for a 30billion tax grab over fears it could throttle an economic recovery.

The proposals are reported to have been drawn up by Treasury officials as 'options' for ministers in the Budget, which is pencilled in for November.

No decisions have yet been taken by ministers about how to deal with a deficit expected to top 300billion this year.

But one Cabinet minister said the Chancellor would face a revolt if he pressed ahead with the tax grab.

'Tax rises of this sort would be the worst possible economic policy to adopt right now,' the minister said.

'It would guarantee a much deeper recession. Large parts of the economy are still fragile  we need to nurture it, not throttle it.'

Many of the proposals to plug the gaping hole in public finances after spending on coronavirus would hammer the middle classes on fuel (stock image used)

Boris Johnson has told allies he wants taxes as low as possible.

Government sources last night played down reports of a rift with Mr Sunak over the issue.

But Mr Johnson is said to be pushing for a bigger effort to control Whitehall spending.

Adam Marshall, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said the Chancellor should focus now on encouraging 'the embers of the recovery' and worry about repairing the public finances later.

He told Times Radio: 'We do not want to make a choice between a strong recovery, with lots of investment and risk-taking by business people, or a short term repair of the public finances.

Plans floated include aligning capital gains tax with income tax, which would see the charge on profits from the sale of second homes and other assets rise from 28 per cent to 40 per cent

'We've got to give the recovery space to build and grow.

'If the Treasury snaps back to orthodoxy immediately it will be a really damaging mistake.'

Plans floated yesterday include aligning capital gains tax with income tax, which would see the charge on profits from the sale of second homes and other assets rise from 28 per cent to 40 per cent for the better-off.

Treasury officials are also targeting corporation tax, with one report yesterday claiming it could be raised from 19 per cent to 24 per cent.

The move would raise 12billion a year but tear up Tory orthodoxy that the UK should aim to have one of the most competitive rates in the world.

Pension tax relief for higher earners is another possible target, with the Treasury reviving concerns about whether the 40 per cent rate offered to the better-off is justified.

Cutting pension tax relief to 20 per cent would raise 11bn, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says.

A 2 per cent online sales tax would bring in 2bn.

Treasury officials are also keen to end the decade-long freeze on fuel duty. A 1 per cent increase in fuel duty would make 295m.

And Mr Sunak is known to be looking at suspending the pension triple lock for two years, despite opposition from the Prime Minister.

Treasury Chief Secretary Steve Barclay yesterday insisted his department's key objective was increasing economic growth. But he refused to rule out tax rises.

Asked specifically whether corporation tax could be increased, he said: 'There are always a whole range of measures and as soon as one starts to say, well I rule this one out you'll cherry pick as to which ones one hasn't done.

Treasury officials are also targeting corporation tax, with one report yesterday claiming it could be raised from 19 per cent to 24 per cent (Canary Wharf, London, pictured)

'So I'm not going to get into that.'

Tory MPs called publicly for Mr Sunak to step back from imposing tax rises this autumn.

Former Cabinet minister Sir John Redwood said: 'You cannot tax your way to faster growth and more prosperity.

'We need policies to promote more jobs and activity to get the deficit down.'

Backbencher Marcus Fysh said tax rises were the wrong response to the current situation.

He added: 'We need to cut taxes to help the economy rather than clobber it with deeply unwise deficit hawkishness.'

Fellow Tory Robert Halfon appealed to the Chancellor not to clobber motorists by increasing fuel duty.

Mr Halfon, whose campaigning has helped see off fuel price increases, said raising the tax would 'impact on the cost of living for families, hit business costs and jobs, and increase expense for public services like the NHS'.

The Chancellor is said to be considering a huge fiscal raid in this autumn's Budget to plug the gaping hole in public finances after record spending on coronavirus

Chris Sanger, head of UK tax policy at accountants EY, told The Telegraph: 'The UK has been on a long journey to reduce its corporation rate, which is seen by many businesses as an indicator of how competitive a country wants to be. The UK has prided itself on having the lowest corporate tax rate of any G20 country.

'The Saudis have a rate of 20pc so it will stop them claiming that and be seen as a sea change in tax policy.'

Rupert Harrison, former chief of staff to George Osborne, warned that raising the rate of capital gains tax could backfire.

He said the Coalition government had settled on 28 per cent because Treasury modelling suggested it was the 'revenue maximising rate', with total receipts falling if it was pushed higher.

Mr Sunak has already launched a review of capital gains tax, although the Treasury insists that this is aimed at simplifying the system rather than raising revenue.
Emory University has acquired the personal papers of Black Panther Party member, activist, and retired Emory Law faculty member Kathleen Cleaver.

The papers, which will reside at Emorys Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, span Cleaver's career and life as an activist, particularly as a member of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and include personal and professional correspondence, books and photographs, as well as audiovisual and born-digital material.

Cleavers papers are timely, says her daughter, Joju Cleaver, since they help provide important historical context for todays social justice movements, something she feels is missing in the current climate.

A lot of people are acting like we dont have a history to draw from, and we do  a very rich one, says Cleaver, who is an instructional designer for online classes at Georgia State University. With everything that is going on now, there is a wealth of history, knowledge, and experience that people can learn from and perhaps improve their understanding of scope. There is definitely a lack of direction, and often that comes from a lack of knowledge of your history.

Joju Cleaver says the archive also shows there is a precedent for social movements being co-opted and infiltrated. The Black Panther Partys message was often misinterpreted and distorted by the government and the media, and some of their offices in various cities were run for a time by federal agents who infiltrated their ranks, she says.

There is a lot of danger that people could learn a lot about from prior movements, Cleaver says.

Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor and chair of Emorys African American Studies department, described the news about the Cleaver papers as incredible. She is looking forward to getting her classes back in the Rose Library archives once the pandemic restrictions are lifted.

We will learn so much from Kathleen Cleavers papers, Anderson says. Her archive will help us understand the role of women in a movement and movement-building and in international freedom struggles.

Im thinking of the different ways scholars can use these papers to enrich our understanding of these enormous issues of freedom, of justice, of globalization, of the role of women, of how gendered roles play out and dont play out, Anderson says. I wonder if well get a sense of what its like to raise babies in the middle of a movement. This is exciting in so many ways.

The parallels to todays demands for social justice and police reform are undeniable, Anderson says.

The movements we see today for access to quality healthcare, enough food to eat, an end to police violence and structural inequality  these are all things the Black Panthers fought for, she says.

Kathleen Cleaver and the collection

Cleaver recently retired from the Emory University School of Law, which she joined in 1992. She began her lifelong activist work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1966, but left the following year to join the BPP, which was also founded in 1966. Serving as the Party's communications secretary, Cleaver was one of a group of prominent women actively involved with the BPP. Her activism in the Party led her to organize and work on many campaigns and give speeches on the Partys behalf at a number of rallies. She was married to Eldridge Cleaver, the Partys minister of information from 1967 to 1987.

She earned her bachelors degree from Yale University in 1984 and her law degree from Yale School of Law in 1989, continuing to advocate for African American civil rights and prison reform.

The collection includes a variety of photographs of BPP members and associates. Correspondence, speeches and interviews by iconic civil rights activists such as Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Huey Newton and Stokely Carmichael are also among the materials.

The papers contain internal BPP documents as well as audiovisual material filmed in the 1970s in Algeria, where the couple lived in exile for a time with their two children. Manuscript drafts of Cleaver's unpublished memoir, Memories of Love & War, are also included in the collection.

We are so pleased to acquire the papers of Kathleen Cleaver, an icon in the American civil rights movement, says Dean and University Librarian Yolanda Cooper. The archive contains a wealth of information that is unique and not available everywhere due to the integral role she played in the Black Panther Party. These materials will significantly complement many of our related collections in the Rose Library and expand opportunities for more comprehensive research in social justice issues. We thank the Cleaver family for choosing Emory to preserve this cultural heritage.

The collection complements the Rose Library collections of several other SNCC members and the archive of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the nonviolent civil rights group co-founded by Martin Luther King Jr., as well as a small collection of BPP materials.

Despite being branded as a terrorist group and a Communist organization by the federal government and the media, the BPPs main focus was improving Black families opportunities for a better life. The Party launched several social programs, such as a free breakfast program for children and healthcare clinics, in addition to protecting African Americans from police violence.

One of the great things about this collection is that people will learn more about the community organizing side of the Black Panther Party instead of just the mainstream media portrayal, says Randy Gue, curator of political, cultural and social movements collections in the Rose Library. The Black Panther Party chapter in Atlanta was one of the few groups that worked in Vine City back in the mid to late 1960s. Community organizing is an overlooked part of the Black Panther Party's platform.

The late Pellom McDaniels III, curator of African American collections at the Rose Library, brought in the Cleaver papers. Rose Library director Jennifer King says it was one of the most significant collections, and one of the last ones, that McDaniels claimed for the Rose Library before he passed away April 19.

Pellom McDaniels believed the Rose Librarys African American collections told the story of the Black communities efforts to reach its full potential as citizens of the United Statesto enjoy the guarantees of life, liberty, happiness, the vote and equal protection under the law, Gue says. The Cleaver papers represent a significant addition to the librarys holdings that document how activists in the Black Power movement pursued these guarantees in the face of systemic racism, oppression, and violence.

Collection use

The archive has already been used and prepared for research prior to its arrival at the Rose Library. Leigh Raiford, associate professor of African American Studies at University of California, Berkeley, has been working at Cleavers house with a small team on a project to organize and catalog the photograph collection since 2017. Raiford gave a talk in February at Spelman College about photography, archives, curatorial practice and the Black radical tradition, drawing on Cleavers photograph collection.

That project resulted in Inside Exile, a 2018 multimedia online exhibit of photographs from the collection. The website includes BPP and family photos, including images from Cleavers childhood abroad, and a short documentary on Cleavers role as a woman leader in the BPP.

Working with the photos alongside Kathleen really changed my outlook about the history of Black photography, both the really iconic images of the Black Panther Party but also the everyday practices of vernacular photography and how that played a role in Black freedom dreaming, Raiford says.

Raiford says she is impressed with the sense of partnership and collaboration she received from McDaniels. When Emory acquired the archive, Raiford met with McDaniels and King to ask if she and her team could continue their work with the photographs and their plans for an exhibition and an accompanying book.

We had a great conversation about working with the Rose Library, developing ideas for an exhibition and using the Rose Library imprint and UGA Press, Raiford says. Its a real testament to Pelloms generosity and expansiveness and commitment to bring in the widest community possible that he was willing to help us find ways to continue our work.

Anderson, who teaches civil rights and the role of women in her various courses, says she anticipates the Cleaver papers will inspire her students, who enjoy working in the Rose Library archives.

I think about the way my students are asking about their role as they come out of Emory  how do we fight, how do we make this world better, how do we make it more just? she says. Seeing in Kathleens papers how she made those transitions through the years will help guide them.

Rose Library is still developing its policy regarding research use of collections during this time of the Universitys COVID-19 precautions, but staff are actively finding ways to meet researcher requests. Please send an email to rose.library@emory.edu or call 404-727-6887 to discuss requests.
OKLAHOMA CITY, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- For many families across America and around the world, 2020 has been the hungriest year in modern history. That's why Feed the Children, a leading nonprofit focused on alleviating childhood hunger, has designated September as Defeat Hunger Month and set a goal to raise $300,000 in 30 days. Each dollar multiplies seven times  providing $2.1 million in food and essentials to families around the world.

You might be surprised to learn that in the U.S., one in every four children are struggling with hunger or food insecurity due to the economic downturn caused by COVID-19. And the World Health Organization estimates that an additional 132 million people may go hungry in 2020 as families continue to struggle.

Feed the Children, works 365 days a year to stamp out hunger and make a difference in the lives of children and families across the United States and in 10 countries around the world. But the organization can't do it alone. They work with public and private partners to ensure everyone, everywhere, has access to the safe, healthy and nutritious food they need. By working with a vast network of community partners (like food pantries and soup kitchens), Feed the Children provides food and essentials, education initiatives, and disaster response to help children and their families achieve stable lives, while providing food and resources to help them today.

Since March, the nonprofit has distributed nearly 38 million pounds of food and essentials to more than 500 community partners across America.

One such partner is the Salvation Army of Allentown, Penn. who reported that the number of families visiting their bi-monthly food bank has tripled since the beginning of 2020.

It's a sentiment that is echoed across the country by many of Feed the Children's community partners. "Since COVID-19, we are helping 4 times as many families with food assistance and we couldn't do that without Feed the Children," said Eric Johns Pastor of the Buffalo Dream Center. "With the demand for food increasing and families in need, we've had to make sure that we're out there in the community helping people. "

For parents like Erika, these community partners have provided a lifeline to much needed food and essentials for her family.

She said that in recent months her work hours were cut drastically, and it became hard to provide for her children. It was especially difficult since it was impossible for her to get the meals that were provided at the schools for take-out because the only time they were available was during her work hours.

"I have made a can of corn stretch for three days," she said. "It breaks my heart to not be able to give to my kids what they need."

Feed the Children has five distribution centers in the United States including Bethlehem, Penn., Elkhart, Ind., LaVergne, Tenn., Oklahoma City, Okla. and Ontario, Calif. which serve as hubs to provide shelf-stable food and much-needed essentials to families across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

In addition to their work in the U.S., Feed the Children also works in 10 countries around the world serving families in El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Malawi, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Tanzania and Uganda. There the nonprofit provides a child-focused community development approach which emphasizes four key programs including food and nutrition, health and water, education and livelihoods. The organization's efforts provide parents with the opportunity to gain the skills they need to raise well-nourished and thriving children.

"Feed the Children is taking action to ensure our neighbors aren't forgotten. We understand that many families are facing unexpected challenges, and we are working diligently with our corporate and community partners to ensure that as needs rise, children and their families continue to receive the food and supplies they need," said Travis Arnold, Feed the Children president and CEO.

In the U.S. and around the world, Feed the Children distributed approximately 78 million pounds of food and essentials valued at more than $269 million in fiscal year 2019. Through our partnerships and programs, our outreach to children and their families benefited approximately 4.7 million people in the U.S. and more than 1.6 million internationally for a total of 6.3 million people globally.

For more information on how you can help raise $300K in 30 days and #CancelHunger during #DefeatHungerMonth, visit feedthechildren.org/DefeatHungerMonth. Thanks to the generous support of our partners, each gift given multiplies seven times to deliver food to families in the U.S. and around the world.

About Feed the Children

At Feed the Children, we feed hungry kids. We envision a world where no child goes to bed hungry. In the U.S. and internationally, we are dedicated to helping families and communities achieve stable lives and to reducing the need for help tomorrow, while providing food and resources to help them today. We distribute product donations from corporate donors to local community partners, we provide support for teachers and students, and we mobilize resources quickly to aid recovery efforts when natural disasters strike. Internationally, we manage child-focused community development programs in 10 countries. We welcome partnerships because we know our work would not be possible without collaborative relationships.

Visit feedthechildren.org for more information.

SOURCE Feed the Children

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Democrats on Sunday accused President of trying to inflame racial tensions to benefit his campaign as he praised supporters who clashed with protesters in Portland, Oregon, where one man died overnight, and announced he will travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid anger over the shooting of another Black man by police.

Trump's tweets came hours after a man identified as a supporter of a right-wing group was shot and killed in Portland when a large caravan of Trump's supporters and Black Lives Matter protesters clashed in the city's streets.

Trump praised the caravan participants as GREAT PATRIOTS! and blamed the city's Democratic mayor for the death.

Trump has throughout the summer cast American cities as under siege by violence and lawlessness, despite the fact that most of the protests demonstrating against racial injustice have been largely peaceful.

With about nine weeks until Election Day, some of his advisers see an aggressive law and order message as the best way for the president to turn voters against his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, and regain the support of suburban voters, particularly women, who have abandoned him.

But Democrats accuse Trump of rooting for unrest and trying to stoke further violence for political gain instead of ratcheting down tensions.

Biden in a statement said he unequivocally condemned violence on all side, while accusing Trump of recklessly encouraging" it.

He may think that war in our streets is good for his reelection chances, but that is not presidential leadership or even basic human compassion, Biden said.

Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence? asked Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler.

It's you who have created the hate and the division.

The White House pushed back. The only people to blame for the violence and riots in our streets are liberal politicians and their incompetent policies that have failed to get control of these destructive situations, White House spokesman Judd Deere said.

Trump prepared to travel this week to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where tensions are still raw after police shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in the back seven times, leaving him paralyzed.

The shooting has ignited new demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality months after George Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer touched off a wider reckoning on race.

Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, said Trump is doing everything he can to fan the flames.

I think his visit has one purpose, and one purpose only. And that is to agitate things and to make things worse, Bass said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union."



It is clear his campaign is all about law and order. It is a throwback to the past. And he's going to do everything to disrupt law and order in this time period."



Trump has cast the upcoming election as clash between law and order and anarchy, and he has denounced protesters as thugs while sharply defending police.

That theme was front-and-center at last week's Republican National Convention, which used recent protest footage to paint a foreboding and violent picture of the future if Biden denies Trump a second term.

While the protests this year have largely been peaceful, many businesses have been vandalized and buildings burned.

That destruction will be highlighted Tuesday when Trump travels to Kenosha, where he will be meeting with law enforcement officers and surveying the damage, Deere said.

Asked if Trump planned to meet with Blake's family, Judd said the president's schedule had yet to be finalized, but Blake's attorney, Benjamin Crump, told CBS News the family has not been contacted" by Trump at this time."



News of the visit drew swift condemnation from local Democratic leaders, including Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.

I don't know how, given any of the previous statements that the president made, that he intends to come here to be helpful. And we absolutely don't need that right now," Barnes said in an interview with CNN.

Former NAACP President Cornell William Brooks told the network that Trump would be turning Air Force One into a gasoline truck and bringing gas to a fire."



The president is going to make a bad situation worse," Brooks said.

Trump has had little to say about the Blake shooting, which was captured on cellphone video.

Well, I'm looking into it very strongly. I'll be getting reports, he said in an interview Friday with a local New Hampshire television station.

It was not a good sight. I didn't like the sight of it, certainly, and I think most people would agree with that.

Trump offered a similar response Saturday when asked about Kyle Rittenhouse, the white 17-year-old who has been charged with fatally shooting two protesters and wounding a third Tuesday after he travelled to Kenosha, apparently to defend the city from protesters.

Attorneys representing Rittenhouse, who was seen walking with an AR-15, have said he acted in self-defense.

Trump told reporters Saturday the case is under investigation right now and that we're looking at it very, very carefully. But Trump on Sunday appeared to lend support to the teenager when he liked a retweet of a series of messages that began, Kyle Rittenhouse is a good example of why I decided to vote for Trump.

The circumstances of Saturday night's shooting in Portland remain unclear.Video from the city shows sporadic fighting, as well as Trump supporters firing paintball pellets at opponents and using bear spray as counterprotesters threw things at the Trump caravan.

The victim is a member of Patriot Prayer, a right-wing group whose members have frequently clashed with protesters in Portland in the past, its founder, Joey Gibson, said Sunday.

White House officials, meanwhile, continued to blame local leaders for allowing the protests to continue.

We've had over 200 anarchists and they're not peaceful protesters. These are people that every night commit violent acts," Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said on NBC's Meet the Press."



Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said on ABC's This Week" that if the governor had taken action early on after Day One, Day Two of some of that violent activity occurring there, we probably a lot of this could have been avoided.

Unfortunately, he acted a little too late. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin urged calm, while also laying blame.

When you encourage the disdain for the police, you encourage criminals. When you do little or nothing to stop rioting, you encourage anarchy. So when you are encouraging criminals and anarchy, people's lives are lost, Johnson said on CNN's State of the Union.

(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.)
Paedophiles are using cheese and pizza emojis to communicate secretly on Instagram, a child protection activist has revealed.

The bright yellow cheese symbol means little girl while the pepperoni-covered pizza means girl. Together they spell out 'CP', meaning 'child pornography'.

'The minute you start talking about pizza and cheese everyone thinks you're talking about pizzagate,' said London-based campaigner India, who has asked to be identified by just her first name. 'But there are thousands of accounts which openly use this in their bios on Instagram.'

The accounts will use the emojis on their posts to signal that they are sharing sexualised images of children in a bid to evade being detected. India said thousands of accounts have been identified doing this.

More than 2,000 accounts have already been shut down by Instagram, after they were flagged via her Instagram page @PD_Protect, but India and her 7,000 supporters have already identified 5,000 more.

The Instagram emojis have been used to identify thousands of potential paedophile accounts

India, from London, set up this campaign to identify and report the explicit accounts. She is also calling for Instagram to change its reporting tool

Speaking to MailOnline, she explained how pictures were being screenshotted from parents' social media pages and shared via social media in paedophile networks.

'One lady I spoke to said she was contacted by a complete stranger on Facebook who was notified of this Russian paedophile website - she was in a sort of mum's chat, about a daughter,' she said.

'They had taken a picture of an 18-month-old girl crawling on the floor, edited it to make the baby look like it was wearing make-up and posted it on this Russian website.

'The comments, I can't even say what they were, they were so disgusting.'

Some accounts sharing child pornography post pictures of children wearing very little in paddling pools or on the beach, which appear to have been lifted from family social media accounts.

Others do not post but have a cheese and pizza in their description, and advertise that they sell child porn.

And a third type appears like a normal account until a user looks at who they are following and what pictures they are commenting on.

The accounts share pictures that have been screenshotted from parents' social media profiles

How to protect your Instagram account If you are concerned pictures of yourself or your children may be grabbed from your Instagram account, there are several steps you can take to keep it secure. 'There's a lot of things parents can do that are really simple,' India said. Make sure your account is set to private - This will ensure that only people that follow you have access to your account Check your followers - make sure you know everyone following your account. Think about what you post - It is also recommended that you consider what sort of images of your children you post on social media. Advertisement

They also connect on the platform using hashtags, she said.

Once linked the accounts then move to other websites such as MEGA link, a cloud-based encryption service, and Telegram, which was created before Whatsapp became an encrypted service, to trade, view and share images of children.

Accounts that tend to be most at risk are legitimate ones of dancers, gymnasts and child models - as they are open to the public.

'They have got thousands and thousands of followers,' said India. 'They have DM for collaborations. These are the accounts that have to be watched.

'I go through the followers on these accounts and I find several accounts that are questionable every time without fail.'

India's campaign contacts Instagram directly about these suspected paedophile accounts to get them taken down.

'We've just sent a list of another 1,900 to them,' she said.

'I made it clear to them right from the start I'm trying to work with them, not against them. They are actually working with us for now.'

As well as removing the accounts India has asked them to generate a totally new function which will allow users to report the bio of accounts that do not post.

'We need to cover all the bases with the accounts we are seeing,' she said.

When an account is removed, however, India says she sometimes gets contacted by its original owner.

'These people are brazen,' she said. 'They tell me "I don't know why you're trying to take me down, because I'll just set up another one and go back".'

India's campaign has already reported another 5,000 accounts to Instagram, and is on the look-out for more

She said she was motivated to get involved in the issue after a friend shared a screenshot on her story.

It showed that a picture of her child had been taken by a suspected paedophile account, and called on her followers to report it.

'I couldn't morally just stand back, report it once, and walk away,' she said.

Vaishnavi J, Head of Safety at Instagram, told the Telegraph: 'Any content that endangers children is abhorrent and we're committed to doing everything we canto keep it off our apps.

'We remove accounts that share or solicit this type of content and report them to the police. We also use technology that's constantly improving to find and remove known child exploitation imagery.

'We've been working with India to investigate and remove the accounts she's identified and we're grateful for her help.'
DANBURY  John Oliver has called on Mayor Mark Boughton to follow through with his joke to rename a city sewage plant after the comedian.

In Sundays episode of Last Week Tonight, Oliver said he would donate $55,000 to charities in the Danbury area, including $25,000 to the Connecticut Food Bank, $25,000 to a Donors Choose fund for Danbury teachers and $5,000 to ALS Connecticut, if Boughton followed through with renaming the sewage plant after him.

I will happily do all of that if  and only if  your mayor makes good on his promise to officially name that sewage plant after me because I want this. I need this, Oliver said.

Oliver also said he would pay to make the sign bearing the facilitys new moniker, if Boughton accepts.

Boughton was mum on whether he would accept the offer, but said residents should expect a video to drop on Thursday.

John Oliver, I am coming for you, Boughton said in his Facebook Live Monday evening. I am coming hard, so hard youll never know what happened, and Im going to take you out with our video on Thursday. And I will issue a challenge to you and youll have to meet that challenge or its on like Donkey Kong.

Oliver gave the mayor one week to respond.

I didnt know that I wanted my name on your (expletive) factory, but now that you floated it, it is all that I want, Oliver said.

Boughton called Olivers offer just.

Its a generous offer given in the spirit of getting a chuckle in a very difficult time and thats how were taking it here, too Boughton said. These are difficult times, so any way that people can get a little bit of a laugh and at the same time do some good for some residents, that's a good thing.

Throughout the pandemic, Boughton has made music videos for those who donated to local food pantries. He has performed Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus Old Town Road and Queens Bohemian Rhapsody, among other songs.

If Danbury rejects the request, Oliver said he will put his offer toward what he called the citys rivals: Waterbury, Milford and Torrington.

Torrington Mayor Elinor Carbone was unaware her city was mentioned on the show.

Im only vaguely familiar with (the fact that) there was this John Oliver person out there, she said. I dont even know who he is. I really have no comment on it. I dont know who he is or what his goals are.

Mayors in Waterbury and Milford could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.

This is the latest exchange between Oliver and Boughton following the comedians expletive-laced rant about the city on a recent episode of Last Week Tonight.

In a tongue-in-cheek response, Boughton announced in a video posted on his Facebook page that he would rename the citys sewage plant in honor of Oliver.

We are going to rename it the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant, the Republican mayor said. Why? Because it's full of crap just like you, John.

The back-and-forth began earlier this month when Oliver explored on his show the racial disparities in the jury selection process, citing problems in a few Connecticut municipalities.

In the segment, Oliver noted Danbury's charming railway museum and its historic Hearthstone Castle.

I know exactly three things about Danbury, Oliver said. USA Today ranked it the second-best city to live in in 2015, it was once the center of the American hat industry and if youre from there, you have a standing invite to come get a thrashing from John Oliver  children included  (expletive) you.

But he said the responses from the Danbury community changed his mind.

Its an incredible place, Oliver said Sunday night. The truth is, things have been so bleak recently, I needed something like this, something to restore my faith in human nature.

Its why he said he was so disappointed when Boughton clarified renaming the sewer plant after Oliver was a joke.

In his latest episode, Oliver praised responses from Danbury Hat Tricks and Caio Ninja News  an online show created by a Danbury 8-year-old  to his previous rant.

Honestly, Danbury might want to seriously consider changing its name from the Hat City to the Young People Who Seem More Than Capable of Taking Over My Job City, Oliver said. Although Im not sure why they would actually want it. Yes, we both live in sad, empty voids where hope goes to die, but at least Danbury has a railway museum. We havent had one of those since season four.

Caio said he would be happy to have Olivers job.

Yes, John Oliver, Im coming in hot for a P.G. spinoff of Last Week Tonight, any time, any place, he said in a Monday episode.

Olivers staff had contacted the mayors office last week for permission to use one of the citys photos, so Boughton expected Danbury to be mentioned in the latest episode.

They wouldn't tell us what they were going to do, Boughton said.

He said he fell asleep before the episode aired, but people messaged him about it all night long.

My phone was blowing up, Boughton said. I knew there was something going on.

It remains unclear what prompted Oliver to go off on Danbury. Messages with his agent have not been returned.

A spokeswoman with HBO said she did not know how Oliver became aware of the city. She declined to comment further on the offer.

The show likes to let these segments speak for themselves, spokeswoman Michelle Goldstein said in an email.

Oliver also made fun of Boughton and other American mayors in 2017 over videos they made seeking to attract Amazon's second world headquarters. In his video, Boughton asked Alexa where the best place for the facility would be, and Alexa said Danbury.

In a new video, Boughton also mentions that Amazon has decided to open a distribution facility in Danbury, although it's not the second world headquarters.

And, oh by the way, thanks for showing that Amazon video, Boughton says to Oliver at the end of the video. We did get Amazon here in Danbury.
Victorian Premier Dan Andrews is facing a class action suit from businesses affected by the Stage Four coronavirus lockdown - and it could total billions of dollars.

The plaintiffs are claiming failures in the hotel quarantine system led to the draconian restrictions which have brought businesses to a standstill.

The staggering legal suit also names Health Minister Jenny Mikakos and Jobs Minister Martin Pakula, and is being led by lawyer, Damian Scattani who worked on the successful class action against the Queensland government after the 2011 floods.

Melbourne restaurant owner, Anthony Ferrara, is the lead plaintiff on the case and told the Australian Financial Review businesses don't need charity or kind thoughts from politicians - they need certainty.

Melbourne restaurant owner, Anthony Ferrara (pictured), is the lead plaintiff on class action and said businesses don't need charity or kind thoughts from politicians - they need certainty

Thousands of businesses impacted by stage four measures expected to join the class action against Premier Dan Andrews (pictured), Health Minister Jenny Mikakos and Jobs Minister Martin Pakula

On August 2, Melbourne was placed under Stage 4 lockdown restrictions after the state recorded 671 coronavirus cases and seven deaths.

Hospitality venues were forced to return to takeaway only and a curfew stopped residents leaving the house after 8pm.

The state's current COVID-19 outbreak is potentially linked to Victoria's bungled hotel quarantine system - which is currently being reviewed by an independent inquiry.

Lawyer, Damian Scattani, said thousands of businesses impacted by the tough lockdown measures are expected to join the class action being led by law firm Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan.

'It's quite plain what happened with hotel quarantine, which enabled the virus to escape, and cause these restrictions and losses for businesses,' he said.

'These businesses need help now, they have been snake bitten by this quarantine breach and some will not be around much longer.'

Mr Ferrara, owner of New York-themed restaurant, 5 Districts NY in Keilor Park, said he usually makes tens of thousands of dollars each week but the restrictions allowing takeaway sales only has dropped his income to less than ten thousand each week.

'Our situation is not our doing, we are calling to account those who put us in this dire situation,' he said.

Mr Scattani, who is leading the case, has experience launching legal action against state governments.

He was part of the team that won the class action suit for 4,000 Queensland residents and businesses who were affected by the 2011 floods.

The suit found water companies failed to operate the Wivenhoe and Somerset dams properly in the lead-up to and during the flood. The compensation bill is estimated to be between $400million and $1billion.

Premier Dan Andrews is expected to announce he has secured support for a six-month extension of lockdown powers. Pictured: An empty Royal Arcade mall in Melbourne

Victoria's class action was confirmed on Monday as Premier Dan Andrews is expected to announce he has secured support for a six-month extension of lockdown powers.

The Australian Financial Review is reporting crossbenchers are laying low after receiving death threats over the controversial measures.

State opposition leaders have called on the government to provide businesses with certainty.

On Tuesday Victorian Liberal Senator Saran Henderson called on those who are struggling to use state law to seek financial redress if they have lost work from the stage 4 lockdown.

Health secretary Kym Peake can award compensation if she considers there were insufficient grounds for Dr Sutton's authorisation.

Pictured: Melbourne's usually bustling Lygon Street, the state opposition has urged business owners impacted by stage four lockdown to seek financial redress
Businesses were left aghast at the eye-watering cost of attendance - NEIL HALL/EPA-EFE/REX

The Conservative Party has been met with disbelief after it advertised prices of 25,000 for virtual stalls at this years online party conference, with businesses offered video conference visits from ministers and members.

This year's Conservative Party Conference will take place over video conferencing software and in a new virtual 3D exhibition hall amid fears about the spread of coronavirus.

Organisations can pay 25,000 for an online "stall" or 40,000 for a "Zoom-style" virtual fringe event, which members can dial into online.

A virtual policy roundtable with a minister will reportedly cost 7,400.

Also advertised is private live chat capability and a virtual business card fishbowl, Politico reported.

The annual conference is usually one of the partys main money-raising activities.

But business leaders are sceptical of the fees demanded for a conference that will not allow them to meet anyone in person.

The party of business appears to have lost all idea of good business sense, one prospective fringe event host told The Telegraph.

We've all spent months on endless zoom calls, we know how much the subscription costs, and while it might be worth a little more to avoid meeting politicians in person, it's definitely not worth that princely sum.

The conference usually attracts over 10,000 people and is held in a hotel outside of London.

The party advertises it as a place to celebrate the grassroots: members, volunteers, activists, and everyone who has campaigned to hold elected office.

Cabinet ministers, the Prime Minister and other party grandees give speeches to the membership, while fringe events run by other organisations take place elsewhere in the conference complex.

This year, members can navigate a 3D conference hall on their computer screens.

Existing Conservative Party members will not have to pay to attend.

The Labour Party has indefinitely postponed its 2020 members' conference and is not expected to hold a virtual equivalent.

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Liberal Democrat conference will take place online later this month. Attendees can register as party members or supporters for 40 to attend.

A Conservative spokesman defended the decision to charge thousands of pounds for its online event.

The Conservative Party is offering a wide range of packages for Virtual Conference and Spring Conference next year, the spokesman said.

It is commonplace for political parties to sell exhibition space at their conferences.
New Delhi: The Indian Army has significantly strengthened its presence on a number of strategic heights" and enhanced deployment of troops and weapons at key points around the Pangong lake in eastern Ladakh following an unsuccessful attempt by the Chinese PLA to unilaterally change the status quo in the area, authoritative sources said on Monday. The Army has also further bolstered overall surveillance mechanisms in all areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh after foiling Chinas fresh attempt to occupy an area on the southern bank of Pangong lake, they said.

Earlier in the day, Army Spokesperson Col Aman Anand said the Chinese military carried out provocative military movements" to unilaterally" change the status quo on the southern bank of Pangong lake on the intervening night of August 29 and 30 but the attempt was thwarted by the Indian troops. Top military and security brass has already reviewed the entire situation in eastern Ladakh. Separately, Chief of Army Staff Gen MM Naravane held a meeting with top military officials over the fresh confrontation, the sources said.

The Army has occupied strategic heights and strengthened deployment of troops and weapons in all key points on the southern bank of the Pangong lake area," said a source, adding the fresh deployment will provide India greater advantage in the region. India has also deployed troops from special operations battalions in the area, it said.

The sources said a sizeable number of Chinese troops were moving towards the southern bank of Pangong lake in an attempt to occupy the area but the Indian Army quickly made a significant deployment to foil the attempt. They said the Indian Air Force (IAF) has also been told to enhance its surveillance on increasing Chinese air activities along the LAC in eastern Ladakh. There have been reports that China has deployed J-20 long-range fighter jets and several other key assets in strategically located Hotan airbase which is around 310 kms from eastern Ladakh.

In the last three months, the IAF deployed almost all its frontline fighter jets like Sukhoi 30 MKI, Jaguar and Mirage 2000 aircraft in the key frontier air bases in eastern Ladakh and elsewhere along the LAC. The IAF carried out night time combat air patrols over the eastern Ladakh region in an apparent message to China that it was ready to deal with any eventualities in the mountainous region.

The IAF has also deployed Apache attack choppers as well as Chinook heavy-lift helicopters to transport troops to various forward locations in eastern Ladakh. The fresh attempt by China to change the status quo in the Pangong lake area is the first major incident in the area after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. China also suffered casualties but is yet to make the details public. According to an American intelligence report, it was 35.

India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks in the last two-and-half months but no significant headway has been made for a resolution to the border row in eastern Ladakh. The two sides began a process of disengagement on July 6, a day after a telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in eastern Ladakh. However, the process has not moved forward since mid-July.

The PLA has pulled back from Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang and a couple of other areas. At the five rounds of Corps commander-level talks, the Indian side has been insisting on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to April.

The face-off began on May 5 following violent clashes between the two armies in the Pangong lake area. The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in North Sikkim on May 9. The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control).

Prior to the clashes, both sides have been asserting that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it is necessary to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas.

(With PTI inputs)
Donald Trump Jr; Ivanka Trump; Kimberly Guilfoyle; Donald Trump

Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Donald Trump speaking at the 2020 RNC Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images

Unsurprisingly, the Republican National Convention was filled with lies about President Donald Trump, his administration, the Republican Party, and the Democrats. But on occasion, the speakers slipped some truth into their speeches.

And on some of those occasions, the truth seemed to come out unintentionally. Or at least, the speaker's wording left open the possibility of interpreting it quite differently than was intended.

Here are five claims from RNC speakers that were accidentally revealing:

1. Ivanka Trump: "The results speak for themselves."

"I recognize that my dad's communication style is not to everyone's test," she said. "And I know that his tweets can feel a bit unfiltered. But the results? The results speak for themselves."

This line seemed to play well with the Republican convention attendees, but it's not the best argument for the Trump administration to push. Just consider the setting: An RNC held at the White House, in violation of the law, in part because of the still-raging pandemic. As for the most objective measures of how the country is doing: Coronavirus deaths have crossed 180,000. Unemployment is still in the double digits. Protesters, police, and vigilante militias are clashing in the streets.

Trump and his allies think they can spin all these facts to their advantage. And maybe they can. But they certainly don't speak for themselves.

2. Kevin McCarthy: "Joe Biden and Kamala Harris think this election is about the government. They're wrong."

I really had to listen to this one a few times to make sure he said what I thought he said. He did.

He went on to say that the election is about "your family and your future." But fundamentally, the reason you have an election is to select a government that can best represent and protect the interests and values of you and your family.

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But the truth is that for much of the GOP, McCarthy is right. They're not really interested in how to run a functioning government. They use the government for the purposes they care about  like cutting taxes for corporations  but otherwise, they'd prefer to sit on their hands. And the way they often run their campaigns is to make elections about a bunch of issues that aren't really the subject of what the government is responsible for  Trump, for instance, doesn't really have much firsthand responsibility for levels of violence in American cities  but that they think play well with their base voters. For example, many speakers at the convention spoke about school choice, but that's a policy that is most enacted at the local level; the president has little involvement in it. The point is to stir up the culture war to get other Republicans mad and to the polls, even if there's really not much the government can do about who says "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy holidays."

Democrats, on the other hand, tend to be actually interested in the things the government can do for people, like expanding health care, regulating industry, and fighting climate change.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1299144623668027393

3. Mike Pence: "Make America great again, again."

It's not clear if the closing line to Pence's speech was supposed to be funny, but it drew mockery and bewilderment from many observers.

It betrayed the fact that the Trump campaign had planned on running with the 2020 slogan, "Keep America Great." But they quietly dropped that phrase, given that the pandemic and the recession meet no one's definition of "great."

"Make America great again, again," implicitly acknowledges that things aren't so great right now under Trump. Pence apparently wants us to believe that we should give the president another chance with a second term. But even if you believe the dubious case that Trump did make the country great again in his first three years, why shouldn't we assume he'll just mess it up again at some point in the next four?

4. Dana White, the president of UFC: "Let's re-elect President Trump. Let's figure out what the problems are and continue to find solutions."

Many observers pointed out that this phrasing put the cart before the horse. Why should we be confident Trump is the solution to our problems if we don't even know what the solutions are? Shouldn't the Trump campaign be telling us what its solutions to the nation's central problems are before we're expected to re-elect the president?

Like the McCarthy quote, the White quote just shows that even in the views of Trump allies, the governance questions and policies choices are beside the point. The point is to elect Trump. They hope voters will vote for him because of what he's seen to represent, and they want voters to do it because it will guarantee them power. They can figure out the messy business of running the federal government later.

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1299153249916850176

5. Trump: "We laid off workers in Michigan, Ohio, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and many other states. They didn't want to hear Biden's hollow words of empathy. They wanted their jobs back."

And: "Joe Biden claims he has empathy for the vulnerable. Yet the party he leads supports the extreme late-term abortion of defenseless babies right up until the moment of birth."

Trump greatly distorted Democrats' view of abortion here, but the fact that he mentioned "empathy" twice in his speech  both in reference to Biden  was a big tell. He didn't mention it at any other point in the speech.

Clearly, he was reacting to the Democratic National Convention, which focused heavily on Biden's personal character and how he related to other people. It showed Biden as a deeply compassionate and empathetic person, drawing a contrast with Trump.

Trump wants to blunt those criticisms. But in taking it on so directly, he revealed that the attacks made him nervous. He knows that Biden comes off as more personable and caring, and that's probably why many RNC speakers tried unconvincingly to portray a softer side of Trump and downplay his rough edges.

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Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael S. Hall is the former adjutant general of New York and a member of Mission: Readiness.

In a challenging time for our nation, I'm worried about the long-term national security implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The connection between national security and the pandemic may not be readily apparent. We all see and experience the immediate impacts of this terrible health emergency in our everyday lives. But there are even more far-reaching effects that could threaten our nation's military preparedness for years to come.

The root cause of that threat? Food insecurity among our country's young people.

Food insecurity can lead to malnutrition created when people lack reliable access to nutritious foods. Malnutrition can take many forms, one of which is obesity -- currently a top medical disqualifier for military recruits.

In all, a jaw-dropping 71 percent of young Americans can't qualify for military service, even if they wish to serve. The national security nonprofit Mission: Readiness, of which I am a member, has been sounding the alarm about this serious problem for more than a decade.

The bad news doesn't end there, unfortunately. Even many recruits who can meet enough basic benchmarks to enlist struggle after doing so. A few weeks of boot camp aren't enough to overcome years of unhealthy eating and lack of exercise. That's why more than five percent of our military is still unfit for deployment even after completing basic training. That shortfall ultimately leads to our armed forces being understaffed and not achieving an optimal level of preparedness.

And the pandemic is about to make these problems even worse.

A forthcoming Mission: Readiness research report illustrates the pandemic's devastating effect on food insecurity. Evidence suggests that, due to significant, pandemic-fueled increases to the unemployment and child poverty rates, up to an additional 18 million children will experience food insecurity as a result of the pandemic.

That's 25 percent of all kids in this country, and that figure represents a massive increase from 2018, when food insecurity already impacted a significant 11 million children in the United States. Food insecurity rates from April 2020 are also significantly higher than any other point with comparable data; in households with children under 18, rates have increased by an incredible 130 percent from 2018 to April 2020.

These increasing rates could have a catastrophic impact. Projected rates of food insecurity in the South are especially high, with 24 percent of Mississippi adults and 35 percent of Louisiana children expected to experience food insecurity. In Texas, estimates suggest that more than two million children could become food insecure -- the highest number in the country.

However, another recent Mission: Readiness report, entitled "Bridging the Summer Meals Gap," offers solutions to reduce food insecurity by modernizing and adapting the school and summer meal programs. In response to the pandemic, Congress temporarily allowed some school and summer meal program flexibilities to allow for food delivery, mobile food sites, packaging for pick-up, and meal availability at multiple sites to address lack of transportation when schools are closed. Coupled with incentives to purchase and use local food supplies from local farmers and producers, and increased technical assistance and training to school and summer meal program preparers to prepare fresh vegetables and fruits that appeal to kids, these innovations will help reduce food insecurity during the pandemic and well into the future.

Solutions like these are especially critical for children who live in "food deserts," where affordable, nutritious food is difficult to find, or "food swamps," where nutrition-poor food is readily available and irresistibly inexpensive. In many cases, communities find themselves struggling with food deserts and food swamps simultaneously, particularly in disadvantaged and underserved areas.

That lack of healthy food can lead directly to food insecurity and, thereby, to malnutrition manifesting as obesity. Parents and children in these areas frequently can't access the nutritious foods their families need.

That's why school and summer meals programs are so vital to our country's children -- and to our national security. By adapting and innovating these programs, we can fight food insecurity and the obesity epidemic by helping children consistently access nutritious, balanced meals year-round.

This is a distinctly pressing concern, with many school systems no longer meeting in person for the foreseeable future. We cannot allow the pandemic to rob these young people of their futures, including military service if they choose that path.

To achieve that goal, I urge Congress to take action to strengthen our efforts in the battle against food insecurity. Lawmakers should continue school and summer meal program flexibilities now, and work to pass innovative school and summer meal solutions to ensure our nation's kids have consistent access to balanced, nutritious meals throughout the year. These important steps will mitigate the food insecurity crisis and, in doing so, help preserve the health of our youth and the security of our nation.

-- The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 09:50:42|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Sunday condemned violence in Portland, Oregon after one man was fatally shot following clashes between rival protesters.

"The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable. Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right," Biden said in a statement. "And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same."

"We must not become a country at war with ourselves," the former U.S. vice president continued, while accusing his Republican rival, sitting President Donald Trump, of "fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters."

"The job of a President is to lower the temperature. To bring people who disagree with one another together. To make life better for all Americans, not just those who agree with us, support us, or vote for us," he added. "Donald Trump has been president for almost four years. The temperature in the country is higher, tensions run stronger, divisions run deeper."

The remarks came a day after a motorcade of Trump's supporters drove through downtown Portland, Oregon's largest city, and confronted with people opposing police brutality and racial injustice. Local police have said they are investigating the reported deadly shooting of one of the pro-Trump protesters amid the skirmishes.

"It is still early in this investigation, and I ask everyone to give the detectives time to do their important work before drawing conclusions about what took place," Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said in a statement. "This violence is completely unacceptable and we are working diligently to find and apprehend the individual or individuals responsible."

In a string of tweets on Sunday, Trump fired off at Portland's Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler, reiterating his "law and order" message, a central theme of his reelection bid.

"The people of Portland, like all other cities & parts of our great Country, want Law & Order," the president wrote. "Ted Wheeler, the wacky Radical Left Do Nothing Democrat Mayor of Portland, who has watched great death and destruction of his City during his tenure, thinks this lawless situation should go on forever."

Wheeler, in a press conference Sunday afternoon, criticized Trump's stance on racial justice, saying that "it's you who has not found a way to say the names of black people killed by police officers."

The shooting also came amid demonstrations in Kenosha, Wisconsin in the wake of the Aug. 23 police shooting of 29-year-old African American man Jacob Blake, which grew chaotic and violent at times when a teenager shot and killed two protesters.

"What we can never have in America -- and must never allow -- is mob rule," Trump said in his speech accepting renomination from the White House on Thursday. "In the strongest possible terms, the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and New York."

White House spokesman Judd Deere said on Saturday that the president will visit Kenosha "on Tuesday to meet with local law enforcement and survey damage from the recent riots."

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, sent a letter to Trump on Sunday, urging him to reconsider his trip to Kenosha.

"I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state," Evers wrote. "I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together."

In late May, George Floyd died after a white police officer kneeled on the 46-year-old African American man's neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which sparked nationwide demonstrations against what activists have described as police brutality and systemic racial inequality, as well as social unrest in some U.S. cities.

Biden has made race relations a pillar of his White House run in response to the movement, while Trump has focused on violent aspects of the demonstrations and doubled down on his support for police officers.

Massive demonstrations have recently returned to streets of Washington, D.C. On Saturday night, protesters clashed with police who deployed tear gas and sting balls to disrupt the crowds. Enditem
Actor Ruslaan Mumtaz, son of yesteryears actor Anjana Mumtaz, has said that he didnt get her support when he was trying to debut in Bollywood. Ruslaan entered the film industry in 2007 with the film MP3: Mera Pehla Pehla Pyaar. He was last seen in Sidharth Malhotra and Parineeti Chopra-starrer Jabariya Jodi.

Ruslaan confessed his mother was aware of his reasons to join films and was against the idea. He told ETimes in an interview, She has been closely associated with this industry and she knew that it is not easy to make your space here. Many people, including me, joined the industry for the glamour part of it. I wanted to become an actor but I did not have the right reasons. I did not become an actor because I loved acting. I became an actor because I wanted to become famous. And she saw that and she did not want me to pursue this career for popularity.

He added, She discouraged me and wanted me to get a regular job that wouldnt affect my life so much. This profession affects our personal life very much.

Also read: Sonam Kapoor watches Tenet in London movie theatre, says Dimple Kapadia gave me goosebumps. See pics

On being asked about his views on nepotism, he said, As far as the star kids are concerned, that association value will always be there. People know their parents. No matter how much people crib about star kids being launched and nepotism in Bollywood, kids of superstars will always interest them more than any other newbie getting launched. It is easy to sit at home and complain about this when the theatres are closed now. Once the theatres open, these very people will go and watch the first star-kid film that releases and make it a success.

Ruslaan and wife Nirali Mehta welcomed a baby boy on March 26 this year. He shared a picture of the little one on Instagram to cheer up his fans amid coronavirus pandemic. 26-03-2020 : CHOTA BABY HAS ARRIVED. I was going to avoid uploading any of my babys pictures for atleast 3,4 months but given the current gloom and doom in the world right now I think news of a chota baby will only brighten your day, he wrote.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
CONWAY, Ark. (August 31, 2020)  Film Matters, a magazine celebrating the work of undergraduate film scholars, has announced a new partnership with the Hendrix College Film and Media Studies program and Department of English.

Dr. Kristi McKim, chair of English and professor of English/Film and Media Studies, has been appointed online editor of Film Matters. In this role, she will guide undergraduate students in serving as joint authors and editors of Film Matters online, in cooperation with Film Matters home institution at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. With McKims guidance, Hendrix students will provide mentorship and peer review to fellow undergraduate authors worldwide through the drafting and editing process, while learning crucial publishing and project management skills on the job. Sophomores Sydney Boone, JaZmyn Shambley, and Sophia Stolkeystudents who have studied film and writing in multiple courses and who hope for future careers in writing, editing, publishing, and film criticismwill comprise Hendrixs first Online Editorial Board.



I am thrilled that this opportunity gives our Hendrix students a chance to gain precious experience as writers and editors, McKim said. Its a chance for students to call for and curate what they want to read and learn, to gather work from students internationally, to generate a virtual home for undergraduate conversation about film and moving image media. Film Matters is singular in what it offers to students: the only international film/media undergraduate magazine of its kind. Film Matters ever-supportive editors-in-chief have been generous to entrust us with this charge, and I hope that our work will continue to earn this trust. Even as this work involves added responsibility, it is the kind of responsibility that yields community joy and pride. My English Department colleagues, and especially my comrade in Film and Media Studies, Dr. Joshua Glick, have been enthusiastic in supporting this opportunity for our students and in shaping future mentoring experiences with the magazine. Im proud to lead this charge, and Im grateful to share it with my colleagues and students, without whom none of this would be possible.



Published by students, for students, Film Matters includes features, reviews, profiles of film studies departments, articles that engage the undergraduate film studies community and prepare students for graduate study in the field, and resources and opportunities for undergraduate scholars. This partnership complements the focus on engaged learning provided through the Hendrix Odyssey Program, which offers a structured experience of active learning throughout students undergraduate education.



McKim has been a longtime member of the Film Matters advisory board and has served as a guest editor in the past. At Hendrix, she has received multiple honors for her work with students, including the 2014-15 United Methodist Exemplary Teacher Award and the 2019-20 Carole Herrick Award for Excellence in Academic Advising. She has written the books Cinema as Weather: Stylistic Screens and Atmospheric Change and Love in the Time of Cinema, in addition to essays in a range of magazines and journals; her current project considers film as a natural history.



My own writing and teaching grow out of a love of experiencing films and reading books, whichin college and grad school, thanks to my peers and professorshelped me to find my own closest friends and truest self. As an undergraduate student, working together with my co-editor of our college literary magazine, I learned the power and intimacy of a friendship built through collaborative writing and shared inquiry, McKim said. Such opportunities that blend our learning with community, our professional interests with personal passions, are those that I always want to nurture in my students.



Starting in September 2020, current undergraduate students and recent alumni looking for online publication opportunities with Film Matters will now work with Hendrix College. Student writers, in addition to filmmakers seeking interview or review coverage, may email submissions or emails of interest/introduction to FilmMattersOnline@hendrix.edu.



About Hendrix College



A private liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas, Hendrix College consistently earns recognition as one of the countrys leading liberal arts institutions, and is featured in Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges. Its academic quality and rigor, innovation, and value have established Hendrix as a fixture in numerous college guides, lists, and rankings. Founded in 1876, Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. To learn more, visit www.hendrix.edu.




Jennifer Hawkins and Jake Wall welcomed their first child together, daughter Frankie Violet, in October last year.

And on Tuesday, the former Miss Universe looked every inch the doting parent as she cuddled up to her 10-month-old baby girl.

Uploading a photo to her Instagram account, the 36-year-old model revealed it was a 'cuddly morning' as Frankie rested on her.

So cute! On Tuesday, Jennifer Hawkins enjoyed a 'cuddly morning' with her adorable 10-month-old daughter Frankie Violet (pictured)

Little Frankie looked super cute in a white singlet top and pink Adidas tracksuits, while mum Jennifer was pictured from her waist down in grey track pants.

This comes after Jennifer recently revealed she is planning to wean her baby off breastfeeding in the coming months.

'I currently breastfeed Frankie, but will move to toddler milk after her first birthday,' Jennifer told Daily Mail Australia.

Changes: This comes after Jennifer recently revealed she is planning to wean her baby off breastfeeding in the coming months. Both pictured

In her first brand partnership as a new mother, Jennifer has signed on to be the new face of Bubs Australia, which was founded by fellow Sydney mum, Kristy Carr.

The Australian icon is officially the first-ever global face of Bubs.

'As a new mother it was a huge decision what brand to choose and trust when I was introducing solids to Frankie,' Jennifer explained.

'The Bubs ethos of healthy nutrition and well-being perfectly aligns with my own values': Jennifer initially discovered Bubs while researching the benefits of rice cereal

Jennifer expressed her desire to start a family in September 2018, following her departure from Myer after 12 years as the department store's ambassador.

Speaking at her final runway show for the retailer, she told the Herald Sun: 'I'd love to have a family, it's taking the time to look ahead. I want to have the time to be able to do that.'

Jennifer married property developer Jake in Bali, Indonesia in 2013, after eight years of dating.

The pair broke with tradition and gave their daughter both her mother's maiden name, Hawkins, and her father's surname, Wall.
The GOP decided that it could best defeat Johnson with the Southern strategy, designed to play on the anger of whites who opposed efforts to desegregate the South. It was the height of the civil rights movement, and the GOP gambled that white voters would be so eager to protect their Jim Crow laws that they would turn out in force for Goldwater.
SHANGHAIChinas explosive growth has made it home to the worlds fastest growing brands, expanding at a pace nearly 8 times faster than overall global rate, new research from Brand Finance shows.

The countrys impressive portfolio of high-performing brands has claimed 9 spots among the top 10 brands with the largest increase in brand value over the last decade, the report said.

More from WWD

The combined brand value of Chinese brands in the Brand Finance Global 500 ranking of the worlds most valuable brands has risen 1,100 percent increase from $111 billion in 2010 to $1,334 billion in 2020.

This is by far faster than brand value growth recorded by brands from any other country, with  for instance  the United States seeing a 177 percent and Japan a 94 percent increase, and nearly eight times faster than the overall growth of brand value within the Brand Finance Global 500 ranking  143 percent, it said.

The most valuable Chinese brands are financial institutions ICBC and Ping An, which sit in the first two spots, followed by phone maker Huawei. The top end of the ranking is dominated by finance, tech, utilities and telecommunicationsits not until the 74th spot that a clothing and sportswear brand, Anta, appearsbut ecommerce giants made a strong showing.

WeChat was ranked seventh, while its parent group Tencent was tenth. Taobao ranked 13th, TMall was 15th, while B2B site Alibaba.com was 22nd, with the report noting that Alibaba.com had grown a staggering 4029 percent over last 10 years. NetEase was 30th and JD.com came in 31st, while Pinduoduo was ranked 122nd. Tik-Tok-owner Bytedance appeared for the first time on the list this year.

By geography, the key areas of Beijing, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Hong Kong contributed the most brand value to this years Brand Finance China 500. But Beijing remained in a league of its own with its 100 brands in the ranking reaching a cumulative brand value of $787.2 billion, equating to 42 percent of total brand value. Chinas southern hub, the Greater Bay Area, is increasing its share, however.

Story continues

The number of brands in the Brand Finance China 500 2020 ranking coming from the Greater Bay Area, which includes Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau have increased from 135 brands in 2019 to 138 brands in 2020, with a total value of $532.6 billion, which accounts for more than a quarter of the total brand value in the table. The great performance of the region demonstrates the success of Chinas Reform and Opening-Up policy on Shenzhens 40th anniversary, the report said.

Property developer Joy City, with an estimated brand value of $2.7 billion stood out in particular as the real estate sectors and Beijings strongest brand. The company has a solid reputation across China for being trendy and forward thinking and in May last year, the brand launched Le Joy Hotel, the groups first hotel brand, further expanding its portfolio of properties.

As with all real estate brands across the sector, Joy City will have to learn and grow from the repercussions of and trends borne out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Scott Chen, managing director at Brand Finance China, commented. With a large chunk of the brands revenue hailing from its shopping mall business, Joy City will have to be ready to tackle the challenges of the steep rise in demand for online shopping and prolonged social distancing rules, which will no doubt have implications for the popularity of malls in general.

Other notable mall developers include Vanke, Greenland, China Resources, Longfor Properties, Poly Real Estate, Evergrande, Dalian Wanda, Sun Hung Kai Properties, and New World Development. Fashion brands that made the ranking include Heilan Home, Bosideng, Li Ning, 361 Degrees, Peacebird, Metersbonwe, La Chapelle and Staccato. Beauty companies Pechoin and Chando also feature.

The Brand Finance survey is not the only piece of data reflecting Chinas rise. For the second year in a row, the nation has dominated the Fortune Global 500 list, accounting for 133 of the top 500 global companies by revenue, with the U.S. in second with 121.

While many of the leading Chinese companies on the list  Sinopec Group, State Grid Corporation of China, China National Petroleum  primarily operate within their domestic market, their growing revenues in 2019 highlight the size of Chinas fast-growing market, Lux Research Senior Analyst Yuang-Sheng Yu said.

Other companies, such as Tencent, Huawei, and Alibaba, are also quickly reaching the international market, and this will likely be a continuing trend as the country attempts to transform itself into the worlds leading provider of advanced technologies and higher-value-added products and services across several key industries.
WASHINGTON  Congress may soon approve legislation that would bring more oversight to the sport under legislation crafted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., with the backing of industry leaders and House lawmakers.

McConnell will introduce new legislation in September that is an expansion of a bill crafted by U.S. Reps. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, and Andy Barr, R-Ky., who have been fighting to increase regulation of horse racing for years.

"Weve seen painful tragedies on the track in recent years. Doping scandals have rocked the horse racing community," McConnell said. "If we wanted to preserve horse racing and its future, we need to act.

If passed, the bill would end the patchwork of varying state regulations and bring uniform safety standards to the competitive sport. It would align U.S. racing standards with international practices.

McConnell announced the legislation on Monday at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Kentucky, with Keeneland President & CEO Bill Thomason, Keeneland President & CEO-Elect Shannon Arvin, Churchill Downs Incorporated CEO William Bill C. Carstanjen, Breeders Cup President & CEO Drew Fleming, and The Jockey Club Vice Chairman William Bill M. Lear Jr.

McConnell's bill creates an independent, non-governmental regulatory body of industry representatives and independent policy voices to improve racing regulations across the U.S., including rules governing track conditions. The authority's regulations will be enforced by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Sources briefed on the draft legislation said it may also phase in during a three-year period a ban on same-day medications for race horses.

Tonko said he hopes the bill will advance before the end of the year.

"Todays announcement of legislation to be introduced in the Senate means, after all this time, we are rounding the final turn," Tonko said. "With the support of Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Churchill Downs, I am confident that this compromise legislation will unite all who are interested in building a strong foundation and a prosperous future for this noble sport."

Tonko and Barr's legislation, similar to McConnell's, was co-sponsored by more than 250 House members. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Martha McSally, R-Ariz., have also worked on legislation on the issue.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

New York Racing Association President and CEO Dave O'Rourke urged Congress to pass McConnell's bill Monday.

NYRA has long supported a national approach to medication control and anti-doping across the sport of horse racing," O'Rourke said. "The safety and welfare of the athletes competing at NYRA tracks is our highest priority, which is why NYRA supports the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act and urges quick consideration by Congress."

Overall the U.S. race horse fatality rate is two-and-a-half- to five-times greater than in the rest of the horse racing world, the New York Times reported in 2019.

Racing has continued at Saratoga Race Course this summer without fans due to the pandemic.

On Saturday, the Kentucky Derby will go on with a limited number of spectators at Churchill Downs.
Sudan is in the midst of deadly flooding from the Nile River. The region's rainy season has also affected the contentious filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

The governor of Khartoum province, which includes Sudans capital, declared a state of emergency on Sunday, saying that 5,000 homes in the area have been completely or partially destroyed. Ayman Khaled Nimir described the flooding as a unprecedented rise of the Nile water, the state-run Sudan News Agency reported. The military deployed to the city of Khartoum to evacuate people, build barricades and distribute food, the Associated Press reported on Sunday.

The flooding began in mid-July. Throughout the country more than 37,000 homes have been destroyed and 90 people have died so far, according to the United Nations.

The Nile River flows north from Khartoum, where it is met by its Blue Nile and White Nile tributaries. The independent Sudanese news outlet Dabanga reported that water levels may be rising due to urban growth narrowing the riverbanks.

The Nile is an important part of the east African economy and the subject of tense and unfruitful negotiations involving Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia surrounding Ethiopias GERD mega dam.

Ethiopia built the dam to generate sorely needed electricity, but Sudan and Egypt are worried filling the dam could dangerously lower the Nile. In July, Ethiopia announced that the heavy rainfall had already met the dam's first-year of filling target.
'Today's India is fearless and is on track to be a great power. But this is definitely not happening without women, who form 48 per cent of our population.'

Ajai Shukla reports.

IMAGE: The Indian Army's Corps of Signals contingent led by Captain Tania Shergill marches during the Republic Day parade at Rajpath, January 26, 2020. Photograph: Kamal Singh/PTI Photo

A highly regarded American scholar of military leadership and personnel policy, Lieutenant Colonel Fred Dibella (retd) wrote this about women in combat: 'Up to now, we have recognised the blatantly obvious: that battles and wars are won by Alpha Males. And why is that? Uh... because men and women may well be equal in the eyes of God, but they damned sure ain't identical in the laws of physics and psychology.'

'Men are, by and large, bigger, stronger, faster, more aggressive, more violent, more ferocious, more intense, more powerful, more brutal, more belligerent, more destructive, AND THEREFORE MORE LETHAL than women.'

Prejudice against women doing military service, particularly those aspiring to combat roles, is hardly the preserve of the US.

Women have struggled against entrenched male resistance in every major military, not least our own.

A perfect summary of institutional patriarchal prejudice was provided by India's senior-most soldier, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, while speaking on television as army chief in 2018.

General Rawat argued that our soldiers are not ready to accept women leading them in combat; women officers would have to be 'cocooned' from the ogling eyes of subordinate soldiers; women commanding officers might demand long maternity leave; and the society is not ready for women coming back in body bags.

Undeterred by such views, numerous brave women have battled for equality with men, with many demanding the right to go into combat.

Last month, they won another battle in this long struggle when the government issued an order 'paving the way for empowering women officers to shoulder larger roles in the organisation'.

This was in response to a landmark Supreme Court judgment five months ago, ruling that women army officers be granted 'permanent commission' that allow them to serve beyond 20 years, subject to being cleared by a selection board.

Before this, except for three branches, women have been granted only 'short service commission' that restrict their service tenure to 14 years.

Being restricted to short service commission denied the bulk of the army's 1,600 women officers promotion to higher rank; most went home as major.

They were also ineligible for pensions, for which an officer must serve at least 20 years -- an option open to the vast majority of the army's 43,000 officers.

The three branches where women officers were already allowed long-service permanent commission are: The Army Medical Corps, including its ancillary Military Nursing Service, the Judge Advocate General branch and the Army Educational Corps.

The government order opens the door to permanent commission for women officers in another eight branches: Army Air Defence, Signals, Engineers, Army Aviation, Electronics and Mechanical Engineers, Army Service Corps, Army Ordnance Corps, and the Intelligence Corps.

As with male SSC officers, the grant of permament commission will have to be earned.

Only women officers selected by a Permanent Commission Selection Board would be offered permanent commission.

Army Headquarters is finalising the modalities for such a selection board, which will begin functioning soon, said the defence ministry.

'The Indian Army is committed to provide equal opportunities to all personnel, including women officers, to serve the nation,' stated the defence ministry.

In fact, that is hardly the case, with women still facing many glass ceilings.

Amongst the most controversial is the army's bar on allowing women into combat.

While the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy allow women to discharge combat roles, the army continues to keep them out of the four fighting arms -- the armoured corps, infantry, mechanised infantry and special forces -- or even the artillery, which is a combat support arm.

Women remain excluded from the fighting arms four years after Pranab Mukherjee (then President), while inaugurating the Budget session of Parliament in February 2016, stated that they would soon be inducted into the combat streams of all three services.

The IAF has long allowed women to pilot transport aircraft and helicopters, both of which routinely operate in combat conditions.

Since 2016, when the IAF announced it would allow them to fly fighter aircraft, it has trained and operationalised eight women fighter pilots.

Meanwhile, the navy permits women officers on board warships, even when they sail into battle, subject to women-only cabins and bathrooms being available on board.

All new naval warships are being built with separate living and toilet facilities for women.

Another glaring omission is the fact that women are permitted to serve in the military only as officers, not as soldiers, sailors and airwomen.

The first step towards breaking this glass ceiling was taken in December 2019 with the recruitment of 100 women soldiers for the Corps of Military Police.

But that is a small number in an army of 1.3 million personnel.

Until 1992, women could only serve in the military as doctors and nurses.

That year women officers were allowed into four non-combat army branches: tThe logistics branches of ASC and AOC; the AEC, which trains and educates soldiers; and the military's internal legal department, the JAG branch.

In these limited billets, women short service commission officers could serve five years, extendable to 10 years. Later, it was increased to 14 years.

In 1996, four more departments were opened to SSC women officers, including two combat support arms: Engineers and Signals.

Also opening their doors to women were the Intelligence Corps and EME.

Subsequently, Army Aviation and AAD also opened to women.

In 2008, women officers in the AEC and JAG branches were permitted permanent commission.

There is growing pressure from women, including from those within the military, for a larger role.

Actor Gul Panag, the daughter of a combat veteran, says she always aspired to join the army until she learnt women were not allowed into combat arms.

"I welcome this first step towards parity with men in the armed forces. The onus is now on women to demonstrate equal capability in all fields so that the government takes the logical next step of allowing women direct permanent commission, like men, through the National Defence Academy and the three service academies," says Panag

Wing Commander Neelu Khatri (retd), one of the IAF's earliest woman officers, laments that allowing women permanent commission has taken so long.

"Today's India is fearless and is on track to be a great power. But this is definitely not happening without women, who form 48 per cent of our population," she says.

"Women must be inducted into the military in much larger numbers and entrusted with combat roles."

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
The current French president, Emmanuel Macron, is visiting Lebanon to mark the occasion, 100 years later. But the mood could not be more somber

It was a century ago on Sept. 1, 1920, that a French general, Henri Gouraud, stood on the porch of a Beirut palace surrounded by local politicians and religious leaders and declared the State of Greater Lebanon _ the precursor of the modern state of Lebanon.

The current French president, Emmanuel Macron, is visiting Lebanon to mark the occasion, 100 years later. But the mood could not be more somber.

Lebanon has been hit by a series of catastrophes, including a financial crash. On Aug. 4, a massive explosion at Beirut's port killed at least 190 people and injured thousands _ the culmination of decades of accumulated crises, endemic corruption and mismanagement by an entrenched ruling class.

Facing potential bankruptcy and total collapse, many Lebanese are marking the centennial with a feeling that their experiment as a nation has failed and questioning their willingness to stay in the crisis-riddled country.

``I am 53 years old and I don't feel I had one stable year in this country,'' said prominent Lebanese writer Alexandre Najjar.

Like others from his generation, Najjar lived through the 1975-1990 civil war, when Beirut's name became synonymous with hostages, car bombings and chaos.

He was a teenager when Israel invaded Beirut in the summer of 1982, imposing a suffocating siege of the capital for three months, and a young man when Christian militias turned their guns on each other in 1989. When former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a massive Beirut truck bombing in 2005, Najjar was in his late 30s.

The following year, Israel and Hezbollah engaged in a month-long war. In between, countless other conflicts, bouts of sectarian fighting and other disasters plagued one generation after another, leading to waves of Lebanese emigration.

But the Aug. 4 explosion, says Najjar, was the ``peak of a failed state'' - proof that authorities cannot even provide basic public safety.

It wasn't supposed to be that way.

Following the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Lebanon fell under the French mandate, starting in 1920. France governed for 23 years until the country gained independence as the Lebanese Republic.

Home to 18 different religious sects, it was hailed as a model of pluralism and coexistence. The nation settled on an unwritten sectarian arrangement, initially seen as the guarantee of stability but which many Lebanese now consider a curse: the president would always be Christian, the prime minister Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker Shia Muslim, with other posts similarly divvied up.

In the 1950s, under pro-Western President Camille Chamoun, the economy flourished thanks to booming tourism and cash from oil-rich Arab nations. But his presidency ended with the outbreak of Lebanon's first civil war in 1958, which lasted for several months and saw U.S. troops land to help Chamoun.

Lebanon saw its heyday in the 1960s and early 1970s, but then fell into disaster in 1975, with the start of the 15-year civil war that killed nearly 150,000 people, eventually pitting Lebanon's sects against each other. Syrian troops moved in, and Israel invaded twice _ once in 1978, then again in 1982, in an assault that forced late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his fighters to leave Lebanon.

U.S. interests were repeatedly attacked, most notably two bombings of the American Embassy and the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. service members, the deadliest attack on the Marines since the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. On the same day, 58 French paratroopers were killed by a second attacker who struck their installation in Beirut.

Israel's 1982 invasion and the attacks on the Americans marked the rise of what later became the militant group Hezbollah.

After the civil war ended in 1990, the Iranian-backed Shia militia was the only one allowed to keep its weapons because it was fighting Israeli occupation forces in southern Lebanon. When Israel withdrew from the south in 2000, Hezbollah kept its powerful fighting force, depicting itself as Lebanon's defender. It fought Israeli forces to a draw in 2006, and tensions remain high along the border.

Today, Hezbollah and its allies, led by President Michel Aoun, dominate Lebanese politics and control a majority in parliament.

But the Lebanese are deeply divided over Hezbollah. While many in the Shia community are fiercely loyal to the group, and many non-Shias sympathize with its anti-Israel stance, others increasingly see it as imposing Iran's will on the country.

Many civil war-era warlords today head political factions, holding onto posts for themselves or their families and controlling powerful local business interests. The factions pass out positions in government ministries and public institutions to followers or carve out business sectors for them, ensuring their backing.

Corruption has soared over the past two decades, and the sectarian-based patronage system has left Lebanon with crumbling infrastructure, a bloated public sector and one of the world's highest debt ratios, at 170% of GDP _ topped by a ruling class that amassed fortunes.

Last October, nationwide protests erupted over the worsening economy, and the financial juggling act that had been the basis of Lebanon's prosperity since 1990 collapsed into the most severe economic crisis of the country's modern history, made worse by the coronavirus pandemic.

``Lebanon is in its worst period over the past 100 years,'' said legislator Marwan Hamadeh. ``We are in the worst stage, economically, politically and even when it comes to national unity.''

``We are currently occupied by Iran and its missiles,'' added Hamadeh, who was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt in 2004 that he blames on Hezbollah.

Historian Johnny Mezher says that to solve its problems, Lebanon could start by adopting a law that boosts national identity rather than loyalty to one's sect and helps ensure qualifications determine who gets state posts, rather than sectarian connections.

``Religious figures should be prevented from meddling in politics,'' he said.

Even after seven decades of Lebanese independence, France still wields strong influence on the tiny Mediterranean nation.

Two days after the port blast - with Lebanese leaders totally absent - Macron visited Beirut and toured one of the most heavily damaged neighborhoods to a hero's welcome, with some chanting ``Vive La France.''

More than 60,000 signed a petition to place Lebanon under French mandate for 10 years, an idea Macron firmly dismissed. ``It's up to you to write your history,'' he told the crowds.

On his return trip, Macron will plant a tree in Beirut on Tuesday to mark the centenary and meet with Lebanese officials to push them toward forming a government and enacting reforms.

``There is no doubt we were expecting the 100th anniversary to be different. We did not expect this year to be catastrophic to this level,'' said Najjar, who is a lawyer, poet and author of about 30 books in French, including one that tells the story of Beirut during the 20th Century.

``There is still hope,'' he said. ``We have hit rock bottom and things cannot get worse.''

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We suspect if that same question were asked today  after four years of unfollowing and blocking on social media  the divide might be even starker.

We were reminded of this by two recent events, one national and one in the commonwealth.

The roster of speakers at the Democrats national convention included a few Republicans, most prominently former Ohio Gov. John Kasich. The point was to show that Joe Biden can appeal across party lines, and that its OK for disaffected Republicans to vote for him. Youd think that Democrats would rejoice that theyve won over a high-profile Republican defector, however temporarily. Winning an election is about addition, not subtraction. But not all Democrats saw it that way. Some were horribly offended. With the exception of being Anti-Trump, Kasichs record stands against everything our party supports, tweeted the Kent State College Democrats. His inclusion at the convention would be an affront to our values. Others had similar responses. So much for the big tent, eh?
SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio  Shaker Heights police said the deaths of two adults and two teenagers found at a home in the city are being investigated as a possible murder-suicide.

Officers were called about 2:20 p.m. Sunday to the house on the 18000 block of South Woodland Road, between Fontenay and Brighton roads. They were responding to a call for a welfare check at the request of a family member, according to a news release from Shaker Heights police.

Once inside the home, police found four people dead, two adults and two teenagers, the news release says. Investigators say there was no forced entry into the home, and they do not believe there are any additional suspects in the deaths.

The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiners Office has not released the names of those found dead.

No additional information about the incident was immediately made available. This post will be updated Sunday evening if more details are released.

More Northeast Ohio crime news:

28-year-old man dies at Cuyahoga County Jail, officials say

Cleveland woman shot to death in apartment building parking lot, police say

Cleveland police respond to five shootings in less than 3 hours on citys East Side
Washington, D.C., Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Arizonans seeking to appeal administrative decisions to state courts will finally be able to obtain relief from state agency abuses thanks to the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group. NCLA is pleased to announce that the Arizona Supreme Court has adopted verbatim an NCLA-drafted amendment to its Judicial Review of Administrative Decisions Rule 3 (JRAD Rule 3). The new rule makes it easier for litigants to obtain Superior Court stays of agency decisions.

Arizona state agency adjudications have several due-process and separation-of-powers problems. Individuals in administrative adjudications can be denied basic due-process rights such as the right to confront witnesses, the right to jury trial, and the right to disclosure of exculpatory evidence. Further, state agencies often decide these cases in a haphazard manner. Agency heads can bypass rules of evidence and civil procedure, ignore witnesses, and rely solely on the one-sided facts crafted by their own subordinates in rendering these decisions. Agencies can thus investigate and prosecute Arizonans, as well as act as the judge and jury in administrative cases.

The new rule goes into effect starting January 1, 2021. The rule change affects all appeals from the final decisions of all Arizona state agencies that are required to go to the Superior Courtthat is, all Title 32 boards, the Department of Child Safety, and so forth.

NCLA released the following statement:

JRAD appellants are usually people of limited financial means. The old rule had made it practically impossible for those accused of wrongdoing by one-sided agency proceedings to obtain meaningful judicial review from state courts. The amended rule is a welcome change that allows Arizonas courts to hold state agencies accountable for their myriad violations of the peoples civil liberties.

 Adi Dynar, Litigation Counsel, NCLA

ABOUT NCLA

NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLAs public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans fundamental rights.

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GIS  31 August 2020: The Customs Anti-Narcotics Section (CANS) of the Mauritius Revenue Authority (MRA) has, on Friday 28 August 2020, seized cannabis and MDMA (methylenedioxy - methamphetamine) worth approximately Rs 136,000 from five unclaimed parcels at the Parcel Post Office, in Port Louis.

The unclaimed parcels which have been opened by the CANS Officers were sent from the Netherlands and Canada. These packages were addressed to inhabitants of Midlands, Tamarin and Quartier Militaire.

Upon examination, the content, suspected to be cannabis and MDMA of a market value of Rs 32,202 and Rs 104,400 were handed over to the Anti-Drug and Smuggling Unit of the Port for further investigation.

It is recalled that members of the public may report any suspected drug/illicit activities to the MRA through the Stop Drug platform or by calling 8958.
A British woman was killed after being hit by a boat propeller off the coast of a Greek holiday island today.

The 60-year-old woman was hit by a speedboat while swimming off Corfu and her body was discovered by other bathers, local media says.

Swimmers said the woman had suffered 'serious injuries to the lower extremities' in the fatal accident off Avlaki beach.

The person steering the speedboat did not notice the woman in time and could not swerve out of the way to avoid hitting her, it is believed.

A British woman was killed after being hit by a boat propeller off Avlaki beach today (file photo) off the coast of the Greek holiday island of Corfu

The 60-year-old British woman was swimming off the coast of Corfu when a speedboat captain allegedly failed to spot her in time

There were thought to be numerous speedboats in the area and the local port authority is investigating the woman's death.

The woman's body pulled from the sea shortly before 10am and taken to Corfu General Hospital. An autopsy is expected tomorrow, according to I Efimerida.

The British woman's name has not been revealed, but her husband and eldest daughter have been informed of her death.

She was described as a resident of Corfu for most of the year who was 'very popular in the local community', according to public broadcaster ERT.

Some reports described her as a permanent resident of Corfu, but others said she was on holiday on the island.

UK tourists have been returning to Greece in recent weeks after travel restrictions were lifted.

Greece is one of the 'travel corridor' countries where tourists can go without having to quarantine for two weeks when they return to Britain.

However, an increase in coronavirus cases in recent weeks has pushed it closer to the threshold of 20 cases per 100,000 in a week at which the UK is likely to re-impose quarantine rules.

The current figure is 14.1, after nearly 1,500 new cases were reported in the last seven days.

Greece needs tourism to revive an economy still grappling with the aftermath of a depression that wiped out a quarter of its economy.

New local restrictions have been imposed in tourist hotspots such as Mykonos to curb the spread of the virus, including a midnight curfew for bars, restaurants and cafes and a ban on large gatherings.
New Delhi: Billionaire Gautam Adani's Adani Group on Monday said it will acquire GVK's stake in Mumbai airport to become the country's biggest private airport operator, with a cumulative shareholding to 74 per cent.

According to a regulatory filing, Adani Airport Holdings Ltd (AAHL), the flagship holding company of Adani Group for its airport business, "has entered into an agreement to acquire the debt of GVK Airport Developers Ltd (ADL) in Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL), which will be converted into equity stake.

This conversion would lead to Adani Group getting all of 50.5 per cent stake of GVK Group.

The group will also acquire another 23.5 per cent of minority partners, Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), and Bidvest Group.

"The GVK Group and AAHL have agreed that AAHL will offer a stand-still to GVK, in addition, to release the guarantee given by GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd with respect to the debt acquired by it," the company said in the filing.

Adani Group said it will also "take steps to complete the acquisition of a 23.5 per cent equity stake from ACSA and Bidvest in MIAL for which it has obtained Competition Commission of India (CCI) approval."

"Upon the acquisition of the debt of GVK ADL, Adani Group will take steps to obtain necessary customary and regulatory approvals, as may be required, to acquire controlling interest in MIAL," it said.

In a separate filing, GVK said it has "agreed to cooperate with Adani Airport Holdings Ltd (AAHL)" under which the Adani Group firm will acquire debt from various lenders including a Goldman Sachs led consortium and HDFC.

This debt will be converted to equity at mutually agreed terms, it said.

The two firms did not give details of the financial terms.

Adani said it will infuse funds into MIAL as well as help achieve financial closure of Navi Mumbai International Airport so as to commence its construction. MIAL holds 74 per cent interest in the airport.

GVK Reddy, founder and Chairman, GVK said, "The aviation industry has been severely impacted by COVID-19, setting it back by many years and has impacted the financials of Mumbai International Airport Ltd.

It was therefore important, that we bring in a financially strong investor in the shortest possible time to improve the financial position of MIAL, as well as to help achieve financial closure of the Navi Mumbai International Airport project, which is a project of national importance."

"When the transaction is consummated, which is subject to customary approvals, we would be reducing a significant portion of liabilities to our lenders, which is of utmost importance to the group," he said.

Adani Group had in March 2019 agreed to acquire 13.5 per cent stake of South African company, Bidvest for Rs 1,248 crore. However, GVK Group blocked the deal claiming the right of first refusal.

GVK, however, could not bring money to the table to buy Bid Services Division Mauritius' (Bidvest) stake and the matter went to court.

In October, debt-laden GVK Group entered into an agreement to sell 79 per cent of its stake in GVK Airport Holdings for Rs 7,614 crore to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Canada's Public Sector Pension (PSP) Investments, and state-owned National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF).
Going by most of the passionate debates by aviation geeks, the biggest fascination seem to be reserved for the bigger aircraft. But for Varun Suhag, the smaller ones have held equal intrigue.

Suhag learnt flying on three aircraft, including the Cessna 152 that seat two. He started his career as a pilot with Air Deccan on ATR 42/72, which fly anywhere between 42 to 72 passengers. When he turned entrepreneur with Flyboy Aviation in 2009, the young pilot started off with aerosports that involved powered parachutes.

Not surprising then that the pilot-turned-businessman chose the Tecnam aircraft, which includes a three-seater model, to launch services of India's newest regional airline, Air Taxi, in the next few months.

Air Taxi's parent company, Aviation Connectivity & Infrastructure Developers Pvt, has won 11 routes in the just concluded phase of UDAN 4. These were part of the 78 routes auctioned by the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

"We had won routes in the last round of UDAN too. We were in the process to start services when the lockdown happened. All the preparatory work is done to start operations soon," Suhag told Moneycontrol. He founded Air Taxi in 2014, along with Poonam Gaur who was last a pilot in IndiGo.

Air Taxi will operate from Hissar, to destinations such as Dharamshala, Chandigarh and Amritsar. Earlier it won rights to operate on Shimla-Kulu route.

But why a three-seater aircraft?

Tecnam is an Italian manufacturer and its aircraft are different from the 'mainstream' ones, on several counts. It is one of the rare piston aircraft being flown in India.

The US based National Business Aviation Association explain piston powered aircraft like this:

"Piston engines are more efficient but have a speed limitation. Piston engines are found in all automobiles, where as jet engines are limited to airliners and private jets."

Suhag explained: "Piston engines are the traditional ones. They powered all aircraft, big and small till the jet engines were introduced. Piston airplanes have one or more piston-powered engines connected to the propeller(s), which provide thrust to move the aircraft on the ground and through the air."

Small in size, these aircraft run not on aviation turbine fuel, but on aviation gas. "We source it from Indian Oil Corporation, which imports it. Some of the aircraft that seat over four, also run on petrol," Suhag added, whose another firm Citrus Air is an authorised dealer for Tecnam.

Compared to a turboprop, these aircraft are cheaper to maintain, Suhag said. Though aviation gas is more expensive than ATF, maintenance cost of the piston aircraft is still lower.

A smaller aircraft also makes business sense, said Suhag, who had also flown for Kingfisher Airlines, before turning a businessman.

One, a flight turnaround is fast and he has the flexibility of adding flights according to the demand. "We could have flights like a shuttle," the 36-year-old said. It also makes a difference in ensuring that the check-in time of these flights is as low as possible.

"I can't go beyond a nine-seater as anything more will mean that passengers will have to queue up. And that eats into time. People may rather prefer taking the road," Suhag explained. Air Taxi promises to cut the travel time between its destinations, which is about six hours by road, to 25 minutes.

At present though, the airline has received approvals to operate only one flight a day. The fare too, say the entrepreneur, may not be enough to break even. "We want to focus on introducing the product first. If there is demand, we could even look at taking the route off the UDAN scheme, thus giving the flexibility to put market-based fares," Suhag said.
Researchers around the world are testing wastewater for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, in hopes that what goes down the drain can act as an early warning system for COVID-19 infections in communities.

Environmental engineer Kyle Bibby is coordinating a nationwide research network sponsored by the National Science Foundation that aims to help scientists pool their work in this area. Here he explains the sewage-virus connection and how researchers hope to eventually translate raw measurements into useful public health information.

How do you monitor wastewater for germs?

This idea has gotten a lot of attention recently, but its not new. Scientists have been searching sewage for pathogens since at least the 1940s, most notably for poliovirus.

The overall concept is pretty straightforward. Infected individuals excrete the pathogen, which gets flushed down the toilet or washed down the drain. The pathogen  or fragments of its genes  then travel through a communitys sewage system to a treatment plant, where careful sampling can detect its presence.

About two-thirds of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 excrete the coronavirus in their stool. A treatment facility can monitor wastewater for the virus RNA using molecular tools.

Theres no real standard yet, but most approaches involve concentrating the wastewater sample to some degree to make it more likely that youll be able to detect any RNA. Were not looking for a whole, intact genome, but a small sequence of a single SARS-CoV-2 gene.

The RNA fragments that were measuring are too small to physically capture directly. So we use other tricks to snag them, usually by what we call electrostatic interaction  getting the RNA to stick to something like a filter, or using other chemicals to get it to clump together.

Then we quantify how much of the viral RNA is in the sample.

Its important to recognize that we cant directly extrapolate from whats measured in the wastewater to how many people in the community have the coronavirus  at least not yet.

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huge tank of wastewater at a treatment plant

What does the presence of coronavirus tell you?

We can have three related goals when were looking for viral RNA in the wastewater. First is direct surveillance. Essentially is the virus there, yes or no. That probably has the most promise within small confined communities, schools, dorms, prisons, long-term care facilities and so on. This would require sampling directly from the sewer at the facility. For instance, the University of Arizona detected the presence of asymptomatic infected students by testing wastewater from on-campus housing.

The next potential application could be monitoring for trends. Is the apparent concentration of the virus increasing? That may indicate that infections within the community are increasing as well.

And the third application  which were probably the furthest away from  is directly applying our measurements to estimate the number of infected individuals in the community.

Theres a lot of uncertainty associated with how much of this virus an infected individual excretes, and how long they excrete it for  reports seem to suggest that it varies a lot. You could have one person sick with COVID-19 excreting 100 copies of the coronavirus genome per gram of feces. Another individual could be excreting 100 million copies per gram of feces, a big difference.

The overall vision is that wastewater monitoring could inform all sorts of public health intervention and disease surveillance programs. It could complement clinical surveillance, which often lags behind the true disease level in the community.

Is the wastewater itself a contamination risk?

Wastewater surveillance has typically been used to detect a pathogen that spreads via the fecal-oral route  not the respiratory route apparently responsible for SARS-CoV-2 infections. Theres debate about whether or not the coronavirus can be spread via water. I would say its plausible, though it certainly isnt a dominant transmission route and it hasnt been demonstrated yet.

While there are some reports of infectious virus being excreted in stool, the vast majority appears to be inactivated once it leaves a patients body. So I really dont believe coronavirus in wastewater should be a significant concern for the general public.

Its possibly a bigger concern to a wastewater worker. But the consensus is that standard personal protective equipment for dealing with wastewater is adequate for controlling the coronavirus. Remember  outside of the pandemic, wastewater can contain other infectious pathogens at any time.

water flows into a river from a pipe connected to a treatment plant

But imagine swimming at a beach downstream of a treatment plant. You dont really need to worry about any bits of broken up viral genome left in the water. The concern is infectious virus and we just havent seen any infectious virus make it all the way to a sewage treatment plant, much less through the wastewater treatment and disinfection process.

What are the challenges to be worked out?

Its a misconception to think this technique is ready to go right off the shelf. Theres still a lot of unsettled science about how to do it well.

medical worker points swab toward patient's nostril

Its also not quite right to think of this as like testing every single person in the community for COVID-19. There are a variety of issues with detection limits, getting composite samples that grab wastewater from throughout the day, and of course just the fact that many sick people might not excrete viral RNA for us to detect. A negative wastewater result does not in fact mean that zero people in the area have the coronavirus. So wastewater surveillance is subtly different from a clinical diagnosis tool.

I worry about a citys department of health getting wastewater data from a contract lab and all of a sudden either thinking everything is safe and the coronavirus cases are low in their area or else overextrapolating that cases are high. Its not like we couldnt get to the ability to use this tool in this way pretty quickly. Were just not there yet today.

My colleagues and I are trying to help establish a framework to translate this information to a usable format for communities, so municipalities can use wastewater monitoring to help make tough decisions that affect peoples lives and the economy. We also have projects looking at the persistence of this infectious virus in wastewater.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:



Kyle Bibby receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Trapia 1

Figure 3: Trapia 1 Target with Location of 2020 Drill Holes, Resource and 3D Mag Inversion Target

Figure 3: Trapia 1 Target with Location of 2020 Drill Holes, Resource and 3D Mag Inversion Target

TPedra Branca 2020 Drill Program

Figure 4: Cross Section Summary of Phase 1 Drilling at Trapia 1

Figure 4: Cross Section Summary of Phase 1 Drilling at Trapia 1

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ValOre Metals Corp. ("ValOre"; the Company; TSXV: VO; OTC: KVLQF; FRANKFURT: KEQ0) today announced assay results from the ongoing Phase 1 core drill program at ValOres 100%-owned Pedra Branca Platinum Group Elements Project in northeastern Brazil. Assay results for the final three of five holes drilled at the Trapia 1 target are reported herein.



Highlights from ValOres Initial Drilling at Trapia 1:

Drill hole DD20TU13

 Successfully expands Trapia 1 mineralization with 140 metre step-out along strike to the south

 9.49 g/t 2PGE+Au (Palladium, Platinum and Gold; Pd, Pt+Au) over 2.45 metres (m) within a broad mineralized ultramafic (UM) unit 0.76 g/t 2PGE+Au over 61.85 m from 217.50 m downhole;

Drill hole DD20TU14

 Extends the down-dip mineralization at Trapia 1 in the northern portion of the resource area, and shows a thickening of the mineralized body at depth;

 1.27 g/t 2PGE+Au over 5.00 m, within a broader interval of 0.60 g/t 2PGE+Au over 21.55 m from 118.80 m downhole;

Initial drill results indicate that the large 3D magnetic inversion target extending approximately 1 kilometre from the Trapia 1 resource represents an intact and mineralized intrusion;

Mineralization remains open in all directions, with multiple drill holes planned for immediate follow-up;

Trapia 1 orebody has been shown to be thickening with depth across the entire width of the resource, and remains thick (61.85 m) in newly drilled areas south of the resource

ValOres Chairman and CEO, Jim Paterson, stated: Our Phase 1 drilling has successfully identified near surface mineralization in the southern portion of the current Trapia 1 resource area; extended and thickened the easterly down-dip mineralization across the full width of the resource; and proven that the mineralized ultramafic intrusion remains intact and open to expansion along a 1 kilometre geophysical target to the south. We plan to return to Trapia 1 near the end of Phase 1 due to the considerable resource expansion potential.

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Trapia Target Area and the 2019 NI 43-101 Resource

Trapia represents one of the five currently known PGE deposit areas which host NI 43-101 resources at Pedra Branca. ValOre reported a NI 43-101 inferred resource estimate for Pedra Branca in August, 2019, which totalled 1,067,000 ounces 2 PGE+Au contained in 27.2 million tonnes (Mt) grading 1.22 g/t 2PGE+Au. PGE mineralization for all five of the resource deposit areas outcrops at surface, making these inferred resources prospective for open pit mining. Figure 1 , shows the location of the five NI 43-101 deposit areas and ValOres proposed 2020 drill holes.

The Trapia resource is comprised of three separate deposit areas within a 2-kilometre radius: Trapia 1, Trapia 2 and Trapia West. Specifically, Trapia 1 represents 92,000 ounces of the aggregate Trapia resource of 219,000 ounces at 1.1 g/t 2PGE+Au (6.2 Mt). Figure 2 shows the location of the Trapia target areas (Trapia 1, Trapia 2 and Trapia West), proposed and drilled 2020 drill holes, and prospective 3D magnetic inversion drill targets.

Trapia 1 was selected for Phase 1 of the 2020 drill program on the merits of its strong resource expansion potential and high prospectivity along strike to the south, which correlates with a 3D magnetic inversion target extending approximately 1 kilometre from the currently defined resource. A total of 900 metres were drilled in five drill holes, testing both the PGE mineralization open at depth to the east and the 3D magnetic inversion target. Table 1 and Figure 3 present a summary of 2020 Phase 1 drilling at Trapia 1.

Figure 3: Trapia 1 Target with Location of 2020 Drill Holes, Resource and 3D Mag Inversion Target is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ac0d78e8-b869-4de4-94a1-4d6e76d23974

Trapia 1 2020 Drilling Results

Ultramafic rocks were intercepted in all five drill holes at Trapia 1 (DD20TU10 to DD20TU14), with four of the five holes returning strong 2PGE+Au assay results. Drill hole DD20TU13 successfully expanded Trapia 1 mineralization by stepping out 140 metres along strike to the south along a 1 kilometre long 3D magnetic inversion target. This drill hole was also critically important in validating a robust geological and structural model for the southern resource expansion target, demonstrating a ~50 metre down-stepping of the mineralized intrusion. In addition, drill hole DD20TU14 targeted the down-dip extension of mineralization in the northern Trapia 1 resource area, and successfully doubled the thickness of mineralized intrusion from the most proximal up-dip historical drill hole, DD09TU08. See Figure 4 for cross sections through all five Phase 1 drill holes at the Trapia 1 target area.

DD20TU13 targeted the southerly strike extension of Trapia 1 mineralization along the kilometre-scale long 3D magnetic inversion target, 140 metres south of the nearest mineralized intercept, DD20TU12. ValOre geologists identified an Ultramafic Marker Horizon in the upper sections of historical Trapia 1 resource holes to the north, as well as in DD20TU12 (from 31.95 to 36.85 metres) and DD20TU14 (from 121.00 to 140.35 metres). This stratigraphically significant marker unit was also encountered in DD20TU12; however, the anticipated target depth was encountered approximately 50 metres deeper down hole than expected. As such, it was interpreted that the entire, intact geological package associated with the Trapia 1 resource to the north had also been stepped down 50 metres. DD20TU13 was accordingly extended past the original planned length, and intersected 61.85 metres of mineralized ultramafic intrusion, grading 0.76 g/t 2PGE+Au from 217.15 m downhole, including 9.49 g/t 2PGE+ Au over 2.45 metres from 221.20 m. The down-stepped structural and geological model for the target area south of the resource was substantiated by the intercept in DD20TU13, which transected a stratigraphically-intact, mineralized, Trapia 1 resource-associated orebody that was approximately 50 metres deeper than the anticipated target depth.

The implications of this geological model are significant for DD20TU11, which aimed to target mineralization immediately south of the Trapia 1 resource, 140 m northwest of DD20TU13, and within the same 1 kilometer long magnetic target. The drilling and analysis of DD20TU11 preceded the now validated down-stepped structural model, and consequently, it is believed that DD20TU11 (the only Phase 1 Trapia 1 drill hole which lacked grade) was stopped short of the target intrusion, and thus remains open to a mineralized intercept at depth.

DD20TU14 targeted the down-dip extension of mineralization in the northern Trapia 1 resource area, and successfully doubled the thickness of mineralized intrusion from the proximal up-dip historical drill hole, DD09TU08. DD20TU14 returned 0.60 g/t 2PGE+Au over 21.55 m from 118.80 m downhole, including 1.27 g/t 2PGE+Au over 5.00 m from 132.00 m. For comparison, the up-dip, historical resource drill hole, DD09TU08, intercepted 0.83 g/t 2PGE+Au over 11.30 m. PGE mineralization remains open at depth.

Trapia 1 PGE mineralization remains open down-dip to the east, up-dip to the west along the isoshell, and along strike to the north and south, with multiple drill holes planned for immediate follow-up. 3D magnetic inversion target extending ~1 kilometre from Trapia 1 resource was shown in DD20TU13 to represent an intact, mineralized, down-stepped resource-associated intrusion, previously undrilled and untested. Consequently, DD20TU11 represents a high-priority hole to re-enter and extend, with the 50-metre stepped-down.

In summary, Phase 1 drilling at Trapia 1 has effectively brought mineralization to surface in the southern resource area, extended and thickened the easterly down-dip mineralization across the full width of the resource that remains fully open at depth, and proven that the mineralized ultramafic intrusion remains stratigraphically intact and wide open to expansion at least 140 metres to the south of DD20TU12, within a highly-prospective 1 kilometre long 3D magnetic inversion target. High-priority follow up drill holes have been planned for immediate execution at the end of Phase 1, including stepping further out along strike from DD20TU13, along the 1 kilometer long magnetic target, stepping west of DD20TU13 to target a shallower 2PGE+Au intercept, re-entering and extending DD20TU11 to depth (as directed by the down-stepped model), and further extending the resource mineralization down-dip.

Table 2: Summary of Significant Core Assay Results from DD20TU13 and DD20TU14

Drill Hole Depth From (m) Depth To (m) Interval (m)* 2PGE+Au (g/t) DD20TU13 217.05 279.00 61.85 0.76 Including 221.20 223.65 2.45 9.49 DD20TU14 118.80 140.35 21.55 0.60 Including 132.00 137.00 5.00 1.27

* Reported assay intervals are estimated to be 90-100% true width

Figure 4: Cross Section Summary of Phase 1 Drilling at Trapia 1 is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1f6dafab-94d5-4c82-932b-31cb2a89e118

Pedra Branca 2020 Drill Program

Please see ValOres news release from August 25, 2020 for detailed information regarding:

Pedra Branca 2020 Drill Program (Phase 1 and Phase 2)

Quality Control/Quality Assurance (QA/QC) and Grade Interval Reporting

Analytical Procedures, SGS Geosol

About Servitec Foraco Sondagem SA

ValOre and Servitec Foraco COVID-19 Protocols

http://valoremetals.com/news-media/news-releases/2020/

About ValOre Metals Corp.

ValOre Metals Corp. (TSXV: VO) is a Canadian company with a portfolio of highquality exploration projects. ValOres team aims to deploy capital and knowledge on projects which benefit from substantial prior investment by previous owners, existence of high-value mineralization on a large scale, and the possibility of adding tangible value through exploration, process improvement, and innovation.

In May 2019, ValOre announced the acquisition of the Pedra Branca Platinum Group Elements (PGE) property, in Brazil, to bolster its existing Angilak uranium, Genesis/Hatchet uranium and Baffin gold projects in Canada.

The Pedra Branca PGE Project comprises 38 exploration licenses covering a total area of 38,940 hectares (96,223 acres) in northeastern Brazil. At Pedra Branca, 5 distinct PGE+Au deposit areas host, in aggregate, a NI 43-101 Inferred Resource of 1,067,000 ounces 2PGE+ Au contained in 27.2 million tonnes grading 1.22 g/t 2PGE+Au (see ValOres July 23, 2019 news release). PGE mineralization outcrops at surface and all of the currently known inferred resources are potentially open pittable.

Comprehensive exploration programs have demonstrated the "District Scale" potential of ValOres Angilak Property in Nunavut Territory, Canada that hosts the Lac 50 Trend having a NI 43101 Inferred Resource of 2,831,000 tonnes grading 0.69% U 3 O 8 , totaling 43.3 million pounds U 3 O 8 . ValOre's. For disclosure related to the inferred resource for the Lac 50 Trend uranium deposits, please refer to ValOre's news release of March 1, 2013.

ValOres team has forged strong relationships with sophisticated resource sector investors and partner Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) on both the Angilak and Baffin Gold Properties. ValOre was the first company to sign a comprehensive agreement to explore for uranium on Inuit Owned Lands in Nunavut Territory and is committed to building shareholder value while adhering to high levels of environmental and safety standards and proactive local community engagement.

Qualified Person

The technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements set out in NI 43-101 and reviewed and approved by Colin Smith, P.Geo., who oversees New Project Review for ValOre.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

"Jim Paterson"

James R. Paterson, Chairman and CEO

ValOre Metals Corp.

For further information about, ValOre Metals Corp. or this news release, please visit our website at valoremetals.com or contact Investor Relations toll free at 1.888.331.2269, at 604.646.4527, or by email at contact@valoremetals.com .

ValOre Metals Corp. is a proud member of Discovery Group. For more information please visit: discoverygroup.ca

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Although ValOre believes that the expectations reflected in its forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements have been based on factors and assumptions concerning future events that may prove to be inaccurate. These factors and assumptions are based upon currently available information to ValOre. Such statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could influence actual results or events and cause actual results or events to differ materially from those stated, anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. A number of important factors including those set forth in other public filings could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include the future operations of the Company and economic factors. Readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The statements in this press release are made as of the date of this release and, except as required by applicable law, ValOre does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. ValOre undertakes no obligation to comment on analyses, expectations or statements made by third parties in respect of ValOre, or its financial or operating results or (as applicable), their securities.




South Africas governing party executive has decided at a weekend meeting that party officials formally charged with corruption and other serious crimes must step aside from their posts, President Cyril Ramaphosa has said.

The African National Congress (ANC) has been buffeted in recent weeks by reports of corruption during the coronavirus crisis, with state investigators probing irregularities in government tenders worth 5 billion rands ($297m).

In a statement read out on Monday by Ramaphosa, the governing party ordered members who are formally charged with corruption to immediately step aside from all leadership positions in the ANC, in legislatures and other government structures pending the finalisation of their cases.

The ANC will put in place a mechanism for leaders to make regular declarations of financial interests, and guidelines will be developed on ANC leaders and their families doing business with government and public entities, added Ramaphosa, who had set up a ministerial committee to investigate alleged corruption in state tenders earlier this month.





Reports of suspect deals between government officials and businesses providing medical equipment, as well as food aid parcels to the poor, have sparked outrage in the country.

South Africas anti-corruption watchdog said earlier in August it was investigating irregularities in these contracts, the latest in a series of high-profile corruption scandals involving politically connected individuals.

Healthcare workers and unions say corruption is contributing to poor delivery of services and putting lives at risk.

While the government has given contracts to service providers for personal protection equipment (PPE), the prices have been inflated. In other instances, PPE has not been delivered at all or contracts have been given to companies and people connected to the government and the ANC.

The Special Investigating Unit (SUI), a government agency, said 102 companies in the province of Gauteng alone are under investigation. While in other provinces, officials have been suspended and investigations have begun, but no one has yet been charged or prosecuted.

Its difficult to put numbers on it because the stories are still coming out and, unfortunately, because of the lack of having good protection and preventive measures in place we may only know of the extent of the looting six or eight months down the line, Karam Singh, head of legal and investigations at Corruption Watch, told Al Jazeera earlier in August.

Ramaphosas chief spokeswoman, Khusela Diko, is also embroiled in a scandal involving her husband Thandisizwe. His company has been accused of winning a $7m contract to supply PPE through his political connections. Diko has taken special leave and she and her husband deny breaking any laws.

Zuma attack

Stung by allegations of corruption during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ramaphosa wrote to ANC members earlier this month saying its leaders stand accused of corruption and that the ANC does stand as accused number one.

Last week, his scandal-hit predecessor Jacob Zuma called Ramaphosas letter fundamentally flawed and a bid to please the countrys white minority.

I implore you to take responsibility without insulting our movement and its members, who have committed no crime of corruption as they sit waiting for the ever-elusive better life for all, said Zuma in his leaked letter.

You write, for your own desires to plead for white validation and approval, Zuma said.

Ramaphosa said he had not yet responded to Zumas letter.

I dont even know what the reasoning [was]  and will not even publicly entertain issues that are raised in the letter, the president said.

The ANC said the seemingly choreographed campaign against the president will not distract the movement from undertaking and intensifying its fight against corruption.
The Republican National Convention begged this question: Why are President Donald Trumps most fervent supporters describing the state of his union as a hellscape?

It was perhaps the central paradox for voters wondering what to believe in the rhetoric, because it defied logic to believe it all. Are Americans living in a dystopia or in an America made great again by Trump?

Four years ago, candidate Trump promised that if he won, The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored.

Now? Ive never seen our streets go this bad so quickly, Pat Lynch, representing tens of thousands of New York police officers, told the GOP proceedings. We are staring down the barrel of a public safety disaster. He said this in remarks singing Trumps praises.

Rudy Giuliani, Trumps personal lawyer and a former New York mayor, spoke of years of carnage and violence rising now, and implored, Mr. President, make our nation safe again.

All of the conventions apocalyptic rhetoric was in service of bashing Trump challenger Joe Biden, Democratic mayors and national Democrats both in and out of office as being soft on violence and anarchy. Yet the landscape of lawlessness they described is Trumps America now.

Hyperbole suffused the proceedings, both when Trump and his supporters hailed his record and when they denounced the other side. Outright falsehoods were heard every night on the social justice protests, the coronavirus, the economy and Bidens agenda.

A selection from the week:

PROTESTS

VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE, expressing support for people in uniform: People like Dave Patrick Underwood, an officer in Homeland Securitys Federal Protective Service, who was shot and killed during the riots in Oakland, California.  Wednesday.

THE FACTS: Pence is blurring what happened, leaving the impression that Underwood was a victim of rioters. Underwood was not killed by demonstrators in Oakland who were protesting for racial justice.

Federal authorities say Underwood was fatally shot by Steven Carrillo, an Air Force staff sergeant they say has ties to a far-right, anti-government movement, while Underwood was guarding a federal courthouse during protests in May. Officials believe Carrillo used the protests as a cover for the slaying and his subsequent escape.

Carrillo, 32, hatched a plot to target officers with at least one other accomplice online, federal authorities allege. Over an eight-day span before his capture, they say, Carrillo fatally shot Underwood and wounded his partner, then killed a California sheriffs deputy and injured four others.

Of the two law enforcement officers killed, Pence only mentioned the one who was in the vicinity of the protest. The other is Santa Cruz County Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, who authorities say was killed by Carrillo while pursuing him in June.

-

RACIAL INEQUALITY

KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL DANIEL CAMERON: On the economy: Joe Biden couldnt do it, but President Trump did build an economy that worked for everyone, especially minorities.  Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Not accurate.

Republicans can talk successfully about the decline in unemployment rates for Black and Hispanic workers. But thats just one gauge; plenty of economic troubles and inequalities abound for minorities. Minority groups still lagged behind white people with regard to incomes, wealth and home ownership before the pandemic. But when the disease struck, it became clear that the economy did not work well for everybody as the job losses and infections disproportionately hit minorities.

Black unemployment now stands at 14.6%. Hispanic unemployment is 12.9%. The white unemployment rate is 9.2%. For every dollar of total wealth held by white households, Blacks have just 5 cents, according to the Federal Reserve. Its 4 cents for Hispanics. That is not evidence of an economy working especially for minorities.

___

POLICE

ERIC TRUMP: Biden has pledged to defund the police.  Wednesday.

REP. STEVE SCALISE of Louisiana: Joe Biden has embraced the lefts insane mission to defund them.

THE FACTS: No, Biden has explicitly rejected the call by some on the left to defund the police. He has proposed more money for police, conditioned on improvements in their practices.

Bidens criminal justice agenda, released long before the protests over racial injustice, proposes more federal money for training that is needed to avert tragic, unjustifiable deaths and hiring more officers to ensure that departments are racially and ethnically reflective of the populations they serve.

Specifically, he calls for a $300 million infusion into federal community policing grant programs. Thats more money, not less.

___

BLACK LIVES MATTER

GIULIANI: Black Lives Matter and antifa sprang into action and, in a flash, they hijacked the peaceful protest into vicious, brutal riots.  Thursday.

THE FACTS: Thats a hollow claim.

Theres no evidence that Black Lives Matter or antifa, or any political group for that matter, is infiltrating racial injustice protests and injecting violence.

In June, The Associated Press analyzed court records, employment histories and social media posts for 217 people arrested in Minneapolis and the District of Columbia, cities at the center of the protests earlier this year.

More than 85 percent of the people arrested were local residents, and few had affiliation with any organized groups. Social media posts for a few of those arrested indicated they were involved in left-leaning activities while others expressed support for the political right and Trump himself.

Local police departments were forced to knock down widespread social media rumors that busloads of antifa, a term for leftist militants, were coming to violently disrupt cities and towns during nationwide racial justice protests. In June, Twitter and Facebook busted accounts linked to white supremacy groups that were promoting some of those falsehoods online.

___

COVID-19

TRUMP: The United States has among the lowest case fatality rates of any major country anywhere in the world.  Thursday.

THE FACTS: Not true. Not if you consider Russia, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and India to be major countries.

The U.S. sits right in the middle when it comes to COVID-19 mortality rates in the 20 nations most impacted by the pandemic, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

Of the 20, Mexico has the highest mortality rate at 10.8 deaths for every 100 confirmed COVID cases, followed by Ecuador at 5.8. Saudi Arabia had the lowest rate of the 20 nations at 1.2, followed by Bangladesh, the Philippines, Russia, Morocco, India, Argentina, South Africa and Chile.

The U.S. had the 10th lowest of the 20 nations, with a mortality rate of 3.1.

When the center looked at the data in another way, analyzing the COVID death rate for every 100,000 residents, the U.S. fares even worse. Only three nations  Brazil, Chile and Peru  posted higher death rates.

Understanding deaths as a percentage of the population or as a percentage of known infections is problematic because countries track and report COVID-19 deaths and cases differently. Many other factors are in play in shaping a death toll besides how well a country responded to the pandemic, such as the overall health or youth of national populations.

___

TRUMP: Instead of following the science, Joe Biden wants to inflict a painful shutdown on the entire country. His shutdown would inflict unthinkable and lasting harm on our nations children, families, and citizens of all backgrounds.  Thursday.

THE FACTS: Thats false. Biden has publicly said he would shut down the nations economy only if scientists and public health advisers recommended he do so to stem the COVID-19 threat. In other words, he said he would follow the science, not disregard it.

Speaking Sunday in an ABC interview, Biden said he will be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives when he was asked if he would be willing to shut the country again.

So if the scientists say shut it down? asked ABCs David Muir.

I would shut it down, Biden responded. I would listen to the scientists. The former vice president has said repeatedly that no one knows what January would look like.

___

DONALD TRUMP JR. on the coronavirus response: The president quickly took action and shut down travel from China.  Monday.

THE FACTS: No, he didnt shut down travel from China. He restricted it. Dozens of countries took similar steps to control travel from hot spots before or around the same time the U.S. did.

The U.S. restrictions that took effect Feb. 2 continued to allow travel to the U.S. from Chinas Hong Kong and Macao territories over the past five months. The Associated Press reported that more than 8,000 Chinese and foreign nationals based in those territories entered the U.S. in the first three months after the travel restrictions were imposed.

Additionally, more than 27,000 Americans returned from mainland China in the first month after the restrictions took effect. U.S. officials lost track of more than 1,600 of them who were supposed to be monitored for virus exposure.

Dr. Anne Schuchat, the No. 2 official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also told the AP that the federal government was slow to understand how much the coronavirus was spreading from Europe, which helped drive the acceleration of outbreaks across the U.S. in late February. Trump didnt announce travel restrictions for many European countries until mid-March.

___

EDUCATION

TRUMP: Biden also vowed to oppose school choice and oppose all charter schools.  Thursday.

THE FACTS: Thats false. Biden doesnt oppose charter schools. He opposes federal money going to for-profit charter companies.

Such companies are only a slice of the charter school market, meaning Bidens position wouldnt substantially alter the charter landscape that is dominated by nonprofit organizations.

Biden does oppose federal money for tuition vouchers.

___

HEALTH CARE

TRUMP: We protected your preexisting conditions. Very strongly protected preexisting  and you dont hear that.  Monday.

THE FACTS: You dont hear it because its not true.

People with such medical problems have health insurance protections because of President Barack Obamas health care law, which Trump is trying to dismantle.

One of Trumps alternatives to Obamas law  short-term health insurance, already in place  doesnt have to cover preexisting conditions. Another alternative is association health plans, which are oriented to small businesses and sole proprietors and do cover those conditions.

Neither of the two alternatives appears to have made much difference in the market.

Meanwhile, Trumps administration is pressing the Supreme Court for full repeal of the Obama-era law, including provisions that protect people with preexisting conditions from health insurance discrimination.

With Obamacare still in place, preexisting conditions continue to be covered by regular individual health insurance plans.

Insurers must take all applicants, regardless of medical history, and charge the same standard premiums to healthy people and those who are in poor health, or have a history of medical problems.

Before the Affordable Care Act, any insurer could deny coverage  or charge more  to anyone with a preexisting condition who was seeking to buy an individual policy.

___

BIDENS AGENDA

NIKKI HALEY, former ambassador to the United Nations, on the Democrats: They want a government takeover of health care. They want to ban fracking and kill millions of jobs.  Monday.

REP. JIM JORDAN of Ohio: Defund the police, defund border patrol and defund our military.  Monday.

RONNA McDANIEL, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee: You deserve to know that they would ban fracking and eliminate fossil fuels, which would kill millions of good-paying jobs and raise the cost of driving our cars and heating our homes. You deserve to know that they want a complete government takeover of our health care system, so moms like me wont be able to take our kids to the same pediatrician theyve been seeing for years.  Monday.

THE FACTS: Those arent Bidens positions. A number of Republican speakers seized on proposals of the Democratic left, in some cases distorting those positions, and assigned them to Biden, who doesnt share those views.

He does not favor a government takeover of health care; instead he proposes building on Obamas law, which preserves the private insurance market while expanding Medicaid.

Biden also did not endorse proposals to cease border enforcement or even to decriminalize illegal crossings.

Biden supports banning only new oil and gas permits, fracking included, on federal land. But most U.S. production is on private land. The government says production on federal land accounted for less than 10% of oil and gas in 2018.

In a March 15 primary debate, Biden misstated his energy policy, suggesting he would allow no new fracking. His campaign quickly corrected the record. Biden has otherwise been consistent on his middle-of-the-road position, going so far as to tell an anti-fracking activist that he ought to vote for somebody else if he wanted an immediate fracking ban.

___

VIRUS TESTING

IVANKA TRUMP: Our president rapidly mobilized the full force of government and the private sector  to build the most robust testing system in the world.  Thursday.

THE FACTS: Her assertion of superior U.S. testing for COVID-19 is dubious. The U.S. repeatedly stumbled with testing in the early weeks of the outbreak, allowing the virus to quickly spread in the U.S. The presidents own experts say the U.S. is nowhere near the level of testing needed to control the virus.

The U.S. currently is conducting nearly 750,000 tests a day, far short of what many public health experts say the U.S. should be testing to control the spread of the virus. Looking to the fall, some experts have called for 4 million or more tests daily, while a group assembled by Harvard University estimated that 20 million a day would be needed to keep the virus in check.

Public-health authorities acknowledge testing was a critical failure in the crucial early months. The number of tests being done has since surged but remains inadequate. Many who do get tested have unduly long waits for results, during which time they can be spreading the virus to others.

___

IRAN

SEN. TOM COTTON of Arkansas: Joe Biden sent pallets of cash to the ayatollahs.  Thursday.

THE FACTS: This is a distorted tale Trump and Republicans love to tell. Yes, the U.S. flew cash to Iran in the Obama years, but it was money the United States owed to that country.

Cotton also played into the conventions pattern of attributing every questionable action of Obamas administration to Biden personally.

___

ECONOMY

PENCE: Four years ago we inherited  an economy struggling to break out of the slowest recovery since the Great Depression.  In our first three years we built the greatest economy in the world.  Wednesday.

LARRY KUDLOW, Trump economic adviser: Trump was inheriting a stagnant economy on the front end of recession, and under the president, the economy was rebuilt in three years.  Tuesday.

THE FACTS: This is false. The economy was healthy when Trump arrived at the White House.

Even if the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis was slow, Trump took office with unemployment at a low 4.7%, steady job growth and a falling federal budget deficit. The longest expansion in U.S. history began in the middle of 2009 and continued until the start of the year, spanning both the Obama and Trump presidencies.

The U.S. economy did benefit from Trumps 2017 tax cuts with a jump in growth in 2018, but the budget deficit began to climb as a result of the tax breaks that favored companies and the wealthy in hopes of permanently expanding the economy.

Annual growth during Obamas second term averaged about 2.3%. Trump notched a slightly better 2.5% during his first three years, but the country swung into recession this year because of the coronavirus and will probably leave Trump with an inferior track record to his predecessor over four years.

___

WAR

SEN. RAND PAUL: Joe Biden voted for the Iraq war, which President Trump has long called the worst geopolitical mistake of our generation.  Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Trump had no more foresight on this matter than Biden. Neither was against it when it started.

When asked during a Sept. 11, 2002, radio interview if he would support an Iraq invasion, Trump responded, Yeah, I guess so. The next month, Biden as a senator voted to authorize George W. Bush to use force in Iraq.

The next March, just days after the U.S. launched its invasion, Trump said it looks like a tremendous success from a military standpoint.

It wasnt until September 2003 that Trump first publicly raised doubts about the invasion, saying a lot of people (are) questioning the whole concept of going in in the first place. In November 2005, Biden called his Senate vote to authorize force a mistake.

___

TAXES

ERIC TRUMP: The president slashed taxes and wages went through the roof.  Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Not quite. Wage growth did improve, but there is clearly still a roof on workers incomes.

The 2017 tax cuts appear unlikely to deliver on their promised pay increases. White House economists argued that incomes would surge by at least $4,000 because of the lower corporate tax rate. That has yet to occur and seems unlikely given the current recession.

But average hourly wages did improve to a 3.5% annual gain by February 2019, much better than the 2.7% annual gain in December 2016 before Trump became president. The problem was that wage growth then began to slip through the end of last year despite the steady hiring. Wage gains only accelerated again with the pandemic and layoffs of millions of poor workers that artificially raised average wages.

What workers have yet to see is a meaningful change in the distribution of income. More than half of total household income goes to the top 20% of earners, according to the Census Bureau. Their share has increased slightly under Trump with data that is current through 2018. The bottom 20% of earners get just 3.1% of total income, just as they did before Trumps presidency.

___

FARMING

CRIS PETERSON, from a Wisconsin dairy family: Our entire economy and dairy farming are once again roaring back. One person deserves the credit and our vote, President Donald J. Trump.  Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Not everyone in the dairy industry views it as booming, especially as larger operations are putting smaller family farms out of business.

The Agriculture Department reported this summer that dairy herds fell by more than half between 2002 and 2019, with an accelerating rate of decline in 2018 and 2019, even as milk production continued to grow.

Part of the problem is that smaller farms face higher production costs. Farms with more than 2,000 cattle are more likely for their sales to exceed their total costs, while smaller farms are more likely to operate at a loss by this metric, according to government figures.

___

SUBURBS

PATRICIA McCLOSKEY on Democrats: They want to abolish the suburbs altogether by ending single-family home zoning. This forced rezoning would bring crime, lawlessness and low-quality apartments into thriving suburban neighborhoods. President Trump smartly ended this government overreach, but Joe Biden wants to bring it back.  Monday.

THE FACTS: Thats a false account of what Biden supports. In 2015, during the Obama administration, a regulation took effect intended to ensure that communities confront racial segregation in housing.

The rule required more than 1,200 jurisdictions receiving federal Housing and Urban Development block grants and housing aid to analyze their housing stock and come up with plans to combat patterns of segregation and discrimination. It did not eliminate zoning for single-family homes in the suburbs.

Trump revoked the rule; Biden supports it. But Biden does not support requiring municipalities to refrain from building single-family homes as a condition for getting money from HUD.

McClosky and her husband have been charged with a felony for brandishing guns outside their St. Louis home as racial justice protesters passed.

___

VOTING FRAUD

TRUMP, on mail-in voting: Absentee  like in Florida  absentee is good. But other than that, theyre very, very bad.  Monday.

THE FACTS: Hes making a false distinction. Mail-in ballots are cast in the same way as absentee mail ballots, with the same level of scrutiny such as signature verification in many states.

In more than 30 states and the District of Columbia, voters have a right to no excuse absentee voting. That means they can use mail-in ballots for any reason, regardless of whether a person is out of town or working.

In Florida, the Legislature in 2016 voted to change the wording of such balloting from absentee to vote-by-mail to make clear a voter can cast such ballots if they wish. So there is no absentee voting in that state, as Trump alludes to.

More broadly, voter fraud has proved exceedingly rare. The Brennan Center for Justice in 2017 ranked the risk of ballot fraud at 0.00004% to 0.0009%, based on studies of past elections.

___

TRUMP, on the November vote count and Democrats: We have to be very, very careful and this time they are trying to do it with the whole post office scam. They will blame it on the post office. You can see them setting it up.  Monday.

THE FACTS: No postal scam has emerged from the Democrats. Instead Trump has given credence to suspicions that he wants to suppress mail-in voting to help his chances in the election.

Hes said as much. In an interview this month, he admitted hes trying to starve the U.S. Postal Service of money in order to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, which he worries could cost him the election.

___

TRUMP, on defective ballots in an election: What does defective mean? It means fraud.  Monday.

THE FACTS: No, defective ballots do not equate to fraud. The overwhelming majority arent.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the vast majority of ballots are disqualified because they arrive late, a particular worry this year because of recent U.S. Postal Service delays and an expected surge in mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic.

Ballots also are deemed defective if there is a missing signature  common with newer voters unfamiliar with the process  or it doesnt match whats on file. In addition, some states require absentee voters to get a witness or notary to sign their ballots.

None of those are fraud, said Wendy Weiser, director of Brennans democracy program at NYU School of Law. When suspected cases are investigated for potential fraud, studies have borne out the main reason for defects is voter mistake, she said.

Defective ballots also disproportionately impact voters of color, and recent lawsuits have successfully challenged some requirements as posing health risks or disenfranchising voters. Earlier this year, for instance, a federal judge ruled that a South Carolina requirement to have witnesses to mail-in ballots could put voters health at risk; the requirement was suspended it for the June primary. Others states including Minnesota and Rhode Island have also suspended that requirement due to the pandemic.
President calls for efforts to build united, prosperous, harmonious region China has set the policy direction for developing the Tibet autonomous region in the new era, focusing its Tibet-related work on safeguarding national unity and strengthening ethnic solidarity while improving people's well-being. Speaking at a two-day high-level symposium on Tibet-related work, which concluded in Beijing on Saturday, President Xi Jinping called for more education and guidance among the public to mobilize them in combating separatist activities, thus forging an ironclad shield to safeguard stability in the region. Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, stressed the committee's long-term commitment to Tibet to ensure the region has support from the central authorities and assistance from the whole country. Efforts must be made to build a new and modern socialist Tibet that is united, prosperous, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful, Xi said. The symposium was the seventh since 1980, when the first central symposium on Tibet-related work was held. Observers said that the central government used the latest meeting to strengthen the full implementation of its strategy in governing Tibet to allow the region to be part of the country's high-level development. In his speech at the symposium, Xi called for efforts to ensure national security and long-lasting peace and stability, steadily improve people's livelihoods, strengthen border defense and ensure frontier security. He underlined the importance of strengthening patriotic education in all schools, and required continuous efforts to enhance awareness of the motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the CPC and socialism with Chinese characteristics among people of all ethnic groups. Tibetan Buddhism should be guided in adapting to the socialist society and should be developed in the Chinese context, Xi said. On the socioeconomic development of Tibet, he stressed the need to speed up high-quality development, consolidate the achievements made in poverty alleviation, and protect the ecology of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. A number of major infrastructure projects and public service facilities will be completed, including the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, Xi said. Galsang Drolma, a researcher of socioeconomics at the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing, said the message Xi conveyed at the high-level meeting was clearthe central government wants to maintain enduring peace and stability in Tibet and keep meeting the aspirations of the Tibetan people for a better life despite the challenges of the region's inadequate and unbalanced development. The researcher said the Party's leadership and the system of regional ethnic autonomy are fundamentals for Tibet's socioeconomic development. "Currently, national unity and ethnic solidarity have become a social consensus in Tibet," she said. Thanks to consistent support and aid from around the country, Tibet has made great headway in socioeconomic development, and all of its 74 poverty-stricken counties have been lifted out of poverty, the researcher said. "People's livelihoods keep improving, and all this demonstrates the great practice of the Party's people-centered philosophy in Tibet," she said. More than 18,000 officials and professionals have been sent to Tibet to help the region to develop, and their contributions largely improve the region's public services, according to the researcher. Zhou Liping from Tianjin, who was sent to teach at a primary school in Tibet a year ago, said she has witnessed the efforts of her peers from around the country to help the region develop in various sectors as well as the great achievements Tibet has made in the critical battle to reduce poverty. As a teacher, Zhou said she does her utmost to strengthen her students' love for the motherland and the Chinese nation. 1 2
Candidates and parents in Uttar Pradesh expressed their concern on Monday regarding the holding of the JEE main exam amid the pandemic. The JEE main exam is scheduled to be held between September 1 and 6 at various centres across the country.

A candidate named Amit Kumar Pal said he was scared but had no option other than to appear in the exam. Im very concerned about the preparations made at the exam centre. NTA has assured that mask and hand sanitisers will be made available, he said.

JEE Main, NEET 2020 live updates: Important developments

Even parents of candidates have expressed concern over the governments decision to conduct NEET and JEE exams in early September amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. Netram from Lucknow, whose son is appearing in JEE main, said, he is only praying to god that his son stays safe during the exam.

National Testing Agency (NTA), which will conduct the exam, has assured of taking all possible measures to ensure safety of the candidates appearing in the exams.

The agency has increased the number of exam centres to reduce the number of students per centre. NTA also claimed to have allocated exam centres close to the residence of the candidates.

According to a press statement issued by NTA, the JEE Main exam will be conducted at 66 centres in UP between September 1 and 6 in several shifts. A total of 1,00,706 students are expected to appear in the JEE exams in UP this year. In 2019, 85,898 students gave JEE at 47 centres in UP, according to NTA.

NEET, JEE mains 2020: Naveen Patnaik asks BJD MLAs to help candidates in Odisha

While the testing agency has claimed to have distributed the exam centres across the state, parents of candidates claim that those living in cities and towns will find it easier to reach the exam centre as compared to those coming from rural areas.

Yashwant Singh, a JEE aspirant who lives in a village in Badaun, said, I will have to travel over 120km to reach the exam centre. Travelling such distance in these Covid times is particularly difficult as it exposes you to infection. On the other hand, the students who live in towns and cities will have to travel a short distance to reach the exam centre.

Several candidates also claimed that their exam preparations were affected due to the pandemic situation. They are hoping against hope that the exams will be postponed.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday discussed plans for a referendum on constitutional reforms as discontent with his 26-year rule has fuelled huge protests.

The 66-year-old is facing his greatest challenge yet following three weekends of giant protests in Minsk over a disputed August 9 presidential poll where he claimed victory over a popular opposition candidate, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

Lukashenko has twice before held such referendums, pushing through changes that strengthened the role of the president.

On Monday, he acknowledged the country's "somewhat authoritarian system".

Russia has backed constitutional reforms in neighbour and close ally Belarus after President Vladimir Putin in July pushed through reforms allowing him to serve more terms.

Lukashenko's proposals on Monday focused on court reforms and rejected calls by the opposition to go back to the country's 1994 constitution that was later modified to give the president more powers.

Lukashenko has sought to downplay the protest movement and depict himself as maintaining control and order.

But he has appeared increasingly isolated and paranoid, booed by the blue-collar workers he viewed as his natural supporters and wearing a bullet-proof vest to helicopter into his official residence.

Meeting the chairman of the Supreme Court, Lukashenko said that experts were discussing changes, including more independent courts, while he said this was not needed.

"I'm ready to argue with anyone that the most independent court is in Belarus. No one should laugh."

He said however the system needed to work "without being tied to a personality, including Lukashenko."

He said members of the public would be able to "give their opinion: what they like, what they don't," while insisting that "those who yell about being for changes" were a minority.

Lukashenko, elected democratically in 1994, held a referendum on changes including constitutional reforms in 1996.

Story continues

These included giving the president greater powers on appointing judges including the chair of the Constitutional Court.

Lukashenko said that going back to the 1994 Constitution as the opposition wants would not move the country forward.

bur-am/jbr/txw
As Illinois started falling deeper into the chasm of a COVID-19 pandemic, areas like west-central Illinois felt protected by their rural settings.

Now, with cases soaring and several counties in the region added to a state warning list for those with higher risk of transmission, that is changing and prompting some to step up enforcement of state health guidelines.

In January and February, the ravages of the mysterious disease were still mostly a large-city concern, with the majority of cases statewide in the northern Illinois and Chicago areas.

Morgan Countys first coronavirus case was not seen until March 25  two months after the first confirmed case in Illinois. Even then, other counties in the region would see nothing for weeks. Scott County even defied the odds and was the last county in the region to record an infection, reporting a case July 3.

In the meantime, stringent restrictions issued by the state  including a stay-home order and the closing of non-essential businesses March 25  were raising alarm and opposition. Law enforcement authorities started challenging extended executive orders by Gov. J.B. Pritzker designed to curtail the spread of the disease. Some, including Pittsfields police chief and states attorneys in Pike and Scott counties, said they would not enforce or prosecute those who violated the governors orders because there was no evidence there was a danger to the public health and welfare.

Pittsfield Police Chief Mike Starman said in May that police will continue to honor the God-given right to the pursuit of life and happiness to the citizens of Pittsfield, and Pike County States Attorney Zachary Boren said he would not enforce the stay-home order on businesses.

If local businesses choose to operate outside the scope of the current executive order, I will not take action to enforce public health directives without clear and convincing evidence that the publics health and welfare are significantly endangered, he wrote at the time.

Pike County, now reporting 79 total cases and among 30 counties on a state warning list for counties with higher risk of transmission, is stepping up enforcement.

The Pike County Health Department said the state has delegated local departments with the means necessary to restrict and suppress the spread of COVID-19. Local health and law enforcement authorities, including police officers and sheriffs deputies, are being directed to enforce regulations adopted by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

There will be an investigation into complaints about businesses not in compliance with guidelines, the health department said, and it will discuss mitigation measures with the owner. If the establishment does not voluntarily comply, harsher measures could be taken. Those guidelines include social distancing and enforcing the use of masks by customers.

Reports by health department workers and law enforcement officials will be sent to the states attorney for consideration on a case-by-case basis, according to a statement by the health department.

Some Pike County residents expressed their disapproval of the previous decision to not enforce guidelines.

Emily Whitlock, who lives south of Pittsfield, said she has been frustrated with the decision. Whitlock said she is a front-line worker with a newborn and that not enforcing the mandate was a failure to protect people.

Scott County States Attorney Michael Hill said states attorney are granted a great deal of discretion in making decisions about whether to prosecute.

In May, when Scott County still had no cases reported, Hill said his decision to not enforce violations of the states stay-home order should be viewed as a series of instructions.

Scott Countys total case count is now 45, according to Scott County Health Department.

Hill said his continued position on not prosecuting people who violate the order does not mean he is against mask-wearing or social distancing, but rather whether the state has the authority to make such orders.

He said he considers his role in the public safety sphere to differ from the role of health administrators in the public health sphere.

In addition to Pike County, Morgan, Jersey and Sangamon counties were added to the states warning list on Friday. Cass County was placed on the list five weeks ago and Greene County was added three weeks ago.
The Senate Chief Whip, Orji Kalu, has said that the ruling All Progressives Congress has not zoned the position of president in 2023 and that any Nigerian can run for the office.

He said that any person in the party can contest for the position of the President.

Mr Kalu made the remark on Monday in Minna during a visit to two former leaders of the country, Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, both retired generals.

Mr Kalu, who was recently released from jail, said he would serve as Nigerias president if given the opportunity by the electorate.

I am still in the Senate, and I will seek for re-election into the Senate but if our people want me to serve as President I will not hesitate, he said.

Zoning, insecurity

Zoning is not a constitutional matter in APC, any person can contest any post in APC, the official also said on Monday.

On the issue of insecurity in Nigeria, he alleged that there was sabotage in the countrys security system.

It seems that there are a lot of sabotage in our security system, he said.

The ex-governor expressed optimism that the National Assembly would continue to collaborate with the executive in tackling the security challenges in the country.

We will address the issue of sabotage in the Nigeria security system, he said.

Mr Kalu was the governor of Abia from May 1999 to May 2007.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how he was released from the custody of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS), Kuje, Abuja, following the nullification of his conviction by the Supreme Court on May 8.

Mr Kalu had been accused of mismanaging funds belonging to Abia State during his days as governor.

He had pleaded not guilty but was sentenced in December 2019 to 12 years in prison.

He was jailed alongside Ude Udeogu, who was the director of finance and accounts at the Abia State Government House during Mr Kalus tenure.

The duo appealed the convictions by the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court up to the Supreme Court.

On May 8, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial of the case.

He was later released and recently returned to occupy his seat at the Senate.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 21:16:45|Editor: huaxia

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NAIROBI, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Monday called for the utilization of knowledge gained from the global and national response to COVID-19 in the national roll-out of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

Kenyatta who opened a COVID-19 virtual conference organized by the Council of Governors on building resilience to deal with future pandemics said UHC, which is one of the government's development agendas, should be structured to promote preventive medicine.

"Pre-mortem analysis will help us chart the path to sustainable health provisioning for all. Using this model, the conference should, therefore, give us counsel on how to promote preventive medicine over symptomatic care," Kenyatta said in a statement issued after his opening remarks.

"It should guide us on how to use the lessons learnt from the COVID-19 experience in order to anchor the full national roll-out of the Universal Health Coverage," he said.

As stakeholders harness lessons from the six-month fight against COVID-19 and as the curve of infections in the country begins to flatten, the president called for caution saying the focus should remain victory against the killer virus.

"But as we implement best practices after the counsel of this conference, our shared goal must also remain in sight. And this goal is simple: Victory over COVID-19 and nothing less. We must achieve it at zero option," he said.

Kenyatta called for a shift from tactical responses to more long-term strategic approaches to achieve resilience to the current COVID-19 and future health challenges.

"We must move away from tactical response to this pandemic, to strategic response. Instead of symptomatic reactions to this crisis, we must move to structural reactions that are long-term and transformative," the president said.

"And this is what I call positive resilience - being able to anticipate the patterns of this pandemic, responding to it transformatively and 'building-back' better," the president told the meeting.

Mutahi Kagwe, the health cabinet secretary said the infrastructure set up to respond to COVID-19 was a major boost to the country's UHC agenda. Enditem
Students who oppose the reopening of face-to-face instruction during the pandemic should join the University of Florida chapter of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) or contact the national IYSSE leadership to learn how to build a chapter at their campus.

Many universities across the United States opened for face-to-face learning in August, putting the health and lives of students, faculty, and staff in danger by facilitating the spread of COVID-19. This includes the University of Florida (UF), located in Gainesville, where administrators have been exposed for secretly designating vacant apartments in Graduate and Family Housing (GFH) villages to quarantine positive cases of COVID-19.

On August 22, an online petition was launched by GFH residents, opposing what they then only suspected was a discreet attempt by the university to prepare quarantine spaces within five family apartment complexes that are owned by UF.

Residents who observed suspicious behavior, such as UF workers moving basic furniture into empty apartments that were supposed to be vacant, had already called and emailed the UF Department of Housing & Residence but received no response prior to the petition being launched.

University of Florida

Within a few hours, hundreds of residents and their families had signed, and this precipitated the housing department finally responding with a letter addressed to the writers of the petition confirming their suspicions. The letter was also an attempt to downplay their understandable anger and anxiety. They claimed that the GFH villages would only be used in the last extremity.

When residents heard the news, the updated petition currently explains, many were alarmed, particularly since the coronavirus is known to be far more virulent than seasonal influenza. There was no public announcement or consultation about the plan or indeed concern for the views of residents.

Many of the families who take up residence in these facilities are international students who are bringing their families from abroad. This means that while such families have already been anxious over the uncertainties linked to the Trump administrations efforts to crack down on student visas, they also must now be hyper aware of their family living spaces potentially becoming hotbeds for COVID-19 cases.

Like most universities around the country, UF shifted classes online and closed residence halls in March due to mounting pressure from workers and students around the country. However, the university began reopening the campus on June 12, in their own words, pursuant to the Board of Governors Blueprint for Opening the State University System for the Fall Semester 2020 . This of course refers to the policies of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, an outspoken supporter of US President Donald Trump.

The official policy being pursued by UF officials can only be described as a herd immunity strategy. Associate Professor Michael Lauzardo, who is the director of the new UF Health Screen, Test & Protect initiative, wrote in a letter published on the UF Health website on August 25, Having cases on campus, and in every segment of society for that matter is, has been, and will be inevitable until we develop immunity by previous infection or by a vaccine.

One of the first services that the university reopened in June was on-campus day care, allowing parents to get back to work and bringing administrators in line with the policies of the Trump White House.

New students began moving into UF residence halls on August 21, and face-to-face courses are partially reopening today. The current UF reopening plan calls for 35 percent of course sections across all programs to be held in a face-to-face format or a hybrid version. Another 35 percent will be live, online classes. The remainder will be held in an asynchronous format.

The UF COVID-19 dashboard currently shows that 272 students and staff have tested positive for the virus and that among the 1,242 students tested at the Student Health Care Center, 18.6 percent (195) tested positive. The dashboard only states that these cases have been recorded since May 6, so there is no temporal element to show how the data is trending. One can understandably assume that this lack of detail is intentional.

Florida has been a global epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic and ranks among the states with the highest number of infections. At the time of this writing, Florida has reported over 621,000 cases and more than 11,100 deaths due to complications with the virus. Most of these cases have been recorded in the more populous counties containing major cities such as Miami and Tampa, but Alachua County, where Gainesville is located, has reported nearly 5,100 cases. With 270,000 residents, this means that nearly 2 percent of people living in the county have tested positive for COVID-19.

With face-to-face classes resuming today, Alachua County residents can expect that the number of cases will skyrocket as they have done around other universities in the southeastern US. The University of Alabama saw 566 new cases within just one week of reopening, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported 646 new cases of COVID-19 within two weeks of restarting face-to-face instruction, despite moving all undergraduate courses to an online format after the first week.

University officials, unabashedly, cannot emphasize enough how excited they are to participate in what UF President W. Kent Fuchs has labeled a historic period in the history of the university.

In a statement to students published on August 18, Fuchs stated, Fall is always a tremendously exciting time in our community. We ask you to join us as we together embrace shared responsibility for one another, reducing the spread of COVID-19 and paving the way for a productive and rewarding year.

It is not difficult to understand why President Fuchs is so excited to relaunch in-person classes this week. He consistently lands on Forbes top-10 lists of the highest paid public university officials, and in 2017 he received a salary of $1,102,862. Fuchs lives in a $2,000,000 mansion located across the street from Corry Village, one of the GFH villages where the university was secretly preparing to quarantine COVID-19 cases.

In a letter to fellow Gators on August 18, Fuchs asked students, faculty, and staff to take a pledge to promote safety both on campus and off campus. The university has launched a social media hashtag, #Gatorswearmasks, and President Fuchs stated in his August 18 statement that personal responsibility is key. The only safety measures being taken are to promote facial coverings, physical distancing, staying home when sick, frequent handwashing and other proven COVID-19 prevention measures.

Other university officials have echoed Fuchs, insisting that the response to the pandemic is merely a matter of personal responsibility. Vice President for Student Affairs DAndra Mull wrote in an email to students on Friday, I, personally, am excited to embrace the normalcy that the routine of classes brings (emphasis added). Referencing an address by Fuchs earlier that week, she emphasized that the ultimate task of our campus community is for us to be kind. She then proceeded to claim that kindness means upholding personal responsibility policies on and off campus.

The words of Fuchs and Mull are utter rubbish. A pandemic, by definition, is an outbreak that is prevalent throughout a whole country or throughout the whole world. The response cannot be addressed simply at a personal or even a local level. It requires national and international coordination driven by scientific knowledge.

The shift of all responsibility to the individual level has a definite social character. Following the example of schools like University of Alabama, Ohio State University, and Boston College, the UF Police Department is coordinating with the Gainesville Police Department on what they call party patrol.

UF spokesperson Steve Orlando told reporters last week that they will severely discipline students who attend large gatherings or parties, claiming that its a student conduct issue. Its not one of those things where we want to come on with a heavy hand, but we want to help educate students and help them understand why its important not to do these things.

Apparently, for UF administrators, educating students means arrests and possible beatings or killings by police. This is made considerably more abominable by the fact that 2020 has seen mass international protests against police violence and killings, and US police have already killed 656 people so far this year.

It is not ultimately the students who will bear responsibility for the spread of coronavirus but the administrators who brought thousands back to campus under conditions of a still raging pandemic. As the World Socialist Web Site has elaborated time after time, the reopening of major universities like UF is part of the official policy of the ruling class to fully reopen the economy. This requires the opening of schools, which will inevitably be accompanied by new surges of COVID-19 infections and deaths.
After PM Modi and Superstar Rajinikanth, Actor Akshay Kumar is all set to feature in the upcoming episode of Into The Wild With Bear Grylls. In the trailer shared by the makers, the duo can be seen trying out various adventure sports and talking about unique 'elephant poop' tea.

Sharing the trailer of his upcoming feature with British adventurer Bear Grylls in Discovery channels Into The Wild With Bear Grylls, actor Akshay Kumar on Monday remembered shooting of the episode. The Sooryavanshi actor took to Twitter to share the action-packed trailer of the upcoming episode of the show and shared how Grylls surprised him with a unique tea.

I visualized stiff challenges prior to #IntoTheWildWithBearGrylls but @bearGrylls completely surprised me with the elephant poop tea. What a day @DiscoveryIn @DiscoveryPlusIn, he tweeted. Shot at Bandipur Tiger Reserve, Into The Wild with Bear Grylls and Akshay Kumar, will follow all military-style drills, with former British military personnel Bear Grylls taking charge along with fit and agile Akshay Kumar, son of a military officer, and somebody who has donned multiple hats, including that of an actor, producer, martial artist and philanthropist.

Talking about shooting with Bear Grylls for the show, Bollywoods Khiladi termed the experience as a humbling one. I have always admired Bear Grylls for his energy, passion and what he has stood for all these years. It was a humbling experience being with him in the wild as he went about unfolding one challenge after another. It is different out there, as compared to movie sets, as there is no back-up  that sense of realism is very overpowering, said Akshay Kumar.

I visualized stiff challenges prior to #IntoTheWildWithBearGrylls but @bearGrylls completely surprised me with the elephant poop tea  What a day  @DiscoveryIn @DiscoveryPlusIn pic.twitter.com/m6YfQXmCcM  Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) August 31, 2020

The episode will also raise awareness about a cause close to Akshay Kumars heart  Bharat Ke Veer, which is a fund-raising initiative by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.

What I found interesting about the show is how nicely purpose is incorporated in an entertaining, survival and adventure led show. With regards to Bharat Ke Veer, it is a project, which remains close to my heart and I will continue to use all opportunities to help promote it with an aim to ensure that more and more countrymen become a part of it, he added.

Grylls on the other hand, lauded the Bollywood superstars humility and his easy approach. I did my homework prior to meeting Akshay, and knew he is a superstar, but what struck me the most during our time together, was his humility, his easy approach  he is, at heart, still that guy next door. Lots of commonalities between the two of us  including passion towards fitness, dedication to family et al, I really enjoyed being with him, said Grylls.

Akshays eyes lit-up with the mention of a new challenge and believe me, not many celebrities, across the world, have reacted so warmly to some harsh tasks that I can conjure, added Grylls. The buzz around Akshay Kumars episode is immense as the show featuring PM Modi generated historic high ratings for the infotainment genre whereas Into The Wild with Rajinikanth is the second-highest-rated show ever in the genre.

The special show will premiere on September 11 on Discovery Plus App and September 14 on Discovery Channel.
Chinese aggression has drawn the Indian Air force and Army to the Aksai Chin border to face off with the People's Liberation Army. Still, the PLA Navy tried to push in with their ships as support, but the Indian Navy's forward posture against PLA aggression blocked them in the Arabian Seas and the Bay Bengal.

This is one of the flashpoints that extends beyond the Indo-Pacific that has been instigated by the expansionism of Xi Jinping. In Vishakhapatnam, New Delhi, soon after the Galwan border inciden,t a major deployment of Indian naval units was in progress.

PLA Navy blocked from entering Malacca Strait

Indian leaders sent the Navy headlong into their position to meet the threat with an aircraft carrier, surface combat ships, and submarines into strategic points in Malacca Strait to the Horn of Africa. This move blocked the PLA Navy from supporting land units, according to Defence News.

Most of the PLAN deployed their warships with the deceptive ruse of anti-piracy deterrence to justify their operations in the Gwandar and base in Balochistan that is their maintenance dock and logistics base.

Another is the acquired Djibouti Naval Base on the doorstep of the Red Sea that is one of their forward bases. These PLA warships should have been entering the Malacca to access the Indian Ocean, but the India carrier strike group stopped them from entering, according to Hindustan Times. The Indian Ocean is a shortcut to international waters and is a bottleneck as well.

The Galwan incident was underway and the Indian Navy immediately was poised to stop the Chinese navy from taking advantage of a gap. Quick thinking caused the three Chinese naval units to turn tail into the Gulf of Aden, near the Djibouti Coast with three other running fast through the Malacca Straits and their home ports.

Also read: Chinese Fighter Jets in Indian Border Doubled in Number

It was not only that group, but another Chinese vessel passed through Indonesia going to the Indian Ocean. An India screen of warships ready to tussle on the high seas was waiting. Effectively, the Indian commanders acted fast and keep ships off the PLAN to come running back home according to Indian defense News.

They are actively getting strategic ports in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iran, and East Africa to gain the upper hand over major navies, especially over the U.S. Navy. Other navies of Britain and France are in the sights of the communists to control major seaways.

Sources reveal that Beijing has invested in 70% of the in Kyaukpyu port in Myanmar, which sits in the Bengal Bay. The Chinese have invested time and effort in these areas to get the upper hand when needed, confirmed Asia Times.

Many of these ports are through the trickery of lending money to these countries and getting what China needs when they cannot payback. By hook or crook, the PLAN is desiring to overthrow everything in favor of their dominance. Areas like the South China Sea will not be the only place with a Chinese presence.

Knowing this Chinese strategy, the forward posture against PLA aggression is just a start as the Indian strategists have a plan to keep China at bay.

Related article: Indian Navy's Aggressive Deployment Serve as Warning to Beijing Over Border Disputes

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HALIFAX - International Trade Minister Mary Ng says she's keeping a close watch on a trade investigation into the Canadian lobster industry requested by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 31/8/2020 (507 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

President Donald Trump gives thumbs up while walking to Air Force One upon departure at Chennault International Airport, Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020, in Lake Charles, La. U.S. president Donald Trump's administration has launched an election-year trade probe to look at the impact of Canada's lobster exports on the American industry. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Alex Brandon

HALIFAX - International Trade Minister Mary Ng says she's keeping a close watch on a trade investigation into the Canadian lobster industry requested by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The Liberal cabinet minister said Monday her government will always defend Canadian industries.

"We, of course, are aware of the investigation, and we will keep a close eye monitoring the developments," she told reporters in Toronto, regarding the United States International Trade Commission probe.

"Certainly the lobster industry can depend on our government to keep working for you."

The Canadian industry gained most of the Chinese market that the Americans lost after China slapped a 35 per cent tariff on U.S. lobster exports. Canada also saw its lobster exports grow in Europe after it signed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, with the European Union, giving it a tariff advantage over its U.S. competitors.

The Trump administration, however, has recently signed an agreement with China that removes the 35 per cent tariff. And a separate deal with Europe also removed tariffs on American lobsters that had provided the Canadian industry an advantage.

The Lobster Council of Canada says it's doubtful the Trump's administration's investigation into Canada's lobster exports will have a major impact on the industry.

Executive Director Geoff Irvine said Monday the lobster industries of Canada and the United States are now back on an even playing field.

"There should be no impact," Irvine said. "They're just simply doing a study of our industry, of export trends, of tariffs between the countries and the economic impact. I don't expect any impact on our industry."

Kristin Vekasi, a University of Maine political science professor who studies international affairs, says the timing of the announcement  with just more than two months until the Nov. 3 election  suggests a political motivation.

It comes following Trump's June 24 visit to Maine, where he is contesting four electoral college votes, particularly one in the lobster-producing, northern portion of the state. Trump won the northern region in the 2016 presidential election.

"The president has done a lot of executive policy decisions over the last month to try and appeal to those voters and this is likely one of those ... playing to international grievances," Vekasi said in an interview Monday.

In northern Maine, there's concern the Canadian lobster industry secured large portions of the Chinese market in 2019 after the U.S. administration's trade dispute with China led to the punitive levies by the Far Eastern nation, she said.

"Once trade patterns shift, they tend to be pretty static," Vekasi said. "There's concern (in Maine) that once these new markets and these new logistics patterns have been established, they don't just automatically shift back to where they were prior to the trade frictions."

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Lobster shipments, valued at about US$468 million in 2019, are Maine's largest export.

When Trump visited Maine in June, he participated in a roundtable with the fishing industry and announced he was reopening the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the New England coast to commercial fishing.

Margaret O'Laughlin, a public affairs officer for the United States International Trade Commission, said Monday the agency will make "objective findings and independent analyses on the subjects investigated."

"The commission makes no recommendations on policy or other matters in its general fact finding reports," she said in a email.

The trade commission's findings will be released in January, but not before a public hearing is held Oct. 1  about a month before the U.S. election.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2020.
PORT HURON, MI  Four suspects arrested in a title company scam in Port Huron are believed to be linked to several others across the state.

Officers with the Port Huron Police Department responded Aug. 17 for a fraud complaint at Transnational Title Company.

A man and woman from Detroit presented themselves as family members trying to sell a home belonging to their uncle, police said.

The business was aware of a similar scam that had taken place at their Clarkston location.

The scam involves the buyer presenting a fraudulent check to the title company. The title company then provides a check to the sellers which would be cashed prior to the discovery of the fraudulent check.

An Aug. 25 closing date was set for the uncles home. Fifty-three-year-old Gregg K. Smith and 49-year-old Sean R. Fowlkes, both of Detroit, were dropped off at the title company to complete the fraudulent transaction before receiving a check for more than $80,000.

The two men then walked to the 700 block of Huron Avenue where they were picked up by a vehicle, police said.

The Port Huron Police Investigative Division along with the Major Crimes Unit conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle.

All four people inside the vehicle were arrested, interviewed and held in the St. Clair County Jail.

It is believed they are connected with a similar scam that occurred at Platinum Title Company in Fort Gratiot earlier this month and many others throughout Michigan, officials with the Port Huron Police Department said in a news release.

Fowlkes and Smith are charged with single counts of conducting a criminal enterprise, conspiracy to commit a criminal enterprise, and two counts of uttering and publishing.

The driver of the vehicle, 37-year-old Detroit resident Steven T. Gray, is charged with single counts of conducting a criminal enterprise, conspiracy to commit a criminal enterprise and driving while license revoked/suspended/denied.

A fourth suspect, Jeffrey P. Moss, 31, of Detroit was charged with single counts of conducting a criminal enterprise, conspiracy to commit a criminal enterprise.

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Saginaw man arrested after firing shots at vehicle in Bay City, police say
The co-owner of Egyptian Koshery, a new Midland restaurant in Eastlawn Plaza, has a suggestion for first-time customers: Try the restaurant's signature dish, koshery, as well as baklava or Turkish coffee.

Those menu items are popular and a "must-try for first time visitors," says Riham S. Erdman, who with her husband Dale own the business. Locals might recognize the Erdmans from the Midland Farmers Market or from Saginaw's SVRC Marketplace, where they have an inside booth.

Koshery is the most popular dish in Egypt, found on almost every corner in the country, Riham said. The dish consists of layers of macaroni, rice, lentils, chickpeas, fried onions, red tomato sauce and garlic sauce.

The couple opened their first market stall in 2016 at Saginaw Farmers Market. Two weeks later they joined the Midland market and later the Davison Farmers Market. In the summer of 2018, the couple moved their Davison location to a permanent indoor shop in Saginaw's SVRC Marketplace.

Riham remembers the early days when people were mixed about trying their Egyptian fare.

"In some places, we were offering free samples all day, and some people were even scared to pass by our booth because we are different," she said. "Midland was one of the very welcoming and appreciating places that always thanks us for introducing and sharing our food with them."

It was their Midland customers who encouraged the couple to start a restaurant, she said.

"We had to work very hard to establish our business from scratch. We wanted to inform people about the Egyptian, African and Middle-Eastern cuisine. The ingredients are not very hot like the Indian cuisine, but food is very flavorful. Spices are usually including cumin, coriander, shatta and salt."

She said as a language instructor, she enjoys introducing dishes with stories or history behind them.

"I believe the good learner does not only need to be-bilingual but also bi-cultural."

In addition to koshery, the couple are introducing their customers to new flavor experiences, including lentil soup, spinach pies, baba ghanouj (eggplant with tahini sauce), grape leaves, mussakaaa (eggplant dish), kunafa (cheesy dessert), sahlab (pudding).

The dishes are authentic and traditional and the couple add new items constantly to the menu.

"We will always be vegetarian and/or vegan, though," she said. "We are keeping our Arabic atmosphere and theme inside the restaurant -- offering Arabic seating on the floor (very limited for now), and always playing Arabic music."

Riham said it was her husband Dale's idea to bring "a taste of Cairo" to the United States and eventually mid-Michigan. She loves to tell the story of how it happened.

The couple met in 2012 at Saginaw Valley State University; Riham came to the United States from Alexandria, Egypt, that year to pursue her doctorate degree in second language acquisition at Saginaw Valley State University. Dale, from Freeland, was studying bio-chemistry.

"We first met in a Spanish language class as we both seemed to be interested in studying multiple languages and cultures. Then, we became best friends and used to study together in the school library, do assignments, prepare for presentations, and even go grocery shopping after class together. It didnt take long until we both knew that we found each other and have to complete our life together."

While teaching at SVSU, Riham was asked to participate in a cultural cuisine event in which people prepare traditional dishes from their home countries. She opted for another Egyptian dish rather than koshery, which takes a while to prepare.

"Surprisingly, almost everybody who stopped by my booth and knows I am the Egyptian teacher was expecting and asking about koshery and they were fully informed about it," she said.

Dale, who was at the event with her, heard firsthand all the interest in koshery, so when it came time for Riham's farewell party, she decided to make koshery for her husband, their colleagues, friends and students.

"Everybody was impressed and blown away by the dish and kept asking about the recipe. They said they never tried anything like it before. I think at this point Dale made his mind to marry me," she said, laughing. "Seriously, very soon after, Dale, the love of my life, told me that he had booked a ticket to Egypt ... to meet my family and to marry me. I was charmed and felt blessed."

During their visit to Egypt, the couple toured a lot of places, including restaurants.

"Dale always asked to be taken to the very traditional places, and not the fancy modern ones. He never forgot about the koshery dish that I cooked before leaving that he even recognized the first koshery restaurant we passed by, by himself and asked to try one. When we went in the place, Dale knew immediately what he wanted. He said, 'I want a store like this in my country,' and I said, 'You will have it then.'

Riham and Dale were married in 2013, and she said she owes everything to him, a hard worker who does all the manual work and is responsible for financing, managing and running the business.

"Without him, we could have achieved nothing. I am always very proud of him. We believe God always rewards us for being loyal and faithful at work and also in life in general."

The restaurant is located in Eastlawn Plaza at 981 S. Saginaw Road in Midland. The restaurant, during its soft opening, will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day, with delivery offered through Grubhub and DoorDash. Phone number is 989-245-6617. More information can be found at https://egyptiankoshery.weebly.com/ as well as on Facebook.
ZURICH: Nestle plans to pay $2 billion to gain full ownership of peanut allergy treatment maker Aimmune Therapeutics, as the Swiss company expands its fast-growing health science business.

Known for its KitKat chocolate bars and Nescafe instant coffee, Nestle set up Nestle Health Science (NHS) in 2011 to open up a new area of business between food and pharma.

Nestle said in a statement that its offer for Aimmune values the California-based biopharmaceutical firm, which it has been working with since 2016 and in which it already has a stake of around 25.6%, at $2.6 billion.

Aimmune has $261 million in cash and $134 million in debt. With our prior investment of $473 million in Aimmune, well be making a cash payment of just under $2 billion," NHS head Greg Behar told Reuters in an interview.

Nestle estimates that up to 240 million people worldwide suffer from food allergies, with peanut allergy being the most common, and with Aimmune, NHS will have prevention, diagnostic and medical treatment options available, Behar said.

Aimmunes Palforzia peanut allergy treatment, which recently gained U.S. approval for children, has sales potential of $1 billion, Behar said. The deal is expected to add to organic growth in 2021 and to cash earnings by 2022/23.

The NHS business was on track to more than double sales by 2022, from 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.21 billion) in 2014, and was expected to close 2020 at 3.3 billion francs, he added.

(Palforzia) has 12 years of exclusivity, global rollout will follow and they have the technology platform for other food allergies in development," Behar said.

Nestle, whose shares were up 0.6% at 0739 GMT, is offering a 174% premium to Aimmunes closing share price of $12.60 on Aug. 28. Aimmune shares hit a record high in January when Palforzia was approved, then dropped during the coronavirus crisis.

Vontobel analyst Jean-Philippe Bertschy said the deal was another milestone" for NHS after it bought Atrium in 2017.

Nestle has a market capitalisation of just under 317 billion Swiss francs ($350 billion), Refinitiv data showed.

($1 = 0.9035 Swiss francs)

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
MLB postpones two Mariners-A's games after positive Covid-19 test

The first two games of the Oakland Athletics series against the Seattle Mariners have been postponed after a member of the A's organization tested positive for Covid-19 over the weekend, Major League Baseball (MLB) said on Monday.

The games were scheduled to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday in Seattle and will likely need to be made up with double headers. The final game of the three-game series on Thursday remained on the schedule.

MLB postponed the series finale between the A's and Houston Astros on Sunday following the positive test of an unidentified member of the organization.

"Out of an abundance of caution and to allow for additional testing and contact tracing to be performed within the Oakland Athletics' organization, the scheduled games between the A's and the host Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park on Tuesday, September 1st and Wednesday, September 2nd have been postponed," MLB said in a statement.

The league said it would provide updates "as necessary". Oakland is the fifth MLB team to have at least one person test positive for the virus. (Reuters)
EQT Infrastructure enters exclusive negotiations to acquire a majority stake in Colisee, a leading European operator of nursing home facilities and home care services agencies in France , Belgium , Spain and Italy

, , and Italy EQT Infrastructure will support Colisee and the management team, led by Christine Jeandel , with their continued focus on quality and well-being of residents, and growth opportunities in current and new markets

, with their continued focus on quality and well-being of residents, and growth opportunities in current and new markets Colisee constitutes a thematic investment in social infrastructure, a sector where EQT has extensive experience and a proven track record from owning and developing strong companies

STOCKHOLM, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- EQT today announced that the EQT Infrastructure V fund ("EQT Infrastructure") has entered exclusive negotiations to acquire a majority stake in Colisee ("Colisee" or the "Company") owned by IK Investment Partners.

Established in 1976, Colisee is a leading operator of nursing home facilities and homecare services for elderly. The Company, which is headquartered in Paris, France, has developed a geographical footprint and operates 270 nursing homes as well as assisted living facilities and home care services agencies across France, Belgium, Spain and Italy. Colisee employs more than 16,000 people and has a turnover exceeding EUR 1 billion.

Colisee's long-term development is supported by strong secular trends, such as an aging European population and an increased shift to privately managed elderly care. Colisee's high focus on care and resident well-being is a key attraction in a sector where EQT Infrastructure has extensive experience.

Following the closing of the transaction, EQT Infrastructure will support the continued development of Colisee and its pursuit of new growth opportunities in current and new markets, drawing on EQT's global footprint and extensive network of advisors. Moreover, EQT will support Colisee in further developing the Company's social responsibility and sustainability ambitions.

The investment in Colisee is in line with EQT's thematic approach guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG 3, "Good health and well-being" and SDG 11, "Sustainable cities and communities".

Christine Jeandel, President of Colisee, said: "With the EQT teams, Colisee will continue its development project at the service of elderly people in line with its core values. This move is a great opportunity to continue to position Colisee as sustainable key player in the market, with social responsibility at the heart of its mission."

Ulrich Kollensperger, Partner at EQT Partners and Investment Advisor to EQT Infrastructure, said: "EQT Infrastructure has followed Colisee for a long time and we are deeply impressed by Christine Jeandel and her management team's achievements in successfully creating a leading platform in the elderly care sector. Colisee constitutes a truly thematic investment in social infrastructure, a sector where EQT has a proven track record of owning and developing strong companies."

Thomas Rajzbaum, Managing Director at EQT Partners, Investment Advisor to EQT Infrastructure and Head of EQT's French Infrastructure Advisory Team, added: "Colisee provides essential services to society and truly makes a positive impact in the communities in which it operates. The Company's core values and ESG approach are strongly in line with EQT's and we look forward to continue building on Colisee's renowned focus on high service quality and well-being for its residents."

The acquisition of Colisee is EQT's first investment in France following the opening of the Paris office in June 2020, and EQT Infrastructure's second investment after the French water services management company SAUR.

The transaction is subject to the consultation process or information of the Employee Representative Bodies, as well as antitrust and potential foreign investment clearances.

With the acquisition of Colisee, EQT Infrastructure V will be 5-10 percent invested based on its target fund size. No decision has been made to date regarding the termination of the commitment period of EQT Infrastructure IV and the first fee date of EQT Infrastructure V.

About EQT

EQT is a differentiated global investment organization with more than EUR 62 billion in raised capital and around EUR 40 billion in assets under management across 19 active funds. EQT funds have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America with total sales of more than EUR 27 billion and approximately 159,000 employees. EQT works with portfolio companies to achieve sustainable growth, operational excellence and market leadership.

More info: www.eqtgroup.com

Follow EQT on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram

About Colisee

Colisee is a key player in the global health care and old-age dependency sector and has developed a real expertise in elderly people care and well-being. Its network includes more than 270 facilities in France, Belgium, Spain and Italy. Colisee employs more than 16,000 people.

More info: www.groupecolisee.com/en

Contact:

For French media inquiries:

Benoit Grange

Brunswick Paris

+33 614 450 926

EQT Press Office

press@eqtpartners.com

+46 8 506 55 334

PLEAD

Julien Tahmissian

Julien.tahmissian@plead.fr

+ 33 7 88 35 98 90

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/eqt/r/eqt-infrastructure-enters-exclusive-negotiations-to-acquire-a-majority-stake-in-colisee---a-european,c3185557

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Rajkummar Rao has emerged as one of the finest actors in the young generation of actors, who not only has a National Film Award in his kitty but has also proved his worth at the ticket windows. The actor has built a notable career, starting small but going to play titular characters in critically acclaimed movies like Shahid and Newton. As the actors turns 36 on Monday, here are five of his must-watch films that brought out the best in him.

Rajkummar Rao in Shahid.

Shahid

Rajkummar proved very early in his career that he was a directors actor. Shahid was based on the life of lawyer and human rights activist Shahid Azmi, who was assassinated in 2010. The actor had spent a lot of time with Shahids family and went on to collect his first National Film Award for his performance. Talking about why he was attracted to such a subject, he had told PTI, There was such variation in his life starting from being a victim, to briefly going to a terrorist camp, to landing in Tihar Jail and then becoming this human rights lawyer. It was a fascinating life. What was it that was driving him to go to these extremes? I tried to achieve that.

Rajkummar Rao in Trapped.

Trapped

Rajkummar always wanted to work with Vikramaditya Motwane but had to wait longer when the filmmaker cast Rajat Barmecha in Udaan and Ranveer Singh in Lootera. His wait finally came to an end with Trapped, which required Rajkummar to undergo a massive transformation he could have never imagined. The actor had all the attention to himself as he played a man trapped in a building with no food, water and electricity. He had told PTI in an interview, The film has taken me to places both physically and mentally as an actor, I wouldnt have gone otherwise. I lost seven kgs in 18 days as I did not eat anything for 15 days.

Rajkummar Rao in Newton.

Newton

Rajkummar played an honest clerk in Newton, who was sent on election duty and was ready to go to any length to get the work done assigned to him, no matter what may come his way. The actor could connect with his character Newton Kumars philosophy and ideology and was happy that it was Indias official entry to the Oscars. Once again, Rajkummar had proved he could make even a small film turn into a commercial entertainer with his sheer talent.

Rajkummar Rao during his look test for Bareilly Ki Barfi.

Bareilly Ki Barfi

Rajkummar showed two sides of his character Pritam Vidrohi in Bareilly Ki Barfi  a naive sari salesman and a rowdy man. The swiftness and ease with which he switched between the two avatars brought him loud whistles and cheers in movie theatres. The actor proved that he was not just cut out for intense parts but could also do light-hearted roles with as much perfection. He had even received a handwritten note from Amitabh Bachchan who had called his performance beautiful. The actor had said it was big high for him to see the audience reaction he received for his onscreen avatar in the film, which also had Ayushmann Khurrana as the other male lead.

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajputs sister Nitu Singh asked Shruti Modi for his medical prescription, newly accessed chats reveal

Rajkummar Rao in Stree.

Stree

After winning hearts as a sari salesman in Bareilly Ki Barfi, Rajkummar Rao turned a ladies tailor in horror-comedy Stree. There couldnt be another actor who could look so convincing and so entertaining as Rajkummar, who recited an essay on mor (peacock) or described the services provided at his tailor shop without catching a breath. The actor showed his funnier side in the film and did a good job without overdoing it. Stree remains one of his most successful films at the box office.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed two appeals against the re-election of Yahaya Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and affirmed him the governor of Kogi State.

The appeals were filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Musa Wada, and the Social Democratic Party and its candidate, Natasha Akpoti.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Mr Bello as the winner of the governorship election held in November 2019.

But in a unanimous judgement on Monday, a seven-member panel of the apex court led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Tanko Mohammed, held that both appeals lack merit and subsequently dismissed them.

Backstory

On May 23, in a judgement of two-to-one, the tribunal affirmed Mr Bellos election.

The dissenting judgment by Justice Ohimai Ovbiagele nullified the election of Mr Bello and ordered the electoral umpire to conduct fresh elections in seven local government areas where the petitioners proved their allegations of over-voting, thuggery, voter intimidation, massive thumb printing and other electoral malpractices.

But on July 4, the Court of Appeal dismissed Mr Wadas appeal and affirmed Mr Bello as the governor of the state.

The appellate court also dismissed the appeals filed by SDP, the Actions Peoples Party (APP) and the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP).

On the appeal filed by SDP and its candidate, the Court of Appeal held that Natasha Akpoti could not prove the allegations of corruption and voter intimidation against Mr Bello.

Following this, the appellate court dismissed the SDPs appeal.

On Mr Wadas appeal, the appellate court held that the allegations, which include multiple thumbprinting and result falsification, were not proven by the appellants.

The Court of Appeal then ordered Mr Wada to pa N100,000 each to Mr Bello, the APC, and INEC who were listed as respondents in the appeal.

Dissatisfied, the parties approached the apex court seeking to upturn the judgment of the two lower courts.

Apex Courts Ruling

Reading the apex courts judgment, which was prepared by Justice Inyang Okoro and read by Justice Uwani Abba-Aji on Monday, the court affirmed the earlier judgements of the two lower courts delivered on May 23 and July 4 respectively, which had both upheld Mr Bellos victory at the poll.

The apex court resolved all the five issues raised for determination in the appeal against the PDP and Mr Wada.

All the five issues were resolved in favour of Mr Bello, APC and INEC.

Subsequently, the apex court declared the appellants appeal as lacking in merit.

Having resolved all the five issues against the appellants, it is abundantly clear that the appeal is devoid of any scintilla of merit and it is accordingly dismissed, the court ruled.

On Ms Akpotis appeal, the apex court held that, there was no reason to interfere with the judgments of the Court of Appeal and tribunal.

The apex court also held that the appellants did not provide particulars of forgery to support the claim of forgery against the deputy governor, Edward Onoja.

The apex court further held that there was no evidence of rigging nor evidence that the respondents connived among themselves to rig the election.

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On the issue of exclusion, Justice Abba-Aji noted that the appellants blew hot and cold at the same time when they in one breath said that the logo of the SDP was not on the result sheet while in another said it was written in longhand.

The apex court, subsequently, dismissed the SDP and Ms Akpotis appeal.

Aside from the CJN and Messrs Okoro and Abba-Aji, other members of the panel who also agreed with the lead judgments were Olabode Rhodes-Vivour, Sylvester Ngwuta, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, and Amina Augie.

In the election held in November 2019, Mr Bello polled 406,222 votes to defeat Mr Wada, who scored 189,704 votes.

Ms Akpoti of SDP came a distant third with a score of 9,482 votes.
Former President Pranab Mukherjee was a lifelong Congressman, and a proud one at that, but he also formed a great relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the three years after 2014.

On Mukherjees last day in Rashtrapati Bhavan in 2017, the Prime Minister had written a letter in which he described the veteran politician as a father figure and thanked him for being warm, affectionate and caring. While sharing the images of the letter at the time, Mukherjee had said it had touched my heart! In the letter, PM Modi had written: Your legacy will continue to guide us.

Mukherjee, who was 84, died at the Armys Research and Referral (R&R) hospital on August 31, weeks after undergoing an emergency surgery for a brain clot. He had also tested positive for Covid-19.

The Prime Minister had also talked about how Pranab Da was a guiding force for him in the hot seat of power. Three years ago, I came to New Delhi as an outsider. The task before me was huge and challenging. In these times, you have always been a father figure and a mentor to me. Your wisdom, guidance and personal warmth have given me greater confidence and strength.

Modi had also shared an instance when Mukherjee called him up to enquire about his health. You have been so warm, affectionate and caring to me. Your one phone call asking me I hope you are taking care of your health" was enough to fill me with fresh energy, after a long day at meetings or on a campaign tour, said the letter.

The two seasoned politicians came from two starkly different political backgrounds but they maintained an extremely cordial relationship for the three years that the NDA government was at the helm of things and Mukherjee was in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Modi wrote, Pranab Da, our political journeys took shape in different political parties. Our ideologies, at times, have been different. Our experiences are also varied. My administrative experience was from my state, whereas you have seen the expanse of our national polity and politics for decades. Yet, such is the strength of your intellect and wisdom that we were able to work together with synergy.

In a political surprise, it was also the Modi government that had given Indias highest honour, the Bharat Ratna, to Mukherjee just a day before Republic Day in 2019.
SILVER SPRING, MD  Montgomery County is offering free walk-in and drive-thru coronavirus testing at 10 sites this week for eligible residents.

No doctor's order is required and no appointments are needed. County officials ask that symptomatic residents call the Testing Helpline at 240-777-1755 for assistance. Find more information on eligibility here.

The self-administered nasal swab tests provided at county-run testing clinics are from CIAN Diagnostic Laboratories in Frederick.

Monday, Aug. 31

PlumGar Community Recreation Center

19561 Scenery Drive, Germantown

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Wheaton Library & Community Recreation Center

11701 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Silver Spring Civic Building

One Veterans Plaza, Silver Spring

1 p.m. - 7 p.m.

Tuesday, Sept. 1

White Oak Community Recreation Center

1700 April Lane, Silver Spring

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Wednesday, Sept. 2

Wheaton Library & Community Recreation Center

11701 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

CDC Mobile Trailer Lakeforest Mall

Outdoor drive-up clinic; walk-ups welcome

Parking lot near food court entrance, directly in front of Ride On transfer station

701 Russell Ave., Gaithersburg

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 3

White Oak Community Recreation Center

1700 April Lane, Silver Spring

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Silver Spring Civic Building

One Veterans Plaza, Silver Spring

1 p.m. - 7 p.m.

Friday, Sept. 4

PlumGar Community Recreation Center

19561 Scenery Drive, Germantown

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

CDC Mobile Testing Trailer

Outdoor drive-up clinic; walk-ups welcome

Recreation Department Administrative Building

4010 Randolph Rd., Silver Spring

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

This article originally appeared on the Silver Spring Patch
The story of contemporary Colorado journalism can be told in two acts. In the first, the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post are locked in one of the late twentieth centurys wildest newspaper wars, which ended in 2009 with the Rockys demise. In the second, a fragmented media landscape of upstart publications is galvanized by the Denver Rebellion of 2018, when layoffs led the Posts remaining journalists to rise up against their hedge fund owner in a protest that, by this year, had largely fizzled out.

Now the Colorado News Collaborative, known as COLab, has opened a dramatic third act in the stateone that might see its disparate news media outlets bury old rivalries and unite, in order to hold off collapse. COLaban independent, nonprofit, statewide journalism coalitionbrings together nearly a hundred journalists from more than sixty news organizations, a level of coordination that many of its participants might have found unthinkable just a decade ago. As a physical space and online resource hub, COLab oversees a clearinghouse for reporting to help journalists share work and ideas. The Associated Press is a member, and participants use the APs StoryShare tool in order to ensure more comprehensive coverage at a time of diminished resources. Participating journalists communicate via a sprawling Slack channel. Ten core COLab members, representing as many news outlets, will soon move their work into the third floor of a newly constructed public media building in Denver.

Enthusiasm for COLab has already driven two of the states journalism institutions to reform their missions. In May, Jill Farschman, CEO of the Colorado Press Association, announced her organization would take a leadership role in COLab, to facilitate collaborative reporting and training events, as well as provide guidance on organizational restructuring and reader engagement, among other things. While the Covid crisis is proving how critical local journalism is to our democracy, Farschman wrote, it also is magnifying cracks in our industry and highlighting years of decay that we can no longer ignore.

THE KICKER: A New York City principal and the education beat

The Colorado Independent, a statewide nonprofit digital newsroom, shed its small staff and has transitioned away from daily journalism; its two editors joined COLab, where theyll work on investigative projects with the states small rural newspapers, in much the way ProPublica does with local partners. (Disclosure: I have worked with the Colorado Independent as an independent contractor since 2015.) Strategic support for COLab comes from the Colorado Media Project, whose funders include the Denver-based Gates Family Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, and others.

While the initiative is new, and kinks are still being worked out with regard to wrangling and organization, the fruits of such collaboration are becoming clear: in late June, the Valley Couriera small-staff weekly paper in Alamosa, a city of roughly ten thousandpublished a riveting, in-depth feature on a recent demonstration during which a protester shot a motorist in the head. The investigation, co-bylined by Valley Courier publisher Keith Cerny and Independent editor Susan Greene, also ran in the Colorado Springs Gazette, Denvers Westword alt-weekly, Routt Countys Steamboat Pilot & Today, and elsewhere.

The depletion of local news scenes, exacerbated by the current pandemic, isnt unique to Colorado, and similar models in other states are emerging to help mitigate the attendant problems. Collaborative efforts involving news organizations of various sizes and platforms are taking hold in different ways in states from New Hampshire and North Carolina to New Jersey and beyond. We are seeing more statewide initiatives pop up that are both project-based and more permanent efforts, says Stefanie Murray, who directs the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University.

Laura Frank, a Rocky Mountain News veteran who recently stepped down as vice president of news for Rocky Mountain PBS to become COLabs inaugural director, says such a model can work anywhere if it can work in Colorado.

The amount of resources that we wasted in the competitive model was really kind of criminal, she says. And nobody has those resources now.

It was a way to say, Were part of this ecosystem, and to get a story that touched on something that wed been talking about but werent able to do ourselves.

THE FIRST MAJOR PROJECT to come out of COLabs efforts was COVID Diaries Colorado, in which reporters fanned out across the state to cover the impacts of the virus on April 16, at the time the pandemics deadliest day to date. The effort stitched together vignettes from journalists who had once been adversaries: battle-scarred veterans of Denvers bitter newspaper war, smaller public radio stations skeptical of larger ones, competing local TV networks, and digital news outlets that countered the states legacy print press. The cross-pollination made for near-saturated statewide coverage.

Coming tomorrow, one of the more impressive journalism efforts Ive had the pleasure to be a part of in the past 35 years of ink-stained wretchedness. Check it out. https://t.co/CMg2sBY3uI  Jim Clarke (@JimClarkeAP) April 25, 2020

While COLab was beginning to take shape before the pandemic hit, the virus pushed down the accelerator. It heightened the feeling of the greater good, which made it all the easier to collaborate, Frank says.

Liam Adams, a twenty-five-year-old reporter who came from Washington, DC, two years ago and works for the Brighton Standard Blade, found in COLab a sense of community and mentorship beyond what his small newsroom in the Denver suburbs could offer. He has turned to the Slack channel for advice about obtaining local hospital data for a story showing disproportionate impacts of the virus on Latinos. Zooming with dozens of journalists, he says, has given him a sense of what its like to work in a larger newsroom. I would say its just been encouraging and uplifting, he tells CJR.

In a way, the covid-19 collaboration seemed well suited for smaller news organizations like the Colorado Sun, a digital newsroom launched two years ago by ten Post defectors who resigned from the paper in protest of the mass layoffs overseen by Alden Global Capital. The Sun has been expanding its own partnerships, including an arrangement with Colorados two largest Gannett papers, among roughly thirty other outlets.

To me, were all too small to go it alone anymore, says Larry Ryckman, a former editor at the AP and the Denver Post who cofounded the Sun. We are as competitive as any other newsroom when it makes sense, but these days, frankly, its about serving readersits about serving Coloradomore than it is about competing with each other. On the last weekend in April, the Post carried the covid diaries collaboration on its Sunday front pagethe first time the states flagship newspaper ran content produced by its ex-staffers at the Sun.

The Post, which still accounts for the lions share of readership among newsrooms in the state, had largely remained on the sidelines of the COLab efforts, until the pandemic and its participation in the covid diaries. It was a way to signal properly that the Denver Post wants to work with the other media organizations around the statethat we dont imagine ourselves as the lone wolf, Lee Ann Colacioppo, the papers top editor, says. It was a way to say, Were part of this ecosystem, and to get a story that touched on something that wed been talking about but werent able to do ourselves.

Since the covid diaries, COLab has partnered with the Colorado Media Project to provide support to a range of ethnic media and Spanish-language publications. In June, as protests unfolded in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, multiple COLab newsrooms issued public statements pledging to combat racism. The CMP and COLab facilitated Real Talk listening sessions around race and diversity within Colorado newsrooms.

A lot of people really came together to make these conversations happen, says Philip Clapham, a project manager for the Colorado Media Project, who referenced Rocky Mountain Public Media, Boulder radio station KGNU, the education-focused Chalkbeat Colorado, and hyperlocal digital site Denverite and its parent, Colorado Public Radio, specifically.

A new move toward more collaboration wont save everyone, of course. In Pueblo, an economically troubled city about two hours south of Denver and home to a shrinking Gannett newspaper, the once-vibrant independent Pulp newsmagazine is shutting down.

Former Pulp publisher John Rodriguez, who just took a communications job with the city, has been offered Pueblo-related stories to publish from Denver-based outlets, but he wonders how that might bring in revenue to keep local reporters on the beat in Pueblo. What were doing is spreading content around, but theres no solution to the money problems, Rodriguez says.

In the meantime, however, Frank is on the lookout for the next large statewide projectand beyond.

I think it is the only way forward, she says. I think the writing is on the wall for every platform. It is just going to continue to become more and more difficult to try to be everything to everyone. Its just not going to work. And no one has the capacity to cover everything that needs to be covered. And its not coming back.

ICYMI: San Quentin tells its own COVID story

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today
Still struggling to overcome the draining consequences of almost ceaseless conflict and political haggling, Iraq has nevertheless managed to overcome the worst of the 2020 oil market slump in its upstream sector. It demonstrated sufficient subtlety with its Kurdish exports and has more or less reined in its OPEC+ non-compliance antics, to avoid the ire of leading crude exporters. Yet as Baghdad and other Iraqi cities put up with the intense August heat when temperatures are routinely above 45 C, Iraqi authorities have started to chart a pathway for the Arab nations downstream segment, too  albeit a bit too ambitious given the conditions of todays Iraq; one might argue that staying realistic is the best Baghdad can do. Iraqs only fully functional refinery is located in Shuaiba near the Basrah hub of crude production, where a 210kbpd refinery is serving the product needs of the south. Under normal circumstances, Shuaiba should have processed some 280kbpd, using a fourth refining unit, however the realities of being an oil-dependent war-torn Middle Eastern nation and the COVID pandemic have gotten in the way. Shuaiba has had its fair share of difficulties in the past years as the river water it relies on is becoming increasingly salinated and was forced to temporarily shut down refining because of that  might not seem that tragic in the COVID-19 era when demand for fuels has plummeted but definitely was a dangerous development before that given all the missing output from the Baiji Refinery.

While the Shuaiba Refinery caters for the products need of Iraqs South and the 140kbpd Daura Refinery is feeding the exigencies of the burgeoning Baghdad market, the ill-fated Baiji Refinery (some 130km from Baghdad) was satisfying the needs of the nations heartland. Yet Baiji has suffered immensely on the back of plentiful military operations  first it was damaged by ISIS barbaric actions, only to take another hit when the Iraqi internal forces recaptured it in 2015. Last week the Iraqi oil ministry has set a deadline to the completion of the partially destroyed 310kbpd Baiji Refinery complex, one of the most badly damaged key infrastructure assets during the Islamic State sudden onslaught on Iraq.

Related: The Innovative Solution Bringing Electricity To Crisis Stricken Areas



Nominally, Baiji consists of 3 different parts  Salahuddin 1 and 2 (both with a throughput capacity of 70kbpd) and the Northern Plant (throughput capacity of 170kbpd). As of today, only the Salahuddin 2 unit is working properly  Salahuddin 1 has had most of its reconstruction works completed on the hydrogen and gasoline units but is still yet to restart, with the Northern Plant requiring the most overhauling. The new Iraqi government claimed that it expects all Baiji repair works to be completed by 2023. The commercial rationale to maximize refinery output is more than evident  despite struggling with deficit-plagued budgets, Iraq spends some $2.5 billion per year on importing oil products.

One can barely call the above mentioned developments a success  across the board downstream projects have run into financing problems and subsequent delays. Yet Iraqi authorities keep on surprising the general public by claims that the Middle Eastern nation would build 5 new greenfield refineries with a total refining capacity of 790kbpd. In late 2019 the Ministry of Oil has issued a list of the 5 given refineries  Kirkuk (70kbpd), Wasit (140kbpd), Nasiriyah (140kbpd), Basrah (140kbpd) and al-Faw (300kbpd). The peculiar choice of locations raises some evident questions  if the government remains intent on bringing the Shuaiba refinery back to full capacity, why would it seek two further refineries in the Basrah Governorate with an incremental capacity of 440kbpd (ie to a total of 840kbpd)?

Realistically speaking, the list of greenfield refineries to be built is more about the government signaling the extent of its wishes rather than determining specific goals for the upcoming years. Moreover, Iraq has another long-running downstream saga  that of the 140kbpd Karbala Refinery, basically the only greenfield refinery in the history of modern Iraq. According to the Oil Ministry, Karbala is 88 percent complete and would be fully ready for commissioning by 2023, the same year when repair works on its brownfield assets would be finalized. Karbala is located midway between Baghdad and Najaf, with the $6.4 billion construction overseen by a South Korean consortium headed by Hyundai. As usually with Iraqi refineries, Karbalas 2023 commissioning deadline would be 5 years beyond the initially set deadline  understandable, given that it is predominantly financed by the ever-cash-strapped government.

On a separate note, the oil refineries of Iraqi Kurdistan form a separate microcosm  in contrast to the southern governorates Erbil lacks a downstream powerhouse. The 110kbpd Kalak Refinery might have been the flagship of the regions refining activities yet it remains severely underutilized, at 20-30% on average. The only refinery in Kurdistan that operates more or less according to its technical possibilities is the 60kbpd Ninewa Refinery. The problem is that against the background of OPEC+ commitments and upstream investments plummeting in 2020 feeding the Kurdish refineries (the latest one of which was commissioned in July 2019, the 40kbpd Erbil Refinery) with substantial amounts of crude is a rather difficult affair.

By Viktor Katona for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Mike Flynn was a career Army intelligence officer who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and was still in uniform as a three-star general when he became Barack Obama's head of Defense Intelligence in July 2012.

But he fell out badly with the Obama administration, was forced out in July 2014 and moved into private intelligence consulting.

2015

December 10: Flynn is paid to travel to Moscow and sits beside Vladimir Putin at dinner celebrating propaganda outlet RT (right). His consulting business has Russian clients

2016

February: Flynn signs up to provide national security advice to the Trump campaign; in the next few months he is floated as a possible running mate

July 20 : Flynn leads 'lock her up' chants at the Republican National Convention and claims Obama concealed the actions of Osama bin Laden

July 31: FBI open counter-intelligence investigation Crossfire Hurricane into group of Trump aides, including Flynn, for possible Russian influence. In 2014 an FBI informer had told agents he saw Flynn spending time at a dinner in the UK with a Russian woman with ties to Kremlin intelligence; the information is included in their investigation. Flynn is code-named Crossfire Razor

November 4: Trump wins the election, and meets Obama who advises him not to hire Flynn. Trump ignores the advice and makes him national security adviser designate

November 30: Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, makes the first of what will be 48 requests by Obama and Obama-eras officials to 'unmask' a redaction from intelligence reports which covers up Flynn's name

December 2016

Flynn meets Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak (right) at Trump Tower and exchanges calls and messages throughout the month.

December 29: Hours after Obama announces sanctions on Russia for election interference, they speak and Flynn says it will be 'reviewed' when Trump takes power. The call is heard by intelligence agents who monitor Kisylak's calls and details are included in intelligence reports. The next day Putin says Russia won't retaliate for the sanctions

2017

January 4: FBI drafts report saying there is 'no derogatory information on RAZOR [Flynn].' But 20 minutes later FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok tells case agent 'don't close RAZOR,' and '7th floor involved' meaning FBI leadership. He also emails lover Lisa Page, a senior FBI lawyer, about the Logan Act - a never-enforced 1799 law banning private people from interfering in foreign relations. 'Razor still open,' he writes and calls news 'serendipitously good'. 'Phew, but yeah, that's amazing that he is still open. Good I guess,' Page replies. Strzok respond: 'Yeah, our utter incompetence actually helps us. 20% of the time I'm guessing :)'

January 5: Obama holds Oval Office briefing on Russian election interference with Joe Biden, CIA director John Brennan, FBI director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and deputy attorney general Sally Yates. He asks Comey and Yates to stay behind and says he has 'learned of the information' about Flynn's call to Kislyak. Comey mentions the Logan Act

January 6: Obama's top intel figures - Brennan, Clapper and Comey - give the Trump team including Trump a briefing on Russia at Trump Tower

January 10: Joe Biden is most senior Obama official to request an 'unmasking' of an intelligence report which reveals Flynn's name

January 12: Bombshell Washington Post report reveals Flynn's call to Kislyak on December 29, 'according to a senior U.S. government official' saying: 'What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions?' It mentions the Logan Act

January 14: Flynn tells Pence he did not discuss sanctions; in coming days Trump officials repeat this on television - including Mike Pence the following day

January 20: Trump is inaugurated; Flynn becomes national security advisor

January 22: The Wall Street Journal reveals Flynn is subject to a counter-intelligence investigation over links to Russia

January 23: Strzok and Andrew McCabe the FBI Deputy director exchange messages planning to interview Flynn

January 24: Two FBI agents - Peter Strzok and one whose name remains secret - go to the White House and interview Flynn in his West Wing office. Their notes say he denies talking about sanctions with Kislyak and said 'if I did I don't remember'

January 26 and 27: Yates tells White House counsel Don McGahn that Flynn has lied to Mike Pence and other officials, is therefore compromised, could be blackmailed by Russia, and other aspects of his conduct are worrying which she can't tell McGahn because they are classified

January 28: Flynn sits in the Oval Office to take part in Trump's first call with Putin

February 9: Washington Post reveals Flynn did discuss sanctions and publishes interview in which he repeats denial 'categorically.' After the story is published, he tells the newspaper a different version - that he may have discussed sanctions

February 10 and 11: Trump says he will 'look into' Flynn but the aide is at Mar-a-Lago dinner with Shinzo Abe

February 13: Washington Post reveals that McGahn was warned about Flynn by Yates. Flynn resigns admitting he 'inadvertently' misled Pence, prompting Pence to mislead on Face the Nation in January

February 14: Trump meets Comey and says Flynn is 'a good guy' and 'I hope you can see your way to letting this go.'

March 30: Flynn offers to testify to Congress - at the time both House and Senate are Republican-controlled - or the FBI on Trump-Russia in exchange for immunity from prosecution; nobody takes up the deal offer

May 9: Trump fires Comey, and on May 17 Robert Mueller is appointed special counsel

May 10: Senate Intel Committee subpoena Flynn for his contacts with Russia; he cites Fifth Amendment; they later subpoena in more detail, and by early June he turns over documents voluntarily

November 5: Mueller's investigators revealed to be ready to indict Flynn and his son Michael Jr. on multiple charges. They are looking at his foreign lobbying and even whether he plotted to kidnap a Turkish cleric from the U.S. and deliver him to Turkey - but are also wiling to strike a deal to let his son off if he flips

November 16: Mueller team interview Flynn for first time

November 22: Flynn withdraws from 'joint defense deal' with Trump, suggesting a deal is in the works

December 1: Flynn signs a plea deal with Mueller; he will plead guilty to lying to the FBI at the White House interview. In exchange his son gets out of charges, and Flynn himself escapes charges of failing to register his lobbying for foreign entities. He appears in court and admits under oath lying to the FBI and affirms that he understands the deal. 'I recognize that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong, and, through my faith in God, I am working to set things right,' he says. The White House says: 'The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year.'

December 2: Trump tweets: 'I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI'

2018

January: Flynn is repeatedly interviewed as he cooperates with Mueller and sentencing is repeatedly deferred

June 7: Obama deputy national security advisor reveals in book that Obama administration first learned of Flynn's December 2016 communications with Kislyak from Trump transition team members and not from 'unmasking' his name in intelligence reports

December 18: Flynn appears in court for sentencing hearing; Mueller's recommendation is little or no jail time. But Judge Emmet Sullivan says 'arguably you sold your country out' and asks why he was not charged with 'treason.' Sentencing is deferred

2019

June 12: Flynn fires Covington & Burling, his white shoe law firm, and hires new lawyer Sidney Powell, who had told him on Fox News to ditch his plea deal

August 30: Flynn files motion accusing prosecutors of conning him into a guilty plea by withholding exculpatory material while other parts of the government trying to 'smear' him as a Russian agent

December 16: Judge rejects Flynn's motion after reviewing Intel Inspector General report into the FBI and DOJ actions before the 2016 election and sets sentencing date for January 28

2020

January 7: Prosecutors say they want up to six months for Flynn; a week later he files to ask to withdraw his guilty plea 'because of the government's bad faith, vindictiveness, and breach of the plea agreement.' A week later he asks for probation if he can't get out of his deal. Sentencing is deferred until February 20

February 14

Attorney General Bill Barr appoints political appointee Jeffrey Jensen, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, to examine Flynn's prosecution

April 29

New notes released by Jensen show Strzok discussing keeping Flynn as a target on January 4 2017. They also show an unnamed FBI official's notes from around the interview with Flynn on January 24 2017, saying: 'What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?' Trump starts a tweet storm which lasts into the next day, saying: 'What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!'

May 7

Department of Justice says it is withdrawing support for prosecuting Flynn saying the interview in the West Wing was 'untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn' and that it was 'conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.' But career prosecutors who have led the case quit just before the move is announced

May 12

Judge Emmet Sullivan puts a hold on prosecutors dropping the case and the next day appoints a 'friend of the court,' former Mafia prosecutor and retired federal judge John Gleeson to argue against the DOJ's motion to dismiss, causing uproar among Flynn's supporters

May 13

A series of senior Obama officials are named as having asked for 'unmaskings' of intelligence reports which resulted in Flynn's name being uncovered, in newly-declassified documents. But it later emerges intelligence report of his call to Kislyak used his full name so people with access to it could understand who the Russian was speaking to, which also means leaking his name is not a crime

May 21

Three-judge appeals panel orders Judge Sullivan to explain legal basis for not accepting prosecution request to drop Flynn's conviction

May 22

FBI director Christopher Wray launches 'after-action review' of bureau's investigation

June 24

Federal appeals judges rule 2-1 that Sullivan has to dismiss the case. Trump takes a victory lap, tweeting 'Great!'

July 4

Flynn tweets a video of himself taking 'the oath,' a bizarre ceremony linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory, which ends the Oath of Allegiance by saying 'where we go one, we go all,' a QAnon slogan

July 9

Judge Sullivan asks the entire D.C. appeals circuit to hear the case 'en banc' and overturn the order to dismiss. An unnamed member of the appeals circuit made the same request and the judges voted to hear it 'en banc' August 31, legally ignoring Sullivan's request

August 31

Entire D.C. appeals circuit rules against Flynn, sending the case back to Sullivan and allowing him to hold an inquiry into DOJ handling of the prosecution

September 29

Sullivan holds hearing where Flynn's lawyer reveals she briefed Donald Trump personally on the case and asked him not to pardon her client

November 25

President Trump announces the night before Thanksgiving he has granted Flynn a 'Full Pardon,' calling it a 'Great Honor' and wishing him and his family 'Congratulations'

December 12

Judge Sullivan formally dismisses the case on the grounds that the pardon renders it moot
Tamar the Clever Widow

Jesus Curses a Fig Tree

Vanishing Nephilim

The Talking Donkey and the Adversary

Fish Who Spit Money

Most Christians are familiar with a number of Bible stories. They know the tale of Moses and how he led the Israelites out of Egypt. They read the story of Jesus death and resurrection every year at Easter, and they could probably recite Lukes account of Jesus birth word for word. Some of the most famous Bible stories, however, have pieces that are skipped over or missed. These little moments are sometimes removed from popular telling because they do not add much to the narrative. They do nothing to really keep the story moving. Other times, they are removed because those sections muddy the waters and confuse the moral of the rest of the story. These forgotten moments in famous Bible stories, however, add nuance to morals and inject a bit of novelty back into well-worn stories. Tales that a person has heard or read a dozen times suddenly has an extra character, an extra scene to give it new life, and these lost moments can be found in even the most famous of stories. Here are five forgotten moments in famous Bible stories.The story of Tamar and Judah is an often skipped over section of the story of Joseph. After Josephs brothers sold him into slavery but before the famine in Canaan, Judah had three sons. He married the first son to a woman named Tamar, but the son died without an heir. According to Israelite law, a man was supposed to marry his brothers widow if the widow had no sons. The children the man sired would then be considered to be his brothers children. In accordance with the law, Judahs second son married Tamar. The second son refused to give Tamar children, however, and died prematurely. Tamar was once again left widowed and without children.After two sons died while married to Tamar, Judah blamed her for their deaths. He pretended that he would marry her to his third son when he came of age, but Tamar found out that Judah had no intention of honoring his promise. In ancient Israel, if a man died without children and had no brothers who were willing or able to marry his widow, the widow was supposed to marry her father-in-law. Tamar knew this and tricked Judah into sleeping with her, but he did not know it was her. When she revealed what she had done, Judah praised her courage and honor saying She is righteous, not I.Some stories in the Bible seem to come out of nowhere. This is exactly what happens in Matthew 21. The chapter begins with Jesus triumphant entry into Jerusalem and his cleansing of the Temple. After this dramatic moment with the iconic verse my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers, Jesus leaves Jerusalem to spend the night in Bethany. As he returns to Jerusalem in the morning, he comes across a fig tree. He approaches the tree but sees there is no fruit on it. He curses the tree, and it dies. Jesus and the disciples then carry on to Jerusalem where Jesus begins his verbal battles with the chief priests and elders. The odd moment with the fig tree is never mentioned again.Genesis and Exodus are arguably the best known books of the Old Testament, but there is a section that is often glossed over in Genesis. Oddly enough, this often forgotten piece of Scripture takes places in the middle of one of the best known Bible stories of all: Noahs ark.In the beginning of Genesis 6, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. The result of these unions were the Nephilim. They are described as the heroes of old, men of renown, but nothing else is said about them. The Bible then skips straight forward to God deciding to flood the earth to wipe out human wickedness. The Nephilim are mentioned again briefly in Numbers, but there is never any clear explanation about who these men of renown were or what happened to them.The story of Balaam is not one of the better known tales in the Old Testament, but there is one element of this prophets tale that is quite memorable, and that is Balaams donkey. Balaams donkey is one of only two animals that ever speak in the Bible;, the other is the snake in Eden. The donkey speaks after Balaam tries to force the donkey to walk past an angel that Balaam cannot see, but the donkey can sense. This story in, and of itself, is the more memorable section of this story, yet what is not known is that the angel was not a traditional angel at all. In fact, the correct translation of the passage would state that God sent not a malak or messenger but the adversary. While this may not seem like a large change, note that the Hebrew phrase used here is a bit more sinister than most translations render it.Balaam faces ha satan.The New Testament has some very strange moments wedged between tales of miracles and wise parables. In Matthew 17, the Transfiguration takes place, and Jesus predicts his death twice. Then, he clashes with the priests once more, this time over the Temple tax. Jesus decides to pay it to avoid giving further offense, but Christ apparently has a sense of humor. Rather than simply paying with the money He and the disciples have, Jesus decides to discover the money. He could have pulled it from under a tree or bush. Instead, He tells Peter to go down to the lake, catch a fish and pull the tax out of the fishs mouth. Its a shame the Scripture does not include the priests reaction to that bizarre little miracle.Even the best known stories have little moments that are glossed over or forgotten. Sometimes they give further cultural context, such as in the case of Tamar. Other times they seem to simply be there to make sure the faithful are paying attention to what they are hearing or reading. It makes a person wonder what else they have skimmed over. So, go crack open the Bible, and rediscover what has been forgotten.
FEMA offering many forms of assistance to residents in disaster areas
Chefs and restaurant owners in Philadelphia are sizzling hot over a photo showing Mayor Jim Kenney, who banned indoor dining in Philly due to COVID-19, enjoying an indoor restaurant meal in Maryland.

The restaurant is owned by the mayors friend; but the chefs fume that the mayor is a job-killing hypocrite.

6ABC in Philadelphia reports the mayors office confirmed that he went to a friends restaurant in Maryland on Sunday.

The picture below of the mayor enjoying his meal indoor has since gone viral because Kenney has staunchly stood by his decision to not allow restaurants in the city to open for indoor dining, according to 6ABC:

Photo of Philadelphia mayor dining indoors in Maryland sparks criticismhttps://t.co/tqr08Kd0cU  Action News on 6abc (@6abc) August 31, 2020

MORE PA NEWS:

Philadelphia restaurateur Marc Vetri is among the chefs who have skewered the mayor for shutting down indoor dining in Philly. Now he and others in the food biz are roasting Kenney for his apparent double-standard while dining inside in Maryland.

6ABC quotes Vetris peppery post on Instagram as saying:

Hi @phillymayor !!! Glad youre enjoying indoor dining with no social distancing or mask-wearing in Maryland tonight while restaurants here in Philly close, suffer and fight for every nickel just to survive. I guess all your press briefings and your narrative of unsafe indoor dining dont apply to you. Thank you for clearing it all up for us tonight.

For its part, the mayors office tried to explain why Kenney surfaced inside that Maryland restaurant, something still against the rules in Philly, with this statement as reported by 6ABC:

The mayor went to Maryland earlier today to patronize a restaurant owned by a friend of his. For what its worth, he also went to Rouge to enjoy outdoor dining in Philly on the way home. He looks forward to expanding indoor dining locally next week. Throughout the pandemic the Mayor has consistently deferred to the guidance of the Health Commissioner, who in this case felt strongly about waiting until Sept. 8 to resume indoor dining. If elected officials at the federal level had similarly deferred to health experts over the past five months, this might not even be an issue by now. Of course we understand the frustrations of local restaurant owners who have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic. But there are 782 total cases in the county the mayor briefly visited, compared to over 33,000 cases in Philadelphia. Drastically different circumstances.

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A $144 serum by beauty brand Drunk Elephant has been voted the best in Australia by thousands of women.

The T.L.C. Framboos Glycolic Night Serum is described as a 'hard-working, vegan resurfacing product' online, where it was named the best serum in the Mecca Beauty Election 2020.

Those who have tried the skin product have raved about its abilities to draw out impurities from the surface of the skin and give your complexion a dewy, glass-like finish.

A $144 serum by beauty brand Drunk Elephant has been voted the best in Australia by thousands of women (pictured after use)

The T.L.C. Framboos Glycolic Night Serum (pictured) is described as a 'hard-working, vegan resurfacing serum' online, where it was named the best product

More than 500 people have left glowing 4.6 star ratings on the Mecca website, where women have alternately described it as 'bliss' and 'absolutely perfect'.

'I initially bought a mini version of the T.L.C glycolic serum a few months ago, applying it every second night,' one reviewer posted.

'I'm a real fan. My skin texture has improved a lot.'

Another fan said the serum is a staple in her skincare routine:

'The serum is lightweight and easy to apply, and has helped my skin look so glowy and refreshed in the mornings,' she wrote.

More than 500 people have left glowing 4.6 star ratings on the Mecca website, where women have alternately described it as 'bliss' and 'absolutely perfect' (pictured after use)

The reason why the vegan formula is so powerful is because of an array of ingredients which work together to lift dead skin cells and unclog pores (Drunk Elephant products pictured)

The reason why the vegan formula is so powerful is because of an array of ingredients which work together to lift dead skin cells, unclog pores, fade pigmentation and smoothe out lines and wrinkles.

These ingredients include AHAs (alpha hydroxy acids) and BHAs (beta hydroxy/salicylic acids), as well as raspberry extract, which nourishes and soothes skin whilst protecting against environmental aggressors.

T.L.C. also has salicylic acid, which exfoliates inside the pore to unclog and remove debris.

It is suitable for all skin tones, including sensitive skin types, and is made without animal products, fragrance, silicone, essential oils, drying alcohols, SLS, chemical and synthetic sunscreen.

The T.L.C. Serum can either be used by itself or in conjunction with other Drunk Elephant products (pictured)

To use the product, senior Mecca retail manager Lucy said you can either use it alone or in conjunction with other skincare products.

'If you have sensitive or easily irritated skin, mix a pump of T.L.C. with a pump of Virgin Marula Oil or B-Hydra serum to dilute the formula and make it more gentle,' Lucy said.

You can steadily build up tolerance to the product by using it on alternate nights, before upping it to every night if your skin can handle it.

An impressive 91 percent of Drunk Elephant users reported that their skin looked more even-toned after use.
Although I loved my time at University College Dublin in the 1960s, I emigrated to England as soon as I could in search of a world in which free speech was taken for granted.

As an adult, I wasn't going to fit in with a society which kow-towed to the Catholic Church and venerated physical force nationalism.

Some things have changed. These days, progressivism, secularism and the European Union are the new sacred cows of the tribe into which I was born but few have the courage to challenge them.

This week the Republic is obsessed with the row about Phil Hogan, who has lost his job as EU Commissioner over his breaching of social distancing rules, but as usual, the discussion is shallow and there is little interest in questioning the wisdom of Irish policy vis-a-vis the EU.

The vigour of the debate over the EU referendum has been uncomfortable in the United Kingdom, but it has also been a tribute to the strength of its democracy.

I've begun reading Ireland and the EU Post Brexit, a fascinating new book by one of my heroes, Ray Bassett, a former senior Irish diplomat much involved in the Good Friday negotiations, who was Ambassador to Canada when he retired in 2016.

He could have found various lucrative billets and basked in the goodwill of Irish politicians and ex-colleagues, but he is a true patriot who decided to spill the beans.

That is not easy in Ireland where the media are inclined to silence unfashionable opinions. Scepticism is easily represented as unpatriotic.

But Bassett wrote wherever he could find a platform to challenge what he considers his country's "blinkered Eurocentric policy on Brexit".

He had expected misgivings from former colleagues "but did not foresee the level of antagonism that my first article engendered, including a text from a senior official asking that I refrain from ever using the title of ex-Ambassador. It was clear that I was no longer welcome back at my old workplace because I've broken a sacred taboo. I had questioned the Irish blind devotion to Brussels and did so publicly."

Bassett reflects on why Ireland does not have "a strong tradition of challenging accepted norms, within our Government system. The dissenting tradition has been particularly weak in southern Ireland".

It may be, he suggests, "a legacy of our authoritarian Catholic past, but one thing is certain, contrarian views are rarely welcomed by the Irish establishment. The hierarchical nature of Irish Catholicism demanded communal group loyalty and groupthink".

He believes the result of suppressing debate has enabled Ireland's Europhiliac establishment to make terrible policy decisions on Europe - including joining the Euro, frightening the electorate into reversing the democratic results of the Nice and Lisbon treaties, caving into bullying over the bailout, and undermining the Good Friday Agreement and the British-Irish relationship by refusing to work with the UK over border issues and instead subserviently following instructions from Brussels, which has no qualms about sacrificing small countries to strengthen a fundamentally undemocratic institution run by France and Germany.

Bassett did not want Brexit and believes that the refusal of Ireland to help David Cameron get a deal he could have sold to the British electorate was an appalling mistake, but now that Britain is leaving the EU he believes that it is in the interests of Ireland to go, too.

He thinks the Europhile Irish establishment are mistaken in thinking that the public are as supportive of the EU or as Eurorocentric as they are, "but a compliant and generally supportive media" have helped give that impression.

He points out that during the banking crisis and the recession young people mostly headed for the old emigrant destinations - Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA rather than mainland Europe.

And he believes that there is no "emotional or symbolic" or deep ideological pro-European identification", just a connection based on material gain.

Ireland needs a rethink. For the sake of the future of this island, I hope his book becomes a bestseller.
Partners for Christian Media/J103 is launching JRadio, their brand-new digital music streaming platform on Tuesday. Having seen the impact positive music can have in an individuals life for the past 25 years, Partners for Christian Media has developed JRadio to be a digital music platform with only positive and encouraging songs and content.

Partners for Christian Media officials said, "Music has long been one of the most important expressions of humanity, and the impact of music in our lives and as a culture is self-evident. Having witnessed the impact positive music can have in a listeners life for over two decades, Partners for Christian Media is excited to expand the ways they offer people a life-changing experience with music in their new digital space.

"What you listen to really does make a difference, as lyrics and jingles you hear as a child can stick with you the rest of your life. With the amount of negativity bombarding us from all sides, a consistent source of positivity can make a difference in our daily lives. With JRadio, youll have access to positive music anywhere, between listening at JRadio.com or by downloading the Android or iOS apps."

Partners for Christian Media and J103 started developing this platform years ago with local developers L2D, and it will launch the desktop and mobile platform on Tuesday. The new digital music platform streams playlists from different genres of positive and Christian music with artists like For King & Country, Coldplay, Lecrae and more. With JRadio, there is no need to worry about objectionable content or explicit lyrics.

Bob Lubell, president and founder of Partners for Christian Media/J103, said, I am thrilled with the new digital platform of JRadio! Twenty-five years ago, the youth of America listened to an FM radio with their headphones on an average of 4.5 hours a day. This generation has gone digital. In order to reach them, so must we!

Start using JRadio for free or sign up for a 30-day free trial of JRadio Premium at JRadio.com and download the Android or iOS app in your app store.






Actor Neetu Kapoor has shared an adorable family picture on Instagram and remembered her husband, late actor Rishi Kapoor. The photo is from her recent get-together with sister-in-law Rima Jain for Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations.

The picture shows Neetu with daughter Riddhima and granddaughter Samara. She captioned it, A part of you goes with the person who has gone and a part stays with you. The picture shows Neetu in a black top and Riddhima and Samara twinning in navy blue.

On Sunday, Riddhima had shared a group picture from the get-together on Instagram with the caption, Family, along with a heart emoji. It had Neetu, Riddhima and Samara sitting on the couch. Rima Jain was seated on another couch beside them with husband Manoj Jain and younger son Aadar Jain. Shweta Bachchans son Agastya Nanda, Armaan Jain and his wife Anissa were seated on the floor in the picture.

Neetu had earlier celebrated her 62nd birthday with a small family gathering at her house last month. The Do Dooni Char actor took to Instagram to share pictures from her birthday celebrations. Her two children, Riddhima and son Ranbir Kapoor, had hosted a small get-together to mark the occasion.

In one of the pictures, Neetu could be seen giving Ranbir a hug during the celebrations. Her birthday celebration pictures were accompanied by a short note expressing gratitude for the good relationships in her life. The richest are the ones with good relationships!!! We all need love, support strength from our loved ones always. I feel the richest today, she wrote in the caption. Rima Jain, Agastya and filmmaker Karan Johar were also a part of the small gathering.

Also read: Milind Soman throws birthday party for wife Ankita Konwar: So proud that you ran your 29km for 29 years so comfortably

Neetu had also shared candid pictures of Riddhima and Ranbir from Raksha Bandhan celebrations, with simply a heart emoji in caption. The first picture showed Riddhima standing beside Ranbir with a puja thali in hand, while the other two pictures showed him playfully squashing her head after the rakhi ceremony.

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The woman, who was arrested for allegedly extorting money to withdraw the rape complaint she had filed against the owner of a local school and a senior government official, has been sent in one-day police remand.

She, along with her husband, was arrested on August 21 from outside the Karnal district court while allegedly taking Rs 7.25 lakh from the school owners men. The police had claimed to have recovered the money from her possession.

The next day, the police produced her in court and sought her two-day remand for the recovery of Rs 6 lakh, which they claimed the woman had already taken from the school owner.

However, the police failed to convince the court at that time as the investigating officer could not establish whether the woman was caught red-handed or not. The court had then sent the couple to judicial custody.

As per the police officials privy to the case, the remand was granted to take the woman to her residence in Kurukshetra for the recovery of money. The police said they will also take her voice samples to match them with some telephonic conversations and also question her in connection with other evidence the school owner provided to the police against her.

On the appeal of the womans advocate, the court has allowed him to accompany her. We requested the court that the interrogation should be done in a dignified manner and the court allowed an advocate to remain present during the interrogation, her advocate Rahul Bali said.

Karnal superintendent of police (SP) Surender Singh Bhoria said, She is well within her rights to have an advocate with her, but at a certain distance. He cannot interfere in the investigation though.

However, in a brief interaction with mediapersons at the court, the woman refuted the allegations and claimed that she was implicated.

She also accused the police of torturing her, a claim rejected by the latter.

SP Bhoria said she is an accused and she could level any allegation. She was in the judicial custody and the police cannot torture her. Also, soon after her arrest, she was produced in a court after medical examination. She did not make any such allegation in the court, he added.

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TEHRAN, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- An Iranian Central Bank (CBI) official said on Sunday that the CBI will take legal action against a lawsuit filed in a U.S. court to seize 1.7 billion U.S. dollars of Iran's assets held by Deutsche Borse's Clearstream banking unit, Tasnim news agency reported.

"The U.S. plaintiffs are seeking legal action in U.S. courts against Clearstream. Serious legal action (by Iran) is also underway to counter these measures," said Amir Hossein Tayyebi Fard, a CBI deputy.

"The move by the United States is doomed to failure like similar American anti-Iran legal attempts that have ended in Iran's favor in recent years," a CBI statement over the issue was quoted by official IRNA news agency as saying on Sunday.

The U.S. authorities have accused Clearstream of violating U.S. money laundering and Iran sanction laws, which Deutsche Boerse has denied.
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Matthew Perry has snapped up a $6 million home in the Pacific Palisades, scaling back from the $14.95 million Malibu bachelor pad he recently put on the market.

The 3,000 square foot home was built in 1965 as modest ranch-style house, but has since undergone an extensive transformation, according to Dirt.com, which reported news of the sale.

The stunning four bedroom, four and a half bathroom home is perched upon a hillside overlooking the ocean, with many of the rooms featuring a view of the Pacific.

Home sweet home: Matthew Perry has snapped up a $6 million home in the Pacific Palisades, scaling back from the $14 million Malibu bachelor pad he recently put on the market

Luxurious: The gorgeous home features oak floors, ceiling lights, and massive windows allowing access to the ocean-view backyard

The modern house is equipped with a pool and fire pit, along with massive pocket sliding doors for access to the backyard.

The luxurious home comes with all the usual chic furnishings, including oak floors, ceiling lights, and a massive walk-in closet.

The open floor plan allows for effortless flow between the living room, dining room, and kitchen, which all blend harmoniously together.

Matthew's quaint chef's kitchen comes with a counter top, oven, pot organizer, and wine rack.

Downsizing: Perry has purchased the modern Pacific Palisades home after putting his Malibu mansion on the market and cutting the price of his Century City condo (pictured 2017)

Sweet dreams: The four-bedroom home comes with fabulous two master suites

Room with a view: The double master suites feature exquisite views of the Pacific Ocean

Rise and shine: One of the four bedrooms inside the 3,000 square foot home

Chic: The home comes with four and a half bathrooms

Adjacent to the kitchen lies the spacious living area with massive door allowing access to the backyard fire pit.

At the edge of the yard lies the raised pool and spa, which are nestled against an incline.

Back inside the home, the four-bedroom home has two master suites with exceptional ocean views.

Spacious and splendid: The massive walk-in closet is equipped with an array of shelf space and racks

Making waves: The home's incredible living space opens up to the Pacific Ocean

Epic: The open floor plan allows for harmonious flow between the living spaces and kitchen

What's cooking? The kitchen also faces the gorgeous Malibu coastline

The ultra chic home also offers plenty of security, with the listing describing the house as 'smart house inside and out' with an electronic facial recognition entry system.

The sale comes not long after Matthew listed his stunning Malibu home for $14.95 million and slashed the price of his Century City condo.

The four-time Emmy nominee is selling his Malibu property through Million Dollar Listing star Josh Flagg and husband Bobby Boyd, after discreetly purchasing it in 2011 in an off-market deal for $12 million.

Yum! The chef's kitchen offers a wine rack, oven, counter top and pot organizer

Kicking back: The backyard is accessible to many of the rooms in the house

Surf's up! The raised pool and spa offer impeccable views of the coast

Perry has also cut the price of his Century City condo from an ambitious $35 million to $27 million after having it on the market for nearly a year.

The condo is located on the 40th floor of the uber-upscale apartment The Century, which is adjacent to luxurious Beverly Hills.

The high rise home, listed with Greg Holcomb and Cassandra Petersen of Compass realty company, is described as a 'mansion in the sky.'

R&R: The home even comes with a fire pit




Southfield, Michigan, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sun Communities, Inc. (NYSE:SUI) (the Company), a real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns and operates or has an interest in manufactured housing and recreational vehicle communities, today announced the dates for its third quarter 2020 earnings release and conference call.

The Company will release its third quarter operating results on Wednesday, October 21, 2020, after the market closes. A conference call to discuss these results will be held on Thursday, October 22, 2020, at 11:00 A.M. ET.

To Participate in the Conference Call:

Dial in at least 5 minutes prior to start time.

U.S. and Canada: 877-407-9039

International: 201-689-8470

The conference call will also be available live on Sun Communities website www.suncommunities.com .

Conference Call Replay:

U.S. and Canada: 844-512-2921 or 412-317-6671

Passcode: 13708698

The replay will be accessible through November 5, 2020.

About Sun Communities, Inc.

Sun Communities, Inc. (NYSE:SUI) is a REIT that, as of June 30, 2020, owned, operated, or had an interest in a portfolio of 426 communities comprising nearly 143,000 developed sites in 33 states and Ontario, Canada.

For Further Information at the Company:

Karen J. Dearing

Chief Financial Officer

(248) 208-2500

www.suncommunities.com




New Delhi: Markets closed in green for the sixth straight day on Friday with both equity indicess rising above 0.75 percentage points.

The BSE Sensex ended 353.84 points or 0.90 per cent higher at 39,467.31. The NSE Nifty surged 88.35 points or 0.76 per cent to close at 11,647.60.

Here are Stocks in focus on August 31, 2020

SBI

The Banks Board Bureau (BBB) on Friday recommended the name of Dinesh Kumar Khara, SBI's senior-most managing director, as the next chairman of the country's largest lender. Khara will replace SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar, whose three-year term comes to an end on October 7. Members of BBB, the headhunter for state-owned banks and financial institutions, interviewed four managing directors of State Bank of India (SBI) on Friday for the upcoming vacancy.

Wockhardt

Drug firm Wockhardt on Saturday reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 759.75 crore for June quarter mainly on account of exceptional items in connection with the transfer of a business comprising 62 products and Baddi facility to Dr Reddy''s Laboratories. The company had posted a net loss of Rs 36.88 crore for April-June 2019-20, Wockhardt said in a filing to BSE. Total income stood at Rs 606.22 crore in the quarter under review. It was Rs 733.66 crore in the year-ago period, the filing added.

NMDC

NMDC has informed the stock exchanges that its board of directors at a meeting held on August 27 accorded an in-principle approval to the proposal to demerge its NMDC Iron & Steel Plant (NISP), Nagarnar, Chhattisgarh. "NISP is steel wing (business) of NMDC. Nagarnar project is under NISP. The board has approved its demerger," a company official explained.

ITC

Diversified business entity ITC on Friday said it is considering merger of its three wholly-owned subsidiaries - Sunrise Foods, Hobbits International Foods and Sunrise Sheetgrah - with itself. A board meeting of the company has been convened for this on September 4, 2020, ITC informed in a regulatory filing. On July 27, ITC had announced to acquire spices manufacturer Sunrise Foods in an all-cash deal valued at Rs 2,150 crore.
The Ghana Police Service has arrested five persons including the Chief of Sumpini, Haruna Jebuni for their roles in the attack of a 50-year old woman accused of witchcraft in the Savannah region.



In a statement, the Police said the victim (name withheld) was attacked in her house with cutlasses and sticks on suspicion of her being a witch by the quintet which includes the 58-year-old chief.



The other suspects are Zakaria Abdul Karim (30 years), Shaibu Iddrisu (35years), Atta Alhassan (57 years) and Salugu Isahaku (alias Orulanaa aged 45 years).



The woman survived the attack and has been assisted to seek healthcare while the suspects are in custody awaiting arraignment for court.



"Police hereby cautions that any person(s) who takes the law into their hands would be arrested and dealt with according to law," the Police said in a statement on Sunday.



Attack



The attack reportedly took place after the Bugum fire festival on Saturday, August 29 at Sumpini in the West Gonja District of the Savanna Region.



The victim was attacked by a group of men based on accusations that she is a witch.



She sustained injuries to her skull and legs and is on admission at the West Gonja District Hospital.



Similar attack



The attack comes less than two months after another woman 90-year-old Akua Denteh was lynched at Kafaba in the same region.



The Savannah Regional Police Command has forwarded the docket on the alleged murder of Denteh to the Attorney-Generals (A-Gs) Office for advice.



The action by the police is to pave the way for committal proceedings to begin at the Bole District Magistrate Court on the next adjourned date of September 8, 2020, after the court, presided over by Mr Andrew Prince Cudjoe, had remanded into prison custody the seven persons accused of murdering the woman when they appeared before the court for the second time on Thursday, August 20, 2020.



The seven accused are Sirina Mohammed, 40, aka Alhajia, the supposed soothsayer who pronounced Ms Denteh a witch, and Latifah Bumaye, 33, the lady said to have flogged Ms Denteh, while accusing her of being responsible for the supposed lack of rainfall in the Kafaba community.



The rest are Haruna Aness, 34; Issifu Tanko, 35; Shaibu Murtala, 29; Suleman Ali, 35, and Issifa Zakyibu, 32.



They were said to have invited a soothsayer to the Kafaba community to identify witches and exorcise them.



The seven were provisionally charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder, respectively, but they were discharged by the court when they reappeared before it last Thursday.



They were, however, immediately re-arrested on the court premises and charged with murder.

Source: Graphic.com.gh









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Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the biggest city on Spains Canary Islands, spent last week immersed in a heatwave as well as a cloud of Saharan dust. The result was a red weather alert for the first time in its history. But this was not the biggest problem for the ninth-biggest urban center in Spain, which counts on 379,925 inhabitants.

The city has become the ground zero for the coronavirus pandemic on the islands, with its five districts accounting for 58.2% of the 3,375 active cases on the seven Canary Islands, which are located off the northwestern coast of Africa. And that is despite the fact that the citys residents account for just 19% of the regions population. The island of Gran Canaria accounts for 69% of total cases in the Canaries, while its capital city is home to 72% of cases on the whole island.

The likely origin of this new outbreak could be down to just one person, or a handful of people. One or several superspreaders from an area of Spain and who integrated into the nightlife and Latino discos in the Guanarteme neighborhood [in the most western corner of the Playa de las Canteras beach] could have been the main cause of the outbreak after spreading the disease to more than 140 people, explains Lluis Serra Majem, a professor at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the spokesperson for the Canarian governments scientific advisory committee.

The origin of this wave is in the outbreaks that came from nightlife and then in family meetings, which saw fast transmission Epidemiologist Amos Garcia Rojas

Accustomed to low infection figures during Spains lockdown, residents of Gran Canaria in general, and inhabitants of the islands capital in particular, returned to the citys nightlife with great enthusiasm once the deescalation process allowed for it. News stories about private parties on yachts or in pubs where the required safety measures were not respected have been frequent in recent months. The origin of this wave is in the outbreaks that came from nightlife and then in family meetings, which saw fast transmission, explains Amos Garcia Rojas, the head of the epidemiology service at the Canarian public health department. Its evident that when there is a spread like this it is because people havent respected the guidelines, he adds.

Data from the Canarian government appears to support Garcia Rojass theory: 25% of new cases are aged between 20 and 29; another 17%, between 30 and 39. This sensation of immortality is clear to see if you take a walk along the beaches of the capital, which are frequented by youngsters without masks on.

What has happened is the perfect storm, Serra Majem explains. July was an extraordinary month, with barely any cases detected. That could make us think that there would be no new spikes until September or October. The problem is that with the average age having fallen due to the influence of nightlife, the majority of cases are asymptomatic. And confinement is very complicated in that case: no one wants to stay at home if they dont feel sick.

The severity of the situation has forced the regional government to tighten safety measures, with exclusive restrictions just for the island

The consequence of this scant observance of quarantines can be seen in the data. In just two weeks, the city has seen the number of active cases rise by a factor of 7.2, going from 246 on August 14 to 1,965 on August 28. The cumulative incidence in the last two weeks has risen to 411.13 per 100,000 inhabitants, with 1,484 cases registered in the same period, a rate that more than triples the average for the entire Canary Islands. As means of comparison, the Centro district of Madrid has a cumulative incidence of 358.92.

The severity of the situation has forced the regional government to tighten safety measures, with exclusive restrictions just for the island. The administration will ban public events with more than 10 people on the islands that have more than 100 Covid-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the coming weeks (Gran Canaria is the only one that exceeds that ratio right now).

Whats more, restaurants and cafes will have to close an hour earlier over the coming weeks, at midnight, while masks will be obligatory in all work environments. Citizens will be advised to limit social meetings to stable family groups, reducing as much as possible contact with anyone who is not a relative.

We are overwhelmed, says a doctor from a healthcare center in the city

These figures are starting to have an effect on the islands hospitals. On August 1, there was one patient admitted with Covid-19. Now there are 185, and that figure is rising. This week, the director of the Guanarteme primary healthcare center made a public appeal in the press calling for the public to avoid appointments with their family doctors unless strictly necessary.

We are overwhelmed, says a doctor from a healthcare center in the city, who chose to remain anonymous. The medical professional has two complaints: on the one hand, the lack of organization and attention that the regional healthcare department is showing. There are a lot of duplicated tasks, and they havent made even the slightest effort to support us at a time when it is clear that we are in the midst of an outbreak, she adds. She also criticizes the attitudes of many members of the public. It seems that they have forgotten what another lockdown could bring and are living their normal lives in the city as if nothing was happening, she complains.

The Canarian regional premier, Angel Victor Torres, agrees with the latter opinion of the doctor. Our health and our future are at risk, he said at a press conference on Thursday, at which he criticized the attitudes of the public. These are actions that are being paid for with hundreds of positives and with young people who are ending up in hospital. Lives and vulnerable people are being put at risk.

English version by Simon Hunter.
The only people to blame for the violence and riots in our streets are liberal politicians and their incompetent policies that have failed to get control of these destructive situations, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. This President has condemned violence in all its forms. Americans want peace in their streets and for their children to grow up in safe neighborhoods, and only President Trump has shown the courage and leadership to achieve law and order and deliver results.
Emergency authorisation of Covid-19 vaccines needs great care - WHO

The emergency authorisation of Covid-19 vaccines requires a "great deal of seriousness and reflection", the World Health Organization said on Monday after the United States announced it was considering fast-tracking candidate drugs.

Although every country had the right to approve drugs without completing full trials, "it is not something that you do very lightly", WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan told a news conference.

The head of the US Food and Drug Administration said he would be willing to bypass the normal approval process to authorise a Covid-19 vaccine as long as officials were convinced the benefits outweigh the risks. Russia has already granted regulatory approval to a Covid-19 vaccine this month after less than two months of human testing, prompting some Western experts to question its safety and efficacy.

The WHO's preferred approach would be to have a full set of data which could be used for the pre-qualification of vaccines, Swaminathan said. The WHO would then consider the efficacy and safety of each drug on a case by case basis, she added.

The WHO has used experimental drugs to combat Ebola in Africa, a measure which proved successful, Mike Ryan, the head of the organisation's emergencies programme, said. But he stressed that a fast-track approach without full trials required intensive monitoring and safety follow-up work, and should be halted immediately if problems occur. 'If you move too quickly to vaccinate ... millions of people, you may miss certain adverse effects,' Ryan said. (Reuters)
Vietnam is having a difficult time fully containing the spread of Covid-19 and there have been many community infections over the last few days.

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Joining the solidarity and compassion of local people and organisations are foreign friends keen to do their bit.

Anxious about the recurrence of Covid-19 in Vietnam, with hundreds of new cases linked to the outbreak in the central city of Da Nang, Wayne Worrell, a British expat, called on friends to make a poster of more 40 photos with the message that people should wear face masks to protect community health.

To help raise awareness about proactively tackling the pandemic, Wayne and his friends also plan to join local people in a campaign to distribute face masks and protect community health.

Wayne and his friends from a charitable organisation in Hanoi have already given out more than 3,000 face masks./.VNA

Foreigners join Vietnamese in fighting Covid-19 Vietnam is having a difficult time fully containing the spread of Covid-19 and there have been many community infections over the last few days.
Iffath Fathima By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: The Health and Family Welfare Department (HFW) has started a new campaign, Anti-stigma and Discrimination, to tackle the Covid-related stigma faced by healthcare workers. The department has trained 300 healthcare professionals across the state, who will in turn train other frontline workers.

The first set of trained professionals include psychiatrists, mental health programme officers and doctors at district primary health centres. They will train other health workers, government employees, education department staff, police personnel, Asha and Anganwadi workers and healthcare staff.

Dr Rajani M H, Deputy Director, Mental Health, HFW Department, revealed two incidents where healthcare workers were stigmatised. A staff nurse, who was working at a government hospital, was told not to enter the house by her mother-in-law because she worked in a Covid ward.

The mother-in-law told the nurse that if she came in close contact with other family members, she could infect them. In another incident, a 50-year-old woman Group D staffer, who is in a joint family, was asked to leave the house or to remain locked up in a room the entire day.

Such incidents make this campaign necessary. The mental health professionals will have to submit a report to the HFW Department in the next 15 days as to how many people they have trained. The reports will be checked and districts that have low numbers will be asked to train more. Even recovered Covid patients will be trained, she said. We need to support each other. The myth of I will never become corona positive should be busted, she said.
GCS from Billing Precision, LLC was designed by chiropractic business owners with both patient experience and practice profitability in mind. Covid-19 has changed the way in which doctors are interacting with their patients for the better, said Brian Capra, DC Founder and President of Genesis Chiropractic Software.

Genesis Chiropractic Software and Billing Network, the leading cloud-based business management solution for chiropractors, announced today the launch of its integrated, HIPAA compliant, telehealth solution, available to US-based clients immediately. With Genesis telehealth, healthcare professionals can start running their virtual practice in under 90 seconds.

According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, theres been a dramatic increase in the utilization of telehealth services for primary care delivery in Fee-for-Service (FFS) Medicare since the early days of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Covid-19 has changed the way in which doctors are interacting with their patients for the better, said Brian Capra, DC Founder and President of Genesis Chiropractic Software. The new healthcare landscape has forced doctors to pivot in order to achieve proper patient care, which is why HIPAA-compliant, video conferencing is more important now than ever.

According to Capra, doctors face several challenges, for some doctors, they simply arent tech savvy and do not know where to begin, for others, using video conferencing tools that arent integrated with their current daily workflow and practice management technology is not intuitive or convenient.

The Genesis telehealth platform helps solve these issues because it integrates with a practices current patient appointment book. This allows doctors to easily send secure links directly to their patients prior to the virtual appointment. This is a game changer because insurance companies are starting to pay for virtual doctor visits, adds Capra.

Additionally, both doctors and their patients benefit from the new platform because appointment reminder emails and SMS are now in one place and the doctor is no longer using two different systems.

About Genesis Chiropractic Software (GCS)

GCS from Billing Precision, LLC was designed by chiropractic business owners with both patient experience and practice profitability in mind. It provides a complete chiropractic practice management system in the cloud that supports every role in a busy chiropractic practice, from the owner and practitioners to the front desk and back office. It automates the vast majority of standard tasks, including patient relationship management, revenue cycle management, compliance and office management. Visit https://genesischiropracticsoftware.com/ to learn more.

Media Contact: Lynn Aronberg

Lynn Aronberg Public Relations

Direct / Mobile: 1-305-401-9343

Email: lynn@lynnaronberg.com
Pakistani and Afghan officials will hold talks in Kabul on Monday to review bilateral cooperation in various fields including security and economy, the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad said in a statement.

Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood will lead the Pakistani delegation at the second review meeting of the Afghanistan- Action Plan for Peace and Solidarity (APAPPS), while the Afghan side will be led by Deputy Foreign Minister Mirwais Nab, Xinhua news agency cited the statement as saying on Sunday.

APAPPS was established in 2018 to provide a comprehensive and structured framework for institutional engagement in diverse areas of bilateral cooperation between and Afghanistan, said the statement, adding that the first review meeting was held in Islamabad in June 2019.

"The framework comprises five Working Groups focused on Politico-Diplomatic, Military to Military Coordination, Intelligence Cooperation, Economy, and Refugee Issues," the statement said.

The Foreign Ministry said that during the second meeting, all five working groups under APAPPS will review the implementation status of earlier discussions and decisions, with a view to taking the process forward.

APAPPS provides an important forum to address common challenges and deepen mutual trust and understanding, and effective utilization of the mechanism is pivotal in advancing the shared objectives of peace, stability, prosperity and development, the statement added.

--IANS

ksk/

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The United Nations labour agency, International Labour Organization (ILO) on Sunday, August 30, praised the efforts of Qatar for stopping an exploitative employment system which required migrant workers to seek the permission of the employer's to change jobs. As per the ILO, Qatar becomes the first country in the region to consider a non-discriminatory minimum wage after it implemented major changes to its labour market.

READ: United Will Cut Up To 2,850 Pilots Without More Federal Aid

In a historic move, the State of Qatar has ended the requirement for migrant workers to obtain their employers permission to change jobs and become the first country in the region to adopt a non-discriminatory minimum wage.https://t.co/XUV02RwfmM  International Labour Organization (@ilo) August 30, 2020

New guidelines

According to the new guidelines, migrant workers can now change jobs before the end of their contract without first having to obtain a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from their employer. This new law, coupled with the removal of exit permit requirements earlier in the year, effectively dismantles the kafala sponsorship system and marks the beginning of a new era for the Qatari labour market.

READ: FirstEnergy Had Big Stake In Tainted Nuclear Plant Bailout

The new minimum wage will apply to all workers, of all nationalities and in all sectors, including domestic workers. In addition to the basic minimum wage, employers must ensure that workers have decent accommodation and food. The legislation also stipulates that employers pay allowances of at least QAR 300 and QAR 500 to cover costs of food and housing respectively, if they do not provide workers with these directly  a move that will help ensure decent living standards for workers, as per ILO's press release.

ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder said, "By introducing these significant changes, Qatar has delivered on a commitment. One that will give workers more freedom and protection, and employers more choice. We are witnessing what can be achieved when governments, workers and employers work together with the ILO to promote decent work for all"

The historic move provides greater clarity regarding the termination of employment. To terminate an employment contract and change jobs, workers must provide at least one months written notice if they have worked with the employer for two years or less, or two months notice if they have worked with the employer for over two years, as per ILO.

The law will enter into force six months after its publication.

READ: US Sailor Being Investigated Over Fire Aboard USS Bonhomme Richard

READ: Pensioners Can Store Pension Payment Order (PPO) In 'DigiLocker': Centre
Michigan reported 451 new cases of coronavirus on Monday, Aug. 31, a dip in numbers likely attributable to the relatively small number of test results included in Mondays report.

The state also reported seven deaths.

Health officials recommend looking at seven-day moving averages to evaluate data trends during the pandemic. The state is averaging 687 new cases, and 11 new deaths per day.

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Since the start of the pandemic, Michigan has tallied 102,468 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

There are currently 6,480 deaths attributed to COVID-19, in which patients tested positive for the virus. There also are 273 probable deaths, based on symptoms.

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As of Aug. 31, there are 633 adult in-patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus, which includes 434 with confirmed COVID-19. There also are two children in pediatric units with confirmed coronavirus and four with suspected COVID.

Of tests included in Mondays report, 627 -- or 3.17% -- of 19,760 came back positive for the virus. Its the first time since mid-July that the state has reported fewer than 20,000 test results.

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Twenty of the states 83 counties reported no new cases on Monday.

Wayne County topped Mondays report with 71 new cases. Other counties in the top 10: Oakland (47), Ottawa (40), Kent (38), Macomb (26), Saginaw (17), Isabella (16), Livingston (14), Washtenaw (12) and Ingham (12).

Of the deaths, Ingham County reported three deaths; Wayne County reported two; and there was one death each in Newaygo and Roscommon counties. One death was removed from Cass Countys total.

Monday, Aug. 31, coronavirus data by Michigan county: Surge in Monroe County; Isabella still coded red

Below are online databases that allow readers to look up county-level data for each of the last 20 days.

Cases by day it was reported to the state

First is a chart showing new cases reported to the state each day for the past 20 days. This is based on when a confirmed coronavirus test is reported to the state, which means the patient first became sick days before.

You can call up a chart for any county, and you can put your cursor over a bar to see the date and number of cases.

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(In a few instances, a county reported a negative number (decline) in daily new cases, following a retroactive reclassification by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. In those instances, we subtracted cases from the prior date and put 0 in the reported date.)

Cases by day of onset of symptoms

Below this chart shows new cases for the past 20 days based on onset of symptoms. In this chart, numbers for the most recent days are incomplete because of the lag time between people getting sick and getting a confirmed coronavirus test result, which can take up to a week or more.

You can call up a chart for any county, and you can put your cursor over a bar to see the date and number of cases. (Cant see the chart? Click here)

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For more statewide data, visit MLives coronavirus data page, here. To find a testing site near you, check out the states online test finder, here, send an email to COVID19@michigan.gov, or call 888-535-6136 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays.

COVID-19 PREVENTION TIPS:

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued executive orders requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nosewhile in public indoor and crowded outdoor spaces. See an explanation of what that means here.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

For more data on COVID-19 in Michigan, visit https://www.mlive.com/coronavirus/data/.

More on MLive:

These 100 Michigan schools will start the year with remote learning

Laid-off Portage teachers recalled, middle school sports reinstated amid better budget outlook

These are the pros and cons for Michigan parents still looking at education options for the fall

Grand Valley students moving back to campus amid pandemic excited to be here while it lasts

First day of school looks much different this year in Jackson Public Schools
Two homicides on Sunday raised the homicide toll in Philadelphia to 300 this weekend, the highest it's been at this point in the year since at least 2007. Read more

Philadelphia reached a painful milestone Sunday when the killings of two men amid ongoing gun violence brought the citys homicide toll to 300 for the year, the highest its been at the end of August since at least 2007.

Thats 300 people with 300 stories. Three hundred families altered in an instant, never to be the same again.

Between 2013 and 2016, Philadelphia didnt reach 300 homicides in an entire year. This year, the city has marked that many killings in the first eight months.

According to data on the Philadelphia Police Departments website, which dates to 2007, homicides are up 32% over the same time last year.

The last time Philly came anywhere close to having 300 homicides by the end of August was in 2007, when 276 people were killed before the start of September, and 391 people were killed by years end.

Philadelphias gun violence epidemic has not subsided this year amid the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, shootings have risen to levels not seen in years, with as many as 30 people being shot in a single weekend earlier this month.

This weekend, at least a 15 men were shot, two fatally, in shootings across the city. Here are accounts provided by police.

At 12:25 a.m. Sunday, officers responding to a large crowd at a street party in North Philly heard half a dozen gunshots nearby and found a man, whose identity has not been released, shot dead at the intersection of 24th Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue.

A black Nissan Altima registered in Delaware was seen driving away and subsequently stopped on the 3400 block of Girard Avenue. The occupants were taken to the Homicide Unit for questioning, but police did not say whether charges were filed.

Less than two hours later and half a mile away, about 2:07 a.m. Sunday on the 2700 block of West Montgomery Avenue in North Philadelphia, a double shooting claimed the life of one man, who was shot in the head, and critically injured another, who was shot in his stomach, back, and shoulder. Police did not release the identity of either victim.

At 1:26 a.m. Sunday, on the 6100 block of Market Street in West Philly, a 19-year-old man was shot several times throughout his body, and a 23-year-old man was shot twice in each of his arms in another double shooting. Both men were taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where they remain in critical condition.

On Sunday afternoon in the citys Tioga section, a 26-year-old man was shot twice on the left side of his neck, once in the left ear, and multiple times on his left arm around 3:30 p.m. on the 3600 block of North 19th Street. He remains in critical condition at Temple University Hospital.

And shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday, a triple shooting on the 5300 block of Oxford Avenue in Frankford injured a 23-year-old man, who was shot in his left arm; a 26-year-old man, who was shot once in his right buttocks, and a third man, age unknown, who was shot in his chin and left shoulder. The first two men were listed in stable condition at Jefferson Frankford Hospital. The condition of the third victim, who was taken to the same hospital, was not known Sunday night.

Five shootings occurred Saturday in the city, including a double shooting on the 1200 block of West Lycoming Street in the citys Hunting Park section that injured one man in the park and another at a nearby bus stop. The first victim, a 41-year-old man, was shot in his upper right side and his upper back while inside Hunting Park. He was taken to Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia, where he was placed in critical but stable condition.

A second victim, a 59-year-old man, was shot four times in his right leg while waiting at a nearby bus stop. He remains in critical condition at Temple University Hospital.

Also critically injured in separate shootings were a 22-year-old man who was hit once in his left buttocks by gunfire on the 3000 block of West Lehigh Avenue in Strawberry Mansion at 1:37 a.m. Saturday and another man, whose age police did not provide, who was shot in the stomach on the 2500 block of West Somerset Street in North Philadelphia around 8:12 p.m. Saturday. Both men remain at Temple University Hospital.

Two other men  a 29-year-old who was shot in the thigh at 2:30 a.m. Saturday near North 20th Street and West Allegheny Avenue in the citys Tioga section, and a 34-year-old man who was shot once in the foot on the 4600 block of Benner Street in Phillys Wissinoming section at 11:03 p.m. Saturday  remain in stable condition.

Police did not announce an arrest in any of the cases.
The Indian market on August 31 saw its biggest fall in three months, pushing benchmark indices below their crucial levels. The S&P BSE Sensex broke below crucial levels of 40,000 and 39,000 while the Nifty50 failed to hold on to 11,400.

The Nifty snapped a six-day winning streak to close 260 points lower at 11,387, a fall of 2.2 percent. This is the first biggest drop after May 18 when the index plunged 3.4 percent.

Sectorally, selling pressure was seen in realty, healthcare, utilities, power, and capital goods space. The broader markets followed the benchmarks as the S&P BSE Midcap index was down 3.7 percent and the smallcap index fell 4.3 percent.

Going forward 11,794 is likely to act as a crucial resistance level for the Nifty.

The Nifty50 registered a Long Black Day kind of formation and appears to have decisively reversed its course of direction by erasing the last six sessions of laborious gains put up by the bulls, Mazhar Mohammad, Chief StrategistTechnical Research & Trading Advisory, Chartviewindia.in told Moneycontrol.

It was critical that the Nifty sustains above 11,325. "In that scenario, some sideways consolidation can be expected in the next trading session but the breach of 11,325 can initially drag the Nifty towards 11,111 levels, he said.

Traders should remain neutral on the long side, whereas positional shorting can be considered either on rallies in the 11,559- 11,614 zone or on a close below 11,325 for a target of 11,111.

Also Read: Gainers & Losers: 10 stocks that moved the most on August 31

We have collated views of experts on what investors should do on September 1 when the market resumes trading:

Shrikant Chouhan, Executive Vice President, Equity Technical Research at Kotak Securities

A tsunami of negative news shook the entire market, with the Nifty losing over 2 percent to end the day in the red.

The implementation of new margin norms from September 1, clashes between India and China along the Line of Control, the possible sharp contraction in India's GDP, the highest number of COVID-19 cases in a day, and concerns of the virus spreading to rural India all contributed to the fall in the index that broke the lowest level in the last six days.

Positive signals from the global market couldnt help the recovery in the Indian market that saw the Nifty and the Sensex close at the lowest level of the day.

From September 1, the Niftys trend would completely depend on how the new norms on margin are adapted in the market. The Nifty would trade between 11,100 and 11,500.

Chandan Taparia, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Limited

On the options front, maximum Put OI is placed at 11,000 followed by 10,500 strikes, while maximum Call OI is placed at 12,000 followed by 11,500 strikes.

We have seen marginal Call writing in 11,700 and 11,500 strikes while Put unwinding is seen at immediate strike. Options data suggests a positional wider trading range in between 11,000 to 11,800 zones.

The Bank Nifty opened positive beyond 25,000 zones but witnessed a sharp selling pressure of around 1,800 points from its intraday high of 25,200 zone to 23,400 zone.

It formed an Outside Bar along with a Dark Cloud Cover pattern on a daily scale, which indicates that now the bears are attacking from a higher zone after a decent rally of the last two weeks.

It has negated the formation of higher lows on a daily scale and lost most of its previous days gain. The index has to cross and hold above 24,000 for a move towards 25,000-25,200 zone, while on the downside, key support exists at 23,200 level.

Nagaraj Shetti, Technical Research Analyst, HDFC Securities

The upside breakout of intermediate resistance of 11,450-11,500 as per change in polarity (trend line resistance as per weekly/monthly chart) has turned out to be a false downside breakout as of now. This is a negative indication.

The short term trend of the Nifty seems to have reversed. Follow-through weakness is expected to confirm this reversal pattern.

We expect to sell on rise opportunity on any upside bounce back attempt at around 11,450-11,500 levels. One may expect further weakness in the short term and the next lower levels to be watched at 11,100-11,000.

Ajit Mishra, VP - Research, Religare Broking Ltd

As per the latest update, the talks are on to resolve the border issue and further escalation could derail the prevailing uptrend.

Besides, the market will react to GDP numbers in early trade on September 1. Technically, a decline below 11,300 in the Nifty will reverse the short-term uptrend.

In case of a rebound, it will find it difficult to cross the 11,500-11,550 zone. We suggest using rebound to reduce longs positions and adding a few shorts through options trades.

: The views and investment tips expressed by experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not those of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
The Oregonian reports that a suspect has been identified in the murder Sunday night of Aaron Danielson, a Donald Trump supporter, in Portland:

A 48-year-old man who was accused of carrying a loaded gun at an earlier downtown Portland protest is under investigation in the fatal shooting Saturday night of a right-wing demonstrator after a pro-Trump rally. Michael Forest Reinoehl calls himself an anti-fascist and has posted videos and photos of demonstrations he attended since late June, accompanied by the hashtags #blacklivesmatter, #anewnation and #breonnataylor.

***

Reinoehl  described himself on social media and in a video interview with Bloomberg QuickTake News as a professional snowboarder and contractor who has former military experience but hated his time in the army.

Reinoehl has benefited from lax law enforcement by Portland authorities:

On July 5 at one of the demonstrations, Reinoehl was cited at 2:10 a.m. in the 700 block of Southwest Main Street on allegations of possessing a loaded gun in a public place, resisting arrest and interfering with police He was given a date to appear in court later that month, but the allegations were dropped on July 30 with a no complaint, according to court records.

He has a colorful criminal history:

Michael Reinoehl has been estranged from the family  including her, their parents and a younger brother  for at least three years, his sister said. On the one hand, this whole thing surprises the daylights out of us, because we always thought he is a lot of bark, not a lot of bite, she said. But hes also been very impulsive and irrational. Reinoehl has stolen their mothers seizure medication and owes a lot of debt, often giving his relatives addresses as his own to avoid responsibility, she said.

***

Reinoehl is also wanted on a failure to appear warrant in a June 8 speed racing case in Baker County in eastern Oregon. He and his 17-year-old son were racing in two different cars at speeds of up to 111 mph heading east on Interstate 84 after midnight near North Powder, according to state police. Michael Reinoehl faces allegations including driving under the influence of a controlled substance, recklessly endangering another, unlawful possession of a gun and driving while suspended and uninsured. He was stopped driving a 2005 Cadillac STS with his 11-year-old daughter as a passenger, police said. Inside the car, police said they found marijuana, unidentified prescription pills and a loaded Glock pistol for which Reinoehl didnt have a concealed handgun license.

By rights, Reinoehl should have been imprisoned and unable to commit murder last night. He is obviously a disturbed individual of the sort that naturally gravitates toward leftist violence:

Shortly after that, Reinoehl began posting about the protests in Portland. On June 16, he wrote, Every Revolution needs people that are willing and ready to fight. There are so many of us protesters that are just protesting without a clue of where that will lead. Thats just the beginning thats that where the fight starts. If thats as far as you can take it thank you for your participation but please stand aside and support the ones that are willing to fight. I am 100 % ANTIFA all the way! I am willing to fight for my brothers and sisters!  We do not want violence but we will not run from it either!  Todays protesters and antifa are my brothers in arms.

The official position of the Democratic Party, as enunciated most recently by Joe Biden, is that President Trump is to blame for Reinoehls murder of Aaron Danielson. I think they will have a hard time selling that theory:

In one post, [Reinoehl] shared a video of people burning a Trump 2020 flag outside the Multnomah County Justice Center steps earlier this summer. A post from November 2015 shows a Trump face painted on the wall of a restroom with a urinal in place of the mouth.

The effort by Joe Biden and the Democrats to blame leftist violence on President Trump is contemptible, but doomed to failure.
Beirut, Aug 31 : Lebanon on Monday named the country's envoy to Germany Mustapha Adib as the new Prime Minister following the resignation of the previous cabinet led by Hassan Diab amid mounting pressure over the August 4 Beirut port explosions.

Adib succeeded in securing 90 out of 128 Parliamentary votes, which will allow him to form a government, reports Xinhua news agency.

He said that this was the time for work and for all parties to cooperate for the country to heal and restore hope in Lebanon.

"Lebanese people are worried about the present and the future. We will hopefully be able to form a government with professional people to implement fast reforms to put the country on the right track for restoring prosperity," Adib said following his meeting with President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace.

On August 11, Diab, who was appointed Prime Minister in January after months of deadlock, announced his cabinet's resignation after many people accused the country's leaders of culpability through their alleged negligence and corruption.

President Michel Aoun had asked Diab's government to stay on in a caretaker capacity until a new cabinet is formed.

The death toll from the nassive blasts which were caused by the detonation of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored unsafely at the port for years, stood at 190, while the number of injured people were over 6,500 and three persons still unaccounted for.

The huge blast damaged buildings in a radius of several kilometres in Beirut, leaving more than 200,000 homeless or living in homes with no windows or doors.
BRISTOL, Va.  A Washington County home  described by authorities as a nuisance residence often plagued with arguments  was the scene of two fatal shootings Thursday that resulted in the arrest of a former Georgia man.

Albert Lee Ricketson, 29, of Abingdon, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of use of a firearm during the commission of a felony and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Previously of the Brunswick, Georgia area, Ricketson has a 38-page criminal history, according to Washington County Sheriff Blake Andis.

At about 6 a.m. Thursday, Washington County central dispatch received a call about a shooting in the 14000 block of Peaceful Valley Road, between Bristol and Abingdon.

Andis said several WCSO deputies and Virginia State Police troopers rushed to the scene, a single-family residence.

They encountered a male subject standing near the front door of the residence armed with a handgun, Andis said. They encountered him, ended up taking him into custody.

Although Andis described the scene as firearm-to-firearm, the man complied with officer orders, dropped his weapon and was arrested without incident.

The responding officers then went into the home and discovered that two people were suffering from gunshot wounds.

Misty Dawn Bishop, 38, of Bristol, Virginia, and Trevor Alexander Sweat, 24, of Bristol, Tennessee, were pronounced dead at the scene. Their bodies were being transported to the Office of the Medical Examiner in Roanoke for autopsies to confirm the cause of death.

The relationship between the shooting victims and Ricketson was not known late Thursday.

During the shootings, Andis said Ricketson engaged with a teenage boy that suffered a bite to his forearm. He was treated at the scene.

The teenager, 16-year-old Michael Bishop, told the Bristol Herald Courier that he was Misty Bishops son and was in the house when she and her boyfriend, Sweat, were shot. The teen was sitting on the side of the road across from the shooting scene.

Andis confirmed that the two shooting victims were boyfriend and girlfriend.

The 16-year-old said he tried to stop Ricketson by hitting and grabbing him. Even after the man bit him, Michael Bishop said he wouldnt let go. On Thursday morning while deputies investigated the scene, he still wore a white cloth bandage over the wound on his arm and dried blood was visible.

Bishop said hes lived in the house since he was 6 years old and arguments were frequent.

Its called Peaceful Valley Road, our house is the only one thats not peaceful, Bishop said.

Andis confirmed that officers often visited the home, which is in a typically peaceful community.

It has been what you would refer to as a nuisance house, Andis said.

The sheriff said other residents of the home, including adults and juveniles, have been placed in the care of the Washington County Department of Social Services. Multiple people lived in the home.

Ricketson has a criminal history and pending charges in multiple states.

Back in June, Ricketson was charged with felon in possession of ammunition, according to Washington County General District Court records. That case is set for Nov. 18. He also has pending shoplifting and driving with a revoked license charges in Washington County.

In 2019, police in Jacksonville, North Carolina, also arrested Ricketson. He was charged with felony larceny and possession of stolen property and has a pending court date of Oct. 22. In addition, he has criminal convictions in Georgia and Tennessee.

He is being held without bail at the Southwest Virginia Regional Jail in Abingdon.

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Two years ago, NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps was slated to fly into orbit aboard a Russian spacecraft and become the first black astronaut to serve as a crew member of the International Space Station.

At the last minute, Epps was removed from that assignment with no explanation.

Though more than a dozen black Americans have traveled to space since Guion Bluford became the first to do so in 1983, none have had the opportunity to live and work in space for an extended period, as the ISS has enabled more than 200 astronauts to do since 2000.

On Tuesday, after years of speculation about why NASA removed Epps from her assignment, she was finally reassigned. NASA said she will join astronauts Sunita Williams and Josh Cassada on a 2021 mission aboard a Boeing-built Starliner spacecraft, a vehicle still under development that is expected to redo a key test flight later this year.

Jeanette Epps will join astronauts Sunita Williams and Josh Cassada on a 2021 mission aboard a Boeing-built Starliner. (Joel Kowsky/NASA)

Epps has a doctorate in aerospace engineering and served seven years as a technical intelligence officer at the CIA before joining the astronaut corps in 2009. NASA said in 2017 that Epps would make history by joining the crew of Expedition 56. During ISS expeditions, astronauts become residents of the space station and spend months conducting experiments and caring for the 20-year-old orbiting laboratory.

But even as more than a dozen black Americans have traveled to space on NASAs Space Shuttle, some of whom helped build the ISS, none of them served as expedition crew members.

NASA astronaut Victor Glover could be the first black person to join the ISS crew as well. Hes assigned to a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission that is scheduled to take off later this year.

The International Space Station (ISS) is seen from NASA space shuttle Endeavour after the station and shuttle began their post-undocking relative separation May 29, 2011, in space. (NASA via Getty Images)

In 2018, NASA abruptly rescinded Eppss assignment after she had completed her training, less than six months before Expedition 56 was slated to launch. She was replaced by Serena Aunon-Chancellor, and Epps publicly expressed confusion about the decision. Astronauts typically are replaced only for medical or family-related matters, and Epps confirmed neither applied to her situation.

It was a decision of my management, and its something that were going to try to continue to work through, Epps said at a conference in Berlin in last year. She said that she didnt know who made the decision or why, adding that she did not believe that the decision came from the cosmonauts she trained with.

I think I was able to develop really good working relationships with everyone there, she said, referring to her training at Russian space facilities.

Details about the decision still have not been made public, and the announcement about Eppss new assignment did not mention Expedition 56.

A number of factors are considered when making flight assignments, NASA said in a statement. These decisions are personnel matters for which NASA doesnt provide information.

Epps could not be immediately reached for comment.

The mission Epps is now assigned to, Starliner-1, will be the first fully operational flight of Boeings new spacecraft, which the company is developing for NASAs Commercial Crew Program.

In this NASA handout, the Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is seen after it landed in White Sands, New Mexico, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2019. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)

But Boeing must still hit several milestones before then. Starliner must repeat an uncrewed orbital flight test after its first flight, in December 2019, proved the spacecraft was riddled with software errors. Boeing was forced to bring the spacecraft home days ahead of schedule and without completing its primary objective of docking with the ISS. A do-over of the mission is expected later this year.

After the uncrewed test flight is successfully completed, NASA astronauts Michael Fincke, Nicole Mann, and Chris Ferguson, a former NASA astronaut who now works for Boeing, will pilot Starliner on its first-ever crewed flight before the vehicle is certified as operational. That will pave the way for Eppss mission.

Williams and Cassada, the astronauts previously already assigned to Starliner-1 mission, each posted videos on Twitter welcoming Epps to the crew.

Update: This story was updated to note that Victor Glover could become the first Black astronaut to live aboard the ISS.
Boris Johnsons chief Brexit negotiator will hold emergency talks with his EU counterpart today amid warnings that there is just a month left to strike a deal.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier will travel to London for the unscheduled talks with David Frost in a bid to break the deadlock.

The informal discussions are expected to focus on state aid rules and fishing rights, the two issues that have emerged as the biggest barriers to a deal.

Formal negotiations will resume next week.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier (right) will travel to London for the unscheduled talks with David Frost (left) in a bid to break the deadlock

A Whitehall source said that although the UKs transition period from the EU is not due to finish until the end of the year, there is realistically only a month to agree a deal in time for it to be ratified.

Both sides have become increasingly gloomy about the prospects for a deal in recent weeks after hopes of a summer breakthrough faded.

France yesterday accused Britain of deliberately stalling post-Brexit trade deal negotiations and having unreasonable expectations.

Speaking to his nations ambassadors, French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said: Negotiations are not advancing because of the intransigent and unrealistic attitude of the United Kingdom.

But British sources said the deadlock was due to the EUs intransigence.

They dont seem to be prepared to move on any of the big things, one said.

Talks are currently stalled over fishing rights and state aid rules.

The Prime Minister has said that from the end of this year, the UK will determine access for foreign trawlers in British waters, in common with other independent coastal states.

But the EU is demanding that its fishing fleet continues to enjoy its existing access rights indefinitely.

Brussels is also demanding to know details of the UKs state aid regime  the rules on bailouts of struggling companies and sectors  before moving on to other areas of negotiation.

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson (pictured) has said that from the end of this year, the UK will determine access for foreign trawlers in British waters

The EU wants guarantees that the UK will not undercut its own industries.

But British ministers insist that as an independent country, the UK should be free to set its own industrial policy.

Mr Le Drian insisted yesterday the bloc of 27 will not buckle under pressure from London, adding: On Brexit we always showed unity and proved wrong those who saw signs of an overall implosion of Europe.

'It is in staying united that we can stick to our line of a global accord.

But UK ministers are also confident Mr Johnson will not back down, raising the prospect of leaving without a trade deal at the end of this year unless negotiators can achieve a sudden breakthrough.
SLIEMA, Malta, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- GamblingHero.com has been relaunched as CaptainGambling as the company switches to providing timely, accurate information on the status of legal casino gambling in the United States, the company announced yesterday.

"Gambling continues to expand in America, but it can get a little tricky from state to state. People need the most reliable information available," said Bart Calendar, Editor at https://captaingambling.com. "Our site aims to be a one-stop resource for people trying to find out if they can gamble in their state, what they can gamble on, and what the legal restrictions are. Our belief is that it is easier to have a trusted source instead of searching around and trying to understand various legal statutes just because someone wants to have some fun."

CaptainGambling breaks down the current status of legal online gambling in the United States with state-by-state information. It is further split into three categories: sportsbook, online casinos, and online poker sites. In some states all three types of sites are legal, while in others only one or two types are legal. CaptainGambling will explain what the differences are between the sites, and which ones are legal in which states.

"The average gambler first wants to know if they can play blackjack or bet on a game in their state," Calendar said. "Given how quickly the market is changing, getting clear information on this is crucial. Then we move beyond that and provide independent information and answer specific questions relating to gambling on a state-by-state basis."

Also included are reviews of every sportsbook and online casino available to Americans. These reviews look at welcome bonuses, the kinds of gambling offered, and thorough tests of available casino apps. The goal, the company said, is to give United States gamblers a sense of their options so that they can make educated choices.

"We also have advice on strategies to play games so that people don't go to an online casino having no idea what to do," Calendar said. "These include tips on how to play poker, what's going on at various racetracks, and how to pick a game with a level of risk that the player is personally comfortable with."

The site is consistently updated as the rules and laws change in America. Laws are being passed quickly, and consumers need to know exactly what's going on where they live, the company said.

"We hope to be the best resource in America for anyone who wants to place a bet," Calendar said. "If a player wants to know what the laws are in their state, we want to be top of mind as the go-to source for accurate information."

SOURCE CaptainGambling

Related Links

https://www.captaingambling.com


The Supreme Court on August 31 imposed a token fine of Re 1 on senior activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan for criminal contempt of court for his tweets against the apex court and Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde.

If Bhushan fails to pay the penalty by September 15, he could either face jail for three months or a ban from practising for three years, a three-judge bench said. Bhushan is expected to address a press conference at 4 pm.

The case was registered on July 9 and the first hearing held on July 22.

Here is how the case progressed so far.

June 27: Bhushans first tweet criticising the functioning of the SC in the last six years.

When historians in the future look back at the last six years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the SC in this destruction, and more particularly the role of the last four CJIs.

June 29: Bhushans second tweet under question made a remark on CJI.

The CJI rides a Rs 50-lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] leader at Raj Bhavan, Nagpur, without wearing a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC on lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access justice!

July 9: Petition filed against Bhushan by Mehek Maheshwari, an advocate, in the SC seeking initiation of criminal contempt proceedings against Bhushan for his tweets.

July 22: First hearing: The SC took up the case based on the petition. Notice issued to Bhushan seeking his response.

August 2: Bhushan files his response before the SC refusing to apologise for his tweets citing freedom of speech.

August 5: Verdict reserved. A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Arun Mishra and comprising Justice BR Gavai and Justice Krishna Murari, reserves the verdict.

August 14: Bhushan found guilty. The three-judge bench finds Bhushan guilty for putting out two tweets criticising the top court and Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde.

August 20: Attorney General KK Venugopal urges court not to punish Bhushan.

August 24: Bhushan submits another statement before the apex court maintaining that he would not apologise.

Verdict reserved. The court heard Bhushan on the statement submitted by him. A-G urges the SC to let Bhushan off with a warning, the apex court insists it cannot unless Bhushan expresses regret.
Those mailings were reduced sharply in recent years to cut costs  and the Social Security Administration has encouraged workers to instead open online accounts, where statements can be downloaded at any time and other business can be conducted with the agency.

Currently, Social Security sends paper statements only to about 15 million workers annually, who are age 60 and older, have not yet claimed benefits and have not opened an online account, Mr. Lutz said.

As of last month, more than 51.5 million Americans had set up accounts, and 28 million of those have viewed their online statement since October 2018, he said. Those figures point to a sharp drop from the 155 million paper statements that were mailed in 2010 before the cuts; consumer advocates and researchers argue the savings dont outweigh the lost value of a statement in the mailbox, which builds awareness about Social Security benefits and claiming options.

The shift to digital statements is part of a broader Social Security strategy to shift as much of its interaction as possible to the internet  a plan that raises digital divide and equity concerns for consumer advocates. According to the Pew Research Center, 73 percent of Americans age 65 and older used the internet in 2019, compared with 97 percent of people ages 30 to 49. Lower-income, less-educated, nonwhite and rural workers are all somewhat less likely to use the internet, as well, Pew found.

Setting up online accounts can be challenging for the less tech-savvy, since the agency employs strong authentication standards to prevent fraud. People think everything electronic is going to be seamless, but its not, says Linda Sherry, director of national priorities for Consumer Action, an education and advocacy group.

For many people, an electronic statement just isnt an option, Ms. Sherry added. Were not opposed to electronic services, and eventually, almost everyone will adopt them, but at this point, its important for people to have a choice  and the default choice should be paper statements.

Youve still got mail

The Social Security Administration is a very large user of the Postal Service. In fact, the ties between the two agencies go all the way back to the start of Social Security, according to Nancy Altman, the author of four books about the programs history and policies and a leading progressive advocate.
The Texas Democratic Partys lawyer argued today before a federal appeals court that the state is unlawfully discriminating against the majority of the voting-age population by requiring only those under the age of 65 to have an excuse to receive a mail-in ballot.

Its one of several last-minute battles playing out in the months leading up to the 2020 election, which is expected to yield historic turnout despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Just Thursday, the states elections director sent a letter to the Harris County elections clerk asking him to halt plans to send mail ballot applications to each of the countys 2.4 million registered voters, calling it an abuse of voters rights without citing exactly how it would violate the law.

Clerk Chris Hollins has refused to change his plans. The Harris County GOP in a filing Monday asked the Texas Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue, and Monday afternoon Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit in district court.

RELATED: Harris County GOP joins lawsuit asking Texas Supreme Court to halt mail ballot application plan

Texas is one of 16 states that require voters to have an excuse to request a mail-in ballot. In the face of the pandemic, some states have expanded mail-in voting to all residents for the general election.

Democrats say that the refusal of top GOP officials in Texas to expand mail-in voting, or to allow counties to do so, is tantamount to voter suppression because of widespread health concerns during the pandemic. They also pointed out in court Monday that Republican Gov. Greg Abbotts statewide mask order does not apply to polling locations.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton contends that those concerns about election safety are unfounded because of precautions such as expanded early voting  Abbott has added an extra week to the early voting calendar  and the use of masks, hand sanitizer and gloves.

The Texas Democrats case before a three-justice panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals today, as well as a nearly identical one filed in state court, have had little success so far.

Early on, two trial judges ruled that lack of immunity to COVID-19 was enough for any voter to request a mail-in ballot, but those rulings were overturned by higher courts.

The Texas Supreme Court in late May ruled that a voter under 65 may only consider lack of COVID immunity in conjunction with his or her overall health history to decide whether he or she qualifies as having a disability under state law, and thus eligible for an absentee ballot.

SIMULTANEOUS BATTLE: Harris County cannot send all voters mail ballot applications, Texas elections director says

The Democrats federal case is expected to make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the clock is ticking. The deadline to request a mail-in ballot in Texas is October 23, leaving just about seven weeks for the appellate court and high court to rule on it.

At Mondays hearing, Chad Dunn, representing the Texas Democratic Party, told the court that the Texas mail-in voting law violates the 26th Amendment, which says the right to vote cant be denied or abridged on account of age.

Dunn said previous elections have shown that voters will likely be waiting in long lines in November.

Were asking voters  certain ones of them get excused from that endurance test and others, based purely on their age, are to suffer through it, Dunn said. The fact of the matter is that when individuals characteristics are used by the government to divvy up who gets to vote, those are prohibited by the Constitution.

The state, represented by Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins, argued that Supreme Court precedent exists to show that the Texas law does not violate the 26th Amendment.

It does not deny or abridge the right to vote to make voting more available to some groups as opposed to others, Hawkins said. To abridge the right to vote does not mean giving other groups more options; it means taking away something from a certain group.

In an op-ed in the conservative Washington Examiner, Paxton again delineated his belief that mail-in voting would lead to voter fraud, claiming that voter harvesters or paid campaign workers collect ballots and either pressure the voter to make certain choices, throw away ballots that dont align with those, or modify the choices on the ballot later.

Multiple academic studies have shown that while fraud is slightly more likely with mail-in voting than in-person, cases of voter fraud on the whole are exceedingly rare.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  Mental health programs are very well integrated into the K-12 curriculum, Education Secretary Leonor Briones assured.

This, in line with President Rodrigo Dutertes directive to the government agency last week to equip teachers and learners with basic health literacy skills to effectively respond to a pandemic.

During the Handang Isip, Handa Bukas virtual press briefing Monday, Briones said that the Department of Education (DepEd) only needed to strengthen its existing curriculum that focuses on mental health and preparedness of teachers and learners.

Itong dalawang mandato ng presidente, ginagawa na ng Department of Education, said Briones.

Una yung sa mental health at psychosocial intervention, wala pa si COVID ginagawa na iyan. At tsaka yung health literacy, may bago tayong curriculum at naka embed iyan sa ibat-ibang subjects ng ating mga bata from K-12, she explained.

[Translation: These two mandates of the President are already being done by the Department of Education. First, the mental health and psychosocial intervention is already being carried out even before the COVID-19 pandemic. As for the health literacy, we have a new curriculum and that is embedded in the various subjects of our children from K-12.]

According to Briones, integrated in the extensive health curriculum are topics on nutrition, psychosocial well-being, environment, gender and reproductive health and even climate change.

Health literacy, however, will be given the utmost importance in the coming school year as the country continues to grapple with the coronavirus disease that has already affected more than 220,000 people nationwide.

Naging kaugalian na kasi ng Department of Education na tuwing may sakuna, threat or danger ay nagbibigay tayo ng psychosocial orientation at adjustments para sa ating mga bata at teachers. Ginawa natin yan sa Taal, sa Marawi so hindi naman bago yung practice natin, she explained.

[Translation: It has been a practice in the Department of Education that every time there is a disaster, threat or danger, we provide psychosocial orientation and adjustments for our students and teachers. We did that in Taal, in Marawi, so that's not a new practice.]

In the last two months, the agency has begun inviting experts and counselors to help design programs that focus on psychosocial interventions for teachers, learners, staff and executives facing mental threats brought by the pandemic.

Halos araw-araw may schedule tayo na webinar para sa ibat-ibang grupo ng mga citizens na naghaharap ng mga psychosocial issues dahil sa threat ng pandemic na ito kasi talagang nakakatakot mag-plano at mag-predict ng mangyayari, Briones said.

Built-in talaga sa atin itong psychosocial interventions para hindi naman lumala at para magkaroon ng confidence ang ating kabataan. Pati ang ating mga teachers, lagi natin silang ni-reremind na huwag silang magpabaya sa mga sarili nila, she added.

[Translation: Almost everyday, we have a scheduled webinar for different groups of citizens facing psychosocial issues due to the threat of the pandemic, because it really is daunting to plan and to predict what will happen. These psychosocial interventions are really built-in in order to prevent the worsening (of mental health) and to instill confidence among our youth. Even our teachers, we always remind them not to disregard their own well-being.]

With a little over a month left before the opening of classes, DepEd officials say several regions are already at the advanced level in terms of preparations and will soon begin distribution of self-learning modules.

As of Aug. 28, close to 24 million students have already enrolled in both public and private schools for the upcoming school year which equates to 86% of last years enrollment.
New Delhi, Aug 31 : Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Monday remembered former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former Health Minister Sushma Swaraj after inaugurating a super speciality trauma centre in Karnataka.

Reminiscing late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Independence Day Address of 2003, Harsh Vardhan said, "Vajpayee's vision ensured that 56 years after independence, India was richer by another six AIIMS in addition to the existing one. Another 75 existing institutions were envisioned to be upgraded to provide AIIMS-like service." He also spoke of former Health Minister Sushma Swaraj's enormous contribution to the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana and her life long association with Ballari in Karnataka. "They would have been very pleased at the event today. The people who would have been the happiest are not with us anymore." Harsh Vardhan also recollected his own experience of how Prime Minister Narendra Modi invested his personal attention and energy to take the scheme forward, "Phase III of PMSSY was announced only after 2019 and Ballari got its Trauma Centre within the next year. Work for the 74 medical colleges to be opened in the aspirational districts are in full swing".

He informed that a new AIIMS for the State of Karnataka is under active consideration and of the four medical colleges that are being built, one each in the aspirational districts of Chikkamagaluru, Haveri, Yadgir and Chikkaballapur.

Union Health Minister reaffirmed the commitment of the government to operationalise 1.5 lakh Ayushman Bharat - Health and Wellness Centres by December 31, 2020. He also spoke of the government's commitment "to eradicate TB, like smallpox and polio, 5 years before the global deadline in 2025".

"Measles and Rubella will also be eliminated in due time," he added. He spoke of the 'Eat Right India' and 'Fit India' movements launched by the government. "These will play a vital supplementary role in making the country healthy," he stated.

He requested the State authorities and elected representatives present to personally monitor these schemes so that Karnataka can be a leader in implementation of these programmes.

The Union Minister added that so far, 157 medical colleges have been opened with Central financing and local monitoring by the State administration.

He made the above speech after digitally dedicating a Super Speciality Trauma Centre (SSTC) in Vijayanagar Institute of Medical Sciences, Ballari to the nation. Afterwards, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State, Health and Family Welfare inaugurated the Express Feeder Line, ICU wards and the 13KL Liquid Medical Oxygen Tank of the facility.

Dr. K. Sudhakar, Minister of Medical Education, Government of Karnataka inaugurated the State-of-the-Art CT Scan that is capable of taking 128 cross section slices.

The SSTC is built with an investment of Rs 150 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY).

It has departments of Emergency and Trauma, Neurosurgery and Orthopedics. This new Block has eight Operation Theaters including six Modular ones, 200 Super Specialty Beds, 72 ICU Beds, 20 Ventilators and the aforementioned state-of-the-art CT Scan and Digital x-ray machine.

Applauding the efforts of Karnataka for controlling the spread of COVID by breaking the chain of transmission, Ashwini Kumar Choubey expressed his admiration that "the determined leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken forward the vision of late Atal Bihari Vajpayee so that underserved regions like Ballari are able to witness the fruits of development".

Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa thanked the Centre for its proactive role in strengthening the health infrastructure in Karnataka. He requested the Health and Family Welfare Minister to consider upgrading the ESI Hospital in Gulbarga to AIIMS so that people of the region are better served.
Twenty-seven soldiers at an army barracks were placed in isolation after a Defence Forces member tested positive for Covid-19.

The precautionary measure was taken at Custume Barracks in Athlone, Co Westmeath, last week and led to 27 personnel being placed into isolation.

Sources said that a Defence Forces member had returned to work before later testing positive for the virus.

"He went back to the barracks and was later informed that he had in fact tested positive for Covid-19.

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"The person in question had been in the barracks and this resulted in 27 of his colleagues being put into isolation because they had been in close contact with him.

"The Defence Forces have strict guidelines on its procedures around Covid-19 but unfortunately on this occasion there was a confirmed case resulting in others being isolated," the source said.

Following the confirmed case, military officers re-informed its members across the organisation of the guidelines in place for personnel who display symptoms for the virus.

Strict guidelines issued by the Defence Forces state that personnel who believe they are displaying Covid-19 symptoms should stay at home or in their place of accommodation and seek medical advice.

Personnel are also advised not to attend at a military medical facility to reduce the potential risk of infecting others.

They are also obliged to inform their unit headquarters and supply any supporting documentation.

Among the services based at Custume Barracks in Athlone is the Emergency Aeromedical Service (EAS), an air ambulance service operated by the Defence Forces, which has been working out of the barracks since 2013.

A spokesman said that the "Defence Forces does not comment on individual cases and continues to strictly adhere to all HSE and Government Covid-19 guidelines".

The spokesman did not respond to specific questions on whether last week's incident impacted on the service of the EAS.

Tracing

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the Defence Forces has been helping across various areas including testing and contact tracing, as well as collecting personal protective equipment.

In March, patrol ships from the Naval Service were deployed to Dublin, Cork and Galway to assist with testing, while test centres involving Defence Forces members were also introduced at GAA facilities including Croke Park and Pairc Ui Chaoimh.

By June, more than 10m had been spent to help the organisation in the fight against the pandemic with 5.2m spent on the acquisition of new aircraft and 4.2m on additional medical, engineering, building, and transport costs across the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps.

More than 1m had also been spent on extra allowance payments, with a further 400,000 spent on Civil Defence.
A few days ago, Tony Abbott, the right-wing former prime minister of Australia, used a special travel dispensation to fly to London to meet Liz Truss, secretary of state for international trade. It has been confirmed that Abbott is, extraordinarily, going to be some sort of British trade super-envoy and bang the drum for Brexit Britain around the world.

The irony that Britain has to import its own trade champion seems to have been lost somewhere. Abbott, as it happens, joins another antipodean mercenary, New Zealander Crawford Falconer, who is the UKs chief trade negotiator (excluding the EU, where David Frost is confidently steering the talks to stalemate). Together the Aussie and the Kiwi will be spearheading the push for new trade deals especially with, er, Australia and New Zealand and across East Asia, the Pacific and beyond. Falconer, by the way, commands a salary of 265,000  plus a bonus between 15,000 and 20,000.

Abbott is also to become, with Truss, joint president of the board of trade  an old, honorific title recently revived to recall Britains glory days as workshop of the world and global trading power, and to add some dignity to the mostly fruitless search for new post-Brexit trading relationships. Abbott was Australian premier when important deals were done with South Korea, China and Japan; his critics say the heavy lifting had been done by his predecessors. Still, Abbott is a familiar figure around the dynamic East Asia region.
Im excited for the opportunity to partner with Smile Brands to open this state-of-the-art facility and serve the community of Beaumont.

Smile Brands Inc., one of the nations leading providers of business support services to dental groups in the United States, today announced the grand opening of another affiliated Bright Now! Dental office, serving the community of Beaumont, CA.

Patients will enjoy convenient hours, a comfortable office, and full-service care at the new Beaumont location. The newest Bright Now! Dental office provides full-service general dentistry, plus specialty care services, such as orthodontics (braces), Invisalign, oral surgery, periodontics, endodontics, and implants. Located at 1541 E 2nd Street, Suite 200, in Beaumont, the office will be open five days a week, including evenings and Saturdays. Bright Now! Dental accepts most major insurance plans and offers flexible financing options so patients can afford the care they need.

To celebrate the grand opening, the new Beaumont office will offer a special $39 new patient check-up package, including an exam and digital x-rays, and $100 off dental services over $300. Opening this new location helps Smile Brands and its affiliated dental groups achieve their mission to provide Smiles for Everyone by bringing affordable dental care to local neighborhoods.

Leading the clinical team in the new Bright Now! Dental office is Dr. Kristen A. Fields. Dr. Fields has advanced training in General Dentistry and is committed to providing a friendly and knowledgeable approach to patients so they are happy with their smiles.

I have a very patient-centered approach to dentistry, explains Dr. Fields. Im always looking to provide quality care that is catered to individual needs and preferences. Im excited for the opportunity to partner with Smile Brands to open this state-of-the-art facility and serve the community of Beaumont.

This new office is open on Mondays from 8am  5pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am  7pm, Fridays from 9am  6pm, and Saturdays from 8am  4pm.

Prospective patients can call the new Beaumont Bright Now! Dental office at 951-797-5920 or toll-free at 1-888-BRIGHT-NOW (1-888-274-4486). People can also visit us online to schedule an appointment at the new Beaumont location.

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. The organizations award-winning culture has made it the only dental support organization on Glassdoors Best Places to Work for the past three years. Smile Brands affiliated dentists benefit from industry-leading business support services, so they can spend more time caring for patients and less time on the administrative, marketing, and financial aspects of operating a dental practice. The organization supports over 440 affiliated practices and 60 brands across 18 states, including Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, Oregon, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. 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.
Quake hits Armenia: 28 km northwest of Jermuk

Crete island lighthouse illuminated with colors of Armenian tricolor

Aurora Humanitarian Initiative to allocate $500,000 to projects in Artsakh

Sajid Javid: Britain must learn to live with COVID-19, it could be with us forever

Erdogan suggests Putin and Zelensky meet face to face

EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus meets Aliyev

US imposes sanctions on Ukrainians related to 'Russian harmful foreign activities'

Sabah: Ankara refuses to hold next Armenian-Turkish meeting in a third country

US general discusses regional security and bilateral cooperation in Armenia

Secret graves of alleged protesters discovered in Almaty

Armenian side members to Armenian-American Intergovernmental Commission confirmed

WHO advises countries to lift or ease international travel restrictions

US sanctions against Vladimir Putin, Ruben Vardanian and members of the Russian government

Armenian Foreign Ministry discusses Mirzoyan's participation in Turkey forum

Thailand to resume non-quarantine travel scheme from February 1

Instagram introduces paid subscription feature

NEWS.am daily digest: 20.01.22

Europe considers new strategy to combat COVID-19

Norwegian prosecutors refuse release Anders Breivik, 2011 mass murderer

Erdogan urges Turks to sell foreign currency for liras

Azerbaijan not yet returned about 300 sheep of Armenia villager

Media: Israeli President thinks about visiting Turkey

Dollar quite stable in Armenia

Trade turnover between Ukraine and Armenia increases by 24%

Armenia legislature speaker meets with of International Republican Institute president, and director for Eurasia

Kremlin does not exclude new call between Putin and Biden

EU Special Representative for South Caucasus to soon visit Armenia, Azerbaijan

State Duma discusses work of biolaboratories near Russia's borders

US lawmakers to parliament speaker: Armenian POWs must be returned to their homeland immediately

Security Council chief: Armenia expects OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to visit region

Armenia government does not approve plan to considerably raise minimum wage

Turkish FM: Armenian representatives invited to diplomatic forum in Antalya

Twitter suspends Mexican billionaire's account over offensive behavior

Armenian PM says Omicron strain is slowly spreading

Azerbaijan says it supports launching border delimitation process with Armenia with no conditions

Zakharova speaks on Aliyev's visit to Kyiv

Zakharova does not comment on Azerbaijan president's threats against France presidential candidate for her Artsakh visit

Cavusoglu: Steps to increase mutual trust will be discussed at next meeting with Armenia

US gives go-ahead to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to send missiles and other American-made weapons to Ukraine

Zakharova: Russia, as OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair, supports continuation of work in this format

Cyber attack on Red Cross: data of over 515,000 people compromised

Pashinyan: UK has been strong partner of newly independent Armenia

Israel hopes UN will unanimously condemn Holocaust denial

Armenia, Ukraine depositories sign memorandum of cooperation

Azerbaijan advises Armenia to correctly assess the new geopolitical realities and draw conclusions

Australia, UK to fight back against cyberattacks from China, Russia and Iran

Protesting residents of Armenias Parakar community march to territorial administration ministry

Armenia government approves protocol on implementation of readmission agreement with Lithuania

Iran suspends gas supplies to Turkey

MFA: Armenia has no preconditions for border delimitation

621 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Paris to have place named after Hrant Dink

Armenias Parakar enlarged community residents protesting outside government building

Turkey opposition party MPs petition for parliamentary inquiry into Hrant Dink assassination

France, Germany, Italy and Spain call on Israel to halt construction in East Jerusalem

Armenia parliament speaker in US, meets with Nancy Pelosi

Iranian MFA: Relations between Iran and Russia have moved into a new diverse, intensified direction

Biden says invasion of Ukraine will be disaster for Russia

Newspaper: Armenia PM Pashinyan plans to hold Presidents office

Newspaper: Opposition Armenia bloc, led by ex-President Kocharyan, starting new processes

Taliban PM calls on Muslim countries to be first to formally recognize their government

Saudi Arabia records lowest temperature in 30 years

Erdogan's visit to Ukraine scheduled for February 3

Russian peacekeeping contingent establishes order of passage through Lachin corridor

French Senate votes to ban hijab at sporting events

Armenian FM: All necessary conditions to be created for Demarcation Commission work

Olaf Scholz: Borders in Europe cannot be changed by force

Lavrov presents Armenian Ambassador to Russia, with the Order of Friendship

Bill Gates warns of pandemics far more serious than COVID-19

FM on mirror withdrawal of troops: Not a single Armenian village will be left without proper protection

Macron: EU countries must work together on agreement for stability and security

PM Pashinyan assumes accountability for Armenia special representative for negotiations with Turkey

Turkey Central banks and UAE sign agreement worth almost $5 billion

Blinken: Western countries need unity to stop Russian aggression against Ukraine

Iranian President performs evening namaz in Kremlin after talks with Putin

Turkish police detain women protesting price hikes in hygiene products

Delegation headed by Chief of the Cypriot National Guard General Staff has meetings in Armenia

Merkel refuses job in UN structure

Greece receives the first batch of French Rafale fighters

NEWS.am daily digest: 19.01.22

Azerbaijan hopes Pope to mediate in relations with Armenia

Talks between presidents of Russia and Iran start in Kremlin

Armenian FM: This is not first time Baku makes nonconstructive statements

Armenian Investigative Committee: 3,809 people die in the 44-day war

Ombudsman: I urge not to give in to Azerbaijani manipulations, to visit Artsakh

Armenian FM: Armenia passes a package of proposals to Azerbaijan

France names the main favorite of presidential election

Garo Paylan concludes address in Turkey parliament in Armenian

Russian Foreign Ministry believes there is no risk of large-scale war in Europe

Dollar goes up in Armenia

Sharmazanov: Armenia ex-President Sargsyan did not decide to hold press conference, he did not change his mind

Blinken: Russia has plans to increase force on Ukraine borders

:       

Azerbaijani military participate in Turkish drills

Taliban say all conditions for recognizing legitimacy of government are met

Azerbaijan MFA statement distorts events of Armenian massacres in Baku 32 years ago

Karabakh ombudsmans office: Azerbaijans anti-Armenian, genocidal policy has clear chronology

US official, Barzani are photographed against backdrop of Greater Armenia and Kurdistan map

Armenia ex-defense minister, army General Staff chief, some others criminal case court hearing kicks off

FM: Most important direction continues to be international recognition of Artsakh
BEIRUT: Lebanons prime minister-designate Mustapha Adib called on Monday for the formation of a new government in record time and urged immediate reforms as a step towards securing an agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

He spoke after being designated premier and hours before the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron, whose pressure on Lebanons fractious leaders was crucial to forging an agreement on Adib, Beiruts ambassador to Berlin.

The opportunity for our country is small and the mission I have accepted is based on all the political forces acknowledging that," Adib said after being designated by President Michel Aoun.

Donor states wants Lebanon to carry out long-delayed reforms to stamp out state corruption and waste in order to release financial support. The previous government launched talks with the IMF in May but these stalled amid divisions on the Lebanese side over the scale of losses in the financial system.

Adib said a new government must be formed in record time and reforms must be implemented immediately as an entry point to an agreement with the IMF".

Forming governments in the past has often taken months of political horse trading.

The previous government led by Hassan Diab quit on Aug. 10 in the aftermath of a catastrophic explosion at Beirut port that killed some 190 people.

Macron, who arrives late on Monday for his second visit in less than a month, has led international efforts to push Lebanon to enact sweeping changes to address the economic crisis.

With the economy on its knees, a swathe of Beirut in tatters and sectarian tensions rising, the former French protectorate faces the biggest threat to stability since a 1975-90 civil war.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Former president Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee died on August 31 in a Delhi hospital. He was 84.

Here are some famous quotes from his three-volume memoir -- 1) Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years (On Emergency): 2) 'The Turbulent Years: 1980-1996 and 3) The Coalition Years: 1996-2012.

The impression of becoming Congress PM candidate in 2014: The Coalition Years: 1996-2012

I thought that if she (Sonia Gandhi) selected (Manmohan) Singh for the presidential office, she may choose me as the Prime Minister. I had heard a rumour that she had given this formulation a serious thought while on a holiday in the Kaushambi Hills. The fact was that I was reluctant to join the government (led by Manmohan Singh) and informed Sonia Gandhi accordingly. She, however, insisted that I should join the government since I would be vital to its functioning...

On Sanjay Gandhis crucial role in elections- The Turbulent Years: 1980-1996

Sanjay Gandhi had played a crucial role in the (1980) elections. He had planned as well as executed a nationwide campaign and he worked hard to ensure the success of the party in the assembly elections. He revamped the organizational machinery in the states and, post the elections, hand-picked new chief ministers --- ensuring that those who had stood by Mrs Gandhi during her days of crisis were suitably rewarded...In much of post-Emergency literature, Sanjay Gandhi has been characterised as a villain, devoid of any good qualities. This animosity and venom against him was to a large extent the result of the euphoria surrounding the Janata Partys creation, a wave of anti-Mrs (Indira) Gandhi sentiment and the division in the Congress.

There is a limit to our patience: The Coalition Years: 1996-2012

After the [26/11] incident, the first call was from Condoleezza Rice. She was concerned about the fallout. I told her, 'The situation is grave. I do not believe in romanticising relations or indulging in any sort of adventurism, but there is a limit to one's patience. We are truly concerned.' I also insisted that the US exert pressure on Pakistan to stop cross-border terrorism. I took a strong exception to the sale of sophisticated arms and equipment to Pakistan by the US.

Babri demolition was one of Narasimha Raos biggest failures-- The Turbulent Years: 1980-96

The inability to prevent the demolition of the Babri Masjid was one of PVs (Narasimha Rao) biggest failures. He should have entrusted the task of tough negotiations with other political parties to a more senior and seasoned politician familiar with politics in UP --like ND Tiwari. Home Minister SB Chavan was an able negotiator but could not fully grasp the emotive aspects of the emerging situation. Rangarajan Kumaramangalam worked sincerely but was young, relatively inexperienced and a first-time Minister of State.

How he became defence minister: The Coalition Years: 1996-2012

Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh discussed likely ministers from the Congress . In that context, Sonia called me and asked which of the four portfolios (defence, home, external affairs and finance) I would prefer to take. Her inclination was for me to take up Finance. However, I told her that I would not like to be charged with Finance due to my ideological differences on economic policy with the Prime Minister-designate. I also told her that I would prefer Home over External AffairsI had worked as the chairman of the Standing Committee on Home Affairs for over six years and was conversant with the ministry  and that I had no experience in Defence. She heard me out, making no commitment, nor indicating a decision other than saying that Defence was a world in itself and the Defence Ministry would offer me maximum autonomy taking into account my seniority.

On Manmohan Singh -- The Coalition Years: 1996-2012

A strong nationalist, a man of courage and conviction, Manmohan Singh was certainly not an accidental prime minister. I am convinced that the future will judge Manmohan Singh in a different light as PV (Rao) is assessed today

On Atal Bihari Vajpayee -- The Coalition Years: 1996-2012

Vajpayees signature in politics was achieving consensus, and in the process he earned the respect of his party, allies and opponents at home. Abroad, he projected a harmonious image of India, and connected it to the world through his foreign policy outreach

On Emergency- Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years- the first volume of his memoir

While there is no doubt that it brought with it some major positive changesit was perhaps an avoidable event... some instances of the Emergency adversely affecting the interests of the people. Congress and Indira Gandhi had to pay a heavy price for this misadventure.
THE worlds reaction to the Russian announcement that it had developed a vaccine for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), which had been given regulatory approval after less than two months of testing on humans, was mixed.

Actually, it all depended on where you lived.

In the West, and by West I mean the United States and its democratic allies, there was outrage.

There were suggestions that Russia had cut corners to win the war against the current pandemic and that safety might have been compromised.

Most of their experts believed that a vaccine wouldnt be available until the middle of next year. Never mind if Russian President Vladimir Putins daughter had already taken it.

They believed Russian regulators should have waited until the phase-three trial, or a larger study involving thousands of people, was completed before they approved the vaccine.

I hate to break it to them, but this is a race against a disease that has brought the economies of many countries to their knees. Majority of them imposed lockdowns that forced many establishments to shut down, displacing many workers.

Although not as deadly as initially thought, Covid-19 still has claimed the lives of more than 800,000 people worldwide since the outbreak was identified in China in December 2019.

But the thought of being beaten by Russia, again, must rankle. Its former adversary the US must think Russia is rubbing the victory in its face by calling the vaccine Sputnik V, in honor of the first satellite the country, then known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, launched into space in 1957.

If the Philippines had been under a leader who held on to the belief that Filipinos were Americas little brown brothers, then it would have scoffed at the idea of a Russian vaccine, let alone be working together in the final stages of its development.

But thats exactly whats happening, according to Igor Khovaev, ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Philippines.

Story continues

He told SunStar Cebu that Russia submitted comprehensive data on trial results to the Philippines.

He said if people wanted to learn more about the technical details they can log on to sputnikvaccine.com or watch the press conference of Kirill Dmitriev, director general of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which has the exclusive charge of developing, distributing and producing the vaccine abroad.

Russia has nothing to hide, he said.

The ambassador said his country also appreciated the statement made by President Rodrigo Duterte, who expressed willingness to be the first Filipino to test the Russian vaccine.

I cannot help but admire his decisiveness and readiness to do what it takes to overcome a crisis, Khovaev said of Duterte.

Im sure there are a few raised eyebrows out there. But, as Khovaev pointed out, we are fighting a common foe.

Perhaps its time to set aside old prejudices.
Elephants act as engineers of the forests. These massive creatures trample thick vegetation through dense forests in the Central African Republic's Congo Basin as they move from the forests' fruit trees to more open water sources where they hydrate, bathe and socialize. Remis and Jost Robinson focus on these massive trail networks as well as the ecosystem and local foraging community, called the BaAka, as they evaluate how biological anthropology plays a role in conservation. Credit: Carolyn A. Jost Robinson

Elephant trails may lead the way to better conservation approaches.

"Think of elephants as engineers of the forests," said Melissa J. Remis, professor and head of anthropology at Purdue University, who is best known for her work in ecology and behavior of western gorillas and their ecosystems. "Elephants shape the landscape in many ways that benefit humans. We're talking thousands of miles of trails. If we think about the loss of elephants over time, then we will see the forest structure change and human activities also would shift."

These massive creatures trample thick vegetation through dense forests in the Central African Republic's Congo Basin as they move from the forests' fruit trees to more open water sources where they hydrate, bathe and socialize. African forest elephants, highly sociable animals, travel in small family groups to meet others at these muddy water sources, which are full of rich minerals that they can't find in the forests. By clearing routes to these destinations, elephants have created a very complex network of roads that residents, tourists, scientists and loggers still use today. If elephant populations decline, the forest grows over the trails.

"The fabric and way of life of local communities, and even for the industries and conservation organizations that exist in African forests, have largely been shaped by elephant landscape design," said Carolyn A. Jost Robinson, a former Purdue doctoral student and current visiting scholar who also is director of sociocultural research and engagement at the nonprofit Chengeta Wildlife. "People rely on these elephant highways, and they also are invaluable at understanding and explaining the networks."

Remis and Jost Robinson focus on these massive trail networks and the ecosystem and local foraging community, called the BaAka, as they evaluate how biological anthropology plays a role in conservation. Their research is specific to the elephant trails leading to Dzanga Saline, a famous forest clearing with a large water source in the Congo area. Their findings are published online in American Anthropologist.

"Anthropologists are very famous for critiquing conservation but not always for coming up with effective solutions," Remis said. "The area of conservation is dominated by biological sciences, and you can't make change just tending to ecosystems. Conservation messages focus on flagship species, like elephants, and rarely do they consider the knowledge or needs of people relying on or living with those species. Attention on both could help further conservation and human rights issues."

African forest elephants, highly sociable animals, travel in small family groups to meet others at these muddy water sources, which are full of rich minerals they can't find in the forests. By clearing routes to these destinations, elephants have created a very complex network of roads that residents, tourists, scientists and loggers still use today. Credit: Carolyn A. Jost Robinson

Framing the big picture

More than 30 years ago, Purdue University's Melissa Remis visited the Dzanga-Sangha Protected Areas for the first time as a biological anthropologist to study gorillas. She became known as the gorilla lady as she visited the site dozens of times. Her fieldwork showed her that to know and study the gorillas, she had to learn about the forest and other wildlife from the local residents who share the land for food, shelter and medicines. Now Remis' work focuses on the big picturehow the effects of conservation affect people, and what role biological anthropology can play.

"We're broadening the conversation about conservation," said Jost Robinson, who became known as the child of the gorilla lady by local residents at their African research site. "When you see a picture in a magazine story about ivory trafficking and elephant hunting, it is unlikely that the article will capture the entire experience of the community, as well as tourists, researchers and companies with local interests. As part of this changewhether you want to talk about climate change, forest access or wildlife protectionthese relationships have evolved and taken on new shapes. We looked back on years of data and stories and realized there was a story to tell."

By focusing on the local BaAka community, especially the hunters known as tuma, the scientists capture information from local residents about interaction and living with elephants that is usually not a part of conservation plans.

"We want this to be a model for showing how to get additional insights when addressing how to conserve forests in better collaboration with those people who rely on them for cultural and material sustenance," Remis said. "Being able to tell their stories and share their deep knowledge about the area, and what closing off an elephant trail or part of the forest can due to cut off access to food, medicines or social networks, is usually not part of the conservation approach. We need to hear the BaAka in their own words."

More information: Melissa J. Remis et al, Elephants, Hunters, and Others: Integrating Biological Anthropology and Multispecies Ethnography in a Conservation Zone, American Anthropologist (2020). Melissa J. Remis et al, Elephants, Hunters, and Others: Integrating Biological Anthropology and Multispecies Ethnography in a Conservation Zone,(2020). DOI: 10.1111/aman.13414
Shanghai reports 3 new imported COVID-19 cases

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 12:40, August 30, 2020

Shanghai reported three new imported COVID-19 cases and no increase in domestically-transmitted cases on Saturday, the municipal health commission said Sunday.

Among the three cases, two are Russian citizens flying from Russia. The other one is a resident of the Taiwan region.

All the cases have been transferred to designated medical institutions for treatment, and 128 close contacts of the patients on the same flights have been put under quarantine.

Three cases imported from the Philippines were cured and discharged from a hospital on Saturday.

As of Saturday, Shanghai had reported 555 confirmed imported COVID-19 cases and 342 locally transmitted cases.

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One bullet went across his upper torso and another bullet went in, hit his arm, Superintendent David Brown said at the news conference. He is still being treated in the hospital for either more tests and/or surgeries in order to get him back up on his feet and back home for further recovery.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

CUBA  Richard Velarde once spent hours with a wire hanger in hand, slowly scraping away the calcium deposits in his water heater. Its a common water problem for the Village of Cuba, where Velarde is serving his second stint as mayor.

Sometimes you open your faucet and nothing will come out because the buildup is so bad, he said. The little sprayer hoses on the side of the sink  you cant use those here. You better have filters if you want to save your water heaters and washing machines.

Now the rural community has a potential solution for its water woes  one that could also help other cities and towns in New Mexico improve their water quality.

The water departments wells and tanks date to the 1960s, meaning the town of fewer than 800 people in Sandoval County is constantly repairing and replacing valves and pipes.

It seems like all I deal with is infrastructure here, Velarde said. Repairs are so expensive. Its hard enough for small towns to pay the bills sometimes, so that doesnt leave a lot for things like engineering estimates.

When a company approached Velarde with an offer to build a facility and treat water pumped from the brackish aquifer beneath the village, he jumped at the opportunity.

Cuba signed a memorandum of understanding in May with the KNeW Co. to build a plant that would pump and treat water from the aquifer, providing at least 450,000 gallons of water a day to the village.

Cuba sits atop the massive Rio Puerco aquifer. Engineers estimate the aquifer contains about 2.6 million acre-feet  about 847 billion gallons  of brackish water.

But the salty water is laden with calcium, sodium and sulfates. Big cities such as El Paso and San Diego treat brackish groundwater with desalination. Thats not an option for rural Cuba, with its four-person water department.

Desalination is expensive, said Aubrey Howard, co-founder and CEO of the KNeW Co. Little villages cant afford reverse osmosis plants and the energy requirements that come along with that.

Desalination also produces large amounts of brine.

Instead, the plant will use KNeW Co.s ion exchange technology pioneered by John Bewsey, a South African chemical engineer and technical director at Trailblazer Technologies. KNeW stands for potassium nitrate ex waste.

Water tanks are filled with small resin beads act that like little magnets, pulling out the sodium, calcium or magnesium in brackish groundwater or mine wastewater.

One set of tanks removes all the positively charged ions, which attach themselves to the beads.

Negatively charged beads in another tank remove chlorides and sulfates.

Youre left with water which is neutral and has nothing dissolved in it, Bewsey said. The trick that we came across is to convert all those unwanted ions  which in the past nobody knew what to do with  we convert them into fertilizer. In particular, the one that is valuable is potassium nitrate. That pays for all the trouble that youve gone to take those dissolved solids out of the water.

The fertilizer side of the plant means the company turns a profit even without selling the treated water. This allows KNeW to provide clean water to Cuba, free of charge.

Were going where the need is greatest, Howard said. We dont create any waste, because were converting it into a product. Cuba will own the water, and any revenue they generate from it is theirs.

Cuba and KNeW Co. may apply for grants with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and New Mexico to help finance the plant. The company would like the facility to be in production by the end of 2021.

After the $10 million water treatment plant is built, Cuba would own and operate the facility. The company would manage the waste at the adjacent fertilizer plant.

Bewsey uses his technology to treat acid mine drainage and brackish groundwater at a pilot plant in Johannesburg.

The plant has tested the ion exchange method on water with the same makeup as the Rio Puerco aquifer.

The process worked beautifully, Bewsey said, and it cleans the water so thoroughly that some minerals will have to be added back in to meet drinking water standards.

The Cuba project is the first attempt by the California-based company to expand the use of Bewseys technology into North America.

A New Mexico State University professor and water scientist serves as a technical adviser for the company, which first began looking at the Rio Puerco aquifer several years ago.

The Cuba project builds on a 2011 study of the aquifer commissioned by Sandoval County.

Now, KNeW Co. is finishing feasibility studies, 3-D modeling, and state and federal permitting for the Cuba water treatment and fertilizer plants. The facilities will likely be built on a parcel of U.S. Forest Service land on the edge of town that will be donated to the village.

Levi Casaus Jr., an operator with the Cuba water department, said the new infrastructure and a cleaner water supply could help break the costly repair-and-replace cycle for municipal lines and home appliances.

We have hard water even after filtration, Casaus said. Youll see the calcium buildup in your sink, shower head and water heaters. We also get blockages in our meters and municipal lines. It costs a lot of money to repair and replace those, and it also means were wasting water.

Cuba uses a series of sand, anthracite and gravel to filter heavy metals and other minerals out of the water. The filter media is replaced every three to four years. This years replacement came with a price tag of $92,000. It was paid for with state capital outlay funds.

The Cuba system has two water tanks, which are on separate land from the pumping and treatment site. The older wells get less productive each year, so it is a struggle to fill both tanks and maintain good water pressure.

We have some areas where if the tank pressure drops, they simply dont get water, Casaus said. When water levels go the other way and get too high, we get leaks and full breaks in our lines. Its a balancing act. Were playing with the cards weve been dealt.

A central plant closer to the village would address those water quantity and pressure problems.

The proposed plant would include two wells to pump 2,700 feet down into the aquifer, tapping into a much larger water source than what Cuba can currently pump 700 feet down in a separate aquifer.

St. Johns, Arizona, has also signed a memorandum of understanding with KNeW Co. to build a similar plant to convert brackish aquifer water into drinking.

Mayor Velarde said the construction, along with steady jobs at the water plant and gross receipts taxes from the fertilizer plant, could help the economy of Cuba, where the roads are lined with long-closed businesses.

Weve got to try something different, Velarde said. Were getting by with what we have right now, but we have an opportunity for it to be better. A cleaner water supply would mean a lot for this community.

Theresa Davis is a Report for America corps member covering water and the environment for the Albuquerque Journal.
President Rodrigo Duterte offers a wreath for the 15 people, including seven soldiers, killed in twin suicide bomb attacks on Jolo island last week, Aug. 30, 2020.

In a visit to Jolo in the southern Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte vowed to eradicate Abu Sayyaf militants responsible for twin suicide bombings there last week that left 15 dead and scores wounded, as the military said the mastermind of the attack might still be on the island.

The president visited Jolo on Sunday, as security forces in the area went on lockdown to prevent further attacks, the presidential palace said. He said the Aug. 24 bombings only strengthened the governments resolve to crush the Abu Sayyaf, whom he blamed for the cowardly act.

As a Filipino, I am giving all my support you need to accomplish your mission here in Jolo. I commit myself to work with you, my dear troops, to ensure that these terrorists will have no future in this country, Duterte told soldiers, according to a transcript of the speech released by his office on Monday.

Jolo is the capital of Sulu province, long a hotbed of Muslim militancy in this mostly Catholic nation.

Duterte also visited the blast sites where he offered prayers for fallen soldiers and civilian fatalities. The area was sealed off temporarily with heavy police and military security.

Right now, our entire nation is dealing with the global health crisis yet enemies of the state will still find the energy to perpetuate the acts of violence and terrorism, Duterte said. Now more than ever our nation needs our Armed Forces to ensure that these terrorists will never succeed in their pointless goals, he stressed.

The president also appealed to lawless elements to entertain peace to allow development in the province. He said that while the government would continue in its efforts to bring peace and development in the south, troops would also have to continue going after the militants.

As of now, I cannot stop my soldiers because they have a mission and the mission is to crush the insurgents, Duterte said.

His visit came a day after the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) said that the militant blamed for plotting the attack, Mundi Sawadjaan, and two young Indonesian bomb experts had managed to evade forces in Jolo and were believed to be en route to the nearby island of Basilan or the city of Zamboanga on the mainland.

NICA passed the report to Zamboanga city mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco Salazar who ordered tightened security in the area.

Citing the intelligence brief, she said Sawadjaan was travelling with Indonesian nationals Andi Baso and Reski Fantasya, also called Cici. The two bomb experts are a married couple, according to a notice issued by Joint-Task Force Zamboanga City and the city police force.

Sawadjaan is the nephew of Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, the head of the Philippine branch of the Islamic State, who took over after the death of Isnilon Hapilon in October 2017. Hapilon was killed by security forces toward the end of a five-month battle with Islamic State-linked militants who had seized the southern city of Marawi earlier that year.

The military recently said that the elder Sawadjaan had been wounded in a recent encounter and may have died, but this has not been confirmed.

By Monday, however, the commander of the militarys Western Mindanao Command based in Zamboanga, Maj. Gen. Corleto Vinluan Jr., said the younger Sawadjaan and the two Indonesians were still in in Jolo.

As of yesterday, they are still in Sulu. They were the group which our forces encountered there, Vinluan said.

He was referring to a clash on Saturday between Scout Rangers and a 30-man Abu Sayyaf unit near the town of Patikul that left one soldier dead and seven others wounded. At least two Abu Sayyaf militants were also killed, according to intelligence reports from the ground.

The south has long, unguarded and often porous borders that have allowed militants to move from one site to another undetected.

In 2017, for example, government intelligence said that Hapilon was wounded in a clash somewhere in Basilan, only to be surprised when he reappeared in Marawi, leading its takeover.
Credit: Shutterstock

In 2018, more than 2,000 people died from drug overdoses in Australiaabout five each day.

That's according to the Penington Institute's annual overdose report, released today.

The largest number of overdose deaths (more than 1,000) involved opioids (for example, heroin, morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl), followed by benzodiazepines (for example, Valium).

Opioid-related deaths in Australia have been on an upward trend in recent years, having doubled since 2006. This means we're now not far off numbers recorded in the late 1990s, when opioid-related deaths were highest. There's more we could be doing to curb this problem.

What kind of opioids are causing harm?

Unlike North America, where illicitly manufactured fentanyl has been involved in many opioid deaths, most opioid deaths in Australia involve pharmaceutical opioids.

That said, heroin deaths have increased over the past five years.

Among all opioid deaths, just over half of people overdosing have a history of injecting drugs, and substance use problems. We know people with chronic non-cancer pain are becoming dependent on pharmaceutical opioids and are also among these statistics.

Some 80% of opioid deaths are accidental, while 16% are intentional overdoses (the remaining 4% we don't know). Intentional overdoses are twice as common with pharmaceutical opioids.

Current strategies

A large driver of increasing opioid deaths internationally has been the increase in prescribing and use of pharmaceutical opioids. Australia ranks tenth worldwide.

Australia has introduced a range of strategies to manage and restrict supply, including re-scheduling codeine to prescription-only, introducing smaller pack sizes, and setting up systems to track prescribing.

As many of these changes have only been implemented recently, it's too early to know whether or not they're having a positive effect.

But regulatory responses run the risk of unintended consequences. We saw this in Australia with the re-formulation of oxycodone tablets to a product that's more difficult to inject. Heroin-related ambulance call-outs and emergency department presentations increased significantly in Victoria after this change was introduced.

In North America, restricted opioid prescribing was associated with dramatic increases in heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl deaths.

One key response to opioid overdose has been providing opioid agonist treatment (for example, methadone or buprenorphine) to opioid dependent people, typically those with a history of injecting drugs.

But only around half take up this treatment, and Australians with pharmaceutical opioid dependence are unlikely to seek this type of help.

Barriers to treatment include critical shortages of prescribers (addiction medicine specialists and trained GPs), stigma, and the requirement to attend a clinic or pharmacy daily at the start of treatment.

We need to double treatment capacity to meet the demand for people who may benefit from opioid agonist treatment.

What else can we do?

We can make opioid use safer.

The two supervised injecting facilities in Australia play an important role in reducing public injecting, and responding to overdoses on site. Neither service (in Sydney or Melbourne) has had a death since opening.

The Victorian government has approved a second Melbourne facility, and a study currently underway is looking at whether a facility would be useful in Canberra.

Establishing these facilities requires a lot of planning as well as changes to legislation, and scaling them up to reach more Australians who inject drugs has proven difficult. There has been no movement on calls made several years ago to set up a second service in Sydney.

But we know these services save lives and help get people into treatment, so we need to keep scaling them up. In the past three years Canada has opened 24 new supervised injecting facilities, while Australia has opened just one.

We also need to consider innovations to ensure safer opioid supply.

In Europe and North America drug researchers monitor the heroin supply for dangerous contaminants, and we've seen early work like this in Australia, including at Sydney's safe injecting center.

These monitoring services provide critical information on opioid supply and can help people using opioids make informed decisions.

What about the pandemic?

We don't yet know how COVID-19 will affect opioid deaths in Australia. We'll need to continually monitor how the pandemic affects access to treatment for opioid dependence, and any disruptions to opioid supply.

But one thing is clear: the pandemic has shown we can respond quickly to implement change. Treatment services have rapidly adapted to COVID-19 restrictions, for example by making it possible for people to receive methadone and buprenorphine without having to visit a clinic or pharmacy every day.

As well as making treatment more flexible, the pandemic has addressed broader needs for some people who are dependent on opioids, such as providing temporary accommodation. Hopefully these changes will provide longer-term benefits, including encouraging people to remain in treatment.

In addressing opioid overdose deaths in Australia, we need to follow the best evidence, extend our vision to responses implemented internationally, and evaluate them locally.

Importantly, responses should be formulated within the frame of good clinical care, rather than relying on punitive responses, such as mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients. This creates further problems, such as stigma, for people who use drugs.

Explore further Illicit fentanyl, stimulants found in majority of overdose deaths in BC

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Police believe missing Queensland mother Tina Greer was murdered by her boyfriend, a 26-year member of the Finks motorcycle gang, after she disappeared in January 2012 in the Scenic Rim.

A "credible" tip-off led police officers and SES volunteers to start a search of a Gold Coast property on Monday in the hope of finding Ms Greer's remains or key evidence.

Ms Greer's belongings were found in her car.

Ms Greer left her family's Beechmont Road residence in Beechmont about 2pm on January 18, 2012, with the intention of travelling to Clumber, about 100 kilometres west.

She was last seen at the residence of her partner, Les Sharman, in Clumber in the Scenic Rim later that day.
A teenage girl was set upon by a stranger who set her hair on fire while they were travelling on a public bus.

CCTV footage shows the 13-year-old board with a group of friends and take a seat in front of a woman wearing black clothing and sunglasses.

The woman behind the June 29 attack who police say was aged in her 50s, calmly set the teenage girl's hair alight after she sat in the seat in front of her.

Investigators are still trying to track down the woman, but believe the attack was random.

'The victim did not know this woman, there was no conversation had between them,' a South Australian police spokesman confirmed.

The footage shows the moment the teenager first realised her hair was burning.

She immediately jumped to her feet and ran to the front of the bus, followed by her group of friends.

The woman quickly slipped off the bus and out of sight of cameras.

The woman, who police estimate was between 50 and 60 at the time of the attack on June 29, 2020, calmly set the teenage girl's hair alight after she sat in the seat in front of her

The driver called police immediately, but investigators have not been able to track the woman down.

Officers warned there is 'already trauma attached to the incident', particularly for the young victim.

'Physical, emotional and mental trauma. That's the sort of stuff that leaves scars for a long time,' the spokesman said.

Investigators are urging anybody with information about the incident to come forward, or call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Senior officials from Pakistan and Afghanistan will hold talks in Kabul on Monday under a bilateral arrangement to improve cooperation in different fields, the Foreign Office here said on Sunday.

Pakistan Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood will lead the Pakistani delegation, while the Afghan side will be represented by Deputy Foreign Minister Mirwais Nab at the second review meeting of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Action Plan for Peace and Solidarity (APAPPS).

The APAPPS framework comprises five working groups focused on politico-diplomatic, military to military coordination, intelligence cooperation, economy, and refugee issues. The first review meeting was held in Islamabad on June 10 2019.

"During the second meeting, all five working groups under APAPPS will review the implementation status of earlier discussions and decisions, with a view to taking the process forward," the Pakistan Foreign Office said.

The APAPPS provides an important forum to address common challenges and deepen mutual trust and understanding. Effective utilisation of the APAPPS mechanism is pivotal in advancing the shared objectives of peace, stability, prosperity and development, it said.

The APAPPS was established in 2018 to provide a comprehensive and structured framework for institutional engagement in diverse areas of bilateral cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan, it added.
Remember that parents know their children best, said Meg Fisher, M.D., a pediatric infectious disease specialist and the medical director of the Unterberg Childrens Hospital at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, N.J. If your child always gets allergies this time of year, for example, then its probably safe to assume thats whats causing her runny nose. But if your childs symptoms seem out of the ordinary, its best to talk to your childs pediatrician.

Some infected children wont have any symptoms. A multicenter study of more than 400 hospitalized children in France found that 45 percent of the 22 children who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, had none of the symptoms typically associated with Covid-19. This offers a clue as to how many children are potentially asymptomatic. But its difficult to know what percentage of children will be asymptomatic in the general population because we dont know the total number of children who have had Covid-19  many of them may have never been tested.

While it can be challenging for parents to identify Covid-19 symptoms from the usual cold or the flu, the Covid-related multisystem inflammatory syndrome, now known as MIS-C, has more distinguishable symptoms and characteristics. The condition, which affects children, is usually characterized by a fever of 101 or higher that doesnt go away; a red rash; and abdominal pain accompanied by diarrhea and vomiting. The syndrome, however, is quite rare.

At what point should I keep my child home from school?

If your child has a fever, keep her at home. Even before the pandemic, most schools required children with fevers to be kept at home and remain there until their fever had subsided for at least 24 hours.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, kids would often go to school with lingering runny noses and coughs because cold symptoms can sometimes drag on for weeks. In most school settings, it was not expected, nor practical, for parents to keep their children home for three weeks if their kids felt well enough to attend school and didnt have a fever.

But this school year is different, experts said.

This is not the year to be sending your kid to school sick, even a little bit, even with mild symptoms, which I know is crazy. Because its really hard for parents, said Adam Ratner, M.D., a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases and director of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at Hassenfeld Childrens Hospital at N.Y.U. Langone. Sometimes mild symptoms are all we have to go on and kids are really good at shedding the virus, even if they dont have symptoms. And so I worry about spread from kids who have mild symptoms within the class.

Symptoms that warrant staying at home include coughing, runny nose, sneezing, vomiting, diarrhea or abdominal pain, regardless of whether or not your child has a fever.
Former chief minister Omar Abdullah has said six regional parties, which signed the Gupkar declaration last year pledging to fight unitedly against the constitutional changes to Jammu & Kashmirs status, may have different political ideologies but plan to present a united front for the time being.

...different political ideologies... have been set aside for a larger goal. We wanted to send a wider message to New Delhi that, on this question of what happened on August 5 [when the process for the nullification of Article 370 that gave Jammu & Kashmir special status began], liked-minded parties will come together, said Omar Abdullah in a joint interview to HT with his father, Farooq Abdullah.

The political environment in Jammu & Kashmir is in flux again a year after the nullification and bifurcation of the erstwhile state into two federally-run territories. Omar Abdullah and his father, Farooq Abdullah, are at the heart of the churning following their release from detention.

Read the full interview here.

Farooq Abdullah last week emerged as the pivot in the formation of a conglomerate of the six parties that has posed the first challenge to the Centre by reaffirming commitment to the declaration pegged to the demand for restoration of the special status and semi-autonomous status.

Farooq Abdullah dismissed the newly-formed Jammu & Kashmir Apni Party, which is not a part of the conglomerate, as the formation of IB (Intelligence Bureau). Omar Abdullah said the party was welcome to try its luck in the political arena. Political space is open to everybody. Come, try your luck. Who stops anybody from trying?

Also Read: BJP wants a Hindu majority to emerge in J&K: Farooq Abdullah

Most Unionist parties in Jammu & Kashmir, particularly the Nation Conference (NC) of the Abdullahs that played a key role in the regions accession to India in 1947, have traditionally been seen as a bridge between New Delhi and Srinagar.

Farooq Abdullah said he did not want to be the bridge anymore. They have deceived my people, he said.

Omar Abdullah added the bridge would only work if New Delhi allowed them to propagate the voices of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. If by the bridge, you mean that we will allow them to bring their voices and propagate it here, that is not a bridge. If by the bridge you mean that you will allow us to take the voices of J&K and Ladakh and propagate it there, it is fine. Enforced communication will not work.

Also Read: Our Supreme Court petition makes an incredibly strong case: Omar Abdullah on legal fight against nullification of Article 370

Omar Abdullah dismissed the idea of elections before 2021 and the said the formation of the conglomerate did not necessarily signal a pre-electoral understanding.

There is no possibility of an election in J&K [Jammu & Kashmir] before 2021. Thankfully, the Government of India has willy-nilly given us this breathing space to work together on the Gupkar Declaration which is not an announcement of pre-electoral understanding, he said.

Also Read: Will contest Article 370 move legally, democratically: Farooq and Omar Abdullah

Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to delimitation exercise in his Independence Day speech and said it is underway and assembly elections would follow in Jammu & Kashmir.

NC has opted out of a Delimitation Commission set up in March to redraw parliamentary and assembly constituencies based on the recent census, saying the Bharatiya Janata Party was allegedly seeking to create Hindu dominance in the Muslim majority region and to divide the Union Territory along religious lines through the process.
As the sale of TikTok enters its final stages, Beijing is saying it wants the last word.

In a bureaucratic two-step, China on Friday updated its export control rules to cover a variety of technologies it deemed sensitive, including technology that sounded much like TikToks personalized recommendation engine. Then on Saturday, the countrys official Xinhua News Agency published commentary by a professor who said the new rule would mean that the video apps parent, the Chinese internet giant Bytedance, might need a licence to sell its technology to an American suitor.

Beijings last-minute assertion of authority is an unexpected wrinkle for a deal as two groups race to buy TikToks U.S. operations before the Trump administration bans the app. Taken together, the rule change and the commentary in official media signalled Chinas intention to dictate terms over a potential deal, though experts said it remained unclear whether the Chinese government would go as far as to sink it.

The moves from Beijing ensnare TikTok and potential American buyers including Microsoft and Oracle, wedging them in the middle of a tussle between the United States and China over the future of global technology. Beijings displeasure alone could scare off TikToks suitors, many of whom have operations in China. TikTok is the most globally successful app ever produced by a Chinese company, and the conflict over its fate could further fracture the internet and plunge the worlds two largest economies into a deeper standoff.

At a minimum theyre flexing their muscles and saying, We get a say in this and were not going to be bystanders, said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies who studies Chinese economic policy.

It could be an effort to outright block the sale, or just raise the price, or attach conditions to it to give China leverage down the road, he said. He added that it showed a rare bit of consensus between China and the United States that both agreed Bytedance was a national security priority.

If Beijing blocks the sale of TikTok, it would effectively be calling the Trump administrations bluff, forcing the U.S. government to actually go through with restricting the app and potentially incurring the wrath of its legions of influencers and fans. Ordering companies like Apple and Google to take down TikTok in app stores globally could also prompt further anger against the Trump administration and even lawsuits.

Bytedance and Oracle declined to comment on the rule changes and the Xinhua article. Microsoft did not have immediate comment. The U.S. Department of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment.

Chinas changes to its export rules came just as Bytedance had signalled that it was close to reaching a resolution on the future of TikToks business in the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump this month issued an executive order restricting Americans dealings with TikTok beginning in mid-September. He and other White House officials have said the app could be a Trojan Horse for data gathering by the Chinese Communist party, an accusation that Bytedance has denied. That set off the deal negotiations.

Chinese officials have denounced the Trump administrations treatment of TikTok, characterizing it as bullying.

In Fridays update to the export control rules, Chinas Commerce Ministry and its Science and Technology Ministry restricted the export of technology based on data analysis for personalized information recommendation services. TikTok plays up its ability to use technology to understand users interests and fill their feeds with more of what they will enjoy watching.

In the Saturday article published by Xinhua, a professor of international trade at Chinas University of International Business and Economics, Cui Fan, said that Bytedances technologies would most likely be covered by the new export controls.

If Bytedance plans to export relevant technologies, it should go through the licensing procedures, the article cited Cui as saying. Any sale of TikTok would most likely require the transfer overseas of code and technical services, the article said.

It is recommended that Bytedance seriously study the adjusted catalogue, and carefully consider whether it is necessary to suspend the substantive negotiation of related transactions, perform the legal declaration procedures and then take further actions as appropriate, Cui was quoted as saying.

Kennedy said that it was exceedingly rare for a professor to make comments about a specific, in-progress deal, and that it signalled that Bytedance would now have to consult Chinese authorities about the controls.

China has previously used bureaucratic procedure to block commercial deals without appearing to do so outright. In 2018, Qualcomm called off a $44-billion (U.S.) deal to buy the Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors after Chinese regulators simply failed to either approve or reject the transaction. Beijings prolonged antitrust review was seen as a form of leverage over trade talks with the Trump administration, though Chinas Ministry of Commerce denied that the two matters were related.

In other industries, too, foreign companies including Microsoft, Volkswagen and Chrysler have been investigated for what China says are anticompetitive practices. Beijing has rejected the charge, made by American business groups, that it uses laws like anti-monopoly rules to advance industrial policy.

The use of export controls was novel, but it mirrors similar regulatory hurdles thrown at Chinese companies by the Trump administration. The White House order that prompted TikToks sale cited national security concerns, and the United States has repeatedly blocked Chinese bids for companies with sensitive technologies as well as data.

Kennedy said Chinas ultimate motivation in holding up or thwarting the deal could be, at minimum, a knee jerk assertion of sovereignty.

Doug Jacobson, a partner at the Washington trade law firm Jacobson Burton Kelley, said the impact of Chinas new rules would hinge on how essential the technology in question was to TikToks app and whether that technology was part of a sale.

Its going to depend on how the transaction is structured and also just how this technology is embedded or incorporated into the code itself, he said.

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Thank you for joining Indianz.com for this live interview with Dr. Yolanda Alanis and Orion Resting Hawk, two Native Americans living in Kenosha, Wisconsin, site of the latest police shooting of an unarmed black man and the site of civil unrest earlier this summer as activists sought the removal of a Columbus statue from a city park.

A Tale of Two Police Shootings: A Black victim sparked protests, a dead Native man got ignored

Native Americans die from police violence more than any other American, a fact that is chronically overlooked.

Indigenously

In the early morning hours of Sunday, August 23, Stephanie Laducer found herself on the Turtle Mountain Indian reservation outside the home where her nephew, 38-year-old Brandon Laducer, had just been shot by the police. Minutes before he died, Stephanie said he spoke what would be some of his last words. He said, I love you auntie, you are one of the best people I know, she reportedly told Native News Online

Days later, Stephanie, 48, would turn to Facebook to openly grieve. Brandon, she wrote, was like a son to her. I have no doubt in my soul that [he] knew how much I loved him.

Days after his death, she wasted little time helping to plan his parting. There was wood that needed to be chopped for his four-day spirit fire. A wake had to be scheduled at Fiddlers Hall, and his mass had to be arranged at St. Anns Catholic Church. More than anything, the family wanted to make sure he was buried next to his grandmother, Delores Laducer.

In between all the preparations, though, for Stephanie, time would distance in learning why police had gunned down her nephew. All she knew was that law enforcement officers from four different surrounding agencies had barged into the home where Brandon had been killed. Some reports say five shots were fired, others say more. It would take two days before the Associated Press filed a brief, but not with many more leads. In the absence of such attention to the shooting, what the tribes chairman, Jamie Azure, called a tragedy, news instead spread via text message and across Facebook, what often typifies life on remote reservations  a deep sense of numbness and fatalism that manifests around a culture of ignored violence among Native Americans.

A protester holds up a sign calling for #JusticeForBrandonLaducer at a demonstration in Minneapolis, MN, Friday, Aug. 28, 2020 in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting. Photo: Darren Thompson

One state away in Bemidji, Minnesota, Michael Waasegiizhig Price, an Anishinaabe man and a member of Wikwemikong First Nations in Canada, had also turned to Facebook to lament over Brandons death. His son and Brandon were brothers, he said. He posted a meme that a nine-year-old Hopi girl had sent to him. It was bright and cheery and honored Brandons life. But the social media also laid bare the intensity of silence swelling around his death. Native American people are not invisible! Micheal declared in his post, repeating a tagline on the meme.

Less connected and further removed from the violence was another Indigenous individual burdened over what happened on Turtle Mountain. Lisa Gasner, a Squaxin/Nisqually/Chehalis writer and nonprofit advocate based in Oakland, CA, was far angrier over the killing. Lisa, who prefers the pronouns they/them/their, called what happened to Brandon murder while also expressing distrust for the American press. I always look to Black, Indigenous and Poor Peoples sources for news on poLice killings to find Truth outside the kop narrative. [sic], they wrote in a post on Facebook . Months into the national reckoning examining police reform and racial justice in the U.S., Lisa also dug into what has become a rising criticism of journalists' past record on how it reports on gun violence led by police. This isnt an officer involved shooting, she wrote. Brandon Laducer was murdered!

Kevin Smith, the FBIs Public Affairs Officer for the Minneapolis Division was tasked with controlling the public narrative. Because the shooting happened on the reservation, federal jurisdiction mandates the FBIs involvement, even though agents were not on the ground the night Brandon was shot and killed. What Smith conveyed to a small pool of journalists was a limited statement: that agencies involved in the shooting included the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Rolette County Sheriffs Office, the Rolette Police Department, and the Rolla Police Department. It would be the last and only statement the FBI would make on the case as it investigates, Smith emailed me. The next step, he said, would be to turn over the facts to the US Attorneys Office in North Dakota for a charging decision.

Through piece-mealed information, a local news network also revealed that a BIA officer had been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. It was confirmed by Charles Addington (Cherokee), the Deputy Bureau Director for the BIAs Office of Justice Services, a career-long law enforcement official with deep ties to Indian Country.

But a week after Brandons death, a father to two children, his family still doesnt know exactly what happened  who shot him and over what. One thing is certain, some of the officers involved were Turtle Mountain tribal citizens, themselves. With unemployment on the reservation as high as almost sixty percent, policing is one of the few jobs available for area residents which, even tribal Chairman Azure said, complicates shootings like the one that ended fatally for Brandon.

A pair of memes in memory of Brandon Laducer, a 35-year-old Turtle Mountain Chippewa father who was killed by police gunfire on Aug. 23, 2020, on the Turtle Mountain reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota. Images: Michael Wassegijig Price

Brandon, also a tribal citizen of Turtle Mountain, had lived in nearby Minot and Fargo before returning back to the reservation sometime after 2018. Court records trail his whereabouts from year to year, at first, documenting his struggle to maintain driving privileges in good standing, and once those problems mounted, drug charges soon entered the fray. By the spring of 2016, Brandon faced multiple drug possession allegations in Morton and Burlington counties, two districts most immediate to Bismarck, the North Dakota city roughly two-hundred miles south of Belcourt, where Brandon was killed. From those low-level charges, Brandon would sit in a state penitentiary for nearly two years before making his way back to Turtle Mountain.

Still, there is a sentiment among Natives that despite such criminal history, that doesnt warrant police the right to kill.

Natives statewide have long griped about being pulled over by police for what they consider no good reason. Driving while Indian, theyd say. One glaring example of the police bias is the monthslong demonstration at Standing Rock where roughly eight-hundred people were arrested, including myself . The protests, while over an oil pipeline that threatened the Standing Rock Sioux Tribes water supply, the Missouri River, was ultimately a potent symbol to a centuries-long tension that has defined the cultural divide, statewide  a legacy premised on bloody land grabs by white settlers against an Indigenous resistance to colonization.

The lack of information since Brandons shooting has only compounded the acrimony, exposing the chronic injustices that have defined life in places like Turtle Mountain, a rural pocket tucked inside one of Americas most segregated states  North Dakota.

Brandon Laducer posted a photo of himself on Facebook on July 24, 2020.

Kenosha, the latest flashpoint

On the same day Brandon was killed on Aug. 23, drama unfolded with blood-curdled screams in a peaceful neighborhood in Kenosha, Wisconsin. A small crowd of onlookers witnessed Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, get shot in the back seven times by Rusten Shesky, a 31-year-old white police officer with Kenosha PD.

According to state officials, officers were responding to a domestic complaint when they attempted to arrest Jacob. Shesky tried to tase him, and when that failed to stop Jacob, the officer fired his gun on the man seven times at point-blank range.

Until Wednesday, much of what was known of the shooting was from video footage taken by a neighbor that showed Shesky shoot Jacob as he tried to get into his SUV. His children were reportedly in the backseat. Jacob survived, but today, is apparently paralyzed. His father told CNN , My son is fighting for his life.

In a tale of two shootings by police, Kenosha, not Turtle Mountain, has become the latest flashpoint in a summer of unrest sparked by the alleged murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis  largely because the facts are so clear and accessible. Also, the latest police gunfire is so easily couched within the greater Black Lives Matter movement.

The nationwide soul-searching has played out in protests in cities across America. In Kenosha, the uprising took a violent turn. Two demonstrators were killed Tuesday and a third was wounded in a shooting incident led by Kyle Rittenhouse, 17. Outrage sparked when the white teen, wielding a long firearm, was not immediately apprehended by police after conveying that he was there to protect the area from looting.

Tensions grew when reports surfaced that Jacob, immobile from the waist down, had been shackled to his hospital bed while heavily sedated. The Milwaukee County Sheriffs Office removed the handcuffs and released Jacob from police custody after he posted bond for what court records show were for felony warrants filed several weeks before he was shot.

Kenosha officials have since issued a 7 p.m. curfew in an attempt to suppress the protests. Meanwhile, President Trump tweeted on Wednesday that he planned to deploy federal law enforcement officials to Kenosha and that Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, had agreed to help. Trump has been working to maintain the support he gained from the swing-state of Wisconsin, since winning their electoral votes in 2016.

Overlooked

Despite legitimate outrage over police brutality that grew Black Lives Matter seven years ago, this clarion call for racial justice has largely dwarfed the fact that Native Americans are more likely to be killed by police than any other racial group in America. Per-capita, tribal citizens are twelve percent more likely to die by police violence than Black Americans and three times more than whites, according to the CDC.

Where Indigenous People live makes all the difference in the risks they face when confronting police. In 2017, NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health released results from a poll that showed more than half of Native Americans living on tribal lands or in towns and cities with large Native populations experienced higher rates of racial or ethnic discrimination when interacting with police compared to those living in less populated Native communities. Its why more than a third (36 percent) of people said they avoid calling law enforcement or other authority figures, even when in need. Others say theyve thought about moving (33 percent) because theyve experienced discrimination or unequal treatment. For those in nonmajority areas, these numbers are almost three times lower  14 and 11 percent, respectively.

Many of the most recent Native victims to police gun violence have centered in the Midwest  from Wisconsin to the Dakotas. The list of victims is long and largely overlooked. In 2017, at least 31 Indigenous people died during an interaction with law enforcement. In 2016, there were 29 fatalities reported. Here are a few of them, including some recent cases:

On April 14, 2019, Clarence Leading Fighter (Santee Sioux), 32, left behind a seven-year-old son the morning a Nebraska State Patrol deputy shot him in the back while attending Palm Sunday mass in the town of Rushville. Deputies said they were attempting to apprehend him in connection with an alleged assault that had taken place hours earlier. In August, a grand jury determined no officer would be charged with a crime.

Jonathon Tubby , a 26-year-old member of the Oneida Nation, ran a stop sign in downtown Green Bay, October 19, 2018. Police discovered he was wanted for failure to serve a jail sentence. Hours after the arrest, Tubby, still in handcuffs, lay dead in the jails sally-port, shot five times by officer Erik OBrien who said he believed Tubby had a gun. The city denied any wrongdoing. His family has filed a civil suit against Officer OBrien.

On November 14, 2017, fourteen-year-old Jason Pero was gunned down on his homelands on the Bad River reservation in northern Wisconsin by a border town police officer. Ashland County Sheriffs Deputy Brock Mrdjenovich fatally shot Jason after responding to the teens own 911 call. Mrdjenovich claimed Jason had lunged at him with a knife and that he feared for his life. No charges were ever filed.

The family of George Ryan Gipp, Jr. of Standing Rock says the two BIA officers that tased and fatally shot him were unjustified actions and are now seeking damages. In Oct. 2017, Gipp was gunned down on the Standing Rock reservation in the community of Fort Yates, ND. After an FBI review, the U.S. attorneys office in North Dakota determined that criminal charges against the officers were unwarranted.

On March 27, 2016, Loreal Tsingine , (Navajo), 27, was walking the streets of Winslow, Arizona, when she was fatally shot by officer Austin Shipley. Police bodycam footage shows Shipley push Tsingine to the ground twice before she got up and walked to her death. She showed no signs of wielding a weapon despite the officers claims. In May 2019, a federal court dismissed the Navajo Nations lawsuit seeking justice.

Corey Kanosh, 35, of the Kanosh Band of Paiutes was killed the night he was a passenger in a police chase involving a drunk driver. When the car stopped, he fled on foot and was fatally shot. It happened on October 15, 2012. Since then his sister Marlee along with several other survivors who have similarly lost relatives to such violence have been running the Facebook page, Native Lives Matter , perhaps the most sobering account of the dozens of Indigenous lives lost to police gunfire in America.

Problems of policing Indian Country

On Turtle Mountain, a six-mile by twelve-mile reservation, theres a lot where a couple of dozen used mobile homes donated by North Dakotas Air Force base sit cut open like cadavers, their bodies exposing half living rooms and kitchens where weathered plastic tarps meant to shield these spaces flap in the brisk prairie wind.

A chronic housing shortage in the community is a major factor believed to be behind Turtle Mountains high crime rate, according to tribal officials. With a citizenry of thirty-thousand people, roughly 5,800 live on the main reservation; another 2,500 reside on off-reservation trust lands. The Canadian border, a twenty-minute drive north from Belcourt, makes the community, checkerboarded by white ranchlands, as rural as North Dakota gets  which has posed unique challenges for policing the area.

In recent years, Chairman Azure has been experimenting with what he calls a hybrid police approach in providing public safety across the reservation, one of the most densely populated tribal communities across Indian Country.

Last year, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs conducted a field hearing in North Dakota, requesting testimony from the states tribal leaders about the many obstacles law enforcement face. Some of the most pervasive challenges, nationwide, have been addressing extreme rates of violent crime and drug trafficking complicated by a lack of police resources. Add to this the complex jurisdictional framework behind reservation-based life and the situation is not a one-size-fits-all scenario.

Chairman Azure, a 42-year-old father to two young daughters, testified before lawmakers nearly baldheaded from a fundraising bet he made with a Native nonprofit. He explained to the Committee that while the BIA has direct jurisdiction over the reservation, there was a shortage of officers. He also discussed the defunct tribal jail. And because the tribe lacked law enforcement and places to put inmates, it meant it rendered its tribal criminal court nearly obsolete in prosecuting one of its most persistent crimes: drug dealing. He blamed BIA bureaucracy for delays in filling a position that could help turn things around  a drug enforcement specialist job that has been vacant since August 2017.

So we are basically handcuffed. We cant prosecute in our tribal courts. Our law enforcement is stressed to the limit. We do not have enough law enforcement people with badges, Azure told lawmakers.

Belcourt, North Dakota, on the Turtle Mountain Reservation. The community has a 59 percent unemployment rate, compared to the state rate at 2 percent. Photo: Andrew Filer

As a workaround, the chairman sought support from area law enforcement in the neighboring communities of Rolla and Rollette. In 2015, Turtle Mountain received an estimated $150-thousand dollars from the Department of Justice to begin growing an inter-agency drug task force. It was a win for everyone considering that the Rolette County Sheriffs Office had resorted to breakfast fundraisers to help purchase much-needed police equipment such as Tasers.

Another gain from the cross-jurisdictional coalition was response times. Because the reservation is a grid of BIA numbered roads where homes have no addresses, it makes locating emergencies a guessing game for even the most familiar patroller on Turtle Mountain. To emphasize this point, Chairman Azure described how a tribal member, in an effort to save his father from a heart attack, had to flag down an ambulance as it circled back and forth in front of his house.

This was only two years ago. Luckily, he survived, said Azure.

But the one issue the tribal leader returned to more than anything was drug trafficking.

The sad facts are that the bad people know the loopholes better than the good people. We see it every day in a lot of our casinos, he said, branding the perpetrators as mostly outsiders or non-tribal members. They know they are going to get a slap on the wrist.

Chairman Azure, again, emphasized to lawmakers the tribes inter-agency law enforcement coalition as a creative solution that was working. Six months later, the task force, in a sting operation on the reservation, seized roughly $18,500 in prescription pills and $19,000 more in cash and 100 grams of marijuana. Several guns were also taken in the bust. Three non -tribal members Terrance Johnson, Antony Wade, and Devante Edwards  were arrested in the sting.

While its unclear whether Chairman Azures task force was the same coalition of law enforcement officers that killed Brandon on Aug. 23, it clears up how and why city and county police were able to exercise force on the reservation despite tribal trust lands falling under federal jurisdiction. Whether Brandons criminal history with drugs had anything to do with police presence that night is information only the FBIs investigation will reveal.

More Attention Needed

As relatives made their way to Belcourt over the weekend, Michael, the First Nations father, remained in Minnesota. I would have been Brandons stepdad if his mom and I would have stayed together, he said. Instead, the child they had together, now 18, would be the bond that, lately, has made him reflect on the dangers facing his son.

So many young Native men have been killed here in Bemidji, but no one knows, nor seems to care, said Micheal who works as a traditional knowledge keeper for the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission. It was enough to make him think hard about the safety of Brandons half-brother.

I worry about him every hour of every day in this town.

Indigenous invisibility to the violence imposed on Native Americans has been as chronic as the police violence, itself. A general notion shared among experts across Indian Country is that the data of Indigenous deaths from police encounters is probably an undercount. Add to this an analysis that shows disinterest or poor reporting of these cases on behalf of American news outlets big and small, and its easy to understand Micheals concerns.

Brandons death is emblematic of the silence. The results of his FBI investigation wont be revealed for weeks if not months, a far cry from the steady stream of news updates centering around the case of Jacob Blake. And by the time the US Attorneys Office will release its findings, the chances of Brandons case getting any attention are slim.

For all the issues raised around the problems of policing Indian Country, most recently by Trent Shores, Chair of the Attorney General William Barrs Advisory Subcommittee on Native American Issues (NAIS), none of the recommendations have included an enhanced public relations approach on behalf of the FBI and the BIA as a way to heighten awareness of these problems in the press.

I have seen violent crime and substance abuse continue to occur at higher rates in Indian country than anywhere else in the United States, said Shores (Choctaw) in a statement to the Presidents Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice

In this regard, how can some of the worst cases of violence in America including police gun violence  not be considered in this moment? If we are at all to begin truly judging the cracks of justice in America, it must begin in Indian Country.

Indianz.Com Video by Kevin Abourezk: Walking for Justice in Omaha -- Memorial Walk for Zachary Bear Heels

Not Invisible

Since the protests erupted over the death of George Floyd, the uprising in America and around the world has showed no signs of slowing down. And Indigenous Peoples have, in small ways, found their place in this moment.

When a Kentucky contingent including members of Breonna Taylors family traveled to the Colorado State Capitol for a Say Their Names rally last week, onboard the caravan was Lynn Eagle Feather, the mother of 35-year-old Paul Castaway, the Oglala Sioux man who was shot and killed by Denver police on July 12, 2015.

Security video shows Paul running and crouching behind a wooden fence, raising a knife to his own neck, as police chased him. His mother was the one who called 9-1-1 to tell them her son was suicidal; she had requested their support. Instead, they shot him. The DA said the shooting was justified.

My son needed help, Eagle Feather said before the crowd. He didnt need to be killed.

Also last week, the Omaha City Council unanimously voted to approve a $550,000 settlement to the family of Zachary Bear Heels. The 29-year-old Kiowa man was tased and beaten to death outside an Omaha, Nebraska, convenience store on the night of June 5, 2017. Omaha police officer Scotty Payne was fired, but three others with him had their jobs reinstated.

No amount of money is ever going to bring him back, Bear Heels' mother, Renita Chalepah told Indianz.Com . My life is just  its still destroyed because I got to live with this now.

In Minneapolis Friday, as protesters took to the streets calling for justice for Jacob Blake, at least one sign was seen in a sea of others calling for justice for Bandon Laducer, too. On the poster board was scribbled his last words spoken to his Auntie Stephanie.

That night, Stephanies family had finished lighting Brandons spirit fire and she said a few final words in a sweat. When its my time to goi know you will b the first one to greet me, she wrote on Facebook.

Jenni Monet is a journalist and tribal citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna. She reports on Indigenous rights and injustice in the U.S. and the world. This article originally appeared independently at Indigenously

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HOUSTON, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- KBR (NYSE: KBR) announced today it has been awarded a $75 million recompete contract by Naval Facilities Engineering Command Europe Africa Central to enhance infrastructure at multiple bases in Djibouti, Africa.

Under this five-year, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, KBR will provide engineering, design, construction, renovations, repairs, maintenance, demolition and other services at both Camp Lemonnier, and its associated Chabelley Airfield.

This work complements KBR's premier base operating support throughout Africa. Notably, the company has provided base operating support services at Camp Lemonnier since 2013, with work in the region dating back to 2002.

While performing key services in Africa, the KBR team has achieved more than 25 million hours without a lost-time safety incident, a salute to KBR's commitment to sustainability and safety.

"KBR will continue its legacy of delivering trustworthy results and expertise to the U.S. Navy through this award," said Byron Bright, KBR Government Solutions President. "We are proud to be a part of strengthening these bases for our troops and allies."

For over 75 years, KBR has helped ensure the success of U.S. government missions and military readiness. The company provides solutions for base and contingency operations, asset management, prepositioned stocks and operations maintenance for U.S. and allied forces globally. Known for excelling in complex and extreme environments, KBR is trusted to overcome some of the nation's most pressing challenges.

About KBR

KBR is a global provider of differentiated professional services and solutions across the asset and program life cycle within the government services and technology sectors. KBR employs approximately 28,000 people worldwide with customers in more than 80 countries and operations in 40 countries.

KBR is proud to work with its customers across the globe to provide technology, value-added services, and long- term operations and maintenance services to ensure consistent delivery with predictable results. At KBR, We Deliver.

Visit www.kbr.com

Forward Looking Statement

The statements in this press release that are not historical statements, including statements regarding future financial performance, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: the significant adverse impacts on economic and market conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic; the company's ability to respond to the challenges and business disruption presented by the COVID-19 pandemic; the recent dislocation of the global energy market; the company's ability to realize cost savings and efficiencies relating to the streamlining of its Energy Solutions business; the company's ability to manage its liquidity; the company's ability to continue to generate anticipated levels of revenue, profits and cash flow from operations during the COVID-19 pandemic and any resulting economic downturn; the outcome of and the publicity surrounding audits and investigations by domestic and foreign government agencies and legislative bodies; potential adverse proceedings by such agencies and potential adverse results and consequences from such proceedings; the scope and enforceability of the company's indemnities from its former parent; changes in capital spending by the company's customers, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; the company's ability to obtain contracts from existing and new customers and perform under those contracts; structural changes in the industries in which the company operates; escalating costs associated with and the performance of fixed-fee projects and the company's ability to control its cost under its contracts; claims negotiations and contract disputes with the company's customers; changes in the demand for or price of oil and/or natural gas; protection of intellectual property rights; compliance with environmental laws; changes in government regulations and regulatory requirements; compliance with laws related to income taxes; unsettled political conditions, war and the effects of terrorism; foreign operations and foreign exchange rates and controls; the development and installation of financial systems; increased competition for employees; the ability to successfully complete and integrate acquisitions; and operations of joint ventures, including joint ventures that are not controlled by the company.

KBR's most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K, any subsequent Form 10-Qs and 8-Ks, and other U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings discuss some of the important risk factors that KBR has identified that may affect the business, results of operations and financial condition. Except as required by law, KBR undertakes no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason.

SOURCE KBR, Inc.

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Despite all the gloomy economic forecasts, farmland continues to make strong money. Kildare ground, even in lock-down continues to surge ahead with a 76ac farm outside Athy making 20,000/ac at auction in recent weeks.

Located at Dunbrin Lower 3.5km from Athy and 15km from Castledermot the land is described by Clive Kavanagh of Jordans as top quality ground.

All in stubble with no buildings and 9,000 per annum in farm payments the holding has frontage on to a local road and laneway access.

The auction was held on the land before a small attendance and when bidding opened at 900,000 four active bidders took to the field .

The price rose swiftly to 1.3m at which point the property was put on the market. Two bidders remained in contention and fought it out until the hammer dropped at 1.51m when it was bought by a farmer from the Carlow area.

Mr Kavanagh says land in the Athy area generally makes big money thanks to the quality of the ground and the strong farmer base,

Land around Athy achieves a premium far above prices in other areas of the county and that has always been a trend, there is almost a micro market in the area, he said.

33ac grazing farm at Junction 14

Those who travel the M7/M8 frequently will be familiar with Junction 14, the first major service area after you leave Dublin. Located at Mayfield, just outside Monasterevin, it is one of the busiest spots in the country.

A 33.3ac block of agricultural land adjoining Junction 14 is coming to auction in October with a guide price of 330,000 or 10,000/ac.

Located 4km from Monasterevin and 7km from Kildare the property may have some long term potential and would be an ideal investment opportunity.

According to Jordan auctioneers the land is currently all in grass and in several divisions with access off two local roads. The place is surrounded by natural boundaries and hedgerows divide the fields.

It is ideal for a range of farm enterprises and could have some commercial potential.Obtaining planning permission to construct a residence could be a possibility.

The auction will be held on the lands at 3pm on Friday, October 2.
Elon Musk has said advances in battery technology could make electric planes commercially viable within three years.

The Tesla boss made the claim just two weeks after the electric car maker published a research paper detailing vastly improved next-generation battery cells.

The breakthrough appears to have prompted Musk to revise a previous prediction from 2019 that it would be at least five years until commercial batteries achieve a 400Wh/kg energy density, which he calculated is necessary for flight.

400 Wh/kg *with* high cycle life, produced in volume (not just a lab) is not far, he tweeted. Probably 3 to 4 years.

Several companies are already working on zero-emission planes, though Tesla is yet to commit to building one.

Musk has hinted several times that he is interested in creating one, even as far back as 2010 during his one-line cameo in Iron Man 2. Got an idea for an electric jet, he said.

In a 2016 interview he revealed that he already had prototype designs for a vertical take-off vehicle, though they have never been publicly released. In an interview two years later he said Teslas focus remained on cars, claiming that developing an electric plane isnt necessary right now.

Small-scale operations are already underway, with the first ever commercial test flight with an electric plane taking place last year in Canada.

Harbour Air flew an electric seaplane for 15 minutes over the Fraser River, in what could be the first step towards electrifying its entire fleet of more than 40 planes.

This historic flight signifies the start of the third era in aviation  the electric age, Harbour Air said in a statement at the time.

Non-commercial planes have proved that sustained flight using battery power is possible. In 2017, Solar Impulse 2 made history by becoming the first electric plane to circumnavigate the globe.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent.
Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana meets with U.S. officials at the Pentagon in Washington, April 1, 2019.

The Philippines has signed an agreement to purchase a radar system from Japan for aerial surveillance of its territorial interests including in the South China Sea, the defense department announced Friday, amid rising international tensions in the disputed waterway.

Meanwhile Manilas top diplomat said in a TV interview Friday that the government would consider following a move by the United States to blacklist Chinese businesses, if they were found to be involved in Chinas militarization of the sea and building of artificial islands in the region.

In a statement Friday, the Philippine Department of Defense said the government was buying the Horizon 2 Air Surveillance Radar System from Japans Mitsubishi Electric Corp., a deal worth 5.5 billion pesos (U.S. $113.5 million). Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana signed the agreement on Aug. 14, officials said.

The radar will cover the Philippine Rise to the east of the nation, the southern region where Islamic State-linked militants operate, as well as the the Southern portion of the West Philippine Sea, according to the statement. The West Philippine Sea is how the Philippines refers to the South China Sea.

Operations from these strategically vital locations will enable the Philippine Air Force to provide optimal airspace monitoring, aircraft control, perform its air defense mission and enhance security, the department said.

The radar would help detect, identify and correlate any threats and intrusions within the Philippine economic zone and deliver radar images to operating units, it added.

The defense contract was the first between the Philippines and Japan since 2016, when President Rodrigo Duterte took power.

News of the deal came as Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. told CNN Philippines that he would strongly recommend that the government cut ties with Chinese firms sanctioned by the U.S. if it was determined they were linked to Beijings efforts to expand its military footprint in the South China Sea.

If I find that any of those companies are doing business with us, then I would strongly recommend we terminate that relationship with the company, Locsin said in the interview. If they were in any way involved in the reclamation, then it becomes consistent on our part to terminate any contract with them.

In March 2019, Locsins predecessor, Albert del Rosario, took Chinese leader Xi Jinping and other officials to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegedly putting in place a systematic plan to control the contested waterway.

Del Rosario, who did not hold a government post when he filed his complaint, argued that Chinas dredging activities to construct islands had destroyed sea life. Neither China nor the Philippines recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, which dismissed the complaint in December 2019, according to media reports.

US sanctions

Earlier this week, Washington said it had placed sanctions on 24 Chinese companies and individuals involved in the construction of artificial islands in the strategic waterway.

The U.S. sanctioned the China Communications Construction Co. (CCCC), a massive state-owned infrastructure-building conglomerate. Last month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell had called it out by name for its role in dredging sand to build up Chinas outposts.

Other companies named were Shanghai Cable Offshore Engineering Co., and four subsidiaries of China Electronics Technology Group Corp. (CETC).

The companies were placed on the U.S. Commerce Departments Entity List, which restricts exports to businesses abroad because of their activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. The placement effectively kills any ability for American businesses to trade or interact with them, officials said.

The State Department simultaneously placed visa restrictions on individuals within some of those companies, and barred them from traveling to the U.S.

Last week, Locsins department filed a diplomatic complaint against China for allegedly harassing Filipino patrol aircraft flying over the disputed region and for confiscating fishing devices owned by local fishermen on Scarborough Shoal, a reef claimed by both countries and that China seized during a standoff in 2012.

On Wednesday, Locsin said that the presence of U.S. forces in the region was necessary as he stressed that the Philippine military would not stop patrolling in the South China Sea, despite Beijings protests against what it branded as an illegal provocation by the Philippines.

In recent weeks, the Philippines has grown annoyed with Chinas intrusions into waters that Manila claims in the maritime region, mostly by state-backed survey and research vessels.

On Aug. 10, the Philippine Navy asked both the defense and foreign affairs departments to file a diplomatic protest after two Chinese survey ships were spotted at Reed Bank, a submerged area in the Spratly Islands that is part of the Philippine continental shelf.

This came after Locsin ordered the navy to check for the survey vessels as evidence mounted that they were there and had escaped Philippine detection.

Ship-tracking data shows that another Chinese survey vessel, the Tan Suo 2, entered the Philippines exclusive economic zone on Aug. 25 and was in the middle of a survey off the coast of Luzon Island as of 11 a.m. Friday (Manila time).

The Tan Suo 2 is one of Chinas newest survey ships, and has been operating in the South China Sea since at least June 30 according to Chinese state-media. The ship is owned and operated by Sanya-based Institute of Deep Sea Science and Engineering, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

China claims most of the mineral-rich South China Sea, including areas claimed by its smaller neighbors. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan have their own claims to the region.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
WSU Offers Low-Cost, Flexible Learn and Work Courses

August 30, 2020

OGDEN, Utah  Weber State University is offering flexible, short-term training courses and certificate programs to help prepare and enhance career opportunities in high-demand fields.

The classes are part of Utahs Learn & Work educational initiative. The Legislature passed H.B. 5010 to encourage career development and workforce engagement for citizens recently displaced by COVID-19. The outreach and education initiative was created in partnership with the Utah Governors Office of Economic Development (GOED), Talent Ready Utah and the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE). CARES Act funds are supporting the new and expanded programs and courses.

Husband and wife Alexander A.J. and Jungeun Angela Herold are taking advantage of the opportunity. As COVID began battering the world, they both were looking to find security and challenge in new careers. They enrolled together in WSUs new Computer Science CS Flex program.

Computer science is a better career path for our family, Angela said.

According to A.J. the new program, which allows them to take classes at their own pace, makes it easier to succeed academically as working parents.

We do have really busy schedules, and the thing weve liked about the program is it allows us to pause when we need and take our time getting through a section of the course, A.J. explained.

The Weber State courses and degrees are available through both Online & Continuing Education (OCE) and various colleges on campus. They offer many options in the fields of computer science, health, geospatial technology and business. The OCE courses are available at a low cost, and participants will earn certificates and badges as proof of competency. Students who enroll in the WSU academic short-term training courses can apply for scholarship assistance.

CS Flex Program

The timing of the Learn & Work initiative aligned perfectly with the launch of the CS Flex program, which the College of Engineering, Applied Science & Technology (EAST) has been developing in coordination with industry partners for several years.

The CS Flex format uses mastery learning and allows students to progress through 10 lower-division courses at their own pace that go toward earning an associate of applied science degree.

For the Herolds, CS Flex allows them to take classes together, even though they have very different educational and professional backgrounds. A.J. had a couple of years of higher education that he said werent very successful. He began work in marketing, which provided quite a bit of computer development experience, particularly scripting. Angela, on the other hand, had a degree in accounting but no experience in computer science.

Its good for me, Angela said, But its really good for A.J. because he had the experience, so he can go faster. For me, I can take some time to study more, as long as I meet the due date, so its been a great program for us.

Eventually the CS Flex program will expand to include upper-division flex courses as well.

Industry is especially served by our CS Flex program. It provides online courses in a high-tech discipline in a flexible way, so people who are both unemployed and underemployed can access the education needed to qualify for higher paying, higher demand jobs, said Brian Rague, associate dean of EAST. CS Flex offers an alternative to the traditional semester schedule to help launch Utah learners into profitable technology careers.

The Herolds began in the pilot program in summer 2020, where they successfully completed three courses. They are now enrolled in the next three.

Weve been able to work through things together, A.J. said. To have a second of eyes to look at something when you run into a roadblock is helpful.

Online & Continuing Education

Online & Continuing Education is offering a different option for a number of computer and technology courses. Students who complete the courses can obtain certificates or badges that build their qualifications in high-tech, high-paying jobs. Weber State coordinated with industry leaders to ensure course content is relevant and valuable.

We live in a world that changes quickly, said Brian Stecklein, interim dean of Online & Continuing Education. Small learning opportunities like the ones offered in these courses can be a great start to a new career, as they can enable workers to make themselves more marketable in this challenging environment. We hope these upskilling opportunities are just one component of a lifetime of learning that can take people where they want to be.

The Legislature allocated $4,500,000 each to GOED and the Utah System of Higher Education to create the programs that will be promoted to furloughed, laid-off or dislocated workers, as well as underserved or other populations affected by COVID-19. GOED will oversee the public information campaign through the Utah Works program within its Talent Ready Utah center. The initiative supports the Utah System of Higher Educations Custom Fit program and several other workforce training programs to provide education and training at the states public higher education institutions.

This Learn & Work initiative also supports Weber States commitment to stackable credentials, which help students earn certificates and degrees that build seamlessly on each other all the way from certificates to graduate degrees.

For more information about all the WSU Learn & Work programs visit this link.

Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.
Chinese-Australian TV anchor Cheng Lei has been detained in China.

Chinese authorities notified the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs she had been arrested on August 14.

Cheng Lei, the Australian anchor for China's government-run English news channel CGTN. Credit:CGTN

The Chinese-born journalist, who graduated from the University of Queensland, worked for five years with Cadbury Schweppes and ExxonMobil in Melbourne and became an Australian citizen before returning to Beijing in 2003.

The high-profile anchor was the China correspondent for US pay TV network CNBC for nine years. Since 2013 she has been a business reporter for Chinese state media network CGTN-News, the English language channel of China Central Television.
Two experimental cat drugs that cost Australian pet owners thousands of dollars on the black market are being studied as potential COVID-19 treatments.

The drugs, named GS-441524 and GC376, have been used by scientists in early studies to treat feline infectious peritonitis, a disease caused by a cat coronavirus that, without the drugs, is 100 per cent fatal.

The drugs are not approved for human or animal use in Australia and, on Monday, the Therapeutic Goods Administration issued a firm warning about buying them online.

Two black market cat drugs are being studied for their use in treating patients with COVID-19. Credit:AP

People who import them risk buying low-quality or counterfeit drugs that could harm them or their pets, the administration warned. The Australian Veterinary Association has also urged people not to try to buy the drugs.
Mayor Jim Kenney apologized Monday for dining inside a Maryland restaurant over the weekend while indoor dining remains prohibited in Philadelphia until next week.

The apology came after a widely circulated photo of Kenneys visit to a restaurant near the Chesapeake Bay drew criticism from Philadelphia restaurateurs who say the citys coronavirus shutdown has been too restrictive.

I know some are upset that I dined indoors at a restaurant in Maryland yesterday, Kenney wrote Monday afternoon on Twitter. I felt the risk was low because the county I visited has had fewer than 800 COVID-19 cases, compared to over 33,000 cases in Philadelphia. Regardless, I understand the frustration.

Restaurant owners are among the hardest hit by the pandemic, he added. Im sorry if my decision hurt those whove worked to keep their businesses going under difficult circumstances. Looking forward to reopening indoor dining soon and visiting my favorite spots.

It was not clear who originally took the photo, which the mayors office confirmed was taken Sunday at Chesapeake Inn Restaurant & Marina in Chesapeake City. But it quickly spread on social media.

Philadelphia restaurateur Marc Vetri, who has been a vocal critic of the citys indoor dining ban, shared the photo on his Instagram account Sunday.

Hi @phillymayor, Vetri wrote. Glad youre enjoying indoor dining with no social distancing or mask-wearing in Maryland tonight while restaurants here in Philly close, suffer and fight for every nickel just to survive. I guess all your press briefings and your narrative of unsafe indoor dining dont apply to you. Thank you for clearing it all up for us tonight.

Six months after Philadelphia shut down city restaurants in attempts to stem the spread of the coronavirus, officials announced that restaurants will once again be permitted to serve patrons indoors starting Sept. 8. Restaurant capacity will be limited to 25%, and no more than four people will be permitted at one table.

The waiting period has been tough on local eateries, forcing some to close as many others struggle to survive.

 READ MORE: Philly restaurants got the green light for indoor dining at lower capacity. Do owners think its worth it?

Deana Gamble, a spokesperson for Kenney, confirmed Monday that the mayor visited Chesapeake Inn, which she said is owned by his friend Gianmarco Martuscelli.

Chesapeake Inn, a waterfront restaurant, offers both indoor and outdoor dining, according to its website. Cecil County, where it is located, had reported 782 cases of COVID-19 as of Monday morning, Maryland state data showed.

Indoor dining has been permitted at 50% restaurant capacity in Maryland since June 12  the same day Philadelphia permitted restaurants here to reopen for outdoor dining.

 ASK US: Do you have a question about the coronavirus and how it affects your health, work and life? Ask our reporters.

Upon his return to Philadelphia, Kenney also stopped to eat outdoors at Rouge in Rittenhouse Square, Gamble said.

Throughout the pandemic, the mayor has consistently deferred to the guidance of the health commissioner, who in this case felt strongly about waiting until Sept. 8 to resume indoor dining, Gamble said. If elected officials at the federal level had similarly deferred to health experts over the past five months, this might not even be an issue by now.
The Childrens Museum of Richmond is ready to reopen in September.

The museum will open to the public on Thursday, Sept. 17. The museum is able to open due to updated state guidelines that allow interactive exhibits in museums.

We are excited and cautious (all at the same time!) about re-opening, said Danielle Ripperton, the museums executive director, in an email. We have missed children and families learning through play at CMoR and were thrilled to be able to facilitate that learning again. At the same time, we are cautious, which we believe is a good thing because it keeps us on our toes in this new era of social distancing and increased safety protocols.

The museum will open with several new safety measures in place. Visitors will purchase timed tickets in advance for entry to both the downtown and Chesterfield location. The museum will have new hours and be open from Thursday to Sunday. Ticket reservations will open online on Sept. 8.

Children over the age of 5 will be required to wear masks. Some exhibits, such as the cave at the downtown exhibit, will remain closed for safety reasons.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS. Belarus and Armenia are allies in the sideliens of the CSTO and have quite rich bilateral agenda, ARMENPRESS reports Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said in an interview with ''Interfax''.

Answering the question if there is a necessity for voting over the issue of sending support to Belarus from the CSTO, how Armenia will vote, Mnatsakanyan answered that it's the country that raises the issue of assistance is responsible for initiating such a process, but Belarus has not raised such an issue.

FM Mnatsakanyan noted that Armenia and Belarus cooperate in various formats, are CSTO allies and have quite rich bilateral agenda.

''Particularly, we participate in the integration processes in the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union.

There is strong friendship between the peoples of Armenia and Belarus. This can be seen in the relations of ordinary people. And of course, we are not indifferent to what's going on in the Belarus'', Mnatsakanyan said.

According to the Foreign Minister of Armenia, the key to the solution of the situation in Belarus is in the hands of the people of that country.

To the remark that PM Pashinyan came to power as a result of a velvet, non-violent revolution and now Armenia supports the Belarusian leader, Mnatsakanyan said,

''Armenia has passed its own path and it's not correct to draw parallels. Yes, there can be some similarities, but in general, we have two different situations. The most important thing is to understand and acknowledge that it's the people of Belarus who should solve the issue. We hope that the situation will be solved peacefully''.

Answering the question if Armenia officially recognizes Lukashenko as the legitimate leader of Belarus, Mnatsakanyan answered that PM Pashinyan has congratulated the President of Belarus.
The mysterious death of the 11 elephants in Zimbabwe has baffled park authorities and experts. The Associated Press reported that authorities are now investigating the incident in the western part of the country, ruling out cyanide poisoning and poaching.





The Mysterious Death of 11 Elephants in Zimbabwe

Park authorities discovered the carcasses of the 11 elephants on Friday in Pandamacue Forest, located between Zimbabwe's largest natural reserve, Hwange National Park, and the Victoria Falls.

According to the authorities, all the elephants still had their tusks, which means that their death was not caused by poaching. Zimbabwe is home to 85,000 elephants, the second-largest population globally, but due to poachers who cut the tusks of elephants for ivory, their number is struggling.

Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokesperson Tinashe Farawo said that they have collected blood samples from the dead elephants and are now analyzing them to know the cause of their death.

Farawo said that they have ruled out cyanide poisoning as only elephants were affected, and no other animals, such as vultures, were affected. Only after the tests are done will they be able to determine the cause of their death. But initial tests show that it is not cyanide, and authorities have also ruled out poaching, Farawo added.

The Mysterious Death of Hundreds of Elephants in Botswana

Earlier this month, hundreds of elephants in Botswana's Okavango Delta died mysteriously. The wildlife department believes the elephants have died due to natural toxins.

Like the dead elephants found in Zimbabwe, the ones found in Botswana still has intact tusks, so they ruled out the possibility of poaching.

They immediately conducted tests in different countries, however, the results have not been fully conclusive. But according to the preliminary results, the scientists are looking into naturally-occurring toxins as the possible cause of death.

Wildlife and Parks Department boss Cyril Taolo explained that some bacteria, particularly in stagnant water, can produce toxic chemicals. The government has recorded 281 dead elephants so far, although independent conservationists said that there are about 350 dead elephants.

Wildlife conservation charity, Elephants Without Borders (EWB), thinks that the elephants have started dying for about three months already. Those alive have shown weakness, lethargy, emaciated, disoriented, and some have difficulty walking.

Read Also: Pregnant Wild Elephant Found Dead After Eating Pineapple Full of Explosives





How Did Cyanide Poisoning Is Helping Poachers Kill Elephants?

Cyanide poisoning has become common in Zimbabwe for elephant poaching. Its use has been on the rise because it is cheap and quiet. Poachers would lace salt licks with cyanide or pour the chemical into the watering holes where elephants would usually drink. Sometimes they would also use oranges as the bait.

Under the Hazardous Substance Act of Zimbabwe, cyanide should only be sold by accredited chemical substance dealers to those in the mining and chemical industry. These customers are required to produce written proof that they are authorized to handle and use it and must obtain a permit from the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development.

Additionally, the country's Defense Forces can also have large quantities of military-grade hydrogen, mercury, and cyanide for military purposes. Unfortunately, some dealers do not always follow the law.

Read More: Singapore Destroys Nine Tons of Ivory Tusks On the Eve of World Elephant Day





Check out more news and information on Cyanide Poisoning in Science Times.


Horror stories have emerged from China's Xinjiang region of people who were detained and forced to drink 'traditional Chinese medicine' at the height of lockdown.

The government in the northwest region has resorted to draconian measures to combat the coronavirus, with authorities locking residents inside their homes and enforcing longer quarantines for those who don't comply.

Some citizens have also reported being coerced into taking 'traditional Chinese medicine', in what experts call a breach of medical ethics.

One Uighur woman said she was crammed into a cell with dozens of other women in a detention centre at the height of the outbreak.

She claims guards forced her to drink a medicine which made her feel weak and nauseous. She and others also reportedly had to strip naked once per week and cover their faces as they were hosed down with disinfectant.

An Uighur woman claimed she was crammed into a cell with dozens of other women in a detention centre at the height of the outbreak and forced to drink a medicine. Pictured: An unmarked bottle of traditional Chinese medicine

'It was scalding,' the woman, who declined to be named out of fear of retribution, said. 'My hands were ruined, my skin was peeling.'

The latest lockdown comes amid 826 new cases of Covid-19 which have been reported in Xinjiang since July.

Although this is China's largest caseload since the initial outbreak, the strict measures are particularly striking considering there hasn't been a single new case in over a week.

Harsh lockdowns have been imposed elsewhere in China, most notably in Wuhan in Hubei province, where the virus was first detected.

But though Wuhan grappled with over 50,000 cases and Hubei with 68,000 in all - far more than Xinjiang - residents were not forced to take traditional medicine and were generally allowed outdoors.

The response to an outbreak of more than 300 cases in Beijing in June was even milder still, with a few select neighborhoods locked down for just a few weeks.

In contrast, more than half of Xinjiang's 25 million people are under a lockdown that extends hundreds of miles from the center of the outbreak in the capital, Urumqi, according to Government notices and state media reports.

Xinjiang's lockdown is overseen by a vast surveillance apparatus which appears to have turned the region into a digital police state.

Over the past three years, authorities have swept a million or more Uighurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities into various forms of detention, including extrajudicial internment camps, under a widespread security crackdown.

The Xinjiang region resorted to draconian measures to combat Covid, with authorities locking residents inside their homes and enforcing longer quarantines for those who don't comply. Pictured: The Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone (Toutunhe District) in Xinjiang

The latest lockdown comes amid 826 new cases of Covid-19 which have been reported in Xinjiang since July

The Uighur woman was released and locked inside her home after a month in detention, despite regular tests showing she is free of Covid-19.

She claims community workers force her to drink traditional medicine in unmarked, white bottles once per day - saying she will be detained if she refuses to drink.

Authorities say the measures are taken for the well-being of residents, though they haven't commented on why they are harsher than those taken elsewhere.

The Chinese government has struggled for decades to control Xinjiang, at times clashing violently with many of the region's native Uighurs, who resent Beijing's heavy-handed rule.

'The Xinjiang Autonomous Region upheld the principle of people and life first... and guaranteed the safety and health of local people of all ethnic groups,' Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Friday.

Authorities can carry out the harsh measures, experts say, because of its lavishly funded security apparatus, which by some estimates deploys the most police per capita of anywhere on the planet.

'Xinjiang is a police state, so it's basically martial law,' says Darren Byler, a researcher on the Uighurs at the University of Colorado.

'They think Uighurs cant really police themselves, they have to be forced to comply in order for a quarantine to be effective.'

Earlier this month, thousands of Xinjiang residents took to social media to complain about what they called excessive measures against the virus.

One Han Chinese woman posted photographs of herself drinking 'traditional Chinese medicine' in front of a medical worker in full protective gear.

'Why are you forcing us to drink medicine when were not sick!' she wrote in a post which was quickly deleted.

'Who will take responsibility if theres problems after drinking so much medicine? Why dont we even have the right to protect our own health?'

The government claims that the participation rate in traditional Chinese medicine treatment in the region has 'reached 100 per cent', according to a state media report. Pictured: Beijing

A few days later she added: 'I've lost all hope. I cry when I think about it.'

Authorities eased some restrictions last week following harsh criticism, now allowing some residents to walk within their compounds. Others have been permitted to leave the region after a bureaucratic approval process.

Another Han businessman said he was placed in quarantine in July and has not been let outside despite testing negative for Covid-19 five times.

He said his posts have been deleted every time he has complained about his predicament online.

'The most terrible thing is silence,' he wrote in mid-August. 'After a long silence, you will fall into the abyss of hopelessness.'

'I've been in this room for so long, I don't remember how long. I just want to forget,' he wrote again, days later. 'I'm writing out my feelings to reassure myself I still exist. I fear I'll be forgotten by the world.'

He is also being forced to take the traditional medicine from an unmarked white bottle.

The man has also been asked to take Lianhua Qingwen, a herbal remedy seized regularly by US Customs and Border patrol for violating FDA laws by falsely claiming to be effective against Covid-19.

The Chinese government has pushed traditional medicine on its population since the start of the outbreak late last year. The remedies are touted by President Xi Jinping, who has advocated a revival of traditional Chinese culture.

Although some state-backed doctors say they have conducted trials showing the medicine works against the virus, no rigorous clinical data supporting that claim has been published in scientific journals.

'None of these medicines have been scientifically proven to be effective and safe,' said Fang Shimin, a former biochemist and writer known for his investigations of scientific fraud in China. 'It's unethical to force people, sick or healthy, to take unproven medicines.'

Thousands flooded pharmacies in Hubei searching for traditional remedies when the virus began spreading last year. Packs of pills were tucked into care packages and sent to Chinese workers and students overseas.

But the new measures in Xinjiang forcing some residents to take the medicine is unprecedented, experts say.

The government claims that the participation rate in traditional Chinese medicine treatment in the region has 'reached 100 per cent', according to a state media report.

When asked about resident complaints that they were being forced to take Chinese medicine, one local official said it was being done 'according to expert opinion.'

'We're helping resolve the problems of ordinary people,' said Liu Haijiang, the head of Dabancheng district in Urumqi, 'like getting their children to school, delivering them medicine or getting them a doctor.'

In March, the World Health Organization removed guidance on its website saying that herbal remedies were not effective against the virus and could be harmful, saying it was 'too broad'.

Later, in May, Beijing city government announced a draft law that would criminalise speech 'defaming or slandering' traditional Chinese medicine.

Now, the government is pushing traditional Chinese remedies as a treatment for Covid-19 overseas, sending pills and specialists to countries such as Iran, Italy, and the Philippines.
Three workers at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant were reported to be infected with COVID-19 last week, bringing the total positive cases associated with the nuclear waste facility to 23.

On August 27, an employee at Nuclear Waste Partnership, the contractor that oversees daily operations at WIPP, tested positive for the virus after becoming ill, read a WIPP news release.

The employee worked at the WIPP facility but had not been to the site since Aug. 7, the release read.

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The report followed two positive cases confirmed on Aug. 26. Both were symptomatic and were last at the site on Aug. 20, read the release.

The recent cases brought Nuclear Waste Partnerships total positive caseload to 18, with three of the victims recovering.

All contact tracing and sanitizing protocols have been completed, read the release. Employees who may have come into prolonged contact with the infected individuals have been notified and are quarantining.

More: Coronavirus in New Mexico: Some COVID-19 restrictions lifted by Mescalero Apache Tribe

Past COVID-19 cases at WIPP

On Aug. 14, Nuclear Waste Partnership reported its 16th employee tested positive for COVID-19 and was last at the site on Aug. 2.

The day before, four Nuclear Waste Partnership employees reported positive results along with a fifth employee of Regulatory Environmental Services.

Two of the infected employees reported that day were previously quarantined due to potential exposure and were last at the WIPP site on Aug. 2.

More: Overnight camping in State Parks banned through Sept. 18

The other three were last at the site between Aug. 4 and 6, read a WIPP news release.

Earlier that week, four other Nuclear Waste Partnership workers tested positive with three of them quarantined ahead of the test results and last at the site on July 30.

The fourth was also quarantined after falling ill and was last at the site on Aug. 6.

More: Lea County Sheriff answers New Mexico Attorney Generals allegations over coronavirus orders

Nuclear Waste Partnerships third case was reported on Aug. 3, with the second reported on July 21 and the first in June.

A worker with CAST Specialty Trucking who worked for WIPP out of the Carlsbad trucking terminal reported a positive test for the virus on July 8, but reportedly had no regular contact with other WIPP employees.

In May, WIPP subcontractors Constructors Inc. and Granite Construction each reported an employee was infected with COVID-19, and the first positive case related to WIPP was reported in April by an employee of the Carlsbad Technical Assistance Contractor (CTAC) North Wind Portage.

More: New Mexico GOP calls for extraordinary session to limit governors emergency powers

COVID-19 rise continues in southeast New Mexico

While the rest of New Mexico appeared to see some reduction in its increase in COVID-19 cases, the southeast region continued to struggle with the virus spread.

Some public health restrictions were lifted last week throughout the state, with indoor dining reopened at limited capacity, as the numbers appear to decline.

Schools in most counties were allowed to offer in-person classes on Sept. 8, except for six counties that did not see enough reduction in positive cases.

Chaves, Eddy, Lea, Quay and Roosevelt counties in the southeast were not eligible to reopen schools, records show, along with Hidalgo in the southwest region of New Mexico.

In total, the State reported 107 new cases of the virus on Sunday, showing a drop off from more than 200 daily earlier this month.

Chaves County saw the highest increase with 28 new cases, records show, followed by the states most populous county of Bernalillo with 22 cases.

More: Unemployment benefits offered to workers at New Mexico restaurants defying COVID-19 closures

Lea County had 18 news cases  the third-highest in the state, but Eddy County had just four.

WIPP is located near the Lea-Eddy county line.

One new death was reported, a man in his 60s from Lea County.

More: Government and business leaders express disdain for State Supreme Court decision

In total, Lea County had 1,126 cases as of Sunday, while Eddy County had 486.

Bernalillo continued to lead the state with 5,795, followed by McKinley County with 4,195.

As of Sunday, 12,913 COVID-19 patients in New Mexico were reported to have recovered, with 66 hospitalized.

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: 3 WIPP workers infected with Covid-19, southeast New Mexico struggles with pandemic

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Adele is facing backlash for the bikini and hairstyle she wore in an Instagram post marking the canceled Notting Hill Carnival festivities.

On Sunday, the British pop star, 32, shared a photo in tribute to Notting Hill Carnival, which celebrates Caribbean and Black culture in the U.K. In the photo, Adele wore a Jamaican flag bikini top and Bantu knots, a traditional African hairstyle.

"Happy what would be Notting Hill Carnival my beloved London ," she captioned the post for Carnival, which is being celebrated virtually this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Adele came under fire after posting the photo, as many on social media accused her of cultural appropriation.

Video: Adele flawlessly recreated one of Beyonces Black Is King looks

One follower commented, "black women are discriminated against for wearing cultural hairstyles like bantu knots and locs but white people are not, thats not fair and thats why people are pissed off."

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Others took offense with Adele's Jamaican bikini top.

"Dear white people, please just be yourselves and stop it for good with cultural appropriation. Adele the bantu knots were unnecessary. The Jamaican flag bikini top was unnecessary... Please just stop it," another follower wrote.

However, other followers came to Adele's defense.

"WE LOVE SEEING OUR FLAG EVERYWHERE!!!!" one person wrote in the comments. "This made me smile . It shows the impact my little island has on the whole world. How influential we truly are."

Another commenter added: "This is cultural appreciation not appropriation."

Story continues

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On Saturday, the carnivals executive director, Matthew Phillip, spoke to The Guardian about the significance of the event in 2020, despite it being held online.

For more than 50 years carnival has been a statement that Black Lives Matter, he said. Thats normal practice for us, its not something that were just jumping on now because of the current global climate and whats going on. Carnival has been making these statements for 50 years.

In a year when people have been protesting against the treatment of black people I think this is a good way of showing that we have something to contribute, something that is positive, he added, referencing the worldwide unrest over racial injustice and police brutality that ignited in May with the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Portland police disperse a crowd after rioters set fire to the Portland Police Association building early in the morning in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 29, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Trump Campaign Accuses Media of Ignoring Violence, Riots Before Biden Statement

A spokesman for President Donald Trumps reelection campaign on Aug. 30 accused media outlets of refusing to acknowledge the violence in our streets that has rocked the nation for months, until it was addressed by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in a statement on his campaign website.

Hogan Gidley said during an appearance on Fox Newss MediaBuzz that U.S. media has largely ignored the death, the destruction, the looting, the rioting for 90 days, making reference to the unrest seen in Portland, Oregon, following the police-custody death of George Floyd in May that sparked riots, arson incidents, vandalism, and anti-police sentiment.

Gidley made the remarks in response to a question from host Howard Kurtz about recent accusations made by White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany that the media and Democrats are aiding and abetting the violence in cities across the United States.

The Fake News Media is trying to portray the Portland and Seattle protesters as wonderful, sweet and innocent people just out for a little stroll. Actually, they are sick and deranged Anarchists & Agitators who our great men & women of Law Enforcement easily control, but who  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2020

President Trump has offered to send in federal assets into many towns, many cities across this country. Democrat-controlled areas, those governors, those mayors refuse to let that happen, Gidley said.

The media complicit in that, ignored it for 90 days, he added. And then all of a sudden, a few days ago, Joe Biden says something about violence in our streets and its incredible, the media found Jesus all of a sudden on the topic.

The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable. Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same. https://t.co/JRuI7ya2Wv  Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 30, 2020

In his statement released Aug. 30, Biden condemned the violence in Portlanda day after right-wing protester Aaron Danielson was shot dead in the street.

The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable, Biden wrote on Twitter. Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same.

Biden has also condemned violence sparked by the shooting of Jacob Blake last week by police as they attempted to arrest Blake for violating a restraining order that stemmed from an alleged sexual assault that was filed by an ex-girlfriend.

Biden has recently come under pressure to denounce the nationwide wave of violence in the wake of Floyds death. Trump has said that if Biden is elected, it would lead to mass anarchy, violence, and further dismantling of police departments.

Trump also said that Democratic-run cities such as Portland and Chicago have seen a rise in crime in the wake of rioting sparked by Floyds death.

Democrats must address the rioting, otherwise, they will lose in November, CNN anchor Don Lemon said on Aug. 25. I think Democrats are ignoring this problem, are hoping that it will go away. And its not going to go away.

Too little too late. The left wing militants have been at war in Americas cities for MONTHS and youre only commenting now because the polling told you to. https://t.co/LifIyQ3gZQ  Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) August 30, 2020

Responding to Bidens statement condemning the violence in Portland, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said Aug. 30 that its too little too late.

The left-wing militants have been at war in Americas cities for MONTHS and youre only commenting now because the polling told you to, he wrote on Twitter.

Trump has openly condemned the violence incited in U.S. cities since they first began, and has repeatedly accused the media and Democrats of attempting to portray rioters as peaceful protesters.

We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it. Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators. They are missing in action. We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE. These were not merely protesters, these are the real deal!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19, 2020

We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it. Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators. They are missing in action. We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE. These were not merely protesters, these are the real deal! the president wrote on Twitter in July.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
New Delhi, Aug 31 : Severe cases of Covid-19 with pre-existing acute cardiovascular underlying condition are at a greater fatality risk.

The death rate in such patients is estimated up to 15X higher than patients without co-morbidities. The doctors have observed that one out of five such cases expires while battling the deadly virus.

Amit Bhushan Sharma, Associate director and Unit head cardiology, Paras Hospital Gurugram suggested that people who have non-communicable diseases (NCD) like cardiac diseases are 10X more predisposed to getting Covid-19 and their mortality rate is ten times higher than the non-NCD patient.

"Most of the attention in the Covid-19 pandemic has been on how the virus affects the lungs, but evidence shows that up to 1 in 5 infected patients have signs of heart damage and many are dying due to this," Sharma said.

Naveen Bhamri, HOD & Director, Cardiology, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Delhi, also concurred that the prevelance of mortality due to Covid-19 is higher in cardiac patients. "Various studies prove that cardiac patients have more severity of Covid than patients without any comorbid condition.

"The symptomatic patients with preexisting cardiovascular problems or undergone bypass surgeries have additional 20 per cent mortality than other patients," he added.

"The mortality in a Covid case with the existence of a single comorbid situation like hypertension is 3 to four times higher than non-NCDs. However, the rate elevates to seven or eight times if the case has additional comorbidity of cardiovascular disease. The rate in this situation reaches around 20 per cent," said Udgeath Dhir, Director and Head, Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram.

The experts had a little difference of opinion in mortality in cardiac patients with varying severity of the symptoms.

Bhamri said that the mortality of 20 per cent is observed in the cardiac patients exhibiting severe symptoms of Covid-19. "This scenario does not apply to the cardiac patients who are asymptomatic," he added.

However, Dhir observed that it is just a matter of time that the Covid-19 infection progresses to severe state underlying that all the cardiac patients are at equal risk of the additional mortality.

"The Covid-19 infection never starts with severe sypmtoms. It starts with mild or moderate symptoms but aggregates to severe state rapidly in the cases of cardiac patients. The aggressiveness of the disease depends on the innate immunity reserve of the body. The reserve is less in the patients with multiple comorbidities," he said.

While the patients of preexisting cardiovascular issues are facing higher chances of the death due to Coronavirus, another scenario is coming to the fore where people with no caridac history are coming with cardiovascular issues after recovering from the Covid-19 infection. The disease has started manifesting severe heart problems in many of the recovered patients.

"It is one of the residual symptoms of Covid-19. People are coming with a blockage in heart vessels and arteries. They are becoming cardiac patients after contracting the virus," said Bhamri.

"We are facing at least 10 per cent of Covid recovered patients whose brain, heart and lungs were damaged by the Coronavirus," Dhir estimated.

Sharma observed that the receptors in the lungs, which attaches with the virus are damaging the heart of the patient as well. "The damage observed in Covid-19 patients could be from the virus directly infecting the heart muscle. Initial research suggests the coronavirus attaches to certain receptors in the lungs, and those same receptors are found in heart muscle as well," Sharma added.

Besides, Dhir suggested that cardiac patients should consult with their cardiologist very frequently and immediately inform them in case they develop a new symptom that may or may not related to Covid-19.

"Don't underestimate any new development as a seasonal flu. Monitor your diabetes, blood pressure and keep updating your situation to your cardiologists," he said.

"The proper control on sugar, adequate hypertension management, weight control, and to inculcate a healthy lifestyle will help to go a long way in preventing simple corona case to a high-risk corona case. NCDs and Covid-19 have same pathologies," said Sharma also suggested.
Police have named the man and woman arrested for allegedly snatching a one-year-old boy from his mother at gunpoint in an Atlanta neighborhood.

Married couple Maynor Dario Valera Zuniga and Kristin Nicole Valera Zuniga were detained and booked into the DeKalb County Jail on Saturday.

Both are charged with kidnapping, and Maynor Dario Valera Zuniga also faces charges of aggravated assault and battery.

The couple are believed to be responsible for the abduction of Mateo Alejandro Montufar-Barrera, who was taken in Chamblee around noon earlier Saturday while his mother Leslie Bamaca pushed him in a stroller.

Police have not yet issued comment on what the couple's alleged motive for the crime was.

Married couple Maynor Dario Valera Zuniga and Kristin Nicole Valera Zuniga were detained and booked into the DeKalb County Jail on Saturday

The couple are believed to be responsible for the kidnapping of Mateo Alejandro Montufar-Barrera, who was abducted in Chamblee around noon earlier Saturday while his mother Leslie Bamaca pushed him in a stroller

In the moments following the abduction, an Amber Alert was issued for the little boy and he was found safe by police about five hours later.

Police said the pair pulled up to the mom and child in a maroon 2003 Acura MDX before a man exited the car and held a gun at her hip.

When the suspect, described as Hispanic in his mid 20s, attempted to take her son, Bamanca managed to grab his weapon and tried to shoot the man but the gun didn't go off, according to police.

During the struggle, Bamanca also tore off a piece of the suspect's shorts and pulled off one of his shoes.

Photos of the man's clothing were released by the FBI on social media as they asked anyone with information to come forward.

The second suspect, a woman, later exited the car and took the boy. The pair then sped off with baby in their vehicle towards the I-85, authorities said.

The alleged kidnappers were located in Carroll County around 5pm after the Georgia State Patrol spotted the vehicle and pulled them over.

The suspects were last seen travelling in a Maroon 2003 Acura MDX, license plate RTJ0253, on the I-85.

Police have not yet issued comment on what the couple's alleged motive for the crime was

Authorities said the mom put up a fight with the one of the suspects and managed to pull off one of his shoes and piece of his shorts (pictured)

The two were arrested and taken into custody. Mateo, meanwhile, was found unharmed and was reunited with his mother.

The boy has reportedly been dressed up as a girl by the couple in an attempt to conceal his identity.

Bamanaca is now working with detectives from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation which has taken over the case.

Her sister, Jessica Bamaca told local news station the kidnappers were not known to the family.

'We have no idea who they are. It's the first time we've seen them,' she said. 'We don't know where they came from. We don't know what their intentions were.'

Jessica said her sister fought back bravely as any loving mother would.

She fought back with all her strength. She fought back until the last second, Jessica said. She put herself in front of that car. She ran behind that car. She did all she could.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 11:03:17|Editor: huaxia

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WELLINGTON, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) website collapsed on Monday morning as result of cyber attack.

The NZX said in a statement early Monday morning that the stock markets were to open on Monday morning under new arrangements.

Shortly after 10:00 a.m. on Monday, NZX's main website collapsed before being restored one hour later. An NZX spokesman said further cyber attacks on Monday morning affected its website but trading had continued.

NZX Chief Executive, Mark Peterson, said in the statement that NZX continued to work closely with its network service provider Spark and national and international cyber security partners, including the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), as it has from the outset. It has also been working Akamai Technologies - one of the world's leading cyber defence experts - to implement additional measures.

"NZX has been advised by independent cyber specialists that the attacks last week are among the largest, most well-resourced and sophisticated they have ever seen in New Zealand," said Mark Peterson.

New Zealand Finance Minister Grant Robertson said on Friday the government is directing the GCSB to assist the NZX.

"We recognise that it is important that the government works with private companies like them when they are faced with issues like the cyber attack they are currently experiencing," said Robertson.

Trading on the New Zealand stock market was disrupted on last Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as a result of a sustained cyber attack on NZX. The type of cyber attack was known as a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS), which overwhelms the online service rendering it inoperable. Enditem
Mumbai, Aug 31 : There was an uptick in hiring senior executives in India compared to freshers and mid-level executives in the pandemic period (April to July) as the enterprises looked to invest in talent at the very top levels, a new report said on Monday.

Indian companies hired 72 per cent of top executives as compared to 28 per cent of freshers and mid-level executives in the reported period, according to SCIKEY talent commerce platform, a talent marketplace.

In May, companies hired 90 per cent senior leaders with an experience of 8 to 15 years and only 10 per cent of freshers and mid-level employees with an experience of 0-7 years.

In June, the tally improved for freshers/mid-level employees with 35 per cent hiring as companies took 65 per cent senior leaders onboard.

The companies hired 62 per cent senior leaders as compared to 38 per cent freshers and mid-level employees in July.

"Companies need to go beyond their organisation to secure right skill sets, mindset and experience of people who may have successfully steered their organisation through challenging times," said Karunjit Kumar Dhir, Co- founder, SCIKEY.

The findings were based on job postings from April to July and the data is from 300 jobs provided for IT professionals in Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai.
Sheriff Todd Wright of Arkansas County abdicated his post effective immediately on Friday

An Arkansas sheriff has announced his resignation after leaked audio footage captured by the mother of his children documented him launching a sickening racist tirade because she spoke to a black grocery store worker.

Sheriff Todd Wright of Arkansas County abdicated his post effective immediately on Friday after a five minute recording secretly made by his girlfriend Desiree Middlebrooks was shared widely to social media, in which Wright is heard using the N-word nine times.

The recording was apparently made months earlier when Wright reportedly became upset that Middlebrooks had spoken to the employee.

Wright called his partner a n***** lover, later adding in a rage Why you got to holler at f***ing n*****s when Im around?

In a May 28 Facebook post, Wright acknowledged it was his voice in the recording, saying To all I have offended or hurt I send my sincere apologies and will pray for my enemies.

However, the digital apology was deemed insufficient and a special Quorum Court meeting was held Friday morning at the Arkansas County Courthouse to discuss Wrights behavior and present a resolution requesting his resignation.

After viewing and hearing the video I was terribly upset to know that we have someone out here thats supposed to be taking care of us, protecting and serving to have that kind of opinion of me  Im using me as a race because of my color, Justice of the Peace Inez McLemore said.

A five minute recording secretly made by his girlfriend Desiree Middlebrooks was shared widely to social media, in which Wright is heard using the N-word nine times

Throughout the several-hour hearing, broadcast on Facebook, public officials, community members, activists, and at least one colleague urged Wright to resign. The court didn't have the outright authority to fire him.

In an address to the court, slouched in his chair, Wright blamed his behavior on the devil, insisting he isnt a racist and was angry with Middlebrooks at the time because he had missed a funeral of his friend, who was black.

He also mentioned many of his Black constituents with whom he claimed to have formed close bonds with.

Im a Christian man. I read my bible every day, said Wright. I am by no means a racist. That video does not show the true picture of me.

However the crowd, including a woman who identified herself as the aunt of the black employee Wrights racist vitriol was aimed at, didnt believe him.

I don't believe anything you just said, Betty Wofford said. You have to say this stuff because you want to keep your job.

Wright at first refused to resign, prompting half of the some 90 people in attendance to walk out from the courtroom. Several heckled him to just get it over with.

Ive said things that I shouldnt of said but as far as racism, I dont condone it, Wright said in response.

He then said he would resign in a month, and finally did what the crowd requested and agreed to resign immediately after one of his former colleagues spoke.

Todd, I've known you all my life. You need to take that badge and [set] it on that table and walk out of here Todd, former officer Bobby Webb said. You know I love you, but you screwed up. Lay that badge down, lay that gun down and walk out of here.

Holding back tears, Wright surrendered his badge and gun and embraced Webb.

A special Quorum Court meeting was held Friday morning at the Arkansas County Courthouse to discuss Wrights behavior and present a resolution requesting his resignation

In an address to the court, slouched in his chair, Wright blamed his behavior on the devil, insisting he isnt a racist and was angry with Middlebrooks at the time because he had missed a funeral of his friend, who was black

In the leaked recording, Wright is heard using the n-word nine times in conversation with Middlebrooks.

In one instance, Middlebrooks is heard asking Wright, why are you talking to me life that?

Wright responds by telling her, Shut-up, n***** loverall those mother***** in that store and youve got to talk to the [inaudible] a** n*****right in front of me.

Middlebrooks responds that she didnt think it was a big deal. It is a f***ing big deal. People see me and then they see you talking to n*****s, he responds.

I dont understand why youre so mad at me, Middlebrooks asks.

Why you got to holler at f****** n****** when Im around, Wright responds.

The county Wright worked for is 25 percent black, according to Census Bureau data.

Justice of the Peace McLemore expressed the fear she had for inmates the Sheriff Department oversees.

If the head is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt, she said.

After accepting his resignation, the court also passed a motion to allow Wright to continue to be paid as contract labor until September 30, but he will not be an active law enforcement officer.

The county's chief deputy will serve as sheriff until a replacement is appointed or a special election is held.

Middlebrooks and Wright appear to no longer be together, with the mother-of-six listing her relationship status as single on Facebook. It's unclear how many children they share together.
Lebanon was to start consultations on Monday to name a new premier, with the envoy to Berlin emerging as a front-runner, as French President Emmanuel Macron was to visit the disaster-hit country.

Adib, a relatively unknown 48-year-old diplomat and close aide to former prime minister Najib Mikati, has received backing from the country's Sunni Muslim political heavyweights, including the Future Movement party headed by former premier Saad Hariri.

Adib still needs to be formally endorsed during Monday's consultations, but President Michel Aoun and Lebanon's Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement have both vowed to agree on any nominee supported by the country's top Sunni political figures.

Under multi-confessional Lebanon's political system, the premier must be a Sunni, the presidency is reserved for a Maronite Christian and the post of parliamentary speaker goes to a Shiite.

Consultations to name a new prime minister were set to start at 0600 GMT in the presidential palace in Baabda near Beirut, with a meeting between the president and former premier Mikati, who was expected to name Adib.

The president was expected to conclude consultations at 1015 GMT, according to the National News Agency.

- 'Deep change' -

A majority of lawmakers must decide on whom to name as premier before Aoun tasks the candidate with forming a new government, an often drawn-out process that can take months.

Lebanon's last government, headed by Hassan Diab, resigned after the massive explosion of ammonium nitrate at Beirut's port on August 4 that killed at least 188 people, wounded thousands and laid waste to large parts of the capital.

That disaster came amid the country's worst economic crisis in decades as well as the coronavirus outbreak and at a time of widespread popular discontent with Lebanon's entire political class.

Those who have taken to the streets in mass protests since October 17 against the politicians they deem corrupt and inept have already rejected any name that might emerge from the parliamentary consultations.

Macron will be in Lebanon on Monday and Tuesday for his second visit since the massive explosion.

Macron weeks ago warned that Lebanese leaders have a "huge" responsibility -- "that of a revamped pact with the Lebanese people in the coming weeks, that of deep change".

On Friday, he spoke of the "constraints of a confessional system" in a country populated by Christians, Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

"If we let Lebanon go in the region and if we somehow leave it in the hands of the depravity of regional powers, it will be civil war," Macron said.

Adib holds a PhD in political science and taught at a Lebanese university before being named in 2013 as Lebanon's ambassador in Germany.
TORONTO, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Following the failure of the Ministry of Labour to adequately respond to their requests for appropriate health and safety standards in publicly funded schools, Ontarios four major teacher and education worker unions say they have been left with no choice but to file formal appeals with the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB).

The Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO), the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO), the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA), and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF/FEESO)  which together represent more than 190,000 teachers and education workers  say they will each be filing an appeal with the OLRB arguing that the Ministry of Educations Guide to Re-opening Ontarios Schools does not take every reasonable precaution to protect workers, as required by Section 25(2)(h) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Representatives of the unions met with Ontarios Minister of Labour and Chief Prevention Officer on August 24, and raised a number of concerns regarding the Ministry of Educations failure to put in place all reasonable precautions for a safe return to school. Following the meeting, the unions issued a request to the Minister of Labour that orders be made requiring the Ministry of Education to set standards around physical distancing, cohorting, ventilation, and transportation. It was also requested that the Ministry of Labour review these orders monthly, in case scientific developments dictate more stringent standards, and that school boards be given additional time if necessary to implement proper health and safety measures.

As of August 28, the date upon which it said it would respond, the Ministry of Labour had failed to comply with these requests.

The unions say the actions they are seeking are in line with those that have been put in place in workplaces and other public spaces throughout the province. The measures, especially those that would help facilitate two metres of physical distancing, also accord with advice given regularly to Ontarians by Premier Doug Ford as well as Chief Medical Officer of Health David Williams, Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Barbara Yaffe, and many other health experts.

The unions contend that the governments claim about its reliance on layers of prevention does not follow widely accepted standards and practices around workplace health and safety, based on the hierarchy of controls from the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). In the August 24 meeting, Ministry of Labour officials repeatedly referred to personal protective equipment (PPE) for teachers and education workers as a key part of the governments strategy. However, the NIOSH says PPE is only one of many measures and the least effective control against a workplace hazard. Other measures, such as adaptations to the physical space, including improved ventilation, or changes to policies and procedures, are more likely to reduce a workers exposure to the hazard.

The unions strongly object to claims by the Premier and the Minister of Education that by raising concerns about the governments school reopening plan, teachers and education workers are failing to do their part to help Ontarians navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government is attempting to deflect blame for their inadequate school reopening plan by creating division among Ontarians. But union leaders have a responsibility to protect our fellow teachers and education workers, and we know we have the support of many parents, students, health experts and others, says AEFO President Remi Sabourin.

Schools and classrooms are unique workplaces, with upwards of 30 people sharing small spaces, says ETFO President Sam Hammond. Smaller class sizes would help make schools safer. Should teachers and education workers not be able to expect at least the same standards and precautionary measures as have been put in place in stores, offices, and other spaces across the province?

The anxiety Ontarians are feeling around reopening schools is directly related to the governments lack of leadership and their haphazard, incomplete planning, says OECTA President Liz Stuart. The Premier and the Minister of Education say they will do everything possible to make sure schools are safe. All we are asking is that they make an honest, exhaustive effort to follow through on this promise.

The accusation that teachers and education workers are not willing to step up and get back to schools is preposterous and insulting, says OSSTF/FEESO President Harvey Bischof. No worker in the province of Ontario should be expected to sacrifice their health and safety, especially when there are such obvious measures the government could be taking to reduce the risk and prevent potential tragedies.

-30-

For more information, please contact any of the following media relations representatives:

AEFO  Marilyne Guevremont at 613-850-6410, or via email at mguevremont@aefo.on.ca

ETFO  Valerie Dugale at 416-948-0195, or via email at vdugale@etfo.org

OECTA  Michelle Despault at 416-925-2493, ext. 509, or via email at m.despault@catholicteachers.ca

OSSTF/FEESO  Paul Kossta at 416-751-8300, ext. 225, or via email at Paul.Kossta@osstf.ca
In his first strategic message to the Air Force, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown is pushing for radical changes, saying the service must rethink its internal structure to better align with how airmen deploy around the world, and ditch unnecessary or aging equipment that can't give airmen the advantage on the battlefield.

In his paper, "Accelerate Change or Lose," distributed to airmen Monday, Brown said the window of opportunity to adapt to a changing battlefield continues to shrink, which is why airmen need to address challenges -- from the coronavirus pandemic to emerging threats from a resurgent Russia or China -- head on.

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"If we don't change -- if we fail to adapt -- we risk losing the certainty with which we have defended our national interests for decades," Brown said. "We risk losing a high-end fight. We risk losing quality Airmen, our credibility, and our ability to secure our future."

"It's an opportunity to give us some options and some flexibility to be adaptive, and to accelerate changes," Brown added during a phone call with reporters Monday.

"You want to train like you're going to fight, and from that aspect, [we've got] to take a look at ourselves ... and figure out what may be the best model that provides a level of readiness relative to direct force and how we are organized at home station," he said.

Some recent Air Force efforts have embraced this idea, Brown said. For example, the service in 2017 introduced the "deployed teaming" concepts, or to dispatch airmen who previously deployed on individual taskings as part of teams of three or more.

Like aircraft platforms that now face retirement, programs that are "broken," aging, or that don't offer a competitive edge against near-peer aggressors, must also be reevaluated, Brown said.

Specifically, "Programs that once held promise, but are no longer affordable or will not deliver needed capabilities on competition-relevant timelines, must be divested or terminated," he said in the paper. The recommendation follows moves by the Army and Marine Corps to ditch some legacy systems to pay for capabilities designed for a future high-end war.

During the phone call, Brown did not offer examples of what those programs may be, but said the service is assessing where it can take risks as it moves forward.

"We must be able to account for the interactive nature of competition and continuously assess ourselves relative to our adversaries' adaptations," he said. "Capabilities must be conceived, developed, and fielded inside competitors' fielding timelines -- knowing we will need to adapt and adjust over time.

"Likely future budget pressures will require the most difficult force structure decisions in generations. We cannot shy away from these decisions," he said, adding the service must be fiscally responsible of taxpayer dollars.

Outpacing the China Threat

Brown most recently led Pacific Air Forces, where he oversaw more than 46,000 airmen operating out of Japan, Korea, Hawaii, Alaska and Guam. The job afforded him a chance to closely observe China's military buildup on contested islands within the South China Sea. He also led the air campaign against the Islamic State as head of Air Forces Central Command.

In his paper, Brown emphasized that a "good enough today" mentality will not prevail in a future fight with an adversary, particularly on those, like China, that have developed their capabilities while the U.S. focused on counterinsurgency missions in the Middle East.

"We must be prepared to address our competitors' attempts to hold the U.S. Homeland at risk with unconventional, conventional, and even nuclear force," Brown said. "As a Service, decisions on our missions and capabilities must be informed by how they fare against our understanding of competitors' theories of victory, ways of war, and force development strategies."

Brown focused on China as a rapidly changing threat aiming to eclipse America's standing on the global stage. As the PACAF commander, Brown last year said the Air Force should pursue different avenues, such as evasive or deceptive measures, to stifle competitors including China, instead of always relying on its most expensive weapons as a deterrent.

Brown in his document that these tactics are especially vital in an "environment that includes, but is not limited to, declining resources, aggressive global competitors, and rapid technology development and diffusion."

Therefore, "the U.S. Air Force must accelerate change to control and exploit the air domain, while also underwriting national security through nuclear deterrence to the standard the nation expects and requires."

Long Road Ahead

Like his predecessor, now-retired Gen. David Goldfein, Brown described the task at hand as a "journey," one that should leverage partnerships with sister services like the newly created Space Force, partners and allies, and industry.

"I can't do this alone; the aspect of this is, we are in competition in our national security and it doesn't end after my tenure or for several chiefs of staff after me. And so we're going to be thinking about this on a regular basis," he said during the call.

Like Goldfein, Brown said the service must rely on those in the ranks, empowering them to make decisions and preparing them for more expeditionary deployments. The future environment will require multi-capable airmen with fundamental skills who react nimbly in fast-paced situations and who "demonstrate value in the diversity of thought, ingenuity, and initiative," he said.

As a whole, the service "has got to move faster," Brown said Monday.

"We got to move at the pace, at least the same pace that our adversaries are moving -- and so that's why we've got to adjust ... and be willing to change and ready to change in the same way," he said.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @oriana0214.

Related: It's Official: CQ Brown Confirmed As 1st African American Military Service Chief
President Donald Trump unleashed a tweetstorm about Portland, Oregon, early Sunday, hours after a man was killed there during clashes between Trump supporters and Black Lives Matter demonstrators.

The president retweeted a post using a profanity to describe Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, suggesting only to Tone down the language, and others in which the original tweeters accused Wheeler, a Democrat, of war crimes and of having blood on his hands.

Posts from a right-wing journalist that claimed to have exclusive knowledge of the Portland incident were also retweeted by the president.

Portland has been the site of protests, often violent, for months, following the killing of a Black man, George Floyd, by police in Minnesota in late May.

Another string of posts from Trump late Saturday night included one in which he shared a message from the conservative broadcaster One America News (OAN) that called ongoing protests against racism in the U.S. an attempted coup and aimed to take down the president.

Trump has ramped up the law and order rhetoric following the Republican National Convention, and as demonstrations in support racial justice continue across the country, including in Washington.

He addressed a Twitter message Sunday at Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington, saying Bowser should Clean up D.C. or the Federal Government will do it for you. Enough!!!

A White House spokesman said late Saturday that Trump will travel to Kenosha on Tuesday, days after the Wisconsin city was rocked by protests after police were filmed shooting a Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back multiple times at close range.

Since then, two people involved in a protest over Blakes shooting were killed and a third seriously wounded. A 17-year-old Trump supporter from Illinois, Kyle Rittenhouse, has been charged with two counts of homicide.

Trump hasnt directly addressed the Rittenhouse incident. Talking to reporters in Texas on Saturday, Trump, he said the matter was under investigation right now and theyll be reporting back to me over the next 24 hours.



Ros Krasny of Bloomberg News wrote this story.

2020 Bloomberg News

Visit Bloomberg News at www.bloomberg.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Portland mayor, including other state officials, is bracing for an increase of protest-related violence as many social media posts are vowing revenge for a fatal shooting during the weekend.

The shooting was between supporters of U.S President Donald Trump and counter-demonstrators.

"For those of you saying on Twitter this morning that you plan to come to Portland to seek retribution, I'm calling on you to stay away," Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was quoted in a report.

He also criticized Trump for political rhetoric that he said "encouraged division and stroked violence."

Portland mayor Wheeler also brushed aside a series of tweets from the president attacking Wheeler and urging the Portland mayor to request help from the federal government to restore order.

Wheeler said that Trump's tweets were an aggressive stance and is not collaborative.

"I'd appreciate it if the president would support us or stay the hell out of the way," Wheeler said.

Portland mayor Wheeler and Police Chief Chuck Lovell said investigators were still working to establish the events' sequence, which caused the fatal shooting on Saturday.

They both provided few new details about the investigation.

Clash Between Pro-Trump Protesters and Counter Demonstrators

Lovell said they have yet to know whether the shooting was linked conflict between protesters in pickup trucks waving pro-Trump flags and the counter-protesters on the streets.

Video on social media showed people in the beds of pickups firing paintballs and spraying chemical irritant to opposing protesters.

People on the street hurled objects at the trucks and tried to block them.

Officials have yet to determine the shooting victim. But New York Times reported that the man gunned down was wearing a hat with the insignia of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer.

Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson confirmed that the victim was a member of a right-wing group. Gibson added that he knew the victim.

Gibson said through a social media post that "Jay had such a good heart."

"God bless him and the life he lived. "I'm going to wait to make any public statements until after the family can," Gibson was quoted.

Trump later re-tweeted the photo of Jay Bishop and wrote in that post that he was a good American who loved his country.

Groups Calling For Portland Mayor's Resignation

The Portland mayor was also under fire when several left-wing Oregon-based civil rights and community organizations have been at odds and called for his resignation in an open letter on Sunday.

"Amid 94 days and nights of protests against police brutality, Mayor Wheeler has fundamentally failed in his responsibilities to the residents of Portland," the group said through their letter.

Meanwhile, police warned against people using Twitter based on misinformation.

Lovell said many share information on social media who are jumping to conclusions that are not based on facts.

The report said protests have grown violent at times, have shaken downtown Portland every night for more than three months after the May 25 killing of George Floyd.

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Gerald Shur, 86, of Warminster, the founder of the U.S. Federal Witness Protection Program, died Tuesday, Aug. 25, of complications from lung cancer at his home.

During 34 years as a lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department, Mr. Shur relocated and provided new identities for more than 6,000 witnesses and 14,000 of their dependents, according to Pete Earley, a friend and former journalist with whom he wrote a book.

No witnesses got protection without his personal attention, Earley said in a tribute. He wrote nearly all the programs rules, shaped it based on his own personal philosophical views, and guided it with an iron hand. He helped create false backgrounds, arranged secret weddings, oversaw funerals.

The witness program was one of three tools that helped take down Mafia kingpins in the second half of the 20th century. The others were federal wiretaps and the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, Earley said.

The tools allowed the government to break La Cosa Nostras vow of silence. Informants no longer feared being killed by the mob for testifying; instead, they vanished into another identity.

Mr. Shur was involved in the case against every major Mafia figure from 1961, when he joined the Justice Department, until he retired in 1995, according to Earley.

We do everything we can to help witnesses, including finding them jobs in their new locations, but we have strict rules, Mr. Shur said in a 2008 Inquirer article. When you assume a new identity, you may never return to your past life. You basically forfeit your chance to attend your mothers funeral.

Some couldnt handle the isolation and resurfaced, but no protected witness who followed the rules was killed, Mr. Shur said.

Born in the Bronx, New York City, Mr. Shur graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1951. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelors degree in business administration in 1955 and a law degree in 1957.

His passion for defeating organized crime had its roots in his fathers experience as a representative of dressmakers in negotiations with labor in New Yorks Garment District. He saw the influence organized crime had on the garment industry.

My father was a member of the United Popular Dress Manufacturers Association, and he would complain about organized crime in the industry, Mr. Shur told The Inquirer. He couldnt engage in the normal collective-bargaining process because the racketeers would interfere. His anger was the fuel that fed my fire.

In 1961, Mr. Shur was practicing law in Corpus Christi, Texas, when he read that Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was planning to open an office to combat organized crime. Mr. Shur was granted an interview and flew to Washington the next day.

I was hired without even having a resume, he recalled.

He joined the Justice Departments Organized Crime and Racketeering Section as area coordinator for all organized-crime investigations conducted by the FBI and other federal agencies in New York City.

Within a few years, he became the liaison with Joseph Valachi, a convicted drug trafficker who gave the public its first glimpse of La Cosa Nostras operations, rituals, and members during Senate committee hearings in 1963.

One of Mr. Shurs last informants was Sammy the Bull Gravano, who had admitted to 19 mob killings. He was given a new identity and relocated after testifying in 1992 against New York Mafia boss John Gotti.

In addition to directing the witness protection program, Mr. Shur also oversaw programs involving covert criminal investigative techniques used by federal agencies.

In 1983, he led a mission to ensure the safety of the judge, jurors, and witnesses in the trial of the El Salvador national guardsmen accused of raping and killing four American Catholic missionaries, three of them nuns.

Among his awards were the John Marshall Award and the Mary C. Lawton Award for career achievement, both given by the attorney general.

After retiring, he collaborated with Earley on the 2002 book WITSEC  Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program. The book chronicled the founding and history of the program.

Mr. Shur is survived by his wife of 68 years, Miriam Heifetz Shur; daughter Ilene Meckley Clark; son Ronald; six grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

Plans for a life celebration were pending.
BAD AXE  A touring parade float supporting President Donald Trump will make an appearance in Bad Axe at the beginning of September, despite suffering damage after being stolen over the weekend.

The Trump Unity Bridge will appear at a pop-up rally from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Sept. 2 at the Franklin Inn parking lot in Bad Axe.

Rob Cortis, a Livonia native who organizes the Trump Unity Bridge, will be one of the speakers at the event and plans on having other speakers as well, such as State Rep. Phil Green, State Senator Dan Lauwers, Huron County Republican Party Chairman Doug Henne, and the organizers are attempting to get U.S. Senate candidate John James to speak there.

The event organizers hope to share their message of supporting law enforcement, securing the southern border, defending constitutional rights, and buying American.

When we stand together in unity, we become the greatest, most powerful country on Earth, Cortis said in a press release. I am here to share my story, but most importantly, to listen to those who peacefully care to share.

The Trump Unity Bridge has been around since at least 2016, making appearances across the country, including at Trumps inauguration, the State Capitol building in Lansing, New York City, Flagstaff in Arizona, Los Angeles, Colorado, and Las Vegas.

Over this past weekend, news outlets reported that the Unity Bridge was stolen while appearing in Tulsa and crashed into an embankment. Cortis and his team are reportedly making repairs to the vehicle.

Henne said organizers have been in contact with Cortis and the event in Bad Axe will continue on as planned.

The Huron County Republican Party, Huron County Right to Life, and Friends of the NRA are some of the groups planned to be at the event. A bipartisan group called Unlock Michigan, which is gathering signatures to repeal a 1945 law granting the state governor emergency powers, will be there as well.

Henne said the event is being held in Bad Axe because it is the county seat, and on a weekday in order to appeal to the local population, not the lake cottage residents. It is still a work in progress as they contact other people to attend.

The Franklin Inn has the largest venue in Bad Axe to use, Henne said about their parking lot, adding that Franklin Inn management has been supportive of the event being held there.

There will be other activities planned for the rally, the opportunity to speak with candidates, photo opportunities, and voter registration.
SACRAMENTO  California legislators approved a bill that would create a task force to study reparations for slavery for African Americans, a measure intended to eliminate disparities that linger more than 150 years after an economic and social system that kept Black people in bondage was banished.

Separately, lawmakers also sent a bill to Gov. Gavin Newsom requiring corporations in the state to increase diversity on their boards of directors starting next year  another measure that gathered momentum in the Legislature when protests erupted nationally over racial inequality after a white police officer in Minneapolis killed George Floyd, a Black man, by kneeling on his neck during an arrest.

The Legislature passed both bills as it considered hundreds of measures before the mandatory end of its session at midnight Monday. In a session interrupted twice by the coronavirus pandemic, the Legislature found itself running short on time to address the biggest policy issues of the year.

Among the bills that were unresolved late into the night were measures that would prevent evictions for out-of-work Californians and would create a process to strip police officers of their badges for breaking the law.

As the state Senate broke for dinner Monday evening, Democrats moved to limit debate on bills in order to squeeze in the rest of the agenda before midnight, earning a sharp rebuke from Republicans who said they were being silenced. Tension had been bubbling for days  since most of the GOP caucus was ordered to work from home after being exposed to a coronavirus-positive colleague  and when the debate-limiting measure was raised, GOP Sen. Melissa Melendez of Lake Elsinore (San Bernardino County) complained, This is bulls.

When the Senate returned, Democrats rescinded the debate-limiting move.

The reparations study, AB3121 by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, received final legislative approval Sunday night on a 52-9 vote in the Assembly. It would direct a task force to study the history of slavery and its enduring inequities for African Americans, and recommend who should be eligible for reparations and the form of compensation. The task force would be appointed by the governor and legislative leaders.

Major bills in the Legislature Here's how the Legislature acted on notable bills as its annual session ended Monday. All approved bills head to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has until Sept. 30 to decide whether to sign them: Approved a proposal allowing transgender people in state prison to decide whether to be housed among men or women. Advocates said SB132 is necessary because transgender women are often raped and assaulted when housed in men's prisons. Unanimously passed SB932 by state Sen. Scott Wiener requiring health workers to ask patients infected with the coronavirus or some 90 other diseases about their sexual orientation and gender identity. LGBTQ advocates say the bill is needed to understand the disease's impact on their community. Sought to increase pressure on gunmakers to embrace bullet-tracing technology known as microstamping. AB2847 would require that semiautomatic pistols sold in the state leave a single unique imprint on bullets that are fired rather than two, as currently required. The marking, which reveals a gun's make, model and serial number, are meant to help law enforcement investigations. Endorsed letting public transit agencies fast-track construction projects. SB288 would exempt "sustainable" transit projects from stricter review under CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires environmental consideration in construction. See More Collapse

Weber, who chairs the Legislatures Black caucus and is a retired professor of Africana studies at San Diego State University, said the committees work would help California begin to address the disparities born of a shameful history.

Apology is important, Weber said in a statement. So are an accurate and public account of the violations along with commemoration and redress to those harmed.

The task forces recommendations would go to the Legislature by June 2022. The committee would also educate Californians about the legacy of slavery and how the state enabled the institution.

Earlier this summer, Weber said Floyds killing in Minneapolis and ensuing protests over police brutality showed how little progress America has made in addressing racism.

Every incident brings me back to the same spot, Weber said. This country has taught itself to hate African Americans and to deny the history that has brought us here.

The bill, which passed the Assembly on a 52-9 vote, with most Democrats in support and nine Republicans in opposition, now heads to Newsom. He has until Sept. 30 to decide whether to sign the measure.

The Assembly also voted Sunday night to give final legislative approval to AB979 would require corporations headquartered in California to have at least one board member from an underrepresented community, such as people of color or LGBT people, by the end of 2021.

Corporations would be fined if they fail to comply, and the target would increase in 2022, requiring at least two or three directors from underrepresented communities, depending on the size of the board.

The bill passed 51-6, with most Democrats in support and all the no votes cast by Republicans. Newsom also has until Sept. 30 to decide whether to sign it.

Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, introduced the bill after Floyds death. He said some corporations, particularly big tech firms, have not acted with a sense of urgency when it comes to diversity on their boards.

Holden said that while the Legislature has sought to confront the issue of policy brutality with other bills, they must also confront inequities that keep African Americans out of powerful institutions.

Holdens bill is based on SB826, a law passed in 2018 that set similar benchmarks for hiring women for the boards of California corporations. The number of female directors increased by at least 23% in the first year. Developing a pipeline of candidates has become a priority for Jennifer Siebel Newsom, wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The law was challenged in court last year by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian nonprofit, which argued that the quotas violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution in addition to being deeply patronizing to women. The case has not yet been decided.

As time ran short in the session Monday, the Senate passed AB3088, a deal that emerged late last week to grant tenants who have lost income because of the pandemic a reprieve on their missed rent and give them five more months before they must start paying again in full.

The bill, which would take effect immediately and prevent evictions that could otherwise resume this week, still had to pass the Assembly by midnight to be sent to Newsom, who previously promised to sign it into law.

Among other bills that were still awaiting final legislative action was SB731 by Sen. Steven Bradford, D-Gardena (Los Angeles County), which would create a process to strip the badges from police officers who break the law and eliminate their legal immunity for injuring a suspect.

The measure was a priority for activists who hoped to change policing practices in California in the wake of Floyds death, but it encountered substantial opposition from law enforcement groups who said it would make it too difficult for officers to do their jobs.

Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 11:54:29|Editor: huaxia

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SUVA, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- A Cash-for-Work program will be piloted in the western side of Fiji's main island Viti Levu to assist those working in the informal sector and being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Reserve Bank of Fiji, 130,000 Fijians are employed in Fiji's informal sector which refers to those workers who are self employed, or who work for those who are self employed. People who earn a living through self employment in most cases are not on payrolls, and thus are not taxed. Many informal workers do their businesses in unprotected and unsecured places.

Fiji's Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said on Monday that some of these people may work every week and some of them may work just two weeks in a month or couple of days in a week and they need assistance.

"As a start, this assistance with the informal sector will be limited to those who can provide proof that they do not have retirement funds in the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) accounts and are not registered with Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) for taxation purposes. These individuals must also be able to provide proof of a reliable income source prior to COVID-19."

Khaiyum said the Fijian government will carry out this program in partnership.

"As with FNPF, government will work in partnership with other organizations and government related agencies such as municipal councils, ministries like agriculture, environment and forestry and credible NGOs that can develop temporary work programs in return for pay, they could be in the form of clean-up campaign in municipalities or residential areas, planting trees or other agricultural produce," he said.

"This will ensure that only genuine affected people are assisted." Enditem
A youth leader of a Delaware church is accountable for more than 80 counts of sex abuse after confessing in a meeting with a pastor on Feb 13 to "inappropriately touching" a minor.

John C. Sapp Jr., a 34-year-old from Hartly, Delaware confessed to have held sexual relationships with two teenage girls who attended his youth group at his church, Maranatha Fellowship of Dover.

One victim told Delaware State Police that she had a "secret relationship" with Sapp from October 2017 when she was 15-years-old to June 2019. Another victim reported that she had a "secret sexual relationship" with Sapp from January 2019 when she was 16-years-old to January of 2020.

Of the 89 counts of sex abuse, there were 33 counts of "unlawful sexual contact second degree", 29 counts of "sexual abuse of a child by a person of trust first degree", 13 counts of "rape fourth-degree sexual intercourse victim less than 18 years old", 7 counts of "rape fourth-degree sexual penetration of another person without consent", 3 counts of "sexual abuse of a child by a person of trust second-degree", 2 counts of "continuous sexual abuse of a child", and 2 counts of "loitering on property of a state-supported school, college, or university.

The sexual abuse allegedly took place in multiple places including Sapp Jr.'s house, truck, the parking lot of the Dover Campus of Delaware Technical Community College, the church property, and even on a youth group camping trip.

"We're awaiting a scheduling order from the courts with respect to case review and trial," said Department of Justice spokesman Mat Marshall.
Saint Mary Of The Assumption Elementary School Prepares To Welcome Students Back

A sign reads "Welcome Back to School" at a Catholic elementary school in Brookline, Mass., on Aug. 25, 2020. Credit - Adam GlanzmanBloomberg/Getty Images

By the time the school year ended this spring, Clara Obermeier knew remote learning was not a good option for her two children. Her 13-year-old daughter had grown withdrawn after going months without seeing her friends. Her 11-year-old son had struggled academically, and due to a Zoom glitch, was frequently blocked from the virtual breakout rooms where the rest of his classmates were assigned to work in small groups. And neither Obermeier, an engineer, nor her husband, an active-duty officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, have jobs that will allow them to work from home full-time this fall.

I waited and waited to figure out what the plan was from the school system, Obermeier says. On July 21, Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland announced that the district would offer virtual-only instruction at least through January. At that point, we were like, OK, this is definitely not going to work out for us, she says.

So Obermeier pulled her children from the public school district and enrolled them in St. Bartholomew School, a private Catholic school in Bethesda, Md., that charges $13,600 in tuition and is planning to bring all students back to campus by Sept. 21 after a phased reopening beginning Sept. 8.

Clara Obermeier stands with her husband, Dave, her daughter, Ana Lucia, and her son, Joe. Courtesy of Clara Obermeier

Such decisions are playing out across the country ahead of the first day of school, as districts announce reopening plans and individual families craft ad-hoc solutions in preparation for what will be, at best, an unusual school schedule. But the solutions available to wealthier families  from private schools to pricey learning pods  have highlighted the ways the pandemic is exacerbating educational inequities. While many students struggled through the spring to access the most basic remote learning opportunities, often without home Internet service and computers, others had the benefit of private tutors or all-day virtual instruction provided by their schools.

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Schools are highly unequal. But the ability of families to provide education is even more unequal, says Richard Kahlenberg, director of K-12 equity at The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank.

Thats a fact acknowledged even by parents who can afford private tutoring or private school for their children, and who struggle with the question of how to help their own kids without exacerbating educational inequity. Mayssoun Bydon, the managing partner at the Institute for Higher Learning, which offers test prep and admissions consulting, expects the coming school year to reveal an educational divide like weve never seen before. And yet, Bydon hired a private tutor for her own son, who attends a private school. I felt like I couldnt afford to just fail him personally, she says.

Fall reopening plans vary widely among schools. About half of the countrys public school districts are planning on full in-person instruction, but 41% of the highest-poverty districts are beginning the year with entirely remote learning, according to an analysis by the Center on Reinventing Public Education. That means many of the students who are most likely to need the academic, social and emotional support of in-person instruction wont receive it.

As of late July, 40% of private schools were planning on full in-person reopening, 19% were preparing for entirely virtual instruction, and 41% were offering a mix of both, according to a survey by the National Association of Independent Schools, which represents 1,600 private schools across the U.S.

Many of the private schools that are planning to bring students back for in-person learning have the advantage of small class sizes and large outdoor spaces that make social distancing easier, in addition to endowments and donations that have made it possible to upgrade air filtration systems, revamp nurses offices, set up tented classrooms outside, secure COVID-19 testing and hire more staff.

"Schools are highly unequal. But the ability of families to provide education is even more unequal."

In Brooklyn, Poly Prep Country Day School a 166-year-old private school where families pay as much as $53,000 in tuition and fees  will reopen for in-person learning on Sept. 8, setting up 70 socially distanced tents across its 25-acre campus. Younger students will be divided into pods that will be kept separate from one another, and the average lower-school class size has shrunk to 12 students. The school will require a negative COVID-19 test for everyone returning to school, and one familys anonymous donation will cover testing costs for faculty.

At Boston Trinity Academy, a pop-up on the schools website asks visitors for patience as we are experiencing an unusually high number of applications. Compared to a typical summer, the small Christian school saw a 40% increase in applications this summer, mostly from public school families. But social distancing requirements led the school to cap some classes at nine or 12 students, limiting how many new students they can accept. Admissions Director Bisi Oloko said the schools seventh grade was full, but two students transferring there from other schools were willing to repeat sixth grade to get a spot at Boston Trinity. Boston Public Schools, a district that serves more than 53,000 students across 125 schools, will begin the year remotely until Oct. 1, when the district plans to begin a hybrid model. Boston Trinity Academy, which enrolls about 230 students at a tuition rate of $20,700, will begin classes in person on Sept. 8, with about 10% of students choosing a virtual option instead.

There are disgruntled parents out there, says Headmaster Frank Guerra. There are people who felt like their school systems let them down, and their kids were almost like on a three-month vacation, and thats devastating.

Thats why, for parents who can afford it, private schools with unique reopening plans have become an attractive solution.

Roxana Reid, founder of the New York City educational consulting firm Smart City Kids Inc, saw a ridiculous uptick in business beginning in June, as she heard from families looking to transfer from public to private schools. Bydon, of the Institute for Higher Learning, has seen a 38% increase in her business since March as parents seek private tutors or ask the company to develop personal curricula for their children.

The experience has left Bydon worried about the growing divide between students at elite private schools and those at underfunded public schools.

Were going to end up with a real educational divide between the haves and the have-nots and without a way to reverse it, Bydon says. Whos going to fail are the kids who dont have the money.

But Bydon, who lives in New York City, can also relate to her clients who have sought out expensive help for their kids. When schools shut down in March, her son was in kindergarten and had just been learning to read, so she hired a private tutor to make sure he didnt fall behind. Nobody imagined that there was going to be another full academic year of this, she says.

Colleen Ganjian with her husband, Ali, her daughter, Caroline, and her son, James. Melody Yazdani Photography

In Vienna, Va., Colleen Ganjian withdrew her daughter from Fairfax County Public Schools after the district announced it would begin the school year remotely, enrolling her in a private Catholic school instead.

I just want her to have consistency, says Ganjian, an educational consultant and founder of DC College Counseling. The bottom line is I am so busy. I own a business, and I cant be that person. I cant provide her with the consistency that she needs. Thats kind of why I feel I needed to look for an alternative.

On Aug. 26, she dropped her daughter off at her new school bright and early for the first day of third grade, in person and wearing a mask. I think she was excited to just get out of the house, Ganjian says.

Exacerbating inequity

The role of private schools has become a hot button issue within the contentious debate over whether its safe to send kids back to class. President Donald Trump has called on public schools to fully reopen in person, and if they dont, he said school funding should follow students so parents can send their child to the private, charter, religious or home school of their choice. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued a rule for more coronavirus relief funding to be directed to private schools, prompting lawsuits from states and school districts in response.

On July 31, Montgomery County Health Officer Dr. Travis Gayles issued an order directing all non-public schools to remain closed for in-person instruction until at least Oct. 1, saying at this point the data does not suggest that in-person instruction is safe for students or teachers. That prompted backlash from private school parents. Many of them signed petitions, arguing that private and parochial schools should be allowed to develop plans in line with CDC and state guidance without arbitrary and capricious interference from county officials.

Obermeier was one of several parents who sued the county to reverse Gayless decision. The lawsuit argued that private schools had spent time and millions of dollars to ensure safe environments for children and staff, and it accused Gayles of being driven more by concerns over equity than public health.

It appears to be a political response, an answer to complaints by some public school parents about why their schools are closed and private schools are not,' the lawsuit stated.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, issued an executive order overruling the countys directive, giving school districts and private schools across the state the authority to decide when and how to reopen. (An attorney representing the parents said their lawsuit has not been dismissed but that theyre focusing on promoting collaboration between Montgomery County and nonpublic schools.) While all public school districts in Maryland are beginning the year virtually, Hogan encouraged schools to reopen in person, announcing on Aug. 27 that all districts had met state benchmarks to offer some in-person instruction.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, announced that any schoolpublic or private in a county on the states coronavirus watchlist cannot reopen in-person. But schools can apply for waivers to reopen early for kindergarten through sixth grade. Informal surveys by the California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) found that most CAIS schools that include grades K-6 are keen to re-open on campus and many have applied for waivers. The association said it believes that on-campus schooling is better for kids than distance learning, provided it can be done safely.

Its not yet clear whether families are withdrawing from public schools in significant numbers. A survey by the National Association of Independent Schools conducted in August found that 51% of private schools either maintained or grew enrollment for the coming school year, and 58% reported a larger than average number of admission inquiries from families in other types of schools  a category that could include traditional public schools, charter schools and parochial schools. Some private schools have also faced financial challenges during the pandemic, reporting a drop in international student enrollment and fewer fundraising opportunities. More than 100 private schools  mostly private Catholic schools  have permanently closed this year because of pandemic-related challenges, according to the libertarian Cato Institute.

Education experts warn that moving children from public to private schools would have a negative effect on public schools in the long run.

I cant say that I fault individual parents for doing what they think is best for their own kids. But the secession of upper middle class families from public school to private school is very bad for the country and for educational equality, Kahlenberg says.

And the very thing that is drawing some parents to private schools is also cause for concern among private school teachers. While teachers unions have opposed plans for in-person learning, threatening to strike if teachers and other school staff arent protected, most private school teachers are not unionized and have less leverage to object to their schools plans.

As of Aug. 30, nearly 3,000 teachers and other employees at more than 350 private schools had signed two anonymous petitions, calling for their schools to pursue virtual-only instruction to protect students and educators health. In interviews with TIME, several private school teachers said they are worried about the virus spreading when in-person classes begin but fear retaliation for raising concerns about school plans.

There may be fears around enrollment numbers dropping that are driving people to be back on campus, fears around losing families who are paying pretty enormous tuitions, said a teacher who organized one of the petitions and who requested anonymity for fear of being fired. At schools that can offer a robust, successful remote program, it feels irresponsible not to take that route. Our hearts go out to underfunded public schools that do not have the luxury of making this choice that many private schools can make.

Thats something that Erica Turner has been thinking about a lot, as both a parent and an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studies racism and inequity in educational policy. She recently published a guide for Equity in Pandemic Schooling, intended to be a resource for communities and families as they make plans for the coming school year.

When families abandon public schools and turn to private options, Turner wrote, they undermine the schools upon which less privileged families depend, making it harder for other students, especially low-income children of color, to get good educations. The guide encourages parents to advocate for more school funding from Congress, demand the resources to make remote learning accessible for all studentsincluding those who are homeless or have disabilitiesand keep their own children enrolled in public schools.

Obermeier, the mother in Maryland, says the issue of equity weighed heavily on her when she decided to pull her kids from public school. It was hard to think that, OK I can solve it for myself, while many others in the district would be left without a solution, she says.

As an immigrant from Ecuador, she also worries that the challenges of this school year will disproportionately affect low-income families or immigrants who dont speak English and who cant easily help their children learn at home. To me, the most equitable thing to have done was to open the schools and give priority to precisely the kids who need it, she says.

But as more school districts fail to reopen, families will continue to find individual, if inequitable, solutions.

In the end, we just have to make sure we have our priorities straight, Obermeier says, and for us right now, its stability and the least amount of disruption for our kids.
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I have been nourished by cafeteria food since elementary school. I remember the public school pizza squares with its melted artificial cheese, the fruit cocktail drenched in sickeningly sweet syrup, and 2 percent chocolate milk pintscosting $1.65 per meal. In college, I enjoyed access to a wider selection, including $6.50 custom omelets and midnight mozzarella sticks to fuel late-night study sessions. However, nothing came close to the quality and the price of the cafeteria at the new Stanford Hospital.

The state-of-the-art hospital at my alma mater had opened in late 2019 and cost $2 billion to build; an upperclassman aptly described it a machine meant to bill Medicare at the highest levels. Similarly, its cafeteria befit the caliber of clientele that the hospital hoped to draw. The cafeteria had the curved, Apple-sleek look and offered a variety of meals, including acai bowls, udon noodle soup, and made-to-order sushi rolls. For a medical student like me, however, the cafeteria may have been near unaffordable, with a full meal costing between $10-16; still, compared to the restaurants of Silicon Valley, this was a deal.

Eventually, as a medical student applying to an advanced residency, I knew that I had to leave my institution unless I wanted to do a preliminary surgery year (no thank you). I was eyeing the preliminary/traditional programs at the affiliated county hospital where I had done many of my third-year rotations. This place had everything I wanted for my intern year, including an underserved patient population, a generous elective schedule, and proximity to my significant other. The only major concern, however, was the cafeteria. The cafeteria at the other hospital was everything that the cafeteria of Stanford Hospital was not. The old linoleum floor crackled with every step. The offerings were unadorned, homely, and calorific American comfort foods, typically in a shade of yellow or brown.

However, this particular cafeteria had a few bright spots; the intern program catered delicious lunches from local restaurants during weekdays, gave us meal cards with $122 preloaded every month, and the cost was dirt-cheap, about $5-7 per meal. Last but not least, the hospital had Pancake Fridays, the weekly tradition celebrated by different specialties and teams. During my OB/Gyn, pediatrics, and general surgery rotations, the senior residents would volunteer to stand in a long line early in the morning as the interns pre-rounded and bring back heaping plates of pancakes fresh off the griddle, studded with blueberries, banana slices, and gooey chocolate chips. The event was unofficially sanctioned by the attendings, so the trainees knew it was an opportunity to catch ones breath.

Unfortunately, before I officially joined the hospital as an intern, COVID-19 had put a stop to all of that. In order to minimize as many human-to-human contact as possible, the crowd-gathering Pancake Fridays were nixed.

One of my new attendings, who herself had enjoyed the good old days of Pancake Friday as a resident, brought with her to-go Dennys pancakes, which the team ate outside as we watched a red rescue helicopter descend in the helipad. In retrospect, the pancakes from Pancake Fridays probably werent even all that great to begin with. But it was a treasured, protected opportunity and a moment of peace before the craziness of rounds.

And although the old cafeteria has transitioned to prepackaged foods like sandwiches and processed snack foods, it still became my sanctuary in the quiet liminal moments after pre-rounds and before morning reports. During this time, I sip my rehydrated instant coffee and run the list of patients in my head. Regardless of the shape or form or offerings of hospital cafeterias, Its been the best place to gather my thoughts and to prepare myself for the coming day. Our cafeterias are our source of nourishment, our source of comfort, a place of refuge in our busy schedules.

Yoo Jung Kim is a medical intern who blogs at Scope.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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So why were these Renaissance Men so obsessed with shit talk? To talk shit, it seems. Mead Skjelver posits that mentioning poop all the time was their way of seeming tough and bad-ass like old gritty warriors. This is backed up by the fact that men like Luther often would collect the pamphlets of his detractors, wipe his ass with them and then mail them back. It was a practice they had borrowed from old nobility who'd often take a noble deuce on their enemy's coat of arms and then parade the defiled mess into battle.

It's no surprise that the Renaissance, as the name implies, had some teething issues while coming out of the culture-vacuum that was the Middle Ages, where the height of comedy was to see someone die in a freak manure accident. Having such a potty-mouthed mythical figures shows that they were people of their time first, legendary figures only much later. Fortunately, all those butthole obsessions quickly went away at the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, when rational figures like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote Romantic poems to his cousin/lover like:

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Keep well, my love.

Into your mouth your arse you'll shove.

I wish you good night, my dear,

But first shit in your bed and make it burst.

Oh, dear. Of course, that was just in his private life. In Mozart's Art, he only dedicated himself to enlightened music, like the beautiful sounding Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schon sauber, which translates to  ah, shit.

For more weird shit, do follow Cedric on Twitter.

Top Image: Artist Unknown






Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Sunday (August 30) that Air India has been an asset but added that it is not government's responsibility to run airports and airlines. Puri expressed hope that the privatization process of Air India would get complete within 2020.

"Air India has been an asset and has a very good record, very trained professional people. But, the government should not be running airports and airlines, our government rules should be applied to commercial entities," Puri said at a meeting held via video conferencing on Sunday.

"It is important that as a growing concern, one that is attractive to potential bidders we should privatize it. I am hopeful that we will complete its privatization process this year," he added.

Earlier in August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre had extended the deadline for expression of interest for proposed strategic disinvestment of Air India till October 30. The Centre decided to extend the deadline by two months keeping in mind the prevailing situation due to the ongoing coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak. Earlier, the last date for expression of interest, as per the seventh corrigendum issued on June 25, 2020, was fiexed till 5 pm on August 31. While issuing the EoI in January, the last date for bids was kept at March 17, which was later extended to April 30. The Centre later extended the deadline till June 30, and again till August 31.

The date for intimation to qualified interested bidders (QIB) has been extended till November 20, the DIPAM said in the corrigendum posted on its website.

efending the Centre's move to privatize airpirts, Union Minister Puri said that during the erstwhile Congress rule they had "privatised the Delhi, Mumbai airports."
Ruling party chair explains why corona relief money spent on road construction

13:10, 31.08.20 9048

"Money must work," the official believes.
Five City Council members on Monday sent a letter to Mayor Sylvester Turner outlining police reforms they said Houston can implement immediately, including a complete overhaul of the Independent Police Oversight Board, a cite-and-release ordinance and incentive pay for officers who live within city limits.

In the letter, council members Edward Pollard, Tiffany Thomas, Jerry Davis, Martha Castex-Tatum and Carolyn Evans-Shabazz detail a slew of more than 25 reforms. Chief among them: a sweeping reboot of the oversight board, which reviews probes by the Houston Police Departments Internal Affairs Division.

They recommended the board have complete autonomy and investigative authority, with full access to all unclassified information from HPD.

We are convinced there must be a complete overhaul of the Independent Police Oversight Board (IPOB), the letter says. We have no confidence in the current format. We must create a structure of guidelines that governs the function of the new board to restore public trust with public input.

The letter comes as the mayors Task Force on Policing Reform is wrapping up its work. The groups report and recommendations are expected some time in September.

Turner, who has defended the police department and said the city needs more officers, said he welcomed the council members input and has forwarded their recommendations to the task force.

At a press conference Monday, he declined to stake out a position on any of their proposals, citing the task forces ongoing work.

I dont want to get out in front of the 45 people who are working on that as we speak, Turner said.

He did say, however, that a cite-and-release policy is in the works apart from the task force, though he did not offer further details. Such policies generally let some people charged with low-level crimes off with a citation instead of an arrest.

The council members letter also said the city could implement an online, independently-maintained dashboard showing complaints of police misconduct, HPD policies, guidelines and other relevant information.

This platform will be an innovative measure to not only hold officers accountable for misconduct, but will increase police community relations by being transparent in a data driven fashion, the letter said.

The letter outlines 25 items they asked be included in the next contract between the city and the Houston Police Officers Union.

Those include offering incentive pay and hiring priority to officers who live within city limits; recruiting officers from historically Black colleges and universities; having a citizen and citizen attorney present for walk-throughs at all police shootings; publishing HPDs General Orders online; ending the 48 Hour and 180 Hour rules, which give officers accused of misconduct time to prepare their defense, and including a council member in contract negotiations with the Houston Police Officers Union.

One measure notably absent in the letter is the citys budget, which drew criticism for increasing money for police by roughly $19 million amid calls to defund the police, or reallocate some of their funds to other city services. The letter makes no recommendation on that matter.

Police Chief Art Acevedo said he appreciated the input.

HPOU President Joe Gamaldi did not respond to a request for comment.

The letter received a cool reception among advocates and activists who have been pushing for more aggressive reforms.

Jaison Oliver, who has appeared before the council and lobbied for it to redirect police funds, said the letter falls short for that reason. He said the sole mention of the budget alluded to giving more money for Houston-based officers, a prospect that could further increase the budget.

Your whole thinking is focused on, How do we make a stronger police department, and how do we invest more resources in policing, said Oliver. And thats not going to make us safer. Thats not going to make us healthier.

Sarah Labowitz, policy and advocacy director for the ACLU of Texas said it was encouraging that council members are feeling a sense of urgency.

The community has called for a bunch of these things, she said, citing the oversight board reform, cite-and-release policy and disciplinary windows. And, yet, there are some major things where we still need action. And in all of this, council could act now. If they had the ordinance in front of them, they could act now on body camera release, on cite-and-release, and on (banning) no-knock warrants. Thats what we really want to see  real action now.

Ashton Woods, a founder and leader of Black Lives Matter Houston, reacted with skepticism. He pointed out that it did not address the budget, asked that the oversight board get access to only unclassified materials and would maintain the disciplinary boards formed by the police department and union.

Thing is, this feels like a sham that was APPROVED by Mayor Turner, Woods said on Twitter. This whole thing feels like a farce Id appreciate (Acevedos) resignation how bout that.

Woods also noted council members absent from the letter: Abbie Kamin, who chairs the public safety committee; and Letitia Plummer, who won plaudits from activists  and consternation from her colleagues  for her bid to redirect some police funds during the budget debate.

Kamin said she has been advocating for the cite-and-release ordinance that Turner mentioned Monday. She also forwarded a report of recommendations from an eight-hour committee hearing in June, Turner said.

In a statement, Plummer said she had been waiting for the task force to submit its recommendations.

I applaud my colleagues for bringing concrete solutions to the table. Some of these are actionable items; however, this is not the first letter that has been sent to the Mayor, Plummer said. Councilmembers were empowered and elected to create policy. It is time to exercise our full legislative powers. I was waiting for the Task Force to release its recommendations, but since my colleagues are ready take these steps, now its time to legislate.

dylan.mcguinness@chron.com
PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Aberdeen Asia-Pacific Income Fund, Inc. (NYSE American: FAX) (the "Fund"), a closed-end fund, today announced that it paid on August 31, 2020, a distribution of US $0.0275 per share to all shareholders of record as of August 21, 2020 (ex-dividend date August 20, 2020).

Your Fund's distribution policy is to provide investors with a stable monthly distribution out of current income, supplemented by realized capital gains and, to the extent necessary, paid-in capital.

Under U.S. tax rules applicable to the Fund, the amount and character of distributable income for each fiscal year can be finally determined only as of the end of the Fund's fiscal year. However, under Section 19 of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the "1940 Act") and related Rules, the Fund may be required to indicate to shareholders the estimated source of certain distributions to shareholders.

The following table sets forth the estimated amounts of the sources of the distribution for purposes of Section 19 of the 1940 Act and the Rules adopted thereunder. The table has been computed based on generally accepted accounting principles. The table includes estimated amounts and percentages for this distribution and for the cumulative distributions paid relating to fiscal year to date (11/01/2019 - 07/31/2020), from the following sources: net investment income; net realized short-term capital gains; net realized long-term capital gains; and return of capital. The estimated composition of the distributions may vary from month to month because the estimated composition may be impacted by future income, expenses and realized gains and losses on securities and currencies.



Estimated Amounts of Current Monthly Distribution per share ($) Estimated Amounts of Current Monthly Distribution per share (%) Estimated Amounts of Fiscal Year to Date Cumulative Distributions per share ($) Estimated Amounts of Fiscal Year to Date Cumulative Distributions per share (%) Net Investment Income $0.0118 43% $0.1183 43% Net Realized Short-Term Capital Gains* - - - - Net Realized Long-Term Capital Gains - - - - Return of Capital $0.0157 57% $0.1567 57% Total (per common share) $0.0275 100% $0.2750 100% *includes currency gains

The Fund estimates that it has distributed more than its income and capital gains; therefore, a portion of your distribution may be a return of capital. A return of capital may occur for example, when some or all of the money that you invested in the Fund is paid back to you. A return of capital distribution does not necessarily reflect the Fund's investment performance and should not be confused with "yield" or "income."

Shareholders should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the amount of the Fund's current distributions or from the terms of the distribution policy (the "Distribution Policy").

The amounts and sources of distributions reported in this notice are only estimates and are not being provided for tax reporting purposes. The final determination of the source of all distributions in 2020 will be made after year-end. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the remainder of the fiscal year and may be subject to change based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report these distributions for federal income tax purposes.

The following table provides information regarding the Fund's total return performance based on net asset value (NAV) over various time periods compared to the Fund's annualized and cumulative distribution rates.

Average Annual Total Return on NAV for the 5 Year Period Ending 07/31/20201 4.90% Current Fiscal Period's Annualized Distribution Rate on NAV2 7.07% Fiscal Year to Date (11/01/2019 to 07/31/2020) Cumulative Total Return on NAV1 1.89% Cumulative Distribution Rate on NAV2 5.30% 1Return data is net of all fund expenses and fees and assumes the reinvestment of all distributions reinvested at prices obtained under the Fund's dividend reinvestment plan. 2 Based on the Fund's NAV as of July 31, 2020.

While NAV performance may be indicative of the Fund's investment performance, it does not measure the value of a shareholder's investment in the Fund. The value of a shareholder's investment in the Fund is determined by the Fund's market price, which is based on the supply and demand for the Fund's shares in the open market.

Pursuant to an exemptive order granted by the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 30, 2010, the Fund may distribute any long-term capital gains more frequently than the limits provided in Section 19(b) under the 1940 Act and Rule 19b-1 thereunder. Therefore, distributions paid by the Fund during the year may include net income, short-term capital gains, long-term capital gains and/or a return of capital. Net income dividends and short-term capital gain dividends, while generally taxable at ordinary income rates, may be eligible, to the extent of qualified dividend income earned by the Fund, to be taxed at a lower rate not to exceed the maximum rate applicable to your long-term capital gains. Distributions made in any calendar year in excess of investment company taxable income and net capital gain are treated as taxable ordinary dividends to the extent of undistributed earnings and profits, and then as a return of capital that reduces the adjusted basis in the shares held. To the extent return of capital distributions exceed the adjusted basis in the shares held, capital gain is recognized with a holding period based on the period the shares have been held at the date such amount is received. Shareholders should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the terms of the distribution policy. The final determination of the source of all distributions will be made after year-end. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the fiscal year and may be subject to change based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report distributions for federal income tax purposes.

The payment of distributions in accordance with the Distribution Policy may result in a decrease in the Fund's net assets. A decrease in the Fund's net assets may cause an increase in the Fund's annual operating expense ratio and a decrease in the Fund's market price per share to the extent the market price correlates closely to the Fund's net asset value per share. The Distribution Policy may also negatively affect the Fund's investment activities to the extent that the Fund is required to hold larger cash positions than it typically would hold or to the extent that the Fund must liquidate securities that it would not have sold, for the purpose of paying the distribution. The Fund's Board of Directors has the right to amend, suspend or terminate the Distribution Policy at any time. The amendment, suspension or termination of the Distribution Policy may affect the Fund's market price per share. Investors should consult their tax advisor regarding federal, state and local tax considerations that may be applicable in their particular circumstances.

Circular 230 disclosure : To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the U.S. Treasury, we inform you that any U.S. tax advice contained in this communication (including any attachments) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed herein.

In the United States, Aberdeen Standard Investments is the marketing name for the following affiliated, registered investment advisers: Aberdeen Standard Investments Inc., Aberdeen Asset Managers Ltd., Aberdeen Standard Investments Australia Ltd., Aberdeen Standard Investments (Asia) Ltd., Aberdeen Capital Management, LLC, Aberdeen Standard Investments ETFs Advisors LLC and Standard Life Investments (Corporate Funds) Ltd.

Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Fund's investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investor's shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the NAV of the fund's portfolio. There is no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

If you wish to receive this information electronically, please contact [email protected]

aberdeenfax.com

SOURCE Aberdeen Asia-Pacific Income Fund, Inc.

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Odisha: Ultramodern fish market at Puri soon

August 31,2020 | Source: Orissa Post

Fish and seafood lovers, theres a piece of good news for you. If things go well, an ultramodern fish market with state-of-the-art facilities would come up soon at Talabania here. Envisioned by the Fisheries department with an initial estimation of Rs 6 crore, the mega fish market would come upon a 2.5 acre land at Talabania area in the Pilgrim City here. Puri, being one of the biggest tourist destinations in eastern India, draws people from far and wide. Besides visiting the Srimandir, tourists and devotees usually prefer spending time at the golden beach. At a time when such experiences give solace to the restless minds, roadside vendors selling fish and seafood hither and thither in an untidy condition are nothing short of a mood spoiler.



The state government has been spending crores of rupees to transform Puri as a World Heritage City. This would help draw more tourists from across the globe. Amid such a scenario, fish waste to rainwater passing through to trash and making the localities complete eyesore would definitely leave a scar in the minds of tourists. Even those residing near the makeshift fish shops in the Holy City have expressed displeasure over the untidy scenario, an ocial of the Fisheries department said explaining the need for such a one-stop destination for all types of fish and seafood buyers.



The oficial added that instead of selling the stuff here and there, the fish vendors will be allotted dedicated space at the upcoming marketplace. Initially, arrangements will be done for 100 sellers. Depending upon the demand, it will be upgraded to multi-storey. Fresh fish and seafood will be made available at the marketplace under hygienic conditions. Wastewater from the marketplace will be filtered before being released into drain. This apart, trash from the market will be collected and dumped at a faraway place on a regular basis no foul odour or swampy environment anymore, said the official, adding that a vegetable market would also come up near the fish market. Asked, district fisheries officer Debendra Behera said that the marketplace would be a one-stop destination for fish sellers and buyers with hygiene being paramount.
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala was rocked on the eve of Onam by the murders of two DYFI workers who were hacked by an armed group allegedly linked to the Congress at Thempamoodu on Sunday night.

Midhilaj, 30, and Muhammed Haq, 24, were murdered while they were going to the former's house at Ozhukupara near Vembayam.

Four people who were directly involved in the attack have been taken into custody by police.

Midhilaj, a native of Ozhukupara, and Haq, a native of Kalunginmugham, were affiliated with their local DYFI units.

The CPM alleged that Congress leaders had a hand in the murders and demanded strict action against the culprits. However, Congress leaders brushed aside the allegation and said the murders were the fallout of a turf war between two group of goons.

Police said the two along with their friend Shahin were travelling to Midhilaj's place in a bike around 11.30 pm on Sunday when they were waylaid by the assailants. There had been clashes between the two groups before. A few months ago, two DYFI workers, who were accomplices of Haq, were hacked by Youth Congress workers.

CCTV visuals collected from a junction close to the spot where they were murdered showed the two, who were also armed with swords, being attacked by up to six people wielding sharp-edged weapons resembling short swords. The pitched fight lasted for about 15 minutes.

The murder, however, occurred in another place, where the CCTV cameras were reportedly turned off by the assailants. Midhilaj who was stabbed on the chest died on the spot, while Haq who sustained wounds on his face, head and chest died at the Medical College Hospital.

Attingal DySp S Y Suresh has been appointed to hold the probe owing to the seriousness of the case.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31) Five Philippine hospitals have been named as possible sites for the clinical trials for CoronaVac Chinese pharmaceutical giant Sinovac Biotech Ltds COVID-19 vaccine candidate should its deal with the country push through, the Health Department said Monday.

In a media forum, Health spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said the proposed sites for the trials include the Philippine General Hospital, San Lazaro hospital, Manila Doctors Hospital, the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, and the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.

Vergeire noted drug importer IP Biotech Inc. has submitted an application for the clinical study before the Food and Drug Administration.

May prinoprocess na application for the clinical study. They have already submitted, na-final na ang CDA, Confidential Disclosure Agreement, at pinag-aaralan na ng vaccines experts' panel, Vergeire said.

[Translation: There is an ongoing application for the clinical study. They have already submitted, the Confidential Disclosure Agreement has been finalized, and our vaccine experts' panel is already reviewing this.]

The Phase 3 of the clinical trial for CoronaVac already began in Indonesia this August. CNN Indonesia reported that the aim is to test the vaccine on 1,620 individuals. At least 110 of them received the first dose on August 14.

The Phase 3 trial is the critical stage where thousands of patients are vaccinated to test the drug's safety and efficacy. The completion of this stage is required before the FDA reviews the vaccine for mass rollout.

Meanwhile, the countrys vaccine research panel is also currently studying Russias report on its controversial Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to determine if it is safe to test out on Filipinos.
According to Foreign Affairs Minister Mario Lopez, Peru could have a COVID-19 vaccine by the beginning of next year , as a result of the negotiations conducted at the bilateral and multilateral levels so as to achieve that goal.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air cast - Karyn Parsons, Tatyana Ali, Will Smith, Daphne Maxwell Reid, Alfonso Ribeiro, Joseph Marcell, and DJ Jazzy Jeff - will reunite for a 30th anniversary special set to air around Thanksgiving on HBO Max.

Marcus Raboy will direct the unscripted special about the fish-out-of-water NBC sitcom, which aired for six seasons spanning 1990-1996, is scheduled to tape on September 10 - according to Variety.

Sadly, James Avery - who played patriarch Philip Banks - passed away at age 68 in 2013 from complications following open heart surgery.

Excited? The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air cast - Karyn Parsons, Tatyana Ali, Will Smith, Daphne Maxwell Reid, Alfonso Ribeiro, Joseph Marcell, and DJ Jazzy Jeff - will reunite for a 30th anniversary special set to air around Thanksgiving on HBO Max

As for the original Vivian Banks, King Ester star Janet Hubert, she was mysteriously fired off the popular show after the first three seasons due to an alleged 'feud with network officials.'

At the time, Smith blamed the 64-year-old Daytime Emmy nominee's ego during a radio interview in which he claimed Janet called him the 'anti-Christ' and wanted it to be called 'The Aunt Viv of Bel-Air Show.'

'It's the 30th anniversary a Fresh Prince. And they want to start a war,' Hubert wrote on her public Instagram account on August 18.

'Well here is my challenge - we can either keep this war going for another 30 years but I'm not going to, or you can sit down with me and talk to me and not about me Mr. Smith then let's do it. Can you only sit and talk about your strange unsavory problems in front of the world?'

Teaser: Marcus Raboy will direct the unscripted special about the fish-out-of-water NBC sitcom, which aired for six seasons spanning 1990-1996, is scheduled to tape on September 10

Diva? The original Vivian Banks, King Ester star Janet Hubert (R), was mysteriously fired off the popular show after the first three seasons due to an alleged 'feud with network officials'

'Accept my challenge or shut up!' On August 18, the 64-year-old Daytime Emmy nominee challenged the 51-year-old Oscar nominee to 'sit down with me and talk to me'

The Julliard grad continued: 'Accept my challenge or shut up! Either you're telling the truth and the BLACK MEN of the cast are telling the truth or I'm telling the truth. And only YOU and I... and quite a few others, know the truth let's do this do YOU have the courage? #seeyouinseptember'

It's only been four months since the 51-year-old Oscar nominee last assembled Reid, Parsons, Marcell, Jeff, Ali, and Ribeiro for a reunion during the finale of his Snapchat series, Will From Home.

Before that, the same group gathered at Nobu Malibu in 2017 in honor of a British family, who bid the highest for lunch with the cast through Parson's charity, Sweet Blackberry Foundation.

And earlier this month, THR reported that Smith was shopping around a drama reboot of Fresh Prince based on Morgan Cooper's viral mock trailer, Bel-Air.

Hello again! It's only been four months since Smith last assembled (from L-R) Reid, Parsons, Marcell, Jeff, Ali, and Ribeiro for a reunion during the finale of his Snapchat series, Will From Home
Former chief minister Farooq Abdullah has said his National Conference (NC) opted out of the Delimitation Commission in May as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was allegedly seeking to create Hindu dominance in the Muslim majority region and to divide the Union Territory on religious lines through the process.

The Centre in March set up the commission to redraw parliamentary and assembly constituencies based on the recent census in Jammu & Kashmir, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Nagaland. NC opted out of it in May. That is because we told them on their face that we do not believe in your delimitation. The BJP has a certain purpose. It wants that in J&K [Jammu & Kashmir], a Hindu majority emerges, and the Muslim majority goes down, he told HT in a joint interview with his son, another former chief minister, Omar Abdullah. Can you beat what the government of India is trying to do here?

Farooq Abdullah said when he was the chief minister, the assembly of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir decided to go for the delimitation exercise along with the rest of the country in 2026. Then, why has the Centre suddenly brought it forward? They want to divide us on the Hindu-Muslim lines and create Hindu dominance. That will never happen, he said.

Farooq Abdullah was among three NC Parliamentarians named as the members of the commission.

Omar Abdullah called the commission a product of the constitutional changes brought in August last year to divest Jammu & Kashmir of its special status and to divide it into two Union territories. When we do not recognise those changes, how can we recognise this panel? By participating in its proceedings, we will essentially be lending credence to the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019. When we are fighting this Act, there is no question of participation.

Omar Abdullah said the commissions membership does not grant one the veto power. Our three MPs [members of Parliament] may have been able to share their views, but that would not have been binding on the commission. Our participation would have been used as a rubber stamp.

The political environment in Jammu & Kashmir is in flux again a year after the constitutional changes that prompted sweeping measures, including the incarceration of hundreds of people, to prevent protests against them. Farooq Abdullah, who was among the three former chief ministers also detained, has emerged as the prime mover and pivot in the formation of a conglomerate of the six regional parties  some of them sworn rivals  that has posed the first challenge to the Centre by reaffirming commitment to the Gupkar Declaration pegged to the demand for restoration of the special status.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to delimitation exercise in his Independence Day speech and said it is underway and assembly elections would follow in Jammu & Kashmir.

Also Read: Farooq Abdullah meets more National Conference leaders

When asked if he would contest the elections, Farooq Abdullah said: Any decision [on contesting] will depend first on my party and we will take a call subject to the situation. We will talk to other stakeholders in the Gupkar Declaration. If we are united in this exercise, we will take them on board and decide.

Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah were released in March while another former chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, continues to be under detention under draconian Public Safety Act that allows incarceration for up to two years without trial.
Taking a brief dip in water just a couple of degrees above 20 C can be refreshing on a hot summer day  but spend hours in that water, and it starts to get icy cold.

But Julia Notebomer wasnt fazed by the chill of Lake Erie as she dipped her toes in on Sunday and prepared to spend many hours in it.

The Stratford teen spent months preparing for an epic 20-kilometre swim across the Great Lake, swimming from Sturgeon Point, N.Y., to Bay Beach in Fort Eries Crystal Beach community on her 14th birthday to become the youngest person ever to swim across the body of water.

The event doubled as a fundraiser for Make a Wish Canada, which grants life-changing wishes to kids with critical illnesses.

But the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic complicated preparations for the big day: in addition to making fundraising efforts more difficult, it also forced the closure of the pool that Julia usually trains in with her swim team.

So the teen improvised.

Her mom, Mirjam Schut, said her family opened up their unheated backyard pool much earlier than usual this spring so Julia could train.

She was swimming while it was still snowing in the backyard, she said.

As she stepped on to the beach after six and a half hours in the water, Julia wanted no part of the vanilla birthday cake waiting for her, at first.

Im not feeling that great at the moment, she said. My toes are blue.

The teen said the first three hours were a breeze.

Once I hit three hours, I got kind of sick of it, she conceded. I got tired and my shoulders started hurting.

Within minutes, however, the recuperative powers of youth kicked in and Julia was all smiles as she was greeted by Fort Erie Mayor Wayne Redekop.

Julia, who fell in love with open-water swimming when she first swam in Lake Erie when she was 10 to raise funds for Camp Trillium in Hamilton, a special camp for kids with cancer, said she felt compelled to do something for Make a Wish.

I believe every kid should have the opportunity to just be a kid and have fun, she said. I think theyre such an amazing organization. They do really amazing work.

Knowing fatigue would be a powerful enemy in such a long swim, Julia said she had a secret weapon to motivate her: a little girl named Cloey.

Shes the young girl that Make a Wish matched her with. Julia said Cloey is hoping to travel to a major theme park in Orlando when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, and has sent her videos encouraging her.

Just a day before the big swim, Cloey posted another video of herself on Facebook.

Im going to be sitting at home, watching the updates, cheering you on, she told Julia. Thank you so much for supporting me and Make a Wish. Youve got this, girl.

Julia said the thought of Cloey counting on her would urge her to keep going on her epic swim.

Thats definitely going to help me, she said. Ill be thinking of Cloey and all the other amazing Make a Wish kids who battle through it every day.

Make a Wish of Southwestern Ontario also posted a message for Julia: Thank you so much Julia for taking on this challenge and demonstrating so much bravery, much like our courageous wish kids have to do every day as they battle their critical illnesses.

Julia set a fundraising goal of $10,000, but as of Sunday it looked like shed be closer to $15,000. That was done through a combination of online donations to Make a Wish  they can still be made at makeawishca.donordrive.com/campaign/wavesforwishes2020  and through fundraising spearheaded by Julia, which included a bottle drive and selling buttons she made.

Schut said the whole experience has been a character-building one for Julia, who had to conquer her fears to approach local service clubs for support and bars and restaurants to ask for bottle donations.

Shes done all that by herself, she said. Were really proud of her journey.

Its built skills shell be able to use for the rest of her life.

Julia said she was blown away by how so many others jumped on board to help her in her quest.

The support Ive received from everyone has been absolutely amazing, she said.

The teen said she learned while training what foods are best for keeping her going on long swims: Twix chocolate bars, watermelon and banana gummy bears.

Its not that healthy, but its good, she said.

Julia said rules dictate a swimmer must be at least 14 to attempt a lake crossing so unless that rule is changed, there can never be anyone younger than her who will complete the crossing.
Supreme Court fines Prashant Bhushan Re 1 in contempt case

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

New Delhi, Aug 31: Advocate Prashant Bhushan was on Monday let off with a fine of Re 1 by the Supreme Court as he was found guilty of criminal contempt for two of his tweets.

The bench, comprising Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari, directed the lawyer to deposit the amount by September 15, failing which he will attract a three-month jail term and debarment from law practice for three years.

Coronavirus outbreak: India records more than 78,000 COVID-19 cases; Tally above 3.62 million

On August 14, the bench had held Bhushan guilty over the tweets made on June 29. It heard arguments for sentencing on August 20 and reserved its judgement on August 25.

Bhushan had submitted a stated to the court that the "two tweets represented" his "bonafide beliefs" and that he did not want to apologise for the same. He also answered in the negative when asked if he wished to reconsider his statement.

However, the court gave him time till August 24 "to submit unconditional apology, if he so desires".

The bench met again on August 25 to consider the "effect of the supplementary statement". Reserving its judgement that day, the bench expressed its anguish at Bhushan's criticism of "sitting and retired" judges.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Monday, August 31, 2020, 13:02 [IST]
The Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) on Monday postponed a meeting of the proposed Third Front called by its president Jitan Ram Manjhi to discuss the strategy for the Bihar polls, amid clear indications of its return to the NDA. The meeting that was scheduled on Wednesday has been put off, a party statement said.

The HAM chief had invited some non-NDA and non-Grand Alliance parties, including Jan Adhikar Party of former MP Pappu Yadav, to discuss the strategy for the Bihar elections that is due in October-November. Sources in the HAM said that after severing ties with the RJD-led Grand Alliance, Manjhi has been weighing options before "by and large" deciding to join the NDA, comprising the JD(U), BJP and LJP.

Talks were earlier held even with Asaduddin Owaisi-headed AIMIM, which after winning the Kishanganj bypoll in 2019 is preparing to field a substantial number of candidates in the Seemanchal area that has a large minority population. Though no reason was given for postponing the meeting,a senior leader of the HAM said there is no point in engaging in any such discussions when encouraging talks have already been held with the JD(U) headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Manjhi met Kumar last Thursday and believed to have held talks on seat sharing. The BJP also seems to have given the green signal to Manjhi's comeback to the grouping with its Bihar unit head Sanjay Jaiswal on Saturday saying that whoever expresses faith on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership is welcome to the alliance.

Jaiswal had made the comment after BJP president JP Nadda's meeting with the party's MPs from Bihar. HAM national spokesperson Danish Rizwan said the Nitish Kumar government has done a lot for the poor, Dalits and minorities in the state.

Notably, Manjhi had on August 20 severed his ties with the Grand Alliance after spending two-and-a-half years in the opposition coalition. Besides the RJD and Congress, the opposition grouping has RLSP of former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha and Bollywood set designer-turned-politician Mukesh Sahni's Vikasshil Insaan Party (VIP).

The CPI and CPI(M) have also shown interest to fight the state polls in understanding with the opposition coalition. The HAM chief is the lone member of his party in the assembly. But, induction of Manjhi would help NDA's outreach to Dalits, particularly other than Paswans which is the support base of the LJP.

Dalits in Bihar are over 16 per cent of the electorate and about 40 seats in the 243-member house are reserved for them. On the day he met Kumar, Manjhi told reporters that he would talk to the press on August 30 after a party meeting.

But, the meeting was cancelled and the party announced the September 2 meeting of the prospective Third Front. Reports suggest that Manjhi joining the NDA has almost been finalised and the delay in announcement is mainly on account of the final agreement on the number of seats HAM will get to contest in the upcoming elections.

HAM wants to contest 15-20 seats, mostly in the Magadh region to which Manjhi belongs. But the JD(U) is willing to leave for it 10-12 seats, the reports have said. Manjhi had quit the JD(U) in 2015 after being forced to step down as the chief minister to make way for the return of Kumar.

Later, he formed the HAM and contested 21 seats in the2015 Bihar assembly elections as an NDA constituent. With there turn of Kumar to the NDA in July 2017, he walked out of itto join hands with the opposition grouping.
Former President Pranab Mukherjee, 84, who passed away in Delhi on Monday has often been described as a statesman and a scholar. But first and foremost, he was a true-blue politician. Before taking up residence at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, he had the distinction of occupying several key posts both in the government and the Congress.

And yet, history will remember Mukherjee (affectionately called Pranab Da) as the perennial Prime Minister-in-waiting who was always relegated to the number two slot.

Having been consistently denied the Prime Ministers kursi, which Mukherjee rightly felt he deserved, the diminutive leader believed his next best option was to move to the Rashtrapati Bhavan. He used his finely-honed skills and the friendships he had forged across the political spectrum over the years to virtually force the Congress to name him as its Presidential candidate in 2012.

When he took over as the countrys first citizen the same year, the shift marked the culmination of a long political journey which began in 1969. The Rajya Sabha was his first port of call and he remained there for another four terms till he decided to enter the rough and tumble of electoral politics in 2004 when he contested and won the Jangipur Lok Sabha seat from his home state West Bengal.

This decision was prompted by a desire to prove his critics wrong, who whispered conspiratorially that Mukherjee had no mass base and was an armchair politician. When he did win, sceptics never tired of pointing out that he owed his victory to his one-time bete noire, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress Mamata Banerjee, who ensured he did not have too tough a time in the field.

Mukherjee was a valuable member of Indira Gandhis team, and went on to head the all-important finance ministry in the early eighties. But his meteoric rise in the Congress was cut short after Indira Gandhis assassination in 1984 when he (on being asked) explained to Rajiv Gandhi the constitutional position that in such instances, the senior most minister is appointed acting Prime Minister.

This was interpreted as a suggestion that Mukherjee, widely seen as Indira Gandhis successor, be appointed Prime Minister. This did not go down well with Rajiv Gandhi who then proceeded to marginalise Mukherjee.

Mukherjee subsequently left the Congress and formed his own party but could not go too far. He returned to the Congress fold after he made peace with Rajiv Gandhi in 1989. Two years later, when PV Narasimha Rao took over as Prime Minister, he inducted Mukherjee into his Cabinet. This proved to be a turning point as it meant he was back in the thick of things.

But disappointment was in store for him in later years. Mukherjee was predictably irked when he was overlooked for the Prime Ministers post by Congress president Sonia Gandhi in 2004. He obviously believed he had redeemed himself sufficiently, because it was his expertise in the interpretation of the party constitution which paved the way for Sonia Gandhis installation as Congress president in 1998. He later put it down to the fact that he was not conversant in Hindi.

But clearly the trust deficit was still in place. The veteran leader took some time to reconcile to serving under Manmohan Singh whose appointment letter as governor of the Reserve Bank of India was signed by Mukherjee when he was finance minister. In fact, it proved to be a double blow as he was initially told he would be heading the home ministry but here again, the senior leader was beaten to it by Shivraj Patil. I remember when we dropped in at his residence before the formal announcement, Mukherjee was already poring over reports of the standing committee of the home ministry studying the extent of the Maoist activities.

However, the veteran leader did not waste time sulking and soon immersed himself in the various responsibilities he was entrusted with. As a quintessential political animal, he revelled in handling critical situations both in the government and the party. It was, therefore, no surprise that he was given charge of key ministerial portfolios, ranging from defence and finance to external affairs.

He held equally important positions in the party, as a member of the Congress Working Committee and Lok Sabha leader. He was no doubt a useful hand given his elephantine memory, knowledge of Parliamentary procedures, administrative skills and political acumen. Whether it was Indira Gandhi or Manmohan Singh, Prime Ministers depended on Mukherjee to deliver for them. He was popularly described as the partys troubleshooter, a role he slipped into quite naturally when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government was in power.

From evolving a consensus on contentious issues like the Patents Bill and the Indo-US Nuclear Agreement in Parliament and handling the Anna Hazare-led agitation for a Lokpal Bill to heading key ministerial panels, Mukherjee had his hands full. But as a workaholic, he would not have had it any other way. His room in Parliament House was a hub of activity as his Cabinet colleagues, opposition leaders and Congress leaders lined up either to air their grievances or seek his counsel in handling difficult situations.

However, it was not all smooth sailing during the UPA regime. The prickly relationship between Mukherjee and his Cabinet colleague P Chidambaram became a source of embarrassment for Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi. The tension boiled over in 2011 when a note sent by the Mukherjee-led finance ministry to the Prime Ministers office suggested that Chidambaram had been complicit in the decision to forgo the auction route in the sale of 2G spectrum. Sonia Gandhi had to step in and the two leaders addressed a press briefing to put a lid on the controversy.

On his part, Chidambaram took potshots at Mukherjee when he returned to the finance ministry after the senior leader shifted to the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Chidambaram publicly criticised his predecessor for leaving the ministry in a mess. Mukherjees second tenure as finance minister failed to measure up to his reputation as the country ran up a large current account deficit during this period while the tax policy on retrospective amendments did little to inspire confidence among foreign investors.

As a loyal soldier of the party, Mukherjee did not waste time sulking at being overlooked for the Prime Ministers post but he obviously did not forget it either. This was evident when he decided to visit the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh headquarters in 2018 as it is a known fact that the Congress (especially the Gandhi family) has a particular aversion to the RSS. The palpable tension between Mukherjee and the Congress was obvious to the BJP which proceeded to add fuel to the fire by conferring the Bharat Ratna on the former President.

Mukherjee was known to be persuasive and skilled in forging consensus on intractable issues but he was also quick-tempered and did not suffer fools easily. He would not hesitate to snap back at anyone - whether it was a Cabinet colleague or a media person - if asked questions which he believed were inane. When a reporter once queried him about the reasons for the Congress defeat in an election, his cryptic reply was, Simple, because people did not vote for us.

And yet Mukherjee could be utterly disarming and an interesting raconteur for which he drew upon his phenomenal memory for facts, figures and historical events. When questioned once about how he had acquired such a sharp memory, Mukherjees response was typical, For that you have to read.

The former president himself was a voracious reader and despite the punishing schedule he kept through his five decades in public life, he made time to write a regular diary. Some of the contents of these diaries were subsequently used in his books on the Indira Years, the turbulent period from the eighties to the mid-nineties and the coalition period. But as a stickler for rules and procedures and conscious of the oath he took as a Cabinet minister and President, Mukherjee made sure he did not cross the lakshman rekha.
New Delhi: Delhi's Directorate of Education has directed all the private unaided recognized schools to take no fee except the tution fees from the parents during the COVID-19 lockdown period.

It also directed such schools that annual and development charges can be charged from the parents on pro-rata basis and only on a monthly basis after completion of the lockdown period.

Such schools were also directed by Delhi's Directorate of Education the following orders:

1. No earmarked levies such as transportation charges etc will be charged from the parents during the period the schools remain closed

2. In no case, the schools shall demand and collect the above-mentioned fees from the parents/students on a quarterly basis, ie, fees will be collected on a monthly basis only.

3. Not to increase any fee in the academic session 2020-21 till further directions irrespective of the fact whether or not the school is running on the private land or the land allotted by DOA/other Govt land-owning agencies.

4. The schools running on the land allotted by the DDA or other land-owning agencies with the condition to seek approval of Director (Education) before any fee increase, shall collect the above-mentioned fees on the basis of last fee structure approved by Director (Education) or as per fee statement filed by them under 17 (3) of DSEAR, 1973 during academic session 2015-16.

5. Schools shall ensure to provide the access of online education, material and classes to all students without any discrimination, by providing them ID and password immediately to get them online education facility.

6. Heads of the schools shall, in no case, deny ID and password to those students/parents for getting online access of educational facilities, classes, materials etc to those students who are unable to pay the school fee due to financial crisis arising out of the closure of business activities amid the ongoing lockdown condition.

7. Managing Committee of the schools/heads of the schools shall not put extra financial burden by creating any new head of fee.

Delhi's Directorate of Education also directed schools to not to stop payment of monthly salary nor reduce the existing total emolument to the teaching and non-teaching staff of their schools.
Apple is seemingly everywhere these days. From its headline-grabbing stock split to its industry-leading carbon-neutral push, the tech giant is truly showing that it is worth its $2 trillion valuation. And now, it's ramping up the pressure on its suppliers to commit to going green, as well.

Though Apple reached its goal of powering its facilities across the globe with 100% renewable energy back in 2018, it had received some criticism because a number of its suppliers were not quite on the same page. But these critiques didn't fall on deaf ears.

Last month, Apple announced that it would be pushing its suppliers to go green, as well, with the lofty goal of helping its entire supply chain become carbon-neutral by 2030. And because of the sheer size of Apple's operations, this move would be the equivalent of taking over 3 million cars off of the road each year.

Already, over 70 of its suppliers have committed to using only renewable energy, including chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which recently signed the world's largest renewable corporate power deal with Denmark's Orsted. Under the deal, TSMC will buy 920 megawatts of power from the Greater Changhua 2b & 4, when the offshore wind farm project is scheduled to be finalized by 2025 or 2026 for a period of no less than 20 years. This commitment could be a game-changer for Taiwan. Right now, Taiwan produces as much as 90% of its electricity through coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy. As it stands, this isn't enough for Big Tech - which is leading the renewable push across the globe.

Related: Three Stocks To Watch As Natural Gas Prices Bounce Back

Currently, $53.4 billion in corporate revenue in Taiwan comes from tech facilities linked to companies with clean power goals. With this new deal between TSMC and Orsted, however, Taiwan is well on its way to rising to the demands of tech giants looking to clean up their supply chains.

Orrin Cook, director of international programs at the Center for Resource Solutions, a San Francisco think tank explained, In Taiwan, without the leading tech companies demand for renewable energy, I dont believe that change would have taken place.."

This landmark deal was the first of its kind in Taiwan, and it could spark a new renewable boom in the island nation.

By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Aleksei Navalnys team has published its investigative report about corruption in Siberia, where the Russian opposition politician was apparently poisoned earlier this month while conducting research.



The report, published on Navalny's website on August 31, claims 18 out of 50 lawmakers in Novosibirsk, Russias third-largest city, are owners or represent owners of construction companies.

The report also gives detailed information about properties and assets of the lawmakers and their relatives and calls on people in Novosibirsk to vote for opposition candidates supported by Navalny's Smart Voting project.



Novosibirsk and the surrounding region is experiencing a building boom, including government-funded projects, raising questions about conflicts of interest among the lawmakers.



Navalny was touring Siberia, including Novosibirsk and Tomsk, where municipal elections will be held in September, when he suddenly felt sick aboard a plane flying from Tomsk to Moscow on August 20.



The 44-year-old spent two days in a hospital in the city of Omsk before being transferred to Germany, where he remains in an intensive-care unit in a medically induced coma.



Doctors at the Charite Hospital in Berlin have concluded that Navalny was poisoned by a group of active substances called cholinesterase inhibitors, which are found in several drugs as well as in some pesticides and nerve agents.



Navalnys team claims he was deliberately poisoned and have blamed the Kremlin. The Russian doctors in Omsk who treated Navalny said their tests did not find any trace of poison in Navalny.



The German doctors conclusion has prompted Western governments to demand Russia fully investigate how Navalny was poisoned.



So far, Russian officials have brushed aside allegations Navalny was deliberately poisoned and shown little indication they plan to fully investigate the case.
The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) on Sunday curtailed a fire outbreak at the palace of the Oba of Isheri-Olofin in Idimu, Wahab Balogun.

The fire razed one out of the eight bedrooms in the bungalow that make up the palace, LASEMA disclosed.

The cause of the fire outbreak was attributed to an electrical surge.

Upon arrival at the incident scene, it was observed that a room in an 8-bedroom bungalow inside the kings palace was gutted by fire.

Further investigation gathered at the incident scene revealed that the fire was as a result of electrical surge when power was restored, and was completely extinguished.

LASEMA added that the post disaster assessment conducted by the team revealed that there was no threat of reignition, nor signs of structural defects as a result of the fire.

An adult male was reportedly choked by the smoke while extinguishing the fire and was rushed to a hospital.

In a similar operation, the agency quelled a fire outbreak that occurred at Cele bridge, inward Oshodi.

The fire broke out from some stored wires under the bridge. The owner of the wires was said to have fled the scene.

No casualties, nor injuries were recorded at the incident which was curtailed and completely put out, before it could raze properties in the immediate or extended environment, with dampening down on-going to ensure no reignition, the agency said.
The WHO assembly voted unanimously last May in favour of an enquiry. A team of experts has not yet been assembled and the date of their visit has not been set.

Geneva (AsiaNews/Agencies)  The World Health Organisation (WHO) has not yet assembled the group of experts that will travel to Wuhan, where the first COVID-19 cases were reported, nor picked a date for their visit.

Mike Ryan, director of the WHOs emergencies programme, at a press conference yesterday said that a two-member advance team travelled to China in July for two weeks to prepare the ground; however, they only managed to have online meetings with Chinese experts and authorities in and around Beijing.

The WHO Assembly voted in favour of an independent investigation into the origin of the pandemic and the way the UN body tackled the crisis.

All 194 members voted in favour of a resolution calling for an enquiry at the earliest possible moment. However, neither Ryan nor WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus were able to give a date for the start of the mission.

China has been accused of being the origin of the pandemic and its government has been criticised for keeping silent for weeks about the developing crisis and human-to-human transmission.

US President Donald Trump has claimed that the source of the virus is a virology laboratory in Wuhan, probably engaged in the study of bacteriological weapons. China has categorically denied the allegations.

WHO has also come under heavy criticism and its director general has been described as Chinas puppet" for going along with Beijings omissions and silence.
by Bernardo Cervellera

Founded in 2004 to spread Chinese language and culture, the Confucius Institutes are suspected of industrial espionage, of influencing the politics of host countries and of lobbying for silence on burning issues: Tiananmen, Tibet, Taiwan, Uyghurs, issues of religious freedom. The silence of Institutes in Italy over demonstrations in Hong Kong and on police repressions. The ban on Western books and culture in Chinese universities. The Sino-Vatican agreement should ask that pontifical universities open "Catholic" spaces in Chinese universities.

Rome (AsiaNews) - Some Chinese dissidents abroad have asked the University of Western Australia (UniWA) in Perth to allow them to talk about their personal experience of the Tiananmen massacre, which they witnessed in 1989, when the army Chinese overwhelmed students and workers with tanks and rifles, killing between 200 and 2 thousand people.

According to the SCMP (08/25/2020), days earlier, speaking with Australian ABC television, the director of the Confucius Institute at UniWA, Jiang Ying, had said that she would be happy to host some dissidents for a discussion to address such a sensitive problem, which is shrouded in silentice in China and which many young Chinese are not aware of. The dissidents' proposal is an attempt to force Dr. Jiang Ying to move from nice words on TV to facts. According to newspaper reports, after that proposal, the doctor could not even be reached on the phone.

This episode has sparked a new round of questions about the Confucius Institutes. Born in 2004 under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party's Propaganda Office, they have the task of spreading the Chinese language and culture abroad. Given the importance of China on the global stage, and having enormous financial means, these institutions have sprouted up all over the world: at present there are over 500 institutions, of which 12 in Italy. They manage to spread a positive and attractive image of China by publicising economic successes, modern achievements, etc. But there are some issues that are not mentioned at all: Tiananmen, Tibet, Taiwan, Uyghurs, issues of religious freedom.

I had the opportunity to speak with some young people who have graduated from these institutes, who have even completed internships in China. They were unable to provide any reflection on what problems contemporary China is experiencing: "Everything is beautiful, everything is solid ... maybe there are some contradictions, but I don't know which one".

The professor of a Confucius Institute in Northern Italy is famous because when it comes to religious persecution of Catholics (imprisoned bishops, killed priests, faithful in prison, ...), she summarizes these dramatic experiences in a diminutive word: "difficulty".

The Confucius Institutes have long been suspected of fostering not only a benevolent and uncritical view of China, but also of influencing the host nation's policy to favor China, and of practicing industrial espionage. Last November, the British Parliamentary Committee for Foreign Affairs, presented a report in which it highlights that through the Confucius Institutes, China is infiltrating the universities of the United Kingdom, to the point of threatening "academic freedom". In Italy, people have been shocked by the fact that the institutes and the professors connected to them have been silent in the face of demonstrations by the people of Hong Kong and police violence.

Of course, the Confucius Institutes have also been dragged into the standoff between China and the United States, for which the United States has defined them as a "foreign mission", a kind of detached department of the Beijing Foreign Ministry.

Yet beyond taking sides, it would be important to use the Confucius institutes and universities as a true cultural bridge between East and West, without imbedded ideological closures. For example, it would be an important sign of reciprocity if Chinese universities hosted offices of foreign universities which would have the possibility to have relations and interviews with Chinese students. Some US universities have opened "American corners", but apparently, the authorities "make it impossible for Chinese students to talk to Americans".
YEREVAN, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan has sent a congratulatory message to President Sooronbay Jeenbekov of the Kyrgyz Republic on the occasion of Independence Day, the PMs Office told Armenpress.

The message reads:

Dear Sooronbay Sharipovich,

Please accept my heartfelt congratulations on Kyrgyz Republics Independence Day.

Friendly Kyrgyzstan has achieved great success in state-building efforts and in enhancing its international standing during the years of independence.

I am convinced that through mutual efforts we will be able to develop cooperation between our two countries both in the bilateral format and as part of integration associations and international organizations.

Dear Sooronbay Sharipovich,

I avail myself of this opportunity to wish you robust health and every success, as well as peace and prosperity- to the friendly people of Kyrgyzstan.
(Newser)  An Israeli El Al plane flew from Israel to the United Arab Emirates on Monday, carrying a high-ranking American and Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi in the first-ever direct commercial passenger flight between the two countries. The flight marked the implementation of the historic US-brokered deal to normalize relations between the two nations and solidifies the long-clandestine ties between them that have evolved over years of shared enmity toward Iran, per the AP. The American delegation includes President Trumps adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as well as national security adviser Robert OBrien. With the US as matchmaker, Israel and the UAE agreed earlier this month to work toward normalization, which would make the UAE the third Arab nation to have full relations with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan.

story continues below

While this is a historic flight, we hope that this will start an even more historic journey for the Middle East and beyond, Kushner told reporters before boarding the plane. The El Al flight, numbered LY971 as a gesture to the UAEs international calling code number, flew into Saudi Arabian airspace shortly after takeoff and later passed over the capital, Riyadh. That marked another historic first for Israel and at least an acquiescence by the kingdom for the UAE's move. Saudi King Salman, along with other Gulf Arab leaders to varying degrees, maintain their boycotts of Israel in support of Palestinians obtaining an independent state. Any long-term flights between Israel and the UAE would require Saudi clearance to be profitable. Otherwise the three-hour, 20-minute flight would take more than seven hours.

(Read more Israel stories.)
A Turkish opposition lawmaker filed a criminal complaint against Turkeys powerful interior minister today after he was assaulted by unidentified men as he emerged from an Istanbul restaurant. Baris Atay, who was hospitalized for multiple injuries, said Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu had incited the attack through a threatening tweet. The affair is seen as a further dark page in Turkeys descent into lawlessness and impunity.

Atay told Tele1 TV, a pro-opposition news channel, that one didnt need to be a soothsayer to grasp that the attack was linked to Soylu. It was a planned ambush, he said. Eyewitnesses claimed one of the assailants had filmed the attack on his mobile phone while the rest laid into him before disappearing into separate directions.

The interior minister targets a lawmaker. The same night, Baris Atay is attacked. Is [he] an interior minister or a gang leader? Its impossible to tell, tweeted Garo Paylan, of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democracy Party (HDP), echoing anger aired by fellow opposition lawmakers.

The row between the pair erupted online over Musa Orhan, a Turkish serviceman accused of raping an 18-year-old girl who then took her own life and left a suicide note detailing how hed abused her.

Orhan was set free shortly after his initial detention, provoking an outcry. He was rearrested and then released again last week pending trial, amid claims that Soylu had a hand in helping Orhan get out. Prosecutors freed Orhan on the grounds that he did not pose a flight risk, even as Osman Kavala, the globally renowned Turkish philanthropist, has been rotting in a Turkish jail for more than 1,000 days on fabricated charges of seeking to overthrow the government.

Orhan was expelled from the gendarmerie forces today.

On Aug. 26, the Interior Ministry rebutted claims that it had intervened on Orhans behalf, calling these baseless and ill-intentioned lies. Then on Aug. 30, Atay fired a tweet charging that Soylu had shielded a serial rapist. We will do our utmost to ensure that you are confronted with this and never allowed to forget this for the rest of your life, Atay vowed.

The tweet included excerpts of text messages Orhan allegedly sent to his friends in which he suggested he had raped other women and gotten off the hook. It didnt take long for Soylu to respond with a tweet of his own, denigrating Atay as the real rapist and warning him not to get caught.

Hours later, Atay was overpowered by five men who threw him to the ground and began kicking him and calling him traitor before they ran off.

Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey director for Human Rights Watch, said the attack against Atay should be independently investigated by the prosecutors office but was unlikely to take place. She told Al-Monitor in a telephone interview, In a situation like this where a physical attack on a member of parliament directly follows the minister of interiors threatening words to that member of parliament, how are you going to be sure that an independent investigation of the incident will be carried out. Sinclair-Webb continued, Its one thing for the prosecutorial authorities to investigate, but who do the prosecutorial authorities rely on? They rely on the police. Who do the police report to? They report to the minister of interior.

Atay, a deputy chair of the left-wing Turkish Workers Party, made a living writing and acting in television series before being elected to parliament on the HDP ticket. He has frequently courted controversy. He has railed against Turkeys support for radical Islamist groups in Syria and staged a one-man play called Only a Dictator that many have interpreted as a critique of Turkeys autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Its been banned multiple times.

There has been no formal condemnation from the government of the attack against Atay.

Zulfu Livaneli, a respected Turkish poet and bard, called the affair a turning point on his Twitter account today. Turkish society, he observed, was being sucked into a level of violence that surpasses reason.

Sinem Adar, a research associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said the real turning point was the abortive coup in July 2016. There has since been a progressive rise in violence permeating the state along with a steady erosion of state institutions, she told Al-Monitor. The question that needs to be posed is what will replace these institutions as they are in the process of unraveling, she said.

Since the 2016 coup attempt, we have entered a stage where organized crime and the mafia have become the state, whereas they used to play a complementary role, Adar added. Under previous governments, the states dirty tricks department would use notorious mafia figures to target its enemies, she said, citing Ryan Gingeras, an American academic and author of Heroin, Organized Crime and the Making of Modern Turkey. Gingeras has pointed to a dramatic expansion in organized crime in Turkey over the past decade, adding that Erdogans government appears to be directly involved in criminal activity itself.
When Transplant creator Joseph Kay conceived the idea for the series, the 2016 U.S. presidential election had just happened and thousands of Syrian refugees were resettling in Canada.

A story about a refugee Syrian doctor trying to form a new life in Toronto struck Kay as an apt and unique take on the medical drama genre.

And indeed, it became a hit with critics and audiences alike when it debuted on CTV last February.

Now, as the show debuts Tuesday on NBC, another presidential vote looms south of the border and the story seems just as timely, says Kay.

We are aware that were airing in a season leading up to an election, and that forefront in our show is the topic of immigration, because its about a refugee, the writer/showrunner/executive producer said in a recent interview.

And I think that our show just takes what I would say is a very grounded and honest and relatable look at that story, tells it from the perspective of a refugee and an immigrant but also in a way that makes it universal.

In the context of the election, its quite topical and relevant.

Hamza Haq stars in the Montreal-shot show as Dr. Bashir (Bash) Hamed, who takes care of his young sister and redoes his medical residency in Toronto after fleeing war-torn Syria.

His sharp instincts developed from critical situations in his former homeland are a great asset, although sometimes considered unconventional, to the emergency department.

CTV plans to re-air the first season to align with the U.S. premiere.

Weve always seen the main character as a hero, and it takes a very hopeful swing at things, said Toronto-based Kay, whose other TV credits including This Life, Ransom, Frontier and Bomb Girls.

So I do think that in the context of the pandemic, and everything else thats going on in the world today, existing as a big, hopeful show is also very timely.

Kay said he reached out to Syrians and other refugees early on in development, and theyre still involved in every stage of the show, from conception to reading and consulting on set.

We just never stop getting that kind of input. Its really crucial to be able to have the show feel honest, and we wouldnt be able to do it without them.

Kay said it seemed like NBC wanted to pick up the show in early March, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Its U.S. debut comes at a convenient time, as networks look for programming to fill scheduling gaps left by production shutdowns.

I think its just a reflection of the show having done really well in Canada, Kay said. I think NBC looked at what would be a similar audience for that kind of show, and they have a history of doing medical dramas there as well. And this one puts a unique spin on it. So I think it was just a really good fit for them.

The next season of Transplant has been greenlit and is moving along slowly, like everything is right now in this business due to the pandemic, Kay said.

Were a little bit delayed but well be back. Its well into being written. And pre-production and production is scheduled for the mid-late fall. But like everything right now, you adjust it based on the facts on the ground.

In early April, the show donated all of its personal protective equipment to hospitals in Montreal.

Kay said Season 2 takes place before COVID-19, so the show wont feature the pandemic, nor will it get political.

Kay said they dont consider it a political show anyway, but rather a story of second chances and starting over in life, whether youre a doctor or a patient.

And though the show now has an audience south of the border, the series will remain set in Toronto and will not be tweaked to tone down its Canadianness.

I feel like now, theres more universality in the specific and that audiences globally are more into the idea of universality in the specific, Kay said.

It feels good as a Canadian content creator to not have to pretend were in generic North American city; that we can actually be in Toronto.

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Bexar County Sheriff's Office

A Kirby firefighter was arrested after police say he punched a coworker in the face, sending him to the hospital, an arrest affidavit said.

On Aug. 26, Kirby police were called to the San Antonio Military Medical Center to speak with 26-year-old Carl Warren who said he was on shift when he said "something smart" to his coworker, 29-year-old Joshua Gonzales, who turned around and "clocked" Warren in the face, the affidavit said.
In a week of escalating conflict after a Kenosha, Wis., police officer shot Jacob Blake in the back, the city faced looting, arson, and a shooting at a protest that left two men dead and another seriously injured.

Now, Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers says he worries that President Donald Trump's planned trip to Kenosha this week will inflame those tensions again. In a Sunday letter, Evers urged Trump to cancel the trip.

"I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing," Evers wrote. "I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together."

Despite the governor's plea, Trump still plans to visit Kenosha on Tuesday, the White House said.

"The White House has been humbled by the outreach of individuals from Kenosha who have welcomed the president's visit and are longing for leadership to support local law enforcement and businesses that have been vandalized," the White House said in a statement to The Washington Post. "President Trump looks forward to visiting on Tuesday and helping this great city heal and rebuild."

Trump has recently sought to turn the violence in Kenosha and elsewhere to his political advantage, The Washington Post reported on Sunday. The president has blamed rioting and looting at Democratic lawmakers, including Evers, and accused Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden of supporting the lawlessness, though he's repeatedly condemned destructive protests. Trump also praised the armed civilians who have come to cities like Portland and Kenosha, where police said a 17-year-old killed two protesters on Tuesday.

More for you Trump praises supporters amid deadly clashes with social justice demonstrators

On his visit to Kenosha, the White House said Trump will "survey damage from recent riots" and meet with police. It is unclear if the president plans to meet with Blake's family. Blake's lawyer, Benjamin Crump, said on "Face the Nation" Sunday that they had not yet heard from the White House. Blake's family spoke with Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., for "about an hour," Crump said.

In his letter, Evers said a peaceful weekend in Kenosha made him optimistic that the city had moved beyond violent clashes. But Trump's visit could hinder that the progress, he argued.

"When I visited Kenosha last week, what I saw was a community working to deal with the trauma and pain of these events and extreme loss," Evers wrote. "They are exhausted and heartbroken with the division that has ripped apart their community, but they are already working to rebuild, together, and support each other in the face of adversity."

Evers also wrote that Trump's visit will "require a massive redirection" of resources at a time when law enforcement is needed to keep the "people of Kenosha safe and supporting the community's response."

Trump's political message, he argued, was at odds with the city's attempt to heal.

"It is our job as elected officials to lead by example and to be a calming presence for the people we know are hurting, mourning, and trying to cope with trauma," Evers wrote. "Now is not the time for divisiveness. Now is not the time for elected officials to ignore armed militants and out-of-state instigators who want to contribute to our anguish."
Majority of hospital staff still untested despite First Minister saying 25 days ago all staff are being tested

This article is old - Published: Monday, Aug 31st, 2020

Around 300 staff at Wrexham Maelor Hospital have been tested for Covid-19 in a week where an accelerated programme of both symptomatic and asymptomatic testing took place as part of a plan to test all staff at the hospital. However the majority of hospital staff remain untested.

On the 14th of August First Minister Mark Drakeford said 20 per cent of workers at the hospital had been tested as part of a programme that would seeall staff being tested, and that the following week would seen an accelerated testing exercise rolled out.

The 20% figure of 2,500 people  around 500 staff  matches the statement that day from Public Health Wales, a figure that was covering the period since the 6th July.

It appears 500 staff tests took place in just over a month between early July and mid August, with a further 300 taking place between the 14th and 25th of this month, leaving around 1,700 staff members still awaiting a test.

A week ago we asked Public Health Wales for the specific latest figures on testing, however they have not been able to release them. A week ago we also asked Public Health Wales for the latest localised death figures, but they have not been able to release them.

Last Tuesday we told Health Minister Vaughan Gething that we had been contacted by hospital staff locally to say theyve been working throughout the pandemic, some with elderly patients, and that they still had not been tested and that their colleagues have never been tested either.

We asked if that should be the case, and pointed to a statement on the 5th August from the First Minister that said all staff at the Maelor hospital are being tested. We also asked what the delay had been in completing that exercise, and considering the time has passed, was it worthwhile anymore.

On Tuesdays Welsh Government briefing, the health minister said: So my understanding is that more than 800 staff at the Maelor have been tested. Im not aware of that the end date of that program. I have updates during the week on the programme, and indeed the Health Board themselves have been providing a regular updates.

Im sure that we can go back and work with the Health Board and Public Health Wales to make sure that not just yourself, but people in North Wales have the confirmed figures on the number of tests have been carried out and where we are on staff testing.

To be clear that during the course of the pandemic there will have been people working with vulnerable people throughout this, the testing is essentially available on demand. So if people are worried about themselves, they have symptoms, they should certainly get a test and isolate. Its very easy to get a test now.

On Tuesday 25th, before the lunchtime Welsh Government briefing, we asked Public Health Wales for the latest death data and staff testing data for Wrexham Maelor hospital, however no data was released. We re-asked twice at the end of the week.

We also asked why the figures were not being released, and was told they need to be validated prior to release.

Previously we have raised the issue over information access to the first minister, asking asking him if that kind of battle for information was what he had in mind when he pledged to give the people transparency by making data available, with him explaining the information has to be thoroughly checked and validated before release.

On Friday Llyr Gruffydd, Plaid Cymru MS for North Wales, said: Wrexham has had the highest number of Covid-19 deaths in Wales and England for the past three weeks and one element in that has been the incidence of the coronavirus in Wrexham Maelor Hospital. With that in mind, testing all staff should be a priority.

Its therefore concerning that promises made by the First Minister at the hospital three weeks ago to ensure that happened dont seem to have happened. The Track and Protect element is only as good as the Testing and that appears to be failing to deal with the thousands of NHS staff in Wrexham and the surrounding area.
Small Business Friday was created nine years ago by the National Small Business Chamber (NSBC) in response to small business owners' most pressing need: getting more customers. The day is now a national tradition.

The importance of the small business community

Get involved

Shop at your local small businesses: Go out there and support your local small businesses on Friday, 4 September 2020 and every day thereafter.



Join the #SmallBizFriday 5-Day Challenge: From Monday, 31 August 2020 - Friday, 4 September 2020 small businesses and consumers alike are encouraged to sign up for the #SmallBizFriday 5-Day Challenge. This challenge is designed to only take 5 minutes a day but should have far-reaching effects to drive awareness and participation on social media for this all-important movement.



Watch the daily #SmallBizFriday Briefing and Mobilisation Session on Instagram Live: Join Mike Anderson and Leanne Rhodes (Head of Creative & Social Media at NSBC) on Instagram Live every day (Monday, 31 August 2020 - Friday, 4 September 2020) as they reveal the daily #SmallBizFriday Challenge, feature tips to boost small business and do amazing giveaways as they build up to Small Business Friday. Follow @NSBCAfrica on Instagram.

A vast majority of consumers agree that shopping at small, independently-owned businesses supports their commitment to making purchases that have a positive social, economic and environmental impact.The ninth Small Business Friday has arrived. This Friday, 4 September is South Africas biggest small business day of the year. This powerful and meaningful movement is about mobilising all South Africans to support and buy from their local small businesses.Mike Anderson, founder and CEO of the National Small Business Chamber (NSBC), says that entrepreneurship is one of the cornerstones of the South African economy and it is thus vital to sustain this sector: Small Business Friday has gained incredible momentum over the past nine years, the NSBC is very proud of the progress. It remains important to keep reminding people to get involved and support small business.Small Business Friday is dedicated to supporting the diverse range of local businesses that create jobs, help boost the economy, and enhance communities around the country.The movement celebrates small businesses ranging from retail stores and restaurants to guest houses and hairdressers, and everything in between.What happens when you buy from a small business? You are not helping a CEO buy a third holiday home. You are helping a little girl get dance lessons, a little boy get his team jersey, a mom or dad put food on the table, a family pay a bond, or a student pay for university fees.It has been said something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wings can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. If you change even the smallest of life's details, you have the power to completely change its outcome. Making a small change to where we spend our money can have a huge impact on small businesses and ultimately our community in the long run.Anderson says that the NSBC anticipates enormous, nationwide support for this special movement coming up this Friday. Its a 365-day drive that peaks on the first Friday of Spring every year, aimed at celebrating and recognising the importance of the small business community. We really want people to Go BIG by supporting the small.In 2012, the NSBC launched Small Business Friday, which is now widely known as South Africas biggest Small Business day of the year. Spring brings new energy and a feel-good time of the year, so it was decided that Small Business Friday would always be on the 1st Friday of Spring every year. The very first Small Business Friday was on 7 September 2012.Consumers were urged to support it through national radio, digital, social media and PR campaign. We didn't know how big it was going to be. We were surprised how fast it happened and the extent of it. More importantly, it drove real results for small businesses across the country that day and changed the habit of many consumers forever, says Anderson. Small Business Friday has become a social phenomenon. It has become a new mind-set and the right thing to do.The number one small business challenge is getting new customers, as per the findings of the annual National Small Business Survey. The big drive was, therefore, to mobilise and encourage the nation to give greater support to small business. If more can support local small businesses, these small businesses will be able to build their infrastructure and employ more local people, therefore alleviating unemployment and driving job creation.The future plan is to win even more support, not just from small businesses, consumers and activists but other larger companies it could partner to promote the cause and importantly, to lobby Government officials to enhance the every-day life of the small business community.To secure consumer support, was to position Small Business Friday as a national movement. Consumers needed to be made aware of and understand their role: the pledge to support and shop at small businesses. By simply committing to a few simple tasks, you will help drive the movement and, of course, strengthen the small business sector.Here are ways how you can get involved:For more, go to https://www.nsbc.africa/small-business-friday
Prime Minister Ludovic Orban thanked on Monday Save Romania Union (USR), People's Movement Party (PMP), Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR), the national minorities' group and the unaffiliated parliamentarians, who did not participate in Parliament's sitting for the vote on the censure motion, adding that the necessary quorum could not have been provided even if all Social Democratic Party (PSD) representatives had attended.

"I want to thank the political parties that have been with us and shared our point of view, namely that the motion falls outside the constitutional boundaries, and who did not participate in the quorum. It is about the USR, PMP, UDMR and the national minorities' group. I want to thank the unaffiliated parliamentarians who understood that Romania needs a Government and who did not support the PSD's political exploit. If you look at the number of votes, you will see that, had all PSD MPs been present, they would not have met the number of MPs required for the quorum. There were five absentees, you do the maths: 226 plus 5 equals 231. So, here there was a majority that supported us, that understood Romania needs a Government, that this poisonous position is unwelcome and risks throwing Romania into chaos. I thank them for being with us and I am convinced that we will continue to work as well as we have done so far," Orban shoed in Parliament.Romania's Parliament has lost an entire day for an irresponsible PSD to convince itself that its censure motion is ridiculous and cannot be voted on, says USR PLUS co-chairman Dan Barna."Today in the Parliament we avoided a political crisis. All the other problems of the country remain," concluded Barna.
The National Startup Support Centre was established to create a more fertile playground for local innovation hubs

Innovative and creative startups have been garnering great interest from local authorities. Plenty of supportive institutes have been formed and put into operation, especially the National Innovation Centre under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Youth Support Centre Debut under the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, student support centre debut developed by universities, and startup support centres founded by local authorities in Danang, Haiphong, and Quang Nam, among others. The establishments have contributed to the creation of a dynamic ecosystem, luring in immense resources for startup development.

However, the operation of major centres is not yet sustainable while inter-institutional linkages are scarce to be of sufficient benefit for the thousands of startups across the country. To improve this, it is necessary to establish a working discourse among the centres to promote a new mentality and more effective operations to step-by-step standardise themselves and assert their positions in the startup community over the country.

More importantly, a national-level establishment should be founded to regulate and support the centres, especially by creating linkages between state centres and training institutes, as well as companies.

To this effect, under Resolution No.02/NQ-CP dated January 1, 2019, the government assigned the Ministry of Science and Technology to build startup support centres across the country, starting with Hanoi, Danang, and Ho Chi Minh City. As a result, the National Startup Support Centre under the Ministry of Planning and Investment was founded to meet the requirement.

The Ministry of Science and Technologys project titled Supporting the startup ecosystem and national innovation to 2025 is angling to find highly capable partners to accompany the ministry in evolving the new National Startup Support Centre.

Decree No.94/2020/ND-CP on August 21 outlined the policies and incentives for the National Startup Supportive Centre under the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI). The most highlighted content fo the decree include credit, tax, and land leasing incentives. Accordingly, the government directed the relevant ministries to review and apply partial or full support policies or incentives to innovation hubs and other startups.
Ghislaine Maxwell is first federal inmate in NYC to receive in-person visit during pandemic, sources say
Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe thanked Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi for wishing him a speedy recovery, saying that he is deeply touched with his warm words.

I am deeply touched by your warm words, Prime Minister @narendramodi. I wish you all the best and hope our partnership will be further enhanced, said Abe on Twitter.

I am deeply touched by your warm words, Prime Minister @narendramodi. I wish you all the best and hope our Partnership will be further enhanced. https://t.co/h4CHcZcCwj   (@AbeShinzo) August 31, 2020

The longest-serving prime minister of Japan, Abe announced his decision to resign from the post of the premier on August 28. Abe cited health issues as reason for his resignation and had said that he could not be the prime minister if he could not make the best decisions for the people.

Following his resignation, PM Modi had wished Abe a speedy recovery and said that he was pained to hear about the Japanese leaders ill health and credited him for cementing relations between the two countries.

PM Modi also credited Abe with playing a lead role in strengthening relations between India and Japan.

In recent years, with your wise leadership and personal commitment, the India-Japan partnership has become deeper and stronger than ever before. I wish and pray for your speedy recovery, PM Modi had said on Twitter.

Abe has battled the disease ulcerative colitis for years and two recent hospital visits within a week had fanned questions on whether he could stay in the job until the end of his term as ruling party leader, and hence, premier, in September 2021.
Hours after India thwarted Chinas attempt to change the status quo by carrying out provocative military movements" in Ladakh, R K Mathur, Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh, reached Delhi to brief the authorities about the latest face-off.

Sources told News18 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding continuous meetings with persons concerned to understand the situation and it was established during the discussions that India is prepared for any eventuality. Sources added that the situation is currently under control.

On the intervening night of August 29 and 30, Chinese troops carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo" but the attempt was thwarted by India, the government said.

On the night of 29/30 August 2020, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo," the Indian Army said in a statement.

Army Spokesperson Col Aman Anand said a Brigade Commander level meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues.

Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground. The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity. A Brigade Commander level Flag Meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues," the statement added.

The clash between the troops of the two countries is the first since the skirmish on June 15. No injuries have been reported but heavy troop movement was seen in Chushul after the incident.

Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged in a bitter standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh for over three-and-half months. India has been insisting that China must withdraw its forces from areas between Finger Four and Eight. The mountain spurs in the area are referred to as Fingers.

The formal process of disengagement of troops began on July 6, a day after a nearly two-hour telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in the area.
South Korea has implemented a second nationwide lockdown to fend off a new wave of coronavirus and pleaded with its citizens to again adhere to social distancing rules.

Government officials and administrative orders alone cannot stop the daily activities of citizens, said Jung Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a statement on Sunday. We urge the public to practice complete social distancing over the next week.

Suh Jung-hyup, acting mayor of Seoul, likewise asked the capitals 10m residents to freeze their daily routines as far as possible until 6 September when the new measures will be placed under review.

Of the 25m cases of Covid-19 contracted worldwide so far, the South East Asian nation accounts for fewer than 20,000 and has seen just 324 people die of the respiratory disease, attracting international acclaim for its decisive and disciplined response to the global pandemic.

How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Show all 6 1 /6 How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Milan, Italy REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities North Jakarta, Indonesia REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Jakarta, Indonesia REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Venice, Italy REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities New Delhi, India REUTERS How coronavirus lockdowns changed the world's most polluted cities Islamabad, Pakistan REUTERS

But the country has been hit by a resurgence over the last two weeks, recording its highest single-day total in months on Thursday when 441 Koreans were taken ill.

A further 238 cases were reported on Sunday, marking the 18th straight day of triple-digit rises.

South Koreas government has been gradually reinforcing its social distancing rules since 16 August, closing public schools, nightclubs and churches and prohibiting gatherings of more than 50 people in any one location.

But those efforts have so far failed to halt the spread.

As part of the latest escalation, private tuition centres  known as cram schools  are being shuttered for the first time and restaurants, bars and food kiosks will now be subject to a 9pm curfew.

Coffee franchises will only be able to offer take-out or delivery services after a Starbucks outlet in Paju, north of Seoul, was found to be the epicentre of an outbreak of more than 60 cases.

Corporate and government offices are meanwhile encouraging their staff to work from home, with Monday mornings rush hour visibly less busy as the new working week began.

Health ministry official Yoon Tae-ho said he hoped the latest restrictions would bring a decline in the daily infection numbers by the end of the week.

The new run of infections have also fuelled concern about a shortage of hospital beds and comes as almost 16,000 intern and resident doctors are on strike over government plans to boost the number of doctors to better handle health crises like the coronavirus.

On Monday, the health ministry postponed a medical licence exam set for Tuesday by a week after more than 90 per cent of medical students due to take the test withdrew and joined the walkout.

President Moon Jae-in has urged them to return to work.

The student and trainee doctors said the governments plans would flood an already competitive market and trainees salaries should be improved to alleviate a shortage of doctors in rural areas.
AUG. 31: The Blue Jays dont seem to be heavily involved on Clevinger, according to Heyman, who lists the Padres, Braves and perhaps the White Sox as teams that appear to be in the mix.

AUG. 30, 9:48PM: The Blue Jays also have interest in Clevinger, Heyman tweets, but it isnt known if Toronto is the mystery team.

8:07PM: Speculation continues to swirl about a possible Mike Clevinger trade, with multiple reports surfacing earlier tonight that the Padres had seemingly moved into the drivers seat for the Indians righty. The most recent word, however, is that other teams may have pulled ahead of San Diego, as USA Todays Bob Nightengale (Twitter links) reports that the Tribe have requested players physicals from at least two teams but havent asked the Padres to submit such information.

A mystery team has made a better offer for Clevinger than the Padres, Nightengale writes. MLB.coms Mark Feinsand (Twitter links) reported earlier tonight that the Braves were still in the Clevinger sweepstakes even though the Padres were the frontrunners at the time, and two rival executives told Feinsand that Atlanta could very well be the team making an aggressive play to now top San Diegos offer. Top outfield prospect Drew Waters was reportedly part of the Indians trade ask from the Braves, according to MLB Networks Jon Morosi (via Twitter).



The Padres dont seem to be willing to move either Trent Grisham or Jake Cronenworth, MLB Networks Jon Heyman (Twitter links), which could be a roadblock in a potential Clevinger trade. Also from Heyman, the Yankees dont appear to be the mystery team in the Clevinger hunt, as there is no belief anythings close between New York and Cleveland.



The White Sox and Dodgers were also rumored to be interested in Clevinger earlier today, and with this much buzz around the right-hander, one wonders how close Cleveland might get to someone meeting its reportedly ridiculous asking price in any Clevinger trade.
By Online Desk

The latest episode of Prime Minister Narendra Modis 'Mann Ki Baat' show has garnered over five lakh dislikes on the Bhartiya Janata Partys YouTube channel.

This August episode of the monthly radio show where Modi addresses the nation has become one of the most disliked videos on BJP's YouTube channel in less than 24 hours of being streamed.

In his 68th 'Mann ki Baat' address on Sunday, the PM Modi suggested people bring home indigenous breeds as they require less expense on upkeep and are already well adapted to the country's climatic conditions.

#Mann_Ki_Nahi_Students_Ki_Baat started trending on Twitter soon after the episode was aired. Many on YouTube and Twitter questioned the Prime Minister for not addressing the issues JEE and NEET exams.

One comment on Youtube reads, He (PM Narendra Modi) does not talk about employment, small enterprises and also education. You are the PM of India we don't need Mann Ki Baat...we need you to fulfill the duty for which we choose you.

While another user wrote, Enough is Enough! Mr. PM, concentrate on Development instead of just talking.

Many also took a dig at PM Modi for speaking about dog breeds and toys instead of exams postponement.

One person commented, When it's time to talk about Students live, he prefers to talk about dog breeds and toys.

"We just need your answer regarding JEE NEET postponement, if you answer then I'll be fully satisfied," wrote another.

At the time of writing this article, the video had got over 18 lakh views with over 74,000 likes, 5,00,000 dislikes and 88,000 comments.

During his 'Mann Ki Baat' interaction, PM Modi also referred to Etikoppaka toys, which are made by artisans of Etikoppala on the banks of the Varaha river in Visakhapatnam district.

The toys got GI tagging in 2017, helping them get promoted abroad. To get marketed there as well, samples of the toys had been sent to the ministry concerned for certification.
The Cairo-based Arab Parliament has condemned a drone attack launched by the Houthi militias on Saudi Arabia's Abha Airport.

In a statement on Sunday, Speaker of the Parliament Mishaal bin Fahm al-Salmi said that attacking the airport requires an urgent intervention to sue the Houthi group for its "terrorist acts", reports Xinhua news agency

Al-Salmi also called on the community to take on its responsibility for ceasing Houthi frequent attacks that target civilians and threaten Arab security and stability.

Al-Salami also reiterated the Arab parliament's solidarity and support for all measures taken by Riyadh to protect its security and stability.

Earlier on Sunday, the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted a bomb-laden drone launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels toward the Kingdom's southern region.

On Friday, the coalition said it destroyed two drones flying toward the kingdom's southern region and border city Najran.

It also announced that it destroyed a missile fired by the Houthis toward Najran the previous day.

--IANS

ksk/

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The interview with Vitold Fokin, deputy chair of the Ukrainian delegation at the Trilateral Contact Group on Donbas settlement, quite reasonably caused an extremely emotional reaction among Ukrainians. After all, the "compromise" he proposed  pardoning militants in exchange for Russia dropping their demands for a special status of Donbas in Ukraine's Constitution  is not a compromise as such. There is no good option for Ukraine in the configuration proposed as both options make us a losing side. All those mantras claiming that "it's winners who pardon the defeated, so we just need to move on and forgive" have nothing to do with reality.

The embodiment of such an experience of "forgiveness" was seen in the Croatian Vukovar, the city regained by diplomatic means

A large-scale pardon for members of illegal armed groups or, based on the terminology of the Minsk agreements, "participants in the events in the certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions", is a problem that will prevail for many decades after the actual military confrontation is over. Pardoning those who fought against the country's territorial integrity will corrupt the most important thing that is Ukraine troops who defended Ukraine's sovereignty  the feeling that all those victims were not in vain, and that they made the only right choice.

In Ukraine, the narrative has taken root about the "infallible and perfect experience of Croatian peaceful reintegration"

The embodiment of such an experience of "forgiveness" was seen in the Croatian Vukovar, the city regained by diplomatic means. During visits to Ukraine, the team dealing with the peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube area openly spoke about the fact that they had more than just pardon  they had "general forgiveness" of separatists who took up arms but didn't kill anyone, and that we, allegedly, would have no other way either. In Ukraine, the narrative has taken root about the "infallible and perfect experience of Croatian peaceful reintegration", which, allegedly, could be easily replicated in Ukrainian realities.

Even without taking into account the fact that the Serbo-Croatian and Russian-Ukrainian wars are different conflicts, with entirely different pretexts and prerequisites, something else is worth considering. The generation of children of those who took part in the Serbro-Croatian war, to this day, say that they are absolutely indifferent to the nationality of those who live in the city (Vukovar), while much more important is that not all criminals who had fought for Serbian Krajina, have been prosecuted. To this day, the city is a space where memories of the war are fresh. People aren't over with this trauma, while "forgiveness" imposed on society has only made the wound deeper.

If we talk about an attempt to transfer such a model to our realities, we can unequivocally state that many of those who are actually responsible for murder, torture, and looting will seek to pass themselves off as those who "just took up arms but never killed anyone." And if the law fails to deal with this kind of people, some war veterans could try to take up the role of the law. And this would be a direct fault of those civilian professionals and experts who have failed to oppose such scenarios on their part and in their position. This would simply make the Ukrainian society implode, which is exactly what Russia craves for. Chaos is where it is easiest for Russia to achieve their goals.

Such texts, in principle, have no chance of being published without prior approval

Whatever they say at the President's Office today, this interview was certainly no accidental statement by Vitold Fokin or his personal opinion. First of all, that's because such texts, in principle, have no chance of being published without prior approval. Secondly, that's because some weeks prior to this, representatives of the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc  For Live party had become pro-active on the issue of pardoning "participants in the events in the certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions." Viktor Medvedchuk and Renat Kuzmin sent an appeal to Rada Speaker Dmytro Razumkov over the fact that the president hasn't signed the law "On the prevention of prosecution and punishment of participants in the events on the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions," and separately addressed Leonid Kravchuk, apparently appealing to their rather lengthy relationship history.

Anti-Ukrainian political forces will again and again touch upon the topic of pardoning militants

That is, these are no accidents. There is a quite intelligible and clearly defined trend here.

Obviously, anti-Ukrainian political forces will again and again touch upon the topic of pardoning militants. And such interviews  like the one with Fokin  are, rather, an unpretentious two-step combination: first, show full readiness for "compromises", and then declare that the will of the Ukrainian society, which doesn't accept such initiatives, has been taken into account, and try to sell people some softer forms of concessions to Russia as the government's "great diplomatic victory and readiness for dialogue."

But in order for such "compromises" never to materialize, Ukraine needs to develop a coherent strategy to bring members of the illegal armed groups to justice. There should be no wider pardon, not to mention "forgiveness". It would be better to thoroughly vet each specific case.

Yes, this implies a huge amount of work.

Yes, people who will investigate these crimes risk their lives and health.

But Ukraine has no other way  that's if the blood shed by our military who have been defending us all these six years still means anything to us.

Maria Kucherenko is a project manager at the Center for Civil Society Studies
HEFEI, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Li Fangbo had a new companion when fighting floods this year, a drone. As he maneuvered a boat through the water on rescue operations, the drone was flying overhead in a supporting role. "The drone is able to get into dangerous zones quickly and detect whether there is anyone trapped and whether the rescue route is safe or not," said Li, a drone operator from the Wuhu detachment of the armed police corps in east China's Anhui Province. Besides drones, a series of technologies have been applied in fighting floods this year in Anhui, which has saved both time and energy. Ye Mingdong, who has been working at the front line of flood control and drought relief for years in Dangtu County, Ma'anshan City, has seen the difference new technologies have made when fighting floods this summer. "In the past, the two telephones would keep ringing as the flood control staff from the townships and villages called to ask about the real-time precipitation and water levels. But this year, the automatic monitoring and reporting system has helped gather key data at the rivers and lake gates," said Ye, deputy director of the county's flood control and drought relief office. The system, first applied in the flood season in 2018, gathers and transmits statistics every five minutes, which makes real-time statistics available on the Internet. There is also a wall of screens with signals from 70 high-resolution cameras at the office, which shows the real-time views of levees along the Yangtze River, high-risk sections and important gates in the county. "We also have a helmet with a camera attached to it, which can transmit real-time images from rescue sites to the headquarters to help direct the rescue work," Ye said. This monitoring network is part of China's efforts to apply big data and artificial intelligence in flood control. According to Liu Zhiyu, an official with the Ministry of Water Resources, it takes only 10 to 15 minutes to gather precipitation and water level data from all the 120,000 flood-forecasting stations across the country. The statistics are key for flood control. "Abundant information on the precipitation and water levels on the upper and lower reaches and the surrounding areas is necessary for fighting floods," Ye said. Enditem


Some California churches are holding indoor religious practices despite a restraining orders from the county to slow down the spread of COVID-19.

In Ventura County's Newbury Park, Pastor Rob McCoy led three services at Godspeak Calvary Chapel, defying the restraining order from the county.

It is significant that these services were held in defiance of coronavirus health orders to protect members of the public from exposure to the deadly virus.

"We said 'no' to the restraining order, we're open," said McCoy. "I'm not being disobedient to the judge's order, I'm being obedient to God's order."

In the livestreams of the services, many people including McCoy himself were without a mask during.

McCoy was aware of the Ventura County Superior Court Judge, Matthew Guasco's restraining order, and the count's lawsuit against the church.

"Lord, we're not here to endanger our community," Said McCoy in his prayer. "We're here because the church is essential."

According to a declaration filed by the county health officer, McCoy repeatedly disobeyed court orders designed to limit the spread of the disease and failed to meet many requests for the follow-ups.

Officials said the church's ability to spread the disease is particularly concerning, and churches have been repeatedly warned to keep all gatherings separate, segregated, and restricted.

The lawsuit was filed against McCoy and the church last Sunday after the services. No incidents or arrests were reported.

"On a scale of one to 10 of the most immediate irreparable harm possible, this is a 10," said Guasco. "They have continued to violate the law and have caused significant public health and safety concerns."

State health officials say that singing increases the risk of transmission of the virus. The judge said in a statement that McCoy's preaching without a mask and the congregations singing to McCoy for his birthday are the most likely ways that people will be infected with the deadly virus and that he is endangering public health.

In response, McCoy has argued that officials have unlawfully targeted him and his church for closure, and there hasn't been a confirmed case among worshipers.

The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S. reached 5 million on the day services were held, the highest rate compared to any country.
A landmark bill that expanded drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants was touted as one of Gov. Phil Murphys pillars to creating a stronger and fairer economy.

But advocates and lawmakers who sponsored the measure say the plans to implement the law could undermine its goal to create equal access to drivers licenses.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan is leaving office a year early with no obvious successor. But whoever ultimately emerges from the fierce jockeying within his party will face a clear set of monumental challenges.

The coronavirus, although relatively contained now, could yet rage out of control. The Japanese economy, the world's third largest, has taken a historic nosedive. Chinese military aggression is rising in the region. Decisions must be made about whether the postponed Tokyo Olympics can actually be held next summer. A hugely contentious presidential election in the United States, Japan's closest ally, is a little more than two months away.

The resignation of Shinzo Abe sent the Japanese stockmarket plunging on Friday. Credit:Getty Images

And those are just the present dangers.

In the longer term, Japan's next leader faces the unfinished business of Abe's promises to advance women in politics and the workplace, and to improve working conditions so that men can help more at home. The country is confronting labor shortages as it grapples with a shrinking population and a stubbornly low birthrate, as well as snags in bringing in foreign workers. With the highest proportion of elderly people in the world, Japan could soon struggle to meet pension obligations and provide health care to the ageing public.
Robert Ferraro, 68, holds the record brown trout for Pennsylvania he caught in Lake Erie on Aug. 8, 2020. Read more

A 68-year-old lifelong angler caught a brown trout that weighed in at 20 pounds and nine ounces, setting a Pennsylvania record, according to the state Fish and Boat Commission.

The trout was 33.75 inches long, with a girth of just over 21 inches. It was caught in Lake Erie on Aug. 8 by Robert Ferraro of Erie.

It was a huge thrill to catch such a big fish, but we didnt know exactly what it was at first, Ferraro told the commission. We knew if it was a brown trout, it had a great chance to be a record.

Ferraro said he and friends left Walnut Creek Marina, just off the lake, in the early morning to begin their fishing trip. The group was using a 9-foot rod with a spoon lure when they got a hit about 8:30 a.m., he said.

The trout, hooked at a depth of more than 50 feet, eventually surfaced and fought for 10 minutes before it was netted.

Back at the marina, commission biologist Mark Haffley identified it as a brown trout. Its exciting to see a fish like this, a large female, which we estimate to be at least 6 or 7 years old, Haffley said.

The fish was weighed on a certified scale with witnesses, and was found to have exceeded the previous record set in 2000.

State record fish are judged by weight.

There are absolutely more fish like this out there, said Ferraro. I really hope it gives other people some motivation to get out and catch them.

Since 2009, Lake Erie has been stocked regularly with fingerling brown trout by the commission.

Pennsylvania began stocking brown trout soon after their arrival from Eurasia in 1886. The brown trout filled hundreds of waterways where numbers of native brook trout had been substantially reduced by logging, farming, dam building and pollution.
A chemical fire burns at a facility during the aftermath of Hurricane Laura, on Aug. 27, 2020, near Lake Charles, La. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Key Air Monitors Offline After Laura Hits Louisiana Gas Hub

Hazardous emissions from a chlorine plant fire, abruptly shuttered oil and gas refineries, and still-to-be assessed plant damage are seeping into the air after Hurricane Laura, regulators say, but some key state and federal monitors to alert the public of air dangers remain offline in Louisiana.

While the chlorine fire was being monitored as a potential health threat, Louisiana environmental spokesman Greg Langley says he knows of no other major industrial health risks from the storm in the state. He said restoring power and water was a bigger priority.

But some Louisiana residents and environmental advocates say the lack of solid government information on the state of the air is typical. With dozens of petroleum, petrochemical, and other industrial sites, Louisiana is home to communities with some of the nations highest cancer risks, according to Environmental Protection Agency rankings.

In the Lake Charles area, with refineries, a major natural gas project, and other industrial sites, residents generally dont get any information except what the industry puts out, said Carla Chrisco, a Lake Charles lawyer who evacuated the city before Laura.

The area was among the hardest hit Thursday. Laura struck parts of the Texas-Louisiana coast with up to 150-mph (240 kph) winds and a storm surge that Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said rose as high as 15 feet (4.5 meters).

An electrical outage that deprived hundreds of thousands of people of power and is expected to last weeks has knocked offline the states stationary air monitors in the storm-battered communities.

Oil and gas facilities that the U.S. Department of Energy says account for 13 percent of U.S. refinery capacity shut down as a precaution along an industrialized roughly 60-mile stretch from Port Arthur, Texas, to Lake Charles before the hurricane.

The abrupt shutdowns, and eventual restarts, for hurricanes typically mean the emission of up to millions of pounds of additional cancer-causing soot, heavy metals, and other hazards from refinery smokestacks.

A fire at a plant making swimming pool chemicals in Westlake, part of the larger Lake Charles area, since Thursday has on a few occasions sent enough chlorine into the air to be detected by emergency workers hand-held monitors, Langley said. Chlorine levels were not high enough to warrant evacuation, officials said, although residents of the industrial area around the plant were under orders to shelter inside their homes for days after Lauras landfall.

With debris clogging roads, industry still is assessing damage along the Texas-Louisiana coast. No word of any major industrial threat other than the chlorine plant fire had emerged by three days after Laura. After Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017, confirmation of more than a hundred toxic spills into the air, land, and water took days, weeks, and months to become public, and many were never investigated.

In a storm of this magnitude, theres going to be some leaks, theres going to be some spills, Langley said Saturday. Were still in the process of assessing that. I dont know of anything personally thats major.

Texas has requested the EPAs help overall looking for any so-far undiscovered hazardous air releases after the hurricane, but Louisiana, with the exception of the chlorine plant fire, has not, EPA spokesman James Hewitt said.

EPA stands ready to assist states and local governments who need help, and have already done so following Hurricane Laura, Hewitt said in an email.

Texas made a formal request for air-monitoring help through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Hewitt said. As a result, EPA has sent a bus-mounted mobile lab to the Houston-area to start monitoring and assessing air for any hazardous emission levels, he said.

Information will be provided to the public as it becomes available which follows our standard procedures, he said.

A spokeswoman for the Louisiana governor did not immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday.

By Saturday, EPA contractors had left the area of the chlorine plant fire, said Langley, the Louisiana environmental spokesman. An environmental consulting firm would continue to do all air monitoring, he said.

State officials also would be flying over the damaged area to look for obvious leaks, sheens, wayward metal drums, and any other signs of industrial threats, Langley said. We have a lot of experience in hurricane response, looking for that, he said.

But some environmental and public health advocates single out Louisiana for what they say is too lax vigilance over industrial threats to the public, even in the best of times.

Louisianas response since Laura sounds like its about what it usually is. Not robust is putting it kindly, said Anne Rolfes in New Orleans, founder of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental group.

People are worried about the possibility of toxic releases from the storm, Rolfes said. But over the years, she said, Louisiana residents have come to have tremendously low expectations, for these institutions that are supposed to be protecting us.

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Akshay Kumar latest Indian celebrity to appear on Into The Wild With Bear Grylls

Screengrab: Twitter/@akshaykumar

Hindi film actor Akshay Kumar is the latest in the line of Indian celebrities to make an appearance on the popular show Into The Wild With Bear Grylls. The actor explores the wilderness with British adventurer Bear Grylls in the recently posted trailer of the show.

In the trailer, the actor and Grylls explore the Bandipur Tiger Reserve, cross crocodile-infested rivers and more. The 52-year-old Kumar was even surprised by Grylls when he made his drink elephant poop tea.

"I visualised stiff challenges prior to Into The Wild... but Bear Grylls completely surprised me with the elephant poop tea. What a day," tweeted Kumar.

I visualized stiff challenges prior to #IntoTheWildWithBearGrylls but @bearGrylls completely surprised me with the elephant poop tea  What a day  @DiscoveryIn @DiscoveryPlusIn pic.twitter.com/m6YfQXmCcM  Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) August 31, 2020

In the trailer, Akshay Kumar describes himself as a "reel hero" and says that Grylls is a "real hero."

Prior to Akshay Kumar, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an appearance on the show - an episode which was the highest rated ever for the show. Filmstar Rajinikanth has also been on the show, fetching the series its second-highest-rated show.

The episode of Into The Wild With Bear Grylls featuring Akshay Kumar will premiere on September 11 on Discovery Plus App and September 14 on Discovery Channel.
Laois is among 12 counties in Ireland with new cases of Covid-19 this Monday evening, August 31.

There are 53 new cases in Ireland reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre today.

25 cases are in Dublin, 11 in Limerick and the remaining 17 cases are located in Laois, Kildare, Longford, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Meath, Roscommon, Tipperary, Westmeath.

There is now a total of 28,811* confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

There have been no new deaths reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre today, as is the case for nine days now. The number of deaths remains at 1,777.

Of the cases notified today;

74 are men / 66 are women

69% are under 45 years of age

32 are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case

19 cases have been identified as community transmission.

The most recent county breakdown of figures refers to two nights ago.

In those:

Laois has 383 cases.

Offaly: 623.

Kildare: 2,247.

Carlow: 246.

Tipperary: 696.

Kilkenny: 400.

Dublin: 13,352.

The HSE is working to identify any contacts the patients may have had to provide them with information and advice to prevent further spread.

Download the Covid-19 tracker app here.

Laois GP Dr Sumi Dunne spoke at the HSE press conference advising parents when to keep sick children at home.

We are aware that this is an anxious time for parents and guardians. GPs across the country are here to support them. If you feel your child is unwell, outside of a blocked/runny nose and seasonal sneezing, please do not send them into school. Keep them at home, restrict your movements and make contact with your GP.

kildare has been lifted out of it's localised restrictions, a week after Laois and Offaly.

The people of Laois were thanked along with Kildare and Offaly for their forebearance and effort to slow the spread of the virus.

Dr Ronan Glynn, Acting Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said; This evening, I want to recognise the very significant impact of the measures on individuals, communities and businesses in Kildare over the past three weeks. The improvement in the epidemiological situation there is a testament to the willingness of everyone to adhere to the public health guidance and measures implemented.

At a meeting of the National Public Health Emergency Team today, NPHET thanked people in Kildare  and in Laois and Offaly previously  for their forbearance and noted that their actions are a demonstration, and a further reminder, of what can be achieved through collective action as we continue to strike a balance between living our lives and behaving in a way that protects one another.

Dr Siobhan Ni Bhriain, Consultant Psychiatrist and Integrated Care Lead HSE, said; As we continue through the school year, we expect cases and these will be responded to rapidly, tailored to that outbreak and led by public health doctors. These public health doctors will communicate with school staff and parents as indicated.

Rachel Kenna, Chief Nursing Officer, Department of Health said; We can all support parents and school children in our communities by following public health advice. We all have a responsibility to keep our schools open by applying this advice to our daily lives. Remember the key protective behaviours, regular hand washing, physical distance, wearing face coverings where appropriate, reduce your social contacts, know the symptoms and know when to isolate.
Amid the lockdown over the Covid-19 pandemic, the Mumbai police have put in place a high security arrangement for Anant Chaturthi (the last day of Ganeshotsav) on Tuesday for the immersion of Ganesh idols.

Over 35,000 police personnel will be on the streets to ensure that no untoward incident takes place during the immersion of the idols.

A general high alert has been sound across the city and all officers have been asked to be vigilant. The police have appealed to citizens to not to unnecessarily go to immersion points.

A senior police officer said that the staff of all the 94 police stations will be deployed from Monday midnight. Nearly 1,500 men from the special units and side branches such as crime branches, local arms police, Economic Offenses Wing, special branch and protection and security branch will be helping local police stations maintain law and order in the respective areas.

CCTV network of over 5,000 cameras would be used to monitor peoples movement on the street leading to Chowpatties for Ganesh idols immersions. The police have also roped in additional troops of State Reserve Police Force, Riot Control Force and Rapid Action Force, Quick Response Teams (QRTs), Bomb Detection Disposal Squads and homeguards for the bandobast, a statement from police stated.

Policemen in plain clothes would be deployed at the places which witness big crowds to keep a check on the eve teasers and molesters, said Mumbai police spokesperson N Ambika, deputy commissioner of police (Headquarters-1).

Mounted police will be deployed to ensure that people do not gather in large numbers on the Chowpatties. Drone cameras may be used at the major Chowpatties such as Girgaon and Juhu.

The police have also said that since there would not be any big procession this year as all the Sarvajanik Ganesh Mandals following governments order of maintaining the 10-day festival at very low scale, and also with lockdown is in effect, the city traffic police has not made any special arrangements for the vehicular movements for Tuesday. But traffic cops and wardens in big numbers would be seen managing traffic on the streets, a senior traffic police officer said.

The city police will be deploying sea divers, and would also make arrangements of boats and launches in coordination with the Coast Guard and Navy at the immersion points.

The police requested citizens to avoid performing aartis at the immersion points and instead perform them at home. The citizens shall not come out and crowd the street unnecessarily amid the pandemic, DCP Ambika said.
By PTI

JAMMU: Pakistani troops violated ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir nearly 13 times a day during the first seven months of this year, resulting in the death of 23 people, including eight security personnel, and injury to over 100, an RTI query has revealed.

The RTI application filed by activist Raman Sharma also found that in the past two years and seven months, 8,571 ceasefire violations have taken place with the casualty figures being 119 dead (including 56 security personnel) and 608 injured, 300 of them security personnel.

As per the data, Pakistani troops have violated ceasefire 13.89 times per day in the past seven month till July.

"Till July 2020 (this year), 2,952 ceasefire violations were done by Pakistan troops in which 15 civilians, 8 security force personnel were killed and 62 security force personnel and 38 civilians were injured, Director Ministry of Home Affairs, Sulekha, said in the reply to the Right to Information query.

During the last three years, people living near the International Border and the Line of Control areas of Jammu and Kashmir have witnessed on an average at least nine ceasefire violations by Pakistan daily, causing loss of lives and property.

In 2018, there were 2,140 ceasefire violations (nearly six a day) in which 59 persons including 30 civilians were killed, and 259 including 143 civilians injured.

The year 2019 witnessed nine ceasefire violations per day, totalling 3,479, in which 37 people including 19 security personnel were killed and 249 people including 122 security personnel injured.

The MHA reply also discloses that as compared to 2010, the incidents of such aggression by Pakistan at border in Jammu and Kashmir increased around 50 times in year 2019.

While there were only 70 such incidents in 2010  killing two civilians and five force personnel  in 2019, 3,479 such incidents were reported in which 18 civilians and 19 security personnel lost their lives.

The RTI reply further says that from 2010 to till date, Pakistan violated the peace pact on borders at least 11,572 times by resorting to cross-border fire in J&K, killing 240 Indians -- including 122 civilians and 118 security force personnel  and leaving 673 civilians and 594 force personnel injured.

"Every year, the crossborder shelling incidents by Pakistan on border areas are increasing, the reply said.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday met with one of Nigerias most influential Christian clerics, Enoch Adeboye.

Apart from Mr Adeboye, who heads the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), others at the meeting were Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Chief of Staff to the President, Ibrahim Gambari.

Mr Osinbajo is also a pastor of the RCCG.

Although details of the meeting were not disclosed as at press time, it is holding at a time prominent Nigerian clerics have complained about components of the newly signed Companies and Allied Matter Act which seek to regulate not-for-profit organisations including churches.

READ ALSO:

Popular Christian clerics like David Oyedepo and Johnson Suleiman have condemned the parts of the law that give the government the power to appoint administrators for churches and non-governmental organisations under certain conditions.

Prominent civic groups in Nigeria, including the SERAP, have also complained about the new law.
An employee Hana Bank passes by a monitor in the dealing room of the bank's headquarters in central Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap



By Anna J. Park



The top 10 largest market cap companies' weight in the total KOSPI market cap has seen a massive increase, reflecting rapid industrial changes since the global pandemic has accelerated the Fourth Industrial Revolution as well as digital transformation.



According to the Korea Exchange, the monthly average of top largest market cap companies' weight in the total KOSPI market during August accounted for 44.78 percent, which is about 11.27 percentage points increase from last August's 33.51 percent.



The top 10 market cap companies' combined share increased to 39.34 percent at the end of last year, but it has risen to nearly 45 percent since May this year.



When calculated with the top 15 largest companies' market cap, their weight exceeds over 50 percent of the total market cap of the KOSPI, meaning that the top 15 companies are valued higher than the over 700 other listed companies.



Market watchers say one of the key reasons behind the top companies' increased market weight has to do with particularly bullish moves of the biopharmaceutical industry as well as IT-based digital and contactless companies against the backdrop of COVID-19.



"IT companies based on contactless and digital business models received high valuations, in addition to their enhanced performances during the pandemic spread," said senior analyst Chung Myoung-ji at Samsung Securities. "Their stock prices went higher with their improved guidance, resulting in an increased concentration in the major companies' weight in the total market capitalization."



The pandemic-led economic recession is also benefiting a small number of digital-based companies in their performances, as the market cap gap between companies increases.



"Only a limited number of companies have a bright future outlook in their performances amid the pandemic-led downturn. It is obviously clear to see the differentiated paths between the industries with rosy outlooks and the sectors without such outlooks," said Lee Kyoung-soo, analyst at Hana Financial Investment.



Currently, five companies  Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Samsung Biologics, Naver and LG Chem  have a market cap of over 50 trillion won ($43 billion). For a long time, Samsung Electronics was the only company with over 50 trillion won of market capitalization, and this year marks the first time that the other four companies' market caps exceeded the mark.



Other market insiders point out that it is the result of retail investors' proactive participation in the stock market this year.



"Now is the time when retail investors are much contributing to the rise of the KOSPI index," analyst Lee from Hana Financial Investment said. "Generally, foreign investors and institutional investors have a tendency of diversified investment in their portfolio management, while retail investors tend to more focus on high-performing blue-chip companies."



Market data backs up such claims. The percentage of retail investors' weight in the stock transactions accounted for some 64 percent as of last week, a whopping 16.5 percentage points increase from last year's 47.5 percent. Some of the most purchased stocks of retail investors from mid-March up to last Friday include Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Naver, Kakao and Samsung SDI  all within the top 10 market cap companies' list.




By PTI

LONDON: The elder brother of former Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn is among the first set of people to be fined 10,000 pounds (USD 13,325) under new powers of the British police to curb large gatherings in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Piers Corbyn confirmed on social media that he had been arrested and fined for his part in an anti-lockdown 'Unite for Freedom' protest at Trafalgar Square here on Saturday.

The 73-year-old vocal critic of the coronavirus lockdown measures said on Twitter that he had been handed the fixed penalty fine as an "organiser".

"One arrest was made at Trafalgar Square at 15:25 hours, a 73-year-old man on suspicion of breaking the new Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No2) (England) Regulations 2020," Scotland Yard said in reference to the arrest.

"A fixed penalty notice would be issued for 10,000 pounds for the offence of holding a gathering of more than 30 people in an outdoor public place contrary to regulations," the Metropolitan Police said.

In a tweet, Piers Corbyn declared the rally an "epic success" and claimed that around 35,000 filled Trafalgar Square to "Stop the New Normal" after large crowds of protesters, some of whom displayed anti-mask and anti-vaccination placards, were seen in Trafalgar Square through Saturday afternoon.

Under the new rules announced earlier and which came into force from Friday, organisers of illegal gatherings of more than 30 people can now be fined up to 10,000 pounds and people taking part in illegal raves, unlicensed music events or any other unlawful gatherings of 30 people or more now face a 100 pounds fine.

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel had issued a statement on social media to remind the British public of the new rules last week.

"The police will be working hard to keep us all safe over the Bank Holiday weekend. Rightly many of us will be out enjoying ourselves, but we must remember that coronavirus remains a threat.

"From tomorrow (Friday), those organising illegal raves and parties could face a 10,000 pounds fine," she said.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police were seen handing out letters explaining the recently introduced legislation to demonstrators in London.

"We are actively out on the ground, speaking with people taking part continuing to emphasis the public health risk and the regulations, and that it is incumbent on them to fulfill the requirements under the new legislation to check the position and ensure that they are not committing an offence by being involved in a large gathering or they may be subject to a large fine," said Commander Bas Javid, the Met Police spokesperson for what is a long "August Bank Holiday Weekend" to mark the end of summer in England.

"Our policing response to each event may differ according to our operational decision making, based on information given to us subject to the new legislation," he said.

There have been widespread crackdowns on similar large gatherings, including parties and raves around the country.

Eight people were fined 10,000 pounds in Yorkshire after officers broke up several parties in Headingley and Burley over the weekend.

One unlicensed music event in south Wales attracted more than 3,000 people.

"This type of illegal gathering is totally unacceptable and we are aware of the concerns it is causing for the local community," said Chief Superintendent Simon Belcher, of South Wales Police.

"I would like to again remind people of their obligations under the current coronavirus legislation and the overarching goal for everyone to take personal responsibility," he said.

Some police forces deployed drone units, dogs, police helicopters and specially trained public order officers to tackle the problem of large gatherings as part of country-wide efforts to control the spread of the deadly virus.
Vietnam has made significant headway in developing an effective e-government, making public services far more accessible for enterprises, investors, and individuals.

The Government Office last week officially launched the National Reporting Platform (NRP), the government and the prime ministers Centre for Information and Direction (CID), and the 1,000th online public service on the National Public Service Portal (NPSP).

The NRP and the CID becoming operational are major milestones in the governments macroeconomic monitoring and administrative reform as well as the move from paper to digital-based processes, said Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at the launch. They demonstrate the governments strong determination to develop an effective e-government.

Constructed by local and foreign experts with help from VNPT, the NRP and CID are directly connected with the directing centres, reporting systems, and data bases of all ministries, agencies, and localities at all levels. From the NRP and CID, the prime minister can directly monitor and supervise all sectors managed by ministries, agencies, and localities. Based on digitalised data and images, the government leaders will be able to provide directions for them.

So far, the reporting platforms of 30 ministries, agencies, and localities, as well as state-owned groups and corporations have been connected with the NRP. All information is provided and exchanged continuously, transparently, and safely.

In addition to the NRP and the CID, the government has also paid special attention to cement the relationship between it and people, enterprises, and investors via the NPSP.

According to the Government Office, as of August 18, the NPSP received registrations from more than 227,000 accounts and was accessed over 58 million times for seeking information and conducting public services. Moreover, more than 14.3 million synchronous dossiers and 246,000 online dossiers were processed on the NPSP.

On average, each day sees the portal receive and process about 4,000 online dossiers, more than 23,000 calls, and over 7,600 proposals from the public, enterprises, and investors.

The online payment system of the NPSP, put into operation in March, has also processed nearly 7,000 online payment transactions, over 4,000 of which have been conducted since July.

After eight months of operation, the number of the NPSPs public services offered has skyrocketed from eight to 1,000 by August 18, including the three new services launched last week.

The new services include one on payment of compulsory social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance, and compulsory insurance for occupational accidents and occupational diseases; one on registration of adjustments to compulsory social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance, and reports on labour changes; and the 1,000th public service which is on declaration and payment of registration fees and submission of automobile registration declarations.

Many new online services involve notarisation, voluntary social insurance, extension of medical insurance cards for households, granting new driving licences, changing driving licences, and payment of fines for traffic violations. These services are estimated to help the state to save about VND1.69 trillion ($73.47 million) per year.

For example, individuals and enterprises can access the portal to self-process their documents and certificates to have them notarised in a wink, with a digital signature and sharp accuracy on the notarised electric copies.

The NPSP has connected with 18 ministries and central agencies, all 63 provinces and cities, 12 state-run groups and corporations, eight banks, and many e-wallet service providers. The portal could help save more than VND13 trillion ($565.2 million) in costs for people, enterprises, and investors every year.

Under the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs newly-launched hallmark UN E-government Survey 2020, Vietnam has climbed two places to rank 86th out of 193 countries. With this ranking, Vietnam has maintained its record of consecutive increases since 2014, climbing from 99th in the process.

Harvesting 0.6667 points in the surveys E-Government Development Index (EGDI), Vietnam is among the e-government developing countries with a high index, a score which is higher than the global EGDI average of 0.5988 points, the Asian average of 0.6373 points, and the Southeast Asian average of 0.6321 points.

In Southeast Asia, Vietnam has successfully maintained the same position as in 2018, ranking sixth among 11 countries, behind Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, and the Philippines.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, with a population of nearly 100 million people, Vietnam is among the few nations in Southeast Asia with high growth in digital transformation. As of late June, the country has 127 million mobile phone subscribers, while it is estimated that 54.2 per cent of the population are connected to broadband wire-based internet. VIR

Nguyen Thanh

Vietnam praised for e-government development Vietnams e-government has taken a big step forwards. The smart urban operation center and the reporting and data analysis system have been implemented on a trial basis and brought initial results.
BROOKLYN, N.Y., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Eastern Union, one of the country's largest commercial real estate firms, is promoting a unique career opportunity that trains new hires as commercial mortgage brokers, and pays as much as $500,000 in annual income within two to three years of joining the company.

This aggressive hiring initiative offers profitable job opportunities for both workforce amateurs and seasoned sales professionals. The company is actively onboarding ten new brokers weekly.

Ira Zlotowitz, president of Eastern Union, says the company has been experiencing a significant surge in new business as the result of a pricing reset. To help meet growing market demand, Eastern Union has launched an aggressive hiring initiative to recruit new brokers.

"We will train every new hire to become a successful commercial real estate broker," said Ira Zlotowitz, Eastern Union's founder and president. "You will benefit from hands-on training and in-depth education sessions taught by leading industry experts. You will be mentored in everything from real estate and finance, to sales and cold calling, and you will learn the ins and outs of this business to maximize your future success."

All newly hired personnel -- who are being recruited from a national base of candidates and who do not need prior sales experience -- will be equipped to immediately initiate commercial real estate transactions as Eastern Union brokers.

"Eastern Union's hiring surge arises from a rush of owner and investor demand for the refinancing of multi-family properties holding mortgages with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Mr. Zlotowitz said. "Our Multi-Family Group electrified the market by charging a market-resetting quarter-point fee -- with no back-end fees. This has greatly boosted demand for our services, which our new brokers will help fill."

Because a wide range of business interactions now occurs virtually, job applicants can apply, interview and work from the comfort of their homes from anywhere in the country. This helps promote personal safety within today's pandemic environment, while allowing those who join the company to work virtually within Eastern Union's high-tech, remote workplace environment.

"In short order, Eastern Union's dynamic Multi-Family Group and the quarter-point fee rewrote many of the rules in our industry," said Mr. Zlotowitz. "This advantageous pricing structure gives our brokers an advantage over the competition, and will enable us to provide hundreds of people with secure professional careers for years to come."

Interested parties can apply for a career at Eastern Union by visiting hiring.easternunion.com.

About Eastern Union

Founded in 2001, Eastern Union is a leading national commercial mortgage brokerage firm employing more than 125 brokers and real estate professionals and closing $5 billion in real estate transactions annually. Eastern Union's capital introductions are handled through its affiliate company, Eastern Equity Advisors.

Accounting for one of the industry's highest transaction volumes, the Eastern Union team leverages its relationships with banks and its marketplace knowledge to bring clients the best available rates.

The firm arranges financing for complex, multi-state, multi-site portfolios, as well as loans for smaller, single-property transactions. Eastern Union's new Multi-Family Group recently reset market pricing by introducing an unprecedented quarter-point fee -- with no back-end fees -- for refinancing multifamily properties backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, transactions known as "agency refinancings."

Eastern Union's groundbreaking, proprietary app serves as an intelligent commercial real estate toolkit. Its eCALC feature -- available for download in the App Store and Google Play Store -- enables investors to fully value and underwrite deals instantaneously and in the palm of their hand.

With nationwide operations, Eastern Union is headquartered in New York, with multiple branches along the East Coast. For more information, visit www.easternunion.com.

Media contact:

Steve Vitoff

516 652 0785

[email protected]

SOURCE Eastern Union
For months, Houstonians have relied primarily on cellphones and computers to pay a visit to their physicians. But as things open up and COVID-19 case rates dip again in the state, a few are wondering: Is it finally time to go in-person for a checkup?

Heres what five Houston doctors and dentists had to say about feeling safe and reducing your risk of catching the virus at a medical providers office.

What measures are health care providers taking to stay safe?

A doctor or dentist is there to treat the ill, not pass along illnesses. So youll find that any medical provider worth their salt will do a laundry list of things to make sure the office is sanitary and patients feel comfortable coming in to get treated.

What you want to see is that theyve pre-screened you, said Dr. Ronald Rhea, who practices at The Dentists at Town & Country Village in west Houston, asking where youve traveled, whether youve previously contracted COVID-19 and whether you have any symptoms when you book an appointment. A good doctors or dentists office will repeat the screening process once you get there.

Its standard practice these days to have a temperature check at the door and a policy requiring a mask while in the building, unless asked to remove it by a doctor.

MORE HOW TO: Heres how to get ready for hurricane season

Staff are sterilizing every square inch of the space  including pens to sign patient forms and doorknobs. A few offices are wrapping their credit card machines in plastic wrap, changing the disposable material between patients to prevent any kind of transmission. (The chances of COVID-19 transmission via surfaces are much lower when compared with transmission via droplets sneezed or coughed, however.)

And physicians are asking that only the person with the appointment come in, with a few exceptions  a minor may be accompanied by a parent or guardian, for example. Otherwise, the goal is to reduce the number of people sitting in a hospital or physicians office.

If they come with a ride, we ask that (the driver) sit in the car, said Dr. Steffanie Campbell, who practices at Kelsey-Seybold Clinic in Pearland.

But how do we know that we wont catch COVID-19 while in a waiting room? What if I have to take my mask off during the appointment?

If you and any others in the waiting room are wearing masks correctly, that shouldnt be a concern, doctors said. For one, many have removed chairs from their waiting rooms to create at least 6 feet of space between people.

More Information What is this? I'm Gwendolyn Wu, and I'm writing "Houston How To," a series on how to navigate the city and its complexities. Humans have an innate drive to improve themselves, and we're always striving to live better, smarter and more efficiently. The Houston Chronicle wants to simplify that for you. What are things you need to know how to do, Houston? You can find me on Twitter at @gwendolynawu or by email at gwendolyn.wu@chron.com. See More Collapse

But you may not even have the chance to be in the waiting room. Some physicians like Dr. Gary Sheppard, an internal medicine doctor in southwest Houston, have opted to keep patients waiting in their cars.

Well call them, they come in, check in, but theres nobody else in there because everybody else is waiting in their car, said Sheppard, president-elect of the Harris County Medical Society.

Some visits, of course, necessitate removing masks  such as a dental cleaning. Those offices are running air filters practically 24/7 to purify the air. At Rheas office in west Houston, the staff also uses a hypochlorous fogger every few hours to clean the exam rooms. The fogger is a nontoxic disinfectant that kills numerous types of viruses and bacteria, according to a recent study in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.

Instruments used to check and clean patients teeth are thoroughly washed and cleaned between patients, and they are put into an autoclave where high-pressure steam sterilizes the tools.

We never take a chance, Rhea said.

If I have COVID-19 symptoms, should I head straight to my doctors office?

The first thing you should do is call ahead and tell your primary care physician what symptoms you have. Possible COVID-19 patients might be seen in a different exam room, examined in their cars or given a telemedicine appointment instead.

Most cases arent severe, but the disease is still contagious, so physicians want as much time as possible to prepare to take care of a COVID-19 patient. The sickest patients could reach out to their doctor, but theyll likely pass those people on to a larger hospital.

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If their symptoms are more serious and we really think that their risk is high for COVID and theyre very ill, we send them to the emergency room and call the emergency room ahead of time, said Dr. Elizabeth Torres, an internal medicine doctor at SignatureMD in Sugar Land.

Do I have to get tested or quarantine before? Should I bring extra personal protective equipment in with me?

Keep your mask on you and dont forget the hand sanitizer. If a face shield and gloves make you feel more comfortable, you can bring them. But theres no need to quarantine yourself for 14 days before going into the doctors office. In fact, you should do the complete opposite, said Dr. Lisa Ehrlich, an internal medicine physician in River Oaks.

Shes worried that Houstonians are putting off important visits and letting urgent medical issues go unchecked because theyre afraid of catching the virus. But the most important thing to do when sick is seek professional medical advice.

It would be a disaster, Ehrlich said, if we increased the barriers for coming in.

Torres, the doctor in Sugar Land, said some patients may be asked to do a COVID-19 test before certain procedures. The longer youll be in the office, the higher the chance youll need one.

If they have to sedate you, certainly theyre going to have you (get tested), Torres said.

Can I do both telemedicine and in-person visits?

Yes. In fact, your doctors and dentists would prefer if you did a mix of the two.

Its recommended to do a telemedicine appointment to manage a chronic illness such as diabetes, for instance, or therapy to manage addiction or mental illness.

If you are showing COVID-19 symptoms, try to schedule a telemedicine appointment with your physician so you dont risk transmitting the virus in a doctors exam room. Over the phone or a video call, they can help assess your symptoms, order a coronavirus test and evaluate whether you need to go to an emergency room.

But thats not a replacement for an in-person visit.

Some of it, they just need to be in our office, said Ehrlich, the River Oaks physician. So we want to make sure that those patients are coming in and feel secure.

gwendolyn.wu@chron.com

twitter.com/gwendolynawu
Some foster care workers could be entitled to employment rights for the first time after a landmark legal ruling.

Edinburgh Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that carers Jimmy and Christine Johnstone should have been entitled classified as employees and so were entitled to sick pay, holiday pay, a guaranteed minimum wage and protections for whistleblowing.

After a long-running legal battle with Glasgow City Council, which began when the Johnstones raised serious safety concerns about a young person a number of years ago, a judge ruled that the couples arrangement to carry out care work amounted to a contract of employment.

The pair said they brought the case because after they told the council they feared for their lives and the life of a young person in their care, the authority refused to help and instead stopped sending children to them.

Mr and Ms Johnstone argued that they should have been treated as whistleblowers but in order to claim that status they had to show they were employees.

The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which helped bring the case, hopes the result will set a precedent for foster care workers across the UK, many of whom are paid less than the minimum wage and denied basic rights.

For years we were told we had no rights. No employment rights, no right to representation or due process and no right to speak out even when our family was at risk, said Jimmy Johnstone. This is the reality facing foster care workers nationwide.

He added: We are delighted with the ruling and hopeful that it will encourage others to take up the fight. All foster care workers want is to have basic protections everyone should be entitled to so that we can do the best job we can for our young people.

The Edinburgh Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld an initial 2017 decision that Mr and Ms Johnstone were council employees.

Mr Johnstone said he hoped the ruling would mean other foster carers felt able to speak up about safety issues and breaches of their rights.

He and his wife worked in a special scheme for young people who had complex needs. This meant that they received wages and holiday pay, an unusual arrangement for foster care workers, most of whom are paid a weekly fee under an agreement which councils say is not a legally binding contract.

This leaves them in a precarious position which, the IWGB warned, dissuaded many carers from speaking up about widespread problems in the care system.

It is not yet clear how the ruling will apply to these workers but the union described it as a major precedent which demonstrates employment tribunalss willingness to reassess foster carerss rights more broadly.

IWGB foster care workers branch secretary Pauline Graham, said: The question of employment rights for foster care workers goes to the heart of why our foster care system is in crisis.

Carers are leaving the system in droves as they are pushed around, victimised and neglected by their employers. The result is a growing number of young people in childrens homes.

This hard-won victory by Jimmy, Christine and the IWGB paves the way for more foster care workers to follow suit in claiming the rights and protections they have been denied for decades. Whats at stake is nothing less than the wellbeing of our most vulnerable children.

A spokesperson for the council said: We strongly refute any allegations of bullying and of a lack of support for the Johnstones who received significant support from social work and health services to maintain their role.

They have also continued to be paid not inconsiderable fees while this legal case has been ongoing. What they have not been paid is an allowance, as that money is solely and specifically available to meet the needs of a child and they have had no child in their care.

This judgement relates to a service that provided a specialist form of foster care. We are now carefully considering the implications of the judgment.

However, we do note that, as with the initial employment tribunal decision, the findings in this judgement do not extend to the status of mainstream foster carers.
The government in Chinas far northwest Xinjiang region is resorting to draconian measures to combat the coronavirus, including physically locking residents in homes, imposing quarantines of more than 40 days and arresting those who do not comply. Furthermore, in what experts call a breach of medical ethics, some residents are being coerced into swallowing traditional Chinese medicine, according to government notices, social media posts and interviews with three people in quarantine in Xinjiang. There is a lack of rigorous clinical data showing traditional Chinese medicine works against the virus, and one of the herbal remedies used in Xinjiang, Qingfei Paidu, includes ingredients banned in Germany, Switzerland, the U.S. and other countries for high levels of toxins and carcinogens.
After six months since Pune reported the first Covid-19 case in Maharashtra, the citys Covid tally on Sunday crossed 1 lakh mark while Pune district has already surpassed Mumbai in the number of total Covid cases. Yogesh Joshi of Hindustan Times spoke to Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope on the situation in Pune, Mumbai and rest of Maharashtra. Following are the excerpts:

Pune cases have reached the 1 lakh mark. How do you see the situation here?

Pune has almost reached its peak as it touched the 1 lakh mark. Now the citys tally of fresh cases must come down from here on and I am very optimistic about the situation in Pune. Having seen the graph of various cities across the world, I can tell you that every city reaches the peak at some point and then gets plateaued before the tally comes down. This has been a global trend in the Covid situation and Pune will be no exception.

While cases are rising, the bed situation in Pune city and the rest of district has somewhat eased.

As a government, it is duty bound to be prepared for the worst. Now we have been preparing for the worst in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. As part of our efforts, we have set up jumbo facilities in both cities with each having 800 beds. Both have been made operational now. There is no bed shortage now and we are further ramping up our bed capacity.

Besides Pune and PCMC, rural parts are also reporting cases in higher numbers.

This is because the virus is spreading in nearby areas and we cannot control it. Covid-19 is a highly contagious disease. Can we stop people from stepping out of home? No. In Maharashtra, we started lockdown earlier than the Centre while extending it till June. Now we are into unlocking mode.

Are you satisfied with the case fatality ratio (CFR) of Pune?

This is a contagious disease and it will spread. While the spread is not a big concern even as it creates a fearful situation, what we have to pay more attention to is the Case Fatality Ratio (CFR). In Pune, the CFR is below normal and it currently stands at 2.4 per cent. Considering that Pune has reported 1 lakh cases, CFR of 2.4 per cent is not bad. The death rate for Covid has always been around 3 per cent. The doubling rate has also increased and is almost 30 while recovery rate is almost 80 per cent. So on most parameters, the situation in Pune is under control. For administration, whatever guidelines, notifications have been issued; will have to be enforced in letter and spirit. Be it 80 per cent beds being taken by government, the order has to be implemented properly. At the same time, we have prescribed rates be it for treatment or RT-PCR tests. These things are to be properly monitored by administration. On the availability of drugs also, there is no issue at all as Remdesivire and Tociluzumab are in ample quantity. From government side, we have to see preparedness and we are prepared for the worst even as numbers are increasing.

In Pune, the number of people succumbing to the virus is growing along with the number of positive cases.

People are dying because of two major reasons - co-morbidities and late detection or lack of knowledge. Many people are reporting late because of stigma. If we analyse the situation in any district of Maharashtra, most people are dying within 48 hours of reporting because they reported late. Many people are not coming out on their own even if the health department is trying best to aggressively carry out contact tracing and identifying affected patients. The three things I believe that are most important are information, education and communication and we should be insisting on this always.

On unlocking- we are still to relax curbs on many things including temples, gyms or e-passes for travelling.

We have adopted a staggered opening approach. The chief minister, Uddhavji Thackeray is conservative in opening up things. There is a demand, and political parties have staged an agitation.

Is there a chance that gymnasiums, temples and other such sites will open in September?

We have to do it at some point. We have to take a call on this as many things have already opened. But the chief minister is very much conservative on this.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar backs opening up, but the CM has a different stand.

Well, we have to achieve the via-median between what Sharad Pawarji is saying and what CM thinks. We cant open everything 100 per cent, which will allow virus to spread even rapidly and create a burden on the health infrastructure. We will only earn a bad name if people find no beds in hospitals. We have to do it slowly. Without opening also, we are having 14,000-15,000 cases daily in Maharashtra. On Saturday, state reported 16,867 cases in one day.

In Mumbai, the daily cases are once again rising.

In a big city like Mumbai, having population of around 1.5 crore, if 100-200 add more or less to the tally, it is not a point of worry at all although it is showing a trend that cases are increasing. However, I do not believe that it is an indication of second wave.

There are couple of other places which can act as an example. Dharavi in Mumbai and Malegaon in North Maharashtra have shown the way cases can be brought under control. In Malegaon, which has population of 3 lakh who live in congested place  Its population density is 19,000 persons per square kilometre and is highest in Maharashtra  we have been able to control it. I believe we are heading towards herd immunity in these places.

Are we reaching herd immunity in other places too?

Ultimately, all these places where the tally subsides, we will reach herd immunity. We are approaching 25-30 per cent of the people getting infected. This is in the direction of achieving herd immunity. Once most people are immune to virus, I dont think there fresh positive cases will come this way.

Sero surveys showed 51.50 per cent and 57 per cent individuals in Pune and Mumbai were exposed to Sars-Cov-2 and recovered owing to the antibodies produced. How do you look at the scenario?

Even if the sample size of these two Sero surveys were relatively small, they collected samples from various areas. In Pune, the survey covered people from slum and non-slums. It definitely has some significance. It gives an indication.

In rural and semi-rural parts of Maharashtra, more and more cases are coming up.

The cases are definitely growing in rural parts of Maharashtra. However, I can say with all certainty that the picture is not scary as over 80 per cent people are asymptomatic or with mild symptoms. The number of critical or serious patients is around 2 per cent. If we take precaution, each one of us can defeat Covid-19.

On the broader side, how optimistic you are about Maharashtra?

I am 100 per cent optimistic and at the same time, I and my department are cautious and alert to deal with any eventuality. Now that we are past six months, most of the frontline staff is working relentlessly.

There have been complaints about hospitals overcharging or doctors not opening clinics

Doctors should have empathy and sympathy while treating patients. Most of 5.5 lakh recovered patients who have returned home are because of doctors treatment. However, there are some who require working on mission mode. They should not just treat patients for the sake of treatment. It should come from the heart. We are witnessing that at some places, doctors are not treating patients properly may be because they are scared. There is human touch required while treating patients. I am constantly telling them it all depends on you as we as lay person cant treat anyone. Doctors should have humanitarian and sympathetic approach. The entire society is dependent on the doctors fraternity.

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The mayor of Portland, Oregon, and President engaged in a real-time argument Sunday as the president sent a flurry of critical tweets about Ted Wheeler as the mayor was holding a press conference about the fatal of a right-wing supporter in his city the night before.

After Trump called Wheeler, a Democrat, a fool and blamed him for allowing violence to proliferate in the liberal city, the visibly angry mayor lashed out at the president, addressing him in the first person through the TV cameras.

That's classic Trump. Mr. President, how can you think that a comment like that, if you're watching this, is in any way helpful? It's an aggressive stance, it is not collaborative. I certainly reached out, I believe in a collaborative manner, by saying earlier that you need to do your part and I need to do my part and then we both need to be held accountable, Wheeler said.

"Let's work together. Wouldn't that be a message? and Ted Wheeler working together to help move this country forward. Why don't we try that for a change?



The testy news conference followed a chaotic and volatile 24 hours in Portland that began when a caravan of about 600 vehicles packed with Trump supporters drove through Portland and was met with counterprotesters.

Skirmishes broke out between the groups and, about 15 minutes after the caravan left the city, a supporter of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer was fatally shot.

Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson identified the victim as Aaron Jay Danielson. He called the victim a good friend," but provided no further details. Danielson apparently also went by the name Jay Bishop, according to Patriot Prayer's Facebook page.

We love Jay and he had such a huge heart. God bless him and the life he lived, Gibson said in a Facebook post.

Trump retweeted the victim's name and wrote, Rest in peace Jay! It wasn't clear if the was related to the clashes between Trump supporters and counterprotesters in Portland, which has become a flashpoint in the national Black Lives Matter protests since George Floyd was killed in May and an increasing centerpiece in Trump's law-and-order re-election campaign theme.

Trump and other speakers at last week's Republican National Convention evoked a violent, dystopian future if Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden wins in November and pointed to Portland as a cautionary tale for what would be in store for Americans.

Police have released little information and Chief Chuck Lovell said Sunday that investigators are still gathering evidence, including surveillance video from area businesses.

Earlier Sunday, the agency released a plea for any information related to the killing, including videos, photos or eyewitness accounts.

Patriot Prayer is based in Washington state and was founded in 2016. Since early 2017, its supporters have been periodically coming to Portland to hold rallies for Trump, ratcheting up tensions in the liberal city long before the national outrage over Floyd's death sparked more than three months of protests here.

Portland has seen nearly 100 consecutive nights of Black Lives Matter protests and many have ended with vandalism to federal and city property, including police precincts, a county jail, the federal courthouse and City Hall.

In July, Trump sent more than 100 federal agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to safeguard federal property a move that instead reinvigorated the protests.

Thousands of people clashed with the federal agents each night for two weeks, as agents lobbed tear gas canisters and pepper spray at the crowds and some protesters tossed fireworks at the agents and shined lasers in their eyes.

Those agents withdrew July 31 but smaller nightly protests have continued in pockets of the city. More than 600 people have been arrested since late May.

On Sunday, Portland authorities urged people to stay away from the downtown as they try to de-escalate tensions and braced for what promised to be another night of violence. A protest was planned for Sunday night on the city's east side.

Late Sunday Oregon Gov. Kate Brown released details of a plan to address the violence in Portland while protecting free speech.

She said the district attorney's office in Multnomah County, which includes Portland, will prosecute serious criminal offenses and the sheriff's office will work with other agencies to hold people arrested for violent behavior and ensure there is adequate jail space.

Also, Brown said Oregon State Police will return to Portland to help local police and nearby law enforcement agencies will also be asked to assist.

Trump earlier Sunday appeared to be encouraging his supporters to move into Portland in the wake of the

After the shooting, the president shared a video of his supporters driving into Portland and called those in Saturday's caravan GREAT PATRIOTS! Wheeler begged those who wanted to come to Portland to seek retribution to stay away.

If you're from out of town and you're reading something on social media if you're reading any facts on social media they're probably wrong because we don't have all the facts yet, Wheeler said.

They are still assembling the facts. This is not the time to get hotheaded because you read something on Twitter that some guy made up in his mother's basement.

(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.)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 18:11 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41b1840 1 National military-police,TNI,TNI-AD,Indonesian-Army,Ciracas-Police,Ciracas-Police-Attack,andika-perkasa,National-Police Free

The Indonesian Military (TNI) is set to dismiss its personnel found to have been involved in a recent attack on the Ciracas Police station in East Jakarta, Army chief of staff Gen. Andika Perkasa has said.

A mob reportedly comprising TNI personnel burned down two vehicles at the police station and vandalized nearby stores along Jl. Raya Bogor on Saturday. Authorities believe the attack was triggered by misinformation.

Two police personnel were injured in the attack.

The Military Police have questioned 31 TNI personnel as part of the investigation into the incident, including a low-ranking soldier identified as Second Pvt. MI, who was allegedly the provocateur of the attack, Andika said.

Twelve have been detained at the Jakarta Military Command Police in Central Jakarta, while 19 others were sent to other detention centers belonging to the Army after being questioned, he said.

"The results of the investigation so far show that all the questioned personnel could face dismissal, as mandated in the Military Criminal Code," Andika said on Sunday.

The four-star general further explained that each officer involved in the incident would be charged under different articles of the Military Criminal Code.

Its better to lose 31 or any number of personnel who were involved in the attack rather than have the TNI's reputation tarnished by irresponsible actions that do not represent the vows of the Indonesian Military, he said.

Andika also ensured that all charged personnel would compensate the victims for any injuries and losses they suffered.

Read also: To close for comfort? BNPT wary of militarys proposed counterterrorism role

There would be a mechanism that ensures they pay for the damages. The Jakarta Military commander [Maj. Gen. Dudung Abdurachman] will calculate the damages caused by the incident and he will report it to me.

According to the TNI, the incident started after Second Pvt. MI was caught in a single-vehicle crash at the Arundina three-road junction in Ciracas on Friday.

MI allegedly told 27 of his fellow officers that he had been physically beaten by the Ciracas Police, fueling their anger and instigating them to attack the Ciracas Police station.

However, TNI Commander Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto said on Sunday that based on the testimonies of witnesses and CCTV footage, MI had sustained injuries "from the single-vehicle accident, not from a physical attack, kompas.com reported.

Saturday's incident was not the first to have happened at the Ciracas Police station and it also came in the wake of a series of clashes involving military and police personnel in the past years.

In 2018, dozens of TNI personnel reportedly ransacked and burned down part of the police station on Dec. 13, damaging police vehicles and leaving several officers and reporters injured. The attack was allegedly triggered by the mob's disappointment over the polices handling of an assault on TNI personnel in Ciracas.

In February, some TNI personnel also attacked a police station in North Tapanuli regency, North Sumatra, following a traffic dispute.

In September 2019, the two security forces in separate locations were involved in multiple clashes during mass protests. Police officers allegedly fired tear gas at TNI personnel and the two forces were seen involved in a verbal battle among protesters, causing speculation of the ever-increasing dispute between the two. (trn)
Technicians at Ghana-based exploration drilling company, Geodrill have successfully built a multipurpose drill rig in the country.

This is the sixth such time the company is locally manufacturing its own drill rig designed specifically for the Ghanaian terrain.

Eric Twum the Workshop Manager at Geodrill who led the team assembling the drill explained the feat goes a long way to confirm that when the right training, opportunities, and investments are made in the local economy, we Ghanaians can produce anything.

The latest rig which he described as unique is an up-specified version of those supplied of international drill rig manufacturers that are used throughout the mining industry.

This is a multipurpose drill. It can be used to conduct both reverse circulation and core drilling, Twum explained. It also further serves as a water borehole drill to provide water for communities and is on a crawler base so it can self-propel itself around in difficult terrain, he further explained.

The drill that was unveiled recently at Anwiankwanta near Kumasi, which is where Geodrill is operationally headquartered.

Eric Twum who has 18 years experience in the industry, expressed excitement of what they have been able to build after 22 years when the CEO, Dave Harper foundered the company in 1988.

He recalled that in the past, the company used to buy the drills from overseas and remodel to fit the local terrain, however with a principal of local content at the heart of Geodrills thinking the company has been continuously developing competence in house. The team has had constant training, resource mobilisation and determination, we are building international standard drills that best fit our terrain.

A member of the team, James Matinson was elated that the entire team was full of Ghanaians from welding, structural works, painting/spraying, electrical and mechanic works (engine, pumps, hoses and compressors) among others.

CEO of Geodrill, Dave Harper, originally from Australia noted that local content has been at the centre of its operations and plans since day one.

For this reason, we have invested heavily in training over the two decades of operation. Geodrill hires locally and trains from within according to international best practices in mining, Mr. Harper stressed.

With operations in Ghana (HQ), Burkina-Faso, Cote dIvoire, Mali and Zambia, Geodrill is ready to enter other African countries not only to invest, but also build local capacity and create an African dominated mining exploration industry.
ITASCA, Ill., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Balasa Dinverno Foltz LLC ("BDF"), one of the Chicago area's foremost wealth management firms, and CI Financial Corp. ("CI") (TSX: CIX) of Toronto are pleased to announce that BDF has once again been recognized as a top employer in the area, being named a winner in the Best Places to Work in Illinois 2020 survey.

BDF was ranked Number 1 of 39 finalists in the small employer category of the survey, designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment benefiting the state's economy, workforce and businesses. This is the 10th consecutive year that BDF has appeared on the winners' list and the seventh consecutive year it has ranked in the top 10 of its category. The honors continued as BDF was ranked Number 3 for best places to work for Women and Number 3 for best places to work for Millennials. These rankings were among all sized employers.

The awards follow similar recent recognitions from Crain's Chicago Business, as BDF was ranked Number 2 overall and Number 1 in financial services on Crain's 2020 list of 100 Best Places to Work in Chicago, as well as InvestmentNews, as BDF was ranked Number 2 in 2020 list in the large category for financial advice firms.

"It is heartwarming to be recognized by our team as the best place to work in all of Illinois," said Armond Dinverno, BDF President and Co-Founder. "These awards reflect our high-performing culture which is based on attracting and retaining top talent to serve our mission of helping our clients enjoy a full life."

BDF is a registered investment advisor ("RIA") firm with approximately $4.6 billion in assets as of July 31, 2020. Its team of 62 people provide customized wealth management services to individuals and families, business owners and institutions and non-profit organizations in the Chicago area. BDF recently agreed to be acquired by CI, a global asset and wealth management firm.

"We extend our congratulations once again to the BDF team for building an outstanding reputation as an employer and a firm," said Kurt MacAlpine, CI Chief Executive Officer. "We are proud to be associated with such a high-quality organization and look forward to a rewarding partnership."

In the Best Places to Work in Illinois, companies from across the state were evaluated for their workplace policies, practices and demographics. In addition, an employee survey was used to measure the employee experience as part of the evaluation process. The competition is managed by the Best Companies Group and sponsored by the Daily Herald Business Ledger, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, MRA  The Management Association, and the Small Business Advocacy Council. The final rankings were announced earlier this month.

CI is acquiring BDF as part of CI's strategy to expand its presence in wealth management and to globalize the firm. With the acquisition of BDF, CI will have over $11 billion in wealth management assets in the United States. BDF will form a cornerstone of CI's business and a platform for continued expansion.

About Balasa Dinverno Foltz

BDF was founded in 2001 by Mark Balasa, Armond Dinverno, and Mike Foltz, who each have more than three decades of industry experience. BDF provides personalized investment management and financial planning, and manages approximately $4.6 billion as of July 31, 2020 on behalf of business owners, individuals and families, and institutions. BDF's expertise includes practice groups specializing in the unique needs of women, widows, business owners, insurance brokers and agency owners, lawyers, financial professionals, and divorcing individuals. BDF has received extensive recognition, including being listed on the 2020 FT300: Top Registered Investment Advisors, being ranked Number 30 on the RIA Channel Top 100 Wealth Managers for 2020, and appearing on the Barron's Top 50 RIAs list in 2019. For more information, visit www.bdfllc.com.

About CI Financial

CI Financial Corp. (TSX: CIX) is an independent company offering global asset management and wealth management advisory services. It held approximately C$187 billion (US$140 billion) in assets as of July 31, 2020. CI's primary asset management businesses are CI Investments Inc. and GSFM Pty Ltd., and it operates in wealth management through Assante Wealth Management (Canada) Ltd., CI Private Counsel LP, WealthBar Financial Services Inc., BBS Securities Inc., The Cabana Group, LLC, Congress Wealth Management, LLC, One Capital Management, LLC and Surevest LLC. Further information is available at www.cifinancial.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning anticipated future events, results, circumstances, performance or expectations with respect to CI Financial Corp. ("CI") and its products and services, including its business operations, strategy and financial performance and condition. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as "believe", "expect", "foresee", "forecast", "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", "goal", "plan" and "project" and similar references to future periods, or conditional verbs such as "will", "may", "should", "could" or "would". These statements are not historical facts but instead represent management beliefs regarding future events, many of which by their nature are inherently uncertain and beyond management's control. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements involve risks and uncertainties. The material factors and assumptions applied in reaching the conclusions contained in these forward-looking statements include that the investment fund industry will remain stable and that interest rates will remain relatively stable. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations include, among other things, general economic and market conditions, including interest and foreign exchange rates, global financial markets, changes in government regulations or in tax laws, industry competition, technological developments and other factors described or discussed in CI's disclosure materials filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time. The foregoing list is not exhaustive and the reader is cautioned to consider these and other factors carefully and not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Other than as specifically required by applicable law, CI undertakes no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statement after the date on which it is made, whether to reflect new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE CI Financial Corp.

Related Links

http://www.ci.com/


Minissha Lamba has spoken up against the horrific vilification of Rhea Chakraborty in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case. Minissha said that Rhea is coming to terms with the tragic loss herself and is also seeking to know the truth about Sushant.

In a tweet, Minissha lent her support to Rhea and wrote, I do hope that after #RheaChakroborty speaking out, that we realise, in all the weeks of horrific vilification, reinforcing set stereotype wild conjecture.. That there is a human being out there dealing with a tragic loss, who is seeking the same answers that you.

I do hope that after #RheaChakroborty speaking out, that we realise, in all the weeks of horrific vilification, reinforcing set stereotype wild conjecture.. That there is a human being out there dealing with a tragic loss, who is seeking the same answers that you.  Minissha Lambba (@Minissha_Lamba) August 31, 2020

Sushant was found dead at his apartment in Mumbai on June 14. His family believes Rhea is responsible for his death and has filed an abetment to suicide case against her. She has also been accused of siphoning off funds from his bank account and drugging him without his knowledge.

Also read: Swara Bhasker asks if Rhea Chakraborty is being framed as new chats show Sushant Singh Rajputs sister knew of his treatment

Rhea has denied all the allegations levelled against her and said that she will cooperate with the investigating agencies to prove her innocence. The case is being currently probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), as per a Supreme Court order earlier this month. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is investigating the money laundering angle, while the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) recently joined the probe to look into the drugs link.

In a recent interview with Aaj Tak, Rhea said that her life was ruined. Every day, I get millions of death and rape threats. Not just me, anyone associated with me, any friend of mine, whose numbers and chats were flashed. My WhatsApp chats, which was a forensic back-up taken by the ED with my signature on it, has been leaked in the media. This is an investigative agency I trusted to investigate, not to leak chats. My life is ruined. I am compromised, my friends are compromised. Forget living a normal life, if we even talk to anyone, it becomes an explosive revelation! she said.

If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist. Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Daniel Andrews has been accused of 'decimating' Victoria after it emerged an extra 30,000 residents lost their jobs due to the state's second coronavirus lockdown.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Monday described the premier's handling of the crisis as 'the biggest public policy failure by a state government in living memory'.

Victorian Opposition MPs told Daily Mail Australia that Mr Andrews has 'trashed' the state and should resign unless he comes up with a plan that can save livelihoods and restore hope.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg today slammed Daniel Andrews' handling of the virus. Pictured: A resident wearing a mask in Melbourne

Case numbers in Victoria have been coming down in recent weeks. Pictured: Victorian Police speak a man in Dandenong, Melbourne

Daniel Andrews (pictured today) has been accused of 'decimating' Victoria after it emerged an extra 30,000 residents lost their jobs due to the state's second coronavirus lockdown

Case numbers in Victoria have been coming down in recent weeks, with only 73 recorded on Monday.

But Mr Andrews still refused to talk about how to end lockdown and said he will keep Victorians in the dark for at least another week, with no plan revealed until Sunday.

'If I could provide a 100 per cent certain road map today, then I would. But that would not be responsible, frankly, and that is not the way that I operate,' he said.

Mr Andrews said that even after he comes up with a plan, it may not be implemented.

'It cannot be 100 per cent certain, because everything must be based on case numbers,' he said, adding that stage four lockdown might continue beyond September 13 when it is due to end.

Victorian Liberal MP James Newbury said Mr Andrews had ruined the state and should resign if he does not offer a good enough plan out of lockdown.

'Daniel Andrews has trashed the great state of Victoria,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'He let the pandemic out, crushed private enterprise and destroyed hundreds of thousands of jobs. Our state has been decimated.

Mr Andrews said that even after he comes up with a plan to end lockdown, it may not be implemented. Pictured: A property for lease

Melbourne residents are forced to wear masks when leaving home. Pictured: One resident pictured walking her dog on Saturday

Devastation: With boarded-up shops, abandoned businesses and restaurant chairs left to rot on the street, Melbourne resembles disaster zone

'Yet the Premier has refused to soften current restrictions and instead delivers daily messages of pessimism.'

Mr Newbury added: 'Is there any wonder that mental health issues have crashed over the community like a tidal wave?

'Businesses need certainty, people need to provide for their families, and the community needs a pathway of hope.

'If Daniel Andrews cannot offer Victorians a 'Back to Life' plan of hope he should resign.'

Treasury data seen by Daily Mail Australia on Sunday night showed that 27,600 Victorians have been forced onto unemployment benefits since the second lockdown in July.

More than half of these people lost their jobs in August, during stage-four restrictions.

The effective unemployment rate in the state was 10.5 per cent in July, compared to 8.5 per cent on New South Wales.

Mr Frydenberg said: 'Victorians want to hear a definitive plan from Daniel Andrews about the lifting of stage 4 restrictions.

'What has transpired in Victoria has been a like a slow-motion car crash.'

He said there had been a 'litany of failures' regarding hotel quarantine and the state's testing and tracing regime which became overwhelmed.

Victoria's Police Association on Monday called for state of emergency powers to be extended. Pictured: people walking through Southbank on Saturday

Treasury figures released by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's office show Victoria's unemployment level shooting above the rest of Australia due to coronavirus lockdowns

Victoria has recorded its deadliest day with 41 deaths and 73 new cases of coronavirus reported on Monday. Pictured: residents wearing face masks go for a walk in Melbourne on Saturday

VICTORIA BY THE NUMBERS * JobKeeper  about 280,000 entities have received $12.25 billion in payments for 975,000 Victorians. * Treasury estimates 60 per cent of Australia's 2.24 million December quarter JobKeeper recipients will be in Victoria * In the March quarter, about 60 per cent of 1.75 million JobKeeper recipients will be from Victoria  CashFlow Boost  More than 200,000 entities have received about $6 billion in credits  JobSeeker  More than 400,000 recipients  Coronavirus supplement ($550)  Around 600,000 recipients Source: Treasury analysis released by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's office Advertisement

Victorian Liberal MP Tim Smith added: 'This is the greatest public administration failure in Australian history.'

Gideon Rozner, Director of Policy at free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, also slammed Mr Andrews for his 'negativity'.

'The Victorian people of deserve a message of hope from their Premier, not a daily telling off for not following the rules,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

Treasury modelling showed that household spending in Victoria is down more than 30 per cent through the year while the rest of Australia is only down around three per cent.

The accommodation and hospitality sector has borne the brunt of the restrictions with the growth in spending in dining and takeaway down more than 60 per cent and in the accommodation sector more than 80 per cent.

Treasury estimates 60 per cent of the 2.24 million people receiving JobKeeper by the end of the year will be in Victoria.

'Restrictions imposed by the Victorian government have had a devastating impact on the economy,' Mr Frydenberg said on Monday.

'As we have seen in other states, if you can successfully suppress the virus, jobs will return.'

Labor accused the treasurer of 'shifting blame' by attacking Daniel Andrews.

ALP President Wayne Swan said: 'Frydenberg's recession blame shifting to Victoria is a another smokescreen to camouflage his failure to implement medium term stimulus to drag the economy out of deep recession.'

Victoria on Monday recorded 41 deaths including eight overnight and 33 over the past weeks that had not been reported by care homes until today.

Melbourne's stage four restrictions are due to end in two weeks - but experts predict they will continue.

'It's hard to see that happening,' Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth told Nine on Monday.

'I think the numbers need to be a lot less than they are now.'
The pandemic has taught Manmeet Singh that its far easier and cheaper to rely on a self-storage company than shifty flatmates to look after belongings in ones absence. Singh, an IT professional, had been working in Bengaluru for a decade.

As Covid-19 forced his employer to switch to work from home until at least the year-end, like many others, he too felt the urge to return temporarily to his native Ludhiana in Punjab. He left early in June, but continued to pay over Rs 10,000 in rent for a flat he shared with two others in Bengaluru. His flatmates soon decided to ...
Actor, comedian and Saturday Night Live alumnus Rob Schneider will perform five stand-up comedy shows in San Antonio this September.

Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club San Antonio is hosting Schneider for three days with showtimes at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17, 7:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 18 and 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, according to the club's website.

READ ALSO: 'Be in the crowd': San Antonio comedy club linked to COVID-19 cases hosts Adam Carolla, Ben Shapiro

Schneider, who is also a veteran on the NBC sketch comedy series "Saturday Night Live," will take the same stage as comedians Bryan Callen and Brendan Schaub, who both said that they contracted COVID-19 following their June 25-27 shows at Laugh Out Loud.

A coronavirus section on the club's website says that "laughter is the best medicine" and warns that customers who refuse to wear a mask will not be allowed to enter.

Laugh Out Loud points to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention social-distancing guidelines and provides a link to a list of people at increased risk of severe illness from the virus.

Tickets for the show can be purchased at improvtx.com.

Priscilla Aguirre is a general assignment reporter for MySA.com | priscilla.aguirre@express-news.net | @CillaAguirre
Photo: (Photo : Instagram/lakecharlesmemorial)

Louisiana nurses stayed in NICU despite the city being hit by Hurricane Laura. The NICU staff knew that they had to keep the 19 babies safe through the Category 4 storm.

On Thursday, Dr. Juan Bossano told CNN that it is essential to know the dedication of the hospital staff. He said that he is proud of them because they have put everything together despite not knowing what is happening in their homes. He noted that the respiratory therapists and nurses took care of the babies during these scary times.

Hurricane was headed for the city

Lake Charles City had mandatory evacuation order in place because the hurricane was headed for their city. The National Weather Service reported that the city got some of the worst storms. It noted that the wind gusts have an hour of 120 to 135 mph as the eyewall crossed.

See also: Blind Mom Saw Unborn Baby Thanks to Doctors Who Gave Her 3d Printed Ultrasound Scan

Staff put up with the hard situation

A neonatologist for greater than 30 years, Dr. Bossano, said that the staff had their hands full. He explained that some babies were on respirators and ventilators, while others were premature, some at just 23 weeks. In the middle of the night, there was no air conditioning since the water went out in the hospital.

Lake Charles Memorial Hospital for Women vice president and administrator, Alesha Alford, saw how well the staff acted in an uncertain situation. She said that they had to move their patients into the hallways when the winds got so bad. She noted that staff were with the patients sleeping in hallways.

See also: Army Veteran's Stepdaughter Donates Part of Her Liver to Stepdad

Dr. Bossano posted on his Facebook page update of the condition of the babies in the NICU during the rough night. He wrote that the babies were doing better than the rest of the people to help calm the fears of many parents.

Threat of flood

Earlier that day, the threat of flooding has forced the little ones to be evacuated to the main hospital. The hospital's director of communications, Matt Felder, said that they were able to transfer the 19 NICU babies in two hours.

Doctors, residents, the sheriff's department, and many others helped move the precious cargo and all the needed equipment to keep the babies safe. Alford said that he has never seen something work so fast and smoothly for an unexpected event.

See also: Virginia "Heroes with Heart" Winner Has Her Very Own American Girl Doll

Water service knocked out

On Thursday evening, Laura knocked out most of the water service in the city said City Administrator John Cardone. One of them was the main hospital. So they had to transfer the NICU babies again.

Felder said that they will move the tiny patients to other hospitals since Lake Charles only has two NICUs. Dr. Bossano said that he got a couple of hours of sleep in the morning in between transfers because the babies were stable.

There was a chorus of cheering when they were able to move the first patient to another hospital. Felder said that it gives off the light during the horrific tragedy in the community.
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Men painting a house. (Not the Curcurus' home.) Johner Images

Jimmy and Marilyn Curcuru received an anonymous note last month shaming them for their unpainted house and calling it an "eyesore."

Marilyn has multiple sclerosis and is bedridden, and Jimmy had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery in 2006 and developed kidney problems, his daughter told CNN.

Since the note was posted on Facebook in late July, the couple has received more than $48,000 in donations for repairs.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Related video: Watch 5 things get deep cleaned around the house

When Jimmy Curcuru received an anonymous note in his mailbox in July shaming him for his unpainted house, he was "very upset" because the person "didn't have the nerve to sign it," he told CNN.

Curcuru, 71, and his wife, Marilyn, 72, have lived in the home in Gloucester, Massachusetts, for 50 years. He said they'd been unable to keep up with repairs because of health and employment issues.

Jimmy had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery in 2006, after which he developed kidney problems, his daughter told CNN. Marilyn has multiple sclerosis and has been bedridden for about four years, he told The Washington Post.

"I used to enjoy working on the house when I could, but now it's hard for me to do it," Jimmy told The Post. "It's not a good idea for me any more to get up on a ladder."

Jimmy, whose framing business was closed years ago, retired from his part-time job at a hardware store two months ago so he could spend more time with his wife, he told CNN.

When Jimmy's daughter, Michelle Curcuru Baran, heard about the note, she posted it on Facebook. "To my concerned neighbor, thank you for letting me know my house needs to be painted," she wrote in late July. "Guess what? I know. I've been working on it for almost four years.

"I myself always drive by houses that look like mine and wonder what's up in their lives," she added. "I don't judge them not knowing what they may be going through."

A GoFundMe page has raised more than $48,000, more than half the goal

Story continues

Right away, people offered to paint the house, and even the mayor asked how she could pitch in, CNN said.

A GoFundMe page had more than $48,000 in donations as of Sunday afternoon. The page's organizer, Robert Cluett, a neighbor, said its goal was $82,620.

The money will pay for the paint job, new windows, and fixes to the leaky roof and rotted siding, Baran told CNN.

Donors commented on why giving their money to the couple for their home is meaningful.

"I donated because we could all use a little more kindness!" one person wrote.

"Dear Jimmy and Marilyn, good neighbors are everywhere," another donor said. "The real eyesore is the pathetic, ignorant, cowardly neighbor that left the note. I wish you all the best. Peace."

In an update on Thursday, Cluett expressed gratitude on behalf of the Curcurus.

"Thanks so much to each and every one of you who felt compelled to help this family," he wrote. "That is all of you who have donated from $5 - $5,000. The family feels blessed and knows that amidst these uncertain times that giving any amount comes from those with a truly loving and charitable heart.

"It has been proven once again that there are more good people in this world than bad. WE LOVE YOU!"

Read the original article on Insider
Canada releases new details on how traveller information is collected at the border

Canada releases new details on how traveller information is collected at the border Canada adds more details to Entry/Exit program delivery, procedures, and policy.

Canada releases new details on how traveller information is collected at the border Canada adds more details to Entry/Exit program delivery, procedures, and policy.

Canada releases new details on how traveller information is collected at the border Canada adds more details to Entry/Exit program delivery, procedures, and policy. Shelby Thevenot Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

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Canada recently released more details on what information border officers collect from travellers, who can access the information, and more on data protection and rules for disclosure.

Canadas Entry/Exit Program allows the border to collect basic traveller information and share it with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). The immigration department uses the information to verify how many days an immigration applicant stayed in Canada. The information is used to verify residency requirements for applications for permanent residence, work permits, study permits, and Canadian citizenship applications.

Canada and the U.S. have been exchanging biographic entry information on all travellers at the land border since July 11, 2019, though the program started in February 2019. They use the record of a travellers entry into one country to establish the exit from the other. Recently the program was extended to air travellers as well, however, this exit information is not regularly shared with the U.S.

Find out if you are eligible for any Canadian immigration programs

Data is not yet being collected for travellers entering and exiting Canada by marine ports or by rail.

What information does CBSA collect?

The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) collects basic information of travellers who pass through the border.

The basic information they collect includes:

name;

date of birth;

country of citizenship;

passport details;

date of entry or exit;

data displayed in the Global Case Management System for immigration and citizenship applicants such as; client identification (i.e., family name and given names, gender, date of birth, country of birth, etc.), contact information and history, educational and employment information.



Who can access entry and exit information?

CBSA is the owner of the data and as such all authorized border personnel can access exit information. These border personnel include:

border services officers and superintendents;

criminal investigations officers and analysts;

document analysts;

hearings officers and hearings advisors;

inland enforcement officers and enforcement case officers;

intelligence officers and intelligence analysts;

National Border Operations Centre officers;

National Security Screening Division officers and analysts;

National Targeting Centre (NTC) targeting officers;

NTC targeting operations intelligence; and

trusted traveller officers.

IRCC only retains the Entry/Exit information of a candidate who is applying for immigration.

The immigration department uses Entry/Exit information to:

verify residency requirements to process an ongoing application by verifying information provided by the client, such as in applications for grants of citizenship or permanent resident cards;

verify if a temporary residence applicant may have previously overstayed their allowable period of admission in Canada;

assist in an investigation of an individuals entitlement to a Canadian travel document;

verify that sponsors are residing in Canada;

verify the residency of spouses and partners under the spouse or common-law partner in Canada class;

verify whether or not a refugee claimant entered Canada using their travel documents; and

support investigations of possible fraud in relation to immigration, citizenship, and passport and travel document programs.

IRCC officers are not allowed to disclose entry and exit information unless it is necessary for the administration of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and it is covered under an existing information-sharing agreement, such as a Memorandum of Understanding.

Any disclosure that is not explicitly covered under an existing agreement must be governed by CBSA, the governments website says.

Travellers have the right to request a copy of their personal travel history, and they can request a correction if they find any errors. IRCC will be notified if a traveller requests a correction to their passage information, and they are able to re-query CBSA to get the most up-to-date information.

Find out if you are eligible for any Canadian immigration programs

 2020 CIC News All Rights Reserved
$0 | Midtown

Zozibini Tunzi, 27, and Cheslie Kryst, 29

Occupation: Ms. Tunzi is Miss Universe; Ms. Kryst is Miss USA.

Suitcase storage: Is an issue, despite the apartments large size and the many closets. Each woman has numerous suitcases since so much of the job usually involves long trips and many costume changes. Traveling with multiple gowns and a suitcase just for shoes is not unusual.

Where do they keep their crowns? Ms. Tunzi prefers to store hers at the nearby Miss Universe offices, but Ms. Kryst keeps hers on the night stand. Its a Mikimoto tiara, which is one of the most iconic designs, she said. Its embarrassing, but I like to wake up and look at it.

Ms. Tunzi and pageants: At 7, my mom took me to this pageant at church. I was really shy, she wanted me to meet other young girls. But then I loved it, the feeling of making friends and then the confidence of walking onstage.

Ms. Kryst and pageants: My mom was the second Black Mrs. North Carolina, so I knew no matter what, I was going to compete. I started when I was 13 or 14, in high school.

The apartments size, they agree, makes sharing it relatively easy. Both were surprised at how large the space was the first time they saw it.

Before I came to New York, everyone told me things are really small; even the hotel rooms are like shoe boxes, Ms. Tunzi said. I walked in and was like, This is a huge space. 

You think of New York as being 300-square-foot apartments, but this is massive, Ms. Kryst said. With the pandemic, you get to the point where you want to be outside, but I have my own room, I have my own bathroom, we have an extra bedroom.

Image The closet in the third bedroom, where Miss Teen USA stays when she visits the city, has become a voice recording studio since the women started working from home. Credit... via Cheslie Kryst & Zozi Tunzi

The third bedroom, which is reserved for Miss Teen USA when she visits the city, has become a work space  the closet is great for recording voice-overs  as has the living room. They had used the living room sparingly before, as a place to catch up between work trips, but they now shoot all their videos there; theres even a teleprompter corner.
This is the tragic moment a man was executed while sitting in a barbershop chair in Columbia.

The frightening incident took place Saturday afternoon in the Medellin neighborhood of Girardot when a gunman entered the business and shot Carlos Andres Carmona several times in the head.

The barbershop's surveillance camera showed the barber was applying a facial cream on the 27-year-old man's face. The suspect subsequently walked through the doors and did not say a word to Carmona before he fired his weapon.

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT

Carlos Andres Carmona was assassinated at a barbershop in Medellin, Colombia, on Saturday

Surveillance video shows the moment the shooter aims and fires his weapon at Carlos Andres Carmona inside a barbershop in Colombia. Authorities had not made any arrests as of Monday

Carmona immediately fell to the ground before the assailant stormed out of the shop and boarded a motorcycle.

The barber walked out of the barbershop holding his hand over his head in shock.

Authorities did not mention the motive for Carmona's death, although Girardot has encountered a rise in criminal incidents due to a turf war between two local gangs, according to local media outlet Alerta Paisa.

Carmona's murder was the 28th that has been registered in Girardot this year, an increase of six compared to the same period in 2019, according to the Medellin security ministry.

Authorities have not made any arrests related to the murder Carlos Andres Carmona (pictured sitting), who was executed Saturday at a barbershop in Colombia. The shooter (top right) has not been arrested
GRAND CHENIER HIGHWAY, La.  David Ball picked up a dead fish at the intersection of this coastal highway and North Island Road, waiting to see if anything was left of his retirement home.

It had been three days since Hurricane Laura made landfall overnight Wednesday not much farther west on Grand Chenier Highway, with 150-mph winds and what the National Weather Service called an unsurvivable storm surge.

The waters, slowly, were receding. But thick muck still covered the road and downed power lines blocked the way. So residents like Ball were stuck, waiting, at three different access points into the worst-hit communities  now turned into disaster zones.

A ferry that normally brought residents from the west was not operating. A road that led down from Lake Charles was the same as this: Residents could only get so far before it became impassable.

Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Houstonians had been relieved when Laura turned east, sparing the city from devastation. The brunt of the storm instead fell on a row of coastal communities and around Lake Charles, where individual lives still have been vastly changed.

The toll of the damage remains unknown, as search and rescue crews arrived from Florida to Mississippi and residents such as 31-year-old Jill Rutherford, who took the road down from Lake Charles, tried to see if they could glean anything more than what theyd seen in aerial footage.

Rutherford  who struggled to accept the reality of all that happened  saw the slab of what was her childhood home and righted the toppled headstones of relatives in the cemetery. Its still not real to be honest, she said alongside her boyfriend in a GMC truck.

Ball had arrived Saturday morning to the intersection checkpoint to the east. He went past it to see how far he could get, making it within two miles of his property before he could get no farther. Now it was early afternoon. A dead alligator lay in the water next to him; he spotted a dead shrimp.

This is small potatoes compared to the human aspect, Ball said, scooping up the shrimp. Its just a shame. We havent seen the full effect just yet.

Several guys waiting to work on a pipeline cranked on the giant fan of the airboat they were hauling in to get a bit of breeze.

Here was where Ball, a retired sales representative for Dow AgroSciences, had come to enjoy the good life. Wildlife refuges stretched all around in a vast and stunning marshland. His wife, a teacher, grew up down the road in Grand Chenier.

They knew the damage the weather could do: His wifes mother was pregnant with her when she rode out Hurricane Audrey on the roof. When they first bought her grandmothers home, Hurricane Rita pushed it two miles away.

Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Ball then had salvaged washed-up material on their land and they had started again, turning that lot into a camper spot and buying a property a bit farther down in Oak Grove. He hoped the camper structure remained; in Oak Grove, he didnt expect much.

Around 2 p.m., he climbed again into his silver Toyota Tundra, packed with a generator, water and gas containers, to try again to reach his home.

The wet, salty smell grew as his tires rolled over the roads wet muck. He passed a crushed pumping station, a familys ruined new white fence. He weaved under electric wires, through water, around trees.

A man on an ATV slowed as he passed and told him he would make it to the camper land this time: Youre good to go, he said.

Ball saw his tractor shed as he neared  or what used to be his tractor shed. Parking, he walked to inspect the shredded metal building and found the concrete slab broken in pieces. He bent and picked up stray tools strewn about the grass.

His pasture was under water; the fences were gone. A giant pipe had rolled up near the road, but the camper shed remained.

Looks like I get to pick up, he said, all over again,

He wiped his hands on his shorts and looked back with a grimace.

Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Residents here had known to leave and take what they could; they hadnt heard of anyone who stayed and died yet. But Ball, a father of three, was 70. He had just finished moving into the Oak Grove home that he still didnt think he could reach and expected was gone  there was no worse spot in the storms path for it to have been.

He wasnt sure he wanted to start all over again.

Ball had parked work equipment on a high spot and went to check it. As he turned back, he again went by the camper lot. He had another small structure there, built on stilts 13 feet above a slab, that he hadnt been able to check because the stairway was gone. Now he spotted the stairs in the distance.

Hey! he shouted  a moment of levity. I see my porch! He-ey!

Emily Foxhall is the Texas Storyteller for the Houston Chronicle. Read her on our free site, chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | emily.foxhall@chron.com | Twitter: emfoxhall

emily.foxhall@chron.com
Florida State University researchers have developed a new material that could be used to make flexible X-ray detectors that are less harmful to the environment and cost less than existing technologies.

The team led by Biwu Ma, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, created X-ray scintillators that use an environmentally friendly material. Their research was published in the journal Nature Communications .

"Developing low-cost scintillation materials that can be easily manufactured and that perform well remains a great challenge," Ma said. "This work paves the way for exploring new approaches to create these important devices."

Biwu Ma, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry X-ray scintillators convert the radiation of an X-ray into visible light, and they are a common type of X-ray detector. When you visit the dentist or the airport, scintillators are used to take images of your teeth or scan your luggage.

Various materials have been used to make X-ray scintillators, but they can be difficult or expensive to manufacture. Some recent developments use compounds that include lead, but the toxicity of lead could be a concern.

Ma's team found a different solution. They used the compound organic manganese halide to create scintillators that don't use lead or heavy metals. The compound can be used to make a powder that performs very well for imaging and can be combined with a polymer to create a flexible composite that can be used as a scintillator. That flexibility broadens the potential use of this technology.

"Researchers have made scintillators with a variety of compounds, but this technology offers something that combines low cost with high performance and environmentally friendly materials," Ma said. "When you also consider the ability to make flexible scintillators, it's a promising avenue to explore."

Ma recently received a GAP Commercialization Investment Program grant from the FSU Office of the Vice President for Research to develop this technology. The grants help faculty members turn their research into possible commercial products.

###

Other Florida State researchers who contributed to this paper include first author Liang-jin Xu, X-ray crystallography facility manager Xinsong Lin, postdoctoral researcher Qingquan He and doctoral researcher Michael Worku.

This work was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research as well as the National Science Foundation and the FSU Office of Research.
Two men have been arrested for trying to steal money from a fuel station staffer in Koregaon Park on Sunday afternoon.

The arrested men have been identified as Majid Akbar Shaikh (19) and Vrushabh Baba Pise (20), both residents of Yerawada. The complainant, Shantaram Sonane (25) is a resident of Santoshnagar in Katraj and a member of the Roshni petrol pump staff in Koregaon Park.

One of the two accused snatched Rs 5,700 from Sonane. The two men arrived at fuel station on a bike and refilled petrol in their vehicle. Once done, Pise, who was riding the bike, took the vehicle to the air-filling station located at the exit of the petrol pump while Shaikh stayed near Sonane.

As Pise started the bike, Shaikh snatched Rs 5,700 collected by Sonane from customers and made a run for the bike, according to the complaint.

The workers rushed behind them and grabbed the rider as Shaikh tried to sit on the bike. Shaikh slipped from their grip and left with the bike and Pise was handed over to the police, said PSI Chalke.

They were remanded to one day in police custody. While Pise had been caught at the petrol pump, we tracked Shaikh and arrested him from Laxminagar. The entire amount was recovered from them, said police sub-inspector Ropesh Walke of Koregaon Park police station who is investigating the case.

Pise has one case of extortion registered against him by Pune police in 2020. There is no previous case found registered against Shaikh so far, according to the police.

A case under Section 392 (punishment for robbery) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code has been registered at the Koregaon Park police station.
Tim Keller gives update on cancer fight, asks for ongoing prayers

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Author and Pastor Tim Keller said he's making progress in his fight against cancer, telling his social media followers that this health situation has caused him to seek God and depend on Him.

In a Twitter thread posted Friday, Keller thanked his friends for their prayers and support, noting that as of yesterday he has finished his sixth round of chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer.

"[W]hile there are indeed some side effects, my doctor says Im tolerating the treatment very well. I have not been seriously debilitated and I can still do some work and ministry," Keller shared.

"Yesterday we also met with my oncologist to go over the scans taken on Monday to assess the effectiveness of the chemotherapy. The report is very encouraging. There has been shrinkage of the tumors and so we are continuing the chemo in order to diminish the cancer further."

He added: "Our situation has driven us to seek Gods face as never before. He is giving us more of his sensed presence, more freedom from our besetting sins, more dependence on his Word  things that we had sought for years, but only under these circumstances are we finding them."

Keller is asking for continued prayers for the treatment to be effective with minimal side effects.

The now-retired pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and co-founder of The Gospel Coalition is also a survivor of thyroid cancer, which he had in 2002.

His latest book, Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference, features contributions of several authors and focuses on how Christians ought to engage the fractured world around them.

Keller told The Christian Post in an interview earlier this year that he was not sure of what God is saying to the church through COVID-19, but believes that the real test for Christians will come several months down the road when presented with opportunities to witness that we cant even envision just yet.

Keller stressed that many  both secularists and Christians  have a flawed view of American history. Secularists do not want to admit the positive contributions Christianity has had on society whereas conservative Christians tend to think too rosily about the past in light of evils and injustices such as slavery and segregation, he said.

However, [m]odern Christians feel like we had a Christian society in the past, he elaborated.

It was influenced by Christianity, but was it really that Christian? We had slavery, segregation, we mistreated people  as a society weve done a lot of things wrong. Modern conservative evangelicals dont want to admit how flawed our past American society had been.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cloak & Dagger Cocktail Lounge is slated to open in Clevelands Tremont neighborhood at the end of September or early October. It will be located at at 2399 West 11th St,, the former location of Salsarito restaurant.

The bar has been in the works for much of 2020, and its concept was developed back in 2019, according to Cloak & Dagger co-owner Cory Hajde.

Hajde, a founder of local concert promotion company BravoArtist, originally coordinated a plan to incorporate Cloak & Dagger into the Phantasy Nightclub as a rooftop bar. He and the BravoArtist team also intended to purchase the Phantasy complex in 2019, but the deal later fell through. (Currently, the Phantasy is slated to become a part of Studio West, an LGBT hub.)

Thankfully we didnt buy it because I think in the middle of this pandemic, wed be broke already, Hajde said. Its an expensive building, to say the least.

BravoArtist has dialed down for the year due to coronavirus-related concert delays and cancellations in 2020. Hajde said BravoArtist has been busy rebooking concerts for 2021, and that the company already has 65 to 70 concerts booked for next year at various Ohio venues.

For now, though, Cloak & Dagger has been Hajdes main focus.

The bar offers an accessible menu of cocktails with a seasonally shifting menu. To start, the cocktail menu will feature a light and dark theme, with cocktails featuring light, refreshing flavors and darker liquors.

Ultimately we wanted to bring something accessible and craft to the service industry in Cleveland, Hajde said. Something not as pretentious cocktail-wise, but still a neighborhood bar at the same time.

(Photo by Josh Dobay)

Hajde and Cloak & Dagger co-owner Casey Hughes have used pop-ups to generate some hype around the upcoming opening. At one of those pop-ups, they served cocktails called The Tales of Life (sage-infused Batavia arrack, benedictine, pineapple, lemon and absinthe) and The Tales of Death (masala chai-infused bourbon, apple brandy, mezcal, port and demerara).

Cloak & Dagger bartenders include Hughes, Porco bartender Gaby Holzer, Mitch Didion and Noah Dreyfuss.

Cloak & Dagger will feature an all-vegan menu designed by chef Todd Kronika. Bites will include items like vegan nachos, brisket sandwiches and shish kabobs.

We were trying to explore the idea of having a more vegetarian-based menu, Hajde said. Todd [Kronika] presented a menu to us and it was a home run. Its entirely vegan. I said, Yeah, screw it. Well be the first bar in Cleveland to only serve vegan food.

That rule comes with Cloak & Daggers cocktails, too -- the bar has found substitutes for egg whites and honey to provide the same high-quality cocktails on the menu, minus any animal products.

(Photo by Josh Dobay)

Cloak & Dagger has one more pop-up scheduled for Sept. 13 at LBM in Lakewood, and it hopes to soft-open its storefront two weeks later, Hajde said. The team plans to conduct temperature checks of all customers and to enforce social distancing, running at 50% capacity to start with only 30 reservations taken at a time.

Currently, the bar is finishing up minor renovations and city inspections, which have taken longer than usual due to the pandemic, Hajde said. You can find more information about Cloak & Dagger at its website, cloakanddaggercle.com.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh Masis Mayilian received coordinator of the Armenian Refugees Platform Initiative Group Arthur Ghazaryan on August 31, ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the MFA ARtsakh.

During the meeting, Arthur Ghazaryan presented the main directions of the Armenian Refugees Platforms activities and programs, noting that the Initiative is aimed at acting as a single platform to jointly present the problems of Armenian refugees and to contribute to advancing their rights and interests on different platforms.

Masis Mayilian stressed the need for coordinated efforts especially in ensuring international assistance and international protection for Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan and internally displaced persons from the occupied territories of Artsakh, emphasizing that the protection of their rights and interests is one of the important directions of the foreign policy of the Republic.

Chairman of the International Center for Human Development Tevan Poghosyan also participated in the meeting.
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 08/31/2020



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LARISSA AND ERIC

PAUL AND KARINE

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ANGELA AND MICHAEL

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KALANI AND ASUELU

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COLT AND JESS

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ELIZABETH AND ANDREI

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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

: Happily Ever After? featured Kalani Faagata admitting she wanted to end her marriage to Asuelu Pulaa Karine Martins meeting with an immigration lawyer about her rights to go back to Brazil, Elizabeth Potthast 's relatives digging into Andrei Castravet 's shady past, and Jess Caroline accusing Colt Johnson of sending nude photos to eight different women in one month during Sunday night's Season 5 episode on TLC.: Happily Ever After?'s fifth season also features Angela Deem Syngin Colchester , and Larissa Dos Santos Lima.Happily Ever After? documents couples -- engaged, married or divorced -- navigating life, hardships, family, children and unexpected obstacles.The new season has already featured cultural differences, in-law arguments, scandals, confrontations and tears, and there is much more to come.Below is the latest on each couple or cast members, according to the twelfth episode of : Happily Ever After?'s fifth season.Larissa went to a consultation with a plastic surgeon, Dr. Lane Smith, and had boyfriend Eric Nichols and friend Heather by her side.Larissa wanted to get a nose job and a breast augmentation, telling her pal Heather that she was insecure to the point where she wouldn't take her bra off during sexual intercourse with Eric.Larissa apparently lost her confidence after she gave birth and so she wanted bigger breasts, and Eric said from the backseat, "The bigger the better." He had clearly come around to the idea of Larissa altering her appearance.When Larissa first presented the idea of getting her breasts done, Eric questioned why and how, but he said he and Larissa had come to an arrangement in which he's investing in her plastic surgery.Larissa and Heather agreed, however, that just because Eric was paying for Larissa's breasts didn't mean he owned them and could touch them whenever he wants.Once she sat down with Dr. Smith, Larissa told the surgeon she wanted a "fake look" like a Barbie doll, adding, "Go big or go home."Larissa decided on double D breasts, and Dr. Smith said they'd look "high, round, big and fake" without making Larissa look fat. Dr. Smith was sure they'd look sexy.But Larissa learned a lot of risks were involved with the two surgeries, which made Eric nervous since he'd be taking care of her after the procedures."I love the way Larissa looks as the way she is right now and I'm just starting to begin to wonder if this is worth the risk or not," Eric told the cameras.After the consultation, Larissa and Eric went shopping so Larissa could buy new clothes that would fit her new chest. Larissa picked out some sexy lingerie that she looked forward to wearing for Eric post-surgery.Larissa anticipated her new breasts would make her feel more confident and reignite her sex life with Eric, but then she revealed she'd want liposuction after her breast augmentation and nose job.Karine said things weren't going well since she had arrived in America with Paul."The other day, I left the house because I wanted to be alone," Karine shared in a confessional. "I was upset because I'm not adapting and because Paul and I have been arguing a lot."A few weeks prior, Karine had given Paul two months to find a job, but he had yet to find one. Karine therefore said she wanted to talk to an immigration lawyer about her options.Karine apparently missed her home and her family and wanted to return to Brazil, but she figured Paul wanted to stay in America."I have to choose between my husband and my family," Karine said. "So I don't know what I'm going to do."Paul apparently didn't know that Karine would be meeting with a lawyer, and it marked the first time she had left the house without Paul. She wasn't sure whether Paul would be angry with her for paying a car service to take her to a lawyer's office."But I need somebody to help me. I am desperate," Karine admitted.The lawyer, Rania Attum, had a Portuguese translator, so Karine was glad she wouldn't need Paul to translate for her.Karine explained she and her husband weren't doing well and had been fighting a lot. Karine shared her deadline for Paul finding a job or else she'd go back to Brazil, adding that Paul had not followed through with his end of the deal."I would like to know about the laws here. For example, traveling alone, just me and the baby," Karine said, adding that she had her passport and documents.Rania admitted Karine's situation was complicated, but the lawyer informed Karine that she had every right to take her baby and go to Brazil. Rania, however, couldn't promise there wouldn't be any consequences or resistance if Paul didn't agree with her decision to leave America.Paul could try to stop Karine at the airport or put her through court proceedings. Rania therefore asked Karine to really think this one through in order to not make a big mistake."I will never stop Paul from seeing Pierre. But it's a delicate issue. I see that too many fights is not good for me. It's not good for Paul and it's definitely not good for Pierre. I just want the best for Pierre, and if that means going back to Brazil, that's what I'm going to do," Karine explained.Paul said life had been very stressful, and so he picked out some plantains at the grocery store to try to make Karine feel more at home. Paul told Karine that he had applied for numerous jobs but hadn't heard anything back yet.Karine then admitted to Paul she had met with an immigration lawyer by ordering Uber by herself, and Paul said he would've freaked out had he returned home and his wife and kid were missing.Karine explained she wanted to learn her rights, and Paul expressed concern over where Karine's head was at. Since Karine is a legal resident of the United States, Paul knew she had more rights than a person who comes to America on a K-1 visa.Paul was very upset Karine was threatening to leave, saying he had provided everything for her -- a car, food and cell phone. Paul angrily asked, "You're going to jump ship?!"But Karine said she just needed time with her son and family and Brazil, which Paul called "messed up."Paul was afraid to be left alone and lose his family, and Paul reminded Karine that he has "50 percent rights to the child." Paul said he would talk to his lawyer in Brazil and fight this, and Karine replied, "F-ck you!"Karine attempted to end the conversation before it got worse, but Paul said, "I will prosecute. In Brazil and America, you can't keep the child from me."Karine told Paul that she'd never keep Pierre away from his father and be that type of mother, and then she broke down into tears. Paul gave her a hug and asked her to calm down. Karine cried, saying Paul didn't know when to stop and Pierre was her whole life.Paul said he "took things way too far" because he was scared Karine wanted to leave him. Paul had been hoping living in the United States would make their relationship stronger, but it was actually the opposite."I know if I don't go back to Brazil, Karine is going to leave me. But I know our lives would be so much better here in America because there are a lot more opportunities here... I am stuck between a rock and a hard place," Paul explained in a confessional.Now that Angela and Michael had received Michael's mother Aduke's blessing for the wedding even if Angela can't have a baby and refused to be submissive in marriage, the wedding in Nigeria was on! Angela and Michael had yet to hear back from their K-1 visa paperwork.Angela was shown meeting with a florist, and she asked to have flower colors that represented her mother and grandchildren's birth stones -- September, November and March, which turned out to be purple, blue and yellow.Angela teared up while planning her wedding, knowing her family wouldn't be able to attend the ceremony. Michael assured her wife that her mother would be well represented, but Angela admitted the wedding wasn't going to be easy for her at all given her mother was very sick.Angela wasn't even going to have her daughter Skyla at the wedding since Skyla had turned down the role of witness in the ceremony."It's all fun, and then when reality hits me, my family is not going to be here," Angela said.Angela put money from her food budget for the wedding towards a big flower bouquet. Michael wasn't thrilled with the idea, but he chose to keep quiet and just support his wife in order to make her happy.Angela knew she'd have her family in spirit at her wedding no matter what, so she allowed herself to get excited.A couple of days before the wedding, Angela and Michael picked up her friend JoJo at the airport, who traveled all the way from Texas to serve as a witness at the wedding. Angela was devastated no one in her family would be able to attend, but she was pleased to at least have one friend.Angela warned Michael that JoJo is protective of her and she valued what Jojo was going to think of Michael once the pair finally met. Michael just hoped JoJo was going to like her.JoJo wanted to find out whether Michael would be a good role model for Angela's grandchildren and only had the best of intentions for getting married and trying to move to the United States.Since Angela and Michael had pre-existing trust issues, the couple decided to have a joint bachelor and bachelorette party at a club.Angela, however, was immediately pissed because there were half-naked women dancing around. She didn't understand why Michael had brought her to a club like that, but she decided to just relax and trust Michael would keep his eye on her and only her.Angela and Michael had fun and danced, but at one point, Michael turned around and watched a girl dancing up on a podium, which left Angela "furious."Angela immediately stormed out of the club and yelled "f-ck you" at Michael. Michael chased Angela down, but she screamed at him to "go look at some more cheeks and ass."Michael said he wasn't looking at or checking out other women, and he didn't think it was fair for Angela to be so upset at him."I love him but I cannot do it," Angela told JoJo."Angela said she is not going to get married to me now. I am worried," Michael admitted.Once again, Angela told Michael that she was "done" with him.Asuelu apparently heard Kalani and her sister Kolini talking about him after Kalani had met with Asuelu's mother Lesina and sister Tammy.An on-screen graphic revealed that once the cameras left, a large fight ensued between Kalani and Asuelu and he ended up leaving alone to go to his family's house.Kalani and Kolini spent the night in a hotel and then Kolini flew back home and Kalani postponed their flight back to Utah.Kalani said Asuelu had screamed at her at one point and wasn't acting like "his typical self." Kalani said the trip was supposed to bring Asuelu closer to his family but it just ultimately ruined their relationship."I'm going to go home. I'm going to the airport with or without him, and then me and him need to have a big talk about what to do from here, because I can't live like this. I really think he needs to talk to a therapist... because something needs to change," Kalani told her mother on videochat.Kalani wasn't sure if this was the person Asuelu really is."I'm questioning if I can even do this anymore... [I want to see] if we can fix his behavior, and if not, I just need to not be with him," Kalani admitted.Kalani's mother advised Kalani to think about what's best for the children, especially considering she and Kalani's father Low had issues when he came to the United States from Samoa.Kalani wished her marriage was about love, happiness and supporting each other, and she confessed that that's not what she had. Kalani said if she was an outsider looking in, she would advise herself to be "done," however, Kalani felt the need to stay since she has two sons with Asuelu.Kalani and Asuelu later reunited, and Asuelu apparently pretended like nothing had happened. He showed up with balloons and flowers because it was Valentine's Day, but Kalani wanted him to apologize and take responsibility for his actions.Kalani told her husband that they needed to talk about their issues and work out their problems.Asuelu didn't appreciate Kolini getting involved in their argument and he said he didn't feel like Kalani was listening to him -- and so he left."Me being your wife doesn't mean that you have possession of me," Kalani told Asuelu. "You don't like that my family tries to stick up for me, and you take that as my family is trying to mess up our marriage."Kalani told Asuelu that she wanted to see a therapist, and Asuelu replied, "I think that's a good idea." The couple just had to get home in one piece.The more the couple talked in the car on the way to the airport, the more mad Asuelu apparently became. Kalani vented to the cameras she needed "a f-cking break" from her husband."I am tired and I'm emotionally exhausted... I just need to go home and figure things out. I don't know, I just want to be done. I don't want to be married anymore," Kalani confessed. "I love him, but I have to start loving myself and loving my boys more."Colt was shown waking up in his home with his "friend" Vanessa there, making toast for the both of them. Vanessa had moved in as a roommate, and Jess apparently had no idea.Colt was about to pick Jess up at the airport in Las Vegas, and he said he had a lot to tell Jess once they met in person. Colt had to admit to Jess he had talked to other women when they were broken up and that Vanessa had been living with him and Debbie.Colt said he and Jess had good days and bad days, and he really just needed to talk to his girlfriend and set things straight. Colt was well aware the conversation could take a bad turn, but he took Jess to a cat cafe first in order to make her smile and happy.Jess told the cameras she had received a lot of messages from women on social media claiming to have talked to Colt, so Jess planned to get to the bottom of things.Jess told Colt that in two weeks he had sent pictures of himself to eight girls and she had the proof in screenshots. It appeared Colt had sent nude pictures and videos to the women, telling them that he was single.Colt insisted he was "mortified" and "ashamed" of himself that Jess had received those photos, and Jess accused him of lying all the time. Jess told Colt that he had "problems" and needed a doctor, and Colt begged her to go back to his place so they could talk in private.Colt hoped to ease into the conversation, but he noted that Jess came to Las Vegas with guns loaded. Colt told Jess they were arguing all the time and she had blocked him, but Jess accused Colt of blocking her."All you do is insult me," Colt said in the car on the way to his house."Stop playing with women. I no toy. I have feelings. I hurt. I sad. I cry," Jess shared.Colt admitted he felt embarrassed by the whole thing but Jess was "on and off again" with him for a while and so he didn't even feel like he was even part of a relationship.Colt was nervous to take Jess home to his mother because Debbie wasn't expecting any type of fireworks.Jess and Debbie then reunited, and there was some awkward silence. Jess then tried to show Debbie the pictures she had received from other women of Colt, and Debbie refused to look and walk away.Colt admitted he had been a bad boyfriend and apologized to Jess for hurting her. With that being said, Colt also dropped the bomb that Vanessa had been living in his house in the third bedroom."What?!" Jess replied. "No!"Elizabeth, Andrei and relatives on both sides decided to go to a Moldovan village, where they'd make wine and explore the countryside.Elizabeth hoped everyone could get along and conduct themselves in a respectful manner, especially since Elizabeth's relatives were peppering Andrei's sister-in-law Ina with questions. Andrei had promised Elizabeth to be on his best behavior.Elizabeth's brother Charlie and father Chuck said they were going to watch Andrei closely to see how he acted, either friendly or confrontational. Elizabeth's sister Jenn also wasn't sure how the day was going to unfold.Everyone had fun squishing grapes with their feet and making the wine to the point where Andrei felt he and Elizabeth's family had a fresh start. Charlie, however, said "it didn't excuse what happened the other night" when Andrei had demanded he and Chuck pack their bags and return to America.Charlie later called Andrei's best friend Marcel, who met with Elizabeth's relatives -- Charlie, Chuck and Jenn -- in order to maintain a good relationship with them. Marcel had known Andrei for quite some time and they even went to school together.Chuck set out to discover why Andrei had quit the police force in Moldova and moved to Ireland, acknowledging, "It seems a little weird. It seems kind of strange."Marcel explained he and Andrei both weren't happy with their jobs in the police force and the force had wanted to replace Andrei.Marcel couldn't say whether Andrei was a "corrupt" police officer, adding, "That's how we work here. Sometimes we just break laws and that's it."Marcel insisted Andrei is a nice guy but the police force had been pushing him to leave or else he could get into "the worst trouble" and be "set up" to go to jail."Andrei was basically forced to leave the country. So something had to happen. He had to do something. Your country doesn't try to make you leave for no reason, so there is something he's not telling us," Charlie told the cameras.Chuck wasn't buying Marcel's story because Marcel made it seem like he and Andrei were good, honest guys working in a corrupt police force. Marcel insisted that's the truth and the police force in Moldovan is "rotten.""When you start dancing, you dance until the end. You cannot just fight with big people. Somebody wanted to get rid of us, and that's it," Marcel told the cameras.Marcel told Chuck, Charlie and Jenn to talk to Andrei if they wanted to find out more although Andrei clearly didn't like the subject. Marcel asked Elizabeth's family to just leave it alone, and he was clearly uneasy about the conversation.Chuck still wanted the truth because he could tell Marcel was acting strange and seemingly hiding something.Want more spoilers or couples updates? Click here to visit our homepage!
One cannot celebrate Sule Lamido without celebrating democracy- Lamido has spent the greater part of his life depending and working for free society.

Congratulations Sule Lamido, as you clock 72 years. We thank God Almighty for making you a true democrat; reliable politician and one with wisdom and sparing your life to witness your 72nd birthday in good health and sound mind despite all odds.

As mentioned earlier- One cannot celebrate Sule Lamido without celebrating democracy : Sule Lamido was the National Youth Leader of Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) in 1978, legislator (REP) in 1979, National Secretary of Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1992, foreign affairs Minister from 1999-2003, Jigawa state governor from 2007-2015

One thing remains obvious about this genuine politician and a great leader till today and that is the character, competence and quality of being brave, courageous and wise in determining the better future, peoples well-being, selfless service to humanity and making world of difference to hundreds of thousands if not millions.

Lamidos noble, fruitful and wise idea of struggle and actualization of true democracy especially in the 4th republic, SDP era when he was the national Secretary of the party that gave birth to the success of late Chief Abiola to be Nigerian elected democratic President and precisely in the 5th republic 1999 in which he was among the nine (9) founding members and he was the last man standing (In the corridor of politics and still in PDP) among the nine of them. Six are late, Chief Bola Ige, Alh Abubakar Rimi, Chief Solomon Lar, Malam Adamu Chiroma, Chief Alex Ekweme and Francis Ellah. Prof Jerry Gana and Iyochia Ayu are still alive but not visible in PDP and the 9th of them  Sule Lamido is alive, vibrant, visible and very active in politics and PDP despite all odds.

Sule Lamido has been in the corridor of Nigerian politics for over four decades. He was never been accused of bigotry, nepotism, tribal/religious/regional or sectional sentiment.

Lamido has witnessed political witch hunt, intimidation, victimization, humiliation, deprivation and oppression in the process of bringing back democracy and its values. Lamido was jailed several times especially during the military junta because of his struggles for politics and true democratic.

Lamido will always be remembered for the struggles he undergoes, the hardship he encounters, the contributions he offers, the sacrifices he made, the institutions he built and the achievements he made as a human being and as a politician who believes in representatives democracy . Sule Lamido is true Nigerian democrat, a reliable Nigerian politician and father of present Nigerian politics

Sule Lamido supported a Hausa/Fulani man from North/West, Malam Aminu Kano of Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) in 1979 to be Nigerian president. Lamido supported an Igbo man, from the South/East, Chief Nmandi Azikwe of Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) in 1983 to be a president. He supported MKO Abiola a Yoruba person, from South/West to be Nigerian president under Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1993. Lamido also supported Chief Olusegiun Obasanjo also a Yoruba man too from south/west under People Democratic Party (P.D.P) in 1999 and 2003 to be Nigerian President. Lamido also supported the Late Yaradua, a Hausa/Fulani man from north/west in 2007. Lamido supported Jonathan, an Ijaw man from South/South in 2011 and 2015. Lastly he as well supported Atiku a Fulani man from Northeast in 2019 to be Nigerian president after he lost in the primaries.

As my birthday facilitation to my Boss and leader, Dr. Sule Lamido (CON) I want to highlight some of his achievements and some legacies he left behind in Jigawa state. There was total educational reforms, excellent medical care delivery, employment/empowerment opportunities

Agricultural productions was in place. Lamido facilitated the sitting of the Federal University Dutse, he also established the state varsity, which was named after him, Sule Lamido University Kafin Hausa

Lamido built a world class International Airport in Dutse the state capital, built an event centre in the state capital, Dutse, Malam Aminu Kano Triangle which just looks like Eagle Square in Abuja. He facilitated and actualized an affiliated Degree awarding certificate from Bayero University Kano in the state collage of education, Gumel.

The School for Gifted And Talented Bamaina in Bamaina was established by Lamido which students (Boys and girls) from across Nigeria seek admission into the school just like Barewa Collage Zaria in those days in order to give an opportunity to Jigawa indigenes to interact from people across the globe. New State Secretariat was built which is the best of its kind Nationwide.

Rasheed Shakoni Specialist Hospital was renovated and equipped. Best NYSC orientation camp and sport complex In Dutse the state was built during Sule Lamido administration which is none to be compared to it all over Nigeria

Standard good roads network that linking the 27 local government areas across the state were constructed of over 2000 kilometres by Lamido administration. The Dutse Modern Market was constructed by Lamido. Modern township roads in the 27 local government headquarters were constructed.

There was free education for the female indigenes from primary to tertiary institutions. The school of Nursing and Midwifery was situated at Birnin-Kudu town

A monthly stipend (allowance) for People with disabilities was in place to halt or reduce begging on the streets across the state which 100 disable were selected from the 27 LG each was initiated and put in place by Lamido

Lamido built a new brand broadcasting house which include both the Television and the Radio station (JTV) . There was a Manpower Development centre. In all the 27 local government there is an official residence built for each of the chairman and all the Councillors

The is an edifice of Deputy Governors House and that of the Speaker was built during Sule Lamido administration.

The 30 House Of Assembly members have official residence built by Lamido in the state capital. Beautiful roundabout and Ring roads In the state capital were as well constructed by Lamido. Beggars were off the street all over the State

Official residence was built in the state capital for the five emirs. A high court was built. The state Library was in place and equipped with books and other materials. New INEC office was built by Lamido

The 27 Local government chairmen have official residence built by Lamido administration in the state capital, Dutse also thousands houses were built to ease the accommodation challenges in the state.

Lamido provided good and lasting solution that stopped Farmers/Herdsmens clashes (conflicts) in the state. There was award of prompt and regular payment of scholarship to all indigenes up to any level. Haifuwa lafiya (Safe delivery scheme) was implemented and yielded positive result

Good Hajj services was the best of its kind nationwide. Non indigenes were given liberty, benefits and opportunity like indigenes of the state and many among others but the most above all is, Sule Lamido dedicated a telephone line to everyone to text him on any matter that affects him or her or on government policies, programmes and agenda etc either to suggest, object, criticize, complaint, advise, and even some insult and what have you without intimidation, humiliation, victimization or deprivation to that regard that is why people regard Lamido as peoples governor/leader and Talaka (downtrodden) liberator.

Sule Lamido is an unmatched Nigerian politician at the moment he has many associate around the globe. Your political and national services in myriad for over four decades stands you taller that most. You are truly an inspiration, a hope for the hopeless, a help for the helpless and you have been a strong voice for the voiceless.

Sir, you have casted a niche for yourself in various aspects of life, in the political world you are a renowned brand and an icon. Your philanthropist gesture are also enormous. I am indeed proud of your giant and excellent accomplishments and contributions to politics and nation building

As a party leader, you have been a political tutor, a teacher of political values and integrity, etiquette, party supremacy and discipline.

Your perseverance, endurance, loyalty, patriotism, commitment, dedication, selflessness, general life style and disdain for materialism also underscore you selfless leadership, passion and role model in the course of illustrious career as a politician, a true democrat and a selfless leader.

Your Excellency, once again happy birthday. May your life continue to count for what counts. May Allah and your people always rejoice you. May your days ahead be greater than your past. May your testimonies and victories remain uncommon this new year of your life and for always.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY leader of the masses, a freedom fighter and defender of democracy

Adamu writes from Kafin-Hausa, Jigawa state.
Former President Pranab Mukherjee passed away on August 31 at a hospital in New Delhi. He was in a critical condition after undergoing brain surgery. He had also tested positive for COVID-19 before the surgery and was on ventilator support.

"Shri Pranab Mukherjee's health condition continues to remain critical at Army Hospital (R&R) Delhi Cantonment. The former president, who underwent life-saving emergency surgery for brain clot on August 10, 2020, has not shown any improvement and his health status has worsened. He remains on ventilatory support," the hospital said in its bulletin on August 11.

The 84-year-old political leader was conferred the countrys highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna in 2019. He served the country as its 13th President for five years from July 25, 2012.

A congressman, Mukherjee is remembered as an elder statesman who has made a lasting contribution to Indias progress in nearly five-decade public life, steered governance and inspired youth towards excellence in academics and other fields.

Here are 10 things you need to know about Pranab Mukherjee

> Born in Mirati, Bengal (now in West Bengal) on December 11, 1935, Mukherjee acquired a Master's degree in History and Political Science as well as a degree in Law from the University of Calcutta. He worked as a professor and a journalist before taking the plunge into politics.

> Mukherjee first ran for public office in 1969 with winning a seat in the Rajya Sabha (upper house). Since then, he served five times as a member of Rajya Sabha and twice as a member of the Lok Sabha.

> Known for his sharp memory, clarity of thought and grasp over issues, he has the rare distinction of serving as Foreign, Defence, Commerce and Finance Minister. He is often known as Prime Minister India never had. He was rated one of the best five finance ministers in 1984 according to a survey conducted by Euro Money Journal.

> In the seventies and eighties, he was instrumental in setting up regional rural banks (1975) and the EXIM Bank of India as well as National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (1981-82).

> Mukherjee was also instrumental in spearheading critical decisions on a range of issues as a minister in UPA governments from 2004 to 2012. Some of his decisions were on the issues of administrative reforms, Right to Information, Right to Employment, Food Security, energy security, Information Technology and telecommunication. He also played important roles in setting up of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and Metro Rail.

> A quintessential Congressman who served for 23 years as a member of the Congress Working Committee, the highest policy-making body of the party, Mukherjee had good rapport with leaders of all the political parties. This later led him to be the trouble-shooter for the Congress.

> In his political career, Mukherjee worked with two Prime Ministers - Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi - and had excellent equation with both of them. Even as Modi belonged to the party he had strongly opposed in his political career, the two shared a warm relationship and lauded each other publicly.

> Mukherjee surprised many when he visited the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters at Nagpur in 2018 and addressed its cadre even as some Congress leaders urged him not to do so. In his widely watched speech, he emphasised Indias pluralism.

> Mukherjee also served on the Board of Governors of the IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and African Development Bank. In his life, Mukherjee has authored several books on the Indian Economy and Nation Building.

> Before the Bharat Ratna, he was conferred Padma Vibhusan, Indias second-highest civilian award, in 2008. He was given the Best Parliamentarian Award in 1997 and Best Administrator in India Award in 2011.
Aviation group Regional Express (Rex) has managed to ride out the coronavirus storm, recording no net loss in revenue in financial year 2020 thanks to $62 million in government handouts.

The ASX-listed carrier on Monday afternoon revealed that its passenger revenue fell $65 million in the 12 months to June 30 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the slump was more than covered by government aid, including JobKeeper payments, and higher revenue from its pilot training business.

Rex reported a full-year loss, driven by an impairment to its assets. Credit:Andrew Taylor

Total revenue for the year landed at $321 million, up $4 million from the same period a year earlier. The airline reported a statutory loss after tax of $19.4 million for 2020, which was driven by a $62 million impairment charge against its assets.

Executive chairman Lim Kim Hai said that write-down was "in anticipation of difficult trading conditions in the next two years".
In defiance of China, a delegation, led by Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil, Sunday arrived in Taiwan on a six-day visit  the highest-level exchange between the two countries to cement economic and cultural ties.

Observers, whom VOA spoke to, noted that the visit says a lot about Chinas failing coercive diplomacy in the Czech Republic although it remains to be seen if other European countries will follow suit to trigger a chain effect.

The Czech Republic adheres to the One China policy but maintains unofficial ties with Taiwan.

This will be a trip to honor the spirits of late Czech President Vaclav Havel, Vystrcil told the 89-member delegation ahead of the trip, according to Taiwans Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Formerly a playwright, Havel was first Czech president in 1993. He had served years in prison for his dissenting political views upholding civil activism, direct democracy and human rights  values that Vystrcil said China fails to share.

Values v.s. money

My view is that if we focus on money, we will lose our values and the money, too Vystrcil, the second-highest official in the Czech Republic, has repeatedly told media to characterize the delegations visit to Taipei.

Upon the delegations arrival, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen extended her warmest welcome by saying in a Facebook post that people in Taiwan look forward to furthering cooperation in all areas with the Czech delegation.

By contrast, China has nothing but negative words to say about the Czech delegation and its visit to Taipei.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian Thursday described the trip as a "despicable conduct."

Chinas condemnation

Chinas state tabloid Global Times Sunday cited Chinas embassy in Czech Republic to say that Vystrcil made the trip based on his own political calculation, which has constituted an interference to Chinas internal affairs and a violation to the one-China principle.

Chinas objection, however, failed to renovate with the general public in the Czech Republic.

In my opinion, I think he [Vystrcil] wants to send a very strong message to China that Czech Republic is a free and democratic country and we dont like any country, no matter its China or some small countries to tell us what we should do, said Karel Picha, a Czech who has lived in Taiwan for eight years and currently runs the only Czech cuisine restaurant in Taipei.

We dont like any country to blackmail us by [saying], hey, if youre gonna go to Taiwan, it will hurt you. So, its a very strong statement to say that everything is not only about money, he told VOA, adding that most people in the CzechRepublic are aware of and support the visit.

Chinas failing coercive diplomacy

Chinas objections to the trip appeared to have backfired after the Czech Senate, in May, voted 50 to 1 in favor of Vystrcils diplomatic visit to Taipei.

The vote came after the sudden death of Vystrcils processor Jaroslav Kubera in late January, whose widow later accused China of coercing the late senator and threatening in a letter to retaliate against leading Czech companies if he were to make good on his planned visit to Taiwan.

Last Tuesday, 70 leaders from the European Parliament, U.S., Canada, and Australia issued a statement backing the Czech delegations visit to Taipei and denouncing Chinese pressure to scuttle the trip.

Triggering a chain reaction?

But two professors in Taipei said that they are skeptical if politicians in other European countries will follow suit to trigger a chain effect, which they say will be a bigger headache to China.

China isnt really intimidated by the Czech [delegation] as the Central European country is small. What worries China more is if politicians [across the Europe] will follow suit. A possible chain effect is what concerns China the most, said Cheng Ter-hsing, deputy executive at the Soochow Universitys Teaching and Research Center for Central and Eastern Europe in Taipei.

The professor said he didnt except many of Czechs neighboring countries to make a similar move as daring.

Like many governments in the Central and Eastern Europe, the Czech government, led by Czech President Milos Zeman and Prime Minister Andrej Babis, still favors closer ties with China, Cheng said.

Official statistics showed that bilateral trade between China and the Czech Republic stood at nearly $30 billion in 2019, more than triple of those between Taiwan and Czech.

Highest-level diplomatic exchange

Chinas relations with major European countries mainly Germany and Britian also look stable although Taiwan has now made a diplomatic breakthrough in the Czech Republic, said Shih Cheng-feng, a professor at National Dong Hwa University in Hualien of eastern Taiwan.

It hence remains to be seen whether the Czech delegations visit to Taipei amplifies the overall anti-China sentiments in Europe or just the standoff in the Czech Republic between political parties with a different stance toward China, both Shih and Cheng said.

The Czech delegation is comprised of senators, politicians, including Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib, business leaders from some 40 Czech companies, scientists and media.

In the upcoming days, Vystrcil, accompanied by his delegation, is slated to attend a Taiwan-Czech investment forum on Monday and give a public speech to Taiwans Parliament on Tuesday while making site visits in groups to several local companies in the high-tech, textile, biomedical industries.

Vystrcil and delegation members are also scheduled to meet with President Tsai on Thursday before wrapping up their last day on Friday in a forum, organized by American Institute in Taipei, to discuss shifting global supply chains.
Former chief minister Farooq Abdullah has rejected the idea of accepting the Constitutions Article 370 as history a year after it was nullified to strip Jammu & Kashmir of its special status and semi-autonomous status. They want us to accept that through the gun. I am not going to do that, said Farooq Abdullah in a joint interview to HT with his son and another former chief minister, Omar Abdullah.

Also read: Centre notifies distribution of power between L-G, govt in Jammu and Kashmir

Farooq Abdullah rejected as lies the reasons cited for the nullification that it was discriminatory, impeded development, promoted corruption and dynastic rule, separatism, and obstructed the states integration with the country.

I am living in this house [in Srinagar] since 1974 when my father was not Prime Minister or chief minister of J&K [Jammu & Kashmir]. We sold our ancestral property and with that money my father was able to buy this house for me when I was in England. Eighteen members of our family own that [the ancestral properties]. Are we that corrupt? And they said Farooq Abdullah has homes in Dubai, Paris, London, and America, he said.

Farooq Abdullah challenged his detractors to show him where all these houses are so that he can go and occupy them. My wife [Mollie Abdullah] is an Englishwoman. She has a home there [England]. She is entitled to her home.

He referred to the argument that development suffered because of Article 370 and added thank God Congress leader and former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, was able to prove in Rajya Sabha that the region is far better than Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modis home state. What we are suffering from is their [the Centres] lack of support. To this date, rail has not arrived from Katra to Banihal. There is more separatism now than before August 5 last year [when the process for the nullification and Jammu & Kashmirs division began].

He said guns were booming daily and people are giving up their lives. It is not the Pakistanis who are dying today; it is the Kashmiris. Who has created them [militants]? Not Farooq Abdullah. I was in jail. They [the government] created them. The hatred they have created between Hindus and Muslims in the rest of the nation do you think it will not have an effect here? It will.

Farooq Abdullah was among three former chief ministers detained as part of sweeping measures to prevent protests against the constitutional changes to Jammu & Kashmirs status last year. He along with Omar Abdullah was released in March while another former chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, continues to be under detention under the draconian Public Safety Act that allows incarceration for up to two years without trial.

The father-son duo has lately been galvanising dormant cadres of their party, the regions biggest and the oldest.

Omar Abdullah said the new reality does not mean they cannot argue against what has been done. If dissent is the essence of democracy, then what we are doing is strengthening democracy. We are dissenting against a government decision, he said.

He underlined the need for an understanding of how difficult it is for them. We get fixed from both sides. The ultra-nationalists in the rest of the country treat us as separatists. But here in Kashmir, we are treated as nationalists. Please tell me what we are.

The political environment in Jammu & Kashmir is in flux again a year after the nullification and bifurcation of the erstwhile state into two Union Territories. Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah are at the heart of the churning following their release from detention.

Farooq Abdullah last week emerged as the pivot in the formation of a conglomerate of the Valleys six parties that has posed the first challenge to the Centre by reaffirming commitment to the Gupkar Declaration pegged to the demand for restoration of the special status.
Europes longest-serving ruler may be losing his 26-year grip on power.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a young mother from Belarus, is hoping to take control of the country after 26 years of Alexander Lukashenkos rule. Hundreds of thousands are supporting the 37-year-old  but Lukashenko, the father of Belarus, is backed by Russian tanks.

The ripple effects of this historic battle for Belarus have the potential to reverberate around the world.

In this episode:

Step Vaessen, Al Jazeera journalist in Moscow.

For more:

How Russia-Belarus ties evolved over the years

Connect with The Take on:

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The team:

Amy Walters produced this episode with Dina Kesbeh, Priyanka Tilve, Abigail Ony Nwaohuocha, Alexandra Locke, Ney Alvarez, and Kevin Hirten.

Alex Roldan is The Takes sound designer. Natalia Aldana is the engagement producer. Stacey Samuel is The Takes Executive Producer, and Graelyn Brashear is Al Jazeeras Head of Audio.
By Online Desk

The Indian Army on Monday said it thwarted "provocative" military movements by Chinese troops on the intervening night of August 29 and 30 to unilaterally change the status quo on the southern bank of Pangong Tso Lake area in eastern Ladakh.

Nealy 200 PLA troops tried to enter but were successfully outflanked, the Indian Army said.

Brigade Commander level flag meeting is in progress at Chushul sector along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) at the time of this news being written to.

Army Spokesperson Col Aman Anand said troops from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements on the ongoing standoff in eastern Ladakh, and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo.

"Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on Southern Bank of PangongTso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen their positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground," he said.

"The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity. A Brigade Commander level Flag Meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues," Col Anand further said.

ALSO READ | Ladakh standoff: India urges China to complete stalled disengagement process along LAC

It is the first major incident involving the troops of the two countries after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed.

China also suffered casualties but it is yet to make the details public but according to an American intelligence report it was 35.

India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks in the last two-and-half months but no significant headway has been made for a resolution to the border row in eastern Ladakh.

The two sides began a process of disengagement on July 6, a day after a telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in eastern Ladakh.

However, the process has not moved forward since mid-July.

The PLA has pulled back from Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang and a couple of other areas.

At the five rounds of Corps commander-level talks, the Indian side has been insisting on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to April.

ALSO READ | ITBP recommends gallantry medals for 21 personnel, awards 294 troops who fought off PLA troops in Ladakh

The face-off began on May 5 following violent clashes between the two armies in the Pangong lake area.

The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 9.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control(LAC).

Prior to the clashes, both sides have been asserting that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it is necessary to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas.

Even as both sides were engaged in diplomatic and military talks, the Indian Army stepped up its strength in all key areas along the LAC to deal with any eventualities.

Chief of Army Staff Gen MM Naravane has already conveyed to all the senior commanders of the Army, overseeing the operation of the frontline formations along the LAC, to keep up a significantly high state of alertness and maintain the aggressive posturing to deal with any Chinese "misadventure", sources said.

The tension between the two sides escalated manifold after the Galwan Valley clashes.

Following the incident, the government gave the armed forces "full freedom" to give a "befitting" response to any Chinese misadventure along the LAC.

The Army sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border following the deadly clashes.

The IAF has also moved air defence systems as well as a sizeable number of its frontline combat jets and attack helicopters to several key air bases.

(With ENS and PTI Inputs)
Theresa Mays former head of communications Sir Robbie Gibb has emerged as a prominent figure in the bid to set up a new 24-hour news channel in the UK to rival the BBC.

The former Downing Street official is reportedly leading efforts to raise money for GB News  a television channel aimed at people who believe the public broadcaster has become too left-wing and woke.

GB News has already been given a licence by broadcasting regulator Ofcom, and is said to be targeting a launch on Freeview in 2021.

The channel will be a truly impartial source of news, unlike the woke, wet BBC, one GB News source told The Mail on Sunday. It will deliver the facts, not opinion dressed up as news.

Sir Robbie  who worked as a the head of the BBCs political programme output until leaving to join Ms May at No 10 in 2017  is keen to bring veteran interviewer Andrew Neil to the channel, the newspaper reported.

In a recent opinion piece for The Telegraph, Sir Robbie claimed the Beeb had been culturally captured by the woke-dominated group think of some of its own staff.

The keen Brexit supporter added: There is a default left-leaning attitude from a metropolitan workforce mostly drawn from a similar social and economic background.

Records show the fledging TV channel  which some have described as an attempt to bring Fox News-style broadcasting to Britain  has been in the works for some time.

Ofcom granted a television broadcasting license to GB News in January 2020. All Perspectives, the limited company granted the license, was set up last September, according to Companies House listings.

Sir Robbies former colleague Gavin Barwell, Ms Mays former chief of staff at No 10, was among those who voiced concern that the new channel could further polarise British politics.

He tweeted: Do you think a polarised broadcast media to go with the polarised print media we already have will change our politics and country for the better?

Robbie Gibb, former head of BBCs political programme output (Getty Images)

The move come as the BBCs new director general is expected to set out his plans for the corporation this week  with impartiality a key focus.

Tim Davie starts in the wake of anger from the right over the decision to play orchestral versions of Rule, Britannia! and Land Of Hope And Glory at the Last Night Of The Proms.

The broadcaster is also expecting to receive a report into the use of social media by its staff, including presenters, written by Richard Sambrook.

A BBC spokeswoman said: Impartiality is vitally important for the BBC and we look forward to receiving Richard Sambrooks assessment of the issues around the use of social media.

The Independent has approached Sir Robbie for comment.
Outdoor spaces at two of Belfast's most popular pubs could be on their way following a planning bid by the venues' owner.

Publican Willie Jack, who owns a number of well-known pubs around Belfast, has said he believes the proposed enhancements for The Harp Bar and The Dark Horse - both located in the city's Cathedral Quarter - "will help to breathe life back into the economy".

He has submitted a planning application for a licensed outdoor art installation at The Harp and requested permission to transform the courtyard at the back of The Dark Horse into an outdoor licensed dining area.

He hopes the improvements will help to showcase Belfast as a thriving, fashionable and safe tourist destination.

"Once Belfast City Airport is up and running fully, we want to be in a position to encourage people to come and visit the country," he explained.

"The airports are so important to us because they bring people into the city who book into the hotels, they eat a meal at a restaurant, they go out for a drink and end up at The Harp Bar or The Duke of York.

"We want people to see that Belfast is a happening city, we have to keep pushing Belfast forward.

"Belfast is going to be the driver for the rest of the province, it has good hotels, pubs and restaurants and we all feed into each other.

"I understand that people are less comfortable about going out and we want to encourage them to come back out.

"Throughout the Troubles, a lot of people didn't think that Belfast was safe, but the police are doing a great job and we want to encourage people to come out again.

"We know some people feel safer outside which is why we are making efforts to create more spaces outdoors where people can go out and enjoy themselves."

Mr Jack said he hopes the applications will be approved by November, which will allow customers to enjoy the spaces from next year.

It comes as a licensing law solicitor warns the hospitality sector about the importance of securing permission to trade outdoors.

Pubs and restaurants have been looking at alternative ways to do business as they cope with the restrictions put in place to help stop the spread of Covid-19.

John Finnegan, partner at the Belfast-based Millar McCall Wylie, spoke out about some of the licensing issues faced by the hospitality sector as it adapts to the demands of Covid-19.

"Pubs, hotels and restaurants have, understandably and commendably, been doing all they can to keep trading during these difficult times and that has often meant using outside areas to increase capacity safely," he said.

"Given the pace of events, it hasn't been possible for all businesses to take the necessary steps to protect their liquor licences.

"It has been reassuring to see a common sense approach taken by the authorities so far, but there is now clear communication that trading outside without permission won't be tolerated long term. The risk here is that fines and even forced closures may happen if business owners don't take action."
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Monday expressed deep sorrow over the death of former president Pranab Mukherjee and said with his demise an era has come to an end.

She recollected her long association with Mukherjee and extended her condolence to his son and daughter.

It is with deep sorrow I write this. Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee has left us. An era has ended. For decades he was a father figure. From my first win as MP, to being my senior Cabinet colleague, to his becoming President while I was CM, Banerjee said in a statement released from the state secretariat.

So many memories. A visit to Delhi without Pranabda is unimaginable. He is a legend in all subjects from politics to economics. Will be forever grateful. Shall miss him immensely. My condolences to Abhijit & Sharmistha, she added.

84-year-old Mukherjee passed away at the Army RR Hospital in Delhi this evening.
John Halligan introduced the Dying with Dignity Bill in 2015 but it was never completed in the house.

The Former Independent TD says he would be willing to go to jail to help someone.

Mr Halligan told WLR FM in Waterford he has in the past provided information on assisted suicide:

"I was never asked to give financial assistance but I was asked to give the geographical places it can happen."

"It only happened once though and I just gave the information."

It comes as Mr Halligan revealed recently that he helped someone travel to Switzerland to access assisted suicide.

The Bill was brought in 2015 to act as "provision for assistance in achieving a dignified and peaceful end of life to qualifying persons and related matters."

When the Dail and Seanad dissolved back in 2016, the bill was left behind.

Direct euthanasia

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Assisted suicide is fully legal in only three European countries: The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Active and direct euthanasia has been legalised in the Netherlands since April 2002. Requested administration of a drug in lethal doses is authorised if patients make the request while lucid.

They must also be experiencing unbearable suffering from a condition diagnosed as incurable by at least two doctors

Belgium lifted restrictions on euthanasia in September 2002 for patients facing constant, unbearable and untreatable physical or psychological suffering.

They must be 18 years old or over and request termination of life in a voluntary, deliberated and repeated manner free from coercion.

In Luxembourg, a text legalising euthanasia in certain terminal cases was approved in March 2009.

Elsewhere in Europe, Switzerland is one of the rare countries that allows assisted suicide with patients administering a lethal dose of medication themselves.

It does not allow active, direct euthanasia by a third party but tolerates the provision of substances to relieve suffering.

In Austria and Germany passive euthanasia is permitted if requested by the patient, so when death is brought about by an omission i.e. when someone else lets the person die.




This file photo taken on April 21, 2017 shows an aerial shot of a reef in the disputed Spratly islands. / AFP
- All travellers to Ghana by air are to pay $150, equivalent to GH866, as the fee for testing for COVID-19

- The Managing Director of the Ghana Airports Company Limited, Yaw Kwakwa, said the testing will be 99% to 100% accurate

- It would take a maximum of 30 minutes for a passenger to go through the entire process and get his or her results

- Our manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

Travellers arriving in Ghana by air will have to pay $150, equivalent to GHc866, for COVID-19 testing at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).

This was revealed at a press conference in Accra on Monday, August 31, following the announcement of the re-opening of the airport by President Akufo-Addo.

President Nana Akufo-Addo, in his 16th COVID-19 update to the nation, said Ghanas international airport will be opened on September 1, 2020, after five months of closure.

Travellers to Ghana to pay GHC866 as COVID-19 testing fee. Source:Myjoyonline.com

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Mahama urged to legalize prostitution and Okada business

Giving further clarification on the presidents directive, the Managing Director of the Ghana Airports Company Limited, Yaw Kwakwa, said the accuracy of the testing is 99% to 100%.

The mandatory testing, which is to be conducted for all passengers coming into the country forms part of directives outlined by the Aviation and Health ministries to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus and ensure that the deadly disease is not imported into the country.

It takes a maximum of 30 minutes for a particular passenger to go through the entire process and get his or her results," Myjoyonline.com reported.

He further explained that it is compulsory for every airline coming to Ghana to ensure that passengers have a face mask on.

When you are coming from London, you will probably travel like six hours and so when you land at the KIA and you come through the passenger door and get to the edge of the terminal building, we will give you a fresh face mask," Kwakwa added.

READ ALSO: Nigeria warns Ghana over harassment of citizens

Defending the $150 (GHC866) fee for the testing, the Deputy Minister for Health, Dr. Benard Oko-Boye described it as a good bargain since nothing is more expensive than contracting COVID-19 itself.

He also argued that the decision was taken after assessing charges by other countries.

YEN.com.gh earlier reported that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has in his 16th Address to the nation on the measures taken to curtail the spread of the coronavirus disease, announced a number of measures taken by the government.

YEN.com.gh has, however, listed some eight major highlights from Akufo-Addo's speech with infographics attached from President Akufo-Addo's Facebook page.

Ghana re-opens Kotoka International Airport to passengers |#Yencomgh

Get interactive via our Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
Mumbai, Aug 31 : The Department of Telecommunications has approved the Rs 25,215 crore deal between Reliance Jio and Brookfield Infrastructure.

A SEBI filing said: "The DoT through its letter dated August 11, 2020 has approved Rs 1,053.50 million downstream foreign investment for acquisition of the remaining 49 per cent of the paid-up equity share capital of Tower Co. from RIL by the Trust." Further, the department has also approved the increase in foreign investment in Tower Co. to 100 per cent of the paid-up equity share capital.

In December last year, Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Limited (RIIHL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) entered into an agreement under which it will receive Rs 25,215 crore investment by Canadian entity Brookfield Infrastructure and its institutional partners in its tower infrastructure trust.

As per the deal at the closing of the transaction, the trust will own 100 per cent of the issued and paid up equity share capital of Reliance Jio lnfratel Private Limited (RJIPL).

DoT gave the approval subject to the condition - "The Tower Co. shall ensure compliance with the InvIT Regulations" and "the investment of Rs 2,52,150 million by the Brookfield Sponsor and other investors into the Trust by way of the Issue should be in compliance with applicable FEMA rules and regulations and the InvIT Regulations".

Further, the Rs 25,000 crore trust loan to be provided by the trust to the tower company should be in compliance with the extant provisions of the law.

The approval of the DoT is also subject to, amongst others, foreign investors not being provided any assured return on exit, compliance with pricing guidelines, documentation and reporting requirements of the Reserve Bank of India and compliance with other applicable laws, the filing said.

The Centre had sought the view of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on whether the debt-equity ratio of the deal is compliant with its guidelines for infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs). The approval was finally given after Jio clarified the doubts raised by the Ministry of Home Affairs, DoT and SEBI.
Prof. punished for not using trans pronouns slams assault on his free speech

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A Christian professor at a southern Ohio university who was punished for refusing to address a male student as female has opened up about why his plight is an affront to free speech.

In an essay published by The Daily Signal on Friday, Shawnee State University philosophy professor Nicholas Meriwether detailed the day when a male student approached him after class and told him that he identified as a female and that he expected to be addressed with feminine pronouns.

When the professor hesitated, the student threatened that he would make sure the professor lost his job.

"So far, that hasnt happened, but I do have a letter of discipline in my file now that says I treated this particular student differently than other students by referring to him by his given name rather than as 'Ms.' and 'she,'" Meriwether explained.

"Consequently, I found it necessary to file a grievance against the university for violating my First Amendment protections of speech and religious freedom. My objections to the students request were based on my own philosophical and religious convictions, which the university blithely ignored."

Meriwether went on to explain that he agreed to call the student by his given name instead of Mr. or Ms. Yet that was not sufficient in the eyes of the student or the university administrators that sided with him, the professor claims.

In response to the argument that some make that students should have the right to identify as male or female, Meriwether maintained that he, too, has the right not "to identify his student as something I do not believe he is.

Meriwether stated that that the university has no right to compel him to speak something he does not believe.

"[A]s a philosophy professor who regularly teaches ethics, I have a professional as well as a personal responsibility to honor the truth for what it is  not for what some of us might want it to be," Meriwether wrote.

"I am a Christian, and we, too, set particular stock by the truth. We also put a premium on compassion, which is why I would never deliberately mistreat the student in question by mocking his point of view, or making my class more difficult for him, or adjusting his grade based on how closely his views align with my own.

The professor said the student earned and received a high grade and that the two had no other difficult interactions.

Earlier this year, Meriwether appealed a federal court decision dismissing his lawsuit against the school.

He argued that the university unlawfully disciplined him after he refused to agree to speak in accordance with gender ideology and use the student's preferred pronouns.

Professors dont give up their First Amendment freedoms simply by choosing to teach, said Travis Barham, senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Meriwether, in a March statement.

Public universities have no business trying to force people to express ideological beliefs that they do not hold," the lawyer added. "Dr. Meriwether remains committed to serving all students with respect, but he cannot express all messages or endorse all ideologies. When the university tried to force him to do this and then punished him for exercising his rights, it violated the First Amendment.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Litkovitz argued that speech by a government employee is only protected under the First Amendment if the speech was made as a citizen while addressing a matter of public concern.

A government employees speech is made as a citizen and is protected under the First Amendment only when the speech is not pursuant to [the employees] duties, the magistrate wrote last September.

In 2018, a high school French teacher in Virginia was fired for a similar reason. The teacher, Peter Vlaming, who is also represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, sued the West Point School Board.
The Supreme Court on Monday imposed a fine of Re 1 on activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan for criminal contempt of court for his tweets against the apex court and Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde.

A three-judge bench said that if Bhushan fails to deposit the amount by September 15, he will have to undergo simple imprisonment for three months and will be barred from practising for three years.

The court had on August 14 held Bhushan guilty of criminal contempt of court and stated that the allegations levelled in the tweets against the court and CJI are malicious in nature and have the tendency to scandalise the court.

Bhushans tweets were based on distorted facts and have the effect of destabilising the foundation of the judiciary, the court had added.

Also read: How Prashant Bhushan criminal contempt case progressed in Supreme Court

Though the court gave him time to think over, Bhushan maintained that he will not apologise and in a statement on August 24 said that the views expressed by him through his tweets represented his bona fide (good faith) beliefs and, therefore, an apology for expressing such beliefs would be insincere.

An apology cannot be a mere incantation and any apology has to be sincerely made. If I retract a statement before this court that I otherwise believe to be true or offer an insincere apology, that in my eyes would amount to the contempt of my conscience and of an institution (Supreme Court ) that I hold in highest esteem, he said.

However, Attorney General KK Venugopal had urged the court to not punish Bhushan and let him off with a warning but the court refused to do so unless he tendered an apology.

Bhushan had on June 27 tweeted that historians will mark the role of the Supreme Court in contributing to what he considered as destruction of democracy. When historians in the future look back at the last six years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the SC in this destruction, and more particularly the role of the last four CJIs, he wrote on Twitter.

In another tweet on June 29, the lawyer had posted a photo of CJI Bobde sitting on a Harley Davidson motorcycle with the text alongside reading: The CJI rides a Rs 50-lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] leader at Raj Bhavan, Nagpur, without wearing a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC on lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access justice!
FLORIDA, N.Y., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, DLP Real Estate Capital is pleased to announce that Don Wenner, Founder and CEO, has been named as an Entrepreneur Of The Year 2020 Florida Award Finalist.

Now in its 34th year, the Entrepreneur Of The Year program honors entrepreneurial business leaders whose ambitions deliver innovation, growth, and prosperity as they build and sustain successful businesses that transform our world. Wenner was selected as one of 21 finalists from nearly 60 nominations by a panel of independent judges.

DLP Real Estate Capital

Award winners will be announced through a special virtual event on Oct. 8, 2020 and will join a lifelong community of esteemed Entrepreneur Of The Year alumni from around the world. This year, unstoppable entrepreneurs who have provided extraordinary support for their communities, employees, and others during the COVID-19 crisis will also be recognized for their courage, resilience and ingenuity.

Wenner commented, "I am truly grateful for being named as an Entrepreneur Of The Year 2020 Florida Award Finalist. My team of nearly 400 hardworking and dedicated individuals truly deserve this recognition. We conduct business with a clear purpose and direction, share the same set of values, and use a very disciplined operating system (the DLP Elite Execution System). We accomplish more in 90 days than our competitors do all year (even through COVID), because of our dedication to the 20-mile march; putting forth the same effort day in day out, year after year."

Entrepreneur Of The Year is one of the preeminent competitive award programs for entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies. The nominees are evaluated based on six criteria, including overcoming adversity; financial performance; societal impact and commitment to building a values-based company; innovation; and talent management. Since its launch, the program has expanded to recognize business leaders in more than 145 cities in over 60 countries around the world.

Regional award winners are eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Awards, to be announced in November during a virtual awards gala. The Entrepreneur Of The Year National Overall Award winner will then move on to compete for the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in June 2021.

DLP Real Estate Capital, under the leadership of Founder and CEO Don Wenner, is a leader in the single and multi-family real estate sectors of brokerage, investment management, asset management, property management, construction, and private lending. DLP RE Capital leads and inspires the building of wealth and prosperity through the execution of innovative real estate solutions. The company generates consistent returns and results for its investors and partners and gives back through its Positive Returns Foundation. The family of companies includes DLP Capital Partners, DLP Lending, DLP Real Estate Management, DLP Realty, Alliance Servicing, & Alliance Property Transfer.

DLP Real Estate Capital has over $1 billion in assets under management, over 500 loans in portfolio, and has closed over 15,000 real estate transactions totaling more than $3 billion. DLP has been ranked in the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in the U.S. for eight consecutive years; earned the #3 spot for Americas' Fastest Growing Companies 2020 in the real estate & property category by Financial Times; and has been named by The Wall Street Journal as one of the top 15 real estate firms in the U.S. for the fifth straight year, including the #1 team in PA and NJ for sales.

Contact: Jenn LoConte

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Employees at big four accounting giants Deloitte and KPMG have accused partners of prioritising profits over staff welfare by using the coronavirus pandemic to slash pay and rush through redundancies.

Deloitte staff were told 20 per cent pay cuts were put in place in April to prevent wider job losses at the company. "The greater good was that everyone kept their job," said one employee who requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Former and current staff at KPMG and Deloitte have criticised cost cutting measures rushed through in April.

But the cuts were not matched by lighter workloads and two months later, Deloitte announced it would axe at least 700 roles including employees who had spent almost two decades at the company.

Another Deloitte staff member said the cuts were rushed through, with little notice being provided to those affected or options explored to redeploy them.
BRAMPTONThe Ontario government unveiled two new programs on Monday as part of a province-wide crackdown on sex trafficking.

Provincial cabinet members said at a news conference that the initiatives will address the growing rate of the sex trade industry and teach children how to recognize the signs if they are ever targeted by a trafficker.

Backed by the provinces $307 million antihuman trafficking plan, the Ford government said they are launching both the Speak Out: Stop Sex Trafficking and The Trap program.

Speak Out: Stop Sex Trafficking is designed by and for Indigenous people that will provide information about sexual exploitation and human trafficking as well as how to spot it.

Its a source of information about human trafficking and sexual exploitation for Indigenous youth as well as leaders and caregivers in Indigenous communities to help them raise awareness and provide support, said Jill Dunlop, Associate Minister of Children and Womens Issues.

A second initiative, called The Trap, is designed to raise awareness about sex trafficking among middle and high school-aged children and teens.

The online tool will help youth experience what its like to be targeted and recruited by a sex trafficker via the web and what to do if the scenario ever comes to fruition. The children will be accompanied by an adult or guardian when interacting with The Trap.

This tool offers a new innovative way to show youth how traffickers operate so we can stop this crime before it starts, Dunlop said.

Over two-thirds of police-reported human trafficking violations in Canada between 2009 and 2018 happened in Ontario, according to a report from Statistics Canada. That report also said that more than 70 per cent of known human trafficking victims identified by police were under the age of 25. In addition, 28 per cent were under 18.

Sgt. Kerry Schmidt of the Ontario Provincial Police said police are working day in and day out to crack down on sex trafficking rings that they say can target anyone, especially marginalized youth.

In some cases individuals may not even know they are being trafficked, he said. We have dedicated individuals who are out there working in this environment trying to help and bring people out of that trade and help them understand that they are being manipulated and profited off of.

Schmidt said having an open dialogue and communication with people you trust can go a long way in helping individuals, notably young children, understand right from wrong and seek help.

Julie Neubauer, manager for anti-human-trafficking services at Covenant House Toronto, agreed.

Understanding what sex trafficking is and being able to identify the signs of luring, grooming and exploitation is vital to help prevent trafficking, Neubauer said. Sex trafficking is a crime taking place in Canada right now, the truth is that its happening in our communities, to our children and often right in front of us.

According to Neubauer, sex trafficking does not discriminate and can happen to anyone regardless of age, culture, income, gender or where you live. She also said sex trafficking is a large, complex issue that requires a long-term strategy and not band-aid solutions.

The number of victims affected continues to grow, and the traffickers continue to employ new technologies in order to avoid detection, said Neubauer.

Combating this issue requires collaboration across industries, sectors and levels of government and continued funding to ensure we dont take our foot off the gas.

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Union president Jerry Jordan on Monday night asked the 13,000 teachers, counselors, nurses, secretaries, and other school workers in the PFT to give him two weeks to continue negotiating a deal. Read more

The contract between the Philadelphia School District and its largest union expired Monday with no new deal inked.

Union president Jerry Jordan on Monday night asked the 13,000 teachers, counselors, nurses, secretaries, and other school workers who comprise the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers to give him two weeks to continue negotiating a deal, making plain his displeasure with the school systems negotiating tactics, which he called reprehensible.

The district is attempting to shake down our membership, and I wont allow it, Jordan said at a news conference after PFT members approved a two-week continuation of negotiations.

Recognizing the challenges from the pandemic, Jordan said he was asking district leadership for a one-year contract extension with a modest salary increase.

But the district, Jordan said, is tying raises to the unions agreeing to a school reopening plan. The school systems 125,000 students are set to begin the 2020-21 school year virtually on Wednesday; officials hope to get children back in classrooms in November.

PFT officials released their own reopening plan this summer and said the district had not consulted the union substantively as it lays out conditions under which students and teachers would return to class.

The district concocted an appalling scheme to attempt to make our membership choose between a modest wage increase and their lives, Jordan said.

He said the PFT was willing to continue negotiations on reopening, but was wary of school system promises given its past performance around building conditions.

 READ MORE: On the $50M Ben Franklin/SLA project, Philly school district ignored warning signs, endangered students health

We need a clearly defined and agreed upon procedure for addressing the districts all too familiar failure to actually deliver on their commitments, Jordan said, adding that he would not agree to insufficient plans that come November could cost our members, their families, or their students their lives.

The expiration of the three-year contract comes during a pandemic that will cost the district an estimated $60 million in COVID-19 expenditures  money the district says it does not have.

But it also comes as the union possesses, for the first time in nearly two decades, the power to strike.

Jordan said PFT accountants proved that the district has enough cash to cover raises and COVID-19 costs.

Monica Lewis, district spokesperson, said that the school system remains optimistic that a fair agreement will be reached. The district is on target to having a successful first day of school on Sept. 2.

The contracts of other large city unions could be bellwethers for the PFT contract. The membership of the Philadelphia police officers and municipal workers unions approved one-year contract extensions this spring, with pay increases of 2% to 2.5% plus bonuses under $1,000 per worker.

For the 17 years the district was under state takeover and governed by the School Reform Commission, the PFT was legally prohibited from striking. That prohibition ceased when local control and a school board returned in 2018.

Jordan said that a strike was not off the table, but that he was hopeful a deal could be reached in the next two weeks.

The last PFT contract was signed in June 2017 after city teachers spent nearly five years without a contract or pay increase. That deal included raises and came with a $395 million price tag.
Slate's Who Counts? series is made possible by the support of Slate Plus members and readers like you.

Americans tend to think of voting as something you do on Election Day, a sacred democratic ritual: go to the polls, fill out your ballot in a booth, then wear an I Voted sticker to tout your civic virtue. The reality is often messier than that, as weve seen every year in the hourslong lines, broken machines, and utter confusion at polling places across the country. In 2020, amid a pandemic, this ritual is not only ineffectiveit may also be dangerous.

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Our ability to exercise the right to vote is under threat. President Donald Trump has assailed mail-in voting, even though it is safe, secure, and more popular than ever before. He has refused vital funding for the U.S. Postal Service, the agency millions rely on to return their absentee ballots. But even before the Trump administration started messing with the post office, many states had steadily built up obstacles to the franchise. Others, meanwhile, have expanded voting access. Now, in the vast majority of states, there are multiple ways to vote.

This guide is designed to help Americans voteand make sure their ballots are actually counted. It is written for voters who are understandably worried that their vote might not be counted due to the vagaries of mail delivery and state election laws. And it assumes that voters will prefer to minimize their exposure to other individuals during a pandemic. Our chief goal is to recommend the safest, easiest, most reliable voting options in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We explain how you can vote absentee, from the safety of your own home, then return your ballot without relying on USPS.

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Although every state sets a date by which absentee ballots must be received to be counted, we have excluded those from our recommendations in light of this years unusual circumstances. USPS fears that tens of millions of voters who rely on these dates will be disenfranchised, calling the states schedules incongruous with the facts on the ground. Even before the current slowdown, the agency worried that state deadlines to request absentee ballots were too ambitious. Instead, we urge voters to request an absentee ballot immediatelyas in, right nowand return it well in advance of Nov. 3.

Alabama

Register to vote by: Oct. 19

Early in-person voting: None

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID unless two election officials personally attest to your identity.)

Vote by mail: Excuse required, though all voters can cite fear of COVID-19

Notable hurdle: Absentee ballots must be signed by two witnesses or a notary public.*

How easy is it to vote here: Very difficult

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You must register to vote online, by mail, or in person at a board of registrars. There is no same-day registration. When returning their ballot, voters will need to include a photocopy of their ID. Absentee ballots must be signed by two witnesses or a notary public. You can usually find a notary public at a bank, and the service is often free if youre already a customer.

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Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot now, fill it out at home, and return it by mail or in person. Each county has a separate application form and a different absentee election manager. You can request your ballot from these officials, then mail it back or hand-deliver it to them. A list of absentee election managers, including contact info is available here.

Alaska

Register to vote by: Oct. 4

Early in-person voting: Oct. 19Nov. 2, but dates and hours vary by borough*

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID or a utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, or other government document with your name and address; an election official can waive this requirement by attesting to your identity.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: Absentee ballots must be signed by a witnessa requirement that many voters forget to fulfill.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately difficult

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You can register to vote online, by mail, or in person at your local clerks office or public library. Qualified Alaska voters whove applied for a Permanent Fund Dividend (oil money paid out by the state to residents whove lived in Alaska for a full year and intend to stay there) are automatically registered. There is no same-day registration. When returning their ballot, most voters will need to include a photocopy of an identifier, which includes not just government-issued IDs but also utility bills, bank statements, paychecks, or other government documents with the voters name and address. Absentee ballots must be signed by one witness.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot online and drop it off at a drop box, if available. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online to ensure it is received.

Arizona

Register to vote by: Oct. 5

Early in-person voting: Begins Oct. 7, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued ID or an identifying document like a bank statement, utility bill, or vehicle registration.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: Residents cannot vote in person without valid identification, even if they attest to their identity and swear they dont have the funds to fulfill the ID requirement.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately easy

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Arizona will mail an absentee ballot application to all active voters this fall. You can register to vote online, by mail, or in person at your county recorders office. There is no same-day registration. If youre disabled, a family member, household member, or caregiver may place your ballot in the mail or hand-deliver it. There is no witness requirement. If the signature on the absentee ballot envelope is inconsistent with the signature on the voter registration form, the county recorder must make reasonable efforts to notify the voter and permit a correction. A signature must be corrected within three days of the election.

Slates recommendation: Fill out your absentee ballot at home and drop it off at any early voting site in your county, a county recorders office, or a drop box, if available. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online to ensure its received.

Arkansas

Register to vote by: Oct. 5

Early in-person voting: Begins Oct. 19, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a photo ID issued by the government or an accredited postsecondary educational institution in Arkansas; you can also sign a sworn statement attesting to your identity, subject to approval by county board of election commissioners.)

Vote by mail: Excuse needed, though all voters can cite fear of COVID-19

Notable hurdle: A draconian and opaque signature mismatch law

How easy is it to vote here: Very difficult

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You can register to vote by mail or in person with your county clerk. There is no same-day registration. Arkansas law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. State law does not lay out a process by which voters can correct a mismatched signature.* Counties do not tell the state how many absentee ballots are rejected due to signature mismatch each election.

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Slates recommendation: Voters who are not at a heightened risk for COVID-19 should vote early in-person. Voters who qualify can request an absentee ballot and return it in person. Voters who choose this option must deliver their ballot to the county clerk by Nov. 2. Those who return their ballot by mail must ensure that it is received by Election Day. All absentee voters must include a photocopy of an acceptable ID along with their ballot.

California

Register to vote by: Oct. 19 (or at the polls through Election Day)

Early in-person voting: Oct. 5Nov. 2, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: Ballots are automatically mailed to all active registered voters. No excuse needed.

Notable hurdle: None. California is a leader in hurdle-free voting.

How easy is it to vote here: Very easy

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You can register to vote online, by mail, or in person at a DMV or county elections office. Many post offices, public libraries, and other government offices also offer voter registration. If you have previously interacted with the California DMV, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls through Election Day, but you must then vote in person. California law requires election officials to check absentee ballots for signature mismatch. If they detect a mismatchor do not see a signature at allthey must notify the voter by Nov. 25 and allow them to fix the defect by providing a statement that verifies their identity by Dec. 1.

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Slates recommendation: Fill out your absentee ballot at home and drop it off at your early voting site, a county elections office, or a drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress to ensure it is received.

Colorado

Register to vote by: Oct. 26 (or at the polls through Election Day)

Early in-person voting: Must begin no later than Oct. 19, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show a government-issued ID or an identifying document like a bank statement, utility bill, or vehicle registration; if you dont have ID, election officials must try to confirm your identity using existing records.)

Vote by mail: Ballots are automatically mailed to all active registered voters.

Notable hurdle: None

How easy is it to vote here: Very easy

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Colorado will mail ballots to all active registered voters this fall. You can register to vote online, by mail, or in person at a county election office, DMV, polling place, or armed forces recruitment office. If you have previously interacted with the Colorado DMV, the state may have automatically registered you to vote already. If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls through Election Day. Colorado law requires election officials to check ballots for signature mismatch. If they detect a mismatch, they must notify the voter within three days, or no later than two days after Election Day. Voters may fix the defect by completing a form that confirms the voters identity and includes a photocopy of a government-issued ID or a utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, or other government document with the voters name and address.

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Slates recommendation: Fill out an absentee ballot at home and drop it off at your early voting site, a county elections office, or a drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online to ensure it is received. All that information is available here.

Connecticut

Register to vote by: Oct. 27 (or at the polls on Election Day)

Early in-person voting: None

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show any preprinted form with your name and address or sign an affidavit attesting to your identity.)

Vote by mail: Excuse needed, but all voters can cite fear of COVID-19

Notable hurdle: There is no in-person early voting.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately easy

Connecticut plans to mail absentee ballot applications to all active voters this fall. You can register to vote online, by mail, or in person at your registrars office. If you have previously interacted with the Connecticut DMV, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls on Election Day, but you must then vote in person at your local Election Day registration location.

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Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your town clerks office. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask a caregiver or a family member to do it for you. All that information is available here.

Delaware

Register to vote by: Oct. 10

Early in-person voting: None

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show any identifying document or sign an affidavit attesting to your identity.)

Vote by mail: Excuse needed, but all voters can cite fear of COVID-19

Notable hurdle: There is no in-person early voting.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately easy

Delaware plans to mail absentee ballot applications to all registered voters this fall. You must register to vote by Oct. 10 online, by mail, or in person at your Department of Elections county office. There is no same-day registration. Voters who forget to sign their ballots will not have a chance to correct the error, and their votes will not be counted.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your Department of Elections county office. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask someone else to do it for you. All that information is available here.

District of Columbia

Register to vote by: Oct. 13 (or at the polls through Election Day)

Early in-person voting: Oct. 27Nov. 2

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: Ballots will be automatically mailed to all active registered voters in November. No excuse needed.

Notable hurdle: There is no online registration.

How easy is it to vote here: Very easy

The District of Columbia plans to mail absentee ballots to all active registered voters. You can register to vote by Oct. 13 by mail, or in person at a government agency or early voting site. If you have previously interacted with the DMV, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls through Election Day, but you must then vote in person.

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Slates recommendation: Fill out your ballot at home and drop it off at a drop box or early voting location. There will be 50 drop boxes around the city and 17 early vote centers. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you can have someone else do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online to ensure it is received.

Florida

Register to vote by: Oct. 5

Early in-person voting: Must begin statewide by Oct. 24, but counties may begin offering it on Oct. 19

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show a photo ID with a signature, or cast a provisional ballot that will be counted if your signature matches the one from your voter registration form.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: Voters cannot return absentee ballots to voting sites on Election Day.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately easy

You must register to vote by Oct. 5 online, by mail, or in person at a DMV or many other government agencies. There is no same-day registration. Florida law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatch, election officials must notify the voter as soon as practicable. Voters must fix the defect by submitting an affidavit within two days of the election.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your supervisor of elections office or a drop box, which is available outside early voting sites. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may have someone else do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online to ensure it is received.

Georgia

Register to vote by: Oct. 5

Early in-person voting: Must begin statewide by Oct. 12, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: The states voter ID law is notoriously stringent.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately difficult

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You must register to vote by Oct. 5 online, by mail, or at your county registrars office. The state requires no excuse to vote by mail. There is no same-day registration. Georgia law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. Under a court settlement, if a ballot is rejected for signature mismatch, election officials must promptly notify voters and give them an opportunity to fix the defect.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your county registrars office, or a drop box if your county offers it. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself due to a disability, you may ask a family member to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online to ensure it is received. All that information is available here.

Hawaii

Register to vote by: Oct. 5 (or at the polls through Election Day)

Early in-person voting: Oct. 20Nov. 2

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show a government-issued ID or an identifying document like a bank statement, utility bill, or vehicle registration; if you dont have these documents, you can simply recite your address and date of birth.)

Vote by mail: Ballots are automatically mailed to all active registered voters.

Notable hurdle: None

How easy is it to vote here: Very easy

You can register to vote online, by mail, or in person at your County Election Division by Oct. 5. If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls through Election Day, but you must then vote in person.

Slates recommendation: Fill out your ballot at home and drop it off at any early voting site in your county, a county elections office, or a drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online to ensure it is received. Hawaii law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatchor do not see a signature at allthey must promptly notify the voter and allow them to fix the defect within five days after the election.

Idaho

Register to vote by: Oct. 9 (or at the polls through Election Day)

Early in-person voting: Oct. 1930, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show a photo ID issued by the government or a school in the state, or sign an affidavit confirming your identity.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: Election officials arent required to let voters fix a signature mismatch.

How easy is it to vote: Moderately easy

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You can register to vote online, by mail, or in person at your local elections office by Oct. 9. If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls through Election Day, but you must then vote in person. This process is called same-day registration. Idaho law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatch, they are not obligated to notify the voter and allow them to fix the defect. Election officials have nonetheless instituted procedures that let voters remedy an alleged signature mismatch.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your county clerks office. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online to ensure it is received.

Illinois

Registration deadline: Oct. 6 by mail, Oct. 18 online, through Election Day in person

Early in-person voting: Sept. 24Nov. 2, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: The state botched implementation of automatic voter registration, so do not assume youve been automatically registered even if you shouldve been.

How easy is it to vote: Very easy

You can register to vote by mail by Oct. 6 or online until Oct. 18. If you do not register by these deadlines, you can register at your local elections office or at your early voting site through Election Day. You can also register at the polls on Election Day, but you must then vote in person.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at a local elections office or drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties. All that information is available here. Illinois law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatchor find any missing informationthey must notify the voter within two days and allow them to fix the defect within 14 days of the election.

Indiana

Register to vote by: Oct. 5

Early in-person early voting: Beginning Oct. 6, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID; if you do not have one, you must return after the election and attest that you are too poor to get one.)

Vote by mail: Excuse required, and fear of COVID-19 does not count

Notable hurdle: Fear of COVID-19, by itself, is not a valid excuse to vote by mail.

How easy is it to vote: Very difficult

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You must register to vote online, by mail, or in person at your county clerks office by Oct. 5. There is no same-day registration. Indiana law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. In August, a federal judge ordered Indiana to provide voters notice and an opportunity to cure any ballot voided for mismatch. Given the federal judiciarys hostility to voting rights, Indiana residents have no guarantee that this decision will remain in effect through November.

Slates recommendation: Vote early in person. Even if you qualify to vote absentee, the state has a stringent signature mismatch law that may void your ballot. Indiana law does not require election officials to notify voters when their ballots have been nullified due to signature mismatch. If officials do provide notification, the remedy is byzantine: You must obtain a certificate from their county board by 5 p.m. on Election Day, then vote in persondefeating the purpose of voting absentee in the first place.

Iowa

Register to vote by: Oct. 24 (or at your county auditors office or the polls on Election Day)

Early in-person voting: Limited (you can fill out an absentee ballot at your county auditors office, which provides an accessible ballot marking device for disabled people)

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID; if you dont have one, another registered voter in their precinct must attest to your identity.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: A stringent voter ID law requirement for in-person voters

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately easy

Iowa will mail an absentee ballot application to all active voters this fall. You must register to vote online, by mail, or in person at your county auditors office. You can also register at the polls on Election Day, but you must then vote in person. Election officials must promptly notify voters who forget to sign their absentee ballot affidavitor commit another error in completing their ballotand give them an opportunity to fix the problem by submitting a replacement ballot or voting in person.

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Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at their county auditors office or drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

Kansas

Register to vote by: Oct. 13

Early in-person voting: Must begin by Oct. 27, but offered as early as Oct. 14 in some areas (dates and hours vary by county)

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a photo ID issued by the government or an accredited postsecondary education institution in Kansas; you can also show a concealed carry permit from any state.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: A stringent voter ID requirement for in-person voters

How easy is it to vote: Moderately difficult

You must register to vote online, by mail, or in person at your county clerks office by Oct. 13. There is no same-day registration. Kansas law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatchor do not see a signature at allthey must promptly notify the voter and allow them to fix the defect before the final county canvass.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your county auditors office or drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties. All that information is available here.

Kentucky

Register to vote by: Oct. 5

Early in-person voting: Begins Oct. 13, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a photo ID issued by the government or a school; if you cant obtain an ID, you must explain why, then provide other proof of identity, such as a credit card.)

Vote by mail: Excuse required, but all voters can cite fear of COVID-19

Notable hurdle: Absentee ballots are returned in two envelopes, and both must be signed; thousands of voters forgot to sign both in the primary and lost their votes.

How easy is it to vote: Moderately easy

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You must register to vote online, by mail, or in person at your county election office by Oct. 5. There is no same-day registration. Kentucky law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. It does not require them to notify voters whose ballots are voided for mismatch. However, during the June primary, Secretary of State Michael Adams implemented a system that gave voters notice of signature mismatch and an opportunity to fix the defect. He is expected to maintain this system in the general election.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at their county clerks office (by appointment) or drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online.

Louisiana

Register to vote by: Oct. 5 by mail or in person, or Oct. 13 online

Early in-person voting: Must begin by Oct. 20, but dates and times vary by parish

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show some photo ID with your name and signature, or sign an affidavit attesting to your identity.)

Vote by mail: Excuse required, and fear of COVID-19 does not count

Notable hurdle: Absentee voters must get a witness to sign their ballot.

How easy is it to vote: Very difficult

You must register to vote by mail or in person at your local registrar of voters by Oct. 5, or online by Oct. 13. Louisiana law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. It does not require election officials to notify voters whose ballots are voided for signature mismatch. However, Secretary of State R. Kyle Ardoin promulgated a process through which voters in the Louisiana primary could correct a mismatched signature and is expected to promulgate similar rules for the general election. Absentee ballots must be signed by a witness.

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Slates recommendation: Vote early in person. If you qualify to vote absentee, you can request an absentee ballot and drop it off at your registrar of voters. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. Under a plan proposed by Ardoin (and not yet passed by the Legislature), you might also be able to hand off ballots to election officials curbside. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online to ensure it is received.

Maine

Register to vote by: Oct. 19 (or in person through Election Day)*

Early in-person voting: Limited (available at your municipal clerks office)

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: A confusing and unfair signature mismatch law

How easy is it to vote: Moderately easy

You must register to vote by mail, at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, or at a social services agency by Oct. 19. You can register to vote in person at your municipal clerks office or city hall until Election Day. If you have previously interacted with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. If you do not register before Election Day, you can register at the polls, but you must then vote in person. Maine law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file if the voter filled out an absentee ballot request form. Specifically, officials compare the signature on this form to the signature accompanying their ballot. If they detect a mismatch, they simply void the ballot without giving the voter an opportunity to fix the error. People who request an absentee ballot online or by phoneor who vote in person at their municipal clerks officeare exempt from this rule because they do not provide a second signature for comparison. Voting rights advocates are currently suing the state over its signature mismatch regime.

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Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot online or by phone, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your municipal clerks office. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. Individuals who prefer to cast a ballot in person should vote early at their municipal clerks office. If you choose this route, you will not have to fill out an absentee ballot request form.

Maryland

Register to vote by: Oct. 13 (or at the polls through Election Day)

Early in-person voting: Begins Oct. 26, though the state has not yet finalized locations

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: No excuse needed.

Notable hurdle: None

How easy is it to vote: Very easy

Maryland will mail absentee ballot applications to every voter this fall. You must register to vote online, by mail, or in person at your local board of elections by Oct. 13. If you have previously interacted with the Motor Vehicle Administration or a social services agency, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls through Election Day, but you must then vote in person.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your early voting site, your local board of elections, or a drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online.

Massachusetts

Register to vote by: Oct. 24

Early in person voting: Oct. 1730

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: If you dont return your ballot early, you may not be able to fix a defect.

How easy is it to vote: Very easy

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You must register to vote online, by mail, or in person at your local clerks office by Oct. 24. If you have previously interacted with the DMV, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. There is no same-day registration. Massachusetts law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatchor do not see a signature at allthey must send the voter a new ballot if there is sufficient time before the election. Individuals who vote absentee should therefore take care to submit their ballots as early as possible.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your local clerks office or a drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online.

Michigan

Register to vote by: Oct. 19, or at your local clerks office through Election Day

Early in-person voting: Limited (available at your local clerks office)

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show a photo ID or sign an affidavit attesting to your identity.)

Vote by mail: No excuse required

Notable hurdle: There are no early voting centers.

How easy is it to vote: Moderately easy

You must register to vote online or by mail by Oct. 19. You can also register to vote in person at your local clerks office until Election Day, then cast a ballot there. Finally, you can register at this office on Election Day. Michigan law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. It does not require them to notify voters whose ballots are voided for mismatch. However, in response to a lawsuit, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has provided guidance that allows voters to fix the defect before or after Election Day.

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Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at their local clerks office or a drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask a family member to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online. You can also vote early in person at your local clerks office.

Minnesota

Register to vote by: Oct. 13, or at your county election office before Nov. 3, or at the polls on Election Day

Early in-person voting: Limited (available at your county election office)

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: No excuse required

Notable hurdle: There are no early voting centers.

How easy is it to vote: Very easy

You must register to vote online or by mail by Oct. 13. You can also register to vote at your county election office, then cast a ballot. Some of these offices will provide additional in-person early voting sites where you can also register. Finally, you can register at the polls on Election Day, but you must then vote in person. Minnesota law only requires election officials to check the signature on an absentee ballot against the voters signature on file if there is a discrepancy in other identifying information. If they detect a mismatch, they must promptly notify the voter and provide an opportunity to fix the defect.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your county election office or a drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online.

Mississippi

Register to vote by: Oct. 5

Early in-person voting: None, although voters who qualify can fill out their absentee ballot at their county circuit clerks office

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a photo ID issued by the government or an accredited Mississippi college.)

Vote by mail: Excuse required, and fear of COVID-19 does not count

Notable hurdle: Absentee voters must get their ballot request and actual ballot notarized.

How easy is it to vote: Very difficult

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You must register to vote by mail or in person with your county circuit clerk by Oct. 5. There is no same-day registration. Mississippi law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatchor do not see a signature at allthey will void the ballot without giving the voter an opportunity to fix the defect.

Slates recommendation: Vote on Election Day because most residents have no other option. Voters who qualify to vote absentee should request an absentee ballot and drop it off with their county circuit clerk. If you choose to mail your ballot, you cannot track its progress online to ensure it is received. Both the absentee ballot request and the ballot itself must be notarized. If you qualify to vote absentee, you can also vote early in person at your county circuit clerks office; you must still notarize your absentee ballot request, and a clerk at the office will notarize your ballot.

Missouri

Register to vote by: Oct. 7

Early in-person voting: Limited (available at your county clerks office)

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a photo ID issued by the government or a Missouri school, or a utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, or other government document with your name and address. If you have no ID, you may cast a provisional ballot which will be counted if your signature matches the signature on file.)

Vote by mail: Excuse required for an absentee ballot; no excuse required for a mail-in ballot

Notable hurdle: Your mail-in ballot must be notarized.

How easy is it to vote: Very difficult

You must register to vote online, by mail, or in person at your county clerks office by Oct. 7. There is no same-day registration. Missouri distinguishes between absentee ballots (which require an excuse and can be dropped off in person) and mail-in ballots (which do not require an excuse but must be mailed back).* All mail-in ballots must be notarized, and the notary service must be provided for free. Most absentee ballots need not be notarized.

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Slates recommendation: Request a mail-in ballot, fill it out at home, and mail it back. You may be able to track its progress online to ensure it is received depending on your local election authority. Voters who have an excuse not to vote in person on Election Day should request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at their county clerks office.

Montana

Register to vote by: Oct. 24 (or at a county election office or a late registration location through Election Day)

Early in-person voting: None

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a photo ID or a utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, or other government document with your name and address.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: Montana has no online voter registration.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately easy

If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at your county election office or a late registration location through Election Day.

Montana law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatch, they must promptly notify the voter and allow them to fix the defect until 8 p.m. on Election Day. Voters should return absentee ballots well in advance of Nov. 3 to ensure they will have time to address a potential mismatch.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your county election office. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

Nebraska

Register to vote by: Oct. 16

Early in-person voting: Oct. 5Nov. 2

Voter ID law: None

Vote-by-mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: None

How easy is it to vote here: Very easy

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If you have previously interacted with the Nebraska DMV, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. There is no same-day registration.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at the county election office. You can also vote early in person at this office. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

Nevada

Register to vote by: Oct. 29 online (or Oct. 6 by mail or in person, or at the polls through Election Day)

Early in-person voting: Oct. 1730

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: None

How easy is it to vote here: Very easy

Nevada will mail absentee ballots to all active voters this fall. You must register to vote by Oct. 29 online or by Oct. 6 by mail, or in person at your county clerk and registrar of voters office. If you have previously interacted with the DMV, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls through Election Day, but you must then vote in person. Nevada law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatch, they must promptly notify the voter and allow them to fix the defect within seven days.

Slates recommendation: Fill out your ballot at home and drop it off at their local county clerk and registrar of voters office. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask a family member to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

New Hampshire

Register to vote by: Oct. 2128 (exact dates vary by municipality; registration can also be done in person on Election Day)

Early in-person voting: Limited (available at your local clerks office)

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show a photo ID or sign an affidavit to attest to your identity, then be photographed.)

Vote by mail: Excuse required, but all voters can cite fear of COVID-19

Notable hurdle: Voters who lack ID must be photographed to vote, which critics decry as intimidation.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately difficult

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You must register to vote by six to 13 days prior to the election (exact dates vary by municipality) in person at your town or city clerks office. You can also call this office to request to register by mail. If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls through Election Day, but you must then vote in person. New Hampshire law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. In 2018, a federal court ordered the state to notify voters and give them an opportunity to fix the defect.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your town or city clerks office. You can also drop off your ballot at your assigned precinct polling place on Election Day, but we recommend returning it much farther in advance. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask a family member to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

New Jersey

Register to vote by: Oct. 13

Early in-person voting: Limited (available at your county clerks office)

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: There is no online voter registration

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately easy

New Jersey plans to mail ballots to all active registered voters this fall. You must register to vote by Oct. 13 by mail or in person with a local election official. If you have previously interacted with the Motor Vehicle Commission, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. There is no same-day registration. New Jersey law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. A federal court ordered the state to give voters notice and an opportunity to cure mismatches during this years primary. The legislature is expected to pass legislation in the near future enshrining this process into state law.

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Slates recommendation: Fill out the absentee ballot at home and drop it off at a secure ballot drop box. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. You can also vote early in person with a local election official. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

New Mexico

Register to vote by: Oct. 6 (or in person at the county clerks office or an early voting location until Oct. 31)

Early in-person voting: Begins Oct. 6; dates and hours vary by county, but all county clerks will provide it on Oct. 31.

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: None

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately easy

You must register to vote online or by mail by Oct. 6, or in person at your county clerks office until Oct. 31. If you have previously interacted with the Motor Vehicle Division, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. The state has approved same-day registration, but the law will not take effect until 2021.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your county clerks office or your early voting site. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask a family member to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

New York

Register to vote by: Oct. 9

Early in-person voting: Begins Oct. 24, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: Excuse required, but all voters can cite fear of COVID-19

Notable hurdle: The state has a long history of botching elections.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately difficult

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You must register to vote by Oct. 9 online, by mail, or in person at your local elections office. The states voting laws are in flux as lawmakers scramble to finalize new, more accessible voting procedures due to COVID-19. New York badly botched its primary, disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters. While voting in the state may look easier than ever on paper, it is still difficult to ensure that your ballot gets counted. New York law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatch, they must promptly notify the voter and give them an opportunity to fix the defect.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot (here if youre a New York City resident, here if you arent), fill it out at home, and drop it off at your county board of elections. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

North Carolina

Register to vote by: Oct. 9 (or in person until Oct. 31)

Early in-person voting: Begins Oct. 15, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: Strict (but suspended indefinitely under a federal court order)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: Absentee ballots must be signed by a witness.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately difficult

You must register to vote by Oct. 9 online, by mail, or in person at your county board of elections. (Starting in September, voters will be able to request them online.) If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls until Oct. 31, but you must then vote in person. There is no same-day registration on Election Day itself. This year, North Carolina election officials will not check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file.

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Slates recommendation: Vote early in-person due to the states stringent signature mismatch rule. Those who vote absentee should request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at the county board of elections or your early voting site. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask a family member to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

North Dakota

Register to vote by: You do not need to register to vote.

Early in-person voting: October (dates and times vary by county)

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID or a certificate issued by a long-term care facility; if your ID lacks a residential address or date of birth, you must also show a utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, or government-issued document.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: The states infamous voter ID law disenfranchised many tribal citizens, though the state has promised to ensure that Native people can vote this year.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately difficult

North Dakota will mail absentee ballot applications to all active registered voters. North Dakota law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. Under a court order, officials are required to notify voters whose ballots are voided for mismatch and give them an opportunity to fix the defect.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off with a local election official or at a drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

Ohio

Register to vote by: Oct. 5

Early in-person voting: October, but it varies by county

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID or a utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, or government check.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: Each county, no matter the size, can only set up one ballot drop box.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately easy

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Ohio plans to mail absentee ballot applications to all active registered voters this fall. You must register to vote by Oct. 5 online, by mail, or in person at a county board of elections, state agency, public library, or other government building. There is no same-day registration. Voters may cast a ballot at their county board of elections or a satellite location if their board establishes one. Voters may also drop off their absentee ballot at these boards. Ohio law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatch, they must promptly notify you and give you an opportunity to fix the defect within seven days after the election.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at the county board of elections or a drop box, if available. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask a family member to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

Oklahoma

Register to vote by: Oct. 9

Early in-person voting: Begins Oct. 29, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID or a voter registration card, or sign an affidavit attesting to your identity and provide either your drivers license number or the last four digits of your Social Security number.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: Normally, absentee ballots must be notarized, but because of the pandemic, voters instead submit a copy of an ID.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately difficult

You must register to vote by Oct. 9 by mail or in person at your county election board, post office, public library, or other state agencies.* There is no same-day registration. Absentee ballots must be notarized or returned with a copy of a valid ID.

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Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your county election board. You may also cast a ballot in person at your county election board on Oct. 29 or 30. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask your spouse to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

Oregon

Register to vote by: Oct. 13

Early in-person voting: None

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: There is no traditional in-person voting.

How easy is it to vote here: Very easy

Oregon plans to mail ballots to all active registered voters this fall. You must register to vote by Oct. 13 online, by mail, or in person at your county elections office. If you have previously interacted with the DMV, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. There is no same-day registration. Oregon law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatch, they must promptly notify you and allow you to fix the defect within two weeks.

Slates recommendation: Fill out your absentee ballot at home and drop it off at a drop box near you. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

Pennsylvania

Register to vote by: Oct. 19

Early in-person voting: None

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: There are no early voting centers.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately difficult

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You must register to vote by Oct. 19 online, by mail, or in person at your county elections office. There is no same-day registration. Pennsylvania law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatch, they must promptly notify you and allow you to prove your identity at a hearing.

Slates recommendation: Request a mail-in ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at a county election office. (The state distinguishes between mail-in ballots for those who prefer to vote by mail and absentee ballots for those who must vote by mail, but there is no functional difference.) If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

Rhode Island

Register to vote by: Oct. 4 (or at the polls on Election Day)

Early in-person voting: Limited (available at your local board of canvassers Oct. 14Nov. 2)

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID, or provide a signature that officials can match to the signature from their voter registration form.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: Same-day voter registration only permits voting for the presidential and vice presidential elections.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately easy

You must register to vote by Oct. 4 online, by mail, or in person at your local board of canvassers. If you have previously interacted with the DMV, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls in designated locations through Election Day, but you must then vote in person, and you can only vote for the president and vice president. Rhode Island law requires election officials to check absentee ballots for signature mismatch. If they detect a mismatch, they must promptly notify you and allow you to fix the defect within seven days. Under a court settlement, the state has waived a requirement that compelled voters to notarize their absentee ballot or obtain the signatures of two witnesses.

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Slates recommendation: Request a mail-in ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off with their local board of canvassers or at a drop box, if available. Beginning 20 days before the election, you may also cast an emergency ballot in person at your local board of canvassers. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties. Rhode Island offers limited in-person early voting.

South Carolina

Register to vote by: Oct. 4 online or in-person, or Oct. 5 by mail

Early in-person voting: Very limited (available at in-person absentee locations)

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID or show a non-photo ID and sign an affidavit swearing that you could not obtain a valid photo ID.)

Vote by mail: Excuse required, and fear of COVID-19 does not count

Notable hurdle: Absentee ballots require an excuse and typically require a witness.

How easy is it to vote here: Very difficult

You must register to vote online or in person at your county elections office by Oct. 4, or by mail by Oct. 5. There is no same-day registration. Typically, a witness must sign your absentee ballot; a federal judge suspended that requirement in May due to COVID-19. Given the federal judiciarys hostility to voting rights, however, South Carolina residents have no guarantee that this decision will remain in effect through November.

Slates recommendation: Vote in person on Election Day because you have no other option. Voters who qualify should request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your county elections office. Residents who qualify to vote absentee can also vote early in person at this office. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

South Dakota

Register to vote by: Oct. 19

Early in-person voting: Very limited (available for absentee voting at your county auditors office)

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show a photo ID issued by the government or a South Dakota school, or sign an affidavit attesting to your identity.)

Vote by mail: No excuse required

Notable hurdle: There is no online voter registration.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately difficult

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South Dakota already mailed absentee ballot applications to all active voters. You must register to vote by Oct. 19 by mail or in person at your county auditors office, city finance office, drivers license station, or other state agency. There is no same-day registration.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your county auditors office. You can also vote early in person at this office. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

Tennessee

Register to vote by: Oct. 5

Early in-person voting: Begins Oct. 14, but dates and times vary by county

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID or sign an affidavit swearing that you are too poor to obtain one.)

Vote by mail: Those at high risk because of underlying medical conditions and their caretakers can cite COVID-19; others may not qualify.

Notable hurdle: You must cite an excuse to request an absentee ballot.

How easy is it to vote here: Very difficult

You must register to vote by Oct. 5 online, by mail, or in person to your county election commission. There is no same-day registration. If a ballot administrator finds a signature does not match the one on file, the administrator can reject the ballot. You will be notified but will not have the opportunity to fix the defect.

Slates recommendation: Vote early in person. Voters who qualify should request an absentee ballot, return it by mail, and track its progress.

Texas

Register to vote by: Oct. 5

Early in-person voting: October (dates and times vary by county)

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID or explain why you cannot obtain one and show supporting documents, such as a utility bill or bank statement.)

Vote by mail: Excuse required, and fear of COVID-19 does not count

Notable hurdle: Voters cannot obtain absentee ballots without an excuse.

How easy is it to vote here: Very difficult

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You must register to vote by Oct. 5 by mail or in person at your local elections office. There is no same-day registration. Texas law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatch, some county clerks may notify you to allow you to fix the defect, but they are not required to.

Slates recommendation: Vote early in person. Voters who qualify should request an absentee ballot and return it by mail. If you request an absentee ballot and are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you.

Utah

Register to vote by: Oct. 23 (or in person through Election Day)

Early in-person voting: Limited (available at vote centers)

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a government-issued photo ID or two documents that prove your name and residence.)

Vote by mail: No excuse required

Notable hurdle: None

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately easy

Utah plans to mail ballots to all active registered voters this fall. You must register to vote by Oct. 23 online, by mail, or in person at your county clerks office. If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls through Election Day, but you must then vote in person. Utah law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatch, they must promptly notify you and give you an opportunity to fix the defect.

Slates recommendation: Fill out your absentee ballot at home and drop it off at a drop box. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

Vermont

Register to vote by: Nov. 3

Early in-person voting: Limited (available at the city or town clerks office)

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: None

How easy is it to vote here: Very easy

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Vermont plans to mail absentee ballot applications to all active registered voters this fall. You must register to vote by Nov. 3 online, by mail, in person at your town clerks office, or at the polls. If you have previously interacted with the DMV, the state has automatically registered you to vote already.

Slates recommendation: Request your absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at the town clerks office. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask a family member or caretaker to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

Virginia

Register to vote by: Oct. 13

Early in-person voting: Limited (absentee voting is available at your local election office)

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show a photo ID or a utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, or other government document; you can also sign an affidavit attesting to your identity.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: None

How easy is it to vote here: Very easy

You must register to vote by Oct. 13 online, by mail, or in person at a local registrars office, public library, armed forces recruitment office, DMV, or other state agency. If you have previously interacted with the DMV, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. Absentee ballots must typically be signed by a witness; however, the state waived this requirement for the primary and may do so again for the general election.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your local registrars office. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties. Beginning Sept. 18, any resident can cast a ballot in person at their local registrars office.

Washington

Register to vote by: Oct. 26, or at the polls through Election Day

Early in-person voting: Oct. 16Nov. 2, but dates and hours vary by location

Voter ID law: Lenient (At the polls, you must show a state, employer, or student ID card, or provide a signature that officials match to the signature from your voter registration form.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: None

How easy is it to vote here: Very easy

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Washington plans to mail ballots to all active registered voters this fall. You must register to vote online or by mail Oct. 26 or in person at your county elections office by Election Day. If you have previously interacted with the Department of Licensing, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. You can also register at the polls through Election Day, but you must then vote in person. Washington law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatch, they must promptly notify you and give you an opportunity to fix the defect within 20 days.

Slates recommendation: Fill out your absentee ballot at home and drop it off at your county elections office or a drop box. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

West Virginia

Register to vote by: Oct. 13

Early in-person voting: Must begin by Oct. 21, but dates and hours vary by county

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show some form of identification. Otherwise, another voter with a photo ID may sign an affidavit confirming your identity; if a poll worker has known you for at least six months, these requirements are waived.)

Vote by mail: Excuse required, but voters can cite fear of COVID-19

Notable hurdle: The state has an opaque signature mismatch procedure.

How easy is it to vote here: Very difficult

You must register to vote by Oct. 13 online, by mail, or in person at your county clerks office. If you have previously interacted with the DMV, the state has automatically registered you to vote already. West Virginia law requires election officials to check the signature on each absentee ballot against the voters signature on file. If they detect a mismatch, they are not required to notify voters whose ballots are voided for mismatch or give them an opportunity to fix the defect.

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Slates recommendation: Voters who are not at a heightened risk for COVID-19 should vote early in-person. Other voters should request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your county clerks office. If you are unable to return the ballot yourself, you may ask another individual to do it for you. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual counties.

Wisconsin

Register to vote by: Oct. 14 online or by mail, Oct. 30 at your municipal clerks office, or at the polls on Election Day.

Early in-person voting: Oct. 20Nov. 1, but dates and hours vary by municipality

Voter ID law: Strict (At the polls, you must show a photo ID issued by the government or an accredited Wisconsin school.)

Vote by mail: No excuse needed

Notable hurdle: Absentee ballots must be signed by a witness.

How easy is it to vote: Moderately difficult

Wisconsin plans to mail absentee ballot applications to all active registered voters this fall. You must register to vote online or by mail by Oct. 14, or in person at your municipal clerks office by Oct. 30. If you do not register by the deadline, you can register at the polls on Election Day, but you must then vote in person. Absentee ballots must be signed by a witness, who must provide their address.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your municipal clerks office or a drop box, if your county provides one. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should track its progress online using the system set up by individual municipalities. The Wisconsin Elections Commission will urge clerks to use Intelligent Mail barcodes, allowing voters to track their ballots online. If your clerk does not use IMbs, you should call their office to check on the status of your ballot.

Wyoming

Register to vote by: Oct. 19 (or at your county clerks office through Election Day)

Early in-person voting: Limited (available at your county clerks office)

Voter ID law: None

Vote by mail: No excuse needed.

Notable hurdle: There are no early voting centers.

How easy is it to vote here: Moderately difficult

Wyoming has already mailed absentee ballot applications to all active registered voters. You must register to vote by Oct. 19 by mail (mail applications must be notarized) or in person at your county clerks office. If you do not register by the deadline, you can still register at your county clerks office, or at the polls through Election Day, but you must then vote in person.

Slates recommendation: Request an absentee ballot, fill it out at home, and drop it off at your county clerks office. You can also vote early in person at this office. If you choose to mail your ballot, you should contact your county clerk for information on the status of your ballot.

Weve have not mentioned rules that require ballots to be postmarked by a certain date because ballots sent through USPS routinely arrive with an illegible postmark or with none at all. We also encourage voters to drop off their ballots if possible, the most dependable method of transportation. If you prefer to mail your ballot, we have explained how you can track your ballot to ensure it is received and counted. We have excluded which states pay for postage on ballotsin part because the laws here are changing fast but also because we suggest voters physically return their ballots. Limitations on who can vote, like felony disenfranchisement laws, are beyond the scope of this guide.

Support This Work Help us cover the central question: Who counts? Your Slate Plus membership will fund our work on voting, immigration, gerrymandering, and more through 2020. Join Slate Plus

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Top US general says military won't play role in 2020 election

Global Times

Source: Xinhua Published: 2020/8/30 9:38:50

The US military will not play a role in this year's election, according to the country's top general.

"In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law US courts and the US Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the US military," Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, wrote in a letter released on Friday responding to questions from two House lawmakers.

"I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical US military," Milley continued. "I foresee no role for the US Armed Forces in this process."

The answers came as presidential nominees stoke questions about military involvement in this year's election.

US President and 2020 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has raised the prospect that he won't accept the results in November, claiming without providing any evidence that mail-in voting could lead to widespread voter fraud.

"I have to see," Trump told Fox News's Chris Wallace last month when asked if he would accept the election results. "No, I'm not just going to say yes, I'm not going to say no, and I didn't last time either."

Former US Vice President and 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said in June that he's "absolutely convinced" that the military would step in if Trump rejected the results.

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They were granted permission to cross the hard border from the Northern Territory after repeated knock-backs from WA Police. Stranded in their RV, running out of money and living on superannuation they were forced to withdraw because they couldn't get home, they were getting desperate. Although they have no idea why they were rejected and then suddenly approved, they think police took pity on them because of their baby. Living hand-to-mouth on the wrong side of the hard border was frustrating, especially when they knew there had only been 34 COVID-19 cases in the NT, all of them had recovered, and there was no evidence of community transmission. They are only now in quarantine at a family property in the Kimberley before heading home in the state's south. "I'm on Mark McGowan's Facebook and I can see all the comments coming through, and I'm just mortified," Keith said.

A social media post was how many West Australians discovered the state's border had been closed. Credit:WA Government "I thought people were being really strongly opinionated and at the end of the day, the whole 'we are one, we're all Australians', we've got to be looking out for each other. "It's fine if you're inside the state, but if you're outside the state it's a different story." Keith, who is an IT professional, and Fleta, a teacher, were confident they would quickly find work. But they worried about the people they met in limbo on the wrong side of the border. The way West Australians were being treated was "awful, hideous", Keith said.

He described meeting retirees living at roadside rest stops who couldn't get permission to come home. "There was one lady, she was in a Hyundai," he said. "She got to the border late in the afternoon, she had to sleep in the car overnight and then go through the whole interview process the next day and then they sent her back and they wouldn't let her through. It was just hideous." She was angry and frustrated and didn't understand why she couldn't go home. Stephen, a 41-year-old housekeeping manager for a resort near Fitzroy Crossing, flew to Melbourne to attend his step-father's funeral at the end of March.

He didn't realise the Premier had closed WA's borders, even to West Australians, until the night before he was scheduled to fly home. "When I was supposed to fly back, I didn't know you had to get the G2G pass, and the night before I was supposed to fly I got a phone call from the WA police saying that if I travel over there I will be fined," he said. He has been stranded in Melbourne ever since. Police have rejected his pleas to return home 15 times. "I just kept applying and I tried to go a bit higher so I went to the Police Commissioner and he had a look at my applications as well and he said they were right to not approve me," he said.

"I don't know why. Each time I would apply they'd keep asking for more and more information so I would give it to them, but nothing happens." Stephen is paying off a car which is in Fitzroy Crossing along with everything else he owns. He doesn't know how long his work will keep his job open for him. He said it was "very hard and disheartening" to hear the tough rhetoric from the Premier, who famously told "people over east" that "we don't want you here". "I don't mind doing the two weeks quarantine and all that, but it's just being able to go over at all," Stephen said. "The main thing is, why do you keep rejecting us and letting other people travel?"

Loading He said he was so desperate he was considering getting legal advice. They all say they don't need exemptions based on compassionate grounds. Thankfully, there are no gravely ill relatives, no funerals to attend, no emergency medical procedures. Just jobs and families and lives they are desperate to return to. They all say they are angry and frustrated when they see high-profile business people and celebrities coming into the state. The hard border was dividing families. Dominic, who is proud he was born at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Subiaco, said he'd had an argument with a nephew, who was an ardent supporter of the restrictions.

"He's saying 'close the borders', well hang on a minute, mate, I'm West Australian," he said. "I'm older than you, I've been a West Australian longer than you and he's 30 something and I was 55 when I left WA to come here. "I've been a West Australian longer than you, mate." Dominic said he couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, and he was running out of options. "It is frustrating because I voted for Mark McGowan at the last election, we travelled to two or three different places here in Victoria to find somewhere that would do absentee votes," he said.
Under the ordinance, those who refuse to wear a mask can be issued a compliance ticket for $50. If the ticket is not paid within 10 days of issuance, the fine increases to $100. Also, those ticketed can request a day in court if they wish to contest the ticket.
NAIROBI, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- China-Kenya financial technology (fintech) collaboration is on the rise as firms seek to harness opportunities unleashed by a significant mobile phone penetration in the east Africa nation.

Kenya is a regional leader in the fintech space having been the birthplace of Safaricom's M-Pesa, a mobile phone money transfer platform while China is also among global leaders in digital financial services.

Most of the fintechs operate as digital mobile wallets and hence owe their success to high mobile penetration rates.

Data from the Communication Authority of Kenya indicates that as of March 31, the number of active registered mobile money subscriptions stood at 29.1 million.

Daniel Mainye, senior manager of fintech, brand and innovation at Nairobi-based Cytonn Investments, said that Kenya's fintech enterprises will benefit by forging closer ties with their Chinese counterparts.

"By enhancing cooperation with the Chinese fintech sector, Kenya will benefit from accessing the latest technology as well as the huge Chinese consumer market," Mainye said.

Several Kenyan financial institutions including Equity and Family Banks have already integrated Chinese fintech platforms such as WeChat pay and Alipay into their digital payment platforms.

According to Mainye, this trend is likely to continue as banks tap into the growing demand for Chinese apps.

He said that a key driver of the Sino-Kenya fintech cooperation is the bilateral trade that has grown exponentially over the past two decades.

Mainye said that financial settlements for trade between Chinese and Kenyan entrepreneurs involve bank transfers which take time to complete.

He said that the use of fintech will permit seamless digital financial transactions between the two regions hence building trust among entrepreneurs.

Mainye said that Chinese e-commerce platforms are already popular among Kenyan consumers, adding that the most convenient way to pay for goods from Chinese online platforms is through the use of Chinese fintech apps which provide real-time payments.

The expanding Sino-Kenya fintech is also signified by the fact that M-Pesa, a mobile money transfer service, is a payment option for the online shopping portal Aliexpress.com.

Mainye said that the Chinese community in Kenya also helped introduce the Chinese fintech to locals.

"The popularity of Wechat Pay and Alipay has now increased among Kenyans especially those who source goods from China," said Mainye.

Kenya's tourism and hospitality has also embraced the Chinese fintechs in order to attract more clients from the Asian nation.

Merchants from the east Africa's largest economy have also discovered that by embedding the Chinese fintechs as a payment option, it will help to break the cultural and language barriers with Chinese clients.

Kenyan fintechs are also keen to collaborate with Chinese fintechs in order to expand their customer base, according to Mainye.

He said that the majority of the Chinese fintechs are global payment platforms and Kenyan fintechs are likely to expand footprint through strategic collaboration.
(Natural News) Students at New York University and Rice University have begun petitioning for segregated housing, demanding a blacks-only area.

(Article republished from WND.com)

Campus Reform reported NYU officials already are moving on the idea, according to spokesman John Beckman.

We appreciate the petition authors position. Res Life staff have reached out to the authors of the petition to discuss how we might move forward with their goals, he said.

The New York University News reported seniors Brenah Johnson and Nia Robinson made the request after concluding the university didnt adequately address the needs of blacks.

There is nothing to protect us, Robinson said. Literally no systems in place. What do you do when your professor is racist and wants to take it out on your grades? Microaggressions in classroom discussions?

They began a student group called Black Violets, which calls for protections for black students on campus.

It has lobbied for more black professors and dorm floors dedicated to blacks.

The report said their petition for black housing has gained attention in the Student Government Assembly, where sophomore Shamon Lawrence was enthusiastic about it.

I found out about Black Violets and the work they were doing through their petition and I wanted to be on the forefront of asking for these important structural changes, Lawrence explained.

Jesse Maloney, the president of the Inter-residential Housing Committee, also has been lobbied to join.

Campus Reform said the Black Student Association of Rice also has issued a list of demands that includes funding of a Black House.

We demand that Rice invest in creating a non-residential Black House that has all the features of a residential college but is specifically made for Black students and Black organizations to congregate and hold events, the group said.

Other demands included the decolonization of Rices entire curriculum and the elimination of a statue of William Marsh Rice, for whom the university is named.

Campus Reform noted that in 2019 a National Association of Scholars report raised the idea of neo-segregation at Yale.

It said American colleges and universities recruit blacks and other minorities but foster campus practices that encourage these students to form separate social groups on campus.

A socialist website said New York University has given a green light to segregated housing by next fall.

The report said black students need a safe space where they can be protected from other races.

The Twitter news-aggregating blog Twitchy noted an ironic twist to the story: They said if Donald Trump won the election, wed return to the days of racial segregation. Looks like they were right.

Read more at: WND.com
Four new imported Covid-19 cases were confirmed Monday evening, taking Vietnam's active cases to 295, while one person died in Da Nang.

Patients numbered 1041 and 1042, 33 and 32 years old respectively, are petroleum experts from India who landed August 29 at Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat International Airport on Emirates flight EK392 from Dubai.

They were quarantined at a facility in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province on arrival. Test results a day later confirmed they were positive for the novel coronavirus. They are being treated at the Ba Ria Hospital.

"Patient 1043" is a 29-year-old resident of Vinh Yen District from Vinh Phuc Province who landed August 28 at Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport on IndiGo flight 6E6789 from India. She is being treated at the capital's National Hospital of Tropical Diseases 2.

"Patient 1044" is a 62-year-old Indian expert who also landed August 28 in Hanoi on the same flight as "Patient 1043" and was quarantined on entry. After the first test done in the northern province of Phu Tho did not provide a clear result, his samples were tested again at the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases 2. The results showed him positive for the virus.

Meanwhile, Vietnam has lost one more patient, authorities confirmed Monday evening, taking the nations Covid-19 death toll to 34.

"Patient 1040", a 55-year-old man from Hoa Vang District in the central city of Da Nang, suffered various underlying conditions, including septic shock, respiratory failure with Guillain-Barre syndrome and type 2 diabetes. The man tested negative for the coronavirus three times on August 1, 8, and 14.

On August 27, at 5 p.m., the patient was tested for the fourth time. At around 10 p.m., as his condition worsened, the patient's family asked that they take him home. He died at home at 11:55 p.m. Diagnosis at discharge was respiratory failure, septic shock caused by Guilain Barre syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

On August 28, the fourth test result revealed that he was positive for the virus. The retrospective diagnosis after death was pneumonia caused by Covid-19 with progressive respiratory failure, septic shock caused by Guilain Barre syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

Earlier Monday, authorities had confirmed the 33rd Covid-19 death, that of "Patient 742", a 69-year-old man in Da Nang. He succumbed at the Da Nang Hospital for Lung Diseases to severe pneumonia and respiratory failure caused by Covid-19, septic shock complications, multiple organ failure and heart attack.

Most of Vietnams Covid-19 deaths to date have been of patients, aged 28-93, suffering from pre-existing comorbidities like diabetes, heart failure and kidney failure.

Monday marked the second consecutive day for Vietnam without a community transmission since the Covid-19 outbreak resurfaced in the country on July 25.

Of the 1,044 Covid-19 cases reported so far, 295 are active.

The total number of community transmissions recorded to date has reached 690, 550 of them, linked to current epicenter Da Nang, have been confirmed since July 25.

Globally, over 25.3 million people have been infected with the novel coronavirus and the pandemics reported death toll has crossed 850,000.
As violence at anti-racism protests continued through the weekend, Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, challenged President Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term on a law-and-order plank, to condemn violence of every kind as he has himself.

President Trump has been quick to condemn violence at anti-racism protests, blaming it on thugs, anarchists, agitators, and criminals, and left wing radicals, whom he has tried to tie to Biden. He has been slow, however, to criticize killings by white police officers and white supremacists.

Biden, on the other hand, has been under mounting pressure to condemn violence accompanying the protests and dissociate himself from left wing activists involved in some of them.

I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right, Biden wrote in a tweet on Sunday, adding, . And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same.

Without addressing Bidens challenge, Trump tweeted hours later. When is Slow Joe Biden going to criticize the Anarchists, Thugs & Agitators in ANTIFA (anti-fascists)?

Trump broke his silence on the shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man by white police officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin days after saying late last week, It was not a good sight. He was referring to a video of the incident. But he has not condemned the shooting of two protestors by a white supremacist in the same city who reportedly self-identified himself as a Trump-supporter.

President Trump continued to pressure Democrats, who control Kenosha in Wisconsin and Portland in Oregon, the two cities in the grip of the ongoing unrest. He called Portland a mess and its Democrat mayor a joke. About Kenosha, he said the city would have ceased to be if had not insisted on sending federal troops there.

One man was killed in Portland on Saturday as a caravan of Trump supporters rolled through the city, getting into heated exchanges with protestors. Leader of a right-wing group Patriot Prayer identified the man as Jay Bishop and a good friend. Police have provided no details of the shooting. Rest in Pace Jay, Trump tweeted on Sunday.

Also on Sunday, one police officer was killed and another was wounded by an armed gunman in St Louis, Missouri. The incident was not related to the protests and authorities have said the suspected person has a long list of criminal charges and involvements.
The UAE and Israel are opening their doors to a wide range of business opportunities after the surprise agreement to normalise relations.

The two states have long forged commercial and technology links, but with the arrival of a joint US-Israeli delegation on Monday they can now work out in the open.

"We came here to transform a vision into a reality. There are no limits to cooperation... in education, innovation, health, aviation, agriculture, energy and many other fields," Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat said in Abu Dhabi.

Here are some key areas where Israel and its new Arab partner share economic interests.

Covid-19 research

The two already collaborate on research in various fields and even before the deal was announced on August 13, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was working with the United Arab Emirates on ways to combat coronavirus.

"It seems as if the immediate priority will be cooperation on research and development to combat Covid-19," said Kristian Ulrichsen from Rice University's Baker Institute in the United States.

"This could be a popular way of normalising people, both in Israel and the UAE, to the idea that coordination on such an urgent issue is in the greater good of both countries."

Last month, two Israeli companies signed a deal with an Emirati firm to work together on the development of a non-invasive coronavirus screening test.

Oil sales

The Gulf state's immense oil reserves are a big draw for Israel, whose best source of oil currently is Kurdish crude from Iraq, said Ellen R. Wald, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center.

"Israel would benefit greatly if it can purchase UAE oil, and the UAE will benefit if it can sell to a hungry customer," she said.

Gulf Arab countries have always refused to sell oil to Israel, and so far no other governments in the region have followed the UAE move to establish ties.

Tourism

Expanding two-way tourism is a key focus of the post-accord trade push.

With some popular majority-Muslim tourism destinations currently off-limits to Israelis, the millions who go abroad each year typically head to Europe or the US.

Now those travellers will be able to take a short flight to the resorts and attractions that line the Emirati coast.

Israel also wants to lure business for its own tourism industry, especially to the Mediterranean metropolis of Tel Aviv, and to attract Muslim visitors to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest site.

Tech and start-ups

Israel's high-tech sector -- an industry that has earned it the nickname "start-up nation" -- makes up more than 40 percent of the country's exports.

The UAE has forged a similar reputation, with more than a third of start-ups in the Middle East and North Africa reported to be based in the country, which seeks to be a powerhouse in the technology sector.

The UAE, especially the glitzy emirate of Dubai, attracts such companies because of its accommodating environment, with government support and investment.

The US-backed deal also provides a new destination for Emirati investment funds at a time when the UAE economy has stalled in recent years.

Water and food security

The arid UAE is dependent on desalinated water, with its needs ever-increasing, while Israel is home to world-leading desalination firms including IDE Technologies, which has 400 plants in 40 countries.

Since the UAE-Israel deal, the two countries have agreed to open a direct channel and "collaborate in areas of food and water security", according to official Emirati news agency WAM.

Another area is smart farming, as the UAE -- home to nine million people with varied tastes, but with little arable land and extreme temperatures -- wants to overcome its dependence on food imports.

"There are opportunities in medical and agricultural technologies, and scope for coordination in startups and innovation policy," said Ulrichsen.

Collaboration in agriculture could "later make it easier to expand the scope of cooperation into more overtly political and diplomatic arenas", he added.

Security and surveillance

Israeli cyber surveillance firms are eyeing the market in the Gulf.

Israel is home to several leading surveillance companies, including spyware firm NSO Group which developed the sophisticated eavesdropping Pegasus tool.

The UAE is also a base for security, surveillance and data analysis companies, and it has set up a formidable "Falcon Eye" security monitoring system.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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Bishop Pabillo celebrated Mass on National Heroes Day. During the service, the prelate expressed the Churchs support for and gratitude to doctors and nurses. More than 221,000 cases have been reported in the Philippines so far, with nearly 3,600 deaths. Restrictive measures are likely to be extended.

Manila (AsiaNews/CBCP)  The Archdiocese of Manila on National Heroes Day paid tribute to frontline workers  health workers, doctors and nurses  involved in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Manila led a Solemn Eucharistic celebration this morning at San Felipe Neri Parish Church in Mandaluyong City. During the service, he expressed support and gratitude on behalf of the Church to the countrys modern day heroes.

Recently dubbed the "leprosy of modern times", COVID-19 has affected more than 221,000 people in the Philippines, with nearly 3,600 deaths. Recently, new containment measures have been implemented to prevent further spread.

To this end, President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to announce shortly the extension of restrictive measures, beyond 31 August, including a lockdown in Manila and elsewhere, to create stability in the country.

On this occasion, Bishop Pabillo stressed that frontline workers deserve peoples sincerest admiration and gratitude for their sacrifices.

In his view, it is sad that some people are sinking our nation" in debt, corruption and a lack of effective plans to fight the pandemic.

Many frontline workers who risk their life in the fight against COVID-19 were present at todays service.

The heroism of our frontliners is keeping our nation afloat, Bishop Pabillo said in his homily. For this reason, he urged the faithful to pray for our modern heroes because of the many trials and challenges that they are going through.

At the end of the service, those present lit a candle in front of the pictures of people who died from the virus in recent months.

For his part, Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga urged Catholics to remember the many sacrifices made by Filipino migrants abroad.

Santos, deputy chairman of the Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerant People, noted that Philippine migrants show what is best in Filipinos, including our strong faith in God and resiliency.
Millions of migrant workers made arduous journeys to their villages after India imposed the worlds largest lockdown in March. Back in the rural hinterland, many say caste discrimination is reversing even the small economic and social gains they eked out in the cities.

In the village of Aston, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, Raju Banskar, 33, says the double stigma of coming from a lower caste and having travelled from New Delhi where the coronavirus is spreading has made it impossible to find a job. In the city, construction work fuelled by Indias decades-long economic boom brought him 250 rupees to 300 rupees (2.50-3) a day, and few paid attention to his caste.

But building sites shut down when the prime minister, Narendra Modi, imposed the nationwide lockdown to contain the virus. Back home, Banskar says work created through government jobs programmes are mostly allocated by the village headman to upper caste workers.

Nine migrants interviewed by Bloomberg News in several Indian states had stories that were similar to Banskars, showing how the pandemic is widening one of the nations sharpest inequities, the social hierarchy determined by Indias ancient caste system, which can often determine everything from social interactions to economic opportunities. The South Asian country marks the 30th anniversary of its economic liberalisation next year, but the pandemic is now unravelling the tenuous benefits that globalisation brought to workers like Banskar.

I have no land, so left my village some 12 years ago in search of work and to escape this system where I am considered untouchable, Banskar says by phone. I have come back to the same situation that I left, in fact it has only become worse. People from lower castes were historically not allowed to touch those from higher castes, and Banskar says many of these practices remain in his village.

The headman of Banskars village couldnt be reached for comment. Chandrasen Singh, additional chief executive officer of the Zila Panchayat, or the local government body, of Tikamgarh district which administers Banskars village says the regions job programme is very active and he hasnt received complaints about caste discrimination. All these allegations have no substance, he says. Some people have refused work because wages under governments job programme are lower than what they were earning outside, and work in the village may not require a lot of labour, Singh says.

As Indias economy leapt from just over 1 per cent GDP growth in 1991 to the range of 10 per cent in the fiscal year ending March 2007, millions like Banskar moved from villages to cities to work. Affirmative action policies such as the reservations of jobs, spots in schools and the legislature helped many overcome centuries of economic deprivation and social oppression.

Raju Banskar, a construction worker in Khiriya Chhor village, Uttar Pradesh (Bloomberg/Dhiraj Singh)

Fallouts from the virus are now reversing some of those advances. While the pandemic has destroyed livelihoods worldwide, leaving people from New York to London to Mumbai without jobs, some of the biggest hits are likely to be taken by families in countries like India that have few social safety nets. The World Bank estimates Indias lockdown will push 12 million people into abject poverty. Many may never recover.

This will have an impact that you will see for many years. Whatever gains we made in the last so many years, we might just lose it, says Niranjan Sahoo, a senior fellow at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation says, referring to social advances as well as income increases seen by many. Millions will go back to below the poverty line especially from the lower caste segment.

Krishna Ahirwar, in Aston village, Madhya Pradesh (Bloomberg/Dhiraj Singh)

In recent months, Indias government has boosted spending to revive the economy, launched employment schemes for those returning to villages, and allocated more funds to rural jobs programmes. The benefits arent always percolating down to the lowest castes, villagers in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh said in interviews. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Rural Development, which administers the jobs programme, didnt respond to calls made to her mobile.

Despite reforms over the decades, those perceived as being on the lowest rungs of the caste ladder still regularly face discrimination and violence from upper castes. And groups like Dalits continue to be among Indias poorest. Traditionally disadvantaged subgroups such as rural dwellers, lower castes and tribes, Muslims, and young children were still the poorest in fiscal year 2015-16, according to a study by the University of Oxford and others.

The Modi administration is banking on a recovery in rural demand to slow the economys first contraction in four decades, but the migrant returnees show the difficulties

Manish Kumar, 24, who returned to Tevar village, in the eastern district of Varanasi says caste-based discrimination restarted the moment he entered the quarantine centre in his village, where upper castes separated themselves from Dalits, a group thats perceived to be at the bottom rung of the caste pyramid and includes more than 200 million people nationwide.

Kumar says he hasnt received any work under the government jobs scheme or received free food aid even though he has the required documents.

When I go to shop, the shopkeeper asks people from my caste to wait, they first cater to the upper caste people, he says. The head of his village couldnt be reached.

Bablu Ahirwar, a construction worker in Lakheri village, Madhya Pradesh (Bloomberg/Dhiraj Singh)

The discrimination the migrants describe isnt new. According to a 2010 study on social discrimination by Oxfam India, a New Delhi-based NGO, Dalits, tribal groups, and Muslims are highly under- represented in better paid and higher status jobs, while they are disproportionately concentrated among those with lower wages in the informal sector. Thats the area thats been hit the worst during the pandemic, making those from lower castes more likely to fall back into severe poverty.

Sunil Kumar Chaurasia, program officer, with Sahbhagi Shikshan Kendra, a non-profit organisation headquartered in northern state of Uttar Pradesh says it is mostly Dalits who suffer as they do not have the connections upper caste people have. Dalits are mostly uneducated and unaware of their rights or government schemes and hence cant access facilities, he says.

Women are particularly sharply hit because they are often responsible for picking up food and water, and some migrant returnees said they wait for hours at the village tap because upper caste families get access first.

A village in Tikamgarh district, Madhya Pradesh (Bloomberg/Dhiraj Singh)

In Aston village, Krishna Ahirwar, 22, returned from New Delhi along with her husband and toddler and is staying in a separate locality where Dalits have historically lived.

Landless, with no ration card  the government document required to get food aid  shes found it hard to arrange for food. We are thinking about whether to go back to the city, Ahirwar says.

But returning to the city isnt easy. India has reported 2.8 million coronavirus cases, making the risk of contagion particularly high in crowded cities.

And jobs remain scarce even in cities. Though lockdown restrictions have eased, business sentiment in India turned negative in June for the first time in more than a decade, according to an IHS Markit survey. The Modi administration is banking on a recovery in rural demand to slow the economys first contraction in four decades, but the migrant returnees show the difficulties of engineering such a revival.

Bablu Ahirwar, 32, from village Lakheri, in Madhya Pradesh state, worked as a labourer at construction sites in New Delhi. In March, he and his family  Dalits but not related to Krishna Ahirwar  came back to their ancestral mud house in the village. When he went to seek work from the village headman, he says he was told there were no ongoing projects. The headman of his village couldnt be reached.

The village headman is giving jobs to people from his caste, he says. Nobody has anything for people like me.

 The Washington Post
Bhopal: Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has announced free travel arrangements for all students from Madhya Pradesh who will appear for the NEET, JEE examinations.

The students will be provided free travel arrangements from the block or district headquarters to the examination centre by the government. Students interested in availing this facility will have to register themselves by calling on 181, or through the portal https/mapit.gov.in/covid-19 , by August 31.

Chouhan made the announcement on his official Twitter handle on Sunday, saying, ''Government of Madhya Pradesh is arranging free-of-cost transport facility for students appearing in JEE/NEET exam. Arrangements will be done from Block HQ & District HQ of exam centre. Examinees can call at 181 or can apply by clicking on http://mapit.gov.in/covid-19 from August 31.''

Government of Madhya Pradesh is arranging free-of-cost transport facility for students appearing in JEE/NEET exam. Arrangements will be done from Block HQ & District HQ of exam centre. Examinees can call at 181 or can apply by clicking on https://t.co/gFyNJAUyqh from August 31.  Office of Shivraj (@OfficeofSSC) August 30, 2020

However, Madhya Pradesh is not the first state to do so but Chief Ministers of Chhattisgarh and Odisha have also directed officials and their party leaders to help the students appearing in the exams.

Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Thursday said that the safety and future of the students was the topmost priority with regard to the conduction of the JEE and NEET amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

He added that several steps including the increase in the number of exam centres had been taken. The National Testing Agency is scheduled to conduct the NEET on Septemeber 13 and JEE examinations between September 1-6.
Australian Karm Gilespie was sentenced to death in China in June, seven years after he was arrested and charged with attempting to board an international flight with more than 7.5 kilograms (16.5 pounds) of methamphetamine. Some observers suspect that such a severe sentence so long after the crime was related to the bilateral rift.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Immigrant workers are a net drain on the Social Security system, generally consuming more Social Security benefits than they contribute, according to a new report titled "Mass Immigration Won't Save Social Security," by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

"For those who are trying to sell the American public the myth that Social Security can only be saved by mass immigration, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee," said FAIR President Dan Stein. "We clearly can't immigrate ourselves out of the Social Security deficit."

Key Findings:

The study found that native-born Americans not only spend at least five years more in the workforce than a typical immigrant, they also pay more in social security taxes. During the course of their careers, native-born workers generally contribute roughly $282,000 to the program and receive roughly $271,000 in benefits, or 96 percent of what they paid into the program.

Immigrants, on the other hand, who typically spend at least five years less of their careers working in the U.S. than native-born Americans, pay approximately $250,000 into the Social Security program. However, despite paying $32,000 less in Social Security taxes than the average native-born citizen who worked 45 years, a foreign-born worker can expect to receive only about $2,000 less in retirement benefits  or 108 percent of what they paid into the program.

"It's possible to design an immigration system that would bolster, not drain the already stressed Social Security system," said Stein, "But that would require the nation to move away from its current system of chain migration and adopt a merit-based system," he added. "Selecting immigrants based on their skill sets and talents rather than their family relationships ensures that when immigrants arrive, they will have the potential to obtain higher paid careers and thus be a net benefit to the system," said Stein.

The study reiterates the findings of the Social Security Advisory Board, which in 2005 announced that they "do not view immigration as a panacea or free lunch  for saving Social Security."

Recommendations:

Adopt Merit Based Immigration: The study recommends that adopting the RAISE Act, introduced by Senators Tom Cotton (R- Arkansas ) and David Perdue (R- Georgia ), would be an effective step in addressing the net drain on Social Security caused by mass family chain immigration. The RAISE act would give preference points to those potential migrants who are under the age of 35 and hold a college degree in fields that would further the interests of the United States .

Uphold Public Charge Law: Low-earning households almost always take in far more in Social Security benefits than they contribute to the program throughout the duration of their careers. Enforcing the "public charge" rule would help ensure that those migrants who enter the United States earn enough to support themselves and their families. These higher incomes would lead to increased contributions to the Social Security program.

"Immigration in the national interest must start with selecting immigrants who possess the skills and talents to succeed, so they can hit the ground running once they arrive in the U.S.," said Stein. "If Congress is serious about creating a sustainable Social Security system, an important component of that strategy must address the way we select immigrants," he said.

Contact: Matthew Tragesser, 202-328-7004 or [email protected]

ABOUT FAIR

Founded in 1979, FAIR is the country's largest immigration reform group. With over 2 million members and supporters nationwide, FAIR fights for immigration policies that serve national interests, not special interests. FAIR believes that immigration reform must enhance national security, improve the economy, protect jobs, preserve our environment, and establish a rule of law that is recognized and enforced.

SOURCE Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)

Related Links

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An Alabama driver allegedly shot dead a pedestrian who took too long crossing the street in front of his car.

Jeremiah Wesley Penn has been charged with capital murder after Johnarian Travez Allen was shot eight times in Union Springs last Thursday evening.

Penn is said to have told police Allen crossed the street too slowly after he had stopped to let him pass, WSFA reports.

Union Springs police said Penn had been on his way to buy when food when the pair got into a disagreement. The two men are not thought to have known each other.

Jeremiah Wesley Penn, left, has been charged with capital murder after Johnarian Travez Allen, right, was shot eight times in Union Springs last Thursday evening.

Penn allegedly got out of his car to confront Allen on his speed crossing the road before Allen was shot eight times, Fox reports.

Allen was found dead at the scene; Penn is said to have already fled.

He is later said to have handed himself in to law enforcement.

Union Springs police said Penn had been on his way to buy when food when the pair got into a disagreement. Allen was found dead at the scene, pictured; Penn is said to have already fled

In a statement to their Facebook page, police said: 'The Union Springs Police Department responded to a fatal shooting of 29 year-old Joharian Allen on Thursday, August 28th, near Underwood Avenue and Baskin Street around 7:00 pm after a verbal altercation.

'Jermiah Penn, 22, has been charged with Capital Murder in the death of Joharian Allen.

'Penn later turned himself in to an off duty Sheriff Deputy Chad Faulkner.'
The States claims arise from Defendant Christopher Stidhams systematic violations of his position of trust through the misappropriation and diversion of public funds and other improper conduct inconsistent with the proper performance of the duties owed to the State and the Public, the civil suit notes, adding the special audit disclosed that public money had been unlawfully expanded, obtained by fraud or in an unlawful manner, or wrongfully withheld from the public treasury.
Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, removes his protective face mask during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, May 14, 2020.

Whoever succeeds Shinzo Abe as Japan's next prime minister is set for a "difficult year" ahead, Teneo Intelligence's Tobias Harris told CNBC in an email.

The analyst said the next leader needs to address pressing, "significant issues" after Abe's surprise resignation of long-standing incumbent on Friday.

Harris said that includes a "wide-open debate" about Japan's national security strategy as well as new defense program guidelines and negotiations with the U.S. over host-nation support.

"The next prime minister will also either have to prepare to deal with a reelected Trump or the transition to a new US administration, either of which will occupy much of his or her attention," the analyst said, referring to the U.S. presidential election in early November.

Still, Harris said Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will "likely move quickly to select a new leader to ensure stability and continuity" in a time when the country is hit by both recession as well the coronavirus pandemic.

Abe's departure risks leaving a "political vacuum" in Japan, Waqas Adenwala, Asia analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit, warned in a Monday note.

"(Abe's) current term has been characterised by strong leadership and an absence of political turmoil in contrast to the instability of previous administrations," Adenwala said. "Intra-party unity within the LDP will deteriorate as heads of different party factions will attempt to promote a succession candidate from within their own ranks."

For his part, Abe has said he would fulfill his duties as prime minister until the next leader is appointed. His current term was not due to end until September 2021.

At present, it is "very much difficult to say" who could succeed Abe as Japan's next prime minsiter, Keio University Professor Tomohiko Taniguchi told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" Monday.

According to a Kyodo News survey, former defense chief Shigeru Ishiba is the most popular choice to takeover from Abe. Other names reportedly in the running include Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, described by Taniguchi as a man who is known to be a "hardworking, diligent politician" who has "done quite a lot" alongside Abe on domestic policies.
Sweden is seeing a spike in demand for face masks, several drug stores said, ahead of a possible U-turn by the authorities, who have so far doubted their effectiveness in fighting the spread of the new coronavirus.

Unlike most other European countries, Sweden has kept many businesses, restaurants and most schools open, while not recommending the use of face masks, which are very common in Denmark, Norway and Finland.

But after the public health agency (FHM) said two weeks ago that it may issue new recommendations, Swedes appear to be stockpiling.

Face mask sales at online pharmacist Apotea have increased to around 400,000 units a week in the past two to three weeks from 150,000 in previous weeks, CEO Par Svardson said.

A man wearing a face mask walks past a line of people not wearing masks as they wait to board a boat at Stranvagen in Stockholm. Mask sales have soared in the past three weeks since the public health agency suggested they might be of benefit

At drug store Apoteket, with total annual sales around 20 billion crowns ($2.32 billion), face mask sales have jumped about 30% in the same weeks, to weekly levels equivalent to an entire year's turnover, according to a spokesman.

'It feels like FHM, from their previous hard line of saying 'no', are now open to looking at saying 'yes',' Svardson said, adding he would expect a five- to tenfold increase in face mask sales in the event of a change in recommendations over their use.

State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell has said he thinks masks can do more harm than good

Sweden has so far rejected recommending or mandating the use of face masks in public spaces, as many countries in Europe have done.

But health agency director-general Johan Carlson told a press conference on August 18 that there may be situations - such as doctor and dentist visits and on public transport - where face mask recommendations could be issued.

The Scandinavian country has the world's seventh highest death toll at 575 per million inhabitants, mainly due to its failure to protect the elderly in nursing homes in the early stages of the pandemic.

But unlike many countries in Europe seeing a resurgence of cases - such as France, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Italy - Sweden's data now seem to be pointing in the right direction: down.

Its daily death toll peaked in April and is now down to a couple of deaths a day, the number of cases have been in steady decline since early June, and its R-number has pretty much stayed under 1 since early July.

State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell of the Public Health Agency insists scientific studies have not proven that masks are effective in limiting the spread of the virus, suggesting they can do more harm than good if used sloppily.

Swedish summer in full swing outside a restaurant on a gorgeous evening in Gotland on July 17

'There are at least three heavyweight reports - from the World Health Organization, the (EU health agency) ECDC and The Lancet report that the WHO cites - which all state that the scientific evidence is weak. We haven't carried out our own assessment,' he recently told reporters.

KK Cheng, an epidemiologist at the University of Birmingham's Institute of Applied Health Research, told AFP that such reasoning was 'irresponsible' and 'stubborn', and called on Sweden to change tack.

'If he's wrong, it costs life. If I'm wrong, what harm does it do?'

Tegnell insists Sweden's numbers have gone down since routines were improved at nursing homes, and because people now stay home when they are sick, work from home, and respect social distancing.

'To try to replace those measures with face masks won't work,' Tegnell insisted.

'Several countries that introduced masks are now seeing big resurgences,' he said on August 14.

Jenny Ohlsson, owner of the Froken Sot shop selling colourful fabric masks in Stockholm's trendy Sodermalm neighbourhood said: 'I think it's a little bit strange. Sweden, as a small country, they think they know better than the rest of the world. (It's) very strange.'

Sweden's Nordic neighbours were long holdouts on the mask issue as well, but they have all changed their tune in recent weeks.

Finland now recommends wearing masks in public places, Norway advises it on Oslo public transport, while Denmark has made it mandatory on all public transport and in taxis.

A group of 23 doctors and researchers in June urged Tegnell and the Public Health Agency to reconsider the no-mask policy in an editorial in daily Aftonbladet, a call that has been repeated at regular intervals since then, by them and others.

Tegnell's standard response is that public health officials are 'keeping an eye on' the issue and could introduce the measure if deemed necessary.

It remains to be seen whether Sweden's COVID-19 transmission will continue to decline.

Stockholmer Gilbert Sylwander, 69, peruses the masks at Ohlsson's shop, admiring the bright designs. He says he has faith in the Swedish Public Health Agency's strategy.

'It seems as if they were right about many things with their research,' he tells AFP.

He does not wear a mask, but would if it were official policy.

'If everyone else is wearing a mask and they are afraid of being contaminated, of course I will use a mask, just to be polite to other people.' Mr Sylwander said.
France probing senior officer with NATO for suspected espionage for Russia

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 10:59 AM

France has confirmed that it has placed a senior officer under investigation over an unidentified breach of security, amid reports that the officer had been engaged in espionage for Russia.

French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said on Sunday that her ministry had informed prosecutors about the case of the officer. She did not elaborate on what the officer was suspected of having done.

Parly, who was asked about the reports of espionage for Russia, merely said, "We have taken all the necessary safeguard measures."

Europe 1 radio had reported earlier that a French lieutenant colonel  based in Italy and stationed with NATO  was suspected of having transferred sensitive documents to the Russian intelligence services.

According to the Europe 1 report, the officer was detained by the French security agency when he was about to return to Italy and was remanded in custody at La Sante prison in Paris.

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In an open letter, sixty political prisoners warned on Sunday about a COVID-19 breakout in several wards of Fashafuyeh Prison of Tehran.

In their letter, addressed to the Prosecutor of Tehran, the signatories said that the coronavirus has spread through several wards of one of the prison halls, and that the threat of illness is causing great anxiety to their families.

The letter also points out that the presiding solicitor-general of Fashafuyeh Prison has not visited to hear prisoners' complaints and investigate the situation, despite their repeated requests for his visit.

Fashafuyeh Prison, which was originally built to hold drug-related criminals, is located 35 kilometers (21 miles) south of Tehran. The prison has a reputation for violence among prisoners, with recent incidents including the fatal stabbing of June Alireza Shirmohammadali, a 21-year-old political prisoner who was serving an eight-year sentence in Fashafuyeh for "insulting the Supreme Leader" and "propaganda against the Islamic Republic," who was killed by two prisoners serving time for violent crimes.

While Fashafuyeh was originally established to isolate serious drug offenders from other prison populations, political prisoners and other prisoners of conscience are also sent to Fashafuyeh as additional punishment for refusing to cooperate with authorities, or as a means to pressure them and their families.

According to the Campaign to Defense of Political and Civil Prisoners, authorities sent more than 300 protesters to Fashafuyeh following nationwide protests in November 2019.

Iranian authorities have freed tens of thousands of ordinary prisoners since Iran's coronavirus outbreak began in February, but have refused to grant furlough to political prisoners and other prisoners of conscience.

Human rights activists have reported several cases of coronavirus among political prisoners, including the activist Narges Mohammadi and eleven others from the general population of Zanjan Prison where she is held.

Based on the bylaws of the Iranian Prisons Organization, political prisoners and prisoners of conscience must be held in separate facilities and away from prisoners serving sentences for other reasons. Many, including Mohammadi, however, are kept with criminals and away from other political prisoners.
Daewoo E&C employees take part in the company's home repair activities for underprivileged households in this photo provided by the company, Sunday. / Courtesy of Daewoo E&C



By Baek Byung-yeul



Daewoo Engineering & Construction (E&C) has been actively expanding its corporate social responsibility programs both domestically and abroad in order to help contribute to COVID-19 relief efforts, the leading construction company said Sunday.



Daewoo E&C said it is pursuing social contributions that are not a one-time activity, but a long-term activity that allows as many of its employees as possible to consistently contribute to local communities where the company is doing business.



For small business owners in Korea, who have been struggling with economic downturn caused by the virus pandemic, Daewoo E&C said it decided to reduce rent fees by 30 percent for two months for the owners who are doing business in the company-owned buildings.



On May 12, the company's employees and families donated 5 million won and 500 face masks made by themselves to Eastern Social Welfare Society. The employees also delivered 630 face masks to merchant associations of Bangsan Market and Jungbu Market, both in central Seoul.



The construction firm also said its employees have visited people living in dilapidated houses in Seoul every year to carry out repair work. From freshly wallpapering or painting walls to changing a kitchen sink, they have provided various kinds of support for neighbors in need.



The company's efforts to contribute to a better world can be seen in other countries as well.



The company has participated in a campaign named "Lighting Children" to produce non-hazardous solar lanterns and deliver them to children in countries with energy deficiencies.



In 2019, solar lanterns produced by Daewoo E&C's employees and their families were delivered to 80 households in Malawi. As a result, families using the solar lanterns could save fuel costs, which accounted for 30 percent of household income. With the saved money, the families were able to purchase educational items, the company said.



To be more responsible member of the global community, the company's civil project division has also supported local residents in a region of Ethiopia.



Last year, the company provided oil and flour every month for AIDS patients at Zeway, a highway construction site in Ethiopia, and provided 40,000 liters of bottled water every Sunday, contributing to relieve water shortages.



"Daewoo E&C has been operating various kinds of corporate social responsibility programs so that it can let its employees spontaneously take part in volunteer activities in our communities. Under our motto Build Together, employees of Daewoo E&C will continue to put efforts into making a better world," a company official said.


BEIRUT: Lebanons ambassador to Germany Mustapha Adib is set to be designated prime minister on Monday ahead of a visit to Beirut by the French president who will press for long-delayed reforms to steer the Middle East nation out of its deep crisis.

Emmanuel Macron has taken centre stage in international efforts to get Lebanons fractious leaders to start addressing a financial crisis that had devastated the economy even before a massive blast at Beirut port on Aug. 4 killed about 190 people.

Adib emerged as frontrunner for the post of premier after being nominated on Sunday by former prime ministers, including Saad al-Hariri who heads Lebanons biggest Sunni Muslim party. The post of prime minister must go to a Sunni.

Former prime minister Najib Mikati was the first lawmaker to formally nominate Adib in consultations at the presidential palace on Monday. President Michel Aoun is required to designate the candidate with greatest support among MPs.

Senior Lebanese officials said Macron had pressed Lebanese leaders to agree on a candidate in the 48 hours before consensus emerged on Adib. Last week, Lebanese leaders were deadlocked over who should be the next prime minister.

Macron is due to arrive in Lebanon late on Monday and will meet politicians on Tuesday.

After meeting Lebanons president on Monday, Hariri called for the quick formation of a government of specialist ministers.

Adib has a doctorate in law and political science and previously served as an adviser to Mikati. He has served as ambassador to Germany since 2013.

Lebanons dominant Shiite parties, Hezbollah and the Amal Movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, will both name Adib at the consultations, a senior Shiite source has said.

The Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), a political ally of Hezbollah which was founded by Aoun, will do the same, said Gebran Bassil, Aouns son-in-law and the party leader.

Once designated, the process of forming a new government will start. Until a new administration is agreed, the outgoing government continues in a caretaker capacity.

Lebanons financial crisis has sunk the currency by as much as 80% since October, locked savers out of their deposits in a paralysed banking system and fuelled poverty and unemployment.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Michael Georgy and Edmund Blair)

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
By Trend





Azerbaijan will always have Malaysia's support in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Ambassador of Malaysia to the Republic of Azerbaijan Dato' Yubazlan Bin Yusof said, Trend reports.

The ambassador made the statement during an event in the Malaysian embassy in Azerbaijan.

The ambassador added that Malaysia reaffirms the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the state borders of Azerbaijan and the inadmissibility of the use of force by Armenia.

Malaysia is committed to enhance and bolster the bilateral relations with Azerbaijan, the ambassador added.

Im very pleased to note that Malaysias bilateral relations with Azerbaijan are improving with each passing year, added the ambassador.




The Justice Department secretly dropped a probe into President Trump's financial and personal ties to Moscow that was initially supposed to form part of the Russia Investigation, it has been claimed.

Andrew McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI who led the bureau for a time after James Comey was fired, said the agency was initially conducting two probes into Trump - one into election interference, and one into Trump's own ties to Russia.

When the investigation was taken out of the bureau's hands and passed to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, McCabe said he believed Mueller's probe would encompass everything that the FBI had been looking into.

Then-Attorney General Rod Rosenstein also gave that impression when he publicly said the probe would look into 'any links and/or coordination' between Russia and Trump - but sources say that, in private, he ordered a much narrower investigation.

The Justice Department secretly dropped an FBI investigation into Trump's personal and business ties to Russia when the probe was passed to Robert Mueller, it is claimed

According to the New York Times, Rosenstein told Mueller to focus only on whether crimes had been committed in relation to election interference.

Rosentein told Mueller not to conduct a 'fishing expedition' and instead to carry out a 'criminal investigation' and then 'shut it down', the paper claims.

Without the knowledge of the FBI, the counterintelligence portion of the inquiry - which would have delved into Trump's business ties to Moscow - was then dropped.

McCabe told the newspaper that, had he been aware of the move, he would have ordered the FBI to carry on with its work.

He said: 'We opened this case in May 2017 because we had information that indicated a national security threat might exist, specifically a counterintelligence threat involving the president and Russia.

'I expected that issue and issues related to it would be fully examined by the special counsel team.

'If a decision was made not to investigate those issues, I am surprised and disappointed. I was not aware of that.'

Mueller's report eventually concluded that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election in an attempt to get Trump elected, and that the Trump campaign was aware of those efforts and expected to benefit from them.

Andrew McCabe, then acting-director of the FBI after James Comey was fired (left), said that - had he known Rod Rosenstein (right) ordered the probe into Trump to be dropped - he would have ordered the bureau to keep digging

However, it stopped short of accusing the campaign of colluding directly with the Russians.

The report also found that Trump had attempted to impede the investigation multiple times, but stopped short of accusing him of committing a crime.

The investigation did lead to the indictment of three dozen people, including some of Trump's inner circle such as Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn and Michael Cohen.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the investigation as a 'witch hunt', accused the FBI of 'spying' on his campaign, and said the probe was ordered by Democrats angry that he had won the election.

A subsequent investigation by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee did probe some of Trump's personal connections to Russia, though was unable to access the president's financial and business records.

That probe uncovered a series of fawning letters sent by Trump to strongman leader Vladimir Putin, in which he admitted being 'a big fan of yours'.

The letter contain hand-written all-caps inscriptions in Trump's familiar hand, at a time when the report reveals he was seeking to bring the Miss Universe beauty pageant to Moscow and his family were exploring real estate deals in Russia.

'THE WORLD'S MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN!' Trump wrote at the bottom of a June 2013 letter where Trump told Putin he had no doubt heard the news that the Miss Universe Pageant was coming to Russia.

A senate intelligence report that was compiled after the Mueller investigation wrapped up found that Trump wrote several gushing letters to Putin before becoming president, but was unable to investigate his financial links to Moscow (file image)

'I want to take this opportunity to personally invite you to be my guest of honor in Moscow,' Trump wrote to the leader who the following year would get hit with heavy U.S. sanctions over the invasion of Crimea. 'I know you will have a great time.'

In an earlier letter, from December 2007, Trump declares himself a 'big fan' of Putin in a letter written during his first two terms in office.

'Congratulations on being named Time magazine's "Man of the Year"  you definitely deserve it,' Trump wrote, after Putin was named Person of the Year.

'As you probably heard, I am a big fan of yours. Take care of yourself,' he concluded, with the 'big fan' sentence underlined.

It came at a time when Trump associate Felix Sater was exploring Trump real estate projects in Moscow. Trump's salutation was: 'With best wishes.'

The correspondence wasn't all one way.

Following the Miss Universe contest  which Putin did not attend, despite the letter campaign and what witnesses told the committee were conversations on how to bring about a Trump-Putin meeting that did not happen  Putin wrote Trump in Russian and sent a gift.

'Dear Mr. Trump, I would like to congratulate you and your colleagues on successfully holding the Miss Universe contest in Moscow.

'I hope that all the participants in this remarkable event will go home with good memories of their visit to the Russian capital,' Putin wrote.

'It is a pity that we were not able to have our meeting, but I hope we will be able to talk during one of your upcoming visits to Russia. Yours sincerely, V. Putin.'
People visit the Sanlihe park of Dongcheng District in Beijing, capital of China, June 7, 2020. The Chinese capital Beijing, also an ancient city with thousands of years of history, is entering a new era as a fresh city plan is unveiled. The country has approved a detailed plan for the core area of Beijing for the 2018-2035 period, stressing its functions of serving central administrative organs as well as the firm and orderly relief of its non-capital roles. (Xinhua/Ju Huanzong)

BEIJING, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in Beijing on Sunday unveiled a detailed plan for its core area for the 2018-2035 period, ushering in a new era for the city with a history of thousands of years.

Based on the plan that was initiated in 2017, the focus of the core area, covering about 92.5 square kilometers, will be on China's political center and other functions.

The goal of the plan is to build a core area with sound administrative environment, cultural appeal and ideal living conditions. It also stresses protecting the city's cultural and historical heritage.

By 2035, the permanent population in the core area would be about 1.7 million, and the floor area of above-ground buildings will be around 119 million square meters, according to the plan.

The permanent population in the core area is estimated to be about 1.55 million, while the floor area of the above-ground buildings will be around 110 million square meters by 2050.

The central authorities approved the plan, emphasizing its functions of serving central administrative organs as well as firm and orderly relief of its non-capital roles.

"The core area is where Beijing's functions as the nation's political, cultural and international exchange center are mostly located, and it's a key area for the preservation of historical sites," the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council said in an approval statement that was made public on Thursday. Enditem
According to a linguist from RUDN University, the number of COVID-19 cases in a country might be related to the existence of aspirated consonants in its main language of communication. This data can help create more accurate models to describe the spread of COVID-19. The results of the study were published in the Medical Hypotheses journal.

COVID-19 is mainly spread through droplets of liquid coming from the respiratory passages of an infected person. The disease spreads faster through coughing or sneezing, as in these cases the speed of the droplets increases. However, a regular conversation can also lead to infection, and the amount of produced droplets depends on the sounds pronounced by an infected speaker. The exact sounds that add the most to the spread of COVID-19 and other viruses haven't been identified yet. A RUDN linguist suggested that they might include aspirated consonants, i.e. the sounds that are accompanied by exhalation.

The issue of a correlation between the spread of infections and the language of the infected people was first brought up in 2003, after the outbreak of SARS-CoV-1in South China when over 8,000 cases were registered in 26 countries. The USA accounted for 70 of them, but Japan did not have a single patient, in spite of the fact that the number of Japanese tourists in China at that time was much higher than that of US travelers (3.2 mln vs 2.3 mln, respectively). Some scientists suggested a linguistic explanation: the staff of Chinese stores spoke to US tourists in English, and to Japanese guests in Japanese. Georgios Georgiou from RUDN University found the same correlation for COVID-19.

Unlike in Japanese, in the English language the consonants [p], [t], and [k] are aspirated. When they are pronounced, numerous small droplets are released from the respiratory passages of a speaker into the air. Such droplets may contain viral particles. Japanese has fewer aspirational consonants, and therefore Japanese speakers produce less airborne droplets during a conversation. To confirm whether the speakers of the languages that are rich in aspirated consonants are more prone to the COVID-19 infection, the RUDN linguist used the official data of 26 countries with 1,000+ registered COVID-19 cases as of March 23, 2020.

"Our study did not include Switzerland because it has several official languages. We also excluded countries with too many or too few cases per 1 mln residents (e.g. Italy and Japan, respectively) to avoid extreme values," said Georgios Georgiou, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of General and Russian Linguistics, Philological Faculty of RUDN University.

The languages in the study were divided into two groups by the presence or absence of aspirated consonants. According to the scientists, although the groups did not show statistically significant differences, the countries that predominantly spoke the languages of the first group had more cases of COVID-19: 255 per 1 million residents (as opposed to 206 cases in the second group).

"Although no clear relationship was observed, we do not rule out that the spread of COVID-19 can be partially due to the presence of aspirated consonants in a country's main language of communication. This can be a valuable insight for epidemiologists,' added Georgios Georgiou.

However, the researchers of this paper recognize that it is difficult to determine such a relationship due to experimental limitations. For example, the different social distance measures taken in each country and the fact that we do not know exactly the linguistic background of the speakers in each country, render the paper's initial assumption just a hypothesis. However, this hypothesis has strong fundaments and can be studied in a future large-scale study.

###
According to the latest official data, Iranian hand-woven carpets exports fell from $426 million in 2017 to $238 million in 2018, and experienced another drop last year, ending with approximately $69 million.

Earlier in August 2018, Fereshteh Dastpak, the head of Iran's National Carpet Center, announced that the value of Iran's hand-woven carpet exports amounted to $ 1.2 billion annually over the past decade, most of which were exported to the United States. However, she admitted that the figure dropped sharply during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency, following the Islamic Republic's international sanctions.

Iranian hand-woven carpet exports peaked in 2017, immediately after the implementation of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In the same year, the U.S. imported the highest proportion of Iran's world-renowned rugs with 28 percent.

Meanwhile, Germany, Lebanon, and Britain were the other major customers of Iranian carpets.

Carpets and pistachios are Iran's most significant traditional exports to the U.S. Nevertheless, two years ago, Washington banned the import of handmade rugs from Iran.

The U.S. Statistics Center's latest report shows that the country imported only $3 million from Iran in the first half of 2020.
Chinese authorities have detained an Australian citizen who worked as a high-profile television anchor in China, Australia's foreign minister Marise Payne said in a statement on Monday.

Tensions between Beijing and Canberra have been running high since the Australian government called for an international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus. Beijing has since imposed trade tariffs and anti-dumping probes on multiple Australian products.

Australian citizen and journalist Cheng Lei, who worked for Chinese state television's international channel, CGTN, in Beijing, had been detained for two weeks, the statement said.

It said the Australian government received formal notification of her detention from Chinese authorities on 14 August.

A statement issued by Ms Cheng's family in Australia said it hoped for a satisfactory and timely conclusion and was in close consultation with Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Australian officials spoke to Ms Cheng at a detention facility via video link on 27 August, Ms Payne said, adding consular officials would continue to provide support to her and her family.

China's foreign ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.

Reuters
After organizing a local protest following the death of George Floyd, Conroe resident LaDon Johnson felt there was more to do. So, he started a new community organization, the Good Brothers and Sisters of Montgomery County, to spur the change he wants to see.

The organizing members of the group are made up of Johnsons fellow protesters and residents who are ready to become more involved in community revitalization. They span age ranges, professions, and ZIP codes. Their goals and priorities for the organization are diverse, but they all feel pulled at this moment to do more.

Since its creation in May, the organization has put on a Juneteenth event, gone into the community to register voters, registered for nonprofit status, and started fundraising. Looking to the future, theres a lot that the members want the organization to address.

Community goals

For Johnson, there are two clear and distinct goals: voter engagement and economic development for the community, especially the local black community. In the long-term, he wants to see GBSMC expand.

In five years I would like the organization to be spread out deeper, he said. Not just Good Brothers and Sisters of Montgomery County, but Good Brothers and Sisters of Harris County, Good Brothers and Sisters of Walker County, Good Brothers and Sisters of Atlanta, Georgia. I want to take this thing to the next level and what were doing in our community, help do that in other communities.

Johnson said he would like to see the kind of development for the black community that mirrors the grocery stores and other businesses in communities that serve the Latino population.

I want that for us, he said. I want to go into a black-owned grocery store, I want to go into a local black-owned corner store. Theres nothing wrong with that. I want us all on the same playing field.

Want to know more? More information about Good Brothers and Sisters of Montgomery County can be found on the organization's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Good-Brothers-Sisters-of-Montgomery-County-100841975013882. See More Collapse

Building partnerships

Since launching the organization, GBSMC has partnered with several other local organizations and businesses. The organization created a group on Facebook (SpeakCredit), in partnership with IGI Financial, to help people restore their credit. IGI Financial will also work with low-income families to restore credit and help them become homeowners.

GBSMC has also partnered with Volunteers of America for job services, and Johnson said they are actively looking for more partners and potential sponsors for their programs. Come October and November, GBSMC will be working with a Harris County organization, See You At The Polls, to get residents out to vote.

President of the organization, Marcus Humphrey, said that right now most of its efforts are going towards getting people registered to vote, and engaged in local politics. Locally, he said that voter engagement could be a lot better. But, like Johnson, he wants to see more job opportunities in the area, especially for the black community.

I want everybody to be able to join together and be at peace, Humphrey said.

Focused on growth

He wants people to know that the organization is open to everybody in the county, regardless of race or location. Looking ahead, he sees a place for GBSMC while addressing issues like police brutality, job creation, and voter engagement.

I just want to see growth within everybody, he said.

To be able to address a range of issues more specifically, the organization has several chapters, including a youth chapter and a womens chapter. Von Gardner is head of the youth chapter and this year has been making a name for himself as a local activist by attending and speaking at a number of protests following the death of George Floyd.

For Gardner, his goal for the youth chapter is to give kids a safe space for mentorship and opportunities.

Im trying to be the role model I never had growing up, he said, explaining why he joined the organization. I didnt have anybody in my neighborhood where I could say I want to grow up to be like him.

Right now he said what theyre working on is building trust and a trustworthy reputation in the community through consistency. But like Johnson, he sees the organization as a way to economically empower everybody, even youth members.

Our goal, permanently, is to achieve greatness through empowerment, Gardner said. Financial literacy, first and foremost. Economic development. Were striving for equal justice around Montgomery County.

An issue that Gardner has spoken about before is racial profiling. But he stresses that he does not think all police are bad, and he wants the youth chapter to talk to its members about interacting with the police, with the goal of not escalating possible violence.

Empowering people

The goals of the organization as a whole are combined with the womens chapter. Andrea McWashington, president of the womens chapter of the organization, said that while GBSMC is still growing its membership, all the efforts are intertwined on the common goals.

GBSMC decided to create a womens chapter, McWashington said, is because they understand that there are different needs for the women of the community than there are for men or the community as a whole.

Women communicate differently than men and it was easier for the women to communicate with each other, to network with each other, and we want the women to feel comfortable and to feel like theyre in a safe space, she said.

She wants people to go to the organization when they need empowerment in their community. She wants people to see it as a place to offer their volunteer time, while also feel confident to approach the organization for help.

One of the programs that GBSMC plans on implementing when it is safe to do so and there are enough interested parties, is something they are calling the Awakening Program, aimed at the youth of the community. When fully operational, the program would take youth on tours of the county jail. McWashington explained that the program, which would be voluntary, is meant to deter youth from becoming involved in illegal activities.

jamie.swinnerton@chron.com
Martin Sanchez/Unsplash

Emergency release of initial 100 million tranche of a 200 million package to support Morocco in its fight against the COVID-19 crisis

First EIB financing for the EUs Mediterranean neighbourhood to assist national authorities in their struggle against the pandemic

On 31 August 2020, Mohamed Benchaaboun, the Moroccan Minister of Economy, Finance and Administration Reform, and Emma Navarro, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), announced the release of 100 million to finance the Kingdom of Moroccos most urgent requirements as it deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the first payment of an overall financing package worth 200 million.

The Minister of Economy, Finance and Administration Reform emphasised the importance of these funds in enabling Morocco to procure urgently needed medical supplies and equipment. The financing will strengthen the countrys health facilities and boost hospital capacity, allowing it to fight against the pandemic more effectively. This achievement is a tangible sign of the calibre of the partnership between Morocco and the EIB, the EU bank.

The EIB Vice-President was delighted that these funds were released in record time. For her, acting rapidly is crucial in limiting the pandemics impact on the populations health. The EIB is continuing to draw on its expertise, resources and skills to provide concrete solutions to the challenges posed by COVID-19.

This 100 million payment is the first time the EIB has allocated funding to the EUs Mediterranean neighbourhood for the purpose of fighting against COVID-19. More specifically, it forms part of the EIBs support for the Moroccan national plan to combat COVID-19 and also chimes with Team Europe, an EU initiative to help partner countries, particularly those outside Europe, in fighting the coronavirus pandemic and dealing with its consequences. This financing therefore dovetails with the EUs overall action in Moroccos health sector, supplementing the 100 million aid programme to fund healthcare needs during the pandemic and support the Ministry of Healths reform initiative.

As a key partner to Morocco for over 40 years, the EIB is very attentive to the populations needs, and is pursuing its efforts to improve their daily lives while boosting the countrys economic development. Since 2007, Morocco has received over 5 billion in funding, of which 30% was granted to the private sector. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the EIB has stepped up its support for businesses in need of liquidity. The Bank has also supported education in Morocco by, for instance, providing the Euro-Mediterranean University of Fes with funding. As a result, the university can ensure the continued education of its scholarship students thanks to the purchase of IT equipment, which can also be used to produce face masks.
The management of the Ghana Airport Company says passengers arriving in Ghana will pay a $150 fee for a 30-minute PCR COVID-19 test.

The Managing Director of Ghana Airport Company Limited, Yaw Kwakwa made this known at a press briefing at the Kotoka International Airport on Monday, August 31, 2020.

The Kotoka International Airport is set to be reopened on September 1, 2020, to international passenger traffic, five months after closure as part of restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Delivering his 16th address to the nation since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Akufo-Addo announced that government has decided to re-open the airport because public health officials can now conduct rapid tests within 30 minutes to enable the isolation of passengers who might arrive in the country with the novel coronavirus.

A Deputy Health Minister, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye who explained the-150-dollar fee noted that the fee is reasonable compared with global charges.

As a ministry and a government who are stakeholders in the management of COVID-19, we were very much interested in the cost of the test. We wanted to make sure that the cost of the test will not put an unnecessary burden on the passenger. So we quickly looked at what is being charged across the globe. When you go to a place like Zimbabwe you will pay about $210 for the test. In China, you will pay about $150 for the test. In Togo and Benin you will pay about 150 euros and in Nigeria, it is 130 dollars but you will have to go to a hotel and lodge till the results are ready. With the turn around time and accuracy of the test assured, we had to decide whether the $150 was enough to cover all the expenses. We finally agreed to peg it at that for now.

He also explained that the new arrangement was very prudent as compared to the previous arrangement where travellers had to pay for accommodation for two weeks to enable them quarantine for the period while awaiting their results.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Airport Company is expecting to receive a total of 1200 passengers within its peak period after reopening.

This raises the question of how the company will deal with the overflow of passengers and accurate and swift COVID-19 testing.

The Managing Director of Ghana Airport Company Limited, Yaw Kwakwa allaying such fears, noted that 480 tests could be conducted within 15 minutes.

He also assured that his outfit that it has the capacity for any overflow of passengers.

Within 15 minutes we can test about 480 people. So taking into consideration all the odds of the maximum number of passengers we can have at a time and other factors, we have more than enough capacity.

---citinewsroom
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Suspected militants attacked Pakistani troops amid a search operation in a former Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold in the northwest near the Afghan border, triggering a shootout that killed three soldiers, the army said Sunday.

It said four soldiers also were wounded in the attack in South Waziristan, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The army provided no further details, but South Waziristan had served as a militant base until recent years when Pakistan said its operations there had cleared the area of the Taliban.

No group claimed responsibility, although Pakistani Taliban have been blamed for such previous violence in the region, where militants have a presence.

According to a recently released U.N. report, more than 6,000 Pakistani insurgents are hiding in Afghanistan, most belonging to the outlawed Pakistani Taliban group, which often attacks Pakistani military and civilian targets.

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Albany, N.Y.  Pausing in-person classes was the right decision after coronavirus cases spiked at the State University of New York Oneonta, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today.

It was an important precedent to set and sent a clear message, Cuomo said. Either schools have strong reopening plans and enforce the rules or theyll be forced to switch to remote learning.

SUNY Oneonta suspended in-person classes for two weeks over the weekend after 105 cases of Covid-19 were found. Other campus activities have been halted as well.

SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras actions after the outbreak were aggressive and appropriate, Cuomo said during a conference call with reporters.

I think Oneonta got the message loud and clear, he said. I hope private colleges heed the message.

Officials said a large number of parties took place around campus in recent days. Five students and three different campus organizations have been suspended so far.

We want to party in college, Cuomo said. Yeah ok. Now you can go home and party with your parents. Thats what happened.

The state is setting up testing sites around the Oneonta campus to help control the outbreak, Cuomo added.

The school did not require any Covid-19 testing before students returned to campus. Nor were students required to be tested once back.

Instead, students had to self-quarantine at home for seven days before arriving at school. The quarantine could have been longer if a student were coming from a state on New Yorks list of coronavirus hotspots or another country.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

How do you bus kids to school in the middle of a pandemic? A look inside one districts plans

Educating CNY: Syracuse.com launches initiative to inform, connect community around school reopening

SUNY Oneonta to suspend in-person classes for 2 weeks after 105 coronavirus cases found

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598
Japan has taken a final decision to fully suspend all visa-free travel programs between Japanese prefectures and the southern Kuril Islands planned for this year due to the coronavirus spread, an association of former residents of the southern Kuril Islands said on Monday.



Meanwhile, the association hopes that next year trips will be organized as scheduled previously, according to the Kyodo news agency.



The association considered the possibility of conducting a visa-free trip to the southern Kuril Islands on September 25-28 until the last moment, though eventually it was forced to abandon the plans, TASS reported.



The two countries agree on visa-free travel programs every year, with trips taking place between May and October. Visa-free trips started in 1992 based on an intergovernmental agreement aimed at improving mutual understanding between the two countries people. Since then, over 8,000 residents of Iturup, Kunashir and Shikotan islands have visited Japan and more than 18,000 Japanese nationals have traveled to the southern Kuril Islands.



The total number of coronavirus cases has exceeded 68,800 people in Japan, whereas the death toll has reached 1,299 people, according to the recent figures. As many as 50,000 patients have recovered. On Sunday, the lowest daily increase in the number of new coronavirus cases since the middle of July was recorded as around 600 new cases were revealed across the country.
COVID-19 cases are still prevalent in some states across the country, particularly in California, Texas, and Florida.

As the fall season nears, experts prepare for what some have called a "twindemic" of COVID-19 and the flu.

These two diseases are different when it comes to their viruses. Experts are now exploring what might happen if people could get COVID-19 and the flue simultaneously.

Experts are also checking if being ill with one virus might make you more susceptible to the other.

"It is certainly possible, although we aren't clear how coinfection occurs," Dr. Jay Bhatt, an ABC News contributor, and former chief medical officer of the American Hospital Association, was quoted in a report.

Bhatt said that they would learn more as we get into the flu season.

Meanwhile, Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist, ABC News Medical Contributor, and Boston Children's Hospital's chief innovation officer, said that limited data suggest possible.

However, more work needs to be done.

The report says that being infected with COVID-19 and the flu at the same time would be dangerous.

Experts said that older Americans might be particularly at risk. With this, older adults are strongly encouraged to get a flu shot this year.

Brownstein said that there had been cases of coinfection, and the result is far worse than the effect of either of the viruses alone.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that around 20 percent of patients were infected with another respiratory virus and COVID-19.

This includes one who had the flu, which shows it can be a possibility.

"We could see rising COVID cases during flu season, and some of that may depend on how effective we are at maintaining consistency in our prevention behaviors we know work," Bhatt was quoted.

Amanda Harrington, medical director of microbiology at Loyola University Medical Center, said that the flu season is a bit like a ticking time bomb.

Harrington added that they are all waiting and trying to prepare as best as they can.

Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, Stanford professor of pediatric infectious diseases and health research and policy, said that it is never good to have two infections at the same time that affect the lungs.

"Clearly, we are worried. Influenza is another pandemic. It's a pretty significant health problem," Maldonado was quoted in a report.

Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, said that this fall and winter are going to be one of the most difficult times in American public health.

At Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF), Dr. William Isenberg, chief quality and safety officer for parent organization Sutter Health, said there is evidence that people can contract both diseases.

He cited a patient in the Philippines who had been infected with COVID-19 and the flu, including pneumococcal disease.

Isenberg added that anytime someone is being hospitalized, the risk of contracting another infectious disease goes up.

Check these out:

Influenza Symptoms, Treatment & Vaccine: Death Cases Hit 200 in California; Is Vaccination Still Effective?

Ease Common Colds and Flu With These Affordable Humidifiers

CDC Report Suggests Severe Flu Season This Year as the 2015 Vaccine Shot Is Less Effective
"With a population of 328 million in the United States, it may require 2.13 million deaths to reach a 65 percent threshold of herd immunity, assuming the virus has a 1 percent fatality rate, according to an analysis by The Washington Post."

Impeached President Donald Trump's new top medical adviser is leading the White House to adopt a "herd immunity" strategy for the coronavirus pandemic.

If the plan is adopted, more than 2 million Americans would be predicted to die before that goal is reached.

The White House strategy allows COVID-19 to "spread through most of the population to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations, according to five people familiar with the discussions," write Yasmeen Abutaleb and Josh Dawsey at the Washington Post:

The approach's chief proponent is Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist from Stanford's conservative Hoover Institution, who joined the White House earlier this month as a pandemic adviser. He has advocated that the United States adopt the model Sweden has used to respond to the virus outbreak, according to these officials, which relies on lifting restrictions so the healthy can build up immunity to the disease rather than limiting social and business interactions to prevent the virus from spreading. () Atlas has fashioned himself as the "anti-Dr. Fauci," one senior administration official said, referring to Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease official, who has repeatedly been at odds with the president over his public comments about the threat posed by the virus. He has clashed with Fauci as well as Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, over the administration's pandemic response. Atlas has argued both internally and in public that an increased case count will move the nation more quickly to herd immunity and won't lead to more deaths if the vulnerable are protected. But infectious-disease experts strongly dispute that, noting that more than 25,000 people younger than 65 have died of the virus in the United States. In addition, the United States has a higher number of vulnerable people of all ages because of high rates of heart and lung disease and obesity, and millions of vulnerable people live outside nursing homes  many in the same households with children, whom Atlas believes should return to school.

At least 5.9 million infections have been reported and at least 179,000 have died from the virus this year.

Read more: New Trump pandemic adviser pushes controversial 'herd immunity' strategy, worrying public health officials
ST. CHARLES, Ill., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cherry Creek Mortgage Company's Illinois branch is hosting its 20th anniversary celebration on Sept. 3, 2020. The branch, located in St. Charles and led by Larry Bettag, Cherry Creek Mortgage's Vice President, Production Area Manager, was opened by Bettag in February of 2000.

Over the past two decades, the branch has grown from a two-person office to over 25 employees who have helped thousands of home buyers and home owners throughout their home ownership journey. Bettag and his team are proud of the reputation they have built in the greater Fox Valley and Northern Illinois community by providing a personalized home financing experience for every borrower. The branch has been recognized as Best of the Fox's reader's choice mortgage company for eight out of the past eleven years.

Bettag is thankful to Cherry Creek Mortgage's leadership for creating a culture that invests in the success of its people, allowing him to grow the branch to where it is today. "Our customer-centered approach set us apart from the rest when I started 20 years ago, and it continues to be a differentiator and driver of excellence today," said Bettag. Bettag is looking forward to growing the company's presence throughout the Midwest so more customers can have the Cherry Creek experience.

To celebrate this milestone, the branch will be hosting an anniversary party and ribbon cutting ceremony. The event, which is open to the community, is on Sept. 3, 2020, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at 40W310 Lafox Road, Suite C1, St. Charles, IL 60175. Guests are invited to enjoy food, drinks, and giveaways in the outdoor courtyard. The ribbon cutting ceremony with the Chamber of Commerce will take place at 5 p.m.

About Cherry Creek Mortgage Company

Cherry Creek Mortgage Company Co., Inc. NMLS #3001 has a 33-year tradition of serving the needs of home buyers across the country. With a reputation built on a passion for responsible lending and dedication to personal relationships, Cherry Creek Mortgage has helped thousands of customers realize their goal of home ownership. Cherry Creek Mortgage's specialized internal processes and proprietary technology deliver a digital mortgage experience with a personal touch. The company is headquartered in Colorado and is licensed in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Learn more at cherrycreekmortgage.com .

Contact:

Kimberly Holliday

[email protected]

SOURCE Cherry Creek Mortgage Company

Related Links

https://www.cherrycreekmortgage.com


Sophia Antipolis, France - 30 Aug 2020: Sacubitril/valsartan reduces NT-proBNP, a biomarker predictive of long-term clinical outcomes in heart failure, but does not improve functional capacity compared to individualised background therapy in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. That's the main finding of the PARALLAX trial presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 2020.1

Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) affects approximately half of patients with heart failure. Prevalence is expected to rise with the ageing population and increased rates of risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity and atrial fibrillation. Patients are often highly symptomatic, with shortness of breath, reduced ability to exercise, impaired quality of life, and frequent rehospitalisations.

There is currently no approved therapy to reduce morbidity and mortality in patients with HFpEF. Treatment recommendations mainly focus on symptom relief with diuretics and treating comorbidities, typically with inhibitors of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) including angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs).

The PARAGON-HF outcome trial suggested that sacubitril/valsartan may reduce heart failure hospitalisations in HFpEF patients compared to valsartan (an ARB).2 However, in daily practice, not all HFpEF patients receive an ARB. Many take an ACE inhibitor, and some no RAS inhibitor at all.

PARALLAX therefore tested the effects of sacubitril/valsartan versus optimal individualised background therapy, which could be the ACE inhibitor enalapril, the ARB valsartan, or placebo. The co-primary endpoints were chosen to assess heart failure severity and functional capacity: 1) change from baseline to 12 weeks in plasma N-terminal pro B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP); and 2) change in six-minute walk distance from baseline to 24 weeks.

A total of 2,572 HFpEF patients were randomly allocated to sacubitril/valsartan or their current RAS medication (enalapril, valsartan or placebo if they were not taking a RAS inhibitor). Patients in the trial had a mean age of 73 years and 51% were women. The mean left ventricular ejection fraction at baseline was 56%.

The trial met the first primary endpoint: after 12 weeks, patients treated with sacubitril/valsartan showed a highly significant 16.4% greater reduction in NT-proBNP than patients treated with optimal individualised medical therapy (p<0.0001).

The trial did not meet the second primary endpoint: at week 24, six-minute walk distance had improved in both groups compared to baseline (mean change was 9.7 m in the sacubitril/valsartan group and 12.2 m in the individualised medical therapy group), with no significant difference between groups (mean difference -2.5 m; 95% confidence interval -8.5 to 3.5 m; p=0.79).

Secondary endpoints included change from baseline to 24 weeks in quality of life (measured by the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire; KCCQ) and New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class. Quality of life improved in both groups and was better with sacubitril/valsartan than the comparator at week 4 but there was no difference between groups at week 24. Changes in NYHA class were similar in both groups at week 24.

Overall, except for heart failure events, serious adverse events were reported in similar proportions of patients in both groups. Heart failure events (such as worsening heart failure requiring hospitalisation or not necessitating hospital admission) were the most common serious adverse events and occurred in more patients in the individualised medical therapy group than in the sacubitril/valsartan group. Based on this, a post hoc analysis showed that sacubitril/valsartan reduced the risk for heart failure hospitalisation by 50% (p=0.005). Patients in the sacubitril/valsartan group also had a significantly lower decline in renal function (estimated glomerular filtration rate; eGFR) at 24 weeks.

Principal investigator Professor Burkert Pieske from Charite University Medicine Berlin and the German Heart Centre, Berlin said: "The trial showed a consistent decline of the surrogate outcome marker NT-proBNP with sacubitril/valsartan, as compared to individual medical therapy."

###

Notes to editors

Authors: ESC Press Office

Mobile: +33 (0)7 85 31 20 36

Email: press@escardio.org

The hashtag for ESC Congress 2020 is #ESCCongress.

Follow us on Twitter @ESCardioNews

This press release accompanies both a presentation and an ESC press conference at ESC Congress 2020 - The Digital Experience. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Society of Cardiology.

Funding: The trial was funded by Novartis, Switzerland.

Disclosures: Burkert Pieske reports steering committee, advisory board, and/or speaker honoraria from Novartis, Bayer Healthcare, Merck, Servier, Astra-Zeneca, BMS.

References and notes

1 Abstract title: Angiotensin Receptor Neprilysin Inhibition Compared with Individualized Medical Therapy for Comorbidities in Patients with Heart Failure and Preserved Ejection Fraction: The PARALLAX Trial.

2 Solomon SD, McMurray JJV, Anand IS, et al. Angiotensin-Neprilysin Inhibition in Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction. N Engl J Med. 2019;381:1609-1620.

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.

About ESC Congress

ESC Congress is the world's largest gathering of cardiovascular professionals contributing to global awareness of the latest clinical trials and breakthrough discoveries. ESC Congress 2020 takes place online from 29 August to 1 September. More information is available from the ESC Press Office at press@escardio.org.
Authorities in Baltimore have launched an investigation after a man was hit with a brick and fell unconscious when an unidentified assailant ran behind him.

The alarming incident was captured on cell phone footage and shared to social media on Monday.

Councilman Eric T. Costello condemned the attack and noted the 'complete depravity to human life' exhibited.

Cell phone footage shows a man walking across an quiet intersection when a second man, wearing a black T-shirt and turquoise shorts, jogs behind him.

Cell phone footage taken Sunday showed the moment a man (left) was knocked unconscious after an assailant (right) used a brick

Without warning, the second man suddenly raises one brick in the air and strikes the victim over the head with it.

The victim is knocked out cold and hits the ground with a terrifying thump. The other man immediately walks away in the other direction.

It appears the brick used in the attack was left at the scene.

According to The Baltimore Sun, a neighbor called authorities after hearing a loud argument near the 100 block of W. Hamburg Street on Sunday.

Police and a backup unit dispatched to the Sharp-Leadenhall neighborhood over the assault report, but did not find the victim at the scene.

The assailant (center) uses a brick in his right hand to strike the other man over the head

Authorities who dispatched to the scene they could neither find the victim nor the assailant in the area

The Baltimore Police Department has launched an investigation into the incident and ask that anyone with information contact Captain Eric Leitch

Medics who canvassed the area could not locate the victim either.

Officers later found a 'pool of blood' on the sidewalk close to where the incident happened.

A witness, who did not disclose their name or address, said they did not know the men involved in the altercation.

Councilman Costello on Monday shared footage of the attack on Facebook.

'It should go without saying that the complete depravity to human life illustrated in this video is absolutely disgusting and should be investigate and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,' he wrote.

Authorities have urged anyone with information about the incident to contact Captain Eric Leitch at: Eric.Leitch@BaltimorePolice.org.

That includes details on the victim, suspect, those who recorded the video and any additional camera footage.
CrisisGo has worked tirelessly to develop tools to help schools manage the extraordinary challenges brought on by the pandemic.

CrisisGo, the leading incident management and emergency communication technology provider, announced its latest product release, Safety iPass, will help Missouri schools return safely and effectively by streamlining the entry process while maximizing safety protocols and awareness.

Missouri School Boards Association (MSBA) is the leader in providing school boards with the tools they need to succeed through leadership, school board training, and advocacy. As a part of MSBA and CrisisGos continued partnership, MSBA supports CrisisGo's latest product development, Safety iPass.

CrisisGo has worked tirelessly to develop tools to help schools manage the extraordinary challenges brought on by the pandemic, said MSBA Executive Director, Melissa Randol. Monitoring daily temperature checks and other critical information of students and staff will be less complicated with the Safety iPass tool offered by CrisisGo.

In accordance with state and local recommendations, a critical obstacle for Missouri schools will be managing the health status certification and pre-certification of students and staff to ensure only healthy individuals are allowed into schools. "A valid health screening process will be the key to navigating any obstacles by monitoring the health status of your students and staff daily. With daily monitoring we can identify trends which will and make informed decisions based on actionable data." Kelly Moore, Director of Safety Leadership at CrisisGo. CrisisGos Safety iPass solution allows Missouri schools to confidently navigate this challenge while monitoring potential risk by using intelligent survey tools and intuitive reports that manage entry and immediately escalate notifications of COVID-19 positive results from staff or students to school health services.

Safety iPass delivers an all-inclusive solution of safety and benefits for schools returning amidst the safety challenges of COVID-19:



Parents/staff/teachers can do their pre-certification without the need to download or use a specific application, so everyone can pre-certification, quickly from any device while maintaining strict security and confidentiality

Supports all return to school models for entry and remote learning

Easy and accurate data collection

Comprehensive and simple to real-time read reports

Direct escalation to school health officials

Applicable and easy implementation for school districts of all sizes

Benefits all stakeholders  students, teachers, parents, staff, pre-existing conditions, childcare issues

Significantly reduced time to enter the facility versus a manual entry process

Provides real-time status for stakeholders and next steps based upon school risk guidelines

With Safety iPass, Missouri schools can more efficiently and effectively admit students into school buildings or onto school buses by using the pre-certified digital badge to confirm that the student is safe to return. With social distancing guidelines in place, as well as the upcoming threat of inclement weather as we transition into the fall season, the importance of a fast and efficient method of entry is more important than ever. Similar to a fast pass for airports and services, Safety iPass speeds up the ability to confirm the safety status of stakeholders and get them into a safe learning environment. Safety iPass supports several validation methods including bus validation, digital badge via the CrisisGo app, existing badges with QR or barcodes, and email, so it can work in compliance with any COVID-19 back to school model. Its a great screening tool for us, and it keeps us from having to bottleneck our individuals from coming into the building, said Josh Crowell, Assistant Superintendent of Cape Girardeau School District Assistant superintendent Josh Crowell said.

No matter the size or makeup of your school district, CrisisGos Safety iPass gives all schools in Missouri the ability to return as safely and effectively as possible. Visit the CrisisGo website (http://www.safetyipass.com) for more information on these new solution offerings, or hear first-hand how CrisisGo is helping Missouri schools re-open during our webinar on September 9th; register today - https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1695024027305973520?source=pr
German police halted a march that gathered around 18,000 coronavirus sceptics in Berlin, as some 300 people protested in Paris against the compulsory wearing of masks in the city.

In Berlin, mass protests against pandemic restrictions were allowed to go ahead after a bitter legal battle.

The protest had barely begun at 9 am at the city's Brandenburg Gate when it was stopped by the police, who claimed that the participants were not respecting minimum social distancing measures.

After the announcement, the demonstrators shouted 'Resistance' and 'We are the people,' a slogan often used by the far-right, and sang the German national anthem.

Last-minute permission from city court

Berlin city authorities had previously decided not to allow the Saturday demonstration to go ahead, fearing that the estimated 22,000 protesters would not adhere to 1.5m social distancing rules.

The ban sparked outrage from organisers and their supporters who flooded social media with angry messages vowing to protest anyway, with some even calling for violence.

But on the eve of the demo, Berlin's administrative court sided with the demonstrators, saying there was no indication that organisers would "deliberately ignore" social distancing rules and endanger public health.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leaders of Germany's 16 federal states on Thursday introduced tougher coronavirus restrictions to curb the pandemic, including a minimum 50 euro fine for people not wearing face masks in compulsory zones.

The German government on Sunday condemned the "unacceptable" behaviour of some protesters during the rally in which hundreds were arrested and an attempt was made to storm the Reichstag parliament building.

"Extremists and trouble-makers" tried to storm the Reichstag, the "symbolic centre of our democracy", Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told Sunday's edition of the tabloid newspaper Bild.

Story continues

Yellow Vests join in Paris anti-face mask rally

Meanwhile, some 300 people gathered in a peaceful anti-mask demonstration on Saturday in Paris' Place de la Nation.

A few Yellow Vest protesters were reported to be amongst them.

The demonstrators accused the government of 'manipulating' people through fear, claiming that making face masks compulsory in big cities was not 'scientifically justified'.

The protesters were surrounded by police who fined several people 135 euros for failing to wear face masks.

(with wires)
Daniel McMahon cultivated a culture of fear and chaos to further his beliefs in white supremacy, one witness said.

A Florida man who called himself the Antifa hunter as he waged an online campaign to terrorise and harass those who opposed his white supremacist ideology was sentenced on Monday to more than three years in prison.

Daniel McMahon, 32, of Brandon, Florida, pleaded guilty in April to using social media to threaten a Black activist to deter the man from running for office in Charlottesville, Virginia in the United States.

McMahon also admitted that he threatened to sexually assault the young autistic daughter of a North Carolina woman who protested against white nationalists.

A federal judge in Virginia sentenced McMahon to three years and five months in prison. McMahon declined an opportunity to make a public statement beforehand, but he heard from his victims during the hearing, which was conducted remotely by video conference.

In a written statement read aloud by a court employee, the North Carolina woman said McMahon methodically cultivated a culture of fear and chaos in her community of anti-racist activists.

There is seemingly nothing that Daniel McMahon will not do in the name of white supremacy, she wrote.

Most of McMahons cyberstalking victims knew him as Jack Corbin. Under that pseudonym, he posted social media messages intended to deter a Black activist, Don Gathers, from running for a seat on Charlottesvilles city council.

He called himself the Antifa hunter, a reference to anti-fascist, leftist militant activists who confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter-demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 [File: Steve Helber/AP Photo]

McMahon accused Gathers of attacking a white supremacist group member who later pled guilty to attacking counter-protesters at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August 2017. McMahon called for using a diversity of tactics against Gathers, which authorities interpreted as a euphemism for violence.

The FBI notified Gathers of McMahons threats. Instead of kicking off his campaign at a January 2019 event, Gathers announced he wouldnt run for office. Hail Victory! McMahon wrote in response.

On Monday, Gathers told McMahon that he prays he may find a way to forgive him some day.

But today is not that day, Gathers added. I despise all that you and others like you represent.

Further threats

After McMahons arrest, the North Carolina woman called federal prosecutors to report that he had threatened her and her daughter, a severely autistic minor, over Facebook and tried to extort personal information from her about another counter-protester.

The woman said McMahon sent her hundreds of threatening messages, including some detailing how he would sexually assault her daughter. He posted the girls photo on a racist social media platform, she added. He also did a Google search for the term sex with autistic girls a day before his arrest, according to a court filing.

Only a deeply disturbed individual would do this, a monster, the woman wrote. I will never feel completely safe about my child again.

Prosecutors say the contents of McMahons computer revealed his obsession with racially motivated violence and his hatred of Black people, including images of white supremacist James Fields plowing his car into a crowd of Charlottesville counter-protesters, killing a woman.

A folder with a racist slur for a title contained photos of dead Black men, including a lynching victim. McMahon also saved graphic images of Trayvon Martin after the Black teenager was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch member in Florida in 2012, according to prosecutors.





Other folders on McMahons computer contained personal information about his targets, including photos of their children. One target was a woman whose child had died, a tragedy that McMahon tried to exploit to extort information from her about antifascists, prosecutors said.

The FBI found 278 files with the word owned in the title, signaling that McMahon had harassed that victim to his satisfaction. All told, prosecutors said, McMahon compiled 35 gigabytes of data that he could weaponise against his targets.

McMahon pleaded guilty to cyberstalking and bias-motivated interference with a candidate for elective office. US District Judge Norman Moon was not bound by sentencing guidelines that called for a prison term ranging from two years and nine months to three years and five months.

Moon accepted prosecutors recommendation to impose the maximum sentence under the guidelines, saying McMahons conduct was as egregious as it could be.

Anti-fascist counter-demonstrators cross the Burnside Bridge across the Willamette River from the west side of the city to the east side in search of the far-right group, the Proud Boys, in Portland, Oregon, in 2019 [File: Gillian Flaccus/AP Photo]

It may not have been physically violent, but it couldnt have been more violent to ones mental health or feeling of wellbeing, the judge said.

Defense attorney Jessica Phillips asked the judge to sentence McMahon to a year and a half in prison and give him credit for time served since his September 18, 2019 arrest.

Phillips said her client made bad choices but is remorseful and took full responsibility for his crimes. She attributed McMahons behaviour to an untreated mental health disorder, alcohol abuse and a lack of social stability.

While he did not realize the impact of his words at the time, he certainly does now, Phillips wrote in a court filing.

Gathers told McMahon that a new day, a different day, is coming for those who share his pitiful views.

Like it or not, Black lives matter, he said.
Participants will use short videos to tell unforgettable stories of China-Africa cooperation and the close bonds between people.

The opening ceremony of the Second CHINAFRICA Short Video Competition (SCREENSHOT)

Johannesburg, August 28 (Peoples Daily Online) - A short video competition was launched on Aug. 28 for contestants to share their stories and experiences related to increasingly diverse China-Africa relations at a time when the world is facing major challenges such as COVID-19.

The Second CHINAFRICA Short Video Competition, held under the theme Working Hand in Hand for a Shared Future, is open to Africans and Chinese alike, with the aim of promoting China-Africa friendship and enhancing people-to-people understanding.

Following the inaugural competition last year, a micro videos category has been added so that anyone with a smartphone can take part. Also, this years competition will be held in three zones - China, Senegal and South Africa.

It is fitting that a short video contest is being held this year to tell the stories of exchanges between China and African countries and between Chinese and African people, Gao Anming, Vice President and Editor in Chief of China International Publishing Group (CIPG), an advisory institution for the competition, said in his keynote speech at the opening ceremony.

Gao Anming, Vice President and Editor in Chief of China International Publishing Group, gives a speech during the opening ceremony of the Second CHINAFRICA Short Video Competition in Beijing on August 28 (WEI YAO)

Gao said he hopes the contest will present an authentic account of China-Africa joint efforts to cope with COVID-19 through touching and heartwarming images and narratives. It is also his hope that participants will dig deeper into China-Africa cooperation and exchanges to discover more stories.

Lin Yi, Executive Vice President of the Chinese-African Peoples Friendship Association, gives a speech (WEI YAO)

The vitality of the China-Africa friendship lies in inheritance and innovation, said Lin Yi, Executive Vice President of the Chinese-African Peoples Friendship Association. Through the popular media format of short videos, the China-Africa friendship story will be told, shared and known by more people, especially the younger generation, she said.

Lin hopes more young people can join the competition so that the China-Africa friendship can be renewed and passed on from generation to generation.

Elisio Benedito Jamine, Senior Political, Peace and Security Officer of the AU Permanent Mission to China

The video competition is being launched at a challenging time when the entire world is affected by COVID-19, said Elisio Benedito Jamine, Senior Political, Peace and Security Officer of the AU Permanent Mission to China.

This environment of uncertainty poses a great challenge to the creativity of the competitors in bringing the unforgettable stories of China-Africa cooperation and closeness between people, he said.

Ayanda Holo, Director of International Media Relations of the Government Communication and Information System of South Africa

The competition is an opportunity to encourage Africans who have visited China to share their video material and their own stories of how they see and perceive China, said Ayanda Holo, Director of International Media Relations of the Government Communication and Information System of South Africa.

Abdoulaye Salam Madior Fall, founder and CEO of Seneweb Group, Senegal

Abdoulaye Salam Madior Fall, founder and CEO of Seneweb Group, Senegal, and organizer of the contest in the Senegal zone, pledged to ensure that the contest enjoys the best coordination possible through a good communication pipeline and dedicated human resources.

Adri Senekal de Wet, Executive Editor of Business Report at Independent Media Group, South Africa

People-to-people friendship has played a unique role in China and Africas fight against the epidemic and has created a solid foundation for building a China-Africa community with a shared future, said Adri Senekal de Wet, Executive Editor of Business Report at Independent Media Group, South Africa.

By standing side by side, China and Africa will surely be able to step outside this darkest period in history and shape a bright future, she added.

Li Yafang, President of BEIJING REVIEW, gives a speech (WEI YAO)

Li Yafang, President of BEIJING REVIEW, said as Chinas only magazine featuring in-depth reports and analysis on China-Africa issues, ChinAfrica is committed to promoting exchanges and cooperation between China and Africa. She believes the competition will bring many extraordinary stories about China-Africa friendship and strengthen mutual understanding through interactive activities.

Li Jianguo, Associate Editor in Chief of BEIJING REVIEW, hosts the ceremony (WEI YAO)

The competition is supported by CIPG and the Chinese-African Peoples Friendship Association. It is hosted by BEIJING REVIEW, and organized by ChinAfrica Magazine and the Africa Bureau of BEIJING REVIEW.

To join the competition, please visit:

http://www.chinafrica.cn/Homepage/202008/t20200807_800217034.html
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 31/8/2020 (507 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ashley Hebel has created a hamburger homage to a Manitoba tradition sidelined by the global coronavirus pandemic.

"Not a lot of people got to have their (wedding) social this summer," says Ashley Hebel, head chef at Frenchway Cafe on Corydon Avenue. "That was where the hamburger idea came in... its basically a social sandwich."

The establishment is one of 131 local restaurants participating in Le Burger Week ( from Sept. 1 to 7 and this year Hebel is serving a garlic sausage patty on a ryebread croissant, topped with mustard, ripple chips, pickles and marble cheddar, all of which are sourced from local suppliers.

The cafe entered the national food festival for the first time in 2019 and took home fifth place locally for its Manitoba-themed honey-dill chicken burger. Taking part again, even during a pandemic, was an easy decision.

SHANNON VANRAES / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Frenchway Cafe's Manitoba Social, one of the many contenders for Le Burger Week, which runs until Sept. 7

"It draws so much attention to your business," Hebel says. "It was definitely a no-brainer to do it this year."

Burger Week  dubbed Le Cheeseburger Week for 2020  is a cash cow (literally, in most cases) for restaurants, thanks to Winnipegs apparent love for hamburgers and themed food events. Frenchway quadrupled its expected burger sales last year and the city regularly has the most participating restaurants in Canada.

"Weve had the same amount of interest, if not more... from restaurants," says Daniel Gurevich, co-organizer of Winnipegs Le Cheeseburger Week. "I think they view it as a good opportunity to see an increase in business for the week and get back in the swing of things."

Organizers have made some changes to the festival in light of COVID-19. The usual $600 entry fee has been cut in half for restaurants, and businesses are encouraged to offer takeout or delivery instead of dine-in service.

"We dont want to seem like were promoting people to gather in large groups," Gurevich says. "Restaurants have their own mandate of how many people that are allowed in their establishment thats not going to change."

SHANNON VANRAES / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Le Burger Week this year is dubbed Le Cheeseburger Week, and Frenchway Cafe has plenty of Bothwell cheese at the ready.

The organization is also collecting funds for United Way Canada via proceeds from burger sales and online donations in lieu of public voting.

Nuburger has taken home the Le Burger Week title a few times over the last eight years, but co-owner Kyle Matheson isnt worried about the lack of competition this year.

"That is perfectly fine," he says. "Honestly, the win is people enjoying the food."

This years festival is gearing up to be a strange one for the veteran participant. Nuburger staff will be wearing masks and there will be takeout tents set up outside its Osborne Village and Regent Avenue locations to reduce traffic inside the restaurants.

"As long as its handled properly, I think its a good thing for this for the city or for the restaurants," Matheson said of the festival. "People need some distractions right now and I feel like food is a great distraction."

SUPPLIED Nuburger's three outlets will have separate entries that are designed for takeout.

Theres a different burger available at each of Nuburgers three locations: Kyle, a bacon cheeseburger with kale, arugula and tahini parmesan dressing at Regent; Brad, a Greek-inspired beef burger, at Osborne; and Chad, a relatively straightforward burger served with a side of nacho cheese dipping sauce, at The Forks.

Matheson is constantly thinking about new ideas for Le Burger Week and this year, with takeout being the preferred purchase method, it was a priority to go easy on the sauce.

"If burgers were meant to be delivered, they would have been delivered 30 years ago," he says. "We do have messy burgers and those travel the worst, but these ones are kind of mild on the messiness."

Longevity has also been a topic of conversation at Frenchway.

"Our burger holds up pretty well because our croissant is the base and its a bit of a crispier bun," Hebel says. "But a lot of places also only plan for in-house because maybe they dont even do takeout. I dont think thats an option this year."

SUPPLIED Saburo Kitchen's entry combines a beef, pork and lamb patty with Japanese ingredients such as yuzu honey, chashu, miso and wasabi mayo.

The cafe will offer curbside pickup and has posted socially distant lineup markers on the sidewalk.

Jill Osais, the chef de cuisine at Saburo Kitchen, is looking forward to taking part in Le Burger Week for the first time. After being closed for three months earlier this year, the event is a chance for the ramen restaurant at Hargrave St. Market to get creative.

Try our Dish The latest on food and drink in Winnipeg and beyond from arts writers Ben Sigurdson and Eva Wasney. Dish arrives in your inbox every other Friday. See sample. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

"Weve been in a pandemic slump," Osais says. "Lets just come up with something, have fun with it and see if people would like it."

Saburo has created a beef, lamb and pork patty glazed with yuzu honey and topped with seared chashu (Japanese pork belly), pickles, miso and wasabi mayo. The restaurant is one of four businesses in the food hall with a Le Burger Week offering and Osais hopes the festival will draw more people downtown.

"Its slowly starting to pick up a little. Were getting most of the office people back downtown," she says. "I hope that even though theres this pandemic right now, people will still support."

For a complete list of participating restaurants and their burgers, see leburgerweek.com/Winnipeg/results.

eva.wasney@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @evawasney
The Back-Bone of Good Governance group has lambasted government for the arrest of the president of the concerned small scale miners association, Mr Michael Kwadwo Peprah.

The group describe the act as shameful, barbaric, unconstitutional, and an attack on democracy and rule of law.

According to reports, Michael Kwadwo Peprah was arrested and detained overnight at the Kumasi Central Police Station before being transferred to Accra on the orders of the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng for continuing detention which breaches the right of individual entitled to bail after 48 hours.

In a press statement from the Back-Bone of Good Governance group, they have described the act of the security agency as Shameful, barbaric, unconstitutional and attack on democracy and rule of law.

They insist that it is condemnable to see the experience of lawlessness in the hands of people who has to uphold the law and strengthen the rule of law but rather turn into self-seeking people and try to intimidate the very people who ushered in them the sovereign will to rule.

We, therefore, demand immediate release of the president of the Concerned Small Scale Miners Association, Mr Michael Kwadwo Peprah from detention, a portion of the statement from the Back-Bone of Good Governance group reads.

Below is the full statement:
Doctors are using steroid to treat seriously ill patients

Seriously ill Irish patients with Covid-19 are benefiting from an inexpensive steroid drug that improves survival chances from the deadly virus, a leading specialist has said.

Dr Brian Kinirons, consultant in anaesthesia and intensive Care at Galway University Hospital, said the simple steroid Dexamethasone is now commonly administered to patients with Covid-19 who are on ventilators in intensive care.

The drug, which was created in the 1950s, is usually given to treat ulcerative colitis, arthritis and some types of cancer.

Dr Kinirons said trials of the drug in the UK found it could save a significant number of Covid-19 patients relying on ventilators, and it is now being used in hospitals here.

"The evidence so far is supportive of the drug," he said.

"As we gather information as we go along, we are better at treating the virus.

"The steroid story in the treatment of Covid-19 is very exciting and it is accessible by every hospital in the country.

"If you come in with Covid-19 and you are on oxygen therapy you should be getting Dexamethasone."

There were 42 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 yesterday and no deaths.

There is now a total of 28,760 confirmed cases in Ireland.

Twenty-four of the new cases were reported in Dublin, six in Limerick and the remaining 12 were in Carlow, Clare, Galway, Kildare, Longford, Offaly and Sligo.

Demand

Dr Kinirons, who is president of the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland, said the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care is low, but the challenge is to ensure demand does not exceed capacity over the winter.

He said that in the first phase of the pandemic, the age of patients with the virus in intensive care ranged from 17 to 90.

Now infections are predominantly in younger age groups, but even though they face a lower risk of complications, it is "wrong to assume that because you are young you are protected by youth".

When the pandemic first struck earlier this year, there were only 252 intensive care beds in public hospitals.

"That was five to six per 100,000 population, one of the lowest in Europe. One of the positive effects is the recognition that we were under- resourced in terms of critical care," Dr Kinirons said.

There are now around 278 intensive care beds, with a further 38 for children and another 44 in private hospitals.

The demand for admission to an intensive care bed due to Covid-19 has been lower in Ireland than in other countries.

One of the heartening stories that only emerged as the pandemic progressed was the number of patients who survived after being in intensive care, Dr Kinirons said.

Intensive care specialists here have also benefited from learning how to manage the disease.

"We know the disease better, what is working and not working," Dr Kinirons said.

Trials are also continuing into what benefit other drugs will have on the treatment of very ill patients, including the use of Remdesivir, which studies show can shorten recovery time.

Dr Kinirons is among scores of intensive care heroes and other frontline staff who will take part in a fundraising charity cycle from Galway, Limerick, Cork, Dublin and Belfast at the end of this week.

They will converge at Merrion Square in the capital later this week and hope to raise 100,000 for various causes including Alone, Aware and cancer research.

It is yet another generous gesture as they face into a winter of uncertainty.
An Air Force Research Laboratory mission to study the impact of Van Allen belt radiation on satellites could pave the way for more military and civilian spacecraft to fly safely in the harsh environment of medium Earth orbit.

Most of todays satellites either fly in geostationary orbit about 22,000 miles out, or in low Earth orbit below about 1,200 miles. Few vehicles fly in between those ranges, because radiation from Van Allens inner and outer belts is high there, making medium Earth orbit particularly hazardous for spacecraft.

Now, two AFRL satellites are working together to measure and map radiation in that zone and study the impacts on spacecraft components. That data will help in developing new radiation-hard electronics for vehicles to operate there.

The satellites are also studying the interaction between very low frequency radio waves and particles in the Van Allen belts, which could provide critical insight into the potential of VLF waves to mitigate intense radiation from a nuclear explosion.

Thats something the AFRL has been working on for at least 15 years, and for the military, its the primary mission of the dual-satellite experiments currently underway, said Michael Starks, a lead scientist at AFRLs Space Vehicles Directorate and program manager for the Radiation Belt Remediation program.

Thats the heart of the mission, Starks told the Journal. If you set off a nuclear weapon above 50 kilometers (about 31 miles), it creates a man-made radiation belt thats a thousand times more intense than natural ones, and the impact on spacecraft is much worse. With todays efforts to puts lots of satellites into low Earth orbit, we dont want to lose them if someone does something irresponsible.

The U.S. Department of Defense experienced the devastating effects of nuclear fallout on satellites during high-altitude missile tests in the Pacific Ocean in 1962.

Those tests accidentally killed about a dozen satellites, Starks said.

And as other countries have pursued ballistic technology, the DOD recognized high-altitude nuclear explosions as an emerging threat to spacecraft.

DOD research has since led to employing VLF waves as a potential defense, because they can be used to clear away nuclear-induced radiation belts by basically pushing radioactive particles out of the magnetosphere.

A nuclear radiation belt works the same as the Van Allen belts, where radiation generated by the sun is trapped by the Earths magnetic field, Starks said. The particles, or electrons, go away when they run into our atmosphere and get lost.

VLF waves can de-trap particles in a nuclear radiation belt by scattering them.

The VLF wave comes through and causes the particle paths to change, Starks said. We can put exactly the right VLF wave at exactly the right point to scatter the radiation.

To do that, the AFRL launched a Demonstration and Science Experiments, or DSX, satellite into medium Earth orbit in June 2019. Its now studying radiation there and testing the performance of an antenna that emits VLF waves.

A second satellite  the Very Low Frequency Propagation Mapper, or VPM  was also placed into low Earth Orbit in February. That satellite collects and measures the VLF waves coming from the DSX.

Together, the two satellites are actively probing the response of Van Allen radiation belt particles to weak radio waves that could, in the future, be used to wash out nuclear radiation, said DSX principal investigator James McCollough.

Kevin Robinson-Avila covers technology, energy, venture capital and utilities for the Journal. He can be reached at krobinson-avila@abqjournal.com.
Uber's head of corporate development has left Uber after only 18 months, following a failed bid to buy GrubHub.

Jennifer Jarrett joined the San Francisco-based firm in January 2019.

She headed up the unsuccessful bid to buy Grubbub, and the successful acquisition of Postmates.

An Uber spokesperson told Axios, which broke the news: 'We thank Jen for all her work at Uber and wish her all the best, wherever her next step takes her.'

Jennifer Jarrett joined Uber in January 2019 and her departure was confirmed Monday

She is said to be leaving to return to her previous work in the biotech industry

Axios reported that she was leaving to return to the biotech industry, where she worked before Uber.

At Uber Jarrett reported to Nelson Chai, the chief financial officer.

A 55-year-old Wall Street veteran, Chai was hired in August 2018, after a three year search for the right person to take on the challenging role.

With Jarrett working alongside him, Uber went public on May 9, 2019 - four months after Jarrett joined.

Uber offered 180 million shares trading at a price of $45 per share.

It began trading at $42 per share on the New York Stock Exchange on May 10, and the IPO raked in $8.1 billion, putting the company's valuation at around $75 billion.

It was the biggest IPO of the year on the NYSE and one of the 10 largest ever.

Shares have risen and fallen dramatically in value since then, with the value dropping to $26 in November. On Monday they were trading at around $33.

On Thursday almost 200 current and former Uber employees sued the company in California, accusing it leaving them saddled with millions of dollars in added tax liability after the company's flotation last year.

Jarrett, pictured at an Uber summit in June 2019, reported to the chief financial officer

Jarrett was also heavily involved in Uber's failed bid to buy Grubhub, and build upon their food delivery output which originated with Uber Eats.

On June 11 it was confirmed that Grubhub was being bought by Just Eat, in a deal which values Grubhub at $7.3 billion.

Uber spokesperson Noah Edwardsen said at the time: 'Like ridesharing, the food delivery industry will need consolidation in order to reach its full potential for consumers and restaurants.

'That doesn't mean we are interested in doing any deal, at any price, with any player.'

A month later, on July 6, Uber confirmed that it had managed to expand its food delivery service, with the acquisition of Postmates in a $2.65 billion, all-stock deal.

'Uber and Postmates have long shared a belief that platforms like ours can power much more than just food delivery - they can be a hugely important part of local commerce and communities, all the more important during crises like COVID-19,' said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in a statement.

Jarrett remains on the board of four pharmaceutical firms - Arena Pharmaceuticals, Syndax Pharmaceuticals, Arcus Biosciences and Audentes Therapeutics - according to her LinkedIn.

For seven months from April 2016 she was Chief Financial Officer for biopharmaceutical firm Medivation, before the firm was bought by Pfizer for $14 billion.

Before then she had spent 17 years working for banks, specializing in health care investment banking.

Jarrett studied economics at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, graduating in 1992, before obtaining an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Three days after landfall in southwest Louisiana of Hurricane Laura, the most powerful hurricane to hit the state since 1856 and the fifth strongest ever to hit the continental US, the scale of destruction and accompanying social crisis is coming into sharp relief.

Almost 600,000 residents along the stretch of the Gulf coast covering southeast Texas to southeast Louisiana were ordered to evacuate their homes in advance of the hurricane. Following landfall last Thursday, the number of fatalities continues to rise and will no doubt continue to do so as rescue and recovery efforts proceed.

As of this writing, there are a total of 17 reported deaths from both Louisiana and Texas. Five fatalities are reported in east Texas, with four of the five succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning from improper indoor usage of a portable generator. In Louisiana, there are 12 reported deaths, including seven people killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator.

Such a high number of deaths due to improper generator usage is alarming, considering that more than 900,000 people lost power during the storm. According to poweroutage.us, as of Sunday morning 350,000 people were without power in Louisiana, the majority in the southwestern, central and northern parts of the state. In Texas, 77,000 were without power, and 9,000 lacked power in Arkansas.

Christina Stephens, a spokeswoman for Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, said last Friday that about 23 percent of the state was out of power. A resident of Lake Charles told the New Orleans Advocate, So many people stayed... Im just trying to figure out if theyre dead or alive right now, but they dont have any power or service, so I couldnt get in touch with anybody.

The Red Cross stated that the hurricane destroyed up to 8,000 homes in both Louisiana and Texas, and that tens of thousands of people have sought shelter, including 3,000 in hotels across Louisiana.

Moodys Analytics estimated that the total economic cost of Hurricane Laura could be around $20 billion. Other estimates projected $25 billion in damages. According to the US Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters report for this year, the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), which is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), estimates that as of July, there have been 10 weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to affect the United States.

The same report states that the US has sustained 273 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion, and that the total cost of these 273 events exceeds $1.790 trillion.

A report by the Environmental Defense Fund cited in a recent opinion piece published by the Hill found that storms and hurricanes accounted for $954.4 billion of these disasters since 1980. The NCEI report indicates that this year will mark the seventh consecutive year in which 10 or more billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events have impacted the United States.

Thousands of homes in Lake Charles, which has a population of 75,000, had their roofs torn off, rendering them vulnerable to rainy weather over the weekend. This has forced many evacuees who cannot afford to remain evacuated for a prolonged period to return immediately.

But given the historic downturn in economic activity and resulting financial hardship the vast majority of the population is facing amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the time it takes for businesses and homeowners to recover could be much longer than in the past. Many will not be able to cover the exorbitant cost of insurance deductibles. Tom Larsen of CoreLogic said that since Hurricane Harvey in 2017, hes seen that only about 30 percent to 40 percent of homes that have flood damage have flood insurance.

In addition to the wind damage, storm surge and flooding, Hurricane Laura dropped more than a foot of rain in some areas. The small town of Cameron, Louisiana was left inundated with water. The day after Lauras impact, due to power outages, 98 water systems in Louisiana were inoperable, affecting more than 200,000 people, especially in Lake Charles, DeRidder and Alexandria. Many people might not have access to clean water for weeks.

The six water plants in Lake Charles took a heavy beating from the hurricane. Aly Neel, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Health, said that even after getting them back online, which might take one week, it cannot be guaranteed that they will be fully functional, that they will be able to provide 100 percent or that they can fully treat the water.

Republican Mayor Nic Hunter has not given an estimate for when power and water service will be adequately restored. He wrote on Facebook, If you come back to Lake Charles to stay, make sure you understand the above reality and are prepared to live in it for many days, probably weeks.

Discussing the widespread damage to the water and sewerage systems in southwest Louisiana, Amanda Ames, the chief engineer at the Louisiana Department of Health, stated: This is definitely a bigger issue than we normally see. We always have power loss after a major storm... but significant damage to water systems is not something that occurs after storms like this.

President Donald Trump, upon Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards request, approved a disaster declaration for 23 parishes (or counties) in the state, opening up assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The COVID-19 pandemic, still raging uncontrolled across the country due to the homicidal back-to-work and back-to-school campaigns of the Democrats and Republicans, is also greatly exacerbating Lauras impact. Given that testing for the virus was limited to only hospitals and clinics across the state last week in preparation for Tropical Storm Marco and Hurricane Laura, and that, as Bel Edwards noted, southwest Louisiana was the most active region in the state for new cases before the storm arrived, the state has essentially been flying blind regarding the virus current reach, according to Dr. Alex Billioux, the head of the states Office of Public Health.

State officials announced 30 more COVID-19-related deaths last Friday, and hospitalizations for the virus have been rising again.

If we think of Laura on top of COVID or COVID on top of Laura, its new and overwhelming, said Susanne Straif-Bourgeois, an associate professor at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences School of Public Health. Expressing the anti-scientific and indifferent response of the ruling class to the social, economic and psychological impacts of the pandemic and worsening weather disasters, Bel Edwards summed up the situation by stating, It is just not possible for me to tell you what we are going to do in two weeks.
The Prime Minister's adviser on suicide prevention says Australia's response to the coronavirus pandemic has been a masterclass on disease prevention that should be applied to mental health, using the same concept of staying ahead of the curve.

Christine Morgan said on Monday she was certain the federal government was committed to reforming the mental health system despite the mounting cost of its response to the summer bushfire crisis and COVID-19.

CEO of the National Mental Health Commission Christine Morgan wants a permanent chief psychiatrist or chief mental health officer. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"Without a shadow of a doubt," Ms Morgan said. "That big reform agenda is very much on everybody's minds."

It was always difficult to get the government to invest in a benefit that was not going to be realised until the future, but the pandemic had shown how it could be done, she said.
The El Al flight carrying high-ranking Israeli and American delegations flew into Saudi airspace shortly after take-off

A Star of David-adorned El Al plane took off on Monday from Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport, carrying a high-ranking American and Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi in the first-ever direct commercial passenger flight to the United Arab Emirates.

The Israeli flag carrier's flight marks the implementation of the historic US-brokered deal to normalize relations between the two nations and solidifies the long-clandestine ties between them that have evolved over years of shared enmity toward Iran.

With the US as a matchmaker, Israel and the UAE agreed earlier this month to work toward normalization, which would make the UAE the third Arab nation to have full relations with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan. But unlike those two nations, Israel has never fought a war against the UAE and hopes to have much warmer relations.

The American delegation includes President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as national security adviser Robert O'Brien, Mideast envoy Avi Berkowitz and envoy for Iran Brian Hook. Israel will be represented by national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and the director generals of several ministries, who will meet with their Emirati counterparts.

"While this is a historic flight, we hope that this will start an even more historic journey for the Middle East and beyond," Kushner told reporters before boarding the plane.

Meir Ben-Shabbat, Israel's national security adviser and head of the Israeli delegation, said he was excited about the trip and that the aim was to lay the groundwork for cooperation in areas like tourism, medicine, technology and trade.

"This morning the traditional greeting of 'go in peace' takes on a special significance for us," he said.

The El Al flight, numbered LY971 as a gesture to the UAE's international calling code number, flew into Saudi Arabian airspace shortly after take-off. That marked another historic first for Israel and at least an acquiescence by the kingdom for the UAE's move.

Saudi King Salman, along with other Gulf Arab leaders to varying degrees, maintain their boycotts of Israel in support of Palestinians obtaining an independent state. Any long-term flights between Israel and the UAE would require Saudi clearance to be profitable. Otherwise the three hours, 20-minute long flight would take more than seven hours.

El Al spokesman Stanley Morais said the 737-900 is equipped with a missile-defense system, a standard feature on these types of planes and a requirement for this flight. After grounding its fleet due to the coronavirus, it is the airline's first flight since 1 July.

The plane was decorated with the words "for peace" in Arabic, Hebrew and English above the pilot's window. Journalists were handed special face masks decorated with the Israeli and Emirati flags. The seat protectors said "Making History" in all three languages, and Israeli folk music played in the background.

The plane's captain, Tal Becker, said he has not worked for several months and received a call out of the blue asking him to prepare for the flight. He said it took about a week to get up to speed.

The 45-year veteran, who is the senior captain in El Al's 737 fleet, said he never dreamed of flying to Abu Dhabi, calling it a "very special feeling."

The Israeli delegation will stay in the capital, Abu Dhabi, for one night before returning home on El Al flight LY972, a nod to Israel's international calling code.

Private jets have earlier flown between the two nations as part of covert talks, and Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways flew cargo freighters to Israel before to deliver coronavirus aid to the Palestinians. But the high-profile flight Monday, eagerly promoted by US officials, looks to place a solid stamp on the surprise 13 August White House announcement of Israel and the UAE establishing ties.

Since then, telephone calls were connected, and the UAE's ruler issued a decree formally ending the country's decades-long boycott of Israel.

Some Israeli firms have already signed deals with Emirati counterparts, but Monday's visit is expected to usher in a slew of further business cooperation. The official repeal of the boycott looks to open the door to more joint ventures, such as in aviation, banking and finance.

The UAE has touted the deal as a tool to force Israel into halting its contentious plan to annex parts of the West Bank sought by the Palestinians for their future state. It also may help the Emirates acquire advanced US weapons systems that have been previously unattainable, such as the F-35 fighter jet. Currently, Israel is the only country in the region with the stealth warplanes.

The Palestinians, however, have fiercely opposed the normalization as peeling away one of their few advantages in moribund peace talks with Israel. Palestinians have held public protests and burned the UAE flag in anger.

Israelis eagerly anticipate the prospect of mutual embassies, expanding tourism to the Gulf and solidifying business opportunities with another country that shares its penchant for technology and innovation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has touted the deal as validation of his vision that regional peace doesn't have to go through Palestinian acquiescence and come at the cost of ceding land. But he has come under fire from supporters at home for seemingly giving up on dreams of annexation and tacitly agreeing to a questionable arms sale that could undermine Israel's regional superiority. Netanyahu denies such a deal exists.

For Trump, the accord delivers a key foreign policy victory as he faces a tough reelection campaign.

On Sunday, Kushner said "the stage is now set" for other Arab countries to follow the UAE. However, he gave no indication that any other deals are imminent, despite a swing through the region last week by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Loneliness is recognized as a serious threat to mental health. Even as our world becomes increasingly connected over digital platforms, young people in our society are feeling a growing sense of isolation. The COVID-19 pandemic, which forced many countries to implement social distancing and school closures, magnifies the need for understanding the mental health consequences of social isolation and loneliness. While research has shown that social isolation during childhood, in particular, is detrimental to adult brain function and behavior across mammalian species, the underlying neural circuit mechanisms have remained poorly understood.

A research team from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has now identified specific sub-populations of brain cells in the prefrontal cortex, a key part of the brain that regulates social behavior, that are required for normal sociability in adulthood and are profoundly vulnerable to juvenile social isolation in mice. The study findings, which appear in the August 31 issue of Nature Neuroscience, shed light on a previously unrecognized role of these cells, known as medial prefrontal cortex neurons projecting to the paraventricular thalamus, the brain area that relays signals to various components of the brain's reward circuitry. If the finding is replicated in humans, it could lead to treatments for psychiatric disorders connected to isolation.

"In addition to identifying this specific circuit in the prefrontal cortex that is particularly vulnerable to social isolation during childhood, we also demonstrated that the vulnerable circuit we identified is a promising target for treatments of social behavior deficits," says Hirofumi Morishita, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Ophthalmology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, a faculty member of The Friedman Brain Institute and the Mindich Child Health and Development Institute, and senior author of the paper. "Through stimulation of the specific prefrontal circuit projecting to the thalamic area in adulthood, we were able to rescue the sociability deficits caused by juvenile social isolation."

Specifically, the team found that, in male mice, two weeks of social isolation immediately following weaning leads to a failure to activate medial prefrontal cortex neurons projecting to the paraventricular thalamus during social exposure in adulthood. Researchers found that juvenile isolation led to both reduced excitability of the prefrontal neurons projecting to the paraventricular thalamus and increased inhibitory input from other related neurons, suggesting a circuit mechanism underlying sociability deficits caused by juvenile social isolation. To determine whether acute restoration of the activity of prefrontal projections to the paraventricular thalamus is sufficient to ameliorate sociability deficits in adult mice that underwent juvenile social isolation, the team employed a technique known as optogenetics to selectively stimulate the prefrontal projections to paraventricular thalamus. The researchers also used chemogenetics in their study. While optogenetics enables researchers to stimulate particular neurons in freely moving animals with pulses of light, chemogenetics allows non-invasive chemical control over cell populations. By employing both of these techniques, the researchers were able to quickly increase social interaction in these mice once light pulses or drugs were administered to them.

"We checked the presence of social behavior deficits just prior to stimulation and when we checked the behavior while the stimulation was ongoing, we found that the social behavior deficits were reversed," said Dr. Morishita.

Given that social behavior deficits are a common dimension of many neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, such as autism and schizophrenia, identification of these specific prefrontal neurons will point toward therapeutic targets for the improvement of social behavior deficits shared across a range of psychiatric disorders. The circuits identified in this study could potentially be modulated using techniques like transcranial magnetic stimulation and/or transcranial direct current stimulation.

###

This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health and The Simons Foundation.

About the Mount Sinai Health System

The Mount Sinai Health System is New York City's largest academic medical system, encompassing eight hospitals, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinai is a national and international source of unrivaled education, translational research and discovery, and collaborative clinical leadership ensuring that we deliver the highest quality care--from prevention to treatment of the most serious and complex human diseases. The Health System includes more than 7,200 physicians and features a robust and continually expanding network of multispecialty services, including more than 400 ambulatory practice locations throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, and Long Island. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 14 on U.S. News & World Report's "Honor Roll" of the Top 20 Best Hospitals in the country and the Icahn School of Medicine as one of the Top 20 Best Medical Schools in country. Mount Sinai Health System hospitals are consistently ranked regionally by specialty and our physicians in the top 1% of all physicians nationally by U.S. News & World Report.

For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Automating the as-is state

Not establishing metrics and desired outcomes

Length of time to issue a license

Number of hours spent entering data

Net promoter scores (NPS)  a customer satisfaction benchmark that measures customer satisfaction and loyalty

Deficiency rates (for example, how often they had to go back and ask a customer for more information)

The number of phone calls or emails customers had to make to understand what was required on the application

Overlooking your stakeholders

Overcustomizing technology solutions

Automation has become synonymous with efficiency, and as agencies across the public sector strive to do more with less, its become a pervasive and important part of the digitization process. But starting from a faulty foundation often sets organizations up for failure and leaves them with costly technology that doesnt meet expectations over the long term.Most organizations are not inherently prepared for extensive automation. They must first build the infrastructure by optimizing current workflows and processes, defining desired business outcomes, and establishing baseline metrics to benchmark performance against. When these are overlooked in a rush to automate, the investment rarely fulfills its intended purpose  to give your organization a competitive advantage.How do you avoid this fate? The following are common pitfalls that lead to automation fails in government agencies.One of the primary reasons automation projects fail is because automation is usually applied to existing workflows and processes that have already proven inefficient. When the ultimate goal is greater speed, efficiency and quality, the underlying root cause of the problem creating the inefficiency in the first place must be examined.Diligent documentation of existing workflows and processes should always precede automation. This provides a visual for analyzing abstract workflows to determine where there are inefficiencies or opportunities to eliminate redundancies or unnecessary steps, help you prioritize the areas to automate first, and avoid the disappointment of getting more of the same even after investing in automation tools.This was the case for one construction licensing agency in Arizona that had already been using cloud-based software to help manage its 40,000 active licenses and 7,000 complaint investigations annually. Though they were managing to keep pace, they knew they could be getting more out of their system because they were still feeling the pains so many government agencies experience: The ratio of demand to available resources was continuing to grow more imbalanced.They decided to take a step back and approach automation different this time around. Applying the process improvement principles of Lean Six Sigma, they focused on eliminating waste and defects and reducing variation first. But this meant they needed to collect data so they could better understand the current system and processes, the needs and requirements, the cause-and-effect relationship between processes and outcomes, and the stakeholder point of view. This meant documenting, in detail, every step required in core workflows.Mapping their existing as-is state positioned them to identify what would be needed to achieve their desired or to-be state.Automation has to be tied to clearly defined business outcomes and key performance indicators (KPIs) for several reasons. One, it communicates to all stakeholders, particularly the leadership team, how it will deliver value and impact overall business performance. Two, it enables your team to track the efficacy and ROI of the automation over time.In the case of the construction licensing agency, as they were documenting processes, they simultaneously collected metrics such as:By doing this, they were able to see where they needed to make improvements, set more specific goals and metrics, and then track their performance against those. Going through this process, they estimated they saved 6,000 hours of data entry, application review, document scanning, workflow assignments and notifications per year. They also saw a 35 percent decrease in application deficiencies and improved customer satisfaction scores.But to gather these metrics, you have to involve your stakeholders  something this agency did from the beginning. Which leads to the next common pitfall to be avoided.Automation shouldnt be treated as another initiative  its a cultural shift and therefore must involve all of your stakeholders. The most successful automation implementations involve stakeholders at all levels, from leadership to frontline workers to customers. This not only helps avoid the responsibility of automation falling squarely on one teams shoulders and instead makes it a companywide priority, it also ensures you get the expertise and input of all stakeholders to realize the full potential of automation and avoid potential issues down the road.One potential downstream issue is the duplication of efforts and inconsistent standards across various teams and departments. Silos are just a fact of business, and when automation is isolated, you run the risk of teams re-creating their own automations and applying their own standards. But in most cases, automated assets created for one process, workflow or team can often be replicated in other scenarios to reduce waste and technical debt.Keeping pace with rapidly evolving technology and advancements in automation is an unavailing battle. What looks most promising today may be obsolete tomorrow. Though customized and highly specialized tools may look promising, they dont always make business sense, particularly for organizations operating in compliance-heavy structures. Theyre often extremely expensive to build, requiring a massive investment up front that can be difficult to recoup, and they dont offer as much flexibility as systems that are built to be configurable.Customizable solutions are also difficult and costly to manage, maintain and update. If adequate budget is not built in to maintain these updates, these assets can quickly lose crucial functionality and become unusable. Additionally, you may run the risk of these systems not being compatible with other necessary legacy technologies.For the construction licensing agency, there were three possible paths they were considering: go fully customized, use an out-of-the-box solution or go with a configurable system that was ultimately a hybrid of the first two options. They opted for the configurable system, built on Salesforce, which enabled them to customize certain components to their specific needs while taking advantage of built-in workflows that enabled them to get this stood up in their organization quickly.In choosing a configurable system, however, you want one that comes with a proven track record of success and compliance adherence specific to the public sector, is forward compatible, meaning its built with the future in mind, and that is easy to update and maintain  even by non-technical staff.Though automation is one of the most effective tools in the efficiency toolbox, it is often one of the most misunderstood and misused. The reason it worked for the construction licensing agency is because they focused first on building a structured framework that took into account current processes and deficiencies, stakeholder needs and inputs, and baseline metrics. Following in these footsteps will ensure your organization is automating the right processes for the right reasons at the right time.
A van crashed into a median strip on a mountain pass in the south-central Vietnamese city of Nha Trang on Sunday afternoon, causing a serial traffic accident involving multiple vehicles.

The accident occurred on the Cu Hin mountain pass in Phuoc Dong Commune, Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province at around 4:30 pm.

The 16-seat passenger van was descending a slope heading for downtown Nha Trang when the driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the concrete divider, causing the vehicle to overturn, witnesses said.

The incident caused several car drivers behind to slam on their brakes. A concrete mixer truck that did not stop in time bumped into these vehicles, resulting in a pile-up.

The force of the impact led to eight cars being severely damaged.

We were on the way back to Nha Trang after our vacation. Upon witnessing the accident ahead, we stopped to avoid it. But the concrete mixer truck came and slammed into us at such high speed that we could not escape in time, the driver of one of the cars said in panic.

Multiple vehicles are damaged in a pile-up on the Cu Hin mountain pass in Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province, Vietnam, August 30, 2020. Photo: Phan Song Ngan / Tuoi Tre

The truck only stopped after hitting the edge of the mountain pass.

There were no serious injuries reported. Only three people, including one woman and two children in one of the damaged cars, sustained a few scrapes.

The incident brought about serious congestion along the route.

As of 7:00 pm on Sunday, authorities were still investigating the scene and questioning the people involved to clarify the cause of the accident.

A 16-seat passenger van is on its side after hitting a concrete divider on the Cu Hin mountain pass in Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province, Vietnam, August 30, 2020. Photo: Phan Song Ngan / Tuoi Tre

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There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. Indeed, AnteoTech (ASX:ADO) stock is up 331% in the last year, providing strong gains for shareholders. Having said that, unprofitable companies are risky because they could potentially burn through all their cash and become distressed.

In light of its strong share price run, we think now is a good time to investigate how risky AnteoTech's cash burn is. For the purpose of this article, we'll define cash burn as the amount of cash the company is spending each year to fund its growth (also called its negative free cash flow). The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.

Check out our latest analysis for AnteoTech

Does AnteoTech Have A Long Cash Runway?

A cash runway is defined as the length of time it would take a company to run out of money if it kept spending at its current rate of cash burn. AnteoTech has such a small amount of debt that we'll set it aside, and focus on the AU$3.2m in cash it held at June 2020. Importantly, its cash burn was AU$2.8m over the trailing twelve months. That means it had a cash runway of around 14 months as of June 2020. While that cash runway isn't too concerning, sensible holders would be peering into the distance, and considering what happens if the company runs out of cash. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

How Is AnteoTech's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

In the last year, AnteoTech did book revenue of AU$1.3m, but its revenue from operations was less, at just AU$299k. We don't think that's enough operating revenue for us to understand too much from revenue growth rates, since the company is growing off a low base. So we'll focus on the cash burn, today. With the cash burn rate up 14% in the last year, it seems that the company is ratcheting up investment in the business over time. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but investors should be mindful of the fact that will shorten the cash runway. Admittedly, we're a bit cautious of AnteoTech due to its lack of significant operating revenues. So we'd generally prefer stocks from this list of stocks that have analysts forecasting growth.

Story continues

How Hard Would It Be For AnteoTech To Raise More Cash For Growth?

Given its cash burn trajectory, AnteoTech shareholders may wish to consider how easily it could raise more cash, despite its solid cash runway. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash and drive growth. By looking at a company's cash burn relative to its market capitalisation, we gain insight on how much shareholders would be diluted if the company needed to raise enough cash to cover another year's cash burn.

AnteoTech's cash burn of AU$2.8m is about 3.0% of its AU$94m market capitalisation. That means it could easily issue a few shares to fund more growth, and might well be in a position to borrow cheaply.

How Risky Is AnteoTech's Cash Burn Situation?

On this analysis of AnteoTech's cash burn, we think its cash burn relative to its market cap was reassuring, while its increasing cash burn has us a bit worried. Cash burning companies are always on the riskier side of things, but after considering all of the factors discussed in this short piece, we're not too worried about its rate of cash burn. Taking a deeper dive, we've spotted 4 warning signs for AnteoTech you should be aware of, and 1 of them doesn't sit too well with us.

Of course AnteoTech may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks that insiders are buying.

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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
A convicted pedophile got caught in the act of raping a 16-year old boy. He shot the teen to death when his victim asked for help. The sick perpetrator is now incarcerated and accused of murdering a minor cruelly.

The reports state that in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the mentally twisted sex offender got on top of his victim to consummate his bestiality. His victim tried to shout for help but was shot several times.

Responsible for the atrocity on August 29 is a 46-year-old Hispanic man named Orlando Duarte who attempted to rape his victim in broad daylight. Evidence against the sick perp has led the police to file formal charges of murder against him, reported Meaww.

Sources verify that Duarte is a documented sex offender, and is on the list of the state's website of all the sex offenders caught by the authorities, according to ABC. Based on the report by the Dauphin County District Attorney's Office, the sex offender shot and killed the victim with a firearm. The exact location of the crime is at 18th and Forster Streets, happening at 1 p.m.

His victim is identified as Kyan King, who survives the initial gunshots but passed away in the hospital later. One paper said the shooting of the young victim was seen by a passerby, who caught the perv on top of the child. The victim tried to call for help several times. However, he was pumped full of lead before he got any help. One accidental witness identified herself as Ava Burton, told Pennlive that she saw the man on top of King who was then unclothed on the ground and was shot dead.

Also read: Hartford Man Decapitates Roommate With Samurai Sword Over Heated Argument

She heard the victim call for help several times. That was the time when the sick sex offender decided to shoot King point-blank. When the victim died, the perpetrator ran away fast from the crime scene, said the witness. The Harrisburg police reached the crime scene and were able to see the suspect running away from the victim's body. One officer ran after the sex offender into an alley, chasing him down and eventually catching him.

Court records have indicated that Duarte, the accused has been sent to prison for raping a minor in 2010. The examination of former charges and prior sentence shows that the perp was given a sentence of four to eight years in 2012 with 10 years probation as a repulsive sex offender. Some of his crimes committed against children are unimaginable like rape and indecency. His crimes against children were indicative of a sick Hispanic mind.

The sex offender admitted the accusations against him. Court records cite that it was a no contest to simple assault, endangering another person, and indecent assault against a minor with disorderly conduct, wherein he was sentenced 6 to 23 years behind bars. For the murder and attack of Kyan King, Duarte was jailed in Dauphin County Prison without bail. He will be tried in court by September 28.

Related article: Mom Tortures 3-Year-Old to Death, Mutilated Her Body Parts and Tried Dissolving Remains in Bleach

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / Kontrol Energy Corp. (CSE:KNR)(OTCQB:KNRLF)(FSE:1K8) ("Kontrol" or "Company") a leader in the energy efficiency sector through IoT, Cloud and SaaS technology announces its financial results for the six months ended June 30, 2020.

A complete set of Financial Statements and Management's Discussion & Analysis will be filed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) on August 31, 2020. A call to discuss the financial results has been scheduled for Monday, August 31, 2020 at 4:30pm (EST). See details below.

"In Q2 2020 we were able to navigate the complex business challenges presented by COVID-19 and make important strategic advances while maintaining positive EBITDA and cash flow from operations," says Paul Ghezzi, CEO. "This environment has made it challenging to gain access to customer sites for projects; however, our recurring revenue and service platform have performed very well. In addition, we initiated the development of the Kontrol BioCloud, a new technology designed to detect and alert for the COVID-19 virus. We continue to fund all BioCloud development through internal cash generation. Kontrol does not need to raise capital to operate its business."

Subsequent to the second quarter end, the Company completed the acquisition of New Found Air ("NFA") - a building service and solutions company. The operations of NFA are in the process of being merged with Kontrol's existing platform. NFA expands Kontrol's building footprint and provides an established customer base with a potential significant cross-selling platform for Kontrol's smart building technology.

Q2 2020 Financial Summary

PRO FORMA WITH NFA Financial Results Three months ended Three months ended (Unaudited) June 30, 2020 June 30, 2019 June 30, 2020 Revenue $ 2,273,537 $ 3,912,186 $ 2,970,189 Gross profit $ 1,014,378 $ 1,895,500 $ 1,491,798 Net loss $ (437,194 ) $ (595,281 ) $ (262,518 ) Basic and Diluted EPS $ (0.01 ) $ (0.02 ) $ (0.01 ) Add for adjusted EBITDA reconciliation: Amort. & depreciation $ 476,454 $ 410,073 $ 476,454 Finance expense $ 303,495 $ 277,309 $ 303,495 Share based compensation $ 49,904 $ 135,710 $ 49,904 Acquisition related exp. $ |10,000 $ 5,220 $ 10,000 Adjusted EBITDA* $ 402,659 $ 233,031 $ 577,335



Six months ended 2020 Financial Summary

PRO FORMA WITH NFA Financial Results Six months ended Six months ended (Unaudited) June 30, 2020 June 30, 2019 June 30, 2020 Revenue $ 5,035,091 $ 7,590,546 $ 7,070,203 Gross profit $ 2,713,820 $ 3,755,761 $ 3,950,818 Net loss $ (1,112,364 ) $ (1,276,478 ) $ (546,260 ) Basic and Diluted EPS $ (0.04 ) $ (0.04 ) $ (0.02 ) Add for adjusted EBITDA reconciliation: Amort. and depreciation $ 951,858 $ 869,498 $ 952,624 Finance expense $ 566,396 $ 506,820 $ 566,396 Share based compensation $ 228,112 $ 389,890 $ 228,112 Acquisition related exp. $ 10,000 $ 11,098 $ 10,000 Adjusted EBITDA* $ 644,002 $ 500,828 $ 1,210,872



Strengthened Financial Position

Kontrol continues to focus on strengthening its Balance Sheet. The Company's cash position at the end of Q2 is approximately $1.8 Million. During the second quarter of 2020 the Company announced the commencement of a non-brokered private placement (with an exchange of units) of up to $5.8 million principal amount 8% unsecured (and non-convertible) debentures maturing on October 31, 2022. The Company intends to allocate up to $5.8 million of the units for issuance to holders of 2020 debenture units who wish to exchange their 2020 debenture units for units in the offering. The Company anticipates that the majority of unitholders will exchange their units in the months of September and October.

The Company closed the first tranche of non-brokered private placement for 2023 Convertible Debenture Proceeds in the second quarter of net $1.05 million and an additional approximate $900,000 subsequent to the second quarter. The completion of the financing was primarily allocated to the closing of the NFA acquisition

FY 2020 Outlook

The Company continues to strategically focus on the growth of its recurring revenues. With the recently completed acquisition of NFA and the existing customer base, approximately 30% of all revenues are now recurring. The Company's goal is to drive recurring revenues towards 50% of all total revenues by the end of 2021.

While there appears to be a general improvement with site access to customer facilities there is also ongoing uncertainty presented by COVID-19 travel restrictions and self-quarantine. These conditions make it difficult to forecast project revenues and provide any guidance. Any previous guidance will be retracted, and the Company will continue to provide ongoing reporting and announce larger project revenues as they are generated.

Kontrol BioCloud

The Company is developing its BioCloud technology and has a achieved a number of significant milestones, including the initial funding from the Government, positive testing of the detection mechanism, and positive testing of the BioCloud fully operational prototype. The Company seeks to complete testing with the live COVID-19 virus during the week of August 31 and will provide those results when available. The Company's objective is to have BioCloud commercially available to potential customers in 2020. There is no assurance that the Company can achieve this internal goal.

About Kontrol BioCloud

BioCloud is a real-time analyzer developed to detect airborne viruses. It has been designed to operate as a safe space technology by sampling the air quality over time. With a proprietary detection chamber that can be replaced as needed, viruses are detected, and an alert system is created in the Cloud or over local intranet. BioCloud has been designed for spaces where individuals gather including classrooms, retirement homes, hospitals, mass transportation and others. It can be an important technology which supports the entire system of individual testing and contact tracing.

The Company is not making any express or implied claims that its product has the ability to eliminate, cure or contain the COVID-19 (or SARS-2 Coronavirus) at this time.

* Adjusted EBITDA is a non-IRFS financial measure. The Company defines Adjusted EBITDA as net income or loss before interest, income taxes, amortization, and depreciation, share based compensation, and acquisition related expenses.

Conference Call Details:

Title: Kontrol Energy Second Quarter 2020 Financial Results Event Date: Monday, August 31, 2020 - 4:30PM Eastern Time Event Duration: 60 Minutes Event Link: Webcast URL https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/2402/37011 Participant Number: Toll Free: 877-407-0782

International: 201-689-8567



Please connect at least 5 minutes prior to the conference call to ensure adequate time for any software download that may be required to join the webcast.

About Kontrol Energy

Kontrol Energy Corp. (CSE: KNR) (OTCQB: KNRLF) (FSE: 1K8) is a leader in the energy efficiency sector through IoT, Cloud and SaaS technology. With a disciplined mergers and acquisition strategy, combined with organic growth, Kontrol Energy Corp. provides market-based energy solutions to our customers designed to reduce their overall cost of energy while providing a corresponding reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Kontrol Energy is one of Canada's fastest growing companies in 2018 and 2019 as ranked by Canadian Business and Maclean's.



Additional information about Kontrol Energy Corp. can be found on its website at www.kontrolenergy.com and by reviewing its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.



For further information, contact:

Paul Ghezzi, Chief Executive Officer

paul@kontrolenergy.com or admin@kontrolenergy.com

Kontrol Energy Corp.

180 Jardin Drive, Unit 9, Vaughan, ON L4K 1X8

Tel: 905.766.0400, Toll free: 1.844.566.8123

Neither IIROC nor any stock exchange or other securities regulatory authority accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Information

Certain information included in this press release, including information relating to future financial or operating performance and other statements that express the expectations of management or estimates of future performance constitute "forward-looking statements". Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding possible future acquisitions and/or investments in operating businesses and/or technologies, accelerated organic growth, Adjusted EBITDA, expansion of smart energy technologies into US markets, strategic partnerships to expand into North American Markets, acceleration of recurring SaaS revenues, the provision of solutions to customers and Greenhouse Gas emissions reductions, proposed financial savings and sustainable energy benefits and energy monitoring. Where the Company expresses or implies an expectation or belief as to future events or results, such expectation or belief are based on assumptions made in good faith and believed to have a reasonable basis. Such assumptions include, without limitation, that suitable businesses and technologies for acquisition and/or investment will be available, that such acquisitions and or investment transactions will be concluded, that sufficient capital will be available to the Company, that technology will be as effective as anticipated, that organic growth will occur, and others.. However, forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed, projected, or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks include, but are not limited to, that sufficient capital and financing cannot be obtained on reasonable terms, or at all, that technologies will not prove as effective as expected, that customers and potential customers will not be as accepting of the Company's product and service offering as expected, and government and regulatory factors impacting the energy conservation industry. In particular, successful development and commercialization of the Kontrol BioCloud Analyzer are subject to the risk that the Kontrol BioCloud Analyzer may not prove to be successful in detecting the virus that causes COVID-19 effectively or at all, uncertainty of timing or availability of any regulatory approvals and Kontrol's lack of track record in developing products for medical applications. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements and the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained herein are made as at the date hereof and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or revise any such forward-looking statements or any forward-looking statements contained in any other documents whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable securities law.

SOURCE: Kontrol Energy Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/604111/Kontrol-Energy-Reports-Second-Quarter-2020-Results
A 25-year-old Brockton man was arrested on Friday after allegedly dragging a federal police officer with his car following a traffic stop on Route 28 in Avon, authorities said on Monday.

Tykeam Jackson was stopped by a federal officer on July 27 for speeding, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Massachusetts. Instead of getting out of his vehicle as instructed, Jackson sped off, dragging the officer several feet and throwing him to the ground, authorities said.

Jackson reached a speed of roughly 100 mph as he fled, driving into oncoming traffic and ignoring traffic signals, prosecutors said. After he tried crossing three lanes of traffic, Jackson lost of control of his vehicle and crashed into a guardrail, they said.

A Massachusetts State Police trooper watched Jackson run into and obstruct traffic on a busy part of the roadway, authorities said. Jackson was then arrested.

Jackson is currently on probation in from an armed robbery conviction in Suffolk Superior Court, authorities said. He was charged in a federal criminal complaint with one count of assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal officer in connection with the July 27 traffic stop.
Till his resignation from the post of finance minister in 2012, Pranab Mukherjee was regarded as one of the most influential leaders in the Congress party and in the Manomhan Singh government.

He wore with aplomb many hatsthe governments top trouble-shooter, a consensus builder in the party, a skilled political negotiator and one of the few leaders who could cut across party lines to resolve any crisis.

That said, an evaluation of Mukherjees term as countrys finance minister, particularly his second stint (2009-2012), would show it wasnt all good with the economy.

By the time Mukherjee bid adieu to the North Block to contest the presidential election, the fiscal scenario was showing early signs of stress. That was a period when Indias fiscal situation worsened and the economy began to fall into a crisis phase after witnessing a high growth period, riding on the post global financial crisis fiscal stimulus.

The GDP growth during Mukherjees term averaged above 8 percent but the high growth came at a price.

The inability to unwind the stimulus on time gave fiscal shocks to the economy in later years. In 2011-12, the year when Mukherjee exited the finance ministry, the countrys fiscal deficit shot up to close to 6 percent. It has never really recovered since.

It wont be an exaggeration to say that Mukherjee, as finance minister, presided over a period of high growth riding on post-crisis stimulus but that the growth was built on weak economic fundamentals.

The investment boom in the post-crisis years and the governments push for public sector banks to step up lending to reboot the economy was based on the assumptions of continued high growth in later years.

But that assumption proved terribly wrong after 2013. Economy began to falter. The result was a prolonged phase of high fiscal deficit and huge build-up of non-performing assets (NPAs) in the banking sector. The ghost of loose fiscal policy management continues to haunt Indian economy even today.

Retrospective tax

Mukherjee received the biggest criticism for his flip-flops on taxation policies. That irked investors and growth lobbyists simultaneously. Despite resistance from all quarters including from his own parts senior leaders, Mukherjee chose to amend the Income Tax Act retrospectively in 2012. Soon, this became the biggest disputed and most contentious tax provisions India witnessed in all time.

What did the tax rules imply? Under the controversial amendment, Indian government could reopen tax cases beginning 1st April, 1962.

This single announcement ruffled many feathers in the corporate world, including that of Vodafone. Mukherjees arguments were very clear in favour of retro-taxationa country has the right to assert the right of the state in taxation and address the problem of companies which route money through tax havens.

"This retrospective arrangement was not merely to check the erosion of revenues in present cases but also to prevent the outgo of revenue in old cases. As Finance Minister, I was convinced of my duty to protect the interests of the country from the revenue point of view," Mukherjee wrote in his book The Coalition Years 1996-2015.

ALSO READ: From UPA's troubleshooter to Congress decisionmaker, a look at life of 'Statesman' Pranab Mukherjee

But the truth is despite his arguments, Mukherjee didnt receive the wholehearted support of the top leaders of his party, including Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, who feared the move would backfire on the party and cause outflow of money.

P Chidamabaram, who succeeded Mukherjee as FM, began the emergency damage control within hours of taking over. The fears of investors were addressed to some extent in later years by promising reversals of retrospective taxation policies.

In fact, I cant recall any big positives in the Mukherjee era except the fact that growth was good. But except that most other fiscal parameters were in bad shape, said the chief economist of a leading rating agency. He did not want to be named.

RBI-govt relation

During Mukherjees term, the issue of government undermining RBI autonomy thrust in the spotlight. The RBI was consistently under pressure to pay heed to requests from the government on rate decisions. In fact, before every monetary policy, the government made its wish list public for the RBI policy and failure to cut rates often evoked critical comments from babus.

This wasnt limited to monetary policy. Once, Mukherjee practically announced in Parliament that RBI will issue more private bank licences. He said this at a time when the central bank was reluctant to give new bank permits.

Mukherjee's announcement caught the RBI by surprise. This meant that the RBI had to act on fresh permits. Still, it was only after a few months, the RBI published a discussion paper on the issue to seek comments from the public.

Mukherjees tenure as FM wasnt a period with too many positives for the Indian economy. But he cant be blamed entirely for that. The entire world was recovering from a devastating crisis. The unwinding of the stimulus was tricky for India, as any other country, at that juncture. Let's say, Mukherjee took up the FM job at North Block at a difficult time.

ALSO READ: Pranab Mukherjee  The veteran Congressman and his uneasy relationship with the party

An assertive communicator

While the success and failure of Mukherjees term as FM is a matter of debate, there is no doubt that Indian politics have not seen many leaders who can be compared with Mukherjees coordination, communication skills and consensus-building ability.

Once, at a press interaction on the sidelines of an event in Mumbai, reporters chased Mukherjee for comments on the worsening fiscal situation.

Even when the barrage of questions continued, Mukherjee remained silent and stood there for a few minutes and finally responded. Either you talk or I. And one question at a time. If not, Im going back. The reaction surprised the press for a moment and order followed.

Mukherjee, who wanted to be a horse

Once, in an interview with a television channel, Mukherjees sister, Annapurna Dev recalled a conversation with Mukerjee. When he first became an MP and came to Delhi, the distance from Mukherjees official quarters to the President's House was not much.

While both were sitting in the veranda watching the path of the President's Bodyguard and how well the caretaker groomed the horses, Mukherjee said: Didi, it is such fun for the horses ... just see, isn't it? They don't have to work, they just eat, and just look at their shining coats ... When I die I will become a rashtrapati's (president) horse.

But fate had other plans, Mukherjee went on to be the President and the horses he so admired were part of his retinue.

After becoming president, Mukherjee revived a presidential tradition (discontinued three decades ago) by riding a six-horse buggy (carriage), instead of the official limousine, to the Beating Retreat ceremony.

Clearly, Mukherjee was a political leader who left his mark on Indian politics. He remained the Congress go-to man till the end despite occasional frictions with the party in later years.
WASHINGTONLast week in North Carolina, President Donald Trump delivered a monologue about how he sees voter motivation shaping up for this election.

We have tremendous enthusiasm. I think we have record enthusiasm. We have a base the likes of which nobodys seen, Trump said. Everybody here is going to vote. Everybody in our base. I mean, we have a tremendous base. They dont. They have no enthusiasm for their candidate. Democratic voters, he said, are saying, I dont care if Biden gets in.

He mentioned lawn signs as part of his evidence. In that one respect, of visible allegiance to a particular candidate, theres little argument with his observation. Driving around rural America this year, Ive seen lots of Trump flags and signs on homes and small businesses, and red MAGA caps on peoples heads. The same is true at the rallies he hosts, where his faithful supporters line up for hours. Even many rallies he doesnt host, such as gun rights and anti-abortion rallies Ive attended, could easily be mistaken for Trump campaign events by the signs and clothing of the participants. Everywhere, his supporters carry his name on banners.

Theres no equivalent Ive seen for Joe Biden. You have a hard time finding Trump voters in Washington, DC, but you dont see many Biden/Harris lawn signs, either. What you do see more often are anti-Trump signs: one popular one reads ANY FUNCTIONING ADULT 2020. One Biden campaign lawn sign Ive seen in the wild has the candidates name spelled phonetically to read Bye, Don.

Which is to say, the enthusiasm among Biden voters is not necessarily about Biden. Which doesnt mean it hasnt fired them up.

I think the Democrats are every bit as enthusiastic as Republicans right now about turning out (to vote), but Democrats are enthusiastic not for their candidate, but about ousting Trump, said Lara Brown when I spoke with her in the spring.

Brown, a political scientist at George Washington University and the author of the new book Amateur Hour: Presidential Character and the Question of Leadership, said that in 2016, many Democrats and independents who liked neither candidate stayed home or voted for third-party candidates, thinking Trump was unlikely to win. Now they know different.

This year, she suggests, those voters are likely to be back in force. I imagine were going to have very high turnout, she said. Late last week, Brown said the only recent noteworthy change to the dynamic is that Bidens favourability among voters has ticked up a bit over the summer.

Her assessment of many voters motivations matches up with what I heard anecdotally in various states through the primaries and conventions. In Langley, Virginia in March, I spoke with lifelong Republican Alexandra Bowes, who voted for a third party in 2016. This year she cast her first-ever Democratic ballot in the primaries. I would vote for anyone in the general election who has the chance to beat Trump, she said then. I dont think that Trump reflects the values of most American people. I think those values are kindness and respect for our fellow human being.

I heard similar things elsewhere, consistently. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Cassidy Rodencal told me Biden/Harris wasnt her first choice of ticket, but I still believe it is the our best choice. I dont believe we can do another four years of Trump. In Sumter, South Carolina retired marine James Franklin said, I like people to have character. You know, to me, theres no character in the current president. Bruce Fealk from Rochester Hills, Michigan recently told me, We have an incompetent president that does basically everything wrong. In Wilmington, North Carolina, a woman named Brenda told me the criteria determining her vote was Beat Donald Trump.

And that is a sentiment you see filling the streets at the anti-racism rallies, at womens marches and at save-the-postal-service demonstrations. Not support for Biden, but fanatical opposition to Trump. At a racial justice march in Wisconsin in August, many t-shirts read Keep America Great: Dump Trump. At Al Sharptons anniversary March on Washington on Friday, some signs read Hey Don, youre fired.

The same motivation is behind high-profile, well-funded organizations such as the Lincoln Project, made up of former Republicans, who are actively campaigning against Trumps reelection.

It is a different kind of partisanship, that might lead to a different kind of enthusiasm for voting. Some experts have been arguing that the throw-the-bums-out motivation is what actually determines American elections. Rachel Bitecofer of the Niskanen Center came to high-profile attention when her negative partisanship voter turnout model predicted the Democratic surge in the 2018 mid-term elections. Her prediction for the general election  issued in 2019 before the primaries to choose a candidate were even conducted  is that strong anti-Trump sentiment will lead to a substantial Democratic party victory. Democrats are fired up in a way they were not in 2016 because of negative partisanship powered by backlash to Trump and thus would increase their turnout significantly and be less likely to defect to third-party candidates. An update Bitecofer published after the primaries only predicted a stronger Democratic win.

Which is to say, Trump may be right that enthusiasm and voter turnout will play a big part in the election. Its just not clear its going to work in his favour.

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The antichrist cycle

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In his book, How Should We Then Live?, Francis Schaeffer describes the background and culture that brought about the totalitarian rule of the Caesars this way:

Before the days of Caesar, the senate could not keep order. Armed gangs terrorized the city of Rome and the normal processes of government were disrupted as rivals fought for power. Self-interest became more significant than social interest, however sophisticated the trappings. Thus, in desperation the people accepted authoritarian government.

Sound familiar?

In America, were now seeing a near-complete breakdown of law and order that differs from past episodes in at least two ways. First, historically, criminals used to at least acknowledge they were committing moral wrongs, but not today. Witness the recent example of the looting and property damage that totaled $60 million in Chicago in just one night, and rather than being decried, it was brazenly supported by groups who called it reparations.

Secondly, in many cases, the prosecutors and politicians who have been appointed to maintain civil peace are cowardly bowing to the mobs and  in an unprecedented fashion  choosing to keep the criminals safe from us instead of keeping us safe from the criminals.

In short, the same type of anarchy that ancient Rome experienced is occurring today. And like back then, such uproar will produce desperation in a population who, hoping to re-establish peace, will cede their freedoms to an authoritarian ruler who appears on the surface to give them what they want.

But the Church wont bow the knee, right? Dont be so sure. Remember that even the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church rejoiced at the elevation of Stalin to the role of Premier of the Soviet Union and saw it as a good and providential act of God that would result in peace and prosperity for their country. How wrong they were.

Sadly, history shows this cycle repeats time and again. Its also how the Bible says the ultimate and final dictator will one day take control.

The ultimate replacement with the ultimate gift

You can count on it like the rising of the sun: when you hold Gods funeral, someone will always take His place. The names differ, but the pattern remains the same.

The lineage of Egyptian kings, and names like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Caligula, Domitian push right up into the past century with Hitler, Stalin, etc., and are exhibited today with leaders like those in North Korea and China. All of them being biblical types and examples of what John said long ago: so now many antichrists have come (1 John 2:18).

We mistakenly think that something like that cant happen in America, but historian Arnold Toynbee observes: By forcing on mankind more and more lethal weapons, and at the same time making the world more and more interdependent economically, technology has brought mankind to such a degree of distress that we are ripe for the deifying of any new Caesar who might succeed in giving the world unity and peace.[1]

In other words, everyone is at risk.

That ultimate future fuhrer  antichrist  is predicted in both the Old and New Testaments. And dont let his label fool you. The default is to think of anti as meaning the opposite of something, and while that will be true, the Greek term used for it () can also mean in place of, i.e. a replacement, and in this case, a substitute for the real Messiah and true Prince of peace, Jesus.

Scripture says the antichrist will use a false peace to counteract global turmoil and thereby deceive the world into granting him ultimate rule. Recall that the first horse of the apocalypse to emerge in Revelation is a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer (6:2). Most all commentators agree that a victor with a bow and no arrows equates to overcoming people with peace vs. war, which is the next horse that appears and takes that false peace from the earth (vs. 3).

Paul describes a similar scene during the last days and says, While they are saying, Peace and safety! then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape (1 Thess. 5:3). Jesus likens it to the days of Noah and says the people back then, knew nothing about what would happen [i.e. they were living normal, peaceful lives] until the flood came and took them all away (Matt. 24:39).

Cycle prerequisites

To successfully set the stage for totalitarian rule takes more than just civil unrest and a desire for peace. You also need to strip people of certain rights and abilities like being able to possess the means to practically defend your life from criminals and a corrupt government (second amendment) and the freedoms of religion and speech (first amendment of the Constitution). Both are no-nos to any despotic government.

First they come for your means of self-protection, then they come for your faith and voice, and lastly, they come for you.

This is precisely whats happening right now in America. In short, our religious foundation and political philosophy that gives us our freedoms to choose is being forcefully evicted for a religion and political philosophy that takes away our freedoms to choose.

Once thats accomplished, it leads to the kind of cultural upheaval and inevitable appointment of authoritarian rulers who eventually make things much worse. Its not unreasonable to believe the same progression as the one being experienced now wont lead to the last world-wide dictator, just as theologian Renald Showers describes in his commentary on Daniel:

The more intense mans predicament, the more entrenched is mans determination to prove that he can rule the world without God. Such firm resolve together with the worsening world situation makes man susceptible to the claims of an ultimate man  a man who opposes God, who seems to have the ability necessary to solve the worlds problems and to rule the world well without God, a man who claims to have attained deity and has supernatural powers which appear to support that claim, a man who eventually demands total devotion from the human race and is the ultimate expression of absolute dictatorship and ruthless self-rule.

[1]http://goo.gl/oKtna
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by Melani Manel Perera

Centrally located on the island, the Kandakadu Rehab Centre has become a COVID-19 cluster, with 629 people infected. About 50,000 Sri Lankans have lost their jobs abroad from lockdowns and plan to come home.

Colombo (AsiaNews)  The number of people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus continues to rise in Sri Lanka, especially at one rehab centre and from the growing number of Sri Lankan migrants coming home.

Overall, some 2,984 cases have been reported in the country with 12 deaths. The authorities yesterday added ten more cases at the Kandakadu Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre and two cases involving Sri Lankans returning from the Maldives.

The possible spread in correctional and other facilities is of great concern. The Kandakadu centre, which is centrally located, has become a COVID-19 cluster with 629 people.

Opened in 2010 to re-educate former Tamil Tigers terrorists and fighters, it was repurposed to treat drug and other addicts.

So far, at least 508 residents have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2, plus 67 staff members, 5 teachers, 48 relatives and associates, as well as a prisoner from Welikada prison.

At a press conference, the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army, General Shavendra Silva, noted that another source of contagion are Sri Lankans or foreigners coming from countries affected by COVID-19.

Because of lockdowns abroad, some 50,000 Sri Lankans have lost their jobs, especially in the Persian Gulf, and are trying to come home.

The government plans to repatriate them, but is now concerned that, in addition to its cost, the operation might see returnees spread the virus

For this reason, General Silva has urged Sri Lankans to remain alert and not let their guard down.

During the recent election campaign, many people failed to wear a mask and maintain social distancing.

In view of this, the general warned that Whilst the virus is not spreading among communities in Sri Lanka at the moment, the threat of that happening cannot be ruled out.
The Greater Accra Regional Police Command is looking for two persons believed to be associated with the killing of two celebrants during the Homowo festivities at Abossey Okai in Accra.

The two shot into the crowd while firing muskets at the event, killing two persons.

In an interview with Citi News, Greater Accra Regional Police PRO, DSP EfiaTenge said the offenders who were identified in the course of investigations are yet to be apprehended.

The Police began investigations into the shooting incident and we have been able to identify those who went to shoot. We are on a manhunt for them. Initially, we did not know who they were but the fact that we have been able to identify them alone is a good step. We are still hunting for them.

The incident occurred after the chief and residents of Abossey Okai organised their Homowo festival without notifying the Police.

Gunshots were heard outside while some customary rites were being performed as part of the celebration.

Three persons sustained injuries while two other persons were killed in the process.

---citinewsroom
TORONTO, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- dynaCERT Inc. (TSX: DYA) (OTCQX: DYFSF) (FRA: DMJ)

(dynaCERT or the Company) is pleased to announce that Alltrucks GmbH & Co. KG, a joint venture of the leading automotive and commercial vehicle suppliers Bosch, Knorr-Bremse and ZF, has entered into a formal Agreement with dynaCERT effective September 1st, 2020. Alltrucks offers a Pan-European workshop concept for maintaining and repairing commercial vehicles of all types and brands. Under the joint brand Alltrucks Truck & Trailer Service one of the largest workshop networks in Europe is operated, which already 700 workshops in 12 countries have joined.

In cooperation with the dynaCERT GmbH sales team, a wholly owned subsidiary of dynaCERT in Europe, Alltrucks intends to introduce and promote marketing, installation and servicing of dynaCERTs HydraGEN product line to the established network of Alltrucks.

dynaCERT and Alltrucks will be initially launching in Germany in September 2020 and plan an expansion to all countries in which Alltrucks is active. As a result of this cooperation, the commercial vehicle workshops participating in the Alltrucks network have the opportunity to become resellers, installers and service providers of dynaCERTs HydraGEN product line.

Homer Smyrliadis, Managing Director of Alltrucks, stated: With dynaCERT as a new cooperation partner, we can expand the competences as well as the business opportunities of our workshop partners in the field of retrofitting combustion motors to achieve more fuel efficiency and emission reduction. This will enable our partners to provide new services to their customers in the future, and at the same time to contribute to the environmental relief. We are excited that our workshop network will work with dynaCERT's innovative hydrogen technology in the German market.

Jim Payne, CEO of dynaCERT stated, This new cooperation can expose dynaCERTs HydraGEN Technology to the ground level of Alltrucks workshop partners in Europe, the very people who have expertise in repair and maintenance of trucks in many of our targeted markets. dynaCERT is very pleased that such a high-profile European organization has endorsed our products and we look forward to a long-lasting relationship with Alltrucks.

About Alltrucks GmbH & Co. KG

Alltrucks GmbH & Co. KG was founded in 2013 as a joint venture by the three leading automotive and commercial vehicle suppliers Bosch, Knorr-Bremse and ZF. Under the Alltrucks Truck & Trailer brand, Alltrucks offers to commercial vehicle workshops a wide range of services for maintaining and repairing light to heavy commercial vehicles, trailers and semitrailers  across all brands. These services include multi-brand vehicle diagnostics, a technical hotline, customised training courses, technical information, a 24/7 service, marketing support and professional quality management. With headquarters in Munich, Alltrucks is continuously expanding its portfolio, including new cooperation programmes and fleet services throughout Europe. More information is available at: www.alltrucks.com.

About dynaCERT Inc.

dynaCERT Inc. manufactures and distributes Carbon Emission Reduction Technology for use with internal combustion engines. As part of the growing global hydrogen economy, our patented technology creates hydrogen and oxygen on-demand through a unique electrolysis system and supplies these gases through the air intake to enhance combustion, resulting in lower carbon emissions and greater fuel efficiency. Our technology is designed for use with many types and sizes of diesel engines used in on-road vehicles, reefer trailers, off-road construction, power generation, mining and forestry equipment, marine vessels and railroad locomotives. Website: www. dynaCERT .com .

READER ADVISORY

Except for statements of historical fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. In particular, forward-looking information in this press release includes, but is not limited to completion of the Offering, satisfaction of TSX listing conditions and regulatory approvals. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. We cannot guarantee future results, performance of achievements. Consequently, there is no representation that the actual results achieved will be the same, in whole or in part, as those set out in the forward-looking information.

Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking information. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause the results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: uncertainty as to whether our strategies and business plans will yield the expected benefits; availability and cost of capital; the ability to identify and develop and achieve commercial success for new products and technologies; the level of expenditures necessary to maintain and improve the quality of products and services; changes in technology and changes in laws and regulations; the uncertainty of the emerging hydrogen economy; including the hydrogen economy moving at a pace not anticipated; our ability to secure and maintain strategic relationships and distribution agreements; and the other risk factors disclosed under our profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com . Readers are cautioned that this list of risk factors should not be construed as exhaustive.

The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. We undertake no duty to update any of the forward-looking information to conform such information to actual results or to changes in our expectations except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

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 the release.

On Behalf of the Board

Murray James Payne, CEO

For more information, please contact:

Jim Payne, CEO & President

dynaCERT Inc.

#101  501 Alliance Avenue

Toronto, Ontario M6N 2J1

+1 (416) 766-9691 x 2

jpayne@dynaCERT.com
The Indian Army on Monday said it thwarted Chinese troops' attempt to transgress into areas near the southern bank of Pangong lake near Chushul area in Ladakh on night of August 29 and 30. Refuting the charges, China has said that its border troops "never cross the Line of Actual Control (LAC)".

"Chinese border troops always strictly abide by the LAC. They never cross the line. Border troops on the two sides have been in close communication regarding the issues on the ground," said spokesman of Chinese Foreign Ministry Zhao Lijian in response to the fresh incident at Pangong Tso.

Brigade Commander level flag meeting is currently in progress at Chushul sector along the LAC to resolve the issues. On the ongoing meeting, Lijian said, "What I said is that the two sides through diplomatic and military channels maintain close communication. As to specific meetings and talks, if there is anything we will release it in timely manner."

As per report, about 200 Chinese soldiers came in a SUV vehicular convoy at around 11 pm on August 29. They ran into Indian post, which was challenged by Indian forces deployed in the area. The Indian Army had prior intel about the deployment and was prepared to handle any situation in that area. No injuries or casualties were reported.

China's statement came hours the Indian Army issued a statement, saying that Chinese troops carried out "provocative" military movements to change the status quo on previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements over the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh.

"Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground," Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

The ministry further stated that the Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity.

Also Read: Govt spending saved the day for GDP in June quarter

Also Read: Remembering Pranab Mukherjee and his economic legacy

Also Read: Worst in 24 years! India's Q1 GDP contracts 23.9% in June quarter
(Photo : Snowflake) Frank Slootman currently serves as Chairman and CEO at Snowflake (Photo : John Schnobrich/Unsplash) CEO Frank Slootman Set to Prove Success Tracks as Snowflake Enters IPO

Software startup Snowflake Computing has been surging in the market with a 121% boost in sales as of July.

Snowflake provides a cloud-based data-storage service to help companies analyze data. In January, its revenues skyrocketed by 173.7% to $264.7 million at the end of the fiscal year, although its net loss nearly doubled to $348.54 million.

While it posted a net loss of $171.3 million, which is $6 million less than 2019, its revenues were up by 68% in the most recent quarter. Snowflake's net market value was at $12.4 billion in February, thanks to its array of investors including the Menlo Park, California-venture capital firm Sequoia.

According to Reuters, it recently filed its financial statements before its initial public offering (IPO). Unless the market plunges when Snowflake goes public, Forbes' Peter Cohan has high hopes the company's shares will continue to have a rising trend.

Aside from the company's growth potential, Snowflake's strength also lies in its management, particularly its CEO, Frank Slootman.

Read also: Adolfo Salume: From Starting as an Investment Banker to Becoming a Leading Entrepreneur with Multiple Successful Businesses

Snowflake CEO: Will he keep his success record?

In 2012, the Snowflake started was founded in San Mateo, California with former CEO Bob Muglia taking the helm since 2014. He raised its value to $3.5 billion. However, in May 2019, the company decided to appoint Frank Slootman to replace Muglia, who left the company. Muglia owns 3.3% of Snowflake while Slootman got a 5.9% stake of its stock.

Slootman holds economics undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the Erasmus University Rotterdam's Netherlands School of Economics.

As noted by Forbes, Slootman has more than 25 years of entrepreneurial and executive experience in the software industry. In 2007, he took over as Data Domain public as CEO and President before he sold it to EMC in 2009 for $2.4 billion.

He then served as CEO and President of software company ServiceNow between 2011 and 2017. He led the company's IPO to grow its shares from around $100M to $1.4 billion market value, which was 18.6-fold growth since its initial offering in June 2012.

As Slootman told Forbes in February that a Snowflake IPO will not be an exit, but a way for expanding the business. "The IPO is an unwritten contract between employees and the company so they can realize their investment," the CEO said.

Meanwhile, Snowflake is currently "building an investable model" to generate a foreseeable revenue. Slootman said that they are reorganizing and strengthening the management, expanding productivity, boosting efficiency as well as making changes to research and development and distribution. "We are preparing our systems, compliance, and processes for going public," he said.

Meanwhile, Slootman commended Muglia for doing a great job leading Snowflake to the success it is now with a strong customer base. Beating tech giants Amazon and Microsoft for Capital One data storage deal is a great deal for a startup like Snowflake.

Frank Slootman Net Worth

As of June 2018, Slootman's estimated net worth is $131 million. He owns over 100,000 units of ServiceNow stock worth $73,852,409 but has sold over $57,263,956 worth of stocks in the last eight years.

Read also: Neuralink Chip Will "Sew" as Many as 1,024 Impossibly Thin 5 Micron-Wide Electrodes into a Person's Brain

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Written by CJ Robles

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
BEIRUT - Days before the massive explosion this month at Beirut's port, there was an unusual flurry of activity around Warehouse 12, in which a stockpile of 2,750 tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate had been sitting, unclaimed and unattended, for over six years.

Acting on an order from Lebanon's top judge, three workers were dispatched to fix a broken door, seal off a gaping hole in the warehouse's southern wall and ensure that all the other doors were locked tightly, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post and interviews with officials involved in the blast investigation. The work continued until the afternoon of the blast.

It apparently was the first time since the ship transporting the cargo of ammonium nitrate had docked in Beirut in 2013 that any solid steps had been taken to secure the dangerous material. But the possibility of theft - not safeguarding against an explosion - seemed to be authorities' foremost concern, according to the documents and interviews.

Instead of protecting the explosives, sealing off the warehouse may have increased the risk of disaster, leaving the ammonium nitrate trapped in a warehouse secured so tightly that when firefighters were summoned about 5:50 p.m. on the afternoon of Aug. 4, they could not gain entry to fight the blaze.

Port employees who might have had keys had gone home for the day, said Col. Nabil Khankarli, Beirut's fire chief. A video shows three firefighters desperately trying to ram open one of the locked doors as dense black smoke billows from the warehouse's narrow windows.

Inside was a toxic mix of chemicals and explosives - including kerosene, gas oil, 25 tons of fireworks, five miles of blast fuses of the kind used in mining and quarrying, and solvents used for stripping paint - that had been stored alongside the ammonium nitrate, according to Ghassan Oueidat, Lebanon's chief prosecutor. Oueidat, in his role as judge, ordered the warehouse sealed in response to a request by the country's State Security agency. He cited the official inventory that investigators have since retrieved from port servers.

At 6:08 p.m., the entire warehouse blew up, with a force so massive that it wrecked several densely populated neighborhoods, killed at least 180 people, wounded more than 6,000 and enveloped the city in a pall of grief and misery. Among the dead were 10 firefighters.

The blast was preceded by a seven-year saga of official neglect, incompetence and insouciance that raises questions as to whether anyone in Lebanon fully appreciated the danger posed by the ammonium nitrate - or cared enough to find out, let alone take steps to address the risk.

Oueidat, who has faced scrutiny for not taking more decisive action before the disaster, said he had not been made aware of the contents of the warehouse or the full risks posed by ammonium nitrate when the State Security agency sought his permission to secure the facility.

The State Security agency "called me and said they were afraid of stealing," he said in an interview. "They told me there were nitrates. They didn't tell me there were other materials. I told them to secure the place and seal it so nobody can steal it."

A report sent to the offices of the president and the prime minister from the State Security agency, dated July 20, confirms that theft was the foremost concern.

"This substance is dangerous and is used in the manufacture of explosives. If it were stolen, the thief could use it to manufacture explosives," said the report, which outlined the steps being taken to secure the warehouse.

Elsewhere, the report referred to the potential for a "catastrophe" if the ammonium nitrate were to explode. But the emphasis was on the risk of thefts. The hole in the warehouse wall and the broken door "would allow anyone to access it," the report added.

Exactly what caused the initial fire or explosion that triggered the massive blast is still unknown, investigators say. One of the possibilities being investigated is that sparks from the welding undertaken by the three workers - Syrians who left the port before the explosion and are now in custody - may have ignited a fire that eventually set off the ammonium nitrate. A person close to the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing process, said the Syrians worked at the site from July 31 until the day of the blast but had already left for home when the explosion occurred.

Security officials say they are also investigating whether a fire was deliberately set to mask evidence of the theft of ammonium nitrate that the State Security agency appeared to be probing.

What is clear, said Jeffrey Lewis, an arms-control expert and professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, is that the cocktail of substances stored together in Warehouse 12 created a "very dangerous situation."

"All of those things posed fire and explosive hazards in different ways, so to have them all together is asking for trouble," he said.

- - -

Many more questions remain unanswered, such as who originally owned the cargo, what its real destination was and whether it may have been deliberately diverted to Beirut, perhaps on behalf of one of the parties to the war in neighboring Syria, investigators say.

But the documents reviewed by The Post, and interviews with officials and experts involved with the investigation, suggest that neglect, ignorance and stifling bureaucracy played a major part in the tragedy.

Officials made intermittent attempts over the years to remove the stash from the port. Port officials sought authorization from one branch of the judiciary; customs asked a different branch. The courts said they did not have jurisdiction over the cargo and referred the requests to ministries.

Most petitions to the judges made reference to the fact that the ammonium nitrate was dangerous, and some cited the threat it posed to the safety of port employees. But none made references to the risk it posed to the residential neighborhoods in the vicinity.

Yet the potential danger of the cargo should have been evident from the moment it arrived.

The leaky MV Rhosus, a Moldovan-flagged ship owned by a Russian who operated a business registered in Panama, pulled into Beirut's port on Nov. 16, 2013, carrying 2,755 tons of ammonium nitrate. "Dangerous substances," said the notice of arrival document, which stated that the ship intended to stay in Beirut one day to pick up an additional cargo of five shipping containers and eight trucks.

The additional cargo proved too heavy for the Rhosus to take on, according to a statement the captain gave to the media. The ship languished at the port and one month later was seized by Lebanese authorities, who cited a creditor's claim that the ship's charterer owed them money. Six months after that, a judge authorized officials to offload the ammonium nitrate because the ship was in danger of sinking, according to a court order dated June 27, 2014.

"The ship carries hazardous materials that could be dangerous to the port," said the order, signed by Judge Jad Maalouf, in one of the more explicit warnings about the cargo. The government "may transport the dangerous materials to a safe location as long as it guards them and takes all precautionary measures, knowing the significant dangers."

The ammonium nitrate was offloaded into Warehouse 12, which was designated for the storage of dangerous materials. It lies a few hundred yards from the densely packed residential neighborhoods of Gemmayze, Mar Mikhail and Karantina.

- - -

Once the ammonium nitrate reached Warehouse 12, it became snarled in the murky limbo of Beirut's notoriously corrupt port.

All the Lebanese political factions maintain a presence at the port and use the facility for smuggling and to extract bribes, said Riad Kobaissi, an investigative journalist with the Lebanese TV channel Al Jadeed.

He suspects that officials were never aware of the risks posed. "The ones who are stupid enough to put fireworks beside ammonium nitrate are also stupid enough not to know how dangerous it is," he said. "They dealt with it as if they were not aware."

One line of inquiry pursued by investigators is whether the ammonium nitrate was being sold off, perhaps in small quantities. A recent order by the prime minister's office to lift banking secrecy laws from 11 officials connected to the port and now under arrest is intended to help officials understand whether they were receiving money from outside sources, said a government adviser familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The small hole in the wall that the judge ordered to be repaired appeared to be "man-made," according to a senior security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. A photograph shown to The Post showed the gap in the concrete with sacks of ammonium nitrate on the other side.

A video of the sacks taken some time before the explosion and obtained by Al Jadeed shows them strewn haphazardly on the warehouse floor. At least one had been broken open and appeared not to be full.

There is no reason to believe, however, that significant amounts were siphoned off or stolen, experts say. The size of the blast "looked roughly equivalent to the amount of ammonium nitrate that should have been there," said Lewis, the Middlebury arms-control expert.

He calculated that the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate would produce an explosion with the equivalent force of 550 to 580 tons of TNT, consistent with the amount of damage seen. "I would be shocked if significant amounts were missing," he said.

Brian Castner, a former U.S. military explosives expert who is now with Amnesty International, reached a similar conclusion, even while acknowledging that small amounts of the ammonium nitrate may have been stolen. Bombs can be built from a few pounds of the material, he said, noting that the size of the larger bombs he encountered during his service in Iraq averaged 200 to 300 pounds, or a tenth of a ton.

"Between the damage to the grain silo and how far away people were injured and glass was breaking, it generally lines up" with the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate originally offloaded into the warehouse, he said.

Whether there will be a full accounting of what happened is also an open question. Few Lebanese trust their politicians to countenance a genuine investigation that might implicate them or their associates. "There's not a chance in hell there will ever be accountability," said the person familiar with the investigation. "A typical cover-up is on the way."

Forensic investigation of the site to determine the exact cause of the fire is complicated by the fact that it was pulverized by the explosion, with a large watery crater now occupying the space where the warehouse once sat. Fabien Tabarly, director of Nigma Conseil, a security consulting and intelligence firm with offices in Lebanon that analyzed the blast, said the exact trigger for the initial fire may never be known.

Yet all the available evidence also points to the possibility that nothing more than ignorance and ineptitude could explain the tragedy, he said.

"Do not underestimate the power of stupidity," he said. "As crazy as it may seem, as outrageous as it may seem, the most obvious explanation is an accident."

- - -

Haidamous reported from Washington. The Washington Post's Nader Durgham in Beirut and Asser Khattab in Paris contributed to this report.
The Israeli El Al national carrier set to take off Monday on the first commercial flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi

An Israeli-American delegation was set to take off Monday on the first commercial flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi as the US-brokered peace agreement between Israel and the UAE takes hold.

The El Al flight, scheduled to leave at 0730 GMT from Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, will carry a delegation led on the American side by President Donald Trump's son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner.

The word "peace" was painted on the plane's cockpit in Arabic, English and Hebrew, images issued by El Al showed.

The agreement between Israel and the Emirates to make a peace deal was announced on August 13, making the UAE the first Gulf country and only the third Arab nation to establish relations with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan.

Israel's National Security Advisor Meir Ben Shabbat will be the most senior figure aboard the flight on the side of Israel.

The scheduled talks in Abu Dhabi aim at boosting cooperation between the two regional economic powerhouses in areas including aviation, tourism, trade, health, energy and security.

The flight by Israel's national carrier, numbered 971 like the UAE's international dialling code, was reported to have received permission to cross Saudi Arabia's air space.

Officials at El Al and the Israel Airport Authority would not confirm the reports, which would be the first known time El Al crosses Saudi airspace.

The return flight, set to leave Abu Dhabi on Tuesday morning, is numbered 972 -- Israel's international dialling code.

Sparks fly

Late Sunday, Israel's health ministry updated its list of "green countries" with low coronavirus infection rates to include the UAE and eight other countries.

The change meant the Israeli officials and journalists travelling to Abu Dhabi would be exempted from a 14-day quarantine upon return.

Since the agreement between the UAE and Israel was unveiled, there have been phone calls between their ministers, and on Saturday the Emirates in a new milestone repealed a 1972 law boycotting Israel.

"It will be permissible to enter, exchange or possess Israeli goods and products of all kinds in the UAE and trade in them," read a federal decree issued by UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking alongside Kushner in Jerusalem on Sunday, praised "the swift pace of normalisation" between his country and the UAE.

Noting the UAE's Saturday move, Netanyahu said it "opens the door" for "unbridled trade, tourism, investments, exchanges between the Middle East's two most advanced economies".

"You will see how the sparks fly on this. It's already happening," he said, predicting that "today's breakthroughs will become tomorrow's norms. It will pave the way for other countries to normalise their ties with Israel."

As part of the peace agreement announced by Trump, Israel agreed to suspend its planned annexations in the occupied West Bank, although Netanyahu quickly insisted the plans remained on the table in the long run.

*This story had been edited by Ahram Online

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has presented state awards on the occasion of Independence Day for the significant contribution to state building, socio-economic, scientific and technical, cultural and educational development of Ukraine, as well as significant labor achievements.

Military, doctors, diplomats, teachers, cultural and art figures, outstanding Ukrainians in the area of sports, science and education, representatives of religious organizations, lawyers, human rights activists received awards at a solemn ceremony held in the courtyard of the president's residence in the Mariinsky Palace in Kyiv on Monday, August 31, the press service of the head of state reported.

Zelensky said that the best citizens who glorify Ukraine used to be posthumously awarded with the words: "He/she was"

"I watched these awards ceremonies, and I thought it was very unfair. We remember people who really glorify our country - it's our military who are defending our borders, our scientists, doctors, teachers, cultural and art workers. We always remember them when, unfortunately, they are no longer with us. That is why today I want to present awards and thank you from the bottom of my heart that you are with us, not that you were with us," Zelensky said.

op
The government is working on plan to promote traditional locally manufactured toys, and might even begin quality control for imported toys from September 1.

The measures to boost domestic manufacturers might include toy labs, a national toy fair and innovative Indian-themed toys, according to a report by The Economic Times.

"We are aggressively pursuing the toy industry and are keen on foreign investment in the sector," an official told the publication.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the story.

The moves comes amid the government's Atmnairbhar Bharat Abhiyan, or push for self-reliance of the Indian economy. In his latest 'Mann Ki Baat' radio address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India has the "talent and ability" to become a toy-manufacturing hub.

Around 90 percent of the domestic toy market is comprised of imports from China and Taiwan, The Economic Times reported.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has contacted large manufacturers and is might hold a round table regarding investments in the industry, the report said.

The Centre is unlikely to defer quality control of imported toys, but traders have requested an extension of the deadline, the report added.

The quality control might include BIS checks on existing inventory in warehouses, the report said.
The decision by the government of Uganda to introduce a fee for voluntary tests for Covid-19 threatens to disrupt travel and the resumption of tourism, as well as trade.



It will even affect the return of Ugandan citizens from abroad.



On Sunday evening, the government issued a directive requiring agencies to charge $65 (50) per test.



It affects cross-border truck drivers, visitors to the country and Ugandans who go home.



Organisations that plan to test their staff and individuals, who want to know if they have contracted the virus, will also have to pay.



The government in Kampala says the fee will contribute to the cost of managing the pandemic. So far, 350,000 people have been tested, revealing about 2,900 positive cases and at least 30 deaths.



People who have developed symptoms, or have been in contact with someone who has contracted Covid-19, will not have to pay.



It is feared the charge may undermine efforts to contain the virus, by discouraging people from getting tested.



It could also increase the cost of imported goods as truck drivers have to pay, as do any potential tourists.

Source: BBC









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Rating Action: Moody's affirms Komatsu's A2 ratings; outlook stable

Global Credit Research - 31 Aug 2020

Tokyo, August 31, 2020 -- Moody's Japan K.K. has today affirmed Komatsu Ltd.'s (Komatsu) A2 issuer rating.

Moody's has also affirmed the backed A2 senior unsecured rating and Prime-1 US commercial paper rating of Komatsu Finance America Inc. (KFA), an indirectly wholly-owned subsidiary of Komatsu. The ratings on KFA's senior unsecured notes and commercial paper program reflect the full and irrevocable guarantee by Komatsu.

The outlook on the ratings remains stable.

"Komatsu's A2 rating and stable outlook reflect our expectation that the company's competitive position in the global construction and mining equipment markets will help mitigate the weakening in its credit metrics amid the current market downturn, and support a recovery in its profit margin and leverage from 2021," says Ryohei Nishio, a Moody's Analyst.

RATINGS RATIONALE

Komatsu's A2 rating reflects the company's leading market position, backed by its strong brand recognition, broad product lineups, and advanced capability in IT application for its products. The company has also long maintained its geographic diversification through its broad global sales and service network. At the same time, Komatsu's rating is constrained by the inherent volatility in the company's core businesses.

The coronavirus outbreak has caused a deterioration in new equipment sales, with pre-tax income down more than 50% in the first quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2021 (fiscal 2020) from a year ago. Komatsu's EBITA margin registered around 9.2% for the 12 months ended June 2020.

However, sales and earnings should start to improve as construction equipment use has picked up again in its major markets. Moreover, Komatsu has a track record of managing its production capacity and costs during downcycles to defend its earnings.

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Komatsu's parts and services businesses also provide some resilience, with higher margins and less cyclical sales when compared to equipment sales. Moody's estimates these businesses contribute over 50% of the core construction and mining equipment segment's profits.

Komatsu maintains a strong balance sheet to help absorb business volatility. Excluding the profit and debt of the retail finance segment, Moody's estimates that Komatsu's debt/EBITDA was 1.4x, below the consolidated 2.9x for fiscal 2019.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

Komatsu's stable outlook reflects Moody's expectation that the company will effectively control its costs to drive margin recovery from 2021, and that it will manage discretionary capital spending and dividends well within its cash flow and adhere to its conservative financial policy.

An upgrade is unlikely in the foreseeable future, given the current downturn and the inherent cyclicality in the global construction and mining machinery markets. In the longer term, however, the rating could be upgraded if Komatsu materially strengthens its market position and sustains improved credit metrics, for example, consolidated EBITA margin (including the retail finance segment) above 14% through the business cycles and consolidated debt/EBITDA (including the retail finance segment) below 1.5x.

The rating could be downgraded if Komatsu's margins do not recover as expected or financial policies become less conservative, so that consolidated EBITA margin is sustained in the single digits in terms of percentages and consolidated debt/EBITDA remains above 3.0x.

The principal methodology used in these ratings was Manufacturing Methodology (Japanese) published in March 2020 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1216244. Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

Komatsu Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, is Japan's largest and the world's second-largest manufacturer of construction machinery and mining equipment by sales.

Komatsu Finance America Inc., based in Chicago, Illinois, is a financing subsidiary for the group's business in the Americas.

REGULATORY DISCLOSURES

For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and Sensitivity to Assumptions in the disclosure form. Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions can be found at: https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_79004.

For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.

For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit support from the primary entity(ies) of this credit rating action, and whose ratings may change as a result of this credit rating action, the associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity. Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures, if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.

The ratings have been disclosed to the rated entity or its designated agent(s) and issued with no amendment resulting from that disclosure.

These ratings are solicited. Please refer to Moody's Policy for Designating and Assigning Unsolicited Credit Ratings available on its website www.moodys.com.

Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.

Moody's general principles for assessing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in our credit analysis can be found at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1133569.

The Global Scale Credit Rating on this Credit Rating Announcement was issued by one of Moody's affiliates outside the EU and is endorsed by Moody's Deutschland GmbH, An der Welle 5, Frankfurt am Main 60322, Germany, in accordance with Art.4 paragraph 3 of the Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 on Credit Rating Agencies. Further information on the EU endorsement status and on the Moody's office that issued the credit rating is available on www.moodys.com.

Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.

Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.

Ryohei Nishio Analyst Corporate Finance Group Moody's Japan K.K. Atago Green Hills Mori Tower 20fl 2-5-1 Atago, Minato-ku Tokyo 105-6220 Japan JOURNALISTS: 81 3 5408 4110 Client Service: 81 3 5408 4100 Mihoko Manabe Associate Managing Director Corporate Finance Group JOURNALISTS: 81 3 5408 4110 Client Service: 81 3 5408 4100 Releasing Office: Moody's Japan K.K. Atago Green Hills Mori Tower 20fl 2-5-1 Atago, Minato-ku Tokyo 105-6220 Japan JOURNALISTS: 81 3 5408 4110 Client Service: 81 3 5408 4100

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  Any barangay in the City of Manila which will register no new coronavirus cases from Sept. 1 to Oct. 31 will receive a 100,000 incentive from the local government.

Manila Mayor Francisco Isko Moreno Domagoso announced this in a live video address on Monday, saying the city government will earmark 89.6 million for the incentive-based approach to contain the viral transmission.

Ang goal natin ay zero COVID-19 infection for two months sa barangay, and I believe that you can do it," he told the city's 896 barangays.

Mag-aappropriate po tayo ng 89.6 million kasi ang goal natin, hopefully, kanya-kanya tayong magsisigasig para labanan ang COVID-19 pandemic, Moreno added.

[Translation: Our goal is to have zero COVID-19 infection for two months in our barangay, and I believe that you can do it. We are going to appropriate 89.6 million, because our goal, hopefully, is that we will each strive to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.]

Moreno said all COVID-19 data in the barangay level will be verified by the Manila Health Department (MHD). Besides the cash incentive, certificates will also be given to recognize the efforts of the barangay officials.

According to MHD data, the city so far has logged 8,110 cases of the viral illness, of which 6,911 have recovered and 325 have died. These bring the citys tally of active cases or currently ill patients to 874 as of Aug. 31.
PARIS: Shares in French waste and water management company Suez rose nearly a fifth on Monday after a takeover approach from larger peer Veolia, which wants to bulk up as competition from rivals, including in China, grows.

Late on Sunday, Veolia said it was offering to buy a 29.9% stake in Suez from French gas and power utility Engie for 2.9 billion euros ($3.45 billion), saying it aimed to create a world champion of ecological transformation".

Suez shares were up more than 19.28% by 0918 GMT and on course for their best-ever day. Engie shares rose 6.1%, while Veolias shares advanced 3.45%.

If the offer is accepted by Engie, Veolia will formally bid for the rest of Suez, in a deal which would give Suez an enterprise value, which includes debt, of around 20 billion euros ($23.8 billion).

Veolia is already a world leader in the waste and water management segment. But the industry is particularly fragmented, Veolias Chief Executive Antoine Frerot said, adding his firms market share currently stood at two to three percent and that the combined company will still have less than five percent of a market that is worth 1.4 trillion euros.

Competition is growing from Chinese companies branching out overseas and infrastructure funds buying up assets, he said.

Consolidation is going to continue," Frerot said on a call with journalists. We will one day very certainly see a global Chinese player emerge."

The coronavirus pandemic, which has sharpened governments focus on other crises, such as the fight against climate change, and a decision by Engie to simplify its structure and sell some assets had given the deal impetus, Frerot said.

Though Suez and Veolias business is largely complimentary outside France, the overlap in their home market has been an issue before. Informal tie-up talks in 2012 fell apart because of anti-trust concerns.

Veolia - which said it aimed to finance the stake acquisition in cash and would consider a capital increase and new debt for the rest of the takeover - said on Sunday it had already identified competition issues, and had found a buyer for Suezs French water activities, French infrastructure fund Meridiam, for an undisclosed amount.

The acquisition of Suez would make Veolia more international, with significant positions in Spain and Northern Europe in particular," analysts at Bryan Garnier said in a note, adding that the rationale for the deal made sense but that anti-trust and financing issues still had to be worked through.

Suez said its board would meet as soon as possible to study the unsolicited offer. Engie, in which the French government has a 23.6% stake, is trying to simplify its structure by selling assets. It said it would study the proposal in the coming weeks.

The French state will monitor the impact on jobs and on essential activities in France of any engagements Veolia makes as part of its offer to buy the Suez stake, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday.

State-owned bank CDC also has a 5.97% stake in Veolia.

($1 = 0.8401 euros)

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(Newser)  The photos are very 2019: A pool packed with young bodies and littered with empty cans, with nary a mask in sight (see them here). Except they were taken by South Carolina's Columbia Fire Department on Saturday as they broke up a pool party that the State reports was attended by hundreds of people who weren't abiding by Columbia's mask and social distancing mandates. "It was almost like Mardi Gras," Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins said of what the fire department encountered at the Apartments at Palmetto Compress around 6pm after receiving a tip.

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How crowded was it? Jenkins described crowds in the pool, along the pool, and atop the pool house, and said even if there wasn't a pandemic "there still would have been too many people in the pool." Everyone was dismissed with a warningincluding the partygoer who told Jenkins, "I cant catch COVID. Im immune to the stuff." WISTV reports Jenkins was to meet with the building managers Monday and said he plans to recommend that the apartment complex's pool remain closed for the time being. "It was a perfect storm if anyone had the virus to be passed to one another," Jenkins said. WTLX notes the apartment complex is close to the University of South Carolina and confirms that many students live there. WISTV reports the school had logged 557 cases as of Friday. (Another pool party got a bit of attention lately.)
A 96-year-old Holocaust survivor has spoken of her delight after discovering footage of herself on the way to freedom 75 years ago.

Lily Ebert, a survivor of Auschwitz and the Nazi death marches, began her new life in June 1945 when she and her sisters were evacuated from the ruins of Germany and taken to Switzerland by train.

Her great-grandson Dov Forman has tracked down footage of the refugees shortly before they boarded the train - showing 21-year-old Lily on the brink of a new life.

After confirming it was her in the video, she smiled and said: 'These were happy times. We were leaving, to start a new life.'

Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert, 96, with her great-grandson Dov Forman, 16, who found footage of her leaving the ruins of Nazi Germany for a new life in 1945

Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, Mrs Ebert said today that she had never known the film existed until her great-grandson uncovered it recently.

'When I saw that the first time I could not believe it, that something like that can happen after so many years,' she said.

'I even didn't know about this picture that was taken, I don't remember anything and then suddenly I see me with my sister and other people. It was unbelievable.'

Mr Forman, 16, found the video after Mrs Ebert showed him a banknote with a good-luck message from an American soldier - which sparked a wave of interest online.

Keen to continue his research, he found the footage held by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and established that Lily was in it.

'When we saw this footage, we immediately knew it was her. We were amazed and shocked, and we couldn't believe that we had found this. To compare, it's like finding a needle in a haystack,' Mr Forman said.

'We compared photos of her at the time to photos of her in the footage and we compared the hairline, and we also went through it frame-by-frame and saw her two sisters also in the footage.'

After finding the video, he said: 'To find footage like this is extremely rare and has allowed us to piece together the exact dates and locations of where my great Grandma was after liberation.'

Lily Ebert, circled, was one of the Jewish refugees who left for a new life in June 1945 two months after being liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp

Mrs Ebert, third from right, said she had never known the film existed until her great-grandson uncovered it this year

The former prisoners were taken to Switzerland after being liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp. Many of them including Mrs Ebert had previously been at Auschwitz

Mrs Ebert left for Switzerland in June 1945 after she was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp, having previously been at Auschwitz where her mother, brother and sister were murdered by the Nazis.

Prisoners at Auschwitz and other camps in occupied Eastern Europe were moved west in the so-called 'death marches' as Soviet troops closed in from the east.

SS guards were ordered to kill prisoners who could no longer keep up, while others died of cold and exhaustion.

More than 10,000 prisoners arrived at Buchenwald in January 1945, but thousands died before the Allies arrived.

US soldiers from the 6th Armored Division entered the camp on April 11 and found more than 21,000 people there.

Mrs Ebert, then aged 21, was given a banknote by a US soldier with a message wishing her 'good luck and happiness'.

She recently showed it to her great-grandson, saying today: 'I even didn't know what I have with this note, how interesting it is and how interesting it will be for the whole world.

'I got something from a soldier who did not have a piece of paper to write on... so instead he took out this banknote and he wrote good luck for for future life.'

Mrs Ebert was given this banknote by a US soldier in April 1945 with a message wishing her 'a start to a new life good luck and happiness'

Lily Ebert (pictured second from right) was transported from Hungary to Auschwitz in 1944

The Hungarian-born survivor later spoke over Zoom with the family of the US soldier, Private Hayman Shulman, who died seven years ago.

Mr Forman tracked down the private's family on Twitter and they shared an emotional conversation last month.

He said that not seeing his great-grandmother for two months during lockdown had made him more determined to document her life before she dies.

Only around 400,000 Holocaust survivors are still alive today to give their testimony, it is believed.

The Auschwitz museum marked 75 years in January since the most infamous Nazi death camp was liberated in early 1945.

Despite German efforts to cover up evidence of their crimes against humanity, the Red Army found horrific piles of corpses at Auschwitz along with 7,000 survivors.

Almost a million Jews were killed at the camp, along with tens of thousands of others including Poles, gypsies and Soviet prisoners of war.

Mrs Ebert was transported there from her native Hungary, which was occupied by the Nazis in 1944.

Hungarian authorities collaborated with the Nazis and rounded up Jews in urban ghettos before deporting them to Auschwitz.

More than 500,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered or died of maltreatment, historians estimate - around two-thirds of the country's Jewish population.
DUBLIN, Ohio, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH) announced today that its board of directors has elected Sheri Edison as an independent director, effective September 1. Ms. Edison joins the board with extensive experience as a senior legal executive in the medical device and packaging industries.

Ms. Edison currently serves as Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Amcor plc, a global leader in packaging for products spanning the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, medical, home and personal care sectors, with approximately 50,000 employees across more than 40 countries. She previously held the role of Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary for Bemis Company, Inc. until it was acquired by Amcor, as well as Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer of the medical device company Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. Prior to these positions, Ms. Edison also served in multiple senior legal roles at other leading companies and as an attorney in private practice.

Currently, Ms. Edison serves on the board of directors for American Family Insurance and on the Board of Visitors of the University of Wisconsin Waisman Center. She also formerly served on the Board of Directors of AK Steel where she chaired the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.

"We are very pleased to welcome Sheri as a director," said Gregory Kenny, Chairman of the Board for Cardinal Health. "Sheri brings both strong leadership experience across areas of legal and regulatory compliance and corporate governance as well as a healthcare industry background that complement the experiences and skillsets of our current directors. She has led a number of critical business functions and initiatives, including IT and strategic planning efforts during her career, and we look forward to benefitting from her deep expertise and knowledge of complex businesses."

Ms. Edison holds a Juris Doctor from Northwestern University School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts in History and Journalism from University of Southern California.

About Cardinal Health

Cardinal Health, Inc. is a global, integrated healthcare services and products company, providing customized solutions for hospitals, healthcare systems, pharmacies, ambulatory surgery centers, clinical laboratories and physician offices worldwide. The company enhances supply chain efficiency for clinically proven medical products, pharmaceuticals and cost-effective solutions. To combat prescription drug misuse, the Cardinal Health Foundation and its education partners created Generation Rx, a national drug prevention education and awareness program. The Foundation actively supports an array of other solutions, including efforts to reduce opioid prescribing, promote drug take back and safe disposal and expand collaborative community work.

Cardinal Health is backed by nearly 100 years of experience with operations in nearly 46 countries. For more information, visit cardinalhealth.com. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Contacts

Media: Sarah Shew, [email protected] and 614.553.3401

Investors: Kevin Moran, [email protected] and 614.757.7942.

SOURCE Cardinal Health

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Amin was killed last week on his way to work. An explosive placed in or around the car killed him instantly and wounded his driver. No group asserted responsibility, and the Taliban tweeted that it was not behind the attack. His friends and colleagues believe he was targeted because of his support for peace talks.
More cases of COVID-19 have been reported among students at the University of Connecticuts campus in Storrs, as Trinity College reported its first case of the novel coronavirus on campus.

As of Monday afternoon, 58 residential students on the Storrs campus have tested positive or are showing symptoms of the disease, data from the school shows. Those 58 students have been placed in isolation.

Six new positive cases were added over the weekend: three on Saturday and three on Sunday. All six are point of care cases, meaning they were evaluated by Student Health and Wellness-Medical Care and had rapid positive test results, said Stephanie Reitz, a spokeswoman for the university.

While Saturdays cases were not located near one another, Reitz said those students are connected to one another and are not unrelated.

In total, 75 residential students have tested positive since they returned to the Storrs Campus on Aug. 14 out of 6,549 tests performed on 5,000 students. Sixteen of those students have since recovered.

Among students who commute to Storrs, 17 have tested positive so far for COVID-19, according to the university.

Those numbers were up from the 57 cases among resident students the university reported Saturday.

Two UConn staff members have also fallen ill from COVID-19, along with two students who commute to the universitys campus in Stamford.

The new cases at UConn came as Trinity College in Hartford announced its first case of COVID-19 on campus.

A spokeswoman for the liberal arts college said the student has been isolated and is doing well.

Other colleges throughout the state have also reported cases.

In New Britain, two students at Central Connecticut State University have tested positive one a commuter, the other a resident.

Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven has had two cases, one of them a student, the other a student employee. The University of New Haven has one positive case. Yale University has had five positive cases this fall.

Weslyan University in Middletown has had one positive case.
Authorities began to ease restrictions in May, and most were officially lifted in June. While the unemployment rate has fallen to almost the level that prevailed before the lockdown, measures of economic activity remain weak. Electricity consumption is below where it was a year ago, according to a recent report from Goldman Sachs, while mobility data from Google showed a decline of 34 percent compared with 2019.
The Abeka District Court has appealed to the family of Benjamin Okyere, the tenant who was murdered in cold blood by his landlord to exercise restraint as investigations into the whereabouts of the suspect is ascertained.



The court for the second time ordered the case investigator to appear before it to answer certain questions concerning the murder case.



The court presided over Mrs Adwoa Akyaama Ofosus appeal came after the deceased father, Joseph Okyere, had told the court that currently the family of the deceased fear for their lives because the accused person, Stephen Nana Kamkam, who was remanded by the court into custody cannot be traced in any of the prisons.



According to the deceased father they have conducted checks at Nsawam and Ankaful prisons and nothing showed that the accused was in any of the prisons.



According to Mr okyere their fears were confirmed after the accuseds mother had stated that his son would never sleep in jail and she would make sure her son was released.



Due to the allegations raised by the deceased father the court adjourned the matter to September 9 to enable the case investigator to come and answer questions from the court.



According to the court, it cannot wait for two weeks following the allegations.



Prosecution Inspector Rita Kondau earlier informed the court that it had relayed information on the courts invitation extended to the case investigator hence could not tell why he did not appear in court today.



Prosecuting Inspector Konadu who held brief said the substantive prosecutor in the matter Chief inspector Stephen Ahialey was on course and the police were still waiting for the advice of the Attorney General.



Stephen Nana Kamkam, the Ofankor landlord allegedly murdered his tenant Benjamin Okyere in cold blood over rent.



It would be recalled that Kamkam, a businessman, was arrested by the police when he allegedly shot and killed Okyere, his tenant and musician over rent on May 25, this year.



Kamkam, also known as Nii Kojo Konim Obio-Cyhoera, has provisionally been charged with the murder of Benjamin Okyere, a musician but his plea has been preserved by the Court.



The Prosecution, led by Chief Inspector Ahialey had earlier told the court that, the deceased was a musician who lived at Ofankor Spot-M and Kamkam, his landlord was into real estate and resides in the same vicinity.

Prosecution said two years ago, the deceased rented an apartment from the accused, but the tenancy expired on May 24, this year.



He said Okyere opted for renewal of the tenancy agreement, which Kamkam agreed, but later changed his mind and therefore asked Okyere to vacate the apartment and that he should leave and hand over the keys.



Prosecution said on the afternoon of May 25, Kamkam took his loaded pump action gun, hired a taxi, and went to the residence of Okyere.



He said on reaching the venue, he alighted from the taxi, called out Okyere at the gate, and requested that he hand over the keys of his apartment to him.



The prosecution said the deceased, who knew the behaviour of Kamkam, had earlier called one John Bosco Kotah, a Police officer friend on the phone to come to his aid.



He said when Kotah arrived, he saw Kamkam in possession of the weapon so he got scared and rushed to Okyeres room and picked a phone to call another Police friend to assist them.



Chief Inspector Ahialey said by then, the deceased was at the main gate with the accused without any provocation, opened fire, and shot Okyere four times at close range.



He said when Kotah heard the gunshots, he came out of the room only to see the accused running away so he chased Kamkam to a distance but being scared the accused might harm him, he returned to attend to Okyere.



Prosecution said Okyere was rushed to Anecja Hospital at Tantra Hills and later sent to the Achimota Mile Seven Police Station where a formal complaint was lodged.



He said Okyere was subsequently rushed to the Police Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.



Chief Inspector Ahialey said a team of policemen, led by Deputy Superintendent of Police, George Asare, proceeded to the crime scene forensic evidence.



He said four spent AA cartridges were retrieved at the scene and the accused was later arrested at his residence at Ofankor Spot-M.



The prosecution said two pump action guns, loaded with seven and eight rounds of cartridges respectively, were found in his room.

Source: GNA









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In trial testimony, Moris said he had struck Pesoa to stop him from spitting blood at him. The officer spoke in court Monday as well, saying there was nothing malicious about his actions. He said he had no intention of using any more force than necessary to place him into custody to protect myself, to protect my team. I had no intention of causing physical harm to Mr. Pesoa.
The defence ministry on Monday signed a 2,580-crore contract with Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML), Tata Power Company Ltd (TPCL) and Larsen & Toubro to equip the army with six Pinaka rocket regiments, a spokesperson said. He said the order to the Indian firms would boost the Make in India initiative at a time when self-reliance in the defence sector is a top priority for the government.

The six Pinaka Regiments will consist of 114 launchers with automated gun aiming and positioning systems and 45 command posts to be bought from TPCL and L&T, and 330 vehicles to be procured from BEML, the ministry said in a statement. The Defence Research and Development Organisation has locally designed and developed the Pinaka multiple launch rocket system. It will now be produced by the firms to whom the contract has been awarded.

These six Pinaka regiments will be operationalised along the northern and eastern borders of our country further enhancing the operation preparedness of the armed forces, the ministry said. The new regiments will be operational by 2024.

Last week, PM Narendra Modi said India has the potential to become a reliable weapons supplier to friendly foreign countries and strengthen its strategic partnerships as it takes strides towards self-reliance in the defence sector.

Earlier this month, the government announced a separate budgetary outlay of 52,000 crore for domestic capital procurement and came out with a negative import list. India on August 9 announced it will ban the import of 101 different types of weapons, systems and ammunition over the next five years --- from artillery guns to light military transport aircraft and conventional submarines to long-range land attack cruise missiles.
South Africa: Basic Education receives sanitiser donations

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has received two significant donations of sanitisers to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in schools.

Energy and chemical company, Sasol and Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister, Thoko Didiza, on behalf of Ondersterpoort Biological Products, donated the sanitisers.

The donation, which took place on Monday, coincides with the return of the final group of learners, as part of the phased reopening of schools.

I want to sincerely thank Sasol for this donation because it has allowed us to open schools safely. Education is very important and a lifeline for poor children. We are a very big system and every donation makes a huge difference, said the Minister.

The handover of 80 000 litres of hand sanitisers from Sasol took place at Sasol Bowling in Johannesburg, followed by the donation from Ondersterpoort Biological Products in Pretoria.

With limited resources within government, Motshekga said her department had to reprioritise its budget from key areas to combat the safety challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 has brought a new dynamic, which is not only disrupting our schooling time but also our resources. The money that we were supposed to use for sanitation infrastructure had to be used for sanitisers, masks and all sorts of things, which were not part of our plan.

Treasury said to us there is no new money, reprioritise within your budget. We had to take money from other budgets to deal with this main factor of safety in our schools, Motshekga said.

Sasol Vice President for Social Investment, Gao Mothoagae, said the initiative was the energy companys way of contributing to the fight against COVID-19.

This sanitiser initiative has been running for the last four months. We are so proud about what we have been able to do in collaboration with our base energy team and Sasol energy team, and all our teams to be able to deliver solutions that impact and protect the right to life for so many, said Mothoagae.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Alex Morse, mayor of Holyoke and congressional candidate, Mass., on July 13, 2020.

Alex Morse, mayor of Holyoke and congressional candidate, Mass., on July 13, 2020. Credit - Tony LuongThe New York Times/Redux

This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIMEs politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

Ever since Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary, the progressive movement has been in a state of flux. It had money and momentum, but no presidential candidate.

So in the months since Joe Biden cinched the nomination, progressives have pivoted to down-ballot elections, using their energy and cash to protect territory won in 2018 and support new progressive candidates targeting entrenched Democratic incumbents. Theyre out to prove that the partys left wing is still powerfuland much of the evidence supports their case. In recent months, three of the members of the progressive SquadReps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaiball beat back primary challenges, while progressive candidates like Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones in New York, Cori Bush in Missouri, Marie Newman in Illinois and Kara Eastman in Nebraska all won competitive primaries.

The next test of this new, young progressive vanguard comes Tuesday in Massachusetts, where Alex Morse, the 31-year old mayor of Holyoke, Mass., is trying to unseat Rep. Richard Neal, chair of the powerful Ways & Means Committee. Like Bowman, Bush, Eastman and Newman, Morse is backed by Justice Democrats, a progressive group that supported Sanders campaign and has increasingly turned to promoting the next generation of grassroots insurgents.

Bernie represented voters under 45 ideologically, says Justice Democrats communications director Waleed Shahid. These candidates represent them ideologically and demographically too. Its a transition happening.

Progressives say that defeating Neal would be the most consequential primary win since Ocasio-Cortez beat Joe Crowley, who was then the chair of the House Democratic caucus. Neal helms a powerful tax-writing committee, and Morse has spent much of his campaign arguing Neals position makes him a crucial impediment to key legislative priorities like Medicare for All or a Green New Deal. Morse recently hit $2 million in fundraising, with $1 million raised in August alone; 97% of those donations under $200.

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This is a race thats arguably the most important Democratic primary in the House this year, Morse says. Every major piece of legislation needs to go through the Ways and Means committee. Neals office did not immediately return a request for comment.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter.

The race has been fraught with drama. In August, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst chapter of the College Democrats published vague allegations that Morsea former guest lecturer at the schoolhad made students uncomfortable by messaging them on social media. Morse, who is gay, acknowledged having consensual adult relationships with college students but never any that he taught, and apologized for making anyone uncomfortable.

At first, the allegations made it seem like Morse was toast. But the tables turned when The Intercept reported that members of the College Democrats had spent months engineering the allegations to damage Morses campaign. (Chat logs reviewed by The Intercept revealed that at least one member of the College Democrats took part in the scheme because he sought an internship with Neal.) What seemed at first to be a downward spiral for a promising young progressive morphed into evidence of an establishment plot to destroy him.

Polling in the race has been scarce since that unlikely turn of events. But if Morse wins, it could be the most important progressive upset since Ocasio-Cortezs victoryand further evidence of a movement thats growing its power and sharpening its strategy.
State Officials Announce Latest COVID-19 Facts

California Department of Public Health

Date: August 30, 2020

Number: NR20-213

Contact: CDPHpress@cdph.ca.gov

SACRAMENTO  The California Department of Public Health today announced the most recent statistics on COVID-19.

California has 699,909 confirmed cases to date. Numbers may not represent true day-over-day change as reporting of test results can be delayed.

There were 6,070 newly recorded confirmed cases Saturday. Numbers do not represent true day-over-day change as these results include cases from prior to yesterday.

The 7-day positivity rate is 5.2% and the 14-day positivity rate is 5.5%.

There have been 11,231,829 tests conducted in California. This represents an increase of 122,199 over the prior 24-hour reporting period.

As case numbers continue to rise in California, the total number of individuals who will have serious outcomes will also increase. There have been 12,905 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Blueprint for a Safer Economy

Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled the Blueprint for a Safer Economy, a statewide plan for reducing COVID-19 and keeping Californians healthy and safe. The plan imposes risk-based criteria on tightening and loosening COVID-19 allowable activities and expands the length of time between changes to assess how any movement affects the trajectory of the disease.

Californians can go to covid19.ca.gov to find out where their county falls and what activities are allowable in each county.

Data and Tools

A wide range of data and analysis guides California's response to COVID-19. The state is making the data and its analytical tools available to researchers, scientists and the public at covid19.ca.gov.

Popular links include:

Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C)

Each week, the California Department of Public Health updates the number of cases of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) reported in the state. As of August 24, 47 cases of MIS-C have been reported statewide. To protect patient confidentiality in counties with fewer than 11 cases, we are not providing total counts at this time.

MIS-C is a rare inflammatory condition associated with COVID-19 that can damage multiple organ systems. MIS-C can require hospitalization and be life threatening. Parents should be aware of the signs and symptoms of MIS-C including fever that does not go away, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes or feeling tired. Contact your child's doctor immediately if your child has these symptoms. Early diagnosis and treatment of patients is critical to preventing long-term complications.

Racial Demographics  A More Complete Picture

The California Department of Public Health is committed to health equity and collecting more detailed racial and ethnic data that will provide additional understanding for determining future action. Health outcomes are affected by forces including structural racism, poverty and the disproportionate prevalence of underlying conditions such as asthma and heart disease among Latinos and African American Californians. Only by looking at the full picture can we understand how to ensure the best outcomes for all Californians.

The differences in health outcomes related to COVID-19 are most stark in COVID-19 deaths. We have nearly complete data on race and ethnicity for COVID-19 deaths, and we are seeing the following trends. Overall, for adults 18 and older, Latinos, African Americans and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are dying at disproportionately higher levels. The proportion of COVID-19 deaths in African Americans is about double their population representation across all adult age categories. For Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, overall numbers are low, but about three-fold difference between the proportion of COVID-19 deaths and their population representation. More males are dying from COVID-19 than females, in line with national trends. More information is available at COVID-19 Race and Ethnicity Data.

Health Care Worker Infection Rates

As of August 29, local health departments have reported 32,074 confirmed positive cases in health care workers and 151 deaths statewide.

Your Actions Save Lives

Every person has a role to play. Protecting yourself and your family comes down to common sense:

Staying home except for essential needs/activities following local and state public health guidelines when patronizing approved businesses. To the extent that such sectors are re-opened, Californians may leave their homes to work at, patronize, or otherwise engage with those businesses, establishments or activities.

Practicing social distancing.

Wearing a cloth face mask when out in public.

Washing hands with soap and water for a minimum of 20 seconds.

Avoiding touching eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands.

Covering a cough or sneeze with your sleeve, or disposable tissue. Wash your hands afterward.

Avoiding close contact with people who are sick.

Staying away from work, school or other people if you become sick with respiratory symptoms like fever and cough.

Answer the call if a contact tracer from the CA COVID Team or your local health department tries to connect. Contact tracers will connect you to free, confidential testing and other resources, if needed.

Following guidance from public health officials.

What to Do if You Think You're Sick

Call ahead: If you are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 (fever, cough or shortness of breath), call your health care provider before seeking medical care so that appropriate precautions can be taken. More than 100 community testing sites also offer free, confidential testing: Find a COVID-19 Testing Site.

For more information about what Californians can do to prevent the spread of COVID-19, visit Coronavirus (COVID-19) in California.

California continues to issue guidance on preparing and protecting California from COVID-19. Consolidated guidance is available on the California Department of Public Health's Guidance web page.

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EGADE Business School is widely recognized as the top B-school in Latin America. EGADE photo

The United States gets all the headlines these days, but coronavirus has not spared Mexico. In late August the country reached a grim milestone: its 60,000 pandemic death among more than half a million known cases. But even as it continues to grapple with the health crisis, Mexicos leading business school has turned its attention to what business  and graduate business education  should look like in a post-pandemic Mexico, and by extension throughout Latin America.

EGADE Business School, the postgraduate business school of Mexicos Tecnologico de Monterrey  considered (if not ranked) by many to be the top B-school not only in Mexico but across Latin America  published a 10-point Decalogue for the Economic & Business Refounding of Mexico in July that serves as a guide to reactivating the country through a more conscious model of doing business, and taking advantage of the opportunities that arise after Covid-19. It also lays out the role that business schools can play in this new landscape.

A member of the Yale School of Management-founded Global Network for Advanced Management, EGADE is in a uniquely strong position to contribute analyses, solutions, and strategic approaches for the challenges faced by society and companies in Mexico and across the world, says Ignacio De la Vega, dean of EGADE. The Decalogue, and the business and business education world it seeks to help shape, continue EGADEs mission to be an agent of change in Latin America.

At EGADE Business School, we are committed to the education and development of the new generations of leaders who will transform our societies, says de la Vega, whose school began the fall remotely August 10, with a plan to reassess in mid-September. The pandemic has shown us the pressing need to have the best leaders in our societies to cope with the ongoing health crisis and future social and economic metastases in the best possible way.

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With this Decalogue, we join the search for collective solutions to the challenges humanity is facing.

A NECESSARY CONSOLIDATION OF THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM

Ignacio de la Vega. Courtesy photo

Among the 10 points in EGADEs Decalogue are two that deal with B-schools role in the new future. Point 3 call for the establishment of the entrepreneurial ecosystem as the base of recovery. Coronavirus, it states, has created opportunities that many entrepreneurs have been able to seize. We need to consolidate an ecosystem of entrepreneurship and innovation in which companies, universities, and research centers participate as poles of talent attraction.

EGADE  because of its position as a repository of expert knowledge and solid background in research of the outstanding faculty, the community of business leaders made up of its students and alumni, and strategic alliances  is already at the forefront of the hoped-for entrepreneurial revolution.

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven home the need for organizations, societies and individuals to adapt to unexpected events, the so-called black swans, the Decalogue reads. The profound health, economic, and social effects of this crisis have made a substantial redefinition of the dominant paradigms imperative. In this context, thinking of a rapid recovery and return to the former situation is not realistic. On the contrary, the establishment of a new scenario is highly likely, a great reset in which business models will have to be adapted, disruption across entire sectors increase, and new forms of work and remote consumption become commonplace, with all their technological and geographic implications.

In the long term, a consolidation of the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem will be necessary, with B-schools leading the way and companies, universities, and research centers acting as talent magnets, creating mutual and social support networks for entrepreneurs. Talent is highly mobile, and its attraction requires the creation of dynamic, inclusive and sustainable communities.

Since the main source of growth in knowledge economies is innovation, aligning research with business and social needs is critical. Emphasizing quality or customer and stakeholder satisfaction or experience will no longer be enough for organizations. Instead, they should focus their attention on increasing their stakeholders perceived value, which will undoubtedly have a positive impact on customer loyalty and satisfaction.

THE 4TH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION & A REIMAGINING OF HIGHER ED

The second of 10 points in the Decalogue dealing with B-schools role is No. 8: Drive talent in a connected educational system. Aligning universities and agents of education with the new economy and the new technological contexts must be a priority to drive the impact of new talent on the nations development and competitiveness.

Coronavirus has put educational systems to the test, the document reads, requiring an accelerated migration to interactive distance and hybrid learning models, and incidentally increasing inequality and the social gap. Education, as the cornerstone of society in which a countrys talent potential is developed, is particularly sensitive to the dynamism and changes occurring in the world that are demanded by the new generations. In order to participate in the economy of the future, Mexico must, without delay, address its great pending issue: education.

Aligning universities and agents of education with the new economy and the new technological contexts has to be a priority in order to strengthen their impact on a countrys development and competitiveness. Focusing on the development of local talent in competencies such as disruptive leadership, entrepreneurship with values, holistic innovation, business intelligence, digitization of the value chain and humanistic business and organizational management, is of utmost importance in order to reinstitute competitive advantages based on innovation and technology rather than relying on the comparative advantages of labor and geographical proximity.

The exponential technological change of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Decalogue continues, has forced a reimagining of education. It mandates the creation of a flexible physical and digital learning model that includes artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other exponential technologies, which implies unlearning and relearning new skills, and creating more efficient and effective learning environments. With supply chains driven by technological innovation rather than cheap labor, education should combine hard competencies and cutting-edge knowledge with power skills such as creativity, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, an entrepreneurial mindset, and the ability to solve complex problems, among other key skills for integrating human work with artificial intelligence. Business competitiveness will be linked to concepts such as reskilling and upskilling.

In the final analysis, creating a culture of career long learning as the great challenge to avoid talent obsolescence and the competitiveness gap.

FOR THE NEW SEMESTER, A NEW LEARNING MODEL

In March, when EGADE closed its campuses at the start of the health crisis and implemented a Flexible Digital Model, it proved that adverse conditions could not upend quality standards, de la Vega says. Recognizing the adaptability of their community and the diversity of their national geographic footprint, the school has begun the August-December 2020 semester under HyFlex+, a unique, innovative model that will enable students to combine face-to-face and remote activities.

And with the publication of the Decalogue, EGADE has reinforced its commitment to Mexicos business and entrepreneurial ecosystem  and vowed to lead the way.

At EGADE Business School  Tecnologico de Monterrey, we have promoted a collective learning from this multidimensional crisis, committed to our mission to empower new generations of omni-preneurial leaders who create shared value and transform society, the school announced. Such learning resulted in the formulation of a Decalogue of proposals aligned with a vision of commitment to the transformation of Mexico, contributing to reflection and the search for collective solutions.

At EGADE, we also call for the optimism, solidarity, and collective talent that throughout the history of Mexico and humanity has so often contributed to a splendid rebirth from situations equally as critical as the one we face today.

See EGADEs complete Decalogue here.

DONT MISS THIS B-SCHOOL WANTS TO BE LATIN AMERICAS AGENT OF CHANGE and STANFORD GSB TO LATIN AMERICA: APPLY TO OUR MBA PROGRAM FOR FREE

The post A Post-Virus Paradigm Shift For B-Schools? This School Has The Recipe appeared first on Poets&Quants.
Rwanda Hotel Rwanda Arrest Paul Rusesabagina appears in front of media at the headquarters of the Rwanda Bureau of investigations building in Kigali, Rwanda Monday, Aug. 31, 2020. Rusesabagina, who was portrayed in the film "Hotel Rwanda" as a hero who saved the lives of more than 1,200 people from the country's 1994 genocide, and is a well-known critic of President Paul Kagame, has been arrested by the Rwandan government on terror charges, police announced on Monday, Aug. 31, 2020. (AP Photo)

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP)  Paul Rusesabagina, portrayed in the film Hotel Rwanda as a hero who saved the lives of more than 1,200 people from the country's 1994 genocide, has been arrested by the Rwandan government on terror charges, police announced on Monday.

A well-known critic of President Paul Kagame, Rusesabagina had been living outside Rwanda since 1996 and police did not say where he was apprehended. He had been living in Belgium and then in Texas in the U.S.

Rusesabagina's daughter told the Associated Press that he traveled last week from the U.S. to Dubai, where she alleged he was kidnapped and taken to Rwanda but did not provide evidence to substantiate the claim.

In handcuffs and a facemask, Rusesabagina, 66, was shown to the press in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, on Monday by police. He has not yet been formally charged in court.

Through international cooperation, the Rwanda Bureau of Investigation wants to inform the general public that Paul Rusesabagina has been arrested, police said in a statement Monday.

Rusesabagina is suspected to be the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits including the Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD) operating out of various places in the region and abroad, police said.

Rwanda's police said they had issued an arrest warrant for Rusesabagina to answer charges of serious crimes including terrorism, arson, kidnap and murder, perpetrated against unarmed, innocent Rwandan civilians on Rwandan territory. Police told the media in Kigali that investigations against Rusesabagina will continue and more information will be released about his alleged activities.

Carine Kanimba, Rusesabaginas daughter, said the family was informed early Monday that he was being held in Rwanda. She said none of the family has been able to speak to him and they are worried he may not be getting his hypertension medication.

Kanimba, 27, reached in Washington, D.C., said she last spoke with Rusesabagina last week before he flew to Dubai, but that she didn't know the exact purpose of his trip.

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The state-owned RwandAir has direct flights between Dubai and Kigali.

Rusesabagina is a Belgian citizen and a permanent resident of the United States, Kanimba said.

Were hoping to secure his release quickly and safely, she said.

Kanimba said her father has long been a target because of his vocal criticism of the Rwandan government.

What theyre accusing him of is all made up, she said There is no evidence to what theyre claiming  We know this is a wrongful arrest.

Rusesabagina has previously denied the government's charges that he financially supports Rwandan rebels.

Rusesabagina has been a prominent critic of Kagames government, calling it a dictatorship and urging Western countries to press the government to respect human rights.

Government supporters reject Rusesabaginas criticism, saying Kagame's leadership supports democracy and economic growth.

Rusesabagina has won numerous international honors including the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, which President George W. Bush awarded him in 2005, and the Lantos Human Rights Prize in 2011.

I believe it is a travesty that a human rights champion like Paul Rusesabagina should be captured, detained and held in the way he is being held," said Katrina Lantos Swett, president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice. This should raise a lot of deep concern and skepticism on behalf of a lot of people.

The Rwandan government disputes Rusesabaginas story about saving survivors at a hotel in Kigali during the genocide, in which more than 800,000 Tutsi and Hutus who tried to protect them were killed by Hutus.

The 2004 film Hotel Rwanda showed Rusesabagina, a Hutu married to a Tutsi, as using his influence as a manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines, to allow more than 1,200 Tutsis to shelter in the hotel's rooms. In the film, Rusesabagina was played by actor Don Cheadle.

Naphatal Ahishakiye, executive secretary of Ibuka, a Rwanda survivors organization, said Rusesabagina's arrest is good news for survivors of the genocide. Ahishakiye said Rusesabagina had charged people money to be able to survive in the hotel.

___

AP journalist Jake Bleiberg in Dallas, Texas, contributed to this story.
A rusty hand grenade discovered by a Bangor schoolboy has been blown up in a controlled explosion by Army bomb disposal experts.

The grenade was found by the pupil in a wooded area close to Scrabo Tower at Newtownards.

The boy picked up the grenade and brought it to his home at Lisnabreen Crescent, Bangor, where the alarm was raised on Sunday afternoon.

North Down MLA Alex Easton said the grenade was thought to date from the Second World War.

"The fact Bangor PSNI and Army Bomb Disposal acted so quickly and ensured the safety of residents is worthy of praise and we can't thank them enough.

"You never know if these old finds can be the real thing and the safety of residents must always come first.

"If you find anything like this its best to call the PSNI and make sure it's safe and don't touch it or lift it," the MLA said.

A PSNI spokeswoman confirmed the shock find and said the grenade had been made safe.
From left: Suhyup Bank CEO Lee Dong-bin, KB Kookmin Bank CEO Hur Yin and Shinhan Bank CEO Jin Ok-dong / Courtesy of each bank



By Anna J. Park



Many CEOs of major banks are nearing the end of their terms, drawing attention on who will keep their positions amid turbulent market conditions from COVID-19.



Suhyup Bank CEO Lee Dong-Bin's three-year term will expire on Oct. 24, and the bank is now preparing to form a CEO recommendation committee. Four votes out of five committee members are necessary for a candidate to be appointed as the bank's leader.



As incumbent CEO Lee has received positive reviews from market insiders for his successful leadership of the bank's asset diversification, digitization drives and overseas expansion, he is a strong candidate to be reinstated for one more term at the bank.



During his term, Lee has strengthened retail business, as the bank adjusted its portfolio towards a more balanced ratio of 45 percent household loans and about 55 percent corporate loans. The bank also opened its first branch in Myanmar, advancing into the Southeast Asian market.



A decreased net profit during the first half due to the pandemic could be a burden factor for Lee winning a consecutive terms. The bank's first-half net profit this year saw a 15.4 percent decrease from last year's 162 billion won ($136 million).



KB Kookmin Bank's chief Hur Yin is another incumbent CEO who is viewed among market watchers to probably keep his post, after his current term finishes in November.



After being appointed in November 2017, he successfully wrapped up his first two-year term last November. Based on his achievements in leading the bank's digitization drive and solidly increased net profits during his tenure, he was tapped to lead the bank for one more year.



CEO Hur led the bank's record-high annual net profit of 2.43 trillion won last year, which was up by 8 percent from the previous year and was the largest net profit among local major banks. The bank has also avoided controversies surrounding mis-selling of fund products unlike other major banks.



Based on such stable leadership, KB Kookmin Bank raked in 981 billion won worth of net profit during the second quarter, a whopping 34.6 percent increase from the same period last year. Together with the first quarter, the bank logged a net profit of 1.71 trillion won during the first half, only a 6.8 percent fall year-on-year. Given the pandemic-led shock, the bank's performance is assessed favorably, increasing the bet on another term for him.



Meanwhile, Shinhan Bank's CEO Jin Ok-dong is facing a crossroads, as the bank's third-quarter performance later this year will function as a linchpin of his serving one more term or not, after his current two-year term finishes in December.



Shinhan Bank reported a quarterly net profit of 514 billion won in the second quarter, a 22.5 percent fall from the same period last year. The bank was also unseated as the nation's top profit-generating bank by its rival KB Kookmin Bank.



Together with the first and second quarters, the bank's net profit of 1.14 trillion won also fell by 11 percent year-on-year, losing to KB Kookmin Bank's 1.24 trillion won during the first half.



Since Shinhan Bank has to solve legal disputes over the Lime fund fiasco, retaking the top bank title doesn't seem easy. CEO Jin has focused the bank's digital strategic goals to enhance efficiency. Whether he would serve one more year or not would depend on the third-quarter trajectory of the bank amid the extended pandemic.


US President Donald Trump speaks during an event at the Whirlpool Corporation Manufacturing Plant, Aug. 6 in Clyde, Ohio. AP-Yonhap



By Kim Yoo-chul



Ahead of the upcoming U.S. presidential election, the issue of the alleged theft of trade secrets relating to electric vehicle (EV) lithium-ion battery technology between LG Chem and SK Innovation is becoming a political matter with the Korean companies being asked to agree on what has become a "multi-billion" dollar fight.



Such a scenario is gaining clear momentum after U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, Gainesville, asked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to probe what he referred to as "an ongoing effort to illegally employ foreign nationals" at the SK Innovation battery plant in the state of Georgia. SK Innovation is expected to employ more than 2,000 people at the plant in line with the expansion of its production facilities.



The U.S. politician reported the matter to top federal officials citing a May 29 incident at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, when border officials say they "intercepted 33 Korean nationals  who were attempting to enter the United States with fraudulent work authorizations."



SK Innovation officials declined to comment. However, the requests by Collins came as settlement talks are currently under way between LG and SK legal representatives. The USITC recently ruled in favor of LG Chem in a preliminary ruling. Specifically, it said SK Innovation stole LG's battery trade secrets. The body plans to issue a determination in October this year, which if adverse, could block SK from importing equipment to outfit its Georgia plant which in turn could seriously jeopardize contracts with EV manufacturers such as Volkswagen.



LG Chem officials said the company "doesn't want to see a worst-case scenario" reiterating its stance that an agreement could be reached following an apology by SK and a commitment not to repeat "wrongdoings." Of note is that the USTR is in a position to veto a final ruling by the USITC.



SK Innovation is expecting the possible reelection of U.S. President Donald Trump would provide a "fresh impetus" from its standpoint in terms of reversing the USITC ruling.



But industry officials contacted by The Korea Times said Sunday the request by the U.S. politician was demonstrating the de-facto hope by the Trump camp of a settlement in the case as the spread of the pandemic is taking a toll on the recovery trajectory in the U.S. economy.



A recent report issued by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) said a lot of U.S. economists are worried about slowing growth, rising debt and uncertainty over Trump's trade war with China. The CFR said more competitive foreign economies and the rise of automation are reshaping the U.S. labor market, and noted the ongoing criticism by U.S. politicians who said global trade deals were resulting in the losses of manufacturing jobs.



"Clearly, the legal tussle between LG Chem and SK Innovation isn't a matter only between them. The issue is being complicated as a lot of interested parties are involved. The impact of the final USITC ruling will depends on the U.S. presidential election which is approaching. LG and SK will initiate relevant processes for an eventual settlement anytime now," a senior industry executive familiar with the issue said.



SK Innovation is building a new battery plant in Georgia with an investment of 1.1 trillion won. The plant is scheduled to begin operations in 2022. In April, it decided to make an additional 894 billion won investment to build a second plant, there.



As the settlement efforts are reaching a climax, legal representatives for the two Korean companies are discussing details related to the finalization of terms. Sources familiar with the matter said SK Innovation hopes to make a one-off payment of between 1.5 trillion won and 1.8 trillion won to LG Chem, while LG Chem is seeking a comprehensive cross-licensing contract in return for a settlement before the final USITC ruling.



LG officials said its 2017 agreement with China's ATL, for which the latter agreed to pay 3 percent of its sales of safety-reinforced separators is far from the possible settlement with SK in terms of the gravity of the issue. ATL infringed on three of LG's battery separator patents.



"Just like U.S.-based mobile chipset giant Qualcomm is doing to LG Electronics, LG Chem was hoping to receive royalties in sync with the amount of battery sales from SK's battery plants for a certain period. That scenario, if it happens, will clearly help LG Chem continuously invest in its battery business but will be a burden for SK. The point will be how they find a middle ground," the executive added.


"The high level of approval of the measures indicates that the population is still aware of the risks posed by the virus," comments BfR President Professor Dr. Dr. Andreas Hensel on the current results.

https://www.bfr.bund.de/cm/349/200818-bfr-corona-monitor-en.pdf

The most common protective measures seem to have already become a matter of routine to many people. At least 90 percent of respondents said they wear masks, wash their hands more thoroughly and keep their distance from others. As in the weeks before, in the current survey about one third of the participants state that they use the app of the German government.

In contrast, there is a clear change in the perceived informedness of the respondents. Since June, just over 60 percent of the respondents had stated that they felt well informed about what is happening around the new coronavirus. In the current survey, this figure fell to 52 percent. The information channels used and the evaluation of media coverage remained relatively unchanged: around two-thirds still consider the media coverage to be appropriate, while 29 percent consider the reporting to be exaggerated.

Throughout the summer months, public concern about the impact of the novel coronavirus on different areas of life developed in different patterns: While worries about social relationships as well as physical and mental health have increased slightly, concerns about one' s own economic situation remained comparatively stable.

The BfR continually adapts its FAQs on the topic of coronavirus to the current state of science:

https://www.bfr.bund.de/en/can_the_new_type_of_coronavirus_be_transmitted_via_food_and_objects_-244090.html

###

About the BfR-Corona-Monitor

The BfR-Corona-Monitor is a recurring (multi-wave) representative survey of the German population's perception of risks from the novel coronavirus. Every week between 24 March and 26 May 2020, around 500 randomly selected people were asked by telephone about their assessment of the risk of infection and their protective measures, among other things. Since June 2020, the survey is continued every two weeks with about 1,000 respondents each. A summary of the data is regularly published on the homepage of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment. More information about the method and sample can be found in publications about the BfR-Corona-Monitor.

About the BfR

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) is a scientifically independent institution within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) in Germany. It advises the German federal government and German federal states ("Laender") on questions of food, chemical and product safety. The BfR conducts its own research on topics that are closely linked to its assessment tasks.

This text version is a translation of the original German text which is the only legally binding version.
Photograph: Eduardo Munoz/AP

The judge overseeing the New York fraud case against former Trump campaign manager and White House strategist Steve Bannon set a trial date of 24 May 2021, but also recognized that Covid-19 limitations on court proceedings could lead to a change.

Related: White House spokeswoman refuses to say if Trump condemns Kenosha shooting suspect  live

There are only a few courtrooms that are outfitted to deal with the pandemic, Manhattan federal court judge Analisa Torres said during a video conference on Monday afternoon.

But, she said: Im going to be optimistic.

Bannon attended proceedings, though remotely, visible only as a slate grey icon on a conference screen.

Mr Bannon, are you on the line? asked a court clerk.

Present, the invisible Bannon responded.

The conference was visible on large screens in the jury assembly room at the downtown Manhattan courthouse where the trial will take place.

Bannon, who worked in the White House in the first year of Donald Trumps presidency, was arrested on 20 August on a luxury yacht off the Connecticut coast. He is alleged to have siphoned money from We Build the Wall, an online fundraiser for Trumps contentious border wall with Mexico.

Federal prosecutors allege that Bannon used a non-profit he controlled to divert over $1m from the  online campaign, at least some of which he used to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses.

Officials said We Build The Wall raised more than $25m.

Three other men  Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea  are charged. Each faces one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Each count carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors claim the men orchestrated a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors who were promised 100% of donations would go to building the wall. Prosecutors also say the defendants made up invoices and bogus vendor agreements to cover up their skimming.

Story continues

Kolfage, Badolato and Shea  who, like Bannon, did not appear visually  pleaded not guilty. Kolfage will remain released pending trial on a $500,000 bond. Badolato and Shea will each remain out on a $250,000 bond.

On Monday, the downtown courthouse was quiet, with just two TV cameras on the sidewalk. it marked a dramatic contrast from Bannons first appearance in this case, earlier this month, which ended in theatrics.

Bannons attorney then entered a not guilty plea. Just before Bannon stepped out of the building, released on a $5m bond, he tugged off his mask and flipped his stringy hair to the side. He smiled and waved to reporters and photographers, maintaining a triumphant demeanor despite the possibility of decades behind bars.

This entire fiasco is to stop people who want to build the wall, he said.

Prosecutors concerns about Kolfages recent social media posts were also discussed on Monday. Some of Kolfages posts have maintained that the case against him is political, an assault on every [We Build the Wall] donors[] freedom, a witch hunt and an attempt to take political prisoners.

In a letter late last week, prosecutors wrote that Kolfage had made at least a dozen extrajudicial statements about this case on his Facebook account, which has more than 630,000 followers.

Prosecutors said they were concerned the posts could affect witnesses and alleged victims, many of whom appear to follow Kolfages social media accounts, and potentially taint a future jury pool.

On Monday, Judge Torres warned the four men against making statements that could affect the impartiality of potential jurors or a fair trial.

Do you understand, Mr Kolfage?

Yes, your honor.

Mr Bannon?

Yes, your honor.

The two other men also said they understood.

Harvey Steinberg, Kolfages attorney, took issue with prosecutors comments about his clients statements, pointing out that they issued a press release following the arrests, which used the word fraudsters.

It reminds me of the bully who picks on, if you will, the person who he perceives to be the weakest, and then when the weakest hits him back, he runs to the teacher, Steinberg said.
The Queen held a socially-distanced reunion with William and Kate and their children at Balmoral, according to reports.

The monarch, 94, had not seen her oldest grandson and his family since March, when the coronavirus lockdown was brought in.

It also meant she could spend time with her great-grandchildren George, seven, Charlotte, five, and Louis, two.

William and Kate were said to be over the moon after being able to see the Queen and the 99-year-old Duke of Edinburgh.

A source told The Sun : Like every family, theyve been desperate to get back together and over the moon it was possible this weekend.

Theyve all been up there for a few days and although there are very strict procedures with social distancing, theyve been able to find ways of seeing each other outside.

Its obviously been a difficult year for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh seeing the country dealing with the pandemic, so they were all keen to go there to show their support.

Also visiting the royal estate in Scotland this weekend were Prince Edward, Sophie Wessex and Princess Anne, it is reported.

And Princess Eugenie is said to have visited Balmoral with husband Jack Brooksbank earlier this month.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
Trump administration halts election security briefings, Democrats complain

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 10:10 AM

The US' top intelligence office has announced that it would bring to a halt in-person briefings on election security citing leaks from congressional committees.

The office would send written reports instead, John Ratcliffe, new director of national intelligence, told the House and Senate intelligence panels on Friday, according to an official in Ratcliffe's office.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the office was "concerned about unauthorized disclosures of sensitive information following recent briefings."

The move, which would give lawmakers less opportunity to press for details as the presidential election approaches, drew heated rejoinders from Democrats who have focused on alleged foreign efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election and again the upcoming one.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff have condemned the move, saying in a statement, "This is a shocking abdication of its lawful responsibility to keep the Congress currently informed, and a betrayal of the public's right to know how foreign powers are trying to subvert our democracy."

Ratcliffe's office, which had originally offered to hold in-person briefings for the House and Senate oversight panels next month, later rescinded the offer.

On Saturday, Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican and acting chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Ratcliffe had promised to fulfill the intelligence community's obligations to keep Congress members informed.

Rubio said Ratcliffe, a close political ally of Republican President Donald Trump, had told him that the committee would continue receiving briefings on all oversight topics, which also include election matters.

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, told reporters that Ratcliffe would "ultimately give full briefings, in terms of not oral briefings, but fully intel briefings."

Meanwhile, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said this month that Russia, which allegedly interfered in the 2016 presidential election in favor of Trump, was trying to "denigrate" his 2020 Democratic opponent Joe Biden.

Both Trump and Russia have repeatedly dismissed the accusations of any collusion.

"For clarity and to protect sensitive intelligence from unauthorized disclosures, we will primarily do that through written finished intelligence products," the ODNI official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Biden said in a statement late on Saturday that ODNI was limiting one of the intelligence community's most basic duties, describing the move as "nothing less than a shameless partisan manipulation to protect the personal interests of President Trump."

Biden is leading in opinion polls ahead of the November 3 election.

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Jacqueline Jossa was in a philosophical mood on Sunday as she shared two cryptic motivational quotes on her Instagram.

Taking to Stories, the mum of two shared the quote: 'Don't feel bad if people only remember you when they need you.

'Feel privileged that you are like a candle that comes to their mind when they are in the dark.'

Thoughtful: Jacqueline Jossa was in a philosophical mood on Sunday as she shared two cryptic motivational quotes on her Instagram

The I'm A Celebrity champion went on to share another message from US self-help author Wayne Dyer, which read: 'Remind yourself that you cannot fail at being yourself.'

The quotes come just days after Jacqueline, 27, was bedridden with a mystery illness, telling her fans that she was trying to take it easy.

'I had a brilliant day yesterday but... last night come over unwell - not corona - sick,' she explained. 'So I'm just in bed trying to recover.'

The star has been feeling better over the weekend though as she spent time with her family, husband Dan Osborne and their daughters Ella, five, and Mia, two.

Deep: Taking to Stories, the mum of two shared the quote: 'Don't feel bad if people only remember you when they need you'

Jacqueline and Dan have looked happier than ever recently after defending their marriage in recent weeks, celebrating their youngest daughter's second birthday and taking a family holiday to Greece.

Earlier this month Jacqueline took to Instagram to make another public statement about her marriage to Dan.

Sharing a loved-up snap of them laughing together, the star captioned the image with the words: 'No one needs to understand but us.'

The couple have had their share of ups and downs with allegations of cheating on Dan's part since they married in 2017.

Message: The I'm A Celebrity champion went on to share another message from US self-help author Wayne Dyer, which read: 'Remind yourself that you cannot fail at being yourself'

Dan later admitted he had in fact been unfaithful to Jacqueline and that she had forgiven him for his past indiscretions.

The reality star also let rip on social media about his marriage in a foul-mouthed rant after a fan questioned why Jacqueline stays with him.

He wrote: 'Because we love each other, have a beautiful family, I'm a good husband, good dad to our kids, we get on well, laugh together, super attracted to each other

Recovering: After a brief illness last week the star has been feeling better over the weekend though as she spent time with her family, husband Dan Osborne and their daughters Ella, five, and Mia, two

'Any more reasons you need? You didn't know none of that, eh? That's because you do not f***ing know me, or my wife, or us as a couple lol.

'So concentrate on your own life and you (sic) clearly never been taught to not be rude, especially to people you don't even know. Hope you've learnt something from this.'

The response stemmed from a post Jacqueline shared the previous day of herself and husband Dan, urging him to 'hurry home please' amid his Turkey trip.
Kim Jong-un's sister has been out of public view for more than a month - prompting fears that her rise to prominence has gone too far for North Korea's liking.

Kim Yo-jong has been described as her brother's 'number two' after representing the regime at official events and wielding influence over the secretive state's policies.

She has even been seen as a possible future successor to Kim Jong-un amid persistent rumours about the dictator's health.

However, an expert told South Korea's Chosun Ilbo that the North has previously demoted anyone seen as a 'number two' - although Kim's sister may get special treatment as a member of the ruling dynasty.

Kim Yo-jong, pictured right with her brother Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, has come to be seen as the dictator's 'number two' and a policymaker in her own right

'In the past, anyone was deprived of their position the moment they were described as the number two person in the North,' said professor Nam Sung-wook of Korea University.

'There must be a semblance of checks and balances, although Kim Yo-jong is a family member.'

Kim Jong-un previously purged his own uncle to secure his own grip on power after succeeding his father Kim Jong-il in 2011.

The dictator's sister was last seen in public on July 27 and may have been lying low in order to avoid angering her brother by fuelling further speculation about her role, it is believed.

She last appeared at an event to mark 67 years since the armistice that ended the Korean War - although no full peace treaty has ever been signed.

Last week she was not pictured at a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party, having attended many previous such meetings.

Kim Jong-un's wife Ri Jol-su has also been out of sight since January, leading to speculation she could have had another child.

The couple are believed to have three children, with the youngest born in 2017, according to the South's intelligence service.

The oldest is a 10-year-old son, meaning that none of them could take control of the regime if Kim Jong-un was incapacitated or dead.

Kim Yo-jong was touted as a possible successor earlier this year when the supreme leader mysteriously vanished from public view for several weeks.

Kim's absence from his late grandfather's birthday celebrations in mid-April - the most important day in the North's political calendar - led to claims that the dictator was seriously ill or dead.

He finally resurfaced in May - but experts say there are other signs that Kim Yo-jong's influence has been growing.

Believed to be in her 30s, she came to wider attention in the West during the flurry of international diplomacy in 2018 and 2019 by appearing at a series of international events.

Kim Yo-jong has represented her brother at several international events, including a meeting with South Korea's top national security adviser in the DMZ last year (pictured)

These included the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea and the failed 2019 summit with Donald Trump in Vietnam.

But this year, Kim has taken on a more public policy role, cementing her status as an influential political player in her own right.

'Prior to this, Kim Yo Jong was portrayed in state media as Kim Jong Un's sister, his protocol officer, or one of his accompanying officials,' said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a former North Korea analyst for the US government, earlier this year.

'Now, North Koreans know for sure there is more to her than that.'

In March, state media carried the first ever statement by Kim, in which she criticised South Korean authorities.

There have since been several more, including a response Trump and a warning that the North would cut communications with South Korea.

'In addition to the harsh words and sarcasm, they can be bitingly witty in ways that the other statements are not,' Lee said.

'She seems to have more leeway in crafting her statements, which of course is not surprising,' Lee said.

In a closed-door briefing to South Korean lawmakers earlier this month, Seoul's spy agency said Kim Jong-un had recently delegated some of his powers to a select group of senior officials including his sister.

Officials from the National Intelligence Service said Kim's rule was still absolute but that he was seeking to relieve the stress of managing state affairs, lawmaker Ha Tae-keung said.

Kim's state-planned economy has been under strain in recent weeks because of heavy rains and floods, as well as measures to contain the coronavirus.

International aid workers in North Korea are currently unable to travel outside Pyongyang due to coronavirus restrictions.

North Korea has not announced a single case of the virus, although there is widespread scepticism about the regime's claims.
Top aides to U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fly to the United Arab Emirates on Monday to put the final touches on a pact establishing open relations between the Gulf power and Israel.

Even before discussions start in Abu Dhabi, the delegates will have made aviation history by taking an Israeli commercial airliner - the word "peace" printed in Arabic, English and Hebrew above a cockpit window of the El Al Boeing 737 - directly from Tel Aviv to the UAE capital over Saudi territory.

"That's what peace for peace looks like," Netanyahu tweeted, hailing what he termed a historic flight and describing a deal for formal ties with an Arab state that does not entail handover of land that Israel captured in a 1967 war.

Announced on Aug. 13, the 'normalisation' deal is the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years and was catalysed largely by shared fears of Iran.

Palestinians were dismayed by the UAE's move, worried that it would weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory - and acceptance of Palestinian statehood - in return for normal relations with Arab countries.

Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and national security adviser Robert O'Brien head the U.S. delegation. The Israeli team is led by O'Brien's counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat. Officials will explore bilateral cooperation in areas such as commerce and tourism, and Israeli defence envoys are due to visit the UAE separately.

Israeli officials hope the two-day trip will produce a date for a Washington signing ceremony, perhaps as early as September, between Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

That could give Trump a foreign policy boost ahead of his re-election bid in November. In Jerusalem on Sunday, Kushner said the deal was a giant step forward.

The Trump administration has tried to coax other Sunni Arab countries concerned about Iran to engage with Israel. The most powerful of those, Saudi Arabia, has signalled it is not ready.

But in what could presage a more relaxed posture by Riyadh, the El Al plane on Monday will be allowed to overfly Saudi territory to cut flight time.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee, said Kushner and his team were "scrambling to convince as many Arab and Muslim leaders as possible" to give Trump an election boost.

"They will be a prop at the backdrop of a meaningless spectacle for a ridiculous agreement that will not bring peace to the region," she said.
NEW YORK: Brian Kolfage, the U.S. Air Force veteran charged alongside former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon with defrauding donors in a scheme to build the presidents signature wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, pleaded not guilty on Monday.

Federal prosecutors on Aug. 20 accused Bannon, Kolfage and two other defendants of defrauding donors through a $25 million crowdfunding campaign called We Build the Wall." Bannon and Kolfage used hundreds of thousands of dollars of that money to cover personal expenses, according to the charges.

Kolfage, 38, appeared before U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan.

Kolfage lost both legs and his right hand in a 2004 rocket attack in Iraq.

Bannon, 66, has pleaded not guilty.

As a top adviser to Trumps presidential campaign and later White House chief strategist, Bannon helped articulate the America First" right-wing populism and fierce opposition to immigration that have been hallmarks of Trumps 3-1/2 years in office.

Two other men charged with taking part in the scheme - Andrew Badolato, 56, and Timothy Shea, 49 - also entered not guilty pleas on Monday.

In a court filing last week, prosecutors asked the judge to warn Kolfage and the other defendants against making extrajudicial statements" that could taint the jury pool, citing what they called a steady stream" of often highly inflammatory posts" by Kolfage on social media.

The posts included descriptions of the case as a witch hunt" and a political effort targeting Trump supporters, including donors to We Build the Wall."

This is #WAR for control of the most powerful country in the world," Kolfage posted on Aug. 23, accompanied by a photo of Bannon emerging from court.

Trump has said he felt very badly" about the charges against Bannon, whom he fired from his White House post in 2017, but added that he had not dealt with his former adviser for literally years."

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- P2 Gold Inc. (P2 or the Company) (TSX-V:PGLD) reports that its 2020 exploration programs on its properties in northwest British Columbia and southeast Oregon have commenced, and it will commence trading this morning on the TSX Venture Exchange under the name P2 Gold Inc. and symbol PGLD.



Since early June, P2 has optioned three properties in northwest British Columbia and leased one property in southeast Oregon: Silver Reef, option to acquire up to a 100% interest (see news release June 11, 2020); Todd Creek, option to acquire up to a 70% interest (see news release July 9, 2020), BAM, option to acquire up to a 100% interest (see news release July 2, 2020) and Stockade, lease of a 100% interest (see news release July 10, 2020). Following the optioning and leasing of the properties, the Company completed a C$3.5 million financing in late July.

Silver Reef

The Phase One exploration drill program has been completed at Silver Reef consisting of 10 holes totaling 1,315 meters. Assays will be reported on receipt.

The Silver Reef Property covers an area of over 23,000 hectares approximately 85 kilometers north of Hazelton, BC and to the east of the Golden Triangle. The exploration target at Silver Reef is similar to the Coeur dAlene district in Idaho, and more locally the historic and high-grade Silver Standard Mine located approximately 80 kilometers to the south. At Silver Reef, sulphide mineralization with quartz/carbonate veins and stockwork are associated with a regional shear zone that cuts through the alteration halo of a large granitic intrusive.

Eight of the Phase One drill holes targeted the Main Zone of the structure, with the remaining two Phase One holes targeting the Northwest Zone. Recent mapping has extended the Main Zone structure by over one kilometer to the northwest. As a result, the Main Zone structure now extends two kilometers along strike and remains open to the northwest. Field mapping has also determined that the previously identified Northwest Zone is a parallel zone of mineralization, which more than doubles the exploration potential of the property. A Phase Two drill program is expected to commence in early September, pending receipt of assays from the Phase One drill program.

Todd Creek

The 2020 exploration program at Todd Creek has commenced and includes a minimum of 1,000 meters of drilling planned for three holes. Drilling is focused on targets at the Yellow Bowl Zone, a lenticular sericite-rich gossan measuring one kilometer by three kilometers which hosts numerous structurally- controlled copper and gold showings. Drilling will also test a series of closely-spaced copper/gold showings in a zone located five kilometers southeast of Yellow Bowl. The program includes completion of a satellite hyperspectral, as well as airborne magnetic and radiometric surveys over the northwest portion of the property. Drilling is expected to be completed by early September with assays to follow.

The Todd Creek Property covers an area of over 32,000 hectares and is located within the Golden Triangle, approximately 35 kilometers northeast of Stewart, BC and bordering the east side of Pretium Resources Inc.s Bowser Claims. The western side of the Todd Creek Property covers a 12-kilometer by 3-kilometer corridor of altered lower Jurassic volcanic rocks which host at least four zones of gold-copper mineralization, known as Fall Creek, Ice Creek, Yellow Bowl and South zones. These zones are found in the same stratigraphy that hosts the nearby Brucejack, Snowfield, and Goldstorm deposits.

BAM

A systematic exploration program of the BAM property is underway. An airborne geophysical program has been completed. A soil geochemical sampling, geologic mapping and prospecting program is in its final stages, with ground geophysical work expected to commence shortly.

The BAM Property covers an area of over 8,100 hectares located in the heart of the Golden Triangle, approximately 150 kilometers northwest of Stewart, BC. On the BAM Property, drilling in 1967 identified a sizeable area of copper mineralization with minor silver in a replacement zone hosted by brecciated Lower Permian limestone and dolomite. More recently, exploration efforts on the BAM Property have focused on gold. This work started in the mid-1980s when Radcliffe Resources discovered quartz veins that assayed up to 212 grams per tonne gold in grab samples, and when Chevron Canada Resources Limited collected channel samples from trenches that returned up to 7.4 grams per tonne gold over 19.3 meters. The BAM property has not been systematically explored for large porphyry-related copper-gold or a bulk tonnage gold-silver system.

Stockade

A National Instrument 43-101 technical report compiling the historical field work and drill results at Stockade is underway. In addition, a field program has been initiated as part of a systematic exploration program that is expected to consist of ground geophysical studies, along with further prospecting, geochemical sampling, geologic mapping and drilling.

The Stockade property covers an area of over 6,790 acres located in Malheur County, Oregon, approximately 85 kilometers southeast of Burns, Oregon, or 150 kilometers southwest of Boise, Idaho. The property was explored by BHP, Phelps Dodge and Placer Dome with only shallow drill holes targeting bulk tonnage potential in the 1980s and 1990s.

Timmins Claims

With the exploration focus now on the Pacific Northwest of North America, P2 has determined that its Timmins claims are non-core and has decided to divest the Timmins claims.

Quality Assurance

Amanda Tuck, P.Geo is the qualified person responsible for the Silver Reef and Todd Creek properties and has reviewed, verified and approved the scientific and technical information in this news release relating thereto. Graeme Evans, P.Geo is the qualified person responsible for the BAM property and has reviewed, verified and approved the scientific and technical information in this news release relating thereto.

About P2 Gold Inc.

P2 is a mineral exploration and development company focused on advancing precious metals discoveries and acquisitions in the Pacific Northwest.

For further information, please contact:

P2 Gold Inc.

www.p2gold.com



Joseph Ovsenek

President, CEO and Chairman

jovsenek@p2gold.com

Tel: +1 (604) 558-5167





Chris Hopkins, CFO

ch opkins@p 2gold.com

Tel: +1 (416) 786-9793

Forward Looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws that is intended to be covered by the safe harbours created by those laws. Forward-looking information includes statements that use forward-looking terminology such as may, will, expect, anticipate, believe, continue, potential or the negative thereof or other variations thereof or comparable terminology. Such forward-looking information includes, without limitation, the Companys expectations, strategies and plans for Silver Reef, Todd Creek, BAM, Stockade and Timmins properties, including the Companys planned expenditures and exploration activities.

Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and is based upon a number of estimates and assumptions of management at the date the statements are made. Furthermore, such forward-looking information involves a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual plans, intentions, activities, results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future plans, intentions, activities, results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. See Risk Factors in the Companys final prospectus dated October 4, 2018 filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com for a discussion of these risks.

The Company cautions that there can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Except as required by law, the Company does not assume any obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking information contained in this press release to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.

Neither the Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Watercrest Sarasota is a 198-unit, luxury senior living campus comprised of 72 independent, 94 assisted living and 32 memory care residences with world-class amenities and exceptional care. Walker & Company construction is finalizing building details alongside Interior Design Associates (IDA), in preparation for a fall opening.

"In conjunction with our development partners, United Properties, we thank each and every partner who contributed to this exceptional project," says Marc Vorkapich, Principal and CEO of Watercrest Senior Living Group. "We have received tremendous support from the greater Sarasota community and join everyone in joyfully anticipating the day we welcome residents to their beautiful new home."

Watercrest Sarasota is a signature Watercrest product, ideally located at 4100 University Parkway in Sarasota, Fla. The architecture and design boast a stunning promenade, fireplace, signature water wall, multiple dining options, pool, salon and spa, grand balconies, and Florida-style outdoor living spaces. Watercrest's uniquely designed Market Street Plaza showcases an 'outdoor' streetscape with numerous LifeBUILT programming touches; a highlight and crucial element of their multi-sensory memory care programming.

"Our Watercrest team is working diligently to ensure a smooth and successful opening," says Collin Baranick, Executive Director of Watercrest Sarasota. "We look forward to greeting each resident and establishing a family of associates and residents who truly call Watercrest Sarasota their home."

For community information, virtual tours or to place your reservation at Watercrest Sarasota, please contact Collin Baranick, Executive Director at 941-979-1396 or [email protected].

Watercrest Senior Living Group was founded by Marc Vorkapich, CEO, and Joan Williams, CFO, to honor our mothers and fathers, aspiring to become a beacon for quality in senior living by surpassing standards of care, service and associate training. Watercrest senior living communities are recognized for their luxury aesthetic, exceptional amenities and world-class care, and their innovative memory care programming offers unparalleled service to seniors living with Alzheimer's and dementia.

Watercrest Sarasota is the second senior living development project partnered between Watercrest Senior Living Group and United Properties. Their first project, Watercrest Naples Assisted Living and Memory Care welcomed its founding residents earlier this year in Naples, FL.

Founded in 1916 and based in Minneapolis, United Properties has developed nearly 200 projects totaling more than 20 million square feet and nearly $1 billion over the last 30 years. Since 2004, United Properties has developed 15 senior housing communities in the Minneapolis/St. Paul and Denver markets, with seven more under development. For information on United Properties, visit http://www.uproperties.com.

A certified Great Place to Work, Watercrest Senior Living Group specializes in the development and operations of assisted living and memory care communities and the growth of servant leaders. Visit www.watercrestseniorliving.com.

SOURCE Watercrest Senior Living Group

Related Links

http://www.watercrestseniorliving.com


Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 13:20:22|Editor: huaxia

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ISLAMABAD, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- A terrorist attack at Pakistani forces during a search operation in the northwest tribal district of South Waziristan left three soldiers killed and four others injured, a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said on late Sunday night.

According to the statement, the soldiers were killed after terrorists opened fire at security forces during a search operation in South Waziristan.

"Terrorists fire raid at security forces blocking position during a search operation in South Waziristan," said the statement, adding that four other soldiers also sustained injuries during the incident.

Local media quoting sources reported that Pakistan army personnel were busy in a search operation in the region after knowing tip-off about the presence of some terrorists.

Following the attack, heavy contingents of armed forces have cordoned off the area and started a further search operation.

Earlier on Aug. 24, Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa visited the troops busy in consolidation operations along the Pak-Afghan border in South Waziristan's neighboring district of North Waziristan and stressed on the need of joint efforts of all stakeholders to retain hard-earned peace in the tribal areas.

"Recent consolidation operations along Pak-Afghan border ensured the effective area domination of some inaccessible pockets of land which were being sporadically used by terrorists as hideouts to target local populace and security apparatus in the rear areas," said a statement from the ISPR after the visit. Enditem
Richard Willis/ESB

EUR 150 million EIB backing for Irish smart meter rollout

Supports ESB Networks installation of 2.4 million smart meters in every home, farm and business in Ireland by the end of 2024

Increased use of smart meters delivers benefits to customers, the economy and the environment

The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities has tasked ESB Networks with the roll-out of the National Smart Metering Programme which is a key part of Irish Governments National Climate Action Plan

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and ESB are today (Friday August 28) signing a loan facility to support the roll out of 2.4 million smart meters to every home, farm and business in Ireland by the end of 2024.

The EIB has agreed to provide EUR 150 million to support ESB Networks national smart metering programme, which is a key element of the National Climate Action Plan, supporting Ireland's transition to a low carbon electricity network and delivering benefits to customers, the economy and the environment.

The new EUR 150 million 15-year loan will support the roll out programme, which started in counties Cork, Laois and Kildare in Autumn 2019 and is being delivered on a phased basis. By the end of 2020 it is envisaged that 200,000 meters will have been replaced and approximately 500,000 meters will be replaced in each of the four years thereafter. From 2021, electricity supply companies will be able to offer new smart services to customers with smart meters.

Eamon Ryan, Minister for Climate Action, Communication Networks and Transport, said:

Ensuring continued climate action investment is essential for Ireland to contribute to tackling the global climate emergency. I welcome the European Investment Banks latest vote of confidence in Irelands National Climate Action Plan and the new EUR 150 million backing for ESB Networks roll out of smart meters. The EIBs support for 70 million smart meters across Europe has shown how new technology enables homeowners to use energy in a smarter way, save money on electricity bills and reducing their impact on the environment. The EIB is a key partner for long-term investment in Ireland and I look forward to ensuring that the EIB, as Europes climate bank, continues to increase support for high-impact climate investment in this country.

Commenting on the on the signing of the loan facility, Pat ODoherty, Chief Executive of ESB, said: The National Smart Metering Programme being delivered by ESB Networks is an important enabler of Irelands National Climate Action Plan and helping empower all electricity consumers to actively play their part. This is a big investment in Irelands transition to a low-carbon future, and the wider economy. ESB has a long-standing relationship with the EIB and we welcome their support in helping to deliver this important programme.

Andrew McDowell, Vice President of the European Investment Bank, said:

The European Investment Bank  as the EU Climate Bank  is committed to financing Europes energy transition. Our EUR 150 million financing commitment to ESB Networks will support the extensive roll out of smart meters to every home and business in the country, giving consumers greater control over their energy consumption and supporting the electrification of heating and transport. The EIB looks forward to further increasing our support for climate action with Irish partners in the years ahead. said Andrew McDowell, Vice President of the European Investment Bank.

Benefits of Smart Metering

ESB Networks will replace 2.4 million meters with modern smart meters in every home, farm and business by the end of 2024. These new meters will deliver benefits to customers, the economy and the environment and will facilitate Irelands transition to a low carbon electricity network. The benefits include:

Facilitating the development of Irelands growing renewable generation, smart grids and support the electrification of transport and heat.

Providing customers with greater access to accurate information on energy usage, giving greater control over energy consumption. In trials, consumers reduced consumption by up to 3% and peak demand by 8%.

Enabling more accurate billing, significantly reducing the need for manual meter readings and estimated bills.

Improving customer services by allowing ESB Networks to find faults quicker and manage the network more efficiently. It will also enable customers to switch electricity supplier and move premises more easily.

Enabling electricity supply companies to begin to offer new smart products and services, giving more choice and enabling customers to move some of their consumption to times of day when electricity is cheaper.

Supporting six-year installation programme

The 15-year long term EIB loan will support the first phase of the six-year smart meter installation programme. There will be no additional charge to customers for a smart meter upgrade, like other meter and electricity infrastructure upgrades the smart metering programme costs are included in the existing charges for use of the electricity network

Building on EIB energy track record

Over the last five years the EIB has supported new investment across Europe to provide more than 70 million advanced and digital electricity smart meters. This follows the EIBs first support for innovative metering technology in Italy in 2000. Over the last 43 years the EIB has provided EUR 4.2 billion for energy investment across Ireland.

ESB

ESB operates across the electricity market: from generation, through transmission and distribution to the supply of customers with an expanding presence in the Great Britain generation market. In addition, we extract further value through supplying gas, energy services and using our networks to carry fibre for telecommunications. ESB is the owner of the distribution and transmission networks in the Republic of Ireland (via ESB Networks) and Northern Ireland (via Northern Ireland Electricity Networks Ltd).
But Murdoch began to realize we werent getting any kind of bipartisan work on legislation that was really important because theres no ability to have bipartisan communications any more, she said. And so I started looking at whats the cause of our dysfunction: How do we figure out why that doesnt work? We know we have the majority of the American public interested in solutions to the climate crisis  and in everything, actually. The majority of the public can agree on a lot of the solutions for most of our complex problems, but our politicians cant agree amongst themselves to get anything done.
About 50 dogs will be coming to the area, looking for their forever homes.

The friendly dogs are from remote communities in northern Canada, said John Greer, executive director of Niagara SPCA and Humane Society, which serves ten municipalities, including Haldimand County.

The north continues to experience over pet population due to lack of services, Greer said.

Not only are spay and neuter services difficult to access, but they can also be prohibitively expensive.

Thats why dogs and cats are regularly brought south, so they can be adopted.

A team from Niagara SPCA and Humane Society is heading up to Thunder Bay to connect with two community partners, Save a Dog Network and Northern Manitoba Paws in Need.

The last time they went was in March; 105 dogs and 95 cats were brought back.

And all have been adopted, Greer said.

It is great that we can help our partners to the north. We have a very good working relationship with them.

When the animals arrive here, they will be put in quarantine for two weeks, during which time they will get checked by vets and receive any necessary medical care before they will be made available for adoption.

Our dog population currently is very low, and there will be a lot of pups in this group, Greer said. Many will not survive if (they are) not transferred, due to larger dogs roaming.

The Niagara SPCA and Humane Society is appealing to the community for help with this project.

The distance to Thunder Bay is approximately 3,000 kilometres, which will be a large fuel bill, Greer said.

Thats why theyre asking the public to "Fill the Tank" and sponsor kilometres at $5 each; their fundraising goal is $15,000.

Donations can be made online through CanadaHelps.
Presidential elections are distracting in the best of times.

But this year, with the coronavirus looming over the country and economy and the political divisions so stark and heated, it just might become all consuming.

With millions of voters expected to turn in mail-in ballots to social distance, the result might not come on election night, but weeks after. And once when the results are finalized, there are real fears that even if iconoclastic President Trump is removed from office at the polls, come the inauguration on Jan. 20, he might have to be removed from office by more direct means.

That hint of constitutional crisis will be in the air this fall as the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, squares off against Trump in the press, on Twitter and in digital political rallies.

The more heated the contest, the more it will draw the attention of shoppers and the world.

With good reason the stakes are always high, but this year they seem existential.

In accepting his partys nomination, Biden said Trump had cloaked America in darkness for much too long and that, if elected, he would be an ally of the light not the darkness. Trump, meanwhile, in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last week, used similar words to describe Biden, saying the former vice president is not the savior of Americas soul  he is the destroyer of Americas jobs and, if given the chance, he will be the destroyer of American greatness.



Polling suggests that Biden is in the lead, although everyone is more wary of polls given how wrong they were in 2016. The Senate might also flip and the House of Representatives is expected to remain controlled by the Democrats, who have a real shot at steering both the legislative and executive branches, opening the possibility of sweeping change in government policy.

So not only would a President Biden seek to reset relationships with the world, after four years of Trumps America First agenda, he would be in a position to enact sweeping policy changes on everything from climate change to tax policy.

Story continues

Just as Trump sought to dismantle the legacy of his predecessor, Barack Obama, Biden would likely go after the tax cuts that stand as the current presidents big legislative achievement.

Goldman Sachs said it is the prospect of tax increases under Biden that investors are focusing on headed into the election.

In his speech, Biden referred to plans to rebuild the economy by upgrading infrastructure, creating 5 million new manufacturing and technology jobs, improving the health care and education systems and more.

We can pay for these investments by ending loopholes and the presidents $1.3 trillion tax giveaway to the wealthiest 1 percent and the biggest, most profitable corporations, some of which pay no tax at all, Biden said. Because we dont need a tax code that rewards wealth more than it rewards work. Im not looking to punish anyone. Far from it. But its long past time the wealthiest people and the biggest corporations in this country paid their fair share.

Goldman crunched the numbers from past company results and examined data from the Tax Foundation to estimate what that would mean for consumer companies if the Trump tax cuts were rolled back.

The top line is that Trumps 2017 tax tweak brought the statutory federal tax rate on domestic income down from 35 percent to 21 percent and Bidens plan would bring the rate back to 28 percent  eliminating half the tax cut.

On the whole, Goldman estimates that U.S. consumer firms would see their average net income fall 6 percent as their average effective tax rate moves from about 20 percent to 24 percent.

Nordstrom Inc., Ross Stores Inc. and Kohls Corp. were among the companies seen taking a bigger hit in the tax cuts and losing 8 percent of their income.

An 8 percent loss in corporate profits might not register in the battle between light and darkness, but it is probably enough to register with fashions financial set.

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HOHHOT, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- A senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has stressed the importance to collect public opinion on the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) from officials and members of the public.

Huang Kunming, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks during his inspection to north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region from Friday to Sunday.

During the inspection, Huang learned about works on poverty alleviation, cultural relic repairing and protection, and ecological and environmental governance.
Officer who faces charge, discipline after Monday wreck identified

A charge is pending against Watertown police officer Karter Lingen, 27, after a Monday afternoon crash in which one person was injured, to the state.


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Chennai: Tamil Nadu Health Secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan has said that the relaxations in the state, amid the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, "comes with a lot of duties". In an exclusive interview, he said that the public "need to understand that itll be a win-win if we all work together until there is a specific vaccine or cure".

Laying emphasis on getting tested he said, "We have decided that every Government and private organization will have a Covid monitoring officer, with whom the government will interact. We have expanded the testing capacity to be able to conduct 1.5lakh RT-PCR tests in a day. Even in case of remotest symptom, we urge the public to come and get tested. We will continue the aggressive policy of testing 75,000 tests per day."

As on August 30, Tamil Nadu has recorded a total of over 4.22 lakh COVID-19 cases, which includes 3.62 lakh recoveries and 7231 deaths. Chennai alone has seen over 1.34 lakh cases. The state has witnessed nearly 6,000 cases in recent weeks and the state had performed over 4.5 million RT-PCR Covid-19 tests.

Q. Starting September, Tamil Nadu is opening up as a part of Unlock 4.0. Everything, except for Educational institutions is opening up. How do we foresee a spike in cases and what is the government doing to prevent this spike?

Dr. J. Radhakrishnan: Regard to Covid-19, the regular message during all phases of unlock has been to follow the Least Common denominator of - mask wearing, physical distance and frequent hand-washing and cocooning the vulnerable. We have decided that every Government and private organization will have a Covid monitoring officer, with whom the government will interact. We have expanded the testing capacity to be able to conduct 1.5lakh RT-PCR tests in a day. Even in case of remotest symptom, we urge the public to come and get tested. We will continue the aggressive policy of testing 75,000 tests per day. We need public cooperation, this relaxation comes with a lot of duties. They need to understand that itll be a win-win if we all work together until there is a specific vaccine or cure.

Q. The daily case numbers in Tamil Nadu are consistent, despite the increase in number of tests done. Daily cases have been around 5500-6000, how do you explain this please ?

Dr. J. Radhakrishnan: Numbers as far as whole state is concerned, are consistent. When we look at the districts, there is a marked shift. Earlier it was Chennai and surrounding districts, but now it is Coimbatore, Salem and Cuddalore. Earlier, our results were from about 60,000 RT-PCR tests but yesterday it was almost 83,000 tests. Now we are looking at positivity - roughly 9 districts are having more than 10% positivity rate. Overall, our statea weekly positivity has come down to below 8%. We are de-segregating the data, giving district level dashboards to collectors, informing them what is happening and getting feedback from districts. We are also seeing urban-rural differences from various pockets.

Q. As far as Chennai is concerned, about two months ago the cases were 2000 per day and now its come down by half. How is this turnaround made possible in terms of strategy ?

Dr. J. Radhakrishnan: For Chennai, the Honorable Chief Minister pushed us to go in for aggressive testing - we went from 3000 tests per day to 13,000. We have a very focussed, specific strategy for slums, for row houses and for workplaces. The city was divided into 15 zones and we had a coordinating mechanism, we started control rooms in every zone. Even senior ministers were assigned for that work, apart from that we had a marked increase in fever camps. Even those with remotest symptoms were tested near the fever camps. It was a lot of micro-level and street level planning and we are continuing same. As of now, North Chennai cases have come down and workplaces and business districts cases are on the rise.

Q. As a part of Unlock 4.0, does it mean that people coming in via flights or train will quarantine be relaxed or are any new guidelines in the works ?

Dr. J. Radhakrishnan: There is a separate guideline coming in for that also. For International flights there is 96hrs quarantine if they do RT-PCR test. Even then, when they come based on international flights, there is a specific kind of home quarantine or institutional quarantine. In case the passengers are not tested, they will be tested. Detailed and separate comprehensive guidelines based on Government of India directives is being prepared. This will be issued in consultation with the Chief Minister and the Public department.

Q. The Sero-survey that was performed in parts of Tamil Nadu, how have the results been ? And what is the inference from the sero-survey ?

Dr. J. Radhakrishnan: So far, officially they have not submitted the sero-survey. They did it in parts of Chennai and we asked them to do it in other parts of the state as well. We are also awaiting. Personally I feel, the biggest challenge is that, even now, certain people avoid coming to the hospital for the first 3-4 days and some dont even test. So they end up with severe lung involvement and that is why we start losing people. That is the message we are giving, we urge people to come to the hospital before they get heavy lung involvement, so that they can get cured with available medicines.

Whether the sero-survey shows a higher disease prevalence and the disease comes down is one part. But we should really reduce the case fatality and that is the focus area. Last few weeks it has come down and now case fatality is at 1.71% and we are want to slowly bring it to at least 1%.

Q. There were some projections made by the MGR University pertaining to how the Covid-19 pandemic would evolve until March next year. What is the governments approach towards those numbers and data ?

Dr. J. Radhakrishnan: Various agencies give their projections. At the cutting-edge level we are looking at much more simpler messages, because more than creating a scare, our job is to sensitize people. At present, whatever others say, the full safeguard is mask-wearing, hand-washing, physical distancing and cocooning the elders. If these are followed and if aggressive testing is done, even if somebody wants to get tested, they are able to get a test result within 24hours and that too - the reliable RT-PCR test.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami flagged-off 118 ambulances at the Secretariat in the city which are meant to bolster the states effort in the fight against the deadly pandemic. 18 of the ambulances that were flagged-off, were donated to the Government by the ZEE Group as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) initiative. These 18 are the first batch, among the total set of 45 ambulances that the media conglomerate would be handing over to the government.

The ambulances are set to join the 108 Emergency service that is run across the state of Tamil Nadu, to provide rapid and free-of-cost medical transport to the nearest medical facilities. Of the ambulances launched on Monday, 108 units would serve as means for transport for citizens in case of medical emergency and the 10 others are meant to be mobile blood banks.

In the event that was presided over by the Chief Minister, the state government commended the efforts of ZEE group for having donated the ambulances to strengthen the state health infrastructure, at a time when the country was fighting the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 18:39:10|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Political party leaders from around the world have firmly opposed some U.S. politicians' denigration and tarnishing of China's image, and objected to their interference in China's internal affairs and severe undermining of China-U.S. relations.

In their messages sent recently to the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, the party leaders hope that all parties will strengthen communication and cooperation and jointly safeguard world peace, stability and development.

Solly Afrika Mapaila, first deputy general secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), said the SACP and all the people who love peace strongly oppose the U.S. government's recent provocative attacks on China on issues concerning the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan.

Mapaila said they believe that under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping at its core, the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics will continue to make great strides forward.

Sophia Shaningwa, secretary-general of Namibia's ruling party South West Africa People's Organization, said that the U.S. recent moves against China have fully exposed its hegemonic nature.

Citing an old Chinese saying of "a just cause enjoys abundant support while an unjust cause finds little," Shaningwa said that the anti-China plot of Washington is unpopular and doomed to fail.

Umaru Napoleon Koroma, secretary-general of the Sierra Leone People's Party, opposed relevant countries' smears and attacks on China on the excuse of the COVID-19 pandemic and other issues.

Sierra Leone will not waver in supporting China on issues concerning China's core interests, Koroma said, adding that the country is ready to maintain communication and coordination with China and work together to strengthen international cooperation in fighting COVID-19 and promote global economic recovery.

Jorge Taiana, secretary of international relations of the Argentine Justicialist Party and president of foreign relations commission of the Senate, said he firmly opposes hegemony and unilateralism as well as politicizing the COVID-19 epidemic and interfering in the internal affairs of other countries under the pretext of the epidemic.

The Justicialist Party and the CPC share a broad consensus on issues including safeguarding world peace, said Taiana, adding that the two parties will actively promote the development of their relations and also relations between the two countries so as to jointly promote the establishment of a more just and reasonable world order. Enditem
Man arrested for robbing Polish woman in Hoi An

A man in Hoi An ancient town in central Vietnam has been detained for snatching a handbag from a Polish woman one night last week.

Pham Huu Vinh, 30, is being investigated for robbery, police said Monday.

Pham Huu Vinh is held at a police station in Hoi An, August 31, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Dai Hiep.

At 11:40 p.m. last Thursday, Vinh borrowed a motorbike from his friend to stalk the streets looking for prey. He noticed Anastazja Barbara Szagajdenko, the Polish woman, entering her place, her handbag still inside her bicycle basket.

Vinh sped up and snatched the handbag containing VND4 million ($212) in cash, four credit cards, and other personal papers.

Acting on the woman's complaints, police arrested Vinh the next day, returning all the property to the victim.

Hoi An is a top tourist destination, but street crimes in recent years have undermined the peace and slow pace of life the town is known for.

Last September, Hoi An police detained two teenage boys for trying to grope a British visitor and snatching her handbag.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 20:02:12|Editor: huaxia

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BEIRUT, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese judicial investigator Fadi Sawan issued on Monday an arrest warrant against two more officials at Beirut's port over the huge explosions, the National News Agency reported.

The two port officials are Mohammad Al Mawla, head of administration at the port, and Director General of Land and Maritime Transport Abdel Hafiz El Kaissi.

Two huge explosions rocked Port of Beirut on Aug.4 at around 6:10 p.m. local time (1510 GMT), shaking buildings all over Lebanon's capital, killing around 190 people and injuring about 6,500 others.

Preliminary investigations showed the presence of 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate, as well as other explosives.

Physical damage caused by the explosions was valued at up to 4.6 billion U.S. dollars, according to the World Bank. Enditem
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Linkedin Edbert Gani Suryahudaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, September 1 2020

Freedom, as demagogues claim, cannot feed empty stomachs. Those who seek to attack democracy will exploit conditions of injustice to discredit the system. This cautionary message was conveyed in an article entitled The Democratic Invention (2000) by Mario Soares, a former Portuguese prime minister also known as the nations "father of democracy".

Twenty years since Soares warning, his foresight has proven prescient. Global democracy is indeed currently experiencing an uneasy challenge. A number of countries worldwide have seen the rise of populist leaders who degrade the value of civil liberties from within. Freedom House, in a report entitled Freedom in the World 2020: A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy, notes that democratic decline is a trend that has been ongoing for the last 14 years, including in Indonesia. According to the report, 64 countries experienced a decrease in the quality of civil liberties and political rights in 2019, compared to a mere 37 countries that enjoyed an increase.

In the midst of this widespread democratic decline, the pandemic hit. Populist leaders seized the opportunity to further expand their power at the expense of civil liberties, sometimes by declaring states of emergency, which are prone to mismanagement.

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Anthony Scaramucci, former director of communications for the White House and founder of SkyBridge Capital LLC, speaks during the Skybridge Alternatives (SALT) conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 8, 2019.

President Donald Trump's former body man went to work on Wall Street for Anthony Scaramucci after being fired from the White House just a year earlier.

John McEntee, the former personal assistant who was let go in 2018 after reportedly being denied a security clearance, went to work for SkyBridge, the vocal Trump critic's hedge fund, during his hiatus from the White House, according to a financial disclosure report and people with direct knowledge of the matter. They declined to be named as the details had yet to be made public.

McEntee returned to the White House this year and later became head of the Office of Presidential Personnel. During his time away from the Trump administration, he worked for SkyBridge from June 2019 until September of that year, these people said. He was not an official employee of SkyBridge, but instead was paid as an independent contractor, these people added.

Scaramucci, the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, was fired after just 11 days as White House communications director in 2017.

Part of McEntee's tenure conducting contract work for the executive's firm came as Scaramucci started to publicly turn against Trump. Scaramucci has since backed Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

After his return to the White House earlier this year, McEntee filed a financial disclosure report that lists SkyBridge Capital as one of his sources of compensation that exceeded $5,000. The filing only describes McEntee's work for the firm as "political consulting."

He was paid consulting fees through his limited liability company, the McEntee Group. People familiar with the matter said that McEntee's consulting work revolved around Scaramucci's famous business conference known as SALT.

In December 2019, the conference took place in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Former White House chief of staff John Kelly was one of the featured speakers.

Scaramucci said in an interview with Worth, a lifestyle magazine, that the conference had 1,500 participants. Kelly had been interviewed during a prior SALT conference in Las Vegas.

McEntee also lists Ballard Partners, a lobbying shop run by pro-Trump bundler Brian Ballard, as a firm he worked with using an identical job description on his disclosure report. McEntee had a stint in 2018 as a senior advisor for Trump's reelection campaign.

Representatives for the White House, SkyBridge and Ballard Partners did not respond to a request for comment.

Scaramucci, who was previously a staunch Trump supporter, began to blast the president in August 2019, while McEntee was working for the firm.

In an interview with CNN at the time, Scaramucci said Trump's "actually dissembling a little bit, and he's sounding more and more nonsensical." He told Axios that same month, "We are now in the early episodes of 'Chernobyl' on HBO, where the reactor is melting down and the apparatchiks are trying to figure out whether to cover it up or start the clean-up process."

The president and Scaramucci have since engaged in a back-and-forth Twitter feud.

The hedge-fund executive said in a recent interview that one of Trump's attacks led him to picking up 50,000 new Twitter followers.

Tweet:

McEntee, on the other hand, appears to have settled in at his job as the chief of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel.

Axios reported in February that McEntee called on White House liaisons to identify appointees who would be deemed "Never Trumpers."

He traveled with Trump and his team to storm-ravaged Lake Charles, Louisiana, over the weekend.
RALEIGH, N.C., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A renowned commercial real estate firm with a 30-year history in the Triangle market today announced its new brand and vision for the future along with its departure from a national firm. Now known as APG Advisors, the full-service commercial real estate firm previously affiliated with Colliers International, has returned to its independent roots.

"We're moving the firm into the future, affirming our commitment to the region and providing opportunities for our Advisors," said CEO Jim Anthony, who founded the firm back in 1983. "Our industry is ever-evolving and those who continuously innovate will move the industry forward. We are well-positioned to lead the way."

The announcement represents a big milestone in the company's history.

"As a fully independent firm, we offer advisors geographic freedom, flexibility and resources to serve their clients and enhance their business and areas of focus," said David Adams, President of APG Advisors. "This in turn leads to deeper relationships and entrepreneurial agility."

The APG Advisors brand includes: Advisory services (Office, Land, Retail, Industrial, Multi-Family and Investment), Property Management and Consulting.

The firm has worked with some of the largest companies in the Triangle region, including IAT Insurance, Progress Energy, Martin Marietta and Schneider Electric as well as the Cities of Raleigh and Durham respectively, and the State of North Carolina.

"We are a mission-based organization with tangible results to prove it," added Anthony. "We transform the communities we serve (in North Carolina) and will be instrumental in the continued growth of the region and beyond."

To learn more about the new APG Advisors and its portfolio of CRE services and solutions, visit the website at www.apgcre.com

About APG Advisors

APG Advisors is an independent commercial real estate service company in North Carolina with a storied 33-year history of excellence dating back to 1987. Since its founding, the firm has built a reputation for honesty, integrity and community service. Founded by veteran commercial real estate advisor, Jim Anthony, its mission is to build people and places through institutional expertise and agile client services. APG Advisors is a division of the Anthony Property Group family of companies.

SOURCE APG Advisors

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Lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who was found guilty of contempt by the Supreme Court, said that he will happily accept the judgement, but would file a review.

I propose to submit myself to this order and respectful pay the fine. But I reserve the right to seek the review of the conviction and sentencing, Bhushan said while reading from a statement at a press conference in New Delhi.

My lawyer & senior colleague Rajiv Dhavan contributed 1 Re immediately after the contempt judgement today which I gratefully accepted pic.twitter.com/vVXmzPe4ss  Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) August 31, 2020

He was found guilty of the contempt by the Supreme Court for his two tweets which the court said were against the judiciary and maintained they cannot be said to be a fair criticism of the functioning of the judiciary made in public interest.

The lawyer said that he always had highest respect for the Supreme Court. My tweets were not intended to disrespect the Supreme Court or the judiciary as a whole, but were merely meant to express my anguish, at what I felt, was a deviation from its sterling past record, said Bhushan.

This issue was never about me versus the Honble Judges, much less about me vs the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court wins, every Indian wins; every Indian wants a strong judiciary, Bhushan added.

He ended the short statement with long live democracy, Satyamev Jayate cry.

Also Read: How Prashant Bhushan criminal contempt case progressed in Supreme Court

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra has asked Bhushan to deposit the fine by September 15, failing which he will attract a jail term of three months and debarment from law practice for three years.

Freedom of speech cannot be curtailed but rights of others need to be respected, said the bench, also comprising Justices B R Gavai and Krishna Murari.

Bhushan in his statement had refused to offer an apology to the Supreme Court for the tweets, saying what he had expressed represented his bona fide belief which he continued to hold. On August 25, senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan had urged the top court to show judicial statesmanship and not make Bhushan a martyr by punishing him for contempt over the tweets, after the activist-lawyer rejected fresh suggestions from the court for an apology.

Dhavan, representing Bhushan, had suggested that the top court recall the August 14 verdict convicting the activist lawyer and not to impose any sentence. He urged it to not only close the case but also to bring an end to the controversy.

Justice Mishra is demitting office on September 2.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 18:50:08|Editor: huaxia

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-In the first half of 2020, China-Europe freight trips rose 36 percent year-on-year to 5,122, transporting 3.67 million pieces and 27,000 tons of anti-pandemic materials to European countries, including Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Poland and Hungary.

-With strict protective measures, overseas Chinese workers are joining hands with their local colleagues to speed up the construction of landmark projects across the world.

-China's vision for a shared future and its proposals to jointly build the Belt and Road have been welcomed by experts around the globe.

BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- As the COVID-19 pandemic is dragging the global economy into a deep recession, the Belt and Road Initiative, with the participation of overseas Chinese enterprises, have rekindled some hope.

Serving as an international platform for cooperation, the Belt and Road has played a vital role in assisting the fight against the pandemic and stabilizing global supply and industrial chains.

Workers of overseas Chinese enterprises and their local counterparts are busy resuming production while taking strict protective measures.

HEALTH SILK ROAD

In a phone conversation held in March with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China is willing to work with Italy in global efforts to combat the epidemic and create a Silk Road of Health.

On April 14, a China-Europe freight train loaded with much-needed medical and industrial supplies arrived in the western German city of Duisburg.

Chinese and German guests attend the welcome ceremony of China-Europe freight train from Wuhan in Duisburg, Germany, April 14, 2020.



(The Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Dusseldorf/Handout via Xinhua)

Noting the difficulties facing German citizens because of the pandemic, Transport Minister of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia Hendrik Wuest said the goods transported from China, especially medical materials, were of vital importance.

In the first half of 2020, China-Europe freight trips rose 36 percent year-on-year to 5,122, transporting 3.67 million pieces and 27,000 tons of anti-pandemic materials to European countries, including Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Poland and Hungary.

Complaining about the massive disruption of the supply chains caused by COVID-19, Michael Schumann, board chairman of the German Federal Association for Economic Development and Foreign Trade, said "in this sense the Belt and Road Initiative can of course make an important contribution to the future."

The ancient Silk Road has become both a cargo lifeline and a bond of solidarity.

Soon after Iraq reported its first COVID-19 case, a Chinese medical team consisting of seven experts arrived in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on March 7. Days later, a Chinese-built lab for coronavirus testing was inaugurated in the war-torn country.

"The Chinese experts are very supportive and helpful," lab director Mohammed Ghanim Mahdi said. "When they were here, they gave us all the technical training we need. This can be a treasure for us."

Keshmeer Makun, a lecturer at the University of the South Pacific, said the pandemic has strengthened, not restrained, cooperation under the Belt and Road framework.

HOPE REKINDLED

The World Bank Group predicted that the global economy will suffer the deepest recession since World War II with a 5.2-percent drop in GDP this year, a figure that highlights the urgent need for the resumption of production.

With strict protective measures, overseas Chinese workers are joining hands with their local colleagues to speed up the construction of landmark projects across the world.

The Peljesac Bridge near Komarna is under construction, in Croatia, April 17, 2020. (Milan Sabic/Pixsell/Handout via Xinhua)

Since being discharged on Aug. 22 from a 14-day quarantine after their arrival, over 140 Chinese workers have been devoted to the construction of Peljesac Bridge, the biggest infrastructure project in Croatia.

Construction of the bridge, once delayed by the pandemic, is set to pick up speed, thanks to the output of those welders.

"We can't emphasize more on the significance of the bridge to the Croatian people and also to us," said Lu Shengwei, representative of the Chinese construction team. "Everyone knows that the EU-funded bridge that links Croatian territories has been entrusted with a Chinese company."

In Cambodia, despite all the obstacles brought by the pandemic, Chinese and Cambodian workers are forging ahead with the construction of the country's first expressway.

Connecting the capital city of Phnom Penh and the deep-sea port province of Preah Sihanouk in southwestern Cambodia, the 2-billion-U.S.-dollar Chinese-invested expressway is expected to become the artery of Cambodia's economy.

Chinese and Sri Lankan staff members conduct maintenance work at Lakvijaya Power Station in Puttalam, Sri Lanka, April 11, 2020. (Xinhua)

Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said that this thoroughfare will become an important strategic road, and will contribute to boosting Cambodia's economic growth.

"We understand the significance of this expressway and clearly know our responsibilities," said Xu Song, foreman of a construction team of 280 workers on the project. "During this special period, applying strict measures to prevent COVID-19 and advancing the construction steadily are our priorities."

In Sri Lanka, a Chinese operation and maintenance team has been doing its utmost to ensure the normal operation of Lakvijaya Power Station, a Chinese-built power plant that provides about 40 percent of the nation's electricity supply.

Pang Tusheng, a technician of the team, said he planned to return to China to attend his daughter's wedding, but the pandemic changed his plans.

"Under such circumstances, we should stick to our posts because it's a significant task to maintain the smooth operation of the power station," said Pang.

SHARED FUTURE

Following the epidemic, China has rushed to the rescue of those in need, upholding the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind.

"The right approach to tackling global crises and realizing long-term development is through greater connectivity, openness, and inclusiveness," Xi said on June 18 in a written message to the High-level Video Conference on Belt and Road International Cooperation.

China will work with its partners to develop the Belt and Road into a model of cooperation, a model of health, a model of recovery, and a model of growth, Xi said.

China's vision for a shared future and its proposals to jointly build the Belt and Road have been welcomed by experts around the globe.

Chinese medical expert Yang Honghui (L) instructs an Iraqi medical worker on operating a nucleic acid detection machine at a new Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) lab in Baghdad, Iraq, March 26, 2020. (Xinhua)

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Health Silk Road and Digital Silk Road put forward by China highlight the importance of innovative forms of cooperation to tackle the challenges we collectively face.

Charles Onunaiju, director of the Center for China Studies in Abuja, Nigeria, said Xi's remarks have given African countries full confidence in defeating the pandemic.

"The Belt and Road, in which Africa is considerably engaged, will play a pivotal role in global recovery" in the post-pandemic era, said Onunaiju.

Pavle Basic, member of the Serbia National Council for Coordination of Cooperation with Russia and China, said Serbia has given its full support to the Belt and Road.

"We deem the initiative as one of the most significant initiatives on the global arena, which will contribute to the creation of worldwide partnerships in all areas," said Basic.

Yu Xiong, professor with Surrey Business School at the University of Surrey, said "in the current complex international environment, China's clear layout of future plans brings strong confidence to people at home and abroad who are concerned about China's development."

"Many countries share the vision that, China, whose economy has begun to steadily recover, can lead them to develop and face the next challenges together," the professor said.

(Xinhua reporters Zhu Sheng, Zhang Yuan in Berlin, Zhang Yongxing in Suva, Gao Lei in Zagreb, Mao Pengfei in Phnom Penh, Tang Lu in Colombo, Zhang Miao in Baghdad, Guo Jun in Abuja, Shi Zhongyu in Belgrade and Sun Xiaoling in London contributed to the story. Video reporters: Gao Lei, Guo Chen; Video editor: Zhang Yichi.)
The three Government leaders meet today to decide if it is worth the gamble of ignoring the EU Commission President's request to send the name of a female and male nominee to replace Phil Hogan.

The three coalition leaders are pondering the prospect of sending just one name - that of Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney - and hoping his credentials are good enough to deliver a post with political influence.

But the high-risk move could lead to EU President Ursula von der Leyen giving the Irish nominee a very low-key portfolio, diminishing Ireland's influence in Brussels at a crucial time just as a Brexit crisis looms.

Senior sources in Brussels and Dublin have signalled there is very little chance that Ireland can keep the pivotal portfolio of trade commissioner held by Phil Hogan up to his resignation last Wednesday.

Sources in Dublin said the battle for Taoiseach Micheal Martin and his Coalition colleagues will be to secure a post of influence and political heft to maintain Ireland's clout in Brussels.

All 27 member states have a nominee on the policy-guiding Commission - but there are fewer than a dozen jobs of real significance with either a budget and/or direct powers in sectors over which the EU has jurisdiction.

Two senior political sources last night said the Taoiseach, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar, and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan had yet to decide whether to go with just one name.

Silence

While there were contacts between the three over the weekend it is understood the decision was deferred until this evening.

"It is hoped a nomination can be made at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday to ensure an appointment can be made in Brussels as soon as possible," one source told The Herald.

Mr Coveney has maintained a strict silence around the prospects of his move to Brussels and his officials did not return calls yesterday.

It is known that the former Tanaiste is interested and he has impressive EU credentials. He is well known in Brussels as a former MEP, former chairman of farm budget talks, and since June 2017 as Foreign Affairs Minister dealing with Brexit.

But yesterday another frontrunner for the post, Fine Gael MEP Mairead McGuinness, pointed to significant comments from President von der Leyen last Thursday.

"As in the past, I will invite the Irish Government to propose a woman and a man," the EU president said.

Ms von der Leyen also reminded Ireland that ultimately it is her role to decide who gets what job. "At a later stage I will decide on the final allocation of portfolios in the college of commissioners," she added.

Ms McGuinness, an MEP since 2004 and now senior vice-president at the European Parliament, made it clear she is interested in the job.

She also spoke of her previous contacts with President von der Leyen since the former German defence minister took over in Brussels on December 1.
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Linkedin Vincent Yong (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 09:45 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c4197302 3 Opinion logistics,FTA,RCEP,free-trade-agreement,free-trade Free

The economic fallout from the C0VID-19 pandemic has hit Indonesia hard, and the Southeast Asian largest economy urgently needs new growth engines. Exports fell 28.95 percent year-on-year to US$10.53 billion in May 2020, the lowest levels since July 2016. The drop is largely due to reduced shipments of coal, coffee, and palm oil, as well as oil and gas. In June 2020, Bank Indonesia lowered its growth forecast for the year to 0.91.9 percent, lower than the previous 2.3 percent projection.

Against the economic challenges posed by the pandemic, free trade agreements (FTAs) offer Indonesias exporters a way to bounce back. Utilizing FTAs offers local companies a compelling list of benefits, including access to new markets, tariff concessions, and the ability to clear goods more quickly and easily. With their focus on opportunities in overseas markets, FTAs can also promote supply chain diversification.

Since 2012, Indonesia has been involved in the talks concerning mega trade deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), along with the nine other ASEAN governments and their six FTA partners: Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.

Once this ambitious pact comes into effect, it will create the worlds largest free-trade zone and have a significant impact on the post-pandemic economic recovery of the entire bloc.

RCEP would minimize structural barriers by streamlining rules and procedures related to customs and trade-related infrastructure. In practical terms, Indonesian businesses would follow one set of procedures instead of navigating through different sets of rules when trading with their RCEP partners. This would inevitably lead to greater ease of doing business and increase Indonesias attractiveness as a trade and investment destination.

Jakarta is also working to conclude a major trade pact with the European Union (EU). The Indonesia-EU Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement is significant because the EU is the third-largest destination for Indonesian exports, with key exports including agricultural products, machinery and appliances, textiles and footwear, and plastic and rubber products.

The EU mostly exports industrial products, including machinery and appliances, transport equipment, and chemical products to Indonesia. The trade negotiation has faced a challenge over palm oil following a decision by the EU to phase out the use of biofuel and biodiesel manufactured from palm oil by 2030. The European Commission, the EUs executive arm, has categorized palm oil as an unsustainable product. The plan has unsettled Indonesia, the worlds largest palm oil-producing country. Talks are continuing.

Other new FTA negotiations are underway with India and Korea, among many others. At the same time, the government is seeking to renegotiate a major deal with Japan to further boost bilateral trade.

Through the Indonesia-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement renegotiations, Indonesia hopes to expand access to the Japanese market for some fresh and chilled fishery products, including salmon and trout, among others. Currently, these are excluded from tariff reduction commitments, alongside some canned tuna products. Japan is Indonesias second-largest export destination and third-largest import source.

The pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of global supply chains that rely extensively on one or two large powers for the supply of certain products.

At the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in February, garment supply chains in multiple ASEAN countries were severely disrupted when raw materials remained stuck in China, which was then placed under a monthslong lockdown.

Many exporters learned from that lesson and have been accelerating efforts to diversify their supply chains as part of a derisking strategy. FTAs have the potential to greatly aid companies efforts in this regard as they seek to put diversification plans into action.

That is already likely to be the case with the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA), a major trade agreement between Indonesia and Australia that came into effect in July 2020. In the works since 2005, it eliminates tariffs from 94 percent of the product lines traded between the two countries.

For Indonesian businesses that source their raw materials or intermediate goods from Australia, the trade deal is also expected to lower costs. According to analysts, Jakarta is expecting to receive an immediate boost in the export of a wide range of products to Australia, including textiles, automotive products, electronics, fishery products, and communication tools.

Companies looking to diversify and shift manufacturing operations away from China also have a viable, low-cost alternative in Indonesia. In 2019, DHL launched DHL ASIACONNECT+, a new small-freight multimodal logistics service which connects the Indonesian archipelago to key ASEAN trading markets via its road freight network.

Working to speed up FTA ratification makes sound economic sense as Indonesia seeks to shore up economic recovery efforts, even as it addresses the pandemic at home. However, FTAs are notoriously slow-moving affairs. The IA-CEPA, for example, was signed into law 15 years after negotiations first began.

---

President director of DHL Global Forwarding Indonesia. The views expressed are his own.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
The Reveal family of products is a simple, flexible solution that improves safety, efficiency, and access to critical information.

EagleView, a leading technology provider of aerial imagery, data analytics and GIS solutions, today announced EagleView Reveal, an enhanced product family. EagleView unmatched image detail integrates seamlessly with leading property data management systems, making it easy for municipal and county officials to make decisions from anywhere, any time.

EagleViews extensive image library contains more than 1 billion aerial images covering 98 percent of the United States.

EagleView understands that assessors, planners, and emergency response managers need accurate geospatial data to make the best decisions for their communities, said Robert Locke, senior vice president of government solutions at EagleView. The Reveal family of products is a simple, flexible solution that improves safety, efficiency, and access to critical information. Reveal helps local and regional officials keep accurate property records, close revenue gaps, and respond to emergency calls for help.

EagleView is the best imagery solution on the market, said Chase Fisher, GIS Manager, Jasper County, Missouri.

The Reveal product line relies on state-of-the-art, patented EagleView camera systems that uniquely capture top down (orthogonal) and angled (oblique) images. This information enables assessors, planners and other emergency personnel to make the best decisions quickly from the safety of a desktop or a mobile app.

When a property changes from new construction, demolition, or natural disaster, EagleView customers know right away, said Locke. While some counties and municipalities use satellite imagery to view land and infrastructure, EagleView customers see images that are up to 70 times sharper than satellite images and 4 times more detailed than standard aerial images. That means a first responder can tell the difference between a trampoline and covered pool, which can be a life-or-death situation after dark.

EagleView Reveal offers choices so counties and municipalities can find the right solution for their needs and budget. Each package allows a choice in the degree of imagery resolution, and additional features may be added.



Essentials: Provides a foundational understanding of properties, land features, and local topography, offering an excellent baseline for making planning decisions

Essentials+: Produces a 360-degree view of every property using imagery captured from four simultaneous directions, providing a deeper understanding of properties, land, and resources

Advanced: Includes visual touch-ups and four-band color infra-red that reveals details the naked eye cannot see, providing every detail needed to plan, respond, and allocate resources

EagleView serves more than half of the 3,143 counties in the U.S. by seamlessly integrating with property data systems. Collectively, EagleView customers have identified hundreds of millions in property value not previously in their property records.

EagleView imagery informs public safety systems, including 911 systems, ensuring updated mapping of access and egress points from properties, utility equipment, and natural features such as waterways and firebreaks. Many other industries, including utilities, natural resource management, urban planning, and real-estate development also use EagleViews precise imagery to make plans and allocate resources.

About EagleView

EagleView is a leader in aerial imagery, machine learning-derived data analytics and software, helping customers in different industries use property insights for smarter planning, building and living. With more than 200 patents, EagleView pioneered the field of aerial property measurements and has the largest multi-modal image database in history, covering 98 percent of the U.S. population. Flying over 9.5 million linear miles every year, EagleViews coverage is the most extensive and up to date, enabling local government and business customers to use the most accurate data to make timely and informed decisions. For more information, call (866) 659-8439, visit http://www.eagleview.com and follow @EagleViewTech.
Hong Kong: Testing for container terminal staff set

The Transport & Housing Bureau will provide regular COVID-19 tests for frontline workers at Kwai Tsing Container Terminals starting September 1.

Regular tests will be arranged for four designated groups of workers who need to work onboard cargo vessels or may have contact with sea crews on the vessels, including stevedores, operational or yard supervisors, ship planners and security and safety officers. About 1,200 workers are involved.

Frontline workers who wish to participate in the tests are required to register their details with their affiliated terminal operators and submit a consent form before taking the tests.

Registered terminal staff can take the tests at a specific time slot every week at the three designated testing points located at Terminals 2, 4 and 9.

Duty officers of the testing institution will collect the specimens of nasopharyngeal swab tests from the participating employees and deliver them to laboratories for examination. The testing institution will not retain the participants data.

In case of a positive test result, the Centre for Health Protection, the bureau and the respective terminal operators will be notified for further follow-up.

In response to the recommendation of health authorities, terminal staff may take the tests every seven days during the initial period of the testing arrangement.

The bureau appealed to frontline workers to actively participate in the regular testing arrangement to safeguard public health and minimise the spread of the virus in the community.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Prof Dang Dinh Ang, an outstanding teacher who made a great contribution to the development of Vietnams mathematics, passed away on August 29 at the age of 94.

Ang was born in 1926 in Ha Tay province.



In 1953-1955, he studied Aerospace Engineering at the University of Kansas and received a bachelor's degree. Later, he entered Caltech and received his doctorate with a dissertation on analytics and mechanics in 1958.

Prof Dang Dinh Ang





He worked for CalTech for two years before coming back to Vietnam in 1960.



In Vietnam, he became the head of the mathematics department at the University of Science under the Saigon University Institute. As the head of the department, he modernized the curriculum and introduced for the first time subjects such as topology, abstract algebra, and functional analysis.



Three years later, he set up the postgraduate certificate program Mathematiques Approfondies and became the head of the department until 1975. Later, he worked as director of the Analytical Research Institute until 1994.

Prof Dang Dinh Ang, an outstanding teacher who made a great contribution to the development of Vietnams mathematics, passed away on August 29 at the age of 94.

In 1988, he was the first chair of the HCM City Mathematics Association.



In 1995, he took major responsibility for the organization of an international mathematics conference, for the first time organized in HCM City, which attracted well-known mathematicians from the US, Germany, Russia, China and France.



In 1982, Ang became advisor to the first PhD student in the southern region. He also trained many other PhDs in mathematics, who work in Vietnam and overseas.



In 1980, when Vietnam for the first time granted professorship titles to scientists after the country became reunited, Ang, together with Hoang Tuy and Phan Dinh Dieu, was granted the title of professor.



Prof Dang Dinh Ang has more than 130 articles in the field of nonlinear analysis and mechanics published in domestic and foreign mathematics journals. He is the author of six books specializing in analytics and mechanics, including a book he wrote together with foreign authors published by Springer Science Publishing House (Germany).



Not only was he a well-known mathematician, Prof Ang was also a talented flutist with many chamber concert CDs. For him, music was both a passion and a cultural bridge that links the community and the world.



Prof Nguyen Huu Anh and Prof Dang Duc Trong from the HCM City University of Natural Sciences drew four great lessons from Angs life and achievements.



First, to succeed in any work, one needs to have strong determination and high concentration, and regularly keep up to date and 'renovate' themselves.



Second, regarding teaching views, Ang highlighted self-study and early scientific research.



The third lesson was on how to behave. Ang always helped his students and all people.



Fourth, he always remained optimistic, which helped him overcome many difficulties.

Ngan Anh

The talents of Vietnam's two female mathematics professors Vietnams mathematics community has only two female professors  Hoang Xuan Sinh and Le Thi Thanh Nhan.
Lai Mohammed, Nigeria's Foreign Affairs Minister, could have avoided what by all standards is the needless diplomatic spat he has triggered between the two sisterly nations of Ghana and Nigeria.

He crafted a statement which fell short of bearing a true reflection of a so-called harassment of Nigerians in Ghana and the imminent xenophobia they face here.

Besides the embarrassing untruths contained in the statement, there is a dearth of understanding of the historysteeped relationship between the two countries dating back to centuries; the products of which are Ghanaian Hausas and Yorubas, who are part of the country's demography.

Both have been part of the formative years of the Gold Coast and eventually the newly independent Ghana.

Archival documents abound which are testaments to the age-old relationship between the Yorubas and the Gas, especially King Tackie Tawiah I on one hand and the Ashanti Kingdom and Hausa clerics.

There have been significant intermarriages between the Gas and Yorubas. Today, Hausa is one of the Ghanaian languages, a variant of the one spoken in Kano and Katsina.

Xenophobia, as the Nigerian government statement seeks to impress, is not part of the Ghanaian DNA. The Nigerian Mission would have been able to relay a better and informed report to Abuja, had it bothered to do a thorough investigation of the subject.

We are tempted not to blame the Hon. Lai Mohammed very much because after all he relied on what was fed him by his country's mission in Accra.

There are more Nigerians engaged in the informal sector than those at the Tiptoe Lane dealing in mostly mobile phones and other items. These are people who would attest to the hospitable reception they receive from their Ghanaian hosts.

Ghana and Nigeria belonged to the same colonial stable until both parted ways with their individual independence. Indeed, the two were amalgamated in 1874 with a common governor resident in Lagos, amalgamation which was reversed in 1886.

We are bemused that the Nigerian government has still not appreciated the decision by her Ghanaian counterpart to replace the demolished mission property, the subject of a diplomatic wrangling even when the issue was a private/commercial one.

Hon. Lai Mohammed's statement points at what he remarks as media attack of Nigerians and deliberate deportation of citizens of the West African country, accusations which are fallacious and outlandish.

Ghana like Nigeria does not control the media; the freedom of the press is highly upheld. For a statement such as the one under review to present government as being behind media reports is to exhibit ignorance of the workings of the media in both countries and to even underrate the maturity of the fourth estate of the realm.

The decision by sub-editors to highlight in their headlines the nationalities of 'criminals' cannot be blamed on government as our sister country's government has done. We shall return.

---Daily Guide
Press Release

August 31, 2020 Albay Gov recognizes Villar's role in province's agricultural transformation Sen. Cynthia Villar's contribution to the agricultural development of the province of Albay was recognized by Gov. Al Francis Bichara. "Today, many people have labelled the last three years 2017-2019 the start of the agricultural transformation of Albay. This is partly because of Villar's strong passion and determination which revolutionized agricultural development and improved the farmers and fisherfolks' way of life," Bichara said. The governor said in 2017, Villar brought him along with other government officials to tour the best and most modern and state-of-the-art agricultural farm technologies in Israel. He said the trip inspired him "to innovate and adapt, to think global yet local." Bichara said Albay Farmers' Bounty Village Farm Schools and Assessment Center was patterned after Israeli ingenuity but Filipino designed. Located in Camalig, Albay, it helps improve the lives of the Albayano food producers through entrepreneurship and farm enterprise capacity-building. The project won for Bichara and the province a Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) National Kabalikat Award. The Kabalikat Award is the highest government award given to institutions and outstanding individuals who have invested and partnered with TESDA for human capital development. For her part, Villar thanked Bichara for acknowledging her contribution to agricultural development. "Rest assured, I will continue my work to improve the lives of our kababayans in the farming and fishing sectors with the cooperation of local government units," Villar said. The chairperson of the Senate Committee of Agriculture and Food said agricultural development as a national goal is best achieved through LGUs. She filed Senate Bill 1138 or the Local Government Agriculture Development Act, which seeks to institutionalize a 10 percent budgetary allocation from LGU's internal revenue allotment for the implementation of programs for agriculture and fisheries. "We need to strengthen local government participation in agriculture development by making sure programs for agriculture will be funded and consistently implemented whoever gets elected-- advocate man ng agriculture ang mayor or governor o hindi," Villar said. "Just like how LGUs were required to allot a budget for Gender and Development Program, we want local agriculture development programs to be funded also," she added. In January 2017, Villar was invited by Israeli Ambassador Effie Ben Matitayu for a working visit to Israel to introduce the various developmental projects and ideas in the agricultural sector. Aside from Bichara, local government officials from Misamis Oriental, La Union, Tarlac, South Cotabato, Leyte, Nueva Vizcaya, and Bataan were also part of the official delegation. The itinerary of the 4-day official visit included the Israel Ministry of Agriculture, MASHAV (Israel's agency for international development and cooperation) Agricultural Traning Center in Shefayim, and a tour of the country's professional and modern agricultural farms. The delegation also had the chance to meet with Filipino on-the-job training students of agrostudies.
The head of a Navy support center in Oregon was removed from her job last week after a superior lost confidence in her ability to lead.

Cmdr. Erin Borozny was relieved of command of Navy Operational Support Center Portland, officials announced on Friday. Boroznys relief was carried out by Capt. Jonas Jones, who heads up Navy Region Northwest Reserve Component Command.

Navy officials did not respond to questions about the details surrounding Boroznys firing, and the commander didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. A Friday news release said only that Jones lost confidence in Boroznys ability to command.

Read Next: Decommissioned Navy Warship Blasted and Sunk in Pacific Exercise

Further proceedings are not anticipated at this time, the Navy news release states.

Lt. Adam Demeter, a Navy spokesman, told Task & Purpose the decision to relieve Borozny was based on her "overall performance," and said she was not under investigation. Borozny led the operational support center for less than a year, having assumed command in October 2019.

Cmdr. Christian Parilla of Navy Region Northwest Reserve Component Command Everett in Washington has temporarily replaced Borozny as commanding officer until a permanent relief is assigned, according to the Navy news release.

Borozny has been temporarily reassigned to Reserve centers regional parent command in Everett.

The Navy has dozens of operational support centers across the country, which oversee the readiness of reservists in those regions.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the year Borozny took command.

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

Related: Marine Commander of Texas-Based Reserve Squadron Fired
In the first few weeks of operation, the system has been used to email surveys asking about specific needs related to the coronavirus pandemic, checking, for example, whether facilities lack personal protective gear or whether they need help understanding government orders on testing or infection control. Health Department staff can respond directly or point facilities to outside resources.
A few major cities, including Los Angeles and New York, instituted caps to temporarily restrict the fees to 15 percent. And though apps have since positioned themselves in their own marketing materials as being in solidarity with restaurants, they are widely considered shortsighted and flat-out predatory within the industry.

In April, the New Yorker writer Helen Rosner suggested that diners should pick up the phone and call in their dinner orders directly. The same month, Khushbu Shah, the restaurant editor at Food & Wine magazine, urged diners to go ahead and delete all their delivery apps entirely.

But they havent gone away. Maybe because the apps are tantalizingly efficient  or at least maintain an illusion of efficiency. In fact, users and workers are frequently disgruntled; menus, hours and pricing are often incorrect. About half the time Ive ordered through an app, Ive found dishes missing, or notes on orders ignored, and wondered if the whole thing was worth it.

As a restaurant owner, Ms. Jung didnt think it was. She joined Jacob Nam, who founded Runningman, inspired by the delivery services back in Seoul, many of which charged a fee according to the distance the food traveled to the diner, rather than a commission on the food itself. It seemed like a more sustainable model to them, and one that the mom-and-pop, immigrant-owned restaurants of Koreatown needed.

Mr. Nam partnered with a well-established Korean delivery business  Hello World  to use its tech in Los Angeles.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Republican National Convention begged this question: Why are President Donald Trump's most fervent supporters describing the state of his union as a hellscape?

It was perhaps the central paradox for voters wondering what to believe in the rhetoric, because it defied logic to believe it all. Are Americans living in a dystopia or in an America made great again by Trump?

Four years ago, candidate Trump promised that if he won, "The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th, 2017, safety will be restored."

Now? "I've never seen our streets go this bad so quickly," Pat Lynch, representing tens of thousands of New York police officers, told the GOP proceedings. "We are staring down the barrel of a public safety disaster." He said this in remarks singing Trump's praises.

Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer and a former New York mayor, spoke of years of "carnage" and violence rising now, and implored, "Mr. President, make our nation safe again."

All of the convention's apocalyptic rhetoric was in service of bashing Trump challenger Joe Biden, Democratic mayors and national Democrats both in and out of office as being soft on violence and anarchy. Yet the landscape of lawlessness they described is Trump's America now.

Hyperbole suffused the proceedings, both when Trump and his supporters hailed his record and when they denounced the other side. Outright falsehoods were heard every night on the social justice protests, the coronavirus, the economy and Biden's agenda.

A selection from the week:

Associated Press writers Amanda Seitz in Chicago; David Klepper in Providence, Rhode Island; Bill Barrow in Atlanta; Matthew Lee, Paul Wiseman and Matthew Daly in Washington; and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.
Bhubaneswar, Aug 31 : Odisha Agriculture and Higher Education Minister Arun Kumar Sahoo has tested positive for Covid-19.

Confirming this through his Twitter handle, the Minister on Monday informed that he was under home isolation and his condition was stable.

"I have tested Covid positive. Now I am in home isolation and stable. Those who have come in contact with me in the last few days are requested to get themselves tested if required," tweeted Sahoo.

Sahoo is the second Minister in the state to have contracted Covid-19.

Earlier, Rural Development Minister Susanta Singh had tested Covid-19 positive.

Over a dozen lawmakers have tested positive for coronavirus in Odisha.

The Covid-19 positive tally has increased to 1,03,536 with the detection of 2,602 more positive cases in the last 24 hours, informed the Health department on Monday.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
So Miller and her colleagues  a couple of clerks who come in and out to help when they can  had to cancel regularly scheduled clinic hours and limit services to ensure they could respond to the pandemic. But with few other medical facilities available, Miller knew she could not simply stop offering regular services. So she is still administering those, too.
Food Network shows feature a plethora of world-renowned chefs and cooks. Guy Fieri, Bobby Flay, and Rachael Ray are just a few of the big names youll find on Food Network.

All of these chefs have a loyal fan base, and most are well-liked (or at least, tolerated) by viewers. However, there is one Food Network chef that seems to have quite a few tendencies that annoy viewers. Giada De Laurentiis, Italian super-chef, has a way of really getting under peoples skin.

From the way she pronounces Italian words to rumors that she doesnt eat her own food, Food Network fans have quite a bit to say about the talented chef.

Who is Giada De Laurentiis?

Chef Giada De Laurentiis | Ethan Miller/Getty Images for Vegas Uncorkd by Bon Appetit

According to Food Network, Giada De Laurentiis is a celebrity chef with several series on Food Network. She is also the author of numerous cookbooks and owner of the Las Vegas restaurant, Giada. De Laurentiis was born and raised in Rome. She has a large family and was always surrounded by family members who loved to cook. Its not surprising that her cooking is heavily influenced by her Italian heritage.

De Laurentiis graduated from the University of California with a degree in anthropology. She then moved to Paris to study culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu. After moving back to the U.S., she continued her training at the Ritz-Carlton and Spago. She opened a catering company called GDL Foods before being discovered by Food Network.

In 2003, De Laurentiis first show, Everyday Italian, premiered on Food Network. The show focused on classic Italian dishes and creative new ways to prepare old favorites. De Laurentiis often invited her family members on the show to share their best-kept secrets and kitchen tips.

Since then, the talented cook has won Emmy awards, created best-selling cookbooks, and opened her own restaurant. De Laurentiis has made friends with some of the biggest names in the culinary world, and become a correspondent on NBCs Today. She is involved with many notable causes, including Stand Up 2 Cancer and Alexs Lemonade Stand.

What shows does she have on Food Network?

De Laurentiis began her career with Food Network with Everyday Italian in 2005. This show earned the chef an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lifestyle Host. After the success of her first series, De Laurentiis launched her primetime hit, Weekend Getaways in 2007.

Weekend Getaways took viewers to over 100 destinations in (and around) the United States. De Laurentiis explored both well-known eateries and local favorites. Among the highlights were fresh fish on the beaches of Marthas Vineyard, mouthwatering ribs from the oldest barbecue joint in Texas, and a visit to world-renowned chef, Emeril, in New Orleans.

In 2008, Giada at Home premiered on Food Network and it was an instant fan favorite. The show garnered several Emmy nominations for Outstanding Culinary Host. De Laurentiis invited viewers into her own kitchen, where she prepared simple recipes for a variety of occasions, from family dinners to birthday parties to backyard barbecues. Fans loved the warm and fuzzy, laid-back atmosphere of the show.

Giada in Italy took the chef back to her roots. During her lengthy stay in Italy, De Laurentiis shared old family recipes with viewers, and they learned more about her cultural background. In Giada Entertains, the focus was on parties and events, and she shows fans how to host a fun event.

Winner Cake All is quite different from the rest of De Laurentiis shows. The baking competition features four teams competing to create the most creative, tastiest cake displays.

Why dont people like her?

RELATED: Why Giada De Laurentiis was accused of having multiple affairs

De Laurentiis may be incredibly talented when it comes to food, but some viewers think she needs to work on her people skills. In fact, quite a few on Reddit have crowned Giada the fakest person on Food Network.

Her fake personality isnt the only reason she irks a lot of viewers, though.

There are a few common complaints that Food Network viewers have about De Laurentiis. First on the list? Her super annoying habit of over-enunciating Italian words and phrases.

Page Six claims that the chef rarely eats the dishes she cooks. An inside source says when the chef does taste her cooking during a show, she will spit it in a bucket between takes.

Some viewers feel like she is way too nit-picky about things getting dirty. I mean, everyone makes a mess when they cook, right? Whatever the reason, it seems that De Laurentiis isnt a favorite among the majority of Food Network viewers.
The Black Eyed Peas made their MTV VMAs debut by closing out this year's show with a new single and a blast from the past.

And it was a memorable and electrifying return for will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo, who took to the stage with glowing crotches and newest member J. Rey Soul taking over vocals for Fergie.

The hitmakers came into the night with two nominations of their own: Best Collaboration for their song Ritmo (Bad Boys for Life) featuring J Balvin and Best Latin for the track Mamacita with Ozuna and J. Rey Soul.

They're back! Black Eyed Peas closed out the 2020 MTV VMAs on Sunday with J. Rey Soul taking over vocals for Fergie

Fantastic four: The group seen with Fergie back in November 2010

The group kicked-off the performance with a rendition of Vida Loca off their latest studio album, Translation, with special guests Tyga and a sky-sized projection of Nicky Jam.

By the time will.i.am kicked into the first verse, all eyes were focused on the group's three leading men and their crotches, that lit up like glow sticks.

Shaking and grinding to the pulsating beat, will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo wore matching white outfits with denim jean jackets.

Lighting things up: will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo kicked-off the performance with glowing crotches during their rendition of the new single, Vida Loca

Causing a stir: Their crotches lit up by the time will.i.am kicked into the first verse

Group effort: Tyga joined the group to drop some lyrics on Vida Loca

J. Rey Soul got into the mix and joined the guys center stage to belt out the chorus, dressed in blue denim Daisy Dukes with a white fishnet shirt over a black bra and white heels.

'It's mi vida loca (it's mi vida loca) -- So callate tu boca (yeah, callate tu boca), the band sang in tandem with J.Rey belting out the higher notes and harmony.

'I already told ya, I told ya, I'm livin' -- La vida loca (la vida loca).'

After trading lead vocals in the closing moments of Vida Loca, the group then transitioned into an encore performance of their massive 2009 hit, I Got A Feeling.

In the mix: J.Rey Soul joined the group at center stage for the first chorus of Vida Loca

New album: Vida Loca is off the Black Eyed Peas' new studio album, Translation, which dropped June 19

TCoordinated: he three leading men all wore white ensembles with denim jackets

Never one to shy away from making a profound statement, will.i.am finished up the short set with a tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who passed away on Friday, by saying: 'Wakanda Forever', which was quickly followed-up with 'Black Lives Matter.'

J. Rey, who gained recognition by appearing in season one of The Voice of the Philippines in 2013, joined the Black Eyed Peas in February 2018.

She replaced longtime member, Fergie, who had stepped back from the group to devote more time to her son Axl, now seven, whom she shares with ex-husband Josh Duhamel.

Translation dropped on June 19 and is the band's eighth studio album. It also features the singles No Manana, Ritmo (Bad Boys for Life) and Mamacita.

Blast from the past: The group also did an encore performance of their massive 2009 hit I Got A Feeling with J. Rey decked out in her Daisy Dukes and fishnet shirt

Parting tribute: will.i.am finished up the set with a tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who passed away on Friday, by saying: 'Wakanda Forever', which he followed-up with 'Black Lives Matter'
(Photo : Photo by Alexa Suter on Unsplash ) Survey: 76% Singles Prefer Man With an iPhone Saying They Look 'Sexier' (Photo : Photo by Drew Coffman on Unsplash ) Survey: 76% Singles Prefer Man With an iPhone Saying They Look 'Sexier'

Are you looking for a date amid pandemic? Have you tried all the dating apps out there? If you said yes to both, but still has no luck on finding a date. Here's another thing you can do: buy an iPhone. It turns out, iPhone owners have better luck-- 76% exactly-- on finding a match on dating apps. However, if you own a Blackberry phone, the chances are on the lowest.

Dating tips: Have an iPhone!

When the lockdown started, everyone is on their phone screens. Whether to look for something to buy online, or have a good time on meeting someone.

But survey shows phone brands could also have a small impact on your chances to have a date. Compare My Mobile survey did a thorough analysis of over 50,000 people on dating apps.

They compare the things that make them swipe left or swipe right on a person. Here's what they found out:

iPhone owners are the top choice of singles when they look for someone to talk online. Per the results, 76% of people on dating apps commonly swipe right when they see the other person owning an iPhone.

It doesn't just depend on iPhone specifically. Any Apple products have their specific impact on positive dating attitude.

For example, an Apple iWatch can make your date say yes for 61% positive chances. Meanwhile, an Apple AirPods could also increase your chances up to 41%.

Samsung, surprisingly somehow, also entered the cut of best phone brands of having 19% of positive feedbacks on dating apps.

After all, this South Korean-brand is still one of the most purchased phone brands in the world.

Owning an Android phone brand isn't helping your dating skills

If there is a top phone brand that could hook you up on some dates on apps, of course, there's also phone that will not give you the same positive feedbacks.

Compare my Mobile survey shows that Blackberry owners have 74% negative chances on having a date on apps. OnePlus owners have the worst second spot with 30%, followed by Huawei with 23%, Sony with 14%, and Google Pixel with only 10%.

Apparently, the iOS devices have more positive impact on dating apps, compared to the ones who owned Android phone brands.

Millennials look on phone brands

Another unsurprising findings on the survey is that millennials are commonly the ones that based their dating decisions on the other person's phone brand.

Ages of 22 up to 38 years old have an estimated 70% of choosing their partner based on their used phone brands. While Generation Z of ages of 15 up to 21 also depend their dating skills based on phone brands.

Women are likely the ones that prefer a better phone brands compared to men on dating apps.

ALSO READ: Matched!: Top 7 Celebrities That Tried (Or Still Trying) Online Dating Apps And How You Can Join Them

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Jamie Pancho

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Skulls in dorsal view of (a) an adult size black caiman Melanosuchus niger (MUSM CR); (b) a juvenile Purussaurus neivensis (IGM DHL45). La Venta (Colombia), facing the bite-marked tibia; (c) a fully grown P. neivensis (UCMP 39704), La Venta (Colombia). (d) Teeth of P. neivensis (MNHN n/n) from La Venta (Colombia), scale bar is 10 mm. (e) Shell of Podocnemis (MUSM 919) in dorsal view from the late Miocene of Inapari, Peruvian Amazonia. The carapace bearing a bite out of approximately 60 cm is faced with DGM 527-R, a huge jaw of Purussaurus brasiliensis from the late Miocene of Acre, Brazil [35]. (f) Life reconstruction of the putative attack of a young to sub-adult Purussaurus on the ground sloth Pseudoprepotherium in a swamp of proto-Amazonia. Art: Jorge A. Gonzalez. Credit: Biology Letters (2020). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2020.0239

A pair of researchers, one with Instituto Argentino de Nivologia, the other Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, has found fossil evidence of an ancient giant ground sloth living in proto-Amazonian swamps. The fossil has shinbone bite marks from a Miocene caiman Purussaurus, a large crocodilian species from the period. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, Francois Pujos and Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi describe the fossil and what they learned about it.

The fossil was found in the rocks of a Pebas formation (near the Napo River) of the Peruvian Amazon back in 2004, but until now, it had not been thoroughly studied. The researchers found it to have belonged to a giant ground sloth from approximately 13 million years ago. Prior research has suggested that the area where the fossil was found was a wetland system at that time. Giant sloths roamed the edges of the water, eating the grasses that grew there. Prior research has also found that there were at least seven crocodilian species in the region, though some were quite small. The size and shape of the bite marks ruled out all but Purussaurus.

The researchers note that during the time period of the fossil, the area had not yet been overtaken by mammals, as virtually all of the land-dwelling carnivores were marsupials. Purussaurus, the largest of the crocodilian species, inhabited the water and is believed to have been the largest of the species to have ever lived, growing to lengths of 20 feet and having a bite believed to have been twice as powerful as T Rex.

The researchers suggest that the Purussaurus sprang up out of the water, just as crocs do today, and grabbed the sloth by the hind leg. Once it had a firm grip, it likely went into a "death roll" dragging the sloth into the water and holding it there until it drowned. The researchers found evidence of 46 tooth marks in the fossil, which showed that the sloth had been repeatedly bitten by the Purussaurus as it sought to get a firmer grip. The Purussaurus left behind shallow pits and scores, as well as holes that had fully penetrated the tibia. There was also no evidence of bone regeneration, strongly suggesting the sloth did not survive the attack.

Explore further Study suggests giant sloth did not make it to Holocene

More information: Francois Pujos et al. Predation of the giant Miocene caiman Purussaurus on a mylodontid ground sloth in the wetlands of proto-Amazonia, Biology Letters (2020). Journal information: Biology Letters Francois Pujos et al. Predation of the giant Miocene caiman Purussaurus on a mylodontid ground sloth in the wetlands of proto-Amazonia,(2020). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2020.0239

 2020 Science X Network
The decision of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) to close criminal proceedings in the case known as Rotterdam + confirmed the legality of the application of the principle of import parity and the groundlessness of earlier suspicions, DTEK energy holding said.

"This decision once again confirmed that the procedure for forming the forecast price for electricity in 2016 determined transparent rules for working on the Wholesale Electricity Market, which had not been applied before," the company said in a statement on Friday evening.

At the same time, DTEK noted that the expediency of using the principle of import parity and the compliance of the pricing method for thermal coal in Ukraine with the practices of European countries were confirmed by international studies.

In addition, the company noticed that this principle is reflected in the memorandum of Ukraine with the International Monetary Fund for determining the price of natural gas.

The energy holding noted that they have used this principle for four years when selling coal to both private and state power generating companies, expressing regret that the decision made by National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission became a tool for political manipulation and long-term harassment of the company.

"DTEK is considering the possibility of protecting the reputation of the company and its employees, who were subjected to unjustified prosecution in the framework of this criminal proceeding, in court," the energy holding said.

Earlier on August 28, the SAPO announced that the Rotterdam + case was closed in the part concerning the suspects, but the pretrial investigation continues. The bureau noted that at present, due to the duration of the preliminary investigation, the actual limitation of the time of the pretrial investigation, determined by paragraph 3 of Part 4 of Article 219 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine, and the absence of other procedural sources of evidence, the possibilities to obtain sufficient evidence to prove the guilt of suspects and other persons in court have been settled.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine stated that the decision to close the so-called Rotterdam + case contradicts the principles of the rule of law, therefore, it will appeal against it with the Prosecutor General and acting head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO).
has reported seven imported COVID-19 cases, including from India, the health ministry said, as the country's total number of infections reached 56,812.

The country reported 41 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, including three from community who are foreigners on work passes, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said.

With this, the national tally of cases has reached 56,812.

The seven imported cases reported on Sunday came from Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, UAE and Pakistan between Aug 8 and 22.

A total of 55,586 COVID-19 cases have fully recovered after 139 more patients were discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Sunday.

There are currently 74 confirmed cases in hospital, while 1,084 are isolated and cared for at community facilities for mild symptoms, or are clinically well but still test positive for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, MOH is investigating if safe distancing rules were breached after a new family cluster of at least five people, including four children aged between 12 and 17 years, from two households tested positive after they took part in family gatherings, reported Channel News Asia.

Five of the eight new community infections reported on Sunday are linked to a 13-year-old COVID-19 case, who was reported on Thursday. Two confirmed cases reported on Friday are also linked to the teenager.

These individuals had participated in family gatherings, and investigations are ongoing to see if there were any breaches of safe distancing rules, the health ministry said, adding all cases in the cluster are Singaporeans.

We take a serious view of such breaches and will not hesitate to take enforcement actions against any offenders, it said.

(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.)
Gazas Islamist rulers Hamas announced Monday they have reached a Qatari-mediated deal to end more than three weeks of cross-border exchanges of fire with Israel.

After talks with Qatari envoy Mohammed el-Emadi, an understanding was reached to rein in the latest escalation and end (Israeli) aggression against our people, said the office of the Palestinian territorys Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar.

In the latest escalation, Israel has bombed Gaza almost daily since August 6, in response to airborne incendiary devices and, less frequently, rockets launched across the border.

The fire bombs -- crude devices fitted to balloons, inflated condoms or plastic bags -- have triggered more than 400 blazes and damaged swathes of farmland in southern Israel, according to the fire brigade.

An Egyptian delegation had been shuttling between the two sides to try to broker a renewal of an informal truce under which Israel committed to ease its 13-year-old blockade of Gaza in return for calm on the border.

It was joined by Emadi, who also held talks with Israeli officials in Tel Aviv.

A Hamas source told AFP there had been a total halt to balloon and other attacks against Israel, in agreement with other factions in the coastal strip, home to some two million people.

Fuel supplies will return and the power station will be restarted from Tuesday, the source said.

A punitive Israeli-imposed ban on fuel deliveries cut electricity supplies to just four hours a day, supplied from the Israeli grid.

Financial aid from gas-rich Qatar has been a major component of a truce first agreed in November 2018 and renewed several times since.

Israel had also agreed to take other steps to alleviate unemployment of more than 50 percent in Gaza, but disagreements over implementation have fuelled repeated flare-ups.

These escalated into full-blown conflict in 2008, 2012 and 2014, and mediators have been working to prevent a new war.

az-gl/par/hc

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Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn has written an open letter to the parents and guardians of Irelands school children ahead of the opening of schools around the country.

In the letter, Dr Glynn outlined the scientific evidence behind the decision to open schools, while acknowledging the worries that people have about the return to school.

He said the risk of Covid-19 has been weighed against the harm that can be caused by the continued closure of schools.

Schools play a fundamental role in the social life of children; they are where children are educated, make friends, share interests, learn social skills like self-confidence and empathy, and participate in sport and cultural activities, he said.

He said there are no zero-risk options for reopening schools and there will be cases of Covid-19 among children in the coming days and weeks.

But when this happens our public health teams in the HSE will respond and liaise closely with the school involved and ensure that all necessary measures are taken to protect other students and school staff, he said.

Dr Glynn reiterated the importance of public health measures such as physical distancing, hand washing and respiratory hygiene.

He also thanked parents and guardians for keeping children and communities safe and also expressed gratitude to teachers and school staff who have worked so hard to ensure that our schools are ready to reopen.

The letter reads:

To parents and guardians of school children in Ireland,

I am very aware that many of you are worried about the reopening of schools and the associated risk of Covid-19 for your children. This concern is natural and is to be fully expected after a period of six months during which we have all had to adapt to the challenges posed by Covid-19.

The decision to reopen schools has not been taken lightly and has been based on guidance produced by international bodies including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC); scientific evidence regarding the risk of Covid-19 in school children and staff; the experience of other countries that have not closed, or have reopened, their schools; our own experience having reopened childcare settings and summer camps since June; and evidence regarding the importance of school for the overall health and wellbeing of children.

International evidence shows us that child-to-child and child-to-adult transmission of Covid-19 in schools is uncommon. In addition, our own experience to date in Ireland, and indeed that reported internationally, demonstrates that for the overwhelming majority of children who are diagnosed with Covid-19, their symptoms will be mild.

The importance of schools for the overall health and wellbeing of children cannot be overstated, and the risk of Covid-19 has been carefully weighed against the very real harm that can be caused by sustained school closures. Schools play a fundamental role in the social life of children; they are where children are educated, make friends, share interests, learn social skills like self-confidence and empathy, and participate in sport and cultural activities.

Of course, as we continue to navigate our way through this pandemic, there are no zero risk options for reopening schools or indeed any other environment; the aim, therefore, is to reopen in as safe a way as possible by ensuring that all appropriate public health measures such as physical distancing, hand washing and respiratory hygiene are implemented where appropriate.

Schools are at the heart of our communities and the best way to protect them is to keep the level of Covid-19 in the community low. As parents and guardians, you can play a key role in this, both through your own actions and through the influence that you have on your family and friends. If all of us continue to make small changes to the way we live, we can - together - starve this virus of opportunities to transmit.

While it is okay to send your child to school or childcare if they only have a runny nose or a sneeze, if you have any concerns that your child has symptoms of Covid-19 - fever, cough, shortness of breath, loss of taste or smell  then please keep them at home until you have spoken with your GP by phone. Lots more information is available at gov.ie/backtoschool and hse.ie.

There will be cases of Covid-19 among children over the coming days and weeks, as there have been throughout this pandemic to date. But when this happens our public health teams in the HSE will respond and liaise closely with the school involved and ensure that all necessary measures are taken to protect other students and school staff.

Finally, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for all you have done to keep your family and our communities safe over the past seven months. I also want to thank all teachers, principals and school staff who have worked so hard to ensure that our schools are ready to reopen  it is just one more example of the incredible solidarity that has defined the way in which people all across the country have come together to play their part in getting us through this pandemic.

Dr Ronan Glynn, Acting Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health.
Jamie Doran announced his intention to sue Channel 10 over his negative portrayal on Bachelor In Paradise last month.

And on Monday, the reality star took another swipe at the network after claiming that the suit Bachelor Locky Gilbert wore for his promotional shots this year was the same one he donned on The Bachelorette last year.

Taking to his Instagram Stories, the 40-year-old amused: 'Ah, so that's where the suit I left in the crack house (mansion) went! You're welcome @locklangilbert.'

'Budget cuts?' Jamie Doran, 40, [pictured] took a swipe at Channel 10 after claiming that the suit Bachelor Locky Gilbert wore for his promotional shots this year was the same one he donned on The Bachelorette last year

Jamie added: 'Budget cuts at 10? I mean, it was only the premiere.'

His post also saw him and Locky both dressed up in what appeared to be the same slick navy blazer complete with black lapels and a bow-tie.

Earlier this month, Jamie revealed his legal case against Channel 10 isn't just based on 'his bad edit' but will be 'in-depth'.

'I know I said I wouldn't comment any further, but the "wolves" in the media have forced my hand,' he wrote on Instagram.

'Left my suit in the crack house!' His post also saw him and Locky [R] both dressed up in what appeared to be the same slick navy blazer complete with black lapels and a bow-tie

Taking to his Instagram Stories, Jamie amused: 'Ah, so that's where the suit I left in the crack house (mansion) went! You're welcome @locklangilbert'

'Don't assume that my legal case against Network 10 and Warner Bros is built around an "edit". It's a lot more in-depth and there's a lot more in play here,' he added.

The fireman continued: 'A "bad edit" should be the least of their problems moving forward.'

On July 29, Jamie announced he would be taking legal action against Channel 10 and Warner Bros. over his portrayal on The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise.

The firefighter-turned-FIFO worker shared a statement to Instagram, explaining why he had decided to call in his lawyers.

He wrote: 'This is not the news I wanted to post, but I feel I owe this to at least my family, friends, and also fans of The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise.

Legal: Last month, Jamie announced he was taking legal action against Channel 10 and Warner Bros. over his negative portrayal on The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise

'Enjoy the circus': Earlier this month, Jamie revealed his legal case against Channel 10 isn't just based on 'his bad edit' but will be 'in-depth'

'After lengthy consideration, I've decided to begin legal proceedings against Network 10 and Warner Bros. Australia.

'I'm not going to comment on this any further for the time being and would appreciate it if people would respect my privacy.'

In response to Jamie's legal threat, a network spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia on July 29: 'Channel 10 has not received any papers regarding this claim.'

Jamie was portrayed as a 'stage-five clinger' on Bachelor in Paradise this season, and received a similar edit on The Bachelorette last year.
Hong Kong, China -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/30/2020 -- Professionals in the logistics and procurement sector have a large impact on ethical and social changes in the world, from ensuring materials are obtained from decent sources to helping manage complex, strategic processes. Businesses across Hong Kong and Asia are experiencing the turbulence caused by the current challenging times. From Kowloon, Tsuen Wan and Yuen Long Kau Hui the search for talented individuals who can direct businesses into the fast lane and ensure their success and growth is vital. DSJ Global have top of the range consultants working with a global network of professionals to reassure their clients that their talent acquisition is in safe hands. The firm invests in the best-in-class recruitment technologies and training to ensure companies are supported by a consistent, exceptional service which reaches beyond borders. By redefining the traditional hiring process, DSJ Global have harnessed the power of professionals and companies to make informed hiring decisions for a mutual benefit.



Talented individuals looking to make a smooth transition into their next career move can expect to receive high quality expertise in their field. DSJ Global is the preferred recruitment partner of 71 world-leading organisations as part of the Phaidon International group, as a result the firm has a network of ambitious professionals who will optimise the recruitment process with their knowledge and expertise.



Hong Kong is facing a huge change due to worldwide digitalisation, meaning the roles within the sector are also set to adapt. These changes have caused disruption and have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic also. However, new opportunities are continuously being created for professionals who are flexible in fast paced environments and can grapple with new technologies such as artificial intelligence and automation. The current procurement workforce is aging rapidly, leaving space for young professionals to advance their careers and join at a crucial time in Hong Kong's economic market. DSJ Global are working with leading global powerhouses as well as agile start-ups to ensure the talent pool of professionals reaches their desired location and job role to ensure both company and client are successful.



"During uncertain times, DSJ Global offers reassurance. Crises come in many different forms  financial crashes, oil gluts, and now a global pandemic", commented Andrew McNeilis, Managing Director of APAC at DSJ Global. He went on to say, "Yet, whatever the challenge, we remain steadfast in our service. We continue to offer guidance to clients in the logistics and supply chain sectors and help them secure top talent."



Ambitious logistics and procurement individuals are of extremely high demand across Asia and have the unique prospect to capitalise on the necessity for digital skills to accelerate their career with a big impact. DSJ Global have invested in recruitment technologies to ensure a positive outcome is generated for all in the hiring process. The firm's team have reimagined traditional recruitment procedures to make sure all pandemic safeguarding recommendations have been taken into consideration. This has including introducing remote onboarding such as virtual interviews and other introductory methods to ensure a smooth start for new employees. DSJ Global are using their connections to secure businesses connect with the right talent to explore their potential and increase growth for both. The success of both clients and candidates is a positive outcome for DSJ Global and an accomplishment strived for with every recruitment stage from beginning to end. The firm's consultants support the process from initial interview all the way through to the job offer to provide guidance and expert advice in the field.



To find out more information about global logistics and supply chain recruiters in Hong Kong visit https://www.dsjglobal.hk/jobs/asia.



For any media enquiries please contact Gary Elliott at Iconic Digital  020 7100 0726.



For all other enquiries please contact DSJ Global: +852 3008 1901.



For more information about DSJ Global services, please go to https://www.dsjglobal.hk.



About DSJ Global

DSJ Global is redefining how hiring is handled in the logistics and supply chain space, streamlining and simplifying essential processes. The firm has extensive regional reach and is part of an international network via the Phaidon International group.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 10:46:37|Editor: huaxia

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A protester holds a placard with anti-racism message during the Million People March demonstration in London, Britain, Aug. 30, 2020. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of west London on Sunday in the Million People March to protest against systemic racism in the UK. (Photo by Ray Tang/Xinhua)
In the second volume of his memoir, The Turbulent Years: 1980-96, President Pranab Mukherjee shares an insiders account of several significant events during the 1980s and early 1990s. In this extract, Mukherjee, a cabinet minister in the Indira Gandhi government, justifies Operation Bluestar, the 1984 military action to flush out terrorists from the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Excerpt:

The Punjab crisis dominated Indian politics between 1980 and 1984. In 1981, the Akali Dal submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of forty-five religious, political, economic and social demands and grievances, including the issue of sharing Punjabs river waters between Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and the quest for the transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab, and launched a virulent campaign around them.

Very soon, the issue of the implementation of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution was raised-specifically, that certain areas from the adjoining states (Una tehsil and Dalhousie from Chamba district in Himachal Pradesh; Pinjore and Kalka from Panchkula district, Sahabad block from Karnal district and the city of Ambala From Ambala district in Haryana and the union territory of Chandigarh) be merged with Punjab. The Akalis held that these areas were deliberately not included in Punjab at the time of the creation of the state, although historically and culturally they were part of it.

ALSO WATCH | RIP Pranab Mukherjee: From teacher to minister to President, an era ends

Though the 1973 Anandpur Sahib Resolution had called for a high degree of autonomy for Punjab, the Akali Dal was not satisfied with that proposal. In April 1981, one of its leaders, Jathedar Jagdev Singh Talwandi, called for an autonomous state to be set up in North India forthwith, wherein Sikh interests would be recognized as of primary and special importance. This proposed state of Khalistan would have its own Constitution and not be governed by the Indian Constitution. In November 1982, the foremost Akali leader, Sant Harcharan Singh Longowal, in a new elucidation of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, said that a Sikh religious state with all Punjabi-speaking people within it should be created to preserve Sikh tradition and religion. In Punjab, Amrik Singh, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and several others started advocating the use of violence for a break-up of the Indian union and the creation of an independent Khalistan. Raising the slogan Raj Karega Khalsa, they claimed that an independent Khalistan was a historical necessity for the Sikh youth. Clearly, the Akali Dal was constantly changing goalposts and was not clear about whether it wanted autonomy within the Indian union or an independent state.

The Akali Dals organized effort to confront the government with its demands soon resulted in the rise of extremism. Both violent action as well as public incitement to violence became commonplace. Criminals, smugglers and anti-social elements took advantage of the situation and associated themselves with this movement. Even Naxalites used the crisis to expand their influence and areas of domination. Several outfits supporting the separatist movement sprouted within the Sikh community abroad, especially in Pakistan, Canada and the UK.

Taking full advantage of the governments policy that the police would not enter any religious institution, the Golden Temple in Amritsar became a safe haven for their activities. Deliberate efforts were also made to sow bitterness between the Sikh community and Followers of other religions.

Read | Babri demolition one of Narasimha Raos biggest failures: Pranab Mukherjee

Had the Punjab movement been limited to the original demands of the Akali Dal, it may have found an easier resolution. But as it progressed, the establishment of an independent Khalistan emerged as its principal goal. It thus became a movement challenging Indias unity, territorial integrity and security.

Sadly, the Akali Dal never took a clear position regarding the hijacking of the movement by separatist elements. Instead, its leaders often used provocative language very similar to that used by the militants.

Sometime towards the end of 1981, L.K. Advani of the BJP approached me in the Rajya Sabha and expressed grave concern regarding the happenings in Punjab. Speaking agitatedly, Advani accused the government of total indifference. He said that the situation was rapidly deteriorating and the way extremists were spreading violence and arbitrarily killing people was terrible. He warned that conditions could become even more serious in the future, especially in view of the murder of Lala jagat Narain, Member of Parliament (MP), journalist and owner of Punjabs leading newspaper, Punjab Kesari (on 9 September 1981). A staunch nationalist, Lala Jagat Narain had, in his newspaper, been strongly condemning the militants and campaigning against Khalistan.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards after the Operation Bluestar at the Golden Temple, triggering a further wave of retaliation in which nearly 3,000 Sikhs were killed.

After getting the memorandum from the Akali Dal in September 1981, Indira Gandhi invited its representatives for discussions. She sat with them not once but thrice, in October 1981, November 1981 and April 1982. Talks were held at different levels between ministers and

Akali Dal representatives; in trilateral meetings involving other political parties as well; and between government officials, from the Cabinet Secretary and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, and Akali Dal representatives.

Indira Gandhi selected the ministers who would be part of the discussions. P.V. Narasiinha Rao presided over the largest number of meetings. While I, as Finance Minister, presided over some. Minutes of all the meetings were sent to the Prime Minister, even though officials from the Prime Ministers office were part of the dialogue.

However, all these efforts failed because of the Akali Dals rigid stance. Even a few days before Operation Blue Star, an attempt was made to find a. solution by holding a meeting with the Akali Dal leaders who were brought from jail to the lounge of the Chandigarh airport at midnight. P.V. Narasimha Rao, Cabinet Secretary Krishnaswamy Rao Sahib and I represented the government in that meeting. Unfortunately, the talks remained unsuccessful.

Each time we came close to a consensus, militant groups seemed to increase their terrorist activities and the Akali Dal would shift its position. It often appeared as though the movement was not under the control of the Akali Dal but being manipulated by extremist Sikh groups---the Akali Dal was only providing political cover to these groups, or so it seemed.

Read | How Rajiv Gandhi became PM after Indiras death, recalls Pranab Mukherjee

By May 1984, it became increasingly clear that there was no alternative but military action to flush out the terrorists within the Golden Temple-particularly as the negotiations and discussions had not yielded the desired results.

On 3 June, the Indian army entered the Golden Temple in a military operation codenamed Operation Blue Star.

Some believe that this course of action could have been avoided. But the reality that confronted the government at that time was that Bhindranwale and his followers had occupied and taken control of the Golden Temple, disregarding its sanctity. Extremists had turned it into a fortress and a base for operations aimed at the separation of Punjab from India. While some of us were worried about the. reaction of the Sikh community and whether drastic action would be counterproductive, leading to a flaring-up of the communal tension, a final decision to storm the Golden Temple was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA). Its members at that time were the Prime Minister, Home Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, R Venkatraman (having taken over as Defence Minister), Energy Minister P. Shiv Shankar and I. That day, no officials were present at the CCPA meet.

I still vividly recall Mrs Gandhi telling me, Pranab, I know of the consequences. She understood the situation well and was clear that there was no other option. Aware that her own life was at risk, she took a conscious decision to go ahead in the best interest of the nation.





It is easy to say that the military action could have. been avoided. However, nobody really knows if any other option would have worked. Such decisions are always taken based on the conditions prevailing at that time. The situation in Punjab was abnormal. Urgent action was needed to put an end to the indiscriminate killings, the misuse of religious sites for terrorist activities and all efforts to break up the Indian union. Intelligence officials and the army both expressed confidence that they would be able to neutralize the militants in the Golden Temple complex without much difficulty. No one anticipated the protracted resistance.

While the Punjab situation was an aberration and a crisis of this nature is unlikely to recur, the lesson for future generations is that fissiparous tendencies have to be resisted at any cost. The Punjab crisis provided external elements an opportunity to take advantage of the disunity within India and sow the seeds of anarchy. Its wounds took a long time to heal and, even today, residual incidents do occur from time to time.

The biggest tragedy, of course, was the loss of Mrs Gandhi. Her last speech in Orissa, two days before her assassination, was prophetic. She said, I am alive today, I may not be there tomorrow... I shall continue to serve until my last breath and when I die. I can say that every drop of my blood will invigorate India and strengthen it.

Read | Exclusive stories from President Pranab Mukherjees memoirs
London: British street artist Banksy has accused European officials of ignoring maritime distress calls from non-Europeans after he helped fund a rescue vessel to deliver humanitarian aid to migrants who have been stranded in the central Mediterranean for days.

Hundreds of migrants were transferred to several rescue ships on Saturday as international aid groups urged European officials to let them come ashore. One of the vessels, the Louise Michel, was funded by Banksy.

The Louise Michel rescue vessel with people rescued on board. Credit:AP

According to a series of posts on the Louise Michel's Twitter account, the ship set out Thursday to help 89 people on a rubber dinghy. During its mission, it came across another ship with about 130 people, who were also rescued. At that point, with more than 200 people aboard, the Louise Michel's crew of 10 could no longer steer the ship and issued a distress call.

The ship was near Lampedusa, an Italian island off the African coast that has become a gateway to Europe for migrants. The Italian Coast Guard, responding to the distress call, said it had taken in 49 passengers it considered the most vulnerable, as well as the body of a migrant who had died before being transferred to the Louise Michel.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthis in Yemen announced on Sunday intercepting and downing the drone

Egypt condemned a booby-trapped drone attack by Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen, which attempted to target Abha International Airport in the southwestern province of Aseer, a statement by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry on Sunday read.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthis announced late on Sunday intercepting and downing the drone, which it said targeted passengers at the airport, explaining to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) that thousands of civilian passengers and expatriates of different nationalities use the airport daily.

Following the attack, the coalition affirmed that it would continue to carry out strict measures to deter the Houthi militia.

In its Sunday statement, the foreign ministry affirmed Egypt's support to the government and people of Saudi Arabia in the face of such terrorist attacks, as well as Saudi measures taken to preserve the Kingdoms security and stability."

Houthis in Yemen have launched hundreds of drones and missiles across the border toward Saudi Arabia, aimed at military, economic and civilian targets including several attacks on Abha International Airport.

Egypt has repeatedly denounced Houthi attacks on the Kingdom.

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'This is harassment': John MacArthur's church to be evicted from land leased for parking lot

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Los Angeles County has notified Grace Community Church, led by Pastor John MacArthur, that it will soon be evicted from a parcel of land it uses as a parking lot  a move lawyers say is retaliation for the churchs decision to hold indoor worship services amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a letter dated Aug. 28, the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Works informed the Sun Valley-based church that on Oct. 1, it is being evicted from a large portion of the parking lot of the church that has been in place continuously since 1975.

The county warns that if Grace Community Church fails to vacate the premise as required, the District may enter the premises and remove Grace's personal property in accordance with the Agreement and applicable law, and Grace will be responsible for any resultant expenses incurred by the District.

Jenna Ellis, special counsel to Thomas More Society, said the move is clearly in retaliation for the church's decision to fight Los Angeles Countys ban on indoor church worship services.

"Los Angeles County is retaliating against Grace Community Church for simply exercising their constitutionally protected right to hold church and challenging an unreasonable, unlawful health order, Ellis said.

In America, we have a judicial system to ensure that the executive branch does not abuse its power, and Grace Community Church has every right to be heard without fear of reprisal. The Democrats' message to Americans is clearif you don't bow to every whim of tyranny, the government will come after you. The Church has peacefully held this lease for 45 years and the only reason the County is attempting eviction is because John MacArthur stood up to their unconstitutional power grab. This is harassment, abusive, and unconscionable."

Over the last few weeks, county officials have repeatedly attempted to get a court order to shutter the church, which has been holding in-person worship services since last month in violation of orders from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has mandated that churches in some counties refrain from indoor services amid the pandemic.

County officials previously threatened MacArthur with repercussions such as fines and even possible arrest if his church doesnt comply with state orders.

However, a California judge concluded last week that the countys attempt to obtain a restraining order did not meet statutory requirements and that the Court of Appeals' order did not justify a new temporary restraining order.

The next scheduled hearing on the original lawsuit filed by the church against the county and the countersuit filed by the county against the church will take place Sept. 4.

In a declaration released last week, MacArthur argued that the county is attempting to impede on his and his congregations free exercise of religion by criminalizing activity directly required by our faith.

As a church, we have a moral and religious obligation to continue allowing our congregants to gather in our sanctuary to worship the Lord, the pastor said, adding that the church is the core of life for thousands from nursery to seniors.

Our church is not an event center. It is a family of lives who love and care for each other in very intensely personal ways, he said. So essential to personal well-being that people rushed back as soon as they could. The utter unnecessary deprivation of all our people by completely shutting down the mutual love and care that sustains our people in all the exigencies, pressures and challenges of life, was cruel.

Grace Community is not the only California church embroiled in a legal battle due to state closure and reopening orders.

Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Thousand Oaks was recently found to be in contempt of court for violating the state's COVID-19 health orders.

Also this month, North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara was fined $5,000 for holding a morning service and $5,000 for the evening service in violation of orders from Gov. Newsom.
A beauty salon has accused three teenage girls of leaving without paying after getting more than $200 worth of acrylic nail work done.

Armadale Nails and Beauty, southeast of Perth, says the girls racked up a $260 bill on August 21 before they 'stormed' out of the store, claiming to be looking for their mother.

'If anyone knows their mum please tell her they had been looking for her to pay for their nails since Friday,' a Facebook post from the salon read.

The hunt is on for three girls (pictured) who allegedly had $260 worth of nail work done before fleeing the Armadale Nails and Beauty salon, south east of Perth, without paying

The salon said the trio (pictured) waited in the store for 30 minutes after their appointment before they 'stormed' out saying they would go and find their mum to pay the bill

The post said staff worked overtime to complete the job, which included intricate detailing.

After the appointment the girls waited for 30 minutes before saying they would find their mother, who was supposed to pay for the acrylic nails, the salon said.

The salon claims the trio never returned so they reported the incident to police.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted WA Police for comment.

The salon has informed customers they will have to start paying for their appointments up front.

Some customers praised the store for taking a proactive approach.

'That is a good idea to ask for money upfront due to this situation. The honest people wont be offended. It would be good to see these girls be held accountable though,' one user wrote.

'I will be happy to pay up front, no problem at all. It's easier for everyone,' another added.
Pastor John Gray says he has submitted to a process of restoration after new infidelity allegations

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Megachurch pastor John Gray announced that he has submitted to a process of restoration that will sometimes take him away from his church in the wake of new allegations of infidelity, some of which he admits are true.

Im sorry for the areas of my life that I left unattended, that I was apathetic about, the areas where I have treated the calling of God, the grace of God and the hand of God casually in my life. For every area of behavior that has dishonored the holiness of God, I want to tell you that Im sorry. There have been a number of things, blogs, some of them accurate, some of it not. But all of it, my responsibility, the embattled leader of Relentless Church in Greenville, South Carolina, said in an address to his church and family Sunday.

I apologize for putting the name of God in harms way and I and I alone take the responsibility for the actions that harmed and injured Gods sheep. No matter how many pseudo-excuses one can hurl in a moment like this, for the purposes of self-preservation, all of them ring hollow when all that is truly needed is the truth, he said.

Grays address comes after his lawyers said a week ago that he was being blackmailed and extorted after he was accused of engaging in another inappropriate relationship.

The latest allegation against Gray came from a 48-year-old Houston woman who identified herself as Mary during an interview with online personality Tasha K, which was broadcast on YouTube. The Houston woman said during her interactions with Gray, she sent him partially nude photos at his request and he video-chatted with her while revealing his underwear. She claimed that he also met with her in Houston and invited her to visit his home and she declined because she felt he may have wanted to sleep with her.

Gray did not specifically address any of the allegations against him but explained that he had been in therapy for himself as well as in marriage therapy with his wife for a while but those efforts were insufficient in helping him to become the pastor, father and husband he aspires to be.

He said after being confronted by godly friends and leaders, he will now submit to a process that he has never endured before for an indefinite period.

[I] submitted to a process of restoration that will require me to continue to do the deep work, not only of therapy but of emotional health professionals; physical restoration because my body and my soul have been deeply wounded and impacted by a life that was rooted in shame, he said. I dont know how long that process is going to be.

He said he has the help of pastors who will help him get whole and urged members of his church to continue giving to his ministry as he seeks the help he deserves in the broken areas of his life.

He argued that one of the reasons he didnt seek radical help before now was because he incorrectly assumed that his church could not survive financially without him always at the helm.

I never submitted to anybody in those other areas, whether through shame fear or an inflated sense of worth. Well, the church needs me to keep preaching so that everybody can be able to take care of their families, he reasoned before noting, If God needed someone who was stuck in sin to help Him then I aint read the Bible.

Gods Church is His business and it is my prayer that a mature Relentless Church will continue to sow into this great work while I continue to seek the help, the health, the healing and wholeness that I deserve. My kids deserve a whole father, not a fragmented puzzle piece of a man, he said. Some weeks youll see me. Others you wont.

In the latest allegations against Gray, online personality Tasha K also recently shared a video on Instagram highlighting the Greenville preacher complaining to Mary that his wife, Aventer Gray, did not cook for his family and offered to fly her to Cabo, Mexico, for a rendezvous during the pandemic.

In early 2019, Gray publicly revealed he had wanted to end his life and received prayer from Bishop T.D. Jakes as allegations of infidelity clouded his marriage. Weeks before that, Gray had drawn flak for gifting his wife a more than $200,000 Lamborghini Urus to celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary.

The South Carolina pastor had previously told his congregation that his wife, Aventer, discovered that he had started listening to the wrong voices and let some people get too close  she set it off just like a good wife should.

Aventer Gray then revealed to their congregation that one of those wrong voices belonged to a strange woman, whom she fought off with prayer and Scripture. During that revelation, Grays wife stood stoically by his side.

On Sunday, Gray faced his church alone and publicly apologized to his wife and his church, declaring that this time, his repentance would be true.

As Ive said to my wife, I say to her now in this moment, Aventer, I am sorry for the pain that I have caused you and my prayer is that the life I live from this moment is one worthy of the love that you have extended and that our family receives from, he said.

I am grateful for you [and] our children and I pray that God would restore the joy that we had in the days when we would drive around the city dreaming. You know more than everyone else, the areas of pain that I have carried for years.

I believe that this moment had to come so God can make me the man I need to be. Im sorry for the pain that Ive caused. You dont deserve it. You are an amazing woman of God and I love you and I will face me so that the man that comes out of this moment will be able to honor you in a way that I never have before.

He explained to his church that God still required holiness of pastors and the standard had not changed.

To my church, I am sorry. You have gone through enough. From cars to meetings with leaders that have caused great pain and deep division amongst political ideologies to one thing after another. I want to tell you Im sorry. The standard has not changed. Holiness is still right. And I want you to know that it is my prayer from this moment of true repentance that you will see emerge from this moment a pastor that you can be proud of, he said.

He also had words for the bloggers who helped to expose his sin and argued that he is Gods man and they would not have the last word.

People have better things to do than to stay on blogs rejoicing in the demise of who they have incorrectly ascribed a charlatan. No, I didnt make me. God made me. And Hes going to get the glory out of my life, Gray said.

There are people who have made brokenness a commodity, seeking the worst about people to monetize their pain in vulnerable moments. May the Lord heal whatever broken places in you that needs to see someone fall for you to feel better about yourself. Im a man, Im not a god. I serve God and Im Gods man and my failures will not be the final chapter of my life.
The on Monday will pronounce its verdict on a plea filed by fugitive businessman seeking a review of its May 2017 order holding him guilty of contempt for transferring USD 40 million to his children in violation of the court's order.

A bench of Justice UU Lalit and Justice Ashok Bhushan will pronounce the judgment today.

It had reserved the order in the case on August 27 after hearing parties in the case. Mallya is an accused in a bank loan default case of over Rs 9,000 crore involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines and is presently in the United Kingdom.

The had issued its May 9, 2017, order on a plea by a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI), claiming he had allegedly transferred USD 40 million received from British firm Diageo to his children in "flagrant violation" of various judicial orders.

Earlier, the apex court had asked Mallya about the "truthfulness" of his disclosure of assets and the transfer of money to his children.

At that time, the top court was dealing with pleas of lending banks seeking contempt action and a direction to Mallya to deposit USD 40 million received from offshore firm Diageo to the banks respectively.

The banks had then accused Mallya of concealing the facts and diverted the money to his son Siddharth Mallya and daughters Leanna Mallya and Tanya Mallya in flagrant violation of the orders passed by the Karnataka High Court.
Chinas economic rebound from the coronavirus pandemic gathered pace in August with a poll indicating the services sector grew at its fastest pace in more than two years.

The worlds second-largest economy has put the US and much of Europe in the shade with a quick recovery after Covid-19 restrictions were eased.

Activity continued to recover in August, with a gauge of the services industry reaching its strongest level since early 2018 while the expansion in manufacturing activity slowed slightly.

The purchasing managers index (PMI) for services rose to 55.2 from 54.2 in July, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

A reading above 50 indicates conditions improved from a month earlier. Manufacturing growth slowed marginally, with the PMI dropping to 51 from 51.1 a month earlier. The PMI for small manufacturers continued to decline, dropping to 47.7.

Chinas recovery from a slump in the first quarter of 2020 was boosted by government investment, while the reopening of some trading partners helped to support exports  an important part of the Chinese economy.

Service industries, which have been hit hard by the virus, picked up as the government relaxed its lockdown measures, with businesses such as cinemas allowed to open again.

A number of indicators suggest Chinas economy strengthened in August, with the stock market, business confidence and home sales all improving.

Both the manufacturing and services PMIs are expected to stabilise within expansionary territory, with the possibility of a slight acceleration, said Liu Xuezhi, an economist at the Bank of Communications in Shanghai.

Its unlikely that policymakers will roll out large stimulus [measures] over the rest of the year, and they shouldnt. They should instead focus on implementing existing policies.

Demand for manufactured goods is increasing but firms are still suffering from a lack of demand.

The recovery of demand is slower than that of production, which is starting to drag on the economic recovery, the China Logistics Information Centre, which helped compile the data, wrote in a statement.

More than half of companies still list the lack of market demand as the main difficulty, a factor which is making them reluctant to invest in additional production, the organisation said.

Chang Shu, at Bloomberg Economics, said: Looking ahead, we expect the recovery to continue to make headway, propelled by incremental increases in domestic demand and further opening of overseas economies. That said, returning to pre-pandemic growth rates anytime soon would be a tall order.
MONTREAL - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday he's "profoundly disappointed" in the vandals who toppled and defaced a Montreal statue of the first prime minister of Canada, as Quebec's premier promised the monument would be restored.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 31/8/2020 (507 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The statue of Sir John A. MacDonald is shown torn down following a demonstration in Montreal, Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020, where they protested to defund the police with a goal to end all systemic racism within all sectors of the Canadian government. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

MONTREAL - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday he's "profoundly disappointed" in the vandals who toppled and defaced a Montreal statue of the first prime minister of Canada, as Quebec's premier promised the monument would be restored.

Trudeau told reporters in Montreal he understands the impatience of Canadians who want to see more action on racism and systemic discrimination, but said the vandalism that occurred over the weekend is not an acceptable way to express those views.

"We are a country of laws and we as a country need to respect those laws even as we seek to improve and change them," he said. "Those kinds of acts of vandalism are not advancing the path towards greater justice and equality in this country."

Montreal police said the vandals threw a rope around the sculpture of John A. Macdonald and sent it crashing to the ground, causing its head to roll off.

Police had originally said the vandals had unbolted the statue, but spokesman Jean-Pierre Brabant said Monday that their investigation revealed the statue had not been bolted to the pedestal. It was toppled and sprayed with graffiti at the end of a protest demanding cities cut police budgets.

The statue had repeatedly been vandalized in the past by critics who cite Macdonald's role in establishing the residential school system, as well as his racist comments about Indigenous peoples.

The towering bronze-and-granite statue, which was created by British artist George Edward Wade and erected in 1895, is among the most "imposing and elaborate" monuments to Canada's first prime minister, according to the city's website.

Trudeau said Canadian society has work to do in combating systemic discrimination, and should debate the actions of past leaders and the future of monuments honouring them.

"He was our first prime minister and we have to recognize his role in the creation of the country and the world we live in, but we have to recognize where there were statements, perspectives or acts that were unacceptable," Trudeau said.

But he said the decision on how to move forward needs to be made collectively, and not by a small group acting illegally.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault also condemned the vandalism Monday, telling reporters the statue would be repaired and put back.

"Of course, we need to fight against racism, but that's not the way to do it," Legault said. "We have to respect the history."

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Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante has said the city's public art department will oversee the restoration of the sculpture.

Brabant said no arrests have been made, but police were checking video footage in the hopes of identifying the perpetrators.

He said while police were on the scene when the statue was toppled, they did not intervene. "Because it was done as quickly as it was, we were able to react to the mischief but not prevent the mischief," he said in a phone interview.

Brabant said the officers were unable to catch the perpetrators, who disappeared into the crowd of demonstrators leaving the protest.

The vandals, if found, could be charged with mischief, he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2020.
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(Newser)  In the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda, Paul Rusesabagina was depicted as a hero who saved more than 1,200 lives during the 1994 Rwandan genocide at the hotel he managed in Kigali. George W. Bush even presented him with the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 for his humanitarian efforts. Now, a different narrative on Rusesabagina is being told by Rwandan authorities, who announced his arrest on terror charges Monday. "Rusesabagina is suspected to be the founder, leader, sponsor, and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits, including the Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD) operating out of various places in the region and abroad," police said in a Monday statement, per ABC News. A tweet by the country's bureau of investigation notes the arrest was made with "international cooperation," though CNN notes it's not clear who exactly cooperated.

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The bureau goes on to say that Rusesabagina "has been [the] subject of an International Arrest Warrant, wanted to answer charges of serious crime including terrorism, arson, kidnap and murder, perpetrated against unarmed, innocent Rwandan civilians on Rwandan territory." Rusesabagina is now in custody in Kigali, the nation's capital, though he hasn't been officially charged. The 66-year-old, known for being a vocal critic of President Paul Kagame, was the manager in 1994 of the Hotel des Mille Collines, where he sheltered people from the massacre by Hutu extremists that ultimately took the lives of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Ibuka, a Rwandan survivors group, has said Rusesabagina exaggerated his role in saving people. He fled Rwanda in 1996 after an assassination attempt and has lived in Belgium and the US. It's not clear where he was arrested. (Read more Rwanda stories.)
YEREVAN, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian congratulated writer, Professor Henrik Edoyan on the occasion of his 80th birthday, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

The unique perception of time and reality is the core of your thinking and creation, thanks to which your literary trace is distinguished with uniqueness, the Armenian President said in his congratulatory letter, wishing the writer health and creative energy.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
An Assam Police team arrested five persons from Uttar Pradesh on charges of siphoning funds from the Chief Ministers relief fund by forging cheques and signatures of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

According to a police press statement on Monday, the five accused were arrested by a team of seven officers from CMs special vigilance cell on August 27 following raids at some remote areas of Gorakhpur and Basti districts of Uttar Pradesh.

The accused, identified as Mohammad Arif, Mohammad Asif, Lalji, Sarvesh Rao and Ravindra Kumar, have been brought to Assam on remand of 10 days have reportedly admitted to their crime. They said they had withdrawn funds fraudulently from relief funds of CMs from other states as well.

During interrogation, they admitted to have committed the offence and also said that they had committed the same from other states but only recently they tried to withdraw sum from Assam CMs relief fund starting with withdrawal of very little amounts, the statement said.

The matter first came to light on August 10 when the Assam CMs office detected some unusual transactions from the relief fund. The matter was immediately informed to the vigilance cell and a case registered.

During investigation it was found that some amounts were fraudulently withdrawn using cheques in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh by forging the cheques and signatures of Sonowal. Details of the total sum withdrawn from the fund have not been disclosed yet.

The government money fraudulently withdrawn was refunded by State Bank of India as there were faults on their part, the statement said.

The covert operation to nab the culprits was successful due to close coordination between the offices of CMs of Assam and Uttar Pradesh as well as police departments of both states.

Chief Minister of Assam has warned that he will not allow a single penny meant for the poor people of Assam to go to the hands of criminals, the statement stated.

The scam revealed that criminals can withdraw sums from such government funds where there is less auditing and monitoring.

This is a wake up call for all the state governments of India to secure government funds as there are huge credit balances in the accounts and very less monitoring and auditing of the funds, and this is taken as an advantage by criminals who have been involved in fraudulent withdrawal of money from government funds across the country, the statement added.

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Ghanaian born economist Bernard Mensah has been appointed president of International for Bank of America, and is also a member of the companys executive management team.

He is also chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch International (MLI), Bank of Americas largest international subsidiary; head of the BANA London branch; and a member of Bank of Americas Management Committee.

Bernard Mensah was on the high table in July when the USA Secretary of State Mike Pompeo concluded discussions mostly centred on post-Covid economy effort.

Also in the meeting was the UK Minister Dominic Raab and other high ranking officials of the UK and the US governments.

The discussion also centered on secure 5G telecommunications, and continuing negotiations on a US-UK free trade agreement. Until his new appointment, Bernard who is the younger brother of president of the Ghana Rugby Association Herbert Mensah was President of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and co-head of Global Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities (FICC) Trading at Bank of America.

His new role as president of international for bank of America is responsible for the execution and development of the banks strategy, business activities and support functions internationally.

These span corporate, commercial and investment banking, treasury services and sales and trading.

He is also responsible for ensuring the effective delivery of the broad Bank of America franchise to its corporate and institutional clients around the world. Mensah chairs the firms regional executive committee and is a member of the Global Banking and Markets Management Committee.

He has more than 20 years of global trading and investing experience, serves on the UKs Financial Conduct Authoritys Markets Practitioner Panel, and was recently asked by the Bank of England to join the senior advisory group overseeing LIBOR transition in the UK. He joined the firm in 2010 from Goldman Sachs in London, where he was a partner and global head of Bank Loan and Distressed Trading.

Prior to that, he ran the companys Asia Credit and Convertibles business, based in Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Mensah received his BA in social sciences at the Joint School of Philosophy and Economics at the University of Bristol.

He is a qualified chartered accountant, and became a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales.

He chairs the West Africa Advisory Board of Princes Trust International and is a member of the board of the Kofi Annan Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes better global governance to achieve a fairer, and more peaceful world.

---Daily Guide
U.S. increases support for Taiwan, says to counter rising China pressure Flags of Taiwan and U.S. are placed for a meeting between U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce speaks and with Su Chia-chyuan, President of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei

By David Brunnstrom and Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday it was establishing a new bilateral economic dialogue with Taiwan, an initiative it said was aimed at strengthening ties with Taipei and supporting it in the face of increasing pressure from Beijing.

Washington also said it had declassified six Reagan-era security assurances given to Taiwan, a move analysts said appeared intended to show further support for Taipei.

The announcements come at a time of increasing Chinese threats towards Taiwan, and when relations between Washington and Beijing have sunk to their lowest level in decades. U.S. President Donald Trump is campaigning for re-election in November with a tough approach to China among his key foreign policy platforms.

The State Department's top diplomat for East Asia, David Stilwell, told a virtual forum hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation the latest U.S. moves were not a policy shift, but part of a set of "significant adjustments" within Washington's longstanding "one-China" policy.

Washington felt compelled to make these given the "increasing threat posed by Beijing to peace and stability" in a vitally important region and Beijing's attempts to isolate Taiwan diplomatically while subjecting it to military threats.

"We will continue to help Taipei resist the Chinese Communist Party's campaign to pressure, intimidate, and marginalize Taiwan," Stilwell said.

Taiwan's Foreign Ministry expressed thanks for the show of support at a time when it said China was using military intimidation to damage peace and stability near Taiwan, and said it would continue to strengthen its defense capabilities.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said nobody should underestimate China's resolve to defend its sovereignty, and urged the United States to stop elevating its relations with Taiwan.

The United States, like most countries, has official relations with Beijing, but not Taiwan, which is claimed by Beijing as Chinese territory. However, Washington is bound by law to help Taiwan defend itself and is its main arms supplier.

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Daniel Russel, a predecessor of Stilwell until early in the Trump administration, said the "Six Assurances" made to Taipei by the administration of former President Ronald Reagan had been a "loosely-kept secret" at best.

He said the decision to publish them looked like a compromise response to pressure from administration hawks to abandon "strategic ambiguity"  a long-standing policy of withholding a clear-cut U.S. commitment to defend Taiwan while still showing sufficient support to deter any Chinese military adventurism.

Among the assurances made in 1982, but never formally made public, are statements that the United States has not set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan, nor agreed to prior consultation with Beijing on such sales, or to revise the Taiwan Relations Act that underpins U.S. policy towards the island.

The assurances, Stilwell said, "endure today."

Douglas Paal, a former U.S. representative to Taiwan, said the move appeared largely for show.

"My guess at this time is that Stilwell and the administration want to look tough ... So they are walking close to China's red lines, but remain unwilling to cross them."

Stilwell said the economic dialogue would "explore the full spectrum of our economic relationship - semiconductors, healthcare, energy, and beyond, with technology at the core."

"While they may be interrelated, our relationship with Taiwan is not a subset of our bilateral relationship with the PRC," he said, referring to mainland China.

Monday's announcements come several months after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd <2330.TW>, the world's biggest contract chipmaker, announced plans to build a $12 billion factory in Arizona as the Trump administration stepped up efforts to cut back supply chains dependency on China.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Humeyra Pamuk; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei and Gabriel Crossely in Beijing; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Lincoln Feast.)
South Africa: Public urged not to waste water

[Read] The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has been collaborating with small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in the chemicals, agro-processing and biotechnology industry to translate research into market-ready products tinyurl.com/y2cqe7c7

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 17:12:41|Editor: huaxia

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Israel's chief of National Security Council Meir Ben Shabbat (6th L), U.S. National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien (4th L), Senior U.S. Presidential Advisor Jared Kushner (5th L) and other Israeli-U.S. delegation members pose for a group photo before their departure to United Arab Emirates (UAE) at Ben Gurion International Airport near central Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Aug. 31, 2020. An Israeli delegation, joined by senior U.S. officials, departed from Tel Aviv on Monday to Abu Dhabi in Israel's first commercial flight to the United Arab Emirates. (Tomer Neuberg/JINI via Xinhua)

JERUSALEM, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli delegation, joined by senior U.S. officials, departed from Tel Aviv on Monday to Abu Dhabi in Israel's first commercial flight to the United Arab Emirates.

Flight LY971, a direct flight operated by Israel's national airline carrier El Al, departed at around 10:30 (0730 GMT).

The two-day visit will include working meetings of the joint teams ahead of the signing of cooperation deals following the U.S.-brokered agreement to normalize ties between Israel and UAE, which was announced on Aug. 13.

A statement from the Israeli Prime Minister's Office ahead of the departure said the meetings will focus on issues related to "the civil and economic spheres."

The visit will also include a trilateral meeting in Abu Dhabi between the heads of the delegations: Israel's chief of National Security Council Meir Ben Shabbat, U.S. National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and Senior U.S. Presidential Advisor Jared Kushner, and UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The discussions will be held in working groups composed of Israeli, Emirati and U.S. representatives in the areas of diplomacy, finances, aviation and entry visas, health, culture and tourism, space, science and investments, innovation and trade, according to the Israeli Prime Minister's Office.

"Our goal is to achieve a joint work plan to promote the relationship in a very wide range of areas," head of the Israeli delegation Meir Ben Shabbat said in a statement ahead of the departure.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that his country holds secrets talks with "many more" Arab states on normalizing relations. "There are many more unpublicized meetings with Arab and Muslim leaders," Netanyahu said during joint remarks in Jerusalem alongside Kushner and O'Brien. Enditem
The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), says with five built refinery plants across the country and seven in the making, Nigeria will be a net exporter of petroleum products in the next two years.

The Director and Chief Executive Officer of DPR, Sarki Auwalu, disclosed this in Lagos when the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, paid a visit to the headquarters of the department.

Mr Auwalu assured that the flow of import would reverse when the new refineries come on stream in the next two years.

He added that the feat would be achieved through the combined capacity of 375,000 barrels per day from 27 modular refineries, 650,000 barrels from the Dangote refinery and the 450,000 barrels from the government refineries.

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Specifically, he said the Dangote integrated refinery and petrochemical project with 650,000 barrel per day, the biggest in Africa, Waltersmith refinery with 7,000 capacity per day, and others that were almost near completion would come on stream.

The existing five included the four plants owned by the Federal Government through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the one owned and operated by Niger Delta Petroleum Resources.

Mr Auwalu said the aspiration of DPR was to grow the oil reserve to 40 billion barrels and gas to 210 trillion cubic feet.

He added that the department would also grow oil production from its current 2.4 million capacity to three million production capacity and as well reduced cost of production.

Currently, we have oil prospective licences, about 61, more than 2, 000 wells that are producing crude oil and condensate, we have about 125 wells producing gas.

We equally have 20 floating, loading and offloading vessels, 28 oil terminals, several float stations and oil and gas processing factories, he said.

The director said that none of the functional oil facilities stopped work because of pandemic and the country maintained production and export.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the director took the minister and the entourage to inspect server and control rooms in the headquarters where oil production, shipping and related activities were monitored real time.

In his remarks, the minister commended the management of DPR for the measures taken to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic to cripple the nations economy.

The minister also commended the government agency for its role in sustaining peace in the host communities of Niger Delta which had resulted to a halt in pipeline vandalism and restiveness.

What the DPR does goes far beyond technical because their engagement of the oil producing communities is very key. When we came in 2015, production had dipped because of the restiveness in the Niger Delta.

Its not by accident that we have some stability and modicum of peace in that area today. Its because of the policies that have been put in place to continue to engage the communities, he said.

He also commended the DPR for the accountability it exhibits in the management of the flow of revenue to the nation, which goes straight into the Treasury Single Account. (NAN)
Remember Elon Musk and his Hyperloop idea?

This is the guy who brought you such ground-breaking ideas as the Tesla electric car and reusable rockets and some head-scratching ones such as personal flamethrowers and computer chips for your brain to perform consensual telepathy.

His latest idea involved building tunnels all over the Los Angeles metro area, putting people in cylinders and shooting them all over at very high speeds. Sort of like the air tubes at the drive-through window at the bank.

Instead of putting money in the cylinder, you would get into the cylinder. Then someone would push a button and off you would go at hundreds of miles per hour to be deposited somewhere just like at a bank. You could even ask for a candy lollipop in your cylinder like at the bank too. Thats appropriate since only a sucker would subject himself to something so incredibly dangerous.

Musk even said the first rides would be for free. I sure hope so. Who would pay to be part of an experimental high speed habitrail for people? I say habitrail because the first riders would essentially be guinea pigs. Not only was the public very skeptical of the merits of the Hyperloop project, but he was also getting pushback from prisoners and drug traffickers who had already built their own network of tunnels all over the LA area.

He even wanted to build a tunnel all the way from Los Angeles to San Francisco and claimed he had a machine that could bore the entire distance in only a few weeks. Experts likened it to a kind of a mechanical supermole and residents were fearful it was going to wreak a lot of havoc in their backyards all the way up the San Fernando Valley. The dirt mounds from the tunneling would have been so enormous they would have rivaled the Sierra Nevadas or the Rockies. Now thats what I call making a mountain out of a mole hill.

But the LA project seems to have come to a screeching halt just like its traffic at rush hour. Musk formed a company responsible for digging the tunnels called (and I am not making this up) The Boring Company. But he couldnt attract the right workers, because they thought the job would be so uninteresting and dull. I highly suggest he change the name so people wont think working there wouldnt be such a yawner.

Alas, the Hyperloop idea seems to have been shelved for the moment, since he is having trouble convincing financial executives and big city mayors to back the idea. Because like at the bank nowadays there just isnt any interest.
By PTI

CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court on Monday gave its stamp of approval to holding Durga Puja in Cuttack by adhering to COVID-19 guidelines issued by the state and Central governments.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice Mohammad Rafiq gave the directive while hearing a petition filed by Balubazar Puja Committee.

The puja committee had filed a PIL in the high court appealing it to direct the state government to allow the festival with an assurance that it would be held with strict adherence to COVID-19 guidelines.

"The High Court has allowed our petition for holding the puja by adhering to COVID-19 guidelines issued by the Government of India and the State government", petitioner Suryakant Sangneria, president of the puja committee, said.

The puja committee had sought permission for making clay idol of Goddess Durga, perform puja at the 'mandap' without mass gathering and take out a simple procession to immerse the idol, Sangneria said.

The district administration that was initially reluctant to give permission for organising Durga Puja this year, in view of the pandemic, has now allowed all other puja committees to observe the puja in a simple manner.

The administration has also asked the puja committees not to hold the Durga Puja immersion (Bhasani) in a grand manner.
The phenomenal rise of social media (SM) platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and others is proving to be a double-edged sword in the functioning of democracies. On the one hand, it has democratised access to information. On the other hand, it has concentrated power over that information with a handful of private companies, their billionaire owners, and certain ideologically committed activist groups.

Billions of netizens around the world now feel empowered to bypass traditional curators of information, such as journalists and editors, in searching for their choice of content. They have also become creators and disseminators of content, not just consumers of it. This is further accentuated by tech platforms directing more content at people similar to what they have already seen, thus creating echo chambers of like-minded groups.

This is already known. What is happening now, however, is the next stage of that transformation in how information is generated, disseminated, and consumed, and it is directly impacting how democracies function. There is a global war underway, involving the role of SM and freedom of expression, which is an extension of the culture wars between the Left and Right.

India is seeing the early skirmishes of the online version of this war, which has already progressed to a much higher intensity elsewhere, most notably the United States (US). In Americas bitterly polarised polity, the frontline of this war is a battle between Twitter and President Donald Trump. The formers flagging of a presidential tweet as fake news, and the latters executive order altering the liability of SM platforms who edit content, is worth understanding better.

One of the most stark aspects of the Wests culture wars has been its erosion of the right to freedom of expression, which had been a hallmark of its modern democracies. Especially since the early 20th century, US Supreme Court rulings by the legendary Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, interpreting its Constitutions first amendment, had established what many considered a gold standard of free speech.

While those struggles for free speech had pushed for more freedom, even to say and write very unpleasant things, the intensification of the Wests culture wars in this century has seen a reversal of that trend. Curbs on hate speech became widely accepted and implemented. But, thereafter, there has been a relentless push by so-called woke activists for ever more curbs on speech, often implemented forcefully and without consensus, based solely on political correctness.

A key aspect of this has been the shift from earlier activism against governments clamping down on speech to a focus instead on pushing media, and especially SM, to impose curbs on politically incorrect speech.

The irony in this new activism for speech curbs is that it is being championed by those who call themselves liberals. Of course, this does not represent classical liberal philosophy, and is instead a reflection of the far-Left takeover of present-day liberalism. This is visible around the world, whether in the forced withdrawal of a US academics paper contradicting the zeitgeist about race relations, or in the unsavoury departures of senior staff at the once venerable New York Times, after they had dared to publish op-eds reflecting Centre-Right views. In India, this bullying has manifested itself in the ganging up by self-avowed liberal authors to stop the publication of a book contradicting their narrative on this years Delhi riots.

Such far-Left canons have now invaded the realm of big tech firms. That should hardly be a surprise, considering Silicon Valleys preference for recruiting liberal and woke employees. Books and articles by conservative authors such as Douglas Murray and business journalists such as George Anders have documented explicit hiring policies, practices and statistics to confirm Left-wing dominance among SM employees. It was, therefore, inevitable that employee activism would push these platforms into adopting leftist, illiberal policies.

The inconsistencies in those policies show up when SM platforms apply selective standards, such as when Twitter was accused of hypocrisy for not flagging or proscribing the aggressive, warlike tweet of a West Asian leader.

President Trumps executive order directly impacts this. In US law, SM had been protected against the kind of liabilities  such as defamation  that traditional news media are subject to, on the grounds that SM are simply platforms for others opinions and did not edit or otherwise shape that information. But now that they are, by flagging, shadow banning, or deleting posts and accounts, the Trump order echoes many voices that had been asking for SM to be treated on par with media outlets.

A similar battle is raging about SM giants abuse of their massive power by sourcing news from media companies without paying for it, and then disseminating and profiting from it. Despite a bitter legal struggle, Australia is likely to become the first nation to require Google to pay for such content.

These battles are relevant to India, which is both the largest democracy as well as one of the largest user bases for SM platforms. Some of these battles have already begun here, such as the recent Indian version of the Wests leftist pressure on Facebook to put curbs on Right-wing posts. It is time to broaden the dialogue here about how India ought to respond.

Baijayant Jay Panda is vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and a former Member of Parliament.

The views expressed personal
WASHINGTON: The House Oversight Committee intends to subpoena Postmaster General Louis DeJoy for documents on disruptions in mail delivery operations that are now central to questions over the agencys ability to handle the onslaught of mail-in ballots expected for the November election.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the committee chair, sent a memo Monday saying DeJoy blew past last weeks deadline to fully respond to the committees request for more information. He has not provided any new materials, she said.

It is clear that a subpoena has become necessary to further the Committees investigation and help inform potential legislative actions, she said.

Democrats are aggressively pursuing oversight of postal operations after President Donald Trump railed against mail-in ballots. Trump suggested he wanted to starve the Postal Service of funds to make it more difficult to handle the surge expected in November.

DeJoy, who was tapped to lead the agency in June, started quickly initiating changes at a time when the agency was already straining under the COVID-19 crisis. Reports of delays soon piled up.

Communities across the nation complained about widespread disruptions in postal operations this summer as blue mailboxes and sorting equipment were removed and employees said changes in trucking operations and overtime hours left mail on the loading docks, undelivered.

The committee produced internal postal service data showing widespread summer service disruptions.

DeJoy, who testified before the panel earlier this month, reiterated in a letter last Friday that the changes he was initiating are now being suspended until after the election is concluded.

The committee is seeking documents about the changes, including the removal of sorting equipment and changes to overtime rules, which could be impeding mail delivery. The panel also wants information about how DeJoy, who had no previous postal experience, was selected for the job, as well as any previously undisclosed communication between Mr. DeJoy and the Trump campaign.

DeJoy in his Friday letter to the panel said the postal leadership team has expanded an Election Mail task force to work with local election officials in support of the November election to ensure ballots are delivered securely and on time.

DeJoy also said his staff was working with the committee to provide the materials being requested.

Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., chairman of the panels Government Operations Subcommittee, said, Mr. DeJoys testimony before our committee has left us with more questions than answers.

Connolly said: Congress must assert itself. The public demands it. Todays action is a necessary step in our efforts to hold the Trump administration accountable for its deliberate sabotage of the Postal Service, and to restore confidence in this revered American institution.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this report.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 19:11:48|Editor: huaxia

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KABUL, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- At least 40 fighters with majority of them militants were killed across Afghanistan over the past 24 hours as the Afghan government has been pushing for talks with the Taliban to end the war, officials said Monday.

In the latest waves of violent incident, five militants were killed on the spot as military planes struck a Taliban hideout in Imam Sahib district of the northern Kunduz province on Monday, district governor Mahboubullah Sayedi said.

The government forces, according to the official, have made headway in Imam Sahib district and cleared over a dozen villages from the insurgents in the troubled district over the past couple of days.

A total of 37 villages have also been cleared of militants in Andkhoi, Qargan and Khawja Sabzposh districts of the northern Faryab province over the past 24 hours, forcing the Taliban fighters to retreat after leaving 18 bodies behind and incurring injuries of 10 fighters, provincial police spokesman Mohammad Karim Yurash told Xinhua.

At least 17 more fighters including six Afghan security personnel and 11 Taliban insurgents had been killed in the country over the past 24 hours, according to local security officials.

Fighting has been continuing amid efforts to bring the government and Taliban on negotiating table.

Afghan president Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, who has announced a 46-member High Council for National Reconciliation led by Abdullah Abdullah for talks with the Taliban, said his government wants early return of lasting peace in the country.

Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah said he hoped that peace talks with the Taliban would kick off next week.

He also said the government is pushing for talks with the Taliban to find a permanent solution to the country's lingering crisis. Enditem
Emma Roberts officially confirmed she and partner Garrett Hedlund are expecting their first child, a baby boy, yesterday.

And the Scream Queens actress, 29, made time for friends that Sunday, seen meeting up with fellow star Kristen Stewart, 30, at a Starbucks in LA.

Roberts seems to be keen on connecting with close ones lately, snapped out after her A-list aunt Julia Roberts, 52, congratulated the Nerve actress on her pregnancy.

Coffee time: Emma Roberts met up with pal Kristen Stewart on Sunday after officially confirming she and boyfriend Garrett Hedlund are expecting their first child

Emma and Kristen were both casual for the outing, donning simple leggings for the coffee break.

Despite the warm weather, Roberts decided to keep on a well-tailored jacket which concealed her burgeoning belly. The 7 For All Mankind Boyfriend Blazer was a chic houndstooth pattern, giving it a pop of pattern while still looking classic.

She completed the look with sunglasses, her favorite croc-skin YSL purse, checkered slip-on sneakers, and of course a mask.

Kristen, on the other hand, went for sporty chic in Adidas trainers, their iconic tri-stripe leggings, and a cropped t-shirt.

The Twilight talent had her hair raked back into a messy half-ponytail, showing off her natural color as she appeared to be growing out a previous bleach job.

The actresses were joined by two friends. After getting their drinks the group gathered in the parking lot for a quick hang out. Emma was tickled by whatever Stewart had to say, flashing her sparkling Roberts smile during the chat.

Layers: Despite the warm weather, Roberts decided to keep on a well-tailored jacket which concealed her burgeoning belly

Hanging out: After getting their drinks the group gathered in the parking lot for a quick chat

It seemed like Emma was over-the-moon after announcing her happy baby news with some stunning portraits of her and her love on Instagram that same day.

Miss Roberts was flooded with well-wishes from friends, family, castmates and fan, even getting some love from very private aunt Julia Roberts, who is the younger sister of Emma's actor dad Eric.

The Pretty Woman actress joined the likes of Jamie Lynn Spears, Awkwafina and Lea Michele, taking to the Instagram announcement to write 'Love you' with a series of kissing emojis.

Emma's Scream Queens co-star Lea - who recently gave birth to her own baby boy Ever Leo - also chimed in, writing: 'You will be the greatest mama! I love you Em! Boy moms together.'

Oh baby! It seemed like Emma was over-the-moon after announcing her happy baby news with some stunning portraits of her and her love on Instagram that same day

Sending love! Miss Roberts was flooded with well-wishes from friends, family, castmates and fan, even getting some love from very private aunt Julia Roberts

While Awkwafina and Busy Philipps both posted a string of red heart emojis, Jamie Lynn Spears commented: 'This makes me so happy... BIG congrats'.

And the mum-to-be also had a sweet message from Ashely Benson, who said: 'I love you my angel baby I can't wait'.

Meanwhile, her American Horror Story co-star Sarah Paulson added: 'Beauty beauty'.

Emma confirmed the happy news alongside a picture of her cradling her baby bump.

She added two blue heart emojis as she wrote: 'Me ... and my two favorite guys.'

Family: The Pretty Woman actress is the younger sister of Emma's actor dad Eric

Good vibes: While Awkwafina and Busy Philipps both posted a string of red heart emojis, Jamie Lynn Spears commented: 'This makes me so happy... BIG congrats'

Back in July, it was reported that Emma knows the sex of her baby, but hasn't picked out a name yet and wants to keep things 'private for now'.

An insider said: 'They know the sex of the baby but are keeping it private for now. They haven't picked out any names yet.'

The news comes after it was recently reported Emma and Garrett were 'surprised, shocked and happy' to be expecting a baby together.

Another source added: '[They are] surprised, shocked and happy at the same time, and so are their families.'

Cat's out of the bag: The news of Emma's pregnancy broke on June 25, when her mother Kelly Cunningham confirmed it on Instagram in response to a fan query; pictured in July 2019

Emma was first rumored to be expecting a baby in June, and just a few days later, the news was seemingly confirmed by her mother Kelly.

When one fan asked on Instagram if Emma was pregnant, Kelly simply replied: 'Yes!!' And when another said she would make 'an amazing grandmother', she responded: 'Thank you so much! Very excited.'

Emma and Garrett were first romantically linked in March 2019 when they were spotted holding hands in the Silver Lake neighbourhood of Los Angeles.
WITH Canada continuing to battle COVID-19 and its profound impacts on our economy, the timing is less than ideal to appoint a new federal finance minister. However, Chrystia Freelands new role provides her a key opportunity to make her mark and set Canada on a course toward recovery post-COVID-19.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 31/8/2020 (507 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

WITH Canada continuing to battle COVID-19 and its profound impacts on our economy, the timing is less than ideal to appoint a new federal finance minister. However, Chrystia Freelands new role provides her a key opportunity to make her mark and set Canada on a course toward recovery post-COVID-19.

To achieve this, Canada will have to make significant new investments in the basic building blocks of a healthy society, including making it possible for everyone to earn a living wage, as well as ensuring access to quality health care at all ages, mental health supports and essential services.

Failing to address these significant challenges could have a serious negative effect on Canadas future prosperity and security.

As part of the federal governments 2021 pre-budget consultations, the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) proposed investments targeted toward these social determinants of health to ensure a high quality of life for current and future generations of Canadians.

The real possibility of future health crises poses a particularly grave risk to the many Canadians without drug coverage, as well as to our economy. A universal single-payer pharmacare system is an investment in Canadas future and an effective bulwark against future disease outbreaks.

Other key takeaways from the COVID-19 pandemic include the lack of mental-health services and affordable quality child-care options for families across the country. We must also address the disparities faced by workers in largely female-led sectors, including child care and long-term care, which have long been plagued by low wages and precarity.

With so few affordable options, parents  mostly women  are forced to choose between quality child care and going to work. This is unacceptable in a country as wealthy as ours.

Similarly, decades of neglect, resulting in inadequate staffing and substandard conditions across the country, led to seniors bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have an obligation to build healthier workplaces, create permanent jobs with fair wages and benefits, reform employment insurance provisions, and ensure that all workers in Canada have access to strong and effective occupational health and safety protections  including migrant workers and those who are faced with precarious and unsafe work.

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.

Our future health and economy also rely on our natural environment. With our window to prevent catastrophic events closing fast, our collective goal must be to build climate-resilient communities. Canadians are feeling the impacts of climate change, yet we continue to lag in terms of our international commitments.

The massive changes required to shift our infrastructure and technology to a green economy would result in profound impacts on energy-sector workers, their families and communities. Labour unions have long called for the rapid implementation of a just transition strategy; we stand ready to collaborate with government toward a solution that guarantees dignified work and clean energy.

All of these critical challenges demand that our governments invest in health care and essential public services to better support families and communities. These long-overdue investments are necessary for our country to pave the way toward a healthy economic recovery.

This pandemic has shaken every facet of our lives. Undoubtedly, there will be many lessons to be learned from our experience with COVID-19, and a crucial one will be the importance of investing in crisis-proof systems. In a rapidly changing world, our resilience depends on it.

Canadians are counting on us. Lets roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Linda Silas is a nurse and president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, representing nearly 200,000 nurses and student nurses across the country.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden arrives at the Allegheny County Airport, en route to speak at a campaign event in Pittsburgh, Penn., on Aug. 31, 2020. (Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo)

Biden Says Violence Wont Stop if Trump Wins Reelection

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said in a speech that if President Donald Trump wins reelection, the violence that has rocked the nations streets wont stop.

In a counter-message to the presidents call for law and order in the wake of protests that have escalated, Biden accused Trump, whom he called an incumbent president who sows chaos, of seeking to instill fear in America, while claiming that Trumps second term would see more violence roil the nations streets.

Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected? Biden said during an Aug. 31 speech in Pittsburgh. He cant stop the violence, because, for years, he has fomented it.

Biden denounced Trumps tough-on-crime messaging as lip service and accused the president of failing to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country.

Cities across America erupted in protest after the police custody death of George Floyd, and, in many cases, then exploded into violence. Biden, in his remarks, echoed the rhetoric of other Democrats in seeking to blame Trump for the unrest, while Trump and the Republicans have highlighted the protest-related violence as examples of what the country would look like under a Biden administration.

Amid the unrest, Trump has expressed sympathy for victims of police brutality, while taking a tough law and order stance, expressing support for law enforcement, and vowing to protect the victims of riots, which have resulted in businesses large and small set ablaze and devastated by looting. He recently argued that Biden in the White House would undercut public safety.

No one will be safe in Bidens America. My administration will always stand with the men and women of law enforcement, Trump said during his Republican nomination acceptance speech last week, blaming local Democrat politicians for inaction in the face of riots.

In the strongest possible terms, the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson, and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities, alllike Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and New York, and many othersDemocrat-run, Trump said.

Theres violence and danger in the streets of many Democrat-run cities throughout America. This problem could easily be fixed if they wanted to. Just call, were ready to go in, he said, referring to his repeated offers to send in federal officers to help quell street violence, an offer often rejected on the premise that this would provoke an escalation.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, in an interview on NBCs Meet the Press, rejected the notion that the Trump administration was to blame for the recent unrest. He said local and state Democrat officials were responsible for the violence in Wisconsin and Oregon, after federal assistance was refused, while insisting that most of the country under Trump is safe. After a shooting left two people dead and one wounded in Kenosha, authorities accepted federal help.

These are people that every single night conduct violent acts, and it is in Democrat cities, Meadows said. Most of Donald Trumps America is peaceful.

It is a Democrat-led city in Portland that were talking about this morning, which just yesterday denied help once again from the federal government, Meadows said, referring to news of an incident in the city on Aug. 29 that resulted in a man being shot dead as groups of protesters clashed.

Trump, at his RNC speech, also accused Biden of seeking to cut funding to police departments, saying the most dangerous aspect of the Biden platform is the attack on public safety.

Biden, in his Pittsburgh remarks, sought to challenge Trumps characterization of him as soft on crime.

The senseless violence of looting, and burning, and destruction of propertyI want to make it absolutely clear, something very clear about all of thisrioting is not protesting, looting is not protesting, setting fires is not protesting, he said. None of this is protesting. Its lawlessness, plain and simple. And those that do it should be prosecuted.

While some claim systemic racism and police brutality are driving the unrest, author and Epoch Times contributor Trevor Loudon, a specialist in radical and terrorist movements, argued in a recent op-ed that theres more to the riots than meets the eye.

Some leftists are claiming, as they did during the Occupy Wall Street movement, that the protests have been hijacked by a violent element intent on discrediting the movement, Loudon wrote. Conservative commentators, on the other hand, speak of frustration and rage, of a reaction to the claustrophobia of weeks on end of lockdown.

They all miss the mark, he said. The violence since the police-involved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis is a communist-inspired insurrectionnothing more, nothing less.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc said it has acquired slightly more than 5% of the shares in five large Japanese companies, marking a departure for Chairman Warren Buffett as he looks outside the United States to bolster his conglomerate.

In a statement on Sunday, Buffetts 90th birthday, Berkshire said it acquired its stakes in Itochu Corp, Marubeni Corp, Mitsubishi Corp, Mitsui & Co Ltd and Sumitomo Corp over approximately 12 months.

Berkshire said it intends to hold the investments for the long term, and may boost its stakes to 9.9%. A Berkshire insurance business, National Indemnity Co, is holding the shares.

I am delighted to have Berkshire Hathaway participate in the future of Japan," Buffett said in a statement. The five major trading companies have many joint ventures throughout the world and are likely to have more I hope that in the future there may be opportunities of mutual benefit."

Taken together, five 5% stakes were worth 655 billion yen ($6.21 billion) as of Fridays close, Reuters calculation showed based on Refinitiv data.

On Monday, shares in the trading houses jumped as much as 11% in early Tokyo trade, outperforming a 1.5% rise in the broader TOPIX share price index.

Marubeni was the biggest gainer among the five, surging 12%. Sumitomo and Mitsubishi rose more than 10% and Mitsui rose 8.2%. Itochu - the only one of the four with a price-to-book ratio above 1 - rose 5.4% to a record high.

Shares of companies often rise when Berkshire discloses new investments, reflecting what investors view as Buffetts imprimatur.

The Japanese trading companies in many ways appear to be a typical Buffett investment: four of them trade well below book value, meaning their market capitalizations were below their assets.

Several also have hefty amounts of cash on hand. Mitsubishi, for instance, has seen steady growth in its free cash flow per share over the last four years, Refinitiv data showed.

Further and in a likely attraction for Buffett - who famously avoids investing in companies he claims not to understand - the Japanese trading houses are deeply involved in the real economy: steel, shipping, commodities, and in some cases retail.

U.S. DEPENDENCE

The Japanese investments will help Buffett reduce his Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerates dependence on the U.S. economy, which last quarter suffered its deepest contraction in at least 73 years as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

Many of Berkshires own operating businesses have struggled, and Berkshire this month took a $9.8 billion writedown on its Precision Castparts aircraft parts business.

Berkshire owns more than 90 businesses including the BNSF railroad and Geico car insurer outright.

It also invests in dozens of companies including Apple Inc, with a roughly $125 billion stake based on its holdings as of June 30, as well as American Express Co, Bank of America Corp and Coca-Cola Co.

Since Buffetts portfolio is becoming heavily skewed to Apple, maybe he was looking for something complete the opposite of Apple," said Hiroki Takashi, chief strategist at Monex in Tokyo.

Most of Berkshires operating businesses are American, though it has acquired a handful of foreign companies including Israels IMC International Metalworking and German motorcycle apparel retailer Detlev Louis.

Additional investments in Japan could also help Buffett reduce Berkshires cash pile, which ended June at a record $146.6 billion.

($1 = 105.4300 yen)

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Crowds fill a night market in Baocheng Road in Wuhan on Saturday night. Photo: Cui Meng/GT

For some Wuhan residents, the weekend before school reopens is leisure time to be spent with family, friends and loved ones, however, some children did not enjoy playing as much this time as some just could not wait to get back to school after more than 1 million local students in Chinas city hit hardest by coronavirus stayed at home for more than half a year.

"I'm so happy that I can go back to school next week because I can see my teacher [surnamed] He again," Wang Xiyao told the Global Times on Saturday at the Chu River Han Street shopping district.

The 7-year-old girl said she is going to be a second grade student at a local primary school. Since the COVID-19 outbreak began, Wang, like all local students, had taken online classes and video chats with her teachers and classmates.

It has become an unforgettable memory for both local students and parents that the summer of 2020 was so different from the previous ones. Some students, who used to wish that their summer vacation could be extended as long as possible, became very eager to return to school.

On Tuesday, 2,842 local middle schools, primary schools and kindergartens in Wuhan will reopen, welcoming about 1.4 million students back, according to local authorities. Also, 83 universities in the city will resume offline classes gradually in September as the virus has been fully contained.

With schools reopening, Wuhan, which first reported COVID-19 cases and first imposed the unprecedented 76-day lockdown, declared in its way to the world that it has completely won the battle over the virus and its entire population is entitled to enjoy every positive emotion due to their huge sacrifice and massive efforts in fighting the tough battle. The past seven months have also shaped a collective memory for locals embedded with pain, love and a new understanding of life.

'Safest place'

When Yan Jiarui, a sophomore student at the school of geodesy and geomatics at Wuhan University (WHU), returned to school on August 22, he said he went out for dinner with his roommates to celebrate this comeback that was overdue.

"We left school and went back to hometown on January 10, and stayed at home to take online classes for over six months, which was a new experience, but not as good as studying on campus," the 21-year-old student told the Global Times on Friday.

Many college students like Yan, who said that although "they had been lucky" to leave the city before the lockdown, felt deeply affected to see the city where they made friends and pursued their dreams hit "pause" button with empty streets, closed shops and crowded hospitals at the early stage of the outbreak.

"I've been following the epidemic situation in Wuhan, I also donated 200 yuan ($29), as this is the city that I live in," Huang Fangjie, a student from the school of cyber science and engineering of WHU, told the Global Times.

To ensure a safe environment for school reopening, workers in white protective suits have been conducting disinfectant work at campuses across the city where signs and banners were displayed notifying people to follow the rules, take body temperature checks and keep a certain distance. Its not mandatory to wear masks inside the school campus, but it is advised that people bring them along.

Huang, who is from Wuhu, a city in East Chinas Anhui Province, said he felt assured when he knew that the epidemic had been contained in Wuhan. "As the city conducted full-scale nucleic acid testing, its the safest place now," he said.

Life is back

While some Western media outlets and posts circulating on social media cast doubts on whether Wuhan is really safe now, especially after pictures of a densely packed pool party drew public attention, even sparking concerns and outrage among some netizens as the world has seen COVID-19 cases surpass 25 million, locals in Wuhan wont be disturbed by such doubt.

Some said they have learnt that the most important thing in difficult moments was to have faith, and believe that everything will be fine. When looking back on the over two months of strict home quarantine time, a local surnamed Du suddenly turned emotional, apparently with no way to stop tears. "The biggest change is in our mindset and its such a great thing to be alive, and we should cherish what we have," she told the Global Times on Saturday.

As the city gradually resumes normal activities again, many locals can now enjoy their "guozao" tradition again at breakfast stalls which they are familiar with, ordering hot dry noodles, fried rice cakes or drinking cold beer with friends while eating barbeque on Friday night. Some popular night clubs are also back in business where the DJs take the lead, echoed by hundreds of partygoers who did not want to waste any single minute while being indulged by trendy beats.

A woman surnamed Du said she had not gone out for half a year and her first time to go shopping in the post-epidemic period was in July, after the city lifted its lockdown and finished testing everyone in the city. "It was like a rebirth. We are totally safe now," she said.

When talking about her feelings regarding the epidemic, Du, along with her friend surnamed Liu, were both wearing masks, which has become a habit to protect not only herself but also others. "It has nothing to do with fear or concern, its just following the governments rules, being responsible to the people around you," she said.

Besides mask-wearing habits, its also commonly seen at shops, restaurants, hotels, cinemas and other public places that items like hand sanitizers and disinfectant are displayed, some are free to use. At each entrance of places such as shopping malls and swimming pools, visitors are required to show their health codes on their smartphones and register their routes.

"I feel like China was so strong during the pandemic. And it was so hard. And all the Chinese people worked so diligently to face this pandemic," Fatima, a student from Taroudant, southern Morocco, who has stayed in Wuhan since the outbreak began, told the Global Times on Friday.

Given coronavirus cases are still rising in her home country, Fatima said she frequently told her parents and friends in Morocco about the way that Wuhan handled the epidemic. "I feel that Wuhan is safe because people respect the rules," she said.

And at the giant swimming pool that had gone viral on social media in recent days, the pool party was still ongoing and Sunday was supposed to be last day for this years summertime carnival. Parents with their kids, young couples, friends and roommates continued enjoying dancing with the water waves on Saturday night. First opening in 2019, the pool party has become much more different for some visitors who had taken part before.

"I came to this pool party last year. But it was now the first time this year since the outbreak. Life is not easy, and we have to cherish everything that has been hard-won," a college student surnamed Jiang told the Global Times.
Ambassador Vu Quang Minh joined embassy staff, Vietnamese students and representatives of the Vietnamese business community and the Khmer-Vietnam Association in Cambodia to recall the historic event of President Ho Chi Minh reading the Declaration of Independence at Hanois Ba Dinh Square on September 2, 1945, thus giving birth to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam).

Delegates observed a minutes silence to commemorate the Vietnamese volunteer soldiers and experts who laid down their lives in Cambodia during wartime, contributing to the revolutionary cause of the two nations.

The Consulates General of Vietnam in the Cambodian provinces of Battambang and Preah Sihanouk have also organised many practical activities in celebration of Vietnams 75th National Day.

Earlier, on August 30, the Vietnamese Embassy in Cuba held a formal ceremony to observe the 75th anniversary of National Day, which saw the presence of representatives from the overseas Vietnamese community, as well as Vietnamese businesses and students in Cuba.

Vietnamese Ambassador Le Thanh Tung reviewed important milestones throughout Vietnams resistance wars against French and US invaders, as well as the countrys significant achievements in socio-economic development and international integration over the past few decades.

Offering thanks to international friends, including the brotherly Cuban people, for having always stood side by side with Vietnam during the nations struggle, he voiced his belief that despite the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnam and Cuba will take practical steps to further tighten the cooperation, special solidarity and mutual trust between the two countries Parties, Governments and peoples in 2020, when they celebrate 60 years of bilateral diplomatic relations.
- President Rodrigo Duterte visited the place where recent twin blasts happened in Jolo, Sulu

- The President personally condoled the families of those who were killed by the bombings

- He also knelt and kissed the ground to honor the soldiers who were killed for no reason at all President Duterte also delivered a speech in front of the troops and condemned the bombings

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President Rodrigo Duterte personally visited the place where the twin blasts happened recently in Jolo, Sulu.

KAMI learned that the President even knelt and kissed the ground to honor the soldiers who passed away because of the bombing.

Photo from Getty Images

Source: Getty Images

In a report by Inquirer (authored by Krissy Aguilar), President Duterte explained that he wanted to honor those who were killed for no reason at all.

Thats why when I visited the blast, and thank you for sharing with me the gesture lumuhod ako, hinalikan ko yung semento to where my soldiers and the countlessat saka yung mga Tausug na walang, the lives snapped out for no reason at all, he explained.

As reported by GMA News (authored by Julia Mari Ornedo and Peewee Bacuno), the President also delivered a speech in front of the troops.

President Duterte expressed his support in making sure that terrorists will have no future in the Philippines.

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Al Jazeera reported that 14 people were killed by the twin bombings in Sulu. Two females were suspected as suicide bombers. One of them is an Indonesian, possibly the wife of the first-ever Filipino suicide bomber.

In 2019, President Duterte visited the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Cathedral in Jolo, Sulu, where another twin bombings happened.

KAMI that the brother of an Abu Sayyaf leader was caught on surveillance lurking around the cathedral moments before the explosions happened.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 21:09:45|Editor: huaxia

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PARIS, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has urged China and the European Union (EU) to jointly uphold the trend of peace and development, while calling for solidarity, cooperation, openness and inclusiveness.

In his speech at the French Institute of International Relations here on Sunday, Wang said that China's development has not only benefited the Chinese people, but also the whole world.

Commitment to peace and harmony, he added, is deeply rooted in the mindset of the Chinese and has also been the cultural inspiration behind China's active pursuit of a community with a shared future for mankind.

Over the past more than 70 years since the People's Republic of China was founded, especially the past over 40 years since the country's reform and opening up, the Chinese people have made remarkable achievements along the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

China has accomplished leapfrog development with its comprehensive national strength growing continuously, and the Chinese people have become the true masters of their country with their livelihoods improving incessantly, Wang said.

Wang said that China has always been a constructor of world peace, constantly injecting positive energy into the evolution of the international situation, a defender of the international order, constantly adding stability to the global governance system, and a promoter of globalization, making important contributions to building an open world.

The development path chosen by the Chinese people, Wang said, meets their aspirations and the trend of peaceful development, which is beneficial not only to China but also to the world.

China will stick to it unswervingly, he added.

Facing an ever-changing international environment, China has decided to give full play to the advantages of its super-large market and the potential of its domestic demand, so as to build a new development pattern marked by the domestic cycle as the main body and the mutual reinforcing of both the domestic and international cycles, said Wang.

China will further expand domestic demand and open up wider, share more of China's development dividends with the world so as to drive the world's common recovery with China's recovery and drive the world's common development with China's development, he said.

China will continue to adhere to the path of peaceful development, Wang said.

Adhering to the new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance, China will build more extensive global partnerships, he said.

On open development, Wang said that China will build an open economy of a higher level with all-range, multi-level, diversified patterns of open cooperation.

Also, on cooperative development, Wang said that China will pursue greater security, better development and meet common challenges through cooperation.

On win-win development, Wang noted that China has always adhered to the global governance concept based on the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits.

China, he added, will work with other countries to make the pie of cooperation bigger and turn the vision of common development into reality.

On inclusive development, Wang said China does not seek to export its system or model of development, and has no interest in ideological confrontation with any country.

With concrete actions, China will continue to safeguard the diversity of civilizations in the world and promote exchanges and mutual learning between development models, he added.

With the world facing changes unseen in a century and also a raging pandemic, humanity needs to once again make a crucial choice, a choice between progress and regression, between solidarity and division, and between openness and seclusion, he said.

China and the EU, he said, should take a responsible attitude toward the future of mankind, take the fundamental interests of the people of both sides into consideration, jointly resist the adverse tides of hatred and confrontation instigation and stand firm on the right side of history, so as to provide more stability for the complex and fluid world.

Firstly, China and the EU should resolutely safeguard peaceful development and oppose global division, he said.

He stressed that China opposes firmly any attempt to start a new "Cold War" and will never allow any force to deprive the Chinese people and the people of the world of the right to seek development and a good life.

Wang said that China hopes to send a strong message together with Europe: a message for solidarity and against division, for progress and against regression, for peace and development and against conflict and confrontation.

Secondly, China and the EU, he added, should strongly uphold multilateralism and jointly oppose unilateral bullying.

Wang pledged that China will uphold firmly multilateralism, and advocate and implement global governance based on extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, no matter how the international situation changes.

China regards the EU as an important force in the process of multi-polarization and stands ready to work with the EU to safeguard the effectiveness and authority of the multilateral system, and a fair and just international order, Wang said.

Thirdly, China and the EU should continue to promote mutually beneficial cooperation and jointly oppose seclusion and decoupling, said the Chinese foreign minister.

China and the world today have long been intertwined, and that trying to decouple with China means to decouple with development opportunities and the most dynamic market, he said.

As two major economies of the world, China and the EU should stick to free trade and jointly protect the stability of the global industrial and supply chains, so as to play a key role in promoting global development and prosperity in the post-pandemic era, Wang said.

Fourthly, China and the EU should jointly respond to global challenges and oppose the "beggar-thy-neighbor" strategy, Wang added.

China and the EU should set an example for promoting global governance, work together to enhance the coordinating role of the United Nations in international affairs, oppose the practice of putting one's own country first at the expense of others, and join hands to build a community with a shared future for mankind, he said.

Noting that this year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of China-EU diplomatic ties, Wang said that over the past 45 years, an important message from the development of China-EU relations is that there is no conflict of fundamental interests between the two sides, cooperation is far greater than competition, and consensus is far greater than difference.

During the past 45 years, the growth of China-EU relations has shown that it is entirely possible for the two sides to enhance mutual trust through equal dialogue, to achieve win-win results through mutually beneficial cooperation, to properly handle differences through constructive communication, and to jointly meet global challenges through enhanced coordination.

Wang said that China always attaches importance to the status and role of the EU and supports Europe in playing a bigger role in international affairs.

He noted that China and the EU should further strengthen solidarity and cooperation, press the "reset button" for dialogue and cooperation in various fields, give full play to the "twin engines," inject a strong impetus into international solidarity and cooperation, and strive to build a partnership from the following four areas.

First, China and the EU, he said, need to build a partnership against COVID-19.

China and the EU should strengthen cooperation in the research, development and production of vaccines, drugs and testing reagents, and jointly support the active role of the World Health Organization, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization and other international agencies, he said.

China, Wang added, stands ready to speed up the construction of a "fast track" for personnel exchanges and a "green track" for the exchange of goods to boost the EU's economic recovery.

Second, China and the EU should strengthen their investment partnership, he said.

China and the EU, Wang said, should follow the principle of flexibility and pragmatism and meet each other halfway to reach a comprehensive, balanced and high-level investment agreement within this year.

He added that it is necessary for the two sides to conduct a joint feasibility study on a free trade agreement as soon as possible and conclude the China-EU Cooperation 2025 Strategic Plan at an early date.

Third, China and the EU should build a green and digital partnership, Wang said, adding that the two sides are highly complementary in green and digital fields and enjoy broad prospects for cooperation.

Both sides should deepen cooperation in environmental technology, circular economy, clean energy, sustainable finance and other areas, and strengthen cooperation in information and communication technology, artificial intelligence, e-commerce, big data, cloud computing and other fields, so as to expand new growth areas for bilateral cooperation.

Fourth, China and the EU should deepen multilateral cooperative partnership, Wang said.

China and the EU should step up dialogue and cooperation on climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development, Wang said, adding that the two sides should also work together to uphold the Iranian nuclear agreement, promote political settlement of international and regional hotspot issues, strengthen trilateral cooperation with Africa, and make greater contributions to building a more sustainable and safer world. Enditem
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The Airpeace has become the first Commercial Airline to land at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, after the completion of rehabilitation works at the airport runway.

The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, had announced on Saturday that the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu was all but ready for flights resumption.

The Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, had in August, 2019, shut down the airport following safety concerns of the runway, and commenced rehabilitation work on the runway; and effected an upgrade of its facilities to bring the Airport to international standard.

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Onboard the flight which landed at exactly 1:30pm are Ministers of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba.

It also had Senators Ike Ekweremadu, Uche Ekwunife, Chukwuka Utazi and members of the house of representatives, including: Nnoli Nnaji among others.

On arrival, they all headed to the Enugu State government house to hold discussions.

Meanwhile, the airport has been officially inaugurated for flights operation.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 18:04:00|Editor: huaxia

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by Keren Setton

JERUSALEM, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Israel's initial response to the COVID-19 crisis was deemed a success. Quick to impose strict measures led to containment of the virus, cases plummeted. Emboldened by the success in curbing the spread of the virus, the measures were lifted.

Israelis were told by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "go have a good time, enjoy life."

In a matter of time cases started to rise and a heated debate began on whether new restrictions should be imposed and to what extent. Over 900 Israelis have died of the virus and there have been more than 100,000 confirmed cases. Some of the largest hospitals have already reached full capacity in their COVID-19 wards.

"The situation is very fragile and there is no real control," said Cyrille Cohen, vice dean of the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University.

On Sunday, the COVID-19 cabinet approved a "traffic light" plan in an attempt to reign in the virus, as it has spiraled out of control in recent weeks. The plan was on the table for several weeks and ran into severe political opposition.

The approval process was a display of what has gone wrong in Israel - political considerations come in the way and turned into a lethal combination that sidelined health considerations. The result has been a steady increase in daily cases, often reaching over 1,800 new infections every day.

From a desirable ranking in the beginning of the pandemic, Israel is now in the top ten countries in infection rate on a per capita basis.

"The big mission is to lead a health policy with the backing of the political system and unfortunately this is not happening," Cohen told Xinhua.

The "traffic light" plan, devised by Prof. Ronni Gamzu, is essentially a localized approach to battle the virus. Gamzu was appointed national coronavirus project manager over a month ago and has since encountered opposition from cabinet members which have vetoed several critical moves needed to fight the spread of the virus. Almost every policy suggestion Gamzu and his team of advisers brought to the table was politicized.

Gamzu's plan divides the country into three types of areas depending on morbidity rates, with green areas allowed to lead a less restricted routine while red areas will be quarantined. Currently infection rates are especially high in Jewish ultra-orthodox and Arab cities, raising calls of discrimination.

"There is certainly room to consider religious and cultural aspects, but to make it a political struggle is a mistake and makes the public lose trust. This is very problematic," said Nadav Davidovitch, director of the School of Public Health at Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

Ahead of the opening of the school system on Tuesday, there is concern that over-crowded classrooms and teenagers who do not adhere to social distancing standards will see yet another uptick in cases. But the struggling economy has led the government to choose a treacherous path - keeping the economy running while trying to contain the virus.

"One cannot ignore that this is not only a health crisis, but a social and economic one," said Cohen.

The plan which will come into effect next week cannot stand alone. Israel has failed to bolster its epidemiological investigation system and enforcement of masks and social distancing is mediocre at best.

In the coming weeks, Jews will also begin celebrating a series of holidays marking the beginning of a new year. Large gatherings are custom and have proven to be the weakest point in the society, not only during holidays.

"The gatherings are causing us to lose our balance," said Davidovitch.

There has been mention of a renewed lockdown while many experts are against such a measure. Opposers say a country-wide quarantine would deal an irreversible blow to the economy while not reigning in the virus, because the country is not prepared properly for re-opening after lockdown.

"There is no magical solution," Davidovitch told Xinhua, "We need a combination of things, including better information and law enforcement."

The aim to reach a daily rate of a few hundred cases by the beginning of the school year has been missed.

"We will see new cases every day, there is no doubt. The question is how do we control the number and right now, we do not have enough control," Cohen said. Enditem
Athens residents are anxious about the potential for new coronavirus outbreaks due to the University of Georgia's Aug. 20 reopening and the subsequent influx of 37,000 students to the college town.
The savage violence let loose by the police on Muharram processions in Srinagar last Saturday is likely to deepen the perception that physical assaults on the populace in the Valley is the action of the first resort as far as the government is concerned. At least 19 persons have been reported to be wounded, one of whom is said to be in a critical state.

A dozen of the injured have taken pellet hits, including in the face. This is suggestive of the fact that pellet guns were fired from close range.

When scores were blinded or lost sight in one eye as a result of pellet injuries in the post-Burhan Wani protests of 2016 in Kashir valley, the government mulled minimising if not eliminating the use of pellet guns until suitable replacements were developed.

The faulty trajectory of the discharge from close range from these weapons was hitting people in the face, and head and chest areas, causing injuries of a grave nature.

Such weapons were not proving to crowd deterrents in volatile situations but instruments of possible death, which raised political costs for the local administration and the country internationally.

Clearly, no active thinking on ending the use of such weapons may exist now except on paper. Last year, not long after the ending of J&Ks constitutional autonomy, the government forces in Srinagar had used pellet guns on a thick crowd of civilian protesters in the Soura-Anchar locality, a dirt poor area of the old city.

The incident, which caused widespread injury, had raised international concern, and gave the lie to the orchestrated government propaganda that people had accepted the ending of autonomy peacefully and had not protested.

Last Thursday the Supreme Court disallowed the holding of Muharram processions anywhere in the country on the ground that this may lead to the blaming of a particular community (the Shia Muslim) for the spread of the new coronavirus (presumably as had happened in the case of the Tablighi Jamaat).

If this was a common sense precaution the top court sounded, the authorities in Kashmir enforced it with brutal energy.

Over the years, Muharram processions in Kashmir have been routinely limited to specified areas in order not to take chances with sectarian clashes, but last weeks violence testifies to the uncommon zeal that the government brought to the fighting of Covid-19 by cracking down with unqualified force on the small Muharram processions.

This stood in sharp contrast with police behaviour at religious ceremonies of Indias majority community in many parts of the country, sometimes held with official sanction and display of devotion, underlining the grievance of many that the blatant repression of Kashmir and the taking away of J&Ks historical rights owes to the fact of the Valleys denominational status in contrast with the rest of the country.

There is no peace in Kashmir, and the governments fear of the people seems real.

Top political figures, no longer in detention, are routinely prevented by the police from leaving their homes. Last week, a group of protesters of the Peoples Democratic Party was scattered through police action.

This was immediately followed by the police attacks on Muharram processions. These are signs that betray the governments insecurities.
Central govt agencies condemn some troublemakers in HK for politicizing mainland aid in COVID-19 fight

Global Times

Source: Global Times Published: 2020/8/30 21:09:14

Upon facing defamation on the mainland's aid to help the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) combat the COVID-19 epidemic from a number of troublemakers with ulterior motives, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of China's State Council, the Liaison Office of the Central Government in HKSAR and the HKSAR government issued statements on Sunday, condemning them for being vicious with no regard for the safety and health of Hong Kong residents.

A spokesperson from the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office slammed those anti-China troublemakers who defamed the mainland's aid to the city to combat the COVID-19, warning that such actions are malicious.

The spokesman said the central government is highly concerned about the COVID-19 outbreak in Hong Kong. At the request of the HKSAR government, the central government has dispatched medical teams from the mainland to Hong Kong to support the fight against the epidemic, including sending nucleic acid testing teams to the city to help carry out universal community testing, help build community treatment facilities and build temporary hospitals, and bear the relevant costs.

These measures show the central government's care for Hong Kong and the virtue of the people of the motherland and Hong Kong compatriots in helping each other. They are welcomed by the Hong Kong residents and hailed as a timely measure to help Hong Kong control the epidemic. More than 6,000 Hong Kong medical workers have signed up to help with the test.

However, recently, a small number of people made unfounded denigrations of the qualifications of the mainland support teams' experts, the quality of their reagents and the safety of their laboratories. They also poured "dirty water" over citywide community testing, calling it a way of a "under-table operation."

Some people were found to have violated the policy of limiting gatherings while harassing members of the mainland nucleic acid testing advance team. Some controlled district councils and obstructed the implementation of the community testing and the Hong Kong version of the health code.

The troublemakers have politicized the measures taken by the mainland to help Hong Kong fight the epidemic and played a game of "political manipulation." Their purpose is to take every opportunity to undermine the prestige of the HKSAR government's governance, damage the image of the central government, discredit the the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and sow discord among the Hong Kong people toward the motherland, the spokesperson said.

"We strongly support the HKSAR's law enforcement and judicial organs to punish those criminals who spread rumors and impede the fight against the epidemic according to law," the spokesperson said.

The Liaison Office of the Central Government in Hong Kong also issued a statement, condemning a small number of troublemakers with ulterior motives in Hong Kong who created and spread malicious rumors to denigrate the mainland's aid and measures that help the city combat the epidemic.

"Their despicable acts will only expose their cold blood and ugly acts. We believe that the public can tell right from wrong and will not be misled by their vicious deeds," the office's spokesperson said.

Following a statement on Saturday in which the HKSAR government explained that the goal of the Universal Community Testing Program (UCTP) is to identify asymptomatic COVID-19 patients in the community so as to cut the transmission chain, it once again issued a statement on Sunday, calling for the public to join in and use their concrete actions to show that the community is united in fighting the epidemic.

The HKSAR government spokesperson stressed that community testing is safe, convenient, fast and fully protects individual privacy. Infection control and social distancing measures are implemented in 141 community testing centers. All personal data, including test samples and test results, will only be used for testing purposes in Hong Kong.

The HKSAR government takes great care in handling the personal data of members of the public and will not provide any personal data to overseas organizations or persons.

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Visitors to Yellowstone National Park on Tuesday were treated to the eruption of a geyser which has been dormant for six years, which the park said unexpectedly 'roared back to life'.

The Giantess geyser, which lies to the north of Old Faithful in Wyoming, shot water and steam an estimated 100-200 feet into the air.

Crowds of tourists gathered to watch the rare spectacle.

'It used to erupt more frequently in the past,' said the USGS Volcanoes division.

'The six-year gap between eruptions in the longest since at least the 80s, but it has had years-long dormant periods before.'

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The Giantess geyser erupted on Tuesday for the first time in six years, to the delight of visitors to the park

A plume of steam shot up into the air, reaching an estimated top height of 200 feet

The last time the Giantess erupted was on January 29, 2014 - an eruption that lasted more than 40 hours.

The exact timing of Tuesday's eruption was not given.

Prior to the 2014 eruption, it had not been active since 2011; the two years and 139 days of dormancy was the previous record.

The geyser before that had erupted two to six times a year.

'Why geysers turn off and on is something that is not well understood,' the United States Geological Survey said.

'They are very fragile systems.'

Visitors to the park on Tuesday were treated to a rare sight as the Giantess geyser erupted for the first time since 2014

The geyser is pictured erupting in a pencil drawing by Reverend Samuel Manning, made around 1880

Yellowstone is home to around 500 geysers, according to the park website - the highest-concentration of geysers on Earth

The USGS, asked why the eruptions were erratic, said that geysers were 'very fragile systems' that were 'not well understood'

There are more geysers in Yellowstone than anywhere else on Earth.

Yellowstone said the Giantess was 'a volatile and well connected geyser', within the vast crater of a volcano that makes up the park.

Its eruptions usually set off nearby geysers on the aptly named Geyser Hill, also north of Old Faithful, the park said.

Old Faithful is certainly the most famous of the 500 geysers in the park, and was named in 1870.

Old Faithful erupts every 35 to 120 minutes for 1.5 to five minutes.

Its maximum height ranges from 90 to 184 feet, the park says.
National Australia Bank chief executive Ross McEwan says he wants to invest more in its core banking operations as a result of its historic retreat from wealth management, after it sold MLC Wealth to IOOF for $1.44 billion.

NAB on Monday took the final step in its attempt to offload its wealth management business after a string of poor returns and industry scandals, in a deal that will also make IOOF the biggest for-profit wealth manager in the country with over 1880 advisers.

NAB CEO Ross McEwan said the MLC sale would enable a return to core banking operations. Credit:Eddie Jim

Mr McEwan said the sale would further strengthen the bank's balance sheet against the risks from the pandemic, but over time he also wanted to plough more money into its flagship business banking division, while also expanding in retail banking, including via its digital offshoot UBank.

Thats where the money from this will go to over time, Mr McEwan said. My view is lets focus on the core businesses that weve got, lets focus on fewer things and do them better, and get a better return for both our customers and shareholders, he said.
The Chinese government's top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi ended a five-day trip aimed at easing tensions between EU member states and China. Yi said in Paris that a China-EU investment deal could be reached by the end of the year. His remark came against a backdrop of persistent diplomatic tension between Beijing and the United States.

Wang, on the fourth leg of his five-nation EU tour, said on Sunday in Paris that Europe and China had a responsibility to work for "a more stable world" that would benefit from an agreement that has been in the works for several years.

"We have the possibility to conclude one by the end of the year. We each need to take a step towards the other," the minister told a conference organised by the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI).

'Systemic rival'

Wang is visiting European capitals of Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, France and Germany to reinforce ties as relations with the US remain tense.

Chinese and European experts have been working for seven years on a deal to protect foreign investments, reinforce respect for intellectual copyrights, end obligations to transfer technology and subsidies for Chinese public enterprises.

In June, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said that work on an agreement with the European Union had become "difficult" saying: "We need more ambition on China's part to wrap up an agreement by the end of the year."

In March last year, an EU policy paper, EU-China  A Strategic Outlook had called China a systemic rival rather than an equal partner.

Heavy fire

The Chinese foreign minister came under heavy fire regarding the human rights situation in his country.

On Hong Kong, Dutch Foreign Stef Blok said: The Netherlands attaches great importance to stability and prosperity in Hong Kong while retaining its high degree of autonomy.

On Xinjiang, Blok said he shared his concerns about the situation of the Uygurs with Wang: It is precisely because of our close relationship that we can also discuss matters about which we differ.

He also specifically asked for attention to the restriction of freedom of religion and belief in China, which particularly affects Muslims, Christians and Tibetan Buddhists.

China and the EU have been engaged in a theoretical human rights dialogue, but Beijing routinely rejects more pungent criticism as interference in its internal affairs.

Nobel Peace Prize

In Norway, which awarded in 2010 the Nobel Peace Prize to China's number one dissident Liu Xiabo, China's foreign minister warned against "politicising" the Nobel by awarding another Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident.

Talks on a free-trade pact began in 2008, but relations between Oslo and Beijing were frozen from 2010 to 2016 after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu.

Negotiations resumed in 2017.

Given the impact of COVID-19, early completion of the China-Norway FTA negotiations is of great significance to the bilateral economic bilateral relations and trade as well as to the efforts to keep the global supply chain open and connected," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters during a visit to Oslo as part of a European tour.

Four point proposal

The state-run Global Times reported reported that Wang Yi made a four-point proposal to promote multilateralism In a thinly veiled reference to the US, Wang Yi said that unilateralism is on the rise today as some countries ignore international agreements and refuse to fulfill their international obligations.

Wang Yi will end his European fence-mending tour on Tuesday with a visit to Germany, its largest European trading partner.
Great Barrington Special Town Meeting to Decide Zoning Bylaws, Citizen Petitions

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.  A special town meeting to be held Tuesday, Sept. 15, will consider a variety of zoning bylaw changes, switching to a quarterly property tax payment system and several citizen petitions.

The meeting will be held in a "drive in" set up at Monument Mountain Regional High School at 6 p.m. View the meeting warrant here.

"Some of these items were held over from our annual town meeting, and some are new items that have arisen since," said Assistant Town Manager Chris Rembold, also the town's director of planning and community development. "A number of meeting proposals are meant to promote housing opportunities, since we recognize the serious housing shortage facing our town residents."

Zoning proposals include amending bylaws for accessory dwelling units and "movable tiny houses," and changes to bylaws for multi-family housing and planned-use residential development. Another would allow for the conversion of nursing homes into multi-family housing by special permit.

The meeting also seeks voter approval to transfer a parcel of town-owned residential property on Grove Street to the Affordable Housing Trust.

Regulations regarding swimming pools, downtown business district use requirements and standards for mixed-use commercial development are also on the agenda. An amendment to the town's Design Advisory Committee and its review standards will also be considered.

There is also the proposal to limit the number of marijuana retailers in town to seven. At present, one is operating and five others have host agreements with the town.

Non-zoning matters include increasing the billing requirement for property owners in the event of false alarm activations and a proposal to switch to a quarterly tax billing system. The town presently bills semi-annually for property taxes. Another item would allow town meeting participants to "call the question" when discussion over a warrant item has been deemed sufficient.

Several additional housekeeping items are also on the agenda, including a phased-in tax assessment agreement for a commercial property in Housatonic; approval of easements for the Main Street sidewalk extension in Housatonic and for the town that goes through the former Searles School property. There is an article seeking permission for eminent domain action for properties on Tom Ball Ridge, whose owner is unknown; the property would be used for conservation purposes.

Several citizen petition items seek further regulations related to marijuana establishments. Two others address changes to rules for citizen speak time at town board meetings and proposed changes to Selectboard policies and procedures. Another seeks to prohibit hazardous waste dumping, storage of disposal in Great Barrington, and another is a non-binding petition calling for the state to close down and outlaw private, for-profit prisons in Massachusetts.

In addition, another citizen petition seeks to re-map approximately 59 parcels within the town's mixed-use district to R3 (residential) use.
The 2020 Honda Pilot is available now at Hilton Head Honda in Bluffton, South Carolina!

Shoppers near Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, that might be interested in a midsize crossover utility vehicle will have an easier time researching which model might be right for them by visiting the Hilton Head Honda website. This local-area dealership has built a database for car shoppers on its website, including several informative and comparative model research pages that detail the new Honda vehicles available at the dealership or pit those models against some of their biggest competitors.

A potential car buyer shopping in the midsize crossover SUV segment might be interested in a 2020 Honda Pilot, the brands entry into that class. The page focused on this model highlights a bit of the nameplates history before diving into some of the current vehicles specifications, such as its cargo capacity, passenger volume, performance ratings and more.

A different page pits the 2020 Honda Pilot against one of its fierce rivals, the 2020 Kia Sorento. This page highlights the two models side by side, looking into the history of the two nameplates before highlighting three major aspects that are important in this segment. Those important aspects are power, efficiency and space. The page includes the specifications themselves before analyzing them more in depth.

Residents of the area are encouraged to browse the dealerships website, http://www.HiltonHeadHonda.com, to find all of this information and more. Specific questions about the 2020 Honda Pilot can be directed to the sales team at 833-331-0238. Hilton Head Honda is located at 161 Fording Island Rd in Bluffton, SC.
(Newser)  Michael Flynn wanted to force a judge to immediately drop the case against him, but a federal appeals court said no such luck. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals denied Flynn's request to have charges dropped by a vote of 8-2 on Monday, reports the Hill. The ruling means that US District Judge Emmet Sullivan can continue to examine the Justice Department's unusual decision to drop the criminal case against President Trump's former national security adviser, per the Washington Post.

story continues below

The background: Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with Russia's ambassador to the US, and he pledged to work with the Robert Mueller investigation. However, he rescinded his guilty plea earlier this year and decided to fight the charges. In May, the Justice Department conducted its own review of the case and opted to drop the charges. Also as part of Monday's ruling, the court rejected Flynn's request to have Emmet removed from the case. (Read more Michael Flynn stories.)
Joe Biden pushed back Monday against attacks by President Trump and other Republicans who claim that he has been slow to condemn leftist street violence and would empower those radicals if he were to win in November.

Biden delivered his remarks in a speech in Pittsburgh, Penn., on the riots and broader economic uncertainty across the country. The speech comes after Biden condemned riots in Portland, Ore., and needless violence in Kenosha.

I want to be very clear about all of this: Rioting is not protesting, looting is not protesting, setting fires is not protesting, Biden said. Its lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted.

The former vice president continued, You know me. You know my heart. You know my story, my familys story. Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?

Trump has sought to portray rising rates of violent crime in cities throughout the U.S., as well as ongoing riots in Portland, Ore., as the fault of local Democratic leadership.

The people of Portland, like all other cities & parts of our great Country, want Law & Order, Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday. The Radical Left Democrat Mayors, like the dummy running Portland, or the guy right now in his basement unwilling to lead or even speak out against crime, will never be able to do it!

In his Monday speech, Biden characterized Trump as a president who sows chaos, rather than providing order.

He cant stop the violence because for years hes fomented it, Biden said. He may believe mouthing the words law and order makes him strong, but his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows how weak he is.

While it isnt clear what specific incident Biden was referring to, two demonstrators in Kenosha were allegedly shot and killed by 17-year-old suspect Kyle Rittenhouse, who had traveled to the city to join efforts to protect property from rioters. In Portland on Saturday, pro-Trump protester Aaron Danielson, who joined a Patriot Prayer caravan to the city, was shot and killed by a demonstrator who declared himself 100% Antifa on social media.

More from National Review
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday denied former national security adviser Michael Flynns request to immediately drop his case.

The Justice Department in April moved to drop its case against Flynn for allegedly lying to FBI agents as part of the Russia investigation. However, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the D.C. District Court has refused to dismiss Flynns case entirely, and requested that the Appeals court hear the case a second time with all judges present.

The Circuit Court granted Sullivans request, and on Monday ruled 8-2 against Flynns petition to force Sullivan to dismiss the case. Additionally, the Circuit Court rejected arguments by Flynns legal team that Sullivan himself should be recused because of political bias.

Sullivan will be able to conducted his own hearing on the Justice Departments reversal in the case.

The ruling will likely keep the Flynn case alive for several months, and it is not clear whether the case will be dismissed before the November elections.

Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents in an interview conducted in January 2017, before he was set to join the incoming Trump administration. However, Flynn subsequently reversed his guilty plea, and Attorney General William Barr later approved a decision to drop the case.

The Government is not persuaded that the January 24, 2017 interview was conducted with a legitimate investigative basis and therefore does not believe that Mr. Flynns statements were material even if untrue, the DOJ stated. Moreover, we do not believe that the Government can prove either the relevant false statements or their materiality beyond a reasonable doubt.

More from National Review
The Harris County Republican Party on Monday joined a lawsuit asking the Texas Supreme Court to halt the county clerks plan to send mail ballot applications to all 2.4 million registered voters.

The lawsuit accuses County Clerk Christopher Hollins of ignoring the courts June ruling on mail ballots and misreading the Texas Election Code.

Harris County has a rogue clerk who is abusing the application to vote by mail process and compromising the integrity of elections in Harris County, the suit states. The other plaintiffs are conservative activist Dr. Steven Hotze, and Sharon Hemphill, a Republican running for judge in the 80th Judicial District Court.

Hollins was not immediately available for comment.

The suit argues that the Election Code states residents must request a mail ballot application, and that absentee voting in Texas is reserved for a small group of voters. Since the code does not specifically permit a county clerk or elections administrator to send mail ballot applications to residents who do not request them, the suit claims this practice is illegal.

Myrna Perez, director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told the Houston Chronicle on Friday that nothing in the Texas Election Code prohibits Harris County from mailing applications to whomever the clerk chooses.

The plaintiffs also claim Hollins disregarded the Supreme Courts June ruling, which held that lack of immunity to COVID-19 alone did not qualify voters for a disability, one of three conditions that permit a resident to vote by mail in Texas.

Hollins and the Harris County Attorneys Office have interpreted the ruling to mean that fear of the virus can constitute one of several factors to meet the disability standard. Since the county clerk has no duty to challenge mail ballot applications, this effectively leaves voters to decide for themselves where they qualify.

Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement Friday that distributing mail ballot applications to all voters would be unlawful but did not specify how.

Paxton wrote in an op-ed published in the Washington Examiner on Monday that expanding mail voting creates opportunities for fraud.

There is no effective way for election officials to ensure that mail-in ballots are not requested fraudulently, Paxton wrote. Just as credit card skimmers can steal your financial information, vote harvesters can easily collect authentic signatures under false pretenses and steal your vote.

For the July primary runoff, Hollins sent mail ballot applications to all registered voters 65 and older, who automatically are eligible to vote by mail.

zach.despart@chron.com
D owning Street is set to announce the new head of the UK civil service this week amid reports that the former private secretary to the Duke of Cambridge will be appointed to the role.

The Financial Times said Simon Case, 41, would be named as the UKs top civil servant.

Mr Case spent almost two years working as Williams right-hand man before temporarily moving to Number 10 earlier this year to assist with the coronavirus response.

The newspaper said the appointment was confirmed by three people with knowledge of the selection process.

"An official announcement on the new Cabinet Secretary will be made on Tuesday, September 1," a Cabinet Office spokesman said.

Mark Sedwill will step down from his role as the UK's top civil servant / REUTERS

Sir Mark Sedwill announced he was stepping down from the role in June.

Announcing the news after more than 30 years in Government service, Sir Mark, 54, said it had been "a privilege to serve".

He said: I am fortunate to have served in some of the most challenging and rewarding jobs in national and international public service under seven prime ministers and in extraordinary times."

Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid tribute to Sir Mark saying: "Over the last few years I have had direct experience of the outstanding service that you have given to the Government and to the country as a whole.

"It has been by any standards a massive contribution  but as PM I have particularly appreciated your calm and shrewd advice.

"You have also spoken with a unique authority  unusual in a Cabinet Secretary  on international affairs and national security; and as National Security Adviser you have done much to keep this country safe."

Boris Johnson and Sir Mark Sedwill / PA

He continued: "After serving for decades with great distinction  and unflappable good humour  I believe you have earned the gratitude of the nation."

Sir Mark will be paid 248,000 in "compensation" after he agreed to step down "early" from his senior position.

The advice was made by the Cabinet Office permanent secretary Alex Chisholm and was accepted by the Prime Minister.

The payment is likely to come "in the form of a pension contribution".

The civil service advertised for a replacement cabinet secretary with a proposed salary of 200,000.
The CBI on Monday questioned actress Rhea Chakraborty and her brother Showik for more than eight hours in connection with the Sushant Singh Rajput death case, a police official said. This was the fourth straight day of questioning of Rhea Chakraborty (28), accused of abetting the suicide ofRajput (34), who was found hanging in his flat in suburban Bandra on June 14.

The actress and her brother were questioned at the DRDO guesthouse in suburban Kalina where the probe team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is stationed. According to the official, from the DRDO guesthouse, she left for her residence in suburban Santacruz in theevening but could not enter the premises due to presence of alarge number of media persons outside the building.

She did not step out of the car and directly reachedthe Santacruz police station to lodge a complaint, he said. It was the second complaint lodged by Rhea Chakraborty against media persons.

Around half-a-dozen police officials then reached her building and facilitated her entry, he said. Earlier, the actress along with her brother Showik Chakraborty reached the guesthouse around 11 am and left from there at about 7.30 pm.

Her brother is being questioned by the CBI since last Thursday. In the last four days, Rhea Chakraborty has been grilled for around 35 hours.

Rajputs friend Samuel Miranda and domestic help Keshav were also seen reaching the guesthouse in the morning. The late actors former manager Shruti Modi was also called by the CBI and she reached along with her lawyer.

Four women constables from the Vakola Police Station were present during the interrogation of Rhea Chakraborty, the official said. Rajput was found hanging in his apartment following which the Mumbai Police had registered a case of accidental death.

The late film stars father subsequently filed a policecomplaint in Patna, accusing Rhea Chakraborty and her family of abetting Rajputs suicide and misappropriating his money. The Supreme Court last week upheld the transfer of the FIR, lodged by Rajputs father in Patna against the actressand others, to the CBI.
'I am very proud of all the effort exerted to organise this exceptional exhibition during the exceptional time the world is going through,' El-Enany told reporters

A few hours before the official opening of the Kings of the Sun exhibition in Prague, Egypts Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled El-Enany embarked on an inspection tour at the exhibition followed by a press conference at the National Museum.

During the tour, El-Enany praised the design of the exhibition and the use of modern technology to explain details about each piece, which gives visitors comprehensive information about each object on display.

I am very proud of all the effort exerted to organise this exceptional exhibition during the exceptional time the world is going through, El-Enany told reporters at the press conference, adding that this exhibition proves that we are stronger than COVID-19 because we were able to make this exhibition to come true."

He highlighted that the preparations for the exhibition began about five years ago and that this is the first Egyptian archaeological exhibition sent to the Czech Republic.

El-Enany pointed out that the pieces on display had never left Egypt before, and that they will be sent to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza after the exhibition concludes in February 2021.

El-Wnany said that he believes the exhibition will attract a large number of visitors, not only from the Czech Republic, but from neighbouring countries as well, which will encourage them to visit Egypt to see its ancient civilisation as well as enjoy its beautiful beaches, bright sun and warm weather.

According to organisers, he said, the exhibition is expected to receive more than 300,000 visitors.

Merslav Barta, rector of Charles University, said that the exhibition is a look back in time to the era of the pyramid builders, and that the artefacts on display were discovered by a Czech archaeological mission in Egypts Abusir.

He asserted that the exhibition is significant because it is the first Egyptian archaeological exhibition held in Prague, and that it is taking place amid the coronavirus pandemic. Barta described the exhibition as a dream come true.

The opening of the exhibition coincides with the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the start of Czech archaeological work in Egypt.

The exhibition is displaying 90 artefacts unearthed in excavations conducted by the Czech mission in Abusir.

Among the most valuable items on display is a basalt statue of King Raneferef, carved around the year 2460 BC, alongside other objects and statues from the Old Kingdom.

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Berkshire Hathaway Inc has bought a 5% stake in each of Japans five biggest trading houses, together worth over $6 billion, marking a departure for Chairman Warren Buffett as he looks beyond the United States to diversify his conglomerate.

The long-term investment in Itochu Corp, Marubeni Corp, Mitsubishi Corp, Mitsui & Co Ltd and Sumitomo Corp could see the stakes rise to 9.9%, Berkshire said on Sunday, Buffetts 90th birthday.

The five major trading companies have many joint ventures throughout the world and are likely to have more," Buffett said in a statement. I hope that in the future there may be opportunities of mutual benefit."

The investment will help reduce Berkshires dependence on the U.S. economy, which in the last quarter contracted the most in at least 73 years as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Many of its businesses have struggled, including aircraft parts maker Precision Castparts from which it bore a $9.8 billion writedown.

Buffetts choice in Japan, however, surprised market players as trading houses have long been far from investor favorites. As well as significant exposure to the energy sector and resource price volatility, tangled business models involving commodities as varied as noodles and rockets have long been a turn-off.

Their cheap valuation may have been an attraction," said Norihiro Fujito, chief investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities in Tokyo. But it is un-Buffett-like to buy into all five companies rather than selecting a few."

BELOW BOOK

Berkshire bought the little-over 5% stakes in about a year through insurance business National Indemnity Co. Together, five 5% stakes were worth 700 billion yen ($6.63 billion), Reuters calculations showed based on Refinitiv data.

Firms shares often rise when Buffett discloses investment, reflecting what investors view as his imprimatur. On Monday, Marubeni and Sumitomo ended up over 9%, followed by Mitsubishi and Mitsui at over 7%. Itochu rose 4.2% to a record high.

Even so, Marubeni, Mitsubishi and Sumitomo are still 10% down on the year, versus a 6% fall in the Topix index. Itochu, which has shifted towards consumer-related businesses, is the only one whose share price is higher than last year.

Indeed, Itochu is the only one whose stock trades above its book value. That means, for the other four, their market capitalization is less than the value of their assets, making them attractive to a value investor like Buffett.

Several have large amounts of cash on hand, raising their appeal. Mitsubishi, for instance, has seen steady growth in free cash flow per share for four years, Refinitiv data showed.

Trading houses are also deeply involved in the real economy in areas such as steel, shipping, commodities, putting them on the radar of an investor such as Buffett who famously avoids investing in businesses he claims not to understand.

Asked about the investment, Mitsui told Reuters it aims to improve returns for all shareholders. Marubeni and Mitsubishi said they will continue efforts to improve corporate value. Sumitomo said it will communicate with Berkshire as with all other shareholders. Itochu was not available to comment.

U.S. DEPENDENCE

Berkshire owns more than 90 businesses outright including the BNSF railroad and Geico car insurer outright.

It also invests in dozens of companies including American Express Co, Bank of America Corp and Coca-Cola Co. It has a roughly $125 billion stake in Apple Inc based on its holdings as of June 30.

Buffetts portfolio is becoming heavily skewed to Apple, so maybe he was looking for something the complete opposite of Apple," said Monex chief strategist Hiroki Takashi in Tokyo.

Most of Berkshires operating businesses are American, though it has acquired a handful of foreign companies including Israels IMC International Metalworking and German motorcycle apparel retailer Detlev Louis.

Additional investments in Japan could also help reduce Berkshires cash pile, which ended June at a record $146.6 billion.

($1 = 105.6500 yen)

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
China's five largest banks reported their biggest profit declines in at least a decade as they brace for further increases in bad loans in an economy weakened by the coronavirus pandemic. The five lenders  Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China and Bank of Communications  released their latest financial report cards last week. All five posted at least 10% year-on-year declines in profit for the first half of 2020 as they set aside more funds for potential loan losses in the coming months  much like many banks around the world. "The banks have been asked to ... perform 'national service.' They've been asked to support the economy at the expense of their own operational strength," said Jason Tan, research analyst at CreditSights, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" on Monday.

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Chinese banks, among the world's largest by assets, have been placed at the front line of the government's effort to soften the economic blow on households and businesses. Authorities in Beijing reportedly asked financial institutions to sacrifice 1.5 trillion yuan ($219 billion) in profits this year to help companies by lowering lending rates and deferring repayments on loans. The Chinese economy  the world's second largest  is expected to grow just 1% this year as measures to contain the coronavirus hit global economic activity, according to the International Monetary Fund. That would be China's weakest growth in at least 40 years, according to data by the fund.

The brunt of the asset quality pressures might not have come through yet because of the still existing moratorium on the repayment of loans as well as its interest payments. Jason Tan research analyst, CreditSights

China, the first country to be hit by the fast-spreading coronavirus, has shown some signs of economic recovery. But the effect of the economic slowdown on banks have not materialized fully, said Tan. "The brunt of the asset quality pressures might not have come through yet because of the still existing moratorium on the repayment of loans as well as its interest payments," he explained. "So, these will probably come in the second half, if not in the first half of 2021 when the moratorium lifts in March 2021," he added.

Mid-sized banks perform better

Morgan Stanley's analysis of the latest earnings reports by Chinese banks found that mid-sized lenders performed better than their larger peers in terms of operating profits before taking into account provisions set aside for future bad debt.

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Burrows, who faces felony counts of possession of stolen goods and unlawful use of a weapon, was released from custody after paying $500 bond and has been placed on electronic monitoring, police said.
PUNE: Three men were arrested by the Pimpri-Chinchwad police for the murder of a man in Chinchwad late on Sunday night.

The deceased was identified as Shubham Sathe while the three arrested were identified as Krishna BharatKapure, Ajay Mohan Kshirsagar and Dnyanesh Sunil Thorat, according to the police. The trio will be produced in a local court on Tuesday.

The murder was committed at a tin-walled warehouse that stored tiles in Darshannagari area of Kalewadi, according to the police.

The victim and the accused, all 20-22-year-olds, were consuming alcohol when the former used foul language against the wife of one of three arrested and a fight broke out. After committing the crime, the accused went to the victims home and told his father about the incident, said senior inspector Ravindra Jadhav of Chinchwad police station.

According to the police, the deceased was hit on his head with a washbasin. The body and taken to a local hospital for post-mortem.

A case under Sections 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code was registered at Pimpri police station.
California has already had a historic year for wildfires.

So far, 1.66 million acres have burned  an area five times the size of the city of Los Angeles. Almost no part of the state is untouched. From the Santa Cruz Mountains to Riverside County, the slopes of Mount Hamilton to Napa Valley and the northern Sierra, 15,800 firefighters from as far away as Florida and New Jersey are battling two dozen major fires, many sparked by rare lightning storms two weeks ago.

And although fire crews are finally gaining the upper hand on many, fire experts have a stark message: This year is particularly dry, and the worst could still be to come.

Were just now approaching the peak of fire season, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for Cal Fire, the states primary firefighting agency.

There are at least two, and potentially three more months left where the risk of huge new fires will continue to grow until the fall rains arrive. And 2020 has already seen the second-most acres burned of any year in modern history, behind only 2018, when 1.97 million acres burned.

It is so important that we get the publics help, Berlant said. We have been incredibly busy these last two weeks. These have been Mother Nature-sparked fires. We need people to reduce the risk of human-sparked fires.

An analysis of fall rainfall patterns over the last decade tells the tale.

Using San Francisco as a proxy for Northern California, in seven of the past 10 years, the first significant rainstorm of half an inch or more didnt occur until after Nov. 15. Thats 11 weeks from now. In the other three years, the earliest it arrived was Oct. 16. Thats seven weeks away.

We are sort of holding our breath until we get into the rainy season right now, said Jan Null, a meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services in Half Moon Bay, who combed through the data.

Just because the current events are starting to wind down doesnt mean we arent going to see more fires, he said. We are heading into what is normally the most dangerous part of fire season.

The past explains the future.

Eight of Californias 10 deadliest fires of all time have occurred in October or November, from the Camp Fire that killed 85 people in the town of Paradise in 2018 to the Wine Country Fires in Napa and Sonoma counties in 2017, to the Oakland Hills Fire in 1991.

Similarly, seven of the 10 most destructive fires in California history, measured by the number of homes burned, occurred in October or November.

There are two primary reasons, experts say: lack of rain and strong, dry winds.

Unlike in most other states, it almost never rains in the summer in California. As part of Californias Mediterranean climate, most rain ends in April every year, and apart from a few light sprinkles, doesnt begin again in earnest until November. That means by the time October arrives, nearly six months have passed without rain.

As a result, grass, shrubs and trees are usually at their driest condition of the year in October.

Records show that most of Californias worst fire seasons, ranked by acres burned, come after the state has had a drier-than-normal winter. Why? More snow falls in the Sierra Nevada in wet winters. The longer it lasts into the summer, the less area there is to burn. And more rain means more moisture in the vegetation.

Unfortunately, this year was a dry winter.

On April 1, the statewide Sierra snowpack was just 54% of its historical average. Last year it was 161%, and California ended up with a below-average fire year, where just 259,148 acres burned statewide.

The same story is true with rainfall. Since Oct. 1, San Francisco has received just 50% of its historic average rainfall, San Jose 49%, Oakland 42% and Sacramento 53%. Los Angeles and San Diego, by contrast, have had a normal rainfall year, getting 101% and 133% of their historic averages.

Simply put, conditions are drier than normal in Northern California, which contributed to the explosive spread of this months CZU, SCU and LNU fires.

Craig Clements, director of the Fire Weather Research Laboratory at San Jose State University, called the mid-August lightning storms, which caused 12,000 lightning strikes and sparked roughly 700 new fires, a rare event. California hasnt seen anything like it since 2008. People shouldnt read too much into it as a predictor of the rest of the year, he said. Instead, they should look at the broader rainfall patterns, combined with a heatwave much of the state endured just before the fires, and daily measurements, like overnight humidity.

Its crazy we had so many ignitions all at once, Clements said. Its apocalyptic for a lot of people. But it was a freak weather event. Lets hope this was the big event for the year.

Huge amounts of dead brush, trees and other vegetation, some killed during the states five-year drought and some piled up due to decades of fire suppression, are also making fires burn hotter and bigger.

Clements and his students regularly sample the amount of water in chamise, a common flowering shrub, to determine fuel moisture levels.

At Quail Hollow Ranch County Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Ben Lomond, they found the moisture level of chamise on Aug. 16 was 67%. Thats where it was last year in mid-September. In other words, brush and other vegetation in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which are still burning, are as dry now as they were a month later in the year last year.

Were seeing fuel moisture levels that are equivalent to our drought years, he said. Because we probably wont get rain in the next few weeks, these fuels are going to continue to be dry. And they are already critical.

Climate change is also playing a role. The 10 hottest years globally back to 1880 when modern temperature records began all have occurred since 1998, according to NASA and NOAA, the parent agency of the National Weather Service. Hotter weather dries out vegetation earlier in the year, leading to a longer fire season.

Add to that strong Santa Ana winds in Southern California and Diablo winds in Northern California, which blow hot inland air across the state, increase fire risk and typically peak in October.

We have a lot of fire season ahead of us. Were calling it the fire year, said Robert Baird, director of fire and aviation management for the U.S. Forest Services Pacific Southwest Region in Vallejo. People shouldnt let their guard down.

Baird, whose own family was evacuated two weeks ago for a night from their house near Vacaville due to the LNU Complex Fire, said people all over the state should clear vegetation from around their homes, and draw up an evacuation plan and a list of items they would take if they had to leave suddenly due to an encroaching blaze.

People need to watch red flag warnings as if they were tornado warnings, he said. They are a murderous combination of dry air, wind and heat. They can be killers, and have killed people.

When theres fire on the ground, he warned, its too late to make your preparations.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
BEIJING, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Huami Corp. (NYSE: HMI) today announced that Mr. David Cui has tendered his resignation as Chief Financial Officer, effective October 1, 2020, for personal reasons. Mr. Cui will become a consultant to the company for a transitional period of time after his resignation as the Chief Financial Officer becomes effective. Huami has appointed Mr. Leon Cheng Deng as the new Chief Financial Officer, effective October 1, 2020. Mr. Deng comes to Huami from Royal Philips, where he was most recently Global Head of Finance for Philips Domestic Appliances Division. The company's guidance provided on the recent second quarter call of August 18, remains in effect.

"We greatly appreciate the contributions that David has made to Huami during his tenure with the company, leading our IPO and follow-on offering efforts, providing strong financial leadership to help grow both domestic and international markets, building an experienced public company finance team, and strengthening our rigorous corporate governance and internal controls systems. We respect David's decision and wish him the very best in his future pursuits," said Mr. Wang Huang, Chairman and CEO of Huami Corp.

"We are delighted to welcome Leon to Huami. He brings from Philips an extensive finance background, perspective on Europe and many other key international markets, and strategic transaction experience that I believe will help Huami accelerate in its next phase of growth," Mr. Huang added.

Mr. Deng has 17 years of experience in accounting, financial management, manufacturing, and international business with Royal Philips. He held key financial leadership positions for a number of Philips' global business groups including Domestic Appliances, Personal Care and Personal Health Solutions; as well as corporate finance, financial risk management and treasury functions. Mr. Deng also played a critical leadership role in the divestiture of Philips' TV and Audio divisions, the Philips Lighting separation, and a series of acquisitions in the past. Mr. Deng holds a CPA certificate in Australia, and a Chartered Global Management Accountant certification from CIMA. He earned a Bachelor of Finance degree from Shanghai International Studies University, and a Master of International Finance degree from the University of Amsterdam.

About Huami Corporation (NYSE:HMI)

Huami's mission is to connect health with technology. Since its inception in 2013, Huami has developed a platform of proprietary technology including AI chips, biometric sensors, and data algorithms, which drive a broadening line of smart health devices for consumers, and analytics services for industry. In 2019, Huami shipped 42.3 million units of smart wearable devices, including its own Amazfit brand, and products developed and manufactured for Xiaomi, comprising 26% of global category shipments[1]. Huami Corp is based in Hefei, China, with U.S. operations, Huami-USA, based in Cupertino, Calif.

[1] IDC, Correcting and Replacing Shipments of Wearable Devices, 3/10/20

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. Information regarding these risks is included in the Company's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. 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:

Investors: Grace Yujia Zhang, [email protected]

Media: Ken Cao, [email protected]

In the United States:



Investors: Brad Samson, [email protected], 714-955-3951

Media: Lydia Huang, [email protected], 407-800-5625

SOURCE Huami Corporation

Related Links

www.huami.com


Police searching for a diplomat who disappeared after going for a jog nearly four months ago announced today they had found a body two miles from his home.

Richard Morris, 52, was last seen on the morning of May 6 after leaving his 1m detached home in the village of Bentley, near Alton, Hants, to go running.

Hampshire Constabulary said today a body had been found in nearby Alice Holt Forest - where Mr Morris was known to go running.

Police, who are not treating the death as suspicious, had previously spent days combing the dense woodland for any sign of the married father of three.

Richard Morris, 52, and family. He married Alison in 1992 and they have a daughter and two sons

The father-of-three was formerly the UK Ambassador to Nepal between 2015 and 2019 (pictured with Prince Harry in 2016)

Mr Morris had been due to take up the position of British High Commissioner to Fiji in July.

He was the ambassador to Nepal between 2015 and November 2019 and accompanied the Duke of Sussex on a tour of the country in 2016.

Mr Morris took up his post in Nepal six months after the devastating earthquake that decimated many parts of the country and claimed some 9,000 lives.

He had previously been head of the Pacific department in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and held senior diplomatic posts including in Australia and Mexico.

A missing person appeal was launched on Thursday, a spokesman for Hampshire Constabulary said: 'We've been making enquiries but are now turning to you for your help

A Hampshire police search team scour Alice Holt Woods in May

Mr Morris (pictured) has been deemed 'high risk' because of the circumstances of how he went missing

A spokesman for Hampshire Constabulary said tonight: 'Officers investigating the disappearance of Richard Morris from Bentley have today found a body in Alice Holt Forest.

'Formal identification has not yet taken place, but the 52-year-old's family have been notified. They are being supported by specialist officers.

'The death is not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner.'

Mr Morris married his wife Alison in 1992 and they have one daughter and two sons. In his spare time, Mr Morris enjoyed long-distance running, reading, travel, music and spending time with his family.

Alison was his girlfriend at school. The couple went off to different universities but resumed their relationship in their early 20s.
Hyundai of Moreno Valley announces that the 2021 Hyundai Kona has arrived at its dealership.

Individuals and families in the market for a new compact SUV in California will be excited to hear that the new 2021 Hyundai Kona has arrived at Hyundai of Moreno Valley. As one of the most popular models in the Hyundai lineup, the Hyundai Kona is a fantastic option for drivers that are looking for a versatile yet roomy vehicle that provides impressive performance, advanced technologies and excellent safety features.

The new 2021 Hyundai Kona starts at just $20,400, making this vehicle an affordable option for those on a budget. Five trim levels are available, including the SE, SEL, SEL Plus, Limited and Ultimate. Features offered with the 2021 Hyundai Kona will vary depending on which trim the customer selects.

Individuals looking for more information about the 2021 Hyundai Kona are encouraged to contact Hyundai of Moreno Valley directly by calling the sales team at 951-900-4248 or submitting a contact form on its website at http://www.hyundaiofmorenovalley.com. Those located in the southern California area can also visit the dealership at 27500 Eucalyptus Ave. in Moreno Valley, Calif. Shoppers interested in viewing the current new Hyundai Kona inventory at Hyundai of Moreno Valley can do so with its online inventory here.
A senior lawyer and human rights activist, Femi Falana, has written the interior ministry over the release of six Nigerian inmates pardoned in Thailand but still held in Kirikiri Maximum Prison, Lagos.

PREMIUM TIMES in February reported that eight inmates repatriated from Thailand to complete their prison terms at home are still being held in the facility, over a year beyond their release dates.

The inmates include Wasiu Amusan, Napoleon Mba, Obi Titus, Gloria Ogbonna, Henry Azukaeme, Okpala Chukwubike, Kennedy Tanya and Yakubu Yauza.

Documents obtained showed that not less than six of them, who were imprisoned for drug-related offences, were granted royal pardon and their sentences commuted by the Thai monarch, Maha Vajiralongkorn, to one-sixth of their original sentence.

They are thus supposed to have been released.

Their continued incarceration is allegedly due to the failure of consular officials at the Nigerian Embassy in Thailand to transmit their warrants of release.

Going by the controversial prisoner transfer treaty between Nigeria and the Kingdom of Thailand and the royal pardon by the Thai King, these individuals should have been released by 2019.

According to the treaty, though inmates are transferred to their home country to serve out their sentence, they are still under the exclusive jurisdiction of the transferring country.

Article 5 (1) of the treaty that deals with the retention of jurisdiction states that the transferring state shall retain exclusive jurisdiction regarding the judgements of its court, the sentences imposed by them and any procedures for revision, modification and cancellation of those judgements and sentences.

Having observed the breach of diplomatic relations, PREMIUM TIMES reached out to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, its spokesperson stated that the ministry has nothing to contribute on the matter, insisting that it is the responsibility of Nigeria Correctional Service (NCS).

When reached, the spokesperson of the NCS, Augustine Njoku, who confirmed that the inmates were indeed repatriated from Thailand, said they were not due for freedom.

The Letter

Mr Falana, in a letter addressed to Rauf Aregbesola, the minister of Interior, demanded that six of the convicts be released immediately.

Femi Falana (SAN)

We are solicitors to the above named convicted prison inmates who are currently held in custody at the Kirikiri Maximum Correctional Centre, Apapa, Lagos State on whose behalf we write this letter. Our clients were convicted in Thailand for drug related offences at various times between 1998 and 2006,

He said in pursuant to the treaty, the six persons were granted general amnesty under The Royal Amnesty Decree in 2016 and 2019 but due to undisclosed reasons, the authorities of the Nigerian Correctional Services have refused to release his clients.

Thus, due to unpardonable negligence of certain public officers, the Federal Government has been wasting public funds on maintaining our clients when they ought to have regained their freedom, Mr Falana stated further.

Making a case for them, he said Henry Ejikeme, who was convicted and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment in 2006, ought to have been released from prison custody on March 6, 2018.

Also, Gloria Ogbonna, who was convicted and sentenced to 33 years imprisonment in 2005 and had served 10 years of the prison term in Thailand and additional 12 years in Nigeria, ought to have been released from prison custody on February 19, 2019, the lawyer said.

MR. OKPALA KINGSLEY CHIBUIKE (a.k.a OTENG SAMUEL) was convicted and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment in 2007 for drug related offences. He served 8 years and 5 months in Thailand and additional 11 years in Nigeria. He was granted Royal Pardon pursuant to Thailands Royal Decree of Amnesty to Detainees and his sentence commuted to one Sath of the original sentence. He ought to have been released from prison custody since April 4, 2017. 

MR. YAKUBU YAHUZA MOHAMMED was convicted and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment in 2006. He served 10 years of the al termin Thailand and an additional 11 years custodial term in Nigeria. He was granted royal pardon pursuant to Thailands Royal Decree of Amnesty to Detainees and his sentence commuted to one-sixth of the original sentence. He ought to have been released from prison custody on May 3, 2019, the letter read.

Mr Falana added that Messrs Tanya and Smith ought to have been released from prison custody on May 14, 2012 and July 29, 2010, respectively.

We respectfully urge you to use your good offices to terminate the unlawful detention of our clients forthwith and authorize their immediate release from the Kirikiri Maximum Correctional Center Lagos Copies of the Amnesty documents, he told Mr Aregbesola in the letter to which he enclosed translated copies of the pardons granted the inmates.
Tuesdays primary is expected to draw a record number of voters with a significant portion of people casting their ballots by mail for the first time in a Massachusetts primary.

Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin projects more than 1.2 million and as many as 1.3 million people will cast Democratic ballots on Tuesday and 150,000 people will cast Republican ballots.

Election officials have received over 768,000 Democratic ballots and over 88,000 Republican ballots statewide as of Monday morning. The overwhelming majority are mail-in ballots.

In a typical primary, under a million ballots are cast in Massachusetts. The record-high turnout comes on a presidential election year packed with several contested congressional and state legislative races, including the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Ed Markey and Rep. Joe Kennedy III, the 1st Congressional District race between Rep. Richard Neal and Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse and the 4th Congressional District race to fill Kennedys House seat.

If Galvins projections are correct, the state will have surpassed its turnout since the 2006 primary when more than 900,000 voted.

I think its been a very successful experience so far. Im hoping our success continues tomorrow, Galvin told reporters Monday morning outside the Massachusetts State House. Im pleased that weve been able to give voters the options theyve had.

While more than 1 million ballots were requested for the primary earlier this month, Galvin estimates about 10% of those ballots are going to people who dont intend to send one for Tuesdays election. He believes a portion of the voters were more interested in the general election and mistakenly requested a primary ballot as well.

Theyre never going to be returned because the voter did not want to vote in September after all ... but I still think were going to see a high number of people who chose to vote by mail, Galvin said.

More than 400,000 ballots remain outstanding, Galvin said. A significant number are expected to be returned Monday and Tuesday.

All ballots must be received by election officials Tuesday at 8 p.m. to be counted, following a decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Becky Grossman, a Democrat running to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by Rep. Joe Kennedy III, sought to allow mail-in ballots postmarked by Sept. 1 but didnt arrive until after the state primary to be counted up to Sept. 11.

Attorneys representing Grossman argued disruptions at the U.S. Postal Service prevented vote-by-mail applicants who met the states deadlines from getting their mail-in ballots counted in time, effectively disenfranchising them in a state election.

The Supreme Judicial Court, however, sided with the Secretary of the Commonwealths office, whose attorneys argued voters still had a menu of options because of the historic vote-by-mail law enacted in July, including voting in-person if they worried their mail-in ballots would not be counted.

No ballots will be counted before 8 p.m. Tuesday night, Galvin said.

Following speculation that the large number of ballots cast by mail could result in election result delays, Galvin said it remains to be seen. Monday morning he stated that he is hopeful that final results will be available by Wednesday morning.

Massachusetts voters who seek to vote by mail but have yet to drop off their ballots can do so at their designated drop-off box Monday and Tuesday.

Voters can also cast their ballot at their designated voting place on Tuesday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. statewide. As it is a primary, voters must pull a party ballot. Independent voters can choose a party to vote for without becoming a member of that party.

Between 250,000 and 300,000 residents are expected to vote in person on Tuesday.

There are more than 50 contested races in Massachusetts this Tuesday, including elections for four seats in the U.S. House and more than three dozen state House and Senate races.

Galvin reminded voters that this is a primary so no questions will be on the ballot. He said his office has received multiple questions due to online and televised advertisements encouraging support for and against questions on the ballot this November. Monday marks 63 days out from the general election in November.

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Three countries just launched unmanned missions to the Red Planet in hopes of finding evidence of life. Why the fascination with Mars? Here's everything you need to know:

Who's going to Mars?

The United Arab Emirates kicked off a trio of missions with the July 19 launch of its orbiter, Hope. China followed four days later with Tianwen-1 (literally "Questions to Heaven"), a three-pronged mission that includes a lander, a rover, and an orbiter. NASA concluded the fireworks on July 30 with Perseverance, designed to put the largest, most sophisticated rover yet on Mars. Each of the new missions will arrive at Mars in February, with both NASA and China looking for evidence that there is current microbial life under the surface or that such life once existed there. Such a finding would be "extraordinary" and indicate life may exist in many other places in the universe, said Dr. Sarah Johnson, a planetary scientist at Georgetown University. In a memoir called Sirens of Mars, Johnson writes about how the search for life on the planet inspired her to become a planetologist. Mars, she writes, has long been humanity's "mirror, our foil, a telltale reflection of what has been deepest in our hearts. Mars has been a blank canvas. And tenderly, our human seeking has rushed to fill it."

What is so interesting about Mars?

The fourth planet from the sun is more like Earth than any of the others. It's about half our planet's size, has variable seasons, polar ice caps, and plains and gullies possibly shaped by water flow. "All of that," said David Weintraub, a professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt University, "made it easy for us to tell ourselves that life was likely to have emerged there." At the same time, its relative proximity  in October, it will swing to within 38.6 million miles of Earth  has made it seem within reach of a space mission. The interest in Mars was ignited in 1877, when the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli noted a series of mysterious lines seemingly etched into the Martian surface. He described them as canali, which literally means "channels" but was mistranslated into "canals," carrying the hint they had been constructed by intelligent life. The idea was seized upon some 20 years later by the influential American astronomer Percival Lowell, who theorized that the canals were created by an ancient, dying civilization to channel water as the Martian surface dried into the red desert it is today. The canals "run for thousands of miles in an unswerving direction, as far relatively as from London to Bombay," Lowell wrote. Later, the lines were proved to be nothing more than an optical illusion.

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Which nation got there first?

In July 1965, NASA achieved the first successful fly-by with a craft called Mariner 4. During ensuing decades, the U.S. and the Soviet Union periodically dispatched orbiters and landers to the planet. During the late 1990s, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor discovered dry riverbeds and evidence of glacial activity  suggesting that water once existed in abundance on Mars. Since water is associated with life, the finding reignited interest in Mars; in subsequent years, the U.S., Russia, China, and other nations sent nearly 20 missions there. NASA's Curiosity rover has been exploring the planet since 2012.

Have we found life?

No, although the question isn't without controversy. The 1976 NASA mission discovered four samples that registered as positive for microbial respiration, but a subsequent test found no signs of organic matter. Most scientists attribute the positives to a quirk of soil chemistry. Still, Curiosity has found evidence of organic compounds hinting at the past or current presence of microbial life. There is hope that Perseverance may finally settle the question. It carries equipment to search for the biological signatures of life, and the rover will drill into the Martian soil and eventually send samples back to Earth. "The goal," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, "is to discover life on another world."

When will humans go?

NASA's timeline calls for a crewed mission to the moon by 2024, a lunar base by 2028, and flights from the moon base to Mars sometime in the 2030s. SpaceX is planning uncrewed missions to Mars about two years from now; if all goes well, says SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, he may launch a manned mission in 2024. But manned missions still face huge obstacles. On a one-way, five- to 10-month journey to Mars through space, astronauts would be bombarded with so much radiation, it could cause cancer, affect their vision, and even disrupt their central nervous systems. "As it stands today, we can't go to Mars, due to radiation," said physicist Marco Durante. "It would be impossible to meet acceptable dose limits." Scientists also worry about the impact on humans of a prolonged period of reduced gravity and isolation. Musk says the first travelers to Mars must be "prepared to die" on the Red Planet. Still, he said, "it would be an incredible adventure."

The challenge of landing safely

Landing a manned spaceship on Mars will be extremely difficult. The planet's atmosphere is about 100 times thinner than Earth's, making it considerably harder to slow a craft while it hurtles toward the surface at an estimated speed of 13,000 miles per hour. Unmanned landers have overcome this hurdle by using parachutes and inflatables that enable the craft to bounce rather than crash, but current technology doesn't allow for larger, heavier manned craft to land safely this way. Since landing on Mars with the weight of sufficient fuel for a return journey is impractical, NASA has plans for a craft it calls the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV). This vehicle will be sent to Mars ahead of time without any fuel, so that it is light enough to land. The MAV would then create its own fuel by squeezing oxygen from the carbon dioxideheavy Martian atmosphere. Once astronauts land on the planet, NASA's plan calls for them to get aboard the fully self-fueled MAV, launch from the surface, dock with an orbiting craft, and then journey back to Earth.

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.

More stories from theweek.com

John Boehner would 'rather set himself on fire' than get involved in the 2020 election

Virginia state senator, NAACP leaders charged with felony 'injury' to Confederate statue

Trump wants to take America down with him


Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 19:59:58|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on Monday launched an anti-dumping probe into imports from the United States of certain monoalkyl ethers of ethylene glycol and propylene glycol, or glycol ethers.

The probe is scheduled to be completed by Aug. 31, 2021, but may extend to Feb. 28, 2022, under special circumstances, the MOC said. Enditem
LONDON (Reuters) - British finance minister Rishi Sunak urged diners on Monday to keep going out to eat as a popular government scheme offering half-price food in restaurants this month drew to a close.

The "Eat out to Help Out" initiative was designed to boost a hospitality sector that has been especially hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. It offered 50% off the price of meals on the first three days of the week at participating restaurants, up to a maximum of 10 pounds ($13) - with the government making up the difference.

So popular has it been that more than 64 million meals had been eaten under the scheme up to Aug. 27, according to the Open Table online booking website.

"The scheme reminded us why we as a nation love dining out and I urge diners to maintain the momentum to help continue our economic recovery," Sunak said in a statement.

"I want to say thank you to the diners who have fallen back in love with their local, to the managers who have spent weeks ensuring their restaurants were safe and to the chefs, waiters and waitresses across the country who have worked tirelessly, sometimes with more customers than theyve ever had before  all helping to protect 1.8 million jobs in the hospitality sector."

Open Table figures showed the average number of seated diners between Monday and Wednesday this month was up 95% on last year.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed a national lockdown in March and the Treasury said on Monday around 80% of hospitality firms stopped trading in April, with 1.4 million workers furloughed, the highest of any sector.

Several restaurant chains have already said they will continue offering the discount in September.

(Reporting by Stephen Addison, editing by Elizabeth Piper)
This country is an extremely dangerous frame of mind. President Trump needs to do something about it. Finally, he finally faces a problem  to use his language  that he alone can solve. I pray that he will.

Last Tuesday night, we learned that 17-year Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch, Illinois had dropped in on people in Kenosha, Wisconsin protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake in the back. Rittenhouse took an assault rifle with him and killed two people, wounding a third. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Rittenhouse fancied himself a member of a militia aiming to protect life and property.

As we attempted to digest that series of events, we learned of yet another fatal shooting, this one in Portland, Oregon. Pro-police Trump supporters deemed it a good idea to organize a caravan to Portland, where they confronted protestors originally brought together by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. As the Oregonian reported, scuffles between pro-Trump demonstrators and counter-protesters soon ensued. Some caravan members reportedly attacked protestors with paint balls and pepper spray. At one point, reported the Oregonian, a man identified as right-wing activist Alan Swinney, pointed a gun at the crowd but did not fire.

What precisely happened in Portland Saturday night is unclear; what is clear is that a man was shot and killed. In the aftermath, Donald Trump took to Twitter to lash out at Portlands Democratic mayor and to praise members of the caravan as GREAT PATRIOTS.

More than 1,000 people gathered Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020 at the area's largest rally for President Donald Trump amid the 2020 election season.

This follows a Republican convention, during which Trump proclaimed, This election will decide whether we will defend the American way of life or whether we will allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it. After the speech, he told supporters, Those aren't protesters. Those are anarchists. They're agitators, they're rioters, they're looters. They're just looking for trouble and we've got to stop it."

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Obviously, there are people under Trumps influence who are happy to grab their assault rifles, jump into their trucks, confront these so-called anarchists and try to stop it. So we are witnessing a frightening dynamic that could easily become a pattern  of Trump supporters surging into cities to confront Black Lives Matter protestors, and people potentially ending up dead.

Trump has the power, simply by speaking sense to his base, to deescalate this madness. So please, Mr. President, do your job! Tell your fans, your base, not to go into strange towns looking for trouble. Tell them to leave their beloved weapons at home and to be considerate of people with different views. If you insist on going to Kenosha this week, you should point out to your people that peaceful protest is a constitutional right and is about as American as it gets. And you should encourage them to listen respectfully to what the protesters are saying instead of calling them traitors and attacking them with paintballs or other weapons.

More: America needs law and order but not Trump's intimidation. Biden must make both points.

I understand, Mr. President, that you have never in your life made such a speech. Perhaps you  and your speechwriters  have no idea how such a thing is done. I am happy to tell you that there is a model, which you, and some smart people around you, can easily adapt to your needs.

In July 1963, North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford convened a statewide summit of mayors and city managers. That summer Lexington, North Carolina, was undergoing desegregation battles, which led to rumors of whites assaulting blacks. The conflicts escalated into a riot where shots were fired. One man was killed and another wounded. It was also a difficult time for the rest of America. That same summer saw racial violence in Cincinnati, New York, Baltimore, Savannah, and elsewhere. A year earlier, James Meredith, a Black man, attempted to integrate the previously all white University of Mississippi, affectionately referred to as Ole Miss. Federal troops escorted Meredith to school. Rioters tried to keep him out. When the smoke cleared two innocent people were dead.

Sanford spoke brilliantly about the challenge facing his state and the nation. He acknowledged the injustices and indignations long suffered by the Negro race and urged those in attendance to display wisdom and courage and  understand that every child of God on earth desires a chance for life and human dignity. He also lashed out at violence, including the violence of the political right. I dont intend to dance to the tune of extremists on either side of any questions, declared Sanford. That positioning, in particular, should appeal to you Mr. President, given your fondness for pointing to qualities of people on both sides.

Please, Mr. President, absorb some of our protest history before you show up in Kenosha. Please try to understand that people who demonstrate for justice are not necessarily out to destroy America but may actually be attempting to improve it.

As for you, Joseph Biden. We both know that Trump is likely to ignore all the sensible advice above, since his preferred style is to pour gasoline on racial fire. So get your butt on a plane to Portland immediately, and after that head to Kenosha. Show us what a presidential aspirant looks like when leading a polarized nation through a domestic crisis. Make it clear that you are no apologist for violence but that you also believe in equal treatment. Tell us why you reject this nonsense that our collective safety lies in allowing police officers to kill members of any race with impunity. Help Americans understand that our well-being rests on an expectation of fairness. Show us that your vision is big enough to inspire decent cops, anxious minorities, and a fearful, and confused electorate. Show us what compassion and competence look like. God knows, we need to see it.

Ellis Cose, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, is the author of "Democracy, If We Can Keep It: The ACLUs 100-Year Fight for Rights in America," published in July, and "The Short Life and Curious Death of Free Speech in America," coming Sept. 15. He is currently working on a history of America. Follow him on Twitter: @EllisCose

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: After Portland, Kenosha shootings, President Trump must lead America
"This is an unparalleled global opportunity to buy late-model, low-hour, and well-maintained agricultural equipment for our agricultural customers and those who are part of the burgeoning hemp farming industry."- HYPERAMS Assistant Director of Auction Services Jake Josko

HYPERAMS, LLC, in partnership with the Branford Group and Perfection Industrial, announced it will conduct an online auction of surplus assets owned by Kentucky-based GenCanna Acquisition Corp, a large vertically-integrated producer of hemp-derived CBD (cannabidiol) products.

The auction will feature John Deere tractors, Goweil round baler/wrapper combos, Knoll Agronic multi-Balers & conveyors, FastAg boom sprayers, Patz compost mixers, tillage, transplanters, cultivators, farm equipment, and utility vehicles, among many other assets.

According to Andy Duncan, Vice President of Business Development at the Branford Group, This is a fantastic opportunity for hemp processors, CBD producers, & agricultural & farming companies to purchase late model equipment. Most of the assets were purchased in 2019 and all of the equipment has low hours/little use.

HYPERAMS Assistant Director of Auction Services Jake Josko agreed. This is an unparalleled global opportunity to buy late-model, low-hour, and well-maintained agricultural equipment for our agricultural customers and those who are part of the burgeoning hemp farming industry. Josko continued, For the safety of bidders, an online-only auction will be held. However, the online bidding platform makes it easy for everyone  including business operators in the field - to simultaneously bid on the outstanding offering of high-quality equipment we have available.

Featured assets include (6) John Deere tractors, all equipped with GPS and AG Leader Guidance Systems; (2) 2019 FastAg Boom Sprayers; (2) 2019 Goweil Model LT-Master Round Baler/Wrapper Combos; (2) 2019 Unierco Model Eco Weeders, and (2) 2019 KBH 2600 Gallon Gooseneck Trailers, among several other pieces of well-kept equipment. Other brands represented include Kennco, Patz, and Kuhn Krause.

The online auction will be held on Tuesday, September 15, 2020 with lots beginning to close at 10:00 AM EST. Preview and inspection of the assets will be available Monday, September 14, 2020 by appointment at 267 North Cleveland Road, Lexington, Kentucky. A separate auction consisting of IT assets and electronic controls will follow shortly.

For more details on how to register for this highly-anticipated auction, please visit http://www.HYPERAMS.com or contact Assistant Director of Auction Services Jake Josko at jjosko@hyperams.com

About HYPERAMS, LLC

HYPERAMS is a full-service auction, appraisal, retail advisory and liquidation, and reverse logistics firm. The Company specializes in assisting both distressed and healthy companies manage surplus assets by providing clients with a complete asset disposition strategy. The Asset Disposition division focuses on investing in excess assets and conducting live and webcast auctions. The Appraisal division provides valuations of machinery, equipment, and inventory in most industry verticals. Since its inception, HYPERAMS has performed hundreds of appraisals, auctions, and store closings on behalf of financial institutions, restructuring/turnaround professionals, private equity firms, as well as business owners.

About The Branford Group

The Branford Group is a global industrial auction and valuation business with proficiency across a wide array of industries, and the unparalleled expertise to match buyers and sellers around the world. For more than 30 years, The Branford Group has been a recognized leader in surplus industrial machinery and equipment auctions and valuations. The Branford Groups certified and experienced auctioneers and appraisers value and sell business equipment, entire manufacturing plants, complete warehouses, real estate or intellectual property (IP) across a diverse array of industries.

About Perfection Global, LLC

Perfection Global, LLC is a used industrial asset specialist that has served the manufacturing market for almost 60 years. The Company specializes in both live and online industrial machinery & equipment auctions, as well as plant liquidations and turnkey opportunities. Perfections services have expanded to include appraisals, auctions, and ongoing asset management programs.


The capital has been updating daily coronavirus highs recently.

Kyiv could see a COVID-19 hike once the new academic year launches at schools and universities, municipal officials have warned.

That's according to Oleh Ruban who leads the city office of the State Service for Consumer Protection, RBC-Ukraine reports.

"First of all, the vacation period is over. This means that anti-records will be recorded every day. On Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, hospital load will increase because the number of people requiring hospitalization is going up," Ruban said.

Read alsoCOVID-19 in Ukraine: Gov't introduces new quarantine zonesLocal outbreaks among colleagues in offices are also expected.

"This is natural, it is registered every September after the vacation period ends," he explained.

Coronavirus in Kyiv: background

The number of new COVID-19 cases the capital increased by 277 over the past day, including 17 children.

Most cases were reported in Desnyanskiy district (63). Darnytskiy district saw 38 cases, Obolonskiy and Solomenskiy districts saw 33 cases each.

In Ukraine, over the past day, the number of confirmed cases has increased by 2,141.

The new quarantine zoning has been enforced in Ukraine from Monday, August 31.
Ghanas Kotoka International airport(KIA) will be reopened on Tuesday, September 1.

President Akufo-Addo announced on Sunday, August,30 after he visited Kotoka International Airport to ascertain the facilitys readiness in the reopening of the Air borders.

This comes after five months of shutdown as part of measures to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the following measures have been taken and duly communicated to airlines wishing to resume flights to Ghana:

a) any passenger arriving in Ghana must be in possession of a negative COVID-19 PCR test result from an accredited laboratory in the country of origin. The test should have been done not more than seventy-two (72) hours before the scheduled departure from the country of origin. All airlines have been instructed to ensure compliance with this directive for all passengers wishing to travel to Ghana, and those airlines who fail in this regard will be duly sanctioned;

b) disembarking passengers must do so wearing face masks;

c) upon disembarking from the aeroplane, each passenger will undergo a mandatory COVID-19 test at the airport terminal, at a fee to be borne by the passenger. The test result will be available within thirty (30) minutes;

d) children under the ages of five (5) will not be required to undergo testing at the airport;

e) passengers, who test positive for COVID-19, will be handled by the health authorities for further clinical assessment and management; and

f) passengers, who test negative, can, thereupon, enter Ghana to go about their lawful activities, and will be advised to continue to observe COVID-19 safety precautions during their stay in Ghana.

Watch video below:
D etectives have released an image of a man they want to speak to after a woman was sexually assaulted on a bus in east London.

Shortly after 7am on June 27, a 53-year-old woman was sexually assaulted on the 236 bus towards Homerton, Scotland Yard said.

The attack occurred just before the bus reached Hackney Town Hall, police said.

"Detectives are appealing for anyone who recognises the man to contact them," the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

Police released a CCTV image of the man they want to trace / Met Police

"The incident has left the victim feeling unsafe."

Anyone with information should call 101 and quote reference 2369/27June.

To remain anonymous, contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Building a strong branding foundation is more critical than ever." - Ed Delia, President of Delia Associates

The Pandemic has forced many B2B organizations to focus on navigating this new normal. But its just as critical that companies discover new growth opportunities to ensure success after the crisis. With this in mind, Delia Associates, an award-winning branding and marketing agency in Whitehouse, NJ, will present Beyond the Virus, an interactive webinar. Hosted by the New Jersey Packaging Executives Club (NJPEC), the event takes place September 10, 2020 from 11a.m.-12:15 p.m. EDT.

Ed Delia, President of Delia Associates, will be joined by several of the organizations B2B branding experts to provide insights tailored to the packaging industry. Building a strong branding foundation is more critical than ever, notes Delia. My team will share how reexamining, redefining and repositioning brands now can lead to post-pandemic success later. Topics to be explored include how to strengthen brand messaging, create effective brand designs, and build better brand engagement with audiences.

Successful branding is of particular importance to the New Jersey packaging industry, which employs thousands of workers across hundreds of organizations. Segments include health and beauty, pharmaceutical, food and beverage and industrial applications. NJPEC President Gene Kistler explains, Our members want to understand the implications of the pandemic on their businesses right now, as well as what they can do in this competitive landscape to ensure growth once the pandemic is behind us.

Exclusive to this webinar is an easy-to-use, interactive technology that fosters engagement with the speakers and amongst attendees. Following the main presentation, which includes a live Q&A, attendees will virtually move into smaller breakout sessions, emulating a traditional, in-person networking event. The breakout sessions will consist of topical questions and discussions, and additional insights from the experts, who will join the conversations. Essentially, we are hosting a physical event, but in a virtual space, says Kistler. Just like a traditional in-person NJPEC event, attendees will be able to meet and connect to colleagues in a personal and meaningful way.

For more information or to register for the event, go to: https://live.remo.co/e/delia-associates-or-njpec-or-vir-4/register

About Delia Associates

Delia Associates, the award-winning branding and marketing firm, is Where b2b brands go to grow. Since 1964, and across two generations of leadership, the firm has enabled numerous packaging companies to achieve sustainable marketplace success and exponential growth. Through the firms proprietary Brand Leadership Solution, a unique brand-based marketing platform, hundreds of packaging brands have achieved next-level success. The process directly supports and accelerates business development initiatives, through the creation of a distinctive and dynamic brand position, go-to-market strategy, and fully integrated marketing program. In-house competencies include strategic brand development, re-branding, website development, trade show marketing and support, advertising, content, and social and search marketing. For more information, visit https://www.delianet.com.

About New Jersey Packaging Executives Club (NJPEC)

Founded in 1962, NJPEC is an organization of packaging professionals from all disciplines in the industry, who share information and hands-on business experience. The culture of NJPEC is comfortable, collaborative, and professional, creating an environment of learning and business networking. Members invest their time, skills, and knowledge to strengthen the packaging industry with talent and innovation. Numerous scholarship programs and mentoring opportunities support those entering the packaging field. For more information, visit http://www.njpec.com

For additional press information, please contact:

Ilena Della Ventura

Delia Associates

T. 908-534-9044

E. Idellaventura@delianet.com
(HealthDay)Community-level factors explain some, but not all, racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 rates in Massachusetts, according to a report published online Aug. 27 in Health Affairs.

Jose F. Figueroa, M.D., M.P.H., from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study of 351 Massachusetts towns and cities from Jan. 1, 2020, to May 6, 2020, to examine which demographic, economic, and occupational factors have contributed to disparities in COVID-19.

The researchers found that a 10-percentage point increase in the Black and Latino populations correlated with increases of 312.3 and 258.2 COVID-19 cases per 100,000, respectively. The proportion of foreign-born noncitizens living in a community, mean household size, and share of food service workers were independent predictors of higher COVID-19 rates. The association between the Latino population and COVID-19 rates was attenuated after adjustment for these variables, but the correlation persisted for the Black population indicating that other systemic inequities may explain the correlation.

"Further research into the social and economic factors underlying COVID-19-related disparities and new policies to address risk factors and institutional racism will be critical to controlling the epidemic and improving health equity," the authors write.

Copyright  2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Reports from the UK and the USA indicate that a low proportion of people (36 per cent in the UK) are wearing masks to counter the spread of Covid-19, despite the disastrous pandemic fatality data in these two countries. This is around 529 deaths per million in the USA and 609 deaths per million in the UK.

In contrast, Asian countries that have had an established cultural preference towards wearing masks (for example, 80 per cent wearing them in China), have had much lower levels of fatalities (three per million). A Belgian study has observed that Asian countries that flattened the curve have generally been the ones that required citizens to wear masks and the European Union countries that did not are now struggling to control the pandemic.

The original reservations about mask wearing in New Zealand were influenced by the need to preserve limited supplies of masks at early stages of the pandemic for clinical workers in the front line of contact. The Ministry of Health is now recommending that everyone who cannot maintain safe distancing of two meters should wear masks. Several countries have now made the wearing of masks mandatory. It seems certain others will now follow.

Covid-19 is embedded and transmitted within a fine spray of mucus droplets formed as a result of coughing, sneezing and even speaking, and is generally not transmitted as a naked virus. The virus is small compared to the droplet dimensions  rather like a marble in an inflated balloon. Small mucus droplets carry surface charges that will encourage the droplet to stick to the surface of the mask fibres. Larger droplets also favour the physical trapping of the mucus droplet incorporating the virus.

The surface science of this dual-trapping process has been studied in detail and reported in a peer-reviewed journal paper. This same study has concluded that multiple layers and hybrid materials such as cottonsilk, cottonchiffon and cottonflannel produce superior droplet trapping. This scientific information will be useful to any organisations (or individuals) designing and manufacturing masks.

The extremely contagious nature of Covid-19 reinforces the message about masks. If the virus is present in the community, everyone should wear a mask!

Emeritus Professor Ralph Cooney

r.cooney@auckland.ac.nz
Good morning.

On Friday, more than a month after the state ordered most indoor businesses to close again, Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled Californias second attempt at a comprehensive plan to reopen.

Weve learned a lot over the last number of months, Mr. Newsom said.

Gone is the county monitoring list system, which was rolled out piecemeal and has been criticized as confusing and fragmented.

In its place going forward, the governor said, is a framework that sorts each of the states 58 counties into a tier, which will determine how much businesses are restricted.

Unlike the monitoring-list model, which was based on a matrix of numbers that was difficult to parse, the new system is based largely on new daily case numbers per 100,000 residents, as well as positivity rates.
The suspension of Brian Clark, Dauphin Countys director of corrections, is unrelated to two recent deaths at the prison, Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo said Monday.

Chardo said his office is involved in a review of circumstances that led to the suspension, and it doesnt appear to be something that will result in criminal charges. If that holds true, Chardo will notify the county prison board, which will then undertake an appropriate, administrative review, he said.

County spokeswoman Amy Richards said Monday that Clark is being paid during his suspension. She called it a personnel matter and said she couldnt provide additional information.

Other details about the latest turmoil at Dauphin County Prison also remained vague on Monday.

County officials on Saturday had announced Clarks suspension. In a separate announcement Saturday, they said the county prison board is investigating the deaths of two inmates who died within about a week.

Herbert Tilghman, 46, died Aug. 20 of what county officials called a fatal medical event. He had been jailed on drug charges. Jimmy King Jr., 50, died on Saturday at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. County officials said he had been stricken at the prison a few days earlier. King had been serving time for retail theft, escape, and an accident involving damage to a vehicle.

There are separate sets of investigations into the deaths, Chardo said Monday.

One set is being done by Chardos office, which investigates any time an inmate dies. The purpose is to learn whether criminal conduct at the prison contributed to the death, Chardo said.

The other is being carried out by the countys prison board, which will look at whether shortcomings in medical care contributed to the deaths.

The county said Tilghman was receiving treatment prior to being stricken, and staff tried to revive him, but the county gave no further details.

Acquaintances of Tilghman who protested outside the prison following his death said they believe he was addicted to drugs and experienced withdrawal at the prison. They contend he wasnt given adequate medical attention while in withdrawal, which can be fatal.

However, Chardo said Monday that prison staff was aware of Tilghmans medical situation and he was under observation. He said statements he wasnt given prompt medical attention just isnt true.

County officials said King was taken to the hospital after he was found minimally responsive. They gave no further details. Chardo said King had previously spent 24 years in state prison.
- Paul Worsley and Delma were married for 52 years and those were the best years of their lives

- The two wanted to spend eternity together but sadly, Delma died after a surgery

- Paul was left heartbroken and 16 hours later, he suffered a heart attack

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A man from New Zealand has passed away less than 24 hours after losing the love of his life.

Paul Worsley who was 75 years old suffered a heart attack barely a day after his 76-year-old wife breathed her last.

Delma and Paul with their friends and family. Photo: Delma Worsley

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Francis Atwoli, wife Mary Kilobi enjoy much needed time away in Masai Mara

Pauls wife underwent surgery but sadly suffered complications which eventually led to her death, DailyMail reports.

"He always hoped they would be together forever and just like their vows said, till death do us part, the heartbroken man followed his wife to the afterlife.

The deceaseds granddaughter told the New Zealand Herald Paul was glad his wife died before him because he never wanted to leave her alone and lonely if he ever passed away.

READ ALSO: Perfect for bedsitter: Kenyans applaud innovative fundi who crafted convertible bed

Paul always wanted to be with his sweetheart every day of his life. Photo: Delma Worsley

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Man United midfielder Nemanja Matic tips club to challenge for EPL title next season

He was very happy that she went first because he just could not stand her being alone, so it was how he preferred it to play out, Alexandra said.

Pauls granddaughter further said his family had accepted his death as they knew he and his wife belonged together forever.

It was hard but at least now we can grieve. They are together again, she added.

Their love was one for the books. Photo: Delma Worsley

Source: UGC

In other news, Mercy Masika and her hubby David Muguro celebrated 12 years of marriage.

The two penned sweet notes for each other on social media giving their fans hope that marriage works.

David referred to Mercy as his friend and pillar and described her as a wonderful mum.

Mercy described her better half as an amazing man she was lucky to spend the rest of her life with.

"John Mahama can create 1 million jobs in 8 years" - Sam George | #Yencomgh

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Source: YEN.com.gh
Ever got into a car and found a little way into the journey that the driver isnt sure of the destination? Scott Morrison predictably won plaudits for his latest assault on China via new legislation that will empower him to cancel or veto agreements between state entities and foreign government organisations. China might be our biggest trading partner, but it is thoroughly on the nose in much of Canberra.

The media, most MPs, the bureaucracy, think tanks  theyre all down on China. They see it thumbing its nose at the world and crushing Hong Kongs last vestiges of democracy, at its aggression in the South China Sea, at its practice of holding foreign citizens hostage during disputes with other countries, at its attempts to wield influence here through the Chinese diaspora. They deplore the reported cyber attacks by a foreign actor, aka China.

Illustration: Jim Pavlidis Credit:

Even the Labor Party, now fully inhabiting a realm of magical thinking where agreeing with its opponents as much as possible will miraculously lead it back to power, immediately locked in behind the governments proposal. So thats that: soon enough, the federal government and its minions will be able to trawl through every agreement and memorandum of understanding that the states, territories, universities and local councils have in place with foreign government entities and places of learning.

First to be obliterated will be the Victorian governments connection with Chinas Belt and Road Initiative, which is regarded as an act of treason by many in the Liberal Party, especially its rank and file members. At last, Australia will, supposedly, speak with one voice internationally. The legislation covers arrangements with all foreign powers but its obviously about China, with whom we have the greatest exposure.
The Indian Medical Association has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking that all doctors who have died of COVID-19 be treated at par with martyrs of the armed forces, and their dependents be provided government jobs in accordance with their qualifications. In a letter to the prime minister, the country's largest body of doctors said only an "inclusive national solatium" for all doctors who have lost their lives fighting the pandemic would render justice to the sacrifice of their families.

The IMA cited government data and said 87,000 healthcare workers had been infected and 573 of them had lost their lives due to COVID-19. However, the Centre has not officially released these figures. Noting that the data has raised concerns all across the country, the IMA said its data for doctors alone has registered 307 deaths and a total 2,006 infected. It said 188 of those died are general practitioners who are the first point of contact for people.

Also read: Nearly 200 doctors in India died due to COVID-19 so far, claims IMA

"Doctors suffer a higher viral load and a higher CFR (Case Fatality Rate) as a community. IMA is constrained to point out that they could have stayed back at home during the epidemic safely. They chose to serve the nation in the best traditions of the medical profession," said the letter dated August 30.

The solatium approved by the government for their colleagues in government services in all fairness is deserved by the children of these martyrs as well, the association said. "All doctors who have laid down their lives in fighting this epidemic should be treated at par with the martyrs of Indian Armed Forces and acknowledged appropriately. The surviving spouse or dependent should be provided a government job as per their qualifications," the IMA said.

Also read: COVID-19 in Delhi: Many people contributing to rise in cases violated safety, social distancing norms, say experts

It also raised the issue that whatever solatium that is in place had failed to reach the beneficiaries due to the inadequacy of the chosen instrument and the "indifference". "The scheme is reported to have been lapsed as well. There is a pressing need to reconsider the same on merit and create a dedicated system to administer," the IMA said.

A national scheme to support the "soldiers fighting a pandemic" cannot be allowed to degenerate into just another pecuniary benefit for government servants, it said. "We once again appeal to your goodself that such a sacrifice by doctors needs to be acknowledged by the highest office of the nation irrespective of the sectors," the IMA said in the letter to Modi.

Also read: COVID-19 pandemic: Centre asks states to test grocery shop workers, vendors

"We are also writing to you at this juncture since it has been predicted that India will top the world in number of cases in a few weeks. Healthcare manpower is precious. Uniform practices have to be put in place throughout the country," it said. The IMA said substantial differences were noticed from district to district in how doctors and healthcare workers were deployed. It asserted that districts were not sensitive to the safety angle, and the concerns of stress and fatigue of the medical manpower.

Noting that the nation deserves a radical approach to the situation, the IMA appealed to the prime minister for the government to bring in appropriate reforms, which it said were long overdue.
Richard Jackson, who heads the Council of School Officers, a union for mid-level leadership in the D.C. school system, said it would have been easier if schools had more time to prepare and blamed Mayor Muriel E. Bowser for delaying by two weeks her decision on how to start the academic year. Bowser (D) was expected to announce in mid-July that the school year would begin with a hybrid model but at the last minute delayed the decision and announced on July 31 that the school year would be all virtual.
KIGALI, Rwanda - Paul Rusesabagina, portrayed in the film Hotel Rwanda as a hero who saved the lives of more than 1,200 people from the countrys 1994 genocide, has been arrested by the Rwandan government on terror charges, police announced on Monday.

A well-known critic of President Paul Kagame, Rusesabagina had been living outside Rwanda since 1996 and police did not say where he was apprehended. He had been living in Belgium and then in Texas in the U.S.

Rusesabaginas daughter told the Associated Press that he travelled last week from the U.S. to Dubai, where she alleged he was kidnapped and taken to Rwanda but did not provide evidence to substantiate the claim.

In handcuffs and a facemask, Rusesabagina, 66, was shown to the press in Rwandas capital, Kigali, on Monday by police. He has not yet been formally charged in court.

Through international co-operation, the Rwanda Bureau of Investigation wants to inform the general public that Paul Rusesabagina has been arrested, police said in a statement Monday.

Rusesabagina is suspected to be the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits including the Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD) operating out of various places in the region and abroad, police said.

Rwandas police said they had issued an arrest warrant for Rusesabagina to answer charges of serious crimes including terrorism, arson, kidnap and murder, perpetrated against unarmed, innocent Rwandan civilians on Rwandan territory. Police told the media in Kigali that investigations against Rusesabagina will continue and more information will be released about his alleged activities.

Carine Kanimba, Rusesabaginas daughter, said the family was informed early Monday that he was being held in Rwanda. She said none of the family has been able to speak to him and they are worried he may not be getting his hypertension medication.

Kanimba, 27, reached in Washington, D.C., said she last spoke with Rusesabagina last week before he flew to Dubai, but that she didnt know the exact purpose of his trip.

The state-owned RwandAir has direct flights between Dubai and Kigali.

Rusesabagina is a Belgian citizen and a permanent resident of the United States, Kanimba said.

Were hoping to secure his release quickly and safely, she said.

Kanimba said her father has long been a target because of his vocal criticism of the Rwandan government.

What theyre accusing him of is all made up, she said There is no evidence to what theyre claiming  We know this is a wrongful arrest.

Rusesabagina has previously denied the governments charges that he financially supports Rwandan rebels.

Rusesabagina has been a prominent critic of Kagames government, calling it a dictatorship and urging Western countries to press the government to respect human rights.

Government supporters reject Rusesabaginas criticism, saying Kagames leadership supports democracy and economic growth.

Rusesabagina has won numerous international honours including the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, which President George W. Bush awarded him in 2005, and the Lantos Human Rights Prize in 2011.

I believe it is a travesty that a human rights champion like Paul Rusesabagina should be captured, detained and held in the way he is being held, said Katrina Lantos Swett, president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice. This should raise a lot of deep concern and skepticism on behalf of a lot of people.

The Rwandan government disputes Rusesabaginas story about saving survivors at a hotel in Kigali during the genocide, in which more than 800,000 Tutsi and Hutus who tried to protect them were killed by Hutus.

The 2004 film Hotel Rwanda showed Rusesabagina, a Hutu married to a Tutsi, as using his influence as a manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines, to allow more than 1,200 Tutsis to shelter in the hotels rooms. In the film, Rusesabagina was played by actor Don Cheadle.

Naphatal Ahishakiye, executive secretary of Ibuka, a Rwanda survivors organization, said Rusesabaginas arrest is good news for survivors of the genocide. Ahishakiye said Rusesabagina had charged people money to be able to survive in the hotel.

___

AP journalist Jake Bleiberg in Dallas, Texas, contributed to this story.
The change in margin system and securities pledge-repledging could undoubtedly bring disruptions in volumes of daily trading as there is insufficient preparation and validation by the participants in this system - viz Exchanges, Depositories, Depository Participants, Clearing corp, Brokers and clients, suggest experts. "We could witness further polarization of stocks in the markets for some time with the top 200-300 stocks seeing the most depth and liquidity. The securities currently pledged with the brokers need to undergo the new process, which so far is not smooth going by the runs conducted so far," Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities told Moneycontrol. "Hence, large traders are unsure as to whether they will have limits to trade on Sept 01 which may lead to volume drop in both Cash and F&O segments that may last a few days/weeks," he said.

We have collated a list of factors that could be weighing on markets: Border Tensions: Indian markets reversed gains after tensions between India and China border near Ladakh escalated. Chinese troops violated consensus and carried out provocative military movements on the night of August 29-30, aimed at changing the status quo at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the Indian Army said on August 31. The army further said that Indian soldiers pre-empted Peoples Liberation Army (PLA)s activity on the southern bank of Pangong Tso and undertook measures to strengthen positions and thwart Chinese intentions. History suggests that equity markets do not like uncertainty.

History suggests that equity markets do not like uncertainty. Also Read: Fresh tension at border after Chinese troops violate agreement with Indian army Profit Booking: After rallying for three consecutive months since May both Sensex and Nifty50 climbed crucial resistance levels. The S&P BSE Sensex reclaimed 40,000 in intraday trade while the Nifty50 was also trading around 11800 before it gave up gains and turned negative. Most experts were anticipating some consolidation in Nifty in the first week of September. GDP Data expected to contract: The Street would watch out for the GDP data for the June quarter which is likely to turn negative. Economists are of the view that the Indian economy will contract in April-June this year. ICRA, a credit rating agency and consulting firm, has projected that India's GDP would contract 25 percent in the April-June quarter. According to ICRA, that economic performance was primarily weighed down by the considerable drag imposed by three key production sub-sectors, namely manufacturing, construction, and trade, hotels, transport, communication and services related to broadcasting. The State Bank of India's (SBI) research report Ecowrap has projected that India's GDP may contract by 16.5 percent during the quarter due to lower-than-expected de-growth in corporate GVA (gross value added) Broader markets under pressure: Both the S&P BSE Small-cap index, and the Mid-cap index fell more than 3 percent each on Monday. The Small-cap index recorded double-digit gains in 3 out of the last 5 months; hence, some bit of profit-taking was on the cards. Also, broader markets wiped out most of the gains made in the year 2020 as on Friday thanks to strong global liquidity. Hence, there could be some profit-taking in the near term but that will still be a good buy on dips opportunity. All active investors must remember the valuation of midcap index P/E close to 106 in December 2017 due to very high inflow of money in mutual funds post demonetization period, & since then Investors hardly made any money in midcaps, Amit Jain, Co-founder & CEO, Ashika Wealth Advisors told Moneycontrol. So in our view, in this liquidity-driven rally, the risk-reward ratio may not be very favorable, so all Investors should be very cautious with their entry point in markets, he said. Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not those of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
KELOWNA, BC / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / Lexaria Bioscience Corp. (OTCQX:LXRP)(CSE:LXX) (the "Company" or "Lexaria"), a global innovator in drug delivery platforms, announces that it has entered a research and development ("R&D") framework agreement with British American Tobacco (Investments) Limited ("BAT") to investigate Lexaria's technology for potential use in nicotine products.

R&D work under the Agreement will be paid for by BAT.

"Lexaria is pleased to work with British American Tobacco on these research and development activities," said Chris Bunka, Chief Executive Officer of Lexaria, who is also responsible for the accuracy of this news release.

The Agreement does not contemplate development of oral nicotine consumer products in North America, given Lexaria's existing North American relationship with a leading United States-based tobacco company. The Agreement is expected to be completed within six months, though provisions exist to extend the Agreement if required.

About BAT

British American Tobacco is a leading, multi-category consumer goods business, established in 1902. BAT's purpose is to build A Better Tomorrow by reducing the health impact of its business through offering a greater choice of enjoyable and less risky products for its consumers. British American Tobacco is one of the largest tobacco companies in the world with products sold in over 11 million locations across more than 180 countries.

About Lexaria

Lexaria Bioscience Corp.'s (OTCQX:LXRP)(CSE:LXX) proprietary drug delivery technology, DehydraTECH, improves the way active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) enter the bloodstream by promoting healthier ingestion methods and increasing the effectiveness of fat-soluble active molecules, thereby lowering overall dosing. The Company's technology can be applied to many different ingestible product formats, including foods, beverages, oral suspensions, tablets, and capsules. DehydraTECH increases bio-absorption by up to 5-10x, reduces time of onset from 1 - 2 hours to 10 - 20 minutes, and masks unwanted tastes for orally administered bioactive molecules, including anti-virals, cannabinoids, vitamins, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), nicotine, and other molecules. Lexaria has licensed DehydraTECH to multiple companies including a world-leading tobacco producer for the development of smokeless, oral-based nicotine products and for use in industries that produce cannabinoid beverages, edibles, and oral products. Lexaria operates a licensed in-house research laboratory and holds a robust intellectual property portfolio with 16 patents granted and over 60 patents pending worldwide. For more information, please visit www.lexariabioscience.com.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This release includes forward-looking statements. Statements as such term is defined under applicable securities laws. These statements may be identified by words such as "anticipate," "if," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "could," "should," "will," and other similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements by the company relating to the conclusions reached from the company's Collaborative Research Proposal and the ultimate suitability of DehydraTECH to deliver nicotine through oral methods. Such forward-looking statements are estimates reflecting the Company's best judgment based upon current information and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and there can be no assurance that the Company will actually achieve the plans, intentions, or expectations disclosed in these forward-looking statements. As such, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those estimated by the Company include, but are not limited to, government regulation and regulatory approvals, managing and maintaining growth, the effect of adverse publicity, litigation, competition, scientific discovery, the patent application and approval process, the inherent uncertainties in the initiation, ongoing assessment and completion of preclinical and clinical studies, whether interim results from a clinical study will be predictive of the final results of the study or the results of future studies, the risk that trials and studies may be delayed and may not have satisfactory outcomes, potential adverse effects arising from the testing or use of products utilizing the DehydraTECH technology, the Company's ability to maintain existing collaborations and realize the benefits thereof, and other factors which may be identified from time to time in the Company's public announcements and periodic filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on EDGAR. There is no assurance that existing capital is sufficient for the Company's needs or that it will be able to raise additional capital. There is no assurance the Company will be capable of developing, marketing, licensing, or selling edible products containing any active ingredient. There is no assurance that any planned corporate activity, scientific research or study, business venture, letter of intent, technology licensing pursuit, patent application or allowance, consumer study, or any initiative will be pursued, or if pursued, will be successful. There is no assurance that any of Lexaria's postulated uses, benefits, or advantages for the patented and patent-pending technology will in fact be realized in any manner or in any part. No statement herein has been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Lexaria-associated products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Any forward-looking statements contained in this release speak only as of the date hereof, and the Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of any new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise, except as otherwise required by law.

The CSE has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

INVESTOR CONTACT:

ir@lexariabioscience.com

Phone: 866-221-3341

SOURCE: Lexaria Bioscience Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/604135/Lexaria-Bioscience-Announces-RD-Agreement-With-British-American-Tobacco
* Resettlements suspended for thousands of refugees

* U.S., other refugee intake plummets as climate hardens

* Many stranded in areas vulnerable to spread of COVID-19

By Edward McAllister

DAKAR, Aug 31 (Reuters) - When Michelle Alfaro left her office at the United Nations in Geneva on March 13, her job finding homes for the world's most vulnerable refugees was under control.

Four days later, the new coronavirus had knocked it into chaos. Governments across the world announced border closures, lockdowns and flight cancellations. The United Nations was forced to suspend the programme.

"Everything collapsed that week," said Alfaro, who manages resettlements for the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR.

Millions of people have been thrown into limbo by the new coronavirus. Those Alfaro works with had been promised escape from war, violence, conflict or persecution. After submitting to a review process that can take years, and winning a chance to make new lives in countries such as the United States and Canada, thousands suddenly learned - often by phone - their flights would no longer take off.

Ubah Mohamed was one of them. A 23-year-old Somalian, she ran away from her husband after he tried to force her to join the Islamist group al Shabaab, militants who would later kill her father. She was due to fly to the United Kingdom on March 24.

"I didn't know where I was going," she said of her five-year ordeal as a refugee. "I was just going. I had no control."

In the first half of 2020, refugee resettlements fell 69% from 2019 levels to just over 10,000, U.N. data show. The programme resumed in June, but at a much slower pace.

The pandemic has hit as attitudes to immigrants have been hardening, loosening another thread in increasingly frayed international efforts to maintain global solidarity.

Nationalism, fear of infection, economic worries and ageing voters' resistance to change are undermining a long-established post-war consensus that people at risk of persecution, abuse or violence deserve to be sheltered.

The British government this month asked the armed forces to help deal with a rise in the number of boats carrying migrants from France. In Greece, the government has rebuffed thousands of migrants from Turkey this year and stiffened patrols to stop refugees arriving by boat. The European Union has pumped billions of dollars into African states in an attempt to stem the flow of migrants to its southern shores .

Story continues

The United States rehouses the largest share of refugees in the programme, which in recent years has accounted for the majority of U.S. refugee intake. Arrivals under the programme have more than halved under President Donald Trump, who came to power in 2017 on an anti-immigration platform and is running for re-election promising more of the same. America accepted one-third of the refugees resettled by the United Nations last year, but is cutting its intake.

The United States stopped taking refugees from March 19 until July 29 because of travel restrictions, a State Department spokesperson told Reuters. As a result, the country resettled fewer than 3,000 people under the U.N. programme in the first half of 2020, compared with over 21,000 during the whole of last year, the data show.

Even before COVID-19, the United Nations says it struggled to raise funds and find new homes for the 1.4 million people it estimates need immediate help.

"It has been an especially difficult year for refugees," said Alfaro, the resettlement officer. "Every single resettlement country we have has been affected - no one is left unscathed."

NO CONTROL

Mohamed, the 23-year-old Somalian, is stranded 2,000 miles south of Geneva in a refugee camp on a sandy plain outside Niger's capital Niamey. The mother of two, who shelters in a small tent-like structure in the U.N.'s Hamdallaye camp, was told by UNHCR officials just days before leaving that her flight was off.

"I was so excited to go," she said in a phone interview with Reuters. "I live in a tent. If I can live in a home in a safe place, I will be satisfied."

Her journey started in 2015, on a bus to the coastal city of Bosaso, after her father told her the safest thing she could do would be to get away from her husband and leave her children behind.

A man offered her a place on a boat across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen - a common route for Somalians seeking refuge from conflict over the decades. By accepting, she unwittingly entered a network of migrant smugglers that would rob, rape and sell her from Yemen to Sudan to Libya.

Just days into her journey, she said she called her father to let him know where she was. Her step-mother answered the phone and told her the militants had killed him for helping her escape.

In southern Libya, a smuggler raped her repeatedly. She miscarried his child in the spring of 2016. He discarded her and she continued north.

Later that year, at a halfway house for migrants in northern Libya, another smuggler beat her when she told him she did not have enough money for her travel.

Crossing the Sahara Desert from Sudan to Libya in an open-back pick-up truck in 2016, sipping water that tasted of petrol, her mind was flooded with thoughts of her children. She thinks they are with family.

"I don't know where they are," she said. "I am a mother, and I cannot be with them. All I can do is cry."

She married a fellow Somalian refugee in northern Libya in 2017. The smugglers' network funneled them towards Europe. They were separated just before she boarded an overcrowded dinghy which broke down and drifted on the Mediterranean for days.

There, the Libyan Coast Guard picked her up and handed her over to the U.N. refugee agency and she was reunited with her husband at a migrant detention centre a few days later. The U.N. flew them from Tripoli to Niamey and moved them into the camp in March 2019, where the resettlement assessment began.

"I wanted to forget everything I had been through," she said.

She said she has not received any information about when she will leave for the United Kingdom. It has suspended resettlements indefinitely because of flight restrictions and limits to its own visa application services during the pandemic, a Home Office spokeswoman told Reuters. It wants to be sure that resuming arrivals does not pose a public health risk.

"We are not in a position to resume arrivals in the immediate short term," she said.

The United Nations said it does not comment on specific cases.

CAJOLING COUNTRIES

Alfaro's employer, UNHCR, has been resettling refugees since the 1950s when it found new homes for 170,000 who escaped the Hungarian Revolution. Over the past 25 years, it says it has helped one million people out of the world's trouble spots including Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Myanmar. Dozens of countries receive refugees under the programme.

The UNHCR identifies those most in need through interviews and refers them to a receiving country, which conducts its own assessments. Another U.N. agency, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), makes the travel arrangements.

When COVID-19 hit, receiving countries evacuated embassy staff, so U.N. officials could no longer reach them to help organise departures or process new referrals. Several countries told the United Nations they were suspending all or part of their refugee intake.

Local officials, confined by lockdowns, have been unavailable to stamp exit visas. House-bound U.N. field staff can't interview applicants. Officials from receiving countries have been unable to reach applicants for face-to-face interviews because of travel restrictions.

In March, Alfaro's days disappeared on long conference calls and briefings as she tried to persuade governments to keep their borders open to emergency cases, and to accept online interviews for new referrals.

A few hundred critical cases were resettled during the suspension, Alfaro said; some countries have agreed to video interviews. But others, including the United States, still require them to be conducted in person. The United States has taken in refugees at a far slower pace than pre-COVID levels, the State Department spokesperson said: There are still "few or no flights available" from many of the countries who send them.

Staff at the IOM have been scouring airline booking systems for ways to get emergency cases moving, even during the suspension. Flights would appear and then be cancelled.

In all, the agency cancelled 11,000 plane tickets because of the pandemic, said Rana Jaber, its head of resettlements, who worked with refugees in Iraq from 2015 to 2017.

"I felt like I was in Iraq again," she said. "My lord, my brains were fried."

SPACES LOST

Because of the slowdown in interviews, global referrals dropped from 40,000 to 20,000 in the first half of the year, the U.N. data show. This means a backlog of tens of thousands of people is building, and there's a risk these places will be lost indefinitely.

Now refugees are falling victim to COVID-19. In Iraq, Alfaro said the UNHCR is looking after a "significant number" of refugees with urgent medical needs who are unable to be resettled because of travel restrictions. At least two people have died of COVID-19 while awaiting the move.

In Uganda, COVID-19 has spread through slums of the capital Kampala where many who await resettlement are housed in crowded accommodations with no running water or electricity, aid workers said.

The U.N. has resettled about 2,100 refugees since resuming flights - way below the average pace of previous years, said the IOM's Jaber. Cancellations continue.

"Some are opening up, but not everyone is back online - maybe not until next year," said Alfaro. "We don't know how many spaces we're going to lose."

There have been bright spots. An Eritrean couple with a young baby were the first refugees to be resettled to Europe since flights were stopped in March, UNHCR said on Twitter on Aug. 14.

Just hours after a vast explosion devastated much of Lebanon's capital Beirut on Aug. 4, IOM staff were back at work. The ancient city holds hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled Syria's civil war.

That night, IOM got 30 of them on a flight out, said IOM's Jaber. In total, 61 were relocated that week.

"There are challenges still," she said. "We are back, it is slower, (but) it is working." (Reporting By Edward McAllister; Edited by Sara Ledwith)
OTTAWA: Canada reached an agreement in principle on Monday with both Novavax Inc and Johnson & Johnson for millions of doses of their experimental coronavirus vaccines, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

Canadas two agreements follow separate deals with Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc announced weeks ago, and are the latest example of countries rushing to secure access to vaccines.

Canada is also in the final stages of negotiations" to secure AstraZenecas potential vaccine and is in talks to secure more doses of the Pfizer vaccine candidate, Procurement Minister Anita Anand said.

What we are trying to do is make sure that when a vaccine is developed, we are at the front of the line," Anand told reporters.

Canada has a population of about 38 million, and the four vaccine agreements signed so far give Canada at least 88 million doses with options to obtain tens of millions more," Trudeau said when he announced the deals in Montreal.

All four agreements announced so far have options to purchase further doses if needed, officials said.

Trudeau also said the government will invest C$126 million (72.3 million pounds) over two years to build a biomanufacturing facility at the Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre in Montreal capable of producing up to 2 million doses of a vaccine per month by next year.

Last week, Canadas National Research Council said it had ended its partnership on a coronavirus vaccine with Chinas CanSino Biologics because the company lacked the authority to ship the vaccine.

Separately, Canada extended to the end of October a program to provide loans of up to C$40,000, a quarter of which is forgivable, to small businesses struggling amid the pandemic. It had been due to expire on Monday.

Novavax said it expects to finalize an advance purchase agreement to supply doses of the vaccine, beginning as early as the second quarter of next year.

Novavax has agreed to supply up to 76 million doses of its experimental vaccine, while Johnson & Johnson will supply up to 38 million doses of its vaccine candidate.

Both agreements are subject to the vaccines obtaining licenses from Health Canada.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Shares of Novavax were up 1.7% at $109.59 and Johnson & Johnson shares were little changed at $153.72 on Monday afternoon.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
By Online Desk

Former President of India Pranab Mukherjee, who was under treatment for the last 21 days following brain surgery on August 10, passed away on Monday. Scores of people across the political spectrum took to Twitter to pay tributes to the Congress stalwart.

His son and former MP Abhijit Mukherjee announced the news on Twitter.

With a Heavy Heart , this is to inform you that my father Shri #PranabMukherjee has just passed away inspite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital & prayers ,duas & prarthanas from people throughout India !

I thank all of You  Abhijit Mukherjee (@ABHIJIT_LS) August 31, 2020

President Ram Nath Kovind condoled the death of his predecessor saying his demise is the passing of an era and the nation mourns losing one of its worthiest sons.

"Sad to hear that former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee is no more. His demise is passing of an era. A colossus in public life, he served Mother India with the spirit of a sage. The nation mourns losing one of its worthiest sons. Condolences to his family, friends & all citizens," Kovind said on Twitter.

The 84-year-old veteran Congressman who played a crucial role in the functioning of the UPA governments till he was chosen the President in 2012, reflected decency in politics. Pranab Mukherjee served the country as the 13th President from 2012 to 2017.

"I join the country in paying homage to him," wrote Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

With great sadness, the nation receives the news of the unfortunate demise of our former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee.



I join the country in paying homage to him.



My deepest condolences to the bereaved family and friends. pic.twitter.com/zyouvsmb3V  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 31, 2020

In a career lasting five decades, Mukherjee held important portfolios like in Finance, Defence and External affairs.

In her condolence letter to Sharmistha Mukherjee, the daughter of the former president, Congress chief Sonia Ganhid said Mukherjee's life over the past five decades mirrored 50 years of India's history. "He brought distinction to every post he held. He established a genuine rapport with colleagues across the political spectrum, and he served our country with the utmost dedication," Gandhi said.

She further said,"Pranab Da had been such an integral and prominent part of national life, the Congress party and the central government for over five decades, it is hard to imagine how we can do without his wisdom, experience, sage advice and deep understanding of so many subjects."

Home Minister Amit Shah wrote, "Pranab Da's life will always be cherished for his impeccable service and indelible contribution to our motherland. His demise has left a huge void in Indian polity".

Pranab Da's life will always be cherished for his impeccable service and indelible contribution to our motherland. His demise has left a huge void in Indian polity. My sincerest condolences are with his family and followers on this irreparable loss. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti  Amit Shah (@AmitShah) August 31, 202

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh said the country has lost one of its greatest leaders. In his death, our country has lost one of its greatest leaders of Independent India. He and I worked very closely in the government of India and I depended on him a great deal for his wisdom, vast knowledge and experience of public affairs," Singh said in his condolence message.

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee in statement released from the state secretariat said, "It is with deep sorrow I write this. Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee has left us. An era has ended. For decades he was a father figure. From my first win as MP, to being my senior Cabinet colleague, to his becoming President while I was CM."

"So many memories. A visit to Delhi without Pranabda is unimaginable. He is a legend in all subjects from politics to economics. Will be forever grateful. Shall miss him immensely. My condolences to Abhijit & Sharmistha," she added.

Actor Riteish Deshmukh expressing his sadness, wrote, "A big loss for India. Former President of India Hon Shri Pranab Mukherjee Sir will be forever remembered for his work & contribution for the development of India".

Deeply Saddened!! A big loss for India. Former President of India Hon Shri #PranabMukherjee Sir will be forever remembered for his work & contribution for the development of India. My deepest condolences to @ABHIJIT_LS ji, the entire family & his millions of followers. https://t.co/nMnLj5g3Wt pic.twitter.com/FZVNEo8eh5  Riteish Deshmukh (@Riteishd) August 31, 2020

Nation will always remember the contributions of Pranab Ji . Heartfelt Condolences#PranabMukherjee pic.twitter.com/V0py0hisVH  Mohanlal (@Mohanlal) August 31, 2020

Rest in Peace #PranabMukherjee ji. An inspiring figure to the nation. My condolences are with his loved ones.  Rohit Sharma (@ImRo45) August 31, 2020

Expressing condolences, Israel President Reuven Rivlin described Pranab Mukherjee as true friend of Israel" as Mukherjee was the first Indian President to visit the country in 2015 and helped solidy bilateral relations between the two.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh also called the late President a 'true friend' and said that his contributions to the country's 1971 Liberation War would always be 'outstanding and unforgettable'.
Over the years, Pritzker Prizewinning architect Shigeru Ban has made a name for himself as a pioneering designer of dynamic spaces that emphasize materials like cardboard and paper tubing. With such dynamic projects as the Japanese pavilion at Expo 2000, La Seine Musicale, and the Aspen Art Museum, Bans work is often forward-thinking. With a variety of cultural spaces spanning from Germany to New Zealand to his name, the last place one might expect to find Bans work is tucked away in two small Tokyo parks. Whats more, one probably wouldnt expect those works to take the form of public bathrooms.

And yet, thats precisely the nature of Bans latest project, the Tomei Tokyo Toilet. Consisting of a series of accessibly designed bathrooms housed within four walls of bright, yet somewhat muted multicolored glass, Bans architecture is in harmony with the surrounding natural area, lighting up the park like a beautiful lantern at night.

Tokyo's Transparent Public Toilets Photo: Getty Images/Carl Court

More than simply looking pretty, the project harmonizes form and function, fitting within what Ban describes as his usual problem-solving design approach. Specifically, the design addresses what the architect sees as the two most pressing issues when it comes to engaging with public bathrooms in a space like a park: determining whether or not it is clean and currently in use.

Using what the projects website describes as the latest technology, the glass surrounding each of the separate mens, womens, and handicap-accessible stalls of the bathroom will be transparent when unoccupied, allowing anyone to assess its cleanliness without stepping inside. As soon as the door is locked, however, the glass becomes completely opaque to provide privacy, while allowing others to know the toilet is occupied.

JAPAN-LIFESTYLE-TOILET Photo: Getty Images/Philip Fong

Ban isnt the only prominent architect or designer to apply their talents to this particular purpose. Part of a broader Tokyo Toilet project spearheaded by the non-profit Nippon Foundation, Ban is one of 16 creatives participating in the initiative. In fact, Bans not even the only Pritzker Prize winner involved: Fumihiko Makis toilet in Ebisu Park also debuted recently, while a similar contribution by Tadao Ando will be realized in early September, and a Toyo Itodesigned toilet is scheduled for 2021.

With an overall project orientation towards accessibility and inclusivity, Bans design and those of his contemporaries should provide further proof that functional, forward-thinking design can still be beautifuleven when it comes to what we tend to regard as some of the least beautiful public spaces.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden condemned violence in Portland, Ore., accusing President Donald Trump of "fanning the flames of hate and division in our society" and "recklessly encouraging violence."

"We must not become a country at war with ourselves," Biden said in a statement. "But that is the America that President Trump wants us to be, the America he believes we are. . . . All of us are less safe because Donald Trump can't do the job of the American president."

His response comes after Trump denounced people demonstrating against racial injustice as "agitators and thugs" Sunday morning, calling for a federal crackdown on demonstrations in cities such as the District of Columbia and Portland, where a man died this weekend after tensions between pro-Trump and liberal groups burst into violence.

Starting shortly before 6 a.m., Trump let loose a barrage of nearly 90 tweets and retweets touting his chances for reelection, criticizing Democratic state and local officials over ongoing protests, and defending aggressive actions by his supporters in Portland, who appeared to be firing paintballs and pepper spray at onlookers from pickup trucks as they drove through city streets Saturday night.

"The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and [sic] incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing," Trump tweeted in response to one such video posted by New York Times reporter Mike Baker, who wrote that the Trump supporters "shot me too."

"The people of Portland won't put up with no safety any longer. The Mayor is a FOOL. Bring in the National Guard!" Trump wrote.

Soon after, Trump responded to a video from Saturday that appeared to show hundreds of vehicles bearing pro-Trump signs and flags driving toward downtown Portland, writing: "GREAT PATRIOTS!"

In response to a video that seemed to show protesters confronting a motorist in D.C., Trump tweeted that Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, should "Clean up D.C. or the Federal Government will do it for you. Enough!!!"

He ended his string of tweets just after 8 a.m. with a call for "LAW & ORDER!!!"

Trump's frenzied effort to discredit protesters and Democratic leaders came as he prepares to travel on Tuesday to Kenosha, Wis., where Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was left paralyzed a week ago after a police officer shot him in the back. The episode triggered a wave of protests and destruction in the city. Two people were fatally shot amid the chaos on Tuesday night, and Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Antioch, Ill., who seemingly idolized police, was arrested and charged with first-degree homicide.

Kate Bedingfield, deputy campaign manager for Joe Biden, said Sunday morning that Trump has incited violence as further protests against police brutality sweep the country.

"He has encouraged his supporters to go out, to be aggressive," she said on "Fox News Sunday." "It is better for this president if there is more anarchy, more violence, more chaos. He has at every opportunity tried to fan the flames here. And that is the reason we are living in Donald Trump's America."

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows described Trump as being "on the side of law enforcement and the rule of law."

"Most of Donald Trump's America is peaceful," Meadows said in an interview with NBC News's "Meet the Press."

"It is a Democrat-led city in Portland that we are talking about this morning that just yesterday denied help from the federal government," he added, noting that Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has declined Trump's offer to send federal law enforcement personnel to the city.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., a co-chair of Biden's presidential campaign and former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Trump has to "own this moment."

Meadows "said President Trump is on the side of law enforcement," Richmond told "Meet the Press." "Well, the question becomes: Who is on the side of justice? Who is on the side of constitutional policing? It's not about law enforcement or protesters. It's about making sure that police are held accountable when they violate people's constitutional rights, when they shoot unarmed Black people."

Acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf blamed "local and state officials not allowing law enforcement to do their job and really to bring this violent activity night after night after night to a close."

On ABC News's "This Week," he said, "All options continue to be on the table, specifically as we talk about Portland."

"The president has been very clear on this, as you know. We [are] happy to provide resources to bring this violence to an end, violence that, again, across the ideological spectrum, left or right, the violence needs to end," he said.

Asked on CBS News's "Face the Nation" whether Trump's rhetoric had raised tensions, Wolf said "absolutely not" and accused local officials of fostering "an environment of this lawlessness and chaos."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, sitting en banc, has overturned a ruling by a panel that had granted Michael Flynns petition for mandamus against Judge Emmet Sullivan. The panels decision, by a 2-1 vote, had pulled the plug on Judge Sullivans attempt to hold a thorough hearing in the Flynn case, notwithstanding the Justice Departments motion to dismiss. But by a vote of 8-2, the full Court says Sullivan can proceed.

I think this is the correct result. The mandamus petition was premature because Sullivan hasnt ruled one way or the other on the governments motion to dismiss the Flynn case. All he has done is called for briefing, including by an amicus he appointed, and a hearing to help him determine how he should rule on the motion.

Sullivan shouldnt have done this. He should simply have granted the DOJs motion. But this is not the kind of error that, under the law, is properly fixed by the extraordinary remedy of a mandamus petition. Mandamus petitions are used in extraordinary cases to fix erroneous decisions without waiting for an appeal. They have not been used to tell a judge how to rule on a matter hes considering.

The key passage from the majoritys decision is this:

Nothing in this decision forecloses the possibility of future mandamus relief should the District Courts disposition of the motion to dismiss or other order violate the separation of powers or some other clear and indisputable right. We need not and do not now pass on the issues that might be presented by such a mandamus petition; it suffices that no such petition is before us, and that the ability to seek mandamus at the appropriate time (if necessary) provides [an]other adequate means to attain the relief, [citation omitted] such that the writ may not issue now. Try as they might, neither Petitioner, nor the Government, nor the dissent has identified a single instance where any court of appeals has granted the writ to decide a trial court motion without first giving the district court an opportunity to make a decisionespecially where the objections raised on mandamus were never raised to the district court. We are aware of none.

The only dissenters were Judges Rao and Henderson  the two members of the panel who sided with Flynn. Judge Griffith, a Bush 43 nominee and, generally speaking, a conservative, concurred with the majority. He wrote:

Today we reach the unexceptional yet important conclusion that a court of appeals should stay its hand and allow the district court to finish its work rather than hear a challenge to a decision not yet made. That is a policy the federal courts have followed since the beginning of the Republic, see Judiciary Act of 1789, ch. 20,  22, 1 Stat. 73, 84; 28 U.S.C.  1291, and we are aware of no case in which a court of appeals has ordered a district judge to decide a pending motion in a particular way. Moreover, as its counsel repeatedly stated at oral argument, the district court may well grant the Governments motion to dismiss the case against General Flynn. In fact, it would be highly unusual if it did not, given the Executives constitutional prerogative to direct and control prosecutions and the district courts limited discretion under Rule 48(a), especially when the defendant supports the Governments motion. But if the court denies the motion, General Flynn has multiple avenues of relief that he can pursue. And because he does, mandamus is not appropriate in this case at this time.

I have less confidence in Judge Sullivan than Judge Griffith appears to have. And its unfortunate that Sullivan decided to proceed with what strikes me as a circus proceeding in what should have been a straight forward, ministerial matter.

I understand Sullivans frustration. If Flynns current position is correct, then he lied in Sullivans court when he entered a guilty plea and stuck to the lie even though Sullivan gave him opportunities to back off. No judge likes that.

Sullivans frustration doesnt justify the bizarre course he has chosen to take in this case. At the same time, the course Sullivan has taken thus far does not justify the granting of a writ of mandamus, for the reasons stated in the majority opinion and in Judge Griffiths concurrence.
Location Marks Curaleaf's 90th Storefront Nationwide

WAKEFIELD, Mass., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. (CSE: CURA) (OTCQX: CURLF) ("Curaleaf" or the "Company"), a leading vertically integrated cannabis operator in the United States, announced the company's first retail location in the Utah market with a new pharmacy at 3633 N. Thanksgiving Way in Lehi, marking its 90th retail location nationwide.

Curaleaf UT, LLC, was awarded one of the state's 14 licenses in the state of Utah in 2019. Lehi is known as one of the state's highest growth cities and its surrounding area is home to more than 50% of the state's total qualifying patients; Utah County has 44% of the certified 10,400 patients.

The new Lehi location is strategically located directly off the I15, the state's most highly trafficked freeway, in a high retail density area which will provide optimal patient access from anywhere in the Utah County area. Curaleaf will be the first cannabis pharmacy location in the County heading south from Salt Lake on the I15.

The Company's expansion into Utah will provide more accessibility to high-quality medical cannabis products, innovative consumption formats, and leading national brands. Curaleaf is also completing construction on its state-of-the-art processing operation in North Salt Lake City, which is scheduled to open in mid-September.

"We look forward to introducing our Select and Curaleaf formulas to the patients of Utah with our new Lehi location," said Joe Bayern, President at Curaleaf. "We anticipate that demand will quickly surpass projected numbers in this market, as cannabis use continues to gain acceptance for a variety of health and wellness needs."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, cannabis businesses have been deemed an essential service in most states, including Utah. Curaleaf remains committed to serving patients and customers with the products they rely on while implementing heightened safety and hygienic measures in all its facilities.

About Curaleaf Holdings, Inc.

Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. (CSE: CURA) (OTCQX: CURLF) ("Curaleaf") is a leading vertically integrated U.S. multi-state cannabis operator with a mission to improve lives by providing clarity around cannabis and confidence around consumption. As a high-growth cannabis company known for quality, expertise and reliability, the company and its brands, including Curaleaf and Select, provide industry-leading service, product selection and accessibility across the medical and adult-use markets. Curaleaf currently operates in 23 states with 90 dispensaries, 22 cultivation sites and over 30 processing sites, and employs over 3,000 people across the United States. Curaleaf is listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol CURA and trades on the OTCQX market under the symbol CURLF. For more information please visit www.curaleaf.com.

INVESTOR CONTACT

Curaleaf Holdings, Inc.

Dan Foley, VP, Finance and Investor Relations

[email protected]

MEDIA CONTACT

Curaleaf Holdings, Inc.

Tracy Brady, VP Corporate Communications

[email protected]

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This media advisory contains forwardlooking statements and forwardlooking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forwardlooking statements or information. Generally, forward-looking statements and information may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", " expects" or, "proposed", "is expected", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases, or by the use of words or phrases which state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, or might occur or be achieved. More particularly and without limitation, this news release contains forwardlooking statements and information concerning the retail expansion of Curaleaf in Utah. Such forward-looking statements and information reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the company with respect to the matter described in this new release. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which are based on current expectations as of the date of this release and subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is contained under "Risk Factors and Uncertainties" in the Company's latest annual information form filed September 23, 2019, which is available under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com, and in other filings that the Company has made and may make with applicable securities authorities in the future. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made only as to the date of this press release and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. We caution investors not to place considerable reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this news release.

SOURCE Curaleaf Holdings, Inc.

Related Links

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Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler joined Police Chief Chuck Lovell and Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt Sunday afternoon to call on protesters to avoid violence, even as some people online discuss plans to seek retribution for the shooting death of a man Saturday night near downtown protests.

In the hourlong press conference, the mayor, chief and district attorney urged people to keep demonstrations peaceful so the city and nation do not lose sight of the goals of criminal justice reform and policy changes to tackle systemic racism. Wheeler asked people who are thinking of traveling to Portland to seek retribution to stay away and pointed out police are still tracking down information about what happened.

The mayor, chief and district attorney did not announce any planned measures to prepare for possible violence, such as a curfew or specific police tactics, but said they plan to meet later this afternoon to discuss preparations for tonight. Lovell said the police bureau needs additional resources, yet he responded vaguely when a reporter asked if it would help to deploy the National Guard. Wheeler said he is in discussions with Gov. Kate Browns administration about getting support from the National Guard.

Lovell also offered few ideas on how police might have prevented the fight that ended in the fatal shooting. He said the bureau has limited resources and must ensure officers are safe, and since the pro-Trump caravan involved people in vehicles, many officers were also in vehicles.

We had a strong presence yesterday, Lovell said. We did have officers in vehicles, we had our traffic division. He said officers tried unsuccessfully to keep the caravan out of downtown Portland.

Near the end, the press conference took a bizarre turn as it became evident President Donald Trump was watching a live broadcast and simultaneously tweeting attacks on Wheeler.

Wheeler spent Sunday morning under attack from all sides, as the president criticized him on twitter and various left leaning groups across the Portland area called on him to resign following the fatal shooting.

Sarah Iannarone, who is running against Wheeler in the November mayoral runoff, issued a statement saying that this violence was predicted by many but preventable, although she did not say what she would have done differently to prevent it. Wheeler said during the press conference that he will not resign.

At the press conference, the mayor lashed out at Trump, who has been using clashes in Portland to slam Democratic leadership generally and argue that Americans need four more years of Trump as president in order to re-establish calm.

Its you who have created the hate and the division, Wheeler said, addressing Trump. Its you who have not found a way to say the names of black people killed by police officers, even as people in law enforcement have, and its you who claim that white supremacists are good people.

Youve tried to divide us more than any other figure in modern history and now you want me to stop the violence that you helped create, Wheeler said to Trump. What America needs is you to be stopped so we can come back together as one America. The mayor continued at length, bringing up everything from Trumps sexist comments about women to his racist attacks on Black people.

Trump apparently received the message and near the end of the press conference, a reporter asked Wheeler to respond to some of the presidents live-tweeted responses. Trump appeared to threaten to bring federal agents back into the city, saying of Wheeler, He would like to blame me and the Federal Government for going in, but he hasnt seen anything yet. We have only been there with a small group to defend our U.S. Courthouse, because he couldnt do it.

Wheeler laid into Trump for using divisive and hateful language for years, rather than uplifting Americans. To act as though hes shocked (at the shooting Saturday) is appalling to me, Wheeler said. Id appreciate that either the president support us or he stay the hell out of the way.

Trumps Democratic opponent in November, former Vice President Joe Biden, also went after the president in a statement Sunday.

I condemn this violence unequivocally, Biden said. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same. It does not matter if you find the political views of your opponents abhorrent, any loss of life is a tragedy. Today there is another family grieving in America, and Jill and I offer our deepest condolences.

READ MORE:

Man fatally shot after pro-Trump caravan was Patriot Prayer friend and supporter Jay Bishop

Progressive community leaders call for Portland mayor, police chief to resign following deadly shooting

Portland police chief, President Donald Trump and Gov. Kate Brown react to killing of man near downtown protests Saturday night

Clashes escalate in downtown Portland after Trump rally in Clackamas
Woolworths has hinted there are 'ultra rare' Ooshies to collect as shoppers speculated 'furry' Thor and Baby Yoda will be joining the 36-piece set.

Customers have been racing to get their hands on the iconic characters from Marvel, Star Wars, Disney and Pixar with every $30 spent in store or online.

The supermarket is yet to officially release the names of the 'ultra rare' Ooshies - but a 'leaked' picture on social media has emerged suggesting there's going to be 'furry' versions of Thor and The Child from Star Wars to collect.

It's understood there will only be 100 of each ultra rare Ooshies circulating around Australia.

The never-before-seen collectables were pictured alongside the four glitter versions of Elsa from Frozen, Woody from Toy Story, Captain Marvel and The Mandalorian from Star Wars.

In addition to the 36 characters, the supermarket chain confirmed on its website there's 'rare and ultra-rare' Ooshies to collect.

Woolworths is yet to officially release the names of the 'ultra rare' Ooshies - but a 'leaked' picture on social media has emerged suggesting there's going to be 'furry' versions of Thor and The Child to collect

In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, a Woolworths spokesman declined to comment on the ultra rare Ooshies, but said: 'We've partnered with our friends at Disney+ to bring some excitement and magic to our customers' shop.

'We've been pleased to see so many of them enjoying beginning their collections this week. We're always looking at new ways to make our collections unique and we'll have more to reveal in the coming weeks.'

The rare collectables could make you a fortune after some customers attempted to cash in on the rare furry Simba from the Lion King Ooshies set on eBay last year, with eBay bids fetching up to $100,000.

The supermarket confirmed at the time the rarest Ooshies character to look out for was the 'Furry Simba', with only 100 of them circulating around the country.

Customers have been racing to collect one of 36 iconic characters from Marvel, Star Wars, Disney and Pixar with every $30 spent in store or online

The new set also includes silver, gold, translucent, colour changing and glow in the dark Ooshies, which can all be kept in a limited-edition box.

The new characters to look out for include Darth Vader, Elsa, Buzz Lightyear, Thor, Ariel, Yoda, Black Panther, Moana and more.

'We know many Aussie families have had a challenging year, so we're partnering with Disney to give our customers something exciting to look forward to from their everyday shop,' Woolworths chief marketing officer Andrew Hicks said.

'Whether it's Woody, a hologram Princess Leia or a glow in the dark Yoda, we're confident the collection is something the entire family can enjoy and collect together.'

The latest set also includes silver, gold, translucent, colour changing and glow in the dark Ooshies, which can all be kept in a limited-edition box

From Wednesday, August 26, Australian shoppers can collect one of the 36 Disney+ fan favourites with every $30 spent in store or online

Unfortunately there will be a delay on the launch for customers in Victoria until lockdown restrictions ease to focus on store operations and safety of team members and customers.

'We know some customers in Victoria will be disappointed by the delayed roll out, but the safety and wellbeing of our customers, team members, and community remains our number one priority,' Mr Hicks said.

'The delay will allow our team to focus on operations and supplying customers with their everyday essentials during this challenging period.

'Once restrictions ease and we can safely roll out the program, we look forward to sharing the Disney magic with our Victorian customers.'
Yubei district in southwest Chinas Chongqing municipality has witnessed huge improvements in revitalizing villages in hilly and mountainous areas in recent years, thanks to the implementation of transformation strategies, the introduction of agricultural machinery and land consolidation campaigns, along with efforts to improve the rural living environments.

Villageers pick plums in Wuniu village. (Photo/Xinhua)

Wuniu village, in Gulu township, is one of the examples. An asphalt road flanked by traditional dwellings with white walls and black tiles runs through the village, while a clear brook flows through stretches of orchards. Its hardly imaginable that it was once an impoverished village.

Villager Duan Chengfang was seen picking plums in an orchard and loading them on a vehicle. The vehicle directly carries plums to the sorting workshop, where the plums will be classified into over 10 grades by their size and sweetness, she said, adding that the village received a large number of orders this year.

Duans family was once poor. Previously, my family planted corn and sweet potatoes on about 0.2 hectares of land, she said, explaining that her familys annual income is increasing after joining the local cooperative.

The cooperative is a result of the villages pilot implementation of three transformation strategies: transforming resources to assets, capital to equity and farmers into shareholders, which has helped villagers live a prosperous life.

Villagers contribute their land to the cooperative so that the latter can collectively use them, said Que Xingguo, Party chief of the village.

According to Que, as villagers were unwilling to do so at the outset, officials in the village took the lead in contributing their land and organizing residents to visit other successful villages. Finally, more and more villagers became shareholders of the cooperative. Que decided to plant plums after thorough consideration.

In 2017, over 33 hectares of plums in the village bore fruits. Unexpectedly, villagers didnt earn much due to technical problems and poor management.

In 2018, Wuniu attracted a company run by several competent executives. With techniques and excellent management and marketing skills, they boosted villagers confidence, Que noted.

Duan received training and became an orchard keeper. She can earn over 20,000 yuan (about $2,900), including dividends for land contribution and her salary.

This year, the villages sales revenue of plums increased to more than 2 million yuan from last years 1.8 million yuan. Now, our village plants over 20 varieties of fruits and grows vegetables under the fruit trees, Que said, adding that villagers who contributed their land can increase their annual income by more than 1,000 yuan on average.

Wuniu is not the only beneficiary of the pilot reform. Over the past three years, Yubei district has transferred over 2,173 hectares of land, generating an income of about 7.3 million yuan, with dividends of 699,200 yuan from resources and assets.

Yubei has launched land consolidation campaigns and expanded the use of agricultural machinery, with plans to to add an orchard area of more than 6,666 hectares over the next three years.

Since 2018, Yubei has also carried out programs for improving the appearance of villages and the ecological environment. It has renovated 31,000 dilapidated and old houses in rural areas, and built 13 demonstration projects of improvement of rural environment, 1,800 beautiful courtyards, and 13 demonstration villages.
Mustapha Adib talks to the media after being named Lebanon's new prime minister at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, on Aug. 31, 2020. (Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)

Newly Designated Lebanese PM Urges Immediate Reforms, IMF Deal

BEIRUTLebanons prime minister-designate Mustapha Adib called on Monday for the formation of a new government in record time and urged immediate reforms as a step towards securing an agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

He spoke after being designated premier and hours before the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron, whose pressure on Lebanons fractious leaders was crucial to forging an agreement on Adib, Beiruts ambassador to Berlin.

The opportunity for our country is small and the mission I have accepted is based on all the political forces acknowledging that, Adib said after being designated by President Michel Aoun.

Donor states want Lebanon to carry out long-delayed reforms to stamp out state corruption and waste in order to release financial support. The previous government launched talks with the IMF in May but these stalled amid divisions on the Lebanese side over the scale of losses in the financial system.

Designated Prime Minister Mustapha Adib, meets with Lebanons President Michel Aoun and Lebanese Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, on Aug. 31, 2020. (Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)

Adib said a new government must be formed in record time and reforms must be implemented immediately as an entry point to an agreement with the IMF.

Forming governments in the past has often taken months of political horse-trading.

The previous government led by Hassan Diab quit on Aug. 10 in the aftermath of a catastrophic explosion at Beirut port that killed some 190 people.

Macron, who arrives late on Monday for his second visit in less than a month, has led international efforts to push Lebanon to enact sweeping changes to address the economic crisis.

With the economy on its knees, a swathe of Beirut in tatters, and sectarian tensions rising, the former French protectorate faces the biggest threat to stability since a 197590 civil war.

By Tom Perry and Laila Bassam
Mexican military fighter jets intercepted a small plane transporting $65 million worth of cocaine near the Guatemala border in southern Mexico.

The Air Force jets were dispatched after a Dassault Falcon twin engine was detected in Mexico's air space early Friday, the Secretary of National Defense said.

The plane was escorted to a dirt field next to Palenque International Airport in Palenque, Chiapas.

Mexico's Secretary of National Defense confiscated $65 million worth of cocaine after its military fighter jets intercepted a plane in Mexican airspace on Friday

The seized drugs were separated into 1,205 bundles and packaged into 41 large bags

Soldiers from the 38th Military Zone confiscated the aircraft and discovered 1,356 kilos of cocaine inside. The drugs were separated into 1,205 bundles packed into 41 large bags.

Two male individuals, including the pilot, were apprehended after they attempted to flee. Their identities and nationalities were not disclosed.

A Secretary of National Defense spokesperson could not confirm to DailyMail.com where the narco jet had departed from.

Mexican soldiers from the 38th Military Zone confiscated a jet Friday and discovered 1,356 kilos of cocaine

Dassault Falcon twin engine was detected in Mexico's air space early Friday and forced to land at Palenque International Airport in Palenque, Chiapas

'This is the result of the intense work carried out by the personnel of the [armed forces] as well as their experience, loyalty, disposition and commitment, which shows that social trust in the [military] is the best evaluation we have of our performance, always in benefit of the people of Mexico,' the Secretary of National Defense said in a statement.

The massive overhaul comes five days after the Colombian military and police seized a submarine that was transporting 1,055 kilos of cocaine off the coast of Colombia.

The drugs, which had been purchased by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, were due to be delivered this week.
Donald Trump wanted his inauguration to resemble a North Korean military parade while Ivanka Trump wanted to host a ball with actor Leonardo DiCaprio, a new book claims.

'I want tanks and choppers. Make it look like North Korea,' the president-elect told Stephanie Winston Wolkoff of his inauguration, according to her new book 'Melania & Me.'

Wolkoff was instrumental in planning the January 2017 swearing-in ceremony, the parade and surrounding celebrations for Trump's presidency and had close contact with the Trump family about their vision for the day.

In her book, out Tuesday but a copy of which was obtained by DailyMail.com, she reveals Trump and his family had several ideas on how to celebrate Trump's presidential victory, not all of which came to fruition.

The White House has disputed much that is in the book, arguing Wolkoff has some 'imagined need for revenge.'

'Anybody who secretly tapes their self-described best friend is by definition, dishonest,' Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump's chief of staff, told DailyMail.com in a statement. 'The book is not only full of mistruths and paranoia, it it is based on some imagined need for revenge. Wolkoff builds herself up while belittling and blaming everyone she worked with, yet she still managed to be the victim. Sadly, this is a deeply insecure woman who's need to be relevant defies logic.'

Donald Trump wanted his inauguration to resemble a North Korean military parade with 'tanks and choppers,' a new book claims

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's memoir 'Melania & Me' paints an unflattering portrait of Ivanka Trump and what Wolkoff says was her desire to run the inauguration

Ivanka Trump's wanted to hold an Environmental Ball with Leonardo DiCaprio at the National Portrait Gallery, which did not happen

President Trump did not get a military parade at his inauguration on January 20, 2017

President Trump has sought to open relations between the United States and North Korea; above he and Kim Jong Un stand at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas on June 30, 2019

Trump, while in office, has sought to open relations between the United States and North Korea. He's met with leader Kim Jong Un and traveled to the demilitarized zone with him.

Meanwhile, Wolkoff was one of many working on inauguration plans along with Tom Barrack, the businessman heading the inaugural committee and its fundraising, and Mark Burnett, the producer of 'The Apprentice' brought on board to help.

Burnett had an idea to send the Trumps off to the White House in style: a ticker-tape parade in New York City and then the Trumps would travel to the top of Trump Tower and helicopter off to Washington.

That, of course, did not happen.

Nor did Ivanka Trump's wish to hold an Environmental Ball with Leonardo DiCaprio at the National Portrait Gallery. Or Don Jr.'s and Eric's desire to hold a 'Camouflage and Cufflinks' ball.

EXCERPTS FROM 'MELANIA & ME' 'In 2005, Donald seemed like a harmless ego maniac.' 'Donald, who has been called 'the King of Bling,' taught Melania how to master the perception of prestige and influence.' 'She wanted to appear assured, mysterious and strong to the outside world.' 'Melania takes extremely good care of herself, inside and out. Especially out. She rarely left her Trump Tower penthouse without an immaculate outfit. She has a glam squad at her beck and call, although she does just fine without them. She's mastered the art of Melania, always seeming perfect, model-like. She would rarely let someone see her without a full face of makeup and perfect do. Don't bother asking her for tips though. She won't share which cosmetic brands she uses.' 'Melania told me the secret of her long marriage to him is that she is completely different from his other wives. Unlike Marla Maples, Melania didn't pressure him emotionally. Unlike Ivana, Donald's first wife, who ran one of his Atlantic City casinos and sold jewelry and clothes on QVC for a decade, Melania didn't pressure Donald for things to do.' 'Melania had had enough of the West Wing's expectation that she drop everything to be available at a moment's notice for her husband. Part of her resentment about it had to do with the West Wing's glacial pace whenever she asked for anything from them.' 'The only way Melania could exert any power was by saying no.' 'A Trump is a Trump is a Trump. All along, I thought she was one of us. Bat at her core, she's one of them.' Melania's advice on marriage: 'Just let him do what he's going to do. Why get in a fight about something that won't change?' Advertisement

And Burnett also wanted to light up Washington D.C's sky with drones but that was shot down for security reasons.

Wolkoff also reveals Melania Trump originally did not want Ralph Lauren - an iconic American designer - to produce her outfit for the swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol building.

She originally wanted to wear a white suit designed by Karl Lagerfield for the event but was talked into the Ralph Lauren outfit. She eventually wore the white suit when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to the White House in February 2017 in her debut event as first lady.

The inauguration takes up several chapters in Wolkoff's 339-page book, given the controversy around her role in it. The New York Times, in February 2018, published an article revealing the inauguration cost $107 million - twice what Barack Obama's first inauguration cost - and that Wolkoff's firm received $26 million of that money.

Most of that money went to vendors Wolkoff's firm hired to produce the events.

Wolkoff argues the story was planted by her enemies in the White House and by those who didn't want to answer to the where much of the inaugural money went.

'That's the question that everyone should be asking,' she told ABC News of the $107 million raised.

She said she received $480,000 for her three months of work on the inauguration - 'a fee of less than one half of one-percent.'

Her memoir details her 15-year friendship with Melania, who she first met while she was working at Vogue magazine.

It's the first book about Melania Trump to emerge from her inner circle and Wolkoff charts a disillusionment with the first lady, writing that she thought Melania was different but realized 'A Trump is a Trump is a Trump. All along, I thought she was one of us. Bat at her core, she's one of them.'

The book also paints an unflattering portrait of Ivanka Trump, showing her as eager to run the show and claiming she was trying take over many of Melania's first lady duties.

'Ivanka was very focused on Ivanka,' she writes.

In addition to her work on the inauguration, Wolkoff served as an unpaid adviser in the East Wing, helping Melania set up that office and set up her Be Best initiative.

Even after she left the East Wing in February 2018, she and Melania spoke often. She details those conversations in the book and, at times, quotes the first lady extensively.

But Wolkoff refused to confirm or deny to ABC News recent reports that she secretly recorded conversations with Melania Trump.

'I'm not going to comment on whether there's audio or not,' Wolkoff said. 'I can back up everything that's in the book 100% ... and Donald and Melania know that.'

But New York magazine's Olivia Nuzzi confirms in her piece last week that Wolkoff has tapes of conversations she had with the first lady. Nuzzi described what she heard: 'Melania's voice was familiar, but she sounded softer, not quite as guarded and steely as she does in public. She was reassuring Wolkoff that things would be okay, that she didn't do anything. It was a bit hard to follow, but it sounded like she cared. Like she was trying to be there for a friend.'

Wolkoff claims in her book that Melania Trump originally wanted to wear the above white suit designed by Karl Lagerfield for the swearing-in ceremony but was talked into the blue Ralph Lauren outfit she wore. She eventually wore the white suit when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to the White House in February 2017 in her debut event as first lady

She also reveals why Melania wore the white pith helmet on safari in Africa in October 2018; 'I googled 'what to wear on safari,' saw the outfit and liked it,' she quotes Melania as telling her

Melania sparked a firestorm when she wore an infamous green jacket that said 'I really don't care, do u?' on its back when she toured a detention center holding children who had been separated from their parents at the border. She is said to have brushed off the backlash saying, 'I'm driving liberals crazy. You know what? They deserve it'

Wolkoff writes that Melania scoffed at Michelle Obama's time as First Lady and slammed Michelle for not visiting the border, according to the book

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff came under fire after details were revealed about the money she was paid for her role in planning Donald Trump's 2016 presidential inauguration - above she's seen with Melania Trump at a January 2017 dinner ahead of the inaugural

Wolkoff also reveals what the first lady said to her about some of her most infamous moments in her new position, such as when she sparked a firestorm in June of 2018 when she wore a jacket that said 'I really don't care, do u?' on its back when she toured a detention center holding children who had been separated from their parents at the border.

She quotes Melania as telling her: 'I'm driving liberals crazy. You know what? They deserve it.'

But she also reveals the first lady's belief the kids in the detention centers were better off in them than out of them.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's book 'Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady' will be released on September 1

'They all went crazy about the zero-tolerance policy at the border. But they don't know what's going on. The kids I met were brought in by coyotes, the bad people who are trafficking, and that's why the kids were put in shelters. They're not with their parents, and it's sad,' she said of the children detained after crossing the US-Mexico border, at times with their families.

'But the patrols told me the kids say, 'Wow, I get a bed? I will have a cabinet for my clothes?' It's more than they have in their own country where they sleep on the floor. They are taking care nicely there,' Melania added. 'Did Michelle Obama go to the border? She never did. Show me the pictures!'

She also reveals Melania Trump simply liked the white pith helmet she wore on safari in African in October 2018 and never made any connection between it and colonization of the continent by European powers.

'I googled 'what to wear on safari,' saw the outfit and liked it,' she quotes Melania as telling her. 'So I bought it. I wasn't making a comment on colonialism.'

And she said the first lady had told her: 'Pleasing anyone else is not my priority.'

Wolkoff writes that while some joked that Melania was trapped in the White House with the Trump family, she was actually a part of the problem.

'[Melania] told me in her way that she was not part of the solution, she was part of the problem. Not speaking up, and not fighting, against the problem, is being part of the problem, and I learned that the hard way.

She also revealed said she and the first lady laughed during the 2016 campaign after the infamous 'Access Hollywood' tape came out and revealed Donald Trump saying he liked to grab women 'by the p****.'

'The day that the 'Access Hollywood' tape came out she reached out to have lunch. Now, if any other human being or any other one of my friends I would have expected to see them in tears, right? She was smiling. It was as if nothing happened,' Wolkoff told ABC's 'Good Morning America' on Monday.

'I said to her, how many times have you heard the word P**** and president in the same sentence and we burst out laughing. Then I said are you upset and doesn't it get you angry and Melania is a pragmatist. Melania, if you can't control people's emotions, then why even worry about it. And that's how she lived her life and that is what she stood by every day,' she added.

In October 2016, The Washington Post revealed the existence of Trump's comments to 'Access Hollywood,' made during a 2005 interview when he and host Billy Bush were preparing to meet actress Arianne Zucker.

Trump said of being famous that it let's you do what you want with women, including 'grab 'em by the p****.' The comments shocked the public and caused many Republicans to withdraw their endorsement of Trump. Pressure was on him to drop out of the race but he stayed in - apologized for the comments - and prevailed in the election.

She also writes in her book Melania told her of Trump: 'I know who I married.'

'Don't feel sorry for me. I'm fine,' the soon-to-be first lady added.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania Trump's former friend, said she and the first lady laughed during the 2016 campaign after the infamous 'Access Hollywood' tape came out

Wolkoff told 'GMA' that she can back up all the claims in her book '100 per cent' and that 'and Donald and Melania know that'

Pressure was on Donald Trump to drop out of the 2016 race after comments were revealed in a 2005 'Access Hollywood' interview when he and host Billy Bush were preparing to meet actress Arianne Zucker

Wolkoff's memoir recounts her friendship with Melania Trump and her work with her, including on the presidential inauguration and in the East Wing.

The book also reveals the rivalry and in-fighting between Melania Trump and her step-daughter Ivanka Trump and that Melania said Ivanka Trump and family members working in the White House were a bunch of 'snakes.'

'Ivanka turned into the princess who wanted to be queen,' Wolkoff told ABC News.

The book claims Melania Trump plotted to keep Ivanka Trump out of the photos of President Trump taking the oath of office on Inauguration Day with her 'Operation Block Ivanka.'

The first lady approved seating arrangements for the inauguration platform that would keep Ivanka Trump out of the camera shot during the moment her father was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.

Wolkoff writes that: 'Ivanka texted me a photo of Barack Obama's swearing-in, his hand on the Bible, Michelle, Malia, and Sasha standing to his left. She wrote, 'FYI regarding the swearing in. It is nice to have family with him for this special moment.''

But, instead, Wolkoff and the incoming first lady launched 'Operation Block Ivanka' to keep the first daughter out of the shot.

The two women went to great lengths to thwart Ivanka.

They took advantage of Wolkoff's position on the inauguration planning committee to gain advance information on how the day would play out in order to make their scheme work.

Melania Trump plotted to block Ivanka Trump from being in photos of President Trump taking the oath of office on Inauguration Day, in what was dubbed 'Operation Block Ivanka'

A forthcoming memoir about first lady Melania Trump - seen above with President Trump on night three of the Republican National Convention - details her tense relationship with Ivanka

Wolkoff, a former Met Gala planner and personal friend of Melania's, was tapped to help produce Inauguration Day and the events surrounding it.

Using her position, she had an executive of her company, WIS Media Partners, take detailed notes on the inauguration platform at the U.S. Capitol building during one of the walk throughs that proceed such events. Walk throughs allow organizers and staff of the attendees to do a practice run of how the day will play out. It allows all the details of the day to be worked out: what time people arrive and in what order, where they will sit, and how the day will play out in precise order.

Using the detailed sketch her employee drew up of the platform on the East Front of the Capitol, where Trump was sworn in with his family and VIP guests behind him, Melania and Wolkoff were able to work out where the cameras would be located on and how the chairs for the family should be positioned to get the images they wanted.

'Using his sketch, we were able to figure out whose face would be visible when Donald and Melania sat in their seats, and then when the family stood with Chief Justice John Roberts for Donald to take the oath of office,' Wolkoff wrote. 'If Ivanka was not on the aisle, her face would be hidden while she was seated. For the standing part, we put Barron between Donald and Melania.'

Melania and Wolkoff then arranged for Donald Trump Jr., the president's oldest son, to be stand next to Melania instead of Ivanka, further keeping her out of the shot.

Wolkoff blames 'exhaustion and stress' for some of the drama but also acknowledges the pettiness of it.

'Yes, Operation Block Ivanka was petty. Melania was in on this mission. But in our minds, Ivanka shouldn't have made herself the center of attention in her father's inauguration,' she wrote.

A wide shot of the swearing-in on Inauguration Day shows Ivanka Trump positioned near the back of her siblings

Ivanka Trump can be seen behind Melania Trump on the inaugural platform at the U.S. Capitol

A rare shot of Ivanka and Melania together on Inauguration Day - this was taken at the viewing stand in front of the White House where the first family watched the inauguration parade go by

She notes their Operation Block Ivanka was a result of the first daughter trying to control the schedule for inauguration day and make sure her family - husband Jared Kushner and their three children - had prominent positions on the big day.

'It was Donald's inauguration, not Ivanka's. But no one was brave enough to tell her that. Melania was not thrilled about Ivanka's steering the schedule and would not allow it. Neither was she happy to hear that Ivanka insisted on walking in the Pennsylvania Avenue parade with her children,' she noted.

Wolkoff's book gives legitimacy to years of talk of a rivalry between Melania and Ivanka that has accumulated in an intense, competitive relationship between the two women.

The two most prominent women in President Trump's life - his 50-year-old wife and his 38-year-old eldest daughter - have little overlap in the White House complex: Ivanka Trump, who serves as an adviser to her father, has an office in the West Wing. Melania Trump works out of the East Wing on the opposite side of the building.

They have never hosted a joint initiative or event. And are rarely seen together at events.

Mary Jordan's book 'The Art of Her Deal' portrayed a tense, at times combative, relationship between the two with Melania calling Ivanka 'Princess' and Ivanka referring to her stepmother as 'portrait.'

Jordan's book also claimed Ivanka tried to have the First Lady's Office be renamed the First Family's Office, which the White House has denied.

An administration official told DailyMail.com that Wolkoff was a 'disaster' in her role in the East Wing and 'took advantage' of the first lady.

'Stephanie was a complete disaster in her temporary role at the White House. She was erratic and dishonest, and was extremely mean to everyone. She threw the First Lady's name around a lot without her knowledge, making people fear Mrs. Trump for no reason,' the administration official said.

'I think the most disturbing aspect was her extreme paranoia. I recall one time she was convinced the wrong shade of paint had been applied to an office on purpose, as a way to show disrespect to the East Wing. The truth is that she only began to claim how close the two were once President Trump took office  she took advantage of Mrs. Trump and was abusive to everyone around her,' the person said.

Wolkoff confirms that Melania refers to her stepdaughter as 'Princess' and paints an unflattering portrait of Ivanka trying to amass power and prestige at her stepmother's expense.

She offers details about Ivanka such as this: 'I received an email from her office. 'I notice that Ivanka's car is not part of the family motorcade. Is there any way to add that?' It. Never. Ended.'

Melania Trump was also reported to be annoyed Ivanka Trump wanted to walk with them in the inauguration parade

Instead, the adult children marched further back: Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Ivanka Trump and Tiffany Trump

Wolkoff's memoir traces her friendship with the first lady, going back to their days when Wolkoff worked for Vogue and the then-Melania Knauss was a struggling model dating a New York real estate mogul.

The two women evolved into a friendship that included monthly lunch dates and New York society events.

But that friendship crashed and burned, starting with Trump's election.

Wolkoff also details her side of the story about her dramatic and controversial exit from the East Wing, where she was a contract employee, in February 2018 amid questions about the money her firm had made from its work on President Trump's inauguration celebration.

Wolkoff, a Manhattan socialite, is a longtime event planner for some of the highest-profile fashion events in New York City. In addition to her work on the Met Gala - know as fashion's biggest night - she also orchestrated Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week's Lincoln Center expansion and has worked closely with legendary Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

It was during her work at Vogue that she met Melania. The then-Melania Knauss was a model dating Trump and about to be launched into society at the Met Gala. Trump proposed to Melania at the 2004 event. Then-Vogue fashion director Andre Leon Talle traveled to Paris with her to help her pick out her wedding dress.

'Before her Vogue makeover, Melania was a very pretty young woman who seemed like she was playing fancy dress-up - more a brunette Marilyn Monroe than a Jackie O. After Melania's makeover, Andre Leon Talley's achievement, she was transcendent, high fashion, editorial worthy,' Wolkoff writes in her memoir.

'And the more time I spent with Melania, the more I genuinely liked her. Being with her was like having the sister I never had before - but a really confident, perfectly coiffed, ultimate older sister. In her world, nothing was a big deal, and everything was just as it should be. Just being with her made me feel good. She had her s*** together!,' she added.

The two women became friends. In addition to her work on the inauguration, Wolkoff was one of Melania's first hires for her East Wing staff, where she had a contract position instead of being a fulltime government employee.

Wolkoff recounts how, in January 2017, it was just her and Melania's then-chief of staff Lindsay Reynolds working in the vast suite of East Wing offices when Reynolds got notice that some of Kushner's staff were coming to look at office space on their turf.

At the time of the incident, Melania Trump was still living in New York, where she was spending the first part of 2017 so Barron could finish out the school year.

Turf wars are common in the White House under every administration where the cramped, crowded office space is at a premium. The East Wing, however, is usually the purview of the first lady's office and areas under her control, such as the office that coordinates White House tours. There are other auxiliary offices there, such as the military liaison office.

But Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were looking to move their people in.

'The West Wing wasn't big enough for the Kushners. They wanted the East Wing as well,' Wolkoff writes.

'I called Melania to tell her what was going on, and she said, 'This is ridiculous! You have to do something!',' she recounted.

'I dug into my bag; pulled out my red Sharpie and yellow Post-it notes; scribbled 'conference room,' 'chief of staff,' 'deputy of advance,' etc., on them; and slapped them on the office doors. By putting our mark on each office, Jared's people couldn't very well say, 'Well, if no one's using it  we'll take it,'' Wolkoff wrote.

A person who worked on the transition team denied that Ivanka and Kushner tried to take East Wing office space, telling DailyMail.com it didn't happen.

She also describes a conspiracy to keep Melania Trump from hiring the full amount of staff a first lady needed, using the budget and staff vetting process 'like a weapon to prevent Melania from filling them.'

She argues Ivanka enlisted then-chief of staff Reince Priebus, his deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh and influential staffer Hope Hicks to help her efforts.

'Ivanka was relentless and was determined to be the First Daughter Lady and to usurp office space out from under Melania; she wanted to be the only visible female Trump on the premises, and she was actively using her influence with Katie Walsh, Reince Priebus, and Hope Hicks to thwart our efforts,' Wolkoff says.

'Ivanka wasn't playing by the rules, but she never, ever, got in trouble,' she added.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's memoir has tapes of Melania Trump speaking ill of Trumps; above Pamela Gross Finkelstein, Judith Giuliani, Melania Knauss Trump and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff attend a luncheon in New York together in 2006

David Wolkoff, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania Trump and Donald Trump at an event in New York in February 2008 - Wolkoff served as an informal, unpaid adviser to Melania in the East Wing until she left amid the controversy surrounding the inauguration

Wolkoff's memoir, 'Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady,' is the first book to come from a former member of the first lady's inner circle.

Melania Trump has been the subject of two biographies by journalist - CNN's Kate Bennett's 'Free Melania' and The Washington Post's Mary Jordan's 'The Art of Her Deal' - but Wolkoff was a longtime personal friend to the first lady.

Melania Trump dismissed Wolkoff from the East Wing with an email.

'I am sorry that the professional part of our relationship has come to an end, but I am comforted in the fact that our [friendship] far outweigh[s] politics,' the first lady wrote. 'Thank you Again! Much love.'
The chief executive of Northern Ireland's leading premature baby charity has said that high capacity rates in neonatal intensive care units (ICUs) are no cause for alarm.

Tinylife's Alison McNulty said that the situation in neonatal ICUs are constantly evolving, but that every decision taken by experts was in the mother and baby's best interests.

It comes after the Western Trust confirmed on Sunday that the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Altnagelvin Hospital had reached full capacity.

There is currently maintenance work ongoing at the hospital and with no beds available any baby requiring intensive care treatment would have to be transferred to another hospital.

Each of Northern Ireland's five health and social care trusts are part of the Northern Ireland Neonatal Network that ensures all babies receive the care they need.

Neonatal services are delivered at seven units located at Altnagelvin Hospital, South West Hospital, Craigavon Hospital, Daisy Hill Hospital, Antrim Hospital, the Ulster Hospital and the Royal Maternity Hospital.

Other health trusts in Northern Ireland are also at or close to fully capacity.

On Monday a Belfast Trust spokesperson told the Belfast Telegraph that the trust had 24 cots in their neonatal intensive care unit.

As of Monday afternoon one cot remained free, but it was earmarked for a patient in theatre meaning that effectively all cots had patients designated to them.

The trust said three to four beds would become available later on Monday with the potential to "flex up for emergency if required".

The Northern Trust also had no cots free.

"The Northern Trust has 15 Neonatal cots, of these, 11 cots are currently filled with four cots unavailable for essential maintenance work to be completed," a trust spokesperson said.

The Belfast Telegraph also contacted the South Eastern Trust and Southern Trust regarding capacity, but have yet to receive a response.

Mrs McNulty, who is a member of the NI Neonatal Network, said regardless of capacity extremely premature babies born in Northern Ireland require care at Belfast's Royal Maternity Hospital

In very rare instances mothers and babies can also be transferred to Dublin for care if Belfast is at full capacity, she explained.

"Cot availability is monitored daily by senior medical staff and it can change hourly," Mrs McNulty said.

"The main thing is the health and safety of the baby and mother. This happens quite regularly."

The Tinylife CEO said there was no need for expectant mothers to be alarmed by reports of ICUs at full capacity.

However Mrs McNulty said the charity would advocate to keep mothers and babies together and to be as close to their home as possible.

"It's a stressful and anxious time anyway and if you're closer to home you have the support of your additional family and you can incur costs by travelling," she said.

"The closer the baby is to home the better and the network is aware of that, babies are repatriated as quickly and safely as possible."

The Tinylife CEO said neonatal ICUs had prepared for extra capacity at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but found that fewer premature babies were born during the first six months of lockdown.

"They were all geared up to be ready and it didn't happen, they also had to deal with the issue of parents being unable to see their babies.

"It's all about the health and safety of the mum and the baby and it's those medical experts who make those decisions.

"I don't think there's anything at the moment to be alarmed about."
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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 20:09:25|Editor: huaxia

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Berik Alibai shows a piece of his handiwork at his workshop in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, Jan. 28, 2020. (Photo by Kalizhan Ospanov/Xinhua)



NUR-SULTAN, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Using a burner and simple tools such as tweezer and hammer, Berik Alibai turns metals and precious stones into pieces of art.

The 56-year-old man, born in a small village in the Zhambyl Region in southern Kazakhstan, has the epithet the "golden hands of Kazakhstan."

In his workshop, swords and daggers seem to have been taken from Oriental fairy tales. Rings, earrings, and bracelets made according to nomadic traditions bring visitors closer to the life of Kazakhs in ancient times.

Alibai comes from a craftsman's family and has worked as a jeweler for about 40 years. The master also took part in the restoration of jewelery relics for the country's national museum.

"My great-grandfather and grandfather were jewelers. When I was young, I always helped them with the craft work. I had dreamed of having my own workshop," Alibai told Xinhua.

"In the 1990s, the dream came true," he added.

Alibai said that Kazakh jewelry art was flourishing in the 17th and 18th centuries, and his works have drawn inspiration from ancient masters.

"Our work is piecemeal, everything is done manually, without the use of machines, computers, technical devices," he said.

"This is the only way to make an exclusive piece of jewelry," he said.

Alibai is now focused on passing on his skills to the next generation.

"Being a jeweler is not easy. A lot of young people get excited about jewelry art, but only a few can finish the apprenticeship," the master said.

"I do not refuse anyone, so there have been many boys and girls in the workshop. I teach them for free, hoping that the beauty of Kazakh arts can be inherited," he said.

Alibai has been recognized as an honored worker of Kazakhstan and has received the Honorary Order of Carl Faberge.

His works are exhibited in the National Museum of Kazakhstan as well as in private collections both in Kazakhstan and abroad. The hand-made jewelry he makes is also presented as national gifts for foreign leaders. Enditem
DALLAS: Dallas police officers found the bodies of three people in an apartment Monday after a man called an alarm company and said he had killed his wife and two children, police said.

Deputy Chief Reuben Ramirez says the man was taken into custody by officers who arrived at the scene.

Police said the three people who were killed had been shot. Police said they are believed to be family members of the man in custody.

This is a horrible scene, Ramirez said.

Police have not released the names of the victims. Police say the name of the suspect will not be released until he is officially booked into jail.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Chinese handset maker Xiaomi on Monday said it continues to ramp up its network of Mi Stores, its exclusive retail outlets in India, which contribute 15 percent to its business in the country.

Xiaomi, which entered India in 2014 and sold smartphones exclusively online, had ventured into offline retail in 2017. Apart from Mi Stores, Xiaomi also operates its own chain of more than 75 Mi Homes, 45-plus Mi Studios and over 8,000 Mi Preferred Partners (through franchise model).

"Mi Stores are present in the smallest of cities and present in all possible locations, we have stores in Kashmir, Andaman and Nicobar. A large number of them have been opened by people who have no retail experience or experience in the smartphone industry, these are people who wanted to become entrepreneurs and business owners,"Xiaomi India Managing Director Manu Jain told PTI.

He added that the company is setting up the 3,000th Mi Store in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh and noted that almost all of the Mi Stores are profitable and sustainable.

"Today, offline business contributes to almost half of our business in India and 30 percent of that comes from Mi Stores...Mi Stores is the fastest growing channel for us right now...while the number of Mi Stores has grown from 500 to 3,000, the percentage contribution to business has grown from 5 percent to about 15 percent," he said.

While Xiaomi does not disclose country-specific revenue numbers, a regulatory filing with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) showed that the company's total revenue in 2018-19 grew by 54 percent to Rs 35,426.92 crore from Rs 23,061.11 crore in FY18.

The Mi Store network -- which sells all Xiaomi products except shoes -- has been able to generate employment for over 6,000 people across India.

Jain said while overall demand for smartphones, smart TVs and laptops is high as people continue to work and study from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, even products like trimmers are seeing a huge uptake.

"Initially it was thought that there would be a lot of movement from offline to online because of the pandemic, and some movement did happen. But offline continues to do well because of the trust and comfort factor. What has happened is that while traffic has gone down, conversion (to sale) has increased," he added.

On supply chain challenges, Jain said Xiaomi -- which is the biggest smartphone player in the country with 29 per cent market share in the June 2020 quarter -- is importing some products to meet the shortage.

"Products which are India-specific continue to be made in India 100 per cent. Since the India factories are not fully ramped up, we have to import some products...We are hoping that before the festive season we can go back to 100 per cent manufacturing in India, but that will depend on how the pandemic situation plays out," he said.

He cited an example that factories get closed for sanitation for a few days in case COVID cases are detected, which impacts production.

Asked about the impact of anti-China sentiment on its business, Jain said the company has seen strong demand both online and offline.

"We are as Indian as any other company here. A lot of our product development happens in India. Some products have been designed from scratch like trimmers, water purifiers and some products see modifications. All of our manufacturing is in India, even 65 per cent of the value of tier I components are sourced locally and we are trying to move tier II components in that direction," he added.

He said various brands even in the FMCG space carry out some core functions like R&D in other parts of the world but the product deployment and innovations for specific markets is carried out by local teams.

"We have done very little of what the overall potential of India is...and that can only be done if we are building a truly local company with local leadership, product development, R&D, manufacturing, sales and marketing, shops, everything is local," he said.
The mother of three brothers who are imprisoned in Iran for participating in that countrys 2018 protests says the brothers were tortured.

Bahieh Namjoo, the mother of Navid, Vahid and Habib Afkari, sent a recorded video to BBC Persian highlighting the cases of her three sons. Navid received a double death sentence for allegedly killing a police officer during the 2018 protests. Vahid was sentenced to 54 years in prison, and Habib was sentenced to 27 years. All of the brothers have also been sentenced to 74 lashes.

In the video, Namjoo said that two years ago authorities arrested Navid and Vahid. After three months, authorities also arrested the third brother, Habib. Namjoo believes Habibs efforts to get his brothers released are what led to his arrest.

According to Namjoo, all three brothers were tortured during their imprisonment. Navids hand was broken, and Habibs hands and legs were broken. She also claims that Vahid was psychologically tortured, which led to him attempting to take his own life twice. He was hospitalized due to these attempts and had surgery on his neck. Namjoo said that her husband and son-in-law were also arrested eventually.

The family is requesting a fair trial, according to Namjoo. According to the family, no evidence was presented against them, and attempts to show cell phone records showing they were at other locations when the police officer was killed were denied by the judge.

Iranian human rights organizations in contact with Navid say that his confession was acquired through torture.

In other news, Lebanons parliament has tasked Mustapha Adib with forming a new government. Adib received 90 votes out of a possible 120 to take over and implement reforms for a country dealing with a number of economic and political issues. Given Irans influence in the country, a number of Iranian media outlets covered the issue.

Tasnim News Agency translated an article by Lebanons Al Manar, which is affiliated with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement. The article wrote about Adibs close relationship with France and attempts to improve ties between Lebanon and France. The article claimed that the French worked 10 days on the choice of Adib. The article said the silence of Shiite groups Hezbollah and Amal is their implicit confirmation of Adib. The article claimed that while Adib was ambassador to Berlin, he worked against efforts to have Hezbollah put on a terrorist list.

In addition to the well-known challenges facing Adib, the article stated that one of the challenges Adib faces is resisting American pressure to have Hezbollah be a part of the government.
Wang Yapeng(R) talks with villagers in Nanpo Village of Pingshun County, north China's Shanxi Province, Aug. 20, 2020. Wang Yapeng, 22, returned to his hometown Nanpo Village to start his business after graduation from Taiyuan Normal University this summer. With personal experience of E-commerce he gained at university and technical supports offered by local authorities, Wang took over a planting cooperative in Nanpo Village after discussing with his family. Nanpo Village is a typical agricultural village with a long history of planting millets and codonopsis pilosula, a plant used in traditional Chinese medicine. However, due to inconvenient transportation, sales have always been a big problem. "E-commerce is a good way to promote high-quality agricultural products in my hometown, and now the market for livestreaming is getting better and better," Wang Yapeng said. With a growing recognition from around, the Anda planting cooperative has provided over 120 job opportunities for local villagers including some 90 poverty-stricken households. "Through our efforts, I hope more and more fellow villagers could make a better living without working far away from home," Wang Yapeng said. (Xinhua/Yang Chenguang)
Details added: first version posted on 10:35

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug.31

Trend:

Azerbaijani community of Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh region has issued a statement on the 27th anniversary of Gubadli district's occupation by the Armenian armed forces, Trend reports on August 31 referring to the community.

"On August 31, 1993, the Gubadli district was occupied by the Armenian armed forces. As a result of the occupation, 238 residents of Gubadli were martyred, 316 people became disabled, more than 100 people went missing, the administrative center and 93 villages were destroyed and looted, over 40,000 residents of Gubadli became internally displaced persons," the statement says.

According to the statement, as a result of the occupation, 445,000 square meters of housing stock, 4 medical institutions, 6 kindergartens, 61 secondary schools, 10 houses of culture, 24 clubs, 1 local history museum, 60 libraries, 205 recreational facilities, and 12 historical monuments were destroyed.

"The policy of illegal settlement of the occupied Azerbaijani lands by Armenia, including Gubadli, increasingly intensifying in recent years, has shown that Armenia continues to hold Azerbaijani territories under occupation and strengthen its consequences, and, thus, is not interested in a peaceful solution to the conflict, the statement also reads.

The Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh region states that the only solution to the conflict is the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from all occupied Azerbaijani territories and the return of ethnic Azerbaijanis to their homelands," adds the document.

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, 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 the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
An Irish couple have been charged in connection with the alleged stabbing of a man in Australia on Saturday.

Katie Aileen Murtagh (26), from Dublin and her boyfriend Patrick Earle (23), from Kilkenny are both charged with the serious assault of Oliver Solan (30), in an apartment on Young Street in the eastern suburb of Randwick, Sydney.

Four other Irish men, believed to be involved in the alleged assault, are central to the New South Wales police inquiry.

New South Wales police believe Earle and four other men allegedly set upon Mr Solan as he lay motionless on the apartment floor, using a knife to sever part of his ear, head wounds and leaving him with a ruptured spleen at around 8.40pm.

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Officers from Eastern Beaches Police Area Command attended and found Mr Sloan suffering with stab wounds.

He was treated by paramedics and taken to St Vincents Hospital in Sydney where he has undergone surgery. The victim remains in a serious but stable condition.

According to a NSW police statement, a second man, aged 23, was found nearby in Botany Street with an arm injury and was taken to Prince of Wales Hospital for treatment.

Earle and the victim, who are known to each other  were involved in a physical altercation following an argument, before the older man was allegedly stabbed.

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The accused was taken into custody from Prince of Wales Hospital where he was treated for an injury to his arm.

A crime scene was established with detectives commencing the investigation, added the police statement.

Following inquiries, Murtagh was arrested at the apartment and taken to Maroubra Police Station, along with the younger man after he was discharged from hospital.

The couple have been refused bail by Waverley Local Court and will remain in custody until October 27.

The court was told that Earle is facing a maximum of 25 years in prison if convicted, with a standard non-parole period of seven years.

Police allege that Murtagh was aware of what would happen when she invited and let her boyfriend's backup group of friends inside their apartment.

According to Australian media reports, when Murtaghs boyfriend and the four men fled, CCTV footage allegedly shows her using her strength to drag Mr Solan's body into the hall.

Concerned neighbours called police when they found Mr Solan.

As Mr Solan was being attended to by paramedics, police scoured the area hunting for Earle, Murtagh and the other alleged assailants.

Police are still looking for at least four other men involved in the alleged attack but are believed to know their identity.

In a statement police said: Following inquiries, police have obtained images of four men who they believe might be able to assist with the investigation. Detectives believe all four men are Irish nationals.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 20:18:48|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) delivers a speech entitled "Solidarity, Cooperation, Openness and Inclusiveness, Jointly Safeguarding the Progressive Trend of Peace and Development of Mankind" at the French Institute of International Relations in Paris, France, Aug. 30, 2020. (Xinhua/Gao Jing)

Wang stressed that China's development is the result of the Chinese people's hard work, wisdom and courage, and has benefited from a peaceful and friendly global environment, as well as mutually beneficial and win-win international cooperation.

PARIS, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Socialism with Chinese characteristics, China's path for development, has brought benefits to not only China, but also the whole world, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here on Sunday.

While delivering a speech entitled "Solidarity, Cooperation, Openness and Inclusiveness, Jointly Safeguarding the Progressive Trend of Peace and Development of Mankind" at the French Institute of International Relations, Wang noted that under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Chinese people have blazed the trail for their country's development and rejuvenation amid arduous exploration through thick and thin.

Over the past more than 70 years since the People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded, especially the past 40 years since the country's reform and opening up, the Chinese people have made remarkable achievements along the path. China has accomplished leapfrog development with its comprehensive national strength growing continuously, and the Chinese people have become the true masters of their country with their livelihoods improving incessantly, Wang said.

Wang Yapeng (L) and his mother Xu Miaoling present black corns to be sold during a live video stream at Anda Planting Cooperative in Pingshun County, north China's Shanxi Province, Aug. 20, 2020. "E-commerce is a good way to promote high-quality agricultural products in my hometown, and now the market for live streaming is getting better and better," Wang said. (Xinhua/Yang Chenguang)

This year, the Chinese people, under the leadership by the CPC, have achieved the goals of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way and securing a decisive victory in poverty alleviation, which marks the first time that China eliminated absolute poverty in its history, and accomplished, 10 years in advance, the goal of eradicating poverty listed in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of the United Nations (UN), Wang added.

He stressed that China's development is the result of the Chinese people's hard work, wisdom and courage, and has benefited from a peaceful and friendly global environment, as well as mutually beneficial and win-win international cooperation. Meanwhile, China's development has not only benefited the Chinese people, but also the whole world.

China is always a constructor of world peace and constantly "injects positive energy" into the evolution of the international situation. When the PRC was first founded, it established an independent foreign policy of peace and the principle of safeguarding world peace was enshrined in its first constitution, becoming the first country in the world to make such a solemn commitment, Wang said.

He added that over the past over 70 years, China has never provoked a war or conflict, nor encroached upon the territory of other countries. Since its reform and opening up, China took the initiative to reduce its military personnel by over 4 million, and actively participated in the processes of international arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Now, China has become the second largest contributor to the UN regular and peacekeeping budget, and the largest contributor of peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, having taken part in the handling of almost all major international and regional hotspot issues, he noted.

Photo taken on March 11, 2020 shows the UN Security Council Debate on Countering Terrorism and Extremism in Africa at the UN headquarters in New York. Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, stressed the role of regional organizations in the fight against terrorism in Africa. (Xinhua/Wang Jiangang)

China has always been a defender of the international order, constantly adding stability to the global governance system, Wang noted, adding that to date, China has acceded to almost all universal intergovernmental international organizations and more than 500 international conventions, and has actively fulfilled its responsibilities and obligations and paid its membership dues in full every year.

Over the years, China has taken an active part in the reform and development of the global governance system, resolutely upheld the international system with the United Nations at its core, the international order based on international law and the multilateral trading system represented by the World Trade Organization, and firmly defended international fairness and justice, he said.

China has always been a promoter of globalization and has made important contributions to the effort to build an open world, Wang said, adding that at present, China has become one of the countries with the highest degree of openness in the world. By 2019, China's overall tariff level had dropped below 7.5 percent, which is lower than that of most countries in the world and close to the European level, and will continue to fall in the future.

China's market access has also been expanding and has become one of the economies with the greatest improvement in business environment for two consecutive years, Wang said. China is the largest trading partner of more than 130 countries and regions in the world and one of the most important markets for major international multinational enterprises. About 490 of the world's top 500 enterprises have investment projects in China, he added.

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the Belt and Road Initiative seven years ago, China has signed cooperation documents with 138 countries to jointly build the Belt and Road, Wang said. China's total trade in goods with partner countries has exceeded 7.8 trillion U.S. dollars and the direct investment has exceeded 110 billion dollars, which has greatly promoted the employment and socio-economic development of all countries, he added.

Wang also noted that in the first half of this year, China's investment in the countries jointly building the Belt and Road increased by 19.4 percent year-on-year, while China-Europe freight train services operated 5,122 trains, up 36 percent year-on-year, which has become a hope-carrying "team of iron and steel camels" and played an important role in ensuring smooth logistics and stable goods supply for China, EU and the Belt and Road countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Aerial photo taken on Aug. 21, 2020 shows a view of the International Container Terminal of Hefei Port in Hefei, east China's Anhui Province. (Xinhua/Zhou Mu)

China has always been a contributor to world development and has continuously provided strong impetus for global economic growth, Wang said, adding that since its reform and opening up, China has been one of the fastest growing countries in the world, contributing more than 30 percent to world economic growth for more than 10 consecutive years. In addition, China has contributed more than 70 percent to global poverty reduction.

During the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the international financial crisis in 2008, China's prudent policies and solid economic foundation played an important role in driving regional and world economic recovery and development, he said.

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, China has launched, over the past six months, the largest global emergency humanitarian operation since the founding of the PRC, Wang said, noting that China has so far provided emergency medical supplies to more than 150 countries and international organizations to meet their pressing needs, and has held video conferences of health experts with more than 180 countries, sharing without reservation mature diagnosis and treatment experience and prevention and control schemes. China has also dispatched 33 medical expert teams to 31 countries with urgent needs to carry out face-to-face exchanges and instructions.

Wang pointed out that all these figures and examples prove that the development path chosen by 1.4 billion Chinese people meets their aspirations and the trend of peaceful development, which is beneficial not only to China but also to the world. Since it is a correct path, "we will stick to it unswervingly," he added. 
(TNS)  Defense attorney Bob Harper has long questioned why Portage remains the only major police department in Porter County, Ind., not equipping its officers with body cameras.The police department did away with its squad car cameras in 2008, which leads the former Porter County prosecutor to believe the move was taken  at least in part  because one of its officers landed the city in a federal lawsuit. The officer was caught on a city ambulance video a year earlier allegedly roughing up a Gary woman during a drunk driving arrest.Camera footage provides police and prosecutors with strong evidence after good arrests, Harper said. Videos can also shut down false claims by those accused and builds public trust.Portage police said it had once led the way with the use of vehicle cameras, but ditched them because the early toaster-size devices were prone to mechanical and software problems.Of the citys lack of cameras, Harper said: I think its a damn shame.National debateAs debate over police agencies use of body cameras intensified this week with the Aug. 23 police shooting of a black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, The Times sampled 27 law enforcement agencies in the Region and found that more than half  18  still do not use body cameras.The Kenosha shooting of Jacob Blake, 29, touched off another violent response from protesters already stirred up nationwide over allegations of police misconduct in the cases of shooting victims like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and now Blake.It also raised questions about why departments like the Kenosha Police Department have delayed implementation of body cams despite urging by city leaders for years.Only nine agencies, including cities such as Michigan City, Hammond and Valparaiso, reported use of body cameras in Northwest Indiana, according to The Times sampling.Eleven Region agencies use neither body nor squad car cameras, the latter of which can be valuable in accurately documenting traffic stops and high-speed chases from law enforcements perspective.Police leaders in Griffith say they are researching prices and logistics for a potential body cam launch in 2021, but the cost of the technology appears quite the deterrent for many Region departments.Departments in Cedar Lake and Gary, for instance, say the hefty price for file storage is worrisome.Police in Kenosha were not wearing body cameras at the time of last weeks shooting that left Blake paralyzed from the waist down. This was the case, despite the local department and government leaders endorsing the technology three years ago as a way to increase police accountability.Cost outweighs the pros?Portage Police Chief Mike Candiano, who took over the department in February, said he and the current administration fully support the use of body/vehicle cameras.I would like to see a camera in every car and on every patrol officer as soon as possible, he said. I believe there are many benefits to the public, the officers and the department.Funding remains the obstacle, Candiano said. Not the initial purchase price, but the ongoing cost of storing the data, which starts out at $75,000 a year and does not include the cost of accessing and downloading the material.There is also the additional cost of a program to redact the identities of innocent people in the videos, and training and dedicating officers to carry out that specialized work.The use of police cameras is undeniably beneficial and provides for an even greater degree of transparency, the department said.But the department said the view from the camera lens is limited and can differ from the officers point of view.As a benefit these recordings are subject to repeated viewings, slow motion replay, and pausing in order to pick out the finest of detail within the event, the department said. However no police officer has the luxury of that when making decisions during these tense, dynamic and rapidly evolving incidents.Gary Police Chief Brian Evans said his department tested out the new technology  twice  through pilot programs but later did away with the practice, citing high costs for file storage.The chief said the cash-strapped city cant afford to equip all  or even a few  of its 160 officers with body cameras.The agency, which serves one of the most impoverished and economically struggling municipalities in Northwest Indiana, also is grappling with a rise in shootings and crime this year  and an underfunded budget.For just 25 cameras in 2018, Evans said the company quoted him for an initial equipment purchase at approximately $160,000, and it would have been another $60,000 annually to store the video.Body cameras are very important, with everything thats going on nationally, but if you have to decide between equipping your officers with body cams and maybe buying a police vehicle, thats a no-brainer, Evans said.With a police vehicle, three people can use it. You have to buy body cams in bulk, and you have to have enough for all your officers. And these companies expect multi-year contracts.Taking the plungeGriffith Police Cmdr. Keith Martin admitted the police department does not have a written policy governing how and when officers should use their squad cameras. But, he said, the use of that technology is covered during field training, so it's understood what's expected of officers.He said when the Griffith Police Department obtains body cameras, as they hope to do so in 2021, they will write a policy for both in-car cameras and the body cams."In most cases, I think the body cams are going to protect our officers, as opposed to condemning them. When we take the plunge and get them, we have full confidence in our officers," Martin said. "It holds us accountable and we feel we hire good people here."Martin said while he doesn't want to comment on the recent shooting of Blake, he did say it's worrisome to see bystander videos go viral as quickly as they do before all the facts are known."When the investigation is over, that video clip might become less important, or it may be the whole case, we don't know. But it's only one perspective," he said.Protecting officersMerrillville police Assistant Chief Kosta Nuses said the department took the plunge earlier this year, by contracting with Axon, the U.S.s largest supplier of police-worn body cameras.Nuses said they went with Axon because of the companys reputation and the touted new camera features and technology, including its trigger to start recording if gunshots are detected in the area.But the implementation of a body cam program during the COVID-19 pandemic  when police agencies have been advised to skip roll call and unnecessary, mass training classes  could not have come at a worse time, Nuses said.A lot of our guys want the cameras. I think thats a misconception, that officers dont want them. But many officers want body cameras because it protects us, Nuses said.He said body cameras can provide a third-party view when police are attempting to arrest a suspect.I dont think people are lying, but I believe theres one side of the story, and another side, and what really happened is somewhere in the middle. Some suspects, they dont think they are doing anything wrong, Nuses said.In Porter County, Sheriff Dave Reynolds said his department implemented body and vehicle cameras two years ago with overwhelming support within the ranks and has since received almost no citizen complaints involving officers.Without question, having the camera greatly assisted in the investigation, Reynolds said. Given the climate of police reform across the country, having body and car cameras in my opinion promotes what everyone wants from their law enforcement: Accountability and transparency."
Occupants of 15 houses and shops in blocks M, S and E in Greater Kailash-2, south Delhi, have been contending with a peculiar problem for the past few months. Their basements remain flooded even when there is no rain.

After having exhausted all options to rectify the problem in vain, the residents sought help from the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), whichc hecked its pipelines and found no leakage. The DJB then requested the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) to look into the issue.

An interim report from the CGWB, submitted on Monday, and another from an independent scientist have found obstructions in the groundwater flow due to several man-made structures and the construction of Delhi Metro tunnels. A team of scientists from the CGWB had conducted a field study of the area between August 19 and 28 to table the interim report.

GK-2 residents welfare association had also roped in a Ranchi-based geologist to conduct a study using remote-sensing technology. Findings of both reports are similar.

Sanjay Rana, president, GK-2 RWA, said, The reports have come and now we hope to get a solution to this problem soon. We fear that the foundation of these houses may get damaged due to the constant inundation.

The groundwater movement from South (Jahanpanah city forest) to Northwest (Savitri flyover) affected. The construction of Metro tunnels and basements (more than 4 metres deep) has obstructed groundwater flow line in the study area, the CGWB report stated.

The Metro structures had come up in early 2018. The rise in water level has gone unnoticed that year and in 2019 because till then, groundwater had not entered basements, the report said.

The report highlights that the area reported good rainfall on August 22-23 with which the water level in the area rose by an average of 0.5 metres on August 24. The water level on August 19 ranged between 2.5-6.5 metres below ground level (bgl). The maximum depth of basements facing seepage problem is 6 metres bgl, the report said.

The report by geologist Akhilesh Singh said, The construction of big commercial units and construction of Metro networks towards north and northwest side of the GK-2 area might have influenced the aquifer connectivity. Restricted flow of water towards northern side together with high recharge due to heavy rainfall from the southern side, might have caused the rise in groundwater and inundation.

It is a localised groundwater problem,  Singh told HT over phone.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), in response to HTs query, said the tunnelling work was completed in 2018. On this particular stretch, it was completed in 2016 itself. The tunnels near Savitri flyover were built 10-15 metres below the ground (equal to a 3-5 storey building) and the water table is below the tunnel. Therefore, it is not possible to obstruct the flow of the water, which is already flowing below this level, Anuj Dayal, executive director (corporate communications), DMRC, said.

However, if there are any specific complaint, the DMRC is open to addressing the same, he said.

Also, the CGWB suggested several measures to the DJB, including draining of water through the existing tubewells and fixing of the stormwater drain. A DJB spokesperson said, We have received the CGWB report. DJB will meet officials of agencies concerned and prepare an action plan to address the issue.

GK MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj, said, I discussed the report with DJB officials. DJB will chalk out a plan to implement the recommendations to fix the problem.

Manu Bhatnagar, principal director, natural heritage division, INTACH, said groundwater level rising is a good sign and a desirable natural phenomenon. In the past few years, the DJB water supply in the area has been good, which has reduced the dependency on tubewells. Also, the annual recharge during the monsoon has raised the water table towards its natural and original level.

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Thanks to Theresa Schroeder of Jacksonville, the regions healthcare trash becomes the worlds treasure.

Schroeder is the founder and president of In His Service, a not-for-profit organization that takes donations of healthcare items and basic family supplies, then distributes them through mission trips across the globe to those who need them the most. Many of the items donated to In His Service have never been used and would have been thrown away if Schroeder had not stepped in 32 years ago with another solution.

The United States is a throwaway society, Schroeder said. We take what otherwise would have ended up in the Dumpster and help to save and improve lives around the world with it.

During 2019, In His Service provided sorely needed medical and family supplies to 32 international mission trips and 78 organizations and people serving the needy in the United States. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, In His Service is on pace to assist the same amount of mission trips this year  halfway through 2020, it has supplied 18 such journeys to Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, Mozambique, Peru, Puerto Rico and Togo.

The operation that is now headquartered in an old commercial and church building at the corner of Lafayette and Pine streets started after Schroeder, a registered nurse, accompanied her late husband on a business trip to Asia and got a first-hand glimpse of the desperate healthcare needs in other parts of the world.

It was like you turned the clock back to before World War II. I was just shocked at the lack of health care, Schroeder said.

Medicine and doctors from distant larger cities were available to the villages, but both had to be paid for up front  something the orphanage where Schroeder was volunteering her services could not afford.

The first day, I saw a young man who was dying, and I knew the medication he needed, Schroeder said, but they could only give him herbal tea, and he died the next day.

In His Service started when Schroeder returned to the United States in the spring of 1988. She was determined to get life-saving and life-sustaining supplies to parts of the world that needed them and approached the administrator of Passavant Area Hospital, where she worked.

I asked if I could start saving things that are being discarded that have never been used. Once something goes into a patient room, that item cant go back to the supply room, Schroeder said. So he said yes, and I set up boxes in the utility rooms and asked all of the staff to save unused supplies.

Those supplies were originally kept in the Chapin home where the Schroeders lived at the time and the couple bought what Schroeder called her potato chip truck to deliver large quantities of the supplies to international outreach organizations. The enterprise soon became too big for their home and two Jacksonville churches offered the Schroeders space to accommodate the supply gathering and distribution operation. In His Service next moved to a single, rented location in downtown Jacksonville.

Then the property at Pine and Lafayette became available and the woman who owned the building in 1988 dedicated it to serving God, Schroeder said. Thats the same year In His Service started. We dont think it was a coincidence. We took out a 10-year bank note and had it paid for in two years.

The interior of In His Service is a massive, well-organized warehouse where donated supplies in clear containers can be quickly located and pulled to fulfill the needs of the next mission trip. The faith-based operation is part of the 110-member Technical Exchange for Christian Healthcare and each member organization can put out a call to the other members if they dont have a particular item that a mission trip needs.

The thing about taking an item out of here is, you dont bring it back. You bless the country where you are going with it, Schroeder said. I am a registered nurse and have worked in a number of areas in four different hospitals, so I know what these items being requested are and how they are used.

The 70-year-old Schroeder has gone on 28 mission trips herself, and said each trip participant fills multiple suitcases with the supplies that are needed, which totaled 4,000 pounds on one memorable trip in 2009. The suitcases themselves also become a form of aid.

They become baby beds, they become the only piece of furniture that the dirt floor hut has. Anything people can have to put their belongings in, that is a big deal, Schroeder said. They will get in a long line thinking that maybe youre going to leave two or three suitcases that day.

Schroeder said the mission trip participants see so much need in foreign countries that they experience something she calls re-entry when they return to the United States.

The hardest thing on a mission trip is coming back to this country and seeing what we take for granted, what we just throw away, Schroeder said. I call it coming back to the candy jar. As a rule, you have enough money to buy anything you want to eat and youve just come from a country where the children have orange hair and their bellies are distended because they dont have food.

In His Service is run by an all-volunteer board, each member of which has been on at least one mission trip and several have gone on multiple trips. The organization has networked over the years with hospitals in Jacksonville, Springfield, Havana, Pittsfield, Rushville and Clinton to collect unused medical supplies. They also take donations from people, physicians, drug stores and retail outlets.

In addition to medical supplies, In His Service also collects infant and childrens supplies, powdered baby formula, over the counter medicines, personal hygiene items, assistive living devices, dry drink mixes and dry food items, insect repellent, writing materials, luggage, small hand-held toys, musical instruments, school supplies, and Bibles in all languages.

We are very particular. Everything has to be clean and working, Schroeder said. It cant be our trash going to another country and becoming their trash.

We throw very little away here. In fact just this summer we have started trash pickup, Schroeder said. It had been small enough for years that we would just take the little bit of trash that we had home with us to throw away with our own trash.

Because of COVID-19 restrictions, donations are by appointment at the In His Service location.

I think every town ought to have one of these, Schroeder said.
Imagine its the year 2500, and scientists at some NASA-like space agency are waiting to hear back from the first colonists to ever travel to another planetary system. The spaceship took off 200 years earlier, and rather than put the travelers into a state of suspended animation and risk biological damage or equipment malfunction, several generations have been living and dying and reproducing on board, propagating the human line along the way. Communication with them has been minimal, given the vast distances involved: By trips end, a radio message at light speed takes more than a decade to reach Earth, and a reply then takes another 10 years. But based on future-NASAs calculations, word of the colonists landing should be coming any day now.

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Suddenly, it arrives! Its the first message from human beings to be warmed by another sun. The scientists crowd around their screens, eager for the news.

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Theres just one problem: The message is indecipherable. Its not that its corrupted; it looks like real language, and familiar phrases pop out here and there. But the message is littered with strange words in unexpected order, as well as words with odd suffixes and prefixes and phrases that dont mean anything to the scientists; the grammar, syntax, and vocabulary all seem off. Their stomachs clench as they realize the truth: The colonists very language has mutated, and we Earthlings can no longer understand what theyre saying.

Usually when we think about linguistics and space travel, its an Arrival-type scenario that requires communicating with extraterrestrials. But given the mutability of language, future space explorers could face an even more fundamental problem: Their language could shift so much on the journey out that people back on Earth sound alien to them, and vice versa. Even if we avoid the full disaster of mutual incomprehensibility, some communication issues will inevitably arise, because a spaceship is a perfect Petri dish for accelerated language change.

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For one thing, language changes when people find themselves in new social situations, because they need new ways of describing their reality. Living your entire life inside a rocket ship certainly qualifies as novel. Language also mutates quickly when a small group of speakers is isolated for an extended timeand no one in human history would be more isolated than the colonists.

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Finally, people often intentionally change their language as a mark of distinctiona way to brand themselves one of us, not one of them. (Even nowadays, if tensions arise during a space mission or habitat simulation, its rarely an issue of astronauts fighting among themselves. Rather, the astronauts tend to band together against Mission Control.) Given that theyre never coming back to Earth, space colonists would likely feel even more bound to one another and less beholden to earthly norms. Adopting new forms of language is a natural way to exhibit that.

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So, given that isolation and new social circumstances will change the colonists language, what kinds of changes might we expect?

Some will no doubt be subtle. Consider uptalk? The habit of ending every sentence with a rising pitch? Uptalk started among certain groups of Australians in the 1980s and soon went global. But while a space analogue to uptalk might strike Earthlings as strange, it wouldnt hinder communication that much. The same goes for new vocabulary that the colonists develop on the journey, perhaps from jury-rigged technologies or new interstellar features they encountered. If these words were derivatives or portmanteaus of familiar words, context clues could illuminate the meaning.

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Other changes would take more getting used to. In a recent paper titled Language Development During Interstellar Travel, linguists Andrew McKenzie and Jeffrey Punske point out that people 200 years ago commonly used constructions like The road is currently building. Today, that sounds ungrammatical and odd. Wed say The road is being built instead.

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Pronunciation tends to shift over time as well, they note. Between about 1400 and 1600, the English language underwent whats grandly called the Great Vowel Shift. Before the shift, the a in tame sounded like the a in father, and teem used to rhyme with our modern fame, among other differences. Then everything shifted, for reasons that remain unclear. Its likely that only one or two vowels shifted at first, but several others then followed suit to make each one clearly distinguishable. In total, this cleaved English into barely intelligible camps of Before and After.

The colonists will need new words to describe their radically new world. Meanwhile, words that we use all the time on Earth will likely atrophy and decay.

As a result, while we can still understand Shakespeare four centuries after he wrote, Geoffrey Chaucers English from circa 1400 looks indecipherable. In Chaucers time, spelling was less standard and people often simply transliterated pronunciations onto the page. Then the Great Vowel Shift happened, and those old spellings and pronunciations suddenly looked obscure. As McKenzie and Punske write, Even Shakespeare in 1600 could not have heard [Chaucers English] without learning a different language. Shifts like this also help explain why English spelling is so treacherous nowadays.

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Such shifts arent all cordoned off in the distant past either. Text-speak (wtf, lolz, brb) spread remarkably quickly over the past few decades but looks like gibberish to an outsider; its all but indecipherable unless someone tells you what the acronyms and abbreviations mean. As for spoken language, the Great Lakes region in North America is currently in the midst of the so-called Northern Cities Vowel Shift: The vowel in bat is shifting to sound like the vowel in bet, for instance. Meanwhile, bet is shifting to sound more like but, which itself is shifting toward bought, and so on. McKenzie and Punske also point out that many linguists  consider spoken and written French to be distinct dialects now, since what French people say in conversation doesnt always follow the rules for proper writing. If splits like those can arise within a single population in a relatively short time span, how much greater are the odds of a split among two groups of people billions of miles apart?

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Linguist Sarah Thomason has also explored the idea of language shifts among space colonists, especially in their vocabulary. (Her paper, Language Change and Cultural Continuity, appeared in the book Interstellar Travel and Multi-Generational Space Ships, which is not available online.) Again, the colonists will need new words to describe their radically new world. Meanwhile, words that we use all the time on Earth will likely atrophy and decay. As Thomason points out, what use will people in a rocket ship have for words like snow, windy, river, ocean, mountain, sunburn, summer, winter, horse, tiger  boat, truck, airplane, skyscraper, tunnel, [or] bridge? Colonists might still encounter such words in books or stories about Earth, but they will be relics at best and their resonance will likely fade.

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Extending that idea, a life of permanent, cloistered space travel will likely give rise to new metaphorsand perhaps even a new metaphysics, as new religious practices develop. The arts will no doubt morph as well: Will epic war stories or sun-dappled Vermeers really resonate with someone trapped in a tin can? New art will emerge to speak to new experiences, and all of this will change the colonists language.

Things get even messier if you consider the possibility of language blending. Right now, space travel is largely a monoglot enterprise: Russian is the official language aboard the Soyuz rockets that deliver astronauts to the International Space Station, but once they arrive, English is used in most situations. That might not be the case on a colonizing mission. For political reasons, and especially to ensure as much genetic diversity as possible, space colonists could be drawn from several different continents. In that case, the mission would likely have at least two official languages; children born on the journey would grow up speaking both.

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That split wouldnt last long, though. People who grow up speaking two different languages dont always keep them in separate compartments in their head. The languages blend and influence each other: Spanglish is a prime example. Theres nothing wrong with this, and the blends can in fact enrich both languages. But if the parent languages have markedly different grammar or syntax, and the hybrid language combines aspects of both, it will make communication with people back on Earth more difficult.

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All of this will be complicated by the fact that while the colonists are hurtling along and developing their new language, language on Earth wont stand still either. Both the colonists language and the Earthlings language will be shifting simultaneously, so a 200-year mission effectively means 400 years of language change. Similarly, consider what would happen if Earthlings decide to send several waves of colonists to a single planet, on ships spaced a decade or two apart. Each ships language will evolve separately, and the later colonists could step out onto their new home planet having no idea what the prior inhabitants are saying.

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So is there any way around these problems, or is space language doomed to deteriorate into a Babel?

McKenzie and Punske recommend training future astronauts in linguistics, to make them aware of potential shifts and help minimize the friction that arises. To be sure, linguistics will always be secondary to, say, keeping crops alive or keeping generators running. But as Thomason points out, poor communication is a waste of time at best and a real danger at worst, given how precarious survival will be in space. A second wave of colonists arriving on a new home planet could immediately do something stupid and endanger everyone there, simply because they didnt understand some subtlety about what was going on.

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But the real solution here might involve a throwback to the distant past. Inevitably, the children being raised on the spaceship will need to attend school and learn something. We could take advantage of that schooling to teach them a lingua francaa frozen form of Spanish or Chinese or English.

This frozen language would essentially function the same way that Latin did for European scholars during much of the previous millennium. No one spoke Latin organically, but many people communicated with it. We often deride the old, Gradgrindian-school systems of yesteryear, with their emphasis on rote learning and perfect Greek or Latin. It seems so stuffy and outdated in our high-tech world. But something similar could be our best hope for ensuring smooth communication on the most high-tech adventure that humankind will ever undertake.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
An Israeli delegation led by National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat, and U.S. National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien (R) and U.S. President Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner (C) board the Israeli flag carrier El Al's airliner as they fly to Abu Dhabi - SHUTTERSTOCK

An Israeli airliner made a historic first flight from Tel Aviv to the United Arab Emirates on Monday in order to emphasise the new diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The El Al Boeing 737  with the word "peace" printed in Arabic, English and Hebrew above the cockpit  flew from Tel Aviv to the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, with a joint delegation of American and Israeli diplomats aboard, including Jared Kushner , President Trumps son-in-law and senior advisor.

The Israeli passenger jet also made history by flying over Saudi Arabia, one of many countries that continues a historic boycott of Israel that followed the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

"This is the first time this has ever happened, Mr Kushner said, shortly after landing in Abu Dhabi on Monday afternoon. I would like to thank the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for making that possible."

"While this is a historic flight, we hope that it will start an even more historic journey in the Middle East and beyond," he added. This is a very hopeful time.

Last month, the UAE said it would become only the third Middle Eastern country to normalise relations with Israel, in a deal motivated by a common hostility to Iran. The move has been condemned as a betrayal by the Palestinian leadership, however.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the flight as peace for peace and sent a message to the plane while it was flying through Saudi airspace.

Israels National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat, was also aboard the flight with his American counterpart, Robert OBrien.

Mr Kushner said that this weeks visit could bring previously unthinkable economic, security ties and tourism in the region and claimed that the stage is set for other Arab countries to follow suit by normalising relations with Israel.

A separate Israeli delegation is expected to travel next month to the UAE to discuss defence issues, although the prospect of Washington selling advanced F-35 fighter jets and other weapons to the UAE has stoked concerns in Jerusalem.

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In response, Mr Kushner said that the Trump administration could be trusted to maintain Israels military edge over other regional powers, while pointing out that America already has a long defence partnership with the UAE.

Israeli officials hope the two-day trip will produce a date for a formal signing ceremony, in Washington DC, perhaps as early as September, between Mr Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

That could give President Trump a symbolic foreign policy victory ahead of his re-election bid in November, even as the Palestinian leadership opposes his and Mr Kushners so-called deal of the century proposals for Middle East peace.

Mr Kushner said that the Palestinians should not be "stuck in the past".

"They have to come to the table. Peace will be ready for them, an opportunity will be ready for them as soon as they are ready to embrace it," he added.

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee, said Mr Kushner and his team were currently "scrambling to convince as many Arab and Muslim leaders as possible" to normalise relations with Israel.

"They will be a prop at the backdrop of a meaningless spectacle for a ridiculous agreement that will not bring peace to the region," she added.
HOUSTON - (Aug 31, 2020) - Deep learning is an increasingly popular form of artificial intelligence that's routinely used in products and services that impact hundreds of millions of lives, despite the fact that no one quite understands how it works.

The Office of Naval Research has awarded a five-year, $7.5 million grant to a group of engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians and statisticians who think they can unravel the mystery. Their task: develop a theory of deep learning based on rigorous mathematical principles.

The grant to researchers from Rice University, Johns Hopkins University, Texas A&M University, the University of Maryland, the University of Wisconsin, UCLA and Carnegie Mellon University, was made through the Department of Defense's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI).

Richard Baraniuk, the Rice engineering professor who's leading the effort, has spent nearly three decades studying signal processing in general and machine learning in particular, the branch of AI to which deep learning belongs. He said there's no question deep learning works, but there are big question marks over its future.

"Deep learning has radically advanced the field of AI, and it is surprisingly effective over a wide range of problems," said Baraniuk, Rice's Victor E. Cameron Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "But virtually all of the progress has come from empirical observations, hacks and tricks. Nobody understands exactly why deep neural networks work or how."

Deep neural networks are made of artificial neurons, pieces of computer code that can learn to perform specific tasks using training examples. "Deep" networks contain millions or even billions of neurons in many layers. Remarkably, deep neural networks don't need to be explicitly programmed to make humanlike decisions. They learn by themselves, based on the information they are given during training.

Because people don't understand exactly how deep networks learn, it is impossible to say why they make the decisions they make after they are fully trained. This has raised questions about when it is appropriate to use such systems, and it makes it impossible to predict how often a trained network will make an improper decision and under what circumstances.

Baraniuk said the lack of theoretical principles is holding deep learning back, particularly in application areas like the military, where reliability and predictability are crucial.

"As these systems are deployed - in robots, driverless cars or systems that decide who should go to jail and who should get a credit card or loan - there's a huge imperative to understand how and why they work so that we can also know how and why they fail," said Baraniuk, the principal investigator on the MURI grant.

His team includes co-principal investigators Moshe Vardi of Rice, Rama Chellappa of Johns Hopkins, Ronald DeVore of Texas A&M, Thomas Goldstein of the University of Maryland, Robert Nowak of the University of Wisconsin, Stanley Osher of UCLA and Ryan Tibshirani of Carnegie Mellon.

Baraniuk said they will attack the problem from three different perspectives.

"One is mathematical," he said. "It turns out that deep networks are very easy to describe locally. If you look at what's going on in a specific neuron, it's actually easy to describe. But we don't understand how those pieces - literally millions of them - fit together into a global whole. We call that local to global understanding."

A second perspective is statistical. "What happens when the input signals, the knobs in the networks, have randomness?" Baraniuk asked. "We'd like to be able to predict how well a network will perform when we turn the knobs. That's a statistical question and will offer another perspective."

The third perspective is formal methods, or formal verification, a field that deals with the problem of verifying whether systems are functioning as intended, especially when they are so large or complex that it is impossible to check each line of code or individual component. This component of the MURI research will be led by Vardi, a leading expert in the field.

"Over the past 40 years, formal-methods researchers have developed techniques to reason about and analyze complex computing systems," Vardi said. "Deep neural networks are essentially large, complex computing systems, so we are going to analyze them using formal-methods techniques."

Baraniuk said the MURI investigators have each previously worked on pieces of the overall solution, and the grant will enable them to collaborate and drawn upon one another's work to go in new directions. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a set of rigorous principles that can take the guesswork out of designing, building, training and using deep neural networks.

"Today, it's like people have a bunch of Legos, and you just put a bunch of them together and see what works," he said. "If I ask, 'Why are you putting a yellow Lego there?' then the answer might be, 'That was the next one in the pile,' or, 'I have a hunch that yellow will be best,' or, 'We tried other colors, and we don't know why, but yellow works best.'"

Baraniuk contrasted this design approach with those you'd find in fields like signal processing or control, which are grounded on established theories.

"Instead of just putting the Legos together in semirandom ways and then testing them, there would be an established set of principles that guide people in putting together a system," he said. "If someone says, 'Hey, why are you using red bricks there?' you'd say, 'Because the ABC principle says that it makes sense,' and you could explain, precisely, why that is the case.

"Those principles not only guide the design of the system but also allow you to predict its performance before you build it."

Baraniuk said the COVID-19 pandemic hasn't slowed the project, which is already underway.

"Our plans call for an annual workshop, but we're a distributed team and the majority of our communication was to be done by remote teleconferencing," he said.

###

High-resolution IMAGES are available for download at:

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2020/06/0511_DEEPTHEORY-rbmv88-lg.jpg

CAPTION: Richard Baraniuk (left) and Moshe Vardi are members of an interdisciplinary, seven-university team that the Office of Naval Research has tapped to develop a theory of deep learning using a $7.5 million grant from the Department of Defense's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative. (Photo by Jade Boyd/Rice University)

This release can be found online at news.rice.edu.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

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 quality of life and No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance.
Union Health Minister Harsh



Vardhan on Monday said an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for is under the active consideration of the Government of India.

"I know that- in is under the active consideration of the Finance Department of the Government of India and that day will also soon come when we shall have an in also," Vardhan said.

Speaking at the virtual inauguration of a super specialty trauma block at Vijayanagara Institute of Medical Sciences in Ballari, he spoke about former Union Minister Sushma Swaraj's "instrumental role" in expanding the health infrastructure in the country as the then health minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

"The journey that started then on August 15, 2003, from one it became a journey of seven AIIMS, then in the previous government one more was added at Rae Bareli, and then we again saw a big boost to this activity from 2014 onwards under Prime Minister Modi with a journey of 22 AIIMS," he added.

Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, who was also present at the virtual event, pointed out to the union minister that he has written a letter to him to consider taking over and upgrading the ESI hospital and medical college at Kalaburagi to an AIIMS like institution.

He said Kalaburagi was a backward district and upgrading this ESI there as an AIIMS like institution, will help people of the region.

Noting that in the last six years the country has seen active development in terms of medical colleges, increase in the number of MBBS and post graduation seats, Vardhan said in the phase three expansion of medical colleges that began last year, permission has been given for creating 75 more medical colleges, with centre's help.

New medical colleges are going to be set up in Karnataka at Chikkamagaluru, Haveri, Yadgir and Chikkaballapur, he said, adding, "so many reforms are happening in the health sector, historic developments have taken place."



The union minister appreciated the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues for putting the "best foot forward" in the fight against COVID-19.

"Karnataka has done a remarkably good job.. there are many good practices which have been used to fight COVID which are worth replicating by others and I have quoted them in a number of meetings with other state health ministers also," Vardhan said.

Yediyurappa said the super specialty trauma block at Vijayanagara Institute of Medical Sciences has been developed under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana by both state and the centre in collaboration, at a cost of Rs 150 crore.

It has an intensive care and emergency units besides a capacity of 200 beds, with all the necessary advanced medical equipment.

(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.)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 21:38:37|Editor: huaxia

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TOKYO, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held separate telephone talks with U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday pertaining to his recent decision to resign, the government here said.

During his talks with Trump that lasted around 30 minutes, Abe reportedly thanked the president for his cooperation in strengthening the Japan-U.S. relationship.

The pair also agreed that both countries would continue to work together to combat the coronavirus pandemic and work towards the successful development of a vaccine and related treatments.

In a Tweet following the call, Trump wrote "Shinzo will be recognized as the greatest prime minister in the history of Japan, whose relationship with the USA is the best it has ever been. Special Man!"

Abe's call with Trump was the first to a foreign leader after his shock announcement last Friday that he would be resigning due to an an intestinal disease, ulcerative colitis, that brought his first tenure to an abrupt halt in 2007, flaring up again.

A week prior to Abe announcing his resignation, he became Japan's longest-serving prime minister in terms of consecutive days in office.

Abe also held talks with Putin, thereafter, during which the pair agreed to continue bilateral talks aimed at resolving a decades-old territorial dispute that has prevented both sides from signing a postwar peace treaty, officials here said.

Putin was quoted as saying that Abe had made solid contributions to removing obstacles between the two countries, while Abe, for his part, expressed his hope that future talks would continue to be productive.

Officials here said Putin thanked Abe in Japanese saying "arigato" while Abe thanked Putin in Russian saying "Vladimir, spasiba."

Abe will remain in office until a new leader is chosen, with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party slated to hold a leadership election on Sept. 14, party sources have said. Enditem
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made an enthusiastic pitch Monday for Republican candidates on the ballot nationally, pointing to the pre-coronavirus economy and the appointment of conservative judges while saying Joe Biden would not be able to resist Democrats leftward shift.

Appearing at a forum hosted by Kentucky Farm Bureau, McConnell said he looks out for middle America as the only one of the top four congressional leaders not from California or New York.

The Kentucky Republican, seeking a seventh term in the November election, was able to monopolize the time since his Democratic challenger, Amy McGrath, skipped the event. McGrath campaigned in western Kentucky on Monday to promote her health-care plan. The rivals have yet to have a socially distanced face-off, and their campaigns are at odds over a debate schedule.

During the Farm Bureau forum, McConnell defended the records of President Donald Trump and the GOP-led Senate as Republicans struggle to hold onto the White House and Senate.

I think weve made an important difference for the country, McConnell said. In February, we had the best economy in 50 years. Two months later we looked like the Great Depression after the coronavirus. But the things we were doing were working.

McConnell pointed to Republican successes in cutting regulations and passing a tax overhaul.

The Senate leader also stressed his role in helping reshape much of the federal judiciary. He blocked the Senate from considering President Barack Obamas nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, clearing the way for Trump to appoint conservative jurist Neil Gorsuch. In June, the Senate confirmed the 200th federal judge named by Trump.

Thats probably the most lasting impact this administration, coupled with this Senate, has had that will last into the future, McConnell said.

McConnell said the appointees share a similar characteristic -- a belief that the job of a judge is to actually follow the law and not act like a legislator.

McConnell tore into his political opponents at the event, saying the Democratic Party has become much more radical ... than you have ever seen.

As for Biden, McConnell said he likes the Democratic presidential nominee and long-time Senate colleague personally and did some deals with him during the Obama years, including an agreement that kept the country from falling off a fiscal cliff.

But McConnell said the former vice-president is not going to resist the whole thrust of the national Democratic Party.

McConnell also ripped into McGrath for skipping the Farm Bureau event.

I think the fact that my opponent is not here indicates the utter contempt the Democrats have for rural America these days, McConnell said.

McGrath campaigned elsewhere Monday to promote her health plan, which includes adding a public health insurance option as part of the Obama-era Affordable Care Act and expanding access to Medicare for people 55 and older. McGrath accused McConnell of trying to repeal the health-care law without having a viable replacement.

Our state has some of the worst health statistics, McGrath said. Yet as generation after generation of Kentuckians face these struggles, McConnell seems determined to dismantle our health care system and rip away coverage from hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians.

Sticking to one of his campaign themes, McConnell said Kentucky benefits from his role in setting the Senates agenda. McGrath would be dead last in seniority if she joined the Senate, he said.

If she were to succeed in defeating me, her first vote in the Senate would be to make Chuck Schumer from New York the majority leader of the Senate, therefore transferring the advantage Kentucky currently has to New York, he said.

McGrath, a retired Marine combat pilot, has raised prolific amounts of campaign cash in her bid to unseat the Kentucky Republican. McConnell referred to himself Monday as a lightning rod for national Democrats, saying: Every lefty in the country would love to see me lose.

During policy discussions, McConnell made no mention of retaliatory tariffs imposed by some countries in fights Trump initiated, which have diminished markets for some U.S. exports, including Kentucky bourbon and some farm products. Instead he touted his support for numerous trade deals during his Senate career and his willingness to do more, saying it would benefit agriculture.

There are a lot of people in the country who believe that its a loser, he said. The president has frequently criticized past trade deals as being inadequate. I suppose you could argue about that.

But generally speaking, a big, powerful country like us can dominate a lot of areas of trade, and no part of our economy has done it better than agriculture, McConnell added.
LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / Compare-autoinsurance.org (https://compare-autoinsurance.org) has released a new blog post that presents 10 efficient ways to get lower car insurance prices.

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Buy a safe-to-drive car . Consider a car's safety rating before buying it. Look for annual crash-test ratings and NHTSA safety rankings. A safe car is cheaper and easier to insure.

Install extra safety and anti-theft devices. Investing in a car's safety will be greatly appreciated by insurance companies. Drivers can qualify for several discounts. Furthermore, installing car recovery systems will lower the comprehensive component of the premium.

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Get only quotes every six months . It is recommended to get car insurance quotes at least once every 6 months and check the average premium costs. Being permanently aware of the average costs will help drivers decide if they stay with the same carrier upon renewal or not.

Pay-in-full. Paying for the whole coverage period will help drivers save around 10% on their insurance. Use online quotes and see how much it can be saved by paying for everything in advance.

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As many areas of Nebraska continue to battle drought conditions, Nebraska Farm Bureau has gathered information and resources to help those impacted. If you have questions about any of the information below, contact Jordan Dux (jordand@nefb.org), director of national affairs.

During drought conditions, Nebraska counties may be considered for Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) emergency haying and grazing. Counties must meet certain criteria for this program to be implemented, including all/part of a county reaching stage D2 Severe Drought on the UNL Drought Monitor or, if not in a D2 or greater status, a 40 percent loss of forage production in the county. County FSA Committees would be responsible for determining whether their county meets the 40 percent loss threshold. Producers interested in emergency haying or grazing of CRP must request FSA county office approval before starting any activities. If you believe your county should be considered for CRP emergency haying and grazing under the 40 percent forage production loss threshold, please contact your local FSA office. A map of counties approved for CRP Emergency Haying and Grazing can be found here.
The administration on Monday announced lifting of night in the city.

The decision has been taken in compliance with central government directives under 'Unlock 4', an official release said



The night was in force from 10 pm till 5 am in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Centre on August 29 had asked the state governments and Union Territory administrations that they would not impose any local lockdown outside COVID-19 containment zones without prior consultation with the central government.

The decision of lifting night was taken in a meeting, chaired by the Administrator of the Union Territory of Chandigarh, V P Singh Badnore, here.

On August 28, the administration had decided to discontinue weekend closure of markets in the city.

The administrator in the meeting directed doctors to focus on symptomatic COVID-19 patients and to take special care of their health.

Badnore also mentioned that COVID-19 positive people, who are in home isolation, should be regularly monitored.

They should be brought to hospitals in case there is deterioration or aggravation of their medical condition, he said.

(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.)
Hamas vows to end all forms of Israeli siege on Gaza

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 5:38 PM

The head of the political bureau of the Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has called for an end to more than 12 years of Israeli all-out siege on the coastal enclave, promising that it will spare no effort to achieve this goal.

In a statement released by his office on Sunday, Ismail Haniyeh said that Hamas will continue to make efforts to end all forms of blockade on the Gaza Strip.

He said "his movement and the people in Gaza are determined to confront the unjust blockade until it is lifted entirely."

"The Hamas leadership is keenly following the current situation in the Gaza Strip as well as the contacts and efforts being made by many parties to end the siege on the Strip," the statement read.

Elsewhere in the statement, the Hamas leader expressed his confidence in the mediation efforts being made by Egypt and Qatar to end the Israeli blockade on Gaza.

In late July, Hamas said that the movement had turned down a $15-billion development aid offer conditioned on disarming.

According to Haniyeh, the hefty aid offer had been made in the context of US President Donald Trump's highly provocative 'peace' plan, which would allocate billions to Gaza for development if implemented.

Trump had given Tel Aviv the green light to annex large parts of the West Bank and Jordan Valley in his self-proclaimed "deal of the century," which was unveiled in January with the aim of legitimizing Israel's occupation and re-drawing the Middle East map.

The scheme has drawn global condemnation. Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is determined to carry on with it.

Trump's plan largely gives in to Israel's demands while carving out a Palestinian state with limited control over its own security and borders, enshrining the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel's "capital."

Under the US scheme, the future Palestinian state will consist of scattered lands linked together via bridges and tunnels. The plan also denies Palestinian refugees the right of return to their homeland, among other controversial terms.

Hamas has been defending the Palestinian cause against Israel for years.

The Gaza Strip has been under an inhumane Israeli land, air and sea siege since 2007 and witnessed three wars since 2008. Israeli forces conduct regular air raids on Palestinians in Gaza under the pretext of hitting Hamas targets.

The Israeli siege has caused a decline in the standard of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

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Seriously ill Irish patients with Covid-19 are benefiting from an inexpensive steroid drug that has been around for decades and linked to improved survival from the deadly virus, a leading specialist has revealed.

Dr Brian Kinirons, consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care at Galway University Hospital, said the simple steroid Dexamethasone was now commonly administered to patients with Covid-19 who were on ventilators in intensive care.

The drug, which was first created in the 1950s, is usually given to treat ulcerative colitis, arthritis and some types of cancer.

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Dr Kinirons said trials of the drug in the UK found it could save a significant number of Covid-19 patients relying on ventilators and it was now used in Irish hospitals.

"The evidence so far is supportive of the drug. As we gather information as we go along, we are better at treating the virus," he said.

"The steroid story in the treatment of Covid-19 is very exciting and it is accessible by every hospital in the country.

"If you come in with Covid-19 and you are on oxygen therapy, you should be getting Dexamethasone."

Dr Kinirons, who is president of the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland, said the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care was low now, but the challenge was to ensure demand does not exceed capacity over the winter.

He said in the first phase of the pandemic, the age range of patients with the virus in intensive care veered from 17 years to 90 years.

Now, new infections are predominantly in younger age groups and while they face a much lower risk of complications, it would be "wrong to assume that because you are young you are protected by youth", he warned.

When the pandemic first struck earlier this year, there were only around 252 intensive care beds in public hospitals.

"That was five-six per 100,000 population, one of the lowest in Europe. One of the positive effects is the recognition that we were under-resourced in terms of critical care," he said.

There are now around 278 intensive care beds, with a further 38 for children and another 44 in private hospitals.

The demand for admission to an intensive care bed due to Covid-19 had been lower in Ireland than in other countries, he said.

One of the heartening stories was the number of patients who survived after being in intensive care despite falling seriously ill from the virus, he added.

Intensive care specialists here also benefited from learning how to manage the disease, he said.

Trials are also continuing into what benefit other existing drugs will have on the treatment of very ill patients, including the use of Remdesivir, which some studies show can shorten recovery time in those with severe disease.

Dr Kinirons is among scores of intensive care heroes, who worked tirelessly during the worst of the pandemic, and other frontline staff who will take part in a fundraising charity cycle from Galway, Limerick, Cork, Dublin and Belfast at the end of this week. They will converge at the college's headquarters in Merrion Square in Dublin and hope to raise 100,000 for various causes including Alone, Aware, ICUsteps and cancer research.

People who would like to contribute can contact the College of Anaesthetists at info@coa.ie.
(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc.s top robotics engineer, who recently defended the companys warehouse working conditions, left to join the artificial intelligence startup Scale AI Inc.

Brad Porter will serve as chief technology officer, Scale plans to announce Monday. Scale makes software to help people train autonomous driving technology and other computer vision systems. The business was valued at more than $1 billion last year, when Scales then-22-year-old co-founder raised venture capital.

Porter said he was persuaded to leave his position because he was excited about Scales technology and the opportunity to work in a startup environment. Earlier in his career, Porter worked for web browsing pioneer Netscape and Tellme Networks, a voice search and telephone applications company later acquired by Microsoft Corp. Theres this wave right now where the AI tools are good enough to do really, really powerful things, he said.

At Amazon, Porter oversaw teams working on the robots and software that power the companys warehouses, as well as initiatives like drones and autonomous delivery robots. When a senior Amazon engineer resigned this year in protest after the company fired two internal critics, Porter penned what amounted to a semi-official defense of the company on LinkedIn.

In his new role, Porter will oversee the engineering teams at Scale. Alexandr Wang, the chief executive officer, said he hopes Porter can help his company make AI tools more widely accessible. Were building the roads and pipes for people around the world to be able to use this, Wang said, so that you don't need a Ph.D. to be able to do machine learning.

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Four of the 10 local or regional authorities with the highest percentage of students passing the high school matriculation exam are Druze municipalities. In all of them, the percentage of students qualifying is greater than 90%, with Peqiin at the top of all districts in Israel, even the wealthiest, with 98.7% of students passing the exam. Hurfesh is fourth, with 98.7% qualifying.

In all, there are only about 20 municipalities of the Druze religious minority in Israel, whose students are only 2% of all Israeli students. Most of these towns are at a low socio-economic level, no different from the neighboring Muslim and Christian Arab towns, but they succeed in reaching high academic attainment. The average of Druze students qualifying for matriculation is 80%, compared to a national average of a little less than 70%.

Matriculation is not the only measure that attests to the high educational level of schools in Druze towns. Israels Druze students have accomplished higher achievements in the Meiztav exams (measuring growth and effectiveness measures for schools) given in 2019, and in most exams, their results were higher than the average among Jewish students.

In addition, in some of the exams, the average for Druze students who live in socio-economically weaker towns was similar or higher than the achievements of Jewish students from wealthier towns. For instance, in the mathematics test for fifth-graders, the Druze students marks were higher than the average marks of Jewish students (268 points compared to 253 among Jewish students and 243 among Arab students) and even 10 points higher than the marks of Jewish students from the highest economic level (258).

Seven years ago, the rate of qualification for matriculation among Druze students rose higher than those from all over the country. Five years ago, it overtook the rate of matriculation among the Jewish population. Thus, the Druze community has proven that students can succeed academically without connection to their economic status.

So what is the secret of the Druze? Hashem Hussein, director of the administration for the socio-economic development of Druze and Circassian municipalities, says the turning point was in 2005 when a study of the Brookfield Institute showed that Druze schools came second to last on all measures, ahead just of Bedouin schools. This demoralizing data led to a decision to devote most of the upcoming five-year development plans budget to education rather than to infrastructure.

Instead of more asphalt and more useless buildings, we decided to invest in human resources from an early age, said Hussein. The investment over the years came to hundreds of millions of Israeli shekels. This money was invested mostly in teacher training and hiring quality teachers, unique curricula that include partnership with academic institutions to bring high school students to learn once a week at a university, opening high-quality preschools with advanced materials and more.

Another change was that Mohana Fares was appointed to lead the Druze educational system. Fares ended the practice of appointing school principals by virtue of personal relations of family ties, replacing all educational supervisors with new and more qualified personnel.

Another change was in diverting budgets to the most problematic students. In 2005, in the entire Israeli Druze population, there was no assessment of learning differences, and many of these students dropped out of the educational system entirely. In a decade a revolution has taken place and a system to identify learning differences transfers them to special classrooms where their challenges can be addressed.

Schools with an orientation to science have received special attention; thus, the Druze High School for Science and Leadership at Yarka received big budgets to build laboratories and aids, especially in training excellent faculty. The Darca Druze High School for Science and Leadership at Yarka has boasted 100% matriculation for several consecutive years, including five points in English and math (the highest level).

Kamil Shela, the schools principal, explains that the staff meets the highest standard, and any teacher who wants to teach at the school must have a masters degree or higher, undergo an internship, and watch lessons delivered by the teacher and subject head. They must teach a sample lesson and receive feedback from the teaching staff and students. If theres a consensus that the teacher is right for the school, they're hired.

In numbers, the big investment has lowered the number of students in a class below the national average, and the average sum invested per Druze student is higher than the national average. According to the Knesset Research Institute, in 2015, 24,000 Israeli shekels ($7,000) were invested in a Druze high school student per year, compared to the national average of 19,000 Israeli shekels ($5,600). In 2016-2020, the investment in the educational system in Druze municipalities reached 225 million Israeli shekels ($67 million).

Hussein says that in the next five-year development plan there will be an investment of half a billion Israeli shekels ($148 million) only in education but with a special emphasis on the next academic stage; that is, to help in continued success at universities, in guiding students to professional careers and in help overcoming barriers like language, as well as merit scholarships.

But the new five-year plan that was supposed to be implemented at the beginning of the year didnt happen because of the political crisis in Israel and the lack of a stable government. The government decision in November allocated 200 million Israeli shekels ($59 million) to continue the education plans, but the coronavirus crisis has disrupted everything and some of the plans were stalled. Heads of Druze local authorities went on strike, and the big protest led to a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised that the five-year plan would be included in the governments budget.

But the political crisis hasnt been solved, the budget wont be submitted soon and the five-year plan has been delayed again. Heads of Druze local authorities restarted their protest, which includes strikes and blocking roads, but in the meantime, no solution has been found. This crisis could put a stop to the Druze educational success story and even turn the clock back.
The Pew Research Center recently found that voters rank violent crime as very important to their vote, just below the pandemic (62% and 59%, respectively), and much higher than issues such as race and economic inequality.

And a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll from late July showed that more than three-quarters of Americans are increasingly concerned about rising crime in U.S. cities. Nearly half say they are worried about rising crime in their communities, even as several types of violent crime are down. Murder, though, has risen dramatically, year over year.

But crime statistics are almost irrelevant when cable news coverage  once plastered with scary footage of crowded hospital wards  is now replete with images of buildings looted and cities burning. Angry mobs surround and scream at unassuming diners, and throngs of people dressed in black commandeer city blocks and threatening anyone who seeks to enter.

Those images are powerful. The anxiety they arouse is real.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 09:31:39|Editor: huaxia

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by Xinhua writers Xia Lin, Liu Yanan

NEW YORK, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- As this year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II (WWII), various sections of U.S. society are reflecting on wartime history and looking forward to future cooperation in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

There is an entire generation in the United States that has no idea about the sacrifice of the Chinese people during the Japanese aggression, said Gary Lewi, a board member and spokesman of the Museum of American Armor on Long Island, New York State.

There is a regrettable unawareness of WWII, its strategic implications and how it defined China, Europe and the United States, Lewi said.

"So we have a story to tell. You have a story that you need to tell, because that history joins our two countries together, and that's something that has a tendency to be productive," he added.

As for the lessons learnt from WWII, Lewi said it's widely acknowledged that conflicts of any kind, given the power of weapons, would be the end of civilization.

Put into operation in 2014, the museum's mission is to make sure that people who come here can feel the history and how it continues to define the 21st century.

Despite the regrettable unawareness, the intense cooperation and camaraderie forged between Chinese and American military leaders during war times were well-documented by numerous historians.

The late historian John Yee, a former member of the legendary Flying Tigers in WWII, represented that connection as a lieutenant serving in the U.S. army.

Yee, a Chinese-American and Denver history professor, passed away last March. He was vocal in his demands for Japan to officially apologize for atrocities committed against Chinese civilians during the war, and even penned a personal letter to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2015.

"He turned history from a black-and-white experience into color," said Mike Coffman, a U.S. Marine and Army veteran who served five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

As Coffman's former high school history teacher, Yee had influenced thousands of lives -- not just as a war hero, but as an educator, said Coffman, adding that "I just hope my grandchildren find a teacher who inspires them to learn as much as Mr. Yee did for me."

As various events are held around the WWII anniversary each year to remember history, experts look ahead to a future with more international cooperation.

"My own view is one of pacifism. I am deeply opposed, except for extreme defensive necessity, to conflicts between nations that are resolved by bombs and military battles," Patrick T. Conley, president of the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame and the Heritage Harbor Foundation, told Xinhua in an email.

"I much prefer that disagreements be addressed by economic means," Conley added.

A similar viewpoint was expressed by Paul A. Tenkotte, a professor of history at Northern Kentucky University, who said that international negotiations are never easy, but certainly easier and less costly than war.

"Clearly, the Allied effort (in WWII) was much more than any singular nation had anticipated, and still to this day seems almost unbelievable in the depth and scope of its sacrifices," he added.

"History can provide lessons for today. I believe firmly that together we are truly better. Building bridges that connect people is always a better strategy than digging moats or building great walls," said Tom Watkins, an advisor to the Michigan-China Innovation Center.

"I wish the world and our respective leaders could come together today, like they did 75 years ago, to defeat a common enemy, the COVID-19 virus," Watkins said.

"Now is not time to debate past transgressions, point fingers, cast blame or argue the ideological fine points of governance structures. It is time for us to come together to fight the public health menace and the destructive tsunami it has unleashed," he added. Enditem

(Xinhua reporters Xing Yue and Wei Ying in New York, Gao Shan in Los Angeles and Xu Jing in Chicago also contributed to the story.)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-29 01:31:04|Editor: huaxia

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Passengers arrive at Budapest Airport on the last day before border controls reintroduced in Budapest, Hungary on Aug. 31, 2020. The Hungarian government has decided to reintroduce the border controls that were in force during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Gergely Gulyas, head of the Prime Minister's Office, told the press on Friday. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua)

BUDAPEST, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- The Hungarian government has decided to reintroduce the border controls that were in force during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Gergely Gulyas, head of the Prime Minister's Office, told the press on Friday.

"From September 1, foreign citizens will be barred from entering Hungary, with a few exceptions. Hungarian citizens returning from abroad must be quarantined for 14 days or have to present two negative (COVID-19) tests taken two days apart," Gulyas said.

The measures are designed to ward off infections from abroad, Gulyas said, adding that the government would also tighten the diplomatic exceptions. The detailed rules will be decided by the Operational Staff meeting on Saturday.

The protection measures are expected to remain in force for at least one month.

According to official figures, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Hungary stood at 5,511 on Friday, with 3,759 recoveries and 614 fatalities. Enditem
Michael Harrington transitions to retirement

Brandon Willis, President of the Electronics Division of Meridian Adhesives Group

Brandon Willis, President of the Electronics Division of Meridian Adhesives Group

Billerica, Massachusetts, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Meridian Adhesives Group, a leading manufacturer and custom formulator of high-value adhesives technologies, recently announced the appointment of Brandon Willis to President of the companys Electronics Division.

Meridians Electronics Division currently encompasses three companies - Epoxy Technology, Inc., located in Billerica, Massachusetts; Epoxies, Etc., located in Cranston, Rhode Island; and Epoxy Technology Europe, located in Marlborough, United Kingdom. Willis will work with Meridian leadership to advance the divisions technological reputation and further its focus of being a premier solution provider to customers.

Willis comes to Meridian from his 10-year tenure with Uniseal, Inc., a global sealants and adhesives supplier owned by LG Chem. Willis most recently served as President and CEO of Uniseal, Inc., while simultaneously holding the title of Global Sr. Leader of Adhesives Business for LG Chem. Prior to this position, Willis worked as Director of Marketing and New Business Development for Uniseal, Inc. He also spent 17 years in the high performance coatings industry.

I am incredibly excited to be joining the Meridian team, said Willis. I look forward to leveraging my experience with the extensive skills and history of Epoxies, Etc. and Epoxy Technology to continue building a global business that delivers value to our customers as well as our supply chain partners.

Michael Harrington, current president of Epoxies, Etc. and the divisions commercial leader, will transition to retirement as Willis moves into the new position.

After 30 years of leading Epoxies, Etc., it is time to step aside and let new leadership take over, said Harrington. I have been fortunate to have developed friendships with customers, suppliers and employees over the years. This is what I will miss most about retiring from Epoxies, Etc. Brandon Willis is the right person to lead Epoxies, Etc. and the entire Meridian Adhesives Electronics Division. Brandon understands the importance of excellent customer service and driving creative technical solutions for challenging applications.

Story continues

Harrington leaves a notable legacy at Epoxies, Etc. Having founded the company in 1987, he has been instrumental in its significant growth over the last 30 years and the development of the expert team that will continue to drive innovation and technological advancement.

I am extremely pleased to have Brandon joining our team, said Daniel Pelton, CEO of Meridian Adhesives Group. Brandon brings the right experience and leadership to take our electronics division to the next level of service for our clients and partners. Michael Harrington has been a solid operating consultant to myself and the broader Meridian Group, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

About Meridian Adhesives Group

Meridian Adhesives Group is a leading manufacturer of high-value adhesives and sealants technologies. Its portfolio of solutions includes high-performance specialty epoxy, polyurethane, hot melt and hybrid adhesives for the electronics, flooring, infrastructure and packaging markets. The company has operations in Dalton, GA; Fontana, CA; Billerica, MA; Pompano Beach, FL; Cranston, RI; Columbus, OH; Marlborough, UK; Augsburg, Germany; and Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information, visit www.meridianadhesives.com.

Attachment

CONTACT: Deanna Disbro Meridian Adhesives Group 706.260.0718 ddisbro@meridianadhesives.com




A DUP MLA has questioned a police decision to close Portstewart roads in an attempt to tackle 'boy racers'.

Trevor Clarke, who is a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, was in the area on Sunday evening and said the decision would have spoiled the bank holiday weekend for visitors and affected local businesses.

"Like hundreds of other people I was there to enjoy the last bank holiday weekend of the summer," the South Antrim MLA said.

"People were queued a mile outside Portstewart because the police had stopped letting people go through, and the back streets of the town were mayhem as a result."

Mr Clarke said that he understood people's concerns around 'boy racers', but said if they were the problem police should deal with them and not punish others.

The DUP MLA said that he saw eight police officers operating a checkpoint to turn traffic.

"Would they not be much better putting those police into the town and actually dealing with those who are causing offences?" Mr Clarke asked.

"I've been going there since I was a 'boy racer' myself, everybody goes there on the weekend, particularly during the summer and bank holidays and I think they could have policed it much better than they did.

"I know some residents were happy with the police's decision but I don't see how that's conducive to encouraging people to return to the area."

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Mr Clarke said he spoke with police at the scene and was told their instructions were to close the area because of young men driving dangerously.

The DUP MLA said that if people had been allowed to come into the area and find a place to park they may then have spent money in local businesses.

"You can't win on this one, people complain about the pollution, but it hasn't gone away, it has just moved elsewhere," he said.

"We then went on to Portrush and there was rubbish everywhere, all they've done is move the problem on somewhere else and spoiled a good night for some people to go out and enjoy the promenade."

Bizarre @PoliceServiceNI tactics in #Portstewart. Closed the whole town to cars this eve during the bank holiday weekend causing traffic mayhem in residential backstreets & leaving struggling businesses empty for no apparent reason. @BBCNewsNI @UTVNews pic.twitter.com/RPLiQUR45t  Trevor Clarke MLA (@trevorclarkeMLA) August 30, 2020

Mr Clarke said he noted businesses in the area not adhering to the Covid-19 guidelines.

"I drove past a bar which was jam-packed, with no food being served and there were no police in it," he said.

"I thought it would have been more prudent for them to deal with that where they are actually in breach of the coronavirus guidelines as opposed to stopping people come through the town.

"We were all young once, there are a lot worse places they could be."

The PSNI has been approached for comment.
31.08.2020 LISTEN

Branch Pastor of Souls For Christ Ministry International at Carolina in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa, Apostle David Kay Worlai Coffie has urged Christians to obey the word of God.

He said, disobeying the word of God is a sign of death but obedient to Gods word manifests His glory in time and in eternity.

Apostle David Kay said this when delivering a sermon on Sunday, 30th August, 2020.

He indicated that God will give every generation that is going to unfold their destiny a word to fellow.

It is not about the victory that matters to God, but how well we will obey His word. The victory is of the Lord and He will fight for you, but we must be ready to pay the price for what He is asking us to do he stated.

Adding that pandemic, pestilence, famine, drought will overtake the land when we disobey the word of God.

The author of Alone With God cautioned Christians to be sober since Christians are not living in normal days.
"Grocery workers are an essential part of Kendall-Jackson's success. They form the backbone of our business and are a direct extension of the Kendall-Jackson family," said Barbara Banke, Chairman and Proprietor of Jackson Family Wines, the family-owned wine company that founded Kendall-Jackson in 1982. "They have been frontline heroes during the pandemic, risking their health and safety for all Americans. By launching the Grocery Worker's Relief Fund, we can provide immediate relief to the workers who have supported us for nearly 40 years and need it now, more than ever."

In the United States, the grocery industry employs more than 2.7 million people. According to the recent Washington Post article about the current state of employees in the grocery industry, workers are feeling "overworked and overwhelmed" and are facing unique challenges. In an effort to show appreciation to grocery workers for their contributions during this crisis, Kendall-Jackson searched for a national relief fund that directly benefited the workers, but one did not exist. As a leading producer in the wine industry, Kendall-Jackson embarked on an opportunity to partner with United Way Worldwide to establish an emergency fund. "This is one small gesture in a time of monumental need, but we hope it inspires others to join the cause," adds Banke.

"United Way is honored to partner with Kendall-Jackson to recognize and support our grocery workers everywhere. While many people were at home during quarantine, grocery workers continued to put themselves in harm's way every day to stock the shelves, and make and keep stores safe for their customers," said Suzanne McCormick, U.S. President of United Way Worldwide. "Grocery workers are the unsung heroes of the pandemic and United Way is thrilled to join Kendall-Jackson to give our brave grocery workers an opportunity for relief as they risk their health and continue to go the extra mile during the COVID-19 crisis."

The Grocery Worker's Relief Fund will raise funds to alleviate the challenges these essential workers are facing. The fund will offer emergency support, mainly in the form of cash cards, to provide urgently needed relief, and will connect workers with holistic local help through the 211 network, a national social services helpline. The Grocery Worker's Relief Fund is available to any individual currently employed by a grocery store, including retailers with grocery departments, to apply for eligibility for financial assistance. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and funds will be awarded as resources allow. Help and support doesn't end there -- grocery workers and their families may explore additional resources and options available through the United Way 211 network as well. Workers can apply for the funds beginning October 1, 2020, by visiting www.unitedway.org/groceryrelief. To donate to the Grocery Worker's Relief Fund, visit www.unitedway.org/groceryrelief.

About Kendall-Jackson

Kendall-Jackson is one of America's most beloved family-owned and operated wineries. The winery's flagship wine, the Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay, has been America's favorite Chardonnay for over 27 years. Founded by entrepreneur and visionary Jess Jackson in 1982, and now led by his wife Barbara Banke and the Jackson family, Kendall-Jackson is based in Sonoma County and offers a range of acclaimed wines grown on the family's estate vineyards along the coastal ridges of California. Kendall-Jackson is the benchmark for sustainable wine endeavors, setting the precedent for advancement in solar, water, and vineyard practices. Wine Enthusiast Magazine recently named Kendall-Jackson the 2017 American Winery of the Year, one of the wine industry's most distinguished accolades. Recognized as a leader in the industry for more than three decades, Kendall-Jackson has built a reputation centered around consistent, high-quality wines that are available nationwide in national grocery stores, boutique wine retailers, and restaurants. Learn more online at www.kj.com, and follow Kendall-Jackson on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

About United Way

United Way fights for the health, education and financial stability of every person in every community. Supported by 2.9 million volunteers, 8.1 million donors worldwide and $4.8 billion raised, United Way is the world's largest privately funded nonprofit. We're engaged in nearly 1,800 communities across more than 40 countries and territories worldwide to create sustainable solutions to the challenges facing our communities. United Way partners include global, national and local businesses, nonprofits, government, civic and faith-based organizations, along with educators, labor leaders, health providers, senior citizens, students and more. For more information about United Way, please visit UnitedWay.org. Follow us on Twitter: @UnitedWay and #LiveUnited.

About 211

211 is a vital service leveraged by millions of people across North America, funded and run by United Way. Every day, clients contact 211 to access free and confidential crisis and emergency counseling, disaster assistance, food, health care and insurance assistance, stable housing and utilities payment assistance, employment services, veteran services and childcare and family services. Last year, 211 responded to over 12 million requests for assistance across the United States. The service is available to over 95% of the U.S. population, including in Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, and is also available in most of Canada. Individuals in need or who are looking for information for someone else can call 211 from a cell phone or landline or visit 211.org for more contact options.

MEDIA CONTACT: Kendall-Jackson, Marlow Bruce, Director of Public Relations, (415) 806-3009, [email protected]

MEDIA CONTACT: United Way Worldwide, Southerlyn Reisig, Director of Public Relations, (202) 664-2314, [email protected]

SOURCE Kendall-Jackson
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday demanded that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled municipal corporations (MCDs) to either pay all pending salaries to their employees within a week or resign.

Addressing a press conference, senior AAP leader and the partys MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak said the total budget of the three MCDs accounts for around Rs 18,000 crore and still they have not been able to pay salaries of employees due to rampant corruption.

The BJP-ruled MCDs have around Rs 18,000 crore (in total) budget. If the BJP would have spent just 20% of this budget properly, the situation would have been much better. If you look at the houses of BJP councillors, you will understand that this money goes into their pockets. As a result, the innocent and hardworking sanitation workers, teachers, doctors, nurses and several other employees do not get their salaries on time, Pathak said.

The BJP refuted the allegations and said the AAP-led Delhi government is making baseless allegations to garner the support of the people ahead of the municipal elections, scheduled for 2022. It was held last on April 23, 2017, and the BJP had managed to win a majority in all three civic bodies.

The three MCDs may be having a combined budget of around Rs 18,000 crore, but they are facing extreme financial deficit as the Kejriwal government did not grant them the arrears of funds accumulated over the past five years, as per the fourth Delhi Finance Commission recommendations. The AAP is aware that the MCDs have salary bills of around 10,000 crore per annum, apart from huge expenditure on hospitals, schools, sanitation, health centres, midday meals, maintenance of horticulture, roads, community services etc, Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said.

To this, AAPs Pathak said, If the people of Delhi will give the responsibility of running the MCDs to the AAP, then the party will run the civic bodies on the same budget, but in a much better way. We will give salaries to all employees and make Delhi a cleanliness model.
Taapsee Pannu and Vijay Sethupathi will share screen space for the first time in a Tamil comedy directed by Deepak Sundarrajan.

Taapsee Pannu will be teaming up with actor Vijay Sethupathi for the first time for an upcoming yet-untitled Tamil comedy. The project, which will be directed by debutant Deepak Sundarrajan, will begin shooting in September and will be wrapped up in just 28 days, reports Hindustaan Times.

In an interview to Pinkvilla, Pannu opened up about the project and said, Yes, its a Tamil comedy that Im doing with them along with Vijay. I had said yes to the script around a year ago and the director wanted me only to do this film. We were figuring out dates for this and as soon as things started opening up a bit, we quickly squeezed this one, she said.

Hindustaan Times further adds that the film will be shot in and around Jaipur. Pannu added that the film will be shot in a controlled environment and will be wrapped up in 28 days.

Meanwhile, Pannu has a string of Hindi films in her pipeline. She will feature in Vinil Mathew's mystery thriller, Haseen Dillruba. Produced by Aanand L Rai and Himanshu Sharma under the banner Colour Yellow Production, the film also stars Vikrant Massey and Harshvardhan Rane in important roles.

She will commence filming her upcoming film Rashmi Rocket in November. The film narrates the story of a young girl, blessed with a gift of speed, and her village fondly calls her "Rocket". Pannu also has films Loop Lapeta, the Mithali Raj biopic, in the pipeline.

(Also read on Firstpost: The Taapsee Pannu interview: 'When you start from scratch, without a famous surname, you become fearless')
An overcrowded pool party 'like Mardi Gras' where about 200 guests gathered, failed to wear masks and ignored social distancing was shut down near the University of South Carolina on Saturday.

Columbia Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins said he drove by the pool at The Apartments at Palmetto Compress in Columbia following a complaint to the city about people violating the citys mask ordinance.

He arrived just before 6pm and found hundreds of students partying, drinking and swimming close to one another and the crowd appeared to be over capacity.

'It was almost like Mardi Gras. I saw a large crowd in the pool, in the area on the side of the pool, and top of the pool house,' Chief Jenkins said to The State.

The Columbia Fire Department shut down a party where 200 people were gathered at the pool at The Apartments at Palmetto Compress in Columbia near the University of South Carolina campus on Saturday

People were seen drinking, not wearing masks and ignoring social distancing. The apartment complex houses many University of South Carolina students

'It was almost like Mardi Gras... Nobody was practicing social distancing. Nobody was wearing a mask. But there was lots of drinking going on,' Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins said

The apartment is home to many University of South Carolina students and is near the campus thats already struggling with an outbreak of COVID-19 among students since starting fall semester on August 20.

As of Thursday 620 people tested positive for the virus and 553 cases remain active on campus, according to USC. Outbreaks occurred in six sorority houses in the Universitys Greek village, forcing students to quarantine after people tested positive for the virus in each house.

Jenkins spoke with a security guard and a manager at the Palmetto Compress apartments and they decided to shut down the pool until next week. Jenkins said hed recommend keeping the pool shut for the foreseeable future.

The Columbia Fire Marshal is expected to do a capacity check at the apartments on Monday.

'If nothing was going on (like the COVID-19 pandemic), there still would have been too many people in the pool. Nobody was practicing social distancing. Nobody was wearing a mask. But there was lots of drinking going on,' Jenkins said.

The apartment is home to many University of South Carolina students. The pool has been shut down for this week and could be for the foreseeable future

Chief Jenkins said he was disturbed when he spoke with a young man at the party who claimed 'I cant catch COVID. Im immune to the stuff.'

'That was just a perfect storm to spread the virus. If someone in the crowd had it, it was just a perfect storm,' Jenkins said to WLTX.

No tickets were handed out on Saturday, but party goers were given a warning.

Anyone found to be in violation in the city of Columbias mask ordinance will be fined $25 and businesses $100.

But Jenkins says the apartments management will be punished if there are more issues.

As of Thursday 620 students tested positive for the virus and 553 cases remain active, according to USC. A view of the University of South Carolina campus above

This chart by the university shows how cases of COVID-19 have risen since reopening campus and starting fall semester on August 20

According to the university since August 1 there have been 639 positive COVID results

'I know it can be inconvenient. It can be aggravating sometimes. But weve got to make sure were doing the right thing. Weve got to make sure were keeping one another safe,' Jenkins said.

The University of South Carolina released a statement reminding students of their responsibility to the community.

'Were grateful for the partnership we have with City of Columbia and fully support their decision to take actions to protect public safety. We have engaged with private apartment complexes for months to educate them on safe public health standards. Unfortunately, some have chosen not to manage their properties appropriately to protect the community. We also urge our students to remember their responsibilities and please use good judgement, avoiding situations where safe social distancing isnt possible.'

On Wednesday 191 new cases of the virus were confirmed on campus.

'Am I concerned? Yes, I am. Is it acceptable? No. Its not. I dont know if you can sustain 191 positives,' USC president Bob Caslen said.
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August 28, 2020
The head of the statue of Sir John A. MacDonald lies on the ground after the statue was torn down following a protest in Montreal on Aug. 29, 2020. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

Kenney Says He Will Install Toppled Statue of Macdonald at Alberta Legislature If Quebec Opts Not to Restore It

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says he would be happy to install the vandalized statue of Sir John A. Macdonald at the provincial legislature if the City of Montreal decides not to restore it.

After the statue of one of Canadas founding fathers and the countrys first prime minister was pulled off its pedestal by a crowd of activists in Montreal on Aug. 29, Kenney took to Twitter.

It is wrong to allow roving bands of thugs to vandalize our history with impunity, he wrote.

If the City of Montreal decides not to restore Wades statue of Macdonald to where it has stood for 125 years, we would be happy to receive it for installation on the grounds of Albertas Legislature.

Macdonalds reign has been scrutinized of late for his governments role in federal policies affecting Indigenous Peoples, including initiating the residential schools system and enacting the Indian Act. The aim of residential school system was to assimilate native children into mainstream society, but it has been blamed for widespread abuse of the children.

Kenney defended Macdonald and condemned the act of vandalism.

He was an immigrant who suffered unimaginable personal trauma throughout his life, which he overcame to forge an enormous country out of divided factions, he wrote on Twitter. Its right to debate his legacy and life. But it is wrong to allow roving bands of thugs to vandalize our history with impunity.

Many of those on the extreme left responsible for this kind of violence claim that Canada is an illegitimate state, all the while enjoying Canadas rights, freedoms, privileges & prosperity, he added.

None of those things were created by accident. They come from the vision & sacrifice of those who went before us, particularly Macdonald himself.

Portland-based journalist Andy Ngo, who has reported extensively on Antifa, posted a video on Twitter about the incident, saying it has the hallmarks of the violent anarchist group.

Organized black bloc militants have toppled the statue of Canadas first prime minister, John Macdonald, in Montreal. They used umbrellas & sheets to shield their criminal comrades. The statues head broke off as it crashed to the ground, he wrote.

They sprayed the anarchist A symbol on the beheaded statue. This looks to be the work of antifa militants, if it wasnt obvious enough.
If Italy was the harbinger of the first wave of Europes coronavirus pandemic in February, Spain is the portent of its second.

France is also surging, as are parts of Eastern Europe, and cases are ticking up in Germany, Greece, Italy and Belgium, too, but in the past week, Spain has recorded the most new cases on the continent by far  more than 53,000. With 114 new infections per 100,000 people in that time, the virus is spreading faster in Spain than in the United States, more than twice as fast as in France, about eight times the rate in Italy and Britain, and 10 times the pace in Germany.

Spain was already one of the hardest-hit countries in Europe, and now has about 440,000 cases and more than 29,000 deaths. But after one of the worlds most stringent lockdowns, which did check the viruss spread, it then enjoyed one of the most rapid reopenings. The return of nightlife and group activities  far faster than most of its European neighbors  has contributed to the epidemics resurgence.

Now, as other Europeans mull how to restart their economies while still protecting human life, the Spanish have become an early bellwether for how a second wave might happen, how hard it might hit and how it could be contained.

Perhaps Spain is the canary in the coal mine, said Prof. Antoni Trilla, an epidemiologist at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, a research group. Many countries may follow us  but hopefully not at the same speed or with the same number of cases that we are facing.

The median age of sufferers has dropped to around 37 from 60. Asymptomatic cases account for more than 50 percent of positive results, which is partly because of a fourfold rise in testing. And the health institutions feel much better prepared.
New Delhi, Aug 31 : The Delhi High Court will on Tuesday hear a fresh appeal filed by fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi challenging an earlier order that dismissed his plea seeking postponement of the release of Netflix's upcoming web series 'Bad Boy Billionaires: India'.

The appeal filed through advocates Vijay Aggarwal and Mudit Jain is listed for hearing before a division bench of the high court presided by Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan.

A single-judge bench of the high court presided by Justice Navin Chawla last Friday turned down a petition filed by Choksi against Netflix's upcoming show 'Bad Boy Billionaires: India' seeking postponement of its release date.

The bench while dismissing the petition granted liberty to Choksi to seek appropriate legal remedy. "The remedy of the petitioner would be in a civil suit as what is being alleged by the petitioner is infringement of his private right. In view of the abuse submissions, the present petition is dismissed leaving it open to the petitioner to seek appropriate legal remedy," the judge said.

Choksi in his plea had sought the court's direction to the OTT platform to not release the episode/portion of the documentary 'Bad Boy Billionaires" India' insofar as it relates to Choksi or is prejudicial to his rights or mentions him during the pendency of investigations and/or trials against him.

Choksi in his petition stated that he became aware of the documentary's imminent release on August 24 when he saw the trailer and started receiving phone calls from various persons across the world, including from Delhi, asking him whether he was part of the documentary and to solicit his comments on the same.

"Thereafter, the petitioner discovered that one of the persons seen speaking in the trailer was one Mr Pavan C. Lall who had written a book titled 'Flawed: The Rise and Fall of India's Diamond Mogul Nirav Modi' where also the petitioner's name had been comingled with Nirav Modi's," said the plea.

The plea states that with the release of this documentary there is a real and substantial threat of prejudice to the fairness of the trial and to the rights of the petitioner (Choksi) under Articles 21. "A trial by media is always detrimental to the case of the petitioner and is totally contrary to the trite rule that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty by a court of law," the plea read.

Choksi further stated that the release of the documentary would severely impact his reputation as well as create a widespread perception of guilt notwithstanding the fact that no competent court has found him guilty.
A South African court has ordered a local mosque to stop using an external sound amplifier system for its calls following a complaint from a neighbour, a religious body said Monday.

Muslim religious leaders have vowed to appeal the High Court ruling which ordered the Madrasah Taleemuddeen Islamic Institute in the coastal south-eastern KwaZulu-Natal province to "tone down" prayer calls, deeming it "too loud".

The ruling was handed down on Friday.

"We find that judgement to be a poor judgement," South African Muslim Network chairman Faisal Suliman told AFP.

"It's going to be appealed all the way to the constitutional court," he said.

Chandra Ellaurie, of Hindu faith and who lives opposite the mosque, petitioned the court to ban the sound and shutter the institution completely.

He complained that the prayer call that goes off at 1:30 am deprived him of enjoyment of his property rights.

Court judge Sidwell Mngadi ruled that the proximity of the applicant's property to the mosque favoured the applicant's claim that "the call to prayer interferes with his private space".

The court instructed that the mosque ensure the call to prayer is not heard within the applicant's house and limited each call to prayer to three-minutes.

Suliman said was it was the first time in recent memory that someone has gone to court to stop a religious facility from performing part of its rituals.

In South Africa, Muslims make up nearly two percent of a population that is largely Christian, according to official data.

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The police in Agra found the burnt bodies of 3 members of a family in the Nagla Kishan area.

The police said that they are investigating the motive behind the incident and the time it took place. They scanning the CCTV cameras installed in the area.

According to Hindustan Times sister publication Hindustan, the police were told by the locals that the milkman first sounded the alarm early on Monday morning after nobody from the family opened the door.

One of the relatives then entered the house and was shocked to see the bodies, Hindustan reported. The police was immediately informed.

According to the cops, the locals and family have told them that they did not have any enmity. The locals also say that no fire was reported from the house or the area, and that they did not hear any sound.

The police are investigating the incident.

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Rescue: The Italian coastguard rescued 49 people from the Louise Michel, the rescue boat financed by artist Banksy

At least four people have died and others are missing at sea after a fire broke out on a migrants' boat off the coast of southern Italy, according to news reports.

Italian state TV's RaiNews24 said four migrants were confirmed dead, though it was not clear if they had been killed in the fire - which was apparently ignited by fuel on board - or if they had drowned.

The fire, which also triggered an explosion, sent up a column of dark smoke that could be seen from a beach near Crotone, a port town in Calabria in the "toe" of the Italian peninsula.

Several migrants were injured, as were two customs police crew members, one of whom suffered burns and the other a broken leg, state TV said.

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The Italian coastguard was involved in transferring the migrants from the sailboat when the fire began, news reports said.

One news agency said about 20 migrants had been on board the sailboat.

While many migrants try to reach Italy in unseaworthy boats launched from Libyan shores where human traffickers are based, this year has seen most of the migrants reaching Italy coming from Tunisia or other points, often without needing rescue.

Earlier yesterday, the arrival of hundreds of migrants worsened severe overcrowding on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa and triggered protests among islanders.

Lampedusa's mayor vowed to call a protest strike to demand the Italian government tackle dangerous overcrowding in migrant shelters.

The arrival of 450 migrants crammed into a rickety fishing boat triggered an angry demonstration by islanders on Saturday night.

A migrant centre on Lampedusa meant to house fewer than 200 is now crammed with 1,200 people after the latest arrivals, including several small boats with migrants that set out apparently from Tunisia.

Lampedusa's mayor Toto Martello expressed astonishment that a fishing boat carrying 450 migrants managed to arrive within a few kilometres of the island without being noticed by military vessels or aircraft, including the European Frontex mission, which is supposed to be fighting human trafficking in the central Mediterranean.

Also reaching Lampedusa on Saturday were 49 migrants whom the Italian coastguard took from a dangerously overcrowded rescue boat, the Louise Michel, which took on so many people it could not navigate.

The Louise Michel's operation is funded by street artist Banksy, who painted the vessel bright pink.
The Avon Theatre in Stamford has returned to a seven-day-a-week screening schedule.

This week marks the opening of the new release, The Personal History of David Copperfield, starring Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton and Hugh Laurie. Also screening this week is the new film Still Here, about a New York journalist out to find a missing young African-American girl.

The theaters mix of new and classic films continues through the holiday weekend as it hosts a Music On Film series Friday, Sept. 4-Thursday, Sept. 10 featuring four classic music films: Monterey Pop (1968), Gimme Shelter (1970), A Hard Days Night (1964) and Dont Look Back. (1967).

The non-profit film center shuttered early in the COVID-19 pandemic, subsequently pivioting to online screenings, before opening for onsite showings on a Thursday-through-Sunday scheduled on June 26, followed by a return to seven-day programming Aug. 28.

For showtimes and to buy tickets online, visit avontheatre.org.
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Linkedin Rizki Fachriansyah and Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta and Medan  Mon, August 31, 2020 14:43 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41a4910 1 National IDI,Indonesian-Medical-Association,doctors,health-worker,hospital,airlangga-university,COVID-19,pandemic,COVID-19-death-toll Free

It is known that 100 doctors have died from COVID-19 as the number of cases and fatalities across the archipelago continue to mount, according to the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI).

The IDI broke the news on Monday in a written statement, which also included a list of names of health professionals who had succumbed to the contagious respiratory disease.

Among them are doctors from Airlangga Universitys School of Medicine and Soetomo Hospital in Surabaya, East Java  Miftah Fawzy Sarengat and Putri Wulan Sukmawati.

IDI chairman Daeng M. Fiqih told The Jakarta Post that the association had coordinated with the national COVID-19 task force and relevant departments to ensure the availability of protective equipment in hospitals and health facilities so as to prevent more deaths among health workers.

Hospitals should issue a special policy that temporarily prohibits health personnel with comorbidities and those who are at higher risk [of contracting the coronavirus] from working, he said, adding that health professionals should also be required to regularly take polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to ensure a safe working environment.



Furthermore, he also urged hospitals to create a work schedule in accordance with doctors physical health to prevent fatigue, which makes them more vulnerable to the virus.

Every stakeholder should work together to support hospitals in implementing those measures, Daeng said.

Read also: For some Indonesians, COVID-19 stigma worse than disease

In Medan, North Sumatra, two doctors -- Daud Ginting, 66, and Edwin Parlindungan Marpaung, 44 -- died from COVID-19 while receiving treatments in different hospitals on Sunday.

Daud died at 2 a.m. on Sunday following a week of treatment at Martha Friska Multatuli Hospital, which he was referred and admitted to after previously being hospitalized for a week at Mitra Sejati Hospital, said Wijaya Juwarna, the chairman of IDI's Medan chapter.

The late doctor, who previously worked at Pirngadi Hospital, succumbed to the disease at the same hospital where his wife was being treated after testing positive for COVID-19, Wijaya said. "As of [Monday], Daud's wife is still undergoing intensive treatment at Martha Friska Multatuli Hospital," he told the Post on Monday.

Edwin, an orthopedic doctor, died at Columbia Asia Hospital in Medan at 9:44 p.m. on Sunday, Wijaya added.

The Health Ministry announced 2,858 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Sunday, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to 172,053. According to data released by the ministry on Sunday, 82 more people have died of the disease, bringing the death toll to 7,343.

Earlier this month, IDI spokesperson Halik Malik said the majority of doctors who died from COVID-19 were between 28 and 39 years old.
Coronavirus-hit Indian economy recorded a steep contraction of 23.9 per cent in the April-June quarter. The economy was on a downward slope even before the pandemic.

But, is India in recession? Recession is a period of temporary economic decline marked by slowdown in industrial activity and trade, generally identified by a gross domestic product (GDP) contraction in two straight quarters.

So, India, technically, has not yet entered recession, but weak investment, capital spending and consumption demand will keep negatively impacting the economy. It means the chances of contraction are high in the subsequent quarter, which will push India into recession. Subsequent quarterly announcements will also reveal if contraction is worse than 23.9% in Q1. That's because data collection too was affected due to the pandemic.

"With a view to contain spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, restrictions were imposed on the economic activities not deemed essential, as also on the movement of people from 25 March, 2020. In these circumstances, the usual data sources were substituted by alternatives like GST, interactions with professional bodies etc. and which were clearly limited," Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) said.

The estimates are therefore likely to undergo revisions for the aforesaid causes in due course, according to the release calendar, it added.

But, Q1FY21 GDP numbers have given a broad idea about the stress on the economy as of now.

Past recessions

In the past 69 years, four such years of negative GDP growth were registered. They saw contractions of -1.2% (FY58), -3.66% (FY66), -0.32% (FY73) and -5.2% (FY80). The reason was the same each time - a monsoon shock that hit agriculture. Interestingly, this time around, agriculture is the only sector in the June quarter to have shown positive growth.

While it's almost certain India will slip into recession, economists are now trying to figure out when will India come out of it.

India's economy is expected to bounce back in 2021 with a robust six per cent growth, International Monetary Fund (IMF) had recently predicted.

According to Dun & Bradstreet's Economic Observer released recently, the country's economic recovery will depend on the efficacy and duration of implementation of the government's stimulus package. "The multiplier effect of the stimulus measures on the economy will depend on three key aspects i.e. the time taken for effecting the withdrawal of the lockdown, the efficacy of implementation and duration of execution of the measures announced," Dun & Bradstreet India Chief Economist Arun Singh said.

Dun & Bradstreet report further said the loss in income and employment opportunities, and cautiousness among consumers, will lead to a delayed recovery in consumer demand, even after the pandemic.

RBI, in its annual report, pitched for deep-seated and wide-ranging reforms to get back on the path of sustainable growth.

The World Bank, in a report on India Development Update, 2020, cautioned that credit risks play out as firms and households find it more difficult to service their interest and repayment obligations in a slowing economy.

Also read: Worst in 24 years! India's Q1 GDP contracts 23.9% in June quarter

Also read: Worst in 24 years! India's Q1 GDP contracts 23.9% in June quarter
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Elephant trails may lead the way to better conservation approaches.

"Think of elephants as engineers of the forests," said Melissa J. Remis, professor and head of anthropology at Purdue University, who is best known for her work in ecology and behavior of western gorillas and their ecosystems. "Elephants shape the landscape in many ways that benefit humans. We're talking thousands of miles of trails. If we think about the loss of elephants over time, then we will see the forest structure change and human activities also would shift."

These massive creatures trample thick vegetation through dense forests in the Central African Republic's Congo Basin as they move from the forests' fruit trees to more open water sources where they hydrate, bathe and socialize. African forest elephants, highly sociable animals, travel in small family groups to meet others at these muddy water sources, which are full of rich minerals that they can't find in the forests. By clearing routes to these destinations, elephants have created a very complex network of roads that residents, tourists, scientists and loggers still use today. If elephant populations decline, the forest grows over the trails.

"The fabric and way of life of local communities, and even for the industries and conservation organizations that exist in African forests, have largely been shaped by elephant landscape design," said Carolyn A. Jost Robinson, a former Purdue doctoral student and current visiting scholar who also is director of sociocultural research and engagement at the nonprofit Chengeta Wildlife. "People rely on these elephant highways, and they also are invaluable at understanding and explaining the networks."

Remis and Jost Robinson focus on these massive trail networks and the ecosystem and local foraging community, called the BaAka, as they evaluate how biological anthropology plays a role in conservation. Their research is specific to the elephant trails leading to Dzanga Saline, a famous forest clearing with a large water source in the Congo area. Their findings are published online in American Anthropologist.

"Anthropologists are very famous for critiquing conservation but not always for coming up with effective solutions," Remis said. "The area of conservation is dominated by biological sciences, and you can't make change just tending to ecosystems. Conservation messages focus on flagship species, like elephants, and rarely do they consider the knowledge or needs of people relying on or living with those species. Attention on both could help further conservation and human rights issues."

Framing the big picture

More than 30 years ago, Purdue University's Melissa Remis visited the Dzanga-Sangha Protected Areas for the first time as a biological anthropologist to study gorillas. She became known as the gorilla lady as she visited the site dozens of times. Her fieldwork showed her that to know and study the gorillas, she had to learn about the forest and other wildlife from the local residents who share the land for food, shelter and medicines. Now Remis' work focuses on the big picture - how the effects of conservation affect people, and what role biological anthropology can play.

"We're broadening the conversation about conservation," said Jost Robinson, who became known as the child of the gorilla lady by local residents at their African research site. "When you see a picture in a magazine story about ivory trafficking and elephant hunting, it is unlikely that the article will capture the entire experience of the community, as well as tourists, researchers and companies with local interests. As part of this change - whether you want to talk about climate change, forest access or wildlife protection - these relationships have evolved and taken on new shapes. We looked back on years of data and stories and realized there was a story to tell."

By focusing on the local BaAka community, especially the hunters known as tuma, the scientists capture information from local residents about interaction and living with elephants that is usually not a part of conservation plans.

"We want this to be a model for showing how to get additional insights when addressing how to conserve forests in better collaboration with those people who rely on them for cultural and material sustenance," Remis said. "Being able to tell their stories and share their deep knowledge about the area, and what closing off an elephant trail or part of the forest can due to cut off access to food, medicines or social networks, is usually not part of the conservation approach. We need to hear the BaAka in their own words."

###

This work was funded by the Clifford B. Kinley Trust and College of Liberal Arts.

ABSTRACT

Elephants Hunters and Others. Integrating Biological Anthropology and Multispecies Ethnography in a Conservation Zone

Melissa J. Remis and Carolyn A. Jost Robinson

DOI: 10.1111/aman.13414

Popular and scholarly accounts lament the demise of African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) and the loss of biodiversity across the Congo Basin, but there has been less appreciation of the consequences of restricted forest access for human communities in conservation contexts. We demonstrate the usefulness of biological anthropology in combination with multispecies ethnography for anchoring the futures of BaAka foragers and African forest elephants. Tuma elephant hunters have long negotiated their communities' relationships with elephants and others who have relied on the BaAka to navigate the forest. Tracing multispecies interactions along a transnational network of elephant trails (bembo) helps us understand the ways that elephants have shaped forest structure and the fabric of existence for tuma and others. Bembo facilitate movement across watersheds and may prove a critical tool in the development of culturally relevant conversation practices.


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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- New Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp has taken what he says is the first step toward repealing House Bill 6, the nuclear bailout law thats at the center of an ongoing federal corruption investigation.

Cupp, a Lima Republican, on Monday announced the creation of a new select committee on Energy Policy and Oversight. He then referred to it for review three HB6-related bills, including House Bill 746, a Republican-backed proposal that would repeal the bill, passed last year, and re-instate previous law.

But Cupp, speaking to reporters Monday morning, provided few additional details on the committee, including who its members will be or when it will begin reviewing legislation. He also said he couldnt say when the repeal might take effect if were to pass.

We are sorting through our members here, Cupp said. We have some in mind, but we certainly would want to confirm with them before we surprise them.

He said, however, the new committee will begin holding hearings rather quickly.

The issue is time-sensitive. Starting on Jan. 1, the law will provide more than $1 billion, or $150 million annually, to the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear plants, via new fees tacked onto Ohioans electricity bills. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, has threatened to sue to prevent the subsidies from going into effect.

We want to move on it, and we want to get going on it. So this is the first step in the process, Cupp said.

After being off for most of the summer, the House and Senate are scheduled to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday. Legislative leaders have said several bills are under consideration, including the HB6 repeal bills.

State legislators are facing increasing pressure to act on HB6 as prominent Republicans, including Gov. Mike DeWine and Senate President Larry Obhof, have called for it to be swiftly repealed. But there has been debate on exactly how to act.

Some former legislative supporters have distanced themselves from the bill since the emergence of the corruption probe, which resulted in the arrest of then-House Speaker Larry Householder.

But some legislators have defended the bill, saying its policies  intended to prop up the nuclear plants, which employ thousands of workers in Lake and Ottawa counties  are worth keeping despite the taint of the corruption investigation. Officials with FirstEnergy Solutions, a former FirstEnergy subsidiary which is now called Energy Harbor, have said the plants were financially troubled and threatened to close them without the bailout.

All told, 61 of 99 House members have sign on as co-sponsors to bills  HB746 or House Bill 738, a similar, Democratic-backed proposal  that would repeal HB6 completely.

House Democrats, who are in the deep minority, have called for a swift repeal, and have begun organizing whats called a discharge petition, a procedural move that would force the bill to the floor for a vote on Tuesday. The two lead sponsors of the Democratic repeal bill issued a statement on Monday accusing Cupp of intentionally dragging his feet, and accused the Speakers Office throwing up procedural road blocks to their discharge petition.

It is obvious now that the Republicans do not actually want to repeal House Bill 6, said State Reps. Mike Skindell of Lakewood and Michael OBrien, of Warren.

Our constituents are calling us every day, emailing us every day, to say youve got to get rid of this bill and start over, House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, of Akron, said in an interview.

There are other policies in HB6 that could be affected if its repealed. It provided funding for a handful of solar plants and two coal plants, one in Ohio and one in Indiana, owned by a consortium of utility companies. It offset new the nuclear fees by eliminating energy-efficiency programs and also gutted a requirement that utilities provide a certain percentage of their electricity through renewable energy sources.

Another consideration is when any repeal legislation would take effect. State Rep. Laura Lanese, a Grove City Republican who is co-sponsoring HB746, said she isnt sure how the process will play out.

Another lead sponsor of HB746, state Rep. Dave Greenspan, of Westlake, said the bill will benefit from being aired out in public. He acknowledged there are different of opinions among House Republicans on exactly how to go about a repeal.

Thats been part of the dialogue. Some members want to keep parts of it, he said. But thats where having this open, transparent process will be beneficial.

Federal prosecutors have said FirstEnergy, the former owner of the nuclear plants, and its affiliates funneled more than $60 million in bribes to a political organization controlled by Householder to help Householder become speaker in January 2019 and then secure the bills passage.

Householder and an aide, Jeff Longstreth, and three lobbyists, Matt Borges, Neil Clark and Juan Cespedes, were indicted last month, accused of being part of the scheme. FirstEnergy has denied wrongdoing, and its executives have not been charged. Following Householders arrest, he was ousted from his leadership position but remains in the Ohio House.
US President Trump has ramped up sanctions on Venezuelas state-run PDVSA, its key foreign partners and its customers.

The Trump administration is looking to tighten oil sanctions on Venezuela in the near future, top United States envoy for the country told Reuters news agency on Monday, by potentially removing exemptions that allow some oil companies to exchange Venezuelan crude for fuel from the OPEC member.

US President Donald Trump has ramped up sanctions on Venezuelas state-run PDVSA, its key foreign partners and customers since it first imposed measures against the company in early 2019, seeking to remove the left-leaning Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro after a 2018 re-election considered a sham by most Western nations.

We think our sanctions have been extremely effective in reducing income to the regime, but we think we can make them more effective. So we are going to be doing some things to tighten up in the near future, Elliott Abrams, US special representative for Venezuela, said in a phone interview.

The sanctions have already deprived PDVSA of most of its long-term oil customers, reducing oil exports to below 400,000 barrels per day (bpd), their lowest level in almost 80 years.

But they have so far failed to loosen Maduros grip on power  something that has frustrated Trump, officials say. With Novembers presidential election approaching, Washington is preparing to toughen its stance on Venezuela, especially the sanctions on its oil and gold industries.





Reuters reported earlier this month that Washington was moving to set an October deadline for winding down all trade of Venezuelan oil  such as swaps of crude for fuel, including diesel, and payments of pending debt with crude, the sources said.

Abrams declined to confirm the exact scope of the action but said, There are some exceptions that were put in place last year that we have been looking at and that we may feel can be removed.

A handful of European and Asian customers have continued taking Venezuelan oil under specific authorisations granted since last year by the US Treasury for transactions that do not involve cash payments to Maduros administration, but rather exchanges of Venezuela oil for diesel.

The list of active receivers of Venezuelan oil includes Italys Eni, Spains Repsol, Indias Reliance Industries and Thailands Tipco Asphalt.

Some Venezuelan opposition activists and economists have raised alarms about the potential humanitarian effect of a cutoff of diesel swaps, given that the fuel is used to transport food and run electricity generators.

Abrams rejected the criticism, saying the US was always careful about the humanitarian effect of its sanctions and questioned how Caracas was able to send fuel to Cuba.

If there are shortages of diesel in Venezuela, they can be remedied by stopping this colonial relationship with Cuba, he said.

PDVSA regularly exports Venezuela crude oil to Cuba and reships to the island a portion of the refined products it imports through swaps.

The Trump administration has clamped down on Cuba following the historic move by Democratic predecessor Barack Obama to reopen US-Cuba ties.
English French

A public limited company (societe anonyme) with a share capital of 1,531,013,637.50

Registered office: 1, cours Ferdinand de Lesseps

92500 Rueil-Malmaison

Registration number 552 037 806 RCS Nanterre

www.vinci.com

Shareholders relations department: actionnaires@vinci.com

____________________________________

Issue of new VINCI shares,

reserved for group employees in France

in the context of its savings plan

The combined general meeting of shareholders held on 18 June 2020, through its 12th resolution, delegated to the Board of directors its power to make increases in the capital reserved for employees for a period of 26 months expiring on 17 August 2022.

The meeting of shareholders defined in this context the manner in which the issue price of the new shares is determined.

During its meeting held on 18 June 2020, VINCI Board of directors fixed terms and conditions of a capital increase reserved for group employees in France, this transaction being in keeping with the powers received from the general meeting of shareholders.

The maximum number of shares that could be issued and the total amount of the issue will depend on the level of employees subscriptions for the units to be issued by the Castor Relais 2020/3 mutual fund which will be determined at the end of the subscription period which will be opened from 1 September up to 31 December 2020.

The issue price of the new shares is equal to 95 % of the average opening prices of the VINCI shares quoted on the regulated market of Euronext Paris SA on the 20 trading days preceding 18 June 2020, namely 79.90 per new share to be issued.

The total number of new shares to be issued cannot exceed the limit prescribed by the general meeting of shareholders held on 18 June 2020 through its 12h resolution. The total number of shares that could be issued pursuant thereto and pursuant to the 13th resolution of the general meeting of shareholders held on 18 June 2020 to promote share ownership in favour of employees living in some foreign countries cannot exceed 1.5 % of the number of shares comprising the authorised share capital at the time when the Board makes its decision.

The Castor Relais 2020/3 mutual fund will subscribe for the new VINCI shares to be issued1 at the end of January 2021.

Authorization for trading these new shares on the regulated market of Euronext Paris will be required immediately after their issuing.

These ordinary shares will be accompanied by no restriction and will bear current dividend rights as from 1st January 2020.

Rueil-Malmaison, 31 August 2020

*

* *

*









 Employees will subscribe for this issue, which is reserved for them, through a temporary mutual fund initially and momentarily invested in monetary securities known as Castor Relais 2020/3 and classified as a euro monetary mutual fund. This mutual fund received the approval of the AMF on

9 July 2020, under no. FCE 2020 0066. It will collect the employees cash payments intended to subscribe for the units that it issues. At the end of the 4-month subscription period opened to the employees, this temporary mutual fund will subscribe for the VINCI shares issued according to the total amount of the payments that it collects and will then be absorbed by the Castor mutual fund on 2 February 2021. The AMF approved such a merger in advance on 16 July 2020 (under no. 126517).

The Castor mutual fund is an employee savings and employee shareholder UCITS invested in VINCI shares. It is one of the principal instruments used for the implementation of the VINCI groups company savings plan in France.







1 Up to the total amount of employees payments raised by contributions paid by group companies that are members of its savings plan in France.







Attachment
FP Trending

Google is introducing a new feature to the Assistant by which users will be able to donate to noble causes and nonprofit organisations directly through the app.

The tech giant is starting the feature by collaborating with The Center for Policing Equity, a research and action body that promotes police transparency, equity, & accountability via research. This was announced by Google on 28 August, the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which advocated for the civil and economic rights of Black Americans.

Today is the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which advocated for the civil and economic rights of Black Americans. Learn more about this historic event and its organizers on @googlearts  https://t.co/oPX38bgBlR pic.twitter.com/XpU6JoyG2B  Google (@Google) August 28, 2020

Still today, people continue to look for ways to stay involved in the pursuit of racial equality. Google Trends reveals the U.S. is searching about racial injustice more than ever before  https://t.co/nm1BAtW2nS pic.twitter.com/nJJ9XM8l4V  Google (@Google) August 28, 2020

It was at this march that Martin Luther King Jr. had delivered his historic I Have a Dream speech standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Organised by A Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, it is considered to be one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history.

Google tweeted to show how the feature will work and said that the entire contribution amount will go to the organisation. Users of Android phones can directly open up Assistant while iOS users can open the app to say, Hey Google, donate to racial justice.

This will generate a direct link to the Centre for Policing Equity.

The feature is currently accessible only via mobile phones.

Google plans to expand the Google Assistant donation feature for other humanitarian organisations in the coming weeks. But Google is yet to announce the names of the selected organisations.

Users can communicate their wish to donate by creating a dedicated card in Google Assistants Snapshot feature as well. This comes just days after Google introduced several personalised updates in the Snapshot feature.
Chief Raoni Metuktire, a symbol of the fight for the preservation of the Amazon in Brazil, has tested positive for coronavirus after being rushed to hospital with pneumonia symptoms.

The nearly 90-year-old Kayapo ethnic leader does not have a fever and is breathing normally without the aid of oxygen, the Raoni Institute said Monday.

Raoni previously met several European leaders to denounce Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's calls for the economic development of Indigenous land in the Amazon rainforest.

Bolsonaro alleges that such development is key to the economic prosperity of the local population and the country.

FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2019 file photo, Kayapo tribal leader Raoni Metuktire smokes a pipe after a press conference in Bidart, southwestern France. The Indigenous leader emblematic of the fight for the preservation of the Amazon forest in Brazil was hospitalized with symptoms of pneumonia and tested positive for the new coronavirus, according to the Raoni Institute on Monday, Aug. 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Bob Edme, File)

About 30,000 Indigenous people have contracted the virus and more than 700 have died since the beginning of the pandemic, according to data released by the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, a nonprofit group.

On August 4, a Supreme Court ruling forced the government to present within 60 days a plan to create sanitary barriers that protect Indigenous communities from COVID-19.

A month ago, Raoni was hospitalized for 10 days after suffering diarrhea and dehydration in his home in the Xingu Indigenous reserve, in the state of Mato Grosso.

Raoni also had low blood pressure, anemia and ulcers, and had to receive two blood transfusions.

For years, Raoni has campaigned for the protection of Indigenous territories in the Amazon.

A 1978 documentary, 'Raoni: The Fight for the Amazon,' contributed to his fame, as did a 1989 tour with British musician Sting.
Motorists drive in the rain in Hyderabad, which has received 591 mm of rainfall, or 30 per cent excess, so far this season. (DC Photo: Deepak Deshpande)

Hyderabad: Rains have been bountiful in Telangana this year showering a 42 per cent surplus upon the state at the end of August.

As against a normal of 584.2 mm of rainfall, Telangana has received 830.1 mm of rainfall. Fourteen districts in the state have registered a copious excess. Ten districts have received excess rainfall while nine have had a normal monsoon so far. Not a single districts has had deficient rainfall.

Mulugu district tops the table in terms of the amount of precipitation received (1660.2 mm) followed by Jayashankar Bhupalpally (1317.6 mm).

Weather scientists attribute the good monsoon to the higher number of weather systems that have formed over the state this year. There have been several consecutive weather systems that have brought rains in the state. This month (August) there have been close to five such systems that came in from the Bay of Bengal. We can now say that the south-west monsoon has been good in Telangana, said B Raja Rao, a meteorologist with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) told Deccan Chronicle.

This is in stark contrast to the performance of the monsoon last year when 23 districts had normal rain and only 10 districts received excess rainfall. Suryapet received the least rainfall so far with 580 mm so far but still 19 per cent in surplus.
Chairman of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) Calin Popescu Tariceanu said on Monday that the cancellation of debates on the censure motion due to the lack of quorum isn't a victory for the National Liberal Party (PNL) and Klaus Iohannis, but a "defeat" for the Romanians who deserved to get rid of an "incompetent" government.

"The most pathetic government we have ever had stays in office thanks to fraud and lie! In the last days the PNL has thrown in all the government's material resources to buy lawmakers in order to stay in power. They succeeded in tricking enough of them to have their departure from the helm postponed. Yet even if they fooled and bought a few parliamentarians, I am convinced that they didn't fool the Romanians who are still waiting for the promised masks, pensions and allowances increased according to the law, or for real measures for the re-opening of schools. Today does not mark a victory for the PNL and Klaus Iohannis, but a defeat for the Romanians who deserved to get rid of an incompetent government that should not be at the Victoria Palace, but on the hallways of the Prosecutor's Offices, for what they have done lately," Tariceanu wrote on Facebook.The Parliament's joint plenary sitting that was supposed to debate and vote on the censure motion lodged by the Social Democrats was canceled on Monday due to the lack of quorum, according to the announcement made by Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, the Social Democrat Marcel Ciolacu. A roll call found only 226 lawmakers present, whereas 233 were required for the meeting to be held.
This is a nation cleaved in two, split into warring camps and led by a president who revels in the breach. Even if voters succeed in electing Joseph R. Biden as president, the cult of Donald Trump will remain a threat to the nation's stability. Its members are afraid of modernity, embittered by the decline of white Christian culture and incensed by the rise of powerful people of color.

Trump didn't create the divide, but he cleverly climbed its ragged edges to the presidency. And he has maintained his grip on his constituency by stoking their racial resentments, fueling their tribalism, pandering to their sense of entitlement.

In a meandering and mendacious acceptance speech on Thursday, Trump employed rhetoric that called to mind the rage, resentment and racism of George Wallace. He fed the fears of his followers with his insistence that a Biden presidency would allow criminals  the implication, of course, is that the criminal class comprises Black and brown Americans  to roam freely, destroying cities and pillaging suburbs.

"Your vote will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists and agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens. ... No one will be safe in Biden's America," he railed.

Trump's outrageous slander and outright falsehoods are the only campaign weapons he has left, given his epic mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. The United States accounts for 4 percent of the world's population but nearly 25 percent of the virus fatalities, as the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 rapidly nears 200,000. The pandemic-related closures of businesses have wrecked the economy, as well; the unemployment rate hovers at 10 percent.

But Trumpists ignore that reality to focus on their tribal grievances, taking their cues from their leader. Trump's tenure has been accompanied by a frightening growth in hate groups, and they have been emboldened by his angry insistence that immigrants and Americans of color are wrecking the country. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of white nationalist groups increased by 55 percent from 2017 to 2019.

Among the troubling trends is a rise in "militias"  or groups of armed white men with right-wing political views  that show up to provoke peaceful protesters allied with the Black Lives Matter movement. While Trump and his cronies highlighted rioting that erupted in Kenosha, Wis., following yet another police shooting  that of Jacob Blake on Aug. 23  they failed to note that two protesters were killed by a Trump supporter. Armed with an assault rifle, white teenager Kyle Rittenhouse traveled from his home in Illinois to "protect property" but ended up charged with homicide.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

In his acceptance speech on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence spoke of another murder that he tied to protests against police violence, but Pence's allusion to the crime amounted to a lie. He claimed that federal police officer David Underwood was "shot and killed during the riots in Oakland." In fact, the man charged with killing Underwood is Steve Carrillo, who was been linked to the extremist "Boogaloo" movement and was certainly not part of protests against police violence.

This trend will likely grow worse during the campaign while Trump, growing more desperate, turns up the volume on his shrill insistence that a Biden presidency would allow Black and brown criminals to take over the country. The Republican National Convention had already celebrated Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who pointed guns at peaceful protesters marching past their house. Right-wing media stars are calling Rittenhouse a hero.

Even a wise and thoughtful leader would be challenged by this era, in which a substantial minority of whites are so threatened by demographic change that they are willing to trample democratic traditions. Feeling besieged by a loss of cultural status, many of them have fallen into paranoia and taken comfort in crazed conspiracy theories.

Trump is hardly a wise and thoughtful leader. He will happily fuel the paranoia and rip the country apart in his quest for another term. If Biden wins, he will have the profound challenge of stitching us back together.
The family of Harry Dunn have withdrawn their intention to sue the US government in a bid to find a 'resolution to the impasse'.

His parents Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn previously said they would pursue a claim against Donald Trump's administration for its handling of their son's case.

But Mrs Charles has revealed the family 'can now see that the US government are working towards' suspect Anne Sacoolas facing the UK justice system.

The US State Department recently said it was looking for a 'reasonable resolution' after news emerged that the UK Attorney General, Suella Braverman QC, was considering the possibility of a virtual trial or a trial in Sacoolas's absence.

The Dunn family said they hoped their decision to no longer pursue a claim against the US government would encourage them to meet with the family and discuss a way forward in their quest for a trial in the UK.

The family of Harry Dunn (pictured) have withdrawn their intention to sue the US government in a bid to find a 'resolution to the impasse'

Mr Dunn, 19, died when his motorbike crashed into a car outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on August 27 last year.

Sacoolas, 43, the wife of a US intelligence official, claimed diplomatic immunity following the collision and was able to return to her home country, sparking an international controversy.

She was charged with causing death by dangerous driving in December but an extradition request, submitted by the Home Office, was rejected by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a month later.

Speaking after their decision to no longer pursue a claim against the US government, Mrs Charles said: 'We never wanted any of this.

'All we ever wanted was what anyone else in our shoes would have wanted, that the person responsible for taking Harry's life be held to account.

'We are going through a living nightmare and we need closure. We will only get that when Mrs Sacoolas faces our justice system.'

Mr Dunn's parents, Charlotte Charles (left with her partner Bruce Charles) and Tim Dunn (right), previously said they would pursue a claim against Donald Trump's administration for its handling of their son's case

Pictured: Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn seen with family spokesman Radd Seiger

Mrs Charles continued: 'We can now see that the US government are working towards that end and we would like to meet with them as parents to explain why that is important and to help the discussions.

'I am proud of my family. I'm grateful that we now appear to be in the home straight of the worst period of our lives and look forward hopefully to building bridges.

'I think back to the early days before our campaign started when our advisers were working so hard behind the scenes to avoid any dispute and to avoid any publicity.

Pictured: Suspect Anne Sacoolas

'That was all thrown back in our faces at the time. I hope they accept our offer of a meeting this time and will look forward to bringing this awful situation to an end.'

Explaining the decision to no longer pursue the lawsuit, family spokesman Radd Seiger said: 'Harry Dunn's parents were relieved to see the signal from the State Department in Washington that they are now working with their counterparts in London to find a resolution to the impasse following Anne Sacoolas's departure to the US after Harry died.

'They have accordingly equally now signalled to the US government that they do not intend to sue them in respect of their decision to recall Mrs Sacoolas and have written to officials in the US Embassy in London to make a comprehensive offer an amicable meeting to help the parties find the resolution that is now desperately needed on all sides.

'That resolution will only involve Mrs Sacoolas going through the English justice system and if our offer of a meeting is accepted, the parents intend to speak directly to the US government to tell them why it is so important that justice is done here.'

Mr Seiger continued: 'From the outset, the parents have always tried to enter into dialogue with others to find a resolution.

In a statement, a US State Department spokesman said they had worked with their UK counterparts from the outset to find a 'mutually acceptable' path forward. Pictured: Donald Trump

'This is not a situation of their making and I know there is a lot of regret both in Washington and London about decisions that were taken last September when Harry died.

'If the US government and Mrs Sacoolas now step forward to do the right thing, we have indicated to the US government that we would very much like to play our part in helping to heal the deep wounds left by this decision, not only in terms of relations between both countries, but also locally in our community where RAF Croughton sits.

'There is an awful lot of good that can be done here with the parents at the forefront of that but that will require the US government to stop denying justice for Harry.'

The Dunn family have said they will continue to pursue a civil claim against Anne Sacoolas in the US.

In a statement, a US State Department spokesman said they had worked with their UK counterparts from the outset to find a 'mutually acceptable' path forward.

The spokesman said they continued to engage with the UK to find a 'reasonable resolution'.
STAMFORD  Two men were wounded by gunfire in separate incidents after a gunman fired into a city park and a street robbery went wrong, police said Monday.

Gunfire erupted in Hatch Field on Richmond Hill Avenue at 5:15 p.m. Friday, police said. Police received multiple 911 calls reporting shots fired inside the park.

When officers arrived, they found a 38-year-old Stamford man with a gunshot wound to his upper right arm. He was rushed to Stamford Hospital for treatment, police Lt. Tom Scanlon said.

Responding officers had difficulty finding cooperative witnesses, even though they were told that a significant number of people were in the park when the shots rang out, Scanlon said.

Officers determined that an unidentified gunman wearing a ski mask walked into the park and fired multiple shots at a group of people sitting around the pavilion, police said.

Immediately after firing the shots, the gunman fled, police said. Scanlon said they are looking for a surveillance tape of the suspect.

Crime scene investigators combing the scene found multiple shell casings from a single semiautomatic pistol, Scanlon said.

Determining a motive for the shooting has been hampered by a lack of cooperation by witnesses, he said. Police do not know whether the gunman was targeting anyone, Scanlon said. The many people who were with the man when he was shot fled the park before officers arrived, he said.

That shooting was followed by another early Saturday.

Officers were called to Stamford Hospital after a gunshot victim with a wound to his right leg showed up at the emergency room at 4:30 a.m., police said.

The 37-year-old Stamford man told police that he was walking in the area of Ursula Place and Dale Street in the East Side when three men approached and demanded his possessions, Scanlon said. The man refused, and one of the men shot him at close range in the leg, he said.

The three fled after the shooting, and police are working to assemble surveillance tapes of the incident in hopes of determining the identity of the suspects, Scanlon said. He did not release a description of the three men.

Scanlon said it was rare for someone to be shot during a street robbery in Stamford.

The man said that after the shooting, he flagged down a passing motorist, who gave him a ride to Stamford Hospital, police said.

Anyone with information on the shootings is asked to call investigators at 203-977-4414.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested a supervisor at Mundra dockyard in Gujarat, who allegedly worked as an agent of Pakistani spy agency ISI, an official said.

Rajakbhai Kumbhar, a resident of West Kutch in Gujarat, arrested on Sunday in connection with the investigation of 'Defence/ISI case' of Uttar Pradesh, the NIA official said.

The case pertains to an FIR registered on January 19 at Lucknow's Gomti Nagar police station on the arrest of Mohammad Rashid from Mughalsarai in Chandoli district, he said.

The NIA re-registered the case on April 6 under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), the official said.

During the investigation, it was revealed that Rashid was in contact with defence or ISI handlers in Pakistan and visited the neighbouring country twice, the official said.

He had transmitted photographs of sensitive and strategically important installations in India and also shared information about the movement of the armed forces with his ISI handlers in Pakistan, an NIA spokesperson said.

Investigation revealed that Kumbhar worked as an ISI agent and transferred Rs 5,000 through Paytm in the account of one Rizwan which was further handed over to the main accused Rashid, the spokesperson said.

This amount was remitted to Rashid by Kumbhar on the directions of ISI handlers for the information supplied, he said.

A search was conducted at the house of Kumbhar on Thursday and several incriminating documents were seized. Further investigation in the case was underway.
A Queensland McDonalds franchisee has been ordered to pay $1000 in compensation to a worker denied toilet and drink breaks.

Tantex Holdings, which operates six of the fast-food restaurants, has been ordered to pay former employee Chiara Staines compensation by the Federal Court on Monday.

In its published reasons for the decisions, the court found Ms Staines had been denied a 10-minute paid drink break on all but three occasions while working at a Queen St Mall restaurant in Brisbane from May 8, 2017 to June 15, 2019.

McDonald's staff have been entitled to paid 10-minute drink breaks under McDonald's Australia Enterprise Agreement 2013, which was approved by the Fair Work Commission on July 24, 2013.

A Queensland McDonald's franchisee has been ordered to pay a worker $1000 in compensation after a worker was routinely denied drinks and toilet breaks (stock image)

According to the agreement, all employees are entitled to a 10-minute drink break when they work a shift between four to nine hours.

If they work more than nine hours, staff are entitled to two 10-minute breaks.

This is in addition to a meal break if working longer than five hours.

Ms Staines told the court her work was fast-paced, hot with a constant smell of food and the environment was stressful and demanding, physically and mentally.

'Ms Staines was denied a short respite from, what was by its nature, a mentally and physically demanding job,' Justice John Logan said.

Brisbane businesswoman Tanya Manteit-Mulcah is the sole director of Tantex Holdings, which conceded it had not provided Ms Staines with the allowed breaks.

'The drink break for which clause 29 of the Agreement provided was a workplace right,' Justice Logan found.

'So, too, for reasons explained above, was a right, within the bounds of reasonableness, to pause for a drink of water or to go to the toilet during a shift a workplace right.'
Danzeisen Dairy, a locally owned family dairy and Alice Cooper held a press conference August 26 at the Alice Cooper Solid Rock Teen Center to showcase the newly released Alice Cooper chocolate milk glass bottle. A portion of the sales from the milk bottle will benefit the Alice Coopers Solid Rock Teen Centers, a non-profit charity that provides free music, art, and dance lessons to teenagers in Phoenix and Mesa.

The Alice Cooper quart milk bottle will have one of Danzeisens most popular flavors, chocolate, which happens to be one of Alices favorite flavors as well. For the avid collector, Danzeisen Dairy will also make available an empty glass milk bottle that can be purchased at http://danzeisendairycooper.com

I was very excited and pleased that Alice Cooper wanted to partner with Danzeisen Dairy to support his charity. We always strive to produce the best milk product we can along with supporting local charities, so we were honored that Alice wanted to put his face on one of our signature bottles, said Kevin Danzeisen, Owner and Manager of Danzeisen Dairy.

Solid Rock and I are excited to partner with and represent Danzeisen Dairy because when most people think of Alice Cooper, they picture rock n roll, comedy, guillotines, snakes, horror... CHOCOLATE MILK!!!, said Alice Cooper.

Watch Alices steady hands catching his Danzeisen Dairy milk bottle at: https://youtu.be/ls8OHPPB4FM

The Alice Cooper limited edition chocolate milk bottle is now available at Arizona grocery stores and home delivery. To find a location near you, visit http://www.danzeisendairy.com

###

About Danzeisen Dairy

Danzeisen Dairy is a local, family run dairy with over 60 years dairy experience in Phoenix, Arizona. Our dairy is the first local dairy to offer glass bottles to grocers within the Arizona market  direct and fresh from a local dairy farm only 10 miles from downtown Phoenix. Danzeisen Dairy offers the freshest, best tasting milk direct from the farm.

About Alice Cooper Solid Rock Teen Center

Alice Cooper's Solid Rock Teen Centers are located in Phoenix and Mesa, Arizona. A 501(c)(3) non-profit charity founded by Alice and Sheryl Cooper, the teen centers offer all youth ages 12-20 with music, dance, and art programs FREE of charge. For info, please call 602-522-9200 and visit http://www.alicecoopersolidrock.com.
Montenegro Awaits Results In Elections Testing Pro-Western Government

By RFE/RL's Balkan Service August 30, 2020

Montenegro's citizens cast their votes on August 30 for a host of coalitions and parties competing in parliamentary elections, with the outcome too close to call.

Neither the long-ruling pro-Western Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) nor the leading opposition pro-Russian and pro-Serbian Democratic Front (DF) is tipped to win a majority in the 81-seat parliament.

Election authorities said the turnout was nearly 75 percent as of 7 p.m. local time, up from 71.6 percent at the same time during the previous general vote four years ago. Polls closed at 8 p.m. local time. Observers reported some irregularities, such as voters lacking identification cards.

The dominant theme of the campaign, which was mainly conducted online and on social media because of the coronavirus pandemic, was a religious law that the Serbian Orthodox Church says would strip the church of its property in the country.

The law, which came into force in January, says religious communities must prove property ownership from before 1918, the year when Montenegro joined the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and its church was subsumed by the Serbian Orthodox Church, losing all of its property in the process.

The Serbian Orthodox Church says the law is aimed at retaking its property and has held daily protests against it. Montenegrin officials have repeatedly denied the allegations.

Montenegro split from Serbia in a referendum in 2006 and further turned away from Belgrade and its Orthodox ally Russia, taking a pro-Western course and joining NATO in 2017.

The country has also been negotiating steps toward getting an official invitation from the European Union for membership to the bloc.

Serbian nationalists in both countries have never fully recognized Serbia's separation from Montenegro, which they claim is a historic Serbian territory.

During the campaign, the support of the Serbian Orthodox Church was seen as a driving force behind some opposition parties, primarily the DF. The government directed the brunt of its campaign at the church and the opposition that supports it.

After voting in the capital, Podgorica, President Milo Djukanovic told reporters he expected a majority of Montenegrin voters will opt for the country's "European future."

The political future of Djukanovic, who leads the DPS and who has overseen Montenegro's efforts to qualify for EU membership, could be at stake in the election. Though Djukanovic is not up for reelection for three more years, his party has been in power for 30 years in various coalitions. Prime Minister Dusko Markovic is the first in its electoral list.

The DF is led by university professor Zdravko Krivokapic, a nonpartisan figure. High on its electoral list is Marko Milacic, who has led an anti-NATO campaign in previous years and who is known for burning the alliance's flags on a few occasions.

The elections are the 11th since a multiparty system was established in Montenegro and the fifth since the country regained independence in 2006.

An electorate of more than 540,000 had the opportunity to vote. More than 2,000 observers, including 265 foreign observers, are following the elections.

Among the parties in power that also are contesting in the elections are the Social Democrats, the Bosniak Party, two coalitions of the ethnic Albanian parties and two parties of the Croatian national minority.

The DF is the main constituent of the coalition For the Future of Montenegro. Other opposition coalitions are Peace is Our Nation and the Black on White list. The Social Democratic Party is running on its own.

Local elections also are being held in a handful of municipalities along the coast and in the north of the country.

The elections are taking place amid an economic crisis in the country caused by coronavirus restrictions that have reduced Montenegro's tourism revenues by 90 percent this year

With reporting by Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/30811084.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  The Department of Transportation says it is working to make bike lanes a permanent fixture in Metro Manilas streets in a bid to lower carbon emissions.

Speaking to CNN Philippines on Monday, DOTr Assistant Secretary Mark Steven Pastor said even before the pandemic, the department was already pursuing the active transport as well as promoting a low carbon emission transportation mode."

He said the health crisis highlighted the need for an interconnected bicycle grid linking Metro Manilas cities, thus the push for the National Capital Region bike lane network.

Pastor said they launched the interim hospital bike lane network last week in Manila and Quezon City to provide better access to hospitals, especially for frontliners who pedal their way to work.

For Manila, the route structure makes its way along Taft Avenue, Quirino Avenue, Roxas Boulevard, and the United Nations loop. It will primarily serve hospitals like the Philippine General Hospital, the Manila Doctors Hospital, the Manila Medical Center, and the Ospital ng Maynila.

Meanwhile, the Quezon City route winds its way along V. Luna to East Avenue, Elliptical Road to Quezon Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue, to serve the Philippine Children's Hospital, the Lung Center of the Philippines, the Philippine Heart Center, the Veteran's Hospital and the East Avenue Medical Center.

The DOTR said the intention is to have a more or less 600-kilometer interconnected and protected bike lane network in Metro Manila, adding that it plans to expand the project outside the region.

Earlier today, the Department of the Interior and Local Government said it is encouraging local governments to construct protected bike lanes and walking paths to further encourage safe, alternative transportation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a statement, Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano said the public transport system "can be a breeding ground" for the spread of the highly contagious disease, and encouraged Filipinos to consider biking or walking to work.

The agency signed a joint administrative order with the Department of Health, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Public Works and Highways urging the construction of safe lanes and paths.

The order also encourages the establishment of supportive infrastructure like bicycle racks and changing rooms for the commuting public.
Tensions between far-right activists and Black Lives Matter demonstrators soared across the city of Portland, Oregon throughout the weekend, as one person died in a fatal shooting amid continued protests against racism and police brutality.

The shooting occurred on Sunday night after a caravan of President Donald Trumps supporters drove their vehicles into the citys downtown area and clashed with Black Lives Matter demonstrators. The demonstrators have been protesting for nearly 100 nights in Portland following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

It was not clear as of Monday morning whether the shooting was connected to clashes between demonstrators and the caravan, which was seen in videos shared to social media spraying Black Lives Matter activists with mace and driving through crowds with Trump flags flying on the back of their vehicles.

However, Joey Gibson, the founder of a right-wing group called Patriot Prayer, said the shooting victim was a supporter of his organisation, as well as a good friend in a statement to the Associated Press. In a Facebook post, Mr Gibson identified the victim as Aaron "Jay" Danielson, who also went by the name Jay Bishop, and wrote: God bless him and the life he lived.

Donald Trump tweeted a tribute to him in a post that has received 59,000 retweets, saying: "Rest in peace Jay!"

Patriot Prayer, which has reportedly provoked and engaged in clashes with protesters since it was founded in 2017, has regularly held demonstrations in Portland. The shooting victim identified by Mr Gibson and others was seen in videos wearing a hat with the groups logo.

Since the shooting, police have released very little information as to what circumstances may have led to the fatal incident, and whether it was connected in some way to the ongoing protests.

The governor of Oregon slammed Patriot Prayer and other far-right groups that took part in the caravan in a statement that they came to the city looking for a fight.

Every Oregonian has the right to freely express their views without fear of deadly violence. I will not allow Patriot Prayer and armed white supremacists to bring more bloodshed to our streets, Democratic Governor Kate Brown said. Time and again, from Charlottesville to Kenosha to Portland, we have seen the tragic outcome when armed right-wing vigilantes take matters into their own hands. Gun violence is never, ever the answer."

No arrests in connection to the shooting have been made, according to Portland Police Bureau Chief Chuck Lovell.

The bureau chief said in a statement to USA Today: The issue with firearms is very troubling to us, but people do have a constitutional right to carry firearms legally. So, it's hard to prevent. Some of the instances that take place, you're talking split-second, a couple of seconds. A lot of times were not right there to see things happen.

Mr Trump has meanwhile latched onto the violence, using the continued protests as a political tool in his bid for re-election against former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee. The president has repeatedly told supporters that No one will be safe in Bidens America  a messaging tactic that echoed throughout last weeks Republican National Convention.

Mr Biden has condemned the violence in Portland and called on the president to do so as well.

The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable," he said. "I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same."

Nearly 2,500 people reportedly attended the Trump cruise rally during the weekend, which had the large caravan of the presidents supporters drive into Portland to counter the Black Lives Matter demonstrations. While an intended route for the caravan was supposed to keep it at a distance from the ongoing demonstrations, many of the vehicles instead drove into the downtown area where the clashes began.
Backstreet Shadow ($3.40) led a training triple for Ron Burke on Sunday afternoon (Aug. 30) at Harrah's Philadelphia with a sharp 1:48.4 score in the featured $20,000 winners-over pacing event.

Tim Tetrick angled the five-year-old Shadow Play gelding out from midfield as Jacks Legend N worked to clear the lead from Respect Our Flag at the end of a :26.4 first quarter. Just as Jacks Legend N took control, Backstreet Shadow surged forward outside of rivals and worked to the top just before reaching the half in :54.3.

Up the backstretch, Backstreet Shadow was forced to pick up the pace by Western Joe, who advanced first-over to apply mild pressure through a :27 third sectional. Backstreet Shadow responded in kind, edging clear to win by two-and-a-quarter lengths in 1:48.4. Western Joe dug deep to protect second from Jack's Legend N, who was a one-paced third from the pocket.

Burke trains 23-time winner Backstreet Shadow, who captured the Roll With Joe at Tioga Downs earlier this summer, for the partnership of the Burke Racing Stable, Weaver Bruscemi, Larry Karr and J&T Silva-Purnel & Libby.

Burke also teamed up with driver Joe Bongiorno for a pair of wins on the card, combining with Jahan Hanover ($2.20), a 13-and-a-half length, 1:51.2 winner over Ginger Tree Pete in an entry-level conditioned event; and Twin B Tuffenuff ($4.00), who just collared Statement Made A in 1:51.3 in a $11,600 upper-level conditioned pace.

Racing returns to Harrah's Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon (Sept. 2), with a $2,241.53 carryover in the Jackpot Hi-5. Post time is 12:25 p.m. (EDT).

(Harrah's Philadelphia)
A $200 million redevelopment of Circular Quay should be opened to a public design competition in the same way as for the Opera House in the 1950s, a local architectural firm argues.

Decrying a lack of transparency and public consultation, Sydney firm CplusC said the government's tender process for the Circular Quay project was budget-led rather than design-led.

"There hasnt been any transparency whatsoever provided on this process nor have there been any attempts to engage smaller firms. The government is paying lip service to the public," said the architectural firm's managing director, Clinton Cole.

An artist's impression of Sydney architectural firm CplusC's design for the redevelopment of Circular Quay.

Mr Cole said the redevelopment process was "eerily reminiscent" of that for the Bennelong Apartments, the building commonly referred to as "The Toaster" which was constructed on the eastern side of Circular Quay in the 1990s.
Hawaii public school teachers were invited to submit applications between March 2 and July 31, 2020. The six finalists were selected following a competitive application, evaluation and review process.

"During this challenging time for schools, teachers, students and their families, the Farmers Hawaii team has been inspired by the creativity, dedication and innovation showcased in proposals from teachers across the state," said Melanie Joseph, Marketing Manager for Farmers Insurance Hawaii. "The ideas proposed by our six visionary finalists run the gamut from problem-solving for the pandemic to entrepreneurial educational experiences, and are designed to empower students with the knowledge and skills to succeedinside and out of the classroom."

A panel of local judges will review and evaluate the proposals using three key criteria -- innovation, community impact, and execution, including long-term sustainability. Two winners, one from Oahu and one from a Neighbor Island, will be announced in October:

Neighbor Island Finalists :

Tyler Gage , Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School, Kauai , Project Proposal: Pueo Business Leaders of Tomorrow

, Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School, , Project Proposal: Megan Ogle , Kula Elementary, Maui , Project Proposal: A STEAM Approach to AG Growth

, Kula Elementary, , Project Proposal: Michael Sado , Maui High School, Maui , Project Proposal: Combatting COVID-19 in the Community

Oahu Finalists:

Wesley Adkins , James Campbell High School , Ewa Beach , Project Proposal: The Ewa Beach Drive-In

, , , Project Proposal: Laurie Flores , Hau'ula Elementary School, Hau'ula, Project Proposal: Raising Awareness of Incredible Endemic Hawaiian Animals

, Hau'ula Elementary School, Hau'ula, Project Proposal: Jackie Tichepco , Leilehua High School , Wahiawa , Project Proposal: Virtual Learning for All

"These six teachers embody what's possible when professionals in education continually challenge themselves to pursue educational excellence," said Kenneth T. Hiraki, President for the Public Schools of Hawaii Foundation. "We look forward to working with Farmers to help the winning teachers transform their ideas into reality."

Farmers Insurance has a proud history of investing in education and supporting the communities it serves. The Public Schools of Hawaii Foundation has awarded grants totaling more than $4.8 million since 1990 to strengthen educational opportunities.

About Farmers Insurance

"Farmers Insurance" and "Farmers" are tradenames for a group of insurers providing insurance for automobiles, homes and small businesses and a wide range of other insurance and financial services products. Farmers Insurance is proud to serve more than 5 million households with over 15 million individual policies nationally, through the efforts of more than 45,000 exclusive and independent agents and approximately 20,000 employees. Farmers Insurance Exchange, the largest of the three primary insurers that make up Farmers Insurance, is recognized as one of the largest U.S. companies on the 2020 Fortune 500 list.

For more information about Farmers Insurance, visit Farmers.com, Twitter and Instagram, @WeAreFarmers, or Facebook.com/FarmersInsurance.

Contact: External Communications

Farmers Insurance

(818) 965-0007

[email protected]

SOURCE Farmers Insurance

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Chinese authorities authorities have detained an Australian television anchor working with a government-run station, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported, as relations worsen between the nations over trade and security concerns.

Australias Foreign Minister Marise Payne said in a statement Monday evening the government had been been informed on Aug. 14 that Cheng Lei had been detained in China.

Cheng is a journalist and television anchor working for the Chinese Governments English news channel, CGTN, the ABC reported. Cheng has not been charged, according to the ABC, but is being held in detention under a residential surveillance at a designated location." That can involve being held for up to six months without access to a lawyer or other assistance, the ABC said.

Australian officials had an initial consular visit with Cheng at a detention facility via video link on Aug. 27 and will continue to provide assistance and support to her and her family, Payne said in the statement.

Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not immediately available for comment.

Just last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrisons government revealed it was seeking new powers to veto or scrap agreements that state governments reach with foreign powers, in a move aimed at weakening Chinas ability to gain influence in the nation through its Belt and Road Initiative.

While China remains Australias largest trading partner, relations have markedly deteriorated since the government in Canberra banned Huawei Technologies Co. from participating in its 5G network and passed a law to stem foreign interference.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 23:19:19|Editor: huaxia

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JUBA, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's transitional government on Monday signed a peace deal with various opposition groups in Juba, the capital of neighboring South Sudan, to end decades of conflict in the marginalized areas of Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudan Sovereign Council, said the signing of the deal will go a long way in restoring peace and security in Sudan.

"This (peace) agreement will bring peace and stability in all parts of Sudan," al-Burhan said at the signing ceremony. "We cannot achieve development without peace, we have to stop all forms of conflict by addressing the root causes so that we build good relations between the state and citizens."

The Sudanese government signed the agreement with opposition groups under the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) that include SPLM-N sector led by Malik Agar, Justice Equality Movement under Jibril Ibrahim, Democratic Union party led by Eltom Hajou and the Sudan Liberation Movement under Minni Minnawi.

The agreement involves power-sharing, wealth-sharing, transitional justice, security, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees.

The SPLM-N sector led by Abdel Aziz Al-Hilu and Sudan Liberation Movement under Abdul Wahi Al-Nur did not sign the peace deal.

South Sudan President Salva Kiir and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and several diplomats attended the historic ceremony.

"We are committed to returning the country to peace and ensuring the return of the internally displaced persons and refugees," al-Burhan said.

He thanked South Sudan and the international community for helping mediate the peace talks that started on Oct. 14 last year.

Both sides had earlier on signed a political roadmap and cessation of hostilities agreement facilitating humanitarian access.

President Kiir lauded the deal, saying it will help bring peace and stability to both Sudan and South Sudan.

"With this peace agreement we have fulfilled the dreams of the Sudanese people, knowing that peace and security in Sudan is also peace and security in South Sudan," he said.

However, Kiir said:"We are still far from resolving this conflict once and for all because of the absence of the SPLM-N sector led by Abdel Aziz Al-Hilu and the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdul Wahid Al-Nur."

"The absence of these two groups from this (signing) ceremony remains a challenge to all of us," he said.

Kiir urged the international community to support the Sudanese people as they embark on implementing this agreement.

El Hadi Idris, head of the Sudan Revolutionary Front, expressed optimism that the peace agreement will bring an end to the suffering of civilians who have born the brunt of conflict.

"Today marks the end of war in Sudan and is going to end the suffering of the Sudanese people. This agreement is also going to address the root cause of the conflict in Sudan," he said.

"We are going to work and unite ourselves and support the government of Sudan to work for the people of Sudan," Idris said.

He called on the SPLM-N led by Al-Hilu and the SLM under Al-Nur to join the peace process. Enditem
Rameswaram :

Directorate of Revenue Intelligence officials on Sunday seized 8.3 kg of gold biscuits, worth Rs 2.30 crore, allegedly smuggled from Sri Lanka, and detained one person in this connection near.

The seizure was made when a three-member team of seniorDRI officials from Madurai and Tuticorin, acting on a tip-off, intercepted a car and searched it on Madurai-Rameswaram highway at Nagatchi, about 40 km from here, police said.

They took into custody 31-year-old Mujibur Rahman, the lone occupant of the car who hails from Enmanmkondan village near Uchipuli. The gold biscuits had been allegedly smuggled from SriLanka and were being taken to Tiruchirappalli when DRI officials seized it, police said. The man along with the gold and the car had been taken toTuticorin for further investigation, they added.

Also Read: Income-Tax department exposes Kolkata-based bogus firm, seizes Rs 1.78 crore

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
High-level delegations flew from Israel to the UAE to cement the normalisation deal.

A previous version of this story referred to Kiryat Gat as a "Jewish settlement". This has been changed to "city" to mark the distinction between communities in Israel proper and illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

High-level delegations from Israel and the US have arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), via the first-ever commercial flight between the Middle Eastern nations, to put final touches on a controversial pact establishing open relations.

Top aides to US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were on board the direct flight from Tel Aviv to the UAE capital Abu Dhabi on Israels flag carrier El Al on Monday.

Flight LY971 flew over Saudi Arabia after Riyadh agreed to the Israeli request on Sunday, marking the first time an Israeli commercial plane uses Saudi territory for an overflight.

The plane carrying the US and Israeli delegations to Abu Dhabi has the word peace written on it in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. It is also named after Kiryat Gat, a city built on the remains of two ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages, Iraq al-Manshiyya and al-Faluja.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh on Monday slammed the flight as very painful and a clear and a blatant violation of the Arab position towards the Arab-Israeli conflict.

We had hoped to see an Emirati plane landing in a liberated Jerusalem, but we live in a difficult Arab era, he said.





Announced on August 13, the normalisation deal is the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years and was catalysed largely by shared fears of Iran.

Palestinians were dismayed by the UAEs move, worried it would weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory and acceptance of Palestinian statehood in return for normal relations with Arab countries.

Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassen said the UAE-Israel deal went against the position of the Emirati people, and was in Zionist interests only  fuelling disagreements in the region.

H istoric flight 

Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and National Security Advisor Robert OBrien head the US delegation. The Israeli team is led by OBriens counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat.

Kushner voiced hope for a more peaceful era in the region.

While this is a historic flight, we hope that it will start an even more historic journey in the Middle East and beyond, Kushner said before boarding the El Al aircraft.

Officials will explore bilateral cooperation in areas such as commerce and tourism, and Israeli defence envoys are due to visit the UAE separately.

Israeli officials hope the two-day trip will produce a date for a signing ceremony in Washington, perhaps as early as September, between Netanyahu and Abu Dhabis Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

That could give Trump a foreign policy boost ahead of his re-election bid in November.

In Jerusalem on Sunday, Kushner called the UAE-Israel deal a giant step forward.

To have played a role in its creation, and I say this as the grandson of two Holocaust survivors, it means more to me and to my family that I can ever express, Kushner said.

Arab and Muslim countries will soon follow

The Trump administration has tried to coax other Arab countries concerned about Iran to engage with Israel.

OBrien said on Sunday more Arab and Muslim countries were likely to follow Abu Dhabis move.

We believe that other Arab and Muslim countries will soon follow the United Arab Emirates lead and normalise relations with Israel, he told reporters after talks at Netanyahus residence.





He did not name the states, but Israeli officials have publicly mentioned Oman, Bahrain and Sudan.

Recent news reports suggested Morocco may also be considering a similar agreement with Israel in exchange for military and economic aid.

However, Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Eddine el-Othmani said last week, We refuse any normalisation with the Zionist entity because this emboldens it to go further in breaching the rights of the Palestinian people.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organizations executive committee, said Kushner and his team were scrambling to convince as many Arab and Muslim leaders as possible to give Trump an election boost.

They will be a prop at the backdrop of a meaningless spectacle for a ridiculous agreement that will not bring peace to the region, she said.

The UAE-Israel agreement hit an immediate speed bump after it was announced, as contradictory comments on the planned Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank and Jordan Valley were made.

In spite of earlier comments by the UAE and a joint statement by the three countries that indicated the annexation plan would be suspended, senior UAE official Omar Ghobash, has admitted his government did not have any guarantees as such that Israel would not annex occupied Palestinian territory in the future.

Kushner has said as part of the Israeli-UAE deal that the US will not consent to Israeli annexation for some time.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, cast the annexation plan  already dogged by disagreements within his governing coalition on the proposed timing  as temporarily on hold. But Israeli officials have signalled they want approval from Israels main ally  the US  first.

An Israeli air force F-35 during an aerial demonstration at the Hatzerim airbase [Amir Cohen/Reuters]

Weapons sales

The Israel-UAE accord also faces another problem: a possible sale of stealth F-35 fighter jets to Abu Dhabi that could challenge the Israeli technological edge in the Middle East.





Netanyahu has denied reports the deal hinges on the sale of F-35s to the UAE, saying he opposes a move that could reduce Israels military advantage.

This deal did not include Israels acceptance of any arms deal, the Israeli prime minister said last week.

Ever since the 1960s, the US has guaranteed to maintain Israels qualitative military edge in the region.

The policy was enhanced two years ago with a law that Washington must ensure, when selling weapons to another country in the Middle East, that Israel retains the ability to defend itself if the arms were to fall into the wrong hands.

Israel has already received a first consignment of American F-35s, a fighter also coveted by other Gulf powers.

Yoel Guzansky, a senior analyst at Israels Institute for National Security Studies, told AFP there is no doubt of the importance of the F-35s.

I absolutely think that without the F-35, the possibility of buying it, they [the Emiratis] wouldnt sign the agreement, said Guzansky. This is a big hurdle to the fulfilment of the agreement.

Guzansky noted before Irans Islamic revolution of 1979, the US sold Turkey and Iran sophisticated weaponry, and now these countries are hostile towards Israel.

But some analysts say a deal can be struck to the satisfaction of both Israel and the UAE, and ultimately Saudi Arabia, a longtime customer of US armaments.

Although this is not really public, from what I understand arrangements are being made that the version that the Arab country gets is not the absolute latest version, Joshua Teitelbaum, a Gulf specialist at Israels Bar-Ilan University told AFP.

Economic ties

On Saturday, the UAE announced it was scrapping its economic boycott against Israel. Officials from the two countries have said they are looking at cooperation in defence, medicine, agriculture, tourism and technology.





Netanyahu told reporters abolishing the anachronistic boycott opened the door for unbridled trade, tourism and investment.

Statements issued by the UAE and Israel on Sunday said the UAE minister of state and Israels agriculture minister had spoken by phone and pledged to collaborate on projects that address food and water security.

The UAE, a desert state, relies on imports for about 80 percent of its food, and has heavily encouraged investment in agricultural technology and farmland abroad in recent years.

Israel and the UAE say they want to promote trade  especially the sale of Emirati oil to Israel and Israeli technology to the UAE  establish direct air links, and boost tourism.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress got into a fresh war of words and accused each other of alleged nexus with Facebook hours after a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report on Sunday cited messages of the social media companys India public policy head, Ankhi Das, in which she claimed to have lit a fire to his [Prime Minister Narendra Modis] social media campaign before he swept to power in 2014.

Also read: Facebook row intensifies as Tharoor, BJPs Dubey move breach of privilege notice against each other

Another WSJ report earlier this month said Das opposed applying hate-speech rules to a BJP politician whose posts targeted Muslims. The report prompted Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor-led Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology (IT) to summon Facebooks representatives for an explanation.

The Congress again attacked the BJP over its alleged nexus with Facebook and for undermining the countrys democratic ethos after WSJs Sunday report. Facebook was subverting Indias Democracy & Electoral Process. Shocking & gory details revealed by @wsj_com. If this is not Criminality, what is? Nothing short of a full independent investigation will unravel all the layers of BJP-Facebook nexus, Congresss chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted on Monday.

BJPs national Information and technology in charge, Amit Malviya, earlier tweeted: Meet Vijaya Moorthy. Supposedly, heads government outreach at Facebook. Worked with Rahul Gandhis team for nearly a decade (love for his former boss still going strong)... Talk about Congress-Facebook nexus? Well, it seems Congress is running Facebook! he tweeted.

Malviya questioned how come the mandarins at WSJ keep missing Ankhi Das posts sympathetic to the Aam Aadmi Party or the Trinamool Congress. He added the paper keeps harping on her perceived bias for the BJP. Is it because they want people who are uncompromisingly Left.

Facebook referred to Dass messages cited in the fresh report and insisted they have been taken out of context and do not represent the full scope of the companys efforts to support the use of the platform by parties across the Indian political spectrum in 2014. Facebooks public policy team operates with integrity and any suggestion that their efforts are motivated by partisanship discounts their hard work every day, it said in response to HTs request for comments on the WSJ report.

According to the fresh report, Das praised Modi as the strongman who had broken the Congress socialist hold on the state. The posts were made in a Facebook group designed for employees in India but was open to a global audience.

The report also mentioned a photograph of Das with her longest fellow traveller, top global elections official Katie Harbath, and Modi. Das, according to the report, arrived at Facebook in 2011, at a time when the social media giant was eager to demonstrate its utility in politics. It rolled out training for several Indian political parties on how best to use the platform to mobilize supporters. One was Mr. Modis 2012 campaign for re-election as chief minister of the western Indian state of Gujarat, the report said. It added Das in 2012 wrote about Modis victory of the success of our Gujarat campaign, which was close to reaching a million fans on Facebook.

Mr. Modi soon launched his campaign for national office, with Facebook again offering training and assistance Ms. Das made her sentiments on the race clear. When a fellow staffer noted in response to one of her internal posts that the BJPs primary opponent, the Indian National Congress, had a larger following on Facebook than Mr. Modis individual page, Ms. Das responded: Dont diminish him by comparing him with INC. Ah welllet my bias not show, the report said.

The report alleged the company has acted in a biased manner when taking down fake pages and accounts during Indias 2019 national elections. In another incident, which hasnt been previously reported, Facebook declined to act after discovering that the BJP was circumventing its political ad transparency requirements...

It added Facebook neither took down the pages nor flagged the ads. Instead, it privately raised the matter with the BJP...
Jorge Angel Llamas, left, takes a COVID-19 test under the supervision of nurse Karen Barringer in Chula Vista on Friday. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

August was the deadliest month of the COVID-19 pandemic in California, even as the state makes steady progress in reducing infections, hospitalizations and deaths, data show.

This month, California has reported 3,745 deaths connected to COVID-19, an 18% increase over July, a Los Angeles Times analysis found.

The news comes as California tops 700,000 coronavirus cases, the most in the United States. But adjusted for population, the Golden State's case count is dwarfed by 20 other states, including Southern hot spots such as Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, according to federal data.

Despite August's grim fatality milestone, new data released by California officials and analyzed by The Times show that by practically every measure, the state's coronavirus situation is slowly improving.

Infection and hospitalization rates have fallen steadily for more than a month. The average number of daily deaths is declining, too, which may be the product of tightened restrictions after a surge of COVID-19 cases around Memorial Day.

If the pattern holds, and Californians continue to observe social distancing protocols and wear face coverings, fatalities should continue to decline, officials say.

Hospitalizations peaked in late July, when the state reported 7,170 patients being treated for COVID-19. In August, hospitalizations have dropped steadily, hitting 3,940 this week  the fewest since late June, and a decline of 45% from a month ago.

The seven-day average of daily deaths in California is at its lowest point this month, a Times analysis found. The state is reporting an average of 112 deaths per day, a 14% decline from last week and a decrease from 133 daily deaths at the start of August.

This weekend, Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a new plan to slowly bring back the California economy, which has been battered by months of forced pandemic closures.

That included a green light for some businesses to open statewide, regardless of how well the local area is coping with the virus. Hair salons and barbershops are allowed to reopen, as are stores and shopping malls, limited to 25% capacity.

Story continues

At South Coast Plaza, the upscale shopping mall in Costa Mesa, company officials said more than 100 stores had reopened this week, with outdoor dining, takeout and curbside pickup available at more than 20 restaurants.

It's not life as usual at the mall, though. Face coverings are required, and valet parking, drinking fountains, stroller rentals, wheelchair rentals and carousels are still unavailable.

The center closed in mid-March and remained shuttered until June 11. After welcoming back long lines of shoppers, the mall was forced to close again about a month later, after COVID-19 cases surged and California reimposed many business restrictions .

Newsom's new system scraps the state's "watchlist" and instead sorts counties into four categories based on their progress fighting the virus. Before businesses can reopen and group activities can resume, counties must show proof of consistent progress.

The majority of the state is still classified as "Tier 1," and is subject to the most restrictive policies on gatherings and business operations. That includes Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, where few businesses are open for indoor operations.

Counties that have made more progress against the virus, including San Francisco and San Diego, have been classified as "Tier 2," with some nonessential businesses allowed to operate indoors with reduced capacity.

The hardest-hit areas of California are still in the Central Valley, where five counties are still seeing infection rates greater than 400 cases per 100,000 residents, according to The Times' coronavirus tracker.

The rate of positive COVID-19 tests in Los Angeles County fell to 5% this week, the lowest level since mid-May, said Dr. Muntu Davis, the county's public health officer. And the daily transmission rate among Latino residents, who have been disproportionately harmed by the virus, is at the lowest point since mid-May, Davis said.

"This is good news, but were still seeing way too many cases," Davis said. The testing rate, he said, is still "indicative of wide spread."

He cautioned that a low testing rate can surge upward with little notice, as it did in June and July. After an initial dip in positive results in May, Davis said, infections surged as "we saw many people in crowds" at reopened businesses and over Memorial Day weekend.

Officials have voiced concern about the possibility that infection rates could similarly spike after Labor Day weekend, which is expected to hit in the middle of a triple-digit heat wave in Los Angeles County.

Its likely going to be a hot weekend, so be sure to take precautions to avoid the hottest part of the day and keep cool," Davis said. He recommended visiting a hiking trail or having a picnic in the early morning or evening.

Davis advised residents to avoid gathering with anyone not in their household unit, and to wear a face covering or mask in public places. He also advised residents to avoid sharing cups, utensils and plates; to avoid crowded areas; and to be flexible, in the event that an area you'd planned on visiting is too crowded.
A Denver, Colo., judge awarded $40,000 to a woman after a man she dated sent a sexually-explicit video of her to her estranged husband.

The womans attorney says it is the first trial victory under Colorados revenge porn law.

The decision on Aug. 3 in favor of Kristina Hendershott was issued under a 2019 law that allows victims to sue for damages if someone intentionally sends an explicit image or video of them without their consent, said Hendershotts attorney, Malissa Williams.

Judge Christopher Baumann said in his ruling that he could not find any other trial verdicts under the 2019 revenge porn statute, Williams said.

This certainly gets the word out that victims have civil recourse when intimate images are sent without their consent, Williams said.

In July 2019, the man stole from Hendershotts phone an old video of her engaging in sexual conduct with another man, Hendershott told The Denver Post.

The man, who was not identified by the Post, then sent the video to Hendershotts estranged husband because he was jealous, she said.

In 2018, lawmakers passed a bill that made it easier to charge people with revenge porn. In 2019, the state senate passed a bill that closed civil law loopholes.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Colorado
Opposition calls for a nationwide ceasefire, new coronavirus infections detected, Saudi soldiers enter Hassakeh illegally and an SDF leader gunned down. Catch up on everything that happened over the weekend.

1. On Saturday, the main Syrian opposition called on major powers to help clinch a nationwide ceasefire in the coming months to pave the way for a political transition after nearly a decade of war. Reuters quoted Hadi al-Bahra, the Syrian oppositions co-chair of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, who was speaking to reporters in Geneva after a week of UN-sponsored talks. Bahra said that as long as there was no nationwide ceasefire, the political process would remain stalled. It was the responsibility of the international community and countries supporting either warring side to push for a full and permanent ceasefire, he said.

2. On Saturday, the Health Ministry announced that 65 new coronavirus (COVID-19) cases had been registered in Syria, and that 15 persons infected with the virus have recovered, while three others passed away. This, according to SANA, brings the total number of registered coronavirus cases in Syria to 2,628, of which 599 recovered while 106 cases passed away.

3. Several Saudi soldiers entered northeastern Syria this week via the illegal al-Walid Crossing on the border between the Syrian province of Hassakeh and the Iraqi province of Nineveh. Al-Masdar added that approximately 20 Saudi soldiers entered Syrias Hassakeh Governorate, where they later traveled to al-Shaddadi District near the Deir ez-Zors administrative border.

4. A leader from the US-backed SDF militia was killed when unknown persons opened fire on him in Deir ez-Zors eastern countryside. A SANA reporter quoted local sources as saying that that unknown persons were riding motorcycle when they opened fires on a leader of the SDF militia in the town of Swedan Jazeera, killing him.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Im confident that when the time is right we will be able to put together a package of revenue and other incentives to make sure that we have the kind of entertainment district that will not only be true to the legislation that we were able to get passed in Springfield, but to create a lot of jobs that are good jobs, well-paying jobs, to make sure that we bring opportunity to our city and to our residents, Lightfoot said.
WASHINGTON  The criminal case against Michael Flynn should not be immediately dismissed, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled Monday in a major setback for President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, who has proclaimed his innocence.

The 8-2 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which reverses a previous decision by a three-judge panel, is the latest in the long and politically fraught legal case of the former Army general.

At issue before the appeals court was whether U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan abused his powers when he did not immediately grant dismissal of the case against Flynn after the Justice Department decided to drop the prosecution. Instead, Sullivan appointed a third party, known as an amicus, to challenge the Justice Department's motion and to determine if Flynn had committed perjury for claiming to be innocent of a crime to which he had earlier pleaded guilty.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn arrives for his sentencing hearing at federal court in Washington, Dec. 18, 2018.

Flynn's attorneys also asked the appeals court to remove Sullivan from the case, arguing the judge's actions showed his inability to be impartial.

The case now goes back to Sullivan. A Justice Department spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

A three-judge panel from the appeals court sided with Flynn in June, ruling that Sullivan's actions were "unprecedented intrusions of individual liberty" and on the Justice Department's prosecutorial powers.

The full appeals court, which granted Sullivan's request to rehear the case, disagreed, saying judges have the authority to appoint third parties as they decide on rulings. In Sullivan's case, his attorney has argued what the judge was simply doing what judges do: seeking to hear both sides before ruling on the motion to dismiss.

The appeals court said that Sullivan may ultimately dismiss the case and that concerns over "intrusive judicial proceedings" were "speculative." The judges also said there's no basis in removing Sullivan from the case, saying opinions or statements judges make while presiding on a case don't indicate bias.

Story continues

Sidney Powell, Flynn's attorney, has argued that because the Justice Department no longer wanted to prosecute Flynn, Sullivan's only role is to promptly grant dismissal of the case. Instead, Sullivan appointed an amicus to "usurp" the role of prosecutors and has "so invested himself" for the purpose of prosecuting Flynn, Powell said during oral arguments in August.

Acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall said Sullivan cannot probe the Justice Department's motives for dropping the prosecution of Flynn and doing so entrenches on executive power. Sullivan's actions also have created an appearance that he can't be impartial, Wall said.

Flynn is one of half a dozen former Trump aides and advisers who were indicted as a result of the special counsel investigation on Russian election interference.

Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to making false statements to the FBI about his communications with a former Russian ambassador. He later reversed course, claiming investigators entrapped him into making false statements. The Justice Department also reversed course and sought to dismiss the case, arguing that the interview during which Flynn made false statements was "unjustified."

Panel sides with Flynn: Federal appeals court orders dismissal of Michael Flynn case, likely ending prosecution of ex-Trump adviser

Attorneys face skeptical court: Michael Flynn's efforts to force federal judge to dismiss case faces a skeptical appeals court

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Michael Flynn, ex-Trump national security adviser, loses dismissal bid
HOUSTON, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Bruin E&P Partners, LLC and its subsidiaries ("Bruin" or the "Company"), an exploration and production company with assets in the Williston Basin, North Dakota, today announced that it has completed its restructuring process and has emerged from Chapter 11. The comprehensive balance sheet restructuring equitizes a substantial majority of the Company's funded debt. The Company emerges with $230 million in revolver capacity.

Matt Steele, Chief Executive Officer of Bruin, commented that "Bruin has been able to undergo an extremely efficient and uncontentious Chapter 11 proceeding due to the support of our stakeholders, including our vendors, suppliers, regulatory agencies, banking group, and additional members of our capital structure. Most importantly, our employees have continued to work safely and productively through the process."

Mr. Steele continued stating, "We would like to thank each of our advisors for their guidance and tireless work and we look forward to continue to operate in the Williston Basin through our premier acreage position and operational excellence."

Bruin emerges with a newly constituted Board of Directors, effective in conjunction with the Company's emergence from Chapter 11. The new Board is comprised of Kevin Asarnow, Mark Bisso, Richard J. Doleshek, Mike Wichterich, and Matthew Steele.

More information about Bruin's restructuring, including access to Court documents, will be available at www.omniagentsolutions.com/bruin or contact Omni Agent Solutions, the Company's noticing and claims agent, at (866) 680-8161, or email [email protected].

For inquiries directly to the Company, please contact William Getschow at (281) 990-6953 or [email protected]

Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel to Bruin, PJT Partners LLP served as financial advisor, AlixPartners LLP served as restructuring advisor, and Jackson Walker L.L.P. served as local legal counsel.

About Bruin

We are an independent exploration and production company focused on the acquisition and development of onshore oil and natural gas producing properties in the core of the Bakken Shale and Three Forks formations in the Williston Basin of North Dakota. Bruin is headquartered in Houston, Texas and has offices in North Dakota and Colorado.

Forward-Looking Statements

The information in this communication includes "forward-looking statements." All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included in this communication regarding our strategy, future operations, financial position, estimated operating results, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives, including with respect to our financial restructuring transaction, are forward-looking statements. When used in this communication, the words "could," "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "forecast," "estimate," "expect," "project" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain such identifying words. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions about future events and are based on currently available information as to the outcome and timing of future events. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of this communication and, unless legally required, the Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Bruin E&P Partners, LLC
Both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh have sufficient forces and resources to ensure their defense and security, and the crushing counterattack to Azerbaijans aggression in July reaffirmed this. This is what Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said in an interview with Interfax.

Asked what initiative should be undertaken to avoid such incidents in the future, the minister stated it is sad to see attempts to incite an atmosphere of hatred in not only this region, but also beyond this region. In the peace process, exertion of maximum efforts to create an atmosphere contributing to peace is a major principle for Armenia. It is impossible to lead a process of peaceful negotiations in an atmosphere of hatred, war rhetoric and threat of use of force. There is no point in expecting progress in the negotiations when Azerbaijan incites hatred on the one hand and aspires for peace through statements on the other hand. It is impossible to assume that we can make real progress in the negotiations when there is Armenophobia and bellicose rhetoric, the foreign minister declared.

According to him, to avoid such conflicts in the future, it is first necessary to realize the need for a peace process and there has to be political will and concrete measures. We are leading negotiations, including negotiations over different concrete actions that will help minimize this rhetoric and escalation of hatred. There are several proposals from our side and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. All these ideas need to be implemented. There is a good example, that is, the exchange of journalists from Baku, Yerevan and Stepanakert last year. This is a major part of the whole peace process, the minister recalled.

What happened on July 12 and actually after April 2016 was an attempt to use force again and impose unilateral concessions on Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh  Interfax) through military operations. On July 12, an attack was made on the borderline posts located in the northeastern sector of Armenia (Tavush Province). Azerbaijan used a significant amount of weapons and technical equipment and bombarded peaceful civilians and civilian infrastructures. Armenia was determined and gave a counterattack to the aggression, reaffirming that this conflict has no military solution. Both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh have sufficient forces and resources to ensure their defense and security, and the crushing counterattack to the aggression in July reaffirmed this, the foreign minister concluded.
Former President Pranab Mukherjee's health declines, in 'septic shock': Hospital

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

New Delhi, Aug 31: The Army's Research and Referral Hospital on Monday said that former president Pranab Mukherjee's medical condition has "declined" and he is in "septic shock due to lung infection". Mukherjee is being managed by a team of specialists after his health worsened yesterday.

On August 10, the former president was admitted to the hospital in Delhi Cantonment, where he was operated upon for the removal of a clot in the brain. He had also tested positive for COVID-19 at the time of his admission. Mukherjee later developed a lung infection and kidney dysfunction.

Pranab Mukherjee's renal parameters improve: Hospital

"There is a decline in the medical condition of Hon'ble Shri Pranab Mukherjee since yesterday. He is in septic shock due to his lung infection and is being managed by team of specialists. He continues to be in deep coma and on ventilator support," a statement said.

On Independence Day, Pranab Mukherjee's daughter Sharmistha recalled hoisting flag at their ancestral home in Kirnahar in West Bengal's Birbhum district last year. Stating that the 84-year-old Bharat Ratna recipient never missed the celebrations, she wrote, "In his childhood, my dad and my uncle would hoist National Flag at our ancestral home in village. Since then, he never missed a year to hoist tri-colour on Independence Day."

Earlier, a 72-hour 'yagna' was performed in Mukherjee's hometown for his speedy recovery. Mukherjee was the 13th President of India from 2012 to 2017.

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Story first published: Monday, August 31, 2020, 11:26 [IST]
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U-Haul trucks and other moving vehicles were seen out in abundance on Manhattans troubled Upper West Side across the weekend.

The seeming exodus comes just days after it was revealed residents in the area are planning to sue the city after thousands of homeless people were put up in luxury hotels in the neighborhood in a controversial attempt to stem the spread of COVID-19 amid the ongoing pandemic.

Natives of the typically up-scale neighborhood say the moving in of the homeless people has caused an increase in crime, random violence, drug use, public urination and open prostitution. Some locals claim sex offenders have also moved into the streets.

Long lines were seen outside of a number of U-Haul stations in the neighborhood across Saturday and Sunday, with moving vehicles lining residential streets and discarded furniture stacked on sidewalks left by locals seeking pastures new.

While the end of the month often proves to be a busy moving period in the Big Apple, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa told the NY Post that he believes the mass evacuation' of Upper West Siders from NYC is now in 'full effect.

U-Haul trucks and other moving vehicles were seen out in abundance on Manhattans troubled Upper West Side across the weekend

The seeming exodus comes just days after it was revealed residents in the area are planning to sue the city after thousands of homeless people were put up in luxury hotels in the neighborhood due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Long lines were seen outside of a number of U-Haul stations in the neighborhood across Saturday and Sunday

Natives of the typically up-scale neighborhood say the moving in of the vagrants has brought with them increased crime, random violence, drugs, public urination and open prostitution. Some locals claim sex offenders have also moved into the streets

Sliwa, who lives on West 87th Street, directly blamed the citys decision to house hundreds of emotionally disturbed homeless people and recovering addicts in neighborhood hotels as the main catalyst for it.

Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa told the NY Post that he believes the mass evacuation' of Upper West Siders from NYC is now in 'full effect.

The mayoral candidate, who often leads Guardian Angel patrols of the area, said he saw numerous moving trucks stacked up down his street Saturday.

Stopping at each, he says he asked the residents where they were planning on moving too, which each reportedly confirming they were moving out of state.

Sliwa said that in his building already that nine out of the 12 units are currently sitting vacant. He said hes seen eight moving trucks on his block alone in the last week and a half.

The moment I walked out on my block, near Central Park West, there was a moving truck. I asked where you going, and they said, Virginia,, he told the outlet.

They told me, Curtis, first the pandemic hit us and now the quality of life is so bad Sliwa said, adding that the woman was almost in tears as she made the admission, telling him shed lived in the area since the crime-ridden days of the 1970s.

Sliwa said he spoke to the operators of three other trucks. They confirmed they were moving to New Hampshire, Tennessee, and South Carolina respectively.

One removal driver told Sliwa that his company is working morning, noon, and night to move people out of state, he claimed.

The exodus of New York. Big lines this morning at UHAUL. CATASTROPHIC setbacks in quality of life -people have had enough. pic.twitter.com/5StqXtKWQO  Greg Kelly The PROJECT is a Secret (@gregkellyusa) August 29, 2020

While the end of the month often proves to be a busy moving period in the Big Apple, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa told the NY Post that he believes the mass evacuation' of Upper West Siders from NYC is now in 'full effect'

Moving vehicles lining the streets and discarded furniture stacked on the sidewalk left my residents seeking pastures new (picture taken July 14)

Residents have hired an attorney to sue the city to transfer the homeless back into shelters where they can get help

Residents of the area have now hired an attorney to sue to city into transferring the homeless back into shelters where they can receive the help they need

One resident pictured moving out his belongings of his Upper West Side apartment on Sunday

Another of the trucks was for a young family, a mother and father with a young daughter and son.

They said in the last month, there have been so many disturbed people in the streets, aggressively panhandling, defecating, urinating  they leave the hotels and have no bathrooms to use, Sliwa said.

These are the people who elected de Blasio, who live here, Sliwa said. Its a progressive, liberal neighborhood. And now theres a visceral hate here for him  the feeling that he has virtually singlehandedly destroyed this city.

At the moment more than 13,000 homeless people are being housed in 139 hotels across the Big Apple, including three luxury hotels  The Belleclaire, The Lucerne and The Belnord  on the Upper West Side.

Residents of the area have now hired an attorney to sue to city into transferring the homeless back into shelters where they can receive the help they need.

At the moment more than 13,000 homeless people are being housed in 139 hotels across the Big Apple, including three luxury hotels  The Belleclaire, The Lucerne and the Belnord  on the Upper West Side. An unlawful encampment pictured on the Upper West Side on Broadway

Residents of the upscale neighborhood complain that the move-in of the vagrants has brought with it increased crime, random violence, drugs, public urination and open prostitution

A homeless man sits along an Upper West Side street, displaying a sign seeking work

A homeless encampment along an Upper West Side side walk is seen above on Sunday

Numerous moving vehicles were spotted in the area across the weekend as locals warned of a 'mass evacuation'

On Monday a Zoom meeting was held between the community board, residents and homeless advocates about keeping the streets safe. About 1,100 people joined that emergency meeting.

'What the city has to do legally is house this vulnerable population in proper shelters, where they will get support and supervision and social services they will need,' attorney Randy Mastro, who represents the West Side Community Organization, said to ABC7.

Mastro is an attorney and former Deputy Mayor and Chief of Staff under Rudy Giuliani.

Its not clear when the suit against the city and Mayor Bill De Blasio would be filed by Mastro said it would be 'soon', according to Our Town.

'We are calling on the de Blasio administration to clear up this mess of its own making,' Mastro said to the New York Post.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the West Side Community Organization for comment on the lawsuit.

'Last night the community came together at the CB7 board meeting to address significant safety concerns to our children and neighborhood. We will not turn a blind eye to what is happening to the UWS or ignore the risk of sexual assault. More news in the coming week,' the group tweeted Tuesday evening.

Upper West Side residents threatened to sue Mayor Bill de Blasio if he doesn't move 13,000 homeless people out of the neighborhood

On Monday a Zoom meeting was held between community board, residents and homeless advocates about keeping the streets safe. About 1,100 joined that emergency meeting

The Guardian Angels perform a night patrol of the Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York, amid growing concerns about hundreds of homeless recently moved into hotels by the city on August 10

Local Michelle Benvenisti said she was walking home on the Upper West Side last Saturday night when someone started heckling her. She claimed the man tried to follow her into her home then loitered outside for several hours.

'Completely unnerving that I have purchased a sound alarm for keychain, and I'm signing up for self-defense. Changing the way I do every day activities,' Benvenisti said.

Upper West Side resident Alison Morpurgo said a homeless man grabbed her a few weeks ago trying to steal her phone.

'When they're not wearing masks, congregating, sleeping on the street or sharing bottles, it's hard to see how that's helpful. What was the goal of that?' Morpurgo said.

Locals have joined social media groups including the Twitter page 'Save the Upper West Side' and Facebook group 'Upper West Siders for Safer Streets', which boasts over 11,000 followers.

Local Michelle Benvenisti said she was walking home on the Upper West Side last Saturday night when someone started heckling her. She claimed the man tried to follow her into her home then loitered outside for several hours

'Completely unnerving that I have purchased a sound alarm for keychain, and I'm signing up for self-defense. Changing the way I do every day activities,' Benvenisti said. The man who followed her pictured above

On both pages users post stark photos of the homeless population theyve found sleeping in streets and urinating in public, and share their concerns.

Still, the city stands by the decision to move homeless New Yorkers to 139 struggling private hotels across the city in a bid to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and prevent breakouts at shelters.

The effort is being mostly paid for by FEMA, but 25 percent of it is coming from the city's shrinking budget. It brings some cash to the struggling hotels which were decimated by the pandemic.

Through the program, they take $175 per person, per night which - with more than 13,000 homeless currently being housed in hotels - is more than $2.275million, according to anonymous city sources who have been quoted since May.

A man rests on a park bench on the Upper West Side in the Manhattan borough of New York City on August 10

The city stands by the decision to move homeless New Yorkers to 139 struggling private hotels across the city in a bid to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and prevent breakouts at shelters

In early August Mayor Bill De Blasio said moving the homeless wasnt a permanent strategy and the city is planning to purchase buildings to urn them into affordable housing

Despite the complaints and the exorbitant bills, the city is standing by the decision.

'We know that by moving into hotels, we were able to save lives,' Erin Drinkwater from the Department of Social Services said.

'New Yorkers experiencing homelessness are our neighbors - and the notion that they are not welcome in some neighborhoods for any reason is an affront to basic decency,' The Department of Homeless Services said in a statement.

In early August Mayor Bill De Blasio said moving the homeless wasnt a permanent plan and the city is planning to purchase buildings to urn them into affordable housing.

'We're now starting the process of reducing the reliance on hotels,' de Blasio said at a press conference. 'That's the big plan is make sure we can start to get people out of those hotels, relieve some of the pressure on those communities.'

De Blasio offered no details on how quickly the program would be wound down. He had recently said that the program would continue for 'six months-ish.'

Westchester County sees July home sales more than DOUBLE as NYC is ravaged by coronavirus and soaring crime rates

By Ariel Zilber for DailyMail.com

New York City residents with cash are fleeing the Big Apple in droves and moving to nearby suburbs as the COVID-19 pandemic has enabled them to work from home while Manhattan office buildings stay largely empty.

Real estate brokers in the surrounding areas of the city including the Hudson Valley, Westchester County, New Jersey, and Connecticut are reporting soaring demand for houses in recent months.

Compared to 2019, there was a 44 per cent jump in the number of July home sales for suburban counties just outside of New York City, according to figures compiled by Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants.

That includes a 112 per cent increase in Westchester County; a 73 per cent increase in home sales in Fairfield County, Connecticut; a 35 per cent increase in home sales in Putnam County; and a 19 per cent increase in Dutchess County.

New York City residents are fleeing to the suburbs as the COVID-19 pandemic and an uptick in crime has forced those with cash to seek larger living spaces while being able to work from home. The image above shows a row of apartment buildings and restaurants in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan on August 18

Many New Yorkers appear to prefer nearby Westchester County, where July home sales jumped a staggering 112 per cent compared to the same period last year. The above image shows a view of the Westchester County town of New Rochelle, New York, on May 30

In Manhattan, July home sales dipped by 56 per cent, according to The New York Times.

Before the pandemic, New Yorkers were willing to put up with cramped, tiny apartments and a high cost of living in exchange for short commutes to the office as well as easy access to the citys cultural attractions and nightlife.

Since COVID-19 has essentially shut down much of the citys museums, theaters, and sports stadiums, those with means are now buying homes that give them the comfort of working from home in larger spaces.

Some real estate agents said clients coming from the city have also expressed concern about the disturbing rise in violent crime in recent months.

Real estate agents in nearby Dutchess County, which lies about 80 miles north of New York City, report a 19 per cent increase in July home purchases compared to the same period last year. The above file photo shows the town of Poughkeepsie, the seat of Dutchess County

There was a 162 per cent increase in the number of shooting victims and a 166 per cent increase in the number of shooting incidents during the four-week period that ended on August 23 compared to the same period last year, New York Police Department data shows.

From January 1 through August 23, there was a 95 per cent increase in the number of shooting victims and 87 per cent increase in shootings compared to the same period in 2019.

During the four-week period ending on August 23, the city recorded 48 homicides - a 50 per cent increase from the 32 homicides that were recorded during the same period last year.

Between January 1 and August 23, the city recorded 280 homicides - a 35 per cent increase from 208 homicides that were recorded during the same period of 2019.

The people from New York are coming with a sense of urgency, and the thing they want is space, James Hughes, a real estate agent based in New Jersey, told the Times.

The demand is insane.

Hughes believes that about 60 per cent of potential buyers who have expressed interest in properties that he markets are New York City exiles.

Zack Stertz, Zoe Salzman, and their two young sons were living in a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn when the pandemic hit in March.

Since they were unable to afford a brownstone in Brooklyn, they decided to search elsewhere for a home, particularly since there was worry that schools in New York City would not resume in-person classes this fall.

In June, they outbid several potential buyers and purchased a four-bedroom home in Maplewood, New Jersey. Their offer of $799,000 was accepted just two days after it was listed.

To give up living in Brooklyn and move to suburbs, we just couldnt see ourselves there, said Salzman, a 39-year-old lawyer who under normal circumstances works from her Manhattan office.

In Putnam County, there was a 35 per cent spike in home sales in July. The above image shows residents of Phillipstown, New York, in Putnam County taking part in Memorial Day festivities on May 25

But the pandemic helped make this choice for us.

The exodus from the city is so acute that real estate agents in the suburbs are reporting dwindling supply next to surging demand.

In East Orange, New Jersey, a home listed for $285,000 was shown to 97 potential buyers. It received 24 offers.

The offer that was accepted was 21 per cent more than the original asking price - approximately $345,000.

The values of properties in Kingston, New York - a quaint Hudson Valley suburb near the Catskill Mountains - soared by 18 per cent in the second quarter, or $276,000, compared to the same period last year.

That represents the biggest increase among 181 metropolitan areas in the United States, according to a report released earlier this month by the National Association of Realtors.

Every single deal I have is someone from Brooklyn or Manhattan, Amy Crossfield, a Kingston-based real estate agent and former resident of Brooklyn, told Bloomberg News.

You have bidding wars, cash offers and people rushing to put in an offer the day something comes on the market.

New Yorkers are also crossing state lines and moving to Connecticut. Brokers report a 73 per cent increase in home sales in Fairfield County, Connecticut, in July compared to the same period last year. The above image shows the town of Stamford, Connecticut

New York City will have to wrestle with the economic repercussions of this trend, which is reminiscent of the large-scale flight from the five boroughs to the suburbs in the decades immediately following World War Two.

Experts have warned that the flight of wealthy New Yorkers will deprive the city of badly needed tax revenue to maintain services like police and sanitation that are vital if it hopes to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

'What is worrisome is that the high-income earners, particularly those with more than $1million, provide a substantial amount of resources to the New York City budget,' said Maria Doulis, vice president of strategy and operations at the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission.

'To lose them would really represent a blow to the budget.'

Despite the grim outlook, however, Mayor Bill de Blasio says don't count out New York City.

The mayor is predicting that those leaving will eventually return.

'If you dont think New York City is coming back, then you dont know New York City,' de Blasio said.
SACRAMENTO  Gov. Gavin Newsom will decide whether to escalate a longstanding battle between California and the gun industry over bullet-tracing technology.

The Legislature sent a bill to Newsom on Sunday that aims to compel firearms manufacturers to embrace the technology known as microstamping, which they have long rejected as unworkable, by scaling back standards the state adopted more than a decade ago.

Newsom now has a month to decide whether to sign AB2847, which would would require that semiautomatic pistols sold in the state leave a single unique imprint on bullets that are fired rather than two, as currently required. The marking, which reveals a guns make, model and serial number, are meant to help law enforcement investigations.

Gunmarkers argue that microstamping is unreliable because the etching on a firing pin does not provide a legible imprint on every bullet casing and can easily be removed. They also say its investigative usefulness can be undermined by dropping bullet casings from another weapon at a crime scene to confuse officers.

California originally passed its microstamping requirement in 2007, calling for gun manufacturers to incorporate the technology within three years. But the law was delayed for years while the state waited for a patent on the technology of the technology to expire and then by a court challenge by gun industry groups, which said the requirement could never be met.

Although the state Supreme Court ultimately upheld the law two years ago, manufacturers have simply stopped introducing new pistol models to the California market. Old models without the micro-stamping technology remain on a state list of handguns certified for sale.

Assemblyman David Chiu, the San Francisco Democrat carrying the bill, has said he is calling the industrys bluff. During the legal case, gunmakers acknowledged microstamping was possible, but said it could not be done in two separate places.

His measure would increase pressure on manufacturers by requiring the state attorney general to remove three old pistol models from the certified handgun list for each new model introduced in California with the microstamping technology. Chiu said it would ensure that newer guns that have undergone other safety improvements would be available in California.

This is a bill that will assist law enforcement in solving gun-related crimes via microstamping technology and reduce the number of accidental gun deaths and injuries, Chiu said Sunday on the Assembly floor. The measure passed on a 43-13 vote.

Alexei Koseff is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alexei.koseff@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @akoseff
Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Monday that its troops have never crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) amid a China-India border standoff, after the Indian army alleged that China's troops violated the previous consensus.

Indian army said in a statement on Monday that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) "violated the previous consensus reached in previous military and diplomatic engagements and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo" in the disputed eastern Ladakh region on the night of August 29/30.

It said Indian soldiers foiled the Chinese attempt.

The Galwan Valley, which is part of the disputed region, is located on the Chinese side of the actual control line in the western section of the Sino-Indian border. And Chinese soldiers have patrolled the area for many years, according to China's Defense Ministry.

During Monday's daily briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian denied the latest accusation from India, saying Chinese troops always abide by the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Zhao said the two sides are maintaining diplomatic and military communications on the border dispute but he didn't give more details on the talks.

China blames India for escalation in the Galwan Valley, and it has called on the Indian side to settle the dispute through military and diplomatic dialogue.

On May 6, Indian soldiers' first intrusion in the China-controlled Galwan Valley. Despite bilateral diplomatic efforts, Indian troops violated the newly-reached consensus and trespassed China's border and launched provocative attacks against Chinese personnel, leading to bloody conflicts between soldiers from both countries, according to a release by Beijing.

China has repeated that it hopes the Indian side can eventually meet China halfway and fully implement the consensus reached by the two sides and settle the dispute through dialogue and diplomatic ways.

After political negotiation, troops from both countries have disengaged from front-line contact in the Galwan Valley since early July.
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the poorest especially hard. For most, their hand-to-mouth income depends on daily labor, which had to stop during the quarantine. In many places hit by COVID-19, like Cebu, many people in Pastor Berthyl's community have lost their jobs. He shared, "Some people here are so desperate that they considered taking up illegal work."

ICM has been working with the ultra-poor since 1992. Soon after the quarantine was enforced, the staff and partner pastors began receiving reports from all over the Visayas and Mindanao with pleas for help. Suspending its regular poverty-reduction operations, ICM pivoted to effective and efficient aid distribution.

Bringing food to the hungry

For aid distribution throughout the quarantine, ICM has been working closely with national, provincial, and local governments. ICM's CEO, David Sutherland, said "We've been impressed. Many agencies of the Philippine government have been acting heroically to help the poor. But in a country of more than 100 million people on 7,000+ islands, gaps are inevitable. That is where ICM comes in."

ICM partners with 10,000+ pastors across the Visayas and much of Mindanao. They help ICM identify families in the greatest need. Through these key partnerships over the last three months, ICM has distributed meals and health supplies to 3.4 million Filipinos.

"There is no other charity in the Philippines who has come close to ICM's reach among Filipino poor communities during the quarantine," said Sutherland. "We estimate that eight million poor people live in areas where ICM operates, so that means ICM has already distributed food to more than a third of poor Filipino families across vast areas of the country."

More than 5,000 pastors send their requests through ICM's Rapid Emergency and Disaster Intervention (REDI) system. ICM receives requests through text and social messaging, verifies those requests, and distributes relief packs to ultra-poor communities in remote areas of the Visayas and Mindanao.

ICM partner pastors are a vital network for ICM's reach. Pastor Wilmino in Maguindanao was determined to get help for the hungry in his area despite a total lockdown in the province and armed conflict among rebel groups. "I asked for help from the army and we were the only group able to pass through the checkpoints to distribute food packs to 200 families," he said.

A scalable, efficient response

ICM's rapid and targeted response is only possible because of decades of innovation around efficient, effective, and scalable charity operations. Over the last decade, ICM's Transform training program has graduated 1.4 million ultra-poor Filipinos with livelihood skills, health training, values formation, and savings groups. Before the virus took hold, ICM reported that its four-month Transform program improved ultra-poor household income by 146%, reduced serious illness by 29%, and decreased chronic hunger by 19%.

ICM's regular programs may have been put on hold by the pandemic, but it is by no means slowing down its efforts to help the ultra-poor. Right now, ICM staff and partner pastors continue to distribute food packs to families. ICM also has distributed over 130 million seeds to the poorest families, allowing them to grow their own food, along with hundreds of thousands of booklets about COVID-19 in five languages to better equip the poor with knowledge on avoiding infection moving forward.

"I'm so proud of the staff, even though they are afraid themselves of being exposed to the virus," said Samuel Templado, ICM Area Head of Negros Occidental. "But we had a great opportunity to reach people who no one else could reach, and save them from starvation so we took it."

International Care Ministries (ICM) is a faith-based NGO with a mission to free the Filipino ultra-poor from the bondages of poverty. Operating since 1992, ICM has graduated over 1.4 million Filipino family members from its four-month anti-poverty training program called Transform. ICM is manned by 500 full-time staff (98% Filipino), primarily located in twelve bases in the Visayas and Mindanao. Field bases are supported by the national program office in Manila. To donate and for more information, visit www.caremin.com.

SOURCE International Care Ministries

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Avance Gas Holding Ltd (the Company) advises that the 2020 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders of the Company was held on August 31, 2020 at 12:00 p.m. at Par-la-Ville Place, 4th Floor, 14 Par-la-Ville Road, Hamilton Bermuda. The audited consolidated financial statements for the Company for the year ended December 31, 2019 were presented to the Meeting.

In addition, the following resolutions were passed:

1. To set the maximum number of Directors to be not more than eight.

2. To resolve that vacancies in the number of Directors be designated as casual vacancies and that the Board of Directors be authorised to fill such vacancies as and when it deems fit.

3. To re-elect Marius Hermansen as a Director of the Company.

4. To re-elect Francois Sunier as a Director of the Company.

5. To re-elect Jan Kastrup-Nielsen as a Director of the Company.

6. To re-elect Christian Fallesen as a Director of the Company.

7. To re-appoint PricewaterhouseCoopers AS of Oslo, Norway, as auditor and to authorize the Directors to determine their remuneration.

8. To approve the remuneration of the Companys Board of Directors of a total amount of fees not to exceed US$500,000 for the year ended 31 December 2020.

Hamilton, Bermuda

August 31, 2020

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5 -12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act
MONTREALDjennie Dorvilier still remembers the excitement of getting a brand-new car after graduating from college 20 years ago, using the money she saved from working night shifts at McDonalds.

She also remembers being stopped nine times for random police checks within the first month and a half of owning her new car, a 2000 Mazda Protege.

I was even told its because I didnt look like someone who could afford such a car, Dorvilier said at a protest in Montreal on Sunday.

Dorvilier was among a convoy of nearly 60 Black motorists who drove to Quebec Premier Francois Legaults office in the suburb of LAssomption, about an hour outside the city, to protest racial profiling.

The demonstration, titled Driving While Black, comes amid a widespread movement to bring attention to police treatment of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of colour) communities.

Now people are listening, but weve been going through this for many years. Its important to raise awareness about, when youre racialized, how youre treated by the police when stopped while driving your car, Dorvilier said.

The demonstrators eventually made it to Legaults office, where they read out their demands from a letter detailing 10 ways to stop Black people from being targeted by police while driving.

The proposals include a call to revise Quebecs Guide to Police Practices to eliminate any act that allows officers to discriminate or racially profile anyone they come across.

The guide was in the news last week, when the provinces Ministry of Public Security unveiled guidelines to make sure that police stops arent racially motivated. But the move was met with criticism by some advocacy groups who said they werent consulted.

The provinces human rights commission ruled at the end of 2019 that the city of Montreal should stop police checks as they disproportionately affect certain groups.

Fo Niemi, executive director of the Centre for Research Against Race Relations, said Sunday hes been receiving complaints from people across the province  including as far west as Gatineau  about police checks. He said theres a growing number of them coming from suburban areas, where more and more Black people are moving.

We have some people being stopped practically two, three times a months just because they drive a flashy car, Niemi said. To the point where one of our clients has to basically change his car.

Vladimir Dorceus said he has lost track of the amount of times he has been pulled over for a random check by police in his Black BMW. Dorceus brought his nine-year old son to Sundays event to show him how Black people can come together to protest the issue.

Even if hes young, I think he has to be informed of the situation. Because hes a young Black person who lives in Montreal and it could happen to him in the future, Dorceus said.

Josue Corvil, who was elected as a city councillor for the Montreal borough of Saint-Michel in late 2018, said he remembers being stopped by police who were unaware of his work for the city last year.

He said he doesnt believe all police officers are racist, but he feels some of their ways must be changed in order for better relations to be had between Black people and police.

Its very frustrating to be stopped, Corvil said.

Legaults office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

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Irelands acting chief medical officer has warned that as the country navigates its way through the pandemic, there are no zero risk options for reopening schools.

In a bid to allay fears among teachers, parents and students, Dr Ronan Glynn said however that schools will reopen in as safe a way as possible.

In an open letter to parents, guardians, teachers and school staff, Dr Glynn said he is very aware of their worries about the reopening of schools this week.

This concern is natural and is to be fully expected after a period of six months during which we have all had to adapt to the challenges posed by Covid-19, he said.

As we continue to navigate our way through this pandemic, there are no zero risk options for reopening schools or indeed any other environment Dr Ronan Glynn

He said the decision to reopen schools has not been taken lightly and has been based on guidance by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

He said the decision is also based on scientific evidence regarding the risk of Covid-19 in school children and staff, the experience of other countries that have not closed, or have reopened schools, as well as Irelands experience having reopened childcare settings and summer camps since June.

Many primary and secondary schools will reopen their doors to staff and students this week following six months of closure.

International evidence shows us that child-to-child and child-to-adult transmission of Covid-19 in schools is uncommon, Dr Glynn added.

In addition, our own experience to date in Ireland, and indeed that reported internationally, demonstrates that for the overwhelming majority of children who are diagnosed with Covid-19, their symptoms will be mild.

The importance of schools for the overall health and wellbeing of children cannot be overstated, and the risk of Covid-19 has been carefully weighed against the very real harm that can be caused by sustained school closures.

Schools play a fundamental role in the social life of children, they are where children are educated, make friends, share interests, learn social skills like self-confidence and empathy, and participate in sport and cultural activities.

Of course, as we continue to navigate our way through this pandemic, there are no zero risk options for reopening schools or indeed any other environment.

The aim, therefore, is to reopen in as safe a way as possible by ensuring that all appropriate public health measures such as physical distancing, hand washing and respiratory hygiene are implemented where appropriate.

He said that schools are at the heart of communities.

He urged parents to play a key role in keeping the level of Covid-19 in the community low.

If all of us continue to make small changes to the way we live, we can  together  starve this virus of opportunities to transmit, Dr Glynn added.

While it is OK to send your child to school or childcare if they only have a runny nose or a sneeze, if you have any concerns that your child has symptoms of Covid-19  fever, cough, shortness of breath, loss of taste or smell  then please keep them at home until you have spoken with your GP by phone.

There will be cases of Covid-19 among children over the coming days and weeks, as there have been throughout this pandemic to date.

But when this happens our public health teams in the HSE will respond and liaise closely with the school involved and ensure that all necessary measures are taken to protect other students and school staff.

Information is available at gov.ie/backtoschool and hse.ie.
Saudi Arabia is locking up African migrants in hellish detention centres to stop them spreading the coronavirus, it has emerged.

Images leaked to the Sunday Telegraph show emaciated migrants packed into cramped cells in the searing Middle East heat.

Prisoners say they are 'treated like animals' by Saudi guards who beat them with whips and electric cords and toss away the bodies of migrants who died of heatstroke or suicide.

Images leaked to the Sunday Telegraph show emaciated migrants packed into cramped cells in the searing Middle East heat

Saudi Arabia came under pressure for deporting thousands of illegal migrants when the pandemic first arrived, and has since been cramming them in prisons to stop them spreading the disease in their overcrowded homes.

One image taken on a smuggled phone shows migrants lying nearly naked on the floor of a filthy cell with dozens of people crammed into neighbouring rooms.

In another room, a corpse lay on the floor covered by a blanket after a migrant died of heatstroke - with others allegedly struggling for food and water.

'It's hell in here. We are treated like animals and beaten every day,' said Abebe, a migrant from Ethiopia.

'My only crime is leaving my country in search of a better life. But they beat us with whips and electric cords as if we were murderers.'

Another migrant said that 'we have been left to die here', adding that he had not been outside the area of a school classroom since March.

One image taken on a smuggled phone shows migrants lying nearly naked on the floor of a filthy cell

Others said they have received no medical treatment and that filth from the toilets was overflowing into the cells.

Human rights groups have long warned that prisons are potential disaster zones because of the possible spread of the disease in dirty, confined spaces.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, one of the prisons is in Al Shumaisi near Mecca, while another is in Jazan near the border with Yemen.

Those two alone are thought to contain hundreds of people, and there may be more prisoners in other parts of the compound.

Human Rights Watch said the migrants were being subjected to 'squalid, crowded and dehumanising conditions' at the detention centres.

A petroleum-rich state such as Saudi Arabia had 'no excuse' for detaining migrants in such conditions, a spokesman said.

Saudi Arabia's government has not responded to the claims.

The UN said in April that Saudi Arabia had deported 2,870 Ethiopian migrants to Addis Ababa since the start of the pandemic.

An internal UN memo said Saudi Arabia was expected to deport some 200,000 Ethiopian migrants in total.

However, Riyadh called a temporary halt to the expulsions after coming under pressure from the UN and Ethiopia.

Many of the returning migrants were exploited in Saudi Arabia and required medical attention unrelated to the coronavirus, Ethiopia's health minister said.

US officials estimate that some 100,000 Ethiopians travel illegally to Saudi Arabia every year, lured by the dream of escaping poverty by working as labourers, housekeepers, servants, construction workers and drivers.

The flow of workers has continued despite Riyadh's efforts to pressure companies into hiring more Saudi workers.

Companies with more Saudi employees get preferential treatment, while those with too many foreign workers can face penalties.

Migrants are pictured with scarring on their backs after being beaten by guards

The rules are part of a 'Saudization' policy championed by the kingdom's controversial crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

However, the 12million foreigners who work in the kingdom are often needed for strenuous and lower-paid jobs - while about two-thirds of Saudi workers are employed in the public sector.

Even before the pandemic, deported migrants said Saudi 'police officers' of dubious legitimacy had stolen their money and shared it between them.

Others said they saw compatriots being shot and wounded when they tried to escape police roundups.

Saudi Arabia has officially recorded 314,821 coronavirus cases and 3,870 deaths, making it the worst-affected Middle East country apart from Iran.

In May, Saudi Arabia formed a special police unit to enforce its tough quarantine rules which included a ban on gatherings of more than five people.

However, the rules did not prevent Saudi Arabia from having to scale back the hajj pilgrimage in order to maintain social distancing.

Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil firm Aramco also saw its profits plunge by 50 per cent in the first half of this year.

Oil prices crashed after air travel came to a near-standstill because of the lockdowns imposed by the world's richest nations.

Despite the crown prince's efforts to diversify the economy, Saudi Arabia still depends heavily on oil exports to fuel government spending.
Find all of the most important pandemic education news on Educating N.J., a special resource guide created for parents, students and educators.

In response to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and strict safety guidelines required by the state, many school districts in New Jersey have drafted plans to reopen in September with all-remote learning instead of in-person classroom instruction.

As of this week, more than 180 school districts across the state have indicated they want to begin the 2020-2021 school year with all-remote learning, while 59 districts plan to fully reopen and the remaining districts want to start the new school year with a hybrid mix of in-person and remote learning, according to state officials.

All school reopening plans need to be reviewed and approved by the state Department of Education before they can be implemented. After weeks of waiting for guidance from the state, school districts learned on Saturday that they may now officially ask the education department to approve their all-remote reopening plans.

Districts have to submit their requests within seven days of the first day of school, or as soon as practicable, according to the state guidelines. The late announcement of those guidelines has some school superintendents expressing frustration, because they have been unable to get approval for their all-remote plans as the first days of school are quickly approaching.

Keep up with the latest in N.J. schools coverage. Sign up with your email here:



For many school districts, the push to reopen with all-virtual instruction was prompted by lingering concerns over the coronavirus and questions over whether schools can guarantee a safe environment for students and teachers.

NJ Advance Media has been able to confirm the following districts are seeking state approval to start with all-remote classes for the 2020-2021 school year. NJ Advance Media will add to the list as more districts announce their plans. (For the very latest reopening plans, and additional details about specific schools, please contact your school district.)

ATLANTIC COUNTY

Atlantic City (remote at start of school year)

Atlantic County Vocational (remote until Oct. 5)

Brigantine (remote start, with re-entry on or before Nov. 11, the end of the first marking period)

Egg Harbor Township (virtual starting Sept. 8; plan to start hybrid schedule Oct. 26)

Greater Egg Harbor Regional (9th grade virtual until Oct. 6; 10th, 11th and 12th grade return Oct. 12)

Hamilton Township (remote at start of school year)

Pleasantville (remote at start of school year)

Somers Point (Jordan Road School to go all-remote at start of the year; New York Avenue and Dawes Avenue schools reopening on hybrid schedule to start.

BERGEN COUNTY

Bergen County Technical Schools and Special Services (remote through Oct. 19)

Bergenfield (remote start, until Oct. 16)

Bogota (remote until Oct. 19)

Dumont (virtual until Sept. 22)

Edgewater (remote for the month of September; district expects to re-evaluate in the middle of September)

Elmwood Park (through Oct. 19)

Fair Lawn (remote through Oct. 19)

Fort Lee (remote through Oct. 16)

Garfield (plan submitted to state Department of Education to start all-remote and transition to hybrid)

Hasbrouck Heights (remote until Oct. 5)

Hackensack (remote start, schools plan to reopen Nov. 2)

Lodi (remote start, through at least Oct. 19)

Lyndhurst (remote learning until Oct. 16; in-person instruction scheduled to begin Oct. 19)

North Arlington (remote through Oct. 16)

Palisades Park (remote through at least Oct. 13)

Ramapo-Indian Hills (remote until Sept. 24)

Ridgefield (remote through first marking period)

River Dell (remote until Oct. 5)

Rochelle Park (remote through Oct. 5)

Teaneck (remote through first marking period)

Tenafly (remote instruction for all students, district-wide)

Wallington (remote through Oct. 13)

Wyckoff (remote through Sept. 24)

BURLINGTON COUNTY

Bordentown (remote Sept. 3 through at least Oct. 9)

Burlington City (remote through at least Oct. 13)

Burlington Township (remote through first marking period)

Chesterfield (schools plan to reopen Oct. 19 with remote learning)

Eastampton (remote through first marking period)

Florence (remote through Sept 18, hybrid plan to start Sept. 21)

Lumberton (remote learning Sept. 8 to Sept. 18, hybrid learning starting Sept. 21)

Northern Burlington County Regional (students to begin 2 weeks of all-remote instruction on Sept 14, then report for in-person instruction Sept. 28 with a hybrid model)

Palmyra (remote)

Pemberton Township (remote through at least Oct. 13)

Rancocas Valley (remote Sept. 8 through Sept. 25)

Westampton (remote)

Willingboro (remote through Nov. 18)

CAMDEN COUNTY

Audubon (remote through Nov. 4)

Barrington (remote through at least Nov. 9)

Brooklawn (remote to start the school year)

Camden (remote through Jan. 31)

Clementon

Collingswood/Oaklyn (remote through mid-October)

Eastern Regional (remote start, return to school Oct. 5)

Gloucester City (through Oct. 16)

Haddon Heights (through Oct. 30)

Lindenwold

Winslow Township (through Jan. 1)

CAPE MAY COUNTY

No public school districts confirmed for planning all-virtual instruction.

CUMBERLAND COUNTY

Bridgeton (remote through Oct. 13)

Commercial Township (remote through Oct. 13)

Cumberland County Technical Education Center (remote start, plans to move to hybrid model Oct. 13)

Cumberland Regional (remote start)

Deerfield Township (remote through Oct. 13)

Downe Township (remote through Oct. 13)

Fairfield (remote through Nov. 2)

Greenwich/Stow Creek (through Oct. 13)

Hopewell Township (through Oct. 12)

Lawrence Township (through Oct. 12)

Maurice River School District (through Oct. 12)

Millville (through Oct. 13)

Upper Deerfield (fully remote through at least Oct. 12)

Vineland (remote through Oct. 13)

ESSEX COUNTY

Bloomfield (remote through September)

Caldwell-West Caldwell (remote to Oct. 7 except for a group of self-contained special education classes)

Cedar Grove (remote to start; district to reevaluate by end of September and look to go hybrid by Oct. 19)

East Orange (remote through September)

Glen Ridge (high school remote-only through Oct. 5)

Irvington (remote start)

Livingston (school year to start all remote)

Millburn-Short Hills (rrmote through first quarter of school year)

Montclair (remote start)

Newark (remote through first marking period)

Nutley (remote through first marking period)

Orange (remote learning through Nov. 25; hybrid begins Nov. 29)

South Orange-Maplewood (remote through first marking period)

Verona (most students will start with remote learning except for pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, ESL and certain other students)

West Essex (remote to Oct. 2)

West Orange (remote start)

GLOUCESTER COUNTY

Delsea Regional (remote start)

Deptford (remote through Sept. 30)

Gateway Regional (remote through at least Oct. 13)

Glassboro (starting fully remote, through Nov. 12)

Logan (remote for first marking period)

Monroe (remote through at least Nov. 16)

National Park Schools (remote through at least Oct. 13)

Pitman (remote through Oct. 5)

Washington Township (through Sept. 21)

West Deptford (all-virtual from Sept. 8 to Nov. 9)

Woodbury City (remote start, hybrid starting Nov. 9)

HUDSON COUNTY

Bayonne (remote start)

East Newark (remote until Nov. 13)

Guttenberg (remote start)

Harrison (remote through Nov. 13)

Hoboken (all virtual Sept. 14 to Sept. 19, optional in-person after that)

Hudson County Schools of Technology (remote through Sept. 28)

Jersey City (remote start)

Kearny (remote start)

North Bergen (remote through the end of September)

Union City (remote for at least the month of September)

Weehawken School District (remote to start with students moving to a hybrid schedule between Sept. 28-Oct. 14)

West New York (remote start)

HUNTERDON COUNTY

Flemington-Raritan (remote through Oct. 30)

Lebanon Township (remote start)

Readington (remote to at least Oct. 19)

MERCER COUNTY

East Windsor: (remote instruction from Sep. 9 to Nov. 9)

Ewing (remote start, return to in-person learning for those who have signed up for it: Grades K-2/SE - Sept. 9; Grades 3-5: Sept. 29; Fisher Middle School: Oct. 12; Ewing High School: Oct. 26)

Hamilton (remote through first marking period)

Lawrence Township (all students will start remote)

Mercer County Special Services (remote start)

Mercer County Technical Schools (remote through Nov. 9)

Princeton Charter School (remote start)

Princeton (remote start)

Robbinsville (students in grades 6-12 fully remote until Oct. 12. Pk-5 will remain in the hybrid or 100% remote model)

Trenton (remote start)

MIDDLESEX COUNTY

Carteret (remote until Oct. 9; plans to begin hybrid learning on Oct. 13)

Cranbury (remote through Oct. 16)

Dunellen (remote through the Thanksgiving holiday)

Edison (remote at least until Oct. 16)

Highland Park (remote until Oct. 5 for some students)

Jamesburg (remote until Nov. 1)

Metuchen (at least until Oct. 1)

Middlesex Borough (remote start)

Middlesex Regional Education Services Commission of New Jersey (remote start)

Milltown (remote in September; district to reassess for October)

Monroe (remote learning until Nov. 13 and reassess for hybrid learning to start on Nov. 16)

New Brunswick (remote during first two marking periods)

North Brunswick (remote during first marking period)

Old Bridge (remote until Oct. 12)

Perth Amboy (remote until at least Nov. 18, the end of first marking period)

Piscataway (remote until at least Nov. 13)

Sayreville (remote until at least Nov. 12)

South Amboy (remote until Nov. 13)

South Brunswick (remote start)

South Plainfield (remote start)

South River (plans for in-person instruction on Oct. 1)

Spotswood (remote until at least Sept. 18)

Woodbridge (remote until at least Oct. 12)

MONMOUTH COUNTY

Asbury Park (remote for first 30 instructional days; return to school Oct. 21)

Freehold Borough (remote start, will re-evaluate by Nov. 13)

Freehold Township (students in self-contained classes attend school in person beginning Sept. 8; first 2 weeks of school remain virtual for all other students, who return to school Sept. 21)

Freehold Regional High School District (through Oct. 19)

Long Branch (remote start)

Manalapan-Englishtown (remote at least the first two weeks of school for some schools)

Monmouth County Vocational School District (starting all-remote)

Neptune Township (remote start, will re-evaluate by the end of October)

Ocean Township (remote until Sept. 11)

MORRIS COUNTY

Boonton (remote at the start of the school year)

Butler (remote for most students; in person instruction for specific students

Dover (remote through first marking period)

Jefferson (remote through Sep. 30)

Montville (middle and high school students to start remote)

Mount Olive (district will start in-person on alternating weekly schedule or remote for grades K-3 while grades 4-12 will be synchronous full-day remote)

Mountain Lakes (high school to begin all-remote; other schools on a hybrid schedule)

OCEAN COUNTY

Lacey (remote to start, on Sept. 8, and then a hybrid model from Sept. 21)

Toms River (remote through first marking period)

PASSAIC COUNTY

Bloomingdale (remote start, with a review on Oct. 15 and a target date of Nov. 16 or sooner to reopen schools in a hybrid instructional program)

Clifton (remote to start year; district to reevaluate conditions on Oct. 1, with possible reopening for in-person instruction on Oct. 12.

Manchester Regional High School District (school year to begin remote)

Passaic (remote through September)

Paterson (remote through at least Nov. 1)

Prospect Park (remote through Nov. 11)

Ringwood (starting all-remote)

West Milford (remote until Oct. 1)

SALEM COUNTY

Woodstown-Pilesgrove Regional School District (remote to start; may go hybrid on Oct. 19)

SOMERSET COUNTY

Bedminster (all virtual starting Sept. 10, phase-in hybrid learning model set to begin Sept. 29 through mid-October, depending on the cohort or small group the child is in. All cohorting students will be phased in no later than Oct. 15.)

Bernards (remote through Oct. 1)

Bridgewater-Raritan (remote through Oct. 12)

Franklin Township (remote start)

Hillsborough (virtual until Sept. 28, with plans to start hybrid option later)

Montgomery (virtual for September, then re-evaluating plans for in-person on Oct. 12)

North Plainfield (virtual at least through the first marking period)

SUSSEX COUNTY

Newton (remote until Oct. 2)

Sparta (remote through Oct. 30; in person instruction for students with IEPs in specialized programs)

UNION COUNTY

Berkeley Heights (Governor Livingston High School will begin remote only after a single day of hybrid instruction; remote only plan will be revisited monthly)

Cranford (virtual the first four days, starting Sept. 8, then hybrid starting Sept. 14)

Elizabeth (remote start)

Hillside (remote start, will reassess three weeks before the end of the first marking period)

Linden (remote start, will reassess the end of each month)

Plainfield (remote through at least Nov. 1)

Rahway (remote start)

Roselle (remote through first marking period)

Roselle Park (remote start)

Scotch Plains-Fanwood (remote start)

Springfield (remote through Nov. 2)

Union Township (remote start, will reassess on Oct. 15 for targeted return date of Nov. 1)

WARREN COUNTY

Phillipsburg (all remote through Oct. 5)

Warren County Technical School (all remote through first marking period)

Do you know of a school district thats planning to start remotely? Tell us about it here.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

NJ Advance Media staff writers Len Melisurgo and Casey Roland contributed to this report. Evan Slavit may be reached at eslavit@njadvancemedia.com. Nestor Sebastian may be reached at nsebastian@njadvancemedia.com.

Have a news tip or a story idea about New Jersey schools? Send it here.
Victorian police have threatened to arrest Sam Newman and throw him in jail for calling on fellow Melburnians to take to the streets to protest the city's Stage Four lockdown.

Police said they are already investigating the 300-game AFL champion and former Footy Show host and others for allegedly inciting Victorians to take to the streets against the controversial lockdown - which isn't due to end until September 13.

Newman issued his extraordinary call on Sunday after anti-lockdown protesters clashed with police in a dramatic stand-off in Broadmeadows in the city's north.

'Of all the protests that we have put up with, how about a quarter million of us gather in the CBD to take the City/State back, before EVERY previous march will have been pointless,' Newman tweeted on Sunday night.

'And hopefully a state day of coordination. Any takers? #StateofSurvival.'

AFL champion and former Footy Show host Sam Newman is known for his polarising views and Victoria Police has now threatened to arrest him for inciting protesters to gather in their hundreds of thousands to protest against Melbourne's Stage Four restrictions

Sam Newman says he might join the anti-lockdown protest planned for this Saturday in Melbourne. pic.twitter.com/T67B8UZmgc  Paul Dowsley (@paul_dowsley) August 31, 2020

A Victoria Police spokesman said the force already had its sights set on those they claim are 'coordinating and encouraging protest activity' on Saturday.

World-class MMA Fighter Vik Grujic responded to Newman's tweet by urging him to attend the Freedom Day mass gathering planned for that day in Melbourne's CBD - to which the footy great replied 'OK'.

'Victoria Police expects to make further arrests over coming days in respect to individuals suspected of inciting illegal activity,' the spokesman said.

'Organising and participating in this protest would be a serious and blatant breach of the Chief Health Officers directions and jeopardises the health of the entire community.

'Those still thinking of attending the CBD to protest can expect a swift and firm response from police.'

The state's police force added its officers would not hesitate in issuing $1,652 fines or making arrests if breaches of Victoria's public health orders occur.

In a video post shared by Channel Seven journalist Paul Dowsley on Monday, Newman said he intended to gather with protesters in the streets of Melbourne on Saturday if COVID-19 restrictions in the city were not eased.

'They probably shouldnt [gather] but if the government act responsibly then we will act responsibly and not go there,' he said.

Victorian Police take a man's details in Dandenong in Melbourne's south-east on Thursday. The force said it already has its sights set on those they claim are 'coordinating and encouraging protest activity' on Saturday

'Just give us a bit of easing of restrictions. I might use my hour's freedom and wear a mask and go into the city as part of my recreation and exercise and be part of the gathering.'

After one Melburnian suggested Newman had 'incited a riot' with his comments on Twitter, the footy great added: 'There'll be no rioting. No looting. No arson. No violence. Just an expression of desperation for our sanity.'

His tweet sparked 1,800 likes and hundreds of comments on a day when Victoria recorded 114 new cases and another 11 deaths.

Sunrise host Edwina Bartholomew said on Monday morning the tweet was ill-advised.

'Very irresponsible from Sam Newman,' she said.

'That's someone who was running for Melbourne mayor. If you want to be in lockdown for another six months then sure - join the protest.'

Defending his position on the draconian restrictions, Newman said it was the state government who were being irresponsible by enforcing economically-crippling social distancing restrictions.

'If the Victorian government stop being irresponsible through this blanket lockdown, then well stop being irresponsible by urging mass rallies,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Monday.

Sam Newman was flooded with responses following his plea to Melburnians on Sunday night

Sunrise host Edwina Bartholomew hit out at Newman's 'irresponsible' call for 250,000 people to protest against Melbourne's draconian Stage Four lockdown

'Give the hospitality, leisure, education, business and public service enterprises in this state a paradigm for a responsible return to civilization, rather than the hysteria being disseminated, while the country and world pushes on, carefully.'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Newman for further comment on the threat of arrest issued by Victoria Police.

Fellow Melburnians desperate to regain their freedom have also joined the bandwagon.

Melburnians were out and about enjoying the weather on Saturday, despite stage 4 lockdown

'Just tell me when and where never protested before but this is the most important thing we have faced in my lifetime. We ordinary Victorians must take our state back,' one man wrote.

Another added: 'A protest at some point needs to happen so our political class can get a sense of the real opposition to the unbalanced measures put in place.'

Another fan commended Newman on his wording.

'You didn't even mention what march, and even mentioned a State Day of coordination. Could be a march for Prostate Cancer. Or even a Pro Dan Andrews march. Could be a march of social distancing examples. Very cleverly worded,' one man posted.

But not everyone supported Newman.

'I have read your tweet three times and it's still incomprehensible. But good luck with whatever self-indulgent, poorly-conceived action you're proposing,' one woman posted.

Another added: 'Of all the things you have said, this is highly irresponsible, you know your position... it's with these people's lives that you earned your living.'

Others warned Newman to expect a knock on the door from Victoria Police.

WHAT MELBOURNE'S STAGE FOUR LOCKDOWN MEANS FOR YOU State of disaster: Increased police powers to enforce the lockdown. Cautions will no longer be issued, only $1,652 fines or court summons Curfew: No one allowed outside 8pm to 5am except for work, medical, caregiving - no shopping or exercising Distance limit: Shopping and exercise can only be done 5km from home Exercise: All recreational activity is banned and you can only exercise, with one other person, for one hour a day Partners: You can visit a boyfriend or girlfriend who doesn't live with you, even if they live more than 5km away Shopping: Only one person can go shopping per household per day Cafes and restaurants stay open for takeaway, as do supermarkets, etc Schools: All students learning from home unless they are vulnerable or parents are essential workers. Kindy and childcare closed Funerals: No change to funeral limits, but only 10 mourners can leave Melbourne to regional Victoria for one Weddings: Completely banned Public transport: Slashed after 8pm and cancelled late at night Community sport : All community sport across Victoria is now banned. Only exercise is allowed within the permitted public gathering limits of two people. : All community sport across Victoria is now banned. Only exercise is allowed within the permitted public gathering limits of two people. Advertisement

'Finally Sam, you're going to jail. Passed onto Victoria Police for inciting stupidity,' one person commented.

Another added: 'Careful Sammy. You will have 10 police cars at your door for that tweet.'

Metropolitan Melbourne is subject to stage four restrictions including an evening curfew and a ban on travelling beyond a five-kilometre radius of home until at least September 13 amid reports strict lockdown measures will be extended.

Regional Victoria is under stage three restrictions which allows residents to leave home for essential purposes.

Newman's tweet sparked a divisive reaction from the public (comments pictured)

Earlier on Sunday, the premier left Victorians furious when he repeatedly spruiked a mysterious 'plan' out of lockdown.

Mr Andrews mentioned the 'plan' 22 times during Sunday's press conference but refused to go into further detail.

'These case numbers are too high for us to open up, and they are still too high for us to put forward a definitive plan,' he said.

'Now, there will be a plan. It will come soon.'

The premier fears new cases numbers would 'explode' again if restrictions are relaxed too soon.

'Once we see these numbers fall further, once we have certainty - and that will be quite soon - we will be able to talk in more definitive terms about what the weeks and months ahead look like,' Mr Andrews said.

Melburnians (pictured on Saturday) remain in Stage 4 lockdown until at least September 13

On Sunday night, confronting footage taken in Broadmeadows, in Melbourne's north, showed dozens of men dressed down in tracksuits and masks making their way through the streets as traffic was brought to a standstill.

The protesters claimed, when asked, that they were simply getting their daily exercise, which they are permitted to do within a five kilometre radius on their homes.

At least six people were arrested during the protests and police have not ruled out issuing further infringement notices.

Victoria's stage four restrictions are due to end in two weeks, but the Premier has indicated they will likely be extended. Pictured are anti-lockdown protesters clashing with police in Melbourne's north on Sunday night

The protesters claimed, when asked, that they were simply getting their daily exercise, which is one of just four legal reasons to leave home in Melbourne

Confronting footage taken in Broadmeadows, in Melbourne 's north, showed dozens of men dressed down in tracksuits and masks making their way through the streets as traffic was brought to a standstill

The latest protest comes anti-lockdown walkers were doused with pepper spray and struggled with police in Dandenong in Melbourne's south-east last Wednesday as community frustration with draconian Stage 4 restrictions reached boiling point.

Police issued $15,000 in fines and arrested four men.

Tensions in Dandenong had been flaring for days after a large group of residents decided to start walking at the same time and place.
The Indian National Congress has launched a scathing attack on Facebook for interfering with India's electoral democracy. The party has demanded that a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation should be launched on the matter immediately. The INC has also demanded a criminal investigation into the affairs of Facebook in India and the people involved. The party says that Facebook & WhatsApp's role in subverting India's democracy is now unquestionable and beyond doubt.

Aside from the parliamentary inquiry and criminal investigation, Congress has also demanded three additional measures that should be taken against Facebook. These are:

All pending approvals and licenses for Facebook & WhatsApp to be put on hold until the investigations are completed. Suspension of Facebook India's leadership team with immediate effect until the conclusion of the investigations. An inquiry by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology into the activities of all Heads of Public Policy teams of foreign technology companies operating in India and establish a code of conduct.

The party in a press release said, "In a span of just two weeks, three separate articles incredible international media publications have revealed how Facebook and WhatsApp have colluded with the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) to tarnish India's democracy and tear India's social harmony."

The party also said that Ankhi Das, Head of Facebook India's public policy team, has boasted of her role in the BJP's 2014 election victory. "Evidently, she was elated at his victory and the big role her company, Facebook, played in helping him (Narendra Modi) win," read the release.

The Congress clarified that they are not alleging Das's involvement with the BJP but instead quoting information revealed in the recent article by The Wall Street Journal published on August 30. "The article states how Ms.Das boasted that she has successfully lobbied with the BJP to include Facebook's priorities in their election manifesto and 'now they just need to go and win the elections'. She even circulated internal predictions of a BJP victory which she claimed she had obtained from a 'senior leader and close friend in the BJP," wrote Congress. The Congrees says that this proves Facebook's role in subverting India's democracy. The INC is now demanding strict action against the company.

The party promised that they will not allow India's hard-won democracy to be manipulated and tarnished any further.

Also read: Coronavirus impact: July GST collections dips 14.6% to Rs 87,422 crore

Also read: GST Council to hold virtual meet to finalise compensation to states on Aug 27
The Belarusian rouble lost more than 10 percent of its value against the euro and the US dollar over the last month.

The Belarusian currency, the Belarusian rouble, is tumbling in value and companies in its crucial IT sector are threatening to pull out after weeks of unprecedented protests against longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko.

Belarusians are trawling banks and bureaux de change for foreign currency to salvage at least some of the value of their savings.

The banks dont have any foreign currency. Staff tell you to wait, that a customer might bring some, said one customer at the countrys largest lender, Belarusbank, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Belarusian rouble is falling at a record rate, losing more than 10 percent of its value against the euro and the US dollar during the last month due to uncertainty about the deepening political standoff and fears of an economic crisis.

During the last year, it has fallen 27 percent against the US dollar and 33 percent against the euro.

Scoundrels

In recent days, numerous Telegram accounts widely followed by the opposition have urged people to buy foreign currency to destabilise the rouble and, therefore, Lukashenkos government.

They have also encouraged people to boycott the giant state enterprises that are the bulwarks of Lukashenkos Soviet-style economy and buy from private companies.

The president, re-elected in disputed polls on August 9, on Thursday condemned scoundrels who are calling for destabilising the financial market.

We will not allow the national currency to collapse, he promised at a meeting on state enterprises, in comments reported by his press service.

Independent analyst Alexander Vasilyev acknowledged that some people were selling roubles as a sign of protest, but said the amount involved was not enough to significantly affect the exchange rate.

The mood of dissatisfaction has also extended to the countrys strong IT sector, one of Belaruss few success stories.

It is angry that the government has attempted to quell protests by repeatedly cutting off online access and raiding offices of internet giants, seen by Lukashenko as playing a role in the protest movement.

Open letter

More than 2,000 people working in the IT sector have signed an open letter calling for new elections and an end to political violence and internet shutdowns, even threatening to move out of the country.

Russian internet giant Yandex had its Minsk offices searched by armed law enforcement officers in mid-August.

It responded by closing its workspace in the capital and transferring all of its approximately 300 staff to remote working.





Yandex has said some employees have left Minsk, but has not confirmed reports that it is beginning to move staff out of the country.

The Viber messaging app said on Twitter that it temporarily closed its office in Minsk earlier in the month due to the safety concerns of our staff and internet issues.

The office reopened last week, it said.

The political crisis caused by Lukashenkos re-election amid accusations of vote-rigging has also hit sectors of the economy with a high level of state intervention.

The crisis came as Russia has reduced its largesse towards its smaller neighbour reliant on subsidised energy.

Strikes in key sectors could further erode growth prospects, which were already weakened by oil supply disruptions and the pandemic, Fitch analysts said in a note.

They estimated that gross domestic product would contract by 5 percent in 2020.

Workers at tractor, heavy machinery and potash plants  seen as Lukashenkos political heartland  have laid down tools and joined protests, shaking the authorities.

The walk-outs have died down in recent days as workers have been threatened with dismissal and strike leaders have been arrested.

But Fitch said last week that strikes at the potash mines of Belaruskali, the worlds largest producer, could lead to a reduction in the countrys exports.
Australian Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck speaks at a press conference alongside Prime Minister Scott Morrison on May 01, 2020 at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia. (Rohan Thomson/Getty Images)

Australian Aged Care Sector to Receive $563 Million Package

Australias troubled aged care sector will receive a $563 million boost after more than 450 deaths and ongoing political pressure on the federal government.

Almost $250 million will be pumped into nursing homes for infection control, staffing costs and communication with families.

A payment designed to stop nursing home workers moving between facilities will be extended in a bid to avoid further devastating outbreaks.

The single site worker program will be extended until June 2021 at a cost of $92 million.

Under-fire Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck said some staff including Australian Defence Force and Australian Medical Assistance Teams staff were needed across multiple sites.

The program will continue provider grants in hotspots to support employees to stick to one workplace.

But the government doesnt have real-time data about workers attending more than one nursing home.

Senator Colbeck also revealed the aged care regulator temporarily stopped visiting nursing homes based on health advice but checks have since restarted.

Under the extended programs, families of aged care residents will receive extended $71.4 million to care for loved ones at home during the pandemic.

Senator Colbeck earlier in the month embarrassingly failed to remember how many aged care residents had died after contracting the disease.

But on Monday he told the Senate 457 was the latest death toll.

Labors upper house leader Penny Wong questioned why Senator Colbeck had kept his job after other ministers had been sacked for less.

Senator Colbeck continues to resist the oppositions calls for him to quit, saying he hadnt considered falling on his sword.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said the extended funding would allow Victoria to continue fighting the disease.

It will help us continue to fight that and to protect our older Australians with every fibre of our being, he said.

Senior government ministers have ruled out supporting a Health Services Union plan to raise the Medicare levy and pump up to $20 billion into the crisis-hit sector.

HSU modelling shows lifting the levy from two percent to 2.65 percent would transform the sector over four years.

The plan would create 59,000 jobs across the sector, which has come under immense pressure during the coronavirus pandemic.

Lifting the levy would also improve standards for residents, who would receive an extra 89 minutes of daily attention from carers, allied health therapists and registered nurses.

Matt Coughlan in Canberra
A protective medical suit is handed over to the China National Museum on Women and Children during the launching ceremony of a national education campaign held by the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) on August 26. Shen Yueyue (3rd, R), President of the ACWF, and Huang Xiaowei (2nd, L), Secretary of the Leading Party Members' Group of the ACWF and Vice-President and First Member of the Secretariat of the ACWF, attended the ceremony. [Women of China/Zhang Jiamin]

The All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) launched a national education campaign in Beijing on August 26, to carry forward the patriotic spirit among women, children and families.

The campaign included telling Chinese women's anti-epidemic stories, unveiling women's patriotism education bases and promoting book-reading among teenagers.

Women fighting on the frontline of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on various positions were invited to share their anti-epidemic experiences of overcoming difficulties and risks day and night.

During the launch event, an autographed medical protective suit was handed over to the China National Museum on Women and Children. The signatures on the suit come from 20 national-level women role model medical workers, who were honored ahead of International Women's Day.

Meanwhile, the museum and four revolutionary sites, established in memory of heroines including Zhao Yiman, Liu Hulan, Li Lin and eight other women martyrs, were unveiled as national women's patriotism education bases, to mark the 75th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-1945) and the World Anti-Fascist War.

The 28th National Teenagers' Reading and Education Campaign, which aims to help in the development of an all-round well-off society, was initiated during the event. Since its inception in 1993, a total of 800 million teenagers across the country have participated in the reading activity.

The museum also received copies of the designated books in previous activities at the event.

The host (1st, L) interviews participants at the launch ceremony of the campaign initiated by the All-China Women's Federation in Beijing on August 26. [Women of China/Fan Wenjun]

Participants share their anti-epidemic stories and experiences at the launch ceremony of the campaign initiated by the All-China Women's Federation in Beijing on August 26. [Women of China/Fan Wenjun]

A woman volunteer and a guide from the China National Museum on Women and Children tell the story of woman revolutionary fighter Zhao Yiman's letter to her son before she was executed by the enemy. [Women of China/Fan Wenjun]

Four participants share their pleasure and results from participating in the teenagers' reading and education campaign during the event on August 26. [Women of China/Fan Wenjun]

(Source: China Women's News/Translated and edited by Women of China)
As the Category 4 hurricane made landfall near Cameron, Louisiana, Thursday, 3,000 Coast Guard members, including 32 aircraft crews and nearly 40 boat crews, deployed to the region to assist with rescues, evacuations and survey flights.

Read Next: A Floating Prison: Civilian Mariners Say They're Stuck on Navy Ships

With that portion of the mission now complete, the service is turning to the more than 2,100 buoys, beacons, lights and other navigational aids wrecked or displaced by the storm near Lake Charles, Louisiana and Port Arthur, Texas.

"We are still assessing damages but our teams are working extremely hard to recover and set aids back on their assigned position to ensure the safe and timely reopening of critical waterways," said Chief Warrant Officer Matt Fonville, the aids-to-navigation officer for Coast Guard Sector Houston-Galveston.

Personnel from five aids-to-navigation units as well as two Coast Guard stations and four cutters, are conducting checks and making repairs.

As of Monday, 20 deaths in Texas and Louisiana were attributed to the storm, including four killed by falling trees and eight caused by carbon monoxide poisoning from generators.

More than 305,000 residents and businesses were without power as of Monday morning in Louisiana, and 53,000 had no electricity in Texas as a result of the storm, according to the website Poweroutage.us.

More than 9,000 evacuees remain in hotels where they were sheltered as the swift-moving storm approached.

Louisiana activated more than 6,200 National Guard members last week for hurricane response: so far, the troops have distributed 893,000 bottles of water, 473,000 meals, 14,000 tarps and 36,000 bags of ice.

Temperatures in the region have been in the low 90s since the storm passed, with the heat index exceeding triple digits.

With much of the region's jobs tied to the marine and fisheries industry, Coast Guard officials urged caution as residents returned to their homes, marinas and the Gulf of Mexico.

"Mariners should use extreme caution transiting through waterways in Lake Charles and Port Arthur due to aids to navigation outages and floating debris," Fonville said.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.

Related: Coast Guard Watch Opens Fire After 8-Foot-Shark Crashes Swim Call
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 18:40:01|Editor: huaxia

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COLOMBO, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka will implement a short term action plan to revive the country's tourism industry which has been hit by the global COVID-19 pandemic, Tourism Minister Prasanna Ranatunga was quoted by local media reports as saying on Monday.

Ranatunga said the government will allocate nearly 1 million U.S. dollars over the next four months to revive tourism and the short term action plan was being finalized.

Under the plan, 12 new tourist attraction sites identified in several districts would be developed while community tourist villages would also be developed.

Ranatunga said the action plan will also be taken to modernize the Negombo, Kandy, and Kalutara railway stations, in outer Colombo, central highlands, and the south, within the next four months under a project to upgrade the railway stations to attract local and foreign tourists.

Three old forts in Mannar, in the north, Kalpitiya, in the south, and Batticaloa, in the east which are under the supervision of the Archeology Department will also be further developed.

Nearly 500,000 tourists arrived in Sri Lanka from January to March this year after which the country's international airports were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has so far infected over 3,000 people.

The government said the airport will remain closed till such a time when repatriations are completed. Enditem
Popular YouTuber Tzuyang apologizes on her channel after admitting that she had deceived her viewers about sponsored content on Aug. 6. / Screen captured from Tzuyang's YouTube channel



By Kim Jae-heun



The country's top antitrust agency is considering taking action against Genesis BBQ over its alleged undisclosed payment to YouTubers.



"Even if YouTubers make revisions to confess the products they introduced in their video are sponsored later, they can be subjected to penalties. Though, we will take into consideration that they made changes when deciding the level of penalty according to the law," an official at the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) told The Korea Times, Monday.



"We hope our new guideline can further prevent deceitful advertising cases and provide only true and honest information to the customers. We will keep monitoring YouTubers in the near future too," the official added.



The remarks came after YouTubers Bokyem and Yangpang, who have 40.3 million and 2.54 million subscribers to their channels, respectively, recently admitted that they had not identified sponsored content as paid advertisements when their videos introduced Genesis BBQ's new menu items in April and May.



The chicken franchise paid the two for the online promotion, but they did not notify their viewers that the videos were sponsored.



In fact, Bokyem and Yangpang also did not disclose that they received monetary compensation from Genesis BBQ to film "mukbang," or binge-eating shows, featuring the company's food items.



Another YouTuber named Cham PD released evidence he gathered over the last two years showing that the two have been receiving money for promoting products. Bokyem and Yangpang conceded this and issued apologies.



The public criticism then shifted to Genesis BBQ, alleging that it had requested the YouTubers to hide from viewers the fact that the videos were sponsored.



Some netizens have suggested boycotting the company as well as other brands such as Puma and Jinsagalbi restaurants that have been embroiled in similar scandals.





Genesis BBQ Chairman Yoon Hong-geun / Korea Times file
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden called on Donald Trump to help him "lower the temperature" of the rhetoric and raw political emotions that have fuelled the violence that has gripped several cities in the US in the wake of police shootings this summer.

Mr Biden delivered a lengthy statement on Sunday condemning "violence of every kind by anyone" after a man was shot and killed in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday as Trump supporters on a vehicle paraded through the city and some clashed with counter-protesters.

A 17-year-old boy from Illinois, Kyle Rittenhouse, has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety  all with a deadly weapon  after he allegedly shot and killed two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last week amid a protest-turned-riot against the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

"The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable. Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same," Mr Biden said in his statement.

"It does not matter if you find the political views of your opponents abhorrent, any loss of life is a tragedy. Today there is another family grieving in America, and Jill and I offer our deepest condolences," Mr Biden said.

The former Democratic vice president indicated he was not optimistic Mr Trump would rise to the occasion to promote unity and issue a similarly worded statement.

On Sunday morning alone, Mr Trump fired off more than 85 tweets or retweets commending the vehicle parade of his supporters in Portland, some of whom unloosed pepper spray and unloaded rounds of paintballs at counter-protesters and journalists covering the event.

"We must not become a country at war with ourselves. A country that accepts the killing of fellow Americans who do not agree with you. A country that vows vengeance toward one another. But that is the America that President Trump wants us to be, the America he believes we are," Mr Biden said.

Despite Mr Biden issuing statement after statement calling for anti-police brutality protests to remain peaceful and denouncing the rioting and looting that has marred some of them after the deaths in police custody of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others, the Trump campaign has sought to portray him as sympathetic to and complicit in the violence.

The president has also needled Democratic mayors of the cities where the protests and riots have reached a pitch.

"The Radical Left Democrat Mayors, like the dummy running Portland, or the guy right now in his basement unwilling to lead or even speak out against crime, will never be able to do it!" Mr Trump tweeted on Sunday.

Mr Biden still leads Mr Trump in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls by 6.9 percentage points from 12 to 25 August.

The US presidential election is on 3 November.
Vietnam will start charging all arrivals for their mandatory quarantine starting in September, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc stated during a meeting on novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) prevention and control on Sunday.

The COVID-19 epidemic has been put under control throughout Vietnam thanks to multiple prevention measures and appropriate implementation of social distancing, PM Phuc said at the gathering.

He called on all people to remain vigilant and be prepared for any situation as the country is still striving to achieve the goals of fighting COVID-19 and boosting public investment, imports-exports, production, and socio-economic development.

From September 1, all arrivals to Vietnam will have to pay for the cost of their mandatory 14-day quarantine, the premier said, adding that COVID-19 treatment will still be funded by state coffers.

Stays at quarantine centers in Vietnam have been free of charge, but people can opt to spend their quarantine at local hotels for a fee.

Aside from arranging the repatriation of Vietnamese citizens, Vietnam should also provide favorable conditions for foreign experts, investors, and skilled laborers to enter the country to facilitate economic development.

PM Phuc agreed to allow senior personnel of South Korean enterprises to enter Vietnam and conduct their short-term business trips.

He also urged the early reopening of commercial flights between Vietnam and South Korea, Japan, and areas where the pandemic has been properly controlled.

The country will prioritize arranging flights for Vietnamese laborers to travel to South Korea and Japan for work.

The prime minister suggested that competent authorities start planning on providing further support for businesses and residents affected by the epidemic.

Vietnam has recorded 1,040 COVID-19 cases, with 695 having recovered and 32 deaths as of Monday morning, according to Ministry of Health statistics.

The country has logged 550 local cases since July 25, when Da Nang detected the first domestic infection after Vietnam had gone 99 days without documenting any community transmission.

No new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in Vietnam on Sunday, the first zero-case day in five weeks.

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Wealth manager IOOF has reached a deal to buy NAB's wealth business for $1.4 billion, cementing the big four banks' exit from the super and wealth industries following a long list of scandals and mounting customer remediation bills.

IOOF and MLC Wealth are competitors in financial advice, administration and asset management and the takeover deal will turn IOOF into the country's largest wealth manager with over 1880 advisers. Subject to regulatory approval, the new-look IOOF will service over 2.2 million Australians by June next year.

IOOF chief executive Renato Mota described the deal as a compelling business opportunity.

"MLC is a natural fit with IOOF and presents a unique opportunity to create value from synergies for the benefit of clients, members and shareholders. This is a once in a generation opportunity to create the leading wealth manager of the future," Mr Mota said.
A man is treated after being shot in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 29, 2020. The victim, identified as Aaron Danielson, died. (Paula Bronstein/AP Photo)

Patriot Prayer Supporter Aaron Jay Danielson Identified as Man Shot Dead in Portland

A supporter of the group Patriot Prayer was identified as the man shot dead amid clashes in Portland over the weekend.

Joey Gibson, founder of the conservative organization, identified the man as Aaron Jay Danielson, also known as Jay.

We love Jay and he had such a huge heart, Gibson said in a social media post. God bless him and the life he lived.

Gibson said he would refrain from commenting publicly until Danielsons family member did.

Gibson did not respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times. He told the Associated Press in text messages: I cant say much right now. All I can do is verify that he was a good friend and a supporter of Patriot Prayer.

Aaron Danielson in an undated photograph. (Aaron Danielson OFFICIAL go fund me page/GoFundMe)

Danielson was reportedly wearing a Patriot Prayer hat when he was shot.

A GoFundMe fundraising page for Danielson says he was a Portland resident who went downtown to exercise his constitutional rights.

Some people were donating solely to leave distasteful comments on the page, organizers said.

While we are obviously appaled [sic] we ask that NO ONE engage in any kind of retaliatory behavior, verbal or otherwise. We ask that everyone would consider the family and friends that lost a loved one Saturday night. We appreciate your understanding and donations, they wrote.

Patriot Prayers website says the group stands for God and Freedom. It primarily focuses on Gibson, calling him an advocate for freedom who believes it is imperative for followers of Christ to take the church into the streets, city councils, capitol buildings, courthouses, or anywhere we see injustices running unopposed including Hong Kong, China.

Patriot Prayer has regularly held demonstrations in Portland and Seattle, where theyve faced opposition from Antifa, a far-left group, and other activists. Brawls between the groups arent uncommon.

Joey Gibson, leader of Patriot Prayer, arrives at the scene of a shooting in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 29, 2020. (Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Reuters)

An Antifa member was identified by his sister as a possible suspect in the shooting.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, asked about the victim during a press conference on Monday in Washington, said: The President believes that people of all ideologies should be able to peacefully protest and not have their lives put at risk like Aaron Jay Danielson that lost his life.

Noteworthy that his suspected killer said he was 100 percent Antifa and ready for war,' she added.

Critics of Patriot Prayer often describe the organization as far-right and cite the Southern Poverty Law Center, which labels it a hate group. The center has increasingly come under criticism itself in recent years. It was forced to pay $3.3 million to settle after placing a Muslim reformer on a so-called hate list. The Republican National Committee put forth a resolution last week calling the center a far-left organization with an obvious bias. The nonprofit said in a statement that the group was not going to back down from calling out white supremacists and hate groups or pushing back against their dehumanizing rhetoric.

The circumstances leading up to Saturdays shooting werent entirely clear, with few videos available from the ground. Police Chief Chuck Lovell told reporters that police are aware of information circulating on social media.

Supporters of President Donald Trump listen to speeches at a rally before a car parade into Portland, in Clackamas, Ore., Aug. 29, 2020. (Paula Bronstein/AP Photo)

There are many who are sharing information on social media or jumping to conclusions that are not based in fact, he said. A human being lost their life last night. And its critical that everyone refrain from conjecture and allow us to gather the evidence and statements needed to hold the person who did this responsible for this heinous act.

Anyone with eyewitness accounts or video footage was urged to come forward.

Videographer Justin Dunlap, streaming live, captured the shooting. The footage showed several males near the side of a street speaking with each other before one pulled out a gun and shot another. The footage was not focused, with no clear images of the shooter.

Dunlap said that the victim sprayed a bunch of bear mace into the air and somebody else returned fire with, evidently, deadly force.

Some skirmishes took place between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators, police officials said.

A video from Stumptown Matters, a Portland YouTube channel, captured a man shouting We got a couple right here before several gunshots ring out.

Another witness, wearing a Patriot Prayer hat, said the group was tracked down.

They executed my partner, he told a YouTube channel. They hunted him down, they hunted us down.

Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified the shooting victim. It also incorrectly described the timing of the shooting. The Epoch Times regrets the errors.
Post-Covid Africa will have to save itself. It is a terrifying task

African countries, with their lack of quality leaders, weak states and little fiscal reserves face economic, political and social disorder.

It is very likely that many African countries will increase debt, unemployment and social disorder. Many countries may reverse back to the terrifying instability of the 1970s, when African countries were characteristics by economic stagnation, social unrests and coups.

The countries that have more successfully dealt with Covid-19, such as South Korea, Singapore and New Zealand had at least three things in common: quality leadership, capable states and substantial financial reserves following pre-Covid19 prudent management of their country finances.

African countries are unlikely to get the substantial global financial, medical and technical support they received during past epidemics. In previous health epidemics in Africa, such as HIV/Aids, Ebola and cholera, industrial countries provided substantial financial, medical and equipment support.

Industrial countries have had to roll out large bailouts packages to tackle the financial crises fuelled by Covid-19, which will put pressure on their public finances for years. They will have very little remaining to provide the kind of financial support to African countries they had previously provided to Africans in previous health epidemics.

With Covid-19 impacting industrial countries also, they have not only sealed their borders to prevent the virus from spreading, they have also refocused their resources for domestic purposes to combat their own Covid-19 crises.

Some industrial countries producing critical medicines, equipment and food stopped these vital items from being exported to poorer countries, for local use instead. This deprived many African countries of similar support they received from Western countries during previous epidemics.

The European Union imposed temporary restrictions on the export of medical protective equipment from within the bloc to outside countries.

The US was accused by German biopharmaceutical firm CureVac of wanting to procure a coronavirus vaccine the company was developing exclusively for the US. German ministers reacted with anger to the US offer. India curbed exports of basic medicines, such as painkillers, for use for its own citizens.

Global trade wars preceded the Covid-19 outbreak, with the US battling China; and Russia and Saudi Arabia embroiled in an oil price war. In June 2020, the US threatened the EU with stricter tariffs. Tensions have escalated between China and India over disputed border territory in the Himalayas. India is putting restrictions on Chinese trade, businesses and interests in India.

Based on the nationalistic behaviour of many countries during the Covid-19 crisis, it is very likely that industrial countries that will successfully manufacture a Covid-19 vaccine, will prioritise their populations first, before they provide it to other countries.

Nationalism have risen across the globe with industrial countries becoming less altruistic, increasingly focusing on their own interests.

In previous African epidemics, multilateral organisations, such as the World Health Organisation was crucial in mobilising resources, expertise and funding for African countries. However, the rising nationalism preceding Covid-19, and countries sealing of borders and stockpiling their resources for almost solely for domestic efforts to combat the virus, has played out at multilateral organisations too.

Prior to Covid-19, the US and Israel withdrew funding from certain multilateral organisations. The US formally withdrew from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 2019, accusing the organisation of anti-Israel bias. UNESCO has criticised the Israels occupation of East Jerusalem and granted Palestine full membership in 2011. The US withdrew its funding from UNESCO.

US President Donald Trump in June 2020 said he would formally withdraw the US from the World Health Organisation, accusing it of being under control of China. The US withdrawal from the WHO means there is less resources, to support African countries struggling with Covid-19, as they did when these countries battled previous epidemics.

Many African countries have undermined their own Covid-19 recoveries by blaming conspiracies for the spread of the virus, and therefore not acting decisively, using untested quack treatments under the guise of traditional African media and local solutions and shutting out the WHO from helping them.

The International Monetary Fund have estimated that some African economies could contract as much as 8%. The World Bank reported that up to 30million people are at risk of extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa because of Covid-19. The exports of Africas commodities have declined following contractions in industrial economies which imports the continents commodities. African countries have experience large revenue losses. The already poor capacity of many African governments have been severely undermined during Covid-19, many governments unable to deliver essential services.

Africas tourism, hospital, media and transport sectors have been badly hit across the continent, with businesses closures, job losses and investments put on halt. The African Development Bank in a research note said that Africas tourist-dependent economies will decline up 10%. The economies of its oil exporters will decline up to 4%. The economies of oil exporters were already batters following the fall in oil prices in the oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. Covid-19 have seen further oil production cuts.

Hunger, starvation and food shortages will continue as local and global food production and imports decline because logistical networks and supply chains are disrupted. Africa imports 85% of its food.

The IMF estimates that Africa will need US$110bn (R1.85trillion) in new funding in 2020 to tackled the socio-economic impact of the pandemic. The IMF has provided Covi-19 support to many African countries in the form of emergency loans and debt-service relief initiatives. The IMF has distributed US$10.1bn to 29 SubSaharan African countries in emergency lending or in augmentation of existing lending.

The IMF has given debt-service relief for 21 sub-Saharan African countries for an initial six-month phase ending mid-October 2020. The IMF has also provided a debt service suspension for highly indebted African countries as part of an initiative started by the Group of 20 leading economies that waived up to $U14bn in payments for poor, most of them African. Nevertheless, Covid-19 will increase African debt levels.

During Covid-19 countries sealed their borders to contain the spread of the virus. Given the new rise in nationalism in industrial countries, it is very likely that many industrial countries will keep the same Covid-19 border restrictions even when the virus is eventually contained, to keep out economic migrants from poorer African countries. This means that many struggling Africans that would try to seek new livelihoods in industrial countries will now be stuck in their own impoverished countries. Angry, impoverished and jobless Africans, with little alternatives, will become mass power kegs easily ignited.

Many African countries have also autocratic measures to enforce compliance to Covid-19 measures. The hard-handed measures have prompted anger, protests and defiance from citizens against leaders and governments  which may continue as socio-economic conditions worsen in the aftermath of Covid-19. Many African countries may see rising coups in which autocratic governments are ousted violently.

Others will see a rise in terrorist attacks, as terror movements see an opportunity in the rising poverty, collapse in public service delivery and popular anger against autocratic governments to recruit members, serve as alternative service providers and to unleash terror campaigns. Africa may see devastating food riots.

It will be crucial that African civil society be included in Covid-19 funding from multilateral organisations such the World Bank and IMF.

Furthermore, these multilateral organisations must put democracy conditions to their Covid-19 funding, such as compelling countries receive in the funding to govern honestly, respect human rights and uphold freedom of expression. African media, civil society organisations and watchdog organisations must ensure that Covid-19 related funding is used honestly, prudently and equitably.

African governments will have to govern more honestly, inclusively and caringly. African countries will have to muster the political will to genuinely formed an free trade area, trade more with each other and use their own country resources, skills, business and civil society capacity better.

William Gumede is Associate Professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand; and author of South Africa in BRICS (Tafelberg). This article was first published in Times Select.
Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques will meet face-to-face with the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people in the Pilbara to apologise over the company's Juukan Gorge rock shelter blast.

A spokesman for the miner confirmed Mr Jacques arrived in Perth two weeks ago and had just completed two weeks in hotel quarantine.

Rio chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques' is in WA for a meeting with the traditional owners of the Juukan Gorge. Credit:Bloomberg

"After the mandatory period in quarantine he was able to spend time with Rio Tinto colleagues in the Perth office," he said.

"He is now headed to the Pilbara where he will have an opportunity to engage with traditional owners and connect with the Rio Tinto iron ore team."
Chandigarh: The fine of Re 1 on activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan for criminal contempt of court for his tweets against the Supreme Court and Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde evoked a mixed response from lawyer bodies in Chandigarh on Monday.

A three-judge bench of the apex court said if Bhushan fails to deposit the amount by September 15, he will have to undergo simple imprisonment of three months and will be barred from practising for three years.

Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association secretary Rohit Sud hoped this would put an end to the saga. The apex court had on August 14 held Bhushan guilty of criminal contempt of court and stated that the allegations levelled in the tweets against the court and the CJI are malicious and have the tendency to scandalise the court.

It is harsh. The Bar and bench should try to maintain cordial relations. There should not be a hitch in dialogue between the two. The court should have referred the matter to the Bar Council (of India) so that relations between the two remain cordial, said association president DPS Randhawa.

Based in Chandigarh, the high court Bar has 4,000 registered members, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh.

Mandeep Bedi, the president of the Senior Advocates Association of Punjab and Haryana High Court, termed the judgment wrong. He should not have been fined. A fine, whether of Re 1 or Rs 10,000, is a fine. He should have been let off with a warning because it was just a tweet, he said.

Earlier, not many lawyers had come out in protest against the Supreme Court initiating contempt proceedings against Bhushan. Only one protest was reported outside the high court premises last week.

Former chairman and member of Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana Lekh Raj Sharma termed the decision a balanced one. The rule of law should prevail and I think it has been upheld in this case to save the institution. In the name of fair criticism and freedom of expression, no one should be allowed to scandalise the courts, he said.

The Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana has more than 1 lakh members from the two states and Chandigarh.

District Bar Association, Chandigarh, president NK Nanda said this verdict cant be criticised. Then we will be held guilty for contempt. All we can say is that whatever decision the SC has taken, it must have taken after going through all facts. It is a balanced judgment, he added.

District Bar Association, Mohali, president Manpreet Singh Chahal said the decision curbs the right to speak of an individual. Imposing a fine of Re 1 or Rs 1 lakh is a punishment. It is clear now that the apex court is under some political pressure in giving the judgment. Every advocate has the right to speak, otherwise these institutions will finish one day, he said.
On the night of August 23, the Border Security Force nabbed a 25-year-old youth Ahsan Ali from West Bengals Murshidabad district when he was allegedly trying to smuggle cattle to Bangladesh across the border.

During interrogation, Ali told the officials that he used to work as a labourer in Kerala and had returned to his native village in Murshidabad because of the Covid-19 pandemic. But as he was jobless, he was lured to smuggling by another villager.

Ali, however, is not the only one. When BSF apprehended 42-year-old Nitai Mondol on August 27 from Nadia district, while allegedly trying to smuggle Phensedyl cough syrup to Bangladesh, he told the officers during interrogation that he took to smuggling after losing his job because of the lockdown. He used to work as a vendor in Howrah and earn around Rs 8,000 per month. For every smuggling consignment he was promised Rs 300.

Over the past few months, BSF officials have intercepted quite a few cases in which jobless migrant workers who returned from other states are being lured to smuggling and trafficking with the promise of easy money. Even women are being lured to join the trade to smuggle Phensedyl, yaba tablets and jewelry. More than 100 people have been arrested in the past one month.

While migrant workers started arriving in the state from the end of May, BSF have apprehended 104 people allegedly involved in smuggling cases in June and July. In 2019, 80 people were nabbed and in 2018, 39 people were nabbed in these two months. This year between June and August, 21 human traffickers were apprehended. In 2018 BSF apprehended only two traffickers in these three months. In 2019 none were arrested.

Some jobless migrant workers are being targeted and lured into criminal activities including cross-border smuggling of cattle and narcotics with the promise of easy money. Some have already been apprehended and have spilled the names of those involved. The BSF is alert and keeping a close watch, said SS Guleria, deputy inspector general (South Bengal Frontier) of BSF.

While the BSF has managed to bring down cattle smuggling and infiltration, smuggling of smaller items such as yaba tablets, ganja, Phensedyl and jewelry still continues. The smugglers just throw the items in pouches over the boundary fence. Innovative ways like hiding smuggled items inside cattle carcasses floating down the river are also used.

According to data from the 2011 census, Bengal ranks fourth among the states from where people migrate. Between 2001 and 2011, 5.8 lakh people had migrated from Bengal. Murshidabad, a border district accounts for the most migration among all districts.

More than 10 lakh migrant workers have returned to the state during the pandemic. The state government has already engaged nearly six lakhs in 100-day work programme under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, said a senior official of the state government.

The Indo-Bangladesh border in West Bengal is the longest international border in any state in the country. Out of the 4,096 km long Indo-Bangla border, West Bengal alone shares 2,216 km with the neighbouring country. In south Bengal, the border is more than 900 km long out which nearly 60% is riverine.

The Indo-Bangladesh border, particularly in West Bengal, is also one of the most porous. Data placed by the Union ministry of home affairs in the Parliament in March 2020 shows that in 2017, 2018 and 2019 security agencies arrested 1,175, 1,118 and 1,351 people along the entire stretch of the Indo-Bangla border in India.

Migrant workers started returning to the state when Shramik Special trains were allowed in mid-May. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had earlier said that the government would create a database of migrant workers on the basis of their skills so that a bank of manpower could be created and the migrant workers could be provided with livelihood opportunities.

Several migrant workers have already started returning to their place of work in other states as they could not find any job in Bengal, said a senior official of the state government.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 1)  Authorities in Cotabato province seemed stumped more than 48 hours after a midday road attack on Saturday in Kabacan town has killed nine people and wounded scores of others. Officials have called for calm amid fears of speculations on social media that the incident could inflame unrest among minority groups.

"Hanggang ngayon, blangko pa rin ang pamahalaan po natin, ang kapulisan po natin," Kabacan Mayor Herlo Guzman said in a video message posted on Facebook on Monday. "Ako po ay nakiusap sa lahat ho ng mga kababayan po natin na maging mahinahon."

[Translation: The local government and the police continue to face a "blank wall." I am urging our constituents to remain calm.]

Guzman's appeal comes as a flurry of speculations circulating on social media seems to pin the blame on state forces for the killings over the weekend, where all of the victims are Moros.

"Huwag tayong gumawa ng mga 'fake news', o magsiwalat ng mga impormasyon na hindi ho nakatulong sa nangyaring insidente," Guzman pointed out.

[Translation: Please stop spreading "fake news" and misinformation which are not helping shed light on the incident.]

Citing local police, the Philippine News Agency reported that the victims, who were onboard motorcycles and were passing through an interior road near the University of Southern Mindanao (USM) past noon Saturday, when they were stopped and indiscriminately fired upon by about five heavily-armed gunmen.

The Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process echoed Mayor Guzman's call for "sobriety and restraint."

"We would like to assure you that the government will leave no stone unturned to bring the perpetrators of these dastardly acts to justice," Presidential Peace Adviser Secretary Carlito Galvez said in a statement.

"During these difficult and uncertain times, we urge everyone to hold their judgment and allow the inquiry to take its due course," Galvez added.

In a separate statement, Undersecretary David Diciano, the chairman of the government panel overseeing the implementation of the peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) assured the Duterte administration (stands) for collaborative cooperation and commitment among all stakeholders towards attaining lasting peace and stability in Mindanao.

"We have directed our peace mechanisms such as the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities and the Ad Hoc Joint Action Group to exert effort to prevent the recurrence of such violence while the government security forces investigate the incident," said Diciano.

"Humihiling ako ng tulong sa ating mahal na presidente, si Presidente Rodrigo Roa Duterte, na tulungan tayong maimbestigahan ang bagay na ito," Guzman said.

[Translation: I am asking the help of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte to investigate this case.]

Both the North Cotabato Provincial Police Office and the Bangsamoro Government have earlier initiated separate investigations on the massacre.

The Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, the MILF's armed wing, said in a statement though its Chief of Staff Sammy Al-Mansoor, that it is asking the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) "to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation of the tragic incident and bring the perpetrators to justice."
BRIDGEPORT  A city woman was in custody Monday after police said she stabbed her boyfriend multiple times after she caught him allegedly looking at nude photos of her young daughter.

Trysh Brown, 31, of Park Street, was charged with first-degree assault.

During her arraignment hearing on Monday, Senior Assistant States Attorney Kevin Dunn urged Superior Court Judge Kevin Doyle to set a high bond for Brown.

She stabbed him eight to 10 times and he is in critical condition, Dunn said.

However, after consulting with an investigator, Dunn said they had new information to possibly support Browns claim she acted in self-defense. He told the judge it was being investigated.

Doyle ordered Brown held in lieu of $75,000 bond and continued the case to Oct. 1.

Shortly before 4 a.m. Saturday, police said, officers were dispatched to Park Street for calls of a man covered in blood screaming for help.

When officers got there, police said they found the man sitting on the sidewalk bleeding heavily from multiple stab wounds. He was taken to Bridgeport Hospital.

When officers went to the mans home, police said, they were confronted by Brown who was also covered in blood.

She claimed she had awoken to find her boyfriend in the bathroom looking at naked photos of her daughter on his cell phone, police said.

When she confronted him, police said, Brown allegedly told them the boyfriend began striking her in the face. They said she told them she had grabbed two kitchen knives, because he is a big man, and began stabbing him.
Britain appointed Simon Case, Prince William's former private secretary and a senior government official, as the new head of the civil service on Tuesday - an influential role as Prime Minister Boris Johnson maps out a post-Brexit future.

The appointment of 41-year old Case puts him in a senior advisory position in government, as well as overseeing the work of more than 400,000 state employees and making sure they implement Johnson's policy decisions.

The job of Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service is a non-political role, meaning Case is expected to be impartial and he would remain in that position even after any change of government.

Nevertheless, the role is at the heart of decision-making and will put Case in the room with Johnson and other ministers as the government plans the nation's recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and future outside the European Union.

"His years of experience at the heart of government and working for The Royal Household make him ideally suited for this crucial role," Johnson said.

Case replaces Mark Sedwill, seen as a highly influential voice during the Brexit process, who warned about the risks of leaving the EU without a deal.

Case worked as Prince William's closest aide from July 2018 before returning to work in the civil service earlier this year to help the government's coronavirus response.

Before that he held several senior civil service positions, and was closely involved in work at the centre of the Brexit process on how Northern Ireland would function outside the EU.

He also worked at the GCHQ spying agency as director of strategy.

Johnson's top political aide Dominic Cummings has long advocated the need to reform the civil service, stating in a January blog post that there were "profound problems at the core of how the British state makes decisions."
Two UW Employees Nominated as Wyoming Women of Influence

Two University of Wyoming employees have been nominated for this years Wyoming Women of Influence award through the Wyoming Business Report.

Merav Ben-David, a professor in the Department of Zoology and Physiology, and Laura Capasso, a behavioral scientist at the Family Medicine Residency Program in Cheyenne, are nominees in the education category.

It is a great honor to be recognized as a Wyoming woman of influence, Ben-David says. Mentoring our students has been the focus of my career as I strive to be a role model of professionalism and dedication. I find myself in the company of great Wyomingites and am thankful for the nomination.

Ben-David has taught more than 1,300 undergraduate students and mentored numerous graduate students since arriving at UW 20 years ago. She served as the director of the Program in Ecology from 2016-17 and was head of the Department of Zoology and Physiology from 2017-2020. Additionally, Ben-David has earned many local and national teaching and research awards.

Capasso provides psychotherapy as an integrated treatment option for patients, with an increased focus on providing services to underserved populations. She also leads physician residents and faculty in the exploration of individual and organizational implicit biases and potential barriers to providing highest quality care to all patients, most notably those from oppressed populations.

In my experience, the women and girls of Wyoming are among the most profoundly resilient, hard-working, dedicated and thoughtful people Ive encountered, Capasso says. To be considered among such a noteworthy group is an incredible honor and gives me even more hope and determination to continue my work.

The Wyoming Business Report has been honoring influential women across the state since 2013. This years honorees will be announced in mid-September.

To learn more about the Wyoming Women of Influence award, visit www.wyomingbusinessreport.com/womenofinfluence.
The very life of the Church is applied environmentalism, Bartholomew writes. The sacraments of the Church, her entire life of worship, her asceticism and community life, the daily life of her faithful, express and generate the deepest respect for creation.

Istanbul (AsiaNews) - Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I just released a message on the occasion of World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, which is celebrated tomorrow.

In his statement, the Patriarch notes that although it is "a shared belief that the natural environment is at present threatened as never before in human history, nations and economic decision-makers are unable make the right decisions to protect creation because of geopolitical ambitions and the 'autonomy of the economy'.

For Bartholomew, What is at stake is no longer quality, but the preservation of life on our planet. For the first time in history, man is able to destroy the conditions of life on earth.

Nuclear weapons are the symbol of man's Promethean Titanism, the tangible expression of the 'omnipotence complex' of the contemporary 'man-god'. In using the power that comes from science and technology, what is revealed today is the ambivalence of human freedom.

Science ought to serve life, contribute to progress, tackle diseases and other illnesses hitherto considered 'fatal', as well as create positive prospects for the future. Yet, at the same time, it provides man with all-powerful means, the misuse of which can be destructive.

At present, We are experiencing the destruction of the natural environment, biodiversity, flora and fauna, the pollution of water resources and the atmosphere, the progressive collapse of the climatic balance, and other excesses. Nevertheless, economic development, based today on profit maximisation, cannot continue to be a nightmare for the environment.

A change of direction towards an environmentally-oriented economy is a must. There is no real progress based on the destruction of the natural environment. It is inconceivable that economic decisions can be made without taking into account their environmental consequences.

For the ecumenical patriarch, the current situation shows how "the integrity of nature" is a "categorical imperative" for modern humanity, which people, groups and organisations recognise but not government officials.

In the face of such reality, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has been a pioneer in the field of the protection of creation, and plans to continue its environmental initiatives, organise environmental conferences, mobilise the faithful, especially young people.

It will also promote environmental protection as a fundamental issue for interreligious dialogue and shared initiatives by religions, [including] contacts with political leaders and institutions, and cooperation with environmental organisations and movements.

It is clear that collaboration on environmental protection creates more communication channels and the possibility of new shared actions.

The very life of the Church is applied environmentalism, Bartholomew notes. The sacraments of the Church, her entire life of worship, her asceticism and community life, the daily life of her faithful, express and generate the deepest respect for creation.

Orthodoxys environmental sensitivity was not created but emerged from the contemporary environmental crisis. The struggle for the protection of creation is a central dimension of our faith.

Respect for the environment is an act of doxology of the name of God, whilst the destruction of creation is an offense against the Creator, completely irreconcilable with the fundamental principles of Christian theology.
OTTAWA COUNTY, MI  Police identified Victor Alexis Gil-Bravo, 20, as the victim of a shooting Sunday, Aug. 30, at a Holland Township mobile-home park.

The shooting happened around 7:20 a.m. at Leisure Estates at 523 Butternut Drive.

The victim appeared to have suffered multiple gunshot wounds while outside of the home he shared with his family, Ottawa County sheriffs Capt. Mark Bennett said in a statement.

Gil-Bravo died at the scene.

An autopsy is scheduled for Monday, Aug. 31, at Spectrum Health Blodgett Hospital.

Some witnesses reported that a white sport-utility vehicle may have left the area soon after the shooting.

No suspects have been identified. Police asked anyone with information to contact Silent Observer at 877-88-SILENT or go www.mosotips.com

Read more:

DNR investigates Canada geese shooting that sent employees ducking for cover on golf course

Father, son accused of poaching elk, other game at Northern Michigan hunting camps

Western Michigan University reports coronavirus cases as students return to campus
Two recruits who attended the Basic Constable Training Program at the Ontario Police College (OPC) in Malahide, north of Aylmer, tested positive for COVID-19.

The first tested positive on Aug. 5, while the second case was confirmed by testing on Aug. 10. Kristy Denette, spokesperson for the Ministry of the Solicitor General, said the two cases are not linked.

The first recruit was asymptomatic while at the OPC, and was not at the college at the time when they tested positive for the virus. The second recruit came in contact with someone with a confirmed case of COVID-19 outside of the Ontario Police College. Both recruits are in isolation.

Denette would not provide any details as to where the recruits are from to protect personal/health privacy.

Staff and students who may have had contact with the recruits are in isolation, being tested and enhanced cleaning is taking place.

Classes impacted by the first case have resumed, under direction of the local public health unit. All staff and students who were tested for COVID-19 last week following the first case have received negative results.

Denette said the OPC had implemented measures to protect recruits and staff: This includes mandatory screening, isolation as appropriate, on-site testing, and providing personal protective equipment.
Ever since the mid-1990s, the system has been dominated by minibuses belonging to private companies. Few of them have invested in their fleet of aging vehicles in the past decade. The minibuses as well as a smaller number of buses provided by the municipal authorities have become even more overcrowded as a result.

A British transport consultancy, WYG, was contracted by Yerevans former municipal administration in 2016 to propose a detailed plan to change the transport network. Then Mayor Taron Markarian essentially accepted the proposals in 2017, pledging to replace the battered minibuses with new and larger buses by the end of 2018.

Markarian was forced to resign in July 2018 two months after the Velvet Revolution that brought down Armenias former government. Marutian, his successor allied to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, pledged to address the problem after taking office in October 2018.

Marutians office asked Pashinians government last year to raise more than $100 million to buy 820 modern buses which it said would end the Armenian capitals transport woes. In a related development, it called in April this year an international tender for the purchase of 100 new and large buses. The tender was not completed for still unclear reasons.

The municipal administration announced in July it will buy instead 100 small buses and hold another tender for that purpose. The international tender was formally launched on Monday.

Davit Khazhakian, an opposition member of the city council, claimed that municipality is planning to buy more minibuses, rather than regular size buses repeatedly promised by Marutian. He said the bidding specifications are such that the tender will inevitably be won by the Russian company GAZ whose GAZelle minibuses form the backbone of Yerevans public transport network.

The authorities have told the public for the last couple of years that they will buy new buses and create a new network, Khazhakian told a news conference. But they are going to commission more GAZelles.

Deputy Mayor Hrachya Sargsian did not deny that the municipality wants to continue to at least partly rely on minibuses. He insisted, however, that the outcome of the tender is not a forgone conclusion and that Western carmakers could also win it.

Sargsian also told RFE/RLs Armenian service that the municipality has not abandoned its plans to purchases hundreds of new buses. But he could not say when the Armenian capital will have a new and modern transport system.

Marutian said last year that nearly half of some 900 minibuses catering to commuters in Yerevan are too old and must be decommissioned.


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Oxytocic Pharmaceuticals Market: Global Industry Analysis & Opportunity Assessment, 2016-2026, a recently published report by Future Market Insights, examines the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market scenario for a 10-year forecast period. The key objective of this report is to provide information on market dynamics and opportunities for manufacturers operating in the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market. While researching this report, our analysts have considered overall market approach and have come to a conclusion that companies in the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market are mainly focussing on geographic expansion and product differentiation to gain a larger market share. Our analysts have further targeted the different geographies and found that the presence of a large patient pool and an increase in healthcare expenditure are promising factors for investors to invest in the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market. While studying differentiating market strategies, we have observed that companies are targeting the Asia Pacific and MEA regions by means of distribution agreements with local players and are increasing their field force to reach out to prospective customers.

Through extensive research, our analysts have thoroughly studied the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market and have identified multiple drivers, restraints, trends and opportunities that are expected to influence the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market and consequently the business operations of the leading as well as second-in-line players functioning in the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market.

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Our analysts have further studied how the different market dynamics are likely to impact the current environment and future scenario of the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market, thereby providing useful insights to market players to plan their strategies capable of evolving with the changing market landscape.

Report Description

Future Market Insights report provides a comprehensive picture of the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market and covers market performance in terms of revenue. The report also comprises an analysis of drivers and restraints from the supply and demand sides followed by the global trends and opportunities in the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market. The report has taken a deep dive into the various segments, including regions and has presented an unbiased and independent analysis of various factors dominating each segment and sub-segment in this detailed report on the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market.

Macro-economic indicators such as healthcare industry outlook, healthcare spending, the prevalence of cancer, and Gross Domestic Product have been considered to arrive at the indicated market numbers. The report considers prevention and treatment doses for post-partum haemorrhage conditions in the study along with labour induction, labour arrest, and abortion induced incomplete and inevitable abortion conditions. Lastly, the report covers the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market competitive landscape and provides a dashboard view of companies that provide services in the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market. The report includes company profiles of some of the key players operating in the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market and a strategic overview of mergers and acquisitions dotting the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals landscape.

To understand and assess the opportunities in the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market, the report is categorically split into five sections based on market segmentation.

By Indication

Abortion Induced Incomplete

Inevitable Abortion

Post-partum Haemorrhage

Labour Induction

Labour Arrest

By Route of administration

Intravenous Infusion/Injection

Intramuscular Injection

By Source of Origin

Natural Oxytocin

Synthetic Oxytocin Derivative

By End-User

Hospitals

Maternity clinics

By Region

North America

Latin America

Western Europe

Eastern Europe

Asia Pacific Excluding Japan and China (APEJC)

Japan

China

Middle East & Africa (MEA)

Our exclusive research methodology

The forecast presented in our report on the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market assesses the total revenue generated in the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market. When developing the forecast, the starting point involves sizing the current market, which forms the basis for forecasting how the market is anticipated to take shape in the near future. Given the characteristics of the market, we have triangulated the outcome based on an analysis of supply side and demand side dynamics. For quantifying market numbers, we have conducted interviews with subject matter experts in the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market.

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In addition, we have taken into consideration the year-on-year growth of different segments to understand the predictability of the market and to identify the right growth opportunities in the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market. All the segments or categories have been analysed in terms of Basis Point Share (BPS) to understand individual segments relative contribution to market growth.

This detailed level of information is important for identification of various key trends governing the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market. Another key feature of our report is the analysis of the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market based on indication, route of administration, source of origin, end user and region; and the market revenue forecast in terms of absolute dollar opportunity. This is traditionally overlooked while forecasting the market. However, absolute dollar opportunity is critical in assessing the level of opportunity that providers can look to achieve, as well as to identify potential resources from a sales perspective in the global oxytocic pharmaceuticals market.
Former President John Mahama has been criticized for promising to legalize the commercial operation of motorbikes popularly known as Okada.



The flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) during his tour of Kpando in the Volta Region promised to legalize Okada business if voted into office in 2021.



According to him, the Okada business has become a means of sustenance for young people who are unemployed.



our law says okada is illegal, but it is a reality it has come to stay and you cant stop it. So, I say when we come into office, we legalize it but we will regulate it he stated that



However, some of his critics disagree.



A member of the Communication team of the NPP, Asafo Adjei in a panel discussion on Neat FM told the NDC flagbearer that since he wants to legalize Okada with the intention of creating jobs, he should also include prostitution.



"I am not against okada; it is one of the affordable means of transportation but what will you gain if you promise to legalize okada. Should we clap for you? Does legalizing it means you have purchased motorbike for those interested. Is this a policy from a former President? He has not changed nor learned his lessons(in that case) then tell (former) President Mahama to legalize prostitution because they are more than the okada riders. legalize prostitution and let us know that you are creating jobs" he told the NDC flagbearer.



Listen to him in the video below





Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Win McNamee/Getty Images(WASHINGTON, D.C.) -- As protests against police brutality grip America following the shooting of Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back seven times by police, several demonstrations have become targeted by gun violence.

Most recently, one protestor was killed on Saturday in Portland, Oregon, where responding officers found the victim with a bullet wound to the chest. The unidentified victim was pronounced dead at the scene. The suspect remains at large.

In response to the shooting death in Portland and last week's deadly violence in Kenosha, where an armed 17-year-old shot and killed two protestors, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he blames President Donald Trump for the increasing violence and civil unrest.

Biden claims the president is "fanning the flames of hate and division in our society." In addition, the former vice president says he holds President Trump accountable for not working across the aisle to help solve the issue.

Following the shooting death in Portland, President Trump attacked the city's Democratic mayor on Twitter, calling Mayor Ted Wheeler "a fool" and "incompetent" before saying "Bring in the National Guard!"

"It does not matter if you find the political views of your opponents abhorrent, any loss of life is a tragedy," said Biden. "He may believe tweeting about law and order makes him strong -- but his failure to call on his supporters to stop seeking conflict shows just how weak he is."
Migrants' rights groups hold a press conference in front of Cheong Wa Dae urging the government to equally provide emergency disaster relief funds to foreign residents in this May 7 photo / Yonhap



By Lee Hyo-jin



Migrant workers are welcoming Seoul city's decision to provide disaster relief funds to non-citizens here, adding hopes that other municipal governments will follow suit, according to multiple migrants' rights groups, Monday.



Following the recommendation by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) on June 10, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced last Wednesday it would include foreign residents in its disaster relief fund plan to support everyone suffering economic hardships amid the COVID-19 pandemic.



Starting Monday, eligible foreign residents can apply for the disaster relief fund through the city government website. Eligible households can receive a lump-sum payment of 300,000 won ($253) to 500,000 won, depending on the number of family members.



"The virus does not discriminate by nationality, so neither should the disaster relief money," said Lee Han-sook, head of Migration and Human Rights Institution.



"Many foreign workers have gone jobless or are on unpaid leave. Some of them are stranded here as they can't return to their home countries due to travel restrictions," she said, explaining why the disaster relief should be extended to foreign residents.



Although the NHRCK has also recommended Gyeonggi Province to include foreign residents in its emergency relief fund budget, authorities have responded with their plans to 'look into' possible measures in the long term.



The municipal government had previously provided 100,000 won to marriage immigrants and permanent residents in March, accountable for roughly 18 percent of foreign residents in the area. But it remains hesitant to expand the fund to all registered foreign residents.



"We hope Seoul city's decision will encourage Gyeonggi Province and other regional governments to support foreign residents," said Lee Young, head of the Foreign Workers' Welfare Center in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province.



"Many people question why the state should help foreigners with our tax money. But they don't seem to know that even legal foreign residents who have been paying taxes for years are excluded from the plan," Lee added.



Civic groups point out that this is not only about giving financial aid to foreigners, but also showing Korea's acceptance of foreign residents.



"This issue needs to be handled properly and settled as a good precedent to make sure that foreigners are not discriminated against in other disaster situations. If they are excluded now, they will continue to be excluded in the future," Jeong Yeong-sup, a member of the Alliance for Migrant Equality and Human Rights, told The Korea Times.


Cairo prosecution has set an EGP 2,000 bail for the release of the woman who assaulted a police officer in a courthouse on Monday. A video of the incident has gone viral.

"The prosecutor-general ordered an investigation into the incident that went viral on social media of a woman assaulting an on-duty police officer at a courthouse," the prosecution's statement read.

The officer said during the investigation that he saw the defendant using her mobile phone to film court employees on duty and that upon notifying her to stop filming, she assaulted him verbally and physically, the statement continued.

The prosecution said the woman, arrested on site, works at the Administrative Prosecution.

The defendant denied the charges, including forcibly resisting arrest and verbally assaulting an officer on duty. She said she went to the courthouse to file a complaint about losing a sum of money from her bank account and that the police officer started a verbal skirmish with her and took her mobile phone by force which led her to defend herself as shown in the clip, the statement added.

The prosecution stated it decided to release the woman on an EGP 2,000 bail after enquiring from her place of work that she is suffering from psychological conditions, adding that investigations are ongoing.

The clip that went viral earlier on Monday, reportedly filmed at a Heliopolis courthouse, showed an angry woman insulting and cursing a police officer wearing a face mask before assaulting him and taking off his rank insignia when he took her mobile phone.

In the video, the woman said she works as a prosecutor at the Administrative Prosecution and the United Nations.

Another clip went viral on Monday afternoon showing the woman resisting arrest.

The Administrative Prosecution said on Monday it is investigating the incident involving its member Noha Al-Emam, the woman in the video.

The United Nations office in Egypt issued a statement regarding the incident and Al-Emam's claims that she is affiliated to the international body.

The United Nations family in Egypt and all its employees affirm their full commitment to the laws of the Arab Republic of Egypt and their respect for all Egyptian State Agencies and all its employees performing their duties, the UN statement said.

The UN office added it also rejects any violation conducted under its name and stressed that under the Charter of the UN, there are no privileges or immunities that exempt its employees from observing the laws and police regulations in the host country.

The United Nations also reminds everyone of the need to follow the current precautionary measures that help in limiting the spread of coronavirus according to the instructions of the Egyptian Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation, including wearing masks in public places to preserve public health."

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Sohum Shah puts an end to speculations around Tummbad 2, says he's working on another project
Philippines largest TV network ABS-CBN, which was forced off air after Congress rejected its franchise renewal, closed regional stations on August 28 after more than 30 years in operations. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) to express dismay over for the closure, which leaves millions of Filipinos in regional areas without a major source of credible news and will see thousands of media workers lose their jobs.

Employees and supporters of local television network ABS-CBN hold placards as they protest in front of the House of Representatives in Manila on July 10, 2020. Credit: Miggy Hilario/AFP

ABS-CBN Regional had 21 regional stations across the country. The company has decided to close its regional stations except for the regional offices in Baguio, Cebu, and Cagayan de Oro. The regional network has been played an essential role in serving Filipinos in remote areas not serviced by other television signals.

Citizens relied on the TV Patrol program, the flagship prime-time newscast of ABS-CBN, aired for more than three decades, as their primary news source. It broadcasts local and national news in different dialects. Regional ABS-CBN news teams have also been instrumental in front line reporting of natural disasters, community support and aid distribution. The network aired the final newscasts of 12 local TV Patrol programs on Friday, August 28 via Facebook and YouTube.

ABS-CBN Regional will also cease production of its nine morning shows. In addition to that, the closing of regional offices will also affect all public service initiatives, ranging from health, education, environment, and livelihood. Following its decision to close regional offices, more and more media workers will lose their jobs.

The network stayed off-air after the lawmakers denied its franchise renewal on July 10. ABS-CBN decided to focus on the digital and cable business. The rejection of the networks franchise application has attracted the regional outcry as the franchise is central to ensuring people have access to information. The public campaign PIRMA Kapamilya has been launched to bring ABS-CBN back on air.

NUJP said:It is clear that democracy is under siege, by the government no less, as seen in the relentless assaults on the critical and independent media, and the continuing attacks on the people's basic rights and freedoms.

The IFJ said: Access to information is a fundamental human right. It is clear that people, especially those who live in remote areas, have lost their main source of information in these troubled times during the coronavirus outbreak. IFJ calls the authorities to ensure unfettered access to information and to stop the silencing of media.
IRVING, Texas, Aug. 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- 7-Eleven, Inc. continues to expand its presence globally, with a planned entry into Laos. The world's largest convenience retailer has signed a master franchise agreement with CP ALL LAOS CO., LTD, a company under CP ALL Public Company Limited, to develop and operate 7-Eleven stores in The Lao People's Democratic Republic.

The first 7-Eleven-branded convenience store in Laos is expected to be open in Vientiane, the capital city.

With the addition of Laos, CP ALL now holds licensing agreements to operate 7-Eleven stores in two adjacent Asian countries. CP ALL has had a 7-Eleven licensing agreement in its home country of Thailand for more than 30 years and signed a master franchise agreement for Cambodia earlier this year.

"With its remarkable success in Thailand, I can think of no one better than CP ALL to bring the 7-Eleven brand to consumers in Laos," said 7-Eleven, Inc. President and CEO Joe DePinto. "This relationship promises to bring additional jobs and economic opportunities throughout region."

The master franchisee plans to construct stores, modernizing the small-retail environment and bringing greater convenience to shoppers, backed by the world's largest convenience retailing brand. Internationally popular products, beverages, snacks and immediately consumable fresh foods with recipes developed for regional tastes will be part of the convenience offerings for Laotian shoppers.

In 1988, CP ALL was established to operate 7-Eleven stores in Thailand under an exclusive licensing agreement with 7-Eleven, Inc. The first Thailand 7-Eleven store opened in Bangkok in 1989, and CP ALL now operates more than 12,000 stores in the country, second only to Japan in the world.

CP ALL has successfully operated 7-Eleven stores in Thailand for more than 30 years, and the brand has become part of popular Thai culture. The stores there serve as one-stop destinations for beverages, snacks, ready-to-eat meals, financial services such as banking and bill payment, digital technology and delivery  all which the company plans to replicate for Laotian customers.

Laos will be the 20th country where 7-Eleven stores operate or will operate soon. Other countries and/or regions include the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, China (including Hong Kong), the Philippines, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Viet Nam, United Arab Emirates, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, India and Cambodia.

About 7-Eleven, Inc.

7Eleven, Inc. is the premier name and largest chain in the convenience-retailing industry. Based in Irving, Texas, 7Eleven operates, franchises and/or licenses more than 71,100 stores in 17 countries, including 11,800 in North America. Known for its iconic brands such as Slurpee, Big Bite and Big Gulp, 7Eleven has expanded into high-quality sandwiches, salads, side dishes, cut fruit and protein boxes, as well as pizza, chicken wings and mini beef tacos. 7Eleven offers customers industry-leading private brand products under the 7-Select brand including healthy options, decadent treats, and everyday favorites, at an outstanding value. Customers can earn and redeem points on various items in stores nationwide through its 7Rewards loyalty program with more than 35 million members, place an order in the 7NOW delivery app in over 1,300 cities, or rely on 7Eleven for bill payment service, self-service lockers and other convenient services. Find out more online at www.7Eleven.com, via the 7Rewards customer loyalty platform on the 7Eleven mobile app, or on social media at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

SOURCE 7-Eleven, Inc.

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A young man is seen standing on a phone box stripped down to his underwear

Publicans are calling for "the full force of the law" to be applied to pubs breaching Covid-19 guidelines after a video showing a large group of young people partying - and even stripping - emerged at the weekend.

The footage was taken on Main Street in the holiday hot spot of Killarney, Co Kerry.

Some of the revellers can be seen standing on telephone boxes and bins as they are encouraged by the others, who sing, dance and raise drinks in the air.

At one point, a young man who had climbed on to a telephone box is seen stripping to his underwear.

The Vintners' Federation of Ireland (VFI) called for the "full force of the law" to be applied to bars breaching guidelines.

However, it remains unclear how the gathering began.

Contravention

"The VFI has reiterated its call for the full force of the law to be applied to any pub found to be in breach of guidelines following a number of incidents in Killarney on Saturday night, which involved large groups of people gathering on the streets in contravention of all current protocols," a statement from the group said.

"While the exact nature of what occurred prior to the incidents that appeared on social media remains unclear, the guidelines for restaurants and pubs serving food state that alcohol can only be served along with a 9 meal and guests can only remain on the premises for 105 minutes."

The group added that it supports new garda powers to close down non-compliant businesses.

"The VFI supports the introduction of new legislation that will give gardai the powers to close down businesses found to be in breach of the guidelines," it said.

Kerry councillor Jackie Healy-Rae said there is local anger over the footage.

"The people's behaviour last night was completely unacceptable," he said.

"There's outrage from the local people in Killarney and in Kerry over what went on.

"We have students who are going back to school tomorrow, we have teachers who are going back to school tomorrow, we have parents who are worried about schools reopening tomorrow and then we have this sort of behaviour. It's not good."

An Garda Siochana said it does not comment on footage circulating on social media.

However, a spokesperson said they were aware of video on social media showing the activities of a crowd gathered on a street in Killarney.

"An Garda Siochana does not comment on an extract of audio/video footage, the timeline and context of which cannot be determined," the spokesperson said.

However, they added that there were patrolling resources in the Killarney area.

"An Garda Siochana had resources on patrol in the Killarney district with local gardai reporting large numbers of persons socialising in Killarney over the evening," the spokesperson said.

They added that public health guidelines are not penal provisions, and gardai continue to respond to "reports of gatherings and engage with communities with a view to implementing the guidelines issued".
W&M alumnae work to transform primary care

Transforming Primary Care: Dena Bashri '20 in Jordan. Courtesy photo

Transforming Primary Care: Shivani Gupta 20 (left) and her roommate Mina Parastaran 20. Photo by Dani Aron-Schiavone 17 Photo - of - Hide Caption

In March, with the pandemic picking up steam worldwide and graduation just around the corner, Dena Bashri 20 was looking for her next step. A public health major with minors in math and Arabic, she knew she wanted to put her W&M education to good use, but how? And what opportunities would even be available during this economic downturn, when so many organizations have frozen hiring or are conducting all their business remotely?

Her first step: reaching out to the network of W&M alumni to learn more about possible career paths. Thats how she found out about the Transforming Primary Care fellowship offered this summer by the Weitzman Institute, the research and innovation arm of Community Health Center, Inc.

This summer, she and fellow alumna Shivani Gupta 20 are two of the six inaugural fellows in this program, which is entirely remote. They are working on projects as diverse as ensuring the homeless have access to telehealth to tracking the supply chain of COVID-19 testing kits.

The inaugural Transforming Primary Care Summer Fellowship was offered nationally to graduates from the class of 2020, students who are going through the unique challenges brought by COVID-19 as they launch their careers, said Mark Masselli, CEO and founder, in a press release. We received an outpouring of excellent candidates, and are fortunate to have a group of truly outstanding future healthcare leaders. The Fellows have brought limitless talent, energy and intellectual curiosity to their work at CHC and the Weitzman Institute.

Bashri and Gupta found out about the fellowship through Wei Chang 17, who posted about it on the W&M Switchboard. Chang was finishing up her own fellowship at CHC/Weitzman at the time, and she had used Switchboard herself to get career and other advice from alumni. After posting about the fellowship there, she soon had several recent grads, including Bashri and Gupta, reach out to her to learn more.

Having only graduated three years ago, I usually think of myself as a mentee, so its incredible to be able to help students make these connections, she says.

It always strikes me how students from William & Mary are so willing to learn and challenge themselves. So its great to see how they are applying what they've learned at William & Mary to a really interesting and emerging area. Its a unique opportunity to have right now, to work alongside the front line of community health.

Dena Bashri 20

Bashri has always been interested in the intersections of health and migration. Growing up, she traveled with her family to Sudan every few years to see relatives and was fascinated by the ways the ways in which displacement and conflict created a complex, diverse culture there. As a student at William & Mary, she studied abroad in Jordan to conduct research on the perceptions of the domestic worker sponsorship system among domestic workers and their employers.

I understand that my life would be super different if my family hadnt been able to benefit from systems of migration, she says. For me, whats really powerful is to be able to leverage my privilege to serve a greater cause in communities that reflect my own identity, an identity I didnt see reflected much growing up or even at William & Mary.

As a Black Muslim woman, its important to recognize that facets of my intersectional identity dont hinder me. They help me gain a greater sense of empathy for others and connect with more people than I couldve ever imagined.

She sees her work in the fellowship as a way to make an impact on a community level. For her fellowship with CHC/Weitzman, Bashri joined their Center for Key Populations, which engages and advocates for populations who have traditionally experienced barriers to care, including homeless and LGBTQ+- identifying individuals, along with those living with substance use disorders and hepatitis C.

Her projects this summer include helping homeless and displaced people connect to telehealth and creating a nurse-driven protocol for taking sexual histories that are more inclusive for all people, regardless of sexuality or gender identity. In the coming weeks, she will be contributing to a presentation on health disparities in the COVID-19 pandemic for the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants.

Her work combines literature reviews, background research and interviews  qualitative and quantitative research like she conducted at William & Mary as part of the Ignite Lab and Research and Evaluation unit of AidData.

There are these open doors at William & Mary to conduct research as an undergrad and explore your interests. I dont know if I would have had that anywhere else, that depth of knowledge, mentorship and experience, she says. I was comfortable and confident pursuing research opportunities like this one post-grad.

In the coming future, she hopes to continue contributing to meaningful work at CHC, or travel abroad to continue her work with underserved populations. Shes applying for a Fulbright to research Sweden as a case study of global response to the refugee crisis.

In order to truly engage in meaningful work in a global context, you must be able to recognize and understand these same complex topics on a local scale, Bashri says. Its more than just asking How can I help?, its really about immersing yourself in holistic learning about the experiences and identities that form communities you are serving.

Shivani Gupta 20

Gupta was also looking a remote opportunity to make a meaningful difference and was excited to see Changs post. A public policy major with a global education minor, she had been in India on a Boren Scholarship all year, but was called back to the U.S. in March as travel-related restrictions due to the pandemic began. Boren Scholarships, an initiative of the National Security Education Program, provide unique funding opportunities for U.S. undergraduate students to study less commonly taught languages in world regions critical to U.S. interests and underrepresented in study abroad.

After connecting with a few alumni through the Alumni Associations Online Networking Hours, the business schools career center and other venues, she saw Changs post on the Switchboard and applied.

As part of the fellowship, Gupta is building a database that matches CHC/Weitzmans priorities to their grants and helping manage their complex supply chain of COVID-related supplies.

William & Mary encourages us to try to make an impact wherever we go, in small and big ways, and to think critically, she says. My organizational behavior class especially gave me the confidence to offer up my ideas in this fellowship about how to improve workflow and be more efficient.

As well as her fellowship, Gupta works for a social enterprise startup called Hope Sews that provides opportunities to seamstresses in Ghana. She is also interning with William & Marys Global Research Institute on a project for the Department of Defenses U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, looking at the impacts of COVID-19 on women in the Pacific region.

I definitely think its helpful at this time to stay busy, so its been really nice to have these opportunities. And they're all things that I'm passionate about and interested in, she says. Coming back home, its been good to engage with the community in these collaborative opportunities.

Gupta was encouraged to come to William & Mary by her AP Government teacher in high school, Allison White Cohen 94, M.A.Ed. 96.

I started off thinking maybe I should major in government, but I learned I liked more of the community-driven aspects, seeing the impact on a local level. So I switched to public policy, which led to work with the Office of Community Engagement, studying abroad in India and the work Im doing now, she says. This is a really interdisciplinary and unique major that you can really take in the direction that you want.

Next, she plans to work in the federal government for at least a year to fulfill the terms of her Boren Scholarship. She hopes to land a communications position focused on international development, education and health care.

Id like to combine my interest in policy and sustainable development to pursue like a social enterprise, she says. I think I could continue to make change that way.
A US-Israeli delegation led by White House advisor Jared Kushner arrived Monday in Abu Dhabi, on the first commercial flight from Tel Aviv to mark the normalisation of ties between the Jewish state and the UAE.

In another breakthrough, regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia allowed the historic flight to cross its airspace, halving what would otherwise have been a long trip around the Arabian peninsula.

"This is the first time this has ever happened. I would like to thank the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for making that possible," Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, said on arrival in Abu Dhabi.

The word "peace" was written in Arabic, English and Hebrew on the cockpit of the El Al flight that landed in the Emirates capital, where US flags flew alongside the Star of David banner.

The direct flight by Israel's national carrier, numbered LY971 in a nod to the UAE's international dialling code, is due to return on Tuesday with the number 972, matching Israel's dialling code.

"While this is a historic flight, we hope that it will start an even more historic journey in the Middle East and beyond," Kushner, a key architect of Trump's Middle East policy, said before boarding.

"The future does not have to be predetermined by the past. This is a very hopeful time."

Kushner urged the Palestinians, who have condemned the UAE deal as a betrayal of their cause, to come to the negotiating table.

"When they are ready, the whole region is very excited to help lift them up and move them forward. But they can't be stuck in the past, they have to come to the table," he said.

The accord was announced by Trump on August 13, making the UAE the first Gulf country and only the third Arab nation to establish relations with Israel.

Unlike Egypt, which made peace with its former battlefield enemy in 1979, and Jordan, which followed in 1994, the UAE has never fought a war with Israel.

Story continues

- Saudi next? -

Gulf Arab nations have had increasingly publicly ties with Israel in recent years, boosted by their shared rivalry with Iran and the advantages of linking their powerful economies.

Saudi Arabia, in keeping with decades of policy by most Arab nations, says it will not normalise relations until Israel has signed a peace deal establishing an independent Palestinian state.

But the overflight was a concrete sign of Saudi cooperation with Israel after years of behind-the-scenes overtures.

The plane however skirted the Gulf states of Qatar and Bahrain, who have declined so far to follow the UAE's move, also met with criticism elsewhere in the Arab world.

"Peace is not an empty word used to normalise crimes and oppression," Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, said Monday.

"Peace is the outcome of justice. Peace is not made by denying Palestine's right to exist."

- 'There are no limits' -

In a joint statement on Monday, the US, UAE and Israel said the accord represented "a courageous step towards a more stable, integrated and prosperous Middle East" after a decade that has witnessed an escalation of "war, destruction and dislocation".

They said that on Tuesday, officials would begin discussing cooperation in seven areas: investment, finance, health, space exploration, civil aviation, foreign policy, and tourism and culture.

"The result will be broad cooperation between two of the regions most innovative and dynamic economies," they said after talks between Kushner and Israeli and Emirati national security advisors Meir Ben-Shabbat and Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed.

Ben-Shabbat, who was also on the flight to the UAE, said the delegation's goal was to make a plan to push ahead relations in a broad range of areas.

"We came here to transform a vision into a reality. There are no limits to cooperation... in education, innovation, health, aviation, agriculture, energy and many other fields," he said.

Since the agreement was unveiled, there have been phone calls between ministers from the two countries, and on Saturday the Emirates in a new milestone repealed a 1972 law boycotting Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has praised "the swift pace of normalisation", said that Ben-Shabbat had invited the Emirati delegation to visit Israel.

"I can tell you we will welcome them with same red carpet they gave us," he said Monday, without specifying if they had accepted.

As part of the normalisation agreement, Israel agreed to suspend its planned annexations in the occupied West Bank, although Netanyahu quickly insisted the plans remained on the table in the long run.

The Israeli leader has also denied reports that the accord hinges on the sale of US F-35 stealth fighter jets to the UAE, saying he opposes a move that could reduce Israel's strategic edge in the region.

Kushner said Monday that the US could maintain that edge "while also advancing our military relationship with the United Arab Emirates" and that the issue would be discussed further in "coming weeks and months".

burs-sls/lc
On August 28, First Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov met with US Ambassador John Sullivan to discuss Russian-US cooperation in the Arctic, the press service of the Russian Foreign Ministry reported.

During the discussion regarding Russian-US cooperation in the Arctic, including within the framework of the Arctic Council, the officials noted the Council's central role in developing a constructive agenda for the Arctic.

Vladimir Titov reaffirmed Russia's resolve to promote comprehensive strengthening of multilateral interaction in the North and noted the importance of maintaining the depoliticized nature of relations in the Arctic Council.

The diplomats also spoke about Russian-US collaboration on a number of regional topics.
NEW DELHI: The National Commission of Women (NCW) on Monday (August 31) sought from Uttar Pradesh police a detailed action-taken report over the alleged rape of a woman on a bus in the presence of 45 passengers.

According to media reports, the 30-year-old Delhi resident was allegedly raped by a man on a bus which was heading to the national capital from Uttar Pradesh on Saturday.

There were 45 passengers on board at that time, who said that they were asleep at the time of the incident, the media reports claimed.

In a letter to UP DGP H C Awasthy, National Commission for Women Chairperson Rekha Sharma said the panel is seriously concerned about the repeated incidents of "such gruesome and horrendous crimes" against women in Uttar Pradesh.

"Considering the gravity of the matter, it is requested that swift action may be taken in the matter. A detailed action taken report be sent to the Commission at an early date," Sharma said in the letter.
Alumni on the move

Congratulations to all alumni achievers on achievements and promotions in the month of October

Commerce

Jesmane Boggenpoel (BCom 1995, BAcc 1996) was appointed as non- executive director to the Spur board.

Professor Suresh Parbhoo Kana (MCom 1986) has chaired the audit committee providing oversight over activities of the World Food Programme since 2015. This programme received the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its global efforts to combat hunger.

Cristina Teixeira (BCom 1994) was appointed Spur Corporation CFO from February 2021. She has 12 years experience as CFO in listed companies. She was CFO at Group Five and joined Consolidated Group as CFO in 2019. She was voted Businesswoman of the Year by Businesswomens Association of South Africa in 2013.

Fulvio Tonelli (BCom 1983, BCom Hons 1984) was appointed as non-executive director of Absa Kenya.

Nexio, South Africas digital system aggregator, appointed Brian Tarr (BCom 1983) as Managing Executive: Technology.

Law

Bharti (Bharie) Harie (LLM 1999) has been appointed to the board of EOH as independent non-executive director from 1 January 2021. She is an independent non-executive director on the boards of Lenmed Investments Limited, Ascendis Health Limited, St Davids Marist Inanda and Stefanutti Stocks Holdings Limited. She was previously an independent non-executive director of Bell Equipment, Mineworkers Investment Company Limited and Lenmed Ethekwini Hospital and Heart Centre and 14 years at the IDC.

Management

Pavlo Phitidis (MBA 2001) virtually launched his book Reset, Rebuild, Reignite: Build your business to thrive in a crisis.

Kesagee Nayager (MBA 2015) was appointed as the new president of the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa.

Engineering

Thabile Makgala (BSc Eng 2005 cum laude) holds the position as Executive at Impala Platinum, and has been appointed as Chairperson of Women in Mining in South Africa.

Medicine

Dr Eliel Bayever (MBBCh 1973) was appointed as Chief Medical Officer at Elucida Oncology, a biotechnology company.

Dr Mark Friedlander (MBBCh 1982), was appointed as head of the behavioural health division at Universal Health Services. He spent nine years as CMO for Aetna's behavioral health unit. He was also corporate medical director for Penn-Friends Behavioral Health Systems in Plymouth Meeting and, before that, director of outpatient clinic and adolescent inpatient care at Friends Hospital, a UHS-owned behavioral health facility in Philadelphia.

Dr Norman B Gaylis (MBBCh 1973) was appointed to the elite Scientific Advisory Board of Inmedix. He is a leader in the field of arthritis and autoimmune disorders.

Dr Ian Mark Landy (BDS 1991) appointed as CEO of Micron Medical, a medical device company in the development, manufacture of wireless, minimal invasive solutions for urological conditions from October. His has served in senior positions at MiMedx, MIV Therapeutics and significant healthcare-related Wall Street experience as research analyst at leading investment banks including Leerink Swann, Northland Capital Markets. Apart from his Wits degree, he also has bachelors degree from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Jerome Loveland (MBBCh 1996), who is head of Paediatric Surgery at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital and founder of the Surgeons for Little Lives charity, was awarded the 2020 Golden Eagle Award by St Johns College for his contribution to society.

Dr Thembisile Xulu (MPH 2008) was recently appointed as the new CEO of the South African National AIDS Council.

Humanities

Professor Anton Harber (BA 1979) Adjunct Professor in the Journalism and Media Studies Department at Wits, launched his new book So, for the Record: Behind the Headlines in an Era of State Capture. He was in conversation with Jacques Pauw. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgTo_5qJNiw

Cheriese Dilrajh (BA FA 2019) and Hemali Khoosal (BA FA 2020) were awarded the prestigious Sam Nhlengethwa Bursary and will be mentored at the Bag Factory in Newtown for a year.

The World Food Prize Foundation, announced Keegan Kautzky (MA 2008) as Senior Director of the World Food Prize Global Youth Programs and Partnerships.

Science

Dr Dean H Barrett (BSc 2008, BSc Hons 2009, PhD 2012) joint researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand and the National Center for Research in Energy and Materials in Brazil, is part of an intercontinental research team announced as IChemE Global Awards finalists in the Energy category for its Decentralised Diesel system, which aims to produce fuel from waste.

Black Royalty Minerals Koornfontein, part of the Makole Group, appointed Zandile Mdanda (BSc 2005, BSc Hons 2007, MBA 2018) as CEO of Koornfontein Mine. Mdandas career is grounded in coal  she has worked her way up the mining corporate ladder with her first position was as a trainee geologist at Anglo Coal and she eventually held the position of senior geologist. She then obtained a position as chief geologist at Xstrata Coal (now Glencore). She was appointed chief geologist to the General Manager Project at African Exploration Mining and Finance Corporation before moving to the Milele Group.

Nosipho Carol Molope (BSc 1988) has been appointed to board of EOH as non-executive director from the 1 January 2021. She is an independent non-executive director of a number of companies, including Old Mutual Life Assurance Company Limited, MTN South Africa and MTN Rwanda, Uganda, Swaziland and Zambia, Engen Limited and South 32 Coal Holdings Proprietary Limited.

In memoriam

Alumni Relations mourns the deaths of the following alumni and extend condolences to their family and friends:

Professor Ampie Coetzee (MA 1963, PhD 1967) died on 15 October at the age of 81.

Linda Givon (Gold Medal 2007) passed away on 5 October.

Professor Daniel Plaatjies (PhD 2008) was Chairperson of the Financial and Fiscal Commission passed away on the evening of 10 October at the age of 57.

Heinrich Pietersen Rauch (BSc Eng 1951, MSc Eng 1958) passed away on 4 October 2020 at the age of 90. His mother, Dr Johanna Victoria Rauch was a lecturer in the faculty of medicine during the early 1950s. His son Johann (BSc Eng 1979) and granddaughter, Christine (BPharm 2005) are proud Wits graduates.

Dr David Proctor (BSc Eng 1962, PhD 1977) died in Johannesburg on 26 September 2020 of complications following surgery at the age of 88.

Dr Ian Potgieter (MBBCh 1957) passed away on 2 October at the age of 84.

See more here: https://www.wits.ac.za/alumni/obituaries/
Workers were repairing a facility in Beirut, Lebanon's port on the afternoon of Aug. 4, hours before a massive explosion there rocked the area, destroying buildings and killing at least 180 people. A judge had recently ordered something be done to secure Warehouse Number 12 at the request of Lebanon's State Security agency.

The warehouse contained 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, and documents obtained by The Washington Post show that the highly explosive material was stored next to kerosene, 25 tons of fireworks, and solvents used for stripping paint. Ghassan Oueidat, Lebanon's chief prosecutor, told the Post the State Security agency was worried not about the dangers posed by the warehouse's contents, but rather someone stealing the materials. A report sent to the offices of Lebanon's president and prime minister in July warned that the ammonium nitrate was "dangerous" and "if it were stolen, the thief could use it to manufacture explosives."

The three workers sent to secure the warehouse fixed a broken door, closed a hole in a wall, and made sure all other doors were locked, the Post reports. But when a fire broke out at around 5:50 p.m. on Aug. 4, the workers had gone home for the day, and Beirut's fire chief said firefighters were unable to gain access to the warehouse or find any port employees who might have had keys. At 6:08 p.m., the warehouse blew up.

Investigators do not yet know what caused the initial fire or explosion that triggered the blast, but theories include welding sparks or arson to cover up a theft, the Post reports. This is just one of the unanswered questions authorities have, some dating back to when the ammonium nitrate arrived on a cargo ship that docked in Beirut in November 2013. They'd primarily like to know who originally owned the ammonium nitrate, where it was headed, and whether it was deliberately diverted to Beirut, where it was seized by authorities in December 2013.

The Post spoke with several people who do not have faith in the government and its ability to properly conduct an investigation. "There's not a chance in hell there will ever be accountability," one person with knowledge of the probe said. "A typical coverup is on the way."

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Striking doctors should return to dialogue



A conflict between the government and the medical sector is escalating over a plan to increase the number of medical students. The Korean Intern Resident Association, the mouthpiece of 16,000 trainee doctors, said Monday that it has decided to go on an indefinite strike. The haggling is worrisome as it comes amid the resurgent COVID-19 pandemic here.



The dispute shows no signs of abating as most medical students are boycotting the Korean Medical License Examination. In protest of the government plan, 93.3 percent of 3,036 students have already withdrawn their applications for the state exam. They are strongly against the plan to increase the admissions quota at medical schools across the nation by 400 annually for 10 years starting in 2022.



The Ministry of Health and Welfare appeared to have triggered the problem by hurriedly announcing the quota hike, July 23. Despite opposition from relevant organizations and their threats of strikes, the ministry went ahead with the plan. As trainee doctors began to strike nationwide last week, the ministry issued an administrative order to force them to return to work.



The striking doctors have criticized the government for pressing for another plan to create a public medical school unilaterally without listening to their voices. The ministry said in its official blog that the envisaged medical school will recruit students based on recommendations by a committee composed of representatives from civic organizations.



This has triggered strong repercussion as many civic bodies are under the influence of local government heads. Such a plan, if implemented, may help children of influential local figures enter medical schools  hardly a reflection of fairness in admissions.



In the face of the strong backlash from the public, the ministry deleted the content from the blog but controversy still persists over the issue. The ministry needs to scrap its plan and start from scratch to have negotiations with medical doctors and trainee doctors.



The doctors, for their part, need to come up with their own proposal to address the shortage of medical practitioners and strengthen the country's public medical institutions. They also should try to find a compromise. Demanding a full withdrawal of the government plan will not work to solve the problem.



They should realize that their collective action will backfire amid the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic because few people support their cause. If their strike disrupts healthcare services, they cannot avoid criticism for pursuing their own interests at the cost of patients.


With the highest possible spatial resolution of less than a millionth of a millimetre, electron microscopes make it possible to study the properties of materials at the atomic level and thus demonstrate the realm of quantum mechanics. Quantum-physical fundamentals can be studied particularly well by the interactions between electrons and photons. Excited with laser light, for example, the energy, mass or velocity of the electrons changes. Professor Nahid Talebi from the Institute for Experimental and Applied Physics at Kiel University has invented a new toolbox to extend the theoretical description of electron-light interactions to the highest accurate level possible. She has combined Maxwell and Schrodinger equations in a time-dependent loop to fully simulate the interactions from first principles. Talebi's simulation allows it for the first time to describe ultra-fast processes precisely in theory and to map them in real-time without using adiabatic approximation. Recently, she presented her results in the renowned journal Physical Review Letters. In the long term, they could help to improve microscopy methods as Talebi is investigating in her ERC Starting Grant project "NanoBeam" funded by the European Research Council.

The ultrafast electron microscopy combines electron microscopy and laser technology. Having ultrafast electron pulses, the dynamics of the sample can be studied with femtosecond temporal resolutions. This also allows conclusions about the properties of the sample. Due to the further development of spectroscopy technology, it is now possible to study not only atomic and electronic structure of the samples but also their photonic excitations, such as plasmon polaritons.

For the first time the simulation depicts the process of the interactions as a film in real-time

However, the simulation of such electron-light-interactions is time-consuming and can only be carried out with high-performance computers. "Therefore, adiabatic approximations and one-dimensional electron models are often used, meaning that electron recoil and amplitude modulations have been neglected," explains Nahid Talebi, Professor of Nanooptics at the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics (IEAP) and an expert in simulations. For the first time, her new simulation shows the process of the electron-light interactions as a film in real-time, describing the complex interactions to the highest accurate level possible.

In her toolbox, she has combined Maxwell and Schroedinger equations in a time-dependent loop to fully simulate the interactions from first principles; therefore laying down the new field of electron-light interactions beyond adiabatic approximations. Due to this combination, Talebi was able to simulate what happens when an electron approaches a nanostructure of gold that was previously excited by a laser. Her simulation shows how the energy, momentum, and in general the shape of the wave packet of the electron change for each moment of the interaction (Fig.1). In this way, the full dynamics of the interaction caused by both single-photon and two-photon processes are captured. Single-photon processes are important for example to model electron energy-loss and -gain channels, whereas two-photon processes are responsible for modeling the laser-induced elastic channels such as the diffraction phenomenon.

Particularly in her simulation, Talebi observed a pronounced diffraction pattern that originates from strong interactions between electrons and photons based on the Kapitza-Dirac effect (Fig. 2). This diffraction pattern can have promising applications in time-resolved holography, to unravel charge-carrier dynamics of solid-state and molecular systems.

Further improving spectroscopy methods with ERC project "NanoBeam"

"Our toolbox can be used to benchmark the many approximations in theoretical developments, including eikonal approximations, neglecting the recoil, and neglecting two-photon processes." Talebi thinks. "Although we already have made a great step towards electron-light interactions beyond adiabatic approximations, there is still room for further developments." Together with her team, she plans to include a three-dimensional Maxwell-Dirac simulation domain to model relativistic and spin interactions. She also wants to better understand the role of exchange and correlations during electron-electron interactions.

Another aim of Talebi is to utilize the insights from her theoretical modelling to propose novel methodologies for coherent control and shaping of the sample excitations using electron beams. With her project "NanoBeam" she intends to develop a novel spectral interferometry technique with the ability to retrieve and control the spectral phase in a scanning electron microscope to overcome the challenges in meeting both nanometers spatial and attosecond time resolution. The project is funded by an ERC grant from the European Research Council with about 1.5 million euros.

###

This study was funded by the European Union as part of the project "NanoBeam" as "ERC Starting Grant" of the European Research Council (ERC).

About Nahid Talebi

Nahid Talebi has been Professor of Nanooptics at Kiel University since 2019, thereby strengthening its research focus area "Kiel Nano, Surface and Interface Science" (KiNSIS). She uses light to investigate the interactions of electrons with each other as well as between electrons and light, which are particularly useful for studying the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. Previously, Talebi was head of the ERC group "NanoBeam" at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research Stuttgart, which she continues in Kiel. From 2012 to 2014 she was an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems Stuttgart. In 2011 she was awarded her doctorate at the University of Tehran in Telecommunications Engineering.

About the research area KiNSIS

In the nano-cosmos, different laws prevail than in the macroscopic world - those of quantum physics. Understanding structures and processes in these dimensions, and implementing the findings in an application-oriented manner is the goal of the priority research area "Kiel Nano, Surface and Interface Science" (KiNSIS) at Kiel University. Intensive interdisciplinary cooperation between physics, chemistry, engineering, and life sciences could lead to the development of novel sensors, and materials, quantum computers, advanced medical therapies, and much more. http://www.kinsis.uni-kiel.de/en

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Nahid Talebi

Nanooptics

Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics

Phone: +49 431 880-3388

E-Mail: talebi@physik.uni-kiel.de

Web: /http://www.physik.uni-kiel.de/de/institute/ieap/ag_talebi
The British head of global HR at McDonald's was sacked for making women at the firm 'feel uncomfortable', it is alleged.

David Fairhurst, who was promoted to McDonald's 'chief people officer' in 2015 by fellow Brit Steve Easterbrook, was suddenly sacked last year after Easterbrook was also dismissed for having a relationship with at least one employee.

At the time no reason was given for Fairhurst's dismissal and his family claimed he had been made a 'scape-goat' for his boss, but allegations have now emerged that the Wigan-born executive was also the subject of complaints from members of staff.

David Fairhurst, McDonald's head of HR until he was fired for unknown reasons last year, has been accused by an internal investigation of making women at the company 'uncomfortable'

Heidi Capozzi, the new head of McDonald's HR, told staff during a meeting last week that Fairhurst was fired for 'making women at the company feel uncomfortable on numerous occasions at business events', the Wall Street Journal reported.

Sources separately told the paper that Fairhurst had contributed to a 'party culture' under Easterbrook's tenure.

Fairhurst was sacked after the company received a complaint about his behavior around women at the company, the paper reported, without saying exactly what the complaint was.

The HR boss did not respond to requests for comment from the Wall Street Journal.

At the time of his departure last year, he posted a message on LinkedIn saying that he was 'moving on to my next career challenge', without elaborating.

Fairhurst was promoted to HR boss by Steve Easterbrook, McDonald's CEO until he was sacked over relationships with staff (pictured with a PR executive he had an affair with)

Fairhurst is now thought to be at the center of a McDonald's investigation into Easterbrook's tenure as company CEO.

Members of staff said they felt complaints to the HR department were ignored, while others feared retaliation if they complained to the firm's executives, WSJ reported.

'The board will follow the facts wherever they may lead,' McDonald's said in a statement to DailyMail.com.

Easterbrook rose to the very top of the McDonald's management structure in 2015, having worked his way up from a store manager job he took back in 1993.

Shortly after being flown to company HQ in Chicago to start his new job, he promoted Fairhurst - who he had previously worked with in the UK - to head of HR.

The two ran the company until November last year, when Easterbrook was sacked after having a consensual relationship with a female employee.

McDonald's company policy forbids any relationships between managers and either direct or indirect subordinates.

Despite being fired, Easterbrook was allowed to keep hold of $40million in bonuses and stock after telling McDonald's that no other relationships had taken place.

But McDonald's is now suing their former CEO, saying an internal investigation has uncovered relationships with at least three more employees.

The company says a tip-off led them to servers where nude and partially nude images and videos of members of staff were being stored.

The files had originally been sent to Easterbrook's work phone and email account, but had been deleted. They were archived on the server without his knowledge.

McDonald's is now suing Easterbrook amid allegations had had affairs with up to four staff members, while also investigating the HR culture during his time at the head of the firm

McDonald's has accused Easterbrook of deleting the files in order to hide the relationships, and then of lying to investigators about them.

Easterbrook has since filed a motion against the company, saying it knew about the other relationships when negotiating his severance package.

McDonald's has asked the court to dismiss his motion.

It has also been revealed that Easterbrook had another relationship with a female PR representative who was recruited by McDonald's before becoming CEO.

He is thought to have dated Denise Paleothodoros for two years until the relationship came to light in 2015, the same year he was promoted to CEO.

McDonald's was aware of the relationship, but concluded it did not violate policy.

After the affair was revealed, Miss Paleothodoros's employers, Golin, moved her to another account.

Easterbrook was married to wife Susie and the couple have three children, though it is not clear when they separated.

At the time of his departure, Easterbrook sent an email to staff saying: 'Given the values of the company, I agree with the board that it is the time to move on.'
In her role as franchise operations director: rest of sub-Saharan Africa at KFC South Africa, Letlhogonolo 'Nolo' Thobejane travels the length and breadth of the continent overseeing restaurant operations and significantly contributing to the success of the KFC brand in Africa.

Letlhogonolo Thobejane

As an introduction, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Describe your typical workday.

What is the best advice anyone has given you?

It becomes important to understand that everyone is on their own personal journey, so understand yours and stay true to it. You must know that in life things will not go your way all the time, so take things in your stride and move forward.

What do you love most about your job at KFC?

What advice would you give to young women wanting to enter your industry?

For women to be noticed and take up space within the QSR industry, we need to know that it is a game of detail so know and be willing to spend a lot of time out in the field.

What are the current trends you're seeing in the QSR industry?

This new normal has many quick-service restaurants embracing digital transformation to capture a much greater market share. Since consumers, particularly millennials and Gen Z, are especially digitally savvy, there is a growing expectation that restaurants must adopt new technologies to offer better in-store and online experiences.

What are the industry challenges?

What advice would you give to your younger self?

In the spirit of Women's Month, Thobejane shares what she loves most about her job, the philosophies that guide her decisions in life and business, and the quick-service restaurant industry trends being driven by Covid-19.I am a Christian (faithful) woman, a mother of two, blessed with a daughter and son. I love my family and view them as my anchor in life. I am also lucky to be married to a very supportive husband who has played a significant role in my journey to success.I was born and bred in a small township called Temba, in Hammanskraal North of Gauteng, and I was raised by a clan of queens "Imbokodo". Thanks to them, I am a strong and courageous woman. However, it was both my mother and grandmother who played this most significant role in my life, as they taught me how to appreciate lifes lessons, where they imparted on me that "you must know that gaining knowledge is the first step to wisdom and sharing this knowledge is the first step to humanity".It was the example my grandmother set for me  how my grandmother managed to raise and educate four children while working as a domestic worker and taught us to strive to be better people within our community  that inspired me to be the well-rounded woman that I am today.As a franchise operations director I oversee the operations across all the KFC restaurants in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. I see myself as custodian of the brand to ultimately contribute towards the success of the brand in Africa. To achieve this, my role requires me to be detailed, innovative and energetic while using available resources to ensure and drive customer satisfaction.As a global brand, we have stringent processes and procedures across all our restaurants to ensure that our customers get the same safe and great-tasting food that they have come to love, and so a big part of my role is to ensure that our franchise partners stay true to these.My mother would always say if you feel like life is meaningless, then it is your fault. We are always given a choice in life and we should constantly strive to be better versions of ourselves  which means giving your best in all that you do.Life will always have challenges and curveballs, but we should never give up  we should trust in the process, be patient with ourselves, remain steadfast, learn from the experiences, and move on. This has been my mantra and it has anchored my journey and career.I love the brand and what the brand stands for. Values such as hard work, humanity and being my best self are ingrained in our company which ultimately makes it an incredible place to work. I love how, we as women, within this male-dominated industry are afforded opportunities to learn, grow and break boundaries.The people that I get to meet through my travels have so much passion and that help keeps me motivated. I love being in the restaurants and seeing our teams develop and grow into better versions of themselves. It somehow humbles me, reminds me of where I come from.I am very blessed that I work for such a strong people-first brand, my job allows me to make a difference in peoples lives as well as being instrumental in growing KFC across Africa. This energy truly resonates with how I grew up and more importantly where I started - and this fuels me to be the person that I am today.While I was studying for my degree at the University of Pretoria, I had an urge to upskill myself and obviously start earning an income. I started working at as a team member at a fast food brand and worked my way up until I ran my restaurant at the age of 21  this journey formed the basis of my career within the QSR industry. I know how to make chicken, and I know how to make a burger, and these skills have been crucial  knowing the ins and outs of this sector, has really boosted my insight.So many young people today are looking for quick and easy ways to success, but the truth is you will never buy experience, this comes with time. Go with high intentions learn as much as you can whilst having fun, hold your head high and believe me you will be untouchable.I have been in the industry for more than 20 years and I am still learning and growing within the industry. However, this constant growth is important, and you must immerse yourself in knowledge, as knowledge and experience is the most powerful tool that you simply cannot substitute.The minute you decide that this is what you want to do, hold true to that. You must strive to be customer-obsessed, remain courageous when it comes to your viewpoint, challenge the status quo, act like an entrepreneur, have an it can be done attitude, do the right thing and always be accountable.Due to the Covid-19 outbreak and lockdown regulations, there is a heightened demand for takeout and delivery in the quick-service restaurant industry. Consumers now prefer platforms that makes them feel safe.Additionally, we have seen that consumer sentiment has been focused on the following:Continuing to place hygiene at the forefront of our operations is what will keep customers and staff safe. The industry has become more conscious of hygiene than ever before, as we are preparing to move to a post Covid-19 world. How food is handled and prepared has always been a key consideration when it comes to KFC. As we begin to come out of the other side of the Covid-19 outbreak, it is very important that customers know our high hygiene standards and processes; visibility of this is very critical.Consumer behavior in the food industry is transforming thanks to emerging e-commerce and technological trends. We are now seeing the value of online food delivery sales grow, with consumers moving towards using some form of online platform, regularly, for food deliveries. Consumers are shifting toward a contactless, off-premises service, which means a shift toward delivery curbside and takeout.Consumer awareness is growing, and the preferences are shifting towards a digitised approach to purchases.Our brand has truly embraced this and mobilised quite quickly, partnering with our point-of-sale service providers and franchisees. We have added features to our e-commerce platform to enable transfer of car details, handling this in our back-office system in the kitchen and investing in signage to ensure customers know where to park. With this we now offer three convenient ways to order online and collect: in the restaurant, through our drive-thru facilities, and now at participating Curbside restaurants. To be successful in the African continent. Most of the companies are running African business from their South African operations, making it challenging to really understand the markets. Without a clear vision and long-term support for the whole business it becomes difficult to succeed in Africa  because it is completely different from markets that are established. I believe we need more women within the QSR industry - the more diverse we are the more we can grow the industry There is a need to act locally, brands need to be flexible in creating local friendly versions of the brand for survival. You need to be more open to localising strategy to suite the market  consumer insights are crucial for localisation You cant do it alone. To ensure business survival it becomes crucial to have strong local partners in the franchise system. These are complex markets that requires local knowledge During the Covid-19 pandemic, working in 21 different countries in the African continent has been quite challenging  given the requirements to address different legislation, governments and markets  as well as ensuring safety and hygiene becomes an increased component in the livelihood of our businessI would tell little Nolo that it is crucial to trust the process, trust God; this will protect you from overly striving, experiencing many sleepless nights and many tears. I would tell her to be patient with herself and to truly understand that acquiring growth and knowledge takes time. I would have told her to anchor herself around her beliefs and principles, and that hard work always pays off.
That trend badly undermines the entire debate over how to deal with racial inequities and other social ills. It deters reasonable people from participating in such events, giving more power to a small minority of bullies and vandals. It makes it harder for people to find areas of agreement and devise remedies that both sides can accept. It encourages people to see each other as irredeemable enemies. It fosters bitterness and despair. As a political weapon, violence and intimidation are nonsensical strategies. How many voters are likely to be persuaded to change their views by being shouted down or threatened?
" " Fewer than one percent of children born in the United States each year are eventually diagnosed with autism. Charly Franklin/ Getty Images

Autism, which is a range of conditions known as autism spectrum disorders, or ASDs, affects how a person perceives the world, communicates and interacts with others. Compared with other public health problems, such as asthma or clinical depression, autism is relatively rare. Fewer than one percent of the 4 million or so children born in the United States each year eventually are diagnosed as having ASDs, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

No Known Cause

Even so, autism is widely feared, in part because of the stereotype: People with ASD are helpless misfits afflicted with bizarre behavioral quirks and wondrous abilities (you'll recall the fictional Raymond "Rain Man" Babbitt's ability to count cards at the blackjack table). In reality, however, although some people with ASDs are severely impaired, others manage to live with some degree of independence. And at least a few -- such as scientist, author and autism activist Temple Grandin -- have made important contributions to society.

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Part of what makes autism scary is that scientists can't yet say exactly what causes it. According to the National Institutes of Health, there's considerable evidence that it's genetic in origin, and that complex interactions of a dozen or more genes on different chromosomes may be involved. Some research suggests that viruses or other environmental factors may have a role. Gender may also be a factor, since boys are three to four times more likely than girls to develop ASDs. One thing scientists are sure of, however, is that autism is not caused by childhood vaccines. That fear was first raised in the late 1990s by a British medical journal article. It was later determined that the article was based on fudged data. Extensive follow-up studies have failed to show any link.

Signs and Symptoms

Children with ASDs often have symptoms by the time they're 18 months old, such as problems making eye contact and responding to their own names. Others begin to develop language skills and then mysteriously lose them. As they grow into childhood, other signs emerge, such as difficulty understanding others' feelings, violent outbursts and repetitive behaviors, like obsessively repeating words or continually arranging pencils or other items in patterns. At the more severe end of the spectrum, sufferers are never able to learn to talk and will communicate their emotional states by flapping their arms or injuring themselves.

How It's Diagnosed

There's no blood test or scanning device that can detect autism. Instead, health care providers diagnose it by questioning parents about a child's behavior and observing how they perform on developmental milestones compared to nondisabled children.

When a child is diagnosed with an ASD, it's natural for parents to feel frustrated and helpless. The condition sometimes improves with age, and it's important for parents to remember that while there's no cure for autism, much can be done to help a person cope with ASD. For example, a speech-language therapist can enable an autistic person to improve his or her social skills and ability to use language in a way that others can understand. An occupational therapist may be able to find a child a specially designed computer device that will enable him or her to communicate, if he or she is not able to speak. Under federal law, school districts must provide whatever services an autistic student needs to get an education in the least restrictive environment possible. Parents also can get information, advocacy help and emotional support from organizations like the Autism Society of America.
A former Pacific Gas and Electric Co. employee admitted to accepting kickbacks of more than $1.4 million dollars in a scheme to divert business to his cousins company over the course of eight years, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott said Monday.

Ronald S. Schoenfeld, 65, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and admitted to receiving kickback payments from the Stockton transportation company owned by his cousin, according to the U.S. attorneys office. Neither the cousin nor his company have been named publicly.

PG&E condemned Schoenfelds actions and said it has opened an investigation into why the fraud was not detected sooner.

We consider this unacceptable behavior, and it does not live up to the high ethical standards that we aspire to as individuals and as a company, PG&E spokesman Matt Nauman said Monday.

PG&E paid at least $82.1 million to the transportation business operated by Schoenfelds cousin for services carried out during an eight-year period between March 2007 and February 2015. The company paid Schoenfeld over $1.47 million in kickbacks during that time, federal officials said.

Schoenfeld directed contracts to his cousins transportation company in exchange for kickbacks worth about 2.5% of the value of the contracts over the eight years, the U.S. attorneys office said.

The charges stem from Schoenfelds failure to disclose the personal connection to his cousin, who has been named as a co-conspirator.

Schoenfeld concealed from PG&E his familial relationship with his co-conspirator from PG&E, provided confidential information to his co-conspirator, and, at times, directly intervened in the consideration of contracts between PG&E and his co-conspirators business, all contrary to PG&Es policies, the U.S. attorneys office said in a statement.

Schoenfelds business dealings with his cousins company roused the attention of other PG&E employees, who reported his suspicious activity to the companys compliance hotline, Nauman said.

PG&Es internal investigation led to Schoenfelds dismissal, and the energy company cooperated with the U.S. attorneys office investigation, he said.

Schoenfeld is scheduled to be sentenced in November. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Nora Mishanec is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nora.mishanec@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @nmishanec
The number of lifestyle properties sold across the country was the highest ever for the month of July as people look to reassess their living situations as a result of COVID-19 according to the latest data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand - REINZ.

In July, there were 849 lifestyle properties sold compared to 594 in July last year  a 42.9 per cent uplift. This was also an uplift on Junes sales volumes where 643 lifestyle properties were sold.

For a while now weve been hearing stories of people purchasing lifestyle properties as a result of COVID-19 and now weve seen this translate in the data, says REINZ Chief Executive Bindi Norwell.

Over the last few months sales of lifestyle properties have been increasing, and last month saw the highest number of lifestyle properties sold in a July month ever, says Bindi.

As soon as the country went into lockdown agents started receiving calls from people wanting more space and lifestyle options given people were spending more time at home. Now that technology makes working from home so viable, COVID has been a strong catalyst for many people to make the leap theyve been talking about for years.

Breaking the data down around the country, the increasing interest in lifestyle properties is a trend that has been seen in every region, bar Marlborough (which saw sales volumes flat) and Nelson.

Every region that saw an annual increase in sales volumes of lifestyle properties during July saw double digit increases which is an incredible result, says Bindi.

In fact, interest levels in lifestyle properties were so high in the Manawatu/Wanganui region that it was the highest number of lifestyle properties ever sold in Manawatu/Wanganui in a single month since records began. Additionally, sales volumes on the West Coast saw triple figure increases, with the number of lifestyle properties was up by 157.1 per cent when compared to July last year.

In addition to significant increases in sales volumes, July also saw a significant increase in the median price per hectare of lifestyle properties.

Across the country, the median price of lifestyle blocks increased by 4.1 per cent to $750,000 compared to $720,577 in July last year, and up marginally from Junes median price of $745,000. This the highest median price in a July month since records for lifestyle data began.

Regions with the biggest increase in median price included:

Bay of Plenty: up 44.6 per cent from $650,000 in July last year to $940,000

Canterbury: up 27.4 per cent from $570,000 to $726,250

Gisborne: up 26.9 per cent from $417,500 to $530,000.

Additionally, the Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Northland and Southland all had their highest median price for a July month.

Its not surprising weve seen the price of lifestyle blocks rise in many parts of the country given the demand for these sorts of properties. Now that the country has gone back into lockdown 2.0 it will be interesting to see if there is even greater demand going forward and whether prices continue to rise as we head towards the warmer months of the year; especially as there is an increased interest from offshore buyers looking towards opportunities in New Zealand, says Bindi.

Sales Volume Region Jul-19 Jul-20 % diff Auckland Region 85 140 64.7% Bay of Plenty Region 45 63 40.0% Canterbury Region 85 100 17.6% Gisborne Region 5 7 40.0% Hawke's Bay Region 28 33 17.9% Manawatu-Wanganui Region 46 88 91.3% Marlborough Region 11 11 0.0% Nelson Region 3 1 -66.7% Northland Region 60 96 60.0% Otago Region 29 45 55.2% Southland Region 23 31 34.8% Taranaki Region 18 24 33.3% Tasman Region 16 23 43.8% Waikato Region 103 132 28.2% Wellington Region 30 37 23.3% West Coast Region 7 18 157.1% New Zealand 594 849 42.9%
When mom-to-be has COVID-19: UB neonatologists paper sets best delivery room practices for health care team

Setting up of a birthing room for a patient with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 undergoing labor and delivery. A negative pressure room is preferred with limited number of providers in the room to limit exposure. Additional personnel may be outside the room and be available if extensive neonatal resuscitation is needed. (PAPR: powered air-purifying respirator.) Image Courtesy: Satyan Lakshminrusimha

Step-by-step strategies outlined in paper, podcast and infographics on keeping childbirth safe during the pandemic are attracting attention worldwide

Both parents and physicians must have an understanding of the situation and take adequate precautions to prevent transmission of the disease to both newborn and health care providers. 

BUFFALO, N.Y.  Childbirth is an emotional event, filled with both excitement and apprehension.

But when the mother-to-be tests positive for COVID-19, or is suspected of having the virus, the stakes get higher. Keeping mom, baby and the health care team as safe as possible adds another layer of concern for everyone involved. Taking steps to minimize risks becomes a priority.

In a paper published online this past spring in the American Journal of Perinatology, a University at Buffalo faculty member and international co-authors have outlined the best approaches for handling the delivery of newborns in these cases.

The paper, titled Neonatal Resuscitation and Post-resuscitation Care of Infants Born to Mothers with Suspected or Confirmed SARS-CoV-2 Infection, has attracted international attention. Since publication, it has been cited at least 38 times, notably in the European Resuscitation Council COVID-19 guidelines executive summary.

Praveen Chandrasekharan, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB, authored the paper with colleagues from California, Italy and Spain.

The paper includes easy-to-follow infographics created at the University of California Davis Childrens Hospital. Chandrasekharan discusses the research with his co-authors in a podcast. A video abstract of the article is also available.

Chandrasekharan is a neonatologist with UBMD Pediatrics who focuses on neonatal resuscitation and practices at Oishei Childrens Hospital. He has research grants from the National Institutes of Health, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Resuscitation Program and the ZOLL Foundation.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is unclear if pregnant women are at increased risk of contracting COVID-19 or if they are more at risk for developing severe illness if they do contract it. In addition, it remains uncertain whether a COVID-positive woman can transmit the disease to her unborn baby.
The top three representatives and other guests, including SNP participants, attended the August 29 celebrations in Banska Bystrica.

President Zuzana Caputova and Vladmimir Strmen, one of last survivors of the SNP. (Source: TASR)

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The actions of heroes fighting in the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) contain many important messages still relevant today.

This is how President Zuzana Caputova addressed the crowds at the commemoration of the 76th anniversary of SNP in Banska Bystrica attended by many guests, including the three top representatives of Slovakia and some SNP participants.

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All three top representatives stressed the importance of the SNP, which broke out on August 29, 1944, and was aimed against the Nazi regime, in Slovak history. They thanked the participants for their bravery.

SNP: the symbol of courage

For me, SNP has always been linked with bravery, the President said in her speech, reflecting back on life in 1944 when people realised they were living in a time when it seemed like human life had lost its value, and people were dying not only on the battlefield; every resistance was punished by death or prison. Despite the risks we cant fully imagine today, you found strength and determination and joined the fight against Nazism and Fascism.

She also stressed that the SNP legacy shows us that civilisation's values need to be protected from the very beginning, when the first signs appear.

PM Igor Matovic (OLaNO) thanked the SNP participants for their bravery and determination to pay for freedom with their own life.

For me, SNP is courage; the symbol of Slovak courage we refused to sell out, he told the audience, as quoted by the TASR newswire, adding it was a resistance against people who said we were not equal.

He also stressed it is important to be aware of the evil hidden within us and fight against it so that it will not grow.

Speaker of Parliament Boris Kollar (Sme Rodina) also thanked the SNP participants and stressed the need to join forces to fight for higher goals, regardless of differences.

Our goal is not only to remember SNP heroes, the values of democracy and civilisation's progress, but to confront the current threat of neo-Fascism and neo-Nazism, those spreading evil, hatred and refusing to live in the world without wars, Kollar said, as quoted by TASR.

He also labelled SNP as the most important milestone in Slovakias history.

436 participants still alive

SNP helped Slovakia to become one of the winning countries in WWII. It is part of the country's modern history of the country that left us a message to live in peace and prevent the next generations from knowing the horrors of war, said 92-year-old Vladimir Strmen, one of the last survivors of the uprising. Strmen, a member of the unit fighting near Spania Dolina in Banska Bystrica Region, was also mentioned in Caputovas speech.

The values we fought for in SNP are still valid today, Strmen said, as quoted by TASR. He also reminded of the fact that Slovakia was liberated by the Red Army, the Romanian army and the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps led by General Ludvik Svoboda.

Strmen is still participating in discussions with students, talking about life during the war and stressing how important it is to live in peaceful times.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Jaroslav Nad (OLaNO) granted commemorative medals to four war veterans on the occasion of the SNP anniversary. His department currently knows of 436 living participants of the SNP. Of them, 92 have the status of war veterans, TASR wrote.

Minor incident condemned

The celebrations in Banska Bystrica were disrupted by a small group of people who were protesting against the current government.

Head of the SNP Museum Stanislav Micev called it a big shame and criticised the police for not acting properly to stop them from disturbing the event.

However, Interior Minister Roman Mikulec (OLaNO) said there was no reason for the police to step in, stressing everybody has the right to express their opinion.

It is a shame people expressed their opinion in such a way here, he said, as quoted by TASR.
The UN refugee agency has called on European countries to rescue migrants stranded on rescue vessels in the Mediterranean, saying it is deeply concerned about the continued absence of dedicated EU-led search and rescue capacity.

More than 400 rescued migrants and refugees are currently trapped on board two vessels after being rescued, because there is nowhere for them to safely harbour.

The UNHCR and the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) are calling for the immediate disembarkation of the vessels, saying the lack of agreement on a regional disembarkation mechanism was not an excuse to deny vulnerable people a port of safety and the assistance they need, as required under international law.

More than 200 people were evacuated from the Louise Michel, a Banksy-funded refugee rescue boat, on Saturday, around 12 hours after the ships leaders issued an emergency appeal for help.

But while the Italian coastguard took 49 of the most vulnerable survivors from the vessel, the remaining people on board were then transferred to another humanitarian ship, Sea-Watch 4  a joint project between United4Rescue, Sea-Watch, and Doctors without Borders  leaving it with around 350 people on board.

The Louise Michel  a former French navy vessel which features a Banksy painting depicting a young girl holding on to a heart-shaped safety float  was left stranded off the coast of Malta on Saturday morning after its deck became overcrowded.

By that stage it was carrying a total of 219 people, including 33 in a life raft deployed by its side and the body of a man who died trying to cross the ocean in a rubber dinghy. The ships leaders said requests for help from European authorities were initially been ignored.

Separately, a group of some 27 migrants and refugees, including pregnant woman and children who departed from Libya have been on board the commercial vessel Maersk Etienne for three weeks since their rescue on 5 August, which the UNHCR and IOM said was unacceptable.

They said a solution must be found, and the vessel provided with a safe port for disembarkation, arguing that a commercial tanker could not be considered a suitable place to keep people in need of humanitarian assistance or those who may need international protection.

The humanitarian imperative of saving lives should not be penalised or stigmatised, especially in the absence of dedicated state-led efforts, the groups said in a statement.

In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Show all 7 1 /7 In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby being taken on to MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos all images by Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby among refugees on a boat carrying 185 people off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Migrants and refugees sleeping after being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos ship Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A crew from MSF's Bourbon Argos ship rescuing a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya, at sunrise Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A woman in a stretcher being lifted onto MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden

It is crucial that other EU member states provide more support to countries at the forefront of receiving sea arrivals in the Mediterranean.

They called on EU nations to pledge relocation places as well and support accelerated processing, in line with international standards, to identify people in need of international protection and those in need of other forms of protection such as unaccompanied children and victims of trafficking.

It is also important to enable swift returns for those who wish to go back to their countries of origin and for those who are found not in need of international or other forms of protection, they added.
A U.S. Navy warship has transited the narrow and sensitive Taiwan Strait for the second time in two weeks.

Taiwan's Defence Ministry confirmed the operation on Monday amid rising tensions between China and the United States.

The ministry said a U.S. destroyer, which it did not name, had sailed in a southerly direction through the strait and was continuing to sail south.

The ship was on an 'ordinary mission' and the situation was 'normal', the ministry added, without giving details.

A U.S. Navy warship has transited the narrow and sensitive Taiwan Strait for the second time in two weeks. Above, a file image of a MH-60 Sea Hawk transiting the Taiwan Strait in May this year

The U.S. Navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin sailed through the strait on August 18, in what China's military called an 'extremely dangerous' move.

Both China and the United States have been stepping up their military activities in the region, both around Chinese-claimed Taiwan and in the disputed South China Sea.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen warned last week of the risk of accidental conflict from the rise in military activities.

China claims democratic Taiwan as its own territory, and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

The United States is Taiwan's main arms supplier and most important backer on the international stage.

The incident comes days after a U.S. warship sailed near the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, challenging Beijing's claims on the resource-rich waterway and prompting a warning from the Chinese military.

The US Navy's Pacific Fleet said in a statement that the USS Mustin, a guided-missile destroyer, sailed on Thursday 'in the vicinity of the Paracel Islands to ensure critical shipping lanes in the area remain free and open'.

The Chinese military on Friday accused the US ship of entering 'China's territorial waters' near the islands 'without authorisation'.

The region near the disputed Paracel Islands has seen heightened tensions recently with both the US and China conducting military operations

Chinese forces tracked the warship and then warned it to leave, said military spokesman Li Huamin.

In recent years, China has aggressively pursued its territorial claims in the South China Sea, building small shoals and reefs into military bases with airstrips and port facilities.

Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan also have competing claims in the South China Sea, through which international trade worth trillions of dollars passes a year.

Tensions have risen this week in the area near the Paracel Islands - called Xisha by Beijing - where the Chinese military has been conducting exercises.

Beijing on Tuesday accused Washington of flying a U-2 spy plane into a no-fly zone to disrupt the drills - which included the ballistic missile launches.

The Pentagon then accused China of destabilising the region and using the military for 'unlawful maritime claims' in a statement criticising the exercises and the use of ballistic missiles in the drills.

The Chinese military on Friday said the US had 'repeatedly provoked trouble in the South China Sea', urging it to 'immediately stop such provocative actions'.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler told those who might be seeking retribution for the fatal shooting of a supporter of President Donald Trump to "stay away".

He made the plea at a press conference in which he also blamed the president for inciting violence, calling him out for four years of what he called racist and bigoted hate speech.

Mr Wheeler said: "President Trump, for four years we've had to live with you and your racist attacks on black people. We learned early about your sexist attitudes towards women. We've had to endure clips of you mocking a disabled man; we've had to listen to your anti-democratic attacks on journalists; we've read your tweets slamming private citizens to the point of receiving death threats; and we've listened to your attacks on immigrants."

He added: "Do you seriously wonder, Mr President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence? It's you  who have created the hate and the division.

"You bring no peace. You bring no respect to our democracy."

In a further jab he said: "You've tried to divide us more than any other figure in modern history and now you want me to stop the violence you helped create. What America needs is for you to be stopped so that we can come back together as one America."

Mayor Wheeler said that he mourned the fact that a man had been killed on the street on Saturday night, and denounced the violence.

The man, who has not yet been publicly identified, but was wearing a cap withe the insignia of far-right group Patriot Prayer, was shot in the street while a convoy of vehicles driven by Trump supporters was driven through the city, where protests in favour of racial justice have raged for weeks.

On Sunday morning the president had fired off a barrage of tweets and retweets, some of them insulting Mr Wheeler. One of his retweets, from an account title Tiff, reads: "Ted Wheeler is the useless f***ing idiot and comic relief that gets everyone killed in every disaster movie." The president added: "Tone down the language, but TRUE!"

After apparently spending much of the day golfing in Virginia, Mr Trump reacted to the mayor's press conference with fury as it was still going on.

He tweeted: "Ted Wheeler, the wacky Radical Left Do Nothing Democrat Mayor of Portland, who has watched great death and destruction of his City during his tenure, thinks this lawless situation should go on forever. Wrong! Portland will never recover with a fool for a Mayor.

"He tried mixing with the Agitators and Anarchists and they mocked him. He would like to blame me and the Federal Government for going in, but he hasn't seen anything yet. We have only been there with a small group to defend our U.S. Courthouse, because he couldn't do it."

He added: "The people of Portland, like all other cities & parts of our great Country, want Law & Order. The Radical Left Democrat Mayors, like the dummy running Portland, or the guy right now in his basement unwilling to lead or even speak out against crime, will never be able to do it!"

Supporters of President Donald Trump attend a rally and car parade Saturday, Aug, 29, 2020, from Clackamas to Portland, Oregon (AP)

Mr Wheeler was asked about the tweets during the press conference.

He responded by asking the president directly how he thought such comments could be "constructive". Instead he called for Mr Trump to condemn violence and to "work together to help move this country forward".

On Sunday afternoon, Joe Biden issued a statement condemning the violence and called on Mr Trump to do the same.

The Democratic presidential candidate wrote: "It does not matter if you find the political views of your opponents abhorrent, any loss of life is a tragedy. Today there is another family grieving in America, and Jill and I offer our deepest condolences."

He added: "We must not become a country at war with ourselves. A country that accepts the killing of fellow Americans who do not agree with you. A country that vows vengeance toward one another.

"But that is the America that President Trump wants us to be, the America he believes we are."

He said the president was "recklessly encouraging violence".
By Akbar Mammadov

Nagorno-Karabakhs Azerbaijani community has said that Armenia's occupation of seven surrounding regions, including Gubadli, outside of Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region shows that the conflict stems from Armenia's intention to annex Azerbaijani territories by force.

The community made the remarks on August 31 that marks the 27h anniversary of the occupation of Gubadli by Armenian armed forces.

The community reminded that 238 Gubadli residents were killed, 316 were become to be disabled persons and more than 100 people were missing as a result of the occupation, adding that the administrative centre and 93 villages of the region were completely destroyed and looted, over 40,000 Gubadli residents became internally displaced persons.

As a result of the occupation of Gubadli, 445,000 square meters of housing stock, 4 medical centres, 6 kindergartens, 61 general education schools, 10 culture houses, 24 clubs, 1 local history museum, 60 libraries were destroyed, the occupiers destroyed 94 villages and settlements, 205 cultural facilities, burned and looted 12 historical monuments, the statement reads.

The community pointed out that 9 in each of Ashagi Mollu and Hamzali villages, 5 in Aliguluushagi village, 1 ancient cave of the 4th century in the area called Gavur valley, Goy gala (Blue Fortress-red.) fortress built in the 5th century, Galali fortress in Muradkhanli, all historical monuments in Khojamsakhli village in Gubadli have remained under the occupation of the adversary.

The statement reads that the recent intensification of Armenia's policy of illegal settlement in the occupied Azerbaijani lands, including Gubadli, shows that Armenia has not given up its intention to strengthen the consequences of the occupation and is not interested in a peaceful solution to the conflict.

We declare that the settlement of the conflict is possible only after the withdrawal of the Armenian Armed Forces from all occupied Azerbaijani territories and the return of Azerbaijanis to their native lands who have been subjected to ethnic cleansing. Like all internally displaced persons, the people of Gubadli will return to their native lands."

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Groups efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
"On the night of August 29/30, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo," said army spokesperson Colonel Aman Anand in a statement.

New Delhi : The Indian Army has thwarted an attempt by the Chinese Army to transgress into Indian areas near the southern bank of Pangong Tso lake near Chushul in Ladakh on Saturday and talks are being held now to resolve the issue, an army spokesperson said.

The Indian Army took measures to strengthen its position and "and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on the ground".

"The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquillity through dialogue but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity. A Brigade Commander level Flag Meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues," Anand said further.

Army sources said the Chinese Army had tried to transgress into Indian areas using a sizeable number of troops but the Indian Army preempted the Chinese attempt and foiled their move.

India and China are engaged in a standoff since April-May over the transgressions by the Chinese Army in multiple areas including Finger area, Galwan valley, Hot springs and Kongrung Nala.

The talks between the two sides have been going on for the last three months including five Lieutenant General-level talks but have failed to yield any results, so far.

The Chinese Army has refused to withdraw or disengage completely from the Finger area and seems to be buying time to delay its disengagement from there.

While efforts are underway to resolve the ongoing border dispute, India has rejected the Chinese suggestion to disengage equidistantly from the Finger area in Eastern Ladakh.
Vietnam confirmed four imported cases of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), a dozen recoveries, and two deaths on Monday.

The four patients were logged in Hanoi and Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province.

Patients No. 1,041 and 1,042 are Indian oil experts who arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on the same flight from Dubai, the UAE on August 29.

They were quarantined upon entry and sampled for COVID-19 testing in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, about 100km southeast of Ho Chi Minh City.

The Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City then confirmed their positive tests. Both are being isolated for treatment in Ba Ria-Vung Tau.

Patient No. 1,043 has a registered address in Vinh Yen District, Vinh Phuc Province, located in northern Vietnam.

Her flight touched down at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi from India on August 28.

She was quarantined upon arrival and sampled for coronavirus tests in Hanoi.

Her result came back postive and she is now treated at the Dong Anh branch of the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in the capital.

Patient No. 1,044 is an Indian expert who arrived at Noi Bai from India aboard the same flight as patient No. 1,043 on August 28.

He was quarantined upon entry and tested positive for the novel coronavirus in northern Phu Tho Province.

His result was later confirmed at the Dong Anh branch of the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases, where he is currently isolated for treatment.

Monday is the second day in a row the country has reported no domestic infections.

The health ministry recorded 12 recoveries the same day, including seven discharged from the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases and five released from the Da Nang Hospital for Lung Diseases.

It also announced two virus-related fatalities, taking the death toll to 34.

Most of the casualties had had critical comorbid medical problems.

Two patients died after having tested negative for the virus at least three times.

The health ministry did not include these casualties in the death toll.

Vietnam has registered 1,044 COVID-19 patients, with 707 recoveries as of Monday evening, according to the health ministry.

Vietnam has confirmed 550 local cases since July 25, when Da Nang logged the first domestic infection after the Southeast Asian nation had gone 99 days without documenting any community case.

It recorded zero coronavirus patients on Sunday, the first time in five weeks.

The nation announced 82 cases on July 31, the highest daily rise in the period between July 25 and now.

Most of the local cases have been traced back to Da Nang.

Foreigners have been denied entry into Vietnam since March over COVID-19 but foreign experts and skilled workers are granted government-approved exemptions.

The Vietnamese government has been arranging for charter planes to repatriate citizens from outbreak-hit regions.

International arrivals are all subject to mandatory 14-day quarantine in the nation.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
A smoldering mix up concerning tackling de-forestation in Brazil is raging due to an official announcement, then a rapid contradiction, leaving a residue of utter confusion.

By James Blears

Bewilderment, as Brazil's Ministry of Environment announced that the Government is halting funds to tackle de-forestation, which constantly threatens the Amazon Rainforest and the Pantanal Wetlands, with all of this taking effect on Monday.

It blames the decision on Federal budget strictures, which blocked the equivalent of 11 million dollars assigned for the rescue project.

Not so fast...as Brazil's Vice President Hamilton Mourao promptly waded in, accusing Minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles of jumping the gun, stressing President Jair Bolsanaro is actually pushing for extra funding to bolster and boost the anti deforestation program.

Outflanked and singed, the Ministry of Environment promptly backed down, accomplished a lightning U-turn, and rescinded its directive.

And not a moment too soon, because the Pantanal Wetlands, a giant season flood plain, which is the largest of its kind in the World, encompassing 81 thousand square miles covering Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, has been burning up with wildfires at a record rate for many weeks.

The Amazon rain forest which is also constantly under threat due to illegal logging and wildfires, covers 2.7 million miles and nine countries with 390 billion trees and 16,000 species. Sixty percent of it is in Brazil. It acts as one of the lungs of the entire Planet.
JUNO BEACH, Fla., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, today highlighted a suite of clean energy storage developments in the state that could nearly double the total installed capacity of battery storage available in the U.S. today. It plans to build nearly 700 MWs of fully-contracted battery storage projects in California before the end of 2022. The battery storage projects will be co-located at six existing NextEra Energy Resources solar projects and include the previously announced:

63 MW at Blythe 110 Solar Energy Center

110 Solar Energy Center 115 MW at Blythe II Solar Energy Center

115 MW at Blythe III Solar Energy Center

230 MW at the McCoy Solar Energy Center

110 MW at the Arlington Solar Energy Center

65 MW at the Yellow Pine Solar Energy Center

"California needs significant investment in battery storage to meet its aggressive clean energy goals," said NextEra Energy Resources President and CEO John Ketchum. "NextEra Energy Resources is answering the call with nearly 700 MW of battery storage projects representing a capital investment of nearly $800 million. We are pleased that last week the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) approved all 523 MW of the projects that required CPUC approval. Once these projects are operational by the end of 2022, Californians will benefit from more low-cost, emission-free solar energy during more hours of the day, as well as improved reliability across the regional electric grid."

In addition to the fully-contracted projects that are expected to come online by the end of 2022, NextEra Energy Resources has a current pipeline of nearly 2,000 MW of shovel-ready or near shovel-ready battery energy storage projects in California that could be deployed to help meet the energy storage capacity requirements put forth by the CPUC. To put that into perspective, the company's planned and pipeline of battery storage projects in California alone is nearly twice the total installed capacity of battery storage in the U.S. today (approximately 1,350 MWs). The build out of the 2,000 MW energy storage pipeline is contingent on obtaining long-term power purchase agreements for the projects as well as the necessary regulatory approvals.

In addition to battery storage, NextEra Energy Resources stands ready to construct Eagle Mountain, a 1,300 MW pumped storage project located near Desert Center, Calif. Eagle Mountain is a fully permitted, shovel-ready project that could provide up to 18 hours of energy storage and represents a bulk energy storage solution that not only diversifies California storage supply, but provides additional grid flexibility in the event of multi-day events such as summer heat waves and winter storms when cloud cover reduces solar generation. While Eagle Mountain is fully permitted, the potential project needs the appropriate regulatory construct in order to move forward.

"For more than 30 years, we've been investing in clean energy in California, starting with some of the state's earliest wind and solar projects," said Ketchum. "We are proud to do our share to help California lead the country to a carbon free, sustainable future."

Since 1989, NextEra Energy Resources has developed, built, owned and operated wind, solar and energy storage facilities in California, representing more than $7 billion in investments. These projects support more than $45 million in annual payroll for California employees and nearly $18 million in annual property taxes to support schools, roads and essential services in the state.

NextEra Energy Resources

NextEra Energy Resources, LLC (together with its affiliated entities, "NextEra Energy Resources"), is a clean energy leader and is one of the largest wholesale generators of electric power in the U.S., with approximately 21,900 megawatts of net generating capacity, primarily in 37 states and Canada as of year-end 2019. NextEra Energy Resources, together with its affiliated entities, is the world's largest generator of renewable energy from the wind and sun and a world leader in battery storage. The business operates clean, emissions-free nuclear power generation facilities in New Hampshire, Iowa and Wisconsin as part of the NextEra Energy nuclear fleet, which is one of the largest in the United States. NextEra Energy Resources, LLC is a subsidiary of Juno Beach, Florida-based NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NEE). For more information, visit www.NextEraEnergyResources.com.

SOURCE NextEra Energy Resources
Paris: A senior French military officer has been charged with espionage for allegedly passing secret documents to Russian intelligence, Florence Parly, the country's defence minister, has said.

The lieutenant-colonel, who has not been named, is stationed at a NATO base in Italy. He was detained by France's General Directorate for Internal Security, the equivalent of MI5, 10 days ago as he was about to return to Italy after a holiday in France, Europe 1 radio reported. He is being held at La Sante prison in Paris.

French Defence Minister Florence Parly. Credit:AP

Ms Parly said the defence ministry had referred the case to public prosecutors. She declined to give details about the nature of the information allegedly given to Russia, saying the matter was sub judice.

"We have taken all necessary measures. Now, justice must be allowed to take its course while respecting the secrecy of the investigation... It is for the judicial system to decide what he is guilty of and whether he is guilty."
This weeks Republican National Convention was the best Ive ever watched.

The locations and settings were great.

Melania did a fine job in the White House Rose Garden.

Vice President Mike Pence praised President Trump remotely from Baltimores Fort McHenry.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke from somewhere in Israel.

In addition, the GOPs diversity quotient was off the charts.

The impressive speakers included Tim Scott (the U.S. Senator from South Carolina whose inspiring life story is summed up by From Cotton to Congress), Nikki Hailey (the Indian-American former governor of South Carolina) and young Daniel Jay Cameron, the first Black attorney general of Kentucky.

Plus, there were so many women coming to the podium over the first three days you couldnt count them.

Along with Trumps daughters, there was Trumps counselor Kellyanne Conway and rising star Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota. There was also Kim Klacik, the dynamic young Republican running for Congress who filmed her remarks in the urban ruins of Democrat-run Baltimore.

Best of all were the speeches.

The speakers were not afraid to be political.

They slapped around Joe Biden and the radical Democrats who control him a few dozen times, and they stood up for unborn babies, school choice and strong borders.

But they didnt deliver a string of cliched political sermons like the ones weve had to endure at past national conventions.

The RNC speeches were what good political speeches should be  mercifully short, tight, well-written and delivered like mini-Ted Talks.

Many were emotional personal stories told by ordinary Americans who had been helped by the Trump administration or who had positive things to say about the troubled country they loved.

My favorites included a lumberjack from Wisconsin, a Cuban refugee who appreciates the priceless gift of freedom and a good-hearted cop from New Mexico who adopted the baby of a homeless drug addict.

I mean, who knew a lumberjack from Wisconsin could be such a good public speaker?

The way the Trump campaign put their convention together was not only politically effective and first-class all the way, it was actually great prime-time television.

Overcoming the limitations imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, the RNC used technology, the trappings of the presidency and a diverse line-up of great young speakers in many smart and entertaining ways.

The Republican convention was a fast-moving, upbeat circus compared to the Democrats draggy snooze-fest, which looked like it was shot in an airplane hangar and felt like a Zoom meeting of angry politicians and spoiled Hollywood celebrities.

I swear it was televised in black-and-white.

The contrasting conventions prove that what my father said decades ago about the difference between Republicans and Democrats is still true.

Paraphrasing him, he said with Republicans its always morning in America and with Democrats its always darkness  midnight in a rainstorm, Id say.

The DNC was not just dull, boring and over-weighted with the dead ideas of socialism. It was a depressing and unrelentingly negative affair.

The ordinary Americans they found to speak came to tell sob stories about how evil Donald Trump was and how much his policies hurt them.

Based on how they portrayed themselves at their convention, Democrats must be the saddest human beings on the planet.

They enjoy all the great things that freedom and capitalism can bring, but theyre never happy.

Unlike Republicans who look to the future, theyre slaves to the past, guilty about Americas greatness, clueless about its founding ideals and fixated on its imperfections.

The Democrats proved at their convention they dont have any fresh ideas or policies of their own to make America better. All they can do is repeat, Get rid of Trump. Get rid of Trump.

Its the only strategy they have, but even with the corrupt liberal medias help its not going to be enough to make Joe Biden president.

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of Lessons My Father Taught Me: The Strength, Integrity, and Faith of Ronald Reagan.

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Many world leaders on Monday condoled the death of former president Pranab Mukherjee, saying they have lost a true friend who made immense contributions to the strengthening of India's relations with their countries.

IMAGE: Former President Pranab Mukherjee, 84, died at an army hospital in New Delhi. Photograph: PTI Photo

The 84-year-old veteran politician died after he suffered a septic shock on Sunday. He died of a cardiac arrest on Monday evening following a 21-day battle with multiple ailments.



Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed sorrow over the demise of Mukherjee, describing him as a "true friend" and recalling his "outstanding and unforgettable" contributions to the country's 1971 Liberation War.

"His demise has caused an irreparable loss to the political arena of the sub-continent," Hamid said, describing Mukherjee as a "real and sincere friend" of Bangladesh.



He said Mukherjee played a crucial role in mobilising international support for Bangladesh's 1971 independence which "quickened our victory".



"I am profoundly saddened by the demise of former president of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee. My thoughts and prayers are with the family members in this hour of grief," Hasina said.



"Pranab Mukherjee was a true friend of Bangladesh. He has always been highly revered and loved by the people of Bangladesh. His steadfast support and contribution in strengthening the relations between the two countries, especially during his tenure as the 13th President of India, will always be remembered with deepest respect," she said in a statement.



Bangladesh has announced a one-day national mourning on September 2 as a tribute to Mukherjee.



"The national flag will be flown half- mast on that day," said an official statement issued late on Monday evening.



Nepal President Bidya Devi Bhandari, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and chairman of the ruling Communist Party of Nepal Pushpakamal Dahal Prachanda have expresses their condolences on the demise of Mukherjee.



Nepal has lost a good friend, Nepal's President Bhandari tweeted.



"I am deeply saddened by the news of the demise of President of India Pranab Mukherjee," Oli tweeted. He also expressed heartfelt condolences to the people of India and also to the bereaved family.



"We remember his contributions in strengthening Nepal-India relations in different capacities of his public life," Oli said.

Prachanda said that South Asia has lost an intellectual leader.



"I am saddened to hear of the passing of the Fmr. Indian President, Bharatratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He was a statesman par excellence, a writer & a man loved by all. The passion with which he served his nation is unparalleled. My deepest condolences to his family & friends," Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said in a tweet.



Describing Mukherjee as a "true friend of Israel", Israeli President Reuven Rivlin expressed his condolences at the passing away of one of India's most respected politicians, saying he helped strengthen the ties between the two countries.



"Israel stands with the people of India and the family of former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee in mourning his passing," Rivlin wrote in a tweet.



"A statesman much respected at home and abroad and a true friend of Israel who strengthened the deep ties between our countries and peoples," he added.



Mukherjee became the first Indian President to visit Israel in October 2015, setting up the stage for the first visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2017.



Rivlin visited India in 2016 at Mukherjee's invitation and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2018, leading to the elevation of the bilateral ties to the level of strategic partnership.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message of condolences to President of India Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Modi following the death of Mukherjee.



"Please accept deep condolences in connection with the demise of former head of state Pranab Kumar Mukharjee... As a true friend of Russia, he made a significant personal contribution to strengthening the relations of special and privileged strategic partnership between our countries," Putin said in a statement.



"Very sad to learn of Pranab Mukherjee's passing. Through his long career in public service, he contributed much to the U.S.-India relationship, including signing the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement when he was the minister of external affairs. Our condolences to his family," US ambassador to India Ken Juster said in a tweet.



"I convey my deepest condolences to the people and government of India, the family and supporters of former President & Indian statesman, Pranab Mukherjee, who passed away today. May he rest in peace," Afghan leader Abdullah Abdullah tweeted.



"Sincere condolences to his family and the people of India following the passing of former Indian President Shri Pranab Mukherjee. Mr Mukherjee was a public servant of the highest caliber and his passing is a tremendous loss not only to India but the entire South Asian region," Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih wrote on Twitter.
Russias Justice Ministry drafts bill on dismissal procedure for investigators

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

17:06 31/08/2020

MOSCOW, August 31 (RAPSI)  The Russian Justice Ministry works on a bill setting forth procedures governing dismissals and appointments of the Investigative Committee officers, a notification published on the Federal Portal for Draft Legislation reads on Monday.

The bill is aimed to establish for such officers the procedures similar to those currently envisaged by law for prosecutors.

The document is to regulate some issues relating to dismissal of certain categories of the Committee officers; the introduction of a mechanism of appointment of officers dismissed from their posts to other positions in the Committee; it is also planned to introduce additional guarantees and compensations for those discharged from service.

Last July, there was effected an amended law on prosecutor offices introducing additional grounds on which their officers could be dismissed, among them cases where a dismissed officer refused offers of other posts. The law envisaged that dismissed prosecutors were to be offered vacant posts in order to ensure his or her labor rights.

According to the amended law prosecutors could be discharged from service in case they failed to attend for more than four consecutive months due to temporary incapacity for work with compensation.

Prosecutors may be also dismissed on such grounds as oath breaking when on sick leave or during vacations, or in cases where such a wrongdoing negatively affected the authority of the prosecution service and discredited this officer.
The year was 2004, the month May and the time 3.45 am.

Pranab Mukherjee returned to his Kolkata home after winning his first Lok Sabha election from Murshidabad in West Bengal to find jubilant supporters waiting to greet him, oblivious of the late hour.

Mukherjee had lost the Lok Sabha elections twice earlier and it was third time lucky for him, much to the delight of the Congress leader's supporters.

The veteran leader, who went on to become India's 13th president, recounted the anecdote in Rupa Publications' 'The Coalition Years', which released in 2017 and throws light on his extensive political journey and experiences.

Narrating the events preceding his first Lok Sabha win, Mukherjee said in the book that he was himself unsure of victory.

A five-time Rajya Sabha member, he had unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha elections twice -- from Malda in 1977 and from Bolpur in 1980. He did not contest any Lok Sabha elections thereafter until 2004, the year Congress came to power. In 1981, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat and got re-elected to the Upper House from West Bengal in 1993 and 1999.

He wrote that it was Congress colleague Adhir Chowdhury, along with other local leaders, who insisted that he contest from Jangipur, a rural constituency.

"There were a number of reasons why I contested these elections. One was the fact that I wanted to follow the principle espoused by Nehru, that any Rajya Sabha member who becomes a minister should get himself elected to the Lok Sabha at the earliest opportunity. It is with this thought that I had contested earlier too," Mukherjee wrote in the book.



"Two, since 1984, I had been the chairman of every national campaign committee. This raised the pertinent question, at least in my mind should the chairman of the campaign committee himself not face the court of the people? Third, while this question was burdening my mind, the state Congress workers became increasingly vocal in their demand that I contest the elections," he added.

Mukherjee said he was aware he 'might not win' and Congress president Sonia Gandhi had assured him of re-nomination to the Rajya Sabha once his term expired. But he said he was determined to be 'third time lucky' as he went campaigning village to village amid scorching heat.

"Nobody, including myself, had the confidence that I would win in 2004. My opponent was Abul Hasnat Khan, a two-term Communist Party of India-Marxist MP with strong influence over the beedi workers of the area, who were a significant support base."



After the exhaustive campaign, Mukherjee returned to Delhi. He came back to Mushidabad for the counting of votes but was told by his party chief, "You need not wait till you are sure you've lost; return immediately."

The counting took place on May 13 and the results poured in quickly because of the Electronic Voting Machines. By 1 pm, everybody, including Mukherjee, knew he was going to win.

The news of his lead and certain victory spread on the media, prompting congratulatory calls from party leaders Sonia Gandhi and Ahmed Patel. Mukherjee was asked to return to Delhi soon but he told them he would reach there early the next morning as he was yet to receive his election victory certificate, according to the book.

"It so happened that I won by a margin of around 36,000 votes. The larger significance of it was that I had won from all seven assembly segments. In one assembly segment, my margin was only 1,900 and in another just 2,100 votes. But in the remaining five segments, it was 6,000-plus votes," he wrote.

"As my Lok Sabha constituency was spread over three subdivisions, it was almost 9 pm by the time official results could be declared. As I had promised to return to Delhi immediately, I left for Kolkata the very same night after receiving the certificate. Somen Mitra was with me as he had come to Jangipur to witness the counting, he had also decided to return with me. We reached Kolkata around 3 a.m. and were at my residence at 3.45 a.m. Even at that unearthly hour, I found people waiting to greet me!" he added.

Mukherjee met with the supporters, rested a little and boarded an early morning flight to Delhi.

"As soon as the plane took off, I went into deep slumber and did not wake up even after landing. The air hostess had to shake me vigorously to wake me up. I smiled at her half-asleep and deplaned. At my Delhi residence, there was a huge crowd as well. Many eminent people had also come to meet me. Eventually, I managed to take some rest and received a number of congratulatory calls," he added.

Bharat Ratna and veteran politician, "Citizen Mukherjee" passed away at a hospital in New Delhi on Monday. He was 84.
There is no official release date for the man who murdered Kildare town native Phyllis Murphy over 40 years ago.

After a gap of over 20 years, security worker John Crerar aged 51 when he was finally brought to justice in 2002 after advances in DNA testing.

Last week the Leader asked the Irish Prison Service if there was a scheduled release date for Crerar, who is now aged closed to 70 years.

A spokesman said: The Irish Prison Service does not comment on individual prisoner cases.

However the Leader understands that no official release date is available yet.

Crerar was given a mandatory life sentence and the average length of a life sentence in Ireland is around 18 years which is around the length of time the murderer has been in prison since his conviction.

However because of the aggravating circumstances of the case including the fact that Crerar evaded justice for over 20 years, he is expected to serve longer in prison.

At present, the Parole Board reviews prisoners who have been sentenced to life imprisonment and makes any recommendations on their release to the Minister for Justice.

Whether a prisoner on a life sentence is released is a final decision for the Minister for Justice.

The length of time spent in custody by offenders serving life sentences can vary substantially.

Of the prisoners serving life sentences who have been released, the average sentence served in prison is approximately 18 years.

However there are currently some prisoners serving life sentences in Ireland who have spent more than thirty years in custody.

A new documentary on the tragic murder of Phyllis Murphy will be screened on TG4 soon.

Midas Productions is producing the programme as part of a series.

A TV camera crew recorded interviews with family and friends of Phyllis as well as retired gardai who worked on the case.

The 41st anniversary of the death of Phyllis is approaching later this year.

Popular Kildare town native Phyllis (23) was last seen at a bus stop in Newbridge on December 22, 1979  after Christmas shopping in Newbridge.
BERLIN: Germanys president on Monday condemned an attempt by far-right protesters to storm the countrys parliament building over the weekend, accusing other demonstrators who watched on of complicity with the extremists.

Hundreds of people who were part of a broader demonstration against the countrys pandemic restrictions breached a security barrier outside the Reichstag building late Saturday before being intercepted by police and removed.

From the steps of the building, some waved the flag of the German Reich of 1871-1918 a favorite of the far-right in a country where the Nazi flag is banned and other extremist banners.

The Reichstag building was burned a month after the Nazis came to power in 1933, many believe by the Nazis themselves, and the arson attack was used as an excuse to impose a crackdown on civil liberties.

Today it houses Germanys parliament, and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the images of the weekend protest rightfully frightened and outraged many people.

The violent riots on Saturday again made clear that right-wing extremism has deep roots in our society, Steinmeier said after meeting with the three police officers who stood alone against the protesters until reinforcements arrived. It is a serious danger and it is an important and ongoing task to uncover networks in the early stages in order to effectively combat it.

Though tens of thousands of people opposed to wearing masks and other measures intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus took part in the daylong demonstration on Saturday, countrywide they are very much a minority.

Opinion polls show only one German in 10 rejects the countrys current prevention measures, such as the requirement to wear masks on public transport, in stores and in some public buildings such as libraries and schools.

Steinmeier defended the right of those protesting the coronavirus measures to demonstrate, but admonished them not to allow themselves to be co-opted by the extreme right with a different agenda.

My understanding ends where demonstrators allow themselves to be harnessed to the carts of the enemies of democracy and the political agitators, he said. Those who seek cooperation with right-wing extremists on the street, but also those who simply walk without being concerned alongside neo-Nazis, xenophobes and anti-Semites, those who dont clearly and actively separate themselves from them, make common cause with them.

Chancellor Angela Merkels spokesman, Steffen Seibert, decried what he called disgraceful pictures at the Reichstag that are not acceptable anti-democrats trying to encroach on the steps of our democratic parliament.

He thanked police, as well as the overwhelming majority of the 83 million people in this country all those who are behaving sensibly, cautiously and considerately in this pandemic, even if it isnt always easy.

Seibert also condemned a weekend incident in Bergisch Gladbach, near Cologne, in which Health Minister Jens Spahn was yelled at and, his ministry says, spat at by protesters against virus restrictions. Video showed Spahn appearing to offer to talk to demonstrators before giving up and getting in his car.

___

Geir Moulson contributed to this story.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, are a couple who are in love and not afraid to show it. Even when they were carrying out official duties on behalf of Queen Elizabeth, the couple never hesitated to show a little PDA  something that not too many royals dare to do.

They are not shy about talking to others about how much they mean to each other, and it is pretty safe to say that their relationship is as strong as can be. Almost everything that Meghan and Prince Harry do seems to have some sort of significance. Even when they picked out a name for their son, Archie Harrison, it had special meaning, since the middle name Harrison was chosen to signify the words Harrys son.

We all know that Prince Harry and Meghan both have soft spots in their hearts for animals. Prince Harry had a few pets over the years, and everyone is well aware of the fact that Meghans dogs mean the world to her.

A few years ago, the couple added a black lab to their family, but we didnt know what they were calling the dog until now. Here is how Meghan and Prince Harrys black labs name is a nod to their romance.

A little about Meghan and Harry

RELATED: How Many Pets Do Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Have?

Meghan and Prince Harry had a whirlwind romance, to say the least. Just a few years ago, it almost seemed as though Prince Harry might not ever settle down, but we are sure glad he did. The prince had a few girlfriends over the years, but he never really came close to the altar with anyone.

That all changed, however, when Meghan came into the picture, and after dating for a while, Prince Harry proposed to the American actress while the two of them were at home, roasting a chicken for dinner. Royal life certainly had its ups and downs for the couple, and it got pretty overwhelming for them.

After growing tired of the relentless British media, they made the surprising announcement that they would be stepping down from royal duties. Before long, the split was official, and now Meghan and Prince Harry have settled down in Meghans hometown of LA, California.

Adopting a new black lab

It is no secret that Meghan has always been a humanitarian who goes out of her way to help others. She loves animals, and People reports that the duchess even made a secret visit to her animal charity patronage, further proving her dedication.

Before meeting Prince Harry, she even adopted two rescue dogs named Guy and Bogart, and fans know just how much she still adores them. While Bogart remained in Canada, where Meghan used to live, she was able to take Guy across the pond to England when she moved there to be with Prince Harry.

However, the beloved dog isnt alone. Meghan and Prince Harry adopted a black Labrador back in 2018, and according to Harpers Bazaar, the new dog gets along fabulously with Guy and the rest of the family.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harrys black labs name is a nod to their romance

Meghan Markle | Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)

They have had the black lab for quite some time now, and we have just recently found out that the dogs name is a nod to their royal romance. How so? Well, Vanity Fair reports that they named him Pula, which means rain in Setswana, the language spoken in Botswana.

This is significant because it is where Prince Harry and Meghan fell in love early in their relationship.

During their 2017 engagement interview, Prince Harry revealed: And then it was I think about three, maybe four weeks later that I managed to persuade her to come and join me in Botswana. And we camped out with each other under the stars. She came and joined me for five days out there, which was absolutely fantastic.

The name is also the official currency of Botswana, making it even more special to the couple, Archie, and their wonderful pets.

In fact, the country is so special to them that Meghan recreated their romantic getaway to celebrate Prince Harrys 2019 birthday. Last year, for Harrys birthday, Meghan recreated their Botswana camping adventures in their backyard, a source told Us Weekly. Its a place that means so much to them  and to Harry in particular  so Meghan wanted to bring that happy place to him on his day so she set up a tent, got sleeping bags, cooked dinner and recreated Botswana where they fell in love.

PopSugar reports that Prince Harry made it very clear in Botswana that he wanted to marry Meghan and they felt more connected to each other than ever.
SAN FRANCISCO  On most days, companies like ByteDance, Microsoft, Walmart and Oracle are considered kings within their fields. But over the weekend, it became increasingly clear that they can also be something else: a set of pawns.

The industry titans have been caught in an escalating tit-for-tat between the United States and China over the sale of the U.S. operations of TikTok, the viral social media app owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance. The sale was ordered in early August by President Trump, who said TikTok posed a national security threat because of its Chinese ties.

For weeks, China was critical of Mr. Trumps order but stayed quiet on what it would do about it. That allowed ByteDance and TikTok to pursue sale talks with potential bidders like Microsoft, Walmart, Oracle and others. Then over the weekend, Beijing threw the whole process for a loop when it updated its export control rules to include some of TikToks key technologies  a sign that the Chinese government could exert its authority to delay or scuttle any deal at the last minute.

Now a blockbuster deal that had been set to be completed soon has become far more complicated, according to three people close to the talks. The two groups vying to buy TikToks U.S. business  one is an alliance between Microsoft and Walmart, and the other is an offer led by Oracle  are discussing how to interpret Chinas new rules and how to move forward, said the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly. At the same time, the bidders are honing drafts of their offers and tweaking them as part of the negotiation process, the people said.
The US has reached another grim milestone with the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus passing six million on Sunday, according to a count by NBC News.

While nationally, metrics on new cases, deaths, hospitalisations and the positivity rates of tests are all declining, the Midwest has emerged as the latest hotspot.

Across the country there were more than 47,000 new cases and almost 1,000 additional deaths reported on Sunday.

The World Health Organisation warns that more than eight months into the pandemic the seemingly unending onslaught is taking its toll on healthcare workers and first responders.

The front line responders working tirelessly to save lives during the pandemic deserve time to rest, a statement from the WHO said on Sunday. Talk to your colleagues or supervisor if you think you may be experiencing burnout.

In the US, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota recently saw record one-day increases in new cases.

Montana and Idaho have reported record numbers of currently hospitalised Covid-19 patients.

Many of the new cases in Iowa are in the counties that are home to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, which are holding some in-person classes. Colleges and universities around the country have seen outbreaks after students returned to campus, forcing some to switch to online-only learning.

Infections have also risen after an annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota drew more than 365,000 people from across the country from 7-16 August. The South Dakota health department said 88 cases have been traced to the rally.

Families are being advised to think carefully before gathering together over the Labor Day weekend holiday after experts noted a trend for infections arising from smaller gatherings, USA Today reports.

The US continues to struggle with testing  the number of people tested fell in recent weeks.

Many health officials and at least 33 states have rejected the new Covid-19 testing guidance issued by the Trump administration last week that said those exposed to the virus and without symptoms may not need testing.

Public health officials believe the US needs to test more frequently to find asymptomatic Covid-19 carriers to slow the spread of the disease.

While the US has the most recorded infections in the world, it ranks tenth based on cases per capita, with Brazil, Peru and Chile having higher rates of infection, according to a Reuters tally.

The US also has the most deaths in the world at over 183,000 and ranks 11th for deaths per capita, exceeded by Sweden, Brazil, Italy, Chile, Spain, the UK, Belgium and Peru.

Globally 843,000 people have died according to Johns Hopkins University data.

With reporting from Reuters
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 19:39:58|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- China's 20th National Science and Technology Week, a seven-day science popularization event, ended on Sunday in Wuhan, Hubei Province, receiving more than 500 million online visits, according to its organizer.

Themed "prevailing over an epidemic with sci-tech, and empowering the country with innovation," this year's event featured both online and offline activities. The number of visits has exceeded 630 million, including 520 million online, sources with the Ministry of Science and Technology said Monday.

With technologies such as VR and 5G, a "cloud exhibition hall," which was launched for the first time, attracted more than 5 million online hits over the past week, offering the public a glance at China's innovations in poverty alleviation and the fight against COVID-19. The Hubei venue alone carried out 1,149 science popularization activities, receiving 2.25 million visits.

Launched in 2001, the National Science and Technology Week has been held for 20 consecutive sessions, becoming China's most influential event to popularize science among ordinary people. Enditem
DENVER, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Michael Baker International, a global leader in engineering, planning and consulting services celebrating 80 Years of Making a Difference, announced today that Derek Vogelsang has joined the firm as Vice President of Engineering Technology. In this role, he will lead companywide efforts to create, innovate and distribute technologies that will enable the firm to deliver new work with greater value to its clients. He will be based out of the firm's Denver Office.

"Derek joins Michael Baker with more than 25 years of experience designing and delivering technology-enabled business transformation projects across the U.S., Asia, Middle East, Australia and New Zealand," said Dan Kieny, Chief Technology Officer at Michael Baker International. "In this new role, he will establish common processes and efficiencies for how our technologies  such as Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)  are used to acquire, manage and analyze data, creating more value for our clients and the communities we serve."

Most recently, Mr. Vogelsang served as Director of DMV Advisory Services, where he provided operational improvement services to clients in the water and wastewater, mining and natural resources sectors. As Vice President of Strategic Services for Westin Technology Solutions, he served as Program Director for a large Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system upgrade that controlled, monitored and analyzed a water client's industrial processes. Additionally, he served as Regional Leader  Business Transformation for MWH Global (now Stantec) for 10 years, managing the business transformation consulting practice in the Asia Pacific region.

Mr. Vogelsang earned a Post Graduate Diploma in Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecology and Management from the University of Adelaide in Australia and a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Natural Resource Management from the University of South Australia.

About Michael Baker International

Michael Baker International, celebrating 80 Years of Making a Difference, is a leading provider of engineering and consulting services, including design, planning, architectural, environmental, construction and program management. The company provides its comprehensive range of services and solutions to support U.S. federal, state, and municipal governments, foreign allied governments, and a wide range of commercial clients. Michael Baker's more than 3,000 employees across nearly 100 locations are committed to a culture of innovation, collaboration and technological advancement to help solve challenges for clients and communities throughout the country. To learn more, visit www.mbakerintl.com.

Contact: Julia Covelli

[email protected]

(866) 293-4609

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Researchers set sights on theory of deep learning

HOUSTON - (Aug 31, 2020) - Deep learning is an increasingly popular form of artificial intelligence that's routinely used in products and services that impact hundreds of millions of lives, despite the fact that no one quite understands how it works.

The Office of Naval Research has awarded a five-year, $7.5 million grant to a group of engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians and statisticians who think they can unravel the mystery. Their task: develop a theory of deep learning based on rigorous mathematical principles.

The grant to researchers from Rice University, Johns Hopkins University, Texas A&M University, the University of Maryland, the University of Wisconsin, UCLA and Carnegie Mellon University, was made through the Department of Defense's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI).

Richard Baraniuk, the Rice engineering professor who's leading the effort, has spent nearly three decades studying signal processing in general and machine learning in particular, the branch of AI to which deep learning belongs. He said there's no question deep learning works, but there are big question marks over its future.

"Deep learning has radically advanced the field of AI, and it is surprisingly effective over a wide range of problems," said Baraniuk, Rice's Victor E. Cameron Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "But virtually all of the progress has come from empirical observations, hacks and tricks. Nobody understands exactly why deep neural networks work or how."

Deep neural networks are made of artificial neurons, pieces of computer code that can learn to perform specific tasks using training examples. "Deep" networks contain millions or even billions of neurons in many layers. Remarkably, deep neural networks don't need to be explicitly programmed to make humanlike decisions. They learn by themselves, based on the information they are given during training.

Because people don't understand exactly how deep networks learn, it is impossible to say why they make the decisions they make after they are fully trained. This has raised questions about when it is appropriate to use such systems, and it makes it impossible to predict how often a trained network will make an improper decision and under what circumstances.

Baraniuk said the lack of theoretical principles is holding deep learning back, particularly in application areas like the military, where reliability and predictability are crucial.

"As these systems are deployed - in robots, driverless cars or systems that decide who should go to jail and who should get a credit card or loan - there's a huge imperative to understand how and why they work so that we can also know how and why they fail," said Baraniuk, the principal investigator on the MURI grant.

His team includes co-principal investigators Moshe Vardi of Rice, Rama Chellappa of Johns Hopkins, Ronald DeVore of Texas A&M, Thomas Goldstein of the University of Maryland, Robert Nowak of the University of Wisconsin, Stanley Osher of UCLA and Ryan Tibshirani of Carnegie Mellon.

Baraniuk said they will attack the problem from three different perspectives.

"One is mathematical," he said. "It turns out that deep networks are very easy to describe locally. If you look at what's going on in a specific neuron, it's actually easy to describe. But we don't understand how those pieces - literally millions of them - fit together into a global whole. We call that local to global understanding."

A second perspective is statistical. "What happens when the input signals, the knobs in the networks, have randomness?" Baraniuk asked. "We'd like to be able to predict how well a network will perform when we turn the knobs. That's a statistical question and will offer another perspective."

The third perspective is formal methods, or formal verification, a field that deals with the problem of verifying whether systems are functioning as intended, especially when they are so large or complex that it is impossible to check each line of code or individual component. This component of the MURI research will be led by Vardi, a leading expert in the field.

"Over the past 40 years, formal-methods researchers have developed techniques to reason about and analyze complex computing systems," Vardi said. "Deep neural networks are essentially large, complex computing systems, so we are going to analyze them using formal-methods techniques."

Baraniuk said the MURI investigators have each previously worked on pieces of the overall solution, and the grant will enable them to collaborate and drawn upon one another's work to go in new directions. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a set of rigorous principles that can take the guesswork out of designing, building, training and using deep neural networks.

"Today, it's like people have a bunch of Legos, and you just put a bunch of them together and see what works," he said. "If I ask, 'Why are you putting a yellow Lego there?' then the answer might be, 'That was the next one in the pile,' or, 'I have a hunch that yellow will be best,' or, 'We tried other colors, and we don't know why, but yellow works best.'"

Baraniuk contrasted this design approach with those you'd find in fields like signal processing or control, which are grounded on established theories.

"Instead of just putting the Legos together in semirandom ways and then testing them, there would be an established set of principles that guide people in putting together a system," he said. "If someone says, 'Hey, why are you using red bricks there?' you'd say, 'Because the ABC principle says that it makes sense,' and you could explain, precisely, why that is the case.

"Those principles not only guide the design of the system but also allow you to predict its performance before you build it."

Baraniuk said the COVID-19 pandemic hasn't slowed the project, which is already underway.

"Our plans call for an annual workshop, but we're a distributed team and the majority of our communication was to be done by remote teleconferencing," he said.

###

High-resolution IMAGES are available for download at:

https:/ / news-network. rice. edu/ news/ files/ 2020/ 06/ 0511_DEEPTHEORY-rbmv88-lg. jpg

CAPTION: Richard Baraniuk (left) and Moshe Vardi are members of an interdisciplinary, seven-university team that the Office of Naval Research has tapped to develop a theory of deep learning using a $7.5 million grant from the Department of Defense's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative. (Photo by Jade Boyd/Rice University)

This release can be found online at news.rice.edu.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

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 quality of life and No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
India's third Covid wave likely to peak on Jan 23, daily cases to stay below 4 lakh: IIT Kanpur scientist

India logs over 3.17 lakh new Covid cases in last 24 hours; daily positivity rate up at 16.41 per cent

'Taking countermeasures', says China after India repels its troops

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Sep 01: China on Monday claimed Indian troops had crossed the border Monday near Pangong Tso, a lake at 4,200 metres (13,500 feet), and engaged in "open provocation and caused the border situation to become tense".

"The Chinese military is taking necessary countermeasures," the People's Liberation Army's regional command said in a statement, accusing India of "seriously violating China's territorial sovereignty".

Earlier, India said Chinese troops had "carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo" in the eastern Ladakh region over the weekend.

Army Spokesperson Col Aman Anand said troops from Chinese People''s Liberation Army(PLA) "violated" the consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements on the ongoing standoff in eastern Ladakh, and carried out provocative military movements on the intervening night of August 29 and 30 to change the status quo.

Reports said a sizeable number of Chinese troops had moved towards the southern bank of Pangong lake in an attempt to occupy the area but the Indian Army quickly made significant deployment to foil the bid.

There was no physical clash between the troops of the two sides during China''s attempt to open a new front in the prolonged border standoff.

The two sides were earlier engaged in a confrontation on the northern bank of Pangong lake but it was for the first time such an incident occurred on its southern bank, they said.

Important for India and China to reach some kind of equilibrium: Jaishankar

It is also the first major incident in the area after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. China also suffered casualties but it is yet to make the details public. However, according to an American intelligence report there were 35 casualties on the Chinese side.

In a statement, Col Anand said the Indian Army thwarted the Chinese intentions to "unilaterally" change facts on ground and undertook measures to strengthen Indian positions in the area.

"On the night of 29/30 August 2020, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo," he added.

"Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground," the Army spokesperson said.

A Brigade Commander-level meeting was held at Chushul to resolve the issues, he said.

The spokesperson further said the Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect India''s territorial integrity.

China''s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian claimed its border troops always strictly abide by the Line of Actual Control(LAC) and never cross the line.

"Chinese border troops always strictly abide by the Line of Actual Control (LAC). They never cross the line. Border troops on the two sides have been in close communication regarding the issues on the ground," the spokesperson said at a media briefing in Beijing in response to a question by a Japanese journalist about the fresh incident at Pangong lake.

Senior Colonel Zhang Shuili, spokesperson of the Western Theatre Command of the PLA, alleged that on August 31 the Indian army broke the consensus reached at the previous multi-level talks between the two sides and illegally crossed the line again near the south bank of Pangong lake and the Reqin Pass, making a "blatant provocation" and causing tension along the border.

The Chinese military is taking necessary countermeasures and will closely follow the developments to resolutely safeguard China''s territorial sovereignty and peace and stability in the border areas, Zhang said in a statement released by Xinhua, the country's official news agency.

India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks in the last two-and-half months but no significant headway has been made for a resolution to the border row in eastern Ladakh.

The two sides began a process of disengagement on July 6, a day after a telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in eastern Ladakh.

However, the process has not moved forward since mid-July.

The PLA has pulled back from Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang and a couple of other areas.

At the five rounds of Corps commander-level talks, the Indian side has been insisting on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to April.

The face-off began on May 5 following violent clashes between the two armies in the Pangong lake area.

The incident in Pangong lake was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 9. The India-China border dispute relates to the 3,488-km-long LAC that stretches from the Ladakh region in the north to Sikkim.

Prior to the clashes, both sides have been asserting that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it is necessary to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas.

Even as both sides were engaged in diplomatic and military talks, the Indian Army stepped up its strength in all key areas along the LAC to deal with any eventualities.

Army Chief Gen MM Naravane has already conveyed to all the senior commanders of the Army, overseeing the operation of the frontline formations along the LAC, to keep up a significantly high state of alertness and maintain the aggressive posturing to deal with any Chinese "misadventure", according to sources.

The tension between the two sides escalated manifold after the Galwan Valley clashes.

Following the incident, the government gave the armed forces "full freedom" to give a "befitting" response to any Chinese misadventure along the LAC.

The Army has sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border following the deadly clashes. The IAF also moved air defence systems as well as a sizeable number of its frontline combat jets and attack helicopters to several key air bases.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, September 1, 2020, 1:08 [IST]
Editor:

Hats off to Sandoval County Clerk Eileen Garbagni, who is putting out clear information on the upcoming election and offering a number of safe options to vote in a dangerous time of pandemic.

Ms. Garbagni will be sending applications for absentee ballots to all registered voters in the county next month, something that many of her fellow county clerks are not doing. By Sept. 1, registered voters can also apply online through the secretary of states website at portal.sos.state.nm.us/OVR/WebPages/AbsenteeApplication.aspx.

Absentee voting is a safe way to let your voice be heard, but recently fears of late mail delivery resulting from political interference from the administration are giving some voters pause. But the New Mexico secretary of state has indicated that she has been assured by the U.S. Postal Service in New Mexico that they are on it  in spite of the noise we hear coming from Washington, D.C.

Citizens must do their part by mailing their absentee ballots in early. Absentee ballots will be mailed out starting Oct. 6 to those who have completed their applications.

Return it in the envelope, which must be signed on the outside as well as inside, immediately. If you worry it will not make it by the deadline (7 p.m. on Nov. 3), you can hand deliver it to any early voting site or to your polling place on Election Day.

Early voting  socially distant, with mask  is still a good option. It begins Oct. 17 and runs through Oct. 31, Monday through Saturday, at over a dozen polling places serving communities from Torreon to Rio Rancho.

To vote even earlier, you can go to the Sandoval County Administration Building D, 1500 Idalia Road, Bernalillo, Oct. 6 through Friday, Oct. 30. Contact the county clerks office for specific locations and hours.

Citizens should never have to choose between their health and their right to vote. Thank you to the Sandoval County Clerks office for helping us out of this dilemma.

Dick Mason

Board member, League of Women

Voters of New Mexico

Rio Rancho
New Delhi: The Acquisition Wing of Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Monday (August 31, 2020) signed a contract with the Indian companies for supply of six Pinaka Regiments to the Regiment of Artillery of the Indian Army at an approximate cost of Rs 2,580 crores.

The contract was signed with M/s Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML), M/s Tata Power Company Ltd. (TPCL) and M/s Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and the induction of these six Pinaka Regiments is scheduled to be completed by 2024.

These six Pinaka Regiments comprise 114 launchers with Automated Gun Aiming & Positioning System (AGAPS) and 45 Command Posts to be procured from M/s TPCL and M/s L&T and 330 Vehicles to be procured from M/s BEML. These will be operationalised along the Northern and Eastern Borders of India and will further enhance the operational preparedness of the Armed Forces.

This will also provide a further boost to the Make in India initiative of the Government of India in the Defence Sector.

This project under Buy (Indian) categorisation, with 70% Indigenous Content, has been approved by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman.

The Pinaka Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) has been indigenously designed and developed by DRDO and productionised by the above-mentioned defence industries.

This is a flagship project showcasing public-private partnership under the aegis of Government of India (DRDO & MoD) enabling Aatmnirbharta in cutting edge Defence technologies.
President Akufo-Addo has decried the fast decline in the compliance level of the COVID-19 preventive protocols in various parts of the country.

He said, this development is unacceptable and could reverse the gains the country has made in the fight against COVID-19.

Delivering his 16th national update on the country's fight against COVID-19, the president said the COVID-19 preventive measures must become the norm until there is a declaration of no case in the country.

The high compliance rate with mask-wearing of persons surveyed by the Ghana Health Service in some selected areas of Accra, to which I referred optimistically in my last address, has, according to a new survey by the same Service, fallen alarmingly. This is not acceptable, as the enhanced hygiene, mask-wearing and social distancing protocols must now be central features of our lives, and they must continue to remain so for some time to come, until we see to the elimination of the virus from our country, the president said.

He further cautioned that law enforcement agencies will deal with persons who are found to be in disregard of the etiquette since their actions stand to endanger the lives of many others.

He said persons found culpable will be dealt with irrespective of their tribe or religious affiliation.

Let me remind those amongst us, who want to continue to disregard these protocols, that severe sanctions exist in our laws for such persons, who will want to endanger the rest of the population through their actions and negligence. The law enforcement agencies will, where necessary, apply these measures without fear or favour, ill-will or malice, and without recourse to a person's ethnicity, gender or religion, Akufo-Addo added.

The wearing of face masks has become mandatory because of the coronavirus pandemic.

An earlier survey conducted by the Ghana Health Service in Accra noted that 82 percent of the sampled population possessed face masks and had the intention to use them.

However, out of this number, the survey showed that only 44.3 percent of the sampled population use the face mask correctly.

The most recent COVID-19 update as announced by the President indicates that active cases are 1,059.

42,963 persons have recovered while 276 have died.

The cumulative total number of confirmed cases in Ghana is 44,298.

 citinewsroom
Ranjani Madhavan By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: Sahana (name changed), who is 34 years old, terminated her pregnancy two weeks ago, when she was one month into it, as she feared catching COVID during this time.

As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I aborted the baby. Going to hospitals for check-ups now is risky. If this is the state of the pandemic now, I cant imagine what it would be nine months later. There is a risk of the newborn being infected as well, she said.

Apart from her familys economic condition because of Covid, Zuha Junaidi also decided to stall her pregnancy in 2020 because of the risk to both her and the baby.

Medical interventions, like clinical trials for the vaccine, are being done in a haste and it is a cause of concern. We will plan the pregnancy once we figure out the state of the pandemic, what the government is doing and a clearer idea of the processes in place to deal with Covid, Zuha said.

This is seen more among young couples in their mid-30s who want a second child but have chosen to defer it by a year. They opt for abortions, oral contraception and IUD (Intrauterine devices). For IUD and termination, they have to visit the hospital and the oral contraceptives can be picked up with the help of an online prescription, said Dr Madhushree Vijayakumar, Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, Motherhood Hospital.

But expecting parents need not worry about access to medical care during Covid as there is tele-consultation and tele-counselling available.

Expecting mothers will have to visit the hospitals just three to four times for screening the baby, Dr Madhushree added. She has also seen cases where couples are opting to have babies during the pandemic as they have more time at home, because of work from home option.

Some of the couples may be at the end of their reproductive age, but are worried about the babys safety, said Dr Gayathri Kamath, Senior consultant, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Fortis Hospital.

We are only a few months into the pandemic and there is not enough evidence to prove if coronavirus can affect the baby during the first trimester of the pregnancy. During the third trimester, the immunity of the mother is lesser.

When couples ask me if they should terminate their pregnancy, we tell them that there is no evidence that getting pregnant during the pandemic is dangerous or that the pregnancy must be terminated, Dr Gayathri said.

We tell them to remain safe by following Covid norms, How long can they delay having a child, when we do not know how long the pandemic will last. It is better to have a planned pregnancy and take precautions to remain safe, she said.
New Delhi:

Engineering major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Monday said that it has been chosen as the implementation partner to convert Pune into a smart city.

The letter of intent (LoI) was handed over to representatives of L&T Construction's Smart World and Communication business unit, which will be executing the project, by Municipal Commissioner of Pune Kunal Kumar, the company said in a statement.

The scope of work includes enabling Wi-Fi at around 200 strategic locations across the city, setting up emergency call boxes and public address systems, environmental sensors, variable messaging displays, network connectivity and video analytics integration, the statement said.

The project intends to set up a state-of-the-art SmartCity Operation Centre (SCOC) to integrate all its services and applications on a single platform.

This single-point interface will be a holistic platform with the potential to accommodate all future needs through integration of various citizen-centric applications. The project includes a revenue monetisation model, a first in the country for smart cities.

"After having set up the country's largest surveillance project in Mumbai involving 5,000 plus cameras across 1,500 locations and being in the process of developing Nagpur into India's first large-scale integrated smart city, we consider this mandate to make Pune smart as a reaffirmation of our capabilities in the area of creating a smart world," said S N Subrahmanyan, Deputy Managing Director and President, L&T.

"As a Master Systems Integrator, we will use cutting-edge technology to provide solutions capable of high-end analytics on a futuristic and eminently scalable platform," he added.
Petoskey, Kalkaska duo set to release new album

Northern Michigan band John Piatek & Friends are set to release their second album right on the heels of their debut release just some six months ago.
Hurricane Laura came with strong winds that appeared to be strong enough to reverse many waterways, including the Mississippi and Neches River flow, as it approached land.

River flow usually goes to the Gulf, but Laura had strong winds that blew the top layer of water upriver, so river flow was going away from the Gulf instead, reported CTV News.

Hurricane Laura made it to shore as a Category 4 storm on early Tuesday near Texas's state line. It ripped off roofs and damaged buildings, robbing hundreds of thousands of power.

Hurricane Laura gained 150-mph winds when it made landfall last week near the Texas and Louisiana border, said a Fox News report.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported Friday that the storm's whipping winds pushed so much wind ahead of it.

River Flow Rate Was High

A USGC stream gage read that Neches reached a flow rate of about 15,000 cubic feet per second when Laura brought heavy rains to the coast. The reading was done just as the storm made landfall.

But after the storm roared east of Beaumont, all of the water and wind that it pushed ashore caused the river to slow down and, then, reverse flow.

Upriver, the river reached a flow rate of 7,600 cubic feet per second, said a New York Post article.

USGS said this flow rate could "fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in about in about 12 seconds."

After about 12 hours, the Neches River flow went back to its normal direction.

The same effect that Hurricane Laura had on Neches was also reported on the Mississippi River. There, barges had to fight the tides as they went downriver due to the whipping winds that pushed water backward.

A tweeted video even documented this barge fighting against the flow of the water flowing inland.

Not the First Time River Flow was Backwards

According to USGS, this is not the first time Neches River flowed backward. They noted that the event also took place in 2007 when Hurricane Ike came ashore.

In 2008, the river flowed at a much faster rate with 30,000 cubic feet per second upriver. This can fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in about three seconds.

This is also not the first time the Mississippi River flowed backward. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit, the river flow was also reversed.

In 2012, strong winds and storm surge from Hurricane Isaac's landfall also made the river flow in a different direction for 24 hours, said USGS.

The U.S. death toll from the Category 4 Hurricane Laura rose to 16 on Saturday. Most of the victims died by a carbon monoxide poising from the unsafe operation of generators.

President Trump toured the damage caused by Hurricane Laura on Saturday.

Mississippi River is the second-largest river in North America, spanning 2,350 miles. It starts at Lake Itasca in Minnesota and meets the Gulf of Mexico.

Meanwhile, the Neches River spans 416 miles. Neches also feeds into the Gulf of Mexico, beginning in East Texas.

Check these out!

Warmest Waters on Earth are on Hurricane Marco, Laura's Path, What are the Dangers?

US Gulf Coast on Alert as Two Tropical Storms Threaten Historic Blow

Texas and Louisiana COVID-19 Cases Could Increase After Hurricane Laura


Share Purchase Plan Offer Booklet

Perth, Aug 28, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Further to the capital raise announcement on 26 August 2020 Hastings Technology Metals Ltd ( ASX:HAS ) ( FRA:5AM ) is pleased to provide details of the Hastings 2020 Share Purchase Plan (the "Plan" or "SPP") offer to eligible shareholders to raise $3 million.Eligible shareholders are those who are registered holders of ordinary shares in the Company as at 5.00pm WST on 25 August 2020 (Record Date) resident in Australia or New Zealand.Hastings has made significant progress during 2019/2020:- 18% increase in ore reserves, extending the mine life to 13 years- Subsequently a 73% increase in mineral resources at Simon's Find- Potential to increase mineral resources demonstrated by further drilling at Auer and Yangibana- State and Federal Government Environmental Approvals received- DRA Pacific awarded the Engineering, Procurement and Construction and Management (EPCM) contract- Master Supply Agreement signed with Schaeffler, a global Tier 1 automotive industry component supplier- $68m in capex savings arising from the decoupling of the beneficiation from the hydrometallurgical plant- In principle eligibility for Finnvera (Finnish Government Export Credit Scheme) debt financingThe SPP will enable shareholders to participate by acquiring additional shares without incurring transaction costs. The SPP is fully underwritten and the Directors and senior management have confirmed their participation in the SPP.Under the Plan, eligible shareholders may subscribe for up to $30,000 worth of ordinary shares in the Company (New Shares), in bands as outlined in the Offer booklet attached, subject to a discretionary scale back in the event that shareholder demand exceeds the Offer Amount, at a price of 12.5 cents per share (Issue Price)The issue price is at a 21.9% discount to the last traded price of $0.16 on 21 August 2020 and a 9.8% discount to the Company's 10 day VWAP.The Company is offering up to 24,000,000 New Shares under the Plan to raise $3 million (Offer Amount), before costs. The Company reserves the right to scale back a shareholder's subscription (in its absolute discretion) in the event total shareholder demand exceeds the Offer Amount. The Company also reserves the right to accept oversubscriptions, subject to compliance with all laws, regulations, ASIC class orders, requirements or policies or any ASX Listing Rule.An offer booklet, attached, will be mailed to eligible shareholders on Monday, 31 August 2020 and the Offer will close on Monday, 21 September 2020. The Offer is fully underwritten for $3 million by shareholders of the Company.The funds raised from the SPP will be used to fund the following ongoing work:a) Procure equipment arising from the decoupling of the beneficiation plant and the hydrometallurgy plant;b) Further engineering design;c) Grade and resource drilling to increase mining reserves;d) Mine site works; ande) Working capital.To view the timetable, please visit:About Hastings Technology Metals Ltd

Hastings Technology Metals Ltd (ASX:HAS) (FRA:5AM) is advancing its Yangibana Rare Earths Project in the Upper Gascoyne Region of Western Australia towards production. The proposed beneficiation and hydro metallurgy processing plant will treat rare earths deposits, predominantly monazite, hosting high neodymium and praseodymium contents to produce a mixed rare earths carbonate that will be further refined into individual rare earth oxides at processing plants overseas.

Neodymium and praseodymium are vital components in the manufacture of permanent magnets which is used in a wide and expanding range of advanced and high-tech products including electric vehicles, wind turbines, robotics, medical applications and others. Hastings aims to become the next significant producer of neodymium and praseodymium outside of China.

Hastings holds 100% interest in the most significant deposits within the overall project, and 70% interest in additional deposits that will be developed at a later date, all held under Mining Leases. Numerous prospects have been identified warranting detailed exploration to further extend the life of the project.

Brockman Project

The Brockman deposit, near Halls Creek in Western Australia, contains JORC Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources, estimated using the guidelines of JORC Code (2012 Edition).

The Company is also progressing a Mining Lease application over the Brockman Rare Earths and Rare Metals Project.

Hastings aims to capitalise on the strong demand for critical rare earths created by the expanding demand for new technology products.
The Abu Dhabi crown prince said on Monday that the United Arab Emirates is committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, Dubai-based Al Arabiya TV reported.

In a statement read by UAE's foreign minister Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan said to the Palestinian community in the country that the normalistion deal with Israel was a sovereign decision in the favour of peace.

"Peace is a strategic choice, but not at the expense of the Palestinian cause," he said according to Al Arabiya.

In a joint statement, the UAE, Israel and the United States urged Palestinian leaders to re-engage with their Israeli counterparts.

Senior U.S. and Israeli officials landed in the United Arab Emirates on Monday on a historic trip to finalise a pact marking open relations between Israel and the Gulf state, and they told Palestinians it was now time for them to negotiate peace.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner also said on arrival that Washington could help maintain Israel's military edge while advancing its ties to the UAE, the Arab world's second largest economy and a regional power.

Announced on Aug. 13, the normalisation deal is the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years and was forged largely through shared fears of Iran.

Palestinians were dismayed by the UAE's move, seeing it as a betrayal that would weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position which calls for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory and acceptance of Palestinian statehood in return for normal relations with Arab countries.

Kushner said Palestinians should not be "stuck in the past".

"They have to come to the table. Peace will be ready for them, an opportunity will be ready for them as soon as they are ready to embrace it," said Kushner, part of a U.S. delegation that accompanied Israeli officials on the first official Israeli flight from Tel Aviv to the UAE.

Kushner and U.S. national security adviser Robert O'Brien headed the U.S. delegation on the two-day visit. The Israeli team was led by O'Brien's counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat.

Israel and the United Arab Emirates will discuss economic, scientific, trade and cultural cooperation on the visit. Direct flights between the two countries will also be on the agenda, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman told al Arabiya television after landing in Abu Dhabi.

"That's what peace for peace looks like," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted, describing a deal for formal ties with an Arab state that does not entail handover of land that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

At a news conference in Jerusalem late on Monday, Netanyahu said: "It will be a warm peace because it will be based on cooperation in the realm of economics, with an entrepreneurial economy like ours, with vast economic capabilities, with big money looking for investment channels."

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" " According to an August 2020 Pew Research survey, only about 23 percent of Hispanics have even heard the term Latinx, and only 3 percent use it  most of those are young people. Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images

Shakespeare's "a rose by any other name" aside, names have always mattered. Even if we're all human beings underneath, you can't get around the fact that how people identify you  what they call you  has a huge bearing on how you're seen and how you're accepted. How you name yourself (how you self-identify) is critical, too.

Latinos know this as much as any other group. Latinos have been known as Chicanos, Hispanics and Latinas, to drop a few names. Some even go with Latinx, maybe the newest identifier for people who, roughly speaking, trace their heritage to Spain or Latin America.

"They're very important," historian Paul Ortiz, a professor at the University of Florida and the author of "An African American and Latinx History of the United States," says of the terms used to identify different racial and ethnic groups. "And I think people have the right of self-definition. I think that's kind of fundamental to the human condition."

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What's In a Name?

"Back in the day, in the '50s or earlier, generally [the] term, 'Chicano' was actually a term of derision. If you walked up to me and called me that term, there could be some trouble," Ortiz says. "It becomes a term of pride with the rise of the farmworkers' movement, the Mexican student movement in California and Washington. And so people began using that term, 'Chicano,' as a term of pride. As a term of self-respect.

"It was kind of like the term Black for African Americans. Back in the day you would never use that term. But with the Civil Rights movement, 'Black was Beautiful.'"

As with Blacks (who also have been named, among other terms, Negroes, Afro-Americans and African Americans through the years) and other groups, those of Hispanic heritage change how they identify themselves depending on a lot of factors, including which generation is doing the naming. By now, Chicano has generally fallen out of favor.

(A short aside: Hispanic is the official term used by the U.S. Census Bureau. According to its definition: "Hispanic origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before arriving in the United States. People who identify as Hispanic, Latino or Spanish may be any race." It's a broad term. Anyone who says they're Hispanic or Latino is, according to the government. That was nearly 61 million people in 2019, about 18 percent of the American population.)

Adding to the confusion is that different people in different areas of the country may prefer different terms. Most, according to the Pew Research Center, would rather identify themselves by their family's country of origin  they're Guatemalan or Mexican or Honduran  than by some "pan-ethnic" term like Hispanic, Latino or Latina.

"Where I grew up," says Ortiz, who was born in 1964 and raised in California and Washington state, "Hispanic was not very popular. My elders would say, 'Hispanic is something that the government tries to call us. That's not who we are.' It is a census term. It is an official term that the government has for people like us. But in Florida, it's different. In Florida, Hispanic people have no problem with the term."

Hispanic  which, Ortiz says, used to refer (if not officially) mainly to people with a Mexican heritage  gave way to Latino and Latina in the latter part of the last century as different groups from Latin America made their way to the U.S. and searched for a term that was more inclusive and less "Mexican." Latino now is used interchangeably with Hispanic, even by the Census Bureau. Latina (the feminine noun) is preferred by many.

And, in the last couple of decades, yet another term has emerged.

" " Latinx is a term that has cropped up recently to identify a wide-ranging and growing group of Americans whose heritage lies in Spanish-speaking and/or Latin American countries. HowStuffWorks

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So What Is Latinx?

Its pronunciation is somewhat contested  Ortiz says "Latin x," sounding it like two words, though others say "lat-EEN-x" or "luh-TEEN-x," and Merriam-Webster, which added the term to its dictionary in 2018, suggests "luh-TEE-neks"  but the term's meaning is not disputed.

Latinx, based on an LGBTQ-inspired desire to go gender-neutral, is what the words Chicano and Latino and Hispanic all have tried to be, and what all have meant to different generations: It's an identifier for a wide-ranging and growing group of Americans whose heritage lies in Spanish-speaking and/or Latin American countries.

"The book I wrote," Ortiz says, "the title was really picked by my students. At one point I was going to use the term Latina ... but they said, 'You know, Professor Ortiz, we really would prefer you use the term Latinx. We know, among your generation, it's still not too popular. But the world is changing.'

"The cool thing is, they're not using the term as just a term of self-definition. They're using the term to try to create ridges of understanding between, say, Mexican students, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Haitians ... It's kind of a bridge-building term."

According to an August 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, the term has a long way before it catches on, though. The survey found that only about 23 percent of Hispanics have even heard the term Latinx, and only 3 percent use it. And those who are using the term tend to be younger, born in the U.S. and predominantly English-speaking.

NOW THAT'S INTERESTING If gender-neutrality is really what's behind the word Latinx, some people say the "Latine" is more appropriate, as it is more compatible with the Spanish language.
Janet McAllister peers into a microscope in her CDC laboratory in Fort Collins, Colorado. resize icon View Larger Close Janet McAllister peers into a microscope in her CDC laboratory in Fort Collins, Colorado.

COVID-19 isnt the kind of virus Janet McAllister usually studies.

As a medical entomologist, Janet spends most of her time focused on mosquitoes, ticks, and other multi-legged pests that bite and can make people and animals sick. But when the new viral respiratory disease, COVID-19, started spreading across the Midwest, she left her lab and volunteered to help fight an outbreak in Wisconsin.

She soon found herself bound for Milwaukee, where she expected to put her skills in data analysis and DNA sequencing to work with a CDC team investigating an outbreak of COVID-19 at two food-processing plants. But after arriving, Janet and the CDC team she joined found themselves shifting to adapt to changing needs and conditions.

My experience with deployments is theyre malleable. Theyre always changing, she says. You need to be flexible, and not rigid.

While Janet went in expecting to help Milwaukees health department test samples of viral DNA as part of the outbreak investigation, her role shifted from doing the testing herself to lining up testing samples from state and private laboratories. And while the team was first dispatched to help with outbreaks in plants that made hamburger and frozen pizzas, more and more outbreaks were popping up in businesses, she says.

The CDC responders ended up helping develop checklists that local health authorities could use to help craft public health messages based on community needs, decide when to inspect a workplace, and advise companies on how to protect workersor when to close, if necessary.

And she also helped research systems to track healthcare workers who had volunteered to contain the outbreak.

We left them with a nice collection of online tools they can use for the future, Janet says. That was pretty easy and quick, and it always feels good when we left them with quite a few new tools. It wasnt our main mission, but we were able to do more than what we set out to do, and that always makes you feel good.

Meanwhile, the deployers faced another problem that had nothing to do with the outbreak. In mid-May, a wave of heavy rainstorms rolled through the upper Midwest. In Milwaukee, the downpour flooded a network of steam tunnels that provided heat and hot water to numerous downtown buildingsincluding the hotel where McAllister and her team were staying.

Janet is no stranger to being deployed. She has deployed often to hurricane-battered towns that lacked power or water service before. In Milwaukee, her hotel-room kitchenette allowed her to boil water for use in a bathtub  But its amazing how much that simple creature comfort means when you dont have it, she says.

McAllister normally works at the CDC office in Fort Collins, Colorado. She traces her interest in entomology to her childhood in New Orleans, where a sister got a butterfly collecting kit which I kind of took over, she says. I didnt collect butterflies, thoughI liked beetles better.

She started college with plans to study medicine, but soon found herself more interested in marine biology, then discovered medical entomologythe study of disease-carrying insectsduring a summer job.

I realized I could marry my interest in the medical field with my interest in insects, she says.

She eventually earned a PhD at the University of Arkansas and returned to Louisiana for post-doctoral work at Louisiana State University. There she found a flyer for a fellowship at CDC, studying how mosquitoes that spread malaria build resistance to the insecticides used to control them. People arent the only ones who adapt to new conditions, after all.

She took what she learned back to New Orleans, where she worked on her hometowns mosquito-control program, then joined CDC full-time in 2004. She was heavily involved in combating the mosquito-borne Zika virus outbreak that struck Latin America and the Caribbean in 2015-2016. That experience also taught responders a lesson about flexibility when scientists discovered that the virus was causing birth defects.

As any situation evolves, our knowledge about it evolves, Janet says. We think we know a lot about diseases, but nature and biology have a way of keeping us humble, and theres always more to learn.
" " Wildfires can produce winds that are 10 times stronger than the winds surrounding them. Photo courtesy Bureau of Land Management

Weather plays a major role in the birth, growth and death of a wildfire. Drought leads to extremely favorable conditions for wildfires, and winds aid a wildfire's progress -- weather can spur the fire to move faster and engulf more land. It can also make the job of fighting the fire even more difficult. There are three weather ingredients that can affect wildfires:

Temperature

Wind

Moisture

As mentioned before, temperature affects the sparking of wildfires, because heat is one of the three pillars of the fire triangle. The sticks, trees and underbrush on the ground receive radiant heat from the sun, which heats and dries potential fuels. Warmer temperatures allow for fuels to ignite and burn faster, adding to the rate at which a wildfire spreads. For this reason, wildfires tend to rage in the afternoon, when temperatures are at their hottest.

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Wind probably has the biggest impact on a wildfire's behavior. It also the most unpredictable factor. Winds supply the fire with additional oxygen, further dry potential fuel and push the fire across the land at a faster rate.

Dr. Terry Clark, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has developed a computer model that shows how winds move on a small scale. Since 1991, he's been converting that model to include wildfire characteristics, such as fuel and heat exchange between fires and the atmosphere.

"We look at what's called coupled fire atmosphere dynamics, where the fire and the atmosphere interact with each other," Clark said. "We've been looking at how fires interact with the environment and getting some of the characteristics of fire spread and fire behavior, through the modeling that we've been doing."

Clark's research has found that not only does wind affect how the fire develops, but that fires themselves can develop wind patterns. When the fire creates its own weather patterns, they can feed back into how the fire spreads. Large, violent wildfires can generate winds, called fire whirls. Fire whirls, which are like tornadoes, result from the vortices created by the fire's heat. When these vortices are tilted from horizontal to vertical, you get fire whirls. Fire whirls have been known to hurl flaming logs and burning debris over considerable distances.

"There's another way that you can tilt the vorticity. That is it can be titled without breaking into fire whirls, and basically be burst forward into what's called hairpin vortices or forward bursts," Clark said. "These are quite common in crown fires [fires at the top of trees], and so you see fires licking up hill sides." Forward bursts can be 20 meters (66 feet) wide and shoot out 100 meters (328 feet) at a speed of 100 mph (161 kph). These bursts leave a scorched region and lead to fire spread.

The stronger the wind blows, the faster the fire spreads. The fire generates winds of its own that are as many as 10 times faster than the ambient wind. It can even throw embers into the air and create additional fires, an occurrence called spotting. Wind can also change the direction of the fire, and gusts can raise the fire into the trees, creating a crown fire.

While wind can help the fire to spread, moisture works against the fire. Moisture, in the form of humidity and precipitation, can slow the fire down and reduce its intensity. Potential fuels can be hard to ignite if they have high levels of moisture, because the moisture absorbs the fire's heat. When the humidity is low, meaning that there is a low amount of water vapor in the air, wildfires are more likely to start. The higher the humidity, the less likely the fuel is to dry and ignite.

Since moisture can lower the chances of a wildfire igniting, precipitation has a direct impact on fire prevention. When the air becomes saturated with moisture, it releases the moisture in the form of rain. Rain and other precipitation raise the amount of moisture in fuels, which suppresses any potential wildfires from breaking out.
The Peterborough Police Service has spent $10,396 to repair and repaint the light-armoured vehicle (LAV) received for $1 from Ontario Power Generation, according to documents obtained by The Examiner.

Although the LAV was a donation from OPG, a vehicle transfer shows it cost $1 to allow the LAV to change hands.

A separate document obtained by The Examiner shows that an Oshawa firm, Lesco Industrial Restoration, billed city police $9,200 plus $1,196 HST, for a total of $10,396 to:

Sandblast the vehicle;

Apply epoxy to the entire undercarriage, wheels, bumpers and steps;

Do body repairs, prime and paint the body matte black;

Reassemble the LAV;

Pick it up and deliver it.

The vehicle has come equipped with a new engine, new tires and many additional spare parts, states a document from police, obtained by The Examiner. Its operation is anticipated to have minimal financial impact on the police budget.

The same document states the police also paid $74.13 to register the LAV.

Meanwhile, the new legal owner is listed as the city of Peterborough, the vehicle transfer document shows.

Police Chief Scott Gilbert wrote in an email that police vehicles across Ontario are registered to municipalities.

He added that cities are the insurance providers for police vehicles in Ontario, and they are also responsible for providing adequate equipment and facilities to police.

All police vehicles, however, are under the control of the police service not the city, he wrote. The city and its employees cannot use our vehicles nor can they dispose of them.

The vehicle, valued at $250,000 new, is used and now worth about $30,000, the police board was recently told.

The 2012 Oshkosh SandCat vehicle, a modified SUV, has not yet appeared in public or been photographed. Police say it will be used to keep officers safe in high-risk situations.

Ontario Power Generation operates both the Pickering and Darlington nuclear plants, which are highly secure facilities.

Scott Burns, vice-president of security and emergency services at OPG, spoke to the police board in a closed-door meeting in June about the donation, The Examiner has learned.

Both Gilbert and Deputy Chief Tim Farquharson were in attendance.

Burns previously worked as the deputy chief of Durham Police; he retired from policing in 2014. Gilbert was appointed city police chief in July 2018. Before that, he was a superintendent of Toronto Police Service 52 Division. Gilbert wrote that he met Burns once in 2006 when Burns was an inspector in Durham, but had no other dealings with him prior to the donation.
The 1,400 year old tree and surrounding redwoods were spared from the Walbridge Fire last week.

Plus, La Santa Torta and Al Pastor Papi are feeding undocumented farmworkers amid California wildfires, Squaw Valley Ski Resort will be renamed, and more local headlines that aren't totally depressing.





As Wildfires Rage, a Bay Area Taco Truck Is Feeding Undocumented Farmworkers, Eater SF



In an effort to help undocumented people working outside in the polluted air, Bay Area taco truck La Santa Torta headed to Watsonville, Salinas, and Gonzales farms on Monday to pass out free meals. Additionally, La Santa Torta and fellow popular food truck Al Pastor Papi are collecting unused supplies for farmworkersand until September 3rd, are donating 10 percent of sales to Bay Area farmworkers and undocumented community members affected by the fires. Read more.





Lake Tahoe Bear "Shops" at Grocery Store, Funcheap



Finding the outdoor trash bin options to be a let down, a black bear wandered into a Kings Beach Safeway, and safely exited with a bag of tortilla chipsand there's video, of course. Read more.





Firefighters save 1,400-year-old redwood at Armstrong park, SF Chronicle

Thanks to the work of firefighters and state natural resources crews, the oldest tree in Guerneville-adjacent Armstrong Woods was unharmed by Tuesday's Walbridge fire. Read more.

Temporary Animal Shelters Pop Up Across Bay Area, Offering To House Everything From Rabbits to Llamas, SFist



In addition to permanent shelters, venues around the Bay Area including Cow Palace and Solano County Fairgrounds are temporarily housing pets and livestock displaced by wildfires. Read more.





SF Announces $12.8 Million in Grants for Arts and Culture Organizations, KQED

While the pandemic has impacted the arts in San Francisco, Mayor London Breed's Wednesday announcement that 227 arts and culture organizations will receive Grants for the Arts this year offers hope. Read more.





Famed Northern California ski resort changing name, citing offensive word, The Mercury News

After consulting with local Native American groups and extensive research, popular ski spot and 1960 Winter Olympics site Squaw Valley Ski Resort has made the decision to change its name. Read more.
MANILA, Philippines  Fitness gyms, barber shops and internet cafes were allowed to reopen partly in the Philippine capital Tuesday as the government further eased quarantine restrictions despite the country having the most coronavirus infections in Southeast Asia.

President Rodrigo Duterte, however, placed the southern city of Iligan under a mild lockdown after a rise in community infections, underscoring how COVID-19 cases have spread away from the capital, metropolitan Manila, the epicenter of the pandemic in the country.

Night curfew hours have been shortened in most cities in the capital and outlying provinces under the new arrangements, which will last for a month.

Duterte announced that medical personnel, who could be ejected because of fears by landlords that they are virus carriers, would be given free billeting and food near their hospitals.

More than 220,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including about 3,500 deaths, have been reported in the Philippines, which has struggled to find a balance between restricting public mobility to curb the virus and reviving an economy that has fallen into recession.

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HERES WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK

 Students are returning to schools in much of Europe

 How will the U.S. coronavirus crisis play out this fall?

 In South Africa, the pandemic claimed 14,000 lives, plus the rituals to mourn them

 In Chinas Xinjiang, forced medication accompanies lockdown

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Follow APs pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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HERES WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

HONG KONG  Hong Kong has kicked off a voluntary mass-testing program for coronavirus as part of a strategy to break the chain of transmission in the citys third outbreak of the disease.

The testing program began Tuesday with residents making their way to more than 100 testing centers staffed by over 5,000 volunteers. It is aimed at identifying silent carriers without symptoms who could be spreading the disease.

Story continues

The virus-testing program has become a flashpoint of political debate in Hong Kong. Many are distrustful over resources and staff provided by Chinas central government and fear that their DNA could be collected during the exercise.

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MELBOURNE, Australia  Australias hard-hit Victoria state has reported its lowest daily tally of new COVID-19 cases since June as a lockdown continues to slow infections.

The health department on Tuesday reported 70 new infections and five deaths in the latest 24-hour period. It is the lowest tally of new infections since 67 were reported on June 30.

The latest weeklong average is 104 new cases a day, down from 184 in the previous week.

A six-week statewide lockdown is due to end on Sept. 13. The government will outline its plans to reopen the economy next Sunday.

The infection rate is not expected to fall to low double digits by Sept. 13. Health authorities have said such a reduction in infections would be required before they could safely lift restrictions.

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WASHINGTON  Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal governments top infectious disease expert, says Labor Day weekend will be key in determining whether the U.S. gets a running start at containing the coronavirus this fall.

Fauci said Monday he has a great deal of faith in the American people to wash their hands, practice social distancing, wear masks, avoid crowds, and congregate outside during the weekend celebrations. He said its important to avoid a surge in coronavirus cases like those seen after the Memorial Day and July 4th holidays.

He made the comments on a White House conference call with governors, the audio of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

Vice President Mike Pence said he shared Faucis confidence in the American people to celebrate the holiday responsibly.

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JACKSON, Miss.  Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves says he is extending a statewide mask mandate and most other restrictions another two weeks to try to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. He made a single change  eliminating a cap of two spectators per participant at high school sports events.

Republican Reeves said a limit of 25% capacity remains in place for stadiums, gyms, and other venues, and people should maintain social distance from those who are not in their immediate families.

As the University of Southern Mississippi prepares to host its first home football game on Thursday, Reeves said his prohibition on tailgating at college games also remains in place at least two more weeks.

Id rather be in the South where we cant have tailgating, where we have rules in place but we are going to have football, than to be in the Pac-12 where theyre not even going to have football, Reeves said.

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NICOSIA, Cyprus  Cyprus Health Ministry says anyone taking part in a peaceful protest is obligated to wear a face mask and keep at least 5 feet (1.5 meters) from other demonstrators.

The ministry issued guidelines on Monday on how public demonstrations are to be conducted in line with health protocols to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. It said the distribution and sharing of pamphlets among demonstrators is prohibited, and food and other vendors arent permitted at the protest site.

Organizers must appoint a liaison who will be charged with communicating with police and ensuring that demonstrators stick to the guidelines. Cypriot Justice Minister Emily Yiolitis said the point of the guidelines isnt to limit citizens democratic rights, but to ensure that people are protected from the virus spread.

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CHICAGO  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has predicted a roughly $1.2 billion hole for the 2021 budget, blaming the coronavirus pandemic as the single largest driver of economic challenges.

She says tourism, transportation and the hospitality industry have been hit hardest. Lightfoot presented the citys budget forecast Monday, saying the current budget will have a roughly $800 million shortfall. She says federal help will be needed as cities nationwide struggle.

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UNITED NATIONS  The United Nations chief says the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened the inequality between men and women and reversed decades of limited and fragile progress on gender equality and womens rights.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned young women from civil society organizations at a virtual town hall meeting on Monday that without a concerned response, we risk losing a generation or more of gains.

During the pandemic, he said women have been on the front lines of the response, as health care workers, teachers, essential staff and as carers in their families and communities. A majority of health care workers are women, but less than a third are in decision-making roles, he said.

Guterres said the pandemic has impacted physical and mental health, education, and labor force participation. He also noted reports in some places of increases in teenage pregnancies and gender-based violence.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I.  Gov. Gina Raimondo says every public school district in Rhode Island except two has been given the go-ahead to resume in-person classes in September.

The Democrat said Monday that children are scheduled to return to school on Sept. 14 and our expectation is thats what you will do.

Five metrics had to be met, including low hospitalization and spread rate statewide and an ability to return coronavirus test results within 72 hours.

Only Providence and Central Falls havent met the metrics. Those cities have had the highest coronavirus rates in the state.

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COLUMBIA, S.C.  Officials in Columbia, South Carolina, say at least 200 people were crowded around without masks at a pool party that was shut down near the University of South Carolina.

Columbia Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins tells WLTX-TV the scene Saturday at an apartment complex violated rules meant to halt the coronavirus and created a perfect storm to spread the virus.

Jenkins persuaded the complex to close the pool for several days, but no one was cited for violating the citys mask ordinance.

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CHICO, Calif.  California State University, Chico has canceled the limited number of in-person classes it was offering and has gone virtual-only for the duration of the fall semester after at least 30 people tested positive for the coronavirus three days after the semester began.

University President Gayle Hutchinson says she is asking students to vacate campus housing by this weekend because nearly all on-campus residences have at least one case and there are concerns the numbers will increase.

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GENEVA  The head of the World Health Organization warns that opening up societies too quickly amid the coronavirus pandemic is a recipe for disaster.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insists that countries that are serious about opening up must also be serious about suppressing transmission. He says that's not an impossible balance.

Tedros cited four key points that countries, communities and individuals should focus on: preventing amplifying events  as the virus thrives on clusters; protecting vulnerable groups; people taking steps individually to protect themselves; and finding, isolating, testing and caring for cases, while tracing and quarantining their contacts.

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ROME  Italy registered nearly 1,000 more coronavirus cases on Monday, far fewer than recent daily new caseloads  but far fewer swab tests had been done.

Italy now counts 269,214 confirmed infections. Many of those testing positive in recent weeks have been travelers returning from vacations or their close contacts.

Sardinia, which had relatively few cases for weeks, registered 79 new infections Monday, with clusters of infections linked to crowded discos or holiday-goers parties on the Mediterranean island.

The regions with the most daily new cases were Campania, which includes Naples, and Lazio, which includes Rome.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.  President Donald Trumps new pandemic adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, says coronavirus infections and deaths are declining in the hardest-hit states.

Appearing with Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for a panel discussion on Monday, Atlas said hospitalizations, length of hospital stays and mortality are also declining.

The American public should feel cautiously optimistic here about whats going on, Atlas said. There is no need for fear at this point.

He downplayed the risk of infections in young people and agreed with DeSantis that college football needs to be played this year and can be done safely.

Atlas also downplayed the need to test people for the coronavirus when they dont have symptoms.

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YANGON, Myanmar  The Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar has reported its highest single-day total of confirmed COVID-19 cases since its first cases were confirmed in late March.

The Health Ministry announced 95 new cases Monday, bringing its total to 882. Of those, 354 are listed as recovered, and six died.

The surge of new cases over the past week has mostly been in the western state of Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh and hosts several major displacement camps due to years of civil conflict. The government responded by instituting a Stay-at-Home program for the entire state. It also banned unnecessary and unauthorized travel.

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DETROIT  Detroit turned an island park into an extraordinary memorial garden on Monday as cars packed with families slowly passed hundreds of photos of residents who died from COVID-19.

Mayor Mike Duggan declared a Detroit Memorial Day to honor the citys 1,500-plus victims of the pandemic. Hearses led solemn processions around Belle Isle Park in the Detroit River, where more than 900 photos were displayed.

Detroits director of arts and culture, Rochelle Riley, said organizers hoped the memorial would wake people up to the devastating effect of the pandemic and also bring some peace to families whose loved ones didnt have the funerals they deserved.

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BRUSSELS  The European Union is joining the COVID-19 vaccine alliance COVAX with the aim of helping to provide access to any future vaccine for people in countries that might not be able to afford it.

The EUs executive arm, the European Commission, announced Monday that it was contributing 400 million euros ($478 million) to support the scheme.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the aim is to work together in purchasing future vaccines to the benefit of low and middle income countries.

But the commission refused to say whether it wants to use COVAX as another means to secure access for relatively-wealthy Europe to any future vaccine.

Activists warn that without stronger attempts to hold political, pharmaceutical and health leaders accountable, any vaccines could be hoarded by rich countries in a race to inoculate their populations first.

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TRENTON, N.J.  Indoor dining will resume Friday with limited capacity in New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy announced.

Restaurants can have 25% capacity, which includes maintaining social distancing between tables. Masks will be required except when eating or drinking.

Reopening responsibly will help us restore one of our states key industries while continuing to make progress against #COVID19, Murphy wrote in a tweet Monday announcing updated regulations.

New Jersey has had more than 190,000 positive cases, with over 14,000 fatalities.

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FAIRBANKS, Alaska  The University of Alaska Fairbanks hockey team and other student-athletes there are in quarantine or isolation after some tested positive for the coronavirus following an off-campus party.

Administrators say 37 students were placed in isolation after six hockey players and an athlete from another university team tested positive. Their head coach, who wasn't at the Aug. 22 party, was also quarantined after having close contact with players.

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STOCKHOLM  A Swedish health official said Monday that a COVID-19 vaccine alone cannot stop the pandemic, adding important preventive measures must remain in place for the foreseeable future.

Johan Carlson, head of the Public Health Agency in Sweden that opted for a much debated COVID-19 approach of keeping large parts of the society open, said a future vaccine will probably be an important tool but not the tool that ultimately solves the problem."

Social Affairs Minister Lena Hallengren says the vaccine should be administered in priority to people over age 70, people in risk groups, and care and nursing staff.

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GENEVA  The U.N. health agency says 90% of countries that responded in a new survey reported fallout from COVID-19 on the provision of other health care services.

The World Health Organization says 105 countries responded to the survey aimed at assessing the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on strained health systems, notably in low- and middle-income countries.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the survey, covering five regions between March and June, exposed the need for better preparation for health emergencies like the current pandemic.

The survey found that routine immunization and outreach services were among the most affected, with 70% of countries reporting disruptions, followed closely by the diagnosis and treatment of non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Nearly a quarter of countries that responded reported disruptions to emergency services.

WHO cautioned about some limitations about the study, including differences in the phases of the outbreak that countries were experiencing.

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MADRID  Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says the Spanish government is working on a post-pandemic recovery plan that aims to bring sustained annual economic growth higher than 2%.

Spain was allocated 140 billion euros ($166.84 billion) from the European Unions coronavirus recovery fund, roughly divided in half between grants and repayable loans.

Using that aid, the plan outlined Monday by Sanchez will aim to address inequality deepened by the virus, which has claimed at least 29,000 victims in Spain.

It has become western Europes hardest-hit country by a new surging wave of fresh outbreaks.

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BUCHAREST, Romania  Romanian government is lifting several restrictions imposed earlier to curb the coronavirus, despite consistently rising number of new infections and deaths.

The government announced Monday it will let indoor dining, movie theaters and performing art venues restart on Tuesday. They must comply with social distancing and mask-wearing rules.
Authorities in Beijing on Sunday unveiled a detailed plan for its core area for the 2018-2035 period, ushering in a new era for the city with a history of thousands of years.

Based on the plan that was initiated in 2017, the focus of the core area, covering about 92.5 square kilometers, will be on China's political center and other functions.

The goal of the plan is to build a core area with sound administrative environment, cultural appeal and ideal living conditions. It also stresses protecting the city's cultural and historical heritage.

By 2035, the permanent population in the core area would be about 1.7 million, and the floor area of above-ground buildings will be around 119 million square meters, according to the plan.

The permanent population in the core area is estimated to be about 1.55 million, while the floor area of the above-ground buildings will be around 110 million square meters by 2050.

The central authorities approved the plan, emphasizing its functions of serving central administrative organs as well as firm and orderly relief of its non-capital roles.

"The core area is where Beijing's functions as the nation's political, cultural and international exchange center are mostly located, and it's a key area for the preservation of historical sites," the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council said in an approval statement that was made public on Thursday.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The 18th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) was held on Thursday where the two sides agreed to resolve outstanding issues in an expeditious manner.

The Indian delegation was led by Joint Secretary (East Asia) Naveen Srivastava while the Chinese side was led by Wu Jianghao, Director General of the boundary and oceanic department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The two sides had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on the existing situation in the India-China border areas. They reaffirmed that in accordance with the agreements reached between the two Foreign Ministers and the two Special Representatives, the two sides will continue to sincerely work towards complete disengagement of the troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Western Sector. The two sides were in agreement that restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas would be essential for the overall development of bilateral relations, MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said.

ALSO READ: Want Kulbhushan Jadhav to be represented through an Indian lawyer: MEA

India and China are involved in a standoff along the LAC in eastern Ladakh. Relations soured after a violent face-off between Indian and Chinese troops on June 15 leading to the death of 20 jawans.

While Beijing claims that disengagement is complete in most areas, New Delhi maintains that it is an ongoing and complex process.

Srivastava said that the two sides further acknowledged the need to maintain close communication through both the diplomatic and military channels so as to ensure complete disengagement. In this regard, they also agreed to continue their ongoing engagements including through the meetings of the WMCC.

Peace must at border

The two sides agreed that restoration of peace and tranquility in the border areas would be essential for the overall development of bilateral relations.
<! Bobrisky >

By Jennifer Okundia

Instagram baddest beauty influencer and controversial cross dresser Okuneye Idris Olarenwaju aka Bobrisky, promised to be the only attention all day as he marks a new age today.

Bob has been sharing sultry photos since this week, as pre birthday pictures. He even got himself a white Mercedes Benz ahead of her big day.

Fans and friends have sent in their congratulatory messages and her best friend Nollywood actress Tonto Dikeh left a heartwarming message for him likewise:

Tonto wrote: To know you is to truly Love you..

Happy birthday To Us..

Congratulations on your new toys and your New Smart home

Im glad you are growing into the man God destined for you to be

May Gods Love Guide you, Thank God for your growth..

May his Love encompass you

Have a blast Gee @bobrisky222

Bob wrote: Yaaaaay. Its my birthday today.

nengiofficial

Happy birthday Queen

realmercyaigbe

Happy birthday darling 

tokemakinwa

Happy birthday baby 

lolaomotayo_okoye

Happy Birthday sweetheart. Sending you love and light??????????

dukeofspadess

Happy Birthday Bob

sirleobdasilva

Happy Birthday Bardest ???

tontolet

Happy birthday sunshine?

evaxalordiah

What a Human!! Im a super fan  happy birthday Bobby! Be killing em ?

anitajoseph8

Blessings Bobby ???happy bday burst everywhere today

Bobrisky finished her secondary education at Kings College, Lagos and attended graduate school at the University of Lagos (UNILAG). See some pictures here
Months after the custodial deaths of father-son duo Jayaraj P and Bennicks J in Tamil Nadus Thoothukudi, another shocking incident of alleged assault by police officers in Sathankulam station has emerged. A resident of Sathankulam, identified as Martin, has alleged that he was thrashed and subsequently taken to the police station by Inspector Xavier and Assistant Inspector Raja on August 23.

On the next day, because of the severity of his injuries, police reportedly took him to Thoothukudi Government Medical College Hospital.

Martin told news agency ANI that he remained in police custody from August 24 to 28 and was then produced before a judicial magistrate, who recorded his statement and granted him bail. Martin has also accused two other police officers of having tortured him through his illegal detention.

I was tortured illegally at the police station for the past six days and it was only after my advocate pleaded that I was produced before the magistrate," Martin was quoted as saying.

The victims family, meanwhile, called for immediate action against the police personnel involved in torturing him and demanded that the state government provide them relief.

The deaths of Jayaraj and Bennicks turned into a national event, exposing the faultlines in the criminal justice system and the lack of sensitisation of the police force to rights of suspects. The father-son duo, arrested for violating lockdown norms over business hours of their cellphone shop, died at a hospital in Kovilpatti on June 23, with the kin alleging that they were severely beaten at the Sathankulam police station by the police officers earlier.

The incident had triggered a nationwide furore, leading to the suspension of five policemen, including an inspector and two Sub-Inspectors. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is presently pursuing the case after the Tamil Nadu government handed over the probe to the premier agency from the states CB-CID following the outrage over the traders death.
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SINGAPORE, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Singapore and China's southern Guangdong will emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic stronger, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area will remain a key market for Singapore companies, according to a joint statement released on Monday.

The 11th Singapore-Guangdong Collaboration Council (SGCC) meeting was held over video-conference in Singapore and Guangzhou, co-chaired by Guangdong's governor Ma Xingrui and Singapore's Minister for Transport Ong Ye Kung.

The two sides reaffirmed the strength and resilience of economic ties and wide-ranging cooperation between Guangdong and Singapore, and the two co-chairs looked forward to enhancing multi-faceted cooperation between the two sides amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

They said in the joint statement that as the global economy faces challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, both sides shall strengthen their cooperation and work together steadfastly to overcome the pandemic. Both sides shall forge ahead with business resumption, strengthen transport connectivity, and facilitate travel under the China-Singapore Fast Lane to promote greater exchange of people.

They said both sides shall continue to explore opportunities and new areas of growth post-COVID-19, and continue to deepen Singapore-Guangdong collaboration for mutual growth and prosperity.

Singapore and Guangdong will strengthen cooperation by keeping economies open, enhancing business environment, and upholding supply chain connectivity, they added.

"This is to provide the necessary conditions for enhanced trade and investment between Singapore and Guangdong, inject vibrancy into our All-Round Cooperative Partnership Progressing with the Times, and work towards a better future for both sides."

According to a statement issued by Enterprise Singapore, there are 15 project signings at the meeting.
President Donald Trump speaks to first responders and other officials at a fire station in Lake Charles, La., on Aug. 28, 2020. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump Addresses Jacob Blake Shooting Ahead of Kenosha Visit: I Didnt Like the Sight of It

President Donald Trump on Aug. 29 addressed the police shooting of Jacob Blake, which sparked riots and civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin last week.

Ahead of his scheduled Sept. 1 visit to the city to assess damage from the recent riots, the president was asked by a reporter after a rally in New Hampshire if he thought the officer who shot Blake, 29, was justified in doing so.

Im looking into it very strongly. Ill be getting reports and Ill certainly let you know pretty soon, Trump said Friday night. It was not a good sight. I didnt like the sight of it, certainly, and I think most people would agree with that.

Kenosha has received help from National Guard soldiers from neighboring states and the federal government to bring the violence and unrest sparked by the shooting under control.

The police officer who shot Blake, Rusten Sheskey, has since been placed on administrative leave and is under investigation by the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation under the states Department of Justice.

This undated handout photo provided by the Wisconsin Department of Justice shows Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey. (Courtesy Wisconsin Department of Justice via AP)

Sheskey shot Blake seven times after Blake resisted officers attempts to arrest him after they received a call from his former girlfriend for help. Blake had a warrant out for his arrest and a restraining order stipulating that he wasnt to approach his ex-girlfriend after an alleged sexual assault.

A criminal complaint obtained by The Epoch Times showed that Blake was charged in July with trespassing, third-degree sexual assault, and disorderly conduct.

According to the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Blake admitted to having a knife in his possession at the time of the shooting. Department agents found a knife on the drivers side floorboard of Blakes car.

Following the shooting, Blake was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, where he remains. Family attorneys told reporters on Aug. 25 that Blake had undergone multiple surgeries.

The 29-year-olds mother, Julia Jackson, has denounced Sheskeys use of force, saying that her family is very hurt and quite frankly disgusted.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris said last week that, while she has not seen all the evidence, she believes the police officer who shot Blake likely used excessive force and should face charges.

Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), delivers remarks during a campaign event in Washington, on Aug. 27, 2020. (Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images)

Democratic lawmaker Rep. Val Demmings (D-Fla.), a former Orlando police chief, on Sunday urged people to reserve judgment on the matter until all evidence has come to light.

I think what we have to do is all take a deep breath. If we want justice to be served, weve got to wait until a thorough and complete investigation is done. We do not want to play judge, jury, and executioner, whether were talking about Mr. Blake or were talking about the police officer, Demmings said during an appearance on CBS Newss Face the Nation.

We want the facts, and we must have all of them if we want to see justice served, and I believe we all do, she added.

The presidents schedule for his Tuesday visit hasnt yet been fully outlined, White House spokesman Judd Deere said.

Melanie Sun contributed to this report.
Attorney General K K Venugopal requested the court to forgive Bhushan with a message that he should not repeat this act. The bench also comprising Justices B R Gavai and Krishna Murari, had given 30 minutes to Bhushan to think over on withdrawing his statements made in the court and said he made disparaging remarks against the institution and the judges. Venugopal had said Bhushan, who has been refusing to tender an unconditional apology for the tweets, should withdraw all statements and express regret.

The bench on August 20 had granted time till Monday to Bhushan to reconsider his defiant statement and tender unconditional apology for the contemptuous tweets. Referring to Bhushans statements and his refusal to apologise, the bench had told Venugopal that mistakes were committed by all but they needed to be accepted, but here Bhushan was not willing to accept that. Dhavan had argued that reprimanding Bhushan like dont do it again as suggested by the attorney general will not be correct and instead a statesman-like message should be there like Mr Bhushan though we disagree with many things, but from next time you should be more responsible.

Bhushan in his statement had refused to offer an apology to the Supreme Court for his two tweets against the judiciary, saying what he expressed represented his bona fide belief which he continued to hold.
TROY, Mich., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Allegis Global Solutions (AGS) Supply Chain Management has selected ICONMA for its 2020 Strategic Partners Program. The selection was based on ICONMA demonstrating superior levels of program delivery and partnership to both AGS and our clients.

"To determine our 2020 Strategic Partners, we extracted data from our proprietary business intelligence tool, ACUMEN to analyze key supplier performance metrics. Additionally, we conducted an enterprise wide survey to obtain supplier ratings from our Operations Leaders and Supply Chain Consultants," said Erin Hough, Executive, Supply Chain at AGS.

The award was warmly received by ICONMA Co-Founder and CEO, Claudine George, and the entire leadership team.

"When we started ICONMA almost 20 years ago, we couldn't imagine the great partnerships we would build along the way. Allegis is one of our great partners, and we are honored to be an AGS Strategic Partner for another year," said George.

About ICONMA

ICONMA is a Global Information Consulting Management firm providing Professional Staffing Services & Project-Based Solutions for organizations in a broad range of industries. A certified woman-owned company celebrating 20 years of business in 2020, ICONMA's Corporate Headquarters is based in Troy, Michigan with locations throughout the United States, Canada, and India.

Connect with ICONMA on social media

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US can maintain Israel's military edge while helping the UAE, the Arab world's second-largest economy and regional power, said senior White House adviser Jared Kushner upon arriving in Abu Dhabi from Tel Aviv on the first direct commercial flight.

According to him, Kushner said Palestinians should not be stuck in the past, Reuters reported.

They have to come to the table. Peace will be ready for them, an opportunity will be ready for them as soon as they are ready to embrace it, said Kushner, part of the US delegation that accompanied Israeli officials on the first official Israeli flight from Tel Aviv to the UAE.

Kushner and National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien lead the US delegation. The Israeli team is led by O'Brien's colleague Meir Ben-Shabbat.

During the visit, Israel and the United Arab Emirates will discuss issues of economic, scientific, trade, and cultural cooperation. Direct flights between the two countries will also be on the agenda, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman told al Arabiya TV after landing in Abu Dhabi.

Israeli officials hope the two-day trip will set the date for the signing ceremony for the normalization agreement in Washington, possibly as early as September.
Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff, blamed the stalled negotiations on the second coronavirus relief package on a "fantasy objection" from Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Meadows said Pelosi would not explain what her version of a coronavirus relief package would fund.

In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Meadows attacked Pelosi for her unwillingness to come down from the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package demand they have.

In a report from The Hill, he claimed the Speaker would "rather have nothing" than a stimulus package.

Some observers even said the proposal was "laden with items not related to economic relief," said a report from Deadline.

According to Meadows, when he had a conversation with Pelosi, the Speaker could neither tell the American people nor him, what is in the $2.2 trillion counter offer.

He said when he asked Pelosi during a phone call what the proposed value will represent, Pelosi answered with: "I'm not going to tell you. Let me fill in the blanks."

For him, it was not a "proper negotiation," and it was not something that U.S. citizens can accept as a reason for the relief package's price tag.

Meadows said the problem with the Democrats' offer was that Pelosi puts forth a number, suggested she came down, but she's willing to turn down $1.3 trillion. This is despite the funds going to the American people, he said.

Pelosi and Democrats Defend Own Offer

Pelosi and House Democrats also noted that their offer is lower than what they originally planned for the second stimulus, the $3.4 trillion HEROES Act.

A representative of the Speaker then called Meadows' comments misleading. They contested Meadows himself did not want to break down the costs of his offer during the Thursday phone call.

The representative also said the call's point was to find out if the Republicans have budged from their offer.

Pelosi addressed the conversation during a press conference on Thursday. She told reporters at the time that Democrats will not be making any more concessions as they've already lowered their offer by over a trillion dollars.

She added that they have been adamant that they are willing to meet the Republican offer halfway.

"That would be $2.2 trillion," she said. Until the other negotiators are ready to do that, they'll be ready to discuss and negotiate specifics.

Pelosi also said she did not get the impression that White House negotiators will be willing to meet in the middle, based on Meadows' call.

"Why should there be a bill that has far less than what the public needs? We have that responsibility, and they're just going to have to come up with more money," she added.

Meadows said Pelosi Was Inflexible

Meadows again countered this by saying the Speaker had been "very clear" and characterized her as inflexible. "When she said $2.2 trillion, she said, 'Don't do anything at all,'" Meadows said.

According to Politico, President Donald Trump has said Friday that he's willing to sign a $1.3 trillion relief bill. This is $300 billion more than the original White House offer of $1 trillion.

The White House offer worth $1.3 trillion for the aid package will include enhanced unemployment insurance and help for small businesses, said Fox Business.

It will also include funding for schools, childcare, and hospitals "at levels Pelosi will agree with."

Check these out!

Trump Ready to Act on Stimulus Checks, Meadows Reveals

Next Stimulus Payment: White House Keeps on Negotiating, but Democrats Continue to Disagree

Important Things You Need to Know About the Next Stimulus
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during his press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo, Friday. / AFP-Yonhap



As Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announces his plans to resign over health problems, attention turns to who could succeed the country's longest-ruling premier, with no consensus yet clear on a candidate.



Here are some of the potential contenders:





Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso / AFP-Yonhap



Taro Aso, gaffe-prone finance minister



In his dual role as finance minister and deputy prime minister, 79-year-old Taro Aso is a Liberal Democratic Party old-timer.



A close Abe ally, Aso was prime minister from 2008-09 and has been deputy prime minister and finance minister since 2012.



Aso stepped down as premier after his ruling LDP was booted from office in a historic defeat in 2009, and has long been rumored to nurse hopes of another chance at the top office.



His long political career has been punctuated by repeated gaffes, including comments that the elderly should "hurry up and die" instead of costing the government money, and that Tokyo could learn from Nazi Germany when it comes to constitutional reform.



But he has weathered the multiple furors over his comments, and leads a major faction in the LDP.



He backed a massive stimulus program in the face of the 2008 global financial crisis, but later shifted to stressing the importance of reducing the country's snowballing debt.





Japan's former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba / AFP -Yonhap



Shigeru Ishiba, popular ex-defense minister



Former defense minister Shigeru Ishiba is considered a military geek but is also a self-confessed fan of 1970s pop music.



The 63-year-old former banker is the scion of a political family and seen as a strong orator with significant experience  he entered parliament at just 29.



Like Abe, Ishiba is a defense hawk who wants to strengthen the role of the country's Self-Defense Forces in the pacifist constitution, and he has even mused about whether Japan should reconsider its policy forbidding nuclear weapons on its soil.



He has served in several cabinet posts and is a popular choice to succeed Abe among the public.

Ishiba is less favored by his fellow ruling party lawmakers, partly because he once left the LDP.









He was the sole challenger to Abe in the party's 2018 leadership contest and was heavily defeated.





Japan's Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga / AFP-Yonhap
One person has been shot dead as protesters from rival groups clashed late into Saturday night (local time) in the US city of Portland, after a pro-Trump cavalcade drove through the city inciting havoc.

Police said the violence took place in the downtown area, forcing them to make multiple arrests.

A political rally is caravanning throughout downtown Portland. There have been some instances of violence between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators, Portland police said on Twitter. Officers have intervened and in some cases made arrests.

A local NBC affiliate quoted police saying one person had died in a shooting. No details about the identity of the deceased were provided.

One person has reportedly been killed in at least one shooting incident in Portland as a large caravan of Trump supporters drove through the city. Source: AP

I can confirm a shooting, one person deceased, in the area of SW 3rd and Alder, and that we are in the early stages of a homicide investigation, a police representative was quoted as saying.

Videos posted to social media show nasty clashes with Trump supporters using mace spray and paintball guns against opponents.

Multimedia Journalist Cory Elia shared a video on Twitter that shows several utes flying USA and Trump 2020 election flags driving through protesters and spraying them with what he described as mace.

Violent clashes were filmed in Portland when Trump supporters drove trucks into demonstrators and sprayed mace into the crowd. Source: Cory Elia

The journalist also captured one truck firing projectiles into crowds of counter protesters, saying one hit him in the mouth.

This truck start [sic] shooting at counter-protesters and then came under attack. I got shot right in the corner of my mouth by a projectile, he wrote, along with a video of the incident.

New York Times journalist Mike Baker filmed Trump supporters firing pepper spray and paintballs at close range into crowds.

At one point demonstrators attempted to block the caravan of vehicles, some throwing eggs in retaliation.

The violent clashes were filmed in downtown Portland where rallies against police brutality have continued for more than three months since the death of George Floyd on May 25, and escalated into larger protests against federal police violence.

Story continues

Driving through crowds and macing out of vehicles at SW 4th and Washington. pic.twitter.com/dCNJxYlkYn  Cory Elia (@TheRealCoryElia) August 30, 2020

Portland police said they made arrests after a union building was set on fire.

As the caravan of Trump supporters continued to move through the city, other demonstrators reported unverified shootings with victims reportedly injured.

A shooting just occurred on Second and Morrison St. Witnesses tell me they heard two shots, and one victim on the ground, Portland Independent Documentarians tweeted.

The Daily Beast reported at least 600 vehicles were involved in the caravan of Trump supporters, with organisers of the event describing it as a concealed carry event, despite several people displaying weapons.

Clashes. Trump people unload paintballs and pepper spray. They shot me too. pic.twitter.com/PwU5pZMLnV  Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) August 30, 2020

Trump plans visit to Wisconsin

Ongoing protests have been seen in Washington DC over the weekend as well as in Wisconsin following the latest police shooting of a black man.

About 1000 people have joined a mile-long march in Kenosha, Wisconsin, chanting "Black Lives Matter" and "No justice, no peace" as US President Donald Trump announced plans to visit the city next week.

Jacob Blake Sr, father of the 29-year-old black man whose shooting by a white police officer on Sunday sparked the unrest, called on protesters to refrain from looting and vandalism, which had overshadowed peaceful protests before a tense calm set in the past three nights.

"If we tear it up we have nothing," he told a park gathering in support of his son, Jacob Blake Jr.

"Stop it. Show 'em for one night we don't have to tear up nothing."

The shooting of Mr Blake, in front of three of his children, turned the mostly white city of 100,000 people south of Milwaukee into the latest flashpoint in a summer of US-wide demonstrations against police brutality and racism.

Trump will visit Kenosha on Tuesday (local tine) to meet law enforcement officials and assess damage in the city, a White House official said.

Mr Blake survived but was left badly wounded and paralysed from the waist down. Anger at his seemingly gratuitous shooting, which saw him shot seven times in the back, led to clashed between protesters and police.

On Tuesday night (local time), a white teenager with a semi-automatic rifle shot three demonstrators, and two of them died.

The 17-year-old suspect, Kyle Rittenhouse, was arrested on Wednesday near his Illinois home close to the Wisconsin border. He will be extradited to face charges including first-degree intentional homicide. His lawyers say he will argue self-defence.

A protester carries a US flag upside down, a sign of distress, next to a burning building in Minneapolis on May 28. Source: AP

Since midweek, the unrest has subsided in Kenosha. By Friday (local time), more than 1000 National Guard soldiers were on the ground.

On Saturday, people painted messages of unity on boards protecting storefronts after many businesses were burned to the ground in arson attacks and vandalism.

Residents hoped calm would hold for a fourth night as protesters, some wearing "Justice for Jacob" masks, spoke about the need for racial justice.

with Reuters

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A recent Military Times poll shows President Trump losing support among active-duty service members, trailing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by nearly 4 percentage points.

About 41 percent of active-duty troops expressed support for the former vice president while 37 percent said they supported Trump, according to the poll conducted in partnership with the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University.

In contrast, an October 2016 poll showed Trump leading then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by roughly 20 points among military voters.

The recent poll also showed Trumps approval rating has dropped among active service members since 2016: About 38 percent had a favorable viewing of the president in the poll conducted from July 27 to Aug. 10, compared to 46.1 percent in a 2016 poll.

Roughly 50 percent of respondents held an unfavorable view of the president in the most recent poll taken ahead of the Republican National Convention.

Trump has long claimed he is popular among military members as a result of big defense budget increases and promises to drawn down troops from overseas conflict zones.

Its fair to say that Trump is not as popular as Republican nominees have been in the past among this group, former George W. Bush White House adviser Peter Feaver told the Military Times.

The bottom line is that in 2020, Trump cant be claiming to have overwhelming support in the military, said Feaver, who is now a political science professor at Duke University.

The poll is based on online responses from 1,018 active-duty troops chosen from Military Times subscribers and has a margin of error of less than 2 percentage points.

More from National Review
The local food program, Phantom Gourmet, has returned to television following a two-month hiatus after its CEO Dave Andelman resigned amidst backlash for social media posts he made mocking Black Lives Matter protests in June.

On Saturday, the Phantom Gourmet Facebook page teased a video clip of a Boston restaurant and wrote See this and a lot more today at 10 & 11am on myTV38. Neither MyTV38/WBZ, which is a local CBS affiliate, or Phantom Gourmet have provided further details of the shows return.

Family Affair's chicken and waffles Over 50 delicious varieties of chicken and waffles. See this and a lot more today at 10 & 11am on myTV38. Posted by Phantom Gourmet on Saturday, August 29, 2020

CEO Dave Andelman resigned in June after he posted and later apologized for social media posts mocking Black Lives Matter protests. The resignation was announced on the Phantom Gourmet Facebook page.

Effective immediately, Dave Andelman will step down as CEO of Phantom Gourmet, Inc, the company he founded in 1993 and he will no longer appear on episodes of the Phantom Gourmet television show, the statement said. In addition, he will not be involved in any day to day operations and he will relinquish ownership in the company. Dave Andelman will also resign from the Mendon Twin Drive-In.

DAVE ANDELMAN RESIGNS AS CEO OF PHANTOM GOURMET, INC Effective immediately, Dave Andelman will step down as CEO of... Posted by Phantom Gourmet on Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Dave Andelman was co-owner of the Mendon Twin Drive-In.

The statement announced Daves brother, Dan Andelman, the host of the television show, would take over as CEO.

Im proud of the company my brother Dave helped build and for all our show has done on behalf of local restaurants and employees in the foodservice industry, especially during this challenging time, Dan Andelman said. But Daves recent social media statements made it clear that he cannot stay in a leadership role or any role with this company. We are passionate about food and restaurants, but we also vow to dedicate ourselves to advancing the causes of diversity, social justice, and equality. We plan to listen, learn, and act, while we also continue to entertain and inform our loyal food and fun-loving fans.

Phantom Gourmet announced the show would do the following:

Prioritize finding and promoting local black-owned restaurants and foodservice companies owned and operated by minorities and people of color

Provide diversity and inclusion training for all employees of Phantom Gourmet, Inc

Further educate all employees on Black Lives Matter and systemic racism

Complete a stem to stern review of company policies and corporate culture to make sure controls are in place so nothing like this ever happens again

In addition to Dave Andelmans resignation, WBZ announced the show would be on hiatus pending a review.

WBZ-TV is committed to our community, by working together, listening to one another, and supporting each other. After careful consideration, we have decided to place Phantom Gourmet on hiatus pending further review, WBZ General Manager Mark Lund said in a statement.

Multiple people reached out to WBZ to express their concerns over Andelmans social media posts. Others commented on the Mendon Twin Drive-In Facebook page stating they will no longer give the drive-in their business.

Before making his personal Facebook private, posts from Dave Andelman mocked the Black Lives Matter protests in wake of the killing of George Floyd.

One of Dave Andelmans posts read, Excited to open Chaz (formerly Seattle) Drive-in: Americas Most Looted Drive-In.

Another read, We dont take a knee here. This is America, not Game of Thrones. Your desperate need for approval, from those who hate cops and country regardless, is pathetic. Have a great day!

Andelman also suggested Back Bay restaurants offer touchless, curbside looting.

After the posts had caught the attentional of the general public, Andelman issued an apology on the Phantom Gourmet Facebook page.

I want to apologize. I maintain my own Facebook Page, he wrote. I made comments on that page that were inappropriate, hurtful, and wrong regarding the Boston protests. I support everyones right to free speech and free assembly. I, too, desire racial and social justice. My record of philanthropy and business reflects this.

Andelman continued to say, I apologize. I feel terrible. We all make mistakes. And I ask for your forgiveness.

I want to apologize. I maintain my own Facebook Page. I made comments on that page that were inappropriate, hurtful,... Posted by Phantom Gourmet on Saturday, June 13, 2020

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Police searching for a diplomat who went missing nearly four months ago have found a body.

Richard Morris, 52, set off jogging from his home in Bentley, near Farnham, Hampshire, at 10.30am on 6 May.

The former ambassador to Nepal was last seen running in Islington Road in nearby Alton.

After weeks of searching and appeals for information, officers have announced the discovery of a body in Alice Holt Forest, part of the South Downs national park near Farnham.

The death is not being treated as suspicious, police said.

Recommended Police appeal for dash cam video after disappearance of UK ambassador

Specialist police officers combed through the forest in the days after Mr Morriss disappearance, and appealed to drivers for dashcam footage.

Hampshire Constabulary said: Officers investigating the disappearance of Richard Morris from Bentley have today found a body in Alice Holt Forest.

Formal identification has not yet taken place, but the 52-year-olds family have been notified. They are being supported by specialist officers.

The death is not being treated as suspicious, and a file will be prepared for the coroner.

Mr Morris, who was the ambassador to Nepal between 2015 and November last year, accompanied the Duke of Sussex during his tour of the country in 2016.

Before that he was head of the Pacific department in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and held senior diplomatic posts, including in Australia and Mexico.

Mr Morris's body was found in Alice Holt Forest (Google Maps)

Reporting by PA
Cyble, online cyber risk intelligence firm, has claimed that hackers targeted Vjay Shekhar Sharma-led Paytm Mall recently. The intelligence firm added that a cyber group demanded ransom after gaining unrestricted access to the entire databases of Paytm Mall.

However, the online shopping platform has shrugged off all these claims, news agency IANS reported. A Paytm Mall spokesperson told it that claims are "absolutely false...we would like to add that all users, as well as company data, are completely safe and secure".

Cyble also said that a cybercrime group with the alias "John Wick" was able to upload a backdoor/adminer on Paytm Mall app/website. The group "John Wick" has other aliases such as "South Korea" or "HCKINDIA".

The Paytm Mall spokesperson said the company investigated the claims of possible cyber attack and data breach but found nothing.

On the contrary, Cyble's sources forwarded them a message where the perpetrators claimed they were receiving the ransom payment from Paytm Mall. Cyble added that it could not confirm if the ransom was actually paid. Cyble added the data breach might have affected all accounts and related information at Paytm Mall.

The perpetrator claimed that the hack happened due to an insider at Paytm mall, though these claims are unverified.

According to Cyble, hackers usually leak data when their demand is not met. "We invest heavily in our data security, as you would expect. We also have a Bug Bounty programme, under which we reward responsible disclosure of any security risks. We extensively work with the security research community and safely resolve security anomalies," the Paytm Mall spokesperson said.

Last year also, the Paytm group had faced a "fraud" allegedly caused by its employees.

Also read: Rebooting Economy XXIII: What stops India from taking care of its crisis-hit workers?

Also read: India Q1 GDP data preview: Economy to shrink 16-25%
In a major provocative move amid the border tension with India, the Chinese Army tried to encroach and unilaterally change the status quo on the southern bank of Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh. At least 500 Chinese soldiers gathered in Thakung area of Pangong with tanks.

However, the Indian Army was already ready and China had to kneel before the might of the Indian soldiers. 500 Chinese soldiers were forced to retreat with their tanks. The attempt was thwarted by the Indian troops, the Army said on Monday. This comes more than two and a half months after the Galwan Valley clashes.

Intelligence agencies believe that China does not intend to retreat from Pangong area. Therefore, it is trying to strengthen his military preparedness while pretending to have talks. In view of this, the Indian Army and Air Force have also stepped up their preparations. But it seems that not by dialogue, China will improve by war and it is important to teach China a bigger lesson than Galwan.

The Army spokesperson said troops from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements on the ongoing standoff in eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo on the night of August 29-30.

"On the night of 29/30 August 2020, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo," Col Anand said in a statement.

"Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on the ground," the Army spokesperson said. He said the Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquillity through dialogue but is also equally determined to protect India's territorial integrity.

The Chinese Army had infiltrated the western bank of Pangang Lake in May and captured the area up to Finger 4. From here goes the way of Chushul which is very important for the Indian Army. Chushul leads the way to villages like Demchauk, Koil, Hanley, where the Chinese army often tries to infiltrate. Chushul has an airstrip of the Indian Air Force and is an important headquarters of the Army. The importance of the eastern shore is also more because there are many wide routes to get to Tibet from where tanks or armoured vehicles can also be taken.

In Galwan, the brave Indian soldiers thwarted the plot of China to which the entire world was a witness yet China is not ready to improve. After the bitter defeat in Galwan, now China tried to infiltrate into the Pangong Lake area, but Indian troops are wary of every move of China. Therefore, China's attempt to infiltrate into Pangong failed. On the one hand, the trickster is holding a flag meeting of brigade commander level in Chushul on China border dispute.

It is the first major incident involving the troops of the two countries after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. China also suffered casualties but it is yet to make the details public but according to an American intelligence report it was 35.

India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks in the last two-and-half months but no significant headway has been made for a resolution to the border row in eastern Ladakh.

The two sides began a process of disengagement on July 6, a day after a telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in eastern Ladakh. However, the process has not moved forward since mid-July.

The PLA has pulled back from Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang and a couple of other areas.

At the five rounds of Corps commander-level talks, the Indian side has been insisting on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to April.

The face-off began on May 5 following violent clashes between the two armies in the Pangong lake area. The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in North Sikkim on May 9.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC). It is to be noted that the government has given the armed forces 'full freedom' to give a 'befitting' response to any Chinese misadventure along the LAC.

The Army sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border following the deadly clashes. The IAF has also moved air defence systems as well as a sizeable number of its frontline combat jets and attack helicopters to several key airbases.
South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday said he would send special envoys to Zimbabwe within "days" in a second attempt to resolve an ongoing crisis in the country's northern neighbour.

Three veteran South African politicians travelled to Zimbabwe in early August after authorities banned anti-government demonstrations and arrested several protesters.

The delegation did not meet opposition parties and was widely criticised for failing to confront President Emmerson Mnangagwa about his administration's mounting crackdown on dissent.

Zimbabwe's government has vehemently denied that a crisis is unfolding within its borders.

"The (ANC) secretary general will be finalising the delegation that will be going to Zimbabwe in days to go and meet with the Zimbabwe governing party," Ramaphosa told reporters during a virtual press conference on Monday.

"When they get there they should get the opportunity of meeting other stakeholders in Zimbabwe," he added.

"Clearly it is important that we get as broad a view of what is happening in Zimbabwe as we possibly can."

Mnangagwa has grown increasingly hostile towards critics since he took over from his despotic predecessor Robert Mugabe, ousted by a coup in 2017.

The southern African country has been crippled by decades of mismanagement, and many Zimbabweans complain that the situation has grown worse under Mnangagwa.

In July he vowed to "flush out" the "bad apples" attempting to "divide our people" -- stoking concern among social activists and opposition figures already targeted by the government.

Mnangagwa's harsh rhetoric and a recent spate of high-profile arrests have sparked outrage on social media, with the hashtag #ZimbabweanLivesMatter trending worldwide.

The first South African delegation, sent to Zimbabwe on August 10, met only with Mnangagwa.

No statement was issued after the visit and Ramaphosa -- who is also the current chairman of the African Union -- has faced pressure to take a more decisive stance.

South Africa's newly minted opposition party ActionSA at the weekend called for tougher action against Harare.

"This crisis impacts our country deeply, and it is now time for a new approach," ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba, former mayor of Johannesburg, said Saturday.

"It is time for hard diplomacy. We must adopt the strongest and harshest policies against an oppressive government, and not punish the people of Zimbabwe."

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Ajax midfielder Donny van de Beek has delayed his arrival to the Holland national team camp in order to complete his Manchester United medical.

Van de Beek is poised to join United for 40million and sign a five-year contract.

The 23-year-old will receive a significant increase on his current 30,000-per-week wages.

Ajax midfielder Donny van de Beek has delayed his arrival at the Holland national team camp

Van de Beek is in the Holland squad for their Nations League games at home to Poland and Italy, but will link up with the squad later than was initially planned.

His father, Andre van de Beek, described the impending transfer as 'a dream come true'.

As reported by Omroep Gelderland, he said: 'This is a dream come true. It's the perfect moment for him to make this step to such a beautiful club. Many clubs were interested, but Donny took this decision himself.'

Talking from their home village of Nijkerkerveen, Andre said his phone has not stopped since news of the transfer broke. He added: 'Its a proud village.'

Negotiations over a deal for van de Beek accelerated on Sunday after United stepped up their interest.

Van de Beek is instead set to complete his medical ahead of his move to Manchester United

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer helped to persuade the 23-year-old to make the switch to Old Trafford

Van de Beek will add further creativity to a United side that already contains Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandes.

Tottenham reportedly made a last-ditch attempt to sign Van de Beek, but he was eager to join United after being convinced by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

A product of Ajax's famous academy, van de Beek has made 175 appearances for the Dutch club, scoring 41 goals.

He won the Eredivisie and the Dutch Cup in the 2018-19 campaign, and was part of the Ajax side that was beaten by United in the 2017 Europa League final.
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Two recent studies were unable to rule out that H1N1 ("swine flu") vaccination (Pandemrix) and seasonal influenza vaccination given to pregnant women might be associated with autism-spectrum disorder in the offspring. Now, a large study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, refutes any such association.

Autism spectrum disorder is a severe neurodevelopmental childhood disorder characterized by impaired communication, lack of social skills and repetitive behavior. The disease has its onset in childhood.

While some studies indicate that influenza vaccination during pregnancy protects against morbidity in both the woman and her offspring, the long-term risks of H1N1 vaccination during fetal life have not been examined in detail. However two recent studies were unable to rule out that offspring to women undergoing influenza or H1N1 influenza vaccination during pregnancy, and especially during the first trimester, were at increased risk of autism-spectrum disorder.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet, linked vaccination data in pregnant women from seven Swedish healthcare regions in 2009-2010 to the Swedish Medical Birth Register and the Swedish National Patient Register to identify autism-spectrum disorder in the offspring.

The importance of vaccination research

Of the 39,726 vaccine-exposed children, 394 (cumulative incidence, 1.0%) had a diagnosis of autism-spectrum disorder during the six-year follow-up compared with 330 (1.1%) among 29,293 unexposed children. Adjusting for potential confounders, H1N1 vaccine exposure during fetal life was not associated with a later childhood diagnosis of autism-spectrum disorder (adjusted hazard ratio=0.95; 95%CI=0.81-1.12). Results were similar for vaccinations in the first pregnancy trimester.

"Our null findings are important since some people have suspected that vaccinations could cause autism, and the anti-vaccine movement seems to be growing in the Western world," says lead author, Professor Jonas F Ludvigsson, pediatrician at Orebro University Hospital and professor at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet. "H1N1 vaccination has previously been linked to an increased risk of narcolepsy in young people, but vaccinating pregnant women does not seem to influence the risk of autism-spectrum disorder in the offspring,"

He continues: "Vaccination research has never been more important. Anticipating a vaccine against COVID-19, millions of pregnant women are likely to be offered such a vaccination. While our research group did not study COVID-19 vaccine effects, our research on H1N1 vaccination adds to the current knowledge about vaccines, pregnancy and offspring disease in general."

Adjusted for other factors

The researchers adjusted their analyses for such confounders as maternal smoking, height-weight, maternal age and comorbidity in order to minimize the influence of other factors that might explain any association between vaccination and autism.

"Without taking such factors into consideration, so-called confounding may create spurious associations that do not reflect a true association," adds co-author, Ass. Prof. Bjorn Pasternak, Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet (Solna).

Explore further No link between flu vaccine in pregnancy and later health problems in children
This month marks the seventh anniversary of the deadly chemical weapons attack on Ghouta, Syria. On August 21, 2013, in the Damascus suburbs, the regime of Bashar al-Assad gassed more than 1,400 Syrians, many of them children, with the chemical agent known as sarin.

In memory of the victims of that brutality, the United States announced six sanctions against the Assad regimes military, government, and financial supporters.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Assads henchman, Yasser Ibrahim, under Executive Order 13894 for his efforts to obstruct a political solution to the Syrian conflict. Using his networks across the Middle East and beyond, Ibrahim has cut corrupt deals that enrich Assad, while Syrians are dying from a lack of food and medicine.

The U.S. has also designated, pursuant to Executive Order 13894, leadership of several Syrian military units for their efforts to prevent a ceasefire in Syria. In the National Defense Forces the U.S. has designated commander Fadi Saqr. In the 4th Division, 42nd Brigade commander, Brigadier General Ghaith Dalah was also designated. Finally, in the Tiger Forces the U.S. has designated the Haider Regiment commander, Samer Ismail.

These senior officials lead the same Syrian military that has killed children with barrel bombs and used chemicals weapons against communities like Ghouta, said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. They have shattered the social contract between citizens and the military sworn to protect them. Since June 2020, the United States has designated over 55 individuals who have perpetuated Assads brutal policies.

These new sanctions memorialize the victims of Assads chemical weapons attack on Ghouta seven years ago, said Secretary Pompeo on Twitter. We will not stop pressing for accountability and a peaceful solution to the Syrian conflict.
People who did not have a large heart rate response to a stress task surprised researchers later -- after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic -- when they showed more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder related to the crisis than others who also did the stress task and COVID-19 stress ratings.

Researchers had anticipated that the reverse would be true -- that those with higher heart rate reactions to the stress task would experience more distress related to COVID-19. Previous work shows individuals with a PTSD have higher responses to stress. But very few studies have examined heart rate responses to acute stress before the onset of a traumatic event, researchers said.

"The study shows that diminished biological arousal -- how the body responds when it is exposed to something startling or stressful -- before a global pandemic may predict PTSD symptoms related to the event," said principal investigator Annie T. Ginty, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University.

The biological reactions were measured by blood pressure and heart rate, said co-author Danielle Young, Psy.D., research coordinator in the Baylor Behavioral Medicine Lab.

The study, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, grew out of an ongoing study of undergraduate students at Baylor University.

"The research also showed that some college students were experiencing distress related to the pandemic in its earliest stages, even when social distancing was just beginning," Ginty said.

In the study's first phase, with 120 participants, researchers measured their resting heart rate and blood pressure before and during a standard acute psychological stress test. They asked students to do mental math, rather than writing down figures or using a calculator, and give the scorers verbal responses. In a four-minute test, they were asked to add consecutive single-digit numbers while remembering the most recent and adding it to the next number presented. They did this while being videotaped with a scorer present and looking at themselves in a mirror.

"The standard acute psychological stress task is meant to increase levels of stress by including requirements of cognitive effort, social evaluation, self-evaluation and competition," Ginty said. "The task substantially increases heart rate and feelings of stress."

The study's first phase, which ended in February 2020, was done in Central Texas. After the pandemic's onset, researchers launched a second phase between March 26 and April 5, sending participants a follow-up questionnaire about COVID-19. The participants were in 22 states after early campus closure due to COVID-19. When asked, none had tested positive for COVID-19 and 87.5 percent were living in a city/state with a "shelter in place" order.

The questionnaire included standard items used to measure PTSD symptoms of intrusion (dreaming about the event and having trouble staying asleep), hyperarousal (irritability and having trouble concentrating) and avoidance (trying not to think or talk about the event) in the seven days before they responded to the questionnaire.

The findings are in line with a previous study of soldiers, which showed that a lower response of cortisol -- the primary stress hormone -- to an acute psychological stress task before deployment predicted greater PTSD symptoms post deployment.

The present study supports growing evidence that lower biological arousal in response to psychological stress may be bad for health outcomes, particularly mental health outcomes. The findings support Ginty's previous work, which demonstrated that lower arousal to acute stress is associated with higher levels of perceived stress -- meaning that people rate their environment as more stressful.

Previous work also has shown that higher levels of biological arousal may be associated with developing PTSD symptoms. But those studies used what are considered passive tasks -- such as hearing loud bursts of noise. Lower biological responses to stress tasks that require participants to actively engage in the task may be a unique biomarker for mental health outcomes.

Ginty said that future research should aim for more comprehensive measures of biological reactivity and include a lifetime history of traumatic event exposure. However, the current study did account for childhood trauma and diagnosis of a mental health condition before the pandemic's onset.

"Since findings suggest that individuals with diminished arousal to active stress may be at greater risk for negative mental health outcomes, it could be helpful to offer preventive treatment or resources to them at the early stages of stress or trauma exposure," Ginty said.

###

*Co-researchers included the Department of Cognitive and Behavioral Science and Neuroscience Program at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, United Kingdom.
Ukraine exports over 7 mln tonnes of grain since new MY

23:05, 31.08.20 505

In particular, 4.4 million tonnes of wheat was exported, exports of maize totaled 570,000 tonnes, and those of rye were 1.2 million.
After nearly six months of only take-out and outdoor dining, New Jersey will soon allow indoor dining at restaurants again.

It wont be the same as it was in March before restaurants were ordered to stop serving to slow the spread of coronavirus. There are significant capacity restrictions and rules diners must follow when restaurants open their doors on Friday, including social distancing and masks.
After the torrential rain and high winds of Hurricane Laura pummeled Lake Charles last week, storm evacuees searching for a place to land may not be getting emergency shelter in the city of Lafayette anytime soon.

Although Lafayette is about 75 miles down the road from Lake Charles, many evacuees are now heading to Alexandria, which is about 98 miles away.

Lafayette missed the punishing blow from Hurricane Laura, but the city's leaders are wary of something deemed a "serious local security threat": protesters, according to a report from The Acadiana Advocate citing emails from Lafayette city leaders.

BUILD THE IKE DIKE: Texas leaders renew the call to build the Ike Dike after the threat from Laura

"This is a serious threat and we must handle this issue before we can care for our neighbors," Lafayette Parish Chief Administrative Officer Cydra Wingerter wrote in a Saturday email. "It goes against what we believe and how we usually respond after a disaster but it would be irresponsible to potentially put others in harm's way."

An email from Wingerter asked those involved in disaster response in the parish to "take a pause on any action to establish shelters at the time," according to the Advocate.

The recent protests in Lafayette stemmed from the deadly police shooting of Trayford Pellerin. Pellerin, 31, was shot by police officers on August 21 after a report of a man wielding a knife causing a disturbance at a convenience store, according to the Lafayette Daily Advertiser. Police say that Pellerin was holding the knife and approaching the store when officers opened fire, shooting him 11 times.

Although the protests of Pellerin's shooting have been peaceful, Lafayette city leaders said they are concerned about the possibility of tensions mounting. Protesters against police brutality marched through the streets Saturday near the General Alfred Mouton Confederate monument in downtown Lafayette, according to the Advertiser.

"We are not in a position to safeguard people displaced by Laura with this serious, local security threat," Wingerter wrote in an email, according to the Advocate. "We know that bad actors will take our hospitality and use it against us."

A spokesperson for the Lafayette Consolidated Government, Jamie Angelle, added that the situation in Lafayette wouldn't prevent giving evacuees shelter.

"I don't think this will prevent anyone from getting shelter," Angelle told the Advocate. "Will they have to go a little farther? Unfortunately, that's probably the case."

Angelle said the protests in Lafayette had been peaceful so far.

"In no way are we saying that (Saturday's) protest was dangerous or violent," Angelle told the Advocate. "It was a lawful and peaceful protest, and we certainly hope it remains that way. Just given everything that's circulating  if you look at last weekend and the event that happened on the north side  our fear is that something will happen."

alison.medley@chron.com
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden released a statement Sunday accusing President Trump of fanning the flames of hate that he said led to the Saturday night violence in Portland that resulted in one death.

As a country, we must condemn the incitement of hate and resentment that led to this deadly clash, Biden said in his statement. It is not a peaceful protest when you go out spoiling for a fight. What does President Trump think will happen when he continues to insist on fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters?

A man was shot and killed Saturday night during clashes in Portland between Black Lives Matter protesters and a caravan of Trump supporters who drove trucks through the downtown streets. The man appeared to be wearing thin blue line patches, which indicate support for police officers, and a hat with the logo for the right-wing group Patriot Prayer. Members of the caravan shot paintball guns from pickup trucks at protesters, who threw projectiles back at them.

Protests and rioting have been ongoing in Portland for more than 90 days since the police custody death of George Floyd in May.

Biden said Trump is recklessly encouraging violence, adding that he condemns violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right.

He may think that war in our streets is good for his reelection chances, but that is not presidential leadership  or even basic human compassion, Biden said. The job of a president is to lower the temperature.  The temperature in the country is higher, tensions run stronger, divisions run deeper. And all of us are less safe because Donald Trump cant do the job of the American president.

Trump responded to the reports of violence in the city by calling for the National Guard to be brought in to quell the unrest. The president also shared a video of the pro-Trump caravan that drove into Portland, calling them, GREAT PATRIOTS!

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The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing, Trump said in a Sunday tweet. The people of Portland wont put up with no safety any longer. The Mayor is a FOOL. Bring in the National Guard!

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Flames consumes both sides of a segment of Lake Berryessa during the Hennessey fire in the Spanish Flat area of Napa County on Aug. 18. (Josh Edelson / AFP/Getty Images)

This wildfire season is different. And it must be frustrating for many politicians. It certainly is for pundits. Thats because there is no one really to blame.

A cardinal rule of politics and punditry is to clearly state the problem, point out whos at fault and say what should be done about it.

But during the current wildfires, no human apparently is at fault. Its Mother Natures handiwork  mostly her lightning strikes. No mortal can turn those fire bolts off.

OK, we could prepare better for them and should.

But so far, it doesnt seem to be Pacific Gas & Electric Co.s fault. Unlike in past fire seasons, the utilitys old power equipment isnt tumbling down and igniting flammable brush or dead trees it should have cleared.

There havent been any nutty arsonists out there that we know about. Nor careless campers who left their breakfast fires smoldering. No smokers tossing lit cigarette butts from their cars.

No, this time its Mother Natures fault.

Many scientists and public officials also cite global warming, including Gov. Gavin Newsom. They may be right. But lightning was around long before we started burning fossil fuel.

Im not in denial about climate change, Newsom told reporters last week. If you dont believe in climate change, come to the state of California and we will educate you.

Not just wildfires  droughts and floods. Snowpack [diminishing] and the like. I could go on.

Newsoms predecessor, four-term Gov. Jerry Brown, was a fatalist about wildfires.

While inspecting devastation from Butte Countys cataclysmic Camp fire in 2018, Brown was asked by a reporter, How do we curb these fires?

You know, Brown answered, weve had fires for long before the Europeans showed up here. And our Indigenous people had a different way of living with nature. For 10,000 years, there were never more than 300,000 [people in California]. Now we have 40 million and we have a totally different situation.

So its not one thing. Its people. Its how people live, its where they live and its the changing climate. And the truth is  were going to have more difficulties," he said. "Things are not going to get better. Theyre going to get more challenging because of the continuing alternation in the climate  lack of moisture, early snowmelt and faster winds, the whole thing.

Story continues

Unquestionably we need to slow global warming. But to do that we need a U.S. president who doesnt think climate change is a socialist hoax.

Whatever we Californians and all Americans do to wean ourselves off fossil fuel, however, it isnt going to stop wildfires for the foreseeable future.

Stephen J. Pyne, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University who specializes in environmental history, put it this way in a recent Times opinion piece:

Until we began binge-burning fossil fuels, we had managed to live with fire. We need to relearn how to coexist with it because it isnt going away  it cant. Unlike for COVID-19, no fire vaccine is possible.

At this point in our fire-powered warming world, even as we ratchet down fossil fuel burning, landscape fires will likely ratchet up. We can ready ourselves to truly manage fire or scramble in blustering incredulity," he wrote. "But the fires are coming.

The August lightning strikes, however, were freakish and relatively rare.

Lightning like that doesnt happen every season. In one three-day span, there were 12,000 lightning strikes in California  an average of 167 an hour.

Thats an unusual amount of lightning, says Nick Schuler, deputy chief at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Other big lightning bursts came in 2008 and 1987, Schuler says. But this years was bigger than both of those. And this summer, the vegetation is especially flammable because of an abnormally dry winter.

President Trump habitually accuses California Democrats of failing to clear the forests of dead trees and brush that fuel fires. Newsom has done a terrible job of forest management, the Republican president claims.

Thats typical Trump. The federal government owns and manages 57% of Californias 33 million acres of forests. The state owns only 2.2% and local governments less than 1%. Private landowners have about 40%. The feds should clean up their own mess.

No argument, California governments and private landowners all have been irresponsibly tardy in clearing out fire-fueling brush and dead timber. The state government has been trying to catch up during the last three years. It has cleaned up 90,000 acres. Thats a good start, but its just a small stick of kindling compared with whats out there ready to burn.

Forest cleaning should be a top state priority and it apparently is. There are plans to annually reduce fire fuel on 1 million acres in partnership with the federal government.

Newsom, Brown and legislators deserve credit for recently hopping to it on firefighting and prevention.

Theyve purchased 12 twin-engine Black Hawk helicopters retrofitted for firefighting, replacing old Vietnam War-era single-engine Huey birds. The Black Hawks fly faster and can dump more water.

Cal Fire has added 13 new fire engines and 858 more firefighters  plus a lot of new technology such as wildfire alert cameras.

Since Newsom took office, the state has spent about $500 million beefing up Cal Fire.

As of Friday, 14,600 firefighters  state, local and federal  using 2,400 fire engines and more than 100 aircraft were battling more than two dozen major blazes.

The states long-term solution: Keep doing what its doing  only much more of it.
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev sent a congratulatory letter to President of the Slovak Republic, Zuzana ?aputova.

"Dear Madame President,

I wholeheartedly congratulate you and your people on my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan on the occasion of the national holiday of the Slovak Republic  the Constitution Day.

I believe that the friendly and cooperative relations between our countries will further develop and expand for the sake of interests of our peoples.

On this pleasant day, I wish you good health, success in your work, and everlasting peace and prosperity to the friendly people of Slovakia," the letter said.
Even outdoor seating feels like a Band-Aid on an amputation, and were being asked to be thankful for it, she said. To Thomas, the decision to allow restaurants to open before bars seems flippant, as do the protocols for when COVID-19 is found at an establishment. She questions how much scientific evidence is behind them, despite Lightfoots assurances that her decisions are based on recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
WARREN, MI -- U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, led a posse of 30 leather-clad bikers on the first leg of a week-long road trip across Michigan to promote his reelection campaign.

Statewide motorcycle tours are an annual tradition for Peters, who said hes been driving motorbikes since the age of 11 during a kickoff event in Warren Monday. The tours are usually taxpayer-funded events allowing Peters to meet constituents and discuss legislative priorities during the Senates summer recess, but this years 1,000-mile ride was organized by Peters reelection campaign as he seeks a second term in the U.S. Senate this November.

Peters presented himself as a results-oriented bipartisan lawmaker while addressing supporters and fellow motorcycle enthusiasts who accompanied him in a caravan of rumbling engines. Republican challenger John James has tried to paint a different image of Peters, calling him an invisible senator who hasnt accomplished much throughout his political career.

In a short stump speech at the UAW Region 1 headquarters in Warren, Peters touted his work to pass nine bills through the Senate as a member of the minority party. Peters was recently recognized as one of the most bipartisan senators in Congress by the Lugar Center and McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.

Im just a freshman. Im in my first term; Im a new guy in the Senate and I was ranked the fourth most effective Democratic senator, Peters said. In this session of Congress, I have passed more legislation through the US. Senate than any other senator, either Democratic or Republican. Thats what folks in Michigan want, we want people who roll up our sleeves and get to work. Thats who we are as Michiganders and thats what I do.

Each of the stops on Peters road trip is meant to highlight a specific issue hes been working on in Congress. Peters was scheduled to visit UA Local 85 to meet with union pipefitters Monday afternoon to discuss a bill signed by President Donald Trump in March that helps veterans access apprenticeship programs.

Other stops planned in the Upper Penninsula and West Michigan this week will focus on efforts to prevent shoreline erosion and help businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Peters said ensuring small businesses survive is essential to getting the economy up and running after the country experienced a recession over the summer.

The Senate remains in recess until after Labor Day. The August legislative session ended without any agreement on a new COVID-19 relief bill, something Peters said hes eager to see resolved as soon as possible.

Peters criticized the Trump administrations response to the coronavirus, saying the president was very slow to help states obtain testing materials and personal protective equipment. Peters is the ranking Democrat on a committee responsible for providing oversight to FEMA.

His appraisal contrasts with an assessment by Vice President Mike Pence, who touted a seamless partnership with governors during a campaign rally in Traverse City Friday.

Clearly that partnership wasnt there at the beginning, which is most important, Peters said Monday. I worked with the state of Michigan to find personal protective equipment wherever we could find it because you did not have a coordinated national response as it was necessary. We all remember the stories; governors were competing with each other in order to buy personal protection equipment. It was whoever could outbid another state. That is ridiculous.

Peters said the COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed the need to improve Americas ability to manufacture critical drugs. His office released a study last year that found 80% of the active ingredients in prescription drugs sold in the U.S. come from foreign countries, primarily China and India.

We need to strengthen our supply base for critical medicines and medical equipment, Peters said. It takes time to make that happen, but theres no question now; weve got to make sure were taking back production of critical drugs and medical supplies and drugs from China and other countries.

Royal Oak postal worker John Dick was among a handful of speakers who introduced Peters at the UAW hall in Warren Monday. He thanked Peters for opening an investigation into mail delays and other issues reported by union letter carriers after U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy implemented a series of operational changes designed to cut costs and improve efficiency in the U.S. Postal Service.

Dick said Peters will ensure delays are resolved so people can receive important packages like medicine and absentee ballots. Peters said the Trump administration is to blame for issues reported by USPS employees.

Were not going to let this administration tear down the postal service, Peters said. Were going to build you up and make sure you can continue to provide that great service to Americans.

As Peters was speaking in Warren, the Michigan Republican Party announced it filed an ethics complaint regarding his 2019 motorcycle tour. The complaint alleges Peters violated Senate rules by using the taxpayer-funded event to film promotional materials that ended up in campaign ads.

The Peters campaign provided documents that show a motorcycle photoshoot was arranged last summer using campaign resources. The campaign said promotional materials were produced by the campaign separately from 2019 motorcycle tour.

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Laura Nirider is the attorney for Brendan Dassey. Click here for more of OnMilwaukee's coverage of the Netflix documentary, "Making A Murderer."

Thirteen years ago this week, Manitowoc special education student Brendan Dassey was convicted of participating in the murder of Teresa Halbach based on a confession now widely acknowledged to be false. Brendan was 16 years old and in the tenth grade when he gave that confession; today, hes 30. And he remains behind bars, serving a life term.

As one of Brendans longtime lawyers, that last sentence is pretty hard for me to write  although not as hard as it is for Brendan to live. Its been known for years that forensic evidence has disproven his confession. After being told that providing information would help him avoid charges, Brendan haltingly described a bloody attack on Ms. Halbach that supposedly happened in his uncles bedroom. Despite being scoured from top to bottom, however, that bedroom bore no trace of blood or DNA from either Brendan or Teresa Halbach. This type of forensic evidence has led to exonerations in many other cases around the country. But Brendan still waits behind bars.

Its also been apparent for years that Brendan was simply guessing during his interrogation. When asked to describe how Ms. Halbach was killed, he guessed  incorrectly  that she had been stabbed and strangled; as police continued pressuring him, he even guessed that her hair had been cut. Finally, frustrated detectives had to tell him that she had been shot.

This "guessing game"-style interrogation mirrors other false confession cases; consider, for instance, the case of Virginia exoneree David Vasquez, who guessed wrongly that the victim had been tied with ropes, a belt, and clothesline before having to be told that the right answer was Venetian blinds. When a supposed killer cant accurately describe the crime, common sense should kick in: something is seriously wrong. And its well worth noting that this part of Brendans confession is the only evidence keeping him in prison; nothing else ties him to the murder. But Brendan still waits behind bars.

A few years ago, Brendan came within 24 hours of freedom. A federal court threw out his conviction, and a Milwaukee judge even ordered his release, finding that he posed no danger whatsoever. By a single vote, however, a federal court of appeals reinstated the conviction. For truly arcane reasons, the higher court felt legally prohibited from deciding whether Brendans confession was false. It only considered whether the confession had been constitutionally obtained, an entirely separate question to which, the majority decided, the answer was yes.

So  and I grit my teeth  Brendan still waits behind bars.

My colleagues and I filed a clemency petition last fall, asking Governor Tony Evers  a former teacher who surely knew special education students like Brendan  to commute Brendans sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court, after all, has called a governors clemency power a "failsafe" to be deployed when the judicial system swings and misses.

More than 250 legal, law enforcement, psychological, and political experts signed an open letter to Governor Evers, requesting Brendans freedom. Tens of thousands around the globe, who had heard about Brendans case by watching the Netflix series "Making a Murderer," chimed in by signing a petition to the Governor. But the Wisconsin Pardon Advisory Board rejected Brendans application five days before Christmas  without even reviewing it!  because the Board had simply decided that the Governor should not commute anyones sentence, no matter how deserving. And so Brendan still waits behind bars.

Brendan Dassey has grown up from a patient, kind teenager into a patient, kind man. When I talk to him, he never complains about his lost years, or the many years he has yet to lose; rather, he asks after my family and tells me he still believes in the legal system. He clings to a childlike faith that some day, hell go home again. And in the meantime, Brendan works prison jobs like folding laundry and pushing elderly prisoners around in their wheelchairs, and he dreams of what hell name his children if he wins freedom before he becomes elderly himself.

To insist that this gentle man committed a savage murder  to make him, of all people, wait behind bars  is absurd, and terribly unjust.

The Center on Wrongful Convictions, which my colleague Steve Drizin and I co-direct, has exonerated more than forty innocent men, women, and children. We know that it can take a decade or longer to free the innocent. Thanks to the good work of so many people, some days it seems like the whole world has become convinced of Brendans innocence  except those few who hold the keys to his prison cell. Because of the sheer number of people who believe in him, Brendans case wont ever fade away.

Consider this: after "Making a Murderer" was released, untold numbers around the globe  in this strange era of true crime  took it upon themselves to dig up the police reports and research every shred of evidence against him. In hundreds of public threads on Reddit, Twitter, and elsewhere, throngs of people pored through the investigation. No one has found anything even remotely suggestive of Brendans guilt. No one. Cases like these dont fade away, and they shouldnt. Until theyre remedied, cases like Brendans indelibly stain our justice system.

What Brendan needs  what I ask for now  what we must find now  is courage. We need courage from the Governors office or, as increasingly occurs in wrongful conviction cases, from an independent panel of experts who could re-examine Brendans case with fresh eyes. These are hard asks in a politically divided time  but Wisconsin is better than endless politics. I know this because thousands of Wisconsinites, from both sides of the aisle, signed our online petition to Governor Evers asking for Brendans freedom. I know it because Wisconsin teachers rallied around Brendan, writing letters to the Governor about how vulnerable special education students like him are. And I know it because when we announced Brendans clemency effort in Madison last fall, the waitress at my diner leaned over and whispered her support, and strangers cheered for Brendan when they saw his legal team walking down the sidewalk.

If everyday, decent Wisconsinites like them are behind Brendan, then I feel more hope than ever before.

Brendan Dassey should not wait behind bars any longer.
MediaNews Group/East Bay Times v/MediaNews Group via Getty Images

Multiple fires are burning in Contra Costa County, Alameda County, Merced County, San Benito County, Santa Clara County, Stanislaus County and San Joaquin County. Cal Fire is referring to them collectively as the SCU Lightning Complex. "SCU" stands for Santa Clara Unit. Find official evacuation updates here and a map here.

LATEST Aug 31. 7:30 p.m. Containment on the SCU Lightning Complex grew from 60% to 65% on Monday, and the blaze itself grew from 383,157 acres to 387,157 acres.
Foreign interference at Australian universities will be examined at a new parliamentary inquiry in what suspended student activist Drew Pavlou has chalked up as a "victory".

The inquiry, championed by independent Queensland MP Bob Katter and backed by the government, will probe whether foreign actors are encroaching on freedom of speech at Australian universities.

Suspended student Drew Pavlou poses with his victory cigar in UQs Great Court. Credit:Lydia Lynch

The Morrison government has asked the joint committee on intelligence and security to examine "the matter of potential interference conducted by, or on behalf of, foreign actors in Australian universities, publicly funded research agencies and competitive research grants agencies", a spokeswoman for Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said.

"Special focus of that referral is options to reduce technological and knowledge transfer from Australia that may be detrimental to our national interests, while not undermining international productive research collaboration."
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says he will reveal a road map out of lockdown on Sunday, but has not disclosed details, saying the COVID-19 case numbers for the coming week were "critically important".

Victoria has recorded 73 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours and 41 deaths, with the spike in fatalities attributed to delayed reporting of at least 22 deaths in aged care.

While Mr Andrews said it was too early to "settle that road map" for restrictions to lift, he hinted it would begin with an outlook for industry and that health authorities would analyse data throughout the week.

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said that by the time the plan was revealed on Sunday, he hoped the infection rate would fall to about 40 new cases per day.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31) Frontliners battling the COVID-19 pandemic were given the spotlight during Mondays celebration of National Heroes Day as they were honored as modern-day heroes of the country amid the health crisis.

In his message, President Rodrigo Duterte praised the valor not just of the Philippines past heroes but also of the present ones who have been risking their lives to fight a different kind of enemy.

Present-day challenges posed by the current public health crisis (have) given rise to modern day heroes: the countless Filipino frontliners here and abroad who are battling the COVID-19 pandemic, the President said in a virtual message.

He likewise expressed hope that the Filipino heroes bravery will continue to inspire the public to overcome even the most unfavorable situations" and become "everyday heroes" themselves.

Meanwhile, the National Task Force against COVID-19 also lauded the frontliners efforts and sacrifices despite the many challenges and risks they face, saying they are all considered heroes amid these trying times.

As we commemorate National Heroes Day, the National Task Force Against COVID-19 honors our modern-day heroes our medical frontliners who have made every conceivable sacrifice to ensure the health and safety of the Filipino people, the National Task Force said in a statement.

The selflessness, dedication and bravery you have shown during this health crisis puts you in the same league as our national heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in order to free our nation from foreign oppressors You are all heroes in the truest sense of the word, it added.

Aside from health workers, the Task Force also praised the contributions of non-medical frontliners, including military and police personnel, saying their efforts will be remembered and honored.

In her National Heroes Day message, Vice President Leni Robredo also commended the frontliners for their contributions to the pandemic response saying that the spirit of our heroes lives within each of us.

Robredo also took time to honor as heroes the countless others who continue to fight in times of crisis, and shared an uplifting message to the public.

Love those beyond your immediate circle," the Vice President said in her message, "expand these circles to go beyond family or friends; care for the community, care for the country. Do this, despite fear and uncertainty. Fight, if necessary; do not shrink from struggle or sacrifice. Be kind and be brave.

Former President Fidel Ramos also recognized the hard work of health workers, police, military, and other frontliners during the pandemic, which he dubbed as "another dark moment" in Philippine history.

"Our collective resolve as Filipinos seems to be tested once again by this COVID-19 pandemic. But as what our forebearers have proven to us already through their feats of heroism, the Filipino spirit is indomitable," he said in a statement read by his grandson during the virtual book launch of Twilight Glory.

"We see that same spirit is being embodied by our medical frontliners, uniformed and military personnel, government staff, and countless other Filipinos who literally risk their lives daily in this pandemic... Let us remember and celebrate all the Filipino heroes and veterans who sacrificed so much in the pursuit of freedom and independence."

The coffee-table book, which is supported by San Miguel Corporation, chronicles 500 years of Philippine history and recognizes war veterans and local heroes. Authors of the book acknowledged frontliners as well as the private sector for their contributions to the local coronavirus fight. SMC alone has contributed over 13 billion to the pandemic response.

Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Lt. Gen. Gilbert Gapay who led the wreath-laying ceremony at the Libingan ng mga Bayani echoed the officials' sentiments, and likewise encouraged Filipinos to exude heroism as it knows no bounds and manifests in different ways.

'Honor frontliners by paying dues'

Senator Francis Kiko Pangilinan, on the other hand, called on the Health department to pay the frontliners their dues including releasing daily hazard pay as a way to honor them during this special day.

Ang dami nang sakripisyo ng ating mga frontliner," Pangilinan said in a statement. "Mano bang suklian natin ang kanilang serbisyo ng binibigay naman ng ating mga batas? Lets honor our heroes not just with rhetoric but with substance.

[Translation: Our frontliners have made too many sacrifices. Why cant we repay their services with the things actually provided by our laws?]

COVID-19 frontliners must be included in history textbooks

Notable historian Ambeth Ocampo said COVID-19 pandemic frontliners must be included in history textbooks to recognize their hard work and sacrifices in fighting the health crisis.

Were facing an enemy that we cannot see and that we do not know and that these people are still working in hospitals and caring for the sick makes their task more than ordinary, makes it heroic, Ocampo told CNN Philippines Rico Hizon on Monday.

Ocampo noted the pandemic did not affect the Filipinos sense of patriotism amid uncertain times. The historian addressed that todays commemoration of the National Heroes Day is another ordinary day because normally it comes and goes.

One of the things thats sad about our days is that many people are now thinking of going abroad. The sense of being Filipino is not something that we, some people think about. So I guess its not a question of heroism, its actually love of country, he explained.

To date, the country has logged over 220,000 cases of COVID-19, with thousands of healthcare workers and frontliners also getting infected with the virus.
Albany, N.Y.  Reopening schools in New York will lead to an inevitable increase in coronavirus infections in some places, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today.

The question then becomes how good a schools plan is to deal with that, how well officials enforce the rules and whether their plans can curb an outbreak.

They will have plans, Cuomo said during a conference call with reporters. Could you then implement it? Did it actually work?

For a certain number of schools districts, the answers to those questions will be no and theyll be forced to close and switch to remote learning, Cuomo said.

He reminded K-12 schools that numerous colleges in the U.S. have suspended in-person classes in recent weeks as Covid-19 cases spread on their campuses. That includes the State University of New York Oneonta.

School districts would be well advised to look at whats happening in colleges, Cuomo said. What were seeing with colleges, I think its going to be replicated on K-12.

Reopening schools will only work if parents feel comfortable sending their kids and teachers feel comfortable entering buildings, Cuomo said. If teachers and parents arent convinced, districts havent accomplished anything.

He said those two groups must be involved in crafting reopening plans.

This is not an issue where government dictation will work, he said.

He also reminded districts that either local governments or the state could step in to close schools if an outbreak occurs.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

How do you bus kids to school in the middle of a pandemic? A look inside one districts plans

Educating CNY: Syracuse.com launches initiative to inform, connect community around school reopening

SUNY Oneonta to suspend in-person classes for 2 weeks after 105 coronavirus cases found

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598
He has conquered the big screen with a successful Hollywood career spanning more than three decades.

And now Arnold Schwarzenegger is planning to star in his first scripted series for the small screen.

The 73-year-old has signed on to play the lead in a global spy adventure being developed by Skydance Television, Deadline.com reported on Monday.

New role: Arnold Schwarzenegger, 73, has signed up to star in his first scripted TV series, a global spy adventure being developed by Skydance Television, Deadline.com reported

Schwarzenegger, who is also executive producing the hour-long episodic series, will star as one half of a father-daughter duo around whom the plot revolves.

The show is the creation of writer and producer Nick Santora, Deadline reported.

Santora is best known for creating the CBS series Scorpion as well as serving as showrunner for Skydance TV's Jack Reacher series for Amazon.

Little else is know about the as-yet untitled project although it's reported that casting is underway to find an actress to portray Schwarzenegger's on-screen daughter.

In development: Schwarzenegger, who is also executive producing the hour-long episodic series, will star as one half of a father-daughter duo around whom the plot revolves

Came up with the idea: The show is the creation of writer and producer Nick Santora, pictured in 2014. He is best known for creating the CBS series Scorpion

Movie icon: The action star has strong links with Skydance. The indie studio was behind his return to the big screen in 2015's Terminator Genisys and last year's Terminator: Dark Fate

The action star and former Governor of California has strong links with Skydance.

The indie studio was behind his return to the big screen in his iconic Terminator role in 2015's Terminator Genisys and last year's Terminator: Dark Fate.

Of course, the new scripted drama won't be the first time Schwarzenegger has had a show on TV; he famously took over from Donald Trump as host of the reality show Celebrity Apprentice in 2017.
A row over a Czech politician's visit to Taiwan is threatening to strain relations between Prague and Beijing

The Czech foreign ministry said Monday it had summoned the Chinese envoy to Prague after Beijing threatened an opposition politician currently on a visit to Taiwan.

A delegation led by Czech Senate speaker Milos Vystrcil arrived in Taipei on Sunday, angering China which is trying to keep the island isolated from the rest of the world.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday that China would make Vystrcil "pay a high price for his short-sighted behaviour and political speculation", calling the journey a "provocation".

The Czech foreign ministry then said on its website that deputy minister Martin Tlapa had summoned the ambassador, expressing "fundamental disapproval" of the statement.

Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek said earlier on Monday he expected China to explain Yi's words.

"Of course the journey has an impact on our relationships with China, but I think this has gone too far," he told journalists.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis has labelled the statement "impertinent and inappropriate".

Beijing said later on Monday that Vice Foreign Minister Qin Gang had recently summoned Czech ambassador to China, Vladimir Tomsik, and "lodged solemn representations".

Qin said Vystrcil's visit was a "serious violation of China's sovereignty" and vowed Beijing would "make the necessary response to protect its own legitimate interests," according to a statement from the foreign ministry.

- One China policy -

The Czech government accepts the One China policy under which Beijing considers Taiwan a part of its territory, with reunification by force an option, and does not send official delegations to the island.

But Vystrcil is a member of the right-wing opposition Civic Democrats and is not bound by the protocol.

His 90-member group, including politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists and journalists, will stay in Taiwan until Friday.

He will give a speech in Taiwan's parliament on Tuesday and will meet President Tsai Ing-wen, whose re-election earlier this year upset China as she views the island as a sovereign nation.

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Vystrcil said his trip would fulfil the legacy of the late Czech president Vaclav Havel, a human rights fighter and dissident leader of the 1989 Velvet Revolution which toppled communism in the former Czechoslovakia.

Vystrcil is following in the footsteps of his predecessor Jaroslav Kubera, who died of a heart attack in January while planning the Taiwan visit.

After Kubera's death, Czech media published a letter stamped by the Chinese embassy in Prague and which threatened both Kubera and Czech companies intending to accompany him on the trip.

Ties between Prague and China suffered a blow last October when Prague city hall, run by a mayor from the anti-establishment Pirate Party, pulled out of a twinning deal with Beijing over its insistence on the One-China policy.

Prague mayor Zdenek Hrib, who is on Vystrcil's delegation, then signed a partnership agreement with Taipei in January, triggering outrage in Beijing.

frj/spm/gle
Former President Pranab Mukherjee's health condition has exacerbated after a lung infection. In a statement on Monday, Army Research and Referral Hospital, Delhi, stated that Mukherjee is in septic shock due to lung infection.

"There is a decline in the medical condition of Pranab Mukherjee since yesterday. He is in septic shock due to his lung infection and is being managed by a team of specialists. He continues to be in deep coma and on ventilator support," the hospital said.

Also read: Former President Pranab Mukherjee in deep coma, being treated for lung infection, renal dysfunction

He has been in deep coma since a brain surgery earlier this month. The former President was admitted to the Army Hospital in Delhi Cantonment on August 10 and was operated for a brain clot removal the same day. He later went on to develop renal and lung infections. Mukherjee had also tested positive for coronavirus. Doctors had previously said that the former President was haemodynamically stable as his blood circulation parameters like blood pressure, heart rate and pulse rate were normal.

His health parameters are being monitored round the clock by experts at Army R&R Hospital. After the news of his surgery emerged, people across the country wished for his well-being and several leaders took to Twitter to wish him speedy recovery.

Also read: Ex-President Pranab Mukherjee's renal parameters improve; still in deep coma, says Army R&R Hospital
When Ren Zhengfei, a former officer in the Peoples Liberation Army, established Huawei in the Shenzhen special economic zone in 1987, the boomtown was still struggling to gain a meaningful spot in Chinas economic landscape. It was dwarfed not only by neighbouring Hong Kong, but by other mainland Chinese cities.

Few could have imagined then that four decades later the one-time fishing village would emerge as the poster child for Chinese economic development. Fewer still would have predicted that Huawei, now a key part of the citys economy, would become a global telecommunications equipment giant that Washington sees as a security threat and potential challenger to the US-led world order.

However, as Shenzhen celebrates its 40th anniversary as one of Chinas four special economic zones, it is unclear whether the city of 13 million can keep shining as the country heads into a turbulent new era.

Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.

As the United States adopts a more confrontational approach against China, the citys easy access to foreign capital, technology and markets  which was so important to its rise  is crumbling.

For Huawei, its luck is running out as Washington has relentlessly tried to prevent its involvement in next generation 5G communications networks around the globe while restricting the companys access to vital American tech components.

A new US government order will effectively ban Huawei and its affiliates from buying semiconductors made with US equipment or software from September, a rule that is seen by some analysts as a death sentence for the company.

A downturn in Huaweis business, or its complete demise, would not only deal a blow to Shenzhens economy, but undermine broad confidence in Chinas technological and economic strength, which Beijing is trying to promote through a high-profile celebration of the citys 40th anniversary.

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There is no other company in China that can replace Huawei to lead the countrys tech and globalisation. If Huawei cant withstand US sanctions, who can?

Liu Kaiming

Liu Kaiming, director of the Institute of Contemporary Observation in Shenzhen, which tracks the condition of Chinese manufacturers, said sanctions that weakened Huawei would send a chilling effect through Chinas entire electronic supply chain.

There is no other company in China that can replace Huawei to lead the countrys tech and globalisation, Liu said. If Huawei cant withstand US sanctions, who can?

For Shenzhens economy, which last year surpassed Hong Kongs in size, the loss of Huawei would be devastating, as the company is one of the brightest jewels in the tech hubs crown.

Huawei was the single largest corporate contributor to Shenzhens gross domestic product in 2016, contributing about 7 per cent of economic output, the latest data from Shenzhens statistics bureau shows. That year it was the only company that contributed more than 100 billion yuan (US$14.4 billion) to the local economy.

Even then, the figure only accounts for the companys direct impact on the citys economy, with suppliers and service sector firms that work with it  from restaurants to health care  expanding its footprint many times over.

Huawei invested more on research and development in the city from 2014-16 than any other Shenzhen firm, dwarfing gaming and telecommunications giant Tencent Technologies, drone manufacturer DJI, and electric vehicle maker BYD, according to a research paper published by the Science, Technology and Innovation Commission of Shenzhen, a government agency that promotes technology development in the city.

The firms importance to the city was also highlighted in 2018, when it decided to build a new operations base in the neighbouring city of Dongguan. It triggered much soul-searching in Shenzhen about how the city had become inhospitable for its best firm. Articles like please dont let Huawei go went viral on social media.

Huawei has helped Shenzhen become the top destination for Chinas programming and engineering talent. It has built a reputation for being generous to the brightest minds and the hardest workers.

Zhang Ji, a 27-year-old doctoral graduate in artificial intelligence from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, was hired by Huawei on a starting salary of 2.01 million yuan (US$291,000) per year, far above the average 200,000 yuan annual package for other fresh doctoral graduates.

It is still difficult to predict the magnitude of the impact. [But] the global market has different attitudes from before towards Chinese manufacturing and the rise of China

Peng Peng

Huawei was also the largest corporate recruiter of new graduates from Chinas top universities in 2019, including Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhejiang University and Fudan University  equivalent to a single US company being the largest recruiter of graduates among Ivy League schools.

Among the companys 194,000 employees across the globe, over half are engaged in research and development.

Peng Peng, a vice-president of Guangdong System Reform Research Society, a think tank affiliated with the Guangdong provincial government, said US sanctions on Huawei would be felt across the country and signal that globally Chinese enterprises are no longer as welcome as before.

It is still difficult to predict the magnitude of the impact. [But] the global market has different attitudes from before towards Chinese manufacturing and the rise of China, he said.

Liu, the Shenzhen-based researcher, agreed that Huaweis troubles will have a broad impact on the national economy, signifying the end of the era when Chinese companies were accepted as key elements in global tech supply chains.

The logic of such cooperation has been interrupted and decoupling has begun, Liu said. He predicted some Chinese companies with foreign investment, including many located in Shenzhen, would now pack up and leave.

These foreign-funded electronics companies are actually the high-end sector of Chinas current export-oriented electronics manufacturing industry, Liu said. Their relocation will be of no benefit to Chinas technological innovation.

Earlier this month, Taiwanese-funded Catcher Technology, a supplier to Apple, announced it would sell its entire stake in two Chinese units to Hunan-based Lens Technology for US$1.43 billion in cash.

In July, another Taiwan-based Apple supplier, Wistron, said it would sell two of the firms wholly owned subsidiaries in east China to mainland company Luxshare Group.

Just like the early 2000s, when American buyers asked their Taiwanese and Korean suppliers to move from Taiwan and South Korea to China, now the same American buyers are asking them to relocate from China to Vietnam, India, and Taiwan, Liu said.

The future of Shenzhen and Huawei is not completely bleak, given that Chinas huge domestic market remains a source of growth.

Li Daokui, a professor at Tsinghua University, said in a television interview last month that Chinas domestic market of 1.4 billion consumers, along with markets in belt and road countries, would be sufficient to support Chinese companies like Huawei.

Just let the European and American markets go. Its difficult to reconcile [relying on them] in the future if they dont trust us, Li said. This will be the new era of the globalisation.

More from South China Morning Post:

This article US sanctions on Chinas Huawei spell trouble for Shenzhen economy first appeared on South China Morning Post

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Trump has used social media to deepen the countrys divisions  often with misleading statements  rather than playing the more traditional role of uniter in chief during times of civil unrest. Casting himself as a LAW & ORDER leader, Trump has taken to Twitter to accuse Democratic mayors and governors of losing control of their cities; to warn that the only way to stop the violence in high crime Democrat run cities is through strength; and to lambaste Biden as being weak on CRIME in an effort to appease the Radical Left voter.
Men wearing face masks walk past an art installation in the financial business district in Singapore on August 11, 2020. - Singapore's virus-hammered economy shrank almost 43 percent in the second quarter, in a sign that the country's first recession in more than a decade was deeper than initially estimated, official data showed on August 11. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP) (Photo by ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

SINGAPORE  The Ministry of Health (MOH) has reported another 54 new cases of COVID-19 infection as of noon on Sunday (30 August), including eight Singaporeans, taking the countrys total to 56,771.

Of them, eight are community cases, seven are imported cases and the remaining 39 are migrant workers residing in dormitories.

The community cases comprised seven Singaporeans and one work pass holder.

Two were picked up as a result of surveillance and screening, and six had already been placed on quarantine earlier. Three of the cases are asymptomatic, and were detected through testing.

Seven of the community cases today are linked to previous cases or clusters. Of these, six cases had been identified as contacts of previously confirmed cases, and had been placed on quarantine earlier. They were tested during quarantine to determine their status.

Amongst them, five cases (56823, 56827, 56830, 56831 and 56832) are part of a family cluster involving individuals across two households. These individuals had participated in family gatherings, and investigations are ongoing to see if there were any breaches of safe distancing rules. We take a serious view of such breaches and will not hesitate to take enforcement actions against any offenders, said the MOH.

Camera shop is new cluster

Another case (56826) is a colleague of case 56184 at SLR Revolution at Excelsior Shopping Centre, and had earlier been placed on quarantine. The camera shop has been confirmed as a new cluster with four cases.

As a precautionary measure following the detection of an earlier case (56626) who had visited the shop during case 56184s infectious period, MOH has identified and contacted 240 individuals who had visited SLR Revolution between 15 August and 18 August, and facilitated COVID-19 testing for all of them, even though the risk of infection for visitors is assessed to be low. So far, a total of 224 individuals have been swabbed and the results are pending. MOH is facilitating testing for the remaining individuals.

Story continues

The remaining case (56829) had gone to see a general practitioner under the Swab and Send Home (SASH) programme on 27 August and was diagnosed with acute respiratory infection (ARI), and was administered with a swab test. Before the test result was ready, case 56828 was separately identified as a close contact of case 56740 and was placed on quarantine on 28 August. The test result from the clinic subsequently confirmed that this was a positive case.

There is one case in the community who is currently unlinked. Case 56851 was detected as a result of routine testing of workers in the construction, marine and process sectors who are living outside the dormitories. Epidemiological investigations of the case are in progress. In the meantime, all the identified close contacts of the case have been isolated and placed on quarantine, and will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has increased, from an average of two cases per day in the week before, to an average of three per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at an average of one case per day in the past two weeks.

Amongst the seven imported cases, one case (56816) is a four-year-old Singaporean girl, and four (56821, 56822, 56842 and 56852) are permanent residents. These cases returned to Singapore from Bangladesh on 17 August, India on 18 August and 22 August, the Philippines on 18 August and UAE on 8 August.

Another case (56824) is a work permit holder currently employed in Singapore who arrived from the Philippines on 18 August. The remaining case (56820) is a dependants pass holder who arrived from Pakistan on 18 August. All of them had been placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and had been tested while serving their SHN at dedicated facilities.

Amongst the 39 cases residing in dormitories, 22 had been identified earlier as contacts of previous cases, and had already been quarantined to prevent further transmission. They were tested during quarantine to determine their status.

The remaining 17 cases were detected through surveillance testing, such as bi-weekly routine testing of workers living in dormitories and testing of those with ARI symptoms.

Besides the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, serological tests have been conducted to determine if some of these cases are current or past infections. The serological test results for 14 cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infections.

Over 55,500 cases discharged; no patient in ICU

With 139 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Sunday, 55,586 cases have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 74 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while none is in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

A total of 1,084 patients with mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Apart from 27 patients who have died from COVID-19 complications, 15 others who tested positive for the virus were determined to have died from unrelated causes, including three whose deaths were attributed to a heart attack and another four, whose deaths were attributed to coronary heart disease.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

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'Israeli tanks shell southern Gaza on 24th day of attacks'

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 7:09 AM

Israeli tanks have reportedly shelled the southern part of the Gaza Strip for a 24th straight day of incessant attacks by the occupying regime against the besieged territory.

The Israeli military alleged in a statement on Sunday that the tank fire had hit positions belonging to the Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas, AFP reported.

There was no immediate report of casualties or confirmation from Hamas.

The Israeli military claimed that the fire had come in response to balloon-borne incendiary devices flown from the direction of the enclave toward the occupied Palestinian territories.

The regime has been using the same excuse to conduct strikes against Gaza since August 6, saying that the alleged devices had caused fires in the part of the occupied territories that are close to Gaza.

On Tuesday, a Qatari envoy reportedly met with Palestinian and Israeli officials in an attempt to ease tensions.

Gaza has been under Israeli siege since 2007, when Hamas rose to power there.

The Israeli regime recently tightened the siege even further by shutting down a crossing through which much of Gaza's necessities entered the enclave, and completely cut off fuel supplies to the territory. The measures have brought about a closure of Gaza's sole power plant.

Israel has also barred fishing along Gaza's coast, where armed Israeli vessels conduct regular patrols, denying the Palestinian territory another key source of livelihood.

Israel targets medical centers in West Bank

Separately, Palestinian media outlets reported that Israeli forces launched a "deliberate" attack against Palestinian medical centers in the occupied West Bank on Sunday.

The attacks targeted the ward reserved for treating coronavirus-infected patients at the Aaliyah Medical Center in the city of al-Khalil (Hebron) in the southern West Bank.

The media said Israeli forces tear-gassed the patients there, hurting as many as 25 of them. They said a number of medical staff were also harmed during the attack.

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Greek F-16s Intercept and Escort Out Several Turkish Fighters Invading Country's Airspace

Sputnik News

Tim Korso. Sputnik International

19:10 GMT 30.08.2020

This is not the first time over the past four weeks that the air forces of the two countries have scrambled jets to intercept each other's fighters for breaching borders. The incidents have intensified amid Ankara's recent decision to renew geological surveys in Cyprus offshore waters, despite protests from Athens.

Several Greek Air Force F-16s, which had been dispatched to escort a passing NATO B-52 bomber, diverted from their mission to intercept and expel four Turkish fighter jets that had entered the Athens Flight Information Region on 29 August  a zone where Greece takes over air traffic management. Greece's national defence agency called the actions of the Turkish Air Force "provocative and anti-ally".

The flight of the B-52 bomber is a part of the "Allied Sky" mission, under which six such bombers crossed the airspace of 30 NATO states in a show of solidarity. The B-52 escorted by the Greek F-16s was transitioning from Turkish airspace, where it had been escorted by the Ankaran forces, as well as performing a mid-air refueling. It is unclear if the four Turkish fighter jets were those escorting the NATO bomber, or why they approached so close to Greek aerial borders.

A day prior to the encounter, the Turkish Defence Ministry reported that its F-16s had been scrambled to intercept six Greek F-16 fighter jets on 27 August after they approached the Turkish NAVITEX zone  an area close to shore and covered by a NAVITEX ship navigation system. The Greek fighter jets were flying from Crete to the southern part of Cyprus when the Turkish Air Force deployed its F-16s.

Tensions between the two countries intensified as they put their militaries on alert amid a re-emerging row over energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey recently announced that it would restart seismic surveys for fossil fuel resources in the waters off of Cyprus, which it claims it owns via an agreement unrecognized by Athens. As Athens does not recognise Ankara's claims, its European allies have thrown their support behind Greece while urging both sides to resolve the issue via dialogue. In a recent statement, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that all European Union countries have an obligation to support Greece in this conflict, adding that she has discussed the issue "intensely" with French President Emmanuel Macron.



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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 20:09:04|Editor: huaxia

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DOHA, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Qatari Health Ministry on Monday announced 203 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 118,778, the official Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.

Meanwhile, 237 more recovered from the virus, bringing the total recoveries to 115,667, while no new fatalities were reported, keeping the tally at 197, according to a ministry statement quoted by QNA.

The ministry reiterated the need to take preventive measures, including staying home and observing social distancing.

A total of 629,831 persons in Qatar have taken lab tests for COVID-19 so far. Enditem
Few places brim with as much historical meaning as Colonial Williamsburg, the living cultural site that explores and celebrates the legacy of Americas early Colonial past. Now that legacy will receive new attentionif not scrutinyas its museums reopen following their COVID-19 closure and an extensive $42 million renovation.

The 301-acre attraction in Williamsburg, Virginia recreates a vision of life when the town was the capital of Colonial Virginia during the mid-18th century. Since the 1920s Colonial Williamsburg has served as a museum and education site, one of the most popular in the American South.

Now a century after its initial major restoration, the sites new spaces, reported Artnet News, are nothing if not ambitious. Theres a new 65,000 square foot wing, a larger entrance area, and 25% more gallery space. The latter is key: As both the nationand its myriad cultural institutionsgrapple with Americas conflicted colonial history, the Williamsburg museums are now better positioned to showcase previously overlooked experiences of marginalized Colonial-era peoples.

Virginia business Photo: Getty Images/The Washington Post

Indeed, honoring previously overlooked stories is a key anchor of the museums expansionand reopening. One of the first exhibitions to be mounted is Early American Faces, which mines the museums vast trove of holdings to more accurately reflect the personal and collective stories of enslaved, free, white, Black, and American Indian peoples during the Colonial era, says Artnet News.

The move is just one of many at Colonial Williamsburg that reflect Americas current atmosphere of cultural reconsideration. Exhibition labels, for instance, will now clearly and intentionally honor enslaved peoplewho in some cases created and used the items themselves. The museums will also more accurately convey the experiences of enslaved people in its historic reenactments, along with those of Americas original, Indigenous inhabitants.

Story continues

Performers In Jamestown, Virginia, USA Photo: Getty Images/Tim Graham

The $42 million price tag represents just a small amount of Colonial Williamsburgs recently completed $600 million capital campaign, reports Archinect, which includes the addition of a new state-of-the-art archaeology lab, a reconstructed market house, and $163.5 million to update programming and research initiatives.

The moves reflect ambitious thinking on the part of Ronald L. Hurst, the vice president for collections, conservation, and museums and The Carlisle H. Humelsine Chief Curator at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. And with a pair of museums, 200 period rooms, and 600 historic buildings at his disposal, Hurst clearly had ample resources to work with. It also reflects a larger, ongoing effort to align Colonial Williamsburgwhich used the shut-down period to help feed thousands of local children out of schoolwith more expansive and inclusive times.

Last year, reported Atlas Obscura, Colonial Williamsburg launched an effort to research and reveal the areas untold, if not purposely forgotten, 18th century queer legacies. A dedicated research committee dug through court records, historical accounts, and other forms of documentation pertinent to the era of the museum in order to better understand and communicate the lived experiences of people who did not conform to the gender or sexual norms of the time, Archinect reported.

Colonial Williamsburg Reenactment Photo: Getty Images

There was a special emphasis placed on unearthing the stories of free and enslaved queer Black people from the area and period. With at least 51% of the Colonial regions population composed of Black people, according to Hurst, honoring their experiencesin every formis particularly crucial for the museum and its stable of scholars.

Objects that survived from the past are so frequently those associated with people who had means, Hurst said to Artnet News. Archaeology, he added, allows us to bring forth those artifacts that speak to the experiences of people of color.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
Residents of Gomoa Lome in the Gomoa Central District in the Central Region were last Friday morning thrown into a state of disbelief when the body of a 19-year-old girl was found in a bush in the town.

The naked and lifeless body of the light skinned teenager who has been identified as Augustina Teye, alias Adjoa Kelempe a resident of Desuenim, a suburb of Agona Swedru, was found lying in a pool of blood with several machete wounds on the body.



Her feet, wrists, buttocks and private parts had been removed with blood oozing from her nose and mouth. The body of the deceased had been left in a bush by the side of the road that links Gomoa Lome to Gomoa Sinbrofo and connects to the main Accra-Cape Coast highway.



Deceased lured



It is believed that the perpetrator(s) of the heinous crime might have lured the young girl from Agona Swedru and murdered her in the bush under the cover of darkness last Thursday night to prevent them from being traced.



The blue and yellow dress and the slippers she was wearing at the time of the incident were found lying close to her lifeless body.



The flattened grass and disturbed earth suggest that she struggled with her attacker(s) before her death.



An inspection of her body showed that some of her body parts had been removed by her assailants who it is believed cut them for use in rituals.



The deceased was an orphan and left behind a four-year-old daughter who is living with her grandmother at Mantemankabi, also a suburb of Agona Swedru.



When news of the victims death broke, some of her peers at Desuenim, Ankyease, Salem, Assissim, Mangoase, all suburbs of Swedru, were dismayed and were seen gathered in groups in discussion over the matter.



Pregnancy



Information the Daily Graphic gathered indicated that the deceased was a pupil of the St James the Apostle Anglican Basic School in Agona Swedru who dropped out of school when she became pregnant.



It is said that after she had delivered, the Mothers Union of the St James Anglican Church enrolled her back into school but she dropped out again because she wanted to learn a trade.



With support from Give to Eat, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based at Agona Nkum, she was consequently registered with a sewing concern but she insisted she preferred to learn hairdressing instead.



She was last seen on Thursday, August 27, by her friends only for news to reach them the following morning that she has been murdered and her body dumped in a bush.



Confirmation



Confirming the incident in an interview last Saturday, a former Assembly Member for the Gomoa Lome Electoral Area, Mr. Emmanuel Akyer, said some residents of the community who were on their way to their farm came across the body and raised an alarm.



He said news of the incident quickly went viral and attracted hundreds of people who rushed to the scene to see things for themselves as well as to verify if the deceased was a member of the community.



He explained that the residents who thronged the scene to catch a glimpse of the deceased could not fathom why the perpetrators killed the young woman.



He said the Ghana Police Service at Gomoa Dawurampong was informed of the incident.



The body of the deceased has meanwhile been conveyed to the St. Luke Catholic Hospital at Apam for autopsy.

Source: Graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Every business in the country has been impacted by COVID-19 in one way or another. But few sectors have been as hard hit, or face a longer road to recovery, than the travel agency industry.

According to the American Society of Travel Advisors, with business at a practical standstill and no end to the pandemic in sight, 64% of travel agencies in the U.S. have laid off at least half of their staffs, even with the federal relief programs provided by the CARES Act in March.

Whats more, over 70% will go out of business within the next six months without additional federal relief.

Without that relief, the travel agency sector is looking at an extinction-level event. This would deprive the public of the critical services that travel advisers provide and leave the distribution channels of travel suppliers (airlines, hotels, cruise lines, etc.) crippled.

So what was Congress response to this devastation and others? After negotiations over the next relief bill stalled, they adjourned for the annual August recess and are not scheduled to return until mid-September.

My message to elected officials on behalf of the 140,000 people who work in our industry is simple: Get back to work and support the small businesses that desperately need help. Doing nothing isnt an option. The future of our country depends on it.

RUSTY PICKETT

Westrivers Road

Charleston

Bless her heart

That is a lie, Nikki Haley said Wednesday as she addressed the Republican National Convention, claiming America does not have a problem with racism.

Within a few sentences, referring to her own familys experiences, she said, We faced discrimination and hardship ... my parents never gave in to grievance and hate, referring to her Indian parents struggles to succeed as immigrants.

And just a few moments later, she recounted the horrific racist killings at Emanuel AME Church.

I admired Haley as governor of South Carolina, but it appears she has quickly transformed herself into another politician willing to spin the facts for political gain.

MARK WILSON

Somersby Lane

Mount Pleasant

Masks protect others

When I read The Post and Courier, I know there will be folks complaining about having to wear masks and their personal freedoms being taken away.

Aug. 25 was no different, except the letter writer who complained that mask rules go too far seemed especially aggrieved.

The letter states that [c]ommon sense has gone out the window with the mandated mask wearing. Common sense seems to be a rare commodity in that people continue to complain about the mask mandate, even though it reduces the transmission of COVID-19.

I must conclude that too many Americans have always been self-centered and cruel.

For a better perspective, see a letter, also published Aug. 25, Take care of workers, citing the disparity in wages of sanitation workers in North Charleston versus Charleston. The letter writers thoughtfulness gives me hope.

ROGER WEST

Blair Road

Summerville

Alter Highway 41 plan

I want to add my voice to the growing crowd of people who see tremendous injustice in the decision to widen S.C. Highway 41 by plowing through the Phillips community.

This is unacceptable. The traffic is a result of the development of Park West, Rivertowne and Dunes West, among others.

There are more acceptable and fairer ways to mitigate the traffic problems.

I expect my beloved Mount Pleasant to be more compassionate in its decision-making, especially when the town has such an impact on the historic Phillips community.

Weve made such efforts to create places along U.S. Highway 17 and at Waterfront Park for basket-makers to sell their wares.

Tremendous effort and expense is being expended to build what will undoubtably be a significant African American museum.

We have an opportunity to preserve not only a historic but a living African American community in Mount Pleasant.

Why cant we do that? We must.

SALLY LANGSTON WARREN

Ferry Street

Mount Pleasant

Website has voting info

The Aug. 26 writer of the letter, Research your vote, must be unaware of the League of Women Voters VOTE411 website.

On that site, a voter can see a personalized ballot.

For the Nov. 3 election, the candidates are on the site now and have been since the primaries.

The candidates for the nonpartisan races will be on the site soon.

In addition to the candidates personal information, the League has posed questions that will let the voter determine the candidates stances on pertinent issues.

CLAIRE BUSH

Sea Cotton Circle

Charleston
Opinion Article

31 August 2020

Ashlock made the point near the beginning of a webinar organized by ASTA on Aug. 24, the day before its Global Live conference began. He joined CNN executive travel editor Brekke Fletcher, Afar editor in chief Julia Cosgrove and Wall Street Journal travel editor Scott McCartney for a panel discussion on "The Future of Travel Distribution." I was the moderator.

Advertisements

Hard and fast predictions were not forthcoming, but during an hourlong discussion, this all-star cast of consumer travel media did provide a great deal of informed opinion about possibilities.

To set the stage for insights into how travel may be bought and sold in the future, I first asked the group to imagine various unknowns, some at the intersection of travel and politics, others involving how tourism products may evolve.

And to begin with what may have the most immediate relevance to ASTA members, I asked whether the panel believed Congress would get its act together to bring economic relief for the small businesses that make up most of ASTA's membership. An extension of Cares Act benefits might also provide a lifeline to industry behemoths like airlines, who have already signaled the possible loss of tens of thousands of jobs should economic benefits not be extended.

The Wall Street Journal's McCartney suggested we look at external signs that seem to indicate a bill will be forthcoming. He said that the stock market, which on the day the panel was recorded tallied record highs, seemed to indicate that Wall Street believes Congress will act. And with an election coming up, "why wouldn't they do something to save the economy? It's in their own best interest.

"You assume," Ashlock mused, "that these are rational actors."

Click here for How travel will be bought and sold in August 2021, Part 1

Click here for How travel will be bought and sold in August 2021, Part 2
In theory, that makes sense. It sounds fair. But another equally important question is whether, in the real world of Illinois  where government waste, fraud, corruption and inside deals are a way of life  another wave of wealthy individuals and businesses will view the prospect of paying higher taxes as the last straw before joining others whove abandoned Illinois for more tax-friendly and better-managed states.




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The Chattanooga Bar Association celebrated the Annual Law Day virtually live from the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville. The theme this year was "Your Vote, Your Voice, Our Democracy: The 19th Amendment at 100."



In 2019-2020, the United States is commemorating the centennial of the transformative constitutional amendment that guaranteed the right of citizens to vote would not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex. American women fought for, and won, the vote through their voice and action. The women's suffrage movement forever changed America, expanding representative democracy and inspiring other popular movements for constitutional change and reform. Yet, honest reflection on the suffrage movement reveals complexity and tensions over race and class that remain part of the ongoing story of the Nineteenth Amendment and its legacies.



The Chattanooga Bar Association was live from the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville. "We were honored and was it fitting to be live from the Hotel. The Hotel is just a block from the state Capitol, and both the Pro and Anti-Suffrage groups headquartered there for six weeks leading up to the final vote," said Lynda Hood, executive director.



Representatives Patsy Hazlewood, Robin Smith and Esther Helton were live from the state Capitol and presented the CBA with a Proclamation celebrating Law Day.



Each year, the Chattanooga Bar Association honors an outstanding citizen in the Chattanooga area with the prestigious "Liberty Bell Award" for public service. This award is awarded annual by all bar associations across the country. The purpose of the "Liberty Bell Award" is to recognize community service that has strengthened the America system of freedom under law. In selecting the recipient of this award, the Chattanooga Bar Association considers such service as including activities which (1) promotes better understanding of our Constitution and the Bill of Rights; (2) encourage a greater respect for the law and the courts; (3) stimulates a deeper sense of individual responsibility so that citizens recognize their duties as well as their rights; (4) contribute to the effective functioning of our institutions of government; and (5) foster a better understanding and appreciation of the rule of law. Lawyers and judges are not eligible for the award; however, all other fields of endeavor are intended for the inclusion, namely education, business, sciences, communications, labor, government, religion, professions and youth organizations.

This year, the Chattanooga Bar Association honored two recipients of the prestigious award, Genneral B.B. Bell and Joann Humphries Favors.



An interesting fact about the Liberty Bell is that a replica of the Liberty Bell, forged in 1915, was used to promote women's suffrage. It traveled the country with its clapper chained to its side, silent until women won the right to vote. On September 25, 1920, it was brought to Independence Hall and rung in ceremonies celebrating the ratification of the 19th amendment.



Speakers



Paula Casey of Memphis has dedicated more than 30 years to educating the public about Tennessee's pivotal role in the 19th Amendment's ratification in 1920. She produced a video in 1989 entitled "Generations: American Women Win the Vote," and helped publish the book, The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage, which was donated to every school, library and college in the state. She served on the committee that selected the bas relief plaque that hangs inside the State Capitol Building in 1998 depicting Tennessee's ratification. She has been instrumental in getting suffragist public art placed in Nashville, Jackson and Memphis. She co-founded the award-winning Tennessee Woman Suffrage Heritage Trail with Jacque Hillman of Jackson that highlights the monuments, markers, gravesites and suffrage-related places of interest - www.lnwoman uff ragehe Ji taget rail. com. She also helped edit the book, Why Can't Mother Vote? Joseph Hanover and the Unfinished Business of Democracy, by Bill Haltom, Memphis attorney.



Linda Moss Mines is co-chair of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Yellow Rose Suffrage Commemoration Committee and as a member of the Tennessee Woman 100 Official Committee. She is the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Historian, a member of the Tennessee Historical Commission and the Tennessee Cemetery Committee, Chairman of the Board, Erlanger Health Systems, Secretary, Chattanooga Area Veterans Council and Regent, Chief John Ross Chapter, NSDAR. Having worked 45 years as a history teacher/administrator, including almost 30 years as History Chair at GPS, Linda's passion is community education. She is Vice-President, Education for the Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage Center and serves on the Sgt. York Patriotic Foundation Board.



The Annual Law Day Celebration ended with attorney and author, Bill Haltom speaking on his new book, "Why Can't Mother Vote?". On August 18, 1920, thirty-year-old Tennessee State Representative Joseph Hanover walked through the lobby of The Hermitage Hotel in Nashville to be greeted by cheers and jeers. Joe Hanover had become the nation's leading male voice in the fight for Woman suffrage. The most powerful forces in Tennessee opposed him. But Joe Hanover, a Polish immigrant, was not going to back away from the fight. He asked, "Why can't Mother vote?" And then he set about to take care of the unfinished business of Democracy. In his latest book, Bill tells the inspirational story of this unsung hero of Woman suffrage.



About Law Day



Law Day is an annual commemoration first held in 1957 when American Bar Association President Charles Rhynes envisioned a special national day to mark our nation's commitment to the rule of law. The following year, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first Law Day Proclamation. Law Day was made official in 1961 when Congress issued a joint resolution designating May 1 as the official date for celebrating Law Day.






News Release

Executive Appointment: Mashreq announces Rania Nerhal as Chief Client Experience & Conduct Officer

Bank announces new Client Experience & Conduct Group within organizational structure

31 August 2020, Dubai: Mashreq (https://www.Mashreqbank.com/), one of the leading financial institutions in the UAE, has appointed Rania Nerhal as its Chief Client Experience & Conduct Officer. Rania will be leading the bank's newly formed Client Experience & Conduct Group (CXCG).

The new division will be responsible for enhancing the bank's client experience strategy. It will also ensure that business continues to be conducted efficiently, ethically and effectively, and all policies are clearly and regularly communicated to all clients.

Rania joined Mashreq in February 2018 as Head of Public Sector, Healthcare, Education & Energy. Under her leadership, relevant sector teams have established the MEED Energy Club as well as Frost & Sullivan Healthcare Forum which are landmark achievements to Mashreq's positioning within the respective industries, and which helped create market awareness of Mashreq's strong sector capabilities.

Rania brings more than 25 years of experience in client relationship management in the banking industry. Before joining Mashreq, she held executive management roles such as Head of Client Corporate Coverage and Head of Large Corporates & Public Sector at Egyptian American Bank, Commercial Bank of Dubai, and Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait. Most recently she was with HSBC, where in addition to her role as Senior Corporate Banker, she was Head of Corporate Banking, Dubai, where she led corporate banking coverage teams in charge of a large portfolio of diversified industries and segments.

Commenting on the announcement, Ahmed Abdelaal, Group CEO of Mashreq Bank said: "It gives me great pleasure to announce Rania as our Chief Client Experience & Conduct Officer. Having worked with her for the past few years, I am confident that she is the best person suited to take on this new role. Customer-centricity has always been at the heart of everything that we do but with this newly formed group, we will drive a laser-sharp focus onto improving our client offering, raising the benchmark even higher for client experience in the UAE and throughout our global footprint . Additionally, Rania will significantly enhance the Client Conduct division in line with the bank's existing values and best practices and in adherence to all necessary regulatory requirements. I wish Rania the very best as she takes on this responsibility and look forward to working with her closely to make Mashreq the number one client experience and conduct brand across the region."

Rania Nerhal added: "It is a great honour for me to step up to this new role at Mashreq. Having already spent a few years with the bank, I have seen how client needs have always been, and will continue to be, the deciding factor in all our business decisions and product and service offerings. I am also pleased to contribute to the bank's efforts in the client conduct space which has been garnering a lot of attention recently. I look forward to working with all the teams across the bank to unify our client experience strategy with a client-first mindset and foster a culture of excellence in client experience throughout the bank."

-Ends-

About Mashreq:

One of the UAE's best performing banks for five decades, Mashreq (https://www.Mashreqbank.com/) is a leading financial institution with an expanding footprint across the Middle East. We have international offices in Europe, Asia, Africa and the US, and a strong presence in the financial capitals of the world.

As the oldest bank in the UAE, our journey can be traced back to humble beginnings in 1967, followed by periods of rapid growth and strategic expansion. Throughout our history, Mashreq has differentiated itself by pioneering new-to-market concepts and launching unique products and services.

Our innovative approach sets us truly apart. It also continues to win us numerous awards and accolades in all the fields of banking we operate in - Digital, Corporate, Retail, International, Treasury and Islamic, and across the multiple banking channels we deploy - mobile, digital, online, traditional and telephony.

Media Contact:

Rana AlBorno

Public Relations, Mashreq

Tel: 04 -6083629

Email: RanaAlb@mashreq.com

Image link: https://imgur.com/txgraC7

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Linkedin Mardika Parama (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 14:35 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41a440b 1 Business Batam,free-trade-zone,business,operational-cost,logistics,BP-Batam Free

High costs for logistics and electricity in Batam are burdensome for business, hampering the governments effort to attract investors to the free trade zone (FTZ) in Riau Islands, business players have said.

Abidin Hasibuan, the president director of publicly listed electronics manufacturer PT Sat Nusapersada, said on Thursday that container shipment costs from Batam remained uncompetitive given the poor infrastructure and inefficiency of the areas main seaport, Batu Ampar Port.

Shipping containers from Jakarta to Hong Kong is around 50 percent cheaper than from Batam. That doesnt make sense, as Batam is closer to Hong Kong than Jakarta, he said during an online discussion held by Media Indonesia.

Furthermore, high electricity and labor costs on the islands also make Batam less competitive than other countries, and that is especially dire for industries relying on exports, according to Abidin.

We are lucky that the rupiah is still relatively weak compared to the US dollar. If the rupiah strengthens to Rp 12,000 per dollar, then we are done, he said.

The rupiah gained slightly against the US dollar on Monday at Rp 14,547, an improvement from its steep depreciation in March at around Rp 16,500 per US dollar, the lowest since the 1998 crisis.

The government has taken measures to woo investors with new regulations and tax deals for the Batam FTZ that it expects to aid the region and national economic rebound after the pandemic.

Indonesias economy shrank by 5.32 percent year-on-year (yoy) in the second quarter as economic activity fell after the government imposed large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Indonesias total investment still grew by 1.8 percent yoy in the first half of 2020 to Rp 402.6 trillion (US$27.5 billion), although foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by 8.1 percent yoy over the same period, according to Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) data.

Meanwhile, the data also showed that the FDI in Riau Islands from January to June this year dipped 15.3 percent yoy to $767.5 million from the same period last year.

Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) Singapore committee chairperson Michael Goutama echoed the sentiment, stating that the government should solve the underlying problems in the Batam FTZ.

Seaport infrastructure development in Batam should be the governments top priority, followed by human capital development, the electricity cost and social stability in the region, according to Michael.

Investors see Batam as a promising place to do business. However, we need to solve the underlying issues in the region to lure investment, he said.

In January, state port operator PT Pelabuhan Indonesia II (Pelindo II) signed an agreement with BP Batam, the authority of the Batam FTZ, to develop Batu Ampar Port, with work slated to begin this year.

The development will see the container stacking area of the port expanded from the current 2 hectares to 12 ha, while the container loading and unloading performance would see an upgrade to 20 containers per hour from an average of 5 containers per hour.

Susiwijono Moegiarso, the secretary of the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister, said the government was planning to place the FTZ authorities of Batam, Bintan, Tanjung Pinang and Karimun Islandall located in Riau Islandsunder a unified council led by the coordinating economic minister, in order to simplify licensing processes.

Bintan, Tanjung Pinang, and Karimun Islands FTZ authorities are currently under the leadership of the Riau Island governor, unlike BP Batam, which is directly led by the coordinating economic minister, Susiwijono explained.

We are currently mulling the masterplan for FTZ authorities integration. Through the integration, we could reduce the bureaucratic complexity and unify FTZ asset ownership, he said.

Besides the integration of FTZ authorities, the government is planning to establish six special economic zones (KEK) within the Batam FTZ. It has recently approved the establishment of maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) at the Hang Nadim KEK and the Nongsa Digital Park KEK with estimated investment of Rp 6.2 trillion and Rp 16 trillion, respectively.

Additional investment incentives, such as 100 percent corporate tax holiday, value added tax (VAT) and luxury tax exemptions for imported goods and import duty deferment for raw materials, will be provided for companies operating inside the KEK, according to Susiwijono.

We will also allow 100 percent foreign ownership of companies within the enclave [KEK] and apply a zero-percent duty for products with at least 40 percent local content, he added.
According to satellite images, Syria has deployed Iranian-made air defense systems on its border with Lebanon, capable of downing Israeli aircraft reports Al-Masdar.

On Sunday, the Russian publication Avia.Pro posted a satellite image of what they claim to be an Iranian air defense system near the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Citing an unnamed source, the publication posted a satellite image that allegedly shows the deployment of the Iranian-made Khordad-3 air defense system near the Syrian-Lebanese border.

The source of the Avia.Pro news agency has provided satellite images showing at least three Iranian-made Khordad-3 anti-aircraft missile systems on the Syrian-Lebanese border, from where most of the Israeli F-16 attacks are conducted. The effective range of destruction of targets of the latter is from 75 to 105 kilometers, which is enough to defeat Israeli fighters in the event of new attacks on Syria, the publication said.

According to Avia.Pro, the transfer of these air defense units to Syria could have been done via airlift by the Islamic Republic.

It should be clarified that the appearance in this region of Syria of Iranian air defense systems was a rather big surprise, and if initially there were assumptions that we were talking about the Soviet-made Cube; complexes, then later it turned out that the Syrian army has only a few of these air defense systems, which are located near Damascus, they continued.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
DENVER - A passenger rail line in Colorado would accommodate 9,200 people every weekday and nearly 3 million per year, according to new modeling by state officials.

The proposed line would stretch from Fort Collins south to Pueblo in the south, cutting through Denver.

The model envisions that the railway would reduce vehicle travel in the state by 210,000 miles (337,962 kilometres) each weekday. That would save the state roughly 94 tons (85 metric tonnes) of greenhouse gas emissions daily, officials said.

The model was developed by the state Department of Transportation, which projects the rail line would use existing railway tracks to the east side of Interstate 25.

Plans for the rail line have yet to be finalized, Colorado Public Radio reported. But, the model is a key step toward building the line.

The projection is on the conservative side, said Randy Grauberger, director of the rail project. The model projected fares of about $22 for a one-way ticket from Colorado Springs to Denver.

Currently, a similar ride from the transportation departments Bustang service costs $12.

If we come down on the fares, that should certainly create more ridership, Grauberger said.

The future of the railway is contingent on state and federal funding. Commissioner Sal Pace said he attempted to receive money for the project from the next federal coronavirus stimulus bill, an attempt that was supported by Sen. Cory Gardner. That endeavour, however, has been unsuccessful so far.

Still, Amtrak says it is committed to a new route along the Front Range, according to Ray Lang, its senior director for national state relations.

We really do believe that the Front Range ... is ripe for this, Lang said. It is an area that weve identified that we want to grow service, corridor service, in.
Searches are being conducted in several areas of the occupied peninsula simultaneously.

Russia's law enforcers are raiding Crimean Tatars' homes in Russia-occupied Crimea on the morning of August 31.

Russian security forces broke into the house of the Crimean Solidarity NGO's journalist, Grani.ru correspondent Ayder Kadyrov in Nyzhnohirskyi district,

"Kadyrov's wife and four children are in the house during the raid. The youngest one, 2.5 months old, was handed over to his grandmother who lives nearby. The enforcers arrived in two unmarked Gazelle vans to carry out investigative actions," the NGO wrote on Facebook on August 31.

Read also"Not a chance": Leading party chair says Rada not to consider resumption of water supplies to CrimeaLater it became known that Kadyrov was being taken to the so-called "FSB [Russia's Federal Security Service] station." The occupiers also are searching the house of Enver Tomchi, the father of two minor children, living in Soviet district, and the house of Ayder Ablyakimov, an emergency service worker, located in Soniachna Dolyna ("Sunny Valley") in Sudak district.

Also, the enforcers are searching the house of activist Ridvan Umerov, who has three minor children at home.

"There are three cars parked outside the house, including a paddy wagon with riot police officers inside," the NGO added.

Human rights violations in Crimea: background

On July 9, Russian occupiers' court ruled to remand in custody until September 9 two detained Crimean Tatars.

On August 7, Ukraine handed over to Russia a list for the next swap of Crimean Tatars illegally held in the temporarily occupied peninsula.

On August 19, Russia's FSB said it had detained a Crimean citizen for participating in a Ukrainian volunteer battalion.
In most years, only a few key dates stand out for income-tax planning, and most of them are familiar to taxpayers. But deadlines and strategies have changed a bit for 2020.

The coronavirus pandemic and economic-shutting efforts to slow the virus altered the norm. The most notable example involved the Internal Revenue Service and various state tax agencies, including the Arizona Department of Revenue, switching the usual April 15 filing deadline for 2019 returns to July 15.

And there are other examples. Here are some important dates that loom on the calendar for the remainder of 2020:

Aug. 31 for RMD repayments

This is a key date for a small number of older Americans who took money out of their traditional Individual Retirement Accounts (and possibly workplace 401(k) retirement plans) and want to repay it so they don't incur taxes in 2020. Normally, investors over age 70 1/2 must withdraw a portion of their account balances and pay taxes on the proceeds, as required minimum distributions. But the IRS suspended these rules for 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tax tips on credits, deductions, rates: 'Most Americans lack a basic understanding'

Older investors who don't need the money to live on have the option to roll over or repay anything they withdrew earlier in the year. If they put the money back by Aug. 31, they can avoid paying the tax in 2020, if they choose.

The money must be back in the account by that date  it's not a matter of getting a check postmarked by then, as when filing income-tax returns by various due dates, said Ed Slott, a certified public accountant and founder of IRAhelp.com.

Sept. 15 for estimated payments

This was and remains the normal deadline for filing third-quarter estimated income-tax payments. It wasn't moved or altered by any of the various coronavirus-relief measures, unlike the normal April 15 filing deadline, which was delayed three months, and the deadline for second-quarter estimated payments, which also was extended.

Story continues

If you make estimated tax payments, you might want to devote some extra time deciding how much, if any, payments you should make, given all the changes this year, Slott said.

For example, people who lost their jobs and received unemployment compensation but didn't have money withheld from these benefits might want to make their estimated quarterly payments a bit larger, Slott said, as jobless-insurance benefits are taxable.

Then again, if your jobless benefits were much lower than your regular pay, and you did have taxes withheld, you possibly could lower or skip an estimated payment.

Sept. 22 for higher 401(k) loans

The CARES Act legislation passed in response to the coronavirus pandemic provided flexibility for people wanting to borrow from their workplace 401(k)-style retirement plans.

Close up of a 401(k) statement.

One provision allows anyone affected by the pandemic to borrow up to $100,000 or 100% of their vested account balance, whichever is less, if done by Sept. 22. That's above the $50,000/50% limits that normally apply. The IRS offers more details on these and related provisions, including eligibility rules, at irs.gov. Not all employers allow higher loan amounts, as they're optional.

Borrowing money from a 401(k) plan isn't normally a great idea, partly because you draw down your account (at least temporarily, in the case of a loan). And if you can't repay the amount borrowed, the money becomes taxable, though the CARES Act does allow certain loan repayments to be delayed up to one year.

Oct. 15 for 2019 extensions

This is the normal deadline for filing an extended income-tax return. The date didn't change, which means taxpayers who haven't yet filed their 2019 returns generally need to do so by Oct. 15 or face a late-filing penalty.

This assumes you needed extra time to file your 2019 returns and already submitted IRS Form 4868, which granted delays to Oct. 15. Even if you did all that properly, you still were supposed to pay your 2019 tax bill by July 15. Otherwise, interest and a possible penalty could apply.

Arizona has two filing deadlines for 2019 returns: Oct. 15 if filing electronically, because of the link with the federal system, but Jan. 15, 2021, if filing a paper return.

Dec. 31 for year-end actions

The end of the calendar year normally is an important time for tax planning, and much of the usual guidance still applies. For example, you might want to delay accepting certain income, if you can, until January 2021 so you don't recognize it this year. Conversely, if you itemize deductions, it might pay to incur certain deductible expenses by Dec. 31 so you can take them this year, such as paying property taxes or making charity donations.

In addition, you might want to delay locking in capital gains on investments until after Dec. 31, or you might wish to realize deductible losses soon so you can claim them in 2020.

Speaking of charities, cash donations to nonprofit groups, which are normally limited for deduction purposes to no more than 60% of your adjusted gross income, can be fully deducted this year thanks to COVID-19 changes, said Mike Finnegan, managing director at tax-firm CBIZ and MHM in Phoenix. "You can give more cash this year, up to 100% of AGI," he said.

The CARES Act also created a special "above-the-line deduction for cash donations to charities worth up to $300, meaning you can claim this one even if you don't itemize.

There's still plenty of time to act on some of these year-end planning items, and you might want to wait anyway until after the presidential, House and Senate elections to see what tax shifts, if any, seem likely.

"After the election, there will be some scrambling to figure that out," said Finnegan.

Special COVID-19 year-end rules

Coronavirus-relief legislation also offered a few other tax-planning opportunities for 2020 only.

For example, if you must permanently withdraw money from IRAs or workplace plans like 401(k)s, you can do so this year and avoid the 10% penalty that normally applies if you're under 59 1/2.

Also, withdrawals taken this year can be spread over three years for tax purposes, possibly easing the bite. Normally, withdrawals are taxable in the year taken.

Not all employers offer these options, so inquire well before late December. The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau offers an explanation of the temporary rules that apply to people affected by the pandemic.

Reach the reporter at russ.wiles@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Some tax deadlines changed due to pandemic. What you need to know
Former President Pranab Mukherjee passed away on August 31 at a hospital in New Delhi. He was in a critical condition after undergoing brain surgery. He had also tested positive for COVID-19 before the surgery and was on ventilator support.

With a Heavy Heart, this is to inform you that my father Shri #PranabMukherjee has just passed away inspite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital & prayers ,duas & prarthanas from people throughout India, his son Abhijit Mukherjee informed on Twitter.

The 84-year-old political leader was conferred the countrys highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna in 2019. He served the country as its 13th President for five years from July 25, 2012.

A congressman, Mukherjee is remembered as an elder statesman who has made a lasting contribution to Indias progress in nearly five-decade public life, steered governance and inspired youth towards excellence in academics and other fields.

Leaders across party lines as well as celebrities took to Twitter to pay their last respects to the octogenarian.

Here are the latest updates:

> Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the death of Mukherjee and tweeted, " India grieves the passing away of Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society."

India grieves the passing away of Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society. pic.twitter.com/gz6rwQbxi6 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 31, 2020

>> President Ram Nath Kovind and Vice President Venakaiah Naidu also paid their tributes to Mukherjee.



 ,                         , -        -     President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) August 31, 2020



Deeply saddened by the passing away of former President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee. The country has lost an elder statesman in his death. He rose from humble beginnings to occupy the countrys highest constitutional position through hard work, discipline and dedication. pic.twitter.com/pHFnbklT9O Vice President of India (@VPSecretariat) August 31, 2020

>> Paying his last respects to the late politician, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said, "Deeply anguished on the passing away of former President of India, Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee ji. He was a vastly experienced leader who served the nation with utmost devotion. Pranab das distinguished career is a matter of great pride for the entire country."



Deeply anguished on the passing away of former President of India, Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee ji. He was a vastly experienced leader who served the nation with utmost devotion. Pranab das distinguished career is a matter of great pride for the entire country.  Amit Shah (@AmitShah) August 31, 2020



>> Expressing his anguish at the loss of the widely-respected leader, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, "His demise is a personal loss. He had tremendous knowledge of Indias history, diplomacy, public policy and also defence."

Deeply anguished by the demise of former president of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee ji. He was widely respected by the people across all sections of society. His demise is a personal loss. He had tremendous knowledge of Indias history, diplomacy, public policy and also defence.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) August 31, 2020

>> Cricketer Virender Sehwag also tweeted condoling the death of Mukherjee.



My heartfelt condolences on the passing away of Shri #PranabMukherjee . Om Shanti pic.twitter.com/Q2noCKVFnq  Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) August 31, 2020



>> Seven-day state mourning to be observed throughout India from August 31 to September 6, both days inclusive.

>> Nepal Prime Minister also tweeted, "I am deeply saddened by the news of passing away of former President of India H.E. Pranab Mukherjee. Heartfelt condolences to the government and people of India as well as the bereaved family members."

>> Describing former president Pranab Mukherjee as a "true friend of Israel", Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on too expressed his condolences. "Israel stands with the people of India and the family of former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee in mourning his passing," Rivlin wrote in a tweet.

>> West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also expressed deep sorrow over the death of former president Pranab Mukherjee and said with his demise "an era has come to an end".

It is with deep sorrow I write this. Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee has left us. An era has ended. For decades he was a father figure. From my first win as MP, to being my senior Cabinet colleague, to his becoming President while I was CM...(1/2)  Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) August 31, 2020

>> Expressing his grief over Mukherjee''s death,Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in his condolence message called the former president "Ajatshatru of politics" who was equally respected by both ruling and opposition

>> Legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar also tweeted saying, "Deeply saddened to hear Pranab da Mukherjee passed away. Our former President, a Bharat Ratna and a thorough gentleman. We shared a very warm and cordial relationship. Heartfelt condolences to the family."

Deeply saddened to hear Pranab da Mukherjee passed away. Our former President, a Bharat Ratna and a thorough gentleman. We shared a very warm and cordial relationship. Heartfelt condolences to the family.  Lata Mangeshkar (@mangeshkarlata) August 31, 2020

>> Condoling his death, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said, "The unfortunate demise of Shri Pranab Mukherjee is a tragic loss to the nation. His invaluable contributions to the nation's progress in over 5 decades of exemplary service will always be remembered with great pride. My thoughts & prayers are with the grieving family."

>> Expressing grief over former president Pranab Mukherjees demise, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said he served the nation with exemplary dedication. "His experience in parliamentary and administrative matters was unmatched, a quality which manifested itself in his extraordinary work ethic. Mukherjee never let politics overshadow his personal relationship. It was an attribute that allowed him to easily build consensus on some of the most important and complex political matters"
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Linkedin Allan Policarpio (Inquirer.net/Asia News Network)  Mon, August 31, 2020 15:05 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41a4e78 2 People Paris-Hilton,school,celebrity,socialite Free

After burying her truth for so long, Paris Hilton has finally decided to open up about the traumatic experiences she had during her teenage years, which, to this day, continue to give her nightmares.

In a recent interview with People magazine to promote her upcoming YouTube documentary, This is Paris, the entrepreneur and socialite revealed that she endured physical, mental and emotional abuse on a daily basis during the 11 months she spent at the Provo Canyon School (PCS) in Utah in the late 1990s.

I knew it was going to be worse than anywhere else. It was supposed to be a school, but [classes] werent the focus at all, Paris said of the school, which purportedly focuses on the mental and behavioral well-being of troubled youth. From the moment I woke up until I went to bed, it was all day screaming in my face, yelling at me, continuous torture.

Paris, an heiress to the Hilton hotel empire, admitted that her parents strictness compelled her to rebel during her teens. She would often sneak out to attend parties and go clubbing. And while her parents punished her by taking away her cell phone and credit card, that didnt stop her from going out on her own.

In hopes of setting her straight, Paris parents sent her to different boarding schools, the last one being PCS.

The staff would say terrible things. They were constantly making me feel bad about myself and bully me. I think it was their goal to break us down. And they were physically abusive, hitting and strangling us. They wanted to instill fear in the kids so we would be too scared to disobey them, she recalled.

Paris was cut off from the outside world and got to communicate with her family just once every two or three months. And when she once dared tell her parents about how she was being treated, she got in so much trouble, I was scared to say it again.

They would grab the phone or rip up letters I wrote telling me, No ones going to believe you, Paris recalled. And the staff would tell the parents that the kids were lying. So my parents had no idea what was going on.

Read also: Nicole Richie: From tabloid antics to saving bees, 'ugly produce'

Paris contemplated running away from PCS at one point. But her plans were thwarted by a classmate who snitched on her. She was put in solitary confinement as a result.

They would use that as punishment, sometimes 20 hours a day, Paris, now 39, related. I was having panic attacks and crying every single day. I was so miserable. I felt like a prisoner and I hated life.

People reported that Universal Health Services, which currently runs PCS, declined to comment on Paris claims, because the facility was under a different ownership and operations during her time there.

Paris left PCS and returned to her home in New York City in 1999 when she was 18. She never told anyone about what she had experienced. I was so grateful to be out of there so I didnt even want to bring it up again. It was just something I was ashamed of, and I didnt want to speak of it, she said.

Reflecting on her life thus far, Paris, who had since become a household name via the reality television show The Simple Life, said shes proud of the strong woman she has become.

People might assume everything in my life came easy to me, but I want to show the world who I truly am, stressed Paris, who plans to watch her documentary with her parents once it debuts on her YouTube channel on Sept. 14. I think it will be good for us, but emotional, too. There are no more secrets.

And while shes not planning any legal actions, Paris wants facilities like PCS shut down". I want them to be held accountable. And I want to be a voice for children, and now, adults everywhere who have had similar experiences. I want it to stop for good. I will do whatever I can to make it happen, she said.

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This article appeared on the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijan and the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan have discussed cooperation in energy and transportation during the video conference held between the two countries energy ministers and co-chairs of the intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation, Azerbaijani Energy Ministry's press service has reported.

During the meeting, the sides reviewed the suggestion to hold the 2nd meeting of the Working Groups on the transit of Kazakhstan's oil and oil products through Azerbaijan and delivery of Kazakhstan's oil products to Azerbaijan, and on delivery and transportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Kazakhstan through the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan in September.

They also agreed to hold the 17th Meeting of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation between two countries meeting in the second half of October 2020.

The sides underlined the contributions of the Intergovernmental Commission to strengthen the friendly ties between the two countrie.

The ministers also exchanged views on cooperation within OPEC plus and the current status of the global oil market.

Kazakh Energy Minister Nurlan Nogayev said that the measures taken by OPEC and non-OPEC countries played an important role in raising the price of oil to 46 USD per barrel.

In turn, Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said: "The positive results of the OPEC plus agreement show that we have made the right decision. We are doing our best to achieve the fulfilment of our commitments."

The sides also discussed other collaborative issues arising out of the activities of the Intergovernmental Commission at the meeting.

It should be noted that the 16th meeting of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation between two countries was held in Baku on October 9 2019, in which it was agreed to hold the next meeting of the commission in Nur-Sultan city of Kazakhstan.

Set up in 1999, the Kazakhstan-Azerbaijan Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation has contributed to the development of bilateral relations in the economic sphere.

he trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan is around $230 million.

The main export products from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan are mineral resources (oil and gas), chemical raw materials, grain, barley, tobacco products, carbon steel rolling, and electrical equipment. Azerbaijan exports petroleum products extracted from bituminous materials, ethylene polymers, components for machines and mechanisms, prefabricated buildings, etc. to Kazakhstan.

Presently, over 700 companies with Azerbaijani capital are registered in Kazakhstan, and about 60 companies with Kazakh capital are registered in Azerbaijan.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Russian student and blogger Yegor Zhukov last year - AFP

A 22-year-old Russian opposition activist has been hospitalised after what supporters said was a vicious attack by two men outside his house in Moscow.

Yegor Zhukov, who came to prominence last year when he was arrested and tried over opposition protests, posted pictures of his bruised and bloody face to social media following the attack.

He was taken to hospital for an MRI scan which showed he had fortunately managed to avoid serious injuries or internal bleeding, a spokesman said.

The activist remained calm and even joked about what happened, his team said in a social media post, adding that he was allowed home following tests.

Mr Zhukov posted a picture of his injuries online after the assault - Reuters

The assault comes as opposition leader Alexei Navalny remains unconscious in a Berlin hospital after what German doctors say was a incident of poisoning.

Mr Navalnys team have said Russian authorities are to blame for the attack, but the Kremlin have rejected the charges and accused the Berlin hospital of rushing to conclusions.

Mr Zhukov was handed a three-year suspended sentence last year on extremism charges, over videos posted to his YouTube channel about mass protests in Moscow that called for free elections.

In a closing speech to the court he attacked Russias autocracy and said most people in the country lived in a state of desperation. Fellow students rallied to support him and he later told interviewers he had ambitions to be president.

Before the attack on Sunday, Mr Zhukov took part in an online talk show in which he discussed the current protest movement in Belarus against long-time dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

He said the demonstrations there were a textbook example for those who wanted to achieve change through peaceful means.

Also on Sunday, the young activist said Moscows prestigious Higher School of Economics had rescinded his offer of a place on a Masters programme. He accused the university of bowing to pressure from authorities.

Moscow police have opened a criminal investigation into the attack.
KENOSHA, Wis. - Some residents in Kenosha fear a planned visit by President Donald Trump after unrest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake may stir more emotions and cause more violence and destruction in the southeastern Wisconsin city after several days of peace.

The citys mayor, and the states governor, also said they believed Trumps visit comes at a bad time. But others welcomed the presidents trip, scheduled for Tuesday, when he will tour damage and meet with law enforcement. Trumps visit comes as demonstrators are calling for the officer who shot Blake to be fired and face attempted murder charges, and more than a week after authorities say a 17-year-old from northern Illinois shot and killed two protesters.

Asked Monday whether he feared Trumps visit could stir more violence, Kenosha County Executive Jim Kreuser said: Well find out tomorrow, wont we?

The tension began Aug. 23 after a video showed a Kenosha police officer shooting Blake, a Black man, in the back while responding to a call about a domestic dispute. All last week, Black Lives Matter protesters held events to call for changes to policing. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called a special session of the Legislature for Monday to take up a host of police reform measures, but Republicans took no immediate action.

Authorities said they had resources in place to protect the bedroom community between Chicago and Milwaukee, including more than 1,500 National Guard members.

Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth said more than 200 people have been arrested since the protests began. Of those, more than half were from outside Kenosha, he said. Many arrests were for curfew violations, and included possible charges for burglary, possession of illegal drugs and carrying concealed weapons without a permit, officials said. The Kenosha Police Department has said more than 20 firearms were seized.

Beth also said that outside agitators have used social media or made phone calls to churches and businesses to scare people and spread false rumours.

I want the people of Kenosha to know theres a huge amount of resources here to protect you, Beth said.

Family members say Blake, 29, is paralyzed, and a lawyer said most of his colon and small intestines were removed. His family led a large peaceful protest Saturday, just before Trump announced his plans to visit.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Monday that Trump has no immediate plans to meet with Blakes family when hes in Kenosha.

Trump told reporters Monday that he spoke with the Blake family pastor about speaking with the family, who insisted that their lawyer take part in the phone call.

I thought it would be better not to do anything where therere lawyers involved, Trump said. They wanted me to speak but they wanted to have lawyers involved and I thought that was inappropriate, so I didnt do that.

The White House later confirmed that Trump spoke with The Rev. James E. Ward, Jr., founder and lead pastor of Skokie, Illinois-based INSIGHT Church. The Associated Press left and email and voicemail seeking comment Monday evening from Ward.

Ben Crump, an attorney for Blakes family, told CNN that Blakes mother was ready to receive the phone call, but for some reason the call never came, and we now understand why.

I dont know why the president wouldnt want the family to have their lawyers on the phone, Crump said. He seems to have lawyers with him when he talks to people.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden spoke with Blakes family last week.

Blakes family planned a Tuesday community celebration to correspond with Trumps visit.

We dont need more pain and division from a president set on advancing his campaign at the expense of our city, said uncle Justin Blake in a statement. We need justice and relief for our vibrant community.

On Sunday, Evers sent Trump a letter urging him not to come, saying the visit will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together. But Kenosha County Board supervisors urged him not to cancel.

Kenoshans are hurting and looking for leadership, and your leadership in this time of crisis is greatly appreciated by those devastated by the violence in Kenosha, a letter from seven supervisors said.

Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian reiterated Monday that he believes Trumps visit is coming at the wrong time.

I think that Kenosha, at this present time, needs peace and needs to heal and needs people to allow us to do that, he said.

Trump showed no signs of backing down, tweeting about the unrest in Kenosha and saying,  I will see you on Tuesday!

Diana Kreye, a 60-year-old resident of nearby Brighton, said Trump is exploiting the conflict.

I dont like that this has all become political, said Kreye, an undecided voter.

Angel Tirado, 42, however, thinks Trumps visit could help. I hope he says something that can calm us all down, said Tirado. Maybe hell bring us together.

Others doubt the president had any intention of closing divisions and pointed to his recent tweets and history of making racist comments.

Hes not coming down here to heal, said David Sanchez, 66, a retiree and Kenosha resident who expects thousands of people to show up to protest Trump. Hes coming to Kenosha to start more trouble. I dont care what he says.

He has done nothing over the last three years to bring people together, said Raymond Roberts, 38, a data scientist and Afghanistan War veteran. This is a bellwether county in a bellwether state. Its all about his reelection.

Trump has throughout the summer sought to cast U.S. cities as under siege by violence and lawlessness, despite the fact that most of the demonstrations against racial injustice have been peaceful.

Still, Trump is likely to find some support in a county he won in 2016 by fewer than 250 votes.

Oscar Escobar, 41, a Kenosha resident who owns a moving company and co-owns a bar and grill, said he doesnt align with either Democrats or Republicans. He said its good that Trump plans to visit.

I think its a great thing for him to show that he cares about whats happening here in Kenosha and not turning his back on us and just leaving us alone, Escobar said.

___

AP reporters Jennifer Peltz in Kenosha; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Don Babwin in Chicago; and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis contributed.

___

Associated Press writer Russell Contreras is a member of the APs Race and Ethnicity Team. Follow Contreras on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras
Michael Kwadwo Peprah, the president of the Concerned Small Scale Miners Association, who was arrested by the Cyber Crime Unit of the Ghana Police Service, has been granted bail.



This was after some members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) gathered at the Nima Police Station in Accra where Peprah was being held, to demand his release.



On Saturday, August 29, Michael Kwadwo Peprah, was arrested in Kumasi for allegedly causing fear and panic with a post on his Facebook timeline. He was then transported to Accra.



According to Peprahs lawyer, Bobby Benson, Mr. Michael Kojo Preprah has been granted bail. The Policeman who effected the arrest from Kumasi later came to the Nima Police Station and he [Preprah] was asked to write his statement and before that, they must tell you the offence they are investigating. They said they are investigating the offence of publishing false information, and the complainant, we are told, is the Minister for Environment.



So he has been granted bail and we are to report tomorrow to continue, he added.



Sammy Gyamfi, the NDCs National Communication Officer, described Michael Kwadwo Peprahs arrest as an intimidation by the Akufo-Addo administration.



This morning we got information that the president of the Concerned Small Scale Miners Association of Ghana has been arrested by officers belonging to the Cybercrime Unit of the Ghana Police Service in the Ashanti Region. We understand that he was detained at the Ashanti Regional Office and this morning transported to the Nima Police Station. Weve spoken to him and he tells us that he was arrested yesterday at 3 pm in Kumasi and was not told the reason for his arrest. His phones were seized and [he was] taken to his house and a search was conducted, Sammy Gyamfi told Citi FM in an interview.



He continued: We have gathered information that he was arrested over a post he made on his Facebook wall ahead of the Associations planned press conference to compare the NPPs manifesto and that of the NDC on the issue of small scale mining. Our sources at the Cyber Crime Unit tell us this arrest was on the orders of the Minister of Environment, Prof Frimpong Boateng who is not happy at how the association of small scale miners led by Mr. Preprah has exposed the criminal galamsey he has been supervising and we see this as clear intimidation by the Akufo-Addo administration.



Peprah in a video available to GhanaWeb was seen interacting and posing for a group photograph with the NDC members after his release.

Source: ghanaweb.com









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Maria Quezada had always known her grandchild Lance to be a girl. But then one day, Lance told her, "Grandma, I'm a boy."

Quezada had a hard time understanding this. While she was familiar with what it meant to be lesbian or gay, she didn't know anyone else who was transgender.

"[He said], I'm a boy from my soul, my spirit, from the inside," Quezada says. "And that was it for me. It wasn't my job to try to understand any longer. My job right there and then was to accept."

It was a journey for Quezada to get from a place of learning to acceptance. A big part of what helped was joining her local Spanish-language chapter of PFLAG, which supports parents, families, and allies of people who identify as LGBTQ+. The group gathers at El Centro de Ayuda in Boyle Heights, which provides human services to low income families residing in Northeast Los Angeles.

She said that she knew many fellow Latinos who weren't very accepting of LGBTQ+ people, but this group was different.

"It was so wonderful to walk into this group in my neighborhood," she said. "We're all Latinos and everybody is coming together to embrace. And that is where I found comfort and my safe space."

Services like Quezada's support group are part of what's at stake in this year's census for LGBTQ+ communities. U.S. Census data determines federal funding for schools, hospitals, and a wide range of social programs.

Nonprofits like El Centro and PFlag also rely on census data to petition for funding, to expand their services to vulnerable populations, and to educate policymakers about the populations they serve.

Earlier this year the pandemic upended outreach efforts, especially in-person outreach, with community organizations having to cancel events.

Now, with a month left to go in the decennial count after the Trump administration moved up the census deadline to Sept. 30, LGBTQ+ community members are still working hard to get out the word about participation, and what's at stake.

Advocates say that the census is a way to have a voice in how federal dollars are spent locally and in government representation. Chris Records (left) and Marisa London with Equality California speak with students and young people at the Models of Pride event in 2019. (Courtesy of Equality California)

WHAT'S AT STAKE

Those who are LGBTQ+ experience huge disparities in income, health, housing, and more. According to one UCLA study, 22% of LGBTQ+ people are living in poverty, compared with 16% of cisgender straight people, and 9% of LGBTQ+ people above the age of 16 are unemployed. A striking 20% to 45% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ+.

LGBTQ+ people are also more likely to be uninsured and experience discrimination in health care, housing, and employment. In fact, one out of five LGBTQ+ people are enrolled in a social safety net program: According to the same data from UCLA, 27% of those who are gay, lesbian and bisexual use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), colloquially known as food stamps, compared with 20% of non-LGBQT+ respondents.

"It's estimated that 1.17 million LGBTQ-plus people between the ages of 18 and 64 are using Medicaid as their primary form of insurance," said Amira Hasenbush, an attorney who works with LGBT families on legal issues like name changes, surrogacy and adoption. "And for trans folks, there are 18 states and the District of Columbia that include gender affirming care and Medicaid."

These statistics are a big part of why LGBTQ+ advocates are concerned about participation in the 2020 Census. The data gathered determines political representation and funding for key social services for the next 10 years, among other things.

"The census is a way to be heard. It is having a voice in how federal money is spent on programs that are important to your community," said Beatriz Valenzuela, press secretary of Equality California, a statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization. "It is also having a voice in government representation, especially right now when so many marginalized communities, especially the LGBTQ+ community, seem to be under constant attack."

According to L.A. County officials, each person not counted in the decennial census represents an estimated loss of $2,000 per person each year. That's a $20,000 loss per person for schools, community programs, infrastructure, and hospitals over a decade.

With California home to the largest LGBTQ+ population in the country, the local stakes are particularly high.

"This isn't something that we can do next year," Valenzuela of Equality California said. "No, this will shape how money is spent and how our voices are heard in government for the next 10 years. We will not be able to do anything about it until 2030."

THE CENSUS QUESTIONS THAT WEREN'T

In spite of efforts to add one, this year's census still lacks questions directly asking about sexual orientation and gender identity. The 2020 Census, like most censuses of decades past, has just two boxes to check for "sex" on the census: male and female.

LGBTQ+ advocates have pushed for years to include sexual orientation and gender identity on the U.S. Census. Towards the end of the Obama administration, there was a moment it seemed like there would be a change. Seventy-eight members of Congress and four federal agencies petitioned the Census Bureau to include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Census Bureau was getting ready to begin a process of testing questions when, in 2017, the Trump administration effectively put an end to the process. Under Jeff Sessions' new leadership, the Department of Justice rescinded its review request, and the Census Bureau let it go.

One thing has changed though: This year's census includes an option for same-sex couples to identify either as spouses or unmarried partners. The 2010 Census included a question to identify a partner as husband/wife or unmarried partner. For 2020, the census has expanded this to allow people to identify partners as a "same-sex" or "opposite sex" husband/wife/spouse or unmarried partner.

According to UCLA's Williams Institute, however, only about 20% of LGBTQ+ people are living in cohabiting households, leaving the majority out of the count.

Some people who would not be visible in the data collected are people who are single, trans, bisexual and in a different sex relationship, or living in multigenerational or non-traditional households. For example, a same-sex couple might decide to live with one of their parents while they raise their kids. If the grandparent is the head of household who is filling out the census, she will indicate that she is living with her child and child-in-law, and not be able to mark the couple as same sex partners.

But it's at least something, advocates say. Now the trick is getting people to respond, no easy feat amid the pandemic and shortened time frame.

Even though the 2020 Census doesn't have ways for people to identify as LGBTQ+, advocates say it's important for people to be counted as part of their respective communities to get needed funding for services. Photo from march in defense of DACA in November 2019. (Courtesy of Equality California)

WHY THE NEED TO FILL IT OUT?

For those who do identify as same-sex spouses or unmarried partners, being counted is a big deal for services for those raising families. According to UCLA's Williams institute, 114,000 LGBTQ+ people are raising children under 18.

Amira Hasenbush, a lawyer who works with LGBTQ+ families around adoption, surrogacy and other alternative methods, says these parents are more likely to be raising children under challenging conditions.

"LGBT couples raising children are two times more likely to have a household income near the poverty threshold than different sex couples raising children," she says.

Many same-sex couples raising kids are also adoptive or foster parents. Same sex couples are far more likely to adopt than different sex couples. In fact, nearly a quarter of them are raising foster or adopted children.

Here is how census data matters to these families: Some $5.4 billion in federal spending goes into the foster care system every year. That money helps LGBTQ+ children in foster care, who are disproportionately represented in the system.

And $2.9 billion in federal funding a year goes to adoption programs, mainly to fund adoptions of children with special needs.

Even for people not living with a partner, being counted as part of one's respective community still makes a huge difference.

"You don't have to prove your queerness to get money. You can just be a low-income person or low-income parents and that is enough to get a lot of different benefits that you need," said Hasenbush.

She said that since most funding is not directly linked to sexual orientation or gender identity, being counted matters for funding any program that one might use: "And so while [tracking sexual orientation and gender identity] would certainly be able to explain a lot more about the lived experiences of LGBT people, for the time being, filling out the census still means you're counted."

The Source LGBT+Center doing outreach in person earlier this year, in February 2020. Noah Deeds (right) says that if not for the pandemic, they would have used in-person tactics to reach historically undercounted populations. (Courtesy of The Source LGBT+ Center)

OKAY, SO HOW DO I FILL OUT MY CENSUS FORM?

For the first time this year, people can fill out the census online. It includes nine questions about the head of household and seven questions about each additional household member.

The head of household will see a question about sex that has just two possible responses, "male" or "female." If you don't fill out all questions, your census form will still count, census officials have said. Advocates say that you can opt to skip this question. You should know however, that the U.S. Census Bureau may cross-check databases to fill in the blanks for you.

It's also worth noting that for this and all other data on the census, it is against the law for the U.S. Census Bureau to share identifying information with any other agency.

For same-sex couples who are living together, when describing other members of your household, you will be able to indicate their relationship to you. You are able to mark your partner as a same-sex husband/wife/spouse or unmarried partner. If you have or are caring for any children, you can also indicate them as biological, adopted, or foster children.

With limited in-person options available, advocates have had to get creative with outreach. Latino Equality Alliance hosted an online townhall about the census in April 2020. (Courtesy of Latino Equality Alliance)

A RACE AGAINST TIME, WITH PANDEMIC AS BACKDROP

As the clock ticks down to the recently revised census end date on Sept. 30, advocates are working hard to get out the word about participation.

The pandemic took away the most effective ways that these groups have used to reach traditionally undercounted communities: in-person events and outreach. Community organizations that serve LGBTQ+ people have had to get creative.

Since April, The Source LGBT+ Center in Visalia has been organizing virtual census "happy hours" that have featured local organizations, artists, and community leaders. API Equality-LA, which serves LGBTQ+ Asian American and Pacific Islanders, transitioned early to text and phone banking and created PSAs and infographics for Instagram and other online platforms.

Latino Equality Alliance hosted an online townhall geared toward Southeast Los Angeles residents, including poetry and a drag performance, and the group has participated in caravans and mobile concerts in collaboration with the City of Huntington Park. In this last stretch, they are looking for volunteers for door-to-door outreach in high density areas.

Advocates say they expect response rates to be low, given the limited ability to reach people in person. But they say they will continue to push for participation until the end date, because the census is critically important -- especially during a pandemic.

"Right now we're seeing full scale the importance of these services that we often take for granted. A lot of people are relying on public services right now for help," said Noah Deeds of The Source LGBT+ Center in Visalia.

"[Participating in the census] is not going to prevent anything like this happening," he said, "but it could make sure that our communities are a little bit better guarded for something like this in the future."
After 5 months of adhering to public health orders set to slow the spread of the novel Coronavirus, Awaken Church in San Diego, California has reopened its doors to the public.

Ever since Governor Newsom's banning of large indoor gatherings and services, Awaken Church proceeded with outdoor and online meetings. However, the church began opening its doors to regular indoor services in late July. Awaken Church was issued a cease-and-desist letter from Dr. Wilma Wooten, a Health Officer in the County of San Diego, after footage of indoor operations were seen online.

The church officially stated that "this decision was not made lightly. Our community is hurting." The statement proceeds to share the government's lack of understanding regarding people affected in different ways during the Pandemic. It plans to reopen its doors to people suffering from relapsed drug addictions, increased domestic abuse, and overall mental health as they believe "this cannot be done virtually or at a distance."

Awaken Church has reportedly purchased several air-ionizers to filter out impurities from the air within each of its campuses. It also plans to provide free face masks to those who wish to wear them during indoor services. Pastor Jon Heinrich said, "we think, actually, our church buildings are the safest places in San Diego."

County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, although acknowledging the First Amendment, expressed great concern over continuing large indoor services. He insisted, "we've seen the extreme danger presented from large indoor gatherings of individuals for an extended period of time." The County Supervisor demands churches continue with outdoor operations and abide by current public health orders.
Protest staged outside bank

PROTEST group Extinction Rebellion Newbury staged a protest outside Barclays Bank in Parkway, Newbury, this afternoon against the company's policy of investments in fossil fuels.

The stunt was part of a nationwide campaign by Extinction Rebellion, which has held similar protests in towns and cities around the country.

The organisation is campaigning against ecological destruction and argues that the big banks' investments in fossil fuels is unethical.

The small group of Newbury protesters stood outside the bank wiping the windows with dusters as a metaphor to tell the bank to 'clean up their act'. They also put up yellow signs which read 'Caution this bank is grubby' and carried a large bee, which represented the wildlife that faces extinction.

Shoppers in Parkway were offered leaflets explaining the group's views and highlighting Barclays as one of the 'dirty dozen' of international banks that are top funders of fossil fuel businesses.
Prime Minister on Monday wished citizens on the occasion of and called it a unique festival, which celebrates "harmony".

"Greetings on This is a unique festival, which celebrates harmony. It is also an occasion to express gratitude to our hardworking farmers. May everyone be blessed with joy and best health," he tweeted while sharing a clip from his 'Mann Ki Baat' programme where he spoke about the festival.

"These days the festival of is also being celebrated enthusiastically. This festival comes in the month of Chingam. People buy something new, decorate their houses and prepare Pookalam. People enjoy Onam Sadya," he said in the clip.

"Various competitions are also held. Onam's fame has today reached faraway countries. Be it America, Europe or the Gulf countries. Onam is becoming an international festival. Onam is linked with farming. It is the time of a new beginning for our rural economy. Our lives, our society derive sustenance from the fortitude of farmers. Their perseverance lends myriad hues to our festivals," Modi said.

The Prime Minister also tweeted in Malayalam while expressing gratitude to farmers.

"Happy Onam to all Malayalees. Onam is a celebration of friendship and unity. The festival is also an opportunity to express our gratitude to our hard-working farmers. I wish everyone a long and healthy life and happiness during this Onam season," read the tweet from the Prime Minister (roughly translated from Malayalam).

Onam festivities, which started on August 22, will continue till September 2.

Onam falls in the month of Chingam, which is the first month according to the Malayalam calendar. The celebrations spread over 10 days mark the Malayalam New Year and conclude with Thiruvonam.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Vietnamese Embassy in Canada inaugurated a showroom of President Ho Chi Minh on August 28 on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of National Day of Vietnam (September 2).

At the showroom of President Ho Chi Minh (Photo: VNA)

The showroom displays about 200 books and photos featuring the late President by both Vietnamese and Canadian authors.

Earlier the same day, the embassy also held a meeting celebrating the anniversary.

Addressing the event, Vietnamese Ambassador to Canada Pham Cao Phong spoke highly of the patriotism and efforts made by overseas Vietnamese to bring made-in-Vietnam products to Canada as well as to introduce advanced technologies and draw investment to the homeland.

He praised the Vietnamese community's contributions to fostering Vietnam-Canada ties, adding that within the framework of comprehensive cooperative partnership, the two nations shared strategic benefits, including promoting peace, maintaining security and legal abidance, strengthening economic connectivity, and joining supply chains.

Two-way trade between the two countries reached 5.95 billion USD last year, up 23 percent annually. Vietnam is Canadas largest trade partner and source of students pursuing education in the North American country among ASEAN member states.

Over the past time, Vietnam and Canada have held five talks between leaders of ministries and agencies to deepen bilateral ties, he said.

Canada is now home to about 260,000 Vietnamese living, studying and working.VNA
Syracuse, N.Y.  Onondaga County officials today reported 15 new cases of coronavirus since Sunday, most of which were attributed to community spread.

The total number of Covid-19 cases since March is now 3,763.

None of the more than 500 teachers and other school employees tested by the county during the past week has been positive for Covid-19, County Executive Ryan McMahon said today.

Testing of school workers will continue through Sept. 11. The county is encouraging all school employees to participate in the voluntary testing.

Eight of the new cases reported today were attributed to community spread; four cases occurred in households with previous infections; one was blamed on travel (from Virginia); and two cases remained under investigation.

There have been no new deaths reported since Aug. 18. A total of 204 county residents have died from the virus.

There are 16 people in local hospitals with Covid-19 today, officials said. One of the patients is in intensive care.

There are currently 169 active cases of Covid-19 in the county.

According to the state Department of Health, an average of 1% of people tested in Onondaga County were positive for the virus during the seven days ending Sunday. Thats up slightly from a positive test rate of 0.7% a week ago. The rate generally has not exceeded 3% since the county started mass testing in late May.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

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Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

News tips? Contact reporter Tim Knauss of syracuse.com/The Post-Standard: email | Twitter | | 315-470-3023
Some lawyers believe the defendants are only trying to delay justice in cases that defined the 1990s Meciar era in Slovakia.

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25 years have passed today since a kidnapping that has since become an important event in Slovakia's recent history. Near the municipality of Svaty Jur, just outside Bratislava, eight men blocked the car of the son of then president Michal Kovac. They pushed the 33-year-old entrepreneur into the trunk of a car, made him drink a bottle of whiskey and left him in a Mercedes parked in the Austrian town of Hainburg.

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The case of the abduction of Michal Kovac Jr has still not been closed, and nobody has ever been punished for the incident. The public had invested big hopes into scrapping the so-called Meciar amnesties linked to the case. But even that has not changed anything so far. More than three years have passed since the amnesties were scrapped, but none of the cases linked with them has been closed.

Several politicians warned that this might happen.

"We must allow, like with other cases, that they would still ask us one, two, or five years from now, how is it possible again that nobody has been sentenced. We must not allow it," former President Andrej Kiska said three years ago.

The abduction case is not even close to ending. The approximately 20,000-page case file first spent about half a year with the president of the senate of Bratislava III District Court, Karol Posluch, and later they waited for two judges to be vetted. They needed to be checked by the National Security Bureau (NBU) before they were allowed to study the file and participate in deciding on the case.

Related article

Related article The man who stood up against Meciar Read more

Even after, the court has not been able to open the case against 13 defendants, among them the former intelligence service SIS head, Ivan Lexa. Lexa's lawyer Marek Para requested the court to suspend the proceeding and has turned to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). He succeeded with his request.

"The issue was electronically filed to the EU court on May 11, 2020," the spokesperson of the Bratislava court Pavol Adamciak said.

The Bratislava III District Court asked the Luxembourg court to deal with the issue as an urgent matter "because it is an issue linked with an arrest warrant."

It is not clear for now what issues Luxembourg should answer. It follows from Para's statements that the court should give an opinion on whether it was even possible to punish the defendants for deeds originally covered by the amnesties.
DALLAS, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- New research from Parks Associates finds 25% of US broadband households plan to buy a connected health device in the next 12 months. The research firm will feature new connected health research and trending data, including insights from key industry leaders, at its seventh annual Connected Health Summit: Consumer Engagement and Innovation, a virtual conference on September 1-3. Sponsors include Alarm.com, Nortek Security & Control, athenahealth, Softeq, Becklar, and Sprosty Network.

Parks Associates: High Intention to Purchase Connected Medical Devices in Next 12 Months

"Crossover between healthcare and smart home tech is rapidly expanding, with many large players entering this space," said Elizabeth Parks, President, Parks Associates. "Adoption of smart watches has doubled since 2019, in large part due to increased Apple Watch ownership, and now Amazon has announced a new fitness band and subscription service called Halo. Entrance of these big brands will expand the market for wellness solutions at home and will also expand the data sources health providers can use for telehealth and independent living services, especially as people continue to stay at home to avoid potential COVID-19 exposure."

In addition to health trends influenced by the pandemic, Connected Health Summit will address consumers' interest in virtual health monitoring and independent solutions. The firm reports 33% of consumers are interested in wearables monitoring their health, including 20% who are very interested.

"There is a vast market opportunity for industry players with a footprint in the home to expand into the connected health space," Parks said. "A majority of consumers now find virtual care solutions that incorporate data from their connected health devices appealing."

The event is focused on consumer behaviors and changing demands driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and new business models, IoT technologies, and deployments emerging to target these new needs.

The agenda for Connected Health Summit includes visionary presentations from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School, Blue Shield of California, Care Planning Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cox Communications, People Power, and UnitedHealthcare and participation from over 400 industry executives.

Main Sessions:

COVID-19: Transforming the Healthcare Ecosystem

Telehealth and RPM: Moving to the Core of Healthcare Delivery

COVID-19: Seniors, Caregiving, and Independent Living Solutions

Home-centric Care: Activating the Ecosystem through Partnerships

Tracking Health: Technology, Privacy, and Pandemic

Future of Connected Health: Lessons Learned and New Innovations

Throughout the event, Parks Associates will feature its latest data from COVID-19: Impact on Telehealth Use and Perspectives, COVID-19: Impact on Seniors, Caregivers, and Independent Living Solutions, and Wearables: Health and Wellness Use Cases.

Registration is open, and media are invited to attend at no cost. For information on Parks Associates data, please contact Rosey Ulpino, [email protected], 972.996.0233.

About Connected Health Summit: Consumer Engagement and Innovation

Parks Associates' Connected Health Summit is an executive conference focused on the impact of connected devices and IoT healthcare solutions on consumers at home. Connected Health Summit provides insights on consumer behaviors and changing demands driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and new business models, IoT technologies, and deployments emerging to target these new needs. The conference addresses opportunities for new solutions to empower consumers, caregivers, and providers and to meet the growing demand for services in independent living, chronic care management, remote access to care, and wellness and fitness. www.connectedhealthsummit.com

Follow the event on Twitter at @CONN_Health_Smt.

Contact:

Rosimely Ulpino

Parks Associates

972.996.0233

[email protected]

SOURCE Parks Associates

Related Links

http://www.parksassociates.com


Industry Update

Appointment

31 August 2020

Richard Margo

Appointed General Manager

At OZO Phuket, Thailand

Richard Margo has been appointed General Manager of OZO Phuket, from his current role as Hotel Manager of the group's award-winning Amari Phuket which he has held since 2014. Joining ONYX eight years ago as Resident Manager of Amari Pattaya, Richard's career in hotels started from the food and beverage side of the business. He has held roles with Le Meridien in Belgium, Ireland, Portugal and Jordan, as well as with Hilton in Malaysia and Thailand.

Onyx Hospitality Group Having been in the industry for over 45 years, Onyx is one of Asia-Pacifics leading hospitality management companies, with a portfolio that includes over 18 operational properties across Asia and more new properties rapidly being developed in the next few years. more information

Recent Appointments at Onyx Christopher Baker - General Manager 11 October 2021  An experienced hospitality professional, Christopher Baker has been appointed as the new General Manager of Amari Dhaka as of 1 October, 2020. Starting his working life in food and beverage and onto General Manager, Baker's career history spans to a number of hospitality companies, including Rosewood, Anantara Hotels & Resorts, Marriott Hotels, Emirates Hotels & Resorts, and the prestigious Jumeirah Group, in countries such as Vietnam, UAE, Jordan, India, the Maldives and the UK. read more

Ethan Cai - Senior Vice President & Head of China 7 September 2020  ONYX Hospitality Group, one of the region's leading hotel management companies, today announces the appointment of Ethan Cai as Senior Vice President & Head of China, as part of its long-term commitment towards the China market. read more
In yet another face-off at Ladakh, Chinese troops carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo" on the intervening night of August 29 and 30 but the attempt was thwarted by India, the government said on Monday. On the night of 29/30 August 2020, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo," the Indian Army said in a statement.

Army Spokesperson Col Aman Anand said a Brigade Commander level meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues.

Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground. The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity. A Brigade Commander level Flag Meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues," the statement added.

The clash between the troops of the two countries is the first since the skirmish on June 15. No injuries have been reported but heavy troop movement was seen in Chushul after the incident.

Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged in a bitter standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh for over three-and-half months. India has been insisting that China must withdraw its forces from areas between Finger Four and Eight. The mountain spurs in the area are referred to as Fingers.

The formal process of disengagement of troops began on July 6, a day after a nearly two-hour telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in the area.

In the first round of the Corp commander-level talks on June 6, both sides finalised an agreement to disengage gradually from all the standoff points beginning with Galwan Valley. However, the situation deteriorated following the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 in which 20 Indian army personnel were killed. China has not released information on casualties on its side but according to an American intelligence report it was 35. Notably, on August 2, the two armies held the fifth round of Corps commander-level talks in an effort to expedite the disengagement process.

After the Galwan Valley incident, the government has given the armed forces full freedom" to give a befitting" response to any Chinese misadventure along the LAC. The Army has sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border following the deadly clashes. The IAF has also moved air defence systems as well as a sizable number of its frontline combat jets and attack helicopters to several key airbases.
Sequoia Capital China Files for Three New Funds With SEC

Eudora Wang / Aug 31, 2020 04:17 PM / Business & Tech

Sequoia Capital China, the domestic arm of Silicon Valley venture capital major Sequoia Capital, has submitted filings for three new funds with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on August 27.

The filings were for three new vehicles, namely Sequoia Capital China Venture VIII Principals Fund, Sequoia Capital China Principals Seed Fund II, and Sequoia Capital China Growth VI Principals Fund. The sizes of the funds were not disclosed.

The filings come after The Wall Street Journal reported, in early July, that Sequoia Capital  which invests in China as well as the US, India, and Southeast Asia  closed a combined $7.2 billion for several funds.

The China team collected about $3.7 billion for three new funds including for seed-, early- and growth-stage deals, the media outlet had reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. The sources added that Sequoia Capitals US-focused venture and growth funds raised $2.15 billion.

Its early- and growth-stage funds in India reportedly closed $1.35 billion, which was later confirmed in a LinkedIn post by Shailendra Singh, the head of the India and Southeast Asia investment team.

It is unclear if the three China-focused vehicles mentioned in the filings are the same three funds that had garnered about $3.7 billion. Sequoia China did not immediately respond to DealStreetAsias request for details.

Established in 1972, the Menlo Park, California-based investment firm is ranked as the worlds most successful in terms of investing in and nurturing unicorns. According to Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2020, released in August, Sequoia Capital has by far captured a total of 109 unicorns, which are private companies valued at $1 billion and more. That is an 18.5 per cent increase from 2019, when also Sequoia Capital topped the list.

Sequoia Capital is followed by Chinas Tencent, SoftBank, Beijing-based IDG Capital, and Asia-focused private equity major Hillhouse Capital in the Huruns list.

Sequoia China, established in September 2005, is led by its founding and managing partner Neil Shen Nanpeng. The China team backed some of the countrys most high-profile companies, such as e-commerce giants JD.com, Alibaba, local services platform Meituan-Dianping, ride-sharing platform DiDi Chuxing, and internet security firm Qihoo 360.

First published in Deal Street Asia
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda attends a European Union leaders video conference, in Vilnius, Lithuania, on April 23, 2020. (Office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania/Robertas Dackus/Handout via Reuters)

Baltic States Hit Lukashenko, Other Belarus Officials With Sanctions

VILNIUS Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia imposed travel bans on President Alexander Lukashenko and 29 other Belarusian officials on Monday, jumping into action to impose sanctions before the rest of the EU.

The three Baltic states have led calls for the West to take firmer action against Lukashenko, who is accused by opponents and the West of rigging an election to prolong his 26-year rule.

The sanctions are aimed at officials the three Baltic states accuse of vote rigging and playing a role in violence against protesters since the Aug. 9 election. Lukashenkos inclusion in the lists sends a message to other European countries which have been reluctant to back measures against him personally.

Lukashenko, an ally of Moscow, denies electoral fraud and has said the protesters are backed from abroad.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 18, 2020. (Andrei Stasevich/BelTA/Handout via Reuters)

We said that we need peaceful dialogue and agreement between the regime and society, but we see that the regime is not ready for that, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said. We see that we need to move forward and to show an example to other countries.

The European Union has been working on its own list of individuals in Belarus to target with similar sanctions, but Western countries have mostly been cautious, wary of provoking an intervention from Russia.

The three small Baltic states are in the EU and Lithuania and Latvia border Belarus. Lithuania has been hosting opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled there after the election her supporters say she won.

Tsikhanouskaya will speak to the U.N. Security Council on Friday at Estonias invitation, her spokesman said.

Huge Demonstrations

Tens of thousands of protesters again took to the streets in central Minsk on Sunday, seeking to keep up pressure on Lukashenko to resign. At least 140 people were detained, Russias RIA news agency reported, citing the Belarusian Interior Ministry.

Demonstrators carry a huge historical flag of Belarus as thousands gather for a protest at the Independence square in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 23, 2020. (Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

Lukashenko threatened on Friday to cut off European transit routes across his country in retaliation against any sanctions.

Goods from landlocked Belarus account for almost a third of Lithuanias rail traffic and port volume. Belarus is also a major overland route for European goods bound for Russia, and carries pipelines used to ship Russian oil to Europe.

President Vladimir Putin has invited Lukashenko to Moscow, a sign of Kremlin support.

Last week, the Kremlin announced it had set up a reserve force able to intervene in Belarus, though it did not see a need for such intervention so far. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated on Monday that Moscow still sees no need for action.

The German foreign ministry said it had summoned the Belarusian ambassador on Monday in response to the detention of foreign journalists in Belarus.
Iran has offered Ukraine to hold a second round of talks in Tehran between October 18 and 21 on compensation for the downing of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) Flight PS752, Iranian Ambassador to Ukraine Manouchehr Moradi has said in an interview with Ukrinform.

"According to the agreement reached, the next round of talks will take place in Tehran in October. A few days ago [the interview was given on August 20], the Iranian side handed a note over to the Embassy of Ukraine in Tehran and proposed a period from October 18 to 21 for the second round of talks. [...] At the moment, we are waiting for a response from the Ukrainian side regarding the proposed period," the diplomat said.

According to him, expert meetings of committees will take place in the first two days, and then the two countries' deputy foreign ministers will discuss the results of the meetings.

Moradi praised the first round of talks.

"In my opinion, their results even exceeded our expectations. Therefore, I am also optimistic about the second round of talks and I am confident that thanks to the goodwill of the parties we will achieve very good results," the Iranian ambassador said.

On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down near Tehran by an Iranian surface-to-air missile, killing 176 people, including nine crew members (all Ukrainians) and 167 passengers (citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, Germany, and the UK).

On July 18, France's Civil Aviation Safety Investigation Authority (BEA) received Flight PS752s recorders from Iran. Ukraine's Deputy Prosecutor General Yevhen Yenin said later that the transcript from Flight PS752's recorders had confirmed illegal interference with the plane.

Negotiations on compensation for the downing of Flight PS752 took place in Kyiv on July 30 with the participation of the Iranian delegation.

Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office announced on July 31 that the next round of talks with Iran on the investigation into the plane crash was scheduled for October.

op
Norfolk Hotel.

Indias hotel sector, one of the worst-hit segments of the economy, contracted 47 percent in the April-June quarter, data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on August 31 shows.

The sector saw a growth of 3.5 percent in the same period last year.

The drastic fall in numbers was reflected in the countrys economy that shrank by an unprecedented 23.9 percent in the June quarter, the first GDP contraction in more than 40 years as the coronavirus and lockdown ravaged businesses and disrupted the broader economy.

The hotel and restaurant industry bore the brunt of the outbreak and lockdown that restricted travel and forced people to stay home.

The restrictions resulted in a severe drop in foreign and domestic travel, across both business and leisure travel segments.

In 2019, the tourism industry contributed around 9 percent to Indias GDP and generated 87.5 million jobs, which is about 12.75 percent of total employment of 2018-19, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

WTTC had estimated the revenue losses of up to $ 2.7 trillion with 100 million jobs at risk globally. In India, the next one year is going to be the most difficult for the travel and tourism industry, with estimated revenue and job losses at $17 billion and 40 million (both direct and indirect) respectively, it said.

May 2020 experienced an occupancy decline of 77 percent over the same time last year. As per estimates, the occupancy in branded hotels in 2020 is set to decline by about 20 percent over 2019 and average daily rate (ADR) by more than 8 percent.

Reduced operational capacity and increased operating costs due to heightened safety and hygiene standards are some of the challenges hotels face when they reopen.

The viral outbreak hit occupancy in hotels across 11 major cities, resulting in a 29 per cent decline in revenue per available room (RevPAR) during January-March this year, a report by JLL India said.

While occupancy level fell in a range of 5-17 percentage points, the RevPAR was down 13-29 percent in 11 cities -- Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Goa, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata.

According to the data, both the occupancy level and RevPAR went down in all the 11 cities.

The occupancy level dropped the most in Delhi which saw a 16.9 percentage points fall during January-March 2020 as compared with the year-ago period, followed by Jaipur at 16.4 percentage points.

There was a decline of 15.2 percentage points each in the occupancy level in hotels across Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurugram.

Another JLL report indicated that business travel is expected to see a fall as companies will rationalise spending on travel. Most hotel openings are likely to be deferred by at least six months, it said.
Best intercept of 85.70 g/t Au over 3.3m from Latest Drilling

North Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 31, 2020) -Lion One Metals Limited (TSXV: LIO) (OTCQX: LOMLF) (ASX: LLO) ("Lion One" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has encountered high-grade gold mineralization in a diamond wedge hole, drilled to a depth of 709.0m (TUDDH500w1) and is now drilling a second daughter wedge hole (TUDDH500w2), from mother hole TUDDH500 to further retest the newly discovered high-grade zone under the Tuvatu lode system (please refer to a company news release dated July 24, 2020). The current wedge hole program is designed to gather multiple pierce points on the new high-grade lode to more precisely determine its orientation.

Highlights:

- High-grade intervals from daughter wedge hole TUDDH500w1 include 85.70 g/t Au over 3.3m including two narrower intervals of 305.00 g/t Au over 0.3m and 255.00 g/t Au over 0.6m (please see Table 1 below). High-grade intervals encountered in mother hole TUDDH500 include 2.0m grading 46.70g/t Au and 12.7m grading 55.43g/t Au including sub-intervals of 4.7m grading 120.16g/t Au with an exceptionally high-grade core of 0.9m grading 582.33g/t Au.







(Figure 1: North-south oriented cross section looking west. CSAMT data is presented in bright colors. Resistive rock is red and pink whereas less resistive rock is green and blue. A major gradient is highlight and likely demarks the position of a large deep-rooted structural break. High-grade mineralization encountered in holes TUDDH500 and TUDDH500w1 appears to occur along this structure. Lion One uses such data to target deep feeder zones at Tuvatu. This structure appears to coincide in orientation with the Murau lodes of the West Tuvatu lode system that project westward from this section.)

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/2178/62852_eaaa00b8d471f927_001full.jpg

Table 1: Results from TUDDH500 and TUDDH500w1

Drill Hole From (m) To (m) Interval (m) Au (g/t) TUDDH500* 506.35 506.75 0.40 2.53 511.15 512.17 1.02 2.09 including 511.15 511.45 0.30 5.38 558.00 560.00 2 46.70 including 559.00 559.50 0.5 144.00 571.00 583.70 12.7 55.43 including 579.00 583.70 4.7 144.81 and 582.80 583.70 0.9 582.33 and 582.80 583.10 0.3 1,400.00 659.00 660.50 1.5 1.94 671.30 671.60 0.3 10.55 764.00 765.00 1 1.70 TUDDH500w1 508.40 509.90 1.5 4.60 including 508.40 508.70 0.3 16.43 562.00 562.60 0.6 6.75 including 562.00 562.30 0.3 12.51 580.90 581.80 0.9 9.30 including 580.90 581.50 0.6 12.84 591.60 594.90 3.3 85.70 including 592.20 592.50 0.3 305.00 and 594.00 594.60 0.6 255.00 including 594.30 594.60 0.3 304.50 620.00 622.00 2 1.00 632.00 632.50 0.5 6.43 *Previously announced in a Company news release dated August 16, 2020

- Oriented core data from daughter wedge hole TUDDH500w1 combined with that from mother hole TUDDH500 is shedding further light on the orientation of this important high-grade structure. Interestingly, it appears to have an east to east-northeast orientation and is dipping steeply at an as yet undetermined incline. This orientation means the high-grade zone is nearly at right angles to the main Tuvatu lode structures that trend north to north-northeast and dip near vertical.

- An east to east-northeast orientation of the high-grade lode makes it of similar orientation to the nearby Murau lodes that comprise the West Tuvatu lode system extending westward from the main Tuvatu lode system. Because of this relation, Lion One thinks it is possible that this high-grade zone may project under the entirety of the West Tuvatu lode system, a horizontal distance of at least 700m west of these high-grade drill intercepts. The structure is also open along strike to the east and at depth. A deep-rooted controlled source audio-magnetotelluric ("CSAMT") resistivity gradient indicates this occurs along what is likely a major deep-rooted structure (Figure 1).

- As was the case in mother hole TUDDH500, high-grade mineralization encountered in daughter wedge hole TUDDH500w1 displays characteristics typical of feeder style mineralization in alkaline gold systems. Predominant vein minerals include a combination of quartz, potassium-rich hydrothermal feldspar called adularia and carbonate minerals. The dark gray host monzonite wall-rock is also flooded with these minerals generating lighter shades of gray. Vugs, or open spaces are evident in some veins. Green, vanadium-rich mica called roscoelite has been spotted in some veins. Native gold occurs as fine-grained aggregates that appear to clump together forming larger particles. This may reflect rapid, colloidal deposition of gold from a gold-saturated ore-forming fluid.

- Both the mother hole TUDDH500 and daughter wedge hole TUDDH500w1 encountered multiple other mineralized intercepts thought to be more typical Tuvatu lode structures. These are generally narrower and lower grade than the high-grade feeder structure.

"We are intrigued by the apparent east or east-northeast trend of the newly discovered high-grade structure," commented Dr. Quinton Hennigh, technical advisor to Lion One. "Although we need data from our second wedge hole to better assess its precise orientation, it appears to trend in a similar orientation to the Murau lodes comprising the West Tuvatu lode system situated immediately to the west. If so, then this important structure may actually be the root of that system, too. This opens up the possibility of about 700m of westward strike. It is also open to the east, and our CSAMT data clearly indicate it is open at depth where it appears very deep-rooted. With information in hand, we are currently preparing drill pads to the south of this area so we can aggressively drill this target at a more orthogonal orientation along strike and at depth."

Hole TUDDH500 Specifications

Hole No coordinates RL depth (m) dip azimuth N E (m) target (TN) TUDDH500 3920669.81 1876756.25 282.36 1000 -75 247

Drilling and Assay Processes and Procedures

The Company is utilizing its own diamond drill rig, using PQ, HQ and ultimately NQ sized drill core rods. Drill core is logged by Company geologists and then is sawn in half and sampled by Lion One staff.

Samples are analyzed at the Company's own geochemical laboratory in Fiji, whilst pulp duplicates of samples with results >0.5g/t Au are sent to ALS Global Laboratories in Australia for check assay determinations. Assays reported here will be sent to ALS Global Laboratories for check assays shortly. All samples are pulverized to 80% passing through 75 microns. Gold analysis is carried out using fire assay with an AA finish. Samples that have returned grades greater than 10g/t Au are then re-analyzed by gravimetric method. Lion One's laboratory can also assay for a range of 71 other elements through Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES), but currently focuses on a suite of 9 important pathfinder elements. All duplicate anomalous samples sent to ALS Townsville, Queensland, Australia are analyzed by the same methods (Au-AA26, and also Au-GRA22 where applicable). ALS also analyze for 33 pathfinder elements are analyzed by HF-HNO3-HClO4 acid digestion, HCl leach and ICP-AES. (method ME-ICP61).

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical content of this news release has been reviewed, prepared, and approved by Mr. Stephen Mann, P. Geo, Managing Director of Lion One, who is a qualified person pursuant to National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI-43-101).

About Tuvatu

The Tuvatu gold deposit is located on the island of Viti Levu in the South Pacific island nation of Fiji. The mineral resource for Tuvatu as disclosed in the technical report "Tuvatu Gold Project PEA", dated June 1, 2015, and prepared by Mining Associates Pty Ltd of Brisbane Qld, comprises 1,120,000 tonnes indicated at 8.17 g/t Au (294,000 oz. Au) and 1,300,000 tonnes inferred at 10.60 g/t Au (445,000 oz. Au) at a cut-off grade of 3 g/t Au. The technical report is available on the Lion One website at www.liononemetals.com and on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com.

About Lion One Metals Limited

Lion One's flagship asset is 100% owned, fully permitted high grade Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project, located on the island of Viti Levu in Fiji. Lion One envisions a low-cost high-grade underground gold mining operation at Tuvatu coupled with exciting exploration upside inside its tenements covering the entire Navilawa Caldera, an underexplored yet highly prospective 7km diameter alkaline gold system. Lion One's CEO Walter Berukoff leads an experienced team of explorers and mine builders and has owned or operated over 20 mines in 7 countries. As the founder and former CEO of Miramar Mines, Northern Orion, and La Mancha Resources, Walter is credited with building over $3 billion of value for shareholders.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of

Lion One Metals Limited

"Walter Berukoff"

Chairman and CEO

For further information

Contact Investor Relations

Toll Free (North America) Tel: 1-855-805-1250

Email: info@liononemetals.com

Web: www.liononemetals.com

Leo Karabelas

Focus Communications Inc.

Tel: 416-543-3120

Email: info@fcir.ca

Web: www.focusir.ca

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This press release may contain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are forward looking information. Generally, forward-looking information may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "proposed", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases, or by the use of words or phrases which state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, or might occur or be achieved. This forward-looking information reflects Lion One Metals Limited's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to Lion One Metals Limited and on assumptions Lion One Metals Limited believes are reasonable. These assumptions include, but are not limited to, the actual results of exploration projects being equivalent to or better than estimated results in technical reports, assessment reports, and other geological reports or prior exploration results. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Lion One Metals Limited or its subsidiaries to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors may include, but are not limited to: the stage development of Lion One Metals Limited, general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; the actual results of current research and development or operational activities; competition; uncertainty as to patent applications and intellectual property rights; product liability and lack of insurance; delay or failure to receive board or regulatory approvals; changes in legislation, including environmental legislation, affecting mining, timing and availability of external financing on acceptable terms; not realizing on the potential benefits of technology; conclusions of economic evaluations; and lack of qualified, skilled labour or loss of key individuals. Although Lion One Metals Limited has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Lion One Metals Limited does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/62852
SRINAGAR, India - India said Monday its soldiers thwarted provocative movements by Chinas military near a disputed border in the Ladakh region months into the rival nations deadliest standoff in decades.

Chinas military said it was taking necessary actions in response, without giving details.

Local military commanders from the two countries were meeting along the disputed frontier on Monday to resolve the issues, Indias defence ministry said. It said India was committed to dialogue but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity.

The statement said Chinas Peoples Liberation Army on Saturday night carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo and violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements to settle the standoff in the cold-desert region.

In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said border forces were communicating over recent matters but gave no details.

Chinese border troops always act in strict compliance with the Line of Actual Control, and have never crossed the line for any activities, Zhao told reporters at a daily briefing.

In a statement, Chinas defence ministry accused Indian troops of crossing established lines of control and creating provocations along the southern shore of Pangong Lake and nearby areas.

The Chinese military is now taking necessary actions in response, will closely follow developments and resolutely safeguard sovereignty over Chinese territory, along with peace and stability along the border, it said.

Indias defence ministry issued its statement after a gap of a day and did not give details of the nature of the new incident.

Two Indian security officials said that over two dozen Chinese soldiers walked into Indian-held territory on Saturday night but were blocked by Indian troops and forced to go back.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations, said the incident did not involve a physical clash.

The defence ministrys statement said Indian troops undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground.

It said the activity took place on the southern bank of Pangong Lake, a glacial lake divided by the de-facto frontier between the rivals and where the India-China face off began in early May on the lakes northern flank.

Indian military experts said the latest incident occurred in Chushul sector, where the two sides were generally respecting each others positions.

We never had any problem in this place and we hold it pretty strongly, said Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda, who served as the Indian militarys northern commander. After relative calm, China has suddenly opened a fresh, brand new front. Its a huge provocation.

India unilaterally declared Ladakh a federal territory and separated it from disputed Kashmir in August 2019, ending its semi-autonomous status and straining the already prickly relationship between New Delhi and Beijing. China was among the countries to strongly condemn the move, raising it at international forums including the U.N. Security Council.

According to some Indian and Chinese strategic experts, Indias move exacerbated existing tensions with China, leading to the deadly June border clash.

The disputed and undemarcated 3,500-kilometre (2,175-mile) border between India and China, referred to as the Line of Actual Control, stretches from the Ladakh region in the north to the Indian state of Sikkim. The two Asia giants fought a border war in 1962 that also spilled into Ladakh and ended in an uneasy truce. The two countries have been trying to settle their border dispute since the early 1990s, without success.

The ongoing standoff high in the Karakoram mountains is over disputed portions of a pristine landscape that boasts the worlds highest landing strip, a glacier that feeds one of the largest irrigation systems in the world, and a critical link to Chinas massive Belt and Road infrastructure project.

The face off began at three places. Soldiers at Pangong Lake ignored repeated verbal warnings, triggering a yelling match, stone-throwing and even fistfights. By June it escalated and spread north in Depsang and Galwan Valley, where India has built an all-weather military road along the disputed frontier.

On June 15, the troops engaged in a nighttime clash in Galwan that was the deadliest conflict in 45 years between the nuclear-armed rivals.

According to Indian officials, Chinese troops atop a ridge at the mouth of the narrow valley threw stones, punched and pushed Indian soldiers down the ridge at around 4,500 metres (15,000 feet), leaving 20 Indians dead, including a colonel.

China did not report any casualties, although unconfirmed reports based on photos of new burial grounds say Chinese losses may have topped three dozen.

Accusing each other of instigating the violence, both sides pledged to safeguard their territory but also to try to end the standoff that dramatically changed the India-China relationship.

Several rounds of military and diplomatic talks on ending the crisis have been unsuccessful.

In a symbolic move, India banned some Chinese-owned apps, including TikTok, about two weeks after the deadly clash, citing privacy concerns that it said pose a threat to Indias sovereignty and security.

On Saturday, India pulled out of multinational military exercise organized by Russia in which China and Pakistan, Indias bitter rival, are also participating. India apparently cited the coronavirus pandemic but experts say the decision to pull out from the exercise was because of its raging territorial dispute with Beijing.

So far, Chinese transgressions were limited to about half a dozen places alone in Ladakh. By opening new fronts, is the whole Line of Actual Control fair game now? said Hooda, the military expert.

___

Follow Aijaz Hussain at www.twitter.com/hussain_aijaz

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Four years ago, Donald Trump rallied from a summer deficit in the polls to win the presidency. In the wake of this years Republican convention and the continuing chaos in some cities, many people  both his supporters and detractors  seem obsessed with the notion that he will do so again.

And he may. Trump could certainly win re-election, especially because he would not need to win the national popular vote to do so.

But there also seems to be a rush to declare that he has emerged from his convention in a much stronger position than he was before it. As G. Elliott Morris, who writes about polling for The Economist, tweeted over the weekend, I see that people desperately want a post-RNC bounce news cycle. As FiveThirtyEights Nate Silver wrote, There is a lot of the pendulum is swinging away from Biden speculation based on rather little actual evidence.

The pioneering psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman came up with an idea decades ago that explains the rush to declare a Trump surge: availability.
It is only a simulation. Its also the worst-case scenario. One day, it could be reality.

Hurricane Phoenix is the hypothetical disaster that would change life in the Tampa Bay area forever.

Imagine a Category 5 storm that drowns South Tampa and turns St. Petersburg into an island. The bridges rendered impassable, the airports unusable and the regions communities left on their own until help arrives. Power loss in some areas could last months. The beaches would be wiped away, as would tourism. Nearly every small business could die. Recovery would take a decade.

That is the vivid and grim picture painted by Hurricane Phoenix 2.0, the doomsday scenario hurricane simulation conducted by the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.

If all that sounds hyperbolic, its not. The Tampa Bay area is considered to be one of the most vulnerable population centers to a hurricane strike. The fact that we havent been hit by a major hurricane in 99 years is nothing more than luck, experts say.

Phoenix 2.0 is the update to the councils widely-cited 2009 Phoenix simulation, which first explained how devastating a major hurricane could be. It would create millions of tons of rubble and economic damage equivalent to erasing a small nation.

The report arrives at a particularly salient moment: Climatologists predict 2020 may be one of the most active hurricane seasons on record.

But there is no simulating the human toll of such a storm.

Its impossible to calculate exactly how likely a hurricane like Phoenix is to strike Florida, much less the bay area. Only four Category 5 storms have hit the U.S. mainland in almost 170 years of recorded history. Yet, the National Hurricane Center estimates that statistically the Tampa Bay area should get hit by a Category 3 or higher storm about every three decades.

You dont need a 5 to bring Tampa Bay to its knees, said Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen.

One might think the worst-case scenario would have the storms eye going right over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and marching into Tampa Bay.

It is not. The worst-case scenario is actually the simulated path of Hurricane Phoenix, approaching from the southwest and making landfall at noon north of Tampa Bays mouth.

The planning councils model targets Indian Rocks Beach  that allows the counterclockwise rotation of the storm to sling Gulf water into the bay, raising the surface waters until they overflow into communities like an unattended bathtub with the faucet left running.

The water would rise so dramatically that most of downtown and South Tampa would be under at least 12 to 15 feet of water, according to a Federal Emergency Management Agency software tool used to estimate losses from potential disasters.

The edges of the South Tampa peninsula, all of Davis and Harbour islands, the Channel District and the banks of the Hillsborough River would see water 21 feet or higher.

Westchase and Oldsmar would be entirely underwater, with surge extending all the way inland to Gunn Highway.

One would be able to swim U.S. 41 from the Manatee River to the Ikea store in Ybor City.

The swollen Tampa Bay would meet the Gulf of Mexico in Seminole, swallowing much of mid Pinellas County: The Gateway area, Feather Sound, Pinellas Park, Lealman, Kenneth City and east Largo would all be under water, plus everything south of 22nd Avenue S in St. Petersburg. The intersection of Fifth Avenue N and 34th Street would be the center of St. Pete Island.

The highest surge would hit 42 feet.

The beaches as we know them would be gone.

Hurricane Phoenix would have sustained winds of 160 mph, making it a Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. That is strong enough to destroy framed homes, tear roofs apart and decimate trees and power poles.

Wind gusts would reach the 200 mph mark. The takeoff speed of a Boeing 737 is about 150 mph, meaning a Phoenix-like storm could toss passenger jets aside like toys.

The simulated storm retains Category 5 strength as the eye cuts diagonally across the region, moving northeast through mid-Pinellas, the northwest corner of Hillsborough and central Pasco. By the time it reaches eastern Hernando, it would be a Category 4.

From daybreak until 7 p.m., the entire region  Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Manatee counties  would be lashed by hurricane-force winds of at least 74 mph.

If what was left of Mexico Beach after a direct hit by Hurricane Michael in 2018  the last Category 5 storm to make landfall in Florida  serves as a comparison, Phoenix would destroy almost everything in its path.

The simulation, done at the planning councils behest by disaster planning and preparedness contractor Critical Integrated Solutions, serves dual purposes:

Its both a warning about the chilling impacts of a catastrophic storm and a call to action for people to plan and prepare for a severe hurricane today  even if theyve weathered many hurricane warnings in the past, said planning council executive director Sean Sullivan in an email to the Times.

Phoenix 2.0 echoes the last major hurricane to make landfall in Tampa Bay: The 1921 Tampa Bay hurricane, which came ashore Oct. 25 in Tarpon Springs, just 20 miles north of Phoenixs simulated landfall in Indian Rocks Beach.

Also known as the Tarpon Springs hurricane, the Category 3 storm leveled the region with up to 115 mph winds. Its 11-foot storm surge flooded downtown Tampa and turned St. Petersburg into an island. It killed eight people when the population was just 135,000 or so, and caused $10 million of damage in 1921 dollars.

The region rebuilt, driven by leaders who sought to cover up the damage caused by the hurricane and rushed to draw attention back to the `paradise they marketed as Florida, according to a 2008 article that Nicole Cox wrote for the journal Tampa Bay History.

That notion of paradise persists a century later, strong enough to attract people to the bay areas endangered beaches, vulnerable coastline and expensive, low-lying neighborhoods, despite the risks.

But risk, said Jeff R. Temple, psychology professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, exists everywhere. Nearly every part of the U.S. faces a worst-case scenario.

If its flooding, mudslides, or earthquakes, or fires, or hurricanes, or tornadoes, its really inescapable, said Temple, whose home, just blocks from the beach, was destroyed by Hurricane Ike in 2008.

After Ike, he said he wouldnt rebuild in Galveston. But 12 years later, he still lives there. Hes resigned to another hurricane. If he has to, hell rebuild again. Humans are like that. We have to be resilient, he said, we have to have short memories.

But humans are also more reactive than proactive, Temple said. Maybe Phoenix 2.0 can convince Tampa Bay residents to better prepare for their worst-case scenario:

By putting this (model) out there, people might take it more seriously.

Not much has changed since the original Phoenix study. The new simulation predicts 10 percent higher storm surge due to Kelvin waves, large-scale waves that can change ocean height. Sea level rise in the past decade has had a negligible impact.

What has changed is the Tampa Bay area itself.

The estimated 3.1 million residents makes Tampa Bay the 17th largest economy in the U.S. If the bay area were its own country, it would have the 55th largest economy in the world.

There are also more than 400,000 more people living here compared to 2009. Downtown St. Petersburg and Tampa are more built out and at risk of flooding. Density has also increased. There are more businesses and homes in the way of storm surge, more structures with roofs to fly off. Many of those are now 11 years older.

Of the six counties more than 1.35 million buildings, the simulation shows more than 103,679 buildings would be severely damaged or destroyed. That is an increase from the 92,827 buildings lost in the old simulation.

The 2009 storm was estimated to cost the area $233 billion in economic losses and create 41 million tons of physical wreckage.

Eleven years later, the same storm would cost the area in excess of $300 billion in losses, and leave behind more than 50 million tons of wreckage.

The damage would be worst in Pinellas County. Not one household or commercial building would have power immediately after the storm. More than 70 percent of businesses would be completely destroyed, and the countys mobile home parks would cease to exist.

The further from landfall, the better residents may fare. Hillsborough would be mostly without power, and more than 60 percent of businesses would be destroyed. Pasco County would go completely dark, and 50 percent of businesses would be gone.

What is different about Phoenix 2.0 is that it comes with a program to help small businesses prepare for and survive a major storm.

The simulation estimates 40 percent of small businesses wouldnt reopen following the storm. Within a year, 25 percent more would close.

Two years out, 90 percent of small businesses would fail because of a storm.

So we have a lot to protect, Sullivan said.

Death is the biggest concern of Pinellas County Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins. No amount of messaging to the public or advanced preparations can eliminate the fatalities that will result from the massive evacuation, the storm and its aftermath.

There will inevitably be loss of life, she said.

The 2009 Hurricane Phoenix simulation estimated the storm would cause nearly 2,200 deaths; the 2.0 simulation didnt estimate a death toll or the storms effect on poverty.

But Sullivan said the suffering will be worse among underprivileged communities, where people likely live at or below the poverty line and in older structures. They will also be less likely to buy seven days worth of food in preparation for a storm. State officials say thats how long it could take for help to arrive.

The pandemic will also present challenges, Perkins said, for both citizens and planners. Emergency officials have made alterations to their shelter plans to accommodate pandemic risks. Pinellas County Administrator Barry Burton said each evacuee taking shelter needs 60 square feet of space instead of the old figure of 20 square feet to maintain social distancing and prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

But the pandemic has enhanced cooperation between faith groups, feeding organizations, mental health experts and governments to prepare for that aftermath, Perkins said. Those strengthened relationships would become critical if a Phoenix-like storm were to strike.

Still, governments and nonprofits can only do so much. Perkins said residents need to prepare on their own: Theyll need masks and sanitizer to stay safe in shelters and at least seven days of food, water and medicine to live on after a storm.

It will take time for help to reach them, and even more time to stabilize that help for the hard months to come.

I cant do it alone, she said.

Local governments say theyre doing what they can to prepare for the worst-case scenarios outlined in the Phoenix 2.0 simulation.

If a hurricane damages the bay areas three bridges  which are most vital to Pinellas County  Perkins said theyre ready for that. Theyve already talked with state and federal agencies about using amphibious vehicles to shuttle emergency supplies across waterways.

But a full scale recovery effort would stall if a major storm wipes out the bridges and other critical roadways, said Hillsborough Countys Metropolitan Planning Organization executive director Beth Alden.

For every 21/2 weeks a critical road is out of service after a storm, the loss to the regional economy is equivalent to what it would have cost to have built the road to withstand such a storm in the first place.

Mitigation, like preventative health care, is fiscally responsible, said Whit Remer, Tampas sustainability and resilience officer.

Every dollar invested in girding infrastructure for a major storm pays for itself four-fold.

Is it worth it to make these investments now? Alden asked. And the answer is, `Oh yeah, its definitely worth it.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Florida USA Hurricane
Shruti Modi's Lawyer Claims Sushant Had Been Doing Drugs Before Rhea Chakraborty Came Into His Life

According to a report in India Today, Sushant's former manager Ashok Saraogi said that the late actor had been consuming drugs much before Rhea Chakraborty entered his life. He also claimed that Sohail Sagar, Sushant's former driver and body guard, was the one who used to fetch drugs for the late actor.

Saraogi Said That Sushant's Family Knew He Consumed Drugs

According to Saraogi, Sohail had driven Sushant twice to meet his family, and it is not possible that the family would not have known about his substance abuse habit. Shruti's lawyer further claimed that a WhatsApp group was formed where Sushant and Rhea, both were present along with Sohail, others and the manager where procurement of drugs and naming one such abusive substance as "AK 47" was mentioned many times.

He was quoted as saying, "It is just not possible that people who were in the group were not using the drugs. All of them were in the know and used to consume drugs."

Saraogi Claims Parties Were Often Organized At Sushant's House & Attended By One Of His Sisters

Saraogi told India Today that there were least three parties which were attended by Rajput's family members when drugs were used. "One of the sister who lives in Mumbai. had attended many parties. She is fond of alcohol and has been to many parties where these substance abuse was done," he was quoted as saying.

Shruti Modi's Lawyer On The Impact Of Substance Abuse

According to Sarogi, in January this year, a company wanted to take Sushant as it's brand ambassador. But since he was not in town it was proposed that old photographs would be used and the contract money would be reduced by 50 per cent. However, Saraogi claimed that Sushant disagreed with this while promising to come to Mumbai. Further, Saraogi said that when Sushant returned back to the city, the company terminated their contract with him as he was just not in the right state of physique and mind.

Saraogi Claims Sushant's Relationship With His Family Wasn't A Cordial One

"In November 2019, three of his sisters had come to meet him and they were to fly back together. But around November 27, there was a huge fight that happened at night in the house. and the next day all the three sisters checked into hotel Lalit. Sushant suffered so much due to this that he admitted himself into the Hinduja Hospital at Khar on 28th. When he was there, his father had called one of the staff members saying that he wanted to speak to Rajput but the actor refused to speak to him. He said that talking to his family has already landed him at the hospital, talking to his father would deteriorate his condition further and refused to take that call," Saraogi was quoted as saying by India Today.
In the early days of World War II, Franklin Roosevelt told the country, 'The news is going to get worse and worse before it gets better and better, and the American people deserve to have it straight from the shoulder.'

Straight from the shoulder: The job of a President is to tell the truth. To be candid. To face facts. To lead, not to incite. That's why I am speaking to you today. The incumbent President is incapable of telling us the truth. Incapable of facing facts. Incapable of healing.

He doesn't want to shed light. He wants to generate heat. He's stoking violence in our cities. That is the tragic fact of the matter about this perilous hour in our nation. And now  we must stand against violence  in every form it takes.

The violence we've seen again and again and again of unwarranted police shootings and excessive force.

Seven bullets in the back of Jacob Blake. A knee on the neck of George Floyd. The killing of Breonna Taylor  in her own apartment.

The violence of extremists and opportunists  right-wing militias, white supremacists, vigilantes  who infiltrate protests carrying weapons of war, hoping to wreak havoc, and to derail any hope and support for progress.

The senseless violence of looting and burning and destruction of property.

I want to be clear about this: Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting.

None of this is protesting  it's lawlessness  plain and simple.

And those who do it should be prosecuted. Violence will not bring change, only destruction. It's wrong in every way. It divides instead of unites.

Destroying businesses only hurts hard working families that serve the community. It makes things worse, not better.

It is not what Dr. King or John Lewis taught. It must end.

The fires are burning  and we have a president who fans the flames rather than fighting them.

But we must not burn. We must build.

This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country. He can't stop the violence  because for years he has fomented it.

He may believe mouthing the words law and order makes him strong, but his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows you how weak he is.

Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?

We need justice in America. And we need safety in America.

We are facing multiple crises  crises that, under Donald Trump, keep multiplying.

COVID.

Economic devastation.

Unwarranted police violence.

Emboldened white nationalists.

A reckoning on race.

Declining faith in a bright American future.

The common thread?

An incumbent president who makes things worse, not better.

An incumbent president who sows chaos rather than providing order.

An incumbent president who fails in the basic duty of the job: to advance the truths that all of us are born with a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That's right: all of us.

The moms and dads in Scranton where I grew up  who have worked and scrapped for everything they've ever gotten in life.

The auto worker in Michigan  who still makes the best car in the world.

The single mom in Ohio working three jobs just to stay afloat  who will do anything for her child.

The retired veteran in Florida who gave everything he had to this country  and now just wants us to honor the promises we made to him.

The Lord and Taylor salesperson who just lost their job  the store closing after 194 years in business.

The nurses and doctors in Wisconsin who have seen so much sickness and so much death the past six months they wonder how much more they can take, but still they muster up the courage to take care of their patients in this pandemic and risk their lives.

The researcher in Minnesota who woke up this morning determined to find a breakthrough in treating cancer  who will do the same thing tomorrow and the day after and the day after  because she will never give up.

White, Black, Latino, Asian-American, Native American. Everybody.

I'm in this campaign for you, no matter your color, no matter your Zip Code. No matter your politics. When I think about the presidency, I don't think about myself.

This isn't about my brand.

This is about you.

We can do better.

We must do better.

And I promise this: We will do better.

The road back begins now, in this campaign. You know me. You know my heart, and you know my story, my family's story.

Ask yourself: Do I look to you like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?

I want a safe America  safe from COVID, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops.

And let's be crystal clear: Safe from four more years of Donald Trump.

I look at this violence and I see lives and communities and the dreams of small businesses being destroyed and the opportunity for real progress on the issues of race and police reform and justice being put to the test.

Donald Trump looks at this violence and sees a political lifeline.

Having failed to protect this nation from a virus that has killed more than 180,000 Americans, Trump posts all cap tweets screaming Law and Order to save his campaign.

One of his closest political advisors in the White House doesn't even bother to speak in code. She just comes out and says it: 'The more chaosand violencethe better it is' for Trump's reelection.

Think about that.

This is a sitting President of the United States. He's supposed to be protecting this country. But instead he's rooting for chaos and violence.

The simple truth is Donald Trump failed to protect America. So now, he's trying to scare America.

Since Donald Trump and Mike Pence can't run on their record that has seen more American deaths to a virus than this nation suffered in every war since Korea combined

Since they can't run on their economy that has seen more people lose their jobs than at any time since the Great Depression

Since they can't run on the simple proposition of sending our children safely back to school

And since they have no agenda or vision for a second term Trump and Pence are running on this:

'You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America'.

And what's their proof? The violence you're seeing in Donald Trump's America.

These are not images from some imagined 'Joe Biden's America' in the future.

These are images from Donald Trump's America today.

He keeps telling you if only he was president it wouldn't happen.

He keeps telling us if he was president you would feel safe.

Well  he

president. And it is happening. And you don't.

And it's getting worse. And we know why. Because Donald Trump adds fuel to every fire.

Because he refuses to even acknowledge there is a racial justice problem in America.

Because he won't stand up to any form of violence.

He's got no problem with the right-wing militias and white supremacists and vigilantes with assault weapons  often better armed than the police, often in the middle of the violence  at these protests.

And because tens of millions of Americans simply don't trust this president to respect their rights, to hear their concerns, or to protect them.

It doesn't have to be this way.

When President Obama and I were in the White House, and had to defend federal property,

you didn't see us whipping up fears around the deployment of secret federal troops.

We just did our job. And the federal property was protected.

When President Obama and I were in office, we didn't look at cities as Democratic- or Republican-run. These are American cities.

But Trump doesn't see himself as a president for all of America.

Frankly, I believe if I were president today, the country would be safer and we would be seeing less violence. And here's why.

I have said we must address the issue of racial injustice. I have personally spoken to George Floyd's family and Jacob Blake's family. I know their pain, I know the justice they seek. They have told us none of this violence respects or honors George or Jacob.

I believe I can bring those fighting for racial justice to the table. I have worked with the police in this country for over forty years. I know most cops are good and decent people. I know the risk they take every day with their lives. And I am confident I can bring the police to the table.

I would make sure every mayor and governor had the support they needed from the federal government  but I wouldn't be looking to use the United States military against our own people.

If I were president, my language would be less divisive. I would be looking to lower the temperature in the country  not raise it. And I would be looking to unite the nation.

But, look, if Donald Trump wants to ask the question: Who will keep you safer as President? Let's answer it.

First, some simple facts.

When I was Vice President, violent crime fell 15% in this country. We did it without chaos and disorder. And yes we did it with Democrats as mayors of most big cities in this country.

The murder rate is up 26% in cities across the nation this year under Donald Trump.

Do you feel really safer under Trump?

COVID has taken more lives this year than any outbreak in more than 100 years. More than 180,000 lives in just six months. An average of 1,000 people dying every day in the month of August.

Do you feel really safer under Trump?

Mr. Trump  you want to talk about fear? Do you know what people are afraid of in America?

They're afraid they're going to get COVID. They're afraid they're going to get sick and die. And that in no small part is because of you.

We are now on track for more than 200,000 deaths in this country due to COVID.

More than 100,000 seniors have lost their life to the virus. More cops have died from COVID this year than have been killed on patrol. Nearly one in six small businesses is closed in this country today.

Do you really feel safer under Trump?

What about Trump's plan to destroy the Affordable Care Act  and with it the protections for pre-existing conditions. That impacts more than 100 million Americans.

Does that make you feel safer?

Or how about Trump's plan to defund Social Security.

The Social Security Administration's chief actuary just released a report saying if a plan like the one Trump is proposing goes into effect, the Social Security Trust Fund would be, quote, 'permanently depleted by the middle of calendar year 2023, with no ability to pay benefits thereafter.' To put it plainly, Social Security would be wiped out.

Feel safer now?

And the fear that reigns under this president doesn't stop at our shores.

The Kremlin has put bounties on the heads of American soldiers.

And instead of telling Vladimir Putin that there will be a heavy price to pay if they dare touch an American soldier  this president doesn't even bring up the subject in a phone call.

Russian forces just attacked American troops in Syria, injuring our service members. The president didn't say a word. He didn't lift a finger.

Never before has an American president played such a subservient role to a Russian leader.

It's not only dangerous  it's an embarrassment.

Not even America's troops can feel safer under Trump.

Donald Trump's role as a bystander in his own presidency extends to the economic pain being felt by millions of Americans.

He said this weekend, 'You better vote for me or you are going to have the greatest depression you've ever seen.'

Does he not see the tens of millions who had to file for unemployment this year? The folks who won't be able to make next month's rent? The folks who lost wages while the cost of food staples rose dramatically?

Barack Obama and I stopped a depression in 2009. We took a bad economy and turned it around.

Donald Trump took a good economy and drove it into the ditch. Through his failure to get COVID under control, his failure to pull together the leaders in Congress, his failure to deliver real relief for working people  has made our country's economic situation so much worse than it had to be.

When we talk about safety, and security, we should also talk about the basic security of being able to look your kid in the eye and tell them everything is going to be okay. We won't lose our home. We'll be able to put food on the table.

I've laid out an agenda for economic recovery that will restore a sense of security for working families. And we won't just build things back the way they were before. We're going to build back better.

With good-paying jobs building our nation's roads, bridges, solar arrays and windmills. With investments in our health care and child care workers so they get the pay and dignity they deserve, while easing the financial burdens for millions of families. With a clean energy strategy that has a place for the energy workers right here in western Pennsylvania. I'm not for banning fracking. Let's say that again. I'm not for banning fracking  no matter how many times Donald Trump lies about me.

The future. That's what this is all about.

We all hear Donald Trump's self-centered rants and riffs, but the voice America should hear is Julia Jackson's  the mother of Jacob Blake.

Hers is a voice of courage and character and wisdom.

In looking at the damage that had been done in her city she said, 'the violence and destruction' didn't 'reflect my son or my family.'

These are the words of a mother whose son had just been shot seven times in front of his children. Badly injured. Paralyzed, perhaps permanently.

And even as she seeks justice for her son  she is pleading for an end to the violence  and for this nation to heal.

She said she was praying for her son. She said she was praying for all police officers. She said she had already been praying for America, even before her son was shot.

She asked us all to examine our hearts  citizens, elected officials, the police  all of us.

And then she said this, 'We need healing.'

More than anything, that is what we need to do as a nation:

We need to heal.

The current president wants you to live in fear. He advertises himself as a figure of order.

He isn't. He is not part of the solution. He is part of the problem. The biggest part.

A problem that I, as President, will give my all to resolve.

I will deal with the virus. I will deal with the economic crisis. I will work to bring equity and opportunity to all.

We have arrived at the moment in this campaign that we all knew we would get to. The moment when Donald Trump would be so desperate, he would do anything to hold on to power.

Donald Trump has been a toxic presence in our nation for four years.

Poisoning how we talk to one another. Poisoning how we treat one another. Poisoning the values this nation has always held dear. Poisoning to our democracy.

Now  in just a little over 60 days  we have a decision to make:

Will we rid ourselves of this toxin? Or will we make it a permanent part of our national character?

As Americans we believe in Honesty and Decency. Treating everyone with dignity and respect. Giving everyone a fair shot. Leaving no one behind. Giving hate no safe harbor. Demonizing no one. Being part of something bigger than ourselves.

Donald Trump doesn't believe in any of that.

America is an idea.

It is the most powerful idea in the history of the world  and it beats in the hearts of the people of this country:

All men and women are created equal  and they deserve to be treated equally.

Trump has sought to remake this nation in his image  selfish, angry, dark, divisive.

That is not who we are.

At her best, America has always been  and if I have anything to do with it  always will be a generous, confident, optimistic nation.

Donald Trump is determined to instill fear in America  that is what his entire campaign for presidency has come down to.

Fear.

But I believe Americans are stronger than that.

I believe we will be guided by the words of Pope John Paul II. Words drawn from Scripture: 'Be not afraid'.

Fear never builds the future. Hope does. And building the future is what America does.

In fact, it's what we do best.

This is the United States of America. And there is nothing we haven't been able to do, when we've done it together.

Thank you. May God bless you. And may God protect our troops.
Mumbai: Shiv Sena launched an attack on BJP for its demand to re-open temples in Maharashtra in its mouthpiece Samana. The article targeted BJP leader and former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis saying that he claims people know how to maintain social distancing in religious place but he himself forgot how social distancing norms were flouted in its own Ghanta Naad Andolan.

The Samana article further said that the opposition should re-think about the ongoing situation in Maharashtra before making such statements. It further said that they themself don't know about the real meaning of 'mental piece' which they often talk about.

Slamming Fadnavis it said that the definition of 'mental and religious support' differs from person to person, where for lakhs of people its means getting a two-time meal, for some it's getting political power.

Sena further questioned BJP that on what basis is the demand being made. Moreover, Sena declared that people will not get the tag for being 'Hinduwadi' or 'secular' for opening or closing religious places at the time of a global pandemic wherein 'Gods are under lockdown.'
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Protests continued outside the White House for a second night Sunday, with videos emerging online of protesters clashing with police in the street and shining lights into the homes of residents chanting: Out of your homes and into the streets.

Washington DC saw violent protests in the weeks following police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota back in May, and the chaos re-erupted on Thursday, the final night of the Republican National convention, when six officers were hospitalized in demonstrations across the city.

The unrest continued into Sunday night, with a group of heavily armored officers seen moving in on a hundred-strong crowd of protesters gathered at Black Lives Matter Plaza shortly before midnight.

Video showed a large crowd marching through the Logan Circle neighborhood, letting off fireworks while banging drums and shouting through a loudspeaker.

Flashlights and what appeared to be a laser pointer were also shone through the windows of nearby houses, along with chants of 'out of your homes and into the streets'.

Protesters had earlier stopped outside the La Diplomate restaurant while shouting similar chats at diners. Restaurant staff served them water before they continued along their route.

Meanwhile demonstrators also took to the streets of Portland, which has seen near-continuous marches since the death of George Floyd on May 25, where they also clashed with police late on Sunday night.

WASHINGTON DC: Protesters took to the streets of the capital on Sunday, where clashes broke out with police who reportedly fired rubber bullets and tear gas at the crowds

Anti-racism protesters march around downtown in Washington DC, where they shone lights into houses while urging people 'out of your homes and into the streets'

Officers deployed a chemical irritant to disperse the crowd, some of whom were wielding homemade shields

Washington DC Police clear protesters out of Black Lives Matter Plaza on August 30, 2020

Protests continued Sunday night, with videos emerging online of protesters clashing with police in the street and shining lights into the homes of residents chanting, Are you home, get into the street'

The confrontation erupted around two hours after protesters first gathered at the plaza at around 10pm, before marching down nearby streets

Marchers had gathered close to the Penumbra Kelly Building, which houses the city's crime prevention unit and has been repeatedly targeted, before the gathering was declared illegal.

Police used loudspeakers to warn the crowd to disperse as projectiles were thrown at them, before repeatedly charging the crowd with a number of people arrested, according to KATU.

Cars that had been used to block the street for a short time were also towed away.

The protests come after Aaron 'Jay' Danielson, a member of the pro-Trump Patriot Prayer organization, was shot dead during protests in the city.

Police are thought to be investigating 48-year-old Michael Forest Reinoehl - who described himself on Instagram as '100% ANTIFA' - in relation to the shooting.

Reinoehl is a former member of the military who is now a professional snowboarder and has been a frequent attendee of protests in Portland, according to The Oregonian.

He was previously accused of carrying a loaded gun to another demonstration, the paper reports.

In Washington, officers used tear gas to disperse the crowd, some of whom were wielding homemade shields.

PORTLAND: Police outside the Penumbra Kelly Building, in east Portland, attempt to shut down a street protest after declaring it illegal on Sunday night

A protester is seen shrouded in vapor while another gestures towards police during a night of unrest in Portland, following the shooting of a counter-demonstrator in the city

A protester wearing a gas mask talks to a fellow activist as he is handcuffed by an officer and arrested during another night of unrest in Portland on Sunday

Protesters use an umbrella to shield themselves as they face off with police outside the Penumbra Kelly Building in Portland

Protesters unfurl a banner during a street demonstration in Portland that was ruled illegal by police who then attempted to shut it down by charging the crowd

An officer aims a teargas gun at protesters in Portland as he attempts to disperse the crowd after the march was ruled illegal

Group has arrived at the Kelly building. Police are issuing a warning telling people to stay off of the property. pic.twitter.com/XWF7C5GjjT  Allison Mechanic (@AlliMechanic_TV) August 31, 2020

The unruly scenes come just 24 hours after five protesters were arrested at the plaza on Saturday night. Two of those detained were charged with assaulting a police officer.

On Sunday, officers were seen tackling fleeing demonstrators and swinging their bikes at people as they appeared to take several protesters into custody and force others away from the plaza.

Several protesters were observed being slammed against parked vehicles by police, with others being pinned down against the sidewalk, the Washington Post reported.

It was not immediately clear if any protesters or police officers were injured in the scramble.

Around 20 minutes prior, small groups of protesters were seen arguing among themselves about tossing projectiles such as water bottles towards police.

Witness Dominque Haralson, 31, told the Post she saw at least five people being taken into police custody.

Haralson questioned the level of force launched against the protesters, who she said were largely peaceful, adding that police seemed to indiscriminately target anyone on Black Lives Matter Plaza.

They create their own narrative. Everybody is a suspect, she told the outlet. During the day, Black Lives Matter Plaza is a photo op and at night, its a war zone.

PORTLAND: A protester wearing a gas mask and playing a banjo is confronted by police at a demonstration in Oregon

Officers lead away a man who was demonstrating on the streets of Portland on Sunday night

Riot officers are seen on the streets of Portland, confronting anti-racism protesters who took to the streets on Sunday

The confrontation erupted around two hours after protesters first gathered at the plaza at around 10pm, before marching down nearby streets.

As they walked, protesters were recorded urging others to join them, chanting Out of your homes and into the streets' and 'If we dont get no justice, you dont get no sleep.

Some of the crowd shined torches through residents windows, others set off firecrackers in the streets and spray-painted sidewalks. They crowd to Black Lives Matter Plaza at 11:30pm.

Protesters have gathered in the District for more than three months since the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on May 28. The renewed unrest has been sparked by the shooting of Jacob Blake, 29, who was shot seven times in the back by police in Wisconsin during a domestic dispute call last weekend.

This is the second night in a row police have clashed with protesters at Black Lives Matter Plaza.

WASHINGTON DC: The officers were seen tackling fleeing demonstrators and swinging their bikes at people as they appeared to take several protesters into custody and force others away from the plaza

WASHINGTON DC: Anti-racism protesters march through the streets of the capital on Sunday night

Protesters armed with makeshift shields raise their fists in the air as they protest in the capital

The city saw violent protests in the weeks following police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota back in May, and the chaos seemed to re-erupt this week on Thursday, the final night of the Republican National convention, when six officers were hospitalized

Protesters and Washington DC Police clash at Black Lives Matter Plaza late Sunday

Five people were arrested overnight Saturday after clashes with law enforcement, according to police. Two of those arrested were charged with assault on a police officer.

Some members of the groups were intent on damaging property and injuring Metropolitan Police Department officers, the department said in a statement.

These individuals ignited fireworks, intentionally set fires, as well as threw projectiles  including glass, bricks and smoke grenades, at officers in the area. Additionally, lasers were used to visually impair officers, the department said.

One suspect is accused of intentionally rolling over an officers foot with a motorized scooter. Another person allegedly shot fireworks in officers direction.

In a tweet early Sunday, President Donald Trump said Mayor Muriel Bowser 'should arrest these agitators and thugs.'

'Clean up D.C. or the Federal Government will do it for you. Enough!!!' he wrote.

This is the second night in a row police have clashed with protesters at Black Lives Matter Plaza

Heavily armored police as seen advancing on the crowd of protesters on Black Lives Matter Plaza

A line of police officers stand guard and face off with a row of protesters wielding umbrellas and wearing gas masks

The renewed unrest has been sparked by the shooting of Jacob Blake, 29, who was shot seven times in the back by police in Wisconsin during a domestic dispute call last weekend
Rio Tinto has pledged to protect a 43,000-year old rock shelter on the fringe of its Silvergrass iron ore mine in Western Australia as it reviews heritage sites following outrage over the destruction of sacred ancient caves this year.

Rio Tinto, which has state government approval to damage the site, told the Wintawari Guruma people, its traditional owners, of its intention to preserve the rock shelter last week, although the Wintawari say they have yet to receive confirmation in writing.

We will protect the site and also have mining buffer zones in place to further ensure the site is not at risk, the worlds largest iron-ore miner said in an email in response to questions by the Reuters news agency about the site.

The state government-approved detonation in May of caves in the same region that showed evidence of human history stretching back 46,000 years provoked worldwide condemnation and has triggered government and internal reviews.

Since then, Australias biggest iron-ore miners  Rio Tinto, BHP and Fortescue Metals Group  have been reviewing heritage sites that could be affected by mine expansions, although they have resisted calls for a complete moratorium on sites for which they have been granted exemptions to disturb or damage.

The 43,000-year old rock shelter was highlighted in a March 2018 report by Scarp Archaeology as having high archaeological significance, which also noted the Silvergrass East area was likely to feature more locations of extensive antiquity.

Despite the findings of the report, Rio Tinto applied the following April to damage the site, called SG-07-22, and consent was granted by the state governments minister for Aboriginal affairs in a document dated August 15, 2019, that was obtained by Reuters.

Change of heart?

Nobody at Wintawari is ever happy to see any sites destroyed  hopefully Rio is also coming around to that point of view, said Kathryn Przywolnik, heritage manager for the Wintawari Guruma Aboriginal Corporation.

This could be a sign of Rio reviewing its decision-making process but its a bit early to tell.

Since July 2010, miners have submitted more than 460 applications to disturb or destroy sites of potential cultural significance in the region, according to Western Australia state parliament records. All but one of those applications were approved.

The May blasts of the sacred caves, whose traditional owners are the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people, highlighted the power imbalance between miners and Indigenous Australians who have no legal veto over development projects on their ancestral land.

Unlike their title suggests, traditional owners do not legally own the land and are only sometimes considered stakeholders in its management.

An Australian federal government inquiry that began in June has exposed controversial clauses in miners contracts with traditional owners that prohibit them from publicly objecting to site destruction and that may also impede their rights under other Australian legislation.

Rio Tinto executives are due to give further evidence before the inquiry from late next month.

The outcry over the May blasts also became a facet of recent Black Lives Matter protests in Australia, where Aboriginal groups have long suffered higher rates of imprisonment, unemployment and lower life expectancy.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 31

By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:

The value of trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Austria amounted to $69.5 million over 1H2020, compared to $83.1 million during the same period of 2019, Trend reports with reference to Kazakhstans Statistics Committee.

The share of Austria in the total value of Kazakhstans trade turnover stood at 0.2 percent during the reporting period compared to 0.2 percent during the same period of 2019.

Kazakhstans export to Austria amounted to $2.3 million over the period from January through June 2020, compared to $2.6 million during the same period of 2019.

Austrias share in the total volume of Kazakhstans export also amounted to 0.009 percent during the reporting period of 2020 compared to 0.009 than percent during the same period of 2019.

In turn, Kazakhstans imports from Austria stood at about $67.1 million over the reporting period, compared to $80.5 million during the same period of 2019.

Austrias share in the total volume of Kazakhstans import amounted to 0.4 percent during the reporting period of 2020 compared to 0.5 percent during the same period of 2019.

The total volume of Kazakhstans trade turnover amounted to $42.5 billion over the period from Jan. through June 2020 which indicates a decrease from $46.1 billion during the same period of 2019.

Kazakhstans export amounted to $26 billion during the reporting period of 2020 ($28.6 billion in the same period of 2019), whereas imports amounted to $16.5 billion ($17.5 billion in 2019).

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Follow the author on twitter: @nargiz_sadikh
Security forces have busted a plan of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) based in Pakistan to revive its network in Jammu and Kashmirs Reasi district and have arrested its three overground workers", police said on Monday.

These overground workers" were in contact with their Pakistani handler (LeT) Mohd Qasim of Mahore who had exfiltrated to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in 2002, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Reasi, Rashmi Wazir said here.

The police and the Army have busted a major LeT revival plan in the Mahore area of Reasi district, and the three arrested overground workers" include a government teacher, she said.

The SSP said information was received through reliable sources at Police Station Mahore that some unknown persons in the area were in touch with LeT terrorists based in Pakistan to revive the LeT in Mahore with the intention to wage war against the country and disturb the sovereignty and integrity of India.

Based on this information, a case was registered on August 5, and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted to investigate it, she said. During the course of the investigation, with the help of technical data analysis support from the Army and intelligence units working in Mahore area and interrogation of suspects by the SIT, it emerged that Mohd Qasim, who is working for the LeT across the border, is the mastermind behind the module, the SSP said.

She said Qasim was trying to establish a network of overground workers" so that the LeT could utilise it to recruit from Mahore and adjoining areas, provide logistics support and establish an LeT base to facilitate the crossing of terrorists via various routes, including but not limited to Rajouri belt-Mahore-Nikin Gali to Kashmir via Kulgam area.

The three people arrested were identified as Ghulam Hussain of Kulwa Mulas, Abdul Aziz of Sildhar and Ashfaq Ahmed of Malan Bathoie, the SSP said. One of them is a government teacher, one is a shopkeeper and the other is a labourer, she said.

Some benami transactions in different accounts of these suspects have also been detected, and some families of slain militants who have received financial aid from the ISI have also been identified," Wazir said.

The investigation in this regard is in progress, the SSP said.
The Alabama State Port Authority and major companies operating at the Port of Mobile are collecting hurricane relief goods for shipment to Lake Charles, La., in the wake of Hurricane Laura.

The Category 4 hurricane, which hit last week, affected Texas and Arkansas but did most of its damage in Louisiana. Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a Monday afternoon briefing that about 324,000 utility customers remained without power. He said he expected outages in central and northern Louisiana would be resolved soon, but that in hard-hit coastal areas it likely would be several weeks before power was restored. He said that high heat and humidity, combined with a loss of water service in many areas, were hampering cleanup work, and that more than 10,000 evacuees were distributed in hotel rooms, primarily in New Orleans and Texas.

The Port of Mobile relief effort is being conducted by the Port Authority, APM Terminals Mobile, Maersk and Wright Transportation. The companies are providing in-kind services to collect, pack and transport relief supplies collected in the drive. Organizers are coordinating with officials in Calcasieu Parish, La., to ensure distribution of supplies upon arrival.

Supporting partner organizations include the City of Mobile, Mobile Bar Pilots, the Propeller Club of Mobile, the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce, the Alabama State Port Authority Employees Club, and the International Longshoremen Association.

Requested donations are bottled water, nonperishable food items including baby food, personal hygiene products including feminine hygiene and baby products, pet supplies, batteries (AA, AAA, C and D), non-bleach household cleaning products, basic first aid materials and over-the-counter medicines, toilet paper and paper towels, mosquito repellent and soap and shampoo.

Collection ends at 5 p.m. Thursday at two drop points:

 APM Terminals Mobile, 24 hours a day, 901 Ezra Trice Blvd. (Near the Virginia Street exit on I-10)

 Alabama State Port Authority, 7 a.m.-5:30 p.m., 250 N. Water St.

Questions can be emailed to stormrelief@asdd.com.

At the Monday afternoon briefing by Edwards and other Louisiana officials, speakers encouraged people to send monetary donations to the American Red Cross at www.redcross.org, or to the Community Foundation of Southwest Louisiana at www.FoundationSWLA.org. Based in Lake Charles, the foundation will funnel donations to local nonprofits engaged in relief work.
<! Gov Yahaya Bello of Kogi State: Judgement being delivered >

Richard Elesho/ Lokoja

Will Engineer Musa Wada topple Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi?

There is palpable anxiety among residents and indigenes of Kogi State as they await the final verdict of the Supreme Court over last years governorship election.

Last week, the court adjourned till today ruling in two cases, challenging Governor Yahaya Bellos victory.

The court had dismissed the case of the Democratic Peoples Party, DPP alleging undue exclusion from the November 16th Governorship poll.

The pending cases are those of candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, Engr. Musa Wada and the Social Democratic Party, SDP Natasha Akpoti.

Their parties are also involved in the suits.

Governor Yahaya Bello is of the All Progressives Congress, APC.

The appeals filed by Wada were by the court on Tuesday, 25 August 2020.

The appeals include SC 388/2020: Musa Atayi Wada & Anor V. INEC & 2 ors which was filed by Engr Musa Wada and his party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Gov Yahaya Bello and the All Progressive Congress (APC).

On May 23, 2020, the Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which sat in Abuja in a split judgement of two to one affirmed the declaration and return of Yahaya Bello by INEC as the validly elected governor of Kogi State.

The Tribunal unanimously resolved other petitions filed against Governor Bellos election in favour of the governor.

Dissatisfied, the aggrieved parties and their candidates appealed.

But the Court of Appeal Abuja Division on 4 July 2020, dismissed all the four appeals brought by the PDP, All Peoples Party, APP, the SDP) and the Democratic Peoples Party, DPP

The Appeal court threw away all the complaints forcing three of the parties PDP, SDP and DPP to proceed to the Supreme Court.

DPP has had its own case trashed.

Now the court will decide on the PDP and SDP cases.

Kogi waits with bated breadth.
Michigan is still grappling with how to implement its new legal recreational marijuana market. And it turns out during the pandemic, the market is actually kind of booming.

As Michigans recreational marijuana market expands many communities are trying to build social equity measures into their licensing process. The goal is to give people who have been disproportionately affected by anti-drug laws more opportunities to open retail shops.

In order to unpack the equity piece of the new industry, MLives Cheyna Roth and public radio station WDETs Jake Neher brought in MLives Gus Burns, who has been covering marijuana in Michigan for years.

Listen to Neher and Roths full conversation with Burns on the player above.

A lot of areas in the state are trying to figure out how to make the marijuana market available for everyone, but in Detroit specifically, theres a lot of conversation around this social equity piece.

Theres basically been a prohibition against marijuana for so long and it negatively impacted a lot of lives with the law enforcement, said Burns.

And basically, people are, now that its legal and turned into a business, theyre trying to get people who were negatively affected an opportunity to benefit from that, he said.

So far, attempts to fix the social inequity in the marijuana business have not been that successful, Burns said. The states Marijuana Regulatory Agency has a Social Equity Program that offers discount application fees and discount licensing fees, which can be quite a bit of money for some of the bigger licenses, but Burns said the people negatively affected by past marijuana policy still havent gotten through the qualification process yet.

Theres kind of a catch-22 with the with the laws, said Burns. Right now, youve got to have a medical business license before you can get a recreational business license.

The rules in the medical license prohibit anyone with drug distribution charges, he said. Those are the people theyre actually targeting with the program, so it kind of blocks a lot of them from accessing social equity.

Read More: A prior marijuana conviction could be a good thing for owners of Michigan pot businesses

Communities are slow to get recreational marijuana up and running in their areas because theyre worried that the industry will be overtaken by, people with big pockets, rather than the locals or people who were negatively impacted.

However, the state has been working on changes to its equity program. The state is expanding who can access its equity program by lowering the poverty levels for who qualifies. Its also considering getting rid of that prerequisite that you already have a medical marijuana license to get into the recreational marijuana business. However, no matter what the state does, the prerequisite is lifted next year.

Burns said its a good sign that people are thinking about the social equity piece of recreational marijuana, and that the state wants to get it right.

The state is taking an active role in it, Burns said. Theyre making more people eligible, and they are providing resources for people who think theyre eligible under the social equity rules and helping them get into the business.

More From MichMash:

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The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $15 million to various water and wastewater projects along the Rio Grande, about $300,000 of which is heading to Nuevo Laredo to help address the deteriorating infrastructure that lets millions of gallons of raw sewage into the river every day.

One of the larger problem areas is that Laredos Sister City is Arroyo El Coyote, a densely-populated area near the waste water treatment plant in the south of the city.

The actual reconstruction and rehabilitation of the siphons and sub-collectors in this area is estimated to cost about $7.5 million, which has not been awarded.

But the $256,000 that was just awarded will help fund planning and pre-construction work like alternative analysis, a water audit and a comprehensive waste water collection assessment.

The North American Development Bank, or NADBank, administers these funds on behalf of the EPA. Jesse Hereford, director of public relations for NADBank, said they are anticipating an additional $50,000 to be funded for a technical memorandum for this project.

All of these pre-construction steps need to be completed before the Nuevo Laredo can have access to the Border Environmental Infrastructure Fund, which funds the actual construction of these projects, Hereford said.

COMAPA, Nuevo Laredos utilities department, is handling the final design, which is about 90% complete, Hereford said.

Laredos Rep. Henry Cuellar said they expect this study to be completed by September, and construction funding is expected to be made available by the second quarter of 2021.

Ken McQueen, EPA administrator for Region 6, commented in a news release that reliable water infrastructure is one of the most important components of public health, especially for communities along the border.

Bringing water services to small border communities will improve environmental and health outcomes for the broader region, he said.

In the 1990s, the U.S., Mexico and Texas governments helped pay for Nuevo Laredos first wastewater treatment plant. Before its construction, 25 million gallons of sewage was flowing into the Rio Grande daily. But as the infrastructure ages, wastewater has continued to leak into the river.

The Arroyo El Coyote is one of several areas in Nuevo Laredo where raw sewage enters the water system.

NADBank has also received project applications for various wastewater treatment plant expansions and rehabilitations in Nuevo Laredo, which combined will cost over $13 million to construct. The Ribereno Sewer Main, for one, collapses frequently and discharges wastewater directly into the Rio Grande. This sewer main is the most important connector in Nuevo Laredo.

The NADBank was created in 1994 as part of NAFTA. Its a bi-national bank governed by the U.S. and Mexico to fund the development of environmental infrastructure in potable water, wastewater, solid waste, air quality and energy efficiency.

Julia Wallace may be reached at 956-728-2543 or jwallace@lmtonline.com
Australian state reports 41 deaths but is confident as daily new cases fall, promising an easing of curbs soon.

Australia on Monday reported its most deadly day of the pandemic since a second wave of the coronavirus emerged in the southern state of Victoria in July; but with new confirmed cases falling to their lowest in two months, authorities are increasingly confident the outbreak is being brought under control.

The southeastern state reported an additional 41 deaths on Monday, 22 of which occurred in nursing homes in the weeks leading up to August 27, but have only now been finalised by the health authorities, the Department of Health and Social Services said.

A total of 73 new cases of coronavirus were confirmed  the lowest since July 3  with health officials saying that number could drop to as low as 40 by the end of the week, according to public broadcaster ABC.

State Premier Daniel Andrews said the state government would release a roadmap next Sunday for easing restrictions and an overnight curfew in Melbourne, but stressed changes would be gradual and would be guided by science and public health concerns.

I want to make sure we have a Christmas Day as close to normal as possible, Andrews told reporters in Melbourne.

If we (remove restrictions) too quick, if we do this chasing something that might be popular for a few weeks, if we forget its a pandemic and think its a popularity contest, then Christmas wont look normal at all.

#COVID19VicData for 31 Aug 2020. There were 73 new cases and sadly 41 deaths. Today's deaths total includes 22 people who died in the weeks leading up to 27 August and were reported to DHHS by aged care facilities yesterday. More info will be available later this morning. pic.twitter.com/yDzeMKzYqE  VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) August 31, 2020

COVID Normal

Protective equipment in high-risk workplaces, mandatory masks in public and physical distancing will be key to any reopening strategy, the government said in its statement. It also advised the creation of workplace bubbles to reduce the number of employees working at any one time, and added that meetings and lunchtimes were likely to look very different in what it termed COVID Normal.

Even when restrictions are eased, Victoria is likely to remain sealed off from other states.

In neighbouring New South Wales, sporadic clusters continue to emerge. Some 10 new cases were reported on Monday with community health officials troubled at community transmission in Sydney.

Further north in Queensland, meanwhile, an outbreak at a youth detention centre in Brisbane prompted the state government to impose a lockdown on prisons. It earlier cancelled Schoolies  a week-long annual party on the nearby Gold Coast that draws thousands of young people celebrating the end of school.

Ten new cases of #COVID19 were diagnosed in the 24 hours to 8pm last night. All four locally acquired cases are linked to the CBD cluster. These include:

 Two who are household contacts of previously reported cases

 Two who are a close contact of previously reported cases pic.twitter.com/Ehg1cU2Rs5  NSW Health (@NSWHealth) August 31, 2020

Australia has recorded almost 26,000 cases in total and 652 deaths from the virus to date, far fewer than many other developed countries

The vast majority of cases in the past couple of months have been in Victoria, after the countrys initial success in containing the virus.
The deal was initialled and not signed, as a way to leave the door open for two key holdout rebel groups to join in a final agreement, officials said

Sudanese leaders and rebel commanders agreed Monday on a historic peace deal, a crucial first step towards ending 17 years of conflict, an AFP correspondent said.

Leaders of the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), an umbrella organisation of rebel groups from the western region of Darfur and the southern states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, raised their fists in celebration after inking the agreement.

The deal was "initialled" and not signed, as a way to leave the door open for two key holdout rebel groups to join in a "final" agreement, officials said.

Two rebel factions have refused to take part in the deal.

Eager to celebrate the most tangible success since last year's fall of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir and the establishment of an uneasy transitional government, officials met in the capital of neighbouring South Sudan.

Forging peace with rebels has been a cornerstone of Sudan's transitional government, which came to power in the months after the overthrow of Bashir in April 2019.

Sudan's government, led militarily by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of a sovereign council, and on the civilian side by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, says it views peace-building as the cornerstone for all its endeavours.

Both Burhan and Hamdok were in attendance, an AFP correspondent said, while South Sudanese President Salva Kiir oversaw the ceremony.

Sudan's rebels are largely drawn from non-Arab minority groups that long railed against Arab domination of the government in Khartoum.

About 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since rebels took up arms there in 2003, according to the United Nations.

Conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile erupted in 2011, in the wake of South Sudan's independence, resuming two decades of war.

The agreement covers key issues around security, land ownership, transitional justice, power sharing, and the return of people who fled their homes because of fighting.

It also provides for the dismantling of rebel forces and the integration of their fighters into the national army.

Rebel members of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) had provisionally initialled the agreement with the government late on Saturday.

However, an SLM faction led by Abdelwahid Nour and a wing of the SPLM-N headed by Abdelaziz al-Hilu refused to take part.

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Wisconsin Governor Asks Trump to Reconsider Kenosha Visit

White House says Trump looking forward to helping the 'great city heal and rebuild'

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers asked President Donald Trump in a letter on Sunday to reconsider his planned visit to Kenosha after the city suffered damage during riots that broke out following the police shooting of alleged sex offender Jacob Blake last week.

I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state, said the Democratic governor in the letter. Im concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.

Now is not the time for divisiveness, Evers added (pdf).

Just hours later, White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said in a statement that the president was still looking forward to visiting Kenosha on Sept. 1 after receiving messages from other Kenosha residents who expressed their support for the presidential visit.

The White House has been humbled by the outreach of individuals from Kenosha who have welcomed the presidents visit and are longing for leadership to support local law enforcement and businesses that have been vandalized, Deere stated.

President Trump looks forward to visiting on Tuesday and helping this great city heal and rebuild.

Trump had first expressed his interest in visiting Kenosha on Saturday during a press briefing.

Trump had told reporters that the city was in very, very good shape after 1,000 National Guard soldiers were requested by Evers to assist in quelling the violence that broke out after news of Blakes injuries.

The sheriff has been great. The police commissioner, the police chief has been great. Weve been working with all of them.

The White House confirmed that the visit would go ahead later that night.

President DonaldTrump will visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday to meet with local law enforcement and survey damage from the recent riots, Deere announced on Twitter.

Senior Trump campaign adviser Lara Trump told Fox News on Sunday that the presidents team was still working on arranging a meeting between the president and Blakes family.

Hes reached out to the Blake family, she said. I dont know if they were able to connect yet. And I dont know for sure if thats on the agenda.

Blakes father, Jacob Blake Sr., told CNN that he had spoken to Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, on Wednesday about the shooting of his son.

Blakes family revealed Tuesday that Blake was still paralyzed from the waist down after having undergone multiple surgeries following the shooting.

Blake was rushed to hospital after the Sunday shooting in critical condition, where he remains.

The police officer who shot Blake, Rusten Sheskey, has since been placed on administrative leave and is under investigation by the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation under the states Department of Justice.

Sheskey shot Blake seven times after Blake resisted officers attempts to arrest him after they received a call from his former girlfriend for help. Blake had a warrant out for his arrest and a restraining order stipulating that he wasnt to approach his ex-girlfriend after an alleged sexual assault.

A criminal complaint obtained by The Epoch Times showed that Blake was charged in July with trespassing, third-degree sexual assault, and disorderly conduct.

The 29-year-olds mother, Julia Jackson, has denounced Sheskeys use of force, saying that her family is very hurt and quite frankly disgusted.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had also announced travel plans to a yet to be disclosed location on Monday to condemn violence that he said in a statement was due to Trump recklessly encouraging.

Trumps Chief of Staff Mark Meadows pushed back at Bidens comments telling NBC News Meet the Press on Sunday, Most of Donald Trumps America is peaceful.
GREENWICH - It was a homecoming as well as a swearing-in ceremony for the new chief of the Greenwich Fire Department, as Chief Joseph McHugh returned to the community where he began his firefighting career before joining the fire service in New York City.

As dozens of firefighters from around the region looked on Monday morning, McHugh took the oath at an outdoors ceremony at the department headquarters, succeeding Peter Siecienski as fire chief.

McHugh had the crowd laughing as a described how much he wanted to become a firefighter when he was a little boy, imitating the sound of a fire engine as he sped down Sheep Hill Road on his bicycle. He said he was eager to follow in the footsteps of his father, Edward, a firefighter and fire inspector who died in 2017.

The incoming chief began his career with the Sound Beach Volunteer Fire Department in Old Greenwich, where he served as a firefighter and then as a lieutenant. He moved to the FDNY in 1991, rising to the rank of battalion chief. He earned a commendation for saving the life of a mother and daughter in a Bronx residential fire.

GFD Deputy Fire Chief Keith Millette is a longtime friend of the new chief, and called him the kind of firefighter who gives everything he has to the job. Millette said his friend was possessed of "humility and integrity," and as a colleague, McHugh is someone who is "always willing to explain and always willing to lend a hand."

First Selectman Fred Camillo said McHugh's accomplishments in the FDNY are impressive. "But we all know his best days lie ahead, serving in his hometown," Camllo said. The new chief, who lives in Port Chester, N.Y., worked in New York City for 29 years.

McHugh, who said he appreciated the contingent of FDNY firefighters who came to Greenwich for the ceremony, said it was a "bittersweet" moment to leave the city department.

"But I'm looking forward to it," he said. "To the people of Greenwich, as your new fire chief, I promise to give you 120 percent, to give you the best service, and protect your family and property."

Interim Fire Chief Robert Kick publicly announced his retirement at the event. He said he encouraged McHugh to apply for the position after it became clear that the search committee would be hiring from outside the department. "I'm happy to turn over the reins to Chief McHugh," Kick said.

Kick has been with the Greenwich Fire Department for 27 years and was the assistant fire chief before serving as the interim chief when Siecienski retired in May. Kick is leaving the department in early October.

McHugh was selected from a pool of 40 applicants who responded to a national search.

rmarchant@greenwichtime.com
After high school classes moved online, social distancing put an end to many 2020 seniors plans: No end-of-school parties, award banquets, prom or college visits.

Tabitha Coons son Blake and his friends were among the 12th graders at Klein Cain High School facing this new normal.

The seniors lost so much, Coon said. And we feel so bad for them. These are things every senior looks forward to.

She was determined to do something about it. So she called the parade brigade at Gleannloch Farms, a community in Klein. Heidi Kerley and Shelley Miles, who live in the neighborhood, had been organizing drive-by birthday parades since the beginning of the pandemic.

Coon, who lives in Conroe but teaches second grade in Klein ISD, joined the effort, along with her children, to celebrate her current and former students.

It all started when Kerleys best friend had to cancel her daughters birthday. It was right after spring break, Kerley recalled.

Kerley still wanted to do something. She asked her husband and kids to join her in the car, and they drove by her friends house. They stayed in the car and sang Happy Birthday.

Then, Kerley bumped into Miles at the grocery store. Miles daughter Kendi was about to celebrate her 13th birthday in quarantine. Kerley offered to do another drive-by birthday.

Miles phoned a couple of other friends to join in the fun. On Kendis special day, five cars, decorated for the occasion, paraded around the cul-de-sac, singing and throwing confetti.

Kendi was floored. She kept thanking me and giving me hugs, Miles said.

The next day, Miles created the Happy Birthday group on Facebook. Theres no reason we cant do this for other kids, she thought. This is affecting everyone.

Before long, the group was assembling almost every day for birthday caravans. One of the neighbors Deepak Budhrani, who owns a Great American Cookie Company store, donated cookie cakes.

Volunteer firefighters offered to lead parades, when they werent on call, and a group of motorcycle enthusiasts joined to escort the cars.

Its become a thing now, Miles said.

The parade was even invited to the Village at Gleannloch Farms assisted living community  first for Easter, and again for a Mothers Day salute.

Kerley already had graduation on her mind as another way parades could bring joy to the neighborhood.

I just think about how important those high school years were for me, especially senior year, she said. Theyre missing all of those moments - the parties, the awards, graduation and their sports. It breaks my heart.

Miles agreed. Theyre not going to walk across the stage. We need to do something for them, she said.

When Kerley saw an article about a small town that had posed 50-or-so seniors outside, and let their parents and grandparents drive through to congratulate them, she thought, We can do that here.

Still, she knew it would be difficult: There are about 700 students in Gleannloch Farms.

Most of the students attend Klein Cain - and would have been in the schools first graduating class. Other students attend Klein and Klein Oak High Schools, as well as private schools in the area.

Coon, Miles and Kerley brainstormed a way to make sure all of Gleannloch Farms graduates took part in the celebration.

They selected a stretch of road where students could stand, spaced 15 feet apart. Coon helped coordinate an order for signs for each student, displaying their photos and schools; Kerley and Miles picked up the signs, put them up the night before and pick them up after the event.

Home Depot donated canopies so students could stand in the shade, and H-E-B pitched in 60 cases of water.

The volunteers wanted the class of 2020 to have the best graduation possible - under the circumstances - when they celebrated on May 30.

We want the kids to know their hard work is appreciated, Coon said. We want them to know that they have not been forgotten.

Lindsay Peyton is a Houston-based freelance writer.
When I was 18 years of age, I had occasion to visit the Gare de l'Est in Paris. I don't even remember why I was there, but I remember a vivid moment of the experience. I gazed on the line of trains waiting to depart from their platforms: the destination boards read "Varsovie" (Warsaw), "Moscou" (Moscow), "Istanbul" and "Pekin". This was what it meant to be a continent. You could take a train all the way to Russia, or Turkey, or China, all overland.

An epiphany, surely, for a person coming from an island. An island is so different from a continent - obvious, but seldom reflected on. An island is a place apart - defined in the Oxford Dictionary as not only surrounded by water, but "a thing that is isolated, detached". The very word "isolate" derives from late Latin "insula", which is also cognate with insular.

To be an islander has its benefits: Gavin Francis, the Scottish doctor and travel writer, who is obsessed with islands, believes that islands are therapeutic, because their sense of "containment" can bring peace of mind. "Islands help to recalibrate what matters."

But the island and the islander can become isolated, in a cut-off sense. And over the last six months, there seems a perceptible drift in Ireland to revert to an attitude of isolation. Foreign travel has collapsed. The aviation industry - so crucial to an island - is in a parlous state and is often condemned for struggling to keep going "just for profit". Within the island of Ireland itself, people are urged to "self-isolate" - to become islands within themselves.

New Zealand, which cut itself off from the rest of the world to halt the spread of Covid-19, has been cited as an admirable model, although New Zealand is a more remote Pacific island, which has no international border on its territory, has fewer trade connections and no treaty with a continent, as Ireland has with the EU.

There is an unconscious, maybe primitive, urge within islanders to contain themselves, not to let "outsiders" into their secluded island world.

Ireland is an archipelago of islands - with at least 80 around the coast, of which 20 are inhabited, so the presence of islands abounds. Visitors may be made welcome, but there is suspicion, too, of outsiders.

Visitors to Ireland have been described as carriers of disease, "spreaders", a nefarious presence. Disapproval has been voiced that anyone at all should be landing at Irish airports during this summer of the coronavirus.

Fear of a pandemic is understandable and health precautions are sensible, but what of the psychological impact of sealing ourselves off from the outside world?

Some have felt a sense of cultural suffocation at not being able to get up and go, to emerge from the island state, to escape the "staycation". People can connect globally through modern media, but it is never quite the same as being there, as having the experience.

Charles de Gaulle excluded Britain from what was then the European Economic Community, calling the island of Britain "insulaire". Descriptively, he was correct: island natives are of the "insula", though they may see the foreigners as the isolated ones. "The Continent is isolated by fog," went a BBC weather forecast in 1938.

For more than two centuries, until 1868, Japan was separated from the outside world and it was a period of peace and serenity. They cursed the Portuguese for disturbing their island tranquillity. Japan, too, is "insulaire" - content with its island status, encompassing 6,000 islands.

There are, I think, some people in Ireland today who would like to emulate 17th-century Japan. Gavin Francis, in his book Island Dreams, points out that islands have always been places of containment and thus ideal for imprisonment: Alcatraz, Robben Island, Chateau d'If. And of contained exile: Elba, St Helena.

The fascination of being marooned on an island was captured by Daniel Defoe with the legend of Robinson Crusoe, based on the experience of Alexander Selkirk. Defoe wrote about the further adventures of Robinson Crusoe, but readers were only interested in his island story.

Ireland's geographical insularity has always been accompanied by the psychological need to connect with the world beyond the island. Sometimes that was forced, through economic emigration, but often it was led by a natural curiosity: the Irish diaspora is the evidence of that global inter-connectedness. Brendan the Navigator was an early model.

The islander loves the island, but there is also the urge to be connected, to be part of a bigger whole. As John Donne wrote in 1624: "No man is an island, entire of itself/Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."

The child psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott believed that the island experience of isolation brought a benefit: he thought that periods of waiting in isolation are periods of healing. "Waiting and waiting and waiting," is what he recommended.

That just about describes the state we're in.
German troops parade in front of Adolf Hitler and Nazi generals in Warsaw on Oct. 5, 1939, a month after the invasion of Poland that began the Second World War. (Public Domain)

Poland was Like a Burning House: Polish Canadians Remember Nazi-Soviet Invasion of 1939

The daughter of a Polish count and diplomat, Eva Konopacki was born to wealth and privilege, but in the early hours of Sept. 1, 1939, her world went up in smoke.

Now 94 and living in Ottawa, Konopacki remembers the invasion of her country as clearly as if it happened yesterday.

She was barely 13 when Nazi warplanes suddenly attacked Poland, launching a blitzkrieg (surprise offensive) against an unprepared country. Little did she know then that this act ignited the flame that would rapidly blow up into the conflagration of the Second World War.

Her school became an instant hospital for wounded soldiers, and classes were suspended

At first we thought it was a prolonged vacation and an exciting adventure for us, she recalls.

Still unaware of the grave danger lurking on the horizon, Konopacki and her mother proceeded by train to another city close to the Soviet border, hoping to find another school. An air of relative calm prevailed, but in fact, the Polish people were soon to become victims of a heinous act of political skulduggery.

Unbeknown to them, two totalitarian regimesNazi Germany and communist Russiahad signed the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact earlier that year, agreeing to carve up Poland and share it between them. Sixteen days after the Nazis burst onto the Western Front, the Red Army of the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland.

This time there was no question that the country was under occupation. Poland was like a burning house, with both Hitler and Stalin trying to burn it at the same time, Konopacki told The Epoch Times.

Soon, mother and daughter experienced the full brunt of communist brutality when they made a daring midnight attempt to cross the border and join Konopackis father, diplomat Alfred Poninski, in Romania. Heavily armed Russian guards arrested them and threw them in prison

Conditions in the prison were appalling, Konopacki said.

None of us could guess that Stalin had ordered the total destruction of the Polish upper classnot just officers and their wives and families, but thousands of policemen, judges, intellectuals, businessmen, or anyone with an education who held a civil or religious position. Although these people had never fought against the Soviets, they were all accused of espionage. A year later 25,000 would be shot and buried in mass graves.

Konopackis mother was accused of espionage, and Konopacki was forcibly separated from her and sent first to live with friends in Lvov, then with an aunt in Warsaw.

Parting was heartbreaking for both of us, but especially for my mother, who had to stay in prison and send away her only child to an uncertain future, she said. We didnt know if we would ever see each other again.

Eva Konopacki with her father in Krakow in June 1939, two months before the war started. (Courtesy of Eva Konopacki)

Five years later, as an 18-year-old soldier in the Warsaw Uprisingan operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate the city from German occupationKonopacki built and repaired army telephone lines and operated switchboards. Bombings and shrapnel continually tore the lines, and repair workers were easy targets. So she eventually became a courier, delivering messages to army officers.

Just before the underground army surrendered, she was awarded the highest military honour in Poland, the Order of Virtuti Militari, for an act of extraordinary personal bravery.

Irena Szpak is another Polish Canadian who played a heroic role in the Polish resistance movement against the Nazis. Now 93 and living in Ottawa, her memories of the war are indelible. At age 79, she published a book called Trains: A Journey of Remembrances.

Szpak was a 12-year-old girl guide when she was recruited by the Polish resistance movement to work as a courier.

Children were part of the resistance movement, she said in an interview. It was dangerous work, delivering messages by hand. If we got caught we could be imprisoned and tortured.

Her memories of Sept. 1, 1939, are recorded in her book. She and her family were at a cottage in the country outside Warsaw when a German plane trailing clouds of smoke crashed into a nearby field.

To me it was the beginning of World War II, she said.

Irena Szpak with her father and brother in Warsaw before Poland was invaded. (Courtesy of Irena Szpak)

Determined to destroy Poland, the Nazis prohibited secondary school education in the country, and Szpaks school in Warsaw was turned into a hat factory.

But our teachers continued to teach us in a clandestine way, she said. They risked their lives, because they would have been shot if caught. There are many monuments in Warsaw today honouring these brave teachers.

Szpak was taken prisoner on Oct. 4, 1944, and landed in a POW camp near the Dutch border

Safe Haven in Canada

Szpak and Konopacki eventually found a safe haven in Canada and rebuilt their lives here.

In Montreal there was a large group of Polish immigrants, ex-members of the Polish Home Army, many of them with higher education, who couldnt go back to their country, Konopacki says of her decision to move to that city when she first came to Canada.

Canada was offering us freedom, adds Konopacki, who worked as a schoolteacher. If you worked you could see the fruits of your work, instead of a prison term like in the Soviet Russia, or Poland occupied by the Soviets.

My husband and I moved to Canada in 1955, says Szpak. He got a job almost immediately as a chemical engineer. After all our experiences, Canada was like paradise for us and our three children.

She completed her degree in linguistics and eventually found work as a translator for a company in Kingston, Ontario.

In 2015, the Polish Embassy in Ottawa presented Szpak with a medal of honour for her part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
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MANISTEE COUNTY -- It's official. Lisa Sagala will be the next controller/ administrator for Manistee County.

The county Board of Commissioners voted Friday to appoint Sagala to the position which had been vacated by previous controller/administrator David Kieft.

Sagala, the county's human resources manager and assistant administrator, was appointed to the position on an interim basis on April 15, following Kieft's departure earlier this spring.

In her brief time as interim controller/administrator, Sagala has been responsible for crafting the county's official coronavirus preparedness plan as mandated by the state and has also begun work developing the county's budget for fiscal year 2020-21. Sagala has worked in the administrator's office for eight years.

During Friday's special session, commissioner Margaret Batzer thanked Sagala for her work during the coronavirus pandemic.

"You volunteered to step up into a role that was very much needed and I for one have been really grateful for your leadership and it's been a very smooth process and I'm grateful for that," Batzer said.

Under the general direction of the board of commissioners, Manistee County's controller/administrator carries out directives and implements policies of the board related to research and policy development, personnel and employee relations, budget and financial management, purchasing, data processing, grant funding and other areas as directed.

The duties also entail negotiating labor agreements, handling grievances and working with legal counsel on litigated matters.

The controller/administrator directly supervises staff engaged in financial management, personnel and employee relations, as well as the equalization director, housing administrator and county planner.

The position is also to provide administrative support to the board, and supervise maintenance and custodial department personnel.

The search to fill the county's controller/administrator position began in July. The original plan was to wait until September, but commissioners agreed that it is vital to move the timetable forward.

While several applications were received by the county board, the field quickly narrowed to the two most qualified for the position: Sagala and Oregon resident, Michael Dunckel.

Dunckel, the director of business services and facilities, and deputy clerk of the Willamette Education Service District in Salem, Oregon, was interviewed by the board of commissioners on Aug. 25.

On Aug. 28, Sagala was interviewed for the position during a special meeting of the Board of Commissioners.

Commissioner Karen Goodman asked Sagala what made her the most qualified person for the position.

"I don't think I can sit here and say that I am the most qualified, but I feel that I am qualified (based on) my four or five months as interim. I am invested in this community. I was born and raised here (and) I have no plans on moving. I like the people here. I have built a lot of good relationships with employees within Manistee County," Sagala said.

Sagala was appointed to the position by a unanimous vote of 6-0. Richard Schmidt was not present for the vote.

The Board of Commissioners will soon move on to appointing Sagala's replacement as human resources manager for the county, but chairman Jeff Dontz noted that would be "a job for a new controller/administrator."

Further details of Sagala's contract with the county were not available as of press time Sunday.
The Texas Department of Transportations roadside assistance program, known as HERO, is coming to San Antonio starting Monday.

The Highway Emergency Response Operator program has been running in Austin for two years and was introduced in El Paso in June.

By October, HERO will have 28 trucks on 14 major San Antonio highways, including Loop 410, Loop 1604, Interstate 35, U.S. 281, U.S. 90, Interstate 10 and Texas 151. Hoping for under-20-minute response times, the trucks will run from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m., usually two vehicles per route, less frequently overnight and on weekends.

Jerry Lara, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

If it sounds familiar, its because HERO-like programs operated in some Texas cities more than 10 years ago but were often stalled by budget cuts.

HERO drivers in Dodge Ram 2500 pickups will be able to change a flat tire; offer a gallon of gas, water, jump starts and cellphone calls; and push disabled cars to a safer spot. They will not tow your car.

Weve seen fatalities where good Samaritans stop to help people and they get hit, TxDOT traffic operations manager Dale Picha said. Its really sad, all because their car broke down, so our goal first is to get them safely off the road.

Jerry Lara, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

HERO trucks will be loaded with electronic arrow boards, orange cones, on-board video, wireless cameras, strobes and direct radio communication with TransGuide, TxDOTs smart highway control center that monitors some 190 cameras on San Antonio roads and can issue warnings to drivers approaching accident scenes.

Picha said Austins experience with HERO taught him that its drivers also will spend a great deal of time clearing debris from highways and helping make an accident scene safer for police and victims.

Youd be shocked, he said, at how many sofas are thrown on our freeways.

Jerry Lara, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

HERO operations in San Antonio will be funded with $16 million over three fiscal years, with costs shared by the city, county and state. They will be run by a London-based multinational contractor, Serco, which has operated Hong Kong hospitals, the Dubai Metro system, Australian prisons and Londons traffic lights, among other ventures. Its North America office is in Herndon, Va.

Starting in the early 1980s, according to Picha, San Antonios TxDOT employees ran a Courtesy Patrol operation for many years, but it was discontinued in 2008-2009 because of budget cuts. Since then, San Antonio has remained the largest metropolitan area in the country without a safety service patrol.

I give kudos to the city of San Antonio and to Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff for funding HERO, Picha said. We looked at the 20 largest cities in the U.S., and I think 16 of them had some program like this.

HEROs red, white and blue trucks can be summoned by calling 210-732-4376 (HERO) or 911.

Picha said the program was not meant to replace or compete with auto insurance companies roadside assistance programs.

Those often take awhile. We want to have some urgency, Picha said. We just really want people to know how dangerous it is for you to be sitting out there on the concrete with your vehicle. We talk about this all the time.

bselcraig@express-news.net
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Linkedin Galih Gumelar (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020

The National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) has said it welcomes the governments plan to allow the Indonesian Military (TNI) to involve itself in the countrys fight against terrorism but has warned that the military must abide by the Terrorism Law, which requires it to maintain a coordinating role in such efforts.

BNPT law enforcement deputy head Eddy Hartono said the TNI should engage in counterterrorism in a way that aligned with its functions and duties according to the 2004 TNI Law.

The law gives the military the authority to ward off threats to the countrys sovereignty and restore security after a security disturbance.

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A 33-year-old state prison inmate died Thursday at hospital near Atmore after testing positive for COVID-19, the Alabama Department of Corrections said Monday.

Jonathan Mallory, who was serving a 20-year sentence for assault and a 25-year-sentence for robbery out of Calhoun County at Fountain Correctional Facility in Atmore, was admitted to a hospital near the prison July 10 for an medical condition unrelated to COVID-19, ADOC said.

Upon being admitted to the hospital, Mallory tested negative for the disease, the agency said. He tested positive July 16 in a subsequent test.

Mallory was under the hospitals care when he died Thursday, according to ADOC.

He is the 20th state inmate to die after testing positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began in mid-March, according to agency statistics.

Last week, 60-year-old Sylvester Hartley, who was serving a life sentence without parole at St. Clair Correctional Facility for three counts of kidnapping that occurred in Escambia County, died after testing positive for the virus.

Earlier this month, James Cowan, a 74-year-old inmate serving a murder sentence at St. Clair, died several days after testing positive for the virus.

In late June, two state prison inmates with COVID-19 diagnoses died within four days of each other. Billy Joe Moore, 73, who was serving a life sentence for murder at St. Clair, died June 25. Henry Robinson, a 56-year-old burglary inmate at Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore County, died June 28.
Over the past two years Fr Sean Mawn PP in Ballinamore investigated various ideas as to how he might enhance the ambience of the Parish Church to give it a more prayerful atmosphere.

This relatively modern Church was built 60 years ago and differed from the more traditional style of Church Architecture that is found throughout Ireland.

The Church is very tall and there was a huge simple wooden Cross above the Altar with a carved figure of The Crucified Christ secured to the wall.

This was fixed to a plain very high uninspiring cold marble recessed wall in the Sanctuary at the back of the original Altar constructed of reinforced steel poured concrete .

Various options were considered by the Church Committee and the preference was for a new stained glass window. However cutting openings in the mass reinforced concrete wall would be a very expensive job and could destabilise and weaken the building so this proposal had to be shelved and the Committee had to go back to the drawing board.

Fr Sean Mawn then contacted Ken Ryan at Abbey Stained Glass Studios in Dublin for advice and a meeting was arranged in Ballinamore to discuss possible alternatives.

Kens late father Frank Ryan was responsible for the design, manufacture and installation of all the stained glass windows in St Patrick's Church some sixty years earlier.

The design and manufacture of new stained glass windows for above the altar was a hugely expensive project as at least three tall windows would be required twenty feet high to compliment the architecture of the Church and naturally finances as is normal were in short supply.

Abbey Stained Glass Studios had recently taken out a very tall three light window depicting The Crucifixion for the Religious Sisters of Charity in St Vincents Convent, Cork City for use elsewhere.

These stained glass windows designed by Mayers of Munich circa 1880 were a perfect fit for Ballinamore and after due consideration by the Committee it was decided to follow up this possibility.

Ken approached the Sisters with the proposal of the windows being relocated to Ballinamore and the Religious Sisters of Charity generously agreed to gift them to the Parish naturally with some conditions of respect for these special religious works of art.

This gift to Fr Sean Mawn in Ballinamore made this project manageable financially, but of course the stained glass windows would have to be completely conserved and restored and in addition internal joinery, carpentry, decoration and electrical work would have to be undertaken in St Patrick's.

Farrell Gallagher was appointed to carry out the major internal timber partition to house the new stained glass windows with illuminated cabinets and Ken Ryan provided his drawings of similar illuminated cabinet projects as a guide for Farrell to follow. Farrell had about six weeks working on site and with the Covid 19 restrictions very little inconvenience was caused in St Patricks Church.

Recently, William Malone and the Team of stained glass craftsmen from Abbey Stained Glass Studios brought the huge restored three light Crucifixion window from Dublin and fitted it above the Altar into Farrells expertly and exactly constructed window openings.

The project was completed just in time for Confirmations in St Patricks much to the delight of the congregation and of course, Fr Sean Mawn PP.
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Oil exploration company, Akakus, has started evacuating staff from the al-Charara field (southwest 300,000 b/d), one of the largest oil fields in Libya, after a case of coronavirus infection was recorded among oil site personnel, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Libyan National Petroleum Company, Mustafa Sanalla
For most couples a marriage is the start of a new life together, but Frankie Byrne and Samantha Gamble always knew their big day signalled the beginning of the end.

The couple made a public plea to the First and Deputy First Ministers to change legislation to allow their wedding to take place during the coronavirus lockdown.

And with Samantha running out of time due to a terminal cancer diagnosis, the Loughbrickland couple got the go-ahead and tied the knot in the garden of their home on May 22.

Just three months after enjoying "the best day of their lives", Samantha (53) passed away in the Southern Area Hospice.

Her funeral will take place on Wednesday and she will be wearing the same pretty pale pink wedding outfit that had been picked out by her daughter Jessica while she was in hospital, unaware of the frantic efforts being made by her family to ensure she got her final wish.

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Though heartbroken, husband Frankie (54) took the time to thank everyone for their love and support in making that wish come true.

"We all knew the end was coming, but it's still so, so hard the way it happened so suddenly," he said from the home the couple shared in Co Down and had been the scene for their wedding three months ago.

Samantha's daughter Jessica, son Stephen and Frankie's best friend Kevin McGuinness had been by their side while other family members watched on video-link as the groom placed his late mother Peggy's wedding ring onto his new bride's finger in an emotionally charged, simple ceremony.

"We're struggling if we're honest," Frankie admitted. "Even when you know a day like today is coming, it's still a shock that you won't see her smiling face again. But we're hanging in there today. We know she found her happiness."

Frankie said how he had shared a final Sunday lunchtime phone call with Samantha from her bed at the Southern Area Hospice.

Samantha gave me a wonderful 12 years and it's impossible to say just how special she was to us all Frankie Byrne

"I was speaking to her and she was feeling good, in great spirits, chatting away and ready to come home on Wednesday or Thursday," he said.

"We were all looking forward to that.

"She ended that final conversation on Sunday saying she had to go to have her lunch, she would speak to us soon. We said goodbye."

It was only minutes after ending that phone call that Frankie received another, the one he had been dreading.

"It was only five minutes later that Jessica came running in, frantic, saying I needed to contact the hospice. Samantha had choked trying to eat her dinner and she was gone.

"It's so hard for us. We've had a tough few months, but at the same time a wonderful few months.

"Samantha gave me a wonderful 12 years and it's impossible to say just how special she was to us all."

Samantha, engaged to Frankie at the time, had been diagnosed with soft cell sarcoma in 2018 and told she had two years to live. The cancer then spread to her lungs, neck and spine.

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The couple had always planned on tying the knot on May 22, before the Covid-19 lockdown looked to have dashed their hopes.

Determined to have the chance to say her vows, Samantha pleaded with politicians to grant her wish to have her wedding and after weeks of living in hope it was announced that marriage ceremonies for the terminally ill would be permitted.

Expand Close Happier times: Samantha and Frank before she became ill / Facebook

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"There are so many people we have to thank for giving us so many special memories," said Frankie.

"We had the most beautiful day together at the wedding. It's all we ever wanted but for a while It looked like it would never happen, we knew time was getting short."

Frankie said the wedding photographs from the day will forever be cherished.

"That photo album will take pride of place and without the support of newspapers like the Belfast Telegraph, and the media in general, those are memories we would never have had," he said.

We're all so, so grateful we were able to give Samantha the day she wished for and we will all always cherish those memories Frankie Byrne

"Samantha was such a special lady, both for me and the children, and we're all so thankful we were able to have that special day together.

"The wedding day will live with us all forever, seeing Samantha so happy. It was beautiful.

"That's all we ever wanted. We're all so, so grateful we were able to give Samantha the day she wished for and we will all always cherish those memories."

Jessica said the family had been overwhelmed by messages of support.

"We have to thank all the district nurses and the hospice for the way they have looked after mum in her final few weeks," she said.

"We would have been lost without the love, care and support they have shown us all.

"There have been so many people wishing us all well over the past few months it's been incredible and we'll always be thankful."

Frankie said he and Samantha had been "absolutely chuffed" they were able to marry.

"It was a great relief for her when we learnt we could go ahead with the wedding because she had texted me and said: 'Frankie, we're not going to be able to do this'," he said. "I'd told her not to give up hope, so we want to thank Samantha's cousin Vivienne.

"Vivienne did an awful lot of work by sending emails to councillors, the DUP, Sinn Fein and the Health Minister.

"I just really want to thank Vivienne for all the work she did, and Brian Moss and Steven McQuitty from Worthington Solicitors."

Reflecting on the evening when he first set eyes on Samantha, Frankie said that for him it had been love at first sight.

"She just seemed like a beautiful woman sitting across the bar," he recalled. "There was a space beside her so I took that space. She wouldn't give me her number, but I got it from somewhere anyway. Samantha was definitely worth the chase."

During lockdown and with their marriage plans seemingly in ruins, Samantha's condition worsened and she had been rushed to hospital.

Refusing to give up, Frankie and Jessica hatched their plan to ensure the couple could wed.

"When Samantha was in hospital myself and Jessica thought, we need to get this marriage sorted," Frankie recalled.

"We didn't know what they were going to say in the hospital and we didn't want to know what the prognosis was. We sat in the kitchen and planned to get this marriage happening, no matter what it took.

"We contacted Vivienne and she started sending emails and making phone calls and it all snowballed from there.

"Then we went on Stephen Nolan's show. We sent emails to the Executive and anyone who would listen. It kept coming back that it couldn't be done, but Vivienne wouldn't let it go. Eventually, after 10 days, the Executive gave in and said that they would allow it, because of the circumstances, and they changed the legislation.

"I set out to do it all for Samantha. In my head I said that I wouldn't give up on her until her last breath."

While those she loved were doing all they could to ensure she got her dream wedding day, Samantha was in hospital having little contact with the outside world - and with no idea of what was being planned.

Just hours before the wedding, Samantha told the Belfast Telegraph how much she was looking forward to becoming Mrs Byrne.

"Life has thrown many challenges at us, but love has remained throughout," she said at the time.

"And if anything, it has made that love stronger. It means so much to be Frankie's wife. It just means the world that I can say 'that's my husband' and that we are together, through everything. I can't wait to be Mrs Byrne.

"Hopefully the sun will shine on us, but it doesn't matter, because today (wedding day) will be special anyway.

"If I could say anything to my future husband, it would be that he means the world to me, the whole world."

Among those sending sympathy on Monday was First Minister Arlene Foster.

The DUP leader tweeted: "Very sorry to hear this sad news. I don't think anyone could have failed to be touched by this couple. My deepest sympathy."

A florist who provided the flowers for Samantha's wedding day posted an online tribute: "It is with the deepest sadness and heaviest heart, that I let you all know our beautiful bride Samantha has passed away.

"Many of you will remember her and Frankie's plight to get married at the start of lockdown.

"Determination, will, pure love and devotion and an amazing family and friend support gave Samantha her wish."

A funeral notice described Samantha as the darling wife of Frank and much loved mum of Stephen and Jessica, dearest nanny of Luke, Sophia and Ella, beloved daughter of Kate and Noel and sweetest sister of Nicholas, William, Rachel and the late Simon.

Her funeral will take place at noon on Wednesday from her home to Banbridge New Cemetery.

Those attending are asked to observe social distancing. The family have asked for no flowers and instead donations to the Southern Area Hospice be made via William Bell & Co, Funeral Directors, 23, Kenlis Street, Banbridge, BT32 3LR.
Aihik Sur By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: If all goes well, you may soon find robots watering agricultural fields in Telangana. Though in its initial stages, this is one of the aspects of the State governments proposed plan to include emerging technologies in farming and allied activities.

The government, in collaboration with Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University (PJTSAU) and the World Economic Forum (WEF), has been working to explore the various use cases of data-driven agriculture in Telangana.

Though it had announced the program as Artificial Intelligence for Agricultural Innovation (AI4AI), the features go beyond the ambit of AI and includes components such as remote-sensing satellites, robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT), among others.

According to experts, data-driven agriculture would help farmers monitor their land and crops  the first key component of the project. Farmers can monitor the soil, weather, input demand, seed demand and so on  the entire value chain of agriculture  through big data, V Praveen Rao, Vice-Chancellor of PJTSAU, said.

They can also collect the data and use it for future planning, which is the second part of this hi-tech plan. Farmers can analyse the data and find out what is good for the farm. For instance, if they put a sensor in the field, they will get inputs that may help reduce costs and improve quality, Praveen Rao said.

The data gathered from the sensor in their farms can help predict the yield, based on which farmers can gauge how many harvesters they would need, Praveen Rao said. The third component of the project is precise delivery, which involves technologies such as drones or robotics. According to sources, a few startups in the agri-tech area have showcased how robots can water crops such as cotton, and a pilot may be in the offing soon.

But the Telangana government still faces the challenge to make data-driven agriculture appealing to farmers. Until farmers are shown that there is value attached to adopting such techniques, they maybe hesitant to take it up, experts say.

Key aspects of the project

Though in its initial stages, Telangana government plans to include emerging technologies in farming and allied activities
Chinas Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) has opened a new front along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with its provocative military movements on the southern bank of Pangong Lake to alter the status quo in the area, people familiar with developments said on Monday.

So far, Chinese aggression in this sector in eastern Ladakh was confined to the lakes northern bank  the Finger Area that has emerged as the toughest part of the disengagement process.

The PLAs intentions stand exposed. Instead of carrying out disengagement and restoring status quo ante in the existing friction areas, China is bent on changing the status quo in new areas, one of the officials cited above said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In a statement on the latest Chinese provocation, the Indian Army said PLA has violated the consensus reached during military and diplomatic talks to reduce tension in eastern Ladakh, where the two sides have been locked in a tense confrontation since early May.

Experts concurred that PLA was attempting to change the status quo in new areas and stressed that India has to stay prepared to thwart such moves.

While there are areas on the northern bank where the Indian Army only carries out patrolling, the southern bank is strongly held by us. The PLA is fully conscious of it. Any transgression by the PLA in this area is a clear indication that China is trying to change the status quo and open a new front, said former Northern Army commander Lt Gen (retired) DS Hooda.

The lakes northern bank has been at the centre of the current border tensions, as PLA has refused to withdraw from the Finger Area, a set of eight cliffs jutting out of Sirijap range overlooking the lake.

Before PLA grabbed positions on Finger 4, overlooking Indian deployments, the Indian Army would patrol up to Finger 8, which New Delhi considers an integral part of its territory.

The new positions held by PLA have curtailed the scope of Indian patrols.

PLA is likely to intrude into other areas to exert pressure on the Indian Army and build its bargaining power, and the Depsang sector is one such vulnerable area, said Lt Gen (retired) BS Jaswal, also a former Northern Army commander.

PLAs forward deployments in Depsang have hindered the access of Indian soldiers to several patrolling routes, including the ones leading to Patrolling Points (PPs) 10, 11, 11A 12 and 13. The military buildup in this sector includes the deployment of tanks and artillery by the two sides.

The Indian Army has to keep a strict vigil all along the disputed border with China  from Ladakh and Uttarakhand to Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, said Lt Gen (retired) Rakesh Sharma, a former commander of Leh-based 14 Corps headquarters.

China is flexing its military muscles to show it can do whatever it wants and not expecting any reaction. But our troops were fully prepared on Pangong Lakes southern bank and reacted promptly, Sharma said

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What Is Renewable Natural Gas and Does It Have a Future in Energy?

In the search for alternatives to fossil fuel energy, renewable natural gas is the latest technology to take the spotlight. Renewable natural gas, also known as biogas, is collected from waste. Like natural gas, the main component of this power source is methane. Unlike natural gas, renewable natural gas does not require extraction from coal beds or petroleum reservoirs, which is the main source of commercial natural gas.

Renewable natural gas (RNG) is a sustainable alternative to natural gas. It can be processed in the same way, meaning that utility companies can use it in the same pipelines and other infrastructure without issue. It is also a low-carbon energy solution that does not require fossil fuels to generate power.

Methane is one of the most prevalent greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and most of it comes from human activity and agriculture. If we could harness methane-producing waste to create an electricity source, we could reduce the amount of methane in the atmosphere and also utilize a new renewable power source.

Renewable natural gas has a future in energy and may potentially help relieve the world's current waste problem. Diverting waste from landfills and agricultural operations could reduce life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions by 50%, while also creating new "green" jobs and moving the energy industry away from fossil fuel production.

Waste Energy

The main sources for RNG include agricultural operations, food waste, landfills and wastewater treatment plants. Waste in the United States is a huge problem. Food waste is estimated at nearly 40% of the total food supply. Concentrated animal feedlots (CAFOs) produce enormous amounts of manure waste, polluting waterways and increasing toxins in the soil.

Renewable natural gas may help alleviate waste problems from various industries. The United States produces more trash per person than any other country in the world, and a good portion of this is organic material that could be used for energy or recycled.

The energy industry is actively searching for innovative ways to address increasing energy demands. As states seek new climate initiatives, renewable natural gas may be an efficient way of addressing waste issues and power demands. In California, incentives for renewable natural gas are already on the market. A study by UC Davis reported that over 20% of residential natural gas could be sourced from RNG derived from statewide organic waste. Increasing market demand in other states will be the key to utilizing RNG as a primary energy source.

RNG Potential

Renewable natural gas has incredible potential as a renewable energy source. As a bonus, it all helps alleviate waste issues that industries such as agriculture currently face. Depending on the size and scope of the operation, generating RNG on-site could also create alternative income streams for agricultural businesses. That includes struggling industries like dairy, which need diversified income to withstand market volatility.

Since RNG can be easily instituted into current natural gas infrastructure, it could be a cost-effective way to handle waste while also getting energy onto the grid. However, market incentivization will play an important role in utilizing this new technology. The energy industry looks for the easiest, cheapest solution. Unless there is a carbon tax that makes it more economically viable to transition to renewable natural gas, many states will not take advantage of this opportunity.

That being said, the potential for RNG in the energy industry is enormous. The new revenue streams created by RNG could benefit farmers, municipalities and industry leaders who can use harvested methane to generate power and income.

Future Solutions for the Energy Industry

The United States is facing a severe waste problem and heavily relies on fossil fuels for energy. In the next few years, renewable natural gas may emerge as a solution to both of these issues.

Emily Folk is a conservation and sustainability writer and the editor of Conservation Folks.
Joshua Lee, right, disinfects tables at Queen's Hill Primary School in Costessey near Norwich, England, Monday, Aug. 24, 2020. Photo: Joe Giddens/PA via AP

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has said getting school re-openings right is critical for the successful revival of Britains entrepreneurial businesses.

Millions of pupils are due to return to schools this week as they reopen with new health and safety measures in place. However, there is uncertainty over what proportion of pupils will return, with some parents and teachers expressing concerns about safety in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mike Cherry, the national chairman of the FSB, said the safe return of children to schools was vital for many businesses across the UK that need childcare and rely on commuting kids and parents for their business.

Many of the 16 million people who work in a small business across the UK have childcare responsibilities, Cherry said. Equally, there are firms that rely directly on footfall linked to schools.

READ MORE: Coronavirus: UK government frightening women in row over back-to-work threats

The FSB surveyed over 5,000 of its members and found 23% said school reopening would impact their ability to get business up and running again.

The safe return of pupils to schools is critical to getting our small firms firing on all cylinders again, Cherry said.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said parents had a moral duty to send their kids back to school earlier this month and a poll last week found rising support for getting kids back in the classroom. 65% of people surveyed by YouGov supported schools reopening, the BBC reported, up from 57% three weeks ago.

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said on Friday a survey of 4,000 of its members found 97% were planning to welcome all their pupils back at the start of the autumn term.

Everyone wants to see pupils back in class next week, with their teachers and their classmates, said Paul Whiteman, general secretary of NAHT.
President Donald Trump lashed out at Joe Biden after the Democratic nominee gave what Trump called a 'strange speech' in Pittsburgh where he held the president responsible for escalating violence between cops, Black Lives Matter protesters and Trump supporters.

'His strange speech today that he made in Pittsburgh, he didn't mention the fact - he didn't mention the far left - he didn't mention the far left or from what I saw, I don't believe he mentioned Antifa,' the president griped from the White House podium Monday evening.

Biden went after Trump calling him a 'toxic presence' and accused him of 'stoking violence in our cities' asking voters, 'Do you really feel safer under Trump?' Biden also condemned riots and looting and called on Americans to 'stand against violence - in every form it takes.'

In turn, Trump accused Biden and other Democrats of spewing 'mafia talking points.'

'The mob will leave you alone if you give them what you want, that's what it is. That's what's happened with the Democrats,' Trump tried to explain. 'I actually think they've lost control of this radical left maniacs.'

Earlier, on Twitter, Trump had accused Biden of spending too much time 'blaming the police' in his Pittsburgh remarks.

President Donald Trump lashed out at Joe Biden's 'strange speech,' saying the Democrat used 'mafia talking points' and should have brought up 'Antifa'

Trump reacted to Biden's speech by saying the Democratic nominee was 'blaming the police more than he's blaming the rioters, anarchists, agitators and looters.' Trump also said Biden couldn't condemn because the 'radical left' would stop supporting him

In a Trump retweet, the Trump War Room showed a brief clip of Biden in Pittsburgh stumbling over his words as he tried to make a point about the coronavirus death toll

Biden appeared in Pittsburgh and spoke out against Trump's leadership, while pushing back on some of the narratives the Trump campaign has tried to push about the former vice president

'Just watched what Biden had to say,' Trump tweeted. 'To me, hes blaming the Police far more than hes blaming the Rioters, Anarchists, Agitators, and Looters, which he could never blame or he would lose the Radical Left Bernie supports!'

Trump made similar comments at the briefing.

'They really want to put it on the backs of police,' Trump said of Biden and the Democrat's running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris. 'There is just a war on law enforcement in this country and without law enforcement we wouldn't have a country,' Trump said.

During Biden's speech, the former vice president brough up law enforcement in the context of bringing them to the table alongside people fighting for racial justice.

'I have worked with the police in this country for over forty years. I know most cops are good and decent people,' Biden said.

The president didn't let what Biden actually said to get in the way of his rant.

'The rioters and Joe Biden have a side - they're both on the side of the radical left and that is so obvious and until that neutralizes you're never goint to have safe areas in those Democrat-run areas,' Trump went on. 'For months, Joe Biden has given moral aid and comfort to the vandals, repeating the monstrous lie that these are peaceful protests.'

During the opening of his press conference, Trump went back to Biden not bringing up Antifa more than once.

Antifa, which stands for those organizing around anti-fascism, is a loose assocation on the left and not a well-defined group, though it's become the boogeyman of the right.

On Twitter, the president also retweeted a clip from the Trump War Room Twitter account, which showed Biden flubbing several lines of his speech, which he read from a teleprompter from Pittsburgh's Mill 19, a converted steel mill.

'COVID has taken this year - just since the outbreak - has taken, more than 100 year, look, here's, the lives, it's just, when you think about it,' the clip shows Biden saying.

He ended up spitting out that COVID has taken 'more lives this year than any other year.'

In a written transcript of the speech prepared for delivery, Biden was supposed to say, 'COVID has taken more lives this year than any outbreak in more than 100 years.'

Trump and his campaign team have mocked the gaffe-prone Biden for months when he's had verbal slip-ups, something Biden's campaign tried to counter during the Democratic National Convention by having a New Hampshire youth speak about how Biden helped him recover from a stutter, a childhood problem Biden also had.

In his speech Monday, Biden tried to counter other ways Trump has tried to hit him.

'You know me, you know my heart, you know my story, my family story - ask yourself, do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?' Biden said at one point.

Trump and his allies have tried to tie Biden to the so-called 'radical left' of the Democratic Party, including Sanders and 'AOC,' Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Biden also mocked some of the campaign ads Trump has tried to run against him that show what 'Biden's America' looks like, using images of protests gone awry over the past few weeks.

'Trump and Pence are running on this - and I find it fascinating - "you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America,' Biden said.

'What's their proof? The violence we're seeing in Donald Trump's America. These are not images of some imagined Joe Biden America in the future, these are images of Donald Trump's America today,' Biden continued.

'He keeps telling you, if only he was president, it wouldn't happen. If he was president, you'd feel safe. Well he is president, whether he knows it or not,' Biden said.
A puppy stolen from a Lansdale business late last week is now back where he belongs.

Police said Monday that Butters, a three-month-old lab mix puppy reported stolen on Thursday, has since been recovered.

According to police, officers responded around 5:17 p.m. on Thursday, August 27 to the Pets Plus at 555 S. Broad St. for a reported theft. When officers arrived, staff said Butters, a rescue puppy who had recently been transported from a kill shelter in Louisiana, had been stolen by an unknown male and female who were in the store with their child.

Police said Monday that video surveillance was released and tips were received from the public, resulting in the safe recovery of the puppy on Saturday. Butters is now back in the custody of Pets Plus, and police said Monday that the investigation is still ongoing, and charges are pending against one adult male for theft.

Anyone with information regarding the theft or the second suspect is asked to contact Lansdale Police at (215) 368-1801 or email crimetips@lansdalepd.org.
Lebanons central bank is demanding other banks in the country increase their capital or face a takeover from the government. The order is an attempt by central bank authorities to up the amount of cash in the countrys banks amid fears that peoples savings are at risk.

The central bank's governor, Riad Salameh, said the banks have until February 2021 to raise their capital by 20%, Reuters reported Thursday. The bank issued a series of new regulations Thursday amid the ongoing crisis in the country.

Under the stipulation, the banks must bring in more capital from outside the bank. If not, the central bank will take their shares.

Lebanon is in the midst of a severe, monthslong financial crisis. Protests against poor economic conditions and corruption began in October. Since then, lockdowns to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 have further contributed to job and income losses. The Aug. 4 Beirut port explosion further exacerbated the situation.

The countrys currency, long valued at 1,500 pounds to the US dollar, has plummeted and there are now several competing exchange rates in the country. Banks have limited peoples ability to withdraw cash amid the crisis.

Lebanon now has the lowest credit rating in the world, indicating little ability to pay back debt.

In this economic climate, some Lebanese fear they will not be able to take out money from their banks and have been making withdrawals, which prompted the central bank's decision. The central banks commitment to assume control of banks who cannot obtain more capital is a pledge to people that their savings will be safe.

The Lebanese government is currently negotiating with the International Monetary Fund for assistance. The global financial body is demanding the country institute widespread economic reforms before any help is delivered. The Lebanese Cabinet resigned en masse this month following the Beirut explosion.
The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) has opened a new front along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC), with its provocative military movements on the southern bank of Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh in the intervening night of August 29 and 30 aimed at altering the status quo in the area, people familiar with the developments said on Monday.

So far, Chinese aggression in this sector was confined to the lakes northern bank, the Finger Area that has emerged as the toughest part of the disengagement process.

Also Read: India pre-empts Chinas aggressive move near Pangong Lake

The PLAs intentions stand exposed. Instead of carrying out disengagement and restoring the status quo ante in the existing friction areas, China is bent upon changing the status quo in new areas, the officials said.

In a statement on the latest Chinese provocation, army spokesperson Colonel Aman Anand said on Monday that the PLA has violated the consensus reached during military and diplomatic engagements to reduce tension in eastern Ladakh, where the two armies have been locked in a tense confrontation since early May.

Also Watch | Indian Army thwarts fresh Chinese attempt to change status quo in Ladakh

Also Read: Chinese troops strictly abide by the LAC, never cross the line: Beijing

He said the army took measures to strengthen its positions and thwart the PLAs intention to unilaterally change facts on the ground on the lakes southern bank.

Experts concurred that the PLA was attempting to change the status quo in new areas.

While there are areas on the northern bank, where the Indian Army only carries out patrolling, the southern bank is strongly held by us. The PLA is fully conscious of it. Any transgression by the PLA in this area is a clear indication that the PLA is trying to change the status quo and open a new front, said Lieutenant General DS Hooda (retd), former Northern Army commander.

The northern bank of the lake has been at the centre of the current round of border tension, as the PLA has refused to withdraw from the Finger Area, which refers to a set of eight cliffs jutting out of the Sirijap range overlooking the lake.

Before the PLA grabbed positions on Finger 4 overlooking Indian deployments, the army would patrol up to Finger 8 that New Delhi considers as an integral part of its territory. The new positions held by the PLA have curtailed the scope of Indian patrols.

Fingers 4 and 8 are eight kilometres (km) apart.

The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity, said the army statement.

A brigade commander-level flag meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the situation on the southern bank.

LAC tension has escalated at a time, when talks with China to reduce border tension in eastern Ladakh are stuck in a stalemate and the two sides have failed to bridge their differences on the disengagement and de-escalation process.

The military dialogue between senior commanders from the two sides has hit a roadblock due to Chinese reluctance to restore status quo ante in some key friction areas along the LAC.

The sizeable Chinese troop presence at friction points, particularly Pangong Lake and Depsang, is a cause for concern for the Indian Army. Disengagement has progressed smoothly at friction points in Galwan Valley and Hot Springs, but its pace is sluggish in the Gogra area.

De-escalation along the disputed border can only begin after disengagement between the two armies on the LAC.

The ground situation remains unchanged in Ladakh sector, where both armies have deployed almost 100,000 soldiers and weaponry in their forward and depth areas.

In a recent interview to HT, chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat had explicitly stated that a military option to deal with transgressions by the PLA is on the table, but would be exercised only if talks between the two armies and the diplomatic option turned out to be unproductive.

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NPP National Youth Organizer, Henry Nana Boakye has called on government to assist private schools and their teaching staff as the closure of some Senior and Junior High, primary and basic schools extends to next year.



President Nana Akufo-Addo, in his 16th nation address on COVID-19 on Sunday, August 30, 2020 annonced that the schools will reopen in January, 2021.



"The Ghana Education Service, after further consultations, has decided to postpone the remainder of the academic year for all nursery, kindergarten, primary, JHS 1 and SHS 1 students. The next academic year will resume in January 2021, with appropriate adjustments made to the curriculum, to ensure that nothing is lost from the previous year. The relevant dispositions will also be made so that the presence, at the same time, in school of all streams of students, can occur in safety."



Noting the decision will inconvenience parents and families, the President appealed to them to bear with the government in these trying times.



''I appreciate fully the inconvenience and the financial burden the continued stay at home of children are posing to parents and guardians. Fellow Ghanaians, these are a necessary price to pay in our efforts to protect the lives of our children, as well as to limit and contain the spread of the virus in our country,'' he said.



Contributing to Peace FM's flagship programme ''Kokrokoo'', Henry Nana Boakye, popularly called Nana B empathized with the private schools and teachers saying they will be most affected by the new directive.



According to him, it is possible the teaching staff in public schools will essentially be remunerated while they stay home but a lot of the teachers in private schools will have to forfeit their salaries.



To him, the private school teaching staff are already suffering major financial challenges since schools were closed months ago when Ghana recorded its first COVID-19 cases, so government must come to their aid.



He appealed to the government to activate the Unemployment Insurance Scheme to cushion the private schools and their teachers as they wait to resume work in January next year.



He believed the scheme can be used to fund the private teachers during this pandemic.



''This is where I'll plead that the Unemployment Insurance Scheme by government to provide temporary income for workers should be activated urgently," he stated.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/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.

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Feeling angry, from time to time, is completely normal. Anger is an emotion that may be expressed in response to a disagreement, injustice, threat or many other triggers. According to Dr RJR Blair from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, Anger is a response to a perceived threat to oneself or to another. It is a response to frustration. But there can be other factors at play behind feeling angry too - such as sleep.

In a recent study published in the journal Sleep, scientists found that insufficient sleep can result in increased anger.

Sleep deprivation could be the reason behind your anger

Scientists of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine conducted a study in which they included 147 people who were either asked to maintain their regular sleep cycle or to reduce their sleeping time at home by about five hours over two nights. After the two days, the participants were exposed to irritating noise.

The results of the experiment showed that people who slept well were able to adapt to the noise and reported less anger as compared to those who were sleep-deprived. People who reduced their sleeping time felt high and increased anger after listening to the irritating noise. The scientists concluded that lack of sleep weakens the ability to adapt to frustrating situations resulting in increased incidences of getting angry.

Why do we feel angry: The neuroscience behind anger

We all have our anger triggers. While some of us get angry when someone disobeys us, others may get angry for not having their favourite dish for dinner. Whatever the reason may be, you would be able to recall your breath getting faster, heart-pounding hard in your chest and your face going all hot and red. But why do we get angry?

Scientists have an explanation which suggests that it all starts in the brain.

The outer portion of the brain is known as the cerebral cortex which helps in applying logic and making decisions. However, the emotional centre of the brain is known as the limbic system which is located lower in the brain. It has been noticed that when a person gets angry, their limbic part of the brain gets more activated than the cortex.

The hijacking of the amygdala

The limbic system consists of amygdala, which looks like two almond-shaped clusters of nerves and is situated in the temporal lobes of the brain. Amygdala manages the emotional responses, memories, decision making and fight or flight responses, which get activated during a dangerous situation.

Whenever an anger trigger is sent to the brain, the amygdala decides whether to send that data to the limbic or cortex area of the brain. If the incoming data triggers the emotional part, the amygdala overrides the cortex and sends the data directly to the limbic system.

Due to this overriding event, the amygdala goes into action without using judgement, power of thinking or evaluation. This reactive event is also known as an amygdala hijacking.

When the amygdala gets hijacked, the body releases epinephrine and norepinephrine, which prepare the person for the fight or flight response. It has been noticed that this hormonal flush lasts for several minutes during which the person stays out of control and this is the time when the person shows anger either verbally or physically.

Once this phase passes, the person starts regretting their actions as their thinking part of the brain goes into action.

In some people, there can be a release of an additional longer-lasting hormone which may keep people feeling angry for several hours to several days.

For more information, read our article on How to control anger.

Health articles in Firstpost are written by myUpchar.com, Indias first and biggest resource for verified medical information. At myUpchar, researchers and journalists work with doctors to bring you information on all things health.
Announced on Aug. 13, the normalisation deal is the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner said Palestinians should not be "stuck in the past" as senior U.S. and Israeli officials landed in the United Arab Emirates on Monday on a historic trip to finalise a pact marking open relations between Israel and the Gulf state

Kushner added on arrival that Washington could maintain Israel's military edge while advancing its ties to the UAE, the Arab world's second largest economy and a regional power.

"They have to come to the table. Peace will be ready for them, an opportunity will be ready for them as soon as they are ready to embrace it," said Kushner, part of a U.S. delegation that accompanied Israeli officials on the first official Israeli flight from Tel Aviv to the UAE.

Announced on Aug. 13, the normalisation deal is the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years and was forged largely through shared fears of Iran.

Kushner and national security adviser Robert O'Brien head the U.S. delegation. The Israeli team is led by O'Brien's counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat.

Israel and the United Arab Emirates will discuss economic, scientific, trade and cultural cooperation on the visit. Direct flights between the two countries will also be on the agenda, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman told al Arabiya television after landing in Abu Dhabi.

Even before landing, the delegates made aviation history when the Israeli commercial airliner flew over Saudi territory on the direct flight from Tel Aviv to the UAE capital.

"That's what peace for peace looks like," Netanyahu tweeted, describing a deal for formal ties with an Arab state that does not entail handover of land that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Israeli officials hope the two-day trip will produce a date for a signing ceremony in Washington, perhaps as early as September, between Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

That could give Trump a foreign policy boost ahead of his re-election bid in November.

The Trump administration has tried to coax other Sunni Arab countries concerned about Iran to engage with Israel. The most powerful of those, Saudi Arabia, while opening its airspace to the El Al flight, has signalled it is not ready.

Like all El Al 737s, the aircraft was equipped with an anti-missile system, an Israeli spokesman said, and carried security agents of the U.S. Secret Service and the Israeli Shin Bet to guard the delegations.

On board the packed airliner, passengers were welcomed in Arabic as well as English and Hebrew, a gesture marking the historic flight.

"Wishing us all salaam, peace and shalom, have a safe flight," the pilot, Captain Tal Becker, said on the intercom, in Arabic, English and Hebrew, using all three languages to also announce the flight number and destination.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney is apologizing for daring to dine indoors after a photo of him inside a Maryland restaurant went viral, despite his ongoing ban on indoor eating in his home city.

Kenney was pictured with his girlfriend - maskless - inside a restaurant owned by a friend, somewhere in Maryland Sunday.

'I know some are upset that I dined indoors at a restaurant in Maryland yesterday,' Kenney said in a tweet Monday. 'I felt the risk was low because the county I visited has had fewer than 800 COVID-19 cases, compared to over 33,000 cases in Philadelphia.'

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (in blue) was caught dining inside a Maryland restaurant Sunday, sparking outrage from Philadelphians who are still barred from eating inside

The brouhaha resulted in Kenney issuing an apology for eating indoors on Monday and noting that he was looking forward to reopening Philadelphia's restaurants September 8

He added: 'Restaurant owners are among the hardest hit by the pandemic. Im sorry if my decision hurt those whove worked to keep their businesses going under difficult circumstances. Looking forward to reopening indoor dining soon and visiting my favorite spots.'

The photo of Kenney flagrantly eating inside a restaurant in another state drew heavy criticism since Philadelphias indoor dining ban isn't scheduled to lift until September 8.

Among those who expressed deep sarcasm over Kenney's decision to eat indoors was chef Marc Vetri, of Philadelphia's Vetri Cucina, who made his feelings known on social media.

'Hi @phillymayor!!!' Vetri wrote Sunday night. 'Glad youre enjoying indoor dining with no social distancing or mask wearing in Maryland tonight while restaurants here in Philly close, suffer and fight for every nickel just to survive. I guess all your press briefings and your narrative of unsafe indoor dining dont apply to you. Thank you for clearing it all up for us tonight.'

Philadelphia chef Marc Vetri was quick to slam Kenney for eating indoors in Maryland

Kenney (pictured May 30) explained that the Maryland county he was eating in had fewer than 800 coronvirus cases, compared to Philadelphia's 33,000 cases

In response to the brouhaha Sunday night, Kenney's office released a statement explaining that he had gone to his friend's restaurant in Maryland and that 'For what its worth, he also went to Rouge to enjoy outdoor dining in Philly on the way home. He looks forward to expanding indoor dining locally next week.'

Rouge is a popular Philadelphia burger joint.

The statement, obtained by Philly Magazine, also stated that: 'Throughout the pandemic the Mayor has consistently deferred to the guidance of the Health Commissioner, who in this case felt strongly about waiting until Sept. 8 to resume indoor dining. If elected officials at the federal level had similarly deferred to health experts over the past five months, this might not even be an issue by now.'

The mayor's office said it sympathized with 'the frustrations of local restaurant owners who have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic. But there are 782 total cases in the county the mayor briefly visited, compared to over 33,000 cases in Philadelphia. Drastically different circumstances.'

On June 12, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed an executive order allowing restaurants in much of the state to allow indoor dining against at 50 per cent capacity, according to WTOP.

Hogan allowed cities with higher coronavirus numbers - such as Baltimore - to lower their indoor capacities as needed. Baltimore currently has an indoor dining capacity of 25 per cent, while bars are still closed.
[Heres what we know about the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin.]

A journalist resigned on Saturday from his job at The Kenosha News after objecting to the headline of an article that chronicled a rally in support of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot seven times in the back by a white Kenosha police officer.

The journalist, Daniel J. Thompson, a digital editor who said he was the only full-time Black staff member at the paper, which covers southeastern Wisconsin, said the headline did not accurately sum up the article and gave a false impression of the rally itself, which he attended. The rally for Mr. Blake, who was left paralyzed by the shooting on Aug. 23, included calls for unity from his father, Jacob Blake Sr., and Wisconsins lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, the article said.

The headline, which appeared on the Kenosha News website on Saturday, highlighted a remark from one rally participant: Kenosha speaker: If you kill one of us, its time for us to kill one of yours. The online version of the article included a 59-second video showing the person who spoke those words, a Black man who was not identified by name.

Mr. Thompson, who joined the papers newsroom three years ago, said he found the headline off-base. The story is about the entire reaction of all the speakers and people in attendance, and that quote is one outlier falling within a flood of positive ones, he said in an interview.
New Delhi: Former Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who last week resigned from his post due to poor health, on Monday (August 31) responded to PM Narendra Modi's message for his speedy recovery.

Shinzo Abe took to social media and tweeted, "I am deeply touched by your warm words", thanking PM Modi after the latter wished him a speedy recovery.

I am deeply touched by your warm words, Prime Minister @narendramodi. I wish you all the best and hope our Partnership will be further enhanced. https://t.co/h4CHcZcCwj   (@AbeShinzo) August 31, 2020

Shinzo Abe, who has been Japan`s longest-serving premier, announced that he was resigning because of his poor health, ending a stint at the helm of the world`s third-biggest economy during which he sought to revive growth and bolster its defences.

Earlier on Friday, PM Modi expressed his pain at the illness of Shinzo Abe and had lauded his "wise leadership and personal commitment" for making Indo-Japanese ties deeper and stronger than ever.

After Abe's announcement that he intended to step down because a chronic health problem has resurfaced, PM Modi had tweeted, "Pained to hear about your ill health, my dear friend @AbeShinzo. In recent years, with your wise leadership and personal commitment, the India-Japan partnership has become deeper and stronger than ever before. I wish and pray for your speedy recovery."

Pained to hear about your ill health, my dear friend @AbeShinzo. In recent years, with your wise leadership and personal commitment, the India-Japan partnership has become deeper and stronger than ever before. I wish and pray for your speedy recovery. pic.twitter.com/JjziLay2gD  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 28, 2020

On August 28, Shinzo Abe, 65, had stated, "I cannot be the prime minister if I cannot make the best decisions for the people. I have decided to step down from my post," addressing a news conference.

Abe is reportedly battling the disease ulcerative colitis for years and two recent hospital visits within a week had fanned questions on whether he could stay in the job until the end of his term as a ruling party leader, and hence, premier, in September 2021.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 13:07:36|Editor: huaxia

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People celebrate the Independence Day near the Merdeka square in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Aug. 31, 2020. Malaysia marked the 63rd anniversary of its independence on Monday, with a scaled-back celebration due to the restrictive measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. (Photo by Chong Voon Chung/Xinhua)

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia marked the 63rd anniversary of its independence on Monday, with a scaled back celebration due to the restrictive measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.

Malaysia's king Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah officiated the celebration at the administration center of Putrajaya, being joined by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and members of his cabinet.

In his royal address, Sultan Abdullah urged Malaysians to appreciate and to practise the Rukun Negara, Malaysia's declaration of national philosophy, which should guide all citizens of the multiracial country.

He also called on the people to appreciate and safeguard the country's independence and peace.

No assemblies and parades by uniformed bodies, government agencies and private sector were held due to COVID-19 restrictions. Instead, small official celebrating events were held in several venues in Putrajaya and the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, which were broadcasted live to the Malaysians.

In his address to the nation on Sunday, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin called for his compatriots to care for each other in the face of challenges including those caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, ahead of the country's national day to celebrate the 63rd anniversary of independence.

In the televised address, Muhyiddin urged Malaysians to care for the country, work towards maintaining the peace and harmony Malaysia presently enjoys and push the country forward to be more successful in various fields.

On Aug. 31, 1957, the then Federation of Malaya gained independence from British rule. Enditem
Proud parents Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia of Sweden have celebrated their younger son's third birthday by sharing a sweet photograph of Prince Gabriel with their fans.

Taking to their Instagram page, the royal couple posted an adorable black-and-white snap of Prince Gabriel, grinning next to his birthday cake today.

It comes after the three family members visited the youngster's duchy of Dalarna for the first time on Thursday, to open an accessibility-adapted rest spot dedicated in his honor as a baptism gift at the Saterdalen nature reserve.

Proud parents Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia of Sweden have celebrated their youngest son's third birthday by sharing a sweet photograph (pictured) of Prince Gabriel with their fans

Taking to their Instagram page, the royal couple (pictured with their son) posted an adorable black-and-white snap of Prince Gabriel, grinning next to his birthday cake today

It comes after the three family members visited the youngster's duchy of Dalarna for the first time on Thursday, to open an accessibility-adapted rest spot dedicated in his honor as a baptism gift at the Saterdalen nature reserve (pictured)

Wearing a cosy jumper and with his hair swept to the side, Prince Gabriel couldn't help but smile as he was presented with his huge birthday cake.

His photograph, which appeared to have been taken by one of his parents, was shared to Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia's social media account, along with the message: 'Congratulations to our beloved Gabriel on his 3rd birthday.'

Fans were quick to send their best wishes, with one person writing: 'Congratulations. He is so cute.'

Prior to his birthday today, Prince Gabriel, who is the second son of Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia, who also share four-year-old Prince Alexander, visited his duchy of Dalarna for the first time.

The young royal, pictured painting a tree house with his parents, toured Saterdalen nature reserve on Thursday

'We hope that the resting place will be an appreciated feature for the many visitors of this nature reserve. It's definitely a new [special] place for us to visit,' Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia (pictured with their son) said on their Instagram account

He toured Saterdalen nature reserve with his parents on Thursday, with the family opening an accessibility-adapted rest spot dedicated in Prince Gabriel's honor as a baptism gift.

'We hope that the resting place will be an appreciated feature for the many visitors of this nature reserve. It's definitely a new [special] place for us to visit,' Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia said on their Instagram account.

'There is now also a birdhouse that Gabriel has painted,' the royal couple revealed, after sharing pictures of their son enjoying his creative session at the nature reserve.

The young royal (seen with his father) sported an adorable outfit - a blue jumper over a white shirt - for the special occasion on Thursday

Prince Gabriel holds his mother's hand as the pair walk around the nature reserve. Princess Sofia opted for a brown coat and black trouser combo

'There is now also a birdhouse that Gabriel has painted,' the royal couple revealed, after sharing pictures of their son (pictured) enjoying his creative session at the nature reserve

The young royal sported a bright green smock when painting to make sure his adorable outfit - a blue jumper over a white shirt - didn't get messy.

His parents appeared just as smart, with Princess Sofia opting for a brown coat and black trouser combo, while her husband sported a grey jumper with green chinos.

Prince Carl Philip, Princess Sofia and their two sons have spent their summer enjoying staycations - with the family exploring local nature spots through walking, biking and swimming.

Prince Gabriel, Duke of Dalarna, was born on August 31 in 2017 at Danderyd Hospital in Stockholm.

He was christened in a traditional ceremony in Stockholm in December and is sixth in line to the Swedish throne.
LOS ANGELESFor Lindsey Clough, June 15 was a memorable date. The wardrobe stylist celebrated her 38th birthday on the same day filming finally resumed after the COVID-19 pandemic had shut down production.

The Eagle Rock mother of two had spent nearly 100 days at home with her family, without even a visit to a grocery store. Then she was back on a South Los Angeles set filming a commercial for a big brand.

She expected to see mask wearing, social distancing, widespread sanitizing and other safety protocols. But she was alarmed by what she saw.

I started to notice that some things just werent happening, said Clough, who has worked on commercials for McDonalds, BMW and other big brands.

The van used to transport crew to and from set wasnt sanitized between uses. Windows were sometimes closed and crew members occasionally took off their masks to eat in the van, she said, contrary to guidelines developed for commercials producers. She raised her worries with the person in charge of compliance with COVID-19 safety, but says her concerns were ignored. She decided to drive her own car on set.

They might have thought I was overreacting, but I have the right to a safe workspace and to get the things that I was promised, Clough said.

As Hollywood returns to production, crew members have voiced concerns that some commercial shoots are cutting corners on safety measures intended to protect workers from outbreaks of the virus.

Last month, Clough was among 700 crew members who signed a letter to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, or IATSE, calling for more stringent COVID-19 safety protocols for those working on commercial sets. They argued that the existing guidelines are lax compared with the more rigorous measures that apply to film and TV productions, which require mandatory testing and COVID-compliance officers.

We are each working under individual and variable levels of safety, stated the petition, first reported on by Deadline.

Jonas Loeb, spokesperson for IATSE, which represents 150,000 crew members working on productions in the U.S. and Canada, declined to comment.

Commercial productions are big employers in Southern California. Advertising-related shoots, including live-action commercials, have accounted for half of permits issued in the Los Angeles region since production resumed in June, compared with the typical level of 25 per cent before the pandemic, according to FilmLA, which handles film permits for the city and county.

FilmLA President Paul Audley said he was not aware of any safety compliance problems on commercials permitted to film in the county.

After months without work, some crew worry about having to turn down jobs in order to keep their families safe from disease.

Once youre actually there and on set, you start to feel as people really fall back into their old way of working because were just so conditioned to please and to work very quickly and to say yes to everything, Clough said. You dont know that in a crew of 60-plus people, that everybody takes this virus as seriously as you do.

Hollywood unions are still hashing out the finer details around safety guidelines agreed to earlier this summer with major studios. The measures require employers to use effective testing methods and outline protocols around protective equipment, social distancing and sanitization of gear and equipment, including vans.

The unions released a more detailed paper in June called the Safe Way Forward, including steps such as how often different cast and crew should be tested given their exposure and requirements for compensation if a member gets sick. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has yet to agree to this.

The guidelines developed in June by the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, whose members are involved in making 85 per cent of all commercials aired nationally, differ in many ways from either of those two.

For example, while the AMPTP and union-formed white paper suggests one or more autonomous COVID-19 Compliance Officer(s) with specialized training, responsibility and authority, the AICP guidelines recommend nominating a COVID-19 compliance assistant.

Evan Rohde, a Venice-based production designer who helped organize the petition to IATSE, wants the same level of safety across productions.

When you look at all these stories put together, its not that one production screwed up or one production succeeded, but the inconsistency across the board is whats so challenging, Rohde said. He has relied on his savings and got a small loan to tide him over as he doesnt believe it is safe to go back to work.

One other complicating factor is that crew can work both non-union and union productions. Non-union productions dont have to comply with union guidelines.

AICP president Matt Miller said the letter to IATSE was the opinion of a handful of (union) members not based on fact.

He said its not practical for commercial producers to follow the same set of guidelines as film and TV crews, which have larger crews and shoot over longer periods.

Miller said the associations guidelines have kept commercial sets safe from outbreaks of the virus.

Certainly weve seen cases, but they havent led to outbreaks, which says that when you are doing all the things that need to be done, he said.

Under the AICP guidelines, testing for fevers or for presence of the virus in a crew member is not mandatory. Instead, the guidelines require a questionnaire about symptoms that crew fill out themselves. LA County health officials have exempted short-running productions such as commercials from testing workers.

The opt-out recognizes the unique nature of commercials and the size of the crew as well as the duration, said Miller.

The fastest antigen tests are not as reliable as nasal swabs, and the more reliable ones are less available, Miller added.

Miller said his group has asked union representatives to flag any safety issues they witness.

Anybody seen not complying with the protocols should be fired immediately and sent packing and not rehired, he said.

SAG-AFTRA, which represents 160,000 actors and other performers, believes commercials should be testing like bigger shoots.

We view the fundamental safety protocols as applicable across all types of work, said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRAs chief operating officer and general counsel, who is leading the unions safety and reopening initiative. Testing should be in place unless an exception is warranted, such as when performers work entirely from home. How anyone can say theres no value in getting tested because the production is of short duration, our scientists disagree completely with that, and logic disagrees with that.

Moreover production assistants should not double up as COVID-19 compliance supervisors, he said. They have to have a level of authority that people will take them seriously, he said.

L.A.-based director Kim O. Nguyen, who has worked remotely on three commercials since the restart, said she told employers to plan for new working conditions. Its important for myself as a director that I have conversations with clients and agencies to discuss how important safety is, that things will take longer, that we need to be more patient, she said.

West Hollywood-based camera assistant Daisy Smith, who signed the petition, worries about the rush to return to production, noting that film sets are typically busy, crowded places with crews rushing around to meet tight deadlines.

On one job, a crew member had tested positive and production was suspended until all the crew could be tested, said Smith, a 30-year veteran of commercial shoots. On another job, a person in charge of compliance did not appear to enforce rules and there were no handwashing stations.

The hand sanitizer ran out and I came away from that just thinking nothing has changed at all about the way production is run, except now we wear masks, Smith said.

Similarly, Clough witnessed others doing what she believed was unsafe, such as 15 people crowding into the bedroom of a house to film a scene. Part of the problem, she said, was often that the person charged with enforcing safety guidelines either wasnt around or didnt seem empowered.

They are such well-meaning documents, she said of the safety guidelines.

But when things start costing money and things start going very quickly, they will be thrown out the window.
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In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini became the Supreme Leader of Iran, riding in on a tremendous groundswell of public support. The Shah had been forced to flee for his life, Khomeini was welcomed back from exile in France as a national hero, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was born. Today, however, a new poll finds that only 32% of the population consider themselves Shia Muslims.

The poll was conducted by the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN), described as a non-profit institute in the Netherlands, asked Iranians about their attitude toward religion. The poll involved 50,000 Iranians.

According to the results, 78% of Iranians believe in God, but only 26% of them believe in the coming of the Messiah (Imam Mahdi), which is a major doctrine in Shia Islam.

Remarkably, Half of the population used to believe but does not anymore and 6% have converted to a new religion.

Out of 61% of the people born into religious families, 60% do not say their daily prayers. 68% of the participants believe that religion must not be the basis of legislation, 71% believe that religious institutions must be self-funded, and 42% believe that promoting any kind of religion must be banned from the public sphere.

In short, the people are rejecting a strict Islamic theocracy, which has driven people away from the faith rather than consolidated them in their faith.

What makes this polling data so interesting is that the Iranian Revolution came from the bottom up, meaning, it was the people, led by the Muslim clergy, which toppled the iron-handed, very-secular Shah.

While Khomeini was still in exile in France, his weekly teachings were recorded, duplicated on cassette tapes, and smuggled into Iran, where the clergy preached these same messages in the mosques on Fridays. And the people, revolting against the growing worldliness and anti-religious sentiments in their nation, toppled the regime, welcoming back the austere Khomeini.

As for Khomeini himself, Hamid Algar wrote in 1981 that, Given the current fame of Imam Khomeini as a revolutionary leader who has achieved a rare degree of success in the purely political sphere, it may appear surprising that he first gained fame as a writer and teacher concerned with devotional and even mystical matters.

So, Khomeini began his career as a popular, spiritual teacher. But in his mind, the spiritual intersected with the secular and the political.

As Algar explained, For Imam Khomeini, however, spirituality and mysticism have never implied social withdrawal or political quietism, but rather the building up of a fund of energy that finds its natural expression on the socio-political plane. The life of Imam Khomeini is a clear indication that the Revolution wrought by Islam necessarily begins in the moral and spiritual realm.

What, then, can Christian conservatives in America learn from the state of affairs in Iran?

First, changing government leaders and changing laws is important, but changing hearts is much more important. Otherwise, if change is primarily enforced from the outside rather than produced on the inside, there will be a massive backlash. The end will be worse than the beginning.

Thats why I have emphasized repeatedly that we must put spiritual activity before political activity. As I tweeted on May 12, If only we were as passionate about prayer as we are about politics! The nation would be rocked almost overnight and our own lives would be transformed.

This is not a matter of either-or. It is matter of emphasis, of putting first things first. By all means, we should work to change the laws where those laws are unjust or destructive. But we should work much harder to change hearts.

Second, every generation of believers must have a fresh encounter with God. We learn this from the history of Israel, where the book of Joshua tells us that, Israel served the LORD during the lifetime of Joshua and the lifetime of the elders who lived on after Joshua, and who had experienced all the deeds that the LORD had wrought for Israel (Joshua 24:31). The next generation, which did not experience the Lords power and grace for itself, quickly fell away.

It is the same with the Church. Grandpas stories and Mothers testimonies will only have relevance for the younger generation when those young people experience the reality of their parents and grandparents God. Traditions can be passed down. Living faith must be experienced.

Here too, if we do not get this right, there will be a revolt against God and the Christian faith. After all, how many people want strict morals and high standards of living without a personal encounter with the Lord?

Third, contrary to the theocratic worldview of Islam, in which the Muslim faith takes over and rules, enforcing and even coercing adherence, the New Testament method is very different. We are to preach the gospel, declaring Gods love in the power of the Spirit, and as people are born-anew and transformed, they begin to lead different lives.

Their values change. Their perspectives change. Their goals change. Their standards change. As a result, the world around them changes.

Within the Church, as Christians start living like Christians, taking seriously the call of Jesus, they begin to shine their light more brightly. And that, in turn, touches the surrounding world in a positive way, drawing more non-believers to the faith while also confronting the social ills of the day.

This is how we fight our battles. And this is what I refer to as gospel-based, moral and cultural revolution, a Jesus revolution.

So, while we should stay involved politically, especially during this critical election season, we must put our priorities in the right place. Otherwise, while making temporary political gains, we will further alienate the next generation.

For some years now, dating back well before the rise of Donald Trump, young people have been turning away from God. And yet these same young people are hurting deeply today.

Let us bring to them the message of life, the message of hope, and the message of transformation  all of it found in Jesus. Politics cannot do this, nor can other religions, like Islam.

It is the gospel truth that sets people free.
Best of Lettuce Delivered. The Best of Lettuce Delivered returns Labor Day weekend with the addition of Pizzeria Portofino and RPM Seafood. Best of Lettuce Delivered allows you to order from several Lettuce Entertain You restaurants  including Hub 51, Sushi-San, RPM Steak, il Porcellino, Ben Pao, Joes Seafood and more  and have it all delivered at once. Best of Lettuce Delivered will be available for delivery in the northern suburbs only, 5-6:30 p.m. Saturday to Labor Day 59 W. Hubbard St., 847-431-3386, exploretock.com/lettucedelivered
Their living room furniture survived roughhousing and wear and tear from their grandchildren, but nearly 20 years later Ron and Jean Buelow decided it was time to replace it.

So the couple, who live in Ware, took advantage of this weekends tax-free shopping holiday to buy a new recliner, which they declared was so comfortable and a love seat that is the perfect size for their smaller living room.

Ive been looking for a while, Jean Buelow said. Its a good time to do it, you are not going to buy furniture around Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Most dont replace just one piece of furniture in a room so the 6.25% savings from the state sales tax also gave them the couple more motivation to replace the chair and love seat now. In addition, Gary Okun, the owner of Beautiful Homes in West Springfield, helped them find the furniture that liked and fit their home, she said.

The tax-free weekend brought many shoppers out  some for the first time in six months after restrictions were put in place because of the coronavirus - and gave businesses a boost after being shut down because of the pandemic.

It has been very busy, Okun said. Everyone has been housebound for the past months and they look at their surroundings and say we do need a new sofa,

The store extended its hours on Saturday and opened on Sunday, when it is usually closed. They brought in extra staff and extra designers and they really needed every extra hand this weekend.

Businesses and shoppers everywhere were seen following rules to prevent spreading the virus, including wearing masks and finding ways to keep at least 6 feet distance while shopping.

People were buying new sofas, chairs, dining room furniture, rugs and outdoor furniture was selling fast since many people are spending time outdoors on their decks or in their backyards, Okun said.

People are not able to spend money on vacations and they are not going out to eat so they have that extra savings, Okun said.

The one problem business owners ran into this weekend is having enough stock to meet the needs of customers. Manufacturers across the country and overseas have been shut down or not operating at capacity as employees try to follow guidelines for social distancing, he said.

In Okuns case, usually people pick out a sofa model and the fabric that matches their decor. Normally it takes about six weeks for it to be upholstered and delivered but now it is taking 10 weeks or more.

He isnt alone. Brian Zippin, president of Contractors Home Appliances said people selected refrigerators, outdoor grills and other things earlier and came in to pay for the item or even charged it over the phone on Saturday or Sunday. Although they will receive the 6.25% tax break in some cases it will take three weeks for the appliances to be delivered. The tax break is limited to items under $2,500.

It is a huge boost to our businessIt has been so busy for the past three weeks leading up to this weekend, he said. We have had foot traffic, people have ordered things over the phone and they have been emailing.

A lot more people are working from home, they are cooking more and in some cases, young adults are working remotely from their parents homes. Appliances are getting more use and breaking and people are spending more time at home so they see flaws and want to upgrade, Zippin said.

While the states tax-free weekend always attracts more shoppers, Zippin and Okun said they believe this weekend is busier than those in the recent past.

Sales were fantastic. What we did have we sold, said Dan DArcy, president of Allpower of Granby which sells everything from motorcycles and ATVs to lawnmowers and chainsaws. The company also sells parts and does repairs.

DArcy said he sold a lot of lawnmowers, chainsaws and leaf blowers. While he didnt sell as many snowblowers as he has in the past on tax-free weekends and he attributes that to a fairly mild 2019 winter.

Generators were popular. Fortunately Allpower just got a shipment after selling out in early August when Tropical Storm Isaias knocked out power to more than 250,000 people across the state, he said.

What he didnt have were smaller lawn tractors and riding lawnmowers, which have been sold out for a while. I lost 30 to 40 sales on that, he said.

Most factories are operating but supply chains have been interrupted because of the pandemic. In some places manufacturers can be delayed in sending a shipment of equipment because they are waiting for a particular part that is only made in a few places, DArcy said.

Customers are allowed to pre-order and pay for them to avoid paying state tax, many people dont want to wait for the equipment to arrive, he said.

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Q: My will reads: I hereby direct that all my debts, including the expenses of my last illness and funeral expenses and administration of my estate be paid by my Executor as soon as possible after my death. I direct that my Executor pay all estate, inheritance, transfer and succession or other taxes that may be assessed as a result of my death. Will my executor have to use his personal money to pay for any of this if I have no estate when I die?

A: No. Those sentences are saying that your executor, acting in his or her capacity as executor of your estate, is to make those payments from the assets of your estate, and not from the executors personal funds.

On HoustonChronicle.com: More columns from Ronald Lipman

If you have no estate, then there definitely will be no estate or inheritance owed. Those taxes apply only when a decedent is worth in excess of $11.5 million.

And if your estate has no money or property, there is no way to pay any of your debts or other expenses. Plus, there would then be no reason to probate your will.

Q: What do you suggest that people do if they have no family or friends who will agree to be the executor of their will? My attorney suggested using a bank. I thought that an attorney could act as executor.

A: You could name a trust company to serve as executor, but your estate needs to be large enough in value to satisfy their minimum requirements. That minimum could be as little as $250,000 or as high as millions of dollars.

You can search trust companies Houston Texas to find dozens of places you can contact to see if any of them would be available and appropriate to serve as executor of your estate.

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Attorneys can serve as executors in Texas, but most attorneys would never do so. In many other states, attorneys try very hard to get named as executor because the fees can be significant. Even though the fees can also be high in Texas, attorneys rarely agree to serve.

There are also individuals who are in the business of serving as executors in Texas. In fact, I have been contacted by several of them in the past after I have answered similar questions. You might feel comfortable naming someone like this to serve, and if so, you can search for them on the internet.

But dont forget that probate in Texas is usually unsupervised by the courts, and that means it would be easy for an executor to gain control of your estate and then never deliver anything to your beneficiaries. A trust company would never do that, and you would hope every lawyer would also act appropriately (given the risk of losing the right to practice law and the possibility of going to jail).

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.
By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed the Order on awarding the "Dostlug" Order to Vahid Yusifovich Alakbarov.

The order states that Vahid Alakbarov, President of LUKOIL company, is awarded for special services rendered to the development of mutual relations between Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev also sent a congratulatory letter to Vahid Alakbarov.

"Dear Vahid Yusuf oglu,

I heartily congratulate you on your significant jubilee  the 70th anniversary.

Thanks to your professionalism and organizational talent, LUKOIL is today one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world.

The long-term fruitful activity of LUKOIL company in our country makes a significant contribution to the expansion of Azerbaijani-Russian mutual economic relations and paves the way for the development and strengthening of friendly ties between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation.

I wish you long life, the best of health, prosperity and new successes," the letter said.

Vahid Alakbarov is an Azerbaijani and Russian businessman, the president of the leading Russian oil company LUKOIL.

In 1990, Alakbarov was appointed deputy minister of the Oil and Gas Industry of the Soviet Union and became the youngest deputy energy minister in Soviet history.

As deputy minister of the oil and gas industry of the Soviet Union, he was engaged in the formation of the first vertically integrated state-owned energy company, Langepas-Uray-Kogalymneft.

In April 1993, Langepas-Uray-Kogalymneft became LUKOIL with Alakbarov as its president. He has remained president of LUKOIL since that time.

LUKOIL is among the world's most powerful oil companies. The LUKOIL Group has been operating in Azerbaijans oil and gas sector since 1994 and is represented in the country by two subsidiaries.

The Company has a 10 percent share in the Shah Deniz and South Caucasus Pipeline projects, and participates in the sale of petroleum products in the retail market of Azerbaijan through a network of about 70 filling stations operating under the LUKOIL brand name.

The Company also owns an oil depot that transships 120 thousand tons of oil products per year.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
University of North Georgia (UNG) student Anh Tran has only traveled overseas to her birth country of Vietnam, but she wants so much more.

"One of my goals in life is to go to as many different places as possible, meet new people and be exposed to other cultures," said the 20-year-old from Gainesville, Georgia.

Tran's goal is close to coming true. She is one of 16 students who earned the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, which is a grant program that enables students of limited financial means to study or intern abroad and gain skills critical to U.S. national security and economic competitiveness.

The recipients were:

Dr. Anastasia Lin, assistant vice president for research and engagement and associate professor of English at UNG, said these 16 plus the 11 early winners equaled a new record for UNG. She said many students who applied for the early award in fall 2019 and didn't receive one reapplied in spring 2020.

"We had triple the number of students apply in the fall," she said, adding the Nationally Competitive Scholarships Office partnered with the Center for Global Engagement to recruit students. "I'm also pleased to see a continued increase in applicants from the Gainesville campus."

The Gilman Scholarship Program is open to U.S. citizen undergraduate students who are receiving Federal Pell Grant funding at a two-year or four-year college or university to participate in study and intern abroad programs worldwide. It offers scholarships of up to $5,000 to outstanding U.S. undergraduate Pell grant recipients.

Komlan Sogah recently earned the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship and had planned to study in France. The 21-year-old from Lawrenceville, Georgia, is a member of the Corps of Cadets pursuing a degree in cybersecurity.

Komlan Sogah, a junior pursuing a degree in cybersecurity and member of the Corps of Cadets, said an overseas study abroad would not be possible without the Gilman scholarship.

"I wanted to go to Paris to fulfill my minor in French," said the 21-year-old from Lawrenceville, Georgia. "It was going to be expensive, and I really wanted to go."

When Sogah was notified he won, he was shocked.

"I wasn't expecting to get it and when I did, I don't know how to describe it," said Sogah, who is a native of Togo, Africa.

Students interested in learning more about nationally competitive scholarships, including Gilman, should contact ncs@ung.edu for more information. Students interested in learning about study abroad opportunities through various programs may visit UNG's Center for Global Engagement.
Vulnerable Victorians who tested positive to coronavirus and have nowhere to safely isolate are being turned away from hotel quarantine, which some fear could spark another community outbreak of COVID-19.

Dozens of requests for emergency accommodation from high-risk Victorians, including some who are homeless and others with complex medical needs, have been rejected, despite the applicants testing positive to COVID-19 or being deemed a symptomatic close contact of a confirmed case.

Melbourne's Stamford Hotel hosts guests in quarantine. Credit:

A government employee, who spoke to The Age on the condition of anonymity, said at least 37 applications were rejected in August.

The risk of causing an outbreak in the community because we cant accommodate these people is extreme, the source said. Some of whats happening here is really, really concerning. There are all these really vulnerable people who are just falling through the cracks because the system hasnt been set up to handle it.
New Delhi:

RBI on Saturday came out with conditions for exchange of defunct notes for those, including non-resident Indians, who failed to do so, the last day for depositing the invalid currency notes in banks. Resident Indian citizens who were abroad from November 9 to December 30 can avail this facility up to March 31, 2017and NRI citizens, who were abroad during this period, can exchange their defunct notes up to June 30, 2017, RBI said in a late evening statement.

"While there is no monetary limit for exchange for the eligible resident Indians, the limit for NRIs will be as per the relevant FEMA Regulations (Rs 25,000 per person)," it said.

Citizens can avail this facility in their individual capacity once during the period on submission of ID documents,and on submission of documentary evidence showing they were abroad during the period and that they have not availed the exchange facility earlier, the RBI said.

The statement added that no third party tender will be accepted under the facility. On fulfilment of the terms and conditions and the genuineness of the notes tendered, it said, adding admissible amount will be credited to the tenderer's KYC compliant bank account.

This facility will be available through Reserve Bank offices at Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Nagpur. According to RBI, Indian citizens resident in Nepal,Bhutan, Pakistan and Bangladesh cannot avail this facility.

"Any person, aggrieved by the decision of the Reserve Bank may prefer an appeal to the Central Board of the Reserve Bank within 14 days of the communication of such refusal to him,"it said. Such representations may be addressed to the CentralBoard, Reserve Bank of India, Secretary's Department, it added.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
The University of Education Winneba (UEW) is poised to generate more employment opportunities for members of its local community in Winneba and surrounding areas.

This is part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) framework, with the construction of an additional 5,000 birds' capacity poultry house.

This is part of the university's plan to deepen sustainability by impacting on immediate communities where it operates.

The new facility will help generate several direct and indirect jobs for indigenes in and around the Efutu Municipality.

Similar arrangements are running concurrently in Kumasi, Asante Mampong and Ajumako.

Vice-Chancellor (VC) of the university, Rev. Fr. Prof. Anthony Afful-Broni, disclosed this during an unannounced visit to the University Farm to acquaint himself with conditions at the farm and to inspect the progress of works on the new poultry house.

Prof. Afful-Broni was highly impressed with the quality and progress of work on the new facility and commended the contractor for the good work done.

The state of structures at the farm needs to be looked at. The university and the workers here deserve better. This is why we have started investing to revamp the farm. The poultry house which is currently under construction is the first step. We must certainly do more to improve conditions here, he said.

The VC hinted of plans to strategically develop the farm to serve the university and the local community which should begin with proper planning of the structures at the farm to maximize its full potential and to form the foundation of the master plan for the transformation of the farm.

We must immediately protect the land from further encroachment by building strategic security posts at various points on the land and proceed to roll out plans to revamp the farm, he remarked.

Prof. Afful-Broni was full of commendation to the workers at the farm for their hard work, dedication and steadfastness.

He assured them of management's commitment to face-lifting and improving conditions at the farm.

Mr Mark Affusah, Assistant Farm Manager who conducted the VC around the farm, appealed for a new feed mixer to facilitate work at the farm.

The university is also looking for a new farm manager to spearhead the new agenda of transforming the farm to realize its full potential by fulfilling the objectives of the university while meeting the needs of the local community.
Former Northern Ireland Secretary of State Julian Smith described his 204 days in the role as a "joy" and a "huge privilege".

Mr Smith, who recently enjoyed a holiday here, is widely credited with playing a crucial role restoring devolution in Northern Ireland earlier this year after a three-year impasse.

He was replaced by Brandon Lewis just five weeks later by the Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He is regarded by the public as one of the most effective and popular NI SoS in recent years.

In a special interview with BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback programme on Monday the MP for Skipton and Ripon said he would continue to help Northern Ireland any way he could.

"It was a joy, it was demanding and it was relentless. Yes, there was more to do... being an MP gives you a fantastic platform to help behind the scenes," he told presenter, William Crawley.

Expand Close New beginning: First Minister Arlene Foster (right) and Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill with (back, from left), the then Tanaiste Simon Coveney, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Secretary of State Julian Smith PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp New beginning: First Minister Arlene Foster (right) and Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill with (back, from left), the then Tanaiste Simon Coveney, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Secretary of State Julian Smith

"I'm really committed long-term to do anything that's needed to assist a part of the UK that has gone through the most horrendous time."

Recalling the moment he was offered the role of Northern Ireland secretary after he had spent the afternoon in the pub drinking "far too many beers" after he lost his job as Conservative chief whip, he said it was a "huge honour" to accept the role.

"I was really excited to do the job," he explained.

He admitted he was facing various challenges when he first arrived here, from reinstating the Executive to the Wrightbus crisis and the impact of Brexit, which he said he wanted to tackle in a "way which kept the Good Friday Agreement safe".

Mr Smith was also magnanimous when describing about how he felt when he was ousted from his role in a cabinet reshuffle by the Prime Minister - just weeks after being awarded a 'Minister of the Year' accolade.

The ex-SoS had played an important role in advocating for victims of historical institutional sexual abuse to receive compensation.

"The Prime Minister of the day always has that right... I'm extremely pleased we got Stormont back. It was not a given," he explained.

"The opportunity to deliver on historic child abuse, deliver on abortion, and these sweeping changes in the social sphere in Northern Ireland were huge privileges."

Expand Close First Minister Arlene Foster and deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill and the new Executive meets with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Secretary of State Julian Smith. Photo by William Cherry/Presseye / Facebook

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Whatsapp First Minister Arlene Foster and deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill and the new Executive meets with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Secretary of State Julian Smith. Photo by William Cherry/Presseye

In between musical tracks played personally chosen by the MP, which showcased his eclectic tastes from classical to Pet Shop Boy's It's a Sin and 90s club favourite, Rhythm is a Dancer by Snap, Mr Smith reflected on his hopes for Northern Ireland's political future.

He said he wanted less focus on the constitutional issue and more on the people, adding there are some "extremely talented" assembly members in NI.

"I think the biggest message and the biggest thing that I hope will happen is that, over and above the constitutional debates, in the back of every politician's mind is that they stood on the sidelines for three years and didn't lead despite being paid and service the interests of the people of Northern Ireland," he said.

"I think if all parties focus on governing now - yes have a debate on constitutional issues and obviously there are big topics there - but there's a lot that can be done on the north-south bodies, on climate change, on infrastructure."

He added: "I was really struck when we did the Stormont deal, people were literally coming up to me in the street and just thanking me for getting it back up and running.

"That was because, not that they didn't have views on the constitution, but at the moment the focus needs to be on getting stuff done, whether it's education, healthcare, whatever."

Expand Close Former NI Secretary of State Julian Smith during his first visit to Northern Ireland outside the Guildhall in Londonderry / Facebook

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Whatsapp Former NI Secretary of State Julian Smith during his first visit to Northern Ireland outside the Guildhall in Londonderry

Mr Smith said he was "delighted and over the moon" when the parties agreed to reinstate power sharing, stressing with the ongoing issue of Brexit and the pandemic arriving not long after, it had shown to the opportune time for it happen.

"If we'd gone in to either no deal last year without some form of governance or this pandemic without a government we would have had major issues," he said.

"So I think the biggest thing is to applaud all those political leaders for getting through that period."
When I was looking for the next step for myself and my team, there really was only one choice.

TTR Sotheby's International Realty is pleased to welcome Peg Mancuso to its Bethesda, Maryland brokerage office.

A lifelong Washingtonian, Mancuso joins TTR Sotheby's International Realty as Senior Vice President with over 35 years of real estate experience and as the top real estate agent in Potomac, Maryland for the last 21 years.

With career sales in the billions of dollars and the leader of the esteemed Daly Mancuso Group, Mancuso brings a wealth of experience and a distinguished record of success to TTR Sothebys International Realtys Bethesda, Maryland brokerage, including active memberships to the public policy and forms committees with the Greater Capital Area Association of REALTORS, the Maryland REALTORS Legislative & Public Policy Committee, and the Maryland REALTORS Political Action Committee.

Previously, Mancuso served as the President of Greater Capital Area Association of REALTORS, a trustee of the Maryland REALTORS Political Campaign and Campaign Affairs Committee, and a member of the Board of Maryland REALTORS. In 2016, she was awarded REALTORS of the Year by the Greater Capital Area Association of REALTORS.

When I was looking for the next step for myself and my team, there really was only one choice," says Mansuco.

The culture at TTR Sothebys International Realty was exactly the right fit  the firms vision, strategy, and marketing are second to none and the chance to work alongside the best people in the industry is an opportunity thats exciting to be a part of.

Educated at the University of Maryland, Mancuso has called Potomac, Maryland her home for the past 30 years and has dedicated her time outside of real estate towards several charitable and philanthropic endeavors, including community leadership roles with the Madison House Autism Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

"It is a great honor to work with someone as accomplished as Peg," says Marcus Jaffe, Managing Broker of TTR Sotheby's International Realty's Bethesda, Maryland brokerage office.

She and her teams commitment to excellence is a perfect fit with our Bethesda office.

Following its most successful year to date, with over $3.4 Billion in closed real estate sales for 2019, TTR Sothebys International Realty has its sights set on Bethesda, Maryland as a key area of growth for the firm.

Peg represents the very best of Washington real estate professionals, says Mark C. Lowham, CEO and Managing Partner of TTR Sothebys International Realty.

Her leadership roles in numerous regional and national real estate organizations is an example for everyone who aspires to impact the future of our industry.

About TTR Sothebys International Realty

TTR Sothebys International Realty is regarded as one of the highest-performing real estate firms in the United States. With nine offices and over 500 real estate associates, our commitment to professional service, flawless integrity, and community leadership allowed us to capture more than $3.14 Billion in closed sales in 2019 while also serving as one of the Washington Metropolitan Areas foremost leaders in corporate philanthropy. To learn more, visit us at ttrsir.com.
MINSK -- Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have announced travel bans on President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and 29 other Belarusian officials as pressure on the authoritarian ruler builds over election violations and a post-vote crackdown on protesters.



"We need peaceful dialogue and agreement between the regime and society, but we see that the regime is not ready for that," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on August 31 while announcing the measures.



"We see that we need to move forward and to show an example to other countries," he added.



Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics called on the rest of the European Union, which has been working on its own blacklist of Belarusian individuals, to take similar action immediately.



Besides Lukashenka, those included on the list drawn by the three Baltic states include the presidents eldest son, Viktar Lukashenka, who is also a member of the national Security Council, as well as top officials at the presidential administration, the Central Election Commission, the Interior and Justice ministries, the Prosecutor-General's Office, the State Security Committee, and the Investigative Committee.

Lithuania has been hosting opposition candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus fearing for her and her family's safety after an August 9 election her supporters say she won.



Belaruss election authorities declared Lukashenka, who has run the country for 26 years, the winner with just over 80 percent of the votes, sparking the largest protests seen in the country since it declared independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.



According to Tsikhanouskayas team, she will address the UN Security Council on September 4 by video link at the invitation of Estonia, which is currently is a nonpermanent member of the body. She will also address the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) four days later, her spokesman said on August 31.



On August 30, tens of thousands of Belarusians streamed into the center of the capital, Minsk, chanting Happy Birthday, Rat! and Leave! as they gathered outside the presidential palace where Lukashenka is currently staying. Many carried anti-Lukashenka signs, while one group carried a black coffin. Lukashenka, who was celebrating his 66th birthday, last week described the protesters as rats.

The BelaPAN news agency put the number of protesters in Minsk at more than 100,000.

Riot police blocked the crowds from advancing in several areas of the city and detained around 140 protesters near Independence Square and elsewhere, according to the Interior Ministry.

Detentions were also made as thousands of protesters rallied in other Belarusian cities, including Homel, Hrodna, and Mogilev.

Lukashenka has shown no intention of negotiating with the protesters, who he claims are influenced by outside forces.

In a show of defiance, Lukashenka was photographed carrying an automatic weapon inside the palace grounds on August 30. RIA Novosti, which first published the photograph, said it was sent to the agency by Lukashenkas press secretary.

It is the second time since the protests began that Lukashenka has released photos of himself armed with heavy guns.

Belarus has been rocked by three weeks of protests and strikes after the nations election commission claimed Lukashenka won a new six-year term in a landslide victory.

The opposition claimed the election was marred by irregularities and rigged in Lukashenkas favor.

Tsikhanouskaya attracted tens of thousands of supporters to her rallies across the country in the run-up to election day, underscoring the growing disillusion with Lukashenkas Soviet-style rule.

However, the election committee claimed Tsikhanouskaya won only about 10 percent of the vote to Lukashenkas 80 percent, angering voters and pushing them to take to the streets.

Unlike in the past, mass arrests and police torture in the days following the election failed to stem the protests, raising questions about whether Lukashenka can hold on to power.

In an attempt to stifle global coverage of the protests, the Belarusian authorities stripped the accreditations from at least 17 journalists representing major foreign news organizations, including RFE/RL.

The West has condemned the vote and the harsh police crackdown on opposition protesters, forcing Lukashenka to look to Moscow for support.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on August 31 that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will hold talks with his Belarusian counterpart, Uladzimer Makey, on September 2 in Moscow.

On August 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Lukashenka on his birthday during a phone call a day earlier. The two leaders have spoken by phone several times since the protests began.

Both sides reaffirmed their intention to strengthen and expand their neighborly alliance, according to the Kremlin readout of the call.

With reporting by Reuters
For example, you might receive a note from someone over Facebook Messenger, but really it's a scammer who has hacked into your friend's account. The note might contain a link to a legitimate-looking site that asks you to log in to view safety information from United Nations officials or doctors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It's phony. If you type in the personal information requested, your identity could end up stolen. (Note: Links from Facebook's Coronavirus (COVID-19) Information Center, which AARP contributes to, are always free and don't require readers to sign in.)

A similar public health scam isn't a link. Instead, it's an attachment with a note from a friend that suggests you read the item immediately because it has useful information on how to protect yourself from COVID-19. However, clicking the file from this impersonator might install malicious software, also called malware, that lets cybercriminals have access to your data lifted from your keystrokes.

Or the file could unleash coronavirus-related ransomware that locks your computer's files until you pay the thieves to release them.

Never pay money to get money

Because the government has provided financial help to individuals and businesses, be aware that scammers may contact you to pretend they're looking to send you money if you confirm your personal details or make a small up-front payment first to confirm the money is going to the right party.

Ignore both of these come-ons. These scammers often will try to get you out of Facebook Messenger to avoid being tracked and request you take the conversation through email.

Hacking can happen to governments, too. The Canada Revenue Agency was forced to shut down some online services in August, following cyberattacks tied to its stimulus checks program for businesses. At least 5,500 accounts were compromised, and many Canadians received a note about a Canada Emergency Response Benefit deposit to their bank account, yet it wasn't on their bank statements.

As we get closer to Nov. 3, expect to see more social media scams tied to the election, whether a seemingly genuine friend is asking for donations to a political party or giving out details on mail-in ballots. If a message looks enticing, get out of Facebook, search for your county's absentee ballot information or your favorite candidate on the web to find the relevant websites. If the pitch were legitimate, you wouldn't be approached over Facebook.

Free stuff can have a steep price

Not only do the thieves know we're concerned about coronavirus and more likely to click on something tied to it, but they also know we're shopping online more than ever. Beginning in April but still circulating today, one such note over Facebook Messenger and in email messages looks like a pitch from Amazon.

The message gives you a link to what appears to be your Amazon account, asking you to sign in for a free bottle of hand sanitizer with your next purchase over $50. Crooks are pulling out all the stops to defraud you, in many cases adding COVID-19 to their already ample repertoires.

Distress messages, similar to the grandparent scam phone calls, also have made a return this summer. These phony Facebook Messenger notes purport to be from your friends, now traveling, who are asking for money because they're in a jam. It's another instance of someone's account being breached.

These scammers often will say they need to be paid in Google Play gift cards to get them out of the jam, ask that you buy some and tell them the code. Contact your friend or family members by phone, text or email to confirm it's really them, which is unlikely.

Marc Saltzman has been a freelance technology journalist for 25 years. His podcast, Tech It Out, aims to break down geek speak into street speak.
Ten months ago, Laura Munoz applied to become an American citizen so she could cast her first vote this fall in the country she calls home. For Munoz, who moved to Miami from Colombia at age 12, the opportunity to vote felt like an auspicious way to mark a new decade.

But the 26-year-old hasn't heard back about the next step in her naturalization process, even though she is in the final stages. With the early October voter registration deadline in Florida quickly approaching, she is no longer confident about her prospect of voting for the first time this year.

A backlog in naturalization applications at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is threatening to prevent an unknown number of immigrants like Munoz from casting their first ballots this year. The delays have worsened amid budget shortfalls and policy changes by the Trump administration, as well as the coronavirus pandemic, which temporarily shuttered USCIS offices this year.

"I was really eager to cast my very first ballot this important electoral year, where there's so much happening from local to national," said Munoz, who works at the Florida Immigrant Coalition, an immigrant advocacy group. "After you call this your country for so many years, you're still not a part of its democracy. I speak for many people when I say that feels really hurtful."

USCIS has not disclosed the exact number of backlogged cases, but it says hundreds of thousands of citizenship applications are pending - many of them caught in a bureaucratic limbo with the presidential election less than three months away.

Agency spokesman Dan Hetlage said in a statement that the agency is on pace to naturalize 600,000 new citizens by the end of the current fiscal year, which runs through September. That figure is lower than in recent years because of the pandemic, Hetlage said, though his agency has acknowledged that underfunding and new regulations have contributed to delays.

In 2019, 834,000 new citizens were naturalized - the highest number in 11 years, Hetlage said, adding that all of those new Americans will be eligible to register to vote this November.

Naturalization applications surged after President Donald Trump's election in 2016, but some applicants are now waiting two or more years for a process the agency aims to complete within five months. USCIS records show the average time for processing citizenship applications in fiscal year 2020 was nearly nine months.

"I decided to become a citizen for my voice to count and for the Latinos and all the minorities to be counted, and to be one more in this country," said Rutilia Ornelas, 65, who applied for naturalization 20 years after becoming a permanent resident in hopes of voting for the Democratic nominee this November.

"I feel very disappointed because I was so looking forward to becoming a citizen for this election for November. I feel like my voice is not going to count," said Ornelas, a Mexican immigrant who lives in Wisconsin.

As of March 31, the last date for which data is publicly available, more than 700,000 citizenship applications were still pending, according to agency data. USCIS has completed 156,849 naturalizations since mid-March, but additional would-be citizens have applied during that period as well.

"The backlog right now under the Trump administration is extraordinary," said Sarah Pierce, policy analyst for the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the nonpartisan think tank Migration Policy Institute.

The delays came into focus last week, when five immigrants recited the Oath of Allegiance to be sworn in as U.S. citizens by acting homeland security chief Chad Wolf, as President Trump looked on.

Millions of viewers watched the ceremony, which was aired as a part of the Republican National Convention's official programming, raising concerns that the president and Wolf were leveraging the moment for political gain. At least one of those who took part in the ceremony did not know beforehand that her oath would be part of the RNC, the woman told The Washington Post.

"Today, America rejoices as we welcome five absolutely incredible new members into our great American family," Trump said in his remarks. "You're now fellow citizens of the greatest nation on the face of God's earth. Congratulations. Great going."

For some who have been hoping to reach that celebratory moment this year, watching the ceremony aired during the RNC was bittersweet at best, and infuriating at worst.

Umaima Abbasi, 23, a Pakistani immigrant, said her father in Pakistan called her after watching the ceremony: "Why can't you also be on national TV at the RNC getting naturalized?"

Abbasi said she was elated for the five who were naturalized, knowing the cumbersome and costly process required to get there. She began the process earlier this year in hopes of voting: "When I was applying for my naturalization process, the idea of voting in November for the general election was completely - I was star-struck by the idea in and of itself."

But her application status on the website went from "in progress" to "paused" without explanation. As she watched the televised RNC ceremony, she felt frustrated for herself and others waiting to hear back about their status.

"I was like, 'These people really deserve it. They are thriving. Hopefully, life is so much greater for them moving forward,'" she said. "But I was also thinking . . . 'How many other people are in my situation?' Probably plenty, too many to even think of. . . . It was really heartbreaking for me to think about that."

Naturalized citizens are a growing proportion of the electorate, numbering 23.2 million, or 1 in 10 Americans eligible to vote this fall - a record, according to the Pew Research Center. Newly naturalized citizens in 10 battleground states exceed the margin of victory from Trump's 2016 election in those states, according to research from the National Partnership for New Americans, a network of immigrant and refugee rights organizations.

"Despite the backlog and attempts by this administration to minimalize the number of people who want to become citizens, we've seen a record number of immigrants that have naturalized," said Nancy Flores, the network's deputy director.

USCIS, whose funding is driven by fees from immigration applications, has not hired enough staff to cope with the surge in citizenship applications after 2016, according to a June 30 report by the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman.

It now takes longer to process each application, in part due to a 2017 executive order that requires more immigration applicants to be interviewed in person. With fewer cases being completed, there is less revenue being generated for the agency, the ombudsman found.

USCIS leadership has requested an emergency $1.2 billion bailout from Congress, which they said is necessary to prevent mass furloughs and greater backlogs in processing applications.

Those who have waited months to take the next step in the naturalization process said they feel a growing sense of anxiety and helplessness, and are now coping with the possibility they will not be sworn in in time to meet the mid-October voter registration deadline in many states.

For some, coming to terms with this impending reality means letting go of their hopes for meaningful milestones around their first vote.

When Perry So, 38, a symphonic conductor from Hong Kong, applied for citizenship, the projected completion date was around the time of the due date of his daughter this summer. He had hoped to become naturalized around the time of her birth - a meaningful milestone for him and his family, he said.

"It was the arrival of our daughter where I felt like it was so important to be able to participate in the political process and to advocate and fight for the issues that affected her the most," So said.

Now, when he checks the status of his application, the website no longer provides an estimated wait time. Instead, it reads: "We are taking longer than expected to process your case. You do not need to do anything at this time." So said he remains hopeful: "I wanted to be naturalized because I have faith, and I continue to have faith, that there is a role for someone like me in this country. That's why I'm here, and that's why I want to do this."

And for others, these complications in the mechanisms of democracy have only strengthened their resolve to be civically engaged.

Syihan Muhammad, 24, a software engineer in Silver Spring, Md., applied for his citizenship earlier this year but knew there was a chance it may not work out in time for November.

Muhammad arrived in the United States from Indonesia when he was just a year old. When he turned 18 and couldn't vote with his friends for the first time, he decided to participate in democracy by volunteering for political campaigns.

"All of this is because I have envied the right to vote and I wanted to be a part of the electoral process," Muhammad said. "I had always hoped that 2020 would be my year" to vote.

But with his application stalled, Muhammad said, he is finding other ways to make his voice heard. Inspired by the recent Black Lives Matter protests and the push to fight systemic racism, he has marched alongside protesters with a homemade sign carrying quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr. and donated to racial justice groups. He said he has begun to see grass-roots activism as a powerful way to speak out - perhaps even more powerful than electing any one politician into office.

"I don't know how much an administration can significantly improve things without the real grass-roots activism," Muhammad said.

"Before, I would have viewed democracy as purely being able to vote," he said. "But now, I view democracy as a government where people can have a say, and I think protesting [and other forms of activism] . . . force conversation to move forward and force change in the long run."
This is a huge market, with enormous potential, said Max Carter, CEO of New Dawn Risk  a London, UK-based insurance intermediary with a focus on complex liability and other specialty insurance and reinsurance risks. Legal cannabis sales are projected to rise to around $40 billion by 2025, which is just huge. The insurance industry should be supporting it; the legal cannabis industry needs insurance just as much as any other industry.

But this is a very challenging environment. The insurance market  particularly the larger US property & casualty insurers  have really been spooked by the fact that the federal governments position on legal cannabis has been fairly robust. Although they havent been pursuing any prosecutions, its very clear that the US government, at the federal level, still considers this to be an illegal activity. Thats really put off most of the major mainstream players on the P&C underwriting side.

Read next: Industry expert offers overview on cannabis coverage

With only a limited number of suppliers, theres not enough competition in the US legal cannabis insurance market to get market forces working at their optimum. Therefore, the price of insurance for cannabis businesses is far too high, and the quality of paper is limited, according to Carter. As a result, cannabis businesses are often unable to protect themselves against risks that are beyond their control, which is putting stress on their ability to access capital and develop the industry.

This is particularly tricky in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. As Carter pointed out: The crisis has exposed the financial pressures on many cannabis firms, with many venture capital-backed cannabis firms struggling already to meet financial projections. A COVID-19 recession [] will only increase such financial pressures for young cannabis businesses.

The pandemic will make it even tougher for cannabis producers to obtain insurance as providers further tighten terms and conditions and introduce exclusions, while insurers who may have been looking to enter the marker will put their plans on hold. With the Federal Government shutdown and the possibility of a change of administration in Novembers presidential election, the progress of legislation that would open up the cannabis market to insurers will be delayed. This reality fails to reflect the fact that many firms have significant insurance needs that are critical to help them manage the risks that exist in this young industry, with its untried legal and societal framework.

Read more: Cannabis companies facing surge in insurance costs due to investor lawsuits

In publishing the cannabis insurance report, the New Dawn Risk CEO hopes to flag these issues and encourage insurers to seek the burgeoning opportunities in the market.

Again, it really all boils back down to the core fact which is that insurers are not comfortable operating in this space, Carter told Insurance Business. What were trying to do with this report is engage with the industry and get them to think about ways to come up with solutions that people will be comfortable in offering. This has to happen at multiple levels. Certainly, lobbying the industry bodies is going to continue to be an important part of this. Understanding the local state issues, how to operate in different states and avoiding some of the federal issues is also important. But whatever happens, the most important thing is that brokers, insurers and lawyers all come together and start having a proper conversation about it.
OKCarz details a variety of used Jeep models. Pictured is the 2020 Jeep Wrangler.

Drivers shopping for an affordable, capable and high-quality used vehicle will be thrilled to hear that OKCarz, a dealership based out of central Florida, is helping customers find the car that best suits their unique lifestyle. One of the most popular brands available at the dealership is Jeep. To help customers find the Jeep that is right for them, OKCarz has reviewed and detailed the pre-owned Jeep Compass, Jeep Grand Cherokee and Jeep Wrangler.

Shoppers looking for a compact SUV that is versatile and offers the ability to travel away from the road may find what they need with the pre-owned Jeep Compass. A great choice for individuals and small families, the Compass offers a fun and modern driving experience. For more details, visit the used Jeep Compass model page here.

Those searching for a mid-size SUV that offers impressive performance, a spacious cabin and an exciting off-road experience will enjoy the used Jeep Grand Cherokee. Designed with families in mind, the Grand Cherokee is one of the largest SUVs available on the Jeep lineup. Customers curious to see if the Grand Cherokee is the right match are encouraged to explore the used Jeep Grand Cherokee model research page on the OKCarz website.

The pre-owned Jeep Wrangler is a favorite among Jeep owners. This iconic and famous model offers a unique design and incredible off-road capabilities, making the Wrangler a perfect match for adventurers and nature lovers. Shoppers interested in learning more about the used Jeep Wrangler should check out its model research page here.

Those that would like to contact OKCarz can do so at 863-904-2125 or by visiting the dealership at 1200 W. Memorial Blvd. in Lakeland, Florida. In addition to its Lakeland location, the dealership also has additional locations in Florida, including Tampa, West Bradenton, Orlando and St. Petersburg. To learn more about OKCarz and see which location is most convenient, customers are encouraged to browse the OKCarz website at http://www.okcarz.com.
Open source satellite imagery and intelligence suggest China is upgrading or developing at least 10 airbases, about a dozen air defence facilities and associated radar sites along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), according to experts in the field.

On Monday, the open source intelligence analyst who uses the name @detresfa on Twitter shared an image of a heliport China is building in proximity to two new air defence positions that can cover sensitive stretches of the disputed border in Doklam and Sikkim sectors.

The imagery shows the suspected heliport under construction at the tri-junction of the borders of India, Bhutan and China, and at a distance of about 100 km from Doka La (Doka pass) and Naku La (Naku pass).

Earlier this month, @detresfa used open source satellite imagery to report China had stepped up work on military infrastructure opposite Lipulekh region in Uttarakhand, including a surface-to-air missile site on the banks of Mansarovar Lake in Tibet.

The big thing that stands out [in the open source satellite imagery] is how vast and widespread this is. In the past, the Chinese side would add additional runways or aircraft shelters to some airbases, said Sim Tack, a Belgium-based security and military analyst with Stratfor who works with @detresfa.

Now, China is upgrading or rebuilding facilities or creating new facilities, including 10 airbases, a dozen air defence facilities and other associated radar sites, he said.

The efforts appear to be significant and very directed, Tack said, adding one recent image had captured hundreds of trucks carrying concrete for upgrading the tarmac at just one site.

Much of the work, he said, had begun either late last year or early this year, well before the India-China border standoff emerged in the open in May after two clashes, one at Pangong lake in Ladakh sector and another at Naku La in Sikkim sector.

In the context of how this sort of development work usually takes places, the pace has been rapid, Tack said, with much of the activity focused on building or upgrading facilities that will allow the Chinese side to control the airspace and provide additional mobility and support to ground forces.

Besides the heliport in Doklam sector, the Chinese side is also working on two more heliports in Ladakh sector, one in Rutog county near the northern bank of Pangong Lake and another at Tianshuihai near Galwan Valley and Aksai Chin, according to the experts.

The open source intelligence and satellite imagery, the experts said, pointed to long-term planning for the positioning of forces and assets.

The suspected heliport near Doklam could sustain all weather & rapid troop deployments in the sector along with improving surveillance operations, @detresfa tweeted.

The heliport is located almost equidistant from two sites at which the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) is developing surface-to-air missile facilities, according to imagery tweeted earlier by @detresfa. Both missile facilities are near what have been described as suspected early warning radar sites opposite Sikkim state.

In a graphic posted on Twitter, @detresfa said the steady build-up of support infrastructure by PLA near areas with a history of clashes [and] disputed territorial claims demonstrates the long-term Chinese ambitions in these sectors.

With the addition of a heliport along with area denial systems within 100 km from Doka La [and] Naku La, China would be able to sustain all weather operations in the disputed areas regardless of the harsh terrain [and] conditions, according to the graphic.

There was no immediate reaction from Indian officials to the reported development of the heliport and the missile sites by the Chinese.

These developments come against the backdrop of the Indian Armys acknowledgement on Monday that its troops had pre-empted efforts by PLA to unilaterally change the status quo along the LAC on the southern bank of Pangong lake.
Jalandhar Even as the state government has directed districts to ramp up testing for covid-19, the Jalandhar health department has been unable to meet its allocated target of 3,000 tests for a day. The district has 6,623 cases and seen 165 deaths till August 31 evening.

Over the past two months, the districts average has been 800 tests per day. The district has just one testing lab that has a capacity of 100-150 tests a day. This has led to a delay in tracing and shifting positive cases and increases the risk of virus spread.

On most days over the last fortnight, the sample collection was about 400. For only five days, the figure went above 1,000 samples. The department collected 433 and 428 samples on Sunday and Saturday, respectively. Only 89 samples were collected on Monday.

Jalandhar is lagging behind Ludhiana, the worst-hit district in sample collection, as its per day positive ratio is higher, said a senior health official. At 1.37 lakh samples collected, Ludhiana has 407.4 cases for every 1 lakh population, while Jalandhar at 74,405 samples, has 977 cases per lakh. The data are from Punjab Covid-19 Status Report till August 26.

There is a backlog of around 1,000 samples as authorities have to send most samples to Faridkot medical college for testing, which generally takes two days in generating result. There are 13 micro-containment zones in the district, but all houses have not been examined. There will be a spike in covid cases and it is possible that the district will surpass Ludhiana, if authorities intensify the contact-tracing on a daily basis, said a senior administration official.

Jalandhar civil surgeon Dr Gurinder Kaur Chawla said they were collaborating with the health department and 15 more teams will be assigned to the job. Presently, 39 teams comprising three-four health staff in a team collect covid samples.

State covid-19 nodal officer Dr Rajesh Bhaskar said covid sampling was being intensified across the state.

In a silver lining for Jalandhar, it is the only district in the state that has level-3 beds for critical patients, in the civil hospital, after the three medical colleges in Amritsar, Patiala and Faridkot.

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A Deputy Health Minister, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye has justified the US$150 COVID-19 test fee to be paid by travellers arriving in Ghana by air following the reopening of the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).



The KIA will tomorrow Tuesday, September 1, 2020, be opened for international flights following the institution of enhanced safety protocols at the facility to prevent the importation of the Coronavirus into Ghana.



Per the new guidelines, travellers arriving in the country aree expected to pay US$150 for a mandatory COVID-19 test.



Speaking at press briefing in Accra on Monday, Dr Okoe Boye said the fee was reasonable compared with global charges.



As a ministry and a government who are stakeholders in the management of COVID-19, we were very much interested in the cost of the test. We wanted to make sure that the cost of the test will not put an unnecessary burden on the passenger. So we quickly looked at what is being charged across the globe, he said.



The deputy minister explained that, when you go to a place like Zimbabwe you will pay about $210 for the test. In China, you will pay about $150 for the test. In Togo and Benin you will pay about 150 euros and in Nigeria, it is 130 dollars but you will have to go to a hotel and lodge till the results are ready.



With the turnaround time and accuracy of the test assured, we had to decide whether the $150 was enough to cover all the expenses. We finally agreed to peg it at that for now," hee added.



He also explained that the new arrangement was very prudent as compared to the previous arrangement where travellers had to pay for accommodation for two weeks to enable them quarantine for the period while awaiting their results.



CoronaLife Web Series

Meanwhile, the Ghana Airport Company is expecting to receive a total of 1200 passengers within its peak period after reopening, the Managing Director of Ghana Airport Company Limited, Yaw Kwakwa has said.



He assured that his outfit had the capacity for any overflow of passengers, explaining that 480 tests could be conducted within 15 minutes, Within 15 minutes we can test about 480 people. So taking into consideration all the odds of the maximum number of passengers we can have at a time and other factors, we have more than enough capacity.





Source: Graphiconline.com









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AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Epiphany Dermatology, a leading dermatology company committed to improving access to exceptional dermatologic care, announced today it has expanded its presence in the Denver, Colorado market through its partnership with SkinCare Colorado.

Founded in 2007 by Nancy Krywonis, MD, SkinCare Colorado has a long-established reputation of providing high-quality dermatology services to patients in Denver and surrounding communities. Dr. Krywonis has joined Epiphany in connection with this partnership. Dr. Krywonis is a board-certified dermatologist who earned her medical degree at the University of Manitoba School of Medicine and completed her dermatology residency at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Krywonis commented, "We are extremely excited to form this partnership with Epiphany Dermatology. Our organizations are well-aligned in our commitment to clinical excellence and access to great dermatologic care. Our location and excellent staff will remain unchanged. Accessibility, personalized care, and commitment to our community will remain our top priority well into the future."

Gheorghe Pusta, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Epiphany, said, "We are excited to welcome Dr. Krywonis and her team to Epiphany. Through our interactions with Dr. Krywonis, we were pleased to learn she is as committed as we are in delivering clinical excellence to the Denver community. Dr. Krywonis and her team care for patients in a very thoughtful way, and this is a nice opportunity to further expand our provider network and improve access to exceptional dermatologic care in Denver. "

Through this partnership, Dr. Krywonis and staff gain additional resources to help with operations, managed care, marketing, compliance, human resources, recruiting, finance, IT, and many other support services.

Mr. Pusta further commented that, "Despite unprecedented COVID-related challenges in healthcare and the broader economy, we remain fully committed to investing in our growth and are well-funded to do so. Since inception we have grown the right way, with a common-sense focus on sound operations and true integration, so that we can truly support our dermatologists and share the best practices that each partner brings to Epiphany. As an example, that approach has allowed us to collaboratively manage COVID-related challenges more safely and soundly. Likewise, our approach results in a resilient financial profile, which in turn allows us to weather the economic storm to be there for our patients and partners well into the future."

About Epiphany Dermatology

Epiphany Dermatology is a rapidly expanding dermatology company, driven by a passion to improve access to exceptional dermatologic care in a values-based manner. Through its partnership with leading dermatologists across 51 locations in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, Epiphany provides general dermatology, skin cancer care, Mohs surgery, cosmetic services, and additional dermatologic services. Epiphany raises the standard of dermatology care by making clinical excellence accessible to all patients, promptly and in a warm and inviting environment. Epiphany Dermatology is headquartered in Austin, Texas. For more details, please visit www.epiphanydermatology.com or call (512) 628-0465.

Ted Emmert

Chief Development Officer

Epiphany Dermatology

(512) 628-0465

[email protected]

Gheorghe Pusta

Chief Executive Officer

Epiphany Dermatology

(512) 628-0465

[email protected]

SOURCE CI Capital

Related Links

www.epiphanydermatology.com


HARTFORD, Conn.  Thousands of low-wage workers in Connecticut, from home health care aides and child care providers to cashiers and fast-food employees, will see their hourly wages rise to $12 beginning Tuesday.

The $1 increase in the states minimum wage will put an extra $40 into Marlie Meranvilles pocket each month.

The new hourly rate wont bring the 23-year-old Stamford woman much closer to her goal of moving out of her moms house and into her own apartment. But, she said, it will make paying her monthly bills a little less stressful, especially since her hours at Sbarro have been cut due to the pandemic.

Im trying to look for other jobs but right now; its hard, Meranville said.

For Brian Jessurun, who owns the Vanilla Bean Cafe and three other restaurants in northeastern Connecticut with his brother, Barry, the higher labor costs will add 50 cents to the price of hamburgers and other grilled items.

Restaurants are already facing a sharp downturn in customers due to the virus and the wage increase will cut into already slender profit margins, he said.

Its just math, Jessurun said. When you increase my cost of doing business, I have to pass that along. Its as simple as that.

Last year, the legislature approved a bill that would incrementally lift the states hourly minimum wage, from $10.10 to $15 on June 1, 2023. It reaches $12 on Tuesday.

When lawmakers debated the bill over the course of many hours in May 2019, supporters spoke of the ways a higher hourly wage would provide an important boost to those on the lower rungs of the income scale while opponents predicted it would hurt Connecticuts business climate.

But no one could have predicted that the second step of the increase would occur during a time of financial upheaval brought on by a global pandemic. Some business leaders have called on Gov. Ned Lamont to postpone the wage increase until the economy stabilizes.

Lamont rejected that idea. Gov. Lamonts support today for an increase to Connecticuts minimum wage is the same as it was when he signed it into law over a year ago, said Max Reiss, spokesman for the Democratic governor. An increase in wages  will provide additional support to so many of our front-line and essential workers who have been showing up for work every day throughout this pandemic.

Takara Gilbert of Hartford, an activist in the Fight for $15 movement, said the increase will help her afford little extras such as an occasional manicure.

It will help me save up a little more and afford some of those luxuries, said Gilbert, who is 21 and rents a bedroom in her fathers Hartford home. Some economists say low-wage workers tend to spend their increases, which act as a stimulus to help the overall economy.

Like many minimum wage employees, Gilbert has had her full-time hours at T.J. Maxx reduced to three days a week and is having a hard time finding more work. COVID has affected me tremendously, she said.

The pandemic has also hurt Jessurun and he fears what coming weeks will bring. Dog Lane Cafe, his familys fast-casual eatery in Storrs, relies heavily on customers from UConn. Before the pandemic, it served about 650 people daily; the number has dwindled to less than 100 now.

As my prices go up, my customers will fall away, he said. Like many small businesses, his restaurant group relied on federal aide through the Paycheck Protection Protection to stay afloat.

But the PPP money will run out, then its winter and the outdoor seating goes away and youre doing 50% capacity inside, Jessurun said. Your going to start seeing people go out of business dramatically by the end of the year.

George Norman, who helps manage his familys dairy farm in Griswold, said the increase will hurt small producers who already barely make a profit as it is. After feed for the animals, labor is the farms biggest expense.

Our economy is very complex and anyone who thinks they can stand back and make tweaks here and there and it wont have an impact is wrong, Norman said. All this stuff is interrelated.

Like restaurants and retailers, the child care industry employees a significant number of minimum wage workers. The increase will add pressure to providers who are already struggling with drastic cuts in enrollment due to the pandemic, said Merrill Gay, executive director of the Early Childhood Alliance.

Yes, it is an additional strain right now but it pales in comparison to the bigger problem that there are lots of child care slots that arent being filled right now, Gay said. Ive always been supportive of efforts to raise the wages of the folks who work in child care.

Gay said he knows of one child care worker who has spent decades in the field but still had to find a part-time job on weekends to make ends meet.

Some minimum wage workers said those who earn more cannot really fathom the challenges of making due on $11 or $12 an hour.

Its hard to live on that, especially in Stamford, said Meranville, who has worked at Sbarro off of I-95 in Darien for almost six years.

She doesnt have a car, so she relies on the bus to get to the fast-food restaurant. Sometimes, she uses her mothers car to earn extra money delivering groceries through Instacart or food through Door Dash.

The increase that takes effect Tuesday will help, she said. Every little bit helps.



Daniela Altimari of The Hartford Courant wrote this story.

2020 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.)

Visit The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) at www.courant.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
MOSCOW - Prominent Russian blogger Yegor Zhukov was beaten near his Moscow home late Sunday in the latest attack on a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin.

Zhukov was beaten on the head and face by two people waiting near his apartment who escaped on scooters.

The attack came weeks after opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned during a trip to Siberia, falling ill on an Aug. 20 flight, before being flown to Germany two days later for medical treatment. He is in a coma and expected to survive, although doctors have said the long-term effects are not yet clear.

It also comes amid a crackdown by authorities on activists, bloggers and journalists in recent weeks.

German doctors have confirmed that Navalny had symptoms of poisoning, likely by a cholinesterase inhibitor, examples of which include chemical nerve agents and pesticides. German tests have not identified the poison.

It is not the first attack on Zhukov. He reported an attempted assault near his home in late July, saying that he escaped without injury.

Zhukov's press secretary, Stanislav Toporkov, said Monday that Zhukov was examined at a hospital and allowed to return home, where he was recovering.

"Yegor is at home now with his parents. The MRI showed that he does not have any serious brain injuries or internal hemorrhaging. He's sleeping now after a rough night," Toporkov said.

Zhukov, a libertarian who frequently criticizes Putin, was arrested last year and jailed for a month, accused of helping direct a mass protest in Moscow on July 27, 2019, in support of opposition candidates barred from running for Moscow's city council. At the time, riot police arrested more than 1,300 protesters, some of whom were sentenced to four or five years.

But after video appeared to show a case of mistaken identity, police dropped the charges, before leveling a more serious charge of extremism related to his blog. He was given a suspended three-year sentence last year and prohibited from blogging, although he continues to do so.

Zhukov's persecution has only won him more followers. His YouTube channel now has 226,000 subscribers, compared to 100,000 a year ago, and more than 17 million views, making him a thorn in the Kremlin's side.

Police have opened a case investigating the crime, in contrast to the Navalny case.

"I have not suffered any property damage, but my face is broken and I feel very bad. I believe that the attackers attempted to cause serious harm to my health, for this purpose they inflicted multiple blows on my head, including after I fell to the ground," Zhukov's statement to police said, according to independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

Pro-Kremlin media played down the attack. A report in Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper said, "the attack itself looks more like hooliganism. The blogger's injuries are minor. He did not need hospitalization."

Putin's spokesman said there was no link between the attack on Zhukov and Navalny's situation.

"I wouldn't make any connections there. We don't know who beat up Zhukov, and we don't know why, but we do know that officers of law enforcement are conducting inquiries," Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. "We hope that those responsible [for the attack on Zhukov] will be identified and punished in accordance with the law."

The attack came hours after Zhukov posted a video on his YouTube channel reporting that he had been admitted to study for a master's degree at Moscow's prestigious Higher School of Economics, only to see his admission abruptly withdrawn just 90 minutes later.

In a statement, the institution admitted accepting Zhukov's payment for a master's degree in cinematography at the Art and Design School, but explained that the department was then closed and the money refunded.

In his video, Zhukov maintained it was "connected to politics" and said conditions had changed at the university after many students united last year in a campaign for his release from prison and acquittal, "and that frightened the authorities."

"As you understand, no professional political scientist with common sense would call the regime of Vladimir Putin effective and the situation in Russia today as desirable," he said in Sunday's YouTube broadcast. "An intelligent person can't help but see the existing disadvantages in Russia's political situation."

Zhukov won admiration for a powerful statement to the court in December calling on Russians to eschew fear and resist repression.

"I don't know if I will be free, but Russia will definitely be free," he said.

Russian analysts, opposition politicians and activists reacted to the Zhukov beating with anger and dismay, calling the attack political.

"A dirty dictatorship," tweeted Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "First, Yegor Zhukov was denied permission to study for a Master's Degree. Now he is beaten. Putin's regime is incorrigible and hopeless. Kremlin scoundrels," he tweeted.

Leonid Gozman, chairman of the opposition Union of Right Forces movement, linked Zhukov's attack to the Navalny situation.

"I am sure that the order to beat Yegor Zhukov was given by the same people who ordered the poisoning of Navalny. They also started a war against Ukraine, intimidate Belarus and plunder the country," he tweeted.

Lev Shlosberg, a Pskov regional lawmaker and opposition politician, blamed prosecutors' failure to investigate the attack on Navalny for creating an atmosphere of impunity.

"Two amoral monsters beat Yegor Zhukov. If the authorities do not initiate a case on the attempted murder of Alexei Navalny by some scum, then other scum will attack another person. Impunity corrupts," he said.

In a letter from prison in September 2019 that gained widespread attention, Zhukov wrote that Putin would eventually fall and Russia would one day be free.

"But that day will come, and just as suddenly and unexpectedly as the plainclothes officer who appeared at my door," he said referring to his arrest for protesting. "What we once thought was impossible will suddenly happen. And in retrospect, it will appear to have been inevitable."
The Constitutional Court of Ukraine adopted a decree according to which the case consideration on the Ukrainian 50 MPs' constitutional submission about the compliance with the Constitution of certain provisions of the law on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) will be held at the open part of the court's plenary session on September 10.

According to the Constitutional Court's secretariat, relevant decree No. 34-/2020 was adopted on 28 August.

"The Constitutional Court believes it necessary to consider this case with the participation of representatives of the subject of the right to a constitutional submission, the Verkhovna Rada, the President of Ukraine and with the involvement of the head of the Supreme Court, the head of the High Anti-Corruption Court, the Prosecutor General, the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, the head of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, the director of the State Bureau of Investigations, Acting Director of NABU," the court said.
The deputy has called for pulling Fokin from Ukraine's delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group.

People's Deputy with the ruling Servant of the People party Yehor Chernev has slammed criticism on Vitold Fokin, deputy chair of Ukraine's delegation at the Donbas settlement talks in Minsk, for his earlier backing of the idea to pardon enemy troops despite crimes committed in the warzone.

"There can be no pardon for militants who killed Ukrainian military," Chernev, who is also Chairman of the Ukrainian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, wrote on Facebook on August 31.

"There must not be a special status for the entire territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions," he stressed, pointing to the statement by Fokin, the first prime minister of Ukraine.

Read alsoUkraine's first PM stands for pardoning enemy troops in DonbasChernev reminded Fokin that "every meter of Ukrainian land in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which [Ukrainian forces] managed to defend, regain, and "gnaw out of the clutches" of Russian and pro-Russian mercenaries, is drenched in blood of Ukrainian soldiers."

And you, Mr. Fokin, have no right to decide on the fate of these territories and their inhabitants. People who actually surrender their national interests and openly play up to the enemy have no right to represent our country," he wrote. "Therefore, I demand that Fokin be pulled from the TCG! I ask my colleagues to support the call," Chernev stressed.

Fokin's infamous statement: background
Niagara reported two new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday and zero new cases on Sunday.

This follows only two cases reported Friday.

Dr. Mustafa Hirji, Niagaras acting medical officer of health, feels the numbers are setting us up pretty well as the region and province ready for children returning to schools.

I think overall after our numbers started to go up in late July they seem to have come back down and may be lower than most of June and July. So I think thats really good news, said Hirji.

The No. 1 thing that will keep children and staff safe at schools is if there are very few infections outside of the school.

Hirji cautioned there is always possibility there are unknown infections in the community.

If people are perhaps disregarding mild symptoms, they feel that with the numbers so low its unlikely that they have COVID and are not getting tested.

I want to remind people that if they have any kind of mild symptom, fever cough, even a runny nose, congestion, sore throat, nausea vomiting, anything like that its a good reason to get tested to be sure that you do not have COVID-19.

His other message is that as good as the numbers are looking right now all of this good news is very fragile.

Weve seen elsewhere like Toronto and Peel, they are seeing their numbers start to go up again, not by a lot but it has ticked up a bit.

In some countries around the world like Spain, Australia, they are in second waves of infection.

Even right here in Canada were experiencing a second wave of infection, added Hirji. In B.C. theyre seeing more cases per day then they were in March and April.

While he said its not his job to convince parents to send their kids back to school  its an individual decision by parents  the low numbers from the weekend position Niagara well for the return to school.

The health department is here to have the information available for them to make the right decision.

And for parents wanting some reassurance, first off we have seen schools reopening has been successful in other countries.

He said the consistent theme for all of those countries is that they had very few cases of COVID-19 in the community.

When children get COVID-19, they are most likely to get a mild infection. In that sense, there is relatively less risk for children.

I dont want to say that there is absolutely no risk, there is always a risk of getting, COVID-19. There are going to be children and teachers who get COVID-19, and were probably going to see some outbreaks, but I think with all the measures that have been put in place by the province, and by the school boards hopefully, well see few if any, and small, outbreaks.

Hirji said Niagara has 700 to 1,000 tests done per day, and its vital that anyone with symptoms, even if theyve been tested before, have it done again.

The critical time when someone should get tested is when they have symptoms of illness, the test at that point is very reliable, and it will give you a good answer then.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc said it has acquired slightly more than 5 percent of the shares in five large Japanese companies, marking a departure for Chairman Warren Buffett as he looks outside the United States to bolster his conglomerate.

In a statement on Sunday, Buffett's 90th birthday, Berkshire said it acquired its stakes in Itochu Corp, Marubeni Corp, Mitsubishi Corp, Mitsui & Co Ltd and Sumitomo Corp over approximately 12 months. Berkshire said it intends to hold the investments for the long term, and may boost its stakes to 9.9 percent. A Berkshire insurance business, National Indemnity Co, is holding the shares.

"I am delighted to have Berkshire Hathaway participate in the future of Japan," Buffett said in a statement. "The five major trading companies have many joint ventures throughout the world and are likely to have more... I hope that in the future there may be opportunities of mutual benefit."

Taken together, five 5 percent stakes were worth 655 billion yen ($6.21 billion) as of Friday's close, Reuters calculation showed based on Refinitiv data. On Monday, shares in the trading houses jumped as much as 11 percent in early Tokyo trade, outperforming a 1.5 percent rise in the broader TOPIX share price index.

Marubeni was the biggest gainer among the five, surging 12 percent. Sumitomo and Mitsubishi rose more than 10 percent and Mitsui rose 8.2 percent. Itochu - the only one of the four with a price-to-book ratio above 1 - rose 5.4 percent to a record high.

Shares of companies often rise when Berkshire discloses new investments, reflecting what investors view as Buffett's imprimatur. The Japanese trading companies in many ways appear to be a typical Buffett investment: four of them trade well below book value, meaning their market capitalizations were below their assets.

Several also have hefty amounts of cash on hand. Mitsubishi, for instance, has seen steady growth in its free cash flow per share over the last four years, Refinitiv data showed.

Further and in a likely attraction for Buffett - who famously avoids investing in companies he claims not to understand - the Japanese trading houses are deeply involved in the real economy: steel, shipping, commodities, and in some cases retail.

US DEPENDENCE

The Japanese investments will help Buffett reduce his Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate's dependence on the U.S. economy, which last quarter suffered its deepest contraction in at least 73 years as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

Many of Berkshire's own operating businesses have struggled, and Berkshire this month took a $9.8 billion writedown on its Precision Castparts aircraft parts business. Berkshire owns more than 90 businesses including the BNSF railroad and Geico car insurer outright.

It also invests in dozens of companies including Apple Inc, with a roughly $125 billion stake based on its holdings as of June 30, as well as American Express Co, Bank of America Corp and Coca-Cola Co.

"Since Buffett's portfolio is becoming heavily skewed to Apple, maybe he was looking for something complete the opposite of Apple," said Hiroki Takashi, chief strategist at Monex in Tokyo.

Most of Berkshire's operating businesses are American, though it has acquired a handful of foreign companies including Israel's IMC International Metalworking and German motorcycle apparel retailer Detlev Louis. Additional investments in Japan could also help Buffett reduce Berkshire's cash pile, which ended June at a record $146.6 billion.
India's gross domestic product (GDP) contracted 23.9 per cent in the first quarter of financial year 2020-21, lowest in 24 years, according to the government data released on Monday. This is the worst quarterly GDP numbers ever recorded since India started compiling GDP data on quarterly basis in 1996. The number announced by the government is in consonance with market expectations considering the economic disruption caused by coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown across the country, which began in the last week of March.

"GDP at Constant (2011-12) Prices in Q1 of 2020-21 is estimated at Rs 26.90 lakh crore, as against Rs 35.35 lakh crore in Q1 of 2019-20, showing a contraction of 23.9 percent as compared to 5.2 percent growth in Q1 2019-20," as per the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

The data showed manufacturing, construction and trade sectors reported massive slump of 39.3 per cent, 50.3 per cent, 47 per cent, respectively. The government expenditure, as represented by the public administration services, contracted by 10.3 per cent, while mining and electricity sector contracted by 23.3 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively.

Agriculture was the only sector that reported positive growth of 3.4 per cent on the back of good monsoon and robust kharif sowing and rabi production.

"Real GDP growth at minus 23.9 per cent in Q1 FY21 was much lower than what markets were expecting. The print indicates that the trough in the economy was much lower than expected and the pickup will likely be more elongated. Production side was pulled down by deep contraction in manufacturing, construction, and trade, hotel, transport sectors while the expenditure side was clearly pushed lower by heavy contraction both in consumption and investment," said Suvodeep Rakshit, Vice President & Senior Economist at Kotak Institutional Equities.

The NSO said that the GDP estimates are likely to undergo revisions due to challenges in collecting data of leading macro-economic indicators such as IIP and CPI.

Gross Value Added (GVA), a measure of the value of goods and services produced in a country, at basic price at constant (2011-12) prices stood at Rs 25.53 lakh crore in Q1 FY21, as against Rs 33.08 lakh crore in Q1 of FY20, showing a contraction of 22.8 per cent.

At current prices, the GDP was at Rs 38.08 lakh crore in Q1 FY21 compared to Rs 49.18 lakh crore in Q1 FY20, registering a contraction of 22.6 per cent as compared to 8.1 per cent growth in Q1 FY20. GVA at current prices stood at Rs 35.66 lakh crore during April-June quarter of current fiscal as compared to Rs 44.89 lakh crore in the year ago period, posting a contraction of 20.6 per cent.

Economists at State Bank of India (SBI) had predicted 16.5 per cent contraction in GDP in the first quarter, while CARE ratings had said the economy could shrink by 20.2 per cent. Similarly, Barclays was expecting the economy to contract by 25.5 per cent, while Goldman Sachs had warned that GDP might shrink about 45 per cent in the first quarter.

With a view to contain spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions were imposed on the economic activities not deemed essential, as also on the movement of people from 25 March, 2020. Though the restrictions have been gradually lifted, there has been an impact on the economic activities as well as on the data collection mechanisms, the NSO said.

The economy is set to enter a recessionary phase with some agencies even estimating contraction in subsequent quarters. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has pegged GDP growth for the current year to be 'negative', without giving any ballpark estimates due to the unpredictability of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the January-March quarter of the last fiscal, India's GDP grew at 3.1 per cent, lowest in 44 quarters, on account of the economic slowdown in pre-COVID-19 period. Overall growth for full financial year 2019-20 (FY20) slumped to 4.2 per cent - lowest since FY09 when GDP was 3.09 per cent - compared to 6.1 per cent in FY19.

Also Read: Which top economies have suffered worst GDP fall due to COVID-19?

Also Read: Q1 GDP data: Brace for worst quarterly economic growth since 1996
Two pilots and two crewmembers safely bailed out of a Navy E-2C Hawkeye aircraft before it crashed north of Norfolk, Virginia, during a Monday training flight.

The Hawkeye, a twin turboprop airborne early warning and command-and-control aircraft, crashed near Wallops Island at about 4:05 p.m., Navy officials announced Monday afternoon. There are no reports of injuries among the crew, who are being evaluated by medical personnel near the crash site, Cmdr. Jennifer Cragg, a spokeswoman for Naval Air Force Atlantic, said.

The aircraft is assigned to Airborne Command and Control Squadron 120 Fleet Replacement Squadron. It's based out of Naval Station Norfolk, about 100 miles southwest of the crash site.

Read next: Fort Bragg Investigating Army Officer for Crass Holocaust Joke on TikTok

Initial reports indicate no one on the ground was injured in the crash, and there are no known damages to buildings or other structures, according to Navy officials.

The cause of the crash is under investigation. It was not immediately known how high the aircraft was flying when the crew bailed out, Cragg said.

Hawkeye aircraft have the same basic airframe as the C-2 Greyhound cargo aircraft, but they're fitted with 24-foot rotating radars. The E-2C variant of the aircraft became operational in the early 1970s, and passed the 1 million flight-hour mark in 2004.

The aircraft have gone through several upgrades to sensors, engines and propellers.

This is at least the second military aircraft incident in Virginia this month. On Aug. 10, a Maryland-based Air Force UH-1N Huey made an emergency landing in Manassas after someone shot at it from the ground.

That incident left one crew member injured and remains under investigation.

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

Related: 1 Crew Member Hurt After Bullet Strikes Air Force Helicopter Over Virginia
More than 100 people have been charged with breaching quarantine or social distancing rules since WA started enforcing its emergency powers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Around half of the 106 charged to August 27 were convicted of failing to comply with a direction  40 received fines ranging from $300 to $8000, a woman who hid in a truck from Melbourne was jailed for six months, and two men served a month behind bars while a young woman from Adelaide who escaped hotel quarantine received a suspended jail term.

The maximum penalty for the offence is 12 months jail or a $50,000 fine.

Paul Lawrence has become the latest charged with breaching hotel quarantine.

The latest alleged quarantine breach is Perth man Paul Lawrence who arrived in WA from Brisbane on Friday night without an exemption to enter the state.
Nanotheranostics, integrating diagnostic and therapeutic functions by nanoplatform, exhibits a great potential in precision and personalized medicine, and also raises the requirement on multifunctional nanomaterials in pursuit of both good biocompatibility and high theranostic performances. The emergence of diverse multifunctional nanomaterials and advanced nanotechnologies unprecedentedly simulates the evolution of nanotheranostics, and enables the integration of multimodal imaging and therapeutic functions in a single theranostic nanoparticle for high-efficacy theranostics of diseases. In engineering of theranostic nanoplatforms, biocompatibility and multifunction are two most important factors which need to be considered. Among various nanotheranostics, multimodal imaging-guided photothermal therapy has attracted intensive attention owing to its less invasiveness and lower side effects compared with conventional radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

In a new article published in the Beijing-based National Science Review, scientists in Shenzhen University, China, hypothesize that controllable incorporation of biocompatible Se element into the lattice of Te nanostructures for construction of TeSex nano-alloys could intrinsically tune the inherent cytotoxicity of Te nanomaterials, enhance the biocompatibility of Te nanomaterials and extend their functions for biomedical applications. In this work, a series of TeSex nano-alloys with different Se incorporating proportions are synthesized to investigate their biocompatibility and develop their theranostic functions. It is determined that the toxicity of Te nanomaterials mainly comes from irreversible oxidation stress and intracellular imbalance of organization and energy, which is exterminated by the nano-alloying by incorporating a moderate proportion of Se (x=0.43). The synthesized TeSex nano-alloy exhibits extraordinarily high NIR-II-photothermal conversion efficiency (77.2%), 64Cu coordination and CT contrast capabilities, enabling high-efficacy photothermal therapy of cancer under the guidance of multimodal PT/PA/PET/CT imaging.

Several main advances are achieved. (1) Advanced TeSex nano-alloys are facilely constructed to intrinsically eliminate the inherent toxicity of Te nanomaterials by the moderate incorporation of biocompatible Se. (2) Advanced mechanisms for Te nanomaterial toxification and TeSex alloying detoxification are uncovered. (3) Advanced theranostic performances with ordinarily high NIR-II-photothermal efficiency and multimodal PT/PA/CT/PET imaging capability are achieved by proposed nano-alloying strategy.

###

This research received financial support from the National Natural Science

Foundation of China, Special Funds for the Development of Strategic Emerging Industries in Shenzhen, Shenzhen Basic Research Program, Shenzhen Peacock Plan, Educational Commission of Guangdong Province, Guangdong Special Support Program and Pengcheng Scholar Program, the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and the National Institutes of Health.

See the article:

Xiang Ling, Zhaokui Jin, Qi Jiang, Xiaotao Wang, Bin Wei, Zhongchang Wang, Yangsen Xu, Tianye Cao, Jonathan W Engle, Weibo Cai, Chenliang Su, Qianjun He

Engineering biocompatible TeSex nano-alloys as a versatile theranostic nanoplatform

Natl Sci Rev doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwaa156

https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwaa156

The National Science Review is the first comprehensive scholarly journal released in English in China that is aimed at linking the country's rapidly advancing community of scientists with the global frontiers of science and technology. The journal also aims to shine a worldwide spotlight on scientific research advances across China.
Libya's largest oilfield, Sharara, is stopping all operations, and the operator is evacuating the workers as a foreign employee had tested positive for the coronavirus after coming into contact with the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG), Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Monday.

Sharara has not produced oil since January, when forces affiliated with the Libyan National Army (LNA) of eastern Libyan strongman General Khalifa Haftar occupied Libya's oil export terminals and oilfields.

Early in June, NOC resumed production at the 300,000-bpd Sharara oilfield after negotiating the opening of an oilfield valve. Just a day later, however, Sharara shuttered again, after an armed force had told the workers in the field to stop working.

Sharara now stops all operations, including fuel supplies to the Obari power plant, NOC said today, expressing "its strong dissatisfaction with the continued militarization of its fields" after the commander of the southern region, Al-Mabrouk Sahban, entered the Sharara oilfield by force on Saturday.

"In a second instance of the PFG's disregard for measures to counter the coronavirus, on Sunday August 30, 2020, one of the foreign employees working in the field tested positive for the coronavirus as a result of his contact with members of the PFG. This is due to their permanent and uncontrolled presence in the field's workshop for the maintenance and repair of their vehicles," NOC said.

"The Akakus administration is evacuating the field and will completely stop all its operations, which will result in the suspension of fuel supplies to the Obari power plant, in addition to the potential theft and looting of the field," NOC's chairman Mustafa Sanalla said in a statement.

Libya's conflict continues, preventing oil production and exports from the African OPEC member. Last week, Haftar's forces rejected the ceasefire announced two days earlier by the UN-backed government of Libya and the east-based rival administration, dismissing the proposal for truce as a "marketing" stunt.

By Charles Kennedy For Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The Delhi government will begin from Tuesday the work to retrofit its buses with panic buttons, CCTV cameras and Global Positioning System (GPS), and hopes to complete the project by the end of the year, Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said Monday.

The upgradation of the fleet of around 5,500 old Delhi Transport Corporation and Cluster buses aims to provide a safe travel experience to passengers, especially women, he said.

The work will start from September 1 and pick up pace in the next three-four days. It will help strengthen our efforts to provide a safer travel to passengers, especially women, in public transport buses," he said.

The project was approved by the Delhi Cabinet in December last year, but the work was halted due to the coronavirus pandemic, a senior Transport Department official said.

Each bus will be fitted with three CCTV cameras and 10 panic buttons and GPS. The project is estimated to cost around Rs 150 crore," he said.

The GPS feature will enable the department to come up with an app-based live bus information system. The department is already working on a mobile app for contactless ticketing and the feature of tracking buses will be integrated into it, the officer said.

Once the entire system is put in place, information on buses  location, time of arrival etc.  will be displayed on the bus stops across the city, he said.

New standard and low floor buses being procured by the Transport Department come equipped with these features.

Under the project, there is a provision for a centralised command room to control and monitor the entire system through GPS locations of the buses and footage from CCTV cameras inside them.
The opening of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial on Sept. 17 has been over 20 years in the making, but it couldnt have come at a better time, according to Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, who led the effort to build the monument.

The new memorial honoring the legacy of the World War II supreme allied commander and Americas 34th president will aim to preserve a slice of American history, capping a summer in which protestors and Democrats have sought to tear down many symbols of our nations past.

Roberts, who chairs the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission, said in a recent interview with National Review that for visitors of the monument, I think theres a lot of contemplation that will spark in their minds with regards to the worry that people have about where our culture is headed and the times were in.

I hope that this memorial will make people more aware of Eisenhowers accomplishments and inspire a dialogue about what qualities constitute truly great leadership, he said, adding that he hopes the tribute will lead visitors to reflect on where wed be as a nation or world without one mans vision and leadership.

The monument, which has been in the works since 1999, was designed by architect Frank Gehry and is housed in a newly-created public park across from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The Memorial highlights Eisenhower from his humble childhood in Americas heartland, to his decisive role as Supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II and his two terms as President, an announcement reads.

The memorial features stone bas-relief imagines, inscription panels with words of notable Eisenhower addresses and three bronze statues of Eisenhower: One depicts him alongside 101st Airborne troops the day before the invasion of Normandy, another shows Eisenhower in the White House surrounded by civilian and military advisors, and a third depicts the former president in his boyhood.

Story continues

The entire park is surrounded by a stainless steel woven tapestry which illustrates the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc on the Normandy coastline, which Gehry said it meant to represent the memory of the monumental task that the brave Allied soldiers faced, staring up at those rocks as they landed on the beaches of France, and how difficult it must have been for them to scale those heights with the full force of the Nazi forces pushing against them.

Countless videos on social media prove that a determined mob can tear down a decades-old statue in a matter of minutes, but erecting monuments to our nations past takes the lengthy work of coalition building and compromise.

Its been a labor of love for me, Roberts said. Its been 20 years. Its very difficult to have any monument or any tribute to a person. You have to go through an awful lot of agencies of the federal government.

The Republican senator said he believes the memorial, and others like it, are important for their role in encouraging people to learn about history and for their ability to teach and remind the next generation about past events and people.

I call them the intersection of memory and history, he said. They not only commemorate our shared past, they also commemorate a countrys artistic and architectural heritage and I think that it really is a good way to have a monument in a time when many seek to really tear down many other tributes to our national history.

Roberts called the recent removal of monuments terribly counterproductive.

I realize and understand what the issues are but a memorial can really mean a time of reflection and to better understand what was going on at a particular important time in our history and then to reflect on that and move forward, have a dialogue, he said.

Though he added that in the case of Eisenhower, that his legacy is as a leader in a war that was universally considered more than appropriate.

Wed all be speaking German now if he wasnt successful, he said.

But statues of other great men have not been spared from the mob this summer, with statues of Ulysses S. Grant, Winston Churchill and even Frederick Douglass being vandalized.

The Eisenhower monument was originally set to open on May 8, the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, but was postponed to September due to the coronavirus pandemic. While the original event had an expected 1400 attendees, the September opening will be smaller and socially distant.

Its not the ceremony that we had planned for but it will be a very appropriate ceremony, he said. The monument will then be turned over to the National Park Service.

More from National Review
CARACAS, Venezuela - The Venezuelan government said Monday that it had pardoned more than 100 people, including dozens of political opponents who are in prison, have taken refuge in foreign embassies in Caracas or fled the country.

The move comes ahead of congressional elections set for Dec. 6 that the coalition led by U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido says it is boycotting because conditions for the vote are not fair.

The names listed in the pardon dont include prominent opposition leaders such as Leopoldo Lopez, who remains inside a foreign ambassadors residence in Caracas, or Julio Borges, a powerful opposition lawmaker who is in neighbouring Colombia.

Relatives of some people on the list who were detained in a Caracas-area prisons rushed to its gates following the governments announcement.

The Caracas-based prisoner rights group Foro Penal said 50 of those to be pardoned were what the opposition considers politically motivated. Roughly two dozen are lawmakers in the National Assembly.

Minister of Communications Jorge Rodriguez listed 110 people being pardoned, although the terms of the announced amnesty were not clear.

The governments intention is to deepen the process of reconciliation for national unity so that political issues are settled by peaceful means and by electoral means, Rodriguez said.

Maduros government framed the presidential decree as a goodwill gesture to boost participation in the upcoming election. It wasnt immediately clear whether jailed political actors would walk free and those seeking refuge in foreign embassies would step out the gates without fearing reprisals.

Geoff Ramsey, a Washington D.C.-based Venezuela researcher at the Washington Office on Latin America, said this is clearly the product of backdoor negotiations between the Maduro government and moderate sectors in the opposition, which dont include Guaido.

The fact they are openly negotiating in defiance of the U.S. government and Guaido shows that a growing part of Venezuelas opposition has become frustrated with Venezuelas political stalemate, he said.

Theyre more interested in pursuing incremental agreements rather than insisting that Maduro has to go before anything meaningful can be negotiated, Ramsey said. The big question is whether this will go beyond political prisoners to include things like free and fair elections.

Venezuela is gripped by an economic and political crisis that has sent more than 5 million fleeing in recent years, escaping scarcities of basic goods and soaring inflation that has left many struggling in poverty.

Guaido for over a year has led a campaign backed by the United States and dozens of other countries to oust Maduro, who remains in power with backing from the military and international allies like Russia, China, Cuba, Turkey and Iran.

The announcement of the pardons came days after authorities released on house arrest lawmaker Juan Requesens, who was jailed for two years and accused of taking part in a failed attempt to attack President Nicolas Maduro with two drones that exploded during an outdoor military ceremony.

Among the lawmakers listed in Maduros pardon decree is Freddy Guevara, who has lived in the Chilean ambassadors residence in Caracas for nearly three years.

Two jailed lawmakers in the list are Renzo Prieto and Gilber Caro, while Jose Guerra, Tomas Guanipa, Mariela Magallanes and Americo de Grazia live outside of Venezuela, leaving under the threat of being arrested on accusations they want to overthrow Maduro.

Maduro is not our president and I am no criminal, De Grazia, who lives in Italy, said on Twitter, addressing Maduro. If you wish to contribute to Venezuelas peace, pardon the country from this autocracy.

However, Leocenis Garcia, a congressional candidate campaigning for a seat in the National Assembly in the upcoming elections, said he believes that Maduros government doesnt have a chance to come out on top -- especially if theres a groundswell of participation from opposition parties.

Garcia leads ProCitizens, a small political party that is opposed to Maduro but not part of the opposition coalition led by Guaido and Guaidos mentor Leopoldo Lopez.

I agree that we need as much participation as possible from our political parties, Garcia said. The path of violence that the Popular Will Party of Leopoldo Lopez sold to Washington is over, and now we have an electoral path, which is gaining strength.

___

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Yves here. While you were busy withfill in the blank.coping with Covid, the Democratic/Republican convention theater, US protests, watching the Brexit paint dry.the never-very-friendly relationship between Greece and Turkey has been getting worse.

By Michael Leigh, Academic Director of the Masters in European Public Policy programme at Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy and a senior adviser on public policy and government affairs at Covington, Brussels. Originally published at Bruegel

The European Union is seeking to mediate in a naval confrontation on its doorstep, in the Eastern Mediterranean, which involves NATO partners Greece and Turkey, as well as EU member Cyprus. EU foreign ministers are discussing the issue and, without de-escalation, sanctions against Turkey could be implemented. But so far, the two most powerful EU nations have adopted a good cop, bad cop approach that conveys different and confusing messages  and has not prevented escalation. Chancellor Angela Merkel, with the added authority of holding the EUs six-month revolving presidency, has launched a German initiative to prevent escalation, reduce tensions and overcome longstanding conflicts. But French President Emmanuel Macron, while not eschewing mediation, has opted for a show of force, sending French naval vessels into disputed waters to counter the presence of Turkish warships.

Deep-Rooted Dispute

The dispute is ostensibly over ownership of offshore gas deposits and the delimitation of 200-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs).

Turkey has sent exploration vessels and warships into waters claimed by Greece and Cyprus and begun drilling for gas. Despite its 1,600 kilometre Mediterranean coastline, Turkey is the only Eastern Mediterranean state without internationally recognised rights to offshore resources in the area because nearby Greek islands and Cyprus have secured the right to generate EEZs under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Turkey is one of fifteen UN members that is not a party to UNCLOS, and Ankara insists that Turkeys continental shelf gives it ownership rights that take priority over the UNCLOS-backed claims of Cyprus and Greece.

But the dispute also reflects deep-rooted rivalries. Greece and Turkey are at loggerheads over the division of Cyprus and rival maritime claims in the Aegean. Ankara asserts the right of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey, to a share of offshore gas resources. The government of the Republic of Cyprus accepts in principle the rights of Turkish Cypriots to a stake in the countrys energy resources, but this commitment has yet to be tested as Cyprus is still seeking investors to fund the infrastructure to bring deep-water Cypriot gas to market.

Differences over offshore gas have also been exacerbated by the Libya conflict, with Greece and Turkey supporting opposing sides. Turkey concluded a delimitation agreement with Libya in 2019, which sweeps aside Cypriot and Greek claims. Greece responded in August by inking a partial maritime delimitation agreement with Egypt which is incompatible with Turkish claims. Greek and Turkish vessels collided at sea in mid-August and there is a risk of further clashes. In January, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority set up the Eastern Mediterranean Energy Forum, which Ankara views as threatening Turkish interests.

Mixed Messages

The EU has called for the sovereign rights of its members Cyprus and Greece to be respected. But the different approaches taken by France and Germany could undermine the EUs mediation effort. Ms Merkel wants the union to act with its trademark soft power to reduce tensions. She also wishes to preserve cooperation with Turkey on migration and is sensitive to feelings among the population of Turkish origin in Germany.

Mr Macron considers that a display of hard power will deter Mr Erdogan from military threats. His accusation that President Erdogan is pursuing an expansionist policy, mixing nationalism and Islamism, which is incompatible with European interests and is a factor for destabilisationwas not calculated to draw Turkeys president into talks. In addition, France, Greece, Cyprus and Italy have launched a joint aeronautical exercise south of Cyprus, while Greece has undertaken air force exercises with the United Arab Emirates in Crete.

Greek government sources, meanwhile, have questioned whether Turkey is a fitting negotiating partner. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in late August that Greece would extend its territorial waters from six to twelve miles in the Ionian Sea, bordering Albania and Italy, and that, in future, a similar step could be taken in other areas. Turkish leaders have reminded Greece that in 1995 the Turkish Grand National Assembly declared that if Greece unilaterally extended its territorial waters it would be a casus belli for Ankara.

The EUs main interest in the Eastern Mediterranean is conflict prevention rather than energy security. While the dispatch of French naval vessels to the eastern Mediterranean, joint air force exercises and the implicit threat of sanctions may concentrate minds in Ankara, they are more likely to play into Mr. Erdogans anti-EU narrative. In any event, Mr Erdogan knows there is unlikely to be a consensus in the EU for economically significant sanctions. A tough line on Turkeys maritime rights, dubbed its Blue Homeland, is widely shared by political parties in Turkey.

Turkey is also an important partner for the EU on trade, counter-terrorism and migration. The 2016 joint initiative to stem illegal migration through Turkey to the EU is the most palpable example of such cooperation. The EU is vocal in calling for the respect of the rule-of-law in Turkey but, at the same time, needs to engage with Ankara in areas of mutual interest.

Energy Prospects

The gas discovered so far off Cyprus and Israel is of considerable value to the countries themselves, but insignificant in terms of international energy markets. The attractive notion of a pipeline from the region to Europe, agreed in principle by the governments of Cyprus, Greece and Israel, faces technical and financial obstacles and will not be happen unless considerable additional quantities are discovered. Meanwhile, Cyprus has ordered a floating regasification and storage plant to enable it to import liquified natural gas, while its own gas remains stranded because of lacking infrastructure. Greece has made no commercially significant offshore gas discoveries to date.

Turkeys recent discovery of large gas deposits in the Black Sea may be a game changer. The Black Sea discoveries, of still undetermined extent, could curb Turkeys eagerness to gain access to Eastern Mediterranean gas and give it a stake in regional energy markets as a supplier. This could open a window for negotiations with Greece, by shifting attention in Ankara to more promising energy prospects for Turkey. But mediation will only stand a chance if there are convincing incentives for both parties. For example, the EU could double down on its rejection of any resort to force by Turkey and, at the same time, press for Turkish participation in the Eastern Mediterranean Energy Forum. Chancellor Merkels preference for mediation, in liaison with the High Representative, could lead ultimately to bilateral negotiations between Turkey and Greece and compromises on their conflicting claims.

Economic Implications

The EU has economic as well as geopolitical interests at stake in relation to energy exploration and production in the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean. Mr. Erdogan expects that gas from the Black Sea could come on stream by 2023, though 2025 seems more realistic. Black Sea gas from Turkey could be exported to Europe, through the Southern Gas Corridor, especially to Balkan countries, which currently depend on Russian gas. Italy, too, could receive gas from the Black Sea, as the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the last link in the southern corridor, is due to become operational by the end of the year.

Major energy companies, including Italys ENI and its French partner TOTAL, have been prevented from exploring for gas in disputed areas by the presence of naval vessels. De-escalation and negotiations would enable them to resume exploration. New discoveries would help Cyprus attract investors to build the pipelines required to bring its gas to market.

A revival of tourism, if the Eastern Mediterranean is no longer perceived as a conflict zone, would contribute to the recoveries of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey from the coronavirus-induced downturn. Conflict-resolution would bring reputational gains to Turkey, where the business climate suffers from weaknesses in the rule of law. This would raise the countrys ratings and improve conditions for European investment and banking in Turkey.

Greece and Turkey both profess a willingness to engage in negotiations, albeit on different terms. If Chancellor Merkel and High Representative Borrell succeed in bringing this about though mediation, there will be gains for all concerned.
With millions of Americans unemployed, rising college seniors face the worst job market in modern history while racking up more student debt than ever before.

Two-thirds of college students  roughly 13.3 million undergraduates  said the coronavirus crisis has changed how they feel about their financial future, according to WalletHub's recent 2020 College Student Financial survey.

"Students aren't getting the same bang for their  or their parents'  buck on tuition right now, and nearly 7 in 10 students believe the pandemic will make it harder for them to get a job," said Jill Gonzalez, an analyst at the personal finance site.

More from Your Money Mindset:

Many invested stimulus money. What to know before you do

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Even before the pandemic, young adults were increasingly dependent on their parents. About 6 in 10 parents with children between the ages of 18 and 29 said they have given their kids at least some financial help in the past year  primarily for recurring expenses such as tuition, rent, groceries or bills, according to the Pew Research Center.

WalletHub's survey of 300 college students in early August found that more than 2 in 5  roughly 6.4 million  said they now get help from their parents with their credit card tab.

In 1980, about a third of young adults were financially independent by age 22 or even younger, according to a Pew analysis of Census Bureau data. By 2018, that number dropped to just a quarter.

The difference can be attributed, in part, to overwhelming student debt, which has become one of the major obstacles to financial independence for this generation.
New Delhi, Aug 31 : Parveen Babi truly lived life king-sized, redefining the manner in which actresses portrayed themselves on the big screen, being cast in over 50 films with every Bollywood A-lister worth the name, appearing on the cover of TIME magazine and recovering from two mental breakdowns but in the end, dying a lonely death - sadly, just a name for the present day Hindi film industry and cine-goers alike.

"With characters like Anita from 'Deewar', Parveen changed the kind of roles our leading ladies played on screen. Anita had both sexual and economic autonomy. Parveen was also instrumental in changing how our actresses look on screen," says her biographer, Karishma Upadhyay, of her book "Parveen - A Life" (Hachette) that should serve as a reminder for the present generation of an actress who attempted to live life on her own terms but lost out in the end.

"My biggest hope with this book is that it helps people understand that it's possible for someone to be young, successful and living a seemingly perfect life, yet suffer from mental illness. Also, that this illness doesn't always look like what Hindi films have told us. It is possible for someone to look 'perfect' and still be suffering within," Upadhyay told IANS in an interview.

"It was absolutely exhilarating to research this book. It took me three years to write this book but it was all worth it in the end because I believe I have a book that really captures her life. But it's also tinged with a streak of sadness because one can't help but wonder, 'What if Parveen had gotten the medical help she so clearly needed?' It's sad to see that the stigma against mental illness that existed in the 70s and 80s while Parveen was in the industry continues even today," added Upadhyay, a film journalist considered an expert on Bollywood and who has led editorial teams at several prominent media houses.

Born on April 4, 1949 in the princely state of Junagarh in the present day Gujarat, where her father, Vali Mohammed Khan Babi, was one of the Nawab's administrators, Parveen's life as presented by Upadhyay, comes across in four major phases.

The first was in Ahmedabad, where she was sent for her undergraduate studies and where she was in total control to the extent that the calling off her engagement - that her mother had insisted on to maintain "respectability" -- didn't matter a whit.

The second was the shift to Bombay (now Mumbai), initially as a fashion designer and a model, her entry into the Hindi film industry and, most importantly, her three involvements beginning with the rather platonic one with the up-and-coming Danny Denzongpa. She then goes on to disrupt two marriages -- that of Kabir Bedi and Mahesh Bhatt -- and almost wrecks Danny's relationship with rising starlet Kim Yashpal.

The relationship with Bedi ended after she travelled with him to Italy in the wake of his success with the TV serial "Sandokan" and realised that he was the bigger star of the two and was receiving the kind of adulation that she had never received in Bombay.

With Bhatt, it seemed more a clash of personalities and the first breakdown happened when neither of these two relationships worked out.

The second breakdown apparently happened after "Arth" - the jury is divided on this -- Bhatt's semi-autobiographical film that laid bare her relationship with the filmmaker.

The third phase centred around Amitabh Bachchan - but was it a case of unrequited love as this was one marriage she couldn't disrupt? Why was she so paranoid about Bachchan? Upadhyay explains it thus in the book: "When she began working with Amitabh Bachchan as a co-star, what had started off as a desire and then an obsession to match his 'perfection' as an actor had, at some point, evolved into something far beyond that. The few who knew Parveen well at this juncture of her life believe that the nature of her obsession began changing only when she assumed her co-actor was reciprocating her feelings and she wasn't merely imagining his overtures.

There was another thought playing at the back of her mind: being seen as 'Amitabh's woman' would, she felt, empower her in the eyes of the industry, in addition to helping her in her pursuit of perfection as an actor. The bonus, of course, would be to bask in his love and occupy the centre of his world." But that wasn't to happen.

So, who was the bigger disrupter? Bhatt or Bachchan, even though the latter is generally cast as the villain of the piece? "What had triggered the actress's breakdown? Who was responsible for pushing her over the edge? Both the industry and the media were looking for a scapegoat. Depending on whom one interacted with at the time, it was either Amitabh Bachchan's fault or Mahesh Bhatt's," Upadhyay writes in the book.

She, however, hedged her bets in the interview. "Different people have formed different opinions after reading the book. From what I have learned about Parveen's life, the biggest disrupter/villain in her life was her mental illness," Upadhyay maintained -- leaving the question dangling.

The final phase of Parveen's life, was her twilight years where she accused everyone from Bachchan, to Bill Clinton, to the KGB et al of trying to kill her - and even accused Sanjay Dutt in the 1993 Mumbai blasts but refused to appear in court to substantiate the charges.

Did the dichotomy between Parveen's public and private life, as Upadhyay writes in the book, persist throughout her life and was she unable to cope up with this pressure? "Being a celebrity comes with the pressures of having to look perfect and act with perfect composure all the time. It couldn't have been easy for Parveen to maintain these standards she had set for herself and that were expected from her as a public figure, while her mind was unravelling," Upadhyay said.

Pressed further as to whether this was a breakdown or living in a state of delusion, Upadhyay conceded: "I am not a psychiatrist and hence not qualified to pass judgment on anyone. From what medical professionals have told me while writing this book though, it seems to have been a combination of delusions and paranoia." "When a person is going through a breakdown, it's possible for them to believe that everyone is out to get them. This is how it was with Parveen as well. She believed that there were people conspiring to kill her," she said.

Be that as it may, the circumstances of Parveen's death -- the date's been recorded as January 20, 2005 -- were tragic.

She had been found dead two days earlier after the secretary of her residential society alerted the police that she had not collected milk and newspapers from her doorstep for three days. The police suspected that she may have been dead for up to 72 hours before her body was found. An autopsy concluded that she had not consumed anything for more than three days and starved to death, ruling that she succumbed to total organ failure and the diabetes she had contracted in her later life.

"It was a quiet end to a stormy life. The one constant was her loneliness. It defined her childhood, her desperate need for companionship in her prime and her last days in virtual isolation. Parveen was alone - in life and in death," is how Upadhyay concludes the book.

(Vishnu Makhijani can be reached at vishnu.makhijani@ians.in)
The Inspector General (IG) of Police, Konkan Range, on Sunday (August 30) dismissed three policemen in connection with the Palghar mob lynching case in which two ssadhus were killed.

The dismissed police personnel were identified as assistant police inspector Anandrao Kale, assistant sub inspector Ravi Salunke and head constable Naresh Dhodi. it is to be noted that Kale was was in-charge of Kasa Police Station in Palghar, Maharashtra, when the incident took place on April 16 in Gadchinchale village in Kasa area. These three policemen, along with five other cops, were suspended few days after the incident.

It is to be noted that CID is currently probing this matter and 150 people have been arrested so far for their alleged involvement in this case. The CID has filed 2 chargesheets in this case.

On August 11, a local court had granted default bail to 28 accused in this case as no chargesheet was filed against them within the specified 90 days.

The 28 accused were arrested as part of the first two FIRs relating to murder and attempt to murder filed in the case. However, of this group, only 10 will get bail while the remaining 18 will be taken into custody again as their names figure in the third chargesheet, filed on August 3 before the Dahanu court, relating to obstructing police, rioting and attempt to murder filed against 47 accused.

On the night of April 16, Sadhus Kalpavruksha Giri (70) and his assistant Sushilgiri Maharaj (35) and their driver Nilesh Telgade (30) were killed while en route from Mumbai to Surat for a funeral during the lockdown. Taking them as robbers or kidnappers, a huge mob of tribals and villagers attacked them with stones, sticks, and sickles and the trio later succumbed to the grievous injuries, sparking off a nationwide furore.
Indias former president and Congress veteran Pranab Mukherjee died on Monday at a Delhi hospital. He was 84.

Various senior leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind, remembered Mukherjee and expressed their condolences to his family.

Here is who said what on the passing:

Was blessed to have his guidance, says PM Modi

India grieves the passing away of Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society.

During his political career that spanned decades, Shri Pranab Mukherjee made long-lasting contributions in key economic and strategic ministries. He was an outstanding Parliamentarian, always well-prepared, extremely articulate as well as witty.

As Indias President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee made Rashtrapati Bhavan even more accessible to common citizens. He made the Presidents house a centre of learning, innovation, culture, science and literature. His wise counsel on key policy matters will never be forgotten by me.

I was new to Delhi in 2014. From Day 1, I was blessed to have the guidance, support and blessings of Shri Pranab Mukherjee. I will always cherish my interactions with him. Condolences to his family, friends, admirers and supporters across India. Om Shanti.

His demise is passing of an era, says President Ram Nath Kovind

Sad to hear that former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee is no more. His demise is passing of an era. A colossus in public life, he served Mother India with the spirit of a sage. The nation mourns losing one of its worthiest sons. Condolences to his family, friends and all citizens.

Endowed with perspicacity and wisdom, Bharat Ratna Shri Mukherjee combined tradition and modernity. In his 5 decade long illustrious public life, he remained rooted to the ground irrespective of the exalted offices he held. He endeared himself to people across political spectrum.

As the First Citizen, he continued to connect with everyone, bringing Rashtrapati Bhavan closer to the people. He opened its gates for public visit. His decision to discontinue the use of the honorific His Excellency was historic.

His demise left a huge void in Indian polity, says union home minister Amit shah

Deeply anguished on the passing away of former President of India, Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee ji. He was a vastly experienced leader who served the nation with utmost devotion. Pranab das distinguished career is a matter of great pride for the entire country.

Pranab Das life will always be cherished for his impeccable service and indelible contribution to our motherland. His demise has left a huge void in Indian polity. My sincerest condolences are with his family and followers on this irreparable loss. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.

My deepest condolences to the bereaved family and friends, says Rahul Gandhi

With great sadness, the nation receives the news of the unfortunate demise of our former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee. I join the country in paying homage to him. My deepest condolences to the bereaved family and friends.

God give courage to his family and loved ones to bear this sorrow, tweets Delhi CM Kejriwal

Sad news of former President Shri Pranab Mukherjees death was received. God place the departed soul at your feet and give courage to his family and loved ones to bear this sorrow.

Deeply mourn the sad demise of Bharat Ratna Pranab Babu, says Ravi Shankar Prasad

Deeply mourn the sad demise of Bharat Ratna Pranab Babu- former President of India and a true statesman. Left his imprint on governance, polity and Parliament. I was fortunate to get his guidance and also affection.

May his soul Rest In Peace.

Country lost one of its finest sons, says environment minister Prakash Javadekar

Today the country has lost one of its finest sons Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee.

On one of the occasions when Pranab Da was the Chief Guest for the Teachers Day ceremony in Vigyan Bhawan, I gave him a slate as a gift and he liked it very much.

A writer and a man loved by all, says Sri Lankas Mahinda Rajapaksa

I am saddened to hear of the passing of the Fmr. Indian President, Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He was a statesmen par excellence, a writer and a man loved by all. The passion with which he served his nation is unparalleled. My deepest condolences to his family and friends.

Visit to Delhi without Pranabda is unimaginable, says West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee

It is with deep sorrow I write this. Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee has left us. An era has ended. For decades he was a father figure. From my first win as MP, to being my senior Cabinet colleague, to his becoming President while I was CM, so many memories. A visit to Delhi without Pranabda is unimaginable. He is a legend in all subjects from politics to economics. Will be forever grateful. Shall miss him immensely. My condolences to Abhijit and Sharmistha.

Our country has lost one of its greatest leaders, says former prime minister Manmohan Singh

I have learnt with profound sorrow about the passing away of Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Former President of India. In his death, our country has lost one of its greatest leaders of Independent India. He and I worked very closely in the Government of India and I depended on him a great deal for his wisdom, vast knowledge and experience of public affairs.

I wish to convey to all members of his family, my deepest condolences on this sad occasion.
As the much-anticipated return of schools occurs, it is with great anxiety I write this. As a post-primary teacher, I have been away from the classroom for close to six months at this stage.

I am very eager to return. I want to be back doing the job I love. Teaching from home and via Teams, Edmodo, and Zoom are not the same. Every colleague I talk to agrees with this. We ALL want to be back.

There is just one problem, Covid-19. For months we have been told we would return in September and that a comprehensive plan would be put in place by the Government to ensure we go back in the safest possible fashion. I heard our Taoiseach say several times that teachers, principals, and management have been working hard and are ready to go back. A much-highlighted visit to a school in his home county appears to have set his mind at ease. The schools are all ready and they will be going back, by hook or by crook. When you scratch at the surface with even a blunt pencil, it is clear that there are flaws to the plan.

Confusion. The bible for schools returning is the Roadmap for full return to schools published by the Department of Education and Skills on July 26 and updated on August 5. In the updated version it says regarding face masks: Older students should not be requested to wear a facial covering but those who may wish to wear a facial covering where physical distancing is difficult to maintain should not be discouraged.

This contravenes the advice of the HSE and World Health Organisation. This was acknowledged in a press release on August 7 when the advice is: It is now recommended that teachers and secondary school students wear face coverings, similar to those worn in shops or on public transport, when a physical distance of 2m cannot be maintained."

Taoiseach Micheal Martin (right) during a visit to St.Fiachra's Senior National Catholic School in Beaumont, Dublin, with Minister for Education Norma Foley and Kieran Creaner, Principal of Scoil Fiachra National School, where he was given a tour of the school and a briefing on the work undertaken to prepare the school for reopening. Picture: Julien Behal/PA Wire

Yet the roadmap remained unchanged and this conflicting information remained on the department's website. In my own ETB as part of the return to school induction, twice the presentation said there is no evidence face masks stop the spread and that they are not necessary. This is a perfect example of the poor communication that exists from the department and confusion reigns as a result.

We all know that large gatherings should be avoided. Does a group of 30 students in a poorly ventilated room not count as a large gathering? We cannot change decades of underfunding in the education system in the next few weeks, but surely six months out of the schools would have led to a plan being put into place to even attempt to gain 2m distancing in classrooms.

Unfortunately, jockeying for ministerial jobs, sniping between our governmental parties, and scandal after scandal has led to the most important people in our society being neglected.

There are too many different aspects of the return to school that cause concern to mention. The availability of teachers has been dramatically hindered by eight years of pay inequality in our profession. Two weeks ago thousands of young teachers returned to the Middle East when we face a massive supply issue in our own country.

For 10 years successive governments have been told, equal pay for equal work will solve this issue. That was ignored; the result being that in the time of most need for reduced class sizes and teacher numbers we cannot call for backup.

The 2,000 extra teachers mentioned by our Education Minister to help cover the gap is a fairytale, a grim fairytale, one Wilhelm Grimm would be proud of. Minister Foley, the week before school returned how many of the 2,000 teachers had come back to the profession?

Taoiseach Micheal Martin (left) during a visit to St.Fiachra's Senior National Catholic School in Beaumont, Dublin, with Minister for Education Norma Foley, Sean Haughey and Kieran Creaner Principal of Scoil Fiachra National School, where he was given a tour of the school and a briefing on the work undertaken to prepare the school for reopening. Picture: Julien Behal/PA Wire

The Tanaiste said a few weeks ago that there will inevitably be outbreaks in schools. Unfortunately, he did not continue to say what should happen in the event of an outbreak? If a student tests positive will all the students in that class be tested? Will the up to nine teachers that taught that student that day be tested? Will they be told that a student has tested positive? Will the parents of the students in close proximity to that student be told? Will they then be able to take the precaution of isolating at home and protecting their vulnerable family? Will all the up to 270 students that come into contact with a teacher throughout the day be told that they have been in contact with a person positive for Covid-19? Will they have to isolate? Will they be tested?

A lot of the answers to the above questions could be dismissed by saying they will not if social distancing is done properly. The problem is, in most cases, there will not be 2m between students or between students and their teacher. In a large number of cases, there will not be 1m between students and students and their teacher.

Parents, students, and teachers have been waiting six months to go back to school. We really want to go back. The social and educational needs of our students are at stake. Everyone wants to go back. For six months we have waited, the plan is not fair, it is not clear, and it is not safe. We do not want any wholehearted or fulsome apology in six months. Mark twice, cut once  solve the problems before we go back.

Anthony Dowling is a secondary school teacher in Dublin
Two seers and their driver were lynched by a mob in Palghar on 16 April, when they were travelling to attend a funeral amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown

Palghar: Three police personnel have been dismissed from service in connection with the Palghar mob lynching case in Maharashtra, a senior official said on Sunday.

These police personnel include assistant police inspector Anandrao Kale, who was in-charge of Kasa Police Station in Palghar when the incident took place on 16 April, the official said.

Two others are assistant sub-inspector Ravi Salunke and constable Naresh Dhodi, he said.

"The Inspector General (IG) of Police, Konkan Range dismissed the trio from service through an order issued on Saturday," the official added.

These three police personnel, along with their five other colleagues, had been placed under suspension following the incident, he said.

Two seers and their driver were lynched by a mob at Gadchinchale village in Palghar on 16 April when they were travelling in a car to Surat (Gujarat) to attend a funeral amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

The victims were identified by the police as Chikne Maharaj Kalpavrukshagiri (70), Sushil Giri Maharaj (35) and their driver Nilesh Telgade (30).

The brutal mob attack took place amid rumours that child-lifters were roaming in the area.

As many as 154 people have been arrested and 11 juveniles detained in connection with the incident. The accused in the case were charged with murder, armed rioting and using criminal force to prevent a public servant from doing his duty, among other offences, police said.

The case was later handed over to the Maharashtra Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for the probe. It has filed three charge sheets in the case.

After the incident caused an uproar, the state government had suspended Kale, under whose jurisdiction the crime took place, and seven other policemen. Besides, over 35 police constables and personnel of other ranks were transferred in the wake of the mob attack.

The government had also sent the then Palghar district police chief, Gaurav Singh, on forced leave.
(Newser)  Martin Gugino says he can't remember the incident that landed him in the hospital with a fractured skull and a brain injurybut it was definitely a turning point in his life. The 75-year-old activist, who spent a month in the hospital after being shoved by police at a protest in Buffalo in early June, tells USA Today that he can't recall being pushed or what he said to police, but he does remember this: being alarmed when police in riot gear started moving toward George Floyd protesters. "I thought, 'Why are they carrying batons?'" he says. "I thought, 'Oh my God' and thats all I can remember." He says he had intense nightmares during the time in the hospital. "Every time youd sit up, you would get dizzy," he says. It was like you were on a boat all the time."

story continues below

The two officers involved were charged with assault and are currently suspended with pay. Gugino says the incident has not turned him against the police, and he is unfazed by attacks from peopleincluding President Trumpwho suggested the incident was a "set up." "I was like 'Go ahead, take your best shot,'" he says. Gugino says he plans to continue his First Amendment activism. He says the government should listen more closely to the concerns of protestersbut he has hope for the country's future. "People are going to get together and start complaining, and realizing how theyre being treated. Are you going to invite them in? Are you going to understand what theyre up to?" he says. "Thats what democracy does. Thats the difference between Mao Zedong and George Washington." (Read more Buffalo stories.)
Making kids laugh can go a long way. Credit: Shutterstock

Most of us can remember a favorite teacher. Some of us can also remember a teacher we didn't get on with or with whom we always seemed to get in trouble.

Relationships between students and teachers at school are important. They predict students' motivation, performance, and expectations of future relationships.

We interviewed 96 students from a range of schools in Years 3 to 9. We wanted to find out who students remember as their favorite and least favorite teachers. We also wanted to find out what made those relationships positive or negative.

In our study, published in the journal School Psychology Review, all students described similar factors that made them like their teacherscare, kindness and humor.

What we wanted to find

Past research shows students with disruptive behavior are more likely to experience negative relationships with their teachers than their less disruptive peers. Teachers often rate relationships with such students to be low in closeness and high in conflict.

But these relationships aren't always negative. Even self-described troublemakers and class clowns often remember a specific teacher who stood up for them, who took them under their wing, or who changed their perceptions of school for the better.

The first group we interviewed consisted of 54 students who had a history of disruptive behavior, such as acting out in class or being frequently suspended. Around half were in a special behavior school for disruptive behavior, and the remainder attended a mainstream school.

The second group consisted of 42 students with no history of disruptive behavior. They were often high achieving (such as school prefects or A-students), and all attended a mainstream school.

We were particularly interested in the "magic ingredients" that would support positive student-teacher relationships, even for disruptive students. We also wanted to determine if there were "contaminating ingredients" that could sour these relationships, even for exemplary students.

Who is your favorite teacher?

We first asked students if they could remember any teachers they'd had a really good relationship with. If the student replied yes, we then asked what made the relationship good.

The reasons students liked teachers were almost identical across groups. Even highly disruptive students bonded with teachers who were caring, kind and funny.

One 13-year-old with disruptive behavior (in a special school) said of their favorite teacher:

"Every time I'd go there without food  Miss H always used to buy me lunch, let me go on excursions.  I was never allowed to go on an excursion [before] because of my ADHD."

A 15-year-old with disruptive behavior (also in a special school) said of their favorite teacher:

"Mr M, he's just hilarious. He's the funniest man on earth. He's always saying this weird stuff [] walking around with this big puffy jacket, like some kind of Russian guard [] pretending his pencil is a cigar [] we just laugh."

These answers show how important it is for teachers to separate student disciplinary matters from relationship matters.

Around 16% of students highlighted teacher helpfulness, while 10% highlighted effective teaching, as a key advantage of their favorite teachers.

One 12-year-old without disruptive behavior said about their favorite teacher:

"She gave me and some of the other smart kids harder work. [I liked that] because it challenges me."

What causes conflicts?

We next asked students if they could remember any teachers they really didn't get on with or clashed with. If a student replied yes, we asked what sort of things would bring that on.

While not all students could remember a teacher they clashed with, a large proportion of each group could.

Students in both groups overwhelmingly agreed on the key factors contributing to negative relationships.

Across groups, 86% highlighted instances where they had perceived the teacher being unnecessarily hostile towards them, or where they felt they were treated unfairly.

One 13-year-old with disruptive behavior (in a mainstream school) said:

"I usually have my earphones in and I just sit there and just listen to music [] she just like opened the door, seen me listening to music [] She comes up, grabs the earphones, she just rips them out of my ear [pretend shouting] 'Listen to the teacher!'"

A 16-year-old with disruptive behavior (in a special school) said:

"She just used to pin stuff on me. If I done the littlest thing wrong and someone done somethin' major wrong, she would [] go for me first [] She just hated me, and I hated her."

Another 10-year-old with no disruptive behavior said:

"She was always yelling [] Because she gave us a real hard book, and we were only in Year 1, and we couldn't really read it that good []"

Frequently, students' descriptions of unfair treatment included pre-emptive punishments and reprimands:

One 15-year-old with disruptive behavior (in a special school) said:

"Well, I remember one time that, like, I went inside the classroom and she just, like, came up to me and she was like, you had better not talk this lesson and I wasn't even talking at all."

Another 15-year-old with disruptive behavior (in a mainstream school) said:

"Well, she always picked me out, as well, for misbehaving, so I got in a lot of trouble for that, but [] like, a lot of people were just doing a lot worse than I was doing, but she was like, no, no, you've been bad before."

A 12-year-old with no disruptive behavior (in a mainstream school) said:

"Every time I did something in the playground that was good, someone told her I'd done something bad and [Miss C] always believed them."

What teachers can take from this

Based on our research, below are some things teachers and parents can do to promote positive relationships with teachers for the young people in their care.

remember empathy and humor go a long way to building positive relationships with students. Caring about students as individuals genuinely does break down barriers. Most teachers already report caring deeply for their students. It may simply be a matter of making one's acts of kindness and care more visible

consider how warnings are given. Students benefit when they are allowed to start the day with a clean slate, and when reprimands are held back until an offense has actually been committed

separate classroom management from relationship building. Students who are most disruptive are also often the ones who could use a positive relationship the most

parents can help by encouraging students to reflect on their relationships with teachers. Sometimes situations are ambiguous, and understanding a teacher's perspective may help in interpreting situations that would otherwise feel unreasonable to a young person. Students and teachers both win when they work on the same team.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Despite Coronavirus outbreaks at ABP plants at Cahir in Co. Tipperary and Clones Co. Monaghan potentially reducing overall kill by up to three thousand numbers going through the system appear unaffected.

The national kill at exporting plants for the week ending the 23rd of August stood at 34,359 while reports last week appeared to indicate, that despite both effected plants returning to limited production the overall kill was still expected to stay in the region of 34,500.

The reality is that as last week progressed a fear gripped many in the trade that with ground starting to cut up badly due to more heavy rain a landslide of stock might materialise leading to talk that base prices might slip another 5c/kg to 3.55/kg. Fortunately, that has not happened with quotes for bullocks and heifers staying entrenched at 3.60/kg with some heifer deals seeing a base of 3.65/kg.

The word from across the south of the country at the start of last week was of full lairages as those poor field conditions pushed out numbers while reports from further afield told of agents comfortably acquiring all that was needed.

Prices among the cows also continued to hold last week with R grades floating from 3.10-3.20/kg while your better O should comfortably get you somewhere from 2.90-3.00/kg while the top P grades continue at 2.90-2.80/kg. Base prices for bulls under sixteen months seem to have settled around the 3.55/kg mark.

Figures from the Department of Agriculture show that 1,459 cattle were exported to Northern Ireland from the Republic during the week ending the 23rd of last month with 651 going for direct slaughter of which 200 were cows. That means that the balance 808 went for further feeding. And thats interesting.

Northern men have their sums done

Mart reports constantly harp on about the fact that northern buyers are only interested in acquiring better quality i.e. conformation animals. To see how those better conformation animals might perform north of the border I had a look at the price grid used by northern plants.

In two words Its complicated. The base price north of the border starts at U minus 3 before wandering off in a big U shape encompassing E minus 2s on one side and E minus 4s on the other.

Last weeks northern base price 3.50-3.60/kg equates to 3.92-4.03/kg meaning that R grade base of 3.60/kg price south of the border works out at 3.85-3.90/kg. So with a minimum of 25-30c/kg to play around with its easy to see how the northern men can be so strong at the marts.

Yet I believe thats only half the story. Think of it logically. The owners of those 808 cattle that went north for further feeding are going to have considerable additional feed costs to contend with depending on how long they keep them, yet Im left with the feeling that not only have they their sums done on the costs they also appear not to expect factory prices in their part of the world to slacken in the short to medium term.

If cattle continue to go across the border for further feeding well into the Autumn and please God they will, what does that tell us about the preparedness of Britain to feed its people.

I think the northern men are gambling that with Boris Johnsons government so mired in coping with Covid 19 it hasnt even thought about how to put burgers into buns, mince into pies or steak on a pan from any other source but those they currently deal with.
A female prison guard, 24, has been stabbed in the back with a pair of scissors in what's been described as a 'brutal attack' at Silverwater Correctional Complex.

Four ambulance crews, including a specialist medical team, were called to the Western Sydney jail just after 8am on Monday.

A NSW Corrective Services spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia the guard was stabbed by a 26-year-old female inmate in the women's section of the prison.

Investigations are underway to determine how the prisoner found a pair of scissors.

The inmate has been placed in segregation, while staff have been offered counselling.

The guard was stabbed by a 26-year-old female inmate in the women's section of Silverwater jail (pictured) in Sydney's west

The guard was taken to Westmead Hospital in a stable condition with non life-threatening wounds. She is in a stable condition.

Ambulance Inspector Kevin McSweeney said emergency crews arrived to a confronting scene.

'It was a brutal attack, with the patient having a significant wound to her back,' he said.

'Paramedics worked to stabilise the patient before getting her to hospital where she is expected to undergo further assessment and surgery.'

A NSW Police spokesman said it has commenced a police investigation.

Silverwater - a men's and women's maximum and minimum security facility - is home to some of Australia's most infamous criminals.

Katherine Knight, who butchered her husband and boiled his head in a stew, has been locked up at the prison since 2001.
Coronavirus restrictions in New Zealands largest city, Auckland, have been reduced to alert level two, after a two-and-a-half week period of stage three lockdown.

New Zealand reported nine new coronavirus cases on Monday, with five linked to the Auckland cluster and four in travellers who had returned to the country from India.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern travelled to Auckland on Monday morning to visit a government infrastructure project.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she is angry that incorrect advice was issued advising mass testing in Auckland. Credit:Getty Images

Speaking to the media while wearing a blue surgical mask, Ardern said it was fantastic that mask use appeared to be widespread in the city.
The Republican lawmakers are still pushing for the next round of stimulus package amid the multiple rejections of Democratic leader House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The White House and Republican lawmakers want to help millions of Americans who are financially and heavily impacted by the global pandemic. These political leaders need to pass the bill before the government operations shut down this Oct.1.

After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected the skinny stimulus bill, the White House and Republican lawmakers increased the total amount to $1.3 trillion. This amount includes aides like unemployment benefits, funds for child care providers, and possible second round of stimulus payment.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also said that Pres. Trump is ready to sign the bill on the second round of stimulus check once it is on his table. In fact, Meadows attempted to have a meeting with Pelosi to discuss the second round of stimulus payment but he was told that Pelosi was in a meeting.

Meadows and the White House never stopped to look for ways to help millions of Americans suffering from the global pandemic. Recently, he personally called Pelosi to make sure that she will recall Congress to talk about the stimulus bill as early as the first week of September.

Meanwhile, Pres. Trump made actions through the power given to him to help millions of Americans who are struggling to meet their daily needs. After the unemployment benefits expired in July because Congress did not act to expand it, Pres. Trump issued and signed an executive order that extended the unemployment claims using the unspent budget from Federal Emergency Management Agency.

He also released three memoranda that freeze the student loans, house evection protection program, and delay the collection of payroll taxes. Recently, Trump announced that is suspending until the end of this year the collection of Social Security Tax so that people will have more money on their pockets.

Aside from that, Pres. Trump also said on Aug.8 that he will terminate the collection of payroll taxes once he gets re-elected. This is because of the individual financial crisis that the country is facing due to COVID-19 that continues to devastate the country.

Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Michael Waltz said through an interview from a news outlet that he is just one of the lawmakers in Congress who was disappointed that they were only called back to the House a week ago to vote for U.S.P.S. funding. They thought that they woud deliberate the second round of the stimulus bill.

Waltz said: "She didn't want to deal with unemployment, she didn't want to deal with liability reform for businesses, didn't want to deal with state and local issues in terms of their financial needs. We can't get that other round of PPP for businesses that are still struggling until Speaker Pelosi takes a different path."

If ever the proposed $1.3 trillion will be passed and deliberated in Congress, millions of Americans will have the help they need. As White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said that Pres. Trump is always ready to sign the second round of stimulus payment.

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Workers sort crabs imported from Myanmar at a market in Ruili city, Southwest China's Yunnan province, Nov 5, 2019. [Photo/Xinhua]

KUNMING, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Every morning, trucks carrying dozens of tonnes of crabs and other aquatic products rumble from Myanmar through Wanding Port to a bustling Chinese fish market nearby, where the products are packed and transported to seafood lovers across China.

"The imports of aquatic products were heavily affected when the COVID-19 epidemic befell early this year, but the past few months have seen a strong rebound," said Yan Kot Che, a Myanmar seafood wholesaler at the market, located in the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Yunnan Province.

The prefecture is part of the Yunnan pilot free trade zone (FTZ) inaugurated on Aug. 30 last year to facilitate trade, investment and logistics between Yunnan and neighboring Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos. The FTZ also covers parts of Kunming, the provincial capital, and Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture.

Yan Kot Che said his business has grown since the launch of the FTZ, thanks to improved customs clearance capacity and efficiency at Wanding Port. The monthly turnover of his business now stands at around 9 million yuan (1.3 million U.S. dollars).

Customs data showed that with streamlined customs clearance procedures, imports and exports at Wanding Port from January to July this year reached 372 million U.S. dollars, surging 72.6 percent year on year.

The busy land port exhibits the robust growth of Yunnan pilot FTZ over the past year. As of Aug. 27, the FTZ registered a foreign trade volume of 13.1 billion yuan, with its imports topping 7 billion yuan, according to official data.

The rapid development of cross-border e-commerce has also contributed to the FTZ's strong trade performance.

Li Jianrong, general manager of an e-commerce company in Honghe, said his company can deliver up to 3,000 parcels, mainly consignments of garments, shoes and bags, to Vietnamese customers every day in the peak season.

Li's company is located in the China-ASEAN cross-border e-commerce logistics park in Honghe's Hekou County, which sits next to Vietnam's Lao Cai. The park, officially launched in January, is now home to 130 e-commerce companies.

"Cross-border e-commerce improves logistic efficiency and saves time," Li said. "Vietnamese customers can place orders on popular local shopping sites like Lazada and Shopee. It takes only one day to transport our goods from Hekou to Hanoi, and at most three days to reach Ho Chi Minh City."

"This is a far cry from the days when traders used tricycles to transport cargo for customs clearance at Hekou Port. It could take them several hours just to cross the border," Li recalled.

Besides a robust growth in foreign trade, the Yunnan pilot FTZ has also become a magnet for domestic and foreign investment since its inauguration. The FTZ has rolled out a spate of preferential policies, including rent reduction, to attract investment.

As of July 30, a total of 13,902 newly-registered enterprises had been set up in the FTZ, including 64 foreign-funded enterprises. Many of the new enterprises are engaged in key fields such as high-end manufacturing, bio-industry, aviation logistics and the digital economy.

The Kunming sub-area of the FTZ alone has seen the establishment of 44 foreign-funded enterprises with a combined registered capital of 310 million U.S. dollars.

"The construction of the pilot FTZ has injected new vitality to Yunnan's high-quality development and opening-up," said Zhao Ruijun, head of the Yunnan provincial department of commerce.

Zhao added that the FTZ will work to attract more resources and continue to tap into domestic and international markets, helping Yunnan build itself into China's gateway to South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Former chief minister Farooq Abdullah-led National Conference (NC) has vowed to fight the nullification of the Constitutions Article 370 that stripped Jammu & Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status last year legally, politically and peacefully.

Constitutions Article 35A, which empowered the state legislature to define permanent residents for government jobs and property ownership, was also removed last year when the state was split into two federally-run territories.

Our petition [before the Supreme Court] makes an incredibly strong case on a simple point: a governor cannot assume the powers of an assembly, and an assembly cannot assume the powers of a constituent assembly. Because if an assembly can assume the power of a constituent assembly, tomorrow what stops a state in the North-east that has a simmering discontent from converting their assembly into a constituent assembly and then saying, I have the constituent assemblys powers as demonstrated by J&K [Jammu & Kashmir] and therefore I am redrawing our relationship with the rest of India, said NC leader and former chief minister Omar Abdullah in a joint interview to HT with Farooq Abdullah.

Read the full interview here.

Jammu & Kashmirs special status allowed it to have a separate constitution and flag. A constituent assembly drafted the erstwhile states constitution in the 1950s.

Omar Abdullah argued there is a fundamental flaw in what New Delhi did on August 5, 2019, when the process for the constitutional changes to Jammu & Kashmirs status began. You can wish away the merit of our case politically, but not legally. The governments case is all political and emotional. If J&K has suffered, it is not because of its special status but because of militancy. Either militancy is the product of Pakistan or it is the product of Article 370. How can it be both? When we talk to people on the Gupkar Declaration, we will make an emotional argument. Let us see where it takes us.

The declaration of major regional parties last year pledged to fight against the constitutional changes together.

Omar Abdullah underlined they are a mainstream political party and will fight using legal means at their disposal. ...one is the power that the Constitution gives us to challenge the decisions in the court; and the second is forums available, including Parliament, media, social media, and public meetings.

Omar Abdullah said NCs three Parliament members will take the voices of regions people to the highest platform of democracy. We are not a party that has ever subscribed to violence as a means of achieving our ends. In fact, if anything, the NC has always been the victim of violence.

Also Read: BJP wants a Hindu majority to emerge in J&K: Farooq Abdullah

Farooq Abdullah cited his governments dismissal in 1984 when Jagmohan was sent as governor to remove him. He [Jagmohan] told Indira Gandhi [the then prime minister] that Farooq Abdullah would put the state to fire. I said I do not want the blood of people on my hands. I believe that today also. I will fight for their rights even if it takes my life but I am not going to take their lives.

The political environment in Jammu & Kashmir is in flux again a year after the nullification and bifurcation of the erstwhile state. Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah are at the heart of the churning following their release from detention.

Farooq Abdullah last week emerged as the pivot in the formation of a conglomerate of the Valleys six parties that has posed the first challenge to the Centre by reaffirming commitment to the Gupkar Declaration.
Describing former president as a "true friend of Israel", Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Monday expressed his condolences at the passing away of one of India's most respected politicians, saying he helped strengthen the ties between the two countries.

Mukherjee, a veteran politician, died on Monday evening following a 21-day battle with multiple ailments. He was 84.

" stands with the people of India and the family of former President Shri in mourning his passing," Rivlin wrote in a tweet.

"A statesman much respected at home and abroad and a true friend of who strengthened the deep ties between our countries and peoples," he added.

Mukherjee became the first Indian President to visit in October 2015, setting up the stage for the first visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2017.

Rivlin visited India in 2016 at Mukherjee's invitation and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2018, leading to the elevation of the bilateral ties to the level of strategic partnership.

Mukherjee, who was admitted to the Army's Research and Referral Hospital on August 10 and was operated for a removal of a clot in the brain the same day, is survived by two sons and a daughter.

The long-time Congress leader and seven-time parliamentarian had tested positive for COVID-19 at the time of his admission and was being treated for a lung infection. He had suffered a septic shock on Sunday due to it. Doctors said he died of a cardiac arrest at 4.30 pm.

His son Abhijit Mukherjee was the first to break the news of the death of the veteran politician.
Guaido taps frozen Venezuelan assets to fund opposition plans

Over $300 million in seized Venezuelan public funds will be channelled to pay National Assembly politicians, private healthcare workers and multilateral bodies providing COVID-19 humanitarian assistance.

With the move, the US government, which along with Canada andnumerous EU countries, has seized up to $24 billion in Venezuelan government assets since early 2019, is seeking new momentum in its elusive goal of ousting Venezuelas democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro.

Despite openly distancing itself from opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido over multiple failed coup attempts and embezzlement scandals, the Trump administration, in coordination with the Organization of American States (OAS), has granted a special license to begin initiating monthly payments of $100 to over 65,000 private health sector workers, as well two years of back pay to opposition lawmakers, the Washington Post reports.

The majority of these stolen funds held by the U.S. Justice and Treasury departments in special forfeiture accounts, $601 million has already been diverted to fund Trumps border wall with Mexico partially. Remaining funds, belonging to the Venezuelan government, its Central Bank (BCV) and PDVSAs U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, have been siphoned to fund the Venezuelan opposition, sent to Guaidos diplomatic staff worldwide and, in the case of a BCV Citibank account, transferred to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, denounced as a vulgar plunder to the tune of $342 million.

The Post also reports that the Trump administration plans to close a sanctions loophole that allows other countries to ship fuel to Venezuela, namely Iran, whose recent shipments have proven crucial given the impacts of the U.S. blockade and oil sanctions on the Venezuelan economy and people.

With a growing bipartisan realisation that the Trump administrations unilateral coercive measures have failed to achieve their stated goals of ousting President Maduro, and have only served to shore up support in Florida for Trumps electoral aspirations while causing suffering and hardship for the Venezuelan people, this move is the latest in a series of illegal measures looting massive amount of wealth from poor and working Venezuelans and handing it over to Venezuelas right-wing elite.

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Half of all Queenslanders now infected with the coronavirus live on Brisbane's southside, Queensland Heath data shows.

Of the 27 "active" cases across the state, 14 live on Brisbane's southside, six in Ipswich, four on the Gold Coast, two on the Sunshine Coast and one in Cairns.

A COVID-19 testing clinic. Credit:Janie Barrett

There are no active cases on Brisbane's northside.

Eighteen people are being treated for COVID-19 in Queensland hospitals, but none of those are in intensive care.
Photo: The Canadian Press Jerry Dias, President of the Unifor union, sits opposite Matt Hough, General Motors' general director of human resources and labour relations, at the start of formal contract talks with the Detroit Three automakers, Fiat Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, in Toronto, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

The union representing Canadian workers at the Detroit Three automakers have voted to approve strike action if needed in their contract negotiations.

In votes that took place over the weekend, Unifor says workers at General Motors voted 95.3 per cent in favour, while those at Ford Motor Co. voted 96.4 per cent in favour.

Workers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles FCA voted 98.4 per cent in favour of strike action.

Unifor began formal contract talks with the automakers in Toronto on Aug. 12.

The union says it plans to announce on or around Labour Day the company designated as the strike target.

It says it will continue talks with that company until reaching a deal and no later than the strike deadline on Sept. 21 at 11:59 p.m.

"Our members voted overwhelmingly to support their bargaining committees and our bargaining priorities, including; job security, product commitments and economic gains for all members," Unifor national president Jerry Dias said in a statement.

"We will continue to push our agenda at the bargaining table, but remind government that they have an active role to play in securing our auto industry's future. A future made in Canada."
School buses are the nations largest single form of mass transportation. But during the coronavirus pandemic, the C.D.C. recommends they operate at reduced capacity to allow for social distancing.

One New Jersey district has decreased average capacity to 22 students from 54, but says it wont need to hire many more buses because more parents are driving their kids to school. The district, like others, made several other modifications:

Xs mark off seats, so kids know where not to sit.

Open windows will keep air moving.

The drivers store cleaning products in the seat behind the wheel.

Students load the bus back to front, and get off front to back, to maintain social distancing.

Unless students ride with a sibling, they cant have a seatmate.

Safety measures aside, private bus companies are in serious trouble after they were left out of federal aid that went to school districts and to other forms of mass transport. The firms carry nearly 10 million children to school a year and account for roughly 40 percent of the school bus industry.

Well before the pandemic, there were driver shortages in many districts, and now drivers say they feel expendable when theyre called back to work  if theyre called back at all. Many have been laid off as their districts have opted for online learning.

Glenn Every, who runs a fleet of 20 school buses in the Hudson Valley of New York, furloughed nearly all 32 of his workers, including his son, to stay afloat. His company has lost $750,000 because of the pandemic  a critical blow for his business, which averages $2 million a year in revenue.
An overwhelming majority of Ontarians are afraid that a second wave of COVID-19 is near, with levels of anxiety remaining unchanged since the pandemic first erupted in the province in March.

Around 83 per cent of Ontarians surveyed say theyre worried that social distancing and lockdown measures are being relaxed too quickly, as schools and businesses open again. And 73 per cent say theyre becoming more wary of peoples abilities to properly follow protocols that curb the spread of illness.

These findings come from a Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) poll of 1,002 Ontarians, conducted with the help of Pollara Strategic Insights in late July. The association said the survey was commissioned to better understand how peoples mental health is changing as the pandemic progresses.

The associations CEO, Camille Quenneville, called the results worrisome, particularly because the anxiety and stress levels related to the pandemic are still very high compared to when infections first began in the province.

People still believe that were headed for a mental health crisis; that this pandemic is going to precipitate that, Quenneville said. People are still very concerned that we could go into lockdown again, and that if we arent careful, the number of people with the virus goes up.

The survey reported that 85 per cent of Ontarians are concerned a second wave will put us back where we started, and 78 per cent are concerned they will be coming in contact with people who are not following appropriate social distancing and safety precautions.

Ontarians are also worried about their children returning to school in September  an expected result given widespread outrage about the provinces back-to-school plan, which many parents and teachers have criticized as premature, vague and confusing.

Six in 10 parents said they are worried about their own anxiety levels if their children are expected to return to school in September, and eight in 10 parents are worried their children may contract COVID-19 at school and will bring it home and infect others in the household.

Pollaras online survey of 1,002 Ontario adults was conducted from July 23 to Aug. 2. It carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

We were very directly worried in March and April about contracting the virus and becoming ill, Quenneville said. But at this point in the pandemic, people are worried about how tenuous things remain as they make important decisions like sending their children to school or returning to the office.

Quenneville said she was slightly surprised anxiety levels remained high, as the rate of infection has decreased from the onset of the pandemic.

But the results may point to the longer-term mental health effects the general population is experiencing, as many people have dealt with the loss of either income or deaths of family members as a result of the pandemic. This is mirrored by known higher rates of substance abuse and overdose since the pandemic began. Ontario saw its highest rate of overdose deaths ever in the months of March, April and May, Quenneville said.

The poll also indicated that only half of Ontarians know where to find mental health support for themselves or their family if they need it. That is up from 44 per cent in CMHAs first pandemic poll, but still points to a low number of people when compared to the overall anxiety in the general population.

That number is too low, Quenneville said. We need to make sure that the resources are there, because that in and of itself decreases anxiety and stress.

Nadine Yousif is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering mental health. Her reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. Follow her on Twitter: @nadineyousif_
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have blacklisted embattled Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and 29 other high-ranking officials for alleged election fraud and a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

The Baltic EU members announced their sanctions on Monday in a coordinated effort to support the protests in Belarus, which are entering a fourth week since the countrys disputed presidential election on August 9.

We are sending the message that we need to do more than just issue statements, we must also take concrete action, Lithuanias Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told the AFP news agency.

Lithuania has been hosting opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who fled there after the election her supporters say she won.

Tikhanovskaya will speak to the UN Security Council on Friday at Estonias invitation, her spokesman said.

The European Union has been working on its own list of individuals in Belarus to target with similar sanctions, but Western countries have mostly been cautious, wary of provoking an intervention from Russia.

Reacting to the three Baltic countries move, the Belarusian foreign ministry called the sanctions a hasty step and it would respond in an equivalent fashion, according to the RIA news agency.

Lukashenkos proposal

Meanwhile, Lukashenko on Monday discussed plans for a referendum on constitutional reforms, acknowledging the countrys somewhat authoritarian system.

His proposals focused on court reforms and rejected calls by the opposition to go back to the countrys 1994 constitution that was later modified to give the president more powers.





Lukashenko has sought to downplay the protest movement and depict himself as maintaining control and order.

But he has appeared increasingly isolated and paranoid, booed by the blue-collar workers he viewed as his natural supporters and taken to wearing a bullet-proof vest to helicopter into his official residence.

Meeting the chairman of the Supreme Court, Lukashenko said experts were discussing changes, including more independent courts, while he said this was not needed.

Im ready to argue with anyone that the most independent court is in Belarus. No one should laugh.

He said, however, the system needed to work without being tied to a personality, including Lukashenko.

He said members of the public would be able to give their opinion: what they like, what they dont, while insisting that those who yell about being for changes were a minority.

Lukashenko, elected democratically in 1994, held a referendum on changes including constitutional reforms in 1996.

These included giving the president greater powers on appointing judges, including the chair of the Constitutional Court.

A controversial constitutional referendum was held in 2004 allowing the president to serve three terms instead of two as before.

Lukashenko said going back to the 1994 constitution as the opposition wants would not move the country forward.
Ethylene, a key feedstock in the chemical industry, often includes traces of acetylene contaminants, which need to be removed. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, researchers describe a robust and regenerable porous metalorganic framework that captures acetylene with extraordinary efficiency and selectively. Its synergistic combination of tailor-made pore sizes and chemical docking sites makes the material especially efficient, the study says.

Ethylene is the most important chemical precursor for ethanol and polyethylene and is mainly produced by steam cracking. Although the ethylene fraction is usually very pure (more than 99%), remaining traces of acetylene contaminants can destroy the catalysts used in downstream processes.

As ethylene and acetylene are very similar and only differ in the amount of hydrogen atomsethylene has four hydrogen atoms bound to two carbon atoms, acetylene has twothe separation of both gases is elaborate and difficult. The current industrial processes rely on distillation, which consumes a huge amount of energy.

However, hydrocarbon compounds bind to porous substances called metalorganic frameworks (MOFs). MOFs are made of metal ions and organic ligands and contain pores and chemical docking sites that can be designed to capture specific molecules from a stream of gas at ambient conditions. However, for the separation of ethylene and acetylene, the industry demands robust, regenerable, highly selective, and cheap materials, which have not been found so far.

Dan Zhao and his colleagues at the National University of Singapore have now developed a MOF specific for acetylene capture that may meet the demands of extraordinary selectivity and robustness. The scientists focused on an established MOF with nickel sites, but they opened up these nickel sites for the binding of more molecules by activating them and exposing them to the pores so that they were able to bind two guest molecules at once.

In addition, the scientists adjusted the pore sizes of the MOF to allow entry only for very small gas molecules, and filled the pore walls with chemical groups that would attract acetylene over ethylene through their stronger electrostatic and chemical interactions.

Thus, combining small pore sizes with the open nickel sites and sites for preferential acetylene binding, the scientists have created a Ni-MOF called Ni 3 (pzdc) 2 (7Hade) 2 that is extraordinarily selective, robust, stable, and can be regenerated. According to the study, the Ni-MOF purified the ethylene stream by a factor of a thousand and kept the selectivity high across a range of pressures and regeneration cycles. In addition, the Ni-MOF can be prepared in a standard hydrothermal procedure, the scientists say.

The authors point out that the synergy of pore geometry and size, combined with chemical interactions, can be further enhanced and may lead to even more effective separations. This is interesting for industrial application.
ST. LOUIS - A St. Louis police officer killed over the weekend was among eight officers who have been shot during an extraordinarily violent year in the city.

Officer Tamarris L. Bohannon, 29, died Sunday, a day after he was shot in the head. He leaves behind a wife and three children.

A 43-year-old white man is in custody but has yet to be charged. Bohannon was Black, as was a second officer who was shot in the leg and is expected to survive. That officers name has not been released.

This is a horrific reminder of the dangers our brave men and women willingly face every day to keep us safe, Mayor Lyda Krewson said in a statement, calling Bohannons death a terrible, senseless tragedy.

This year has been especially dangerous in St. Louis, a city that has for many years ranked among the nations most deadly. The rate of killings in 2020 is on a near-record pace, and non-fatal shootings have spiked, too. The worst of the crime surge has happened since June. Things are so dire that the federal government in early August sent 50 agents to battle crime.

Six other officers have been shot in addition to Bohannon and his colleague, including four struck during a violent June 1 protest that followed George Floyds death in Minneapolis. Two of those officers were shot in the leg, one in the foot and one in the arm.

An officer was shot by a suspect with a sawed-off shotgun on July 26. Another was shot by a teenager on Aug. 2.

Among those officers, only Bohannon died.

Thirty-three officers have been shot to death in the U.S. so far this year, a 6% decrease from the Jan. 1 to Aug. 31 period last year, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Another 32 officers died in traffic accidents, up 10% from last year. Twenty-one officers have died this year during other incidents and job-related illnesses, down 40% from last year.

A photo of a note from Bohannons family was posted on the departments Twitter page after the announcement of his death.

He is a hero to many, but most importantly to his loving wife and three incredible children, read the note that referred to him as Bo and asked for prayers and support in the days ahead.

Meanwhile, St. Louis Police Officers Association Business Manager Jeff Roorda said Monday that Bohannon was a difference-maker to those who knew him.

He sought to make a difference for all people in the community he served because they mattered. The unnecessary sacrifice of this dedicated public servant should be mourned by all because his life mattered, Roorda said in a statement.

The two officers were among several who responded to a call around 6 p.m. Saturday in the South Grand neighbourhood near Tower Grove Park. Homeowners Mimi and Steve Haag had dialed 911 to get help for a man who had been shot when the gunman walked into their home, they told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

I saw then he had a gun, Steve Haag said. He was very calm standing there with it in his hand and he just says to Mimi: Maam you need to get off the phone. The Haags escaped unharmed through the back door.

Police Chief John Hayden said officers were searching for the reported shooting victim when the gunman shot Bohannon and his colleague.

The officers were trying to do their job, thats all theyre trying to do and theyre suffering under gunfire, Hayden said.

The gunman remained barricaded as officers armed with rifles and a SWAT team assembled outside. Police closed surrounding streets and warned residents to stay inside. Police used a bullhorn to order the suspect out and fired tear gas into the house, but fired no gunshots, the department said.

The man was taken into custody around 5:30 a.m. Sunday. The other man who was reportedly shot was never found.

The chief said the surge in violence has been taxing.

Were trying to cope through a very trying summer, and its very difficult. Its very difficult, he said.

____

David Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
On September 2, a Full Corn Moon or Full Harvest Moon will rise, marking the beginning of the autumn equinox. Septembers full Moon is also known as the harvest moon, a term used by the Latin Americans in context to corn harvest season. According to NASA, this full moon will be the last of 2020, marking the end to the summers this year. Corn Moon will attain maximum brightness at 1:22 a.m. EDT on Wednesday. In India, it will rise at 9:38 am EDT on September 1 and set at 10:51 am on September 2. For the East coast, it will lower below the horizon at approximately 8:07 p.m. EDT.

The Autumn equinox begins on September 22 or 23, and the full moon falls early in the month, with October hosting the Harvest Moon. As per NASAs release, Septembers moon is the Corn, Fruit, Barley, and Hungry Ghost Moon. In a press release, NASA said that the full moon would mark the end of Onam, the start of Pitri Paksha, Modhu Purnima, Binara Pura Pasalosvaka Poya, and the Gaile, Ladee, and Osiris-rex moon. Rising exactly "opposite" the Sun, this moon will remain full for about three days. According to the Maine Farmer's Almanac journal, Native Americans used different names for full moons in the 1930s and they were published accordingly to differentiate the type of the full moon. The Algonquin tribes in the northeastern USA called the September moon as Corn moon as this was the time they harvested their main staple crops of corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and wild rice.

This full Moon corresponds to the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival. The seventh month of the Chinese calendar is the Ghost Month and the fifteenth day of this month, a full moon day is called Ghost Day, on which ghosts and spirits, including those of deceased ancestors, come out to visit the living, NASA said in the release.

Read: NASA Proposes Explorers' Program Missions To Stuy Dynamics Of The Sun

Read: NASA's First-ever OGO Satellite Set To Return After 56 Years, Here's All You Need To Know

10-day celebration of Onam ends

Hindus in Kerala, India, mark the end of the 10-day celebration of Onam, which began on August 22, 2020, with this full moon, it added. Full Moon also marks the start of Pitri (or Pitru) Paksha (fortnight of the ancestors) during which Hindus pay homage to their ancestors, especially through food offerings. Pitri Paksha starts with the full moon in the lunar month of Bhadrapada and ends with the new Moon, NASA said. Further, citing the relevance of the September moon in Thailand, NASA said, For some Buddhists in Bangladesh and Thailand, this full Moon is Modhu Purnima, the Honey Full Moon or the Honey-offering Festival. It added, In Sri Lanka, this full Moon is the Binara Pura Pasalosvaka Poya Day, commemorating the establishment of the Buddhist Bikkhuni Order.

[The Corn Moon sets over the early morning desert in Arches National Park, Utah in 2018. Credit: NASA/Bill Dunford]

Read: NASA's First-ever OGO Satellite To Return To Earth On August 29

Read: NASA Picks 5 Proposals For New Space Environment Missions To Study The Dynamics Of The Sun
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The head of the US Food and Drug Administration raised the possibility in an interview published Sunday that a future vaccine against the coronavirus might be given emergency approval before the end of trials designed to ensure its safety and effectiveness.

A request for such extraordinary approval would have to come from the vaccine developer, Stephen Hahn told the Financial Times.

"If they do that before the end of Phase Three," which involves large-scale human testing, "we may find that appropriate. We may find that inappropriate, we will make a determination."

But Hahn insisted he was not acting under pressure from President Donald Trump, who has been pushing hard for a vaccine, saying one might be ready before US elections November 3.

"This is going to be a science, medicine, data decision," Hahn said. "This is not going to be a political decision."

Three Western drugs makers are well along with their Phase 3 clinical trials, involving tens of thousands of participants.

The three are AstraZeneca, which is partnering with Oxford University in England; Moderna, collaborating with the US National Institutes of Health, and the Pfizer/BioNTech alliance.

By the nature of the trials it is difficult to predict when reliable results will emerge.

Half of the participants in such trials receive an experimental vaccine, while the other half are given a placebo.

Under normal procedures, test administrators must waitprobably for monthsto see whether there is a statistically significant difference in the infection rate of the two groups.

As the world desperately awaits an effective vaccine against the deadly virus, China and Russia have already approved vaccines without waiting for the conclusion of trialsdrawing criticism from public health officials in other countries, including the US.

Hahn also said that an emergency authorization would not necessarily cover everyoneit might be granted for specific, high-risk groups.

"Our emergency use authorization is not the same as a full approval," he said.

Hahn has faced mounting criticism from the medical community that he has given in to political pressure from the Trump administration, largely involving two incidents.

In March, the FDA gave emergency authorization for the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 after Trump repeatedly praised its use; the authorization had to be withdrawn in June after serious side effects emerged.

More recently, Hahn delivered a far too optimistic appraisal, during a news conference with Trump, of the effectiveness of convalescent plasma against the virus. He said it could save 35 out of 100 patients; the more likely number, experts said, is five in 100.

"It is f-ing outrageous to expedite *any* approval of a #SARSCoV2 vaccine, irrespective of @SteveFDA's subservience to Trump," Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said on Twitter.

"We will not know about safety for many months."

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 AFP
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 11:32:03|Editor: huaxia

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Noni fruit products are seen at a store in Suva, Fiji, Aug. 25, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Yongxing)

by Zhang Yongxing

SUVA, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- "Despite this severe situation, our products exported to China continue to grow, which provides many jobs for Fijians during this most difficult time where many people have lost their jobs and companies have reduced manufacture," a letter of thanks from Pure Fiji, a cosmetic producer, said.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has hit hard the world's economy and as a South Pacific island nation, Fiji is also not immune. The Fijian economy is expected to contract by 21.7 percent year-on-year in 2020 mainly due to poor tourism activity and its knock-on effects to the rest sectors of the economy.

For businesses in the island nation, it is no doubt a difficult time now as many of them have laid off employees, reduced working hours or are facing bankruptcy if the COVID-19 pandemic continues in the months to come. For Pure Fiji, however, it is lucky enough because of their strong business connections with China.

Directors of Pure Fiji, Gaetane Austin and Andree Austin therefor have recently sent a letter of thanks to Chinese Ambassador to Fiji Qian Bo for the embassy's support to promote the company's products and its sales in China in recent months.

"We are writing to express our sincere gratitude to your excellency for the embassy's support to boost the visibility and promotion of our products in China. The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has taken a heavy toll on countries around the world and people are confronted by a growing set of challenges," the letter read.

"Despite this severe situation, our products exported to China continue to grow, which provides many jobs for Fijians during this most difficult time where many people have lost their jobs and companies have reduced manufacture."

The two directors also expressed their confidence in the Chinese market and their willingness to participate in the coming third China International Import Expo (CIIE) which will be held in Shanghai in November this year.

"We acknowledge the huge potential and stability of the Chinese market," they said. "This momentum has resulted in us committing to actively participate in the Third China International Import Expo this year, which will give us more opportunities to develop Chinese and international market products."

The Chinese ambassador has written back to Pure Fiji, saying that he is very pleased to learn that the company is expanding its cosmetic market in China and is able to provide many jobs for Fijians during this tough time.

Praising Pure Fiji for its high quality product, Qian said the Chinese Embassy has been all along helping to promote the products both in Fiji and China.

"I am happy that your company is developing more products which are suitable or adaptable for Chinese consumers, in cooperation with the Feiji (Shanghai) Trading Company," he said.

The ambassador also encouraged Pure Fiji to continue taking the advantage of the CIIE and other platforms, and contribute to the China-Fiji trade cooperation.

According to the ambassador, besides Pure Fiji, Frezco, a Fijian beverages company, also thanked the embassy for the good sales of its "Fijian Noni" products in China.

Noni, Fiji's super fruit, has been used for more than 2,000 years as a herbal food for maintaining and restoring good health. Noni juice and other Noni products such Noni tea, Noni capsules and Noni skincare products, have been developed for sales in recent years.

The company said that despite COVID-19, there was little setback for its exports to China in recent months.

"Fijian Noni sales continued growth for 2020 and beyond particularly in China marketplace," the company said.

Qian told Xinhua that despite challenges brought by the pandemic, the Chinese market is still doing well and the the great appreciation from the Fijian companies have both again proved the importance of the Chinese market in the global trade.

"China has a population of 1.4 billion people and is no doubt an irreplaceable growing market in the world. With the rise of the living standard of the Chinese people, China will be able to import more quality goods from the countries like Fiji in the future," he said.

China is willing to work together with the countries like Fiji to fight COVID-19 and seek common development, he added.
The Civilian Conservation Corps, started in 1933, was one of the most popular New Deal programs that helped lift the United States out of the Great Depression. It sent 3.5 million men between the ages of 18 and 25 into the wilds, where they earned about $30 a month building roads, flood barriers, and campgrounds. Here, members pose with timber in Sizerville, Pa. in an undated photo. Read more

Their legacy in Pennsylvania is built in stone, in walls and cabins, on overlooks far above river valleys and the roads leading up to them. They were young men and teenagers with bleak prospects, staring down the nations worst economic crisis. But before they went off to fight fascism in Europe, the Greatest Generation grabbed axes and sledgehammers to join Franklin D. Roosevelts tree army in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The CCC, started in 1933, was one of the most popular New Deal programs that helped lift the United States out of the Great Depression. It sent 3.5 million men between the ages of 18 and 25 into the wilds, where they earned about $30 a month building roads, flood barriers, and campgrounds. Over the course of nine years, the CCC changed the face of outdoor recreation in this country, ushering in the era of easy-access car-camping that exploded after World War II and continues today.

They did a tremendous amount of work in Pennsylvania, and its work thats endured, said John Norbeck, deputy secretary of Pennsylvanias Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. They built some of the states most iconic parks, like Promised Land and Ricketts Glen and French Creek. We had about 40 to 50 state parks in Pennsylvania prior to the CCC,, and today we have 121.

Now, amid a global pandemic that has pushed unemployment numbers to 13.7 percent in Pennsylvania, parallels to the Great Depression are obvious. A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate earlier this month is looking back to that time, too, by proposing to resurrect the corps and related work programs in rural America. The 21st Century Conservation Corps Act, introduced by Oregon Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, aims to support rural economies by investing in job training and development, rangeland and working lands conservation programs, and the planting of billions of trees. That bill would include $9 billion to fund training and hiring specifically for jobs in the woods nationwide.

During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps created thousands of jobs while also making investments in our public lands that Americans are still benefiting from nearly a century later, Merkley told The Inquirer in a statement.

In June, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware introduced a bipartisan bill to expand existing national service programs, including AmeriCorps, the 21st Century Conservation Service Corps, and Senior Corps, which enlists people 55 and over who are interested in improving lives and fostering civic engagement, among seniors. AmeriCorps, founded in 1993, has a broader scope than the original CCC, in that it works in urban areas and on projects beyond conservation and forestry.

Coons and his supporters are trying to include the proposal in the next round of COVID-19 stimulus funding, believing it would empower hundreds of thousands of younger Americans to serve their communities.

Anne Harper, executive director of the Delaware Nature Society, said those workers could be put to use immediately in that state, restoring wetlands and combating rising seas.

Supporters and historians have been calling for the return of the CCC for decades.

Ive been trying to get Bernie Sanders to look into it for a few years, said Jay Alexander, founder of the Civilian Conservation Corps Initiative, which advocates for the programs revival. It shouldnt be a partisan issue, but some officials dont want to spend the money on any social programs. I dont think our president cares about national parks.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf introduced his version of a statewide CCC in 2016 with the creation of the Outdoor Corps. The youth version of Wolfs own tree army consists of a six-week summer program for those age 15 to 18 and a 10-month stint for members 18 to 25; both work on projects including trail restoration, invasive species management, and tree planting. There are approximately 250 Outdoor Corps workers, each paid an hourly rate, according to the DCNRs Norbeck, who added that the pandemic has adversely impacted the numbers.

With over a billions dollars in parks and forestry dams to repair alone, he said, theres more than enough work for a new CCC in Pennsylvanias woods.

People see a state park and the serenity it provides, but they dont realize the work that goes into it, Norbeck said. Its like running a little city, with water treatment plants, roads, buildings, fire responsibilities, and law enforcement. Winter can be really tough on our facilities. Roads get washed out, and a massive number of trees come down.

Alexander, a Florida resident, said he was inspired to research the CCC while working as a summer ranger at Raccoon Creek State Park near Pittsburgh in 1990. Only about 5,000 of the original 3.5 million CCC members are living today, he said. The CCC ended in 1942, when World War II pulled the men far from home.

Pennsylvania was home to 113 CCC camps where young men worked on various projects from road building to reforestation, second only to California. In 2013, during an 80th anniversary celebration at Promised Land State Park in the Pocono Mountains of Pike County, former workers told The Inquirer of their desperation during the Depression years, how their families couldnt afford to feed them. In the CCC, the young men received three meals a day.

Im not sure what would have come of me if not for the CCC, John Stopka, a Susquehanna County resident, said at the time. I think its one of the best things this country ever instituted.

Stopka died in 2017.

The last state park to open in Pennsylvania was Erie Bluffs in 2006, and although the DCNR has been purchasing land in Chester County for a possible state park, new campground projects are rare in the U.S. With the outdoors seen as a safer space than indoors during the pandemic, people have been flocking to the states trails and campgrounds. Norbeck said visits are up 30% from this time last year.

If a new CCC were able to build more state and national parks, Norbeck said, theyd be full.
MIAMI, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Boatim Inc.

Boatim Inc (OTCQB: BTIM), a global marketplace and online community for buying and selling boats and yachts, announces today the launch of their Smart Connected Inventory. The company's latest product as part of its vision to build the next generation of digital maritime marketplaces. This first product in a line of upcoming innovations will help dealers and brokers to manage and market their inventory more easily and sell their boats faster.

Smart Connected Inventory allows boat sellers to onboard all their listings from multiple sources on the newly launched boatim.com platform. Boatim's focus on data-driven and user-centered solutions take the pain out of bringing large boat inventories online and distributing them on their digital marketing channels.

"We have reached a milestone in our journey of digitization and innovation in the maritime industry, by putting our customers first and solving one of their biggest blockers to leveraging digital marketing channels. Uploading and maintaining all your listings is a time-suck. Our Smart Connected Inventory is an easy way to get around that and focus on marketing your inventory," says Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Patrick Burkert. Followed by Chris Roy, Chief Product Officer: "Given the fact that many dealers and brokers struggle to manage and maintain a suite of marketplaces and tools just to sell their inventoryit's clear that our vision of using the latest technology to streamline these processes solves a real need. Smart Connected Inventory is just the beginning."

With new dealers like Yachtside in Monaco being one of the first clients using Smart Connected Inventory, Boatim is building traction in Europe and the United States by looking for new and better ways to keep up with the increased demand from boat buyers around the world. "The short-notice cancellation of the Cannes Yachting Festival meant that dealers and brokers were unable to connect in the traditional way," says Matthew Grady, Head of Sales at Boatim. "We have adapted to this current environment and moved everything we could into digital. Meaning that manufacturers, dealers, buyers, and sellers are able to connect with us and each other over our platform online," adds Grady.

Boatim's strength is its ability to react quickly in ever-changing circumstances and stay ahead of evolving customer needs, this approach will effectively solve problems within the industry for boat sellers. "Recreational boating defies the pandemic crisis according to latest market reports, as we see a tremendous change in consumer behavior that shifts to local and near-home activities," shares Burkert, resulting in an increase of demand for boats and yachts in the US and Europeand a compound annual growth rate of almost 4% during the forecast post-COVID period.

While other industries are struggling, the boating industry is experiencing an all-time highan all-around boating boom. So much so, dealers in the US are reporting inventory shortages and difficulties meeting demand, according to the New York Times . This is validating market signs for Boatim's approach and ambitious roadmap, as they continue to grow with more investments and talent joining the Miami and Barcelona headquartered tech-company.

About Boatim Inc.

Boatim Inc. (OTCQB: BTIM) is a globally operating online marketplace and special interest social network for both the boating industry and boat users.

Boatim was founded in 2014 and now employs 21 people in Miami (USA) and Barcelona (Spain). The technology startup provides industry-specific software, aimed at facilitating the process of buying and selling boats online.

On boatim.com the boating industry can sell and promote products and connect with a fast-growing potential customer base, while boat users can explore and buy boats, connect with like-minded and brands. The platform that can be accessed through mobile devices and desktop, generates revenues through listing placements and subscription plans, as well as on-platform ads. Thanks to the great business model scalability, more revenue streams are planned to be added soon.

Since August 2019 the privately funded startup has become a publicly listed entity, trading at the OTCQB Venture Market under the trading symbol BTIM.

https://boatim.com/investor-relations

www.otcmarkets.com/stock/BTIM

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding our future business expectations, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual results due to a variety of factors including: our ability to retain or increase users and engagement levels; our reliance on advertising revenue; our dependency on mobile operating systems, networks, and standards that we do not control; risks associated with new product development and their introduction as well as other new business initiatives; our emphasis on user growth and engagement and the user experience over short-term financial results; competition; litigation; privacy and regulatory concerns; risks associated with acquisitions; security breaches; and our ability to manage growth and geographically-dispersed operations. These and other potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted are more fully detailed under the caption "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on July 16, 2020, which is available via the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Additional information has also been set forth in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended August 31, 2019. In addition, please note that the date of this press release is June 15, 2020, and any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.

SOURCE Boatim Inc.

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http://boatim.com


A young Irish couple have been charged over the alleged stabbing of a man that left him stranded in a unit block hallway with a partially severed ear.

Neighbours found victim Oliver Solan, 30, barely conscious in a corridor at a Young Street apartment block in Randwick, in Sydney's east, about 8.40pm on Saturday.

Police allege 23-year-old Patrick Earle, from Kilkenny in Ireland, got into an argument with Mr Solan at the unit before he sent text messages to another group of men.

The men arrived and Earle's girlfriend, 26-year-old Katie Murtagh, originally from Dublin, let them in before going to hide in a bedroom, it is alleged.

The glamorous girlfriend allegedly messaged his mates for backup just before the victim's ear was viciously severed in a horror stabbing.

Scroll down for video

Young Irish couple Katie Murtagh and Patrick Earle (pictured together) have been charged over the alleged stabbing of a man that left him stranded in a unit block hallway with a partially severed ear

Neighbours found victim Oliver Solan, 30, barely conscious in a hallway at a Young Street apartment block in Randwick, in Sydney's east, about 8.40pm on Sunday

Earle's girlfriend, 26-year-old Katie Murtagh, let them in before going to hide in a bedroom as the alleged fight ensued

When they arrived Mr Solan was allegedly stabbed multiple times and a part of his ear had been severed off in the fight.

Distressed neighbours called police, who found Mr Solan with multiple stab wounds to his head and body and a chunk of his ear missing.

Paramedics rushed the 30-year-old to St Vincent's Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery and remains in a serious but stable condition.

Daily Mail Australia can reveal Earle, Murtagh and Solan had been drinking together at an eastern suburbs pub earlier that night venue before returning to the couple's apartment.

While there an argument between the two men ensued, with Solan allegedly the first to attack his friend causing injuries to Earle's arm.

It was then that Murtagh allegedly sent a Facebook message to Earle's friends asking them to come over, at which point she let them in to the unit and hid in her room as they attacked Solan with a knife, severing part of an ear.

The glamorous Irish couple were arrested shortly after but the four other men remain on the run with NSW Police now appealing for public assistance to track them down.

NSW Police said the four men they wish to speak to are all originally from Ireland

Police body cam footage shows the moment officers scoured the apartment block looking for the suspects.

The clip showed blood splattered walls and him lying slumped in a corridor before he was taken out on a stretcher.

Video shows police running through nearby streets and jumping fences in the desperate search for the people involved.

A crime scene was established and police found Earle at nearby Botany Street with an arm injury, 9News reported.

Footage shows Earle being handcuffed and put into the back of an ambulance.

Murtagh and Earle are seen lounging at waterfalls and going on hikes exploring nature surrounding the harbour city together

The unit block was splattered with blood after Oliver Solan was in the hallway after the alleged attack

Police were called to the unit on Young St in Randwick on Sunday night after reports of a stabbing

Footage shows Earle being handcuffed and put into the back of an ambulance

He was taken to Prince of Wales Hospital for treatment for his injury before he was charged with wounding a person with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Murtagh was arrested at the unit a short time later and charged with aiding and abetting to wound a person.

Appearing in court via video link, Earle sat quietly wearing a hospital gown and with a bandage over his left ear.

The court was told he is facing a maximum of 25 years in prison if convicted, with a standard non-parole period of seven years.

Murtagh chose not to appear on screen in court and along with her boyfriend will be held in custody until October 27.

During that time the lovers turned co-accused will not be able to talk.

Police allege that Murtagh was aware of what would happen when she invited and let her boyfriend's backup inside their apartment.

When her boyfriend and the four men fled, CCTV footage allegedly shows her using her strength to drag Solan's bloodied body into the hall.

Distressed neighbours called police, who found Mr Solan with multiple stab wounds to his head and body and a chunk of his ear missing.

Paramedics rushed the 30-year-old to St Vincent's Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery and remains in a serious but stable condition.

As Mr Solan was being attended to by paramedics, police scoured the area hunting for Earle, Murtagh and the other alleged assailants.

Video shows police running through nearby streets and jumping fences in the desperate search for the people involved.

Other images show the couple dressed up with friends and going to festivals while living in Sydney

Photos on social media photos show the loved-up Irish couple living it up while in Sydney

Witness Ben Cary told 7News Earle had been chased down the street by police.

'I think he was just trying to get into upstairs, all these cops were chasing him down the street,' Mr Cary said.

Murtagh faced Waverley Local Court on Sunday where the court heard she thought the group of men arrived to the unit to have a chat.

But police allege Murtagh was completely aware of what the men planned to do when she let them inside.

The court heard that she later dragged the barely conscious victim into the hallway before fleeing the scene.

Photos on social media photos show the loved-up Irish couple living it up while in Sydney.

Murtagh and Earle are seen lounging at waterfalls and going on hikes exploring nature surrounding the harbour city together.

Other images show the couple dressed up with friends and going to festivals.

NSW Police are still looking for at least four other men involved in the alleged incident, but claim they know who they are.
BETHESDA, Md., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- DiamondRock Hospitality Company (the "Company") (NYSE: DRH) announced today that it has appointed Michael A. Hartmeier to the Board of Directors effective October 1, 2020.

"Mike has been a trusted advisor to the Company for many years. His extensive capital markets and M&A experience will be a valuable resource as we seek to maximize shareholder value," stated Mark W. Brugger, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company.

Mr. Hartmeier is the former Group Head of Lodging, Gaming and Leisure Investment Banking at Barclays. His prior roles include group head positions in hospitality and gaming for Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse First Boston. Mr. Hartmeier has completed over $125 billion in financing and advisory assignments during his 25 years as an investment banker. Mr. Hartmeier received his Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in Economics-Business from the University of California Los Angeles ("UCLA"). While at UCLA, he was awarded the Pacific-10 Conference Medal. He is a Certified Public Accountant (non-practicing) and began his career as an auditor at Price Waterhouse.

About the Company

DiamondRock Hospitality Company is a self-advised real estate investment trust (REIT) that is an owner of a leading portfolio of geographically diversified hotels concentrated in destination resort locations and top gateway markets. The Company owns 31 premium quality hotels with over 10,000 rooms. The Company has strategically positioned its hotels to be operated both leading global brands as well as unique boutique hotels in the lifestyle segment. For further information on the Company and its portfolio, please visit DiamondRock Hospitality Company's website at www.drhc.com .

SOURCE DiamondRock Hospitality Company

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The Maharashtra government has sacked three policemen in connection with the mob lynching incident in Palghar district in which two sadhus and their driver were killed.

The three cops are assistant police inspector Anandrao Kale has been served with dismissal orders while his colleagues, assistant police sub inspector Ravi Salunkhe and constable Naresh Dhodi.

While Kale is dismissed from service, Salunke and Dhodi would compulsorily retire.

All of them were under suspension  and were sacked after a departmental inquiry.

Kale was in-charge of the Kasa police station where the incident took place.

The dismissal and retirement orders were issued late on Saturday by Konkan Ranges special inspector general of police Niket Kaushik.

Two sadhus, Kalpavriksha Giri Maharaj (70 years), Sushil Giri Maharaj (35) and their driver Nilesh Telgade (30), were brutally lynched to death on the night of 16 April in the Gadchinchale village in Dahanu tehsil of Palghar district, nearly 120 km from downtown Mumbai.

For four days before the incident, there were rumours that robbers had come to the village to steal kidneys particularly of children and sell them in the black market. This led to the villagers mounting a round-the-clock vigil. The sadhus and their driver were attacked by a group of nearly 500 villagers suspected them to be kidnappers.

The two Nashik-based sadhus belonged to the Varanasi-headquartered Shri Panch Dashnam Juna Akhara, the biggest order of sadhus in India.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government came under fierce attack from the BJP after the incident.

The Maharashtra government transferred the investigations from the Palghar police to the Pune-headquartered State-CID.

In a major reshuffle after the incident, in April-May, two policemen Sudhir Katare and Santosh Mukne were suspended by the then Palghar superintendent of police Gaurav Singh while another 35 police personnel of Kasa Police Station were transferred to other parts of the district.

Later, during his visit to the Gadchinchale village in Kasa  where the lynchings took place  home minister Anil Deshmukh had sent Singh compulsory leave and he awaits a posting till now.

The State-CID has resulted in three chargesheets filed against a total of 126 accused before the Dahanu magistrate court, besides 11 juveniles and 28 others against whom the investigations are still underway.

The accused have been booked under various sections of Indian Penal Code, Disaster Management Act, Epidemic Diseases Act, Maharashtra Police Act, Maharashtra Damage to Public Property (Amendment) Act with charges pertaining to murder, attempt to murder, armed rioting, using criminal force to prevent a public servant from discharging his duties.
On Monday, the Supreme Court imposed a fine of Re 1 fine on Prashant Bhushan for contempt of court case against him. Meanwhile, another contempt of court case against Prashant Bhushan is also pending before the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court on Monday imposed a fine of Re 1 fine on Prashant Bhushan in connection with the suo motu criminal contempt case over his tweets accusing former Chief Justices of India of corruption. In case of default, he would be barred from practising for 3 years & will be imprisoned of 3 months.

Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra assembled on Monday to read out the judgement with respect to the sentencing of lawyer Prashant Bhushan in the contempt case against him.

A bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Arun Mishra, had reserved its order on August 25 reserved its judgement on the sentence of Bhushan in connection with the case. Reserving its order on the quantum of sentence, Justice Arun Mishra had said that there is no harm in apologising if a mistake had been done. During the hearing, advocate Dr Rajeev Dhavan appeared for Bhushan and submitted that Bhushan has the highest regard for the institution but he has his opinion about last four Chief Justices of India (CJIs) about the way in which this court has gone wrong.

Also read: PM addresses 68th edition of his monthly programme Mann ki Baat on caution amid festivities

Also read: Drug charges against PM Modi biopic maker Sandip Ssingh to be investigated: Anil Deshmukh

Attorney General KK Venugopal had said that several sitting and retired judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts (former) have commented upon corruption in the higher judiciary and suggested to let Bhushan go with a warning if he expresses regret for his remarks.

Bhushan was earlier this month held guilty of contempt of court by the Supreme Court for two of his tweets, the first one posted on June 29, related to his comment/post on a picture of CJI Bobde on a high-end bike.

In his second tweet, Bhushan expressed his opinion on the role of last four CJIs amid the state of affairs in the country. Meanwhile, another contempt of court case against Prashant Bhushan is also pending before the Supreme Court.

Also read: Indian Navy deployed warship in South China sea post-Galwan clash: Reports
People are the heart of our business, and these unemployment benefits helped IKEA U.S. co-workers during a difficult time, Quinones said. We now have a better understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on our business, and weve decided to pay it forward to support the ongoing relief efforts in our local communities.
Mass MoCA Sees No Signs of COVID-19 After 'Inconclusive' Tests

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  Inconclusive COVID-19 tests on a staff member at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art led to a rash of rumors over the weekend.

Tracy Moore, deputy director and chief operations and finance officer at the massive museum, said on Monday that a single staff member last week had a test that came back positive and a second one that came back negative.

"We are reacting based on having a positive result," she said. "The person is asymptomatic and feeling fine ... that person is still in the 14-day quarantine."

The museum created a contact list based on state Department of Health and U.S. Centers for Disease Control guidelines and began notifying people who may have been in sustained or repeated contact with the individual. Those who have been tested have so far all tested negative.

The museum also released a statement to the museum community and its tenants on Monday explaining the situation.

"We did just let our staff and campus tenants at large know this set of facts as well because I know people have been hearing snippets and there's incorrect information and terminology out there," Moore said. "So we're filling in the blanks and it's all with very good, positive news about negative tests."

Michael Moore, health director for the city of North Adams, said on Sunday that North Adams has three current positive cases, one reported on Aug. 23 and two reported Saturday. He said he could not share details of those cases other than a count. The city has been averaging one to two positive cases a week.

"Our Public Health Nurse reports all North Adams cases to me once they are confirmed with the state epidemiologic platform," he wrote in an email.

Tracy Moore said the museum has been in contact with the city and discussed the situation with Mayor Thomas Bernard.

"[Director] Joe [Thompson] and I are 100 percent confident in our protocols that were in place, and in the steps and procedures and guidelines that we followed in this, you know, concerning but not grave particular incident," she said.

The individual in question had been tested for personal reasons that the deputy director could not divulge for privacy reasons. Employees are not regularly tested but are asked to abide by state guidelines.

In their statement to the museum community, Moore and Thompson wrote that the contact tests were administered within five to seven days of contact with the potential COVID-19 case and that "5-7 days post-contact is the 'sweet spot' for accurate testing." Those still awaiting results should have them in the next couple days and are currently self-isolating.

Mass MoCA has put in restrictions to implement social distancing, including masking policies, extra cleaning, signage and capacity limitations. Moore said attendance is down about 40 to 50 percent but that was not unanticipated during the pandemic and that the feedback they've been receiving by those visiting the museum has been good.

"We're pleased with our visitorship, people are having a great experience and moving safely amongst the galleries, we have timed entry to the James Turrell exhibition which keeps those numbers limited and we're welcoming people there in a safe way," she said. "We're slower, we knew we would be. We prepared for that on all fronts operationally, but we're pleased with the very happy, grateful visitors that are coming our way."

In their statement, Moore and Thompson ask those with questions to contact their supervisors and asks "we all be respectful, and not gossip."
Overland Park woman who owns massage parlors pleads guilty to prostitution charge An Overland Park, Kansas, woman who owned massage parlors in Olathe and Leawood pleaded guilty Monday to a federal interstate prostitution charge, the U.S. attorney's office said. Chunqui Wu, 62, pleaded guilty to one count of transportation with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.

Here's a peek at consequences for one of many providers of illicit adult activities in Johnson County. Undoubtedly, many of her customers might read this news and feel a bit of tension.Checkit:
Ontarios four teacher unions are challenging the provinces back-to-school plans, arguing the government has failed to adequately respond to their concerns and is violating the workplace health and safety act.

News of their appeal to the Ontario Labour Relations Board came as Premier Doug Ford said he will shut down schools in the blink of an eye if children or staff are at risk.

But we will get through it like weve been able to get through every other challenge the world, the country, and this province has seen, Ford told reporters. We will get through it.

He said schools are prepared for the return of students, but said if an outbreak happens if it really starts taking off, I will not hesitate for a second to close these schools down in the blink of an eye. Theyre down, theyre done. Bang-closed. Im not chancing anything.

The cases filed with the labour board are not expected to impact Septembers return to school for the 190,000 teaching and educational workers represented by the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens, Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association and Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation.

The unions said in a statement that the government has not taken every reasonable precaution to protect workers as required under the law, and were left with no choice after a fruitless meeting with Minister of Labour Monte McNaughton.

This is the next step in pursuing all legal avenues to keep our members and our students safe, said Harvey Bischof, president of the secondary teachers union.

We are looking for the ministry (of labour) to issue obligations for orders to keep students safe in schools, he said, and that includes a two-metre physical distancing requirement that the government touts everywhere except for schools, as well as cohorting students in smaller groups, improved ventilation and busing safety.

The unions have asked the labour board to hear their cases on an expedited basis, given classes are set to resume over the next couple of weeks as boards stagger re-entry of students.

Ontarios medical officer of health has said he believes the provinces plan is safe, and Ford and Education Minister Stephen Lecce have repeatedly called on the unions to co-operate.

Im begging now for the teachers unions to work with us, Ford also said Monday. And I want to really, really emphasize I support our front-line teachers ... I have confidence theyre going to step up to the plate and do an incredible job and keeping our kids safe and teaching our kids.

But Bischof said while the government wants to paint this as a battle with the unions, parents and experts have also pushed for smaller classes to help with physical distancing. A report out of Sick Kids hospital called lowering class sizes crucial to fighting the spread of COVID-19.

Under the provinces plan, elementary school class sizes could be slightly lowered using provincial or federal funds, or by boards dipping into their reserves  in Toronto, the public and Catholic boards have said extra staff will be deployed to schools in areas hardest-hit by COVID-19  but there is no mandate for smaller classes.

At a Toronto elementary school open to reporters last week, kindergarten and upper-year elementary classes were estimated to be at about 27 students, with Grades 1 through 3 at about 20.

Catholic union President Liz Stuart said all we are asking is that they make an honest, exhaustive effort to follow through on this promise to make schools safe.

In the United States, teacher unions have sanctioned strikes or are suing boards over school reopening plans.

McNaughton said his ministry has boots on the ground every single day. Our inspectors have contacted all the school boards across the province and theyre visiting them every single day ... And weve had great success here in the province of Ontario, employers and employees working together to protect the health and safety of the public ... and were going to do that in schools as well.

Asked if public health officials would shut down any classes that are too big, chief medical officer Dr. David Williams said well have to assess each situation as it arises.

The trigger for another full shutdown of schools, as took place in March, would be widespread community transmission of COVID-19 approaching 500 or more cases a day, he added.

With files from Rob Ferguson

Read more about:
Allentown, PA (18103)

Today

Cloudy with morning snow ending, then windy and turning colder with falling temps and some afternoon clearing. A coating to 1-2" of snow expected in the morning. .

Tonight

Partly cloudy, windy, and very cold. Wind chills near or below zero later at night.
After declaring an unlawful assembly late Sunday in a northeast Portland, Ore., neighborhood, Multnomah County sheriff's deputies line up to clear Black Lives Matter protesters off a street near a police precinct. (Richard Read / Los Angeles Times)

For months, right-wing extremists had largely stayed away from the Black Lives Matter protests in downtown Portland, Ore.

That started to change Aug. 15 with a Stand Up to Domestic Terrorism rally, where activists waved American flags and a 27-year-old man, who was later arrested, allegedly fired gunshots from his vehicle.

The next weekend in front of the federal courthouse, men in tactical military gear, some carrying assault rifles, clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters carrying shields.

Now the conflict has turned deadly.

The Saturday night shooting death of a man who belonged to a local far-right group has raised the stakes in an escalating political battle that pits city officials against a president who seems intent on fanning the flames of unrest for his political advantage.

The killing in Portland closely follows deadly violence in Kenosha, Wis., last week. Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Antioch, Ill., who said he had come to defend businesses from protesters, was charged with fatally shooting two men and wounding another.

There, as in Portland, the deadly violence occurred after armed right-wing activists descended on Black Lives Matter protests in the name of President Trump, who in a combative law-and-order campaign strategy, advocates crackdowns on cities run by Democrats.

On Sunday, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler pleaded for calm, urging people not to return to downtown to seek retribution, as some were threatening on social media.

Speaking at a news conference in city council chambers, he declined to release details about the shooting, saying a homicide investigation was underway.

The police chief, Chuck Lovell, said detectives hadn't established whether it was politically motivated or perhaps "a skirmish between two small groups" or a "problem that erupted between individuals."

He said that on Thursday a 16-year-old African American had also been shot to death, and three others injured, in circumstances that were still being investigated.

Story continues

Wheeler directly addressed the president.

President Trump, for four years weve had to live with you and your racist attacks on Black people, he said. Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence?

Its you who have created the hate and division.

Evidently watching the briefing, Trump tweeted a real-time rebuke.

Ted Wheeler, the wacky Radical Left Do Nothing Democrat Mayor of Portland, who has watched great death and destruction of his city during his tenure, thinks this lawless situation should go on forever. Wrong! Portland will never recover with a fool for a Mayor, he wrote.

Late Sunday, as protesters kept up their nightly demonstrations, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown released details of a plan to address the violence in Portland while protecting free speech. She said the district attorneys office in Multnomah County, which includes Portland, will prosecute serious criminal offenses, and the sheriffs office will work with other agencies to hold people arrested on suspicion of violent behavior and ensure adequate jail space.

Also, Brown said, Oregon State Police will return to Portland to help local police, and nearby law enforcement agencies will be asked to assist.

We all must come together  elected officials, community leaders, all of us  to stop the cycle of violence, Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Joey Gibson, the founder of a group called Patriot Prayer, wrote on social media that the man who was killed Saturday night was Aaron "Jay" Danielson, a supporter who went by the name Jay Bishop.

Founded in 2016, Patriot Prayer is based across the Columbia River in Vancouver, Wash., and describes itself as advocating free speech and opposing big government.

Its supporters periodically cross into Oregon for rallies that the Southern Poverty Law Center says include paramilitary extremist groups. Gibson has instructed supporters to be armed at rallies, according to the center.

On Aug. 17 last year, members of Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys, an allied group that the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a hate organization, clashed in Portland with members of the antifascist movement antifa.

Police in riot gear largely managed to keep the groups apart, arresting a dozen people and seizing wooden poles, bear repellent and knives.

Patriot Prayer issued calls on social media for Trump supporters to rally Saturday.

Jim Gullo, an Uber driver, saw as many as 100 trucks gathering that evening in Happy Valley, 10 miles southeast of downtown Portland.

"It was far larger and more organized than anything I'd seen before," he said. "It gave me a sinking feeling of despair over the polarization that's happening right in front of us."

In all, a caravan of about 600 vehicles, many of them flying Trump banners, descended on the Black Lives Matter rally. The opposing groups skirmished in the streets, as the right-wing activists shot paintball guns from the backs of pickups and protesters launched fireworks at their opponents and burned American flags.

For decades, Oregon, a predominantly white state, has earned a progressive reputation, led by Portland, its biggest city.

But white nationalist groups have deep roots here.

In the 1970s, leaders of the hate group Aryan Nations began trying to get people to move to the Northwest to create a white ethno-state.

In 1988 in Portland, three skinheads fatally beat a 28-year-old Ethiopian student, Mulugata Seraw, spurring an activist movement that outed neo-Nazis and white supremacists and sometimes engaged in brawls.

After years of relative calm, clashes picked up after Trumps election.

In June, Jeremy Christian, a white supremacist, was sentenced to life in prison for the 2017 fatal stabbing of two men who were defending two young Black women from anti-Muslim taunts on a Portland commuter train.

A week after the stabbing, Gibson, the Patriot Prayer founder, organized a pro-Trump rally that attracted opposition organized by immigrant rights, religious and labor groups.

It was just a year ago that Wheeler gathered a broad coalition of business, political, civil and spiritual leaders in a news conference to promote the city's progressive image and liberal tradition of free speech, and to tell anyone planning violence to stay away.

But at his news conference Sunday, he acknowledged that gathering such a coalition would be more difficult now, because he has lost support from many who participated, and some are calling for his resignation.

"That's the kind of coalition we're missing right now," Wheeler said. "We don't have elected officials or community organizations coming together to denounce violence."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
In a sign of easing tension in the Middle East, history was made with the first direct flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates.

El Al flight 971 took off from Tel Aviv at 11.14am local time, and initially routed over Jordanian territory. Forty minutes later the Boeing 737 crossed into Saudi Arabian airspace, from which the Israeli national airline had previously been banned.

The aircraft, which had peace painted on it in English, Hebrew and Arabic, carried members of a US-Israeli delegation, led by Jared Kushner  Donald Trumps son-in-law and adviser  and Israels national security advisor, Meir Ben Shabbat.

Its journey marked an Israel-UAE agreement to normalise relations which has been claimed as a foreign policy success by Donald Trump but described as a stab in the back by Palestinian groups.

Mr Kushner said Palestinians should not be stuck in the past and added: They have to come to the table. Peace will be ready for them, an opportunity will be ready for them as soon as they are ready to embrace it.

After the plane landed in Abu Dhabi, Benjamin Netanyahu called the pilot, Captain Tal Becker to tell him it was a historic day. He added: You have no idea how excited the citizens of Israel, myself included, are over this day. We dreamed about it and worked for it and here it is happening before our eyes. Be blessed and do great things!

The Israeli prime minister also tweeted Thats what peace for peace looks like as he described a deal for formal ties with an Arab state that does not entail handover of land that Israel captured in the 1967 war. He later told a press conference: It will be a warm peace because it will be based on cooperation in the realm of economics, with an entrepreneurial economy like ours, with vast economic capabilities, with big money looking for investment channels.

Palestinian leaders responded angrily to the flight and the agreement with UAE. Peace is not an empty word used to normalise crimes and oppression. Peace is the outcome of justice, politician Saeb Erekat tweeted.

Peace is not made by denying Palestinians right to exist and imposing an apartheid regime. Apartheid is what Netanyahu means by peace for peace.

The flight number, 971, was chosen as it is the international dialling code for the UAE while the return flight is numbered 972, which is the code for Israel.

Ahead of the flight, Israels health ministry removed the obligation for arrivals from the UAE to self-isolate for 14 days.

An Israeli government spokesperson confirmed that the aircraft was equipped with an anti-missile system, like all El Al 737s, and carried security agents of the US Secret Service and the Israeli Shin Bet.

Until now the only Arab nations to establish relations with Israel have been Egypt and Jordan.

Travellers in the region have long faced problems if they have an Israeli stamp in their passport, or a stamp from Egypt or Jordan that indicates they have used a land border with Israel.

Some people have even been refused entry if they have old baggage tags indicating Israeli airports on their luggage. And while Israeli citizens can visit the UAE, previously they have had to take connecting flights.

Additional reporting by agencies
Suva, Aug 31 : The Fiji government will launch a Cash-for-Work program to assist those working in the informal sector and affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the Reserve Bank of Fiji, 130,000 Fijians are employed in the island-nation's informal sector which refers to those who are self employed, or who work for those who are self employed, reports Xinhua news agency.

People who earn a living through self employment in most cases are not on payrolls, and thus are not taxed.

Many informal workers conduct their businesses in unprotected and unsecured places.

Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said on Monday that some of these people may work every week and some of them may work just two weeks in a month or couple of days in a week and they need assistance.

"As a start, this assistance with the informal sector will be limited to those who can provide proof that they do not have retirement funds in the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) accounts and are not registered with Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) for taxation purposes.

"These individuals must also be able to provide proof of a reliable income source prior to Covid-19," he said.

According to Khaiyum, the Fijian government will carry out this program in partnership.

"As with FNPF, government will work in partnership with other organizations and government related agencies such as municipal councils, ministries like agriculture, environment and forestry and credible NGOs that can develop temporary work programs in return for pay, they could be in the form of clean-up campaign in municipalities or residential areas, planting trees or other agricultural produce.

"This will ensure that only genuine affected people are assisted," he added.

Fiji has so far reported 28 coronavirus cases and two deaths.
China's President Xi calls for 'impregnable fortress' in Tibet

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 8:32 AM

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on senior leaders to build an "impregnable fortress" to maintain stability and national unity in Tibet, in an effort to build a "united, prosperous" community in the remote Himalayan region.

Xi told a senior Communist Party meeting that more efforts were needed to "plant the seeds of loving China in the depths of the hearts of every youth," in Tibet.

The president pledged to build a "united, prosperous, civilized, harmonious and beautiful new, modern, socialist Tibet."

Xi said Tibetan Buddhism also needed to adapt to socialism and to Chinese conditions.

China seized control over the Himalayan region in 1950. Tibet, officially referred to as the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), is devoted to Buddhism.

Its spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled into exile in India following a failed 1959 Tibetan revolt against Chinese rule.

Tibet shares borders with India, Bhutan and Nepal.

Back in July, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States supported "meaningful autonomy" for Tibet.

He also said that Washington would restrict visas for some Chinese officials involved in blocking diplomatic access to Tibet and engaging in "human rights abuses."

China has repeatedly warned the US against meddling in its internal affairs.

Washington has the same stance toward other Chinese territories including Taiwan, Hong Kong and the northwestern region of Xinjiang, which is home to the ethnic minority of Uighurs.

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NTV news anchor Olive Kalekye Burrows opened up about watching her mother die, saying it was her lowest moment in life.

It was back in 2016 and the former Capital FM presenter was preparing to take her mother to the hospital.

My mum had been unwell, and she came to my place on a Monday. I told her we would go to the hospital on Tuesday. On Tuesday, she told me she wanted to rest. The whole day I just felt off. I got home and found my mum hadnt eaten. She had slept the whole day, so I forced her to eat. On Wednesday, when I woke up, I found her moving up and down the house. She was saying she was having trouble breathing. So I panicked nikakuwa mkali (I was stern with her) and I told her no, no you cant talk like that, you need to be strong, Burrows recounts.

With her mums condition deteriorating, she informed her aunt and cousin, who were on the way to pick them up to go to the hospital.

We were getting ready for the hospital. I was in the kitchen making tea and I noticed she was quiet. I came out and found her on the sofa, but one look at her face, and I could tell she was having a stroke. So, I screamed, I rushed to the fridge where I had Red Cross numbers, and they told me I was too far away because I was living in Ruaka then, she added as quoted by Daily Nation.

Burrows was, however, able to get St Johns Ambulance, but when it arrived, the responders checked her mothers pulse, I could see and I could tell she was gone.

UPBRINGING

The journalist who became a household name in 2015 after she got the rare opportunity to interview then US President Barack Obama, also opened up about her upbringing.

I was born in Mombasa County, but we moved to Nairobi when I was just a child. At the time my mum was working with Nigerian Airways, and we moved to Nairobi after she got a job with Air Kenya. So I grew up in Nairobi West, she said.

I travelled a lot with my mum. She worked in the airline industry, so I had an opportunity to see a good portion of Kenya, she added.

Burrows schooled at Malezi Preparatory in Langata and later went to Kenya High for her secondary education before she joined Daystar University.

Also Check Out  Olive Burrows: Chemistry with Dennis Okari is Genuine

While she describes herself as a stickler for rules, Burrows recounted the few instances where she got into trouble.

One time, I was home alone and my family came home later and asked if I went to church that day (it was on a Sunday) and I lied, said I went to church and I didnt go. I (had) slept in. I was asked who was preaching and I lied, turns out it was not that person. I broke the trust my family had in me, she said.

Adding: When I was in college, there was a night my friends and I wanted to go out, so I told my mum we had a campfire, which we did not. I just wanted to go out with my friends. My friends sister was at Catholic University, so we went to her room. You know when you are leaving the house, you leave with a nice, long, skirt. It was a wrap-around skirt, and I was to come back home on Sunday morning.

Underneath the church skirt, she wore a mini-skirt.

So, what we would do is hide our bags behind the DJs booth. I had put my wrap-around skirt in my friends bag. I dont know how it happened, but she left before me, without my knowledge. So, here I was on Sunday morningluckily, I had a shawl, so I used it as a skirt. When I got home my mum was awake, (and) she wondered you left looking one way and you are back home looking a totally different way she just knew I had gone out, Burrows said amid laughter.
Fresh clashes broke out between Indian and Chinese troops at Pangong in Ladakh near Line of Actual Control on the intervening night of August 29-30. It is to be noted that the border tension between India and China has been simmering for over 100 days. It is learnt that the Indian forces retaliated strongly to China's plans to change the status quo at the LAC by making provocative military movements. Indian troops reacted without wasted any time and undertook efficient measures to strengthen positionson the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso lake.

A Brigade commander flag-level meet is currently underway at Chushul to resolve the matter.

"On the Night of 29/30 August 2020, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo. Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground. The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity. A Brigade Commander level Flag Meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues (sic)," the Press Information Bureau said in a statement.

Notably, Indian armed forces are on high alert in Ladakh since the Galwan clashes which led to the martyrdom of 20 Indian soldiers. Around 50 Chinese troops were also killed in violent clashes which took place on June 15.

After the vioilent clashes in Galwan Valley, the armed forces were given the full freedom by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre to give a "befitting" response to Chinese misadventure along the LAC. Thousands of additional troops were also sent to LAC and other forward locations to keep Chinese troops under control.

India and China held several rounds of military and diplomatic meetings after the Galwan clashes to resolve the issues but only limited disengagement have taken place in the region so far. India has been seeking complete disengagement from Chinese side making it clear to Beijing that New Delhi will not compromise over its territorial integrity.
The authorities have allowed Friday prayers to resume at major mosques with an accredited imam from the religious endowments ministry leading the prayers, with strict anti-COVID-19 measures in place

Jubilant worshippers returned to Egypts major mosques for Friday prayers this week for the first time after an unprecedented five-month hiatus amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Major mosques nationwide opened for the weekly prayers in the wake of lower numbers of daily coronavirus cases under strict preventives measures, with worshippers describing the return of the ceremony as feeling like Eid, according to Ahram Online correspondents.

A similar joy is set to follow for Christians; Egypts Coptic Orthodox Church has said will resume masses on Friday starting 11 September with reduced numbers of congregants and other precautionary measures, after a five-month suspension on the back of coronavirus-related restrictions. Masses had resumed earlier this month on every day except for Friday.

"Many thanks to Allah for allowing us return to the mosques again, one worshipper said as they congratulated another following the conclusion of prayers at a mosque in Downtown Cairo.

The authorities have allowed Friday prayers to resume at major mosques with an accredited imam from the religious endowments ministry leading the prayers, with the weekly sermon set at only ten minutes, under strict measures similar to restrictions applied since the reopening of mosques for daily prayers at the end of June.

The preventive measures include worshippers wearing masks, maintaining social distancing, and using personal prayer rugs. Mosques will be open only 10 minutes ahead of prayers and will be closed immediately afterwards.

Several worshippers at the downtown mosque were prevented from entering for not wearing masks and not having their own prayer rugs.

"It's not my own decision, it's the decision of the government and I am responsible for enforcing it," said a mosque official who was preventing people from entering.

Inside the mosque, worshippers adhered to the precautionary measures, wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing by following new signs.

Others had to perform the prayers outside when the mosque reached full capacity inside, with thongs of worshippers.

An Ahram Online correspondent attending prayers at a Maadi mosque in another part of Cairo said some worshippers also had to pray outside after the mosque reached full capacity.

Despite the joy, congregants were upset that only a few mosques were currently open, questioning the logic as mosques would be crowded even if less people attended, due to the limited number of open mosques.

In another Maadi mosque, the numbers of worshippers was similar to the numbers before the coronavirus, a correspondent said, with throngs of worshippers praying outside in the open air. Social distancing rules were strictly observed inside the mosque.

Ninety percent of the people at the mosque were wearing masks and following social distancing rules outside.

I came to pray because I have really missed the Friday prayer and missed meeting God at the mosque, and because it is an obligation," Ahmed Saeed, 37, told Ahram Online from behind his mask after he finished praying at a mosque in Maadi.

He said he was not concerned about the risk of the virus and that people should adapt.

"We go out and go to malls and to work; praying is no less important. The virus is going to be part of our daily lives that we should learn to come to terms with, Saeed said.

At a mosque in the Haram neighbourhood of Cairo, another Ahram Online correspondent attended prayers that were so packed worshippers spilled out into surrounding streets.

The preventive measures are really good. I was keen on joining the prayers today, despite being a bit worried. I was encouraged [to join] after I saw worshippers flocking to the mosque, Sabet Saqr told Ahram Online after the prayers concluded.

Mohamed Ahmed, who prayed outside the mosque due to the huge turnout, expressed his enthusiasm about the return of the weekly service.

Im full of joy for the return of prayers. However, people need to be more careful, mainly those praying outside, because people didnt really adhere to social distancing, said Ahmed.

*Additional reporting by Mahmoud Elassal, Karim Farouk, Yasser Sediq and Ayat Al-Tawy.

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Evangelicals met with threats of violence, blasphemous slogans exiting White House after Trump's RNC speech

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More than 100 prominent evangelical leaders attended the fourth night of the Republican National Convention where President Donald Trump accepted the party's nomination for a second term. While leaving the White House grounds, however, attendees  including older adults and those with disabilities  were attacked by rioters who threatened violence.

Among those who attended the president's speech on the South Lawn included Pastors Jentezen Franklin, Ed Young, Jack Graham, Robert Jeffress, Bishop Harry Jackson, the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, Ralph Reed, chair of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, and radio host Eric Metaxas.

Johnnie Moore, a prominent religious freedom advocate and founder of the KAIROS Company who also attended the speech, told The Christian Post that he experienced the riots firsthand.

Violent provocateurs waited for us (and others) outside the White House gates in the citys jurisdiction, at nearly midnight, Moore recalled. Rather than succeeding at intimidating us with their vicious threats of violence, expletives, blasphemous slogans, hatred and intolerance they simply proved the very points the president made in his speech.

No doubt, D.C.s Democrat mayor slept peacefully in her bed while these threats, attacks and insults were not even reserved for the elderly, disabled or young, he added. I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. Whats awful is that the very thing this does is take away the voice of peaceful protestors, whom we want to hear.

After describing what took place as Democrat-endorsed and Democrat-enabled anarchy, Moore thanked the many members of law enforcement who worked so hard to get us home safely last night.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said in a post on Twitter Thursday night that he and his wife were surrounded by an ever-growing number of rioters who threatened violence after he was recognized. "Just got attacked by an angry mob of over 100, one block away from the White House. Thank you to @DCPoliceDept for literally saving our lives from a crazed mob," he wrote on Twitter.

Rand Paul just got chased by a crowd back to his hotel, after leaving the White House from Trumps Republican Party Nomination #DC#DCProtestspic.twitter.com/h1kPcZG1jh  Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) August 28, 2020

In an interview with "Fox & Friends" Friday morning, Paul said: "I truly believe this with every fiber of my being, had they gotten at us they would have gotten us to the ground, we might not have been killed, might just have been injured by being kicked in the head, or kicked in the stomach until we were senseless."

"They were shouting threats to us, to kill us, to hurt us, but also threats saying shout, shouting 'say her name,' Breonna Taylor, and it's like you couldn't reason with this mob, but I'm actually the author of the Breonna Taylor law to end no-knock raids, so the irony is lost on these idiots that they're trying to kill the person who's actually trying to get rid of no-knock raids," he added.

"We're not going to let you go alive unless you'll say you're for criminal justice reform," the rioters shouted, according to Paul, who explained that he has authored 22 criminal justice reforms with both President Trump and former President Barack Obama.

Evangelical Christians are a big part of Trumps electoral coalition. According to exit polling from the 2016 election, then-candidate Donald Trump captured 80% of the white evangelical vote.

Trumps acceptance speech, which lasted 70 minutes, touched upon one of the subjects evangelical Christians are most passionate about: abortion.

The president slammed the Democratic Partys position on the issue.

Joe Biden claims he has empathy for the vulnerable  yet the party he leads supports the extreme late-term abortion of defenseless babies right up until the moment of birth, Trump declared. Democrat leaders talk about moral decency, but they have no problem with stopping a babys beating heart in the ninth month of pregnancy.

Tonight, we proudly declare that all children, born and unborn, have a God-given right to life, he added.

Trump also slammed his Democratic opponent as being a trojan horse for socialism and a member of the failed political class.

For 47 years, Joe Biden took the donations of blue-collar workers, gave them hugs and even kisses, and told them he felt their pain  and then he flew back to Washington and voted to ship our jobs to China and many other distant lands.

Joe Biden spent his entire career outsourcing their dreams and the dreams of American Workers. Offshoring their jobs, opening their borders, and sending their sons and daughters to endless foreign wars, Trump asserted.

While the speech focused heavily on the policy differences between the president and Biden, the address also featured an emotional tribute to fallen police officers. Trump prefaced the tribute by proclaiming that my administration will always stand with the men and women of law enforcement.

Every day, police officers risk their lives to keep us safe and every year, many sacrifice their lives in the line of duty, he said.

The president specifically highlighted NYPD Detective Miosotis Familia, who was murdered in 2017 by a man who hated her purely for wearing the badge.

Detective Familia was a single mom, Trump explained. She had recently asked for the night shift so she could spend more time with her kids.

Throughout that portion of the speech, the cameras focused in on Familias children, who were seated in the audience. Two years ago, I stood inside the U.S. Capitol alongside those beautiful children and held their grandmothers hand as they mourned their terrible loss, Trump recalled. We honored Detective Familias extraordinary life.

Trump also mentioned David Dorn, the retired African American St. Louis police officer who lost his life while guarding a store from rioters and looters as the city was engulfed in violent riots following the officer-involved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He acknowledged the presence of Dorns family in the audience. Dorns wife, Ann, spoke at the convention ahead of the president.

While Trumps acceptance speech was the headline of the evening, the final night of the RNC featured other notable speakers in the hours leading up to the presidents address.

Alice Marie Johnson, who had her life sentence commuted by Trump, praised the president for his embrace of criminal justice reform. The parents of Kayla Mueller, who was taken hostage, raped, tortured, and murdered by the radical Islamic State terrorist group, gave an emotional address praising the Trump administration for giving them empathy we never received from the Obama administration.
Paul Cezanne famously wrote: Dont be an art critic, but paint, there lies salvation. The French artist, who had repeated bouts of depression, gave expression to the feeling in a number of canvases such as the Pyramid of skulls and The Murder.

Vincent van Goghs Barred Window and Starry Night, which he painted from his room in an asylum, are representations of his psychotic perceptions.

A particular shade of yellow was said to have provided spiritual succour to the Dutch Master. What Cezanne and Van Gogh did is recognised by scientists today as Art Therapy.

The process of painting isnt the only vehicle for such therapy. Take the altarpiece sculpted and painted for the Monastery of St. Anthony in France for instance. The monks there specialised in hospital work, focussing on those suffering from plague and skin diseases.

Christ on the cross in the altarpiece is depicted with boils and sores on his body, and the painting is believed to have brought solace to the similarly-affected patients who gazed at it.

As the pandemic forces people all around the world to stay indoors, therapists are promoting art therapy as a means to relieve pent-up anger, stress and other emotions.

How can art help?

Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses the creative arts to help release emotion, connect with your surroundings, and find a voice, says renowned psychologist Dr Nisha Khanna.

In art therapy, a persons unconscious and subconscious mind plays an important role. People are encouraged to draw their imagination, their perception, their experience. And its true that when your feelings are involved, or when you listen to your emotions, then a simple painting or artwork becomes a masterpiece and other people who have experienced similar thoughts find a connection and deep meaning in them.

By focusing on ideas and experiences which are separate from the pandemic experience, we are able to divert our focus onto things of beauty which can instil hope. Being hopeful may make it easier to cope with new norms in a post-pandemic world.

The sensory response to art is said to allow newer ways of seeing, looking and perceiving. This in turn may support the creation of new neural pathways, says Anupa Mehta, a Narrative Therapist, art critic and curator.Art has an imperceptible, intangible value which can be harnessed to shift experience, says Anupa.

Empathy and healing

Ask any artist and they will tell you that art in any form is therapeutic. There are paintings and frescos in cathedrals, sculptures and images of gods and goddesses in temples, and murals in monasteries. Just looking at them elevates ones spirits. Roadside shrines and Sufi darghas too offer peace and reassurance in difficult times. Beliefs and faith are what sustain the human spirit during times of crises such as Covid-19. In the olden days every village practiced art therapy, with people decorating the walls and floors of their homes with images to overcome grief and pain, says G. Ravinder Reddy, a well-known artist.

Till the mid-19th century, psychopathology hadnt evolved as a medical science, says artist Ramakanth Thumrugoti.

Before that, art therapy was essentially faith and belief-driven. Religious beliefs helped patients. The unusual, distorted representation of Christ on the Isenheim Altarpiece would have touched a chord with patients suffering from similar health issues, generating empathy and producing strong psychosomatic results. In the modern medical world of psychiatry too, healing methods involve art. Psychiatrists encourage patients to express their frustration, anger or any other inexplicable mental trauma through painting or music, he says.

The approach is also used to treat patients with cognitive disorders, dementia, depression or any other kind of progressive neurological conditions. Institutions like Harvard claim that through art we can not only improve memory and reasoning but also prevent the onset of severe neurological conditions like cognitive disorders, Thumrugoti adds.

Constructive channelisation of energy

Indians have been quite innovative during quarantine, from doing yoga and meditation together, to singing bhajans, dancing the garba and playing cricket. These activities, especially when done together, not only distract people from their illnesses but also foster a spirit of unity. Using art to express oneself helps calm restlessness and use energy in a focused constructive manner, sums up Dr Anjali Chhabria, a leading psychiatrist and psychotherapist.
The intelligence chief declared no direct briefing for the U.S. elections. A day later, the Democrats attack Trump's Intel Chief Decision. But, just like any White Decision, it is met by hostility and with a threat of a subpoena.

The recent statement that the intelligence chief decided not to have congressional debriefings was not met favorably by the Democrats. As they said it was not correct and it hinders access to vital information, although leakages have occurred. Fear of foreign meddling is not valid enough, so the house will get subpoenas if needed, reported Reuters.

John Ratcliff, the newly appointed director of national intelligence, revealed that lawmakers leaked information from a July 31 meeting. He also charged the Democrat party members as the ones responsible for it. He added that the information was used to fuel narratives against the present administration, cited US News. Ratcliff is a Trump appointee and a well known stalwart of the Trump administration.

He added in an interview on Fox News that members of the congress who had no business of going to news outlets and leaking strictly classified information. This, according to him, is not correct because it is used for self-serving political purposes. This is merely to create a narrative that suits a predetermined end. One observation is using Russia as the bigger national security threat, not China. Since the election of Donald Trump, the shadow of Russia interfering has been the issue.

In 2016, he was one of those on Trump's camp that defended the president from mudslinging members of the House. They were trying to prove that Trump won because of Russian influence, not the election process.

Also read: Joe Biden's Family Record Show Drug Usage, Drunk Driving, and Other Charges But No One Was Jailed

In another incident in 2016, the Democrats have accused the Trump's Intel Chief of keeping the members of the house from questioning intelligence officials. Democrats still focused on proving the Russian and Trump connection in the 2020 U.S. elections.

Adam Schiff, Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said in an interview on CNN's State of the Union program that contents in a report may not be all correct, but it can't be subject to questioning on it.

He charged that if anyone can use documents as a subterfuge, as an excuse not to answer the real questions, then it is concealing the truth and, adding that the narrative of Russian interference like in 2016 again.

Schiff immediately made it clear that he did not leak any info coming from the July 31 brief.

He added that even his staff did not leak any information. He also pointed out that all other committee members with Republicans did not reveal any info as well.

However, there is still a warning about the possible interference of Russia, China, and Iran as nations who gain something from messing with the 2020 Presidential elections. In his tirade, Schiff said he will force the intelligence communities to fork out all the relevant info or be forced to.

Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security told the press that the Democrats are overreacting over the issue.

There are conclusions by the bipartisan investigation that states of Russia's potential interference. If there are potential leaks, why attack the Intel's protecting election security.

Related article: Top Intelligence Office Tells Congress: No Security Briefings on US Elections

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Prison staff extinguished a fire that broke out in a cell at Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre on Monday, resulting in one inmate being taken to hospital.

Three fire crews were called to the facility on Ipswich Road in the Ipswich suburb of Darra about 11.20am and arrived at the scene at 11.30am.

Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre, south-west of Brisbane. Credit:Google Earth

Firefighters were escorted into the facility by security, who told them the flames had been extinguished by Queensland Corrective Services staff using an internal hose reel.

All three fire crews had left the scene by 12.10pm.
As President of Delia Associates, the leading B2B branding and marketing firm in New Jersey, Ed Delia routinely helps organizations take their brand to the next level of growth. Now, Delia is sharing his experiences and insights in a free, downloadable e-book titled The Complete Guide to Brand-Based Marketing for B2B Executives. This valuable resource, aimed primarily at B2B sales and marketing executives, gets to the core of how great brands are made  and why brand-building is critically important, now more than ever.

In the just-released e-book, Delia identifies 45 ways that B2B organizations can effectively interact with potential customers to double their lead pipelines. Knowing how to employ these marketing tools effectively is especially crucial now, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to prevent many from in-person contact with customers. This reality is expected to remain for the foreseeable future, forcing B2Bs to retool their sales strategies.

According to the author, the key is recognizing that purchasing decisions are driven by emotion first, and rationalized second. After 25+ years working with seasoned B2B executives, I encounter many who are new to brand-building and its necessity, Delia notes. A strong brand foundation helps ensure a companys core messages appear consistently across all channels and helps build brand preference with audiences on an emotional level. So, when a B2B company positions itself as a brand, the overarching benefit is a strong, lasting and emotional bond with its core audiences. Brands are built on trust and relationships. And while some B2B leadership may initially balk at an emotion-based brand strategy, Delia Associates has succeeded in convincing some of the most reluctant CEOs and their teams that a strong brand presence will elevate and humanize a companys reputation.

The e-book has already earned praise from several industry professionals and executives:

MIKE MICHALOWICZ, Author, Speaker Focused on Creating Entrepreneurial Success

In planning for whats next growth, this book provides plenty of useful tools to drive sales. Well done, Ed.

STEVE TAFARO, Sales and Leadership Trainer

If youre in sales or management and looking to grow, I recommend you spend a few minutes with Ed Delias e-book. Youll thank yourself.

NOAH ROSENFARB, Investor, Financial Advisor & Entrepreneur

Whether youre an entrepreneur, business executive, sales professional or just want to take your assets from wealth to wealthier, youll find plenty of worthwhile tips in the pages of Ed Delias e-book.

ROB RYCKMAN, Senior Sales and Marketing Professional

Ed Delias e-book lays out a wide-ranging set of plans for marketing and sales. Lots of useful and actionable observations.

The e-book includes more than 20 case studies detailing how Delia Associates built unique brand platforms for a wide variety of B2B companies, with measurable results.

To download a free copy of the e-book, visit https://www.delianet.com/resources/the-complete-guide-to-brand-based-marketing-for-b2b-executives-2/.

# # # #

About the Author

Ed Delia became President of Delia Associates in 1998, assuming full control of the company founded by his father, Michael A. Delia, in 1964. Under Eds leadership, Delia Associates has contributed directly to the success and growth of a wide variety of b2b clients, from global to regional organizations, and the firm has received numerous professional awards and industry commendations. Ed also earned the distinction as one of NJBIZs Forty Under 40, which recognizes up-and-coming business leaders in New Jersey. He is also a past recipient of Somerset Countys Outstanding Person of the Year and is one of only 250 individuals in the country to hold a Professional Certified Marketer designation. To learn more or simply talk brand, contact Ed at edelia@delianet.com.

About Delia Associates

Delia Associates, the award-winning branding and marketing firm, is "Where b2b brands go to grow." Since 1964, and across two generations of leadership, the firm has enabled numerous companies to achieve sustainable marketplace success and exponential growth. Through the firm's proprietary Brand Leadership Solution, a unique brand-based marketing platform, hundreds of packaging brands have achieved next-level success. The process directly supports and accelerates business development initiatives, through the creation of a distinctive and dynamic brand position, go-to-market strategy, and fully-integrated marketing program. In-house competencies include strategic brand development, re-branding, website development, trade show marketing and support, advertising, pr, content, and social and search marketing. For more information, please visit https://www.delianet.com.

For additional press information, please contact:

Ilena Della Ventura

Delia Associates

T. 908-534-9044

E. Idellaventura@delianet.com


A US based Ghanaian Professor of Law and social commentator, Prof. Stephen Kwaku Aware, who is popularly known as Prof Kwaku Azar has alleged that causing financial losses to the country is now normalized under the leadership of President Akufo Addo.

Many financials deals which include the famous PDS botched deAL cost massive financial loss to the state. However, those behind those deals are not held responsible.

According to Prof Azar, since the PDS deal which cost Ghana some 200 million dollars, none of the persons behind the scandalous deal has been arraigned before court to face charges.

Prof Azar also noted that no measures have been put in place to stop similar PDS deals from reoccurring in the country.

"...Not a single mechanism has been put in place to prevent its reoccurrence," Prof. Azar stated.

A commission which would be tasked to investigate the PDS deal has also not been set up to get to the bottom of what led to the striking of the PDS deal which was subsequently terminated.

All these, according to Prof Azar amounts to the normalization of causing financial loss to the state.

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Damascus: A Syrian Defence Ministry official said Israels military fired missiles on Monday night (Tuesday AEST) on areas south of the capital Damascus killing two soldiers, wounding seven and causing material damage.

The unnamed Defence Ministry official, who was quoted by state media, said the strikes targeted military posts south of Damascus adding that Syrian air defences shot down most of the missiles before they hit their targets.

Smoke rising from a Syrian government airstrike near Idlib, Syria in 2018. Credit:AP

The official said the missiles were fired from the area of Syrias Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The missile attack started at 10.40pm, local time.

Residents of the capital Damascus said they heard explosions south of the city.
KITCHENER  Security camera footage of two minors drawing a swastika on a Kitchener driveway on Saturday has sparked outrage online.

A Twitter post from Kitchener resident Jason Hynes, featuring a video from his neighbours private security camera, has been viewed more than 12,000 times since it was posted early Sunday morning. It has been shared by over 250 Twitter users.

The video shows one of the culprits drawing a swastika on a driveway while another watches and laughs from the sidewalk.

Hynes said they also wrote profanities and racist slurs on the driveway and sidewalk. His own home was similarly targeted.

Hynes has since spoken to the parents of both individuals, who he said were much younger than 18.

We spoke for a few minutes, they were very apologetic, he said. They have already reached out to the police and will be continuing to work with police.

He said the parents were clearly upset and were not taking it lightly.

Waterloo Regional Police chief Bryan Larkin was among the many Twitter commenters on Sunday, saying the forces hate crime unit would be following up with the families involved.

Such acts cannot be tolerated, he wrote.

Hynes confirmed that he had been in contact with police throughout Sunday and commended the police service for reacting so quickly.

Other community leaders have also weighed in online, reaching out to Hynes directly.

It angers me that 2 young ppl would do this on any property, wrote Kitchener mayor Berry Vrbanovic. As a society we need to ask ourselves what brings about such hate in a young person & how do we prevent it. I will be asking @WRPSToday to followup.

Waterloo Mayor Dave Jaworsky called the incident so sad to see.

Ideally the culprit goes in to police, and hopefully qualifies for restorative justice to get on the track that parents, teachers + community expect, he wrote.

Hynes said he was initially shocked and disappointed when he first noticed the chalk. After seeing the video surveillance, he said his reaction would have been different if it had been a clear targeted attack by a sophisticated neo-Nazi group.

Kids pick things up in the media, he said, and sometimes they try to rebel or look cool without appreciating the context and the history.

I think in this situation, education is the key, he said. People need to understand that you cant do this type of thing, but not just because I said so or you said so, but because of the meaning it has and its historical significance.
Theres going to be a large focus on local products, craft beer, craft cocktails, Bennett said. We really want to support the local Buffalo community. Were excited.

It will also offer food, she added, so if people want to stay and have dinner with us, they can do that as well. The menu is still being finalized, she said, but it will offer entrees, as well as burgers and normal Buffalo fare.

And thats separate from the buildings new food hall, located around the corner in the former corporate cafeteria for HSBC. Also run by Sodexo, it will offer "a little bit of everything," Bennett said, including a rotating bowl station for international concepts like Mediterranean, Mexican or Asian food, as well as a pizza oven for flatbreads, a variety of pasta dishes, a grill and a daily toast bar. Each will have separate counters, with chefs or employees preparing and handing out food items for now because of Covid-19.

Grab-and-go items will also be available, as well as a salad bar "when Covid settles down and we're allowed to do self-service again," Bennett added. She said Sodexo is also partnering with local restaurants and vendors to rotate in and out so that "they'll be able to keep it interesting for the building and reflect what Buffalo has to offer."
The new code offers a road map for the public and officers about discipline and makes the process more transparent.

When the New York Police Department fired an officer last year for putting Eric Garner in a deadly chokehold, the officers union argued that there was little, if any, precedent within the departments internal disciplinary system for such a penalty.

Now, the nations largest police department is spelling out potential ramifications for officer misconduct, unveiling on Monday a draft of a discipline matrix that will guide punishment decisions similarly to how sentencing guidelines are used in criminal cases. It will be adopted after a 30-day public comment period.

We wanted to make it very, very clear that if you do certain things there are certain consequences, said Assistant Chief Matthew Pontillo, who helped develop the disciplinary policies with the help from department officials and outside agencies.

Mayor Bill de Blasio called it a big step forward for transparency and accountability.

Police reform advocates were not as enthused, arguing the NYPD still has too much power policing its own and that it rarely enforces top penalties, with just 12 officers fired for misconduct since the mid-1980s.

The head of the citys largest police union blasted the guidelines for different reasons, painting them as a way for elected officials to manipulate NYPD discipline to further their radical political goals.

Apparently, mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines are unfair to criminals, but perfectly fine for cops, said Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association, suggesting the guidelines would be subject to change based on headlines and poll numbers, rather than any objective sense of justice or fairness.

The NYPD is shifting to formal disciplinary guidelines at a time when law enforcement agencies around the world are being pressed to be more transparent about discipline in the wake of protests against the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd in May.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, who will still have the final say on discipline, said it was important to have a road map so the public and officers know what to expect. Development of the matrix was well under way when the city council passed a law in June mandating its use. The law also requires that the public be informed how often Shea deviates from it.

Around the same time, state legislators sought to shed more light by repealing a decades-old law that had kept police disciplinary files secret. Police unions suing to block their release are appealing after a judge ruled last week that they should be made public.

A 48-page draft report lists presumptive penalties for dozens of forms of misconduct, including termination for using deadly physical force without justification, engaging in hate speech and making a false statement.

Among the other items covered in the matrix: If an officer forgets to turn on his or her body camera while responding to an incident, he or she can be suspended or docked three days, but if it is done intentionally, its a 20-day punishment.

The discipline matrix outlines grounds for suspension or firing for a number of offences, such as failing to turn a body camera on, or using a prohibited chokehold [File: John Minchillo/AP Photo]

Accessing confidential information can be punished with a 10-day suspension or loss of vacation days, while leaking confidential information to the news media can be punished with a 20-day suspension or loss of vacation days.

Chokeholds resulting in death and the intentional use of a chokehold are also grounds for firing. The NYPD has long banned chokeholds and legislators recently passed laws explicitly outlawing the tactic. One was named for Garner, who died in 2014 after then-Officer Daniel Pantaleo put him in a chokehold.

In developing a discipline matrix, the NYPD is fulfilling one of the last remaining recommendations from a panel of criminal justice experts that examined the disciplinary process on its behalf two years ago.

While the experts found that the disciplinary process generally worked well, they said a set of guidelines would help eliminate perceptions of favouritism or bias in officer punishment. They also called for stiffer penalties for officers making false statements and committing domestic violence.

The department revised its domestic violence punishment guidelines last year, Pontillo said. An officer can be fired for an incident that results in serious physical injuries, violates a restraining order or is part of a pattern of abuse.

Pontillos group spend more than a year shaping the new guidelines. They looked at five years of case outcomes to get a sense of penalties that had been applied and studied how other police departments  including Los Angeles, Denver and New Orleans  built their guidelines. They also solicited input from the watchdog agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, and the Commission to Combat Police Corruption.

Misconduct complaints are investigated by the CCRB and the NYPDs internal affairs bureau. If departmental charges are filed, an officer can either agree to a penalty or take the case to trial before an administrative judge. The judge sends any punishment recommendations to First Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Tucker, who passes his recommendation to Shea.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 21:55:32|Editor: huaxia

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BANGKOK, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Travelers from Thailand for Israel are exempted from a 14-day quarantine upon arrival in the Middle East country, said a government official on Monday.

Thailand's Foreign Affairs Ministry's deputy spokesman Natapanu Noppakhun confirmed all Thai and other nationals traveling from Thailand to Israel are exempted from the 14-day quarantine against the COVID-19 pandemic, effective from Monday.

Thailand is among a total of 30 countries from where travelers to Israel are not to be quarantined upon arrival, Natapanu said.

In the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) community, only travelers from Thailand and Singapore are given such exemption in the Middle East country, according to the deputy spokesman. Enditem
Elon Musk-owned SpaceX has launched the first south bound rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida for the first time in more than 50 years.

The Falcon 9 rocket was launching an Argentinian SAOCOMB 1B satellite into polar orbit where it will monitor the Earth for signs of impending natural disasters.

To reach polar orbit the rocket had to do a 'dog leg' manoeuvres to the east to avoid heavily populated areas while it was climbing to higher altitudes.

Usually polar orbit launches liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California as they can head out to sea and fly up over the Pacific Ocean - but a spate of wildfires near the launch site prompted SpaceX and the US Air Force to look for alternatives.

The last polar orbit launch from Florida was a weather satellite in 1969 - sent up on behalf of the NOAA forerunner the Environmental Science Services Administration.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts off from Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on Sunday, August 30, 2020. The rocket is carrying the SAOCOM 1B satellite for Argentina

Second man on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin, praised SpaceX for the launch in his backyard

SpaceX was due to launch two rockets on Sunday - one headed for polar orbit and another carrying Starlink satellites that was called off due to bad weather.

To reach polar orbit the Falcon 9 headed south after liftoff at 00:18 BST, then it had to skim along the southeastern Florida coast near Miami before flying over Cuba.

By the time the rocket was flying over Cuba it was at a high enough altitude that it didn't pose a danger to people, according to a spokesperson.

The booster from the Falcon 9 launch touched down safely after a pintpoint landing at Cape Canaveral - ready to be used again in a future launch.

This prompted second man on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin to tweet: 'Falcon 9's launch and first stage landing in my backyard. Well done.'

Rockets flying from Florida usually head eastward towards the Equator so they fly primarily over open ocean before reaching orbit.

In 2016 the US Air Force started examining whether there was a way to safely bring polar launches to Florida due to wildfires getting closer to Vandenberg.

So far only SpaceX is able to launch polar orbiting satellites from Florida as it has an automated 'self destruct' system built into the Falcon 9.

This means that if it is over land and there is a problem the rocket can destroy itself before 'crash landing' even if flight control can't get a signal through to the rocket.

It is expected that most future launch vehicles will include these automated safety systems - allowing to to fly into a polar orbit from Florida.

According to the 45th Space Wing nobody in Cuba was at risk from the Falcon 9.

People at Cherie Down Park in Cape Canaveral, Florida watch the booster landing of the SpaceX Falcon 9, Sunday, Aug. 30, 2020

'It will overfly Cuba, but it'll be at an altitude that we're safe, just like when we're going north,' said Brig. Gen. Douglas Schiess, commander of the 45th Space Wing.

As the rocket entered the northern parts of north America - after its southeastern 'kick' it had to overfly some islands - but again it was at a 'safe altitude'.

I know that were meeting all the safety requirements now, and it really comes down to being at the right altitude and speed at that time - to make sure that any debris that were to fall would be small enough, or not even impact any land, which makes this ability to launch that from a safe perspective,' the general said.

The satellite payload being launched by SpaceX will help the Argentine government watch for potential disasters that could disrupt agriculture, mining and fishing.
THE GOAL: To determine whether someones immune response to the coronavirus can be repurposed to attack cancer tumours, given the premise that a large portion of the global population is expected to develop that immune response  through infection or potential vaccination  in the coming years.

THE TEAM: Dr. Shashi Gujar, a scientist in the Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, who is leading an international collaboration with partners in France, Denmark, Germany, the United States and India. Also on the team are Youra Kim, also with Dalhousies Department of Pathology, and Jonathan Pol and Guido Kroemer, both of France.

THE TIMELINE: Using the immune response to COVID-19 to battle tumours is still many years down the line, but given the widespread distribution of the coronavirus, its expected that hundreds of millions of people globally will have the immune response tools to be repurposed to fighting cancer. Cancer immunotherapy is already being used to treat melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

What brought on this idea?

Gujars team has been working for several years on cancer immunotherapy as an alternative to chemical and radioactive treatments. He likes to refer to cancer immunotherapy as retraining the immune system so it can go after cancer.

His work until now has been focused on using reoviruses for that purpose. Reoviruses are common RNA viruses that result in either asymptomatic infections or mild gastrointestinal symptoms in humans.

About 50 per cent of the human population has antibodies to the reovirus in their system. That means that at some point about 50 per cent of the worlds population has been infected by a reovirus.

Those reovirus antibodies can be re-tasked to attack cancer cells, Gujars team will argue in a soon-to-be-released paper. And if that can be accomplished using reovirus antibodies, it can likely be accomplished with coronavirus antibodies, too.

How would it work?

When the human body encounters an invader  called an antigen  it mounts an immune response. The response involves identifying the intruder, mounting a defence and killing the intruder.

T-cells are a major component in that process. The version that Gujar works with is called the CD8+ T-cell  a cytotoxic, or killer cell.

When an intruder is present, T-cells increase rapidly to fight the infection. When the fight is over, those numbers dwindle, but a small number of memory T-cells remain.

When a person encounters the same intruder again, the remaining T-cells recognize the antigen and produce more T-cells to attack the infection. With T-cells for that intruder already in place, the immune system mounts a defence far more rapidly than it was able to the first time.

This is the basis of immunity. If a person has had the measles, after theyve fought off the infection  or received a measles vaccination  for many years afterward there remain some memory T-cells in the body.

If that same measles virus comes along again, those T-cells recognize it and mount a rapid response, stopping the disease in its tracks.

The T-cells can do that because they recognize a specific sequence of amino acids that the measles virus have. This is called an epitope.

Picture it like this: an epitope is like a hat the virus wears. If a T-cell sees an intruder with a blue hat, it recognizes it as a measles virus, mounts a response  producing more T-cells  and attacks it.

If it sees a red hat, or no hat at all, it ignores the intruder  its somebody elses problem.

And it may well be. The bodys immune system keeps all kinds of T-cells on hand from previous infections it has battled. There could easily be another T-cell that recognizes the red hat, and jumps into action.

That being said, why dont T-cells recognize cancer cells as intruders and mount an attack and kill them?

Cancer is a process that takes a long time to develop inside your body. And the cancer cell is basically a mutated version of your cells, said Gujar. So your T-cell, or your body, is used to looking at those normal cells day-in, day-out and ignoring them, because you dont attack your own, right?

There is a hypothesis that the body is constantly attacking and killing cancer cells before they become problematic, he added, and it is only the occasional instance when a T-cell fails to recognize a cancer cell as a threat and the cancer begins to grow.

This is called escape of immune recognition. And as the cancer continues to grow, the immune system continues to fail to recognize it as a threat.

Cancer is very sneaky, adds Gujar. (Cancers) also produce things that will dampen the functions of these T-cells and other immune cells.

So its a double whammy. Not only have they learned how to hide from the immune system to start with, but they also produce what we call immunosuppressive cytokines or an environment where most of the immune cells dont function properly.

So even a T-cell that recognizes a cancer cell may not be very effective in fighting it.

On the other hand, an antiviral T-cell is very potent.

So Gujars research over the past several years has been about tricking those antiviral T-cells into thinking cancer cells are the viruses they usually attack.

He does this by attaching the epitope that the T-cell recognizes to a cancer cell  in essence, taking the blue hat that the T-cell recognizes on the virus it always attacks and putting it on the cancer cell.

That sounds easier than it is. In reality, T-cells in different humans may recognize different epitopes for the same virus. That is, one persons T-cells might recognize a virus by the fact it is wearing a blue hat. Another persons T-cells might recognize the same virus by the fact it is wearing red gloves.

That means that before Gujar can repurpose a particular persons T-cells into attacking a cancer cell, he has to figure out how that specific T-cell recognizes the virus its meant to attack  which epitope it recognizes on the virus.

Once that has been accomplished, he can create that epitope in the lab, deliver it to the tumour and let the T-cells attack the tumour.

This same approach can be applied to the coronavirus, he believes.

By the time it is all said and done in the next year or two, most of the world population will be either infected or vaccinated, he said. So all these people will have anti-COVID immunity. And then, for better or for worse, there is just so much research that is going on right now in COVID, that the anti-COVID immune response will be very well characterized.

That means that, potentially, a large portion of the worlds population may have, within themselves, the tools to battle cancer without radiation or chemotherapy.

What are the pressing questions that need to be answered?

Before that becomes common treatment though, there are still some problems that need to be ironed out. One of those problems is, once theyve made the epitopes for a particular T-cell in the lab, how then do they deliver those epitopes to the tumour?

We already have evidence in the lab that as soon as we put (epitopes) in tumours, they take it  this was something that wasnt really clear in the past, said Gujar.

One method is by direct injection. This is already being done with melanomas. But its still unclear whether that epitope will spread throughout the tumour. Are repeated injections into the tumour in different areas necessary so the epitope is absorbed equally? And how long will those epitopes last anyway?

These are questions Gujar and his teams will be asking as they continue their research.

Additionally, at this stage of research, no one is sure how long memory T-cells for the coronavirus will last in the human body. That is, no one is yet sure how long an immunity to the coronavirus will last.

That is part of ongoing research, which will also provide Gujars team with types and frequencies of the epitopes in the coronavirus that human T-cells recognize.

That will impact how widespread a coronavirus T-cell cancer treatment might be in the future, but not on the general principle itself.

A workable cancer immunotherapy treatment could potentially help millions battle cancers with few of the side effects of radiation or chemotherapy.

When we were working on this, we always kept joking about the old saying, If life gives you lemons  said Gujar.

Its the same thing  the whole world was thrown by this lemon. So how do we make the lemonade out of it? Because thats our reality, whether we like it or not. So how do you deal with it and can we make something positive out of it?

COVID: Front-line thinkers is part of a regular series highlighting COVID-19 research in Canada.

SM Steve McKinley is a Halifax-based reporter for the Star. Reach him via email: stevemckinley@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @smckinley1

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The United States Marine Corps wants to deploy a new CH-53KKing Stallion heavy-lift helicopter, but do its capabilities justify its premium price over, say, the CH-47, Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley has wondered. Described by Popular Mechanics in 2017 as phenomenally expensive, the CH-53K program is becoming more controversial as Marines continue to fight in non-amphibious environments like Afghanistan.

The Marines want to buy 200 CH-53Ks for $31 billion, or $138.5 million a copy, a price that already increased from $131.2 million merely in the year 2016-2017. By comparison, the Marines F-35B variant of the Joint Strike Fighter costs $122.8 million each. Developed since 2006, the CH-53Ks were supposed to begin operational service in 2015, a date now delayed until sometime in 20232024.

CH-53K King Stallion (Photo credit: US Marine Corps)

The CH-53 helicopter series dates to its introduction with the Marines in 1966, and the Marines current CH-53E Super Stallion, which in 1977 cost $61 million in 2017 dollars, appeared in 1974. The new CH-53K is among the most powerful heavy-lift helicopters globally, three times more powerful than the CH-53E. The King Stallion, 99 feet long and 44 tons fully loaded, will be Americas largest and heaviest helicopter.

The Marines and the CH-53Ks producer, Lockheed Martins Sikorsky Helicopter Corporation, argue that only the CH-53K satisfies Marine requirements. These include the need to carry up to 36,000 pounds total payload and 27,000 pounds over a 100-mile operational radius. These criteria are essential for the Marines Pacific strategy, in which forces will deploy over vast distances on islands or barge-like bases.

Yet Marine Corps Commandant General Robert Neller disturbed Hawley during 2019 conversations over the CH-53K. Neller expressed pretty significant frustration to Hawley about the CH-53K, concerns that prompted the Department of Defense (DoD) to begin a review of the CH-53K in 2019. As authorized by the Senate under Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), the Pentagon will consider the option of the Marines purchasing a mix of CH-53Ks and CH-47 Chinooks, another heavy-lift helicopter that originally began service in the United States Army in 1962.

The Boeing Corporation is offering a new version of the Chinook. This CH-47F can carry around 21,000 pounds. Currently 20 countries, including eight of Americas NATO allies, operate the combat-tested CH-47.

Boeing spokespersons have touted the CH-47Fs refinement of the Chinooks known reliability. By contrast, the four currently existing test CH-53Ks with a largely new design have no such operational record, making maintainability unproven. Moreover, average annual CH-47F costs per flight hour of $10,600 compare with nearly $42,000 for the CH-53K.

Such cost and safety issues loom large given that the CH-53E Super Stallion currently has the Marine Corps worst aircraft readiness problems. As Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Mark Thompson at the Project on Government Oversight wrote in 2018, the CH-53E and its near-identical twin, the United States Navys MH-53E Sea Dragon minesweeper, have a terrible safety record. After 132 operational accident deaths in these helicopters, the Marines are simply replacing their CH-53Es with beefier CH-53Ks, and hoping history doesnt repeat itself.

Thompson has criticized as well the CH-53K programs focus on amphibious operations, the Marine Corps traditional raison detre. The Marines have a relentless push to remain relevant and keep the hopes of a glorious replay of an amphibious assault alive, an antiquated, all-but-obsolete mission. While Americas last beach assault occurred in 1950 at Inchon during the Korean War, since Al Qaedas September 11, 2001 attacks, the Marines fought far from any shoreline in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Particularly in Afghanistan, the Chinook has become a workhorse in the words of the technology website The Drive. No other helicopter can replicate its unique capabilities -- not even close, in Afghanistans often hot, high mountains. In particular, the Chinook is DoDs fastest helicopter.

Marine use of the Chinook makes sense given that the Marines operated a similar Boeing helicopter, the CH-46 Sea Knight, which served from 1964 until as recently as its 2015 retirement. As The Drive has noted, untrained eyes often confuse the CH-46 with the CH-47, a far more powerful helicopter. Such experience should qualify objections that the CH-47F would require special modifications to serve in a maritime environment and that the Marines operate separate support systems for another helicopter alongside the CH-53K.

The Marines multifaceted missions from Afghanistans high hills to the Pacific Ocean argue against sole reliance on a future CH-53K helicopter. Just as the United States Air Force cannot depend only on advanced stealth aircraft, the Marine Corps should not place all its eggs in a costly, untried King Stallion basket. As with other areas in life, among helicopters there is strength in diversity.
Along with pencils, paper and crayons, kids across Michigan returned to school in recent weeks with masks and hand sanitizer to begin the new year.

The first day of school looked different this year amid the coronavirus pandemic with rules around hygiene, social distancing and mask wearing.
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Linkedin Nina A. Loasana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 15:42 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41a76db 1 City anies-baswedan,ibukota,Jakarta-administration,COVID-19-test,COVID-19,COVID-19-Jakarta,#COVID19,Jakarta-Health-Agency,capital-city Free

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan has claimed that the spread of COVID-19 in the capital city is under control despite a recent record spike in new confirmed cases, arguing that increased testing has contributed to the increase.

Even though the number of new confirmed cases is rising, the number of active cases has decreased and the fatality rate is low, that means the situation is relatively under control, he said in a virtual discussion broadcast YouTube on Monday.

Anies explained that in the past week, the number of active cases in the capital city had decreased significantly.

Jakarta recorded 1,114 new cases on Sunday, the highest daily spike so far, as the capital city returned to being the epicenter of the outbreak in Indonesia, surpassing East Java.

As of Sunday, Jakarta had 7,960 active cases from a total of 39,280 confirmed cases. Anies explained that active cases were determined by subtracting the number recoveries and fatalities from the number of total cases.

Read also: Chaotic: Epidemiologists concerned about healthcare crisis after recent surge in COVID-19 cases

With 30,134 people having recovered, the capital city has recorded a recovery rate of 76.7 percent, slightly above the national average of 72.2 percent, he added.



Anies also said that Jakarta had a lower case fatality rate than the national and global averages. Jakarta reported 14 fatalities on Sunday, bringing the city's total deaths to 1,186.



"Jakarta's case fatality rate is 3 percent, lower than the global average of 4.3 percent and the national average of 3.4 percent," Anies said. "Without Jakarta, Indonesia has a fatality rate of 4.7 percent."



He claimed the increase in confirmed cases in Jakarta was a result of increased testing.



"In the past week, we conducted around 40,000 to 50,000 tests, four times the standard set by the World Health Organization [WHO]. On Sunday, 43 percent of COVID-19 tests nationwide were conducted in Jakarta" Anies said.

"As a consequence, the number of new cases increased," he said.

Read also: Governor Anies mulls pulling emergency brake as COVID-19 cases surge in Jakarta



Anies continued that the massive testing had helped Jakarta to lower its fatality rate, as authorities could find carriers earlier and give them treatment before their condition worsened.



In a statement released on Sunday afternoon, the administration said that most of the new infections were suspected to have occurred during the recent long weekends for Independence Day public holidays from Aug. 15 to 17 and Islamic New Year from Aug. 20 to 23.



Anies asserted that it was of high importance to remain disciplined in following health protocols to help curb the spread of the highly infectious respiratory illness.



"The habits of wearing masks, maintaining safe physical distance and washing hands frequently should become new cultural norms," he said.



The proper use of masks, he explained, was also very important to minimize the risk of transmission.



"A lot of people wear masks, but they remove them after arriving at their offices or when talking to coworkers. In theory, this would result in a higher risk of transmission," the governor said.
Atanu Biswas By

In her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine, Canadian author Naomi Klein introduced the theory of disaster capitalism, in which neoliberal policies are pushed forward through the exploitation of disasters. A disaster, certainly, is an opportunity to exploit. A more dangerous kind of exploitation often triggers disaster authoritarianism, especially in countries where democracy is weak or fragile.

The anti-liberal Russian philosopher and political operative Alexandr Dugin, who is a leading promoter of Eurasianism, believes that the coronavirus is creating a post-globalist, illiberal and anti-democratic world of sloshed societies, and we have entered a multi-polar world where authoritarianism will set the tone. Normally, natural disasters are usually characterised as local-level events without major political consequences. However, one year ago, researchers from Durham University Business School, Deakin Business School and Monash School of Business, Malaysia, observed a link between natural disasters and oppressive governments.

The report, entitled Storm Autocracies, details how, after a major storm such as a hurricane, island nations begin to enact more authoritarian policies and become less democratic. Based on data during 1950-2009, which measured every single countrys polity scorean international analysis tool that evaluates the strength of a countrys democratic system in a 21-point scale split into a three-part categorisation of autocracies (-10 to -6), anocracies (-5 to +5) and democracies (+6 to +10)the researchers found that storms deteriorate democratic conditions in island countries by 3.46% in the following year and 10.1% over the subsequent five years.

Additionally, these governments increase their level of political oppression by around 2.5% per year following storm-related disasters. The prolonged authoritarian regimes in countries such as Haiti, Fiji and the Philippines are explained by frequent severe storm events. They dubbed these countries storm autocracies. Frequent storms offer more opportunities to the governments in allocating relief assistance than they generally do in exchange for restricting their citizens democratic rights. The ultimate outcome turns out to be authoritarian populism.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, different countries exhibited authoritarian behaviour such as detaining journalists, opposition activists, healthcare workers and anyone else who dared to criticise the official response to the virus. Egypt, for example, even expelled a Guardian correspondent and warned a New York Times journalist after they questioned government figures on the number of coronavirus cases. Thailand instructed journalists to report on government press conferences only and not to interview medical personnel.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has awarded himself emergency powers to silence fake news. Duterte threatened martial law and instructed security services to shoot dead those breaking curfew. Hungarian parliament, amid both domestic and international resistance and criticism, passed a bill giving the nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban sweeping emergency powers that enable him to rule by decree indefinitely, suspend the existing laws, and imprison for up to five years any journalist who disseminates news that is deemed false. In Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro has arrested journalists and activists who question the countrys preparedness for Covid-19.

The Turkish government has detained hundreds of people for provocative and abusive social media posts. Authoritarianism has diverse faces, though. While China seemed eager to take control of Hong Kong amid the pandemic, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan went on to solidify his political basethe religious conservatives and Turkish nationalistsby converting the Hagia Sophia museum to Ayasofya mosque. And the Russian government successfully paved the way for constitutional amendments that allows Vladimir Putin to rule the country until 2036!

What about countries like the US? 2001 Economics Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz also believed that authoritarian figures like Trump would take advantage of Covid-19. However, that was never so easy. Although Trump downplayed the coronavirus crisis by terming it a hoax and took advantage of the pandemic to suspend the US payment to the WHO, for example, Covid-19 might have jeopardised his re-election bid by quite an extent. A strong democratic foundation can certainly resist authoritarianism. While Trump, in his re-election bid, was eager to open up the economy as early in mid-April when the US only had slightly more than half a million Covid-19 cases, he was forced to retreat.

Interestingly, not only the rulers, even common people tend to subscribe to authoritarianism amid or after a disaster. In an article published in 2020 in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, researchers from Torino and Palermo in Italy analysed the relations between exposure to news describing a natural disaster and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) among Italian adults, surveyed twice, before and after a severe earthquake that hit the Abruzzoan Italian regionin 2009. The researchers observed that exposure to earthquake news led to an increase in RWA among people who had low authoritarian levels before the event, but not among those who had relatively high levels.

However, can a disaster like the Covid-19 pandemic ravage the democratic foundation of every country on this planet in the same way? Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman has said: Only a crisis produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. A pandemic like Covid-19 is certainly a testing time for democratic foundations in different countries. It could wreak havoc on fragile democracies, while strong ones would certainly survive the tremor. Transparency and good governance would be renewed in liberal democracies.

Atanu Biswas

Professor of Statistics at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

(appubabale@gmail.com)
President Cyril Ramaphosa has gazetted a directive which determines the salaries of the chairperson and councillors for the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA).

The document was published on 28 August 2020 and retroactively defines the total remuneration for appointed councillors and the authoritys chairperson.

I hereby determine that, with effect from 1 April 2019, the salaries and allowances of the Chairperson and councillors of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa shall be as set out in the attached Schedule, Ramaphosa said.

The schedules subsequently outlined the pay levels, position, and total remuneration of ICASA councillors and the authoritys chairperson.

According to the new directive, the chairperson of ICASA will now earn a total remuneration of R1,880,736, while the councillors will earn R1,486,878.

These remuneration figures are detailed in the table below.

Pay Level Position Total Remuneration 1 Chairperson R1,880,736 7 Councillors R1,486,878

Councillor appointments

Dr Keabetswe Modimoeng is the current acting chairperson of ICASA, and his name was among four others that were recently appointed as ICASA councillors for the next four years by Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams.

The list of names includes Peter Zimri, who had previously served at ICASA from April 2016 until June 2020.

The other appointments are former Independent Broadcasting Authority councillor Advocate Luthando Mkumatela, ICT regulatory and policy expert Yolisa Kedama, and Charles Lewis, an independent ICT regulation and policy analyst.

The councillors will be appointed for a period of four years with effect from the date of assumption of duty, Ndabeni-Abrahams stated.

Ndabeni-Abrahams received criticism over her appoint of five councillors instead of the six decided on by the National Assembly, and shortly thereafter appointed the sixth member of the council.

DA MP Phumzile Van Damme said that Ndabeni-Abrahams decision contravened the Constitution, ICASA Act, the Executive Members Act, and the Powers and Privileges Act.

Ndabeni-Abrahams bizarre and unlawful conduct during the appointment process to fill six vacancies on the ICASA Council has been nothing short of embarrassing, Van Damme said.
Singapore as a society, can be quite unsympathetic to hoarders. Why cant they just throw their stuff away? we ask. But its not that simple. We spoke to a young Singaporean, who spent her childhood and teenage years living with a hoarder:

What does hoarder actually mean?

Theres a difference between someone who just doesnt want to throw out their old concert t-shirts, and someone who hoards so much it affects their health. The latter is a case of compulsive hoarding disorder.

Hoarding disorder was first defined in the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 2013. But the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) conducted studies as far back as 2010, when it was discovered that one in 50 Singaporeans will exhibit this behaviour in their lifetime. This comes to about two per cent of Singapores adult population.

Characteristics of the disorder are:

Difficulty in discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value

A sense of distress when discarding items, due to the perceived need to save the items

Accumulating items until they congest and clutter living areas

Signs of social and occupational impairment, lack of self-care, and increasing inability to cope with daily living which inevitably affects self and others

Hoarding disorder can cause occupational and social impairment. Image source via 99.co

While hoarding may be related to other mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, this isnt always the case. Even if theres underlying mental illness, IMH notes that Sometimes, the management of the underlying mental illness also may not help the hoarding behaviour.

We spoke to Anne (not her real name), who is currently a third year University student. She spent her childhood and teenage years living with a mother whos a compulsive hoarder. Anne told us that:

1. Youll discover no one wants to help, because no one wants to handle the confrontation

Who wants to be the first to confront a hoarder? What if its your friend or relative? The result is never pleasantness, as trying to clear away their stuff can result in physical and emotional violence.

Story continues

Therein lies the problem  the people immediately surrounding a hoarder tend to sidestep the issue, because no one wants be the centre of a scene. When the screaming and crying starts, all the neighbours will be watching.

Because its awkward to bring it up, no one wants to help intervene, Anne says, When we had visitors on the new year many had to stand, or even hang around in the corridor; but they would still be polite and pretend nothings wrong. But these are family, you would expect them to do something.

And when Anne broached the subject of clearing out the house, her father would get angry and sometimes refuse to come home for days*; he didnt want a showdown with his wife either.

Its a frustrating situation everyone acknowledges something is wrong, but no one wants to risk being the centre of the scene. I learned early on that you have to be the one to handle it, when its your own immediate family. Dont expect help, Anne says.

This often left Anne to face down her mother alone, during periodic attempts to clear out the house. And just being in Secondary school at the time, it was especially tough for her to be called a useless daughter, to be accused of hurting her mother, etc. It also felt shameful because she knew the neighbours were listening, even if they didnt outright comment.

*Anne also points out that her father had suffered a heart attack before, so it was not good for him to get into such confrontations

Who volunteers to be the centre of abuse, when trying to throw a hoarders stuff out? | Image source via 99.co

2. It makes you act weird among your friends

Anne didnt want to bring friends to her house; you wouldnt either, if your home was so cluttered some of them would have to remain standing. The state of her house was a source of constant anxiety.

Whenever I took the bus back, I would purposely get off one stop early, because I had some friends who took the same bus as me. For years my friends thought I lived in a block that was actually quite far from my house. At least I lost weight from all the walking though!

Anne also felt a constant, illogical sense of being judged all the time:

Its always at the back of my mind. Even a few passing words, or the way someone looks at me, can set off my anxiety sometimes. I would suspect that they all know, or that everyone knows and talks about it behind my back. It affected my willingness to meet people and make friends when I was younger.



Anne says shes naturally an extrovert, so this resulted in odd behaviour: she alternated between being friendly and engaging, and suddenly withdrawing because a comment or look set off her anxiety. Anne eventually revealed the truth to two of her closest friends, however, and theyre accepting of it (although no one gets invited to her house, even today).

While shes since learned to cope, Anne believes her social development was slowed because of this as a teenager.

I was the quiet and weird kid, for the whole of Secondary school.

3. You dont even know whats yours, after a while

When theres so much stuff in the house, its hard to keep track of things. Annes mother hoarded everything from old magazines to table lamps and cosmetic kits.

After a while you dont know what belongs to who. There are times when I try to throw out my own things, and mum will get angry because she thinks its hers. Then there are times when I ask why we cant throw something away, and shell shout and say those are things that I brought in, Anne says.

Anne was also often blamed for the hoarding. On the rare occasion anyone dared to ask about the junk, Annes mum would sometimes accuse Anne of being the hoarder: She would say all the things are mine, and that I cant stop buying things and waste money; thats why the house is so crammed.

After a while, the confusion spread:

It affected my own head. There as one time I was insisting that a bag of shoes wasnt mine and we should throw it out; and then later I realised that, oh my God, mum was right  it WAS my shoes in the bag. She had 30 or 40 plastic bags full of them, but that one bag was actually mine. I just get so messed up.



how to confront a hoarder

You may not be able to differentiate whats yours and whats not, after a few years. | Image source via 99.c0

Anne says theres just general confusion over who owns certain clothes, or who owns certain items like watches and bags. This sometimes results in her mum refusing to let her bring out certain items:

Shes afraid I am wearing them to secretly go out and throw them, which I admit is something I tried once. But she also reacts that way to things I bought for myself. Imagine not being allowed to bring out a bag or an outfit you bought for yourself.

4. You start to wonder if its infectious

Whenever Anne wants to keep something  like a birthday card, or a favourite but somewhat tattered sleeping t-shirt, shes struck by the fear of also becoming a hoarder.

I find myself wondering if Im developing the same habits, Anne says, After all I grew up like this. Is there a chance Ill end up being the same?

Fear of developing the same condition has caused Anne to throw out many things that she treasures; one of them was a composition writing trophy she won in a Primary school (it wasnt an earth shaking award, but it was the first thing that got her interested in being a writer one day). But her fear of also becoming a hoarder trumps the sentimentality.

Anyway the house is already so packed, Anne says, Theres not much room for me to keep things anyway. Hoarding is a selfish addiction.

5. Forget hanging out; cleaning takes up most of your day

Although it looks messy, our house is not dirty. You can eat off the floor, Anne says, but you just imagine how we keep it clean, when theres stuff everywhere.

Imagine mopping or sweeping when the house is so packed, you have to walk in single file to move from the living room to the kitchen. Anne says the magazines are piled to just about shoulder height, while mounds of old shampoo bottles, cosmetic cases, old jeans and trousers, etc. are scattered in piles up to waist height.

Cleaning means having to lift these, check for bugs, mop and vacuum under them, etc. Its like trying to single-highhandedly clean a whole factory outlet. The entire process, Anne says, could go from about eight in the evening, to almost midnight; and this was done almost every other day. Sometimes, whole weekends were taken up just cleaning.

It was always a three person job, Anne said, Two people lift things, one person cleans. Its ridiculous and exhausting. And the worst part is that even after all the cleaning, the house is still a mess.



Anne says when she was younger, the neighbours  who were understanding of her mothers condition  used to help.

I think it was also a bit of self-interest; they also wanted to make sure we wouldnt have cockroaches and ants and all that going to their house, Anne says, But it was nice of them, and they never made fun of us. But the new neighbours just avoid us.

You have to clean and tidy your house constantly because of the mess. | Image source via 99.co

Still, there is hope

Thanks to the intervention of social workers at first, and then later a close friends mother, Annes mum is getting the help she needs. Her mother has conceded to monthly clearings, in which unused items are thrown out.

Shes always in a very bad mood after that, and it gets very intense as she cant bear to throw things away. Theres a lot of crying and asking why we do this to her, Anne says, But the house is a lot less cluttered, and she seems to get over it quicker.

Currently, Anne is not living at home; but she is still residing near her mum, so she can drop in to help with cleaning and clearing. Ill still have to keep coming back and checking, it will never end Anne says, But thats a part of life for me now; it becoming a routine makes it more tolerable.

This article was first published on 99.co and republished on theAsianparent with permission.

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The post 5 Terrible Things You Learn When Living With A Hoarder Mum appeared first on theAsianparent - Your Guide to Pregnancy, Baby & Raising Kids.
Less than a month after she vanished in March 2012, several tiny human bones were found in a box of ashes in the home of a Cumberland County woman, an FBI agent told a county jury Monday afternoon.

Those bones, each just a few centimeters long, were recovered from a box that was found near the fireplace of the Silver Spring Township home of Hap and Rabihan Seiders during an April 13, 2012 search, Special Agent Heather Thew said.

She said the bones appeared to be from a human hand. Another FBI expert later confirmed they were human, Thew said.

Hap Seiders, 66, is on trial charged with killing his 53-year-old wife, Chief Deputy District Attorney Courtney Hair LaRue is claiming he incinerated her body in the fireplace of their house on Willow Mill Park Road. Hap Seiders was arrested last year.

Defense attorney George Matangos is questioning whether Rabihan Seiders is in fact dead. He has raised the theory that she fled, perhaps to her native central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, with about $3 million of her husbands property.

Investigators said they believe that Rabihan Seiders, 53, was assaulted, killed and dismembered and burned in this home at 100 Willow Mill Park Road in Silver Spring Township.Sean Sauro

Thew said the ashes in which the bones were found also contained a metal zipper pull and several metal grommets that might have come from a pair of jeans. She said other bones were recovered when investigators battered open an ash pit below the fireplace during a second search in July 2012.

Detective Andrew Bassler of the Silver Spring Township police testified as to the aroma of the Seiders home during the April 2012 search.

I could smell a very strong odor of smoke that seemed to be saturated throughout the house, Bassler said.
A quick question: what happened to media darling AOC, the U.S. representative from New York City who calls herself a democratic socialist?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is so beloved by the networks, print and social media that merely citing her name by initials is a more than ample way of identification. With the tailwind of media cheerleaders at her back, she managed to exert control over Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who holds the House speakers title but, more realistically is a hand puppet for extreme left-wing Democrats.

But of late, where is AOC? A cynic could suspect that the same media so enchanted by her is now acting in concert to, shall we say, give her a lower profile. And a cynic could wonder why.

As presidential candidate Joe Biden stumbles along looking for his message and policy platform, could it be the media fear the riff-raff commoners may be frightened off by AOC and her behind-the-throne comrades, and thus lean Republican in November?

If Biden wins, my prediction is that AOC will once again adorn magazine covers, make nightly appearances on the news and on the pseudo-news late night shows, hosted by ambitious sycophants who know all too well their show-biz advantages. After all, Ocasio-Cortezs message is so progressive, revolutionary and, best of all, so cool and hip, it needs to be touted.

Just not now, before the election. No need to let the voters know who and what theyre actually voting for. That wouldnt do. The Democrats might lose if their true message is known.

A cynic might be distressed by it all. Pity him.

Lou Manfredo, Deptford Township

Whos the boss? Its Trumps dystopia now

Fear-mongering or scare-mongering is the spreading of frightening and exaggerated rumors of impending danger to purposely arouse fear in order to manipulate the public.

The Trump administration continues to deliver remarks about how frightening the country would be, in terms of crime, violence, unemployment, etc., if Joe Biden is elected to replace President Donald Trump.

But, all of these things are happening now, while Trump is in charge. He cannot blame what is happening today on his November opponent; he is the incumbent.

If Trump and people like him would stop the fear-mongering and stop spreading racial hatred, people of color and white people could learn to live together in harmony.

We are not enemies; we are all one in the sight of God. Four more years of Donald Trump would be a total disaster for our nation.

Richard Nash, Williamstown

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Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at at Mill 19 in Pittsburgh on Monday. Read more

Responding to escalating clashes that loom over the presidential race, Joe Biden on Monday condemned the rioting, looting, and violence that has rippled through some protests across America while describing President Donald Trump as a toxin who has poisoned the countrys values and made it less safe.

Speaking in Pittsburgh after two deadly shootings around protests and counter-protests bloodied streets in Portland, Ore., and Kenosha, Wis., last week, Biden said Trump would only make the country more volatile and dangerous in a second term.

This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country. He cant stop the violence because for years hes fomented it, said the Democratic nominee for president. He may believe mouthing the words law and order makes him strong, but his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows how weak he is. Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?

Biden also unequivocally blasted the lawlessness that has accompanied some protests against police brutality, which have recently included violent confrontations with self-styled far-right militias that have intervened in Kenosha and Portland.

I want to make it absolutely clear  rioting is not protesting, Biden said. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. Its lawlessness, plain and simple, and those who do it should be prosecuted.

He later added, Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?

Hours later at the White House, Trump said the violence is fueled by dangerous rhetoric from far-left politicians, lumping in Biden, who ran as a relative moderate, with the radical left. But Trump refused to condemn his own supporters who have joined the confrontations, including 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, accused of shooting and killing two demonstrators in Kenosha.

That was an interesting situation, Trump said. He was trying to get away from them, I guess, it looks like. And he fell, and then they very violently attacked him. And it was something that were looking at right now and its under investigation but, I guess, he was in very big trouble. He would have been  he probably would have been killed, but its under, its under investigation.

A Trump supporter was shot and killed Saturday in Portland after the presidents backers, encouraged by Trump on Twitter, confronted protesters with paint balls and pepper spray.

Bidens speech Monday kicked off a furious week of activity in Pennsylvania as the campaigns emerge from the national conventions and near the final two months. Trumps daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, was scheduled to campaign in Bucks County on Monday, Vice President Mike Pence has an event in Northeast Pennsylvania on Tuesday, and the president is scheduled to speak in Western Pennsylvania on Thursday.

 READ MORE: Trump makes a clear bet: Violence in Americas cities will help him beat Biden in states like Pennsylvania

The state is one of a handful of battlegrounds likely to decide the winner of the presidential race. So are Wisconsin and potentially Minnesota, two states that have been at the epicenter of violent police actions, protests, and destruction.

Though most protests have been peaceful, high-profile violence has risen to become a central issue in the presidential campaign, fueled by the deadly shooting in Portland on Saturday and of two people who protested against police brutality in Kenosha earlier last week. Both incidents, pitting Americans against one another, cast a shadow over an already tense presidential race that both parties see as an existential fight.

No suspect had been named as of late Monday in the Portland shooting, which came as Trump supporters drove a caravan through the city, flying Trump flags from their vehicles and confronting protesters who have clashed with authorities there.

Paint is a defensive mechanism. Paint is not bullets, Trump said Monday, after encouraging his supporters to join the confrontation over the weekend.

Trump used the Republican National Convention last week to argue that radical agitators are threatening to overrun the country, pitching himself as an enforcer who would keep the country safe. On Monday, he dismissed Bidens comments against violence, saying the Democrat had failed to specifically name antifa, a loose and informal collection of people on the far left who have been blamed for some of the vandalism and destruction.

Biden criticized rioting and looting at least as early as June, in a speech in Philadelphia. But even some Democrats worry that he has been too slow to respond to the escalating situation. Others have criticized him for not going to Wisconsin since the unrest began there after the police shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, multiple times in the back.

Trump plans to speak in Kenosha on Tuesday, and on Thursday will visit Latrobe, Pa., about an hour outside Pittsburgh, his campaign announced. (Wisconsins Democratic governor, Tony Evers, has urged Trump to stay away.)

Biden argued that Trump is the cause, not solution, to the countrys increasingly tense divides. He pointed out that the violence is occurring on the presidents watch, along with widespread death and economic pain from the coronavirus pandemic. Do you really feel safer under Donald Trump? Biden asked.

 READ MORE: Donald Trump and Barack Obama agreed on one thing in dueling Pa. visits: Win, or its the apocalypse

Noting that crime fell while Barack Obama was in the White House, Biden accused Trump of trying to turn attention away from a virus that has killed more than 180,000 Americans, and of rooting for conflict so he can change the subject.

Donald Trump failed to protect America, so now hes trying to scare America, Biden said.

We need to heal, Biden added, promising a less divisive presidency. Hes not been part of the solution thus far, hes part of the problem.

Trump for weeks has promised law and order and a muscular response to protests that turn violent, while blaming Democratic mayors as not responding forcefully enough. But over the weekend, he egged on supporters who rolled into Portland.

On Twitter, the president called the caravan GREAT PATRIOTS and wrote that the big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing.

Ahead of Bidens speech, the Trump campaign accused the former vice president of betraying police and falsely said he had not condemned rioting until recently.

Joe Biden has turned his back on law enforcement time and time again and has blamed the police for the problems in America. That is not right, Michael Slupe, the sheriff of Butler County, Pa., told reporters on a Trump campaign conference call.

Slupe said peaceful protest means quiet, holding up a sign, and that those now in the streets are ruining America.

In Philadelphia on June 2, Biden said there is no place for violence, no place for looting or destroying property or burning churches or destroying businesses.

On Sunday, he issued a statement calling the shooting in Portland unacceptable, adding, I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same.
Jeni Nape knows what its like to make a living by running an obstacle course balancing hot food and cold drinks, handling customer complaints, and hoping patrons generosity tides you over until your next paycheck. And that was before COVID-19 made her profession even more demanding.

Its now a lot more time-consuming because everything thats touched has to be sanitized  the tables, seats, menus, every wipe has do be thrown away, said Nape, who has been a server for a year and a half at the Olive Branch Cafe in Jerseyville. The mask also makes for a really hard work day because you cant really breathe.

We have hand sanitizer in every area of the restaurant. There is nothing on our tables; our customers dont touch anything, we take them everything, Nape said. Then of course we have to sanitize when theyre gone and start that whole process over.

As of Aug. 25, Illinois restaurant patrons must wear masks or face coverings over their nose and mouth when approached and serviced by establishment employees, including but not limited to when employees take patron orders, deliver food and beverages, and service tables, whether dining indoor or outdoor, according to the Restore Illinois COVID-19 website.

The new regulations also require face coverings when customers come into restaurants to pick up carry-out orders. And the state encourages  but doesnt yet require  mask-wearing even when picking up food at a drive-up window.

Despite these new restrictions for diners, Nape said customers have taken things in stride and their tipping has been very generous. Thats important for the Olive Branch, which has no outdoor seating and relies on just 16 socially-distanced tables for customers.

Most of them are pleased just because they are able to dine out, she said. And from the sound of it there arent many restaurants in town doing indoor social distancing. I guess diners have a lot of respect that we are abiding by the law.

Still, working closely with the general public is always a concern during the pandemic.

The only fear I have is getting sick, Nape said. I have grandkids, and I dont want to have to be secluded from them or risk the chance of giving it to anybody else in my family.

At Bakers & Hale in Godfrey, server Genie Ramsey said most customers are complying with the new guidelines and her tip revenue per customer remains about the same. But her job has definitely gotten more difficult with the COVID restrictions.

Weve seen so many changes since the end of March, said Ramsey, who has worked at Bakers & Hale for two years. Its been a complete yo-yo with the procedures we have to go through. We just try to keep up on the information we are given through the governor.

Ramsey said she always wears the required mask while working and hopes customers will continue to follow the guidelines as well to keep everyone safe. But the virus isnt the only concern among the people in her profession.

I fear for some of the people that if something changes this week, she said. There are a lot of places that dont have outside dining. So those servers are going to be out of work again.

Olivia Bromaghim has been a server at Bluff City Grill in Alton for two years.

Its definitely different now, she said.

Its not as busy. We are kind of hurting for money right now as servers, said Bromaghim, adding that the level of tips per customer has remained about the same as the pre-COVID level.

The diners have been pretty cool with the new guidelines, Bromaghim said. A lot of them are wearing their masks and asking if they need to wear them. They are trying to be respectful.

Bromaghim, a senior at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville working her way through college, said she appreciates her job and her customers. But she realizes how tenuous her employment can be during the pandemic.

I am worried about exposure with other people not wearing a mask, Bromaghim said. I am worried that if we have to go back on unemployment that we are not going to be getting the same as we were before, which would really hurt.

Socially distanced outdoor seating has been the norm at the Loading Dock in Grafton. But the new rules still apply for the restaurants customers the same as they do for establishments with indoor seating.

We are doing everything we can to comply with the rules, said Loading Dock owner Peter Allen.

Loading dock servers have noticed that for the most part, customers are following the rules.

Starting last week it was mandated that customers wear masks. So we have seen a spike in mask wearers, but it was about 50-50 prior to last week, said Kasey Demond of Godfrey, a Loading Dock server for 17 years.

Because we are all outside and all open air, people feel safe here, she said. Our whole staff is masked, so I know that puts everybody at ease.

Demond said Loading Dock servers noticed a big increase in tip income when the quarantine ended and people were happy to get out. But tip income has returned to normal levels now.

No one knows what the future guidelines will be for dining out, she said, but whatever they are, the Loading Dock will adapt as best as they can.

Were not scared up here, she said. We are abiding by all of the rules. We are keeping our employees safe. Everyones been super healthy.

We are just kind of going with the flow and doing what we have to do, she said.
John Oliver slammed Fox News host Tucker Carlson for seeming to defend 17-year-old Illinois native Kyle Rittenhouse, who was charged with first-degree murder in the killing of protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Oliver also questioned whether rhetoric from President Trump may have played a role in Rittenhouses decision making. And Oliver couldnt help but wonder if Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters and spoke at the Republican National Convention last week, painting a dire picture of America, may have had something to do with Rittenhouses actions.
Gov. Tom Wolf wants all Pennsylvania workers to have the option of staying home when they are sick or have to take care of a family member without having to worry about losing a days pay because of it.

At a Monday morning news conference, the governor was joined by Democratic lawmakers in urging the passage of legislation that would require Pennsylvania employers to provide paid sick and family leave for their employees. It is one of several initiatives that Wolf has laid out in his fall legislative agenda.

I think most of us can agree we dont want to be around a sick coworker, and employees who arent worried about losing pay or their job are more likely to do the responsible thing and stay home when theyre sick, Wolf said.

Enacting a paid sick leave law would help an estimated 400,000 Pennsylvanians, particularly low-wage workers who choose to work when ill, risking their health and the employees and customers around them to avoid losing a days pay, according to the Wolf Administration. He has said its critical for employees to stay home when they are sick during the coronavirus pandemic.

To try to kickstart the conversation with the GOP-controlled Legislature, Wolf announced his administration will begin on Oct. 15 to provide commonwealth employees under the governors jurisdiction with up to six weeks of paid parental leave for the birth of a new child or adoption or foster care placement of a child under the age of 18. Employees become eligible for this benefit after one year of continuous service with the commonwealth.

I hope paid parental leave becomes universal across Pennsylvania through legislation, Wolf said. Im doing what I can.

Dave Fillman, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 13, said the administration initiated conversations about paid parental leave with the union. He said this paid parental leave offer replenishes with each new child and if both parents are commonwealth employees, they both would be given up to six weeks of paid parental leave.

Its very decent to come out with this especially during these times, Fillman said.

Nathan Benefield, vice president of the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Foundation, called this new benefit for state employees a reward to their unions that were among Wolfs largest campaign donors.

State workers currently take an average of 41 days off per year and have largely been exempt from the layoffs experience by the private sector, said Benefield from the conservative-leaning policy center. Nearly 14% of Pennsylvanians are unemployedone of the highest rates in the nation. None of these individuals would be helped by a mandate on small businesses. Theyll still be earning $0.00 with $0 in benefits, with many on hold trying to call the state unemployment offices.

Business community leaders also were critical of the idea, particularly about its timing.

At a time when small businesses everywhere are struggling and frankly many are failing, adding another costly benefit into the mix is going to push more businesses over the edge, said Gordon Denlinger, Pennsylvania director for the National Federation of Independent Business. The cost structure landing on businesses at this point is just a bad idea at the wrong time.

Gene Barr, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, said no business wants their employees to come into work ill or make their customers ill. But he added the employers who are unable to provide paid sick or family leave are small businesses that are facing an incredible amount of stress due to government-ordered restrictions and closures to avoid going out of business.

Putting this barrier in their way in terms of reopening is something we ought to think very carefully about, Barr said.

Sen. Maria Collett, D-Montgomery County, attributed the inability of small businesses to retain good employees to the lack of paid family medical leave benefits. Screenshot from the governor's website

During the news conference, Sen. Maria Collett, D-Montgomery County, attributed the inability of small businesses to retain good employees to the lack of paid family medical leave benefits. She expressed hope that the hardships that businesses and Pennsylvania families faced over the past six months will be enough to convince her legislative colleagues who were reluctant to support the measure of its value.

Sen. Vince Hughes, D-Philadelphia, who is sponsoring Senate Bill 13 that would create a mandatory paid sick leave law, said the pandemic has highlighted the need for mandating this policy. He said it has shown that 80% of low-wage workers in Pennsylvania lack paid leave.

Its time for us to embrace them with the policies that make sense for their own health, make sense for the health care of their fellow employees and make sense for the broader community, Hughes said.

Rep. Michael Schlossberg, D-Lehigh County, said 10 states have enacted some sort of paid sick leave law and it hasnt hurt their bottom line.

The Healthy Employee Healthy Workplace Act protects the profit margin because those workers staying home to get better dont infect an entire store or office of workers and customers, he said. Plus, having a standard law covering the entire state makes it easier on companies with multiple offices, saving them administrative costs and creating a level playing field for all businesses.

But Barr said such a law also could create issues for companies that already offer a paid leave benefit that may not comport with the state law. Denlinger said many small businesses provide flexible arrangements for their workers when a family crisis occurs.

Today obviously a lot of folks are working from home doing virtual work, Denlinger said. That is happening in big and small businesses alike and the flexible approach we think is the best. When you only have five to seven employees trying to keep the doors open and lights on when an employee exits for a block of time becomes a genuine challenge.

While this may be high on Democrats legislative agenda, House GOP spokesman Jason Gottesman made it clear its about as popular with his caucus as Wolfs proposal to raise the states hourly minimum wage to $15.

Once again, the governor is using this pandemic to put the cart before the horse, Gottesman said. Due to his administrations unilateral and over-broad economic shutdown orders, Pennsylvanians are experiencing joblessness at a historic rate and many have been permanently devastated or forced to significantly cut back staff and benefits just to remain afloat. We need this governor to refocus his priorities and begin to work with us to reopen the economy safely and get people back to work so hardworking Pennsylvanians can start providing for their families and have some sense of normalcy.

* This story was updated to include a comment from Commonwealth Foundations Nathan Benefield.

Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.

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An erect penis will appear on television this evening for the first time in a new taboo-shattering Channel 4 documentary.

Me & My Penis, which airs at 10pm, will show footage of eight erections as men pose for naked photographs while discussing male issues.

The controversial scene, featuring explicit close-up shots, will break perceived regulations which up until now have prevented erections from airing on TV.

An erect penis will appear on television this evening for the first time in new taboo-shattering Channel 4 documentary Me & My Penis

'But as these aroused private parts are shown in an entirely artistic context, filming them doesn't break any rules.

'Channel 4 also clearly feel that in more open-minded times, there's likely to be fewer complaints from viewers  particularly as the show airs at 10pm which is well after the watershed.'

The subjects filmed for the documentary are photographed by London-based British artist and fine art photographer Ajamu, whose radical portraits of the male body have pushed boundaries and provoked cultural debate.

While he shoots their intimate photographs, the men discuss their varied experiences  from the pleasures of sex to stories of infertility and sexual abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, homophobia and mental health.

The programme, which airs at 10pm, will show footage of eight erections as men pose for naked photographs while discussing male issues

During the shoot, Ajamu encourages his subjects to rethink the way they see their bodies and themselves, while questioning the taboo that still surrounds the penis.

Shaminder Nahal, commissioning editor at Channel 4, said: 'In this funny and moving film, the penis becomes a gateway through which to explore all sorts of aspects of masculinity.

'The men taking part deal with everything from sex to violence, fear and love, masturbation and ejaculation.

'While we get to see a range of penises and erections  we also see the men explore deep, often hidden, feelings in their photography sessions  and start a conversation about our bodies and ourselves.'

The subjects filmed for the documentary are photographed by London-based British artist and fine art photographer Ajamu, pictured, whose radical portraits of the male body have pushed boundaries and provoked cultural debate

For years it has been perceived that broadcasters in the UK are required to abide by the unofficial 'Mull of Kintyre' guideline when it comes to showing penises.

It states that a phallus should never be shown in a more erect state than the outlines of the Scottish peninsula - however this is in fact an urban legend and the British Board of Film Classification has denied this is a legitimate test.

Broadcasting watchdog Ofcom has previously said there is no ban on showing erections on TV, but it would have to be 'justified by the context'.

For years it has been perceived that broadcasters in the UK are required to abide by the unofficial 'Mull of Kintyre' guideline when it comes to showing penises. It states that a phallus should never be shown in a more erect state than the outlines of the Scottish peninsula (pictured) - however this is in fact an urban legend and the British Board of Film Classification has denied this is a legitimate test

In 2018, the BBFC carried out market research on the British public about a number of issues - including nudity - believing Brits have become more desensitised to nudity in films and TV.

He told Radio 4's Front Row: 'These days if you have an erection on screen, the issue is, is it a 15 level erection or an 18 level erection.

'We've been consulting with the public on this and in 2013, we liberalised slightly and we're now going back to the public as we speak and saying, "Have we got this right, have we done what you asked us to do in terms of how we classify erections?"'
Sadie 'Sally' Sorentino, 85, a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, sister, cousin, aunt and friend, passed away peacefully on Saturday, August 29, 2020.

Sorentino was a kind-hearted, generous, gentle, loving woman to all who knew her. Being a mother and grandmother was her greatest joy, reflected through her faith, undeniable and unconditional love for her family.

Her daughters, Sallyann Russin and Donna Storte, and her son, Michael, were the lights of her life. Known to them as 'Grandma Sally,' her grandchildren were her pride and joy  her angels  which you could see by the smile on her face whenever they were in her presence.

She is survived by her daughter, Donna (John) Storte; son, Michael (Maria); grandchildren, Jessica, Sallyann (Robert) Fredericksen, Daniela (Michael) Tyrrell, John Storte, Michael, Scott Storte, and Natalia; and son-in-law, Michael Russin and family. She also leaves behind a number of family members and friends that will miss her dearly, including her three grand-dogs, Sammy, Zoro and Riley.

Together, Michael and Sadie prioritized family values and tradition. After his passing in 2011, she passionately continued that legacy with her children and grandchildren, enriching their lives with her love, support and encouragement. She dedicated her life to raising her family and to creating a beautiful home where all of her family and friends could gather together and make lasting memories. One example of this is the spectacular Christmas lights display that she and her husband began and continued to put on yearly, and which brought enjoyment to everyone who came to see it.

Her nurturing and comforting presence will always be with us. Everyone who knew her felt that they could always go to her for sound advice and a helping hand, as her compassion knew no bounds. Her grace, intelligence, and unwavering faith contributed to her strength and character, and will always be remembered. It would be remiss not to mention that she always looked put together as well, donning her signature lipstick wherever she went.

We are confident that she will be receiving a warm welcome in the next life from many, including her husband, Michael; daughter, Sallyann Russin; parents, Virginia and Michael Tamburello; and sisters, Josephine Melendez and Marie Tamburello. She joins her husband Michael in heaven this year for what would be their 62nd wedding anniversary.

Reposing at Sinatra Memorial Home, 499 Yonkers Ave, Yonkers, N.Y., with visitation Monday (Aug. 31) from 3-7 p.m. Mass Tuesday (Sept. 1) at 10:45 a.m. at St. Josephs Bronxville. Entombment Woodlawn.

Memorial contributions preferred to Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center, 150 Saint Nicholas Ave., Columbia University Medical Center Russ Berrie Medical Science Pavilion, New York, NY 10032; or Pajama Program, 114 E 39th St., New York, NY 10016 in memory of Sadie Sorentino.

Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Sadie Sorentino.

(USTA)
WARSAW, Poland - Poland on Monday celebrated 40 years since it took a crucial step toward democracy with the creation of the Soviet blocs first free trade union, Solidarity, which changed the course of the nations history.

At the same time, Poland is closely watching protests in neighbouring Belarus against the re-election of a pro-Moscow president, events that resemble the mass actions that led to the formation of Solidarity.

Ceremonies Monday in the city of Gdansk marked the anniversary of an agreement forced upon Polands communist rulers in 1980 by thousands of striking workers, granting their 21 demands  the top one being the creation of an independent union. Other demands were the right to strike and the freedom of speech, about curbing party privileges and improving the peoples living standards.

It was the greatest victory in Polands history and its value rested in the fact that the old order was defeated but at the same time those who were defeated were encouraged to remain friends, said Solidarity founder Lech Walesa, who was later Polands president.

He was speaking at a place symbolic for Solidarity  the gate of the Gdansk Shipyard where 40 years ago he signed the agreement alongside a government representative. Solidarity spearheaded a national movement that in 1989 toppled the Moscow-backed communist government, through parliamentary elections, and inspired similar moves across much of the Soviet bloc.

The U.S. Ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, tweeted that Without the signing of the August agreements and the rise of Solidarity there would have been no fall of communism in Europe.

Leaders of Polands right-wing government were holding separate ceremonies in Gdansk to stress their long-standing negative assessment of the deal with the communists and of Walesas role in it. They say the deal allowed the communists to keep too much influence in Polands politics and economy.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Monday that Solidarity stood not only for the past 40 years that Poland was celebrating but was also a determinant and azimuth for the next 40 years for the government and the nation.

Poland is now drawing international attention to the developments in Belarus that resemble its own struggle for independence.

The current Solidarity leader, Piotr Duda, said during Gdansk ceremonies that the union will try to bring assistance to protesters in Belarus.

Our hearts and eyes are focused on Belarus, where they are having their August now and where they should not be short of solidarity, spelled with the small s and the big S, Duda said.

Rallies were held Monday in Gdansk, on the Baltic Sea coast, and in Krakow, in the south, in support of the daily protests that have gone into their fourth week in Belarus. The protesters are calling for the authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko to resign. They say the Aug. 9 presidential election that gave Lukashenko a sixth term in office was rigged.

Polands own path to democracy was not easy.

Amid the jubilant mood of 1980, the Poles were not aware that before they could gain democratic rights, they would go through many more protests, two years of martial law and the outlawing of Solidarity, almost a decade of deep economic crisis, empty shops and stagnation.

Finally, a new wave of strikes brought the communist authorities to the negotiating table with Solidarity in 1989, and to partly free elections that led to the ouster of the communists.

Since then, Polands young democracy has gone through political conflicts and more hardship, especially in the 1990s, under stringent economic transition from a centrally managed to a free market economy.

It is a member of the European Union and NATO now and has one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, but the hardship has taken its toll and ushered in a right-wing, divisive government that is riding high in opinion polls on a policy of social benefits, but is also clashing with the EU over its reform of the judiciary and its democracy record.

The road to Polands freedom, that started 40 years ago, was difficult, rough and tragic but the Poles never lost hope, Mosbacher said in her tweet.
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She was used to hearing classical or pop music humming from the cream-coloured Bakelite radio on the Whangarei kitchen's Formica bench. But on this particular afternoon her 13-year-old ears heard something new. She recognised the song, East of the Sun, yet after the melody the band seemed to be making the music up as they went. In three years of studying classical piano with the local nuns they'd never mentioned improvising.

Judy Bailey was enthralled, and when what turned out to be the George Shearing Quintet had finished, she dashed to the piano, and worked out that the made-up music was happening over the song's chords. A week later the Stan Kenton Orchestra gave her an even bigger thrill, the thought of which still gave her tingles decades later.

Judy Bailey at El Rocco Bar, Kings Cross in 2009. Credit:Marco Del Grande

At 14 she began regularly accompanying a singer on Radio Northland, through which she met the Newbury twins, Peter and Paul. When they weren't helping their father prepare bodies for burial, they ran an acrobatic troupe  yes, really  for which Judy, 10 years their junior, became musical director.

So music was already tugging her in different directions when, at 18, she began studying classical piano more seriously in Auckland. Once, when her teacher asked to hear her homework, and could tell she hadn't really practised it, he stopped her and said, "No. Play me the stuff you've been working on. Not the stuff I gave you." So Judy came clean with her jazz, only to find the teacher intrigued and supportive. Her parents, who'd assumed her future as a classical pianist was a given, were less thrilled, but Judy was not to be swayed.
I dont understand what people mean by destruction when they talk about the merger of the higher court instances and the application of the Constitution in courts. This is what Minister of Justice of Armenia Rustam Badasyan told reporters in parliament today, touching upon the criticism according to which the act of merging the Constitutional Court and the Court of Cassation is considered an act of destroying the already existing system.

I dont accept the discourse on destruction at all. If we go with the same logic, why was the semi-presidential system being destroyed? As far as the establishment of the Supreme Court is concerned, there is a commission set up under the principle of inclusivity, and this only has a positive impact on the process in general.

Another good thing about the establishment of the Supreme Court is that it will ensure a common practice and will rule out courts that will fail to implement the judicial acts of the Constitutional Court. There are many other advantages of the model of the Supreme Court, and there are nuances that will be considered in detail, he said.




An appellate court on Monday upheld a seven-year prison sentence for Won Sei-hoon, a former National Intelligence Service (NIS) director, who was indicted for spending taxpayer money to interfere in domestic politics in favor of preceding conservative governments and on other charges.







The Seoul High Court suspended Won's civil and political qualifications for five years for inflicting losses to state coffers, compared with a seven-year qualification suspension imposed by the Seoul Central District Court in February.







The appellate court increased the amount of money recognized as having been embezzled by Won to 15.6 billion won (US$13.14 million) from 12.8 billion won recognized by the lower court. It also found him guilty of receiving about 200 million won in bribes.







But both the district and appellate courts didn't mete out any monetary penalty for Won, though prosecutors demanded a forfeit of 19.8 billion won.







Won was also acquitted of 13 charges of abuse of authority and obstruction of the exercise of rights in connection with his attempts to disadvantage liberal figures in broadcasting activities.







Won, who led the NIS from 2009-2013, was indicted from December 2017 to December 2018 on nine criminal charges, including his unlawful use of NIS funds to hire civilians to distort cyberspace opinions and acts of interference in domestic politics.







Separately, Won was convicted on charges of instructing NIS officials to manipulate internet comments to sway public opinion ahead of the 2012 presidential election. In the case, the Supreme Court upheld a four-year imprisonment for him in April 2018.







Won's additional indictments came after the Moon Jae-in administration launched a reinvestigation into the NIS' past wrongdoings following his inauguration in May 2017.







Prosecutors reopened the investigation into Won after an internal NIS probe found documents that suggest the spy agency ran 30 cyberteams and spent billions of won in taxpayer money to pay civilians and NIS retirees to write disparaging internet comments about liberal figures.







The Seoul High Court said any form of political intervention by the NIS deserves severe punishment.







"In our country's history, the spy agency's political interference has caused harm on multiple occasions. It's very wrong for the NIS to set up and support a civilian organization," the court said.







It also noted that a number of NIS officials have been criminally punished after being unable to reject Won's instructions and involved in various crimes. (Yonhap)


Yet over the past five years, Chinas government has veered sharply toward the assimilative approach under the hard-line leadership of Xi Jinping, who has promoted classical Chinese culture and fanned Han nationalism while restricting minority languages and religious practices among Tibetans and Uighurs  the latter of which are forcibly detained and reeducated in sweeping numbers. Educators who promote minority languages have sometimes been charged with separatism and punished severely.
A family have been found dead inside their home in a suspected murder-suicide in Ohio.

Officers were called to the Shaker Heights home just before 2.30pm on Sunday for a welfare check, at the request of a family member, according to a police statement.

There they discovered the bodies of John Tobin, Regina Tobin and their two teenage children, Graham and Natalie, both 14.

A family have been found dead inside their home in a suspected murder-suicide in Ohio. Crime scene pictured above

Officers were called to the Shaker Heights home just before 2.30pm on Sunday for a welfare check

There were no signs of forced entry into the home, police told News 5.

The incident is being treated as a murder-suicide.

The family had been living at the home for just over a year, according to a neighbor.

'It's hard to understand what could've happened,' they said.

'We don't know anything about it. We just know how how great the kids were when they came over to our house.

'Just very outgoing, easygoing kind of kids.'

Laurel School released a statement after learning of the death of Natalie Tobin, who was a pupil there.

The all-girls private school in Shaker Heights sent out a letter to parents on Sunday evening, describing Natalie as a 'bookworm, scholar and volleyball player' as well as a 'gentle, warm and thoughtful friend.'

'The loss of a child is devastating, and the sudden and horrific loss of a family is excruciating,' it read.

'Our counseling team will be available to support our girls as the school processes its sorrow.

'The Ninth Grade will not begin classes tomorrow, and we will be in touch this evening with the Ninth Grade families with further details.'
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / China Construction Bank Corp. (OTCMKTS:CICHY) will be discussing their earnings results in their 2020 Second Quarter Earnings call to be held on August 31, 2020 at 2:30 AM Eastern Time.

To listen to the event live or access a replay of the call - visit

https://www.investornetwork.com/event/presentation/68122

To receive updates for this company you can register by emailing info@investornetwork.com or by clicking get investment info from the company's profile.

About Investor Network

Investor Network (IN) is a financial content community, serving millions of unique investors market information, earnings, commentary and news on what's trending. Dedicated to both the professional and the average traders, IN offers timely, trusted and relevant financial information for virtually every investor. IN is an Issuer Direct brand, to learn more or for the latest financial news and market information, visit www.investornetwork.com. Follow us on Twitter @investornetwork.

SOURCE: Investor Network





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Saddleback Church food pantry No. 1 resource for OC residents in need during COVID-19 shutdowns Church volunteers distribute over 2.4 million pounds of food

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In Southern Californias Orange County, where nearly half a million people are at risk of going hungry each month during the COVID-19 pandemic, Pastor Rick Warrens Saddleback Church is the largest food resource as the congregation seeks to follow the example of Jesus.

Since the pandemic began in March, the megachurchs volunteers have distributed more than 2.4 million pounds of food at more than 300 grocery distribution events throughout Orange County, according to The Epoch Times.

Saddleback has been feeding our community for over 10 years, Saddlebacks communications minister, Ashley Eure, was quoted as saying. When COVID hit, we scaled up our distribution to meet the rapidly increasing need. Every Southern California Saddleback campus has contributed to putting on food distributions and caring for the physical and spiritual needs families are facing right now.

Pastor Rick has said that, as Christians, we are called to step into the places of pain. In a time when the world is scared and hurting, instead of running away from that, were going to run towards the pain and meet people where they are.

Second Harvest Food Bank, Saddlebacks partner in the distribution, says that one in six children in Orange County is at risk of hunger. Those at risk also include seniors with fixed incomes, people with disabilities and the homeless, and the number could be more than 450,000.

The O.C. Food Bank is also a partner of the Saddleback Church in the initiative.

According to the churchs website, the food distribution will carry on in September in Anaheim, Corona, Irvine South, Lake Forest, Laguna Woods, Rancho Capistrano and San Clemente areas.

The church is inviting more volunteers to provide help to the community. Saddleback says it welcomes all, including those 8 years and older (those age 8 to 12 must come with a parent). One hour served in the grocery distribution feeds a family for a week!

Just in July, weve had over 1 million pounds of food donations, Adam Ermisch, who leads the Saddleback Church Food Pantry in Lake Forest, told the Times. It takes about 100 volunteers to run the ministry on site. We even have church staff members furloughed that are here volunteering. Many other volunteers who have been laid off or facing challenges from other places are using their time to serve here as well.

Earlier, Rana Muncy, Saddlebacks director of mission for the churchs regional campuses, told Los Angeles Times, Weve been giving away food in Orange County for 11 years, and so when COVID-19 hit and about 158 food pantries closed almost immediately in Orange County, we said, You know what, as a church, weve got to really scale up.

The church has also served in Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

Muncy added, We are doing about seven times the amount of volume that we would normally do, so we went from serving 2,500 families a month to serving about 5,000 families a week. Just since March 9, we have given away 3 million pounds of groceries to people in need, and we help anybody who says they have a need. They have given it away from L.A. to San Diego.

Churches across the country have stepped up their charity efforts. In Texas, Lakewood Church, led by Pastor Joel Osteen, partnered with World Vision, Houston-area churches and local nonprofits to distribute over 12,000 boxes of fresh food, provided by farmers facing financial hardship during the pandemic, to the hungry.

The partnership, part of the Fresh Food Box Program, also began soon after the COVID lockdown began. The program had fed over 860,000 Americans through 70 hub locations by July-end. Fresh Food Box gives recipients fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy products supplied by farmers who otherwise could not sell their goods due to the economic impact of COVID-19.
Venu Rajamony  Ambassador of India to the Netherlands, who was Pranab Mukherjees Press Secretary for five years at the President House, remembers him as a leader who was not only an authority on parliamentary procedures and history but was also the principal troubleshooter for Congress during UPA I and II.

During his presidency, Rajamony says, he believed defending the Constitution was his prime responsibility. Rajamony adds that one of Pranab Mukherjees most important reforms was to open up the Rashtrapati Bhavan to the public and make it a democratic institution. He strongly believed that Rashtrapati Bhavan belongs to the nation and there should be greater participation by ordinary Indians in its activities. This is when regular tours of the public were started at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and its libraries and archives were thrown open to scholars, Rajamony told HT over the phone from Netherlands.

ALSO READ | Pranab Mukherjee dies: A look at his illustrious political career

This legacy of Pranab Da should be safeguarded and protected, Rajamony adds.

A scholar of politics, economics and foreign affairs, Pranab Mukherjee was admired by all, across political parties for his knowledge, experience and wisdom. He was capable of uniting different political parties and finding common ground, the Ambassador says.

His first and last love, Rajamony describes, was Parliament. It is in the Parliament that he was most happy and he believed it was the Parliament which made him who he was. On many occasions during his tenure as President, Pranabda would sit with longing in front of the television watching debates in Parliament and say, I miss being in the House. I wish I was there, participating in those debates, Rajamony told HT.

Recalling the former Presidents sharp memory, Rajamony said, He could remember events, dates and numbers and was considered a walking encyclopedia. Senior officials who had to brief him would do so with fear because he would always know more than them. Pranabda could easily cite budget figures going back to the earliest budget presented in Parliament after independence, he adds.

ALSO READ | Pranab Mukherjee: The vice-captain who went on to be referee

Asserting that the former President was old-fashioned, Rajamony said he believed that much of what he knew and had seen would die with him. (The Then PM) Indira Gandhi once remarked that if anyone tried to make Pranabda cough up secrets, only smoke would come out.

Pranabda maintained copious diaries throughout his life but was not interested in them seeing the light of the day for as long as he was alive, the Ambassador added.

The Indian Foreign Service officer, who also served with Pranab Mukherjee for two years in the finance ministry, said that Pranab Da deserved more.

If Pranab Da had become the Prime Minister and Dr Manmohan Singh had moved to Rashtrapati Bhavan in 2012, political events post 2014 would perhaps have been very different, Rajamony adds.

Paying tribute to Pranab Da, the Ambassador added that his life and memory will inspire others in public life to emulate him and live up to his high standards.
The Young Progressives Party (YPP)s candidate, Ojon Dotun, is a 38-year-old candidate for the office of governor in the election slated for October 10, 2020. The Independent National Electoral Commission records him as the youngest of all the candidates for the election. He is a journalist and former student unionist. He spoke to PREMIUM TIMES on his chances of winning the election.

How did you get a number of your opponents to step down at the contest of the primaries for you to emerge unopposed candidate of your party? Did you earn it, or it just happened?

Dotun: It is a combination of what we earned and at the end of the day you may not have all the answers to lifes questions. First, I must tell you that I was the last person that entered into the race. A lot of people did not know that I will contest. I had known that I would do this, yet I actually took my time to consult with people, even beyond our political party. So, when I came up some people felt that with the kind of credibility I will bring to the party, that it was better for them to step down. Some did not even consult with me, only for me to get to the venue of the primaries and I got to know I will be the only candidate. That was how it happened.

You dont have a rich background in politics, so how did you find yourself getting to this point and how do you hope to forge ahead?

Dotun: I dont want to be called a professional politician because one thing I have realised over time is that a major challenge we have with leadership in Nigeria, when it comes to political leadership is experience, and experience will keep giving us that old familiar results. So, I am not a professional politician. I have never contested for anything. The only thing that I have ever contested for was the students union presidency, when I was in school. Of course, that could be a very good bedrock. I was the student union president in my polytechnic, but when I came out, something more than politics which is a passion for good governance actually gripped me. In the process of doing my journalism, I was actually studying and asking this familiar question: what is the problem with us in Nigeria? And I discovered that we dont have a peculiar problem. The problem we have is what is known across the continent, which is leadership failure, which is a product of our tradition, if you allow me to go that way. Because our tradition lays emphasis on what the leader can get from the community rather than what the leader can give to the community. So, you go to the traditional ruler of your town for example, he is expecting to drop something. The traditional ruler of your community comes to you, he is also expecting you to drop something. So, traditionally, our leadership style is about the leader getting from the followership and that is what is translated into public leadership and into politics. So, I am not a professional politician. I am just somebody who desire a better Nigeria and I put my eyes on any avenue that this will happen. Politics seems to be the only avenue for me to communicate my intentions to the people.

You are of the Young Progressives Party, and you are young, so how young are you?

Dotun: I am actually 38 years old and according INEC, on the list of the candidates released so far, they said I am the youngest of the candidates. This most often breaks my heart when people still talk to you.trying to market my candidature was a major challenge, because majority of the people thought I was fronting for somebody and before the election I am going to step down or merge with another party. This is because, to them a 38-year-old person should not be governor. I feel sad. It is understandable. In a community where 38-year-old are still looking for jobs, in a community where 38-year-old still do not have an idea how their lives would pan out, I will forgive any person who thinks that a 38-year person is too young to be governor. The reality is that, even if you check the United Nations definition of who a youth really is, I think is a person between the ages of 15 and 24 or 25 as the case may be. But because of our peculiar situation here, we say even if you are 50 we can still elect you as the youth leader of our political party. It is really sad.

Now Are you intimidated by the personalities that you are facing in this election, especially with their towering CVs?

Dotun: In reality, when you look at the people that we have entered the race with, the only thing that it has helped me to do is to fastened my seat belt tighter. In reality, if you put our understanding of the community today, side by side their own understanding of our community today, the you will discover that I have nothing to fear, I am not intimidated. I think I even understand the people the more, I understand the community, the people of the 21st century more than they do. But in reality, it has actually reduced my hours of sleep from six to four hours, it has made me to travel more and it has actually challenged me to communicate and connect more with people.

With the nature of politics in Nigeria, particularly with the foretaste offered by the just concluded local government elections, do you have the guts to stand the ballot box snatching, wielding and shooting of firearms and the other forms of violence?

Dotun: I think we are coming in a new dimension. We did a private study that showed that about 400,000 people have never voted in Ondo State. We have about 1.3million voters card in the hands of the electorate in the state now, and you will discover that in the elections in the past, the highest any governor had ever had in the polls is about 300,000. When we did our calculations, we discovered that there is a group of people that has never voted. We are reaching out to these people with a message of hope. We believe that this new group of people will be different from the groups that we have seen in elections before. The community of people that do ballot snatching, the community of people that wield guns during election, we are trying to see that we do not have a repeat of what we have always seen during elections. Our belief is that we will be raising a new set of people, we are communicating with them and we are changing their mindset, and we only hope that things are going to change come the October 10 election. For us, we do not have the power to withstand their guns or their violence. We do hope that this new set of people we are reaching out to will be an asset on the day of election.

The Young Progressives Party (YPP)s candidate, Ojon Dotun.

Now do you also have the financial power to meet these bigwigs, given the demands of election and the syndrome of vote selling and buying?

Dotun: I will say yes and no, because the kind of money you actually need will be dictated by your mission. For us to have gone this far, we have spent a lot of money. For campaign, in our own little way, we do have the money. But to bribe people to vote for us is the money we do not have. We do not intend to borrow or to ask people to give to us. I keep telling people that this is not a contest between partisan politicians. This is our expression of our own commitment to something entirely different. We have the money to campaign, to communicate our ideas to people, and I must tell you that it is very, very expensive and we have been spending the money. But the money to buy votes on election day, is what we do not have. We did our independent research and we found out that leading candidates spent about N1.5 billion on the day of election. This is because Ondo State started what they called dibo kii seobe, which means let me vote so that I can cook and an average person got N5,000 for a ballot cast. When you multiply that with about 300,000 votes cast, that gives you about N1.5billion. We do not have this kind of money. Even if somebody gives this kind of money to us, we are going to turn it down, because our intention is not to buy the conscience of the people. My intention is to give the people a new direction. Now, to your question, I will say, yes, we have the money to campaign, and we have been spending, but to buy the vote of the people, we do not have such money sir.

What are your expectations from the agents that would supervise the election such as the INEC, police and other stakeholders?

Dotun: Principal among my expectations is that they should all remember that they are all Nigerians and we will all benefit from the good of this nation. If a government is working well, everybody will benefit. As a good Nigerian, I want them to be as independent as possible, because at the end of the day, what makes an election bad or not may not be totally what INEC does or refuse to do, it could also be the input of security agents and all that. So, I want INEC to be as independent as possible, to give everybody a level playing ground to actually express their commitment to their community. For the security agents, I have met with the police leadership in Ondo State and I have communicated my desire to them, that a better Ondo State is for the good of all and we must be able to protect the votes, the voters and the contestants. It is does not matter at that instance whether the contestant is a rich man or a poor man; it is does not matter at the end of the day whether the contestant is from a popular party or what people call unpopular party. It doesnt matter at the end of the day the contestant is from a ruling party or the party that is yet to be in power. That is my expectation.

What is your message to the voting public in the face of all these challenges that could be experienced during election proper?

Dotun: My message to the youths, who are the major asset or every community, if we have the opportunity to choose between competence and partisan politicking, I think we should be able make that commitment of picking people we do know their antecedents could speak for them. For example, I a 38-year old persons seeking for political office and from this 38 years, I have invested 18 years into my career. So I have something that I am doing. It is not about somebody who doesnt have something doing. I understand the feeling of Nigerian youth. So what I expect from them is to give change, real change a chance. It is for us to be able to disrupt the current direction of leadership and be able to put people at the centre of leadership purpose. So I expect people to look beyond the noise of partisan politicking, to see the reality of excellence in our own commitment and message. I strongly believe that if we continue on this path, that a lot of them will actually be drawn to our message of hope.

If elected into office as governor, what would you do differently from what the currently governor is doing now?

Dotun: In Ondo State right now, I am the only candidate and my party is the only party that is campaigning with a blueprint. We have what we call the Lip Agenda, and everything we want to do in the next four years is in the Lip Agenda. Let me start with the letter L, this is leadership. We want to redirect the concept of leadership from power to people. This is what I mean, the current direction of leadership we have in Ondo State is about power, where the father is the governor, where the mother is the acting governor and where the son is the Chief of Staff. One of the reasons why they want to stay in power is because they want to continue to use power for family advantage and their parochial interest. For us we want to put the people at the centre of leadership purpose. We want the policies and programmes of government to be about the people, not what we want to gain. Not about power or authority. That is the first thing. You will agree with me that if we get the concept of leadership right, the 70 per cent of all the problems facing our community we will get them solved. This is very paramount to me. I did a four-year research into the problem of leadership in Africa and I came out with a book titled Understanding Technical Leadership and in that book, I noted that if you solved the problem of leadership, that majority of the problems in our community will be solved. The first thing we will be doing differently is leadership. It is leadership to understand the plight and pains of the people; it is leadership for you to understand that you need to allocate more money to people living in abject poverty so that you can solve the problem of poverty in the community. The problem we had when we graduated from school, sir, was lack of job in Ondo State. But this is the first time the community is having the problem of getting into the higher institution to study and not have hope of employment. When we were growing up the pride of our state was education, because we saw each family being proud of the number of graduates they could produce; but that has become a thing of the past today. That is why we need to change the direction of leadership so that we can give hope to the people and to me that is one massive thing that, once we do, we are going to solve a lot of problem.

Considering the concept of zoning in Ondo State, where some believe that the next governor should come from a particular zone. You are from the southern senatorial zone, how do you fit into this arrangements?

Dotun: I am from the southern senatorial zone, from Ojuala, in Ese-Odo Local Government Area. I think, in the spirit of fairness, the south deserves to produce the next governor. If you look back as far as 1979, that a northern governor ruled from 1979 to 1983. From 1999 to 2003, it was a governor from the northern senatorial zone and now we are having another northern governor ruling us today. I think it will only be fair for the people of Ondo State to give me, a credible southern candidate, a chance. It goes beyond coming from the south. What are you bringing on board? A lot of people a beginning to say that for any candidate that will emanate from the south, he must be a candidate with competence, with character and knows what to do. I think we easily fit into this. I am from the southern senatorial district and I think I should be given a chance.
Two men have been arrested after Bexar County Sheriff's deputies found nearly 25 pounds of methamphetamine inside a vehicle on Friday.

Deputies arrested 42-year-old Rodger Hernandez and 34-year-old Jay Haggard for the charge of possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine.
Pranab Mukherjee, Indias former president and one of the countrys most admired political leaders, died on Monday. He was 84.

Mukherjee had suffered a fall at his Rajaji Marg house and had been operated to remove a blood clot in his brain on August 10. Doctors on Monday morning warned that there was a decline in his condition and he was in septic shock due to infection in his lung. Soon after, his son Abhijit Mukherjee also tweeted a request to people, asking them to pray for his father. He is a fighter & with all your good wishes & prayers , He will surely recover ! Abhijit tweeted.

Three hours later, Abhijit made the announcement on social media.

With a Heavy Heart , this is to inform you that my father Shri #PranabMukherjee has just passed away in spite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital & prayers ,duas & prarthanas from people throughout India !, Abhijit tweeted about the veteran politician who would often speak of his humble beginnings and his amazing journey from the flickers of a lamp in a small Bengal village to the chandeliers of Delhi.

With a Heavy Heart , this is to inform you that my father Shri #PranabMukherjee has just passed away inspite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital & prayers ,duas & prarthanas from people throughout India !

I thank all of You   Abhijit Mukherjee (@ABHIJIT_LS) August 31, 2020

A quintessential Congressman for five decades, the seven-time parliamentarian had worked as a teacher and journalist before taking his first steps in politics. His first stop in Delhi was the Rajya Sabha in 1969, the House that re-elected him four more times before he won his first Lok Sabha election from Bengals Jangipur in 2004. He was re-elected in 2009.

Also Read: Pranab Mukherjee: The vice-captain who went on to be referee

Mukherjee, who was seen as a formidable political strategist, draftsman and parliamentarian with an astute legal mind, prospered in Delhi. He first made it to Indira Gandhis council of ministers in 1972 and never looked back, going on to hold some of the most powerful portfolios - finance, commerce, external affairs and defence - in Congress governments. Pranab Mukherjee was considered the sharpest mind and the prime troubleshooter in the government led by Manmohan Singh, who he had appointed as RBI governor in the 1980s.

His last stop in public life was Rashtrapati Bhavan. Mukherjee, a nominee of the Congress-led UPA coalition, was elected Indias President in 2012. By the time he exited Rashtrapati Bhavan in 2017, he left the legacy of a president who spoke his mind to the government and yet, kept the bridges and friendships intact.

Also Read: The other side of Pranab babu

Like when President Mukherjee, six months before his term was to end in 2017, accepted the mercy petitions of four death-row convicts for the 1992 Bara massacre against the advice of the home ministry, the Centre honoured his decision. In January 2019, Mukherjee was also named for the countrys highest civilian award Bharat Ratna by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who described him as the outstanding statesman of our times.

As news of Pranab Mukherjees death emerged, Prime Minister Modi paid tributes to the veteran politician who had guided him when he first came to Delhi from Gujarat in 2014, ready to take charge as prime minister. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society, PM Modi tweeted.

President Ram Nath Kovind described Mukherjees demise as passing of an era.

A colossus in public life, he served Mother India with the spirit of a sage. The nation mourns losing one of its worthiest sons Endowed with perspicacity and wisdom, Bharat Ratna Shri Mukherjee combined tradition and modernity. In his 5 decade long illustrious public life, he remained rooted to the ground irrespective of the exalted offices he held. He endeared himself to people across political spectrum, President Kovind said.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi also condoled his death.

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Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! the ghostly, goofy animated mystery series featuring a ragtag quartet of teenage sleuths and a cowardly Great Dane with a gruff bark who leads the gang in and out of trouble, was a hit from its first episode in 1969.

It would become a Saturday morning staple at a time when broadcasters gave parents a break, and advertisers a bonanza, by devoting programming to children in the early hours of the weekend. And it would grow into one of the most lucrative franchises in the history of animation, making the reputations (but not the fortunes) of its creators, Ken Spears and Joe Ruby.

Mr. Ruby, a longtime writer and producer of animated television shows, died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 87.

His death was confirmed by his wife, Carole.

Mr. Ruby and Mr. Spears had been working mostly as editors at Hanna-Barbera, the leading TV animation studio, when they were charged with creating a show that was a mash-up of I Love a Mystery, a popular radio show heard from 1939 to 1944 about three adventure-seeking pals; the 1948 horror-comedy movie Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein; and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, the 1959-63 sitcom about a hapless teenager.
(Newser)  The ballistics report in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor is in, though it's not yet clear what the report reveals. Kentucky's attorney general told CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday that he has the "critical piece" of the investigation, but "it's not the end-all be-all." Daniel Cameron said he will be meeting with FBI agents this week to go over the new information from the report, and added that some witness-testimony interviews still need to be conducted. Beyond that, "I don't want to get into the specifics," he said. "It is an ongoing investigation, and I dont want to compromise it in any way." But he promised his office is "leaving no stone unturned." The lawyer for Taylor's family was also on the show, and said he's frustrated that no criminal charges have been announced against the officers involved in the shooting.

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"Weve been told when they get the ballistics report, thats what they needed to wrap up this investigation and finally give them answers that they so desperately want, he said. "At this point, we are hoping that this conclusion will be sooner rather than later, because justice delayed is justice denied." But, per the New York Times, the president of the Louisville Metro Council on Sunday gave no indication the probe was nearing its end. Meanwhile, Jamarcus Glover, the ex-boyfriend of Taylor who was named on the warrant allowing police to enter her home, was arrested Thursday, WAVE3 reports. The convicted drug dealer faces more drug-related charges in multiple cases, WHSV reports. More on the charges here. (Read more Breonna Taylor stories.)
The on Monday dismissed fugitive business tycoon Vijay Mallya's plea seeking review of a 2017 judgment which held him guilty for contempt of court.

The top court had held him guilty of contempt, as Mallya did not truthfully disclose the full account of his assets.

He was also found guilty for violating a court order by siphoning $40 million from his account, as Mallya was restrained from any such withdrawal.

On Monday, a bench comprising Justices U.U. Lalit and Vineet Saran dismissed the review petition.

The apex court's order came on a review plea filed by Mallya against the July 14, 2017 judgment wherein he was found guilty of contempt for not paying Rs 9,000 crore dues to banks despite repeated directions.

On June 19, the had sought explanation from its registry regarding Mallya's appeal.

The bench said that according to the record placed before it, the review petition was not listed before the court for the last three years.

In 2017, the apex court passed the order on a contempt petition against Mallya by a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India.

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
CALABASAS, Calif., Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NetworkWire  Facing ones own mortality is something most people dont want to think about, which is why 65 percent of Americans currently dont have a last will and testament. However, recent times have made life very uncertain for many, prompting them to face getting their affairs in order.



Enter MyEstateHero , an innovative new technology solution thats a one-stop for many of lifes vital protection needs. MyEstateHero is completely free to everyone in the US to create a will, medical directive, power of attorney and pet guardian trust, no strings attached. They will never sell your information nor is the creation of an account necessary. Simply log in with your email to utilize the site and to make any future changes to your estate planning documents.

Planning for end of life shouldnt cost a fortune or anything at all, said Steve Weber, founder of QuoteHero, parent company of MyEstateHero. Putting your estate in order should be easy and free and we are providing a simple platform that only takes 10 minutes to utilize.

There is a high demand for these services and documents right now, with people trying to prepare their individual and family protection coverages and security, added Weber. But its an often confusing and costly world for most people to enter and they usually do so under duress and with costly legal fees. If we can help people have some peace of mind during these turbulent times, we are glad to be of assistance.

According to CEO Douglas Plank, MyEstateHero never sells names or any of its users information, which makes it unique in the online protection coverages and services world, where many websites generate income by selling leads. Our goal is to be the #1 trusted, safe, secure platform individuals and families go to seek their most important and necessary estate planning documents.

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About MyEstateHero: MyEstateHero, powered by Do Your Own Will, is a safe and secure PaaS platform providing one-stop solutions individuals and families can use to put their estate in order. MyEstateHero is based in Calabasas, California, and is powered by the companys proprietary QuoteHero search and shop platform. For more information, please visit www.MyEstateHero.com .

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5 1 of 5 courtesy of Conroe Police Department Show More Show Less 2 of 5 courtesy of Conroe Police Department Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 courtesy of Conroe Police Department Show More Show Less 5 of 5









A man recorded on surveillance video is being sought in connection to multiple vehicle burglaries in a Conroe subdivision.

The man seen in surveillance stills lurking inside one automobile and peering into a white SUV in what appears to be a home driveway, is possibly tied to five vehicle burglaries Aug. 22 in the Graystone Hills subdivision in northwest Conroe. Stolen items include mostly tools, a wallet with credit cards and a ladder, according to Conroe Police Department spokesman Sgt. Jeff Smith.
National Guard troops arrive at the Kenosha County courthouse in Wisconsin on Sunday, after police shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back after responding to a report of a domestic dispute. (Associated Press)

Still in mourning from three shootings last week that left a Black man paralyzed at the hands of police and two white men dead from the bullets of a teenage murder suspect, Kenosha was bracing for more unrest Tuesday with President Trump's planned visit to the embattled city that has become a symbol of the nation's strife over race, policing and protest.

The Democratic mayor and state governor have called on the president, who will meet with law enforcement and view burned buildings downtown, to cancel his plans, fearing the visit could inflame already high tensions. Conservative leaders have pleaded with Trump to move forward, saying the region needs his touch in a "time of crisis."

Residents in Kenosha County, which like many parts of this crucial swing state are politically divided, are troubled over the future of the country ahead of one of the most consequential American elections in generations. One can hear bitterness, worry and uncertainty, from the charred buildings downtown to the vigilant suburbs north and west.

"I'm not sure why he's [Trump] coming here," said Pam Zell, a Democrat who lives two miles from the Uptown neighborhood of Kenosha, where plumes of tear gas and smoke gave way to largely peaceful protests in support of Blake and a smaller pro-police rally this weekend.

"What's he going to do? Laugh and say everything is the fault of the Democrats?" said Zell, 57, who was recently laid off from a college campus bagel shop. She described herself as "understanding that Black lives matter."

Kevin Pinter, a Republican who lives in Pleasant Prairie, a western suburb right across city lines, said he was looking forward to Trump showing Kenosha "can be an example for the country."

"Anytime the president goes anywhere, the bad guys follow to cause trouble," said Pinter, 36, who co-runs a Christian humanitarian nonprofit. "So I get that concern. But he can come here and show our country how our city is now under control, unlike others that are rioting."

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Trump, who is scheduled to land in the city in the early afternoon, has plans to meet "local law enforcement, some business owners" and "survey the damage," White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Monday. She said the president did not plan to meet with the Blake family and that "we are holding his family close in our hearts."

Crowds gather to rally for Jacob Blake on Saturday in Kenosha, Wis. The city is bracing for more unrest when President Trump lands on Tuesday. (Associated Press)

Kenosha, a city of 100,000 in a county that Trump won by fewer than 250 votes four years ago, is shaping up to be a key election focus for Democrats and Republicans. Trump won Wisconsin by a sliver in 2016 and the state  bombarded by presidential tweets and a rallying cry of Black Lives Matter protesters  again finds itself stitched into the raucous narrative over where the fractious nation is headed.

Like he's done with Portland, Ore., where over the weekend a far-right group member was shot and killed, and other places that have faced unrest, Trump has described Kenosha as a Democrat-run city in a Democrat-run state that he can save with "law and order."

"If I didnt INSIST on having the National Guard activate and go into Kenosha, Wisconsin, there would be no Kenosha right now. Also, there would have been great death and injury. I want to thank Law Enforcement and the National Guard. I will see you on Tuesday!" he tweeted Monday.

The Wisconsin governor, Democrat Tony Evers, activated the state National Guard last Monday. Federal law enforcement including the FBI and U.S. marshals arrived later in the week.

Biden, who spoke in Pittsburgh on Monday for his first campaign event since the Democratic convention, pinned the blame for violence, including a fatal shooting of a Trump supporter in Portland, on Trump, who he said has emboldened white nationalists and militia groups.

Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?" Biden said.

City and county leaders in Kenosha, where a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew was extended through Wednesday, were apprehensive as more than 1,000 National Guard troops from several states patrolled downtown. It is a scene repeated many times since the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis three months ago.

Asked Monday if he was worried the president's visit would inflame tensions or lead to more violence, the Kenosha County executive, Jim Kreuser, said, "we'll see tomorrow, won't we?"

The mayor, John Antaramian, who himself came under attack after admitting the city was ill-prepared for protests, said regarding Trump that it would "be better had he waited" for another time. But several members of the Kenosha County Board of Supervisors wrote to the president telling him stick to his plans.

Kenoshans are hurting and looking for leadership, and your leadership in this time of crisis is greatly appreciated by those devastated by the violence in Kenosha, the letter said.

The violent narratives surrounding a Black man and a white boy are the grist for this city's  and the nation's  latest tensions.

Family members and a lawyer said Blake, 29, was paralyzed after police shot him seven times in the back on Aug. 23. A lawyer said that most of Blake's colon and small intestine have been removed. State authorities, which are investigating alongside the U.S. Department of Justice, said police were responding to a report of a domestic dispute and that Blake resisted arrest. Police recovered a knife in his car but have not said if they knew Blake had it or if he tried to use it.

Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Illinois, is also under arrest, facing murder charges in the fatal shooting of two men Tuesday night. He said in an interview with a conservative news website reporter before the shooting that he had shown up in town to protect businesses and offer medical help. Lawyers for the teen said he acted in self-defense.

At a news conference Monday, Trump defended Rittenhouse. "That was an interesting situation. You saw the same tape as I saw. And he was trying to get away from them. I guess it looks like he fell and then they very violently attacked him.... But I guess he was in very big trouble. He probably would have been killed. Its under investigation," he said.

The charges against Rittenhouse allege he already shot and killed one person in the time period Trump appeared to describe.

In Kenosha, where downtown businesses are now boarded up with colorful "Black Lives Matter" and "Kenosha will rise" murals, some residents said they planned to ignore the president's visit and hold their own gatherings to bring the community together. Others said they would cheer on Trump, including pro-police groups.

Violet Spears, a 51-year-old Black resident who lives near downtown, said she would join her son with the local Boys and Girls Club to support cleanup efforts in the city. "I'm scared Trump coming will give people a bad image of who people like me are, people who are trying to help our community," said Spears, a Democrat.

The Blake family planned a community service event to coincide with Trump's arrival with "cleanup, food drive, healing circle" and a voter registration booth at the site where police shot Blake.

"We don't need more pain and division from a president set on advancing his campaign at the expense of our city," said Justin Blake, Jacob Blake's uncle. "We need justice and relief for our vibrant community."
Armenias Minister of Foreign Affairs Zohrab Mnatsakanyan doesnt agree with the view that in essence, Armenia doesnt really need to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, the lands are taken, and the status-quo is favorable.

I cant agree with this. Both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh are interested in the establishment of sustainable peace in the region, and sustainable peace can be established through a peaceful agreement based on mutual concessions. Unilateral concessions are ruled out since they cant be prospective. Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh cant be interested in a situation where there are no sustainable and long-term foundations for peace and security in the region. In this sense, for us, the process of peaceful negotiations has been and remains a key priority for the settlement of this conflict, the foreign minister told Interfax.

Assessing the role of the OSCE Minsk Group, the foreign minister stated that since the mid-1990s, the format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, including Russia, the US and France, has been and remains the only format of negotiations, and there are concrete results. It is a format recognized by the international community and includes the three permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. These are three countries that have a rather major political and diplomatic resource for mediation. These countries continue to be very involved in the process. A mechanism, criteria and approaches have been developed throughout the years, and they ensure the scope in which it is possible to develop an option for tangible and real mutual concessions. In this sense, we continue and we will only continue to support this format of mediation. The Russian Federation is one of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. The Russian sides efforts were very effective, and they were seen during the events in July of this year and before the events. I am certain that Russias involvement at all levels emphasizes Russias serious attitude towards this process and the major contribution that Russia, along with the other Co-Chairs, is making to the peaceful settlement. There is no question here, and any attempt to question the work of the Co-Chairs which, by the way, is a major way of preventing escalation and pressure on the existing format, is unacceptable, Mnatsakanyan said.
Johnny: Ahh, the early 90s. Michael Keaton was Batman. Mustangs, Miatas and Camaros were popular. So were Saved by the Bell and 90210. Trips to Blockbuster were routine. MTV was in vogue. Thanks to Madonna, just about everyone was trying to figure out how to vogue. Tie-dye shirts, jean shorts and Keds sneakers (at least in South Florida). Mullets.

Azi: At home, you shared a landline. If you werent home and someone called, it would just ring and ring.

So how do Bill and Ted enter into this?

Johnny: Bill and Ted are two California slackers with very good heads of hair and big heavy metal dreams. They have to pass history class in order to save the future by time-traveling in a phone booth  their version of the DeLorean from Back to the Future  to collect a handful of famous historical figures for their class project. Amazingly, everyone is able to squeeze into the booth.

Azi: Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon and Socrates walk into a mall. Two kids will write a song that brings peace to the galaxy, but they cant get through history class. Its ridiculously aspirational (world peace!) and absurdly low risk.

Christina and Bryan, Does any of this seem familiar? Phone booths? Heavy metal? Keanu Reeves?

Bryan: My third grade classroom had an out-of-order telephone booth that we would hang out in for silent reading time, but Ive never used one to make a call. People still did that in the early 90s?
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ellipsis Health , pioneer of the first commercial-grade voice-based vital signs to quantify and manage depression and anxiety symptoms at scale, has announced the general availability of the Rising Higher mobile app. Rising Higher is a clinical decision support tool that enables healthcare providers and payors to remotely monitor symptoms in high-risk patient populations. Rising Higher creates behavioral health vital signs by detecting anxiety or depression symptoms via dual acoustic and semantic-based assessments of patient speech  providing critical behavioral health screening as well as monitoring between clinical encounters to improve health outcomes.

"At Ellipsis Health, our goal is for every person to have access to mental health professionals and treatment, as we work to eliminate the stigma related to behavioral health issues," said Mainul Mondal, Founder and CEO, Ellipsis Health. "Healthcare providers alone do not have the bandwidth to solve the problem at scale  but by leveraging the ubiquity of smartphones, behavioral health measurement is now available anytime, anywhere through our Rising Higher app. This groundbreaking development in the quantification of depression and anxiety symptoms is revolutionizing patient care and improves quality of life for Americans seeking help for mental illness."

The onset of COVID-19 has highlighted both the immediate value and long-term need for a scalable solution to identify behavioral health symptoms. Representative panel surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to assess mental health during the pandemic among adults found that 40.9% of respondents reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition, including symptoms of anxiety disorder or depressive disorder (30.9%), a considerable increase compared with the same period in 2019.

"The Rising Higher app addresses two critical care gaps in the behavioral health patient journey  upstream screening and downstream monitoring," said Dr. Michael Aratow, MD, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer, Ellipsis Health. "Since our current system has a major reliance on self-reporting or recognition by non-behavioral health providers, too many patients receive treatment too late. Even for patients that are diagnosed, clinicians have little insight into a patient's life outside of a clinical encounter with few early warning signs of deterioration or relapse. Ellipsis Health's speech-based vital signs enable providers to identify people that need assistance much sooner and gain visibility into their mental states over time in a consistent and scalable manner."

Ellipsis Health's cloud-based machine learning algorithms assess patients' voice data and generate predictions of depression, anxiety or other behavioral health conditions. The HIPAA-compliant platform facilitates longitudinal visibility into these behavioral health symptoms for enhanced clinical decision support.

"Our scalable deep learning models harness tone of voice, speech acoustics and natural language to predict a patient's behavioral health state," explained Elizabeth Shriberg, PhD, Chief Science Officer at Ellipsis Health. "Rich analytics output is produced based on only a short sample of speech from the patient. The analytics are made available in real time to the patient's care team."

Ellipsis Health's Rising Higher app is available in the Apple Store and Google Play app stores. Integration with third-party mobile apps, web apps, and APIs is also available.

About Ellipsis Health

Ellipsis Health has pioneered an artificial intelligence-powered, speech-based vital sign to quantify and manage depression and anxiety symptoms at scale. With depression and anxiety symptoms impacting one third of Americans and costing the global society over $1 trillion dollars each year, Ellipsis Health's integrated behavioral health solution helps healthcare providers and payors reliably identify and evaluate high-risk patient populations. Machine-learning algorithms assess patient speech through cloud-based deep learning models and generate an automated assessment of anxiety and depression symptoms for clinical decision support. To learn more about the HIPAA-compliant platform facilitating behavioral health screening or longitudinal monitoring of symptoms for depression and anxiety, please visit www.ellipsishealth.com or contact Susan Solinsky, Chief Growth Officer, [email protected].

SOURCE Ellipsis Health

Related Links

http://www.ellipsishealth.com


Sushant Singh Rajputs sister Shweta Singh Kirti has posted some throwback pictures from the time the family got together for Nitu Singh aka Ranis wedding anniversary in 2014 and made merry. She mentioned Sushant and her were grooving to Akshay Kumars track from Mohra- Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast.

In the throwback pictures, Sushant can be seen all smiles for the camera as he dances without a care in the world. When these pictures were clicked, Sushant had made his successful transition from TV to films and his debut Bollywood venture, Kai Po Che, had already become a hit. In the pictures, Sushant can be seen dancing in black, half sleeves shirt, blue jeans and black cap.

Bhai and I in May of 2014. We were dancing to the tune of Tu Cheez Badi hai mast mast after 20 long years on the occasion of wedding anniversary of Rani Di and Jiju (sic)," wrote Shweta as she remembered her late brother.

Heres a family pic from the event.

Shweta has been at the forefront in demanding justice for Sushant ever since he passed away on June 14. The case is now being investigated by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the late actors family members have been summoned to join the probe. Earlier, accused Rhea Chakraborty has said in an interview with CNNNews18 that Sushants relationship with his sisters and father KK Singh was strained.
The changing situation of the coronavirus health crisis in Spain and the rest of the world has led to great uncertainty about travel in September. Indeed, fear of the possible consequences of the pandemic, such as another lockdown or new quarantine measures, is the main reason why 40% of Spaniards think it is unlikely they will go on a vacation this year, according to a report from the Spanish National Tourism Observatory (ObservaTUR). Traveling under Spains new normality is very different, and certain precautions must be taken before a trip is booked. Here is a list of factors that must be considered when planning a holiday this fall.

Can I travel to any destination?

At the time of writing of this article, it is not currently possible to travel from Spain to all overseas destinations, given that the conditions of entry are constantly changing. Most countries have introduced restrictions on travelers from Spain, if they have not directly banned arrivals. Given that the epidemiological situation of the pandemic is different in every country, experts recommend consulting government websites of your planned destination to find out what measures have been set regarding visitors from Spain. Some countries have asked travelers to show that they have tested negative for Covid-19 two days before their flight, while others, such as the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland, have introduced mandatory quarantine measures for travelers from Spain.

The online travel agency Rumbo has developed an algorithm that periodically creates a list of the safest countries to visit, based on the number of active Covid-19 cases, the state of the healthcare system and the distance to the destination country. Ahead of September, the countries highest rated by the algorithm were Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Germany, Portugal and Slovenia.

What are my rights when it comes to cancellations?

Enrique Garcia, the spokesperson of Spains Consumer and User Organization (OCU), has bad news on this front. We would like to say that cancellation insurance is effective in these circumstances, but in practice, it only works when the consumer, for health reasons, cannot continue the journey. He warns that, unless a person reads the small print on the contract and adjusts it to their situation, these poorly named cancelation policies will not cover the current contingencies caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

It is advisable to book a trip with flexible cancellation policies (without added costs) for each service required, such as transportation, accommodation, activities and other services. But a traveler may receive a complete refund of these purchases for reasons of force majeure outside of their control.

Keep in mind that if you book a trip abroad without meeting the current conditions of entry in that country, you lose your right to a refund or to any type of compensation.

And if a new lockdown is introduced in September?

If a person cannot go on the holiday they have purchased due to new confinement measures, they have the right to ask for a refund. This could be for a complete refund because they have not gone on the vacation, or a partial one, if they have not been able to enjoy the entirety of the trip.

If I plan a vacation at the last minute, will I get a discount?

The uncertainty in the tourism industry has led hotels to offer last-minute flash offers to ensure minimum occupation. Ana de la Fuente, the head of the sales team of the travel site Weekendesks Spain and Portugal offices, says that this year clients are reserving with very little notice. Some 90% of our reservations are made for the same month they are in. She adds that hotels are offering discounts of up to 35% for their September campaign on Weekendesk because if not, many do not know if they will be able to open.

Is it safe to travel by train, bus and plane?

All transportation companies must, without exception, ensure that travelers wear a face mask for the duration of their trip. Whats more, given that in most cases safe distances cannot be guaranteed, there are very strict cleaning and disinfection protocols. Hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes are also handed out to all passengers.

With respect to air conditioning, both buses and trains have been forced to program their systems so that there is greater recirculation of air. In other words, the units dont recycle air from inside to save energy, but rather try to retain it for the shortest time possible to prevent air transmission of the virus. There have been no outbreaks linked to means of transport, adds Enrique Garcia from the OCU.

Are camping sites just as safe as hotels?

Yes. Despite what it might seem, the law does not differentiate between one type of tourist accommodation and another when it comes to coronavirus safety measures. All must comply with the same rules to reduce possible contagions, especially with respect to limits on capacity and disinfecting common areas. We have seen that both hotels and camping sites are correctly maintaining all the security measures, says Enrique Garcia.

What kind of vacations are people looking for during the pandemic?

This year is a very special one, but the holidays of most Spaniards are similar to what they were last year, mainly in search of sun and beach, says Alessia Dordonia, the head of communications of the travel site Lastminute.com. Despite this, the north of Spain, which typically has cooler weather, is seeing its best August in terms of tourism. The northern regions of Asturias and Cantabria, for example, have hotel occupancy levels at 95% and 93% respectively, while in Madrid the figure is below 30%.

English version by Melissa Kitson.
A three-year-old girl who died from flu complications at a Sydney hospital in 2016 was rushed there after her lips turned blue and she became unconscious while waiting to see a GP, an inquest has heard.

Caitlin Cruz came home from daycare with a fever on October 16, 2016, and was kept home for several days and given pain relief. She had an uneventful GP visit on October 21, but her condition worsened overnight and she was taken back the next day.

Caitlin Cruz died in hospital in 2016.

In an opening statement to the NSW Coroners Court on Monday, counsel assisting Maria Gerace said Caitlin had complained of a sore stomach, was lethargic and looked as if she might faint. Her mother Marie made some pancakes, but the toddler only picked at some of the chocolate chips on top.

On October 22, as Caitlin sat waiting on her father Mitch's lap at a Rhodes GP clinic, she "appeared to pass out and lose consciousness" and vomited onto her shirt, Ms Gerace said.
As the number of COVID-19 infections exploded at the University of Alabama over the past week, the schools administrators took several steps aimed at slowing the spread. The university consolidated student housing to clear room to quarantine students, banned student events and encouraged compliance with preventative measures.

But many students worry it was too little, too late. And some students say UA has not done enough to protect them from contracting the virus.

Several days a week, Carlee Fernandez works as a front desk assistant at Burke Hall, a red-brick residence hall that rises five floors above Paul W. Bryant Drive on the south end of UAs campus.

Its a pretty typical student desk job: check people in, help out when students lose their keys or lock themselves out of their dorm rooms, and perform other basic administrative tasks. But as of last week, the position put Fernandez, a 22-year-old UA senior from Helena, on the front lines of one of the nations most severe campus COVID-19 outbreaks.

On Monday, the university announced that all students living on one side of Burke Hall would have to move out to free up rooms to isolate and quarantine students who test positive for the virus or come in contact with someone who has.

Four days later, UA reported that the university added 481 new student COVID-19 cases from Tuesday to Thursday, a rapid escalation given that there were 562 new student cases over the previous six days. The university also reported Friday that over 36% of its isolation space in Tuscaloosa was occupied.

For Fernandez, concerns about the rising case count were compounded by her belief that there has been a complete lack of transparency and communication from the university about its plans for quarantining students and how it is protecting healthy students, employees and faculty. She said she first learned via Twitter that the school was converting half of the building where she works to isolation space.

If theres no communication, if were not being informed on how to deal with COVID patients as a desk assistant, we could all be at risk of contracting COVID, Fernandez said in a phone interview Saturday. A lot of us are really concerned and scared, not only for ourselves, but for the other housing staff and students.

University of Alabama senior Carlee Fernandez said she is concerned that UA is not doing enough to protect students, staff and faculty from COVID-19. (Courtesy Carlee Fernandez)

Lack of guidance

Burke Hall has two towers - Burke West and Burke East - connected by a wide shared space on the ground floor. Burke West was the one cleared out last week to make room for students under quarantine. The front desk Fernandez works behind is in the middle of the shared ground-floor space, where she and her co-workers greet and help residents of both towers.

Any job that requires workers to sit for hours in an indoor space and interact with members of the public carries a level of risk during a viral pandemic. But what concerns Fernandez is her belief that UA has done too little to limit her and her co-workers exposure to the virus. She said the university has provided gloves, hand sanitizer and masks for months, but did not offer additional training or materials to help keep employees who must now interact directly with sick and exposed students from contracting COVID-19 themselves.

Clear Plexiglas barriers between the ceiling and two higher tiers of the Burke Hall front desk provide some protection. But the lower, central tier of the desk - which is where most conversations and exchanges take place - had no such barrier in place as of Saturday evening.

Yet numerous students had already moved into the halls designated COVID-19 tower. Fernandez told AL.com she has personally seen students moving into Burke West.

The students are coming in. A few of them came up to the front desk just with their masks on and their stuff in their hands and were like, Im here to move into isolation. What do I do? she said. We were never told what to do if someone comes for isolation, we were just told that they might clear Burke West for isolation if needed.

Monica Watts, a spokeswoman for UA, said in an emailed statement Friday that the schools top priority is safety:

As we prepared for the fall semester, we worked closely with student leaders, faculty members and our staff to develop plans to minimize the risk of COVID-19 and to respond as cases occurred  For students who are in isolation or quarantine, we are providing meals and comprehensive services to address all aspects of support and care.

Instead of hands-on training, Fernandez said she and her co-workers were given a one-page list of frequently asked questions with short pre-written responses to consult if they are asked any of six specific questions about the schools decision to relocate students to make room for additional isolation space.

Why are we having to move? reads one of the questions. [Housing and Residential Communities] was trying to be proactive and create isolation spaces in case they are needed.

The University of Alabama issued this list of frequently asked questions and responses to front desk staff at Burke Hall after Burke West designated as a coronavirus isolation location. (Courtesy Carlee Fernandez)

Since then, Fernandez says she has spoken on the phone with Myron Pope, UAs vice president for student life, about her concerns. She provided AL.com with a copy of notes he sent her listing specific suggestions she had made for improving safety at the Burke Hall front desk.

The ideas include installing more Plexiglas, adding signage to direct students to use side doors when possible, providing training on how to deal with COVID positive students, and communicating better with employees. As of Saturday, the changes had yet to be instituted, according to Fernandez.

I was devastated

Morgan Quillin was only six days into her freshman year at UA when she received an email from the university stating that she had two days to move out of Burke West and into a room in Burke East. The 18-year-old nursing major, who was already reeling from the experience of moving from her hometown of Huntsville into her first dorm in the middle of a global pandemic, said she was shocked to learn she would have to move again so soon.

We had no idea where we were going to be moving or if my roommate and I would be separated. A lot of things were up in the air. I had a panic attack while my roommate was frantically packing and trying to console me, Quillin told AL.com. I was devastated and so incredibly scared. I felt abandoned by the school Ive looked up to my whole life.

The next day, she and her roommate - who asked to remain anonymous - learned they had been assigned separate rooms, but that they would both be on the same floor in Burke East. They filed a work order and slept in their new rooms Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, Quillin awoke to an email from a UA Housing representative who apologized for the mix-up and was ultimately able to get her reassigned to live with her original roommate.

Watts said Friday that [s]ome students were recently relocated as we consolidated residence hall space - a standard practice each year as we attempt to make the most efficient use of space - and to make more room for potential COVID-19 isolation. Students who were moved did not incur additional costs and were provided assistance and incentives to make up for their inconvenience.

While she appreciates the universitys efforts to right the situation, Quillin says she is still upset about the way she was treated.

My biggest concern while moving was the fact that I didnt know who I was going to be rooming with, she said. I dont know if they had been social distancing or wearing a mask or anything.

A University of Alabama student moves out of her room in Burke West last week to free up space to isolate students who have tested positive for COVID-19 or been exposed to the virus. (Courtesy Morgan Quillin)

A big deal

Lila Bogle, a 19-year-old UA sophomore from Franklin, Tenn., was sitting in a cavernous lecture hall with dozens of other students for her statistics class last week when a student behind her sneezed. When Bogle turned around to say bless you, the students mask had been pulled down. Bogle asked her why her mask was not covering her nose and mouth in accordance with university policy.

She was like, I only pulled down my mask to sneeze, its not that big of a deal, Bogle recalled. But it is that big of a deal! I couldnt believe that she said that because what do you think youre wearing a mask for?

Bogle, who lives in an on-campus residence hall that the university has not converted to isolation space, said that kind of dismissive attitude toward basic preventative measures is common among some UA students. So she stays in her room as much as possible and wears a mask whenever she leaves, as she is worried about the proliferation of COVID-19 and what she sees as insufficient action by UA to slow its spread.

I think a lot of people arent taking it very seriously, she said. There is some partying and going out still, just based on hearing girls arrive back at their rooms on weekends and sounding drunk when they get back. I think the step that [the city of Tuscaloosa] took shutting down the bars was a good step to try to crack down. But I think to really crack down on it theyd have to start having rules about people leaving their rooms and their dorms.

Most of the other students and faculty who spoke with AL.com since Thursday also said they have been disappointed by the unwillingness of a significant portion of the student body to take common-sense steps to avoid spreading the coronavirus, like social distancing, avoiding crowded indoor areas and wearing masks.

Most students seem to be following social distancing guidelines, but some arent. Its those few that are ruining it for everyone, Quillin said. Its been disappointing seeing my peers have such complete disregard for everyone elses health and safety.

Last week, UA required freshman Morgan Quillin to move out of her original dorm room in Burke West to make space for COVID-19 isolation. (Courtesy Morgan Quillin)

Whats to be done

While the case count continues to grow and frustrations and fears fester on campus, students and faculty worry what will come of the rest of the semester at UA. Nearly all of the more than a dozen students and faculty who spoke with AL.com since Wednesday said they believe the university will likely cancel in-person classes soon, for better or worse.

My roommate and I have not completely unpacked. Were scared well get sent home within the next week or two and will have to do this process all over again, Quillin said.

I feel that the university should just send everyone home. This just isnt working. I expected campus to be lively and exciting, but its just been so disappointing,

Bogle said that while she believes the university has taken some positive steps in recent days to limit the spread of coronavirus and avoid canceling in-person classes, she worries that they may not be enough.

Theres only so much that they can actually do past what theyve already done, short of getting rid of in-person classes, she said.

I think that if people arent on campus, then nobody is on campus to get [COVID-19.] So its a good move for the general student body. But Im also conflicted about it because I struggled last semester with online classes because I cant learn like that. So its kind of lose-lose for me.

Watts, the UA spokeswoman, said the university has taken a proactive approach to limiting the spread of COVID-19 on campus.

In the last week, we have implemented a moratorium on student events and taken additional steps to reduce the virus spread. The City of Tuscaloosa suspended on-premise consumption of alcohol at bars for 14 days, beginning last Monday, Watts said. We are confident these measures will do everything possible to help bend the curve.

The University of Alabama began its fall 2020 semester on Wednesday, Aug. 19, when students hit campus for the first day of classes with new COVID-19 policies in place. (Ben Flanagan / AL.com)

Fernandez said she believes its too late for UA to significantly slow the spread and that she does not believe there is anything the school could do to make her feel safe on campus.

I have been concerned since the day I found out we were going back to campus. This is just insane. There are schools that have closed because they had 80 cases and weve had over 1,000 in a week and were still open, she said.

For me I just want to feel safe, and I want other people to feel safe, too. But I dont think anythings going to make me feel safe.
YouTube channel "Pyongyang Broadcast Service - D.P.R. of Korea." Suspicions arose that a video clip on the channel contained a coded message from North Korea to its spies in the South, but the video turned out to be created by a South Korean group. / Captured from YouTube



By Park Han-sol



A YouTube video initially speculated to be an encrypted spy message from North Korea has turned out to be a parody made last year by a South Korean right-wing group.



But it is unknown who posted the one-year-old clip and exactly who is running the YouTube channel that is made to look like it is run by the North.



On the channel "Pyongyang Broadcast Service  D.P.R. of Korea" allegedly associated with the regime's state radio, a cryptic video titled "0100011001-001" appeared, Saturday.



In the now-deleted clip, which was viewed more than 10,000 times, an audio recording of a female anchor reads a random combination of pages and numbers such as "No. 23 on page 564, No. 19 on page 479, No. 20 on page 694." She then ends the announcement, saying, "This message has been the review assignment for No. 710 agents. This is Pyongyang."



The list was initially thought to be a coded message for North Korean spies in the South, operated like a so-called "numbers station." Since the 1980s, North Korea has broadcasted formatted numbers via state-run Pyongyang Broadcasting Station to provide intelligence to spies across the border. Although Pyongyang's numbers broadcasting officially halted after the inter-Korean summit in 2000, there have been suspicions that it revived the system in 2016.



However, Saturday's video turned out to be a parody uploaded by a South Korean conservative students' group on its own YouTube channel in July 2019, ending speculation that it was an encrypted message from the North. But why "Pyongyang Broadcast Service" posted the clip remains a mystery.



Some experts called into question the claim that "Pyongyang Broadcast Service" YouTube channel is an official state-run outlet.



Researcher Martyn Williams, founder of North Korea Tech that focuses on analyzing the regime's information technology, said on Twitter that the account "is the renamed Choson TV channel" created in 2017 and "appears to be from Mexico."



"Number broadcasts online make no sense. They use radio because it's untraceable. You can't prove or track listeners. Online and immediately there is a log. Plus, why not use PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) or some other encryption instead?" he said.



Unification ministry spokesman Yeo Sang-gi said, Monday, the government does not have detailed information about North Korea's social media channels so it could not confirm whether the channel in question is actually run by the North Korean regime.


With the onset of digital era and social media, food blogging has boomed and is a major hit amongst food enthusiasts.

A few years back we barely knew anything about food blogging but with a steady growth of unique and out of the box recipes dished out by various restaurants accompanied by the online and internet world being a part of everyones day to day lives food blogging has transformed from a favourite past time to serious business for many. Nowadays as a part of their marketing strategy its a common practice amongst cafes, restaurants and other food and refreshment businesses to approach food-bloggers and utilize their followers to get a wide range of audience for their food business. Here is where food influencers like Mehak Dhawan come into picture to run the show for them.

With her keen interest in food and travel, life as a food blogger or influencer was something Mehak Dhawan always dreamed of. Nothing brings people together like good food is the mantra Mehak follows and this lead her to choose her passion for food by becoming a food blogger. From visiting one place to another and posting those mouth watering images of various food dishes on Instagram, Face book and YouTube, Mehak has discovered numerous approaches to make her excursion effective.

Running a food blog is like juggling between travelling, writing, photography, and the entirety of the business that accompany it. I visit restaurants, photograph food, and post them onto my social media accounts for my followers to explore various cuisines from different places that I have experienced says Mehak. Street food is something which tops the list in Mehaks favourites and she cant wait to get onto the mean streets to experience the mouth watering food that these places offer. Keen to explore various places in search of a perfect food paradise, Mehak is also looking forward to comb the food streets of Delhi in search of that perfect culinary delight.

Food blog world by its own is a truly amazing place to be in, and food influencers like Mehak Dhawan with their excellent approach & skill make it more special!

Disclaimer: This is a company press release. No HT journalist was involved in the creation of this content.
Researchers develop molecule to store solar energy

Researchers at Linkoping University, Sweden, have developed a molecule that absorbs energy from sunlight and stores it in chemical bonds. A possible long-term use of the molecule is to capture solar energy efficiently and store it for later consumption. The current results have been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, JACS.

The Earth receives many times more energy from the sun than we humans can use. This energy is absorbed by solar energy facilities, but one of the challenges of solar energy is to store it efficiently, such that the energy is available when the sun is not shining. This led scientists at Linkoping University to investigate the possibility of capturing and storing solar energy in a new molecule.

"Our molecule can take on two different forms: a parent form that can absorb energy from sunlight, and an alternative form in which the structure of the parent form has been changed and become much more energy-rich, while remaining stable. This makes it possible to store the energy in sunlight in the molecule efficiently", says Bo Durbeej, professor of computational physics in the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology at Linkoping University, and leader of the study.

The molecule belongs to a group known as "molecular photoswitches". These are always available in two different forms, isomers, that differ in their chemical structures. The two forms have different properties, and in the case of the molecule developed by LiU researchers, this difference is in the energy content. The chemical structures of all photoswitches are influenced by light energy. This means that the structure, and thus the properties, of a photoswitch can be changed by illuminating it. One possible area of application for photoswitches is molecular electronics, in which the two forms of the molecule have different electrical conductivities. Another area is photopharmacology, in which one form of the molecule is pharmacologically active and can bind to a specific target protein in the body, while the other form is inactive.

It's common in research that experiments are done first and theoretical work subsequently confirms the experimental results, but in this case the procedure was reversed. Bo Durbeej and his group work in theoretical chemistry, and conduct calculations and simulations of chemical reactions. This involves advanced computer simulations, which are performed on supercomputers at the National Supercomputer Centre, NSC, in Linkoping. The calculations showed that the molecule the researchers had developed would undergo the chemical reaction they required, and that it would take place extremely fast, within 200 femtoseconds. Their colleagues at the Research Centre for Natural Sciences in Hungary were then able to build the molecule, and perform experiments that confirmed the theoretical prediction.

In order to store large amounts of solar energy in the molecule, the researchers have attempted to make the energy difference between the two isomers as large as possible. The parent form of their molecule is extremely stable, a property that within organic chemistry is denoted by saying that the molecule is "aromatic". The basic molecule consists of three rings, each of which is aromatic. When it absorbs light, however, the aromaticity is lost, such that the molecule becomes much more energy-rich. The LiU researchers show in their study, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, that the concept of switching between aromatic and non-aromatic states of a molecule has a major potential in the field of molecular photoswitches.

"Most chemical reactions start in a condition where a molecule has high energy and subsequently passes to one with a low energy. Here, we do the opposite - a molecule that has low energy becomes one with high energy. We would expect this to be difficult, but we have shown that it is possible for such a reaction to take place both rapidly and efficiently", says Bo Durbeej.

The researchers will now examine how the stored energy can be released from the energy-rich form of the molecule in the best way.

###

The research has received financial support from the Olle Engkvist Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary. The National Supercomputer Centre, NSC, generously provided computing time.

The article: "Photoinduced Changes in Aromaticity Facilitate Electrocyclization of Dithienylbenzene Switches", Baswanth Oruganti, Peter Pal Kalapos, Varada Bhargav, Gabor London and Bo Durbeej, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 32, 13941-13953, published online 15 July 2020, doi: 10.1021/jacs.0c06327

https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1021/ jacs. 0c06327

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
David Fairhurst

A senior British executive at McDonalds was sacked after making his female colleagues feel uncomfortable, it has been alleged.

David Fairhurst, former head of global HR at the fast food giant, was sacked last year the day after British chief executive Steve Easterbrook was dismissed for having an inappropriate relationship with an employee.

Friends of Mr Fairhurst had previously claimed he had been made a scapegoat for his former boss, and had been given no reason for his dismissal. However the Wall Street Journal has now reported allegations that other members of staff had complained about his behaviour.

According to the paper, women at the company told an internal investigation that Mr Fairhurst made them feel uncomfortable on numerous occasions at business events.

He was eventually sacked after the company received a complaint about his conduct around women, it was reported, although the precise nature of the complaint was not reported.

Last year at the time of his departure Mr Fairhurst posted a social media message saying that he was moving on to my next career challenge.

He did not respond to requests for comment from the Wall Street Journal. In a statement, a McDonalds spokesman said: The board will follow the facts wherever they may lead.

Mr Fairhurst was promoted to his senior role by Mr Easterbrook, who left McDonalds last year. Both had previously worked together in the UK. The firm later launched legal action against Mr Easterbrook, claiming he had three additional, physical sexual relationships with members of staff in the space of a year, before lying about it to company investigators, and deleting evidence so that he could leave with over 35 million in severance pay.

Steve Easterbrook, CEO McDonald, poses with Ronald McDonald during the new McDonald's Flagship Restaurant re-opening at Frankfurt International Airport - Hannelore Foerster/Getty Images

Evidence allegedly recovered by investigators included dozens of sexually explicit photographs and videos of the women involved.

McDonald's is now suing its former boss for breach of fiduciary duty and fraud. It is demanding its $40 million back, while also investigating the HR culture during his time at the head of the firm.

Story continues

McDonald's told a US court On Monday that the terms of Mr Easterbrooks separation from the company were based on fraudulent statements.

McDonald's said in a filing that it had dismissed Easterbrook based on his denial of having had a sexual relationship with any other employee and the absence of contradictory evidence on his phone.

In his response to McDonald's lawsuit, Easterbrook had claimed that the company had information about his relationships when it negotiated his severance package, adding that he deleted evidence from his company phone, but the evidence remained in the company email account stored on the firm's servers.

"When McDonald's investigated, Steve Easterbrook lied. He violated the company's policies, disrespected its values, and abused the trust of his co-workers, the Board, our franchisees, and our shareholders," a company spokesman said.

Mr Easterbrook's lawyers did not comment on the Wall Street Journal reports.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Paris, France  Mon, August 31, 2020 07:30 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c418aaef 2 Business Europe,EU,EU-China,investments,investment-talk Free

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Sunday in Paris that a China-EU investment deal could be reached by the end of the year.

His remark came against a backdrop of persistent diplomatic tension between Beijing and the United States.

Wang said Europe and China had a responsibility to work for "a more stable world" that would benefit from an agreement that has been in the works for several years.

"We have the possibility to conclude one by the end of the year. We each need to take a step towards the other," the minister told a conference organized by the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI).

Wang is visiting European capitals to reinforce ties as relations with the US remain tense.

Chinese and European experts have been working for seven years on a deal to protect foreign investments, reinforce respect for intellectual copyrights, end obligations to transfer technology and subsidies for Chinese public enterprises.

The US is also trying to establish more balanced economic ties with China, but those efforts are struggling to make headway.

In June, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said that work on an agreement with the European Union had become "difficult" and warned: "We need more ambition on China's part to wrap up an agreement by the end of the year."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 12:31:32|Editor: huaxia

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TEGUCIGALPA, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Honduras' total number of COVID-19 cases is approaching 60,000, and deaths from the virus are reaching 2,000, the National Risk Management System (Sinager) said on Sunday.

Since March 15 when Honduras announced a nationwide curfew to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, the country has reported a total of 59,645 COVID-19 confirmed cases, according to the Sinager.

In the past 24 hours, 15 more patients died, bringing the national death toll to 1,842, while 853 people remain hospitalized, including 191 in serious condition and 44 in intensive care units.

Meanwhile, 80 patients have recovered during the period, bringing the total recoveries to 10,156.

As of Sunday, Honduras has gradually restarted its economy, allowing more businesses to reopen, including gyms.

To combat the COVID-19 epidemic, the country has deployed medical teams to communities, and opened diagnostic centers in cities to provide early treatment. Enditem
Police struggled to shut down an illegal rave in Wales as revellers defied the threat of arrest or a 10,000 fine under new coronavirus laws.

Local residents complained that the partygoers were defecating and dumping rubbish all over the 4,000-acre site in Banwen, close to the Brecon Beacons.

Around 3,000 people from all over the UK turned up to the event on Sunday in a former opencast coal mine, which is usually used for rally car racing.

South Wales Police, with the help of Dyfed-Powys Police and the British Transport Police, attempted to shut down the event by seizing music equipment and issuing a dispersal order. Two organisers were also issued with fixed penalty notices for breaching the Welsh Governments new legislation.

However at least 400 people remained at the site on Monday afternoon as a police helicopter continued to monitor the event.

Officers issued eight people with a court summons while others had their cars towed away or received fines for parking offences.

The remaining ravers were told to move on by nightfall or risk arrest and by 5pm only around 50 people were left, according to South Wales Police.

When theres 3,000 people to enforce a dispersal order on it becomes a massive issue, said assistant chief constable David Thorne.

Even with the resources we were able to deploy at short notice it wasnt sufficient to be able to move people on any quicker in a safe way.

The fact weve got less people now with the officers weve got available we will be taking proactive and positive action if people dont heed the dispersal notice.

Mr Thorne said the littering of the site was just completely irresponsible and disrespectful of the local communities.

He added: Many of them have travelled hundreds of miles to get here so this hasnt happened by accident.

This has been planned and possibly planned for a little while, but unfortunately they have been able to plan this under the radar so none of the authorities were aware.

Mr Thorne said the ravers had not been hostile to police but were causing nuisance and disruption to local communities.

Its people who have got their self-interest at heart and they intend on having a good time in their mind whatever that means  whether its drug use or alcohol use or just listening to music, he added.

The fact is that its illegal.

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Ms Smart was sentenced in November, along with other members of Insulate Britain, to serve four months for breaking a High Court injunction by taking part in a blockade at junction 25 of the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour on 8 October last year PA UK news in pictures 13 January 2022 A TV presenter holds a copy of a newspaper outside 10 Downing Streetafter the Prime Minister apologised for attending a gathering of colleagues in the Number Ten garden in May 2020, while the UK was in strict lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic Getty UK news in pictures 12 January 2022 Fitness guru Derrick Evans after receiving an MBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. 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Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA 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 26 November 2021 A killer whale (orca in the fjord of Skjervoy, northern Norway AFP/Getty

Several other raves were shut down across the country over the Bank Holiday as police exercised their new powers to issue heavy fines to organisers.

Officers in Norfolk were pelted with missiles when they broke up a 500-strong rave in Thetford Forest and thousands of pounds worth of equipment was seized in a police crackdown in Leeds and Harlow, Essex.

Eight people were fined 10,000 by West Yorkshire Police after parties across Headingley and Burley and the Metropolitan Police said it had shut down 21 unlicensed music events in London.

Another 10,000 fixed penalty noticed was handed to Piers Corbyn, the brother of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, for holding an anti-mask demonstration in Trafalgar Square in breach of the rules limiting gatherings to 30 people.

Additional reporting by Press Association
We often reject the experience in front of us. Its usually out of habit. We may dislike the discomfort or uncertainty or be upset by the fact that we arent getting what we want.

Consider some common scenarios.

You might not like the way other people are acting and find yourself thinking bad things about them. Or you may do this to yourself after making a mistake youve made before. You might retreat to distraction and fill yourself with TV shows or video games or simply proclaim youre done with the whole thing and retreat from difficult relationships or situations.

This rejection of our experience is why we so often get frustrated with other people, down on ourselves, or avoid the hard things.

Its why we have such a hard time with good habits like meditation, exercise, eating well, writing, reading, flossing, and so on. Good habits are often not easy, so we say no to them, even when we really wish we could say yes.

Its why we turn to alcohol, smoking, drugs, junk food, TV, social media, or other distractions to numb ourselves. This is how we say no to life. But what if we said yes?

How to Say Yes to Life

Think about everything you complain about. Everything that makes you want to go, Ugh. Everything you want to avoid.

Now imagine that you could be open to all of it.

You could be in a room of people you normally dislike, and be compassionate with them. You could see their beauty and goodness and appreciate them just as they were.

What if you could be a yes to everything? What would that change for you?

That doesnt mean that you dont fight against injustice, or dont try to help those who are suffering. It means you dont retreat from those things you care about. You dont have to love injusticebut you can love the people who are suffering, even those whose suffering leads them to commit injustice. You can be compassionate toward everyone, even if you dont agree with their actions or beliefs.

This openness is a path to a particular kind of freedom. Our almost instinctual rejection of others and ourselves leaves us handcuffed. Were restrained by an inability to accept the world as it is and meet it with creativity and compassion.

But what if you could be yes to all of the difficult things in life: your scariest project, the hardest tasks, the most boring moments?

The practice is to face everything and open up to it. To see the beauty in the moment, even in the parts you normally reject or dislike.

To love the parts of yourself that you usually want to change. To love everything.

In my experience, if you can say yes to life as it is, life will say yes to you in return.
Extremist loyalists linked to the Orange Volunteers paramilitary gang were to blame for the recent pipe-bomb hoaxes at East Belfast GAA. The shadowy organisation reformed in recent months and is trying to drum up support for an Ulster Day of Action on September 19 to oppose how the government's Brexit deal will affect Northern Ireland.

An investigation by UVF and UDA figures into the bomb alerts targeting cars belonging to East Belfast GAA members concluded the Orange Volunteers was responsible. Its members have been increasingly active on loyalist internet forums, calling for protests against the club championed by Irish-speaking unionist Linda Ervine.

John Wilson, who was arrested in connection with the threats but told Sunday Life of his innocence, was a member of the same online groups.

The UVF and UDA believe his public calls for a picket of East Belfast GAA's training pitches were seized upon by Orange Volunteer members who carried out the bomb alerts knowing he would be wrongly blamed.

"They took advantage of what John foolishly wrote online," said a senior UDA source.



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"It's no coincidence that the Orange Volunteers have re-emerged. Every time there is a crisis in unionism, they come out of the woodwork to cause tension.

"The group is a construct of sinister State forces whose only motive is to weaken loyalism."

The Orange Volunteers first emerged in 1998 to oppose the Good Friday Agreement. The gang was responsible for dozens of pipe-bomb attacks on the homes of Catholics and several churches. Its leaders see the group in lofty terms, believing it acts on behalf of God.

Sunday Life understands that the latest Orange Volunteers incarnation is led by a convicted paedophile who has around a dozen hardcore followers, some of whom are competent in manufacturing pipe-bombs. UDA and UVF sources believe that it was these individuals who constructed the devices used to target East Belfast GAA.

Mr Wilson, who was arrested by police in connection with the threats before being freed without charge, told this newspaper that he was in no way involved with the security alerts.

He said: "I'm innocent, I did nothing wrong. Even the police apologised after they let me go without charge.

"There were police cars the whole way down my road and Army.



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Whatsapp Police and ATO search a property in east Belfast on August 7th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph)

"They found nothing when they searched my house because I did nothing wrong."

Mr Wilson admitted being behind online calls for protests at a pitch on the Castlereagh Road used by East Belfast GAA, but he said he only did so after being the victim of sectarian abuse.

There is no suggestion that Wilson is connected to the Orange Volunteers.

UDA and UVF sources backed his claims, saying that the 54-year-old loyalist had never been involved in violent paramilitarism.

One added: "John wouldn't know how to build a pipe-bomb. From what we have learned, members of the Orange Volunteers were responsible."
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Michael Forest Reinoehl, 48, was identified by anonymous police sources cited by The Oregonian. His estranged sister also reported him to the police after recognizing him in videos from Saturday night's shooting

The man under investigation for shooting dead a Trump supporter and right-wing activist in Portland on Saturday night is a 48-year-old father-of-two whose own family turned him in to police after spotting him in videos from the night of violence.

Michael Forest Reinoehl, 48, was identified by anonymous police sources cited by The Oregonian.

His estranged sister said she received a phone call threatening that their family would be in danger unless they turned him in to police. She then looked online and saw photographs of her brother circulating.

'We reached out to police and confirmed that we recognized Michael in the screenshots. On the one hand, this whole thing surprises the daylights out of us, because we always thought he is a lot of bark, not a lot of bite. But hes also been very impulsive and irrational,' she said.

'Violence begets violence and hatred begets hatred. This is not the solution. My heart goes out to the victim. It always has, before I even knew my brother was involved.'

She claimed her brother is troubled and that they have not been in touch for three years. In the past, she said he'd stolen their mother's seizure medication and is in debt. He has a son and daughter from a previous relationship but is no longer involved with the mother.

Reinoehl, according to his social media pages, has been attending the riots in Portland since the end of May.

The 48-year-old has a long arrest record. He has been attending protests in Portland since May and sharing photos and videos from them including this one (left). He describes himself online as '100% ANTIFA'. He has not been arrested or charged

This is one of the videos that was circulating on social media from Saturday's shooting. It's unclear if this is the image Reinoehl's sister had seen

The victim was Aaron Jay Bishop. He was a member of the right-wing group Patriot Praye

Police arrived on the scene 'within a minute' of when gunshots rang out. The victim is seen wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a right-wing group whose members have frequently clashed with protesters in Portland in the past

Portland police hold back a man who was with the victim of Saturday night's fatal shooting minutes after the incident

In a June 16 post, he ranted: 'I am 100% ANTIFA all the way! I am willing to fight for my brothers and sisters! Even if some of them are too ignorant to realize what antifa truly stands for.

In this post, from June 16, he claims to be 100% 'ANTIFA' and says 'We do not want violence but we will not run from it either'

'We do not want violence but we will not run from it either! If the police continue to pick on and beat up innocent citizens that are peacefully voicing their objections, it must be met with equal force!'

He claimed on social media to have been in the army and 'hated it'.

Details of any military record are unknown.

He has a lengthy arrest record which includes violations for driving while intoxicated and unlawful possession of a firearm.

In July, he was arrested for bringing a loaded gun to a protest but the charges against him were dropped. It is unclear why.

Neither prosecutors nor police in Portland would confirm his identity on Monday morning.

It came as witnesses described watching people celebrate the right-wing protester's death in the street.

Gabriel Johnson, a former Marine and Portland resident, said he went out to hear people in the street saying they 'weren't sad' that a 'Nazi fascist' had died.

'This is such a tragic event and a polarizing event for our city...And one of the things that I just came back with, and I was appalled by, is all of the people in the street celebrating,' he told Fox and Friends.

He was named as President Trump weighed in on the situation, threatening to send the National Guard.

'Rest in peace Jay!', he said, after learning of Danielson's death.

Reinoehl has been sharing photos and videos from the riots since they began. Above, a post in July

Trump tweeted: 'Rest In Peace Jay!' after retweeting Women for Trump co-founder Amy Kremer

He then tweeted: 'Portland is a mess, and it has been for many years. If this joke of a mayor doesnt clean it up, we will go in and do it for them!' he wrote.

'The Radical Left Mayors & Governors of Cities where this crazy violence is taking place have lost control of their "movement".

'It wasn't supposed to be like this, but the Anarchists & Agitators got carried away and don't listen anymore - even force Slow Joe out of basement!'

In disturbing footage, recorded by videographer Justin Dunlap, the victim, later identified as Danielson, appears to be following two other people down a street before two gunshots ring out and a cloud of smoke erupts at the source.

It remains unclear if the shooting at was linked to fights that broke out as a caravan of about 600 vehicles was confronted by counter-demonstrators in the city's downtown area.

Police said the caravan had left the area around 8.30pm, and officers heard gunshots around 15 minutes later and arrived at the shooting scene 'within a minute'.

A GoFundMe set to help Bishop's family reads: 'Aaron 'Jay' Danielson was a Portland citizen who went downtown to express his opinions during the unrest and was shot and killed on the evening of Saturday August 29th.'

In footage taken later in the night one woman can be heard telling a cheering crowd: 'I am not sad that a f***ing fascist died tonight.'

The person who appeared to fire the shots and a handful of other people nearby then flee out of view as the victim staggers for a few feet and collapses on the ground.

Several people are seen rushing over when a car turns a corner and skids to a stop in front of the victim.

WHO ARE PATRIOT PRAYER? Patriot Prayer is based in Washington state and was founded in 2016. Since early 2017, its supporters have been periodically coming to Portland to hold rallies for Trump, ratcheting up tensions in the liberal city long before the national outrage over Floyds death sparked more than three months of protests here. Portland has seen nearly 100 consecutive nights of Black Lives Matter protests and many have ended with vandalism to federal and city property, including police precincts, a county jail, the federal courthouse and City Hall. Patriot Prayer founder Joey Its founder, Joey Gibson, a one-time Senate candidate, has said he and his group are not a hate group and simply want to exercise their freedom of speech without interference from left-wing groups or protesters. The group became a prominent presence in Portland in the summer of 2017, when Gibson organized a large rally in the city less than a week after a white supremacist fatally stabbed two men who had come to the defense of two Black teenagers - including one wearing a Muslim head-covering - on a light-rail train. The defendant Jeremy Christian, who was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences earlier this year, had attended a Patriot Prayer rally several months before, but was kicked out by organizers for flashing Nazi hand signs. Patriot Prayer held several other marches and rallies in Portland in 2017 and 2018 and Gibson was arrested for felony rioting last summer on a charge related to a brawl that broke out between the group's supporters and left-wing activists at a pub after a May Day march in the city. Portland knifeman Jeremy Christian attended a Patriot Prayer rally He has pleaded not guilty; a judge this week denied his motion for a change of venue at trial, according to court records. In a video that was live-streamed on Facebook last summer after he was released on bail, Gibson urged his supporters to "show up one hundred-fold" at a rally scheduled for the following day in Portland that was organized by the Proud Boys - a group that's been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center - and other right-wing groups such as the Three Percenters and the American Guard. Gibson told the AP he was again present late Saturday in Portland when a caravan of about 600 Trump supporters drove through the city, sparking clashes in the streets with Black Lives Matter demonstrators. Gibson did not appear to have a part in organizing the caravan, however. In a video on Twitter, organizer Alex Kyzik said before the rally that those who attended should not openly carry their weapons. The same person organized a similar rally in Boise on Aug. 22. There were no public records available for a man named Alex Kyzik in Boise, Idaho, and it was unclear if that was his real name. Videos taken before the shooting show people squaring off for fist fights and Trump supporters firing bear spray and paintballs at counterprotesters, who in return throw objects at the trucks and attempt to block their progress by standing in intersections. Mayor Ted Wheeler said when Trump supporters want to come to Portland to rally, there is nothing the city can do to prevent them. "Its no secret to anybody that I personally am not a Trump supporter, but I will defend to the death the right of a Trump supporter to stand outside my apartment and non-violently demonstrate in support of their candidate. Thats core to American democracy," Wheeler said. 'So when people say they want to come into the city in a caravan supporting their presidential candidate, we cannot tell them no. They have constitutional rights to be here - rights, which I embrace and support. The violence, however, is the problem.' Advertisement

Bishop was shot in the chest and died at the scene. Gibson said he was also in Portland on Saturday night when the shooting took place, and that he rushed to the scene immediately after.

'I can't say much right now. All I can do is verify that he was a good friend and a supporter of Patriot Prayer,' he earlier told the Associated Press.

Addressing his Facebook friends Gibson later added: 'If you planned on going to the boat cruise, please go! I know that Jay would love to look down from heaven and see tons of American flags on the Columbia river today. I will not be attending but I hope all of you enjoy yourselves out there. Fly them high for Jay. God Bless all of you.'

An Associated Press freelance photographer who heard three gunshots and then observed police medics attending to the victim said it was a white man wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a right-wing group whose members have frequently clashed with protesters in Portland in the past.

Dunlap, the videographer, claimed that the victim had been macing people prior to the shooting.

In his video someone could be heard shouting that the man was a 'motherf**ker who has been pushing people and jumping people the entire time'.

'That guy has been f**king with people the entire time,' the witness shouted.

The shooting took place on Southwest 3rd Avenue and Alder Street - along the main thoroughfare which runs through the heart of Portland, past Portland State University.

Police cautioned the public against drawing conclusions about what sparked the violence.

'It is important for detectives get a full and accurate picture of what happened before, during, and after the shooting,' a police statement said.

'If anyone was a witness, has video, or has information about the homicide, they're asked to contact the primary detectives.'

Police Chief Chuck Lovell added: 'I ask everyone to give the detectives time to do their important work before drawing conclusions about what took place.

'This violence is completely unacceptable and we are working diligently to find and apprehend the individual or individuals responsible.'

Mayor Ted Wheeler said in a text message to Oregon Public Broadcasting that he was 'aware of the situation.'

'Gathering information now,' he continued. 'Will be transparent with public.

'Asking for people to remain calm and not add to this tragedy.'

More than 600 cars flying Trump flags and banners set off in a convoy around and through the city Saturday as the sun began to set, after tense scenes at their meeting point and clashes with counter-protesters.

It came as Trump supporters staged similar gatherings around the country, with hundreds of people congregating in Los Angeles, Georgia and elsewhere to celebrate their president and rally for his re-election.

In Washington DC, Black Lives Matter protesters were tear gassed to push them away from the White House, while in Kenosha, Wisconsin - where Jacob Blake was shot on August 23 - protests continued, but were largely peaceful.

The White House announced that Trump is scheduled to visit Kenosha on Tuesday - which many fear could exacerbate tensions in the city.

As the convoy of Trump vehicles entered Portland's city center, supporters sitting in the back of pick ups used pepper spray on counter-protesters.

Eggs were thrown at their trucks and cars, and the Trump supporters retaliated by turning paintball guns on the crowd, allegedly firing ball bearings.

A reporter was among those shot by the paintball guns.

Two bare-chested men were filmed punching each other as the violence spread.

Riot police swarmed into the center and began making arrests.

A block away from the scene of the shooting, a black man in a face mask was pictured in an animated discussion with right-wing political activist and founder of Patriot Prayer Gibson.

Meanwhile, the driver of a dark-colored sedan revved his engine and then sped towards the crowd of BLM protesters before driving off, miraculously managing to not hit anyone.

One BLM supporter was attacked as he filmed the license plates of MAGA cars.

An angry group of Trump supporters got out of a car and confronted the activist, who was knocked to the ground.

The Trump supporters then turned and walked away.

The Morrison Bridge was the scene of an ugly conflict as the caravan pulled into the city, and one Trump supporter drove his truck towards protesters on an off ramp.

Two people brawled on the bridge, sparking a rapid response from Portland police who arrested the pair.
Beirut: Lebanon's ambassador to Germany Mustapha Adib is poised to be designated prime minister after winning the support of major parties to form a new government in the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion.

The nomination followed contacts by French President Emmanuel Macron over the last 48 hours to press Lebanese leaders to agree on a candidate, two senior Lebanese officials said, just ahead of a visit by the French leader to Lebanon this week.

French President Emmanuel Macron is pushing ahead with demands for Lebanon rulers' to reform. Credit:Bloomberg

Macron has taken centre stage in international efforts to get Lebanon's fractious leaders to start addressing a financial crisis that had devastated the economy even before the August 4 port blast that killed some 190 people.

A French presidency source said Macron had been in contact by phone with the main protagonists on Saturday and Sunday. "The President is informed of the negotiations underway in Beirut," the source said.
The Ghana Union of Traders' Association (GUTA) has accused members of the Nigerian Union of Traders Association in Ghana (NUTAG) of feeding Nigeria's President, Muhammadu Buhari with false information concerning retail trade in Ghana.

NUTAG had earlier complained that its members had over time endured a series of progressive acts of hostility allegedly meted out to them by Ghanaian authorities and traders, which include the closure of their shops.

This compelled the Government of Nigeria to issue a strong warning to the Government of Ghana, stating that it will no longer tolerate any form of alleged harassment of its citizens residing in Ghana.

But reacting to this in a statement signed by its President, Joseph Obeng, GUTA insisted that some Nigerian traders have instead been making false accusations against the Government of Ghana anytime retail laws are being enforced.

The Ghana Union of Traders' Associations (GUTA) has noticed with great concern the numerous misinformation being carried out by the Nigerian Union of Traders' Association in Ghana through press releases and petitions to their government and ECOWAS Commission about the retail trade law in Ghana and wish to respond appropriately, to clear the air of any misconception about Ghana, the Union said in the letter addressed to the Nigerian President.

He thus asked President Muhammadu Buhari to call the Nigerian retailers to order in order not to strain the already existing cordial relations between our two sister countries and adversely affect the integration of the sub-regional bloc.

However, GUTA has noticed with much concern the behaviour of a section of Nigerian traders in Ghana by the name NUTAG, who anytime the authorities in Ghana want to enforce our sovereign laws, resort to weird allegations and other highly dubious tactics of disinformation. The attitude of these Nigerians, if not checked and handled well, will strain the already existing cordial relations between our two sister countries and adversely affect the integration of the sub-regional bloc. They need to be called to order.

Find below the letter addressed to President Buhari:

HIS EXCELLENCY PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI

FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

ASO ROCK VILLA, ABUJA

NIGERIA.

Your Excellency,

GUTA STATES ITS CASE ON THE MISINFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE NIGERIAN UNION OF TRADERS ASSOCIATION GHANA (NUTAG) TO THEIR GOVERNMENT

The Ghana Union of Traders' Associations (GUTA) has noticed with great concern about the numerous misinformation being carried out by the Nigerian Union of Traders' Association in Ghana through press releases and petitions to their government and ECOWAS Commission about the retail trade law in Ghana and wish to respond appropriately, to clear the air of any misconception about Ghana.

GUTA trusts in the judgement of authorities and hereby outlined some pertinent issues for your urgent perusal.

They are as follows:

 That the free movement of people, goods and services are being strictly observed and respected in Ghana

 That the ECOWAS protocol does not permit dumping under any circumstance; like any other local or international treaty.

 That Nigeria short-listed over forty (40) products from entering her country in order to protect her local industries.

 That Nigeria again closed her borders citing the abuse of ECOWAS protocol on the rules of origin, which resulted in dumping and insecurity to her country and, of course, very justifiable.

 That Ghana's retail market has always been open to all ECOWAS citizen

 That Ghana has never targeted any ECOWAS citizen who deals in goods and services produced in a member country.

 That no particular country is a target in the enforcement of the law. However, it should be noted that Nigerians form about eighty percent (80%) of those who engage in the illegal retail trade.

 That the Ghana investment law does not drive or encourage foreign investment into retail and petty trading. The law is mainly to discourage dumping of goods from countries outside the ECOWAS Community, so as to boost local production and better the lot for the local manufacturer, as well as grow and develop our local economy. Therefore, the one million dollar requirement and the employment of, at least, twenty skilled Ghanaians are not only deterrent to investment in retail trade but also to drive investment to a more formalized trading sector in the form of Supermarkets and Big Wholesales, to ensure employment creation, security and stability in our economy.

 That any ECOWAS citizen who may want to engage in the trading of goods other than those produced in their home countries is required to comply with the Ghana investment law, which is the sovereign law of Ghana.

 That all ECOWAS member states have been enforcing their immigration and investment laws. All member countries also arrest and repatriate citizens of member countries who may have infractions of their laws.

 That our immigration, investment and other laws as a community are not harmonized.

 That law of member states should be respected and strictly enforced to bring orderliness, peace and security to the nation and citizens alike.

 That treaties and protocols are signed primarily for the general wellbeing of the citizenry; and

 That Ghanaians should not be made to suffer under any treaty or protocol, especially when our sovereign laws do not contravene any treaty, in this case the ECOWAS protocol and this should apply to citizens of all member states.

It is important to state herein that, all that GUTA is seeking is to call the attention of our government to its responsibility of enforcing our laws, to bring peace, stability as well as security not only to Ghana but to the sub-regional bloc at that.

However, GUTA has noticed with much concern the behavior of A SECTION OF NIGERIAN TRADERS IN GHANA by the name NUTAG, who anytime the authorities in Ghana want to enforce our sovereign laws, resort to weird allegations and other highly dubious tactics of disinformation.

The attitude of these Nigerians, if not checked and handled well, will strain the already existing cordial relations between our two sister countries and adversely affect the integration of the sub-regional bloc. They need to be called to order.

Sir, have our highest regards.

Yours faithfully,

Dr. Joseph Obeng

President

CC: THE HON. MINISTER

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND REGIONAL INTEGRATION

AIRPORT CITY, ACCRA-GHANA

---citinewsroom
When Rosalie Foreman's aged care facility was about to go into COVID-19 lockdown, her husband, Rodney, "bit the bullet" and moved her back home.

It was not quite an escape from Alcatraz, but the decision in late March was unusual. And it was difficult and costly to co-ordinate the care, equipment and other services needed for her at home in Mannum, South Australia, Mr Foreman, 73, told the aged care royal commission.

Rodney and Rosalie Foreman give evidence to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety via video link. Credit:provided

Seven out of the 1 million people receiving Commonwealth-subsidised care at home have died from COVID-19. That is compared with 412 deaths among the 200,000 people living in residential care.

Mr Foreman said, before the pandemic, he was able to visit his wife as often as he wanted, while she was also able to visit his nearby unit.
Zhukovs team posted a picture on social media of his bloodied and swollen face, saying he was attacked near his home.

A well-known Russian opposition blogger and radio host was beaten outside his home in Moscow, his spokesman said on Monday, as Kremlin critics say they are being subjected to a growing number of attacks.

Yegor Zhukov, 22, was handed a suspended sentence last year on extremism charges for making videos criticising President Vladimir Putin amid huge protests calling for fair elections.

Zhukovs team posted a picture on Telegram of his bloodied and swollen face, saying he was attacked and beaten near his home on Sunday evening.

According to eyewitnesses, he was attacked by two thugs who disappeared on scooters, Zhukovs spokesman Stas Toporkov said.

The opposition figure filed a complaint with police and underwent medical checks afterwards, according to the Interfax news agency.

Zhukov was arrested in August last year for his role in mass protests that erupted after independent and opposition candidates were barred from contesting local elections.

A politics student at the time, he was released under house arrest and charged with calls for extremism online.

Orders from above

Earlier on Sunday, Zhukov said he had been excluded from a masters degree course at the prestigious Higher School of Economics in Moscow, shortly after enrolling.

He said a university administrator told him the decision had been taken on orders from above.

Members of Russias opposition have complained of a growing number of attacks and punitive legal cases against Kremlin critics following a vote on changes to the constitution that allow Putin to extend his rule.

Leading opposition leader Alexey Navalny is being treated in a hospital in Berlin for a suspected poisoning and his allies hold Putin ultimately responsible.
India Sets World Record for Coronavirus Infections in 24 Hours

By VOA News August 30, 2020

India reported 78,761 new coronavirus infections in 24 hours on Sunday, the highest single day rise in the world since the pandemic began, while the county is continuing to open its economy.

It was the fourth consecutive day that India has registered more than 75,000 infections.

With a population of 1.4 billion people, India is the third most infected nation in the world, behind the United States and Brazil, with 3.5 million cases and more than 63,000 deaths, according to official statistics provided by the country's health ministry.

In several European cities Saturday demonstrators rallied against restrictions that have been imposed since the COVID-19 outbreak began.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Berlin to march against mask-wearing and social distancing rules. Police say they arrested about 300 protesters.

In London, demonstrators in Trafalgar Square rallied against what they said is the "medical tyranny" that has been placed on them by masks and distancing.

A few hundred protesters in Paris demonstrated against the capital's mandatory mask-wearing mandate.

In Zurich, about 1,000 demonstrators skeptical of COVID-19 rules called for a "return to freedom."

U.S. President Donald Trump said in a statement Saturday night that he is extending the federal cost-sharing for the deployment of the National Guard in Louisiana to help with the state's response to COVID-19 and to help facilitate the Southern state's economic recovery.

Public health departments throughout the United States are calling on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reverse changes the federal agency recently made to its public coronavirus testing guidelines.

The Big Cities Health Coalition and the National Association of County and City Health Officials, which represent thousands of local departments, sent a letter Friday to the heads of the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requesting that the agencies reverse a decision to stop testing people who have been exposed to the virus but are asymptomatic.

The organizations called on the government agencies to reinstate recommendations that people who have been exposed to the virus be tested even if they are asymptomatic.

At least 33 states are not following the new CDC guidelines and continue to recommend testing for all people who have been exposed to COVID-19 regardless of symptoms, according to an analysis by Reuters news agency.

Johns Hopkins University reports there are more than 25 million COVID-19 cases worldwide. The United States has almost 6 million infections, followed by Brazil with 3.8 million and India with 3.5 million.

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NASAs Terra satellite provided a visible image to forecasters of Typhoon Maysak as it neared Okinawa Island, Japan on Aug. 31. Image Courtesy: NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).

Typhoon Maysak continued to move through the Northwestern Pacific and was closing in on Japan's Okinawa Island when NASA's Terra satellite obtained a visible image of the storm. Maysak's eye is not expected to go over the island, but pass just west of it.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Typhoon Maysak. Imagery showed the eye of the storm appeared filled with high clouds, as powerful bands of thunderstorm circled it. Bands of thunderstorms from the south were spiraling into the low-level center.

On Aug. 31 at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC), Typhoon Maysak was located about 144 nautical miles south of Kadena Air Base, Okinawa Island, Japan. It was moving to the north-northwest and had maximum sustained winds near 100 knots (115 mph/185 kph).

Maysak's center is expected to pass just west of Okinawa within 24 hours. The storm is expected to make landfall in southern South Korea and will start to become extra-tropical.

About NASA's Worldview and Terra Satellite

NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Worldview application provides the capability to interactively browse over 700 global, full-resolution satellite imagery layers and then download the underlying data. Many of the available imagery layers are updated within three hours of observation, essentially showing the entire Earth as it looks "right now."

NASA's Terra satellite is one in a fleet of NASA satellites that provide data for hurricane research.

Tropical cyclones/hurricanes are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

Explore further NASA Terra Satellite sees development of Tropical Storm Maysak
A former private secretary to the Duke of Cambridge is set to be the next head of the civil service, it emerged today.

Simon Case, drafted in by Boris Johnson to be the top aide at Number 10 earlier this year, is expected to be unveiled as the youngest Cabinet Secretary in living memory tomorrow.

The appointment of the 41-year-old, reported by the Financial Times, represents the latest stage in the Government's dramatic shake-up of Whitehall.

Sir Mark Sedwill previously stepped down from the post with a 250,000 package after apparent clashes with maverick adviser Dominic Cummings.

Mr Case spent almost two years working as Prince William's right-hand man before temporarily moving to Downing Street earlier this year to assist with the coronavirus response.

Simon Case (pictured last year when he was private secretary to the Duke of Cambridge) is expected to be announced as the new head of the civil service tomorrow

The appointment of the 41-year-old would represent the latest stage in the dramatic shake-up of Whitehall by Boris Johnson

Simon Case (left) delivered a speech on David Cameron's last day as Prime Minister in No. 10

Theresa May arrives in No.10 Downing Street with her husband Philip, for the first time as Prime Minister

Royal aide becomes youngest Cabinet Secretary in living memory At just 41, many thought that Simon Case would prove too young for the top job in the civil service. But the married father of two daughters has been a high flier in public service for many years. Having joined the civil service in 2006, the Cambridge graduate's roles have included helping to deliver the London Olympics in 2012, private secretary to David Cameron, and being part of Theresa May's EU negotiations team. But crucially he was not among the tight-knit group blamed by many Brexiteers for bungling the divorce talks with Brussels. Mr Cameron was apparently so impressed by Mr Case that he was ready to award him a knighthood on leaving office. But then-Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood advised him to shun the accolade as it was deemed to be too early in his career to accept such an honour. Mr Case was drafted back into Whitehall to become permanent secretary at No10 earlier this year after a spell as private secretary to Prince William. Boris Johnson is said to have personally called Prince William to ask for permission to 'borrow' Mr Case. His arrival back on the political scene was widely regarded as sealing the fate of predecessor Sir Mark Sedwill. Downing Street had not had its own permanent secretary for eight years. It was Mr Case, rather than Sir Mark, who was tasked with carrying out the review into the two-metre social distancing rule that resulted in it being downgraded to 'one metre plus'. Sources told The Spectator that Mr Case is 'patriotic to his core' and a 'passionate unionist'. But he was also described as 'a bit of a gossip' who has a 'slightly pompous' approach. Advertisement

There had been speculation that a longer-serving official, such as Department of Health permanent secretary Chris Wormald, might get the top job.

The senior mandarin at the Trade Department, Antonia Romeo, had also been widely tipped.

However, Mr Case, who is married and has two children, seems to have been given the nod. No10 source insisted the process had been handled by First Civil Service Commissioner Ian Whatmore.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: 'An official announcement on the new Cabinet Secretary will be made on Tuesday 1 September.'

In June there were reports Mr Cummings told political aides a 'hard rain is coming' in Whitehall, suggesting the Cabinet Office needed radical overhaul.

A series of mandarins have departed during the drive for change.

The recruitment of Mr Case as the permanent secretary at No10 was seen as sealing the fate of Sir Mark.

Downing Street had not had its own permanent secretary for eight years - since former Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood gave up the title.

Mr Case previously worked on the Brexit negotiations, and is well-regarded within the PM's close circle.

It was he, rather than Sir Mark, who was tasked with carrying out the review into the two-metre social distancing rule that resulted in it being downgraded to 'one metre plus'.

One senior official told the FT: 'Simon's appointment is very much a "hard rain" appointment.

'It's a sign they want to do things quickly.

'But if the other permanent secretaries don't recognise that person as 'the boss' there will be trouble. Will he find that the levers aren't attached to anything?'

While out of government, Mr Cummings wrote extensive blogs detailing his fondness for 'red teams' explicitly tasked with finding reasons why policies should not be pursued, and his criticism of the Whitehall infrastructure.

That included saying the Cabinet room was not fit for purpose because it does not have any 'tools' for modern times - with even the clock not always working.

The former Vote Leave chief, who worked for Michael Gove at the Department for Education, previously described the civil service machine as 'Kafkaesque', and wrote of support for ministers: 'The whole structure of "submissions" and "red boxes" is hopeless. It is extremely bureaucratic and slow...

'The whole approach reinforces the abject failure of the senior civil service to think about high performance project management.'

Civil service unions accused No10 of orchestrating a series of 'corrosive and cowardly' briefings against Sir Mark  whom Mr Cummings is said to have seen as a 'roadblock' to a Whitehall shake-up.

Sir Mark has previously hit out at 'unpleasant' off-the-record briefings and what he described as political 'sniping'.

Giving evidence to MPs, he called them a 'regrettable feature of modern politics'. He also denied 'resigning', saying he had agreed with Boris Johnson to step down.

David Cameron holding his last but one 8am meeting with his staff in No.10 Downing Street the day before he stepped down

Sir Mark Sedwill previously stepped down from the post with a huge pay-off after apparent clashes with maverick adviser Dominic Cummings (pictured earlier this month
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 31

By Nargiz Ismayilova - Trend:

The foreign trade operations between Azerbaijan and Romania reached $100.7 million from January through July 2020, which is 3.7 percent more than in the same period of last year, Trend reports citing the statistics bulletin of the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee.

The export of Azerbaijani products to Romania in the first seven months of this year amounted to $68.5 million, while a year earlier this figure was $55.1 million, the ministry said.

Thus, Romania increased the import of products from Azerbaijan by 24.3 percent on an annual basis while the share of Romania in the total export volume of Azerbaijan increased from 0.45 percent to 0.75 percent.

At the same time, the import of Romanian products to Azerbaijan on an annualized basis increased from $28.1 million to $32.2 million.

The share of Romania in the total import volume of Azerbaijan increased from 0.33 percent to 0.55 percent of the total volume.

The export-import ratio in the foreign trade relations of the two countries from January through July is characterized by the further shift towards the import of products from Azerbaijan.

So, the ratio of export and import reached 66.2 percent and 33.8 percent from January through July 2019 while from January through July 2020  68.1 percent and 31.9 percent, respectively.

The share of export of Azerbaijani products to Romania in the total trade turnover of the two countries increased by 1.9 percentage points.

Thus, the balance of foreign trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Romania remained positive during the reporting period and amounted to $36.2 million.

In general, Azerbaijan's foreign trade turnover amounted to $15.03 billion from January through July 2020, which is 1.4 times less than in 2019.

The balance of foreign trade turnover on an annualized basis decreased by 1.1 times and remained positive, amounting to $3.2 billion.

(1 USD = 1.7 AZN on Aug. 31)

----

Follow the author on Twitter:@IsmailovaNargis
The government will release the GDP data for April-June quarter today. This data will confirm the extent of damage done to the Indian economy by coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. Amid expected dismal GDP figures, the question is how bad the numbers will be. According to rating agencies and economists, the economy will shrink by 16-25 per cent in the April-June quarter.

State Bank of India has predicted 16.5 per cent contraction in GDP in the first quarter, while CARE ratings said the economy could shrink by 20.2 per cent. Similarly, Barclays said the economy would contract by 25.5 per cent, while Goldman Sachs has said the Indian economy would see its worst performance by shrinking about 45 per cent in the first quarter. ICRA said the 'lockdown' quarter will see a GDP and GVA contraction at 25 per cent each YoY. India Ratings and Research also believes the severity of COVID-19-led business disruptions will lead to a negative growth of 17.03 per cent.

Also read: India Q1 GDP preview: GDP estimates to be out today; economy may shrink to historic low

In all, most economists and rating agencies have predicted GDP contraction of 16 and 25 per cent in the April-June quarter. If this turns out to be true, it will be the worst quarterly GDP numbers ever recorded since India started compiling GDP data on quarterly basis in 1996.

As per the 'Economy Watch' report of consultancy firm EY India, Q1 will record the worst GDP growth in current financial year. However, the growth will see some rebound in Q2 and subsequent quarters.

Also read: Which top economies have suffered worst GDP fall due to COVID-19?

India's GDP growth was slowing even before COVID-19 outbreak. The country's GDP grew at 3.1 per cent in the final quarter of financial year 2019-20, lowest in 44 quarters. The overall growth for FY20 slumped to 4.2 per cent, which was also the lowest since FY09 when GDP was 3.09 per cent.

Global economies have also seen the worst growth numbers in recent quarters. The United Kingdom (UK) reported the biggest decline in GDP among the world's top 20 economies with a 20.4 per cent contraction in Q1 and France's GDP shrank by a record 13.8 percent in Q2. Germany's GDP shrank 10.1 per cent in Q1, while Japan registered a de-growth of 7.6 percent in the April-June quarter. International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted the global economy will shrink by 4.9% in 2020 as business activities remain affected due to COVID-19.

Also Read: India's GDP to contract by 16.5% in Q1 FY21: SBI report

Also Read: Economists pitch for second round of stimulus worth 2% of GDP
Myanmar man arrested for robbing pharmacy

PHUKET: Police have arrested a Myanmar man wanted for robbing a pharmacy at gunpoint just over 200 metres from Chalong Police Station last Thursday (Aug 27).

crimepolice

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Monday 31 August 2020, 10:54AM

While the gun seized looked old but authentic, police were very clear in their report that the gun was fake. Photo: Chalong Police

Items seized in making the arrest were presented at the press conference. Photo: Chalong Police

Chalong Police Chief Col Sarawut Chuprasit on Saturday afternoon explained to the press that police arrested Myanmar national Aung Chun Thar, 29, a registered migrant worker, at a house in Soi Palai, Moo 1, Chalong, at 11am on Saturday (Aug 29).

In making the arrest, officers seized as evidence a fake gun, a bag, a motorbike and the clothes that Aug Chun wore while conducting the robbery.

Of note, while the gun seized looked old but authentic, police were very clear in their report that the gun was fake.

Aung Chun was tracked down after police reviewed CCTV footage of the robbery, which showed him entering Nong Pharmacy on Chao Fa East Rd just north of Chalong Police Station at about 10:45pm.

He asked store staffer Chuthathip Sawang, 30, if he could buy some cough medicine. After Ms Chuthathip asked what symptoms he was suffering, Aung Chun placed his wallet on the counter, pulled a gun out of his bag, and ordered her to put the money from the cash register, all B4,500 of it, into his wallet. He then fled the store and rode off on his motorbike.

Aung Chun told police that he had been drinking heavily before he robbed the pharmacy, After robbing the store, he returned home and slept.

He told police that he had already spent all of the money he acquired through the robbery.

Aung Chun was taken to Chalong Police Station and charged for committing the robbery, Col Sarawut confirmed.
One of his attorneys already is floating the argument that Rittenhouse, who was out way past age-related curfews in both Illinois and Wisconsin, fired his 30-round assault-style weapon in self-defense. That would be when he fatally shot two people and wounded a third during the at-times violent demonstrations following the outrage in Kenosha after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man.
The minister stated that only 700 Nigerians involved in fraud , prostitution, and armed robbery were deported from Ghana.

Kojo Nkrumah

The Ghanaian Minister of Information, Kojo Nkrumah, on Sunday has refuted claims by Nigeria that 825 Nigerians were deported from the West African country between January 2018 and February 2019.

In a statement issued by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, the Federal Government had said it would no longer condone the reported harassment of Nigerians in the neighboring country.

Nkrumah, while reacting to the statement, however said contrary to Mohammeds claims that 825 Nigerians were deported between January 2018 and February 2019, only 700 Nigerians involved in fraud, prostitution, and armed robbery were deported from Ghana.

Nkrumah also accused Nigerian traders in Ghana of gross violations of retail trade laws, including tax evasion, immigration offences, and selling substandard products.

The Ghanaian minister assured that their President, Nana Akufo-Addo, would engage with Nigerias President, Muhammadu Buhari and develop a framework for validating the claims of ill-treatment of citizens of either country and ensure they enjoy the full exercise of their rights while respecting the sovereignty and laws of both countries.

Authorities in Ghana recently closed some shops belonging to Nigerians in the country over non-compliance to certain trade laws by the Ghanaian government.
NEW YORK, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Purcell Julie & Lefkowitz LLP, a class action law firm dedicated to representing shareholders nationwide, is investigating a potential breach of fiduciary duty claim involving the board of directors of Sonic Automotive, Inc. (NYSE: SAH).

If you are a shareholder of Sonic Automotive, Inc. and are interested in obtaining additional information regarding this investigation, free of charge, please visit us at:

http://pjlfirm.com/sonic-automotive-inc/

You may also contact Robert H. Lefkowitz, Esq. either via email at [email protected] or by telephone at 212-725-1000. One of our attorneys will personally speak with you about the case at no cost or obligation.

Purcell Julie & Lefkowitz LLP is a law firm exclusively committed to representing shareholders nationwide who are victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty and other types of corporate misconduct. For more information about the firm and its attorneys, please visit http://pjlfirm.com. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

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One woman has made her home the most magical house on Earth.

Kelsey Hermanson, mom of two and Disney lover in Seattle, has created an entire Disney-themed home with every room based off a different Disney classic.

From a "The Little Mermaid"-inspired bathroom, to a "Wreck-it-Ralph" bedroom for her daughter, a "Beauty and the Beast" dining room for their guests and a beautiful "Cinderella"-themed master bedroom, the results are breathtaking.

PHOTO: This Beauty and the Beast dining room is a magical welcome for guests. (Kelsey Hermanson)

"I grew up in Southern California and we would go to Disneyland all the time and I just love when you go there, you walk through those gates and you're in a different world. You're not in reality, you're somewhere else. And I wanted that in our home," Hermanson told "Good Morning America." "I wanted to be able to go into different rooms and feel a little bit of that Disney magic in every room."

MORE: These Disney superfans get surprise from Mickey Mouse

The decorator finds accents and furniture in thrift stores or online to complete each magical look. Hermanson said she found a bed from the 1800s that was imported from Paris that screamed to her "Cinderella." She painted it blue and added gold accents to match the princess's gorgeous dress.

PHOTO: Kelsey Hermanson created a romantic and dreamy Cinderella inspired bedroom. (Kelsey Hermanson)

"I just wanted it to feel dreamy. I wanted it to feel like just a complete departure from the rest of our house and really romantic and beautiful," she said.

Her favorite room is the "Aloha Disney Room" as her family calls it. Her big, blue couch and sea shell accents give off relaxing island vibes with inspiration from "Moana" and "Lilo and Stitch."

PHOTO: Lilo and Stitch and Moana inspired this Hawaiian themed living room. (Kelsey Hermanson)

Her "Aladdin" bathroom is illuminated with beautiful lanterns creating an Arabian night scene. She added a magic lantern faucet to the sink to complete the look.

"A lot of the things I just find and repurpose," she said about the faucet. "I do buy things at the Disney Store occasionally, but I really just like to repurpose things into my design. The true story is everything that I've done is on a budget. Most things that I do, I've either made myself or are just very inexpensive and I think the design overall has a very expensive look."

Story continues

The first room Hermanson decorated two years ago was an "Alice in Wonderland"-themed bathroom. Her inspiration was to make it feel like you were going down a rabbit hole like Alice herself. Hermanson's future plans include creating a "Cars"-themed garage and a "Frozen"-themed bedroom for her daughter when she is older.

PHOTO: Kelsey Hermanson wanted to feel like she was in wonderland in this Alice in Wonderland room. (Kelsey Hermanson)

There are seasonal twists, too. The thrifty decorator is currently preparing to transform parts of her house into "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Coco" for Halloween.

"We enjoy, in our house, living in our own version of Disneyland. My children love it," said Hermanson. "I love this magical house and I designed it for us to live in."

Disney is the parent company of ABC News and "Good Morning America."

Mom creates a Disney-themed home with every room representing a classic film originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
By ANI

NEW DELHI: Sharing the trailer of his upcoming feature with British adventurer Bear Grylls in Discovery channel's 'Into The Wild With Bear Grylls,' actor Akshay Kumar on Monday remembered shooting of the episode.

The 'Sooryavanshi' actor took to Twitter to share the action-packed trailer of the upcoming episode of the show and shared how Grylls surprised him with a unique tea. "I visualized stiff challenges prior to #IntoTheWildWithBearGrylls but @bearGrylls completely surprised me with the elephant poop tea. What a day @DiscoveryIn @DiscoveryPlusIn," he tweeted.

Shot at Bandipur Tiger Reserve, 'Into The Wild with Bear Grylls and Akshay Kumar', will follow all military-style drills, with former British military personnel Bear Grylls taking charge along with fit and agile Akshay Kumar, son of a military officer, and somebody who has donned multiple hats, including that of an actor, producer, martial artist and philanthropist.

I visualized stiff challenges prior to #IntoTheWildWithBearGrylls but @bearGrylls completely surprised me with the elephant poop tea What a day @DiscoveryIn @DiscoveryPlusIn pic.twitter.com/m6YfQXmCcM  Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) August 31, 2020

Talking about shooting with Bear Grylls for the show, Bollywood's 'Khiladi' termed the experience as a "humbling" one. "I have always admired Bear Grylls for his energy, passion and what he has stood for all these years. It was a humbling experience being with him in the wild as he went about unfolding one challenge after another. It is different out there, as compared to movie sets, as there is no back-up - that sense of realism is very overpowering," said Akshay Kumar.

The episode will also raise awareness about a cause close to Akshay Kumar's heart -- 'Bharat Ke Veer', which is a fund-raising initiative by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. "What I found interesting about the show is how nicely purpose is incorporated in an entertaining, survival and adventure led show. With regards to Bharat Ke Veer, it is a project, which remains close to my heart and I will continue to use all opportunities to help promote it with an aim to ensure that more and more countrymen become a part of it," he added.

Grylls on the other hand, lauded the Bollywood superstar's "humility" and his easy approach. "I did my homework prior to meeting Akshay, and knew he is a superstar, but what struck me the most during our time together, was his humility, his easy approach - he is, at heart, still that guy next door. Lots of commonalities between the two of us - including passion towards fitness, dedication to family et al, I really enjoyed being with him," said Grylls.

"Akshay's eyes lit-up with the mention of a new challenge and believe me, not many celebrities, across the world, have reacted so warmly to some harsh tasks that I can conjure," added Grylls.

The buzz around Akshay Kumar's episode is immense as the show featuring PM Modi generated historic high ratings for the infotainment genre whereas 'Into The Wild with Rajinikanth' is the second-highest-rated show ever in the genre.

The special show will premiere on September 11 on Discovery Plus App and September 14 on Discovery Channel.
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Shortly after Adib was selected, he visited the port where this months explosion took place and a nearby neighborhood, Gemmayze, that was badly damaged in the blast. Footage circulating on social media shows a woman confronting him on the street in the ruined neighborhood and accusing him of belonging to the ruling class. We the revolutionaries do not recognize you, she said. Our children died. We do not recognize you.
New Delhi, Aug 31 : Pranab Mukherjee -- a former President, the man who missed becoming the Prime Minister of India by a whisker, the Congress party's trouble-shooter during the UPA rule and the unlikely Congressman with proximity to Prime Minister Narendra Modi (the Prime Minister refers to him as 'Dada') -- breathed his last on Monday evening at the age of 84, marking the end of an era. Detected with COVID-19, he was on ventilator following a brain surgery to remove a blood clot.

The former president was admitted to the Army's R&R Hospital in Delhi Cantt on Aug 10 in what the hospital described as a "critical condition". A scan at the hospital revealed a large brain clot for which he underwent emergency life-saving surgery. After the surgery, he continued to remain critical and on ventilator support while also being detected with COVID-19.

He is survived by his sons, Abhijit and Indrajit Mukherjee, and daughter Sharmishta. Both Abhijit and Sharmishta have tried their hand at electoral politics. Abhijit Mukherjee suffered a shocking defeat last year in West Bengal's Jangipur constituency while Sharmishta Mukherjee is the national spokesperson for the party her father once knew like the back of his hand. In 2015, Mukherjee lost his wife Suvra.

From being an Assistant Professor in Vidyanagar College, Kolkata to the President of India -- Mukherjee's journey was marked with his passion for electoral politics and his remarkable loyalty to the Congress party.

Mukherjee's political career began in 1969, after being noticed for his by-election campaign management in Midnapore for an independent candidate -- former diplomat and senior Congress leader V.K. Krishna Menon. Mukherjee became a member of the Rajya Sabha in July 1969, following which he was re-elected to the House in 1975, 1981, 1993 and 1999.

A trusted aide of Indira Gandhi, he appointed former PM Manmohan Singh - considered the architect of economic reforms in the country - as RBI governor, during his stint as Finance Minister in the 1980s. His much-anticipated ambition to be Prime Minister of India after Indira Gandhi's assassination never happened. Rajiv Gandhi's decision to keep Mukherjee out of his cabinet was an acrimonious moment in the long relationship that the Congress stalwart enjoyed with the grand old party.

Later, not hiding his emotions on the development, Mukherjee wrote, "When I learned of my ouster from the Cabinet, I was shell-shocked and flabbergasted. I could not believe it. But I composed myself and sat alongside my wife as she watched the swearing-in ceremony on television." It had become evident to Mukherjee that he could not continue in the party and he parted ways to form the Rashtriya Socialist Congress in West Bengal in 1986. However, by 1989, Rajiv Gandhi and he reconciled their differences and he was back in the party and the cabinet.

In fact, his name came up as PM-probable after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination and yet again when the UPA came to power. But, in what had by now become routine, he was again overlooked by his party for the top job. However, the man with a thick Bengali accent continued to relentlessly defend the party. He kept being the 'brain' for the party even in UPA-II, when the government was braving a string of corruption allegations.

He won back his primacy in the cabinet first under P.V. Narasimha Rao and later when Manmohan Singh was Prime Minister, as Commerce Minister, Foreign Minister, Defence Minister and Finance Minister. Singh was known to seek his advice and in the numerous GoMs that were formed in the course of UPA-I and UPA-II between 2004 and 2014, Mukherjee headed the largest number of them among all cabinet ministers.

In 2012, in the twilight of his political career, he was made the President. During his tenure, Mukherjee brought in a refreshing change in the way one perceived Rashtrapati Bhavan. He earned the sobriquet of 'People's President' as he charted his own course as Head of State. During the widespread protests in the light of the Nirbhaya case, when crowds had gathered on Raisina Hill, he had insisted on going out and addressing them -- he relented when he was advised against the step on grounds of security.

When PM Modi took over in 2014, ousting the Congress-led government, the two unlikely personalities forged a relationship of mutual respect that saw the BJP government award the Bharat Ratna to Mukherjee and on that occasion, an emotional Narendra Modi thanked the man he fondly calls 'Dada' for "everything that you have done for the nation".

Once, releasing the book "President Pranab Mukherjee - A Statesman", PM Modi gave a sneak peek into the special relationship the two shared. He had said, "I am saying this from deep within. Like a father caring for his son...." Modi went on to elaborate, "It was during the Uttar Pradesh polls that he told me that win and loss happen all the time but will you take care of your health or not? It was not part of his responsibilities as President, but it was the humane person inside him which cared for a friend."
The Duchess of Cambridge proved she remains queen of the High Street by wearing a 10 green floral dress from Zara as she announced the top 100 images from her community photography exhibition have been chosen.

Joining a panel of five judges to select the best images from over 31,000 pictures submitted for the national-wide contest, Kate Middleton, 38, wore the beautiful V-neck midi dress which was slashed from 50 in the sale.

The Duchess glowed in the khaki number with a black and white floral print which is made from at least 50 per cent viscose - a sustainable material made from natural sources - and has a beautiful lace trim detailing.

Kate is often seen mixing designer with high street, and is known for her love of Spanish brand Zara.

The Duchess of Cambridge, 38, proved she remains the queen of the high street as she stunned in a khaki V-neck midi dress from Zara which cost just 10 in the summer sale

The floral dress comes with short ruched sleeves and an elasticated waist band, helping to cover up some areas you may wish to hide.

Although not visible on camera, Kate's dress also features a ruffled hem and slit down the side to make it easy to walk in.

Unfortunately, those hoping to replicate the Duchess's style may struggle to buy one, with the popular dress now sold out on the Zara website.

The Duchess, a patron of the National Portrait Gallery and a keen amateur photographer, spearheaded the campaign in a bid to capture a snapshot of the UK at this time, with the help of the nation.

Kate opted for the midi dress from Zara, which is now sold out online, while speaking as part of the Hold Still photography campaign which she launched during the coronavirus lockdown

The elegant dress, a bargain at just 10, also has ruched sleeves, a ruffled hem and a slit down the left leg

The royal wore her hair in a relaxed side parting, and opted for a set of drop earrings for the occasion.

Announcing that the top 100 images had been selected, the Duchess said: 'I've been so overwhelmed by the public's response to Hold Still, the quality of the images has been extraordinary, and the poignancy and the stories behind the images have been equally as moving as well.'

She continued: 'So I wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has entered and taken part.

'And a big thank you to my fellow judges. I hugely appreciate the time and dedication that they have shown towards the project.'

The Duchess of Cambridge joined a panel of five judges to select the top 100 images for her Hold Still photography contest. Pictured is Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery (top left), Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer for England (top right), Maryam Wahid, photographer (bottom left), and Lemn Sissay MBE, writer and poet (bottom right)

Kate appeared relaxed on the call, where she joined Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Lemn Sissay MBE, writer and poet, Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer for England and Maryam Wahid, photographer, to select the top 100 images submitted.

Meanwhile Lemn said the experience had tugged at the heartstrings, revealing: 'I didn't expect the judging process to be so emotional.

'As I studied the portraits in this most public crisis I was drawn into the most private moments.

'A nation through portraiture. Intimacy and inspiration, bravery and hope, determination and love and loss and laughter...

This is one of the photos selected by the Duchess of Cambridge ahead of showcasing the final 100 images in a digital exhibition from September 14

This is one of the photos selected by the Duchess of Cambridge ahead of showcasing the final 100 images in a digital exhibition from September 14

'We have been in this together and in these portraits of private struggles and victories, the quiet moments, the tears and laughter are caught on camera for ever in Hold Still.'

She added that the collection of portraits 'made her proud to be British', saying: 'It made me proud of my fellow citizens. It made me remember who we are and what we have been through. I didn't really know until now.'

People from across the UK were invited to submit a photographic portrait which they have taken during these extraordinary times for the community project.

Participants were also encouraged to provide a short written submission to outline the experiences and emotions of those depicted in their photograph.

This is one of the photos selected by the Duchess of Cambridge ahead of showcasing the final 100 images in a digital exhibition from September 14

Hold Still was completely free, open to all ages and abilities, with the exhibition set to focus on three core themes - 'Helpers and Heroes', 'Your New Normal' and 'Acts of Kindness'.

The idea was to create a unique photographic portrait of the people of our nation in lockdown as we 'hold still' for the good of others, and celebrate those who have continued so we can stay safe.

The exhibition will reflect resilience and bravery, humour and sadness, creativity and kindness, and human tragedy and hope.

Hold Still will also act as a reminder of the significance of human connection in times of adversity, and that although we were physically apart, as a community and nation, we all faced and rose to the challenge together.

The top 100 photographs will be exhibited in online from 14 September, with selected images shown in towns and cities across the country later in the year.
But all is not lost. Research has shown that out of all facial features, we rely most on the eyes to recognize people. Even if we struggle to know who were looking at when only their eyes are visible, we may still pick up information about a persons identity and emotions. A lot of information is conveyed by the eye region, said Richard Cook, a psychologist at Birkbeck, University of London. Weve still got access to that information.

We also use other cues, and we can fall back on some of those other cues if they are helpful, Dr. Behrmann said. For example, we might recognize people by the way they walk or talk, or by their facial hair or hairstyle (except for Dr. Behrmanns recently trimmed colleague). Prosopagnosics may rely on these external cues already.

The observers culture may matter, too. In what researchers call the head scarf effect, study participants from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, where women often cover their hair, outperformed British and American participants at identifying faces when only the eyes, nose and mouth were showing.

In some Asian countries, wearing masks in public to protect against viruses was commonplace before Covid-19. Might people in those parts of the world be more comfortable recognizing each other with their faces covered?

It is indeed an interesting point, said Katsumi Watanabe, a cognitive scientist at Waseda University in Tokyo.

There is a paucity of research directly addressing the question, but earlier studies have hinted at cultural differences in how people read emotions. Western Caucasian people tend to decode facial expressions based on the mouth region, while Eastern Asian tend to use the information from the eye region, Dr. Watanabe said.

That might make it easier for people in a country such as Japan to get used to interacting while masked, Dr. Watanabe speculated.
C hancellor Rishi Sunak has been warned against tax hikes to cover the cost of the coronavirus crisis, with Conservative backbenchers fearing the move would damage economic recovery.

The intervention followed speculation the Treasury could raise 20 billion through extra levies to deal with the fallout from Covid-19. Chief Secretary to the Treasury Stephen Barclay refused to comment on reports that pension tax relief could be cut, capital gains tax increased, and corporation tax adjusted from 19 per cent to 24 per cent.

The prospect of such large tax spikes prompted concern from a number of Conservative MPs.

Backbencher Marcus Fysh said counter-productive tax rises were the wrong response to the current situation.

He said: The focus has to be building on the nascent recovery in the economy which is the surest way to maximise the number of jobs available and balance revenue with spending.

We must not risk it with talk of counter-productive tax rises.

I am sure the Chancellor is well aware of this and hope he will consider urgent fiscal incentives to boost activity, investment and productivity.

Public sector debt hit more than 2 trillion for the first time in history earlier this month as ministers invested billions of pounds to support the economy through the pandemic.

Coronavirus hits the UK - In pictures 1 /81 Coronavirus hits the UK - In pictures A deserted Westminster Bridge PA A man wearing a face mask or covering due to the COVID-19 pandemic, walks past customers sat outside a restaurant AFP via Getty Images Boris Johnson addresses the nation on the Coronavirus lockdown Andrew Parsons Runners pass cardboard cutouts of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William during the London Marathon in London AP An empty escalator at Charing Coss London Underground tube station Jeremy Selwyn Electronic bilboards displays a message warning people to stay home in Sheffield PA A sign is displayed in the window of a student accommodation building following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Mancheste Reuters People take part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square, organised by Stop New Normal, to protest against coronavirus restrictions, in Londo AP People sing and dance in Leicester Square on the eve on the 10PM curfew Reuters Hearts painted by a team of artists from Upfest are seen in the grass at Queen Square, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Bristol Reuters Graffiti reads 'good luck and stay safe', as the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases grow around the world, under a bridge in London Reuters A sign is pictured in Soho, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London Reuters Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures, during a coronavirus briefing in Downing Street, London AP A person runs past posters with a message of hope, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in Manchester REUTERS Riot police face protesters who took part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square, organised by Stop New Normal, to protest against coronavirus restrictions in London AP An image of The Queen eith quotes from her broadcast to the UK and the Commonwealth in relation to the Coronavirus epidemic are displayed on lights in London's Piccadilly Circus PA Military vehicles cross Westminster Bridge after members of the 101 Logistic Brigade delivered a consignment of medical masks to St Thomas' hospital Getty Images Durdle Door in Dorset Reuters Captain Tom Moore via Reuters Mia, aged 8, and Jack, aged 5, take part in "PE with Joe" a daily live workout with Joe Wicks on Youtube to help kids stay fit who have to stay indoors due to the Coronavirus outbreak PA An NHS worker reacts at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital during the Clap for our Carers campaign in support of the NHS Reuters Goats which have taken over the deserted streets of Llandudno @AndrewStuart via PA Tobias Weller PA Novikov restaurant in London with its shutters pulled down while the restaurant is closed London Landscapes: Hyde Park and the Serpentine, central London. Matt Writtle A newspaper vendor in Manchester city centre giving away free toilet rolls with every paper bought as shops run low on supplies due to fears over the spread of the coronavirus PA Theo Clay looks out of his window next to his hand-drawn picture of a rainbow in Liverpool, as the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continue Reuters A young man cuts another man's hair on top of a closed hairdresser in Oxford Reuters General view of the new NHS Nightingale Hospital, built to fight against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London via Reuters Jason Baird is seen dressed as Spiderman during his daily exercise to cheer up local children in Stockport, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues Reuters A woman wearing a face mask walks past Buckingham Palace Getty Images A man holds mobile phone displaying a text message alert sent by the government warning that new rules are in force across the UK and people must stay at home PA Medical staff on the Covid-19 ward at the Neath Port Talbot Hospital, in Wales, as the health services continue their response to the coronavirus outbreak. PA Prime Minister Boris Johnson taking part in a virtual Cabinet meeting with his top team of ministers PA A shopper walks past empty shelves in a Lidl store on in Wallington. After spates of "panic buying" cleared supermarket shelves of items like toilet paper and cleaning products, stores across the UK have introduced limits on purchases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have also created special time slots for the elderly and other shoppers vulnerable to the new coronavirus. Getty Images People on a busy tube train in London at rush hour PA Mia, aged 8 and her brother Jack, aged 5 from Essex, continue their school work at home, after being sent home due to the coronavirus PA Children are painting 'Chase the rainbows' artwork and springing up in windows across the country Reuters Social distancing in Primrose Hill Jeremy Selwyn A general view of a locked gate at Anfield, Liverpool as The Premier League has been suspended PA Homeless people in London AFP via Getty Images A piece of art by the artist, known as the Rebel Bear has appeared on a wall on Bank Street in Glasgow. The new addition to Glasgow's street art is capturing the global Coronavirus crisis. The piece features a woman and a man pulling back to give each other a kiss PA The Queen leaves Buckingham Palace, London, for Windsor Castle to socially distance herself amid the coronavirus pandemic PA A general view on Grey street, Newcastle as coronavirus cases grow around the world Reuters Matt Raw, a British national who returned from the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan in China, leaves quaratine at Arrowe Park Hospital on Merseyside PA Britain's Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty (L) and Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance look on as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks during a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) news conference inside 10 Downing Street Reuters The ticket-validation terminals at the tram stop on Edinburgh's Princes Street are cleaned following the coronavirus outbreak. PA Locked school gates at Rockcliffe First School in Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear PA A sign at a Sainsbury's supermarket informs customers that limits have been set on a small number of products as the number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases grow around the world Reuters Jawad Javed delivers coronavirus protection kits that he and his wife have put together to the vulnerable people of their community of Stenhousemuir, between Glasgow and Edinburgh AFP via Getty Images A sign advertising a book titled "How Will We Survive On Earth?" Getty Images A man who appears to be homeless sleeping wearing a mask today in Victoria Jeremy Selwyn A pedestrian walks past graffiti that reads "Diseases are in the City" in Edinburgh AFP via Getty Images Staff from The Lyric Theatre, London inform patrons, as it shuts its doors PA A quiet looking George IV Bridge in Edinburgh PA A quieter than usual British Museum Getty Images A racegoer attends Cheltenham in a fashionable face mask SplashNews.com A commuter wears a face mask at London Bridge Station Jeremy Selwyn A empty restaurant in the Bull Ring Shopping Centre Getty Images A deserted Trafalgar Square in London PA Passengers determined to avoid the coronavirus before leaving the UK arrive at Gatwick Airport Getty Images

The Office for National Statistics said official bodies borrowed 26.7 billion in July, the fourth highest amount of any month since records began in 1993.

It pushed debt to around 2,004 billion for the first time ever, and means that the public sector debt is higher than gross domestic product  the value of everything produced in the UK in a year.

Mr Fysh added: Exceptional spending due to present circumstances can and should be financed over the long-term rather than through the usual nearer-term budget balancing processes, but the Chancellor has been right to highlight that the scope this provides for current emergency Covid spending programmes is not unlimited.

We need to help the economy not strangle it. These mixed messages are in themselves damaging and must stop.

A shopper wears a face mask on Oxford Street / AFP via Getty Images

Meanwhile, Tory chairman of the Commons Education Committee, Robert Halfon, said normal folk and small and medium enterprises should be spared.

He told BBC Radio 4s The Westminster Hour: I hope that whatever they do they dont put taxes up which hit ordinary folk in terms of the cost of living.

I have no problem with taxes going up for big business or multi-billion pound tech companies.

But we have to be very clear that we are not going to be the party that is raising fuel duty or messing around with the pension for example, the triple lock pension, because these do have a big impact on the cost of living.

Rishi Sunak promises 'hope and opportunity' despite recession

The important thing is not to do anything that impacts on the cost of living for normal folk who have really struggled during the coronavirus. And many of them will be worried about their future jobs and wont have a lot of money to spare.

Tory former Cabinet minister John Redwood said: You cannot tax your way to faster growth and more prosperity. We need policies to promote more jobs and activity to get the deficit down.

Mr Barclay said the Treasury would look at how to deal with the economic scarring from the Covid situation.

He told Times Radio: Treasury ministers dont get into what a Budget will or will not do and particularly on tax measures ahead of that, thats for the Chancellor, the Budget.

The key objective within the Treasury is to get growth. There is then a balance between the other three moving parts of debt, of spending, spending feeding into that, and tax.

And whats your trade-off then between your spending measures and your tax measures. The real objective is to reduce the economic scarring from Covid.

Additional reporting by PA Media.
JOS, Nigeria, August 28, 2020 (Morning Star News)  Fulani herdsmen attacked a predominantly Christian village in north-central Nigeria, killing one resident, burning a church building and kidnapping four children among others on Monday (Aug. 24), sources said.

More than 20 herdsmen rode into Damba Kasaya village, Kaduna state, on motorcycles at about 8 a.m. in an attack in which they kidnapped four students, including a 10-year-old girl, from a school.

Our church, Aminchi Baptist Church, here in Damba Kasaya, was burned, and Mr. Benjamin Auta, aged 35, was killed during the attack, village resident Nuhu Aruwa told Morning Star News by text message.

Local news reports said Auta was killed while pursuing the fleeing herdsmen, but Aruwa said they killed him in his house, which is close to the school where the students were kidnapped. The herdsmen abducted seven Christians from the village in Chikun County, he said.

Among them were four students of Prince Academy and one of their teachers, Aruwa said. Two other Christian farmers, a woman and a man, were captured and taken away too by the herdsmen.

Village resident Emmanuel Zakka said three girls were kidnapped among the students  10-year-old Favour Danjuma, Miracle Saitu Danjuma, 15, and Happiness Odoji, 16  along with Ezra Bako, 17. Zakka identified the kidnapped teacher as Christiana Madugu, 29.

In the same countys Damishi village, herdsmen reportedly abducted six Christians on Saturday (Aug. 22) from a hotel where they had taken refuge after Fulani herdsmen attacked their village. Two of the six kidnapped were women nursing babies.

On Saturday (Aug. 22) in Kakura village, in the Kajuma area also in Chikun County, Muslim Fulani herdsmen reportedly kidnapped an Anglican priest and his 10-year-old son. The Rev. Meshach Luka of the Anglican Diocese of Kaduna and his son were kidnapped from his station at Kakura II Kujama Missionary Archdeaconry.

They were freed on Monday (Aug. 24), according to the Hausa Christians Foundation, without providing details of their release.

The assaults were the latest in an acceleration of herdsmen attacks this year in Kaduna state. More than 50,000 Christians have been displaced from 109 villages now occupied by armed Fulani herdsmen in Kachia, Kajuru, Chikun and Kaura counties, all in southern Kaduna state, according to Luka Binnayat Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU).

Numbering in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise hundreds of clans of many different lineages who do not hold extremist views, but some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the United Kingdoms All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a recent report.

They adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP [Islamic State West Africa Province] and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity, the APPG report states.

Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in Nigerias Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians lands and impose Islam as desertification has made it difficult for them to sustain their herds.

The APPG report noted that tribal loyalties cannot be overlooked.

In 2015, Muhammadu Buhari, a Fulani, was elected president of Nigeria, the group reported. He has done virtually nothing to address the behavior of his fellow tribesmen in the Middle Belt and in the south of the country.

On Jan. 30 Christian Solidarity International (CSI) issued a genocide warning for Nigeria, calling on the Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council to take action. CSI issued the call in response to a rising tide of violence directed against Nigerian Christians and others classified as infidels by Islamist militants in the countrys north and middle belt regions.

Nigeria ranked 12th on Open Doors 2020 World Watch List of countries where Christians suffer the most persecution but second in the number of Christians killed for their faith, behind Pakistan.

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: Getty Images/Werbeantrieb
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- BLAZE Public Relations, the Santa Monica based agency, announced the addition of North America's largest certified organic breakfast and snack food company Nature's Path Organic Foods to their roster of natural food CPG clients. The award-winning company has partner with one of the leading boutique PR firms to increase brand buzz across the United States and Canada.

"When we started our search for a new agency, it was important to us to find a partner who shared our company mission and values in caring for people and the planet," said Hubert Wat, Vice President of Marketing for Nature's Path. "It was immediately clear that the team at BLAZE shared our passion and would tell our stories in the right way. We look forward to accomplishing great things together!"

BLAZE PR has been retained to bring awareness to Nature's Path Organic Foods flavor-forward, non-GMO cereals and granola products as well as corporate initiatives. The campaign will also include promoting its sister brands Love Crunch organic granola, Que Pasa stone-ground organic corn chips, and EnviroKidz organic cereal with a mission to protect endangered species. BLAZE will conduct media outreach to spotlight new products and establish influence in the breakfast and snack categories through high impact campaigns. The agency aims to create conversations about the unique aspects of the brands, including their unwavering commitment and dedication to sustainability.

"We are thrilled to work with a brand that is so highly recognized in the organic food space and we look forward to increasing the spotlight on the brand" said BLAZE PR President Matt Kovacs. "Nature's Path has achieved so much in the category and our plan is to take it to the next level. This is a brand that deserves world-wide attention."

Beyond the products, BLAZE PR looks to spotlight the Nature's Path's mission of always leaving the earth better than you found it. In the past 11 years, Nature's Path has donated more than $30 million worth of food to food banks and charities across North America. Nature's Path Eat Well Do Good program has been an annual food donation campaign that serves nearly a dozen food banks in Canada and the U.S. This year, considering the increased food insecurities hitting children in particular, due to higher unemployment lacking lunch programs, Nature's Path has announced it will be donating 1 million bowls worth of food to youth-focused programs. BLAZE PR is part of the effort to bring increased attention to the campaign and partnering non-profits.

About Nature's Path Organic Foods

Nature's Path Organic Foods is North America's largest organic breakfast and snack food company and produces USDA and Canadian Certified Organic and Non-GMO Project Verified breakfast and snack foods sold in grocery and natural food stores in over 50 countries around the world. Committed to the triple bottom line socially responsible, environmentally sustainable and financially viable, Nature's Path works diligently to support communities and champion the cause of people and planet. Brands include Nature's Path, Love Crunch, Qi'a, Que Pasa, Flax Plus, and EnviroKidz. Founded in 1985, Nature's Path is headquartered in Richmond, British Columbia and employs hundreds of valued team members at its four facilities in Canada and the United States.

About BLAZE PR

BLAZE is the go-to partner for lifestyle brands hungry for a real piece of the marketshare. Fresh and seasoned, the PR boutique agency is comprised of veteran practitioners who stay one step ahead of trends and will not rest on the laurels of past successes. BLAZE puts the strategy back in PR. Their media strategies are meaty, creative and on-point because they're backed by a thoughtful process that considers the particular world of each brand. Visit www.blazepr.com for more information.

Media Contact

Lindsey Mee

[email protected]

(310) 395-5050

SOURCE BLAZE Public Relations

Related Links

http://www.blazepr.com


At Fair Districts New Mexico our goal is to make the 2021 redistricting process fair  fair as in reflective of the wishes of the electorate, as opposed to fair in the eyes of select politicians. This organization is frequently asked, paraphrased, What makes 2021 any different from every other year in which redistricting has come and gone, behind closed doors, with little to no public input? In short, this year and next, substantial portions of the electorate, party affiliation aside, are watching closely.

This is a banner year for redistricting in New Mexico. Across the political spectrum, the electorate has engaged and the electorate is watching. Such tremendous public outcry to place redistricting in the hands of the people has never before happened in New Mexico.

On July 27, a statewide redistricting webinar hosted by Retake Our Democracy drew 213 registrants. Albuquerques Sens. Jerry Ortiz y Pino and Mark Moores received accolades for speaking frankly about gerrymandering in a large venue and in a way not heard before in New Mexico.

To date, we continue to discover tremendous knowledge and commitment to redistricting reform among our Legislature, most recently at the bipartisan Womens Legislative Caucus, whose executive committee has stated its caucuss support.

New Mexico organizations statewide are staking their interest in redistricting reform, too. Twenty prominent organizations have joined Fair Districts New Mexico in support of redistricting reform in the 2021 cycle. Some partners comprising Fair Districts New Mexico: New Mexico Ethics Watch, League of Women Voters of New Mexico, Save Our Western Way of Life, NAACP Dona Ana County, New Mexico First and the American Civil Liberties Union New Mexico. Nationally, we are partnered by the Brennan Center for Justice, the Election Reformers Network and the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

The groups that have joined this effort are not seeking any party advantage, but rather are driving to place the responsibility of redistricting in the hands of the people, where it belongs. These groups, and an increasing number of legislators, want to right a wrong which has led to disempowerment for far too long.

It is not a stretch to say that gerrymandering in our state has oftentimes fit the criteria of institutional racism. Native Americans and Hispanics alike have suffered the effects of gerrymandering in New Mexico. Without sufficient reform, they will continue to. This is a wrong to be righted.

In 2021 the Legislature again grapples with redistricting, presenting the opportunity in New Mexico to right a wrong inflicted upon Americans even since long before New Mexico was a state; since the founding of this country. The U.S. Congress at that time probably hadnt even an inkling of what a New Mexican might be, one day, much less the tenacity of one.

The N.M. Legislature holds the power to right this wrong in 2021, putting an end to the infliction of gerrymandering upon New Mexicans.

The 2020 N.M. Redistricting Task Force will make recommendations to the 2021 N.M. Legislature. Applications for the Task Force are being accepted from legislators and the community alike until Sept. 5. More information at www.nmfirst.org.
H arry Dunn's family have dropped their plans to sue the US government in a bid for a resolution to the impasse.

Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn previously said they would pursue a claim against President Donald Trumps administration for its handling of their sons case.

But Mrs Charles said that the family can now see that the US government are working towards suspect Anne Sacoolas facing the UK justice system.

Mr Dunn, 19, died when his motorbike crashed into a car outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on August 27 last year.

Harry Dunn's mother Charlotte Charles, stepfather Bruce Charles, family spokesman Radd Seiger and father Tim Dunn address the media / PA

Sacoolas, 43, the wife of a US intelligence official, claimed diplomatic immunity following the collision and was able to return to her home country, sparking an international controversy.

She was charged with causing death by dangerous driving in December but an extradition request, submitted by the Home Office, was rejected by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a month later.

The US State Department recently said it was looking for a reasonable resolution after news emerged that the UK Attorney General, Suella Braverman QC, was considering the possibility of a virtual trial or a trial in Sacoolass absence.

The Dunn family said they hoped their decision to no longer pursue a claim against the US government would encourage them to meet with the family and discuss a way forward in their quest for a trial in the UK.

Harry Dunn (left) with his mother Charlotte Charles (centre) and twin brother Niall Dunn (right). / PA

Speaking after their decision to no longer pursue a claim against the US government, Mrs Charles said: We never wanted any of this.

All we ever wanted was what anyone else in our shoes would have wanted, that the person responsible for taking Harrys life be held to account.

We are going through a living nightmare and we need closure. We will only get that when Mrs Sacoolas faces our justice system.

Mrs Charles continued: We can now see that the US government are working towards that end and we would like to meet with them as parents to explain why that is important and to help the discussions.

I am proud of my family. Im grateful that we now appear to be in the home straight of the worst period of our lives and look forward hopefully to building bridges.

Anne Sacoolas

I think back to the early days before our campaign started when our advisers were working so hard behind the scenes to avoid any dispute and to avoid any publicity.

That was all thrown back in our faces at the time. I hope they accept our offer of a meeting this time and will look forward to bringing this awful situation to an end.

Explaining the decision to no longer pursue the lawsuit, family spokesman Radd Seiger said: Harry Dunns parents were relieved to see the signal from the State Department in Washington that they are now working with their counterparts in London to find a resolution to the impasse following Anne Sacoolass departure to the US after Harry died.

They have accordingly equally now signalled to the US government that they do not intend to sue them in respect of their decision to recall Mrs Sacoolas and have written to officials in the US Embassy in London to make a comprehensive offer an amicable meeting to help the parties find the resolution that is now desperately needed on all sides.

That resolution will only involve Mrs Sacoolas going through the English justice system and if our offer of a meeting is accepted, the parents intend to speak directly to the US government to tell them why it is so important that justice is done here.

Mr Seiger continued: From the outset, the parents have always tried to enter into dialogue with others to find a resolution.

This is not a situation of their making and I know there is a lot of regret both in Washington and London about decisions that were taken last September when Harry died.

If the US government and Mrs Sacoolas now step forward to do the right thing, we have indicated to the US government that we would very much like to play our part in helping to heal the deep wounds left by this decision, not only in terms of relations between both countries, but also locally in our community where RAF Croughton sits.

There is an awful lot of good that can be done here with the parents at the forefront of that but that will require the US government to stop denying justice for Harry.

The Dunn family have said they will continue to pursue a civil claim against Anne Sacoolas in the US.

In a statement, a US State Department spokesman said they had worked with their UK counterparts from the outset to find a mutually acceptable path forward.

The spokesman said they continued to engage with the UK to find a reasonable resolution.
Tesla China-made Model 3 vehicles are seen during a delivery event at its factory in Shanghai Reuters

Tesla on Monday unveiled a 48-second video showing a time-lapse of automobile production at its Gigafactory in Shanghai.

Spotted in the video are as many as eight robots producing a single Model 3 vehicle, Electrek points out, as Musk seeks to shift the company's focus toward global manufacturing and increasingly toward automation.

In May, Tesla's global vice president estimated that the Shanghai factory would be able to produce 200,000 cars a year by the end of the second quarter.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tesla showed off the inside of its Model 3 production hub at its Shanghai factory in a new video released over the weekend.

The 48-second time-lapse clip that was created by the US-based electric vehicle maker provides a look at what CEO and product architect Elon Musk describes as its "Alien dreadnought," as Electrek, which first reported on the video, points out.

The video displays up to eight robots producing a single Model 3 vehicle. Musk is looking to shift the company's focus toward global manufacturing, building out additional car factories around the world, and increasingly toward automative production.

Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory, which began making cars in November 2019, is a vital component as Tesla looks to scale up production and maintain profitability. In May, Tesla Global Vice President Tao Lin estimated that the Shanghai factory would be able to produce 200,000 cars a year by the end of the second quarter in an interview with Xinhua News Agency.

Like many China-based factories, the Shanghai Gigafactory experienced some setbacks this year, temporarily shutting down a few times amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Tesla's Model 3 sedan experienced production delays in February as the Shanghai factory reopened after temporarily closing due to a "government-ordered closure." Tesla also halted production in China in May after the company suffered from part shortages, but ended up reopening its facility after just a few days of being shut down.

Tesla began exporting its Model 3 vehicle in December 2019, just 11 months after construction of the facility went underway.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Indias acknowledgement of a fresh face-off with Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) reflects the grim reality of the situation along the disputed border after several rounds of talks couldnt take forward the disengagement process, experts said on Monday.

A statement from the Indian Army said soldiers had pre-empted provocative military movements by the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) to change the status quo in the intervening night of August 29 and 30. It added that these actions violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the standoff in eastern Ladakh that had started in early May.

Over the past few weeks, after several rounds of talks between corps commanders on the ground and the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border affairs, the differences between the two sides on the disengagement and de-escalation process have emerged in the open.

Also Read: Chinese troops strictly abide by the LAC, never cross the line: Beijing

The Chinese side has even referred to both sides having positively evaluated the progress in disengagement, but the Indian side has insisted that the process is a work in progress and more needs to be done to take it forward.

At the last weekly news briefing of the ministry of external affairs (MEA), spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said complete disengagement requires re-deployment of troops by each side towards their regular posts on their respective sides of the LAC, which can be done only through mutually agreed reciprocal actions by both sides.

Former navy chief Admiral (retired) Arun Prakash said the time had come for the Indian side to do a reality check and prepare for the worst. He added, Its a grim situation.

The Indian side, Prakash believes, has misread the situation especially since the actions of the Chinese side have often differed from it said. They seem to have decided to restore their boundary to whatever it was according to their historical interpretation, he said.

Significantly, the latest clash occurred on the southern bank of Pangong lake, where most of the friction in this area has been on the northern bank.

The Chinese actions also run counter to Chinese envoy to India Sun Weidongs assertion last week that the existing situation on the ground is under control on the whole and there is no fresh standoff between the two forces. The envoy has even described the June 15 clash  which resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and unspecified Chinese casualties  as a brief moment from the perspective of history.

Sameer Patil, fellow for international security studies at Gateway House, a think tank, said the latest clash reflected the obdurate attitude of the Chinese in resolving the standoff along the LAC.

The incident goes against what their diplomats have been saying. The Chinese are suing the diplomatic track to create a smokescreen while the Central Military Commission headed by President Xi Jinping is pushing the case on the ground, he said.

Patil also believes the latest Chinese action could be part of efforts to shift the domestic narrative after several photos shared widely on Chinas social media platforms purported to show the graves of Chinese troops killed in the June 15 clash.

There have been at least four such images of tombstones and maybe the Chinese want to stonewall the domestic narrative and shift it to one of protecting national interests, he said.

Prakash said India would need to keep its feet firmly on the ground and look for alliances and partnerships to tackle the challenges facing it. If things take a military or kinetic turn, escalation wont be in our hands, he added.
Emma Roberts confirmed she was expecting her first child with her boyfriend Garrett Hedlund on Sunday night.

The 29-year-old American Horror Story star shared the news in a joyous Instagram post featuring her 35-year-old beau.

The actress was first reported to be pregnant back in June, but Emma's post was the first time she confirmed the news.

Happy news: Emma Roberts, 29, confirmed on Sunday that she and her boyfriend Garrett Hedlund were expecting their first child together and revealed it would be a boy

The Palo Alto actress looked angelic in a dotted white off-the-shoulder dress that reached down to her ankles.

The look featured large ruffled sleeves, and she wore her blonde locks down in gentle waves.

'Me...and my two favorite guys,' Emma wrote, adding two blue heart emojis, indicating that she was expecting a baby boy.

Heavenly: The actress looked angelic in a dotted white off-the-shoulder dress that reached down to her ankles, while Garrett wore a mustard cardigan with a white T-shirt and dark jeans

Three's company: 'Me...and my two favorite guys,' Emma wrote, adding two blue heart emojis, indicating that she was expecting a baby boy

She cradled her growing baby bump in the photos, while Garrett placed an arm over her shoulder and held her hand.

The Mudbound star wore a mustard-colored cardigan with rolled up sleeves over a white V-neck T-shirt, dark jeans and dark green suede boots.

Emma's 13.8 million followers and celebrity nearest and dearest were quick to share their congratulations.

The star's famous aunt, Julia Roberts, wrote: 'Love you' followed by a kiss emoji. Emma's father is Eric Roberts, Julia's brother.

Loved ones: Emma's 13.8m followers and celebrity nearest and dearest were quick to share their congratulations, including aunt Julia Roberts and Scream Queens co-star Lea Michele

Glee actress and her Scream Queens co-star Lea Michele, who just welcomed son Ever Leo with husband Zandy Reich, wrote: You will be the greatest mama. I love you Em! Boy moms together,' followed by a heart emoji.

While Jamie Lynn Spears added: 'This makes me so happyBIG congrats.'

The news of Emma's pregnancy broke on June 25, when her mother Kelly Cunningham confirmed it on Instagram.

After a fan asked if the Scream Queens star was expecting, she replied, 'Yes,' and added a heart emoji.

'Thank you so much! Very excited,' she replied to another fan congratulating her.

Cat's out of the bag: The news of Emma's pregnancy broke on June 25, when her mother Kelly Cunningham confirmed it on Instagram in response to a fan query; pictured in July 2019

The niece of Julia Roberts was first linked to Garrett back in March 2019.

The two had been friends prior to dating, but a source described the relationship at the time as 'casual' and 'just a couple of weeks old' to Us Weekly.

Garrett, who was born and raised in rural Minnesota, is best known for starring in the Oscar-nominated Netflix film Mudbound, as well as the Netflix actionadventure film Triple Frontier, in which he starred with heavyweights including Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam and Pedro Pascal.

Prior to her new romance, Emma was in a seven-year onoff relationship with her AHS costar Evan Peters, 33.

A source told UsWeekly at the time that it was not an amicable breakup and that they were now 'just friends.'

New love: The niece of Julia Roberts was first linked to Garrett back in March 2019. She previously dated her American Horror Story costar Evan Peters for seven years; shown in August 2019

Garrett had previously been with Kirsten Dunst, 38, though they broke up in 2016 after more than four years together.

The actress has since moved on and gotten engaged to Breaking Bad's Jesse Plemons, 32, with whom she shares a son.

Us Weekly reported last month that Emma and Garrett new the sex of their baby, though they were keeping it private at the time.

The Little Italy actress initially tried to hide her bump while out in public, and her posting on social media has slowed to a trickle in recent months.
Hong Kong: Pregnant woman's virus case clarified

(To watch the full press briefing with sign language interpretation, click here.)

The Hospital Authority today announced that admission arrangements concerning the COVID-19 case of a pregnant woman will be reviewed.

During a press briefing this afternoon, the authoritys Chief Manager (Patient Safety & Risk Management) Dr Sara Ho explained that while the pregnant woman complained that she felt unwell and had a fever earlier, she was not running a fever when she was initially tested at the hospital.

There was a 31-year-old pregnant lady who attended the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department at Tuen Mun Hospital (TMH) yesterday morning at around 11am.

She complained of generalised discomfort and she also had an episode of fever measured at home. At the time when our triage staff measured her temperature, she had no fever. So after the initial check-up, she was arranged to be admitted to the general medical ward.

During the pregnant womans stay, she had also been transferred to the antenatal ward for examination and received a COVID-19 test in a surveillance ward.

Then, her preliminary positive COVID-19 test result came back yesterday night. So, that's why she was transferred to the isolation ward for further management.

The authority confirmed that both the pregnant woman and the fetus are in stable condition.

After carefully reviewing the patients case, the centre and the Infection Control Unit identified 10 female patients, including another pregnant woman, as close contacts.

The will all have to undergo 14 days of quarantine and TMH will monitor their conditions.

The authority pointed out that all hospital staff who had contact with the patient were equipped with appropriate personal protective equipment.

As a precautionary measure, 15 staff from the Department of Medicine & Geriatrics and the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, including two doctors, eight nurses and five patient care assistants, will be put under medical surveillance for 28 days.

The authority emphasised that if a pregnant woman is near full term and has reported fever for a few days, it would be more appropriate to admit her into an isolation ward for further management.

It further stated that TMH is reviewing the handling of this case which includes the admission arrangements and interdepartmental communication.

The authority added that TMH has approached the affected patients and apologised for the inconvenience.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
SFBJ Ultimate CEO -Bernard Paul-Hus, Hypower, Inc. 2020 has been an incredibly challenging year for all of us...and Hypower was not an exception. But stress also reveals much about the character and capabilities of an organization, and I am very proud of how the Hypower team has persevered in the face of these challenges.

Hypower Inc., a nationally renowned electrical and utility contractor, is proud to announce that its President and CEO Bernard Paul-Hus was recently honored with the 2020 South Florida Ultimate CEO Award by the South Florida Business Journal. Recognized for

his business acumen, leadership skills, and community involvement, Paul-Hus will be formally honored during a live virtual awards ceremony, which will be held on September 24, 2020.

I am honored and humbled to receive this distinguished recognition, Paul-Hus said. 2020 has been an incredibly challenging year for all of us. The global COVID-19 pandemic has put enormous stress on peoples personal lives, businesses, and entire economies  and Hypower was not an exception. But stress also reveals much about the character and capabilities of an organization, and I am very proud of how the Hypower team has persevered in the face of these challenges.

Since 1991, the Paul-Hus family grew the Fort Lauderdale-based company into a leading electrical and utility contractor that is licensed to operate in 28 states, serving utilities, developers, and general contractors. Widely recognized for its industry excellence, Hypower is currently recognized as a TOP 30 Electrical Contractor in the nation by Associated Builders and Contractors, a national U.S. trade association, which also placed the company on its 2020 Top 200 Performers list. The company was named Accredited Quality Contractor in 2018 and 2019 and places an extraordinary emphasis on safety and loss prevention from an employee, job site and public safety perspective. Hypower was honored with an ABC STEP Platinum Award for Safety Training consecutively in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.

Bernard Paul-Hus recently shared his inspiring story of entrepreneurship and his personal insights in an interview with The South Florida Business Journal, which can be found here.

To learn more about the 2020 South Florida Ultimate CEO Award and to see the full list of its visionary honorees, visit this awards page.

About Hypower

Ranked by ENR magazine as a top electrical and utility contracting company in the Southeast, Hypower works with some of the leading general contractors, utilities, developers, and institutions in the United States. The company operates through several divisions that specialize in electrical building construction, outside plant power and communications projects, prime electrical infrastructure, airfield lighting, and ground-mount solar nationwide. Hypower also specializes in 24/7 commercial and industrial electrical service and repair in South Florida. Founded in 1991 and headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Hypower is a family-owned company that currently employs more than 400 people and has successfully completed over 1,000 projects valued at over $1 billion. Hypower consistently ranks at the top of its class nationally for its exemplary record of safety and innovation within the construction market.

About South Florida Business Journal

The South Florida Business Journal is the leading business news outlet covering Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties. The companys mission is to provide business intelligence online and in print to help subscribers grow their business, advance their careers and simplify their professional lives. SFBJ is one of 42 business publications owned by American City Business Journals.
Tributes have been paid to a long-serving Craigavon teacher who educated children in the area for over 30 years.

Fergus Fleming passed away on Sunday.

Mr Fleming had worked as a teacher at St Anthony's Primary School in Craigavon and the school led tributes to him.

"It is with great sadness that we have to inform you of the passing of our great friend and former teacher Mr Fergus Fleming," the school said in a statement.

"Fergus educated the children of the area for over 30 years and will be fondly remembered by all for his wonderful knowledge, good counsel and his great sense of humour.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Pauline, sons Eoin and Ciaran, and his daughter Mrs Gemma Vassallo who is our current Nursery teacher.

"May he rest in peace."

Mr Fleming was also a former committee member, treasurer and secretary of Eire Og GAC in Craigavon.

The GAA club described him as a "phenomenal man who was the epitome of what a club volunteer should be".

"His immeasurable contribution to our club life over the last 20 years in both our brightest and darkest times will live long in our clubs history," the club said in a statement.

"Also a former teacher in St. Anthony's Primary School, as both an educator and work colleague Fergus left his unique and warm mark on all those fortunate to cross paths with him.

"The loss of his wit, wisdom and no problem too big attitude to life is a void we will struggle to replace."

Tributes were also paid to Mr Fleming on social media.

"Brilliant teacher. Hed such a good way with kids. Definitely his calling," one tribute read.

A former pupil and colleague described him as a "true gentleman full of fun and never without a smile who touched and influenced so many lives".

Another colleague wrote: "I feel privileged to have taught along side him and to have known him. He always made us smile and always had wise words to share! Will always remember him."

"The best teacher I ever had so many memories all good from my childhood and into adulthood through Eire Og," a former pupil said.

Mr Fleming's private funeral will take on Tuesday with a Requiem Mass taking place at a later date.

"Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on his soul.," a family death notice read.



"Deeply regretted by his loving wife, daughter, sons, daughter-in-law Kelly, son- in-law Chris, grandchildren Molly, Rosie and Josie, sisters Iciar, Fionnuala, Ethne, Niamh and Aideen, brothers Eamonn and Ciaran, nieces, nephews and family circle."

The family have asked those wishing to pay their respects to Mr Fleming to do so on Tuesday morning at his home in Drumgor Park at 10.00am, at Eire Og Club at 10.10am or at St. Anthonys School at 10.20am whilst adhering to social distancing.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 01:48:02|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Monday that China and Indonesia should seize the new industries and models created by the COVID-19 pandemic and open up new cooperation areas to boost their respective development and give impetus to the regional and global economy.

Xi made the remarks in a phone conversation in the night with his Indonesian counterpart, Joko Widodo.

Pointing out that both China and Indonesia have a large population and face an arduous task of fighting the coronavirus disease, Xi noted that both countries have spared no effort in relevant work on the principles of putting people first and putting life first.

China is fully confident that Indonesia will eventually prevail over the epidemic, Xi said, adding that China will continue to offer Indonesia firm support, provide it with as much material and technical assistance as China's capacity allows, and share Chinese experience in COVID-19 control, diagnosis and treatment.

Xi stressed that Indonesia is a friendly neighbor and important partner of China, and that China attaches great importance to Indonesia's concerns and needs in vaccine cooperation.

Currently, China and Indonesia have been actively engaged in vaccine cooperation, which has become a new highlight in bilateral cooperation against the epidemic, he said.

China supports companies of the two countries in carrying out cooperation on vaccine development, procurement and production, so as to help improve the availability and affordability of vaccines both in the two countries and around the globe, Xi said, calling on the two sides to continue fighting the epidemic with solidarity and jointly push forward the building of a global community of health for all.

Stressing that promoting economic recovery and growth against the background of a protracted pandemic and regular epidemic control measures is a major task for all countries, Xi said China will continue to deepen reform and raise the level of opening up in an all-round way, so as to establish a new development pattern that allows domestic and foreign markets to boost each other, which will provide broader market opportunities for the world.

The first half of this year witnessed both China's investment in Indonesia and Indonesia's exports to China rise against the trend, which has fully demonstrated that cooperation between the two countries enjoys a deep foundation and a strong momentum, said the Chinese president.

China, he added, stands ready to work with Indonesia to further synergize the Belt and Road Initiative and Indonesia's vision of Global Maritime Fulcrum, earnestly implement such key projects as the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway and the regional comprehensive economic corridor, and make full use of the "fast lane" for personnel exchanges to speed up the resumption of work and production in both countries.

China attaches great importance to Indonesia's status and role in international and regional affairs, he said, adding that his country is ready to work with Indonesia to uphold the international system with the United Nations at its core, help improve global governance, safeguard international equity and justice, and promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

For his part, Widodo noted that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China, adding that the two countries have maintained close contacts amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Widodo also expressed gratitude to the Chinese side for supporting his country's fight against the novel coronavirus, especially for carrying out vaccine cooperation with Indonesia.

Indonesia hopes to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the Chinese side in trade, investment, people-to-people exchanges and other fields, and will continue to actively advance the construction of Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, he said.

Indonesia is ready to work with the Chinese side to safeguard the basic norms of international relations as well as regional peace and stability, and build a community with a shared future for mankind, he said. Enditem
The Lawyer X royal commission has agreed to censor its own submissions identifying current and former police accused of criminal conduct for aiding and abetting barrister Nicola Gobbo's activities as a police informer.

The move comes as police implicated in the Informer 3838 scandal accuse the royal commission of bias and a failure to provide natural justice.

Nicola Gobbo with Tony Mokbel outside court in 2004. Credit:John Woudstra

Sources familiar with the submissions said they document Ms Gobbo's extraordinary double life as a defence barrister and police informer which culminated in her helping police build murder and serious drug cases against Carl Williams, Tony Mokbel and other gangland clients.

Publication of the final submissions of counsel assisting Chris Winneke, QC, scheduled on Monday, was delayed after lawyers for Victoria Police and former clients of Ms Gobbo requested redactions to thousands of pages of material.
For the importance Ghanaians attach to celebrating Easter or Eid ul-Adha, 2020 has been different. The pomp, pageantry and the outward show of ostentation associated with the two festivals did not materialize, courtesy COVID-19.



In 2009 however, my Easter was different.



Nairobi 2009



While serving in Uganda as President Chissanos Senior Military UN Adviser for the Lords Resistance Army Affected Areas from 2008-2009, my wife and I were invited by a Kenyan General to Nairobi for Easter 2009. Our one week stay in Kenya was not only exciting, it was educative.



We visited the Nairobi National Park. Unlike a zoo where animals are caged, the Park is a huge fenced game reserve where animals live in their natural environment and move about freely as they would in the wild.



Nairobi National Park



My friend wanted us to enter the park immediately it was opened at 6 am. The objective was for us to see as many animals as possible before they withdrew into the bush with the rising of the sun. As intended, we were the first to enter the park.



After a few minutes drive, a spectacle I had never beheld burst on my sight! I saw the frightening spectacle of two lions, the male and his wife. As my host drove closer to them, my protests increased! My protests notwithstanding, he drove to within six feet of the lions and asked me to take pictures of them. Still protesting, I took some quick shots and ordered him to move away! It was at this stage that my amused friend said something which has stayed with me.



He said Dan, unlike us humans, animals are not greedy!



Animals!



Recalling why he made us enter the park at 6 am, he explained that, carnivorous animals like lions spend the night hunting. By dawn, they would have eaten to their fill. Thereafter, all they want is a shady place to rest once day breaks. Until the food digests and is excreted some days later, the satiated lion harms no-one except in self-defence.



Antelope or Zebra



He added that, a lion would hunt an antelope because it knows that would be enough for it. However, a pride of lions would go after a bigger animal eg a zebra so the family can feast on it.



He concluded that, since hunger is the instinct which makes carnivores like lions hunt, once that need is satisfied, they are harmless.



For us humans however, once a need is satisfied, we graduate to wants, which we dont need. So humans will kill just to satisfy our greed. We want to own six cars when all we need is one.



Animals are not greedy!



Ahmeds education reminded me of a play I watched in school in the mid-1960s. The Pardoners Tale in Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales was titled Radix malorum est cupiditas (greed is the root of all evil)



Greed



In the play, three friends chanced on a vault of gold in the countryside. After the initial excitement, they decided to guard the gold till nightfall when they would carry their booty home without any interference. While two guarded the gold the third was sent to go to the nearest village to buy food.



As soon as the food buyer left, the two guards plotted to kill him on arrival so they would share the gold. As he went, he thought of having all the gold to himself. He decided to kill his two friends. Having bought the food, he ate his and laced the rest with poison. Although I watched this play about fifty years ago, I still have a vivid mental picture of all three friends dead on the stage. Greed!



Laziness



Many years ago, the song of the year was Sika y3 mogya, (money is blood/life). Unfortunately, some Ghanaians do not put in the hard work needed to make money legitimately. Ghanaian society respects rich people irrespective of how they came by the money. Therefore, people demand bribes and steal fearlessly.



Conclusion



Greed has been the bane of many societies including ours. It is the foundation on which corruption is built with the evil fruits of despicable language, stealing, bribery and corruption, violence and murders. The accompanying arrogance is amazing.



To our leaders and also the led, remember Chaucers quote that greed is the root of all evil. Perhaps, we must learn from animals. Remember, we are ordinary mortals whose lives will end someday. So, why the greed?



To develop as a nation, we must exorcise greed and be content with what we work hard for legitimately.



Fellow Ghanaians, WAKE UP!















Source: Brig Gen Dan Frimpong (Rtd)/ [email protected]









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After setting in motion the process to take control of Mumbai International Airport Limited (MAIL), Gautam Adani has made a dramatic climbfrom a newbie to becoming the second-biggest airport operator in the countryall in less than two years.

Along with Mumbai, the billionaire-entrepreneur has also won concession agreements for six other airportsJaipur, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Mangaluru, Lucknow and Thiruvananthapuram.

Together, these airports handled nearly 80 million passengers in the financial year 2020, nearly a quarter of the country's total traffic of 341 million.

On August 31, the Ahmedabad-based entrepreneur's Adani Airport Holdings (AAHL) announced it will acquire a controlling interest in MIAL, and also take on the debt of GVK Airport Developers.

"The Adani Group will also take steps to complete the acquisition of a 23.5 percent equity stake from ACSA and Bidvest in MIAL for which it has obtained CCI approval," Adani Enterprises said in a BSE statement.

GVK Airport Developers, a subsidiary of GVK Group, owns a 50.5 percent stake in MIAL. Bidvest and Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) own 13.5 percent and 10 percent of MIAL, respectively.

The GMR Group is the biggest airport operator in the country that also operates the Delhi airport, which handled about 67 million passengers in the last financial year. Along with the Hyderabad airport that it runs, the southern city-based group handled nearly 89 million passengers in India in FY20.

But looking at Adani's quick rise, it is clear that GMR's run at the top faces a formidable challenge. AAHL will be among the frontrunners when the government puts more airports on the auction table.

Earlier this year, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said, "We have got many more airports lined updozens of them."

Airports that are next in line to be privatised include those in Raipur, Trichi, Varanasi and Bhubaneswar.

The GVK deal will also bring the upcoming Navi Mumbai Airport, which will add considerable numbers to Adani's business.

Also read: How Gautam Adani is turning his back on coal mining in his push for green energy

Ambitious plans

Giving a peek into the group' vision for its airport arm, Adani Enterprises' 2019-2020 annual report, says, "Our business model assures a hybrid revenue model including aero and non-aero revenue structure. With the non-aero revenue, we plan to develop Airport Villages that can tap into the non-passenger airport visitors."

Through the six airports it won through auction, the group already has access to over 225 acres. Pointing out that there is significant expansion potential, the company website talks about the "opportunity to expand combined capacity to over 100 million passengers in the next 10 years".

Adani has now already closed in on that mark, with the MIAL deal. There is opportunity for more. At present, regulator Airports Authority of India operates 136 airports. The number could go to up to 200 by 2040.

Earlier in August, The Economic Times reported that Adani could bring in Flughafen Munchen GmbH to run Ahmedabad, Mangaluru and Lucknow airports. Flughafen Munchen GmbH operates the Munich airport.

The companys airports business is headed by Ben Zandi, who took over as the chief executive in late 2019. Zandi was earlier head of Fraport AG, which runs the Frankfurt airport. The veteran came in after a short stint by Siddharth Kapur, the former senior GMR Group executive who quit within a year of joining AAHL.

Not a smooth ride

Despite the rapid rise, Adani's flight path will not be free of turbulence.

The rights to re-develop Thiruvananthapuram airport has been facing opposition from the state government headed by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Soon after the Union Cabinet cleared a proposal on August 19 to lease out three airports, including the one at Thiruvananthapuram, Vijayan shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the move was "against the wishes of people".

Vijayan accused the Centre of ignoring repeated requests from Kerala for entrusting the airport to a special purpose vehicle, with the state as a major stakeholder. Pointing out that litigation on the matter is pending before the Kerala High court, the Vijayan said, "It will be difficult for Kerala to offer cooperation for implementation of decision."

There will be competition to win rights for the upcoming airports too. One would be GMR and then there are international players such as Swiss firm Zurich Airport that overcame competition from Adani and Delhi International Airport Limited, operated by GMR, to win rights to develop the Jewar airport in Uttar Pradeshs Noida.

But with the momentum that he is on now, it is advantage Adani.
After growing pressure from Canberra and the business community, Premier Daniel Andrews has finally relented. On Sunday, he will offer up a plan for lifting the state out of its strict lockdown. The Age welcomes the decision, not just for Victorians but for the nation as a whole. When Prime Minister Scott Morrison's national cabinet first met in mid-March, the state and territory leaders were dealing with similar numbers of daily COVID-19 cases. While border restrictions have always been a bone of contention, more often than not the cabinet was able to come to a collective agreement on policy fronts. The pandemic delivered political unison across the aisle rarely seen in this country. The second surge of COVID-19 cases in Victoria has put enormous strain on that unison. As most Australians were having restrictions lifted, Melburnians in particular were confronted with tougher lockdown measures. This brought Australia's second-largest city to a grinding halt, with NAB predicting the state's economy could contract by as much as 9.2 per cent, equating to a $41 billion hit. As federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's growing frustration has made evident, the Victorian situation is going to have an enormous impact on the bottom line for all Australians. So when Mr Andrews fronts up to set a pathway to reopening the state's economy, he is in many respects offering the whole nation a glimpse of the possibilities ahead.

Once the threat of a large outbreak in Victoria has been downgraded, bringing the state back into line with the rest of Australia, this should provide the rationale for discussions towards reopening many of the borders. It should also re-energise talks with New Zealand for implementing a trans-Tasman travel bubble. Such a shift would offer some much-needed hope that domestic and a limited amount of international tourism could return. It would also provide enormous relief to the many people who rely on crossing borders for a living or who live near those borders. It would also be hoped the lessons learnt from the bungled hotel quarantine program in Victoria provide the basis for a more secure system. This would enable not only more Australians to return home from overseas, but offer more confidence that the trial bringing international university students back into South Australia will work and can be extended to all capital cities. Once Victoria does gets its infection rates back to daily numbers in the single digits, NSW should provide an exemplary case study in how to manage future COVID-19 outbreaks, as it has managed to keep a tight rein on its tally. And the Coalition will no longer have an excuse not to start rolling out the policy framework needed to revive the Australian economy. So when Mr Andrews stands at the podium this weekend and presents his blueprint for gradually removing restrictions in Victoria, all Australians should tune in. It has often been said that "we" are all in this crisis together. For the past few weeks, as Melburnians have been forced to stay home or close by, this has clearly not been the case.
Chris Celmer, Harrisburg School Districts acting superintendent, provided the following statement in regards to the death of 16-year-old Kyan King, who was shot and killed Saturday afternoon.

It is with great sadness, anger, shock, and sympathy that the Harrisburg School District acknowledges the tragic death of another young scholar taken away from us way too soon. Kyan King was a 10th-grade student at Harrisburg High School, John Harris Campus, Celmer said in a release sent out Sunday night. This horrific and brutal act of violence is difficult to process and even harder for our staff, students and families to understand how this could happen.

In addition to Kyans family, our hearts go out to the John Harris team and others that knew, taught, and/or supported Kyan during his time with us. Kyan will be greatly missed.

Celmer said that beginning Monday, the school districts administrative team will have virtual supports, counselors, and its Student Assistant Team members available remotely to provide grief support and assistance. The district also will release additional information regarding counseling services, he said, adding that families can contact Dauphin County Crisis Intervention 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 717.232.7511.

The Harrisburg School District joins with the Harrisburg community in keeping the King family in our thoughts and prayers during this unimaginable time of heartache and sorrow, he said.
Upcoming political events in the Bay Area. Events take place online unless otherwise noted:

WEDNESDAY

Rep. Barbara Lee: Oakland Democrat holds a town hall meeting on reopening schools in the Alameda County. 4 p.m. Join meeting here.

THURSDAY

Racism in the Castro: San Francisco Pride and the Commonwealth Club host a discussion on racism and discrimination in San Franciscos Castro neighborhood as part of the Lavender Talks series. Noon. More information is here.

Libertarian vice-presidential candidate: Spike Cohen, vice presidential nominee on the Libertarian Party ticket, holds a meet-and-greet event. 4:30 p.m., Empowerment Park, 462 Bellevue Park, Oakland. More information is here.

SATURDAY

Anti-Trump protest: A rally and march against President Trump. Organized by Refuse Fascism Bay Area. Noon. Gather at Market and Steuart streets in San Francisco and march to City Hall. More information is here.

TUESDAY

Erin Brockovich: Activist discusses how people and communities can take collective action to safeguard the environment. Hosted by the Commonwealth Club. 9:30 a.m. More information is here.

John Bolton: President Trumps former national security adviser talks about the administration and his new book, The Room Where It Happened. Hosted by the Commonwealth Club. 10:30 a.m. More information is here.

Populism and nationalism: How right-wing populism boosts once-marginalized threats like white supremacy and anti-immigration fervor. A discussion with Lawrence Rosenthal, founder of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies, and Arlie Hochschild, UC Berkeley professor emerita and author of Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. Hosted by the Commomwealth Club. 12:30 p.m. More information is here.

Sen. Chris Murphy: Connecticut Democrat discusses his book The Violence Inside Us: A Brief History of an Ongoing American Tragedy. Hosted by the Commonwealth Club. 5 p.m. More information is here.

SEPT. 9

Atomic bombings legacy: Former Gov. Jerry Brown and Lesley Blume, author of Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World, discuss the legacy of the U.S. nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hosted by the Commonwealth Club. Noon. More information is here.

Charles Munger Jr.: Activist on political reforms that work. Hosted by the Commonwealth Club. 12:30 p.m. More information is here.

Brian Stelter: CNN chief media correspondent on his new book, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, in conversation with Mother Jones editor in chief Clara Jeffery. Hosted by the Commonwealth Club. 3:30 p.m. More information is here.

S.F. D7 candidates: Candidates for San Francisco supervisor in District Seven  Emily Murase, Joel Engardio, Myrna Melgar and Vilaska Nguyen  in a debate hosted by sf.citi. 5 p.m. More information is here.

SEPT. 10

Niki Solis on Kamala Harris: San Francisco Deputy Public Defender Niki Solis on Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Solis was a manager in the public defenders office when Harris was San Francisco district attorney. Hosted by the Commonwealth Club. 10 a.m. More information is here.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Former White House press secretary and author of Speaking for Myself: Faith, Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Inside the Trump White House, in conversation at the Commonwealth Club. Noon. More information is here.

SEPT. 12

Flipping Texas: A Zoom event in support of Democratic candidates for the Texas state House, Sharon Hirsch and Akilah Bacy. Sponsored by Sister District CA Peninsula. 6 p.m. More information is here.

To list an event, please email Chronicle politics editor Trapper Byrne at tbyrne@sfchronicle.com
By PTI

WASHINGTON: US Vice President Mike Pence on Monday said the second term of President Donald Trump would see a reform in the country's broken immigration system, with a focus on the intake of immigrants on the basis of merit.

Acknowledging that there were challenges in the country's immigration system, he said that Trump, who is seeking re-election in the November 3 presidential election, has been working to secure the border and fix the broken immigration system.

"As the President and I have spoken many times, part of that second term agenda is going to be the kind of immigration reform that's built on the principle of a merit-based immigration system," he said during a virtual event on the US-India organised by the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), a non-profit organisation.

ALSO READ | Best yet to come for India and US: Mike Pence as he calls Trump, PM Modi 'larger than life figures'

He said that President Trump wants to fix the broken immigration system.

"We want people to come to this country that are ready to participate, ready to contribute as people from India have done as people in the United States have done," he said.

"So, I just want the rising generation in India and Indian business leaders, men and women, who are looking to make investments in this country to know that America it's not only open for business but we look forward to growing the relationship between our two countries for decades to come," Pence said.

Pence said the four million members of the Indian diaspora across the US represent some of the best people in this country and they're creating wealth and prosperity.

He said they have made enormous contributions in the incredible relationship that they have helped to facilitate and forage between the United States and India.

Immigration has been a very critical agenda of the Trump campaign and his presidency, with Trump asserting throughout that as the American President he will ensure job security and safety for American citizens first.

As job losses mounted and the American economy suffered due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump ordered some stringent immigration restrictions, including suspending the H-1B visas, which is popular among Indian IT professionals, along with other foreign work visas for the rest of the year.

Trump has said the step was essential to help millions of Americans who have lost their jobs due to the current economic crisis.

Trump issued the proclamation in June, ahead of the presidential election in which he is being challenged by Democratic Party's nominee and former vice president Joe Biden.

"In the administration of our nation's immigration system, we must remain mindful of the impact of foreign workers on the The United States labour market, particularly in the current extraordinary environment of high domestic unemployment and depressed demand for labour," said the proclamation issued by Trump.

Indian IT workers form the majority of H-1B visa holders in the US and have to wait decades for a Green Card due to the huge backlog.
VACAVILLE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / Athena Silver Corporation (OTCQB:AHNR) ("Athena") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding letter of intent ("LOI") with Nubian Resources Ltd. ("Nubian") (TSX VENTURE:NBR) for Athena to acquire Nubian's Excelsior Springs exploration project located in Esmeralda County, Nevada, USA ( "Excelsior Springs" or the "Property"). Nubian will retain a 1% NSR on the Property and Athena will have the right to purchase 0.5% for $500,000 and the remaining 0.5% at fair market value. The completion of the transaction is conditional upon Nubian obtaining the prior approval of the transaction from the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") and any other approvals required under applicable laws.

Under the terms of the LOI, Athena has paid a $10,000 deposit to Nubian for an exclusive 90-day due diligence period during which time Nubian and Athena have agreed to finalize definitive agreements with respect to the transaction, and Athena will make an application for listing on a Canadian stock exchange and will raise a minimum of US$750,000. On closing, Athena will have a maximum of 75 million common shares outstanding and will issue Nubian 50 million common shares valued at $0.05 per share, representing an approximate 40% interest in Athena. Nubian has agreed to a hold period of six months from the date of issuance of the Athena consideration shares. Nubian intends to distribute all or a portion of the Athena consideration shares received by it to its shareholders following the closing of the transaction as a return of capital. Any such distribution of Athena shares would be subject to Nubian obtaining the prior approval from Nubian shareholders and any required approvals of the TSXV.

Athena plans make Excelsior Springs its flagship project and will commission an updated N.I. 43-101 Technical Report to support its planned listing on a Canadian Stock Exchange that will also detail past work and drill programs and highlight future exploration plans to advance the Property.

John Power, President and CEO of Athena, stated, "The potential acquisition of Excelsior Springs gives us the opportunity to build value with this advanced stage gold exploration property in Nevada, one of the world's best mining jurisdictions, and provides excellent diversification from our prior focus on the Calico Mining (Silver) District in California."

"The prior work and drill campaigns undertaken at Excelsior Springs provides a great foundation to quickly advance the project which we believe has the potential to host one or more open-pittable gold deposits along with higher grade veins that could be mined underground," added Power.

About Excelsior Springs Gold Project, Esmeralda County, Nevada

The Excelsior Springs mining claims cover an area of 3.5 square kilometres including the historic Buster mine, which has past production of about 15,000 tonnes (t) at 37 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au) to a maximum depth of 70 metres (m). The Property is located in the Walker-Lane tectonic zone of southern Nevada, which hosts a number of large historic gold mines. Total gold production from the zone exceeded 20 million ounces (Moz), with notable deposits including Goldfield (5Moz), Bullfrog (2Moz), Tonopah (2Moz), Mineral Ridge (1.5Moz) and Comstock (8Moz Au, 200Moz Ag). Nubian owns 100% of the 140 unpatented claims at Excelsior Springs with two additional leased patented claims that are subject to a 2% NSR on gold production.

From the mid 1980s through 2009, a number of exploration companies conducted drilling programs, primarily on the patented claims, that began to define the near-surface Buster Mine gold zone. Gold mineralization at the Property occurs within an east-west trending zone that is 200-400m wide and at least 3km long.

The most recent exploration work in 2011 included 3,657m of RC drilling with significant intercepts from that drilling program highlighted below:

GE08: 7.6m at 5.1g/t Au from 93.0m

GE14: 7.6m at 2.9g/t Au from 19.8m

GE02: 3.0m at 4.7g/t Au from 0m

GE19: 6.1m at 1.9g/t Au from 117.3m and

GE15: 13.7m at 0.8g/t Au from 61.0m

Gold mineralization discovered at Excelsior to date occurs in quartz vein stock-works and silicified zones in hornfels and calc-silicate altered country rock and generally close to porphyry dykes. The best mineralization (grade and thickness) is found in altered sediments immediately above porphyry dykes that have intruded along existing east and east-northeast trending faults. The mineralized stock-work vein zones are shallow and have a relatively flat plunge, making them amenable to open pit mining methods, if economic zones are outlined.

Exploration to date has focused on a 2.5 km long section in the central part of the zone where mineralization is at or near the surface. Surface mapping and an Induced Polarization (IP) geophysical survey identified multiple zones of silicification that correlate well with the known mineralization. Many of the silicified zones defined by the IP (resistivity highs) have not been tested by drilling and remain targets for future exploration, approximately 4km of the zone is concealed beneath thin transported cover.

A National Instrument 43-101 technical report was filed on SEDAR by Nubian on Excelsior Springs in 2010.

About Athena Silver Corporation

Athena is focused on the exploration and development of precious metals in the Western United States. Its core holding is 36 unpatented claims totaling over 720 acres located in the Historic Calico Mining District in San Bernardino County, California. Athena's unpatented claims are located adjacent to the historic silver deposits known as Langtry and Pan American Silver's Waterloo. Athena also owns more than 800 acres of investment property in San Bernardino County, California and has an option to acquire a 1% royalty on the Langtry Silver Deposit.

For more information: John Power, President, 707-291-6198.

Cautionary Statement

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission permits mining companies, in their filings with the SEC, to disclose only those mineral deposits that a company can legally extract or produce. Under SEC Industry Guide 7 standards, a "final" or "bankable" feasibility study is required to report reserves. Currently we have not delineated "reserves" on any of our properties. We cannot be certain that any deposits at our properties will ever be confirmed or converted into SEC Industry Guide 7 compliant "reserves." Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of any "resource" estimates will ever be confirmed or converted into reserves or that they can be economically or legally extracted.

Forward Looking Statements

This release contains "forward-looking statements." Such statements are based on good faith assumptions that Athena Silver Corporation believes are reasonable but which are subject to a wide range of uncertainties and business risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed, projected or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated are discussed in Athena Silver Corporation's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE: Athena Silver Corp

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/603966/Athena-Silver-Enters-Into-Agreement-to-Acquire-Advanced-Stage-Gold-Exploration-Project-in-Nevada
There is no Black Panther without Denzel Washington, Boseman continued in his AFI address. And not just because of me but my whole cast. That generation stands on your shoulders. The daily battles won, the thousand territories gained, the many sacrifices you made for the culture on film sets through your career, the things you refused to compromise along the way, laid the blueprints for us to follow.
More than 27,700 Ethiopian migrants have been repatriated since April this year amid the coronavirus pandemic, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

Between April 1 and August 27, Ethiopia received over 27,700 returnees, reports Xinhua news agency.

The returnees comprised 6,944 from Djibouti, 6,696 from Somalia, and 5,329 from Sudan, the UN migration agency said in its latest Covid-19 response update for Ethiopia on Saturday.

The IOM also noted that it has registered some 912 new migrant returnees in the last week in Ethiopia.

As the designated lead agency for supporting the Ethiopian government in the management of migrant returnees, the IOM stressed that it has continued to support the government in coordinating support for quarantine facilities in Addis Ababa and the regions, with 35 in total.

The UN migration agency also revealed that it has provided Covid-19 screening for 2,732 individuals in quarantine facilities and government health posts.

Also Watch:

In coordination with Ethiopias Disaster Prevention and Food Security Program Coordination Office, the IOM has also provided orientation on coronavirus preventative measures and provided personal protective equipment to volunteers working in arrival areas for migrant returnees.

Amid the rapid spread of the virus in the East African country and the eventual preventive measures to contain the spread of the virus, the UN migration agency provides direct assistance to returnee migrants in quarantine facilities, including registration, food, water and onward transportation assistance.

It also distributes non-food items in quarantine facilities in the capital, Addis Ababa and across various regional states, including soaps, dignity kits, medications, kitchen sets, clothes, bed sheets and mattresses.

Ethiopias confirmed Covid-19 cases have reached 48,140 as the death toll rose to 758, according to the Ministry of Health.
Notes from Indian Country

An ex-Marine and his Sicangu wife

Charlie Baca was an ex-Marine. He served honorably in Vietnam. After he came home he met Helen Felix , a lady from Rosebud and my very best advertising sales person at Indian Country Today, the newspaper I owned back then.

With Charlie and Helen it was love at first sight. They got married in the newsroom of the newspaper and I gave Helen away. Charlie Baca was proud of his time in the Marine Corps.

One time I sent him and Helen to set up a booth at the Denver March Powwow. Between the two of them they made it the most financially successful time we ever had a booth there. It worked so well because Charlie was like a carnival barker. And Helen was just as enthusiastic. Charlie put on a vest with his Marine Corps badge on it and even pinned his medals to it. He would get out in front of the booth, catch powwow attendees passing by and regale them about the quality of our newspaper, handing out free papers. And when they got back to Rapid City they had a list of 120 new subscribers they had signed up.

Tim Giago. Photo courtesy Native Sun News Today

That proud ex-Marine discovered that his long stay in Vietnam had been a dangerous one. He came down with a case of cancer caused by a chemical called Agent Orange. The U. S. Government was spraying it on the jungles to kill off the foliage therefore making it more difficult for the Viet Cong to find shelter. At least that was the theory. Charlie said that there were times when they were out on patrol and planes would fly over spraying Agent Orange all around them. He said that sometimes his fatigues were wet with it.

One winter we decided to do a tabloid newspaper we would call Hitting the Powwow Circuit. I put Helen in charge of it. She got lists of every powwow in the United States that she could find and then got on the phone and started selling. Helen loved talking to her customers. She always mixed in a little of the Lakota language when she was selling. One customer who advertised his powwow said he was sold when she talked to him in Lakota even though he couldnt understand what she said. It was just the thrill of hearing a Native language that sold him.

The powwow circuit tab we put out in early spring was 60 pages thick and was more than 80 percent advertising thanks to Helen. She even helped our staff writers learn about some of the intricacies of the different dances. And so we had a tab that for the first time explained the meaning of the traditional and more modern dances.

In the meantime Charlie was fighting his biggest battle against the Agent Orange caused cancer. He even had to fight the Veterans Administration because they refused to admit that this Agent had caused the cancer. But Charlie wasnt the only one. The chemical caused cancer began to pop up all over the U. S. among veterans of Vietnam.

It was a battle he eventually lost. Helen was devastated by the loss. She continued to work at the newspaper in order to keep her life going. But she was so sad and it changed her. And then she discovered she had an advanced case of diabetes. This disease that has decimated so many Native people took its toll on her . Like her husband Charlie, she put up a gallant fight but it was a fight she did not win.

Charlie and Helen Baca will forever be embedded in my thoughts. Two finer people I will never know. I pray that they finally joined hands again on their journey to the Spirit World. Hoka Hey, Helen, and Semper Fi, Charle.

Tim Giago can be contacted at najournalist1@email.com

Note: Content  Tim Giago

Join the Conversation
A tenant, Adekunle Adeyemi, has gone into hiding after allegedly stabbing a co-tenant, Stanley Dickson, to death in the Grammar School area of Ikorodu, Lagos State.

Punch Metro gathered that Stanley accused Adekunle of having an illicit affair with the wife of another neighbour, Arinze Onuoha, who confronted him with the accusation.

During the confrontation, it was learnt that an argument ensued between Adekunle and Arinze, but Stanley, who informed Arinze of the alleged affair with his wife, Chisom, was not at home.

Adekunle was said to have threatened to confront Stanley with the accusation on his return from work in the evening.

A resident of the area, Ibidunni Adegoke, said during a visit to the area on Sunday that when both Adekunle and Stanley returned from work in the evening, they had a confrontation, which degenerated into a fight, adding that when the fight broke out, Adekunle allegedly stabbed Stanley to death.

She said, The victim (Stanley) went to report his neighbours wife, Chisom, to her mother-in-law that another neighbour, Adekunle, was having sexual relations with her. From what we gathered, all of them live in the same building and Adekunle had been assisting Chismo with money to feed her family whenever her husband, Arinze, did not provide money for them to feed.

So, because of that, he concluded that they were in a relationship and went ahead to inform Arinzes mother. When Arinze was informed, he had a shouting match with Adekunle, who later got to know that Stanley was the person, who accused him of having an affair with the woman. So, Adekunle left for work but promised to have a word with Stanley when he returned.

In the evening, when both of them had returned from work, an argument ensued between Adekunle and Stanley and it degenerated into a fight. When Adekunle was overpowering Stanley, the latter instructed his wife in Igbo language to bring a knife, which he used in stabbing Adekunles leg. Adekunle later dispossessed him of the knife and used it to stab Stanley in the chest. After stabbing him, he pinned Stanley to the ground until he died.

Another resident, Omotola Aderibigbe, said the fight took place in Stanleys room, adding that after he was killed, Adekunle absconded and other residents, who were afraid of being arrested in connection with the incident, also fled the home.

He said, The fight happened around 2am; so, when Adekunle realised that Stanley had died, he came out of the room, threatened everyone not to move close to him, instructed his wife to help him get something and fled from home. It was people in the area who informed the police and when they came, they arrested Adekunles wife and took the corpse away.

Other residents have deserted the house because all of them are scared because of what happened.

The bus used by Stanley for commercial transportation when he was alive was seen by Punch correspondent where it was parked at the scene of the incident.

When contacted, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Bala Elkana, said the case had been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Panti, Yaba, for discreet investigation, adding that a manhunt had been launched for Adekunle.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
(Natural News) Based on the latest data from Johns Hopkins University, the global caseload for COVID-19 is now over 24 million, with around 824,000 deaths  and six reinfections.

After health officials in Hong Kong reported the worlds first coronavirus reinfection on Monday, similar reports have emerged from around the world. The Netherlands is the latest country to confirm reinfections, as the countrys National Institute for Public Health and the Environment reported at least four reinfections Wednesday.

Belgium also reported a confirmed case late Monday, just after Hong Kongs announcement. Taken together, this brings the total number of reinfections to six worldwide.

Dutch reinfections are all mild, say authorities

Dutch health authorities report that all four reinfections appear to be mild cases. However, all four patients are over the age of 60, which increases their risk of developing severe COVID-19 symptoms. The period between the initial infection and the reinfection, according to experts, ranged from weeks to months apart.

The first patient reinfected by COVID-19 in the country is an older adult with a weakened immune system and preexisting conditions, reported local broadcaster NOS, citing virus expert Marion Koopmans of the Erasmus University Medical Center.

Its common for COVID-19 patients to remain infected for a long time, Koopmans added. In this case, patients often feel mild symptoms before the disease flares up again. But a reinfection, such as those seen in Hong Kong and the Netherlands, requires experts to test both instances of the infection, looking at potential differences in the virus between the first and second infections.

That someone would pop up with a reinfection, it doesnt make me nervous, she said. We have to see whether it happens often.

Health authorities also confirmed another reinfection, this time in a nursing home patient. According to Harald Wychgel, spokesperson for the Dutch agency, the person developed the reinfection roughly two months after his initial infection and is still alive today.

The remaining two cases are in Tilburg, a city two hours away from Amsterdam. In both cases, the reinfection was mild and both patients are still alive, said Dr. Jean Luc Murk, a clinical microbiologist at St. Elisabeth Hospital in Tilburg. The first reinfection in the city was a man infected by COVID-19 during the spring but was discharged later on. The man returned weeks later, reporting that he had difficulty breathing and had developed profuse diarrhea. He tested positive again for COVID-19, roughly three weeks after his initial diagnosis.

Murk knew that patients often test positive for COVID-19 weeks, even months, after an initial infection. In most cases, another positive test could mean that the infection is still waning or that there are still dead virus particles in the body. In South Korea, reports of recovered COVID-19 patients testing positive again for the virus caused an uproar in May. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later said that the cases were testing flukes and not reinfections.

In this case, however, the genetic makeup of the viruses in the first and second infections was markedly different.

Apparently, within this period of three or four weeks, this patient had contracted a second variant of the coronavirus, he added.

On Monday, a 33-year old man in Hong Kong became the worlds first documented case of COVID-19 reinfection. The man, who was first infected with the coronavirus four months ago, was confirmed to have been reinfected after researchers found significant differences in the genetic code of the virus of the first and second infection. The man apparently picked up the coronavirus during a trip to Spain; it was detected after a test was administered at the airport  meaning he was infected with a new virus strain.

According to Jeffrey Shaman, a public health expert at Columbia University in New York, the reinfections shouldnt be a cause for alarm at this point. This is because reinfections represent a relatively smaller percentage of the global COVID-19 caseload.

However, it remains very, very concerning  and this does nothing to dispel that  that we may be subject to repeat infection with this virus, he said.

Pandemic.news has more on the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

Sources include:

Coronavirus.JHU.edu

BusinessInsider.com

DW.com

NYTimes.com
The 3rd night of the Republican National Convention was filled with numerous emotional testimonies and speeches by individuals who believed the country should vote for President Trump in the next presidential election.

The first speech was given by Tera Myers, a School choice advocate; and a mother to Samuel, her son born with Down Syndrome. After Myers having ignored suggestions of abortion from doctors, she praised President Trump as she was "thankful that President Trump values the life of the unborn." Tera Myers also recalled the President telling her, "wonderful job, mom," and "your son is amazing." She spoke to President Trump's willingness to give Samuel "an equal seat at the table."

Clarence Henderson, a civil rights activist, shared a pre-recorded video during the RNC. Henderson began with a recollection of his life during the civil rights movement. He then stated that "Donald Trump truly cares about black lives," referring to the record number of jobs created for the black community, the investments driven into black neighborhoods with tax incentives, and the criminal justice reform that released many incarcerated black citizens.

We also heard from Chen Guancheng, a blind Chinese dissident. He explained how the Chinese Community Party has prosecuted, beaten, and arrested him for speaking against China's one-child policy. He later escaped, to be given shelter at the American embassy in Beijing. Guancheng showed great appreciation for President Trump and America while calling for "other countries to join [President Donald Trump] in this fight," against China's Communist Party.

Next to share their story was Sam Vigil, a widower who lost his wife in a senseless shooting in his driveway last November. His wife was killed while in her car before the perpetrators drove off. After spending 8 months without any news, President Trump's Operation Legend in July helped arrest five men in connection to the shooting within days after the FBI took over the case.

The final notable speech was given by Sister Deirdre "Dede" Byrne, who is also a retired army officer who served 29 years. She spoke on behalf of the unborn, labeling them as "the largest marginalized group in the world." She continued to speak against abortion and "a legislative agenda that supports or even celebrates destroying life in the womb." She shared that the laws we live by "define how we see our humanity."
A controlling 74% stake in Mumbai International Airport, together with the six non-metro airports it bagged in a government tender, will make Adani Group the largest private operator of airports in India

New Delhi: Billionaire Gautam Adani''s conglomerate on Monday said it will take controlling stake in Mumbai airport through deals in which it will acquire the debt of current promoter GVK and buy out minority shareholders.

Adani Group will acquire GVK Airport Developers Ltd's 50.50 percent stake as well as buyout 23.5 percent stake of Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) and Bidvest Group (for which it has obtained Competition Commission of India approval), it said in a regulatory filing.

A controlling 74 percent stake in Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL), together with the six non-metro airports it bagged in a government tender, will make Adani Group the largest private operator of airports in India.

The state-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) runs most of the airports in the country.

Adani Airport Holdings will acquire the debt of GVK Airport Developers, the holding company of GVK Power and Infrastructure, the filing said.

The debt will be converted into equity at mutually-agreed terms, GVK said in a separate filing.

This conversion would lead to Adani Group getting all of 50.5 percent stake of GVK Group.

The two firms did not give details of the deal including the debt that Adani is taking over and the terms of conversion.

After seaports, Adani Group is betting big on the airport sector and has won the bids to run six AAI-built non-metro airports in Lucknow, Jaipur, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, and Mangalore. It has now entered the country's second busiest airport.

The move comes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has hit brakes on the aviation sector.

"The aviation industry has been severely impacted by COVID-19, setting it back by many years and has impacted the financials of MIAL," GVK Chairman GVK Reddy said in a statement. "It was therefore important that we bring in a financially strong investor in the shortest possible time."

GMR Infrastructure is the other big private airport operator in the country. GMR, which operates the international airport in New Delhi, is also selling a 49 percent stake in the airport business to a consortium led by Tata Group, a unit of Singapore''s sovereign wealth fund GIC and SSG Capital Management.

"Mumbai, the City of Dreams! It is a privilege to have an opportunity to serve the air travelers of one of the greatest Metropolis on our planet," Gautam Adani, 58, tweeted.

Mumbai, the City of Dreams! It is a privilege to have an opportunity to serve the air travelers of one of the greatest Metropolis on our planet. #GatewaytoGoodness - Look forward to helping transform the Indian Airport Sector!  Gautam Adani (@gautam_adani) August 31, 2020

GVK also said it has separately terminated a Rs 7,614-crore investment agreement with Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board, and state-owned National Investment & Infrastructure Fund (NIIF).

In October last year, debt-laden GVK Group had entered into an agreement to sell 79 percent of its stake in GVK Airport Holdings for Rs 7,614 crore to three investors to help retire debt.

"Adani Airport Holdings intends to infuse funds into MIAL to ensure it receives much-needed liquidity and also achieves financial closure of Navi Mumbai International Airport to be able to commence construction," Adani Enterprises, the promoter of Adani Airport Holdings, said.

"The GVK Group and AAHL have agreed that AAHL will offer a stand-still to GVK, in addition, to release the guarantee given by GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd with respect to the debt acquired by it," the company said in the filing.

"Upon the acquisition of the debt of GVK Airport Developers, Adani Group will take steps to obtain necessary customary and regulatory approvals, as may be required, to acquire controlling interest in MIAL," it said.

GVK said it has "agreed to cooperate with Adani Airport Holdings Ltd (AAHL)" under which the Adani Group firm will acquire debt from various lenders including a Goldman Sachs led consortium and HDFC.

"When the transaction is consummated, which is subject to customary approvals, we would be reducing a significant portion of liabilities to our lenders, which is of utmost importance to the group," GVK Reddy said.

Adani Group had in March 2019 agreed to acquire a 13.5 percent stake of South African company, Bidvest for Rs 1,248 crore. However, GVK Group blocked the deal claiming the right of first refusal.

GVK, however, could not bring money to the table to buy Bid Services Division Mauritius'' (Bidvest) stake and the matter went to court.

With GVK Group's finances under strain, it has now come around to the idea of selling the stake to Adani Group.

ACSA owns 10 percent in MIAL and the balance 26 percent stake is held by the AAI.

GVK said has "notified ADIA, NIIF, and PSP that the transaction documents stand terminated as it is no longer effective and implementable."

"The reason for this decision was (a) the terms of the transaction envisaged in the transaction documents were not implementable and (b) the alternative proposals discussed would not provide a resolution to the lenders of ADL by the end of August, which was a requirement of our lenders," it added.

The deal comes after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) earlier this month charged the GVK Group with siphoning off funds totaling Rs 705 crore. It is charged with causing a loss of Rs 310 crore to the exchequer by entering into fake work contracts on the land given by the government to MIAL.
PITTSBURGH: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Monday called for rioters and looters to be prosecuted, and slammed President Donald Trump for stoking violence in American cities gripped by protests over police brutality and racial inequality.

Bidens speech in battleground state Pennsylvania was his most forceful counter yet to accusations by Trump that he is weak on crime and that leaders in his Democratic Party have lost control over the mass demonstrations that in some instances have turned violent.

Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting," Biden said from a converted steel mill in Pittsburgh. Its lawlessness, plain and simple, and those who do it should be prosecuted."

Trump, who trails his rival in opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 3 election, has argued he stands for law and order." The theme featured prominently at his nominating convention last week as he sought to motivate his political base and broaden his support.

Republicans deny Trump is seeking to exacerbate violence with incendiary rhetoric. But Biden on Monday said Trump was sowing chaos.

This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country," Biden said. He cant stop the violence because for years he has fomented it."

Trump, noting he had watched Bidens remarks, said in a tweet afterward that the former vice president seemed to blame police more than the Rioters, Anarchists, Agitators, and Looters."

Biden has repeatedly condemned disorder at demonstrations but has defended peaceful protesters, arguing justice must be served in cases of unwarranted police violence."

Biden pushed back on Republican assertions that he catered to his partys most liberal members.

Ask yourself, do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?" Biden asked.

SWING STATE

Bidens visit to Pennsylvania, an important swing state that helped propel Trump to victory in 2016, marked an unusual trip afield for the former vice president, who has worked mostly from his Delaware home since March, when the coronavirus began spreading widely in the country.

His campaign has indicated that Biden expects to increase his travel to the states that will decide the election as the vote draws nearer. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are both due to campaign in Pennsylvania this week.

In Pittsburgh, Biden depicted an America that was unsafe under Trump, with COVID-19 killing thousands of people a week and an economy in tatters.

He said he wanted a country safe from the coronavirus, crime, racially motivated violence and bad cops."

And lets be crystal clear: Safe from four more years of Donald Trump," he said.

Samuel DeMarco, the Republican chairman in Allegheny County, where Biden was speaking, said his speech showed desperation."

We have violent protests for 90 some days and now hes going to address it and try to blame Trump. Good luck with that," he said.

Demonstrations have swept the United States since the killing in May of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

New protests erupted in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last week following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, another African-American man, multiple times in front of his children, paralyzing him.

Tensions between rival protest groups have led to more shooting deaths. Last week, a white teenager was charged with shooting three demonstrators, two fatally, in Kenosha, and a clash in Portland, Oregon, over the weekend resulted in a fatal shooting.

Trump is set to visit Kenosha on Tuesday, but Democrats including the states governor have urged him to stay away.

The White House said it is making efforts to reach Blakes family but has been unable to connect.

Biden has been in touch with Blakes family. As he delivered pizzas to firefighters in Pittsburgh on Monday, Biden told reporters he hoped to visit Wisconsin soon.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Countries are now racing to produce a vaccine against COVID-19. Credit: Vesna Harni from Pixabay

A mad race to produce a vaccine against COVID-19 has begun with the world's superpowers leading the pack. At stake are millions of lives and billions of dollars.

Among the frontrunners is the US with its futuristic-sounding Operation Warp Speed. Europe and China also have their own leading candidate vaccines. As the race heats up, cheering and waiting on the sidelines for the crumbs are the less developed Asian, African and South American countries, where most of the clinical trials for the vaccines will be or are being conducted already.

Normally, it takes at least four years to develop a vaccine before it is marketed. But in the COVID-19 age, health experts are optimistically predicting a vaccine in one year or less. There is a sense of urgency and we hope for an early breakthrough.

Meanwhile, at the head of the line waiting for the vaccine, expected to be ready by the end of the year, are the populations of the Western countries. They are, of course, the priority for their governments which funded the research in the first place.

Developing world as trial labs

Poor Asian countries and the rest of the developing world, unfortunately, have to wait at the end of the line. That is why some of them have agreed to be guinea pigs for the vaccine trials in the hope that they will be given preference when the vaccines are rolled out for use. Beggars cannot be choosers.

Mid-August President Rodrigo Duterte committed the Philippines to participate in the phase 3 trials of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine. Joining the Philippines in the clinical trials are Saudi Arabia and the UAE. However, the Philippine President's rash acceptance of the Russian offer of clinical trials in the country might be a catastrophic mistake because the Russian project is suspect.

Indonesia has started a late-stage human trial of a Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccine that will involve as many as 1,620 patients. No less than the Indonesian President Joko Widodo launched the trial at a ceremony in Bandung, West Java, in mid-August.

The Indonesian decision to be a clinical trial partner with China might be a better bet because China is a leader in the race to produce a vaccine.

The vaccine candidate produced by Sinovac Biotech is among the few in the world to enter phase 3 clinical trials, or large-scale testing on humansthe last step before regulatory approval. CoronaVac, is undergoing a late-stage trial in Brazil and Sinovac expects to test it in Bangladesh also.

Asia is the favorite destination of drug manufacturers for clinical trials for several reasons. Among them are medical expertise in specific therapeutic areas, availability of vast patient pools, excellent laboratories and infrastructure, comparable quality and lower costs. Another factor is comparable incidence and prevalence of Western diseases.

There is likewise worldwide data acceptability. Data from clinical trials in Asia are routinely accepted by the regulatory agenciesUS Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA). Also, the costs in Asia for procedures, diagnostic tests and visits are generally 30-40 percent lower than in the US and Europe.

Science must trump politics

As the race heats up, a word of caution is in order. Scientists must not sacrifice scientific integrity for politics but should follow the strict protocols for scientific research and production. Governments must put science over politics in the race to the vaccine.

Safety and effectiveness are crucial to vaccine development. A blunder in the clinical trials caused by rushing procedures, for example, could lead to deaths that will set back research and development by many years.

As it is, there is already "vaccine hesitancy" among the public everywhere, especially among the uninformed. Polls show that US citizens have become less confident about the safety of vaccines.

Polling by the opinion and data company YouGov in May found 55 percent of US adults saying that they would get a COVID-19 vaccine. By the end of July, that figure had dropped to 41 percentwell below the 6070 percent experts think will be needed to achieve "herd immunity."

There is also substantial skepticism against vaccines in other countries, according to a recent study by the Wellcome Trust. In France, less than half of people believe vaccines are safe. In Ukrainethe most skeptical country in the worldthe figure is just 29 percent. Let us not feed this vaccine hesitancy with instances of failure.

Who gets the vaccines first?

As the superpowers rush to the finish line, the rhetorical question arises: who gets the vaccines first? Rhetorical because, unless an international body intervenes, we know the poor will get it last. Some Asian and African countries have negotiated agreements, but not most of Asia and Africa. And even for those who negotiated for agreements, there are no guarantees, and whether the amount of doses that will be obtained will be enough to cover majority of the population.

Unless governments subsidize the vaccines partially or fully they will be unaffordable for the poor. Early reports say the Chinese vaccines will cost US$145 per shot in the open market, while those from Oxford, UK, will only cost US$4-10 because they will be subsidized. Some countries plan to provide free vaccinations, and even pay people to be vaccinated to ensure herd immunity, about 70-90 percent of the population.

There is hope on the horizon via COVAX, a consortium of 172 economies now being organized and "working with vaccine manufacturers to provide countries worldwide equitable access to safe and effective vaccines, once they are licensed and approved. It is the only global initiative that is working with governments and manufacturers to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are available worldwide to both higher-income and lower-income countries," say the organizers in a news release.

Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, one of the organizers of COVAX, says: "In the scramble for a vaccine, countries can... come together to participate in an initiative which is built on enlightened self-interest and also equity, leaving no country behind."

This is a welcome development and we hope it succeeds. May the best developed vaccines and humanity win. No shortcuts, please.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: Asia: Preferred Destination for Clinical Trials. Asia: Preferred Destination for Clinical Trials. frost-apac.com/BDS/whitepaper/Asia-Pacific %20Clinical%20Trials%20-%20White%20Paper%20-%20Frost%20&%20Sullivan.pdf

Provided by SciDev.Net
An investigation is underway after a shooting at an Arcadia house party left one man dead Sunday night. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

A shooting at an Arcadia house party left one man dead Sunday night, authorities said.

Gunfire broke out about 8:40 p.m. in the 2800 block of Caroline Way, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which is assisting Arcadia police in the investigation.

Responding officers found the victim, a 23-year-old man, on the rear patio of the home. He had been shot multiple times in the torso, authorities said.

Arcadia Police Lt. Kollin Cieadlo said the victim was taken to Huntington Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

"It looked like some type of argument led to a shooting," Cieadlo said.

The shooting took place during a house party attended by roughly 25 guests, he said, adding that "it looked like a rental."

Authorities have not yet disclosed the victim's name, but a family member identified him to KTLA-TV Channel 5 as Gustavo Lopez of Long Beach.

Officials have not yet publicly identified a suspect. Another 23-year-old man, who authorities described as a person of interest, was detained for questioning and later arrested by the Arcadia Police Department on unrelated charges, sheriff's officials said.

The incident is the latest in a string of shootings at house parties in Los Angeles County.

One person was killed and another injured last week when shots were fired at a party house in the upscale Beverly Crest neighborhood. Prior to the gunfire, 25 to 30 people were at the gathering, which was held in a short-term-rental home known for parties, according to Los Angeles Police Department Det. Meghan Aguilar.

Earlier this month, one woman was killed and four people were injured during a shooting at another party in Beverly Crest  at a mansion in the 13200 block of Mulholland Drive.

Five people also were taken to a hospital following a shooting at a large party in a warehouse in the Harbor Gateway area.

With bars, nightclubs and other nightlife spots closed amid coronavirus-related health orders, authorities say some Angelenos have turned to private parties as a substitute  even though such gatherings are prohibited.

Story continues

Health officials have repeatedly urged residents to avoid these kinds of parties, which heighten the risk of transmitting COVID-19.

Officials also have pledged stepped-up enforcement efforts to curtail the restricted revelry.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti has authorized the city to shut off water and power services at residences where such gatherings are held. Earlier this month, he ordered the power cut at a swanky residence on Appian Way in the Hollywood Hills that police say held parties in violation of public health orders.

Social media stars Bryce Hall and Blake Gray were charged in Los Angeles last week with misdemeanors in connection with parties thrown at the rental home.

City News Service contributed to this report.
Swaraj is my birthright and I will have it. - Lokmanya Tilak

The year was 1914. In the month of June, the first World War broke out. The Great War, as it was known, would go on to redefine the rest of twentieth century. The war would also rekindle a hope, a much-needed direction to the Congress nationalist movement that had long lost relevance since the partition of Bengal was called off by the British in 1911.

This period would also see the entry of the Mahatma in Indias quest for independence, the spurt in militant nationalism and the formation of the Hindu Mahasabha.

June, that year, also saw the release of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Six years of rigorous imprisonment at Mandalay  getting diabetes at prison  had mellowed the father of Indian unrest.

There was a raging debate around whether India was going to support the deployment of one million Indian troops by the British in World War I. Over a million Indian soldiers left for the shores of North Africa and Europe in the years to come.

Why would Indian lives be put at stake to defend the British imperialist interests, many would argue. However, the moderates believed that the support from Indians would serve as a token of loyalty and the British would pay back with a greater devolution of powers post World War. The moderates also feared that the British would come down heavily on the nationalists were they to foment unrest amongst the military and the masses.

Tilak, who was mostly at daggers with the moderates before his imprisonment, wanted to reconcile with them in order to get the Congress together. So Tilak pledged his allegiance to the British Crown. He used his oratory skills to find new recruits for fighting Britains war. All this was done in the hope that the British would grant India self-governance soon after the war ended.

At that time, none of the nationalists could foresee that their demand was rather naive. To secure colonial interests was one of the primary reasons why the European imperialist powers were at war.

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Before the Congress had officially been unified, Tilak along with Annie Besant started the Home Rule Leagues in 1915. They led the movement across the country in a bid to raise political consciousness of the masses and pressure the British for swaraj or home rule. It was in this regard that Tilak famously came up with the Swaraj is my birthright remark. Many moderate Congress leaders joined the agitation as well.

**********

While a surge of Home Rule League-led nationalism swept across India, there was a militant national movement that was gathering steam outside her shores. The Ghadar (Rebellion) Party was formed in 1913 by Indian revolutionaries comprising mostly of Punjabi farmers and former army-men who had migrated to the United States of America and Canada.

At the helm of the party affairs were some prominent leaders like Lala Har Dayal, Mohammed Barkatullah and Sohan Singh Bhakna.

Unlike the Home Rule League, the Ghadar Party saw the First World War as an opportune moment to catch the British off-guard and lead a mutiny within the British Indian Army. They decided to fund and provide ammunitions to local revolutionaries.

Soon after the First World War broke out, the party started reaching out to the British India military camps in Southeast Asia and in India. Thousands of men volunteered to go back to India in a bid to overthrow the British.

The party also rode on the resentment caused due to the horrendous Komagata Maru incident in 1914. Indians, mostly Sikhs, were asked to return on reaching Canada under the contentious Continuous Passage Act that was engineered to discriminate against the entry of the Asian origin immigrants.

On returning to the Kolkata Port, an argument ensued between the British India officials and passengers on board. Subsequently, the protesters were fired upon and 20 people lost their lives.

The party was quick to act on the outrage that gripped India following the incident. February 21,1915 was decided as the date to bring about an armed revolt in Punjab. However, the British got a whiff of it and successfully crushed it.

Many Ghadarities in Punjab and rebel soldiers were hanged, imprisoned and killed. Inspired by the Ghadar struggle, 700 men of the 5th Light Infantry at Singapore revolted unsuccessfully. Their movement was crushed and many of them were publicly executed.

Lala Hardayal and a few Ghadarities reached out to Britains arch-rivals Germany during the same period. As United States of America entered the First World War to join hands with Britain and France, the Ghadar movement in the United States was crushed around 1917. Anti-German sentiments were on the rise in the US.

The Ghadar Partys link with the Germans in order to destroy allies Britain werent viewed with kind eyes. However, after indictment, eight Ghadar nationalists werent deported back to India by the US federal jury despite several attempts made by the British.

On the contrary, the Home Rule League was much more organised, less scattered and inclusive in nature. It delivered nationalist consciousness even to the politically backward regions of Gujarat and Sindh. Under the joint efforts of Besant and Tilak, the Congress was re-unified in the Lucknow session of 1916. Soon after, the Lucknow Pact, which was also known as the Jinnah-Tilak pact brought the Muslim League and the Congress together thus adding teeth to Indias fight for Swaraj.

The British fighting Turkey in WW1 led to anti-imperialist sentiments among Indian Muslims as the Ottoman Caliphate was considered the spiritual head of Islam.

The Congress was even ready to support the Muslim Leagues want for separate electorates in order to establish self-governing institutions. This was met with stiff opposition from the Hindu Mahasabha that was formed in 1915.

**********

This was also when Mahatma Gandhi had set foot in Indias political scene. He added more inclusivity to the Congress by bringing peasants issues to the fore and causing popular stirs in the hinterland like the Champaran (1917) and the Kheda (1918) Satyagraha.

The period of the first World War was like a crescendo in Indias freedom struggle before the climax. The Lucknow Pact re-instated religion as an identity in politics and paved way for the resurgence of communalism in the future.

As the war was nearing its conclusive end  that of a victory to the British and its allies  the Montague-Chelmsford recommendations officially talked of granting self-governance much to the Indias joy.

However, the joy was to be short-lived as the nationalists would soon find out that a different reality was in store.

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A 15-year-old Oklahoma City girl died last week from overdosing on Benadryl after she took part in a dangerous social media fad known as the Benadryl challenge.

The 'Benadryl challenge' is a new game in which teens on TikTok are encouraged to take as much allergy medicine as needed in order to hallucinate or trip out.

The Oklahoma City victim, who has not been identified, was described as a happy and faith-driven teen who was not known to experiment with drugs, KFOR-TV reported.

'The dose that can cause a hallucination is very close to the dose that can cause something potentially life-threatening,' said Scott Schaeffer, director of the Oklahoma Center for Poison and Drug Information.

Overdosing on Benadryl leaves one vulnerable to heart attack, stroke, seizures, brain damage, and even death.

A 15-year-old Oklahoma City girl died last week after she overdosed on the antihistamine Benadryl. The girl was taking part in the so-called 'Benadryl challenge,' a new game in which teens on TikTok are encouraged to take as many allergy pills as needed in order to hallucinate or trip out

In May, three teens from Fort Worth, Texas, were hospitalized after they swallowed excessive doses of Benadryl as part of the challenge.

One of the teens, a 14-year-old named Rebekah, took 14 Benadryl tablets in the middle of the night on Memorial Day.

'It was scary. She had fractured sentences, hallucinations. Her resting heart rate was 199,' Katie, Rebekah's mother told Checkup.

'We rushed her to the local ER and they decided to transport her to Cook Childrens.'

Rebekah was admitted to Cook Childrens Medical Center in Fort Worth and stayed overnight. Her heart rate returned to normal the next morning and she was released.

What struck me was that we had three teens come in for the same thing in one week, said Amber Jewison, a nurse practitioner at Cook.

None of these patients were trying to harm themselves. They all said they saw videos on TikTok and were curious to try it.

A spokesperson for TikTok told DailyMail.com that the social media platform first learned of the 'Benadryl challenge' in May and 'quickly removed the very small amount of content that we found.'

The company said it has been 'keeping an eye on this topic since and removing any new content - which again has been in extremely small numbers.'

'The safety and well-being of our users is TikTok's top priority,' the spokesperson said.

'As we make clear in our Community Guidelines, we do not allow content that encourages, promotes, or glorifies dangerous challenges that might lead to injury.

'Though we have not seen this content trend on our platform, we actively remove content that violates our guidelines and block related hashtags to further discourage participation.

'We encourage everyone to exercise caution in their behavior whether online or off.'

A spokesperson for Johnson & Johnson, the pharmaceutical giant that markets the Benadryl brand, told DailyMail.com: 'The health and safety of people who use our products is our top priority.

'The BENADRYL TikTok trend is extremely concerning, dangerous and should be stopped immediately.

'As with any medicine, abuse or misuse can lead to serious side effects with potentially long-lasting consequences, and BENADRYL products should only be used as directed by the label.

'It is our strong recommendation that all medications be kept out of the reach of children at all times.

'We are working with TikTok and our partners to do what we can to stop this dangerous trend, including the removal of content across social platforms that showcase this behavior.'

Benadryl is the brand name of the anti-allergy, over-the-counter drug known generically as diphenhydramine.

A sedating antihistamine, it works to block the release of chemicals in the bodys cells that are released as part of the immune systems response to an allergy.

The National Institutes of Health says antihistamines are used to treat allergies in addition to gastrointestinal conditions caused by excessive stomach acids.

Benadryl is also an anticholinergic drug that impacts the cholinergic nervous system, which regulates key bodily functions like saliva and tear production, urination, heart rate, body temperature, brain function, and eye function.

Taking too much Benadryl can have severe effects on ones overall health.

Just as an allergic reaction can affect multiple organ systems of the body, Benadryl can affect multiple organ systems, Ashanti Woods, a pediatrician at Baltimore's Mercy Medical Center, tells Health.

Benadryls own website recommends that children under the age of 6 avoid taking it altogether.

Children between the ages of 6 and 12 are to take just 1 tablet every four-to-six hours while anyone over the age of 12 is to take no more than 2 tablets every four-to-six hours - unless directed otherwise by a doctor.

Excessive doses of Benadryl can have severe health repercussions for both children and adults, who may suffer from high body temperature, confusion, blurred vision, nausea, vomiting, unsteadiness, high blood pressure, and hallucinations.

The National Capital Poison Center also warns of the extreme dangers of overdosing when mixing antihistamines like Benadryl with other pain medications and decongestants.

The 'Benadryl challenge' is the latest health-threatening fad that has taken hold among youngsters on the social media app TikTok

In recent years, youngsters on social media have taken part in dangerous viral 'challenges' that left a number of them hospitalized and have alarmed parents.

Earlier this year, teens in Spain took part in what is known as the 'skull breaker' challenge.

Two students filmed themselves carrying out the seemingly harmless prank with a third unsuspecting participant.

As the three participants jump straight up, the two people on the side kick inwards to knock the person in the middle off his feet and onto his head, causing a variety of injuries to the head, neck and wrist.

The practice has reportedly landed at least two children in the US in the hospital.

In January, two teens in Massachusetts were charged after taking part in the viral TikTok 'outlet challenge.'

The high school students, aged 15 and 16, were charged with 'attempting to burn a public building.'

Also known as the penny challenge, the viral trend involves plugging the brick part of a phone charger partially into a socket and sliding a penny onto the exposed metal prongs.

The contact with the penny can create a spark so strong that it can start a fire, damage the property's electrical system and harm those by the outlet.

In 2017, doctors warned people not to participate in the 'Tide Pod Challenge' - where teenagers film themselves chewing and gagging on colorful detergent pods and then daring others to participate.

Earlier this year, kids took part in the new 'skull breaker challenge' that went viral on TikTok. The practice involves three participants who jump straight up, with the two people on the side kicking inwards to knock the person in the middle off his feet and onto his head

In 2017, doctors warned people not to participate in the 'Tide Pod Challenge' - where teenagers film themselves chewing and gagging on colorful detergent pods and then daring others to participate

In January, two teens in Massachusetts were charged after taking part in the viral TikTok 'outlet challenge.' Also known as the penny challenge, the viral trend involves plugging the brick part of a phone charger partially into a socket and sliding a penny onto the exposed metal prongs. The contact with the penny can create a spark so strong that it can start a fire, damage the property's electrical system and harm those by the outlet

In 2018, teenagers were setting themselves on fire in a desperate attempt to find fame on the internet by taking part in the so-called 'fire challenge.'

Teens filmed themselves dousing their bodies in accelerant and lighting it.

In recent years, parents have been warned over the resurgence of another social media craze in which children burn themselves with salt and ice.

The so-called 'salt and ice challenge' involves youngsters placing salt and ice on their skin, causing a chemical reaction that reduces the temperature of the ice to as low as -17C (1.4F).

Participants then see who can withstand the searing pain longest before sharing photos of the resulting burns, similar to frostbite, online.

Some teenagers have reportedly been taken to hospital with third degree burns.
Billionaire Gautam Adanis conglomerate on Monday said it will take controlling stake in Mumbai airport through deals in which it will acquire the debt of current promoter GVK and buy out minority shareholders.

Adani Group will acquire GVK Airport Developers Ltds 50.50 per cent stake as well as buyout 23.5 per cent stake of Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) and Bidvest Group (for which it has obtained Competition Commission of India approval), it said in a regulatory filing.

A controlling 74 per cent stake in Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL), together with the six non-metro airports it bagged in a government tender, will make Adani Group the largest private operator of airports in India. State-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) runs most of the airports in the country.

Adani Airport Holdings will acquire the debt of GVK Airport Developers, the holding company of GVK Power and Infrastructure, the filing said.

The debt will be converted into equity at mutually-agreed terms, GVK said in a separate filing.

This conversion would lead to Adani Group getting all of 50.5 per cent stake of GVK Group.

The two firms did not give details of the deal including the debt that Adani is taking over and the terms of conversion.

After seaports, Adani Group is betting big on the airport sector and has won the bids to run six AAI-built non-metro airports in Lucknow, Jaipur, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, and Mangalore. It has now entered the countrys second busiest airport.

The move comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has hit brakes on the aviation sector.

The aviation industry has been severely impacted by Covid-19, setting it back by many years and has impacted the financials of MIAL, GVK Chairman GVK Reddy said in a statement. It was therefore important that we bring in a financially strong investor in the shortest possible time. GMR Infrastructure is the other big private airport operator in the country. GMR, which operates the international airport in New Delhi, is also selling a 49 per cent stake in the airport business to a consortium led by Tata Group, a unit of Singapores sovereign wealth fund GIC and SSG Capital Management.

Mumbai, the City of Dreams! It is a privilege to have an opportunity to serve the air travelers of one of the greatest Metropolis on our planet. #GatewaytoGoodness - Look forward to helping transform the Indian Airport Sector!, Gautam Adani, 58, tweeted.

GVK also said it has separately terminated a Rs 7,614-crore investment agreement with Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Canadas Public Sector Pension Investment Board and state-owned National Investment & Infrastructure Fund (NIIF).

In October last year, debt-laden GVK Group had entered into an agreement to sell 79 per cent of its stake in GVK Airport Holdings for Rs 7,614 crore to three investors to help retire debt.

Adani Airport Holdings intends to infuse funds into MIAL to ensure it receives much-needed liquidity and also achieves financial closure of Navi Mumbai International Airport to be able to commence construction, Adani Enterprises, the promoter of Adani Airport Holdings, said.

The GVK Group and AAHL have agreed that AAHL will offer a stand-still to GVK, in addition, to release the guarantee given by GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd with respect to the debt acquired by it, the company said in the filing.

Upon the acquisition of the debt of GVK Airport Developers, Adani Group will take steps to obtain necessary customary and regulatory approvals, as may be required, to acquire controlling interest in MIAL, it said.

GVK said it has agreed to cooperate with Adani Airport Holdings Ltd (AAHL) under which the Adani Group firm will acquire debt from various lenders including a Goldman Sachs led consortium and HDFC.

When the transaction is consummated, which is subject to customary approvals, we would be reducing a significant portion of liabilities to our lenders, which is of utmost importance to the group, GVK Reddy said.

Adani Group had in March 2019 agreed to acquire a 13.5 per cent stake of South African company, Bidvest for Rs 1,248 crore. However, GVK Group blocked the deal claiming the right of first refusal.

GVK, however, could not bring money to the table to buy Bid Services Division Mauritius (Bidvest) stake and the matter went to court.

With GVK Groups finances under strain, it has now come around to the idea of selling the stake to Adani Group.

ACSA owns 10 per cent in MIAL and the balance 26 per cent stake is held by the AAI.

GVK said has notified ADIA, NIIF and PSP that the transaction documents stand terminated as it is no longer effective and implementable. The reason for this decision was (a) the terms of the transaction envisaged in the transaction documents were not implementable and (b) the alternative proposals discussed would not provide a resolution to the lenders of ADL by the end of August, which was a requirement of our lenders, it added.

The deal comes after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) earlier this month charged the GVK Group with siphoning off funds totaling Rs 705 crore. It is charged with causing a loss of Rs 310 crore to the exchequer by entering into fake work contracts on the land given by the government to MIAL.

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CervicalCheck campaigner Vicky Phelan said she will continue to fight for a law to be passed allowing people with terminal illnesses to die by assisted suicide as she doesn't want her children to remember her dying.

In July, the mother-of-two, from Co Limerick, wrote in the Sunday Independent that she will be supporting the Dying for Dignity Bill when it is brought before Cabinet as she wants to "die with dignity."

Ms Phelan was writing after the passing of friend and fellow CervicalCheck campaigner Ruth Morrissey.

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In an interview with Virgin Media One aired on Monday, Ms Phelan said she feels people who are terminally ill should have a choice in deciding how and when they should die.

Ms Phelan said she wants to die in Ireland and on her own terms.

"I'd actually had a phone call from Gino Keny, a TD who was bringing this bill forward again. It was brought forward in 2015. And then it didn't go through like a lot of things. And he had asked me would I help him support it.

"I said , 'Absolutely.' I have huge invested interest in this, I think people should have a choice. Because unfortunately, in my position, I wouldn't be able to get on the plane now and go to Switzerland or Oregon because I wouldn't get there because I'm known at this stage," she said.

"And as well as that, I wouldn't like to do that. Because I want to die at home in my own country. I don't want to have to go somewhere else and have my poor family travel over and then travel back with a coffin.

"People should have the choice. I know from having witnessed and heard from other people who have gone before me with this disease, it's not a nice way to go."

She continued: "I have young children. That's the thing. It's different if you're in your 80s and you've lived your life. But if you're young and you have children watching you die - and I've seen people die and it's not a nice thing to witness - I don't want my children's memories to be of me dying."

Ms Morrissey passed away just months after Emma Mhic Mathuna - another one of the 221 women with cervical cancer found to have received an incorrect smear test - who died in October last year.

Ms Phelan said going to their funerals was like "watching my own funeral happening."

"I felt the same kind of thing as I had at Emma Mhic Mathuna's funeral as well. For me it's like watching my own funeral happening. This is going to be mine and it's hard to stand there and watch that because you know the way it's going to end. Took me a couple of weeks now to just come around from Ruth's. It's very hard.

"Death is hard anyway on everybody. It's hard to believe that I'll never see her again and because of Covid, I hadn't seen her since February, whereas we would have met really regularly up to that point."

Ms Phelan was diagnosed in 2014 with cervical cancer and was given the all-clear in 2015. However, three years later, after receiving an incorrect negative smear test, she was diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer.

The 45-year-old said her illness has made her focus on the more important aspects of life - such as spending as much time as she can with her kids.

"There are good things that come out of having a terminal illness. It makes you realise what's really important. I mean, I was no different than anybody else, worried about stupid stuff like, you know, being overweight and kind of not wanting to go somewhere because, you know, I don't look right or I don't have the right clothes.

"I couldn't care less anymore. I'm gone past that. I just want to spend more time with my kids while I can because unfortunately I see that there will be an end to it, and I won't be able to do these things so you know I try and pack it all in as much as I can," Ms Phelan said.

She said she makes sure her children, Amelia (14) and Darragh (9), are informed on all developments with her diagnosis, adding: "For me it's important that I explain to my kids what's going on because I think what's worse is what they imagine in their heads. I feel with kids and some people think I probably tell them too much, but it works for me and my kids."

Ms Phelan said one of her goals is to see Amelia through third year of secondary school and to see Darragh through his next birthday.

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"My big thing is Amelia is going into junior cert year now, so I'm kind of thinking ahead if I could get her through Junior Cert. Darragh will be 10 in February, double digits. I suppose when I was diagnosed first, Darragh was three. So I'm doing well that I'm still here," she said.

"I think when kids are older, they have better memories, and that's why I do so much with them and spend so much time with them because I want them to have those memories when I'm not here. "

Ms Phelan revealed in October that she and her husband Jim have separated but are still living together.

Opening up about her marriage breakup, Ms Phelan said the couple's living arrangements have not changed and they are continuing to successfully co-parent.

"My cancer came back at the end of November of 2017 and in May 2017 we had made a decision to separate before my cancer came back now. At that stage, Jim wasn't working, he was still in college and we couldn't afford to separate and for him to move out like a lot of couples. We weren't in a position that we could have two houses. So we didn't really know how it was going to pan out but we had made the decision to separate.

"Then my cancer came back and that kind of put a spanner in the works. And in November, then when my cancer came back, we sat down and I said, Jim, I said, 'Look, for the kids,' I said, 'I really can't do this to them.' My cancer was back at that stage, I didn't know how long I was going to get until January, but I knew it wasn't good. I said I can't have a situation where I could be dead in 12 months, and us separating. I said it's just too much for the kids.

"Obviously we're not a couple. But as far as possible, we try and co parent and be a family, and that's worked for us for the last two years, nearly three years of this age. "
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said violence in Portland, Oregon, that left a supporter of Donald Trump dead is unacceptable and urged the president to stop fanning the flames of hate and division in our society.

I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same, Biden said in a statement. We must not become a country at war with ourselves.

A man linked to a right-wing group called Patriot Prayer that supports Trump was shot and killed in Portland Saturday night after hundreds of Trump supporters who arrived in the city by convoy clashed with those protesting the shootings of Black men and women by police.

The statement is the strongest language yet by Biden, with about two months left to the November general election. The nation has been wracked by sporadic racial justice protests since the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man who died while in custody of the Minneapolis police.

Most of the protests have been peaceful, but there have been instances of property damage and clashes with law enforcement.

Chad Wolf, Trumps nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, on Sunday blamed local officials in Portland and other cities for fostering an environment of lawlessness and chaos and wouldnt rule out sending in federal troops, even if local officials dont want them.

Recklessly Encouraging

While critical of Black Lives Matters protests that have become violent, Biden said the president is recklessly encouraging violence by armed men who have shown up at some of the protests around the country as counter-protesters.

The death in Portland followed the killing of two BLM protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last week. A 17-year-old who posted support for police has been charged with homicide in that shooting.

As a country, we must condemn the incitement of hate and resentment that led to this deadly clash, Biden said of the Portland shooting.

It is not a peaceful protest when you go out spoiling for a fight. What does President Trump think will happen when he continues to insist on fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters?

Trump taunted Biden on Sunday for staying home as a precaution against the coronavirus, saying the Democrat has failed to respond to the violence from the left.

The people of Portland, like all other cities & parts of our great Country, want Law & Order, Trump wrote in a tweet. The Radical Left Democrat Mayors, like the dummy running Portland, or the guy right now in his basement unwilling to lead or even speak out against crime, will never be able to do it!

Kate Bedingfield, Bidens deputy campaign manager, said earlier on Fox News Sunday that Biden will be speaking out in battleground states to discuss the violence.

She didnt say where Biden plans to make campaign stops this week, though the nominee said last week that he plans to begin traveling to critical election states including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Arizona after Labor Day.

The Biden campaign said Sunday that the candidate would travel to southwestern Pennsylvania to deliver remarks on Monday, focused on a different vision for a better future.

Bedingfield didnt rule out a visit to Kenosha. Trump will visit the city on Tuesday.

The Wisconsin city was rocked by violent protests after police were filmed shooting a Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back multiple times at close range a week ago.

Bedingfields sentiment was echoed by other Democrats on Sunday, including Representative Karen Bass of California, who said Trump is stoking violence in cities because he believes it benefits his re-election prospects.

Bass said on CNNs State of the Union that Trumps upcoming trip to Kenosha has one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to agitate things and to make things worse.
The Monday expressed concern over spike in cases of COVID-19 in the national capital by terming it as "worrisome" and directed the to re-strategise the testing so that maximum number of cases which are turning out to be asymptomatic can undergo a test at private laboratories to prevent spread of infection.

The high court also asked the to set up within a week COVID-19 testing camps at Inter-state bus terminals (ISBT) like Anand Vihar, Kashmiri Gate and Sarai Kale khan for migrants who are returning to the capital in large numbers from different states.

The shall make sure that they re-strategise the testing in Delhi so that maximum number of cases which are turning out to be asymptomatic can actually undergo a test to prevent spread of COVID-19.

Moreso, since unlock 4.0 has been declared by the Central government, there is free movement provided to people in almost all the sectors, a bench of justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad said.

The bench expressed concern over the rise in the number of COVID-19 cases, which on Sunday crossed 2,000, and said the way figures are increasing every week is worrisome.

During the hearing, Delhi government's counsel Satyakam, submitted that one of the factors of increasing number of cases was the festive season as people have started coming out and intermingling with each other.

To this, the bench said people are adhering to government guidelines scrupulously and though they have started coming out, this cannot justify doubling of figures and the period of doubling is worrisome.

Satyakam also said the Delhi government was fully prepared and there was no dearth of resources.

This dragon (COVID-19) is behaving in a different way. We are doing it in the best possible way and are finding ways to expand the testing, he submitted.

The bench said, you (Delhi government) thought you had slayer the dragon. However, this dragon has several heads which is making life miserable for people. Cases are rising in the city everyday.

Meanwhile, the high court queried the Delhi government and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) as to when the sanctioned strength of conducting RT/PCR test is 14,000, why there is restriction on those who willingly want to undergo the test at their own expenses.

Senior scientist at ICMR Dr Nivedita Gupta submitted that it was an advisory board and research centre and the states have the freedom to tailor the advisories as per the situation and if the states want to increase the number of tests, they do not have any problem.

With this, the high court asked the Delhi government to access the situation and re-strategise testing as presently around 7000 tests are being done.

We expect the Delhi government to come up with an advisory for private persons to get themselves tested for COVID 19 through RT/PCR as long as it does not impact the test of samples sent by the Delhi government to private laboratories or the timeline within which the reports are to be submitted to the Delhi government of the said tests.

In any case the charges of testing through private labs for RT/PCR has been capped by the Delhi government at Rs 2,400 per test, the bench said.

The high court was also informed that a second sero survey has been conducted in Delhi and the report is yet to be given to the Delhi government by Dr. Maulana Azad Medical College.

After pursuing the report of the first sero survey, the court said the conclusion drawn is critical as a significant population of Delhi remains asymptomatic and it is this population which is causing silent spread of the disease.

The court asked the Delhi government to file its status report along wht analysis of the second sero survey and listed the matter for hearing on September 8.

RT/PCR, short for Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction, is a laboratory technique widely used in the diagnosis of genetic diseases and to measure gene expression in research.

The court was hearing a PIL by advocate Rakesh Malhotra seeking increasing the COVID-19 testing numbers in the national capital and getting speedy results.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The deadline for submitting applications in Cote dIvoires October presidential election expires Monday at midnight, with 36 bids officially confirmed. Opponents have challenged the legality of President Alassane Ouattara's decision to run again.

With only two months to go before Ivorians head to the polls to choose their new president, the picture is far from clear about whether the incumbent leader Alassane Ouattara is eligible to run for a third term.

Technically, the constitution limits the president to two terms, but Ouattara and his supporters argue that a 2016 constitutional tweak reset the clock. His opponents beg to differ.

"Article 55 of the constitution is very clear," says Alexandre Didier, coordinator of the non-governmental organisation Tournons La Page or Let's Turn The Page.

"The President of the Republic is elected for a five year-term by direct universal suffrage. He can only be reelected once. That excludes a third mandate," he told RFI.

Constitutional ambiguity

The confusion emanates from each side's interpretation of the new constitution explains Alex Vines, director of the Africa programme at Chatham House.

"It's ambiguous, possibly deliberately so, so that it's open to interpretation," he told RFI on the line from London.

The new constitution retains the two-term limit, but says nothing regarding terms served prior to its adoption.

"Therefore depending on what political position you stand, you will interpret it in a particular direction. It's that ambiguity that is not helpful," Vines said.

For Didier, there is no ambiguity about it. He showed RFI a 2016 tweet posted during the constitutional reform, stipulating that the "new constitution would not break with the old constitution's two-term presidential limit." The tweet has since been removed.

The president's dithering over whether to run again has also not helped.

"It's clear that Mr. Ouattara has been thinking about whether he should or should not run again for a while," continues Vines, pointing to the immense pressure on the 78-year-old not to seek a third term, notably from France.

Story continues

Ouattara, who has governed since 2011, said in March he would not stand for re-election on 31 October.

Tense climate

But his preferred successor, then-prime minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, died in July, leading the ruling Houphouetist Rally for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) party to ask Ouattara to reconsider.

"That has thrown things up in the air," comments Vines. "It is a worrying time for Cote d'Ivoire, there is a history, a tradition of electoral violence."

That history, which saw some 3,000 people killed following the 2010 election, is at risk of repeating itself.

"The climate is very, very tense," reckons Didier of Tournons La Page or Let's turn the page.

Talk of Ouattara's running again sparked clashes earlier this month in the town of Divo, about 200 kilometers northwest of the capital Abidjan, and in Bonoua, some 80 kilometers from the capital. Eight people were killed and more than 100 injured.

"There were reports of armed youths attacking civilians in conjunction with law enforcement officers," Didier told RFI from Abidjan.

Democracy shrinking

On Friday, Amnesty International issued a statement condemning the crackdown on protesters opposed to Ouattara's decision to run for a third term in office.

For Didier, it is a sign that democratic space in Cote d'Ivoire is shrinking.

"Today, there are people who have the right to demonstrate without being stopped by police and those who are barred. Everyone should be allowed to demonstrate freely."

Ouattara has defended his third term bid, which he says was provoked by an "act of God" after the sudden death of his successor.

Still, his efforts to stay in power have raised concerns that Cote d'Ivoire will go the way of other African countries in repeating a practice whereby presidents remain for life.

Constitutional Council under scrutiny

If unchallenged, Ouattara will square off against 35 other candidates on 31 October, including 86-year-old former President Henri Konan Bedie and 67-year-old former Premier Pascal Affi N'Guessa.

Election authorities rejected the candidacies of former President, Laurent Gbagbo, and ex-rebel leader Guillaume Soro, who helped bring Ouattara to power before falling foul of him.

Nonetheless, on Monday Gbagbo filed his application for presidency, months after being acquitted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Gbagbo's refusal to cede power to Ouattara in 2010 triggered a post-electoral crisis that claimed 3,000 lives.

"The constitutional council played a role in that crisis from the moment it declared Gbagbo the winner," reckons Didier.

End bloodshed

For the NGO coordinator, institutions like the constitutional council must be strengthened to avoid a political vacuum. The body is yet to rule on whether Ouattara's third term bid is valid.

Opponents doubt the council's president, Mamadou Kone, who was handpicked by Ouattara, will rule against him.

That puts the onus squarely on Ouattara.

"We want the president to keep his word," insists Didier. "We want him to withdraw to avoid any further bloodshed."
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. stood his ground that despite aggressive financial offers, the Philippines will not abandon its territorial claim over Sabah, which Malaysia considers as part of its territory.

Locsin posted a series of tweets on Sunday and Monday after Malaysia filed a diplomatic protest rejecting the Philippines territorial claims.

He said huge amounts of money have been offered for decades now for the Philippines to drop its claims over Sabah, formerly known as North Borneo. He did not directly say but implied the offers came from Malaysia.

"The Filipino public must know that what is on offer is huge so the temptation to betray is commensurately humongous," he wrote.

The top diplomat said the offers have been made to presidential candidates, but the Philippines will not cower.

"As a matter of history there have been repeated offers to abandon our Sabah claim from aspiring presidential candidates since the late 1970s, usually opposition because they are most in need of campaign funds but administration as well. Don't even dream of it," he added.

Locsin said he will resurrect an old bureau within the DFA which deals with the country's claim over Sabah.

"Leaving it to diplomats is not enough to safeguard the national interest in the matter. Theres the additional temptation to feel welcome in the host country," he tweeted.

The two regional allies have long kept the decades-old dispute in the back burner, but a tweet from Locsin, saying "Sabah is not in Malaysia," recently triggered a public spat. This led to Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein summoning Philippine envoy Charles Jose in July over the post, while Locsin also threatened to invite the other countrys envoy.

The Sabah dispute

Malaysia has considered Sabah its territory since it became part of the Malaysian federation in 1963. Kuala Lumpur maintains that the United Nations and the international community have recognized Sabah as part of Malaysia.

Manila, however, insists that Sabah was merely on lease to Malaysia by the Sultanate of Sulu, which has ceded sovereignty over the area to the Philippines.

The Sultanate signed a January 22, 1878 lease agreement with the now defunct private firm British North Borneo Company over a part of Sabah, which Malaysia absorbed after the British colonizers left. Malaysia has been paying what it considers cession money of RM5,300 a year to the heirs of the Sulu Sultante until it stopped payments in 2013.

The Philippines has never relinquished its claims to Sabah and considers Malaysia's payments to the sultan's heirs as rent.

The two neighbors are founding members of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose bedrock principles include cooperation and peaceful settlement of disputes. Malaysia has also brokered decades-long peace negotiations which resulted in the signing of a final agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberaton Front.

CNN Philippines' Eimor Santos contributed to this report.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has sought feedback from clearing corporations, depositories, professional clearing members (PCMs) and information technology (IT) vendors on their preparedness to move to the new pledge and re-pledge system from September 1, 2020.

SEBI had come out with the norms in February 2020, and it was scheduled to come into effect from June 1. The deadline was extended to August 1 and then to September 1.

On Monday, it made clear that it will stick to the September 1 deadline after a meeting with the Market Infrastructure Institutions (MIIs). MIIs refer to stock exchanges, depositories and clearing corporations

The Central Depository Services Ltd (CDSL) and National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) have said that they are fully geared to move into the new system. Many depository participants have already started pledging at depositories. CDSL alone has more than 450 depository participants.

PCMs have sought an extension of the deadline by one month. Axis Bank, Edelweiss Securities, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Globe Securities are among the large PCMs. In the meeting, apart from Kotak Mahindra Bank, all others said that 25 percent shares pledged were already executed last evening.

Depositories saying all PCMs, except one, have come on board.

Brokers complain One-Time Passwords (OTPs) are delaying pledging and re-pledging. Clearing corporations say the pledged amount is at the 50 percent level, compared to a month ago.

Pledging refers to using stocks as securities to avail a loan. Traders in the F&O segment use pledging to receive margin funding from the broker to invest in deals that involve sizeable initial investment.

Margin allows investors to leverage, invest in deals without assuming the full risk at the first stage. When you pledge, your risk exposure gets limited to the securities you have used as collateral. In case you cant repay the margin, the broker liquidates the stocks in the margin account to recover the debt.

The broker is the custodian for securities or funds in the margin account. However, on certain occasions, violation of margin collateral was reported to SEBI. Some brokers were found guilty of misusing client funds and collaterals. The new margin pledge policy will help to address this problem.

What is the proposed system?

Under the existing system, investors dont have to pay upfront margin in the cash segment as cash margins are looked after by the broker. Now, SEBI wants to implement it in the cash segment, too.

Under the proposed system, brokers will have to collect margin from investors upfront for both buying and selling of securities. Failing to do so will attract a penalty. The securities in the demat account will not automatically become available to receive margins. The broker also has to report to the exchange the margins collected from investors.

Under the new system, depositories should provide margin pledge for pledging clients' securities as margin to the trading member or clearing member.

To provide collateral in the form of securities as margin, a client will be required to pledge securities with the trading member. He/she will re-pledge the same to the clearing member, who, in turn, will re-pledge the same with the clearing corporation.

What are the hurdles?

A smooth rollout requires stock exchanges to seed client codes in demat accounts, depositories to enable the pledge and re-pledge system, and clearing corporations to provide margin limits to members, who, in turn, could give them to clients.

After this mechanism is put into place, brokers were expected to roll out the system.

A Mumbai-based broker told Moneycontrol: What followed was a series of monumental failures. The exchanges were to give the data of each client to the depositories. The mapping was full of errors, with missing codes and incorrect clearing member IDs. Till last week, the data was being reconciled by the depositories and lakhs of mappings have not been done. Lack of mapping leads to pledges not being permitted.

SEBI had set an initial deadline of June 1, 2020. But the depositories hadnt even started opening brokers accounts.

Another broker, an office-bearer of the Association of National Exchange Members of India (ANMI), told Moneycontrol: A system of such a monumental change requires significant coding and testing at the brokers end.

The matter is further compounded by the fact that SEBI penalty on collection in cash market kicks in from September 1. Given that the number of customers in the cash market is many, multiples of them will be there in the derivatives market. The demand for margin pledges is expected to shoot up exponentially, a source said.

Clearing corporations also slip

Clearing corporations issued guidelines for margin pledge in July. They took time in opening accounts through which brokers could re-pledge client shares.

A broker told Moneycontrol: The margin pledge account opening by brokers was permitted by the depositories much later. The standard User Acceptance Testing (UAT) environment was not made available to brokers till the end of July 2020, and, after that, it was provided only to a select few.

The UAT provided was half-baked and not working. Thus, the second deadline of August 1 set by SEBI was breached and a parallel system was proposed".

Market sources said that while the Central Depository Services Ltd (CDSL) system was put in place on time, National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) struggled, though NSDL claimed that it was ready from Day One.

NSDL started working properly only when SEBI started to convene regular meetings from August 2020 when the MIIs started to get their act together.

A source told Moneycontrol: NSDL was instructed by SEBI to have daily meetings with back-office vendors. In the past two weeks, crores of Unique Client Codes (UCCs) have been seeded/ corrected in the depository environment. The NSDL systems have finally started working as expected and glitches are being corrected.

An ANMI member pointed at another issue: Working with the MII system is only the first step. Brokers are livid that they are expected to go live on untested systems with almost no time for execution".

The Central Depository Services Ltd (CDSL) was the first depository which was ready with the system and done maximum number of pledge and re-pledging so far.

During May-end, CDSL issued the file formats and NSDL issued them in June. This was first step in the brokers designing their system.

An office-bearer of one of the brokers associations summed it up: We were so excited with the new system and were looking forward to it. A beautiful process has been turned into a nightmare due to poor management.
AKRON, Ohio - Tickets are on sale for a reformatted Art & Ale, the annual beer-fest fundraiser for Akron Art Museum.

It has been rescheduled in a unique format 6 to 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10.

The 13th annual fest - which had been slated for March 28 - was one of the earliest events in Greater Cleveland to be called off because of coronavirus concerns. The new format will feature a curated collection of beer delivered to ticketgoers homes. That includes a pre-release of Thirsty Dog Brewing Co.s 12 Dogs of Christmas ale and a beer-inspired meal.

The at-home, virtual experience will showcase regional craft beers and meal options from Robert J. Events & Catering. It also includes access to a 90-minute program highlighting speakers including Thirsty Dog founder John Najeway, music from Akron-based funk-fusion band Acid Cats, raffles and more.

At first Najeway said he was skeptical, but soon was sold on the idea.

When they started to work around it and doing a video and live tour and tasting and talking about it - the catch was the people would get the beer at home and get food - I thought This is pretty cool, this will work, " he said.

Day-of meal delivery will be 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Summit, Cuyahoga, Medina, Portage and Stark counties. This event is for ages 21 and over; ID is required for delivery.

Delivery submissions must be in by noon Wednesday, Sept. 30.

Cost is $55. For menu options, tickets and details, go to Eventbrite.

In the past, blind judging was held to determine favorites, and peoples-choice voting also was held. Last year, 700 people attended two sessions of the fest.

The 14th Winter Warmer Fest, the annual fundraiser for the Ohio Craft Brewers Association, was held March 7 in Clevelands Flats. A week later, Ohios shelter-at-home order was enacted, opening the door for a wave of event cancellations.

Previous Art & Ale coverage

2019 winners

2018 winners

2017 winners

2016 winners

2015 winners

2014 winners

I am on cleveland.coms life and culture team and cover food, beer, wine and sports-related topics. If you want to see my stories, heres a directory on cleveland.com.

(Photo courtesy Your Social Mask)

Masks for eating and drinking on sale: Going out to a bar or restaurant but want to stay protected from coronavirus? Check out these masks that allow you to eat and drink without taking them off.
The pandemic has made it hard for many businesses to stay afloat, and sadly, many have not. The last thing businesses, schools, teachers and health care professionals need are lawsuits further slowing their efforts to fight the pandemic and restore our economy. However, that could be what happens.

There is a real threat of lawsuits filed by people who contract COVID-19. If they believe they contracted the virus in a business, school or health care setting, nothing is stopping them from suing those institutions, even if those institutions took every step to prevent the transmission of the virus.

Not only could this be a death blow to those institutions and the jobs they provide, but it also could be a financial bonanza for trial lawyers, and believe me, they know it.

A bill filed in the U.S. Senate called the Safe to Work Act will limit such lawsuits if a business, school or health care facility has taken all the safety precautions necessary to prevent the spread of coronavirus. That includes requiring masks and social distancing. Congress must pass this kind of protection for businesses if we are to have any hope of getting the economy back to some semblance of healthy growth and getting people back to work.

Small businesses today live in fear of lawsuits, and with good reason. Just defending such frivolous lawsuits is enough to put many companies out of business, especially in these perilous economic times. Such a defense can cost $100,000 or more. We cannot afford to let the zeal of attorneys looking to get even richer kill our economic recovery and cost Texans their jobs. The pandemic has done a good enough job of that already.

To qualify, businesses, schools, churches and other entities must have made reasonable efforts to comply with applicable public health guidelines and not engage in willful misconduct or grossly negligent behavior. That means if an entity has not taken steps to prevent the spread of the virus, it is still open to lawsuits. Not only does that protect the public and employees, it strongly encourages businesses and other entities to take this seriously and do the right thing.

Businesses crave certainty. There is not much of that these days, but this legislation could give them at least a little assurance they wont be sued out of existence because of something they have very little control over.

We have a long way to go to get back to where we were economically and to put Texans back to work. We need to take every measure we can to get our economy growing again and kick-start job creation. We must take this step to ensure that businesses have the confidence to keep trying to recover. Without it, many may choose to turn in the keys to their landlord and give up.

Bill Hammond is president and CEO of Texas Employers for Insurance Reform.
Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have expressed sorrow over the demise of former president Pranab Mukherjee, describing him as a "true friend" and recalling his outstanding and unforgettable contributions to the country's 1971 Liberation War.

Mukherjee, a veteran politician, died on Monday evening following a 21-day battle with multiple ailments. He was 84.

"His demise has caused an irreparable loss to the political arena of the sub-continent," Hamid said, describing Mukherjee as a "real and sincere friend" of Bangladesh.

Also read: Pranab Mukherjee, a stalwart who melted into masses

He said Mukherjee played a crucial role in mobilising international support for Bangladesh's 1971 independence which "quickened our victory".

Hasina also called Mukherjee a true friend of Bangladesh and a guardian-like figure to her family.

The news of Mr Pranab Mukherjees demise deeply saddened her . . . she became emotional and nostalgic as she reminisced her many memories with him, state-run BSS reported quoting the premier's press secretary Ihsanul Karim.

Hasina, he said, also recalled Mukherjee's outstanding and unforgettable contributions to the country's 1971 Liberation War.

I always recall with profound respect his invaluable contributions to our Liberation War, she said.

Hasina said Mukherjee always extended her cooperation to her family while they were in exile in India after the assassination of her father and Bangladesh's founder Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975 along with most of his family members.

Read more on Pranab Mukherjee

In such a bad time Pranab Mukherjee always enquired about my family and stood beside us in any of our necessity, Hasina said, adding she also drew his cooperation and encouragement even after her return to Bangladesh.

He (Pranab Mukherjee) is our guardian and family friend and he always provided courage to us in any crisis, she said.

The prime minister said with Mukherjee's demise, India lost a learned and patriotic leader, while Bangladesh lost a nearest person.

He (Parnab Mukherjee) will remain alive as a glittering star in the politics of the subcontinent, she said.

Parliamentary speaker Shirin Sharmin Choudhury, main parliamentary opposition Jatiya Party chief GM Quader and senior ministers also mourned Mukherjee's death.

Mukherjee, who was admitted to the Armys Research and Referral Hospital on August 10 and was operated for a removal of a clot in the brain the same day, is survived by two sons and a daughter.

The long-time Congress leader and seven-time parliamentarian had tested positive for COVID-19 at the time of his admission and was being treated for a lung infection. He had suffered a septic shock on Sunday due to it. Doctors said he died of a cardiac arrest at 4.30 pm.

His son Abhijit Mukherjee was the first to break the news of the death of the veteran politician.
MasterChef's Poh Ling Yeow was in some cosy company as she worked at her food stall The Jamface Cakequarium at Adelaide Showground Farmers Market on Sunday.

The 47-year-old chef was spotted cooking up a storm with her current partner Jono Bennett, her ex-husband Matthew Phipps and his new wife Sarah Rich.

Poh was busy making delicious treats, including tarts and cakes as the shoppers lined up.

Modern family! MasterChef's Poh Ling Yeow (pictured) tended her food stall at Adelaide Showground Farmers' Market on Sunday with her partner Jono Bennett, her ex-husband and his new wife

The former MaserChef star kept warm in black jeans, a green jumper and a colourful scarf.

She completed her comfortable ensemble with her pair of yellow sneakers and wore silver earrings.

At one point, Poh stood off to the side chatting to her ex Matthew and several other shoppers.

Good terms: She was spotted working alongside her ex-husband's wife Sarah Rich and serving customers as they lined up at the stall

Poh and Matthew have remained friends since they split several years ago, and he's now married to her best friend and Jamface business partner, Sarah.

The former couple met in 1990 - at the time both were Mormons - and were married for nine years.

Poh then met Jono in 2009 on the first season of MasterChef. She was a contestant while he was working behind the scenes as a runner.

They started dating after the show's finale, and married five years later in 2014.

Catching up: At one point, Poh stood off to the side chatting to her ex Matthew (left) and several other shoppers

Comfort: Poh's current partner Jono Bennett (pictured) wore blue jeans, a black jumper and a pair of sneakers

In an extraordinary twist, the two couples went into business together and opened their cafe, Jamface.

Poh has made no secret of the unusual arrangement, saying in multiple interviews that the four of them are adults who manage to make things work.

'He's my ex-husband. She's my best friend. And when we broke up, they got together and it's all dandy. It's actually really good!' she told Mamamia in 2017.
Adele has sparked an online debate regarding cultural appropriation after posting a photo of her wearing a traditional African hairstyle.

On Sunday, the singer shared an image of herself on Instagram wearing a Jamaican flag bikini top, a feather headdress and her hair in Bantu knots to celebrate Notting Hill Carnival, which this year became a virtual event due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Happy what would be Notting Hill Carnival my beloved London, she wrote in the caption.

While some praised Adele for celebrating Caribbean culture, others accused her of cultural appropriation, with one person writing: If 2020 couldnt get anymore bizarre, Adele is giving us Bantu knots and cultural appropriation that nobody asked for.

Recommended How to watch the virtual Notting Hill Carnival 2020

This officially marks all of the top white women in pop as problematic. Hate to see it.

But, what exactly are Bantu knots and why has Adele been criticised for wearing them? Here is everything you need to know.

What are Bantu knots?

According to Naturally Curly  an online resource for women with natural and textured hair  Bantu knots are a traditional African hairstyle that has been around for more than 100 years.

Typically worn as a protective hairstyle for women with Afro-textured hair, the style is made by twisting sections of the hair until it forms a knot.

The South Africa History Organisation (SAHO) states that the term Bantu is used to describe 300 to 600 ethnic groups within southern Africa that spoke the Bantu language.

Today, the hairstyle remains a staple for many black women and has been sported by celebrities such as Lauryn Hill, Rihanna and Yara Shahidi.

Why is Adele being criticised for wearing the hairstyle?

Oxford English Dictionary defines the term cultural appropriation as: The unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.

One of the main issues of white people wearing culturally black hairstyles is that it is taking from a culture they do not belong to and by seemingly claiming it as their own, they run the risk of erasing the originators of the style.

Similarly, many black hairstyles come with a painful history of discrimination and this is something that still exists today. On 1 January 2020, a new law came into effect in California making discrimination against natural hair in the workplace and schools illegal.

The legislation, called the CROWN Act, stated: Professionalism was, and still is, closely linked to European features and mannerisms, which entails that those who do not naturally fall into Eurocentric norms must alter their appearances.

The legislature recognises that continuing to enforce a Eurocentric image of professionalism through purportedly race-neutral grooming policies that disparately impact black individuals and exclude them from some workplaces is in direct opposition to equity and opportunity for all.

And earlier this year in the UK, campaign group No More Exclusions, which is predominantly led by black and minority ethnic teachers and parents, reported that black girls are frequently being sent home from school for having braids in their hair.

Have other celebrities been accused of cultural appropriation?

Bantu knots specifically have been appropriated by a number of high profile celebrities over the years including Khloe Kardashian who, in 2016, posted a photo of herself wearing the hairstyle on social media. The image sparked outrage due to the fact that she gave no recognition to the history of the hairstyle.

Earlier this year, Little Women star Florence Pugh apologised for appropriating minority cultures when she was a teenager after wearing her hair in tight braids.

The fashion industry also has a long history of appropriating black culture and in 2015, Bantu knots were rebranded as twisted mini buns when they were worn by models on the Marc Jacobs runway.

Kim Kardashian has faced accusations of appropriation several times, including in March 2020 when she shared a photo of herself wearing Fulani braids. Most recently at Comme des Garcons mens Paris Fashion Week show, the brand faced criticism after models wore cornrow wigs.
Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, medical officials have been concerned about what will happen in the fall when the pandemic meets the annual flu season.

Virtua Health is beginning preparations for just that scenario with flu shots for its employees this week. Flu shots for the entire community will follow after that, the health system said Monday morning.



In an effort to follow social distancing guidelines, many flu shots will be provided in tented, outdoor areas at Virtua sites across Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester counties.



New Jersey Coronavirus Updates: Don't miss local and statewide announcements about novel coronavirus precautions. Sign up for Patch alerts and daily newsletters.



Virtua will offer flu shots to its primary care patients at its 27 primary care locations by mid-September. New patients must schedule a wellness visit and can receive a flu shot in conjunction with that appointment.



Most health insurance plans cover the full cost of the vaccine, so the shot is usually free to patients. Appointments are required. To schedule a flu shot, call 888-VIRTUA-3.



In addition, the Virtua Pediatric Mobile Services Program will soon provide free flu shots to children in underserved neighborhoods across Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester counties. This mobile clinic offers care-on-wheels year-round.



"We strongly recommend that everyone get a flu shot to ensure that, as a community, we are as protected as possible," said Dr. Martin Topiel head of infectious diseases and chief of infection prevention at Virtua Health.



Virtua officials fear the possibility that their facilities could become overwhelmed if there is a spike in both flu and coronavirus cases. There is also a chance of one person contracting both diseases, which would likely result in a more severe illness.



"This year is unique," Dr. Samuel Weiner said. "In the past, if you had the flu, you could rest for a few days, then go back to work or school once you started feeling better. The recommended self-isolation period is longer for COVID-19, so unless you get tested, you may have to stay home for an extended period."



Story continues

Seeking to lead by example, Virtua is launching a months-long campaign to ensure its employees receive the flu vaccine by Oct. 20, according to the health system.



"As caregivers, we must protect ourselves and remain as healthy as possible in order to do our jobs," Topiel said. "COVID-19 is a big enough challenge on its own, and our frontline workers have already sacrificed so much. That is why I ask that everyone does their part to help ensure this flu season is as manageable as possible."



While symptoms of the flu and the coronavirus are similar, there are ways to tell them apart. The flu comes on quickly, usually with a high fever. The coronavirus tends to develop more gradually and usually brings a dry cough. It often causes a fever, but not always.



Both viruses can temporarily weaken the immune system, leaving patients more vulnerable to severe illness or secondary bacterial infections. This is especially true for older adults and people with chronic health conditions  groups that are more likely to be hospitalized due to the flu.



The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that everyone ages 6 months and older receive a flu shot each year, ideally by the end of October. The vaccine offers the best defense against flu and its potentially serious consequences, and can reduce the spread of flu to others, health officials said.



Virtua reminds residents that the flu can spread easily among unvaccinated people. In recent years, fewer than half of adults got the flu shot, and the flu sickened millions of Americans, according to Virtua.



The CDC estimates that the flu caused 490,600 hospitalizations and 34,200 deaths during the 2018-19 influenza season.



"Unlike COVID-19, which is caused by a new strain of virus, scientists and researchers have studied influenza for many decades," Topiel said. "The medical community has ample data on the effectiveness  and importance  of the flu vaccine."



"Children are among the more vulnerable members of our society," Virtua Pediatric Mobile Program Director Maria Emerson said. "We want to remove the barriers that prevent children from receiving basic-but-vital care, so we bring flu shots to them at libraries, schools, community centers, and places of worship."



Click here to view the Virtua Pediatric Mobile Services monthly calendar or learn more at 609-304-0151.



Weiner recommends that patients catch up on other vaccines or health needs when they come in for their flu shot. For example, people 65 and older who have never had a pneumonia vaccine should receive one when they get their flu vaccine, he said.



See related: NJ Coronavirus, Reopen Updates: Here's What You Need To Know

This article originally appeared on the Cinnaminson Patch
Orthostatic hypotension  to many people those are unfamiliar words for a relatively common but often unrecognized medical problem that can have devastating consequences, especially for older adults. It refers to a brief but precipitous drop in blood pressure that causes lightheadedness or dizziness when standing up after lying down or sitting, and sometimes even after standing, for a prolonged period.

The problem is likely to be familiar to people of all ages who may have been confined to bed for a long time by an injury, illness or surgery. It also often occurs during pregnancy. But middle-aged and older adults are most frequently affected.

A significant number of falls and fractures, particularly among the elderly, are likely to result from orthostatic hypotension  literally, low blood pressure upon standing. Many an older person has fallen and broken a hip when getting out of bed in the morning or during the night to use the bathroom, precipitating a decline in health and loss of independence as a result of this blood pressure failure.

Orthostatic hypotension is also a risk factor for strokes and heart attacks and even motor vehicle accidents. It can be an early warning sign of a serious underlying cardiovascular or neurological disorder, like a heart valve problem, the course of which might be altered if detected soon enough. But as one team of specialists noted, although orthostatic hypotension is a highly prevalent disorder, it is frequently unrecognized until late in the clinical course.
In order to finish filming The Batman, Zoe Kravitz brought along her husband, Greyhound star Karl Glusman, and dog Scout to catch a flight to England out of JFK Airport in New York on Monday.

The 31-year-old nepotistically-privileged daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet sipped from a glass bottle while clad in a blue tank top, brown pants, and black boots from The Row.

Zoe and the Bronx-born 32-year-old - who celebrated their first wedding anniversary on June 29 - wore KN-95 masks, which New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made mandatory for public outings way back on April 15.

Jet setters: In order to finish filming The Batman, Zoe Kravitz brought along her husband, Greyhound star Karl Glusman, and dog Scout to catch a flight to England out of JFK Airport in New York on Monday

As of Monday, there have been over 233K confirmed COVID-19 cases in New York City leading to 23,689 deaths - according to Johns Hopkins University.

After the coronavirus shuttered Matt Reeves' reimagining of Batman in March, the cast and crew are scheduled to reassemble at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in early September - according to Variety.

Kravitz portrays cat burglar Selina Kyle aka Catwoman in The Batman - hitting US/UK theaters October 1, 2021 - alongside Robert Pattinson, Paul Dano, Colin Farrell, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, and Andy Serkis.

That same day, the High Fidelity stunner - whose Hulu series was canceled on August 5 - Instastoried Black Jaguar-White Tiger's #SaveTheChildren post, a hashtag favored by believers of QAnon.

He's a foot taller than her: The 31-year-old daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet sipped from a glass bottle while clad in a blue tank top, brown pants, and black boots from The Row

Mandatory on planes: Zoe and the Bronx-born 32-year-old - who celebrated their first wedding anniversary on June 29 - made sure to protect themselves and others from the coronavirus by wearing KN-95 masks

Back to work! After COVID-19 shuttered Matt Reeves' reimagining of Batman in March, the cast and crew are scheduled to reassemble at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in early September

Hitting US/UK theaters in 2021! Kravitz portrays cat burglar Selina Kyle aka Catwoman in The Batman alongside Robert Pattinson, Paul Dano, Colin Farrell, and Jeffrey Wright

QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory alleging President Donald Trump is secretly battling a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles running a global child sex-trafficking ring - none of which is based on fact.

Zoe was trying to bring awareness to the U.S. Marshals leading a two-week operation this month in Georgia to rescue 26 children, uncover the safe location of 13 other children, and arrest nine criminal associates.

The endangered children were not, however, all found huddled in a so-called 'double-wide trailer,' which got incorrectly spread on social media.

Conspiracy theorist? That same day, the High Fidelity stunner - whose Hulu series was canceled on August 5 - Instastoried Black Jaguar-White Tiger's #SaveTheChildren post, a hashtag favored by believers of QAnon

Not in a 'double-wide trailer': Zoe was trying to bring awareness to the U.S. Marshals leading a two-week operation this month in Georgia to rescue 26 children, uncover the safe location of 13 other children, and arrest nine criminal associates

Last Thursday, Kravitz shared a b&w topless '#Horny4ThaPolls' snap in order to encourage 'dope' Florida citizens to vote Democrat in the next election.

When the LA-born, Brooklyn-based beauty's 6M Instagram followers 'swiped right 4 a surprise,' they saw a Cheat Sheet of presidential, state senate, and state house candidates.

It's the first time Zoe officially endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket after publicly supporting Bernie Sanders for president.

'#Horny4ThaPolls': Last Thursday, Kravitz shared a b&w topless snap in order to encourage 'dope' Florida citizens to vote Democrat in the next election
A new heart-shaped sculpture near the entrance of the Village of Sanford Park honors the community devastated by flooding just three months ago.

The sculpture, which was installed on Friday, was created by the Freeland-based ZENTX Media Group. ZENTX is a creative design and custom fabrication company that has been operating within the mid-Michigan area for nearly 22 years.

"This year has been challenging, specifically for Sanford and Midland," said Mark Wenz, ZENTX vice president and co-founder.

When ZENTX staff got the news about the devastating flooding that stuck Midland and Sanford on May 19, they felt the need to contribute to the community, Wenz said. Creative director Jeremy Gwizdala originally came up with an idea for building a large exhibit originally for the City of Midland.

"This would be an interactive art piece that the whole community could contribute and participate in to show solidarity, positivity and camaraderie," reads a statement from Wenz. "At that point, we all agreed to donate labor hours and most of the material costs."

Wenz reached out to Sharon Mortensen, Midland Area Community Foundation president and CEO, and shared the idea. Mortensen thought that it would be a great way to boost the morale of the community in the aftermath of the flood.

"It's meant to extend love, care and the support of the community to Sanford," Mortensen said.

According to a statement from ZENTX, the "Sanford Strong Heart" will serve as a representation of the community's strength and unity amidst the crisis. The sculpture has 400 small heart-shaped slots that will be filled with tokens that people can decorate.

"We know how hard it is as a business owner to get through some of this stuff, so we just thought it would be good to donate something the community can be involved with," Wenz said.

The 400 small hearts were distributed to the Village of Sanford, and families in the community will be able to paint on them individually. These small hearts will be screwed on to the slots and they will make up the whole exhibit.

Working alongside other local organizations such as the Children's Grief Center of the Great Lakes Bay Region, the Village of Sanford will be setting up safe ways for families to decorate the hearts in the near future.
UW Students Compile Largest-Ever Catalog of Quasars

A group of University of Wyoming students put together the largest quasar catalog to date as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Quasar broad emission line regions are the clouds of hot, ionized gas that surround the supermassive black holes feeding in the centers of galaxies.

This is the release of the largest quasar catalog to date and possibly the largest for the next few years, says Brad Lyke, a third-year UW graduate student from Oceanside, Calif., majoring in physics and astronomy. The SDSS puts out a blog targeted for astronomy enthusiasts and undergraduates. I wrote a blog post on some of the big picture surrounding our paper and where it fits into the cosmology research the SDSS is doing.

Lyke was the lead and corresponding author of a paper, titled The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Sixteenth Data Release, that was published Aug. 27 in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement, which is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of astrophysics and astronomy.

Alexandra Higley, a junior from Parker, Colo., double majoring in physics and astronomy/astrophysics; Jacob McLane, a third-year graduate student from Loveland, Colo., majoring in physics; and Danielle Schurhammer, a senior from Plainview, Minn., double majoring in physics and astronomy/astrophysics, were the other UW students involved. All were co-authors of the paper.

Adam Myers, a UW associate professor of physics and astronomy, and Lykes Ph.D. adviser, oversaw the work.

Other contributors to the paper are from Ohio State University, University of Utah, University of Washington, New Mexico State University, Penn State University, University of Pittsburgh and Durham University in the U.K.

The SDSS has created the most detailed three-dimensional maps of the universe ever made, with deep multicolor images of one-third of the sky, and spectra for more than 3 million astronomical objects. The SDSS has been observing the skies from Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, N.M., since 1998 and from Las Campanas Observatory in Vallenar, located in Atacama Region, Chile, since 2017.

I was the point person for the University of Wyoming team in collaboration meetings and for the quasar catalog project as a whole, Lyke says.

The catalog work was coordinated through emails, online teleconferences and attending international conference meetings -- all under the umbrella of the SDSS-IV collaboration.

Lyke compiled the data from already-completed observations conducted by the SDSS. The SDSS targeted approximately 1.44 million objects from images that were highly likely to be quasars. However, the spectroscopic follow-up, the data Lyke worked with, showed not all of the objects were actually quasars. Many were actually stars and galaxies.

Out of the 1.44 million object images, just over 750,000 turned out to actually be quasars. Of that total, over 225,000 were newly discovered quasars.

That was my teams job, to separate the incorrectly targeted non-quasars from the quasars, Lyke explains. Originally, I was only to take over the project compiling the catalog. However, another group responsible for visually inspecting a portion of the data -- about 20,000 spectra -- did not return for this last catalog.

In the absence of any other volunteers, Lyke took on the part of visually inspecting the spectra. To complete this task, Lyke brought on Higley, McLane and Schurhammer to assist him.

I trained them to look at and classify spectra. Then, we all worked on that part (visual inspections) together, Lyke says. We were all new to that part of the research and were taking over from a group of veterans of the project who had been doing it for years. Im very proud of how my team did, especially under such circumstances.

The team identified Damped Lyman Alpha quasars, which are distinguished by big dips in the light at certain wavelengths around the Lyman Alpha emission line(s). These emission lines are places where distant gas/dust clouds or other galaxies in front of the quasar have absorbed some of the light the team expected to see.

The group also identified Broad Absorption Line quasars, which are similar, but the absorbing clouds are usually in the same galaxy as the quasar. As a result, the absorption dips are in different places in the spectrum.

In both cases, these shadow puppets can give us information on the absorbing objects because we know what we should expect from the quasar itself, but what we see is different, Lyke explains.

The catalog was released to the public July 20 and has two primary uses, Lyke says.

One, the cosmology research and analysis conducted with quasars, as part of the key project for SDSS-IV, required this catalog. That research needs the 3D position information of quasars across the sky, he says.

The team identified the first two coordinates for the quasars by their right ascension and declination coordinates. Redshifts, a measure of doppler shifting, were used to obtain the third coordinate. As an analogy, a redshift is similar to what happens to sound from a moving object -- such as a police siren driving past -- except with light.

And two, although the cosmology research doesnt involve studying the physics of quasars themselves, quite a bit of other research does study the physics of quasars, Lyke says.

This catalog will be used by those researchers as a list of known quasars with non-SDSS data included all in one file, he says. These SDSS quasar catalogs, and especially this last one, are widely used in the field of quasar research.

The previous catalog, called DR14Q, was released in May 2018 and already has 148 citations linking back to it, Lyke says.
Painful though it is for me - because I do know that President Akufo-Addo actually came to serve the people of Ghana, not to steal from them - the alleged arrest of the President of the Association of Concerned Small-Scale Gold Miners (apparently because they had arranged a press conference, to expose wrong-doing in the mining sector, by big-people), are the kind of arrogant power-drunk, and abominable-undemocratic-actions, which some of those in his inner-circle resort to, to silence their critics, which have made some of us vow to punish all of them, by working for their defeat, in the decisive December 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections. Yabr3. Who born dog? Haaba.

How dare they carry on as if they owned our country, and we were their serfs, I ask, dear reader? What is this insistence on the Ghanaian nation-state always having to borrow to finance infrastructural projects, and saddling our younger generations and their unborn offspring with huge debt mountains to conundrum with - instead of giving the private sector the oppoqrtunity to fund them, in exchange for pocketing rhe revenues over lengthy periods, I ask? Haaba.

Furthermore, why the heck can't they do some lateral thinking, for a change, and take advantage of the Chinese government's policy of encouraging their citizens to invest in gold jewelry, and gold bars, for example, and turn Ghana into their biggest market for same, using the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) as a gold marketing centre, I ask?

Will that not bring in tens of millions of wealthy Chinese citizens, into our country, as eager tourists, here, to shop for unique pure gold jewellery, and Adinkra-embossed credit-card-sized gold bars, and help create an outbound tourism market in Ghana, for China's tourism sector, and ours, and boost tax revenues, that way?

So, why are we still insisting on allowing ruthless and semi-literate Chinese villagers, looking for their main-chance, to come and destroy our priceless natural capital (that is so vital, in an era of serial-pandemics, for public-health-reasons), and help sundry carpetbaggers to regularly, smuggle over U.S.$2 billion worth of gold, on top of that, annually, without our country benefiting in any shape or form, from that? Are we so blind, and so foolish? Haaba.

The question is: Why have those too-clever-by-half geniuses, forgotten so soon, that the main reason they were elected (by an overwhelming number of voters), was essentially because we all believed that they would actually end high-level corruption in our country, and run the national economy, in the national interest, for the benefit of all our people, rich and poor alike?

Lying hypocrites forever quoting the Holy Bible to hide their devilish plans. Is that not how we were tricked into letting go of our golden share in Ashanti Goldfields, during the takeover by AngloGold, with their vain sugar-coated-promises?

President Akufo-Addo has fulfilled his personal ambition to lead Ghana, and those of us who like him, on a purely human level, and admire his tenacity of purpose, which made him finally achieve his main life-goal, are happy for him that God Almighty made that possible, after two consecutive painful-defeats. Alas, recent events have now convinced some of us that he ought to retire.

His legacy, such as it is, is pretty impressive, and will doubtless lay the foundation for a prosperous future, for our ambitious and hardworking younger generations. Ghana is not for sale, wai.

Sadly, we need to rid our country of his arrogant family members, and their greed-filled amoral regime-cronies, who are engaged in the most outrageous state-capture abuse-of-power, ever seen in the annals of the entire history, of our country, since independence in 1957.

Why should we vote them back to power again, to enable them continue engaging in yet more asset-stripping, of the enterprise Ghana - which is why they must be turfed out of power, to save Mother Ghana from their callous and brutal gang-raping. Yabr3. Haaba.

We most certainly did not elect President Akufo-Addo to power, in order to allow a few well-connected private individuals, and highly-placed government members, in his inner-circle, to come and also engage in such Chop-Ghana-Small asset-stripping, ooooo. No. No. No. Enough is enough. Haaba. Hmmmm, Oman Ghana, eyeasem, ooooo - enti yewieye paaa enei? Asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa, ooooo. Yoooooo...
A Peterborough-area snowbird stranded alone in Costa Rica during the COVID-19 pandemic says hes got a seat on a chartered plane to Toronto on Friday.

My spirits have swung around 180 degrees, said Troy Patterson, who told The Examiner recently that he was desperate to get home.

He said earlier that he was going into debt paying to stay in Costa Rica, couldnt access the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and didnt have a way home.

But since the Examiner article appeared, he said he received offers of help that allowed him to buy a seat on a chartered plane to Toronto on Friday and to be approved to receive CERB retroactive to March.

He also said the woman who owns the Rice Lake cottage he usually rents in the summers has offered the space for two months when he returns.

Peterborough friends also offered to pick him up Friday evening at the airport in Toronto.

I anticipate that moment of getting into their car and driving away will be a moment of such elation  just the freedom of that moment! Patterson said on Monday.

Patterson, 59, is a building contractor who spends his summers in the cottage on Rice Lake and winters in Costa Rica in a rented home.

When the federal government asked all Canadians abroad to come home in mid-March, he didnt come back. He figured travel restrictions would be lifted by the time his prepaid return flight left Costa Rica April 1.

When that didnt happen he bought plane tickets four times for commercial flights home, and each time the flights were cancelled (he says because the Costa Rican government said the airlines were never sanctioned to fly.)

But Patterson said he was contacted recently by a group of Canadians  some trying to get out of Costa Rica, and some trying to get there  asking whether hed buy a seat on the flight. Theyd read about him in The Examiner.

The cost for a ticket was $1,800.

Patterson said he has now been approved to receive the CERB, with help from a Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) official whod been contacted by The Examiner with inquiries about the taxable benefit and how they might help someone like Patterson.

The CRA website says CERB offers $500 per week for 24 weeks (from March 15  which adds up to $12,000).

If all goes as planned Patterson will be home Friday night, and he wont forget everyone who helped him: Im just grateful for the love.
Bela-Ruse! The trickery behind Lukashenkos opposition

The vast majority of Western liberals and even leftists have been quick to uncritically jump on the bandwagon of supporting the Belarusian opposition forces seeking the overthrow of President Lukashenko. Views to the contrary have been ignored or denounced as supporting dictatorship.

President Lukashenko.

This only shows that these people continue to refuse to learn from history, and adopt a metaphysical and idealist approach to the world and to apply the question of how to develop and use knowledge about the world.

The opposition has been painted as progressive and peaceful, seeking more democracy and workers rights. It is true that some of them see themselves in this way, and those are the ones who get the most screen time in our media. But it is quite clear from investigating the actual balance of forces at play that the driving force of the unrest has been a coalition of right-wing neo-liberals and fascists, given assistance by foreign imperialist forces who wish to see Belarus opened up to increased financial domination and exploitation by the EU and US.

The opposition has made it clear that if they take over government, they plan to implement neoliberal economic policies such as the mass privatisation of state assets, deregulation of markets including the labour market, and closer ties to the EU and US. They also fly the white-red-white flag, which was used during WW2 by Belarusian Nazi collaborators who aided and took part in the murder of Jewish people and Communists amongst others. This fact is known by all Belarusians, although the opposition denies that it should be taken too seriously. After the war, most of the leaders of the various Nazi-collaborator groups, other than those caught and executed by Soviet authorities, moved to  and lived out their days in  the United States, where they were happily taken in.

While it is (shamefully) unsurprising that Western liberals are not bothered by these things, it is shocking that many Western leftists, many of whom call themselves Marxists, see fit to downplay or overlook them, and instead accept the mainstream attitude that the most important fact is that the opposition is anti-dictatorship and pro-democracy. This reveals an un-Marxist idealist outlook, which treats ideas as the primary reality rather than real material conditions.

We also know as Marxists that practice and experience are the source of knowledge, and that a thing cannot be understood but by its relations to other things, and its internal relations and contradictions. No thing can be understood in isolation. In politics, the study of history furnishes us with a wealth of practical experience from struggles around the world, and the situation in Belarus is no exception. We can find clear parallels between the current events there, and many other recent events in other countries.

From last year we see the attempted coup in Venezuela and the successful coup in Bolivia, both of which followed a similar formula: claims of election tampering made by the neoliberal opposition and promoted in Western media, followed by the proclamation of a US-backed interim President. Some Western sources have already begun pointing to the Belarusian opposition figurehead Svetlana Tikhanovskaya as a potential interim President, showing that phrase has become a dogwhistle for US-backed regime change operations.

Yet more instructively, we can look at the recent history of neighbouring Ukraine. In 2004, then-Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych ran for Ukrainian Presidential elections. He won by a narrow margin, but protests similar to those in Belarus today emerged denouncing the result as marred by tampering and corruption. The protests eventually succeeded in preventing Yanukovych from becoming President, and instead the opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko was placed in the position. This event is known as the Orange Revolution which gave rise to the term colour revolution for this and similar instances of US-backed regime change.

#1209 of The Workers Weekly Guardian, (while the Orange Revolution was still ongoing and the outcome uncertain) stated:

The conflict in Ukraine is a further grab for complete economic, political and military power by the United States, supported by the European Union. Outgoing President Leonid Kuchma  who has maintained a semi-state controlled economy and favours relations with Russia over the NATO alliance  backed Viktor Yanukovych in the recent Presidential elections. A pro-big business, pro-NATO banker  Viktor Yushchenko  was the main opposition candidate. *

Despite the events of the Orange Revolution, Yanukovych managed to get elected again as President in 2010 and maintained that position until 2014. But then, the same events occurred a second time, as farce. This time it was called the Euromaidan. From #1629 of The Workers Weekly Guardian:

Ukraine has been subjected to what is becoming an all too familiar practice of ousting legitimate governments that refuse to submit themselves to the diktat of the US. In Libya and Syria and now Venezuela [...] and Ukraine, a similar formula for regime change can be seen. Antigovernment protests and demands by forces seeking reforms are used as fronts for Western (or Saudi) funded, armed and trained ultra-right and terrorist/fascist forces.

In Ukraine, the US has installed what it calls a transitional coalition government which is heavily penetrated by neo-Nazi and other extreme right forces. Members of the Svoboda (All Ukrainian Union) and Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) have control over the armed forces, police and national security. Svoboda was formerly called the Social National Party, a deliberate reference to Hitlers Nazi party.

While many of the issues voiced during these two revolutions in Ukraine were valid, especially the issue of corruption, it is very clear now, with the benefit of years of experience of a Ukraine governed by these pro-US/EU forces, that the legitimate issues have not been improved whatsoever, and they were only a tactic by the neoliberal and fascist forces to gain support inside and outside the country. Instead, these imperialist-backed governments have implemented far-right economic and social policies, and corruption has only increased. Laws have been passed in Ukraine which not only permit but make legally compulsory the glorification of Ukrainian fascists and Nazi collaborators, and denial of the fact of their role in the Holocaust and other grave crimes. The Communist Party of Ukraine, which had maintained huge popular support from its refoundation in 1993 until the Orange Revolution changed the political climate in favour of the right, has now been forbidden from participating in elections.

The Belarusian opposition openly identifies themselves as the Belarusian counterpart of the heritage of the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan, and openly copies the tactics and talking points of those coups.

All these facts in themselves should be quite enough to show that this Belarusian opposition should not be supported. This is a different question to the evaluation of President Lukashenko: whatever his failings, the failings of Yanukovych were perhaps worse, and yet it is all the more clear that Yanukovychs oustings were reactionary and illegitimate, the product of outside intervention. We have the benefit of hindsight with Ukraine, which we do not with the present situation in Belarus, but it is simply ridiculous not to learn anything from the relevant past experience of Ukraine.

* spelling of names edited for consistency with modern style.
Members of the Defence Forces at a Covid testing tent on Sir John Rogersons Quay in Dublin in March

Almost 30 soldiers at an Army barracks in Co Westmeath were placed in isolation after a Defence Forces member tested positive for Covid-19.

The precautionary measure was taken at the Custume Barracks in Athlone, last week and led to 27 personnel being placed into isolation.

Sources said that a Defence Forces member had returned to work before later testing positive for the virus.

Guidelines

"He went back to the barracks and was later informed that he had in fact tested positive for Covid-19.

"The person in question had been in the barracks and this resulted in 27 of his colleagues being put into isolation because they had been in close contact with him.

"The Defence Forces have strict guidelines on its procedures around Covid-19 but unfortunately on this occasion there was a confirmed case resulting in others being isolated," the source added.

Following the confirmed case military officers re-informed its members across the organisation of the guidelines in place for personnel who display symptoms for the virus.

Strict guidelines issued by the Defence Forces state that personnel who believe they are displaying Covid-19 symptoms should stay at home or in their place of accommodation and seek medical advice.

Personnel are also advised not to attend at a military medical facility to reduce the potential risk of infecting others.

They are also obliged to inform their unit headquarters and supply any supporting documentation.

Among the services based at the Custume Barracks in Athlone is the Emergency Aeromedical Service (EAS), an air ambulance service operated by the Defence Forces, which has been working out of the barracks since 2013.

A spokesman said that the "Defence Forces does not comment on individual cases and continues to strictly adhere to all HSE and government Covid-19 guidelines".

The spokesman did not respond to specific questions about whether last week's incident impacted on the service of the EAS.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the Defence Forces has been helping in various areas, including testing, contact tracing as well as collecting personal protective equipment.

Assistance

In March, patrol ships from the Naval Service were deployed to Dublin, Cork and Galway to assist with testing, while test centres involving Defence Force members were also introduced at GAA facilities including Croke Park and Pairc Ui Chaoimh.

By June over 10m had been spent to help the organisation in its fight against the pandemic with 5.2m spent on the acquisition of new aircraft and 4.2m on additional medical, engineering, building, and transport costs across the Army, naval service as well as the Air Corps.

More than one million had also been spent on additional allowance payments and a further 400,000 on civil defence.
But one of the thorniest issues to be resolved had reemerged by the time the plane landed at Abu Dhabi International Airport: The potential sale of U.S. F-35 fighters to the UAE. Israel is the only country in the region to have a fleet of the jets, the most advanced in the U.S. arsenal, and leaked reports that Washington might make them available to the Persian Gulf state after the diplomatic breakthrough have caused a storm in Israeli security circles.
Turning the Suicidal Into Organ Farms

Commentary

Think about this frightening scenario: You are seriously ill or disabled, perhaps mentally ill. You become suicidal. Assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal, so you ask your doctor to end your life.

She replies, OK, thats your choice. And by the way, can we also take your liver?

Wait! What? Isnt that crass scenario alarmist and farfetched? Its certainly crass, but unfortunately, it isnt alarmist or farfetched. Lethal injection euthanasia is already conjoined with organ harvesting where its legal.

For proof, we need only look to Canada, our closest cultural cousins. The Canadian Supreme Court created a right to lethal-injection euthanasia in 2014known euphemistically as MAID for medical assistance in dying. Once killing sick patients became legal, it didnt take long for doctors to conjoin lethally injecting patientssome of whom wouldnt have died naturally for months or yearswith harvesting their organs.

Not only that, but in Ontario and Quebec, once despairing people are approved for euthanasia, doctors inform organ donation organizations about the planned killing so they can contact the suicidal patient to request their organs. As reported by the Ottawa Citizen in a celebratory story, Trillium Gift of Life Networkwhich administers Ontarios organ donation outreachbecame the first jurisdiction in the world to proactively reach out to those who had been approved for assisted death to discuss donation.

Transplant Quebec, the organ donation administrator for that province, soon followed suit. According to the story, 5 percent of transplant organs in these provinces now come from people killed by doctors.

Please note that suicide prevention organizations arent notified when a patient asks for euthanasia. In other words, when a legally qualified patient wants to die, the emphasis in Canada shifts from helping the person live to ensuring that he or she diesand that society benefits from the killing.

Belgium and the Netherlands also permit euthanasia organ harvesting, including upon those who are mentally ill. In other words, truly despairing peoplewho could otherwise live indefinitelyenter a hospital, are transfused with poison, and minutes later, their heart, liver, kidneys, and lungs are removed.

American Blueprints

At this point, U.S. defenders of legalizing assisted suicide/euthanasia will say that organ harvesting after assisted suicide isnt happening here. While thats true, the blueprints for permitting organ donation euthanasia are already being written in prestigious medical and bioethics journals.

This includes organ transplant publications, which should insist on the highest ethical standards if only to preserve trust in the system. The most important such protection is known as the dead donor rule (DDR)which requires actual death before vital organs are procured, and as a corollary, ensures that patients arent killed for their organs.

But some in the medical transplant community have identified a loophole. As long as the patient asks for euthanasia first, organ donation after the killing is perfectly respectable.

In 2011, a study in Applied Cardiopulmonary Pathophysiology reported on the successful lung transplants from four Belgian patients who were euthanized. The report concluded cheerily, Euthanasia donors accounted for 23.5% of all DCD [donors after cardiac death] lung donors with excellent post-transplant graft function and good early recipient outcome.

At no point did the authors question the morality of killing and harvesting patientsnone of whom, its worth pointing out, were terminally ill. Good grief, one of those killed and harvested in the study was a mentally ill chronic self-harmer.

Lets pause for a moment and consider what happened. Doctors decided that the ultimate injurydeathwas appropriate to treat self-harming, and that the mentally ill are splendid donors because their organs are healthy. And the patient was allowed to think that her death would have greater value than continuing to live.

Who knows if that was the tipping point in the decision to die? The mind boggles.

There are many other examples of articles in respected medical journals uncritically accepting the conjoining of euthanasia with organ procurement. The most recent was in the Aug. 5 JAMA Surgerypublished by the American Medical Associationthat assessed the practical viability of procuring livers for transplant from people killed via euthanasia.

The study celebrates the utilitarian potential: Organ donation after euthanasia could help alleviate the current organ shortage. A retrospective study found that 10% of patients who underwent euthanasia could have been a suitable organ donor. Especially for patients for whom organ replacement therapy options are limited, including candidates for a liver transplant, the use of organs donated after euthanasia could reduce waiting-list mortality.

Never mind that the death of the donor would be caused by premeditated legal homicide. The utterly amoral studyin one of the USAs leading medical journalsconcludes that while there are some safety issues to consider, findings from this study suggest that the use of liver grafts donated after euthanasia is justifiable and can expand the existing donor pool.

Death by Organ Harvesting

Good grief, why not just skip the lethal injection and kill the patient via organ removal itself? That bloody harvest isnt being doneyetbut its been proposed in several reputable bioethics and medical journals.

That includes the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), perhaps the worlds most respected medical publication. In The Dead Donor Rule and the Future of Organ Donation, three bioethicists argue in favor of changing homicide laws to permit euthanasia by organ harvesting: Although shifting the ethical foundation of organ donation from the DDR to the principles of autonomy and nonmaleficence would require creation of legal exceptions to our homicide laws, this would not be the first time we have struggled to reconcile laws with the desire of individual patients to die in the manner of their own choosing.

Similarly, in 2019, the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation published an article advocating organ donation euthanasia (ODE) by removing the beating heart from the still-living patient. Never mind that the Hippocratic Oath explicitly forbids assisted suicide, the authors wrote, Making ODE possible, compared with neglecting the patients wish and not facilitating this procedure, respects the Hippocratic Oath, which mandates taking care of the organ donor and the recipient in the best possible way. Good grief!

What are we to conclude from this godawful circumstance? Once a society accepts the poisonous premise that some of its members have a life of such low quality that doctors should be allowed to kill them, and once these patientsmany of whom already feel like burdensare allowed to believe that their deaths have greater societal value than their lives, the conversion of suicidal patients into so many organ farms becomes a logical imperative.

As the great moral philosopher Leon Kass once put it, Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder.

Award-winning author Wesley J. Smith is the chairman of the Discovery Institutes Center on Human Exceptionalism and a consultant to the Patients Rights Council.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
William Neikirk, an award-winning economics and political journalist who spent nearly 35 years with the Chicago Tribune and served as White House correspondent during the Clinton administration, died Aug. 27 at his home in Arlington, Va. He was 82.

The cause was dementia and complications from the novel coronavirus, said a daughter, Christa Neikirk.

Neikirk wrote about politics and economics for The Associated Press before joining the Tribune's Washington bureau in 1974. He also had stints as Chicago-based associate managing editor of financial news and chief Washington correspondent before retiring in 2008 after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

He was honored for his business and political coverage, including the 1995 White House Correspondents' Association's Merriman Smith Award for presidential reporting.

His nonfiction books included "Volcker: A Portrait of the Money Man" (1987), about Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987, and "The Work Revolution: How High-Tech Is Sweeping Away Old Jobs and Industries and Creating New Ones in New Places" (1983), written with Gail Garfield Schwartz.

He also wrote a novel, "The Copperhead Club," which a friend described as a thriller based in Washington and the hills of Kentucky where he grew up, in a family of nine brothers and two sisters. He wrote the novel in longhand on yellow legal pads while riding the Metro rail from his home in Arlington to work in Washington. It was self-published in 2015.

William Robert Neikirk was born in Irvine, Ky., on Jan. 6, 1938. His father was a railroad worker, his mother a homemaker.

He graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1960 with a bachelor's degree in journalism, then became a political writer for the AP, covering the state legislatures in Kentucky and Louisiana. In 1967, he covered the trial of 18 men charged with conspiracy in the murders of three young civil rights workers - James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner - outside Philadelphia, Miss., three years earlier.

In 2007, he was president of the Gridiron Club, an exclusive organization of Washington journalists that hosts an annual dinner at which top government officials are satirized in song and dance.

In 1960, he married Ruth Clary. In addition to his wife, of Arlington, survivors include three children, Greg Neikirk of Charlotte, John Neikirk of Arlington and Christa Lynn Neikirk of Rockville, Md.; and two grandchildren.
The Foreign Secretary will assume control over the UK's aid brief on Wednesday - Frank Augstein/AP

Dominic Raab is preparing to go head-to-head with Treasury officials who plan to cut the UKs foreign aid budget to pay for the cost of Covid-19, the Telegraph has learned.

Mr Raab, the Foreign Secretary, officially takes over the UKs international development brief on Wednesday, following the Governments merger of the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development.

He is expected to push back against leaked plans to abandon the UKs legal commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income on international aid, thought to be under consideration by Treasury officials.

Mr Raab will reaffirm the Governments commitment to the 0.7 per cent figure, which is also a Conservative manifesto pledge, sources said.

Whoever is suggesting this doesnt know the mind of Foreign Secretary, a senior Whitehall source added.

The suggestion that aid could be axed is thought to have come from Treasury civil servants, rather than from Rishi Sunak, a Government source suggested.

Foreign Office officials are confident the Chancellor will not support the plans on Budget day in November.

Boris Johnson is thought to be against any changes to the aid spend, but the proposed cut is one of a number of measures floated in recent days that suggest the Treasury is planning a major fundraising Budget in November.

A rise in corporation tax and a raid on pensions have also been suggested as ways to reduce the large budget deficit left after the Governments emergency coronavirus measures.

The annual aid spending target is set out in law, and could only be undone by a vote in Parliament.

The 0.7 per cent figure is recommended by the United Nations, and the UKs legal commitment makes it one of the largest donors worldwide.

Last year, the Britain spent more than 15bn on aid, including a 972m contribution to the EU development budget.

The proposed abandonment of the aid pledge was criticised on Monday by Tory backbenchers, who suggested that it could weaken the UKs international standing.

Story continues

Tobias Elwood, a former defence minister, said: Its shortsighted in failing to appreciate how well targeted aid can strengthen relationships and open up new markets - thus helping the Treasury.

Cutting aid also fuels instability which impacts on the UK. Lets think strategically.

A report in the Sun newspaper suggested Treasury officials may have earmarked the money for Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence projects.

But Sarah Champion, chair of Parliaments International Development Committee, said any money saved may be used by the Government as sweeteners in post-Brexit trade negotiations.

What concerns me most is a seeming lack of understanding of what aid is and how it benefits the UK, she told The Telegraph.

Abandoning the 0.7 per cent pledge would lead to a free for all, with aid being used to prop up trade deals, she said.

A Foreign Office source said: We are committed to 0.7 per cent. It is Government policy and a manifesto commitment. There will be no change to that.
Steve Easterbrook, then-chief executive officer of McDonald's Corp., speaks during the opening of the company's new headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, on Monday, June 4, 2018.

McDonald's slammed former CEO Steve Easterbrook in a new legal filing on Monday, arguing that he should have to defend his conduct in court.

More than two weeks ago, Easterbrook asked the Delaware court to dismiss the case filed by McDonald's, which is suing him to recoup his severance package after saying it discovered that he had sexual relationships with three additional women while at McDonald's.

The board ousted Easterbrook in November and awarded him a severance package with an estimated value of tens of millions of dollars after he acknowledged an affair with an employee but denied additional sexual relationships. The separation agreement also included some benefits for McDonald's, like noncompete and nondisparagement clauses, which Easterbrook's attorney pointed out in his request for dismissal of the case.

"Easterbrook's suggestion that, his lies notwithstanding, McDonald's got a good enough deal by ridding itself of him has no legal merit," McDonald's responded in the filing.

In arguing for a dismissal, Easterbrook claimed that McDonald's had the "new" information about his alleged relationships the entire time. Easterbrook allegedly deleted emails containing evidence of those relationships on his phone, yet they remained on the company's servers, McDonald's said.

McDonald's said in its filing that Easterbrook's argument boils down to "he cannot be liable because, as a matter of law, he did not hide his misconduct well enough."
During his six years as Taoiseach, Enda Kenny was tipped a few times for big Brussels jobs.

But while he is not in the running to take Phil Hogan's old job at the EU Commission, another potential career opening beckons - this time as a television presenter.

Later this year the former Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader will front a television series on RTE 1 about old Irish railways from times past. Mr Kenny, a fluent Irish speaker, will present the series in Irish.

Read More

The online Irish-language news service, Tuairisc.ie, reports that the series is made for the national broadcaster by the company Feiristeach Sonas Productions, which has made many successful programmes for RTE and the BBC.

It is understood the company has already taped three programmes in the series due to be broadcast late this year and early in 2021.

Mr Kenny is understood to be enjoying revisiting the old railways in Mayo and adjoining counties, as well as throughout the country.

Always a keen student of history, he is developing a new-found interest in railway history.

RTE is also planning a series based on bringing other well-known personalities back to the Gaeltacht to have a second go at learning Irish.

But this series, called Realta na Gaeltachta (Gaeltacht Stars), has so far been delayed at the planning stage due to Covid-19 restrictions.

The former Mayo TD will be hoping to emulate the success of former British Tory minister Michael Portillo, who has a very successful series on railway history and nostalgia on BBC television.

The irony in Mr Portillo's case is that he was part of UK governments which continued the retrenchment of railway services in that country.

The evisceration of Irish railways mainly occurred in the decades Enda's father, Henry Kenny, served as a TD and eventually a junior government minister.

Luckily some railways survived in his native Co Mayo, unlike other counties.
Hindustan Zinc fell 1.64% to Rs 225.10 after the company said that its promoter Vedanta created an encumbrance over the equity shares of the company.

Meanwhile, shares of Vedanta rose 1.16% to Rs 130.30 on the BSE. The S&P BSE Sensex lost 279.29 points or 0.71% to 39,188.02.

In a BSE filing made during market hours today, Hindustan Zinc said that Vedanta has tied up a long-term syndicated loan facility for Rs 10,000 crore with State Bank of India as facility agent and SBICAP Trustee Company as the security trustee with door to door maturity of 7 years.

State Bank of India has given a commitment of Rs 5,000 crore as a lender. The loan facility will increase company's average debt maturity profile and improve liquidity ratios as near term maturities are replaced by long term loan.

"The facility end use stipulates refinancing of near term debt maturities of Vedanta and for capital expenditure of Vedanta. This extends maturity profile, improves liquidity ratio and reinforces the commitment of lenders in the growth story of Vedanta," the company said in a statement.

The security is provided by way of a pledge over shares held by Vedanta in Hindustan Zinc, representing 14.8% of the paid-up share capital. It has also given a non-disposal undertaking in respect of its shareholding in Hindustan Zinc (HZL), to the extent of 50.1% of HZL's paid-up share capital, which are not pledged.

Hindustan Zinc is engaged in the mining and smelting of zinc, lead and silver metal in India. The firm's segments include mining and smelting of zinc, lead and silver, and wind energy.

The company's standalone net profit dropped 23% to Rs 1,359 crore on 20.83% decrease in revenue to Rs 3,898 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019.

As on 30 June 2020, Vedanta held 64.98% stake in Hindustan Zinc.

In May 2020, Vedanta had sought shareholders' nod to delist after Anil Agarwal-controlled Vedanta Resources (VRL) offered to buyout about 49.9% of public shareholding at Rs 87.5 per share. Vedanta said that delisting will provide the group with enhanced operational and financial flexibility in a capital intensive business.

In June, shareholders approved the delisting proposal with requisite majority. Currently, promoters hold 50.14% in Vedanta.

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When Pranab told Rajdeep not to interrupt and raise his voice

Pranab Mukherjee had suffered head injury in an accident in 2007

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

New Delhi, Aug 31: Pranab Mukherjee, former President of India and stalwart of Indian politics, breathed his last on Monday at the age of 84. The veteran politician was found to be coronavirus positive when he went to Army Hospital for treatment. At the hospital, he underwent surgery for a blood clot in the brain.

Mukherjee met an car accident in 2007

A truck collided with the car of Mukherjee, then the external affairs minister, and he received deep head injuries at the night of April 7 in 2007.

Mukherjee was travelling from Murshidabad to Kolkata when his car was hit by an oncoming truck that skid off the road after one of the tires burst.

The pilot car and other vehicles had moved on ahead. The condition of the driver and security guard is reported to be serious.

The senior Congress leader was administered first aid and received 12 stitches at a hospital in Nakashipara in Bengal.

Mukherjee was first taken to a local health centre where he got stitches on his scalp and then was shifted to a government hospital at Krishnagar in West Bengal.

But as the hospital did not have CT scan and X-ray facilities, a gynaecologist and the owner of a nursing home got a call from district administration officials to get all the facilities ready as Mukherjee would be shifted to the nursing home.

The then Union minister was shifted to the nursing home under the supervision of a few doctors who came from the SSKM Hospital, a premier state-run facility in Kolkata.

"Although Mukherjee was suffering from pain, he was very calm and composed. He was also very humble. We got the tests done and found, fortunately, that there was no internal injury. Later, he was taken to Kolkata that night," the doctor said.

Then Mukherjee was airlifted from Kolkata to Delhi on a special plane and admitted to Army's Research and Referral Hospital for further treatment.

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Story first published: Monday, August 31, 2020, 19:29 [IST]
Aston Martin DB5 Junior: The celebration of an icon for a new generation

Aston Martin and The Little Car Company are collaborating to create the Aston Martin DB5 Junior, an electric two-thirds scale version of the brands most iconic car

Two versions are available, the DB5 Junior and the DB5 Vantage Junior

With only 1059 vehicles being built, there will be exactly the same number of DB5 Juniors as there were of the original DB5. Owners of original cars will be offered first the opportunity to have a DB5 Junior with a matching chassis number to their car

27 August 2020, Bicester Heritage, UK: Aston Martin and The Little Car Company today announce the DB5 Junior, a two-thirds scale electric junior car. Developed over the last 15 months as a collaboration between the two companies, the junior car is based on Aston Martins reference 3D scan of an original DB5 to ensure complete accuracy and authenticity.

DB5 Junior Specifications

At around 3m long, and 1.1m wide, the DB5 Junior is designed to easily accommodate an adult and a child side by side, to allow different generations to share the love of driving. The aluminium honeycomb chassis and composite body provide a very rigid platform whilst keeping the total weight down to around 270kg. Powered by a torque-laden electric powertrain delivering 5kW / 6.7 bhp to the rear wheels, the drivers will be grateful for the integrated bucket seat as they accelerate to the 30mph top speed.

Absolute authenticity was key throughout the development of the vehicle. For example, the DB5 Junior sports the same iconic Aston Martin wings, shield and DB5 badges as the original 1963 model. Like its big brother, the dashboard is filled with functional Smiths instruments, which have been cleverly updated for the modern era. The fuel gauge has been converted into a battery meter, while the oil temperature now monitors the motor temperature. Finally, the same Smiths clock as seen in the original 1960s car sits proudly in front of the passenger seat.

A perfect two-thirds scale steering wheel sits in front of the dash, but now sports a racing-style quick release to make entry and exit easier for the driver. Power is regulated by billet aluminium accelerator and brake pedals, and as you would expect there are working headlights, brake lights, indicators and a horn.

In true DB5 style, the car comes in the famous Silver Birch colour as standard, with a full black leather interior and carpet set. There is even a boot / trunk at the rear for storage should you wish.

The car sits on double wishbone suspension at the front as per the original, with the roll centre and camber gain matching the original geometry. At the rear there is the period-correct live axle, with authentic upper and lower trailing arm suspension and Panhard rod.

Power is transmitted to the ground through 10 wire wheels with four-wheel ventilated disc brakes, complemented by regenerative braking. A removable battery pack is stored under the opening bonnet, giving 10-20 miles (16-32km) driving range, depending on driving style. A second battery can be added, and each pack can be swapped for a replacement in a matter of seconds.

The junior car also has three integrated selectable driving modes:

A Novice mode with just 1kW / 1.3 bhp of power for less experienced drivers with a 12mph (19kmh) top speed. In this mode a remote kill switch is included allowing the car to be remotely disabled at up to 30m. And if an enthusiastic novice disappears outside that 30m range, the car will automatically shut down and come to a gentle halt.

An Expert mode is provided for more experienced drivers with 5kW / 6.7bhp of power and a 30mph (48kmh) top speed.

Finally Race mode is a Balance of Performance (BOP) setting which allows the acceleration and top speed of the vehicle to be aligned with other Little Car Company models for competition on an even playing field.

And finally, for the ultimate driving experience, a rally-style hydraulic handbrake is included. While strictly not necessary, it does add to the fun for the bigger kids amongst us.

Even more performance from the Vantage model

The Vantage version of the original DB5 was known for its performance upgrade. Now, the DB5 Vantage Junior takes the pace up a level, too. Whilst this elite model has the three driving modes of the standard car, there is also a fourth; Vantage mode, operated by a hidden missile switch which doubles the power output to 10kW / 13.4bhp and increases the top speed to a still unconfirmed level. This output is now delivered to the wheels through a Limited-Slip Differential (LSD) to improve traction at high speed. Performance is further enhanced by the lightweight carbon fibre body and a second battery pack, doubling the range to 20-40 miles (32-64km) depending on driving style.

Revisiting an icon

Owners will be invited to customise their DB5 Juniors either with a range of representative period exterior and interior colours or perhaps delve into Aston Martins contemporary palette, to match their full-size car. The cars will also come with a range of optional accessories including flight cases, additional batteries, covers, toolkits and custom number plates.

Every DB5 Junior owner will receive automatic membership of the respected Aston Martin Owners Club, three complete registers of the individual specification of all 1059 vehicles will be created for future provenance and authenticity. One copy will be held at Aston Martins Gaydon Headquarters, one at Aston Martin Works in Newport Pagnell (where the original DB5s were built) and one at The Little Car Companys headquarters.

In addition, all clients will receive complimentary membership of The Little Car Club which allows them to take part in exclusive events where they, their children and grandchildren can drive their DB5 Juniors on the most prestigious racetracks.

Marek Reichman, Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer of Aston Martin, said: Im thrilled to see this new, exquisite interpretation of what is, perhaps, our most iconic model join the Aston Martin family. Our partners, The Little Car Company have gone into meticulous detail to truly replicate the stunning form of the original DB5. I very much look forward to seeing these fun tributes to the timeless DB5 go into service with owners of all ages around the world.

Ben Hedley, CEO of The Little Car Company, said: It is an honour to partner with Aston Martin on this project, getting the opportunity to create a piece of history which will be passed down from one generation to the next. We are enormously proud of what we and the Aston Martin team have developed, and it is fantastic that we have made this iconic car accessible in a new way to a new generation of Aston Martin fans. As a child I would not have imagined any better way to learn to drive than in The Most Famous Car in the World.

Prospective buyers who wish to secure one of the limited-edition DB5 Juniors can visit www.thelittlecar.co/db5junior from 27th August 2020 to place a fully refundable deposit on a first come, first served basis. When these build slots are full, a waiting list will be put in place.

Pricing for the DB5 Junior begins at 35,000 plus local taxes, while the more powerful DB5 Vantage Junior starts from 45,000 plus local taxes. Existing Aston Martin DB5 owners will be given first refusal on their DB5 Junior chassis number to match their full-size car.

Production commences in the UK in 2021, with deliveries taking place worldwide over the next two years. All final specifications to be confirmed before production commences.
KYIV, Ukraine  Belarus authorities on Monday handed a jail sentence to a factory strike organizer and detained a leading opposition activist, part of a methodical effort to stifle weeks of protests against the countrys authoritarian leader after an election the opposition says was rigged.

President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the 9.5-million nation with an iron fist for 26 years, has dismissed the protesters as Western puppets and rejected the European Unions offers of mediation. After a ferocious crackdown on demonstrators in the first days after the Aug. 9 presidential vote that caused international outrage, his government has avoided large-scale violence against demonstrators and switched to threats and the selective jailing of activists to stem the protests.

Anatoly Bokun, who leads the strike committee at Belaruskali, a huge potash factory in Soligorsk, was detained by police Monday and handed a 15-day jail sentence on charges of organizing an unsanctioned protest. The factory, which accounts for a fifth of the worlds potash fertilizer output, is the nations top cash earner.

The Belaruskali strike committee spokesman, Gleb Sandras, said authorities had managed to halt a strike at the factory that began two weeks ago and all its potash mines are now working. He said agents of Belarus State Security Committee, which still goes by the Soviet-era name KGB, had pressured workers to end the strike.

KGB agents have inundated the factory, tracking down the most active workers and using various means of pressure, Sandras told The Associated Press. The authorities have powerful economic instruments. They are blackmailing workers with mass dismissals.

Strikes at Belaruskali and many other leading industrial plants have cast an unprecedented challenge to Lukashenko, who has kept the bulk of the economy in state hands and relied on blue-collar workers as his main support base.

Belarus Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Nazarov acknowledged Monday that the strikes posed a problem, but said all major industrial plants have resumed normal operations.

Bokuns detention follows the arrests of strike leaders at two other major industrial plants in Minsk last week. The organizer of a strike at the Grodno Azot, a major producer of nitrogen fertilizers, fled to Poland to escape detention.

Seeking to stem the protests, Belarusian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe against the opposition Coordination Council created to negotiate a transition of power, accusing its members of undermining the countrys security.

Last week, Belarusian courts handed 10-day jail sentences to two council members and summoned several others for questioning, including Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature. Another council member, Lilia Vlasova, was detained Monday.

This is the governments response to our peaceful actions and offers of dialogue, council member Maria Kolesnikova told the AP. It means that protests will grow.

On Monday, Lukashenko ordered the dismissal of Belarus ambassador to Spain, Pavel Pustavy, who in a Facebook post called for a recount of the election and criticized the beating of peaceful demonstrators. Belarus earlier dismissed its ambassadors to Slovakia and India for expressing support for the protesters.

Belarusian authorities on Monday also denied entry to Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the 74-year-old archbishop of Minsk and Mohilev., keeping him waiting for hours on the border before turning him back to Poland. Last week, Kondrusiewicz strongly criticized the Belarusian police.

Both the U.S. and the EU have criticized the Aug. 9 election that extended Lukashenkos rule as neither free nor fair and urged Belarusian authorities to talk with the opposition  calls that the 66-year-old leader has rejected.

On Monday, the EUs Baltic members  Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia  slapped travel sanctions on 30 top Belarusian officials, including Lukashenko. EU foreign ministers are preparing their own sanctions against up to 20 senior Belarus officials suspected of election fraud and the violent crackdown on protesters.

Belarus Foreign Ministry spokesman, Anatoly Glaz, warned that Minsk would retaliate. Last week, Lukashenko threatened to respond by redirecting the flow of Belarusian imports via Lithuanian ports and blocking the transit of European cargo across Belarus.

In addition to daily protests, the opposition held another massive rally on Sunday, which saw an estimated 100,000 people flood the streets of Minsk amid a heavy police presence.

German Chancellor Angela Merkels spokesman, Steffen Seibert, hailed the protesters courage and urged Lukashenko on Monday to recognize the reality in the country  there needs to be an open dialogue between the leadership, opposition forces and all of Belarusian society to bring about a peaceful solution.

Yet on Monday, Lukashenko bluntly dismissed the oppositions push to restore the countrys earlier constitution, which envisaged broad parliamentary powers.

A fierce clampdown on peaceful demonstrators after the vote saw nearly 7,000 detained, hundreds wounded by police rubber bullets, stun grenades and beatings, and at least three protesters dead. Police then let the demonstrations go unhindered for the next two weeks, but last week again cranked up the pressure on demonstrators.

Over the weekend, the Belarusian government also cracked down hard on the news media, deporting some foreign journalists and revoking the accreditation of many Belarusian journalists. Two Moscow-based Associated Press journalists covering the protests in Belarus were deported to Russia on Saturday. In addition, the APs Belarusian journalists were told that their press credentials had been revoked.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists said accreditation rights were also taken away from 17 Belarusians working for other media, including Germanys ARD television, the BBC, Reuters and AFP. The U.S.-funded radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty had five journalists lose their accreditation.

The U.S. and the EU have strongly condemned the Belarus governments media crackdown.

___

Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania contributed to this report.

___

Follow APs coverage of Belarus at https://www.apnews.com/Belarus
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 00:03:20|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on Sunday said that the number of positive COVID-19 cases across the African continent rose to 1,237,070 amid growing impact on African economies.

The Africa CDC, which noted that only five African countries account for over 70 percent of all COVID-19 infections in the continent, also stressed that the death toll from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic rose to 29,430 on Sunday.

Some 968,962 people who were infected with COVID-19 had recovered across the continent so far, it said.

Amid the rapid spread of the virus across the continent, South Africa alone accounts for about 50 percent of all COVID-19 infections in the continent, followed by Egypt which has eight percent of all COVID-19 infections in the continent, the Africa CDC said.

The continental disease control and prevention agency said that South Africa is way ahead compared to the rest of the continent both in terms of number of COVID-19 cases and ratio of COVID-19 infected population, the country has so far reported 622,551 cases and 13,981 deaths as of Sunday.

The southern Africa country, which has so far registered 536,694 COVID-19 recoveries, has 1,060 cases per 100,000 population, according to the Africa CDC.

Egypt is the second most COVID-19 affected country with 98,497 positive cases and 5,376 COVID-19 related deaths, it was noted.

Morocco, which has so far reported 60,056 positive cases and 1,078 deaths, comes third with five percent of all COVID-19 infections in the continent, while Nigeria and Ethiopia round the top of five list. Nigeria has so far reported 53,727 positive cases and 1,011 COVID-19 related deaths, according to the Africa CDC.

Ethiopia's confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 49,654 as of Sunday morning, as the total number of COVID-19 related deaths in the East African country to 770, the country's Ministry of Health said. Some 18,116 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 had recovered, it was noted.

Noting that a total of 11.4 million tests have been reported by member States with an overall test per confirmed case ratio of 9.5, the Africa CDC stressed that some 11 African countries contribute 80 percent of the tests conducted so far, which are South Africa, Morocco, Ethiopia, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Mauritius, and Cameroon.

Meanwhile, in addition to the healthcare impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Africa, the AU also revealed that the pandemic has exacerbated an "already dire" domestic revenue situation across the African continent."

"Undoubtedly, the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose a devastating situation for health systems and national incomes globally. Governments continue to strain their fiscal revenues as they implement emergency measures and recovery plans to sustain economies," Victor Harison, AU Commissioner for Economic Affairs, said on Friday.

"This also has a significant negative effect on tax revenues, which provide a substantial source of revenue for most nations. In many African countries, the pandemic has exacerbated an already dire tax revenue situation," the AU Economic Affairs Commissioner added.

Figures from the 55-member pan African bloc show that Africa's GDP growth is projected to be between -4.9 percent and -2.1 percent in 2020, which would lead to a reduction of between 135 billion U.S. dollars and 204 billion U.S. dollars from pre-COVID-19 GDP of 2.59 trillion U.S. dollars.

According to the AU, the COVID-19 crisis has increased poverty with the African Development Bank (AfDB) estimating that COVID-19 pandemic will push between 28.2 million and 49.2 million more Africans into extreme poverty.

Noting that the contracting economies are expected to translate into weaker fiscal positions for governments across the continent at a time of maximum need, the AU said the impact of the pandemic adversely impact domestic resource mobilization efforts, and likely lead to a reduction in overseas development assistance as donor countries face their own cash crunch in the midst of economic turmoil. Enditem
On the Frontline Against China, the US Coast Guard Is Taking on Missions the US Navy Can't Do

Competition with China has drawn more Pentagon resources to the Pacific, but the most visible U.S. military presence there...
(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 31 - British anti-terrorism police said Monday they had arrested on Sunday night an Italian and a Kuwaiti at Stansted Airport.

The Guardian reported that the Italian is 48 and the Kuwaiti 34.

They were reportedly on a Ryanair flight from Vienna.

The BBC said the flight was intercepted by Royal Air Force Typhoons following a report of an unspecified security threat on board. (ANSA).


Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Hurricane Laura plowed through the heart of Louisiana's oil and chemical industries as a powerful Category 4 storm, leaving a chlorine plant on fire and the potential for more hazardous damage in its wake.

The burning BioLab facility sent dark smoke and chlorine gas into the air over the small community of Westlake, near Lake Charles, and shut down Interstate 10, officials said. The governor warned residents, already reeling from the hurricane's damage, to stay in their homes, close their windows and doors, and turn off any air conditioning that might still be operating.

While the full health impacts of the fire weren't immediately known, a storm-driven chlorine gas release in a vulnerable community is the type of worst-case scenario that scientists and engineers like myself have warned the petrochemical industry about for decades.

These warnings have followed spills and fires at chemical facilities over the past 15 years, including those triggered by Hurricane Katrina's storm surge and Hurricane Harvey's excessive rainfall.

Hurricane Laura's damage will reveal itself over the coming days. The storm passed directly over the large Hackberry oil field, located in a sensitive marsh environment south of Lake Charles. The area includes thousands of active and abandoned wells and associated infrastructure, such as storage tanks and pipelines.

Crews were mobilizing to assess the damage in the oil field as the remnants of Laura moved north. The region has experienced a large loss of energy jobs during the coronavirus pandemic. It is unknown whether this contraction affected the preparation of this oil field and others for the storm.

Relaxed safety rules put vulnerable people at risk

Extreme storms like Hurricane Laura are rare, but they carry the potential for very significant, even fatal, chemical exposures for displaced people. As the chlorine plant fire burned in Westlake, residents were told to try to shelter in place in homes already damaged by the storm.

These exposures occur outside of the U.S. regulatory safety net that aims to protect communities. Chemical plants often operate under emergency rules that relax regulations during and immediately after severe storms.

The exposed residents are often the most vulnerable: elderly, poor and minority communities that can't easily evacuate far prior to a storm. The Westlake chlorine fire was just miles from the remnants of Mossville, Louisiana, an unincorporated African American community that is a textbook example of one decimated by pollution from these chemical plants.

Why chemical tanks are so vulnerable to storms

Over time, severe storms have revealed several technological failures that recur in nearly every large weather event.

Bulk chemical storage tanks like those prevalent in this part of Louisiana can float, even in relatively shallow water, due to the strong buoyant forces that act on them. They're surrounded by containment basins, typically made of concrete or earth, but these basins are designed to contain spills in nonflooded conditions. Flooding is a different story. If a storm surge or heavy rain sends water into the basin, it can cause the tank to float. Once the water recedes, the tank can settle to the ground in ways that can damage the tank and cause a leak or worse.

Another common failure mode is the collapse of floating roofs used to contain vapors. Heavy rainfall can cause the roofs to sink, releasing chemicals from the tanks. Wind-driven buckling can also occur, even in the absence of flooding, and flying debris can also puncture tanks.

The failure of storage systems designed to keep the chemicals from reacting with air or water often produces the most dramatic releases. The Arkema chemical fire during Hurricane Harvey and this chlorine gas release are examples of these high-visibility failures. People living near the Arkema plant sued, saying the chemicals caused respiratory problems and contaminated their water.

The absence of plant workers during the storm can exacerbate these issues, and small problems can become large ones in the absence of any intervention.

These systems can be made safer

In an industry that thrives on innovation, few technologies have emerged to specifically address these failures.

While plant managers must plan for hurricanes, there is not a specific set of operational strategies or federal guidance that has evolved from previous storms. The most common mitigation method is to simply fill the tanks with more chemical to minimize floating.

What is needed are real technologies that address the physics that drive tank failures. These include systems that allow buoyant forces to move tanks vertically, but not laterally. Tanks that allow rainwater to drain from floating roofs without accumulating are another.

Hardened storage systems that maintain the most reactive chemicals in a safe condition even under extreme weather are also needed.

Beyond safer tanks, chemical plants can improve their stewardship with surrounding communities by deploying sensing and surveillance systems that can detect releases. These systems could inform residents before, during and after storms and guide first responders to chemical releases in the immediate aftermath.

The deadly Aug. 4 explosion in Beirut at a warehouse storing ammonium nitrate and the explosion at a chemical warehouse that caught fire in Tianjin, China, in 2015, are reminders that we have to be vigilant of what is being stored in our midst. It is time for industry to partner with its neighbors to develop safer systems for hurricanes and severe storms.

Explore further Hurricane Laura tracks toward US Gulf Coast after slamming Haiti

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
A court on Monday extended the police custody of JNU scholar Sharjeel Imam, arrested under a stringent anti-terror law, by three more days in connection with the riots case.

On August 26, Additional Session Judge Amitabh Rawat had sent Imam to four-days police custody and was produced before the court today at the end of his remand period.

During the course of proceedings, the Police sought his custody for seven more days to further question him, confront with huge technical data, unearth deep rooted conspiracy and to collect clinching evidence to nab the remaining conspirators behind the riots.

Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad told the court that during the course of investigation, name of more suspects have come out and Imam is required to be questioned at length about those suspects to obtain their exact particulars.

The Special Public Prosecutor also claimed that the Imam gave evasive replies to the questions during the last police remand and did not lend support during the investigation.

Allowing the police's application for the police custody, the Additional Session Judge stated, "I deem it fit to allow the present application for seeking police custody remand of the accused Sharjeel Imam. However, it is granted only for a period of three days and not seven days as sought. Accordingly, three days police custody remand of the accused namely Sharjeel Imam is given to the IO."

The judge said that the accused should be medically examined every 24 hours and also allowed his counsel Advocate Surbhi Dhar to confer with him for a period not exceeding half an hour at the beginning of the police custody and after every 48 hours during police custody remand.

"The concerned police officials shall ensure that they remain outside the audible range during the said period. Needless to state that the accused and his counsel shall follow the necessary distancing protocols in view of the outbreak of Covid-19," the judge added.

On August 25, the Special Cell of Delhi Police had arrested Imam in connection with the riots under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. He was brought back to the capital city from Assam two day before that on a production warrant.

Imam had come into the limelight for his speech in Delhi's Jamia Millia against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the Register of Citizens on December 13 and subsequently on January 16 at Aligarh Muslim University, where he allegedly threatened to "cut off" Assam and the rest of the northeast from the country.

Delhi Police on July 25 had filed a charge sheet against Imam in connection with a case related to his alleged inflammatory speeches during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at several places.

The 600-page charge sheet was filed, under section 124A (Sedition), 153(A) (Promoting enmity), 153 (Assertion prejudicial to integration) (promoting enmity, Hatred between different communities, 505 (spreading rumours) IPC and Section 13 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, in Delhi's Patiala House court.

--IANS

aka/rt

(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.)
One of the things conservatives noted approvingly was the way the Republican National Convention reached out to blacks. For too long, Republicans had a defeatist attitude about black voters. Even though Republican policies manifestly benefited blacks, Republicans believed that the black bias in favor of Democrat candidates was insurmountable. Trump never believed that, and it's his faith in black voters that may be paying off. A post-convention poll shows that 24% of registered black voters support him.

We all know how black voters switched their allegiance from the Republican party  an allegiance created during Reconstruction  to the Democrat party, beginning during the Depression. By the 1960s, even though the Democrat party was the party of slavery and Jim Crow, and even though more Democrats voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than did Republicans, the fact that a Democrat president presided over its passage seemed to cement blacks permanently to the Democrat party. That's why, for more than 50 years, blacks give around 90% of their votes to Democrat presidential candidates.

Democrat policies haven't been good for blacks. Instead, Democrats have pushed welfare-based policies as a drug-dealer pushes heroin. The user knows that the stuff is bad for him but just can't say no. Regardless of the facts on the ground, though, the Democrats still consistently managed to convince American blacks that Republicans, the party of abolition and Reconstruction, were invariably the second coming of the KKK.

Trump, however, was not from the Republican old guard and saw no reason not to make a play for black voters. In 2016, his greatest efforts were not yet directed at blacks, but, as he rightly asked blacks while outside Lansing, Michigan, back in August 2016, "What do you have to lose by trying something new, like Trump? What do you have to lose?"

Once elected, Trump did pay attention to black Americans. He did not follow the Democrat path of lots of lip service and no beneficial policies. Instead, Trump created opportunity zones that enticed businesses into black neighborhoods and funded Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Additionally, Trump, unlike Obama, passed the First Step Act, a prison reform bill that is returning to black communities many of the non-violent offenders (mostly men) whom Joe Biden's 1994 Crime Bill placed in prison. Yes, some of them will be recidivists, but I happen to be among those who believe that part of the pathology in many crime-ridden black neighborhoods is that Joe Biden sent fathers to prison. Trump let them out again.

The most important thing Trump did was get the economy humming by lowering taxes and reducing regulations. Suddenly, blacks weren't dependent on the Democrats anymore. They were making it. This progress ended only because of the Democrats' ongoing pigheaded refusal to let go of the lockdowns in their states, which has hurt the economy, and their overwhelming support for the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots that have destroyed black business zones.

Despite the setbacks for blacks that the Democrats willfully created in 2020, Trump was not going to let the Democrats again label blacks as victims and inveigle them back into the smothering confines of the Democrat fold. Instead, Trump and the Republican National Committee made a play for minority voters during the convention.

One black speaker after another talked about the economic benefits flowing from Republican policies. They spoke of the blessings of America if one is willing to take them. And they described a society in which blacks are welcomed as equals instead of being used as political pawns every four years.

That message seems to have resonated with black voters (and Hispanic voters, too). According to a Hill-HarrisX poll, Trump ended August with a nine-percentage-point increase among black voters compared to the beginning of August. Currently, 24% of registered black voters approve of what he's doing. Meanwhile, Hispanic voters have also increased their approval by 2% over August, from 30% to 32%.

These numbers should strike fear in Democrat hearts, over and above their fear that the riots have torpedoed the huge polling lead that Biden had over Trump. In 2010, long before Trump appeared on the scene, Thomas Sowell wrote:

Republicans don't need to get a majority of the black vote. If they get 20 percent of the black vote, the Democrats are in trouble  and if they get 30 percent, the Democrats have had it in the general elections.

Most Republicans were too cowardly to take on that prediction. Trump, however, believes in all Americans, minorities included. To him, they're not just pawns in a power game; they are people who, if they'd be willing to vote for him, could join fully in America's bounty.

Image: Black voter registration 1960s, from the Kheel Center, Cornell University Library, CC BY 2.0.
In 2015, bus contractor Yusuf Khan was earning approximately Rs4 lakh a month and his company, Khan Travels, had eight buses to its name. Since the lockdown, most of those buses have been seized by banks; Khan Travels has been effectively grounded, and Khan is making ends meet as a taxi driver.

Born and raised in Dharavi, 44-year-old Khan has worked hard to climb up the ranks. As the son of a fruit seller, his childhood was marked by poverty. He left school after Class 8 and started working as an electrician. When he was in his 20s, Khan learnt how to drive and went to work in Saudi Arabia as a taxi driver.

He stayed in Saudi Arabia for five years and then returned to Mumbai. With his hard-earned savings, he bought a small bus. In 2013, he set up Khan Travels. By 2015, he had invested in eight buses and was earning around Rs 4-5 lakh each month. When the lockdown was imposed, his earnings dwindled swiftly as schools were closed and transport was taken off roads.

Two school buses were left, after the rest were seized by the banks [Khan had bought the buses with the help of loans], and they are biting the dust in the bus stand. There was no income for several months after the lockdown and I did not see the situation improving, said Khan, who is the sole breadwinner for his family and the father of two sons aged 13 and 17.

In August, Khan started driving a black and yellow cab, which he has leased on rent. I manage to earn Rs 20, 000 a month as a taxi driver but it is not enough to make ends meet, he said.

The effects of the lockdown were harder to bear because Khan had been hit hard by demonetisation in November 2016. Khans monthly income reduced from Rs 4-5 lakh to between Rs 50,000 and 60,000 and subsequently, he had to scale back his operations. He had been hoping to expand by adding more school buses to Khan Travels, but the lockdown put an end to those plans.

Since March, Khan could only watch was his carefully-built business collapsed and his savings were depleted.

Despite the setbacks, Khan remains determined and optimistic. I have no regret that things did not turn out as planned and I have no shame to work as a taxi driver again. The money I earn is through sheer hard work. Financially, I have seen some very difficult phases in life and if I have managed to overcome those, I shall overcome this as well, he said.
Connor Fearon Kona Stab Throwback:

Darrington RAW:

Pull Up Not Out:

Area 52:

Honey Hole Trails - Kirt Voreis & Kyle Strait:

Christchurch - Josh Birkenhake:

Highland Is Home - One Passion:

Duality:

Pure Pleasure On The Pleasure Trail:

Soil Searching - Mountain Guardian:

Hometown Trails With Micayla Gatto - Episode 2:

Julian Molina - Real BMX 2020:

Simone Barraco - Real BMX 2020:

Lewis Mills - Real BMX 2020:

Tyson Peterson's "Baker 4" Part:

Spanky's "Baker 4" Part:

Riley Hawk's "BAKER 4" Part:

Yeti Presents - Bruhwiler Country:

Spearhead - Pushing the Boundaries of BC's Backcountry:

Ru-TsuRu-Tsu:

Connor Fearon throwing it back to the 2000's aboard the the Kona Stab DeluxeSome of the best corners in the PNW are hiding in a spot many drive right by. The newly opened North Mountain trails in Darrington, WA host big descents with steep, techy, and loamy terrain. But the humble skills park at the bottom of the mountain is prime for ripping turns and high speeds.Pro's are pro's and I'm not Anthill Films but this was a fun project and I hope you enjoy watching it! Riders: Carl Goodwin, Jack Valentini, and Peter Walker.Thoma Luettgen getting a lap on the new 52 trail at Bromont the day before getting hardware removed from his collar bone. A fresh trail, surgery coming up, and time off the bike warranted one last send.Riders: Kirt Voreis, Kyle Strait, Ryder Lawrence, Alex Cazares, and Lear Miller.Few clips mixed together on the plane. Video: John Laws.A passion for mountain biking unites the staff at Highland.Riders: Jared Romero & Alec Grogan-Crane.s this what pure two-wheel pleasure feels like?! Join us on the hunt for the Pleasure Trail in Squamish, BC.To dig new mountain bike trails in Japan is no easy task, ultimately requiring approval from the government. Ryo Hazuma has spent the better half of a decade earning respect and permission to build trails in the Minami Alps, intersecting mountain biking with heritage and culture across generations.Take a ride with Micayla and friends as they explore the trails of British Columbia. This time they hit up Slippery Salmon. Bonus: expert tips on jumps and line choice. Video: William Biname.Watch Julian Molina and filmer/editor Darryl Tocco's entry into Real BMX 2020.Watch Simone Barraco and filmer/editor Ryan Chadwicks entry into Real BMX 2020.Watch Lewis Mills and filmer/editor Ben Norris' entry into Real BMX 2020.We knew he was special, but his showing in Baker 4 made him a household name. No better way to say it - Tyson gets buck wild.Spanky stomps four down time and time again, cementing his status as a god of the street walls. Baker plus Ramones, with a healthy dosage of FS flips makes for an instant classic.The Hawk family is good at skating.Few know the wilds and the waves of British Columbia like Canadas first pro surfer, Raph Bruhwiler. Raised in the deep woods of Vancouver Island, Raph is using his deep understanding of the region to push the boundaries of surfing and inspiring a new generation to find adventures of their own.Nestled between Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains in British Columbia, the Spearhead Traverse is a classic winter route renowned for its incredible terrain. 'Spearhead: Pushing the Boundaries of BC's Backcountry' celebrates the history of the route, first skied in 1964, while asking how do we manage the impact on these spaces as they gain popularity.follows snowboarder Tamo Campos on an educational journey to learn about his family's connections in Japan. Through reflections with his grandfather, award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster David Suzuki, this personal film dives into themes of intergenerational trauma, passionate activism, and a familys deep love of nature. This film is a rare look inside the family of one of Canadas most recognizable environmentalists, and the stories unravel the history that shapes their past, present, and future.Photo: Bryce Piwek
Donald J. Trump is a very weak president. He does the bidding of Vladimir Putin and kowtows to Kim Jong Un. He thinks he did a great thing by halting arrivals from China in February but it was too little too late. It only halted Chinese nationals not Americans returning from China and the virus was already here from Europe. He didnt want to upset the stock market because he is afraid of the wealthy and the corporations that support him. He wanted to continue his rallies so badly that he called the virus fake news and a democratic hoax for 59 days or more as the virus spread freely. He pushed for reopening way too soon, even for Easter Sunday and is pushing still while more than 1,000 people die each day. The stock market only matters to the wealthy.

South Korea had its first infection the same day the US did. However, President Moon Joe-in was prepared with testing, tracing and quarantine before that first patient became sick. We are heading toward 6 million cases and 200,000 deaths. Its going to be a long road back because the virus ran wild for so long. If Covid is any measure of weakness, Trump is the weakest leader in the world.

Trump blames former President Obama for not preparing for this possibility during Trumps first three years in office. The only thing Trump did was to eliminate the virus research group of scientists that Obama left in place after he successfully protected us from Ebola, swine flu and some others.

Trump never takes responsibility, always does what is best for him, always blames others and flouts the law. He totally disregarded the Hatch Act which forbids using federal property like the White House for campaigns. We need to stand up and vote in spite of Trumps voter suppression effort and get him out of office and indicted.

Malita Brown, Wilbraham


At the age of 92, Salah Tizani is almost as old as Lebanon. The country was founded in 1920.

He believes his country never had a chance. He thinks back to the days when France set the countrys borders.

Tizani told Reuters, people went to bed one day thinking they were Syrians or Ottomans and the next day they woke up to find themselves in the Lebanese state.

After years of wars, bombings and killings, Lebanons latest disaster was the August 4 Beirut port explosion that killed some 180 people, injured 6,000 and destroyed a large part of the city.



On September 1, the country marks its 100 anniversary. It comes at a difficult time. The economy has collapsed. There is great poverty. And people are leaving Lebanon in large numbers.

For Lebanons biggest Christian community, the Maronites, the creation of Greater Lebanon was a welcome move towards independence. But many Muslims found themselves cut off from Syria and Palestine.

Growing up in the northern city of Tripoli, Tizani saw the sectarian divisions everywhere. He recalls the census of 1932, Lebanons last. Many refused to take part.

They told them we dont want to be Lebanese, he said.

From the earliest days, people were forced to ask religious or ethnic leaders if they needed a job or if they ran into trouble with the law.

When Lebanon declared independence in 1943, the French tried to stop the move by arresting its new government. The arrests started protests that became a rare moment of national unity.

The country created a National Pact. It was agreed the president must be a Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament a Shiite Muslim.



The 1960s are widely seen as a golden age. Tourists came from the Arab world. Beirut was often compared to Paris for its beauty. Theater, poetry, cinema and music were everywhere.

But sectarian politics left many parts of Lebanon poor and forgotten. There was widespread discontent and the 1975 to 1990 civil war broke out, said Nadya Sbaiti. She is an assistant professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut.

The other side of the 1960s is not just Hollywood actors but includes guerrilla training inparts of the country, she said.

Also, the creation of Israel in 1948 sent 100,000 Palestinian refugees into Lebanon where they lived in extreme poverty.

In 1968, Israeli soldiers destroyed 12 passenger planes at Beirut airport. It came after an attack on an Israeli airliner by a Lebanon-based Palestinian group.

The Israeli attack showed us we are not a state. We are an international playground, Salim Haidar, a member of parliament, said at the time.



Disaster came in 1975 with a civil war that began as a conflict between Christian militias and Palestinian groups allied with Lebanese Muslim factions. It was followed by many other conflicts. Some of those were fought among Christian groups and among Muslim groups.

The United States, Russia and Syria were pulled into the conflicts. Israel invaded twice and occupied Beirut in 1982. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes. When peace finally arrived in 1990, there were about 150,000 dead and more than 17,000 missing.

In the post-war period, Rafik al-Hariri took the lead in rebuilding Beiruts devastated city center. A Saudi-backed billionaire, Hariri was one of the only Lebanese post-war leaders who had not fought in the conflict. He announced a general amnesty.

Nayla Hamadeh, president of the Lebanese Association for History, said Hariri was saying, Lets forget and move (on).

But many could not forget. A car bomb explosion killed Hariri in 2005. Many believe the Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah was responsible. But the group denies it.



For many, the port explosion is a continuation of the past. They blamed the same sectarian rulers that have led the country from crisis to crisis since its birth.

You live between a war and another, and you rebuild and then everything is destroyed and then you rebuild again, said theater director Nidal Al Achkar. Thats why I lost hope.

Im John Russell.

The Reuters News Agency reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

sectarian - adj. to group people based on their ethnicity, faith or beliefs

census - n. a counting of citizens, their ages, backgrounds, jobs etc.

golden age - n. a time when everything seems to be of high quality and happiness

guerrilla -.n. militiamen, not regular army

devastate - v. to destroy

amnesty - n. a decision to forgive
Bacteria on the outside of the International Space Station survived for years in the vacuum of space Salon (original).

How Bacteria-Eating Bacteria Could Help Win the War Against Germs NYT

The Fintech Debt Trap The Intercept

The Next Frontier Investor Amnesia. Real estate.

The Conscience of Silicon Valley GQ. Jaron Lanier

Electric car costs to remain higher than traditional engines FT

The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet, but fortunately hes a good guy Electrek

The Mystery House: How a Suspicious Multimillion Dollar Real Estate Deal Is Connected to Californias Deadliest Fire Pro Publica

Californias Prison Chief is Retiring Amid Virus, Protest Pressure NBC

#COVID19

Genomic Evidence for a Case of Reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 (preprint) The Lancet. From the Abstract: Herein, we describe the data from an investigation of two instances of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the same individual. Through nucleic acid sequence analysis, the viruses associated with each instance of infection were found to possess a degree of genetic discordance that cannot be explained reasonably through short-term in vivo evolution. We conclude that it is possible for humans to become infected multiple times by SARS-CoV-2, but the generalizability of this finding is not known.

FDA Chief Promises Transparency for Covid-19 Vaccine Review Bloomberg

LG has designed a wearable air purifier for your face CNN. When will creativity similar to this be unleashed for masks:

U.S., Britain record worst anti-pandemic performance: poll Xinhua. Ouch.

The Case for a Coronavirus-Vaccine Bond The New Yorker

Surprising COVID-19 side effect: More companies adopt the 4-day workweek Fast Company
OMAHA, Neb. - Embattled Nebraska U.S. Senate hopeful Chris Janicek doubled down Monday on his refusal to bow out of the race, despite relentless pressure from the state Democratic Party after he admitted to sending sexually offensive text messages about a campaign employee.

Janicek reaffirmed his pledge to stay in the race during a press conference at his Omaha cupcake bakery. The Democratic nominee has until 5 p.m. Tuesday to request that state officials remove his name from the ballot, but he made clear that he has no plans to do so.

The Nebraska Democratic Party disavowed Janicek in June after he was caught sending sexually offensive messages about a campaign employee in a group text with other staffers.

The female contract staffer was accidentally included in the message and filed a complaint with the party. Janicek has said he apologized to the woman in a phone call, in person, and in writing, and that she accepted his apology. The woman has disputed Janiceks account, saying she doesnt accept his apology and maintains that he should drop out of the race.

The text message was wrong. It was inappropriate. It was disgusting. It was meant to go to one person, Janicek said. I apologized immediately for it, over and over, ad nauseam. The text message should never have been sent.

Janicek is challenging Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, who is seeking a second term. Janicek accepted the Democratic nomination in May after winning a seven-candidate primary race, but the odds of winning in November were against him in GOP-dominated Nebraska even before his party withdrew its support.

Janicek blasted the Nebraska Democratic Party in the press conference, noting that its membership has fallen to just 29% of the states registered voters. He said party officials met with him privately after his campaign employee filed the complaint and offered to let him drop out quietly, saying that he could cite health concerns as the reason.

Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb said that claim was untrue, and that the meeting with Janicek included eight party officers and their lawyer.

After the scandal broke, the state partys state central committee voted to endorse Alisha Shelton, an Omaha mental health practitioner who ran unsuccessfully against Janicek in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary.

Party leaders voted to endorse Shelton as a replacement nominee, but state law prevents them from removing Janiceks name from the ballot without his consent. And because of Nebraskas sore loser law, Shelton cant run as a write-in candidate because she lost to Janicek in the primary.

The state party then voted to back former Democratic U.S. Rep. Brad Ashford, who represented the Omahas 2nd Congressional District for one term. Ashford wasnt a candidate in the Democratic Senate primary and thus would have been able to run as a write-in candidate. But days after the endorsement, he reversed course and announced that he wouldnt run for the Senate seat.

In a statement Monday, party officials said they would support a nominee whose values represent our party, no matter what Janicek decides. Janicek is shameful and has no support of the Democratic Party, Kleeb said.

Our party will make sure that voters across Nebraska have a strong choice in order to defeat Ben Sasse, she said.

Shelton said the party deserves a nominee with a moral compass, who will listen to voters.

Leaders are always willing to do the right thing, even if it is hard, she said. I am sad that Chris is not leading. Fellow Nebraskans are pleading with him to exit the race.

Janicek ran for Senate once before, in 2018, but lost in the Democratic primary. He said he chose to run after having a heart attack in 2015 and getting slapped with more than $100,000 in medical bills that his insurance only partially covered.

___

Follow Grant Schulte on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GrantSchulte
Dextrocardia is a medical term for when your heart is the other way around. Caribbean medical schools have many misconceptions, but this podcast might just help you look at things from the other way around.

University of Medicine and Health Sciences (UMHS), a small, mission-driven medical school with a commitment to student support and a legacy of successful residency placements in the United States and Canada, today announced the launch of Dextrocardia, a new podcast that explores life as a medical student in the Caribbean. Produced by UMHS and hosted by second-year medical student Nihal Satyadev, the series will feature conversations with fellow medical students, UMHS faculty, and medical practitioners and focus on the unique challenges faced by Caribbean medical students in the era of COVID-19, career advice, and the role of healthcare workers in the context of social justice issues and the Black Lives Matter Movement. The first episode is now available at https://dextrocardia.podbean.com/ and all major podcast platforms, including Apple, Google, Spotify, and YouTube.

As the most popular alternative path to becoming a doctor in the United States and Canada, the journey of a Caribbean medical student is fraught with ups and downs. From sleepless nights studying to the overwhelming relief upon passing the all-important Step 1 exam and the euphoria of matching into a dream residency, Dextrocardia tells this story through conversations with medical students, faculty, and healthcare practitioners. The series seeks to dispel common misconceptions about Caribbean medical schools and impart practical advice to students in Basic Science, clinical rotations, and undergraduate programs.

Dextrocardia is a medical term for when your heart is the other way around, said podcast creator and host Nihal Satyadev. Caribbean medical schools have many misconceptions, but this podcast might just help you look at things from the other way around.

Prior to enrolling at UMHS, Satyadev earned his Masters in Public Health from George Washington University and a BA from the University of Redlands. A social entrepreneur and Alzheimer's advocate, Satyadev is the CEO and co-founder of The Youth Movement Against Alzheimer's, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization providing opportunities for college and high school students to advocate, research, and provide care for those battling with the disease. Satyadev has also published research assessing the correlation between Alzheimers Disease and periodontal disease.

Episode 1 of the series features Satyadevs interview with UMHS student Stephanie Vang. In this premiere episode, Vang discusses her work as a teachers assistant (TA) for anatomy and shares advice for fellow students about what it takes to get an A in the class - a standard course taught in the Basic Science portion of medical school.

Discussion topics for upcoming episodes include:

Conversation with an Anatomy TA

Conversation with a Histology TA

Conversation with a Neuroscience TA

Conversation with a Biochemistry TA

Medical Research - How medical students can pursue research

Black Lives Matter - How medical students can get involved, plus a deep dive into racial inequities in healthcare, medicine, and medical education

Dextrocardia is now available on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, and YouTube with new episodes dropping on alternate Tuesdays at 5 am EST. To access the latest episodes and information about the podcast, visit https://dextrocardia.podbean.com/.

About UMHS

The University of Medicine and Health Sciences (UMHS), is a small, mission-driven medical school with a commitment to student support and a legacy of successful residency placements in the United States and Canada. UMHS was founded in 2007 by medical education pioneers Warren and Robert Ross to deliver a highly personalized school experience. Graduates of UMHS earn a Doctor of Medicine degree (MD) and qualify to practice medicine throughout the United States and Canada. Students begin their Basic Science studies in St. Kitts, West Indies, and complete their clinical training in the United States. With an unprecedented 96% student retention rate, the vast majority of students that begin their medical studies at UMHS go on to obtain residencies. For more information visit https://www.umhs-sk.org/.
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Northrook, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/30/2020 -- The report "Nonwoven Fabrics Market by Polymer Type, Layer, Function, Technology (Spunbond, Wetlaid, Drylaid), Application (Hygiene, Building & Construction, Filtration, Medical, Automotive, Consumer Products), and Region - Global Forecast To 2025", The global nonwoven fabrics market size is projected to grow from USD 40.5 billion in 2020 to USD 53.5 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 5.7% from 2020 to 2025. The market is projected to grow in accordance with the increase in the demand for nonwoven fabrics for hygiene products across the globe. Factors such as an increase in the innovations in nonwovens, and a boost in the demand for hygiene and medical products during the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to drive the market for nonwoven fabrics.



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In terms of volume, spunbond are estimated to lead the nonwoven fabrics market in 2019.

Spunbond, by technology, accounted for the largest market share in the nonwoven fabrics market. Spunbond is widely used for the processing of sustainable nonwovens, owing to its cost effectiveness and high performance, and yields higher output at comparatively lower costs. Increase in the use of spunbond nonwovens for baby diapers and geotextiles is expected to have a positive impact on the demand for spunbond nonwoven fabrics.



Hygiene is estimated to be the largest segment in the nonwoven fabrics market in 2019.

Hygiene, by application, accounted for the largest demand for nonwoven fabrics in 2019, in terms of value and volume. This dominant market position is attributed to the boost in the demand for nonwoven solution across the hygiene industry for baby diapers, masks and wipes. COVID-19 has increased the demand for hygiene products such as sanitary napkins, wipes, face masks, and adult incontinence products, across the globe.



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The APAC region is projected to account for the largest share in the nonwoven fabrics market during the forecast period.

The APAC region region is projected to lead the nonwoven fabrics market, in terms of both value and volume from 2020 to 2025. Higher domestic demand, along with the availability of low-cost labor, makes this region the most attractive market for nonwoven fabric producers. Hence, the market players are focusing on this region to gain a larger share and increase their profitability. Factors such as improving global economy, expanding working population, and rising domestic demand for hygiene products are expected to boost the market for nonwoven fabrics.



Ahlstrom-Munksjo (Finland), Berry Global Inc. (US), Kimberly-Clark Corporation (US), Asahi Kasei Corporation (Japan), Toray Industries Inc. (Japan), Freudenberg Group (Germany), and Lydall, Inc. (US) are the key players operating in the nonwoven fabrics market. Expansions & investments, mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures & agreements, and new product developments are some of the major strategies adopted by these key players to enhance their positions in the nonwoven fabrics market.



Recent Developments :

- In June 2020, Suominen developed a nonwoven material for the manufacturing of face mask applications. The new nonwoven has passed European Standard EN 14683:2019 Type II requirements in terms of filtration efficiency and pressure drop. Developed in cooperation with VTT, this new material is the latest addition to the FIBRELLA family. FIBRELLA Shield is already in production at Suominen's Nakkila plant. Currently, the plant is capable of producing material for approximately 15 million masks per month.

- In May 2020, The Johns Manville plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, started production this month to make nonwoven fabrics that will be used for the manufacturing of disposable medical gowns. The new polyester spunbond nonwoven is designed for the production of Level 3 medical gowns. The fabric offers superior liquid barrier performance compared to materials used for Level 1 and Level 2 medical gowns while also providing comfort and stitch strength.

- In May 2020, Fitesa is expanding its capacity by signing four new projects with Reicofil (Germany), a technology supplier. The package includes state-of-the-art equipment that will significantly increase capacity to serve the healthcare and hygiene markets, making nonwovens for medical gowns, drapes, surgical and N95 facemasks, and diapers and sanitary products.

- In April 2020, Suominen strengthened its capabilities for sustainable products by enhancing one of its production lines in Italy. The investment was made in line with the published new strategy and will increase Suominen's ability to respond to the growing demand for sustainable nonwovens. This investment will improve Suominen's capability to respond to this need and supports Suominen's vision to be the frontrunner in sustainability. The total value of the investment is approximately USD 4.5 million.

- In February 2020, Fitesa completed the purchase of Freudenberg's (Germany) South American hygiene nonwovens business. The sale is limited to the hygiene business, run by Freudenberg Hygiene Brazil Ltda, which has 100 employees. The sale does not affect Freudenberg Performance Materials' Brazilian and other South American businesses in apparel, shoe, and leather sectors.



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Reports rapid advancement of COVID-19 antibody programs;

combination studies achieve nearly complete neutralization of SARS-CoV-2

VICTORIA, BC, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - IMMUNOPRECISE ANTIBODIES LTD. (the "Company" or "IPA") (TSXV: IPA) (OTCQB: IPATF) today announced financial results and provided a business update for its fiscal year 2020.

Recent Highlights:

Characterized a subset of fully human, therapeutic antibodies shown to have potent neutralizing activity and exhibiting enhanced neutralization upon combinatorial (dual antibody) testing

Awarded multiple grants for the development of antibody therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2

Announced TRANSVAC2 funding collaborative COVID-19 vaccine project between ImmunoPrecise Antibodies Europe and LiteVax BV

IPA subsidiary, UPE, joining Genmab and Merus in expansion to new biotech accelerator in the Center of European Science Industry

Collaborating with the NIH and Integrated Biotherapeutics to study the structural details of antibodies with therapeutic potential to treat or prevent COVID-19

Awarded grant by SERC to fund collaboration with the University of Victoria to develop a potential saliva-based COVID-19 antibody test designed to provide real-time results

to develop a potential saliva-based COVID-19 antibody test designed to provide real-time results Added to WHO draft landscape of companies combating COVID-19

Integrated SGI's automated DNA Printer at Utrecht Site, first in Europe

Financial Results

Revenue. The Company posted record revenue of $14,057,927 compared to revenues of $10,926,268 in the 2019 fiscal year, a 29% increase in revenue for the year. Revenue in Q4 was up 57% over Q4 2019. The Company's continued focus on identifying and onboarding new clients seeking the breadth and depth of the end-to-end services offered, combined with continued growth to core existing client business, led to increases in both volume and financial value of contracts during the year ended April 30, 2020. Revenue outlook is positive for the first quarter of fiscal 2021.

Gross Margin. Gross profit increased 52% to 8,033,984, compared to 5,294,634 for the for the same period last year an increase of $2,739,350 over year-end April 30, 2019.

Net Loss. The Company reported a net loss of $4,947,426 for year ended April 30, 2020 compared to a net loss of $7,617,467 for the same periods last year, a $2,670.041 improvement over prior year. The decrease in net loss is primarily attributable to the increase in gross profit.

Non-IFRS Measures* Adjusted EBITDA for the year was $52,311 compared to ($2,849,474) for fiscal year ending April 30, 2019. This significant improvement in Adjusted EBITDA is primarily a result of the increase in gross profit compared to the prior year.

"It was a record fiscal year for ImmunoPrecise, a result of our ongoing partnerships with pharma and biotech companies from across the globe, coupled with the continued addition of new clients for research, diagnostic and therapeutic programs," said Jennifer Bath, chief executive officer of ImmunoPrecise. "We work diligently alongside our clients to help them build pipelines and research programs, serving as an innovative extension of their laboratories and building lasting relationships. We are rapidly gaining traction in the market, and I am pleased to report our customer base has grown to include over 400 of the leading pharma and biotech companies worldwide, as well as more than half of the top twenty global pharma companies. We anticipate the continuance of this trend in larger, multi-year agreements to be further bolstered by a robust out-licensing strategy."

"In addition to our strong financial performance, I am pleased to report rapid development of our COVID-19 program. As we have shared previously, current vaccine strategies under development for SARS-CoV-2 are designed to protect uninfected individuals. However, these approaches do not address patients with active disease and will likely not be effective in a number of critical populations including the elderly and immunocompromised. Moreover, given the high potential for continued virus mutation, alternative treatments targeting limited epitopes may not provide long-term efficacy. In contrast, our antibody discovery platforms represent a powerful treatment option for COVID-19 patients generating unparalleled diversity of novel human antibodies, which is being designed to provide maximum clinical benefit for both current and future variants of the virus."

"I am pleased to report that our lead antibodies have produced clear synergistic effects, confirming their activities are enhanced in combination studies and resulting in near complete neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus infection. We are now accelerating pre-clinical testing with plans to submit an IND to the FDA as soon as practical. In the meantime, we are actively pursuing additional collaboration and partnership opportunities. We have also been awarded multiple grants, which further validate our platform, and we will continue to actively explore other non-dilutive funding opportunities."

"Lastly, we are excited to partner with Dr. Alexandre Brolo's lab at the University of Victoria ("UVic"), to develop a saliva-based antibody-based test for the detection and screening of COVID-19. Unlike current immunoassays that are developed for blood or serum, our goal is to develop a test kit that will provide rapid results, and can be easily administered anywhere, including at home. Overall, we are highly encouraged by the progress of our programs, all leveraging our core antibody expertise, and we look forward to providing further updates."

IPA periodically provides information for investors on its corporate website, ImmunoPrecise.com. This includes press releases and other information on financial performance, reports filed or furnished with the TSX, information on corporate governance and details related to its annual meeting of shareholders. Reports filed or furnished with the TSX can be found at sedar.com.

About ImmunoPrecise Antibodies Ltd.

ImmunoPrecise is a leading, global, technology platform company with full service, end-to-end solutions that empower pharmaceutical companies across the globe to discover, develop, optimize, engineer and manufacture treatments against any disease. The Company's experience, cutting-edge technologies and focus on intense scientific rigor enables unparalleled support of its partners in their quest to bring innovative treatments to the clinic. With ImmunoPrecise's industry-leading technologies, fully integrated project management platform, and one-stop service offerings, the Company dramatically reduces the time required for, and the inherent risk associated with, conventional multi-vendor product development. For further information, visit www.immunoprecise.com or contact [email protected].

Forward Looking Information

This news release contains statements that, to the extent they are not recitations of historical fact, may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. The Company uses words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "likely", "expect", "believe", "intend" and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Any such forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and analyses made by ImmunoPrecise in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments. However, whether actual results and developments will conform to ImmunoPrecise's expectations and predictions is subject to any number of risks, assumptions and uncertainties. Many factors could cause ImmunoPrecise's actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in this news release. Such factors include, among other things, actual revenues and earnings for IPA being lower than anticipated, and those risks and uncertainties described in ImmunoPrecise's annual management discussion and analysis for the fiscal period ended January 31, 2020 which can be accessed at www.sedar.com. The "forward-looking statements" contained herein speak only as of the date of this press release and, unless required by applicable law, ImmunoPrecise undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise such information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

*Non-IFRS Financial Measure

Readers are cautioned that "Adjusted EBITDA" is a measure not recognized under IFRS. Adjusted EBITDA is defined as earnings before interest income, taxes, depreciation and amortization, share-based compensation, restructuring costs, impairment charges and other non-recurring gains or losses. Management believes Adjusted EBITDA is a useful measure that facilitates period-to-period operating comparisons. Readers are cautioned that "Adjusted EBITDA" is not an alternative to measures determined in accordance with IFRS and should not, on its own, be construed as indicator of performance, cash flow or profitability.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE ImmunoPrecise Antibodies Ltd.

Related Links

www.immunoprecise.com


The European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT), Europe's collaborative peer network of professionals working in the field of stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy, announced today the results of the phase III RACE trial during EBMTs virtual 46th Annual Meeting. Preliminary data show that adding Eltrombopag to standard immunosuppressive treatment is safe and increases response rates in patients with Severe Aplastic Anaemia (SAA).

SAA is a condition in which the bone marrow does not produce enough new blood cells. It is a rare, yet potentially fatal disease which can be treated with bone marrow transplantation or, for patients who are not eligible to receive a transplantation, with immunosuppressive treatment. The most commonly used immunosuppressive regimen includes horse ATG (hATG) in combination with Cyclosporine A (CsA). However, about 35% of patients do not respond to treatment or eventually relapse.

Eltrombopag is a thrombopoietin receptor agonist that was developed to stimulate thrombopoiesis (production of platelets), but it was subsequently shown to restore trilineage haematopoiesis. A previous single-arm study showed that adding Eltrombopag to standard immunosuppressive treatment appeared to improve the response rate as compared to the use of hATG plus CsA alone. The first results of the randomised controlled RACE trial now confirm that adding Eltrombopag to standard immunosuppression leads to significantly higher response rates compared to standard immunosuppressive treatment alone.

The RACE trial is sponsored by the EBMT with the financial support of Novartis and Pfizer. Professors. Regis Peffault de Latour (Head of the French Reference Center for Aplastic Anemia and PNH, Saint-Louis Hospital, and University of Paris) and Antonio M. Risitano (Federico II University, Naples, and Head of Hematology and the BMT Unit, Ospedale Moscati, Avellino, Italy) served as Principal Investigators of the study, and they designed the study together with Professor Carlo Dufour (Head of the Hemato Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation Department. G.Gaslini Childrens' Research Hospital, Genova, Italy). Under the energetic and efficient coordination of Sofie Terwel, the trial was successfully conducted by the RACE study team at the EBMT Clinical Trial Office. The study was presented by Prof. Peffault de Latour at the presidential symposium of EBMT's virtual Annual Meeting and was granted the Van Bekkum Award, the most prestigious EBMT award for the best abstract submitted to the physician's programme.

The international, investigator-driven, open-label, phase III, randomised trial evaluated 197 patients with SAA. Patients were aged 15 years or older, had acquired SAA, and had not received prior immunosuppressive treatment. Patients were randomised to receive either standard immunosuppression (hATG 40 mg/kg x4d and CsA 5 mg/kg/d) or standard immunosuppression + Eltrombopag at the dose of 150 mg/d from day +14 until 6 months (or 3 months, in case of early complete response). The primary endpoint of the study is complete response (CR) at 3 months, with CR being defined as haemoglobin 100 g/L, neutrophils 1.0 g/L and platelets 100g/L, according to standard international criteria.

It was shown that three months after treatment start, patients who received the combination of hATG, CsA plus Eltrombopag had a significantly higher complete response rate compared to patients treated with hATG and CsA alone. These higher response rates were sustained at 6 months. Moreover, Eltrombopag was generally well-tolerated, with a comparable occurrence of adverse events in the two treatment arms. This trial also shows that in this rare disease, large randomised trials can successfully be run in collaboration with many expert centres in Europe.

"Eltrombopag is registered in Europe for second line treatment of aplastic anaemia, so it is only available to patients who cannot receive bone marrow transplantation and have failed immunosuppressive treatment" explains Prof. Peffault de Latour. Prof. Risitano states: "The RACE trial data shows that eltrombopag increased response rates for naive SAA patients who are not eligible for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The RACE study team is continuing to follow up the trial participants up to two years and furthermore aims to set up a long-term follow-up study to monitor the effectiveness and safety of Eltrombopag up to ten years.". "The EBMT Clinical Trial Office is already actively working on this new project, which likely will provide the final evidence about the benefit of using triple therapy as initial treatment for Severe Aplastic Anemia." concludes Prof. Dufour.

###

About the EBMT

The European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) is a not-for-profit medical and scientific organisation established in 1974. It is dedicated to fighting life-threatening blood cancers and diseases and improving patients' lives with more than 5,000 physicians, nurses, scientists and other healthcare professionals - participating in a unique collaborative network of peers involved in haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and cellular therapy research.

The EBMT patient Registry is the only data source of its kind in Europe. The data are submitted continuously by more than 500 centres and holds data on more than 700,000 HSCT procedures. It contains data on patients who have undergone HSCT, immunosuppressive therapies or cell or gene therapies. The Registry underpins extensive European research that translates into changes in clinical practice and improvements in patient outcome and care.

For further information about the EBMT, please visit the website: https://www.ebmt.org and follow us on Twitter: @TheEBMT
The coronavirus has upended the communal way of life for Hutterite colonies that have been forced to contain the spread of the virus just as schools are about to reopen.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 31/8/2020 (507 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The coronavirus has upended the communal way of life for Hutterite colonies that have been forced to contain the spread of the virus just as schools are about to reopen.

"Because of COVID-19, we have had to undergo a massive paradigm shift, and this has been exceedingly difficult for some to do," said Kenny Wollmann, a member of the Hutterian Safety Councils pandemic task force.

Hutterites are a religious minority who live in colonies that collectively own virtually all property; residents work, eat, worship and socialize in large groups.

The typical colony houses six to 12 families in a remote area. While Hutterites sell agricultural goods and take advanced schooling in cities, their main purpose for travelling is to visit relatives in other colonies across the Prairies.

"Our lifestyle has been intentionally organized in such a way that everybody gets up into everybodys business  this is how we care for each other," Wollmann said.

Their lifestyle kept COVID-19 out of Hutterite communities until the province detected one case on a colony on July 13. Within nine days, officials logged 35 cases on five colonies.

But the province stopped specifying colony cases due to concern about Hutterites being stigmatized. Hutterites have often felt maligned and persecuted over the decades, especially for their opposition to war.

On Aug. 24, the province disclosed that 236 cases had occurred in "communal-living communities."

Some believe that rapid spread stemmed from visitors to a funeral at an Alberta colony, but Wollmann said contact tracing hasnt confirmed that link.

"Its difficult to pin down," he said. "Its beside the point; we dont have the resources to obsess about this."

Instead, communities are focused on changing their daily lives.

Hutterites usually eat all three meals together in large halls, which some colonies have now spaced out to limit contact. Families with a sick relative have food delivered to their homes.

Some colonies that have multiple cases have shifted to cooking at home in kitchenettes that are normally only used for preparing snacks.

Worship services are being broadcast on public-address systems, or held outside.

While the harvest of crops takes place outdoors, some tasks have been spread out. Communities have designated members to take farm products, such as hogs and eggs, into cities.

Public health officials have asked Hutterites with infections to self-isolate. The officials test and monitor all people who have come into contact with an infected person.

Wollmann said compliance with those measures seems to be the norm.

Theres a wide variety of responses to COVID-19 in Hutterite communities, just the same as there is in Winnipeg. Everybodys doing the best they can, to cope with this unsettling situation that we find ourselves in.  Kenny Wollmann, member of the Hutterian Safety Councils pandemic task force

"Theres a wide variety of responses to COVID-19 in Hutterite communities, just the same as there is in Winnipeg," Wollmann said. "Everybodys doing the best they can, to cope with this unsettling situation that we find ourselves in."

Wollmann said the RCMP have been checking on people who returned from trips abroad during their mandatory two-week isolation.

The province has been vigilant in daily contact-tracing calls, which involve checking symptoms for people who might have been exposed, and verifying that those who are supposed to isolate are indeed at home.

"Its a mixed bag. There are some people who are appreciative, and find it reassuring. There are also some cases where some people find it frustrating. Theyre not well, and to just contend with the phone calls day in, day out; its a bit much for them," said Wollman.

He hopes communities keep complying with the rules, so the province doesnt have to issue fines.

Overall, he said Manitobas public-health team and provincial ministers have been supportive.

"We are just so deeply grateful for their willingness to hear our concerns and collaborate with us; to educate our people and develop the best possible responses."

Like most Manitobans, the impending return to school is top of mind for many Hutterites. Colonies tend to follow the same protocols as public school divisions, and the amount of at-home technology varies by community.

Ian Kleinsasser is at teacher at the Crystal Springs colony near Ste. Agathe, which has active cases.

He says an existing videoconferencing system has come in handy.

Most colonies have 60 to 170 people, so its common to have just a handful of children per grade, or just a few who want to take an elective course.

For years, children have been taught through "interactive television," where a teacher instructs children at multiple schools remotely, and checks in separately as they complete tasks.

In the spring, schools relied on that technology, and sanitation and distancing measures, as they let teenagers attend schools for digital lessons. That allowed families to focus on elementary students at home.

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His schools expect classes to resume this fall, with the usual mix of teachers from within and outside the colony.

"The stress level for parents right across the province was tremendous, and still is," said Kleinsasser.

His colony is within the Niverville-Ritchot district, which had 17 active cases as of Friday. The community has limited access to and from the colony to those who have tested negative or have never presented symptoms, and only for essential trips.

Kleinsasser said Hutterites are living through the same problems as other Manitobans.

"In a pandemic, people really have to have the sense that we are all in this together."

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
The 12 fig trees that beautify Portcullis House, the huge extension to the House of Commons on the far side of the road from Big Ben, may soon be uprooted. The trees have been there since the building was opened more than 10 years ago, but are not owned by Parliament. They are rented, at a basic cost of more than 30,000 a year.

An Evening Standard journalist worked out that the cost of nurturing them over a year probably exceeds 400,000. The implication that MPs could not give a fig about the expense was too much for the Speaker, John Bercow. He told the current issue of the in-house magazine for MPs, The House, that he was "horrified" by the news.

He added: "Inevitably and understandably it will cause people out there to think these people are living in another universe.

"The honest answer is I think the contract should absolutely be revisited. If we are going to have trees, they shouldn't be trees that cause us to fleece the taxpayer in this way, and that must change at the earliest opportunity."

Could card answer $15trn question?

The House of Lords was treated to a 10-minute speech last week by Lord James of Blackheath, from whom we have not heard much since he announced in 2010 that he was in touch with Foundation X, a "genuine and sincere" secret organisation that wanted to lend the British government 75bn.

David James was a City businessman commissioned by the Tories, in opposition, to report on ways of eliminating government waste. Last week, the 74-year-old peer was exercised about a story he has picked up that $15trn  that is $15,000,000,000,000  belonging to "the richest man in the world", Yohannes Riyadi, was deposited in 2009 in the Royal Bank of Scotland. Lord James said he remains baffled after a two-year pursuit of the story, but has all the information on a memory stick, which he is offering to hand over to the Government.

His documents include a letter from the Bank of Indonesia telling him the whole story is a "complete fabrication". He took his concerns to the Treasury minister, Lord Sassoon, who said: "This is rubbish. It is far too much money. It'd stick out like a sore thumb and you can't see it in the RBS accounts."

And an alert Financial Times blogger said that had Lord James googled "Yohannes Riyadi", the first item to come up would be a warning from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that the name is part of an internet scam designed to get money from the gullible. Two agents are trying to trace who is behind it. Perhaps Lord James should offer his memory stick.

Readers well aware of Self dilemma

The writer Will Self is to be congratulated on becoming Professor of Contemporary Thought at Brunel University. Most professors emerged from university with first class degrees. Self got a third.

The story goes that after his final exam in philosophy, politics and economics, the dons called him back over the summer for an interview. This is a rare procedure used when they cannot decide what degree to award a student. It was especially rare in 1982, the year Self graduated, because of a rail strike. What made his case almost unique was that, allegedly, he was on the border between a first and a third, because his answers were so way out that his examiners could not decide if he was obscurely brilliant or a bullshitter  a dilemma with which Self's readers have grappled ever since.

Meryl packs 'em in for night on boos

Whether or not Meryl Streep wins an Oscar this weekend for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, she has a fan club of sorts in Argentina.

With the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War approaching, in Buenos Aires they are "filling the screenings, all the better to boo Maggie on screen", according to the French newspaper, Le Point.

One war veteran said: "If this had been on 30 years ago, I'd have set fire to the cinema."
Military-level talks between India and China continued for de-escalation in the Galwan region of eastern Ladakh on Friday with top army commanders from both sides meeting to resolve the face-off. Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, Aug 31 : India has thwarted China's provocative military movements to change the status quo at the Pangong Tso in Eastern Ladakh. The troop casualties on both sides are yet to be confirmed. A brigade commander-level flag meeting is underway at Chushul to resolve the issues.

The incident is from the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday. China and India have been engaged in diplomatic and military talks to resolve the disputed border issue in Eastern Ladakh.

In a statement issued, the Indian Army said that on the night of August 29 and August 30, 2020, People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo.

"Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Lake, and undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground," the force said.

The Indian Army also stated that they are committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but are also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity.

China has refused to move back from its present military position north of the Pangong Tso. At Pangong Tso, China has strengthened their positions between Finger-5 and 8. The PLA has refused to pull back eastwards from the 8-km stretch it occupied from Finger-4 to Finger-8 by building scores of new fortifications there since early May.

India has asked China to completely withdraw troops from Pangong Tso.

The mountain spurs jutting into the lake are referred to as Fingers in military parlance.

Both the countries are engaged in around four month long standoff at the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh. Despite several levels of dialogue, there has not been any breakthrough and the deadlock continues.

India has found that the Chinese side has started troop, artillery and armour build-up in three sectors of the LAC -- western (Ladakh), middle (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh) and eastern (Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh).

China has also mobilised soldiers near Uttarakhand's Lipulekh Pass, a tri-junction between India, Nepal and China situated atop the Kalapani Valley. India had urged China to remove its forces from Pangong Lake and Gogra where disengagement has not taken place.

Chinese troops are also present in Depsang and they continue to block Indian soldiers from carrying out their traditional patrolling in the region. The two countries are locked in a three-month-long standoff at multiple points along the border, hitherto unprecedented.

China has changed the status quo at the LAC at various places, moving inside Indian territory. India has objected to it and is taking up the matter with China at all levels.

The troop disengagement has happened only at patrolling point-14 in Galwan Valley, the site of the June 15 clash, and patrolling point-15 in Hot Springs.

On June 15, as many as 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops were killed in a violent clash in the Galwan Valley.

Chinese aggression started increasing along the Line of Actual Control and more particularly in Galwan Valley since May 5. The Chinese side transgressed in the areas of Kugrang Nala, Gogra and north bank of Pangong lake on May 17 and May 18.
A North Korea source told Voice of America, "All international borders remain closed. Supplies coming to Nampo seaport remains suspended as there are no ships sailing in from China's Dalian port where COVID-19 cases were detected. Only COVID-19 related shipments are being allowed through Sinuiju-Dandong border" in the northwest.

North Korea is waging an all-out war to contain the spread of coronavirus orchestrated by leader Kim Jong-un's sister Yo-jong.

Another source said, "Checks have been stepped up at railways and roads to keep people from other parts of North Korea out of Pyongyang. Checks are conducted so often that not even an ant could get through."

North Korea continues to insist that it does not have a single case, but observers say that is implausible.

The head of the World Health Organization's office in Pyongyang told Voice of America on Friday, "On COVID-19 response, WHO has been informed by the Ministry of Public Health... that as of Aug. 20, 2,767 people have been tested... in the country and all have tested negative." But he added the WHO "is yet to get details about a suspected case that was reported in Kaesong."

A defectors' group, the North Korean People's Liberation Front, claimed 48,528 people have been placed in quarantine and 267 have died. If true, these are curiously specific figures and must come from a government source.


York SouthWeston, the community I represent, is home to folks you have heard about throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, suddenly deemed essential: the personal support workers caring for seniors, the grocery store workers ensuring families have food, the transportation and warehouse workers without whom our supply chains would grind to a halt.

Folks for whom working from home during the pandemic is not an option. Folks who dont have a paid day off if they have COVID-19 symptoms.

While Premier Ford and his ministers continue to call folks from neighbourhoods like mine heroes, when it comes to protecting their health and safety, Fords actions dont match his words.

Toronto Public Health data has confirmed that the citys northwest corner  encompassing neighbourhoods like Weston, Black Creek, Downsview-Roding CFB and Mount Olive-Silverstone-Jamestown  has been hardest hit by the coronavirus, with some of these neighbourhoods seeing COVID-19 rates more than 10 times higher than in the citys least affected, wealthier areas.

Yet, my community has been neglected by the Ford government when it comes to access to testing for COVID-19.

For months, my constituents have contacted me to express frustration with not having local access to testing. In June, I wrote to the premier and minister of health outlining the need for testing facilities in York SouthWeston. I suggested bringing in local pop-up testing, and using the former Humber Memorial site at 200 Church Street as a testing facility. Months later, they havent responded.

Meanwhile, Ontario Health told me folks here should just get tested elsewhere. Were in a hotspot. Families here have been getting sick. But its these families that have been asked to get on a bus to find a testing centre in a neighbourhood with more resources.

These northwest neighbourhoods have the largest proportion of Black residents in the city; health inequities and systemic racism are rampant. Governments have neglected us when it comes to affordable housing, youth programs, mental health supports, better transit and overcrowded schools.

Doug Ford cut affordable housing, mental health funding and youth programming. He hiked class sizes. Folks are facing more crowded conditions and fewer resources.

Meanwhile, local social service organizations like Weston King Neighbourhood Centre, Community Place Hub and Midaynta Community Services have asked the government for help with PPE and cleaning supplies. Community groups have made generous donations to try to fill gaps, but the government hasnt heard their cries.

A recent study by the Wellesley Institute shows tenants in the northwest corner are likeliest to be targeted by an anticipated wave of evictions.

The social and economic disparities in York SouthWeston and the citys northwest corner arent new, but they have been intensified by COVID-19.

We are people and families. We are workers who have given our all during this pandemic, caring for seniors in nursing homes, driving city busses and bagging groceries. We are neighbours who love and care for each other.

And we deserve better.
SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Motor Company and Global superstars BTS are releasing a new song, "IONIQ: I'm On It," as a following event to Hyundai Motor's launch campaign of its new dedicated EV brand "IONIQ in charge of turning the world". BTS' first music project with Hyundai will be available for free download on the brand's website at 7:00 PM (KST) on Aug. 31st. The music video will premiere on the company's official worldwide YouTube channel ( @HyundaiWorldwide ) at 11:00 AM (KST), Sep. 2nd.

The brand song "IONIQ: I'm On It" gives voice in line with IONIQ's goal to offer customer centric EV experiences centered on connected lifestyle solutions. The song's lyricssung and rapped by BTS's RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jung Kookexpress feelings of discovery, curiosity, hope, creativity, and inspiration for the future, affirmed by the refrain 'IONIQ takes me there.' The music video will feature the Hyundai's latest concept EV Prophecy unveiled in March.

As Hyundai Motor's new dedicated EV brand, IONIQ reinforces the company's commitment to clean mobility and reflects its ongoing transformation as a Smart Mobility Solution Provider. IONIQ aims to offer customer centric EV experiences centered on connected lifestyle solutions in line with Hyundai's vision of 'Progress for Humanity'. Under IONIQ, Hyundai Motor plans to introduce three new dedicated EV models over the next four years with more innovative models to follow, including IONIQ 5, a mid-sized CUV, IONIQ 6, a sedan, and IONIQ 7, a large SUV.

"I hope Hyundai and BTS's new collaboration song encourages the band's global fan base as well as our customers to draw their attention to Hyundai's vision for clean mobility, which is being realized through the new IONIQ EV brand," said Wonhong Cho, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Marketing Officier at Hyundai Motor Company.

Global CMO, Wonhong Cho added: "Hyundai Motor and BTS have continued to collaborate to spread the value of the positive energy they pursue together beyond advertising specific vehicle. The new IONIQ lineup is Hyundai Motor's answer to environmental problems and sustainable global communities that Millennials and Gen-Z generations are concerned about, and we will show the substance through the acceleration of the EV vision for future." he said. "We will communicate the customer centric EV experiences that IONIQ brand will bring, sincerely to many fans and customers around the world through the brand music.

Fans who want to further celebrate IONIQ with BTS can participate in an online event for a chance to win a limited-edition cassette tape-shaped music player. The music player contains two tracks  "IONIQ: I'm On It" and individual messages from each member of the band.

Hyundai worldwide: (https://www.hyundai.com/worldwide/en)

Lifestyle Instagram: ( https://www.instagram.com/hyundai.lifestyle/ )

Twitter: (https://twitter.com/Hyundai_Global)

SOURCE Hyundai Motor Company
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By PTI

LONDON: A British Sikh soldiers promotion within the UK Army ranks has become a social media sensation after the news posted by his proud wife attracted thousands of messages and comments.

Corporal Chamandeep Singh, a Punjab-born soldier in the Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) of the British Army, attended a military school in India for 12 years.

During this period, he read about another Indian soldier, Havildar Major Rajinder Singh Dhatt, and his heroic involvement in the Burma campaign of World War II.

The story of this Sikh war veteran, along with Singh's own father having served in the Indian Army, inspired him to move to the UK and join the British Army.

He is now a Twitter sensation after his wife, Ceese Kaur Seera, posted the news of his promotion earlier this month, which attracted over 7,300 likes and 500 retweets and comments.

The person who has supported me throughout my journey is my wife, Ceese, said Cpl Singh, who has been amazed by the worldwide response, including from India.

I just couldn't believe how many people from all around the world shared and commented on her tweet; it made me feel so proud to be a Sikh soldier and serve this country, he said.

His wife herself works in a challenging role, as a Forensic Scene Investigations Officer, and is also the National Lead for the National Sikh Police Association.

We support each other by having a mutual understanding that is built on teamwork and trust. I am always incredibly proud of my husbands achievements and getting promoted is a huge deal to any soldier, but as a Sikh, its so wonderful for our community to see soldiers going up the ranks and achieving so much, said Ceese Kaur Seera.

I wanted to share this incredible news with my friends through social media; I didnt think for a second the tweet would do as well as it did  the number of messages we had was amazing, she said.

Her soldier husband was posted to 22 Signals Regiment in October 2017 where he now works as part of the Unit Spares Account providing first-line equipment support to the Light Aid Detachment, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a statement marking his promotion.

Singh is part of 150 Sikhs serving in Britains Regular Army, amid soldiers famed for their fierce fighting ability, bravery and loyalty, the MoD said.

I have always been supported throughout my career in the Army, particularly by Staff Sergeant Rogers and Sergeant Adeboga from 22 Signals Regiment. These individuals, in particular, have shown me a huge amount of support, I cannot thank them enough; they are true examples of excellent Army leadership and mentoring, he said.

In addition to his military role, the MoD highlighted that Singh thrives as an Engagement Representative for the Defence Sikh Network, of which he has been a part of for the last five years.

Formerly known as the British Armed Forces Sikh Association, the Defence Sikh Network aims to unite and support Sikh personnel, veterans and MoD civil servants in order to maximise operational effectiveness and support the Sikh community.

The Network follows five key objectives  engage, mentor, educate, encourage and connect and these objectives also promote Britain's defence and the key role Sikhs play within the UK Armed Forces, the MoD said.

A particular highlight for the RLC soldier is his work with the youth of the community, where he connects with and supports young adults in their future career choices. Alongside his work with the Network, Cpl Singh also assists with events run by the BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) Network and he is overwhelmingly positive about the support he has received from the British Army, the MoD said.

The statement also praised Singh for his immeasurable amount of support to the community, from organising countless charity events to working with gurdwaras and supporting the homeless, through his role as an Engagement Representative.
Ireland South MEP Deidre Clune has welcomed the increase in unpaid parental leave for families around the country.

The change in legislation will allow for an increase in unpaid parental leave from 22 weeks to 26 weeks per parent per child under 12 years. This is increased to 16 years where a child has a disability. The changes come into force on September 1.

MEP Clune said that these changes will help to support families at this time. She said they are very welcome as families try to balance home and work life.

MEP Clune also said that support is needed now more than ever for employees looking for flexible working conditions. MEP Clune said that as children head back to school this week businesses need to support women and men in the workforce as many will need flexibility when it comes to sickness and keeping children at home if necessary. MEP Clune added that the current pandemic situation has clearly demonstrated that remote and flexible employment can work successfully.

MEP Clune said: It can be hard managing family and work life for both men and women, especially during these times. That is why I am calling on businesses across Ireland, especially now as schools reopen to put in place supports for employees and offer more options for flexible work practices should they require them. Many businesses have been fantastic to their employees during this Covid-19 crisis but we need to keep people in the workforce if we can and work together to achieve that.

Last year the European Parliament approved an EU Directive on work-life balance. A requirement of the directive extends the right to flexible working arrangements, such as remote working for employees returning from parental leave. Member States, like Ireland have three years to implement this Directive.

The Parental Leave and Benefit Bill 2019 was a part of implementing this  increasing the amount of leave that can be taken by parents both paid and unpaid and this came into force on 1st November last.

Ireland South MEP Deirdre Clune said: A major element in this directive from the European Parliament is the right for parents to request flexible working arrangements, such as remote working. Many companies in Ireland already offer employees the option of remote working but this directive goes further to ensure that employees have the right to specifically request it. It is now more important than ever that employees are given the option of flexible work.

Under normal circumstances, each summer as schools close, parents come under pressure to seek childcare arrangements. These new arrangements will really help parents looking for some flexibility when it comes to working arrangements. We need to keep parents in the workforce.

In Ireland employees returning to work after parental leave may seek a change in their work hours but an employer can refuse this request. This new directive from the European Parliament will extend the scope of flexible working arrangements which can be requested, by adding the option to request remote working.

MEP Clune said: The aim of this directive is to improve access to work-life balance arrangements. The workplace can be an exciting and exhilarating place. However it can also be a challenging place. What many people will struggle with is getting their work/life balance right. We have done a lot of work at the European Parliament on the promotion of a good work/life balance.
Hundreds of students once again filled the school halls of Washington, Roxbury and Bridgewater as Region 12 fully opened for school Monday. The district is among the first in the Danbury area to reopen and one of the few districts using the full reopen model.

Its going so well, Superintendent Megan Bennett said just before noon on Monday.

The first two weeks will be half days, giving students the chance to ease into what learning will be like with the new coronavirus protocols and a chance for staff to gather in the afternoon to discuss how the day went and prepare for the next one.

Our goal is to get incrementally better every day, Bennett said.

Sherman also opened Monday using a blended model. Ridgefields first cohort kicked off classes in person on Friday and the other cohort attended in person for the first time on Monday.

We are thrilled to have students return to campus today  we realize we dont have all of our students, that said, the moment they arrived, our day became brighter, Ridgefield Superintendent Susie Da Silva said in a district-wide letter on Friday. Students can expect the same level of energy next week as the first day of school is duplicated.

None of the districts reported problems on their first days, though Bennett said one hiccup was an arrow showing traffic flow was originally pointed in the wrong direction, but quickly rectified.

New Fairfield starts Wednesday fully in person and Newtown opens on Thursday and Friday using the hybrid model. Bethel, Brookfield, New Milford, Easton, Redding and Region 9 all kick off on Sept. 8 using the hybrid model. Danbury also starts Sept. 8, but switched from a hybrid model to fully remote due to a recent spike in coronavirus cases.

Some schools are hoping to transition to full in person once students and staff are more accustomed to the coronavirus protocols. Families in all districts have the option to keep their children home to learn remotely.

More News CT schools COVID-19 case tracker

About 86 percent of Region 12s 720 or so K-12 students returned in person, Bennett said.

This is more than last years total enrollment, which also included the districts preschool program. New families to the district are the biggest reason for the increase, which also proved to be a bit of a roller coaster as families decided if they wanted to be New York or Connecticut residents.

Region 12 added teachers and are using larger spaces in the schools to ensure everyone can be about six feet from each other and to keep class sizes low.

She said some families and staff were nervous leading up to the first day because they werent sure how students would respond to the new guidelines in place, including keeping a safe distance from others, having their temperature checked when entering the building, washing their hands more and wearing a mask throughout the day.

But so far she said it seems like the students are following the coronavirus requirements because they understand its whats needed to keep their community safe.

The children are happy to be back at school, Bennett said. Theyve been very good at listening to the rules.

Bennett popped into different classes throughout the day and saw younger students raising their arms, or airplane wings, to show theyre keeping the needed six feet from their classmates and teachers greeting students in new ways to limit contact.

Theyve gotten really creative at staying connected, but staying apart, Bennett said.

She credits a lot of the smooth transition to how well parents prepared their children for the school year and the new expectations they would encounter during the coronavirus, including getting used to wearing masks.

We didnt have any crying kindergartners, Bennett said, adding that was a rarity in a normal year.

It also helped that Region 12 was able to apply the lessons it learned from this years in-person summer school to the current academic year, though on a much larger scale. Having that base experience was an advantage getting ready for everyone to return with such uncertain times and so many changes.

This is one of those situations where we needed to see it to believe it, she said.

She said everyone is continuing to feel their way through the changes.

Its being positive and being vigilant and if we can do those two things, well have a good year for the students, Bennett said.

kkoerting@newstimes.com
Well before school bells ring, some Pennsylvania school districts are abruptly transitioning to remote learning.

While its not ideal, it solves a problem. Many districts are facing shortages of available teachers for in-person learning.
How this ISIS operative from Mangaluru lured her victims and converted them to Islam

NIA arrests another person in Defence/ISI case

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 31: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested one person in connection with an ISI spying case.

The person has been identified as Rajakbhai Kumbhar, a resident of Gujarat. He has been accused of working as an ISI agent.

This case arose out of Uttar Pradesh following the arrest of Mohammad Rashid. During investigation, it was revealed that accused Md. Rashid was in contact with Defence/ISI handlers of Pakistan and had visited Pakistan twice. He had transmitted photographs of some sensitive and strategically important installations in India and also shared information about the movement of the armed forces with ISI handlers in Pakistan.

Investigation further revealed that accused Rajakbhai Kumbhar worked as an ISI agent and transferred an amount of Rs.5,000 through Paytm in the account of one Rizwan which was further handed over to main accused Md. Rashid.

This amount was remitted to accused Md. Rashid by Rajakbhai Kumbhar on the directions of ISI handlers in lieu of the information supplied by Md. Rashid to ISI agents.
Donald Trump's presidency has exploited fear and fanned the flames of violence against Americans, his Democratic rival Joe Biden said in remarks that took sharp aim at the president and his response to ongoing protests against racial injustice.

"This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership," the former vice president said in a speech from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Monday. "He cant stop the violence because for years he fomented it ... His failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows you how weak he is."

In a brief and furious broadcast, the candidate criticised the president's argument that Americans would be safer under his second term while his campaign relies on images from demonstrations against police brutality during his own first term.

"What's their proof? The violence they're seeing in Donald Trump's America," Mr Biden said. "These are images of Donald Trump's America today. ... It's getting worse and you know why  because Donald Trump has fuelled every fire."

He condemned Trump's campaign depiction of career moderate Joe Biden as a "Trojan horse" for socialism ushering in a wave of street violence ("Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?") and denounced riots and looting that his opponents have falsely claimed that he has encouraged.

"Rioting is not protesting, looting is not protesting, setting fires is not protesting," he said. "It's lawlessness, plain and simple."

In his pitch for a "safer" America, the former vice president questioned whether Mr Trump had made the US safer not just from the spectre of lawlessness that his campaign and right-wing media continues to pin on Mr Biden but also from a raging pandemic that has killed more than 180,000 Americans, as well as an economic fallout that has threatened millions of jobs and businesses.

His remarks depicted a president who has upended American life by failing to offer even the illusion of safety not just from unrest but the "multiplying" crises under the Trump administration, including a public health crisis, economic devastation and unwarranted police violence.

"Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is re-elected?" asked Mr Biden, who phrased the question a second time, asking, "Do you really feel safer under Trump?"

"The current president wants you to live in fear," he said. "He advertises himself as a figure of order. He isn't, and he's not been part of the solution thus far. He's part of the problem."

Mr Biden said the November election, with early voting set to begin in coming days, has reached a moment where "Donald Trump would be so desperate he'd do anything" to hold on to power.

If elected, his administration would work to "lower the temperature" of the country with "less divisive" rhetoric, eliminating a presidency that has been a "toxic presence for four years" and has poisoned how Americans talk to one another and democracy itself, Mr Biden said.

November's election will decide whether Americans choose to "rid ourselves of this toxin or make it a permanent part of this nation's character," he said.

He delivered remarks hours before the president was set to land in Kenosha, Wisconsin, following nightly demonstrations against police violence after a police officer shot seven rounds into the back of Jacob Blake, a black man who has been left paralysed by the shooting. Kyle Rittenhouse, a white 17-year-old Trump supporter from Illinois who travelled to Wisconsin for the demonstrations, has been charged with killing two protesters and injuring another.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Monday that the president would not comment on Mr Rittenhouse's case.

But the president raged on Twitter against Democrats and promoted right-wing conspiracies after a man linked to a far-right group that has encouraged violence at protests was shot and killed in Portland on Sunday.
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Linkedin Dan Williams (Reuters) Tel Aviv  Mon, August 31, 2020 15:00 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41a4d67 2 World Israel,Israel-UAE,normalization,US,bilateral-relation,bilateral-ties,Israel-Palestine-conflict,Israel-annexation Free

Top aides to US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fly to the United Arab Emirates on Monday to put the final touches on a pact establishing open relations between the Gulf power and Israel.

Even before discussions start in Abu Dhabi, the delegates will have made aviation history by taking an Israeli commercial airliner - the word "peace" printed in Arabic, English and Hebrew above a cockpit window of the El Al Boeing 737 - directly from Tel Aviv to the UAE capital over Saudi territory.

"That's what peace for peace looks like," Netanyahu tweeted, hailing what he termed a historic flight and describing a deal for formal ties with an Arab state that does not entail handover of land that Israel captured in a 1967 war.

Announced on Aug. 13, the 'normalization' deal is the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years and was catalyzed largely by shared fears of Iran.

Palestinians were dismayed by the UAE's move, worried that it would weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory - and acceptance of Palestinian statehood - in return for normal relations with Arab countries.

Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and national security adviser Robert O'Brien head the US delegation. The Israeli team is led by O'Brien's counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat. Officials will explore bilateral cooperation in areas such as commerce and tourism, and Israeli defence envoys are due to visit the UAE separately.

Israeli officials hope the two-day trip will produce a date for a Washington signing ceremony, perhaps as early as September, between Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

That could give Trump a foreign policy boost ahead of his re-election bid in November. In Jerusalem on Sunday, Kushner said the deal was a giant step forward.

The Trump administration has tried to coax other Sunni Arab countries concerned about Iran to engage with Israel. The most powerful of those, Saudi Arabia, has signalled it is not ready.

But in what could presage a more relaxed posture by Riyadh, the El Al plane on Monday will be allowed to overfly Saudi territory to cut flight time.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organizations executive committee, said Kushner and his team were "scrambling to convince as many Arab and Muslim leaders as possible" to give Trump an election boost.

"They will be a prop at the backdrop of a meaningless spectacle for a ridiculous agreement that will not bring peace to the region," she said.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- If youre one of the seemingly few people left that doesnt have Netflix or access to a friends or family members account, the service is looking to lure new subscribers with free content.

Netflix has launched a new site at netflix.com/watch-free with a sampling of its offerings. Unlike the customary 30-day free trial, no credit card or account is required to watch.

Available titles include episodes of original series like Stranger Things, Love Is Blind, and When They See Us, plus Netflix exclusive movies such as The Two Popes, Murder Mystery, Bird Box, and more.

The selection may change from time to time, so watch now! the site says.

The one catch: the free shows can only be viewed on the web on a computer or Android device.

Netflix subscriptions are available starting at $8.99 a month.
It's Tuesday morning, and teacher Tamya Daly has her online class playing an alphabet game. The students are writing quickly and intently, with occasional whoops of excitement, on the little whiteboards she dropped off at their homes the day before along with coloring books, markers, Silly Putty and other learning props  all of which she created or paid for with her own money.

Two of the seven children in her combined third and fifth grade class weren't home when Daly came by with the gift bags. One of the two managed to find her own writing tablet, thanks to an older brother, but the other can't find a piece of paper in her dad's house. She sits quietly watching her classmates on Zoom for half an hour while Daly tries futilely to get the father's attention. Maybe the student is wearing earphones; maybe the father is out of the room.

As children head back to school online across California and much of the nation, some of the disparities that plague education are growing wider. Instead of attending the same school with similar access to supplies and teacher time, children are directly dependent on their home resources, from Wi-Fi and computers to study space and parental guidance. Parents who work, are poor or have less education are at a disadvantage, as are their kids.

Daly teaches elementary students with special needs. The children in her class, who have a variety of diagnoses and intellectual disabilities, are at even higher risk  they can't work independently and need more hands-on instruction. "The more they're not getting those kinds of accommodations, the further they're going to fall behind," said Allison Gandhi, a managing director in special education at the nonprofit American Institutes for Research.

Educators and families fear devastating long-term consequences from COVID-19 for the nearly 800,000 California children who received special education services. So, in early August, the state announced it was developing a waiver application process for schools, even in COVID-plagued counties, that want to bring small groups of these students back for in-person education.

"There are simply kids that will never, ever have that quality learning that we all desire to advance online, no matter what kind of support we provide, even if we individualize it," Gov. Gavin Newsom said at an Aug. 14 news conference.

Online learning is interfering with the students' individualized education programs, or IEPs  legal agreements among families, school districts and specialists that set academic and behavioral goals for students and the services they're entitled to.

The gap in online learning experience is sharply visible in Daly's class, and the parents' role is crucial. For parents who don't have to work, distance learning may be tense and time-consuming, but it becomes part of a daily routine to be endured until the pandemic ebbs. For others, schooling is an unworkable nightmare burdening parents already stretched to their limits.

School started Aug. 12. By day five, Daly knew which children had the luxury of a stay-at-home parent and which were being supervised by older siblings. She knew which students struggled to get online on time every day  a new state requirement for all virtual learners  and which ones needed reminding to eat breakfast before class started.

She also knew, from last spring, that most of the parents couldn't print the worksheets she had uploaded to Google Classroom. Their printers were broken, or printer ink cost too much, or they didn't have printers. For this semester, she set up a time every Thursday for parents to drive by the school and pick up packets for the following week.

Daly works at Emery Park Elementary School in Alhambra, east of downtown Los Angeles, where two-thirds of the students qualified last year for free or reduced-price school meals. The school has loaned about 80% of the 434 students Chromebooks because they didn't have computers at home, said principal Jeremy Infranca.

Like most schools in California, Emery Park started the school year in virtual classrooms  the safest option for a state with a stubbornly persistent infection rate. The Alhambra school district has yet to decide whether to apply for a waiver to bring students with special needs back on campus. Infranca and Daly would like to  if they can secure COVID-19 protective gear for themselves and their students, and if families feel comfortable with it.

In the meantime, Daly is doing her best to accommodate her families, which isn't easy. Parents have told her to limit live group instruction to an hour a day, so as not to interfere with child care schedules or the laptop needs of other children in the household. To make up for the reduced time, Daly records several 15- to 30-minute videos explaining the work to be done and plans to schedule an individual session with each child once a week.

"I choose to be positive about this experience, and I choose to communicate and do my best to reach out to the students and connect with parents and family members," said Daly. "We just need to be proactive, and also a little patient."

Tamya Daly teaches elementary students with special needs  those who can't work independently and need more hands-on instruction. When she takes attendance every morning, she greets each student personally, hoping the "circle time" will help the kids stay connected. (Anna Almendrala)

Tamya Daly delivers school supplies to Jasmine and her mother, Ivy, a stay-at-home parent. Ivy supervises Jasmine's classwork and behavioral therapy online, and also helps Jasmine's younger sister with her online classes. (Anna Almendrala)

Families have different opinions about whether to return their kids to the schoolhouse. It often depends more on a family's desperation over child care than consideration of COVID-19 risks.

Cat Lee, 44, was nervous at first when she realized she had to take on the bulk of hands-on teaching for her son, Jacob, a fifth grader in Daly's class.

"I wondered, would I be able to teach him as well, and would he be able to learn it?" she said.

Lee is a stay-at-home mom, and so far she has been able to stick to the schedule Daly lays out. She's there with Jacob at every Zoom session and logs onto the Seesaw app to go through all the assignments. She praised Daly for her curriculum, which she felt was better and easier to teach than what the family received back in March. But she had reservations about her son's new normal.

"It's really slowing down his learning; plus, he doesn't interact with kids anymore," said Lee.

Still, if she had the chance to send Jacob for in-person learning now, Lee wouldn't take it. She has concerns about their immune systems  Lee had a kidney transplant five years ago, and Jacob was born at just 27 weeks' gestation  and is holding out for a COVID vaccine before allowing Jacob to resume his normal activities.

Not that she doesn't have doubts.

"My fear is that he's going to be home for so long, he'll be so used to it and he won't want to go back to school," she said.

Danielle Musquiz, a 32-year-old mother with five elementary school-aged boys  four adopted from a relative  would favor a return to school. She gets three or four hours of sleep each night because of her 90-hour workweek with two jobs, as a home aide and a cashier at a regional park.

Four of her sons receive special education services, including an adopted middle child who is in Daly's class and has cognitive delays linked to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The children, crowded together at the dining room table or in the living room, listen to their classes with earphones to keep from disturbing one another, which means she can't hear a teacher calling out to her from the screen.

The four kids have individual education programs, but it's hard for Musquiz to oversee them "with the minimal amount of time I have at home," she said. She's feeling overwhelmed by having to coordinate, supervise and respond to teachers, counselors and therapists for each child.

Musquiz is working longer hours than before the pandemic, and she picks up shifts at the park when the boys' former stepfather takes them for the weekend.

"I'm slowly starting to say  and I know that this sounds bad  I dont care anymore about the kids' schooling," Musquiz laughed nervously. "I feel like it's chaos, and I'm drowning."

To help with child care, her mother lives with the family Monday through Thursday, and her sons spend Thursday nights at her sister's house. On Fridays, nine kids are all streaming their classes online from that house. On a recent Friday, the Wi-Fi broke, prompting a call from the school of one of her sons asking why he had left class early.

If she had the opportunity, Musquiz would send her children back to in-person learning in a heartbeat.

"None of my kids are really going to learn what they need to," said Musquiz. "They need hands-on, they need interaction, they need motivation, and these classes are not doing that for them."
A Save our Schools (SOS) report Public Schools Face a Funding Crisis; Private Schools Are in Clover has documented the widening funding gap between public and private schools in Australia.

The data exposes the fraud of the Gonski funding model, commissioned by then Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard and launched in 2011 ostensibly to overcome the glaring socioeconomic divide in the public, Catholic and private school sectors.

David Gonski, a central figure in big business, was serving as chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange when Gillard appointed him. Sold as needs-based, the Gonski funding mechanism became the centre of teacher union campaigns. Millions of dollars of members union fees have been allocated to publicising it as a model for fairer school funding.

Significantly, the funding data analysed by the SOS report mainly covers the years following the Gonski Review of Funding for Schooling.

The decade between 2009 and 2018 saw an increase of total income for private and Catholic schools nine to ten times higher than for public schools. Income for private schools increased by 16.9 percent per student, 19.7 percent in Catholic schools, but only 2.1 percent in public schools.

Credit: Save our Schools Public Schools Face a Funding Crisis; Private Schools Are in Clover

While part of the resource advantage of private and Catholic schools was due to their increased fees, government (both federal and state) funding accounted for 77 percent of the increase in Catholic schools and 62 percent of the increase in private schools.

There was a significant cut$330 per student on averagein state government funding for public schools. The Western Australian state government, whose public schools enrol a high proportion of Aboriginal students, pupils living in poverty and students in remote areas, cut a massive 13.7 percent from its schools budget.

Credit: Save our Schools Public Schools Face a Funding Crisis; Private Schools Are in Clover

The report also charted indices of disadvantage borne by public schools, including the overwhelming concentration of students with higher needs. In 2018, public schools enrolled 82 percent of all low socio-economic students, 84 percent of indigenous students, 77 percent of high disability students and 82 percent of remote area students. Disadvantaged children accounted for 46 percent of all public school enrolments, compared to 20 percent in private schools.

The report further referred to data from a 2018 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report showing that public schools in Australia have far fewer highly qualified teachers, more teacher shortages, more inadequately qualified teachers, more teacher absenteeism and more shortages of assisting staff than private schools. Thirty-five percent of students in public schools have their learning hindered by a lack of physical infrastructure, compared with 9 percent of students in private schools.

Public schools are supposedly fully funded by government, but increasingly pressure parents to pay voluntary levies of up to $1,300 per child annually. By comparison, about half of the income of private schools comes from school fees. The most elite private schools charge parents up to $40,000 per child per annum.

Australia has one of the most unequal education systems of any advanced economy due to privatisation measures promoted by successive Labor and Liberal-National governments since the 1970s.

Wealthy private schools, such as Melbourne Grammar, are showered with public money. Yet that school, for example, boasts of a $30 million science and technology hub with a rooftop terrace and weather monitoring station.

Meanwhile, the public Sheldow Park Primary school in Adelaide has walls that have not been painted in 15 years. The schools principal told the media: We have a plan to carpet two or three classrooms per year, based on need. So the ones with the biggest holes in them or the biggest rips get replaced first.

The gulf between private and public schools has resulted in the country having one of the highest rates of non-public school attendance among the advanced capitalist countries. Forty percent of high school students now attend private schools.

Another SOS group report, The Bureaucratisation of Public Education in Australia, notes that over the past 20 years public schools also have experienced an enormous increase in requirements to comply with regulations, collect and record information and monitor performance. From 2015 to 2019 the number of management staff throughout the system increased by 70 percentmore than ten times the increase in the number of students and teachers.

The report notes that few state education departments focus primarily on supporting teaching and learning. Most scrutinise accountability measures such as financial management, student well-being, behaviour management and safety, teacher appraisal, compliance training, school review processes, curriculum standards, student progress based on standardised test results, workplace health and safety, and auditing.

As a result, teachers are spending the third highest number of hours on management and administration in the OECD.

The teacher unions, such as the Australia Education Union (AEU) and the New South Wales Teachers Federation (NSWTF), have played a leading role in helping governments impose these conditions. At the same time, they seek to tie teachers to illusions in Labor Party governments, despite the record of the Gillard government and one state Labor government after another.

Before last years federal election, the unions rebadged their campaign I Give a Gonski to Fair Funding Now to more closely link their campaign to Labors electoral claim to have policies that would lead to fairness. The AEU and the NSWTF launched a fleet of Fair Funding Now vans to visit marginal electorates. NSWTF President Maurie Mulheron called for a Labor vote, saying the Liberal Party had no sense of a fair go.

The Committee for Public Education (CFPE), established by the Socialist Equality Party, is providing leadership to teachers, parents and students in the fight for the social right to a fully-resourced, enlightened education for all students. This is in opposition to the agenda of the entire political establishment, including Labor, the Greens and the trade unions.

Such a struggle can only be based on a socialist perspective for the transformation of society as a whole in the interests of the working class, not the privileged few. The funds to provide a free, high quality education for all exist but securing them requires an assault on the vast wealth built up by the financial elite.

The CFPE is calling for rank-and-file committees of teachers, school staff, parents and students, completely independent of the unions, to be established in every school as part of the mobilisation of the entire working class in a fight to establish a society based on social need, not private profit. To discuss how to join this struggle, contact the CFPE.

Email: cfpe.aus@gmail.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/commforpubliceducation

Twitter: @CFPE_Australia

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When Anne Graham Lotz was a girl, she went on a 14-mile hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains with a friend. Eventually, they found themselves lost in a laurel thicket, unsure of the way home. Laurel thickets can cover the side of a mountain, and youre dense in thicket, Lotz told CT. You cant see up, out, either side. Fortunately, her friend had packed a compass, and with that compass, they were able to set their course for north and find their way out of the laurel thicket. We got back to the trail that we had lost, and got to where we needed to be, Lotz said, and we were fine.

Lotz compares that experience to how she approaches Bible reading each and every day. When I get up in the morning and spend time with the Lord, its like setting my compass, so that regardless of which way Im turned during the day, the needle turns north, Lotz said. My thoughts, my attention, theyre centered on the Lord.

Women Lead in Scripture Engagement

Lotzs commitment to daily time in the Word reflects the Bible engagement habits of many American women. The Pew Research Centers Religious Landscape Study reports that among evangelical Protestants, 66 percent of women read Scripture at least once a week, compared to 58 percent of men. While these Bible-reading habits may involve engaging with Scripture during a church service or midweek Bible study, women also outpace men when it comes to engaging with Scripture outside of church. According to the 2017 Baylor Religion Survey, 36 percent of Christian women spend weekly or daily time alone reading the Bible, compared to 29 percent of Christian men.

The 2020 State of the Bible survey, commissioned by the American Bible Society (ABS) and conducted by Barna, also finds that women are more Scripture engaged than men. It reports that more than half of American women (52%) are Bible friendly, Bible engaged, or Bible centered, compared to 47 percent of American men. The researchers used the term Bible friendly to describe those who interact with the Bible consistently and may consider it a source of spiritual insight and wisdom. The term Bible engaged described those who interact with the Bible frequently  transforming their relationship with God and others. Finally, Bible centered described those whose frequent interaction with Scripture transformed not just their relationships but also their choices.

The ABS report also notes that African Americans are more Scripture engaged than other racial or ethnic groups. Among black Christians, Pew reports a similar gender difference: 64 percent of black Christian women read the Bible at least once a week, compared to 56 percent of black Christian men.

Image: Baylor Religion Survey / Ryan Burge

So why are women leading in the area of Bible engagement? While the studies from Pew and the American Bible Society do not directly address the definitive cause of these findings, other research, bolstered by observations from key female Bible study authors, points toward possible sociological, cultural, and ecclesial reasons.

Differences in Reading Habits

More women read, for one thing, said Sandra Glahn, a Dallas Theological Seminary professor and Bible study author, when asked about the elevated rate of Bible engagement among women. Weve known that for a long time. There are lots of theories as to why, but more women are buying books of any kind.

Generally speaking, women and girls do tend to read more than men and boys. According to Gender Differences in Reading and Writing Achievement in American Psychologist, females read more than males in almost every developed country. From girlhood, females also read more thoroughly and have greater reading comprehension than males. Although most gender differences in cognitive abilities are considered small, trivial, or statistically insignificant, the difference in reading achievement exceeds the threshold for non-trivial gender-difference effect sizes. In simpler terms, the differences in language and reading between men and women are large enough to be significant and meaningful. Habits of frequent and thorough reading that women bring to other texts are likely an influential factor in womens Scripture engagement.

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Schedule Flexibility

Although some business experts suggest that flexible work schedules are the future of employment for both men and women, women have long prioritized flexibility in order to balance work and family life. Jackie Hill Perry, author of Gay Girl, Good God and a recent LifeWay Bible study on the Book of Jude, said, It isnt that women have more timebut I think women have more time at home. Whether women are working from home or homeschooling, Perry believes this time at home and flexibility in daily schedule provides some women with more opportunities to dig into the Scriptures.

Jennie Allen, founder of IF:Gathering and author of the book and Bible study Get Out of Your Head, also said womens leadership in Bible engagement likely has to do with having margin during the day. A lot of women I know did a Mothers Day Out,  Allen said. They would take their kids to Bible study, they would go for three hours, and they would [study the Bible].

Of course, not all women choose or have the option to work from home. Lotz, commenting about womens commitment to Bible study in earlier eras, said, One reason was because women seemed to have more at-home time . . . and men were working outside the home. Thats not true anymore, because I guess theres as many women who work outside the home as men. Indeed, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that as of 2014, about 6 in 10 women age 16 or older worked outside the home (57%) compared to 43 percent in 1970 and 34 percent in 1950. In 1900, just 6 percent of married women worked outside the home. For women today without significant flexibility or margin in their work schedules, other factors may drive them to prioritize spending time in Bible reading and study.

Limited Leadership and Ministry Opportunities

Christine Caine, founder of the A21 Campaign and Propel Women, posits another reason American women are so highly committed to Bible reading and study: Is it because there are not opportunities for women to serve widely within a local church context?

In its Christian Women Today study (2012), the Barna Group referred to women as the backbone of U.S. Christian churches. Yet it found that while many women were satisfied with their opportunities for ministry and leadership, a notable portion was not. About three out of 10 churchgoing women (31%) say they are resigned to low expectations when it comes to church. One fifth feel under-utilized (20%). One sixth say their opportunities at church are limited by their gender (16%). Roughly one out of every eight women feel under-appreciated by their church (13%) and one out of nine believe they are taken for granted (11%). The Barna report notes that although these numbers may seem low, they amount to millions of women who feel underutilized by their local church.

The limited leadership and ministry opportunities that some women encounter in their congregations can drive them to look for other ways to serve and to exercise their spiritual giftedness. Bible study is one arena where opportunities abound. Caine remarked on the difference between her home country of Australia and the popularity and prevalence of Bible study resources authored by women in America. In Australia its the exact opposite, Caine said. She believes that if women were given more opportunities to use their spiritual and communication gifts in the local church, it might not occur to us to write a Bible study unless wed been to seminary.

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Women Succeed as Prolific Bible Study Authors

In addition to outpacing men in frequency of Bible engagement, women Bible study authors regularly lead or feature in the best-seller lists of Christian publishing houses. LifeWay, for example, lists Bible study authors Beth Moore, Priscilla Shirer, Kelly Minter, Lysa TerKeurst, Jen Wilkin, Angie Smith, and Lisa Harper among their top-selling writers.

Minter, author of LifeWays recent Bible study Finding God Faithful: A Study on the Life of Joseph, said the success and visibility of female Bible study authors spurred her own desire to write Bible studies. It started with Kay Arthur, then Beth Moore and Priscilla ShirerBible studies for women really broke into the mainstream. People were traveling to go hear these people speak, going to the store to buy their books, going to Amazon to buy their studies, Minter said. I didnt even know Beth Moore, but Beth Moore taught me how to write Bible studies, and so did Kay Arthur. Minter noted that even as a middle school student, she was diving into Scripture using Arthurs Bible studies.

Jennie Allen suggested the popularity of female Bible study authors could be due, in part, to supply and demand. She observed that women may be more likely to use study resources, while men may approach Bible engagement in a different way. Allen said, When I think of the guys getting together for church, they go for coffee from six to seven [in the morning] and they share life together. They catch up and they hold each other accountable. I think of my husband over the years [and] what hes been [involved] in; its like, Lets study Romans 8 over the course of a semester with 10 guys. They just each take a verse and they talk about itits so different.

Allen also argues that women who may be primarily taught by men in their local congregations crave the voices and perspectives of female leaders and want those voices in their lives. She observed, A way was made for womens Bible study and for womens equippingbecause most Sundays and Wednesday nights were male teachers.

For some female authors, writing a Bible study was not the driving goal. Kay Arthur, founder of Precept and one of the most prolific Bible study authors and teachers in the world, said, I never aspired to anything that I am, except to be a woman of God. Ive never aspired to writing Bible studies. I never aspired to being a speaker. I never dreamed in my life that I would write a book. I never thought about starting a ministry. I simply did what God set before me, one step at a time through his opened doors.

Regarding womens higher degrees of Bible engagement, Arthur said, I cant tell you why, but she recounted how her own path to Bible study teaching and authorship arose from a felt need as she was teaching teenagers in Mexico and then in the United States. Arthur cited one of her favorite verses, Psalm 119:102, which reads, I have not turned aside from Your ordinances, for You Yourself have taught me (NASB). Arthur says her Bible studies arose out of a passion for people to discover Gods truth for themselves by learning how to study inductively.

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The Transformative Power of the Word

Like Arthur, many of the best-known women Bible teachers are hesitant to guess why women devote more time to reading Scripture than men. But they know why they are passionate about it: They attest to how committed time in Scripture has changed their own lives and serves as the foundation of their relationship with God.

I dont think you can know God as he is apart from the Word, Lotz said. You can get glimpses of him, perhaps. You can know about him, see reflections of himbut he has revealed himself accurately through the written Word, the living Word. She continued, I dont want to know God the way some people say he may be, or some people think he is or is not. I want to know him as he is. And if there is a God in the universe, then I want to know the names he calls himself. I want to know how hes revealed himself. I dont want to know him secondhand, or through hearsay.

Scripture does not return void, said Denver Seminary faculty member Angie Ward, citing Isaiah 55:11. Ward, the author of I Am A Leader: When Women Discover the Joy of Their Calling, notes the importance of immersing oneself in Scripture to know God deeply rather than merely to acquire knowledge. Information alone doesnt equal transformation, Ward said. Theres definitely power in Scripture, but its in letting it soak into our lives and experiencing transformation through that working of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works through Scripture.

Perry says the Word transformed her life by teaching her who Jesus really is. Apart from the Scriptures, I wouldnt have any framework of  who he is, why hes to be trusted, and how out of that trust how my life should look, she said. The Scriptures have provided evidence for faith, reason to believe, fuel for faithbut also a really clear understanding of why I exist, what Im supposed to be doing in this life. . . . Apart from [the Scriptures], I would still be the same person [I was before I became a Christian].

Each of the Bible study authors and teachers interviewed for this article is passionate about how the Word of God can transform the lives of those who encounter it. All of them urged every Christian to make it a daily practice to read and study the Word. Stop calling it a quiet time, argued Glahn. After all, not all women have the ability or the margin to create an ideal, quiet setting for biblical study and reflection. We need not wait for the perfect time or place; the transformative power of the Word is very near. As Saint Augustine said, all we must do is Take up and read. Take up and read.

Halee Gray Scott, PhD, is an author, radio show host, and social researcher whose focus is ministry issues in the 21st century. She is the director of the Young Adult Initiative at Denver Seminary.

This article is part of Why Women Love the Bible, CTs special issue spotlighting womens voices on the topic of Scripture engagement. You can download a free pdf of the issue or order print copies for yourself at MoreCT.com/special-issue.

[ This article is also available in Portugues. ]

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Gyms in New York City, shuttered in March in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak -- are allowed to reopen Wednesday, but with a number of new protocols in place.

Earlier this month, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced gyms and fitness centers could reopen in New York as early as Aug. 24, and definitely by Sept. 2 at the latest. Mayor Bill de Blasio pushed back opening dates for New York City businesses until Wednesday, Sept. 2.
Migrants increasingly start arriving in Europe from 2011, the year the conflict in Syria began. But it is in 2015 that the situation takes on dizzying proportions

The arrival five years ago of more than a million migrants in Europe caused widespread chaos and, despite a significant decline in arrivals, tensions and divisions have continued between EU countries over migration.

2015: over a million migrants



Migrants increasingly start arriving in Europe from 2011, the year the conflict in Syria began. But it is in 2015 that the situation takes on dizzying proportions.

In April 2015 some 800 migrants from West Africa drown when a trawler sinks, in the worst disaster in the Mediterranean for decades. In late summer the number of arrivals rises and it tops a million over the year, with more than 850,000 going via Greece.

Fearing a humanitarian disaster, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel opens the country's doors, sparking criticism from other countries who fear the decision will create an influx. But soon Berlin reintroduces border controls, followed by other countries.

With difficulty, EU leaders agree in September on quotas for the distribution of asylum seekers from Italy and Greece, despite opposition from several Eastern European countries. But the temporary plan will prove laborious and conflictual in practice.

Fences start appearing along the migrant route, such as in Hungary and Slovenia.

2016: Turkey-EU deal

In March 2016 the borders shut down along the Balkans route from Macedonia to Austria, which migrants have been using since the summer as a means to reach northern Europe.

On March 18, a hard-won deal between the EU and Turkey lifts some of the pressure: in exchange for financial assistance and political concessions, Ankara agrees for all migrants arriving in Greece to be systematically returned.

Over the year the number of migrants arriving in Europe falls drastically to less than 390,000. But tens of thousands find themselves stuck in Greece.

2017: Italy gateway

As the passage through Greece dries up, Libya becomes the key migrant route to the Mediterranean, and Italy becomes the main gateway to Europe.

Deals between Rome and Libyan authorities and militias in mid-2017 are a game-changer: support for the Libyan coastguard leads to a massive drop in arrivals, but also sparks criticism as migrants suffer detention and violence in Libya.

2018: political crisis

Spain now becomes the main entry point to Europe.

In Italy in June, when an anti-migrant coalition including the far-right is sworn into government, one of its first actions is to refuse to allow the Aquarius rescue ship carrying 630 migrants to dock.

After a turbulent week at sea, the migrants are taken in by Spain, but the case leads to heightened tensions, particularly between Rome and Paris.

2018-2019: Mediterranean disputes

The decision in June 2018 by Italy's far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini to close access to Italian ports raises tensions further.

For more than a year migrant rescue ships are blocked in the Mediterranean for weeks until deals are reached between countries to take them in. In June 2019 a Sea-Watch rescue boat defies Salvini's orders and enters Italian waters despite the threat of a hefty fine.

Italy's government changes at the end of the summer 2019 and the country's ports reopen. In September Germany, France, Italy and Malta agree to automatically share the number of migrants who land in Italy or Malta, but the deal is suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2019 fewer than 129,000 migrants arrive in Europe.

2020: Erdogan's 'blackmail'

In February 2020, Turkey opens its border with Greece, leading tens of thousands of people to cross from Turkey.

Fearing a repeat of 2015, the EU "strongly rejects" Turkey's "blackmail".

But the widespread closure of borders due to the virus crisis limits opportunities for migrants to cross into Europe, and the pandemic also leads to Italy and Malta closing their ports in April, and a scarcity of rescue boats.

At the same time, the pandemic accelerates the use of small boats for crossings in the central Mediterranean. The International Organization for Migration warns of the risks that "invisible shipwrecks are occurring out of sight".

On a smaller scale -- but in a sign that half a decade after the migrant crisis, Europe is far from having settled the issue -- there is a sharp rise in migrant crossings of the Channel, causing tensions between Paris and London.

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A former right-hand man to Prince William has been chosen by Boris Johnson to head the civil service and force through Dominic Cummings hard rain reforms of Whitehall, it has been reported.

Simon Case, who was made permanent secretary at 10 Downing Street earlier this year, will be announced as the cabinet secretary on Tuesday, according to the Financial Times.

The former private secretary to both David Cameron and Theresa May was poached from Kensington Palace in May by the man he is now set to replace, Sir Mark Sedwill, to oversee Downing Streets handling of the coronavirus crisis.

Downing Streets announcement in June that Sedwill would step down in September both as Whitehalls top civil servant and the PMs national security adviser was widely seen as part of a coup driven by Cummings to replace long-serving mandarins with Johnson loyalists as he sought to centralise power in the prime ministers office. Sedwills responsibilities as national security adviser went to long-time Johnson ally David Frost, currently negotiating post-Brexit trade arrangements with the EU.

At 41, Mr Case will be the youngest occupant since 1916 of the cabinet secretarys role, usually the pinnacle of a long career in Whitehall departments.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 18 January 2022 Surfers enter the sea as the sun rises over Tynemouth on the North East coast PA UK news in pictures 17 January 2022 Bonhams Danny McIlwraith holds a Nigerian polycrome carved wood mask during a photocall for the sale of the Jim Lennon Collection at Bonhams in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 16 January 2022 The moon rises above the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 15 January 2022 Demonstrators outside Downing Street during a Kill The Bill protest against The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in London PA UK news in pictures 14 January 2022 Ecologist Emma Smart (left) and retired GP Dr Diana Warner outside HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, following their release from the prison where Emma undertook a 26-day hunger strike during her incarceration. Ms Smart was sentenced in November, along with other members of Insulate Britain, to serve four months for breaking a High Court injunction by taking part in a blockade at junction 25 of the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour on 8 October last year PA UK news in pictures 13 January 2022 A TV presenter holds a copy of a newspaper outside 10 Downing Streetafter the Prime Minister apologised for attending a gathering of colleagues in the Number Ten garden in May 2020, while the UK was in strict lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic Getty UK news in pictures 12 January 2022 Fitness guru Derrick Evans after receiving an MBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA 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

He was credited with modernising the operations of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge during a two-year stint as private secretary to William when the fraught relations between the second in line to the throne and his brother Harry and sister-in-law Meghan were thrust into the media spotlight.

After working as private secretary to Cameron from 2012 to 2014, Case spent a year as director of strategy for the governments secret eavesdropping centre GCHQ before returning to 10 Downing Street as the PMs principal private secretary following the death of Chris Martin. He stayed on at No 10 for 18 months under Ms May before taking up a post as director-general of the UK/EU Partnership in 2017.

Born in Bristol, Case studied history at Cambridge and took a PhD from Queen Mary University of London, joining the civil service in 2006 as a policy adviser in the Ministry of Defence. He later moved to the Northern Ireland Office and Cabinet Office, where he served as head of the Olympic Secretariat overseeing the delivery of the 2012 London Games. Mr Johnson is expected to confirm the appointment at the first meeting of cabinet after the summer break on Tuesday, before an official announcement later in the day.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said only: "An official announcement on the new Cabinet Secretary will be made on Tuesday 1 September."

Sir Mark Sedwill is one of five heads of Whitehall departments to depart unexpectedly early since Mr Johnson's election victory in December, alongside the top officials in the Foreign Office, Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Department for Education.
A press briefing for the East Lake International Ecological Sculpture Biennale 2020 was held in Wuhan on August 23.











Continuing its focus on cutting-edge, academic, non-profit, and international exhibition concepts, the biennale will be held in March 2021 concurrently in Shimenfeng Memorial Park and the No. 9 Art Space in Creative World (indoor and outdoor) in Wuhan.





Sculptor Fu Zhongwang, also director of Hubei Museum of Art in Wuhan, will serve as the artistic director of the event.





The theme will be 100%@Wuhan, and a total of 50 works of different types will be exhibited. Works that are created with ecological materials and new media methods will be particularly featured.





According to chief curator Sun Zhenhua, the biennale decided to use the term 100% to express the idea of eco sculpture in promoting ecological civilization in an innovative manner. Also, it points the way to achieve an all-round ecological perspective in daily life.





A total of 20 artists will be invited to Wuhan to make their art work based on the local environment and materials, following the exhibition theme. In addition to direct invitation, some 30 art works will be solicited from across the world.





Artistic director Fu Zhongwang had previously stressed in a preparatory meeting, that the Biennale 2020 would promote diversity and innovative forms of expression in terms of the selection of works. The exhibition will set up two special display units for new media art and fiber art.





In 2017, the first East Lake International Ecological Sculpture Biennale was held in Shimenfeng Memorial Park, becoming the first domestic sculpture exhibition focusing on ecology.





In 2020, with the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, ecological issues have once again become an urgent topic facing everyone, adding a sense of necessity and urgency to the East Lake International Ecological Sculpture Biennale.




In the week since a fascistic gunman killed two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin and seriously wounded a third, the Trump administration and its allies within the media and political establishment have defended the killings and the murderer.

The actions of Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old Trump supporter who had previously attended Trump rallies, are the direct outcome of the incitement by this administration itself. It occurred during the week of the Republican National Convention, as speaker after speaker railed against the radical left and demanded the restoration of law and order in response to the protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha last Sunday.

Over the weekend, when asked to respond to the murders, Trump refused to condemn them. He repeated an earlier statement that they were under investigation and that the administration was looking at it very carefully. Trump added, however, that it was protesters who were to blame, saying that Wisconsin should not have to put up with what they have been through, referring to the protests.

Others in and around the administration have been even more explicit in praising Rittenhouse. Donald Trump Jr., Trumps eldest son, retweeted a post by right-wing commenter Tim Pool declaring that Rittenhouse is a good example of why I decided to vote for Trump and lauding him for deciding to go up and protect businesses and offer medical support [to] people.

Last week, Fox News host Tucker Carlson praised Rittenhouse for attempting to maintain order when no one else would. Speaking on CNN on Sunday, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin repeatedly refused to condemn Rittenhouse, instead denouncing the violence and economic destruction in the week since Blakes shooting.

Developments in Wisconsin have been followed by an escalating campaign by the Trump administration for a military-police crackdown in Portland, Oregon. Right-wing groupsincluding Patriot Prayer, which has ties with the Portland policehave been patrolling the streets of that city over the past week, firing mace and paintball guns against protesters and journalists.

After a member of Patriot Prayer was shot and killed on Saturday, Trump demanded the deployment of the National Guard in the city and tweeted, LAW AND ORDER!!! Referring to the fascistic gangs, Trump wrote that the big backlash cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and [sic] incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing.

There is nothing spontaneous about the parade of armed vigilante groups in Kenosha, Portland and other cities. They are no less coordinated with the White House than the armed protests of fascistic groups at state capitol buildings in Michigan, Virginia, Minnesota and other states in April and May to demand an end to restraints aimed at stopping the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

The strategy of the Trump administration is to wage the next two months of the election campaign under conditions of violence, military-police deployments and the threat of civil war. Its law-and-order campaign is being developed even as it is provoking violence and repression.

What is now taking place is an escalation of Trumps efforts to develop a far-right, fascistic movement based on the police, sections of the military, and paramilitary-type organizations. The latest tirades follow his threat on June 1 to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against protests, effectively attempting a military coup, and the deployment of federal paramilitary shock troops to seize and beat protesters opposed to police violence in July.

Trumps actions come not from a position of strength, but from a position of fear and desperation. The ruling class is immensely sensitive to the growth of social anger in the working class.

Last week, the Republican National Convention was centered on hysterical denunciations of socialism, Marxism, communism and the radical left. In his own fascistic tirade on Thursday night, Trump declared the election a referendum that will decide whether we save the American dream or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny.

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the horrific consequences of the subordination of all social needs to the capitalist oligarchys drive for profits. The official death toll is more than 187,000, with projections that it could rise to 300,000 by December.

Tens of millions of people are unemployed and have been cut off from federal unemployment benefits. The trillions of dollars turned over to Wall Streetwith the bipartisan support of both Republicans and Democratsare to be paid for by forcing workers back to work, increasing exploitation and implementing massive cuts to social programs and infrastructure. Even as the death toll rises, the Trump administration is spearheading the drive to force children back to school so their parents can go back to work in unsafe conditions.

The growing movement of the working class must be unified on the basis of a clear socialist and revolutionary program.

The central danger is the subordination of opposition to the Democratic Party. A division of labor exists within the ruling class. The Trump faction is openly trying to create an environment to legitimize vigilante violence. The Democrats, however, speak for another faction of the ruling elite that is no less hostile to the interests of the working class.

For the past four years, the Democrats have worked to channel mass opposition to Trumpwhich erupted immediately after his inaugurationbehind their anti-Russia campaign and the opposition of dominant sections of the military and intelligence apparatus to elements of Trumps foreign policy. Terrified of and opposed to any movement of the working class against Trump, the Democrats have pursued their conflict with the White House using the methods of palace coup, culminating in the impeachment debacle that ended in February.

In response to the eruption in May of mass protests against police violence following the murder of George Floyd, the Democrats and their political allies have worked to hijack the demonstrations and direct them along racialist lines. The United States, they insist, is not divided between the working class and the oligarchy, but between white America and black Americaa claim that feeds into Trumps own efforts to develop a fascistic movement based on racism and backwardness.

This has culminated in the nomination by the Democrats of Biden and Harris, the shill for Wall Street and the ex-prosecutor. The Democrats election campaign advances no program to address the pandemic or massive social crisis. They are seeking ever more explicitly to divert popular opposition to Trump into a campaign for military operations against Russia and also China. Their orientation is toward the military-intelligence agencies, Wall Street and a section of the Republican Party.

The working class is an enormous objective social force. But the power of the working class has to be directed and guided by a conscious political perspective. The answer to the attacks by Trump is not to subordinate opposition to Biden, but to develop an independent movement of the working class that breaks free of the political straitjacket of the Democratic Party.

While Trump screams about the specter of socialism, a real socialist movement must be built. The Socialist Equality Party advances a program that meets the needs of the working class, not the corporate and financial elite.

The wealth of the billionaires must be expropriated. The trillions of dollars handed out to Wall Street must be reclaimed and redirected to meeting urgent social needs, including relief for the unemployed, universal health care and an emergency program to stop the coronavirus pandemic. There must be a halt to all evictions. The back-to-work and back-to-school campaigns must be halted, with all workers and parents affected receiving full income until the pandemic is brought under control.

There is not a single social problem that can be resolved without a frontal assault on the capitalist system itself. The coronavirus pandemic, mass unemployment and poverty, the devastating impact of wildfires and hurricanes, the growing danger of world war, and the drive to dictatorshipall make clear the urgent necessity for the development of a conscious political movement for socialism.

The SEP and our election campaign are spearheading the fight to bring a socialist program into the working class, in the United States and internationally. We are actively fighting to organize all sections of workers against the homicidal policy of the ruling elites. We call on all those who agree with this perspective to make the decision to join the Socialist Equality Party.
An international research team headed by Anne Bierbrauer, Dr. Lukas Kunz, Dr. Carlos Gomez and Professor Nikolai Axmacher from Ruhr-Universitat Bochum and Universitatsklinikum Freiburg now reports that problems in spatial navigation can also be detected in people with a genetic risk for Alzheimer's. Their article was published in the journal Science Advances, released online on 28 August 2020. The team from Bochum, Freiburg, Dortmund, Sevilla, Madrid, Parma and Brussels explored the ability of path integration.

Finding paths without external cues

Animals and humans have the ability to follow their own position in space through self-motion cues, even in the absence of any other sensory information. "If you get up at night and want to find your way to the bathroom in the dark, you need - in addition to knowing the arrangement of your own home - a mechanism that tracks your own position in the room without using external cues," illustrates Anne Bierbrauer. This ability is known as path integration.

Researchers assume that the activity of so-called grid cells in the entorhinal cortex is responsible for this ability. When navigating a spatial environment, these cells display a unique, regular activity pattern. It has long been known that the entorhinal cortex is crucial for spatial navigation. It is also one of the first regions of the brain affected by Alzheimer's disease.

Previous study showed changes in grid cell activity

In a previous study, the researchers had shown that grid cells exhibit altered functioning in people at genetic risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. However, the test persons did not show any obvious navigation problems. "We assume that they used compensatory mechanisms to find their way," explains Nikolai Axmacher, "presumably via external cues in their surroundings. In Bochum, for example, the winding tower of the Bergbau-Museum can be seen in many places, as it is often visible over the rooftops of other buildings."

Alzheimer's risk and navigation problems go hand in hand

In the current study, the team therefore used a computerized navigation task in which the participants couldn't use external landmarks to find their way. The researchers compared the navigation performance of 202 volunteers without genetic Alzheimer's risk and 65 volunteers with increased genetic risk. The latter had a specific expression of the gene for apolipoprotein E, the APOE-4 allele.

Participants with a genetic risk of Alzheimer's disease didn't perform as well as the control group.

Insights into grid cell activity

An additional group of test persons performed the same task while the researchers recorded their brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging. The objective of this experiment was to find out which brain processes play a role in path integration. The team found grid cell representations in the entorhinal cortex to be specifically associated with navigation without external cues, which highlights the role of this brain region for path integration.

"In this study, we demonstrated a very specific deficit in healthy people with a genetically increased risk for Alzheimer's," concludes Lukas Kunz. "In the future, such behavioural changes might perhaps help diagnose Alzheimer's disease earlier, before any serious symptoms appear." Researchers believe that drug therapies for Alzheimer's disease have so far failed, because the diagnosis is made too late.

###

Funding

The study was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (funding code 01GQ1705A), the National Institutes of Health (NIH, grant 563386), the National Science Foundation (grant BCS-1724243), the NIH in collaboration with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (grant U01 NS1113198-01), the German Research Foundation (EXC 1086, SFB 874, SFB 1280), the Emma and Ernesto Rulfo Foundation for Medical Genetics, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (funding codes SAF2017-85310-R and PSI2017-85311-P), the Regional Ministry of Innovation, Science and Enterprise, Junta de Andalucia (P12-CTS-2327 to JLC), the International Center on Aging (0348_CIE_6_E) and Ciberned.
DECATUR, Ill., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- 300 Below, Inc., recipient of 2019's Innovation of the Year in Manufacturing Technology, was announced as one of the top 92 participating teams selected from across the globe competing in AFWERX 's Base of the Future Challenge, as a catalyst for fostering innovation within the U.S. Air Force (USAF) by using its technology to triple the life of at-risk metals for ~20% cost of the item. 300 Below also became a top 10 finalist at the U.S. Air Force Rapid Sustainment Office's (AFRSO's) Advanced Manufacturing Olympics' material hurdles technical challenge, held virtually from October 20-23, 2020.

U.S. Air Force Rapid Sustainment Office (AFRSO) Advanced Manufacturing Olympics (AMO) 2020 Competition Participant - 300 Below, Inc. (Decatur, Illinois, USA) is a top ten finalist in the AFRSO Advanced Manufacturing Olympics

The USAF's Advanced Manufacturing Olympics is centered around five technical challenges, including reengineering of legacy parts, 3D-printed part re-creation, material hurdles (advanced manufacturing techniques to improve aluminum and polymer materials), part certification and approval sprints, plus supply chain management. The Grand Prize winner receives a $100,000 check, plus opportunities to field their technology globally across the U.S. Air Force enterprise.

The USAF's AFWERX Challenge is centered around six topics - Base Security, Installation Resilience, Leveraging Technology for Operational Effectiveness, Reverse Engineering, Culture of Innovation, and Airman and Family Wellbeing. The proposals selected to advance represent innovative solutions ranging from additive manufacturing, reverse engineering, innovation culture, facility resiliency, virtual and augmented reality, and autonomous systems. Notable finalists alongside 300 Below, Inc. include AT&T, Booz Allen Hamilton, Coursera, CTC, IBM, Innovatrium, Leidos, Sales Force, and Siemens.

300 Below, Inc. is competing in the Improving Installation Resilience Amid COVID-19 AFWERX Challenge with its cryogenic treatment process alongside a diverse group of teams  originating from the vast regions of North America, Europe, Australia and other allied countries, comprised of entrepreneurial startups, small businesses, large enterprises, academic institutions and research labs  all vying to build the Base of the Future and modernize the Department of Defense.

"The AFWERX Base of the Future Challenge is critical to our mission of increasing collaboration between large businesses and entrepreneurs to accelerate solutions for the Air Force," stated Mark Rowland of AFWERX. "On behalf of AFWERX and the Department of Defense, we congratulate the teams advancing to the next phase. Their contributions are invaluable and have the potential to create game-changing results across the Air Force enterprise."

The Improving Installation Resilience Amid COVID-19 Challenge focuses on ways in which the U.S. Air Force can counter a global health crisis and better prepare for future crises of this magnitude. This Challenge aims to create robust and resilient Air Force bases that can withstand all types of disastrous events ranging from adverse weather conditions to pandemics. The Challenge seeks solutions including predictive analytics and technologies to defeat and mitigate risk.

300 Below, Inc. received multiple AFWERX Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts totaling ~$1.5 million for the improvement of at-risk metal parts within the Department of Defense, including firearms and vehicle brake rotors, typically adding 300% longer life for about 20% cost of the item. 300 Below's cryogenic treatment technology uses a liquid-nitrogen-based process to slowly release vapors into a computer-controlled treatment chamber, which permanently and irreversibly rearranges the molecular structure of metal to be more uniform and evenly distributed, thus promoting longer life and stability while reducing maintenance expenses, part failure and metal deterioration caused by corrosion.

To qualify for the AFWERX Challenge competition, 300 Below, Inc. submitted a proposal in conjunction with Prof. Diran Apelian, of the Institute of Design and Manufacturing Innovation (IDMI) at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). 300 Below's research aims to improve aircraft shelters and other military base materials, and was selected for its potential to improve strength and durability of building structures, imparting better structural resiliency for joints, weldment areas, and other weak points in building materials while simultaneously reducing corrosion and improving wear resistance up to 300%.

A second project is proposed between 300 Below, Inc. and ITAMCO, another AFWERX SBIR contract recipient building a 3D Printed Runway Project at Tyndall Air Force Base, which uses a honeycomb architecture with Phase Transforming Cellular Matrix (PXCM) geometry to mitigate loading and shear stresses. ITAMCO's energy absorbing material may be further stress reduced, and strengthened, by applying 300 Below's cryogenic treatment process to the 17-4 PH stainless steel and aluminum composition.

For the AFRSO Advanced Manufacturing Olympics, 300 Below emerged as a top 10 finalist for efforts improving aluminum alloys used in 3D-printed metal parts. In prior testing, additive manufacturing using 316 Stainless Steel, arguably the most utilized stainless steel in the US Air Force, yielded a 30% improvement in Micro-Vickers hardness post-cryogenic treatment, along with a 35% increase in residual compressive stress, plus a 17% decrease in the coefficient of friction, which indicates significant abrasive wear resistance improvements.

"Never before has our military been able to print a broken part on demand and ensure that its structural integrity attains similar properties to the same high expectations for a previously cast or machined item. 300 Below is proud to contribute to battlefield transformation, as we give our Warfighters a new magic wand to improve durability and reduce downtime for critical combat gear by 3D printing replacement parts in hours and days at the edge versus weeks and months spent waiting on parts to be sent from back home," said Peter Paulin, CEO of 300 Below.

The AFWERX Fusion 2020 Showcase featured 370 participating teams selected from a record breaking 1,500+ submissions received for the Base of the Future Challenge. 300 Below was one of 22 Panelists invited to showcase its technology live. Throughout the event teams pitched their solutions to a panel of subject matter experts from the relevant sectors of the Air Force. The top 92 selections were identified and invited to further engage with the Air Force during the week of August 31 with the hope of obtaining contracts. For a complete list of participating teams visit fusion.afwerxshowcase.com .

The Base of the Future theme was inspired by Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida , which was decimated by Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 storm that occurred in 2018. For decades, Tyndall was home to many generations of Airmen and their families. In the storm's aftermath, nearly 500 buildings were destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Fortunately, Congress approved a $3 billion military construction rebuild program, sparking hope that Tyndall would re-emerge stronger than ever before. The aspirational initiative seeks to create a robust installation that will become a universal symbol of innovation and excellence that can scale across the U.S. Air Force. To learn about Base of the Future Challenges, click here .

ABOUT 300 BELOW, INC.

300 Below, based in Decatur, Illinois, is the world's largest and oldest cryogenic processing company, in business since 1966. 300 Below's technology is an extension of metal heat treatment, imparting a -300F liquid-nitrogen-based quench over 36 hours to permanently and irreversibly rearrange molecular structures. Stronger, more stable parts are the result of using 300 Below's technology to extend life, reduce corrosion, and relieve stress imparted during manufacturing. 300 Below's technology is used by thousands of clients including DoD, NASA, aerospace and defense contractors, and major U.S. automotive manufacturers.

Learn more about 300 Below:

https://www.300below.com/

An overview of 300 Below's process for tooling:

https://www.300below.com/files/discovercryo.pdf

White paper and video about 300 Below's manufacturing technology innovation:

MetalUpgrade.com.

ABOUT AFWERX

Established in 2017, AFWERX is a product of the U.S. Air Force, directly envisioned by former Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson. Her vision of AFWERX  to solve some of the toughest challenges that the Air Force faces through innovation and collaboration amongst our nation's top subject matter experts. AFWERX serves as a catalyst to unleash new approaches for the warfighter through a growing ecosystem of innovators. AFWERX and the U.S. Air Force are committed to exploring viable solutions and partnerships to further strengthen the Air Force, which could lead to additional prototyping, R&D, and follow-on production contracts.

AFWERX:

[email protected]

[email protected]

AFRSO:

[email protected]

[email protected]

300 BELOW, INC.:

PRESCOTT PAULIN

+1 (217) 615-1598

[email protected]

SOURCE 300 Below, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.300below.com


The death has occurred of Pauline Cuddihy (nee Tallon)

Newbridge, Kildare / Donadea, Kildare

Cuddihy (nee Tallon), Pauline, late of Newbridge and formerly of Lower Hodgestown, Donadea, County Kildare. (Peacefully) surrounded by her family following a short illness, bravely fought. Pauline will be sadly missed by her loving husband, Vinny, children, Katie, Ava and Aaron, her parents, Willie and Mary Tallon, sister Caroline, brother William and a large circle of family and friends.

Till we meet again

May She Rest In Peace

Due to current Government restrictions regarding Covid-19, Pauline's funeral service will be private. Those wishing to send their condolences may do so below.A private service will take place on Tuesday at 11am in Rathcoffey Church.

Pauline's family would like to sincerely thank everybody for their kind prayers and thoughts at this very difficult time, but also ask for their wishes of the house to remain private. Family flowers only, please, donations, if desired, to the Irish Cancer Society. Donations can be made at cancer.ie.

The death has occurred of Mary DORAN (nee Dillon)

Mount Carmel, Newbridge, Kildare / The Curragh, Kildare

DORAN Mary (nee Dillon), (Mount Carmel, Newbridge and late of The Curragh, Co. Kildare) - 30th August 2020. Predeceased by her brothers Ed and Pat. Sadly missed by her loving husband Bill, daughters Sandra, Deirdre and Maria, son William, sons-in-law and partners, grandchildren Andrew, Sarah, Evan, PJ and Annie and partners, sister Anne, brothers John and Anthony, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews, extended family and Jack, relatives and friends.

May Mary Rest Rest in Peace

A private family funeral will take place due to advice on public gatherings. Removal from her residence on Tuesday morning at 10.15 o'clock to arrive at St. Brigid's Church, The Curragh, for 11 o'clock Mass. Funeral afterwards to St. Conleth's Cemetery, Newbridge, Co. Kildare.

For those who cannot attend due to the current restrictions,can leave a condolence message below.

The family thank you for your co-operation, understanding and support during this sensitive time.

The death has occurred of Geraldine Harrison McKeown (nee Mc Keown)

Old Grange Wood, Monasterevin, Kildare

Beloved partner of Willie and much loved mother of Aishling, Dylan, Breffney and Debbie. Deeply regretted by her loving family, her mother Eileen and father Michael, son in law Brendan ,grandchildren , brothers, sister, nephews, extended family, relatives and friends.

May She Rest In Peace

Funeral Arrangements Later

The death has occurred of Gary Byrne

Spin Bridge, Kilcock, Kildare

Spin Bridge, Kilcock and Boston, U.S.A.

Funeral Arrangements Later



The death has occurred of Ann LEAVY (nee O'Connor)

Leixlip, Kildare / Kilnamanagh, Dublin

LEAVY (nee OConnor) (Leixlip, Co. Kildare and formerly of Kilnamanagh) August 28th, 2020 peacefully in the loving care of the staff at Silver Birch, Connolly Hospital, Ann, beloved mother of Tracy, Paul and Wendy, a devoted grandmother of Luke, David, Dylan, Sean, Eve, Fionn, Luke, Adam, Grace and Lily and loving great grandmother to Kaitlyn and Rhea. Sadly missed by her loving daughters, son, sisters Ethna and Eileen, brother Declan, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, sons-in-law John and Joe, daughter-in-law Tracy, brothers-in-law Michael and Noel, sisters-in-law Ann and Helen, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends.

Rest in Peace

Due to Government advice and restrictions regarding public gatherings and to protect our most vulnerable family members and our friends, a private family funeral will take place. We look forward to meeting everyone at a Memorial Service for Ann where we will honour her life at a later date. Those who would have liked to attend Anns funeral but due to current restrictions cannot, can follow the Funeral Mass on Tuesday morning, 1st September 2020, at 11.00 oclock by following the link below, after the Requiem Mass Ann will be buried in Esker cemetery, Lucan.

https://confeyparish.ie/.

Those who would have liked to attend the funeral; but due to current restrictions cannot, please leave your personal message by selecting Condolences below or alternatively leaving a message at www.cunninghamsfunerals.com. Family flowers only, donations, if desired, to Epilepsy Ireland https://www.epilepsy.ie/content/make-donation.
Chadwick Boseman arrives at the 2019 AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony to honor Denzel Washington. (Jordan Strauss / Invision / Associated Press)

Chadwick Boseman once said, "There is no 'Black Panther' without Denzel Washington."

A year after the "Black Panther" star honored Washington at the 47th AFI Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony, Washington is now paying tribute to Boseman, who died Friday at age 43 after a private battle with colon cancer.

"He was a gentle soul and a brilliant artist, who will stay with us for eternity through his iconic performances over his short yet illustrious career," Washington said in a statement provided to CNN. "God bless Chadwick Boseman."

At the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award event in 2019, Boseman delivered a moving speech saluting Washington, who once paid his tuition for a summer acting program while Boseman was attending Howard University.

"Many of you already know the story that Mr. Washington was asked by Phylicia Rashad to join her in assisting nine theater students from Howard University who had been accepted to a summer acting program at the British Academy of Dramatic Acting in Oxford," Boseman said in his tribute.

"As fate would have it, I was one of the students that he paid for. Imagine receiving the letter that your tuition for that summer was paid for and that your benefactor was none other than the dopest actor on the planet."

Footage of Boseman giving a powerful commencement speech at his alma mater has gone viral in the wake of his death. And actress Rashad also recalled mentoring Boseman at Howard during Sunday's ABC News tribute special following a commercial-free broadcast of Marvel and Disney's "Black Panther."

"There is no 'Black Panther' without Denzel Washington," Boseman continued in his AFI address. "And not just because of me, but my whole cast. That generation stands on your shoulders. The daily battles won, the thousand territories gained, the many sacrifices you made for the culture on film sets through your career, the things you refused to compromise along the way, laid the blueprints for us to follow."

Story continues

Several figures in Hollywood and beyond  including Angela Bassett, Barry Jenkins, Issa Rae, LeBron James, Jordan Peele, Bob Iger, Viola Davis, Mark Ruffalo, Kamala Harris and Oprah Winfrey  mourned Boseman's death over the weekend, along with millions of fans.

On Sunday, "Black Panther" director Ryan Coogler remembered the first time he met Boseman with an emotional tribute celebrating the actor's immeasurable impact as King T'Challa of Wakanda.

I noticed then that Chad was an anomaly," Coogler wrote. "He was calm. Assured. Constantly studying. But also kind, comforting, had the warmest laugh in the world, and eyes that [saw] much beyond his years, but could still sparkle like a child seeing something for the first time."
Hamilton the Musical has won 11 Tony Awards, a Grammy, a Pulitzer Prize and has been seen by more than 2 million people on Broadway alone. From March next year, itll be our turn.

Before the pandemic, NSW government modelling predicted Hamilton would bring more than 130,000 visitors to the state and generate more than $84 million in visitor expenditure.

Australian producer Michael Cassel has said the show cannot be staged unless able to play to a full house but "remains confident" social distancing restrictions will have changed by opening night next year.

In this episode, national editor Tory Maguire is joined by senior culture writer Nathanael Cooper to discuss how the production will fare in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
McDonald's Corp labeled Steve Easterbrook 'morally bankrupt' as it asked a judge to reject the former CEO's motion to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to reclaim the $40million severance he was paid after his firing last fall.

The fast food giant sued Easterbrook, who is British, earlier this month in the Delaware Court of Chancery, accusing him of lying and covering up his sexual relationships with at least three employees while negotiating his severance package.

Easterbrook was fired in November 2019 after he admitted to a consensual fling with one of the employees - and McDonald's now claims that an internal probe found that he lied to investigators and the board about additional relationships in an effort to get more money upon his departure.

The company has argued that the ex-CEO should repay the severance because it was based on fraudulent statements.

Easterbrook filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on August 14, claiming that its allegations were meritless because the company had information about his relationships during the negotiations which was stored on his company email account.

McDonald's responded to that motion on Monday, saying that the evidence was 'buried somewhere in the tens of thousands of his emails' and calling for Easterbrook's questions about the thoroughness of its investigation to be answered in court.

'This brazen attempt at table-turning has no merit,' McDonald's wrote in a filing obtained by DailyMail.com.

'When McDonald's investigated, Steve Easterbrook lied.'

McDonald's Corp has asked a judge to reject former CEO Steve Easterbrook's motion to dismiss a multi-million dollar lawsuit seeking to reclaim the $40million severance he was paid after his firing last fall. Easterbrook is pictured at a company event in 2018

'[Easterbrook] violated the company's policies, disrespected its values, and abused the trust of his co-workers, the Board, our franchisees, and our shareholders,' a company spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.

'His argument that he should not be held responsible for even repeated bad acts is morally bankrupt and fails under the law.'

McDonald's lawsuit seeking to recover compensation and severance benefits paid to Easterbrook accused the former CEO of committing fraud by misleading investigators when they formed the terms of his separation agreement.

When he was fired, Easterbrook admitted only to a relationship with one employee.

The suit charges that he lied 'and destroyed information regarding inappropriate personal behavior' and relationships with three other employees - and that he provided hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock to one of them.

'Easterbrook told McDonald's investigators that the relationship was the only one of an intimate nature he had ever had with a McDonald's employee, and he asserted that he had never engaged in a physical sexual relationship with any McDonald's employee,' the complaint stated.

'[He] was knowingly untruthful with McDonald's investigators.'

Easterbrook is pictured with his former girlfriend Denise Paleothodoros, whom he dated from 2014 to 2018

The company said it uncovered the extent of Easterbrook's alleged misconduct after receiving an anonymous tip about another sexual relationship in July.

The investigation that stemmed from that tip found evidence of that relationship, and of two others, McDonald's said.

'That evidence consisted of dozens of nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit photographs and videos of various women, including photographs of these company employees,' the complaint stated.

It added that Easterbrook had sent the photographs, which were allegedly taken in late 2018 and early 2019, as attachments to messages from his company e-mail account to his personal e-mail account.

In his motion to dismiss the suit, Easterbrook acknowledged that he deleted evidence from his company phone but said that it remained stored in his company email account on the firm's servers.

'McDonald's is improperly attempting to get out of its bargain nine months after the fact and despite admitting it always possessed the information upon which is it now relying,' the motion read.

McDonald's responded by writing in it's filing: 'Easterbrook argues that even if he repeatedly violated McDonald's policies (he did), and even if he lied to and concealed evidence from McDonald's (he did), this action still should be dismissed. Each of his three arguments fails.

'Easterbrook should be required to defend his conduct on the merits and in this Court.'

McDonald's lawsuit seeking to recover compensation and severance benefits paid to Easterbrook accused the former CEO of committing fraud by misleading investigators when they formed the terms of his separation agreement. Easterbrook filed a motion to dismiss the law on August 14, claiming that its allegations were meritless

The filing goes on to state that Easterbrook should still be held responsible for lying even though there is evidence of his lies was available on the email server.

'Easterbrook argues that he faces no liability as a matter of law because he deleted from his phone, but not from the company's servers, the emails and photos disproving his lie,' the filing states.

'This brazen attempt at table-turning has no merit, and is no basis for a motion to dismiss.'

It says that Easterbrook 'can attempt to argue that McDonald's should have investigated differently and uncovered his deceit sooner' - but such an argument needs to be made after the discovery process, not in a challenging motion.

McDonald's has said its ongoing investigation into Easterbrook is looking into the possibility that the former CEO may have helped cover up improprieties by other employees, including who worked under former Human Resources head David Fairhurst

McDonald's has said its ongoing investigation into Easterbrook is looking into the possibility that the former CEO may have helped cover up improprieties by other employees, including those who worked under former Human Resources head David Fairhurst.

'Chief people officer' Fairhurst was suddenly sacked soon after Easterbrook left the company.

At the time no reason was given for Fairhurst's dismissal, and his family claimed he had been made a 'scape-goat' for his boss.

But allegations have now emerged that the British executive was also the subject of complaints from staff members who said he made women 'feel uncomfortable'.

Fairhurst was appointed to lead the HR position by Easterbrook, who was appointed as CEO in March 2015.

Easterbrook, 53, was widely credited with boosting McDonald's fortunes and received impressive compensation in return.

In 2018, Easterbrook's base pay was $1.3million and his total compensation including bonus and stock options was $15.9million.

His separation agreement included six months' severance pay, plus stock options, which added up to an estimated $40million, according to analysts.
MORRISON GOVERNMENT UNDERMINES WORKERS RIGHTS TO BARGAIN

Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) statement

The Morrison government has restricted bargaining rights and handed a windfall to the scandal-plagued for-profit superannuation sector.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Your Superannuation, Your Choice) restricts workers rights to bargain for a single superannuation fund or set of funds in an enterprise agreement.

This Bill is a gift to the under-performing for-profit bank-owned superannuation funds at the expense of workers.

ACTU Assistant Secretary Scott Connolly said, This is an attack on the basic rights of working people to bargain and win better conditions.

The passage of this Bill is a gift to the banks and bank-owned for-profit superannuation funds. Despite years of scandals, decades of under-performance and evidence of shocking misconduct uncovered by the Banking Royal Commission, this bill directly benefits for-profit superannuation providers.

Workers bargain for a single fund in the workplace where they know it is in their best interest. This ensures superannuation is paid in full and on time, that workers have the best insurance available to them and their line of work, as well as access to defined benefit schemes.

This Bill threatens all of that and will only aid unscrupulous bosses and dodgy banks. The union movement supported sensible amendments put forward by Labor and the Greens and supported by Jacqui Lambie to protect workers rights and is disappointed the government and some crossbench Senators did not support them.
We will continue to deal with Chinese PLA in firm, resolute manner: Army chief

How India blocked the provocative military movement of China at the LAC

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 31: The provocative military movements by the Peoples Liberation Army were physically blocked by the movement of Indian troops at Pangong Tso on Saturday.

It was the swift action taken by the Indian forces that blocked the provocative military movements by the Chinese troops.

The move by the PLA was foreclosed by our soldiers. They had attempted to change the realities on the ground by intruding into our territory on the southern bank of Pangong Tso. There was no question of a casualty as there was no violent clash a source told OneIndia.

"The PLA violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo," a statement from the Army said.

"Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the southern bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground. The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity," the statement also added.

There is however no official word as yet on the brigade commander level flag meeting being held between the two sides at Chushul to resolve the issue.

China on the other hand has shown no sign of disengaging from the troop confrontation. It continues to build roads, bridges, helipads and other military infrastructure along the Line of Actual Control.

India on the other hand has matched the PLA build up and deployed tanks, artillery, surface to air missile batteries and other heavy weaponry.
Meg Ryan has found herself back in the market, following her split from fiance John Mellencamp late last year.

But the three-time Golden Globe nominee appears to be living her best life, as she isolates amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

She cut a cool look Sunday in a baby t-shirt and baggy pants, as she stepped out to run some errands in Los Angeles, during a break from quarantine.

Cool mom: Meg Ryan cut a cool look Sunday in a baby t-shirt and baggy pants, as she stepped out to run some errands in Los Angeles, during a break from quarantine

The 58-year-old showed off her trim figure in a white baby tee, printed with a black star on the chest.

She complemented the top with some baggy army green trousers and a pair of black trainers with white soles.

Ryan finished the ensemble with some square gold-framed sunglasses and a blue face mask, taking precautions against COVID-19.

She took off a puffy black jacket, as she stepped out of her car and into the sizzling SoCal summer sun.

Sunny day: The 58-year-old took off a puffy black jacket, as she stepped out of her car and into the sizzling SoCal summer sun

California girl: The You've Got Mail actress previously returned to the West Coast in February, after living in New York City since 2013 (pictured in November, 2018)

Home sweet home: She dropped $5.025million on a 4,300-square-foot, three bedroom, three-and-a-half bathroom farmhouse style property in the exclusive seaside enclave of Montecito

The You've Got Mail actress previously returned to the West Coast in February, after living in New York City since 2013.

She dropped $5.025million on a 4,300-square-foot, three bedroom, three-and-a-half bathroom farmhouse style property in the exclusive seaside enclave of Montecito.

It comes after she and John Mellencamp, 68, ended their engagement back in October, almost a year after she said yes to his proposal.

Calling it quits: It comes after she and John Mellencamp, 68, ended their engagement back in October, almost a year after she said yes to his proposal

Longtime partner: Ryan began a relationship with the Jack & Diane artist back in 2011, before getting engaged in November of 2018

Ryan began a relationship with the Jack & Diane artist back in 2011, before getting engaged in November of 2018.

A source told People in November: 'He didnt want to get married again... He loves her, but marriage never seemed to be a part of it.

'Its unclear how important a marriage was to Meg. But they spent a lot of time together and its too bad they split. They really got along so well together.'

The Sleepless in Seattle star was previously married to Dennis Quaid, 66, from 1991-2001, sharing son Jack Henry, 28, and daughter Daisy True, 16.
Kim Dong-jin, right, chairman of the Hulbert Memorial Society, holds a flower during an event held in Seoul, Monday, to commemorate the 71st anniversary of the death of Homer Hulbert (1863-1949), an American educator who helped Korea's independence movement. He was also an advocate for the Korean language and died in Korea in 1949. Next to Kim are Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs Seoul regional office head Lee Seong-choon, center, and Nam Jong-woon from Mapo-gu Office. / Courtesy of Hulbert Memorial Society
WASHINGTON  A federal judge can scrutinize the Justice Departments decision to drop the criminal case against President Donald Trumps former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a federal appeals court ruled here Monday, allowing the legal saga to continue.

The divided decision from the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit gives U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan the go-ahead to question prosecutors unusual move to dismiss Flynns case ahead of sentencing. The retired general twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts before Trump took office in 2017.

In an 8-to-2 ruling, the court denied Flynns request, backed by the Justice Department, to shut down Sullivans planned review and appointment of a retired federal judge to argue against the governments position.

The decision by the full court reverses an earlier ruling by a three-judge panel of the same court that ordered Sullivan to immediately close the case.

Judge Thomas Griffith said it would be premature for the appeals court to intervene before Sullivan had rendered a decision.

Today we reach the unexceptional yet important conclusion that a court of appeals should stay its hand and allow the district court to finish its work rather than hear a challenge to a decision not yet made. That is a policy the federal courts have followed since the beginning of the Republic, Griffith wrote in a statement concurring with the courts unsigned per curiam order.

Judges Karen Henderson and Neomi Rao filed separate dissents.

In May, Sullivan refused to immediately sign off on the Justice Departments request to toss the case. Instead he tapped John Gleeson, a retired New York federal judge, to oppose the Justice Department.

Sullivans move prompted Flynns defense team to petition the D.C. Circuit to get involved midstream and force the judges hand. Sullivan hired his own lawyer to defend the courts authority to investigate whether dismissing the case is in the public interest.

The extraordinary legal battle has raised unsettled questions about the power of the courts to check the executive branch. Federal rules require prosecutors to get permission from the presiding judge  or leave of court  to drop charges against a criminal defendant. Legal experts and former judges, however, disagree about the limits of Sullivans authority, and in practice, judges typically defer to prosecutors.

But there is nothing typical about this case.

Flynn was the highest-level Trump adviser convicted in special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation. Instead of proceeding to sentencing, Attorney General William Barr ordered a review of the investigation into Flynn and his dealings with the Russian ambassador to the United States. He then moved to drop the long-running case, saying new evidence showed FBI agents did not have a valid reason to question Flynn, so any lies he told did not amount to a crime.

Flynns lawyers told the appeals court that Sullivan had no discretion to continue the case once the government decided to drop it. They also asked the court to reassign the case, accusing Sullivan of bias in his choice of Gleeson to argue the other side. The retired federal judge called the Justice Departments attempt to undo the conviction politically motivated and gross abuse of prosecutorial power.

At oral argument, Jeffrey Wall, the acting solicitor general, also urged the court to block the judges review, saying Sullivan has no authority to dig into the administrations motives for seeking to drop the case.

In response, Sullivans lawyer Beth Wilkinson told the court that it was premature and unprecedented to short circuit the judges review before Sullivan had an opportunity to render a decision.

Trump and his supporters have rallied behind Barrs intervention and Flynns effort to undo his guilty plea. Supporters say Flynn never should have been interviewed by the FBI. But scores of former and current Justice Department employees say the move is a troubling example of the department bending to political pressure and the presidents interests.
From the Dallas Fed: Recovery Continues in Texas Manufacturing



Texas factory activity expanded in August for the third month in a row following a record contraction in the spring after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, came in at 13.1, down slightly from July but still indicative of moderate growth.



Other measures of manufacturing activity also point to expansion this month. The new orders index advanced three points to 9.8, and the growth rate of orders index surged more than 10 points to 11.8. The shipments index rose from 17.3 to 23.3, while the capacity utilization index inched down but remained positive at 10.9.



Perceptions of broader business conditions improved in August. The general business activity index turned positive after five months in negative territory, coming in at 8.0. The company outlook index registered a third consecutive positive reading, shooting up 11 points to 16.6, its highest reading in nearly two years. The index measuring uncertainty regarding companies outlooks remained positive but retreated to 8.2.



Labor market measures indicated solid growth in employment and workweek length. The employment index pushed up from 3.1 to 10.6, suggesting more robust hiring. Twenty-three percent of firms noted net hiring, while 13 percent noted net layoffs. The hours worked index pushed up five points to 10.5.

emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This was the last of the regional Fed surveys for August.Here is a graph comparing the regional Fed surveys and the ISM manufacturing index:The New York and Philly Fed surveys are averaged together (yellow, through August), and five Fed surveys are averaged (blue, through August) including New York, Philly, Richmond, Dallas and Kansas City. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) PMI (red) is through July (right axis).The ISM manufacturing index for August will be released on Tuesday, September 1st. The consensus is for the ISM to be at 54.5, up from 54.2 in July. Based on these regional surveys, the ISM manufacturing index will likely be at about the same level in August as in July.Note that these are diffusion indexes, so returning to 0 (or 50 for ISM) means activity is not declining further (it does not mean that activity is back to pre-crisis levels).
PORTLAND, Ore.: State police and law enforcement from neighboring suburbs were sent to Portland, Oregon, on Monday as tensions mounted following a fatal weekend shooting in the midst of clashes between supporters of President Donald Trump and counter-protesters.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler on Sunday warned of an escalation of protest-related violence after seeing a flurry of social media posts vowing revenge for Saturdays shooting victim, identified by the right-wing Patriot Prayer militia group as one of its supporters.

Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, announced a plan Sunday she said would allow for peaceful protest while cracking down on lawlessness that has often accompanied demonstrations since the May 25 killing of George Floyd, the Black man who died under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis.

Every Oregonian has the right to freely express their views without fear of deadly violence. I will not allow Patriot Prayer and armed white supremacists to bring more bloodshed to our streets," Brown said in a statement.

Browns plan calls for temporarily sending in state police troopers and officers from neighboring jurisdictions. In addition, the FBI and federal prosecutors will add resources to prosecute criminal offenses stemming from protests, she said.

No mention was made of activating the National Guard. Last week, 1,000 guard troops were sent to Kenosha, Wisconsin, after a wave of arson fires and the deadly shooting of two people protesting in support of a Black man shot in the back and paralyzed by a white officer.

Portlands demonstrators, demanding reforms of police practices they view as racist and abusive, have frequently clashed with law enforcement and on occasion with counter-protesters associated with right-wing militia groups.

Hundreds have been arrested, including 29 accused of taking part in an unlawful assembly Sunday night. Two of them were found with loaded handguns, while others were carrying knives and rocks, police said.

The Trump administration in July deployed federal forces to Portland to protect a U.S. courthouse that has been the focus of violent protests and other federal property, drawing criticism that their presence only heightened the unrest. The federal agents were later withdrawn.

STREET CLASHES AND DEADLY SHOOTING

Tensions flared again Saturday night between anti-racism protesters and a large caravan of demonstrators driving through the citys downtown district in pickup trucks waving pro-Trump flags.

Video on social media showed individuals in the trucks firing paint-balls and spraying chemical irritants at opposing protesters as they rode, while those on the street hurled objects at the trucks and tried to block them.

Investigators have yet to say whether the fatal shooting had anything to do with those confrontations. Police identified the victim on Monday as Aaron J. Danielson, 39, of Portland, who died from a gunshot wound to the chest.

A weekend social media post from the Patriot Prayer leader, Joey Gibson, referred to him as Jay."

The Portland Oregonian newspaper, citing unnamed sources familiar with the case, reported investigators were seeking a suspect seen leaving the scene and believed to have been cited for carrying a loaded weapon at an earlier protest.

Trump has seized on civil disturbances in cities such as Portland and Kenosha, blaming state and local Democratic leaders, as he amps up his calls for law and order ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

Portland is a mess, and it has been for many years. If this joke of a mayor doesnt clean it up, we will go in and do it for them!" Trump wrote on Twitter on Monday.

Democrats have countered that Trump is stoking violence and racial strife with divisive rhetoric that has emboldened right-wing activists.

This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country," Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said during a visit to Pittsburgh on Monday. He cant stop the violence - because for years he has fomented it."

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
President Donald Trump is willing to sign a $1.3 trillion stimulus bill into law, as Republicans and Democrats remain at odds over an agreement on a coronavirus relief package.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows confirmed on Friday that the President has given the green light to the bill, which is $300 billion more than the $1 trillion spend outlined in the Republican's HEALS Act.

There have been ongoing negotiations involving Meadows, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnunchin and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. After the proposal for the $1.3 trillion stimulus relief package was announced, Pelosi, whose party wants to spend $3 trillion dollar as outlined in their HEROES Act, said that the total was not enough.

Negotiations moving forward

Republicans want to be involved in every major piece of this new stimulus relief package. This is why in this bill they want to negotiate unemployment benefits, as well as state and local government funding. Democrats, on the other hand, want to focus on the amount the bill is going to be worth and then figure out the details.

Unemployments boost but no stimulus checks under Trump bill

Trump's bill would include a federal unemployment boost of $300 per week on top of state benefits, provisions for small business loans and more money for coronavirus testing.

There would also be school funding and $100 billion for the US Postal Service, but the package would not include another round $1,200 stimulus payments.
In early August, 56-year-old Memphis-area resident Leslie Nelsons belongings were thrown out into her yard. A resident of the nearby Memphis suburb of Raleigh, Nelson was still recovering from COVID-19 and was also suffering from epilepsy at the time of her eviction.

Leslie was evicted because of her inability to pay her mother-in-laws medical bills. Her mother-in-law was the technical owner of the property where she was living. She had passed away several years ago and the house was left to Nelson and her partner. She didnt know the bills existed.

I offered to pay, Leslie told the Commercial Appeal, Memphis local newspaper, referring to when a process server showed up to collect on the unknown debt, but he didn't even give me a warning. He just sent movers over here and they showed up with police officers. A GoFundMe page set up to help Nelson get back in her home has raised nearly $15,000.

An eviction notice

According to friends, Nelson is currently navigating the court system and has a temporary residence. The public opposition to her eviction was able to get her the resources she needs to fight back.

Nelson contracted COVID-19 when she went to a friends house on June 11. A few days later she started feeling sick. Her health deteriorated and she felt sicker than she had ever felt before. She called an ambulance and was hospitalized for a few days and was put on oxygen. Methodist North Hospital released her when she was starting to feel better. But she became ill again when the process server showed up.

According to the Commercial Appeal, she suffered from an epilepsy-induced seizure on the day of her eviction. In one of the videos that were taken, she was heard to say to a police officer, I have COVID-19 and its hard to even think!

There have been over 26,000 COVID-19 cases in Memphis and 369 deaths according to the City of Memphis website. As with other parts of the country, testing is only being offered to those who are symptomatic, contacts of confirmed cases, or who work in the healthcare field, the website notes.

Furthermore, Shelby County Health Department Director Dr. Alisa Haushalter will not release COVID-19 cases reported at schools. The county has falsely declared its primary concern is that it does not want to breach the privacy of any child and create issues of stigma.

According to Nelsons friends, those who kicked her out had no concern for her health or where she was going to go. Police officers stood watch to enforce the removal. Hunter Demster, an area resident and activist that arrived on the scene to assist Nelson, said in an interview with the Commercial Appeal, A dozen people have showed up, dedicating their time, potentially putting themselves in harms way of COVID to do the right thing.

Demster also spoke to the World Socialist Web Site about the incident that developed at Nelsons home and the looming eviction crisis in the city triggered by the pandemic. Leslie called me. She was crying and terrified! I simply said, Im already on my way and Ill do what I can. She said she was very relieved to know she wouldnt be alone.

He continued: We have over 9,000 evictions coming up. This will devastate this city. [It] caught me off guard when the first one I heard about hit so close to home. Memphis is the poorest or second poorest city in the country for decades. Its no surprise that we are facing so many. Under-resourced, under-funded and forgotten.

Memphis has an overall poverty rate of 27.8 percent and a child poverty rate of 44.9 percent. These statistics put Memphis in second place overall in poverty as of 2019, based on data taken from the University of Memphis (UofM). According to UofM, Memphis is not number 1 in poverty in 2019, in either overall or child poverty. However, this is not cause for optimism, as Memphis is in worse shape than a year ago.

Memphis is the logistics-distribution hub of the world, dependent upon low wage workers and warehouse workers, Demster explained. The oligarchs here do everything in their power to criminalize the activist and concerned citizens who fight for the working class. Hence the federal lawsuits and police surveillance and sending federal troops here to silence us.

Another acquaintance of Nelsons who had received word of the eviction-in-progress over social media told the WSWS: When I got there, there was a group of movers throwing all of her belongings onto the lawn. Leslie told me she had recently gotten out of the hospital and the process servers showed up at her house with no warning and told her she was being evicted.

Regardless of any moratorium on evictions, landlords are finding loopholes like in Leslies case, the acquaintance said. And if not that, then theyre not making necessary repairs to keep homes livable. Predatory landlords are predatory no matter what kind of protections are in place.

With the ending of the $600 extension of unemployment aid last month and as state moratorium on evictions expire there will be incalculable suffering inflicted on the working population in Memphis and beyond. In the United States, one in five adults in rental housing reported that they were behind on rent in a Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey conducted in early July. That includes 12.5 million adults who had not paid rent and another 1.3 million whose rent had been deferred.

The National Low Income Housing Coalitions CEO, Diane Yentel, recently noted, The 40 million U.S. households projected for eviction by years end  and the lack of legislative action to prevent them  is [like] nothing Ive ever seen.

I know of several people who are being taken to court as soon as next week whose landlords are trying to evict them, an activist in Memphis told the WSWS. I know of four immuno-compromised, unemployed roommates whose landlords have refused to repair the hot water heater, leaks in the roof, etc. The landlord is trying to evict them next week even though they have nowhere to go. Everyday I hear more stories like that, and its only getting worse.

The callous treatment of working people such as Leslie Nelson is an expression of the malign neglect of the ruling capitalist class. Billionaires have received an endless flow of cash in order to boost their financial balance sheets and boost Wall Street to record highs while working people seeking to stay in their home are treated with abuse and contempt.

Only a mass socialist movement of the working class, basing itself upon the social needs of the population, can stop the money-mad campaign to force workers back to work in unsafe conditions while leaving millions destitute in the face of COVID-19.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA)  African countries require rapid expansion of new technologies, including enhancing access to the internet, to improve the delivery of educational, health and entrepreneurship
Authorities also charged George Buss, 63, with patronizing a prostitute following a six-month investigation that began in February, according to a police news release. Buss, who police said was arrested at his home, had been scheduled to be part of an annual reenactment of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate in Freeport that had been set for Saturday, according to an event organizer.
Nowhere has the developing world's plight played out more viscerally than in India, where an ambitious national lockdown imposed in March was lifted after two months as joblessness, starvation and a mass migration of workers leaving cities on foot became too much to bear. Loading Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has since counselled the population to "live with the virus" while giving local officials freedom to impose restrictions on a state-by-state basis, which many have. The economy is projected to have contracted 18 per cent in the quarter to June from a year ago, more than any other major Asian country. The Modi government has often pointed to India's official mortality rate of around 1.8 per cent  among the lowest in the world  as evidence that it is managing the virus' spread, even if not containing it. But deaths are likely substantially under-reported, and skewed by the country's disproportionately young population  65 per cent are below the age of 35, the segment least in danger of dying from COVID-19. An age-adjusted analysis of India's death rate by three economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Massachusetts found that India's death rate was similar to the global average.

"What we've done is delayed infections, but we haven't been able to curtail the transmission," said CDDEP's Laxminarayan. "And that was never going to be possible in a country the size of India and with the health infrastructure India has. What has played out is almost exactly what one should have expected." New COVID-19 cases surge in US Midwest Several US Midwestern states are experiencing rising numbers of COVID-19 cases and positive test results, some linked to colleges reopening and others stemming from an annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. Iowa leads the nation with cases rising by more than 8000 in the past week, or 116 per cent, according to a Reuters tally of state and county reports. At the same time, positive test rates in Iowa shot up to 24 per cent from 13 per cent the prior week.

South Dakota has the next highest positive test rate at 23 per cent, followed by North Dakota at 20 per cent. At least 25 states reported a positivity rate above 5 per cent, a level the World Health Organisation says raises concerns as it suggests there are more cases yet to be uncovered. South Dakota drew hundreds of thousands of people to the annual rally in Sturgis from August 7 to 16. The South Dakota health department said 105 cases had been traced to the event. Nationally, the number of new cases fell 2 per cent last week, the sixth straight week of declines, but the number of new infections still averages more than 41,000 a day. Last week's total of US COVID-19 deaths was down 7 per cent from the previous week and averaged 900 deaths a day.

The US tested on average 715,000 people a day last week, up from 685,000 people a day the prior week, but down from a peak in late July of more than 800,000 people a day. The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday the number of deaths due to the coronavirus had risen by 473 to 182,622 and reported 5,972,356 cases, an increase of 37,532 from its previous count. The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4pm ET on August 30 versus its previous report released on Sunday. France's new infections shot up by 50 per cent in August France's new COVID-19 infections surged by almost 50 per cent in August, which recorded the highest monthly tally since the beginning of the outbreak earlier this year, while hospitalisations for the disease seem to be creeping up again.

The country's health authorities reported 3082 additional cases over the past 24 hours, sharply down from a caseload of above 5000 each on the two previous days, but the Monday figure always tends to dip as there are less tests conducted on Sundays. The seven-day moving average of new infections stood at 5167, reaching a new record for a fourth day in a row, versus a low of 272 on May 27, two weeks after the country ended its two-month long lockdown. France's cumulative total of COVID-19 infections has reached 281,025 versus 187,919 at the end of July. In August, new cases increased on average by a record 3003 every day, a figure four times higher than July's average increase of 746 per day. The surge of new cases has led authorities to re-impose some containment measures, such as making face masks mandatory in the streets, shops and public transportation of almost all the country's main cities. And, as of Tuesday, masks will also be compulsory in workplaces.

But, as the new school year starts this week, French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Jean Castex have been saying they will do everything possible to avoid a new national lockdown. French President Emmanuel Macron has said he will do everything possible to avoid a new national lockdown. Credit:AP Ireland lifts COVID-19 lockdown, national picture still 'uncertain' Ireland lifted an extended local lockdown on Monday in the eastern county of Kildare ahead of schedule, but the whole country remains under some of Europe's strictest COVID-19 restrictions. Ireland closed or limited business on August 7 in three of its 26 counties  Kildare, Laois and Offaly  and their residents were barred from travelling outside their county.

Ten days later, an uptick in coronavirus cases prompted a significant tightening in measures nationwide. Authorities cut to six the number of visitors allowed in a home, banned fans from all sport events and urged people to avoid public transport where they could. "While the situation in Kildare has improved, the national situation remains uncertain and the government continues to stress the importance of adhering to the public health advice and guidance to stop the spread of the virus," the government said in a statement. The local lockdowns had been due to run until September 6, but Prime Minister Micheal Martin said the numbers in Kildare were now similar to the rest of the country. He also urged vigilance ahead of a review of the nationwide restrictions on September 13. Ireland has retained one of the strictest lockdown regimes in Europe and reopened its economy at a slower pace. At 30.6, Ireland's 14-day cumulative COVID cases per 100,000 people is higher than Britain, Germany and Sweden but below regional hotspots in Spain and France.

Ireland has reported 1777 COVID-related deaths in total but only 14 in August, despite the rise in cases. Opening up without control is recipe for disaster, says WHO Countries with significant active spread of coronavirus must prevent amplifying events, as opening up without the virus being under control would be a "recipe for disaster", the World Health Organisation said on Monday. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recognised that many people were getting tired of restrictions and wanted to return to normality eight months into the pandemic. Who director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Credit:AP

The WHO fully supported efforts to reopen economies and societies, he told a news conference, adding: "We want to see children returning to school and people returning to workplaces, but we want to see it done safely". "No country can just pretend the pandemic is over," he said. "The reality is this virus spreads easily. Opening up without control is a recipe for disaster." "Explosive outbreaks" have been linked to gatherings of people at stadiums, nightclubs, places of worship and other crowds, where the respiratory virus can spread easily among clusters of people, Tedros said. "Decisions about how and when to allow gatherings of people must be taken with a risk-based approach, in the local context," he said. Scientists see downsides to COVID-19 vaccines from Russia, China

High-profile COVID-19 vaccines developed in Russia and China share a potential shortcoming: They are based on a common cold virus that many people have been exposed to, potentially limiting their effectiveness, some experts say. Loading CanSino Biologics' vaccine, approved for military use in China, is a modified form of adenovirus type 5, or Ad5. The company is in talks to get emergency approval in several countries before completing large-scale trials, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. A vaccine developed by Moscow's Gamaleya Institute, approved in Russia earlier this month despite limited testing, is based on Ad5 and a second less common adenovirus. "The Ad5 concerns me just because a lot of people have immunity," said Anna Durbin, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins University.
But Mr. Kolfage secretly took more than $350,000 in donated funds and used them for home renovations, boat payments, a luxury car, a golf cart, jewelry, credit card debt and cosmetic surgery, the indictment charged.

Mr. Bannon, 66, received more than $1 million through a nonprofit he controlled and then used it to pay Mr. Kolfage and also to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses, the indictment said.

He was arrested early on the morning of Aug. 20 as he was on the deck of a 150-foot yacht off Westbrook, Conn. It belonged to the fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, officials have said.

During the proceeding, Judge Torres asked the prosecutors when they would turn over the evidence and other materials they have gathered to the defense, so defense attorneys can prepare for trial.

One of the prosecutors, Alison G. Moe, characterized the material as voluminous, and told the judge that investigators obtained some of it as far back as January after executing search warrants for email and cloud storage accounts.

She said investigators executed more search warrants in July and August, seizing various devices that store emails  presumably phones, tablets or laptops  and searching several locations, which law enforcement officials said included the homes of the defendants.

Ms. Moe also said on Monday that Mr. Kolfages comments on social media had violated local rules governing the behavior of parties in federal court in New York. The prosecutors have said such posts could taint the potential jury pool.
Jared Kushner led a delegation of senior US and Israeli officials on to the historic first flight between Tel Aviv and the United Arab Emirates on Monday.

The move comes after the UAE agreed to formally establish diplomatic relations with Israel, making it the third Arab state to do so after Egypt and Jordan.

En route to Abu Dhabi the plane made aviation history by being the first commercial Israeli airliner to cross Saudi airspace.

Jared Kushner led a delegation of US and Israeli officials on to the first flight from Tel Aviv to the United Arab Emirates on Monday

Flight 971 of Israel's national carrier El Al took off for Abu Dhabi after the UAE signed a pact to officially establish relations with the Jewish state

The word 'peace' was written above the cockpit in Arabic, Hebrew and English as Kushner said the pact showed that 'so much peace is possible in this region'

'While this is a historic flight, we hope that it will start an even more historic journey in the Middle East and beyond,' Kushner said shortly before boarding.

'The future does not have to be predetermined by the past. This is a very hopeful time, and I believe that so much peace and prosperity is possible in this region and around the world.'

Flight 971 of Israel's national carrier El Al then took off from Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, bound for Abu Dhabi.

The word 'peace' was painted on the plane's cockpit in Arabic, English and Hebrew.

Jared Kushner (center), US national security Adviser Robert OBrien (right) and Israel's national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat (left), board the flight in Tel Aviv

After landing in Abu Dhabi, Kushner thanked Saudi Arabia for allowing the jet to pass through its airspace.

The delegations will now hold talks in the UAE, aiming to boost cooperation in areas including aviation, tourism, trade, health, energy and security.

An Israeli government statement said there would be 'working meetings of joint teams on a range of issues ahead of the signing of cooperation agreements in the civil and economic spheres'.

The visit will also include a meeting between Kushner, Israel's national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed.

'That's what peace for peace looks like,' Netanyahu tweeted, describing a deal for formal ties with an Arab state that does not entail handover of land that Israel captured in a 1967 war.

Announced on Aug. 13, the normalisation deal is the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years and was catalysed largely by shared fears of Iran.

Palestinians were dismayed by the UAE's move, worried that it would weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory - and acceptance of Palestinian statehood - in return for normal relations with Arab countries.

Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and national security adviser Robert O'Brien head the U.S. delegation.

The Israeli team is led by O'Brien's counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat. Officials will explore bilateral cooperation in areas such as commerce and tourism, and Israeli defence envoys are due to visit the UAE separately.

'I prayed yesterday at the (Western) Wall that Muslims and Arabs throughout the world will be watching this flight, recognising that we are all children of God, and that the future does not have to be pre-determined by the past,' Kushner told reporters on the tarmac at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport.

Israeli officials hope the two-day trip will produce a date for a Washington signing ceremony, perhaps as early as September, between Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

Presidential adviser Jared Kushner (center) and National Security Adviser Robert OBrien (fourth left) pose with members of the US-Israeli delegation to the UAE

Kushner is seen alongside Israeli and US officials en route from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi, where economic talks are now due to take place

After arriving in the UAE, US national security adviser Robert OBrien (pictured speaking) and Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat (left) both delivered an address

That could give Trump a foreign policy boost ahead of his re-election bid in November.

The Trump administration has tried to coax other Sunni Arab countries concerned about Iran to engage with Israel.

The most powerful of those, Saudi Arabia, while opening its airspace to the El Al flight, has signalled it is not ready.

In Abu Dhabi, several people were injured on Monday in an explosion that was likely caused by gas lines in a restaurant, police said.

Abu Dhabi-owned the National daily reported that the blast hit KFC and Hardees restaurants.

In a second incident, one person was killed when a gas cylinder exploded in a Dubai restaurant, local media reported.

The flight came amid Kushner's tour of the Middle East which saw him hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left)

While in Israel, Kushner - who is Jewish - also visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem (above)

With the word 'peace' printed in Arabic, English and Hebrew above a cockpit window, the El Al Boeing 737 took off for Abu Dhabi from Tel Aviv, a flight of about 3 hours and 20 minutes, the pilot announced to passengers.

Like all El Al 737s, the aircraft was equipped with an anti-missile system, an Israeli spokesman said, and carried security agents of the U.S. Secret Service and the Israeli Shin Bet to guard the delegations.

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee, said Kushner and his team were 'scrambling to convince as many Arab and Muslim leaders as possible' to give Trump an election boost.

'They will be a prop at the backdrop of a meaningless spectacle for a ridiculous agreement that will not bring peace to the region,' she said.
NORTH DUMFRIES  A 49-year-old Kitchener man was killed after his car left the road, hit a hydro pole and flipped over on its roof at Roseville Road and Industrial Road Saturday around 6 p.m.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Waterloo Regional Police continue to investigate the collision, which disrupted hydro service and closed nearby roads.

Any witnesses are asked to call police at 519-653-7700 ext. 8856.
SACRAMENTO  California legislators approved a bill that would create a task force to study reparations for slavery for African Americans, a measure intended to eliminate disparities that linger more than 150 years after an economic and social system that kept Black people in bondage was banished.

Separately, lawmakers also sent a bill to Gov. Gavin Newsom requiring corporations in the state to increase diversity on their boards of directors starting next year  another measure that gathered momentum in the Legislature when protests erupted nationally over racial inequality after a white police officer in Minneapolis killed George Floyd, a Black man, by kneeling on his neck during an arrest.

The Legislature passed both bills as it considered hundreds of measures before the mandatory end of its session at midnight Monday. In a session interrupted twice by the coronavirus pandemic, the Legislature found itself running short on time to address the biggest policy issues of the year.

Among the bills that were unresolved late into the night were measures that would prevent evictions for out-of-work Californians and would create a process to strip police officers of their badges for breaking the law.

As the state Senate broke for dinner Monday evening, Democrats moved to limit debate on bills in order to squeeze in the rest of the agenda before midnight, earning a sharp rebuke from Republicans who said they were being silenced. Tension had been bubbling for days  since most of the GOP caucus was ordered to work from home after being exposed to a coronavirus-positive colleague  and when the debate-limiting measure was raised, GOP Sen. Melissa Melendez of Lake Elsinore (San Bernardino County) complained, This is bulls.

When the Senate returned, Democrats rescinded the debate-limiting move.

The reparations study, AB3121 by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, received final legislative approval Sunday night on a 52-9 vote in the Assembly. It would direct a task force to study the history of slavery and its enduring inequities for African Americans, and recommend who should be eligible for reparations and the form of compensation. The task force would be appointed by the governor and legislative leaders.

Weber, who chairs the Legislatures Black caucus and is a retired professor of Africana studies at San Diego State University, said the committees work would help California begin to address the disparities born of a shameful history.

Apology is important, Weber said in a statement. So are an accurate and public account of the violations along with commemoration and redress to those harmed.

Major bills in the Legislature Here's how the Legislature acted on notable bills as its annual session ended Monday. All approved bills head to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has until Sept. 30 to decide whether to sign them: Approved a proposal allowing transgender people in state prison to decide whether to be housed among men or women. Advocates said SB132 is necessary because transgender women are often raped and assaulted when housed in men's prisons. Unanimously passed SB932 by state Sen. Scott Wiener requiring health workers to ask patients infected with the coronavirus or some 90 other diseases about their sexual orientation and gender identity. LGBTQ advocates say the bill is needed to understand the disease's impact on their community. Sought to increase pressure on gunmakers to embrace bullet-tracing technology known as microstamping. AB2847 would require that semiautomatic pistols sold in the state leave a single unique imprint on bullets that are fired rather than two, as currently required. The marking, which reveals a gun's make, model and serial number, are meant to help law enforcement investigations. Endorsed letting public transit agencies fast-track construction projects. SB288 would exempt "sustainable" transit projects from stricter review under CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires environmental consideration in construction. See More Collapse

The task forces recommendations would go to the Legislature by June 2022. The committee would also educate Californians about the legacy of slavery and how the state enabled the institution.

Earlier this summer, Weber said Floyds killing in Minneapolis and ensuing protests over police brutality showed how little progress America has made in addressing racism.

Every incident brings me back to the same spot, Weber said. This country has taught itself to hate African Americans and to deny the history that has brought us here.

The bill, which passed the Assembly on a 52-9 vote, with most Democrats in support and nine Republicans in opposition, now heads to Newsom. He has until Sept. 30 to decide whether to sign the measure.

The Assembly also voted Sunday night to give final legislative approval to AB979 would require corporations headquartered in California to have at least one board member from an underrepresented community, such as people of color or LGBT people, by the end of 2021.

Corporations would be fined if they fail to comply, and the target would increase in 2022, requiring at least two or three directors from underrepresented communities, depending on the size of the board.

The bill passed 51-6, with most Democrats in support and all the no votes cast by Republicans. Newsom also has until Sept. 30 to decide whether to sign it.

Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, introduced the bill after Floyds death. He said some corporations, particularly big tech firms, have not acted with a sense of urgency when it comes to diversity on their boards.

Holden said that while the Legislature has sought to confront the issue of policy brutality with other bills, they must also confront inequities that keep African Americans out of powerful institutions.

Holdens bill is based on SB826, a law passed in 2018 that set similar benchmarks for hiring women for the boards of California corporations. The number of female directors increased by at least 23% in the first year. Developing a pipeline of candidates has become a priority for Jennifer Siebel Newsom, wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The law was challenged in court last year by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian nonprofit, which argued that the quotas violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution in addition to being deeply patronizing to women. The case has not yet been decided.

As time ran short in the session Monday, the Senate passed AB3088, a deal that emerged late last week to grant tenants who have lost income because of the pandemic a reprieve on their missed rent and give them five more months before they must start paying again in full.

The bill, which would take effect immediately and prevent evictions that could otherwise resume this week, still had to pass the Assembly by midnight to be sent to Newsom, who previously promised to sign it into law.

Among other bills that were still awaiting final legislative action was SB731 by Sen. Steven Bradford, D-Gardena (Los Angeles County), which would create a process to strip the badges from police officers who break the law and eliminate their legal immunity for injuring a suspect.

The measure was a priority for activists who hoped to change policing practices in California in the wake of Floyds death, but it encountered substantial opposition from law enforcement groups who said it would make it too difficult for officers to do their jobs.

Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner
The next meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will be held in Vienna on September 1, Trend reports citing Mehr.

The meeting will be chaired by Secretary-General of the European Union External Action Service Helga Schmid and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi.

The event will be attended by representatives of France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia.

Thus, the meeting will be held at the level of deputy ministers and political directors of the Iranian and 4+1 Group foreign ministers.

Last July, after receiving a letter from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif regarding the non-adherence of European countries to this agreement, Schmid said that the next meeting of the Joint Commission of the JCPOA will be held as soon as the conditions for travel are available.

However, the forthcoming meeting is important because the US has illegally called for the reinstatement of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran.

On August 26, Schmid reacted to the latest joint statement issued by Iran and IAEA.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Schmid wrote, Good news from Tehran on cooperation between #Iran and @iaeaorg. The EU trusts the impartial and independent role of the agency. In the meantime we continue our work to preserve #JCPOA with Joint Commission next week; I will chair on behalf of High Representative @JosepBorrellF.
JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On 27 August 2020, Hurricane Laura made landfall near Sasol's Lake Charles Chemicals Complex in Southwest Louisiana.

Sasol activated its inclement weather protocols ahead of the storm at all affected Gulf Coast locations in preparation for Hurricane Laura, with the primary concern being the safety of our workforce, the protection of the environment and the integrity of our facilities. Part of the response was to temporarily shut down facilities at Lake Charles, Louisiana, as well as Greens Bayou and Winnie, Texas.

Sasol is supporting its employees in the impacted areas, assisting with temporary housing, transportation and basic amenities for those affected by the storm.

The storm resulted in widespread electrical blackouts and other damage, preventing Sasol from operating most utility systems. High voltage transmission line corridors into the Lake Charles area are damaged, and the full assessment is still in progress by a local power company. Sasol's manufacturing facilities in Lake Charles remain shut down.

Operations recovery crews at the Lake Charles site have started the damage assessment process, and early reports indicate no apparent damage to process equipment and no flooding damage experienced as a result of storm surge. The high wind speeds caused damage to the cooling towers at the Lake Charles Chemicals Complex.

Other Sasol manufacturing operations in the United States in Greens Bayou and Winnie, Texas, were not impacted by the storm.

Start-up of the plants will depend on the availability of electricity, industrial gases, other feedstocks and the restoration process. We are engaging with our customers and suppliers regularly regarding the impacts on production.

Sasol has Atlantic Named Wind Storm (ANWS) insurance coverage for units under construction as well as operating units.

Sasol will update the market as more certainty on the situation in Lake Charles is obtained. We do not envisage that the hurricane will have an adverse impact on any potential divestment transaction related to Sasol's base chemical portfolio in the United States.

For further information, please contact:

Sasol Investor Relations,

Feroza Syed, Chief Investor Relations Officer

Direct telephone: +27 (0) 82 557 7740

[email protected]

Disclaimer - Forward-looking statements

Sasol may, in this document, make certain statements that are not historical facts and relate to analyses and other information which are based on forecasts of future results and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. These statements may also relate to our future prospects, expectations, developments and business strategies. Examples of such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on Sasol's business, results of operations, financial condition and liquidity and statements regarding the effectiveness of any actions taken by Sasol to address or limit any impact of COVID-19 on its business; statements regarding exchange rate fluctuations, changing crude oil prices , volume growth, increases in market share, total shareholder return, executing our growth projects (including LCCP), oil and gas reserves, cost reductions, our climate change strategy and business performance outlook. Words such as "believe", "anticipate", "expect", "intend", "seek", "will", "plan", "could", "may", "endeavour", "target", "forecast" and "project" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. By their very nature, forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, and there are risks that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved. If one or more of these risks materialise, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, our actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. You should understand that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the plans, objectives, expectations, estimates and intentions expressed in such forward-looking statements. These factors and others are discussed more fully in our most recent annual report on Form 20-F filed on 24 August 2020 and in other filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The list of factors discussed therein is not exhaustive; when relying on forward-looking statements to make investment decisions, you should carefully consider both these factors and other uncertainties and events. Forward-looking statements apply only as of the date on which they are made, and we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any of them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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Issuing the verdict, the Bench told him to submit the fine by 15 September, failing which he will be may be sent to prison for three months and be debarred from practicing law for three years

Hours after the Supreme Court asked Prashant Bhushan to pay a token fine of Re 1 in the contempt case against him, the activist-lawyer said that he will "respectfully" pay the fine, and added that his tweets weren't intended to disrespect the apex court or the Chief Justice of India.

Addressing a press conference, Bhushan also said that he will consider filing a review plea against the order. "I reserve my right to file review, I propose to submit to the order and respectfully pay the fine as directed by the court," he said.

"My tweets were not intended to disrespect the Supreme Court but were meant to express my anguish at what I felt was deviation from its sterling record... This is a watershed moment for freedom of speech and seems to have encouraged many people to speak out against injustices," he was quoted as saying by ANI.

"My lawyer and senior colleague Rajiv Dhavan contributed Re 1 immediately after the contempt judgement today which I gratefully accepted," he added.

Bhushan was also quoted by NDTV as saying that he "had always believed the Supreme Court is the last bastion of hope for the weak and oppressed".

Issuing the verdict in the case on Monday, the Bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra told him to submit the fine by 15 September, failing which he will be may be sent to prison for three months and be debarred from practicing law for three years, reports said.

In the verdict, the Bench noted, "The freedom of speech cannot be curtailed but rights of others need to be respected."

On 14 August, the Constitution Bench had held Bhushan guilty over two tweets posted on 29 June and had convicted him for contempt of court. The court heard arguments for sentencing on 20 August and reserved its judgement on 25 August.

In the hearing of the matter on 25 August, Attorney General KK Venugopal had urged the court to let Bhushan off with a reprimand. He had also pointed out the work done by him in the field of public interest litigations.

Meanwhile, senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan, who argued for Bhushan, urged the Court to show judicial statesmanship and "not make him a martyr" by sending him to prison. Dhavan had argued that a statesman-like message should be sent, like "Mr Bhushan though we disagree with many things, but from next time you should be more responsible".

With inputs from agencies
Another two people have died of Covid-19 in the UK, taking the official total to 41,501.

And a further 1,406 people were diagnosed with the pandemic virus as case numbers surge to their highest levels since the start of June.

Yesterday just one Covid-19 victim was reported which adds to hopes the coronavirus is petering out. Figures on bank holidays and weekends are usually lower than normal due to a delay in processing over the weekend.

Despite tumbling numbers of deaths, there are growing concerns about increasing positive tests, with 1,715 new positive cases reported on Sunday in the biggest daily rise for 12 weeks.

The last time Britain's daily case load was as high as it is now was on June 4, when the nation was still in lockdown and 1,805 people were diagnosed in just 24 hours.

Scotland today revealed a further 160 cases, its highest figures in three months, which First Minister Nicola Sturgeon admitted was 'undoubtedly a concern' and that she felt 'anxiety' about it.

It comes as parents prepare to send their children back to school tomorrow after a long heated debate between ministers and teachers' unions over whether it is safe.

In other coronavirus news today:

A furious holidaymaker on-board a 193-passenger TUI flight from Zante to Cardiff has hit out at the airline after they were told they all have to self-isolate following 16 positive coronavirus tests;

Pupils face being disciplined for coughing at classmates, using another year group's toilets or even joking about coronavirus;

A US study has found up to 90 per cent of people who test positive for Covid-19 have barely any traces of the virus and it could be because today's tests are 'too sensitive';

Sarah Gilbert, the brains behind Oxford University's Covid-19 vaccine, has said more diseases with pandemic potential are likely to jump from animals to humans in the near future because of modern lifestyles.

The 160 new cases of Covid-19 in Scotland is the highest total since May 16 and an increase on the 123 announced on Sunday.

It brings the total number of cases since the start of the pandemic to 20,478.

The First Minister Ms Sturgeon said she feels 'a greater sense of anxiety today' than at any time 'probably for the last couple of months'.

'The number of cases we are seeing right now is a reminder to all of us the virus is still a very real risk,' Ms Sturgeon said.

'It is a development that concerns me and it is one we are taking very seriously.

'We mustn't lose sight of how important it is if we are to keep schools open, build economic recovery and retain a bit more normality in our lives that we do continue to suppress the virus and push as close to elimination of it as we possibly can.'

The majority of new cases in Scotland were in the central belt, with 69 in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board area and 27 in Lanarkshire.

Cases are rising across the UK, with the average number of people diagnosed per day over the past week now at 1,323.

This is higher than at any point since June 14 and has almost doubled in a month from 753 on July 31.

Scotland today revealed a further 160 cases, the highest in three months, as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, pictured on August 26, said it was 'undoubtedly a concern'.

Ms Sturgeon said the rise of cases in Greater Glasgow and Clyde 'seems to reflect a number of small clusters, rather than one or two more significant outbreaks'.

Speaking during the daily coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh, Ms Sturgeon said the 'quite high' numbers of new cases were 'partly a result of greater numbers of people being tested' and she stressed the proportion of people testing positive was still below one per cent.

The First Minister said 'many people' had been looking forward to gyms and pools reopening, adding that the move would be a 'major relief' for people who work in the leisure sector.

She added: 'The reopening is a further welcome step in getting back to normal, it is important for wider health and wellbeing.

'But it also obviously brings risks, there is no getting away from that, and that is why we have delayed this until now.'

Ms Sturgeon added: 'The figures we are seeing just now for new cases demonstrate very clearly that this virus is still present across the country, it will spread rapidly if it gets the chance.'

Concluding the briefing, Ms Sturgeon issued a plea for people to 'think very carefully about how you're living your life at the moment' as she revealed anxiety about the 'fragile' state of coronavirus suppression.

Experts have said repeatedly that case numbers should be expected to increase as more tests are done.

And in addition, it was expected that more people would get infected as lockdown measures loosened, which they did almost two months ago in most areas of England, where the most cases are being found.

Statisticians estimate there are still around 2,200 people catching Covid-19 every day in England alone, meaning even the higher numbers of positive tests are not including everyone who has the virus.

Because of this, the numbers of people testing positive each day could continue to go up even if the actual number of infections doesn't.

The number of fatalities in Scotland today remained at 2,494 with no deaths reported in the past five days.

UP TO 90% OF COVID-19 PATIENTS ARE NOT CONTAGIOUS, STUDY SUGGESTS Up to 90 per cent of Covid-19 patients in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada in July carried barely any traces of the virus and it could be because today's tests are 'too sensitive', experts have said. PCR testing - the most widely used diagnostic test for Covid-19 - need to be adjusted to rule out people who have insignificant amounts of the virus in their systems because they're likely not contagious, *** said, Today the PCR test, which provides a yes or no answer if a patient is infected, doesn't say how much of the virus a patient has in their body. PCR tests analyse genetic matter from the virus in cycles and today's tests typically take 37 or 40 cycles, but experts say this is too high because it detects very small amounts of the virus that don't pose a risk. The tests threshold is so high it detects people with the live virus and those with few genetic fragments that are leftovers from infection and no longer pose risk, Dr Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said. She described it like finding a hair in a room after a person left it. Doctors say fewer cycle thresholds, meaning the number of cycles needed to detect the virus, hone in on those with greater amounts of the virus who do pose risks, according to the New York Times. Experts say a reasonable cutoff for the virus would be 30 or 35 cycles, according to Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California, Riverside. Dr Mina said he would set the cutoff at 30. New York's state lab Wadsworth analysed cycle thresholds values in already processed Covid-19 PCR tests and found in July that 794 positive tests were based on a threshold of 40 cycles. With a cutoff of 35, about half of those tests would no longer qualify as positive. About 70 per cent would no longer be judged positive if the cycles were limited to 30. In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 per cent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been considered negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Dr Mina said. 'I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,' he said. Advertisement

Northern Ireland and Wales also reported zero new deaths for the fourth day in a row. They reported 58 and 39 new cases today, respectively.

Four deaths reported by NHS England bring the total deaths in hospitals during the pandemic to 29,554  not all were included in the Department of Health's release because the two agencies have different time cut-offs.

Today's data comes after the Health Secretary warned yesterday that more national lockdown restrictions cannot be ruled out should England see a rise in coronavirus cases this winter.

Matt Hancock hinted that restrictions may not be eased over Christmas to avoid an 'uptick' in the number of Covid-19 cases.

Speaking to The Times, Mr Hancock said: 'Cases go up again, and we have to use very extensive local lockdowns or take further national action.

'We don't rule that out, but we don't want to see it.'

Other data suggest Britain's coronavirus outbreak is not spiralling out of control as feared, including the latest NHS Test and Trace figures which show the number of positive cases dropped by almost nine per cent in a week.

A total of 6,115 people were diagnosed between August 13 and 19, down from 6,656 the week before.

A number of places in the north-west of England have seen a drop in coronavirus cases after restrictions were brought in in late July, Public Health England (PHE) revealed on Friday.

The agency said on Friday that 'Covid-19 activity remained stable at a national level'.

Its weekly report showed that Pendle, Oldham, Blackburn with Darwen, Manchester, Rochdale and Salford have all shown a reduction in positive tests, though they are still in the top of the league table for the highest infection rates.

People in Oldham and parts of Blackburn and Pendle are still not allowed to socialise with anyone outside their household anywhere.

However, more than one million people will be allowed to mix in different households again from Wednesday due to a slow in cases - the first time since restrictions were announced on 30 July.

Social gatherings will be allowed to take place between two homes in Bolton, Stockport, Trafford, Burnley, Hyndburn and parts of Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees.

PHE said the number of confirmed cases is heavily dependent on how many people - and who - are tested. And this has changed drastically since the start of the pandemic, and therefore may not reflect a real increase in cases.

The highest number of positive tests in the most recent dataset, between August 13 and 20, was found among the 15-44 group, PHE said.

It comes as schools prepare to reopen tomorrow, with some introducing strict new behaviour policies to enforce social distancing requirements.

Around the country, pupils will have to get used to very different rules.

Parents have been warned that their children could be suspended from school if they cannot abide by some of the rules designed to reduce the risk of infection.

And with many schools deciding it is unsafe to put badly behaved children together in detention or alternative classrooms, they will be sent home.

PASSENGER ON ZANTE FLIGHT WITH COVID-19 CASES HITS OUT AT AIRLINE A furious holidaymaker on board a 193-passenger TUI flight from Zante to Cardiff has hit out at the airline after they were told they all have to self-isolate following 16 positive coronavirus tests. Passengers who were on TUI flight 6215 on Tuesday are being considered as 'close contacts' of those who tested positive for COVID-19, forcing them all to quarantine for two weeks. Seven of the passengers on the flight tested positive at the time of the journey, and a further nine since, taking the total to 16. However, one passenger has now hit out at TUI and claimed that the 'inept' crew did nothing to ensure social distancing was maintained on the flight. The furious flyer said she saw fellow passengers take off masks and freely mix with friends and families on board. Stephanie Whitfield, from Cardiff, who was on the flight with her husband, told the BBC: 'This flight was a debacle. The chap next to me had his mask around his neck. Not only did the airline not pull him up on it, they gave him a free drink when he said he knew a member of the crew. 'Loads of people were taking their masks off and wandering up and down the aisles to talk to others. 'As soon as the flight landed, a load of people took their masks off immediately. The flight was full of selfish 'covidiots' and an inept crew who couldn't care less.' However, another passenger, Danielle Loughman, defended TUI and told MailOnline that cabin crew repeatedly stressed the importance of wearing masks and fellow passengers had done their best to maintain social distancing. She said: 'I was on the flight mentioned above near the back of the plane and have family that were at the front of the plane and neither of us had any issues with people not wearing masks. 'We were told to not queue for the toilet which was adhered too and didnt see anyone chatting in the aisles (if they had I would have complained). 'Whilst I cannot comment about everyone wearing their masks (I was near back so couldnt see everyone) there was definitely not a mad rush to take them off and everyone still had them on as we went through customs as we all had to lower our masks when checking our passports. 'Yes the flight was full but Tui did all they could to advise people of the safety measures in place.' She added that Mrs Whitfield's complaints had surprised her and 'it was like we were on different flights'. There are 16 cases of Covid-19 linked to people who took Tui flight 6215 to Cardiff on August 25, according to Dr Gwen Lowe, consultant in communicable disease control for Public Health Wales, including the seven who had it on the flight. She said there have been about 30 cases in Wales in the last week that have come back from Zante, confirmed in people who were on different flights and staying in different locations. Advertisement

One of the most punitive behaviour policies has been introduced by Ark Alexandra Academy in Hastings, East Sussex, which makes it clear that even playground jibes about the pandemic are banned.

In a letter home this month, Jerome Scafe, an associate principal, set out the school's new 'coronavirus red lines'.

It warned: 'The following behaviours may result in a fixed-term exclusion: deliberate or malicious coughs/sneezes at any point; humorous, inappropriate comments or statements related to the coronavirus; purposeful physical contact with any other person; repeated failure to follow instructions within an appropriate timeframe resulting in the student needing to be removed from lesson.'

Byron Academy in Acton, West London, has a new behaviour policy which states: 'Some behaviours (eg coughing deliberately on another person) that were previously "simply" anti-social, are now potentially extremely serious.'

A pupil who 'wilfully ignores or refuses to follow instructions relating to hygiene routines and social distancing between year group bubbles' will be moved and if teachers conclude it is putting others at risk 'then parents should expect that their child may be excluded'.

And John Flamsteed Community School in Derby said: 'Students will have specific lavatories that they can use at break and lunchtime  this must be adhered to.

'Should a student decide not to respect these, this will be treated as a very serious disciplinary matter.'

In other coronavirus news, Sarah Gilbert, the brains behind Oxford University's Covid-19 vaccine, has warned more diseases with pandemic potential are likely to jump from animals to humans in the near future because of modern lifestyles.

Professor Gilbert said rising world travel and growing populations are driving up the risk of outbreaks of zoonotic infections.

Animal-borne diseases have become more common in recent years because of intense farming for meat and deforestation, which both put animals in closer proximity with each other and to humans.

Professor Gilbert said the current pandemic highlighted how international travel exacerbates the spread of these viruses and bigger populations make them harder to eradicate.

Covid-19's exact origin is currently unknown, but the consensus is that it originated in bats before jumping to another animal which then passed it to people.

Professor Gilbert, a vaccinologist at Oxford's Jenner Institute, told The Independent: 'Because of the way things have been going in the world, it's more likely we'll have zoonotic infections causing outbreaks in the future.

'Greater population density, greater travel, deforestation  all of these things make it more likely that these outbreaks will happen and then something will spread.'

Covid-19 has proven to be the most deadly and contagious zoonotic disease, having claimed the lives of 850,000 people globally and infected more than 25million.

But other deadly examples include Ebola, which originated in monkeys, MERS, which emerged in camels, the mosquito-borne West Nile Virus and rabies, mainly found in dogs. Every year two million people  mostly in poor countries  die of zoonotic disease.

It comes after a United Nations report in July warned the number of outbreaks of such infections will continue to increase unless conservation work is done to protect wildlife.

A 'zoonotic disease' is one that is able to be transmitted from a vertebrate animal  such as a mammal, bird, reptile or fish  to a human.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A sizable proportion of junior high school students whose first language is not English are falling behind in oral language and literacy skills, according to a recent U of A linguistics study.

After testing 227 Edmonton and Vancouver English language learners in grades 7 to 9, Johanne Paradis and her colleagues found that many performed below their monolingual classmates for vocabulary size, understanding of word meanings, grammar and reading comprehension.

"We definitely found that there are English-as-a-second-language students in need at a very crucial time in their academic development," said Paradis, pointing out that 25 to 35 percent of K-12 students in Vancouver and Edmonton are English language learners.

While some English language learners perform very well,she said, support for those who don't is critical.

"They are facing the pressures of learning the curriculum with limited language and literacy skills, (which could) hinder their further academic growth."

Immigrant children who arrived late to the school system, most in the middle of elementary school, fared worse than those who had been in Canadian schools since kindergarten, she said, often performing below the lowest acceptable standard for their age on all tests.

Seventy-one percent of late arrivals scored below the lowest score a student can get and still be within the normal range of monolingual performance for grammar, 54 percent in vocabulary size, 42 percent in word meanings and 25 percent in reading comprehension.

But even some of those who started school early were falling behind, she said. While the majority performed close to their monolingual peers, "not all had caught up with respect to language and literacy skills even after seven years or more of schooling in English in Canada."

For early-arrival English language learners, five percent scored below the lowest score in the range of normal performance for monolinguals for vocabulary, six percent for word meanings, 31 percent for grammar and five percent for reading comprehension. None of their monolingual classmates scored in this low range on any test.

"The common wisdom is that kids are like sponges, soaking up language like water, but that isn't what any of the research shows," Paradis noted.

"The biggest growth in learning English is in the first seven years, but after that some English language learners do not improve with respect to how they compare to monolinguals ... the growth has slowed down. That's what worries methe ones who are stuck at the bottom in middle school. There's nothing in our data that makes us confident they won't be there forever," she said.

Students in the study were also interviewed about which language they use with family and friends, and how often they engage in various activities in each language. Parents completed a questionnaire to gauge parental education.

To improve literacy skills among English language learners, Paradis suggested reading in English outside of class as much as possible, including books and magazine articles in either electronic or print form. Those who do showed stronger reading scores, she said.

However, focusing exclusively on reading may not be enough to adequately improve literacy, she added.

"Developing oral language skills, such as vocabulary or grammar, would be beneficial not only to develop these skills in particular, but also because they promote reading skills.

"Skipping oral language training  may not achieve the desired result, because oral skills provide the foundation for reading."

Time spent listening to English on TV or through music instead of text-based activities had a negative impact on reading comprehension, she said. And speaking English with parents at home seemed to make little difference.

"We always see a more positive effect for speaking English among siblings and friends, but in many ways that's a good news story, because we don't want to discourage families from using their native language at home," where it is important for maintaining family and cultural ties.

Identifying students who need English language support in middle school is crucial, said Paradis, as the number of culturally and linguistically diverse students in Canadian schools is increasing every day.

"They receive support for a certain number of years, but after that, they're kind of cut off" in the current school system, she said. "I think that that is a mistake.

"I think school boards really have to be sensitive to the fact that the late arrivals especially might need a lot of support  and among early arrivals there are obviously some kids who are still dragging behind."

Explore further NYU scholar makes recommendations to end disparities in stem for English learners

More information: Paradis et al., Language and literacy skills of English Language Learners in middle school (grades 7-9): How do they compare to their monolingual peers? (2020). era.library.ualberta.ca/items/  3d-93b5-caec7df35815 Paradis et al., Language and literacy skills of English Language Learners in middle school (grades 7-9): How do they compare to their monolingual peers? (2020). DOI: 10.7939/r3-57vc-r316
More than half of senior managers who drove to work before the coronavirus lockdown are still working from home, a new survey has revealed amid growing concerns for the UK economy.

A poll conducted by the AA found that some 54 per cent of professionals and senior or middle managers remain working from home for all or some of the time.

Meanwhile, four in 10 people (40 per cent) who normally commuted by car pre-pandemic are still working remotely.

The numbers were published after experts warned continued working from home could cost the UK economy almost 500 billion over the next four years.

The UK Government is increasingly concerned about struggling town and city centres.

Ministers are encouraging more workers to return to their offices in order to deliver a boost to businesses in urban areas which are reliant on commuter footfall.

Some in Whitehall believe civil servants should set an example to the rest of the country but George Eustice said this morning he does not have a target for the number of staff he wants back at their desks in his department next month.

The Environment Secretary said he wanted to ensure 'as many people as possible are able to return to work' - but that not everybody would be able to do so safely at the same time.

Ministers are increasingly concerned about empty town and city centres. Pictured is the City of London on August 26

A new survey conducted by the AA found 40 per cent of people who drove to work pre-pandemic are still working from home at least some of the time

A new Daily Mail audit of 30 FTSE 100 and top firms, representing more than 150,000 employees, found some workers are returning to their desks

Safety chief: 'No evidence' returning to work is safe The head of Britain's leading health and safety charity today insisted there is 'no evidence' returning to the office is safe as he criticised the government for 'bullying' people to return. Lawrence Waterman, chair of the British Safety Council, was asked on the BBC's Today programme if there was evidence that returning to work was risk free. He said: 'I think that's one of the concerns that many of us have got about how the government are putting out the advice about returning to work being safe. We simply don't know. 'We believe from the evidence that large gatherings of people... leads to exactly the kind of indoor environments that seem to be prone to the transmission of coronavirus, and there isn't evidence that when you return large numbers of people you don't get outbreaks. 'I think many of us don't understand why there's such firm advice that workplaces are safe when there's no evidence for that. Indeed, there is an argument that workplaces are so rarely inspected that it's probably more likely that you'll win the lottery than be visited by an inspector, so we're bemused about where the evidence is.' Mr Waterman pointed out that the government's own Health and Safety Executive still advises on its website that 'everyone who can work from home should do so'. He added: 'We don't want ghost towns but it should be a matter for workers and employers to negotiate. Many do want to return to the office and many miss the camaraderie of working with colleagues. But it should be a choice that grown up workers and their employees should make. 'We're not in favour of the government bullying people. Schools are reopening this week in England, so many we should see how that settles down before forcing people back into offices.' Advertisement

The AA survey, published by The Times, suggests ministers face an uphill battle to persuade some staff to go back to their desks.

The AA's head of roads policy, Jack Cousens, told the paper there was 'a big irony' in politicians telling car commuters to get back to work while increasing pedestrian access by closing off roads - as has been seen in London.

The motoring association called for better transport options for commuters, while also criticising the decision to hike the central London congestion charge from 11.50 to 15.

Meanwhile, official figures for train numbers showed that at the start of last week passenger numbers were at 28 per cent of pre-lockdown levels.

It was a similar story on buses where passenger numbers were recorded at just 45 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

Analysis for the Mail on Sunday suggested that almost half a trillion pounds could be wiped off the UK economy over the next four years if people fail to return to their offices.

Douglas McWilliams, the former chief economic adviser to the Confederation of British Industry, warned that if home working continues in its current form the economy will not return to its pre-pandemic size until 2025.

That would equate to approximately 480billion of lost output, or possibly even more.

Ministers have stepped up calls for employees to return to their workplaces next week.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Stephen Barclay said yesterday the Government was 'keen' for people to stop working from home where possible.

Mr Barclay told Times Radio: 'We are keen to get people back in the office. We think that's best for the economy to get back to normal as part of our recovery.

'The whole purpose of the furlough scheme has been to retain that link between the employee and their business.

'Obviously, people coming back as the furlough scheme starts to unwind, back into the workplace in a more active way. So, we are keen to see that take place.

'Clearly, these are conversations that businesses will be having with their staff.'

His Cabinet colleague Mr Eustice was asked during an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme whether the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had a target for staff returning after the bank holiday.

'We don't have a target other than to make sure that it is safe for people to return to work, and that does require, for instance, fewer work stations,' he said.

'So not everybody - we won't get a 100 per cent return-to-work - but we want to ensure that as many people as possible are able to return to work, even if it's for some days a week so you don't have an entire team in everyday.

'That's the kind of approach we'll be taking and it's the sort of approach that I'm sure many other businesses will be too.'

A string of top firms last night revealed their staff were pouring back into the office, with others saying they are considering plans to lure workers from their homes.

In a significant boost to the campaign to entice more office workers into city centres, many companies said they had recorded an uptick in employees getting back to their desks.

The news comes in a new Daily Mail audit of 30 FTSE 100 and top firms, representing more than 150,000 employees.

High street chain Boots was among those recording a steady rise in attendance, with around a third of its office staff now back at their desks at least a few days a week. No cases of Covid-19 have been recorded among this cohort.

The boss of recruitment giant Hays vowed there would be no 'turning our back on the office'.

Alistair Cox last night said full-time remote working was unlikely to become 'a permanent thing'.

But he also predicted offices will be closed as companies assess whether to switch permanently to a 'hybrid' model, where home and office working are balanced.

Yesterday it emerged Capita, one of the UK's biggest employers, will become the first major British firm to pull out of city and town centres by closing nearly 100 offices. The Government contractor  which collects the BBC licence fee and runs the London congestion charge  is set to close more than a third of its 250 offices across Britain; its 45,000 UK staff will continue to work from home.

The news will be a major blow to Boris Johnson's back to work campaign, which is expected to be launched this week.

Yesterday it also emerged that BP is planning to sell its central London headquarters as part of a permanent shift in working patterns.

The developments will heighten fears for city centre businesses, from sandwich shops and pubs to dry cleaners and hairdressers, which rely on footfall from offices.
On August 31, a fresh report was supposed to be submitted, and his plea for bail on health grounds was to be decided.

Before that could happen, the 81-year-old poet was stealthily discharged and taken back to the Taloja jail hospital on August 25.

Not even his lawyer on record, Advocate Satyanarayanan, was informed.

Jyoti Punwani reports.

IMAGE: Professor Varavara Rao after he was produced in a Pune court last year in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case.

The last few days have shown that the Right to Health, defined by the Supreme Court in more than one judgment as an integral part of the Right to Life, is being denied to the jailed intellectuals awaiting trial in the Bhima Koregaon case.

Varavara Rao's is the starkest illustration of this denial.

The only medical report on him, dated July 30 and submitted on court orders by the Nanavati hospital in north west Mumbai, states that Professor Rao's health needs close monitoring.

On August 31, a fresh report was supposed to be submitted, and his plea for bail on health grounds was to be decided.

Before that could happen, the 81-year-old poet was stealthily discharged and taken back to the Taloja jail hospital on August 25. Not even his lawyer on record, Advocate Satyanarayanan, was informed.

Does that mean Varavara Rao is fine?

Those following his case have their doubts. For, as Advocate Satyanarayanan points out, this sequence of events is disturbingly similar to what happened the first time Rao was hospitalised.

On May 28, Professor Rao was admitted to the government-run J J Hospital after he fainted in jail.

His bail hearing was scheduled for June 2.

On June 1, the octogenarian was discharged and taken back to Taloja jail.

On June 2, the court was told he was fine as the hospital had discharged him. His bail was denied.

The reality was quite different. He was not fine. Tests prescribed by the J J Hospital were not done at the Taloja Jail Hospital.

By the end of the month, the man who has spent his life travelling across the country, addressing meetings and writing poetry despite long spells of imprisonment, could neither brush his teeth on his own nor speak or write one coherent sentence.

After a public outcry forced the jail authorities to admit him to the J J Hospital on July 13, his family found him sitting in soiled clothes on a soiled bedsheet, unable to recognise his wife.

He was also found to be Covid positive.

Under pressure from the National Human Rights Commission, Professor Rao was admitted to the super speciality Nanavati Hospital on July 19.

On July 30, the hospital reported that he had persistent hyponatremia, suffered from paroxysmal bouts of coughing, and would require close monitoring.

Hyponatremia is defined by Wikipedia as low sodium concentration in the blood; mild symptoms are a decreased ability to think.

Now, he is back in jail. On August 31, when his bail petition comes up for hearing, will there be a repeat of what took place on June 2?

Will the court be told that he is fine, and being looked after in the Taloja Jail Hospital, the very place under whose care Rao became a wreck?

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
The program allows families to pick up free food from any convenient school campus, regardless of whether their child is enrolled there and even if they do not qualify for free and reduced-price meals. Its a form of meal delivery typically offered only during the summer months. But due to the pandemic, the Agriculture Department  which oversees the nations school lunch program  launched the program ahead of schedule in March and has kept it running ever since.
Mohsen Haji-Mirzai, Iran's Minister of Education, said on Monday that students will start school in all areas around the nation except for those designated as "red zones" as recently as Saturday. Currently, 12 out of 31 provinces of the country are considered COVID-19 hotspots and categorized as red zones.

In a press conference, Haji-Mirzai also pointed out that only 35 percent of schools have enough space to observe social distancing and hold regular classes. To keep up with social distancing requirements, students in remaining schools may have to attend at different hours or even alternative days if there is not enough space in the classrooms. Schools have been closed in Iran since late February.

Haji-Mirzai also announced that state-run television channels will begin broadcasting online teaching programs simultaneously.

More than 3 million students, according to a deputy minister, were not able to access Iran's online resources created for remote learning during the first peak of the epidemic in early spring, due to not having access to a smartphone.

According to Haji-Mirzai, an upgraded version of the interactive application will be launched on Thursday, two days before the official start of the school year. The app, called SHAD, was not accessible in some areas of the country due to network issues, and many families could not afford the cost of an internet connection. The ministry is trying to reduce the cost or even make it free for students, he said, but admitted that the tool will still be unavailable to many students.

Iran has been experiencing a second wave of the epidemic since early June, and a record high daily death toll of 229 was registered on July 21, with numbers since dropping almost 50 percent. According to the latest official announcement on Monday, with 109 more deaths over the past 24 hours, Iran's total COVID-19 death toll has risen to 21,571. The total number of cases since the coronavirus outbreak began in Qom in late February has reached 375,212, according to the Health Ministry.

Health officials have also been warning of a third wave of the epidemic that could hit in the fall, which may be attributed to massive religious ceremonies that will continue over the next month. While thousands of Iranians have participated in the ceremonies so far, Health Minister Said Namaki said on Monday that religious groups have so far been very observant of social distancing and other health protocols.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The long wait is over as the government has allowed shopping malls, hotels and resorts to resume services. However, the officials have appealed all to wear masks and maintain social distancing at all places. In a statement on Sunday, Phoenix Market City spokesperson said that the management is busy working on guidelines for staf f and customers.

A spokesperson from Express Avenue Mall said that all stores will open on September 1. More details will be updated on the malls website. The ITC Grand Chola in a statement stated, Our safety practices begin with pre-arrival check-in, safe car ride, security personnel in PPE, hand sanitisers at touchpoints, luggage sanitisation, remodelled receptions with Welcome Separators and deep-cleaned and sanitised room allotment.

The hotel added that contact-less dining is the norm for both in-room dining and their restaurants. Room service orders will be delivered on sanitised IRD trolley (enabling safe distancing) in rooms, with sanitised crockery, cutlery, pre-packaged single use condiments, by server in personal protective gear, the spokesperson further said. Several hotels in the city were already facilitating quarantine stay for passengers.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - An Ethiopian diplomat says his country has asked the United States for clarification on a report that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has approved cutting up to $130 million in aid to Ethiopia because of the countrys dispute with Egypt and Sudan over a massive dam it is building on the Blue Nile.

Fitsum Arega, Ethiopias ambassador to the U.S., tweeted Monday saying he has heard the aid cut is related to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and that the clarification is expected from the U.S. later Monday. He added that his country is determined to complete the dam, saying that we will pull Ethiopia out of darkness.

The planned cut was reported by Foreign Policy late Thursday, setting off an uproar among some in Ethiopia, a regional security ally of the U.S. A State Department spokesperson on Friday said they had no announcements on U.S. assistance at this time.

The spokesperson added that we believe that past work by Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan shows it is still possible to reach balanced and equitable agreement in a manner that takes into account the interests of the three countries. ... We reaffirm our commitment to remain engaged with the three countries until they reach agreement.

Africas largest hydroelectric dam has caused severe tensions with Egypt, which has called it an existential threat and worries that it will reduce the countrys share of Nile waters. Ethiopia says the $4.6 billion dam will be an engine of development that will pull millions of people out of poverty. Sudan, in the middle, worries about the effects on its own dams though it stands to benefit from access to cheap electricity.

Years of talks among the countries have failed to come to an agreement. Key remaining issues include how to handle releases of water from the dam during multi-year droughts and how to resolve future disputes.

Pope Francis recently urged Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to continue talks amid regional concerns that the dispute could lead to military conflict.

The U.S. earlier this year tried to mediate the discussions, but Ethiopia walked away amid accusations that Washington was siding with Egypt. Now the three countries are reporting any progress to the African Union, which is leading negotiations.

The dams 74 billion-cubic-meter reservoir saw its first filling in July, which Ethiopias government celebrated and attributed to heavy rains. Ethiopia had said it would fill the dam with or without a deal with Egypt and Sudan.

___

Cara Anna in Johannesburg contributed.
A baker is only as good as his flour. The type of flour utilized in the bakery determines the quality of the output which in turn influences patronage and profitability. These 2 factors will ultimately determine whether a bakery will thrive, remain stagnant or perhaps even decline and ultimately close shop.

There are certain performance indicators which can be used in assessing the quality of flour. Characteristics of high-quality flour include high water absorption which results in high yield as well as good look, feel and taste of the final product.

Bakers prefer flour that absorbs more water because it gives higher yield than lower water absorbing flour. It is also important that the final product of the flour looks, feels and tastes good as this is what consumers experience and what will induce trial and repeat purchase.

Three prominent bakers agree that a popular flour brand, Mama Gold Flour, ticks all the boxes with regards to a flour that has the highest water absorption, gives higher yield and also looks, feels and tastes very good. These bakers should know, given their experience and the positions they occupy in the Lagos baking industry. They are Alhaji Raji Omotunde---Assoc. Chairman; Alhaja Sherifat Gbadamosi, Treasurer and; Alhaji Raji Opeyemi, the Alimosho local government chairman, all of the Lagos Chapter of the Association of Master Bakers and Caterers of Nigeria (AMBCN), the umbrella body for bread bakers in the country.

Alhaji Omotunde described Mama Gold Flour as the most superior flour brand in the market, asserting that the product quality and packaging are exceptional. Speaking on his preference for the Mama Gold flour brand, he said: I have noticed that the quality of Mama Gold far exceeds the quality of the other brands. This is why I usually buy only Mama Gold flour.

Speaking further, the AMBCN president said: When I use the Mama Gold brand, the bread is fluffy and very attractive. The bread baked with Mama Gold flour always has a golden look. These qualities make the Mama Gold Flour a unique flour brand. Hence any baker who knows his onions in baking will most likely go for Mama Gold Flour.

Alhaja Gbadamosi also affirmed the good taste of bread baked with Mama Gold flour and its impact on the profitability of her bakery. The AMBCN treasurer, who is also a retailer of the Mama Gold flour brand, advises existing and potential bakers to use Mama Gold flour for all their baking.

She stated: I have been recommending Mama Gold to other bakers who, having used it, can also attest to its quality. One of the bakers I introduced the Mama Gold Flour to has been using only Mama Gold Flour ever since I introduced it to her three years ago. She now bakes a minimum of 100 bags of flour every week in her bakery. I sell and bake only with Mama Gold Flour. I dont use any other brand. I have been persuaded to buy some other flour brands, but I have always refused to do so since I am fine with Mama Gold.

She further described the taste of her bread as top notch, adding that she frequently receives compliments for the bread. She attributes this to the fact that she uses a brand of flour that has never failed her. Mama Gold Flour will always be my preferred choice because its quality speaks for itself. The very unique taste it gives our bread is actually not comparable to the taste of bread made from other flour brands.

Alhaja Gbadamosi also confirmed that Mama Gold flour has helped in boosting the profitability of her bakery because it absorbs more water and gives more yield than any other available flour brand. The high-water absorption rate translates into extra number of dough which results in extra profit per bag of flour and there was also a time that the company ran an end-user promo that further boosted profitability for all bakers who are loyal to the brand.

For Alhaji Raji Opeyemi who has over 40 years of baking experience, Mama Gold towers above other brands in terms of bread taste and texture, adding that it has also maintained its high quality since it was launched in 2014. He also attested to the high yield quality of the Mama Gold flour brand.

Asides being a master baker, Alhaji Opeyemi is one of the biggest wholesale distributors of flour in Lagos State. He also reiterated that Mama Gold flour is the preferred brand for bakers who purchase flour from him. He said: Most bakers who buy flour from me prefer Mama Gold Flour. That speaks a lot about the yield and quality of the brand. As a baker, I use other brands sometimes just to see what the yield and product will be, and I have never regretted sticking to Mama Gold Flour in my bakery. Some flour brands claim to weigh 50kg, but actually weigh less. It will amaze you that we from time to time enjoy end-users promo. This gesture is very encouraging to bakers and should inspire other millers to do more for their bakers. The quality of Mama Gold Flour is top-notch, so I expect nothing less from its yield which in turn brings profit.

He advised upcoming bakers to conduct their own tests with Mama Gold Flour against other flour brands to confirm which brand will give them the best results. His prediction went thus: When they compare the end product, they will know that Mama Gold is the Best in terms of yield and quality.
The 2020 session of the California Legislature is radically different from any other in the states 170-year history, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Legislators abandoned the Capitol last spring after giving Gov. Gavin Newsom carte blanche authority and a billion dollars to deal with the crisis. When they finally returned two months later, their slate of bills was severely reduced and procedures were altered dramatically, eventually to include remote participation and voting and abbreviated committee hearings.

That said, some things never change, and one is the practice inelegantly termed gut-and-amend, in which a bill thats already passed one house is stripped of its contents and an entirely new measure is inserted into the vacant shell.

Gut-and-amend short-circuits the process and is typically used late in a legislative session to resurrect some special interest proposal that has stalled out.

Dan Walters: California gambles with stopgap legislation California politicians are gambling on high-risk stopgaps to relieve the impacts of COVID-19's recession, columnist Dan Walters says.

As applied this year, it reduces even further an already truncated process, as demonstrated by how Assembly Bill 326 quickly made it to the floor of the state Senate.

The measure, carried by Democratic Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, would largely benefit one new company, Canoo, Inc., as it attempts to break into the zero-emission vehicle business by creating a new operational model somewhere between a daily rental and a multi-year lease.

Canoo, based in Muratsuchis hometown of Torrance, wants to create a vehicle membership program under which an electric mobility manufacturer can provide zero-emission vehicles to customers on a month-to-month basis. The definitions in the bill exclude traditional automobile companies and bypass their franchised dealerships.

Dan Walters: Presidential race will put Californias foibles on trial With Kamala Harris on the Democratic presidential ticket, President Donald Trump's campaign will likely make California's shortcomings a foil, columnist Dan Walters says.

Its not a coincidence that Canoo, whose financial support largely comes from Asia, is pushing the bill just as it has struck a deal to merge with special-purpose acquisition company Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp., with a market valuation of $2.4 billion.

Were the tailor-made provisions of AB 326 to become law, giving Canoo a running start on the membership model, it would help the company attract more investment capital and perhaps succeed where other startup zero-emission vehicle makers have stumbled.

The legislation would also be an indirect victory for Tesla in its long-running battle with traditional franchised dealers. Tesla now sells or leases its pricey zero-emission vehicles directly and while its not sponsoring the bill, legislators have been told that it, too, would like to use the membership model.

Dan Walters: Blackouts reveal our power shortage California has a shortage of electrical energy that's resulting in blackouts during a severe heat wave. Warnings about the shortage were ignored, columnist Dan Walters says.

Muratsuchi introduced a similar bill earlier in the session, but it never moved. Another measure was offered in the Senate, but it, too, stalled. Late last month, Muratsuchi gutted and amended AB 326, which had its only public airing in the Senate Transportation Committee last week and was approved on a 9-4 vote.

Environmental groups are backing Canoo on the rationale that the membership model might jump-start the anemic sales of zero-emission vehicles, which are falling short of the states ambitious goals. By law and regulation, as part of its war on climate change, the state has leaned on automakers to produce and sell more zero-emission vehicles, but even with generous subsidies, sales have been disappointing  except for Teslas, which have become status symbols of the affluent.

The bill is opposed by auto industry trade associations and franchised auto dealers, which complain that it would give Canoo an unfair competitive advantage in the words of a lobbyist for the California New Car Dealers Association, Cliff Costa.

So will Californians soon see thousands of small microbus-like Canoos on their streets? Canoo wants to begin offering them by 2023, but apparently needs AB 326 to speed through the Capitol.

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.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  The country's COVID-19 task force has proposed that President Rodrigo Duterte extend the duration of a community quarantine status from two weeks to one month, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said on Monday.

"Ang pinakabenefit nito, of course, mas may stability sa ating pagkilos, sa reopening of economy. Hindi po pabago-bago, may kaunting stability," he said in a media briefing.

[Translation: The benefit is that it will create stability in our movement, in the bid to reopen the economy. It's not constantly changing thus creating stability.]

The President usually announces the quarantine status of certain areas, placing them under varying degrees of lockdown restrictions for 14 days. The two week-duration gives the government the option to adjust measures according to the constantly changing case doubling time and critical care capacity for COVID-19 patients.

Lopez said this is the ideal direction to take if the government wants to shift to the "new normal" or no community quarantine but with the strict enforcement of minimum health standards, such as wearing of face masks and physical distancing.

Duterte is set to address the nation on Monday to announce the post-August 31 quarantine status. The Philippines has been placed under different forms of community quarantine for 170 days now, making it the longest lockdown in the world.
Key Highlights

Congress seeks JPC investigation against alleged Facebook-WhatsApp-BJP nexus

Calls for criminal investigation against Facebook India leadership

Demands suspension of Facebook India leadership until completion of investigation

Seeks to broaden the probe to cover all foreign technology companies in India

The Congress has reiterated its demand for a joint parliamentary committee investigation into the alleged Facebook-WhatsApp-BJP nexus. It has also demanded a separate criminal investigation into the matter and immediate suspension of Facebook's India leadership team until the completion of such investigation.

The demands of the Opposition party were made at a press conference by leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. The party has also asked PM Modi-led government to put on hold all pending approvals and licences to these companies and broaden the scope of inquiry to scrutinise the actions of all foreign technology companies present in India.

The demands of Congress come after international media reports point to the alleged bias showed by a key Facebook India employee to favour the ruling party.

Two days ago, the Congress had quoted media reports alleging 'WhatsApp, used by 40 crore Indians, is compromised and controlled indirectly by the BJP'. The party had also singled out two executives - one from Facebook India and the other from WhatsApp - for their close relationship with the ruling dispensation.

Congress also quoted former chief security officer of Facebook, Alex Stamos's tweet to suggest that the practice of hiring 'local policy heads (of Facebook) from the ruling political party' naturally bends decision-making towards the powerful. "This is a ringing endorsement of Facebook's dubious operational practices and lobbying efforts. It goes without saying that Facebook did not act on any hate speeches by the BJP and refuses to act even now. Has Facebook violated its own rule of removing hate speeches because they feared that the government will act against them?" Congress had asked.

The party had sought an exhaustive and unbiased investigation by a Joint Parliamentary Committee between unending links of Facebook employees and the ruling establishment. "The investigation must include how Facebook manipulated voter's opinion, allowed hate speech and was oblivious to fake news, even when they were in clear violation of their regulations," a media statement issued by the Congress had said. The other demand which Congress made was to deny WhatsApp approvals for its payment operations until the inquiry is complete and the recommended actions are taken by the company.

Congress leader K.C. Venugopal has also written a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, demanding to know the steps being taken by the Facebook to investigate the charges leveled against its Indian arm.

Also Read: Govt spending saved the day for GDP in June quarter

Also Read: Remembering Pranab Mukherjee and his economic legacy

Also Read: Worst in 24 years! India's Q1 GDP contracts 23.9% in June quarter
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Linkedin Rizki Fachriansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 08:00 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c418c0d9 1 National Komnas-PA,Arist-Merdeka-Sirait,slang,words,verbal-abuse,social-media,Twitter,netizens,controversy Free

The National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA) had said that the use of the word anjay  a euphemistic form of the word anjing (dog), which is often used as a curse word  may be considered a form of criminal verbal violence. The assertion went viral over the weekend, eliciting parodies and mockery from social media users.

A statement concerning the word signed by Komnas PA chairman Arist Merdeka Sirait and secretary general Dhanang Sasongko responded to a number of questions and complaints from distraught parents concerned about the widespread use of the word, especially its impact on children.

The commission said the use of the word anjay had to be assessed from the speakers point of view, the place and situation in which it was used and the meaning the speaker wished to impart.

If it is meant to convey ones sense of enthusiasm for a certain situation [] or a certain product on social media, the usage doesnt connote violence or bullying, read the statement, which was posted on Komnas PAs Instagram page, @komnasanak, on Saturday.

However, the organization noted that anjay could also be used to verbally harass or humiliate others, in which case the speaker could be subject to legal sanctions in accordance with Law No. 35/2014 on child protection.

If the term anjay is used to reduce a persons standing, it becomes a form of verbal violence and may be reported as a crime, the commission said, adding that assessing multiple perspectives on the slang term was crucial given its popularity among young social media users.

Komnas PA added that the use of anjay as an inside joke among close friends could be considered a simple expression of camaraderie. However, the word could take on a malicious meaning and therefore facilitate bullying if it was used against strangers or elders, the commission said.

Social media users have mocked Komnas PAs statement, responding to the controversy with quips and puns.

On Sunday afternoon, anjay was a national trending topic on Twitter.

YouTube personality @kristoimmanuel joked that Indonesian actor Anjasmara might have to change his name because of its similarity to the word anjay.

Breaking news: setelah anjay ilegal, Anjasmara khawatir harus ganti nama!  kristo kentang (@kristoimmanuel) August 30, 2020

Breaking news: after anjay becomes illegal, Anjasmara is worried he might have to change his name! he tweeted.

Another Twitter user, @handokotjung, imagined replacing certain lyrics of the iconic ballad I Will Always Love You with the controversial word.

Kalau kata Anjay dilarang, gimana nasib lagu populer Whitney Houston yang liriknya  anjaay will always love you   Handoko Tjung (@handokotjung) August 30, 2020

If anjay is banned, what becomes of Whitney Houstons popular song, whose lyrics go Anjay will always love you? he tweeted. (rfa)
Dems Blaming Violence in American Cities on Trump Is Despicable

Commentary

More and more, Bertolt Brechts play In the Jungle of Cities is becoming an apt description of todays America.

Murder, riot, arson, destruction, you name itAmericas cities have got it. Only a very few of our major urban areas have escaped the carnage, and almost all of those barely.

Last weekend, we had the fatal shooting of a Trump supporter in Portland, Oregon (Jack Posobiec put it well on Parler: Antifa killed someone again last night but media tells us they dont exist), cops were shot (one critically) in St. Louis, and there was a Chicago shooting (yet again and as usual) outside a South Side restaurant with one killed and four injured, plus some potshots at a Trump procession in Los Angeles Woodland Hills.

It goes without saying, as the night follows the day, these cities have Democrat mayors. Every single one of the centers of violence do, from Seattle to Philadelphia.

And yet Biden & Co. are trying to make this Trumps fault.

Besides the obviousthat theyre terrified their failure at their convention to mention what was happening in the cities could cost them the election and are trying desperately (with a lie) to play catch-upthis reveals the real, underlying problem with todays liberal and progressive: infantilism.

OK, Ill be nice: immaturity. Todays liberal-progressive (oh, how I abhor the desecration of the English language inherent in those terms) abjures taking responsibility for the actions in his or her city. In fact, he or she is terrified of so doing.

Protesters are rioting in their streets, destroying property, burning down buildings, attackingeven now shootinginnocent people and police who only want to calm things down, and the mayors refuse to do what a normal, decent adult is supposed to dotake these overgrown children, who are wildly acting out, in hand and prevent them from damaging themselves and others, not to mention destroying a great deal of property, public and private.

But they cantor think they cantbecause then theyd be accused of being racists or sexists or something worse, like Republican sympathizers, but mostly they are cowards.

So they blame Trumpsomeone who occasionally does act like a fatherfor their own failures. And even though those failures have been going on for months.

Its hard to believe they do this with a straight face, but they do. They are desperate to believe it for fear of personality disintegration, that what they thought might have been wrongthat there might be something wrong with them.

On the surface, this presents as tawdry politics. But its actually worse. Trump Derangement Syndrome has evolved from a neurosis to a psychosis. These people are out of contact with what is traditionally called reality. They disbelieve whats in front of their eyes.

These mayors claim that Trump sending in the National Guard or other federal help will only make things worse.

How could they be worse?

As of now, its a disaster unlike anything weve seen since the Civil War, and that war ultimately had a reason for being, a just cause.

This violence has no cause at allunless you regard the tearing down of Western civilization with an ultimate goal of installing some form of communism to be a cause. That only resulted in the murder of 100 million or so.

That it is seriously fighting racism is ludicrous. Its the reverse. It is creating racial division in the service of revolution. (Just ask the Marxist leaders of Black Lives Mattertheyll tell you.)

Meanwhile, some of these cities may never come back to what they were. They dont have the importance or the history.

Unlike New York or Los Angelesboth in serious jeopardy themselvesPortland, where businesses are already fleeing, has contributed little to our national life other than some risible sanctimony (Portlandia) and some halfway decent pinot noir. Even Seattle, despite the presence of business colossuses such as Amazon and Microsoft, may find its damage hard to recover from.

But blame Trump for that if it makes you happy. Projection has its uses, on the political and the personal level. But be careful. In the end, it tends to blow up in your face.

Roger L. Simon is an award-winning author, Oscar-nominated screenwriter and co-founder of PJ Media. He is now a columnist for The Epoch Times. Find him on Parler and Twitter @rogerlsimon. Find and enjoy his books in Kindle, paperback, hardback, and audio on Amazon.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, has reacted to the Supreme Court judgement that dismissed the appeals by Musa Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Natasha Akpoti of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), challenging his re-election.

Mr Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC) said the judgement is a re-affirmation of his landmark victory of the November 16, 2019, election held in the state.

In a statement on Monday by his spokesperson, Onogwu Muhammed, the governor said, the Apex Courts decision upholding his victory is an affirmation of the identical positions on the matters taken by the erudite jurists at the Tribunal and the Court of Appeal.

Mr Bello commended the apex court for being upright and just and thanked the entire citizens of the state for their support.

The governor praised the panel of 7 Justices led by Hon. Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammadu, the Chief Justice of Nigeria which heard the appeals and Hon. Justice Uwani Musa Abba Aji CFR who read this mornings judgment alone. Appreciating the court for her uprightness and erudition, the Governor thanked the entire citizens of the state for casting their votes for him and joining him to defend same to the end. He assured them that his administration will continue to do more and more for them in line with his campaign slogan.

The Governor used the moment to pay tribute to His Royal Majesty, Dr. Micheal Idakwo, Ameh Oboni II, the late Attah of Igala who passed on last week. He described the late traditional ruler as a unifier who was a great supporter of his administration, a father and a wise counsellor.

The Governor called on the other parties and their candidates to forgo all forms of bitterness and division and join hands with him to take Kogi to the next level, the statement added.

Read our earlier story on the Supreme Court dismissing the two appeals here.
Privacy is one of those nebulous ideas that everyone loves. Delivering it, though, is a job thats full of nuance and tradeoffs. Turn the dial too far to one side and the databases are useless. Turn it too far in the other direction and everyone is upset about your plan to install camera arrays in their shower to automatically reorder soap.

The good news is that there is a dial to turn. In the early days, everyone assumed that there was just a switch. One position delivered all of the wonderful magic of email, online ordering, and smartphones. The other position was the cash-only world of living off the grid in a cabin wearing an aluminum foil hat.

Privacy enhancing technologies let you control how much privacy to support but limit that control to preserve functionality. They mix in encryption functions with clever algorithms to build databases that can answer some questions correctly  but only for the right people.

In my book, Translucent Databases, I explored building a babysitter scheduling service that could let parents book babysitters without storing personal information in the central database. The parents and babysitters could get the correct answer from the database, but any attacker or insider with root privileges would get only scrambled noise.

The field has grown dramatically over the years and there are now a number of approaches and strategies that do a good job of protecting many facets of our personal lives. They store just enough information for businesses to deliver products while avoiding some of the obvious dangers that can appear if hackers or insiders gain access.

The approaches all have their limits. They will defend against the most general attacks but some start to crumble if the attackers are better equipped or the attacks are more targeted. Often the amount of protection is proportional to the amount of computation power required for the encryption calculations. Basic protections may not add noticeable extra load to the system, but providing perfect security may be out of reach for even the cloud companies.

But these limits shouldnt stop us from adding the basic protections. The perfectly secure approach may not be out there, but adding some of these simpler solutions can protect everyone against some of the worst attacks that can be enabled by the new cloud services.

Here are nine strategies for balancing privacy with functionality.

Use the features

The cloud providers understand that customers are nervous about security and theyve slowly added features that make it easier to lock up your data. Amazon, for instance, offers more than two dozen products that help add security. The AWS Firewall Manager helps make sure the firewalls let in only the right packets. AWS Macie will scan your data looking for sensitive data thats too open. Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure have their own collections of security tools. Understanding all of these products may take a team but its the best place to start securing your cloud work.

Watch the secrets

Securing the passwords, encryption keys, and authentication parameters is hard enough when were just locking down our desktops. Its much trickier with cloud machines, especially when theyre managed by a team. A variety of different tools are designed to help. Youve still got to be careful with source code management, but the tools will help juggle the secrets so they can be added to the cloud machines safely. Tools like Hashicorps Vault, Dopplers Enclave, AWSs Key Management System, and Oktas API management tools are just some of the options that simplify the process. All still require some care but they are better than writing down passwords in a little notebook and locking it in someones office.

Consider dedicated hardware

Its hard to know how paranoid to be about sharing computer hardware with others. Its hard to believe that an attacker may finagle a way to share the right machine and then exploit some of the different extreme approaches like rowhammer, but some data might be worth the hard work. The cloud companies offer dedicated hardware just for occasions like this. If your computing load is fairly constant, it may even make economic sense to use local servers in your own building. Some embrace the cloud companys hybrid tools and others want to set up their own machines. In any case, taking complete control of a computer is more expensive than sharing, but it rules out many attacks.

Hashing

One of the simplest solutions is to use a one-way function to hide personal information. These mathematical functions are designed to be easy to compute but practically impossible to reverse. If you replace someones name with f(name) , someone browsing the database will only see the random encrypted noise that comes out of the one-way function.

This data may be inscrutable to casual browsers, but it can still be useful. If you want to search for Bobs records, you can compute f(Bob) and use this scrambled value in your query.

This approach is secure against casual browsers who may find an interesting row in a database and try to unscramble the value of f(name) . It wont stop targeted browsing by attackers who know they are looking for Bob. More sophisticated approaches can add more layers of protection.

The most common one-way functions may be the Secure Hash Algorithm or SHA, a collection of functions approved by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. There are several different versions, and some weaknesses have been found in the earlier versions, so make sure you use a new one.

Pure encryption

Good encryption functions are built into many layers of the operating system and file system. Activating them is a good way to add some basic security against low-level attackers and people who might gain physical access to your device. If youre storing data on your laptop, keeping it encrypted saves some of the worry if you lose the machine.

Regular encryption functions, though, are not one-way. Theres a way to unscramble the data. Choosing regular encryption is often unavoidable because youre planning on using the data, but it leaves another pathway for the attackers. If you can apply the right key to unscramble the data, they can find a copy of that key and deploy it too. Make sure you read the section above about guarding secrets.

Fake data

While some complain about fake news corrupting the world, fake data has the potential to protect us. Instead of opening up the real data set to partners or insiders who need to use it for projects like AI training or planning, some developers are creating fake versions of the data that have many of the same statistical properties.

RTI, for instance, created a fake version of the US Census complete with more than 110 million households holding more than 300 million people. Theres no personal information of real Americans but the 300 million fake people are more or less in the same parts of the country and their personal details are pretty close to the real information. Researchers predicting the path of infectious diseases were able to study the US without access to real personal data.

An AI company, Hazy, is delivering a Python-based tool that will run inside secure data centers and produce synthetic versions of your data that you can share more freely.

Differential privacy

The term describes a general approach to adding just enough noise to the data to protect the private information in the data set while still leaving enough information to be useful. Adding or subtracting a few years to everyones age at random, for instance, will hide the exact birth years of the people but the average wont be affected.

The approach is most useful for larger statistical work that studies groups in aggregate. The individual entries may be corrupted by noise, but the overall results are still accurate.

Microsoft has started sharing White Noise, an open source tool built with Rust and Python, for adding a finely tuned amount of noise to your SQL queries.

Homomorphic encryption

Most encryption algorithms scramble the data so completely that no one can make any sense of the results without the proper key. Homomorphic approaches use a more sophisticated framework so that many basic arithmetic operations can be done on the encrypted data without the key. You can add or multiply without knowing the underlying information itself.

The simplest schemes are practical but limited. Chapter 14 of Translucent Databases describes simple accounting tools that can, for instance, support addition but not multiplication. More complete solutions can compute more arbitrary functions, but only after much more expensive encryption.

IBM is now sharing an open source toolkit for embedding homomorphic encryption in iOS and MacOS applications with the promise that versions for Linux and Android will be coming soon. The tools are preliminary, but they offer the ability to explore calculations as complicated as training a machine learning model without access to the unencrypted data.

Keep nothing

Programmers may be packrats who keep data around in case it can be useful for debugging later. One of the simplest solutions is to design your algorithms to be as stateless and log-free as possible. Once the debugging is done, quit filling up the disk drives with lots of information. Just return the results and stop.

Keeping as little information as possible has dangers. Its harder to detect abuse or fix errors. But on the flip side, you dont need to worry about attackers gaining access to this digital flotsam and jetsam. They cant attack anyones personal data if it doesnt exist.
Aer Lingus Regional will be launching new flights from Belfast City Airport

Aer Lingus Regional has launched its new flights from George Best Belfast City Airport to Edinburgh.

The service, operated by Stobart Air, will fly passengers to the Scottish capital up to three times a day - filling a route left vacant after the collapse of Flybe in March.

It is the first of six new routes that Aer Lingus Regional will start from Belfast City.

The airline has said that Birmingham, East Midlands, Exeter, Leeds Bradford and Manchester will follow "in a phased approach, in line with passenger demand and Government guidance". All had previously been served by Flybe.

Airport commercial director Katy Best said: "Edinburgh has always been a very popular route from Belfast City, and we are delighted Aer Lingus Regional has re-established this service since it was left vacant by Flybe.

"Like many industries, the aviation market has had a challenging 2020 in light of Covid-19. However, ensuring essential connectivity remains in place was a key priority for us and that is what we have achieved with Aer Lingus Regional.

"Having already enjoyed eight successful years with Aer Lingus on our London Heathrow service, we are looking forward to working with the airline again, in partnership with Stobart Air, to further grow and strengthen our route network."

Stobart Air managing director Andy Jolly said the airline had been working hard over the last few months to protect its business and position it for the future.

"The launch of this service from Belfast is part of that.

"This new Aer Lingus Regional route will facilitate key links and connectivity between Belfast and Edinburgh and will ensure we provide choice, value and convenience for our customers.

"We look forward to welcoming our passengers on board this new Belfast-Edinburgh route."

Five ATR72-600 aircraft will be based at Belfast City Airport for the six new routes.

Loganair became the first airline to announce it would be flying on ex-Flybe route from Belfast when it announced it would take over Belfast to Aberdeen and Inverness to Belfast.

Stobart Air, following guidance from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), said it had implemented health and safety measures to protect staff, crew and passengers.

Measures include improved aircraft cleaning, mandatory face coverings/masks on all flights except for the under-sixes and those who are unable to wear a face mask for medical reasons.

Figures from the Civil Aviation Authority have confirmed the impact of Covid-19 on passenger numbers for both Belfast City Airport and Belfast Interational. In June 2019 the number of passengers who passed through Belfast International was 612,034 - but that plummeted to 14,896 during the same month this year.

Meanwhile, at George Best Belfast City Airport a mere 10,856 passengers passed through this June - a drop of 95%. Last June the number was 230,898.
Banks are trying to sell Vinaxukis assets to collect debts, but the assets remain unsold.

Vietcombank is offering for sale Vinaxukis workshop, machines and equipment in Hau Loc district in Thanh Hoa province. This is the fourth time the bank has announced the sale of assets to collect long existing debts.

The workshops have been left idle

In early April, Vietcombank put Vinaxukis assets on sale at the starting price of VND44.3 billion, but there was no buyer. The starting price was lowered the next time to VND42.9 billion and VND39.5 billion. And now the bank is offering the assets at VND36.3 billion.

In early 2019, Vietcombank sued Vinaxuki Thanh Hoa Automobile Co Ltd in the Hau Loc districts Court. The bank asked Vinaxuki to implement the repayment of the VND188 billion debt, including the principal of VND98 billion and interest of VND89.7 billion.

Vinaxukis president and CEO Bui Ngoc Huyen confirmed the principal of VND98 billion and said Vinaxuki could not pay the debt. Vinaxuki accepted to let Vietcombank foreclose the collateral to collects debt, as the two parties agreed in 2015.

According to Huyen, in 2009, Vinaxuki invested VND200 billion in the automobile factory in the first phase of the project, setting up assembling workshops, bodyshell workshop and component storehouse. The total asset value had reached VND297.227 billion by 2012.

Huyen believes that if Vinaxuki could have continued to borrow capital in 2013, just VND200 billion, the factory would have resumed operation and it would have paid all the bank debts after three years, because the automobile market at that time began seeing high growth rates.

In mid-February, BIDV released an announcement about choosing the organization to auction Vinaxukis and Xuan Kien Thai Nguyen Automobile Co Ltds assets which were collateral for the loans BIDV provided to VInaxuki and the factory in Thai Nguyen province.

As of mid-September 2019, the total principal and interest of the loan had reached VND1.265 trillion. The collateral for the loan included a land plot and assets on the land located in Tien Phong commune of Me Linh district in Hanoi, with the total area of 138,814 square meters. This is where Vinaxukis manufacturing factory is located.

The collateral also included the machines and equipment at Vinaxuki Me Linh, the right to exploit antimony ore mine, the ore sorting line in Cu Jut district of Dak Nong province, and the assets on land at Vinaxuki Thai Nguyen factory.

Trillions of dong turn into scrap

In 2004, Vinaxuki built its factory in Me Linh district in Hanoi which had the capacity of 20,000 products a year. In 2006-2008, the factory manufactured more than 20 truck lines with the localization ratio of 27 percent. After three years, the investor was able to take back the investment capital and paid bank debts.

The 2006-2009 period was the golden age of Vinaxuki. The annual lowest profit was VND90 billion, while the highest was VND160 billio.

In 2010, Vinaxuki began making cars with less than nine seats. With the governments encouragement, Vinaxuki decided to play big: more than VND900 billion was poured into metallurgy, draft casting, mold production, automatic equipment for the stamping line, plasma cutting, laser cutting, and automatic painting with robots. The manufacturer also set up factories in Thai Nguyen and Thanh Hoa.

During these years, Vinaxuki cooperated with Japanese companies and received technology transfer on car body and tire design, and built a design center. It also joined forces with some companies belonging to the Ministry of National Defence to research and develop armored vehicle with a chassis from Russia.

However, the projects stopped in 2012, when Vinaxuki incurred a loss of VND45 billion and had overdue debts. As the manufacturer had overdue debts, it could not continue to borrow money.

Vinaxuki, which had pioneered the movement of developing Vietnamese automobiles, fell into a tragic situation.

Some investors have shown their intention to buy Vinaxukis assets put up for liquidation, but just as scrap. Some others just want to buy the land to develop real estate projects. A large automobile company offered to buy the auto production line at VND670 billion, but the foreign partner did not agree on the price.

Huyen believes that if Vinaxuki could have continued to borrow capital in 2013, just VND200 billion, the factory would have resumed operation and it would have paid all the bank debts after three years, because the automobile market at that time began seeing high growth rates.

However, as the factory was hungry for capital, the production lines have been left idle since then.

According to Huyen, it would be ideal if the mortgaged assets can be sold at a price equal to 20 percent of the original value.

Tran Thuy

Local automobile manufacturers look forward to big preferences What should automobile manufacturers do  import cars for domestic sale or assemble cars domestically? They prefer the second solution, though the first brings higher profit.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / NeutriSci International Inc. ("NeutriSci" or the "Company") (TSX-V: NU, OTCQB: NRXCF, FRANKFURT: 1N9), an innovative technology company developing products for the nutraceutical industry, in conjunction with its manufacturing partner, Cryopharm, is pleased to announce new market entrance and the details of the release of new product lines in October 2020.

The existing Cryopharm product line consisting of Marbl melts will now be complemented by Kali Juice. Kali Juice is a delicious cannabis-infused drink mix with zero sugar and zero calories. It comes in three different flavors - Pink Lemonade, Raspberry Punch and Sweet Iced Tea.

All brands use the NeutriSci IP and technology as well as its proprietary ingredients to produce the products. The product lines, including Kushtabs and Zenstix, are planned for immediate launch in California with another Western state to be released next month and will have access to 600 dispensaries in the state.

The Company would also like to clarify that pursuant to its revenue recognition policy, the revenue received from the initial sample order for Japan will be recognized in the Q3 quarterly report. Revenues are recognized when the Company satisfies its performance obligation by transferring control of its product to a customer. Control is considered to be transferred at the time the customer receives the product.

After the previously announced news related to the project in Japan, receipt of the 7-tablet final working samples for the Japan project are approximately 10-15 days off schedule. This is due in large part to reduced production hours in Asia, as well as slower than anticipated shipping times because of current COVID conditions in the region. Approvals of the final packaging by Tabletz LLC. are expected to be completed during the next two weeks.

Glen Rehman, CEO of NeutriSci, stated: "We have encountered a delay in receiving the final version of working samples for the 7-tablet packaging for the Japan project. Production of the final version has been completed and has been shipped for final approval. We anticipate the final step to be completed in the next two weeks followed by the first initial order. We are looking forward to the launch of the Tabletz website as well as providing more details regarding the distribution network in Japan. Additionally, the progress that Cryopharm is making entering new markets presents a positive outlook for us."

Story continues

"I also want our investors to know and understand that we are doing our very best to complete the tasks related to Japan, California and beyond in a timely fashion because we are fully aware that during these times, we are going to be subject to lost time due to things beyond our control. Everyone is aware that these are difficult times and while we will experience challenges along the way, we will be successful in our endeavours", he added.

About NeutriSci International Inc.

NeutriSci specializes in the innovation, production, and formulation of nutraceutical products. Established in 2009, NeutriSci's is building sustainable sales models with Convenience, Chain Drug, and Mass Market and Supermarket retailers for neuenergy, the Company's natural energy and focus supplement that has at its core, the beneficial effects of blueberries. For more information, please visit: www.neutrisci.com.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of

NEUTRISCI INTERNATIONAL INC.

Glen Rehman

President and CEO

Tel: (403) 264-6320

For investor inquiries, please contact investors@neutrisci.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward-looking. 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 forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under the applicable laws.

Statements in this press release have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Products or ingredients are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

SOURCE: NeutriSci International Inc.





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/604022/NeutriSci-Provides-Corporate-Update-on-Contract-Partner-New-Markets-and-Product-Line




White House advisor Jared Kushner, who boarded the first Israel-UAE commercial flight to ever enter the Saudi airspace called the resumption of UAE-Israel air travel as historic. In a press conference, US President Donald Trumps senior adviser said that flight 971 of Israel's national carrier El Al marks the historic commencement of the 'Mideast journey'. The first commercial passenger plane to UAE took off on August 31 from Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv for Abu Dhabi with a joint US-Israeli delegation onboard led by President Donald Trump's son-in-law.

In an address shortly prior to the planes takeoff, Kushner hailed the US-brokered Israel-UAE peace agreement, saying, While this is a historic flight, we hope that it will start an even more historic journey in the Middle East and beyond. A day earlier, on August 29, Kushner addresses the press alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the U.S. National Security Adviser Robert OBrien calling the first flights scheduled take-off for the next day of great symbolic value and a key step in what is expected to be full normalization between Israel and the UAE. UAE becomes the third Arab country and the first Gulf nation after Egypt and Jordan to allow an Israeli plane to enter.

Today obviously we celebrate a historic breakthrough for peace, Kushner said, adding, the Trump negotiated deal implemented previously unthinkable economic, security, and religious cooperation. While this peace agreement was thought by many to be impossible, the stage is now set for even more, he added, hopeful that many Gulf nations will look forward to normalizing ties with Israel.

We must seize that optimism and we must continue to push to make this region achieve the potential that it truly has," US Presidents chief Mideast adviser said at the conference.

Read: Trump Adviser Says More Arab, Muslim Nations Likely To Normalise Ties With Israel

Read: Israeli, US Delegations Depart To UAE In 1st Direct Flight

On August 29, for the first time, UAE approved an Israeli El Al plane from Tel Aviv to mark its journey in the kingdom. While a formal agreement on air travel is expected to be signed between the two nations in Washington in weeks ahead, the two previously rival nations agreed to allow planes to fly from Israel to the Emirates. Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu said at the conference and on Twitter that he was willing to negotiate peace with other countries in the Gulf region on the basis of the Trump plan.As more Arab and Muslim countries join the circle of peace, the Palestinians will eventually understand their veto has dissipated, he said.

The Israeli Airline Pilots Association publishes the route map for the first Israeli commercial flight between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi, carrying the US President's advisor Jared Kushner and the Israeli-American delegations. pic.twitter.com/BUAVkg3hW7  INTELSky (@Intel_Sky) August 31, 2020

Air India Boeing 787-8 first-ever to enter

Earlier, India made history in 2018 after Saudi allowed an Air India 139 plane to enter its airspace that landed at Israels Tel Avivs Ben Gurion Airport after 7-1/2 hours. Riyadh had never previously granted any planes including Air India overflight rights, according to reports. Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners entry in Saudi airspace broke the almost 70-year-old ban on air carriers to or Israel through Saudi airspace as Saudi did not recognize Israel. Indias plane had also flown over Oman, according to Reuters report, which also does not recognize Israel that gave India an advantage over the rest of the countries in the world.

[US National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and U.S. President Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner prepare to board a flight with an Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi for talks meant to put final touches on the normalization deal between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, at Ben-Gurion International Airport. Credit: AP]

[The Arabic, English, and Hebrew word for "peace" is seen on the Israeli flag carrier El Al's airliner which will carry Israeli and U.S. delegations to Abu Dhabi. Credit: AP]

[Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat, left, U.S. President Donald Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner, center, and U.S. National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien, right, board the Israeli flag carrier El Al's airliner. Credit: AP]

Read: Protesters Gather Outside Israeli PM's Office In Jerusalem

Read: Israel Hopes To Sign US-brokered Peace Deal With UAE By Mid-September

(With Agency Inputs)

(Image Credit: AP)
File photo of an armed local man patrolling his town in Mexico (AFP or licensors)

One of Mexico's most notorious drug cartels is engaged in a deadly turf war, and has turned to packing drones with explosives to eliminate those who oppose it.

By James Blears - Mexico City, Mexico

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is using drones strapped with C4 explosives to attack rivals in the western Mexican state of Michocan.

The principal targets are illicit armed vigilante groups which formed to fend off a campaign of terror by the drug cartel.

The cartel formed in 2011 and now operates in 24 of Mexico's 32 States, trafficking drugs to the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Terrorist trappings

According to the Federal Attorney General's Office, the cartel now faces terrorism as well as organized crime charges.



Back in May more of their C4 drones were discovered in Puebla, less than an hour's drive from Mexico City.

C4 is a plastic explosive extensively used by the US Armed Forces, and has a history dating back to the Vietnam War. It's used for terrorism purposes by Al-Qaeda.

Deadly drug war

The Jalsico New Generation Cartel, which now has access to it and recently posted a film of itself posing as a small army with armed cars, is known for extreme violence.

In 2015 it shot down an army helicopter with a surface to air missile.

It's leader, nicknamed El Mencho, was jailed on heroin charges in the United States in the early 1990's, then returned to Mexico and became a police officer, before devoting himself to cartel life.

More than a quarter of a million people have died during Mexico's drug war, which is still ongoing.
Actor Rhea Chakraborty has filed a police complaint against media persons for gathering inside her residential complex. As per a Mumbai Police officials statement to ANI, she has asked the police to tell the media not to obstruct her way and to work keeping her constitutional rights in mind.

Earlier last week, Rhea had shared a video of her father getting mobbed by the press outside their home. She wrote in her caption, This is inside my building compound , The man in this video is my father Indrajit Chakraborty (retd. army officer). We have been trying to get out of our house to cooperate with ED , CBI and various investigation authorities to cooperate . There is a threat to my life and my familys life . We have informed the local police station and even gone there , no help provided . We have informed the investigation authorities to help us get to them , no help arrived . How is this family going to live ? We are only asking for assistance , to cooperate with the various agencies that have asked us . I request @mumbaipolice to please provide protection so that we can cooperate with these investigation agencies . #safetyformyfamily. In covid times , these basic law and order restrictions need to be provided . Thankyou.

In another video, she filmed her building security guard, narrating how he was attacked by the media. Ram is my buildings watchman for the last 10 years , He is hurt , he was hit by #media. Media people have entered my building compound and hurt the security guards and my father . Is this not a crime ? Who is responsible for this ? Is there any law at all ? Are we barbarians? #justiceforram. Will the concerned authorities kindly take notice , there are children and elders living in this building too . Or is this the system we live in? she had captioned her post. The video isnt available on her profile now. Rhea had asked the Mumbai Police for protection of her and her family.

Also read: Happy birthday Rajkummar Rao: 5 must-watch films of the actor that prove he is one of the finest of his generation

Monday was the fourth straight day of questioning of Rhea, accused of abetting the suicide of her actor boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput, who was found dead at his Bandra home on June 14. Rhea and her brother were questioned at the DRDO guest house in suburban Kalina where the probe team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is stationed.

According to a police official, from the DRDO guest house, she left for her residence in suburban Santacruz in the evening but could not enter the premises due to presence of a large number of media persons outside the building.

(With inputs from PTI)

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By Ben Blanchard and Yew Lun Tian

TAIPEI/BEIJING (Reuters) - Czech Senate speaker Milos Vystrcil will "pay a heavy price" for making an official trip to Taiwan, the Chinese government's top diplomat said on Monday, prompting Prague to summon China's ambassador to explain comments it said "crossed the line".

Vystrcil arrived in Taipei on Sunday on a visit to promote business links with Taiwan, and said the Czech Republic would not bow to Beijing's objections. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province ineligible for state-to-state relations.

"The Chinese government and Chinese people won't take a laissez-faire attitude or sit idly by, and will make him (Vystrcil) pay a heavy price for his short-sighted behaviour and political opportunism," China's foreign ministry cited State Councillor Wang Yi as saying.

Wang, who was visiting Germany, gave no further details of how Beijing would respond.

Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek said that although the government did not support the trip, Wang's remarks were too strong and he summoned the Chinese ambassador to explain.

"Minister Wang's statement has crossed the line, such strong words don't belong in relations between two sovereign countries," Petricek said on Twitter, calling for cooperation "without emotions which don't belong in diplomacy."

Vystrcil said Wang's comments were an interference in Czech internal affairs and that his visit was not meant to "politically confront anyone".

"We are a free country seeking to have good relationships with all countries and I believe this will be the case in the future irrespective of the statement of the minister," he said in a statement.

Speaking later at a Taipei university, Vystrcil praised Taiwan and its democratic way of life.

Taiwan Economics Minister Wang Mei-hua, speaking before a business forum with Vystrcil, told reporters the Czech Republic and Taiwan were both "free and democratic countries which put great store on human rights".

Czech President Milos Zeman has sought closer business and political ties with China since taking office in 2013, but his efforts have been hit by failed investment plans and Czech wavering about allowing China's Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL] to play a role in developing next-generation telecoms networks.

(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian in Beijing and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Additional reporting by Robert Muller in Prague; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Lincoln Feast and Timothy Heritage)
Could Princess Diana have survived the crash? By Prof. Ravindra Fernando View(s): View(s):

Princess Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed departed from the rear entrance of the Ritz Hotel around 12:20 am on August 31, 1997, heading for Dodis apartment in Rue Arsene Houssaye in Paris. They were the rear passengers. Trevor Rees-Jones, a member of the Fayed familys personal protection team, was in the right front passenger seat.

Henri Paul, the deputy head of security at the hotel drove the Mercedes-Benz S280 to elude the paparazzi following the Princess and Dodi. They drove along the embankment road along the right bank of the River Seine into the underpass.

Around 12:23 a.m. at the entrance to the tunnel, Paul lost control. The car swerved to the left of the two-lane carriageway before colliding head-on with the 13th pillar supporting the roof at an estimated speed of 105 km/h (65 mph). It then spun and hit the stone wall of the tunnel backwards, finally coming to a stop.

As the victims lay in the wrecked car, the photographers, who were following the car rejoined, rushed to help, tried to open the doors and help the victims, while some of them took pictures. Critically injured, 36-year-old Diana was reported to murmur repeatedly, Oh my God. Fayed had been sitting in the left rear passenger seat and appeared to be dead.

None of the occupants was wearing seat belts.

Paul and Dodi were taken to the Institut Medico-Legal (IML), the Paris mortuary, not to a hospital. Autopsy examination concluded that Paul and Fayed had both suffered multiple injuries.

Rees-Jones, who had suffered multiple serious facial injuries was conscious. Princess Diana, who had been sitting in the right rear passenger seat, was also conscious. It was first reported that she was crouched on the floor of the vehicle with her back to the road. It was also reported that a photographer described her as bleeding from the nose and ears with her head resting on the back of the front passenger seat. He tried to remove her from the car but her feet were stuck. Then he told her that help was on the way and to stay awake; there was no answer, just blinking.

A physician of Frances emergency medical service SAMU (Service dAide Medicale Urgente), which arrived soon after said in a deposition that Princess Diana was crying out. When he could not reassure her, he started an intravenous drip in her arm and at 12:45 am infused intravenous midazolam (a sedative) and fentanyl (an opioid analgesic 80 times more potent than morphine), to calm her down.

After administering the drugs and beginning to extract the patient from the car, the physician noted that Princess Diana went into cardiac arrest (her heart stopped beating). He performed endotracheal intubation (inserting a tube into her windpipe to open and maintain her airway), placed her on a respirator (to ventilate her lungs with oxygen through the tube in her windpipe), and performed external cardiac massage to reestablish her cardiac rhythm. There apparently was no appreciation for the seriousness of her internal blunt injuries. The SAMU team spent about 30 more minutes (from around 12:50 a.m.  after the cardiac arrest  to 1:19 a.m.) tending to Princess Diana in the tunnel.

At 1:19 am, the SAMU team contacted the SAMU de Paris medical dispatcher to request permission to take her to a hospital four miles away. The medical dispatcher called the hospital to assess for ICU bed availability, which was normal procedure. Emergency departments at the time were not equipped to deal with critically injured patients!

At 1:29 am, the hospital agreed to the SAMU medical dispatchers request. Thus, by the time the SAMU medical dispatcher had finalised the decision for the SAMU ambulance to proceed to the hospital, Princess Diana had been at the scene bleeding internally into her chest for 64 minutes (12:25 am-1:29 am). The golden hour was used up, but she was still alive, attesting to the potential survivability of her injuries.

Princess Diana was treated at the scene for a heart attack and only after two hours was taken to hospital. By the time she arrived, she was unconscious under artificial respiration, and her blood pressure was low, but her heart was still beating.

At 2.10 a.m., she suffered a second heart attack, after which she received large doses of adrenaline to keep her heart beating. Following surgery, her heart was massaged by hand to keep it beating. Her torn pulmonary vein was stitched and the internal haemorrhaging was controlled. Finally, the princess received electric-shock therapy to try to keep her heart beating. When that failed, she was pronounced dead at 4 a.m.

Please turn to Page 6

At a news conference one hour later, the doctors read a five-sentence communique that cited an important wound in the left pulmonary vein as the source of the internal bleeding that killed her. The communique made no specific mention of other lesions. Nor did the French coroners report, which listed the cause of death as internal hemorrhaging due to a major chest trauma and a phenomenon of deceleration which caused a rupture of the left pulmonary vein.

An 18-month French judicial investigation concluded in 1999 that the crash was caused by Paul, who lost control of the car at high speed while drunk. His inebriation may have been made worse by the presence of an anti-depressant drug and traces of a tranquilising anti-psychotic drug in his body.

Since February 1998, Dodis father, Mohamed Al-Fayed (the owner of the Hotel Ritz, for which Paul worked) claimed that the crash was a result of a conspiracy, and later contended that the crash was orchestrated by MI6 on the instructions of the Royal Family. (The Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence arm of the UK government). His claims were dismissed by a French judicial investigation and by Operation Paget, a Metropolitan Police Service inquiry that concluded in 2006.

In the UK, an inquest headed by Lord Justice Scott Baker into the deaths of Diana and Dodi began at the Royal Courts of Justice, London, on October 2, 2007. This was a continuation of the inquest that began in 2004. On April 7, 2008, the Coroners jury concluded that Diana and Dodi were unlawfully killed by the Grossly negligent driving of the following vehicles and of the Mercedes adding that additional factors were the impairment of the judgment of the driver of the Mercedes through alcohol and the death of the deceased was caused or contributed to by the fact that the deceased was not wearing a seat-belt, the fact that the Mercedes struck the pillar in the Alma Tunnel, rather than colliding with something else.

The pioneering heart surgeon Professor Christiaan Barnard, who considered himself a friend of the princess, said in a book that he can no longer keep quiet about his views on the tragedy. Her death stunned me all the more as I was able to get a look at the particulars of the autopsy findings very soon after her death, he wrote in the book. I think she could have been saved because, according to the report which I have seen, she died of internal bleeding. The injury which caused the bleeding was to a (pulmonary) vein which doesnt bleed particularly quickly. In fact, it bleeds rather slowly. What I want to say here is that, if Princess Diana had been brought to hospital within 10 minutes of the accident  something which should easily have been possible  and, once there, had been cared for properly, she could have survived.
By PTI

MUMBAI: Four people were killed while as many others were injured on Monday night after a speeding car rammed into the footpath outside a restaurant in a busy market area in south Mumbai, police said.

Prima facie, the incident occurred when the driver of the car lost his control over the vehicle in Crawford Market area, an official said.

He said it was not clear whether the deceased were sitting on the footpath outside the restaurant or were travelling in the car.

Police rushed eight injured persons to state-run JJ hospital, where four of them were declared dead on arrival, the official added.

The deceased were identified as Naeem, Saroja, Zubeda and an unidentified woman.

Further investigation is underway.
PHILADELPHIA -- Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie has been pleased with DeSean Jacksons actions since the wide receiver was disciplined by the organization in July for his offensive social media posts that included erroneous quotes attributed to Nazi party leader Adolf Hitler.

Ive known DeSean for a long time, Lurie said Saturday during a video call with media. Obviously, we all have. He has, I think, really understood the ramifications of that appalling post. And, so far, everything that weve asked him to do -- to both educate himself and to learn and take action -- hes done completely. So, I hope that would continue.

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Lurie said he was disgusted by the posts, which included anti-Semitic rhetoric attributed to Hitler and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

The Eagles fined Jackson for his posts and required the veteran playmaker to take steps to educate himself on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. Within days of apologizing to Lurie, who is Jewish, Jackson met with a local rabbi for advisement and spoke with a Holocaust survivor through a video chat.

Lurie and Jackson spoke before the wide receiver was punished. During that discussion, Jackson explained his thought process in posting the message, and Lurie determined the next steps in the wide receivers road to redemption.

While Lurie is pleased with his progress so far, he said Jackson will need to continue to show he is being proactive in enacting positive change to earn forgiveness.

It doesnt take away the hurt, it doesnt take away the words, but I think that with DeSean, hes doing the right things and that has to continue, Lurie said. Thats a daily event, and thats where thats at.

Get Eagles text messages: Cut through the clutter of social media and text directly with beat writer Mike Kaye. Plus, exclusive news and analysis. Sign up now for a free trial.

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Mike Kaye may be reached at mkaye@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 31

By Ilkin Seyfaddini  Trend:

Uzbek-Azerbaijani relations have characteristics of a strategic partnership, Ambassador of Uzbekistan to Azerbaijan, Bakhrom Ashrafkhanov told Trend in an interview.

"Undoubtedly, the basis of such a high level of relations is a close and trusting dialogue between the leaders of our countries. It is gratifying that recently both sides have witnessed the growth of bilateral relations in all directions, including trade and economic sphere," stressed Ashrafkhanov.

As an example, in 2019 trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan increased by 55.7 percent to $73.4 million.

"No less important is the fact that despite the current crisis phenomena in the global economy caused by the coronavirus pandemic, trade and economic relations between our countries continue to demonstrate positive growth dynamics," he stated.

In the first half of 2020, bilateral trade between Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan increased by 77.7 percent, compared to the same period in 2019, to $47.5 million.

Ambassador Ashrafkhanov stressed that these figures do not reflect the full potential of bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

He also emphasized that both sides are making purposeful efforts to further increase mutual trade turnover.

"For example, during the period from June 9 through June 12, 2020, sides held the Made in Uzbekistan Online business forum, with the participation of representatives of official and business circles of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan," Ashrafkhanov said.

During this event, representatives of Azerbaijan were able to get acquainted with a wide range of Uzbek products in various directions, including agricultural, textile, electrical, automotive, and mining industries.

"The results of the business forum exceeded our expectations. Thus, more than 50 Uzbek producers of export-oriented products established contacts with representatives of more than 100 Azerbaijani companies," said the ambassador.

In this regard, the sides initiated a highly specialized 'Made in Uzbekistan' Textile online business forum in the period from August 25 through August 27, 2020.

Ashrafkhanov said the program of this event envisages intensive B2B meetings.

"In particular, 30 Uzbek producers of export-oriented textile products will have a unique opportunity to establish contacts with buyers, distributors, specialists of sewing enterprises, ateliers, representatives of retail chains, as well as potential investors from Azerbaijan," noted Bakhrom Ashrafkhanov.

"I am confident that this forum will be a milestone event in strengthening and further developing Uzbek-Azerbaijani relations" stated the ambassador.

He also stressed that transportation routes from Central Asia through the Caspian Sea and further through the Caucasus are becoming especially

"In this regard, the widespread use of the Trans-Caucasus Transport Corridor for the transportation of increasing volumes of export-import cargo is in the interests of our states. We also believe that the transport corridor Baku-Tbilisi-Kars, as well as the commissioning of the Baku International Port, establishes new routes to international markets. In this context, we are grateful that the Azerbaijani side is making an effort to form transport corridors and necessary infrastructure," stressed Ashrafkhanov.

Ashrafkhanov noted that at present, the Uzbek side is carefully analyzing the possibilities of increasing its cargo flow through these corridors and an active negotiation process between the involved structures of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan is underway.

"Recently we have been promoting interregional cooperation, taking into account its important role in bringing our brotherly countries and people together. In this context, we are satisfied with the announcement of Rishtan and Ismayilli as sister cities in 2018. Last year's visit of the delegation of the Bukhara region to Lankaran city, as well as to Lerik, Astara and Masalli districts of Azerbaijan was a continuation of our activities in this direction," said the ambassador.

He also added that sides will start working on further expansion of interregional cooperation soon.

According to the ambassador, the Uzbek side is pleased that Azerbaijani entrepreneurs have shown great interest in Uzbekistan, given the large-scale transformations taking place in the country.

"As you know, under the leadership of President of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, special attention is paid to the creation of a favorable business environment for foreign investors interested in realization of their projects in our country. At the present stage in Uzbekistan has one of the most favorable conditions for investments and starting a business," stated Ashrafkhanov.

He also added that these conditions are not just the result of economic liberalization but also sign of professionalism and perseverance of Uzbek people

As he said, currently seven projects worth about $80 million are being implemented in Andijan, Bukhara, Kashkadarya, Syrdarya, and Fergana regions of Uzbekistan, as well as in Tashkent city in cooperation with Azerbaijani Embassy.

At the same time, several other investment projects are under consideration, which covers sectors such as construction, agriculture, energy, IT, food, and others.

"In turn, I would like to note that the Uzbek side does not ignore the large-scale transformations taking place in brotherly Azerbaijan. To date, Uzbek companies have shown interest in different spheres of Azerbaijani economy such as car manufacturing, agriculture, IT, textiles industry, electrical engineering, and others," said ambassador Ashrafkhanov.

According to him some 195 enterprises with participation of Azerbaijani capital are operating in Uzbekistan, 69 of them are joint ventures and the rest of them are operating with 100 percent of Azerbaijani capital.

Moreover, as he said, some 19 new enterprises with participation of the Azerbaijani capital were created in Uzbekistan in the first half of 2020.

"Their main spheres of activity are trade, mechanical engineering and metal processing, finance, and insurance, real estate operations, energy, services, production and repair of jewelry, food industry, light industry. I will also note that we have not only manufacturing companies, but also high-tech companies engaged in artificial intelligence, informatization, e-government, etc.," said ambassador Ashrafkhanov.

"Taking into account the intensification of trade-economic and investment cooperation between Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, we hope that the number of joint ventures will continue to increase," stated the ambassador.

Ashrafkhanov also noted that the development of cooperation in tourism is no less a priority in the Uzbek agenda.

Uzbekistan has 7,300 cultural heritage sites in the country, which makes over 90 percent of all historical monuments in the region. More than 500 of them are included in tourist routes. Among the main pearls are monuments in Bukhara, Samarkand, Khiva, and Shahrisabz.

"Over the past four years, at the initiative of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan has been implementing large-scale reforms in all spheres of life, including tourism, which has been identified as a priority and strategic sector of the economy. As part of this activity, active measures are being taken to improve the tourism potential, including the promotion of pilgrimage tourism, as well as provide many benefits and incentives for market participants," said ambassador Ashrafkhanov.

He noted the increased dynamics of tourist flow from Azerbaijan as well, and according to him, it increases annually by almost 20 percent.

"It is pleasant to note that contacts between administrations of tourism of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan have recently become more frequent, within the framework of which the agreement on promotion of mutually beneficial cooperation in this direction was reached. Important in this context is the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding in July 2019 in Baku on education and science between the Silk Road International University of Tourism and the Azerbaijan University of Tourism and Management," said the Ambassador.

On August 25, 2020, the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Azerbaijan held an event to mark the 22nd anniversary of Uzbek diplomatic mission in Baku. The event was attended by diplomats of the Embassy (including Ambassador Ashrafkhanov himself), employees of representative offices of Uzbekistan Airways JSC, and UzAuto Motors JSC in Azerbaijan, citizens of Uzbekistan living in Baku, as well as representatives of local media.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE: Illinois-based Slavic Gospel Association (SGA, www.sga.org ) is leading a major humanitarian effort to feed hungry families and orphans struggling due to the economic devastation caused by COVID-19 in Russia and the former Soviet Union. So far, SGA and local evangelical churches have helped around 20,000 families and supplied enough groceries for nearly 2 million meals.

Slavic Gospel Association helps feed 20,000 families on edge of hunger, supplies nearly 2 million meals

NEWS PROVIDED BY

Slavic Gospel Association (SGA)

Aug. 31, 2020

LOVES PARK, Ill., Aug. 31, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- An Illinois-based, international organization is leading a major humanitarian effort to feed hungry families and orphans struggling due to the economic devastation caused by COVID-19 in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

Slavic Gospel Association (SGA, www.sga.org) has served its grassroots network of 6,350 local evangelical church partners in the vast region by supplying enough groceries for nearly 2 million meals that have helped around 20,000 vulnerable families, many on the edge of starvation.

SGA and local churches are targeting the most at-risk, including orphans, elderly shut-ins, and single-parent families as part of the organization's Christ Over COVID campaign (www.sga.org/COVID).

With COVID-19 still spreading through the massive region -- stretching across 11 time zones -- millions of people are struggling to put food on the table. Russia has the fourth largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases, more than 960,000.

"Some are so desperate they've been on the brink of suicide," said SGA president Michael Johnson.

One mother -- who lost her job at a local cafe when it was forced to close -- was going to hang herself because she had nothing to feed her kids. Members of a local church came to her door just in time, carrying groceries.

"If we stop giving food to these families, they will simply be left to starve," said a pastor in Ukraine.

Orphans -- and children who've been removed from dysfunctional homes because of alcoholic parents and abuse -- are among the most food insecure. Prior to COVID-19, more than 700,000 unwanted children and orphans -- equal to the entire population of Boston -- were housed in bleak, under-funded orphanages from Eastern Europe to Siberia. Many of these children were forced to return to abusive homes as orphanages shuttered due to the pandemic.

The 'Forgotten' Children of COVID-19

"They're truly the 'forgotten,'" Johnson said. "Some commit suicide, others end up as drug addicts or prostitutes, or turn to crime."

Veronika and her young siblings live in poverty, with no mother to look after them, and a father who's often drunk. The task of feeding the family falls to Veronika. It's difficult under normal circumstances, but COVID-19 has made it much worse.

Supported by SGA, a local church was able to deliver a food package to Veronika in the nick of time, just as supplies at home were running out.

"She was really happy to receive the food from us," a local volunteer said.

Millions in Russia and neighboring countries are in dire straits, with no safety net or stimulus package to help them. Even in normal times, the average monthly salary in Russia is about $500, with many surviving on much less.

With its extensive network of local evangelical church partners, SGA is able to deliver aid quickly to the exact point of need -- a crucial advantage when tackling a major crisis like COVID-19.

"We call our humanitarian response Christ Over COVID (www.sga.org/COVID) because we want to show people that God loves them and cares for them in the midst of this pandemic," Johnson said. "Love in action is powerful, gives people hope, and can transform their lives."

Founded in 1934, Slavic Gospel Association (SGA, www.sga.org) helps "forgotten" orphans, widows and families in Russia, the former Soviet countries of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel -- caring for their physical needs and sharing the life-transforming Gospel of Jesus Christ. SGA supports an extensive grassroots network of local evangelical missionary pastors and churches in cities and rural villages across this vast region.

SOURCE Slavic Gospel Association (SGA)

CONTACT: Jamie Bowers, 704-426-2400, jbowers@inchristcommunications.com

Related Links

www.sga.org/COVID

www.sga.org
Three people were killed and several others were injured on Monday in two separate explosions in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi and its tourism hub Dubai, the police and local media said.

The Abu Dhabi government media office said two people were killed in the blast in the capital, which the National daily reported had hit the KFC and Hardees restaurants on the citys Rashid bin Saeed Street.

The street is also known as a main road to the airport, where top aides to US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are expected to land later on Monday, in a historic trip between Israel and another Arab country.

The police said the Abu Dhabi incident also caused several minor and moderate injuries, and residents of the building and surrounding areas were evacuated. The Abu Dhabi government media office said the blast was caused by a misalignment in the gas container fittings following refuelling".

Photos published on social and local media showed extensive damage to the two restaurants with a white plume of smoke rising from the ground floor of the building.

In Dubai, one person was killed when a gas cylinder exploded in a restaurant early on Monday, local media reported.

Abu Dhabi-owned The National newspaper, quoting a Dubai Civil Defence spokesperson, said the blast in Dubai had caused a blaze that damaged the ground floor of the building. The fire was controlled within 33 minutes, it added.
Frances President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Beirut hours after Lebanese leaders named diplomat Mustapha Adib as the new prime minister on Monday under French pressure, and will press for reforms aimed at dragging the Middle East nation out of a financial abyss.

With its economy devastated by a financial crisis, a swathe of Beirut in tatters following a huge port explosion on Aug. 4, and sectarian tensions rising, Lebanon is facing the biggest threat to its stability since the 1975-90 civil war.

Macron was met at the airport by President Michel Aoun in the French leaders second visit in less than a month. So President, its been a busy day, hasnt it, Macron told Aoun.

He also addressed the Lebanese people in an Arabic-language tweet, saying he had returned as promised to work together to create necessary conditions for reconstruction and stability.

Macron will push politicians to enact reforms that donors have demanded to tackle corruption and waste before they will release financial support.

Senior Lebanese officials said Macrons mediation was essential in securing agreement on a new prime minister in the 48 hours before consensus emerged on Adib, the former ambassador to Germany. Politicians had been deadlocked last week.

The opportunity for our country is small and the mission I have accepted is based on all the political forces acknowledging that, said Adib, who won the support of nearly all Lebanons main parties in consultations hosted by Aoun.

There is no time for talk and promises ... Its the time to work with everyones cooperation, he said.

He called for the formation of a government of competent specialists in record time, an immediate start to reforms and a deal with the International Monetary Fund. Lebanons talks with the IMF on vital support have been stalled since July.

Forming governments has often taken months in the past.

We welcome the nomination of a new prime minister and hope that a new government will be formed shortly with a mandate to implement the policies and reforms that Lebanon needs to address the current crisis and restore sustainable growth, an IMF spokesperson told Reuters.

Adib, who has a doctorate in law and political science, later visited areas hardest hit by the port explosion that killed some 190 people and injured 6,500.

Our children died. We dont recognise you, a passerby shouted at him as he inspected the shattered neighbourhoods. Another offered to shake hands with Adib, who wore a facemask as Lebanon battles COVID-19.

The explosion, caused by what authorities say were 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored at the port, led to the resignation of the previous government, now acting as caretaker.

UNDER PRESSURE

Since October, the crisis has sunk Lebanons currency, locked savers out of deposits held by a paralysed banking system and fuelled poverty and unemployment. The root cause is decades of corruption and waste overseen by a political elite.

Macrons visit coincides with Lebanons centenary, at a time of profound doubts that it has a future as a viable state under the sway of former warlords and sectarian leaders loyal to different regional masters, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Macron made a series of phone calls to Lebanese leaders at the weekend that were vital to securing consensus on Adib.

It was the pressure of his calls to everyone, the pressure of his coming to Lebanon, the pressure of everyone not wanting to upset him, a senior Lebanese politician said.

A French presidency source said Macron was demanding a government of mission, clean, efficient, able to implement the necessary reforms in Lebanon.

Macron told journalists on Friday that the exceptional moment facing Lebanon led him to increase pressure.

France has convinced its European and American partners and a good part of the regional partners that we are honest brokers, he said.

Adibs name surfaced on Sunday when he was nominated by former prime ministers, including Saad al-Hariri who heads the biggest Sunni Muslim party. Under the Lebanese system, the post of premier must go to a Sunni.

Hariris Future Movement and the powerful Iranian-backed Shiite party Hezbollah were among those nominating him.

With Hariris backing, Adib will enjoy more support than Hassan Diabs outgoing government, nominated by Hezbollah and its allies which together have a parliamentary majority.

Lebanon won pledges of more than $11 billion in support at a Paris conference in 2018 conditional on reforms it failed to carry out.

(Reporting by Tom Perry, Laila Bassam, Samia Nakhoul and Ahmad Kerdi in Beirut and Elizabeth Pineau and Michel Rose in Paris; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Michael Georgy, Edmund Blair and Catherine Evans)
President Donald Trump and his party are entering the nine-week stretch until Election Day with their success riding on a hope that enough voters come to the following conclusion: Youre not as bad as we thought.

As part of this strategy, Republicans and the Trump campaign are attempting to focus voters minds away from the pandemic and economic crisis and on a narrower set of cultural issues. For example, the nation is in dire straits, they say, not because of COVID-19 deaths or double-digit unemployment or racial discord, but because of liberals who want to cancel conservatives, criminals who are rampaging from the cities into white suburbs and a Democratic presidential ticket that is a Trojan horse for Fidel Castro-style authoritarianism.

These topics often consume conservative media, are already appearing in ads from the Trump campaign and his allies  and were mentioned repeatedly over the four nights of the Republican National Convention.

To complement the drumbeat of panic about the radical left, convention speakers stressed their personal experiences with the president and shared affirmations about his character  a man of deep compassion and endless kindness with an exceptional work ethic, they said. And they attempted to refute the idea that he dislikes Black people, women and immigrants, calling those divisive characterizations by the left and distortions of a media fog machine. Ben Carson, the only Black member of Trumps Cabinet, said people who called the president racist could not be more wrong.

Strategists in both parties say this attempt to reframe the countrys understanding of who the president is could backfire, coming off as dismissive of the acute racial awareness that has been leading people of all political beliefs and races to re-examine their attitudes about discrimination.

But they also said it just might work.

It is a fascinating tightrope theyre walking on because on the one hand Trump is saying some of the most racist, bombastic stuff ever to come out of the mouth of a nominee of a major political party, said Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who worked for Barack Obamas two presidential campaigns, when racial attitudes were never far from the surface. At the same time, they are professing and having others validate that he is not a racist. The contradiction is mind boggling.

Belcher added, It is diabolical, but its also brilliant.

Inside Republican campaigns across the country, operatives are intent on reaching a relatively small slice of the electorate: Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who have either not voted or voted for Democrats since Trump took office because they dislike his style and leadership. The goal between now and the election is to make these more moderate voters feel comfortable again being associated with a party they think has lurched far to the right, unapologetically condoning and courting racists, bigots and other extremists.

Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster, called these wobbly Republicans and said they are often deeply conflicted about voting in November. The goal of Republicans this fall, she said, is to remind them why theyre Republicans.

The idea is to aggressively push back against the caricature of Republicans, which is something that a wobbly Republican doesnt want to be, she said. If youre a Trump Republican, you reject that characterization. But if youre a wobbly Republican, you probably internalize that.

Convincing voters to accept this less blemished version of the president, which strategists say is probably Trumps best hope of winning enough of the roughly 5% to 7% of the country that is still undecided, is problematic in that it essentially requires people to imagine that he has not been in charge all along. To forget that the immigrants he joined in a naturalization ceremony in front of the cameras werent people from the kinds of countries he profanely denigrated. To excuse him from responsibility for inflaming the tensions in cities that now resemble scenes of the very American carnage he vowed to end on Inauguration Day.

Polls show that the percentage of Americans who think the country is on the wrong track  which experts look to as a reliable predictor of how the incumbent president will perform  is near or exceeding 70%.

To bring wobbly Republicans back on board  not just with the party but with the man currently leading it  they need to change minds about the best-known person in the country. That is difficult though not unprecedented. Richard Nixon prevailed in the 1968 election after two humiliating losses that even he believed had crushed his hopes of becoming president  first to John F. Kennedy in 1960 and two years later in the California governors race. (The California loss was what prompted Nixons most famous utterance of self-pity, You wont have Nixon to kick around anymore, at what he said was his final news conference.)

But even Nixon had nothing like the level of mass media exposure that Trump has had, or anything like his insatiable desire to be in the spotlight. And over the five years since he first started running for president, his ubiquity has left few Americans without a firm opinion about him. His job approval ratings have been extraordinarily steady and more aligned with partisan affiliation than any president in the history of modern polling, according to the Pew Research Center.

He is who he is, said Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard who ran in the Republican presidential primary in 2016 against Trump. The idea that a glossy messaging operation could act as a facade over Trumps flaws, she said, is far-fetched.

I think what we know now is that Donald Trump cannot rise to the occasion; he cannot grow into the job, Fiorina added. He is someone who stokes controversy and conflict and outrage. Its who he was in his reality TV days and who he is as president of the United States.

Most Americans, she said, are focused on issues that the president and his campaign hope voters will overlook: When are we going to get this virus under control? When are we going to get my kids back to school? When is my favorite restaurant down the street going to reopen? And some of those Americans voted for Trump.

On the issues where Republicans are trying to shift the most negative perceptions of the president, the displays and affirmations at the convention do not match public opinion, polls show.

In July, Fox News asked registered voters about whether the believed that Trump and his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, had traits like compassion, judgment and mental soundness. On the question of compassion, only 36% responded that Trump did. Fifty-six percent said yes about Biden.

While pro-Trump speakers like Rudy Giuliani disparaged the Black Lives Matter movement and the demonstrators who marched in its name, polling from June and July showed that majorities of Americans have been supportive of the marchers and disapprove of the way the president has handled them. The percentage of people who believe racism and discrimination is a problem, including whites, soared north of 70% as protests grew. How the recent unrest and eruption of violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will affect these attitudes is unclear.

And 75% percent of Black Americans strongly disagree with Trumps claims that he has done much more to improve their lives than any other president since Abraham Lincoln, according to one recent survey.

The majority of the American public also continues to rate Trumps response to the pandemic poorly. And polls show that even Republicans overwhelmingly consider themselves in favor of wearing masks, despite the Trump administrations inconsistent and often dismissive approach to encouraging them.

Polling does show a growing percentage of Americans of every political persuasion say they have been afraid to express their political opinion. But priorities matter. And the issues that Americans continue to say they are concerned about more than any other, aside from the economy, are the coronavirus, leadership and race relations, according to Gallup.

David Winston, a Republican pollster, said that any politician who is not making the coronavirus recovery their focus is misguided.

Given that thats what everyone in the country is dealing with, if youre not talking about that, what exactly are you talking about? he asked.

Strategists in both parties said Trump and the Republicans do not want to be in a situation where they are seen as preaching to the choir to the exclusion of gettable swing voters like those wayward Republicans. But the base-first strategy that Trump is most comfortable with  which his party has dutifully followed in races down the ballot  has not served him well.

In 2018, Republicans in congressional races focused on a set of issues they assumed would drive up turnout in a party so thoroughly consumed by Trumps issues and persona. From Ohio to California, they ran ads warning about criminal gangs and drugs invading the suburbs. Following the presidents lead, they pointed to a threatening caravan of immigrants across the southern border. Some invoked the image of Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem in their ads.

Its not clear that at any point since the 2016 election that strategy has worked, other than in some deep red states in Senate races, said Nick Gourevitch, the head of research for the Global Strategy Group, a Democratic firm. Hes trying to re-create the exact circumstances of his 2016 victory. But the migrant caravan, all this stuff, theyve tried it and it hasnt worked.

c.2020 The New York Times Company
Japanese two-wheeler major Yamaha is currently evaluating electric mobilty ecosystem in India and can look at entering the segment in the next few years, according to a senior company official.

The company, which currently has two-wheeler manufacturing facilities at Surajpur (Uttar Pradesh), Faridabad (Haryana) and Chennai (Tamil Nadu), believes success of electric products would depend on available infrastructure, affordability and acceptance by the customers.

"We are conducting a feasibility study on EVs (electric vehicles) and are trying to understand the market requirements as well as the government's roadmap on EVs. We might introduce electric vehicles in India in next couple of years," Yamaha Motor India Sales (Senior Vice President) Ravinder Singh told PTI.

Electric vehicles are the future of automobile sector and have a very high potential in long term, he added.

"India can achieve success only through a clear roadmap, stable policy and proper planning," Singh said.

There are bigger challenges related to investments in infrastructure, charging stations, battery production and swapping infrastructure for electric vehicles, he noted.

Elaborating on the company's prowess in EV segment, he said Yamaha already has a tie up with Taiwanese manufacturer Gogoro to develop EVs in Taiwan.

The company has already launched the EC-05 electric scooter in Taiwan last year, Singh noted.

When asked if reduction in goods and services tax (GST) on two-wheelers would help in reviving the segment, Singh said, "A reduction in taxes anyday would help both businesses and customers in many ways."

He further said, "But as we enter the new normal phase with the unlock, we must embrace a holistic evaluation of the current scenario in order to rethink about how the automobile industry can be restored to its pre-COVID glory."

Apart from fiscal policies, the current state of businesses and their economic implications demand more discerning public policies that encourage engagement and warrant public safety, Singh said.

Two-wheelers currently attract GST of 28 percent.

On new product launches, he said the company has already launched BS-VI compliant scooters Fascino and Ray ZR, and 150cc bikes like the FZs, MT-15 and R15.

Besides, the company has also introduced BS-VI compliant FZS 25 and BS-VI version of FZ 25 in the 250cc category, he added.
Moderate temperatures and lower winds marked the 13th day of the White River fire on Sunday, but crews battling the Wasco County blaze warned that extreme drought temperatures and dry conditions are still making the fire challenging to contain.

The fire, which has caused hundreds of residents to evacuate since it started on Aug. 17, had spread to 14,391 acres as of Sunday morning. It is 10% contained.

According to a statement from the incident command center, the overnight fire crew focused on structure protection. No buildings have been damaged, but the fire burned right up to the foundations of some homes.

The fire has quickly burned through parts of the White River canyon, moving through grasses and toward structures.

Firefighters on Sunday will continue working the south and east sides of the fire, and monitor structures that are at risk. Both fixed wing aircrafts and helicopters will work the fire perimeter on those sides, if conditions allow. On the west side, crews will continue to try and contain the perimeter.

All residents of the Pine Grove area and Juniper Flat area to Highway 97 have been ordered to evacuate. Those in homes on Smock Road west of the intersection of Smock and Ayers roads have also evacuated, including homes on Ayers Road, Barber Lane and Barlow Road.

Shilo Inns The Dalles has opened up space for evacuees, at 3223 Bret Clodfelter Way, The Dalles 97058. Those wanting a safe place to put their livestock can call the Wasco County Fairgrounds in Tygh Valley, at 541-993-7263, to arrange shelter.

Other residents have told to be prepared to leave at any time, including those at homes from Woodcock Road to Driver Road, to the intersection of Smock and Ayers Road, including Muller Road. Residents from the area east of Highway 197, including Old Wapinita, and all of Oak Springs Road to the Deschutes River have also been told to be prepared to leave.

Residents of several areas have been told to be ready, including those at Sportsmans Park, Pine Hollow, Wamic, Tygh Valley, the west side of Highway 197, and the city of Maupin west of the Deschutes River.

Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Belarus Cracks Down on Journalists, 2 AP Staff Deported

MOSCOWBelarus, shaken by three weeks of massive protests against its authoritarian president, on Aug. 29 cracked down hard on the news media, deporting some foreign journalists reporting in the country and revoking the accreditation of many Belarusian journalists.

Two Moscow-based Associated Press journalists who were covering the recent protests in Belarus were deported to Russia on Aug. 29. In addition, the APs Belarusian journalists were told by the government that their press credentials had been revoked.

The Associated Press decries in the strongest terms this blatant attack on press freedom in Belarus. AP calls on the Belarusian government to reinstate the credentials of independent journalists and allow them to continue reporting the facts of what is happening in Belarus to the world, said Lauren Easton, the APs director of media relations.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists said accreditation rights were also taken away from 17 Belarusians working for several other media. Germanys ARD television said two of its Moscow-based journalists also were deported to Russia, a Belarusian producer faces trial on Aug. 31, and their accreditation to work in Belarus was revoked. The BBC said two of its journalists working for the BBC Russian service in Minsk also had their accreditation revoked and U.S.-funded radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said five of its journalists lost their accreditation.

Criticism over the crackdown came from both media outlets and governments.

The program director for ARDs biggest regional affiliate, WDR, which oversees the coverage of Belarus, called the treatment of its camera team absolutely unacceptable.

This shows once again that independent reporting in Belarus continues to be hindered and is made almost impossible, Joerg Schoeneborn said.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas summoned the Belarusian ambassador following the detention and expulsion of the foreign journalists in Minsk and said this attack on press freedom is another dangerous step toward more repression instead of dialogue with the population.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has consistently called for journalists to be able to do their work free from harassment, anywhere in the world, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The International Press Institute said authorities in Belarus must immediately drop all charges against journalists detained during recent police crackdowns, stop cancelling accreditation for foreign journalists and immediately halt interference with state-owned publishing houses.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus urged the government in Belarus to show restraint, to release those unjustly detained and to account for protesters reported missing.

We are concerned by the continued targeting of journalists, the blocking of independent media and opposition websites, intermittent internet blackouts, and random detentions of peaceful citizens exercising their rights of freedom of assembly and speech, she said.

Protests in Belarus began after the Aug. 9 presidential election that officials said gave President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office with 80 percent support. Protesters say the results were rigged and are calling for Lukashenko, who has run the country since 1994, to resign.

The protests, some of which drew enormous crowds estimated at 200,000 or more, are the largest and most sustained challenge yet to Lukashenkos 26 years in office, during which he consistently repressed opposition and independent news media.

On Aug. 30, tens of thousands of protesters streamed into central Minsk carrying balloons, flowers, and flags as Lukashenko turned 66.

Belarusians chanting Happy Birthday, you rat and flying red-and-white opposition flags gathered near Lukashenkos residence on Aug. 30 as protesters kept up pressure on the veteran leader to resign, before dispersing peacefully. Belarus had a white-red-white flag for a brief period in the early 1990s and it has become a symbol of its anti-government protests.

The hard-line leader has cast about for a strategy to end the wave of protests, with little success. In the first days of demonstrations, around 7,000 people were arrested. Some protesters were killed and many detainees were beaten by police. The violence didnt deter the protests and may have even galvanized the opposition. Strikes have broken out in several state-owned factories, which are the backbone of Belarus ailing economy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he would be willing to send in police to quell the protests in neighboring Belarus if Lukashenko asked him to, a prospect that clearly worries the United States.

We stand by our long-term commitment to support Belarus sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the aspirations of the Belarusian people to choose their leaders and to choose their own path, free from external intervention, Ortagus, the U.S. spokeswoman, said in the statement.

By Jim Heintz

Reuters contributed to this report.
FLINT, MI  Four suspects in the fatal shooting of a Flint security guard over a face ask requirement have been bound over to Genesee Circuit Court for trial.

Sharmel L. Teague, Larry E. Teague Jr., Brya S. Bishop, and Ramonyea T. Bishop were bound over Monday, Aug. 31, by Genesee District Judge Christopher R. Odette after a preliminary exam.

The case revolves around a May 1 incident at the Family Dollar in which 43-year-old Calvin J. Munerlyn was shot and killed after a dispute over a customer not wearing a mask into the store, off East Fifth Avenue.

Bianca Davis, a cashier at the store, testified a woman came into the store and was arguing with Duper, a nickname for Munerlyn.

Its alleged the argument stemming from Munerlyn telling the woman and her daughter, Brya Bishop, that they had to wear masks inside the store.

Davis testified Munerlyn directed the cashiers to not allow the woman to purchase anything.

Michigan State Police Trooper Benjamin Rowell testified he interviewed Sharmel Teague the day of the incident.

He testified she told police shed gone to the Family Dollar and got into an altercation with a security guard.

She explained to me she went to that store and was confronted by the security guard because her daughter Brya was not wearing a mask, Rowell testified.

Munerlyn followed the woman out of the store, and she was hit twice by the security guard.

Did she tell you why she believe the security guard punched her? questioned Genesee County Assistant Prosecutor Karen Hanson.

Because she spit on him, testified Rowell.

A search of Sharmel Teagues phone revealed she made phone calls to Larry Teague and Ramonyea Bishop around 20 minutes before the shooting.

She could not give me any details as to what those conversations were about, testified Rowell.

Flint Police Detective Victoria Lambaria testified shed interviewed Brya Bishop, Sharmel Teagues daughter.

Brya Bishop told police shed stayed by the vehicle in the parking lot when her mother got into the altercation inside the store with Munerlyn.

When questioned by Jodi Hemingway, Ramonyea Bishops attorney, on language allegedly used by Munerlyn directed at Sharmel Teague, Rowell testified the security guard had used expletives during their altercation outside the store.

After the initial altercation, Lambaria testified Brya Bishop told police her mother called Larry Teague.

Rowell testified a search of Sharmel Teagues phone revealed two phone calls -- one to Larry Teague and the other to Ramonyea Bishop, the couples son.

The mother and daughter traveled to Atherton Road, where they picked up Larry Teague and Ramonyea Bishop, according to Lambarias testimony.

Ramonyea Bishop was dropped off near the Rallys restaurant, with Larry Teague dropped off at the high-rise apartments behind the Family Dollar.

Lambaria testified Sharmel Teague got out of vehicle and drove it to Schafer Square Apartments, where Brya Bishop lives.

Rowell testified Larry Teague and Ramonyea Bishop entered the store at separate times, according to surveillance video that captured the shooting incident.

John Tosto, Larry Teagues attorney, argued the separate entrances and spacing between the pair showed they were not working together at the time of the shooting.

I do not agree that they were not working in concert because from watching the video it looks like they were exactly working in concert, said Rowell. One person would be the distracter to draw the victims attention while the other person walked up behind them and shot them in the head so that to me was exactly in concert.

The men then made their way back to the apartment where they stayed until someone came to pick them up.

Larry Teague was arrested five days later in Houston, Texas, while Ramonyea Bishop was taken into custody one week later at a Bay City home.

Ramonyea Bishop, Larry Teague, and Sharmel Teage all face first-degree murder and felony firearms charges.

Brya Bishop is charged with tampering with evidence, lying to police investigating a violent crime, and accessory after the fact to a felony.

All four suspects remain in custody at the Genesee County Jail.

More on MLive:

Testimony begins in case of security guard killed at Flint dollar store after face mask dispute

Gov. Whitmer offers condolences to family of Flint security guard killed over mask dispute

U.S. Marshals offer $5k reward for tips leading to arrest of suspects in Flint security guard shooting

Alleged gunman arraigned in fatal Flint security guard shooting over coronavirus mask rule

Sister of man accused of fatally shooting Flint security guards arraigned on charges

Woman arraigned in fatal shooting of Flint security guard over face mask

3 charged in fatal shooting of guard enforcing mask use at Flint store

Flint Family Dollar security guard remembered as a gift to life at visitation

Slain Family Dollar security guard mourned at candlelight vigil

Police investigating if security guard at Flint store was killed for requiring mask

Security guard dies after shooting at Family Dollar in Flint

Police investigate shooting at Family Dollar in Flint
A 29-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the death of a young mother found laying in a pool of her own blood with her children in the house, according to an arrest affidavit.

Police arrested Jorge Izquierdo for the killing of 27-year-old Cora Nickel on Aug. 20.

SAPD was called to the 8900 block of Maverick Draw just after 10 a.m., after Nickel's mother, Lynette Robinson, found her dead inside the residence. Robinson had received a text message from her grandchildren age 5 and 8 who said "come over, red stuff all over the floor and think mom is dead," the affidavit noted.

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When Robinson got to the house, the children were outside so she put them into her vehicle before going into the house. Inside, she found Nickel laying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. Robinson said she touched her daughter's body, which felt cold to the touch, before calling 911, the affidavit said.

The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office later reported Nickel died from a gunshot wound to the head.

According to the affidavit, Nickel, Izquierdo and the couple's children had gone to a family function at Izquierdo's mother's home the night before and all returned back to the Maverick Draw residence where Izquierdo and Nickel got into an argument. Izquierdo was washing clothes at the residence when Nickel asked him to leave. Investigators also reported that Izquierdo is the father of the children.

The children had gone to bed, but woke up around 4 a.m. and tried to go find Nickel in her room, but she wasn't there, the affidavit recorded.

Investigators reported they obtained numerous surveillance videos from home security systems throughout the neighborhood that they say showed Izquierdo running from the residence around 11:30 p.m. that night. Another neighbor reported seeing someone running towards a ditch at the end of the street after his motion senor lights were triggered.

READ ALSO: Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office IDs young mother found dead in Northwest home Thursday

On Aug. 21, Izquierdo's mother reported him missing and told authorities she was afraid for his safety after receiving a message from Izquierdo the morning after Nickel's death, though documents did not indicate what the message was. Izquierdo and his mother were very close, according to the mom who said she became worried after her calls went straight to voicemail and he wasn't calling her back.

Izquierdo was located later that day in Oxnard, Calif., after calling his sister to come pick him up from a park.

He was extradited to San Antonio and arrested on Sunday and charged with murder. His bail was set at $200,000.

Taylor Pettaway is a breaking news and general assignment reporter for MySA.com | taylor.pettaway@express-news.net | @TaylorPettaway
A former employee at a Western Massachusetts summer camp was charged last week with secretly recording multiple female staffers while they were changing in a bathroom, according to police.

James McColley, who worked at Camp Shepard at the YMCA of Greater Westfield, has been accused of recording five counselors and volunteers while they were undressing in late July and early August, authorities said.

The victims ages ranged from 14 to 22 years old, according to court records from Westfield District Court.

He was arraigned Friday afternoon from jail at the Ludlow House of Correction on 15 charges, including both misdemeanor and felony sexual surveillance, unlawful secret recording, posing a child for sexual photographs and possessing child pornography, officials said.

The 20-year-old Longmeadow man was expected to be released on $10,000 personal surety and is scheduled to return to court for a pretrial hearing in October, Westfield Police Capt. Michael McCabe told MassLive.

Officers investigated a report on Aug. 3 that McColley used his phone to record a camp counselor while she was changing inside a womens bathroom out of her bathing suit into dry clothes, according to court records.

While changing her clothes, the counselor looked toward the ceiling and saw a cell phone with the camera pointed at her, police said.

McColley had allegedly reached over the wall from the mens bathroom into the womens bathroom with the phone in his hand, according to authorities.

On the same day, McColley agreed to speak with Westfield police officers but later called to say he would not be coming, court records said.

Police received a warrant to seize McColleys iPhone, but the suspect refused to come to the door or to talk with authorities. His mother gave investigators the phone, which was processed a day later by Massachusetts State Police, according to officials.

Through processing the phone and interviewing witnesses and victims, authorities learned McColley had allegedly taken several photographs and videos of five different girls or women in states of undress. Three were older than 18, and two were not, court records said.

The images were taken without the female staffers consent in the same bathroom where they expected privacy, police noted.

It was later discovered that McColley searched how to make photo albums password-protected on the iPhone after he was allegedly caught photographing the counselor on Aug. 3, according to authorities.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 00:42:14|Editor: huaxia

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by Marwa Yahya

CAIRO, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Top officials from Egypt and Iraq recently exchanged views on expanding economic, commercial and investment cooperation between the two countries.

During his meeting with Iraqi Ambassador Ahmed Nayef al-Dulaimi in Cairo on Aug. 25, Egyptian Minister of State for Military Production Mohamed Morsi expressed willingness to deploy the ministry's technologies and human resources in the reconstruction of Iraq via carrying out several major industrial projects in the civilian and military sectors.

The meeting came amid a trilateral summit held in Amman by King Abdullah II of Jordan, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.

The summit focused on boosting economic, commercial and investment cooperation among the three countries, especially the projects of electricity linkage and energy, according to a statement posted on the Egyptian presidency's official Facebook page.

On the same day, Egyptian Minister of Housing Assem el-Gazzar discussed with the president of the Iraqi Contractors Federation (ICF) means of cooperation between the two countries in reconstruction.

"Egypt desires to take part in the reconstruction projects in Iraq," Hassan Abdel Aziz, chairman of the African Federation for Construction and Building Contractors, told Xinhua.

Abdel Aziz, who participated in the meeting of el-Gazzar and the ICF chairperson, said the Iraqi housing minister had been invited to visit Egypt to see the latest developments in mega construction projects in Egypt.

"The Egyptian experience in the construction and infrastructure development could be repeated successfully while Iraq is currently suffering problems in sectors of housing, water, sanitation and electricity," he said.

Waleed Gaballah, professor of financial and economic jurisdictions at Cairo University agrees that the reconstruction is one of the most important sectors that Egyptian companies could take part in Iraq, stressing that the Egyptian building firms contributed in many large projects in African and Arab countries.

He explained that "Iraq owns the financial resources to fund wide-scale construction operations, as security situation has greatly improved in most of the Iraqi lands after the defeat of the Islamic State."

"Jordan could be the gate and the connection between Egypt and Iraq for passing the equipment and commodities," the economic expert said, adding that the latest trilateral summit will add a big momentum for opening the door for more cooperation. Enditem
^pBy BRIANA BARKER

Rocky Mount Town Council approved a new program to help town residents who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic during a special meeting Tuesday night.

The Supplemental Assistance Funding for Emergencies program aims to help residents who have lost a job, been laid off or experienced a reduction in hours because of the pandemic.

The program can assist those in need with expenses for food, rent/mortgage, child care, utilities or transportation. SAFE will be conducted by Helping Hands, and the funds will come from the $828,000 the town received from Franklin Countys share of the CARES Act funds.

Weve got a lot of people in Rocky Mount who are struggling to pay basic expenses because of lost income related to COVID-19, Town Manager James Ervin said. When the CARES Act funds were awarded, we set aside money to set up a program that will help residents pay for things like housing, child care and food.

SAFE program funds are available on a first come, first served basis, and the program will run through Dec. 4. The town teamed up with Helping Hands whose program assists those in need by paying bills directly to the organization owed. For example, if a resident is behind on a power bill, Helping Hands will pay Appalachian Power directly.

Ervin asked council for a maximum of $165,000, but said he doesnt believe all those funds will be needed.

Helping Hands actually thinks the amount of need is not going to be very high, Ervin said. Because we have done pretty good during this, but we will have service sector employees whose restaurants were shut down and may be behind on their rent, may be behind on utilities, and that is ultimately exactly the kind of thing the CARES Act was designed to solve. So this is a way to tackle those issues without us giving direct payments to individuals.

Ervin said that Helping Hands was a good fit to administer SAFE because the organization already has the infrastructure in place to process applications and award support to residents. Helping Hands began accepting applications Aug. 21.

Funding is available to individuals and families who do not meet requirements for federal or state benefits programs. To receive assistance, applicants must show proof of Rocky Mount residence and be able to demonstrate a loss of income because of COVID-19. They will also be required to show an invoice or statement showing the outstanding debt or financial need.

Benefits are available for expenses, including:

n Housing assistance with up to three months worth of past-due mortgage or rent payments.

n Food assistance for families or individuals.

n Child care payments for families who need caregivers while they are working, training or seeking other education.

n Utilities assistance with up to three months worth of past-due payments.

n Transportation costs such as gas, bus transportation and vehicle repairs.

Ervin said that the SAFE program is not operated by the Virginia Department of Social Services; therefore, the provisions of the program cannot be appealed.

Residents who wish to apply for assistance should contact Helping Hands at 483-2387. The organizations hours are Tuesday and Thursday, 9 a.m. to noon.

The town received a little more than $858,500 in CARES Act money from the county. Council approved nearly $235,000 to reimburse the Reset Rocky Mount Business small business grants program, which amounted to $190,000, as well as the Rocky Mount Cares dinner program, which the town worked with local restaurants to help provide free dinners to residents in need at a cost of $8,800. The town also provided farmers market vendors with a micro grant program that amounted to $3,800.

A second round was approved in July and council appropriated $10,000 for that portion of the program, which includes hiring a temporary staff member to manage the SNAP program.

Just under $4,000 of the CARES Act funds reimbursed the town for its 3-To-Go coupons, which were distributed in April via the towns water bills to help stimulate local restaurants during the government-mandated shutdown of dine-in service. The town also spent approximately $7,500 to purchase fencing to aid crowd control for the Harvester Outdoors concert series, another $7,500 on personal protective equipment and sanitation supplies, and a little more than $13,000 to cover payroll expenses due to COVID leave.

In addition to the $165,000 appropriated for the SAFE program, council also approved $242,000 in other CARES Act expenditures, including $100,000 to replace restrooms at Mary Elizabeth and Mary Bethune parks. Ervin said the restroom facilities currently do not have sinks for proper sanitation, and the expenditure would qualify under the public health expenses provision.

Town public safety employees will receive a one-time hazard pay of $1,200 and volunteer firefighters will receive $600, which adds up to approximately $80,000 of the CARES Act funds. Another $32,000 will cover expenses for digital signs the town placed in high-traffic areas to alert residents of public health messages related to COVID-19, and $20,000 will cover expenses for live streaming public meetings.

Council also agreed to allocate $50,000 each to the Rocky Mount fire and police departments for various COVID-19 related expenditures such as PPE, sanitizing products, COVID leave, overtime and telework equipment.
Those who doubt this general characterization of the two main presidential candidates should engage in a little thought experiment. If you went up to a Trump supporter in Portland  someone armed with a MAGA hat, pepper spray, a paintball gun and maybe a little something more  and asked if he or she thought that Trump had their back, the only reasonable response would be Absolutely! But if you went up to an anarchist holding a molotov cocktail and asked if Biden had their back, the response would almost certainly be that Biden is a tool of the establishment, bought and sold by Wall Street and alternately manipulated by Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Beef and the prison-industrial complex.
TAIZHOU, China, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, Preprints with The Lancet has published a preliminary study report on Turkey's using Favipiravir produced by Hisun to treat COVID-19. The report says after Favipiravir was used in hospitals across Turkey for five days, the overall ICU patient admission rate in the country was reduced by half and that for patients under 60 years old dropped from nearly 20% to 6.6%, with a significant decline in the intubation rate (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3622357).

The Turkish Government has taken a series of preventive measures since the outbreak of COVID-19 in early January. Later on March 25, it incorporated Favipiravir into the COVID-19 treatment scheme and sent one million Favipiravir tablets purchased from Hisun to hospitals all over the country for the free treatment of COVID-19 patients. Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said, with the early use of Favipiravir in Turkey, the pneumonia rate sees a gradual decline and that in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, has dropped from 12.1% to 5.61% (https://anadoludabugun.com.tr/turkiye/saglik-bakani-koca-evde-tedavide-yeni-bir-uygulamaya-geciyoruz-122238h).

Now the pandemic continues to worsen worldwide, a number of asymptomatic patients pose the greatest challenge for the battle against the disease in the world. For about 10-15% mild or moderate cases, the infection will spread to the lungs. When that happens, the disease can snowball from moderate to severe "very, very quickly," said Bruce Aylward, an assistant director-general with the World Health Organization (https://www.michigansthumb.com/science/article/How-a-mild-case-of-COVID-19-can-turn-deadly-15123209.php). Therefore, the early diagnosis and treatment of asymptomatic patients or those with mild symptoms is extremely important.

Favipiravir produced by Hisun has been recommended by a good many countries for treating COVID-19 and has already been used to support over 20 countries and regions in battling the disease (https://markets.ft.com/data/announce/detail?dockey=600-202007301001PR_NEWS_USPRX____LN78488-1&from=singlemessage) ?

Contact person: Ms. Li

Email: hisun-haisheng@hisunpharm.com

Tel: +86-13718025966

Website: http://www.hisunpharm.com/en/favipiravir.php

YouTube: https://youtu.be/2sTb1AEXLWU
Government announces solar electrical system for Punta Allen

Punta Allen (Tulum), Q.R.  The more than 400 residents of Tulums Punta Allen will receive a new and efficient solar electrical system that will include a new network, public lighting and solar equipment.

To promote the sustainable development of the community and improve quality of life, the state government, through the Secretariat of Social Development (SEDESO), will participate in the alternative to supply efficient electricity to the area of Punta Allen.

In a press release, the state government and Friends of Sian Kaan Association say they will work in coordination to meet the needs of the community and guarantee the efficienct use of energy. The government says the project includes the replacement of the electrical network, public lighting and supply and installation of photovoltaic solar energy equipment.

Rocio Moreno Mendoza, head of SEDESO reported that this year, the state signed the Resource Allocation Agreement for the project Implementation of a Sustainable Renewable Electric System in Punta Allen, Sian Kaan Biosphere Reserve, Quintana Roo with Banco Nacional de Obras y Servicios Publicos for an amount of 26.6 million pesos, coming from the Fund for the Energy Transition and the Sustainable Use of Energy.

The project, designed by the Friends of Sian Kaan Association in coordination with state authorities, contemplates the replacement of the electrical network, public lighting and supply and installation of photovoltaic solar energy equipment benefiting approximately 469 inhabitants, he explained.

As part of the project, a tour was made in the locality with personnel from the Federal Electricity Commission to begin with surveys and measurements of land. Plants that were acquired by the state government were visited to complement the project that is now beginning (with the CFE) and the installation of solar panels that the Secretary of Energy placed in 200 homes with an investment of 10 million pesos, which have been of great help to cover basic needs during the hours when the plant that provides electricity to the community is off.
Kabul, Aug 31 : Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said that peace does not mean a power-sharing political deal, but instead the fulfilment of the will of the people which is to end violence and bloodshed in the war-torn country.

He made the remarks in a ceremony on Sunday in Kabul to commemorate Ashura or the 10th day of Muharram, which is observed in memory of the martyrdom of Prophet Mohammed's grandson Imam Hussain and his followers at the battle of Karbala.

"Do not be afraid of peace because peace does not mean a power sharing political deal," TOLO News quoted Ghani as saying.

He said that everyone wants a reduction in violence and an end to the violence in the country, adding that no matter how much the enemies tear things down, Afghans will build back.

"Those who think they are achieving their goals with threats should think again because the people support the republic," Ghani said.

His comments came after Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the Afghan High Council for National Reconciliation, said that the much awaited intra-Afghan talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban will begin next week.

In a survey last week, the Institute for War and Peace Studies found that more than 86 per cent of the country's population are satisfied with the current peace process, TOLO News reported.

Earlier this month, nearly 3,400 Afghan delegates at a three-day Loya Jirga, the grand assembly of Afghan elders, approved the release of 400 high-value prisoners of the Taliban which was posing as an obstacle for the intra-Afghan negotiations.

Two days later, the government freed 80 of the prisoners, but said the remaining 320 were conditional on the release of at least 20 Afghan commandos in Taliban custody, according to officials.

The Taliban however, insisted that it has met its commitment to release 1,000 Afghan government hostages under the peace deal with the US which was signed in Doha on February 29.
Supreme Court judge Justice Arun Mishra on Sunday (August 30) declined farewell invitations of bar bodies citing grave situation and sufferings across the world due to coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

Justice Mishra is scheduled to retire on September 2. He became SC judge on July 7, 2014. Before demitting office, Justice Mishra is expected to pronounce verdict in cases including the timelines for payment of AGR dues by telecom firms and the sentencing of lawyer Prashant Bhushan in a contempt case.

"I am grateful for your kind invitation inviting me in the farewell function... I have always considered the bar as the mother of the judiciary, and it would have been a great pleasure to attend said function," Justice Mishra said in a note.

"However, taking into consideration the severe situation and sufferings the world over on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, my conscience does not permit me to participate in any farewell function," he added.

The invitations for the farewell functions to Justice Mishra was extended by the Supreme Court Bar Association and the Confederation of Indian Bar.
Premier Doug Ford is crediting older Ontarians with keeping up their COVID-19 precautions as the number of Ontarians actively fighting COVID-19 jumped almost 11 per cent over the weekend to its highest level in four weeks.

He singled out teens and young adults for continuing to present the highest number of new infections with another 114 new cases reported by the Ministry of Health on Monday pushing active cases up to 1,221, an increase of 118 from 1,103 people on Friday.

Ford noted 21 of the new cases were in people under 19 and 47 were in their 20s and 30s while only three people over 80 tested positive for the highly contagious virus in the last day.

Eighty-year-olds are doing better than our young folks because they listen, the premier told reporters at his daily news conference.

I just need our young people to listen and try to be as safe as possible. Thats my biggest concern.

Chief medical officer Dr. David Williams said the trend is for new cases to come out of workplace outbreaks and risky behaviour at social gatherings, including at family events.

There have been 374 new cases of the highly contagious virus confirmed over the last three days with transmission largely centred on the Greater Toronto Area and Ottawa.

Locally, 30 of Ontarios 34 public health units are reporting five or fewer cases, with 18 reporting no new cases, Health Minister Christine Elliott said on Twitter.

Active cases have been steadily increasing from a recent low of 891 on Aug. 13 with the province in Stage 3 of reopenings and more people out and about.

Toronto led the way with 41 new cases, Ottawa 21, Peel 16 and York 12, according to statistics reported to the Ministry of Health at 4 p.m. Sunday.

The increases have vaulted Toronto ahead of Peel for the highest number of active cases, with 317 compared with 285 for Peel and 214 in Ottawa.

Health officials have repeatedly warned Ontarians to keep up with their COVID-19 precautions such as wearing masks, physical distancing and frequent handwashing.

Authorities are urging people to be careful with kids going back to school in September.

We want those (case) numbers staying down so we have a safe school opening, Williams said at a briefing.

Details from the Ministry of Health on the number of residents hospitalized for COVID-19 were incomplete because 35 hospitals did not report data.

Labs across the province processed 25,098 tests Sunday.

A Star compilation of data from health units at 5 p.m. Monday found 160 confirmed and probable cases in the previous 24 hours, raising the total to 44,422 cases since testing began in late January. There was one additional death, increasing the toll of the virus to 2,848 lives.

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Motorists could be fined for parking on pavements across England under government plans to make walking easier for disabled people and parents pushing prams.

The Department of Transport (DfT) is launching a consultation on whether to ban the practice nationwide or give local councils more power to tackle the issue.

Pavement parking has been banned in London since the 1970s but outside the capital it is only prohibited for lorries.

It follows a report by the Commons Transport Select Committee last year which heard that the worst cases effectively trapped disabled, elderly and vulnerable people in their homes.

Recent research from charity Guide Dogs indicated that 32 per cent of people with visual impairments and 48 per cent of wheelchair users are less keen to go out on their own because of antisocial pavement parking.

This has impacted more people during the pandemic, with blocked pavements affecting everyones ability to physically distance, said Stephen Edwards, director of policy and communications at walking charity Living Streets.

However the AA warned a ban would have unintended consequences. Jack Cousens, head of roads policy, said: As we have seen over the past few weeks with road closures and narrowed roads, councils have acted with little consultation and in many cases lost confidence of the communities they serve.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 14 January 2022 Ecologist Emma Smart (left) and retired GP Dr Diana Warner outside HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, following their release from the prison where Emma undertook a 26-day hunger strike during her incarceration. Ms Smart was sentenced in November, along with other members of Insulate Britain, to serve four months for breaking a High Court injunction by taking part in a blockade at junction 25 of the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour on 8 October last year PA UK news in pictures 13 January 2022 A TV presenter holds a copy of a newspaper outside 10 Downing Streetafter the Prime Minister apologised for attending a gathering of colleagues in the Number Ten garden in May 2020, while the UK was in strict lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic Getty UK news in pictures 12 January 2022 Fitness guru Derrick Evans after receiving an MBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA 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 26 November 2021 A killer whale (orca in the fjord of Skjervoy, northern Norway AFP/Getty

Local authorities should make a street-by-street assessment and where pavement parking is allowed, markings should show how much pavement can be used.

While councils have always had the powers to tackle problem parking, it would be typical if the only time they act is when there is fines income to be had from it.

Three options are being considered during the consultation: extending the London-style ban nationwide, making it easier for councils to prohibit pavement parking and giving councils the power to fine offenders. Fines in London range from 80 to 130 depending on the seriousness of the offence.

The Local Government Association welcomed the move, describing pavement parking as one of the biggest complaints from pedestrians along with damaged pavements.

Its transport spokesman David Renard, the leader of Swindon Council, said: The LGA has long called for the ban on pavement parking to be extended to all areas of England, with councils able to make exemptions. This measure should make walking more attractive and safer for everyone, including vulnerable users.

The DfT stated that any measures will need to ensure the free flow of traffic and access for the emergency services.

Announcing the consultation, transport secretary Grant Shapps said: Parking on pavements means wheelchair users, visually impaired people and parents with pushchairs can be forced into the road, which is not only dangerous, but discourages people from making journeys.

A key part of our green, post-Covid recovery will be encouraging more people to choose active travel, such as walking, so it is vital that we make the nations pavements accessible for everyone.

Pavement parking presents a clear safety risk when parked cars occupy the pavement and force vulnerable pedestrians to move into the road.

Meanwhile the government has announced new rules to prevent rogue private parking firms issuing unfair parking tickets to motorists.

Communities secretary Robert Jenrick put forward proposals for a maximum cap for parking fines, a 10-minute grace period before a late fine can be issued and a requirement for parking firms to clearly display pricing and terms and conditions.

These new measures will put a stop once and for all to rogue parking firms using aggressive tactics and handing out unfair parking tickets with no right to appeal, while also boosting our high streets by making it easier for people to park near their local shops without being unfairly fined, he said.

Additional reporting by Press Association
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has called on the American government to invest more in artificial intelligence (AI) research and development. He has warned that China is pulling ahead of the US in AI R&D. He said the US lacks a long-term plan and adequate government funding to win the race.

China is on its way to surpass us in many, many ways, and theyre cleverly run in a way thats different from the way we would ever want to run, Schmidt said speaking on a Bipartisan Policy Center webcast. We need to take them seriously. Theyre going to end up with a bigger economy, more R&D investments, better quality research, wider applications of technology, and a stronger computing infrastructure.

Schmidt served Google as a CEO between 2001 to 2011. He is currently chair of the Defense Innovation Advisory Board under the US Department of Defense.

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Eric Schmidt warns the US of Chinese AI surge

Its no secret that China wants to topple the US as a global economic superpower. The Chinese government has been open about its ambitions. It announced the Belt and Road initiative in 2013 with aims to strengthen connectivity with the world. As of October last year, the plan has already touched 138 countries covering some 4.6 billion people (nearly 61 percent of the worlds population).

This effort involves a significant investment in next-gen technologies including AI, with investments in local AI talent and research. China now aims to soon overtake the US in AI and leverage that lead to become a dominant trade and commerce center.

The authoritarianism of the Chinese government plays to its benefits. The US cant have the same model, giving China an upper hand from a strategic point of view. As Schmidt says, the Chinese model is incompatible with the way America works.

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However, he still sees the benefits of it. Im not saluting it, Im not endorsing it in any way, but Im telling you to take it seriously. It has benefits from the standpoint of the strategic execution, Schmidt says.

The US needs to double down AI spending

Schmidt believes a world where China controls AI and trade would not be a very nice place to live. He urges the US government to agree on a long-term, well-funded plan to counter the Chinese surge. The US reportedly currently invests only 0.7 percent of GDP on scientific research and development funding. Thats apparently the lowest percentage since the 1960s. For reference, the US spent 3.4 percent of GDP on defense in 2019.

Spending on space research and development also rose to two percent of GDP in recent years. Schmidt says the US needs to double down on tech R&D spending over the next five years. He adds that the Trump administrations current approach of going into a trade war with China and putting sanctions and executive orders on Chinese companies isnt the best way to stay ahead of China.

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Instead, the US needs to step up its efforts and leave China behind. Its the good old theory that you dont have to bring others down to win a race. Instead, you should try and lift yourself up.

Trumps actions are in part a response to Chinas strategy of demanding intellectual property of American companies in exchange for allowing them to do business in the country. However, all these trade stand-offs and sanctions may not be fruitful in the long run. China is already attracting and retaining global talent. Depriving the country of American tech would further enable it to be self-sufficient.

Representative Will Hurd believes the US needs to develop strategies to attract foreign talent more. If you want to steal our technologies, were going to steal your engineers  I want the best engineers coming to the United States, he said. Schmidt echoed that sentiment.

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China may have gained a healthy lead in the AI race, but theres still enough field for the US to play. However, if the US government doesnt act now, China will pretty much be running the show from now on.
North America is the third-largest continent in the world, spanning more than 2,500 miles from east to west and covering an area of 9.54 million square miles (24.71 million square km). Historians believe that people lived in the Americas as far back as 15,000 years ago, but some evidence suggests it was 20,000 years ago. Regardless, there are interesting facts about the continent that many people may or may not already know.

Here are five things you should know about North America.

1. It's made up of over 20 countries

In total, there are 23 countries in North America: Canada, the United States, Mexico, and all of Central America and the Caribbean. The continent also has several dependent territories, which include Puerto Rico, Bermuda, and Greenland. The US is the largest country by population with over 331 million people, while Saint Kitts and Nevis is the smallest with over 53,000 inhabitants.

Cholula, Mexico. Image credit: Belikova Oksana/Shutterstock

2. Its oldest city is in Mexico

The oldest continuously inhabited city in North America is Cholula in Mexico. People have lived in the city since around the 2nd century BCE. Toltec refugees are said to have founded the city following the fall of Tula in 1,000 CE. Other theories suggest that the citys first inhabitants were descendants of one of the main seven Aztec tribes. One of the citys main attractions is the Great Pyramid of Cholula. It is considered the largest human-made pyramid by volume in the world and was dedicated to the god Quetzalcoatl.

3. It has many diverse climates...

North America is the only continent in the world with all of the worlds major biomes: the Arctic tundra, coniferous forest, deciduous forest, desert, grasslands, mountains, and rainforests.

The Arctic tundra is in Alaska, Canada, and most of Greenland. Coniferous forests are south of the Arctic tundra, while deciduous forests are in the mild temperate zones. Further south is the continents four major deserts: the Great Basin, the Sonoran, the Mojave, and the Chihuahuan. Grasslands (also called prairies) are found in hotter, drier climates.

Mountain ranges on the west form the American Cordillera, a chain of mountains that run from North America to South America. The continent has two types of rainforests: tropical in Central America and temperate in the Pacific Northwest.

4. ...and also diverse Indigenous cultures

Indigenous peoples lived throughout the continent before the European conquest of the Americas. Scholarly estimates of their population pre-Columbian exchange start around 1,000,000 go as high as over 50,000,000. The Indigenous people are grouped based on their residence area: North American (Canada and the US) and Middle America (Mexico and Central America).

A Navajo warrior performs a traditional dance near Paige Arizona, US. Image credit: Ruslan Kalnitsky/Shutterstock

Indigenous groups present in Canada and the US include the Inuit, Cree, Huron, Algonquin, Ojibwa, Navajo, Cherokee, and Iroquois, among many others. In Mexico, the Aztecs dominated much of the country. Other Indigenous civilizations that lived before European conquerors were the Olmecs, the Zapotecs, and the Maya.

5. The Columbian Exchange impacted the continent significantly

Christopher Columbus is known for opening up the Americas to the Europeans. But the movement of people, foods, and animals around the world, known as the Columbian Exchange, also brought over diseases. Columbus voyages had a devastating impact on the Indigenous people living in the New World, particularly in the West Indies (present-day Caribbean). He and his men enslaved many of the Indigenous people and treated them with violence.

However, disease was the biggest killer of the Indigenous peoples as they had no exposure or resistance to illnesses such as smallpox or measles. In total, historians agree that around 90% of all Indigenous people died due to contact with Europeans.

North America is vast, and its culture and diversity are even more so. Travelling its mountain ranges, rainforests, prairies, meeting its many peoples with different heritages, traditions and ways of life is sure to keep you entertained for many years to come.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 19:03:06|Editor: huaxia

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COLOMBO, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The number of COVID-19 patients in Sri Lanka surpassed the 3,000 mark on Monday after 15 new patients were identified, officials statistics released by the health ministry showed here.

According to the government information department, among the new cases, 13 patients are those who were repatriated from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently while three patients are those who were repatriated from the Maldives.

The total number of the cases in the country had risen to 3,012 by Monday, out of which 2,868 patients had recovered and been discharged. The active cases in Sri Lanka now stands at 144, the health ministry said.

The Sri Lankan authorities said that wearing masks continued to be mandatory for the public and strict health regulations such as maintaining social distancing and maintaining hand hygiene had to be maintained in all office and business establishments.

Further, schools which re-opened earlier this month will continue to operate under strict health guidelines imposed by the health ministry. Enditem
When Sarah Bray thinks about eco-friendly fashion, brown paper-bag dresses come to mind. And that just wont do.

I love a big look, says Bray, sounding like the native Texan that she is. I love more is more, I love fashion and I love shopping. But Im also passionate about the environment, so its very conflicting.

Her personal, layered style is what Generation Z might describe as levels. Some 36,000 Instagram followers (@sarahamandrabray) subscribe to her studied mix of high-end designers and archival vintage, with the occasional tablescape sprinkled in.

During the five years she served as Town & Country magazines style writer, she popularized the hashtag #veryTandC and favored voluminous black-tie looks in bubble-gum pink or floral prints. Last March, she wore white Victorian lace and two-tone Chanel slingbacks to say I do at City Hall in downtown Manhattan. And for photo ops on Bermuda, her new home, its wicker clutches by day and full-length tunics, flat sandals and a saturated lip by night.

Lately, her social-media feed has been peppered with beach-friendly sun hats, caftans and matching headbands sporting her new eponymous label, Sarah Bray Bermuda. Her coveted aesthetic is available for purchase  and whats more, the line is eco-conscious, too.

Her penchant for thrifting and consignment inspired the collection. Its guilt-free retail without adding more waste to the environment. These are things that I truly love but didnt necessarily exist the way I wanted them to.

It all started with the sun hat. Bray says the classic accessory has been around for centuries but needed an update.

I have a lot of them, but whats frustrating is when you buy the hat and only get a navy or red ribbon, she says. For someone like me, who wants to wear different outfits every single day, I had this idea: Why dont I make interchangeable ribbons?

Her first product idea was born.

Sarah Bray Bermuda sun hats are handwoven from seagrass or palm leaves. Most are produced in Texas. Each brass grommet is applied by hand in Houston, Brays hometown. And unlike other millinery, the opening on her hardware is large enough to pull an Hermes scarf through.

That quality and attention to detail led to high demand. Not that Brays complaining.

They do sell out quickly, she says. Theres limited quality, thats the beauty of the brand. Its never going to be mass production, and thats what makes them special.

Growing up in the Clear Lake area and later East Texas, Bray idolized designers such as Diane von Furstenberg and Ralph Lauren. I always thought it would be such a dream to be like them but didnt know how. I didnt go to fashion school or even design school, so it all felt very out of reach.

Instead, while studying at Southern Methodist University, she wrote for the school newspaper and Papercity magazine. Bray built an impressive portfolio, which helped her land internships with Vogue and the New York Times.

The recession hit around the time she graduated from college, and full-time work in fashion or media was hard to come by. When a position with Neiman Marcus corporate office in Dallas opened up, Bray pounced on the fortuitous opportunity.

I took a job doing content for them, but they didnt call it that back then, she recalls. I was a writer for their big catalog, and they were one of the first retailers to have a blog. I also did their social media when they started to realize they should be posting on Facebook with clever captions.

She returned to New York when Veranda magazine brought her on as a web editor. Bray also had stints with Elle Decor, House Beautiful and, eventually, Town & Country, which is where she was working when a story assignment led to a serendipitous meet-cute.

I met my husband on Bumble, the dating app, when we were both in London for work and coincidentally swiped right, she says. I saw that he was from Bermuda, where, ironically, Id just gone for a Town & Country story. I couldnt convince him to become a full-time New Yorker, so I moved to Bermuda to start our life together in August 2019.

The timing was right for a professional adventure, too. Bray knew from her experience working at fashion magazines that the way consumers shop was changing rapidly.

People are shopping straight off of Instagram and various apps, she says. Now there are amazing tools on the internet like LegalZoom, where you can register a company or small business. Shopify is an amazing e-commerce platform. Less challenges exist than 10 years ago.

In addition to sun hats, her website sells caftans. Bray sources the vintage fabric from estate sales, Facebook marketplace and wherever retro floral textiles are discarded. The clothing itself is produced by Renovation Manufacturing in Bellaire. Cutting-room scraps from Brays caftans are repurposed to make matching headbands or masks.

For me, this is exciting to bring a maximalist, feminine look to eco-fashion, she says. Its crazy the amount of water and dye wasted on making clothes.

Bray partnered with craft coin jeweler Jane Winchester to create a special Bermuda pendant necklace inspired by the coral reef surrounding the mid-Atlantic islands. Her next project is to design a bamboo handbag. Its the most renewable material for good, because its truly biodegradable  theyre just leaves!

When travel and tourism reopen after the COVID-19 pandemic, she plans to open a small brick-and-mortar shop on the island. Bray has several Texas pop-ups coming up, including a presence at the Round Top Antiques Fair, if all goes according to plan.

Bray knows that much of her customer base will be staying at home for the foreseeable future. And shes got just the outfit for that.

The sun hats have an Old World, escapism quality to them, she says. Today, more than ever, you can put one on with a caftan, sit in your backyard and dream that youre in the Maldives.

amber.elliott@chron.com
When it comes to nutrition, males seem to be mostly left to muddle along. Chances are they take better care of their car or favorite gadget than they do of their body. However, it is important for males to pay attention to their own set of nutritional needs.

The Ministry of Healths Eating and Activity Guidelines for New Zealand Adults is based on the minimum requirements of macronutrients (carbohydrate, fat and protein), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), fibre and water  along with regular physical activity  required for good health. These guidelines are definitely a great place to start, for all adults. However, a few tweaks are needed to meet the unique physical needs of males.

For example, males dont lose blood monthly as menstruating females do, so theyre at a lower risk of iron deficiency anemia. Therefore, iron requirements for males are lower.

Males generally have a greater proportion of muscle mass and a higher body weight than females, so they have overall higher nutritional requirements. This means that they have greater energy requirements to fuel their body, but they also have to consider more subtle nutrient needs.

Testosterone is a male sex hormone that is needed for more than just sex drive, it is also responsible for bone and muscle health, sperm production and hair growth. Along with protein, there are two micronutrients that provide the building blocks for making testosterone. These are vitamin D and zinc.

Oily fish, such as tuna, salmon or sardines, are rich in vitamin D as well as being heart-healthy and protein rich. Aim for two to three servings a week, whether fresh or tinned.

You can also get your vitamin D fix by sensible sun exposure, as our bodies produce it whenever we get the sun on our skin, but be careful to reduce the risks of sunburn and skin cancer. Egg yolks are another rich source of vitamin D, and as long as you dont have any pre-existing cholesterol issues, you can safely eat an egg a day.

Shellfish, particularly oysters, are a good source of zinc, as is beef. Legumes, such as chickpeas, lentils, and baked beans are all good sources too  with the added bonus that they are full of fibre, which can help reduce the risk of colon cancer.

Nutrition requirements change with age. What a middle-aged male needs from his food for good health and growth differs from what a male baby, child, teenager or older person needs. Due to aging, metabolic rate and physical activity tend to decrease, leading to lower energy requirements. Testosterone levels also drop. This means that maintaining good intake levels of protein and micronutrients is very important to reduce muscle and bone loss. The trick is to choose foods that give you more bang for your buck; aim for nutrient-rich foods, rather than energy-rich foods.

Nicole Wilson, Nutritionist (NSNZ)

www.nutritionkitchen.co.nz
Dr. Victoria Coleman, an artificial intelligence and microelectronics specialist, has been named director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagons secretive research arm.

Coleman will be the third woman to head DARPA since its creation in 1958, following Regina Dugan, who served as director from July 2009 until March 2012, and Dr. Arati Prabhakar, who left the agency in 2017.

Coleman had been serving as chief executive officer of Atlas AI, which offers what it calls cutting-edge artificial intelligence to analyze trends in developing countries.

Read Next: A Floating Prison: Civilian Mariners Say They're Stuck on Navy Ships

In announcing the appointment Monday, Michael Kratsios, acting under secretary of defense for Research and Engineering, said that the Defense Department was looking forward to having Coleman build upon DARPAs unmatched record of achievement.

He noted that Colemans career spans over 30 years in academia, the private sector and government, including previous service as the founding chair of DARPAs Microsystems Exploratory Council and membership on the Defense Science Board.

During this era of great power competition, DARPA is critical to strengthening the U.S. militarys technological dominance and advancing innovations that benefit our warfighters, Kratsios said.

Colemans appointment will allow Dr. Peter Highnam, who had been serving as acting DARPA director, to return to his previous position as DARPA deputy director.

DARPAs mission, as defined by DoD, is to anticipate, explore, and achieve the concepts and technology on which the nations future deterrent and defense capabilities depend.

DARPA did foundational work in the creation of the Internet and in recent years has put emphasis on the uses of artificial intelligence in warfare.

Earlier this month, DARPA sponsored an AphaDogfight challenge for eight companies that pitted their AI-powered simulated aircraft against each other.

Heron Systems of Maryland won that faceoff and then used its algorithms to defeat an actual F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot "in five straight simulated dogfights in the man-vs-machine finale," DARPA officials said.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct that Coleman is the third woman to head DARPA.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Related: Rise of the Machines: AI Algorithm Beats F-16 in Dogfight
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned on Sunday what he called "arbitrary measures" taken by the Belarusian authorities against journalists, saying they violate press freedom.

The Belarusian government, facing weeks of protests after a disputed presidential election, has revoked the accreditations of some journalists working for foreign media, news organisations and a journalist association said on Saturday.

"I call on Belarusian authorities to reverse these measures without delay," Le Drian said in a statement.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatoly Glaz, responding to a question on Sunday from Reuters, did not directly address criticism from western governments and affected media that the decision to revoke the accreditations was an attempt by the Belarusian government to stifle journalism and balanced coverage of the protests.

"We have more than 300 foreign journalists working at the moment who cover all the events," he said in a text message. Glaz declined to comment further.

Radio Liberty in a report on its website on Saturday cited the Foreign Ministry as saying the decision to revoke the accreditations was taken for security reasons.

In comments at a government meeting on July 23, President Alexander Lukashenko threatened to expel foreign journalists, accusing them of inciting protests against him before the August 9 election.

On Saturday the Belarusian Association of Journalists identified 17 journalists who it said had had their accreditation revoked, and later added two people to make a total of 19, citing the Belarusian media outlet Tut.by. Reuters has not independently confirmed the complete tally.

The journalists included a video journalist and a photographer from Reuters, as well as journalists from the French news agency AFP and the BBC, their organisations said.

Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said in a Twitter message on Sunday, "Attempts by Belarusian authorities to silence local and international media by revoking accreditation and through other forms of intimidation are completely unacceptable".

"As a member of #OSCE, Belarus is obliged to respect freedom of media," added Linde, who will take over the rotating chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe next year.

The OSCE monitors media developments in its participating states for violations of free expression, and has a mandate to protect and promote media freedom in all 57 participating states, it says on its website.
TEL AVIV - Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Monday that the first direct flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates, with an Israeli and US delegation aboard, was a "painful scene". At the start of a government meeting in Ramallah, Shtayyeh said the flight is "in clear violation of the Arab stance on the Israeli-Arab conflict". "We would have very much liked to see a UAE flight land in Jerusalem after it is liberated. But we live in a difficult Arab era," he said. The first commercial flight between Israel and the Emirates, following the deal to normalise relations between the two countries, took off on Monday morning from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport, headed for Abu Dhabi. Israeli and US delegations were on board El Al flight LY971, and upon their arrival will discuss cooperation on aviation, tourism, energy, trade, finance, and health, but not security. This is the first time a commercial flight from Israel, which does not have diplomatic relations with Riyadh, will fly over Saudi Arabia, thus cutting the flight time to about three hours.



Prior to departure Jared Kushner, advisor to and nephew of US President Donald Trump, said the flight kicks off "a historic" trip in the Middle East. Kushner, who on Sunday evening went to pray at the Western Wall after a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, said this is a time "of hope". "I believe that peace and prosperity is possible in the region and in the world," he said. On the jet's cockpit, the word "peace" was written in three languages: Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Tal Becker, captain of the jet equipped with an anti-missile defence system, said this is the first time an aircraft registered in Israel will fly over Saudi Arabia and after fly directly to land in the Emirates. "We are all excited and we expect more historic flights that will take us to other capitals in the region, moving us all ahead towards a more prosperous future," Becker said. In addition to Kushner and Israeli journalists, also aboard the flight were US National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and US special envoy for international negotiations Avi Berkowitz. The Israeli delegation is led by Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat.


Under the watchful eyes of five wise men, who know the industry well, banks will not find it easy to hoodwink the system, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.

IMAGE: Kundapur Vaman Kamath, former ICICI CEO and former chief of the New Development Bank of BRICS nations, leads the team that will look into finer aspects of the RBI's resolution plan. Photograph: Aly Song/Reuters

None could miss the collective sigh of relief from the bankers' community on the Reserve Bank of India's decision to open a restructuring window for stressed loans.

Those accounts, which had been in default for not more than 30 days as on March 1, 2020, can be restructured if the borrowers are unable to service them because of their businesses being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The loans can be restructured, among others, by funding interest, converting part of debt into equity and giving the borrowers more time to pay up.

The banks must disclose such recast and set aside 10 per cent of the exposure to make provision for the restructured loans.

In June 2019, the RBI had framed norms for loan restructuring, making it mandatory for banks to treat restructured, stressed loans as sub-standard unless there was a change in ownership of the borrowing company.

Now, the banks can treat the restructured loans for COVID-19-affected companies as a standard asset even if there is no change in ownership.

Five experts, led by K V Kamath, former chief of the New Development Bank of BRICS nations, will look into the finer aspects of the resolution plan.

Former State Bank of India managing director and vice-president for private sector operations and public-private partnerships at the Asian Development Bank Diwakar Gupta; eminent chartered accountant and chairman of Canara Bank T N Manoharan; management consultant Ashvin Parekh and India Banks Association CEO Sunil Mehta are members of the committee that will look into sector-specific benchmark ranges such as debt equity ratio, cash flow, et cetera, for forming the plan.

Going by one estimate, at least 80 per cent of the loans in the banking system will be eligible for such restructuring.

One way of looking at this is that it will delay the inevitable by two years. Also, the 10 per cent provision requirement seems to be low as the banks's unrealised but booked interest income from stressed borrowers is far higher.

By the RBI's estimate, the gross bad loans of the banking system, which dropped to 8.5 per cent in March 2020, could rise to 14.7 per cent by March 2021. The restructuring window may not allow such a spike.

The one-time forbearance was the need of the hour, particularly when all banks are not adequately capitalised. The good news is the presence of enough caveats to prevent misuse by the banking industry. In absence of this, many banks would have resorted to the tried and tested method of ever-greening -- giving fresh loans to the stressed borrowers to keep the accounts good.

In one stroke, on February 12, 2018, the RBI had abolished all existing frameworks for addressing stressed assets -- corporate debt restructuring (CDR), strategic debt restructuring (SDR) and the scheme for sustainable structuring of stressed assets (S4A), among others -- and dismantled the Joint Lenders' Forum (JLF), an institutional mechanism that was overseeing them.

The circular, issued at midnight, also asked the lenders to either execute a resolution plan for big stressed accounts (of Rs 2,000 crore/Rs 20 billion or more) within 180 days or file insolvency petitions against them in the insolvency court.

After the Supreme Court struck down this directive, the RBI, in June 2019, released fresh guidelines to deal with bad loans.

The latest restructuring scheme has diluted many of the norms that the central bank laid down then but the banks will find it difficult to misuse the new window.

Since 2001, the RBI has come out with a string of schemes at regular intervals, offering flexibility to the banking system for restructuring bad debt.

Different schemes approached the problem differently, ranging from the pooling of all the banking creditors in large accounts for such restructuring (CDR in August 2001) to distinguishing the sustainable part of the debt from the unsustainable [S4A, 2016]; stretching the repayment period beyond 20 to 25 years in infra projects [5/25]; and even taking over of the management of sick companies by resorting to the conversion of debt into equity [SDR in 2015] where bankers could either take control of failed companies and sell them to buyers, or ensure that they got a better price for the equity they held in such firms.

The CDR mechanism, the very first loan recast scheme to deal with the menace of bad loans, did not do much for multiple reasons.

Till September 2017, when it was dismantled, 655 accounts were sought to be restructured on the CDR platform but 125 (Rs 170,988 crore) of them were rejected.

The total loan value approved under CDR was Rs 4,03,004 crore, involving 530 borrowers. Some 291 accounts were withdrawn (Rs 1,72,463 crore).

Industrial sickness requires prompt corrective actions in a cohesive manner, which was never the case under CDR.

Most resolutions happened by writing off the bank loans -- a classic case of 'the operation was successful but the patient died'.

The restructuring was mostly carried out to rectify the lenders' books of accounts and not to revive the units. In nine out of ten cases, the promoters either failed to bring in their contributions, as laid down in the approved schemes, or could not give personal guarantees and other securities that they had committed to.

Often, the banks sanctioned fresh working capital and/or additional term loan just to protect their balance sheets. Revival of the sick units was not always their objective.

The RBI asking the lenders to provide for restructured loans on a par with non-performing loans from March 31, 2015, instead of 5-15 per cent, which they were required to do, rang the death knell of the CDR.

In walked more flexible schemes such as the JLF (2014), SDR, S4A and the 5/25 (2014) scheme for infra projects. All these were more flexible, had better features than the CDR mechanism but they too failed primarily because both the banks and the corporations were keen to recast schemes just to prevent big loans from turning bad.

The story continued till the RBI withdrew them on February 12, 2018.

Now, the RBI has reopened the window. Under the watchful eyes of five wise men, who know the industry well, banks will not find it easy to hoodwink the system.

But to make the scheme successful, the restructuring norms and the eligibility criteria of the stressed borrowers should be dynamic.

They must be reviewed every quarter, keeping in mind how the economic scenario evolves. Static norms will not serve the purpose.

Tamal Bandyopadhyay, a consulting editor with Business Standard, is an author and senior adviser to Jana Small Finance Bank Ltd.
Choosing a college is a very big decision. For most people it is the biggest decision of their life at the time it is made. All students have some plan for their academic career, which can help decide whether a college will assist in meeting their goals in life. One of the worst situations one can get into is enrolling in a college and discovering something they decided to make their profession is not taught at the school of their choice. In this situation, a student has no choice but to choose a new subject or change college, which can be costly and waste his academic year. It is advisable to get information about the available programs before enrolling in a college. City College in Florida is an example of a school actively involved in providing this information to the students. A student can select the program to enter according to his or her interest and prospective scope in the future.

The Healthcare Industry

Healthcare programs and related medical fields demand some of the most structured academic qualifications. Besides additional testing and certifications, educational tracks for this group of employment may include some hands-on training. Advanced level courses in Anatomy, Physiology, and Microbiology are typical requirements for many healthcare programs. The healthcare group of careers includes a diverse variety of professions, with some directly involving interaction with patients and supporting, producing, and manufacturing health-related goods, equipment, medicines, and innovations. Primary careers in the healthcare sector include nursing staff, surgical techs, hospital administration, and other related jobs. Any employment with a focus on helping prevent or cure illness and disease may fall into this group of careers. Coursework at an advanced level might include standard classes on human anatomy, biology, nutrition, pharmacology, microbiology, biochemistry, and other related subjects.

Business Management and Administration

Students entering a Business Management and Administration course need to prepare themselves to study subjects like accounting, marketing, and human resources management. It is because the majority of the jobs in this group of careers heavily depend upon these skillsets. Studying Business Management and Administration may lead to a broad-based set of career opportunities. Many of the jobs in this group of careers involving managing, directing, and evaluating operations to achieve better productivity and yield efficient operations. The outlook for careers involving Business Management and Administration is compelling. People in this profession earn relatively higher compensations. Jobs in Business Management and Administration include various positions from a business consultant or a line manager to a VP or a CEO. Trends like lean business methods, consultation, project management, and outsourcing, increase demand for professionals associated with the fields of Business Management and Administration in operations.

Conclusion

One must do a lot of research and assessment of many factors before deciding on a college. The most significant factor in selecting a college is whether a college has your preferred program. Some other factors that one should consider when choosing a college include college size, cost, availability of students' accommodation, or distance from home. But weighing out the positive and negative aspects will be significant in making a final decision. It is also essential to choose a college where you think you will succeed and enjoy yourself. If you have been finding colleges based on general interests, it is right to narrow down your search to a few prospective careers and choose a college with all the programs in your list. These criteria can significantly help in making your final decision.

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Barry Moore, the Republican candidate for Alabama 2nd Congressional District House seat, made a poor judgment call over the weekend, and then muffed an opportunity to walk it back.

On Facebook, where ill-advised actions can quickly take on a life of their own, Moore posted a meme addressing Illinois teen Kyle Rittenhouses fatal shooting of two and injury of another during unrest in the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Moores meme showed two people on the ground, apparently injured, with the caption Didnt fight back. The third image was Rittenhouse, wearing gloves and carrying what appears to be an AR-15-style rifle. Fought back, the Rittenhouse caption read.

The post didnt stay up long before Moore deleted it, championing a vigilante is a stunningly misguided expression from a man who seeks to represent the people of Alabamas 2nd District in Congress.

The situation in Kenosha is chaotic, with people protesting the police shooting of an African-American man days earlier. Unfortunately, the protests have been accompanied by property damage. These are matters best addressed by law enforcement, not a teenager from another state who is in violation of the law in both states by simply owning and carrying his weapon.
Latitude Financial chief executive Ahmed Fahour has revealed the business is eyeing expansion into China and other Asian countries, as it looks to boost its growth by targeting the region's fast-growing and online-savvy middle class.

With Latitude also expanding its domestic buy now, pay later (BNPL) offering into larger purchases, Mr Fahour said the business was exploring bringing its regulated instalment loan products into China by working with an unidentified partner.

Latitude Financial chief executive Ahmed Fahour is exploring a growth opportunity in China. Credit:Elke Meitzel

"Were focused on this interest-free instalment space, and we've identified a couple of geographic expansion opportunities, and weve nominated a couple of internal executives who have built this kind of platform in Asia," Mr Fahour said in an interview.

"Were at this moment actively exploring with a Chinese partner a specific and large opportunity in China. Were pretty well advanced in building that technology capability," he said.
When they formed as a band in 1962, its unlikely The Rolling Stones  young, defiant, unemployed  thought that 58 years later they would be the focus of a multimillion dollar travelling exhibition.

Or that its most popular feature would be a recreation of the dingy, garbage strewn Chelsea apartment band members shared in the years before fame came calling.

But life is full of surprises.

And as the band dubbed The Worlds Greatest continues to record and tour into the 70s  not the decade, their chronological ages  their legacy as rock survivors has decreed that unlike, say, Gerry and the Pacemakers and The Dave Clark Five, their history be preserved in accessible, user friendly form.

They dont like to look back, points out Ileen Gallagher, the New York curator of Unzipped, a 300 artifact, 10,000 square foot monster that will take over Kitcheners TheMuseum for three months starting November 2021.

Theyre always looking forward, so were trying to keep the exhibition as current as possible.

Its been the key to The Stones success  never rest on your laurels, never stay in one spot.

And as they moved from R&B to psychedelia to the sinewy blues rock that defined their late 60s career peak, they never went out of style.

Even when they flirted with falsetto-whooping disco  the kiss of death for many acts  and jokes about Rolling Bones gathered steam during their 89 Steel Wheels comeback, they remained part of the pop culture firmament, neither trendy nor irrelevant, but trusted, dependable, like a worn in pair of Reeboks or a Honda Civic.

But how to create an exhibit that would do justice to a band that, by refusing to go gently into that good night, ensured no one would ever forget them?

I think its really important to understand how much The Rolling Stones have impacted popular culture, notes Gallagher, who oversaw the downsizing of Unzippeds mammoth predecessor, Exhibitionism, into its more transportable (but still gigantic) offshoot.

Not just their music, but fashion, film, photography. They realized early on it wasnt just about music, but image.

Thats the crux of this immersive showcase, which opened with much fanfare in London five years ago with a career spanning, thematically arranged display of instruments, album art, clothing, photographs, stage designs, personal diaries, concert clips and recording studio.

And, of course, that pre-fame apartment that existed, until this exhibition, solely in the memories of those who lived there.

Its so evocative of a moment in time, notes Gallagher of a young band that had nothing, a work-in-progress.

Keith (Richards) walked in and said Omigawd, Im home!

When it arrives next year for the only Canadian stop on its worldwide tour, Unzipped will not only be the largest exhibit ever hosted by TheMuseum, but a testament to the programming savvy of CEO David Marskell, the former CNE marketing whiz who knows how to draw an audience.

We knew they were talking to other people but we did a good job of telling them we wanted it and had built up credibility with our Titanic exhibit, confides the ecstatic frontman, who snagged rights to the famous shipwreck display in 2011.

Its a huge win  a world-class event for a deserving community.

He laughs. Ive told you before This is the biggest thing weve ever had!  well, this IS the biggest thing weve ever had. Exile on King Street. It will take over our entire building and put Kitchener on the larger cultural map.

But why The Rolling Stones? Why now?

It happens to be a Stones Moment, notes University of Waterloo history prof Andrew Hunt.

Partly this owes to their continuation as a band. The Rolling Stones are still together with most of their original members. Some people like to poke fun at them for their age, and especially at Keith for his mind-blowing endurance. And theyre no longer producing memorable songs. But theyre still energetic performers and better musicians than ever.

Theres also a sense that, unlike The Beatles  frozen forever in a pristine 60s time bubble  or Elvis Presley, who descended into shambolic parody in the years before his death, The Stones are ageless, both of our time yet somehow apart from it.

I didnt feel like I was talking to old people looking back on being young people, confides Gallagher, who sat down with band members during the exhibits inception.

Theyre still performing. I didnt feel like I was talking to has-beens.

When you watch video clips of 77-year-old Mick Jagger performing Sympathy For The Devil with the same pouty insouciance he did 50 years ago, croaking with satanic vigour I was around when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain, you almost believe hes telling the truth.

They have a sense of bacchanalian otherworldliness, points out Bob Thompson, pop culture prof at New Yorks Syracuse University.

Not only do they continue to perform, they do it in a way that doesnt make them look pathetic. Everything tells us they shouldnt be, couldnt be  even Jaggers appearance has a sense that he doesnt know its not 1969.

Baby boomers have always wanted to defy the aging process, he notes, and snake-hipped Jagger is living proof that can actually happen. Hes still behaving as he should be in our memory, not in real life. Theres a sense the world will turn to fairy dust if you approach him.

You can argue the bands longevity has been both blessing and curse: its cemented their legacy, leading to museum exhibits like Unzipped.

But has staying together decades past their commercial peak, with diminishing artistic returns, diluted their cultural impact?

I actually get a lot of students in my first-year course on the history of rock n roll who love the Rolling Stones, insists Hunt.

The bluesier stuff, especially, holds up with youthful listeners. It has a timeless quality. Not all Millennials and Gen Zers love the Stones, but a surprising number of them are fans.

This probably has to do with them continuing to perform and remaining in the spotlight. I also think theres an enduring 60s mystique. People still tend to romanticize the era, even 50 to 60 years later. As a 60s historian, I always anticipated the allure of the era would eventually fade, but it really hasnt.

Why not?

People are looking for authenticity, which often involves searching out classics that withstand the test of time. Albums like Aftermath, Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers still pack a hell of a punch on vinyl.

So the Stones walk a fine line between nostalgia and living history, a modern day conduit to a golden age when music mattered, beats referred to drums, not headphones, and a rebellious rock tune could change the world.

The era that gave us the Stones best music  which is really the 1960s and early 70s  was, to say the least, eventful, packed with upheaval, polarization, war, protest and social transformation, notes Hunt, pointing to the current dearth of pop culture mavericks.

That insurgent spirit speaks to people in our day and age  young and old  drawn to a band that managed to extend a middle finger to the constraints imposed by cultural gatekeepers and guardians of morality.

Naysayers can talk about them overstaying their welcome, and maybe theres a grain of truth. But its difficult not to have a grudging admiration.

The Rolling Stones arent just a band, agrees Thompson. Theyre a lifestyle, able to evolve and stay contemporary in a way physical human beings arent able to do.

They have some of the glow of great stars that have passed on, but they didnt have to actually pass on to get it.

For information, go to www.unzippedkw.ca
The key to the solution to the created situation lies in the hands of the people of Belarus. This is what Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said in an interview with Interfax.

Asked if he views support to Belarus through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) as acceptable and possible, the foreign minister noted the following: As far as all issues related to the CSTO and mutual assistance within the scope of the CSTO are concerned, these issues are solved through the legal-contractual base, which lays down specific rules for member states. Here we take as a basis the regulatory legal acts of the CSTO.

If the CSTO votes to support Belarus or not, will Armenia vote in favor or against? In response to this question, the foreign minister said the following: To organize the vote, Belarus has to raise the issue, but it hasnt. Belarus and Armenia are allies within the CSTO and have a rather rich bilateral agenda. We participate in the integration processes within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union, and there is strong friendship between the two nations that is expressed in human relations. Of course, Armenia is not indifferent towards everything that is going on in Belarus.

Prime Minister Pashinyan came to power after a velvet revolution during which there was no bloodshed. Now it turns out that Armenia supports the leader of Belarus. In response to the reporters comment, Mnatsakanyan said the following:

There is no doubt that the key to the solution to the current situation lies in the hands of the people of Belarus. Armenia took its path, and it would not be right to draw parallels. Yes, there may be certain common standards, but overall, the situations are different. Armenia really hopes that this situation is solved through peace.

In response to the comment that Armenia officially recognizes Lukashenko as the legitimate leader of Belarus, the foreign minister declared that Prime Minister Pashinyan has congratulated the President of Belarus. We will follow to see how the people of Belarus can solve this issue. We intend to continue to work with Belarus in all directions, that is, within the scope of bilateral relations and in international formats, the foreign minister concluded.
Thirty-one community radio stations to receive emergency funding

Ofcom has announced that 31 community radio stations will receive emergency funding through the Community Radio Fund.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, community radio stations have provided valuable local news and support to millions of people. However, many have also faced severe financial challenges. In response, the UK government announced emergency funding to help them meet the costs of continuing to provide these vital services to local communities.

During the first round of funding, 81 community radio stations were awarded granted totalling just over 333,000.

The Community Radio Fund Panel, which acts independently of Ofcom, has now awarded grants to a further 31 community radio stations totalling 73,658  the total amount outstanding from the first round of funding.

The Panel made as many awards as possible in line with the eligibility criteria and guidance notes issued alongside the application form. We have also published details on the Panels approach and reasoning to deciding which applications will receive funding.

All of the 406,810 allocated to the Community Radio Fund has now been awarded.
But even during this golden era of science, women like Dr. Sarachik were discouraged from participating.

Two years before her Kondo effect work, Dr. Sarachik, giving in to the expectations of the day, set aside her physics research a year after finishing her Ph.D. at Columbia University in New York. She was going to stay home and take care of Karen, her newborn daughter.

I was home for about a month, and I realized I was never going to survive this, she said.

Her husband, Philip, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Columbia, urged her to return to research. She recalled him saying, I would rather pay someone to take care of Karen than a psychiatrist.

But when she attended a job fair at a physics conference in New York, Dr. Sarachik, unlike her Columbia classmates, received no requests for job interviews. I got none, she said. I got absolutely zero. I got, again, very unhappy. So very, very unhappy.

In despair, she reached out to one of her Columbia professors, Polykarp Kusch.

I asked him to please help me, Dr. Sarachik said. He argued with me long and hard. He said, You dont really want to do what you think you want to do. You dont want to do research. Maybe you should take a part-time teaching job. And I said, No, I want to do research.

She said that at the end of the back-and-forth, Dr. Kusch gave in: Finally he said, Look, Myriam, we trained you. I dont know why you want to do what you want to do. But if you want to do it, you have the right to try.

In an interview, Dr. Sarachik said of Dr. Kusch, He had this bias. We all have it, but he was willing to operate above it.
WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trumps intelligence chief on Sunday defended his decision to cease in-person Congressional briefings on election security, while Democrats said the move would suppress critical information about foreign election meddling and warned they may subpoena testimony.

John Ratcliffe, the presidents new director of national intelligence and a close Trump ally, accused U.S. lawmakers of leaking classified information from a July 31 briefing to promote what he called false narratives for political purposes.

A number of members of Congress went to a number of different publications and leaked classified information, again, for political purposes, to create a narrative that simply isnt true, that somehow Russia is a greater national security threat than China," Ratcliffe told Fox News Sunday Morning Futures.

Ratcliffe is a former lawmaker who defended Trump during Congressional probes into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election.

Democratic lawmakers accused Ratcliffe of trying to block them from questioning intelligence officials in a bid to conceal information on how Russia has been interfering in the 2020 presidential election to help Trump, as it did in 2016.

You can say things in a written report that are not correct, and you cant be subject to questioning about it," Representative Adam Schiff, Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNNs State of the Union program.

When you can hide behind documents or withhold documents and not have to answer questions about it, it lets you conceal the truth. And in this case, concealing the truth is concealing Russians are again intervening to help the president in his re-election," he said.

Schiff denied leaking any classified information from the July briefing.

I havent, my staff hasnt. I cant speak for what all the members of the committee have done or not done, including a lot of the Republican members, he said.

The intelligence community has warned that Russia is trying to denigrate" Trumps 2020 Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, and that Iran and China are also trying to sow disinformation.

Schiff vowed he would compel" the intelligence community to hand over information to Congress on the threat, including potentially through the use of subpoenas.

Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, a former presidential candidate, told ABCs This Week" that Ratcliffes decision was an outrage" at a time when multiple foreign governments were trying to break into" the Nov. 3 election, and that it was crazy" that the House may be forced to subpoena him.

However, Senator Ron Johnson, Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, played down the significance of Ratcliffes decision when speaking with CNNs State of the Union" program, saying that the Democratic response had been blown so way out of proportion."

A bipartisan investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee found this month that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Trump at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
OTTAWAPrime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned vandalism by protesters who toppled a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald in Montreal Saturday, saying no small group of people should unilaterally decide how historical figures who made mistakes should or should not be recognized.

But in his first public comments on the destruction of the Macdonald memorial, Trudeau trod carefully Monday, avoided using words like mob as Conservative Leader Erin OToole and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney did over the weekend.

Trudeau said he understands there are many who are frustrated and impatient for change, but cautioned against oversimplification and said the country needs a mature conversation about how to address systemic racism, and how to acknowledge the actions of important historical figures of the past.

Macdonald was our first prime minister and I think its important to recognize the role he played in the creation of this country, compared to the world we live in now, said Trudeau. But at the same time, we must acknowledge where there were comments or perspectives, or certain actions that were unacceptable thats part of recognizing our history as a country.

Macdonalds government initiated and defended the residential school system in the 19th century  which was why Trudeaus government, in its first mandate, stripped the name of a senior Macdonald-era administrator from the building that houses the prime ministers office  as an act of reconciliation.

Trudeau said questions could be raised about the records of most former prime ministers including my own father, but said it is up to communities and elected officials to decide how to recognize the mistakes of historical figures.

Then he took aim at unnamed people on the political right and left who he said are trying to use those debates to promote divisions among Canadians.

Unfortunately, on both sides there are people who are using this as a political argument. The right wants to use that for its ends, the left as well. So I think the vast majority of Canadians absolutely want us to act and in concrete ways to address this, but not using vandalism.

Asked by reporters to be more specific, Trudeau said I think that were seeing particularly on the extreme right that theyre trying to create culture wars and divide Canadians on these issues, he said.

On Saturday, Kenney in a series of tweets expressed outrage over the Montreal mob actions, and said if the city of Montreal doesnt decide to restore it, we would be happy to receive it for installation on the grounds of Albertas Legislature.

This vandalism of our history and heroes must stop, said Kenney, who pointed a finger at the extreme left.

Many of those on the extreme left responsible for this kind of violence claim that Canada is an illegitimate state, all the while enjoying Canadas rights, freedoms, privileges & prosperity. None of those things were created by accident. They come from the vision & sacrifice of those who went before us, particularly Macdonald himself, Kenney tweeted.

He was an immigrant who suffered unimaginable personal trauma throughout his life, which he overcame to forge an enormous country out of divided factions. Its right to debate his legacy and life. But it is wrong to allow roving bands of thugs to vandalize our history with impunity.

OToole posted on Twitter just after noon on Sunday, also criticizing the mob that destroyed the statue of the former Conservative prime minister.

Canada wouldnt exist without Sir John A. Macdonald, he wrote. We will not build a better future with violence and mob rule. We will not build a better future by defacing our past. Its time politicians grow a backbone and start standing up for Canada.

New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh reacted early Sunday evening, saying public spaces should inspire us and bring us together.

Sir John A. Macdonald was the first PM of Canada but he was also a key figure in the attempt to brutally wipe out Indigenous peoples. Taking down a statue of him doesnt erase him from history any more than honouring him out of context erases the horrors he caused. At the end of the day, we should all remember there is more that unites us than divides us. We still have a long way to go, but together, we can keep building a better and more inclusive Canada for everyone.

Speaking in Montreal Monday, where he announced new spending on future vaccine production and distribution, Trudeau said he was deeply disappointed by the acts of vandalism that took place over the weekend.

He said he understands the impatience and frustration of Canadians who faced systemic discrimination and racism throughout their lives and their concern that we act quickly on that.

I myself am impatient. We need to move forward in the right ways on countering systemic discrimination and our government will do just that.

But we are a country of laws and we are a country that needs to respect those laws even as we seek to improve and change them and those kinds of acts of vandalism are not advancing the path towards greater justice and equality in this country.

Trudeaus government promised earlier this summer to present a comprehensive plan to address anti-Black racism but has yet to unveil it. He made reconciliation with Indigenous communities a central plank of his governing platform in 2015, and has yet to implement many recommendations of the truth and reconciliation commission, or to unveil an action plan for how it will address recommendations from its own inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 17:50:41|Editor: huaxia

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JAKARTA, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- A critically endangered large whale shark (rhincodon typus) was washed ashore and found dead on the beach of Indonesia's western East Java province, an official said.

The nine-meter-long whale shark was discovered by residents on the Paseban beach of Jember district on Sunday, said Setyo Utomo, head of Natural Resources Conservation Agency of Region III in the district.

The official said that the agency immediately sent a team to the site after receiving information about the finding of the mammal, local media reported on Monday.

Officials of the agency and the residents jointly pulled the two-ton dead animal to the seashore and buried it, Utomo said.

"If the protected whale shark is found alive, it has to be pushed back to the sea, but when it dies the dead animal has to be buried," he said.

Whale sharks and whales have been often washed onto the coasts in Indonesia, a vast-archipelagic nation, and many of them were rescued by local residents and officials by pushing them back to the sea.

Previously, three whale sharks were washed ashore on the coast of Jember district in July. Unfortunately, one of them died due to getting stuck in a fisherman's net. Enditem
YORK  Kristen Waschkowski, 34, of Omaha, who is now an inmate at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women, has pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping, robbery and conspiracy in a case where a man claims he was set up in a sex worker crime that resulted in threats of injury, loss of property and being held against his will.

The alleged victim, a 25-year-old man from Ohio, reported to the Lincoln Police Department that on Sept. 26, 2019, he was staying at that hotel in York. Court documents indicate that the man said he used the website skipthegames.com to make an appointment with a sex worker for $400. He paid $60 via Pay Pal to kristenwashchkowski54@gmail.com as a deposit. He told Lincoln police that it was taking too long for her to get there and he decided not to continue with the appointment. The next morning, at approximately 7 a.m., he left his hotel room to go to work and was confronted by a man. The man pushed him against the exterior wall of the hotel, causing scratches and lacerations to his left elbow and right knuckles. The man emptied (the victims) pockets and took two cell phones, his wallet, a gas card, a smart watch and keys. The man told (the victim) to get in his vehicle because they were going to settle the debt for the appointment.
A total of 173 people were detained at unauthorized protests in Belarus on Sunday, Belarusian Interior Ministry spokesperson Olga Chemodanova told Interfax.

"A total of 173 people have been detained around the country until their administrative offense cases are heard by courts," Chemodanova said.
The Centre last week gave states the options to borrow either from a special window facilitated by the RBI or from the market and also proposed extending the compensation cess levied on luxury, demerit and sin goods beyond 2022

As many as seven non-BJP ruled states, including Kerala and Punjab, besides Union Territory Puducherry on Monday rejected the Centre's suggestion of states borrowing to make up for the GST shortfall, saying the constitutional liability lies with the Union government.

At an informal meeting on Monday, six non-BJP ruled statesPunjab, West Bengal, Kerala, Delhi, Chhattisgarh and Telangana  felt that an alternative mechanism should be worked out to compensate the GST revenue shortfall.

Besides, Congress-ruled Rajasthan and Puducherry too said they will follow suit on the issue of compensation.

Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal said if states have to borrow, then the Centre will have to amend compensation law which says that the Central government will compensate states for loss of revenue arising out of implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

"FMs of Punjab, Delhi, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Telengana and Kerala agreed to reject the Centre's options on GST compensation. Our option: Central Government to borrow entire compensation due regardless of acts of gods, humans or nature, to be paid back by extending the period of Cess," Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac said.

In a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Badal demanded full clarity on the options given by the Centre and sought an urgent meeting of the GST Council on the issue.

"Punjab is prepared to cooperate in a spirit of finding a solution to this vexed problem but is unable to persuade itself to either of the options presented at this stage," Badal said, adding that the method of calculating losses by the Centre is arbitrary, one-sided and devoid of any legal justification.

In a tweet, Isaac said the state has no choice other than to reject the options "lock, stock and barrel". "Enough is enough. No more surrender of states rights. GST Compensation is our constitutional right," Isaac tweeted.

The Centre and Opposition-ruled states are at loggerheads over the financing of the Rs 2.35 lakh crore GST shortfall in the current fiscal. Of this, as per Centre's calculation, about Rs 97,000 crore is on account of GST implementation and rest Rs 1.38 lakh crore is the impact of COVID-19 on states' revenues.

The Centre last week gave two options to the states to borrow either from a special window facilitated by the Reserve Bank of India or from the market and has also proposed extending the compensation cess levied on luxury, demerit and sin goods beyond 2022.

"We all got it wrong regarding Centre's proposal on GST deadlock. This itself is sad commentary on proceedings of Council. We discuss for five hours and then the Chair comes up with proposals which are totally disconnected with discussions and no time left for any clarification," Isaac tweeted.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel also wrote to Sitharaman saying the Centre should not pressurise states to take loans. The money to compensate them for the loss of tax revenues should be arranged by the Central government.

"While the GST compensation was to be paid bi-monthly, state government has not received Rs 2,828 crore compensation for the four months of current 2020-21 fiscal," he wrote.

He said the constitutional obligation for making good any loss of revenues due to implementation of GST lies with the Centre. "GST compensation cess is collected by the Centre and using that to pay for loan taken by state governments is a complex and uncertain process," he wrote. "The Centre should arrange for compensation from its resources or loan."

Badal in his letter also suggested that the GST council should invite views on resolving the possible dispute under the mechanism provided in Article 279A(11) of the Constitution.

Article 279A(11) of the Constitution provides that the GST Council creates a mechanism to resolve dispute between the Centre and states, among others.

"We ... take both the options with great regret as a clear breach of the solemn and constitutional assurance by the Central Government. We believe this as betrayal of the spirit of cooperative federalism that formed the backbone of GST-journey so far," Badal said.

If projections are made till the end of compensation period, the total revenue loss may cross Rs 4,50,000 crore. This, together with interest, would require more than 4- 5 years to repay the borrowings rather than 2-3 years that is being believed, he added.

Many states feel that borrowings by the states may be costlier by up to 150 basis points when compared to the borrowing by the Centre, he said. "When resources for payment have to come from a tax that is levied by the authority of the Parliament it makes no sense for States to borrow. ...Any future dispute in relation to GST Compensation will have deleterious impact on the States creating situations of defaults by States."

Speaking to reporters in Hyderabad, Telangana Finance Minister T Harish Rao said: "Unfortunately the Centre is trying to shy away from paying ... GST compensation to states in the name of "act of god" and coronavirus. It is not fair on (the) Centre's part to tell states to borrow (for GST losses). It was loud and clear that as per the GST Act, the Centre will compensate if the states' tax revenues growth is less than 14 percent".
Unsplash / Eduardo Santos

When I moved to San Francisco from England in 2007 the city was still a glorious, fun mess. I'd made it to the raucous edge of America that Rudyard Kipling called a "mad city, inhabited by perfectly insane people." For every young Brit watching 'Bullitt' under a poster of Allen Ginsbergs 'Howl' in their university dorms, San Francisco was the coolest place on earth.



Though it was half a century since the Beats had wandered the streets and bars of San Francisco, the city, and the perfectly insane people, didn't disappoint. In lieu of a '69 Mustang GT, I joyfully drove my old VW Jetta over the hilly intersections of Nob Hill like Steve McQueen (but with more respect for bike lanes). I moved into an apartment on Golden Gate and Baker in what was still called the Western Addition, securing the place over the phone, unseen, for around a third of what it would rent for today. I discovered that the apartment was the bottom half of the duplex where Patty Hearst was held captive by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. That was pretty cool. Everything was pretty cool.



I formed a band and spent my nights in the city's dingy dive bars and music venues, either listening to, or playing, abhorrently loud guitars. We rented a shared rehearsal space in SoMa's community studio/street drinking institution, Lennon Studios, chipping in $75 each a month for the space.



Our band played shows to small whiskey-soaked crowds, mostly made up of friends coerced by Facebook events at the Hemlock, Kimo's, the Elbo Room and debriefed over shots of Fernet with ginger chasers at The Summer Place and Koko. We'd watch better bands, with bigger crowds at Slim's or 330 Ritch. I wrote about the shows for the SF Weekly and my English friend who also made the journey to California photographed them. We'd wake up and watch Liverpool at Mad Dog in the Fog and guzzle Bloody Marys before our hangovers could kick in.



As you can see from those links, every one of those places mentioned is now permanently closed.



By 2007, the first dot-com bubble was mostly just a joke about the brief life of pets.com and boo.com, but the growing disdain for techie culture, often voiced from the artistic community, was real. The Great Recession juxtaposed with the rise of more robust tech giants in the city like Twitter, Facebook and Google (and their moneyed, transplanted employees) forced artists out as landlords cashed in. A rise in homelessness, a chasm-like wealth divide and protests over "Google buses" (remember them?) epitomized the city that felt like it was suddenly bereft of the art and music and freewheeling spirit of mad creativity we'd come here for. The mood can be pretty well summed up in an incident at the punk dive bar Molotov's in the Lower Haight, when a patron wearing Google glasses was given a frosty welcome.



The city was changing again, as it had so many times before.



By 2016, it was harder to find any messy trouble, or bands to while away the nights. Most had moved to Oakland, Portland or L.A.  the all-surface-no-feeling SoCal rival traditionally smirked at by San Franciscans for its lack of real culture. But by then Los Angeles had seemingly become the destination for all the hedonistic creative types that had left the suddenly not-so-interesting streets of San Francisco.



Many of the rehearsal spots and warehouse art spaces disappeared, to be replaced by start-ups, e-scooter stations, condos and artisanal gyms (yes, they were a thing).



I wrote an elegy to the scene that frustrated the people with genuine hope still trying to hold on to the heady days of yesteryear. I regretted being the naysayer, but really, the city  where the rent for a one-bedroom apartment was getting close to $4K a month  was demonstrably not a destination for artists anymore.



But creative kids will always find a way, especially in San Francisco.



This year has been an unending s--t tornado, whichever way you look at it. People love speculating and reading about stories of seismic cultural shifts in the city, whether it be hate-clicks from the political right happy to see the final destruction of Nancy Pelosi's modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, or from native San Franciscans anxious about the move into all things tech. This can often lead to hyperbole around changes to the city, but 2020 is not just any year.



Over 100 restaurants and bars have permanently closed in San Francisco this year, and many more are shuttered, for now, temporarily. Rents have plunged in SoMa and downtown by over 20%. Many of the tech companies around mid-Market have told their employees that they can work from home forever, laying waste to any remaining hope for a tech-fueled renewal to the struggling neighborhood. And wealthy homeowners in the city are selling up, like never before.



It's not a pretty picture, but could there be a grace note to the tumult in a return to the city's artistic roots? Some think the city will move back in that direction, and these hopes were buoyed by the $12.8-million round of annual grants announced by Mayor London Breed last week for arts and culture across the city, including many organizations advocating for city musicians, such as Intermusic SF and the Womens Audio Mission.



Musician and longtime S.F. resident Jeff Knutson is optimistic that the scene will rise again, but it may not happen soon. "I really hope that we might see a resurgence of bands and musicians and performers in the city, he says. I haven't seen so many apartments available in S.F. in over 15 years, and rents are definitely coming down. But let's be honest, rents here are still really, really high."



One of the founders of the San Francisco Arts Collective, Tshakie N, sees some light at the end of the tunnel. "I am hopeful that the arts are going to come back in a greater wave in San Francisco," she says. "What is evident is that S.F. residents are avid supporters of the arts; they have demonstrated this through donations, support of online services, and demand of work from local artists."



Outside of bands and artists, some residents have noticed a welcome slowing in the speed of day-to-day life in the city.



Konstantin Kosov, AKA Fruit Jesus, the man who has been biking custom trailers full of farmers market fruit around the city since 2014, sees something happening through the chaos of the crisis.



"I think San Francisco is going to see a renaissance," he says. "So much happened in the last couple months that feels like old S.F. to me. People are moving out, but thank God, it was getting crazy here! Too many people, it was just, I dont know, I kind of like whats happening, people just at the park, or beaches, just hanging out. I remember when the recession hit, I lived by Dolores Park, people just were people. You didnt have to schedule a hang three weeks out because they were so busy."



What's next for the bars and music venues in the city that over the decades have gone from lubricating blue collar S.F. natives and artists to serving moneyed tech employees to closing their doors through the pandemic?



Martin Cate, co-owner of Smuggler's Cove and Whitechapel, thinks that a return to "normalcy" may be ahead, whatever that means in San Francisco. As vacancies rise, rents fall, we could see the return of hospitality, firefighters, teachers, all these professions that are struggling to live in S.F. We could see them repopulate the city and support a diverse sector of industries.

As the large established music venues like The Fillmore and The Warfield wait with bated breath for a timeline on when they may be able to hold thousands of sweaty concert-goers again, the DIY punk scene that recently emerged out of the garages of Ingleside and the living rooms of the Sunset is ready to continue the underground explosion that unintentionally found itself as the haven of rock music in San Francisco.



In the same way that thousands of square feet of street art and murals took over the boarded-up storefronts when the shutdown hit in March, when those painted wooden panels finally get pulled down and bar doors are reopened, the city that emerges from its cocoon may look different.



While the rental drops and newly emptied corporate spaces could eventually make room for artistic endeavors, in reality rent in the city is still one of the highest in the country. Unless the rates continue to drop, its unlikely that the demographics of the city will shift abruptly. But after a decade of the second tech boom that pushed San Francisco's Bohemian roots back into the soil, there's some hope that pockets of something more nurturing may grow back.



"It'll happen eventually. And when it does, maybe it'll be better than ever. San Francisco is a special place, and it's always been a draw for creative people," Knutson says. "In a way, the city's opened up and gotten less crowded, which is kind of cool. The real San Franciscans are still here, they'll be here  they'll find a way and they're not going anywhere. Hopefully we come out of this with some more balance, more space for everyone, not just the privileged few, to be a part of what makes this city great.



This wont be like Detroit which saw severe urban decay, barren streets and a subsequent influx of artists. Short of an almighty earthquake, San Francisco's 47 square miles are too hallowed to be abandoned. And it won't be a regression to the romanticized scenes of the past. North Beach won't suddenly fill with Beat poets, the Fillmore won't regain a jazz scene that was desecrated by crooked urban development. The Haight won't be teeming with rock-and-roll bands again. But after the unprecedented chaos of 2020, San Francisco will change again, as it did when I first found this magnificent city thirteen years ago.
Child care workers in New Orleans will be able to get free, weekly tests for the coronavirus under a partnership announced Monday by two groups.

Agenda for Children, an advocacy group and Community Organized Relief Effort, a non-profit organization, are sponsoring the effort.

"Child care is the invisible backbone of our society, a reality that the COVID-19 pandemic has starkly underlined," Kenny Francis, director of policy and child advocacy for Agenda for Children said in a statement.

For Louisiana child care operators, staying open amid coronavirus is financially 'hard' Losses for Louisiana day care operators because of the coronavirus pandemic have more than tripled since May and now total $100 million, the l

"As we have seen in examples from around the world, access to prioritized COVID-19 testing is critical to a safe reopening and we are elated to announce a partnership to provide this essential resource."

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COVID-19 is the illness caused by the coronavirus.

CORE will deploy mobile testing teams around the city.

Child care workers will not be required to provide identification or insurance for the tests, which are self-administered oral swabs.

"By making testing free, quick and accessible to workers we can help child care centers reopen safely, take real steps toward preventing infection clusters and support a critical service to the reopening of the city," Maggie Calmes, area manager of CORE New Orleans said, also in a statement.
CSU Global is the nation's first fully online state university. Students in CSU Global's new program will learn to support military and first responders; apply these skills in a variety of settings including mental health clinics, employee assistance programs, and substance abuse treatment programs; and truly be a positive change agent for society.

Colorado State University Global (CSU Global)  a premier provider of innovative higher-learning opportunities through high-quality, career-relevant, and affordable online education  is proud to announce its new masters degree in Military and Emergency Responder Psychology.

Among the first of its kind in the nation, the 60-credit hour program is designed to provide students with an advanced understanding of the values, mindset, and occupational hazards that military and first responder personnel face on a daily basis. The program includes coursework that is aligned with the CACREP standards to help prepare students to sit for the National Counselor Exam and internships and ensure students gain real-world experience in this area to complement their learning.

We are so excited about the opportunity to support the mental wellness of our military and emergency responder communities. Students in this program will learn the theory and counseling skills needed to support traumatized individuals and their family members; apply these skills in a variety of settings including mental health clinics, employee assistance programs, and substance abuse treatment programs; and truly be a positive change agent for society said CSU Global Provost and VP of Strategic Development, Dr. Karen Ferguson.

The demand for first responder psychology support services is growing, with employment in this area expected to grow 22 percent from 2018-2028, specifically for substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). First responders, emergency response personnel, law enforcement, and military service members face unique emotional and mental healthcare needs. The trauma and stress these professionals experience across their daily responsibilities require personnel specially trained to address such challenges.

For more information about CSU Globals online Master of Science degree in Military and Emergency Responder Psychology, please visit CSUGlobal.edu/MERP.

###

About Colorado State University Global

Colorado State University Global (CSU Global) offers career-relevant programs for modern learners. As the first and only 100% online, fully accredited public university in the United States, CSU Global is focused on student success as its number one priority. Embracing the land-grant heritage as part of the Colorado State University System, CSU Global sets the standard for quality and innovation in higher education through its expert faculty, who are recognized as industry leaders and trained in working with adults in an online learning environment. CSU Global offers accelerated eight-week courses that start every four weeks. Visit CSUGlobal.edu to learn more.


Workers have unearthed the remains of more than 1,500 people in western Japan. Archeologists report finding evidence that many of those individuals died of disease, possibly in an epidemic.

The burial ground is thought to date back to the 1850s. It is being dug up for a development project in the city of Osaka.

Officials at Osakas City Cultural Properties Association have studied the remains. They said many of the individuals were likely in their 30s or small children when they died.

The Umeda Grave is one of seven historical burial grounds in Osaka. It was discovered near a main train station as part of a redevelopment project that began in September 2019.

In an earlier study, workers dug up hundreds of similar remains in surrounding areas, said Yoji Hirata, an official at Osakas Cultural Properties Association.

It was our first historical discovery of a burial site in Osaka, Hirata said. The findings will provide details of burial traditions of ordinary people back then.

In the earlier find, many remains showed signs of disease in the hands and feet. The discovery of additional, similar remains suggests the 19th century mass grave was used for victims of an epidemic in the area, Hirata said.

All the remains have been removed from the work area. Experts hope to examine them and other objects to learn more details about the deaths. Some experts have suggested that the epidemic could have involved syphilis, which was widespread during the time in populated areas.

Many of the remains were in small round holes, where bodies appeared to have been buried on top of each other. Researchers found coffins containing more than one skeleton, a sign that many epidemic victims were buried together, Hirata said.

Reuters news agency says researchers discovered about 350 small graves. They also found the remains of animals including four piglets, horses and cats, city officials said. Researchers also unearthed money, Buddhist jewelry and dolls that were believed to have been buried with the dead.

Hirata said experts plan to prepare a report with their findings by the end of next year. The burial ground sits in what used to be a farming area near the citys famous Osaka Castle. It was one of seven major cemeteries in the city.

People used to visit the cemeteries to pray for their ancestors during Japans mid-summer Bon season under Buddhist tradition.

Im Bryan Lynn.

The Associated Press and Reuters reported on this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the reports 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.

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Words in This Story

epidemic  n. when a large number of people get the same disease over the same period of time

ordinary  adj. not special, different, or unusual in any way

coffin  n. a box used to bury dead people in

doll  n. a child's toy that looks like a small person

cemetery  n. a place where dead people are buried
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Linkedin Mauricio Angelo (Thomson Reuters Foundation) Brasilia, Brazil  Mon, August 31, 2020 09:50 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c4197ec1 2 World environmental-crimes,environmental-damage,environmental-issues,Amazon,deforestation Free

A share of the cattle supplied to Brazil's markets are fattened on illegally deforested Amazon land. To conceal that fact from buyers, the animals often are passed through many hands and holdings before being sold, Brazilian researchers said.

That process of "regularizing" beef makes it hard for buyers to ensure their supply chains are deforestation-free - one reason widespread forest loss continues, researchers said in a study looking at how environmental crimes in the Amazon basin are often inter-related.

To disrupt the activities of such networks, and prevent illegally sourced products flooding global markets, making the connections clear is vital, said Ilona Szabo, executive director of the Igarape Institute, a Brazilian think-think that published the study this week.

"This includes shining a light not just on crime groups and shady business but also the corrupt government officials - including police, notary clerks, customs officials, and politicians - who facilitate the business," Szabo said in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

To track the regional and national networks that drive environmental crime across the Amazon, researchers have teamed up with Interpol, InSight Crime - a non-profit journalism and investigation organization - and other partners, Szabo said.

The effort looked first at Brazil, Colombia and Peru, and was later extended to Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela, the study noted.

What researchers found is that illegal activities in the Amazon basin often interact in problematic ways and can have multiple environmental impacts.

Small-scale gold mining, for instance, can drive deforestation, contamination of soils and waterways, land tenure violations and violence.

As part of the effort to better track and respond to such illegal activity in the Amazon, researchers are creating a live digital map of incidents, to try to better identify patterns and overlaps.

The tool, which will rely on remote sensing as well as field visits, should be ready next July, they said.

"The end goal is to create a publicly available tool that can shine a light on crime in the supply chain, targeting asset managers, investment banks, ESG [environmental, social and corporate governance] investors, pensions funds, and consumers who are demanding action," Szabo said.

Lack of cooperation

Fighting environmental crime in the Amazon basin - spread across a range of countries - can be difficult because of a lack of international cooperation, said Adriana Abdenur, one author of the study.

"The Amazon is a profoundly international space," said Abdenur, co-founder of Plataforma Cipo, an laboratory of climate and governance ideas.

An Amazon Cooperation Treaty between eight Amazonian countries, which dates back to 1978, aims to promote "harmonious" development of the region and human well-being.

But it and other agreements "are not being used effectively to promote international cooperation for the region", Abdenur said.

According to MapBiomas, an organization that investigates and validates deforestation alerts in Brazil, more than 90% of all forest loss in the Amazon basin is illegal.

And the situation is worsening, the group said, with deforestation in Brazil rising more than 34% in the 12 months through July, compared to a year earlier.

In Bolivia, fires in 2019 created a rate of forest loss 80% higher than in any previous year, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI).

Colombia similarly saw high rates of deforestation last year, and has lost hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest over the past decade, WRI noted.

Such rapid loss of carbon-absorbing forests is helping drive worsening climate impacts that threaten hundreds of millions of people in South America who rely on the forest to produce rainfall that supports the region's food security, Szabo said.

"Put simply, environmental crime is not just aggravated by climate change - it drives climate change", she said.

Low levels of regional cooperation in addressing environmental crime are the result of a lack of trust among governments in the region - and the fact that some officials benefit for illegal activities, Szabo said.

Even within countries, "public agencies rarely coordinate effectively to locate, investigate, prosecute and penalize environmental crimes - which explains sky-high impunity," she said.
SPRINGFIELD  City councilors have scheduled a meeting with Eversource officials on Thursday to discuss concerns about rising electric bills amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Councilor Marcus Williams, chairman of the Maintenance and Development Subcommittee, said councilors will be looking for explanations for the bill increases and ways to reduce the burden on residents.

The committees teleconference meeting is scheduled at 4:30 p.m. via Zoom.

I want to be mindful of the financial strain this may cause residents, many of whom are already scraping to get by, Williams said.

Priscilla Ress, a spokeswoman for Eversource, confirmed Friday that Eversource will be present for the meeting to answer questions and discuss the issues.

The amount of energy our customers are using this year is much higher than in prior years, Ress said in an email. More people are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, more students are learning from home, and we are experiencing extremely hot weather.

The result is electricity use has gone up, and has led to higher electric bills this summer even though theres been a significant drop in the cost of electricity, Ress said.

As of July 1, Western Massachusetts customers on Eversources Basic Service Supply option are seeing savings of 23% on their electric bill, under a six-month supply rate approved by the state Department of Public Utilities, Ress said.

The decrease will result in a monthly savings on the supply charge of $14.55 for residential customers using an average of 550 kilowatt-hours of electricity, Ress said.

Williams said councilors are getting phone calls and emails from residents complaining about significant bill increases.

Councilor Orlando Ramos recently sent a request for the state Department of Public Utilities to investigate the issue, including the delivery fee charged to customers. He recently said that he had complaints from more than 100 residents.

Eversource will share information at Thursdays meeting regarding ways customers can lower their energy use and bring down their electric bills, Ress said. That includes customers making full use of available energy efficiency programs, she said.

We recognize how challenging these times are and remain committed to supporting our customers experiencing financial hardship, Ress said.

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The Belarusian Interdepartmental Commission on Security in the Information Sphere has canceled press accreditations issued to journalists working for foreign media over recent days. Government spokesman Anatoly Glaz told AFP the decision to revoke the media accreditations was taken on the recommendation of the countrys counter-terrorism unit.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) has compiled a list of journalists whose accreditation has been withdrawn:

Ilia Kuzniatsou, ARD; Sergey Sergeyev, ARD; Mikhail Fomin, ARD; Tatyana Melnichuk, BBC; Tatyana Yanutsevich, BBC; Ales Dashchinsky, RFE/RL; Oleg Gruzdilovich, RFE/RL; Vladimir Gridin, RFE/RL; Aleksandra Dynko, RFE/RL; Vasily Fedosenko, Reuters; Uladzimir Kostsin, Reuters; Sergey Gapon, AFP; Aliaxandr Grabenkin, AFP; Yuras Karmanau, AP; Siarhei Gryts, AP; Gennady Sharipkin, RFi; Raman Vasukovich, Currenttime.tv.

Members of the ARD TV team, Ilia Kuzniatsou, Sergey Sergeyev, and Mikhail Fomin, were detained in Minsk and spent the night detained by the police department. They were accused of active participation in the mass action and deprived of accreditation to ensure the information security of the country. Sergeyev and Fomin were deported to Russia and banned from traveling to Belarus for five years.

A BBC spokesperson confirmed to AFP that two BBC journalists working for its Russian service in Minsk had their press accreditation withdrawn with immediate effect.

The Belarusian authorities have intensified their action to prevent journalists from reporting on the protests over the disputed presidential election in Belarus. Journalists reporting on the demonstrations have faced arbitrary detentions, fines, and beatings by the police.

On August 27, police had detained 47 local and foreign journalists preparing to cover protests in the Belarusian capital Minsk. They confiscated telephones and identity documents.

Earlier this month, the Belarusian authorities blocked access to media websites and disrupted media circulation, claiming that there were problems with the printing press.

IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said: "Stripping foreign correspondents of their accreditation means our colleagues are no longer protected and could result in them being arrested if they are caught reporting on the streets. We firmly condemn this latest attack against the press and urge the Belarusian foreign ministry to review its decision immediately. The public has the right to know what is happening in the country."

EFJ General Secretary Ricardo Gutierrez said:Calls for dialogue by the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) are no longer enough. Through its inertia and silence, the international community is complicit in the repression of the Belarusian people.
NEW YORK, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The European Union (EU) recently said that the internet is most commonly accessed on mobile phones. In addition, compared to 2.5 billion in 2016, smartphone users numbered 3.2 billion in 2019. The increasing smartphone penetration is projected to drive the global digital health market to $884.1 billion by 2030, from $101.4 billion in 2019, at an explosive 21.8% CAGR during 20202030, according to P&S Intelligence.

This is because this concept involves the provision of several healthcare services via smartphones and tablets, apart from PCs and laptops, through the internet. The primary reason this factor is responsible for the digital health market expansion is that people are increasingly using mobile health (mHealth) apps on these mobile communication devices. Via mobile apps, health records can be stored, updated, and shared with medical professionals, who then connect with patients remotely, for diagnosis and follow-ups.

Get the sample copy of this report @ https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/digital-health-market/report-sample

The COVID-19 pandemic is boosting the growth of the digital health market, because the lockdown initiated in numerous nations to stop the virus in its tracks has led to restrictions on the movement of people. Thus, people are avoiding going to the hospital, except in unavoidable circumstances, and connecting with their doctors virtually. Additionally, primary care and outpatient healthcare services have long been considered as capable of being provided remotely, and this pandemic is making this more and more apparent.

The mHealth category dominated the digital health market in the past, based on technology, and the situation is expected to be the same in the coming years. This is attributed to this technology's ability to keep a large population informed about the latest developments in the healthcare and medical field quickly. In addition, mHealth also helps in monitoring patients remotely and reduces healthcare spending.

Browse report with detailed COVID-19 impact analysis on Digital Health Market Research Report: By Technology (Mobile Health, Electronic Health Record, Telemedicine, Healthcare Analytics), End User (Hospitals, Clinics, Individuals) - Global Industry Analysis and Growth Forecast to 2030 @ https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/digital-health-market

North America is the most productive digital health market currently, because the awareness in the region about the various applications of this technology is increasing. Additionally, the rising geriatric population is leading to an increasing demand for remote patient monitoring solutions. The government is also offering its support for the adoption of such technologies; for instance, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of the U.S. encourages the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) by medical professionals.

In order to be in a stronger position in the digital health market than before, companies offering such solutions are engaging in mergers and acquisitions, with the idea of:

Expanding their patient care solutions portfolio

Offering digital health solutions to civil employees

Providing network-enabled services to ambulatory centers and hospitals

Using their partner's patient contact information for connecting healthcare providers with patients and enabling patient outreach and engagement

Improving their big data and analytics, data sharing, and clinical trial solutions

Make enquiry about this report @ https://www.psmarketresearch.com/send-enquiry?enquiry-url=digital-health-market

The major players in the global digital health market include Cerner Corporation, Qualcomm Incorporated, Epic Systems Corporation, eClinicalWorks LLC, athenahealth Inc., McKesson Corporation, General Electric Company, Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc., AT&T Inc., Koninklijke Philips N.V., and Cisco Systems Inc.

Browse Other Reports

mHealth Market - https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/mobile-healthcare-market

Telemedicine Market - https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/telemedicine-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:

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P&S Intelligence

Contact: +1-347-960-6455

Email: [email protected]

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Uncertainty looms over whether Mardi Gras in Mobile and New Orleans occurs in February as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to hamper the outlook of hosting large gatherings.

Officials in both cities are echoing a similar statement: It will be unlike any Carnival that has occurred in generations.

Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, in a letter issued Friday, urged all Mardi Gras societies to start considering alternatives to traditional parades that roll for more than two weeks before Fat Tuesday, which will take place on Feb. 16. He said that the closer we get to January 1, the more certainty there will be to announcing, accurate parading plans.

For now, I ask that you think about creative outdoor alternatives to a traditional parade and large, dense crowd format, Stimpson said in the letter. Let your imagination be your guide. As December approaches, the city will be glad to review your suggestions on how they might roll.

Stimpson also said that ASM Global, the company that manages the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center and the Mobile Civic Center  the two downtown venues that host the majority of Mobiles Mardi Gras balls  will mail out a letter on September 9 listing guidelines the company will be operating under to comply with current State Health Orders. Stimpson said the companys projections could be looked upon as a worst-case scenario.

Once you receive your letter from ASM, you will have greater clarity with which to start narrowing down your true options, said Stimpson. He said the city has heard a variety of responses from mystic societies that range from using a different venue to not having a ball in 2021.

Caution is already starting to emerge. In Mobile, at least three Mardi Gras societies  including the citys largest LGBTQ mystic society, Order of Osiris  have canceled their elaborate balls for 2021. The Osiris event draws over 2,000 people each year to the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center.

36 Mobile Mardi Gras celebrated throughout the year

Health experts have warned for months of large gatherings as potential hot spots for new coronavirus outbreaks. Sporting events, concerts and festivals have been canceled throughout the spring and summer months out of worries over a large super-spreader outbreak occurring among people standing close together. The virus, according to public health officials, spreads primarily through respiratory droplets when someone coughs or sneezes, and spreads easily by people who are standing in close (within 6 feet) proximity of each other.

In New Orleans, a mayors advisory committee has been assembled to come up with recommendations on how to hold Mardi Gras safely during coronavirus. According to media reports, the committee met earlier this month and pushed forward with Mardi Gras plans. Massive krewes, like Endymion, are moving forward with their plans on holding a parade in 2021.

Louisiana state and local leaders in New Orleans will determine whether Mardi Gras happens. In April, while cities were under strict stay-at-home orders, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell was quoted as say that canceling Carnival was a possibility.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in April, Mardi Gras likely accelerated the spread of coronavirus in Louisiana in March and April. New Orleans was among the earliest hot spots for the virus where over 20,000 people were infected within the first month of the pandemic. Mardi Gras Day occurred on February 25; less than three weeks before widespread government restrictions started in response to the growing virus threat.
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Linkedin Norman Harsono (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 15:45 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41a7c0b 1 Business oil-and-gas,pertamina,Algeria,Pertamina-Internasional-EP Free

Indonesian energy giant Pertamina has finished drilling 12 new oil wells in the middle of the Sahara desert in Algeria, which marked the state-owned companys first development project outside of Indonesia.

Pertaminas subsidiary, Pertamina International Exploration Production (PIEP), concluded the latest development of the Menzel Lejmat North (MLN) field in Block 405a, with the wrap-up of the drilling of its 12th well on March 17, according to a PIEP statement released on Saturday.

PIEP earmarked US$14 million to drill each well but managed to cut costs and spend between $8.5 million and $10 million per well. The company did not elaborate on how it slashed spending, which resulted in an estimated budget saving of $100 million.

The firm also cut short the duration of the drilling, from the targeted 55 days per well to 35 to 45 days per well.

[This] proves PIEP has the capacity and skills to operate overseas, PIEP president director John Anis said in the statement, adding that field production would peak in 2021.

Algeria is among PIEPs many overseas assets, including in Nigeria, Tanzania and Malaysia, which is expected to boost Pertaminas upstream business, the largest contributor to the companys profits.

Pertaminas oil and gas production grew 1.4 percent year-on-year to 919 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (mboepd) in the first quarter, largely contributed by the companys foreign operation, particularly in Algeria.

Pertamina took over the MLN field from United States-based ConocoPhillips between 2012 and 2013 as the latter company underwent an asset disposition program. Block output reached 11,000 barrels of oil equivalent in 2012.

The Indonesian company holds a 65 percent interest in the field while Spains Repsol holds the remaining 35 percent, despite Pertaminas efforts to acquire the Madrid-based companys share.

Read also: Pertamina to go ahead with higher oil production plan despite oil price crash
University of New Mexico scientists and students will help the Air Force Research Laboratory build next-generation space technology under two new AFRL contracts totaling nearly $25 million.

The awards will finance basic research on new space communications technology, upgrades to the nations Global Positioning System, and impacts of radiation on satellites and other spacecraft to make defense-related space operations  and, in turn, civilian and commercial systems  far more robust and resilient.

Apart from technology development, the research will offer hands-on experience for UNM students, potentially helping to build a new pipeline of talent for government-run space programs, and for New Mexicos emerging commercial space industry, said Andrea Loper, a business manager with AFRLs Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base.

UNM engineers and students will do basic research to help push new technologies forward, making space systems better, stronger and more capable, Loper told the Journal.  It will also provide direct experience and mentoring for students to become the next generation of scientists and engineers, creating career paths for them.

AFRL awarded $19.3 million to the UNM School of Engineerings space research institute, known as COSMIAC  an acronym for the Configurable Space Microsystems Innovations and Applications Center.

Launched in 2007, COSMIAC conducts a broad array of space-related research, with a special focus on space electronics, at a 30,000-square-foot facility near the Albuquerque International Sunport at Alamo Avenue and Yale Boulevard.

About 60 faculty, staff and student researchers work at the facility, which includes 15,000 square feet on three floors of one building, and 15,000 square feet of high-bay space at a second building. The center has labs, a cleanroom, and two ground stations with 24/7 satellite communications.

COSMIAC has more than 40 active projects underway involving research for public and private entities, including the AFRL, NASA and multinational companies like Northrop Grumman and Leidos.

But the new $19.3 million cooperative agreement with AFRL is COSMIACs biggest single award to date.

It will involve UNM researchers and students at all levels of science, technology engineering and math, said COSMIAC Director Craig Kief.

It will stretch through all the STEM fields, from engineering to math and physics, Kief said. It will offer broad opportunities for students, from freshmen to doctoral students and possibly even post-docs.

Building next-generation talent is critical, especially in New Mexico, where AFRL and other entities at Kirtland are front and center in new space-related technology development for the Air Force, and for the new U.S. Space Force, which President Donald Trump approved last December as the sixth branch of the military. Its also critical for the states emerging commercial space industry.

We have an unbelievably severe shortage of (government) cleared engineers in Albuquerque, Kief said. Students from Florida, California and elsewhere come in, stay for one year, get clearance and leave. We need to grow a lot more local talent to fill jobs here.

For UNM, the economic development aspects of the AFRL cooperative agreement are as important as technology development, said School of Engineering Dean Christos Christodoulou. That includes both workforce development through education and technology transfer for local companies that will assist COSMIAC on research.

Albuquerque and state government are pushing for New Mexico to become a thriving aerospace hub and possibly a permanent location for the U.S. Space Command, Christodoulou said. We cant do that with a shortage of skilled talent. UNM is a key educational arm for the industry.

Satellite research

Under the COSMIAC agreement, UNM will focus on two broad areas of research  new communications systems for space operations and the modernization of satellite position, navigation and timing, or PNT systems, which provide the foundational backbone for GPS.

Specifically, COSMIAC will study use of much higher frequency communication bands for satellites and space operations, as well as optical communications, to improve data flow.

Most low-Earth-orbit satellites fly five miles per second, Kief said. Trying to hit a small 12-by-4-by-8-inch box at those speeds is already hard with low frequencies, and the higher the frequency the harder it is. So we need to do more high-frequency research.

That includes analysis with a series of communication links at 72 gigahertz and 82 GHZ between COSMIAC and Sandia Crest.

Those areas in spectrum are not used a lot, said Loper, who is program manager for the AFRL-COSMIAC agreement. Well explore expanding the bandwidth for communications in an area thats not over-trafficked to move some communications to those areas.

UNM will also assist in designing and testing software-defined radio to rapidly change frequencies in satellite communications when jamming or interference occurs. It will study capabilities for new, automated NPT controls, and reconfigurable communications to change protocols on orbiting satellites.

COSMIAC will help with a lot of modeling and simulation, looking at algorithms and communication links to make networks more resilient with intelligent automation and inherent capabilities, Loper said.

Apart from the COSMIAC agreement, AFRL also approved a new, $4.9 million, five-year contract this month for the School of Engineering to study the impacts of radiation on spacecraft. That research will assist in U.S. efforts to return to the moon by 2024.

The deeper you go in space, the more problematic radiation becomes, Christodoulou said. Well gather data on radiation effects to do modeling and simulation for projections of radiation impacts on the moon.
Regarding The Republicans editorial Trumps show: The Mob Boss & His Grifters, Aug. 25, page A4, you got it half right. No one who was clearly thinking ever believed the border wall would be paid by Mexico. Agreed. The rest of the editorial is guilt by innuendo.

First, the fact that Steve Bannon was arrested for allegedly funneling a lot of money to himself from a fundraising effort to build a border wall has no nexus to President Donald Trump. None.

Second, you mentioned his former campaign manager Paul Manaforts conviction for tax and bank fraud as well as conspiracy against the United States. Really? He committed those crimes years before he had any official connection to the Trump campaign.

Finally, the editorial scrapes the bottom of the barrel dredging up the dropped charges of misdemeanor battery against former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski after a reporter alleged that he had grabbed her arm. As it turns out she left an assigned press area and entered a protective bubble established by Secret Service agents where she actually made physical contact with the president. As the Palm Beach County State Attorneys office said were not charging him (Lewandowski) because he was reacting to what he perceived as a potential threat. Nothing there.

If The Republican editorial board wants to bash President Donald Trump they can do better than this editorial. Stick to the presidents own words and actions and not those of former surrogates to make your point. Even Donald Trump cant be held responsible for the actions of others that occur before and after any political association with him.

Andrew D. Hayes, East Longmeadow
Although President Trump has said the military is all mobilized to help distribute a coronavirus vaccine, in the end that process will almost certainly rely heavily on the pharmacies, doctors and community hospitals were all familiar with.

The big picture: Deciding how to distribute a vaccine is, for now, a government-driven task, and Trump has invoked the logistical expertise of the military as a way to do the job. For the public, though, this wont feel like a military exercise, with heavy trucks rolling into town and people lining up outside medical tents. Itll feel like going to CVS.

Where it stands: Government officials have given conflicting accounts of who will be distributing a vaccine, once there is one.

Trump has said several times that the military would be part of the process, but McClatchy reported last month that no such preparations are under way and that the Pentagon is unlikely to be involved. Politico then reported that the Pentagon would be providing some logistical support, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control.

These are all behind-the-scenes logistics for allocating the available doses of an eventual vaccine. When the time comes for individual patients to get vaccinated, the process will seem far more mundane.

Details: The leading vaccine candidates all need to be stored at sub-zero temperatures until theyre administered  something major pharmaceutical distributors and pharmacy chains are already equipped to do.

Most of the leading candidates require two shots. Keeping track of whos been vaccinated and whos due for their second dose is work that pharmacies, doctors and hospitals are used to.

So is navigating insurance coverage and payment.

There will also be waves of earlier and later vaccines to keep track of.

The vaccines are also expected to have side effects such as fever and chills that mimic virus symptoms, so itll be important for patients to get a consultation ahead of time and to be able to consult their providers if they need to.

Whats next: There will not be enough supply to vaccinate more than a small share of the U.S. population once distribution begins. High-level decisions about how to allocate the available doses will be wrenching and could be politically explosive.
President Donald Trumps former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse on June 24, 2019 in Washington, DC.

A federal appeals court on Monday overwhelmingly rejected a bid by Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's first national security advisor, to force the prompt dismissal of the criminal case in which he had been convicted of lying to FBI agents.

In an 8-2 ruling, the appeals court judges indicated that Flynn's request was premature, since U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan of Washington had not yet even ruled on the dismissal request by the Justice Department.

The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also said Flynn had failed to show that he had a clear right to have a different judge handle his case.

The ruling sends the case back for consideration by Sullivan. Sullivan could dismiss it, as requested, or reject that request and move toward sentencing Flynn. If he does not dismiss the case, his refusal is certain to be appealed.

"Today we reach the unexceptional yet important conclusion that a court of appeals should stay its hand and allow the district court to finish its work rather than hear a challenge to a decision not yet made," wrote Judge Thomas Griffith in a concurring opinion with the majority ruling.

"That is a policy the federal courts have followed since the beginning of the Republic." Griffith wrote.

A lawyer for Flynn and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to CNBC's requests for comment on Monday's ruling.

Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to FBI agents about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the United States in the weeks leading up to Trump's inauguration in January 2017.

He also agreed to cooperate with then-special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

But after hiring a new lawyer  Sidney Powell  in 2019, Flynn began making legal efforts to undo his guilty plea. The Justice Department opposed those efforts until this spring, when in a stunning about-face, it asked Sullivan to toss out the case.

In a filing seeking the dismissal, the then-interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Timothy Shea, argued that the FBI's interview of Flynn was not justified by a counterintelligence investigation and that his lies about what he said to a Russian diplomat were not "material" to that probe.

Instead of promptly granting that dismissal, Sullivan asked a lawyer unconnected to the case to argue to the judge against the Justice Department's motion, and allowed outside parties to weigh in on the matter.

Flynn soon afterward asked the appeals court to compel Sullivan to sign off on the dismissal request.

Flynn also asked that Sullivan be removed. Flynn's lawyers said Sullivan had overstepped his authority by allowing outside parties to make legal arguments in the case.

At a hearing this month, Powell said Sullivan has "discarded any semblance of the unbiased impartial adjudicator" he is expected to be.

Earlier this summer, a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled in Flynn's favor, saying the case had to be dismissed.

But Sullivan then asked that the entire line-up of judges on the appeals court rehear the case.

It agreed to do so. And in Monday's decision, the court ruled in the judge's favor, saying that he should have more time to weigh the question of whether to dismiss Flynn's case.

The court found, on the question of Sullivan's fairness in the case, that none of the judge's actions that had been cited by Flynn comes close to meeting the "very high standard" of "conduct . . . so extreme as to display clear inability to render fair judgment."

Judge Griffith, in his concurring opinion in the decision, wrote, "In cases that attract public attention, it is common for pundits and politicians to frame their commentary in a way that reduces the judicial process to little more than a skirmish in a partisan battle."

"The party affiliation of the President who appoints a judge becomes an explanation for the judge's real reason for the disposition, and the legal reasoning employed is seen as a cover for the exercise of raw political power," wrote Griffith, who was appointed to his seat by President George W. Bush.

"No doubt there will be some who will describe the court's decision today in such terms, but they would be mistaken."

The two judges who dissented in the opinion, Karen LeCraft Henderson and Neomi Rao, were appointed to their seats by Presidents George H.W. Bush and Trump, respectively.

Rao, in her dissent, wrote that, "In Flynn's case, the prosecution no longer has a prosecutor," given the statement by the Justice Department, which is an arm of the executive branch of government, that it wans to drop the case.

"Yet the case continues with district court proceedings aimed at uncovering the internal deliberations of the Department," Rao wrote. "The majority gestures at the potential harms of such a judicial intrusion into the Executive Branch, but takes a wait-and-see approach, hoping and hinting that the district judge will not take the actions he clearly states he will take."

She also wrote that while an order by the appeals court directing the dismissal would be "an extraordinary remedy, it is appropriate here to prevent this judicial usurpation of the executive power and to correct the district court's abuse of discretion."

Henderson wrote in her dissent that she believed that Sullivan's "conduct patently

draws his impartiality into question," pointing to Sullivan's comments at Flynn plea hearing, where the judge "

the trial judge asked whether Flynn could be guilty of treason and noted his 'disgust' and 'disdain' for Flynn's actions."

Henderson wrote that the judge also should be disqualifice because he appealed the ruling of the three-judge panel that had ordered Flynn's case dismissed.

 CNBC's Tucker Higgins contributed to this report
The health of Indias former President Pranab Mukherjee deteriorated on Sunday night and is currently in septic shock", said hospital authorities on Monday.

There is a decline in the medical condition of Honble Shri Pranab Mukherjee since yesterday, said Army Hospital, where the former President and Congress stalwart is admitted, in Delhi Cantonment.

Mukherjee is in septic shock" due to his lung infection and is being managed by team of specialists. He continues to be in deep coma and on ventilator support.

The 84-year-old former president was admitted to the hospital in Delhi Cantonment on August 10. He was operated for removal of a clot in the brain and has been in a coma ever since. He also tested positive for Covid-19.

On August 10, Mukherjee on Monday underwent a successful brain surgery for removal of clot. Former President Pranab Mukherjee underwent a successful brain surgery for removal of a clot at the Armys R&R hospital," said the sources. He is critical and is on ventilator support."

On a visit to the hospital for a separate procedure, I have tested positive for COVID19 today," the 84-year-old said in a tweet.

I request the people who came in contact with me in the last week, to please self isolate and get tested for COVID-19," Mukherjee said.

Mukherjee was the 13th President of India from 2012-2017.
Union Minister for Shipping, Mansukh Mandaviya will welcome the barge carrying 50 tonne of cement from Daundkandi in Bangladesh to Sonamura in Tripura's Sepahijala district on September 5 through video conferencing from Delhi, officials said. The Sonamura-Daudkandi inland waterways protocol route connecting Tripura to Bangladesh would be made operational on the day in presence of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb and Chairman of the Land Ports Authority of India (LPAI), Aditya Mishra, Secretary of Tripura's Industry and Commerce Department, Kiran Gitte said.

The 90-km long Sonamura-Daudkandi route, included in the list of Indo-Bangla protocol (IBP) routes in May this year, is expected to boost trade, Gitte, who visited the spot, told reporters on Sunday. Director of Land Port Authority of India (LPAI) Ajit Kumar Singh, said that a barge carrying goods would arrive at Sonamura on September 5.

"A floating jetty was constructed just near the integrated check post. The place is beautiful, which has also the potential to be developed as a good tourist spot. At present barges carrying goods would come and later tourists from both the countries can come by using the waterways," he told PTI.

Also read: Goods worth hundreds of crores stuck in factories; MSMEs complain Centre, states not on same page

On August 25, Deb had said in a Facebook post, ".... The trial run is scheduled in the first week of September 2020, during which 50 MT cement will be transported in barges from Dhaka to Sonamura. This is for the first time in history that any kind of goods will be reaching Tripura by ship.."

The chief minister said that the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority has given permission for a trial run from Daundkandi in Comilla district of the neighbouring country to Sonamura in Tripura via River Gomati. Tripura had set up a floating jetty on the river on July 4 as part of the Indo-Bangla international inland waterways connectivity project.

Traders of India and Bangladesh had demanded a trial run of vessels on the Gomati river to operationalise the Indo-Bangla protocol route between Sonamura and Daudkandi, officials said. A high-level team of officials of the Bangladesh Shipping Ministry had surveyed the riverine protocol route on August 12, Sonamura sub-divisional magistrate Subrata Majumder said.

Also read: India to set up solar manufacturing zones; impose 15-20% duty to discourage imports from China

"Of the 90-km stretch, around 89.5-km is in the neighbouring country," he said. Gomati is a seasonal river and the water route can remain operational for only 3-4 months in a year and silts should be lifted on a regular basis from the Gomati to keep the route operational, Singh said.

Also read: Coronavirus: Delhi's weekly markets to open for 7 more days on trial basis
Israel holding secret talks with 'many more Arab leaders': Netanyahu claims

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 4:10 PM

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Tel Aviv is currently engaged in "secret talks" with many more Arab leaders for normalizing bilateral relations, days after a much-condemned agreement on normalization between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was publicized.

"There are many more unpublicized meetings with Arab and Muslim leaders to normalize relations with Israel," the Israeli premier claimed on Sunday, on the eve of Israel's first commercial flight to the UAE.

The Israel-UAE agreement "will pave the way for other countries to normalize their ties with Israel," Netanyahu added.

The development came after Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv announced on August 13 that they had reached an agreement that would lead to a full normalization of diplomatic relations between the two sides.

The highly controversial deal, which has since been widely condemned across the occupied Palestinian territories and the Muslim world, was brokered by US President Donald Trump, who has attempted to paint it as a big breakthrough.

The UAE-Israel deal marks the third such normalization agreement the occupying regime has struck with an Arab country after Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994). The UAE, the first country in the Persian Gulf region to reach such a deal with Tel Aviv, was already believed to have clandestine relations with Israel.

On Saturday, the UAE announced it was scrapping its economic boycott against Israel, allowing trade and financial accords between the two sides under the recently-struck deal, which has been unanimously condemned by all Palestinian factions, which describe it as a stab in the back of the oppressed nation.

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli regional cooperation minister Ofir Akunis said that Tal Aviv expected to hold a signing ceremony for the agreement in Washington.

He added that the precise date for the ceremony could be decided by senior aides to Netanyahu and Trump when they fly to Abu Dhabi on Monday morning for talks.

The American delegation is led by White House advisor Jared Kushner, who stood next to Netanyahu during his remarks on Sunday.

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What began with reports of gunshots at an army barracks just outside Bamako in the morning of August 18 ended hours later with a group of mutinous soldiers arresting and forcing the resignation of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Malis embattled president.

The coup leaders swiftly declared their intervention was meant to prevent the country from plunging into chaos, which they blamed on the governments failure to tackle a series of overlapping crises.

In the weeks leading up to the coup, tens of thousands of opposition supporters had taken to the streets to protest against a disputed parliamentary election, persistent economic woes and a spiralling security crisis that erupted in 2012, when a previous coup allowed northern Tuareg separatists, allied with an al-Qaeda offshoot, to take advantage of the political instability and briefly seize large swaths of land in the north.

That loss of territory precipitated the currently devolving situation, with armed groups linked to ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda capitalising on intercommunal tensions as they jockey for control of Malis semi-arid centre.

But along with the hope of the social and political reforms demanded during the mass anti-Keita protests, the reality of the continuing conflicts in the countrys vast north and central regions remains. And while the coup has cast into uncertainty Malis political future, it has also raised fears the effects of the upheaval could further spill beyond the countrys borders and threaten the wider region.





The military officers now in charge, calling themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), have promised to include the opposition and civil society in a transition back to civilian rule, which they have pledged will happen within a reasonable timeframe.

But two weeks since the coup, little has been made clear about who will lead the transition and how long it will last.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc has been negotiating the details of the transfer of power, but the two parties remain at odds  ECOWAS has called for it to happen within a year, and has stemmed money flows to the country to pressure the militarys hand.

France, which has for years been militarily the most active international power in its former colony, has also called for a truncated timeline, with Defence Minister Florence Parly saying the transition should take place within a matter of months.

If this does not happen, the risk is that all this benefits terrorists first and foremost, she told Europe-1 radio on Sunday. Terrorists feed on the weakness of states.

2012 coup

Despite the increased presence of international forces  including the French-led Operation Barkhane and the United Nations peacekeeping mission (MINUSMA)  violence has continued to increase in Mali in recent years.

Attacks have grown fivefold since 2016, while the vast majority of the almost 2,000 documented fatalities related to the conflict in the country this year took place in the central Mopti region, according to the International Crisis Group. Meanwhile, about 1.7 million people have been displaced by the violence, according to the UN.

The first seven months of this year have proven deadlier than any year since Mali was thrown into turmoil in 2012.

Despite early comparisons, however, armed groups in Mali are not likely to benefit as significantly as they did from the political instability eight years ago, said Flore Berger, a Sahel research analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Its not gonna be like 2012 where they can actually take vast parts of the country, she said. First of all, theyre already there. They dont control the entire areas where they attack, but theyre still there, they have quite a big presence.





They also have changed their tactics. Theyre not aiming at controlling major town centres. Now they aim at attacking and going south towards coastal West Africa, Berger added.

Still, armed groups may increase attacks in the coming weeks in response to the upheaval, said Judd Devermont, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

My expectation is that they would look to continue to do attacks in the early period to demonstrate that this military government is weak, he added. And to persuade, or to undermine any local Malians views that maybe theres a new dispensation on the horizon.

Another difference from 2012 is that that coup was more of a mutiny of the low-ranking officers and soldiers motivated by troops complaining about their military conditions in operations against armed groups in the north, said Virginie Baudais, a senior Sahel researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

There was not a really high-ranking officer implicated in the coup in 2012. And now its a high ranking officer and the coup appears to be well organised, she said, referring to Assimi Goita, a colonel in the Malian special forces who is leading the CNSP.

It was much more complicated to negotiate with the junta in 2012 than this one, she said.

More than two weeks after the 2012 coup, the then-military rulers folded to international pressure amid crippling ECOWAS sanctions, international travel bans, aid withholdings, and the declaration of an autonomous state by northern separatists who had seized key northern cities.

The military ceded power to a transitional authority led by the speaker of parliament, ushered in a 2013 election that was won by Keita, who got re-elected five years later.

Thinly stretched

This time, the international community has walked a careful line in condemning the unconstitutional transfer of power, which several regional leaders fear may set an example for their countries, while refraining from doing anything that could jeopardise the coordination that they see as essential to slowing the spreading of violence in the region.

CNSP leaders have also said they will continue to cooperate with the international forces currently based in the country in an array of missions aimed at routing out armed groups, while continuing a languishing 2015 peace agreement reached with rebel groups in the countrys north.

To date, France and other European powers, as well as MINUSMA, have said they will continue their operations during the transitional period, while the United States and the European Union have temporarily paused training activities in the wake of the coup.

I would frame all of this as being really fluid, said CSISs Devermont, in terms of the way these international partners are legally able to work with the military government and operate in Mali, and what the military governments ultimate partnership and position towards these actors will be.

Many regional and international leaders, while perhaps not publicly, had viewed the 75-year-old Keita as a flawed intermediary, analysts said.

Devermont said Malis military during Keitas rule has been historically inept at consolidating control and backfilling security gains made by international forces operating in the country.

However, a transition in power could tax the already overstretched Malian forces across the country.

If it becomes a military-led government, we would have to expect they would start pulling more military off the battlefield and into Bamako. So there could be some direct disruption to the limited capacity that the military already has, Devermont said.





Jose Luengo Cabrera, a Sahel researcher at the International Crisis Group, said it remains unclear whether the junta will respond more effectively to the broiling rural insurgency in central Mali, where military outposts and gendarmeries continue to be primary targets of jihadi attacks  at a time when security forces are evidently thinly stretched.

He added that there have been increasing reports leading up to the coup highlighting levels of demoralisation, barriers to promotion within military hierarchy, and, worst, growing disenchantment towards insufficient resources within the military ranks.

It also remains unclear to what degree the Malian military will be motivated to enact needed reforms, including reckoning with abuses committed by security forces that have increased the enmity between the government and some communities, especially now that the military is poised to become a principal political actor and likely to be resistant to certain changes requiring it to concede powers and be willing to be more accountable to the civilian justice system, Luengo Cabrera said.

The UNs human rights agency, as of June, had documented 230 extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions attributed to Malis security forces in 2020, including some that allegedly occurred under the control of the G5 Sahel Joint Force  a French-backed multinational military force in the Sahel composed of troops from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

The agency has also documented instances of enforced disappearances, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, arbitrary arrest and the destruction of several properties.

Security forces have also been accused of using excessive force during the protests that preceded the coup, with sources describing to Human Rights Watch at least 14 deaths of protesters and bystanders allegedly as a result of gunfire by the security forces in Bamako on July 10 and 11.

CNSP leaders arrive at the transitional talks with ECOWAS [File: John Kalapo/Getty Images]

With more questions than answers, many analysts agree that any transition will need to holistically contend the countrys myriad issues, with the primary focus on the underlying problems that plague citizens across its far-flung reaches.

The root causes of the security situation are not security in itself, but they are mostly the economic situation, said Gregory Chauzal, a senior researcher and director of the SIPRIs Sahel West Africa programme.

If you want to improve the situation in the long run, to have sustainable peace  you need to address what makes this conflict happen in first place, he said, citing Malis political and economic factors.

Added SIPRIs Baudais: With MINUSMA, Barkhane, the G5 Sahel, Takuba, and every military intervention, the situation is still deteriorating since 2012. So we can see that the military solution is not the most effective.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Biotechnology company Novavax, Inc. (NVAX) announced Monday it has reached an agreement in principle with the Government of Canada to supply up to 76 million doses of NVX-CoV2373, Novavax' COVID-19 vaccine.



Novavax and Canada expect to finalize an advance purchase agreement under which Novavax will supply doses of NVX-CoV2373 to Canada beginning as early as the second quarter of 2021. This purchase arrangement will be subject to licensure of the Novavax vaccine by Health Canada.



NVX-CoV2373 is currently in multiple Phase 2 clinical trials. The Phase 2 portion of the Phase 1/2 clinical trial to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of NVX-CoV2373 began in August in the United States and Australia.



The Phases 1/2 expands on the age range of the Phase 1 portion by including older adults 60-84 years of age as approximately 50 percent of the trial population. Secondary objectives include preliminary evaluation of efficacy. In addition, a Phase 2b clinical trial to assess efficacy began in South Africa in August.



NVX-CoV2373 is a vaccine candidate engineered from the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease.



NVX-CoV2373 was created using Novavax' recombinant nanoparticle technology to generate antigen derived from the coronavirus spike (S) protein and contains Novavax' patented saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant to enhance the immune response and stimulate high levels of neutralizing antibodies.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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This is in response to the constant berating of the Democratic Party and President Obama. Let me state some facts for you right-wing, reactionary Republican liars. Barack Obamas presidency was highlighted with saving the country from the Great Recession, when unemployment was between 10% and 11%. It was between 4% and 5% when he left office in 2017 -- 84 straight months of job growth. Never in the history of this country have there been 84 straight months of job growth as there were under the Obama administration. The Affordable Care Act which was implemented  20 million people were insured through this act  saving them from bankruptcy due to high medical bills, etc. Osama bin Laden  remember him and 9/11? The auto industry, GM and Chrysler going bankrupt when some of the Republicans were saying let them go bankrupt? He saved those industries by convincing Congress to loan those two businesses money, and they paid the money back with interest.
Sure, millennials are the trendy crowd these days. But that doesnt mean your stock portfolio cant profit from investment trends tied to aging baby boomers.

Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, range in age from 56 to 74 now. And just because theyre getting older, doesnt mean they dont still carry clout.

There are more than 71 million boomers; only the millennial generation is bigger. Boomers are also the wealthiest generation. And if you follow the money  i.e. what the baby-boom generation spends their money on  youre likely to find investment opportunities.

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Money is made by profiting from big societal trends. The aging of the U.S. population is a big one. So is aging in place. Virtual medicine is fast-emerging as a big business, too. And dont forget about new pharmaceuticals that keep hearts beating longer and blood sugar levels steady. The humanization of pets trend is also gaining in popularity, as is replacing a cranky knee, digital payments and keeping in touch with grandkids via social media. Fixing up the house remains in style, too, especially for aging homeowners who one day may need a home in-care specialist.

What do all these trends have in common? They intersect with the lives and spending habits of aging baby boomers.

Baby-boomer expenditures drive sales and profits of publicly traded companies. Below, is a sampling of stocks and funds that would fit into a so-called baby boomer portfolio.

Home in on health care

The most obvious beneficiary of an aging population is health care companies, says Daniel Wiener, chairman of Adviser Investments

Its all about the baby boomers wanting to live longer, more active lives, says Wiener. Boomers are replacing knees and hips. Theyre taking drugs to reduce their cholesterol and control their diabetes. The health care industry is rife with opportunities.

Three are a few ways to invest in health care: Buy individual stocks or funds exposed to a diverse group of health care companies.

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Baby boomers are replacing knees and hips because they want to live more active lives.

Investors not comfortable trying to identify the individual pharmaceutical company to come up with the next big lifesaving drug or the most profitable medical device maker, for example, can invest in funds that own a broad basket of health care stocks, says Wiener.

One way is to invest in a low-cost, broadly diversified index-focused fund like Vanguard Health Care ETF (symbol VHT). But if your goal is to own the best health care companies with the most growth potential, Wiener advises buying a fund managed by a portfolio manager that specializes in picking potential winners.

Why not let a smart active manager decide which stock and which subsector of health care are the best ones to own, Wiener says.

Still, theres no shortage of stocks poised to profit from the aging boomer trend. All boomers will be 65 or older by 2030.

Sel Hardy, an analyst at research firm CFRA who covers drug manufacturers and managed care stocks, says health insurers will benefit from the emerging telemedicine trend, as well as greater usage of health care by aging Americans.

Insurers like Anthem (ANTM), Centene (CNC) Humana (HUM), and Molina Healthcare (MOH), she says, will benefit from lower costs from telemedicine. Virtual appointments are viewed as a key component of preventative care that will result in fewer patient visits to the doctors office and emergency rooms.

Big drug companies like Merck (MRK), Pfizer (PFE), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Eli Lilly (LLY), Hardy adds, are also well-positioned, given their large footprint of drugs that treat cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

A major part of their revenue stream is in oncology, diabetes and cardiology, disease areas that impact a large segment of the baby-boomer population, Hardy says.

Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are also racing for a COVID-19 vaccine. If successful, a vaccine creates another potential revenue opportunity, given the sheer numbers of vaccinations that will be needed, especially for older Americans who are at greater risk of dying from the coronavirus. Similarly, Eli Lilly is working on treatment options for the coronavirus that could boost sales.

Profit from 'humanization of pets'

Increasingly, people are treating their pets, well, like people. The humanization of pets trend is driven in part by baby boomers. Over the past decade, this generation is the only age group to have seen an increase in their pet ownership rate, rising from 50% to 54% between 2008 and 2018, according to market research firm Packaged Facts.

And the shelter-in-place-driven isolation caused by COVID-19 has resulted in a rise in pet ownership among boomers, who are now spending more time with their animals and viewing them like companions, says Richard Bodzy, lead manager of Putnam Growth Opportunities Fund.

Whether its a case of the kids moving away to college or having more free time at home, pet ownership has increased a lot in the baby-boomer demographic, says Bodzy.

And as pet ownership rises, so does the need for pet care. Thats why Bodzy is bullish on IDEXX Laboratories (IDXX), which provides diagnostic testing equipment to veterinarians. Preventative testing of pets is on the rise, he says.

Another stock benefiting from this trend is Zoetis (ZTS), a company that makes medicines, vaccines and vitamins for animals, including companion animals, Hardy says. Weve seen the trend accelerate, she says.

Tech stocks arent just for millennials

Tech, the hottest segment of the stock market this year, isnt only benefiting from gadget-loving millennials. Nearly half (46%) of baby boomers older than 65 keep in touch with grandkids, children and friends via Facebook (FB), according to Pew Research Center. The use of Facebook by this older age group has more than doubled since 2012, Pew says.

Baby boomers are also moving away from cash and using contactless payment systems more as the digital economy takes root, e-commerce grows and health concerns related to Covid-19 persist, says Putnams Bodzy.

A lot of services we historically thought were more geared to millennials are increasingly applicable to baby boomers as they age, says Bodzy.

One stock benefiting from this trend is Paypal (PYPL), the digital payment company. The company added a record 21.3 million new accounts in its fiscal second quarter, and it expects to add 70 million new accounts in fiscal 2020. The biggest chunk of new customers, Bodzy says, are aged 45, 50 or older.

And dont count out the COVID-19 success story Zoom (ZM), the video communications platform that enables remote fact-to-face interactions. Boomers can stay in contact with their kids or grandkids in real time virtually.

Its about wanting to stay in touch, says Wiener.

Telemedicine visits allow patients to visit a doctor virtually, through a smartphone or other device.

Talking doctors via telemed technology

The telemedicine trend is getting buy-in from baby boomers who value the option of talking to a doctor and getting prescriptions prescribed without leaving home. Its more convenient and less expensive than a visit to the doctors office, and it also reduces the chance of contracting COVID-19 while traveling to appointments. Telemedicine, which once was used mainly for basic diagnostics and dermatology, is now seeing wider uses, adds CFRAs Hardy.

The acceptance and penetration of virtual medicine, which is offered by companies like Teladoc Health (TDOC), has been accelerated by the COVID-19 health crisis, but is expected to become a commonly accepted way of interacting with doctors, says Putnams Bodzy.

Other baby boomer plays

The aging-in-place trend will boost the need for home improvements, which makes a stock like Home Depot (HD) attractive. It also benefits stocks like home health care provider LHC Group (LHCG).

Once-popular baby boomer investment plays, such as cruise lines, airlines and resorts, have been hurt by travel restrictions and health concerns related to COVID-19 and will likely take time to fully recover, says Stephen Dover, head of equities at Franklin Templeton.

Travel is likely to be curtailed for the next year or two and it remains to be seen what the longer-term effect will be, says Dover, adding that people, including baby boomers, will have to feel more secure before resuming their regular travel plans.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 401(k) Investors: Baby boomer trends that could lift your investments
In an exclusive interview with NewsX for its special segment NewsX A-list, Amit Aggarwal sheds light on his ideology behind his brand, his experiences during the pandemic and his predictions for the future.

Amit Aggarwal is the Founder & Creative Director of Amit Aggarwal, a fashion designer, haute couturist and a household name. In a recent exclusive interview with NewsX, Amit Aggarwal sheds light on his ideology behind his brand, his experiences during the pandemic and his predictions for the future.

He recently launched an inspiring limited edition collection with a cause on Independence Day. He elaborates the idea of interdependence behind the collection and the necessity of giving back to the Karigar community during these trying times. He emphasised the indispensability of the Karigars and considers his collection a necessary contribution to empower the entire community. The collection consisted of 12 free-size T-shirts created and designed by the Karigars.

He proudly declares that In an hour, we were sold out and all the proceeds went to the Karigars. This collection is a paradigm of the innovative ways in which we can empower and help economically weaker sections of the society during the pandemic. This exemplary philosophy of starting smaller, innovative initiatives to make bigger changes seems to be the need of the hour and it is exemplified in his label which has been created on the fundamentals of sustainability, innovation, interdependence and ecological consciousness.

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Speaking about the trials that the pandemic created, he states, After the first few months, there was some more clarity about the future and our immediate priority was to take care of the Karigars and ensure continued work. After the Unlock 3, his physical store has seen some footfall and clients. His advice to brands during this time is toProduce consciously, limit waste, keep market trends in mind so as to avoid producing in excess.

Hes optimistic about the future of Bridal couture and believes that it isnt going to be affected too much because people still want to look just as good on their wedding day. The selected number of guests isnt going to affect the beauty in the wedding any more than it will affect the sanctity of the marriage .His vision is an amalgamation of traditional aesthetics and the technology of the future to create a dynamic present. The driving force behind his vision is the creativity of the Karigars and he stresses on the need to empower them and allow them to create clothes in every imaginable way.

According to his assessment of the future, he believes that things will be more digital and suggests embracing the change. He states that the brand thrives on innovation and adapt and voices his plans to go digital to limit waste and showcase his innovative designs. However, he continues that a brick and mortar boutique creates an unparalleled sense of luxury ; one that isnt going to be replaced anytime soon.

Also Read: If you have a dream, just go ahead and start it, the universe will conspire, says Naren Kumar, CEO & Co founder, IamHere
California Teacher-of-the-Year Promotes Kindness in Her Class

On Aug. 31, Mandy Kellys 6th grade class in Trabuco Canyon, Calif., sent out their first kindness challenge video of the new school year.

Kelly started challenging her students to do random acts of kindness in 2016, and the idea gained traction not only in her school, but in schools across the country. She and her students now create videos with kindness challenges to send out to over 300 schools.

Its part of what earned her the title of California Teacher of the Year last yearshe was one of five to earn that title statewide. She was also named Orange County Teacher of the Year last spring.

They need to leave my classroom being a better person, and thats what I want them to do, she told The Epoch Times.

The video format works as well for the virtual classrooms amid COVID as it did in previous years. The nature of the kindness challenges has changed slightly, she said: We have to think about what challenges people can do from their own home thats safe. And watching them rise to that occasion, Im excited to see what they come up with.

The Power of Small Acts of Kindness

In 2016, Kelly assigned each of her students to do one random act of kindness everyday during the month of December. I wanted to find a way just to show my students how powerful a small act of kindness can be, she said.

She was happy to see her students started to take everyone into consideration, not just themselves.

We started with holding the door open for someone, or writing a thank-you letter and sneaking it in someones desk. We had them write inspirational messages around their community, helping out around the house, thanking a community employee, Kelly said.

Her plan was to finish up the assignment and move onto others, but her students wanted to continue it. I had a bunch of students who were like,That was actually really fun, can we keep doing it?

SEAKers

Kelly decided she wasnt about to quash their passion for kindness.

Her class took on the name The SEAKers (Students Engaging in Acts of Kindness). They recognized that no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

The other teachers at the school noticed a change in Kellys students and wanted to follow her class example.

Theres a need for this. There are teachers that are looking for a way to actually intentionally be teaching kindness, Kelly said.

So she started sending out a weekly kindness challenge for students each week, via email and videos posted on social media. Teachers could sign up on a Google form and be part of an email list.

Within three weeks, she had 70 classes, from preschool to high school, in different schools throughout the country. She currently has over 300 classes in 30 states, plus two outside the United States.

All the teachers have to do is push play, and its my kids talking to their kids. Its our 6th graders talking to kids around the world, Kelly said.

Long-Term Impacts

Kellys students from previous years have told her the initiative had a lasting impact on them.

It changed the atmosphere of the classroom, but it was more powerful to see that it had that long-term change in a lot of students, she said.

One former student remarked, We werent just doing it for us, but we were role models now that we had to be the model of kindness.

Another former student told her: I continued volunteering at my church, because it was something that I started in your class. It felt amazing, and I just continued to do it.

Kelly said its a team effort to raise good people. Its the kid, its the parents or the guardians, and its the teacher. And all of us need to be working together.  I have a little bit of power as a teacher to influence kids, and why not use that to kind of help them be good people.
A British Army drone designed to be used in war zones is to fly over the English Channel to monitor migrant boats crossing from France to the UK.

The Watchkeeper drone will be used to help the Border Force agencys efforts to tackle boats making the dangerous crossings, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed.

It is the first time the eye-in-the-sky war technology  which has been used by the Army in Afghanistan  will fly operationally in the UK.

It comes as migrants continue to risk the route in the Dover Strait, though bad weather has limited the number of crossings in recent days.

Other armed forces aircraft have also been authorised to help monitor small boats, but the Royal Navy is still considering a government request to deploy patrol boats to assist the Border Force.

An MoD spokesperson said: The deployment of Watchkeeper provides further defence support to the Home Office in tackling the increasing number of small boats crossing the English Channel.

It will provide a leading surveillance and reconnaissance capability, feeding information back to the Border Force and allowing them to take appropriate action where necessary.

The unmanned air system (UAS), hailed as a battle-winning technology by then defence secretary Michael Fallon in 2014, is scheduled to fly from Lydd airport in Kent and will be operated by 47th Regiment Royal Artillery.

The Watchkeeper drones programme has cost the UK more than 1bn, figures released in 2017 showed. However, the devices have been beset by issues in recent years.

Four are known to have crashed, including two which plunged into the sea off the coast of Wales in early 2017. The other two crashes happened in 2014 and 2015 whilst landing at West Wales Airport and MoD Boscombe Down respectively.

 Banksy rescue boat stranded at sea with calls for help ignored

More than 5,000 migrants have crossed to the UK in small boats so far in 2020. Boris Johnsons government has said it is working with France to make the sea route unviable, but campaigners have called for safer legal routes to claim asylum in the UK.

Last week the Home Office was accused of an assault on the rule of law over its comments about activist lawyers who are representing migrants.

Home secretary Priti Patels department has faced fierce criticism over a video posted to its Twitter account about its efforts to remove migrants from the UK.
Coalition spokesman Col. Turki al-Malki said in a statement that the remotely controlled boat was spotted late Sunday. He did not mention any casualties, but Yemeni officials said a blast killed at least three people and wounded five others.
A pod of dolphins were filmed swimming in close proximity to beachgoers off Oneroa Beach, Waiheke Island, New Zealand, on August 29.

The video shows three playful dolphins circling a swimmer while other dolphins circle a kayaker.

Torrens Roose-Butcher captured the footage and told local media the dolphins swam in the area for around an hour while swimmers and kayakers braved the cold for the unique encounter. Credit: Torrens Roose-Butcher via Storyful
98% of Americans who prefer socialism over capitalism reject 'biblical worldview': survey

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A full 98% of Americans who hold socialist beliefs reject a biblical worldview while a strong majority of those who subscribe to biblical beliefs support conservative policies, according to data released by a research group headed by noted evangelical pollster George Barna.

The Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University released new findings from their American Worldview Inventory 2020 on Aug. 19.

Data for the report drew from an annual survey of 2,000 U.S. adults performed in January, with an approximate margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Among the findings, the inventory noted that 98% of respondents who said they prefer socialism over capitalism did not subscribe to a biblical worldview.

By contrast, 83% of those who hold a biblical worldview responded that they preferred capitalism over socialism.

Meanwhile, respondents who said they hold a biblical worldview are more likely to be consistently conservative, with 91% supporting socially conservative policies and 89% opposing abortion based on clear biblical teaching.

Also, 83% of those who hold a biblical worldview say they support a limited view of the size and scope of government.

Conversely, only 5% of those with a biblical worldview are likely to adopt liberal views on fiscal, social and governance issues, a CRC analysis of the data explains.

The data suggests that those without a biblical worldview are more likely to support liberal fiscal (26%) and social (40%) policies.

About 38% of respondents who do not hold a biblical worldview dont believe the Bible is unambiguous in its views on abortion. At 26%, they are also more likely to favor a more liberal, expansive view of governance.

The 2020 election is not about personalities, parties, or even politics. It is an election to determine the dominant worldview in America, Barna, the survey author who founded the influential evangelical polling organization The Barna Group, said in a statement.

Come November 3 we will know which worldview has won the hearts of Americans and will then determine the foundation for the nations values, lifestyles, and public policy for the near future.

Multiple surveys in recent years have shown a growing level of support for socialist ideas among American adults, especially those in the Millennial and Generation Z demographics.

For example, a Gallup poll from May 2019 found that 43% of Americans believed socialism would be a "good thing" for the United States, well above the 25% reported in 1942.

Matt Slick of the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry believes that socialism is inherently at odds with Christianity.

Slick told The Christian Post in an interview in June that he believed Christians who lean socialist are "biblically uninformed."

"Christians who have studied this issue in light of Scripture, which is rare, soon discover that socialistic principles are not biblical. Therefore, the Christian ought not to affirm the basic tenets of socialism," said Slick.

However, pastor and theologian Timothy Keller recounted in his book The Prodigal Prophet an anecdote from a friend who knew a conservative Christian Republican from Mississippi.

Keller explained the Mississippi Republican visited a Presbyterian community in Scotland for a month and found them to be conservative on social issues and theology.

"However, one day he got into a discussion with several of his admired Scottish Christians and discovered, to his shock, that they were all (in his view) socialists, wrote Keller. That is, their understanding of tax structure and government economic policy was very left-wing."

"He realized that thoughtful Christians, all trying to obey God's call, can reasonably appear at a number of different places on the political spectrum, with loyalties to different political parties," he continued.
MADISON, Wis. - The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature took no action in a special session Monday called by the states Democratic governor to pass a package of bills on policing policies just over a week after a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back.

Republicans started the session and recessed in both the Senate and Assembly in less than 30 seconds. That satisfied requirements of the law that they meet, even though almost no lawmakers were present. Its a tactic Republicans used in November when Gov. Tony Evers tried to force them to take action on gun control bills.

Republicans kept the session open rather than adjourning it, which means they could take action at a later date, although there are no signs they plan to do anything soon.

Their silence on this issue, their inaction on this issue, sides with white supremacists, said Democratic state Rep. David Bowen, a member of the Legislative Black Caucus, at a news conference Monday urging Republicans to pass the bills.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, on the same day Evers called the special session, said he intends to convene a task force on racial disparities, educational opportunities, public safety, and police policies and standards. Vos on Monday decried the special session as divisive and partisan politics and instead said the task force, to be chaired by a Republican who is white, was an opportunity to bring people together to find solutions.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, who is running for Congress, said that combined with GOP bills related to policing, there will be dozens of proposals that the Legislature will work through in the coming months. Last week, Republican state Sen. Van Wanggaard, a retired police officer and one of Evers loudest critics, proposed that state aid be cut to any community that reduces police budgets.

Evers decried the inaction, saying the people of Wisconsin dont want another task force or more delays.

Its disappointing that theres no sense of urgency from Republicans, and its a let down to all the people who are asking us to lead, Evers said.

The countrys attention has been focused on Wisconsin following the Blake shooting and the killings two days later of two people by a 17-year-old from Illinois who faces first-degree homicide charges. Blakes family said he is paralyzed from the waist down.

The state Department of Justice is investigating the Blake shooting. The Justice Department said officers were responding to a domestic dispute and Blake did not stop after Tasers were used on him. Kenosha police Officer Rusten Shesky shot Blake seven times in the back as he tried to get into his vehicle. The state Department of Justice has said a knife was discovered in Blakes car, but they havent said if was carrying it when officers encountered him.

On the third night of violence after the Blake shooting, authorities say teenager Kyle Rittenhouse intentionally killed two protesters. Since those shootings, the marches and demonstrations in Kenosha have been peaceful.

President Donald Trump plans to visit Kenosha on Tuesday, raising fears among some that his visit could reignite unrest. Evers has asked him not to come. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden spoke with Blakes family last week.

Evers first unveiled the package of policing bills in June, shortly after the killing of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police. But he called the special session with 24 hours after Blakes shooting, trying to force the Legislature to take action.

The Legislature hasnt met in over four months.

The bills Evers wants the Legislature to take up would do a number of things, including ban the use of chokeholds by police and no-knock warrants; create statewide standards for police use of force; require police officers to annually complete at least eight hours of training on use-of-force options and deescalation techniques; and require every law enforcement agency to have a use-of-force policy and make it publicly available online.

While Evers has tried to use Blakes shooting to force action from the Legislature, his opponents have criticized his response to unrest in Kenosha, saying he didnt act quickly enough to quell the violence that resulted in dozens of businesses being burned to the ground, suffering millions of dollars in damage.

A woman from Burlington began a petition drive last week to recall Evers and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes from office.

___

Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbauerAP
The Congress claimed that satellite imagery shows China has installed missile sites on the eastern borders at Naku La and Doka La, posing a threat to India's security, and demanded that the government take the nation into confidence on the issue.

Addressing a joint virtual press conference, Congress leaders Rajiv Shukla and Gaurav Gogoi said the government should discuss the issue during the Monsoon session of Parliament and Prime Minister Narendra Modi should respond to the concerns of all.

Government sources maintained that the armed forces were keeping a close watch on activities at the border.

The two Congress leaders questioned the government's "silence" on the issue.

"We would urge the government of India to take the nation into confidence. The government should also discuss the issue in Parliament along with coronavirus, and clarify what threat it poses to the country's security," Shukla told reporters.

Gogoi, the Congress' deputy leader in Lok Sabha, said this is a matter of grave concern that affects national security and could have dangerous consequences.

"This is a very dangerous step and we have consistently reminded the Modi governments of the strengthening of the military by expansionist China, but the Indian government and the prime minister have remained silent," he said.

The two leaders said the government must spell out its action plan to deal with the situation.
Sudan's transitional government on Monday signed a much-anticipated peace deal with various armed groups, raising hopes of an end to 17 years of conflict.



Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok and Transitional Sovereignty Council Chairman Abdel Fattah al-Burhan signed the agreement with the Sudan Revolutionary Front, a coalition of armed groups operating mainly in the volatile Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions, the country's national broadcaster reported.



After nine months of tough negotiations, the signing took place in Juba, the capital of neighbouring South Sudan, under the auspices of President Salva Kiir, who has been instrumental in mediating the deal.



The landmark pact includes agreements regarding power sharing, land ownership, compensation and reconciliation, as well as the return of those displaced from their homes during 17 years of conflict.



It also foresees the dismantling of rebel forces and their integration into the national army.

"Everyone expected the peace [deal] to be signed within two or three months, but we realised that the questions were of great complexity," Hamdok said after the signing ceremony.



"However, we were able to accomplish this great work and this is the start of peace-building," he added.



A representative of the Sudan Revolutionary Front said the coalition hoped the agreement would end the suffering of Sudan's people.



"The agreement signed today in Juba is a milestone for Sudan's most conflict-ridden regions, and is a hugely significant sign of progress for Sudan's transition," said Jonas Horner, a senior analyst at African think tank International Crisis Group.



"But it is also far from comprehensive and only represents a first step towards peace, while significant hurdles remain in the way of its implementation," Horner added.



Sudan's most powerful armed groups, the SPLA-North led by Abdulaziz al-Hilu and the Sudan Liberation Movement-Abdul Wahid Al-Nur, remain outside the agreement, Horner noted.

The European Union welcomed the deal and called upon two remaining armed groups to join the peace efforts.



Monday's peace agreement represents an "important milestone for the ongoing democratic and economic transition of Sudan," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

"This is the time for all Sudanese stakeholders to set aside their differences and to look for the greater good of the country and of all Sudanese," Borrell said.



Armed groups have been the cause of ongoing violence in the volatile nation on the Horn of Africa since 2003, when unrest erupted in the restive Darfur region.



Some 300,000 people have been killed due to the conflict and millions have been displaced, according to the United Nations.

Source: GNA









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BRIDGEPORT  The city was mourning a young expectant mother, shot to death during a weekend gripped in violence.

Police confirmed Monday afternoon that 22-year-old Karla Bermudez was not the intended target of assailants who fired multiple shots into the large multi-family house at the corner of Washington Terrace and Washington Place shortly after 5 a.m. Monday.

Police Capt. Brian Fitzgerald said that Bermudezs boyfriend, who has not been identified by police, was the target. He was wounded in the attack.

Bermudez, who was 23 weeks pregnant, had gone to sleep Sunday night after mourning the fatal shooting of her cousin, 23-year-old Heriberto Marquez, on Sunday on Iranistan Avenue.

Fitzgerald called the fatal shootings of Bermudez and her cousin, an unfortunate coincidence, but said it does not appear the shootings are related.

Police and witnesses said at 5:35 a.m., two or more men stood out on Washington Avenue and began firing into the second floor of the white multi-family house. When police arrived, they said, they found the street littered with empty bullet shell casings.

Bermudez was killed as she slept, hit by multiple gunshots. Police said the 23-year-old boyfriend suffered non-life-threatening wounds.

Neighbors in the tight Washington Terrace neighborhood recalled Bermudez as young woman who always waved to them when she left the house.

She always had a wave and a smile, said neighbor Chuck Hines. Its heartbreaking that she was going to bring a baby into this world and now shes gone.

Neighbors said Bermudez moved into the second-floor apartment of the apartment house with her boyfriend and his mother about four months ago.

Police said the mother was not injured in the shooting.

Josh Cava, who lives across the street from the house where Bermudez died, said he had been awakened by what sounded like more than 30 gunshots.

It was very loud, Cava said.

Hines said he had also been asleep when the shots rang out.

I heard someone screaming over there he said, pointing out the victims house. I didnt go out, I was very scared.

It was the third fatal Bridgeport shooting in as many days.

In addition to Bermudez and Marquez, police are also investigating the fatal shooting late Friday of 25-year-old George John of Shelton.

John had only recently gotten out of prison after serving a six-year term for attempted murder of a police officer after he fired a .357-caliber handgun at police officers who responded to a fight inside a club in 2013. None of the officers fired at was injured.
Lay your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Lay your bets on which Irish podcaster first gets Dr Anthony S Fauci on their show.

Will it be the engaging Stefanie Preissner, economist David McWilliams, or Mike Murphy, whos fenced off the senior market?

Now, Dr Fauci might have geographical reservations about an Irish podcast, but it would still be worth a try, because he is such a global figure and because he has copped on, big time, to what the podcast has to offer. What seems to have happened is the law of unintended consequences asserting itself.

First. Trumps White House decided to rid themselves of this turbulent public health expert, which is understandable. If you have a mask-free president who suggests the virus has a nationality (Chinese) and can be countered by malaria medicine or swallowing bleach, you sure as hell dont want a medic with the quiet authority earned in decades of frontline work contradicting that President and making him look a fool.

So you politely turn down requests from the media big boys and girls for his presence.

You want Fauci? You mean the guy whos been director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984? That guy? Oh, sorry. Not available.

If the media goes behind the back door of the White House press office, it does them no good, because Fauci has to be authorised to do mainstream media.

It was as effective as stuffing a bundled-up rag in Faucis mouth, sticking his Covid-19 face mask on top and putting him on the seriously naughty step. Whats a medic whos pushing 80 going to do, in that situation? The short answer is that hes going to do podcasts by the dozen, because nobody has to give him permission to participate in that kind of thing.

And so it was that a few people producing minority-interest podcasts tossed invitations in his direction more in prayer than in real intention. These were people running the podcasts for abstruse medical publications, minority in appeal and minuscule in their listenership.

Heres just one example: 'This Week in Virology'. Not the kind of show youd be leaping out of bed to access on the day its uploaded, unless youre a petri-dish-carrying virologist yourself, although, give the podcast its due, it did gain a few more listeners because of the pandemic.

Vincent Racaniello, he being a Columbia University professor who is one of the co-hosts of the podcast, decided nothing ventured, nothing won, and sent Dr. Fauci an invitation to appear on it. Racaniellos hopes werent high.

He figured Fauci would be way too busy to find time to appear, and also, because the gag/mask/seriously naughty step story was out at that point, he wondered if Fauci would be allowed to do it. He got lucky.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive for his acceptance speech to the Republican National Committee Convention on the South Lawn of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

According to the New York Times, since the beginning of April, the White House Press Office routinely stamps on any requests for Dr Fauci from mainstream media, but no such review process is in place for podcasts. Fauci came back to him in short order and did a 30-minute update on aspects of Covid-19, including what Big Pharma is doing to develop vaccines. The downloads hit 100,000.

It wasnt that Racaniello was special. Fauci also did podcasts with Julia Roberts and Matthew McConaughy, plus dozens and dozens of other, less well-known podcasters.

Given the urgency of the situation and the need to get correct information out, I was doing as many as humanly possible, he says.

Now, these days, podcasts are like noses. Most people have one. But what Fauci worked out was that what he had to say was newsworthy and that even if he articulated it on some minor podcast rather than on MSNBC, news reporters from all sides of media would listen to it, incorporate what he said on it in their reports, and serve as magnifiers without him having to do anything but provide the original data.

It is a phenomenal understanding of modern communication by a man whos not in the first flush and whos been in the same job at the top of the same pivotal organisation, for 36 years, providing a possibly unique contradiction to the current governance dogma that people at the top should be toppled quickly because they go stale.

Fauci isnt stale, either on current science or on how to reach people. He understands that even with a presidential control freak backed by a department full of communications experts all devoted to silencing him, media is porous and interdependent, and one of the most useful weapons in his armory is the podcast.

It doesnt matter that some of the presenters of these podcasts have maddening amateur habits good training would have knocked out of them. What matters is that they are a conduit by which to deliver the data and that other media will pick up that data and diffuse it.

The pyramid of media has upended itself. In the recent past, someone who said something important on mainstream media could expect it to be picked up by secondary media, including, potently, in Ireland, local radio.

Now, mainstream media is watching social and other media like a predatory rabbit  eager to grab whats usable, while terrified of its growing power.

It is not, therefore, just a coincidence that politicians in this country have suddenly copped on that the place to be is on one of perhaps five podcasts, for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that some of these podcasts would like their listeners to learn something about the human reality of the politician and may accordingly do two things rarely encountered in mainstream media: They may ask a non-accusatory question and actually listen to the answer.

Podcasts have other emerging advantages for politicians. The sponsors get profile for mostly smallscale expenditure, but, like all sponsors, want beneficial public association, and so the people producing the podcast post press releases and issue audio or video clips.

Right now, politicians are tending to use the podcast as something of a corrective to national radio interrogation, but  maybe even before the next general election  its predictable that some politicians, particularly in government parties, may do a Fauci, using podcasts to get out information they want to promulgate while being heard (albeit by a smaller, self-selecting audience) as human beings.

Mainstream media outlets, and more importantly, mainstream media presenters are under constant pressure to ask the hard question and be heard to fearlessly barrack political interviewees.

However, this is based on an assumption that the very people selected by the electorate are, by virtue of that very selection, rendered villainous and suspect, rather than potentially interesting. The end result is that politicians find themselves undergoing hostile cross-examination, which, even survived, adds to public perception of them and their peers as venomous, venal, uncaring, unprincipled, lazy, and stupid.

Increasingly, podcasts provide breathing space away from that.
Several conditions in the agreement with PSP of Canada, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) were not implementable and led to the airport sale deal with the GVK group to collapse. Besides, the three investors had written to the central government and lenders.

This did not go down well with the brass of the GVK group. On August 17, GVK said it had issued a no objection to the three investors solely on the basis that they would be conveying to the government their decision to withdraw from the transaction due to ...


Annual Financial Report Explanation of Results

Perth, Aug 28, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Wiluna Mining Corporation ( ASX:WMX ) ( FRA:NZ3 ) ( OTCMKTS:BKHRF ) reports its financial results for the year ended 30 June 2020.Wiluna Mining generated a strong net profit for the year ended 30 June 2020 of $14m. Gross profit and cash flows from operations of A$1m and A$14m respectively, was underpinned by gold production of 61,885oz at an All in Sustaining Cost ('AISC') of A$1,950/oz.Owing to a combination of improved operating performance, the realisation of value from the sale of non-core assets, and proceeds from equity transactions, the Company was able to achieve significant balance sheet repair including:o A $34m improvement in its working capital position; and,o Total debt reduction of $15m.Additionally, there was significant concurrent investment into site-based capital infrastructure (primarily a new tailings storage facility) and preproduction mining activities (primarily at Williamson). These major investing activities will sustain and create substantial value over the next 12-15 months as the Company transitions to the production of gold in concentrate.Key business development activities during the year included the successful completion of the Stage 1 Expansion Study, the refurbishment of the Rod Mill (providing additional mill throughput)3 and 49,800 metres of drilling 'under the headframe' at the Wiluna Mining Centre, which delivered consistent outstanding results in support of the Company's Stage 1 and 2 expansion plans. Expenditure relating to mine properties, exploration and evaluation, and plant infrastructure amounted to $61m, representing significant investment in the Company's asset base.A review of the Company's operations is provided in the Directors' Report in the Financial Report.To view the Financial Report, please visit:About Wiluna Mining Corporation Ltd

Wiluna Mining Corporation (ASX:WMC) (OTCMKTS:WMXCF) is a Perth based, ASX listed gold mining company that controls over 1,600 square kilometres of the Yilgarn Craton in the Northern Goldfields of WA. The Yilgarn Craton has a historic and current gold endowment of over 380 million ounces, making it one of most prolific gold regions in the world. The Company owns 100% of the Wiluna Gold Operation which has a defined resource of 8.04M oz at 1.67 g/t au. In May 2019, a new highly skilled management team took control of the Company with a clear plan to leverage the Wiluna Gold Operation's multi-million-ounce potential.
A Star of David-adorned El Al plane carrying a US-Israeli delegation led by President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner arrived in Abu Dhabi Monday from Israels Ben-Gurion Airport in the first-ever direct commercial passenger flight to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Israeli flag carriers flight marks the implementation of the historic US-brokered deal to normalise relations between the two nations and solidifies the long-clandestine ties between them that have evolved over years of shared enmity toward Iran.

The historic flight came as several people were injured on Monday in an explosion at fast-food restaurants in the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi, that was likely caused by gas lines in a restaurant, according to officials. In a second incident, one person was killed when a gas cylinder exploded in a Dubai restaurant, local media reported.

With the US as mediator, Israel and the UAE agreed earlier this month to work toward normalisation, which would make the UAE the third Arab nation to have full relations with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan. But unlike those two nations, Israel has never fought a war against the UAE and hopes to have much-warmer relations.

The US delegation included Jared Kushner, as well as national security adviser Robert OBrien, Mideast envoy Avi Berkowitz and envoy for Iran Brian Hook. Israel's team included national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and the director generals of several ministries.

While this is a historic flight, we hope that this will start an even more historic journey for the Middle East and beyond, Kushner told reporters before boarding the plane at Ben-Gurion Airport.

Israeli officials hope the two-day trip will produce a date for a Washington signing ceremony, perhaps as early as September, between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

'Go in peace'

Meir Ben-Shabbat, Israels national security adviser and head of the Israeli delegation, said he was excited about the trip and that the aim was to lay the groundwork for cooperation in areas like tourism, medicine, technology and trade.

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This morning the traditional greeting of go in peace takes on a special significance for us," he said.

The El Al flight, numbered LY971 as a gesture to the UAEs international calling code number, flew into Saudi Arabian airspace shortly after takeoff. That marked another historic first for Israel and at least an acquiescence by the kingdom for the UAE's move.

Saudi King Salman, along with other Gulf Arab leaders to varying degrees, maintain their boycotts of Israel in support of Palestinians obtaining an independent state.

Palestinians were dismayed by the UAE's move, worried that it would weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory - and acceptance of Palestinian statehood - in return for normal relations with Arab countries.

El Al spokesman Stanley Morais said the 737-900 is equipped with a missile-defense system, a standard feature on these types of planes and a requirement for this flight. After grounding its fleet due to the coronavirus, it is the airlines first flight since July 1.

Joint ventures, future business deals

The Israeli delegation will stay in the capital, Abu Dhabi, for one night before returning home on El Al flight LY972, a nod to Israels international calling code.

Private jets have earlier flown between the two nations as part of covert talks, and Abu Dhabis Etihad Airways flew cargo freighters to Israel before to deliver coronavirus aid to the Palestinians. But the high-profile flight Monday, eagerly promoted by US officials, looks to place a solid stamp on the surprise August 13 White House announcement of Israel and the UAE establishing ties.

Since then, telephone calls were connected, and the UAEs ruler issued a decree formally ending the countrys decades-long boycott of Israel. Some Israeli firms have already signed deals with Emirati counterparts, but Mondays visit is expected to usher in a slew of further business cooperation. The official repeal of the boycott looks to open the door to more joint ventures, such as in aviation, banking and finance.

The UAE has touted the deal as a tool to force Israel into halting its contentious plan to annex parts of the West Bank sought by the Palestinians for their future state. It also may help the Emirates acquire advanced US weapons systems that have been previously unattainable, such as the F-35 fighter jet. Currently, Israel is the only country in the region with the stealth warplanes.

The Palestinians, however, have fiercely opposed the normalisation as peeling away one of their few advantages in moribund peace talks with Israel. Palestinians have held public protests and burned the UAE flag in anger.

Israelis eagerly anticipate the prospect of mutual embassies, expanding tourism to the Gulf and solidifying business opportunities with another country that shares its penchant for technology and innovation.

A pre-election boost for Trump

Netanyahu has touted the deal as validation of his vision that regional peace doesnt have to go through Palestinian acquiescence and come at the cost of ceding land. But he has come under fire from supporters at home for seemingly giving up on dreams of annexation and tacitly agreeing to a questionable arms sale that could undermine Israels regional superiority. Netanyahu denies such a deal exists.

For Trump, the accord delivers a key foreign policy victory as he faces a tough reelection campaign.

On Sunday, Kushner said the stage is now set for other Arab countries to follow the UAE. However, he gave no indication that any other deals are imminent, despite a swing through the region last week by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee, said Kushner and his team were "scrambling to convince as many Arab and Muslim leaders as possible" to give Trump an election boost.

"They will be a prop at the backdrop of a meaningless spectacle for a ridiculous agreement that will not bring peace to the region," she said.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and REUTERS)
Kuala Lumpur, Aug 31 : Malaysia on Monday marked its 63rd independence day, with scaled back celebrations due to the restrictive measures imposed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah officiated the celebration at the administration center of Putrajaya, being joined by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and members of his cabinet, reports Xinhua news agency.

In hisaddress, Sultan Abdullah urged Malaysians to appreciate and to practise the 'Rukun Negara', Malaysia's declaration of national philosophy, which should guide all citizens of the multiracial country.

He also called on the people to appreciate and safeguard the country's independence and peace.

No assemblies and parades by uniformed bodies, government agencies and private sector were held due to the restrictions.

Instead, small official celebrating events were held in several venues in Putrajaya and the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, which were broadcasted live.

In his address to the nation on Sunday, Prime Minister Muhyiddin called for his compatriots to care for each other in the face of challenges including those caused by the Covid-19 outbreak.

In the televised address, he urged Malaysians to care for the country, work towards maintaining the peace and harmony Malaysia presently enjoys and push the country forward to be more successful in various fields.

On August 31, 1957, the then Federation of Malaya gained independence from British rule.
Victoria is set to take the lion's share of national JobKeeper handouts by the end of the year, with data revealing six out of every 10 of the 2.24million recipients will be from the state.

This is according to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who also predicts that 60 per cent will be sustained until the end of the scheme in March 2021.

The state is currently on a hard lockdown, with Melburnians only allowed to leave their residences for food, one hour of daily exercise, work, caregiving and medical treatment.

They are also required to wear masks in public and adhere to a strict curfew for another fortnight - staying at home between 8pm and 5am, unless given an exemption.

Victoria recorded its highest death toll of 41 fatalities on Monday, along with 73 new COVID-19 cases.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg (pictured) estimates 60 per cent of the 1.75 million expected to be on the JobKeeper scheme in March 2021 will be from Victoria

Six in every 10 of the 2.24million people on JobKeeper in the December quarter are expected to be living in Victoria, according to estimates issued by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Pictured: JobKeeper state-by-state numbers from May to August

This has brought the state's virus toll to 565 and the national total to 652.

The JobKeeper scheme was introduced by the federal government to tide over workers until businesses reopened after lockdowns ended.

Eligible businesses can apply for the funding and then pass the money on to their staff.

Mr Frydenberg said on Monday the 'restrictions imposed by the Victorian government have had a devastating impact on the economy'.

'The number of Victorians on unemployment benefits has significantly increased with the impost of restrictions while numbers in other states have declined,' he said, SBS reported.

'Household spending in Victoria is down more than 30 per cent through the year while the rest of Australia is only down around three per cent.

Victoria is currently on a hard lockdown, with Melburnians only allowed to leave their residences for food, exercise, work, caregiving and medical treatment. Pictured: People walking through a park in Melbourne during lockdown

Victorians are also required to wear masks in public and adhere to a strict curfew for another fortnight - staying at home between 8pm and 5am, unless given an exemption. Pictured: People in public in Melbourne

'The accommodation and hospitality sector has borne the brunt of the restrictions with the growth in spending in dining and takeaway down more than 60 per cent and in the accommodation sector more than 80 per cent.'

Mr Frydenberg added Victoria's unemployment rate in July, before stage four lockdown, sat about 10.5 per cent compared to 8.5 per cent in NSW.

The government was trying to get through parliament a bill to extend JobKeeper through to March, though both Labor and the Greens had advocated it go beyond that date.

'What we have before the parliament right now is an important piece of legislation to extend the JobKeeper payments but particularly to ensure that there is industrial relations and workplace flexibility that goes alongside Jobkeeper,' Mr Frydenberg said, The Australian reported.

'It's important that legislation passes this week because we know from JobKeeper recipients, namely the business who are supporting their employees, that those flexible arrangements have been critical for them to keep their doors open.'

Mr Frydenberg said Victoria's unemployment rate before stage four lockdown in Jule sat about 10.5 per cent. He said it was about 8.5 per cent in NSW at the time. Pictured: People lining up at Centrelink in Flemington, Victoria, during the start of the coronavirus pandemic

The Treasurer (pictured) added he expected to see the largest single quarterly fall in GDP the nation has ever recorded - due to demand and supply shock because of the coronavirus - when the national accounts come out Wednesday

The Treasurer added he expected to see the largest single quarterly fall in GDP the nation has ever recorded - due to demand and supply shock because of the coronavirus - when the national accounts come out on Wednesday.

The analysis showed about 30,000 Victorians had started to receive unemployment benefits at the end of June as well.

It was more than half of the amount lining up for a handout in the past two weeks.

It comes as Mr Frydenberg calls on the Victorian Government to spend more to help the Australian economy recover during the coronavirus crisis.

He slammed state Premier Daniel Andrews for 'devastating' the economy, as the treasurer revealed the true impact of Victoria's lockdown for the first time.

Mr Frydenberg did not mince his words on Sunday, saying Mr Andrews was responsible for a 'litany of failures' that saw the virus spiral out of control and force millions of people back into lockdown.

'The costs are immense. Treasury have said 10 to 12 billion dollars is the hit to the Australian economy over the September quarter,' he said on Sunday.

Mr Frydenberg accused Mr Andrews of over-reach for seeking a 12-month extension of his government's state of emergency powers.

'I want to hear more about a message of hope for the people of Victoria,' Mr Frydenberg, himself a Victorian, told Sky News' Sunday Agenda program.

'Daniel Andrews and the Victorian government need to be talking more about the road out than about a longer road in.'
Oakland | $998,000

A hillside house built in 1925, with three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms, on a 0.2-acre lot

Many of the houses in this neighborhood, known as Merriewood, are cottages built in the 1920s as vacation homes for city residents. The owner of this house, who bought it in 2012, updated the kitchen and bathrooms and added a shed, used as a home office, to the upstairs deck.

Several state and city parks with hiking trails are less than 10 minutes away by car; downtown Oakland and the main campus of the University of California, Berkeley are a 20-minute drive. A public elementary school is five minutes away on foot.

Size: 1,586 square feet

Price per square foot: $629

Indoors: Stairs wind up the hillside to the front door, which opens to a small foyer with a built-in storage bench. Down several steps is an open living space with hardwood floors, a wood-burning stove and two sets of double doors that open to a deck.

The adjacent dining area flows into a recently updated kitchen with white marble countertops. Off the kitchen is a mudroom that serves as an alternate entrance to the house.
YCombinator-backed startup Bikayi has raised a seed round of $2 million from a clutch of international investors including Mantis ventures, a VC fund promoted by the musical band Chainsmokers.

The Hyderabad-based startup helps small merchants create online storefronts and accept orders online. The merchants using the platform are already doing business worth Rs 2 crore. The platform is being used by wholesalers, retailers, grocers and others from across India, especially in tier 3 and 4 cities.

Also Read: Celebrity-fan startup TrueFan raises $4.3 million from Ronnie Screwvala, VCs





Mantis is a $50 million VC fund to invest in startups and this is their first investment in an Indian entity. Other investors who participated in the round include YC, Pioneer Fund, angel investor Ankur Nagpal among others.

They (the investors) are a part of upscaling Bikayi, with these funds we will hire more talent to accelerate product development, ramp up the platform and onboard a million new merchants, said Sonakshi Nathani, cofounder, Bikayi.

Bikayi allows small businesses to quickly create their online stores and give them the right tools to manage e-commerce on Whatsapp. The app is currently available on Google Play Store.
Japan's donor agency JICA on Monday signed an agreement with the Indian government under which it will provide about Rs 3,500 crore in loan to boost the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in India. This loan will be disbursed to the Government of India for supporting anticipated financing requirement for the implementation of "Prime Minister Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana (PM-ASBY)" governed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as the Atmanirbhar Bharat Package for the health sector.

The objective of the project is to strengthen public healthcare system, by extending budget support to the Indian government in implementing emergency response programmes for the health sector as countermeasures against the COVID-19, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) said in a statement. This will contribute to promoting the social and economic stabilization and development efforts of India, it said.

JICA signed with the Indian government to provide an Official Development Assistance (ODA) loan of 50 billion Japanese Yen (approximately INR 3,500 Crore) as the "COVID-19 Crisis Response Emergency Support Loan". The ODA loan agreement was signed between C S Mohapatra, Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance and Katsuo Matsumoto, Chief Representative, JICA India.

Speaking on the occasion, Matsumoto said, "With the outbreak of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), we commend Government of India's swift response to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and support their vision to build a robust healthcare system under PM-ASBY". "Our policy-based lending will be utilized for strengthening the public healthcare system and JICA will closely monitor the critical activities such as implementation of medical teleconsultation services, strengthening national health information reporting platform, and development of infectious disease hospitals," he said.

He said JICA expects that PM-ASBY will improve accessibility, affordability, availability, awareness and quality of healthcare services in the whole nation. This is the first large scale Japanese ODA to support the Indian government's fight against COVID-19 and we will continue supporting it with all possible measures we can provide, Matsumoto said.

"Based on a national COVID-19 containment strategy, the government of India's response has been pre-emptive, proactive and characterized by a 'whole government' approach with the highest level of political commitment," the statement said. Through PM-ASBY, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare will implement measures to strengthen the public healthcare system, expand and strengthen surveillance capacities, research and national digital health mission, it said.

Along with the financial support, JICA is considering the provision of technical assistance for monitoring the activities under the PM-ASBY and share Japanese knowledge for better implementation, the statement said. In India, JICA has cumulatively extended ODA loans of 42.5 billion Japanese Yen (approximately Rs 2,833 crore) for the health-care sector, since 1995/96. JICA has health projects in Tamil Nadu and Odisha amongst other states in India.

JICA aims to contribute to the promotion of international cooperation, as a sole Japanese governmental agency in charge of ODA implementation.
ATLANTA, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Having once again rushed to the courtroom instead of the boardroom, Integral continues to litigate rather than mitigate the housing crisis in Atlanta. On August 28, Integral filed a meritless motion in Fulton County Superior Court. Integral gave Atlanta Housing no warning that it was filing the motion.

Integral's motion and its insipid public statement are neither accurate nor complete. As will be shown in court, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has initially rejected the transfer of property, finding that the form of the transaction violated HUD's regulations. HUD also expressed concern that the agreed-upon price was for less than fair market value. As Atlanta Housing has maintained all along, the ball was ultimately in HUD's court, and HUD appears unwilling to play.

Instead of looking to work with HUD and Atlanta Housing, Integral lashed out with unsubstantiated allegations, an inaccurate court filing and personal attacks against Dr. Christopher Edwards, the Atlanta Housing Board of Commissioners and other Atlanta Housing officials to disparage and intimidate them because of a decision from HUD that was based on federal regulations.

Integral's personal attacks on the integrity and character of Dr. Edwards, a pillar in the Atlanta community and a surgeon on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19, are consistent with the company's practice of schoolyard name-calling. Earlier public statements arrogantly referred to Atlanta Housing commissioners as "clowns" and "in diapers."

"Integral owes Dr. Edwards an apology," said AH CEO Eugene Jones. "Dr. Edwards is a man of honor and principle, whose contributions to this community, to Grady Memorial Hospital, Morehouse School of Medicine and other institutions have made this city a better place. Integral's childish, arrogant attacks don't help advance their cause." Dr. Edwards has always maintained that it is effectively HUD's land, HUD's money and HUD's decision.

While Integral focused on its litigation strategy, the city and nation came under the grips of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. Courts closed while public health and housing needs swelled. Luckily, Atlanta Housing was prepared. Under the leadership of CEO Eugene Jones, Jr. and Dr. Edwards, Atlanta Housing was uniquely positioned to understand both the public housing and public health needs of the city. COVID-19 cases continue at high rates, and Atlanta Housing's focus remains on its constituents, not Integral's bottom line.

Integral's "ready, fire, aim" approach is not only misdirected, it is coming at the wrong time. Atlanta Housing will leave it to its attorneys to respond to the court filing, but neither Atlanta Housing's leadership nor its staff will be distracted by Integral's latest attempt to value its bottom line over the needs of Atlantans. Indeed, the Atlanta Housing Board and CEO are proud that thousands of brand new families have been housed by Atlanta Housing during these past few years - families that have been housed in new units constructed and rehabilitated on Atlanta Housing lands and other sites, and with the new Housing Choice Vouchers that Atlanta Housing has issued. Our work will continue.

About Atlanta Housing

Led by President and CEO Eugene Jones, Jr., the Housing Authority of the City of Atlanta, Georgia (AH), is the largest housing authority in Georgia and one of the largest in the nation. AH provides and facilitates affordable housing resources for nearly 22,000 low-income households comprised of approximately 50,000 people.

These affordable housing resources include AH-owned residential communities, AH-sponsored mixed-income, mixed-finance residential communities, tenant-based vouchers, project based rental assistance, supportive housing arrangements and homeownership opportunities. AH's programs are funded and regulated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ("HUD").

Visit Atlanta Housing at atlantahousing.org or follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook at @housingatlanta.

SOURCE Atlanta Housing
Growing up, Warner Bros Televisions Supernatural was one of the most entertaining shows to watch. For someone who has always been fascinated by mythical lores and eerie stories, the series was and will always have a special place in my heart.

I suppose the same is true with fans from all over the world as the tales of Sam and Dean Winchester have managed to grab our attention for a decade and a half, with the final episode set to be aired at the end of the 15th season.

However, there has always been that one episode that drew my attention even as a kid.

The 19th episode of season five titled Hammer of the Gods, sure had a very unique concept of gods from various religions holding a secret convention in a hotel to discuss the Fallen Angel, Lucifer.

According to the story, ten gods attend this convention but only seven of them were identified or had speaking roles on screen. These gods were Mercury, Ganesh, Odin, Kali, Baron Samedi, Baldur, and Zao Shen.

As a Hindu, I was fascinated to see what the show had in store for our gods, Ganesh and Kali, and what I saw was rather disappointing.

Heres How They Portrayed Kali:

The first scene in which Kali (Rekha Sharma) makes an appearance, we see her enjoying a red cocktail and being hit on by our main man Dean.

Over the course of the episode, in order to show that the goddess was romantically involved with Baldur, son of Norse God Odin, Kali is seen in black lingerie, with a kamarbandh of skeletons.

The couple gets interrupted by Mercury, the Pagan god of translators and interpreters, who manages to procure the blood of our protagonists to trap them inside the hotel and tells her that the pantry is full of innocent human beings they wished to devour, eventually.

It is also later revealed that Kali was in a relationship with Gabriel, the archangel.

Heres How They Portrayed Ganesh:

At least they got an actor of Indian origin to play the role of Kali. For Ganesh, however, they decided to go ahead with a man named Kieth Dallas, whod make a complete joke of the god of wisdom, knowledge and prosperity.

Ganeshs first appearance in the episode is that of a full on babar elephant standing inside a hotel room as Dean passes him by. When he returns to his room, a naked black man can be seen wrapping a towel around his fat belly, trying to shut the door.

This aint no peep show, man, he says while barely managing to keep the towel from falling.

Keeping aside the discussion of which god from which religion is more powerful (as the comments section of the YouTube videos attached above so blatantly dwell in), Supernaturals excessive need to show that all primitive beings gods and demons alike, are flesh-eating savages, is what made this episode rather problematic nearly a decade ago.

A show so popular must hold itself responsible for doing enough research before taking such major steps and risking viewership from countries like India and China as well.

Also Read: Weird Myths About Hindu Gods
The former Luxembourgish professional athlete Benoit Joachim was present during the recent march against COVID-19 regulations in Berlin.

Joachim posted a picture of himself at the protests in Berlin, holding a sign that read "Honest government without lobbying". He additionally signed the post with the announcement "Berlin now, LUXEMBOURG next". Joachim received both praise and criticism for his Facebook post. Further details about a possible protest march in Luxembourg are not listed.

Several thousand protestors assembled over the weekend in the German capital to demonstrate against the series of cornavirus-related safety measures, while most of them ignored social distancing and face masks. At the same time, a group of right-wing extremists tried to make use of the moment to storm the Reichstag building.

Joachim emphasised that he had not taken part in any right-wing activism, explaining that there were two different protests happening at the same time and that he was part of the peaceful event: "Please get the information right." In the comment section of his Facebook post, Joachim reposted a video by German YouTuber Samuel Eckert, who recently caught the attention of the fact checking platform "Correctiv" for spreading misinformation on the pandemic.

The organiser of the peaceful protest Michael Ballweg also issued a statement, distancing his event from the extremist march and putting the blame on Berlin's interior minister Andreas Geisel (SPD) for insufficiently protecting the Reichstag building.
Amid a surge in Covid-19 cases in Uttarakhand that has taken the tally past 19,000, around 1,700 government doctors have threatened to resign en masse on September 8 if their demands for better pay and proper treatment are not met.

The doctors will also start a black band protest from Tuesday to press for their demands.

The Provincial Medical Association leaders have said that they will work wearing a black band for a week till September 7 and resign en masse on September 8 if their demands are not met.

Dr Naresh Napalchyal, president of Provincial Medical Association, the body of doctors associated with the state government said, We have been working continuously for months now, without caring about our families or personal lives and still, we are not treated with the respect we deserve. Doctors in all other states are being given incentives or pay hikes for working extra hours and here the state government deducts a days salary.

The salary deduction was a reference to the governments step to deduct a days salary from its employees for the chief ministers relief fund. The step was announced when the Covid-pandemic hit the state but the monthly deductions are still continuing.

Dr Napalchyal added that in January, chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat had announced that doctors doing their post-graduation and working will be given full salary, but that has not been implemented till now.

The chief minister had himself announced that doctors who are doing their post-graduation and working will get a full salary, but even after so many months, no government order has been issued in this regard. Despite shift duties, we work 24x7 but we are not treated properly. Regular inspections are conducted by tehsildars or revenue officials on instructions of district magistrates, which give out a message to the public that the doctors are not working properly, he said.

The doctors said that they are giving a weeks time to the state government to hold talks with them, after which they will either opt for taking voluntary retirement (only those doctors who have already worked for almost 20 years) or go for mass resignation.

Dr. SK Gupta, director of the state medical and health department said that the doctors gave a memorandum with their demands to the director general of health in the state on Monday.

We will be talking to the doctors and come to a solution. All our staff are responsible and will not take any step which will cause inconvenience to the people of the state during an epidemic, said Dr. Gupta.
A famed Italian steakhouse, which has hosted A-listers like President Obama, Leonardo DiCaprio, and George Clooney, has filed for bankruptcy, according to FSR Magazine.

Il Mulino, a high-end Italian concept with 16 locations across New York, Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, Tennessee, Nevada, and Puerto Rico, revealed in a filing on July 30 that seven of its locations are declaring bankruptcy.

Citing the pandemic as the culprit for the restaurant's financial troubles, co-owner Gerald Katzoff indicated that an ongoing dispute with a lender has further destabilized the company, which had received a $2.3 million PPP loan in May. The restaurant now intends to use the loan to fund operations during the bankruptcy proceedings.

il mulino steak

While six of the seven bankrupt locations still remain closed, the company hopes to reopen the doors to their restaurants as soon as possible. Katzoff noted they would use the bankruptcy "to restructure debt, seek out new financing opportunities, explore potential transactions, and liquidate claims."

Il Mulino opened its first location in Greenwich Village in 1981. Owned by a family hailing from Abruzzo, Italy, the restaurant served regional Italian cuisine and was eventually sold to investors who expanded its elite dining legacy to dozens more locations in the United States and abroad. If you haven't yet tried their copious red-sauce dishes and generous cuts of meat, you'll still have an opportunity to do so.

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His new job is going to cost him a pretty penny but he's okay with that -- Nicolai Tangen on Tuesday takes over the reins of Norway's $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund after months of drama.

From the hedge fund he started in London 15 years ago that made him a very wealthy man to the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund, Tangen is transitioning between two very similar and yet very different worlds.

It's a journey that has not been entirely smooth.

As soon as Norway's central bank announced in March that it was hiring the AKO Capital hedge fund founder to replace Yngve Slyngstad as the manager of Norwegians' national piggy bank, allegations of conflicts of interest and offshore tax havens hit the headlines.

His recruitment surprised many. To begin with, his name was not on the official list of applicants. The 54-year-old investor and philanthropist had to be headhunted and persuaded to move back to Norway.

Yet many are convinced that Tangen is the perfect man for the job.

"He's clearly the best candidate," said Oystein Olsen, the governor of the central bank which oversees a fund invested in more than 9,000 companies worldwide, as well as bonds and real estate.

Tangen's background as a stock market speculator, his sizeable fortune and his socialising with VIPs have however worked against him.

In egalitarian Norway, the widely-accepted code of conduct -- known as "Janteloven", written by a Danish-Norwegian author in the 20th century -- states simply: "Don't think you're better than anyone else."

Olsen has also seen his reputation tarnished over Tangen's recruitment, accused of irregularities in the hiring process.

Editorialists, MPs and lawyers have called for both men to go, until a last-minute arrangement was found last week that appears to have appeased the most vocal opponents.

In a renegotiation of his contract, Tangen accepted to transfer "forever" the 43 percent he still held in AKO Capital to his AKO Foundation charity, to alleviate concerns about possible conflicts of interest.

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The foundation, created in 2013, supports causes that improve education, promote the arts and mitigate climate problems.

Tangen, who holds an art history degree among his many academic merits, reportedly owns one of the biggest collections of modern Scandinavian art.

- From his own pocket -

To silence critics, he has also agreed to sell personal investments worth some five billion kroner (470 million euros, $571 million) and deposit the proceeds in bank savings accounts, where he already has around two billion kroner saved.

This solution means he will have to pay more wealth tax than what he earns in annual salary -- 6.65 million kroner (635,000 euros, $760,000) -- and interest, with banks' interest rates currently hovering around zero.

"It's hard to accuse him of doing this out of greed," said Sparebank 1 Markets chief analyst Pal Ringholm.

"There must be something else motivating him," he told financial news website e24.no.

"I accepted the job because I think it's the most important and exciting thing there is when you work in finance," Tangen said.

The controversy surrounding his appointment does not seem to have fazed him one bit.

"It never crossed my mind to withdraw," he told reporters last week.

With a twinkle in his eye, he said he had even offered to governor Olsen to deposit all his billions in Norges Bank -- clearly a joke as the central bank does not accept deposits from private people.

Tangen seems to have a healthy dose of humour, moreover.

Asked whether he was angry about finding himself in the middle of a controversy over a job he had to be persuaded to accept, he quipped: "Angry? No. But I think Oystein owes me at least a beer".

phy/po/bmm/wai
I wouldnt make any connections there. We dont know who beat up Zhukov, and we dont know why, but we do know that officers of law enforcement are conducting inquiries, Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. We hope that those responsible [for the attack on Zhukov] will be identified and punished in accordance with the law.
Elon Musk is the third-richest person in the world -- at least for the moment.

Musk passed Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg Monday as shares of Tesla continued their unrelenting rally after undergoing a forward stock split. As of 2:22 p.m., Musk was worth $111.9 billion compared with $111.2 billion for Zuckerberg, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which is updated at the end of each market day.

Musk has seen a meteoric rise in his wealth, with his net worth growing by $76.1 billion this year as Tesla shares surged more than 475%. Also helpful: an audacious pay package -- the largest corporate pay deal ever struck between a chief executive officer and a board of directors -- that could yield him more than $50 billion if all goals are met.

Tesla, a favorite among amateur investors on online trading firm Robinhood Financial, has been one of the largest beneficiaries of the boom in retail investing during pandemic lockdowns. At one point last month, almost 40,000 Robinhood accounts added Tesla shares during a single four-hour span. And the trend isn't limited to the U.S.: South Korean retail investors have piled into Tesla this year and hold about a 1% stake in the American automaker.

Tesla's $454 billion market value now exceeds that of retail behemoth Walmart Inc., the largest company in the U.S. by revenue.

Last week, Musk, 49, joined Zuckerberg, Amazon.com Inc.'s Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates in the rarefied centibillionaire club as tech stocks rose.

The heady pace of wealth accumulation in recent months is in stark contrast to the state of the global economy. Growth has slumped sharply since the pandemic began with companies laying off millions of workers and consumer demand cratering. The brunt of economic pain has been borne by young and lower-wage workers, whose jobs are typically more vulnerable to covid-related layoffs.

The rising income inequality has provoked sharp responses from many progressive politicians and critics on the left. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders this month introduced legislation to tax "extreme wealth gains" during the pandemic.

Musk still has a long way to become the world's richest person. Bezos is worth about $200 billion.
A senior Kinahan cartel member and an accomplice have received sentences totalling 17.5 years at the Special Criminal Court for orchestrating the gang's plan to kill a member of the Hutch family in Dublin's north inner city.

Patrick Curtis (38) of Bellman's Walk, Seville Place, Dublin 1 was jailed for 10 years whille his co-accused Mohammed Smew (27) of Milner's Square, Shanowen Road, Santry, Dublin 9 was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for their role in the plot to murder Patrick "Patsy" Hutch.

Patrick Curtis and Smew are the last two men to be sentenced for their involvement in the plan to kill Mr Hutch - the older brother of the leader of the rival Hutch organised crime group.

Patrick Curtis previously admitted directing the activities of a criminal organisation within the State between February 1st and March 10th, 2018. Smew had pleaded guilty to participating in the activities of a criminal organisation, to wit the murder of Mr Hutch, by providing, moving and repairing vehicles, and of the planning or assisting to plan an attempted shooting between February 1st, 2018, and March 3rd, 2018.

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Presiding judge Mr Justice Tony Hunt, sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Dermot Dempsey, said the court accepted the uncontradicted evidence of the nature of the Kinahan crime group, which was organised on a hierarchical basis with a subcell structure. A specific subcell had been formed in this case for the motive of murdering Mr Hutch, he said.

Patrick Curtis had supervised and directed the subcell and was the highest figure within its hierarchy, the judge said, adding however that Curtis was not the author of the instructions, which he had received and passed on from his superiors.

"An insidious organisation"

Mr Justice Hunt said there was no doubt that Curtis knew that he was directing the subcell on behalf of the Kinahan organised crime group, which he called "an insidious organisation", in the preparation for the murder of Mr Hutch.

A doctor told Patrick Curtis' sentence hearing last month that jailing the claustrophobic senior Kinahan Cartel member was like putting "a man with arachnophobia in a cell with spiders". Dr Conor McGarry, a GP attached to Portlaoise Prison, said that Patrick Curtis was diagnosed with excessive compulsive disorder and had historic issues which have impacted on his ability to cope with prison in Ireland. He said the defendant got locked in a car at the age of seven, broke his fingernails attempting to get out of the vehicle and had suffered from a fear of being alone since.

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The sentence hearing was told that Patrick Curtis suffers from irrational behaviour and blesses himself around sixty times a day to compensate for negative thoughts. He shares a cell in the A block of Portlaoise Prison with his brother Stephen as his anxiety levels are so bad and it has never previously happened that two prisoners have shared the same cell, said Dr McGarry.

Mr Justice Hunt said today that Patrick Curtis' barrister Michael O'Higgins SC had submitted that the court should apply a further reduction on the basis of his client having a condition that would make the serving of a lengthy sentence significantly more difficult. "In this first instance, it is tempting to observe that not plotting to murder other people would have been the best way of avoiding this unfortunate situation," remarked the judge.

In this first instance, it is tempting to observe that not plotting to murder other people would have been the best way of avoiding this unfortunate situation

The judge said the headline sentence for Curtis was 16 years imprisonment and the weightiest mitigation factor was his guilty plea, which deserved a straight 25 per cent discount. Mr Justice Hunt indicated that if Curtis genuinely found prison so unattractive, then he should have no difficulty keeping his side of the "social contract involved in his acceptance of a conditionally suspended portion of his sentence". The judge said he would suspend the last two years of the 12-year adjusted sentence on condition that the accused enter a bond in the sum of 100 to keep the peace and be of good behaviour during his time in custody, during any period of temporary release, and for a period of six years following his date of final release from his sentence.

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The non-jury court imposed a final sentence of 12 years imprisonment with the last two years suspended on Curtis.

Front line of the killing

Passing sentence on Smew, Mr Justice Hunt observed that the evidence unequivocally established that he assisted in the preparations for the "very grave crime of murder" and was initially prepared to serve on the "front line of the killing". "There is no doubt that Smew's conduct was of considerable assistance in the Kinahan organised crime group over the time in which his participation lasted," he noted.

The judge set a headline sentence of 11 years imprisonment and said the court found the weightiest mitigating factor was his guilty plea, which deserved a 25 per cent discount. Smew was sentenced to eight years and three months in prison with the final nine months suspended.

The men's sentences were backdated to December 2019, when they were first arrested.

The court previously heard that Patrick Curtis has 13 previous convictions which include road traffic and public order offences, as well as violent disorder. Smew has 15 previous convictions which include damaging property, theft and the production of an article in the course of a fight.

In June, Mr Justice Hunt imposed sentences totalling 19 years on three men who also took part in the Kinahan Cartel plot to kill Mr Hutch. Michael Burns (43) was jailed for nine years whilst Stephen Curtis (32), the younger brother of Patrick Curtis, and Ciaran O'Driscoll (25) were both sentenced to five years each in prison for their role in the plot to murder Mr Hutch.

Last May, Kinahan Cartel foot soldier Mark Capper (31), who "poured cold water on" and withdrew from a plan to murder Mr Hutch three days before the proposed killing was also jailed by the Special Criminal Court for seven-and-a-half years. Capper had admitted helping the organised crime group in a plan to kill Mr Hutch by providing and repairing vehicles for the criminal organisation and carrying out reconnaissance.

In July 2019, a three-man "hit for hire team" received sentences totalling 36.5 years at the Special Criminal Court for planning to kill Mr Hutch before they were intercepted by gardai just 250 metres from their target's home in Dublin's north inner city. Gary Thompson (35) and his brother Glen Thompson (25) were each jailed for 12 years and six months. A third man, Afghan war veteran Robert Browne (36) was sentenced to 11 years and six months in prison.
A Fort Simpson, N.W.T., man who was accidentally shot by a territorial Environment and Natural Resources officer hopes his injury results in changes to how problem bears are handled in residential areas.

"If there's no procedural change then I'm very worried that, you know, it could happen again," said Dennis Nelner, who was hit by a stray bullet inside his home last September.

The officer who fired the shot was aiming for a bear nearby that had been acting aggressively in the village.

Nelner believes officers may need more firearms practice and more training on "tracking animals, and tracking them out of the community as opposed to, you know, firing in the community."

On the night he was shot, Nelner said, the bear was just outside his property in downtown Fort Simpson. He said an Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) officer told him to take his dog and go inside.

"We are a rural northern community, but, you know, this area here is one of the more highly densely populated parts of the community" he says. "I'm right across the street from the school, community centre, the church."

If there's no procedural change then I'm very worried that, you know, it could happen again. - Dennis Nelner

Nelner said he was inside his kitchen when a bullet pierced the wall and ricocheted around the room before passing through his thigh, narrowly missing the bone and major artery.

He was medevaced to Yellowknife for treatment.

On Tuesday, Northwest Territories RCMP said after their investigation and a review by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, no charges would be laid against the ENR officer.

Incident 'entirely unpredictable,' says ENR

An ENR spokesperson said the incident is "extremely unfortunate," and that the way it unfolded was "entirely unpredictable and the likelihood of it happening again is extremely low."

Joslyn Oosenbrug said the officer fired at a charging bear more than 50 metres from the home, and that the projectile hit the ground before penetrating the house.

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She said an "independent internal investigation" didn't identify issues with the officer's training or experience, and found the officer followed the proper procedures.

Lessons learned from the incident will be incorporated into officer training in the future, said Oosenbrug. She said Fort Simpson ENR officers were given extra firearms practice this spring and the department has increased its use of live capture traps.

Submitted by Dennis Nelner

Lasting complications

Nelner said the injury has left lasting complications. It's created or exacerbated other aches and pains, and he can't do his job in the same way.

As a clerk in the N.W.T. Department of Finance, Nelner would spend his workday at a computer, but after being shot, he said sitting all day aggravates the injury, creating more problems.

"We're working on trying to accommodate that," he said.

Nelner said he's gotten neither an apology nor compensation from the territorial government, and that he's talking to lawyers.

Oosenbrug said ENR's regional superintendent "visited the man at his home the first week after the incident to see how he was doing and wish him a speedy recovery." ENR could not immediately give comment about compensation.

As for the bear that instigated the fiasco, it was found and killed.

"They got him someplace outside of the community," said Nelner.

"He was in a little worse condition than I was. He received a few more bullet holes."
With the growing popularity of the "Karen" meme, Hollywood has decided to jump on the bandwagon and are currently developing a Karen-inspired crime thriller.

The name of the film? Karen.

The film will be set in Southern America, with a heavy theme of the Black Lives Matter movement and those opposed to it.

Orange is the New Blacks's Taryn Manning is reportedly playing the lead character "Karen White", who's a "racist, entitled white woman who terrorizes her new African-American neighbors", TMZ reports.

Her character is pretty much a mixture of all of the Karen's that have gone viral on the internet lately - you know the ones we're talking about.

But it seems this Karen will have a lot more of a sinister twist than the usual "get me the manager" Karen.

Coke Daniels, who is writing and directing the upcoming film, told TMZ that he would like to give people an interesting insight on social justice and race relations in America.

In an Instagram post, he wrote:

I felt it was necessary at this point for me to use my voice to speak truth to power and move the conversations forward as it relates to social injustices, racism and the litany of other inequalities people of colour are faced with daily in this country.

We don't have an exact release date yet - but IMDb currently has the film set to release next February.
OPINION: Our letter writers have some thoughts, for good and bad, about how the the Republican National Convention went down. Check out those takes and more in this edition of Letters to the Editor.
Since June 1, eviction proceedings have begun by Greek authorities against over 11,000 refugees, whose asylum claim was approved prior to May this year.

The move is being enforced by legislation of the New Democracy (ND) conservative government that came into force this March. It stipulates that once an asylum claim has been approved refugees have 30 days to leave the camps, apartments and hotels that they are being housed. Any welfare benefits they were eligible for as asylum seekers is cut off.

All 67 hotels operating as asylum seekers hosting facilities in the country will close by the end of the year.

The actions of the ND government are particularly brutal as the evictions are underway amid a resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic, with hundreds of new infections announced each day.

Afghan migrants camp with their families in a square in Athens, following their arrival from Lesbos' Moria camp. (AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis)

The measures are being sanctioned under an amendment added to the so-called International Protection Act (IPA), which was passed by the Greek parliament in late 2019 and came into force at the start of this year. The punitive legislation is a gamut of punitive measures, which include a new expedited asylum claim process that severely erodes the right to claim asylum formally protected by international law. The new process is being applied as a priority to those that have arrived since the start of this year, with many claims being processed within days of arrival. The law allows for claims to be rejected as a result of minor administrative infractions, including not attending a claim interview or not renewing registration on time.

The legislation enshrines into law the hostile environment refugees already face in Greece in order to deter others from coming. That much was made clear by Migration and Asylum Minister, Notis Mitarakis, in an interview to Skai TV in early March when he stated: Our aim is to give asylum within two to three months to those that are entitled and thereafter to withdraw benefits and accommodation because all of that attracted people to come to our country and take advantage of these benefits.

The process of evictions, which was delayed for a few months while Greece was in lockdown, has caused visible scenes of destitution with hundreds of refugeesmany of them familiessleeping in Victoria Square in the centre of Athens. An article published in Vice on August 21 reported that, Newborn babies and disabled elderly are among those camping on mats and cardboard boxes, exposed to blistering heat and without regular food or water.

A report published on August 3 by Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) documented the cases of several vulnerable families who were recently evicted from the notorious Moria camp on the island of Lesbos, only to find themselves homeless in Victoria Square.

It cited the case of Abdul, a torture survivor from Afghanistan and father of an autistic child: My childs condition is very serious. He cannot be in noisy places, under stress. Any extra tension worsens his psychology and health. Since we [found ourselves] in the streets of Athens, he seems to [suffer from] severe headaches. He holds his head often; he presses it and he beats it. Our biggest problem is that we have no home, no safe place, no protection We are ill, and we are getting more ill. We are stressed out and we get more stressed out. I feel a deep fear inside me.

Human Rights Watch cited the case of Basira, a 21-year-old woman from Afghanistan who is alone in Greece. This month she was given just days to leave her tent in the Moria camp after being granted asylum. Basira said, They cut the cash assistance and told me I have to go They said that if they come again and find me [in the tent] they will take me by force. I felt fear and despair because I am on my own, I didnt know where to go.

Migration and Asylum Minister Mitarakis provocatively attempted to shift the blame onto refugees themselves by tweeting n July 3: This year, 16,000 migrants left from our islands, unfortunately 110 individuals are in Victoria square. There is a support programme for finding housing and work, they must stand on their feet, we cannot give them privileges for life.

A written submission on behalf of the RSA this June to the European Court of Human Rights gives the lie to Mitarakis assertions by highlighting the Kafkaesque maze confronting refugees seeking to stand on their feet. It stated: Status holders in Greece continue to face specific challenges posed by severe administrative barriers to access to different types of official documentation. These obstacles prevent people from fulfilling the necessary documentation prerequisites for accessing key rights such as health care, housing, social welfare and access to the labour market under equal conditions to nationals. A case in point is the Tax Identification Number (AFM), whose issuance requires proof of address. However, this places those recently evicted in a Catch-22 situation, since the AFM is also required in renting a property in the first place as well as opening a bank account.

The new legislation has been accompanied by an intensification of so-called push-backs by the Greek Coast Guard, which involves forcing boatloads of refugees and migrants back across Greeces sea border, a practice which is illegal under international law.

According to an investigative report published by the New York Times August 14, at least 31 separate such incidents involving at least 1,072 asylum seekers have taken place since March. According to the report migrants have been forced onto sometimes leaky life rafts and left to drift at the border between Turkish and Greek waters, while others have been left to drift in their own boats after Greek officials disabled their engines.

The article cited the testimony of Najma al-Khatib, a 50-year-old Syrian teacher, who says masked Greek officials took her and 22 others, including two babies, under cover of darkness from a detention centre on the island of Rhodes on July 26 and abandoned them in a rudderless, motorless life raft before they were rescued by the Turkish Coast Guard.

Al-Khatib told the New York Times, I left Syria for fear of bombingbut when this happened, I wished Id died under a bomb.

Responding to the Times report, Ylva Johansson, who oversees migration policy at the European Commission expressed concern but stated she was powerless to investigate their validity. She added, We cannot protect our European border by violating European values and by breaching peoples rights. Border control can and must go hand in hand with respect for fundamental rights.

Such empty rhetoric belies the fact that Greeces policy is part of the EUs wider strategic goals.

Johansson herself flew to Greece in March together with the European Commissions Director-General for Migration and Home Affairs, Monique Pariat, where they held meetings with Mitsotakis and Mitarakis. According to an announcement by the Commission, the visit was in continuation of the support measures announced last week on the management of the migration crisis in Greece.

Towards the end of June, in a letter to Mitarakis, Pariat praised the progress made by migration and asylum authorities under the guidance of Mr Mitarakis, adding that his efforts are not just important for Greece and for the EU.

More ominously, the EU border patrol agency, Frontex, has pledged to increase its forces in the Aegean. At the beginning of March, just as Greece was stepping up its push-back operations, Frontex Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri stated: Given the quickly developing situation at the Greek external borders with Turkey, my decision is to accept to launch the rapid border intervention requested by Greece. It is part of the Frontex mandate to assist a Member State confronted with an exceptional situation, requesting urgent support with officers and equipment from all EU Member States and Schengen Associated Countries.

Starting next year we will be able to rely on the first 700 officers from the European Border and Coast Guard standing corps to provide operational flexibility in case of a rapid border intervention. He complained, Today, we depend entirely on EU Member States and Schengen Associated Countries for contributions to come through at this crucial time.

Evelien van Roemburg, the director of Oxfams migration campaign in Europe, noted, The European Union is complicit in this abuse, because for years it has been using Greece as a test ground for new migration policies. We are extremely worried that the EU will now use Greeces asylum system as a blueprint for Europe's upcoming asylum reform.

The pseudo-left opposition Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) is attempting to portray NDs measures as inhumane and its own period in office from 2015-19 as one which saw the harmonious integration into society of immigrants and asylum seekers.

What a fraud! Greece was turned into Europes border guard and jailer under Alexis Tsiprass government, as part of a dirty deal Greece agreed with the EU and Turkey. As the WSWS noted, in its series on Syrizas reactionary legacy, the deal lifted the basic right to asylum and was deemed illegal by several human rights organizations as well as the United Nations. Since then, incarcerated in the overcrowded hotspots, thousands of refugees have spent years in catastrophic conditions. Two months after the deal the Syriza government employed tear gas and stun grenades against protesting refugees in Idomeni and ordered the clearing of the camp.
British holidaymakers are rushing to book early flights home from Portugal as the country looks set to go back onto the UK's quarantine list.

Direct flights from Faro to London are selling fast, starting at around 250 for a seat mid-week and rising to more than 300 on Friday.

London-based businessman Sergio Dionisio is predicting his expensive 11.40pm landing at Stansted on Friday will beat the new quarantine rules by 20 minutes.

'I just managed to buy another 3 tickets to return to London on Friday arriving at 23.40 in Stansted avoiding the quarantine, I have been searching since Saturday and I only found 3 tickets today with Ryanair paying another 1250 for 3 of us and losing my Sunday tickets, just crazy.' Mr Dionisio tweeted.

There were 21.1 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people in the country over the seven days to August 30 - up from 19.4 in the week to August 29.

A rate of 20 Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day period is the level ministers look at to trigger isolation rules.

There are fears that Portugal might be placed on the UK's quarantine list again, after a spike in cases took it perilously close to the government's threshold. Pictured, Cascais

When the cumulative number of Covid-19 cases hits 20 per 100,000 people over a seven-day period ministers consider triggering isolation rules. The total of 2,171 cases in Portugal over the past week gives a level of 21.1 per 100,000 population

London-based businessman Sergio Dionisio is predicting his expensive 11.40pm landing at Stansted on Friday will beat the new quarantine rules by 20 minutes.

Sergio Dionisio, Chief Executive Officer at Starplus Cleaning services, booked three Ryanair tickets for 1,250

One holidaymaker said she was about to lose 'the only thing I've been looking forward to this year,' as rising figures look set for Portugal to return to the list - just over a week after the government said Brits could travel there safely.

Writing in The Times, Willie Walsh, chief executive of International Airlines Group, said: 'Another U-turn by the Government, adding Portugal to the quarantine list, will cause further chaos and hardship for travellers.'

He said the 'ever-shifting list' of countries requiring quarantine means 'the UK has officially hung up the 'Closed' sign'.

Mr Walsh said: 'The Government is using arbitrary statistics to effectively ban 160 countries and in the process destroying the economy.

'The Government needs to introduce a testing regime to restore confidence.'

Around 75,000 UK nationals are thought to be on holiday in Portugal or due to fly there imminently.

Many could face having to fly home early to beat a deadline before any quarantine restriction is imposed.

A clamp on travellers from Portugal would represent a further embarrassment for a Government which has been lambasted for its 'shambolic' marshalling of the travel sector during the pandemic. The quarantine rules are reviewed at the end of each week, but ministers have made clear they will act more quickly if necessary.

Searches for flights to Portugal soared after the country was removed from the UK's quarantine list just over a week ago.

Passengers arriving in the UK from Portugal no longer had to self-isolate from 4am on Saturday August 22 after an approved travel corridor was confirmed.

The government today played down the prospect of routine coronavirus testing at airports - suggesting it would miss too many cases to be effective.

Britain's ambassador to Portugal Chris Sainty said: 'Travellers should consider their plans carefully and factor in the risks of travelling abroad in this fast-moving situation.

'As Grant Shapps said, only travel if you are content to unexpectedly quarantine if required.'

Environment Secretary George Eustice said border controls were always kept under review, but warned that screening on arrival would not remove the risk of the disease being imported into the country.

Chris Sainty, Britain's ambassador to Portugal, said Brits abroad should only travel if they are 'content to unexpectedly quarantine'

The comments came amid fears that Portugal might be placed on the quarantine list again, after a spike in cases took it perilously close to the government's threshold.

In a round of interviews this morning, Mr Eustice was asked whether it was time for the government to heed calls for widespread testing at airports as part of the UK's response to the pandemic.

'Obviously all of these things are always kept under review,' he told Sky News.

'The advice so far on testing on arrival at airports is that the likelihood of missing people who are maybe asymptomatic and therefore won't show up on the test is quite high.

'Somebody can pass negative to a test and therefore think they are okay and find a few days later they develop symptoms.'

The remarks followed concern that almost 200 passengers who were on a flight from the Greek island of Zante a week ago have now been told to self-isolate.

There are 16 cases of Covid-19 linked to people who took Tui flight 6215 to Cardiff on August 25.

In a round of interviews this morning, Environment Secretary George Eustice was asked whether widespread testing at airports should be part of the UK's response to the pandemic

Portugal is listed as an 'amber' nation, meaning it is approaching the UK threshold for quarantine with 19.4 virus cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day cumulative count

Paul Charles, boss of travel consultancy PC Agency, said the figures for Portugal suggest it could be taken off the Foreign Office travel corridor list in days.

He added: 'Portugal is likely to go back on the UK's quarantine list this week and the country itself is now preparing a 'state of contingency' from September 15.

'It has been unable to manage its caseload over the last two weeks as more tourists have entered Portugal, especially Lisbon and Porto.'

PC Agency, which publishes a daily tally of country infection rates, listed Portugal as an 'amber' nation, meaning it is approaching the UK threshold for quarantine with 19.4 virus cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day cumulative count  compared with 12.2 in Britain.

Brits preparing to head abroad have expressed their disappointment at the possibility of a cancelled holiday, with one person saying they were 'done with 2020'.

Taking to Twitter, one user said it would be a 'joke,' if it was put back on the list, writing: 'I hope I don't need to cancel my holiday for the third time this year because of quarantine. Already lost money on previous cancellations.'

Holidaymakers look set for more disappointment, should Portugal be added back on to the quarantine list

Another complained: 'The only thing I've been looking forward to this year is Portugal and it was off the quarantine list and now it might be going back on!!! Sick and tired of everything.'

In late June, ministers began encouraging Britons to holiday abroad to boost the travel industry as restrictions were eased, only to warn within weeks that 'no travel is risk-free.'

That followed a decision to introduce quarantine measures on arrivals from Spain with just five hours' notice.

Mr Charles suggested yesterday that Portugal had been a 'victim of its own success in attracting so many tourists rapidly'.

When Portugal was added to the travel corridor list on August 22  meaning no need for holidaymakers to quarantine for 14 days upon their return to the UK  flight comparison site Skyscanner reported a 2,000 per cent increase in bookings.
This Wednesday, September 2, the Commemorative Air Forces (CAF) Inland Empire Wing, will conduct a flight over several important historic landmarks which played a major role in World War II. This event will commemorate 75 years since Imperial Japan signed the surrender document aboard the USS Missouri, officially ending World War II.

The Victory Flight hopes to bring honor to the veterans of World War II, including personnel who were held as prisoners of war or listed as missing in action, for their service and sacrifice, and to thank and honor the families of these veterans and pay tribute to the contribution made on the home front by the people of Southern California during World War II. The flight will go over many of these important landmarks such as the aircraft manufacturing facilities in Santa Monica, the Santa Ana Naval Air Station, and Marine Air Corps station in El Toro. The Pacific Battleship Center: Battleship Iowa is another landmark the flight will flyover in conjunction with a live streaming event in collaboration with Battleship Missouri in Pearl Harbor. This is a very big year, said Bill Prosser, IEW Business Officer. This is truly one of the last opportunities to pay a tribute to those who contributed to the war in person. And sadly, due to the pandemic, we are trying to find very creative ways to do that. If we do not do it now, we will be missing a tremendous opportunity to educate the public about World War II and why it is such a significant part of our history.

The 90-minute flyover begins at 12:00 p.m. PT at Torrance Airport, also known as Zamperini Field, and will go over several landmarks to hit the target flying over the USS Iowa at about 12:30pm. Fourteen World War II era aircraft are slated to participate. Five C-47s are among those who returned to Normandy in June 2019 as the D-Day Squadron. Aboard some of the aircraft will be veterans, Rosie the Riveters, and Holocaust survivors.

Points along the flyover Route include:

Torrance airport (Zamperini Field)

Long Beach

Los Alamitos

Santa Ana Naval Air Station (Blimp Hangars) (Tustin)

Marine Corps Air Station El Toro

National WWII Submarine Memorial-West

Queen Mary

USS Iowa

Torrance airport (Zamperini Field)

Airports and Manufacturing facilities Santa Monica

Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance (Holocaust Museum)

Brackett Airfield

Ontario Army Airfield

Chino Cal Aero Airfield

The following aircraft have agreed to participate, but due to factors such as weather or mechanical issues, participating aircraft and schedules are subject to change without notice:

D-Day Doll C-53

Flabob Express C-47

Virginia Ann C-47

Betsys Biscuit Bomber C-47

Spirit of Benovia C-47

Aero Trader B-25

Lyons Museum C-47

Multiple World War II T-6 and PT-22 WWII trainers

Those across Southern California are invited to participate by heading outside and looking up from 12:00-1:30 p.m. PT. Share your photos with #AOD75 or follow the flight via FlightAware N45366. Follow the D-Day Squadron flyovers, events and other missions on Facebook, and Instagram. Subscribe to their YouTube Channel for the latest video productions. For more information about the Commemorative Air Force Inland Empire Squadron, visit www.inlandempirecaf.com
VICTORIA, BC, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, alongside Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. and its institutional partners, have acquired a 100 per cent stake in a telecom tower company in India from Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited. The total equity commitment for the transaction is approximately US$3.4 billion.

The investment comprises a portfolio of around 135,000 communication towers which forms Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited's ("Jio") telecommunication network. The towers were recently constructed and strategically located for cellular network coverage across India. More towers are planned, increasing the total number of towers in the transaction perimeter to approximately 175,000, building a robust telecommunications market within the country. Jio is the anchor tenant of the tower portfolio under a 30-year Master Services Agreement, which will provide the tower company with a secure, long-term source of revenue.

"For BCI and our clients, this investment is well aligned with our long-term strategy of investing in high quality companies and assets that fulfill essential needs of the communities in which they operate," said Lincoln Webb, executive vice president & global head of BCI's infrastructure & renewable resources program. "Data services are increasingly critical to societies and economies in today's world  promoting both opportunity for individuals and potential innovation for local communities. BCI is excited by the opportunity to invest in infrastructure that will play a vital role in enabling India's continued economic growth."

About BCI

With C$171.3 billion of managed net assets as of March 31, 2020, British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI) is one of Canada's largest institutional investors within the global capital markets. Based in Victoria, British Columbia, BCI is a long-term investor that invests in all major asset classes including infrastructure and other strategic investments. BCI's clients include public sector pension funds, insurance funds, and special purpose funds.

BCI's infrastructure & renewable resources program, valued at over C$18.3 billion, invests in tangible long-life assets that include a portfolio of direct investments in companies across a variety of sectors spanning regulated utilities, energy, telecommunications, and transportation. These companies operate in stable and mature regulatory environments, provide opportunities for future capital investments, and have the potential to generate steady returns and cash yields for our clients. The program is diversified across North America, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America.

For more information, please visit bci.ca

SOURCE British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI)

Related Links

http://www.bci.ca/


In a bizarre turn to one of the most-watched cases in the Supreme Court in 2020, the Justice Arun Mishra-headed bench has asked advocate and activist Prashant Bhushan to pay a fine of Re 1 in the contempt case.

The top court fined Bhushan after finding him guilty in a case of contempt for two tweets regarding Justice SS Bobde and the Supreme Court. Bhushan has been asked to pay the fine by September 15 failing which he could face a jail term for three months besides a debarment from practice for a period of three years.

The verdict and the punishment" came as a surprise to many and social media was instantly filled with reactions. Photos of a smiling Bhushan holding up a one rupee coin along with senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan who defended him in Court.

According to journalists, the image was clicked minutes after the Supreme Court verdict".

Minutes after the Supreme Court verdict Prashant Bhushan (all smiles) holding a 1 coin along with his lawyer Senior Advocate Rajeev Dhavan. pic.twitter.com/9ZJKznb3PQ Nalini (@nalinisharma_) August 31, 2020

Pic 1: Prashant Bhushan holding Rs. 1 coin which he has to pay as fine.Pic 2: Prashant Bhushan with his advocate Rajeev Dhawan.#PrashantBhushanCase pic.twitter.com/yVlo0hHo6w  Gonika Arora (@AroraGonika) August 31, 2020

While some were taken aback by the SC order, others hoped that Bhushan should just pay the fine and get it over with. While many understood the symbolic value of the fine, risking three years of debarment from practice or three months in prison was seen as far more debilitating than paying the fine itself.

I hope Bhushan pays it. Jail would have been worth martyrdom. Not this. Manto was convicted for obscenity in Karachi and paid it though he disagreed with the sentence and the verdict. https://t.co/F78uRg7SSf Aakar Patel (@Aakar__Patel) August 31, 2020

A fine of Re 1 on @pbhushan1 . All that noise, energy, court's precious time for Re 1. IMHO Prashant should now pay the fine and get on with his real job - appearing in court for those who need him most. One day, one will tell the world what really happened. Maneesh Chhibber (@maneeshchhibber) August 31, 2020

Yet others ridiculed the verdict with jokes.

He should give a Pulse and say chutta nahi hai. https://t.co/iyuBjwK7Td Ivan Mehta (@IndianIdle) August 31, 2020

supreme court sentences #PrashantBhushan with a fine of 1 Rupee in contempt case*me who was fined 500 for no helmet pic.twitter.com/KNhtQclk3m  Harry Potter (@iampotterr) August 31, 2020

Supreme Court fines #PrashantBhushan Re 1 in contempt of court case.He'll be jailed for 3 months if he doesn't deposit the fine by September 15.Me to Supreme court :- pic.twitter.com/mBFD9Gu1S9    (@x_x_stranger) August 31, 2020

Defenders of the apex court, however, called the verdict fair, stating that it proved that no one was above the law", as proclaimed by advocate and Twitter user Gaurav Bhatia.

A slap of Rs 1 is louder than a punch of thousands of crore, this should have happened a long time back. No one is above the law. We are all foot soldiers of the institution, the institution is to be protected at any cost. #PrashantBhushan https://t.co/mKVxqPoRB4 Gaurav Bhatia Sr Adv BJP   (@gauravbh) August 31, 2020

While the verdict brought cheer among the supporters of Bhushan who had been criticizing the courts contempt proceedings as an assault on free speech, some cautioned that Prashant may have owed this moral victory to his privilege and that others in his place with lesser privilege and influence might not have fared the same.

The SC bench, also comprising Justices BR Gavai and Krishna Murari, said an order on sentencing was a must in the given circumstances.

The court agreed with Attorney General KK Venugopals submissions that there does not need to be a stringent punishment or a jail term for Bhushan in view of his contribution as a lawyer.

The bench, in its order, took note that Bhushan chose not to apologise or express regret despite repeated opportunities.
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

To explain why the coronavirus pandemic is much worse in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world, commentators have blamed the federal government's mismanaged response and the lack of leadership from the Trump White House.

Others have pointed to our culture of individualism, the decentralized nature of our public health, and our polarized politics.

All valid explanations, but there's another reason, much older, for the failed response: our approach to fighting infectious disease, inherited from the 19th century, has become overly focused on keeping disease out of the country through border controls.

As a professor of medical sociology, I've studied the response to infectious disease and public health policy. In my new book, "Diseased States," I examine how the early experience of outbreaks in Britain and the United States shaped their current disease control systems. I believe that America's preoccupation with border controls has hurt our nation's ability to manage the devastation produced by a domestically occurring outbreak of disease.

Germ theory and the military

Though outbreaks of yellow fever, smallpox, and cholera occurred throughout the 19th century, the federal government didn't take the fight against infectious disease seriously until the yellow fever outbreak of 1878. During that same year, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed the National Quarantine Act, the first federal disease control legislation.

By the early 20th century, a distinctly American approach to disease control had evolved: "New Public Health." It was markedly different from the older European concept of public health, which emphasized sanitation and social conditions. Instead, U.S. health officials were fascinated by the newly popular "germ theory," which theorized that microorganisms, too small to be seen by the naked eye, caused disease. The U.S. became focused on isolating the infectious. The typhoid carrier Mary Mallon, known as "Typhoid Mary," was isolated on New York's Brother Island for 23 years of her life.

Originally, the military managed disease control. After the yellow fever outbreak, the U.S. Marine Hospital Service (MHS) was charged with operating maritime quarantine stations countrywide. In 1912, the MHS became the U.S. Public Health Service; to this day, that includes the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps led by the surgeon general. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started as a military organization during World War II, as the Malaria Control in War Areas program. Connecting the military to disease control promoted the notion that an attack of infectious disease was like an invasion of a foreign enemy.

Germ theory and military management put the U.S. system of disease control down a path in which it prioritized border controls and quarantine throughout the 20th century. During the 1918 influenza pandemic, New York City held all incoming ships at quarantine stations and forcibly removed sick passengers into isolation to a local hospital. Other states followed suit. In Minnesota, the city of Minneapolis isolated all flu patients in a special ward of the city hospital and then denied them visitors. During the 1980s, the Immigration and Naturalization Service denied HIV-positive persons from entering the country and tested over three million potential immigrants for HIV.

Defending the nation from the external threat of disease generally meant stopping the potentially infectious from ever entering the country and isolating those who were able to gain entry.

Kaci Hickox was forced to quarantine for 21 days in a after she returned from Africa.

Our mistakes

This continues to be our predominant strategy in the 21st century. One of President Trump's first coronavirus actions was to enforce a travel ban on China and then to limit travel from Europe.

His actions were nothing new. In 2014, during the Ebola outbreak, California, New York and New Jersey created laws to forcibly quarantine health care workers returning from west Africa. New Jersey put this into practice when it isolated U.S. nurse Kaci Hickox after she returned from Sierra Leone, where she was treating Ebola patients.

In 2007, responding to pandemic influenza, the Department of Homeland Security and the CDC developed a "do not board" list to stop potentially infected people from traveling to the U.S.

When such actions stop outbreaks from occurring, they are obviously sound public policy. But when a global outbreak is so large that it's impossible to keep out, then border controls and quarantine are no longer useful.

This is what has happened with the coronavirus. With today's globalization, international travel, and an increasing number of pandemics, attempting to keep infectious disease from ever entering the country looks more and more like a futile effort.

Moreover, the U.S. preoccupation with border controls means we did not invest as much as we should have in limiting the internal spread of COVID-19. Unlike countries that mounted an effective response, the U.S. has lagged behind in testing, contact tracing, and the development of a robust health care system able to handle a surge of infected patients. The longstanding focus on stopping an outbreak from ever occurring left us more vulnerable when it inevitably did.

For decades, the U.S. has been underfunding public health. When "swine flu" struck the country in 2009, the CDC said 159 million doses of flu shots were needed to cover "high risk" groups, particularly health care workers and pregnant women. We only produced 32 million doses. And in a pronouncement that now looks prescient, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report said if the swine flu outbreak had been any worse, U.S. health departments would have been overwhelmed. By the time Ebola appeared in 2014, the situation was no better. Once again, multiple government reports slammed our response to the outbreak.

Many causes exist for the U.S.'s failed response to this crisis. But part of the problem lies with our past battles with disease. By emphasizing border controls and quarantine, the U.S. has disregarded more practical strategies of disease control. We can't change the past, but by learning from it, we can develop more effective ways of dealing with future outbreaks.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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JERUSALEM, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel has secret talks with several Arab countries to normalize their relations, a day before Israel's first commercial flight to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

"There are many more unpublicized meetings with Arab and Muslim leaders," Netanyahu said during joint remarks in Jerusalem alongside U.S. President Donald Trump's senior advisor Jared Kushner and National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien.

Netanyahu said these Arab leaders "recognize that their true interests are to normalize relations with Israel."

Kushner referred to the so-called Abraham Accord, a U.S.-brokered peace agreement between Israel and the UAE to normalize their ties, as a "historic breakthrough," saying "the stage is set" for other Arab states to follow the UAE.

The Aug. 13 announcement has paved the way to "previously unthinkable" economic, security and religious cooperation between Israel and the UAE, Kushner added.

Kushner and O'Brien will join on Monday an official Israeli delegation that will fly to Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE. The flight, by Israel's national airliner El Al, marks the first commercial flight between the two states.

The Israeli delegation will be headed by the chief of the National Security Council Meir Ben Shabbat.

According to the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, the talks will focus on "ways to promote cooperation in a variety of fields such as aviation and tourism, trade, economy and finance, health, energy, security and more."
By the time prison officials told William Forrester he had COVID-19, he'd already lost his sense of taste and smell. The persistent headaches, body tremors and diarrhea had already begun.

On his worst days, his stomach cramps were so bad he couldnt stand, his back pain so severe he couldnt sit up to eat. He said he had to ask a fellow inmate to scoop coffee for him because his hands trembled so badly.

One day, he found himself lying on the shower floor as he struggled to catch his breath. His head felt like it was filled with air. This is particularly troubling for Forrester, a 63-year-old who lost one lung nearly two decades ago to cancer.

Forrester has spent more than a decade in a Florida state prison for faking opioid prescriptions for himself during a yearslong addiction to painkillers following a lung operation.

William Forrester is pictured with a retired search dog. Forrester has received certificates for dog-training programs while in prison.

His 15-year sentence was a product of mandatory minimum laws crafted years ago to fight the state's drug epidemic. Nationwide, mandatory minimums require judges to hand down predetermined and often lengthy sentences for certain crimes, many of which are nonviolent drug offenses. But advocates and legal experts say the harsh sentences treated those addicted to drugs, like Forrester, as if they were violent drug kingpins.

Less than a year away from freedom, imprisoned under laws that have since been changed, Forrester fears he'll die before he is free.

"I hope Im not doing a death sentence," he said.

In the federal system, more than 7,500 prisoners have been moved out of prison after Attorney General William Barr ordered officials to transfer elderly and vulnerable inmates to home confinement. Among those who have been allowed to serve the rest of their sentences under house arrest amid coronavirus fears were high-profile criminals such as President Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

But critics say the federal Bureau of Prisons has been slow to implement Barr's directives and still has left other nonviolent but less connected prisoners behind bars.

Story continues

In the case of Forrester, a state prisoner, he applied for a furlough or a temporary release, but his request was denied.

Elderly in coronavirus-ridden prisons: Coronavirus was Paul Manafort's ticket home. Many other old, ill, nonviolent inmates are still in prison

Forrester is not alone

There are many like Forrester in Floridas criminal justice system.

A 2019 report from the state Department of Corrections showed that nearly 14,000 prisoners  14% of the prison population  are serving time for drug offenses. The report does not distinguish violent prisoners from the nonviolent ones, or inmates serving time for opioid-related crimes from those who trafficked cocaine or heroin.

But a government report found that prosecution of opioid-related offenses led to a dramatic uptick in the prison population from 2006 to 2011. In fiscal 2010-11 alone, 1,200 prisoners were serving time for opioid-related crimes; 81% had no previous drug offenses and 65% needed substance abuse treatments, according to the report by Floridas Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability.

In the federal system, mandatory minimum sentences have dropped significantly since the 1990s, although they continue to result in long punishments for thousands of federal inmates. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, nearly 20,000 federal cases in 2019 involved mandatory minimum punishments. A large majority of which  more than 70%  involved drug trafficking offenses.

Protesters hold a sign reading "care not cages" at the Athens-Clarke County Jail in Athens, Ga, on April 27, 2020. Demonstrators demanded the release of all inmates being held pretrial and anyone with 60 days or less left in their sentence to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the county jail.

Incarcerated with COVID-19

Forrester tested positive for COVID-19 on July 13. He's doing better now and assumes he's negative, though he hasn't been retested.

Still, in the close quarters of a prison, he fears getting the virus again is inevitable. The possibility of reinfection, experts have said, is real. Forrester has heard of other prisoners who died of COVID-19 and asks himself: How many times can I catch the virus and survive?

So far, 340 prisoners at Bay Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility in Panama City, Florida, where Forrester is incarcerated, have tested positive.

Of the more than 95,000 prisoners in Florida, 15,500 or about 16% have COVID-19  an infection rate far exceeding the federal prison system's.

Pearl Morgan, of Columbus, Ohio, joins inmate families and supporters at an April protest of prison conditions for Ohio inmates and detainees, demanding the release of 20,000 low level and non violent offenders for their safety, due to the spread of COVID-19.

The Florida Department of Corrections said it has suspended visitation, limited transfers between facilities, and staggered meal times to allow for social distancing at dining areas to stem the spread of the virus. Symptomatic prisoners are placed in medical isolation, and officials conduct contact tracing for every positive case, the department said.

GEO Group, a private corporation that operates Bay Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility and a few other prisons in Florida, said it has started mass COVID-19 testing, distributed face masks to inmates and asked staffers to self-quarantine if they had contact with other employees with coronavirus.

Isolated and scared: The plight of juveniles locked up during the coronavirus pandemic

Not the quintessential drug trafficker

Forrester was convicted in 2009 for trafficking 14 grams or more of oxycodone and obtaining drugs by fraud. Although there was no evidence that Forrester sold drugs, the weight of the pills triggered a drug trafficking charge  punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years.

Under Florida law, had Forrester sold 200 grams of cocaine or methamphetamine, he wouldve been sentenced to just seven years. Such was the result of laws passed to crack down on drug traffickers that have since ensnared those addicted to drugs.

OPIOIDS & COVID: Clinton Foundation works to put naloxone in recovery homes

"The quintessential drug trafficker that the legislature had in mind is a 'thug,' running around and shooting people in the neighborhood," said Janet Ferris, a retired Florida judge. "The reality in most communities is its not."

Acknowledging that sentencing laws had gone too far, the Florida Legislature in 2014 raised the threshold weights that would trigger mandatory sentences. Advocates heralded the change as a "common sense" law that would cut the number of nonviolent offenders sent to prison for lengthy sentences.

But the law isnt retroactive, and bills to make it retroactive have so far failed. Had Forrester been convicted after the law was passed, he wouldve been sentenced to seven years. He would've been out by now.

'It gets more frightening': As coronavirus surges in prisons, families of elderly inmates wait in fear

Harsh sentencing laws are not unique to Florida, although the state has increasingly become an outlier for having stringent mandatory minimum sentences, said Nancy Daniels, of the Florida Public Defender Association.

Judges, faced with defendants like Forrester, have no choice but to impose lengthy sentences that they didn't believe were fair. The judge who sentenced Forrester to 15 years acknowledged as much.

"We get the addicted, and we get the organized crime, all treated the same under the wording of the Legislature," Judge Roger McDonald said during Forresters sentencing hearing in December 2009, according to court transcripts. "But since the Legislature is the Legislature and the Court is the Court, we have to enforce the laws, and were stuck with them, and we cant carve out exceptions that dont exist."

Ferris said she often felt helpless when she had to face defendants in her courtroom, many of whom were young, first-time offenders.

"I did not have the opportunity in many instances to do what I thought was in the interest of justice. And that is a really, really troubling feeling," she said. "When people come into the courtroom and say, 'Judge, Im asking for justice' and you know what theyre saying is correct  To say to someone, 'Im sorry I cant do justice in this case because the legislature has enacted a mandatory sentencing law, I have to follow that.'"

A life of pain and addiction

In 2002, as he was visiting his grandmother in Bradenton, Florida, Forrester received sobering news. There were cancerous tumors in his left lung and he would likely die, he remembered his doctor telling him on the phone.

Multiple surgeries to remove his lung seemed to have stretched his life, but he spent the next few years in and out of the hospital. Several visits were because of pneumonia. That's on top of a litany of other health problems: chronic headaches, chest and lower back pain, sleep apnea, strokes and panic attacks. He had more surgeries to fix chronic spine issues.

All the while, he said, he was prescribed huge doses of pain killers.

He'd spent much of his working years in telecommunications, first as a repairman in Florida, then as a pipeline controller in Oklahoma, then back to Florida as a dispatcher. When his addiction got worse, he said he relied on disability benefits to help make ends meet.

As his health problems worsened, so did his addiction. He was often at doctors' offices and pain clinics, receiving prescriptions for dozens, if not hundreds of milligrams of various opioid medications, including MS Contin, methadone pills, oxycodone, morphine, hydromorphine, muscle relaxants and Marinol for his loss of appetite.

Prescription oxycodone pills.

"I was given hydrocodones by the hundreds," he said, referring to refillable prescriptions for 100 pills. "I soon realized that out of all the other life-threatening problems I had gone through, I was now in the middle of the most deadly, a big dependence on and addiction to opioids."

A pain management doctor testified at Forrester's sentencing hearing that some of the doses Forrester had been prescribed were too much. The morphine dose Forrester had been getting from another doctor "was a little bit high," Dr. Gwinn Murray testified, according to court transcripts.

The last time Murray saw Forrester, Forrester asked for an increase in his oxycodone prescription because his pain had not gone away. Murray, who believed patients should rely less on medication and more on other means to deal with their pain, denied the request, according to transcripts.

After his medications were cut back, Forrester said he began faking prescriptions. The less drugs he got, the more he felt he needed them, and the more he resorted to illegal means to get them. The more drugs he got, the worse his life became.

Twice, Forrester woke up on life support after an accidental overdose. Other times, he said he woke up on his couch as medics were administering a shot of Narcan to reverse the effect of the drugs hed taken.

"My whole personality changed," he said. "I no longer knew myself, and all that mattered was feeding this addiction that had control over me."

A health issue or a criminal justice issue?

Law enforcement officials, including prosecutors and sheriffs, have opposed changes to mandatory minimum sentences, concerned that easing punishments could lead to rising crime rates and the spread of drugs in communities.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said mandatory minimums provide consistency in punishments and avoid instances in which sentences for the same crimes vary from judge to judge or county to county.

"Mandatory minimums are designed to provide the appropriate consequences for people that are selling drugs and trafficking drugs," said Gualtieri, immediate past president of the Florida Sheriff's Association.

Still, Gualtieri said drug laws "were never intended and should not have encompassed people who were addicts and users."

'Complete chaos': How the coronavirus pandemic is upending the criminal justice system

In Broward County, prosecutors have started easing sentences for several defendants convicted of opioid trafficking. Citing the changes the legislature made in 2014, prosecutors have recommended reduced prison sentences for two dozen defendants. Nineteen people have been released, and four are scheduled to be set free in the next four years, said Broward Chief Assistant State Attorney Jeff Marcus. Another defendant died before his release papers were processed.

"We believe it was an issue of fundamental fairness to initiate a review of these cases and reduce the sentences when appropriate," Marcus said in a statement.

One problem in Florida is the lack of a cohesive vision for what the criminal justice system should look like, said state Sen. Jeff Brandes, a Republican from St. Petersburg.

"The real question is whether youre going to use data and research to make decisions, or whether youre going to trust that the legislature of the past always got it right," said Brandes, who's been leading the effort to change sentencing laws and has been calling for giving judges more discretion. "Fundamentally, should we treat addiction as a health issue or a criminal justice issue?"

Long prison sentences for such offenders does more harm than good, a belief that Brandes said Republicans and Democrats should share.

"Criminal justice reform is a bipartisan issue," he said. "Democrats come to it from a social justice side. Republicans come to it from a public safety and fiscal conservatism side."

I dream about the day I walk up to my front door

Forrester remembers clearly the day he was convicted by a jury. He thought he was about to cry as officers escorted him out of the courtroom, but the tears didnt come. When he was finally alone, sitting on a floor in a holding cell, they did.

"I felt like my heart had totally been crushed," he said. "I prayed to Jesus to please help me what to know, what to do next."

Years later, McDonald, the judge who sentenced Forrester, asked the states Executive Clemency Board to release him early.

"At the time of the sentencing and even today I believe that the sentence was excessive given the crime, his criminal history and the involvement of addiction in his life," McDonald wrote in a 2018 letter to the board.

Had it not been for mandatory sentencing laws, McDonald said he would've imposed a far more lenient sentence: three years in prison, two years on probation and drug treatment.

The Florida Commission on Offender Review declined to comment on Forrester's clemency application, saying the information is confidential. The commission publishes a database of people who have been granted clemency; Forrester's name is not in the database.

It seemed to Forrester, "no one is listening."

"If they are listening," he said, "then they just dont care."

Forrester says he spends his days reading the Bible, playing games he bought for his tablet provided by the prison, and exchanging emails with a longtime friend with whom he will live after he's released. In the mornings, he meditates and prays. Over the years, he's gathered about a dozen certificates, including several from dog training programs that allowed prisoners to become trained handlers and another after completing a substance abuse program.

His symptoms have abated, but the fear of dying before seeing the outside of a prison wall, hasn't.

He looks forward to going back home to Orlando, to his pets that are still alive and to a friend who has "stuck with me all these years."

"I dream about the day I walk up to my front door," he said, "and go inside where I can feel safe again."

Follow USA TODAY's Justice and legal affairs reporter Kristine Phillips on Twitter @bykristinep.

'It would cripple us completely': Coronavirus takes toll on rural police agencies

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Inmate sentenced before mandatory minimum reform gets COVID: Now what?
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 13:26:40|Editor: huaxia

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PARIS, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- China will adhere to the path of peaceful, open, cooperative, win-win and inclusive development, visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here Sunday in a speech at the French Institute of International Relations.

Facing an ever-changing international environment, China has decided to give full play to the advantages of its super-large market and the potential of its domestic demand, so as to build a new development pattern marked by the domestic cycle as the main body and the mutual reinforcing of both the domestic and international cycles, said Wang.

"We will further expand domestic demand and open up wider, share more of China's development dividends with the world so as to drive the world's common recovery with our own recovery and drive the world's common development with our own development," he said.

China will continue to adhere to the path of peaceful development, Wang said.

"China is not the Soviet Union back then, nor is it interested or possible to become the second United States. No matter how far we may develop, we will never seek hegemony or expansionism," he said.

Adhering to the new path of state-to-state exchanges of "dialogue without confrontation, partnership without alliance," China will build more extensive global partnerships and continuously enlarge its "circle of friends," he said.

Wang stressed that China will never close its door to the outside world but open it wider.

"Through deeper reforms, lower tariffs, shorter negative lists, more convenient market access, more transparent market rules and a more attractive business environment, China will build an open economy of a higher level with all-range, multi-level, diversified patterns of open cooperation, which will create more opportunities for the whole world," he said.

On cooperation with other countries, which will benefit China's development, Wang pledged that China will continue to actively promote coordination and cooperation between major countries, strengthen friendship with neighbouring countries, and enhance solidarity and cooperation with developing countries.

"Through cooperation, we promote security, seek development and defy challenges," he said.

On win-win development, Wang noted that China has always opposed "zero-sum games" and the "winner-takes-all" mentality. "We will never seek to achieve our own development by seizing resources from or sacrificing the interests of other countries," he said.

Always adhering to the global governance concept based on the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, pursuing a mutually beneficial and win-win opening-up strategy, China will work with other countries to make the pie of cooperation bigger and turn the vision of common development into reality, he said.

On inclusive development, Wang said, "We believe that the world is colourful and diversified. We respect the right of people of all countries to independently choose their own path of development."

"We do not export systems or models. We are not interested in ideological confrontation with any country," said the Chinese foreign minister. "With concrete actions, we will continue to safeguard the diversity of civilizations in the world and promote exchanges and mutual learning among various development models." Enditem
Former President of India, Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee passed away today at an army hospital in Delhi Cantonment area. He was 84 years of age and had undergone a brain surgery to remove a clot. He later developed lung infection and was on ventilator support.

Prime Minister Modi tweeted, India grieves the passing away of Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society. He further tweeted, During his political career that spanned decades, Shri Pranab Mukherjee made long-lasting contributions in key economic and strategic ministries. He was an outstanding Parliamentarian, always well-prepared, extremely articulate as well as witty.

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu wrote on Twitter, Deeply saddened by the passing away of former President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee. The country has lot an elder statesman in his death. He rose from humble beginnings to occupy the countrys highest constitutional position through hard work, discipline and dedication. Shri Pranab Mukherjee brought dignity and decorum to every post held by him during his long & distinguished public service. My deepest condolences to the bereaved family members. Om Shanti!

President Ram Nath Kovind said in a message, Sad to hear that former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee is no more. His demise is passing of an era. A colossus in public life, he served Mother India with the spirit of a sage. The nation mourns losing one of its worthiest sons. Condolences to his family, friends & all citizens. Endowed with perspicacity and wisdom, Bharat Ratna Shri Mukherjee combined tradition and modernity. In his 5 decades long illustrious public life, he remained rooted to the ground irrespective of the exalted offices he held. He endeared himself to people across the political spectrum.

The news was broken by Pranab Mukherjees son on Twitter. With a Heavy Heart, this is to inform you that my father Shri #PranabMukherjee has just passed away inspite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital & payers, duas & prarthanas from people throughout India! (sic).

The flag at Parliament was lowered to half mast. Former Presidents funeral will be held tomorrow.

An Illustrious Personality

The 13th President of India, Pranab Mukherjee was a senior leader in the Indian National Congress and occupied several ministerial portfolios in the GoI. Prior to being elected as the President of India, he was Union Finance Minister and was awarded the highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna in 2019.

Pranab da, as popularly known as, was born into a Bengali family at Mirati in 1935. He earned an MA in political science & history and an LLB. Started his career as an upper-division clerk in the Office of Deputy Accountant-General in Calcutta, he became a lecturer of Political Science in 1963. Pranab da also worked as a Journalist with the Desher Dak before entering politics. His political career began in 1969 when he managed the by-election campaign of an independent candidate. It was then that the then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi recognized Pranab das talents and recruited him in INC. His journey ever since had been extra ordinary!

Pranab Mukherjee became a member of the Rajya Sabha in July 1969 and was re-elected to the house in 1975, 1981, 1993 and 1999. In 1995, he was appointed the External Affairs Minister of India, and in 2004, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed Pranab da as the Minister of Defence of India. He also was the Chairman of the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata and also the former Chairman and President of the Rabindra Bharati University and the Nikhil Bharat Banga Sahitya Sammelan. He also served on the Planning Board of the Asiatic Society.
The head of Australia's cyber spy agency will declare it has been collecting intelligence on Australians for at least 20 years, saying it should not come as a surprise as it is laid bare in legislation.

As the body prepares to lend its capabilities to federal police to break into the networks of online paedophiles and terrorists within the country, Australian Signals Directorate boss Rachel Noble will on Tuesday say "not all Australians are the good guys".

Rachel Noble, director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate, says her agency has been collecting intelligence on Australians for years. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The ASD has been a subject of controversy in recent years since it was revealed the federal government was considering giving the Australian Federal Police the power to enlist the cyber agency to attack the networks of Australians using domestic servers.

The government confirmed its plans last month, which involve the ASD lending its capabilities to the AFP to go after individuals and networks engaging in serious criminal activity. Operators of the nation's critical infrastructure will also be forced to pass on information about cyber attacks to the ASD in real time, while some companies will have to allow the cyber spy agency the ability to get into their networks to fend off major hacks.
The MTV Video Music Awards paid tribute to actor Chadwick Boseman Sunday, just two days after his death from cancer.

Host Keke Palmer introduced the show with a word about Boseman, calling him an actor whose talent and passion is a true inspiration to all the fans he touched and everyone he encountered.

We dedicate tonights show to a man whose spirit touched so many, Palmer said at the start of the socially distanced awards show, which featured a series of outdoor performances filmed at various locations in New York. He is a true hero. Not just on screen but in everything he did. His impact lives forever.

Palmers remarks, which arrived in a separate video, came before her planned introductory monologue to the (mostly) audience-free show.

The world needs more superheroes, and we all deserve to see ourselves in them. Chadwick Boseman helped make that happen. Rest in power. pic.twitter.com/d05kkkQR6b  MTV (@MTV) August 31, 2020

Boseman, who was 43 when he died, was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2016. The Black Panther star kept his diagnosis and cancer treatment private. Fans and friends alike were devastated by news of his death.

Within a relatively short period of time starting in 2013, the actor played such monumental figures as Jackie Robinson (42), James Brown (Get on Up) and Thurgood Marshall (Marshall). In the 2018 Marvel film Black Panther he was the titular superhero, King TChalla of Wakanda, a role he also played in Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War and Captain America: Civil War.

The VMAs remembered Boseman further into the show by airing footage from the 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards, when Boseman gave his award for best hero to James Shaw Jr.

Shaw saved lives that year by risking his own to disarm a gunman at a Waffle House in Antioch, Tennessee.

Chadwick Boseman dedicated his 2018 award for best hero at the MTV Movie & TV Awards to real-life hero James Shaw Jr. Frazer Harrison | Getty Images

Receiving an award for playing a superhero is amazing, but its even greater to acknowledge the heroes that we have in real life, the actor said at the time, inviting Shaw to join him on the stage.

This is gonna live at your house, Boseman said, handing him the golden popcorn award.

The world needs more superheroes, MTV said, prefacing the clip.

Boseman was also the last talent included in the shows in memoriam segment, which lingered on his face.

ABC remembered Boseman on Sunday by airing Black Panther without commercials, followed by a tribute to the actor.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Send a coronavirus tip here.
Socialism is becoming more and more prevalent in the U.S., with progressive Democrats like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez singing its virtues.

Socialist regimes have been the leading cause of death (100 million-plus) and misery in human existence.

The media, universities and Hollywood have largely ignored mass murders, starvation, tyranny and blind submission with no freedom of thought under various forms of socialism, (Castro, Stalin, Mao, and Khmer Rouge) while promoting, not discarding, its ideas.

Milton Friedman said, A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither.

Many Americans are uninformed and read the news and information that support their opinion. You have to look for the truth and form your own opinion.

The modern left pits Americans against each other, not only by class like Karl Marx, but also by race, gender and sexual orientation. This division is their primary strategy for gaining power.

The U.S. has lifted more people out of poverty and spread more freedom than any other nation in history. Rags to riches stories are not uncommon.

The Democrats left-wing agenda includes repealing Trumps tax cuts. Higher taxes on individuals, capital gains, dividends and corporations would be a disaster for our economy.

This radical agenda includes defunding the police, open borders, the Green New Deal, elimination of private health care, decriminalizing illegal immigrants, just to name a few.

Although you may be bored and disgusted by politics, youre voting for the future of our country, free of anarchy and lawlessness. Choose wisely!

John T. Pinto

Forks Township
A statue of the first Canadian Prime Minister John A. Macdonald lies on the ground, with the statue's head a few meters away, at Canada Park in central Montreal on August 29, 2020. Eric Thomas/AFP via Getty Images

Activists pulled down a statue of Canada's first prime minister John A. McDonald on Saturday, according to reports.

The head of the statue can be seen bouncing on the paving slabs in the video circulated widely on social media.

John A.McDonald, a Canadian founding father, is remembered for both his nation-building and his oppressive policies towards Indigenous people.

Montreal's mayor and Quebec's premier condemned the toppling of the statue.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Protesters pulled down a statue of Canada's first prime minister on Saturday.

A widely circulated video shows the toppling of a landmark statue of John A. McDonald, in which the figure's head breaks off and bounces on the paving stones.

The otherwise peaceful protest gathered under the banner of a group named The Coalition for BIPOC Liberation. BIPOC stands for "Black, Indigenous and people of color." Insider has contacted the group for comment but did not immediately receive a reply.

The statue's removal came at the culmination of a 200-strong protest that started as a call for changes to the city's police funding, according to local newspaper the Montreal Gazette.

Police accompanied the protesters but did not intervene at the statue's removal, according to the Montreal Gazette.

A statement on the group's Facebook page calls for the removal of all "statues, plaques and emblems" connected to those who have promoted racism.

"Symbols of hate encourage the mental oppression of marginalized people and serve as reminders to all people of the inequitable imbalance of power and encourage white supremacist attitudes," read the statement.

John A. McDonald was among Canada's founding fathers and the country's first prime minister, holding the office in the late 19th century.

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Although he is seen as a key figure in the formation of the modern Canadian nation, he also enacted cruel policies towards Indigenous people.

He is accused of capitalizing on a famine to drive Indigenous people into reservations, and founded the Indian Residential Schools system, an assimilation project that forcibly removed children from their parents.

A 2015 reconciliation commission called the school "cultural genocide" and noted that abuse at the schools was widespread, according to The Guardian. The Canadian government eventually issued a formal apology for the school system in 2008, calling it a "tragic legacy."

The statue of McDonald had been the topic of debate for some weeks, with a petition signed by around 9,000 people addressed to Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante in June, according to Canadian TV channel Global News.

On receiving the petition, Plante said she was "not closed" to the idea of taking down the statue, but said, "it's important to remember the past from an educational perspective." The possibility of placing contextual materials around the statue has been discussed.

A leaflet circulated by the protesters on Saturday described McDonald as a "white supremacist" and denounced the "inaction" of Plante, according to the BBC.

Plante tweeted on Saturday: "I strongly condemn the acts of vandalism that took place this afternoon in downtown Montreal, which led to the John A. Macdonald statue being torn down."

Quebec Premier Francois Legault also disapproved, tweeting: "We must fight racism, but destroying parts of our history is not the solution. Vandalism has no place in our democracy and the statue must be restored."

Read the original article on Insider
'1,300 Muslim youth have been arrested since the riots began and pressure has been constantly mounted on the Delhi police to create a narrative that these youths started the riots.'

IMAGE: A local stands near a barricaded street following clashes over the new citizenship law at Brij Puri area of north east Delhi. Photograph: PTI Photo

Zafarul Islam Khan, former chairman of the Delhi Minorities Commission, dwells upon how the Delhi police is trying to twist facts and why despite clear evidence of riot-mongering against Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kapil Mishra is adamant on giving him a clean chit.The concluding segment of a two-part interview:

In the first part of this interview you mentioned that you do not entertain great hopes, but truth must be told and placed on record.

What does this tell you about the system that our lawmakers have designed and the integrity of the institutions our Constitution have created?

There are certain quarters in the government who are very much interested to twist the whole thing and create a new narrative (about who are responsible for the commission of Delhi riots).

This is also why they have done selective leaks for their friends in the godi media (media that allegedly spins tales for the benefit of the ruling party in power at the Centre).

Look at the various chargesheets and status reports that they have presented in the courts. So much so that the sessions judge said that you (the Delhi police) are looking only at a particular angle. The (Delhi) high court also made a similar assertion.

So, there are people who are interested in twisting the entire narrative and have even used the offices of the solicitor general too to create a narrative that suits their political purpose and ideology.

I can't name any names, but this (the people who are twisting the narrative for political benefit) is very apparent.

Are you again pointing fingers at the Union home ministry?

I am not pointing fingers at anybody, but, of course, anybody who is involved can feel that there are certain people interested in giving the Delhi riots a certain twist (that benefits them politically).

You also said that from February 24 itself, your Commission intervened forcefully to stop the riots. What were these measures that could not stop the riots from spreading as they continued till February 27th and so many people died?

Look, we don't have any police or army at our disposal.

We could speak to higher officials, we could send messages to the police, to the lieutenant governor, to the chief minister, to the DCP (deputy commissioner of police) of north east Delhi, to the SHOs (station head officers), the heads of local police stations and we were doing that.

If you look at our annual report, which is also online now, you will find that from the 24th (of February), we had been conveying through various ways, through notices, through e-mails, through tweets, seeking intervention from the law and order machinery in charge of Delhi.

Even during the attack on Jamia Millia Islamia students on the 15th of December, I was standing at midnight in front of two police stations to help people who were arrested from Jamia Nagar.

Who do you think fomented communal riots in Delhi and who benefits from it?

The same forces which are benefiting from communal tension all over the country; same forces who think that through communal polarisation they can create captive vote banks, protect existing ones and also create new ones.

They certainly reap electoral and political dividends and become powerful politically and spread the ideology of hatred in our country.

What were some startling facts that came out in the Delhi Minorities Commission's Fact-finding Report on Delhi Riots 2020?

Everybody knows. The fact-finding report has also established that the riots started with the speech of Kapil Mishra and the Delhi police is still adamant to give him a clean chit; they say there is no relationship between the violence and his speech.

Hours after Mishra's communal speech, Delhi began to burn.

In fact, in his speech he can be heard warning the DCP of the area, who was standing beside him when he was daring the police that they will take to the streets (take the law and order in their own hands if anti-CAA protestors were not emptied out from Shaheen Bagh).

So there is a clear relationship between what he was saying or doing and what followed within hours.

And after that when violence started, those who were being attacked must have naturally defended themselves.

Ironically, the Delhi police have filed cases against them for starting the riots, for planning the riots, for bringing people from outside.

I have been living in Delhi for the last 35 years and I don't think that any Muslim individual or locality would have this kind of guts to bring people from outside to start a riot.

That the Delhi police have actually charged people for doing exactly that is beyond my imagination.

But still, this has been made out, and now they are trying various ways of putting pressure on the Muslim youth who have been arrested under fabricated charges.

1,300 Muslim youth have been arrested since the riots began and pressure has been constantly mounted on the Delhi police to create a narrative that these youths started the riots.

All this is being done by the Delhi police to build and bolster a stereotypical image of Muslim youth.
Some 170 COVID-19 vaccines are in development around the world, according to the World Health Organization, each one promising to protect people from the deadly coronavirus and allow them to go back to work and school.

Now, a handful are starting or nearing the final stage of testing. Depending on the results, some companies say their vaccines could be greenlighted for use as soon as this year.

The Front-Runners

Among the first vaccine candidates to start the final round of testing is one developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca PLC. Also far along are experimental shots from Pfizer Inc. and its partner BioNTech SE, as well as Moderna Inc.

China National Pharmaceutical Group Co., or Sinopharm, has a vaccine in Phase 3. A vaccine from another Chinese company, CanSino Biologics, is expected to begin the pivotal testing soon. But remember, many vaccines that show promise in early testing fail during the final round.

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is designed to provide protection by delivering into a persons cells the genetic code for the spikes protruding from the coronavirus. Then the cells can produce the spike proteins, generating an immune response that would be able to fight off the coronavirus. Delivering those genetic instructions is a weakened, harmless version of a virus that causes the common cold in chimpanzees.

In early testing, the vaccine successfully produced immune responses in humans with only minor side effects. A Phase 3 trial enrolling 30,000 subjects in the U.S. began in August. Other late-stage trials are under way with several thousand volunteers in the U.K., Brazil and South Africa. Production capacity estimate: AstraZeneca aims to make two billion doses available worldwide, and has said that one billion may be available this year. The Moderna vaccine also uses a gene-based technology to provoke an immune response, though the code it delivers takes the form of messenger RNA. Those molecules, commonly referred to as mRNA, are the bodys molecular couriers ferrying DNA instructions for making proteins. The vaccine delivers to cells mRNA for making the coronaviruss spike protein.

Moderna and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases are testing a two-dose shot. It was the first candidate to enter human testing in the U.S. The vaccine produced an immune response in early-stage testing and was generally well-tolerated, with minor side effects observed in test subjects.

Final-stage testing is under way in the U.S. with a 30,000-person trial that could yield interim results in the fall. An mRNA vaccine has never been approved for any disease. Production capacity estimate: 500 million to one billion doses a year starting in 2021. The vaccine developed by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE also uses mRNA. In a Phase 1 trial, the vaccine generated neutralizing antibodies that promise to fight off the coronavirus and was generally well tolerated. Phase 3 testing began in the U.S. in July, enrolling about 30,000 people, and will expand overseas to include about 120 sites.

The U.S. government has agreed to pay Pfizer and BioNTech nearly $2 billion (U.S.) for 100 million doses. Pfizer aims to seek regulatory approval or an emergency-use authorization in October. Production capacity estimate: up to 100 million doses world-wide by the end of 2020, and about 1.3 billion by the end of 2021. Chinas state-owned Sinopharm is developing two vaccines with the government agencies Wuhan Institute of Biological Products and Beijing Institute of Biological Products. Both are based on an older vaccine-making technique.

The group has entered agreements to conduct testing in several countries, including Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. The Wuhan Institute has drawn concern over its safety record, including over some of its vaccines for children.

The government says it started what it calls emergency use of some of its COVID-19 vaccines on medical workers and border inspection officials in late July. Chinese officials have said they aim to make a vaccine available to the public before the end of the year. Production capacity estimate: about 220 million doses a year.

Sinovac, a private Chinese company, began its final-stage trial in July in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where it is testing its vaccine to take advantage of a higher infection rate. Sinovac has also struck a deal with Indonesian state-owned pharmaceutical holding company PT Bio Farma to make up to 250 million vaccine doses each year for the Indonesian public, according to Chinas state news agency. Production capacity estimate: about 300 million doses a year at a Beijing plant.

CanSinos vaccine is aimed initially at the Chinese military. Chinese company CanSino developed the shot with the military based on a weakened virus behind the common cold. A Phase 1 study was conducted in March in Wuhan, the early epicentre of Covid-19. The shot got government clearance in June for military use for one year. Production capacity estimate: 100 million to 200 million doses a year starting in 2021.

Johnson & Johnson is developing a vaccine that uses a weakened form of a common-cold virus, known as an adenovirus. A single dose of this vaccine provoked a strong immune response in early animal testing. The company plans to launch by late September a 60,000-person global study, which could be the largest late-stage clinical trial of a COVID-19 vaccine. The company will carry out the study at nearly 180 locations in the U.S. and eight other countries where transmission rates are high, including Brazil, Chile and South Africa. Production capacity estimate: one billion world-wide by the end of 2021, including 100 million doses for the U.S., with an option for an additional 200 million, and 30 million doses for the U.K., with an option for an additional purchase of up to 22 million.

The Russian state-owned Gamaleya Research Institute is developing a vaccine based on a combination of two adenoviruses, which it has already tested on volunteers. Russia effectively approved use of the vaccine in early August, though the shot hadnt gone through final-stage testing. The Russian government plans for mass vaccination to start in October, and will aim rollout at high-risk groups including health workers. Production capacity estimate: 500 million doses a year, with mass production starting September 2020.

U.S.-based Novavax Inc. is making a vaccine that consists of two shots given 21 days apart that deliver proteins resembling the spike jutting out from the new coronavirus. Researchers hope the proteins will trigger the production of antibodies and immune cells that can fight off the coronavirus.

The shots also contain a component, called an adjuvant, to boost the immune response. In Phase 1 testing, the vaccine was generally well-tolerated and produced promising numbers of antibodies. Phase 2 testing began in August, and the company has said Phase 3 could start in September. Production capacity estimate: 100 million doses for use in the U.S., with delivery beginning by the end of this year.
With theatres still shut around the world, due to the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, three South American dancers have created a digital dance-off for aspiring twirlers. For these dancers, Instagram is their new stage where competitors from Argentina and Brazil to Israel and Italy can post clips of their moves and be seen by audience, regardless of their location.

The competition, open to all, has attracted hundreds of applicants, including professionals, and other dance lovers to participate from the comfort of their homes, despite the lockdown. A panel of renowned expert judges assess each dance, and viewers can also vote with likes on respective dance videos.

We were struck by the desire of participants to be seen, to express themselves and their dance, what is happening to them at the moment, Argentine Facundo Luqui, one of the dancers who organised the @stayhomedancecompetition event told Reuters.

The three dancers also made this announcement on a site dedicated to the competition and the cause attached to it.

What we thought when we started this project was that anyone can participate, added Luqui, 23, who is a member of the ballet company at Buenos Aires iconic Teatro Colon.

The competition, which closes on the upcoming Sunday, challenged dancers to raise awareness about the Covid-19 pandemic, reference the coronavirus and honour an artist.

In one video, a mother wearing a doctors coat and a mask guards her daughter while she dances.

Giovana Soria, 18, a Paraguayan who has studied Latin rhythms for two years, said her dance was to encourage people to take steps to prevent infections spreading.

I started to watch the news and saw that many people respected the quarantine, but when going out they did not take measures like putting on a mask, they touched everything and didnt wash their hands, said Soria.

Paz Schattenhofer, an 11-year-old who studies classical dance and who took part from Buenos Aires, said her performance was a homage to Russian photographer Yulia Artemyeva, who made a series of works comparing ballerinas to flowers.

I would love to win it but in reality its to have fun. It is great when people like you and that people see me, it is like a stage, she said.

Performance art globally has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, closing theatres and leaving dance troupes unable to perform or rehearse at close quarters.

Performers in Amsterdam also took to the empty streets a few months ago to stay connected to the craft even as lockdowns and social distancing measures have been in place.

I think dance at the moment is undergoing a great crisis, said Manuela Lavalle, 24, another of the organizers, who dances in a company in the United States but is passing the quarantine in her native Buenos Aires.

Its complicated because many companies do not have the money they need to get by. I believe the world of dance is going to change a lot and we still do not know how, but it is a matter of waiting and continuing to create in the meantime.

-- with Reuters inputs

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Marricke Kofi Gane, an independent presidential aspirant for the 2020 general elections, says when given the mandate in the December 7 polls, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) will have complete independence to operate.

The IGP, he explained, would not be appointed by the President but by a competent and independent committee to enable him or her to operate independently to strictly enforce the law and fight to reduce corruption.

With law enforcement, an independent IGP can proceed to arrest anybody found culpable to the law as the IGP will not owe any political party or government an allegiance.

Corruption, he said, had become endemic as people did not see those involved getting punished.

We have a three angled-approach to that, Catch the people, punish them but let the punishment be more than what they engaged in so that they learn from that and then recover everything they have stolen and more, Mr Gane said in an interview with the Ghana News Agency.

With the campaign tagline, Gane4Ghana, the Independent movement has developed a framework to ensure that with every money his government or anyone assigned with a responsibility uses, they are accounted for and charged to deliver quality for money.

The framework shows commercial, financial, economic, strategic, and social justification for every money that is to be spent, he said.

Mr Gane said some suspected criminals were still hovering around freely probably because prisons were congested or because some persons in authority were behind their operations, and, therefore, were reluctant to let the law take its course.

When given the mandate to lead and serve the nation, the Independent Aspirant said, he would ensure that more prisons were built and that state farms were constructed for prisoners to work and produce foods for sale to generate funds for the state and to feed schools.

This, he believed, would encourage the prisoners to get into agriculture production after being released and the government would sponsor them to boost the agriculture sector.

He said prisoners needed to be corrected and made productive before being released back into society.

The Presidential Aspirant said when given the mandate, he would ensure that the nation gets a centralised citizen identification system, where every citizen would get one identification card to access healthcare, financial services among other services.

This would make it easy to track people and instill confidence in the business community to deal with their clients.

When it comes to graduate unemployment issues, the Gane4Ghana Movement intends to promote the teaching based on competency and not just theory.

The competency-based teaching will enable students to use systems, machines, equipment, software that are available in the industry, to prepare and instill confidence in them before completing school.

Many people either struggle to get jobs after completing school or are unable to deliver to industry, based on the theory they learnt in school. For me, what it means is that we need to fundamentally change our educational system, Mr Gane said.

The Movement also wants to encourage entrepreneurship training in schools to enable students to start-up businesses of their own when they don't secure jobs.

For the Presidential Aspirant, another area he has a key interest in is to strengthen decentralisation to promote equal distribution of developmental projects.

People with criminal records and convicts would have their data recorded on a database for at least five years to make members of the public exercise more caution when dealing with them.

For instance, if your child comes to tell you that my teacher is this person, you can quickly get onto the database to key in the teacher's name to find out if he has any known record of defiling a child or rape, and that will let you know what to do to protect your child.

I believe that will get people to think twice about any criminal or illegal act they intend to indulge in, he said.

I am the best candidate to lead this country and among the reasons are that I have not been tinted or coloured by the NPP or NDC, and all I intend to do is to work with competent people no matter where they belong, Mr Gane said.

 citinewsroom
A Hillsboro man died Sunday morning in Tillamook County after an elk that he had shot and wounded the previous night charged at him, fatally wounding him.

Mark David, 66, had been archery hunting on private property in Tillamook County on Saturday evening. According to Oregon State Police, David hit a bull elk and wounded it, but couldnt find it before nightfall.

The next morning, David and the property owner went out to look for the elk. Around 9:15 a.m., David found the elk and tried to kill it with his bow.

State police say the elk charged David and gored him in the neck with its antlers. The property owner tried to help David, but he died from his injuries.

Police say the elk was killed and the meat was donated to the Tillamook County jail.

Jayati Ramakrishnan; 503-221-4320; jramakrishnan@oregonian.com; @JRamakrishnanOR

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
A new video has emerged showing SWAT teams kicking away a volunteer street medic's first aid kit as she tried to render aid to the right-wing Trump supporter who was shot in Portland on Saturday night.

The footage was taken after Aaron Jay Danielson was shot in the city, which has been under constant siege since George Floyd's killing in May.

Danielson was a member of Patriot Prayer, a right-wing organization.

He was among the militia-style counter-protesters in Portland on Saturday night when he was shot dead.

Police are yet to arrest anyone for his killing but The Oregonian cites law enforcement sources who say they are looking at Michael Reinoehl, a 48-year-old father-of-two with a lengthy criminal record who calls himself '100% ANTIFA' online.

CW - Graphic

This shows police arrive at the shooting victim and push the Black Lives Matter medic away, kick away her supplies, and then let the man bleed out. She was trying to help. pic.twitter.com/iicStI4fPk  Gregory McKelvey (@GregoryMcKelvey) August 31, 2020

One of Danielson's friends was the first to run over to him after realizing he'd been shot. He flipped him from his stomach onto his back

At the start of the video, Danielson is seen lying on the ground while one his friends tries to perform CPR on him. Sierra Boyne was one of two medics who approached trying to help

SWAT teams quickly approached the group. Boyne claims Danielson was still alive at the time

As she retrieved her first aid kit (shown above in green), the cops moved closer

The SWAT team then moved everyone away from Danielson and kicked the green first aid kit away

The cops then formed a barrier around the man and asked the crowd what had happened

Boyne tweeted after the incident about being shoved away from the scene by cops

He was turned over to cops by his sister after being recognized in photos and videos from Saturday night's riots.

In the new video that has emerged, Danielson is seen lying in the street having just been shot. One of his friends ran over to him and flipped him from his stomach onto his back.

Two street medics then arrived. One was Sierra Boyne, who has been on the streets of Portland rendering aid since the protests began.

Victim: Aaron Jay Bishop was shot and killed

Danielson's friend shoved her away, unaware that she was trying to help him. She carried on and was just about to pull out her first aid kit when a patrol of SWAT police in riot gear interrupted.

They kicked it away and shewed the crowd back from Danielson.

It's unclear how longer after that moment EMTs arrived, or where he was formally pronounced dead.

The riot cops were filmed asking the crowd: 'Did anyone see what happened?'

They pleaded that he needed medical help.

Boyne later tweeted: 'I was one of two medics on scene when the man who died last night was shot. I barely had time to begin an examination before the cops pushed me and baton-ed me off his body.

Sierra Boyne, at a protest earlier in the summer where she also gave medical aid

Police arrived on the scene 'within a minute' of when gunshots rang out. The victim is seen wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a right-wing group whose members have frequently clashed with protesters in Portland in the past

'That man was alive when I left and it will haunt me for the rest of my life that they screamed about having a 'real medic' and none was on scene and that man not but 20 minutes later was confirmed dead.

'When I close my eyes I can only see his face and the murderous rage in the eyes of a cop abusing me to force me away from helping him as best I could.'

It is not known how long after he died that he was pronounced dead, or how long it took for EMTs to arrive at the scene.

In a video taken earlier this summer, she describes herself as being medically trained.

'I knew I was first aid trained so when I saw tiny little explosions and stuff, I grabbed my first aid kit and ran out into the street, helping people and doing what I could.

'I've been out here every night since. I have my fancy little medic bag. It's an important cause and one worth fighting for and my skills were best used as first aid relief and medical relief,' she said.

Witnesses described watching people celebrate the right-wing protester's death in the street.

Gabriel Johnson, a former Marine and Portland resident, said he went out to hear people in the street saying they 'weren't sad' that a 'Nazi fascist' had died.

'This is such a tragic event and a polarizing event for our city...

'And one of the things that I just came back with, and I was appalled by, is all of the people in the street celebrating,' he told Fox and Friends.

The video is the latest to demonstrate the escalating chaos and violence in Portland, where President Trump has now threatened to send the National Guard to try to regain control of the city.
The Alexandria, Indiana sky turned a pale shade of pink as friends and family members lit candles in honor of 49-year-old missing mother Suzanne Morphew on Saturday night.

Suzanne Morphew. (via GoFundMe)

The mother of two disappeared from Salida, Colorado on May 10, 2020, Mothers Day, after reportedly leaving for a bike ride that morning. More than three months later, Suzannes brother, Andrew Andy Moorman, says he is without answers as to what happened to his little sister.

She is the sweetest girl on the planet, Andy told Dateline. Suzanne walked into a room, she would light it up. She was just a really kind person, everybody loved her. I dont think youll find a soul that says they didnt love my sister.

Suzanne is originally from Alexandria, Indiana, but moved to Colorado a few years ago. Alexandria residents gathered downtown Saturday evening to light candles, pray and talk about Suzanne. Yellow ribbons were placed on trees all over the small town by residents in an effort to remind people of her ongoing case.

Yellow ribbons in honor of missing mother Suzanne Morphew.

Suzannes brother announced new plans to lead an extensive search effort in Colorado at the end of September and said he hopes for at least 1,000 participants.

I need boots on the ground. I need to find my little sister, Andy told Dateline. Im putting forth an effort right now, starting September 24, we are heading out there to search.

Vigil for Suzanne Morphew in Alexandria, Indiana.

Andy hopes to gather volunteers from Indiana, Colorado and everywhere in between and said hes appealing to anyone who can help by boat, 4-wheel-drive or on foot.

Suzanne was reported missing by a neighbor on May 10 after her daughters, who were away on a camping trip, couldnt reach her. According to Andy, Suzannes husband Barry said he left their house around 5 a.m. and went to a landscaping job. Andy says Barry told him that Suzanne left for a bike ride that morning. Andy told Dateline his sisters bike was recovered from a bridge near her home later that same day.

Andy first heard the news that his sister was missing from their 87-year-old father, Gene Moorman.

Story continues

I got a call on Mothers Day that my little sister was missing, Andy told Dateline. I immediately booked a flight for Colorado and started looking.

As investigators with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation descended on Salida to help the Chaffee County Sheriffs Department, Andy spent the next few days searching for his sister. He visited the location where he said Suzannes bike was found and combed the hills around Salida, but there was no sign of his sister.

One week after Suzannes disappearance, her husband released a video on the Find Suzanne Morphew Facebook page asking for tips to aid in her safe return.

A BROTHERS CALL TO ACTION

In the more than three months since Suzannes disappearance, Andy said he and his family have waited and respected the work of investigators. He said he hopes to bring the family answers soon, adding that this has been quite difficult for their family, especially their father, who is 87 years old and battling cancer.

Its tortuous -- not knowing is horrible. We need closure, said Andy, adding that he wants to bring his sister home before their father leaves this earth. He hopes his upcoming search in late September will bring some answers.

According to a press release on August 11, Chaffee County investigators spent August 10 distributing flyers about the case to mark the three-month anniversary of Suzannes disappearance. The release also stated that the investigation into her case is still ongoing.

This case remains very active, as more than a dozen investigators are aggressively working this case on a daily basis, Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze said in a July statement. And until we determine what happened to Suzanne, we cant discount any scenario or formally eliminate anyone from suspicion.

Vigil for Suzanne Morphew.

Suzannes brother Andy hugged friends and residents on Saturday night and said his most important message was for his little sister.

Suzanne, we love you and we want to bring you home, Andy said.

Anyone with information about Suzannes case is encouraged to call the dedicated tip line established by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation at (719) 312-7530.
TDT | Manama

There were zero lives taken by the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Bahrain yesterday. That kept the number of virus-related deaths reported by the Ministry of Health in the Kingdom at 189. Meanwhile, the ministry announced early this morning that out of 5,356 COVID-19 tests conducted yesterday, 183 new cases were detected.

These included 43 expatriate workers, 138 contacts of active cases, and two travel-related cases. Their detection brought the overall number of confirmed registered cases in Bahrain to 51,574, dating back to when the first case was reported in February of this year. There were also 379 additional recoveries from the virus yesterday, bringing the Kingdoms total number of discharged individuals to 48,654.

Following those recoveries, the total number of current active cases dropped to 2,731, with 34 receiving treatment, all of which are in critical condition. The remaining 2,697 cases are stable. The total tests conducted in Bahrain went past the 1.1 million mark, increasing to 1,100,729.

Worldwide numbers The official number of global COVID-19 cases is now at least five times the number of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to World Health Organisation data. Latin America is the region with the most infections in the world, although some countries in the region are beginning to show a slight decline in infections.

The global pace of new infections has somewhat steadied. It has taken about three weeks for the caseload to jump by five million cases to 25 million. That, compared with the 19, 24 and 39 days it took, respectively, to add five million cases to the 20 million, 15 million and 10 million marks. The rate of new daily cases has slowed to around 1.2 per cent over August so far.

That compared with 1.7 per cent in July, 1.8 per cent in June, 2.1 per cent in May, 4.6 per cent in April and 7.7 per cent in March. Health experts stress that official data almost certainly underreports both infections and deaths, particularly in countries with limited testing capacity.

While COVID-19s trajectory still falls far short of the 1918 Spanish flu, which infected an estimated 500 million people, killing at least 10 per cent of patients, experts worry the available data is underplaying the true impact of the pandemic.
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The claims have not been filed yet because the lawyers have asked the court to first rule whether Dutch or Ukrainian law should be applied when requesting damages.

More than 300 relatives of victims who died when a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane was shot down in 2014 will seek unspecified damages from four suspects being tried in the Netherlands, lawyers representing family members said on Monday.

The suspects  three Russians and a Ukrainian  are being tried for murder and shooting down the passenger plane over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people onboard, as reported by Reuters.

The four men remain at large and only one has legal representation in the trial, which is being conducted at a courtroom near Amsterdam.

Read alsoU.S. calls on Russia to help bring those responsible for MH17 downing to account (Video)So far, 316 relatives of those who died said they plan to seek damages and 76 intend to exercise a right to speak during the trial, said Peter Langstraat, who represents 450 family members.

The claims have not been filed yet because the lawyers have asked the court to first rule whether Dutch or Ukrainian law should be applied when requesting damages.

Any court decision to award damages would hinge on a guilty verdict for the suspects, in a trial expected to last more than a year.

Background
Vice President Mike Pence on Monday reaffirmed America's commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific and said a strong US-India partnership is in their strategic interests, amid China flexing its muscles in the region. Speaking at a virtual event on the US-India ties organised by the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), a non-profit organisation, Pence said that American strength first comes from its military and economicyy, but also from the strength of relationships.

"There's no question that that the relationship that has been forged over the years, and then under President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has never been stronger, he said, adding that it will strengthen the hands of those of who want to see a future of freedom in the Indo Pacific, and a future of freedom cross Asia. The Chinese military has been flexing its muscles in the Indo Pacific region and is also engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in both the South China Sea (SCS) and the East China Sea (ECS).

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, though Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam all claim parts of it. Beijing has built up and militarised many of the islands and reefs it controls in the region.

Both the SCS and the ECS are stated to be rich in minerals, oil and other natural resources and are also vital to global trade. Responding to a question on China, Pence said that most of the tariffs President Trump imposed on China are all still in place.

We have ways to go before we reset this relationship and level the playing field for American workers and for American jobs, he said, adding that Trump truly does believe that America's best posture with China, or any other nation in the world with which they are in a competitive relationship or worse, is strength. "While we saw China with the One Belt, One Road initiative, under President Donald Trump's leadership we reaffirmed our commitment to the economies of the region to America's interest and partner with India, Pence said as he identified energy, infrastructure and space as some of the areas that would strengthen this partnership in the decades to come.

The US is at loggerheads with China over trade and industrial practices for months. The two countries are also at odds over China's decision to impose a controversial security law in Hong Kong, a former British territory, which was handed over to Beijing in 1997, and the origin of coronavirus, which US claims emerged from a bio-lab in Wuhan. "We want a good relationship with every country in the world, including China and President Trump has a good relationship with President Xi Jinping, but we going to continue to stand firm with our allies, including India, in that region (Indo-Pacific) we want to strengthen all our ties with India," Pence said.

Pence, who is chair of the National Space Council, said that the United States is in regular consultation with India about partnership in space exploration. "We welcome that partnership and recognise the incredible innovation and technological capabilities that Indian firms and the people of India bring to that project, he said.

India-US partnership, he asserted, is their strategic interests in the region, about the prosperity of the two nations, but it really is about a boundless future together with the United States and India. Pence said the four million members of the Indian diaspora across the US represent some of the best people in this country and they're creating wealth and prosperity. He said they have made enormous contributions in the incredible relationship that they have helped to facilitate and forage between the United States and India.

Asserting that India-US relationship is grounded in shared values, Pence said the relationship between the two largest democracies have grown dramatically in the last 20 years, but the best is yet to come. Pence, in response to a question, said that he truly believes that the relationship between the US and India, because much of the work that the corporate sector has done, and the work of President Trump and Prime Minister Modi, has never been stronger.

"But I really do believe that all of us continue to build the ties that bind on the foundation which we built this relationship, the best is yet to come, for the US India relationship in the years ahead, Pence said.
(Newser)  As Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was giving a press conference Sunday, during which he criticized President Trump for quite some time, the POTUS was apparently watching. "Ted Wheeler, the wacky Radical Left Do Nothing Democrat Mayor of Portland, who has watched great death and destruction of his City during his tenure, thinks this lawless situation should go on forever. Wrong! Portland will never recover with a fool for a Mayor," Trump tweeted. "He would like to blame me and the Federal Government for going in, but he hasnt seen anything yet. We have only been there with a small group to defend our U.S. Courthouse, because he couldnt do it ... The people of Portland, like all other cities & parts of our great Country, want Law & Order." Oregon Live reports the presser "took a bizarre turn" when it became apparent Trump was live-tweeting it, and asked Wheeler to respond.

story continues below

Wheeler, who had been speaking about Saturday's fatal shooting in his city, said Trump has been using hateful and divisive rhetoric for years, and that "to act as though hes shocked (at the shooting Saturday) is appalling to me. Id appreciate that either the president support us or he stay the hell out of the way." Wheeler also dismissed calls that he resign after the shooting, which left a man who was reportedly part of a right-wing group dead (more about him here) and a man who has reportedly described himself as anti-fascist under investigation in the death (more about him here). There were discussions online by people wanting to seek retribution for the fatal shooting, and Wheeler, along with the police chief and DA, on Sunday called for an end to the violence. The police chief said officers had attempted to keep the pro-Trump caravan out of downtown, to no avail. Following the presser, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown released a "Unified Law Enforcement Plan" to curb the violence, per KOIN. (Read more Portland stories.)
A march from Hyde Park to the Soviet embassy in Woollahra to protest against the shooting down of the Korean plane. Credit:Gerrit Fokkema Mr Shultz said the US Government had summoned the Soviet charge daffaires as soon as US sources had confirmed the shooting of the airliner. He said that the US had made the protests on behalf of itself and of the Republic of Korea. In a statement, Mr Shultz said the Korean Air Lines plane had strayed into Soviet air space and the Soviets had tracked it for some two and a half hours. A Soviet pilot had reported visual contact with the airliner at 6.12 pm (Washington time) on Wednesday.

Mr Shultz said the Soviet plane had been in constant contact with ground control and that at 6.21 pm the Korean aircraft was reported at 10,000 metres. At 6.26 the Soviet pilot reported he had fired a missile and that the target was destroyed. At 6.30 the Korean plane was reported by radar at 6000 metres. Eight minutes later it disappeared from the radar. Two US aircraft were taking part in the search for the aircraft in international waters. The airliner was flying from New York to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska.

Loading The Japanese Defence Agency monitored a message from the pilot of a Soviet MiG-23 which said he was going to fire on a Korean Air Lines jetliner just before a KAL aircraft disappeared early today, the Jiji News Agency reported. The agency, quoting official sources, said that the pilot told his base on the Sakhalin Island: I am going to fire a missile. The target is the KAL airliner. The sources said the message was intercepted a second before the unidentified plane, likely the Boeing 747 dropped off radar screens. Mr Shultz, who spoke emotionally, said that at least eight Soviet jets had been involved in tracking the airliner.

A Pentagon source was quoted as saying that the Soviets permit their fighters to shoot at aircraft intruding into their territory. He said US planes did not operate under such rules and would not shoot under similar circumstances. The shoot, we dont, said one Pentagon source. The MiG-23 is one of the Soviet Unions most advanced jet fighters. It is armed with air-to-air missiles codenamed by NATO as Aphid and Apex. Earlier this week, Japans Defence Agency reported that the Soviet Union had stationed more than 10 MiG-23s on Etorofu Island, one of the four former Japanese Islands occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. The island is about 240 kilometres east of the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido. The Japanese Foreign Minister, Mr Abe, told reporters tonight: Judging from various circumstances there is a strong possibility that at Soviet aircraft shot down the Korean airliner. If it is true it is an extremely deplorable incident.

Loading Mr. Abe said that from available information it was believed the airliner crashed at 3.18 am Japan time (4.38 am AEST), nine minutes after an unidentified plane, believed to be the Jumbo, disappeared from Japanese radar at a point west of southern Sakhalin. The Soviet Union told the Japanese Embassy in Moscow earlier today it knew nothing of the Jumbo jets fate. South Koreas Information Minister, Mr Lee, said today it appeared almost certain that a Korean Air Lines plane carrying 269 people had been attacked and downed by a third country. In the Governments first official announcement on the planes disappearance, Mr Lee said efforts to confirm the aircrafts fate were continuing.

He said that if indications that the plan had been downed proved a fact, it would constitute a grave violation of international law and an inhumanitarian act which must be condemned by the international community. Mr Lee did not name the third country in his brief announcement, but Korean Air Lines earlier had said the Boeing 747 had landed on Sakhalin. The plane, on a flight from New York to Seoul, was reported missing after reports that it had been lost from contact while flying near Hokkaido, the northernmost Japanese island. Korea Air Lines, the national flag carrier, later announced to waiting relatives and friends in Seoul that the plane had landed safely on Sakhalin. Japanese air force officials said the Korean airliner may have been crippled by a mid-air explosion.

Loading One air force official, who noted the jumbo vanished from radar screens while flying at more than 10,000 metres, said A mid-air explosion or a sudden dive could be conceivable among other explanations. Officials of Korean Air Lines said the pilot, Captain Chun, had more than 10,000 hours of flying time and described him as a very experienced pilot and not the sort of person who would disappear just like that.  There were no immediate official explanation for the KAL announcement made earlier in the day that the plane was on Sakhalin, but sources said it was based on premature reports that later proved to be false. The airline said the plan carried 240 passengers and crew of 29. Among the passengers, it said were 81 South Koreans, many of whom lived in the United States. If said there also were 34 residents of Taiwan aboard, 22 Japanese and 103 people of other nationalities.

There was no immediate breakdown available of the other nationalities, but one of those listed on the passenger manifest was an American Congressman, Mr Larry McDonald. Mr McDonald, a 48-year-old Democrat from Georgia, is chairman of the John Birch Society and a member of the House Armed Services Committee. His staff said he was going to South Korea to attend a security seminar marking the 30th anniversary of the US-South Korea defence pact. The last radio contact was at 3.23 am (4.23 am AEST), when the pilot reported his position as 181 kilometres south of Hokkaido, a KAL spokesman said. He said the pilot gave no indication of any trouble and that the weather was reported good in the area. However, Japans defence agency said its radar showed no plane south of Hokkaido at the time, but did show what might have been the Jumbo jet about 181 kilometres north of Hokkaido near Sakhalins coast. Earlier the South Korean Foreign Ministry said it received word from US authorities that the plane was forced to land on Sakhalin, where the Soviet Union has large military bases.

Loading But a Soviet Foreign Ministry official in Moscow said that jest was not on the island and Soviet authorities had no other information on the plane, a Japanese Embassy spokesman said. South Korea and the Soviet Union have no diplomatic relations and communications concerning the plane were said to have been channeled through Japan and other countries. During an afternoon of increasingly confusing reports, there was speculation that if the plane had been forced to land at Sakhalin or gone down near the Soviet island, the Soviets might claim a violation of their airspace. Australian on board
A woman has said she was "sick" with anxiety after travelling on a busy train between Dublin and Belfast last week.

Elizabeth Byrne said she feels compelled to self-isolate for two weeks after travelling on the "packed" train where she could see no signs of social-distancing.

Translink apologised to Ms Byrne saying the situation was "not appropriate" during the pandemic and has begun an investigation.

Ms Byrne said she arrived in Connolly Station in Dublin on Saturday morning to board the train back to Belfast at 11.20am. After purchasing a ticket, Ms Byrne said she noticed the usual Enterprise train wasn't running and instead, two smaller trains were in place.

After noticing the train was extremely busy and an absence of signage to create distance between passengers, she placed her coat and belongings on the seat beside her.

"More and more people were getting on," she told BBC Radio Ulster's Nolan programme.

"It became very clear that it wasn't going to be possible for everyone to have a seat if everyone kept their coat and belongings beside them. I was really concerned because there were large groups of people getting on. I began to think, hold on, this is not good."

A video that has emerged of the incident shows groups of people without masks on the train surrounding Ms Byrne.

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A large group of young women got on the train and asked to sit beside her, Ms Byrne said - adding that she told them she was concerned about social distancing.

"There were people standing and sitting in the entry way behind me. These girls very quickly dropped their masks and were chatting. Once the train started, all I could feel was anxiety rising. You're a bit trapped at that point."

A Translink spokesperson said: "We have managed public transport services safely during Covid19 and continue to do so, however these were exceptional circumstances on Saturday, with a power failure leading to operational difficulties, and an additional train was provided on the 11.20 from Dublin.

"We accept that communication was not adequate regarding this.

We are carrying out an investigation to ensure we learn from instances like this and are also reviewing our boarding and communications arrangements for passengers with our colleagues in Irish Rail.

Where services are busy, we do recommend that passengers allow additional time for their journey as it may be necessary to wait for the next train.

In a statement to the Nolan programme, Translink said a power failure meant the normal Enterprise train could not run.

"A relief train was operating between Dublin and Dundalk, however the majority of passengers chose to remain on the first train."

Ms Byrne said she did not see staff moving through the train and more passengers also boarded at Dundalk.

"There was absolutely no way they didn't know how packed the train was. We were on top of each other - if there was even one person [with the virus] there's absolutely no way we weren't exposed."
TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told U.S. President Donald Trump that the strengthening of their two nations alliance would be maintained even after Abes departure from office, a Japanese government spokesman said on Monday.

Abe announced on Friday he was resigning because of poor health, his long-running battle with ulcerative colitis ending his tenure as Japans longest-serving prime minister.

He wants President Trump to rest assured because the policy of bolstering the Japan-U.S. alliance will remain unchanged," Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Akihiro Nishimura said.

Nishimura was speaking to reporters after a 30-minute telephone call between Abe and Trump, early on Monday in Japan. Trump called Abe the greatest prime minister in Japans history", according to a White House spokesman.

Abe told Trump that Japan would like to cooperate closely with the United States as it draws up a new missile defence strategy, Nishimura said.

Japan in July took a step towards acquiring weapons that can strike North Korea, after a ruling party committee approved proposals to consider acquiring strike capability to halt ballistic missile attacks.

White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement Trump told Abe he had done a fantastic job" and that the relationship between their two countries was stronger than it has ever been.

The president called Prime Minister Abe the greatest prime minister in Japans history," Deere said.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party will vote on Sept. 14 for a new leader to succeed Abe, Jiji news agency reported.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
The businessman whose heroic work during the Rwandan genocide was portrayed in Hollywoods Hotel Rwanda has been arrested by the Rwandan government on terror charges.

Paul Rusesabagina was a hotel manager in Rwandas capital Kibali during the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 people were killed.

The 2004 film, starring Don Cheadle, told how Mr Rusesabagina gave shelter to more than 1,200 Tutsis and used his wealth and influence to secure their safety by persuading members of the Hutu elite to arrange their escape. Mr Rusesabagina was awarded by George W Bush the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the US in the year after the films release.

Mr Rusesabagina has been a critic of Paul Kagame, who led the Rwandan Patriotic Front to defeat government forces and end the genocide and has served as president of Rwanda ever since. According to critics, Mr Kagame has stifled independent media, particularly those critical of his government and has been accused of jailing dissenters.

The Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) said in a statement on Monday that Mr Rusesabagina had been arrested and was being held in custody.

Recommended Rwandans mark genocide anniversary under coronavirus lockdown

Rusesabagina is suspected of being a founder or a leader or sponsor or member of violent armed extremist terror outfits ... operating out of various places in the region and abroad, spokesperson Thierry Murangira said on Monday.

There was an international arrest warrant for Mr Rusesabagina to answer charges of serious crimes including terrorism, arson, kidnap and murder, perpetrated against unarmed, innocent Rwandan civilians on Rwandan territory, police said.

Mr Rusesabagina left Rwanda after the genocide and had been living abroad in Belgium and in Texas in the US. Authorities did not say where he was arrested or name who was involved with the international effort to arrest him.

In 2010, Mr Rusesabagina was deemed an enemy of the state by the Kagame government. The following year he was accused of funding subversion in Rwanda, but no charges were brought.

He has more recently been accused of playing a role in a string of alleged attacks by rebels in southern Rwanda in 2018.

Mr Rusesabagina has previously denied the governments charges that he financially supports Rwandan rebels.

Speaking to The Independent in 2010, Mr Rusesabagina said: They are coming after me, while Im in Brussels I remain in danger, theyre following my every step.
Eite painter Amy Ringholz is one of many top artists returning to the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival QuickDraw event, which has added livestreaming and online auction options for 2020. Art lovers from across the country can capture special only-in-Jackson-Hole moments from home with new-for-2020 online options.

Every year locals and visitors look forward to mid-September in Jackson, Wyoming, for the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival, the premier cultural event in the Rocky Mountain West. This year, in addition to visitors experiencing arts opportunities at every turn in Jackson, Wyomings historic wooden sidewalk-lined streets, art lovers from across the country can capture some of those special only-in-Jackson-Hole moments from home with new-for-2020 online options. The 36th annual festival, taking place September 9-20, 2020, will look a little different, with safety measures in place for the exciting in-person events as well as new virtual participation opportunities for at-home visitors to be part of the celebration.

In addition to being able to watch top artists create a masterpiece in 90 minutes or less in downtown Jackson, the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival is bringing the fan favorite QuickDraw into homes nationwide on September 19 with a new livestream feature for the event and the auction that follows. Popular artists returning to QuickDraw this year include elite painters Amy Ringholz, Carrie Wild, Kathryn Mapes Turner, and sculptors Bryce Pettit, Rip and Alison Caswell and more. As always, spectators can see artists in action in Jackson, at limited capacity this year, and now online visitors can also join the fun through the QuickDraw page on the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce website, which will livestream each of the artists as they work from 8 a.m.  9:30 a.m. MST.

Once completed, QuickDraw pieces go immediately to a live auction that will have an electronic bidding option for the first time in the festivals history. A limited and social-distanced in-person audience will bid live from the floor of the auction, competing against online bidders on BidSquare in real time. The one-of-a-kind artwork, often accompanied by special stories from the artists, ranges from oil and watercolor paintings to sketches to sculptures, all inspired by Jackson Holes spectacular natural surroundings and unique wildlife, with pieces typically selling anywhere from $1,500 - $15,000. The auction will begin promptly at 10:30 a.m. MST, with virtual as well as in-person attendees able to watch and bid on desired pieces. Its highly recommended for those interested in participating online to register in advance on BidSquare to be ready to bid on auction day.

We are thrilled at the opportunity for a virtual QuickDraw Auction, allowing people to participate in this iconic event from the safety and comfort of their own homes if they prefer, says Britney Magleby, Special Events Manager at the Jackson Hole Chamber. "In my opinion, Jackson has always been a must-know destination for arts and culture. I think even more people will see that after this year's festival."

Also up for auction after QuickDraw will be the stunning 2020 featured artwork, Hunters Watch, by renowned artist Thomas Blackshear. Past years featured art has sold for as much as $65,000. Blackshears vibrant painting also graces 2020 festival posters, so everyone can bring the award-winning artists painting home, with posters available for purchase here.

The National Museum of Wildlife Arts annual Western Visions, a signature event of the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival, this year includes the in-person Western Visions Jewelry Show on September 9. The museum is also offering an online artists panel, The Jackson Hole Five: Important Painters from the West, on September 17, featuring a discussion with five of the most influential painters in Jackson Hole: Amy Lay, Amy Ringholz, Kathryn Mapes Turner, September Vhay and Kathy Wipfler. Additional Western Visions opportunities will continue to be made available leading up to the event; check wildlifeart.org/western-visions for details.

Every year, Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival attendees enjoy browsing and shopping in person at the September 13 Takin It to the Streets outdoor art fair. The 2020 fair features over 50 local artists selling artworks in an array of mediums on the beautiful and spacious lawn of the Center for the Arts.

Widely regarded as a top destination for Western and Wildlife Art, Jackson features more than 30 fine art galleries, museums and centers. During the Fall Arts Festival, galleries display their "best of the best," with exhibitions of work from internationally recognized artists. While the traditional Palates & Palettes is on pause for 2020, several of the galleries will carry on the gallery walk legacy with local events: Gallery Wild will host artists receptions and events at their downtown gallery space on September 11, 18 and 19. Meanwhile new Town Square gallery New West Fine Art will offer an Evening Reception & Artist Talk from Connor Liljestrom related to his exhibition Last of the Old West on September 11  accompanied by a performance from Contemporary Dance Wyoming.

Adding to the lineup of excellent online opportunities this year, the Western Design Conference Exhibit + Sale, also a signature event of the festival, will go entirely virtual for 2020 with a new interactive digital version of its Sourcebook that will be released September 10 on westerndesignconference.com, allowing collectors, design aficionados and anyone who appreciates the finest in American contemporary craft to source, commission and shop the best of the West all the way through September 2021. And in addition to this years WDC artisans, the special online Sourcebook will include access to top designers from throughout the events past 28 years.

A full schedule of Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival events can be found here. All events are subject to change according to the orders and regulations of the Jackson community.

About the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival:

Conveniently located just 20 minutes from the Jackson Hole Airport, Jackson, Wyoming, is served by major airlines, including Delta, United, American and SkyWest. Reservation information for Jacksons numerous hotels may be found at http://www.jacksonholechamber.com/. The 36th annual Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival will take place September 9 - 20, 2020, providing a variety of socially distanced in-person activities as well as multiple new ways to participate online. For additional information, contact Britney Magleby at Jackson Hole Chamber, 307.201.2309.
Many of the children and teens require specialized services because of their medical conditions or trauma they have experienced. Parents and advocates argue the launch is poorly timed given the coronavirus pandemic and the stresses that crisis has put on families, the health care industry and the government.
An interstate traveller has been sentenced to six months behind bars after repeatedly using a ladder to sneak out of a quarantine hotel to be with his girlfriend.

Yusuf Karakaya, 31, flew from Sydney to Western Australia on July 30 after being granted permission to visit his uncle on compassionate grounds, but was ordered to isolate at Perth's Mercure Hotel for 14 days on arrival.

On his first night in quarantine, security cameras captured him opening the window of his third-floor hotel room before scaling a roof and making his way to a laneway via a ladder.

He used the ladder to return to his room later that night and repeated the daring escape over the next three days.

Karakaya's plan came unstuck when hotel staff noticed the ladder in the laneway and hired contractors to remove it.

He was found by police the next day hiding in a cupboard at his girlfriend's home at Medina, about 25km from the hotel.

Perth man Yusuf Karakaya, 31, has been jailed after repeatedly using a ladder to escape hotel quarantine (hotel pictured) to be with his girlfriend

He told officers he breached quarantine because it was his partner's birthday and he would be in trouble if he didn't show up, Perth Magistrates Court heard on Monday, according to ABC News.

Karakaya admitted his actions were 'stupid', but his lawyer told the court his client was confused about quarantine rules.

Magistrate Tom Hall rejected that argument and said a prison sentence would send a clear message to the community.

Karakaya was sentenced to six months jail, with five months suspended.

He is the fifth person Western Australia to be jailed for COVID-19 breaches.
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A Belarusian protester has proposed to his girlfriend during ongoing demonstrations against President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The moment was captured on camera with crowds cheering them. Mass protests began after Lukashenka declared a landslide victory in an August 9 election widely seen as rigged.
That was a reference to Western Europeans, especially, including Britain and France, who have opposed the return of IS fighters and their families, except in the case of orphans and some children. The British government says those who are in custody in Syria and Iraq should face justice there rather than going on trial in the U.K.
By Holly Baker, American Red Cross delegate in The Bahamas

In the 12 months since Hurricane Dorian came through The Bahamas and left a trail of destruction behind, the American Red Cross has been there to support the Bahamas Red Cross. We provided lifesaving aid in the storms immediate aftermath and have since transitioned to long-term assistance for families still reeling from Dorian.

Within weeks of the storms forceful strike, the Red Cross handed out cash cards of more than $3,600 to families most deeply affected. Our teams delivered more than $11.2 million in cash cards to over 3,000 families so they could spend the funds however they needed: to buy clothes and food or to replace items destroyed by the hurricane. Cash enabled families to choose for themselves the most critical items they needed to start their recovery.

The Red Cross got into the places the storm ripped up and began cleaning up the mess. By funding the removal of 24,000 cubic meters of storm debris on the island of Abaco, we led the way for more help to arrive on the islands hit hardest. Basic needs were addressed for the thousands of people displaced or unable to go home. The Red Cross helped distribute more than 573,000 hot meals in the storms aftermath, thanks to our partnership with World Central Kitchen. We are still supporting Bahamas Red Cross food distribution to people in need throughout the year.

Thanks to the generosity of donors, the Red Cross has funded water distribution points on the island of Grand Bahama where as many as 41,000 people came to fill up their bottles, jugs and other containers with free, clean drinking water after the hurricane destroyed the islands own source. Thousands of gallons of water are available every single day.

For the hundreds of homes that did not escape the physical damage caused by the storm, the Red Cross is providing cash grants of up to $11,500 to families. For many, this cash grant means getting a new roof or fixing broken windows and damaged walls or repairing electrical. Beyond repairs, the Red Cross has provided over half a million dollars in rental subsidies, which have helped hundreds of families find a safe place to stay over the past year.

To help communities gain strength, the Red Cross is also providing cash grants to small and medium-sized local businesses strained by the disaster. This support has gone beyond disaster recovery as the COVID-19 pandemic has further plunged so many of the same small businesses into an unfamiliar and uncertain future. The Red Cross has supported more than 180 businesses so far with more than $760,000 in grantsas well as businesses training opportunities and mentorship.

It has been one year since Hurricane Dorian left a scar on the beautiful Bahamian islands. Red Cross workers have never stopped helping those seeking assistance from that storm. Because investing in communities and disaster response capabilities before a storm hits saves lives and saves funds, the American Red Cross is working hard to help the Bahamas Red Cross to be ready for the next storm. An active 2020 hurricane season has already brought the threat of new storms and the Red Cross has expanded its workforce and elevated emergency planning and preparedness with specialized training and upgraded. Red Cross workers now have satellite phones to help the islands maintain communication even when power and cell service is knocked out. New laptops, flatbed trucks and forklifts have helped the Red Cross be better prepared for incoming disasters and be able to coordinate the movement of people and supplies to always be ready for disasters big and small.

American Red Cross in the Bahamas The American Red Cross has been working in The Bahamas since Hurricane Dorian hit in September 2019, supporting the Bahamas Red Cross and the global network of Red Cross and Red Crescent network to distribute emergency relief items, food, water and millions of dollars in cash--in addition to repair work and rental assistance to people affected. Thanks to the amazing generosity of the American public, the Red Cross is able to continue providing critical support to families still working to overcome the intense challenges presented by a hurricane. In the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Red Cross continues to keep safety the main priority and is adapting our programs and efforts to follow all health guidelines while still delivering our mission. For more information on Hurricane Dorian recovery, visit www.redcross.org/dorian.
A security official and a man walk past a signboard of Bank of China at its branch in Beijing, on March 26, 2013. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Chinas Big Banks Face Fallout as Pandemic Forbearance Expires

BEIJING/SHANGHAIChinas largest state-owned banks are readied for rising bad debt and increased margin pressure in the months ahead as forbearance policies designed to give borrowers breathing space during the coronavirus crisis expire.

All five banks, which have been raising provisions to counter expected losses due to rising soured loans, have reported their biggest profit falls in at least a decade.

The external challenges in the second half are unprecedented, Bank of China Ltd (BOC) President Wang Jiang said on Aug. 31.

Their forecasts highlight the impact of the pandemic and the economic slowdown on Chinas banks, which have been asked by Beijing to step up and lend to flagging sectors while sacrificing profits in a bid to revive the countrys fortunes.

Borrowers are struggling to repay debt after months of lockdown, and some sectors, such as those in the travel industry, are battling to survive under the shadow of the coronavirus.

Second-quarter loan-loss provisions were up 61 percent to 436 percent compared to the same period in 2019 at ICBC, CCB, AgBank, and BOC, data from China International Capital Corp (CICC) showed.

A logo of the Agricultural Bank of China is seen at the SIBOS banking and financial conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on Oct. 19, 2017. (Chris Helgren/Reuters)

The crater in first-half profit was mostly down to provisioning ordered by regulators, CICC said, noting that second-quarter profit growth would otherwise have been 1.5 percent to 5.1 percent for those four lenders.

As forbearance policies that help companies to recover expire in the first half of next year, the impact of non-performing loans will increase, Chief Risk Officer Jin Yanmin of China Construction Bank Corp (CCB) said during a news briefing.

Agricultural Bank of China (AgBank) President Zhang Qingsong said bad loan pressure was rising, as short-term policies aimed to keep firms afloat expired, adding that its profit growth faces pressure from a declining loan prime rate, fee cuts, and an increase in loan loss provisions.

Ji Zhihong, CCB vice president, predicted that net interest margins, a key profitability indicator, will narrow further.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the worlds largest commercial lender by assets, will face higher pressure on loan risk controls in the second half and will increase efforts on provisions to guard against significant turbulence, ICBC Vice President Liao Lin said.

Overall, Chinese commercial banks recorded a 9.4 percent drop in first-half net profit to 1 trillion yuan, data from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission showed.

By the end of the June quarter, the average non-performing loan ratio for commercial banks was at 1.94 percent, data from the commission showed, the highest since 2009.

And banks are likely to keep boosting provisions in the third quarter, Everbright Securities analyst Wang Yifeng said.

A customer waits at a counter of a branch of China Construction Bank Corp (CCB) at its headquarters in Beijing, China, on March 31, 2016. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

However, CICC analysts said the first half is likely to mark the start of the sectors bottoming-out and they expect the industry to post profit growth again in 2021 as economic activity gradually recovers.

Uncertain Impact

Non-performing loan (NPL) ratios rose at the big five banks during the reporting period, with ICBCs increasing to 1.5 percent by the end of June from 1.43 percent three months earlier, and that of CCB rising by 0.07 percentage points in the second quarter to 1.49 percent.

Consumer behavior changes and reshuffle of industries accelerated by the pandemic will have an uncertain impact on the economy, Moodys Investor Service analyst Nicholas Zhu said.

A man walks past an office of Bank of Communications in Beijing, China, on Aug. 27, 2020. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)

In the second half and early 2021, big banks are expected to step up the sale of capital bonds to help counter deteriorating asset quality, Zhu said.

Chinas biggest banks still have an estimated shortfall of $500 billion by 2025 to meet global capital requirements, Moodys estimates.

Net interest margina key gauge of bank profitabilityfell at ICBC, BoCom, CCB, and AgBank, although it improved slightly at BOC.

($1 = 6.8455 Chinese yuan renminbi)
Key top positions in regulatory bodies such as the State Bank of India (SBI), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) are yet to be filled, even as the country battles an economic crisis and what experts warn could be a recession.

Among the vacant posts include replacement for RBI Deputy Governor NS Vishwanathan, who decided to step down by March 31 due to ill health, three months before the end of his extended one-year tenure.

The 62-year-old was notably in-charge of the key supervisory and regulatory functions at Mint Road and it was this powerful position that led the government to offer him an extension given the mess in the banking system.

At the time of his resignation, an RBI observer said his departure will pose a challenge for the central bank to navigate the key supervisory and regulatory functions in one of its most difficult times.

Search is also still on for the next chairperson of TRAI, as tenure of current Chairman RS Sharma is set to end on September 30.

The Centre had invited applications from eligible candidates, for a term not exceeding three years or till the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier and outlined criteria as contained in the TRAI Act for a candidate with "special knowledge of and professional experience in telecom, industry, finance, accountancy, law, and management or consumer affairs."

TRAI has been at the forefront of major decisions related to tariffs and call connect charges, as well as recommendations on key issues like spectrum and reforming norms for transfer/merger of telecom licences.

Besides policy issues, the Supreme Court is expected to give its judgement on the AGR case on September 2, 2020. The order will have huge implications on the telecom sector.

Another post vacant is that of Managing Director of SBI after current head Rajnish Kumar steps down on October 7, 2020.

According to a notification from the Banks Board Bureau (BBB), the name of Dinesh Kumar Khara, who is one of the MDs of the bank, has been recommended as the next Chairman of SBI. Khara was supposed to retire in August 2021. If his name is finalised, Khara will get a three-year extension in the bank that is routine during the selection of new SBI chiefs.

Along with Khara, three other MDs of the bank, Arijit Basu, CS Shetty and Ashwani Bhatia were interviewed on August 28 for the chairman post.

Kharas ascension to the chairman post would come at a time when the banking industry is facing an unprecedented challenge. The onset of COVID-19 has put the banking industry on the back foot; there is a likely build-up of huge asset quality pressure across verticals.

While the Centre and RBI announced have various, having these top positions filled would ensure that benefits of financial regulation and the bankruptcy framework is passed to borrowers , Mint reported. Policies in the telecom sector are being viewed as important from a point of view of economic recovery, it said.
Calling him a "champion for inclusion," the national chamber of commerce representing LGBTQ business announced Monday that it is backing former Vice President Joe Biden, just the second presidential endorsement in the group's over 20-year history.

The National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), which describes itself as the "only national advocacy organization dedicated to expanding economic opportunities for the LGBT business community," cited Biden's support for LGBTQ rights during the Obama administration, and his push to pass the Equality Act, a bill that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity across many facets of American society, through the U.S. Congress, as part of the rationale for their public endorsement.

MORE: Record number of LGBTQ candidates running for US office, report finds

"We need to elect a president with a commitment to LGBTQ equality, ending racism and racial violence, promoting small businesses and entrepreneurship, and ensuring a safe and equitable society for every American. Joe Biden is that candidate," NGLCC Co-Founder and President Justin Nelson wrote in a statement provided to ABC News.

The group also praised Biden's economic agenda and highlighted the need to provide support to small businesses that have been severely impacted by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

"Our campaign is deeply honored to receive the endorsement of the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce. LGBTQ+ businesses add $1.7 trillion to the economy each year, making LGBTQ+ business owners central to Vice President Biden's plans to build a stronger, more equitable economy, promote entrepreneurship, tackle structural racism, fight systemic injustice, and end discrimination against LGBTQ+ people once and for all," Reggie Greer, the Biden campaign's LGBTQ+ Vote Director wrote in a statement reacting to the endorsement.

PHOTO: Joseph Fons holding a Pride Flag, stands in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building after the court ruled that LGBTQ people can not be disciplined or fired based on their sexual orientation, June 15, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, FILE)

"The stakes have never been so high for the future of our country and the LGBT business community. Joe Biden is the champion our businesses and our families need to thrive," NGLCC Co-Founder and CEO Chance Mitchell added.

Story continues

The NGLCC backed then-Democratic candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, its first official presidential endorsement since its founding.

The endorsement comes as President Donald Trump's campaign has attempted to up its outreach to the LGBTQ community, launching a "Trump Pride" coalition last week headed by Richard Grenell, the former acting director of U.S. national intelligence, who is openly gay and spoke at the Republican National Convention last week, claiming that Trump is the "most pro-gay president in American history."

MORE: Trump's favorability and perceptions of COVID-19 response stagnate post-convention: POLL

In a video released earlier this month by the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation's most prominent GOP organization representing LGBTQ Americans, Grenell asserted that Trump "is the most pro-gay president in American history," a claim undercut by several policies he has implemented during his time in office, including a ban on transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military.

The Biden campaign launched "Out for Biden," a national get-out-the-vote initiative aimed at turning out LGBTQ voters, in early June. A number of prominent LGBTQ lawmakers, including Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Kansas Congresswoman Sharice Davids and Virginia state Del. Danica Roem are involved in the effort.

National LGBTQ chamber of commerce endorses Joe Biden originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Sunrise host Edwina Bartholomew has hit out at divisive AFL champion Sam Newman after he called for 250,000 protesters to rally against Melbourne's Stage Four COVID-19 lockdown.

The former Geelong star and controversial media personality made the comments on social media on Sunday after police clashed the same evening with masked anti-lockdown protesters in Melbourne's north.

'Of all the protests that we have put up with, how about a quarter million of us gather in the CBD to take the City/State back, before EVERY previous march will have been pointless,' Newman tweeted on Sunday night.

'And hopefully a state day of coordination. Any takers? #StateofSurvival.'

The 74-year-old drew support from other Melburnians desperate to get their freedom back four weeks into the six-week lockdown period.

But Bartholomew said the tweet was irresponsible and criticised Sunday's protesters - dozens of whom brought traffic to a standstill by walking down suburban streets in Broadmeadows while claiming they were getting their allowed daily exercise.

Sunrise host Edwina Bartholomew has hit out at AFL champion Sam Newman's 'irresponsible' call for 250,000 people to protest against Melbourne's draconian Stage Four lockdown

'Very irresponsible from Sam Newman,' she said on Sunrise on Monday morning.

'That's someone who was running for Melbourne mayor. If you want to be in lockdown for another six months then sure - join the protest.

'You can see police having to respond to 30 or so of those fools. That behaviour is the kind of behaviour that will undermine all of the hard work so many Victorians have been doing for the past four weeks.'

Defending his position on the lockdown, Newman said it was the state government who were being irresponsible by enforcing economically-crippling social distancing restrictions.

'If the Victorian government stop being irresponsible through this blanket lockdown, then well stop being irresponsible by urging mass rallies,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'Give the hospitality, leisure, education, business and public service enterprises in this state a paradigm for a responsible return to civilization, rather than the hysteria being disseminated, while the country and world pushes on, carefully.'

AFL champion and former Footy Show host Sam Newman pictured in November 2019. He is known for his polarising views

Metropolitan Melbourne is subject to stage four restrictions including an evening curfew and a ban on travelling beyond a five-kilometre radius of home until at least September 13.

Newman's tweet attracted 1,600 likes and hundreds of comments on a day when Victoria recorded 114 new cases and another 11 deaths.

The state on Monday then recorded its highest death toll yet with 41 fatalities and 73 new cases of COVID-19.

Sam Newman was flooded with responses following his plea to Melburnians on Sunday night

Fellow Melburnians desperate to regain their freedom joined Newman's bandwagon as pressure grew on Premier Daniel Andrews to put an end to the draconian restrictions.

'Just tell me when and where never protested before but this is the most important thing we have faced in my lifetime. We ordinary Victorians must take our state back,' one man wrote.

Another added: 'A protest at some point needs to happen so our political class can get a sense of the real opposition to the unbalanced measures put in place.'

World class MMA Fighter Vic Vik Grujic urged Newman to attend the Freedom Day mass gathering planned for next Saturday in Melbourne's CBD.

Another fan commended Newman on his wording.

'You didn't even mention what march, and even mentioned a State Day of coordination. Could be a march for Prostate Cancer. Or even a Pro Dan Andrews march. Could be a march of social distancing examples. Very cleverly worded,' one man posted.

But not everyone supported Newman.

'I have read your tweet three times and it's still incomprehensible. But good luck with whatever self-indulgent, poorly conceived action you're proposing,' one woman posted.

Another added: 'Of all the things you have said, this is highly irresponsible, you know your position, is this what the would want posted, it's with these people's lives that you earned your living.'

Newman's tweet sparked a divisive reaction from the public - with some supporting his call for action while others told him to listen to the science

Others warned Newman to expect a knock on the door from Victoria Police.

'Finally Sam, you're going to jail. Passed onto Victoria Police for inciting stupidity,' one person commented.

Another added: 'Careful Sammy. You will have 10 police cars at your door for that tweet.'

Regional Victoria is under stage three restrictions which allows residents to leave home for essential purposes.

Melburnians were out and about enjoying the weather on Saturday, despite the Stage Four lockdown

Earlier on Sunday, the premier left Victorians furious when he repeatedly spruiked a mysterious 'plan' out of lockdown.

Mr Andrews mentioned the 'plan' 22 times during Sunday's press conference but refused to go into further detail.

'These case numbers are too high for us to open up, and they are still too high for us to put forward a definitive plan,' he said.

'Now, there will be a plan. It will come soon.'

The premier fears new cases numbers would 'explode' again if restrictions are relaxed too soon.

'Once we see these numbers fall further, once we have certainty - and that will be quite soon - we will be able to talk in more definitive terms about what the weeks and months ahead look like,' Mr Andrews said.

Melburnians (pictured on Saturday) remain in Stage 4 lockdown until at least September 13

On Sunday night, confronting footage taken in Broadmeadows, in Melbourne's north, showed dozens of men dressed down in tracksuits and masks making their way through the streets as traffic was brought to a standstill.

The protesters claimed, when asked, that they were simply getting their daily exercise, which they are permitted to do within a five kilometre radius on their homes.

At least six people were arrested during the protests and police have not ruled out issuing further infringement notices.

Victoria's draconian Stage Four restrictions are due to end in two weeks, but the Premier has indicated they will likely be extended. Pictured are anti-lockdown protesters clashing with police in Melbourne's north on Sunday night

The protesters claimed, when asked, that they were simply getting their daily exercise, which is one of just four legal reasons to leave home in Melbourne

The latest protest comes anti-lockdown walkers were doused with pepper spray and struggled with police in Dandenong in Melbourne's south-east last Wednesday as community frustration with draconian Stage 4 restrictions reached boiling point.

Police issued $15,000 in fines and arrested four men.

Tensions in Dandenong had been flaring for days after a large group of residents decided to start walking at the same time and place.
T housands of passengers were trapped on trains in south west France overnight due to electrical problems.

Travellers expressed frustration on social media, posting images of children sleeping on floors and describing the challenge of wearing a mask for more than 20 hours.

Some pleaded for water, food or fresh air, while several people were evacuated for medical reasons, broadcaster France-Info reported.

National rail authority SNCF apologised for "a series of electrical supply incidents" which started on Sunday afternoon and halted traffic in south-western France and disrupted travel to Paris.

Four high-speed trains, connecting Bordeaux with other cities in the region, were stuck on tracks into the night, with knock-on effects on other routes, SNCF said.

Passengers were taken back to their departure points on Monday morning and put on buses and other trains to eventually reach their destinations.

The problems came as millions of French people prepared to return to work and school this week. Many returned by train on Sunday from summer holidays.

Traffic is not expected to return to normal until Tuesday morning, SNCF said.

SNCF crisis director Jerome Attou gives a press briefing at Bordeaux St-Jean station / AFP via Getty Images

An internal investigation has been launched into what happened, it said.

SNCF will reimburse all passengers three times the cost of their tickets and travellers were given masks, water and food, the junior minister for transport, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, said on BFM television.

He said 37 miles of track suffered damage to high-power overhead cables.
By Trend

Turkey is set to launch the first space trials of its liquid-propellant rocket engine technology, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Sunday as part of the latest move in the countrys drive for self-sufficiency, Trend reports citing Daily Sabah.

We are now in the space league in terms of domestic, national projects. I would like to announce the good news that we are set to begin the first space trials of our domestically developed liquid-propellant rocket engine technology, Erdogan said during the inauguration ceremony for Roketsans Space Technologies and Advanced Technologies Research Center and Explosive Chemicals Raw Material Manufacturing Plant in the capital Ankara.

Early this year, Erdogan promised the launch of a national space program in 2020, allowing the country to join the ranks of China, the United States, India and Russia.

The inauguration ceremony came as the country celebrated Victory Day, marking the 98th anniversary of the country's victory in "the Great Offensive," a battle that paved the way for the countrys independence.

The Great Offensive, known as the "Buyuk Taarruz" in Turkish, began on Aug. 26, 1922, and marked the final battle in Turkey's Independence War, which lasted from 1919 to 1922.

Erdogan particularly stressed that the Micro-Satellite Launch System project would be run within the space tech facility and would enable Turkey to place microsatellites weighing 100 kilograms (220.5 pounds) or less into low-Earth orbit.

The project, which aims to ensure Turkeys independent access to space and the ability to launch microsatellites, plans to be completed by 2025, but Erogan said he hoped it would be completed much sooner.

Turkey pursuing 700 defense projects

In his speech, the president also pointed to the success already achieved in the country's defense industry.

Erdogan said for the last 18 years, they had rolled out efforts to get Turkey's paralyzed defense industry on its feet. We have maintained a policy of not taking any products from abroad that we can produce on our own terms, he added.

Turkey is pursuing over 700 defense projects at the moment, Erdogan said, adding that the number of companies in the defense industry had approached 1,500.

Turkey has managed to reduce its external dependency in the defense industry from 70% to 30%. The volume of defense projects has reached $60 billion, while defense exports have exceeded $3 billion, he noted.

Turkey currently has seven companies ranked among the worlds top 100 defense companies, the president added. We are one of three to four countries that produce unmanned aerial vehicles and armed unmanned aerial vehicles, he said.

Atmaca to enter inventory by year-end

Erdogan also pointed to the countrys first domestically manufactured maritime missile, the Atmaca, which he said would enter the security forces inventory by the end of the year.

The Atmaca has placed our country among just five in the world that can produce anti-ship missiles. I hope that by the end of the year, we will add it to the inventory of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK); it makes us proud that many countries are interested in meeting us to buy the missile, Erdogan said.

The Atmaca in July successfully passed its latest long-distance test launch.

Noted for its long-range, low-track and high-target striking sensitivity, the maritime missile is ready for service on modern naval platforms and is expected to herald a new era in the field of surface-to-surface missiles.

The anti-ship missile, whose development was launched back in 2009, completed tests in November 2018. A deal for its mass production was signed between the Defense Industries Presidency (SSB) and Roketsan in 2018.

The missile has a range of up to 250 kilometers (155 miles), hovers low above water and can reach its targets both on a linear and a vertical plane. With this feature, the missile can reach a higher altitude when it approaches a target ship, landing on the vessel from directly above. The target of the missile can also be changed even after launch and is highly protected against electronic jamming.

Erdogan also stressed that with the missile and rocket warhead systems being produced locally, Turkey would break our external dependence to a considerable extent.

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Global coronavirus infections soared past 25 million on Sunday, as countries around the world further tightened restrictions to try to stop the rampaging pandemic. (AFP)

New Delhi: Global coronavirus infections soared past 25 million on Sunday, as countries around the world further tightened restrictions to try to stop the rampaging pandemic.

A million additional cases have been detected globally roughly every four days since mid-July, according to an AFP tally.

Even nations such as New Zealand and South Korea, which had previously brought their outbreaks largely under control, are now battling new clusters of infections.

On the other side of the world, Latin America -- the worst-hit region -- was still struggling with its first wave, with Covid-19 deaths in Brazil crossing 120,000, second only to the United States.

Brazil's curve "has stabilised now, but at a very dangerous level: nearly 1,000 deaths and 40,000 cases per day," said Christovam Barcellos, a researcher at public health institute Fiocruz.

"And Brazil still isn't past the peak."

Nearly 843,000 people have died of Covid-19 globally, and with no vaccine or effective treatment available yet, governments have been forced to resort to some form of social distancing and lockdowns to stop the spread of the virus.

Masks will become mandatory from Monday on public transport and flights in New Zealand, which went more than 100 days without local transmission before the current cluster emerged.

And tightened virus curbs kicked in on Sunday in South Korea, which is also battling fresh clusters -- including in the greater Seoul region, home to half the country's population.

'Anti-corona' rallies in Europe

Despite the grim numbers, there has been steady opposition to lockdowns and social distancing measures in many parts of the world, often because of their crushing economic cost.

But resistance has also come from the extreme right and left of the political spectrum, as well as conspiracy theorists and anti-vaccine campaigners.

In Berlin on Saturday, around 18,000 people gathered to march against coronavirus restrictions -- but police later stopped the rally because many were not respecting social distancing measures.

Protesters waved German flags and shouted slogans against Chancellor Angela Merkel often used by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Many carried placards promoting widely debunked conspiracy theories about vaccines, face masks and 5G communications.

Similar protests were held in London and Zurich, where some carried signs supporting the far-right QAnon movement, which promotes bizarre theories about Satan-worshipping cabals and "deep state" plots -- without any credible evidence.

'A big first step'

The pandemic has upended economies and societies around the world, and halted most large gatherings -- from sport and music to religion and politics.

The Tour de France set off from the French Riviera on Saturday, two months later than planned and with the French sport minister not ruling out the cancellation of the event because of the coronavirus.

Under the Tour rules, a team with two positive tests in its entourage would be expelled. A virus testing cell will travel with the teams throughout the race.

The world's top sport, culture and music events are struggling with the challenge of hosting spectators while reducing the risk of virus transmission.

But there was some cheer on Saturday in New York, once among the world's biggest coronavirus hotspots.

Visitors raised their arms, clapped and lined up to get tickets as New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art reopened its doors to the public in a festive atmosphere after a six-month closure.

Tracy-Ann Samuel, who came with her daughters aged four and nine, said she couldn't wait to again be "surrounded by beautiful art".

"It means that there is some semblance of normalcy," Samuel said.

"The Met has been a part of New York history for over 150 years... So this is a big first step."
Saif Ali Khan On Taimurs Popularity: This Star Kid Is A Tag That Just Falls On You, Whether You Like It Or Not
Asia Thailand Steps Up Moei River Patrols Against Illegal Migrants From Myanmar

A Thai security patrol works its way along the Moei River in Mae Sot district of Thailands Tak Province on Monday. / Assawin Pinitwong / Bangkok Post

TAK, ThailandThai government agencies are combining to step up patrols along the Moei River to prevent illegal migration by job-seekers and others from Myanmar, where COVID-19 is spreading in western Rakhine State.

It is feared illegal border crossers could bring the virus with them and trigger a second wave of COVID-19 in Thailand. The Moei River forms part of the border between Thailand and Myanmar.

Thai agencies involved include Mae Sot immigration and customs, the armys 4th Infantry Regiment and 35th Ranger Regiment, village defense teams, border patrol police and provincial police from Mae Sot, Mae Ramat, Phop Phra, Umphang and Tha Song Yang districts in Thailands Tak province.

Patrols are giving special attention to crossings on the Moei River.

They are also on the watch for the smuggling of drugs and other contraband, including timber, and criminals on the run.

On Friday, Thai health authorities will ask businesses to delay bringing in workers from Myanmar, amid reports of a wave of COVID-19 infections there.

Myanmar previously reported infections among returnees, but community infections have now been reported for the past two weeks. Accumulated COVID-19 cases in Myanmar had risen to 602, Dr. Sophon said.

Rakhine State had prohibited people from leaving their homes from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., he said.

Thailand has a 2,400-kilometer land border with Myanmar, and security along the frontier has been tightened to prevent migrants entering the country illegally, looking for work.

Dr. Sophon said he would seek cooperation from business operators, asking them to refrain from bringing Myanmar workers into the country for the time being, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease.

Thai Interior Permanent Secretary Chatchai Phromlert said on Friday he had ordered the governors of the 10 provinces bordering MyanmarTak, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Mae Hong Son, Kanchanaburi, Phetchaburi, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Ratchaburi, Chumphon and Ranongto tighten security along the border and ensure strict health checks on people arriving through official crossings.

As of Monday morning, Thailand had 3,412 cases of COVID-19 with 58 deaths.

This article first appeared in The Bangkok Post.

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SHANGHAI, Aug 31 (Reuters) - China reported 17 new COVID-19 cases on Aug. 30, up from 9 reported a day earlier, the country's health authority said on Monday.

The National Health Commission said all of the new cases were imported infections involving travellers returning from abroad, marking the 15th straight day of no local infections for the country.

The number of asymptomatic cases rose to 19 from 4 reported a day earlier.

China's total number of COVID-19 infections now stands at 85,048, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634. (Reporting by Jing Wang and David Stanway; writing by Se Young Lee; Editing by Kim Coghill)
In a televised speech Sunday marking the 100 years since the declaration of the greater Lebanon, President Michel Aoun called for Lebanon to be declared a "secular state".
Subscriber content preview

BERLIN (AP)  Amazon says it's buying 1,800 electric delivery vans from Mercedes-Benz, the biggest such order for the German automaker to date.

In announcing the order Friday, Mercedes said it would also join a climate initiative established by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. By signing up to The Climate Pledge, Mercedes-Benz commits itself to going completely carbon neutral by 2039  a move the company had already signaled last year.





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The third round of the Constitutional Committee has come to an end and those involved believe that it was successful and some progress, however small, was made writes Al-Modon.

Although not much progress has been made, the third round of the Syrian Constitutional Committee meetings can be described as positive, especially since meetings were resumed after a months-long hiatus as a result of the coronavirus, which disrupted the sessions yet again after last Monday, for 48 hours.

The sessions, which were scheduled to be concluded on Friday, were extended for an additional day, due to the interruption. Two sessions were held on Saturday, while the regime delegation refused to extend the meetings for another week, which is an expected reaction given the regimes attempt to avoid participating in this round that would not have happened in the first place had it not been for the international pressure, especially from the US and Russia.

Some progress, but

After the conclusion of the third round of meetings, UN Special Envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, said that this round has made some progress, adding that there were major differences in views between the two parties. He confirmed that he had received a message from the co-presidents of the two opposition delegations, represented by Hadi al-Bahra, and the regime delegation, represented by Ahmad al-Kuzbari, confirming their eagerness to meet again in a new round of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, indicating that the date will be set after agreeing on the agenda with the two parties.

A member of the opposition delegation in the Constitutional Committee, Yahya Aridi, told Al-Modon that, the positivity in this meeting emanates from the fact that the delegation of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) and the civil society delegation tackled constitutional matters, despite the regimes attempts to avoid even using the word constitution. This is the first step in the journey of a thousand miles.

Member of the civil society delegation, Edouar Hashweh, saw that there was less tension in the air in the last round than the previous one, as the regime changed the name of its delegation from the government-backed delegation to the national delegation. The regime made sure not to burn bridges, should it decide to not take the results into consideration. This is despite the UN memo that called for a meeting between the regime delegation and the opposition delegation.

Hashweh told Al-Modon that, the other aim behind the regimes adoption of this method is to not recognize the opposition, which has become an international party and a legitimate side in the negotiations.

Presidential constitution

Co-president of the Constitutional Committee, Hadi al-Bahra, demanded after the end of the round that the regime delegation meet as soon as possible to move forward and realize the goal of the Constitutional Committee, expressing his hope that the agenda would be clear with the items specified in the next round. He stressed that no single party can achieve a definitive military victory in the country, stressing the need to activate the political process.

The problem in Syria is not only related to the constitution; it is also linked to implementing the provisions of this constitution, respecting it, and not bypassing it. However, the current constitution is a presidential constitution, which the opposition rejects.

Hashweh believes that attempts to amend the current constitution and adopt it as an alternative to a new constitution will fail, as the opposition has vehemently expressed its rejection of the presidential system. On the other hand, it is unlikely that the regime would accept any fundamental amendments. According to Hashweh, How can we, for example, approach the text of Article 114? By using the current constitution, the president has the right to do whatever he pleases in times of crisis?

Settlements

Aridi believes that writing a new constitution for Syria does not solve the crisis nor does it bring the country back to life.

He explained that the Syrian issue has been internationalized, and Syria has become an arena for settling scores. Reversing that would have a positive impact on Syria, according to Aridi.

Russian Special Envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, addressed the HNC delegation, saying, Do not think too much about Bashar al-Assad, for he will not be an obstacle, according to Aridi, who added, Let us take this statement seriously and put it to the test. Perhaps Russia will gravitate from a tactical approach to a strategic approach.

Aridi added, America included in the Caesar Act the regimes involvement in the political process as one of the conditions for lifting sanctions, and the positive atmosphere that prevailed in Geneva is one of the products of this law that the regime and its supporters fear, as it has prevented them from reaping the fruits of all their violations against the Syrian people.

He continued that, had it not been for the current negotiations in Geneva, the efforts of the regime and its supporters would have succeeded in burying the Syrian issue on the international front, as the regime has made military wins in most of the Syrian lands, except for the north. Therefore, were it not for these efforts, the regime would have been able to do whatever it wants in Syria.

Military council

Hashweh said that, It is possible to build on the results, negatively or positively, to pressure the international community to find a solution that may be a constitutional declaration for the transitional phase, in the event that an agreement on a new constitution fails. He added that, many have not lost hope while some still consider the matter a hindrance, but I expect that should the committee meetings fail, the international community will eventually step up and agree on a military-political council solution.

The procrastination on the part of the regime delegation and their attempt to waste time, and the seriousness of the opposition and civil society delegations were the highlights of this round. The latter will be followed by subsequent rounds during which a new constitution will be drafted.

The chances of success of these efforts are not clear yet in a country where the cards are constantly being reshuffled based on regional and international developments.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
WASHINGTON - Joe Biden excoriated President Donald Trump on Monday as a threat to the safety of all Americans, saying he was a "toxic presence" who has encouraged violence in the nation's streets even as he has faltered in handling the coronavirus pandemic.

The direct repudiation of Trump came as Biden and the president launched into a caustic debate over violent protests that have escalated across the country in recent days, thrusting the presidential campaign into a new and more combustible phase centered on which man represents the biggest danger to America.

For his most extensive remarks since violence has broken out in recent days, Biden traveled to Pittsburgh and struck a centrist note, condemning both the destruction in the streets and Trump for creating a culture that he said has exacerbated it.

Speaking in a crucial electoral battleground, the Democratic presidential nominee appeared to aim his remarks at anxious members of his party, as well as voters who may have reconsidered their support of him in light of Trump's relentless effort to paint Biden as a candidate willing to tolerate lawlessness.

"I want to be very clear about all of this: Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting," Biden said. "It's lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted."

The former vice president also rejected the caricature that Trump and his allies have crafted of him as someone who holds extremist views and has helped fuel the anger in urban centers across the country. "You know me. You know my heart. You know my story, my family's story," Biden said. "Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?"

"I want a safe America," he said. "Safe from covid, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops. Let me be crystal clear - safe from four more years of Donald Trump."

A few hours later, speaking at the White House, Trump sought to place the blame on Biden, ridiculing his "strange speech" because he did not specifically repudiate leftist protesters. (Biden on Sunday said in a statement, "I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right.")

At the same time, Trump refused to criticize his own supporters, defending Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old Trump supporter who is accused of killing two people and injuring a third with an AR-15-style rifle after he traveled to a protest in Kenosha, Wis. "He was trying to get away," Trump said, echoing the argument of Rittenhouse's defense attorneys. "He probably would've been killed."

The president similarly defended members of a Trump-backing caravan of trucks and cars that took on protesters Saturday night in Portland, Ore., firing paintballs and other projectiles at them as they roared past. "Paint is a defensive mechanism," Trump said. "Paint is not bullets." A member of a right-wing group was fatally shot later that night.

The president also seemed to express sympathy with police officers who kill unarmed civilians, many of them Black, in the line of duty, saying they have just a split second to make a decision and sometimes "choke."

The back-and-forth between Trump and Biden, seething with animosity, seemed to launch the general-election campaign in earnest, following two weeks of conventions in which each party separately seized the spotlight to showcase its candidate. The outbreak of harsh rhetoric comes at a crucial stretch before the first presidential debates a month from now, and at a moment when Biden is attempting to focus on the coronavirus and Trump is searching for a diversion from his management of the pandemic.

Biden did not outline new policies during his Pittsburgh speech, instead focusing on making a broader condemnation of Trump. He called the president a danger to those suffering from the coronavirus pandemic, to anyone in search of a job or struggling to pay rent, to voters worried about Russian interference in the upcoming election and to those worried about their own safety amid unrest.

"Donald Trump wants to ask the question: Who will keep you safer as president? Let's answer that question," Biden said. "When I was vice president, violent crime fell 15% in this country. We did it without chaos and disorder."

Pointing to a nationwide homicide rate rising 26% this year, Biden asked, "Do you really feel safer under Donald Trump?"

He went on: "If I were president today, the country would be safer. And we'd be seeing a lot less violence."

For Biden, it was a marked shift from his convention speech less than two weeks ago, when he never named Trump in his remarks. During his speech Monday, he mentioned Trump's name 32 times. "Donald Trump has been a toxic presence in our nation for four years," Biden said. "Will we rid ourselves of this toxin? Or will we make it a permanent part of our nation's character?"

Although Biden's speech forced him to veer from discussing the coronavirus, the challenger repeatedly attempted to tie the crises together as markers of presidential mismanagement.

"More cops have died from covid this year than have been killed on patrol," Biden said.

Biden added that he was not criticizing police wholesale. "I know most cops are good and decent people," he said.

He also went out of his way to restate his position on fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, a drilling technique used in Pennsylvania and elsewhere to access underground natural gas and oil reserves.

"I am not banning fracking," Biden said. "Let me say that again: I am not banning fracking - no matter how many times Donald Trump lies about me." Biden, who in the past has occasionally muddied his own position, opposes any new fracking permits for federal lands or water but would allow existing operations to continue.

Trump, over the objections of Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, is planning to travel Tuesday to Kenosha, where sporadic protests and unrest have occurred since the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, on Aug. 23. The president is not planning to meet with Blake's family. Trump said the family of Blake, who was shot seven times by police, wanted a lawyer present.

Trump's campaign envisions the trip as a chance to support small-business owners and local law enforcement personnel who have been threatened by the protests, but local officials said they wanted him to delay coming to their city.

"You have a community that's in the process of trying to heal," Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian, a Democrat, said at a news briefing Monday. "It would've been nice if it had waited a while . . . but it is what it is."

Kenosha County Executive Jim Kreuser, a Democrat, echoed Antaramian, saying it was "not the ideal time" for a presidential visit. He noted that if Biden had wanted to visit, he would take the same view.

"Things have been relatively calm, so let's just hope it stays that way," Kreuser said.

In focusing on the unrest, Trump is hoping to expose tensions between Biden's coalition of White suburban voters in the Upper Midwest and the Black Lives Matters protesters in the urban streets. Some of Biden's allies want him to talk more about the underlying reasons for the protest movement, while others fear that could alienate some of the suburban voters they believe are needed to defeat Trump.

Trump has used social media to deepen the country's divisions - often with misleading statements - rather than playing the more traditional role of uniter in chief during times of civil unrest. Casting himself as a "LAW & ORDER" leader, Trump has taken to Twitter to accuse Democratic mayors and governors of losing control of their cities; to warn that the only way to "stop the violence in high crime Democrat run cities is through strength"; and to lambaste Biden as being "weak on CRIME" in an effort to appease the "Radical Left voter."

On Sunday, Trump retweeted a video of a Black man violently pushing a woman on a subway platform. The video was falsely labeled "Black Lives Matters/Antifa," the latter a reference to the loose anti-fascist views associated with some on the far left. In fact, the video was from nearly a year ago, and the offender had no known ties to the Black Lives Matters or antifa movements.

Others in Trump's orbit - including the president's son Donald Trump Jr. - have also sought to cast the protests and violence as a preview of what is to come if Biden wins in November, tweeting out links to stories on the unrest with the hashtag #BidenRiots.

That, Biden and his supporters argue, is a bit of messaging jiujitsu, since the unrest is roiling Trump's America. But a senior administration official said Trump and his team believe they can transform Biden into a totem for far-left protesters and pin what they say is Democratic inaction on him.

Biden's remarks Monday, in which he castigated looting and arson - not for the first time - appeared to be an effort to inoculate him against those claims.

On a call with reporters Monday morning, Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller repeatedly said Biden and his campaign had been "taken over" by "the radical left-wing mob."

"This is a political deal that Biden's cut with his radical left-wing mob that has taken over his campaign, and he's too weak to do anything about it," Miller said on the call. In an interview, Miller said that theme will be part of the focus of the ads the campaign is running. In one 30-second spot, called "Takeover," a narrator warns ominously: "The radical left has taken over Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. Don't let them take over America."

"People do not want to see these radical left-wing groups like antifa run amok on Democrat-run urban centers," Miller said.

Some Democrats have grown anxious over Biden's dispassionate approach over the past week, in which he released several statements but did not fully channel the outrage that sparked the protests or the indignation they felt was needed to respond to Trump.

"I've been encouraged listening to the vice president's words - calming, unifying, while at the same time speaking to the truth of the challenges of systemic racism and police violence," Steve Benjamin, the Democratic mayor of Columbia, S.C., said after Biden's speech. "He's struck the right tone."

Khary Penebaker, a Democratic National Committee member from Wisconsin, said he largely agreed with Biden but wished that national leaders would do more to expose the underlying reasons for the looting.

"Instead of worrying about property damage, worry about why people are hurt, angry and pissed off," Penebaker said. "We can rebuild a building. We can't rebuild Jacob Blake's spine."

- - -

The Washington Post's Toluse Olorunnipa and Mark Berman contributed to this report.
By ANI

MANILA: In a strong message to China, the Philippines have made it clear that it would turn to the US for military help during ongoing flare-ups between Manila and Beijing in the South China Sea.

Philippines Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr said Manila would invoke its defence agreement with the US if China attacks its naval vessels in the disputed waters. "If something happens that is beyond incursion but is, in fact, an attack on say a Filipino naval vessel.....means then I call up Washington DC," he added.

Since 1951, the US and the Philippines have had a Mutual Defence Treaty that commits them to support each other in the event if either is attacked.

The comments by the Philippines Foreign Secretary marks the first time President Rodrigo Duterte administration openly declaring its intention to side with the US against Chinese expansionist agenda.

The Foreign Secretary said Manila would continue air patrols over the South China Sea despite Beijing calling it an illegal provocation.

"They can call it an illegal provocation, you cannot change their minds. They already lost the arbitral award," he said referring to the 2016 decision by an international tribunal that ruled against China's expansive claims to the South China Sea.

Locsin also said the US' military presence in Asia is needed as the rivalry between Washington and Beijing has intensified. He added it would be in Philippine's interest for the US to maintain its military presence in the region and he reiterated the country "never stopped cooperation" with its long-time security ally. "We have a balance of power situation, we need the US presence in Asia," he stated.

The two powers are arguing over issues from trade to what the US sees as aggressive moves by China's armed forces, especially in the disputed South China Sea and around Chinese-claimed Taiwan.

The US has long opposed China's territorial claims on the South China Sea, regularly sending warships to demonstrate freedom of navigation there. It hardened its position last month by rejecting Chinese maritime claims in the South China Sea, a move which Beijing condemned.

On August 24, Philippines Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana accused China of illegally occupying Filipino maritime territory and said, "China's nine-dash line used to claim most of the South China Sea is a fabrication." The remarks came amid a fresh row between both countries over the disputed Scarborough Shoal, which has been a flashpoint since long.

The Philippines Foreign Ministry lodged a diplomatic protest last week over what it said was the illegal confiscation by China's coastguard of fishing equipment near the shoal.

China condemned patrols in the South China Sea and declared it's beyond reproach and air patrols by the Philippines infringe on its sovereignty. Beijing defended the coast guard's activities and urged Manila to immediately stop what it described as illegal provocations.

Lorenzana made it clear that the area was within the country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). "Their (China's) so-called historical rights over an area enclosed by their nine-line does not exist except in their imagination," he said.

"Our fishermen are within our EEZ and likewise our ships and planes conduct patrol sorties within our area. They (China) are the ones who have been doing provocations by illegally occupying some features within our EEZ. Hence, they have no right to claim they are enforcing their laws," he further added.

In 2012, China had seized Scarborough from the Philippines following a tense stand-off. The shoal, one of the region's richest fishing grounds, is located 240 kilometres west of Philippines' main island of Luzon and 650 kilometres from the nearest major Chinese landmass, the southern island province of Hainan, is one of the region's richest fishing grounds.

China claims most of the sea, often invoking its so-called nine-dash line to justify its alleged historic rights to the key waterway that is also contested by the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Brunei. It rejected a 2016 UN-backed tribunal's ruling that its claims were without legal basis.
Weather Alert

...WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM THIS EVENING TO 10 AM EST FRIDAY... * WHAT...Very cold wind chills expected. Wind chills as low as 20 to 29 below zero. * WHERE...Central, northern and southern Vermont and northern New York. * WHEN...From 7 PM this evening to 10 AM EST Friday. * IMPACTS...The dangerously cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Temperatures will drop well below zero tonight into early Friday morning with northwest winds of 5 to 10 mph expected across the region. The coldest wind chills are expected between 5 AM and 9 AM Friday with winds expected to weaken as the day progresses. Temperatures will remain on the cold side throughout the day with high temperatures only climbing into the single digits above zero. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Use caution while traveling outside. Wear appropriate clothing, a hat, and gloves. &&
Highlights Xiaomi is said to launch the Mi Watch Revolve in India.

The company could also launch the Mi Band 5.

The two products could be launched in the coming weeks.

Xiaomi is all set to launch new products in the country and this time around the company is planning on bringing not one, but two new devices. As per reports, the company is planning to launch Mi Watch Revolve and Mi Band 5 in India soon.

As for the products, the Mi Watch Revolve is expected to be a rebranded model of the Mi Watch Color that was launched in China earlier. The Mi Band 5 was also unveiled in China earlier in the year and is now said to be launched in India. The news about the launch of the two products in India comes courtesy of noted tipster, Ishan Agarwal, who has leaked this information in partnership with 91Mobiles.

Of the two products, it's definitely the Mi Watch Revolve that's more interesting. If it's the same watch as the one being sold in China, then we expect very little change in terms of the specs. The Mi Watch Color also shares most of the functionalities with Xiaomi's original Mi Watch that debuted last year. It can record a host of fitness functions such as steps, heart rate and calories. It also seems to be running on MIUI for Watch which is based on the Google Wear OS platform. The watch gets a 1.39-inch AMOLED display and it can you choose from 110 watch faces. Xiaomi says it can be water-resistant up to 50 meters depth.

In China, the Watch Color costs just CNY 799 which is around Rs 8,000 in India. In terms of sensors, there's a heart-rate monitor, sleep tracker, GPS, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, compass, barometer, gyroscope, accelerometer, and ambient light sensor. It is also rated to last up to 14-days with a 420mAh battery.

The Mi Watch Color also focuses more on being fashionable than functionality. The watch gives the option to choose from three different colours for the dial and multiple straps. There is no word on when the device will come to India, but whenever it does, we expect it to give the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active and the Huawei Watch GT 2 a good run for its money.
Por segundo mes consecutivo, la pesca sigue creciendo! ????

???? Gracias a la mayor captura de anchoveta, orientada a la industria harinera y de pota y bonito, destinados al Consumo Humano Directo.



?? Mas informacion ?? https://t.co/NtMdApaxXm pic.twitter.com/eh5kr5xZvK
Rescue efforts ended at a two-story restaurant in a northern China village that collapsed during an 80th birthday celebration for a resident, leaving 29 dead, authorities said Sunday.

The Ministry of Emergency Management said another 28 people were injured, seven of them seriously, when the building suddenly crumbled on Saturday. A total of 57 people were brought out alive, the ministry said.

There was no immediate word on what caused the collapse or on the fate of the birthday guest and other celebrants.

Hundreds of rescue workers using sniffer dogs, cranes and high-tech sensors had searched the rubble, lifting slabs of concrete in hopes of freeing survivors.

The official China Daily newspaper said the building collapsed at 9:40am on Saturday. It said the Cabinet's Work Safety Commission would oversee the investigation into the accident's cause.

While China has seen major improvements in industrial safety, building standards are sometimes ignored, particularly in rural areas such as Shanxi province's Xiangfen county, about 630 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of Beijing, where the restaurant was located.

The region lies in the heart of China's coal country, where thousands of miners have died in explosions, collapses and floods over past years.

AP
FORMER Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald has publicly thrown her hat in the ring to he the next Irish EU Commissioner.

The ex-Justice Minister and MEP disclosed her interest to the Irish Independent, conceding however that the Government is faced with a difficult decision.

Ms Fitzgerald now joins Mairead McGuinness in publicly expressing interest in the prestigious job vacated last week by Phil Hogan.

Read More

With EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen having publicly called on the Government here to put forward "a woman and a man," the Fitzgerald declaration heaps new pressure on the Taoiseach, Tanaiste and leader of the Green Party to do exactly that.

"Clearly this is a very finely balanced and difficult decision for the Irish Government, and a very important one in terms of this country's future relationship with Europe," Ms Fitzgerald told the Irish Independent.

"There are many social and economic implications to that decision and that relationship, and there are obviously a number of people with different skill sets interested in taking it on.

"I would like to express my own interest, based on 20 years in politics and public life, with an NGO and then reaching to the highest levels of Government. I feel I would have the level of experience necessary to the role.

"I would therefore like to put my name forward for consideration."

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney, the favourite, said he was not ruling himself out of the job, but told RTE News is was up to the Government to decide on whose name or names would be submitted to President von der Leyen.

Mr Coveney said he had no decision to make as yet as he had not received any request from the Taoiseach or Government, adding that national politics was a huge part of my life and demanding his concentration.

I'm not ruling myself out but this is subject to a decision of the three party leaders, he told RTE Southern Editor Paschal Sheehy.

I would need to have a very good reason to move away from the focus that I have at the moment which is a privilege and hugely important.

And I would need to be convinced that I could add significant value to our chances of increasing the profile within the commission of Irish influence, and that's something that I know the Taoiseach and his team are trying to establish at the moment.

He declined to comment of party colleague Mairead McGuinnesss warning that it would be it would be wrong to ignore Ms von der Leyens request for the names of a woman and a man to be submitted for her to make a choice.

I'm not going to get into that speculation, he said. This is a decision to be made by Government, on behalf of the country. And the Taoiseach will make that decision when he's ready to do it.

Meanwhile Dublin Central TD and former Green party whip Neara Hourigan urged the Government to meet the Commission Presidents request, saying to do so would be completely in line with furthering the role of women, which was a stated objective of her party.

We didnt honour it in the last process, she said of a similar request when solely the name of Phil Hogan was put forward as continuing for a second term. I think its now time to do so.

The Taoiseach, Tanaiste and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan had a preliminary telephone discussion on the matter today, and will have a more formal meeting on the subject tonight when they could prepare a decision for ratification at Cabinet tomorrow.
A young woman has been left with a 'cone' of fat on her bottom after surgery abroad went wrong.

Shannon Davies, 23, from Pontypridd, Wales, was prompted to go under the knife in Istanbal, Turkey, after seeing online influencers recommend the clinic - which cannot be named for legal reasons.

The salon owner initially forked out 5,000 for a Brazilian Butt lift, breast uplift and augmentation in 2018 but has since returned twice due to shocking results.

Before the 'botched' surgeries, Shannon Davies, 23, from Pontypridd, Wales, was a size 12 (left) but wanted a curvy body to fill out her clothes. Instead, after her Brazilian Butt lift surgery she was left with a 'cone' of fat on her bottom (pictured right)

Shannon, a salon owner, claims the 'botched' surgery she got in Instanbul, Turkey, - after it was recommended by an online influencer - has left her with a 'lumpy' and 'uneven' bottom (pictured)

Shannon pleaded with the surgeon to remove the excess fat from her bottom but woke to find she had undergone another BBL.

She is now forced to wear size 18 trousers as her 'lumpy' and 'uneven' bottom doesn't fit into her old size 12 jeans.

She said: 'I've always been up and down with my weight and my boobs started to sag.

'I had no bum and I just wanted a nice curvy body to fill out my clothes.

'But now I am left with a lumpy bottom and super wide hips because the fat which was injected for the BBL has leaked into my thighs and hips.

'I regret ever going ahead with the surgery but I just wanted a quick fix.

'It seemed like the easy option but I should have just gone to the gym.'

Shannon recalls feeling like she was in an 'oven' when she woke from the first surgery in July 2018.

Shannon now has to wear size 18 trousers to hide her bottom and hates her wide frame after, she claims, the fat injected into her bottom leaked into her hips and thighs

The 23-year-old said she regrets the surgery which has left her with bruising and scarring all over her body. Instead she wishes she had just gone to the gym and not sought out a 'quick fix'

Her nipple was purple and she felt like her chest was going to burst open.

She added: 'I woke up from surgery and I was screaming in pain - it was unbearable.

'I knew something was wrong and I could tell by the look on the surgeons face when he saw my nipple.

'He removed my nipple and left it hanging on by one thread - I am not too sure how this was supposed to help, but I was willing to do anything to avoid losing my nipple.'

Shannon visited her local nurse every two days to have the stitches and dressing changed for four months after the surgery.

She said: 'I couldn't wear a bra because it was so painful and my boobs completely dropped.

Shannon recalls feeling like she was in an 'oven' when she woke from the first surgery in July 2018. She has been left with a visible lump of fat on her right bottom cheek

After the first surgery. she had to visit her local nurse every two days to have the stitches and dressing changed for four months

When she woke up from her surgery she screamed in pain, her nipple was purple and she felt like her chest was going to burst open. At one point blood was 'squirting' from her breasts and it was not cleaned up (pictured)

'I wasn't happy at all with the results.

'A cone had formed on the right side of my leg so I asked the clinic if I can have it revised - they eventually agreed after eight months.'

In March 2019, Shannon flew to Turkey again for three days - she requested another uplift and for fat to be removed for her bum.

She claims she was injected three times with general anaesthetic because the dose was initially not enough.

She said: 'The second time was a living nightmare. I was injected in the lift on the way down to theatre but I didn't fall asleep, nor the second time.

'The surgeon told me to get onto the metal bed and then he strapped me down - I was so scared.

After he saw her nipple for the first time after surgery, Shannon said the surgeon removed it and left it hanging on by one thread

The salon owner said she was in so much pain she couldn't wear a bra and so her breasts, she had augmented as part of the procedure in Turkey, dropped

In March 2019, Shannon flew to Turkey again for three days - she requested another uplift and for fat to be removed for her bum - and she has been left with a lot of scarring as a result

'I wasn't weighed so they didn't determine the appropriate dosage.

'I woke up and my bum was bigger than the first time - he didn't remove the fat as discussed - he filled it again.'

Shannon says her botched surgery has left her with a bruised body and an uneven bottom.

She flew home after three days and could barely look in the mirror because her new body left her 'horrified'.

After complaining, the clinic blocked Shannon on social media so she was left to her own devices to try and find someone to revise it.

Surgeons have refused in the UK where BBL surgery is illegal.

She claims she was injected three times with general anaesthetic for the second procedure, because the dose was initially not enough. When she woke up she found the fat in her bottom had increased instead of decrease. Pictured: Her 'botched' breasts which were left with painful scars

Drains were also not used post-surgery and as a result fat leaked out of her body and onto her clothes, pictured

The company which left Shannon in this way have now blocked her on social media and doctors in the UK cannot help her as Brazilian Butt lifts are illegal

She said: 'I was desperate to have everything removed. I just wanted my old body back.'

In October 2019, Shannon flew back to Turkey for three days to have the implants and fat removed from her bum by the surgeon.

However, she claims she awoke to discover no difference.

She said: 'He took my money and all he did was stitch up my boobs again.

'I have been left with horrendous scarring and barely any confidence.

'I wanted surgery so I can feel good in my own skin, but now I dread summer because I have to cover up.

'My nipples are too high up and my bottom half is too big. I am so embarrassed and wish I had done my research. I should have waited until I was older.'

Shannon urges other women to love their body they way it is and to avoid going abroad at all costs.
JUBA, South Sudan - Sudans transitional authorities and a rebel alliance signed a peace deal on Monday following months of tortuous negotiations aimed at ending the countrys decades-long civil wars, but other powerful armed groups have thus far declined to join them.

The deal was reached between the Sudanese government and the Sudan Revolutionary Front, a coalition of several armed groups. Leaders signed the agreement in South Sudans capital, Juba, where talks have been held since late last year.

Negotiating an end to the rebellions in Sudans far-flung provinces has been a crucial goal for the transitional government, which assumed power after a popular uprising led the military to overthrow President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. Authorities hope to revive the countrys battered economy through slashing military spending, which takes up much of the national budget.

Sudan is currently ruled by a military-civilian government, with elections possible in late 2022. A cease-fire between government forces and the rebels has been in place since al-Bashirs ouster.

The televised ceremony was attended by South Sudan President Salva Kiir, whose own country gained independence from Sudan in 2011 following decades of civil war. The head of Sudans sovereign council, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok also attended the signing. Deputy chief of the Sudanese Sovereign Council, Gen. Mohammed Hamadan Dagalo, signed the agreement along with rebel leaders.

Jonas Horner, senior Sudan analyst at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank , called the agreement a hugely significant sign of progress for Sudans transition.

But it is also far from comprehensive and only represents a first step towards peace, while significant hurdles remain in the way of its implementation, he added. International financial and diplomatic support, or even pressure if needed, will be imperative to make sure the parties implement the agreement.

Malik Agar, head of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-North, which is part of the rebel alliance, called for national commitment to the deals success as well as international support, particularly through financial contributions.

What we have achieved, through arduous and long negotiations, will be fruitless if there are no guarantees for implementation, he said.

The deal would grant self-rule for the southern provinces of Blue Nile, South Kordofan and West Kordofan, according to a draft obtained by The Associated Press. Rebel forces would be integrated into Sudans armed forces.

Hamdok, the prime minister, took to Twitter to hail the deal as a start of the peace path. A peace that requires strong and firm will.

South Sudans president described the agreement as a milestone in achieving peace in Sudan. Kiir vowed to continue standing with the Sudanese to ensure the implementation of the peace agreement, according to his advisor and mediator Tut Qalwak.

The Sudan Revolutionary Front, centred in the western Darfur region, South Kordofan and Blue Nile, is part of the pro-democracy movement that led to the uprising against al-Bashir, but the rebels didnt fully support the military-civilian power-sharing deal. That deal includes a six-month deadline for achieving peace, which ran out in February.

Sudans largest single rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Movement-North led by Abdel-Aziz al-Hilu, was involved in the talks but has yet to reach a deal with the government.

Al-Hilu has called for a secular state with no role of religion in lawmaking, the disbanding of al-Bashirs militias and the revamping of the countrys military.

The group has said if its demands are not met, it would call for self-determination in areas it controls in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan provinces.

Another major rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Movement-Army, which is led by Abdel-Wahid Nour, rejects the transitional government and has not taken part in the talks.

The agreement did not offer a clear separation of state and religion as demanded by al-Hilus movement and many Sudanese who denounce the weaponization of religion in Sudanese politics, said Suliman Baldo, senior advisor at The Sentry, a watchdog group.

Peace will remain far from comprehensive until the reasons that motivated the boycott of non-signatories are satisfactorily addressed, he said.

____

Magdy reported from Cairo.
Jim Connor became the CEO of Duke Realty Corporation (NYSE:DRE) in 2016, and we think it's a good time to look at the executive's compensation against the backdrop of overall company performance. This analysis will also assess whether Duke Realty pays its CEO appropriately, considering its funds from operations growth and total shareholder returns.

Check out our latest analysis for Duke Realty

Comparing Duke Realty Corporation's CEO Compensation With the industry

Our data indicates that Duke Realty Corporation has a market capitalization of US$14b, and total annual CEO compensation was reported as US$6.7m for the year to December 2019. That's mostly flat as compared to the prior year's compensation. We think total compensation is more important but our data shows that the CEO salary is lower, at US$878k.

On comparing similar companies in the industry with market capitalizations above US$8.0b, we found that the median total CEO compensation was US$7.7m. This suggests that Duke Realty remunerates its CEO largely in line with the industry average. Moreover, Jim Connor also holds US$7.2m worth of Duke Realty stock directly under their own name, which reveals to us that they have a significant personal stake in the company.

Component 2019 2018 Proportion (2019) Salary US$878k US$846k 13% Other US$5.8m US$6.0m 87% Total Compensation US$6.7m US$6.9m 100%

On an industry level, around 15% of total compensation represents salary and 85% is other remuneration. Duke Realty sets aside a smaller share of compensation for salary, in comparison to the overall industry. It's important to note that a slant towards non-salary compensation suggests that total pay is tied to the company's performance.

A Look at Duke Realty Corporation's Growth Numbers

Duke Realty Corporation has seen its funds from operations (FFO) increase by 2.0% per year over the past three years. In the last year, its revenue is down 6.4%.

We generally like to see a little revenue growth, but the modest FFOgrowth gives us some relief. These two metrics are moving in different directions, so while it's hard to be confident judging performance, we think the stock is worth watching. Looking ahead, you might want to check this free visual report on analyst forecasts for the company's future earnings..

Story continues

Has Duke Realty Corporation Been A Good Investment?

Most shareholders would probably be pleased with Duke Realty Corporation for providing a total return of 47% over three years. As a result, some may believe the CEO should be paid more than is normal for companies of similar size.

In Summary...

As we touched on above, Duke Realty Corporation is currently paying a compensation that's close to the median pay for CEOs of companies belonging to the same industry and with similar market capitalizations. However, the company's FFO growth numbers over the last three years is not that impressive. On the other hand, shareholder returns over the same period have been very healthy. So while shareholders shouldn't be overly concerned about CEO compensation, we suspect most would prefer to see improved performance, before a bump in pay.

CEO pay is simply one of the many factors that need to be considered while examining business performance. In our study, we found 4 warning signs for Duke Realty you should be aware of, and 1 of them is significant.

Arguably, business quality is much more important than CEO compensation levels. So check out this free list of interesting companies that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.

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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Theyre out on the streets again.

On Saturday, around 38,000 people marched in Berlin, calling for an end to pandemic restrictions. It was a bizarre mix of people: families and senior citizens were joined by right-wing extremists, some sporting swastika tattoos. Protesters brandished signs reading Take off the slave masks, while others held up peace flags. Many shouted We are the people and others called on President Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia to liberate Germany.

In a scene bound to be inscribed in the countrys history, a group carrying the Reichsflagge, the black, white and red flag of the German Empire that served as the basis for that used by the Nazi regime, broke through a police barrier and attempted to enter the Reichstag, the Parliament building.

It was a terrifying escalation in a sequence of protests against the countrys response to the pandemic, beginning in April in the southwestern city of Stuttgart. They have since spread across the country, with varying success  sometimes bringing 250 people out, sometimes 5,000. At the start of the month, they crossed a threshold: Over 30,000 protesters gathered in Berlin on Aug. 1.

These demonstrations are something of a mystery. One of the strangest things about them is that there is hardly anything to protest: Most restrictions, never as strict as in some other European countries, have been lifted.
VIENNA: Governments need to invest aid funds more selectively to overcome the coronavirus crisis in the long term, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said.

They also need to make sure that public procurement is transparent and competitive so as to not lose the trust of citizens, Georgieva said at an Austrian economic forum, which she joined online.

Countries will have to be more selective as to who they support," Georgieva said, listing digital businesses and those that can profit from green climate policy as examples of potentially successful investments. Up to now we support everybody."

More than 100 countries have requested emergency financing assistance from the IMF so far. The fund has committed $270 billion of its $1 trillion war chest already, its chief said, adding that in total some $11 trillion have been invested in stimulus around the world.

Given the huge amount of funds, expenditure control was key. Make sure that governments are put on a digital platform, so that citizens can see where does the tax euro actually go."

Georgieva, a Bulgarian, said she hoped for a renewed drive towards strong policies and government transparency in central and eastern Europe.

The region had done well in building fiscal discipline and would probably come through the crisis better this year than more advanced European countries. She sees gross domestic product shrink 5-6% in the CEE region and 10% in the richer European countries this year.

However, she called on CEE governments to redirect financial support more carefully than in the first round of emergency help and not stop it as an abrupt end could lead to a tripling of bankruptcies among small and medium-sized enterprises there.

The same way the virus hits people with preconditions the hardest, the economic crisis hits countries with weak policies, not sufficient oversight the hardest."

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Job Title: Storekeeper

Organization: United Nations World Food

Programme (WFP)

Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda

Reports to: Warehouse

Management Assistant/Associate

About WFP:

United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the worlds

largest humanitarian agency, fighting hunger worldwide. The mission of WFP is

to help the world achieve Zero Hunger in our lifetimes. Every day, WFP works

worldwide to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry and that the poorest and

most vulnerable, particularly women and children, can access the nutritious

food they need. In emergencies, WFP gets food to where it is needed, saving the

lives of victims of war, civil conflict and natural disasters. After an

emergency, WFP uses food to United help communities rebuild their lives. On

average, WFP reaches more than 80 million people with food assistance in 80

countries each year. The organization has the global footprint, deep field

presence and local knowledge and relationships necessary to provide access to

food and contribute to lasting solutions, especially in many of the worlds

most remote and fragile areas.

Job Summary: The Storekeeper will handle receipt/dispatch

and verification of commodities to maximize quality of warehouse operations and

mitigate losses, and to support the best storage management practices in

compliance with WFP warehouse standards and established guidelines.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:



Provide overall supervision and training of

tally clerks and casual laborers.



Effectively receive/dispatch commodities

including transhipment (truck to truck) against official approved documentation

(e.g. waybills and/or delivery notes) ensuring accuracy in physical count of

commodities including the quality in compliance with the established standards.



Prepare, verify and sign off warehouse and

transport documents, and maintain confidential files and accurate warehouse

transaction records to ensure immediate reporting on commodity movements in

line with the corporate requirements both in LESS and paperwork.



Conduct daily warehouse closing reconciliation

and accurate inventory checks supporting internal control systems in compliance

with the warehouse management requirements.



Perform daily inspections and prepare reports on

the quantity and quality of the commodities received/dispatched and handled,

detect promptly and analyze reasons for stock discrepancies/damages,

investigate missing quantity and prepare warehouse loss reports recommending

appropriate solutions, to enable informed decision-making.



Implement appropriate measures to safeguard food

and non-food commodities, to ensure quality control using standard preventive

measures in line with WFP established procedures and authorization received

from the supervisor.



Monitor condition of the warehouse and

commodities and take appropriate actions, to support efficient warehouse

space-planning and well-organized commodity storage following WFP warehouse

standards



Provide guidance and on-the-job training to

warehouse staff to contribute to their development and high performance.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:



The ideal candidate for the United Nations World

Food Programme (WFP) Storekeeper job vacancy must hold a Degree in Stores

management, Procurement and Logistics management, Accounting, statistics,

Administration or any other related field.



A minimum of three years of working experience

in Storekeeping, Logistics management, Statistics, Administration, Accounting

or related field gained from a reputable institution.



Experience using logistics databases to extract

routine reports.



Experience in managing warehouses with food and

NFIs.



Experience in managing inventories.



Experience in processing invoices.



Good knowledge and skills in using MS Office

applications, database management applications, database development tools,

data analysis applications;



Excellent command of English is vital;

Competencies:



Supply Chain Management and Optimization: Displays

aptitude at monitoring and reporting on supply chain operations to enable teams

to efficiently assess the performance and sustainability of current networks.



Planning, Project & Resource Management:

Supports the planning, forecasting & resource management efforts of

own team by collecting data from diverse sources.



Information Management & Reporting: Collates

accurate and timely information and data to enable informed decision making on

reporting within individual unit and consequently the greater humanitarian

community.



Market Analysis, Contracting and Operational

Execution: Ability to collect and collate necessary information to

enable WFP to make informed operational decisions.



Warehouse and Inventory Management: Demonstrates

ability to implement operational warehouse procedures and normative guidance in

order to manage WFPs warehouse, handle inventory effectively through corporate

systems, and ensure loss mitigation.



Technical Assistance and Coordination: Demonstrates

awareness of the importance of technical assistance and coordination with key

stakeholders and an ability to carry out logistics activities, respecting

individual mandates and programme priorities.

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified candidates who wish to join the

United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) are encouraged to apply online at the

link below

Click

Here

Deadline: 10th

September 2020

For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or

find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline
A warehouse under construction last spring a former Bethlehem Steel Plant near Baltimore by Hilco Redevelopment Partners, which proposes to build a vast complex of similar logistics facilities on the site of the former PES Refinery in South Philadelphia. Read more

The Philadelphia school boards refusal to sign off on a major tax break for Hilco Redevelopment Partners, the new owner of the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery, was unexpected. But it also could be an unexpected opportunity. Public pressure to reduce Phillys property tax abatement on new residential construction, rising opposition to public subsidies, including one connected to a proposed Sixers arena, and the boards recent decision suggest that a shift from offering incentives for development toward asking developers to directly assist host communities may be underway. That would be good news. But absent leadership from elected officials, it will be up to residents, business owners, and organizations to press for more than mere promises.

Even the notable success of some projects receiving tax incentives, such as the Navy Yard, or robust projections for job creation  as many as 19,370, according to Hilco  werent enough to persuade the board to renew a Keystone Opportunity Zone (KOZ) designation for the 1,300-acre refinery site. The boards approval is required by KOZ regulations. The Aug. 20 meeting yielded only four of the necessary five votes; a second attempt to pass the measure is possible Sept. 17. The states KOZ program is tailored to spark redevelopment of formerly industrial and otherwise moribund properties like the PES site by abating certain state and local taxes.

 READ MORE: Philly school board rejects tax break for Hilcos redevelopment of former refinery site

The prospect of Hilco providing a $1.25 million annual payment in lieu of taxes, exceeding what conventional property taxes would generate by 10%, didnt sway the board. Some members also may have been underwhelmed by the companys conceptual master plan for the site. Released in July, and characterized by one critic as a lost opportunity, it envisions a landscape now dominated by a forest of refining towers to become a landscape dominated by gargantuan warehouses. Hilco also will remove or remediate toxins that permeate the property and have been linked to high rates of cancer in the mostly Black and brown communities nearby.

Tax breaks have essentially become institutionalized in Philadelphia and elsewhere, having long ago morphed from a special economic development strategy to a standard tool. Even well-heeled companies expect them, as the shower of goodies Philadelphia offered to snag Amazons so-called second headquarters project in 2018 showed. In Camden, a bonanza of incentives beginning in 2013 did spark development, but also led to investigations of lax approval and monitoring requirements.

 READ MORE: Plans reveal Hilcos intent to reshape Philadelphia refinery landscape

Philadelphia officials say eligibility standards for the states KOZ program are rigorous, requiring annual renewal applications and active monitoring. The city is working with Hilco to finalize an economic opportunity plan, a binding document subject to City Council oversight. The company also intends to negotiate a community benefits agreement with neighborhoods along the fence line boundaries of the site.

While it isnt likely an area where oil storage and refining began in the mid-19th century will become a park, residents hope economic revival there will improve, not burden, their neighborhood. A final report on local visions for the site, a project of Drexel Universitys Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation and the Clean Air Council, is to be released after Labor Day. It should be required reading at Hilco, whether or not the board takes a second KOZ vote.
South Korea's antitrust regulator said Monday that it will ban social media influencers from promoting a new product or service on their online platforms without disclosing their business ties with corporate sponsors.



The Fair Trade Commission said its revised advertising guidelines will require influencers on social media platforms, such as YouTube or Instagram, to state clearly whether their product endorsements are "financially rewarded or intended for promotion."



The move -- which will take effect on Tuesday -- came after some famous social media influencers were criticized for their involvement in the shady promotional practice called "backdoor online advertising."



Vague expressions like "thanks to" or "reviewer group" will be prohibited on their videos as well.



Violators -- both influencers and corporate sponsors -- will be slapped with a fine of up to 2 percent of related sales and revenue or 500 million won ($422,000).



The new guidelines will also be applied to online content made before the new guidelines, meaning that social media influencers must revise their previous online content to comply with the new guidelines, the commission said.



Some social media influencers have drawn flak for their backdoor advertising. A popular mukbang influencer with 4.7 million viewers recently apologized for being involved in the unfair advertising practice.



In addition, a renowned YouTuber with an audience of 2.68 million announced her retirement from mukbang, a portmanteau in Korean of "eating" and "broadcast."



Last year, the commission clamped down on companies' backdoor advertising through influencer reviews for the first time. (Yonhap)




- Variable Gross Margin of 23% at Q2 2020 is up approximately 90% from Q1 2020 as Company benefits from higher margin revenue

SANTA ROSA, CA / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / GABY Inc. ("GABY" or the "Company") (CSE:GABY) (OTCQB:GABLF), a California-focused, Cannabis and CBD consumer goods and distribution company, is pleased to provide its second quarter 2020 results (ended June 30, 2020).

Q2 2020 Financial Highlights

Revenue was $.7 million compared to $2.1 million during the same quarter in 2019

Adjusted EBTIDA from Continuing Operations i was (1.6 million) i compared to ($3.5 million) i during the same quarter last year. The improvement of $1.9 million was primarily due to a decrease in SG&A expenses of $2.0 million.

was (1.6 million) compared to ($3.5 million) during the same quarter last year. The improvement of $1.9 million was primarily due to a decrease in SG&A expenses of $2.0 million. Variable Gross Margin improved to 23% compared to 11% during the same quarter in 2019 and negative 1.0% in Q1 2020

The improved Adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations[i] and significantly improved Variable Gross Margin in the quarter reflects a number of initiatives that GABY has implemented early in 2020 and continued into Q2 2020, as follows:

Relocating all operating and finance roles to Santa Rosa, California, after the positions of the President and COO, and the CFO and all operating and supporting staff in Canada were terminated;

Consolidation of its office and operations to Santa Rosa, California eliminating five out of six office and warehouse leases;

Founder, Margot Micallef, adding to her role of CEO, the day to day responsibility of running the operations after terminating the employment of the President and Chief Operating Officer and other senior sales and operating roles;

Shuttering its cultivation and manufacturing operations, removing the capital investment required to develop upstream operations;

Broadening its procurement infrastructure to several third-party contractors having cultivation relationships with a wider base of farmers in lieu of an in-house procurement department with more limited cultivation relationships;

Simplifying its operations, by creating greater efficiencies, rationalizing staff count and lowering costs;

Developing more effective standard operational protocols to maximize efficient regulatory compliance and simplify operating processes;

Shuttering unprofitable business operations, including its frozen food operations, Gabriella's Kitchen or GK which resulted in $0.7 Million of savings in both periods as reflected in the loss from discontinued operations;

Terminating third party service and distribution relationships that were providing insufficient or low margins and replacing them with higher margin relationships.

The Company anticipates that through management's cost cutting initiatives GABY will save approximately $6MM on an annualized basis.

In addition, GABY replaced a number of senior positions with people experienced in start-ups who know how to do a lot with a little, having the discipline to push its revenue mix towards slower growing but more sustainable higher margin revenue.

"We entered Q2 with the uncertainty created by COVID-19. This reality impacted our revenue in three ways: It resulted in lower productivity and increased production costs, given the need to quarantine and social distance (we split our production crew into three teams instead of one producing fewer units per day than customary); It challenged our sales department and demand from our dispensaries (who were uncertain as to the impact of COVID-19 and how they would structure themselves to serve customers); and it made enforcement of the illicit market more challenging for regulatory bodies who were closed during the first few months following the start of the pandemic in California or who temporarily furloughed employees. This temporary lack of enforcement emboldened the illicit market and heightened their activity raising prices for available raw materials to the point that it was not economic for us to purchase raw materials for resale, explained Margot Micallef, Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of GABY.

"It takes discipline to resist the temptation to build inventory when prices temporarily spike and courage to watch inventory levels become depleted as a result. But it is this discipline and this courage which builds companies in the long term. We entered 2020 with the promise that we would not sacrifice margin for revenue. And we have stuck to that promise" Ms. Micallef stated.

"While we would have liked Q2 revenue to have been higher, the cost cutting, operational restructuring, and risk mitigation strategies we implemented and the discipline we exhibited especially in Q2 2020 enabled us to significantly increase variable gross margin to 23%", Ms. Micallef added.

She concluded: "All these changes have positioned us to meet our goal to be profitable by year end. Our focus for the remainder of the year is to pursue sustainable growth both organically and by acquisition".

GABY's shares trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") under the symbol "GABY" and on the OTCQB under the symbol "GABLF". For more information, visit www.GABYinc.com.

For further inquiries, please contact:

Margot Micallef, Founder & CEO at Margot@GABYinc.com or Investor Relations at IR@GABYinc.com or 800-674-2239.

(i) NOTE- NON-GAAP MEAUSRES

Adjusted EBITDA from Continuing Operations

Adjusted EBITDA from Continuing Operations in respect of the comparative periods of Q2-20 below does not have any standardized meaning as prescribed by IFRS, and, therefore, is considered a non-GAAP measure and may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. The non-GAAP measure of Adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations, combined with IFRS measures, such as revenue and net loss, is a useful measure to our investors as management relies on it to provide a measure of operating cash flows before servicing debt, income taxes, capital expenditures and other gains and losses.

Adjusted EBITDA from Continuing Operations for the periods ended below are calculated as follows:

Disclaimer and Forward-Looking Information

The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

Sonoma Pacific Distribution, Inc., is a subsidiary of GABY. Sonoma Pacific holds a type 11 cannabis license in the State of California. Unlike in Canada which has Federal legislation uniformly governing the cultivation, distribution, sale and possession of medical cannabis under the Cannabis Act (Federal), readers are cautioned that in the United States ("U.S."), cannabis is largely regulated at the State level. Cannabis is legal in the State of California. However, cannabis remains illegal under U.S. federal laws. Notwithstanding the permissive regulatory environment of cannabis at the State level, cannabis continues to be categorized as a controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act in the U.S. and as such, cannabis-related practices or activities, including without limitation, the manufacture, importation, possession, use or distribution of cannabis are illegal under U.S. federal law. To the knowledge of the Company, the business operated by Sonoma Pacific is conducted in a manner consistent with the State law of California, as applicable, and it is in compliance with regulatory and licensing requirements applicable in the State of California. However, readers should be aware that strict compliance with State laws with respect to cannabis will neither absolve GABY, or its subsidiary of liability under U.S. federal law, nor will it provide a defense to any federal proceeding in the U.S. which could be brought either GABY or its subsidiary. Any such proceedings brought against GABY or its subsidiary may materially adversely affect the Company's operations and financial performance generally and in the U.S. market specifically.

Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: GABY Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/604028/GABY-Inc-Reports-Second-Quarter-2020-Financial-and-Operational-Results
Medics have warned of a "high level of psychological distress among healthcare staff" due to the Covid-19 virus and pre-existing issues, such as burnout, in the Irish healthcare system.

In an article published in the Irish Medical Journal, medics led by Fiona McNicholas, Professor in Child Psychiatry at University College Dublin and Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at Our Lady's Children Hospital Crumlin, compared the difficulties faced by healthcare workers during the Sars epidemic in 2003 and said the current coronavirus outbreak was likely to exacerbate those problems.

The article said: "Work-related stress disproportionately affects healthcare workers and is linked to excessive workloads, working in emotionally charged environments and where demand outweighs capacity.

"In Ireland, clinician-perceived lack of management and government support, coupled with unrealistic public expectations and cynicism about the possibility of change, compound the issue.

Increased patient safety incidents, medical errors, lower-quality service provision, along with issues regarding staff retention and psychological ill-health follow.

During the Sars outbreak, which mainly affected Asian countries, half of healthcare workers experienced psychological distress, exacerbated by the risk of quarantine, job stress and the fear of contagion.

Similar findings were reported by nurses in Ireland during preparations for a flu epidemic, the report said.

"Two aspects of the healthcare work during the Sars epidemic differentiated its psychological impact from other disasters. Importantly, both aspects resonate with the current pandemic, applying even to a greater extent.

"Firstly, the experience of social isolation: the necessity for interpersonal distancing, infection control procedures, diminished collegial social interaction and assignment to work in unfamiliar environments/with unfamiliar colleagues.

"Secondly, while family support is protective against occupational stress in the ordinary course of events, in the context of a pandemic, staff with children experience increased psychological distress.

"This is inferred to relate to the aforementioned fears of healthcare workers that may become ill and unable to care for or risk infecting their children. Both of these factors, prevalent in Covid-19, are likely to herald a high level of psychological distress among healthcare staff," the authors wrote.

Normal coping strategies such as social connections, exercise, and leisure time are severely restricted, they wrote, adding resources will be "more constrained" once the pandemic ends, "presenting a ripe breeding ground for burnout".

The mental health impact of COVID-19 will be significant, in terms of both new onset mental illness and deterioration of existing pathology, highlighting fundamental inequalities between our citizens. We need to do better and adequateky plan for this. https://t.co/jNEXEueiSg  Fiona McNicholas (@McnicholasFiona) June 12, 2020

"The situation in Ireland, where healthcare workers have already been identified to report the highest rate of burnout, and pre-existing concerns of heath resource adequacy exist, make this an extremely concerning probability," they wrote.

It said psychological supports and training would help to "stress-proof" the working environment, warning that failing to do so could prompt a rise in absenteeism, further undermining the system.

The article said: "We have an ethical duty post-Covid-19 to reflect on the seismic and rapid work-related enforced changes and stressors, and the impact of these on staff well-being so that we can better equip ourselves for future disasters, unfortunately, likely to happen."
The result of the new study suggests that kids can carry the virus in their respiratory tracts like the noses and throats for weeks even if they do not show any symptoms.

The newly published research in JAMA Pediatrics journal might explain why kids are described as silent spreaders of the virus. Little is known why many kids remain not to experience cough, sore throats, and fever but tested positive for the virus.

Researchers in South Korea reported on Friday that kids could carry the virus in their noses and sore throats for weeks, which might explain why they are the virus's silent spreaders. This was released following the increase of children who tested positive for COVID-19.

The researchers wrote in the study, "In this case series study, inapparent infections in children may have been associated with silent COVID-19 transmission in the community," This means that the local transmission could be coming from children who are not showing any signs of the virus.

Dr. Roberta DeBiasi and Dr. Meghan Delaney, both of Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC, wrote in an accompanying editorial. "Interestingly, this study aligns with adult data in which up to 40% of adults may remain asymptomatic in the face of infection," Both of them are not involved in the study.

Dr. DeBiasi and Dr. Delaney said that the new study's authors estimated that 85 or 93 percent of infected children would have been missed using a testing strategy focused on testing of symptomatic patients alone. Most especially that the CDC guidelines for virus testing was changed

The study is very timely as well after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised its guidelines. After it, the agency was criticized for changing its guidelines on asymptomatic testing. The American Academy of Pediatrics called the action a dangerous step backward.

According to the updated CDC guidelines, some people who do not have any symptoms even though they are exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19 may not need to be tested. The newly published research opposed those guidelines and only showed that persons should be tested for COVID-19 if exposed to someone who has the virus.

AAP President Dr. Sally Goza said in the statement, "We know that children often show few or no symptoms of COVID-19. We also know they are not immune to this virus, and they can become very sick."

She also added, "Testing exposed individuals who may not yet show symptoms of COVID-19 is crucial to contact tracing, which helps identify and support other people who are at risk of infection."

Meanwhile, DeBiasi and Delaney also wrote that the study suggests that children mild and moderately affected children remain symptomatic for a long period.

This is very alarming most, especially if children will not get tested for the virus. Children may go unnoticed either with or without symptoms and continue on their usual activities, which can later cause virus local transmission.

Check these out!
Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc BRK.B turned 90 today. Warren Buffett, also known as the oracle of Omaha, has inarguably been the greatest role model for investors. After all, since Berkshire Hathaways inception, the holding company has yielded a staggering return of more than 600%. Its shares have gained 59% over the past five-year period and are up 176% in the last 10 years.

Buffetts primary investment style is simply entails searching for companies, which can be purchased and held for extended period of time, with long-term competitive advantages. A solid business model and the ability to record significant growth are the basic criteria for any company to come under the ambit of Buffetts investment style. In other words, these companies have good earnings potential and are not concerned about the market recognizing its worth. These also generate plenty of cash and provide dividends, which are indicators of strong and sustainable businesses.

Such companies included the likes of well-known companies like Geico, Duracell and Dairy Queen, which have really bolstered Berkshires bottom line. In fact, some of Berkshires top holdings have seen their aggregate market value soar by billions in the last few years. And on his 90th birthday, Buffett announced that his company has acquired a stake of slightly more than 5% in five leading Japanese companies -- Itochu Corp., Marubeni Corp., Mitsubishi Corp., Mitsui & Co., and Sumitomo Corp.

In fact, technology companies make up Berkshire Hathaways largest part of the equity investment portfolio. Financials make up Berkshire Hathaways second-largest investment portfolio, with The CocaCola Company KO remaining one of the companys longest-held-stocks, first purchased in 1988.

Nonetheless, as Buffet rings in his 90th birthday, lets take a look at two stocks from his top holdings that are worth buying!

Story continues

Apple

Apple Inc. AAPL makes up the majority of Berkshire Hathaways stake, making up for 44% of the companys entire investment portfolio. Buffett started acquiring stakes in Apple in the first quarter of 2016. And now, his stake in Apple has risen more than $80 billion over the past three or four years.

The company, no doubt, has proven to be resilient to the coronavirus pandemic and still generates more than 80% of revenues by selling high-priced devices, primarily made in China.

The company also surpassed the $2-trillion milestone earlier in the month of August. And such a valuation shows that market pundits expect almost nothing to go wrong for this tech behemoth, and are willing to pay a hefty sum for its shares.

After all, despite issues, the social-distancing environment will continue to fuel growth in the segment that includes the App Store and Apple Pay. Even though Apple saw widespread retail closures in recent times, work-from-home trends and strong online sales will continue to boost overall operations.

Apple currently boasts more than 550 million paid subscribers under its Services portfolio. Further, the App Store continues to draw the attention of prominent developers worldwide, helping the company offer appealing new apps that drive App Store traffic.

Thus, the Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) companys expected earnings growth rate for the current and next year is 8.7% and 23.8%, respectively. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has also risen 4.9% over the past 60 days. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Apples shares have also outperformed the broader Computer - Mini computers industry so far this year (+70.0% vs +68.6%).

DaVita

Berkshire Hathaways equity investment portfolio owns stakes in DaVita Inc DVA valued at $3 billion.

DaVita is gaining significantly from dialysis services this year and hence has maintained its impressive revenue guidance for the year. Also, solid prospects in the Kidney Care wing aid the stock.

Notably, DaVitas incessant efforts to upgrade services, global expansion initiatives and active acquisitions remain impressive and are supported by the companys strong financial position.

At the same time, last year, President Trumps executive order aimed at reforming treatment for over 37 million Americans suffering from any kind of kidney ailment bodes well for the company. After all, the executive order developed new payment models to encourage more kidney transplants and provided affordable alternative treatments, including at-home dialysis treatments, instead of the more expensive treatment centers.

DaVita currently has a Zacks Rank #1. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has moved up 10.1% over the past 60 days. The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current and next year is 25% and 5.8%, respectively. Shares of DaVita have outperformed the broader Medical - Outpatient and Home Healthcare industry year to date (+15.9% vs +7.1%).

5 Stocks Set to Double

Each was hand-picked by a Zacks expert as the #1 favorite stock to gain +100% or more in 2020. Each comes from a different sector and has unique qualities and catalysts that could fuel exceptional growth.

Most of the stocks in this report are flying under Wall Street radar, which provides a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor.

Today, See These 5 Potential Home Runs >>



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



Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Apple Inc. (AAPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report



DaVita Inc. (DVA) : Free Stock Analysis Report



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Union Home minister Amit Shah has recovered from post coronavirus disease (Covid-19) care and was discharged from the All India Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital in New Delhi on Monday morning.

Shah had tested positive for Covid-19 on August 2 and later tested negative for the viral disease on August 14. However, he was admitted to AIIMS on August 18 again for medical care after recovering from the viral infection.

Sh Amit Shah, Honourable Home Minister has been complaining of fatigue and body aches for last 3-4 days. He has tested negative for Covid -19.He has been admitted to AIIMS for post Covid care. He is comfortable and is continuing his work from hospital, the hospital had said.

A team of multidisciplinary specialists led by AIIMS director, Dr Randeep Guleria, was monitoring Shahs health.

Shah, 55, was earlier discharged from Medanta Hospital in Gurugram after testing negative for the coronavirus disease.

He had announced his health status on Twitter after testing positive for the virus, and urged those who came in contact with him in recent days to isolate themselves and get tested.

After showing initial symptoms, I underwent a test for coronavirus and the report came out positive. My health is fine but I am being admitted to the hospital on the advice of doctors, Shah had posted on the microblogging site.
Samples hold a power over us that runs deeper than a berry-stained lip or umami fix. Uri Gneezy, a behavioral economics professor at the University of California at San Diego, said freebies push our reciprocity button: You do something nice for me (for instance, give me a tiny sausage), and I will return the favor (buy a whole box of tiny sausages). Samples can also disrupt the monotony of our shopping list, displacing our same old products with unexpected surprises. Finally, Gneezy said, free samples can make us feel like shrewd consumers. To illustrate his point, he shared the story of a wealthy friend in Chicago who visits Costco weekly for the complimentary lunchtime nibbles. The man can afford to pay for the items  he drops hundreds of dollars during these excursions  but the samples boost his sense of self. The store gives him $3 of free food and the good feeling of being a smart shopper, Gneezy said.
Imperial Valley News Center

IRS Tax Return Preparer Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for Tax Fraud

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - A Philadelphia, tax return preparer was sentenced to 60 months in prison Monday for conspiring to defraud the United States, preparing false client tax returns, wire fraud, and identity theft, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Departments Tax Division and U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

As todays sentencing makes clear, corrupt tax preparers who falsify tax returns, and particularly those who exploit stolen minors identities to do so, will not go unpunished, said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman.

Todays sentence is an appropriate reminder to tax preparers that attempting to defraud the federal government will result in serious consequences, said U.S. Attorney McSwain. And here, the defendants actions will have ramifications for years to come because he stole the identities of children as part of his fraud. My office will continue to work with our federal partners here and in Washington D.C. to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of tax crimes.

According to the evidence presented at trial, Nvahbulai Quisiah owned and operated First Premier Tax Service, a tax return preparation business in Philadelphia. From 2010 through 2017, Quisiah falsified clients tax returns by claiming false dependents based on stolen minors identities, as well as false itemized deductions and business losses in order to increase the refunds paid by the IRS.

In February 2020, a federal jury found Quisiah guilty on all counts.

In addition to the term of imprisonment, U.S. District Judge Nitza I. Quinones Alejandro ordered Quisiah to serve three years of supervised release and to pay $215,941 in restitution to the United States.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Zuckerman and U.S. Attorney McSwain thanked special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, who conducted the investigation, and Trial Attorney Ann M. Cherry of the Tax Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Wzorek, who prosecuted the case.
Bubs Australia founder and chief executive Kristy Carr says the company's investment in a new facility in China to produce infant formula using goat milk powder from Australia will shield it from the growing diplomatic tensions between Canberra and Beijing.

Everyone sees the opportunity in China, but theres a new level of risk there in terms of the geopolitical landscape, and I think this strategy has really mitigated some of that risk, Ms Carr said, adding that investors in the company backed the move.

Bubs Australia chief executive and founder Kristy Carr. The company has announced a capital raise as it looks to expand. Credit:Chris Hopkins

The investment will be funded by a $38.3 million equity raising and will give the company a 25 per cent to 35 per cent stake in the facility alongdside a Chinese partner. The funds will also be used to expand into other markets and strengthen the balance sheet.

The capital raising announced on Monday coincided with the release of Bubs 2019-20 full year results. The company delivered a 24 per cent increase in revenue to $54.64 million, but fell short of recording a full year profit. Bubs reported a statutory net loss of $7.8 million, which was an improvement on last years $35.5 million loss and ahead of market expectations of an $8.97 million loss for fiscal 2020.
Doug Fords public embrace of Justin Trudeaus Liberals seems impassioned.

But his public distancing from Erin OTooles Conservatives seems improbable.

Not to be confused with social distancing, nor political dissing, it is a calculated dance: Ford isnt so much refusing OTooles overtures as he is pleading that his dance card is full  and that he already has a partner who provides for him.

Explaining why he wouldnt campaign alongside his newly crowned federal political cousin, Ford said he couldnt possibly find the time: I cant take my eye off the ball for an election or anything else.

Yet in the same breath, he once again showered praise on the prime minister and deputy PM Chrystia Freeland, erstwhile enemies who are now his closest COVID-19 collaborators:

We have a phenomenal relationship. I think the world of the deputy prime minister, we are able to get a lot accomplished just by communicating and collaborating  and along with the prime minister as well.

How to explain the premiers penchant for federal-provincial footsie? The politics of pandemics have stayed his hand.

Pre-COVID-19, Ford and OToole were joined at the hip  figuratively and politically if not quite genetically. Both were reared in the party family as sons of Ontario PC backbenchers (Doug Ford Sr. and John OToole), and they share many of the same ideological supporters (such as Alberta Premier Jason Kenney).

But Tory fraternity and paternity only go so far. Personal popularity and federal cash flow count for more than Conservative comity.

A year ago, Trudeau spent most of his time on the campaign trail in Ontario badmouthing his performance, while the federal Conservatives pretended Ford didnt exist. That makes two federal elections in a row in which an Ontario premier has helped Trudeau win votes  first in 2015 when Kathleen Wynne campaigned for him up close, and again in 2019 when Ford conveniently served as a long distance foil.

What a difference a year makes. Back then, Ford was in free fall, written off by pollsters and booed off the stage at public events.

This week, the Angus Reid Institute reconfirmed what most public opinion polls have been showing all summer, even if not all pundits have noticed: Fords popularity is through the roof, with two out of every three Ontarians approving of his performance.

At 66 per cent, Ford is within a hair (and within the margin of error) of B.C. Premier John Horgan, who topped the list at 69 per cent. His turnaround cannot simply be explained by voter insecurity in a pandemic, because other politicians have declined steadily.

Part of Fords rise comes from rising to the occasion  he exceeded expectations by ultimately taking COVID-19 seriously and reaching out for help. Not just from experts, but enemies.

By making peace with the prime minister, Ford opened the door not only to a flurry of federal-provincial co-operation but a gusher of federal cash flow  while spending by the provincial treasury has been measured. Thanks to Ottawa bankrolling massive wage subsidies and spending programs in the tens of billions of dollars  most recently $2 billion in education subsidies for the provinces  Ontarios premier has been able to appear generous while keeping his own outlays more modest.

Little wonder Fords gratitude to the federal Liberals is limitless, while his fidelity for the federal Conservatives is sharply delineated. Ford can count.

To be clear, its both the budgetary numbers and polling numbers that are flowing in Fords favour under federal Liberal suzerainty. The last thing an Ontario premier needs now is to align himself with OTooles rhetoric of fiscal discipline, tighter wage subsidies, and other penny-pinching policies that even hint of a return to the Stephen Harper era (such as his call to defund the CBC).

As the newly neutral Ford explains, I dont care what political stripe youre from, if you get elected Ill work with you. He just wont work to get OToole elected.

They say that politics makes strange bedfellows. But pandemics can also makes strangers out of fellows who once bedded (or were wedded) together politically.

Former PM Brian Mulroney famously fetishized (and profited from) party loyalty by publicly proclaiming, You dance with the one that brung ya.

In declining to dance with OToole in the next federal campaign  distancing himself from a fellow Tory while aligning himself with the federal Liberals  Ford appears to be mindful of Mulroneys maxim. Yes, appearances count and allegiances add up, but money and popularity cant be discounted.

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Deja McCottrell

Seven days after George Floyd died in the custody of Minneapolis police, the Blackest city in New England was quiet.

As protests across the nation condemned racial discrimination in law enforcement, Brockton, a community of 100,000, had held just one demonstration. It was organized by the mayor and drew a small crowd.

Deja McCottrell wanted to change that.

Self-described as Queen Deja, a young Black Queen fighting for change, McCottrell took the reins to help organize a peaceful protest.

The 22-year-old retail worker soon found herself sitting across the table from Brocktons mayor, police chief and city councilors, cluing the anxious officials into her plans for a peace rally in honor of Black lives.

In the end, an estimated crowd of more than 1,000 people attended. McCottrell said shed never seen Brockton look so unified.

Speaking from the steps of the school where the protest took part, barely tall enough to look out over the crowd, McCottrell warned against oversimplifying complicated problems.

Its not just Black versus white, she said. Its not just us versus the cops. Its everyone versus racism.

One of McCottrells favorite moments from that day is when police officers joined in chants of I cant breathe and say their names.

But by nightfall, that harmony had given way to tension.

Some protesters marched to the police station on their own, meeting a barricade of officers equipped with riot gear. As officers ignored calls to kneel in solidarity, some protesters threw rocks and aimed fireworks over the barricade. McCottrell arrived late, and split for home at the sight of tear gas as police fought their way through the crowd.

The next morning, McCottrell organized a cleanup of more than 30 volunteers collecting discarded signs, shards of glass, empty gas canisters, and rubber bullets into trash bags.

Were going to go and clean up our city and show people that this is what Brockton is really about," she said.

Story continues

Nearly two months later, McCottrell said Brockton is still picking up the pieces after nationwide clashes over the role police departments should play in communities of color.

McCottrell said she has a stake on both sides of the debate. Raised by a Black grandmother from Mississippi who served almost three decades as a Boston police detective, McCottrell said she wants no part in a movement that paints all cops as racists.

But McCottrell also knows what its like to fear for your life during a traffic stop. Pulled over recently by a state trooper late at night, McCottrell said she complied with the troopers orders to exit her car and answered questions, standing rooted to the spot until the cruiser disappeared.

I felt like, yeah theyre saying that Im free to go, but as soon as I turn my back I hear eight warning shots, she said. Thats my biggest fear.

In Brockton, McCottrell sees a cultural divide between residents that are poorer and Blacker on average than the police whove sworn to protect them. A majority of the city's residents are non-white, compared to 36 per of police, and nearly half of cops live outside the city.

Revamped cultural sensitivity training is one of McCottrells top priorities for change. Another is redesigning what accountability looks like when officers are accused of excessive force.

McCottrell, who plans to enter a training program for medical assistants this fall, is considering a career as a trauma nurse for rape survivors.

She said she sees an array of opportunities for folding activism into a life of work and art.

Ive got nothing but time, McCottrell said.

Leaders of Change

Overview: A mayor, a filmmaker, a Navajo Nation president: Our take on Leaders of Change

Social and Criminal Justice:We allow 'the most marginalized among us to be exploited'

Policing reform: 'Theres so much at stake, but we were built for this moment'

Politics: We're holding our prosecuting offices responsible

Economy: 'When people have the resources to help themselves, they are going to'

Education: 'Black girls were experiencing harm ... beyond the rate of the boys'

Children's rights: 'We must redress racial inequality for children'

Health care: 'Unnamed wound is what I have come to understand as racial trauma'

Environment: No community should be saddled with more environmental burdens

Religion: 'Neighbors who did not understand neighbor love'

Arts, entertainment and athletics: 'Only we can create a better world. A world worthy of Lewis love'

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: 'Young Black Queen': Fighting for change and unity in Brockton, Mass.
Manhattan D.A. Cy Vance and I had one encounter which has stayed with me for a long time. I was a lieutenant in the NYPD chasing a burglar through the streets in Greenwich Village. I tackled the burglar and we rolled around in the middle of Sixth Avenue for some time. The burglar grabbed my holstered gun and tried to remove it from my holster.

The Village has undergone a transition from the constant threat of violence from the drug dealers in and around Washington Square Park and the surrounding community, to one of tranquility and friendship between the police and the residents of the Village.

The fight continued until a few civilians came to my aid and pinned the burglar to the ground while I cuffed him and my backup arrived. No one took pictures, they helped me and then thanked me for keeping their community safe.

Cy Vance, then you arrived at the station house to interview my prisoner. During your interview with my prisoner, as you told me later that day, he stated to you: Yeah, if I had removed that cops gun, I would have shot him.

The positive enforcement of laws is what brought the Village back, not a time out session. The residents of the Village, East Village, Harlem and other communities around the City of New York want positive enforcement, not chaos.

(Robert McKenna is an Annadale resident.)
A Passaic County man was charged with murder in the fatal beating of an 18-year-old man in Paterson, authorities said Sunday.

Tyheem Jones, 37, of Hawthorne, repeatedly punched and kicked Nicolas Reyes for several minutes and pistol-whipped the city man early Thursday, according to the Passaic County Prosecutors Office.

Police found Jones pacing in the middle of the street, breathing heavily and sweating profusely, after officers responded to an assault around 4 a.m. near Auburn Street and Godwin Avenue, according to the prosecutors office. Officers discovered Reyes unconscious nearby and suffering from a large gash on his head.

Reyes was initially listed in critical condition at an area hospital, authorities said. Prosecutors added the more serious charge after he died Friday from his injuries.

The prosecutors office said Jones also faces weapons charges. Authorities did not comment on a possible motive for the slaying.

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Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com.
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Vienna  Mon, August 31, 2020 08:05 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c418c3ef 2 Art & Culture Sigmund-Freud,Museum,Vienna Free

All of Sigmund Freud's private rooms in Vienna opened to the public on Saturday -- though they are devoid of any furniture since the Jewish founder of psychoanalysis took almost everything with him when he fled to London before World War II.

"We are dealing with an exhibition showing that there is nothing left here," architect Herman Czech told journalists this week ahead of the Sigmund Freud Museum's re-opening after 18 months of renovations.

"Bringing back the sofa from London would have been a falsification of history," he added, referring to the famous couch, on which Freud diagnosed his patients.

So the rooms -- increasing the exhibition space from 280 to 550 square meters in a bourgeois building in Vienna's posh ninth district -- contain only a few personal items.

Those include Freud's books, his tanned satchel and his box of chess and tarot games in light wood.

The famous Viennese doctor, theorist, art collector, publisher and writer stayed at Berggasse 19 between 1891 and 1938 with his home on the first floor adjoining his practice.

Read also: AI portrait joins Warhol, Basquiat and Freud at London auction

Only the waiting room, which could already be visited previously, still has its original furniture.

When he left for exile in London in 1938, under threat from the Nazis because he was Jewish, Freud took away most of the other furniture -- the absence of which reflects "the loss of culture and humanity" of the Hitler-annexed Austria, according to Czech.

As part of the permanent exhibitions now open to the public, the fate of Freud's dozens of neighbors deported to concentration camps is also discussed.

Director Monika Pessler says the newly renovated and enlarged museum, tracing Freud's work and life with photos and films and including a library, aims to bring to life his teachings.

Freud died in exile in London in 1939, aged 83.

The museum first opened in 1971 with the blessings of Freud's youngest daughter, Anna.

It welcomed nearly 110,000 visitors -- 90 percent from abroad -- in 2018 before it closed for works.

Its reopening originally planned for earlier this year was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Tokio Marine Insurance Vietnam's press conference to share their vision in Vietnam

Bao Viet Tokio Marine Insurance officially changed name and brand identity to Tokio Marine Insurance Vietnam. Can you tell us about the reason and your expectations from this change?

Tokio Marine Insurance Vietnam (TMIV), previously Bao Viet Tokio Marine Insurance, has operated for 24 years as the first foreign-invested insurer in Vietnam since 1996. Since then, the company has experienced sustainable growth in the local market by providing safety and security to our valued clients through diversified general insurance products and services. However, the competition in the Vietnamese insurance market is getting severe, and in order for us to develop ourselves in the market, we have to develop our strengths more and more.

We believe our strength is Japanese quality, which Tokio Marine has been striving to deliver to all our stakeholders all over the world, for over 140 years. The corporate name and logo change will definitely help our company to be recognised as the best Japanese-quality insurance services provider and become a trusted risk solution partner to accompany our clients on their sustainable business development journey in Vietnam.

What does your new branding campaign entail? Does the change signify new goals to set a deeper footprint in the market?

We understand that Vietnamese people really prefer Japanese brands and believe that goods and services from Japan are better in quality and are more reliable. We believe that our "Japanese quality" can be an utmost advantage in Vietnamese customers eyes.

Pushing up the Tokio Marine brand is a commitment to a high standard of quality and care in all of our qualified products and services. Better client experience and satisfaction will speak for themselves and will be the most effective tools to enhance our brand in the long term  what better way to become known for quality than by giving quality consistently, at every turn?

At the same time, we have been making an effort to pursue the endless journey To be a Good Company in Vietnam by delivering positive values for the benefit of our clients, employees, and local community through different initiatives.

As for the community, we have spared no effort to protect future generations through different social projects such as Mangrove Planting for better local environment and Helmets for Kids for better traffic safety among disadvantaged schools. It is this strong dedication to the Good Company corporate philosophy that will allow us to continue to grow sustainably in the next 50 or 100 years.

General director Hideaki Maeomote of Tokio Marine Insurance Vietnam.

What role does the Vietnamese market play in your strategy for the ASEAN region? How has your performance in in Vietnam so far?

We have been operating in Vietnam for 24 years, as you know. Since setting up facility as the first foreign-invested insurer in the country, the company has experienced sustainable and continuous growth and produced remarkable profit, showing around 30 per cent profit ratio out of Gross Written premium on average in the recent decade. Tokio Marine Asia, our regional HQ, recognises that Vietnam is a market offering great potential, and TMIV has been contributing to the growth in ASEAN region in terms of profit.

Vietnams insurance market is witnessing a sharp change in the business environment, with higher demands for equipment and flexibility in packages for customers, especially in the current unpredictable situation. How does TMIV align with these new demands?

We recognise that the Vietnamese economy is showing remarkable growth, including the field of insurance, especially digital equipment which we think shows faster changes compared with other ASEAN countries. However, we think that insurance products and their associated benefits are not known well enough in public and has not reached enough Vietnamese people.

That means there is great promise in this market. Tokio Marine has a global network of representative offices across 490 cities in 45 countries and territories, more than 33,830 employees and agents in over 190 countries and territories. At the end of the 2019 fiscal year, Tokio Marine & Nichido (Fire Insurance Co., Ltd.) was ranked by the two biggest credit ratings agencies in the world: A+ financial strength rating by Standards & Poor's (S&P) and A++ financial strength rating by AM Best Financial. The extensive global experiences, know-how, and knowledge stored in the group are definitely our strength, and we believe we can apply some of them in this market and help Vietnamese people to recognise that insurance products are trustworthy.

Duong Thi Thanh Toan, deputy general director of Tokio Marine Insurance Vietnam at the press conference

Vietnam, a country of more than 96 million people, is becoming an attractive destination for foreign direct investment including Japan enterprises. How does your company support and what services do you offer them?

This has been our core business, especially for Japanese enterpriese invested in Vietnam. There are a lot of hidden and unexpected risks when they invest oversea. We have supported these companies not only by proposing insurance coverage as well as providing fast, fair, and professional claims settlement to support clients in recovering from their financial challenges, but also consulting them to minimise risks so that they can operate in Vietnam smooth

A number of our value-added services to clients include risk management consultancy to help clients identify risks at their premises at the early stages, with appropriate loss prevention recommendation, safety management, and loss prevention training to increase clients awareness of various on-site hazards and assistance on risk improvement. We strive to be creative and innovative to bring about the best safety and security solutions to our clients.

Digital technology seems to be a core pillar for this partnership. What are some of the secret tech weapons your company has to get ahead?

Even though the Vietnamese insurance industry is still under development, digital technology such as web application and claim services have already been launched. We are also developing similar kinds of technology to boost positive customer experience, together with some of our clients who have the same advantages in each market. In addition, we are investing in internal infrastructure to improve the efficiency of our business processes.
Beijing: Amid tensions with India over the standoff in Eastern Ladakh sector, China has reportedly built a surface-to-air missile near a lake, which is a part of the Kailash-Mansarovar. The development of the missile, according to experts, is a continuation of the aggressive provocation by the Chinese and it could further complicate the border tensions between the two countries, The Epoch Times reported.

Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar, commonly known as the Kailash-Mansarovar site is revered by four religions and is linked to culture and spiritual scriptures in India. While the Hindus consider the site as the abode of Shiva and his consort Parvati, the Tibetan Buddhists call the mountain Kang Rimpoche, the "Precious One of Glacial Snow," and revere it as the abode of Demchog and his consort, Dorje Phagmo.

The Jains call the mountain Astapada and consider it to be the place where the first of their 24 spiritual masters achieved liberation. The Bons, adherents of the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, term the mountain Tise and revere it the dwelling place of the sky goddess, Sipaimen.

The placing of the missile at the sacred site, which is also the origin of four transnational rivers -- Indus, Brahmaputra, Sutlej and Karnali, a major tributary of the Ganges, menaces India, which has refused to back down against Chinese aggression on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

"In my view, first and foremost, it is a continuation of the Chinese provocation against India, which we are seeing all along from the LAC in Ladakh to the eastern and middle sector bordering areas with India," Priyajit Debsarkar, author and a geopolitical analyst with the London-based think tank Bridge India, told The Epoch Times in an e-mail.

"This move, of deploying a surface-to-air missile in Tibet, should not surprise us. It is pure authoritarian brinkmanship and provocation to India, which has refused to back down against Chinese threats and aggressive aggression," Debsarkar said.
Army's Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi on Monday (August 31) said that the health of former Pranab Mukherjee deteriorated on Sunday night and he is currently in "septic shock" due to lung infection. The hospital said in a statement that Mukherjee is currently managed by a team of specialists and he continues to be in deep coma and on ventilator support.

"There is a decline in the medical condition of Former President Pranab Mukherjee since yesterday. He is in septic shock due to his lung infection & is being managed by a team of specialists. He continues to be in deep coma & on ventilator support," said the hospital.

The 84-year-old Mukherjee was admitted to hospital on August 10 in a critical condition. Workup at the hospital revealed a large clot in Mukherjee's brain for which he underwent emergency life-saving surgery. Mukherjee continues to remain critical on ventilatory support since the surgery.

The former president had also tested positive for coronavirus COVID-19 before surgery. "On a visit to the hospital for a separate procedure, I have tested positive for Covid-19 today. I request the people who came in contact with me in the last week, to please self-isolate and get tested for Covid-19," Mukherjee had tweeted on August 10.

Mukherjee was a senior Congress leader before he was elected as India's 13th President. He served as President from July 2012 to 2017.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaks during a politburo meeting of the Workers' Party, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Wednesday. Yonhap



North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presided over a key party meeting and discussed measures to minimize damage from an approaching powerful typhoon and correct some "defects" in the country's antivirus efforts, state media reported Wednesday.



The enlarged politburo meeting of the Workers' Party held Tuesday appears to be aimed at solidifying internal unity and showing Kim's care for people's lives as the country is facing a growing strain from global sanctions and back-to-back natural disasters weighing on its already fragile economy, experts said.



Kim said the efforts to "thoroughly prevent the casualties by typhoon and minimize the damage to the crops is an important work which can never be neglected even a moment for our Party" and "also a crucial one deciding whether we would successfully wrap up this year's farming or not," the Korean Central News Agency said.



He instructed all workers to "awaken to the importance of the work for preventing the damage by typhoon and the method for countering the crisis, and called upon all the fields of the national economy to take instant measures to prevent the damage from the typhoon."



Also discussed were some "defects" and "shortcomings" in the country's ongoing anti-epidemic measures, the KCNA said, though it did not elaborate on what they were.



"The meeting seriously assessed some defects in the state emergency anti-epidemic work for checking the inroads of the malignant virus, and studied measures to overcome the defects urgently," the KCNA said.



"Citing facts about some shortcomings in state emergency anti-epidemic work, the Supreme Leader underlined the need to take active measures involving the entire Party and society for completing and maintaining the anti-epidemic posture and eliminating some defects," it added.



Kim has attended seven such meetings since the start of this year handling such domestic issues, a move seen as aimed at solidifying internal unity and assuaging discontent by demonstrating his strong commitment to stabilizing the lives of his people from the global epidemic and other natural disasters.



"Natural disasters are nothing new for North Korea, but this year's are different since they are happening at a time when Kim called for a frontal breakthrough against challenges confronting his country and emphasized self-reliance in economic development," Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, said.



"He appears to have no leeway in handing other issues, such as nuclear talks and inter-Korean relations," he said. "He might believe that the best he can do right now is to hold such meetings again and again to strengthen internal unity and muster internal power to minimize damage."



Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said that Kim's frequent attendance of such meetings suggests that the situation in North Korea could be "dire" and that the ruling party does not want to be seen as "flat-footed" in handling issues linked to people's lives.



"The situation in North Korea must be dire for Kim Jong-un to hold so many high-level conferences," the professor said. "The latest politburo meeting touted preparations to mitigate the effects of another natural disaster and correct errors in COVID-19 prevention efforts. The party does not want to appear flat-footed and will take credit if crisis is averted."



North Korea is staying on high alert against the fast approaching Typhoon Bavi, which is forecast to make landfall on the country's western coast Wednesday or Thursday. It is feared to be more powerful than Typhoon Lingling that devastated large swaths of the country last summer.



State media earlier reported that the North issued a typhoon warning and evacuated ships on its west coast, while closely monitoring key industrial facilities to minimize the possibility of typhoon damage.



The typhoon comes as the country has already been facing multiple challenges, including the fallout from its protracted antivirus campaign and floods caused by recent heavy downpours.



North Korea has claimed to be coronavirus-free, but it keeps a high level of border control and quarantine, which appear to be taking a toll on its already fragile economy under the strain of crippling global sanctions.



Making matters worse is that it was hit hard by recent heavy downpours, which reportedly wrought havoc on its rice-producing areas, raising worries that its chronic food shortage problem could worsen.



Last week, leader Kim unusually acknowledged failure in implementing his five-year economic development plan, citing "severe" and "unexpected" challenges. He said that he will unveil a new development scheme in a rare party congress to be held in January.



The KCNA said that Kim presided over an Executive Policy Council meeting following the politburo session to discuss "practical issues" related to the plan to hold the January party congress. (Yonhap)


Primary school children and teachers in Denmark began their new school year on August 10, but many schools returned to classroom teaching in May, after a two-month lockdown. Despite little to no rise in coronavirus cases immediately after its spring reopening, schooling in Denmark is far from normal.

"I think people have to be careful of looking at Scandinavian countries as some gold standard," said Associate Profesor of Archaeology and Heritage in Aarhus University, Dr Laura McAtackney. She attributes the success of the spring reopenings to the low number of covid-19 cases at the time; "People often look at the reopening of Danish schools because it was quite successful to start with, but that was because there was very little influx from the wider community and that has changed. When you just push through reopenings [when COVID-19 cases are increasing] it simply doesn't work."

Her comments came after Denmark confirmed its highest number of cases in a day since April, with 168 confirmed cases in the country on August 14. Four days prior, 78 cases were confirmed in Aarhus, Denmark's second city, making up 50% of the day's total positive cases.

Extra guidelines were immediately introduced for the city; facemasks were made mandatory on public transport, higher classes in secondary schools ( gymnasier) were postponed for two weeks and visiting restrictions were introduced for nursing homes in the city.

Despite this, Laura says her university is prioritising new and international students and leaving staff members behind. She said: "The advice on the website is that you don't need a social isolation period, no matter where you come from. Basically, if you're a student and you're starting at the university, you can just come straight from the plane and walk into the classroom."

I think any Uni aiming for anything beyond hybrid is going to get a big wake up call very soon. The schools in DK reopened last week, 30 schools in my local city (about the size of Cork) have covid-19 cases and have been sending classes home to self-isolate. Within 1 week.  Dr Laura McAtackney (@LMcAtackney) August 19, 2020

Describing herself as frustrated and nervous, Laura believes the opinions of staff have been "completely ignored" and the benefits of hybrid learning are not being explored enough; "Teaching online has its benefits - you have to engage when the screen is in your face and you're looking at a lecture, which you don't have to do when you're sitting in row z in a lecture hall".

The Belfast native lectures masters students and is due to return to the campus in two weeks.

Meanwhile, an Irish school counselor who has worked in Copenhagen for 20 years, John Lambert, has noticed some children with special needs have struggled with readjusting to school. "Some of the kids I work with are on the autism spectrum and they have been very nervous," he said.

Pupils and teachers are not required to wear facemasks in Denmark which "has been a big thing that has made it easier for those children".

More outdoor classes

Although masks are not mandatory in schools, class sizes have been cut in half with some classes being taught outside. Central government guidelines allow for staggered starting times and time changes in "the physical presence of school" if it does not give rise to "a greater need for care by the parents" - giving greater flexibility for older grades who can attend some classes online.

Central government guidelines have been adopted by local councils with some changes. In the school John works in, for example, a rigorous sanitizing routine is in place, as are separate entrances for each class and a near hourly outdoor break for fresh air.

Read More Education Minister Norma Foley 'confident' schools will reopen next week

John, who is originally from Shannon in Co Clare, works in a large school of "about 1,400 to 1,500 students" ranging from six to 15 years old. He says the staff and students have adapted well to the changes.

"If there are any signs that a child is ill, the rest of the class get tested immediately," he said. "You get your results in 24 hours usually, but as there's a spike now it takes two or three days".

John Lambert is originally from Shannon, Co. Clare but moved to Denmark 20 years ago.

Unfortunately, two of his students with special needs have not returned to mainstream education. "There are children who are cognitive and able to manage a normal school day, but they also have emotional challenges that make it hard for them." John says his two former students have now been enrolled in special needs schools.

After two months at home, in a safe environment, they just couldn't readapt...It could have been anything [that led them to transfer to a special needs school] but Covid definitely hasn't helped.

While the change in school routine can cause great difficulties, it can also teach children personal responsibility and independence. Damian McNamara moved to Denmark 17 years ago from Tallaght in Dublin and works as a social educator or 'pedagogue' in an international primary school in Copenhagen. He says that some of the rules introduced in accordance with health guidelines will continue after the pandemic. For example he said, "Parents used to drop their kids all the way up to the classroom, whereas now they can't. The younger ones have got confidence now - they know they can make their own way to the classroom".

In Damian's school, pupils must bring books and pens from home in order to reduce contact between staff and students. He explained: "If you didn't have your book with you and it was time to read, unfortunately, you have to sit there and be bored. Or if you forgot your pencil case you couldn't draw. By the end of the six weeks [of the last term], everyone had a book with them. Children took on that personal responsibility".

Despite the enormous challenge of keeping children two metres apart, Damian thinks it taught his pupils a bigger life lesson.

"They learned about personal space; you'd to tell them you can't hug or kiss or wrestle their friends like they used to. But they also learned that it's not about you right now, it's about a bigger picture. I think it was the first time that they understood what it felt like to be part of a bigger group."
T he scientist leading Oxford Universitys coronavirus vaccine development has warned of an increasing risk of outbreaks spreading from animals to people.

Professor Sarah Gilbert said human activity is driving the rising threat, adding the risk is unlikely to diminish in the future as globalisation continues.

"Greater population density, greater travel, deforestation  all of these things make it more likely that these outbreaks will happen and then something will spread," she told The Independent.

"Because of the way things have been going in the world, its more likely well have zoonotic infections causing outbreaks in the future."

Most researchers believe Covid-19 emerged in bats and infected humans via another animal, probably in a market in Wuhan, China.

Wuhan lifts Coronavirus lockdown - In pictures 1 /20 Wuhan lifts Coronavirus lockdown - In pictures A medical worker from China's Jilin Province, in red, embraces a colleague from Wuhan as she prepares to return home at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport AP A pilot leans out of the cockpit window to wave goodbye before the China Eastern airlines flight, the first domestic flight from Wuhan that resumed service after travel restrictions to leave the capital of Hubei province and China's epicentre of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak were lifted, takes off from Wuhan Tianhe International Airport to Sanya Reuters A medical staff member from Jilin Province tears up during a ceremony before leaving as Tianhe Airport is reopened in Wuhan AFP via Getty Images Passengers wearing face masks and suits to protect against the spread of new coronavirus walk past a display screen at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport i AP A passenger wearing a face mask is seen in the counter at the Tianhe Airport after it was reopened today AFP via Getty Images People wearing protective clothing and masks arrive at Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan AFP via Getty Images Travellers wearing protective gear ride an escalator at Wuchang Railway Station before travel restrictions to leave Wuhan Reuters Medical staff from Jilin Province (in red) hug nurses from Wuhan after working together during the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak during a ceremony before leaving as Tianhe Airport is reopened in Wuhan AFP via Getty Images Medical workers from China's Jilin Province react as they prepare to return home at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport AP A man wearing protective gear gets through security check at Wuchang Railway Station before travel restrictions to leave Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and China's epicentre of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak are lifted Reuters A woman wearing a face mask to protect against the spread of coronavirus puts a poncho on a child at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan AP Bullet trains at a station in preparation for resuming operations after authorities lifted a more than two-month ban on outbound travel, in Wuhan AFP via Getty Images People wait for the train at the Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan as travel restrictions for leaving the city, the epicentre of a global coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, are lifted and people will be allowed to leave the city via road, rail and air Reuters A train staff member stands on a high-speed train at Wuhan's Hankou Railway Station Reuters People wait for the train at the Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan as travel restrictions for leaving the city, the epicentre of a global coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, are lifted and people will be allowed to leave the city via road, rail and air Reuters

Officials from the World Health Organisation have grilled scientists in the region about the origins of the virus after the body launched an investigation into the start of the pandemic.

Other deadly diseases such as Ebola, Sars and the West Nile Virus have also originated in animals.

The Oxford project is awaiting results of phase three trials of its vaccine and, if a high level of efficacy is proven, the team hopes it could be available be the end of the year.

Oxfords pharmaceutical partner in the project, AstraZeneca, has committed to producing two billion doses by next summer.

Coronavirus in numbers: Global cases top 25 million

The vaccine is being trialled in tens of thousands of volunteers in the UK, South Africa, Brazil and the US.

Ministers have already ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine to be rushed out in the UK if it gets the all-clear.

Other vaccines in development have entered into the same stage, and Professor Gilbert said there was a very good chance some would prove effective.

"Weve seen good levels of neutralising antibodies, were seeing strong T cell responses from some of them. If this works, other vaccines will also work. We expect there to be multiple vaccines," she told the paper.
Owner of 9ine Ultra Lounge reacts after shooting occurs near his business KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -- Police in Kansas City said they still have a lot of questions about what led up to a shooting overnight. Four people were shot in the same parking lot where a gunman opened fire back in January and hit 15 people.

We'll continue to follow-up on this story but for now, here's the word from the club honcho . . . Read more:
Insurance adjusters who descended on Cedar Rapids, Iowa, after the Aug. 10 derecho storm are using drones to check roofs and asking homeowners with less severe damage to take their own photos.

Some of this is due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has reduced the number of experienced adjusters willing to travel. But the changes also help speed up claims and get repairs done sooner, company representatives said.

Drones or aerial imaging helps them estimate the claims, said Scott Hauptman, vice president for claims for Grange Insurance, of Columbus, Ohio, which is working with Integrity Insurance, of Appleton, Wis., to handle at least 500 storm-related claims in Cedar Rapids. Its as efficient as possible and helps them (adjusters) safeguard their health.

Cedar Rapids officials told The Gazette that 140 buildings are too damaged to be occupied. Several hundred more have non-structural or cosmetic damage.

Before buildings can be fixed and people can return to their homes, insurance companies must document the damage and determine how the loss will be covered.

Many insurance companies have sent catastrophic teams to Eastern Iowa. Nationwide Insurance, for example, stationed some at the Home Depot on First Avenue SE in Cedar Rapids.

Really the biggest thing weve found in Cedar Rapids, due to lack of internet and power, is they (homeowners) werent sure if they had a claim filed or not, said Courtney Kannas, property field claims manager for a Nationwide team that covers Iowa, Nebraska and parts of Kansas and Missouri. If they didnt have a claim filed, we could do that for them. We also could give them a high-level understanding of their policies.

Integrity adjusters recently sent a drone over the Wired Production Groups building on N Towne Lane in Cedar Rapids to get a better look at a roof that was peeled off and a crumbled back wall.

This 12,000-square-foot building is a total loss, said Ron Rausch, Wired Production president and owner. They (Integrity) brought a structural engineer in here to document that was the case.

An adjuster also looked at millions of dollars in cameras and other equipment Wired Production uses to stage events for many Eastern Iowa companies, including The Gazette. When the roof was ripped off, rain and water from broken water mains flooded the offices and ruined much of the gear, Rausch said. The firm is setting up operations temporarily in Dubuque until the Cedar Rapids site is rebuilt.

They were very amenable to letting us start the cleanup process and work with people we want to, Rausch said of the insurance company.

State Farm, the first insurer to get Federal Aviation Administration approval to operate drones over people, has been using drones to gather information on Cedar Rapids claims, spokeswoman Tammi Estes said.

Nationwide hasnt been using drones in Cedar Rapids because of the challenges of photographing around fallen trees, Kannas said, but the company is encouraging policy holders with minor damage to photograph the property and submit claims online.

It gives us a better picture right away as to the extent of the damage they have to their home so we can get them emergency reimbursement or set them up with temporarily housing a little quicker, she said.

A Washington, D.C., law firm said in a news release that homeowners and businesses hit by the derecho will face challenges in getting adequate reimbursement.

Weisbrod Matteis & Copley, which represents homeowners in lawsuits against insurers, pointed to an Aug. 4 webinar with insurance executives who said many older adjusters were reluctant to go out in the field because of risk of contracting coronavirus.

Some insurance companies also have struggled to get adjusters into states that require quarantines for visitors.

After battling the insurance industry after Katrina, I fear that Iowans will be left at the mercy of a B team of insurance adjusters, Jim Hood, a former Mississippi Attorney General who now works for the law firm, said in a statement. Storm victims will need to quickly document their damages with drones, pictures and lists of damaged items.

One insurance executive on the webinar said he thought fewer adjusters in the field would increase fraud.

I do have some concerns we are going to have to do more virtual adjusting, said Jed Rhoads, president and chief underwriting officer for Markel Global Reinsurance, based in Virginia. If were adjusting claims through satellite imagery or drones or handheld devices, it could lead to new additional types of fraud.

People could doctor drone or cellphone images or charge a company additional costs to procure the photos.

Integrity Insurance has been allowing virtual adjusting for several years, Hauptman said, and has developed strategies for detecting fraud.

We have means on the back end to authenticate the pictures to make sure the time and location are appropriate, he said. The vast majority of our customers are great people. If there is fraud in an industry, that affects everyones rates.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Carriers Catastrophe Natural Disasters Claims Fraud Windstorm Homeowners Iowa
Iran maintains a principled position regarding the territorial integrity of Ukraine and stresses the need to comply with international norms, Iranian Ambassador to Ukraine Manouchehr Moradi has said in an interview with Ukrinform.

"Despite the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran has very close relations with Russia and that we have been neighbors for hundreds of years, Iran maintains its principled position on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, including on the territorial integrity of Ukraine From the very beginning of this crisis, we have taken a clear position that the contradictions between Russia and Ukraine must be resolved within the framework of international laws and norms on a bilateral basis. In the matter of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, we emphasize the need to comply with international norms, and this was announced as our official position. This is a formulation that is perceived at the international level without our interference in certain nuances of the positions and claims of the parties," the diplomat said.

He noted that Iran's position on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was "principled and consistent with international rules and norms."

When asked what he thinks about the persecution of Crimean Tatars by Russia in the occupied Crimea on religious grounds, the Iranian ambassador stressed that he did not have complete information on this issue. "To announce my point of view, I need to study this issue more," Moradi said.

ish
Bridget Jones-Curtis, 49, also was born and raised in Cameron, and after Laura passed through, she found her home on a satellite image and was pleased to see it was one of the few in town still standing. But when she arrived here and saw it Sunday, she immediately noticed what the satellite couldn't: An entire side of her house wasobliterated. Water had poured into the open wall, and wind gusts took most of her things.
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The level of economic performance in any country greatly helps to influence how strong the nations currency is.



If the economy is strong and can withstand external shocks, it will be able to stabilize its currency. On the other hand, if it is a weak economy, it will not be able to withstand external shocks, and this will go to affect the value of the currency.



What makes a powerful and strong currency greatly depends on the rate of international market demand, and this explains why we need to understand the use of the US dollar and the British pound as standard currencies for measuring other currencies.



Indeed, a global currency is one that can be used for all kinds of transactions in the world. As an example, the US dollar is used in foreign exchange transactions worldwide.



It constitutes 64 per cent of all foreign exchange transactions worldwide, and it is for this reason that the US currency is used as a standard for measuring other currencies within this context.



It must be understood that the Ghanaian cedi is also performing very well, especially when weighed against the US dollar.



In Africa, the strongest currencies are the Libyan dinar followed by Tunisian dinar and the Ghanaian cedi, in that order.



Indeed, Ghana is the only West African country among the top five currencies in Africa.



According to available information from the African business experts, Business Insider, the cedi is more valuable because of the countrys GDP per capita, which is also the largest in West Africa. The Moroccan dirham and Botswanas pula follow in the fourth and fifth positions respectively.



All these go to show that the Ghanaian economy is not as bad as one might think, in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has devastated many economies in the world.



The Ghanaian economy, having spent huge sums to offer help to the people in terms of supply of free water and electricity, free SHS and other huge expenditures in the form of packages for people in the country, is still relatively strong.



The cedi has been able to withstand external pressure compared to other countries in Africa and the rest of the world.



This shows that government economic policies are on the right path and must be rigidly continued to ensure that, as much as possible, things improve for the better.



With carefully thought-out economic policies and their implementation, it is expected that the country will soon become the leading or strongest economy in Africa.



Already, Ghanas economy is one of the fastest-growing economies not in Africa alone, but also in the world as a whole.



The country is able to do this because of its export-oriented policies like Planting for Food and Jobs and other good policies.



The people of this country will need to support such policies, so as to ensure that the ultimate purpose of economic growth is attained for the benefit of everyone in the country.



This is how we can make socioeconomic life comfortable for everyone in the country.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The government has increased the supply of livestock for breeding under the Rearing for Food and Jobs (RFJ) component of the flagship agricultural programme, Planting for Food and Jobs.



From the initial 105,000 improved breed of livestock offered at its inception in June last year, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) is set to provide 929,000 more before the end of the year.



In an interview with the Daily Graphic, a Minister of State at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Dr Nurah Gyeile, said the RFJ programme was meant to address the countrys deficit in meat production.



The launch



The government launched the RFJ in Wa in the Upper West Region in June last year and made available imported improved breeds of livestock including sheep, goats and guinea fowls and cockerels for cross-breeding with local stocks.



Dr Gyeile said not only had the numbers been scaled up this year, but the variety of animals had also been increased to include piglets, layers and broilers while the number of beneficiary districts and farmers had also been increased.



He said the programme was meant to develop a more competitive and efficient livestock sector to increase domestic meat production.



Distribution



Giving details, Dr Gyeile said 7,500 sheep were imported from Burkina Faso last year and supplied to 20 districts in the northern savannah zone, with each district receiving 400 sheep for distribution to 40 farmers.



He said further that the ministry was set to distribute 23,000 sheep this year for the northern savannah zone of the country in 31 districts for 1,200 farmers, while 45,000 cockerels would be shared among 4,500 households.



The cockerels, he said, were meant for household rearing, adding that 7,500 cockerels were imported from Europe last year and shared among 750 farmer households in the northern savannah zone of the country.



He said there was no distribution of piglets for the southern zone last year because of the outbreak of the swine flu disease in the second half of the year. Under the circumstances, only 22,500 cockerels were supplied to 2,250 households.



Commercial production



In addition, Dr Gyeile said 130,000 guinea fowls would be given out to 13 districts in the northern savannah zone to cover 130 commercial farmers, while 100,000 broilers would be alloted to 200 farmers in 10 districts.



Furthermore, he said, 120,000 layers would be distributed among 1,000 women in 20 districts in the northern savannah zone while 240,000 layers would be shared to women farmers in the southern zone.



The minister said the southern zone would also receive 10,000 improved breed of piglets that had been introduced into the country some years ago. He said the animals would be given out to 2,000 farmers in 40 districts while 71,000 cockerels would be spread among 71 districts.



Expected impact



He expressed the hope that with the heavy injection of layers and broilers, we can produce four million birds every six weeks.







Source: Graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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As part of the activities of the Regional Vice-Chair of the Americas and Caribbean Region, Mr. Werner Ovalle, Director General of Guatemala Customs and Customs Intendant of the Superintendency of Tax Administration of Guatemala, held a virtual meeting on 20 August 2020 with Mr. Ricardo Trevino Chapa, Deputy Secretary General of the World Customs Organization (WCO). Directors General and representatives of the regions Members such as Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Panama, Peru, the United States and Uruguay also participated in the meeting.

During the meeting, the WCO Deputy Secretary General related some of the actions that were being carried out by the WCO Secretariat during the COVID-19 crisis in line with the following three main objectives under the Organizations Strategic Plan, namely: (i) development of international standards, involving work on electronic commerce, contingency plans in crisis situations and revision of the Basic Guide to the management of high-risk products, among other items to be discussed during the upcoming virtual working sessions; (ii) CustomstoCustoms cooperation, involving WCO-led operations with the support of WCO Members; and (iii) capacity building, in pursuing a virtual approach and the required investment, infrastructure and connectivity, together with the need to update the accreditation system for experts, among other aspects, that this process entails.

The Vice-Chair highlighted the work done by the WCO during the COVID-19 crisis and called for an open dialogue among participants, emphasizing the actions carried out in the field of regional integration through the development of initiatives, virtual programmes to promote knowledge and the strengthening of WCO tools, and capacity building delivery to Customs administrations.

The participating Customs Directors exchanged experiences and highlighted the importance of cross-border E-Commerce as a tool to promote the economic recovery of the countries in the region, thus providing an opportunity to share the best practices adopted by the WCO in this field.

Among other strategic actions, monitoring the AEO Mutual Recognition Arrangements, in which 11 Customs administrations of the region participate, also plays an important role in economic recovery, as well as strengthening the coordination and action plans of the Regional Office of Capacity Building (ROCB) and Regional Training Centres (RTCs), ensuring the accreditation of experts from the region, promoting technical cooperation between Customs administrations as well as providing support for the Regional Private Sector Group (RPSG). Participants also agreed to continue promoting the use of the Spanish language in the WCO working bodies.
More diseases with pandemic potential are likely to jump from animals to humans in the near future because of modern lifestyles, a top professor warned today.

Sarah Gilbert, the brains behind Oxford University's Covid-19 vaccine, said rising world travel and growing populations are driving up the risk of outbreaks of zoonotic infections.

Animal-borne diseases have become more common in recent years because of intense farming for meat and deforestation, which both put animals in closer proximity with each other and to humans.

Professor Gilbert said the current pandemic highlighted how international travel exacerbates the spread of these viruses and bigger populations make them harder to eradicate.

Covid-19's exact origin is currently unknown, but the consensus is that it originated in bats before jumping to another animal which then passed it to people.

Professor Gilbert, a vaccinologist at Oxford's Jenner Institute, told The Independent: 'Because of the way things have been going in the world, it's more likely we'll have zoonotic infections causing outbreaks in the future.

'Greater population density, greater travel, deforestation  all of these things make it more likely that these outbreaks will happen and then something will spread.'

Sarah Gilbert, the brains behind Oxford University's Covid vaccine, said rising world travel and growing populations drove up the risk of outbreaks of zoonotic infections

Covid-19's exact origin is currently unknown, but the consensus is that it originated in bats before jumping to another animal which then passed it to people (stock image)

WHAT ARE ZOONOTIC DISEASES? Zoonotic diseases are those that are able to pass from vertebrate animals such as mammals, fish, birds and reptiles, to humans. The infecting agent - called a pathogen - in these diseases is able to cross the species border and still survive. They range in potency, and are often less dangerous in one species than they are in another. In order to be successful they rely on long and direct contact with different animals. Covid-19 (suspected) Covid-19 is the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. It already has had its genome compared to the genetic sequences of more than 200 other coronaviruses from around the world that infect various animals. SARS-CoV-2 appears to be a recent mix, or genetic recombination, of coronaviruses. As a result of this recombination, one of the proteins of SARS-CoV-2 enables the virus to enter the cells of humans. Other research has shown the virus to be 96 per cent identical to a previously identified bat coronavirus, with a common ancestor about 50 years ago. It is hypothesized that this is the origin of the unknown pathway that resulted in the transmission of SARSCoV-2 to humans in 2019. Research points towards pangolins as a possible bridge between bats and humans, but this has not been proven. SARS SARS-CoV, the coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, was first reported in China in February 2003 and likely originated from bats, probably then spreading to other animals (likely civet cats) and then to humans. The illness then spread to more than two dozen countries in North America, South America, Europe and Asia before it II was contained. Over 8,000 cases were reported and nearly 800 people died of the disease. Since 2004 there have not been any reported cases. MERS The coronavirus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and has a higher mortality rate than SARS. MERS-CoV can occur zoonotically from human contact with camels but has secondary cycles of spread from ill people to other people through close contact. To date, there have been around 2,500 laboratory confirmed cases mostly human to human, of which more than one third proved fatal. Sporadic cases continue to occur as the infection remains present in dromedary camels. Advertisement

Covid-19 has proven to be the most deadly and contagious zoonotic disease, having claimed the lives of 850,000 people globally and infected more than 25million.

But other deadly examples include Ebola, which originated in monkeys, MERS, which emerged in camels, the mosquito-borne West Nile Virus and rabies, mainly found in dogs. Every year two million people  mostly in poor countries  die of zoonotic disease.

It comes after a United Nations report in July warned the number of outbreaks of such infections will continue to increase unless conservation work is done to protect wildlife.

A 'zoonotic disease' is one that is able to be transmitted from a vertebrate animal  such as a mammal, bird, reptile or fish  to a human.

Professor Delia Randolph, a veterinary epidemiologist and lead author of the UN report, described a 'very clear trend' since the 1930s that showed that 75 per cent of emerging human diseases stemmed from wildlife.

Destruction of animals' habitats forces them into closer contact with humans, raising the risk of disease transmission.

Climate change can contribute to this by making extreme weather events like flooding more common, driving animals out of their homes.

In Madagascar, for example, the bubonic plague is spread by rodents fleeing wildfires, which are becoming more common as the Earth heats up.

Human activity also often breaks down the natural barriers which protect humans from disease pathogens, according to the UNEP.

A major transmission route between the environment and humans is through the hunting and eating of wild, exotic animals.

Illegal wildlife trade can see a range of live animals, including bats, come into close proximity with people in markets.

Snakes, beavers, porcupines and baby crocodiles were among the species for sale at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, which was originally believed to have been the epicentre of the Covid crisis.

But the jury is still out on whether the disease actually originated there after international scientists investigating the cause of the outbreak found no evidence of disease at the maligned market.

There is now growing speculation that the virus may have accidentally spilled out of a biochemical laboratory in Wuhan city.

The theory has been fuelled in part by US President Donald Trump, who said he had been handed evidence by the US intelligence community showing this was the case.

Professor Gilbert announced this week that data for her team's Covid-19 vaccine - called AZD1222 - would be presented to regulators soon.

The Oxford project is awaiting results of phase three trials of its vaccine and, if a high level of efficacy is proven, the team hopes it could be available be the end of the year.

Oxford's pharmaceutical partner in the project, AstraZeneca, has committed to producing two billion doses by next summer.

The vaccine is being trialled in tens of thousands of volunteers in the UK, South Africa, Brazil and the US.

Other vaccines in development around the world have entered into the same stage, and Professor Gilbert said there was a 'very good chance' some would prove effective.

'We've seen good levels of neutralising antibodies, we're seeing strong T cell responses from some of them. If this works, other vaccines will also work. We expect there to be multiple vaccines,' she told the paper.
Japan's chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga attends a press conference at the Prime Minister's office in Tokyo, Monday. AFP-Yonhap



By Nam Hyun-woo



Following Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's resignation, attention is being paid to the future of a trade dispute between South Korea and Japan, which has lasted since last year.



Analysts and researchers said Monday two country's trade relations will be reshaped depending on who succeeds Abe, but echoed that a drastic change over the short term is unlikely, given the conservative swing of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Korea's firm stance regarding history issues with Japan.



According to Japanese media reports, three men are being mentioned as major contenders to succeed Abe as leader of the LDP and therefore prime minister  Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and LDP policy chief Fumio Kishida.



Of them, Suga is emerging as the top pick. Described as Abe's "right-hand man," the 71-year-old has secured the backing of influential members in the party upon announcing his candidacy to LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai, Friday.



Regarding his diplomatic stance toward Korea, experts have contradicting views.



"The chief cabinet secretary is the Japanese government's top spokesperson and leads the management of the Cabinet. Given this, it can be assumed that Suga has the same views as Abe, thus there will likely be no drastic changes in the current trade relations between Korea and Japan," Kim Gyu-pan, a researcher at the Korea Institute of Economic Policy, told The Korea Times.



In August last year, Japan removed Korea from its whitelist, a list of preferred trade partners. Prior to this, Tokyo placed export restrictions on three materials  photoresist, etching gas and fluorinated polyimide  needed by semiconductor manufacturers here. This was interpreted as politically motivated retaliation to Korea's Supreme Court ruling that ordered Japanese firms to compensate surviving Korean victims forced to work for them before and after World War II.



Following these trade restrictions, Korea filed complaints with the World Trade Organization, which has set up a panel to look into them after the two countries showed little progress in addressing the dispute in talks.



"On the other hand, there are views that Suga is a pro-Korea and proChina politician." Kim said. This view is convincing because Suga is backed by LDP Secretary-General Nikai, who is also known to have a dovish approach to Korea and China and is one of the most influential members in the party."



Experts said the remaining contenders are also anticipated to take similar path set by Abe in terms of diplomacy. Former Defense Minister Ishiba is an ardent critic of Abe, but is anticipated to take a hawkish approach given LDP's conservative swing. LDP policy chief Kishida is a former foreign minister under Abe and is anticipated to enhance Abe's hardline approach in addressing the Korea-Japan relations.



"Unless Kishida becomes prime minister, there will be no extreme situations such as the trade restrictions last year," Kim said.





Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and her Japanese counterpart Taro Kono head to their seats after shaking hands ahead of a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum in Bangkok, Thailand, in this Aug. 1, 2019, photo. Yonhap
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By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 08/31/2020



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[ Spoiler Warning: This report includes spoilers that reveal if Tim and Melyza are still together or if the couple have broken up.]

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Are Tim and Melyza still together or has the : The Other Way couple split?

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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

couple Tim Clarkson and Melyza Zeta are trying to rebuild their relationship after Tim cheated as shown on Season 2 of : The Other Way, so did Tim and Melyza buckle under pressure and break up or is the couple still together now?Tim, a 34-year-old from Dallas, TX, and Melyza, a 29-year-old from Colombia, met when Tim was enrolled in school at the University of Ohio. They met at a bar where Tim worked in college, and he thought Melyza was "absolutely gorgeous."Tim said he has "no game" but Melyza probably liked him since he's goofy and funny.Melyza was working as an au pair in Iowa and learning English when they met, and he said it didn't take long for them to fall in love. However, Melyza had to move to Boston a week after they met in order to take another job as an au pair.The pair continued dating, but then Melyza returned to Colombia to "finish her studies," according to Tim.It didn't take long for Tim to grow tired of dating long distance. He also said the couple was struggling with "some insanely tough things.""The main reason I decided to move there is -- I actually cheated on her," Tim admitted to his friends one week before his scheduled flight to Colombia.When Melyza traveled to the United States before on a Tourist Visa for about six months, Tim said the plan was to propose marriage to her but he ended up cheating on her a month before her arrival.Tim explained in a confessional, "Last year, the distance between me and Melyza at that time was very difficult. I felt lonely. And the girl that I ultimately cheated with was a co-worker. It just started off as casual conversation and it got to a point to where we did have a full-out, intimate sexual encounter."Tim recalled that Melyza "had her suspicions" when she came to visit him in the United States."She noticed with my social media that something was up and prompted her to start digging, and she eventually confronted me about it," Tim told the cameras. "After that, we started arguing all the time."Tim hoped he could prove his commitment to Melyza, saying she was "worth" the sacrifice of leaving his life in America behind."There's no way I expect her to trust me or believe me again, but everything I'm doing right now, I'm genuine about. And I genuinely want to do all of the right things to redeem myself and to just deserve her again," Tim cried to the cameras.Tim wanted to be more vulnerable with Melyza once they reunited in Colombia, but he noted it had been a while since he last heard Melyza tell him, "I love you."Tim said he needed things to be happy in the relationship as well, which he felt guilty to say considering he had been the unfaithful person.As for Melyza, she said she had envisioned herself marrying and having children with Tim prior to the cheating incident."I found out that he cheated on me. I never in a million years thought that he's the kind of person who cheats -- ever," Melyza explained in a confessional."The pain I was going through completely consumed me. I was angry and upset, but I love him and have been with him for years now, so he kind of deserves a second chance."But Tim also had to win back the support and approval of Melyza's parents. While Melyza had yet to inform her father of Tim's betrayal, Melyza's mother was furious at Tim and lost all trust in him."It makes me upset obviously, because I doubt that he can win my mom back. But I do think it's worth a try, so I am still hoping for the best," Melyza said.She later added, "When we tell [my dad], I think he's going to completely lose respect for Tim. And I think he's gonna be really heartbroken obviously, because he really, really loves Tim."Tim noted it would be like "a death sentence" if Melyza's parents stopping liking him or didn't approve of their relationship.While the pair had a sweet and happy reunion in Colombia, it didn't take long for Melyza to bring up their issues.Tim told Melyza he didn't come clean to her after cheating because Melyza would've gotten extremely angry with him and maybe would have left him entirely."You keep telling me to be open and honest with you, but then every time I am, you just break up with me. So that prevented me from being open and honest with you," Tim said.Melyza complained Tim was being "selfish" and trying to blame his mistakes on her. Melyza didn't appreciate Tim being manipulative by making her feel bad about wanting to know the truth."This conversation puts doubts in my mind. It's been over a year, and I thought we discussed this at nauseam. The fact that she still feels like she needs to know the same things, I don't know if we're ever going to get past that," Tim told the cameras.To make matters worse, Tim spoke to Melyza's father man-to-man and confessed he had been with another woman -- and Melyza's father seemed horrified."Badly done man. We opened the doors of our home so that you could live with us. And well, for this to happen? That's no good in my book," Melyza's father responded, adding that he felt Tim was playing with his heart and playing with his daughter's heart.Melyza's dad said he had looked at Tim like a son and "all that image has changed."Tim believed he had killed his relationship with Melyza's father, and he cried, saying that really hurt. Melyza told her dad that she wanted to work on her relationship despite the obstacle, but her father said, "The healthiest thing would be to break up.""Love is based on trust. When trust is lost, as much love there is, nothing else is left," Melyza's dad said.Tim set out to prove he was serious about rebuilding his relationship with Melyza after being unfaithful to her, so he headed to an employment agency in the hope of starting a life and career in Colombia."Once I do find a job, that would boost my confidence immensely -- just knowing I can truly take care of us so we can focus on our issues," Tim told the cameras.Tim was told at an employment agency he needed a worker's permit in order to get a job or a visa or a residency card. He discovered the easiest way to get a job would be to marry a woman who could obtain all the legal paperwork for him."Hearing her say getting married is the easier option is very unfortunate because I don't think that's on Melyza's radar or mine right now. It's one more hurdle to cross that I wasn't anticipating," Tim admitted.Tim hasn't posted anything of Melyza on Instagram since June, and there is no sign of Tim on Melyza's Instagram page in recent months, except for a couple of old photos dating back to 2014.Melyza and Tim, however, still follow each other on social media, and Tim hinted he still had some type of relationship with her back in late June.Tim shared how he and Melyza were bracing themselves for their TLC debut on : The Other Way's second season by posting a video clip of the couple's story in late June."Tonight is the night. Our first episode," Tim captioned the video. "Melyza and I are feeling nervous and excited that tonight is our first episode that we will FINALLY appear @melyzazeta."When a fan wrote she was "rooting" for Tim and Melyza to be together, another one of Tim's followers asked, "Why?"Tim replied, "Bc she recognizes that I messed up and I am a dork BUT even dorks deserve redemption."Tim has tagged Melyza in a meme or two in recent months, according to In Touch Weekly, but his last photo with Melyza was from late February.Tim posted an Instagram photo with Melyza in Brazil next to a giant sculpture that reads, "I [Heart] Medellin."Meanwhile, Melyza hasn't posted a photo with Tim on her Instagram account since July 2017.On July 26, Melyza also apparently threw some shade at Tim when she shared a video of Tim recalling his affair."My eyes are light-sensitive, [which] makes me blink a lot. But, no worries, I can still see through the BS," Melyza wrote in the caption.Tim told the Dallas Observer in June that he wasn't looking for a serious relationship when he met Melyza."When I laid eyes on her for the first time it was obviously someone who was very gorgeous, but she also had this kind of aura to her. I knew I had to try," Tim noted, although Melyza lived in Colombia."The Catch-22 is that you might be pursuing something for longer than you would have otherwise because you've invested more in the long-distance relationship."When choosing to sign up for the spinoff, Tim admitted, "We didn't know how it would affect our relationship. We knew the audience would be able to see us for better or for worse... I never saw myself as being on TV, especially reality TV, because of the negative stereotypes."Tim also teased during his interview fans would see a lot of "growth" come from Tim and Melyza separately as well as a couple."I think [the viewers] start out with preconceived notions and I think how it progresses will make them think differently," Tim shared. "Not just from the perspective of our story, but also from the self-reflection that they'll have."While Tim didn't disclose his relationship status with Melyza at the time, he told the Dallas Observer that appearing on actually benefited his relationship in surprising ways."It really kind of made us analyze and examine our relationship in a much more positive fashion than I thought we would have been able to do," Tim said.He added, "One of the things I do like about this is that there are people out there who can find similarities to my story or her [Melyza's] story... I was 100% myself."Tim concluded his interview by saying the couple's story is "all true" and "valid."Want more spoilers or couples updates? Click here to visit our homepage!
Donald Trump bashed Portland as a Democratic city 'entirely ablaze' as he claimed Monday that he could put a stop to nationwide unrest if liberal mayors and governors would allow him to deploy the National Guard to cities experiencing looting, arson, murder and rioting.

'We could solve that problem in approximately one hour. But the mayor refuses. Perhaps for political reasons  I don't know why it's good for him to have a city that's falling apart,' Trump said of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler as his city continues to experience some of the worst of the Black Lives Matter rioting.

'To the mayor I say: Whenever you're ready let us know. We'll solve your problem of violence, we'll solve your problem of crime,' the president said during a White House briefing Monday evening in regards to deploying the National Guard. 'We'll arrest those criminals very rapidly and you'll be able to have some nice evenings in Portland.'

'The wave of violence and destruction that we've have seen in recent weeks and months is occurred in cities exclusively controlled and dominated by the Biden  Joe Biden Party,' Trump said, claiming the top 10 cities experiencing violence are Democrat-run.

President Donald Trump said Monday that Portland, Oregon is 'entirely ablaze' because Democratic leadership there won't allow the National Guard to come in and quell rioters

'We could solve that problem in approximately one hour. But the mayor refuses. Perhaps for political reasons  I don't know why it's good for him to have a city that's falling apart,' Trump said of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler. 'To the mayor I say: Whenever you're ready let us know. We'll solve your problem of violence, we'll solve your problem of crime'

Portland is one of the cities hardest hit by rioting, arson and looting in the midst of months-long Black Lives Matter protests and riots sparked in May after the death of black man George Floyd while in police custody

The riots continued over the weekend after a fresh incident  where a cop shot black man Jacob Blake seven times  reignited the unrest

Trump touted that he was able to stop the violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Blake was shot, after he insisted the National Guard be deployed there

Trump alluded that the unrest is indicative of what America would look like under a Joe Biden presidency. 'The wave of violence and destruction that we've have seen in recent weeks and months is occurred in cities exclusively controlled and dominated by the Biden  Joe Biden Party'

A counter-protester part of a pro-Trump caravan over the weekend was targeted, shot and killed in the midst of the riots. Trump defended the counter-protesters during his briefing Monday.

'These people protested peacefully,' Trump said. 'They went in very peacefully.'

'I'll tell you what they're protesting  they're protesting when they turn on the television, or read whatever they may be reading and they see a city like Chicago where 78 people were shot and 13 died,' he lamented. 'Or a city like New York where the crime rate has gone through the roof. Or a city like Portland where the entire city is ablaze all the time  and the mayor says 'We don't want any help from the federal government.' These people turn on the TV and say, 'This is not our country. This is not our country.' Those are peaceful protests, totally.'

Trump also claimed the Democratic Party's goal is to 'destroy our country.'

'Biden is using mafia talking points. The mob will leave you alone if you give them what you want, that's what it is. That's what's happened with the Democrats. I actually think they've lost control of these radical left maniacs,' Trump said.

The president's comments come as he continues to push for the National Guard to be used to put a stop to the rioting and violence in cities across the country.

He has touted that the rioting in Kenosha, Wisconsin ended due to his insistence that the Guard be sent there following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black father of six.

Trump is also set to visit Kenosha on Tuesday, even after the Democratic Mayor John Antaramian and Democratic Governor of Wisconsin Tony Evers pleaded for the president to steer clear of the area as it recovers from several nights of rioting.

'My administration has a very different approach  we want states to work with us to deploy the National Guard to quell the unrest,' Trump said Monday after bashing Democrats for policies and actions he claims will exacerbate the violence.

'All they have to do is call us. We will have the National Guard  we're prepared. We're ready to go no matter where they may call from,' he continued. 'We're ready to move immediately as we did in Minneapolis, as we did  we are ready to move as quickly as you can imagine. Tomorrow I'm going to a place where we moved very quickly, you know that  in Wisconsin. We moved very, very quickly. And as soon as we moved that was the end of that. It was very well behaved.'

The president added in his rant to reporters Monday evening: 'We're ready, willing and able to help these Democrat-run cities that are doing pretty. They have to call and ask. All they have to do is call  they don't even have to put it in writing. We'll put it in writing later.'

'We'll get in there and straighten out the city very quickly  whichever city we may be talking about. So those governors that are responsible for a state that has a city that's got a lot of problems  call me, or the mayor can call me. And we'll be there very quickly,' he concluded.

Trump threatened earlier Monday on Twitter that he would send in the National Guard to Portland as he claimed credit for ending the violence in Kenosha.

'If I didn't INSIST on having the National Guard activate and go into Kenosha, Wisconsin, there would be no Kenosha right now,' Trump tweeted Monday morning. 'Also, there would have been great death and injury. I want to thank Law Enforcement and the National Guard. I will see you on Tuesday!'

Trump is taking credit for ending violence in Kenosha and reaffirmed Monday he still plans to make a trip to the city on Tuesday despite Democratic leaders urging him to steer clear of the area as it recovers from several nights of rioting, arson and looting

The president said he would move to federally mobilize troops to Portland if Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler doesn't do so on his own.

'Portland is a mess, and it has been for many years. If this joke of a mayor doesn't clean it up, we will go in and do it for them!' Trump said in another tweet Monday morning.

He added in another tweet: 'LAW & ORDER!'

A member of a right-wing group was shot and killed over the weekend in Portland during violent clashes between Black Live Matter protesters and a caravan of Trump supporters.

While unrest in Kenosha died down following days of burning, looting and rioting in the wake of a police shooting of Jacob Blake  the unrest flared up in other areas of the country, mainly Portland.

'The Radical Left Mayors & Governors of Cities where this crazy violence is taking place have lost control of their 'Movement',' Trump tweeted Monday. 'It wasn't supposed to be like this, but the Anarchists & Agitators got carried away and don't listen anymore - even forced Slow Joe out of basement!'

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has repeatedly voiced his condemnation of all violence, including the riots  and has demanded that President Trump do so as well.

'The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable,' Biden said in a statement Sunday. 'Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by any one, whether on the left or the right.'

'And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same,' he added.

Trump has not responded to that, but he still plans to make a trip to Kenosha on Tuesday to visit with law enforcement and potentially meet with Blake's family after Gov. Tony Evers pleaded for them not to visit the city in the midst of intense turmoil.

Reaffirmation of Trump's visit to Kenosha comes after massive protests broke out in Portland, Oregon over the weekend

The president threatened to deploy federal troops to Portland if their Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler does not do so. 'Portland is a mess, and it has been for many years,' Trump tweeted Monday morning along with calling Wheeler a 'joke'

The Portland riots over the weekend included a man shooting and killing a member of a right-wing organization as Black Lives Matter protesters clashed with a caravan of Trump supporters

Joey Gibson, founder and leader of right-wing group Patriot Prayer, paid tribute to Aaron 'Jay' Danielson (pictured) writing: 'We love Jay and he had such a huge heart. God bless him and the life he lived'

Video taken by bystanders showed the deadly incident that took down Danielson. The suspect under investigation following the fatal shooting has been named as 48-year-old Michael Forest Reinoehl, a father of two who describes himself as '100% ANTIFA'

Portland police hold back a man who was with the victim of Saturday night's fatal shooting minutes after the incident

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers sent a letter Sunday to Trump claiming the president is not welcome in Kenosha after the White House announced plans Saturday for a visit to the city. 'I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state,' he wrote in the letter

'There is a lot of listening we need to do in Kenosha and I worry that a visit from the president will delay this important work,' Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian said in a statement Sunday

Trump is running on a 'law and order' platform, claiming he is the president who will bring peace and the violence ensuing the country is what 'Biden's America' would look like

Trump also paid tribute on Sunday to Danielson, who also goes by Jay Bishop, in a retweet from Women for Trump co-founder Amy Kremer: 'Rest In Peace Jay!'

The White House said Sunday evening Trump still plans to make his visit despite Evers' sending a letter requesting he stay away.

'The White House has been humbled by the outreach of individuals from Kenosha who have welcomed the President's visit and are longing for leadership to support local law enforcement and businesses that have been vandalized,' Trump's Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere said.

He added: 'President Trump looks forward to visiting on Tuesday and helping this great city heal and rebuild.'

Evers, a Democrat, said Sunday in a letter to President Trump that he is not welcome in Kenosha.

He urged him to reconsider his trip, writing: 'I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state.'

Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian, also a Democrat, is hoping the president will not stop by his riot-torn city on Tuesday.

'While presidents are always welcome to come to this great city, this is not the best time for a visit,' Antaramian said in a statement Sunday. 'We are hurting today and we are focused on healing, coming together as a community and rebuilding. There is a lot of listening we need to do in Kenosha and I worry that a visit from the president will delay this important work.'

The reaffirmation of the president's visit to Kenosha comes as a Trump supporter was killed during massive riots in Portland over the weekend following Blake's shooting.

Portland, Oregon has been one of the largest sites of riots and violence in the fallout after George Floyd's death at the end of May.

The president threatened Monday morning to send in federal troops or deploy the National Guard to Portland if Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler doesn't do so on his own.

Trump unleashed a flurry of tweets and retweets the day after Aaron 'Jay' Danielson was shot and killed there as a large caravan of Trump supporters and Black Lives Matter protesters clashed in the city's streets.

Danielson was a member of Patriot Prayer, a right-wing group whose members have frequently clashed with protesters in Portland in the past, its founder, Joey Gibson, said Sunday.

He identified the victim as Aaron 'Jay' Danielson and called him a 'good friend,' but provided no details. Danielson apparently also went by the name Jay Bishop, according to Patriot Prayer's Facebook page.

The suspect under investigation following the fatal shooting of Danielson has been named as a dad-of-two who describes himself as '100% ANTIFA'.

Michael Forest Reinoehl, 48, was revealed by The Oregonian Sunday evening as someone police are investigating as the shooter who took down Danielson.

He had already been accused of taking a loaded gun to an earlier Portland protest and social media posts show him attending Black Lives Matter protests.

Donald Trump retweeted the victim's name on Sunday and wrote, 'Rest in peace Jay!'

Trump also blamed Democratic mayors and governors for the widespread violence, claiming they have 'lost control'

The Oregonian reports how professional snowboarder Reinoehl is under investigation after footage showed him leaving the scene. He is said to be estranged from most of his family, with his sister telling the paper: 'We reached out to police and confirmed that we recognized Michael in the screenshots [from the incident].'

'On the one hand, this whole thing surprises the daylights out of us, because we always thought he is a lot of bark, not a lot of bite. But he's also been very impulsive and irrational,' she added.

The White House announced Saturday that Trump will visit Kenosha on Tuesday following days of protests in the city after police shot black man Jacob Blake seven times in the back. They reconfirmed his trip Sunday evening, after Evers' letter was sent.

The governor wrote: 'I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.'

The White House announced Saturday that Trump will visit Wisconsin Tuesday to 'meet with law enforcement and survey damage from recent riots' in the fallout from Jacob Blake's shooting in Kenosha

Blake, who is a father of six, has been left paralyzed after cops shot him seven times in the back as he entered his car last Sunday

'It is our job as elected officials to lead by example and to be a calming presence for the people we know are hurting, mourning, and trying to cope with trauma. Now is not the time for divisiveness,' Evers continued.

He added: 'Now is not the time for elected officials to ignore armed militants and out-of-state instigators who want to contribute to our anguish.'

Trump will be meeting with law enforcement officers and 'surveying' the damage in the city, where businesses have been vandalized and some buildings burned during demonstrations, White House spokesman Judd Deere announced.

Local Republicans have pushed back against pleas from Democrats for the president to steer clear of the area. They claim it's a double standard for Evers to visit the city, which he did on Thursday, and then accusing Trump of having political motivations with his visit.

'They should not talk like that when Kenosha has had the devastation it's had since Sunday,' said Erin Decker, a county board supervisor and chair of the local Republican Party chapter. 'Nobody said Evers coming to Kenosha was political. I think it might bring up the morale of the people of Kenosha.'

Trump is also trying to set up a meeting with Blake's family during his trip Tuesday after the shooting victim's father said the president should have called earlier this week and his mother says she missed his call.

In a letter addressed to the president, Democrat Evers urged him to reconsider the trip, writing: 'I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state.'

Disturbing images show the wide swaths of Kenosha, Wisconsin, that have been ripped apart and burned to the ground during riots over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. The aerial photo above shows damage to several businesses downtown

The remains of cars burned during a night of unrest are seen on a used car lot in Kenosha Thursday

An incendiary device goes off in front of a Kenosha Country Sheriff Vehicle as demonstrators take part in a protest Tuesday

The president's daughter-in-law Lara Trump revealed to Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace that Trump has reached out to Blake's family and wants to meet with them this week.

Earlier Sunday, Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, also expressed concerns about the visit.

'I don't know how, given any of the previous statements that the president made, that he intends to come here to be helpful. And we absolutely don't need that right now,' Barnes said in an interview with CNN.

The shooting of Blake has ignited new demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality months after George Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer touched off a wider reckoning on race.

Blue Lives Matter supporters hold flags in Civic Center Park during a rally organized by supporters of law enforcement officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin Sunday

A Blue Lives Matter supporter stands in Civic Center Park, holding a revolutionary era American flag Sunday

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, blamed Trump for the tensions.

'Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence?' he asked at a televised news conference. 'It's you who have created the hate and the division.'

Trump, who appeared to be watching, responded with real-time tweets labeling Wheeler a 'wacky Radical Left Do Nothing Democrat.'

Disturbing video captured the shooting that left Jay Bishop dead in Portland on Saturday night

After a reporter told Wheeler about the tweet, the mayor shot back, 'I'd appreciate that the president support us or stay the hell out of the way.'

Ben Crump, Blake's attorney who also represents George Floyd's family, said the Blakes have not yet made any contact with the president.

'The Blake family has not been contacted at this time. Blake family is very respectful of all our elected officials, and as his mother says, she prays for all of our elected officials,' Crump told CBS News' 'Face the Nation' on Sunday.

He added: 'So, we will see.'

'They're focused on trying to march for their son because he'll never be able to stand up for himself unless a miracle happens,' Crump said.

The president praised the caravan participants as 'GREAT PATRIOTS!' and tweeted 'Rest In Peace Jay!'

Blake's mother told CNN Thursday that they did not support the violent riots that have overtaken Kenosha, and other parts of the country, since their son was shot following a tussle with police.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is also set to travel to an undisclosed location on Monday to 'condemn violence, and to note that chaos has unfolded' on Trump's watch, the New York Times reported.

While details of Biden's travel plans are not yet known, some have speculated that he could be headed to Kenosha as well.

The visit is certain to exacerbate tensions in the city, where a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside a courthouse Saturday to denounce police violence.

Lara Trump, President Donald Trump's daughter-in-law and adviser, said Sunday that the president has reached out to Jacob Blake's family to set up a meeting as he visits Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday

Blake's mother, Julia Jackson (left), said earlier this week that she missed a call from the president. She also said she does not blame President Trump for the unrest and said she 'has the utmost respect' for him

Trump has been running his reelection campaign on a law-and-order mantle, denouncing protesters as 'thugs' while voicing his support for police.

He has also repeatedly offered to send in the National Guard or federal assistance to quell the unrest.

Blake, 29, took at least half a dozen shots in the back in front of his small children as he tried to get into his car last Sunday, in an incident that triggered an outpouring of anger over yet another shooting of a black man by white police.

During the rally against police brutality and racism on Saturday, his father, Jacob Blake Sr, called on protesters to refrain from looting and vandalism, which had overshadowed peaceful protests before a tense calm set in the past three nights.

'Good people of this city understand. If we tear it up we have nothing,' he told a gathering at a park that was the hub of protests in support of his son, Jacob Blake Jr.

'Stop it. Show 'em for one night we don't have to tear up nothing.'

The convoy numbered around 600 vehicles, with Trump supporters flying flags as they cruised through Portland

Most were in trucks and cars, but some motorcyclists also came along for the ride - one with his bike decorated with Trump

The shooting of Blake has turned the mostly white city of 100,000 people south of Milwaukee into the latest flashpoint in a summer of nationwide demonstrations against police brutality and racism.

Blake will likely participate via video from his hospital room in a court hearing next week about criminal charges that predated the shooting, his lawyer told Reuters on Saturday, adding he would plead not guilty.

Anger at Blake's shooting, captured on video that went viral, led to street skirmishes; protesters hurled firecrackers and bricks at police in riot gear who fired volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets.

On Tuesday night a white teenager with a semi-automatic rifle shot three demonstrators, and two of them died.

Protesters march with the family of Jacob Blake during a rally against racism and police brutality in Kenosha on Saturday

People march in support of Jacob Blake and his family to the Kenosha County Courthouse on Saturday

Jacob Blake's father pleaded for peace during a rally at Civic Center Park in Kenosha on Saturday

In Kenosha on Saturday, people painted messages of unity on boards protecting storefronts after many businesses were burned to the ground in arson attacks and vandalism.

Residents hoped calm would hold for a fourth night as protesters, some wearing 'Justice for Jacob' masks, spoke about the need for racial justice.

The 17-year-old suspect in Tuesday night's killings, Kyle Rittenhouse, surrendered to police on Wednesday near his home in Illinois close to the Wisconsin border.

Kenosha officials have been criticized for videos showing law enforcement agents giving him water before the burst of violence and acting chummy with armed militia men in the streets.

Trump has repeatedly condemned the protests that have rocked the country since the death of George Floyd in May, as he presses a law and order message while fighting an uphill battle for re-election in November.

He has not specifically commented on Rittenhouse or Blake.
A 7-year-old girl was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting while attending a relative's birthday party in northern Indiana on Saturday, according to police.

Chrisyah Stephens was one of between 60 and 70 guests at a birthday party that was taking place just outside of a home on the 800 block of East Donald Street in South Bend.

The shooting occurred Saturday around 7:40pm when multiple shots were fired from a vehicle driving by the home in South Bend.

'We were standing right here,' Chrisyah's uncle, SlyLavecchio Hines told the South Bend Tribune.

Hines was pointing to an area near the front stoop of the house.

Chrisyah Stephens, 7, was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting while attending a birthday party in South Bend, Indiana, on Saturday

The shooting occurred Saturday around 7:40pm when multiple shots were fired from a vehicle driving by the home in South Bend.

Chrisyah was among 70 other guests at the birthday party just outside of a home on the 800 block of East Donald Street in South Bend

Chrisyah and the other children attending the party had just finished breaking open a pinata and were getting ready to get ice cream and cake when gunshots were fired

'I would say about 20 seconds after we came outside, we hear gunshots, "Pow, pow, pow".'

Chrisyah and the other children attending the party had just finished breaking open a pinata and were getting ready to get ice cream and cake when gunshots were fired.

She was seriously injured and later died at an area hospital, police told WNDU-TV.

Although several people were standing in front of the home, she was the only shooting victim, according to authorities.

Well-wishers left balloons near the scene of the shooting on Sunday

An autopsy was scheduled to be conducted on Monday morning in Fort Wayne.

The St. Joseph County Metro Homicide Unit has taken over the investigation.

Hines said that when he heard the gunshots, he ran to Chrisyah.

'I ran and I was trying to grab her, to block her from the bullets,' Hines said on Sunday.

'But it was too late. As soon as I grabbed her, her body got heavy. I laid her down, I called her name, and then I seen the blood.'

Chrisyah's killing has left the family 'hurt and heartbroken,' Hines said.

He told the Tribune that the shooter fired from a white car, possibly a Chevy Malibu.

Hines said it appeared the car had tinted windows and black wheels.

He said he heard three shots fired from the car as it was approaching Donald Street from the south and three more shots after it crossed Donald.

The car then drove away.

Hines could not say how many people were in the car, though he is certain the shots were fired from the passenger-side window.

Cannon Hinnant, 5, was riding his bike in front of his father's house in Wilson, North Carolina on Sunday when Sessoms approached and shot him in the head. The motive has not been released

He said it was unclear if the shooter was a driver or a passenger.

Hines believes that the shooter fired directly at the house.

'I think they was targeting us,' Hines said.

When asked why anyone would want to target them, Hines responded that he did not know.

The fatal shooting of Chrisyah on Saturday is the latest in a series of horrific tragedies that have claimed the lives of young children nationwide as the country has experienced an alarming surge in violent crime in recent months.

In South Bend alone, three other people were shot and wounded. Since the start of the calendar year, nearly 100 people in the city have fallen victim to gun violence.

Earlier this summer, the fatal shootings of young children shocked Americans nationwide.

North Carolina police charged a neighbor with the murder of a five-year-old boy who was riding a bike in his own yard when he was shot at point blank range on the evening of August 9.

Darius Sessoms, 25, was taken into custody by Wilson police around 24 hours after he allegedly approached Cannon Hinnant in front of the young boy's father's house at 5:30pm and shot him in the head.

Hinnant's seven-year-old and eight-year-old sisters witnessed the killing.

Seven-year-old Natalia Wallace was standing on the sidewalk outside her grandmother's house on the Chicago's West Side during a Fourth of July party when, according to police, suspects climbed from a car and opened fire.

Seven-year-old Natalie Wallace (pictured) was among the at least 17 people killed in shootings in Chicago on the Fourth of July

The child was shot in the head.

About three hours after Natalia was shot, a group of young men police believe are members of a gang jumped from a vehicle in the Englewood neighborhood on the city's South Side and opened fire on a rival gang member.

They shot and killed him and they stand over him and keep shooting before jumping back in the car and fleeing the scene, Deputy Chief Brendan Deenihan told reporters Monday morning.

But a child, 14-year-old Vernado Jones Jr, was nearby and one of the bullets fired at the man who was killed struck Vernado in the armpit.

He had nothing to do with gang-on-gang violence. He was not the intended target, Deenihan said.

Natalia's death came amid a spate of shootings around the United States that left several children dead, including a 6-year-old boy in San Francisco, a 6-year-old boy in Philadelphia,an 8-year-old girl in Atlanta, an 11-year-old girl in Columbia, Missouri, and 8-year-old boy in Hoover, Alabama.

Public officials in Atlanta were outraged after the shooting death of an 8-year-old girl, Secoriea Turner, on Independence Day.

At least two people opened fire on the car she was riding in near a flashpoint of recent protests against police brutality.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms called for justice in Secoriea's death during an emotional July 5 news conference with the girl's grief-stricken mother.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal found that reported homicides were up 24 per cent in the nations 50 largest cities.

Secoriea Turner (above) was shot to death in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 4th while sitting in a car across the street from the Wendy's parking lot where Rayshard Brooks was killed by a police officer

The Journal did a statistical analysis which found that while shootings and gun violence rose, there was a drop in other violent crimes, including robbery.

Cities that have long been plagued by violent crime saw their figures increase, including Philadelphia, Detroit, Memphis, and Chicago.

The Windy City leads the nation in homicides. According to figures, approximately one in every eight homicides takes place in Chicago.

Earlier this month, a man was charged in the shooting death of a four-year-old Kansas City, Missouri, boy whose killing sparked a federal anti-crime task force that has sent hundreds of federal agents to several cities to fight violent crime.

Ryson Ellis, 22, of Kansas City, was charged with second-degree murder, unlawful use of a weapon and two counts of armed criminal action in the death of LeGend Taliferro, who was struck by a bullet on June 29 while he slept on the floor of his father's apartment.

Ellis allegedly shot blindly into the back of the Citadel Apartments unit where the boy's father, Raphael Taliferro, lives and had taken in his sister who has a child with the suspect.

After the Kansas City boy was killed in June by a gunshot meant for somebody else, the Trump administration launched a nationwide crackdown on violent crime named in his honor.

President Donald Trump and his attorney general, Bill Barr, have touted the operation, spread across nine US cities, as a much-needed answer to spiking crime that Trump claims is caused, at least in part, by the police reform movement and protests that have swept across the U.S. since George Floyds death in May.

Trump has seized on the operation to showcase what he says is his law-and-order prowess, claiming hes countering rising crime in cities run by Democrats.

'The future of our country, and indeed our civilization, is at stake,' Trump said last week.

Ryson Ellis, 22, of Kansas City, was charged earlier this month with second-degree murder, unlawful use of a weapon and two counts of armed criminal action. LeGend Taliferro, four, was struck by a bullet June 29 while he slept on the floor of his father's apartment in Missouri

President Donald Trump holds a photo of LeGend Taliferro as he speaks at a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on August 13

'These are all Democrat-run places. But these are people that dont have any clue what theyre doing.'

But spiking crime defies easy explanation, experts say, pointing to a toxic mix of issues facing America in 2020: an unemployment rate not seen in a generation, a pandemic that has killed more than 175,000 people, stay-at-home orders, rising anger over police brutality, intense stress, even the weather.

And to the 300 investigators deployed to the nine cities, and the local law enforcement getting help, this isnt about politics.

Its about reducing crime, working to solve outstanding cases and prioritizing the arrest of violent criminals.

Police have welcomed the partnership, as they have with previous operations, and some activists are cautiously optimistic.

Despite what Trump has claimed, the operation is routine. Some federal operations go on for months or years, and the arrests can number in the thousands.

So far, Operation Legend has yielded over 1,000 arrests for both state and federal crimes, like murder and drug and robbery offenses, with many of the people already wanted by police.

Some 200 people are facing steeper federal charges, and 400 illegal firearms were seized.

Besides Kansas City, Detroit and Cleveland, the Justice Department has sent additional personnel to Chicago, Albuquerque, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Indianapolis and Memphis.

In Detroit, agents circled a motel that police officials said had been a hotbed for criminal activity for years.

As the caravan pulled into the parking lot of the yellow building, Barr and Police Chief James Craig hovered overhead in a helicopter outfitted with special cameras to watch from the sky.

Five people were arrested, and agents seized three ounces of cocaine, one ounce of fentanyl and a handgun.

Craig said the execution of the operation - and in some cases bringing federal charges, which generally result in stiffer penalties - will help to drive down violent crime in Detroit and get so-called 'trigger-pullers' off the street.
FP Trending

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has decided to fund five proposals for concept studies of missions to understand various aspects and the environment of the Sun. The agency narrowed the proposals down to five based on their potential to expand our current understanding of the universe, help protect astronauts in future missions, and plan future missions more accurately, it said in a statement.

All five shortlisted proposals are Medium-Class Explorer proposals that will receive $1.25 million from NASA to carry out a nine-month mission concept study, the agency said. Following this trial period, NASA will choose a maximum of two proposals to carry out their missions via NASA.

"Each potential mission has a separate launch opportunity and time frame," the article said.

Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASAs Science Mission Directorate in Washington stated that they constantly seek missions that use cutting edge technology and new approaches to push the boundaries of science.

He mentioned that each one of the proposals offer the chance to study something that has never been seen before or to provide unprecedented insights into important areas of research.

The proposals were selected on the basis of their potential for science value and feasibility of development plans. NASA stated that the cost for the mission that gets chosen ultimately will be capped at $250 million. It will be funded by the Heliophysics Explorers program, a wing of NASA that aims to provide frequent flight opportunities for world-class scientific investigations in the area of heliophysics and astrophysics science.

Nicky Fox, the director of the Heliophysics Division in NASAs Science Mission Directorate, said that they carefully pick missions to provide sensors throughout the solar system which offer perspectives to understand space that human technology and humans themselves travel through.

SlashGear reported that while one topic focuses on space weather, another deals with the Suns corona. Other proposals involve the solar poles, aurora and the space wind.
The in is mulling a proposal to include a two-child norm and a minimum education clause for candidates contesting the panchayat polls in the state expected to be held early next year.

Panchayati Raj Additional Chief Secretary, Manoj Kumar Singh said that the proposal was under active consideration and could take a formal shape soon.

Last month, Union Minister Sanjeev Balyan made an appeal to the government to bring a law and bar those having more than two children from contesting the polls.

Several states, like Rajasthan, Gujarat, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, have brought their own laws restricting people with more than two children from contesting local body elections.

Uttarakhand had also introduced a similar law, but the state high court later struck it down.

In a letter, Balyan expressed apprehension over Uttar Pradesh's population which is now more than 23 crore. He claimed that if the state imposes this law, it will set a precedent and help bring down the population.

"Our state should start a campaign to control the population. And it can be started from the next panchayat poll. Anyone who has more than two children should not be allowed to contest the next poll."

Meanwhile, several opposition parties have objected to the proposal on the grounds that it was "unjust and arbitrary".

The Samajwadi Party said that the move was aimed at depriving the lower classes from contesting panchayat elections.

Party spokesman Anurag Bhadauria said that the move is "unconstitutional" since it will prevent the weak and the downtrodden form contesting elections due to the minimum education clause.

Congress leader Surendra Rajput said that the proposed rules were against the spirit of Panchayati Raj system that sought to empower the weaker sections and bring them into the political mainstream.

"While we agree on the need to check population but this is certainly not the way to do so," he said.

The Gram Pradhan Sangh said that the proposal was being finalised without taking them into confidence and threatened to oppose it, if implemented.

--IANS

amita/ksk/

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The e-Ananse Library came alive last Saturday after a visually impaired student did a public reading of the braille extract of The Magic World of Big Adam, a newly launched novel for pupils and students, written by the author of Passing the BECE  A Step-by-Step Approach, Farouk Abdul-Rahman.



The colourful book launch, held in Osu, saw the gathering of individuals and institutions with interest in reading and writing.



Master Edwin Ofosu, a first-year visually-impaired student of Akuapeman Senior High School put up an impressive first-time public reading of the much-awaited thriller to the admiration of the audience. His participation in the launch is part of the steps the writer is taking to engage more visually-impaired people in the culture of reading.



Chairperson for the event and Executive Director of the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations, Ms. Rita Kusi Kyeremaa said,



The initiative to make the novel accessible to persons with disabilities in braille, easy read and audio versions, among others, will ensure that persons with disabilities can enjoy this exciting novel. I encourage corporate organisations and individuals to support this initiative of promoting access to The Magic World of Big Adam through the Read to Growproject we are launching today.



Speaking at the event, Keynote speaker and Deputy General Secretary of the Ghana Association of Writers (GAW), Mr. Kofi Marrah, added that, "On this Occasion, I would like to say GAW is proud to be associated with this book for our students. While we support writers like F.A. Rahman to write for our societys development, the association is working under difficult conditions to achieve its objectives. Some of its constraints include the lack of financial support from the state where literature books by Ghanaian authors are rarely bought and supplied to schools and perennial community libraries, as well as publishing and marketing difficulties.



He added that Steps taken by GAW to address some of these difficulties include submitting a proposal to the Creative Arts Council of Ghana for support for writers, initiating the formation of a Coalition of Book Industry Stakeholders, planning to establish the Writers Enterprise Fund, and a GAW e-book Platform to publish e-books along the lines of Amazon. These steps we believe will go a long way to sustain and grow the book industry.



Mr. Rahman reemphasized his resolve to help in the literary development of school-goers in the country through his Read to Grow project. He became intrigued with the Read to Grow project after acknowledging the positive impact reading has had on his life and concluding that reading continuously is the best way for the youth to develop their minds and contribute meaningfully to society.



His book The Magic World of Big Adam is a fictional story that recounts events and imaginations of his time at St. Augustines College, and he hopes it becomes a great stay-at-home companion too.

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
- Afia Schwarzenegger has given her twin sons a gift following their completion of SHS

- The actress gifted her sons, James and John, with a brand new house

- A video of her flaunting the magnificent edifice has surfaced on social media

Outspoken actress Afia Schwarzenegger, born Valentina Nana Agyeiwaa, has surprised her twin sons following their graduation from Kumasi Senior High School.

The mother of three was heard busily laughing as she called her sons to join her in what looked like the living room.

READ ALSO: Luhya people will work with William Ruto with or without Mudavadi, Boni Khalwale declares

In a video, Afia Schwar was heard asking her sons, James and John, if they were enjoying their new house which was her graduation gift to them.

The young SHS graduates were seen in the shot beaming with smiles as they affirmed through gestures that they were satisfied with their graduation present.

READ ALSO: Uhuru, Raila's visit to Kisumu leave residents over the moon: "Ruto is intimidated!"

READ ALSO: Perfect for bedsitter: Kenyans applaud innovative fundi who crafted convertible bed

In a separate story, an amazing father gifted his daughter, Ajala Shabazz, a luxurious house as she marked her 13th birthday.

The doting father identified as Avee-Ashanti Shabazz is said to have raised the bar of black excellence and was touted as a caring father worth celebrating.

Avee-Ashanti proudly announced that the gift was not random and that it marked the beginning of a family tradition.

"This marks the beginning of a family tradition where every Shabazz will be gifted a house on their 13th birthday and taught to build it into multiple properties before they are legal adults," the father said.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

My children are not a curse - Judy Kemuma | Tuko Talks | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. - The chairman of one of Congress's most powerful committees is trying to fend off a young liberal mayor in a bitterly contested primary Tuesday, in a contest that could define the Democratic Party and reshape Congress for years to come.

House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., a three-decade incumbent, has the strong backing of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in his primary campaign against Alex Morse, mayor of Holyoke, Mass. Morse, in turn, has been endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and the Justice Democrats, the political action committee that has backed liberal candidates who have knocked off several entrenched Democratic incumbents already this year. Ocasio-Cortez ran the kind of campaign in 2018 Morse is trying to emulate, shocking the Democratic Party by taking out one of its most senior members, Rep. Joseph Crowley, in a primary challenge.

The contest between Neal, 71, and Morse, 31, stands as the most significant current clash between the establishment wing of the Democratic Party and the liberal opposition that is clawing to push the party to the left in the era of Trump. In the wake of stinging losses by other House Democratic leaders - including Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel's loss to Jamaal Bowman in New York in July - Pelosi and Neal are hoping the Ways and Means leader will stem the tide, and demonstrate that experience and moderation can triumph over liberal ideology at a moment of national division.

"Richie Neal is an absolute leader in the Congress, a progressive leader in the Congress," Pelosi said Thursday at a news conference where she mounted a full-throated defense of her longtime ally. "People will say what they will say, but I know what he has done, and it would be a tremendous loss to that district to lose the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee."

Morse and his supporters are painting Neal as a symbol of all that is wrong with establishment Democrats. They accuse him of not moving fast enough to seek President Donald Trump's tax returns after Democrats retook the House majority in 2018 and Neal assumed control of the Ways and Means Committee. And they assert he has blocked bold legislation, such as Medicare-for-all, in favor of incremental change.

Neal disputes such criticisms, highlighting his accomplishments for the district, insisting he did all he could to responsibly pursue Trump's taxes - an issue that's now tied up in court - and alleging that many of Morse's stances are unrealistic and downright irresponsible.

"I've delivered," Neal said repeatedly during a recent debate, ticking off numerous projects in the district he's worked to support, as well as his role authoring the $2 trillion Cares Act from March - which Morse says he would have opposed because it didn't go far enough.

A loss by Neal in the closely fought race would send shock waves through Capitol Hill, putting every longtime incumbent on notice that none of them are safe. Replacing a consensus-building moderate with a liberal newcomer would also tilt the Democratic caucus further to the left, further polarizing an already gridlocked Congress. Many pieces of legislation central to the Democrats' strategies, such as tax and health policy, must go through Neal's committee, giving him enormous control over the party's agenda.

The winner of Tuesday's primary is guaranteed a seat in Congress, as no Republican is running in the Democratic-leaning district.

"Almost every major piece of legislation has to go through the Ways and Means Committee," Morse said in a recent interview in Williamstown, a college town at the upper edge of the sprawling 1st Congressional District, which stretches from the rural western reaches of the state to take in Springfield, where Neal served as mayor in the 1980s. "The chairman has a lot of power. But he dropped the ball. He didn't use that power to hold this president accountable. He is using it to block Medicare-for-all, a Green New Deal and wealth tax. I think people realize what's at stake."

In the recent debate, Neal described the Green New Deal as "a worthwhile goal" but insisted only legislation that actually passes "changes our lives."

"What is it, holding a news conference that changes our lives? Going to a demonstration that changes our lives?" Neal said. "You can shape the narrative, but it's still legislation that makes the change."

Morse entered the race 13 months ago and was endorsed by the Justice Democrats not long after. For Justice Democrats, Morse's experience as a long-serving and well-known mayor, with a compelling family story, made him an attractive candidate.

"This was always our toughest race, because as Ways and Means chair, Neal has the biggest war chest of any incumbent we've challenged," Justice Democrats spokesman Waleed Shahid said. "He uses his power to frighten anyone who might defy him. He's the epitome of a corporate Democrat."

The incumbent outspent Morse, though the challenger was able to get on the air and stay there. According to Federal Election Commission reports filed in the middle of August, Morse had raised $1.3 million, spending most of it; Neal had raised $3.7 million and spent even more than that, drawing on funds not used in the 2018 campaign. On Sunday, the Morse campaign reported they had hit $2 million in fundraising.

Neal, unlike some of the left's targets since 2017, was also ready for a primary. In 2018, he faced his first Democratic opponent in years, an attorney named Tahirah Amatul-Wadud. She accused Neal of being indebted to his donors. She raised less than $150,000 but won 30 percent of the vote, while Neal built a campaign operation that he says prepared him for the Morse race. Public polling has found Neal leading Morse, though both camps are unsure of how early voting, mail voting and interest in the state's U.S. Senate primary - which pits Rep. Joe Kennedy against incumbent Sen. Edward J. Markey - will affect turnout.

"You never want to get caught sleeping," Neal said in an interview. "I take this very seriously. I'm pretty visible. Obviously, you have to be in the district, but you also have obligations in Washington. You have to combine politics, visibility and a pretty keen mind for achievement."

Weeks ago, and for the first time, the race made national news - and not for reasons either candidate wanted. According to Morse, his campaign had been hearing for months that a damaging story about him was "being shopped around." On Aug. 7, the College Democrats of Massachusetts announced Morse was disinvited from future events because he had "made college students uncomfortable" in his role as a guest lecturer at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

The letter did not accuse Morse, who is unmarried and gay, of any specific violation, and the candidate put out a statement declaring "every relationship I've had has been consensual." He met with staff, who unanimously urged him to stay in the race, even as some of his endorsers reevaluated their support.

Under scrutiny, the allegations fell apart. Reporters for the Intercept discovered some members of the College Democrats had plotted to accuse Morse, based only on friendly direct messages he'd sent to students, with the hope of securing favor with Neal. Morse's endorsers returned, and he saw the strongest fundraising of his campaign, as Neal denounced the plotters.

"I've made it clear that any suggestion that my campaign or that I was involved in this is not consistent with character and career," Neal said, repeating his call for a thorough investigation. In Morse's view, the accusation backfired completely.

"There was a guy in a parking lot, when I was walking into a grocery store where we were handing out literature, and he was like: 'You got my vote after I saw what they tried to do to you,' " Morse said. "At the farmers market, people were saying: 'That was disgusting, what they tried to pull on you.' "

On Saturday, the new leadership of the state's College Democrats apologized to Morse, writing they were "deeply sorry for the distress that the public reaction to the letter must have caused you."

But Morse's campaign and allies had already refocused on the original themes of the campaign: donors and what Neal would or would not let out of his committee. Justice Democrats had sent six staffers to organize for Morse while its PAC had spent $500,000 on ads. Fight Corporate Monopolies, a PAC formed this year to help liberal challengers, had already run commercials accusing Neal of selling out patients because of his corporate donations.

Neal, who has benefited from six-figure ad buys from PACs such as Working Americans and Democratic Majority for Israel, said the attacks over medical billing legislation were simply ignorant.

"I wish every reporter would go back and take a look at who was on the other side of this issue," he said. "I support the patient, the hospitals, the doctors and the consumers. The insurance industry's on the other side of this, and I feel quite confident to say I don't think Alex Morse knew who was on the other side of this issue."

On Aug. 22, as early voting got underway in the 1st Congressional District, Morse gathered some supporters in a socially distanced circle and thanked them for their work. He was driving from town to town in the most rural part of the state. Neal had headed to Washington for a vote on the Democrats' bill to boost funding for the U.S. Postal Service, but what, asked Morse, did he really do for the district?

"When he does come to the Berkshires, he's meeting with corporate CEOs or hospital executives," Morse said. "It's important that people here have a member of Congress that you can trust is for regular people here in the district."

A persistent dispute throughout the campaign - and among House Democrats on Capitol Hill since they won back the majority in the 2018 midterms - has been Neal's approach to trying to obtain Trump's tax returns. The president broke long-standing precedent by refusing to release the documents voluntarily. As Ways and Means chairman, Neal - along with his Senate counterpart - has the power under the law to demand the tax returns of any individual. He came under immediate pressure from liberals in the Democratic Caucus and outside groups to take that step.

But Neal delayed, which critics attributed to a reluctance to alienate Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and other officials within the administration, with whom Neal was trying to strike deals on infrastructure and trade. Privately, there was much grousing among the more liberal members of the House Democratic Caucus that Neal moved too slowly, criticism Morse has echoed publicly in the campaign.

"He would rather work with them than hold them accountable," Morse charged at one recent debate, referring to Neal and Trump administration officials. Morse said he was "incredibly disappointed in the lack of urgency."

Neal insisted he had proceeded deliberately to assemble the best case possible to obtain Trump's returns, one that would stand up to scrutiny and likely to set precedent.

"This is a case that is going to reverberate throughout American history. I am not going to screw this case up," Neal said, adding that Pelosi had supported his approach.

"You don't work for the speaker," Morse retorted.

Neal finally formally asked the IRS for Trump's tax returns in April 2019, four months after becoming chairman. After Mnuchin refused to hand them over, the Ways and Means committee issued a subpoena for the documents. Democrats filed a lawsuit against the administration in July of last year after Mnuchin made clear he would ignore the subpoena.

Neal's lawsuit is not expected to be resolved until well after the election, and the odds of Trump's returns becoming public in time for the election have dramatically dwindled. Pelosi has said Neal would continue to seek Trump's tax returns next year, even if the president is defeated in November. But Neal will face his electoral reckoning Tuesday, much sooner than Trump.
ISTANBUL/ATHENS (Reuters) - Turkey said on Monday that its Oruc Reis exploration vessel will carry out seismic surveys in a disputed area of the eastern Mediterranean until Sept. 12, provoking an angry response from neighbouring Greece.

Turkey and Greece, NATO allies, vehemently disagree over claims to hydrocarbon resources in the area based on conflicting views on the extent of their continental shelves in waters dotted with mostly Greek islands.

Both sides have held military exercises in the east Mediterranean, highlighting the potential for the dispute over the extent of their continental shelves to escalate.

The Turkish navy issued an advisory saying the Oruc Reis would continue working until Sept. 12. It had previously been scheduled to work until Sept. 1.

The advisory came after the European Union's executive earlier on Monday called for dialogue with Turkey and demanded that Ankara refrain from unilateral steps that stoke tensions in the eastern Mediterranean.

Greece's foreign ministry called the advisory illegal and urged Turkey to ease tensions and work for stability in the region.

"Turkey continues to ignore calls for dialogue and to escalate its provocations," the ministry said in a statement. "Greece won't be blackmailed."

Greece will keep seeking maritime deals with its neighbours in the region, based on international law and the law of the Sea, the ministry added. Last week, Greece ratified an accord on maritime boundaries with Egypt. [L8N2FT42A]

Turkey's latest advisory referred to a specific exploration area. On Saturday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the Oruc Reis would continue working for the next 90 days as it moved gradually closer to the Turkish province of Antalya.

Seismic surveys are part of preparatory work for potential hydrocarbon exploration. Turkey has also been exploring for hydrocarbon resources in the Black Sea and discovered a 320 billion cubic metre (11.3 trillion cubic feet) gas field.

Separately, Turkey also said it will hold a military exercise off northwest Cyprus until Sept. 11.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Renee Maltezou; writing by Ezgi Erkoyun; editing by Giles Elgood and Richard Pullin)
WASHINGTON: Democrats accused President Donald Trump of trying to inflame racial tensions and incite violence to benefit his campaign after he praised supporters who clashed with protesters during a deadly night in Portland, Oregon. and announced he will travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid anger over the shooting of another Black man by police.

Trump unleashed a flurry of tweets and retweets the day after a man identified as a supporter of a right-wing group was shot and killed in Portland. The city has been the site of months of daily protests, and a large caravan of Trump supporters and Black Lives Matter protesters clashed Saturday night. Trump praised the caravan participants as GREAT PATRIOTS! and retweeted what appeared to be the dead mans name along with a message to Rest in peace.

Trump also retweeted those who blamed the citys Democratic mayor for the death.

The people of Portland, like all other cities & parts of our great Country, want Law & Order," Trump wrote Sunday. The Radical Left Democrat Mayors, like the dummy running Portland, or the guy right now in his basement unwilling to lead or even speak out against crime, will never be able to do it!

Trump has throughout the summer cast American cities as under siege by violence and lawlessness, despite the fact that most of the demonstrations against racial injustice have been largely peaceful. With about nine weeks until Election Day, some of his advisers see an aggressive law and order message as the best way for the president to turn voters against his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, and regain the support of suburban voters, particularly women, who have abandoned him. But Democrats accuse Trump of rooting for unrest and trying to stoke further violence for political gain instead of seeking to ratchet down tensions.

He may think that war in our streets is good for his reelection chances, but that is not presidential leadership or even basic human compassion, Biden said in a statement responding to the shooting, in which he unequivocally condemned violence on all side, while accusing Trump of recklessly encouraging" it.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, blamed Trump for the tensions.

Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence? he asked at a televised news conference. Its you who have created the hate and the division.

Trump has cast the upcoming election as clash between law and order and anarchy, and he has denounced protesters as thugs while sharply defending police. That theme was front-and-center at last weeks Republican National Convention, which used recent protest footage to paint a foreboding and violent picture of the future if Biden denies Trump a second term.

Trump is expected to continue to hit that theme when he travels Tuesday to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where tensions are still raw after police shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in the back seven times, leaving him paralyzed. The shooting has ignited new demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality months after George Floyds death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer touched off a wider reckoning on race.

Trump will be meeting with law enforcement officers and surveying the damage in the city, where businesses have been vandalized and some buildings burned during demonstrations, White House spokesman Judd Deere announced.

But Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, asked Trump to reconsider in a letter Sunday.

I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state. I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together, Evers wrote.

Earlier Sunday, Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, said Trump is doing everything he can to fan the flames.

I think his visit has one purpose, and one purpose only. And that is to agitate things and to make things worse, Bass said Sunday on CNNs State of the Union." It is clear his campaign is all about law and order. It is a throwback to the past. And hes going to do everything to disrupt law and order in this time period."

Deere responded to the critics saying, The only people to blame for the violence and riots in our streets are liberal politicians and their incompetent policies that have failed to get control of these destructive situations."

It took days for Trump to weigh in on Blakes shooting, which was captured on cellphone video, and even then he had little to say.

Well, Im looking into it very strongly. Ill be getting reports, he said in an interview in New Hampshire Friday. It was not a good sight. I didnt like the sight of it, certainly, and I think most people would agree with that.

Trump offered similar words Were looking at it very, very carefully when asked Saturday about Kyle Rittenhouse, the white 17-year-old who has been charged with fatally shooting two protesters and wounding a third Tuesday after he traveled to Kenosha, apparently to defend the city from protesters. Attorneys representing Rittenhouse, who was seen walking with an assault-style rifle, have said he acted in self-defense.

But Trump on Sunday appeared to lend support to the teenager when he liked a retweet of a series of messages that began, Kyle Rittenhouse is a good example of why I decided to vote for Trump.

The circumstances of Saturday nights shooting in Portland remain unclear.Video from the city shows sporadic fighting between the groups, with Trump supporters firing paintball pellets at opponents and using bear spray as counterprotesters threw things at the Trump caravan.

The man killed was a member of Patriot Prayer, a right-wing group whose members have frequently clashed with protesters in Portland in the past, its founder, Joey Gibson, said Sunday. He identified the victim as Aaron Jay Danielson and called him a good friend, but provided no details. Danielson apparently also went by the name Jay Bishop, according to Patriot Prayers Facebook page.

Trump retweeted the victims name and wrote, Rest in peace Jay!

___

Associated Press writers Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; and Laurie Kellman and Will Weissert and Washington contributed to this report.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
BOSTON  Stepping out of the rain on a dreary Saturday morning, Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III made no attempt to hide his frustration as he raced from neighborhood to neighborhood in a city as synonymous with his family as it is with the Green Monster.

Mr. Kennedy is trailing Senator Edward J. Markey in every poll ahead of the Senate primary on Tuesday, and may become the first Kennedy to lose a race in Massachusetts. He is struggling with idealistic young liberals and older, affluent white Democrats, the sort of voters who in an earlier era idolized his grandfather, Robert F. Kennedy, and his great-uncles.

Mr. Kennedy pointed to his strength with working-class Democrats and voters of color who are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, all but scorning what he suggested was the hypocrisy of white liberals.

For a progressive left that says that they care about these racial inequities, these structural inequities, economic inequities, health care inequities, the folks that are on the other side of that are overwhelmingly supporting me in this race, he said. Yet there seems to be a cognitive dissonance.
A image of lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan smiling while holding up a Re 1 coin has been going viral on social media with many hailing it as a sign of Bhushans moral victory over an attempt to muzzle freedom of speech.

A Supreme Court bench on Monday sentenced Bhushan to a Re 1 fine after it found him guilty of contempt.

Bhushan is required to pay the fine by September 15 or he will be jailed for 3 months and debarred from practicing for 3 years.

The token penalty came after an SC bench led by Arun Mishra held Bhushan guilty of criminal contempt on August 14. It had then maintained that judges magnanimity cannot be stretched to become a weakness against malicious and calculated attack on judiciary."

Mondays verdict was met with cheer from several quarters of civil society including Bhushan himself who shared seemingly celebratory images of himself on social media.

My lawyer & senior colleague Rajiv Dhavan contributed 1 Re immediately after the contempt judgement today which I gratefully accepted pic.twitter.com/vVXmzPe4ss Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) August 31, 2020

In one photo, senior SC advocate Rajeev Dhavan is seen giving him Bhushan a Re 1 coin and the next, a beaming Bhushan can be seen holding the coin up for all to see. My lawyer & senior colleague Rajiv Dhavan contributed 1 Re immediately after the contempt judgement today which I gratefully accepted," Bhushan said, seemingly confirming that the verdict was accepted by him.

According to journalists, the images were clicked minutes after the verdict.

The images have since gone viral on Twitter. Many also commented on the hookah" that can be seen in Dhavans hand. A human rights activist and Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists, Dhavan had previously represented the Sunni Waqf Board and other Muslim parties in the Ayodhya-Babri Masjid land dispute.

Not to be missed - the infamous hookah in Rajeev Dhavans hand.  Nalini  (@nalinisharma_) August 31, 2020

The SC bench has found two tweets made by Bhushan to be in contempt of court. One was regarding a photo of Chief Justice of India SA Bobde riding a motorcycle that Bhushan shared, commenting on the fact that the CJI was not wearing a mask despite the pandemic.

On Monday, the SC imposed a token penalty of Re 1 on Bhushan as his punishment in the criminal contempt case after Bhushan refused to tender and apology for the tweets even after the Court found him guilty of contempt.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  With online platforms growing more popular amid the pandemic, House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano is calling on the public to directly participate in the 2021 budget deliberation process.

Since the start of this pandemic, Congress has taken advantage of these new technologies to continue doing our work," explained Cayetano in a statement. "Now, as we deliberate on the budget, we can use these same systems to allow our fellow citizens - not just to watch, but to directly participate in the process."

Both chambers have mostly taken the virtual route when it comes to hearings and sessions in line with government's efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus. This was observed even during President Rodrigo Duterte's latest State of the Nation Address, wherein only a select few were allowed to attend physically.

Ordinary citizens, therefore, may similarly participate in budget hearings through social media or online platforms, said Cayetano, noting Congress needs the public's ideas the same way it did for the creation of the recently ratified Bayanihan to Recover as One Act or Bayanihan 2.

House leaders will be convening this week to discuss the mechanics and protocols for this development, he added.

This is going to be the first time that this will be done, so there might be some growing pains. But we want to make sure that it is as inclusive and comprehensive as possible. Dapat po lahat ng gustong magsalita ay mabibigyan ng pagkakataon na marinig ang boses," said the House speaker.

[Translation: Everyone who wants to say their piece should be given a chance to.]

"They should be able to give us their opinion, tell us what they want us to prioritize, and witness the process firsthand. This also goes to show our transparency and accountability to our constituents, added Cayetano.

The House is slated to hold its first set of budget hearings on September 4.
Prepared, But Not for This

A sanitizer dispenser on a bus. (Photo: MST)

Empty Buses and Fareboxes

Farms in MST's service area are critical to the nation's food supply. The district donated buses to be converted to mobile COVID-19 testing labs that could be brought to work sites. (Photo: Grower-Shipper Association of Central California)

Finding New Ways to Serve the Community

Safety messaging and distanced passengers. (Photo: MST)

Constant Recalibration

Breaking ground for a new operations and maintenance facility. (Photo: MST)

Window Opens for Capital Projects

Wi-Fi-enabled commuter buses were parked in communities where students did not have Internet access, to help them manage remote learning assignments. (Photo: MST)

Cash Flow Is a Problem

Strength, Stamina and Flexibility

Add public transit to the list of things Americans took for granted before COVID-19. In the months since congregating indoors became a public health threat, many who built their daily routines around this affordable, climate-friendly public service have felt compelled to stay away from it.Essential workers from the health-care, food and other industries dont all have the ability to opt out, nor do citizens with no other way to get to the groceries or medicine they need. Keeping passengers safe is just one strand in the unprecedented web of challenges now facing transportation directors, and the problems that lie ahead may well be the most daunting of all.Carl Sedoryk, CEO of the Monterey-Salinas Transit District, leads a system that serves a fifth of the California coast, from Paso Robles to San Jose. MSTs service area is almost 300 square miles. In the past, it has carried over 4 million passengers a year.In order to keep on top of service needs during the pandemic, Sedoryk says that he and his staff have found it necessary to monitor and adjust day by day, hour by hour, almost trip by trip.Its a huge amount of work and were exhausted, but no ones complaining, he says. Others in our community dont have jobs and theres satisfaction in knowing were here to serve them.Wildfires, earthquakes and floods are all potential risks for Sedoryks region and because of this, MST developed a business continuity plan five years ago. MST also is part of the countys emergency services team and may be called on to transport citizens out of a danger zone or take first responders into it.Over the years, Sedoryk and his team met regularly and ran tabletop exercises to consider the best responses to natural disasters, civil disturbances or mass casualty events. In many ways, we were remarkably prepared but in some areas, we were less prepared, he says.The continuity plan even included a section on pandemic response, but it did not anticipate an extended public health emergency. A disaster like a fire has a definable beginning, middle and end  it starts, it rages, it gets put out and then you start recovering, says Sedoryk. This thing is just never ending.When the first COVID-19 fatality was recorded in San Jose, a city to which MST travels, Sedoryk gathered his executive team and implemented the first step of the emergency plan, creating an emergency operations center and shifting responsibilities among managers to improve resilience. MST also acquired a stock of personal protective equipment. Ever since a hepatitis outbreak in the region four years ago, the agency had been disinfecting buses and had the supplies and expertise to continue this practice.We were less prepared for the run on the market for cleaners, masks and supplies, says Sedoryk. We had to scramble for a couple of months, like everyone else, to get our supply chain back in order.Through the month of April, ridership plummeted as much as 80 percent. Service was cut from 1,100 trips per day to 500. Bus occupancy was restricted to ensure physical distancing could be maintained and passengers were required to wear masks.We didnt put a hard stop on boarding, Sedoryk says. Especially in Monterey, people travel in family units and we didnt want to separate a mother from a child or force members of the same household to sit six feet apart.So far, California weather has allowed drivers to keep bus windows open. The manufacturers of MSTs buses claim this results in complete air exchange every two minutes.The agency provided its drivers with masks, goggles and face shields. We stopped collecting fares and instituted rear door boarding, to keep passengers from congregating at the front of the bus and potentially exposing the driver, says Sedoryk.Over time, passengers began to return. Sedoryk estimates that about 60 percent are back, and he has restored service to 70 percent of what it was before the pandemic, about 740 buses. Demand is monitored constantly, and new vehicles are added if drivers report that buses are getting crowded.Video cameras on buses allow managers to pay attention to whether drivers are using their PPE properly and ensure that passengers follow public health guidelines. Over time, fatigue sets in and some stop paying attention, says Sedoryk. We continue to encourage them to stay up to speed, but this isnt the time to be punitive.MST invested half a million dollars in plastic shields at the front of buses to further protect drivers, and has applied to be reimbursed by FEMA. At the beginning of August, it began to collect fares again, for the first time since March 18.While public demand for transportation services waned, Sedoryk and his team began to look for other ways to use their resources to support the community. As a public service provider, you dont restore your service just to restore your service, you try to identify where you can accomplish the most good, he says.MST reached out to stakeholders in its service zone  the agriculture and hospitality industries, military bases, community colleges, school districts and health-care providers and the groups that represent them to find out what they needed. Based on what we were hearing, we started doing a number of things, says Sedoryk.Unemployment in the county had gone from 3.5 percent to 20 percent, causing a tenfold increase in persons with food insecurity. Over the summer, MST's drivers and vehicles that would have otherwise been idle helped Meals on Wheels in Salinas Valley to deliver 8,000 meals to seniors and persons with disabilities.Students living in agricultural communities were having difficulty keeping up with remote learning mandates. Many had been provided Chromebooks by the state, but they didnt have Internet access. In response, MST parked its Wi-Fi-enabled commuter buses in rural areas to provide hot spots for them.Wed set them up in parking lots, and people could come in their cars and piggyback on our signal, says Sedoryk. We were out there every day during the end of the school year, and were ramping it up again as the new school year is starting.MST donated a vehicle it no longer needed to a veterans group who used it to take homeless veterans to food, medical services and shelter. The transit agency gave another vehicle to a nonprofit that trains at-risk youth to work in the hospitality industry. Upon discovering that drivers who take disabled veterans to medical appointments had stopped volunteering because they were old, disabled and at high risk of illness, MST found CARES Act funds to take over this service.To support the local agriculture industry, which is critical to the national food supply, MST provided two buses to be converted into mobile COVID-19 testing facilities, to get testing capability out to the workers in the fields. It offered additional support by arranging for 7,500 masks received from the federal government to be distributed to families by organizations serving farmworker communities.MST also looked at data to understand how transportation needs had changed. We used the Slido app (an online survey tool) that you see at conferences to survey our passengers and employees and to resurvey community stakeholders, says Sedoryk.Community colleges have not yet resumed in-person classes. The people going back to work are in tourist-serving industries such as restaurants and hotels, and the shipping and packing facilities of the Salinas Valley. Were focusing our services there for now, says Sedoryk.Service to Santa Clara is currently discontinued due to lack of demand. An additional factor at play is the complications from inconsistent health guidelines. The Santa Clara health officer does not want riders to touch the tape on the bus wall to request a stop, but to call out next stop.Id rather have people press the button and use the hand sanitizer we have on the bus, says Sedoryk. In places like Japan and Korea, they discourage talking at all because it spreads aerosol whether youre wearing a mask or not.Sedoryk recognizes that this is a granular problem, but it only adds to the difficulty of doing his job when there is not a coordinated national response to the pandemic. WHO information contradicts CDC information, which contradicts state health officer information, which contradicts county health officer operation, he says.While a typical government agency operates in one location, public transit operations move through multiple locations, across different jurisdictions. MST serves Santa Clara, Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo counties, all of which have different rules. All you can do is the best you can do, right? says Sedoryk.Despite challenges, MST is making progress. Sedoryk says that if it werent for the pandemic and the loss of ridership, it would be having a banner year.The agency has broken ground on a new bus operations and maintenance facility, financed through a credit program created under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA). The districts 35-year loan could be at a rate as low as 0.75 percent, with no payments for the first five years.In this case, the pandemic made Sedoryks life easier. Normally, it would require several trips to Washington to get this financing, but we were able to do this via virtual conferencing and have people from all over the country involved," he says.MST also has been selected as the first transportation district in the state to implement a new program from CalTrans, called the California Integrated Travel Project (Cal-ITP). Sedoryk describes this as an open loop contactless credit card payment system. The goal is to to have a fee-less VISA card that could be used to pay fares on any transit system in the state. Because of the pandemic, the state has decided to accelerate development and deployment.As with the TIFIA loan, Sedoryk has been able to collaborate on this work with partners in far-flung locations thanks to Web conferencing. We have people from Sacramento, Toronto, Melbourne and New York on these calls, he says.Theres a long-range social equity aspect to all this, according to Sedoryk. Many low-income residents dont have bank accounts, which complicates the process of accessing benefits such as food assistance and creates a paperwork burden on both sides. Eventually, such funds could be sent to the card account and the card could be used for purposes such as purchasing groceries.As the pandemic crisis heads into the fall, transit systems are in financial freefall around the country. Big city systems, such as New York City and San Francisco, have seen ridership plummet 90 percent. That has cut into revenue just as states have reduced subsidies in an effort to trim budgets. The result: Transit agencies across the country are projected to rack up close to $40 billion in budget shortfalls , dwarfing the $2 billion loss inflicted by the 2008 financial crisis, according toMST does not have financial support from local sales taxes, and depends on state sales taxes along with state and federal fuel taxes and farebox revenues to pay for its operations. Partnerships with community colleges, universities, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and military bases also help.But like so many other sources of revenue during the pandemic, partnership funding has disappeared. The aquarium and the universities and the community colleges and the bases are all closed, he says. Were not getting any money from there.Thanks to CARES Act funding, Sedoryk is confident he can sail through the end of this fiscal year. But depending on the situation at the end of the calendar year, he may be forced to look at reductions in force and restructuring of services.So far, hes been able to avoid layoffs and has been particularly attentive to keeping his drivers on the payroll  he doesnt want them taking jobs elsewhere, leaving him short-handed if the recovery gains steam. The California transit association has said that CARES Act funding is $3.1 billion short of what the state needs, with major urban areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco most at risk. At this point, its uncertain what another federal stimulus package might bring.If nothing happens there, and nothing happens in Sacramento, there will be a $3.1 billion contraction in our industry and it will affect different localities differently, he says. It really depends on their local economies and local funding streams.For now, hes watching state sales tax revenue, and there arent enough data points yet for him to see a trend. Hell know more by the end of the year, and if relief from Congress or the state could be in sight.The fares that passengers pay cover about 20 percent of our costs, and the rest is picked up by a variety of state and federal funding sources, says Sedoryk. But theres only so much a person is going to be able to pay.Its too early to know what the numbers will be, but at some point, MST, like other transit providers around the country, may have to reconsider the level of service that it is able to provide with the cash flow available to it.The average taxpayer may not think much about the large section of the population that cant afford a car, or who are too old or disabled to drive, Sedoryk says. Theres a lot of noise to filter through to get that message out, especially these days.For now, MSTs attention is on service and safety. The agency has 250 workers; there was no confirmed COVID-19 case among them until recently and the employee in question had not had contact with passengers or the general public. The county health officer has not identified any instances where a member of the public contracted COVID-19 while an MST passenger.Sedoryk had six district employees go through the contact tracing training developed by Johns Hopkins University. Our county is overwhelmed  its a small rural county and they werent set up to handle this type of emergency, he says. We decided to offer our employees help to get them a head start on some of these issues.The pandemic has led to greatly improved relationships with the local union, in contrast to the complaints and lawsuits brought against leaders of transit districts in other parts of the country by union members who feel they have been put in danger.Sedoryk and the local union president have been meeting daily. This has forced us to not just talk about problems, but to get to know each other as people and develop a relationship  thats helped out a lot.MSTs response to the pandemic has changed how the community perceives it, particularly those who work in agriculture. They see us providing buses to turn into mobile COVID-19 labs  not as a stodgy, bureaucratic entitlement program but as a solution that they need.Better relationships within and without the organization and an enhanced reputation for service help offset the stress caused by conditions and risks that shift day to day, hour by hour. Sedoryks volunteer work as a martial arts instructor, on hold for the time being, has also served him well, he believes.We focus on strength, stamina and flexibility, he says. Those are good attributes for a martial artist, and they are excellent attributes for an organization  youve got to be financially strong, flexible, and youve got to be in it for the long haul.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 12:18:56|Editor: huaxia

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PHNOM PENH, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia confirmed one new imported case of COVID-19 on Monday, raising the total number of infections in the kingdom to 274, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

The latest case was detected on a 30-year-old French man, who arrived in the country on Aug. 30 from France, with a connecting flight in China's Taiwan region, the statement said.

"His samples were tested, and the result showed on Sunday that he was positive for the COVID-19," it said.

Currently, the man is undergoing treatment at an isolation ward in the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital in capital Phnom Penh, it said, adding that the remaining 80 passengers on the same flight have been placed under a 14-day mandatory quarantine at various quarantine centers in the capital.

The Southeast Asian nation has so far recorded a total of 274 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the statement said, adding that none have died and 266 have recovered. Enditem
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Shell casings litter a strip mall parking lot Sunday where Kansas City Police said four people were shot early that morning. Newly released security camera footage that you will only see on FOX4 will hopefully help police piece together what happened and who is responsible.
Hong Kong, Aug 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Viva Biotech Holdings (the " Company " and, together with its subsidiaries, collectively the " Group " or " Viva Biotech "; stock code: 1873.HK ) announced its interim results for the 6 months ended June 30, 2020 (the " Reporting Period "). As of June 30, 2020, the Group's revenue amounted to RMB197.6 million, representing a YOY increase of 38.9%. Gross profit was RMB100.1 million, representing a YOY increase of 39.2%. Adjusted net profit was RMB123.7 million, representing a YOY increase of 25.5%. Backlog amount reached approximately RMB493 million, representing a significant YOY increase of approximately 138.2%.

Facing difficulties induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Group proactively implemented containment measures to seek opportunities behind such crisis and accelerate the integration of research and development ("R&D") and production service chain of new drug industry, thereby achieving further synergistic effect between the cash-for-service (CFS) and equity-for service (EFS) models.

Revenue from CFS Surged Successively with Continuously Optimized Customer Structure

During the Reporting Period, both the Company's backlog amount and number of customers recorded substantial growth. As of June 30, 2020, the Company has provided drug discovery services to an aggregate of over 495 biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers worldwide, delivered over 17,000 protein complex structures and conducted research into more than 1,300 independent drug targets. Revenue from the CFS segment maintained a rapid escalation to RMB154.0 million from RMB105.4 million for the corresponding period last year, representing a YOY growth of 46.1%. Furthermore, total revenue from the top 10 customers increased YOY from RMB64.7 million to RMB82.1 million, while that as a percentage of the Group's total revenue dropped from 45.5% to 41.5%, indicating a continuously optimized customer structure.

Extensively Explored EFS Opportunities, Proactively Developed Post-Investment Management

As for the EFS segment, the Company extensively explored business opportunities around the globe on an ongoing basis and established long-term cooperation relations and recommendation systems with nearly 60 universities, research transformation centers and investment institutions world-wide. During the Reporting Period, the Company reviewed a total of over 425 projects globally, added 10 start-ups to its portfolio companies, made additional investment in 3 existing portfolio companies and was in negotiation for incubation and investment in 3 new companies. As of June 30, 2020, the Company had a total of 56 portfolio start-ups with a wide range of indications and geographical coverage.

Viva Biotech continuously attracts top ranking scientists from China and overseas to join as business partners. The Company's business partners have increased to 30, of who have attained remarkable achievements in their academic and drug discovery fields. The Company also actively conducted post-investment management to facilitate incubated companies to advance R&D progress, introduce talents, optimize product pipeline development strategies and coordinate fund-raising resources.

Actively Developed New Technology Platforms, Accelerate the Expansion of Facilities

As of June 30, 2020, the Company's R&D investment totaled RMB 22.3 million, representing a YOY increase of 42.9%, primarily used for introduction of new technology platforms such as Cryo-EM, Computational Chemistry and HDX-MS. In addition, the Company also proactively mapped out in the antibody macromolecules field and set up CMC process development team so as to expand and satisfy customers' needs at different R&D stages. To better meet the Company's requirements arising from rapid business development, in February 2020, the Company acquired the property with a site area of 7,576 square meters located on Faladi Road, Pudong, Shanghai. In April 2020, Viva Biotech New Drug Incubation and Production R&D Center located in Wenjiang of Chengdu with a site area of 33,607 square meters also commenced construction. Furthermore, the Company successfully entered into a bid for the property located in Zhoupu, Pudong, Shanghai, with a gross floor area of approximately 40,000 square meters. It will be developed as Viva Biotech's Shanghai headquarters. The above facilities will save the Company's rental expenses and provide stable R&D, manufacturing and operation premise.

Vertically Integrated Industrial Chain to Construct a One-Stop Comprehensive Drug R&D Platform

The Company is speeding up the construction of a comprehensive and one-stop drug service platform, which is designated to provide customers with more comprehensive drug development services. In August 2020, the Company entered into a strategic integration with Zhejiang Langhua Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., which brought together the synergistic effect of both parties in the R&D, design and manufacturing fields of global pharmaceutical markets, which is of great strategic significance to the Company in terms of vertical integration along the industrial chain and expansion into the CDMO business.

Dr. Cheney Mao, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Viva Biotech Holdings said: "Viva Biotech is positioned at the source of early-stage discovery of innovative drugs with technology platform, flow of traffic and talent advantages. Making good use of the traffic flow from CFS and EFS businesses at the source, we will seek strategic collaborations with leading enterprises in each sector along the industrial chain, establish a solid comprehensive R&D and manufacturing system and forge a one-stop platform for new drug discovery, providing customers with the most quality services throughout the full spectrum. Meanwhile, we will continue to strengthen technology advantages, enhance operation efficiency, introduce more talented scientists and technologies, improve capacity of the incubation platforms, strengthen loyalty between existing customers and portfolio companies and proactively conduct industrial integration, in a bid to establish an open and cooperative platform targeting at global biopharmaceutical innovators and build an ecosystem featuring cooperation and mutual benefits."

- End -

About Viva Biotech Holdings

Viva Biotech's mission is to become a cradle for innovative biotechnology companies around the world. Viva Biotech has developed a scalable business model combing the conventional cash-for-service (CFS) model and its unique equity-for-service (EFS) model. Under the CFS model, the Group provides structure-based drug discovery services to its biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers worldwide for their pre-clinical stage innovative drug development, covering the full spectrum of the customers' needs for early stage drug discovery, including target protein expression and structure research, hit screening, lead optimization and drug candidate determination. Viva Biotech also provides drug discovery and incubation services to biotechnology start-up companies with high potential under its EFS model. As of June 30, 2020, Viva Biotech had provided drug discovery services to over 495 biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers worldwide, worked on over 1,300 independent drug targets, delivered over 17,000 protein complex structures and invested/ incubated a total of 56 early stage biotech start-ups.

This press release is issued by Porda Havas International Finance Communications Group for and on behalf of Viva Biotech Holdings.

SOURCE Viva Biotech
Sharley Haddon fears she may lose her beloved horses and riding business after nearly 40 years.

Mahurangi businesses are putting on a brave face but are realistic about even tougher times ahead, given the restrictions, lockdowns and associated economic fallout due to Covid-19.

Pakiri Beach Horse Rides owner Sharley Haddon is among the worst affected, fearing that she may have to close up shop and sell her beloved horses.

International visitors keep the business running during the winter months but with foreign tourism effectively banned, Mrs Haddon is reliant on the domestic market to keep going.

Thats proving an unreliable prop as people worry about hanging on to their jobs and conserving their limited resources.

Im a discretionary activity. People dont need to ride horses. Its a leisure pursuit and the first things that topple are leisure pursuits, she says.

With no money coming in and 60 horses still to feed, Mrs Haddon has had to lay off four of her six staff and has managed to keep the remaining two only because of the Government wage subsidy.

Mrs Haddon has run her business for almost 40 years but is more bothered about the prospects for her horses than she is for herself  concerned that they will end up separated.

They all have their own little groups of friends. Its not easy to break them up  not for somebody who is emotionally fond of horses, she says.

Other businesses have yet to feel the full effects of Covid-19, but fear the blow will inevitably fall soon.

Lynda Ashby, owner of strawberry grower Gala Berry, of Omaha, says harvesting begins in just a few weeks and the business is heavily reliant on recruiting overseas workers  typically from the Pacific Islands  to pick the crop.

There are some seasonal workers stranded in the country who have not been able to return home who we can employ, but it will quickly come to the point where there are not enough of them, she says.

The crunch time will be October, when the bulk of the harvest will come in and when Gala Berry typically employs around 100 seasonal workers from overseas.

Ms Ashby says she will work closely with the Ministry of Social Development to try to make up the shortfall.

She adds that the biggest challenge is the uncertainty  not knowing when lockdowns are going to occur, at what level and what plans need to be in place to cope.

I guess theres no point in stressing because there is not a lot you can do, she says.

Uncertainty is also playing at the back of minds of other business owners and managers. General manager at MS Engineering Graham Buchs says he actually prefers operating under Level 3 in some ways. While it has meant temporarily closing the retail side of the business, it has allowed the company to concentrate on its core engineering works.

Construction and building can continue under Level 3 so we are still servicing that sector, he says.

His biggest setback so far is having an employee living outside the Auckland region who has been unable to come in for work.

But Mr Buchs says challenges will mount as lockdowns impact the businesses MS Engineering trades with, inevitably ultimately hurting MS Engineering as well.

He is especially concerned about any reversion back to Level 4, which would completely shut down the companys workshop, leaving 60 staff without work and MS Engineering still having to pay major overheads.

Despite the headaches, businesses so far appear remarkably tolerant of the Governments lockdown approach.

General manager at Brick Bay Wines and Sculpture Trail Anna Didsbury says from a business perspective it is been devastating to go into lockdown a second time.

However, we can see the bigger picture and are fully supportive of these public health-focused restrictions, she says.

Nevertheless, businesses are often urging for a more nuanced approach to lockdown from Government.

Matakana Farmers Market manager Fiona McGeough says stallholders are unable to trade under Level 3, but thinks this restriction should be relaxed.

We offer a large open-air environment for our locals to shop. We should be able to service the public, not just the supermarkets, she says.

Matakana Cinemas owner Dan Paine adds that the Government needs to look at specific assistance for certain industries, rather than a cookie-cutter approach.

For example, he says his industry has to cope with the fact that the key players  the United States film studios  are in disarray and are currently unwilling to release big budget films into key markets, including New Zealand.

We cannot just reopen after lockdown and get straight back to supplying a service that was the equivalent of pre-Covid, in fact far from it, he says.

It is currently manageable for us, given the ongoing wage subsidy assistance and partial rent-breaks, but it wouldnt be sustainable otherwise, he says.

Meanwhile, Sharley Haddon thinks the Government should more closely restrict lockdowns to the areas where outbreaks of community transmission occur.

For me, being in lockdown here in Pakiri is crazy. Im miles away from the city, she says.
In the town of Liubotyn, Kharkiv region, a cache was found, where almost five kilograms of tritol were stored, some 2,300 various ammunition, almost 62,000 rounds of various calibers and many auxiliary military equipment.

According to the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police of Ukraine, operatives of Kharkiv department received information about the storage of a large amount of weapons in one of the districts of the region, after which, together with the investigators of the Investigative Directorate of the Regional Main Directorate and Prosecutor's Office officers, they established the place of the cache, a garage that had been used for a long time representatives of one of the public organizations.

"Law enforcers with the involvement of the explosives service conducted an authorized search and found a large number of various ammunition. In particular, in the basement of the garage they seized 472 bomb cases of various types, some 765 fuses of the igniter set for hand grenades and UZI type, more than 660 grenade launcher shots of various types, some 122 igniter rocket engines, some 49 rocket-propelled anti-tank grenades of various types, some 66 hand-held smoke grenades, some 20 alert, lighting, mortar and anti-personnel mines, a high-explosive fragmentation round. In addition, among the seized 55 boxes with cartridges of various calibers, almost 62,000 bullets, as well as trinitrotoluene demolition slabs with total weight of five kilograms, explosive devices, other ammunition and auxiliary military equipment," the Department of Strategic Investigations said.

The origin of the seized ammunition and the circle of persons involved in organizing the illegal storage of ammunition and weapons are now being established.

Criminal proceedings have been opened under Part 1 of Article 263 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal handling of ammunition).

According to a source close to law enforcement agencies, members of the Patriots for Life organization used the garage. The agency was unable to obtain official confirmation or denial of this information.

As reported, unknown persons riding in a Mitsubishi car blocked a Mercedes minibus carrying members of the abovementioned organization on a road in the vicinity of Liubotyn on Thursday evening, forcing the bus to stop. After that, several people emerged from the car and attacked the minibus with rubber bullets, then fleeing the scene in their car.
Ontario spent the first two weeks of August eliminating active cases and the last half of the month gaining a good portion of them back, according to an analysis of provincial COVID-19 data by the Stars Andrew Bailey.

There are 1,221 active cases of the virus in the province, up from a low of 891 on Aug. 12.

Its a familiar pattern for many provinces that have reopened, and not unexpected, says epidemiologist Zahid Butt, an assistant professor at the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo.

Most of the businesses are open. People are going out. Definitely youll see a surge of new cases when you reopen, he says. I think the question here is whether we think this is a second wave or is this just because of reopening.

It will be weeks before we know the answer.

Butt says that in a second wave, he would expect to see a sustained increase in cases over time and at this point its too early to call.

On Monday, Dr. Eileen de Villa, Torontos medical officer of health, said that it was a certainty that the city would see a resurgence of the virus but there was no way to know whether it would be in small waves, another large wave in the fall or winter, or a slow burn of ongoing transmission and cases.

Meanwhile, heres a look at the rebound of active cases in Ontario; the number of cases in the GTA compared to the rest of the province; the two western provinces with record high numbers of active cases and countries where there has been a resurgence of the virus.

GTA vs. Ontario

The province reported 114 cases of COVID-19 on Monday.

Peel and Toronto have largely driven the increase inside the GTA with Ottawa and Windsor-Essex adding to the growth in the rest of the province.

Peel averaged 13 cases per 100,000 population in the last week, more than any other health unit in the province, according to statistics compiled by Ryan Imgrund, a biostatistician at Newmarkets Southlake Regional Health Centre.

Ottawa was a close second with 12 cases per 100,000. Toronto had eight per 100,000 population.

Ottawa Public Health says the majority of new cases are linked to close contact and household transmissions.

The data indicates that we are not seeing COVID-19 transmission where people are wearing masks, and there have been no known outbreaks directly linked to bars, restaurants, gym facilities or other businesses where people gather, said a spokesperson for Ottawa Public Health.

The health unit says they havent identified any trends related to community transmission, but they have seen a consistently higher percentage of transmission in people under 29 years of age for the last few weeks.

In Peel, 30 to 40 per cent of reported cases are the result of household transmission, according to Peel Public Health.

Since July, the region has seen an increase in cases among those 18 to 34 as well as aged 35 to 54 years of age.

Windsor-Essex has had an average of 12 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 in the last week.

Dr. Wajid Ahmed, the areas medical officer of health, has taken the unusual step of releasing exposure notifications, posting the name of businesses on the health units website when there is a public risk and the health unit cant notify all the people who may have come in contact with a case.

At a press conference Monday, Ahmed acknowledged that a business was upset about an exposure notice.

But he said the timely release of the information was critical because it was related to a week-old case and that the exposure notices do not mean that a business is not following public health protocols.

Resurgence continues in Western provinces

Cases continue to climb in British Columbia as well as Manitoba, two provinces where the number of active cases of COVID-19 are at record highs.

Manitoba reported 462 active cases as of Sunday.

The government instituted a new public order that takes effect Tuesday, allowing the government to impose fines of up to $486 a day on anyone who doesnt self-isolate for 14 days if they have a confirmed case of the virus or if they are identified as a close contact of a confirmed case.

Manitoba also mandated masks for anyone visiting a hospital or health care facility and said they are considering a mandatory mask policy for all indoor settings.

On Friday, British Columbia reported 124 new cases of COVID-19, the highest number of cases in one day. The province had 982 active cases as of Sunday, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Alberta had 1,185 active cases as of Sunday. With school starting Tuesday, some educators were surprised by the provinces decision on the weekend to lift a mandate that required two-metres of physical distancing in classrooms.

However, earlier this month the government mandated masks for students in Grades 4 to 12 as well as staff in common areas, hallways and when physical distancing isnt possible.

Cases surge in Europe

Despite seeing encouraging trends for much of the summer, several countries in Europe are experiencing surges in new COVID-19 cases  just as children across the continent are poised to return to in-person classrooms in the coming weeks.

In the last two weeks, France, Germany, Spain and Italy have all seen surges in new cases, forcing local governments to enact measures in an attempt to prevent full-on second waves. At the same time, thousands of protesters across the continent, most notably in Berlin and London, have taken to the streets objecting to restrictions aimed at quelling the viruss spread.

In all the countries, the new cases are in the younger demographic and they dont seem to be yet triggering increases in deaths or bleed-over into the older demographic, said Raywat Deonandan, an associate professor and epidemiologist at the University of Ottawa, noting that this could be attributed to better protections in long-term-care centres for seniors and young people tending to associate with each other during the summer months.

The real threat here is when the weather gets colder and people are spending more time inside and they cannot ignore or avoid their older relatives. So will this behaviour now translate into a larger growth in the vulnerable demographic?

France

On Friday, France recorded 7,379 new COVID-19 cases, the largest daily increase since late March when the country was in the midst of its first wave of the pandemic.

Were doing everything to avoid another lockdown, and in particular a nationwide lockdown, President Emmanuel Macron told journalists Friday.

In Paris and some surrounding areas it is now mandatory to wear face masks in public as officials wrestle with what to do about the possibility of the viruss spread in schools as millions head back to the classroom.

To date, there have been 277,943 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus in France, with 30,606 deaths, according to the French government.

A lot of this is driven by culture and domestic structure, as well as traditional behaviours around shopping, said Deonandan. So here in Canada we drive to the big grocery stores and stock up for two weeks and drive back and go to Costco and things like that, where in France, you go to the open air market and shop every day for your meal. So there are a lot of behaviours encoded in culture that do not translate across borders.

Germany

Germany has not seen a surge of new COVID-19 cases like some European countries, but its rate of infection is growing even after a successful initial containment of the virus.

Just a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the situation could become more difficult after the summer months, some 38,000 protesters descended on the streets of Berlin to condemn coronavirus measures.

An additional several hundred other protesters attempted to storm the Reichstag building during the same rally, an action being called unacceptable by German leaders. Police had to use pepper spray and arrests to stop the protesters from entering the building, home of the German parliament.

The rally, which violated the countrys coronavirus restrictions, was initially banned but a court permitted it to go ahead due to freedom of assembly rights.

Just over a week ago, the country recorded 1,737 new cases, the largest single-day increase since late May. Germany has confirmed 242,831 COVID-19 cases to date and 9,298 deaths, according to the Robert Koch Institute.

Many recent cases in Germany have originated in travellers returning from vacation.

That is interesting because we kind of thought the Germans had their quarantine situation well-thought-out and theyre led really well by Dr. (Christian) Drosten, a strong public health leader, said Deonandan. So its concerning and its also a signal to us about the threats of travel. We need to keep our guard up.

Spain

Spain has been particularly hard hit by the new coronavirus with recent case numbers raising questions about the countrys ability to contain the spread.

After a lockdown during the first wave of the pandemic, the country relaxed measures into the summer. But cases have not gone down notably despite mass testing.

Over the weekend, Spain reported 23,572 new cases for a total of 462,858 since the pandemic began, the highest number of cases in western Europe. Just last Friday, the country reported 9,779 new cases, setting a record for the highest single-day increase. The countrys death toll from the virus stands at 29,094.

Madrid, the countrys capital and most populous city, as well as the Basque Country, have been hit hardest by the virus.

The countrys health emergency chief Fernando Simon told reporters Monday that the probability of transmission in schools is negligible if safety measures are applied, Reuters reported.

Deonandan says the inability to distance and the unwillingness to wear masks is helping to continue the spread not just in Spain but in other European countries. He said this raises the possibility of school closures, the spread of the virus to older demographics as the weather gets colder and further lockdowns. And he says what is happening in Europe should act as a lesson to Canada because this might be our future.

Everyones expecting another climb in the fall and Im not sure the citizens of Canada are hearing that enough. How will it look? It might look like France. Im hoping it doesnt look like Spain, he said.

Italy

Despite bringing its initial outbreak in March and April under control in the early summer months, Italy is experiencing a surge in new cases with some pointing the finger at nighttime gatherings.

Two weeks ago, the country ordered people out in public between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. to wear masks and closed all dance clubs. On Friday, Italy recorded 1,460 cases, the countrys highest single-day number of new cases since April 1.

And as the country struggles to contain the virus, more bad news came Monday with Italys national statistics institute reporting that GDP fell 12.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the previous quarter and 17.7 per cent compared to the second quarter of 2019.

Bloomberg reported that Italy has approved about 100 billion euros in stimulus to date, with the country expected to receive the largest share of a 750-billion-euro European Union recovery fund.

Italy has recorded 269,214 cases of COVID-19 and 35,483 deaths related to the virus.

Globally, there have been more than 25 million recorded infections, with the death toll sitting at more than 847,000.

Kenyon Wallace is a Toronto-based investigative reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @KenyonWallace or reach him via email: kwallace@thestar.ca
Russia refuses to resume human rights consultations with the European Union. However, the restoration of a strategic dialogue between the EU and the Russian Federation is impossible.

EUs Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Peter Stano said this at a briefing on Monday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

The EU has repeatedly offered the Russian side to resume consultations on human rights. But, unfortunately, Russia did not accept this. At the same time, the restoration of a high-level strategic dialogue between the European Union and the Russian Federation is impossible, because it was suspended due to the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Stano said.

He also noted that the tendency of human rights protection in Russia is very negative.

In the spring of 2014, Russia invaded part of Ukraine's territory - the Crimean Peninsula. On March 16, 2014, a "referendum" on the status of the peninsula was held in Crimea and Sevastopol, as a result of which Russia announced Crimea a part of the Russian Federation.

At the same time, Ukraine, the European Union, the United States and other countries did not recognize the results of the vote in the "referendum" and imposed sanctions on Russia.

ish
New Delhi:

President Pranab Mukherjee wished people for the New Year on Saturday and asked them to take pledge to make the country clean and pollution free.

Greeting the people on the eve of New Year, the President said "May the New Year bring progress and prosperity to our glorious nation. "Let us unite to build an India of our dreams and pledge to make our beautiful country clean and pollution free," he said in a message while wishing all the countrymen here and in abroad.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Mindanao Development Authority in the Philippines to establish fish center in Davao Oriental

by Che Palicte

August 31,2020 | Source: PNA

Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) chairman, Secretary Emmanuel Pinol, said the province of Davao Oriental (DavOr) in the Philippines is set to become one of the 22 recipients of fish centers to be established in Mindanao.



In a statement on Sunday, the agency said Pinol made the announcement during the first-ever Aqua-Fishery Summit on Thursday (August 27). The project is touted to improve the provinces promising aqua-fishery industry.



Completing the value chain for the fishery sector, Pinol said in the statement that it will be connected virtually to each other and to the market which will facilitate better sales and exchanges.



He added that the City of Mati will be the beneficiary of a fish processing plant that the program will fund.



Support packages will also include the provision of ice makers and blast freezers, cold storage, and fish dryers.



In his speech during the summit, Pinol said that considering Davao Orientals vast potentials, it has been included in MinDAs Mindanao Fisheries and Aquaculture Development (MinFAD) program, making it one of the key players in the fishery sector along with other coastal provinces in the island of Mindanao.



Gaps, issues, and concerns affecting production and business systems in the local fishery were also discussed during the summit.



Provincial Agriculture Office department head Rotchie Ravelo said that among the challenges of the fishery industry are climate change, natural and man-made disasters, weak legislative mechanism, and the so-called brown development that involves the redevelopment of mangrove areas, rivers and beaches into other purposes such as resorts and human settlement areas.



Other concerns raised were the difficult market access and unstable price movements for "bangus" or milkfish and vannamei shrimp produce.



Governor Nelson Dayanghirang, meanwhile, emphasized the role of law enforcement as he reminded everyone that the task to maintain peace in fishing communities is a shared responsibility by all stakeholders.



He pointed out the role of coastal community-dwelling fisherfolk who have knowledge of illegal fishing activities in keeping the peace in their respective areas.



There is a need for marginalized fishers to use or be provided with larger fishing vessels that they may be able to compete with other commercial fishers, Dayanghirang also said.

 2020 Philippine News Agency

Theme(s): Fisheries Development and Aquaculture.
The year I was born, my father joined the Nation of Islam. He was in prison at the time. Some of our earliest family pictures show him holding me inside the facility.

Before being sent to prison, my father had been introduced to Nation of Islam teachings. During his incarceration, he officially became a member, joining a growing number of African American men for whom the nation signified community, identity, reform, and dignity.

After converting, my father placed our family under the authority of the nations leader, Elijah Muhammad. We belonged to Temple 7B in Corona, Queens, a mosque annexed by the famed Temple 7 in Harlem, where Malcolm X had once served as minister. (Louis Farrakhan was in charge of Temple 7 at the time.) Malcolm had been assassinated only seven years earlier, and no one dared mention his name, almost as if there were an unspoken rule forbidding it.

The Invisible God

Growing up within the Nation of Islam, I was exposed to certain beliefs that, in retrospect, seem quite bizarre. Sometimes we would look up at the night sky, spot the lights of planes flying at high altitudes, and wonder if we had caught a glimpse of the Mother Plane. According to the nations leaders, this was a spacecraft equipped by Allah to destroy the world and its white ruling structures in what they called the Battle in the Sky, a reference to Armageddon.

Other memories are more pleasant. Scented body oils and the fragrance of burning incense were common in every Nation of Islam household alongside pictures of the nations founder, Master Wallace Fard Muhammad, and Elijah Muhammad, his successor. I also have fond recollections of cheering for Muhammad Ali. To us, he was something ...

1

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Two months after violent clashes along Line of Actual Control between the Chinese troops and the Indian armed forces, fresh clashes have been reported at Pangong Tso in Ladakh.

According to a statement released by the Indian Army, the new development was triggered after the PLA violated consensus arrived at the high-level military talks between India and China over the eastern Ladakh standoff.

The Army stated that the Chinese troops tried to change the status quo leading to provocative action on the Indian side.

Army spokesman Colonel Aman Anand released a statement which read: Indian troops preempted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground. The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity.

Ladakh standoff flares up again after PLA attempts to change status quo #LadakhBorder #Ladakh #IndiaChinaFaceOff pic.twitter.com/ra2bW3PzsV  Deccan Chronicle (@DeccanChronicle) August 31, 2020

"Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground," the Army spokesperson said.

He said the Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect India's territorial integrity.

It is the first major incident involving the troops of the two countries after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. China also suffered casualties but it is yet to make the details public but according to an American intelligence report it was 35.

India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks in the last two-and-half months but no significant headway has been made for a resolution to the border row in eastern Ladakh.

The two sides began a process of disengagement on July 6, a day after a telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in eastern Ladakh. However, the process has not moved forward since mid-July.

The PLA has pulled back from Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang and a couple of other areas.

At the five rounds of Corps commander-level talks, the Indian side has been insisting on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to April.

The face-off began on May 5 following violent clashes between the two armies in the Pangong lake area. The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 9.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control(LAC).

Prior to the clashes, both sides have been asserting that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it is necessary to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas.

Even as both sides were engaged in diplomatic and military talks, the Indian Army stepped up its strength in all key areas along the LAC to deal with any eventualities.

Chief of Army Staff Gen MM Naravane has already conveyed to all the senior commanders of the Army, overseeing the operation of the frontline formations along the LAC, to keep up a significantly high state of alertness and maintain the aggressive posturing to deal with any Chinese "misadventure", sources said.

The tension between the two sides escalated manifold after the Galwan Valley clashes.

Following the incident, the government gave the armed forces "full freedom" to give a "befitting" response to any Chinese misadventure along the LAC.

The Army sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border following the deadly clashes. The IAF has also moved air defence systems as well as a sizeable number of its frontline combat jets and attack helicopters to several key air bases.
Saudi Arabias state oil company has discovered two new oil and gas fields in the northern part of the country, the Saudi Press Agency reported, citing Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman. The fields reserves have yet to be established accurately but they are both already producing gas, condensates, and oil.

One of the fields, Hadabat Al-Hajara, is pumping 16 million cu ft of gas daily, plus 1,944 barrels of condensates, and the other, Abraq at-Tulul, is producing some 3,000 barrels of crude daily as well as 49,000 barrels of condensates daily, and 1.1 million cu ft of gas.

More oil production is hardly what Saudi Arabiaor any other producerreally needs right now but, according to analysts, the two new finds could contribute to its non-oil hydrocarbons productionsomething the Kingdom is striving for as part of its diversification efforts. A lot of the oil Aramco produces is used locally for power generation and the companyand the governmentis trying to reduce this by replacing oil with gas. To do that, gas production needs to increase.

Whats more, switching to gas would free more oil for exports, the thinking in Riyadh went before the pandemic that devastated demand for oil. Saudi Arabia is the seventh-largest natural gas market in the world, according to Aramco, which is the sole supplier of the commodity locally.

Saudi Arabia had some 303 trillion cu ft in natural gas reserves as of 2017, which accounts for 4 percent of the global total and makes the Kingdom the worlds fifth-largest holder of natural gas reserves. According to Worldometers, this amount is enough for 79 years of consumption at current levels, which average 3.614 billion cu ft annually. This makes the twin discovery in the north all the more important for Saudi Arabias gas ambitions

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:


International flights to remain suspended till Sep 30 Centre has extended the suspension on scheduled commercial international flights to and from India till September-end. The government had last extended the suspension in July till August 31, Monday. A circular by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday said that it has further extended the suspension regarding "scheduled international commercial passenger services to/from India till 2359 hrs IST of 30h September,2020. It noted that this restriction shall not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by DGCA. "However,international scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on a case to case basis," said the circular. Passenger air services were suspended on March 25 due to the nationwide lockdown to check the spread of Covid-19. Domestic flight services, however, resumed from May 25.




On Monday, the Supreme Court imposed a fine of Re 1 fine on Prashant Bhushan for contempt of court case against him. Meanwhile, another contempt of court case against Prashant Bhushan is also pending before the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court on Monday slapped Re 1 fine on senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan in connection with a suo motu criminal contempt of court case over his tweets. A bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Arun Mishra, said that Bhushan should be barred from practising law for a period of three years and imprisoned for three months if he defaults on paying the fine.

The bench said that the courts decisions cannot be influenced by the publications or opinions in the media and noted that Bhushans statements to the press even before they were considered by this court was to influence the proceedings.

Freedom of expression is there but the rights of others should also be respected, the bench said. Also noting that the press conference by four Supreme Court judges in January 2018 was wrong, the bench said that judges were not supposed to hold a press conference.

Also read: PM addresses 68th edition of his monthly programme Mann ki Baat on caution amid festivities

Supreme Court imposes a fine of Re 1 fine on Prashant Bhushan. In case of default, he will be barred from practising for 3 years & will be imprisoned of 3 months https://t.co/0lMbqiizBb  ANI (@ANI) August 31, 2020

Also read: Drug charges against PM Modi biopic maker Sandip Ssingh to be investigated: Anil Deshmukh

The top court had, on August 25, reserved its judgement on the quantum of sentence of Bhushan in connection with the case. Reserving its order on the sentence, Justice Mishra had asked the senior lawyer to tender an apology saying there is no harm in apologising if a mistake has been made.

During the hearing, advocate Dr Rajeev Dhavan had appeared for Bhushan and submitted that Bhushan has the highest regard for the institution but he has his opinion about last four Chief Justices of India (CJIs) about the way in which this court has gone wrong.

Attorney General KK Venugopal had said that several sitting and retired judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts (former) have commented upon corruption in the higher judiciary and suggested to let Bhushan go with a warning if he expresses regret for his remarks.

Bhushan was earlier this month held guilty of contempt of court by the Supreme Court for two of his tweets, the first one posted on June 29, related to his post on a picture of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad Arvind Bobde on a high-end bike.

In his second tweet, Bhushan expressed his opinion on the role of last four CJIs amid the state of affairs in the country. Meanwhile, another contempt of court case against Prashant Bhushan is also pending before the top court.

Also read: Indian Navy deployed warship in South China sea post-Galwan clash: Reports
Harpreet Bajwa By

Express News Service

CHANDIGARH: Six policemen, inluding one deployed in Punjab CM's security, were arrested by the police on Sunday late night for allegedly killing brother-in-law of woman excise inspector in a road rage incident.

They chased the lady officer till her village as she did not give them way, harassed and passed lewd remarks on her. When she called her brother-in-law for help, they shot him dead.

Sources said that six policemen have been arrested yesterday night by the Batala Police for allegedly killing the relative of a woman excise inspector following a road rage brawl in Bhagwanpura village.

The policemen who have been arrested are ASIs Ranjit Singh and Baljit Singh posted in traffic wing of Amritsar Police, head constables Avtar Singh and Balkar Singh who are gunmen deployed with retired IGP Parampal Singh Sidhu, Surinder Singh posted in CM security and Simrat Singh.

It is learnt that the accused policemen were travelling in two cars and wanted to overtake the car of the lady excise inspector Amarpreet Kaur but she did not give them way for fifteen minutes due to the narrowness of the road. Then she turned on to another road towards her native village Bhagwanpura.

The policemen chased her to the village and managed to stop her, harass her besides damaging her vehicle even after she disclosed her identity to them. The excise officer then called her brother-in-law, 28-year old Gurmej Singh, for help and in the altercation the policemen shot Singh dead.

Immediately, some twenty five youth who were playing kabaddi nearby managed to surround the policemen. Her father-in-law Amrik Singh is a former SAD sarpanch.

Sources claimed that the policemen before shooting down Singh eve-teased the lady officer as they were drunk and refused to listen to Singh. One of the policeman took out his service revolver and shot Singh from point-blank range.

The police refused to reveal the identity of the policeman who actually shot the deceased. Senior Superintendent of Police of Batala, Rachpal Singh said a case on charges of murder has been registered at Kotli Surat Malhi police station after conducting a preliminary inquiry. "We are still investigating," he added.
A new teaser of the episode of Bear Grylls Into The Wild featuring Akshay Kumar is out. The special episode promises the daredevil duo on a mad adventure in the jungle. The short video begins with Bear introducing Akshay as the legend famed for his action films. I am a reel hero, he is a real hero, the actor then says.

Bear and Akshay are seen roughing it out in the jungle and navigating crocodile-infested waters. At one point, the actor sips on elephant poop tea.

Sharing the teaser on his Instagram page, Akshay wrote, I knew there would be stiff challenges prior to #IntoTheWildWithBearGrylls but @beargrylls completely surprised me with the elephant poop tea. What a day! @discoverychannelin @discoveryplusindia.

The episode will premiere on Discovery+ on September 11 and air on Discovery Channel on September 14. It was reportedly shot earlier this year at Mysurus Bandipur Tiger Reserve.

Also see | Sushant Singh Rajputs sister Shweta shares happy pics of them dancing to Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast: Miss you bhai

Currently, Akshay is in the UK, shooting for his upcoming spy thriller titled Bell Bottom. It was rumoured to be the remake of a Kannada film but he denied it and said, Bell Bottom is not a remake of any film, it is an original screenplay inspired by true events. The film also features Vaani Kapoor, Huma Qureshi and Lara Dutta.

Earlier this month, Akshay shared a video to announce that Bell Bottom had begun shooting. Lights, Camera, Mask On and Action. Following all the new norms and filming on for #BellBottom! Its a difficult time but work has to go on. Need your love and luck, he captioned his Instagram post. The video showed him holding a clapboard in one hand and putting a mask on his face with the other.

Bell Bottom, set in the 1980s, is said to be about one of Indias forgotten heroes. Directed by Ranjit M Tewari and written by Aseem Arrora and Parveez Shaikh, the film is scheduled to release on April 2, 2021.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
As NIO for military issues, Schinella was the highest-ranking military affairs analyst in the U.S. intelligence community, and was also a member of the powerful National Intelligence Council, which is responsible for producing the intelligence communitys most important analytical reports that go to the president and other top policymakers.

Soon after his death, an FBI liaison to the CIA entered Schinellas house and removed his passports, his secure phone, and searched through his belongings, according to his wife, Sara Corcoran, a Washington journalist. A CIA spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

Anthony Schinella, 52, the national intelligence officer for military issues, shot himself on June 14 in the front yard of his Arlington home. A Virginia medical examiners report lists Schinellas cause of death as suicide from a gunshot wound to the head. His wife, who had just married him weeks earlier, told The Intercept that she was in her car in the driveway, trying to get away from Schinella when she witnessed his suicide. At the time of his suicide, Schinella was weeks away from retirement.

ONE OF THE nations highest-ranking intelligence officials died by suicide at his home in the Washington, D.C., area in June, but the U.S. intelligence community has remained publicly silent about the incident even as the CIA has conducted a secret investigation of his death.

The National Intelligence Council is now under the control of the Director of National Intelligence, and has recently gained greater public prominence as its analytical work has been caught up in political controversies surrounding the Trump administration, including this summers public firestorm over intelligence reports about Russian bounties to kill American troops.

On June 26, the New York Times reported that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan, and President Donald Trump quickly faced criticism for having failed to do anything in response to protect American troops. Within days, the National Intelligence Council produced a memo that claimed that the intelligence about the bounties wasnt conclusive. While the memo was not made public, it was quickly picked up in the press and seemed designed to placate Trump by raising doubts about the original news story about the Russian bounties. The NIC memo appears to have been generated at the urging of John Ratcliffe, the former Republican Texas congressman and Trump supporter who became director of national intelligence in May.

But at the time that the memo became public through press reports, there was no mention of the fact that the national intelligence officer for military issues  the one member of the NIC who should have had the most input into the analysis concerning military operations in Afghanistan  had killed himself just days earlier. In fact, Schinella was considered an expert on the Taliban and its military capabilities. Though he was an analyst, Schinella had deployed to four different war zones during his career, his wife said.

A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a graduate degree from Harvards Kennedy School of Government, Schinella had spent much of his career in the CIA before joining the National Intelligence Council. In 2019, the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, published a book by Schinella entitled Bombs Without Boots, a study of the limits of the uses of air power in modern war.

Tim Kilbourn, a friend and former colleague of Schinella, described him in an interview as an American patriot, and said that his end was a tragedy, but declined to comment further. The Arlington County, Virginia, police report on the incident was not immediately available.

Ashley Savage, a spokesperson for the Arlington County Police Department, said the departments investigation of the Schinella case remains open. She said the Arlington police notified the CIA about Schinellas death, and that the Arlington police provided assistance to the CIA. We will defer any questions related to the CIA investigation to their agency, she added.

After his death, Schinellas wife discovered a large collection of bondage and S&M gear that had been hidden in his house, along with 24 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. His wife said that one of Schinellas CIA colleagues contacted her recently and said the CIA has completed an investigation into Schinellas death, but didnt provide her with any details.

Schinella had two children from a previous marriage.
One person was shot dead late on Saturday in Portland, Oregon, as a large caravan of US President Donald Trumps supporters and Black Lives Matter protesters clashed in the streets.

It wasnt clear if the shooting was linked to fights that broke out as the caravan of about 600 vehicles was confronted by protesters in the citys downtown.

Portland police officers heard sounds of gunfire from the area of Southeast 3rd Avenue and Southwest Alder Street. They responded and located a victim with a gunshot wound to the chest, the Portland police bureau said.

The chaotic scenes came two days after Trump invoked Portland as a liberal city overrun with violence in a speech at the Republican National Convention as part of his law and order re-election campaign theme. The caravan marked the third Saturday in a row that Trump supporters have rallied in the city.

Videos from the scene showed sporadic fighting, as well as Trump supporters firing paintball pellets at opponents and using bear spray as counter-protesters threw things at the Trump caravan.

All options on the table to resolve violent protests in Portland, including sending in federal law enforcement assistance, the acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said.

The Black Lives Matter demonstrations usually target police buildings and federal offices. With chants of One person, one vote and No justice, no peace, a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators gathered outside a Wisconsin courthouse on Saturday to denounce police violence, a week after a cop shot Jacob Blake in the back and left the Black man paralysed.

Protesters chanted Seven bullets, seven days - a reference to the number of times Blake was shot last Sunday. Blakes father, Jacob Blake Sr, called for end to police brutality.
Responding to a query raised by a BJP MLA on the killing" of Brahmins in Uttar Pradesh, the Yogi Adityanath-led government in the state sent an unusual letter to the District Magistrates asking them how many Brahmins have applied for and received arms licences.

Kitne Brahmino ney shastra license ke liye apply kiya aur kitnon ko license jaari hua?  samagri shashan ko 21.08.20 tak e-mail par uplabdh.. karein. (How many Brahmins applied for arms licences and how many were issued. Provide this information by August 21, 2020 on e-mail),reads the letter sent to all DMs in the state.

However, according to The Indian Express, the letter, signed by Prakash Chandra Agarwal, Under Secretary, state Home Department and sent on August 18, was later backtracked with a senior official saying the details are no longer being pursued.

Vidhan Sabhas Principal Secretary Pradeep Dubey told Indian Express, We did not seek any such information from the government and no such question was accepted.

Earlier this month, Devmani Dwiwedi, BJP MLA from Sultanpur, had left his party red-faced by asking a question for the upcoming Assembly session, related to the number of Brahmins killed in the past three years. He demanded to know how many accused were arrested during this period and in how many cases the police succeeded in getting the accused convicted.

News18 had reported that the UP government has prepared a caste-based list of total encounter deaths during its three-and-a-half-year tenure. The list was to be produced in the UP Assembly during the monsoon session.

After the encounter of Vikas Dubey and Rakesh Pandey, the opposition had raised questions on the encounter of criminals of one particular caste. With this list, the UP government seeks to convey that criminals are not being discriminated against on the basis of one caste or religion.
Indian batsman Ajinkya Rahane (Photo/Ajinkya Rahane Instagram)

New Delhi [India], Aug 31 (ANI): Batsman Ajinkya Rahane on Monday congratulated the Indian team on being the joint winners of the FIDE Chess Olympiad and said that the feat is a "proud moment" for the nation.

Taking to Twitter, Rahane wrote: "Many congratulations to team India on being declared the joint winners for the #ChessOlympiad. Proud moment for us as a nation."





On Sunday, India's Nihal Sarin and Divya Deshmukh lost connection to their games in the second round and had to forfeit. Russia was declared as the winners, but India filed an appeal and after investigation, both India and Russia were announced as joint winners.

India had reached the finals of the FIDE Chess Olympiad for the first time.

This was also the first time that Olympiad was conducted online. The Indian team included Vishwanathan Anand, Koneru Humpy, Dronavilli Harika, Harkishna, Divya, Nihal, and Vidit.

Earlier, India's best finish at the Olympiad before the 2020 edition had come in 2014 when the contingent returned with a bronze medal.

The first round of the summit clash between India and Russia on Sunday finished as 3-3 draw after all six games finished in six draws.

Russia started the match against India as favourites after having their average rating of 12 players (2519) higher than India (2419).

The second round witnessed high drama as two Indian players -- Sarin and Deshmukh -- lost connection to their games and had to forfeit, following which India filed an official appeal for a consequent investigation.

FIDE President A Dvorkovich sat out the appeal, as he represented Russia. IO M.Khodarkovsky (USA) and IA Sava Stoisavljevic (Serbia) were tasked with issuing a verdict.

It was declared that both India and Russia will be joint winners of the competition.

On Saturday, Koneru Humpy was the shining light for India as she defeated Monika Socko of Poland in the semi-finals.

India and Poland had won one round each in normal play and as a result, Humpy had to battle against Socko for the Armageddon (tie-break clash).

In this clash, Humpy managed to defeat Socko to clinch the summit clash spot for India. India had lost the first round of the match, but the side managed to make a stunning comeback in the second to stage a remarkable comeback. (ANI)


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Linkedin Editorial board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, September 1 2020

For the umpteenth time since the two institutions broke up as part of sweeping reforms introduced to protect hard-won democracy 20 years ago, Indonesian Military (TNI) and National Police personnel have been embroiled in a clash. The latest incident, in which a group of military soldiers attacked and burned the Ciracas Police station in East Jakarta on Sunday, may not be the last if no comprehensive solution is found.

So entrenched is the animosity between members of the two forces that even a trivial matter such as eye contact could trigger a fight. In some occasions, the squabbling claimed lives, as what happened in Mamberamo Raya regency in April. The armed clash in the outlying Papua province killed three police personnel.

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Linkedin Riska Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 17:23 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41af715 1 Business BCA,Rabobank,acquisition,BCA-Syariah,Merger,corporate-action,Bank-Royal-Indonesia,digital-banking Free

Publicly listed Bank Central Asia (BCA) plans to merge newly acquired Rabobank Indonesia with its sharia financing arm BCA Syariah in 2021 to capture bigger opportunities in sharia-compliant financial products and services in Indonesia.

BCA finance director Vera Eve Lim said on Aug. 28 that the bank expected to go forward with the merger in 2021 should the acquisition process go smoothly.

Were currently focusing on completing Rabobanks acquisition process with the Financial Services Authority [OJK], and once we finish, well go forward with the merger, she said during a virtual press briefing.

BCA acquired all 3.72 million shares of the local arm of Dutch lender Rabobank from its five shareholders in December 2019, including its parent company Cooperatieve Rabobank UA.

The countrys biggest privately owned bank by assets would buy Rabobank Indonesias shares for a total of US$20.5 million and one-time adjusted book value on closing.

Vera went on to say that the merger between Rabobank and BCAs sharia-compliant entity was aimed at grabbing the potential that Islamic banking presents in Indonesia.

I think theres always an opportunity in the sharia market, especially in the commercial and small and medium enterprises [SME] segment, she said, adding that the bank would continue BCA Syariahs focus on SMEs and the retail segment.

She went on to say that the merger would increase the Islamic banking entitys core capital without mentioning the figure.

She said Rabobanks core capital stood at Rp 384 billion, while BCA Syariahs core capital stood at Rp 2.31 trillion as of 2019 after it injected Rp 1 trillion in capital in September of last year.

BCA Syariahs assets, meanwhile, stood at Rp 8.63 trillion in 2019 or up by 22.23 percent from the previous year.

Given that BCA is aiming to grow the business, Vera said the bank had yet to have any intention to list BCA Syariah on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX).

In the meantime, Vera said BCA would focus on broader digital bank development and was testing the product on its own employees.

The launch will still be on schedule, October or November of this year, she said, adding that it would target mainly millennial customers.

BCA developed the digital bank after successfully acquiring Bank Royal in November 2019 for Rp 1.01 trillion.

Following the acquisition, BCA injected Rp 1 trillion in capital into Bank Royal, making its issued and paid-up capital jump to Rp 1.29 trillion each from Rp 287.2 billion and boosting it to become a BUKU II bank category with a core capital of Rp 1 trillion to Rp 5 trillion.

The plan was also in line with the digital banking trend during the pandemic, as it saw a 35-percent increase in digital banking transactions to Rp 5.1 billion as of the first half of this year.

Jasa Utama Capital analyst Chris Apriliony lauded BCAs plan to merge Rabobank with its Islamic bank subsidiary because of the huge potential from the large number of Muslims in Indonesia.

The merge would also impact the bank positively as it could significantly reduce operational cost in the long run, he said.

BCAs shares, listed under the code BBCA at the IDX, have lost 3.37 percent of their value since the beginning of the year. As of 11 a.m. on Monday, the shares dipped slightly by 0.54 percent to Rp 32,300 apiece.
LOS ANGELESRon Jeremy will face an additional 20 charges related to sexual misconduct, against 13 more women  including five counts of forcible rape  the Los Angeles County District Attorneys office announced in a news release Monday morning.

The new charges against Jeremy also include lewd conduct with a 15-year-old girl, and penetration by a foreign object on an unconscious or sleeping victim, according to the D.A.s office.

Jeremys lawyer Stuart Goldfarb was in court Monday to set a date for his clients preliminary hearing on what were to be the original eight counts against the porn icon. The date for Jeremys preliminary hearing was set for October 29, Goldfarb confirmed.

In the previous complaint against Jeremy, the most recent allegation dated from July 15, 2019. Jeremy entered pleas of "not guilty" to the initial eight counts at an arraignment on June 26.

But the new charges include an incident that allegedly took place on New Years Day of this year, when according to the news release, Jeremy is accused of sexually assaulting a 21-year-old woman outside a business in Hollywood.

The newly amended criminal complaint, provided to AVN by the D.A.'s office, describes that alleged assault as the crime of sodomy by use of force, and says that Jeremy used violence, duress, menace and fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury to said victim and to another, to accomplish the act against the victims will.

The earliest charge in the newly amended complaint is dated June 30, 2004, when Jeremy allegedly "did willfully, unlawfully, and lewdly commit a lewd and lascivious act upon and with the body and certain parts and members of a 15-year-old girl. Jeremy would have been 51 years old at the time of the incident.

An allegation of sexual penetration of an unconscious or asleep person is said in the complaint to have taken place on either February 21st or 22nd of 2014.

While the 15-year-old girl who was allegedly assaulted by Jeremy is 2004 is the youngest victim listed in the new charges, the oldest is age 54. The charges also include six counts of sexual battery while the victims were being restrained by Jeremy.

If he is convicted on all 28 counts, the now 67-year-old Jeremy faces an effective life sentence totaling 250 years behind bars.
I applaud the plan to hire 100,000 minorities by 2030 by the New York Jobs CEO Council, which features firms, banks, and tech companies. It is a good start. They are showing both an understanding and willingness to help America with one of its cruelest forms of unfairness  employment. The major corporations and the federal government must lead the way to eliminate any racial injustices in opportunities, especially when they violate long standing Civil Rights laws.

History would show that post slavery the government sanction and de facto restrictions on Black employment was sinister, hateful, and disruptive. It played a major role in the separation of families and the incessant placement of Blacks in the lower class, often in or near poverty. This resulted in people looking for alternative means of providing for their families, even gang and crime activity.

Today, no job is prohibited to Black Americans, yet I challenge you, reader, to look at how many Black supervisors, managers, directors, vice presidents you have seen in your lifetime. The trick has always been to showcase a handful of special token Blacks so you would have the appearance that the company was practicing good employment policies.

Employment audits are needed to assess employment practices in hiring, promotions, retention, and compensation to determine if there are any racial disparities. The intent is fairness. There are many companies that are stellar in this regard, while others have work to do. This does take effort. It is always easier to stick with what you know, go with the easy choice. The use of monetary consideration in pay or bonuses can quickly alter bad behavior.

On the federal government side, we must have the monitoring and enforcement of Civil Rights laws. Far too often, however, when brought to the attention of people in authority, the benevolent advocates for fairness are often dismissed.

Congress and other federal government officials have been informed that many of the electric companies do not measure up regarding their aforementioned employment practices toward Blacks and Hispanics and could be discriminating against Blacks and Hispanics while receiving federal funds. This would be a direct violation of the Civil Rights laws.

The only thing worse than systemic unfairness would be an industry able to benefit off the backs of the poor, who are disproportionately Black and Hispanic, while failing to apply fair employment practices at all levels of their organization. The Low-Income Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is a federal government program that I had championed while a member of Congress in the 1990s. It truly was a godsend for many families in my Connecticut congressional district. Without it, many indigent people would not be able to keep the lights or heat on during the winter.

The electric companies get reimbursed by LIHEAP for the cost of allowing the poor to have heat and lights. Nearly $4 billion annually is allocated nationwide for this program. Ironically, the creation of more displaced workers and poor people would mean more revenue for the electric companies.

Major corporations like those that are part of the NY Jobs CEO Council should continue to lead the way and be examples for others to follow while the federal government should force those who have not gotten the message about racial justice and fairness a stern wake up call.

Gary Franks served as the U.S. representative for Connecticuts 5th District from 1991 to 1997. He was the first Black Republican elected to the House in nearly 60 years, and is New Englands first Black Member of the House. He is host of the podcast We Speak Frankly. Follow him @GaryFranks
Ontarios Special Investigation Unit has cleared Niagara police of any wrongdoing after a man suffered a fractured ankle during an incident in Niagara Falls.

Niagara Regional Police were called to a Lundys Lane motel on May 20 after the manager called 911 to complain about the behaviour of a 49-year-old man who lived in one of the units.

In the course of arresting the man, a struggle ensued before the man was secured in custody.

As two police officers walked the man toward a police cruiser, he fell and fractured his ankle.

In a report released Monday, SIU director Joseph Martino said there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the police officers committed a criminal offence in connection with the mans arrest.

Video evidence suggested the man was extremely intoxicated, and, according to the SIU, there is no evidence to suggest that either of the involved officers struck or injured the complainant.

The SIU is an arms-length agency that investigates reports involving police where there has been death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.
4:55pm: The Mariners will receive righty Matt Brash in return, per Dennis Lin of The Athletic. The 22-year-old Brash went in the fourth round of the 2019 draft and then threw 5 1/3 scoreless innings between rookie ball and Single-A last season.

3:34pm: The Padres have made yet another trade, this time acquiring right-hander Taylor Williams from the Mariners for a player to be named later, AJ Cassavell of MLB.com tweets.

This is the second trade in as many days between the Padres and Mariners, who previously swung a seven-player deal Sunday that saw Austin Nola, Austin Adams and Dan Altavilla go from Seattle to San Diego. As was the case in landing Adams and Altavilla, the idea behind acquiring Williams is to improve a Padres bullpen that has struggled with injuries and underperformance in 2020. Its anyones guess whether the 29-year-old Williams will end up as part of the solution, though, considering he has only put up a 5.34 ERA across 86 major league innings with the Brewers and Mariners. Williams has however, averaged 95 mph on his fastball and posted a 3.80 FIP during his time in the bigs. He also wont be eligible for arbitration until after 2021, so Williams could be a valuable piece for the Padres over multiple seasons if he turns around his career.

Regardless of whether Williams rights the ship as a Padre, his pickup is yet another sign that theyre going for it in 2020. At 21-15 and trying to break a long playoff drought, the A.J. Preller-led Padres have made a series of notable trades since the weekend.
In context: Lenovo on Monday introduced a handful of new products for the upcoming holiday season including a surprising entry in the Android tablet space. The Lenovo Tab P11 Pro is described as the companys most powerful consumer Android tablet to date. While that may be true, won't quite stand up to offerings like Samsung's new Galaxy Tab S lineup (but you won't pay nearly as much, either).

It features an 11.5-inch 2K resolution OLED display (2,560 x 1,600 pixels, 500 nits brightness) with HDR10 and Dolby Vision support.

Powering the portable is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G, a mid-range 64-bit octa-core ARM chip built on Samsungs 8nm LPP process. It packs an Adreno 618 GPU and is reportedly good for up to 15 hours of usage on a single charge.

Lenovo also focused extensively on the slates audio platform, packing in four JBL speakers with 2.5cc chambers that are optimized by Dolby Atmos technology.

The tablet is quite the looker, too, sporting 6.9mm bezels on all four sides of the screen (87 percent screen-to-display ratio). At its thickest point, the aluminum-alloy unibody slate with dual tone finish measures just 7.7mm thick and weighs only 1.07 pounds.

Other noteworthy features including fingerprint or face unlock, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with autofocus alongside a 5-megapixel fixed shooter with 120-degree field of view, two 8-megapixel front-facing cameras, dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. It ships with Android 10 pre-installed out of the box.

Lenovo said the Tab P11 Pro will start at 699 including VAT when it arrives in November, or closer $500 according to other reports.
New Delhi, Aug 31 : A Delhi court on Monday extended the police custody of JNU scholar Sharjeel Imam, arrested under a stringent anti-terror law, by three more days in connection with the Delhi riots case.

On August 26, Additional Session Judge Amitabh Rawat had sent Imam to four-days police custody and was produced before the court today at the end of his remand period.

During the course of proceedings, the Delhi Police sought his custody for seven more days to further question him, confront with huge technical data, unearth deep rooted conspiracy and to collect clinching evidence to nab the remaining conspirators behind the riots.

Special Public Prosecutor Amit Prasad told the court that during the course of investigation, name of more suspects have come out and Imam is required to be questioned at length about those suspects to obtain their exact particulars.

The Special Public Prosecutor also claimed that the Imam gave evasive replies to the questions during the last police remand and did not lend support during the investigation.

Allowing the police's application for the police custody, the Additional Session Judge stated, "I deem it fit to allow the present application for seeking police custody remand of the accused Sharjeel Imam. However, it is granted only for a period of three days and not seven days as sought. Accordingly, three days police custody remand of the accused namely Sharjeel Imam is given to the IO." The judge said that the accused should be medically examined every 24 hours and also allowed his counsel Advocate Surbhi Dhar to confer with him for a period not exceeding half an hour at the beginning of the police custody and after every 48 hours during police custody remand.

"The concerned police officials shall ensure that they remain outside the audible range during the said period. Needless to state that the accused and his counsel shall follow the necessary distancing protocols in view of the outbreak of Covid-19," the judge added.

On August 25, the Special Cell of Delhi Police had arrested Imam in connection with the riots under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. He was brought back to the capital city from Assam two day before that on a production warrant.

Imam had come into the limelight for his speech in Delhi's Jamia Millia against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens on December 13 and subsequently on January 16 at Aligarh Muslim University, where he allegedly threatened to "cut off" Assam and the rest of the northeast from the country.

Delhi Police on July 25 had filed a charge sheet against Imam in connection with a case related to his alleged inflammatory speeches during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at several places.

The 600-page charge sheet was filed, under section 124A (Sedition), 153(A) (Promoting enmity), 153 (Assertion prejudicial to national integration) (promoting enmity, Hatred between different communities, 505 (spreading rumours) IPC and Section 13 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, in Delhi's Patiala House court.
With everything going on in the world, it's hard to tell students to return to school and act as if nothing happened.

Jarvis Chrisitian College is changing the narrative by attempting to help supplement students with mental health resources. The historically Black college is partnering with META Teletherapy, an online counseling service for students.

Jarvis Christian College is a small HBCU founded in 1912 in Hawkins, Texas. Jarvis is the only historically black college which remains of the twelve founded by the Disciples of Christ Churcha group of Protestant churches that formed during the frontier religious revival movement of the early 19th century.

BEST IN CLASS: The top 20 colleges in Texas, according to Niche

The partnership comes at a time where students are adapting to school during the pandemic, as well as other economic issues. According to a recent survey conducted by META, 84% of college students are struggling with stress and anxiety caused by COVID-19.

Dr. Lester Newman, President of Jarvis Christian College said in a press release, "Mental health care has never been more important for our students than it is right now."

While most colleges already offer some form of on-campus counseling it's not always easy for students to have access to appointments when they need them.

According to Business Wire, "students still encounter barriers when striving to overcome the stigma associated with getting help in a timely fashion, and scheduling regular, ongoing appointments, due to increased demand."

Dr. Newman concluded by saying, "By partnering with META, we instantly remove many barriers to care that could prevent a student from receiving the therapy they need. META addresses stigmas surrounding mental health assistance, and allows students to connect with providers in an easy, private, and safe manner.

It's good to know that a university is taking extra measures to ensure that their students will be successful in tumultuous and trying time.
Zaev, who won a narrow election victory over nationalist rivals in July, was approved as prime minister with 62 votes in the 120-seat parliament

Zoran Zaev, the pro-Western leader who changed the name of North Macedonia last year to secure its membership in NATO and the European Union, returned to power late on Sunday, seven months after resigning over the slow pace of EU membership talks.

Zaev, who won a narrow election victory over nationalist rivals in July, was approved as prime minister with 62 votes in the 120-seat parliament.

The country joined NATO in March after adding the word "North" to its name, under an agreement with Greece, which has a province called Macedonia and had blocked its neighbour's membership in Western organisations for decades.

"Having joined NATO, we will show that we can join the EU. It is a national, decades-long strategic interest," Zaev told parliament, pledging to close the negotiating chapters in six years.

After narrowly defeating the nationalists in the July 15 vote, Zaev's Social Democrat bloc gained the support of parties representing Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority to form new a governing coalition.

He said his coalition had also prepared a new set of measures to shield the people and economy from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The country of 2 million people has reported 14,330 cases of infection and 600 deaths.

Parliament dissolved in February when Zaev resigned after the EU declined to set a date for membership negotiations. A month later the EU announced talks could begin. It has set no date, but diplomats said it would likely be later this year.

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LUND, Sweden, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hansa Biopharma, the leader in immunomodulatory enzyme technology for rare IgG mediated diseases, today announced that the Company's management team will present at the following upcoming investor conferences in September:

Pareto Securities Health Care Conference on Thursday September 3, 2020 , at 15:30 CET

, at 15:30 CET Citibank's Annual BioPharma Virtual Conference on Wednesday September 9 , 2020

, 2020 H.C.Wainwrigth Healthcare Conference on Tuesday September 15 , 2020

, 2020 Bank of America Merill Lynch Healthcare Conference on Wednesday September 16 , 2020

, 2020 MorganStanley Global Healthcare Conference on Friday September 18, 2020 at 8:00am EST /14:00 CET

at /14:00 CET ABG Small & Midcap Seminar, Copenhagen on Wednesday September 23, 2020 at 13:30 CET

A link to the presentations and webcasts will be available on the Events & Presentations page of the Company's website at http://www.hansabiopharma.com.

Calendar



Aug 31,2020 Kempen Road Show, Tel Aviv/Paris/Benelux (virtual)

Sep 3, 2020 Pareto Healthcare Conference, Stockholm (virtual)

Sep 9, 2020 Citibank's Annual BioPharma Virtual Conference, Boston (virtual)

Sep 15, 2020 H.C. Wainwright Healthcare Conference, NYC (virtual)

Sep 16, 2020 Bank of America Merill Lynch Healthcare Conf., London (virtual)

Sep 18, 2020 MorganStanley Global Healthcare Conference, NYC (virtual)

Sep 23, 2020 ABG Small & Mid Cap Seminar, Copenhagen and virtual

Oct 22, 2020 Interim Report Jan-Sep 2020

Oct 29, 2020 Hansa Biopharma Capital Markets Day, Copenhagen and virtual

Nov 17, 2020 Bryan Garnier Healthcare Conference, Paris

Nov 18, 2020 Jefferies Healthcare Conference, London

Nov 25, 2020 Okonomisk Ugebrev Life Science Conference, Copenhagen

Feb 2, 2021 Interim report for Jan - Dec 2020

April 8, 2021 Annual Report 2020

April 22, 2021 Interim report for Jan - Mar 2021

July 15, 2021 Interim report for Jan - Jun 2021

Oct 21, 2021 Interim report for Jan - Sep 2021

CONTACT:

For further information, please contact:

Klaus Sindahl, Head of Investor Relations

Hansa Biopharma

Mobile: +46 (0) 709-298 269

E-mail: [email protected]

Katja Margell

Head of Corporate Communications

Hansa Biopharma

Mobile: +46 (0) 768-198 326

E-mail: [email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/hansa-biopharma-ab/r/hansa-biopharma-announces-participation-in-fall-conferences-and-an-updated-financial-calendar,c3182962

The following files are available for download:

SOURCE Hansa Biopharma AB
By Trend

The next meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will be held in Vienna on September 1, Trend reports citing Mehr.

The meeting will be chaired by Secretary-General of the European Union External Action Service Helga Schmid and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi.

The event will be attended by representatives of France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia.

Thus, the meeting will be held at the level of deputy ministers and political directors of the Iranian and 4+1 Group foreign ministers.

Last July, after receiving a letter from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif regarding the non-adherence of European countries to this agreement, Schmid said that the next meeting of the Joint Commission of the JCPOA will be held as soon as the conditions for travel are available.

However, the forthcoming meeting is important because the US has illegally called for the reinstatement of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran.

On August 26, Schmid reacted to the latest joint statement issued by Iran and IAEA.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Schmid wrote, Good news from Tehran on cooperation between #Iran and @iaeaorg. The EU trusts the impartial and independent role of the agency. In the meantime we continue our work to preserve #JCPOA with Joint Commission next week; I will chair on behalf of High Representative @JosepBorrellF.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Thailand govt. mulls buying back more trawlers, ease rules

August 31,2020 | Source: The Bangkok Post

The government of Thailand has agreed to help commercial fishing operations by pledging to consider buying back more trawlers from companies affected by the regulations and relaxing several fishing regulations.



"The government has been working hard to find ways to respond to the demands of those affected by the government's fishing regulations, which were aimed at solving illegal, unreported and unregulated [IUU] fishing in Thailand," said deputy government spokeswoman Rachada Dhnadirek on Sunday after the National Fisheries Association of Thailand (NFAT) threatened to stage a mass protest in Bangkok.



She said the prime minister has made the fishing industry a national priority and ordered state bodies to listen to local fishermen and associations like NFAT to fine-tune its policies.



The government introduced a raft of tough fishing rules to convince the European Union -- a major importer of Thai seafood products -- to withdraw Thailand's yellow card status over IUU fishing issues.



The EU finally did so in January last year, but the NFAT -- the country's largest trawler-operators organisation -- claims the rules have caused the fishing industry to suffer.



The association is pushing the government to relax several rules, including a requirement for trawlers to have a Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) installed, which allows authorities to monitor their real-time movements.



It is also demanding the government to buy back some 2,505 vessels which it claimed to have been affected by the the government's anti-IUU policies.



Ms Rachada said the government is working on revising some rules, before adding the government has already approved 764.45 million baht to buy back 305 vessels and would seek more budget to buy back 263 more boats.



The deputy spokeswoman said the government will provide low-interest loans worth 10.3 billion baht to encourage fishermen to improve their equipment to meet international regulations.

 2020 Bangkok Post Public Company Limited

Theme(s): Fishing Craft, Gear and Fishing Methods.
A giant snowman erected on the bank of Songhua River in Harbin, the capital of Northeast Chinas Heilongjiang province, has drawn much attention online. Around 2,000 cubic meters of snow was used to create the 18.5-meter-tall figure dressed in a red hat and scarf. Since December, ice and snow sculptures featuring Winter Olympics and Lunar New Year elements have popped up across the city famed for its ice festivals, drawing many visitors

Jan 20, 2022 06:19 PM
An Australian journalist has been detained in Beijing in relation to a 'highly sensitive case'.

Commerce graduate and mother-of-two Cheng Lei faces up to six months in custody after she was placed in a 'residential hold' two weeks ago.

According to Chinese law Ms Cheng can be held for up to six months for questioning - even if she is not charged - and could be denied access to a lawyer or family and friends for the duration.

She has been in the custody of Chinese authorities for two weeks, Foreign Minister Marise Payne confirmed on Monday.

Ms Payne would not offer further details about the case, but said 'formal notification was received on 14 August 2020 from Chinese authorities of her detention'.

Ms Cheng has two children living in Melbourne, but has been working as a TV anchor in China for eight years.

'Australian officials had an initial consular visit with Ms Cheng at a detention facility via video link on 27 August and will continue to provide assistance and support to her and her family,' Ms Payne said.

Ms Cheng has reportedly not been charged but is being held under a 'residential surveillance at a designated location'

'Further comment will not be provided owing to the Government's privacy obligations.'

Ms Cheng works for state broadcaster China Global Television Network, but her profile on the CGTN webpage has since disappeared and now leads to an error message.

Friends first became concerned about Ms Cheng when she did not reply to several messages in recent weeks.

Ms Cheng has reportedly not been charged but is being held under a 'residential surveillance at a designated location'.

The detention allows investigators to imprison a person for up to six months and suspend all access to lawyers and the outside world.

Ms Cheng's supporters are reportedly seeking legal representation for her.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne confirmed Cheng Lei (pictured) had been detained, but would not offer any further details about the case

Ms Cheng's family said they have faith in the Chinese government in a statement provided to the ABC.

'As a family we are aware of the current situation with regard to Cheng Lei's status as advised by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,' they said.

The family confirmed they are in close consultation with DFAT and are 'doing everything we can as a family to support Cheng Lei'.

'In China, due process will be observed and we look forward to a satisfactory and timely conclusion to the matter.

'We ask that you respect that process and understand there will be no further comment at this time.'

Ms Cheng describes herself as 'a passionate orator of the #China story' on social media, but has not posted anything since August 12.

Her most recent post read: '#Shakeshack's first #Beijingstore set to open in 12 hours' timethe staff are psyched! Loving the Beijing touches in food and decor. Opening ceremony will feature pedicabs and pesky Beijing uncles! Make shakes, not war.'

Back on August 6th, Ms Lei revealed she had an interview lined up with an Irish investment agency regarding TikTok, but suggested it was cancelled 'due to (government?) pressures'.

Hours after news spread of Ms Cheng's detention, several Tweets she reshared about her work were removed.

Most of the Tweets that were removed related to interviews Ms Cheng had conducted on the job and linked back to the CGTN Twitter account.
Gurugram (Haryana) [India], Aug 31 (ANI/NewsVoir): As the Indian real estate market is now improving at a steady pace and potential buyers are more inclined to own a home in gated societies in view of the small group being more suitable for a standard living in new normal, Elante Group has opened up new investment opportunities with its exclusive projects in the Delhi NCR area to give buyers more choice and to equip the independent societies with top notch facilities and amenities which they only expect through huge commercial projects.

Akash Kohli, Founder & CEO, Elante Group, shared his concept of developing small-scale communities that stand out as a great choice for potential buyers and investors and can be mutually beneficial to both ends.

"To get our customers world-class experience, we are taking an extra leap to open up services, conveniences and amenities that were previously expected only in large communities. As in the grasping situation all around, people are looking for a lot of separate properties where the number of tenants is comparatively much lower than the commercial developments that are supposed to accommodate as many people as possible," said Akash Kohli.

"Small and gated settlements thus are more appealing for investors wishing to invest over 100 Cr. and protect for themselves a quality asset especially in times when huge projects has no certain time line to finish up due to sudden scarcity of man labor. Additionally, these small-scale projects are completed in less than 18 months and reduce the long waiting period for flat deliveries in view of major communities," he added.

Key Points:

Elante Group is inviting investors who are willing to invest more than 100 Crores in quality assets.

Despite the fact that COVID-19 slowed down the industry even further, Elante Group launched two flagship projects in mid lockdown time located in Gurgaon.

Potential home buyers now want their new home to be fully automated and office ready and prefer small and gated communities in view with issued guidelines for healthy living in the wake of pandemic.

Investment in luxurious apartment and buildings in small communities brings rapid ROI and real time growth for both the buyers and investors at large scale.

Despite the fact that COVID-19 slowed down the industry even further and big realtors are avoiding to initiate any new projects in Delhi NCR region, Elante Group successfully launched two of its flagship projects based out of Gurgaon following the current trend in the industry.

The two luxurious apartment projects namely, Sushant Lok, E-4 and Nirvana Country, Cedar Crest-24 respectively got majority of footfalls during lockdown only as both projects promise on time delivery and come equipped with essential amenities suggested by the government and also, they define high living standards which are not so common in small gated communities.

Investors looking forward to investing in real estate are often ask for various requirements that they believe are important to attract buyers and thus small gated communities are standing up in almost all of these parameters and offering quick delivery time as their unique point of sale.

These are also far more convenient and versatile investment choices as these offer much wider investment options that a prospective investor can select accordingly.

Elante Residencies

We are into Residential Real Estate Development of Ultra-Luxury Independent Residencies in Gurgaon & Delhi since 2009. With a team of highly skilled professionals, in-depth technical knowledge and skill of construction, we stand by our promise of "Luxury crafted with care".

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Actively catering to our client's needs of Modern High-End Interiors for their apartments. With a dedicated team of talented interior designers and craftsmen we behold to our promise of "Timeless Luxury" to our clients by transforming their house to their Dream Home.

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Simple documentation, quick processing, and an excellent customer service makes Elante Financials a go-to place for all your housing loan needs. Having tied up with various banks and financial institutions, we understand your requirement and guide you as well as provide documentation services so you can relax while we take care of the rest.

This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)

DISCLAIMER

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The amount of unemployed in Russia registered with employment centers currently stands at 3.6 million people, Labor and Social Protection Minister Anton Kotyakov said on Monday.



"Today ... the unemployment rate according to the method of the International Labor Organization is 6.3%. This is approximately 4.7 million citizens in search of work. The increase in relation to the initial period was 35%, or 1.2 million people," the Prime news agency cited him as saying.



"At the same time, over the same period, more than 2.5 million people were additionally registered in employment centers, that is, the number of registered people increased from 727,000 to 3.6 million people," Kotyakov added.
The National Public Health Emergency Team has given its latest update on Covid-19 confirmed cases and deaths in Ireland this Monday evening August 31.

As of midnight Sunday 30th August, the HPSC has been notified of 53 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 28,811* confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today 25 were in Dublin, 11 in Limerick and the remaining 17 cases are located in Kildare, Longford, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Laois, Meath, Roscommon, Tipperary, Westmeath.

28 are men / 25 are women

75% are under 45 years of age

27 are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case

14 cases have been identified as community transmission

There have been no new deaths reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre today. There has now been a total of 1,777 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.



Dr Ronan Glynn, Acting Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said; This evening, I want to recognise the very significant impact of the measures on individuals, communities and businesses in Kildare over the past three weeks. The improvement in the epidemiological situation there is a testament to the willingness of everyone to adhere to the public health guidance and measures implemented.

At a meeting of the National Public Health Emergency Team today, NPHET thanked people in Kildare  and in Laois and Offaly previously  for their forbearance and noted that their actions are a demonstration, and a further reminder, of what can be achieved through collective action as we continue to strike a balance between living our lives and behaving in a way that protects one another.

Dr Siobhan Ni Bhriain, Consultant Psychiatrist and Integrated Care Lead HSE, said; As we continue through the school year, we expect cases and these will be responded to rapidly, tailored to that outbreak and led by public health doctors. These public health doctors will communicate with school staff and parents as indicated.

Rachel Kenna, Chief Nursing Officer, Department of Health said; We can all support parents and school children in our communities by following public health advice. We all have a responsibility to keep our schools open by applying this advice to our daily lives. Remember the key protective behaviours, regular hand washing, physical distance, wearing face coverings where appropriate, reduce your social contacts, know the symptoms and know when to isolate.

Dr Sumi Dunne, a General Practitioner from Portarlington advised parents on when to keep children at home.

We are aware that this is an anxious time for parents and guardians. GPs across the country are here to support them. If you feel your child is unwell, outside of a blocked/runny nose and seasonal sneezing, please do not send them into school. Keep them at home, restrict your movements and make contact with your GP.
Cinemas and theaters may use only half of their maximum capacity for the reopening on September 1, Interior Minister Marcel Vela said on Monday at a briefing at the end of the Government meeting.

On Monday, the Executive adopted the decision that allows their reopening in the context of the state of alert on the Romanian territory."The resumption of the activities of cinemas, show and concert institutions, popular arts and crafts schools, the organization and development of the activity of cinemas, show and concert institutions will be allowed without exceeding 50 percent of the maximum capacity," Vela said.The same decision stipulates that there can be a maximum of three people at the drive-in events in the car, the minister added. This Government's Decision also increases the number of participants in private events, training courses, workshops for adults, including those for the implementation of projects funded by European funds - from 20 to a maximum of 50 indoors and from 50 to a maximum of 100 outdoors.Vela brought to mind that indoor cafes and restaurants will also be open as of Tuesday.This resumption of activities in the cultural field, in cafes and restaurants, but also in the field of gambling is allowed "in all counties where the cumulative incidence in 14 days is 1.5 cases confirmed with SARS-CoV-2 infection per 1,000 inhabitants," said the minister.Depending on this threshold, the County Committees for Emergency Situations may decide to restrict, close or resume activities. According to the Government's Decision, "the incidence rate of the cases related to the envisaged measures is analyzed weekly and reported to the National Committee for Emergency Situations by the National Institute of Public Health".Following the adoption of the decision, on Monday, said Marcel Vela, joint orders of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economy and Culture will be drawn up on the measures to be taken to resume the activities of HoReCa and performing arts and cinematography.
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Former president Pranab Mukherjee, statesman, scholar and one of India's most respected leaders across the political spectrum, died on Monday evening following a 21-day battle with multiple ailments. He was 84.

Mukherjee, who was admitted to the Army's Research and Referral Hospital on August 10 and was operated for a removal of a clot in the brain the same day, is survived by two sons and a daughter.

The long-time Congress leader and seven-time parliamentarian, known for his encyclopaedic memory and insights into varied issues, had tested positive for COVID-19 at the time of his admission and was being treated for a lung infection. He suffered a septic shock on Sunday and died of a cardiac arrest at 4.30 pm, the hospital said.

A health bulletin on Monday morning said he was in a deep coma and on ventilator support.

The funeral will be held at 2 pm on Tuesday at the Lodhi Road crematorium, his family said.

The government announced seven-day state mourning from August 31 to September 6. The national flag will fly at half-mast on all buildings throughout India, where it is flown regularly, and there will be no official entertainment, the home ministry said in a statement.

Mukherjee's son Abhijit was the first to break the news of the death of the veteran politician, the Congress's troubleshooter through the decades who became India's youngest finance minister when he was just 47 and also held the portfolios of external affairs and defence in the years that followed.

"With a heavy heart, this is to inform you that my father Shri Pranab Mukherjee has just passed away inspite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital and prayers, duas and prarthanas from people throughout India! I thank all of you," his grieving son said on Twitter.

As condolences poured in for India's 13th president, who served as the country's first citizen from 2012 to 2017, President Ram Nath Kovind described Mukherjee's demise as the passing of an era.

"A colossus in public life, he served Mother India with the spirit of a sage. The nation mourns losing one of its worthiest sons. Condolences to his family, friends & all citizens," Kovind said on Twitter.

Expressing his condolences, Prime Minister Narendra Modi described him as a scholar par excellence and a towering statesman who was admired across the political spectrum.

"India grieves the passing away of Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation," Modi tweeted.

Known as a consensus builder, the West Bengal born Mukherjee spent much of his five decades in public life as a Congress worker but also inspired trust among leaders across political divides. Modi and Mukherjee came from opposing ideologies but developed a close working relationship.

In a series of tweets, the prime minister said Mukherjee in his decades-long political journey made long-lasting contributions in key economic and strategic ministries. He was an outstanding parliamentarian, always well-prepared, extremely articulate as well as witty, Modi said.

Modi also posted his pictures with Mukherjee, including one in which he is seen touching the then president's feet.

In her condolence letter to Mukherjee's daughter Sharmistha, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi said his life over the past five decades mirrored 50 years of India's history.

"He brought distinction to every post he held. He established a genuine rapport with colleagues across the political spectrum, and he served our country with the utmost dedication," Gandhi said.

"Pranab Da had been such an integral and prominent part of national life, the Congress party and the central government for over five decades, it is hard to imagine how we can do without his wisdom, experience, sage advice and deep understanding of so many subjects," she said.

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Mukherjee's colleague in the Congress said he had learnt a lot from him and depended on him a great deal for his wisdom, vast knowledge and experience of public affairs.

"In his death, our country has lost one of its greatest leaders of Independent India. He and I worked very closely in the Government of India and I depended on him a great deal for his wisdom, vast knowledge and experience of public affairs," he said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said he joined the country in paying homage to the former president.



Communist Party of India general secretary D Raja offered his condolences to the family and said Mukherjee will be remembered for serving the people of the country in every post that he held.



"He (Mukherjee) was known for his political knowledge and kept good relations with leaders across parties. He had a phenomenal memory and his death is a huge loss for the country," he said.



Mukherjee -- who made it a point to remain in touch with his roots and was often seen leading Durga Puja prayers in his village, even in his president years -- was the man who took on all political jobs with ease.

When he became president in 2012, Mukherjee headed 24 of 39 GOMs (groups of ministers). Between 2004-2012, he chaired 95 GOMs.

While most of Mukherjee's political life was fairly non-controversial, his visit to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur in June 1988, a year after he demitted office, generated huge controversy. His Bharat Ratna in 2019 also became the centre of debate.

As president, he will be remembered for the tough stance he took on mercy petitions, rejecting 30 of the 34 mercy pleas presented to him.
PITTSBURGH, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- "I was tired of damaging my eyelashes while sleeping," said an inventor, from Las Vegas, Nev. "I thought there could be a way to protect them throughout the night, so I invented the NITE NITE LASHES COVERUP."

The patent-pending invention provides an effective way to maintain eyelash extensions while sleeping. In doing so, it prevents lashes from becoming smashed or twisted. As a result, it provides added protection and peace of mind and it may also be used while cleaning or showering. The invention features a comfortable design that is convenient and easy to use so it is ideal for individuals who wear artificial eyelashes or eyelash extensions. Additionally, it is producible in design variations.

The inventor described the invention design. "My design enables you to preserve the appearance and shape of eyelash extensions while sleeping, without losing naturally grown eyelashes."

The original design was submitted to the Las Vegas sales office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 19-LVT-308, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp's Invention Submission Services at http://www.InventHelp.com.

SOURCE InventHelp

Related Links

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French Army Officer Accused of Security Breach Amid Reports of Espionage in Favour of Russia

Sputnik News

08:49 GMT 30.08.2020(updated 09:29 GMT 30.08.2020)

Europe 1 Radio reported that a French Army officer, whose identity was not disclosed, had transferred classified documents to Russia.

A senior officer in the French military is under an investigation over a suspected breach of security, French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly told Europe 1 radio on Sunday.

"We have taken all the necessary precautions", Parly said, adding that it is now up to the courts to do their job. The minister did not specify what kind of security breach the officer had committed.

Europe 1 previously reported that the military official, based in Italy and stationed with NATO, was accused of high treason amid suspicions that he had transferred highly-classified documents to Russian intelligence services.

According to the radio, the officer, ranked lieutenant colonel, was arrested by the General Directorate for Internal Security when he was about to return to Italy and was remanded in custody at La Sante Prison.

A Sputnik

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A new boutique is opening in River Ridge mall in September.

Thats Too Cute Boutique started as an Etsy shop in 2009 specializing in personalized gifts. The boutique offers in-house embroidery for items brought in by guests and select in-store items; fashion apparel; jewelry and a wide range of unique gifts.

According to a news release, Penny Welch opened her Etsy shop 11 years ago with her daughter, Amy. The two worked to create personalized items for babies.

Since then, Welch has had more than 12,000 online sales and{span} opened{/span}{span} a physical store in Appomattox.{/span}

I never dreamed, when I first started, that my business would turn into this, Welch said. The support has been overwhelming.

Brands offered at the store will include Simply Southern, Charles River, Lilly Pulitzer, Scout, Puravida, Tyler Candle Co. and more  with many brands that are also philanthropic organizations.

Were also proud to support a local missions program consisting of a village in Guatemala, that creates handwoven bags from recycled plastic, Welch said. Through this mission, 100% of the profit is returned to support the women and children in the village.

The boutique will offer locally crafted products including handmade leather earrings, handmade clay earrings and homemade goat milk soap.

Our mission is to provide something unique for everyone on your shopping list, Welch said. Were so excited to bring our boutiques second location to Lynchburg.

Thats Too Cute Boutique will be located across from Victorias Secret.

Being home to local businesses and hearing about their success stories is always wonderful, said Katie Farris, marketing manager at River Ridge said in the release. Thats Too Cute Boutique is so well-loved in Appomattox. We know that our guests here at River Ridge are going to love it as well.

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Syria's Assad issues decree on forming new government

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 5:05 PM

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has issued a decree on forming the new government, days after confirming Hussein Arnous as the Arab country's prime minister.

In a decree carried by Syria's official news agency SANA, the Syrian president on Sunday retained the ministries of foreign affairs, defense, interior, economy and information in their posts, but replaced other cabinet portfolios, including the ministries of finance, energy and public health.

The 29-minister cabinet, which includes three female ministers, is the fifth to be formed since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011.

The official mandate for the Syrian government is scheduled to expire next July at a time that presidential elections are to be held across the country.

The Syrian president named Arnous as prime minister on Tuesday after dismissing Imad Khamis, who had been at the helm of the government for the past four years.

No official reason has been given for his removal.

Arnous was born in Idlib and had served in a long succession of government posts, including governor of Dayr al-Zawr province that borders Iraq, from 2009 to 2011, and Quneitra province in southern Syria in 2011.

The 67-year-old was also the minister of public works and housing from 2013 to 2018.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed terrorism since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies have been aiding the Takfiri terrorist groups that were wreaking havoc in the Arab country.

The government forces have already managed to undo the terrorist gains across the country and bring back almost all of Syrian soil under government control.

The government gains in Syria have enraged the US, which has long been collaborating with anti-Damascus terrorists and stealing Syria's resources.

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Representative image

Aviation regulator DGCA has extended the suspension on international flights till September 30, leaving just enough room for flights operated in the travel bubble.

In a statement on August 31, the regulator said the restriction doesn't apply to international all-cargo operations and flights it has specifically approved.

"However, international scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on case to case basis," the DGCA said, announcing the visa and travel restrictions.

International flights were first suspended in March, coinciding with a similar restriction on domestic operations, and a national lockdown to limit COVID-19 spread.

While domestic operations resumed on May 25, international flights were operated, initially, only by Air India under the Vande Bharat Mission, the repatriation exercise.

Later, even as the government expanded the scope of the Mission, also allowing private airlines to operate flights, it established travel bubbles with countries. Under these travel bubbles, airlines from both India and the destination countries operate flights.

Earlier in August, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said that the government is in talks with more countries to start operations.

At present, the arrangement is with seven countries - the US, the UK, France, Germany, the UAE, Qatar and Maldives.

"We are now taking these efforts forward and are negotiating with 13 more countries to establish such arrangements," Puri said.
As auctioneer Oliver Barker took to his rostrum for the first major live art sale in London since lockdown, the excitement was electric despite the absence of real live bidders.

At the Sotheby's Rembrandt To Richter evening event at the end of July, Barker was presiding over a livestreamed, socially distant sale of 65 works of art spanning seven centuries.

He was also marking a poignant moment for British Airways, which is so strapped for cash it has had to resort to selling the pictures off the walls.

British Airway's Parent company IAG made a 3.8billion loss after exceptional items in the first half of this year

One of the most sought-after lots in the sale, Cool Edge by Bridget Riley, had until recently been hanging in BA's Concorde Room at Heathrow's Terminal 5, one of the jewels in a prized corporate collection of mainly British artists.

Sixteen other works, including paintings by Terry Frost and Patrick Heron, also went on the block in an online sale of modern British art.

Riley's picture, inspired by ancient Egyptian tombs, fetched 1.875million.

A handsome amount, but one that would barely make a dent in the financial problems threatening to engulf BA.

The airline is on the sixth month of flying at less than 20 per cent of its schedule. It has been burning through cash at a rate of 20million a day and would have to sell ten masterpieces every 24 hours just to keep pace.

Parent company IAG made a 3.8billion loss after exceptional items in the first half of this year.

IAG is trying to raise just under 2.5billion of capital from shareholders including Qatar Airways, which owns 25 per cent, to strengthen its balance sheet.

The Qataris have committed their support and the capital-raising is subject to shareholder approval at the annual meeting in Madrid on September 8.

For BA to put its art on the block may be in-keeping with the hair-shirted spirit of the times. It certainly could be seen as tasteless to hold on to 1million paintings whilst making mass redundancies and going cap in hand to investors for more funds.

But selling the paintings is also symbolic of BA's decline as a national flag carrier. The summer has been lost to confusing quarantines and there are fears of an autumn second wave.

Turbulence: British Airways boss Alex Cruz

Executives fear that the lucrative transatlantic flights, with high-priced premium seats being sold to business travellers, could take several years to recover to pre-pandemic levels.

Of course, every airline in the world has been hit by Covid-19.

The difference for BA, led by chief executive Alex Cruz, is that its reputation is being smeared in a dispute with unions.

The row is toxic even by the standards of the industrial strife that has blighted the airline over the years.

Cruz has told staff that BA faces a very slow recovery over the next few years and this makes job cuts inevitable. Around 12,000 jobs, or a third of the workforce, face the axe.

More than 6,500 have applied for voluntary redundancy. Pilots union Balpa voted for a deal involving pay cuts and voluntary redundancies.

After entering talks the number of compulsory redundancies was reduced to 270 from 1,255 and there is a scheme to keep pilots on stand-by, funded by reduced pay for colleagues.

But the Unite and GMB unions did not come to the table until late in the consultations, preferring to focus on a political campaign.

Some agreements have been struck, including with Unite over airport workers and with GMB over engineers at Heathrow.

But Unite is still pushing its 'BA Betrayal' campaign accusing the airline of letting down the country and last week claiming that Black and Ethnic Minority cabin crew had been disproportionately hit by cuts at Gatwick.

In a recent letter to Cruz, union baron Len McCluskey accused him of 'arrogance', of adopting a 'scorched earth strategy' towards staff and of having 'dragged the good name of British Airways through the mud.'

Unions have been campaigning for BA to be stripped of valuable slots at Heathrow, which the airline says would create even more damage and cost more jobs.

For his part, Cruz claims McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, is wasting his members' subscription money on trashing the BA brand.

The unions seem to have won support from some unusual quarters, including the Conservative chairman of the Transport Committee of MPs, Huw Merriman.

He has described BA's planned job cuts as a 'national disgrace'. Cruz is appearing in front of the select committee in September, in what promises to be a bruising session.

The airline's detractors claim it is taking advantage of the pandemic to make damaging and unnecessary cuts.

The union argues BA is an inherently profitable business which is merely suffering a short-to-medium-term liquidity crisis from the pandemic.

On the block: Bridget Rileys Cool Edge, which had until recently been hanging in BA's Concorde Room at Heathrow's Terminal 5, raised almost 2m for BA

But Cruz insists he needs to take far-reaching action if BA is to survive in the face of the worst meltdown it has ever known since it was formed in 1974.

The company traces its roots back more than 100 years and was privatised in 1987 as part of the shareholder democracy championed by Margaret Thatcher.

In that time, it has weathered all sorts of difficulties, including terrorism. It merged with Iberia of Spain in 2011 to form IAG, whose chief executive, former BA boss Willie Walsh, will finally step down next week, having delayed his retirement due to the pandemic.

Walsh branded Unite 'blind and deaf' to the enormity of the situation in July when BA revealed second-quarter losses of 711million.

To put it in perspective, BA lost more in three months than in its previous worst ever year and believes it is facing an industry that has changed forever.

Covid losses dwarf those of 187million after 9/11 and the 309million of red ink in 2009, the worst period after the financial crisis.

BA has already taken on huge debts, raising questions over the unions' suggestion it can easily borrow its way out of trouble.

These include $1.38billion on a US dollar revolving credit facility, 300million on the Bank of England's special coronavirus loan facility and mortgages of $750million on some of its aircraft, taken out in the spring.

Much of this needs to be repaid in the short term. On top of all that, there is a large deficit in the New Airways Pension Scheme of some 2.7billion (2.43billion) at the last actuarial valuation. A separate older scheme is in surplus.

However great the sympathy for staff, it is hard to brush aside BA's financial troubles. And there is a wider context. Airlines were going bust even before the pandemic. The industry is highly competitive and under assault from climate protesters.

The aerospace manufacturing industry is an important one for this country, with redundancies planned at Airbus and Rolls-Royce, which has made a 5.4billion loss and warned if the situation continues its future may be in doubt.

Countries such as France and Germany have made the connection and launched multi-billion bailouts of their national airlines. Our government has not joined the dots.

If the UK is to have a prosperous future post-Covid and post-Brexit, we need an aviation sector and a flag carrier capable of supporting an open, trading economy.

Many passengers have become frustrated over incidents such as last year's IT failure and the difficulty many experienced in getting refunds for flights in the pandemic.

BA's status as 'the world's favourite airline' may have come under strain, but its future should concern us all.
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea -- A crash involving a U.S. military vehicle killed four South Koreans, prompting U.S. Forces Korea to temporarily suspend training in the area, which is near the border with North Korea, officials said Monday.

An SUV carrying the four civilians rear-ended the armored personnel carrier -- a tracked vehicle -- at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday on a road near the Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in the city of Pocheon, local police and fire officials said.

The four civilians were pronounced dead at the scene, a fire official said. The two soldiers in the military vehicle were not seriously injured. One was taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation but was cleared and released back to his unit, according to the 2nd Infantry Division.

USFK expressed "its deepest condolences" to the families and loved ones of the deceased and said the military is fully cooperating with the South Korean police investigation into the crash.

"USFK is aware of the fatal accident near the Rodriguez Live Fire Complex," the command said in a statement. "Out of respect to those killed and their families, Eighth Army is temporarily suspending training in the area."

Photos of the scene showed a camouflaged M577 Armored Command Vehicle that was mangled in the back, including damage to the right-side tracks.

South Korea's Defense Ministry also expressed condolences and promised to work with USFK and other relevant organizations to make sure "follow-up measures are able to be properly implemented in accordance with the results of the investigation into the accident."

The crash occurred in a sensitive area for the U.S. military. Residents in Pocheon, a mountainous area about 30 miles north of Seoul, have long complained about noise, unexploded ordnances and stray rounds from the range, which is used year-round.

In response, USFK has made a number of safety improvements to the 3,390-acre training complex, such as installing 16-foot berms behind targets and deploying explosive ordnance disposal troops to help excavate stray munitions in surrounding areas.

Some 28,500 American troops are stationed in South Korea, which remains technically at war with the North after their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice instead of a peace treaty.

Past accidents have stoked anti-American sentiment, especially the 2002 killing of two young South Korean girls who were crushed under a U.S. military vehicle in Yangju, north of Seoul.

However, recent polls show public support is strong for the longstanding alliance between the two countries, despite recent disputes over defense cost-sharing and how to deal with the North amid stalled U.S.-led nuclear talks.
As Pranab Mukherjee passed away into the ages, we remember the man, the politician, the Rashtrapati.

IMAGE: A young Pranab Mukherjee....

The former president was called Poltu by his father and elder sister Annapurna Devi. The story that goes that as a boy in Class 3 or maybe 4, Poltu, on rainy mornings, would bundle his clothes in paper, tuck them under an arm and march off to school bare feet through the fields of his village in Bengal. 'It was perhaps because the schoolboy's mannerisms resembled that of a marching platoon (polton in Bengali), that one of India's most respected politicians acquired his childhood nickname.

IMAGE: Pranab Mukherjee, then finance minister in Indira Gandhi's Cabinet, walks into Parliament to deliver the Budget in 1984.

He began his career as a clerk in the deputy accountant general's office in Calcutta.

He has also worked as a teacher in a Birbhum college and as a journalist for Desher Dak, a Bengali publication.

IMAGE: Pranab Mukherjee tucks into some chicken. Like most Bengalis, he prefers fish.

The quintessential Bengali, Pranabda's favourite meal is fish curry. Not one for eating out, he eats fish curry almost every day, except Tuesdays.

He is also known to be exceptionally fond of posto or poppy seeds that are ground and cooked with vegetables.

IMAGE: Pranab da is a tireless worker, but he knew how to have fun. In 2014, nearly 80, he visited the Santa Claus Village at the Arctic Circle near Rovaniemi in Finland.

According to his daughter Sharmishta, he worked for almost 18 hours a day and hardly took any leave, except for his visit to Mirati, his hometown, during Durga Puja.

IMAGE: ver the years, President Pranab has met several world leaders. In 2013, he met Britain's Prince Charles and Camilla, the duchess of Cornwall, at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Photograph: Arthur Edwards/Pool/Getty Images

After his appointment as president, he rejected 31 mercy petitions including that of Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab.

IMAGE: Barack Obama's 2015 visit as the chief guest at the Republic Day parade may have been all about his bonhomie with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but the then US president made sure to spend some time with his Indian counterpart at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Photograph: Jim Bourg/Reuters

The President -- who has reportedly the most prodigious memory in Indian politics -- made history when he taught school children about the nation's political history on the occasion of Teacher's Day, September 5 in 2016.

IMAGE: His love for pipes may not be known to the current generation. His first pipe was gifted to him by Devkanta Borooah, Congress president during the Emergency, the man who declared that 'India is Indira'.

After he was asked to quit smoking for health reasons, he would keep the pipe in his mouth, without any nicotine, and chew its stem, just to get the feel of it, remembers veteran Bengali journalist Jayanta Ghoshal who has known Mukherjee since 1985.

Mukherjee, who owns over 500 pipes gifted to him by different dignitaries, has donated the collection to the Rashtrapati Bhavan Museum.

IMAGE: In 1982, after he delivered the Budget speech, then prime minister Indira Gandhi said of him, 'The shortest finance minister has delivered the longest Budget speech'. The speech lasted 1 hour, 35 minutes.

In his memoir The Turbulent Years 1980-1996, Mukherjee wrote, 'In much of the post-Emergency period, Sanjay Gandhi has been characterised as a villain, devoid of any good qualities.'

'This animosity and venom against him was to a large extent the result of the euphoria surrounding the Janata Party's creation, a wave of anti-Mrs Gandhi and the divisions in the Congress.'

'Every human being is a mixture of good and bad. However, no one can fault the intentions of guiding Sanjay's decisions whether these pertained to population control, tackling illiteracy or afforestation.'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 23:11:07|Editor: huaxia

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PHNOM PENH, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia exported 448,203 tons of milled rice in the first eight months of 2020, up 31 percent over the same period last year, Ngin Chhay, director general of agriculture at the Ministry of Agriculture, said on Monday.

China remained the biggest buyer of Cambodian rice, he said in a report, adding that the kingdom shipped 159,253 tons of milled rice to China during the January-August period this year, up 19.8 percent over the same period last year.

He added that the country also exported 149,848 tons to the European market during the period, up 24.8 percent, and 60,933 tons to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) market, up 42 percent.

The Southeast Asian nation has exported rice to 59 countries and regions during the period, Chhay said.

He said the COVID-19 pandemic has driven high demand for Cambodian rice, predicting that the country's rice export to the international market is expected to reach 800,000 tons in 2020.

Cambodia produced about 10 million tons of paddy rice last year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. With this amount, the kingdom saw paddy rice surplus of about 5.6 million tons in equivalent to 3.5 million tons of milled rice. Enditem
The theater in Stratford, Connecticut, modeled on Shakespeares Globe theater in London, burned down in January 2019 as the result of arson. The theater building had not hosted an indoor performance in decades, though the surrounding lawn has continued to be sacred ground for Shakespeare fans, with performances by a summertime Shakespeare Academy and local outdoor Shakespeare troupes as well as community festivals.  Hartford Courant
JOLIET, IL  It's been 13 months since Joliet businessman John Bays purchased an empty 40,000-square-foot downtown Joliet building that many others did not view as a great investment opportunity. But around Joliet, Bays has been a wizard at turning obsolete and neglected commercial buildings into cash cows for his company, John Bays Investments.

Both the exterior and the interior of the Premier Building, at the corner of Jackson and Ottawa Streets overlooking the Jackson Street Bridge, look drastically different now that Bays' contractors have improved the property. Bays told Joliet Patch last week that he has sunk at least $1 million into property improvements of the former Premier Building since buying it last summer.

In recent days, Bays' crews have been renovating and painting one of the first-floor areas into a new professional office. A commercial business will be moving into the space in the next month or so, Bays revealed.

Bays told Joliet Patch the new tenant asked him not to disclose their identity until the move occurs. However, Bays said the incoming business will be bringing eight to a dozen permanent jobs to the Premier Building.

The new addition will mark the second business occupying Bays' Premier Building.

In recent months, Meade Electric Co. signed a short-term lease to house its equipment and vehicles in the back area of the Premier Building. Bays said that Meade Electric will probably remain on the property for another year or so.

Bays said he replaced all the windows, installed LED lighting and put in new heating and air-conditioning units throughout the two-story brick building. He also repaved the asphalt parking lot.

Bays said he plans to move his company to one of his two downtown properties currently under renovation: the Premier Building or the six-story Two Rialto Square Building that he acquired in December 2018. These days, Bays operates his investment company from Twin Oaks Place on West Jefferson Street.

Story continues

"We're moving our headquarters downtown," Bays said. "Either this building or the Two Rialto Square."

Many people around the Joliet area forget that Bays' two biggest properties are outside the region. Bays owns the Crowne Plaza Chicago-Northbrook and also Tundra Lodge Resort and Conference Center in Green Bay, Wis., just down the street from Lambeau Field.

Amid the coronavirus, Bays' crews spent the past several months making multi-million dollar improvements to the Crowne Plaza and the Tundra Lodge. As a result, Bays has accumulated a surplus of chairs, paneling, carpet, bathroom fixtures, video arcade games, lamps and lights.

Luckily for him, Bays has ample storage space throughout the Premier Building. The advantage of relocating his company offices to the Premier Building would be that the site has plenty of parking. Bays Investments has 40 to 50 service vehicles, he estimated.

He is considering converting a portion of the building into dormitory-style apartment units that could be rented to college students attending the University of St. Francis or the downtown Joliet Junior College's culinary arts building.

"I'm just worried we're getting too much office space downtown," Bays told Joliet Patch last week.

Image via John Ferak/Patch

Image via John Ferak/Patch

Image via John Ferak/Patch

Image via John Ferak/Patch

Image via John Ferak/Patch

Image via John Ferak/Patch





This article originally appeared on the Joliet Patch
Corrective Services Minister Fran Logan will retire at the next state election, adding to the tally of high profile Labor departures.

The Cockburn MP has been in Parliament since 2001 and served as a minister in the Gallop Labor government from 2005.

Corrective Service Minister Fran Logan has announced his retirment. Credit:Fairfax Media

Sport and Recreation Minister Mick Murray and Legislative Assembly Speaker Peter Watson have also signalled their intention to leave Parliament at the next election.

When asked about his intentions to stand at the election two weeks ago, Mr Logan said he was the preselected candidate, but did not rule out the possibility he could retire.
Only five finance ministers of India have had the privilege of holding that prized portfolio twice in their career in different stints. Pranab Mukherjee was one of them. But there was a big difference.

The gap between the two tenures of all other finance ministers  T T Krishnamachari, Morarji Desai, Yashwant Sinha and P Chidambaram  ranged between four years and seven years. For Pranab Mukherjee, the gap was 25 years. That long gap is testimony as much to his longevity and utility as a politician as to his ability to survive under different Congress regimes. Indira Gandhi was ...
PITTSBURGH: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden accused President Donald Trump in a speech from battleground state Pennsylvania on Monday of sowing chaos amid nationwide protests, pushing back on Republican assertions that Trump stands for law and order."

Bidens remarks in Pittsburgh come as Trump, who trails his rival in opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 3 election, accuses Democrats of losing control of sometimes violent demonstrations over police brutality and racial inequality that have gripped American cities for months.

This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country," Biden said from a converted steel mill. He cant stop the violence  because for years he has fomented it."

Looters and rioters are not protesters and should be prosecuted, Biden added.

Ask yourself, do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?" Biden asked, countering Trumps assertions that his opponent is weak on crime and catering to his partys most liberal members.

On Friday, Trump called protesters anarchists, agitators, rioters and looters. Republicans deny he is seeking to exacerbate violence with incendiary rhetoric.

Bidens visit to Pennsylvania, an important swing state that helped propel Trump to victory in 2016, marked an unusual trip afield for the former vice president, who has worked mostly from his Delaware home since March when the coronavirus began spreading widely in the country.

Bidens campaign has indicated he expects to increase his travel to the states that will decide the election as the vote draws nearer.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are both due to visit the state this week for campaign events.

TENSIONS

In Pittsburgh, Biden depicted an America under Trump that was unsafe, with COVID-19 killing thousands of people a week and an upside-down economy.

Samuel DeMarco, the Republican chairman in Allegheny County, where Biden was speaking, said his speech showed desperation."

We have violent protests for 90 some days and now hes going to address and try to blame Trump. Good luck with that," he said.

Demonstrations have swept the United States since the death in May of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Tensions between rival protest groups have led to shooting deaths in recent weeks. Trump is set to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday after new protests erupted there last week following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, another African-American man, multiple times in front of his children, paralyzing him.

Democrats have urged the president to stay away from Kenosha.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers sent a letter to Trump on Sunday asking him to reconsider the trip, saying he was concerned his presence would hinder our healing" and divert first-responder resources needed for recovery efforts.

Now is not the time for elected officials to ignore armed militants and out-of-state instigators who want to contribute to our anguish," Evers wrote in his letter, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

The White House has said it is making efforts to reach Blakes family, but has been unable to connect.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Pasadena business owners can vie for financial relief during the pandemic following the unveiling of a new grant program made possible through a partnership between the Pasadena Economic Development Corp., the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and the City of Pasadena.

The EDC recently approved funding to launch the Pasadena Cares Financial Assistance Grant program, which will tie into a citywide shop local initiative to promote locally based businesses in Pasadena.

The Pasadena grant program will help so many mom and pop businesses in our hardest hit areas, said Mayor Jeff Wagner, who asked the EDC to devise a plan to aid local businesses.

Details of the campaign  including the amount of funds available, specific guidelines, what the grants will look like and the launch of a designated website  are expected to be finalized in the next few weeks, said Suzette McDowell, marketing manager for the EDC.

For updates, check the EDCs website at www.pasadenaedc.com.

The grant program will be a centerpiece component of an effort named Pasadena Loves Local

More Information For more information on the launch of this initiative, follow the Pasadena EDC at https://bit.ly/3hHkaM2 Or the EDC's other social media outlets: Facebook: https://bit.ly/3lsr8qe Twitter: https://bit.ly/3jgVESe See More Collapse

Supporting local business is securing the future of the local economy and ensuring a stable environment to welcome new business, said Pasadena chamber president and CEO, Cristina Womack.

By choosing local and independent businesses, you not only enjoy a more personal experience but also help build community, she said. As the advocate for the business community, the chamber understands the importance of initiatives such as this one and look forward to seeing the long-term benefits for Pasadena.

While the launch of the campaign coincides with pandemic-related challenges impacting local businesses, the main purpose of the initiative is to look past COVID-19.

The big component of the grant portion is designed as were going into the rebuild phase, McDowell said. Were looking at it from a big picture standpoint, really thinking outside the box and focusing on the long-term benefit. We really want to help the business community become stronger after (the pandemic)  thats the goal.

Also, the project seeks to emphasize the need for residents to shop locally, she said.

Our board of directors understands the importance of promoting all businesses right now because not only is the right thing to do, but it provides the extra marketing exposure for them, and we see this as an opportunity to help with their marketing, McDowell said.

yorozco@hcnonline.com
Chen Mingzhong collects grapes at the orchard in Xingzhuang Village of Zipeng Town in Feixi County, east China's Anhui Province, Aug. 29, 2020. Chen Mingzhong, a 55-year-old farmer in Xingzhuang Village, went back to his hometown in 2018 after working outside for over two decades. He contracted a land of over 150 mu (about 10 hectares) to set up a family farm and planted over 10 kinds of fruit trees. Now his farm is running smoothly as various kinds of grapes he planted have been sold well in the market. It also provides working opportunities to many poverty-stricken people and helps them increase their income.Photo:Xinhua Chen Mingzhong (1st L) packages grapes with family in Xingzhuang Village of Zipeng Town in Feixi County, east China's Anhui Province, Aug. 29, 2020. Chen Mingzhong, a 55-year-old farmer in Xingzhuang Village, went back to his hometown in 2018 after working outside for over two decades. He contracted a land of over 150 mu (about 10 hectares) to set up a family farm and planted over 10 kinds of fruit trees. Now his farm is running smoothly as various kinds of grapes he planted have been sold well in the market. It also provides working opportunities to many poverty-stricken people and helps them increase their income.Photo:Xinhua Chen Mingzhong (L) trims grapevines at the orchard in Xingzhuang Village of Zipeng Town in Feixi County, east China's Anhui Province, Aug. 29, 2020. Chen Mingzhong, a 55-year-old farmer in Xingzhuang Village, went back to his hometown in 2018 after working outside for over two decades. He contracted a land of over 150 mu (about 10 hectares) to set up a family farm and planted over 10 kinds of fruit trees. Now his farm is running smoothly as various kinds of grapes he planted have been sold well in the market. It also provides working opportunities to many poverty-stricken people and helps them increase their income.Photo:Xinhua Chen Mingzhong works at the fig orchard in Xingzhuang Village of Zipeng Town in Feixi County, east China's Anhui Province, Aug. 29, 2020. Chen Mingzhong, a 55-year-old farmer in Xingzhuang Village, went back to his hometown in 2018 after working outside for over two decades. He contracted a land of over 150 mu (about 10 hectares) to set up a family farm and planted over 10 kinds of fruit trees. Now his farm is running smoothly as various kinds of grapes he planted have been sold well in the market. It also provides working opportunities to many poverty-stricken people and helps them increase their income. Photo:Xinhua


Saturday's protest appears to have been organised by several online communities who are calling for an end to Victoria's lockdown. Part of the police presence in Altona North. Credit:Paul Jeffers A 76-year-old man from Windsor was arrested on Friday and charged with incitement for allegedly helping to organise the protest. An event page for the protest attracted the interest of thousands before it was blocked by Facebook. Those trying to access it in Australia receive the message: "You're unable to view this content because local laws restrict our ability to show it." A Facebook spokeswoman said content which is flagged as inappropriate is reviewed by the social media giant and can be restricted.

"We review content reported to us against our policies on harmful misinformation linked to COVID-19, and take action on it where appropriate," she said. "We also restrict access to content that violates local government guidance about social distancing when we are made aware of it by the relevant authorities." Before the page was removed, organisers wrote that they wanted half a million people to attend the protest to "end the lockdown and celebrate freedom". They described the event as a protest against the leadership of Premier Daniel Andrews and the damage being caused by the lockdown in order to "hold the government accountable".

Details of the event, billed as "Freedom Day", continue to be shared on social media. Mr Andrews on Monday expressed his disappointment with the protests, including suburban events which have taken place over the past week in Broadmeadows, Roxburgh Park and Dandenong. Mr Andrews said protesting at the moment was not appropriate. "You know what disappoints me more than anything? The behaviour of some of those people takes away from the amazing work, absolutely amazing work the vast majority of Victorians are doing," he said.

He said there will always be some who do the wrong thing but urged Victorians not to take part in protests. "No matter what your postcode or purpose, protest is not safe, it's not smart, it's just not right because it potentially puts at risk everything that people have worked so hard to achieve." Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt on Monday said it was a "shame" that resources were being diverted from other police work to cover the protests. "Domestic violence in the community, reducing the crime rate and the road toll  all of these things haven't gone away. Our members have been balancing a lot of different things at the moment and have a lot of plates spinning at the same time," he said. Some of the violent conduct seen towards police at the suburban protests was "disgraceful", he said.

Victorian Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt. Credit:Paul Rovere "It's selfish behaviour," he said. "Every time our members are exposed to people like this there is a high risk they will be exposed to coronavirus themselves. That's the single greatest risk our members confront at this point in time. "I've got officers who have spent weeks in quarantine, who have missed the birth of their children, who have not been able to hug their kids for weeks because they have been in hotels because they don't want to transmit the virus to their families. This is because they've had short-term contact with people who haven't worn masks, who haven't done the right thing, who are simply coming out and flaunting the rules." Three men were arrested on Sunday, after clashes between police and anti-lockdown protesters in Broadmeadows, in Melbourne's northern suburbs, and five fines were issued during a prohibited gathering near the George Andrews Reserve in Dandenong.
Rep. Lee Nak-yon, new chairman of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, pays tribute to late patriots of the country at Seoul National Cemetery, Monday, officially kicking off his chairmanship. Yonhap



By Jung Da-min



Political parties are paving the way for a new start in preparation for upcoming major elections, including next year's by-elections and the presidential election in 2022.



The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) elected its new leaders at the party's national convention, Saturday, with former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon becoming the new chairman.



The ruling party is now at an important political juncture, as it has a lot of tasks including helping the country overcome the COVID-19 situation and the economic fallout from it as well as dealing with other "failing" policies on real estate and North Korea, among others.



Delivering his acceptance speech, Saturday, he said that the people have given five orders: win the war against COVID-19; protect people's livelihoods from economic fallout due to the pandemic; prepare for the post-COVID-19 situation through the ruling bloc's "K-New Deal" projects centering on digital and eco-friendly industries; actively cooperate with opposition parties in pushing forward with major policies; and accelerate renovation of the country's politics and economy by alleviating regulations for economic players.



"I believe that the mission given to me as the ruling party leader at this time of a national crisis is evident. I will take the five orders and I do my best to faithfully fulfill them."



The ruling party, which enjoyed high popularity earlier this year to win 176 seats in the 300-seat National Assembly in April's general election, has seen its support rate falling since  along with the approval rating for President Moon Jae-in  amid multiple policy failures, including those on real estate and North Korea, and sexual harassment allegations against former Busan Mayor Oh Keo-don and the late former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon.



Although the support rates have recently bounced up following a resurgence of COVID-19 infections, political watchers predict the "rally-round-the-flag" effect will not last long and the DPK, under new leadership, will have to come up with fresh policies to regain public support.





Kim Chong-in, center, chief of the main opposition United Future Party's emergency committee, speaks during a party meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap



The main opposition United Future Party (UFP) benefited from the falling popularity of the ruling bloc, overtaking the DPK in approval ratings in mid-August for the first time since October 2016.



Having veteran economist Kim Chong-in as the head of the emergency committee for reform, the UFP has been gearing up for a new start following its crushing defeat in the general election.



As part of the overall reform of the party, it announced a potential new name, which is roughly translated as "People's Power." Final approval will be sought at an online party meeting, Wednesday. It also announced a draft of its new platform, which included ideas often associated with the liberal bloc.



But the conservative party, which seeks a generational shift, is still struggling to find new and fresh candidates for next year's by-elections and the presidential election in 2022.





Justice Party Chairwoman Rep. Sim Sang-jung speaks during a party meeting held online, at the National Assembly in Seoul, Monday. Courtesy of Justice Party
Call of the wild: individual dolphin calls used to estimate population size and movement in the wild

An international team of scientists has succeeded in using the signature whistles of individual bottlenose dolphins off the coast of Namibia to estimate the size of the population and track their movement.

The research, led by Stellenbosch University and the University of Plymouth, marks the first time that acoustic monitoring has been used in place of photographs to generate abundance estimates of dolphin populations.

Writing in the Journal of Mammalogy, researchers say they are excited by the positive results yielded by the method, as the number of dolphins estimated was almost exactly the same as estimated through the more traditional photographic mark-recapture method.

They are now working to refine the technique, in the hope it can be used to track other species - with a current focus on endangered species such as humpback dolphins.

Quicker information processing and advances in statistical analysis mean in the future that automated detection of individually distinctive calls could be possible. This can generate important information on individual animals and would be particularly useful for small, threatened populations where every individual counts.

"The capture-recapture of individually distinctive signature whistles has not been attempted before," says the paper's senior author Dr Tess Gridley, Co-Director of Sea Search and the Namibian Dolphin Project and a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Botany and Zoology at SU. "The dolphins use these sounds throughout life and each has its own unique whistle. Therefore, by recording signature whistles over time and in different places we can calculate where animals are moving to and how many animals there are in a population."

Working with Dr Simon Elwen of Stellenbosch University, the Namibian Dolphin Project has been researching Namibia's resident bottlenose dolphins for the past 12 years, and built up a catalogue of more than 55 signature whistles dating back to 2009.

This particular study was led by Emma Longden, who began the project during her BSc (Hons) Marine Biology degree at the University of Plymouth. As an undergraduate, Emma completed an internship with the Namibia Dolphin Project for a month in 2016, and returned again in 2018 to complete work on the mark-recapture project.

She analysed more than 4000 hours of acoustic data from four hydrophones positioned along the coast south and north of Walvis Bay, Namibia, during the first six months of 2016.

All in all, they identified 204 acoustic encounters, 50 of which contained signature whistle types. From these encounters, 53 signature whistle types were identified; 40 were in an existing catalogue developed in 2014 for the Walvis Bay bottlenose dolphin population, and 13 were newly identified.

Of the 53 signature whistle types identified, 43% were captured only once, whereas the majority (57%) were recaptured twice or more.

"One of the great things about bioacoustics is that you can leave a hydrophone in the water for weeks at a time and collect so much data without interfering with the lives of the animals you are studying," says Emma, whose work on the project was also supervised by Dr Clare Embling, Associate Professor of Marine Ecology at the University of Plymouth.

Future research includes the work undertaken by PhD student Sasha Dines from Stellenbosch University to further refine the technique to better understand the population of endangered humpback dolphins in South Africa. Another PhD student, Jack Fearey from the University of Cape Town, is continuing to conduct research along the Namibian Coast. For editors

* The article was authored by Emma G. Longden, Simon H. Elwen, Barry McGovern, Bridget S. James, Clare B Embling and Tess Gridley and is available online at https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jmammal/gyaa081/5893454?guestAccessKey=af719cb6-c7ca-4463-9e1f-453768da4f6a More about bottlenose dolphins' use of sound

From the day they are born, bottlenose dolphins produce high frequency whistles. During learning and practice in the first year of life, these whistles develop into individually distinct signature whistles and each animal has its own unique call throughout life. Once learned, signature whistles act like a name and are used to help animals stay in contact and to address each other when communicating under the water.

These signature whistles help animals keep in contact if they become separated, they are exchanged before groups meet (as a kind of greeting) and they can copy each other's whistles to address each other (in the same way humans use names). They are therefore friendly sounds and used between animals that are well acquainted - such as group members and mothers to their calves.

###

More about the Namibia Dolphin Project

The Namibia Dolphin Project is a research and conservation project operating in Walvis Bay and Luderitz in Namibia. It is managed as part of the Sea Search Research and Conservation non-profit group and involves scientists and specialists from various South African and international universities and institutes. Interested students can intern with the Namibian Dolphin Project and Sea Search to gain important fieldwork skills.
TORONTO - Uber Technologies Inc. is trying to keep its Canadian drivers from joining or starting class-action lawsuits against the company  a move that threatens to upend a $400-million fight from drivers wanting to be recognized as employees, says a lawyer.

Employment lawyer Lior Samfiru, who is pursuing the case, said drivers using the platform were asked to sign new contracts days ago that ask them to agree not to pursue class or collective action.

Uber, instead, wants drivers to agree to settle their issues with the company through arbitration or on an individual basis, Samfiru said.

The drivers get locked out of the Uber app, unless they click accept this new agreement, he said.

For a driver that is trying to earn a living wage, especially during these difficult times, what are the chances that someone is actually going to read this in detail, understand what it means, understand the options, and make an informed decision?

Uber said in a statement to The Canadian Press that with the updated arbitration clause, dispute resolution is now more accessible to drivers, bringing Uber Canada in line with other jurisdictions.

Samfiru, however, worries the contract could have a chilling effect on the class-action he started in 2017 with Ontario Uber Eats driver David Heller.

Heller was hoping to force the San Francisco-based tech giant to recognize drivers as employees and provide them with a minimum wage, vacation pay and other protections under the Employment Standards Act.

Uber fought the case and managed to have it stayed because the company required all disputes it is involved in go through mediation in the Netherlands, where it is incorporated. However, Uber said it recently amended its dispute resolution protocols to allow arbitration to occur in the province or territory where a driver resides and ensure drivers will pay no more to start arbitration than the filing fee to file a lawsuit in court.

Samfiru said mediation costs US$14,500, but Heller was only making between $400 and $600 a week for up to 50 hours of work. That amounted to $20,800 to $31,200 a year before taxes and expenses.

The case made its way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which sided with the drivers and paved the way for them to fight to be recognized as employees.

Samfirus lawsuit seeks $200 million in compensation and $200 million in punitive damages on behalf of the tens of thousands of Ontario residents who have driven for the ride-sharing service since 2012.

If drivers sign Ubers contract, theyll have to stay out of his class action unless they read some of the contracts fine print and email the company at an address he said was provided to opt out of the clause.

I think (Uber) is counting on the fact that most are not going to do that, theyre not going to understand that, theyre not even going to read it, Samfiru said.

They will then have potentially thousands of drivers across the province and beyond who will then be prevented from participating in a class action.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2020.
Sudan's transitional government on Monday signed a peace deal with various opposition groups in Juba, the capital of neighboring South Sudan, to end decades of conflict in the marginalized areas of Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudan Sovereign Council, said the signing of the deal will go a long way in restoring peace and security in Sudan.

"This (peace) agreement will bring peace and stability in all parts of Sudan," al-Burhan said at the signing ceremony. "We cannot achieve development without peace, we have to stop all forms of conflict by addressing the root causes so that we build good relations between the state and citizens."

The Sudanese government signed the agreement with opposition groups under the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) that include SPLM-N sector led by Malik Agar, Justice Equality Movement under Jibril Ibrahim, Democratic Union party led by Eltom Hajou and the Sudan Liberation Movement under Minni Minnawi.

The agreement involves power-sharing, wealth-sharing, transitional justice, security, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees.

The SPLM-N sector led by Abdel Aziz Al-Hilu and Sudan Liberation Movement under Abdul Wahi Al-Nur did not sign the peace deal.

South Sudan President Salva Kiir and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and several diplomats attended the historic ceremony.

"We are committed to returning the country to peace and ensuring the return of the internally displaced persons and refugees," al-Burhan said.

He thanked South Sudan and the international community for helping mediate the peace talks that started on Oct. 14 last year.

Both sides had earlier on signed a political roadmap and cessation of hostilities agreement facilitating humanitarian access.

President Kiir lauded the deal, saying it will help bring peace and stability to both Sudan and South Sudan.

"With this peace agreement we have fulfilled the dreams of the Sudanese people, knowing that peace and security in Sudan is also peace and security in South Sudan," he said.

However, Kiir said:"We are still far from resolving this conflict once and for all because of the absence of the SPLM-N sector led by Abdel Aziz Al-Hilu and the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdul Wahid Al-Nur."

"The absence of these two groups from this (signing) ceremony remains a challenge to all of us," he said.

Kiir urged the international community to support the Sudanese people as they embark on implementing this agreement.

El Hadi Idris, head of the Sudan Revolutionary Front, expressed optimism that the peace agreement will bring an end to the suffering of civilians who have born the brunt of conflict.

"Today marks the end of war in Sudan and is going to end the suffering of the Sudanese people. This agreement is also going to address the root cause of the conflict in Sudan," he said.

"We are going to work and unite ourselves and support the government of Sudan to work for the people of Sudan," Idris said.

He called on the SPLM-N led by Al-Hilu and the SLM under Al-Nur to join the peace process.
A 70-year-old Boston man was arrested on Friday and charged with spray-painting swastikas on the citys JFK Federal Building, authorities announced on Monday.

Gerard Richard Lee is expected to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith Dein on Monday, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Massachusetts.

Prosecutors allege that on Friday, a police officer watched Lee spray paint the swastikas on the air intake stack at the JKF Federal Building in Boston.

Lee is being charged with one count of injuring or depredating government property.
New Delhi: In a startling revelation, Sushant Singh Rajput's ex-manager Shruti Modi's lawyer Ashok Saraogi has claimed that the late star used to consume drugs and his family knew about it. He added that Sushant consumed drugs even before Rhea came into his life.

"He was a mature man and no one can force him to do anything. He had been taking drugs even before Rhea entered his life. Even his family knew about his habit," Ashok Saraogi said. He also claimed that Sushant's driver Sohail and cook Ashok were the ones who used to fetch drugs for the late star.

As per Ashok Saraogi, Sushant did not share a good relationship with his father KK Singh. He said that Sushant hardly spoke to his father. However, every month, he used to send up to Rs 25,000 to him.

"Once Sushant got furious after Shruti tried to convey his father's message to him," the lawyer said.

Ashok Saraogi further stated that Sushant sometimes used to host parties at his place and one of his sister's used to attend them. "His sister used to attend the parties. One of his sisters is used to drinking and smoking. But I don't know if she used to consume drug or not," he said.

According to Ashok Saraogi, Sushant's drug habit had also started impacting his career. He claimed that in January 2020, a company wanted to make him its brand ambassador. However, upon learning about his condition, the company cancelled the offer.

He added that Sushant was planning to leave the film industry and meanwhile, his family wanted to call him to Bihar.

Ashok Saraogi further revealed, "In November 2019, Sushant was supposed to go on a trip with his sisters. However, a day before the trip, he had some argument with his sisters after which, his health worsened and he had to be admitted to Mumbai's Hinduja Hospital."

Of Shruti's association with the actor, the lawyer said that it was Sushant who had hired her. She worked with him for a long time. It was Sushant who had asked her to follow Rhea.

"Shruti has spoken the truth and it doesn't matter which agency questions her," the stated.
TAIPEI (Reuters) - China's armed forces are growing in their prowess but still lack the capability to launch a full assault on Taiwan, the island's defence ministry said on Monday.

Beijing is stepping up military activities around what it views as sovereign territory. It has never renounced the use of force to bring democratic Taiwan under its control, a message reiterated by President Xi Jinping last year, though Taiwan has shown no interest in being run by autocratic Beijing.

Xi is overseeing an impressive military modernisation programme, adding stealth fighters, aircraft carriers and other equipment, and the Chinese air force and navy have undertaken regular exercises or missions close to Taiwan.

In its annual report on China's military prowess delivered to parliament, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, Taiwan's Defence Ministry laid out scenarios for Chinese actions, including blockades and seizing offshore islands.

It said China's military continues to dedicate itself to strengthening live fire drills, building its strength for new types of battle and developing emerging technology and weapons.

"But on the operation of tactics and strategy toward Taiwan, it is still restricted by the natural geographic environment of the Taiwan Strait, and its landing equipment and logistics abilities are insufficient," it added.

"It still does not have the formal combat capability to fully assault Taiwan."

President Tsai Ing-wen has made bolstering Taiwan's own defences a priority, building up its domestic defence industry and buying more equipment from the United States, the island's most important arms supplier and international backer.

Tsai says she wants peace with China and will not provoke conflict, but last week voiced concern about accidental hostilities erupting due to increased regional tensions.

Taiwan's defence ministry said it was continuing to pay close attention to Chinese threats, both actual and verbal, and while it did not seek war, it was also not afraid of it.

(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Former President of India, Pranab Mukherjee passed away at the age of 84, after battling a long illness. The death of the Bharat Ratna awardee was mourned by many prominent personalities and celebrities of the Hindi film industry.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, "India grieves the passing away of Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society."

Aamir Khan wrote, "Pranabda rest in peace," and added folded hands emoji.

Actor Varun Dhawan wrote on Twitter, "Deeply saddened hearing this news. #rip #PranabMukherjee."

Producer Ritesh Sidhwani wrote, "Shri. #PranabMukherjee Ji will always be remembered as one of India's most astute statesmen. May his soul rest in peace. My heartfelt condolences to his loved ones."

Badminton player Saina Nehwal wrote, "Extremely saddened to hear about the demise of Former President & Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee #PranabMukherjee."

"India loses a great statesman & respected leader My condolences to the family. #PranabMukherjee," tweeted Ajay Devgn.

Taapsee Pannu tweeted, "Had the honour of meeting him, watching #Pink in his presence , followed by a very warmly hosted dinner for the entire team. Can never forget the experience, his kind words n gesture that day. You will be missed sir #PranabMukherjee."

"Deeply Saddened!! A big loss for India. Former President of India Hon Shri #PranabMukherjee Sir will be forever remembered for his work & contribution for the development of India. My deepest condolences to @ABHIJIT_LS ji, the entire family & his millions of followers," wrote Riteish Deshmukh

Kangana Ranaut wrote, "Such a terrible news, he will be etched in our memories as one of the finest leaders and an absolute gentleman #PranabMukherjee."

Parineeti Chopra tweeted, "The most special .. RIP sir."

Pranab Mukherjee served as the 13th President of India from 2012 to 2017. He was preceded by Pratibha Patil and succeeded by Ram Nath Kovind.

On August 10, Mukherjee was hospitalized for a brain clot surgery, after testing positive for COVID-19. He passed away after a septic shock due to a lung infection.

ALSO READ: Pandit Jasjraj's Mortal Remains Arrive In Mumbai, To Be Cremated With State Honours On August 20
PLAINFIELD, Ind., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Duke Energy is providing $300,000 in energy assistance funds to help qualified Indiana customers who may be struggling to pay their energy bills during the pandemic. The company also is emphasizing that eligible residential customers can avoid disconnections for nonpayment if they establish a payment plan, which can now extend up to 12 months.

"We know the pandemic continues to be a financial hardship for many," said Duke Energy Indiana President Stan Pinegar. "These funds, in combination with federal Low-Income Energy Assistance dollars administered by the state, can help hundreds of Hoosiers with energy costs during a challenging time."

Duke Energy is working with the Indiana Community Action Association and the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority's Energy Assistance Program, which determines eligibility and distributes the company's assistance funds.

Recipients of the Duke Energy funds must be Duke Energy customers and meet income-eligibility requirements. The company also encourages eligible customers to establish a payment plan, if needed, for any outstanding balances to avoid disconnection.

"While the Indiana Community Action Agency network can help in many ways, the Duke Energy Helping Hand Program is a valuable resource during uncertain times as moratoriums on utility disconnections and evictions expire," said Ed Gerardot, executive director of the Indiana Community Action Association.

Duke Energy Indiana suspended service disconnections for nonpayment until Sept. 15 for customers who were experiencing financial hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The deadline gave customers an additional month to make payment arrangements beyond the state's current disconnection moratorium. Eligible residential customers can avoid disconnection by establishing a payment plan, which now can extend up to 12 months.

If customers are behind on their Duke Energy bills, they should contact the company right away at 800.521.2232 to talk with a customer service representative to establish payment arrangements. Payment plans can also be established online. Click here for more information.

Federal initiatives such as the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) provide home energy assistance to help eligible low-income households meet their home heating and/or cooling needs. These federal funds received hundreds of millions of dollars as part of the federal stimulus initiative. Indiana's next funding cycle for the program opens Sept. 1. To apply for the Energy Assistance Program, customers should contact their local service provider. Click here to find a listing of service providers by county.

Since mid-March, the Duke Energy Foundation has contributed more than $1.15 million in shareholder funds to Indiana nonprofit groups, focusing on hunger relief, small business recovery, education and workforce needs as well as social justice grants.

Duke Energy Indiana

Duke Energy Indiana, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, provides about 6,600 megawatts of owned electric capacity to approximately 840,000 customers in a 23,000-square-mile service area, making it Indiana's largest electric supplier.

Contact: Angeline Protogere

Office: 317.838.1338 | 24-Hour: 800.559.3853

SOURCE Duke Energy

Related Links

www.duke-energy.com


Ousted Fox News anchor Ed Henry's workplace misconduct was allegedly an open secret at the network long before he was fired last month, some current and former female staffers have since claimed.

Henry was fired last month after former Fox Business producer Jennifer Eckhart filed a federal lawsuit against the network and the anchorman accusing him of raping her in 2017.

Fox News said at the time of Henry's termination that they 'took swift action' against the anchor as soon as they were informed of Eckhart's allegations by her lawyer on June 25. The cable news network say they retained a law firm to investigate the allegations made by Eckhart before announcing less than a week later that they had fired Henry.

Fox maintains there was no sexual harassment claims made against Henry at the network prior to Eckhart's allegation.

In interviews with the Daily Beast published on Monday, Eckhart and unnamed female Fox News female staffers, including one who says she had a consensual affair with Henry, have since claimed that his misconduct was an open secret at the network.

Ed Henry (left) was fired last month after former Fox Business producer Jennifer Eckhart (right) filed a federal lawsuit against the network and the anchorman accusing him of raping her in 2017

In interviews with the Daily Beast published on Monday, Eckhart and unnamed female Fox News female staffers have since claimed that Henry's alleged misconduct was an open secret at the network

The female staffers have alleged Henry's reputation and alleged inappropriate workplace behavior was 'well known' at Fox News.

Eckhart has claimed that she filed a complaint with HR and her supervisor in February this year about working in a toxic environment. She claims she was notified in June that she was going to be fired and then moved forward with plans to sue regarding Henry's alleged conduct.

Fox has denied ever receiving a sexual harassment complaint from Eckhart about Henry until after she was fired.

'Jennifer Eckhart never reported any sexual harassment or sexual misconduct to HR and did not reveal anything about Ed Henry until after she was terminated on June 12. She was given a warning in February and a performance improvement plan in early March prior to the June termination and neither of the two meetings she had with HR regarding her performance involved raising any sexual harassment or sexual misconduct complaints,' a Fox News spokesperson said.

'On the same day that Fox News received Ms Eckhart's complaint about Mr Henry from her lawyer at Wigdor, we retained an outside law firm to independently investigate the matter. On the basis of those investigative findings, Fox News terminated Mr Henry less than one week later.'

Eckhart's attorney Michael J. Willemin said Fox News was attempting to play semantics.

'Notably, Fox News does not deny that Ms Eckhart complained of a toxic work environment, and that the company took no effort to investigate or even ask for information related to that complaint,' he said.

'As alleged in the lawsuit, Fox News knew about Ed Henry for years and did nothing until it knew this lawsuit would be filed. That is, of course, the Fox News playbook  look the other way as victims pile up and then pretend to do the right think. No one buys it.'

Meanwhile, the employee who claims she had a years-long affair with Henry that ended in March this year told the outlet that she was repeatedly warned about his alleged behavior.

'I think Fox News was aware of his behavior. His reputation was mixed. While some saw him as friendly and jovial, others believed he could be unpleasant and harsh-natured in the workplace. It was well-known he flirted with younger women in the office. I heard people say, in general, to be careful with him because of his flirtatious nature,' she said.

'I am unaware of other women who warned upper management about Mr Henry but I have heard stories of women to whom he sent suggestive messages.'

Henry has been married to his wife Shirley (above) since 2010 and has two children from a previous marriage. His lawyer denied the allegations made by Eckhart in her lawsuit

A former employee, who left the company in 2017 and claims she was sexually assaulted by a Fox correspondent, said Henry's name would often come up among female staffers.

'Fox may be a big company but things get around. Employees talk. I was sure to ask around among my female coworkers. Heck, I even heard it from some males who were aware about names I should stay away from or watch out for,' she said.

'Ed Henry consistently came up.'

Former on-air guest Cathy Areu, who jointly filed the lawsuit with Eckhart against Fox, claims she was also warned about Henry's alleged behavior. Areu claimed in the lawsuit that Henry sent her 'a slew of wildly inappropriate sexual images and videos' and suggested he would assist her career if she had sex with him

Former on-air guest Cathy Areu, who jointly filed the lawsuit with Eckhart against Fox, claims she was also warned about Henry's alleged behavior.

Areu was never a paid contributor on Fox but appeared on the network between 2018 and earlier this year.

'It is hard to imagine that Fox was unaware of the conduct of one of its top hosts, particularly given how rampant his misbehavior was. I was warned about multiple people by multiple people,' Areu said.

'It was well-known that the way for women to get ahead at Fox was to submit to the overtures of the male hosts. I never did, which is likely why my tenure at Fox came to an abrupt end.'

Areu claimed in the lawsuit that Henry sent her 'a slew of wildly inappropriate sexual images and videos' and suggested he would assist her career if she had sex with him.

She also alleges in the lawsuit that Fox News anchors Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, host Howard Kurtz and political analyst Gianno Caldwell sexually harassed and retaliated against her.

Fox filed a sanctions motion on Friday claiming Areu, who is no longer being represented by the same Wigdor law firm as Eckhart, made false allegations of sexual misconduct against Carlon, Hannity and Kurtz.

In response to Areu's recent comments, a Fox News spokesperson said: 'Cathy Areu's allegation that women are not treated equally at Fox News is provably false and yet another malicious attempt to smear the network with meritless claims. In fact, Fox News has provided more leadership opportunities for women than any other cable news network, including featuring more solo women anchors and hosts on-air and retaining a senior staff comprised of more than 50% female executives. We are proud of our track record in elevating women and remain dedicated to continuing our efforts in providing an equal and inclusive workplace for all of our employees.

The complaint includes a string of WhatsApp messages that Henry allegedly sent to Eckhart in which he calls her his 'little w***e' and refers to their relationship in disturbingly graphic terms

'Good long session last time. Left you bruised batter dazed sated begging for more,' he wrote in one message. Another states: 'When u r owned u don't get a choice.'

'Furthermore, as revealed in public filings and during a court hearing in the Areu matter on Friday, Wigdor LLP has dropped Ms Areu as a client following FOX News' service of a sanctions motion on Ms Areu and the Wigdor firm arguing that they engaged in serious misconduct by making patently false allegations of sexual misconduct against Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Howard Kurtz.

'Wigdor's and Ms Areu's allegations are contradicted by e-mails and text messages within Ms Areu's own possession, which demonstrate that she knew her claims to be false and that Wigdor either knew the same or should have known through the most basic investigation instead of issuing a sensationalized press release on these false allegations.'

The attorney representing Eckhart said it false for Fox New to say Areu was dropped by their firm.

'Ms Areu retained new counsel, as is her right. We did not drop her, and stand by her. We are working closely with her counsel to hold Fox News accountable for its abhorrent behavior, including its attempt to mislead the public with respect to our actions. Fox News has a despicable and documented history with respect to sexual harassment and discrimination. The company has no credibility,' the attorney said.

When the lawsuit was filed, Henry's lawyer Catherine Foti denied the allegations made against him.

The lawsuit includes Eckhart's claims that Henry allegedly handcuffed her and raped her in a hotel room in 2017 after trying to coerce her into a sexual relationship.

The complaint includes a string of WhatsApp messages that Henry allegedly sent to Eckhart in which he calls her his 'little w***e' and refers to their relationship in disturbingly graphic terms.

'Good long session last time. Left you bruised batter dazed sated begging for more,' he wrote in one message. Another states: 'When u r owned u don't get a choice.'

Henry's lawyer said at the time the lawsuit was filed that Eckhart 'initiated and completely encouraged a consensual relationship' with the anchor, who has been married to his wife Shirley since 2010 and has two children from a previous marriage.

Foti said Henry is in possession of evidence that will contradict Eckhart's 'fictional accounts' - including 'graphic photos and other aggressively suggestive communications' that she sent to him.

Henry has not yet released such photos or communications and his lawyer has said they will not do so until the case is in court.
The day before Vice President Mike Pence visits Pennsylvania, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is making a surprise stop in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Bidens campaign announced the visit on Monday, but details with the exact time and location were not immediately released, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting.

On Twitter, Bidens campaign deputy national secretary Matt Hill said the former vice president would, in his visit, lay out a core question voters face in this election: are you safe in Donald Trumps America?

Monday: @JoeBiden will travel to southwestern Pennsylvania to lay out a core question voters face in this election: are you safe in Donald Trump's America? As Trump fan the flames of division, Biden will offer a different vision for a better future in Joe Biden's America.  Matt Hill (@thematthill) August 30, 2020

President Donald Trump fired back on Twitter, saying Biden is coming out of the basement to visit Pittsburgh in response to plunging poll numbers.

Joe Biden is coming out of the basement earlier than his hoped for ten days because his people told him he has no choice, his poll numbers are PLUNGING! Going to Pittsburgh, where I have helped industry to a record last year, & then back to his basement for an extended period...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2020

Pence is slated to appear on Tuesday at an event at Wilkes Barre/Scranton International Airport. Biden grew up in nearby Scranton, where Trump also recently visited.

Pennsylvania has long been viewed as one of the key battlegrounds in the presidential election and both Biden and Trump are devoting much of their attention to the commonwealth.

Trump narrowly won the Keystone State in 2016, beating Hillary Clinton by less than a percentage point, but the win in Pennsylvania helped propel him to the White House.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 22:10:35|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on Monday said that the number of positive COVID-19 cases across the African continent has risen to 1,245,230.

The Africa CDC, which noted that only five African countries account for about 70 percent of all COVID-19 infections in the continent, also stressed that the death toll from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic rose to 29,589 on Monday.

Some 975, 643 people who were infected with COVID-19 had recovered across the continent so far, it said.

Amid the rapid spread of the virus across the continent, South Africa alone accounts for about 50 percent of all COVID-19 infections in the continent, followed by Egypt which has eight percent of all COVID-19 infections in the continent, the Africa CDC said.

The continental disease control and prevention agency said that South Africa has so far reported 625, 056 cases and 14,028 deaths as of Monday.

Egypt is the second most COVID-19 affected country with 98,727 positive cases and 5,399 COVID-19 related deaths, it was noted.

Morocco, which has so far reported 61, 399 positive cases and 1,111 deaths, comes third with about five percent of all COVID-19 infections in the continent, while Nigeria and Ethiopia round the top of five list. According to the Africa CDC, the southern Africa region is the most affected area in terms of confirmed cases, followed by northern Africa and western Africa regions. Enditem
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 31

Trend:

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev sent a congratulatory letter to Vahid Alakbarov, President of LUKOIL company.

"Dear Vahid Yusuf oglu,

I heartily congratulate you on your significant jubilee  the 70th anniversary.

Thanks to your professionalism and organizational talent, LUKOIL is today one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world.

The long-term fruitful activity of LUKOIL company in our country makes a significant contribution to the expansion of Azerbaijani-Russian mutual economic relations and paves the way for the development and strengthening of friendly ties between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation.

I wish you long life, the best of health, prosperity and new successes," the letter said.
Company announcement 9/2020 (31 August 2020)

European Energy delivers a solid start for the first half year for the Group and maintains its high expectations for the annual targets. The second quarter had revenue of EUR 37.2 million, an EBITDA of EUR 9.4 million and profit before tax of EUR 3.7 million. This concludes the first half of 2020 with a strong revenue of 65.9 million, an EBITDA of EUR 19.7 million and profit before tax of EUR 7.9 million.

Knud Erik Andersen, CEO of European Energy, says:

We are pleased to report that European Energy delivers healthy and profitable growth in the first half of 2020, as we maintain our expectations for our annual targets.

The increased sale of green power was the main driver behind the profitable growth. Electricity sales are up by 120% in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The power sale revenues from solar assets alone has increased 337% to EUR 3.8 million.

Construction activities are high and unaffected by the COVID-19 crisis, though extra precautions are taken at our sites in Denmark, Poland, Germany, Italy and Brazil. More than 1127 MW in total are currently under construction or ready-to-build across all our solar and wind power projects. In Italy, we grid-connected our Troia project, the biggest solar farm ever constructed in Italy, with a current capacity of 103 MW. At the same time, our pipeline of development projects continues its healthy growth with many projects moving closer to the construction phase. With more than 15 GW of projects under development, we expect construction activities to increase further, move into new markets and remain high across the European continent over the coming years.

During the second quarter of 2020, we closed the divestment of four Vestas V126 3.6 MW wind turbines in Viertkamp Germany to the German investor Encavis AG, Hamburg, and the sale has contributed positively to the quarterly results. Also in Germany, we closed the sale of the Vier Berge project with three Enercon E126 and four Enercon E138 turbines with a total capacity of 25.8 MW to the capital fund CEE RF6 Holding S.a.r.l, Luxemburg, and received the first part of the down payment. We expect the revenue to be recognised in November 2020, when the park has been fully constructed and grid-connected. After the balance day, we divested the Danish solar park Hanstholmsvej. The solar park is the first in Denmark to utilize bifacial modules, and the electricity has been sold on a long-term contract to a datacentre in Denmark. When the profit from these divestments are recognised later this year, more than 80% of the expected gross profit for the year will be secured.

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At the end of the quarter, we hold a very solid cash position with EUR 121.1 million whereof EUR 95.7 million is free cash. The strong cash base enables us to fund our growth for the coming quarters. In July, we closed our biggest long-term financing to date on the Troia solar park with the French based bank Natixis of EUR 96.5 million, making our liquidity even stronger.

Despite the unfolding COVID-19 crisis, our business activities have remained high in all key markets. Consequently, we believe that a second COVID-19 wave will have very limited impact on our activities and have therefore decided to continue our hiring policy and now count 172 employees, a rise from 119 in the second quarter of 2019. In Brazil the negative effects from COVID-19 has come on top of a polarised political environment, and the local currency has taken a major drop in value. The construction activities for European Energy are on schedule, but the drop in currency value and the general conditions in the country has led to an impairment of EUR 3.4 million in the second quarter.

Despite the loss in Brazil, we delivered strong financial performance in the second quarter of 2020 and remain committed to delivering both EBITDA (EUR 52-58 million) and profit before tax (EUR 35-39 million) for the full financial year in 2020 in line with the earlier guideline.

Fighting climate change is a megatrend, and we are pleased to see it gaining momentum worldwide. In July, leaders of the European Union adopted a new budget and recovery plan with the objective of steering the EU through the COVID-19 crisis. The plan earmarks more than EUR 500 billion for climate protection over the next seven years, while all EU spending must contribute to emissions reductions goals. Thanks to these ambitious political plans, financial institutions, pension funds, private companies and many other private investors are increasingly focusing on renewable energy, and new markets are opening up. Fighting climate change is our top priority and the reason for our companys existence, and we are dedicated to work hard to fight it. With the growth of our business and the technical development in our sectors, we are looking ahead with optimism.

Further information: Jonny Thorsted Jonasson, CFO: jtj@europeanenergy.dk or phone: +45 5180 0000

This announcement has been made in accordance with the market abuse regulation (regulation (EU) no. 596/2014 on market abuse).

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A global pandemic may be upon us, stranding us all within the confines of our own homes for the fear of getting infected, but that is not enough to completely quell our desire to travel and explore. Even before a few countries started opening their borders for air travel, people persevered and found a way to satisfy their wanderlust, whether it was through digital tours or window swaps.

As the world begins to open back up again, we are all itching to get out again. Even now most people who are working from home have most of their vacation days saved up. And this might be the perfect time to use those days before the summer is officially over. Depending on the amount of time you have on your hands, here are a few things you can do to travel even during the coronavirus era.

2 Days: Explore your own town

Considering how often we look to get away from our day to day lives, our own hometowns get ignored. Especially in a culturally rich place like India, even the smallest of all towns have their own history and landmarks that shed light on the significance of the place. Depending on where you are in the country, the weather is finally starting to improve, making this the perfect time to get out there and check out the theme and water parks in your area or visiting the fancy restaurant nearby with your family. Even the slightest change in scenery can help break the monotony.

5 Days: Soak up the sun at the nearest beach

Nothing says summer vacation quite like lounging in the sand and swimming in the ocean. Domestic travel has resumed, and several states are now more lax in their travel procedures. You can visit some of the most beautiful beaches our country has to offer in Goa or you could take a trip to the Andaman and Nicobar islands for a quick getaway to recharge after the stress that has accompanied the coronavirus pandemic.

7 Days: Staycation at a luxury resort

If a vacation for you means sipping margaritas by the pool after a massage, you can visit the nearest secluded luxury resort and leave all your trouble behind. From delicious 5-star dining, expensive amnesties, and activities for the entire family, you can pamper yourself with the best the country has to offer. You can even get away from the summer heart by visiting one of the many luxury resorts that have now opened up in the hill stations.

10 Days: Time for a road trip

For some travel means venturing onto the open road with nothing but your vehicle and music at your side. With enough time on your hands, you can visit some of the most gorgeous corners of our great country. From biking to Ladakh or driving down Chennai to Pondicherry, or even taking an extended road trip to Jaipur and Jaisalmer, there is no dearth of options for a keen traveller. Whats more, a vehicle provides the safety of personal space that might not be available in public transports. Whether you prefer to travel with family and friends, your pets or even solo, you cannot go wrong with a road trip.

15 Days: National Parks and Monuments

India as a country has an abundance of history to share with those that take the time to appreciate it. It is also the home to several endangered animals who are now living in national parks for their safety. Another road trip or air travel plan can be to visit the various places in India that you have not had a chance to do so far. With a well-researched itinerary, you will be able to travel all over the country and visit iconic places like the Ajanta and Ellora Caves, the Ranthambore National Park or even the Gateway of India in Mumbai.

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The statue of Revolutionary War Gen. George Rogers Clark has stood on University of Virginia land for 99 years, but a push for racial equity and efforts by student leaders may force the statue to be removed.

The statue, for which university leaders actively lobbied a wealthy Charlottesville philanthropist back in 1921, would be replaced by a Native American-centered cultural center under a recommendation by UVas Racial Equity Task Force.

The task force recommends the administration remove the George Rogers Clark statue and work with the local indigenous community to reimagine what might embody the space where the statue currently stands.

It also recommends repairing the universitys relationship with Native Americans by creating a Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies with appropriate academic and administrative staffing, including a tribal liaison.

If statues, plaques, and building names comprising the cultural landscape of [UVa] are meant to convey what we hold to be collective values, then certain aspects of grounds should evolve as our values change, the task force wrote in its recommendations.

The reports recommendations are just that. Any decision on removing or replacing the statue will be made by the universitys board of visitors.

Once President Ryan has concluded his review, he plans to discuss the report with the Board of Visitors next month, and will then announce next steps for moving this work forward, UVa spokesman Wes Hester said. President Ryan is grateful for the task forces hard work and for the community input that enabled this important undertaking over the past several weeks.

Virginias Pamunkey Indian Tribe is supporting the effort and has offered to be involved in planning the proposed center.

We fully support the removal of this statue. We are also aware that there are efforts being made to convert the acreage upon which the statue currently sits into an indigenous studies complex for the benefit of future Native American students to the university, Pamunkey Chief Robert Gray wrote in an Aug. 26 letter to Julie Langan, director and state historic preservation officer at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

We perceive the removal of this statue and turning it into an indigenous studies complex as a definite positive way forward to entice Native American students to attend the University of Virginia by turning a negative depiction of Native Americans into a positive one, Gray wrote.

While Charlottesvilles downtown Confederate general statues have drawn most of the attention from racial equity activists, Clarks statue also has proven problematic.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the statue has been vandalized over the years, including a recent failed attempt to decapitate Clarks cast-bronze likeness.

For some, the bronze-on-pink granite statue of Clark astride a stallion and confronting three Native Americans while backed by three frontiersmen wielding rifle, pistol and powder is a patriotic symbol of American exceptionalism.

For others, its a disturbing depiction of cruelty, land theft and genocide.

When I was considering attending UVa, we walked around Charlottesville, and when we walked by the statue, I stopped and backed up, recalled Zac Russell, a UVa undergraduate and citizen of the Cherokee Nation. I was in shock. It was the most blatantly racist statue I had ever seen. People had put up a statue blatantly depicting the killing of Native Americans.

For others, the statue also represents the lack of acceptance Native Americans feel at UVa.

[Native Americans] dont have their own place at the university. We dont even have a key to a door that we could close. There are no degree programs  not even a minor  and no Native American studies program, said Anthony Lopez, a Crow Creek Sioux tribal member and 2009 UVa graduate with a masters in anthropology.

Lopez also serves as chairman of the George Rogers Clark Statue Disposition Committee of the Native American Indigenous Studies Group.

There is no recruitment program and the university doesnt keep statistics of how many are enrolled or from what tribes. There is no real recognition. About the only place on Grounds where American Indians can see depictions of themselves is at that statue, and thats problematic, he said. Whats that tell you of your importance to the university community when the only depiction of your history is basically as prisoners of war?

The Racial Equity Task Force concurs. It is recommending to Ryan that the university remove the statue and work with the Native American organization to build up the study, recruitment and community profile of Indigenous American students.

The contributions of Indigenous Virginians to American culture, law, politics, ecology, and agriculture have not been fully appreciated or understood, and the history of interactions with the University of Virginia remains invisible and unexplored by many, the task force report states. Failing to take this history  as well as current circumstances  seriously would undermine UVas commitment to racial equity.

The task force recommends moving the statue elsewhere  it does not indicate to where  and using the space for Native Americans. Lopez said his organization is willing to consider other locations for the center, but backs the statues removal.

The task force recommends the university immediately establish a tribal liaison position that eventually would have an office in the proposed center.

The issue goes beyond the portrayal of American Indians on the statue, say those who wish to remove it. It goes to Clark himself and the era in which the statue was designed and built.

Clark was born in Albemarle County in 1752, the older brother of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition. George Rogers Clark, promoted to brigadier general in 1781 by then-Virginia Gov. Thomas Jefferson, was the highest ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the Revolutionary War.

Clark led a militia  settlers, farmers and citizens who were not regular soldiers  that fought in Kentucky and Ohio against the British and their Native American allies during the war. His success against the British won him the moniker Conqueror of the Northwest, which is etched in the granite base of the UVa statue.

After the war, Clark remained on the frontier and led militias against Native American tribes in an effort to secure land for the expanding country and negotiate treaties to gain more land for settlers.

His statue was erected in 1921 on property that once housed the universitys coal bins and pharmacy. It was paid for by Paul Goodloe McIntire, who also paid for the statues of Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee in Market Street Park and Thomas Stonewall Jackson in Court Square Park and a statue at Fifth and Main streets honoring the Lewis and Clark expedition.

UVa leaders lobbied McIntire, whose father served as Charlottesvilles mayor during the Civil War, for the Lee statue. They settled for one of George Rogers Clark.

The statues were planned, designed and erected as Virginia debated and passed racial purity laws and formalized in law racial segregation, including banning mixed-race marriages.

People say [the Clark statue] is not that bad, but it is, Russell said. Even if youre not a Native American, think about the time it was erected, what it was meant to represent, who paid for it and what the other statues represented.

Its an exclusive appreciation, a race-based appreciation of history, Lopez said. Its the white, heroic figure. You cant find a trace of Native American history on the Grounds other than that statue.

Russell said the Clark statue reinforces the idea that white leaders conquered indigenous Americans, driving them to extinction.

It really plays on the trope of the noble savage. [The tribal chief] is standing there looking like hes bravely waiting for death or, if hes lucky, getting locked up in a concentration camp, which often happened, Russell said. To me, it shows how merciless and badly the U.S. government acted.

Were not advocating vandalism or tearing it down, Lopez said. Maybe they can give it away. The National Holocaust Museum has displays involving genocide in other countries and this would be appropriate.

Russell said replacing the statue with a center dedicated to Native American studies and culture will help bring identity to a people mainstream society believes are extinct.

People think of us as being in 1886 and that weve stopped existing since then. Were still around. We may talk and look different because of colonization, but we never disappeared, despite the governments effort to make us disappear.
After brief relief of two days, heavy rainfall is likely to batter several parts of Chhattisgarh on Monday starting from Bastar division.

Chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on Saturday issued directives to all district collectors and superintendent of police (SPs) to remain alert and ensure every help to rain-affected people.

There is break in rains in Chhattisgarh since Saturday but isolated rainfall has been recorded in some parts of the state. The low-pressure system will again develop on Monday, subsequently; heavy rainfall will start from Bastar and reach the northern part of the state, meteorologist HP Chandra from Raipur MeT centre told Hindustan Times.

Chhattisgarh witnessed incessant rainfall since August 20 in several parts, leading to a flood-like situation in some areas of Bastar division and plains of the state.

Also read: Why is it flooding in Central India?

Collectors were instructed to deploy a joint team of staff of revenue department, district panchayat, janpad panchayat and forest department to provide relief to the affected people, the official said. As per the government estimate, nearly 12,000 houses across various districts were partially or completely damaged due to the incessant rainfall and thousands of people were moved to relief camps.

One died due to rainfall in Bijapur district, an official said.

In Janjgir-Champa district, around 4,000 houses were damaged due to rainfall and flood, 2,091 affected people have been moved to 45 relief camps, he said. Similarly, in Raigarh district, 27 villages in Baramkela and Pusaur areas were affected due to the floods, wherein 2,389 people were moved to 21 relief camps.

In Balodabazar district, 26 villages bore the brunt of the flood and 1,393 people were moved to 24 relief camps there.
Moscow:

A plane carrying 35 diplomats expelled from the United States over Russias alleged meddling in the US presidential election arrived in Moscow early on Monday, Russian state television reported.



A Russian Il-96 plane carrying the diplomats and their families landed at Moscows Vnukovo airport at 2:05 am local time after having taken off from Washington yesterday, state television said.



State television showed the diplomats and their families gathering their luggage on the tarmac in the rain before heading inside the terminal.



US intelligence says the Kremlin ordered a hack-and-release of Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton campaign staff emails in a bid to put Donald Trump in the White House.



Moscow has repeatedly dismissed the allegations.



The expulsions of the diplomatsdescribed as intelligence operatives based at the Russian embassy in Washington and the consulate in San Franciscowere part of a package of sanctions ordered by President Barack Obama Thursday in the final weeks of his administration.



Obama also ordered the closure of two Russian compounds in New York and Maryland that the United States says were used for intelligence-related purposes.



Russian President Vladimir Putin last week rebuked the outgoing president for unfriendly steps amounting to a provocation aimed at further undermining Russian-American relations.



The Kremlin strongman warned that Russia reserved the right to respond but refrained from ordering the tit-for-tat expulsion of American diplomats from Russia, saying that Moscows next move will be based on the policies pursued by the administration of president Donald Trump.



Putins decision has been interpreted as a sign he is looking to Trump to rebuild US-Russian ties after the US presidential inauguration later this month.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
South Africa: More women representation needed in local government

The Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Parks Tau, has emphasised the importance of having 50/50 gender representation in local government.

"As we prepare for local government elections next year, our deliberate and conscious focus should be progressively targeted at 50/50 representation, the Deputy Minister said.

Although South Africa has made significant strides towards the empowerment of women, particularly in positions of leadership both in Parliament and local government, women occupy an accumulative 33% of the positons of mayors.

Tau and the President of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), Thembi Nkadimeng, on Saturday co-hosted a virtual dialogue with 'Women in Local Government' as part of Women's Month commemorations.

"In our pursuit for Generation Equality, we need to reflect on the role of women as catalysts towards pervasive community empowerment. We should create enabling workplace environments that protect and advance the socioeconomic standing of women in society, Nkadimeng said.

The dialogue was held under the theme Leading in the face of COVID-19 and Gender Based Violence.

Women are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and perennial socioeconomic challenges, which compels us to contrive sufficient mechanisms to affirm the rights of women in respect of universal access to education, reproductive health and basic services, by employing gender responsive policies and programmes, especially gender responsive budgeting.

As a people and as men, particularly, we have a collective responsibility to champion women emancipation through our activism to unleash the economic potential of women, which directly translates into unleashing the economic potential of society, holistically, a joint statement by CoGTA and SALGA said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
In mid-April 2012, about two weeks after Rabihan Seiders disappeared, police searched the Cumberland County home she shared with her husband, Hap.

And in a postal box filled with ashes, they found several pieces of bone, Silver Spring Township police Sergeant David Jenkins testified Monday morning during Hap Seiders homicide trial. A spot of blood also was found on a carpet in the home as well during the April 13, 2012 search, he said.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Courtney Hair LaRue is contending Hap Seiders, 66, killed his 53-year-old wife and incinerated her body in the fireplace of their home on Willow Mill Park Road.

Defense attorney George Matangos is questioning whether Rabihan Seiders, a native of the central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan, is dead. He has raised the possibility that she fled, perhaps overseas, with $3 million worth of her husbands property, including $1 million in gold coins.

Hap Seiders was charged with homicide last year.

Jenkins, who has been involved in the investigation of Rabihan Seiders disappearance for more than eight years, testified about the discovery of the bone fragments and blood during the fourth day of Hap Seiders trial in Judge Jessica E. Brewbakers courtroom.

Investigators said they believe that Rabihan Seiders, 53, was assaulted, killed and dismembered and burned in this home at 100 Willow Mill Park Road in Silver Spring Township.Sean Sauro

Jenkins said that, in addition to the bone fragments, a metal zipper pool was found in the box of ashes located near the fireplace in the Seiders home.

The sergeant said he told Hap Seiders before the search began that we were her looking for Rabihan. Seiders sat outside in a chair during the first hour or so of the five-hour search, he said.

Jenkins said that during his investigation, he determined that Rabihan last used a key fob at the couples condo in Ventnor City, N.J., on March 21, 2012. A check with federal authorities turned up no evidence that Rabihan had taken any airline flight out of the U.S., he said.

Hap Seiders didnt ask the police about the progress of their investigation into Rabhans disappearance during the years before his arrest, Jenkins said.

Has anyone ever told you theyve seen Rabihan since March of 2012? LaRue asked.

No, Jenkins replied.

He said under Matangos questioning that Hap Seiders was cooperative with police during the search of his house.

Also, Jenkins said federal authorities were asked to help find Rabihan under the last name of Seiders, but not by her maiden name of Hasanova or by a former married name. Nor did investigators go to Kyrgyzstan as part of the probe, he said.

Matangos asked Jenkins when he believed Rabihans alleged disappearance actually occurred.

I dont believe she disappeared, Jenkins replied. Something didnt go well for her between (March) 27 and 28.
New Delhi, Sep 1 : A Special Frontier Force officer was killed and another soldier was seriously injured in a landmine blast at Line of Actual Control with China when they were at reconnaissance operations, sources said.

A special unit of Special Frontier Force from Uttarakhand have been deployed at Eastern Ladakh to gather reports pertaining to movements about Chinese People's Liberation Army troop and subsequently thwart it. The incident took place between Black Top and Thakung Heights at Pangong Tso's south bank where India thwarted China incursion.

The Special Frontier Force, which comes under Indian Intelligence Agency, was deployed after government found that China is making advance at the borders.

Indian Army as well Indian government refuse to comment over the issue.

Two days ago, Indian and Chinese troops were engaged in skirmish at the southern bank of the Pangong lake where the Chinese brought in close to 450 troops but the Indian Army said an attempt to change the status quo was thwarted.

Sources said Chinese People's Liberation Army troops with help of ropes and other climbing equipment started climbing at a table-top area between Black Top and Thakung Heights at Pangong Tso's south banka.

Hearing the commotion, the Indian Army was alerted and swung into action.

Earlier, Indian intelligence agencies had alerted the Indian Army about the Chinese's PLA plans to change the status quo in other areas along the Line of Actual Control. Thereafter, skirmishes erupted between both sides but things did not escalate. When Chinese troops saw the strength of Indian troops, the skirmishes stopped.

"Both the countries' troops are still standing in front of each other," said a source. To further de-escalate, a brigade commander-level flag meeting started at Chushul and it is still underway.

The Indian Army, however, has officially denied any skirmish.

In a statement issued here, the Indian Army said that on the intervening night of August 29 and August 30, 2020, PLA troops violated the previous consensus agreed in military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo.

"Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the southern bank of Pangong lake, and undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on the ground," the force said.

The Indian Army also stated that they are committed to maintaining peace and tranquillity through dialogue, but are also equally determined to protect India's territorial integrity.

However, China on Monday said its troops never crossed the Line of Actual Control.

At Pangong Tso, China had already strengthened its positions between Fingers 5 and 8. The PLA had refused to pull back eastwards from the 8-km stretch it occupied from Finger 4 to Finger 8 by building scores of new fortifications there since early May.

India has asked China to completely withdraw its troops from Pangong Tso. But China has refused to budge.

The mountain spurs jutting into the lake are referred to as 'Fingers' in military parlance.

Both countries are engaged in the current four-month-long standoff at the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh. Despite several levels of dialogue, there has not been any breakthrough and the deadlock continues.

On June 15, as many as 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops were killed in a violent clash in the Galwan Valley.

(Sumit Kumar Singh can be reached at sumit.k@ians.in)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
VINITA, Okla.: A Kansas man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in connection with the deaths of two people and the disappearance of two teenage girls more than 20 years ago.

Ronnie Busick, 69, was sentenced Monday in Craig County on one count of accessory to murder, said Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Brook Arbeitman. Busick, who has been jailed since April 2018, was given credit for time served.

Busick, who pleaded guilty in July, could have earned a reduction in his sentence by showing authorities where the bodies of Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman were located, but several searches have not recovered the teens remains, Arbeitman said.

Bible and Freeman, who were both 16, havent been seen since Dec. 30. 1999, after Freemans parents, Danny and Kathy Freeman, were found slain in their burned mobile home in Welch about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northeast of Tulsa.

Busick, of Wichita, Kansas, was arrested and charged in 2018, and investigators say two other suspects are now dead.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: Expressing concern over the steady rise in COVID-19 infections in Andhra Pradesh, TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday urged Chief Secretary Nilam Sawhney to focus on livelihood and health of vulnerable people.

In a six-page letter addressed to the Chief Secretary, Naidu deplored that despite being a small state population-wise, AP stood second in India in the number of COVID-19 cases. "Sadly, Andhra Pradesh has even surpassed countries like Bangladesh, Spain, UK and Argentina in the rate of increase in cases. With 7,729 Covid-19 cases per one million population, AP stands top in the country in the highest number of cases per million population," he observed.

He pointed out that all the 13 districts in the state have surpassed 15,000 cases and the state stood fifth in total deaths. "It is highly essential to protect the health of frontline warriors like doctors, nurses and other paramedical staff, police, panchayat raj, revenue and municipal employees among others. It is also essential to provide a safety net to the family members of frontline warriors by providing them with proper health facilities and financial security," he said.

"There is a need to phase out antigen tests and conduct 100 per cent RT-PCR tests. The accuracy of antigen tests has been questioned globally. It is in that direction that the government must set up more labs with adequate infrastructure."
Nicola Sturgeon today sounded the alarm after coronavirus cases in Scotland hit a three-month high.

The Scottish First Minister said the numbers were 'undoubtedly a concern' and she feels 'a greater sense of anxiety today' than at any time 'probably for the last couple of months'.

In the last 24 hours, 160 new cases of Covid-19 have been recorded north of the border with Ms Sturgeon admitting Scotland is in a 'fragile position' after loosening lockdown rules.

It is the highest daily total of cases since May 16 and a significant increase on the 123 cases which were announced on Sunday.

The latest statistics bring the total number of cases since the start of the pandemic in Scotland to 20,478.

Despite the rising number of cases, no deaths have been recorded in almost a week, with the number of fatalities remaining at 2,494.

In comparison, the UK as a whole today recorded 1,406 new cases of coronavirus along with two deaths, taking the official total of victims to 41,501.

Nicola Sturgeon told her daily coronavirus briefing that she now feels 'a greater sense of anxiety today than I have done any time probably for the last couple of months' after an increase in case numbers

Fury at 'petty' Nicola Sturgeon after she demands 'Britain' and 'UK' are dropped from branding of 120m national festival Nicola Sturgeon was branded 'petty' today for demanding the words 'UK' and 'Britain' are dropped from the branding for a nationwide festival. The Scottish Government has objected to the working title of 'UK Festival 2022' for the event - aimed at celebrating the best of Britain. Initially announced by former Prime Minister Theresa May in 2018, planning is well under way for the 120million celebration. At the time, Mrs May said it would help to strengthen 'our precious Union' with events to take place across the four nations. But it emerged yesterday that the plans have stalled after the SNP Government failed to approve the use of 'UK' and 'Britain' in branding for promotional materials. Whitehall insiders say the cultural festival, which will celebrate achievements in fields including science, technology and engineering, will bring 12million to Scotland, with the creative contracts worth an additional 3million. However, the contracts have been delayed due to the disagreement and sources say bids cannot be put out to tender until an agreement is reached. A UK Government source said: 'The Scottish Government are causing unnecessary delays because they want to remove all references to Britain or the UK when we launch the next phase. 'It is incredibly petty and hugely frustrating. The creative sector is crying out for support right now.' The wrangling comes amid a high-stakes battle over the future of the union, with polls showing the coronavirus crisis has boosted support for independence north of the border. Ms Sturgeon says she has put aside the issue during the chaos, with planning for a fresh vote 'paused', but has faced accusations of trying to use the situation for political advantage. Advertisement

The majority of new cases in Scotland are in the central belt, with 69 in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board area while 27 are in Lanarkshire.

Speaking during her daily coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh, Ms Sturgeon said the 'quite high' numbers of new cases were 'partly a result of greater numbers of people being tested' and she stressed the proportion of people testing positive was still below one per cent.

But she added: 'The number of cases we are seeing right now is a reminder to all of us the virus is still a very real risk, it is a development that concerns me and it is one we are taking very seriously.

'We mustn't lose sight of how important it is if we are to keep schools open, build economic recovery and retain a bit more normality in our lives that we do continue to suppress the virus and push as close to elimination of it as we possibly can.'

Ms Sturgeon said not all of the new cases were linked to larger outbreaks, saying the rise of cases in Greater Glasgow and Clyde 'seems to reflect a number of small clusters, rather than one or two more significant outbreaks'.

She said an incident management team was looking at a cluster of 22 cases in Ayrshire and Arran, many of which she said 'seem to be linked to indoor gatherings that took place the previous weekend'.

A cluster in Hawick in the Scottish borders had increased to 15 people, she added, with a mobile testing unit in place in the town, and there are now 188 cases linked to the 2 Sisters food processing plant in Coupar Angus.

Scotland took more steps out of lockdown today, with the opening of gyms and indoor swimming pools and the resumption of youth groups such as Cubs and Brownies and mother and baby groups.

The First Minister said 'many people' had been looking forward to gyms and pools reopening, adding that the move would be a 'major relief' for people who work in the leisure sector.

She added: 'The reopening is a further welcome step in getting back to normal, it is important for wider health and wellbeing.

'But it also obviously brings risks, there is no getting away from that, and that is why we have delayed this until now.'

Ms Sturgeon added: 'The figures we are seeing just now for new cases demonstrate very clearly that this virus is still present across the country, it will spread rapidly if it gets the chance.'

Concluding the briefing, Ms Sturgeon issued a plea for people to 'think very carefully about how you're living your life at the moment' as she revealed anxiety about the 'fragile' state of coronavirus suppression.

Reflecting on the past seven months, she said: 'There have been some really dark moments along the way since the start of March and, more recently, there have been moments of greater hope and optimism.

'I have always tried to be frank with you about my assessments and feelings about the situation that we are in, which is why I feel able to say to you today - and feel that it is important I say to you - that I feel a greater sense of anxiety today than I have done any time probably for the last couple of months.

'We are in a fragile position; we have substantially lifted the lockdown restrictions but in doing so we've allowed this virus opportunities to spread.'
President Muhammadu Buhari has granted approval for the transfer of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.

A statement by the ministrys spokesperson, Uwa Suleiman, sent to PREMIUM TIMES Monday morning, said the decision was to ensure synergy and effective ministry supervisory mechanism is put in place to coordinate, monitor and track the progress of Federal Governments digital transformation initiatives.

Transferring the identity commission to the ministry, according to the statement, will aid the harmonisation of citizens data which will aid planning, the economy and security.

The commission which is in charge of managing national identity database for Nigerians was hitherto domiciled under the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

Mrs Suleiman in her statement said in granting the approval, Mr Buhari considered the role of NIMC in achieving the objectives of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy for a Digital Nigeria (NDEPS).

She said the presidential directive for NIMC to be under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy is an illustration of Mr Presidents vote of confidence on the minister, Isa Ibrahim (Pantami), based on an unprecedented performance.

The statement noted that the minister had within his first year in office, amongst others, resolved the ICT sectors decade-long dilemma of Right of Way charges.

He was also able to secure Mr Presidents approval for the provision of security as well as designation of Telecommunications Infrastructure as Critical National Infrastructure, regularization of improperly registered SIM cards and deactivation of unregistered ones, the deployment of over 250 digital projects across the country under his policies and supervision as well as built the capacity of over 36,000 Nigerians.

It may be recalled that NIMC is mandated to create, manage, maintain and operate the National Identity Database established by the NIMC Act, 2007.

In an effort to realise this, the commission has so far registered around 41 million eligible enrollees for the National Identity Number (NIN).

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on the other hand has details of over 191 million mobile subscribers.

Furthermore, the National Information Technology Development Agency has recorded huge successes in the development and implementation of the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR), the countrys first codified data protection regulation. The Agency has also reached an advanced stage on the implementation of the National Public Key Infrastructure (NPKI). Galaxy Backbone Limited (GBB) also provides services to Government Agencies  Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service and Software-as-a-Service. The need therefore for NIMC, NCC, NITDAand GBB to work closely together under the supervision of one Ministry towards harnessing what has already been achieved cannot be overemphasised.

The NIN, considered as a social security as well as civil number, is very important for economic planning and social intervention.

With Federal Governments digitalisation initiatives in line with the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, access to services and interventions will require it.

We therefore urge all eligible individuals to enrolles soon as possible. Furthermore, the Honourable Minister is assuring Nigerians as well as residents that appropriate measures will be put in place to ensure that opportunities for enrollment are provided to all.
KEY HIGHLIGHTS

GVA of defence and public administration in Q1 FY21 is now lower than that in Q1 FY19

GVA of 'public administration, defence and other services' contracted 10% to Rs 3,74,656 crore in April-June period of FY21 even as tensions on India-China border intensified

The government final consumption expenditure (GFCE), however, rose 16% in April-June quarter of FY21 on expected lines

India's GDP fell sharply in the first quarter of the current fiscal contracting 23.9%

Barring agriculture, all other sectors witnessed contraction

Sharpest fall seen in construction, followed by "trade, hotels, transport, communication and services related to broadcasting"

Amid escalating tensions on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, spending under "public administration, defence and other services" fell sharply during April-June quarter of the current fiscal.

The growth in the gross value added (GVA) of public administration, defence and other services decelerated to Rs 3,74,656 crore in April-June period of FY21 compared to Rs 4,17,483 crore in the same quarter last year, showing a decline of 10.3 per cent, as per the press note on GDP estimates for June quarter this fiscal.

The government final consumption expenditure (GFCE), however, rose 16 per cent during this period on expected lines.

ALSO READ: Drop in Q1 GDP on expected lines; India on a V-shape recovery path: CEA K Subramanian

The sharp decline in "public administration, defence and other services" GVA surprised many economy watchers as public spending has been considered the only growth engine firing. Also, these two figures - GVA in public administration, defence and other services and GFCE - are contradictory.

"One of the things where I am not very comfortable with is sharp deceleration in public administration component especially when a lot of front-loading was happening," said N.R. Bhanumurthy, Vice-Chancellor of Bengaluru Dr BR Ambedkar School of Economics University.

"It is nothing to do with actual government behaviour. It may be something to do with methodology itself," he added.

M Govinda Rao, former Member of the PM's Advisory Council, said that public administration includes education, medical and other services also. Further during lockdown, hospitals were attending mostly COVID-19 patients, educational institutions were not working and several other public administrative functions were minimised.

"There were several allied services that contracted," he said.

ALSO READ: Govt spending saved the day for GDP in June quarter

The NSO considers monthly accounts of the Centre, expenditure maintained by Controller General of Accounts (CGA) and of state governments' expenditures maintained by Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) among other key data to estimate GDP and its various components.

Commenting on the decline in 'public administration, defence and other services', R Nagaraj, eminent economist and professor at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), said that principally it should not happen in current times.

"But as government believes in fiscal conservatism, they may have cut certain expenditure but compensated with spending elsewhere. Where it is happening is difficult to say," Nagraj said.

As anticipated by most economists and research firms, India's GDP fell sharply in the first quarter of the current fiscal contracting 23.9 per cent. This is the worst performance among various countries like the UK, France and Germany hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

Barring agriculture, all other sectors witnessed contraction with sharpest fall seen in construction sector, followed by 'trade, hotels, transport, communication and services related to broadcasting'.

The mass migration of workers from cities and supply chain disruptions badly affected most sectors. While situation has improved since May, following gradual opening of the economy, concerns around recovery persist.

ALSO READ: India's GDP contracts 23.9% in Q1; construction, manufacturing, trade bear the brunt
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijani tankmen have advanced to the semi-final stage in the "Tank Biathlon" contest being held in Moscow from August 23 to September 5, the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry reported on August 31.

On the next day of the competition held today, Azerbaijani tank crews took part in the Individual Race of the "Tank Biathlon" contest, which is held as part of the International Army Games-2020 organized by the Russian Defence Ministry

Azerbaijani tankmen reached the semifinals after destroying 3 targets with accurate fire, and covering the distance along the route in a short time, the ministry said. The Azerbaijani team was competing with rivals from China, Belarus, and Serbia.

The Azerbaijani tank crew showed the successful performance during the first day of the competition on August 24 as well.

The Azerbaijani tank crew was competing in the first division of the Tank Biathlon contest, which also includes Belarus, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Serbia and Uzbekistan.

According to the draw of the competition held on August 17 in Moscow, Azerbaijan and Russia are competing on red tanks in the first division, while Belarus and Uzbekistan on blue tanks, Serbia and Kazakhstan on yellow tanks, China and Kyrgyzstan on green tanks.

The Tank Biathlon contest will take place in the Russian Alabyno military training area near Moscow until September 5.

At the competition, the crews are demonstrating their driving, shooting and obstacle crossing skills. The military ground is composed of various sites with ramparts, ditches, firing emplacements and lines.

It should be noted that Azerbaijani servicemen first participated in the Tank Biathlon competition in 2016 and ranked 4th after competing with the teams of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan in the final relay race.

Another element of the International Army Games-2020, "Sea Cup" competition, is being held in the territorial waters of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea from 25 August to 4 September. Azerbaijani Defence Minister Zakir Hasanov and the Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu inaugurated the opening of the Sea Cup competition at the Buta Naval base of Azerbaijans Naval Forces on August 25.

The annual Army Games this year will be held in five countries - Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Russia and Uzbekistan  instead of ten countries.

The "Sea Cup" international contest is planned to be held as part of the International Army Games - 2020 in the territorial waters of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea from 25 August to 4 September this year.

During the period of the competition, the sailors will have to show their skills in performing artillery fires against the sea and air targets, anchoring and mooring barrel, rescue training, as well as in the fight for the survivability of the ship.

On August 17, the Caspian Flotilla of the Russian Navy arrived in Baku to participate in the International Army Games-2020. Among the Russian Caspian Flotilla arriving in Azerbaijan, are small-size gunnery ships Makhachkala and Astrakhan, and SB-738 rescue tugboat.

Iran and Kazakhstan will not participate in the Sea Cup contest this year due to COVID-19, which was discussed at the video conference with the participants of the contest held in the headquarters of the Azerbaijani Naval Forces on August 13.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Amid the ongoing protests in Belarus, the countrys opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya will reportedly address the United Nations Security Council on September 4, Friday. Tsikhanouskayas spokesman reportedly said that she will speak by a video link at the invitation of Estonia, which is currently a non-permanent member of the body. No additional information regarding what the meeting is going to be about was revealed.

As per reports, Tsikhanouskaya was a presidential candidate in the August 9 elections in Belarus which her supporters say she won. She fled to Lithuania immediately after the election which President Alexander Lukashenko declared he had won a by a wide margin, triggering unrest in parts of the country.

READ: Huge Protest On Belarus Leaders Birthday Demands He Resign

Lukashenko on August 10 secured a record sixth term as the country's president after the authorities announced the preliminary results in which the 65-year-old former Soviet Army member allegedly secured over 80 per cent of the total votes polled. Opposition leaders, including the main challenger Tikhanovskaya, denounced the result, calling it a rigged election.

READ: Belarus President Lukashenko Brings Teenage Son To Frontline As Protests Intensify

Tsikhanouskaya demand authorities to accept wrongdoing

Tsikhanouskaya fled the country for Lithuania on August 11, fearing that she or her family could be harmed. The 37-year-old leader has been issuing video statements from Lithuania, demanding Belarusian authorities to accept their wrongdoings and to join hands with the opposition in order to evade punishment in the future. The European Union and the United States have also expressed concerns over the recent developments in Belarus and have called on Lukashenko to respect the rights of the Belarusian people.

READ: Russia's Putin To Meet Belarusian Counterpart In Moscow In Coming Weeks

Meanwhile, the Belarusian leader, in the midst of the protests, cracked down hard on the news media on August 29. While the United Nations condemned the move, Lukashenkos government not only deported some of the foreign journalists but also withdrew the accreditations of several others who were reporting on the anti-government protests prevailing in the nation. Several international media outlets reported about their journalists being deported from the country.

United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric reportedly said that the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has time and again called for the journalists to be able to do their job in an environment that is free from harassment.

(Image: AP)

READ: Belarus Revokes Accreditation, Deports Foreign Journalists Covering Protests

READ: Belarus President Lukashenko Brings Teenage Son To Frontline As Protests Intensify
The sun sends out a constant stream of particles and energy, which drives a complex space weather system near Earth and can affect spacecraft and astronauts. NASA has chosen five new mission concept studies for further development to study various aspects of this dynamic system. Credit: NASA

NASA has selected five proposals for concept studies of missions to help improve understanding of the dynamics of the sun and the constantly changing space environment with which it interacts around Earth. The information will improve understanding about the universe as well as offer key information to help protect astronauts, satellites, and communications signalssuch as GPSin space.

Each of these Medium-Class Explorer proposals will receive $1.25 million to conduct a nine-month mission concept study. Following the study period, NASA will choose up to two proposals to go forward to launch. Each potential mission has a separate launch opportunity and timeframe.

"We constantly seek missions that use cutting edge technology and novel approaches to push the boundaries of science," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Each one of these proposals offers the chance to observe something we have never before seen or to provide unprecedented insights into key areas of research, all to further the exploration of the universe we live in."

NASA's heliophysics program explores the giant, interconnected system of energy, particles, and magnetic fields that fills interplanetary space, a system that constantly changes based on outflow from the sun and its interaction with the space and atmosphere around Earth.

"Whether it's looking at the physics of our star, studying aurora, or observing how magnetic fields move through space, the heliophysics community seeks to explore the space system around us from a variety of vantage points," said Nicky Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division in NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "We carefully pick missions to provide perfectly placed sensors throughout the solar system, each offering a key perspective to understand the space that human technology and humans increasingly travel through."

Each of these new proposals seeks to add a new puzzle piece to understanding that larger system, some by looking at the sun, some by making observations closer to home.

The proposals were selected based on potential science value and feasibility of development plans. The cost for the investigation ultimately chosen for flight will be capped at $250 million and is funded by NASA's Heliophysics Explorers' program.

The proposals selected for concept studies are:

Solar-Terrestrial Observer for the Response of the Magnetosphere (STORM)

STORM would provide the first-ever global view of our vast space weather system in which the constant flow of particles from the sunknown as the solar windinteracts with Earth's magnetic field system, called the magnetosphere. Using a combination of observation tools that allow both remote viewing of Earth's magnetic fields and in situ monitoring of the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field, STORM would track the way energy flows into and throughout near-Earth space. Tackling some of the most pressing questions in magnetospheric science, this comprehensive data set would provide a systemwide view of events in the magnetosphere to observe how one region affects another, helping to untangle how space weather phenomena circulate around our planet. STORM is led by David Sibeck at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

HelioSwarm: The Nature of Turbulence in Space Plasmas

HelioSwarm would observe the solar wind over a wide range of scales in order to determine the fundamental space physics processes that lead energy from large-scale motion to cascade down to finer scales of particle movement within the plasma that fills space, a process that leads to the heating of such plasma. Using a swarm of nine SmallSat spacecraft, HelioSwarm would gather multi-point measurements and be able to reveal the three-dimensional mechanisms that control the physical processes crucial to understanding our neighborhood in space. HelioSwarm is led by Harlan Spence at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

Multi-slit Solar Explorer (MUSE)

MUSE would provide high-cadence observations of the mechanisms driving an array of processes and events in the sun's atmospherethe coronaincluding what drives solar eruptions such as solar flares, as well as what heats the corona to temperatures far above that of the solar surface. MUSE would use breakthrough imaging spectroscopy techniques to observe radial motion and heating at ten times the current resolutionand 100 times fastera key capability when trying to study the phenomena driving heating and eruption processes, which occur on time scales shorter than previous spectrographs could observe. Such data would enable advanced numerical solar modeling and help unpack long-standing questions about coronal heating and the foundation of space weather events that can send giant bursts of solar particles and energy toward Earth. MUSE is led by Bart De Pontieu at Lockheed Martin in Palo Alto, California.

Auroral Reconstruction CubeSwarm (ARCS)

ARCS would explore the processes that contribute to aurora at size scales that have been rarely studied: at the intermediate scale between the smaller, local phenomena leading directly to the visible aurora and the larger, global dynamics of the space weather system coursing through the ionosphere and thermosphere. Adding crucial information to understanding the physics at the border between our atmosphere and space, these observations would provide insight into the entire magnetospheric system surrounding Earth. The mission would use an innovative, distributed set of sensors by deploying 32 CubeSats and 32 ground-based observatories. The combination of instruments and spatial distribution would provide a comprehensive picture of the drivers and response of the auroral system to and from the magnetosphere. ARCS is led by Kristina Lynch at Dartmouth University in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Solaris: Revealing the Mysteries of the sun's Poles

Solaris would address fundamental questions of solar and stellar physics that can only be answered with a view of the sun's poles. Solaris would observe three solar rotations over each solar pole to obtain observations of light, magnetic fields, and movement in the sun's surface, the photosphere. Space researchers have never collected imagery of the sun's poles, though the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter will provide oblique angle views for the first time in 2025. Better knowledge of the physical processes visible from the pole is necessary to understand the global dynamics of the entire sun, including how magnetic fields evolve and move throughout the star, leading to periods of great solar activity and eruptions approximately every 11 years. Solaris is led by Donald Hassler at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Explore further NASA selects mission to study causes of giant solar particle storms
Paul Rusesabagina, an ex-hotel manager whose heroic actions during the 1994 genocide were depicted in Hotel Rwanda, was arrested on Monday on terrorism charges.

Rusesabagina is famous for sheltering over 1,200 people, when extremists massacred more than 800,000 members of the Tutsi and Hutu tribes in 1994.

He was a Hutu manager of a luxury hotel in Rwanda at the time and his bravery is the real life inspiration of the 2004 oscar-nominated movie, Hotel Rwanda.

A Rwandan newsite, Newtimes, reported the Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB), as saying that Rusesabagina has been the subject of an International Arrest Warrant for multiple charges, including terrorism, arson, kidnap and murder.

The newspaper quoted Thierry Murangira, acting RIB Spokesperson, as saying that the crimes were allegedly perpetrated against unarmed, innocent Rwandan civilians on Rwandan territory, including in Nyabimata, Nyaruguru District in June 2018 and in Nyungwe, Nyamagabe District in December 2018.

Rusesabagina is a leader  along with Belgium-based former Rwandan Prime Minister FaustinTwagiramungu  of the MRCD Ubumwe-FLN, a militia group based mainly in the east of neighbouring DR Congo.

His foundation  Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation (HRRF)  has been accused of collecting money from well-wishers it uses to fund terrorist activities of FLN, the armed wing of MRCD which is commanded by Gen Wilson Irategeka, formerly with FDLR, the paper reported.

The terror group,FLN, which has often attacked Rwanda from Burundi, has also been blamed for kidnapping civilians.

Rusesabagina is a fierce critic of the Rwandan president, Paul Kagames government and has accused them of killing opposition figures and detaining and torturing activists both at home and abroad.

Rusesabagina has been living in Belgium where he sought asylum with his wife and children since 1996.

This was after he survived an assasination attempt in Rwanda.
The arrival of the Czech delegation marks the second high-profile foreign visit to the democratic island in a fortnight.

Top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi said Czech senate speaker Milos Vystrcil would pay a heavy price for violating the so-called One China principle by making an official visit to Taiwan, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday.

Vystrcil arrived in Taipei on Sunday with a delegation of 90 people including the mayor of Prague on a trip designed to promote business links with Taiwan, which China claims as its own and tries to isolate on the world stage.

He said the Czech Republic would not bow to objections from Beijing, which considers the democratically-ruled island a breakaway province.

Chinas state media quoted Wang saying the visit was a provocation and that Taiwan was an inseparable part of China.

It is the second high-profile visit by a foreign delegation to the island in a fortnight, after a visit by US Health Secretary Alex Azar.

Vystrcil is expected to deliver a speech in Taiwans parliament and meet President Tsai Ing-wen during the five-day trip, which continues until September 4.

On behalf of the people of #Taiwan, Id like to extend a sincere welcome to #CzechRepublic @SenatCZ President @Vystrcil_Milos & all the members of the delegation. Our nations share many core values & we look forward to furthering cooperation in all areas. pic.twitter.com/qEKXB3MLPH   Tsai Ing-wen (@iingwen) August 30, 2020

Freedom, democracy, equality & respect were high on the menu at the banquet hosted by Minister Wu for @SenatCZ President @Vystrcil_Milos. Our thanks to the #CzechRepublic delegation for visiting #Taiwan & putting friendship before politics. #TaiwanCzechia2020 #DefendDemocracy pic.twitter.com/dhFjZUCPi7   Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ROC (Taiwan)  (@MOFA_Taiwan) August 30, 2020

In a post on Twitter, Tsai noted that Taiwan and the Czech Republic shared many core values. Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, who met the delegation at the airport, thanked the Czechs for putting friendship before politics and used the hashtag #defenddemocracy.

China has sought to isolate Taiwan diplomatically, ramping up pressure since Tsai came to power in 2016. A number of countries that did have formal relations with Taiwan have shifted their allegiance to China and the island now has official ties with just 15 nations.

Tsai won a second term in office in January in a landslide victory.

Tsai has portrayed the island as a progressive democratic ally to other nations hoping to push back against Beijings authoritarianism, helped by Taiwans defeat of its coronavirus outbreak and its global shipments of personal protection equipment.

In a speech to an Australian think-tank last Thursday, Tsai described Taiwan as being on the front line of freedom and democracy as China cracks down on dissent in nearby Hong Kong and elsewhere.
Xiong Linghao played the piano in an international youth piano competition in Shanghai on August 29, 2020. [For chinadaily.com.cn]

On Saturday, a video clip of Xiong Linghao, a 19-year-old blind girl playing Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata in an international youth piano competition in Shanghai, went viral online.

Xiong was born blind and started to play the piano at the age of 6. Unlike others who can read the music score she must remember the piece by heart, and, being unable to see the keyboard, she must remember, exactly, where each note is located on the piano.

Yet these difficulties did not stop her from pursuing her dreams. She attained a Level 10 piano certificate at the age of 12, and won one prize after another, including the Liszt Award in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 2017.

Xiong has a dream of going to university. Now studying in Grade 2, high school, she will sit the national college entrance examination, or gaokao, next year and we wish her success.

According to Beijing Tongren Hospital, the nation's top hospital on eye-related health, there are about 7 million blind people in China, accounting for 18 percent of the world's total. The number would be even bigger if all people who are visually impaired are included.

Among them there must be many, many more young people with talents like Xiong, education must be strengthened to let them pursue more colorful dreams. When the nation first introduced Braille papers for the gaokao in 2014, there was only one applicant. This year the number is only five. Most of the blind applicants for colleges can only participate in special exams, which are easier to pass but there is only a limited option of majors to choose from such as acupuncture and health recovery.

Actually, if well educated, many blind people could perform as well as sighted people in many careers. Ang Ziyu, one of the five blind applicants of ordinary gaokao this year, scored 635 points out of 750 and has been enrolled by China Minzu University; Cai Yongbin, an engineer who won Alibaba's top coding prize in 2018, is also blind.

With the progress of society, there will be more blind people who make notable achievements like the three persons above. Fulfilling their dreams will in turn help the whole country prosper.

(Source: China Daily)
Israeli strikes on military targets south of the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday killed two people and wounded seven, state news agency SANA said.

"The Israeli attack led to two martyrs being killed and seven soldiers being wounded," SANA quoted a military source as saying.

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Boeing is pressing hard to win the Indian Navy contract for 57 aircraft carrier-borne fighters.

It could offer the Super Hornet in the ongoing IAF procurement of 114 medium fighters; its upgraded F-15EX fighter is also on the list.

Ajai Shukla reports.

IMAGE: Boeing's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier in the Gulf. Photograph: Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters

United States aerospace major Boeing, which accounts for most of the $18 billion worth of weaponry that Washington has sold India since 2005, is pressing hard to win a $7 billion to $8 billion Indian Navy contract for 57 aircraft carrier-borne fighters.

Boeing has begun testing its flagship naval fighter, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which it intends to offer the Indian Navy, to prove it can operate from any of the Indian Navy's three carriers: The in-service INS Vikramaditya; INS Vikrant, which is to be commissioned by 2022; and INS Vishal, which is still on the drawing board.

'Boeing and the US navy are in the beginning phases of operating an F/A-18 Super Hornet from a ski jump at Naval Air Station Patuxent River to demonstrate it is STOBAR compliant for the Indian Navy,' states Boeing.

In STOBAR (short take off but arrested recovery) aircraft carrier operations, fighters get airborne by flying off a 'ski-jump' like slope at the end of the flight deck.

The aircraft land back by snagging their tail hooks on arrestor wires spread across the deck, which drag them to a halt. Both the INS Vikramditya and the INS Vikrant are STOBAR carriers.

US Navy aircraft carriers and their aircraft such as the Super Hornet are, however, built for 'catapult assisted take off but arrested recovery' (CATOBAR).

In this, on board aircraft are accelerated to take-off speed by a steam or electromagnetic catapult, doing away with the need for a ski jump. INS Vishal is being built as a CATOBAR carrier.

Proving that the Super Hornet can operate off both STOBAR and CATOBAR carriers would enhance India's fleet commonality and economy.

Before commencing ski-jump tests, Boeing says the Super Hornet has completed more than 150 computer simulations.

'While our assessment has shown the Block III Super Hornet is very capable of launching off a ski jump, this is the next step in demonstrating that capability,' said Boeing.

The shore-based ski-jump at Patuxent River was built to test the F-35B Lightning II -- the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) version of the Joint Strike Fighter.

India, too, has built a similar shore-based facility in Goa for testing the naval version of the Tejas fighter.

The Indian Navy began the acquisition of 57 multi-role carrier borne fighters (MRCBF) in 2017 by issuing a Request for Information (RFI) about 'day and night capable, all weather, multi-role, deck based combat aircraft, which can be used for air defence, air-to-surface operations, buddy refuelling, reconnaissance [and] electronic warfare missions from Indian Navy aircraft carriers'.

The 2017 RFI specifically asks vendors whether the fighter they are offering is capable of STOBAR as well as CATOBAR operations.

The quest for a MRCBF is rooted in the navy's disappointment over the unreliable performance of 45 MiG-29K/KUB fighters that it procured from Russia along with INS Vikramaditya.

The need for a MRCBF was made even more urgent by delays in developing a naval version of the indigenous Tejas light fighter.

The navy assessed that the single-engine fighter could not carry enough weaponry, or fuel payload, to allow it to operate effectively off a carrier.

Naval planners, therefore, have rejected the Tejas Mark 1 and stated they want a heavier, more powerful, twin-engine fighter that India can develop only by 2025.

The formal MRCBF tender is still awaited, but industry analysts believe the contenders will be: The Super Hornet, the MiG-29K/KUB and navalised versions of the Rafale and Gripen E, called the Rafale Marine and Sea Gripen, respectively.

Ironically, Boeing's thrust in the MRCBF procurement comes at a time when a stressed defence budget has placed a question mark over the acquisition of a third carrier.

The Indian Air Force argues that shore-based air power is more effective than carrier-based fighters, and costs less.

The tri-service chief, General Bipin Rawat, who prioritises expenditure between the three services, has expressed reservations over spending heavily on an aircraft carrier and its air wing.

Boeing could also offer the Super Hornet in the ongoing IAF procurement of 114 medium fighters, achieving economy of scale by taking the numbers up to 171 aircraft.

Saab will seek similar benefits, while Dassault -- which has already sold India 36 Rafales and would also compete in both these tenders -- would garner even greater benefits of scale.

Meanwhile, Boeing is also weighing restricting the Super Hornet offer to the Indian Navy, while offering the IAF its upgraded F-15EX fighter.

Pratyush Kumar, who oversees the F-15 programme, confirmed last month that Boeing had requested the US government for a marketing licence to commence discussions with New Delhi about the F-15EX.

However, Boeing will only decide whether to offer the Super Hornet or the F-15EX once the IAF defines the specifications of the fighter it wants.
NAIROBI, Kenya  Paul Rusesabagina, whose bravery in saving more than 1,200 fellow Rwandans from genocide inspired the film Hotel Rwanda, has been arrested by the authorities in Rwanda who are holding him there on charges that include terrorism, arson and murder.

During the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Mr. Rusesabagina, a Hutu who was working as a manager at a hotel in the capital, Kigali, helped shelter people fleeing the violence that eventually killed as many as one million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

But in recent years, Mr. Rusesabagina, 66, has become an opponent of the government of Rwandas long-serving president, Paul Kagame, who has kept the country politically and economically stable but is accused by human rights groups of brutally silencing his critics. Mr. Kagames government has alleged for years that Mr. Rusesabagina is supporting Rwandan rebels attacking the country from abroad.

The Rwanda Investigation Bureau said in a statement on Twitter on Monday that Mr. Rusesabagina was suspected of being the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits, including the Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change and the Party for Democracy in Rwanda, both opposition parties. The Movement party has a militant wing, which operates in the region and which the Rwandan government considers a terrorist group.
As the number of the mourners out on the streets at Zadibal swelled, the police and other security forces withdrew from the area

The Shia mourners in large numbers on Sunday defied curfew-like restrictions at several places across Kashmir Valley including central towns of Budgam and Magam and Srinagars Zadibal area by taking out tazia and zuljanah processions to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, the grandson of Islams Prophet Muhammad, and his 71 family members and companions in the Battle of Karbala (Iraq) in October 680.

Except at Zadibal where 16 persons were injured in police action, these events passed off peacefully after the mourners including women marched along the streets and alleys beating their chests, reciting elegies and chanting slogans and, some of them, also doing self-flagellation.

In Budgam, a predominantly Shia town located 27-km west of Srinagar, thousands of mourners participated in the zuljanah procession. Zuljanah, bought and raised by Prophet Muhammad, was the horse of Imam Hussain and a very important character in the Battle of Karbala. The zuljanah procession is taken out by Shia Muslims only on the 10th of Muharram, the first month of Islamic calendar, when Imam Hussain was martyred at Karbala.

Similar processions were taken out also in some other parts of Kashmir whereas elsewhere in the Valley only tazia or mourning processions and rallies without the participation of zuljanah replicas were organized by the mourners.

At Zadibal in the heart of Srinagar City, the police fired pellet shotguns and also lobbed teargas to disperse the mourners who took to the streets in their attempt to take out a tazia procession and clashed with the former when it came in their way. Reports said that 16 persons were injured, most of them receiving multiple pellet entrance wounds. The police detained about twenty people for violating the restrictions in force in many parts of the City since Friday to hold back Muharram processions and rallies in view of COVID-19.

The witnesses said that as the number of the mourners out on the streets at Zadibal swelled, the police and other security forces withdrew from the area and monitored the situation from distances.

On Saturday, 19 mourners were injured when the police fired teargas canisters and pellet shotguns to disperse a Muharram tazia procession in Srinagars Bemina area. The official sources on Sunday confirmed that five persons received pellet entrance wounds, one of them in his face, but added that the police was compelled to use force to disperse the mourners as they turned violent and hurled stones on cops. However, the locals said that the tazia procession was absolutely peaceful and that the police targeted it without any provocation.

The authorities said that these processions and rallies were unlawful assemblies as restrictions under Section 144 are in place in these areas in view of the spike in COVID-19 deaths and positive cases in the Valley.

Kashmirs Divisional Commissioner, Pandurang K. Pole, had on Thursday night announced a complete ban on holding of such rallies in the Valley and urged the heads of religious organizations to use their influence and make people aware of the importance of following Coronavirus related SOPs including social distancing protocol and use of face masks while commemorating martyrdom of Imam Hussain.

Several Shia religious organizations and leaders had earlier announced that no mass rallies, processions or congregations (gatherings) would be held this year to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussain in view of Coronavirus and appealed the devotees to follow SOPs strictly while even holding restricted majalis (mourning assemblies) in their respective areas.

In Kashmir Valley, an official ban remains in force on organizing mourning rallies and processions along select traditional routes on the 8th and 10th day of Muharram, the first month of Islamic calendar, mainly in Srinagar ever since the separatist campaign became violent way back in 1989. Only small mourning rallies and processions with certain restrictions would be permitted in the areas having sizable Shia populations including at Imam Barahs or the places where functions connected with Muharram are held by them traditionally.

However this year, the authorities decided to impose a blanket ban on such rallies and procession in view of COVID-19.

The Supreme Court had on Thursday declined permission for carrying out Muharram procession across the country. A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said that allowing such activity would lead to chaos and a particular community will be targetted for spreading COVID-19. We don't want that. We as a court cannot risk the health of all the people, the bench said.

The police authorities said that the mourners targeted policemen with stones and other objectives, causing injuries to several of them, at Zadibal. "Our jawans exercised restraint despite being repeatedly attacked by mobs", a police officer said. He added that senior police officers rushed to the area to oversee the situation.
As families across Ireland adjust to children going back to school, we asked two busy Laois mothers what their opinions are on sending their children back in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"I think they should have held on for another month"

A Laois mother of five children who are in education ranging from primary school to university, believes it is not safe for them to go back to school.

The mother who wishes not to make her name public, told the Leinster Express that she believes the Covid-19 numbers are too high for going back to school.

Her eldest child is in university, with two more in the CBS secondary school, another in Holy Family Senior School and her youngest in Holy Family Junior School.



The changes in CBS include allowing the students not to wear a uniform on Wednesdays so it can be washed, a suspension of the lunch service, and the splitting of larger classes so one class is taught while the other is supervised.

Personally I dont think they should be going back. If they can have only six people visiting your house, how can they have 800 in a school?

They are asking us not to use public transport yet the school buses are going ahead.

In one way I know its necessary to go back to school but its a different thing to put childrens health at risk.

I think they should have held on another month to see how the figures are going. They are very high again now.

When they closed the schools in March they were not as high, yet they are willing to do everything to get kids back.

Personally I dont think its safe, she said.

Her children are looking forward to going back.

They dont mind. They cant wait to go back and see their friends. They dont get it.

They are excited about new runners, its just a normal year for them, they dont realise the changes, she said.

There is financial pressure on parents she said.

There is a lot of pressure on parents getting uniforms and books.

I think there should have been a non uniform year, just tracksuits. Their uniforms and shoes from last year are too small and they didnt get wear out of them.

I know of country schools opting for tracksuits or the kids own clothes, so kids wont be growing out of expensive uniforms. Why put us to this expense again.

Online learning was not easy.

My eldest girl helped with the technology, but it was hard, homeschooling was hard.

The youngest did it no problem but it was a nightmare to get the next one to do it, she got the idea into her head that she didnt have to because others werent.

I think it would be better if schools sent home packs rather than do online. Then just send a photo of the page done to the school app.

They had to take turns and the wifi was lagging.

Then we were getting notifications homework not sent in.

It would be better if they used books and sat at the table to work the old fashioned way.

Back to school will also force distancing of her children from their grandparents all winter long.

They are in their 70s.

 They said once the kids go back thats it, they will come to see us in the car but wont come into the house.

Even ourselves in our late 40s we would be nervous. Its just the unknown, you hear so much stories.

For any child with underlying health conditions, it must be a nightmare for their parents.

You dont want to single them out and keep them at home. It is very hard on parents, the mother said.

"It's a strange world for all of us but we have to move on and let our kids have their education"

A Mountmellick mother of two is relieved that her childrens schools are reopening, and satisfied with precautions prepared to stop Covid-19 from spreading.

The parent has one child going into Leaving Cert year in Mountmellick Community School, and another going into 4th class in St Josephs girls NS.

She is delighted with the guidelines released by the primary school last Wednesday.

They include asking parents not to go past the school gate with their child, but to wait in line for a daily temperature check for the child.

Each class described as a bubble will be kept apart from other classes and subdivided into pods of four to eight children.

There will be staggered breaktimes and going home times for each year.

I'm very happy with them. It's a strange world at the moment for us all but we have to move on and let our kids have their education. I know everyone wont agree.

In fairness they need an education.

I do feel sorry for the parents and the junior infants starting off as they cant spend any time with them when dropping off but I do understand why.

She said the school is amazing for how it is adjusting to bring back children.

Nobody knows what to do, right or wrong. No-one has been through this before.

Even the Government, weve never done this, she said.

My daughter is on cloud nine. She cannot wait to get back.

She is fed up at this stage, it is a long time to be out. She gets extra help in school and I cant give her that at home.

I feel shes missed out on so much. I was even hoping just for school two days a week.

She believes going back to school is 100% important for her childs development.

We did the school at home, and Im sure like many people it was fine for the first few weeks, then she decided to give up and we gave up a bit too.

We all need some sort of normality.

Kids are already well used to the new norm of washing and sanitising their hands. Its not for me its for her sake.

I understand some children have underlying health conditions which is a big worry for parents but I'm sure the schools are doing all they can in these tough times to keep them as safe as possible.

It's now up to us as parents to help out too by getting our kids ready for the big return to school, the mother said.

Her son is starting his Leaving Cert year but she is concerned about the work that was missed out on in 5th year.

It will be hard for him to try to catch up, I hope he will have extra help, I am afraid he might fall behind.

The long break didnt bother him, he loved life, while being careful too socially distancing, she said.


Republican Senator, Swarmed by Protesters After Trump Speech, Calls for FBI Probe

WASHINGTONRepublican Sen. Rand Paul on Aug. 28 called on the FBI to investigate a crowd of protesters that swarmed him as he departed the White House after listening to President Donald Trump accept his partys nomination for reelection.

Paul told Fox News Channel he believes the group chanting his name and pushing against his impromptu police escort was paid to incite a riot. He didnt say who he believes financially backed them or offer any evidence for his view.

I believe there are going to be people who were involved with the attack on us that actually were paid to come here and are not from Washington, D.C., and are sort of paid to be anarchists, Paul said. The FBI needs to investigate, but the only way you can do it is you have to arrest people.

Trump on Aug. 28 called the protesters thugs.

Addressing supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire, Trump said people attending his speech at the White House on Aug. 27 walked out to a bunch of thugs.  That wasnt friendly protesters. They were thugs.

Hed either be in very bad shape, or dead, and that would include his wife if those policemen didnt happen to be there, Trump said of Paul, while also accusing the Democratic mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, of giving police bad instructions.

Paul, his wife, and two guests scrapped plans to walk to their hotel near the White House after Trumps speech to the Republican convention when they saw large crowds demonstrating.

Instead, they rode a bus with others to the Trump International Hotel and then attempted to take an Uber back. When protesters blocked the car, they walked. Demonstrators recognized Paul and immediately drew close. His group then found police for protection.

Video posted online shows a crowd surrounding Paul and his wife and the police. One man yells repeatedly, Say her name, a reference to Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed by police in March in Kentucky, the state that Paul represents.

One officer appears to use his bicycle to push a protester and stumbles into Paul after the protester shoves him. The video doesnt show Paul being physically attacked.

Paul said protesters also threatened to f you up and to kill you.

Convention attendees could hear hundreds of anti-Trump protesters gathered just beyond the White House gates shouting and blowing horns as Trump spoke. As some attendees left, they were confronted by masked demonstrators, social media postings show.

Republican Rep. Brian Mast shared a video of protesters stopping him outside the White House, where one repeatedly shouts, What do you think about police killing black people in this country? and drowns out his answers.

Fellow Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox the demonstrations were so thick when he left the White House that he decided to get a ride with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who had Capitol Police protection.

Lafayette Square, across from the White House, was the site of protests earlier this summer, following the police killings of Taylor and African American George Floyd. Washingtons local government later changed the name of the street leading to it to Black Lives Matter Plaza.

By Lisa Lambert
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse)  Mon, August 31, 2020 09:00 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c419174b 2 Health menstrual-pain,yoga,health Free

Yoga, which has many benefits for the body and the mind, is notably useful for the prevention and relief of menstrual pain. But what are the postures that are helpful during menstruation? And which ones should be avoided? ETX Studio spoke to Jacinthe Jyothirmayi, a specialist yoga teacher for women in Paris.

Initially developed by men and for men in India, today yoga is popular all over the world and, in some cases, has been specially adapted for women. A case in point is prenatal yoga, but this is not the only specific practice for women. The discipline, which extends from sport to meditation, can also be of immense help to women seeking to better manage their menstrual cycles.

In internet searches about yoga, one question that is often posed is: Is it possible to practice yoga when menstruating? The answer to this is quite simple. Not only is it possible, but there are even yoga classes that have been specially designed to help women cope with pain that occurs before, during and after menstruation, explains Jacinthe Jyothirmayi, a Paris yogi who who teaches a practice that has been designed with womens bodies in mind.

Read also: Spotlight Indonesia: Myths and menstrual taboos

Often recommended for women suffering from endometriosis, yoga stretching can also help women develop their pelvic muscles and increase their bust at any time during their menstrual cycles. Twisting poses (notably the triangle and warrior poses) can help stimulate the lower abdomen and release tension in the back and shoulders, two areas of the body that are often associated with menstrual pain. And lets not forget breathing exercises (pranayama) that can relieve stress throughout the body.

Poses that allow the tummy to gently rest on the thighs are recommended during menstruation. I also always recommend floor poses, like the reclined goddess, the child and the reclining pigeon poses, which are aligned with blood flow and do not solicit areas of the body that might be already in pain, explains Jacinthe Jyothirmayi.

For the yoga teacher, meditation can also play a key role in the bid to alleviate menstrual pain: In my classes, I speak of moons rather than periods to encourage awareness that women are in a cycle. Ever since we were children, we have been told that it is normal to experience pain during moons. But this is obviously not the case. During our sessions, I try to make women understand that they are a moment for introspection that will help us understand why we experience pain, she explains.

To optimize the prevention of menstrual pain, Jacinthe Jyothirmayi recommends practicing yoga for at least 90 minutes a week.
PARIS  With his in-depth critique of Western capitalism, detailed in a 700-page book that enjoyed record sales in 2014, Frances rock-star economist Thomas Piketty was well regarded by Chinese leaders.

That was until he turned his attention to China.

Mr. Piketty said Monday that his follow-up book, Capital and Ideology, which broadens his study of the rise of economic inequality to non-Western countries such as China and India, is unlikely to be published in mainland China because he refused requests from Chinese publishers to cut parts of it.

For the time being, there will be no book in China, said Mr. Piketty, one of the most high-profile academics to stand up to China, calling the requests ridiculous and equating them with censorship.

They shouldnt be afraid of a book like that, its a sign of weakness, Mr. Piketty said in a phone interview.
Zimbabwe is investigating the mysterious deaths of 11 elephants after park authorities ruled out poaching.

The carcasses were discovered on Friday in Pandamasue Forest, between Hwange National Park and Victoria Falls, in the west of the country.

The dead elephants were found with the tusks still on their bodies, meaning they were not killed by poachers.

Cyanide poisoning has also been ruled out as a cause of the deaths.

An elephant walks near zebras in Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe (file photo)

In recent years hunters in Zimbabwe have poisoned dozens of elephants and taken their ivory tusks to flog to illegal traders.

Blood samples have since been taken to a laboratory to determine the cause of their deaths.

Tinashe Farawo, spokesman of the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, said: 'We can only ascertain the cause of death after the tests but we have ruled out cyanide poisoning.

'Only elephants were affected, no vultures or any other animals were affected. Initial tests show that it is not cyanide.

'We are also ruling out poachers because the tusks were intact.'

Africa was home to 1.3 million elephants in the 1970s but today only around 500,000 remain (file photo)

The mysterious deaths of the elephants in Zimbabwe appears similar to the deaths last month of more than 275 elephants in neighboring Botswana.

Scientists are still investigating the deaths of the elephants in the Okavango Delta area with poaching, poisoning and anthrax all ruled out.

Botswana has the world's largest elephant population, estimated at 156,000 and Zimbabwe has the second largest, estimated at 85,000.

Last year about 200 elephants in Zimbabwe died of starvation as a result of the country's drought.

Africa was home to 1.3 million elephants in the 1970s but today only around 500,000 remain.

Gangs hunted and killed elephants and rhinos to feed an Asian demand for ivory and horns for use in folk medicines.
The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union on Sunday wrote to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, urging him to facilitate a phased return of students who are not being allowed to come back to the varsity.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) had advised students to return to their homes in March after the commencement of the lockdown and closure of all universities. However, the manner in which it was executed by the JNU administration was not the best. JNU is a residential campus and anyway accommodates teachers, staff and administrative officials. But the university hurriedly sent people home irrespective of whether they wanted to go or not. Since then, it has been a tale of woe for the students, the JNUSU said.

It said that with the closure of the university, research scholars across disciplines are unfairly curbed of uninterrupted internet facility, access to libraries, archives, laboratories and needless to say, the fieldwork amidst the ongoing pandemic.

It consequently translates to the jeopardising of research work, if left administratively unattended, the letter added. Keeping in mind the plight of final year students who are to submit their thesis on or before December 31 as per the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines, it is of utmost importance to let the final year students come back into the campus on priority basis to facilitate the resumption of their research work, the JNUSU said.

The UGC-NET is scheduled to be conducted in September and a significant number of students have opted for centres surrounding the National Capital Region (NCR). The strict non-allowance of students back into the campus hence poses an alarming concern, it said.

A lot of students were stranded inside Delhi-NCR because of various reasons and put up in temporary arrangements for the time being, the JNUSU said. They have written countless letters to the JNU administration urging relaxation but have been refused irrespective of humanitarian needs, it said.

The JNUSU suggested that a protocol be developed to initiate a phased return of JNU students into the campus starting from stranded students, research scholars and other students facing difficulties and wish to return. The re-entry of student backed by the COVID-19 safety protocol - medical screening followed by a 14-day self-isolation - additionally was also proposed by the Mehrauli Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) in a letter dated May 15. The Delhi University, University of Hyderabad, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and Indian Institute of Technology Bombay have already evolved plans for a similar return of students taking suggestions from their task forces by prioritising senior PhD students and others who wish to return, it said. They also cited the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) order dated August 29 regarding phased reopening, technical institutes and higher educational institutions for PhD research are allowed to recall students.

In this circumstance, JNU should be facilitated to recall its research scholars in a phased manner, the JNUSU said.
Thousands of ethnic Mongolians in northern China have gathered outside schools to protest a new policy that would reduce the teaching of their language in favor of Chinese, according to rights groups, a rare display of mass discontent in the border region.

The demonstrations, which began late last week, are focused on an education policy announced this summer, which calls for Chinese to gradually replace Mongolian as the language of instruction in three subjects in elementary and middle schools around the Inner Mongolia region.

For many ethnic Mongolians, who see their language as one of the last surviving markers of their distinct cultural identity, the policy was a step too far.

We Mongolians are a great race as well, Dagula, a 39-year-old mother of two, said in a telephone interview from her home in Xilinhot, a city in Inner Mongolia. If we accept teaching in Chinese, our Mongolian language will really die out.
Trot Insider has been informed that former racing judge Sylvio Juneau of Shawinigan, Quebec passed away on August 25, 2020 at the age of 90.

Juneau was a judge with the Canadian Trotting Association for many years, during which time he worked at racetracks across the country. He later went on to oversee races for the Quebec Racing Commission before retiring.

Juneau's family will be welcoming relatives and friends on Thursday September 10, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. at the Cooperative Funeraire de la Mauricie (2280 105e Ave, Shawinigan-Sud, QC G9P3R2). A funeral service will be held on Thursday September 10, 2020 at 3:30 p.m. at the Chapelle de la Cooperative (4620 Boulevard Royal, Shawinigan, QC G9N7X9). The family will welcome relatives and friends, in compliance with government measures (wearing a mask and distancing).

Please click the following links for additional information in English and French.

Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Sylvio Juneau.
Indian and Chinese national flags flutter side by side at the Raisina hills in New Delhi, India, in this file photo. [Photo/Xinhua]

CHENGDU, Aug. 31 -- Indian troops on Monday illegally trespassed the Line of Control (LOC) again at the southern bank of the Pangong Tso Lake and near the Reqin Mountain and conducted flagrant provocations, said Senior Colonel Zhang Shuili, spokesperson for the Western Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, urging that the Indian side should immediately withdraw its troops and avoid any escalation in the situation.

Spokesperson Zhang made the remarks in a written statement responding to the recent China-India border situation on Monday night. He said that the Indian militarys move has violated the consensus reached in previous multi-level engagements and negotiations between China and India and stirred tension on the border.

Spokesperson Zhang further pointed out that Indias move has grossly violated China's territorial sovereignty, and severely damaged peace and stability in the China-India border area, and China is strongly opposed to the Indian sides faithless act of repudiating past promises.

"We solemnly demand the Indian side to immediately withdraw its troops that illegally trespassing the border line, strictly control and restrain its frontline troops and earnestly honor its commitments, so as to avoid further escalation in the situation, he stressed.

Spokesperson Zhang also said in the statement that the Chinese military is taking necessary countermeasures and will closely follow the developments to resolutely safeguard China's territorial sovereignty, as well as peace and stability in the border region.
VILNIUS, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya will address the United Nations Security Council on Friday, her spokesman said in a statement.

She will speak by a video link at the invitation of Estonia, which is currently is a non-permanent member of the body, a member of her team told Reuters.

Tsikhanouskaya was a presidential candidate in the Aug. 9 elections in Belarus which her supporters say she won. She fled to Lithuania after the election which President Alexander Lukashenko declared he had won a by a wide margin, sparking large protests in Belarus. (Reporting By Andrius Sytas; editing by Niklas Pollard)
Full Disclosure: I possess three degrees in Education, including a Ph.D. But it doesnt take degrees in education, or any field for that matter, to know the difference between right and wrong. Now that I am homeschooling two elementary-school-aged family members (who are not my children) as their schools and surrounding districts have chosen to be locked down for no health-related reason, I have had a chance to see inside their Central-Ohio elementary school dynamic and watch their teachers in action, within an online environment. With just one week, I have witnessed the full-blown absence of formal instruction and the dumbing down of academic content.

While I fully understand that things may be different if class were in full session, I also know that many vigilant parents are witnessing their childrens teachers and their levels of instruction, in particular within an online environment, for the very first time. With this point aside, what I have witnessed is appalling, embarrassing, and it demonstrates a total lack of rigor that education at any level should possess. Teaching within an online environment is not an excuse for a lack of organization or rigorous direction. However, many educators may likely blame these current health-related circumstances as an excuse for their lack of organization. We didnt choose this, etc. etc. etc.

Within the first week of school, in particular within the elementary level of education, I have witnessed my two elementary-school-aged family members participate in computer programs titled Lexia and DeamBox Learning. Both of these computer programs are click-based, Common Core programs where the answer is ultimately provided without much effort on the part of the student. This of course raises the questions; What exactly is the student actually learning? Is this alleged learning organized for the student so he can see what he is trying to ultimately accomplish? The answers are no. The learning is unorganized, haphazard, and void of direction. My young family members only requirement, thus far within their district, is to spend an average of 20 minutes on each computer program so the teacher can see online that this specified amount of time has been spent clicking.

Secondly, both of my young elementary-aged family members are required to spend 30 minuets, every day of the week, talking to their teachers online over Google Meet. Roughly four other students also attend the meeting, where the students are asked to discuss their emotional goals, discuss the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens and draw monsters. Yes, thats right. They have spent the first week of school, discussing social and emotional learning propaganda and drawing monsters. This, by the way, is first and fourth grade. Frankly, I dont see this getting any better. Therefore, as one might expect, I have daily expectations for my young family members and the work they do for me is rigorous, timely, organized, and both within and above their grade level.

For example, the youngest family member is in First Grade. He is now reading The Original McGuffeys Reader Series for the first time. He is learning to read on his own, spell and comprehend. He is also now engaging in math problems with addition and subtraction worksheets that are organized based on progressive difficulty, while being void of Common Core propaganda. Long addition and long subtraction, with numbers stacked on top of one another, carrying, borrowing etc. He is also learning about the American Flag, its history and what the colors of the flag represent. I also instill self-discovery and critical thinking into his lessons, requiring him to ask themselves who, what, where, when, why and how, while also teaching him to look up questions and answers on his own.

Regarding my second family member, who is in the fourth grade, I am having him read the book 50 Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin. He is also engaging in math, at and above his grade level, while learning about the life cycle, the water cycle, and two to three-digit multiplication. While they have been given a packet with math-related word problems from his teacher (and its already completed), I am adding to it by simply getting back to the basics, and teaching him to look up how to discover the process of a particular math problem, so ultimately, he can teach himself. This process should not be limited to math, but should also include how to format sentences and spell correctly. Unfortunately, this young family member was unaware of anything related to geography. He didnt know the states, the countries, or the continents, nor what those words meant. Now, after one week with me, he knows. Both of them also now know the names of the first five presidents of the United States, and they are showing a true interest in learning more about them and our country.

As supplemental instruction during off-time, we play Monopoly, Scrabble, and exercise for at least 30 minutes every day. The two games promote reading, spelling, addition and subtraction, among other things, while exercise promotes a lifelong endeavor of self-improvement and well-being. They fill out a checklist on a calendar when tasks are completed and they keep an agenda of what they do each day. They manage their time, and are not afraid to learning something new. All of this has taken place within the first five days of elementary school, per my direction. We also utilize the 180 Days of (insert subject matter topic) workbooks for the appropriate grade level as a standard instructional foundation (they can be purchased on Amazon).

In summary, what I have witnessed just within the first week of online home learning at the elementary level, is embarrassing -- for both the educators and the schools themselves. This school district and many others, rely on the propaganda that is the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens indoctrination. This, too, is a waste of what should be instructional time dedicated to organization and formal instruction on subject matter content. Instead these students have been learning in the first week about how to manage their emotions, draw monsters, click on programs and tell people what they like and what they did during the summer. While some may find this level on introductory instruction normal, I assure you there are better and more mature options.

There are certainly schools and districts that have raised the bar of instruction, even during the first week. However, within this major school district in Central Ohio, I assure you, the first week of online home learning has shown that the bar is set very low, and clicking on Common Core computer programs is neither teaching nor learning. While in many states the school year is still young; focus, direction and rigor can start anytime and they should start immediately. In the words of Thomas Sowell: People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

Dr. Sean M. Brooks is the author of six books, including; Violence Among Students and School Staff, Purposeful Deception, and most recently, Discourses on Education.

Image: PickPik
Talks between Britain and the European Union on a final settlement for the UK's departure from the bloc are not progressing due to London's "intransigent and frankly unrealistic" approach, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian charged on Monday.

Both sides are pushing to have a deal in place by the end of a post-Brexit transition period which ends on December 31, but talks are failing to make headway.

"Negotiations are not advancing due to the intransigent and frankly unrealistic attitude of the United Kingdom," Le Drian said in a speech to French ambassadors in Europe, alongside German counterpart Heiko Maas.

His downbeast assessment is the latest in a succession of negative comments by top figures within the EU about the progress of talks.

EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier said Friday at the close of the seventh round of trade talks that a deal was looking unlikely, with discussions stuck on key issues including fishing rights and competition rules.

Hundreds of negotiators met over several days in the Belgian capital with both sides acknowledging a sliver of progress on technical issues -- but not on the main obstacles.

"Those who were hoping for negotiations to move swiftly forward this week will have been disappointed," Barnier told reporters after the talks ended on Friday.

His UK counterpart David Frost countered that Brussels' insistence that London meet EU demands on state aid and fisheries policy before work on other areas made it "unnecessarily difficult to make progress".

Britain left the EU in January, nearly four years after a landmark referendum to end almost 50 years of European integration.

The Europeans are calling for a final post-transition agreement by October, leaving just two more months to find common ground.

If no deal is struck, ties will default to minimum standards set by the World Trade Organization, bringing higher tariffs and making onerous demands on business which threaten chaos on the cross-Channel border.
Council workers clearing up in and around the Lower Newtownards Road and Bryson Street after last night's trouble. Police say they are checking CCTV to try and identify around 30 young people involved in trouble at an East Belfast interface last night

Police were attacked during trouble in east Belfast involving 30 youths.

Officers responded to an incident after CCTV operators picked up a disturbance at the Bryson Street and Pitt Park interface area of Belfast.

A crowd of around 30 youths ran from the area and police recovered objects that were used as weapons hidden nearby.

A PSNI officer said: "Thanks to good work from our CCTV crew these objects were located and seized by police even with stones and bricks being thrown at us and our vehicles.

"Enquiries will be made and CCTV followed up to identify those involved in the disorder."

Local PUP councillor Dr John Kyle told the BBC: "Over the last few weeks, there's been a recurring problem with large numbers of young people congregating in the Newtownards Road area and this has been an increasing problem for local residents.

"Many of the young people are coming in from outside the area."

DUP councillor George Dorrian called on those involved to "wise up".
To mark Bangladesh governments commemoration of 20202021 as the Mujib Year or Mujib Borsho on the occasion of the centennial birth anniversary of its founding leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and popularly dubbed as 'Bangabandhu', Indian High Commission in Dhaka put together Book Gifting Session on August 31. The commission shared the images from the initiative on Twitter and said that the books on Rahman along with the Liberation War for at least a hundred universities and colleges across the nation were included.

High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh, Riva Ganguly Das also described Bangabandhu as the founder of the modern nation and expressed her hope for the books to inspire the youth in Bangladesh and realise the vision of Sonar Bangla by the great leader.

The event included an address from Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury, Dy Min of Education, Bangladesh who hailed the bilateral ties between India and Bangladesh. Moreover, among the 100 Universities that joined in the event Vice-Chancellors of BUET, CUET, Khulna Univ, Rajshahi Univ, Shahjalal Univ of S&T and CVASU spoke on the occasion celebrated virtually.

To mark Mujib Borsho, HCI Dhaka organized a Book Gifting Session on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the Liberation War for 100 Universities & Colleges across Bangladesh 1/4 pic.twitter.com/1cP0byAW8b  India in Bangladesh (@ihcdhaka) August 31, 2020

Read - Bangladesh Floods Claim 251 Lives, 33 Districts Across The Country Affected

Read - Bengal: Man Arrested For 'smuggling' Mobile Phones Into Bangladesh

India-Bangladesh ties

Just last week, Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina had lauded Indian counterpart's gesture of sending Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla to enhance the bilateral ties, sources told ANI. both individuals reportedly discussed issues such as ranging from enhancing connectivity to the revival of economy post-COVID, cooperation on COVID-19 assistance including on therapeutics and vaccine and joint commemoration of Mujib Borsho. They also talked about the proposal for the travel bubble for business, official and medical travel figured in the talks amid the global health crisis.

Sources noted that security-related issues of mutual interest were the topic of discussion as well. Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina reportedly expressed her gratitude over the supply of locomotives. According to sources, Hasina had even spoken about the case of Rohingya Muslims and their possible safe repatriation to Myanmar. Most recently, an official reportedly said that The Sonamura-Daudkandi inland waterways protocol route connecting Tripura to Bangladesh would be made operational on September 5 in the presence of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb.

Read - Bangladesh's Beximco Signs COVID Vaccine Deal With India's SII To Ensure Priority Access

Read - Bangladesh To Restore Mobile Internet In Cox Bazaar After International Criticism
Portugal's consulate in Macao, which oversees matters in Hong Kong, did not respond to a request for comment, and the European Union mission in Hong Kong declined to comment. The University of Hong Kong's engineering department confirmed that Kok is a student there and said in an email that the university is in touch with his family. The Shenzhen Public Security Bureau did not respond to a request for comment after local media reported that the boat's passengers were in its custody.
California leads the way to electricity blackouts, closely followed by South Australia.

They both created this problem by taxing, banning, delaying, or demolishing reliable coal, nuclear, gas, or hydro generators while subsidizing and promoting unreliable electricity from the sickly green twins  solar and wind. All supposed to solve a global warming crisis that exists only in academic computer models.

Energy policy should be driven by proven reliability, efficiency, and cost, not by green politics.

Wind and solar will always be prone to blackouts for three reasons.

First, they are intermittent, producing zero power when winds drops or sunlight fails.

Second, green energy is dilute, so the collection area must be huge. Both solar panels and wind turbines are old technologies and now close to collecting the maximum energy from a given land area of wind and sun, so limited technology gains are possible. Wind turbines generate nothing from gentle breezes and must shut down in gales. To collect more energy, the green twins must collect from greater areas using a widespread scatter of panels and towers connected by a fragile network of roads and transmission lines. This flimsy system is far more susceptible to damage from cyclones, hail, and the like than a big, well built, centrally located, well maintained traditional power station with strong walls, a roof, and lightning protection. Green energy also requires far more investment in transmission lines and interconnectors, and the energy transmission losses are greater.

Third, green energy is like a virus in a distribution network.

When the sun shines, solar energy floods the network, causing energy prices to plummet. Coal and gas plants are forced to operate at a cash loss or shut down. Erratic winds make this problem worse as they are less predictable and changes can be quicker. But when all green energy fails suddenly, like in an evening peak demand period after a still cold sunset, coal cannot ramp up quickly unless it has been kept on standby with boilers hot, waiting for an opportunity to generate some positive cash flow. Gas and hydro can fire up swiftly, but who wants to own, build, and maintain an expensive fair-dinkum power station that operates intermittently?

Currently hydro, or stop-start gas turbines on standby, or coal generators fired up but not generating are keeping Australian lights on during green energy blackouts. But no one will build new reliable generators to operate part-time. Soon we will have daytime where there are heaps of electricity producing no profit for any generator, and nighttime when electricity prices will soar and blackouts will threaten.

Authorities have their solution: rationing. They will use a blackout crisis to grab the power to dictate rolling blackouts of whole suburbs, areas, or factories or selective consumer blackouts using smart meters.

Naturally Green "engineers" also have a solution  "More Big Batteries."

There are many contestants in the battery growth "industry," including pumped hydro, lithium batteries, compressed air, big flywheels, hydrogen storage, capacitors, and molten salt. They all need to be able to cope with a few days without wind-solar, which makes them huge and expensive. And all are net consumers of energy as they go through the charge-discharge cycle.

Half-ton Li/Co/Pb batteries are huge consumers of energy  energy for exploring, mining, and refining metals and for concrete, battery manufacture, transport, and construction; energy to charge them and absorb the inevitable losses in the charge-discharge cycle; energy to build battery warehouses; and finally energy to recycle or bury worn out batteries (which wear out far quicker than coal, gas, hydro, or nuclear power stations).

Few people consider the extra generating capacity needed to maintain charged batteries. Solar energy at best delivers power for about eight hours per day when there is no cloud, smoke, or dust in the air. So a solar array needs batteries with a capacity of twice name-plate capacity just to cover the hours of darkness, every day. These batteries then need extra generating capacity to charge them during daylight hours.

But a solar system also needs to be able to cope with up to seven days of cloudy weather. This needs seven times more batteries plus the generating capacity to charge them.

The Big Battery in South Australia has a capacity of 150 MW and cost $160m. East Coast demand these days is about 22,500 MW which would require 150 SA batteries and adding a 10% factor of safety = 165 batteries. The cost could be 165 X $160m = $26.4bn.

No matter whether the battery is stored hydrogen or pumped hydro, the cost to stabilize 100% green energy would be prohibitively expensive. Before we leap over this green cliff, those who claim otherwise must be obliged to demonstrate a working pilot plant without coal, gas, or diesel.

Wind power suffers the same problems but is far less predictable. Wind droughts are a common feature. At times wind turbines drain electricity from the grid.

To maintain grid stability, the generators must charge batteries which can then supply a steady stream of electricity to the grid. This requires many more transmission lines and battery connections.

At this point the math/costs of zero-emissions with 100% solar/wind become preposterous. And the ecological disruption becomes enormous.

When Danish windmills stand silent, they import hydro power from Scandinavia. When German solar panels are covered in snow, they import nuclear electricity from France. And California can draw power from Canada.

But Australia is an island. When the grid fails, Tasmanian hydro or New Zealand geo-thermal are the closest reliable-energy neighbors.

The looming COVID Depression has no room for more green energy silliness. We cannot afford to mollycoddle an aging failing technology. A hard, dangerous new world is coming. To survive we will need cheap reliable energy -- coal, gas, nuclear or hydro.

Image: Pixabay.
Hyundai Jump School Education Volunteer officially launched in Vietnam

In the context of COVID-19, the launching ceremony of Hyundai Jump School Education Volunteer was held through the combination of offline and online forms.

Hyundai Jump School (H-Jump School) was initiated by Hyundai in 2013 in Korea to nurture future talents and solve education inequality. Annually, the programme selects talented students with a passion towards social activities and trains them to be young leaders of the future. Over the past eight years, about 5,400 university students participated in the programme in Korea, including 1,100 university student volunteers and 4,300 students having received tutoring.

In Vietnam, the programme has attracted more than 4,000 registrations, and from which 150 Vietnamese university student volunteers were selected to participate in the programme within three years, divided into three groups. Each volunteer group will provide four hours of customised tutoring and psycho-emotional support for underprivileged teenagers every week, for approximately 10 months.

University student volunteers taking part in H-Jump School Vietnam will have a chance to receive scholarships valued at up to VND20 million ($870) and will be mentored from career counselors of the programme, which will help them grow into professionals. The programme also gives the most active talents chances to travel travel to South Korea.

Son Ji Ho, head of the representative office of Hyundai Motor Group in Hanoi, said that through practical and meaningful activities, Hyundai Jump School will help students exchange ideas, develop themselves, and grow into young leaders. Vietnam had young, dynamic and potential talents, which turned the country into the first destination when Hyundai implemented the plan to extend the programme outside Korea. We do hope that Hyundai Jump School will contribute to solving education inequality and nurturing young talent in Vietnam, said Ji Ho.

In the context of COVID-19, the event was held in the form of a combination of offline and online: almost all guests and volunteer students participate in the programme via the online app. The programme was officially launched in Hanoi with the participation of representatives of accompanying partners such as JUMP, Volunteers for Peace Vietnam (VPV), and Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU); and representatives of seven community centres and schools in Hanoi.
on Sunday said that Centre should refrain from doing politics and rather come clear over India-China border tensions.

leader Rajiv Shukla during a press conference said, "China has deployed surface to surface missile at bases in Doklam and Nathu La passes, which is posing a direct threat to the north-eastern region of the country, particularly to Arunachal Pradesh."

"The deployment of Chinese forces has increased everywhere. We demand the government to give us a clear picture and tell the truth about the situation," said Shukla.

He further said that the session of parliament is about to begin and before that the government should clarify the situation.

Another MP from Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi who was also present during the press conference, accused the government of saving Prime Minister's image, instead of the country.

"Since 2018, we have repeatedly said that China is continuously increasing its activity along the border. We are able to answer in any way on land, sky, and sea. However, instead of saving Mother India, the Ministry of External Affairs is engaged in saving the image of the Prime Minister. The Foreign Minister has no word on why the Chinese army in such large numbers is standing on the border," said Gogoi.

He further accused the government of not giving clear information on the issue and said that instead of speeches; the government should tell the nation what they are doing to save our borders.

"There should be a special discussion on this in the upcoming Parliament session. Prime Minister should not stand behind any minister, but come in front and talk about the issue," added Gogoi.

He also accused the government of not increasing the Defence budget.

(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.)
Economic ministers of ASEAN member nations have agreed on the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) by the end of 2020.

Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh chaired a press meeting on Sunday to announce results of the 52nd ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting (AEM 52) and related conferences, which were held online from August 22 to 29.

ASEAN, short for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic organization whose members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

According to Minister Anh, all ASEAN ministers consented on prioritizing the signing of the RCEP by the end of 2020.

RCEP is a proposed wide-area economic partnership under negotiation among ten ASEAN member states and five countries including Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.

They will focus on solving existing issues to strive for the early signature of the partnership, while working to add India to the RCEP.

During the AEM 52, Vietnam proposed various plans to strengthen ASEAN economic cooperation and supply chain connectivity in the context of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Delegates also approved the ASEAN+3 Action Plan on mitigating the economic impact of COVID-19 and a joint initiative between ASEAN and South Korean economic ministers on promoting economic connectivity to respond to the pandemic.

Economic ministers of ASEAN member states and China also passed a joint declaration on COVID-19 response and enhanced cooperation within the framework of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) agreement.

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Wheres your emergency survival kit? Buried somewhere in the garage? Are life-saving backup power and tools scattered throughout your home? Or have you been promising to assemble critical supplies someday, but havent done it yet?

September is National Preparedness Month, when people are encouraged to be ready to act fast in case of another virus outbreak, medical quarantine, earthquake, tsunami, major power outage or other life-threatening emergency.

As our nation continues to respond to COVID-19, there is no better time ...  state experts with the federal Ready Campaign.

Emergency preparedness experts suggest, at minimum, three actions you need to do now to improve your familys safety during and after a disaster.

Sign up for notifications: Enroll in Public Alerts, Citizen Alert or a service in your county to be notified via text, call or email by emergency response agencies when you need to take action such as shelter-in-place or evacuate.

Bookmark the website or Facebook page of the Oregon Health Authority and a local health department, which regularly notify residents of health emergencies and other issues impacting the community. Follow public health departments that use social media like OHAOregon on Twitter to communicate timely and accurate information.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radar Live app offers real-time radar images and severe weather alerts.

Have a family escape plan: Make sure everyone in your home knows how to safely exit a building, where you will all reunite and how you will contact each other if phones arent working.

Its important to account for the risks where you live and put some common sense thought into an emergency plan, says Skyler Hallgren, co-founder of Redfora, which sells customized emergency kits. Have a conversation as a family or household about how to mitigate risks, and what role each can play to help each other in case of an emergency.

Update a list of emergency contacts and reassess your home for hazards and the supplies youll need. For more tips, download Redforas Guide To Creating an Emergency Plan.

It doesnt need to be complicated, but it does require taking a few minutes to think it through, says Hallgren. This year weve all learned that you cant prepare after an emergency strikes. Id encourage folks to make today the day you finally get a plan in place.

Assemble essentials in one place: Many must-have supplies may already be in your home but you may need more items if stores, electricity and water supplies shut down.

Emilio DeBess and Paul Cieslak, both infectious disease experts with Oregon Health Authority, say its never too early to put together a basic disaster kit with nonperishable food, water and supplies for 14 days for each person in the home.

Refresh the items, especially water and food, every six months, says Ali Ryan, who works as the earth-science information officer for the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.

Step-by-Step Preparedness Calendar

Members of neighborhoods who have accepted training from the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and other volunteer groups use a Preparedness Calendar that breaks down supplies to acquire and actions to be taken over 12 months, so the work is not overwhelming.

CERT volunteers warn that emergency, food, water and infrastructure resources may be unavailable for weeks or longer after a major disaster. They recommend you Map Your Neighborhood now to learn of other peoples skills, equipment and resources, and to practice working as a team during an emergency.

Feel More Confident, Less Anxious

The coronavirus pandemic taught us a lot about the need to prepare for an emergency.

In the frightening days before stay-at-home orders were issued, panicky purchases and toilet paper hoarding caused temporary shortages.

But those wont compare to the alarms that will go off if another disaster destroys transportation systems or if water pipes and places to shelter turn to dust after an earthquake.

Perhaps the most indelible takeaway from the pandemic is the importance of self-sufficiency.

Hunkering down at home, limiting trips to stores and disruptions in food deliveries inspired more people to start a vegetable patch, install fresh water storage and air filtration systems, and add an extra freezer to stockpile frozen food.

Hallgren of Redfora said customers all over the country now know the experience of being without normal services and the need for a Plan B.

Most years, Preparedness Month is an afterthought for many people, but 2020 has given every family reason to think critically about how they handle emergencies, he says. The key is to focus on practical steps and not get bogged down by anxiety.

Emergency Preparedness Kits

You can build an emergency preparedness kit yourself, following guidelines by the American Red Cross and Ready.gov, or you can buy a ready-made or customized survival pack to help in case of an emergency.

Experts also guide us on the food, water, medicines and other necessities, like simple, backup power and light tools, to have on hand when limited supplies are in demand.

Even if you already have a lightweight, portable disaster kit, you might find it useful to add a signal mirror, waterproof matches and gas shut-off wrench.

You might also consider the color of your container. Some people want it red so its easy to spot, while others buy an ordinary-looking backpack, duffle or rolling cargo bag that wont draw attention to the valuables inside. Some people remove patches identifying the bag as a disaster or first-aid kit.

Redforas Complete Earthquake Kits, in a red or blue backpack, rolling cargo bag or dry bag for flood areas, can be customized for one to six people and pets to be used at home or in a car, office or school (starting at $44.99; 1 percent of every sale goes to disaster relief efforts, victims or prevention projects). Sign up to receive an instant $10 off your first purchase as well as emergency preparedness tips.

Many of the must-have supplies may already be in your home, from a manual can opener to hygiene items, but youll need duplicates so you can access them fast in case you have to evacuate due to a fire or another emergency.

Replenish what youve used or add what you dont have.

With climate change, pandemics and looming disasters such as earthquakes, we all need to put a little time and money into preparation at home, said Jen Brown of Portland Earthquake Kits. Store extra water, have an N95 face mask and keep an emergency radio/cell phone charger in case of a blackout. Disasters are inevitable; youll be glad to have a few extra supplies at your disposal.

See a variety of emergency survival kits

Basic Disaster Supplies Kit

Heres a list of what should be inside your emergency preparedness kit, as recommended by the American Red Cross and Ready.gov, which educates people in the U.S. on what to do to prepare for natural and manmade disasters, from earthquakes to wildfires.

A basic disaster kit should have supplies for three days to cover your family and pets if you are evacuated and two weeks of supplies if youre hunkering down in your home, possibly without heat, electricity and running water.

Water:

If water pipes break or the water supply is contaminated, youll need a source for a gallon of water a day per person to drink, cook with and clean. Your pet needs a gallon of water a day too.

Half-cup pouches of water, available by the case, have a five-year shelf life while bacteria- and parasite-removing water purification tablets and personal water filters work if you have to use untreated water.

Were very much concerned about Portland residents having the water they will need after a disaster and thats why we offer free delivery on 55-gallon drums, Aquatainers and Jumbotainers in Portland, said Brown of of Portland Earthquake Kits.

She added that people should know how to safely store water. Containers should be certified free of BPA-containing plastics and specifically made to hold drinking water.

To ensure a two-week supply of water and other hydrating beverages, have these at home:

Food: Its recommended that you have enough nonperishable food for two weeks, according to the American Red Cross.

Experts also recommend that nonperishable, easy-to-prepare food, like canned, ready-to-eat soups, vegetables and fruits, not be super salty or something you dont like to eat.

You can buy a compact bucket of dehydrated meals, from beef stew to granola, or shop for long-lasting food you wont mind eating before it spoils, even if the Big One hasnt hit.

If you want to freeze meals, consider having a backup freezer.

Coquine Chef Katy Millard of Portland suggests changing up pasta sauce by mixing different aromatics, vegetables and other ingredients found in the pantry.

Lights, radio, chargers: If theres no electricity, youll appreciate the American Red Cross Clipray crank-powered, flashlight and phone charger. Cranking for one minute produces power for 10 minutes of light.

Portable emergency radios with real-time NOAA weather reports and Public Emergency Alert System information can be powered by a hand-crank generator, solar panel, rechargeable batteries or wall power adapter.

Medical and first-aid supplies: Its important to have an adequate supply of any daily or prescription medications you take, according to Ready.gov. Ask your doctor, health insurance provider or pharmacist to approve a larger supply of prescription and nonprescription medications.

The American Red Cross Deluxe Family First Aid Kit weighs only two pounds, including the zippered case with handles, yet its packed with 115 essential supplies to treat injuries: From aspirin and triple antibiotic ointment to a CPR face shield and the American Red Cross Emergency First Aid Guide tucked into a ringed binder.

See other first-aid kits

In addition, its a good idea to have:

Hygiene

Theres no need to hoard, but check that you have the hygiene and personal care items you will need.

Gear: The The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends face masks to help prevent the spread of viruses. Other items to have on hand:

Multipurpose tool: In a little over 5 inches tall, a multitool can provide, at your fingertips, knives, pliers, screwdrivers, wire cutters, bottle and can openers, an electrical crimper, wire stripper, file, saw, awl and ruler.

Personal documents: Make copies of passports, birth certificates, insurance policies, medication list and medical information, deed/lease to your home for proof of address plus family and emergency contact information. Do not store any documents that reveal your personal information in an emergency bag in case the bag is misplaced or stolen.

Secure your supplies: A red bag with a red cross draws attention to the valuables inside. Consider the color of your container. Some people want it red so its easy to spot, while others buy an ordinary-looking backpack, duffel or rolling cargo bag. Some people remove patches identifying the bag as an earthquake disaster or first aid kit.

Other helpful items:

 Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072

jeastman@oregonian.com | @janeteastman
DIX HILLS, NY - The Dix Hills Pool reopened Monday after an employee's second coronavirus test came back negative, the Town of Huntington learned late Sunday. The employee had a "faint positive" COVID-19 test, the Town previously announced Saturday.

The employee, a lifeguard, had last worked on Wednesday, according to the Town. The employee passed the daily temperature screenings, contact tracing screenings and wore a mask while working.

The employee had five vaccines at their doctor's office on Long Island Friday morning, and went to school out-of-state Friday afternoon where they tested for COVID-19 and received a "faint positive" result, the Town said. The lifeguard was retested out-of-state on Saturday.

The pool was kept closed on Sunday "out of an abundance of caution," officials said. No other staff members showed signs of COVID-19, but all were asked to self-isolate until the lifeguard's second test result came back.

The pool was cleaned and sanitized while it was closed, according to the Town.

This article originally appeared on the Half Hollow Hills Patch
Basically stress is everywhere and we don't know what's going to happen in the future," she said. "Maybe one of the elephants will be pregnant, maybe there will be some kind of injury sometimes. They can break a tusk  it happens. They can get sick for no reason, she said.
South Africa: Public Works launches database to help fight unemployment

The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) has launched a database for unemployed youth, professionals and artisans throughout the country.

Launched on Monday, the database, which is District Development Model based, will be used to capture and store information on these unemployed groups to find out the countrys available capacity to deliver on Integrated Infrastructure Projects in the specific areas.

The DPWI unemployed database is aimed at supporting governments infrastructure priorities for economic growth beyond COVID-19. The database will be used in different projects by prioritising available registered people in that district where the project is being implemented.

Preference will be given to females of all races. Registration on the database is online on the DPWI website and will be continuous without a closing date, said DPWI spokesperson Thami Mchunu.

The district model was launched by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2019 and is aimed at accelerating, aligning and integrating service delivery under a single development plan.

Mchunu said the database will be per district or metro that is developed jointly by national, provincial and local government, as well as business, labour and the community in each district.

Mchunu said the development approach ensures that planning and spending across the three spheres of government is integrated and aligned, and that each district or metro plan is developed with the interests and input of communities taken into account upfront.

During the active stages of the Infrastructure Strategic Projects, Mchunu said those recruited from the Unemployed Youth Database will also get on-the-job training opportunities, including Work Integrated Learning Programme for National Accredited Technical Education Diploma (NATED) students and university of technology students, who require experiential training to obtain their qualification.

It will also include graduate internship to expose graduates to work experience to strengthen employment opportunities, trade certification for construction trades and candidacy programmes towards Built Environment Professional Registration, among others.

Qualified professionals and artisans will be registered for job opportunities within the Infrastructure Strategic Projects, Mchunu said.

For registration, applicants must go to www.publicworks.gov.za and click on Programmes DPWI Unemployed Database for Infrastructure Skills.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
An operating staff member of the Foreign Affairs Ministry's central office and a Ministry employee at Romania's Embassy in London were confirmed with SARS-CoV-2, the Foreign Ministry informs in a release on Monday.

No other cases of infection with the novel coronavirus have been identified so far among the employees of the Romanian diplomatic mission in London or at the Ministry's headquarters following the occurrence of these two cases, the cited source said.All the necessary measures were promptly taken at both locations as concerns reporting to the competent authorities and the protection of the rest of the teams.
Two people, who were arrested in Punjab for putting up a Khalistani flag on a building, were planning to go to Pakistan with the help of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to receive terror training, according to Hindustan Times sister publication Hindustan.

The two prime accused, Jaspal Singh (24) and Inderjeet Singh Gill (23), of Mogas Rauli village, were arrested by special cell of Delhi Police on Sunday. Jaspal Singhs father is a police inspector and is posted in Muktsar.

Quoting police, Hindustan reported that these two men were planning to go to Nepal from Delhi. From there, the ISI sleuths would have taken them to Pakistan for terror training.

The plot involved luring more youth from Punjab to join them in Pakistan, according to Hindustan.

According to the police, both Singh and Gill used to watch YouTube channels supported by pro-Khalistani outfits and had become members of Sikh for Justice group through WhatsApp.

Hindustan reported that they put up the Khalistani flag on the terrace of district administrative complex on August 14, while one of their aides video-taped the act. The video immediately went viral on social media. The police arrested the person who had shot the video, but Singh and Gill fled.

According to Delhi Police, they received information on Saturday that two members of the banned terror outfit Khalistan Zindabad Force would be coming to Delhi to commit some anti-national activities on the directions of their foreign-based commanders. Accordingly, a trap was laid near Shani Mandir on the GT Karnal road and these men were arrested.

On Sunday, the Moga Police got the information from their Delhi counterparts that the two accused have been arrested. A team was sent to Delhi to bring them to Moga, Moga superintendent of police (SP) Jagatpreet Singh said.

The accused have been booked under Sections 115, 121, 121A, 124A, 153A, 153B, 506 and 2 of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act; Section 66-F of the IT Act and Sections 10, 11, 13 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act by the Moga Police.
SUZHOU, China, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Transcenta Holding Limited ("Transcenta"), a global biotherapeutics company with fully-integrated capabilities in discovery, development and manufacturing of antibody-based therapeutics, announced today that the first subject has been dosed successfully on August 28th in China Phase I clinical trial of TST001, a humanized Claudin18.2 (CLDN18.2) monoclonal antibody developed by Transcenta's subsidiary Mabspace Biosciences (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. Transcenta conducts clinical trials of TST001 simultaneously in both China and the US, and the first subject has been dosed in the US on June 29th, 2020.

NCT04495296 is a Phase I clinical study conducted in China to evaluate the safety, tolerability, Pharmacokinetics, initial clinical activity and recommended dose for Phase 2 study of TST001 in Chinese patients with unresectable or metastatic solid tumors.

"CLDN18.2 is found to be overexpressed in many tumors including gastric cancer, which makes it a promising anti-cancer therapeutic target. Currently, there is no approved anti-CLDN18.2 targeted therapeutics globally," said Professor Lin Shen, the lead investigator from Beijing Cancer Hospital, "We have dosed the first subject in China successfully, and we look forward to having a positive result, and we hope TST001 can be an effective and safe agent to benefit more gastric cancer patients."

"We have made significant progress on TST001 since the beginning of this year. Within the last 6 months, we have obtained IND clearance and dosed first patient in US and in China, and we hope to initiate Phase Ib for TST001 next year," said Dr. Xueming Qian, Transcenta's Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer.

About TST001

TST001, developed by Transcenta's subsidiary Mabspace Biosciences (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., is a high affinity humanized monoclonal antibody targeting CLDN18.2 positive tumors by mechanisms such as complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) through combining CLDN18.2 with high affinity. Through bioprocess engineering, TST001 is produced with reduced fucosylation and results in significant enhancement in its activity against CLDN18.2-expressing tumors. In preclinical pharmacodynamics studies, TST001 shows better anti-cancer activity than similar molecules.

About Transcenta Holding Limited.

Transcenta is a global biotherapeutics company that fully integrates antibody-based biotherapeutics discovery, development and manufacturing. With a Discovery and Translational Research Center in Suzhou, a Process and Product Development Center and Manufacturing Facility in Hangzhou, and Clinical Development Centers in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou in China and in Princeton, US, and External Partnering Center in Boston, US. Transcenta has established a global footprint. Upon the latest financing, the company has raised over $230 million from globally prominent investors. For more information, please visit www.transcenta.com.

SOURCE Transcenta

Related Links

http://www.transcenta.com


Psychiatrist and former Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry has backed calls for the federal government to extend access to Medicare rebates for telehealth support for mental health.

More than 1 million psychologist and psychiatrist sessions have been held over the telephone or by video conferencing during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Medicare item numbers that allow patients to claim a rebate for the service will end on September 30.

Professor Patrick McGorry said telehealth for psychology and psychiatry was a good option for people unable to travel to appointments and "it would be terrible to take it away". Credit:Eddie Jim

Health Minister Greg Hunt has signalled a desire for telehealth to remain a feature of the nation's post-pandemic healthcare system, but has not decided whether mental health services will remain on the list of those allowed to be delivered via phone or video conferencing.

Professor McGorry said telehealth for psychology and psychiatry was a good option for people unable to travel to appointments and "it would be terrible to take it away".
Two teenagers were killed and two others injured after a suspect opened fire at a vehicle on the East Side Sunday night.

San Antonio police were called to Aransas Avenue and S. Olive Street at 9:32 p.m. for the quadruple shooting after one of the victims inside the vehicle called 911 for help, said SAPD Chief William McManus.

The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office identified the 17-year-old victim as Xavier Esquivel. A 19-year-old female was killed in the shooting but police have not identified her yet.

The four victims  three males and one female, all between the ages of 16 and 19  were driving down Olive Street when another vehicle pulled alongside and fired more than 20 rounds from a long gun into the side of the vehicle.

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The driver was killed, and another passenger was taken to the hospital in critical condition and later died. It is believed Esquivel was driving the vehicle.

The other two passengers were also taken to the hospital with less severe injuries.

The suspect vehicle fled east on Aransas Avenue. Police believe they were driving a white Chevy Tahoe with damage to its window from the gunfire.

"This is senseless, it's insane," McManus said. "There is nothing I can say that puts any sense to it at all. I don't have words to express my frustration."

The suspect vehicle was a white or light-colored SUV, possibly a GMC, McManus said. There may have been more than one person in the suspect vehicle, but police have not been able to confirm.

McManus said they don't yet know of a motive for the shooting but believe it was a targeted incident.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Homicide Unit at 210-207-7635.

Taylor Pettaway is a breaking news and general assignment reporter for MySA.com | taylor.pettaway@express-news.net | @TaylorPettaway
Phuket drug suspect killed in police shootout

PHUKET: A man wanted on drug charges in Phuket was killed in a shootout with police at his family home in Nakhon Sri Thammarat this morning (Aug 31). One Phuket police officer and a Phuket Territorial Defense Volunteer were injured in the gunfight, and a second Phuket police officer suffered a gash to his neck when he was attacked by the slain fugitives father, who was wielding a scythe.

deathdrugspolicecrime

By The Phuket News

Monday 31 August 2020, 05:28PM

Soon to arrive at the scene were Nakhon Sri Thammarat Provincial Police Chief Maj Gen Sonthichai Awatthakulthep and Police Region 8 Deputy Commander Maj Gen Nanthadet Yoinuan. Photo: Lan Saka Police

Officers from Kamala Police Station had tracked down Udom Ae Rattanamanee, 46, to his family home in Moo 12, Tambon Kamlon, Lan Saka District, explained Lan Saka Police Chief Col Somkit Damklieng.

Udom had fled Phuket after being arrested in 2018 for his role in attempting to smuggle into Phuket 39,820 methamphetamine (ya bah) pills hidden in toy remote-controlled cars that were delivered to Phuket from Bangkok by a private parcel delivery service.

In that raid, Udom was arrested along with two other suspects: Thipparat Koi Prompramoon, 29, and and John Mark Vickers, 29, a Thai national of Thai-British parentage who goes by the nickname Jonny.

In making the arrests, police seized 39,820 ya bah pills, 18.8 grams of crystal meth (ya ice), 180mg of heroin, a BMW car, a Nissan March, a Mitsubishi sedan, two bankbooks and two gold necklaces  altogether valued at B1.23 million, police said.

This morning, armed police surrounded Udoms family home at about 6am and called for Udom to surrender peacefully, explained Col Somkit.

However, instead of complying, Udom opened fire at police with an assault rifle. He then fired a .45-calibre gun at police to prevent officers from advancing, he told The Phuket News.

After exchanging gunfire for about 15 minutes, Udom attempted to flee the home, but was shot by police while attempting to escape. Udom died at the scene, he confirmed.

Present during the firefight were Maj Phramoon Chukong and Snr Sgt Maj Wattana Kanchana, both from Kamala Police Station.

Assisting the two Phuket police officers was Thanomsak Wisutsak of the Territorial Defense Volunteer organisation (OrSor, or Kong Asa Raksa Dindaen) unit that assists the Kamala Police.

Maj Phramoon and Mr Thanomsak suffered injuries during the gunfight. Maj Phramoon suffered injuries to fingers on his right hand and the right side of his head, while Thanomsak suffered injuries to his lower left leg, reported Col Somkit.

Both men were rushed to Lan Saka Hospital for medical treatment, he added.

After the gunfight while officers were examining the scene, Udoms father, Preecha Rattanamanee, attacked Snr Sgt Maj Wattana with a scythe, Col Somkit explained.

Snr Sgt Maj Wattana suffered a large gash to the back of his neck, and was also rushed to hospital, he said.

Udoms girlfriend, Areeya Phanthip, who was also wanted on an arrest warrant, was found taking refuge inside the house, Col Somkit noted.

Also found at the house were drugs and a lot of ammunition, he added.

The firefight drew instant attention from the media, and soon to arrive at the scene were Nakhon Sri Thammarat Provincial Police Chief Maj Gen Sonthichai Awatthakulthep together with Police Region 8 Deputy Commander Maj Gen Nanthadet Yoinuan, Col Somkit confirmed.

Preecha has been charged with attempted murder of an officer and preventing officials from performing their duties, Col Somkit said.

He is being held at Lan Saka Police Station for questioning, he added.

Col Somkit declined to reveal which charges Areeya was facing.
People in every county of England and Wales are prepared by overwhelming majorities to support local lockdowns if coronavirus flares up in their area, according to a new survey.

Boris Johnsons whack-a-mole strategy of imposing targeted restrictions on areas with Covid-19 clusters has already seen bans on social contacts and shop opening in cities like Manchester, Leicester, Bradford and Luton.

Many of the restrictions have been withdrawn after signs of success in preventing spread of the infection, but the strategy depends on the willingness of local populations temporarily to give up freedoms which people elsewhere in the country are able to enjoy.

Todays YouGov survey suggested that only a minority of adults anywhere in the country would oppose or strongly oppose local lockdowns if they were called in their areas.

Highest levels of opposition were recorded in the City of London (33 per cent), Pembrokeshire and Swansea (both 24 per cent) and West Yorkshire (18 per cent). Numbers saying they would strongly oppose local lockdowns were highest in the city of Bristol (13 per cent), Shropshire (12 per cent) and Wiltshire (10 per cent).

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Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA 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

But in every part of the country, majorities said they would support or strongly support a local lockdown, with a clear majority saying they would strongly support the measures in all but five counties.

Tellingly, two of the counties affected by existing local lockdowns - West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester - recorded the lowest levels of support for renewed restrictions.

But even there, some 45 per cent in Greater Manchester and 44 per cent in West Yorkshire said they would strongly support future lockdowns. Some 35 per cent in Greater Manchester said they would support, 9 per cent oppose and 7 per cent strong oppose them, while the figures for West Yorkshire were 32 per cent support, 8 per cent oppose and 10 per cent strongly oppose.

Highest levels of strong support for local lockdowns were found in Northumberland (78 per cent), Cheshire (68 per cent) and East Sussex (66 per cent).

Across the whole of England and Wales, some 57 per cent of adults said they would strongly support a local lockdown and 28 per cent support it, against 6 per cent who would oppose and 5 per cent strongly oppose.

Connor Ibbetson, research manager at YouGov, said: New YouGov research shows that most adults in England are in strong support of a local lockdown in their area, were there to be an increase of local cases.

Following the introduction of local lockdown measures in Leicester, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and other areas, support to take these extra steps in order to keep the level of coronavirus infection at bay is widespread.

The county with the highest number of residents that strongly support a lock lockdown is Northumberland, while the City of Bristol is the most likely to be strongly opposed.

- YouGov questioned 25,592 adults between 7 and 14 August.
A North Carolina man who spent 44 years in prison for a rape he says he didn't commit says that his new freedom is 'breathtaking.'

Ronnie Long, 64, was freed last week after his 1976 first-degree rape and burglary convictions were vacated by the United States District Court after having already served 44 years of the two life sentences he received for the crimes.

'To be able to walk out of them gates without being supervised, it was breathtaking,' Long told 48 Hours in his first sit-down interview since his release.

He had walked out of the North Carolina prison where he'd been serving his 80-year sentence on August 27.

Ronnie Long, 64, said that it was 'breathtaking' to be able to leave prison gates without being accompanied for the first time in 44 years, after his rape conviction was vacated

Long (pictured in his 1976 mugshot) was 20 when he was accused of raping white woman Sarah Judson Bost, 54, at knifepoint in her home in April 1976

Long (left) is pictured with lawyer Jamie Lau (right) on August 27 as he leaves the prison after his charges were vacated by the US District Court

Long told the news magazine that when he first heard that his convictions were being vacated he told his lawyer, Duke University Law School's Wrongful Convictions Clinic's Jamie Lau: 'You serious?'

'The state can't go back on their word? They gonna stick to what they say?' Long said, recalling what he told Lau.

Long said that now that he's been released, he plans to spend his time with his family - many of who were there to great him when he took his 'breathtaking' first steps outside the prison compound, as well as the woman he married in 2014, Ashleigh Ward, a former UNC Charlotte criminal justice student.

One specific thing Long told 48 Hours he'll be doing is going to his parents' graves to tell them about his convictions being vacated.

'I know my mother and father died with a broken heart,' Long said. 'I'm gonna tell them now, when I visit the gravesite, 'Your son is clear."'

Long, who is black, had been in prison since being convicted of raping a white woman, Sarah Judson Bost, then 54, at knifepoint in her home on the evening of the 25 April 1976.

At the time, Long was 20 years old and living in Concord, North Carolina.

Bost was reported to have been told by detectives that they believed her suspected rapist was in court on an unrelated case and told to see if she recognized him. Later that day, she picked out Long, who had been making an appearance in a court on a minor trespassing case.

Bost said she recognized his voice, NBC News reported.

Long was put in a photo lineup as the only man wearing a leather jacket, which was allegedly what was worn on the night of the attack, according to court records.

Long had an alibi for the time of the assault. His mother, who he lived with at the time, and the mother of his child said he was on a group phone call with them.

Long (on August 27) said being able to walk outside prison as a free man was 'breathtaking'

Lng (center) said he plans to visit his parents' gravesite and tell them 'your son is clear'

Long (left, pictured with Lau) will now be petitioning North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper for a pardon of innocence, which would give him the opportunity of collecting money earmarked for those who have been wrongfully convicted of crimes

He was getting ready to attend a party in Charlotte at the time of the assault, they said.

Long received the 80-year prison sentence after an all-white jury found him guilty of raping Bost and also of first-degree burglary.

Despite decades of appeals to overturn the conviction, and though DNA evidence obtained throughout the years pointed to his innocence, he remained in jail.

The DNA evidence in question was that hair samples and clothing fibers didn't match those of Long's. According to news reports, the evidence was not shared with the defense at the time of the trial.

In 2015, it was revealed that 43 fingerprints taken from the scene 'excluded' the prisoner as the source of the prints. A request for a new trial was still rejected by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals the same year.

'I feel as though the criminal justice system here in this state failed me,' Long told 48 Hours.

Lau had previously told 48 Hours that Long's defense team was unaware that 43 fingerprints were found at the scene of the crime, but that none of them matched Long's prints.

He also said that Long's original defense team was unaware that a rape kit and other evidence had been taken from the victim or that a hair was found at the scene that didn't match Long.

North Carolina state attorneys argued that despite this apparent evidence suppression, it wouldn't have changed the jurors' verdict, so Long remained in prison.

'I'm 64, going on 65,' Long told 48 Hours. 'They took my life away from me when I was 20 years old. I ain't got nothing but memories. But yet, and still, you say the evidence collected in the case was immaterial?'

In this 2007 file photo, Ronnie Long stands in a hallway at the Albemarle Correctional Institution in Albemarle, east of Charlotte, N.C.

Ronnie Long is pictured being released from prison 44 years after being convicted of a rape he said he didn't commit

Pictured: Long meets with his family and the press outside the Albemarle Correctional Institution in North Carolina yesterday

That appeared to be the case until last week, when the 4th Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled that Long's rights had been violated by what it called 'a troubling and striking pattern of deliberate police suppression of material evidence.'

It wasn't until then that the North Carolina Attorney General's office decided to stop fighting Long's case, leading to his release from Albemarle Correctional Institution.

Since his convictions were vacated, Long has also received a dismissal from North Carolina's Cabarrus County District Attorney's office, meaning he's entirely clear of all charges against him.

Long and his lawyers will now be petitioning North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to grant him a pardon of innocence, which would allow him to receive money from a state fund earmarked for people who have been wrongfully convicted of crimes.

Cooper does not appear to have made any public comments about Long's case or release yet.
Weather forecasts for Labor Day weekend show another heat wave coming to the Bay Area, potentially increasing fire risk and compounding air quality issues.

The hot weather comes from a high-pressure system, which means that temperatures will be up though winds will be calmer. This means conditions will be drier, which would increase fire risk, according to David King, a local meteorologist at the National Weather Service.

The real question, he said, is just how dry those conditions will be  and whether theyre enough to warrant a Red Flag warning.

As of right now, its not, he said, but were constantly reevaluating weather parameters and working with our partners, with Cal Fire and other fire crews to determine whether or not to issue the warning.

He added that dry conditions also bring the risk of expanding existing fires because it makes it easier for embers to spread.

Areas far inland  including Livermore and Gilroy  may potentially see temperatures up to 100 degrees over the weekend, while coastal areas will also see a pronounced, though not as dramatic, heat wave.

Its not just going to be warmer during the day, but at night, temperatures wont be backing off also, National Weather Service meteorologist Brayden Murdock said.

The good news is that so far, the forecast does not show a chance of dry thunderstorms  the kind of weather that started wildfires over the past few weeks, he said.

But the poor air quality conditions across the Bay Area arent likely to let up, according to Aaron Richardson, public information officer at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

A Spare the Air Alert has been issued for the Bay Area through Thursday as a result of the wildfire smoke  the highest number of alerts ever consecutively issued in the region. The hot weather can also bring high levels of ozone pollution, which is different than the particles from smoke, and that could exacerbate the already bad air quality.

Its a bit too far for us to tell right now, but we are a little bit concerned about the ongoing impacts of this temperature increase, he said.

The air quality also depends on how much the fires are contained by the weekend, he said, but its looking like we will probably have poor air quality potentially extending through the weekend.

As of Tuesday afternoon, air quality was listed as unhealthy for sensitive groups in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Redwood City and Napa. Data from government air quality monitors are available only after a lag.

The National Park Services Point Reyes division said on Twitter Monday that the Woodward Fire, one of the fires contributing to San Franciscos smoky skies, will continue to produce smoke for months.

The low winds mean that smoke thats in the air is unlikely to be pushed out soon, King said.

Theres not really going to be a lot of weather that can help it, he said.

The heat wave on top of the bad air quality means yet another reason for Bay Area residents to try and stay inside, both King and Richardson said.

Its just one more thing for the public to worry about, King said.

Chronicle staff writer Michael Williams contributed to this report.

Danielle Echeverria is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: danielle.echeverria@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DanielleEchev
Pastor Jack Trieber from a Santa Clara at North Valley Baptist Church was fined $15,000 for defying the restraining order by Gov. Gavin Newsome.

Trieber repeatedly disobeyed orders designed to limit the spread of the disease, causing significant public health and safety concerns.

Over the weekend and on Wednesday, Trieber led indoor services and singing, which state health officials say "likely increase the risk of transmission of the virus."

Trieber was fined $5,000 twice over the weekend and was fined another $5,000 on Wednesday.

Trieber was aware of the restraining order to protect members of the public from coronavirus and argued in a video that his parishioners kept the social distancing and wore masks.

The freedom of expression and worship was mentioned in his video as well. "Absolutely, we have a First Amendment right, you can't make laws against the church, we have the right to worship," said Trieber.

He also used the county's death rate to justify indoor services in his nine-minute video.

"He's using the somewhat low numbers in Santa Clara County, which are the sign of success of their policies, to violate the policies and that's not very good," said Dr. Steven Goodman, Stanford University professor of epidemiology and associate dean of the school of medicine.

Officials said the church's ability to spread the disease is particularly concerning, and churches have been warned on numerous occasions not hold any indoor services.

The lawsuit was filed against Pastor Jack Trieber and his church. No incidents or arrests were reported.
LAKEWOOD, Ohio  A person was hit and killed by a train Sunday afternoon in Lakewood, police say.

The crash happened about 4:45 p.m. Sunday on the tracks just west of Cove Avenue, Lakewood police Sgt. Robert E. Minteer said in a news release. Officers found the female victim near the tracks at the crash location.

The female victim has not yet been identified, and officers are working to find her family and notify them of her death, Minteer said.

The westbound railroad crossings from the Lakewood-Cleveland border to Nicholson Avenue are closed Sunday evening, Minteer said.

This post will be updated if more details about the incident are released.

More Northeast Ohio crime news:

Shaker Heights police investigating deaths of two adults, two teens as possible murder-suicide

Medina man dies in motorcycle crash in Huron County, state highway patrol says

Crash on Clevelands East Side leaves three women critically injured, police say
Second U.S. shale boom's legacy: Overpriced deals, unwanted assets FILE PHOTO: A flare burns off excess gas from a gas plant in the Permian Basin in Loving County

By Jessica Resnick-Ault, Dmitry Zhdannikov and David Gaffen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil and gas companies plunged over $156 billion into corporate takeovers and land deals during the second U.S. shale boom, in a massive bet that good times would continue and crude prices would rise. Many of those deals have become financial albatrosses.

The prospect for relief is limited: the industry is still working through the shock of a historic collapse in fuel demand in such a short period of time, prompted by the sudden impact of the coronavirus on global mobility. Oil companies are cutting their budgets to preserve cash and survive - not to spend it on buying more companies.

That leaves few companies with the money or the appetite to buy distressed assets. Another 150 North American oil and gas producers could face bankruptcy by the end of 2022, according to Rystad Energy, if crude prices remain near current levels.

The shale revolution turned the United States into the world's largest crude producer, pumping out more than 12 million barrels per day (bpd) at its peak. The industry beat forecasts again and again for production growth, but rarely for financial returns.

Still, the promise of future returns lured investors, including a wave of acquisitions that happened after the first boom when prices pulled back sharply from 2014 to 2016.

Now, many of the 2016 to 2019 shale deals are financially unworkable due to low oil prices, according to six people familiar with the transactions.

Of the 50 largest acreage purchases or M&A transactions between 2016 and 2019, at least 31 add value only if global benchmark Brent crude is above $50 a barrel, or $5 higher than current levels, according to energy research firm Wood MacKenzie.

Production has fallen by more than 1 million bpd, and there is little to encourage a sustained rise in prices. Fuel storage is brimming worldwide, and fuel demand has been slow to recover even as global lockdowns ease.

Story continues

Investors are wary of energy shares, as the S&P 500 Energy sector is down 40% this year even as the U.S. stock market touched new highs this month.

Oil companies such as BP Plc, Occidental Petroleum Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp made highly publicized purchases that have lost substantial value. BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others have cut the assumed value of those assets, conceding big wagers on shale will not pay off.

In May 2019, Occidental bought Anadarko Petroleum for $38 billion, taking on debt to outbid oil major Chevron Corp in a big bet on bigger growth in the largest U.S. oil patch in Permian Basin. The combined company was worth about $80 billion when the deal was announced, but is now worth just $12.1 billion.

Occidental cut expected capital expenditure for this year by more than half after oil prices plummeted, and dropped its quarterly dividend to a penny per share.

"You took a company (Occidental) that was healthy, and potentially an acquisition target itself, and it looks like you created a much larger unhealthy company," said one energy M&A lawyer.

There are few exit strategies for companies holding unwanted assets and acreage. Some, like Occidental, are seeking to sell assets to pay down debt even though buyers are scarce. Others will likely be forced to unload stakes at a loss.

There have been a few deals. Chevron executed the largest - a $13 billion purchase of Noble Energy. But more big acquisitions are unlikely, said Sven del Pozzo, analyst at IHSMarkit.

"I don't think they're going to go snapping up shale players anytime soon. A lot of these companies haven't even been able to prove that they can make money with what they have," he said.

Occidental recently said it would sell assets in Colorado and Utah as it struggles to whittle down its $36 billion debt load.

People were too focused on growth as opposed to really drilling things that make sense," said Brock Hudson, managing director at investment bank and advisory firm Carl Marks Advisors. "It's hard not to appear that you overpaid when we end up in a situation like we are right now.

Overall, Permian basin purchases accounted for nearly a third of the 2016-2019 deals, Ernst and Young said. In the Permian, over 80 deals were done in which exploration and production companies (E&Ps) paid over $10,000 an acre, according to industry information provider Enverus.

"The current price environment is in no way sufficient for a large number of E&Ps in the medium-term, said Artem Abramov, Rystad Energys head of shale research.

Different formulas can be used to evaluate deals, but analysts said Concho Resources Inc's March 2018 purchase of RSP Permian was one of the costliest. The $9.5 billion deal implied a $75,504 purchase price per acre.

Diamondback Energy Incs 2018 purchase of Energen came out to a $54,977 per-acre price, but from a price-per-barrel metric, it was the most expensive Permian deal, according to Wood MacKenzie, at an average Brent price of more than $77 a barrel.

Bankruptcies are expected to pick up in the second half of the year. By July, 32 oil and gas producers filed for bankruptcy, according to law firm Haynes and Boone. After a sharp price drop in 2014, about 100 companies filed for bankruptcy protection in 2015 and 2016, the firm said.

This year's bankruptcies so far left about $49.7 billion of secured and unsecured debt to be settled, compared with $73 billion in 2015 and 2016, Haynes and Boone said.

(Reporting By Jessica Resnick-Ault, Dmitry Zhdannikov, David Gaffen; additional reporting by Ron Bousso; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
But when asked about guidelines for an individual district, or school, a representative for the state Education Department deferred to the state Health Department, which didn't directly respond to the question.

Schools that are set to have some form of in-person attendance to start the school year say they are coordinating closely with the Erie County Health Department on their plans to address a positive Covid-19 test.

School superintendents say they likely would learn about positive results from either the patients themselves, in case of a teacher or staff person; from the parents of a student; or from the county Health Department.

County contact tracers, working from an interview with the Covid-19 positive patient and names provided by the district, will reach out to classmates and others who interacted with the patient to help determine who else needs to stay away from school for a 14-day quarantine.

School leaders also say they think adequate safety measures are in place, so when someone in a school does test positive, the exposure of others in the building will be limited. A person is considered to have been exposed only if they have been within 6 feet of the infected person, without wearing a mask, for more than 10 minutes.
Her task was to provide physiotherapy for people, who do not have access to the treatment due to lack of economical resources or due to social exclusion. How did she look back on her experience and why will you hear about Arancha once again? Find the answers in the interview with her.

Arancha Ferrer de la Cruz, EU Aid Volunteer in Albania (zdroj: Picture:  Arancha Ferrer)

What were your initial expectations in terms of professional development? And how did you expect that volunteering would benefit you on a personal level?

My main expectation was being part of a team, teaching and learning from the others and sharing experiences. I wanted to treat others by myself and be involved in the project process.

Skryt Vypnut reklamu Clanok pokracuje pod video reklamou

Regarding my personal experience, I wanted to get to know the culture and language of the country I was about to live in. At the same time I wanted to travel alone and to learn how to deal with emotional separation from people.

Were your expectations met?

My expectations were somewhat met, even if it wasnt exactly as I expected, I learned a lot. However, I now feel that I am able to work with the patients independently. I am more confident in what I do.

How is life in Albania for an expat? After a year do you still feel like a foreigner or a local?

It depends on where you are from. It can be a big cultural shock if you come from northern Europe, USA or a big city from a developed country. In my case, even if there were some differences regarding gender equality issues, unwritten social rules or working conditions and style; it was easy for me to adapt to the environment.

I have to say that there is a big difference between living in Tirana and living in the countryside. The atmosphere in the capital is much more open-minded and the community of foreigners is more active and involved. Small towns might be more reserve about gender equality issues and they are more conservative. Anyway, I always felt safe and had the feeling that the local community always looked after foreigners.

I cannot say I feel local but I dont even feel as an expat. I made mine a lot of aspects of this culture, I understand why things happen in this or that way. I have made a lot of friends here and I have the feeling I can come whenever I want after my deployment because it has become a home for me.

Arancha and other volunteers she met and made friends with in Albania. (zdroj: Picture:  Arancha Ferrer)

Whats your most memorable experience in Albania?

It is hard to choose one because all of them are full of emotions since I met wonderful people and I discovered super beautiful places.

I will definitely never forget my birthday in Tirana. I was with other volunteers I just met the day before and, suddenly, everything started to shake. It took us a moment to understand that we were witnessing an earthquake, the first one for all of us. Fortunately, neither the people suffered any injuries, nor were any of the houses damaged, and we continued with the celebration. After that, when we could start working again in the centers, my patients sang Cumpleanos feliz, which means happy birthday. I was very surprised and glad to see them again.

Your deployment was unique in terms of experiencing also other, devastating, earthquakes and a global pandemic all within one year. How did that impact you?

None of us would expect all those events happening in such a short time. I am grateful that everyone I know wasn't much affected by that. At the same time I feel sorry for those, whose lives were impacted greately either by the earthquake (destroyed houses, loss of loved ones) or by the epidemy (a lot of them lost their jobs, others couldn't travel abroad for work etc.).

Also, it had an impact on our work since the centres had to close three times (for both, earthquakes and COVID-19) so our patients were not able to benefit from the treatment for a long period of time.

On the personal level, I struggled during the lockdown but now everything is ok.

How is life in Albania, now that the pandemic restrictions have been lifted?

During the pandemic, it was a little confusing due to the constant changes in the measures but I think they acted, in general, appropriately. However, people didnt really care about the restrictions and they didnt take much personal responsibility in fighting it. I think it was partially due to the low risk they felt since there were not so many cases. Additionally, there are no alternatives for people who couldnt stop working, stay at home or maintain the basic hygiene recommendations.

Now, the cases are rising at high rate but for the most of the people it seems like COVID-19 disappeared from Albania. Tourists have started to come (every neighboring country closed their borders with Albania but Albania is letting almost everybody enter), beaches and bars have been opened and it is hard to close them again, even if the situation became much worse than before.

During the first wave of Covid-19 Arancha joined the initiative "Adopt grandma/ grandpa" within which she distributed the food to seniors. Moreover, she made up the initiative to use micro-financing of her project in order to secure the face masks since in Albania there was a shortage of it. (zdroj: Picture:  Arancha Ferrer)

Now, you are back home after a year. How did the Spain you left behind change under the covid-19 pandemic? Was your journey home smooth?

I have to say that I was a little afraid of coming back to Europe due to the high number of cases, the restrictions, increasing police control and hate speech against immigrants, the far right gaining momentum

But, in general, everything is ok. I am with my family now after a long time of not seeing them.

However, my mind is always between two places (or more), talking with people that are far away, wanting to be in different places at the same time and not really having the opportunity to explain those feelings to my loved ones.

The journey home was easy, no big changes at the airports.

Lets get back to your volunteering in Albania. Who were the beneficiaries of your activities?

They were people that for the one or the other reason didnt have access to physiotherapeutic treatment in the public or private health care system.

During this year I had 30 patients, aged between 3 to 80, with different functional diversity, activity limitation and participation restriction. Most of them had chronic diseases and neurological situations that, added to the poor support from the Albanian government and the social barriers, limited them to have a normal life.

Besides that, I participated in the session, where we trained 30 unemployed women in home caring.

How did your workday with patients look like?

I was going to different centres, one in the city and another one in a village. The patients had appointments at the different times and I often worked with them for 40 min - 1 hour depending on the nature of the treatment.

What motivated you the most at your work? On the contrary, what did you find the most challenging and how did you overcome the obstacles?

What motivated me the most was seeing the progress in my patients, seeing them doing things they didnt know they were able to do. I really built a relationship with them from the beginning, I enjoyed talking, laughing and even crying with them. Once the language and cultural barriers were broken, I felt like home and I hope to see them soon.

The most challenging was to understand how the health system works here, e.g. not finding the proper diagnosis of my patients, the lack of material. Since my profession requires me to talk and listen continually to my patients, the language barrier was very challenging when I first met the beneficiaries.

Sometimes,the communication with the staff of the centres was not the best. I had to ask for everything several times to have an overview of the situation of the patients or the work of the centre.

Were you able to observe the impact of your work?

Yes, I saw how my patients improved in their activities and also how the centres changed the way they provide treatment to them.

Some of my patients have several limitations for daily life. I could observe how they improved by doing the exercises and they commented to me changes like having more independence at home, possibility of walking longer distances in the street without help or having more self-confidence to carry out other activities.

Arancha provided physiotherapy to 30 patients who suffered from different disabilities. (zdroj: Picture:  Arancha Ferrer)

Would you recommend volunteering through the EUAV initiative to your friends?

I already recommended the program to a lot of people, I think it is a good initiative to start working in the humanitarian sector.

This programme provides practical support to the local organization, it increases their capacity and helps to reach the beneficiariesmore easily. Also, it is a great opportunity for volunteers to gain experience and start working within the humanitarian aid. Besides, those volunteers receive a very complete training before the project and they have support during the deployment for the ongoing learning and personal and professional development.

The only thing I missed was the language lessons, which I would add to every deployment. I think it is indispensable in becoming part of the local community and for working in a better way with the local team.

You got the chance to continue at NCCS and further develop your work. Whats the reason for your decision to sign up for another volunteering year?

Since the beginning of the deployment I fell in love with the country. I like to stay for a long time in the places I visit to really understand how everything works there. Now that I can speak the language, I think I can contribute in a better way with my work.

Do you have any plans on your work assignment?

I will continue with the patients I had. Besides that I will connect with new ones. I already talked with another centre to collaborate with when I will be back.

What will you do differently in comparison with your beginnings one year ago?

I will start working earlier with patients. I know the places and the language better, so I can be more independent.

Thank you, Arancha, for sharing your memories with us. We wish you all the best, that your second year in Albania brings you at least the same satisfaction and happy patients!

Arancha was an EUAV volunteer in Albania for a year, hosted by NCCS. Her deployment was a part of the project HVA  Humanitarian Volunteers in Action.The project was funded by European Commission under EU Aid Volunteer Programme, managed by The Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) in cooperation with The European Commissions Directorate-General Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (DG ECHO). Adra Slovakia was her sending organisation. Follow our Facebook to see how Arancha will do in her next deployment.
Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi president



on Monday claimed he has received information from the chief minister that places of worship will be reopened "soon" in the state, after the standard operating procedures are chalked out for it.

Ambedkar also claimed that 15 people, including him and members of a Warkari outfit, were given permission to enter the Lord Vitthal temple in Pandharpur town of Solapur on Monday after their protest over the demand for reopening places of worship.

"I have received information from Chief Minister that temples, mosques, Buddha Vihars, Jain temples will be opened in the state soon and guidelines will be readied. It will take at least 8 to 10 days to make the guidelines and after that temples will be reopened," he said in a tweet.

He further tweeted that the state government should take note that if the promise of reopening the religious institutions is not kept, they will again come back to Pandharpur.

Earlier, after entering the temple in Pandhapur, Ambedkar said, "We had 'darshan' (of the deity) today. Our message that we will not move from Pandharpur reached the chief minister and chief secretary and later 15 people were given permission to enter the temple."



Ambedkar said he is thankful to Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray that the sentiments of devotees and people were respected by the state government.

Earlier in the day, scores of members of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi and Warkaris, defying the social distancing norms, launched a protest demanding reopening of Lord Vitthal's temple in Pandharpur.

During their agitation near the temple, which has been shut due to COVID-19 restrictions, Ambedkar said they were waiting for a response from the district collector over the demand and added that "I am here to break rules," prompting the Shiv Sena and the Congress to hit out at him.

The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) is supporting the demand of the Vishwa Warkari Sena, an outfit of devotees of Lord Vitthal, which had given a memorandum to the Solapur district administration seeking that all temples be reopened in

(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.)
With 64 days to go until the election, campaigning is picking up in and around Pennsylvania.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden will deliver a speech Monday in Pittsburgh. On Tuesday, his wife Jill Biden will meet with teachers in Wilmington to kick off a back to school tour, which will eventually wind through Pennsylvania with a stop in Scranton, as well as nine other states, with virtual and in-person visits.

Vice President Mike Pence will be in Luzerne County on Tuesday at a construction company in Exeter. Northeast Pennsylvania has become a frequent destination for both campaigns, given political shifts there that helped Trumpwin the state in 2016. Exeter is a heavily Republican area.

And Trumps daughter-in-law Lara Trump will visit the Bucks County GOP headquarters in Doylestown on Monday. While Bucks County has become more Democratic over the last four years, its one place Trumps campaign hopes to pull back suburban voters, in part with the presidents law-and-order pitch.

 READ MORE: Trump makes a clear bet: Violence in Americas cities will help him beat Biden in states like Pennsylvania

Tuesday will be Jill Bidens first solo in-person event since the campaign went into mostly-virtual mode because of the coronavirus pandemic. The former second lady will begin the tour at Evan G. Shortlidge Academy in Wilmingtons Red Clay school district, the largest district in the state. She will meet in-person with the the Superintendent of the Red Clay School District and other educators, tour classrooms, and then help distribute laptops to students.

Biden is a lifelong educator who taught while second lady. She has said she will continue teaching if her husband becomes president. She delivered her Democratic convention speech from her former classroom in Wilmington. She focused on the pandemics toll on children and families, and on her husbands plan to reopen schools.

 READ MORE: Fact-checking Trumps frequent claim that Joe Biden abandoned Scranton

The busy week follows the parties conventions and an announcement that the Biden campaign will increase in-person campaign visits.

Even when both campaigns were more locked down, Pennsylvania was still a frequent stop for candidates and surrogates, given its proximity to Washington and Wilmington  and the critical role it will play in deciding who wins the White House.
Leo and Espen are assisted by their mother Moira as they homeschool and navigate online learning resources provided by their infant school in the village of Marsden, northern England, on March 23, 2020 Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images

Homeschooling is on the rise in the UK as uncertainties around the reopening of schools has left some parents feeling like they need to take matters into their own hands.

A recent poll found that 30% of UK parents were not planning to send their children back to school, of which 91% said they would continue with homeschooling for the foreseeable future.

Reasons for homeschooling vary, whether its fears that schools aren't opening or because children find it easier to work from home.

Professional tutoring and homeschooling groups have also seen a rise in interest, with one group telling Business Insider that there's been a "surge in demand" since March that has continued into September.

But while there's an uptick in homeschooling interest, there is little guidance and support from the government.

Parents often feel anxious about the responsibilities of teaching their children.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As schools start making preparations to welcome back students amid the coronavirus pandemic, a growing number of parents are taking matters into their own hands and are choosing to homeschool instead.

Homeschooling in the UK has long been regarded as unconventional until now. Health uncertainties that have arisen around the reopening of UK schools this week have left many parents feeling like there's no other choice.

"I kind of feel pushed into this decision. It's not that I don't want my child to go to school, I'm just worried about the risk of allowing them to return," Eleanor, a mother of an 11-year-old, told Business Insider.

Eleanor, who is from the northwest town of Milton Keynes, has asthma and lives with her 90-year-old mother-in-law. She has been leaving her house as little as possible because she is still frightened of catching the disease.

"It feels like we have this little protective bubble which has been running smoothly up until now, and now there's this risk of our son bringing something back. If the reopening of schools and the communication by the government would have been better, perhaps I wouldn't feel this way," she added.

Story continues

A poll by the online agency childcare.co.uk, which surveyed 5,000 parents, found that 30% were not planning to send their children back to school. Of those, 91% said they would continue with homeschooling for the foreseeable future, or until a vaccine is found.

In March, the number of children officially known to be receiving home education rocketed by 119% in parts of England, iN ews reported. While there's no official updated number going into the school year, UK homeschooling organizations say they see a significant uptick in interest.

Hannah Titley, who runs The Golden Circle  the UK's first professional homeschooling group  told Business Insider that there'd been a "surge in demand" since March that has continued into September.

The company, which co-ordinates teams of qualified teachers to deliver lessons to at-home students, has seen an increase of almost 40% since the beginning of lockdown.

A list of home schooling routine is seen at Donna Eddy's home on April 09, 2020 in Sydney, Australia. Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

"We never usually have students sign up for the summer term, but I think the lockdown and school closures forced a lot of parents to try homeschooling who wouldn't have otherwise considered it," Titley told Business Insider.

The UK home education experience is mirrored in the US. Homeschooling applications are surging in several states across America, including Nebraska, North Carolina, Florida, and Vermont.

In North Carolina, so many people applied to homeschool last month that the government website was temporarily unable to accept applications. The National Home School Association also received more than 3,400 requests for information on a single day last month, up from between five and 20 inquiries per day before the coronavirus.

The national school curriculum reexamined

The reasons why people are turning to home education vary drastically and are not always because of pandemic fears.

Some families, for example, found that the online courses offered by schools over the lockdown period weren't efficient or good enough, while others found that their children worked a lot better at home than they ever did at school.

It was the case for Morgan, a mother of a 6-year-old from Canterbury, Kent. She discovered a new side to her daughter during the lockdown and is still debating about sending her to school.

"My main reason for wanting to home educate this year is because my daughter has been much happier at home. I didn't realize truly how anxious she was at school until it stopped and the anxiety disappeared," Morgan told Business Insider.

"Academically she's progressed far more in four months then she has in school ever She's just been happier and more like herself again, which is such a joy. She recently told me: 'I like being homeschooled as when I'm with you mummy I feel like me,'" she added.

For Morgan, being present while her daughter was learning over the lockdown period also put the curriculum under a microscope.

"I think that our school system in this country does not help our kids. Primary education especially, has been researched for many years, and we do it all wrong here. I don't want my daughter to be forced to learn something when her brain is just not ready yet," Morgan said.

Schoolchildren wearing protective mouth masks and face shields attend a course in a classroom at Claude Debussy college in Angers, western France, in May 2020. DAMIEN MEYER/AFP via Getty Images

Parents are left to fend for themselves with little government guidance

But while there's more interest in teaching children at home, parents who've made the decision are faced with little support from the government.

In the UK, parents choosing to homeschool don't have to follow a national curriculum, and taking exams and qualifications are not compulsory either.

"It's quite sad because you're sort of on your own. If you choose to step out of that [school] system, there's not really much support from any officials," Sarah Vaughan, a trained teacher, and mother of three told Insider.

Vaughan is considering not sending her autistic and dyslexic 12-year-son to school because the new regulations would overwhelm him.

"What do you do? Not enough thought has been put into this. It's difficult enough to get 1,500 children back into school, but then there is no effort to look after individual children who have specific needs," Vaughan said.

But the mother considers herself lucky that she has a teaching background and some previous experience in homeschooling. The family homeschooled their son for a year in 2017, but even then, there was little oversight from the local authority.

"I saw a lady from the local authority once, and she came to the house to check if I had a table and a chair, and when I showed her the curriculum I wrote myself that I wanted to follow, she said: 'OK' and left. That was it," Vaughan said.

The government and local authorities also have yet to introduce a compulsory register of homeschooled children  which is hotly debated within the community.

"Most of the homeschooling parents do a great job, but there is a risk that a bunch of students will slip through the gaps and that's a safeguarding concern," said Titley, who alongside The Golden Circle has set up the Home Schooling Association, which advocates for a homeschooling register.

"But there are also a lot of homeschoolers who feel like the government has already done school and it doesn't work, and they don't want that interference in their children's education," she added.

"The thought that I could mess it up for her is a bit terrifying"

Either way, the prospect of teaching your child without much experience or support from the council can be scary and for some parents, who have never homeschooled before, can feel like a huge task.

"The responsibility for educating her would sit squarely and solely on my shoulders," Morgan said. "Making sure I can meet both her educational and emotional needs and the needs of my toddler is a hard one to get right."

Despite there being a lack of guidance on how to conduct home education from the government, parents can tap into plenty of other resources.

"There are a ton of home school groups on Facebook, and there are other groups that organize events for homeschooled children. It's not too difficult to find online material, although it is up to you to tailor the information to your child," said Vaughan.

The mother from Kent launched The Do Try This at Home School website in 2016, where she regularly provides parents with ideas of making homeschooling enjoyable for their children. "I've received a lot of emails in the last few weeks from parents who are unsure what to do," Vaughan said.

Like The Golden Circle, professional homeschooling or tutoring services is also another option for parents, although fees that start at 65 ($86) an hour.

Another alternative is"Flexi-school", which means a child is registered at a school in the usual way but only attends school part-time, while spending the rest of the week educated at home. However, not all schools make this available to students.

Overall, there's a sense that parents are just looking for certainty in a time of upheaval.

"There have been so many U-turns that parents just feel like the government doesn't always know exactly what it's doing. It feels like they're making it up as they go along. But homeschooling allows them to get that control back," said Titley.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Monday, August 31, 2020 at 3:10PM

In case you didn't think the Galaxy Z Fold 2 was premium enough, Samsung will release a special Thom Browne Edition of the foldable device. It gets the fashion imprint's signature mix of the coloured stripes against a gray backdrop, with the camera module matching the design. Like the Thom Browne Edition of the Galaxy Z Flip, the phone should come with matching versions of the Galaxy Buds Live and Galaxy Watch 3.

And this special bundle will for sure cost a pretty penny, making it Samsung's most expensive phone to date. While we don't have a price yet, the Galaxy Z Flip came out at US$2,480 (around CA$3,240). The Galaxy Z Fold 2 is expected to carry a higher starting price than $1,980 ($2,586), so don't be surprised if the Thom Browne Edition of the Galaxy Z Fold 2 crosses the $3,000 ($3,919) mark.

Source: Engadget
C$ unless otherwise stated

TSX/NYSE/PSE: MFC SEHK: 945

TORONTO, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Manulife today announced that Rona Ambrose has resigned from its Board of Directors, effective August 31, 2020, to accept a full-time employment position.

"Rona's experience and perspective have been of great value to the Board during her tenure," said John Cassaday, Chairman of the Board, Manulife. "We appreciate her advice and counsel over the past three years and wish her only the best in the future."

Visit Manulife.com for more information on the Company's Board of Directors and Corporate Governance.

About Manulife

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services group that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we operate as Manulife across our offices in Canada, Asia, and Europe, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States. We provide financial advice, insurance, and wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and institutions. At the end of 2019, we had more than 35,000 employees, over 98,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving almost 30 million customers. As of June 30, 2020, we had $1.2 trillion (US$0.9 trillion) in assets under management and administration, and in the previous 12 months we made $30.6 billion in payments to our customers. Our principal operations are in Asia, Canada and the United States where we have served customers for more than 155 years. We trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges and under '945' in Hong Kong.

SOURCE Manulife Financial Corporation

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Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

The credibility of two of the nation's leading public health agencies is under fire this week after controversial decisions that outside experts say smack of political pressure from President Donald Trump as he attempts to move past the devastating toll of the coronavirus ahead of the November election.

The head of the Food and Drug Administration grossly misstated, then corrected, claims about the life-saving power of a plasma therapy for COVID-19 authorized by his agency last Sunday. Then the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly updated its guidelines to suggest fewer Americans need to get tested for coronavirus, sparking outrage and confusion from scientists.

Trump's own factual misstatements about COVID-19 are well documented, but the back-to-back messaging blunders by public health officials could create new damage, eroding public trust in front-line agencies. That's already raising concerns about whether the administration will be forthcoming with critical details about upcoming vaccines needed to defeat the pandemic.

"I do worry about the credibility of the FDA and CDC, especially at a time when the capacity of the federal government to advance public health should be a priority for all policymakers," said Daniel Levinson, the former longtime inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees both the FDA and the CDC.

Trump administration officials said Wednesday the CDC testing guidance was revised by the White House virus task force "to reflect current evidence" but did not detail what that was. The new recommendations say it's not necessary for most people who have been in close contact with infected people, but don't feel sick, to get tested. Outside experts said that flies in the face of the scientific consensus that wide-scale testing is needed to stamp out new infections.

On Monday, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn was forced to apologize for using an erroneous, misleading statistic describing the effectiveness of a blood plasma therapy granted emergency use for COVID-19, as Trump twisted the facts and inflated the significance of the move.

"He hurt his own credibility, he hurt that of his agency and he probably hurt the credibility of the next vaccine that will get approved," said Daniel Carpenter, a Harvard University professor of government.

The U.S. has invested billions of dollars in efforts to quickly develop multiple vaccines against COVID-19. But public fears that a vaccine is unsafe or ineffective could be disastrous, derailing the effort to vaccinate millions of Americans.

The American Medical Association urged the FDA to set up new processes to keep the medical community in the loop on vaccine developments, warning that public confidence is at stake. The group has also challenged the CDC to produce scientific data to back up its new testing recommendation.

"We need to see light," said Dr. Susan Bailey, AMA's president. "There is a concern that if you are not seeing the data, you have to wonder why."

HHS spokesman Michael Caputo said in a statement that the government's health agencies always work with groups like the AMA to keep doctors informed, and will continue to do so.

The administration's Sunday rollout of the news that the FDA had granted emergency authorization for convalescent plasma in treating COVID-19 was marred by exaggerations and inaccuracies. The blood plasma, taken from patients who have recovered from the coronavirus, is rich in infection-fighting antibodies, which may benefit those still battling the disease.

Trump described the move as "historic" and touted the plasma's "incredible rate of success." But the FDA's own scientific memo made clear that more research is needed to prove whether it works.

Hahn echoed Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar in claiming that 35 more people out of 100 would survive the coronavirus if they were treated with the plasma. That figure grossly overstated preliminary findings from the Mayo Clinic, which cannot be used to draw broader conclusions about survival.

The error amounted to a rookie statistical mistake, particularly egregious for a cancer specialist like Hahn. He apologized for the misstatement more than 24 hours later.

The FDA declined to make Hahn available for an interview but pointed to comments this week in which he said he accidentally misquoted the figure in an effort to simplify the information for patients. He also denied that political pressure played any role in FDA's decision on convalescent plasma.

Dr. Jesse Goodman, FDA's former chief scientist, said convalescent plasma probably met the bar for FDA emergency authorization, which merely requires that potential benefits outweigh risks.

But he and other former FDA staffers said they disagreed with the decision and worried that it followed pressure from Trump.

"I believe that FDA made this decision itself, however that kind of pressure is very toxic and will erode trust in FDA decisions in the future," said Goodman, now a professor at Georgetown University.

FDA staff generally supported the decision on plasma, according to a person familiar with the deliberations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. The authorization makes it easier for U.S. hospitals to use it.

But several top scientists from the National Institutes of Health weren't yet convinced of its effectiveness. The internal debate was first reported last week by the New York Times.

Trump reacted quickly, telling reporters: "It could be a political decision, because you have a lot of people over there that don't want to rush things because they want to do it after Nov. 3."

Then, on Saturday, Trump fired off a Twitter blast aimed at the "deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA."

Pressure from Health Secretary Azar also ratcheted up ahead of the FDA's Sunday authorization, the person familiar with the discussions said.

HHS did not respond to questions about whether Azar pressed the FDA. Instead a spokeswoman referred to recent interviews in which Azar denied politics influenced the decision.

Events surrounding the FDA's plasma decision resembled the agency's March authorization of hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug vigorously promoted by Trump.

After prodding by the White House, the FDA authorized distribution of the drug despite concerns. In June the agency reversed course, after studies showed the drug was ineffective and could cause sometimes fatal heart problems.

Dr. Luciana Borio, who served as FDA's chief scientist during the Ebola outbreak, said FDA's freewheeling use of emergency clearances has confused the public about the effectiveness of unproven treatments like convalescent plasma.

Despite this week's stumbles, Borio said she is confident that FDA's scientists will reject any vaccine that falls short of agency standards.

"I am not the least bit worried that they would quickly bow to political pressure," said Borio. "But obviously their lives would be made much better if they knew their supervisor had their back."

Explore further US floats idea of early approval for eventual vaccine
OTTAWA, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CANARIE announced today that Nunavut has joined Canadas National Research and Education Network (NREN), initiating the process to connect Nunavut to the CANARIE backbone network that links provincial and territorial networks to each other and to the rest of the world. Nunavut will connect to the CANARIE network through its host organization, Nunavut Arctic College. The participation of Nunavut represents the last spike of inclusion for Canadas NREN. This exciting development was celebrated on August 28 at the College through a signing ceremony. Nunavut makes Canadas NREN whole, now comprising all thirteen provincial and territorial partners, and fulfills the Federal mandate to have a pan-Canadian research and education network.



In the short term, CANARIE will support the technical and administrative development of its new NREN partner to optimize and secure access to research and education resources for all Nunavummiut. Equally important, the new partnership improves access for the rest of Canada and the world to research from the rich and diverse communities of Nunavut.

Congratulations to the Nunavut Arctic College for connecting Nunavut to the National Research and Education Network, said the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. This partnership, supported by the Government of Canada through CANARIE, will help advance research partnerships and education in Northern communities across Canada and around the world.

This is an historic moment that fulfills a longstanding goal to extend Canadas NREN to Nunavut. It strengthens ties within Canada and to the global research and education community, said Jim Ghadbane, President and CEO of CANARIE. We are also very grateful to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada for accelerating this initiative by providing additional funding to CANARIE in 2019.

Nunavut Arctic College is honoured to be Nunavuts designated institution in this important network. Over the last year, the college and its government partners have worked to achieve this goal. Signing on to CANARIE is an important stepping stone that will further improve research and education resources for all Nunavummiut, said the Honourable Patterk Netser, Minister responsible for Nunavut Arctic College on the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut.

Canadas NREN partners extend a warm welcome to our new partner Nunavut Territory and its host organization, Nunavut Artic College, said Bala Kathiresan, President of BCNET and Chair of the NREN Governance Committee. The new connectivity will create unprecedented research and education opportunities for the Nunavut community and, in turn, bring the worlds access to research from this vast northern region. Our pan-Canadian approach in building a national network further strengthens Canadian leadership in science and technology.

The NREN is an essential collective of infrastructure, tools, and people that bolsters Canadian leadership in research, education, and innovation. It connects Canadian universities, colleges, cegeps, research hospitals, government research labs, school boards, business incubators and accelerators to each other and to research and education networks around the world. This purpose-built global network enables data-intensive research and education that would not be feasible over commercial networks.

https://youtu.be/1VSxbiPP5ic

For more information, contact:

Kathryn Anthonisen

Vice President, External Relations

CANARIE

kathryn.anthonisen@canarie.ca | 613-943-5374

About CANARIE

CANARIE connects Canadians to each other and to the world. Our programs equip Canadian researchers, students, and startups to excel on the global stage.

Together with our thirteen provincial and territorial partners, we form Canadas National Research and Education Network (NREN). This ultra-high-speed network connects Canadas researchers, educators, and innovators to each other and to global data, technology, and colleagues.

Beyond the network, we fund and promote the development of software for research and national efforts to manage data generated from research. To strengthen the security of Canadas higher-ed sector, we collaborate with our partners in the NREN, government, academia, and the private sector to fund, implement, and support cybersecurity initiatives. We also provide identity management services to the academic community and boost Canadas startups with cloud resources and expertise in emerging technologies.

Established in 1993, we are a non-profit corporation, with most of our funding provided by the Government of Canada.
Police have arrested 11 men across Perth as part of an operation into the grooming of teenagers on social media, after finding 23 of the youngsters had suffered sexual abuse.

The accused predators, aged between 18 and 41, were alleged to have used platforms like Facebook and Instagram to target 140 teenagers across Perth aged as young as 13.

Detectives from the Sex Offender Management Squad launched Operation Timing Belt in April and announced the arrests on Saturday, resulting in 79 sexual offence charges being laid.

At least 11 people have been arrested (pictured) after WA Police launched a four-month-long investigation into an alleged paedophile ring grooming teenagers through social media

The alleged predators (WA Police raid pictured) are accused of utilising popular social media apps like Facebook and Instagram to contact their victims

It is understood at least four of the accused offenders had previous convictions for child sex offences.

The operation identified 140 teenagers aged between 13 and 19 who were targeted by the group, and 23 of them were found to be victims of sexual abuse.

WA Police said some of the accused offenders would compare information about their victims and share the targets.

Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Matt Daly said the accused predators allegedly contacted the teenagers through social media to 'ultimately engage in sexual contact with them'.

'The majority of offences are non-physical communication via popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, and via mobile phones,' he explained.

WA Police also confiscated computer equipment in connection with the alleged abuse as part of the series of raids.

WA Police (pictured) seized computer equipment as evidence alongside the arrests

'Mobile phones and the ongoing rise of social media platforms provides offenders with new ways to reach out to youths in order to commit crimes and we're working hard to crackdown on this behaviour,' Snr Sgt Daly said.

In all, 18 offenders had been charged as part of Operation Timing Belt, with 135 charges laid for non-sexual offences including drug, trespass and animal cruelty offences.

State Crime Assistant Commissioner Brad Royce said Timing Belt showed that parents and children must be vigilant in terms of cyber safety.

'They come in from likes and friends from other people and they get accepted and then they start grooming.

'You wouldn't let a stranger into your home if they randomly knocked on the front door  likewise, you shouldn't allow someone to access your online profile unless you know them,' Mr Royce said.

WA Police are continuing the investigation under Operation Timing Belt.
KIGALI  The Rwanda Investigations Bureau (RIB) has confirmed the arrest of Paul Rusesabagina, an opposition figure living in exile in Europe.

A source has told this Website that Mr. Rusesabagina was arrested in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital at the weekend.

RIB revealed on Monday, August 31, 2020 that Mr.Rusesabagina was arrested through international cooperation and is in their custody.

Rusesabagina is suspected to be the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits including MRCD and PDR-Ihumure, operating out of various places in the region and abroad, said RIB.

Rusesabagina who was paraded before the media is currently detained at Remera Police Station while his case file is being processed in accordance with Rwandan criminal procedure.

According to RIB, the suspect has been subject of an International Arrest Warrant, wanted to answer charges of serious crime including terrorism, arson, kidnap and murder, perpetrated against unarmed, innocent Rwandan civilians on Rwandan territory including in Nyabimata  Nyaruguru district in June 2018 and in Nyungwe  Nyamagabe district in December 2018.

Rusesabagina was a humanitarian who, while working as a manager at the Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali, hid and protected 1,268 Hutu and Tutsi refugees from the Interahamwe militia during the Rwandan genocide.

None of these refugees were hurt or killed during the attacks.

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Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died in 2011. Many thought his ability to lead the technology company would be impossible to replace. However, the current head of Apple, Tim Cook, seems to be doing extremely well.

Cook was at first believed to be little more than a caretaker for Apple after Jobs death. But Cook has continued to build Apple with his own skill and ideas. He will celebrate his ninth year as Apples Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Monday.

Training Cook to take over the company was one of Steve Jobs greatest accomplishments, said Apple analyst Gene Munster.

The companys stock market value was $400 billion when Cook became CEO. Its stock is worth five times that amount today. It is the first U.S. company to have a market value of $2 trillion.

However, Cook has faced many problems as the companys head. They included a slowdown in iPhone sales as smartphones outgrew their newness. Another was an argument with the FBI over user privacy. In addition to that is the U.S. trade war with China which threatens to force up iPhone prices, and the pandemic that has closed many Apple stores and sunk the economy into a deep recession.

Cook has also done some things that Jobs refused to do. Apple now pays a dividend, which Jobs did not want. Cook also has used his position to become a supporter of civil rights and renewable energy. In 2014, he became the first openly gay CEO of a major American company.

However, Apple has not brought out a product that creates a new market as it did with the iPhone. Its smartwatch and wireless ear buds are good products, but not nearly as revolutionary as the iPhone was.

Cook and other company officials have suggested that Apple wants to make a revolutionary product in the field of augmented reality. It would use phone screens or high-tech eyewear to create digital pictures. But, Apple has not yet offered such a product.

Apple also appears to be behind in the creation of artificial intelligence, especially for voice-activated digital assistants. Although Apples Siri is used on Apple devices, people have accepted Amazons Alexa and Googles digital assistant more easily.

Cook has also made some mistakes.

In 2017, Cook angered iPhone users by slowing the performance of older iPhones with software updates. The users believed the company did it to force them to buy new and more costly iPhones. The company later paid $500 million to end a legal case over the issue. Apple also faced government investigations into its attempts to lower its corporate tax.

Cook has been most worried about the fall in sales of iPhones as people keep the devices longer. Four years ago, he rebuilt the Apple app store which provides programs for use on Apple devices. He placed importance on subscriptions services that can be used by the 1.5 billion iPhones already in use. That effort has added more than $50 billion each year to Apples income.

Im Susan Shand.

The Associated Press reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

analystn. a person who studies or analyzes something

pandemicn. the fast spread of an infectious disease over a very large area

dividendn. an amount of a companys profits that is payed to people who own stock in the company

gayadj. sexually attracted to someone of the same sex

ear buds n. devices placed in the ears for listening

augmented reality n. increasing experience through the use of interactive digital and computer-generated information

screenn. a flat, electronic device that shows images from a TV, computer, phone or other device

artificial intelligence n. an area of computer science that deals with developing machines the ability to behave as though they have human intelligence
Russian President and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko have agreed to meet in Moscow "in the coming weeks", the Kremlin said in a statement.

During a phone call on Sunday, Putin and Lukashenko reaffirmed their common position to further strengthen the Russian-Belarusian alliance and mutually expand beneficial cooperation in all areas, Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the specific date for the Putin-Lukashenko meeting has not been set yet.

Earlier this week, Putin said that regards Lukashenko as the legitimate President of Belarus, and Moscow was ready to intervene if the situation in Belarus gets out of control, although only as a last resort.

Belarus has been witnessing mass protests after Lukashenko, who has been in office since 1994, won a sixth term in the August 9 elections.

According to official results, Lukashenk won more than 80 per cent of the votes and opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya garnered only 10 per cent.

There were no independent observers and the opposition has alleged massive vote rigging.

The European Union has also refused to recognize the results and threatened to impose sanctions.

--IANS

ksk/

(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.)
Jacob Blake Sr., father of Jacob Blake, Jr., speaks at the Lincoln Memorial during the "Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks" protest in Washington on Aug. 28, 2020. (Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump Not Scheduled to Meet With Blake Family

President Donald Trump is not currently scheduled to meet with Jacob Blakes family when he visits Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday.

Currently, the plans are to meet with local law enforcement and some business owners, and hell survey the damage, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters in Washington.

Pressed on whether Trump will connect in person with Blakes relatives, she added: Not currently.

In a separate appearance on Fox & Friends, the press secretary said the Trump administration has been working on connecting with the Blake family.

We are efforting outreach, have not been able to connect yet. So tomorrow the plan is, so far, to go and to meet with law enforcement and to look at the damage from the riots, but we are holding his family close to our hearts, she said.

Benjamin Crump, an attorney that is representing the Blake family, said during an appearance on MSNBC that he hasnt received calls from the White House.

My office has received no calls to set up any kind of meeting, Crump said, adding that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden reached out last week.

Letetra Widman, Blakes sister, during the same show declined to say whether she would meet with Trump. Blakes father also declined to say definitively whether he would.

Ben Williamson, an aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, said via Twitter that the lawyer may be misinformed.

Meadows has reached out on behalf of POTUS and left multiple messages with the family since last week. Hes also spoken several times with Julia Jacksons pastor, as recently as this morning, he said.

Julia Jackson, mother of Jacob Blake, speaks in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 25, 2020. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)

Jackson is Blakes mother.

McEnany told reporters that part of the outreach was to the Blake family while another part was to a pastor.

Trump said on Saturday that hes looking into what happened with Blake.

Ill be getting reports and Ill certainly let you know pretty soon, Trump said. It was not a good sight. I didnt like the sight of it, certainly, and I think most people would agree with that.

Trump is not willing at this time to weigh in more than he has, McEnany said on Monday.

Blake, 29, was shot by a police officer in Kenosha on Aug. 23. Blake was wanted for sexual assault and was the subject of a 911 call regarding a boyfriend being at a home; his girlfriend said he was not supposed to be there.

After officers arrived, they tried arresting Blake, who fought with them and fought through two tasers, Wisconsin Department of Justice investigators said. Blake then walked to the drivers side door of his vehicle and leaned inside, prompting one officer to shoot his back.

Blake was rushed to a hospital in Milwaukee via helicopter. The officers involved were placed on leave pending an investigation.
NEW YORK, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Workcred has joined a partnership with industry and academia to support industry-recognized apprenticeship programs (IRAPs), as part of a $12 million apprenticeship grant from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).

Under the grant, Dallas College, the American Hospital Association, Workcred, and Bufflehead Strategies, LLC are joining forces to support the creation of curricula, training programs, and nationally recognized certifications for successful apprentices in non-clinical healthcare professions.

The DOL apprenticeship grants support the training of apprentices in new or expanded apprenticeship programs and will serve to increase apprenticeship opportunities for all Americans, including veterans, military spouses, and service members transitioning into the civilian workforce. The grants will also support groups that are underrepresented in apprenticeships such as women, people of color, and Americans transitioning from the justice system to the workforce.

As part of this effort, Workcred and Bufflehead Strategies, LLC will help recruit and provide subject matter expertise in the development and implementation of healthcare IRAPs. In addition, Workcred and all project partners will develop training and structured on-the-job learning materials. These newly created IRAPs will be formally recognized by DOL, and students who complete the IRAPs will have earned a relevant nationally recognized certification.

"We are thrilled to contribute to this important effort, and we look forward to collaborating to create new healthcare apprenticeship opportunities for all Americans," said Dr. Roy Swift, executive director, Workcred.

What is an Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Program (IRAP)? IRAPs are high-quality apprenticeship programs that provide individuals with opportunities to obtain workplace-relevant knowledge and progressively advancing skills. IRAPs include a paid-work component and an educational component and result in an industry-recognized credential. The creation of IRAPs stem from a June 2017 Executive Order seeking to expand apprenticeships in the U.S.

Related News Stories

U.S. Department of Labor Makes Major Announcement on Apprenticeship Expansion

DCCCD, Department of Labor announce $12 million apprenticeship grant

DCCCD receives $12 million grant to offer 'earn and learn' health care apprenticeships

DOL taps AHA to expand health care apprenticeship programs

About Workcred

Formed in 2014, Workcred is an affiliate of the American National Standards Institute whose mission is to strengthen workforce quality by improving the credentialing system, ensuring its ongoing relevance, and preparing employers, workers, educators, and governments to use it effectively. Workcred's vision is a labor market that relies on the relevance, quality, and value of workforce credentials for opportunities, growth, and development. Learn more at www.workcred.org.

About the American Hospital Association (AHA)

The AHA is the national organization that represents and serves all types of hospitals, health care networks, and their patients and communities. Nearly 5,000 hospitals, health care systems, networks, other providers of care, and 43,000 individual members come together to form the AHA. Through their representation and advocacy activities, AHA ensures that members' perspectives and needs are heard and addressed in national health policy development, legislative and regulatory debates, and judicial matters. Advocacy efforts include the legislative and executive branches as well as the legislative and regulatory arenas. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends.

About Dallas College

Dallas College, formerly the Dallas County Community College District, was founded in 1965, and comprises seven campuses: Brookhaven, Cedar Valley, Eastfield, El Centro, Mountain View, North Lake and Richland. Dallas College offers online learning, and serves more than 83,000 credit and 25,000 continuing education students during the fall and spring semesters. Dallas College also offers dual credit for students in partner high schools and early college high schools throughout Dallas County. Dr. Joe May, the college's 7th chancellor, has established the Dallas College higher education network in partnership with area school districts, colleges and universities, businesses, community organizations and others to support student success and college completion by removing barriers and providing services that help them earn a college credential and start their professional careers.

About Bufflehead Strategies, LLC

Bufflehead Strategies, LLC is a consulting firm utilizing extensive experience in strategy development and the credentialing industry to advise and provide program and issue management to aid the federal government and the private sector in the strategic development, utilization, recognition, and understanding of professional credentials across all industries.

SOURCE Workcred

Related Links

http://www.workcred.org


The peak of the Atlantic hurricane season is almost here, and forecasters are watching four areas for possible tropical development this week as the calendar turns to September.

September is the peak month of hurricane season, and the most active day of the year is around Sept. 10 on average, according to Weather.com. Tropical storms and hurricanes can form just about anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean this time of year, Weather.com said, and an estimated 71% of hurricane activity is still yet to come.

"We are still monitoring four systems," the National Hurricane Center said Monday, "but two have the highest chances of development." One is near the Carolinas and the other is in the Caribbean, and both have a high chance of becoming a tropical depression, the hurricane center said.

The other two tropical waves in the eastern Atlantic have low probabilities of development.

Forecasters are watching four separate areas for possible tropical development in the Atlantic Basin this week.

"The first and most immediate threat for development is tracking away from Florida and will move along the Southeast coast of the United States early this week. Other than an increase in surf and showers along the Carolina coast on Monday and Tuesday, this does not appear to be a significant threat to the United States," AccuWeather senior meteorologist Adam Douty said.

The system in the Caribbean also has a high chance of becoming a tropical depression, and it's likely forecast track puts in on a path toward Central America over the next few days. The hurricane center gave it an 80% chance of development over the next five days.

The hurricane center is also watching a pair of tropical waves in the central and eastern Atlantic for development this week, Weather.com reported. "These two systems are far from land and only slow development is expected at this time," Weather.com said.

The next names on the 2020 hurricane list are Nana and Omar, followed by Paulette and Rene.

Predictions of an active hurricane season have certainly come true so far: The 2020 hurricane season tally now includes 13 named storms and four hurricanes  Hanna, Isaias, Laura and Marco.

Story continues

Earlier this month, federal forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted as many as 25 named storms this year.

More: We're in for an 'extremely active' hurricane season: Up to 25 named storms are possible, NOAA says

Seven named systems have made landfall in the continental United States this year, a record amount to have occurred by the end of August, AccuWeather said. This record was set when Laura made landfall on Aug. 27, breaking the previous marks set in 1886 and 1916 with six through the end of August, according to Colorado State University meteorologist Phil Klotzbach.

Category 4 Laura, which hit near Cameron, Louisiana, just south of Lake Charles, before abating nearly 12 hours later, packed 150-mph winds and a storm surge that officials said was as high as 15 feet in some areas.

Eighteen deaths in Texas and Louisiana have been attributed to the storm. More than 300,000 homes and businesses remained without power in Louisiana on Monday, according to poweroutage.us.

Contributing: The Associated Press; Cheryl McCloud, Treasure Coast Newspapers; Kimberly Miller, The Palm Beach Post

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hurricanes: Forecasters watching four areas for tropical development
Scrap the carbon tax. Defund the CBC. What might OToole do as prime minister?, Aug. 25

Erin OToole, the new leader of the federal Conservative Party, has said he would defund CBC television news if he became prime minister. I am a 65-year-old Canadian who was born and grew up here. I have always relied on both CBC radio and CBC television.

As a child, I was watching programs like Chez Helene and The Friendly Giant and my children watched programs like Mr. Dressup and their favourite show, Sharon, Lois and Bram.

As an adult, CBC news network is always my choice for up-to-the-minute news across the country, all day long. Especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, I always turn to CBC news, which provides coverage in every province and territory on the pandemic. I rely on The National for my news coverage in the evenings.

To end government funding for the CBC would be a travesty, as there is no other broadcaster that covers the entire country. We need our public broadcaster.
A man was left with critical injuries after a shooting Sunday night in East Boston, according to news outlets.

Boston EMS and police responded shortly after 10:40 p.m. to a report of a shooting at Cunard Way and London Street, which is where Lombardi Memorial Park is located, NBC 10 reported.

The person was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital with life-threatening wounds, according to a report from WCVB.

Nobody else was wounded in Sundays shooting, according to the news outlet.

Homicide detectives are investigating the shooting, authorities told NBC 10. Anyone with information has been urged to call the Boston Police Departments tip line at (617) 343-4470.

Individuals can also anonymously call the departments CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1 (800) 494-TIPS or text the word TIP to CRIME (27463).
The 27th edition of the Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF), which would have taken place at the China International Exhibition Center from August 26 to August 30, kicked off its virtual version last week.

The first phase of a year-long Smart BIBF, programming began August 26 with the launch of Smart Rights Link and the BIBF Global Reading Festival. More than 1,000 exhibitors from 68 countries have registered for Smart Rights Link and uploaded more than 23,000 titles. Some 400,000 titles are expected to be available through the platform, which will remain operational until December 31. Online meetings for rights negotiations can be arranged until October 26. Smart BIBF also offers three business-matchmaking round tablesChina-Asia, China-Europe, and China-Americathat will take place on September 28, 29, and 30, respectively.

The Global Reading Festival, meanwhile, provides free livestreamed events from more than 100 publishing houses and cultural institutions from around the world, including the British Library on its classic collection.

In recent years, the U.K. has had the biggest overseas contingent at BIBF, and this has not changed with the virtual fair: more than 53 U.K. companies have registered and 1,200 titles uploaded for rights negotiation. The fair also boasts 97 new exhibitors, including 10 publishers from Latin Americaincluding AZ Editora (from Argentina), Amanuense (Uruguay), and Somplemente (China)as well as those from Armenia and Cape Verde. For these new exhibitors, the savings on airfares and accommodations, in addition to having the convenience of a virtual platform, are the major attractions.

Signs of Book Sales Improvement

As the virtual fair began, industry professionals were also watching results of China's first major shopping festival of the year. Organized by JD.com, Chinas second-largest e-commerce company, the 618 Shopping Festival, which ran from June 1 to June 18 (hence the name 618), is a significant barometer on consumer spending and confidence.

Compared to the previous festival, sales of childrens books and educational titles for elementary and middle schools went up 43% and 40%, respectively. Sales of translated titles increased 57% while e-books experienced a huge sales boost. The Chinese edition of DK Natural History: The Ultimate Visual Guide to Everything on Earth was the #1 title on the bestseller list, which also saw Rhonda Byrnes The Secret and a 40-volume Detective Sherlock Holmes illustrated series for primary school student among the top 10. As for e-books, the Harry Potter Complete Series dominated the sales chart.

In the January-June 2020 period, book sales via online channels went up 17.9% while sales at bricks-and-mortar bookstores declined 31.7% compared to the same period in the previous year, according to Centrin Ecloud, a Shanghai-based big-data platform for Chinas publishing industry. The report showed indications that bookstore sales were improving, with data for May and June showing that sales at physical bookstores were at 80% (or above) of pre-pandemic levels.

Two categories showed the biggest year-on-year growth during the JanuaryJune period: sales of picture books rose 69.4% and sales of childrens encyclopedia/reference titles at 42.95%. The growth in these categories was directly attributed to the closure of kindergartens, parks, and libraries throughout the country, which boosted more parent-child reading activities at home. But with classroom education shifting to online during the Covid-19 outbreak, sales of textbooks and supplementary materials dropped significantly. The postponement of various examinations also affected the sales of test guides and exam preparation materials.

The Centrin report noted that only 42,763 new titles entered the Chinese book market during the first six months of 2020, marking a 27.7% decline compared the the same period last year. This was mostly due to publishers delaying new releases in light of the uncertainties caused by the pandemic and the resulting economic slowdown. The next six months, the report stated, will see Chinese publishers accelerating their programs to make up for the time (and revenue) lost.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 1)  President Rodrigo Duterte instructed on Monday the reshuffling of regional offices in three government agencies within two to three days to curb corruption in these offices.

Duterte identified the three government agencies as the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), Bureau of Customs (BOC), and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

The President particularly addressed his order to BOC Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero and newly appointed PhilHealth President and Chief Executive Officer Dante Gierran, who is present in the weekly Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Infectious Diseases meeting on Monday.

RELATED: Malacanang defends new PhilHealth chief, says Gierran has 'no record of corruption'

I want to see a reshuffle of different regional offices within the next two or three days. That goes for the NBI and PhilHealth, said Duterte in his weekly address to the nation.

Duterte's spokesperson, Harry Roque, later clarified that NBI is not included in the agencies that need to undergo a revamp.

The President added those who refuse to surrender their positions despite being linked to corruption issues must report to him directly.

I will ask them to do a research on how not to serve the government properly, said Duterte.

The President also particularly cited the regional vice presidents of PhilHealth, who should be removed from their posts.

Remove all the regional vice presidents  whether performing at par, or in parity, with the other good ones. You know if they [have been] there for so long a time, the element of familiarity always enters the picture. Thats what complicates things, he instructed Gierran.

The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee earlier recommended the immediate firing of all regional directors in PhilHealth, alleging that some were behind the "mafia" conducting fraudulent schemes in the agency.

Gierran, who will replace Ricardo Morales who was advised by Duterte to step down due to his medical condition, will take on the gargantuan task of cleaning up the state health insurance firm hounded by corruption and fraud allegations including overpayments to hospitals and procurement of overpriced new equipment.

The President last implemented a massive reshuffle in NBI in 2016 upon assuming the presidency to strengthen the government's campaign against illegal drugs. He appointed Gierran as the law enforcement agency's director, a post he served until February this year when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 65.

Duterte also lashed back at Guerrero in his speech, who he said relied more on people who are old hands at the agency. He added the Customs chief requested for more firearms for their officers, but they did not kill anyone who is involved in the illegal drug trade.

Sabi ko diretso 'Ang droga pumapasok pa rin.' Gusto ko pumatay ka diyan ng Tutal back up-an kita, hindi ka makulong. Basta droga, barilin, patayin mo. Iyan ang usapan eh, said the President.

He told Guerrero, who was appointed in October 2018, to "shape up."

Last August 25, Duterte called out Guerrero's chief of staff Teodoro Jumamil who he claimed is a corrupt official and is using their ties to be absolved of his crimes. In the same speech, he vouched for the Custom Chief's honesty.

Last year, Guerrero faced complaints at the Office of the Ombudsman for what was said to be the illegal appointments of Jumamil and three others at the Bureau of Customs. The complainant claimed the appointees were not qualified for their posts and that they began working in November 2018, when their appointment papers only came out only in May 2019.
ANN ARBOR, MI - With the first day of classes underway on the University of Michigan campus, some faculty members continue to voice concerns about the universitys ability to have a safe in-person fall semester.

During a faculty senate meeting that drew more than 500 viewers on Zoom on Friday, Aug. 28, several UM faculty asked once again that UM switch to a virtual fall semester. They shared grave concerns about on campus safety, the universitys ability to provide adequate testing on campus and police enforcement of coronavirus pandemic-related rules.

It seems evident that just testing symptomatic individuals and random surveillance testing to learn of the overall infection rate are not adequate to pinpoint outbreaks early enough to intervene and to stop their spread, UM Professor of Philosophy Peter Railton said during the meeting, noting the university should declare the first few weeks of classes entirely remote to reduce the concentration of students on campus.

The University Record noted members of the faculty senate may bring forward motions to be considered for votes at a follow-up meeting planned for Sept. 16.

Faculty senate concerns during the meeting came in addition to other communications sent to university administration asking for more transparency and the slowing resumption of in-person classes.

In late July UMs COVID-19 Ethics and Privacy Committee delivered an advisory report to the administration, articulating ethical risks for reopening the university for on-campus instruction and residence.

The report stated UM has an obligation not only to its students, faculty, and staff, but also to surrounding communities, the state and the country to carefully manage the risks of creating hot spots of COVID-19 viral infection. UM should do its part in creating the conditions for restoring vital functions - like K-12 public education - and normal economic activities in the society more widely, the letter from the committee stated.

Another letter from concerned faculty to UM regents further relayed concerns that the decision to bring classes back in-person was ill-advised, asking that the university revise its plans like Michigan State University, Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina.

It is far more likely that the university leadership committed far too early to a course of action that now emerges to be deeply unwise, possibly fatally so, the Aug. 20 letter states.

We are putting at risk not only the UM community but the city of Ann Arbor and the state of Michigan. And when we inevitably close far in advance of the official Thanksgiving date, we will send thousands of students back to communities across America and the world.

UM addressed the concerns after the meeting with specific regard to testing. Surveillance testing of asymptomatic students, faculty and staff is anticipated to cover approximately 3,000 individuals a week. There were 1,500 tests for students moving into affiliated fraternity and sorority houses. Additionally, the university is exploring plans to increase testing capacity to 3,000 daily, UM Spokeswoman Kim Broekhuizen said.

Before arriving on campus, students were required to observe a 14-day period of enhanced social distancing at home. About 600 quarantine rooms have been set aside for students, if needed.

UM COVID-19 data indicates there have been reports of five students and seven employees testing positive for the virus in data posted in the last 2 days. Two cases of the novel coronavirus were confirmed in UMs West Quad residence hall, university officials confirmed Friday.

The percentage positive tests during the previous week was 1.3%, while ResponsiBLUE data shows that less than 0.3% of individuals are reporting illness-like symptoms.

Leading up to the arrival of students on campus last week, UM President Mark Schlissel noted 5,800 individuals living in Michigan Housing had completed pre-arrival tests for the virus.

In different parts of the country, including some areas in Michigan, we are seeing increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases, Schlissel said. Often, outbreaks are being traced to events where people did not follow public health guidance. These include gatherings without appropriate social distancing, and those in enclosed spaces without face coverings. Indoors and out, it will be essential that you wear a face covering and keep the density of people low while youre socializing.

Members of the UM Graduate Employees Organization began a die-in on the campus Diag at noon on Monday to draw attention to the human cost of the universitys decision to return to a residential semester.

READ MORE:

2 coronavirus cases identified at University of Michigan dorm

University of Michigan students talk safe socializing: You basically have to start ranking your friends

Heres what we saw in Ann Arbor and on University of Michigans campus Friday night
She recently returned home from a romantic getaway to Dubai with her beau Tom Brazier.

And Laura Anderson looked smitten as she stepped out hand-in-hand with her fitness instructor boyfriend in London on Sunday.

The Love Island star, 31, put on a leggy display in a mint green shirt dress as she made her way to The Ned for a roast dinner with friends.

Wow: Laura Anderson, 31, put on a leggy display in a mint green shirt dress as she made her way to The Ned, London, for a roast dinner with her boyfriend Tom Brazier

The Scottish beauty looked sensational in the buttoned-down ensemble which revealed a glimpse of her ample assets.

Styling her caramel tresses in loose waves, Laura kept her makeup to a minimum as she added a slick of gloss and a dash of bronzer to accentuate her holiday glow.

Finishing her look, Laura flaunted her toned pins in nude Dior slingback heels featuring a 'J'Dior' ribbon and carried her essentials in a miniature beige Balenciaga tote bag.

Smitten: The Scottish beauty looked sensational in the buttoned-down ensemble which revealed a glimpse of her ample assets

Meanwhile Tom looked effortlessly cool in a crisp white t-shirt teamed with a light-wash denim jacket.

He paired his look with black skinny jeans and white Balmain trainers for the occasion.

On her Instagram Stories, Laura offered a glimpse of her traditional dinner in the five-star members' club as she panned to the grand decor in the restaurant.

Cute: Laura held up her glass of bubbly and winked at the camera, captioned: 'Leaving doooo' (left) before she poked the buttons of her dress, captioned 'help' (right)

In a playful boomerang, Laura held up her glass of bubbly and winked at the camera, captioned: 'Leaving doooo.'

Following her dinner, the reality star poked the buttons of her dress, captioned 'help', and added: 'Hi, I have just had a roast!'

She later shared a video in the back of a taxi with friends as she put safety first in a pink face mask.

Safety first: She later shared a video in the back of a taxi with friends and donned a pink face mask

Earlier this month Laura shared a slew of snaps from her holiday to Dubai with Tom.

The couple appear to be going from strength-to-strength, and have been marking off multiple trips abroad since the lockdown restrictions relaxed.

Laura appeared in much better spirits compared to her trip last month, where she and her boyfriend were left extremely shaken after they were targeted by a thief as they enjoyed a late-night walk in Barcelona.

Taking to her Instagram stories, the emotional star urged her followers to be safe as she recounted the terrifying incident.

She said: 'So last night was horrible. Me and Tom decided to walk for a bit, try and get a photo and basically got mugged

'Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. You just get this gut feeling these two guys were watching us. Tom kept saying, 'It's fine, it's fine', and we hailed a cab to go home.

'Tom opened the door for me and was like 'in you go' and I was like 'it's fine, I'll go round to the side' which I'm glad I did because when Tom went to get in, the guy came from nowhere and pushed him.'
The diplomats call on the international community to continue the active protection of the rights and freedoms of inhabitants of occupied Crimea.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Ukraine strongly protests against yet another wave of illegal searches and detentions of residents of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.

"According to the available information, following searches in their houses, Aider Kadyrov (village of Rozlyvy, Nizhnyohirskyy district), Ayder Abliakimov (village of Soniachna Dolyna, Sudak district), Rydvan Umerov (town of Sudak), and Enver Topchi (urban village of Ichki (Sovietskyy), Ichki district) were illegally detained. During the previous wave of arrests in July, the occupation administration detained seven Crimean Tatars," the ministry said on its website.

Read alsoUkraine condemns another illegal raid of Crimean Tatar homes on occupied peninsulaAccording to the diplomats, Russia has systematically used a repressive apparatus to persecute journalists, including citizen journalists, and activists, and continues to pursue a policy of persecuting all those who disagree with the occupation. Representatives of the Crimean Tatar people suffer the most from this repressive policy.

"We expect the Russian Federation to fully implement UN GA Resolutions 68/262 of March 27, 2014 'Territorial Integrity of Ukraine' and 'Situation of Human Rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol (Ukraine)' 2016-2019, as well as the Order of the International Court of Justice on the application of provisional measures in the framework of the case initiated by Ukraine against the Russian Federation concerning the application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination," reads the report.

"We demand that Russia immediately release the four persons detained today, as well as all Ukrainian citizens illegally detained by Russia. Presently, Russia illegally detains about 100 Ukrainian citizens behind bars."

"We call on the international community to continue the active protection of the rights and freedoms of inhabitants of occupied Crimea and to increase pressure on Russia to end its gross human rights violations on the temporarily occupied peninsula," the Foreign Ministry said.

Crimea raids: background
The United States, Britain and Norway applauded the peace agreement announced Monday between Sudans transitional government and rebels of the Sudan Revolutionary Front.

The three countries, known as the Sudan Troika, called the agreement the first step to restore stability and hope for the Sudanese people who have suffered for years amid violent conflict.

The peace agreement lays a foundation for sustainable peace and stability in Darfur and other conflict-affected areas that is critical for Sudans democratic transition, the Troika said in a statement.

They said both sides had made important concessions and urged the implementation of the deal in good faith, pointing to the need for more peace talks with other rebel groups.

They said the risks to sustainable peace remain high given ongoing violence in Darfur, Port Sudan and South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

The Troika urges the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-North-Abdelaziz al-Hilu and the Sudan Liberation Movement-Abdulwahid Al Nur to build on this achievement and to engage in serious negotiations with the government, they said.

The Troika urges Sudans diverse communities to overcome old enmities and to unite to support this singular opportunity for lasting peace.

The deal agreed Monday is seen as a crucial step towards ending 17 years of conflict in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed.

Fighting in Darfur alone left around 300,000 people dead after rebels took up arms there in 2003, according to the United Nations, with former government leaders accused of carrying out genocide and of crimes against humanity.
Brace yourself, America: This election is going to be chaotic and unnerving, thanks to both the virus and President Trumps sabotage.

The answer is for all of us, in both parties, to show an iron determination to make our votes count, starting today.

This is not the year to just wait for election day to cast a ballot, but to make a plan to hammer through any barriers that may stand in the way. People have faced voting barriers before in America -- getting beaten up, or tear gassed, or forced to swelter in endless lines.

This is our moment, our civil challenge, our chance to continue their fight for democracy.

Coronavirus itself is a once-in-a-lifetime challenge. In-person voting could be hazardous, and most people have no experience with mail-in ballots.

This is really stressing our election system on the best day, says Myrna Perez, a Brennan Center expert and seasoned elections lawyer from Jersey City.

And this is not our best day. Weve never had a president actively try to sabotage the legitimacy of our election, by saying he may not accept the outcome. Republicans have worked to limit voting hours and access, especially in minority neighborhoods.

They have filed lawsuits against states like New Jersey that are working to ease access to mail-in voting. The president keeps lying about imagined fraud in mail-in ballots, a cynical attempt to set the stage for challenges. This is the stuff of tinpot dictatorships.

So prepare to navigate the chaos, to escort your own vote to the finish line. Democrats, at least, are pounding away at that message. Even though its 90 degrees outside and its still August, we have less than 70 days to go until the election, the executive director of the Democratic State Committee, Saily Avelenda, reminds us. So we all have to be prepared. Make a plan.

It is telling that the Republican chair, Doug Steinhardt, didnt bother to chime in. Hes all in for Trump, whos seeking to sabotage the mail service for his political advantage. Dont wait until Election Day: Check your registration now, and make sure its up to date. You can do it online.

Vote as early as you can, by mail or in person. Mail-in ballots should go out by the first week of October, so if yours is missing, call your county clerk. And dont hesitate to send it back in. Experts worry these forms may not be processed quickly enough, due to postal delays.

If you do decide to vote in person on Election Day, account for congestion. Work it out with your boss, so you have more time if the polls are confusing. Pack a lunch and dinner if you must, as Michelle Obama suggested.

Voting, like exercising, often falls into that gap between good intentions and action. The weather may be bad. You may not have a babysitter. Who knows what other hurdles will be thrown in your way.

So, ensure your voice is heard. Push back on those who are trying to mess with our democracy. Make a plan now.

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Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.

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Hacker group John Wick is said to be responsible for the Paytm Mall database breach.

IMAGE: The headquarters of Paytm, India's leading digital payments firm, in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Photograph: Sankalp Phartiyal / Reuters.com.

Paytm Mall, the e-commerce arm of unicorn Paytm, has suffered a "massive" data breach and a cybercrime group has demanded ransom as it has gained unrestricted access to the platform's entire database, according to a report by cyber security intelligence firm Cyble.

Hacker group John Wick is said to be responsible for the Paytm Mall database breach.

"According to the messages forwarded to us by our source, the perpetrator claimed the hack happened due to an insider at Paytm Mall. The claims, however, are unverified, but possible," the report said.

The ransom demanded was pegged at 10 ETH (ether coins), equivalent to $4,000.

Cyble also said the perpetrator is in the process of receiving the ransom payment from the Paytm Mall, citing sources. "At this stage, we are unaware that the ransom was paid."

Paytm, however, said that it did not find any evidence of data breach, during investigation.

"We would like to assure that all user, as well as company data, is completely safe and secure. We have noted and investigated the claims of a possible hack and data breach, and these are absolutely false," a spokesperson of Paytm Mall said in response to a query.

"We invest heavily in our data security, as you would expect. We also have a Bug Bounty program, under which we reward responsible disclosure of any security risks. We extensively work with the security research community and safely resolve security anomalies," the spokesperson added.

John Wick is a notorious hacking group or actor who broke into multiple India companies, and collected ransoms from various organisations. The actor has other aliases such as South Korea, HCKINDIA. One of the tactics used by this group is to act as a grey-hat hacker and offer help to companies or victims to fix their bugs, the report added.

The report comes a month after Cyble reported ransomware attack on Indiabulls Group and the hackers threatened to leak critical data owned by its group firms such as account transaction details, vouchers, letters sent to bank managers and a similar data breach.

A data leak of 1.29 million users of Gurugram-based online market place LimeRoad too was reported by Cyble in July. However, the company denied the allegations.




NEW DELHI (PTI): Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is expected to visit Russia next week to attend a crucial meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) which is expected to deliberate on regional security scenario and geo-strategic developments, official sources have said.



The SCO Defence Ministers' meeting is taking place at a time when two of its member countries, India and China, are locked in a bitter border standoff in eastern Ladakh.



The sources said Singh is likely to leave for Moscow on September 3 as the meeting is expected to take place the next day.



It will be Singh's second visit to Moscow since June. He had represented India at the Victory Day Parade in Moscow on June 24 that commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War.



Russia has also invited External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to attend the SCO Foreign Ministers' meeting on September 10.



When asked whether Jaishankar will travel to Moscow for the meeting, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava on Thursday said the Minister has received the invitation and a decision on his participation would be made known once it is taken.



Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged in a standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh for over three-and-a-half months. Both countries are holding talks at military and diplomatic levels to resolve the dispute.



Russia has already said that India and China should resolve the border dispute through talks and that a "constructive" relationship between the two countries was important for regional stability.



The SCO, seen as a counterweight to NATO, has emerged as one of the largest trans-regional international organisations which accounts for almost 44 per cent of the world population stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean and from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic Sea.



The aim of the SCO is to maintain peace, stability and security of the region. India became a member of SCO in 2017.


China on Monday announced that manufacturing activity expanded in the month of August as the country continued to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

The official manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) for the month of August came in at 51.0 as compared to 51.1 in July, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

However, the pace of expansion missed expectations. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected August PMI to come in at 51.2.

PMI readings above 50 indicate expansion, while those below that signal contraction. PMI readings are sequential and indicate on-month expansion or contraction.

Heavy floods in south China have also impacted manufacturing activity, Zhao Qinghe, a senior statistician with the bureau, said in a statement.

Some companies in Chongqing and Sichuan reported that the procurement cycle of raw materials has been prolonged. The number of orders and production also fell, Zhao wrote, according to a CNBC translation.

Growth in services moved at a faster clip in August with the official non-manufacturing PMI coming in at 55.2 as compared to 54.2 in July.

Zhao from the National Bureau of Statistics said in his report that demand was gradually recovering, with new orders for products such as pharmaceuticals and electrical machinery and equipment moving at a faster pace in August than in July. Exports were also improving in general, added the bureau.

China's manufacturing sector was battered earlier this year as factories shut due to large-scale lockdowns to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

But recent data out of China paint a picture of recovery, with expansion in manufacturing activity and industrial output rising for the fourth straight month in July.

"Manufacturing rebounded most quickly. It didn't require as much social distancing, it wasn't as sensitive to social distancing so activity was rebounding more quickly there, and as such is now decelerating after the initial strong rebound," said Andrew Tilton, chief Asia Pacific economist at Goldman Sachs.

The recovery in China is driven partly by government stimulus spurring infrastructure investment and resilient exports as medical supplies shipments jumped in the first half of the year.

"It's not too surprising that the manufacturing PMI has started to level off since growth in industry has already returned to its pre-virus level," Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, said in a note following the data release.

However, there could be further upside to industrial activity as fiscal support will be stepped up in the coming months, he added.

"Meanwhile, it's encouraging that the recovery is broadening out, with service sector activity now playing catch-up with industry," added Evans-Pritchard. "This is consistent with our view that an investment-led rebound would eventually also shore up consumer sentiment and household spending, keeping the overall economic recovery on track."

Another set of factory data will be released on Tuesday by Caixin and IHS Markit. This private survey features a bigger mix of small- and medium-sized firms. In comparison, the official PMI survey typically polls a large proportion of big businesses and state-owned companies.

 CNBC's Weizhen Tan contributed to this report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 01:55:20|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Samir al-Ahmad, chief of Zahid Water and Irrigation Research Station, checks on the ears of upland rice at a paddy field in Syria's northwestern province of Tartous on July 28, 2020. In its initial experimental stages, the cultivation of upland rice has shown promising results in Syria and could potentially offer good economic value for the country that is an importer of rice and under economic sanctions. (Photo by Hummam Sheikh Ali/Xinhua)



by Hummam Sheikh Ali

TARTOUS, Syria, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- In its initial experimental stages, the cultivation of upland rice has shown promising results in Syria and could potentially offer good economic value for the country that is an importer of rice and under economic sanctions.

Syria imports all of its needs of rice in hard currency, since there is no flooded rice field in the country due to a lack of water resources.

Unlike the lowland rice that is grown in flooded fields, upland rice is grown on dry soil. The studies of the upland rice started in 2008, while in 2010 the field experiments started in the Euphrates Basin in northern Syria.

In 2015, the project was moved to Akkar Plain in the countryside of Tartous province in northwestern Syria as the climate and soil, as well as humidity, are suitable.

The experiment, which was a comparison between 19 types of upland rice, continued for five years by the government-run Zahid Water and Irrigation Research Station.

In the final stage of the experiment, the research reached a conclusion of choosing four different types of upland rice that were compatible with the Syrian soil in Akkar Plain.

In 2020, this experiment was cultivated in a stretch of land with the aim of multiplying the four approved seeds, Samir al-Ahmad, the chief of Zahid Water and Irrigation Research Station, told Xinhua.

He said the rice will soon be harvested and the rice seeds will be handed over to a seed establishment called Ikthar. Afterward, the seeds will be delivered to farmers to start planting the upland rice in their lands in Akkar Plain by 2021.

In two years' time, if the results were successful the seeds will be planted in other areas in the country, he said.

He said if the project was completely successful, it could bring economic benefit to the country and save foreign currency spent on rice imports.

He said that with the development of the upland crops, "we could cover up to 50 percent of the rice imports and this is a good thing because any saving will be good and in the interest of the country."

Al-Ahmad further said that the price of the upland rice will be more affordable for the Syrians when it finally finds its way to the shelves of the stores.

He said both the cost of unpeeled rice and the processed rice will be almost half of what the Syrians are currently paying for the imported rice.

Meanwhile, al-Ahmad pointed out to obstacles facing the project, mainly the lack of equipment for rice milling, which is a crucial step in the processing of rice.

"If the production of farmers is big, the already-existing machines will not be enough," he said.

Another problem, the expert continued, is that the research station uses the drip irrigation system in the testing of the four seeds and this specific system may not be available in the lands of the farmers.

"Maybe the farmers are unable to set up this irrigation system and will have to find other compatible methods," he said, adding that the upland rice crops are planted in the summer so the farmers cannot benefit from the rainwater in the winter.

On the bright side, al-Ahmad said that from their observation, there will be no problem with the water in Akkar Plain for further testing in the farmlands of the farmers.

He further said that some university students are presenting prototypes of machines that could be used for rice milling.

In three years' time, Syrian could possibly have the upland rice on their dining tables, he expected. Enditem
WASHINGTON, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- August 31 marks International Overdose Awareness Day, and unfortunately the COVID-19 pandemic has complicated treatment and recovery for many people who struggle with substance use disorder and opioid misuse. Recognizing the signs of a drug overdose and knowing what to do could save a life, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP).

"Drug overdose emergencies are not on hold just because we are in the middle of a pandemic," said William Jaquis, MD, FACEP, president of ACEP. "In fact, reports show that overdoses are sending an increasing number of people to the emergency department over the last several months. You can save a life by recognizing the warning signs or knowing what to do if you encounter somebody who has overdosed."

For patients and families, it is important to recognize the signs of an opioid or other kind of drug overdose:

Small, constricted pupils

Falling asleep or loss of consciousness

Slow, shallow breathing

Choking or gurgling sounds

Limp body or extremities

Pale, blue, or cold skin

Significant changes to vital signs (drastic rise or drop in temperature, weak or rapid pulse, rapid or slow heartbeat)

Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea

Like all medical emergencies, timing is critical, and it is best to call 911 without hesitating. While speaking to a 911 operator or waiting for emergency medical help, try to keep the person awake and take steps to make sure they can breathe, such as laying them on their side, or in some cases, administering CPR. Stay with the person until emergency medical professionals arrive.

Emergency physicians are concerned that overdoses are increasing with incidents nationwide up 18 percent in March, 29 percent in April and 42 percent in May, compared with the same months in 2019, according to the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program, a federal initiative that collects data from ambulance teams, hospitals and police. In June 2020, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis showed that 40 percent of American adults reported struggling with mental health or substance use.

ACEP is working to enhance access to emergency care and reduce stigma among those who suffer from substance use disorders, including Opioid Use Disorder. In addition to advocating for more collaborative careinside and out of the emergency department which can improve treatment and prevention efforts in communities nationwide, ACEP is working with regulators and policymakers to make sure that patients can be treated for an overdose in real time with naloxone by anyone who is shown how to use the lifesaving Opioid reversing agent. Following care for an overdose, the patient can be treated with Medication Assisted Treatment administered by an emergency physician and will have follow-up care arranged.

Many emergency departments are pursuing accreditation in pain management through the ACEP Pain and Addiction Care in the Emergency Department (PACED) program. Accredited emergency departments meet best-in-class standards for treating pain and addiction while minimizing the use of opioids or in some cases prescribing alternatives to opioids.

"Unfortunately, many people lack a critical support system outside of the emergency department to begin with, whether due to limited local resources or other barriers to access. Emergency physicians are protecting patients by closing gaps in care. The reality is that an emergency physician could provide the only medical attention that many vulnerable people receive during these challenging times," said Dr. Jaquis.

The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) is the national medical society representing emergency medicine. Through continuing education, research, public education and advocacy, ACEP advances emergency care on behalf of its 40,000 emergency physician members, and the more than 150 million Americans they treat on an annual basis. For more information, visit www.acep.org and www.emergencyphysicians.org.

SOURCE American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP)

Related Links

www.acep.org


Titwala police have arrested a 53-year-old man for allegedly raping a 12-year-old neighbour when she was alone at home. According to police, the accused Husain Boblai, 53 visited her under pretext of repairing the fan and allegedly raped her on Saturday. The girl shared the incident with her teacher, after which a complaint was registered.

The accused identified as Husain Boblai, 53, moved in the area just 10 days ago. He tried to talk to the girl often.

Titwala police said, On Saturday afternoon after the girls parents left for the work, she was playing inside the house with her siblings. The man gave some money to her siblings to bring chocolate, after which, he locked the door and raped the girl. He was threatened the girl not to tell anyone. Although on Sunday, girl went to meet her teacher and narrated the incident.

Titwala police arrested the accused immediately from his house. He work as a labourer and was at home since past few days. He was arrested under IPC section 376 and POCSO Act.
From todays Down in Alabama podcast:

Somebody down at your City Hall probably has a whole new appreciation for the Simplified Sellers Use Tax.

Thats Alabamas online sales tax, and its helped cities and counties get through these leaner times brought on by the economic shutdowns during the coronavirus pandemic.

Also, former Alabama speaker of the house Mike Hubbard, who was sentenced for ethics violations in July 2016, has been out on bond pending his appeals longer than his actual prison sentence (four years). Alabamas attorney general said that sentence will start very soon.

And have you noticed over the years how those hurricane forecast cones have become narrower? Thats because forecasters are better at forecasting hurricane tracks, something we saw last week during Hurricane Lauras trip across the Gulf of Mexico. On the podcast Leigh Morgan joins us to take a look at the tropics and what kind of weather were expecting this week in Alabama.

The podcast is short and free. Listen to it by clicking on the player above or subscribe by looking for Down in Alabama on the device of your choosing. Get this and other AL.com newsletters here.

Click here for the Spotify podcast page

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By Online Desk

Former President of India Pranab Mukherjee passed away on Monday, confirmed his son Abhijit.

He was 84.

Taking to Twitter, Abhijit wrote, "With a Heavy Heart , this is to inform you that my father Shri Pranab Mukherjee has just passed away inspite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital & prayers ,duas & prarthanas from people throughout India ! I thank all of You".

Mukherjee, a Congress stalwart, was admitted to the hospital in Delhi Cantonment on August 10 and was operated the same day for removal of a clot in his brain.

The condition of the former President declined on Monday morning after he suffered a septic shock due to his lung infection, the Army's Research and Referral Hospital said.

The Bharat Ratna awardee had also tested positive for COVID-19 at the time of his admission and later developed a respiratory infection

Pranab Mukherjee was the 13th President of India from 2012 to 2017. He is survived by two sons and one daughter.

The government of India has announced a seven-day state mourning from August 31 to September 6.

READ| End of an era: Politicians, celebrities mourn the demise of Pranab Mukherjee

Extending condolences, President of India, Ram Nath Kovind wrote, "Sad to hear that former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee is no more. His demise is passing of an era. A colossus in public life, he served Mother India with the spirit of a sage. The nation mourns losing one of its worthiest sons. Condolences to his family, friends & all citizens."

ALSO WATCH:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, wrote "I was new to Delhi in 2014. From Day 1, I was blessed to have the guidance, support and blessings of Shri Pranab Mukherjee. I will always cherish my interactions with him. Condolences to his family, friends, admirers and supporters across India. Om Shanti".

"I join the country in paying homage to him," wrote Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Revenue of $2.8 million and Gross Margins of 42%

SELECTED FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

SELECTED FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

SELECTED FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Gross margins of 42% due to higher margin verticals and increase in telehealth usage



Closed significantly oversubscribed $15 million bought deal, well funded and executing on strong M&A pipeline

Cash position of $13.8 million at quarter end, well positioned for long term growth and to deliver higher returns for shareholders

Subsequent accretive acquisitions increases CloudMDs network to 14 clinics, 64 physicians, 35 specialists and allied health professionals servicing nearly 500,000 patients

Company is mobilized to support the North American healthcare system for upcoming back to school, COVID-19 2 nd wave and flu season

Including the previously announced closed acquisitions, the Company will have an annual run rate of approximately $16 million and approximately $23 million with the expected closing of the recently announced binding term sheets

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CloudMD Software & Services Inc. (TSXV: DOC, OTCQB: DOCRF, Frankfurt: 6PH) (the Company or CloudMD), a telehealth company revolutionizing the delivery of healthcare to patients, announced its financial results for the second quarter ending June 30, 2020. All financial information is presented in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated.

Dr. Essam Hamza, CEO of CloudMD commented, We are currently in the worst public health crisis of our lifetime and as a front line physician for over 20 years I acutely understand the toll it is taking on our healthcare system and the importance of access to quality health care. Our CloudMD platform is well equipped to increase access through the availability of our seamless virtual care solutions that allow patients to access quality health care from anywhere. I am pleased with our Q2 results which was highlighted by an oversubscribed $15 million bought deal financing and continued growth across our telemedicine platform. Q2 was a strong quarter for CloudMD and positioned us for increased momentum in Q3 and Q4 of this year. Despite the devastating impact of COVID-19 on the global economy, our revenue and margins were consistent with consensus expectations and we ended the quarter with a very strong cash position. The funds raised provide a warchest of capital which we have already started deploying on accretive acquisitions both on synergistic technologies and brick and mortar practices across North America. We are well funded to capitalize on the significant growth of the sector and will continue to engage patients and empower health practitioners across North America with the back-to-school and flu season ahead.

Story continues

On behalf of the Board, we congratulate Dr. Hamza and his team for their exceptionally energetic and purposeful efforts these past months, and for bringing phenomenal progress to our Company as reflected in these financial disclosures. The advent of the oversubscribed bought deal equity financing and its completion in June 2020, has also now armed our Company with a strong cash position and the foundation on which we will continue to allocate capital towards those growth opportunities that will deliver the highest returns for our shareholders, stated Mark Kohler, CloudMDs Chairman of the Board.

Q2 2020 Financial Highlights

Q2 2020 total revenue was $2,789,987, compared to $1,061,569 in Q2 2019, an increase of 163%. The revenue generated from SAAS model digital services was $459,575 compared to $340,014 in Q2 2019, an increase of 35% primarily attributable to organic growth. The revenue generated from medical clinics and pharmacies was $2,330,412 compared to $721,555 in Q2 2019, an increase of 223% primarily attributable to the Company's acquisitions over the past year.



Q2 2020 gross margin was 42%, compared to 50% in Q2 2019. Gross margins remained stable as the Company increased the revenue generated from higher margin digital services and telehealth but incurred higher than usual variable costs primarily due to the Companys expansion into Ontario and short term effects of COVID-19. The Company expects the gross margin to improve as efficiencies are realized and to remain strong for the remainder of 2020 as it begins to recognize additional revenue from high margin sources like digital services, pharmacy kiosk partnerships and telehealth visits.



Net loss and comprehensive loss in Q2 2020 was $2,768,117, resulting in a net loss per share (basic and diluted) of $0.03. Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) loss was $1,989,242 for Q2 2020, compared with adjusted EBITDA loss of $602,646 in Q2 2019. The Adjusted EBITDA for Q2 2020 would have been a loss of 999,402 when removing the elevated levels of marketing, consulting, and legal expenses related to launching services in Ontario and increased acquisition activities and the contingent liabilities recorded in Q2.



CloudMD ended Q2 2020 with a strong balance sheet with cash and cash equivalents of $13.8 million and a working capital balance of approximately $12.6 million.

Other Q2 Highlights and Events Subsequent to the Quarter

On April 7, 2020 the Company announced that CloudMD reached over 100,000 registered users on its telemedicine platform.



On April 30, 2020, the Company announced that its Livecare telehealth platform has been added to preferred vendor lists of leading Government associations across Canada which represent over 20,000 practitioners. Livecare offers health professionals a complete virtual healthcare solution to complement traditional practices by streamlining records management, scheduling, consultations and appointments and offering secure patient/physician communication.



On May 4, 2020, CloudMD announced a partnership with Save-On-Foods and Pure Integrative Pharmacies, Western Canadas largest grocery chain and part of the Jimmy Pattison Group, to pilot on demand virtual care by integrating telemedicine Kiosks in Pharmacies across BC.



On May 7, 2020, CloudMD partnered with innovative U.S. based technology leader IDYA4 Corp. to expand its telemedicine solutions to its current and future customer base including the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, Deloitte and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.



On May 12, 2020, CloudMD announced a $10 million bought deal public offering and subsequently upsized it to $13 million on May 13th. The Underwriters agreed to purchase, on a bought deal basis pursuant to the filing of a short form prospectus, an aggregate of 18,572,000 units (the  Units ) at a price of C$0.70 per Unit for aggregate gross proceeds to the Company of approximately $13 million. The Company anticipates the financing will close on June 2, 2020.



On May 14, 2020, CloudMD appointed Mark Kohler as Chairman of the Board.



On June 2, 2020, CloudMD closed $13 million oversubscribed bought deal financing, including the full exercise of the underwriters over-allotment option. The Company issued a total of 21,357,800 units at the price of $0.70 per Unit for aggregate gross proceeds of $14,950,460. The offering was led by Canaccord Genuity Corp. and Beacon Securities Limited on behalf of a syndicate of underwriters including Paradigm Capital Inc. and Echelon Wealth Partners Inc.



On June 4, 2020, CloudMD commenced trading its common shares on the TSX Venture Exchange (the  TSXV ) under the symbol DOC.



On June 11, 2020, CloudMD announced a binding term sheet to acquire integrated cash flow positive medical clinic with 12 physicians servicing over 60,000 patients. In 2019, the business generated approximately $3 million and the innovative clinic is already using online booking and telemedicine, which makes integrating into CloudMDs Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software efficient.



On June 14, 2020, CloudMD secured footprint in Ontario with binding term sheet to acquire majority interest in West Mississauga Medical Clinic, a comprehensive family medicine and specialist medical clinic with 8 family doctors and 4 specialists serving over 100,000 patients. West Mississauga generated 1.8 million revenue in 2019 with EBITDA margins of 11%.



On June 18, 2020, CloudMD appointed Dr. Sohal Goyal as Head of Corporate Development in Ontario. Dr. Goyal is currently the Medical Director of West Mississauga Medical and a respected healthcare thought leader in Ontario and over his 18-year career has established a vast network of healthcare relationships.



On July 16, 2020  CloudMD announced that it signed a binding term sheet to acquire Snapclarity Inc., a mental health care pioneer. Their on demand digital platform provides an assessment for an individuals personal risk of mental health disorders resulting in a personalized care plan, access to online resources, a clinical health care team and the ability to match to the right therapists. Snapclaritys product offering is a connected, collaborative model that leaves individuals feeling empowered, motivated and supported throughout their entire treatment journey.



On July 28, 2020, CloudMD signed a Share Purchase Agreement to acquire South Surrey Medical Inc., an integrated medical clinic based in Metro Vancouver, BC. South Surrey is a premier provider of integrated medical solutions and an early adopter of telemedicine delivery, with 12 physicians servicing over 60,000 patients.



On August 5, 2020, CloudMD closed the acquisition of South Surrey Medical Inc.





On August 6, CloudMD announced the acquisition of a U.S. based chronic care medical clinic as part of a comprehensive strategy to provide end-to-end health care services for complex care patients. The clinic is managed by Dr. Fred Roh and Curtis Gibson. Dr. Roh has over 30 years experience in the U.S healthcare market having been founder of Healthcare Networks of America, LLC, a 15,000 member physician organization that provides services to 24 million patients across the U.S. Dr. Roh will also help with expansion plans to build a network of telehealth powered satellite clinics covering large areas of under serviced areas across the U.S.



On August 11, 2020, CloudMD appointed Patrick Lo, a leading expert on data protection and regulatory privacy matters for the healthcare sector in North America, as a Strategic Advisor. Patrick will act as a Strategic Advisor to the Companys Corporate Development and Risk Management Committee, which was recently formed to ensure customers and patients are provided with the very best in critical oversight of data protection and privacy matters.





On August 13, 2020, CloudMD signed a Definitive Agreement to acquire majority interest in West Mississauga Medical Clinic.

On August 24, 2020, CloudMD signed a binding term sheet to acquire Re:Function Health Group, a Profitable Seven Location Rehabilitation Clinic Network generating $5.8 Million in Annual Revenue with over 19% EBITDA margins. Re:Function is a leading integrated clinic network offering various rehabilitation services with 35 Specialists & Allied Professionals including: Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Kinesiologists, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, and Counsellors.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e938b7af-621d-40ef-b1dc-bc0d3912f60a

Certain information provided in this news release is taken from the unaudited interim Financial Statements and Managements Discussion & Analysis (MD&A) of the Company for the six months ended June 30, 2020 and should be read in conjunction with them. It is only in the context of the fulsome information and disclosures contained in the unaudited interim Financial Statements and MD&A that an investor can properly analyze this information. The Financial Statements and MD&A can be found under CloudMDs profile on www.sedar.com .



About CloudMD Software & Services

CloudMD is digitizing the delivery of healthcare by providing patients access to all points of their care from their phone, tablet or desktop computer. The Company offers SAAS based health technology solutions to medical clinics across Canada and has developed proprietary technology that delivers quality healthcare through the combination of connected primary care clinics, telemedicine, and artificial intelligence (AI). CloudMD currently provides service to a combined ecosystem of 376 clinics, over 3000 licensed practitioners and almost 3 million patient charts across its servers.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS



Dr. Essam Hamza, MD"

Chief Executive Officer

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT:

CloudMD Software & Services Inc.

investors.cloudmd.ca

Email: investors@cloudmd.ca

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on CloudMDs expectations, estimates and projections regarding its business and the economic environment in which it operates, including with respect to its business plans. Although CloudMD believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to control or predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements and readers should not place undue reliance on such statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and CloudMD undertakes no obligation to update them publicly to reflect new information or the occurrence of future events or circumstances, unless otherwise required to do so by law.

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.




Turkey has accused Greece of 'piracy' and attempting to 'arm' the island at the centre of their row energy resources in the Mediterranean.

Tensions between the two countries have escalated with both sides staging military drills in the area.

Kastellorizo is the island furthest removed from Greece and is 1.2 miles off the Turkish coast.

Greece argues that waters surrounding the rocky island are under their sovereignty and oppose any Turkish exploration nearby.

Greek soldiers and tourists disembark from a ferry at the port of the tiny Greek island of Kastellorizo

Kastellorizo is the island furthest removed from Greece and is 1.2 miles off the Turkish coast

Images published last week show Greek soldiers arriving on the island - known as Kastellorizo in Greece and Meis in Turkey - much to Ankara's frustration.

'Greece's attempt to arm the island of Meis is an example of a new piracy,' said Omer Celik, spokesman for Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party.

'It's stupidity to direct weapons toward Turkish shores,' Celik wrote on Twitter, adding: 'Greece will learn we will have a strong answer to every step it takes.'

The Turkish foreign ministry on Sunday pointed out that the island was 'under a demilitarised status established with the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty'.

'Such provocative actions will prove useless for Greece,' the Turkish ministry said.

The Greek navy stops off the tiny Greek island of Kastellorizo amid escalating tensions with Turkey

As the political pressure mounts, 'we're keeping an eye out, but we're staying calm and not changing anything about our everyday life', the island's deputy mayor Stavros Amygdalos said.

On August 10, Turkish navy ships escorted an exploration vessel, the Oruc Reis, into the waters south of Kastellorizo.

Four days before, Greece had signed an agreement with Egypt on the two countries' respective maritime economic zones, which the parliament in Athens waved through on Thursday.

But its claim that the waters around the island are under Greek sovereignty had Ankara seeing red, after recent discoveries of large gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean.

French and Greek military vessels sail in the eastern Mediterranean on Thursday after France boosted its naval presence in the region

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fumed that acknowledging Greek jurisdiction in the region would mean 'imprisoning Turkey within its coastline'.

And a Greek and a Turkish warship were involved in a mild collision on August 14 during a standoff in the eastern Mediterranean, in what a Greek defence source called an accident but Ankara described as a provocation.

The Greek frigate manoeuvred to avoid a head-on collision and in the process its bow touched the rear of the Turkish frigate, a defence source said, calling it a 'mini collision.'

'It was an accident,' the source said, adding the Limnos was not damaged.

It subsequently took part in a joint military exercise with France off Crete on Thursday morning, the person said.

The Turkish seismic research vessel Oruc Reis sails in the Mediterranean Sea amid tensions over oil and gas reserves off Cyprus

Greece has issued no official comment on the two neighbours' latest dispute.

Relations between the two neighbours have been souring for months.

In February Turkey encouraged migrants to flee to Europe by opening its border with Greece.

It also converted some Byzantine churches into mosques this year.

Tensions are also growing between Turkey and France, another NATO ally, which has opted to throw its full weight of support behind Greece.

A general view of the port of the tiny Greek island of Kastellorizo

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that Paris had adopted a 'red-line policy' for Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean, though he also called for dialogue.

'When we talk about sovereignty in the Mediterranean, I must be consistent in actions and words... the Turks only consider and respect that,' Macron said.

But Ankara said Turkey would not be pushed around by Macron.

'Those, who think to have drawn red lines against the righteous cause of Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean, will only face Turkey's firm stance,' Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said in a statement late on Sunday.

He called for 'those, who are in delusion of grandeur, to face reality,' adding: 'The era of defining imperialist conceptions by drawing lines on maps is long gone.'
The BBC's new director-general is 'open' to implementing a subscription model to replace the broadcaster's licence fee, it was reported last night

Tim Davie has reportedly been told to come up with a viable funding model to replace the fee when he takes up his new role this week.

A Conservative minister told the Daily Telegraph that there is a 'real optimism' at the BBC that it can thrive without the fee.

Among the measures reportedly being considered by Mr Davie, 53, is a subscription model service, similar to Netflix or Amazon Prime.

Tim Davie, 53, the BBC's new director general being interviewed in London in 2016

The minister told the Telegraph: 'There is a real optimism that the BBC will come up with a palatable alternative to the licence fee themselves.

'Tim Davie seems open to the idea of a subscription model.'

If Mr Davie is unable to come up with a viable model, he risks facing a battle when the BBC charter is renewed in 2027.

It is understood that Mr Davie will not address the licence fee row when he makes his first speech in his new role later this week.

But BBC insiders told the Telegraph that Mr Davie is concerned the broadcaster is creating too much left-wing, London-centric content.

Mr Davie is also planning to launch a crackdown on BBC presenters who express their opinions on social media, according to the reports.

It came amid reports that ministers are set to announce the decriminalisation of the licence fee within weeks.

From 2022, people who dodge their licence fee payments will face civil penalties rather than criminal prosecution.

The BBC Licence Fee (Civil Penalty) Bill is due for its second reading in parliament in November.

A BBC spokesman told the Telegraph: 'The licence fee is a way of funding the BBC until at least 2027 and our focus is on providing the best possible value to the public who pay for us.'
Reliance-Future Group set to sign Rs30,000-cr retail asset deal: report

Kishore Biyani's Future Enterprises Ltd is all set to seal a deal for sale of the groups entire retail businesses to Reliance Industries Ltds retail arm Reliance retail in an all-cash transaction worth around Rd30,000 crore.

As per the terms of agreement, Future Enterprises will merge its grocery, apparel, supply chain and consumer business into itself, and sell the entire retail assets to Reliance Retail.

Reports citing sources said the board of directors of Future Enterprises will take the crucial decision tomorrow. The deal will help Future Group cut debt and liabilities.

Of the total proceeds Future group may use around Rs13,000 crore to repay debt and another Rs7,000 crore to clear other liabilities like pending rents while the remaining cash will go to the promoter group.

Apart from Future Group's retail business, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance could also get a minority stake in Future Enterprises for Rs3,000 crore via 'preferential allotment', as part of the deal, according to reports.

The FEL could also sign an agreement for a long-term supply distribution for apparel and groceries.

The RIL-Future deal will make Reliance Retail undisputed leader in Indian retail space with over 1,800 Future Retail stores, around Rs26,000 crore worth additional sales besides several supermarket brands, comprising budget department and grocery chain Big Bazaar, Ezone, Fashion at Big Bazaar (FBB), Foodhall and Easyday.

Future Group has accrued heavy debt over the years. As of 30 September 2019, listed entities of Future Group had accumulated debt of Rs12,778 crore against Rs10,951 crore as of 31 March2019.

Biyani had a March deadline for repayment of some of these dues. But the Reserve Bank of India's loan moratorium provided a breather.
Citing concerns about giving up access via historic forest trails, a Montana-based hunting group is encouraging its members to challenge a proposed land swap on the east side of the Crazy Mountains.

We dont believe abandoning two trails for one solves the problem, said John Sullivan, Montana Backcountry Hunters & Anglers board chairman.

Sullivan sent an email to BHAs 3,000 Montana members on Thursday detailing the groups concerns. He said in a phone interview that the call to arms arose out of apprehension that the coalition advocating for the land exchange is seeking to avoid a public process by going directly to Montana's congressional delegation for approval.

If theyre doing that, we want our membership to know and our delegation to know that we want it to go through the public process, Sullivan said.

Last year BHA and others sued the Custer Gallatin National Forest in an attempt to force the agency to assert public access rights to four historic Crazy Mountain trails.

Proposal

Members of the Crazy Mountain Working Group unveiled their proposed land exchange in mid-July. The group includes local landowners, as well as representatives of the Park County Environmental Council, the Montana Wildlife Federation, the Crow Tribe and the Yellowstone Club.

The proposal would give the Custer Gallatin National Forest 5,025 acres of private inholdings in the Crazy Mountains in exchange for 3,614 acres of forest lands. The trade would remove some of the private land inholdings in the mountain range providing the public with 30 square miles of contiguous public land between Big Timber Creek and Sweet Grass Creek. In exchange, landowners would acquire lower elevation forest parcels.

The other half of the exchange involves the exclusive Yellowstone Club in Big Sky. The club is seeking 500 acres of high elevation forest terrain for its skiers in exchange for 558 acres of land along the nearby Inspiration Divide Trail, which accesses the east side of Cedar Mountain in the Madison Range.

To incentivize the trade, the Yellowstone Club is also offering to finance the construction of a 22-mile trail in the Crazies that would connect Big Timber Creek  the only undisputed public access point on the east side  with Sweet Grass Creek. Connecting the two drainages would tie into existing trails to create a 40-mile loop route. The club has also offered to expand the parking area at the trailhead near Half Moon Campground.

The coalition has held open houses regarding its proposal to provide information to the public in the region. It is also taking public comments on the project through the end of August.

"We have actively sought input from all groups, extended our comment period, and have held four in-person open houses which has resulted in productive, grassroots participation in this process," said Erica Lighthiser, of the PCEC, in an email. "There have been several helpful suggestions that we will incorporate or address in the next draft of the proposal. After feedback has been considered, we will formally submit the proposal to the Forest Service for further review."

The Montana Wildlife Federation, an umbrella organization for state hunting and wildlife groups, has had one of its member at the table during the negotiations and supports putting the deal through the Forest Services public environmental process as a starting point for discussions, said Nick Gevock, conservation director for the group.

In return for their allegiance, Gevock said MWF made demands of the coalition including: no shrinkage of the Forest Service boundary; any lands that leave public ownership must have an easement preventing development; a first right of refusal to buy any parcels that are exchanged if they are put on the market; and nothing should affect ongoing litigation regarding public access via historic Forest Service trails.

I will say we strongly encourage the public to weigh in on this, he said.

Our long-term goal is to acquire all of those inholdings of private lands in the Crazies, Gevock added. We saw this as the beginning, not the end.

BHA concerns

The Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers cites several concerns about the working groups proposal. They include:

The public is giving up much better wildlife habitat at lower elevations for higher elevation interior lands of lesser value to wildlife and therefore to hunters.

The new trail proposed to start at Big Timber Canyon is 22 miles from Sweet Grass Canyon, much farther than the current  albeit contested  route that starts at the mouth of Sweet Grass Canyon.

Its the view of the Forest Service and us that (the Sweet Grass Canyon trail) is a public trail, Sullivan said.

He pointed to a 2015 letter from Custer Gallatin National Forest supervisor Mary Erickson to Sen. Steve Daines as proof. In the letter, Erickson writes that the Forest Service maintains that it holds unperfected prescriptive rights to the trail up the canyon and from Big Timber Canyon to Sweet Grass based on a history of maintenance with public funds and historic and continued public and administrative use.

Without some assurance of unrestricted access to Sweet Grass Canyon via the historic trail, Sullivan said his group cant support the coalitions proposed land swap.

Access to the east side of the Crazy Mountains has long been contested by landowners who feel they've been unfairly treated by public access advocates and the Forest Service. An old trail circled the mountains as part of a route forest rangers used to patrol the area up until the 1950s. When the trail fell into disrepair and new landowners moved in, the routes legality across private land was challenged.

To learn more about the agreement and provide feedback through Aug. 31, the coalition created a website, www.crazymountainproject.com.

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She walked away from the Love Island villa in 2019 after being eliminated.

But Francesca Allen looked like she just walked off a runway as she strutted her stuff through London on Sunday.

The reality star, 24, looked sensational in a polka dot mini dress as she departed Roka restaurant with her pals.

Wow! Francesca Allen cut a stylish figure in her figure-hugging black dress with semi-sheer long sleeves and a polka dot pattern as she departed Roka restaurant in London on Sunday evening

She made the most of the Bank Holiday weekend as she dined on Asian cuisine at the swanky celebrity hot spot.

Francesca cut a stylish figure in a figure-hugging black dress with semi-sheer long sleeves.

Her outfit features a scooped neckline and ribbon collar which highlighted her pert cleavage and decolletage.

Demure: The reality star, 24, rocked the elegant dress that featured a scooped neckline and ribbon collar which highlighted her pert cleavage and decolletage

She displayed her bronzed complexion and slender pins which she finished with a pair of leather black mules.

The brunette bombshell opted for a silky loose wave and wore small gold hoops for the classical and elegant look.

For her lavish night out, Francesca carried an equally lavish handbag as she posed for pictures and clutched her black Hermes Birkin bag.

The Love Island beauty recently returned from an enviable European break to St Tropez and Spain.

Strike a pose: For her lavish night out, Francesca carried an equally lavish handbag as she posed for pictures in the middle of the city centre and clutched her black Hermes Birkin bag

She had been making the most of the eased lockdown restrictions during her recent breaks as she partied alongside pals and relaxed on the sun-drenched beaches.

Aside from her frequent getaways, Francesca was spotted cosying up to a new man during a boozy night out in London last month.

She looked to be on cloud nine as she got up close and personal with Edward Crossan, vice chairman of London-based waste management company Powerday.

The TV personality, who is family friends with Edward, put on a very affectionate display with the hunk who was previously been linked to TOWIE's Amber Turner.
The percentage of positive coronavirus tests continues to drop across Pennsylvania, but 9 counties bear watching for COVID-19 infections, Gov. Tom Wolfs administration said Monday.

The statewide rate of positive tests has now dropped for five straight weeks. It dipped to 3.2% over the past week, down from 3.4% the previous week, the Wolf administration said.

Our percent positivity decreased again this week, representing the fifth straight week that the percent positivity has decreased, Wolf said in a statement Monday. This is a testament that our actions are working, but we still have more work to do. The virus is still circulating, and we must continue to wear masks, practice social distancing and avoid large gatherings to keep our numbers low, stop the spread and allow more freedom.

Still, the Wolf administration listed several counties that bear watching because more than 5% of those tested were positive, and some of those counties are in central Pennsylvania.

The Wolf administration said it would continue to monitor these counties: Columbia (13.5%), Armstrong (8.3%), Perry (6.9%), Northumberland (6.7%), Potter (5.9%), Beaver (5.7%), Dauphin (5.3%), Fulton (5.3%) and York (5.0%).

The number of new cases has dropped steadily in the month of August after climbing in late June and throughout July. The state hasnt reported more than 1,000 new cases in a single day since July 28.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health reported 521 new coronavirus cases Monday. Statewide, more than 134,000 people have contracted the virus and more than 7,600 people have died. On Monday, the state didnt report any new deaths, a rarity since the pandemic began.

Levels of transmission

The state also updated the level of coronavirus transmission in each county, a benchmark schools are asked to guide their reopening plans and their response plans if students or staff are infected. Depending on the risk assessment, school districts are advised to close buildings for longer periods if they have students or staff test positive.

The Wolf administration said 22 counties are at a low level of transmission, while 44 counties are at a moderate level. Only one county - Columbia - is at a substantial risk of transmission, the Wolf administration said.

Low: Bedford, Bradford, Cameron, Carbon, Clarion, Clinton, Elk, Forest, Fulton, Greene, Juniata, McKean, Montour, Pike, Potter, Somerset, Sullivan, Tioga, Venango, Warren, Wayne and Wyoming.

Moderate: Adams, Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Berks, Blair, Bucks, Butler, Cambria, Centre, Chester, Clearfield, Crawford, Cumberland, Dauphin, Delaware, Erie, Fayette, Franklin, Huntingdon, Indiana, Jefferson, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lawrence, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Lycoming, Mercer, Mifflin, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton, Northumberland, Perry, Philadelphia, Schuylkill, Snyder, Susquehanna, Union, Washington, Westmoreland and York.

More schools are beginning classes this week. Some schools, such as Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, are beginning the year with remote learning. Others are starting with in-person classes or a mix of face-to-face instruction on certain days and online education on others.

Travel restrictions

The Wolf administration has added three states - Hawaii, Illinois and South Dakota - to the list of states for travel restrictions. The administration wants visitors to those states to self-quarantine for 14 days upon their return to the Keystone State.

No states were removed from the travel advisory list. The Wolf administration is asking visitors to quarantine after traveling to 19 states.

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Portland, Oregon, Mayor Ted Wheeler had a strong message for President Donald Trump after a man was shot and killed in Portland amid clashes between Black Lives Matter protesters and a pro-Trump caravan on Saturday.

Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence? Wheeler said at a news conference on Sunday. It's you who have created the hate and the division.

The fatal shooting ended a day of clashes between a pro-Trump caravan and counterprotesters. On Sunday, Trump criticized the mayor and praised the caravan, calling its members "GREAT PATRIOTS" on Twitter.

Wheeler lashed out at Trump for his rhetoric, saying the caravan was "supported and energized by the president himself."

I'd appreciate that the president either supports us or he stays the hell out of the way, Wheeler said.

Portland police said the group, made up of hundreds of cars and trucks, traveled for several hours throughout the city. It was organized by supporters of Trump in an apparent show of force and an attempt to counter the Black Lives Matter protests that have been ongoing in Oregon's biggest city for months.

Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell also said on Sunday that there were some skirmishes between rally goers and counter demonstrators and that police made several arrests.

Police said it is unclear if the shooting was connected to the protests. They are still piecing together what happened, but Lovell said the vehicle caravan had already cleared the area when the shooting took place.

Lovell said he didnt know if the shooting was politically motivated.

Portland has seen sustained protests since the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis in May.

During a wave of Black Lives Matter protests that have swept the country since Floyd's death, Trump has attacked Democratically controlled cities and their leaders.

Story continues

Wheeler, who is also Portlands police commissioner, has also been criticized by demonstrators for his leadership of the citys law enforcement.

Trump called Portland a mess" in a tweet Monday morning.

If this joke of a mayor doesnt clean it up, we will go in and do it for them!" he added.

The president had earlier called for federal law enforcement to be sent to Portland to restore order, but Wheeler has publicly declined that offer.

On Sunday, he denounced the violence, saying the tragedy of last night cannot be repeated" and calling on Portlanders to pull together."

Wheeler has also asked anyone planning to come to Portland to seek retribution to stay out of the city and help authorities deescalate the situation.

Saturday's clashes came days after Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, was accused of having opened fire Tuesday during a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, killing two people. Demonstrators in Kenosha were protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, which was captured on video.

Trump is expected to visit Kenosha on Tuesday.
The Chinese governments top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi ended a five-day trip aimed at easing tensions between EU member states and China. Yi said in Paris that a China-EU investment deal could be reached by the end of the year. His remark came against a backdrop of persistent diplomatic tension between Beijing and the United States.

Wang, on the fourth leg of his five-nation EU tour, said on Sunday in Paris that Europe and China had a responsibility to work for "a more stable world" that would benefit from an agreement that has been in the works for several years.

"We have the possibility to conclude one by the end of the year. We each need to take a step towards the other," the minister told a conference organised by the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI).

'Systemic rival'

Wang is visiting European capitals of Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, France and Germany to reinforce ties as relations with the US remain tense.

Chinese and European experts have been working for seven years on a deal to protect foreign investments, reinforce respect for intellectual copyrights, end obligations to transfer technology and subsidies for Chinese public enterprises.

In June, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said that work on an agreement with the European Union had become "difficult" saying: "We need more ambition on China's part to wrap up an agreement by the end of the year."

In March last year, an EU policy paper, EU-China  A Strategic Outlook had called China a systemic rival rather than an equal partner.

Heavy fire

The Chinese foreign minister came under heavy fire regarding the human rights situation in his country.

On Hong Kong, Dutch Foreign Stef Blok said: The Netherlands attaches great importance to stability and prosperity in Hong Kong while retaining its high degree of autonomy.

On Xinjiang, Blok said he shared his concerns about the situation of the Uygurs with Wang: It is precisely because of our close relationship that we can also discuss matters about which we differ.

Story continues

He also specifically asked for attention to the restriction of freedom of religion and belief in China, which particularly affects Muslims, Christians and Tibetan Buddhists.

China and the EU have been engaged in a theoretical human rights dialogue, but Beijing routinely rejects more pungent criticism as interference in its internal affairs.

Nobel Peace Prize

In Norway, which awarded in 2010 the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinas number one dissident Liu Xiabo, China's foreign minister warned against "politicising" the Nobel by awarding another Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident.

Talks on a free-trade pact began in 2008, but relations between Oslo and Beijing were frozen from 2010 to 2016 after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu.

Negotiations resumed in 2017.

Given the impact of COVID-19, early completion of the China-Norway FTA negotiations is of great significance to the bilateral economic bilateral relations and trade as well as to the efforts to keep the global supply chain open and connected," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters during a visit to Oslo as part of a European tour.

Four point proposal

The state-run Global Times reported reported that Wang Yi made a four-point proposal to promote multilateralism In a thinly veiled reference to the US, Wang Yi said that unilateralism is on the rise today as some countries ignore international agreements and refuse to fulfill their international obligations.

Wang Yi will end his European fence-mending tour on Tuesday with a visit to Germany, its largest European trading partner.
Two single-family homes were destroyed, 11 people were left homeless and a pair of vehicles were torched in a large fire Sunday night in Clifton, officials said.

One firefighter had to be treated for an ankle injury as firefighters from various departments in Essex, Bergen and Passaic counties assisted the Clifton Fire Department in battling the blaze, which broke out on East 2nd Street shortly before 8:45 p.m., according to Chief Frank Prezioso.

Happening Now! CFPA member Chris Clarke (@FirstDuePhotog) is on scene of this multiple alarm fire in Clifton, NJ pic.twitter.com/ghSX4EIil8  CT Fire Photo (@ctfirephoto) August 31, 2020

Video from the scene shows both homes badly burned with singed siding and missing windows.

The cause and origin of the fire remain under investigation, though its not considered suspicious, the chief said.

The Red Cross of New Jersey provided temporary lodging, food and clothing for 11 people displaced from the two homes.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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The best Lifestyle shows are right here, from Australia and around the world. Catch up with the experts on home design and interiors, food and cooking, the property market, and get fresh ideas with the savviest of renovators. Whether you need inspiration for cooking up a storm, to refresh a tired room, or tips to sell your property, Foxtel Lifestyle will always something new for you to watch. Enjoy your favourite experts like Andrew Winter and Neale Whitaker, or Shaynna Blaze and Jamie Oliver live or On Demand.
Vienna, VA, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With the Base of the Future initiative, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) has an opportunity to start from the ground up and create an installation that will become a universal symbol of innovation and excellence. As the USAF builds new and restores existing installations, they can examine and improve existing security and defense systems that protect the people and critical resources they house. The specific focus of the AFWERX Base of the Future challenge is to support the rebuild of Tyndall Air Force Base, which was wiped out by Hurricane Michael. There is a Military Construction budget of $3 billion to rebuild Tyndall into the Base of the Future. In addition, millions of dollars are spent on Base Defense and Security across the DoD.

A record-breaking 1,500+ submissions were received by AFWERX from both large and small businesses. ARES Security demonstrated to the USAF how the AVERT digital twin and lifecycle of AVERT software can transform Base Security increasing security effectiveness while reducing costs. ARES Security was one of 92 selected finalists and ended up in the top 25 of all submissions.

ARES Security provides a life cycle solution for Base Security and Defense that combines the power of modeling, simulation, virtualization, sensor fusion, common operational picture and AI to provide the tools that the Base of the Future needs to Assess, Train, and Respond to incidents. AVERT Physical Security creates a 3D digital twin of the Base and simulates any threat against any response to improve security effectiveness and optimize cost. AVERT Virtual Tabletop and AVERT Virtual Reality Training transforms exercises and training into a virtual experience to fine tune responses and improve results. AVERT C2 integrates sensors, alarms, and AVERT AI into a common operational picture to support rapid, effective response. AVERT Mission Planning and Operations provides the Base Defense Operations Center mission planning and control for Ghost Robotics' quadrupeds, a 4 legged robotic dog, which can be used in security tasks such as surveillance, inspection, mobile sensor, etc. thus allowing airmen to be repurposed against the highest priority tasks.

With Tyndall AFB as the starting point, the ultimate goal of the Base of the Future Challenges is to see new and innovative ideas implemented across installations worldwide, improving base technology and security, and the lives of Airmen, their families, and USAF personnel. AFWERX noted on behalf of Tyndall AFB Project Management Office stakeholders, other DoD entities, and themselves: Wed like to congratulate the teams advancing to the next phase. Their contributions are invaluable and have the potential to create game-changing results across the Air Force enterprise. Ben Eazzetta, CEO of ARES Security noted: It is time to harness the power of modeling, simulation, virtual reality, and AI technology to transform security operations in ways that improve the security effectiveness of response plans and reduce costs in the face of increasing challenges from adversaries. ARES Security is committed to champion the change made possible through AVERT.
(TNS)  As Connecticut prepares for a presidential election that likely will involve an unprecedented number of people voting by absentee ballot due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill is encouraging voters to utilize the secure drop boxes located in municipalities across the state, as opposed to the postal service.The USPS has made clear that they are not a reliable method for delivering election mail; the ballot drop boxes are and should be used to deliver the absentee ballot applications and the absentee ballots themselves back to the towns, Merrills office said in a recent news release.While questions have been raised about how the postal service will manage the expected surge of mail-in voting during the November general election, the agency has said it has the capacity to handle the influx. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said recently he is suspending any policy or operational changes to the agency until after the presidential election to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail. The agency is strongly advising voters to request ballots at the earliest point allowable but no later than 15 days prior to the election date to ensure ample time to complete and return the ballots.The secretary of the state will mail out absentee ballot applications between Sept. 8 and 11 to all eligible voters but, by law, the absentee ballots themselves cannot be distributed prior to Oct. 2. By including postage paid envelopes with the applications, and with the absentee ballots, we are using federal funds to make sure everyone who chooses to can vote by absentee ballot with no cost to the voters or to their towns, Merrill said.Of the 298,494 people who voted during the primary election in Connecticut, 226,843, or 75%, cast their votes by absentee ballots. A new law, which went into effect late this summer, allows voters in Connecticut to vote by absentee if they have concerns about voting in person during the COVID-19 pandemic. That has meant the state essentially has had to create a mail-in voting system from scratch.Officials viewed the Aug. 11 primary election as a test run for the general election, and it was not without its flaws. Merrills office also sent absentee ballot applications to all eligible voters ahead of the primary election, but failed to send absentee ballots to 20,000 registered Democrats and Republicans.Since the ballots for the general election wont be available until Oct. 2, just one month prior to the Nov. 3 election, Merrill said its imperative for voters to return their applications and ballots as soon as possible to relieve the burden on local election officials who process them.Absentee ballots must be delivered using the postal service or secure drop boxes located outside of town and city halls across the state by 8 p.m. on Election Day, when the polls close.Voters can check their registration status at. Although absentee ballot applications will be mailed to every eligible voter, they also are available in English and Spanish at
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 03:17:17|Editor: huaxia

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SARAJEVO, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The European Union Force Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR) launched its annual Quick Response military exercise at the Butmir military camp near BiH capital Sarajevo, EUFOR said in a press release on Sunday.

EUFOR reserve troops that have arrived from Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and Romania, will be deployed to multiple locations across BiH for the duration of the exercise, which is due to end on Sept. 5.

According to EUFOR, every soldier entering the country has followed strict quarantine and COVID-19 testing regulations in accordance with international, BiH, and EUFOR rules.

"The preparation has been conducted in close cooperation with the Armed Forces of BiH (AFBiH), the law enforcement agencies and the respective ministries and without this cooperation, the exercise would not be possible," EUFOR Commander Major General Reinhard Trischak said at the opening ceremony.

EUFOR's Quick Response annual exercise tests EUFOR's capability to call up and deploy over-the-horizon reserve forces held at high readiness by the contributing nations and regions.

The goal of the EUFOR's operations in BiH is to help maintain a safe and secure environment, according to the press release. Enditem
A 62-year-old man has been accused of funding the production of child porn in the Philippines after his squalid den was raided in Adelaide.

A haul of child porn was allegedly found inside the home when the Australian Federal Police raided it on July 16.

Police seized a laptop, USB, several DVDs and CDs, a dozen Western Union money transfer forms and multiple external hard drives for further examination.

The man is also accused of sending $65,000 to child pornographers in the Philippines.

Pictured: The squalid home of an Adelaide man accused of stashing child porn discovered by Australian Federal Police investigators

Police seized data storage devices including a laptop, USB, several DVDs and CDs, a dozen Western Union money transfer forms

The AFP allege the man has been sending money to the Philippines since 2006.

Investigators allegedly found child abuse material and 'extensive communication' with suspected residents in the Philippines when they did a preliminary examination of the data storage devices.

Police said analysis of seized items is ongoing and further charges may be laid.

The man has been arrested and charged with possessing child abuse material and using a carriage service to access child pornography material.

The maximum penalty for these offences is 15 years imprisonment.

He was due to face Elizabeth Magistrates Court on Monday.

Investigators allegedly found child abuse material when they did a preliminary examination of the data storage devices

Police analysis of items seized in the raid on July 16 is still ongoing and further charges are expected to be laid

The warrant was carried out on the man's home after information supplied by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, police allege.

'No child anywhere in the world should have to be victimised for the perverted desires of some people in our community,' AFP Detective Acting Superintendent Gavin Stone said.

'The AFP and South Australia Police are working around-the-clock with our partners to bring to justice those who seek to do harm to our children.'
Dees Red Delicous ($3.20) took the $104,400 New York Sire Stakes for two-year-old trotting colts and geldings at Tioga Downs on Sunday (Aug. 30).

After morning line favourite Ahundreddollarbill (Jason Bartlett) went on a break right at the start, Credit Con (Tyler Buter) went to the front. Sevenshadesofgrey (Mike Merton) challenged early, only to go off stride as well. Credit Con led to the first quarter in :28.2 and rated a :59 half. Up the backstretch, Corey Callahan angled Dees Red Delicous first-over, and he took over the lead hitting three-quarters in 1:27.2.

Turning for home, Unwritten Chapter (Wally Hennessey) started to inch closer after riding second-over cover, but Dees Red Delicous found another gear and won going away in 1:56.2. Unwritten Chapter settled for second; Steel (Andy Miller) came up to finish third.

Dees Red Delicous is a Credit Winner-Apple Plush gelding owned by Joseph Martinelli and trained by Bruce Saunders. It was his third win in six lifetime starts.

Jason Bartlett drove three winners on the card. He combined with trainer Claude Huckabone III with Sunny Days ($19.20) and I love My Country ($7.00). His other victory came with Barn Hall ($2.50).

Live racing returns to Tioga Downs on Saturday (Sept. 5). Post time is 3 p.m.

For more information, go to www.tiogadowns.com.

(Tioga Downs)
ST. LOUIS  A police officer shot in the head as a man barricaded himself inside a home on Saturday has died at SSM Health St. Louis University Hospital, police confirmed on Sunday.

Tamarris L. Bohannon, 29, had been with the department for nearly four years.

A second officer who was shot in the leg has been released from the hospital.

The officers were shot when responding to a shooting call in the Tower Grove South neighborhood at around 6 p.m. A man barricaded himself inside a home in the 3700 block of Hartford Street and fired at police.

Multiple streets were closed to vehicles and pedestrians. Residents were warned to stay inside their homes and SWAT officers swarmed the neighborhood. Police also put SUVs and officers armed with rifles around the residence where the suspect had retreated.

After hours of negotiations with the gunman, police arrested the suspect, according to a Twitter post at 5:37 a.m.

A statement from Bohannon's family says he is survived by a wife, Alexis, and three children. Bohannon was "affectionately known" by his District Two squad as "Bo."

"The loss of this great man is felt deeply within the St. Louis community and we ask for your prayers and support in the days ahead," the statement, published by the police department's twitter account, reads.

Mayor Lyda Krewson released a statement saying she was "heartbroken" at Bohannon's death. She said Bohannon's family are "immensely proud of the way he selflessly served and protected our community with distinction and honor for more than three years."

"This is a horrific reminder of the dangers our brave men and women willingly face everyday to keep us safe," Krewson said in her statement on Sunday.

Shake off your afternoon slump with the oft-shared and offbeat news of the day, hand-brewed by our online news editors. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Regulatory News:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (LN:PSHD) (NA:PSH) ("PSH") today announced that it has purchased, through PSH's agent, Jefferies International Limited ("Jefferies"), the following number of PSH's Public Shares of no par value (ISIN Code: GG00BPFJTF46) (the "Shares"):

Trading Venue: Euronext Amsterdam Ticker: PSH Date of Purchase: 31 August 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 5,221 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 27.45 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 27.25 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 27.40 USD

PSH will hold these Public Shares in Treasury. The net asset value per Public Share related to this buyback is 38.62 USD 29.38 GBP which was calculated as of 25 August 2020 (the "Relevant NAV"). After giving effect to the above buyback, PSH has 193,015,934 Public Shares outstanding, or 199,046,534 Public Shares calculated on a fully diluted basis (assuming that all Management Shares had been converted into Public Shares at the Relevant NAV). Excluded from the shares outstanding are 17,940,816 Public Shares held in Treasury. The prices per Public Share were calculated by Jefferies.

The number of PSH Management Shares and the one special voting share (held by PS Holdings Independent Voting Company Limited) have not been affected.

About Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd.

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (LN:PSHD) (NA:PSH) is an investment holding company structured as a closed-ended fund that makes concentrated investments principally in North American companies.

Category: (PSH:ShareRepurchases)

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200831005655/en/

Contacts:

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Ed Gascoigne-Pees Hazel Stevenson +44 020 3757 4989, media-pershingsquareholdings@camarco.co.uk
NEW HAVEN  If other neighborhoods feel over-policed and want to see the police budget cut, send the officers to the Hill.

That was the message Hill residents had for Mayor Justin Elicker.

Leslie Radcliffe, a member of the Hill South Community Management Team, said the police officers in the Hill, particularly District Manager Sgt. Justin Marshall, are doing an awesome job as they respond to the increased violence and the hundreds that would gather for drag racing on Long Wharf Drive that is being tamped down with a new police response.

I know there is another group of people who will say we dont want a police presence in our neighborhood. ... We want you and we welcome you in the Hill because we have a relationship, Radcliffe said. ... We will take whatever patrol some other neighborhood does not want. We will take it and we will give them water and coffee.

Mary OLeary / Hearst Connecticut Media

Radcliffe asked Elicker whether the Police Department was at full capacity to deal with the smaller quality-of-life issues and the bigger problems of increased shootings. The administration has cut more than 48 vacant police positions as revenues have dropped. Elicker did say, however, that there are funds to bring on two new classes of recruits by spring. In an ideal world we would have more, he said.

Elicker said that in every neighborhood he goes to people want more beat cops. I dont think the Hill is different in that aspect, he said.

He said, during a meet the mayor outside session at Trowbridge Park, that there are challenges between the high taxes in New Haven and our ability to pay for the things we care about. Cuts come about because residents dont want to raise taxes a lot more, Elicker said.

During some rallies and event in recent months, there have been calls by residents for defunding or reducing police numbers in the city.

Marshall gave Hill residents more of the details of the crowd gathered for drag racing on Long Wharf on Aug. 16. He said there were 400 to 500 cars and up to 1,500 people that made it very difficult for the police to leave and respond that night to a shooting nearby on Rosette Street where one person was killed and five others wounded.

Mary OLeary / Hearst Connecticut Media

Elicker said the Hill has been hard-hit with complaints about drag racing on Howard Avenue, as well as Ella Grasso Boulevard where people put out lawn chairs to watch the event. Marshall said they plan to continue to shut down Long Wharf from Canal Street and Sargent Drive on weekend nights. He said vehicles still can get off Interstate 95 at Exit 46 and head toward Jordans Furniture.

That was very successful, Marshall said of the new policy blocking Long Wharf. The district manager said those attending the drag racing from come from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York, as well as other parts of Connecticut.

They come down here and basically use Long Wharf as an adult playground ... setting up speakers. You have music, dancing, stunts with motorcycles and dirt bikes, Marshall said.

The district manager said they shut down the Mobil gas station on Sargent Drive, where the racers would assemble, and made several arrests. Other staging areas are the Mobil station on Kimberly Avenue and the McDonalds on Foxon Boulevard.

Three speed bumps also have been put on Long Wharf Drive to curb the racing.

Meghan Friedmann / Hearst Connecticut Media

Marshall said the violence in the Hill is due to several factors, including the early release of some prisoners due to the coronavirus pandemic. He said parole and probation services now are back and those individuals are warned that this violence wont be tolerated. Marshall said another factor is gangs settling old scores.

We do have a pulse on what is going on. Our intelligence unit is working very hard in identifying persons, Marshall said.

The district manager said the Police Department now has targeted enforcement in the Hill with 8 officers assigned to Hill North and 5 to Hill South. He said there are several dedicated beats, including Rosette Street, because they have seen the most violence.

The chief knows we need resources, so there are resources there, Marshall said.

Alder Carmen Rodriguez, D-6, said she has been working with the police, Transportation, Traffic Parking Director Doug Hausladen and city Engineer Giovanni Zinn since June to deal with the drag racing and the large crowds gathering for parties on Long Wharf. The last meal the food trucks there can serve is at 6:30 p.m. so they are out of harms way so our police officers can do their job, Rodriguez said.

Working together as a community is going to make our whole New Haven healthy and whole, Rodriguez said.

We have to stay on top of it, Elicker said.

Rodriguez said bikers plan events on Facebook and Eventbrite, including an unsanctioned parade on Fathers Day.

Another advocate said she is worried about the six shootings in the Hill since April, as opposed to only one all of last year. Im really worried, too, Elicker said. Im on the phone with the Chief (Otoniel Reyes) a couple of times a day.

But Magaly Cajigas still had questions and told Elicker she is worried for her elderly parents who live on Carlisle Street.

I dont want my parents to move from the neighborhood here, but Im also very concerned for their safety here for all the shenanigans that are going on, she said. She said they have been in that house for the past 33 years.

I have seen New Haven with its ups, downs, racial inequalities, economic inequalities, everything. You name it, I have seen it. My question is how are we going to keep the community safe? How are we tackling blight? How are we getting to implement some community policing so we have police officers who are actually stepping out of the cars and talking to folks in the community? Cajigas said.

She said she wants peace and quiet for her elderly parents and right now they just dont have it and they are paying their taxes.

Elicker said he wants that for all residents, but with the citys limited resources, they have to tackle issues one at a time. He suggested airing the situation with the neighbors and the Livable City Initiative.

He added, however, that there are so many issues the city needs three Arthurs in the Hill, three Arthurs in Newhallville and we dont have enough money for that and that is why these issues are so challenging for us to deal with. He was referring to Arthur Natalino Jr., the LCI specialist in the Hill.

The mayor said when people ask him what is the most satisfying aspect of his job, he said it is the city workers.

I admire so many of the city staff ... who could have better paying jobs in other places, but they are working their tail off to address these issues. ... There is so much work to do. That is not an excuse, but it is a reality and that is why we have to keep working together to get on top of one issue at a time. he said.

mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The surge in coronavirus infections in India can be attributed to increased testing on one hand and opening of the economy on the other accompanied by complacency among people towards following COVID-appropriate behaviour, experts have said, as the country witnessed over five lakh cases in a week.

A record single-day spike of 78,761 cases took India's COVID-19 tally to 35,42,733, on Sunday, according to Union Health Ministry data updated at 8 am.

The country has been registering over 70,000 cases for the last four days.

Dr Samiran Panda, the head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said this increase in cases was expected but pointed out that it is not a homogenous phenomenon across the states.

"It is happening in some pockets and among groups where there is an intermixing of the susceptible population and asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases which is leading to a transmission of the disease. So, efforts have to be made to interrupt this transmission in these pockets," Dr Panda said.

Also, testing has been ramped up exponentially which is leading to more number of cases getting detected, he said.

"Further, with the opening up of the economy and people's movement increasing, some complacency is being seen among people towards following COVID-appropriate behaviour which is also contributing to the rise in cases," Panda said as he stressed on the need for a sustained COVID-19 appropriate behaviour.

Leading virologist Shahid Jameel said that people are not following advisories on wearing masks, hand hygiene and social distancing.

"This is driven by a complacency that results from the official narrative which only talks of the increasing number of recoveries and low death rate. The fact is that we are getting the largest daily numbers (of cases). We are now third in total infections and going to be on the third spot in total deaths as well," he said.

Experts underlined that the way forward is for the people to follow COVID-appropriate which include wearing a mask, maintaining social distancing, hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette in a sustained manner, while the government should focus on preventing deaths.

Dr K K Aggarwal, the president of the Confederation of Medical Association of Asia and Oceania (CMAAO) and former IMA chief said, "There is no way the number of cases can be checked by government efforts at this stage."

He stressed that prevention will have to be at an individual level now.

"If this current trend continues, nobody can stop India from crossing Brazil and America (in the number of cases). That would happen in probably six weeks. There is no way we can check the number of cases by government efforts. Now, prevention will have to be an individual effort."

"Opening up (of the economy) will lead to a surge in cases. The locking period was to prepare and sensitise people about how to prevent themselves from getting infected. What is more important now is to put a check on mortality. So government efforts should focus on mortality reduction," Aggarwal said.

India has till Sunday recorded 63,498 fatalities linked to COVID-19 with 948 people succumbing to the disease in the last 24 hours, according to the Union health ministry data.

According to sources in the government, increasing testing is one of the major factors behind the rising number of infections being reported.

A record 10.5 lakh tests were conducted for detection of COVID-19 on Saturday, which took India's cumulative tests to 4,14,61,636.

India's COVID-19 positivity rate as on date is 7.50 per cent, while the cumulative positivity rate is 8.57 per cent.

The country's weekly positivity rate is 8 per cent, official sources said.

The number of recoveries has surged to 27,13,933 pushing the recovery rate to 76.61 per cent while the fatality rate has declined to 1.79 per cent.

The health ministry had on Saturday said, "The global comparison depicted that India has one of the lowest cases per million (2,424) and deaths per million (44) compared to the global average of 3,161 and 107.2 respectively."
Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.





On August 29, President of the Czech Senate Milos Vystrcil left on a so-called business mission to southeast China's Taiwan alongside a delegation of 90 people, including Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib, a group of several of his Senate colleagues, business leaders and academics.

This is significant because Vystrcil is the second-highest constitutional official in the Czech Republic and will meet regional Taiwanese leaders, including Tsai Ing-wen.

Vystrcil's trip, already planned by his late predecessor, is misguided. Others recognize this, as the trip has been opposed by top Czech leaders, such as Prime Minister Andrej Babis, Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek and President Milos Zeman, who recognize the sensitivity of the matter.

According to the senator, however, he would like to help Czechs who wish to conduct business in Taiwan. But he lists two other key aims for his trip that are out of touch with reality.

"The second aim is to show that Czechia is a free, sovereign and democratic country, and our parliamentary diplomacy, in particular the Senate, wants this country to act as Vaclav Havel and [Foreign Minister] Jiri Dienstbier set out. This means defending our democratic principles and sovereignty. At the same time, and this is the third aim, to try to work together with all democratic countries, regardless of what anyone else wants us to do," the senator said at a press conference before his trip.

The Czech Republic adheres to the one-China principle and officially respects the sovereignty of China, having long understood Beijing's stance on the Taiwan question. So this is a clear, deliberate move against China's sovereignty and painting Beijing's opposition to the trip as somehow a breach against Czech sovereignty is, frankly, bizarre and divorced from logic. China strictly refrains from interfering in the sovereignty of other nations  the Czech Republic is no exception.

Rabid senators and local officials who should have no say in foreign policy, however, continue to try to interfere in China's internal affairs seemingly for no good reason other than for attention and political gain.



In April, during the coronavirus lockdown in the country, Bloomberg christened Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib as "the European mayor who doesn't want China's help with virus," which has been something of a badge of honor for him. Thank goodness for those living in the country that Hrib doesn't, and probably should never, have any say over the matter.

This behavior is not limited to China. Prague officials in particular, along with some in the media, have long prodded Russia with acts of hostility  tearing down a monument to Soviet war hero Ivan Konev, erecting a Nazi-collaborator monument, to name a few episodes. These things grab headlines, which is obviously their intended aim, but are childish, unproductive and have real-world consequences. The Russian and Chinese embassies are routinely harassed and sometimes endangered with credible threats because of these actions.

Fanatical, self-serving politicians aside, the real problem is one of precedent. Senator Vystrcil's actions will extend beyond his chamber, even beyond his nation, and send a message to other bad actors that violating China's sovereignty.

Chinese officials understand this and, given the tense political background as the United States tries to pull the world into divergent blocs once more, could foreseeably retaliate against Senator Vystrcil and members of his entourage.

No one, however, has any right to cry foul should this happen. Countries have every right to defend their sovereignty and make examples of those who deliberately violate it. Companies that wish to or already do business in China, presumably run by adults who should have learned long ago that actions have consequences, should not claim ignorance if they see a hit to their Chinese operations by endorsing a violation of China's sovereignty.

Ultimately, this trip will only serve to hurt the Czech Republic's long-term interests. Vystrcil apparently sees this trip to Taiwan as vital for the country's economic recovery, but it's extremely unlikely that any reciprocal investment between the Czech Republic and Taiwan could compensate for any loss incurred from the Chinese mainland.

Lastly, a note on Vystrcil's supposedly principled stance on democracy and freedom. As an American expatriate in the Czech Republic, it is ironic that the senator could claim to hold these values so dear while gleefully hosting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his chamber who is by far the most corrupt, politicized head diplomat in American history.

Pompeo tried very hard to interfere in Czech internal affairs and foreign relations during his address before the Senate and other private meetings with Czech officials. Furthermore, the administration that Pompeo represents is diametrically opposed to democratic values and has killed tens of thousands of Americans, on top of having damned tens of millions of others to abject poverty, because of its gross negligence in managing the coronavirus.

Senator Vystrcil's trip is not about principles; it's about his own political ambitions. Others will, unfortunately, be left to clean up the mess brought about by his recklessness.
The hit back at the after the latter targeted the Modi government on Monday, saying there was a conspiracy of infiltration by Chinese troops along the Ladakh border.

Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Sambit Patra said as long as there is the Modi government and the Army, no country can threaten the sovereignty of India. On questions about the 'red eyes' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi by the Congress, the said we have 'red eyes' but the has 'wet eyes'.

In a press conference at the office here, Patra on Monday said, "The red eyes are with India, Prime Minister Modi and the Indian Army that is why India's sovereignty is intact. Nobody dares to look India in the eye. Every child looks with utmost belief in the Indian Army and PM Modi. As long as the government and the Army stand united, no one can play with the sovereignty of the country."

Patra responded to the statement of leader Randeep Surjewala in which the latter had said that on the night of August 29-30 Chinese troops attempted to infiltrate near the Pangong Tso lake. Surjewala had said, "Chinese intrusion is taking place on the country's land. Where are the red eyes of Modiji. When will India look in the eyes of China and hold talks. Why is Prime Minister Modi silent?"

During the press conference, the BJP spokesperson said the Ministry of Defence had issued a statement on China. The BJP salutes the Indian Army. The valour with which the Army has performed its duty on the border deserves a salute. We bow before them and thank them for their bravery.

Patra attacked the Congress asking why does the Congress cry when India does a surgical strike to eliminate terrorists.

--IANS

nnm/khz/bg

(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.)
President Donald Trump on Monday urged a federal appeals court not to let Manhattan's top prosecutor have his tax returns, saying 'the deck was clearly stacked against' him, and said he would ask the Supreme Court to intervene if necessary.

The argument was made in a filing with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, which on Tuesday will hear arguments on Trump's bid to delay Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance's subpoena for the tax returns during Trump's appeal.

Absent a delay, Trump requested a stay to give the Supreme Court time to consider his request.

A spokesman for Vance declined to comment.

New round in taxes battle: Donald Trump's lawyers filed their case with federal appeals court judges in a bid to stop Cy Vyance Jr., the Manhattan D.A., getting access to his taxes

The district attorney is seeking eight years of tax returns from Trump's longtime accounting firm Mazars USA in connection with a criminal probe of the president's business practices.

Trump has fought the subpoena for a year. He suffered a defeat in July when the Supreme Court rejected his claim of immunity from criminal probes while in the White House.

The tax returns are unlikely to become public before the Nov. 3 presidential election. Vance has said the continued litigation has effectively given Trump the 'temporary absolute immunity' that courts have rejected.

On Aug. 20, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero refused for a second time to block the subpoena, saying 'justice requires an end to this controversy.'

But Monday's filing said Trump was not resurrecting his broad immunity claim, arguing instead that the subpoena was overbroad and issued in bad faith, and that Vance should have to show why its contents were relevant to his probe.

'The District Attorney should not have been allowed to 'run roughshod' over the President in his pursuit of claims that the Supreme Court held he could raise,' the filing said.

The filing said enforcing the subpoena would cause Trump irreparable harm.

'It is disclosure of these records to the government--not just to the public--that causes injury,' it said.

A page from Trump's 1995 tax records

Marrero has refused multiple times to block the subpoena. The U.S. Supreme Court last month upheld one of his rulings, finding that the presidency in itself doesn't shield Trump from Vance's investigation.

But the high court returned the case to Marrero's courtroom to allow Trumps lawyers to raise other concerns about the subpoena. They did, arguing that it was issued in bad faith, might have been politically motivated and amounted to harassment.

Vance's attorneys countered that they were entitled to extensive records to aid a 'complex financial investigation,' citing public reports of 'extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.'

Those arguments led to this week's flurry of rulings and appeals.

Trump blasted the long-running quest for his financial records Thursday as a 'continuation of the most disgusting witch hunt in the history of our country.'

Vance, a Democrat, began seeking the Republican president's tax returns from his longtime accounting firm over a year ago, after Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress that the president had misled tax officials, insurers and business associates about the value of his assets.

The president has said he expects the case to end up back before the Supreme Court.

Even if the tax records ultimately are subpoenaed, they would not automatically be made public, as they are being sought as part of a confidential grand jury investigation.

Congress is also pursuing Trumps financial records, though the Supreme Court last month kept a hold on the banking and other documents that Congress has been seeking and returned the case to a lower court.

Trump is the only modern president who has refused to release his tax returns. Before he was elected, he had promised to do so.

The DA's investigation covers records in the time frame a hush money payoff was given to porn star Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Trump; the president has denied the allegation

Trump had called the case a 'witch hunt' when he spoke to reporters last Thursday in the Oval Office at the White House.

'Well, the Supreme Court said if it's a fishing expedition, you don't have to do it, and this is a fishing expedition. But more importantly, this is a continuation of the witch hunt, the greatest witch hunt in history,' he said.

'There's never been anything like it, where people want to examine everything you've ever done to see if they can find that there's a comma out of place. No president has ever had to go through this,' he added.

The president predicted the case would end up back in the hands of the Supreme Court, which last month ruled the president could not claim immunity in the case and sent it back to the lower court.

'We'll probably end up back in the Supreme Court. But this is just a continuation of the most hideous witch hunt in the history of our country,' he added.

Trump complained prosecutor want to 'inspect every deal he's ever done.'

'This is the ultimate fishing expedition. Nobody has anything. We don't do things wrong.

'But they'll say let's go in and inspect every deal he's ever done. Let's get papers from 10 years - every paper, every deal he's ever signed, maybe we can find with some lawyer made a mistake, where they didn't dot an 'i' where didn't put a comma down someplace, and then we can do something. This is a disgrace. This should never ever be allowed to happen again,' he said.
The fight against insurgency in the country has received a huge boost, as a new aircraft is set to be deployed to Benin by the Nigerian Air Force.

The disclosure was made known by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal, Sadique Abubakar on an inspection tour of facilities in Benin.

According to him, the aircraft deployed will add fire power to the fight against terrorism and other forms of insecurity in the country, adding that the soon to be deployed unit will also do everything to ensure that the Nigerian Maritime environment stays protected.

Abubakar showered encomiums on the unit by saying that their efforts is really putting the country at a vintage position in the long fight against insurgency.

He disclosed that the ATR 42 aircraft has already been deployed to different parts of the country in ensuring the preservation of National security.

Air Force Special Forces, technicians and pilot will be sent to Benin to begin operation as soon as possible, before the aircraft deployed gets to Benin, we would ensure that there becomes sufficient accommodation and well defined infrastructures in Benin, he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 19:44:15|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on Monday presided over a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

The meeting reviewed a guideline on ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin, and a report on the fifth round of disciplinary inspections by the 19th CPC Central Committee. Enditem
The Secretary General of the United Nations has awarded medals to over 600 Ugandan Officers and Militants serving under the sixth United Nations Guard Unit (UNGU VI) in Somalia. The medals are a recognition of the one-year selfless service by the Officers and Militants in securing the UN facilities and personnel against Al-Shabaab threats.

The function was presided over on telecast by the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) in Somalia, His Excellency James Swan.

The SRSG applauded the Peacekeepers for exhibiting a high level of professionalism during their just ended tour of duty and appropriately representing their country in the UN mission. He specifically recognized the manner in which UNGU VI dealt with the recurring challenge of Al-Shabaabs indirect mortar fires directed on the UN facilities in Mogadishu. He also hailed the blue berets for their ability to adjust to other extraordinary challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic.

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I want to thank UNGU VI who have been collaborative in ensuring that they have kept everyone safe through the pandemic, he said, and added that, In addition to your personal contributions, you have been good ambassadors of Uganda and the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces.

The AMISOM Deputy Force Commander in-charge Operations and Plans, Maj Gen James Nakibus Lakara said the coordination and synergies by the various actors in Somalia have enabled Horn of African country to make positive steps going forward in state building, and creating a secure environment.

The General further thanked and wished the peacekeepers well. UNGU VI, I wish you well and please convey our regards to your families, because without those families you would not have reached where you reached, said Gen Lakara.

The Deputy Sector One Commander who is also the Deputy Commander of Ugandas Contingent in Somalia, Col John Winston Mugarura said the Gurad Unit had fulfilled their mission. Overall, you have delivered on your tasks ably well and I therefore congratulate you all, he said.

The Guard Unit was commanded by Lt Col Nathan Bainomugisha who thanked members of his unit for their selfless service. To all of you our nationals and international partners, I thank you for working selflessly as a team. More heads work better than one, he observed. The Commanding Officer also applauded the UPDF Leadership in Uganda for the continued guidance and support to Officers abd Militants keeping peace in Somalia.

Present at the function was the UN Principle Security Advisor, Mr. Andrew Rigg, UN Officials and Officers from both the Headquarters of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Sector One.
A lawyer representing jailed Zimbabwean freelance journalist Hopewell Chinono said via social media on Monday that Chinono is ill and is awaiting a doctor visit in prison.

I have just visited Hopewell Chinono at Chikurubi Maximum Security prison and can confirm that he is unwell, wrote human rights lawyer Doug Coltart on twitter.

Coltart did not indicate what Chinono was suffering from, but that his doctor would be there shortly to attend to his patient.

We will act accordingly based on the medical treatment and advice, he added.

Chin'ono is being represented by a team of lawyers, including Coltart and Beatrice Mtetwa.

Chinono was arrested on 20 July along with opposition leader Jacob Ngarivhume. He has been denied bail three times after being charged with incitement to participate in public violence.

Chinono uncovered an alleged government scandal in Covid-19 tenders, leading to the sacking of Health Minister Obadiah Moyo.
Emergency medical technicians (EMTs), military medics, and emergency room physicians could one day be better able to treat victims of vehicular accidents, gunshot wounds, and battlefield injuries thanks to a new device under development that may more accurately assess the effects of blood loss due to hemorrhage.

A research team has now shown that it can accurately assess blood loss by measuring seismic vibrations in the chest cavity and by detecting changes in the timing of heartbeats. The knowledge, developed in the laboratory, could potentially lead to development of a smart wearable device that could be carried by ambulance crews and medics and made available in emergency rooms and surgical facilities.

"We envision a wearable device that could be placed on a person's chest to measure the signs that we found are indicative of worsening cardiovascular system performance in response to bleeding," said Omer Inan, associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "Based on information from the device, different interventions such as fluid resuscitation could be performed to help a victim of trauma."

The research, supported by the Office of Naval Research, was reported July 22 in the journal Science Advances. It included collaborators from the Translational Training and Testing Laboratories in Atlanta, an affiliate of Georgia Tech, and the University of Maryland.

Blood loss can result from many different kinds of trauma, but the hemorrhage can sometimes be hidden from first responders and doctors. Heart rates are normally elevated in people suffering from trauma, and blood pressure -- now the most commonly used measure of hemorrhage -- can remain stable until the blood loss reaches a life-threatening stage.

"It's very difficult because the vital signs you can measure easily are the ones that the body tries very hard to regulate," Inan said. "Yet you have to make decisions about how much fluid to give an injured person, how to treat them -- and when there are multiple people injured -- how to triage those with the most critical needs. We don't have a good medical indicator that we can measure noninvasively at an injury or battlefield scene to help make these decisions."

Using animal models, Inan and graduate students Jonathan Zia and Jacob Kimball carefully studied seismic vibrations from the chest cavity and electrical signals from the heart as blood volume was gradually reduced. The researchers wanted to evaluate externally measurable indicators of cardiovascular system performance and compare them to information provided by catheters making direct measurements of blood volume and pressure.

The key indicator turned out to be a seismocardiogram, a measure of the micro-vibrations produced by heart contractions and the ejection of blood from the heart into the body's vascular system. But the researchers also saw changes in the timing of the heart's activity as blood volume decreased, providing another measure of a weakening cardiovascular system.

"The most important lower-level feature we found to be important in blood volume status estimation were cardiac timing intervals: how long the heart spends in different phases of its operation," Inan said. "In the case of blood volume depletion, the interval is an important indicator that you could obtain using signals from a wearable device."

In such a device, these noninvasive mechanical and electrical measures could be combined to show just how critical a patient's blood loss was. Machine learning algorithms would use the measurements to generate a simple numerical score in which larger numbers indicate a more serious condition.

"We would give an indicator that is representative of the overall status of the cardiovascular system and how close it is to collapse," Inan said. "If one patient is rated 50 and another is 90, first responders could give priority to the patient with the higher number."

Beyond emergency situations, the new assessment technique could be helpful with many types of surgery in which quickly identifying unseen blood loss could improve the outcome for patients.

In future work, Inan and his collaborators expect to create a prototype device that could take the form of a patch just 10 millimeters square. Additional electrical engineering will be needed to filter out the kinds of background noise likely to be found in real-world trauma situations, and for successful operation when the patient is being transported.

"Long-term, we want to partner with clinicians to do studies in humans where we would use the wearable patch and be able to take measurements when people were coming into the trauma bay, or even while EMTs were still deployed," Inan said. "This could become a new way of monitoring hemorrhage that could be used outside of clinical settings."

The researchers also want to study the opposite problem -- how to determine when enough fluid has been provided to an injured patient. Too much fluid can cause edema, similar to the conditions of heart failure patients whose lungs fill with liquid.

This material is based on work supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under grant N000141812579. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ONR.

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Colombia's second largest rebel group, the ELN, freed nine hostages in a rural southern province after holding them for more than two weeks.

The release came as President Alvaro Uribe and the country's largest rebel group, the FARC, remained deadlocked over a deal to free scores of their hostages, including French Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans held for more than five years.

The hostages were released to a commission from the Red Cross in Narino province close to Ecuador's border, a spokesman for the international agency said.

"During the afternoon, the people who were captured 14 days ago were released," Samaniego municipality mayor, Yamile Montenegro, told reporters.

Violence from Colombia's four-decade-old conflict has eased under President Alvaro Uribe, a Washington ally who has received billions in US aid to fight cocaine traffickers and Marxist rebels involved in Latin America's oldest insurgency.
When Gassia Gerges was 12, her Christian family fled Beirut to escape religious persecution during the Lebanese Civil War. The harrowing experience continues to prove crucial for Gerges, who in 2014 co-founded 1Link Technology, a Germantown, Tennessee-based IT staffing firm that generated $6.3 million in 2019 revenue. She credits much of her company's success, which includes two consecutive appearances on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing companies in America, to her ability to overcome hardship. --As told to Cameron Albert-Deitch

1Link Technology No. 518 2020 rank 892.6% Three-year growth rate German-town, Tenn. Headquarters

I remember walking with these two kids I was babysitting--we had to take cover under a tree, because the Israeli planes were flying so low over us that the whole ground shook. At night, you'd turn all the lights off and you'd watch the bombs and the bullets go across. It was like fireworks.

I was probably 10 years old.

Sometimes, when the bombs fell, my mom literally got shot out of bed. The vibrations lifted her up and dropped her on the floor. That's when we'd go down to our building's basement and stay as long as needed: sometimes weeks, sometimes days. Now, I look back and I'm like, "Is this really what we lived through?" I go to hug my mom, and you should see the fear that comes over her. That's PTSD--any little thing scares her. She downplays it, of course.

In 1982, my parents decided to emigrate to the United States. I ultimately got a graduate degree from the University of Virginia, which led me to a government job in Memphis that just wasn't fulfilling for me. I was really disillusioned.

I met a friend at the gym who was always smiling. I was like, "Steven, what do you do?" He said he was an IT consultant. "Why don't you come shadow me?" he said. It was 20 years ago, and I haven't looked back.

By 2014, I was working in Memphis for a business with 28 offices nationally. We were bought out by a private equity firm, and I saw corporateness about to shape this company: the weekly conference calls, the rah-rah annual meetings, all the things that absolutely do nothing for my work other than distraction.

My colleague Diane and I--they called us "Peanut Butter" and "Jelly," we were really that close together--left and started 1Link Technology. We had an 18-month noncompete agreement, and couldn't do any business within a 50-mile radius of our old clients. Instead, we found one large new customer: CenturyLink, the global tech company in Monroe, Louisiana.

Diane uprooted her family and moved down there. I moved in with my parents in Northern Virginia, because CenturyLink had a government arm there. Within a few months, Diane's husband lost his job. Then, her house flooded. After a little over a year of running the business, she had to leave 1Link and get a job.

Meanwhile, when I moved in with my parents, I didn't know we were going to lose my dad. When his Parkinson's disease advanced, I took over his care from my mom.

In March 2016, we lost him.

Two months later, my noncompete ended. I went back to Memphis thinking, very naively, that my former customers would come right back to me. It wasn't that way. A year and a half had gone by, and I couldn't function without Diane. I was on the sales side, she was on the recruiting side, and together, we made this work. I sat there and thought to myself, "I'm a one-man shop. Who am I kidding here?"

I stuck it out. Within six months, I met a former IT developer and software engineer who reminded me a lot of her. He was very disillusioned, and ready for a new career. I said, "Ben, you would be great at this. If you ever want to shadow me, I'd love for you to come see what this is about." If it hadn't been for Ben replacing Diane, I probably wouldn't be in business.

The war and the suffering I lived through as a child also played a role. When people don't want suffering in their lives, I'm like, "You're eliminating the greatest gift that can happen to you." We go to the gym, and what do we do to our muscles? We break them down to make them stronger. Strength in character, too, can't happen without suffering.

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Cancer, covid-19, diabetes, malaria Not only do they make great pets, but dogs also have a remarkable sense of smell that can be used to detect a wide range of diseases.

Some dogs are trained by security services to find drugs or explosives, others are used to hunt for truffles. But that is not all they can do. Thanks to their highly developed sense of smell, canines are also able to detect odors that are imperceptible to humans, which indicate the presence of certain diseases. Here is a roundup of some of the conditions that they are being taught to find.

Covid-19

In response to the ongoing health crisis, several researchers are training dogs to detect cases of SARS-CoV-2. The goal of these programs is to determine if there is a specific smell in the perspiration of people infected by the novel coronavirus that canines can reliably identify.

Initially developed by the staff at the French Ecole Veterinaire de Maisons-Alfort, the method, which is being tested in the city of Strasbourg, the island of Corsica and at other locations outside France, has demonstrated encouraging preliminary results.

Malaria

This parasitic disease, which is transmitted to humans by Anopheles mosquitoes, can also be detected by our canine friends. In 2019, English researchers presented the results of a study conducted in The Gambia, which involved training dogs with socks that had been worn by children infected with malaria, who otherwise had no symptoms. The experiment proved to be so successful that researchers are now planning on using this method to test for asymptomatic cases of the disease.

Migraine

Being able to anticipate a migraine attack can significantly help reduce the intensity and the duration of the pain that it causes. According to a study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in 2013, around 60% of participants declared that their dog warned them of an imminent migraine headache one or two hours before they began to feel it.

Diabetes

According to a British study published in Plos One in early 2019, dogs can detect hypoglycemic episodes in people suffering Type 1 diabetes in more than 80% cases. The study further explained that dogs can also be trained to adopt a specific signalling behavior, like nuzzling their owners legs when they have identified the odor of hypoglycemia.

Cancer

In recent years, there have been several widely reported cases of dogs alerting owners who were suffering from cancer. In 2015, a Labrador named Daisy, who had been trained to sniff out cancer, warned her mistress by repeatedly nuzzling her bosom. A short time later, the woman was diagnosed with breast cancer.

This surprising phenomenon is made possible by a particular odor caused by the disease in the urine and blood of affected humans. An American study published in 2019 notably showed that beagles trained to detect the odor of lung cancer in blood samples could effectively identify the disease in more than 96% of cases.
On Sunday Pope Francis said he looks forward to the World Day of Prayer for the care of Creation. The Pope prayed for Mauritius, which is suffering the consequences of an oil spill. Cardinal Piat has been preaching togetherness and hope.

English Africa Service  Vatican City

During the Sunday Angelus prayer in St Peter Square, Pope Francis said he was thinking of Mauritius.

On 25 July 2020, the Japanese bulk carrier ship Wakashio, owned by a subsidiary of Nagashiki Shipping Co., Ltd of Okayama, Japan, became stranded off the coast of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, and in the process has spilt about 1,000 tons of heavy oil.

The oil spill is a significant blow to the Island country, which depends on tourism. Already, the effects of COVID-19 are being felt in the tourist industry.

The sea is more than a source for livelihood

Cardinal Maurice E. Piat who is the Bishop of Port-Louis in Mauritius, said recently during Mass that the situation was very worrying. He called upon compatriots to unite and overcome the effects of the spill.

I think especially of the people of Mahebourg and the villages on the southeast coast for whom the oil spill is not only an ecological disaster but a human disaster: the sea for them is their livelihood, and more (than that) it is a place of life, their passion. With the devastated lagoon, its a lifetime, a whole culture that collapses, the Cardinal said.

The outpouring of solidarity comforts Cardinal Piat

The Cardinal recently told the Catholic News Service that he had been touched by the outpouring of solidarity concerning the oil spill.

Numerous families are afflicted by a pestilential and persistent odour  fishermen and all those living from the sea are suffering particularly, while ecological treasures in our coastal bays and islets are gravely damaged, said Cardinal Piat adding, Amid the pain shared by so many, I salute the beautiful outpouring of active and enterprising solidarity now showing itself in a bid to save what might still be saved.

Ecosystems at risk

An AP report lists native sea turtles, waterfowl habitats of wetlands and mangrove forests designated as wetlands of international importance under the Ramsar Convention to be at risk. The ecosystem of the birds could be destroyed. It is said that the coral reefs around Mauritius contain over 40% of the worlds 800 species of hard coral. Adhesion of heavy oil makes coral unable to breathe.

Thousands protest the governments slow action

AP/LaPresse reports that tens of thousands of people protested Saturday, in Mauritius, over the governments slow response to the oil spill and the alarming discovery of dozens of dead dolphins in recent days.
NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate on Monday (August 31) arrested suspended Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain in a money laundering case related to the communal violence in northeast Delhi in February. The probe agency has secured six days of custodial remand of Tahir.

The suspended AAP councillor was arrested by the agency to in connection with ongoing PMLA investigation into his role in money laundering and funding of anti-CAA protests and organising riots in northeast Delhi on February 24-25 this year.

The agency had earlier in the day brought Tahir for questioning from Tihar jail in connection with northeast Delhi riots and the Tablighi Jamaat case.

According to top ED officials, Tahir was brought from Tihar jail to the ED's headquarters in south Delhi's Khan Market area for questioning. Officials said that Tahir will also be questioned about funding for the Delhi riots. The official added that he is also being questioned about which hawala operators he was in touch with to collect the money for the riots. He will also be interrogated about his relations with Tablighi Jamaat chief Maulana Saad.

Hussain was arrested in connection with the riots in northeast Delhi in February. He has also been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in a conspiracy case related to the riots.

He was also arrested in connection with the alleged murder of IB official Ankit Sharma during the riots.

According to sources, Tahir had admitted to his role in the northeast Delhi riots during interrogation Special Investigation Team (STF) team of Delhi Police saying he wanted to teach Hindus a lesson using his political power and money. He also confessed before the police of being the mastermind of the northeast Delhi riots.

Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control, leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.
Spike Lee said Chadwick Boseman's performance in Da 5 Bloods, despite his illness, is testament to what he put into that role and all his roles.

In a lengthy, emotional tribute to Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler said the late actor was a man of faith and dignity, and someone who lived a beautiful life while making great art.

Boseman, who attained global stardom as King T'Challa of fictitious African country Wakanda aka superhero Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, died Friday of colon cancer at his residence in Los Angeles with his wife and family by his side. He was 43.

(Also read on Firstpost Chadwick Boseman passes away: The Black Panther star was an antidote to apolitical actors)

The actor fought a secret battle with the disease for four years, Boseman''s family said in a statement posted on his official Twitter handle on Saturday.

Coogler revealed he "wasn't privy to the details of his illness", adding Boseman was "living with his illness the entire time I knew him".

"Day after day, year after year. That was who he was. He was an epic firework display. I will tell stories about being there for some of the brilliant sparks till the end of my days. What an indelible mark he's left for us," the filmmaker said in a statement on Sunday obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

The director, who is set to helm the sequel to 2018's Black Panther due to be released in 2022, said he spent the last year preparing and writing words for Boseman to say, that "we weren't destined to see".

The director recalled how he "inherited" the actor, who was first cast in Captain America: Civil War by the Russo Brothers, and was in two minds about directing the Black Panther stand-alone.

"His first (scene) with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, then, with the South African cinema titan, John Kani as T'Challa's father, King T'Chaka. It was at that moment I knew I wanted to make this movie. After Scarlett''s character leaves them, Chad and John began conversing in a language I had never heard before.

"It sounded familiar, full of the same clicks and smacks that young black children would make in the (United) States. The same clicks that we would often be chided for being disrespectful or improper. But, it had a musicality to it that felt ancient, powerful, and African."

After he watched Civil War, Coogler asked Nate Moore, one of the producers on the film, about the language.

"Did you guys make it up?" he asked, to which Moore replied, "that''s Xhosa, John Kani''s native language. He and Chad decided to do the scene like that on set, and we rolled with it."

Collaborating with Kani, Boseman learnt Xhosa to make the African language the character's native tongue, and memorised his lines on the spot.

"I couldn't conceive how difficult that must have been, and even though I hadn't met Chad, I was already in awe of his capacity as actor," Coogler added.

From discussions over heritage, what it means to be African, dialogues, costumes, military practices in the film to doing his own stunts, Coogler said Boseman was brimming with ideas that would help them realise their collective vision of Wakanda.

Boseman was last seen in Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods, an urgent film about a group of ageing Vietnam War veterans who return to the country in search of the remains of their fallen squad leader. The cast also includes Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, and Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Lee reminsced working with Bosemen in an interview with E! : "We filmed Da 5 Bloods in Thailand, and it was hot, jungles, mountains, and Chadwick was there with us all the way. I never, ever suspected that anything was wrong. No one knew he was going through treatment, chemotherapy." He further called Boseman "a trooper", who "was there every single minute, in the moment, and his performance is testament to what he put into that role and all his roles."

The director also shared clips of Boseman from his film, which released on Netflix recently.

Here are Lee's posts

(With inputs from Press Trust of India)
File Photo

Chandigarh: The Punjab Government has issued revised guidelines for international arrivals. Giving details in press release, the Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said that before planning for travel, all travellers should submit self-declaration form on the online portal (www.newdelhiairport.in) at least 72 hours before the scheduled travel.

They should also give an undertaking on the portal that they would undergo mandatory quarantine for 14 days i.e. 7 days paid institutional quarantine at their own cost, followed by 7 days of isolation at home with self-monitoring of health.

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Balbir Singh Sidhu

The Minister clarified that now, travellers can apply directly online for home quarantine under which only for compelling reasons/cases of human distress such as pregnancy, death in family, serious illness and parent(s) with children of the age of 10 years or below, home quarantine may be permitted for 14 days.

He said that if they wish to seek such exemption, they shall apply to the online portal (www.newdelhiairport.in) at least 72 hours before boarding.

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He said that international traveller can submit the Covid-19 test report on portal and it is compulsory to report district administration about his/her arrival in the district. The decision taken by the government as communicated on the online portal will be final.

Flight He said that as per the guidelines, travellers may also seek exemption from institutional quarantine by submitting a negative RTPCR test report on arrival.

This test should have been conducted within 96 hrs prior to undertaking the journey. The test report should be uploaded on the portal for consideration.

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Sidhu added that each passenger shall also submit a declaration with respect to authenticity of the report and will be liable for criminal prosecution, if found otherwise. The test report could also be produced upon arrival at the point of entry airport in India.

He further said that before boarding, dos and donts shall be provided along with ticket to the travelers by the agencies concerned. All passengers shall be advised to download Arogya Setu app on their mobile devices.

Aarogya Setu AppAt the time of boarding the flight/ship, only asymptomatic travellers will be allowed to board after thermal screening.

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Passengers arriving through the land borders will also have to undergo the same protocol as above, and only those who are asymptomatic will be enabled to cross the border into India.

Suitable precautionary measures such as environmental sanitation and disinfection shall be ensured at the airports.

The Minister said that during boarding and at the airports, all possible measures to ensure social distancing to be ensured. During journey, travellers who had not filled in self-declaration form on the portal shall fill the same in duplicate in the flight/ship and a copy of the same will be given to Health and Immigration officials present at the airport/seaport. Alternatively, such travellers may submit self-declaration form on the online portal at arriving airport/ seaport/ Iandport as per the directions of the concerned authorities, if such facility is available.

Balbir Singh SidhuSuitable announcement about Covid-19 including precautionary measures to be followed shall be made at airports/port and in flights/ships and during transit he said adding that while on board the flight/ ship, required precautions such as wearing of masks, environmental hygiene, respiratory hygiene, hand hygiene etc. are to be observed by airline/ ship staff, crew and all passengers.

The Minister said that on arrival, de-boarding should be done ensuring social distancing. Thermal screening would be carried out in respect of all the passengers by the Health officials present at the airport/seaport/Iandport.

The self-declaration form filled online shall be shown (or a copy of physical self-declaration form to be submitted) to the airport health staff. The passengers found to be symptomatic during screening shall be immediately isolated and taken to medical facility as per health protocol.

He said that post thermal screening; the passengers who have been exempted from institutional quarantine (decision as indicated on the online portal in advance) will show the same to the respective State Counters on their cell phones/other mode before being allowed home quarantine for 14 days.

The Cabinet Minister said that the remaining passengers shall be taken to suitable institutional quarantine facilities. These passengers shall be kept under institutional quarantine for a minimum period of 7 days.

Covid-19

They shall be tested as per ICMR protocol available at https://www.mohfw.gov.in/pdf/Revisedtestingguidelines.pdf if they test positive, they shall be assessed clinically.

If they are assessed as asymptomatic/pre-symptomatic/very mild cases, they will be allowed home isolation or isolated in the Covid Care Centre (both public & private facilities) as appropriate.

Those having mild/moderate/severe symptoms will be admitted to dedicated Covid Health facilities and managed accordingly.

If passenger found negative, they shall be advised to further isolate themselves at home and self-monitor their health for 7 days. In case, any symptoms develop they shall inform the district surveillance officer or the state/national call center (104/1075).
Revised rules could mean ByteDance may have to delay sale of its video-sharing app TikTok until after US election.

ByteDance Ltd. will be required to seek Chinese government approval to sell the U.S. operations of its short-video TikTok app under new restrictions Beijing imposed on the export of artificial intelligence technologies, according to a person familiar with the matter.

AI interface technologies such as speech and text recognition, and those that analyze data to make personalized content recommendations, were added to a revised list of export-control products published on the Ministry of Commerces website late Friday. Government permits will be required for overseas transfers to safeguard national economic security, it said.

The new restrictions cover technologies ByteDance uses in TikTok and will require the company to seek government approval for any deal, according to the person, asking not to be identified because the details arent public. The new rule is aimed at delaying the sale and is not an outright ban, the person said.

President Donald Trumps administration has said ByteDance must sell the U.S. operations of its popular video-sharing app because of alleged national security risks. Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. have submitted rival bids to ByteDance to acquire TikToks U.S. business, while Centricus Asset Management Ltd. and Triller Inc. were said to have made a last-minute pitch on Friday to buy TikToks operations in several countries for $20 billion.

Chinas foreign ministry and commerce ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

ByteDance said in a statement the company was aware of the new restrictions and would strictly comply with the Chinese regulations on technology exports. The companys executives are working to understand the new rule, and the attempt to please two governments that are already at odds could make logistics for any deal more challenging, according to a person familiar with the situation.

ByteDance should study the new export list and seriously and cautiously consider whether it should halt negotiations, Cui Fan, a trade expert and professor at Beijings University of International Business and Economics, told the official Xinhua News Agency.

Additional approval in Beijing is likely to delay and could undermine any transaction. Because the Chinese government review will take time, the TikTok deal may be delayed until after the U.S. elections in November, the person familiar said.

The revised rules would cover cross-border transfers of restricted technologies even within the same company, while the impact and consequences of failing to make appropriate applications would be very different if an international business is spun off, Cui said separately in an interview with Bloomberg.

Centricus 11th-Hour Bid Adds Intrigue to TikTok Waiting Game

Technologies related to drones and to some genetic engineering methods and procedures were also added to the revised export-control list while others in areas like medical equipment were removed. The revisions are meant to promote Chinas technological advancement and international cooperation, and safeguard national economic security, a commerce ministry representative said in a separate statement on Friday.

Technology exports encompass various transfers out of China including via trade, investment and patents, according to the statement. Any export of restricted technology will require letters of export permit intentions from Chinese authorities before negotiations can be held, while final permits are required before any transfer happens.
Vietnamese weaver Phan Thi Thuan hitches up her trousers as she wades into a lotus paddy to gather the stems needed to make a rare and highly sought-after thread.

Her great-aunt made and sold traditional silk to the French during colonial rule, passing the technique on to Thuan, who started weaving when she was six in her village on the outskirts of Hanoi.

But three years ago Thuan spotted a new opportunity in the lotus stems left to rot in nearby fields after the seeds had been harvested for food.

She began extracting the fibre found in the stems to make lotus silk", an exclusive fabric highly sought by fashion designers.

I was the first in Vietnam," the 65-year-old told AFP proudly.

I started all by myself, then I trained those already in my workshop," she added.

Farmers often toil for hours to clear lotus paddies of rotting stems, which ruin the soil and bring unwanted insects.

But thanks to her vision, Thuan today leads a team of about 20 mostly female workers who snap off the stems in the paddies, before they tease out the fragile fibres and roll them into thread.

Dressed head-to-toe in brown silk and wearing a pearl necklace  the same outfit she dons as she picks through the lotus paddies  Thuan describes her work.

Its a painstaking process  a large scarf requires the thread of around 9,200 stems and would take one worker around two months to complete  but Thuan insists its worth it.

I see this as my task now, to generate jobs, and to do my bit for the environment," she said, adding that during busy periods, she employs hundreds to weave from home.

The profits are another reason to persevere.

While a regular silk scarf might go for $20, even a smaller lotus version  popular with pre-coronavirus tourists  fetches more than 10 times that.

Although lotus silk is made in a handful of countries  including Myanmar and Cambodia  Thuan is seen as an innovator in Vietnam.

She has been supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, which kickstarted a three-year national-level project to further develop the harvesting technique.

Thuan also runs training sessions during the school holidays, hoping to show children there is space for dynamism even in this ancient profession.

Nguyen Thi Xoa, 40, was taught by Thuan in 2017 and she now wants her children to follow in her thread.

At the beginning it was very difficult, but now I love doing it," she said. Its a stable job and Im proud of it."
Throughout her career, Dr. Piper has confronted systemic bias, informed leaders and shaped resistant mindsets into cultural shifts for law firms, Fortune 500 corporations, faith-based organizations, and higher education.

AbstoneLalley, Inc., a national, Minority and Women-owned legal and corporate consulting firm, is excited to announce the expansion of our current consulting portfolio to provide measurable, meaningful support to our clientele in their quest to achieve diverse and inclusive workspaces. Renowned diversity and inclusion expert, Dr. Dianne Piper, Esq., has joined the company as Chief Diversity and Inclusion Advisor. In this role, Dr. Piper will provide seamless leadership for this expansion, specializing in multi-faceted diversity and inclusion consulting for Global 100 law firms, AmLaw 100 and 200 law firms, and Fortune 100 and 500 corporate legal executives. Dr. Pipers expertise includes creating effectual external partnerships, neuro-diversity, comprehensive equity, policy design, religious accommodations, benchmarking, crisis management, and workplace equality.

I have dedicated my entire career to advancing diverse, novel, equitable strategies that are measurable and meaningful, said Dr. Dianne Piper. Coupled with AbstoneLalleys priorities, our natural collaboration will seamlessly advance our collective pursuit of inclusion across the legal profession. I am delighted to join Rodney Abstone-Carabajal and the entire AbstoneLalley team in assuring sustainable changes that will create positive impacts for our clientele and redefine the legal landscape.

Although recent social unrest has again thrust the topic of diversity and inclusion into the spotlight, AbstoneLalley has been working to advance diversity and inclusion in the legal profession since its founding in 2012. AbstoneLalleys CEO, Rodney L. Abstone-Carabajal has been purposeful in promoting the need for inclusive initiatives through his work advising some of the worlds largest law firms to engage in the often difficult and uncomfortable conversations that are necessary to uncover issues and create real, meaningful change.

Dr. Pipers passion and lifelong commitment to access and opportunity, the rights of marginalized groups, and cultural dexterity is inspiring, said Rodney L. Abstone-Carabajal, CEO of AbstoneLalley, Inc. I am extremely honored that Dr. Piper has joined AbstoneLalley. Dr. Piper is a proven leader and innovative problem solver. Throughout her career, she has confronted systemic bias, informed leaders and shaped resistant mindsets into cultural shifts for law firms, Fortune 500 corporations, faith-based organizations, and higher education. We are excited that we can now provide her unique forte, dynamic global experiences, and elite expertise to our clients.

Dr. Piper is fluent in civil, human, gender, and LGBTQ rights, as well as the delivery of integrated strategies and cohesive approaches that assure inclusive, highly-engaged workspaces that inform all facets of the employee experience. A licensed attorney and federally-certified mediator, Dr. Piper has lectured around the globe on social justice impacts, neuro-diversity, othering, intersectionality, and gender identity. Dr. Piper holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Science in public relations from the University of the State of New York, Regents College in Albany, NY; a Master of Arts in mass communications from Southern University A&M College in Baton Rouge, LA; a Juris Doctorate from the Southern Law Center in Baton Rouge, LA; and a Doctor of Management from the University of Maryland, University College in Adelphi, MD; and numerous professional certifications.

For more information about AbstoneLalley, Inc. or the companys diversity recruiting or consulting services, please visit AbstoneLalley.com.

About AbstoneLalley, Inc.

AbstoneLalley, Inc., a Minority and Women-owned legal and corporate consulting firm with offices in Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York City, San Francisco, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, provides exceptional service and expertise to deliver effective leadership solutions for their clients throughout North and South America. Their extensive knowledge in the areas of legal and corporate executive recruiting, diversity recruiting, retention, and consulting, domestic and international law firm mergers and acquisitions, succession planning, and career counseling, has earned them a reputation of excellence. Their expertise enables them to maintain a sharp focus on key success factors, sound bottom-line management, and innovative quality client service in todays highly competitive legal market. For more information, please visit AbstoneLalley.com.

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Sara DeNio, Managing Shareholder, (312) 602-2549, sdenio@abstonelalley.com
TORONTO, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Altai Resources Inc. (ATI, TSX VENTURE; US SEC Rule 12g3-2(b) File # 82-2950) (the Company) is pleased to announce that at its annual general meeting of the shareholders held on August 28, 2020 in Toronto (the Meeting), Dr. Niyazi Kacira, Dr. Mehmet F. Taner, Mr. Jeffrey S. Ackert, Mr. Raymond Savoie and Ms. Maria Au were elected as Directors of the Company.



In the Meeting, MS Partners LLP, Chartered Professional Accountants was appointed as Auditors of the Company.

ABOUT ALTAI

Altai Resources Inc. is a resource company with a producing oil property in Alberta and exploration gold and gas properties in Quebec.

For further information, please contact

Maria Au, Secretary-Treasurer

Tel: (416) 383-1328 Fax: (416) 383-1686

Email: info@altairesources.com Internet: http://www.altairesources.com

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.
MOSCOW - The U.S. ambassador to Russia on Monday visited a former Marine who is imprisoned for assaulting police officers in Moscow, calling his conviction a mockery of justice.

Trevor Reed, 29, was convicted in July and sentenced to nine years in prison for an altercation in August 2019 in Moscow, where he was studying Russian and visiting his girlfriend. He allegedly assaulted police officers who were driving him to a police station after picking him up following a night of heavy drinking at a party.

Russian authorities said Reed was drunk inside a police car when he grabbed the arm of the driver, causing him to swerve into another lane, and elbowed another officer who tried to intervene. But investigators didnt give the defence team the video that was recorded inside the police car.

Hes been detained and convicted on evidence that is laughable, U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan said outside the Moscow prison after being inside for two hours. Im proud to say as an American that Trevor seems to be doing as well as can be expected. Hes an extremely impressive young man and it pains me to see him detained under these circumstances.

Its important that he gets the medical treatment he needs and we will be advocating for that vigorously and of course for his release so that he can come home to the United States, Sullivan said.

He didnt specify Reeds medical problems, but Reeds mother had previously told The Associated Press that he was suffering from abnormal blood pressure and heart rate.

Reed is one of three Americans imprisoned or detained in Russia under controversial circumstances. Paul Whelan, a former corporate security executive, was convicted in June of espionage and sentenced to 16 years. His lawyer has said his client was handed a flash drive that had classified information on it that he didnt know about. Investment banker Michael Calvey has been under house arrest since April 2019, facing charges of fraud.

Although President Donald Trump publicly called on Sweden to release rapper A$AP Rocky when he was held there on an assault charge, he has made no public statement on Reeds case.

I know that President Trump has been briefed on and is concerned about Trevor Reeds detention and the other Americans unjustly detained in Russia, Sullivan said. I dont want to go into detail about what the president or other senior government leaders ... have said or done in discussions with Russian government officials.

Read more about:
(Natural News) For his opening monologue on Mondays broadcast of Fox News Channels Tucker Carlson Tonight, host Tucker Carlson pointed out the lack of discussion about a return to the pre-COVID-19 normal.

(Article by Jeff Poor republished from Breitbart.com)

Carlson said many shun those who ask the questions, and the goalposts that define progress on coronavirus are continually shifting.

Transcript as follows:

CARLSON: Have you been to America lately? A lot of Americans really havent. For months, most of us have stayed close to home. We had to.

So the next time you get on a plane and visit a couple of American cities, you may be surprised, especially if you remember those cities well from before the pandemic.

An awful lot has changed in a short time. Many stores and restaurants are closed, you expect that. Churches are locked on Sunday morning. Thats weird.

The streets seem empty, except for the parks which are full of the homeless. When you do see people, they tend to be wearing masks and they wont get close to you.

Its a very strange experience. The country has changed a lot. The culture has changed a lot and really not for the better.

So the question is, how long will this last? How long do we have to endure this? When do we get our country back? When can we live like we used to live back in February?

That question is too rarely asked. And in fact, asking it is actively discouraged. At first, youll remember, the authorities told us we could resume our lives when hospital admissions tapered off and we flattened the curve. The curve stayed flat, in most places it never bent.

So we get a new benchmark for when we can get back to normal  when we get a vaccine. Everything will be fine once we can vaccinate against COVID-19. Many in authority told us that. Theyre still telling us that.

The State of Virginia has announced that when a vaccine finally does arrive, it will be mandatory.

Not all vaccines. Virginia will not require vaccines for hepatitis or HIV. They dont require a vaccine for meningitis either to fight despite the fact that meningitis kills a lot more say college students than coronavirus does.

But once you get a corona vaccine, theyre telling us, all will be well.

But now theyve changed that. Not true anymore.

According to a new announcement from the World Health Organization, a vaccine, even if we get one will not be the end of all of this. It will never end.

You can get your injection. Theyll make you get it. But youll still be under arrest.

The World Health Organization says that finding a vaccine is not the goal. Reordering society is the goal. Quote, We will not, we cannot go back to the way things were. Thats a direct quote from the leader of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros, who by the way, is not really a doctor.

Because COVID-19 is not a public health crisis really, or even a mere virus. According to Tedros, COVID-19 is in fact, this may surprise you  COVID-19 is really about global warming.

As he puts it, quote: The COVID-19 pandemic has given new impetus to the need to accelerate efforts to respond to climate change. I bet you didnt see that coming.

Bill Gates did. He agrees to that wholeheartedly. Earlier this month, Gates posted an essay to his personal website, which you probably havent seen, arguing that the lesson of the corona pandemic is that the rest of us will have to sacrifice even more to save the Earth from warming.

Now for people who are not billionaire global influencers, this is all pretty confusing. Quick. What does the coronavirus have to do with climate change? Well, for one thing China caused both of them. Thats the obvious link.

But that is definitely not the point Dr. Tedros and Bill Gates are making, both of them bow before China. They would never meaningfully criticize the Chinese government.

So you can be assured thats not the connection theyre drawing. No.

For Dr. Tedros and Bill Gates, pandemic and climate change share a very different connection. Both are useful pretexts for mass social control. Both are essentially unsolvable crises they can harness to bypass democracy and force powerless populations to obey their commands.

Now it makes sense. Ever wondered why our leaders consider the coronavirus a major public health crisis, but not say, suicides and drug ODs? Well, this is why.

When a 26-year-old mother in New Hampshire drops dead from fentanyl, Bill Gates and Dr. Tedros dont get more powerful. Her death is useless to them. So they dont care.

If you actually wanted to improve peoples lives, you would look at things very differently and you would probably reach very different conclusions about the pandemic.

In just a few weeks, a deadly virus spread from central China through Europe to every major city in the West. And as that happened, the World Health Organization did nothing to stop it and in fact, spread disinformation as it was happening. Those are the facts.

So what would a rational person conclude from those facts? Well, the first and most obvious lesson is globalization has risks. It has upsides, of course. Cheaper plastic crap from China, but it also has risks. Pandemics spread very, very fast.

Then, as it happened, our most important international public health organization failed on purpose. Its corrupt. The W.H.O. is corrupt. Thats a huge problem. Thats the other lesson.

But no one is learning those lessons. When was the last time you heard Bill Gates or Dr. Tedros say those things? Never. They never will say them because they wouldnt benefit from acknowledging they are true.

This is true about all crises. They only take the lessons that empower them. How about global warming? How would a rational person assess global warming?

If you really believe that carbon emissions were distorting the Earths climate, and thats the claim they make, maybe theyre right, then you would take a very close look at the forces behind those carbon emissions.

You would ask hard questions about the global economy, youd wonder who is profiting from this system thats destroying the Earth? How exactly do the richest most powerful people in the world  that would be big finance and the tech monopolies contribute to carbon emissions? That would be the first question you would ask. Thats the logical way to think about climate change.

And if you began to think that way, you might wind up concluding that people like  I dont know, Michael Bloomberg were in fact climate criminals. Their private jets alone produce more carbon emissions a year that entire African villages, not to mention more than your neighborhood does, a lot more.

But tellingly, no one on the environmental left ever criticizes Michael Bloomberg. He is considered a leader in the fight against climate change.

On the basis of the numbers that is ludicrous, but they say with a straight face and demand you believe it.

Part of this is human nature. All of us tend to place ourselves at the center, in the heroic center of our own narratives. Thats particularly true of rich people who tend toward the narcissistic.

But in this case, they are evading responsibility. They are profiting directly from a system they claim is unacceptable, but its not their fault somehow. You know whose fault it is. Oh, its your fault. Youre the one whos doing it. Youre the one whos killing humanity. Youre the one who must change.

Youve got too many kids. You drive a pickup truck. You forgot to wear your little mask. Youre going to hell.

Good luck with your bankruptcies and your opioid crisis and your broken lives, Middle America. We will be at the Yellowstone Club having a drink.

Its a scam. Its an obvious scam.

Heres another data point for you that you wont see on television. Less than a month ago, on July 31st, the CDC  Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, our primary public health organization funded by the Federal government released guidelines to State Health Departments about patients infected with the coronavirus,. How do you track the spread of this disease?

In a footnote in the release, the CDC acknowledged that researchers lacked evidence that, quote: Masks offer any protection against coronavirus, any at all.

As health officials work to track the spread of the virus, the CDC suggested that they ignore whether or not people were wearing masks.

In other words, wearing a mask may be completely irrelevant to the spread of the virus. So there is still no proof that masks protect us against COVID-19? That is apparently the conclusion the CDC reached. Its not something Trump tweeted. The CDC put that in a release to the states. It seems like a blockbuster story.

Why isnt that on page one of The New York Times? Why is the entire media, the entire leadership class of the United States of America ignoring this? Masks are obligatory. Theyre mandatory everywhere.

Just the other day, Joe Biden announced that if he is elected, you will be required to wear a mask when youre alone outside. What is going on? You know whats going on? Fear works.

The more afraid you are, the more you will accept. Again, a feature of human nature. The more cut off you are from your family and your friends, the more power they have to control you.

This is an election year. Democrats want to win in November. The virus is their main shot to win. Nobody disputes that whos looked at the numbers.

Theyre using fear of the coronavirus to achieve that. For example, polling places. They would like to close more of them. Why? To force a vote by mail.

Why? Because vote by mail is more easy to manipulate.

The latest Coronavirus Relief Bill the Democrats are pushing would bring ballot harvesting to every state. What does that have to do with defeating the virus? Nothing. Its not science, its politics.

But heres the key thing to remember. All of us are assuming and on the right, it is gospel. This will end if Joe Biden wins. On Inauguration Day, no more lockdowns. Yes, dont bet on it. This isnt ending.

The Wuhan pandemic has made our leadership class more powerful than they had have ever been. Why would they relinquish that? The only politician in America who has ever given up power voluntarily is George Washington and theyre toppling his statues.
Belgian federal police used heat-tracing technology to clamp down on fans watching Sunday's action at Spa-Francorchamps from nearby wooded areas.

The news comes just a day after police turned away from the track a full bus-load of Max Verstappen fans from Holland.

The Dutch publication Formule 1 reports that Belgian police even released heat-seeking images taken from a helicopter depicting fans in nearby forests.

"Some attempts to gain access to the circuit were thwarted thanks to the technological means deployed," the Belgian federal police confirmed.

"Thank you to those fans who respected this closed event."

(GMM)
Descendants of Jewish refugees expelled from Austria under Nazi rule can apply for Austrian citizenship under a new law that goes into effect Tuesday.

About 120,000 Jews living in Austria fled persecution after Nazi Germany annexed its neighbor in 1938, with many going to the United States and the United Kingdom. Most refugees, The Observer notes, became naturalized citizens in their new countries, but post-war Austria banned dual citizenship, meaning those who left were considered foreigners in their homeland. Eventually, in 1993, former refugees were able to reclaim their Austrian citizenship, but descendants were left out, preventing the country from restoring its pre-war Jewish community, which numbered 200,000. That's unlikely to happen even now since the applicants will be dual citizens and won't necessarily reside in Austria. For instance, a major factor for eligible U.K. citizens, per the Observer, will likely be the desire to regain European Union citizenship post-Brexit through the program.

Still, campaigners believe the law represents both historic justice and could potentially help sway change in Austria, where some citizens believe anti-minority sentiment is on the rise. Bini Guttman, the Austrian president of the European Union of Jewish Students, said the law can "help deliver justice" for the applicants' "successors here and for the future" if they exercise their voting rights.

Hannah Lessing, secretary general of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism, applauded the law, but said "it can never truly make amends for the Holocaust." Read more at The Observer.

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Pranab Mukherjee was like a guide to RSS: Mohan Bhagwat

India

oi-Deepika S

Nagpur, Aug 31: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Monday expressed grief over the death of former president Pranab Mukherjee, hailing him as "a great scholar and a patriot" whose loss cannot be compensated.

"India's former President Dr Pranab Mukherjee's passing away is a huge loss for all swayamsevaks who had come in contact with him. I had met him twice when he was President and three to four times afterwards," Bhagwat said in a video message in Hindi.

The very first meeting with him made me forget that I was speaking to president of India due to his humble behaviour.

"I felt like speaking to elder member of my family," he said.

Bhagwat recalled Mukherjee''s visit to a key Sangh event (the Tritya Varsh training programme) held at Reshimbagh ground here in Maharashtra on June 7, 2018, amid criticism by several Congress leaders.

"We all became a fan of his simplicity and cordial behaviour when he himself came forward and stood up to introduce himself to all, saying ''as we all have gathered here to know each other, let me first introduce myself to you''. "This he did before the introductory remarks were made by the programme compere," Bhagwat recalled.

Mukherjee was a very experienced and knowledgeable person who was a "guiding elder" to everybody, he said.

Swadeshi does not mean boycotting all foreign products completely: Mohan Bhagwat

"We used to feel like keep talking and listening to him continuously if we could meet him and sit with him," Bhagwat said.

The Sangh chief also praised the political acumen of Mukherjee.

"He was a very successful politician and had a very successful political journey. He knew all political strategies, but, he rose above politics and always considered everyone as his own in the interest of the nation. He used to bring people together even if there was a political conflict," Bhagwat said.

"We have lost a scholar and a patriot who was a true source of guidance. This loss cannot be compensated. Pranab da came in the life of people like me for a shorter period, but he will be remembered forever. We all are with his family in this time of grief for them," said Bhagwat.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 31

Trend:

As reported earlier, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev took part via videoconferencing in the opening of another modular hospital of the Health Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for the treatment of coronavirus patients.

Trend presents some excerpts from the Presidents speech at the opening of the hospital.

During the pandemic, the construction of new hospitals in our country has gained momentum. Major funds have been allocated for this purpose and all our resources have been mobilized. The available bed capacity was insufficient to successfully fight this terrible pandemic. In a matter of six months, the bed capacity of our country has expanded significantly.

There are plans to build seven modular hospitals. It is not necessary for the time being because the number of patients in our country is decreasing and, if necessary, it will be possible to quickly build additional hospitals with 1,400 beds.

Azerbaijan has been very successful in the fight against COVID. The decisions made are implemented in a timely manner and with high quality. These and other factors allowed us the opportunity to keep the situation under control.
The novel might equally be called The Lying Life of Adolescents. The narrator, Giovanna, becomes an imaginative liar as she discovers that words beginning as lies can become truths. That first lunge of hers, telling us that her father said she was "ugly" is, on the face of it, a complex lie.

Elena Ferrante's latest novel, set in Naples in the '90s, is again about what it is to be female in a world structured by males, and the possibilities of female friendship. Credit:Getty

The first part, "Two years before my father left home", is absorbed into the theatre of the second but it is just as electrifying. Both statements are critical to The Lying Life of Adults.

Not long before her 13th birthday, Giovanna overhears her father speaking about her to her mother. He's using dialect. "She's getting the face of Vittoria." These are his exact words but Giovanna translates them as: "my father said to my mother that I was very ugly." This is the second part of the opening sentence to Elena Ferrante's new novel.

All her life Giovanna has heard Andrea, her father, speak of his sister, Vittoria, as a woman "in whom ugliness and spite were combined to perfection". Andrea is refined and beautiful. And until those overheard words Giovanna believes that her father thought that she, too, was beautiful in every detail. The opposite to his sister in every detail.

Credit:

The intelligent girl emerging from a blissful childhood of being loved, and loving in return, is engulfed by another emotion. Anxiety. She insists that she meet the ugly aunt. But here's the lie of it. Tall, with a mass of black hair, slender as a reed but with a notable bosom, "Vittoria seemed to me to have a beauty so unbearable that to consider her ugly became a necessity".

Vittoria violates Giovanna's orderly life in the Naples of the '90s. She has no education, she works as a maid, her manner is harsh and her speech is a mix of Italian and the dialect that is banned in her brother's household. Everything Andrea has spent his life leaving is manifest in his sister. Giovanna loves her father's nuanced refinement but Vittoria is a physical statement of some other, unbreakable, unspeakable truth.

After driving his daughter through streets where the garbage isn't collected Andrea stops in front of a grim building and refuses to get out of the car. These streets, this building were his childhood home. By immense force of will he left. The leather soles of his nice shoes won't touch this pavement. But when he picks his daughter up, his question is: "Did she ask about me?"
For 30 years, Doris Griffin has fought for seniors to receive the dignity and respect she believes is often lacking.

Shes spoken on their behalf as a nine-term member of the Texas Silver Haired Legislature at the state capital in Austin. Shes lobbied for better services, including transportation and nutrition, in government offices and corporate board rooms. She has personally reaffirmed her support in the living rooms of seniors who greatly appreciated her home visits.

During the months since the novel coronavirus pandemic erupted, the safety and well-being of seniors are on Griffins mind more than ever. Recently, she partnered with Dr. George Rapier III, founder of WellMed and chairman of the WellMed Charitable Foundation, on an awareness campaign.

Their message for people 65 and older is similar to that for people of all ages: wear masks, wash hands, practice social distancing and shelter at home. But the message is tailored specifically for the needs of their audience.

The ageless dynamo insists that elders not be dismissed or spoken down to, but venerated in these days of social isolation.

We want to show them that they are relevant, Griffin, 89, said at her North Side home. We want to show them that they were born to be someone.

About the author A 22-year veteran of the Air Force, Vincent T. Davis embarked on a second career as a journalist and found his calling. Observing and listening across San Antonio, he finds intriguing tales to tell about everyday people. He shares his stories with Express-News subscribers every Monday morning. See More Collapse

On ExpressNews.com: Roller derby-skating, reptile-loving librarian encourages San Antonio students to live life out loud

For more than 20 years, Griffin served as executive director of Jefferson Outreach for Seniors, which provided transportation for home-bound seniors, mobile meals, a thrift shop and grocery delivery services. She co-chaired the Joint City/County Commission on Elderly Affairs and was part of a senior transportation coalition for quadrants of San Antonio.

In January 2015, the city and WellMed Charitable Foundation honored her work by opening the Doris Griffin Senior One Stop Center at 6157 NW Loop 410, near Ingram Park Mall. Before the pandemic forced restrictions on visits at the center, the lively, ever-smiling Griffin would regularly stop by to talk to members who would rush toward her when they heard the tap-tap-tap of her heels and saw the bright colors of her grand outfits.

Widely known as a role model for seniors, Griffin is also known for always being fashionably dressed and her signature high-heel shoes. Her friends arent surprised that her email address is doriswearsheels@gmail.com.

Griffin is proud of the morals that are her foundation, which she says originated with her family as she grew up in Americas heartland. That made her strong, she says, and gives her the ability to continue as she approaches her ninth decade. Age is just a number.

One of four children, Griffin grew up in Gobblers Knob, a hamlet near Mount Washington, Ohio. She was in the fourth grade when her family moved from a one-bedroom home into a two-story home with a wraparound porch.

As the military fought in World War II against the Axis powers, her parents Clyde and Beaulah Money taught her to revere the Lord and speak on behalf of others in need. They taught her about empathy in the 15-house community where neighbors spoke everyday and could disagree without losing respect for one another.

On ExpressNews.com: Air Force veteran recalls life after adoption at Japanese orphanage

She recalled the day her father called her by her nickname and said, Dode, whatever you ask of anyone else, make sure its something you would do yourself.

He taught me that you dont find happiness in money or fame, Griffin said, but inside of yourself. You have to find something inside to keep yourself going.

She dreamed of singing with a big band, like Doris Day was doing with Les Brown and His Band of Renown. By the age of 17 she had changed her name to Dixie West and was leading a band that played ballrooms and country clubs.

Her burgeoning singing career was cut short two years later in 1949, when she married George Griffin, an airman who had served in WW II and opted to make the military a career.

His duty assignments took them and their three children around the world to the Azores, Libya, Germany and Alaska. During their travels, they made friends with families from different backgrounds, all drawn together by the same common needs. Her husband, a quiet man, put her in the spotlight during their 57 years of marriage. After 26 and a half years in the Air Force, he retired as a chief master sergeant and settled his family in San Antonio.

My husband was an amazing man, Griffin said. Everybody loved my husband.

He supported his wife as a computer operator and lead volunteer at the Jefferson Outreach. The couple and their daughter, Joy Martinez, joined other volunteers in visiting seniors, they considered family, with the outreach programs. They delivered groceries and meals, and took turns driving them to doctor appointments. They listened to the clients, who were often alone and looked forward to their home visits.

On ExpressNews.com: Retiree drives literacy caravan to promote reading to San Antonio

For Griffin it was a chance to see the elders face-to-face, offer emotional support and check on their well-being. And it was a chance to treat people with dignity, just as her mother and father had taught her.

Years later, Griffin and her family offered that same grace to her parents in their last days. She recalls brushing her fathers hair, singing his favorite hymns and telling him she loved him. Griffin said the same words to her mother, immobilized by a stroke.

If you can hear me, look at me, she remembers saying to her mother, still moved by the memory. Minutes later, her mother turned her head and looked at Griffin.

That was a gift that God gave to me, she said.

In 2007, when her husband fell ill and his time grew short, Griffin and her family surrounded him and said their last goodbyes. Griffin said the words of love werent any different than what they had said to him all of their lives.

In these uncertain COVID-19 times, the advocate encourages everyone to express their feelings to elders now and not wait until its possibly too late.

People should say those things while they can, Griffin said. You never know whats going to happen. Let them know how you feel and really take the time in your busy day to let people know what you think about them.

Vincent T. Davis is a reporter in the Greater San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Vincent, become a subscriber. vtdavis@express-news.net | Twitter: @vincentdavis
A herdsman receives his salary from the village animal husbandry collective in Bangbug, Tibet autonomous region, in July. ZHAN YAN/XINHUA

President calls for efforts to build united, prosperous, harmonious region

China has set the policy direction for developing the Tibet autonomous region in the new era, focusing its Tibet-related work on safeguarding national unity and strengthening ethnic solidarity while improving people's well-being.

Speaking at a two-day high-level symposium on Tibet-related work, which concluded in Beijing on Saturday, President Xi Jinping called for more education and guidance among the public to mobilize them in combating separatist activities, thus forging an ironclad shield to safeguard stability in the region.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, stressed the committee's long-term commitment to Tibet to ensure the region has support from the central authorities and assistance from the whole country.

Efforts must be made to build a new and modern socialist Tibet that is united, prosperous, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful, Xi said.

The symposium was the seventh since 1980, when the first central symposium on Tibet-related work was held. Observers said that the central government used the latest meeting to strengthen the full implementation of its strategy in governing Tibet to allow the region to be part of the country's high-level development.

In his speech at the symposium, Xi called for efforts to ensure national security and long-lasting peace and stability, steadily improve people's livelihoods, strengthen border defense and ensure frontier security.

He underlined the importance of strengthening patriotic education in all schools, and required continuous efforts to enhance awareness of the motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the CPC and socialism with Chinese characteristics among people of all ethnic groups.

Tibetan Buddhism should be guided in adapting to the socialist society and should be developed in the Chinese context, Xi said.

On the socioeconomic development of Tibet, he stressed the need to speed up high-quality development, consolidate the achievements made in poverty alleviation, and protect the ecology of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

A number of major infrastructure projects and public service facilities will be completed, including the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, Xi said.

Galsang Drolma, a researcher of socioeconomics at the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing, said the message Xi conveyed at the high-level meeting was clearthe central government wants to maintain enduring peace and stability in Tibet and keep meeting the aspirations of the Tibetan people for a better life despite the challenges of the region's inadequate and unbalanced development.

The researcher said the Party's leadership and the system of regional ethnic autonomy are fundamentals for Tibet's socioeconomic development. "Currently, national unity and ethnic solidarity have become a social consensus in Tibet," she said.

Thanks to consistent support and aid from around the country, Tibet has made great headway in socioeconomic development, and all of its 74 poverty-stricken counties have been lifted out of poverty, the researcher said. "People's livelihoods keep improving, and all this demonstrates the great practice of the Party's people-centered philosophy in Tibet," she said.

More than 18,000 officials and professionals have been sent to Tibet to help the region to develop, and their contributions largely improve the region's public services, according to the researcher.

Zhou Liping from Tianjin, who was sent to teach at a primary school in Tibet a year ago, said she has witnessed the efforts of her peers from around the country to help the region develop in various sectors as well as the great achievements Tibet has made in the critical battle to reduce poverty.

As a teacher, Zhou said she does her utmost to strengthen her students' love for the motherland and the Chinese nation.

New chapter

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the CPC Central Committee, with Xi at the core, has worked out a series of policies and strategies for social stability, border development, ecological protection and ethnic unity in Tibet, and has opened a new chapter in improving governance, stability and people's well-being in the region.

On March 9, 2013, when joining the delegation from Tibet in a panel discussion at the first session of the 12th National People's Congress, Xi said, "To govern the country well we must first govern the frontiers well, and to govern the frontiers well we must first ensure stability in Tibet."

A meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee Xi presided over on July 30, 2015, discussed economic and social development in Tibet and how to ensure the region achieves long-term stability.

In a key speech at the sixth central symposium on Tibet-related work in August 2015, he defined guiding principles, objectives and tasks for developing Tibet in the new era. Ever since then, Tibet has made comprehensive progress and historic achievements on its way toward sustained stability and prosperity.

While carrying out national development plans, the central government has also paid special attention to Tibet and allowed the region to build some major infrastructure projects that suit local conditions and benefit local residents.

In a congratulatory letter to the Forum on the Development of Tibet in June last year, Xi expressed his hope that Tibet would seize the opportunities for development, build a beautiful and happy region, see the flourishing of its fine traditional culture and protect the plateau's ecological environment. He also urged the region to implement a more active opening-up policy and develop extensive international exchanges and cooperation.

Galsang Drolma said that given the grave and complex international situation, Tibet should firmly uphold opening-up, and at the same time align itself with the huge domestic market for further development.

Tseyang, a farmer from Bagchib, a village in Bagyib township of Nyingchi city in southeastern Tibet, said he was happy to learn through watching television about the just-concluded central symposium on Tibet-related work.

Thanks to the Party's leadership and policy support from the central authorities, dramatic changes have taken place in his village and throughout Tibet, he said.

"We are living a happy life, and we want to thank General Secretary Xi and the CPC Central Committee," he added.
Submissions come despite Ivory Coast electoral commission barring both from running in October vote due to convictions.

Supporters of former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, who lives in Belgium after being acquitted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court last year, submitted his candidacy for Octobers presidential election  even though his name had already been removed from the list of contenders.

The move on Monday came as supporters of Guillaume Soro  a former rebel leader who has also been barred from running and lives in exile in France  filed his application to become an official candidate, too.

Ivory Coasts electoral commission has disqualified both men due to their criminal convictions, and it is unlikely that the Constitutional Court will clear their bids to unseat President Alassane Ouattara in the October 31 vote.

Candidates have until Monday midnight to submit their dossiers with the commission, which said it expects to receive a total of 40 submissions.

The Constitutional Council then has 15 days to release the list of approved candidates for the election, seen as a major test of stability in the worlds top cocoa producer and one of Africas most vibrant economies over the past 10 years.

We have just submitted the candidacy file of our political leader, [former] President Laurent Gbagbo, the father of democracy in Ivory Coast, said Georges-Armand Ouegnin, president of the pro-Gbagbo coalition called Together for Democracy and Sovereignty (EDS), alleging that the commissions move was political.









The country remains scarred by a conflict that erupted after presidential elections in 2010 when Gbagbo  in office since 2000  refused to accept defeat and hand over power to Ouattara. About 3,000 people lost their lives in several months of violence that ensued.

Last year, Gbagbo was acquitted at The Hague of crimes against humanity charges linked to his alleged role in the civil war that erupted after the 2010 election. Although he was acquitted, Gbagbo, 75, was ordered to remain in Brussels and to relinquish his passport.

Back home, he was sentenced in absentia to a 20-year term for the looting of the local branch of the Central Bank of the West African States during the post-election violence. He could be jailed if he were to set foot in Ivory Coast.

Soro, meanwhile, was sentenced in April to 20 years in prison for concealment of embezzlement of public funds.

The 47-year-old had led the rebels that swept Ouattara to power during the civil war. He went on to serve as prime minister and speaker of parliament under Ouattara but the two men later fell out.

On Monday, Soros relatives and supporters of Soro also called for his candidacy to be validated, with spokeswoman Aminata Kone-Zie accusing the government of subterfuge to make our president [Soro] ineligible under an alleged criminal conviction.

Controversial third term bid

The deadline for the candidacy applications came amid rising political tensions in the country ahead of the election. At least eight people were killed and about 100 wounded in clashes that erupted after Ouattara announced earlier this month his decision to run for a controversial third term.

Ouattara had initially said he would not stand again for the October election, but changed his mind following the sudden death of Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, his anointed successor.

The constitution limits presidents to two terms, but Ouattara and his supporters argue that a 2016 constitutional tweak reset the clock, allowing him to seek a third term.

Opposition and civil society groups say his move to stand again in the vote amounts to a coup.

Last week, two main opposition leaders  Pascal Affi NGuessan of the Ivorian Popular Front party of former President Laurent Gbagbo and former President Henri Konan Bedie, 86, for the PDCI-RDA party  submitted their dossiers.
A Circuit Court in Accra has ordered the arrest of two persons who allegedly swindled a Nigerian businessman of GH140,000.00 under the pretext of selling 0.28 acres of land at Borteyman to him.



Augustine Ankamah aka Abiola, a 36-year-old Estate Developer and a Contractor, and Sherif Bortey a Businessman and self -styled Chief, on Monday failed to appear in court when the matter was listed for hearing.



Chief Inspector William K Boateng informed the court that the accused persons had been duly informed to appear in court today, but the two accused persons failed to show up.



Prosecution, therefore, prayed the court for a bench warrant.



The court presided over by Mrs Afua Owusua Appiah obliged the prosecutions request and adjourned the matter to September 14.



Ankamah and Bortey are expected to answer to the charges of conspiracy to commit crime and defrauding by false pretenses.



The case of the prosecution is that the complainant, Tinkere Usen Abrah resides at East Legon, Accra whiles the two accused persons reside in Accra.



Prosecution said in the year 2018, Ankamah who is a friend to the complainant approached him and offered to assist him to secure a parcel of land at Borteyman around Community 18.



Prosecution said Ankamah took the complainant and showed him a 0.28 acres of land, with a floor level building structure at a cost of GH140,000.00.



On October 14, 2018, the prosecution said Ankamah took the complainant to Bortey who posed as a Chef and owner of the land, and an amount of GH140,000 was paid to them.



Ankamah then issued a receipt over the sale of the land to the complainant.



On November 2018, Charles Gafti Kwaku aka Amonia, a witness in the case together with the Tema Development Company (TDC) went to demolish the complainants structure on the land indicating that the TDC had already registered the land in question with the Right of Entry and Title Reference number in the name of Charles Gafti Kwaku.



When the complainant confronted the accused persons, they promised to give him another plot and they went into hiding.



He said several efforts to reach them and retrieve the money had also not been successful.



A report was made to the Regional CID and the accused persons were picked up at their hideouts. In their respective caution statements, the accused persons admitted the offence.

Source: GNA









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Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) speaks with reporters ahead of today's vote on the health care bill on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 25, 2017. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

Senator Condemns Kenosha Violence He Says Should Have Been Quashed Sooner

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said the violence and shootings that happened in Kenosha might have been averted had the governor taken the help when it was first offered by the federal government.

What the president did was he offered to surge manpower resources, so the violence could end, Johnson said during a CNN interview Sunday. The governor did not accept that that day. That night, tragically, two people lost their lives because citizens took matters into their own hands.

He continued, Im not for vigilantism. Im not sure thats what was happening. People felt because local officials were looking for helpthe governor did not accept the help. And so there was not the resolve to end the rioting.

The shooting of a black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Jacob Blake, sparked a wave of protests, some turning violent, with rioters torching half a dozen buildings, including a number of small businesses. On the third night of unrest, a shooting resulted in one injury and two deaths.

The office of Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times request for comment on the shootings in Kenosha.

Evers put out a statement about the shootings in Kenosha on Aug. 26 condemning the violence.

A senseless tragedy like this cannot happen again. I again ask those who choose to exercise their First Amendment rights please do so peacefully and safely, as so many did last night, the statement reads. I also ask the individuals who are not there to exercise those rights to please stay home and let local first responders, law enforcement, and members of the Wisconsin National Guard do their jobs.

In a separate statement put out the next day, Evers said the National Guard troops will continue to be utilized and adjusted as needed.

Wisconsin National Guard troops have been on duty in Kenosha since August 24 when authorities in Kenosha made an initial request for Guard assistance, Evers wrote. In the ensuing days, local officials in Kenosha made subsequent requests for additional Wisconsin National Guard assistance, resulting in more troops supporting public safety efforts in the city each day. Troop numbers will continue to be adjusted as needed.

President Donald Trump on Monday wrote on Twitter, If I didnt INSIST on having the National Guard activate and go into Kenosha, Wisconsin, there would be no Kenosha right now. Also, there would have been great death and injury. I want to thank Law Enforcement and the National Guard. I will see you on Tuesday!

Johnson said the violence only came under control when Evers finally accepted help from the federal government after local officials pushed for federal law enforcement to be called in.

You have to get control of the situation, and the way you do it is what happened in Kenosha: local officials said, Please, we want help, we want manpower, the president offered, the governor finally accepted it, and now at least the streets are not violent, Johnson said.

Listen, I dont want to see anybody lose their life, I dont want to see the violence continue, I dont want to see businesses burned down, I dont want to see economic destruction. I condemn it all, Johnson added.

In a video of the Aug. 23 incident that sparked the protests and riots in Kenosha, Blake appeared to be resisting arrest before walking around his car while ignoring orders from the police who had guns drawn, opening the driver side door, and reaching in. He was then shot seven times in the back by an officer.

A second video showed Blake struggling with the officers and state investigators said he was tased twice, but to no avail. He survived the encounter and is recovering at the hospital, though family members and his attorney have said he is paralyzed from the waist down.
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.
While the world continues to struggle with the impact of the sudden COVID-19 epidemic, China has taken the lead in controlling the outbreak, achieving economic recovery and advancing international anti-epidemic cooperation.

A medical worker works at the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) laboratory in Beijing Puren Hospital in Beijing, capital of China, June 23, 2020. The PCR lab was put into use on June 15 to conduct nucleic acid testing for COVID-19. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuwei)

Chinas efforts have injected confidence and strength into the international community.

The countrys success comes from its 1.4 billion Chinese people being united as one under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the resilience and bright prospects of Chinas economy, as well as the concrete actions the country took to safeguard international fairness and justice and to support multilateralism.

January 23, 2020 will go down in the annals of history as the day that Wuhan, a city of 10 million people in central Chinas Hubei province, was locked down, and a war against the virus was declared.

For months, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping, who is also Chinese president, took personal command of the situation and planned the response, while the Chinese people displayed solidarity in putting up a defensive wall against the epidemic.

China identified the pathogen in eight days and developed testing reagents in 16 days. A new melt-blown non-woven fabric plant was built in 12 days, producing more than 1,000 masks per second. The first batch of makeshift hospitals with 4,000 beds for COVID-19 patients was set up in only 29 hours.

The country immediately rallied 346 national medical teams consisting of 42,600 medical workers and more than 900 public health professionals to the aid of Hubei in the largest medical assistance operation since the founding of the Peoples Republic of China.

Construction of the 1,000-bed Huoshenshan Hospital was completed in just 10 days and the 1,600-bed Leishenshan Hospital was built in just 12 days.

The high speed, massive scale and efficiency of Chinas epidemic response all demonstrate the countrys great strength. As Xi put it, It is all the Chinese people who gave us the strength and confidence to overcome this epidemic. The people are the real heroes.

The Chinese people are the main source of confidence and strength of Chinas fight against the epidemic. Relying on its institutional strength in mobilizing resources for major undertakings and overall national strength, China pooled all its strength in the shortest period of time and halted the spread of the epidemic. Its strength was fully revealed in its response to the epidemic.

Chinas response is something that has rarely been seen in the world, demonstrating its speed, scale and efficiency, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that Chinas experience is worth learning for other countries.

At the same time, China has seen ongoing economic recovery in the midst of the epidemic. The countrys GDP expanded by 3.2 percent year on year in the second quarter, reversing a 6.8-percent contraction in the previous quarter and becoming the first economy to see a recovery in growth after the COVID-19 outbreak.

While maintaining regular epidemic prevention and control measures, China has made decisions and arrangements to ensure stability in employment, financial operations, foreign trade, foreign investment, domestic investment, and expectations, and has managed to ensure job security, basic living needs, operations of market entities, food and energy security, stable industrial and supply chains, and the normal functioning of primary-level governments.

With the World Bank expecting the global economy to shrink by 5.2 percent this year, Chinas steady economic recovery has injected positive energy into the international community.

According to the latest World Economic Outlook update from the International Monetary Fund, China is the only major economy expected to achieve positive growth in 2020.

China always supports and adheres to multilateralism, and pursues development with the rest of the world in the spirit of openness and mutually-beneficial cooperation, Xi said at the opening ceremony of the fifth Annual Meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank via video link on July 28. This is the countrys solemn commitment to the world as a responsible major power, providing stability to the global economy during a highly uncertain time.

China has also contributed to global efforts in fighting the pandemic. The country released the relevant information to the international community at the earliest possible time, and unreservedly shared its experience in containing the spread of the virus and treating the infected.

In a message of sympathy to French President Emmanuel Macron in March, President Xi proposed the building of a community of common health for mankind for the first time.

By the end of May, China had shipped medical supplies to nearly 150 countries and four international organizations, sent expert teams to 27 countries and held over 180 video conferences with health experts from more than 170 countries and international organizations.
A military veteran who gave CPR to Wisconsin protest shooting victim Anthony Huber has spoken out about her traumatic experience trying to revive the killed 26-year-old.

Carol Badoni, 50, told DailyMail.com she was trying to join in with a peaceful protest in Kenosha last Tuesday night when she heard shots ring out and panic ensued.

The brave 20-year armed forces veteran, who left the military after being shot twice herself while serving in Afghanistan, sprinted towards the gunfire and tried to revive Huber with CPR until a SWAT team arrived.

'I was walking down Sheridan Road and all of a sudden shots started ringing out: bang, bang, bang,' Badoni said. 'People started screaming ''People have been shot, oh my god.'' They were yelling at the police.

'More bullets started ringing out and everyone started running in the opposite direction. But I decided to run towards the bullets because I saw a gentleman to my right and one to my left that were on the ground.

'I decided to run towards a particular person, it ended up being Anthony.'

Anthony Huber, 26, was shot and killed at a protest for the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin last Tuesday

Carol Badoni, 50, gave CPR To Huber after he was shot, telling DailyMail.com about the traumatic experience. The Afghanistan veteran said she was trying to join in with the peaceful protest when she heard shots ring out and panic ensued, running towards the gunfire. Pictured: Huber struggling with the gunman moments before he was shot dead

Badoni (pictured) said: 'More bullets started ringing out and everyone started running in the opposite direction. But I decided to run towards the bullets because I saw a gentleman to my right and one to my left that were on the ground. I decided to run towards a particular person, it ended up being Anthony'

Huber, 26, was shot dead along with Texas native Joseph Rosenbaum, 36. Local medic Gaige Grosskreutz was shot in the arm but survived.

Following the shooting, police charged 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse with two homicides and one attempted homicide  writing in their complaint that he used an AR-15 style rifle and called a friend as he ran away from the murders saying 'I just killed somebody.'

'There were a lot of people around him, screaming, hollering and trying to get him to wake up and breathe,' Badoni said.

'People were trying to take his clothes off to see where the bullet was. I couldn't see any blood, but he was already face down.

'I told everybody 'Please back up' and we rolled him over. I felt the pulse on his neck, there was none. His eyes were rolled back into his head, he was not breathing.

'I decided to start CPR. After I did about 10 or 15 pumps, the SWAT came up behind me and took control of the situation.'

The veteran, who served as a US Marshal after leaving the military, said she saw Huber's girlfriend Hannah Gittings running towards the gruesome scene, screaming for help.

'As he was being taken into the truck his girlfriend Hannah was coming down the street screaming 'Oh my god, that's my boyfriend, please let me see him,' Badoni said.

'It was terrible to see this gentleman pretty much dead and to see her frantic and trying to get to see her boyfriend. It's a scene I'll never forget.

'I couldn't sleep after. It's an overwhelming and nightmarish kind of feeling.'

Following the shooting, police charged 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse with two homicides and one attempted homicide  writing in their complaint that he used an AR-15 style rifle and called a friend as he ran away from the murders saying 'I just killed somebody'

Huber stumbled away from the gunman clutching his chest (right) as another man appeared to put his hands up in front of the shooter

Huber could be seen hitting the gunman over the head with a skateboard before struggling with the gunman as gunshots rang out and people fled from the scene

The 50-year-old mother-of-one said she was wracked with guilt for not being able to save Huber, despite her heroic efforts, and asked his family for forgiveness.

'I tried so hard to save him. I feel devastated and sick to my stomach that I could not,' she said.

'I feel they might blame me that I couldn't save their son. I wanted to try to reassure them that I felt like I did everything that was in my power to give him CPR until somebody more qualified than me could take the reins.

'I thought if I could bring him back and just make him breathe, perhaps he could have a fighting chance.'

The Kenosha protests were fueled by a police shooting of Jacob Blake, 29, on August 23.

Seven-year Kenosha PD veteran Rusten Sheskey shot Blake seven times in the back during an arrest, leaving him paralyzed.

Sheskey, 31, has been put on administrative leave while Wisconsin officials investigate the confrontation caught on video.

The Blake family attorney, Benjamin Crump, said it would take a 'miracle' for Blake to recover use of his legs.

'The medical diagnosis right now is that he is paralyzed, because those bullets severed his spinal cord,' he said at a press conference last Tuesday.

'He will need a miracle to walk again. He is currently in surgery as we speak, to try and save his life. And return to some semblance of the man he once was.'

The 50-year-old mother-of-one (pictured) said she was wracked with guilt for not being able to save Huber, despite her heroic efforts, and asked his family for forgiveness

The veteran, who served as a US Marshal after leaving the military, said she saw Huber's girlfriend Hannah Gittings running towards the gruesome scene, screaming for help.

'As he was being taken into the truck his girlfriend Hannah was coming down the street screaming 'Oh my god, that's my boyfriend, please let me see him,' Badoni said. 'It was terrible to see this gentleman pretty much dead and to see her frantic and trying to get to see her boyfriend. It's a scene I'll never forget'

Badoni said she attended the protest on Tuesday because she disagreed with the Kenosha officer's actions.

'I was just interested in a peaceful protest,' she said. 'I was very against Jacob Blake getting shot seven times, I thought that was very excessive.

'I wouldn't want to be in a police officer's shoes, with what they were dealing with at that time: he wasn't listening to commands, there was a knife in the car. But for him to be shot that many times it seems kind of crazy and very excessive.'

The former servicewoman said she learned her CPR skills in a police science degree and in first responder training with the Red Cross and with the Daytona police.

'I knew what to do, so all I could think of was 'God, I need to help this gentleman. If I can somehow save him, if I can somehow make him breathe, then medical professionals can take it from there'.

'I didn't care if I got shot, all I wanted to do was help this gentleman.

'I don't care if it was a white person or a black person on the ground, I don't care who it is,' she added. 'I would have run through that gunfire and helped whoever was on the ground, and I would do it again.

'In that situation you don't think about yourself, all you think about is trying to help somebody else. That's how I was raised, to do whatever you can for another person.'
Standardbred horseman Randall Burns Stafford, 51, of Felton, Delaware, passed away peacefully at home on August 22, 2020.

He was born on July 26, 1969 in Voorhees, NJ and raised his family in Felton, Del.

Stafford is survived by his wife, Carol; children, Caitlyn (Nick), Samantha and Jacob; parents, Arthur and Karen; siblings, Arthur Jr. (Stacy), Andrew (Shannon) and Sandra (Josh); grandchildren, Brayden and Max; and many nieces and nephews.

He could build anything he put his mind to and was a reliable man for any project. He was always willing to lend a helping hand to anyone that asked. Being dependable, honest and 'telling it like it is' were some of his greatest qualities. You could count on his quick wit and dry sense of humour to make you laugh.

Stafford enjoyed hunting, fishing, crabbing and playing cards. He was a Standardbred horse owner, driver, trainer and USTA member and his love of horse racing continued as a hobby throughout his life. You could always find him at the track watching his brothers horses race.

He will be deeply missed by his family.

At his request, no funeral services will be held. Condolences may be offered at Pippin Funeral Home, www.pippinfuneralhome.com.

Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Randall Burns Stafford.

(USTA)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will hold talks with his Belarusian counterpart Uladzimer Makey in Moscow on September 2, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on August 31.



The meeting comes amid three weeks of mass protests against the rule of authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka following disputed presidential elections on August 9 that handed him another six-year term.



The protests represent the biggest challenge to Lukashenka since he came to power 26 years ago and the 66-year-old has turned to his nation's traditional ally, Russia, for support.



The Kremlin announced over the weekend that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lukashenka had agreed to meet in Moscow in the coming weeks. The two leaders have spoken over the phone several times since the protests began.



Western leaders, on the other hand, have criticized the election and the police crackdown on protesters. They have called on Lukashenka to negotiate with the protesters and threatened to impose sanctions on members of his government.

Based on reporting by Reuters and Interfax
CLEVELAND, Ohio  In a split decision, a federal appeals court Monday ordered a judge to re-assess the effect of errors in jury instructions and excluded evidence involving former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimoras trial.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the case sent back to U.S. District Judge Sara Lioi to decide whether the errors made were harmless or whether they influenced the jurys decision.

Rather than attempting the harmless-error analysis ourselves, however, we believe the more prudent course is to remand for the district court to conduct the proper analysis, appeals judges Amul Thapar and Joan Larsen wrote.

But a third judge, Gilbert Merritt, in a dissenting opinion, said Dimora deserved a new trial based on the jury instructions, as well as ethics reports that jurors never saw.

It is our job to preserve trial by jury, Merritt wrote. That is why I would vacate all of Dimoras convictions in this appeal and remand for a new trial, because the only proper fact-finding body for these issues is a properly instructed jury that considers Dimoras ethics reportsnot appellate judges and not a district court reviewing a 30,000-page record of a 37-day trial it heard 8 years ago.'

In 2012, Dimora was convicted of 32 bribery-related counts involving a pay-to-play scandal that shook county government. Lioi sentenced him to 28 years in prison. He is serving his sentence in FCI Elkton, a prison near Youngstown.

Though we believe he is entitled to a new trial, this is a positive development for Mr. Dimora, said Dimoras appeals attorney, David Mills. Our ultimate goal is to reduce his sentence and get him out of prison.

In April, Dimoras attorneys Mills and Philip Kushner argued before the appeals judges that, based on errors in the instructions that Lioi read to jurors and the judges decision to disallow Dimoras attorneys from presenting his ethics reports, he should get a new trial.

They argued that the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling in 2016 narrowed the definition of an official act that prosecutors must prove to gain a conviction of federal bribery. That ruling, they said, invalidated the instructions that Lioi gave to the jury.

For instance, voting in favor of a business owned by a person who bribed Dimora, is an official act. Other duties, such as making phone calls or setting up meetings, are not.

The central issue is that jurors in the case were told that they could consider other acts, such as answering calls and setting up meetings, Dimoras attorneys argued.

The issue could impact about half of the convictions involving Dimora.

The attorneys also argued that Liois decision to prevent the jury from seeing Dimoras Ohio Ethics Commission reports, which disclosed who gave him gifts he received while in office, was an error that handcuffed his defense.

Merritt said he believed the fact that the reports were not disclosed was a major issue in the trial.

I would vacate all counts in this appeal, including the counts that involve only acts that remain official because of the district courts erroneous exclusion of the ethics reports, Merritt wrote. The ethics reports were paramount to Dimoras defense that he did not have the necessary intent for conviction.

Federal prosecutors argued before the appeals court that Dimoras corruption convictions should stand. They stressed that Lioi did not make any errors with either the jury instructions or the ethics reports.

Prosecutors argued that even if there were errors, the convictions were based on overwhelming evidence.

A spokesman for federal prosecutors declined to comment Monday.

Reporter Eric Heisig contributed to this story.
New Delhi: Embassy of Poland and Polish Institute in New Delhi illuminated the Qutub Minar in Polands national colors (white and red) to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Solidarity movement on Sunday (August 30). Solidarity movement is an anti-bureaucratic social movement based on Gandhian principles of non-violence that fought for civil rights in Poland during the communist rule.

Solidarity (in Polish language: Solidarnosc) originated in Gdansk, Poland on 31 August 1980, when the totalitarian communist authorities allowed to establish independent trade unions. Being the first mass civil rights organization in the Soviet Bloc, Solidarity in a short time gathered c.a. 10 million members.

This would not have happened without the involvement of millions of Poles who dared to resist the injustice prevailing in their enslaved country and established Solidarity, based on Gandhian principles of ahimsa. This mass civic movement, through which Poles decided to express their viewsand take responsibility for the fate of the country, had no match in Europe.

Among most important leaders of the movement, we can name Lech Waesa and Anna Walentynowicz, both workers at the Gdansk Shipyard.

Although the movement was crushed by communist military take over in December 1981, it continued the clandestine activity and finally won in 1989 leading to first partially free elections and then to the regaining of the independence of Poland.

The gene of solidarity still makes Poland commit itself to help other countries in need. Solidarity takes the form of development and humanitarian aid (recently during the COVID-19 pandemic), supporting other countries in transition, particularly those in the Eastern Partnership and the Western Balkans, but also taking part in the peacekeeping and military missions of the EU, the OSCE, NATO, and other international organisations.

Marking this special anniversary, Poland unites behind all nations striving for freedom and democracy in their countries. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the creation of Solidarity.

To celebrate it Embassy of Poland and Polish Institute in New Delhi had organized the illumination of Qutub Minar on 30 August and it will conduct a lecture in the India International Centre on 31 August.

The Chief Guest at the Qutub Minar function is Dinesh K. Patnaik who is the Director General of the Indian Council of International Relations.


The Only Way Is Essex stars Bobby Norris and Saffron Lempriere were seen engaging in a heated row outside an Essex restaurant after enjoying a night out with friends.

The reality stars appeared to have crossed words on the pavement outside the Melin Bar & Restaurant in Chigwell on Sunday evening.

TV personality Bobby, 34, was seen with his hands in the air as he argued with his co-star Saffron before walking off in anger from the drama on the street.

Heated: The Only Way Is Essex stars Bobby Norris, 34, and Saffron Lempriere were seen engaging in a heated row outside an Essex restaurant after enjoying a night out with friends

A frustrated Bobby attempted to get his point across as he confronted Saffron following their cocktail-filled outing at the traditional Turkish restaurant.

Bobby, who has been on cloud nine ever since he unveiled his fitness transformation, wore a grey long-sleeved knitted jumper with skinny light-wash jeans.

The mental health campaigner, who was joined on the night out by his boyfriend Matt Snape, paired his look with grey loafers and accessorised with an oversized black clutch.

Crossed words: TV personality Bobby was seen with his hands in the air as he argued with his co-star Saffron before walking off in anger from the drama on the street

Argument: Saffron looked chic in a white shirt minidress and elongated her bronzed pins with nude strap heels for the outing

Meanwhile Saffron looked chic in a white shirt minidress and elongated her bronzed pins with nude strap heels for the outing.

With her long blonde tresses in loose waves over her shoulders, the star added a touch of glamour with a metallic clutch bag and a slick of nude lipgloss.

An angered Saffron was seen reaching a hand out to her friend Bobby who appeared to be uninterested in her gesture as he walked away from the restaurant.

Reasons: Saffron looked frustrated as she exchanged in the heated discussion outside the Essex restaurant

Frustration: The TV star held her hand to her head during the fiery exchange following their evening out

The TV star put her hand to her head during the fiery exchange following their evening out.

Earlier in the night, Saffron re-posted a picture from Matt of her alongside a smiling Bobby and his boyfriend at the Essex restaurant which she captioned with a love heart.

She also shared pictures of her passionfruit martini before she posted a picture of the Melin napkin captioned: 'Thank you for a lovely night @melinchigwell.'

Glam: The star added a touch of glamour with a metallic clutch bag and a slick of nude lipgloss

Walking away: Saffron held her hands in the air outside of the restaurant in Chigwell

Serious: Bobby talked to Saffron before walking away as she sauntered away in the opposite direction

Upset: Saffron appeared frustrated as she exchanged words with her co-star Bobby

And Bobby seemed to be enjoying the night out after sharing footage of the group singing and dancing at the dinner table.

The reality personality sat beside Saffron as she smiled and moved to the beat.

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Bobby and TOWIE.

Walking away: Bobby left the drama outside the restaurant as Saffron held her hands to her head

Challenging: The pair engaged in the heated row after enjoying a night out with close friends

Goodbye: Bobby walked away from Saffron leaving the co-star outside of the Essex restaurant

It comes after Saffron posted a sweet birthday message to Bobby on Instagram last week.

Alongside a glamorous picture of the pair, she wrote: 'Happy Birthday Bobby Norris.

'One good thing to come out of this year is our forever friendship thankful for your special soul keep shining heres to more laughs more memories & more madness sneaky. '

Bobby replied: 'Thank you for being such an amazing friend!!'

Sweet: Saffron posted a sweet birthday message to Bobby on Instagram last week

No more: The pair appeared to not make amends as Bobby walked away from his friend

Earlier this month Saffron was seen leaving Canary Wharf's Gaucho restaurant after enjoying a slap up meal with Bobby when she tripped and fell face-first into a massive puddle.

Having stepped out looking lovely in a white linen sun-dress and pink sandals, she was left soaked through as she stumbled on the flooded foot path outside the eatery.

The star was left drenched, with her blonde mane sodden and matted to her face.

That's it: The TV stars did not appear to reach a compromise following their heated exchange

Gestures: Saffron appeared to reach out to Bobby who seemed uninterested following the row

Happier times: Saffron re-posted a picture from Matt Snape of her alongside a smiling Bobby and his boyfriend at the Essex restaurant

A shocked Bobby helped her up, as they both saw the funny side and burst into fits of laughter.

Bobby didn't get off Scot-free himself; the bottoms of his skinny jeans were also soaked, his black loafers slipping from his feet.

In April the duo took the chance to do their bit for frontline workers as they headed to local hospitals in Essex to dish out goods in collaboration with online retailer ISAWITFIRST.

Delicious: Saffron shared pictures of her passionfruit martini before she posted a picture of the Melin napkin captioned: 'Thank you for a lovely night @melinchigwell'
Czech Senate Speaker Will Pay Heavy Price for Taiwan Visit: Chinese Regime

TAIPEI/BEIJINGCzech Senate speaker Milos Vystrcil will pay a heavy price for making an official trip to Taiwan, the Chinese regimes top diplomat said on Monday, prompting Prague to summon Chinas ambassador to explain comments it said crossed the line.

Vystrcil arrived in Taipei on Sunday on a visit to promote business links with Taiwan, and said the Czech Republic would not bow to Beijings objections. The Chinese regime considers Taiwan a breakaway province ineligible for state-to-state relations.

Chinas foreign ministry cited State Councillor Wang Yi as saying that the regime and the Chinese people wont take a laissez-faire attitude or sit idly by, and will make him (Vystrcil) pay a heavy price for his short-sighted behavior and political opportunism.

Wang, who was visiting Germany, gave no further details of how Beijing would respond.

Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek said that Wangs remarks were too strong and he summoned the Chinese ambassador to explain.

Minister Wangs statement has crossed the line, such strong words dont belong in relations between two sovereign countries, Petricek said on Twitter, calling for cooperation without emotions which dont belong in diplomacy.

Vystrcil said Wangs comments were an interference in Czech internal affairs.

We are a free country seeking to have good relationships with all countries and I believe this will be the case in the future irrespective of the statement of the minister, he said in a statement.

Speaking later at a Taipei university, Vystrcil praised Taiwan and its democratic way of life.

Taiwan Economics Minister Wang Mei-hua, speaking before a business forum with Vystrcil, told reporters the Czech Republic and Taiwan were both free and democratic countries which put great store on human rights.

Czech President Milos Zeman has sought closer business and political ties with China since taking office in 2013, but his efforts have been hit by failed investment plans.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 18:40:22|Editor: huaxia

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MACAO, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The total merchandise export from Macao amounted to 1.07 billion patacas (about 134.17 million U.S. dollars), up by 2.5 percent year-on-year, the special administrative region (SAR)'s statistic department said here on Monday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that the value of domestic exports expanded by 24.9 percent to 155 million patacas (about 19.44 million dollars).

Meanwhile, the value of re-exports went down by 0.5 percent to 913 million patacas (about 114.48 million dollars), with that of articles for casino falling by 83.2 percent.

From January to July of 2020, the total value of merchandise export decreased by 17.0 percent year-on-year to 6.18 billion patacas (about 774.92 million dollars).

The value of re-exports dropped by 19.8 percent to 5.33 billion patacas (about 668.34 million dollars), but that of domestic exports grew by 6.8 percent to 852 million patacas (about 106.83 million dollars).

Analyzed by destination, merchandise export to Hong Kong SAR and the European Union from January to July of 2020 declined by 16.2 percent and 4.4 percent respectively year-on-year to 4.10 billion patacas (about 514.11 million dollars) and 115 million patacas (about 14.42 million dollars).

Meanwhile, exports to the mainland rose by 18.0 percent to 1.10 billion patacas (about 137.93 million dollars).

In the first seven months of 2020, exports of textiles and garments grew by 71.9 percent year-on-year to 950 million patacas (about 119.12 million dollars), while exports of non-textiles went down by 24.1 percent to 5.23 billion patacas (about 655.80 million dollars). Enditem
Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/31/2020 -- The Latest research study released by HTF MI "Global Bridal Gowns Market" with 100+ pages of analysis on business Strategy taken up by key and emerging industry players and delivers know how of the current market development, landscape, technologies, drivers, opportunities, market viewpoint and status. Understanding the segments helps in identifying the importance of different factors that aid the market growth. Some of the Major Companies covered in this Research are David's Bridal, Kleinfeld Bridal, Harrods Limited, Elie Saab France, Justin Alexander, JLM Couture, Moonlight Bridal Design & Maggie Sottero Designs etc.



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Browse market information, tables and figures extent in-depth TOC on "Bridal Gowns Market by Application (Wedding & Application II), by Product Type (, Mermaid-style Dresses, Ball Gowns, A-line Dresses, Trumpet Dresses, Tea-length Wedding Dresses & Sheath Wedding Dresses), Business scope, Manufacturing and Outlook  Estimate to 2025".



The global impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have significantly affecting the Infrastructure in overall market in 2020. The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought effects on many aspects, like flight cancellations; travel bans and quarantines; restaurants closed; all indoor events restricted; over forty countries state of emergency declared; massive slowing of the supply chain; stock market volatility; falling business confidence, growing panic among the population, and uncertainty about future. Know more with latest edition of Global Bridal Gowns Market Study; Early buyers will receive 20% customization free on report



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At last, all parts of the Global Bridal Gowns Market are quantitatively also subjectively valued to think about the Global just as regional market equally. This market study presents basic data and true figures about the market giving a deep analysis of this market based on market trends, market drivers, constraints and its future prospects. The report supplies the worldwide monetary challenge with the help of Porter's Five Forces Analysis and SWOT Analysis.



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Customization of the Report: The report can be customized as per your needs for added data up to 3 businesses or countries or 40 analyst hours.



On the basis of report- titled segments and sub-segment of the market are highlighted below:

Global Bridal Gowns Market By Application/End-User (Value and Volume from 2019 to 2025) : Wedding & Application II



Market By Type (Value and Volume from 2019 to 2025) : , Mermaid-style Dresses, Ball Gowns, A-line Dresses, Trumpet Dresses, Tea-length Wedding Dresses & Sheath Wedding Dresses



Global Bridal Gowns Market by Key Players: David's Bridal, Kleinfeld Bridal, Harrods Limited, Elie Saab France, Justin Alexander, JLM Couture, Moonlight Bridal Design & Maggie Sottero Designs



Geographically, this report is segmented into some key Regions, with manufacture, depletion, revenue (million USD), and market share and growth rate of Bridal Gowns in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), covering China, USA, Europe, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia & South America and its Share (%) and CAGR for the forecasted period 2019 to 2025.



Informational Takeaways from the Market Study: The report Bridal Gowns matches the completely examined and evaluated data of the noticeable companies and their situation in the market considering impact of Coronavirus. The measured tools including SWOT analysis, Porter's five powers analysis, and assumption return debt were utilized while separating the improvement of the key players performing in the market.



Key Development's in the Market: This segment of the Bridal Gowns report fuses the major developments of the market that contains confirmations, composed endeavors, R&D, new thing dispatch, joint endeavours, and relationship of driving members working in the market.



To get this report buy full copy @: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1618291



Some of the important question for stakeholders and business professional for expanding their position in the Global Bridal Gowns Market :

Q 1. Which Region offers the most rewarding open doors for the market Ahead of 2020?

Q 2. What are the business threats and Impact of COVID scenario Over the market Growth and Estimation?

Q 3. What are probably the most encouraging, high-development scenarios for Bridal Gowns movement showcase by applications, types and regions?

Q 4.What segments grab most noteworthy attention in Bridal Gowns Market in 2019 and beyond?

Q 5. Who are the significant players confronting and developing in Bridal Gowns Market?



For More Information Read Table of Content @: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1618291-global-bridal-gowns-market-8



Key poles of the TOC:

Chapter 1 Global Bridal Gowns Market Business Overview

Chapter 2 Major Breakdown by Type [, Mermaid-style Dresses, Ball Gowns, A-line Dresses, Trumpet Dresses, Tea-length Wedding Dresses & Sheath Wedding Dresses]

Chapter 3 Major Application Wise Breakdown (Revenue & Volume)

Chapter 4 Manufacture Market Breakdown

Chapter 5 Sales & Estimates Market Study

Chapter 6 Key Manufacturers Production and Sales Market Comparison Breakdown

..

Chapter 8 Manufacturers, Deals and Closings Market Evaluation & Aggressiveness

Chapter 9 Key Companies Breakdown by Overall Market Size & Revenue by Type

..

Chapter 11 Business / Industry Chain (Value & Supply Chain Analysis)

Chapter 12 Conclusions & Appendix



Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.




THE Deputy Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Cde Lovemore Matuke who was recently in self-isolation after testing Covid-19 positive has said it pains him to see people moving around in public places without putting on face masks.





Zimbabwe has recorded more than 6 000 Covid-19 cases, 195 deaths and 5 043 recoveries since the first case was reported in March.





Cde Matuke who has since returned to work after recovering from the deadly disease joins senior Government officials such as Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement Deputy Minister Cde Vangelis Peter Haritatos, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development permanent secretary Mr George Guvamatanga who have recovered from Covid-19.





The late Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement Cde Perrance Shiri who succumbed to the virus on July 29, is the most senior Government official to die of Covid-19.

Cde Matuke said on July 26 he decided to go for Covid- 19 testing after he started experiencing flu like symptoms.





He said he also had a fever, dry cough and experienced tiredness.





I started sneezing first before experiencing a dry cough and I decided to go for Covid-19 testing on July 26. Results came back positive on July 29, he said.





Cde Matuke said he is not sure whether he contracted the virus from a Covid-19 positive person or a contaminated surface. No one else in his family was infected.





In an interview last Friday, Cde Matuke narrated how the past month has been the toughest in his life.





After testing positive, he said he advised his colleagues in the Ministry and thereafter went to his rural home in Gutu, Masvingo province to self-isolate.





He said its difficult when one cant be in contact with his relatives and children for fear of infecting them.





I went to my rural home where I was in self-isolation. I had lost my sense of smell and taste. I had lost appetite and I was coughing and sneezing. It was hell I tell you and I wouldnt want to experience that again. Its so painful because at times I would run short of breath, said the Deputy Minister.





He said the first week after testing positive was very difficult for him as he feared death.





Remember we are dealing with a virus that has no cure. So I was afraid, my family was afraid. We were all facing what looked like a bleak future and the first week was not good. But I had to fight it and fortunately I tested negative about three times, he said.





Cde Matuke thanked God for saving his life. He also paid special tribute to his wife and his daughter who is a nurse for risking their lives for his sake. Cde Matuke said the two went out of their way putting him on drips, feeding him and making sure he drank hot water and steamed at least four times a day.





To fight the virus, he said he ate garlic, onion, steamed using a plant called Zumbani in Shona Umsuzwane in Ndebele and wormwood in English.





The Deputy Minister also used other indigenous plants in and around his rural home.

He also took Vitamins B, C and D and Zinc.





I was made to drink some mixture of water, garlic and onion as well as steam using Zumbani and other indigenous plants. All this was made possible with the assistance of my wife and my daughter who risked it all for me and today here I am, said Cde Matuke.





He said he was in self-isolation for more than 21 days in line with Government and World Health Organisation (WHO) health guidelines.





Cde Matuke said he also felt that the virus had affected him sexually and he also lost some weight.





Covid-19 is real and is here until such a time when there is a cure. The last month has been very difficult for me and my family, the toughest in my life, he said.





Cde Matuke also paid tribute to his parents, in-laws and siblings for supporting him in his hour of need.





The other thing is, we need to fight stigma because if one is stigmatised he or she might succumb to the virus as a result of neglect. We need to strictly adhere to Government and WHO health guidelines as we fight this pandemic, said Cde Matuke.





He said it was important for people to wear face masks especially in public places as well as maintaining social distancing.





After going through this experience, it pains me to see people walking around without their face masks or talking to each other. Motorists seem to put on the masks when approaching road blocks. President Mnangagwa has called for strict adherence to Covid-19 lockdown measures to curb the spread of the virus and such measures are for our own good and benefit which we should follow. Lets put on face masks, lets observe social distancing, said Cde Matuke.





He said the world over, it looks like more emphasis is put on talking about the virus instead of proffering solutions even traditional solutions to beat the virus.





Cde Matuke said there are a lot of local remedies which he said havent been scientifically proven by WHO which are being used successfully in the country.

As we speak there are more recoveries and this is as a result of local remedies which people need to share.





We have local solutions which should be considered. I think we also need to reorient some nurses on stigmatisation. Nurses didnt want to get close to me and thats why I decided to leave Harare to be with my family members whom I knew would not abandon me. Of course we made sure they were protected enough before coming to see me, he said.





Cde Matuke said more efforts should be put on assisting infected people so that they dont panic.





He urged people to share with others if they are affected or infected so that they get assistance.





We must not hide our loved ones who are infected, we should tell each other so that they are not stigmatised. Sunshine, drinking hot water, listening to advise from other people, self-quarantine and proper use of masks is good and helps.





That is how I managed to survive. If one has underlying factors, they must not forget the other diseases they have and should continue taking their medication, said Cde Matuke.





Deputy Minister Haritatos who also survived the virus, said he felt like something evil had entered his body when he was infected.





The coronavirus is real. The last few weeks have been the toughest in my life. I thank God for saving me and giving me the strength to fight an evil virus that has ravaged the world over, he said.




STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The union that represents New York City public school teachers is preparing to authorize a strike to stop the reopening of school buildings due to safety concerns amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, according to a recently published report.

Chalkbeat reported that the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has scheduled a meeting of school-based delegates -- which includes about 3,200 representatives from every public school in New York City -- for Tuesday suggesting they could vote to approve a job action, according to emails sent to members from union representatives.

Before Tuesdays meeting, Chalkbeat reported that the UFT executive board is expected to vote Monday to authorize a strike, according to an email sent to Brooklyn chapter leaders.

The email included a checklist for union chapter leaders to create a strike plan for their campuses, according to Chalkbeat, such as identifying strike captains who will assign picket locations in front of building entrances and distribute signs, and creating subcommittees to coordinate social media and communication with members.

The email asks chapter leaders to submit a strike plan by Monday afternoon, according to Chalkbeat.

However, Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a Monday press conference he was told by the UFT a strike authorization vote is not planned.

*** CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN NEW YORK ***

Authorizing a strike doesnt mean it will happen, but calling for one increases pressure on Mayor Bill de Blasio to delay the return of in-person learning on the tentative Sept. 10 first day, the media outlet reported.

Under the citys current reopening plan, public school students are slated to return to school buildings part-time under a blended learning model, or will learn at home remotely full-time. School buildings will only open if the citys rate of positive coronavirus tests is less than 3% using a seven-day rolling average.

But the unions that represent principals, teachers, administrators, school aides, lunch workers and more have called for a delay to in-person learning.

Michael Mulgrew, UFT president, announced at a press conference earlier this month that no New York City public school should open unless it meets all criteria in the unions School Safety Report -- which sets standards for cleaning supplies, personal protective equipment (PPE), testing and more.

If a school is not deemed safe, Mulgrew said the union is prepared to go to court and to take job action -- even if the court determines it is breaking the state Taylor Law, which defines the rights and limitations of unions for public employees in New York. That means the union could go on strike, Mulgrew said.

If a court determines we are breaking the Taylor Law, so be it, he said during the press conference. We have promised the teachers and the parents of New York City that we would stand and fight if we felt a school was unsafe, and that is a promise we are going to keep.

New York City teachers havent gone on strike since 1975, and going on strike could bring big risks, according to Chalkbeat. A violation of the Taylor Law means the union could lose its ability to automatically collect dues, teachers would miss out on paychecks, and union leadership could face jail time.

We are preparing for any eventuality to make sure schools reopen safely for students, staff and the entire school community, union spokesman Dick Riley wrote in an email to Chalkbeat.

Riley told Chalkbeat last week that the resolutions that will be voted on Monday and Tuesday werent finalized. He noted the procedure for striking typically involves authorizing the unions leadership to make the final call, the media outlet reported.

Bill Neidhardt, a de Blasio spokesperson, told Chalkbeat: We continue to have discussions with UFT. They have the right to call meetings as they see fit and we respect that.

The union has been urging all parents to opt for remote learning until the city Department of Education (DOE) notifies them that their childs school meets the procedural and testing standards outlined in the safety report, even if it means delaying the opening of some schools.

According to the DOEs reopening plan, schools will not reopen if the community transmission rate is above 3% on a seven-day rolling average.

Related stories:

Sending your kids back to school? Tips from experts on how to keep them safe.

2020-2021 school year in NYC: What you need to know

Coronavirus: Reopening plans for Staten Island charter schools

NYC teachers push for schools to stay closed come fall

2020-2021 school year in NYC: Guidelines on gym, music and more

Coronavirus: How NYC plans to safely reopen schools in fall

2020-2021 academic year: Reopening plans for schools across Staten Island

NYC schools reopening: State guidelines for special education

The Catholic elementary school reopening plan: Face masks, temperature checks and more

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With or without air conditioning, face masks will be required in Staten Island classrooms

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The right of the people of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) to self-determination, without limitations, is one of Armenias main approaches to the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This is what Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said in an interview with Interfax.

Asked if he is ready to meet with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Armenias foreign minister said the following: Of course, were ready to meet, and, of course, were ready to continue the efforts. Here I would like to emphasize once again that our work is important for finding mutual concessions, ensuring security and renouncing the use of force and maximalist approaches. There are specific and important priorities for Armenia. For Armenia, the status of Nagorno-Karabakh is an absolute priority. Exercise of the right of the people of Artsakh to self-determination, without limitations, and ensuring of real and tangible security for Artsakh are major priorities. Armenia is ready to work with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and the Azerbaijani side to find formulations that will allow us to synthesize and measure the size of possible mutual concessions.

Another major point concerning Nagorno-Karabakh is that it has shown its absolute capability of organizing public life, ensuring its security and assuming international commitments throughout the past thirty years. Full involvement of Artsakh in the negotiations is a major issue, and, by the way, it is practical. This will reinforce the sense of ownership of the authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh over the negotiations which, being elected by the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, have the appropriate mandate to represent the interests of the people.
New Delhi: Goa-based hotelier Gaurav Arya will be interrogated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Sushant Singh Rajput's death case today. The ED is probing the money laundering angle in Sushant's case. He was summoned by the agency on Saturday.

Gaurav is the person with whom Sushant's actress girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty allegedly exchanged messages about drug consumption. Her deleted WhatsApp chats have hinted at a possible drug conspiracy in Sushant's case. The chats were retrieved a week ago and Gaurav was identified as an alleged drug dealer.

Gaurav has claimed that he never met Sushant. However, he did accept that he met Rhea once in 2017.

Sources say that ED has chalked out a few important questions on the basis of which he will be interrogated and names of three people - Kapil Jhaveri, Kailash Rajput and Abu Aslam Azmi - have popped up. They are three big drug dealers.

Notably, Kapil was arrested from Goa in August 2019 under the NDPS Act. He had hosted a huge party there and it was attended by some prominent personalities. He is currently out on bail. Police had recovered drugs such as cannabis, MDMA, cocaine from him.

Meanwhile, in 2017, Abu Aslam Azmi was arrested by Delhi Police Special Cell in a Rs 40-crore drug racket. He possessed MDMA at the time of the arrest. He is said to have a drug connection in the underworld, UK, Belgium and Dubai. He is based out of Mumbai and he became friends with Kailash Rajput in the city. Kailash runs a drug racket in India and abroad and is a wanted criminal.

Gaurav and Abu have established a business together in Goa.

Here are the questions ED can ask Gaurav Arya:

- Since when do you know Kapil Jhaveri?

- Where have you both invested in Goa?

- When do you start a business with Abu Aslam Azmi?

The interrogation holds significant importance as it could lead to the unraveling of a huge drug scam.

It is to be noted that there is no drug case or complaint against in Gaurav Arya in Goa.

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had last week registered a case against Rhea, her brother Showik, Gaurav, Rhea's talent manager Jaya Saha and others under several sections of the NDPS Act.

The ED investigation had revealed details about Rhea's conversation about drugs in the WhatsApp chat.
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PULLMAN (AP)  People who attend parties or gatherings of more than 10 people in Pullman will be ticketed by police.

Chief of Police Gary Jenkins says his officers will issue tickets instead of warnings in an effort to combat the spread of coronavirus in the college town.





. . .
Wellington, Aug 31 : New Zealand on Monday reported nine new coronavirus cases, while the largest city of Auckland relaxed restrictions but mandated the wearing of masks on public transport.

Among the nine new cases, four are in managed isolation facilities after arriving in New Zealand from India last week, according to the Ministry of Health.

Meanwhile, the five other cases are all epidemiologically linked to the Auckland cluster, Xinhua news agency reported citing the Ministry as saying.

There are currently 128 people linked to the community cluster who have been transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

With the nine new cases, the total number of active cases is 131. Of those, 24 are imported cases in managed isolation facilities, and 107 are community cases.

The nationwide caseload currently stands at 1,387.

Meanwhile, Auckland entered a lower level of Covid-19 restrictions on Monday, allowing people to get in and out of the city, sparking concerns of further spreading the virus as some residents flew to resorts such as Queenstown in the South Islandd.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Millennium Information Solution, a top core banking solutions provider for the $2.5 trillion global Islamic finance sector, has recently launched its international operations at the Dubai Internet City.



Global Islamic financial assets reached $2.5 trillion in 2018, of which Islamic banking assets represents 70 percent, or $1.72 trillion. Sukuk issuance is expected to grow to $115 billion in 2020, despite the current crisis, according to credit rating agency Standard & Poors.



The move comes as the global Islamic banking sector continues to defy the downward trend and expands its global presence. According Thomson Reuters, Islamic finance assets is expected to reach$3.9 trillion (Dh14 trillion) by 2023, up from $2.2 trillion (Dh8trillion) in 2016, despite the Covid-19 pandemic.



Islamic banks with strong Shariah compliance and real asset-backed lending, have emerged stronger after every financial crisis that have exposed the weaknesses of the conventional banking systems. Thats why, the number of Islamic banks have been and will continue to grow in the coming years. A solid core banking solution could help Islamic banks perform better.



The Islamic banks and financial institutions, however, will need to migrate to a more advanced artificial intelligence-powered core banking system that can cope with the financial technology-enabled products and solutions that are disrupting the banking and payment systems globally.



With the Fourth Industrial Revolution disrupting the financial sector, the Islamic banks need to migrate to the new-generation core banking solutions that could synchronise with the new fintech solutions without disrupting the overall banking system, Mahmud Hossain, Chief Executive Officer of Millennium Information Solution FZ-LLC (MISL).



Thats why, we have set up our international operations at the Dubai International City to approach majority of the Islamic banks and help them migrate to our state-of-the-art core Islamic banking system  Ababil  a game-changing solution for the Shariah-compliant banking sector.



We believe, most of the existing core banking systems will become obsolete with increased fintech disruption and banks will have to migrate to the next-generation systems in the next 3-5 years. Those who fail to do so, will lose the race and lose business in the more competitive financial world.



Ababil, which has been implemented in 500 branches of 14 banks and non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs), is an end-to-end advanced core-banking solution for Islamic banking that covers all areas of Shariah-compliant banking. The main engine of Ababil was ground up designed as an Islamic Shariah compliant solution, not a by-product of a conventional banking application. Today, Ababil, which is tested at IBMs Bangalore Laboratory and backed by Oracle RDBMS and Open platforms, is used by some of the major Islamic banks and Islamic financial institutions.



Banks aiming for growth in the Islamic banking sector need dedicated Islamic core banking systems with sharia-compliant capabilities, according to Gartner. Vendor offerings have now matured to the point that they offer true differentiation via adaptation to the sharia board, business functions and Islamic localization, Gartner said in a report published earlier.



Ababil, the flagship product of MISL, is one such product that also has upgraded its product suites to cater to the future needs of the Islamic banks using the state-of-the-art technology platforms such as Java micro services and Kafka, a distributed streaming platform.



Ababil offers wide range of software solutions to Islamic banks and Islamic financial institutions in order to tackle all their operational requirements. Ababils state-of-the-art technology, highly integrated front and back office system comes with a comprehensive solution package along with the ability to provide modular Islamic banking solutions which addresses all business functionalities of the client banks and financial institutions.- TradeArabia News Service
Bangladeshi American woman is Biden's nominee for federal judgeship 21 Jan 2022 | 12:31 AM Washington, Jan 20 (UNI) Nusrat Jahan Choudhury, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, is President Joe Biden's nominee for a federal judgeship. If confirmed by the Senate, Choudhury would become the first Muslim woman to serve as a federal judge and the first Bangladeshi American. see more..

WHO European Office releases fact sheet on Omicron 21 Jan 2022 | 12:10 AM Copenhagen, Jan 20 (UNI/Xinhua) A fact sheet addressing "speculation, assumptions and misinformation being communicated about the Omicron variant" of Covid-19 was released by the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Regional Office for Europe here on Wednesday. see more..

Mortal remains of two Indians killed in Houthi attack to reach Amritsar tomorrow 21 Jan 2022 | 12:01 AM Abu Dhabi, Jan 20 (UNI) The mortal remains of the two Indians killed in Mondays Houthi drone attack will reach Amritsar tomorrow morning, with the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi having completed all formalities for the repatriation, the Indian Ambassador in Abu Dhabi Sunjay Sudhir said. see more..

China adds 654,000 5G base stations in 2021 20 Jan 2022 | 11:42 PM Beijing, Jan 20 (UNI/Xinhua) China has stepped up its pace of 5G development, adding 654,000 base stations in 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said Thursday. see more..
The Department of Health has been notified of 53 additional confirmed Covid-19 cases in Ireland, and no further deaths.

There is now a total of 28,811 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland, and 1,777 coronavirus related deaths.

Out of the cases reported today, 25 are in Dublin, 11 in Limerick and the remaining 17 cases are located in Kildare, Longford, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Laois, Meath, Roscommon, Tipperary, Westmeath.

Fourteen cases have been identified as community transmission and 27 are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case.

Over the past 14 days, 15,11 cases have been notified, giving a 14 day incidence of 32 cases per hundred thousand population.

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Of these, the median age is 31 with 72pc of cases occurring and people under the age of 45 years.

A total of 122 cases were in healthcare workers, 624 cases are in Dublin, 209 in Kildare and a further 132 in Tipperary, 98 in Limerick and 47 in Wexford.

The remaining 411 cases were spread across 20 counties.

There are 35 cases in hospital and six cases in intensive care.

Earlier this evening, the Government announced additional Covid-19 restrictions in Kildare were to be lifted with immediate effect.

A statement said the number of cases linked to community transmission or possible community transmission in Kildare over the past 14 days has been 36pc - the same rate recorded nationally.

As a result, Nphet found there is no longer a rationale for a differentiated approach between Kildare and the rest of the country.

Speaking at a Covid-19 briefing, acting chief medical officer, Dr Ronan Glynn, thanked residents of Kildare, Laois and Offaly for their efforts in adhering to the restrictions.

"I do want to really take this opportunity to thank people in Kildare, as well as Laois and Offaly. This was the first time that we had to recommend measures on a regional basis like this. I know it was difficult," he said.

"I can only begin to imagine the impact that it had on some communities and on businesses, in particular in Kildare. I'd also like to say that the measures, not so much the measures, but people's willingness to buy into the measures and people's willingness to adhere to the guidance over the last number of weeks, has protected them, it's protected their families. It's prevented widespread community transmission."

Dr Glynn said the rate of Covid-19 cases in other parts of the country is "not as good" as it has been in recent weeks.

"I would of course caution that the picture nationally is not as good as it was a number of weeks ago. And so while things have improved very significantly in Kildare, we want to see them improve further but we want to see them improve further across the country," he said.

"For the first time now, I can ask people across the country to really focus on the number six and 15, to keep social contacts low. We're hoping what we're seeing is a stabilisation in numbers, but we really want to see them drop off now again over the next few days. But for that to happen, people need to stick with us with the guidance."

He said all counties are under review.
Beirut, Aug 31 : Lebanese President Michel Aoun has called for the formation of a "secular state" in an effort to rescue the country from confessionalism.

Confessionalism refers to a system of government that is a legally recognised mix of religion and politics.

"There is a need to develop, modify, and change the system...call it the way you like; but most certainly, Lebanon needs a new conception in running its affairs, based on citizenry and on the secularism of the state," Xinhua news agency quoted Aoun as saying in a televised speech on Sunday.

Lebanon is governed under the National Pact, which is an unwritten agreement that laid the foundation of the country as a multiconfessional state between the Shia Muslim, Sunni Muslim, and Maronite Christian leaderships.

According to this pact, the President should always be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim and the Parliament Speaker a Shia Muslim.

Aoun said that Lebanon and its people deserve, after a long suffering, a state where merit is the criterion, and law is the guarantor of the rights of all equally, and where the fundamental belonging is to the nation and not to the leaders of the confessions.

"I believe that only the secular state is capable of protecting and preserving pluralism and turning it into a real unity, I call for the proclamation of Lebanon as a secular state," he said.

Lebanese authorities have been incapable, over the past few years, to agree on proper reforms to be implemented in the interest of the country, due to the division of power in a system that distributes roles and positions based on sects.

This prompted the beginning of a nationwide protest on October 17, 2019 to demand for a change in the system and the whole ruling class.
Many fans across the world are mourning the untimely death of Chadwick Boseman. The 43-year-old actor became a global heartthrob since his appearance as TChalla in Marvels Black Panther. Boseman also played several historical figures like Thurgood Marshall in Marshall (2017) and Jackie Robinson in 42 (2013). However, he catapulted to fame when he was cast as Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Fans of the film were left distraught after Bosemans family announced his passing on the actors official Instagram handle. According to his family, Chadwick Boseman had been privately fighting colon cancer for the last four years. Find out, When was Black Panther filmed?

Read | Chadwick Boseman filming Avengers while battling for his life not lost on Robert Downey Jr

When was Black Panther filmed?

According to a report on Times Travel, the filming of Black Panther started in 2017. The filming had started after the screenwriters came up with an entertaining plot for the film with the help of the Marvel comics. When the script was ready to set and costume design was commenced alongside casting. While Chadwick Boseman was cast for the titular role of Black Panther, Michael B.Jordan was cast as his foe Erik Killmonger Stevens. The film also featured Lupita Nyongo and Danai Gurira in central roles.

Read | Chadwick Boseman's death: Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor & other B'town celebs pay tributes

Where was Black Panther filmed?

Atlanta, Georgia

The Times Travel report reveals that most of the Black Panther filming locations were in Atlanta, Georgia. The City Hall in Atlanta acted as the United Nations building. The High Museum of Art was featured as the Museum of Great Britain in the Marvel film.

Iguazu Waterfalls, Argentina

The Warrior Falls, where the Black Panther gets coronated as the King of Wakanda, was filmed in Iguazu falls of Argentina. This Black Panther filming location is set at the border of the Argentine province of Misiones and the Brazilian State of Parana. The Iguazu Waterfalls are one of the most breathtaking locations featured in the film.

Read | Heartbreaking tweet announcing Chadwick Boseman's death 'most liked ever', Twitter says

The African Continent: South Africa, Zambia and Uganda

Source: Unsplash

Many countries in the African continent were used as the Black Panther shooting locations to bring, the fictional kingdom of Wakanda to life. Many scenes featuring Wakanda were shot in South Africa, Zambia and Uganda. Many shots from these countries can be seen in the Black Panther trailer.

Read | Obama, Johansson and more react to death of Chadwick Boseman

South Korea

Locations like Gwangalli Beach, Gwangalli Bridge and the Jagalchi Market in the Busan City of South Korea were also used to film Chadwick Bosemans movie. The Jagalchi Market is reportedly a popular tourist attraction in the city. The 1.4 km long Gwangalli bridge is also one of the most attractive shooting locations of the film.

Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment.
A man who pleaded guilty to terrorist offences after his house was bugged by MI5 has died suddenly.

Colin 'Colly' Winters was one of seven men who pleaded guilty to charges arising out of a covert MI5 bugging operation against the Continuity IRA (CIRA) in Co Down more than five years ago.

It is understood his death is not being treated as suspicious.

He had allowed his home in Ardcarn Park - a small housing estate close to Newry's Daisy Hill Hospital - to be used for Continuity IRA terror planning meetings.

At the time, the head of the PSNI's Serious Crime Branch, Detective Chief Superintendent Raymond Murray, described the case as "one of the most significant terrorism cases in recent times".

Winters (48) is to be buried on Monday.

A wake was held for him at the weekend.

Requiem Mass will be said at the Church of the Assumption, Drumalane, at noon.

A death notice said the funeral was strictly private, due to Covid-19 restrictions.

The seven admitted providing weapons and explosives training, and conspiring to possess explosives, firearms and ammunition with intent to endanger life.

All of the offences took place on dates between August 11, 2014 and November 11, 2014.

A previous court hearing in 2014 heard that police believed Winters' home was being used to host meetings of the Continuity IRA.

MI5 had gained access to the property and planted secret listening devices in a number of rooms to record conversations at the meetings.

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The court heard that suspects in the property had been recorded discussing potential targets for attack, including specific police officers.

Potential attacks against judges were also discussed, along with weapons training, funding for terrorist activity and plans to get weapons, a prosecution lawyer added.

A PSNI detective involved in the case told the court the suspects were "leading key figures of a proscribed organisation".

Among the seven men who pleased guilty to terror charges was veteran republican Patrick Joseph 'Mooch' Blair (64) of Lissara Heights, Warrenpoint, Co Down.

Blair was once named in the House of Commons as having "helped to construct the Omagh bomb" and involvement in a string of other attacks.

He later denied any involvement with the 1998 atrocity, which killed 29 people.

In 2002 Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson spoke under Parliamentary privilege to name Blair in connection with the attack.

He said Blair was "a man who is a member of the Provisional IRA and who helped to construct the Omagh bomb".

In 1975 Blair was sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempted murder.

He was released in 1982.

Blair strongly denied any involvement in the Omagh bomb attack.

Another CIRA associate of Winters - Liam Hannaway (50) - hit the headlines this year when he applied for permission to take his partner across the border for a holiday while he was on bail awaiting sentencing.

Hannaway had pleaded guilty to charges of belonging or professing to belong to a proscribed organisation, providing weapons and explosives training, conspiring to possess explosives, firearms and ammunition with intent to endanger life. His request was denied as it was thought he was likely to flee the jurisdiction.
One of the tropes that Joe Biden has repeatedly relied upon since the day he announced his candidacy is the claim that Donald Trump supported the white supremacists at the Charlottesville rally in August 2016. The problem with setting a stupid standard is that you're likely to run afoul of it yourself, and that's precisely what Biden did after someone from Antifa or Black Lives Matter shot to death a Proud Boy Trump supporter in Portland.

As you may recall, in response to the decision by the Charlottesville, N.C., town council to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, a lot of people descended upon Charlottesville to make their opinions known or just to witness the spectacle. Leftists heartily applauded the Big Brother idea of destroying history. Many non-leftists, however, found disturbing the notion of going full Big Brother and pretending that the past was always aligned with the present.

Another group that opposed pulling down the statue consisted of neo-Nazis and white supremacists. They descended on Charlottesville, marching along in faux Nazi uniforms while spewing racist and anti-Semitic statements.

While the protest was at its height, one of the white supremacists drove his car into a crowd, killing a young woman. Given that the media had already tarred Trump as a racist because he promised to enforce America's existing immigration laws, reporters naturally asked Trump for his take on events in Charlottesville.

Trump expressed his concern about deconstructing America's past  comments that proved to be remarkably prescient when one looks at the Black Lives Matter and Antifa madness in June and July. In that context, he mentioned that there were people at the rally who were "fine people" on both sides, meaning both the people who wanted to pull down the statue and those who feared a wholesale deconstruction of America's past. Without any prompting, Trump then immediately clarified that when he said "fine people," he wasn't referring to neo-Nazis and other white supremacists:

The media, however, created the "fine people hoax" by falsely proclaiming that Trump had called white supremacists "fine people." Joe Biden has been running with this hoax ever since. Indeed, it's the accusation at the core of Biden's campaign, for he mentioned it when he threw his hat into the ring; when he accepted the nomination; and just recently, when he had a brief, tightly controlled interview with ABC:

[N]o president has said people coming out of fields with torches and spewing anti semitic bile and met by people who oppose them, and someone dies and he says they're good people on both sides. No president of the United States has ever said anything like that ever.

For convenience, we can call this "Biden Standard" for determining white supremacy: when Black Lives Mattersupporters are facing off against people who are white supremacists or neo-Nazis, and a person says that there are fine people on both sides, that person is a white supremacist.

Now let's look at what happened in Portland on Saturday night. Trump-supporters who belong to a group called "The Proud Boys" went to Portland to face off against Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

The Proud Boys define themselves as a collection of people who are proud to be Americans and are willing to stand up to and, if necessary, fight Antifa. The group's multiracial make-up hasn't stopped leftists from labeling them as "Neo-Nazis":

A leftist gay online outlet published an article entitled: "Proud Boys Neo-Nazis Get Their Asses Kicked And Run Out of Town By The Good People of Kalamazoo, Michigan  VIDEO."

The leftist Anti-Defamation League, despite using a picture of a black man dressed as a Proud Boy, states that "[s]ome members espouse white supremacist and anti-Semitic ideologies and/or engage with white supremacist groups."

The hard-left SPLC likens them to Klansman, skinheads, and white supremacists.

By the left's own definitions, therefore, the Proud Boys are precisely analogous to the white supremacists in Charlottesville.

On Saturday night in Portland, when the Black Lives Matter and Antifa crowd clashed with the Proud Boys, someone from the former group murdered Jay Bishop, a member of the Proud Boys:

Rest In Peace Jay! https://t.co/j6FYxIygmh  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020

Under the Biden standard, when Black Lives Mattersupporters are facing off against people who are white supremacists or neo-Nazis (as leftists say happened in Portland), and a person says there are fine people on both sides, that person is a white supremacist. With the Biden standard in mind, please enjoy Biden's statement about events in Portland:

The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable. Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by any one, whether on the left or the right.

Biden's words conform perfectly to the standard he has set for determining whether someone is a white supremacistsupporter. We probably shouldn't be surprised, knowing how proud Biden was of his "deep personal relationships" with segregationists, including a KKK exalted cyclops?

The way I see it, a white-hooded chicken just came home to roost. In that spirit, the following is an entirely satirical image based upon the risible Biden Standard:

Image: Picture created using public domain images (KKK sheet music and Joe Biden in a deleted VOA video).
JACKSON, MI  World War II veteran Herb Elfring was supposed to travel to Pearl Harbor for the 75th anniversary of the end the war.

But the coronavirus pandemic canceled the Jackson mans plan.
Conflict-riven Mali is at a crucial crossroads two weeks after a military junta took power in a coup, with calls for a thorough spring cleaning to rid the poor West African country of corruption, nepotism and misrule.

The August 18 putsch has prompted Mali's neighbours and ally and former colonial ruler France to call for a swift transfer of power, amid heightened worries over instability in a country already struggling with an Islamist insurgency, ethnic violence and economic malaise.

Swathes of Mali's territory are outside the control of central authorities and years of fighting have failed to halt the insurgency and jihadist attacks that have claimed thousands of lives since emerging in 2012.

The Institute for Security Studies (ISS), a leading think tank in sub-Saharan Africa, said the transition was a great chance for a democratic renewal.

"Ordinary Malians voiced their discontent with the rampant poverty, insecurity, bad governance and corruption," it said.

The protest coalition that campaigned against former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has proposed that the military junta which ousted him organise a transition to civilian rule within 24 months.

'Too many questions'

The influential imam Mahmoud Dicko, a key player in the mass opposition protests that led to Keita's ouster, warned Friday that the military rulers did not have "carte blanche".

Dicko's spokesman Issa Kaou Djim later expanded on this, saying the imam "said the people have started to doubt" the junta.

There are fears that things could get messier.

"Mali has entered a period of political uncertainty. The transition arrangements must be carefully negotiated to preserve some stability in the frail security apparatus that's been fighting violent extremism," the ISS warned.

And popular Malian rapper Mylmo released a song after the coup with lyrics including: "Too many questions in my head, History is repeating itself, Am I stupid? In fact, I worry about an illiterate people."

Imam Mahmoud Dicko has issued a warning to the junta. By ANNIE RISEMBERG (AFP/File)

Brema Ely Dicko, a sociologist at the University of Bamako, said the coup -- the fourth in Mali's 60 years as an independent nation -- was a golden opportunity to rebuild the country.

"The new Mali will not be built in a few weeks," he said. "But it's now that we need to establish the broad parameters. We can't rush, we have to sift.. The field of possibilities is large because the challenges are huge."

In the meantime, diplomats and political heavyweights are preoccupied about the transition -- how long it will last, who will lead it and the powers of the head of state.

Within hours of taking control, the junta pledged to enact a political transition and stage elections within a "reasonable time".

Chief envoy of the regional bloc ECOWAS, former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, said last week that the coup leaders wanted a three-year transition period.

This was rejected by the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States, which has demanded an immediate civilian transition and elections within 12 months.

Many Western diplomats told AFP they oppose a serving military man as the head of the transition government but said they would not mind if a retired soldier headed the transition.

#MyTransition floods social media

The hashtag #MaTransition -- or MyTransition -- is trending on social media and has thrown up a variety of suggestions.

People are on tenterhooks in the capital Bamako. By ANNIE RISEMBERG (AFP)

Some have called for a rewrite of the constitution while for others education and security are primordial issues.

Civil society platforms have meanwhile called for deep reforms, especially on electoral laws and the administrative machinery.

The powers of the president, the prime minister and parliament need to "be clearly defined", said Abdourhamane Ben Mamata Toure, a lawyer and a former director at the prestigious Ecole nationale d'administration (ENA) which trains future bureaucrats.

One of the criticisms levelled against the toppled president is that he hogged power.

Keita, 75, was elected in 2013 as a unifying figure in a fractured country and was returned in 2018 for a second five-year term.

But his popularity crashed as he failed to counter the raging jihadist insurgency and brake Mali's downward economic spiral.
Google reportedly pays billions of dollars every year to Apple to remain the default search engine in Safari. According to the latest reports, Apple is likely developing its own search engine to take on Google Search. If everything goes as per the plan, the $2 trillion US company might not renew its deal next time.

As per the job listings posted on Apples website, its clearly evident that it is developing a search engine. The company is looking for search engineers with expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). With the iOS 14 beta and iPadOS 14 beta, the company is completely bypassing Google while showing search results within Spotlight Search.

Apple likely developing its own search engine to take on Google

Apples in-house web crawler Applebot is powering those search results. The support page updated in July 2020 also suggests Applebot is going to work similarly to Google Search. As per the report, it even started crawling websites regularly in recent times. Instead of just crawling HTML, Applebot will render pages just like Google.

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More than competing with Google, Apple might need its own search engine to avoid regulatory scrutiny. Last month, the UK Competition and Markets Authority said the deal between Apple and Google created a significant barrier to entry and expansion for rivals in the search engine market.

Google enjoys 92.17 percent market share

In 2019, Google paid $1.5 billion to Apple to be the default search engine on iPhones in the UK. Google dominates the search engine market with a whopping 92.17 percent market share. Microsofts Bing and Verizons Yahoo comes in at second and third place with 2.78 percent and 1.6 percent market share respectively.

Being the most used search engine, Google collects a lot of data to show targeted ads to users. With Apples several privacy-focused initiatives in the last few years, its upcoming search engine might also work completely different from Google search. More importantly, Apple already blocks user tracking on its safari browser.

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Instead of using its search engine for showing ads, the company might make it work similarly to Google Assistant with highly personalized results. It will likely help the company to promote its own services like Apple News+ and Apple TV+.

With over a billion devices in its arsenal, Apple will have a huge user base when it debuts its own search engine. Obviously, it will be the default search engine in the Safari browser on iPhones, iPads, and Macbooks.
The apex court had reserved its verdict on the review plea on August 27 after hearing arguments from both sides

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea of fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya seeking review of its 2017 order holding him guilty of contempt of court for transferring USD 40 million to his children.

A bench comprising justices U U Lalit and Ashok Bhushan said, "We do not find any merits. Review petition dismissed."

The apex court had reserved its verdict on the review plea on August 27 after hearing arguments from both sides.

Mallya had filed the petition seeking review of the apex court's May 9, 2017 order by which he was held guilty of contempt of court for transferring USD 40 million to his children in violation of the order.

The fugitive businessman, who is an accused in a bank loan default case of over Rs 9,000 crore involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines, is presently in the United Kingdom.

The apex court's 2017 order had come on a plea by consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI), which had said that Mallya had allegedly transferred USD 40 million received from British firm Diageo, to his children in "flagrant violation" of various judicial orders.
Despite ongoing safety concerns about its platform, Revel is expanding into San Francisco. As The Verge notes, Monday's announcement is not the electric moped rental company's first expansion into the Bay Area; it also operates in Berkeley and across the Bay Bridge in Oakland. But San Francisco area users will have access to a slightly different moped than the one available in other markets. The 430 new vehicles feature 2,960-watt motors "designed to tackle those famous SF hills."

Today were relaunching Revel in the city where it all began. Were rolling out new and enhanced education, safety, and accountability features, and there are a few things youll have to do to start riding again. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/WVySpa2j1L  Revel (@_GoRevel) August 27, 2020

As mentioned above, the expansion comes as Revel faces questions about the safety of its platform. In July, the company temporarily suspended service in New York City after at least two people died  and dozens more injured themselves  riding its mopeds. On August 27th, Revel returned to NYC with new safety measures. The company now requires all users to complete a mandatory in-app safety test, as well as snap a photo of themselves wearing a helmet before they can use one of its mopeds. But questions remain. For instance, how does the company verify someone hasn't taken off their helmet after sending a selfie?

The move also comes as mass transit usage has declined across the US and globally due to the coronavirus pandemic. As of the end of July, Bay Area public transit ridership had dropped by 70 percent. Revel could be a much-needed way to get around the city for people without access to a car  though they'll be substituting one risk for another. Moreover, with each ride costing $1 to start and then an additional $0.25 for every minute of your journey, using the platform for longer commutes isn't exactly affordable. In other words, like a lot of on-demand platforms, it doesn't help those low-income individuals who have had to use public transit to get to work.
South Africa: N Cape Premier rejects PPE tender claims

The Northern Cape Premier, Dr Zamani Saul, has distanced himself from reports that suggest he influenced the awarding the COVID-19 personal protective equipment (PPE) tenders in his province.

The Sunday Times reported that Sauls special advisors wife, Mandisa Shushu, received a R13 million tender to supply the police with one million masks.

The article further alleges that a businessman, Somandla Sibisi, who is believed to be Sauls friend, was awarded a tender worth more than R27 million, despite being deregistered by the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) for non-compliance.

I want to mention upfront that I dont engage in piggish plunder of public resources. I have great respect for my fiduciary role as the Premier of the province, Saul said in a statement on Monday.

He has described the article as embarking on a futile attempt and wild-goose chase to create a link between me and the two people that got the tenders for PPEs.

At no point was I involved or tried to influence procurement processes in the Department of Health or the South African Police Service (SAPS) for the benefit of certain individuals.

I do not have any role in the management of the SAPS and how they issue tenders, as SAPS is a national competency, he explained.

He also refuted claims that he is close friends with Sibisi.

I challenge anybody with information to the contrary to come to the fore. I relate to him like any other businessperson in the province, which in most cases I meet at ANC events and State of Province Addresses. I dont have any business, personal or professional dealings with him.

Saul said he learnt through social media regarding the contract awarded to the wife of his special advisor, Norman Shushu.

To loosely insinuate that I had any role in the awarding of the tender without a shred of evidence is gutter journalism. I have on various occasions and platforms spoken strongly against corruption.

Saul said he was amongst the first Premiers to support President Cyril Ramaphosa's announcement on publicly declaring all PPE procurement.

As chairperson of the Provincial Command Council, I have on record called for full disclosure of all procurement. As a result, the Northern Cape government presented a most detailed report on COVID-19 expenditure. This is all due to the fact that there was nothing to hide from my side.

Saul said it was fair to be subjected to public scrutiny as public servants.

In the article, the journalist could not provide any evidence on the so-called close relationship with Mr Somandla Sibisi and how possibly I could have been involved in allegedly issuing a tender to Mrs Mandisa Shushu.

He has called the matter to be reported to law enforcement agencies if the tenders were awarded unlawfully.

Since his appointment, Saul said, his provincial government has cut wastage and corruption, and managed to save the provincial government close to R200 million in less than a year.

Im quite aware of the fact that there are individuals that are deeply unhappy about these measures and are busy with a serious pushback campaign. This attack is just one of those instalments of the pushback campaign to soil my reputation.

Saul said he was not going to be deterred by what he called a witch-hunt and blackmail.

The work to serve the people of Northern Cape honestly and transparently will seamlessly continue. Let me assure the people of the Northern Cape that if there is anything untoward with any of the COVID-19 related tenders issued to the 175 companies, there will be serious consequences for all those involved.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
(CNN)  A prominent Australian journalist has been detained in China as tensions between the two countries rise.

The Australian government received a "formal notification" of Cheng Lei's detention on August 14, according to a statement released by Marise Payne, Australia's minister for foreign affairs. Consular officials spoke with her by video chat on August 27.

The journalist is a business anchor on CGTN, the international arm of China's state-owned broadcaster, according to Australia's Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade.

In a statement, the family of the detained journalist said they are in "close consultation" with the Australian government.

"[We are] doing everything we can as a family to support Cheng Lei," the statement said. "In China, due process will be observed and we look forward to a satisfactory and timely conclusion to the matter."

CGTN and China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The relationship between Australia and China has frayed in recent months. After Australia called for a investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, Beijing targeted it over trade, suspending some imports of beef and slapping heavy tariffs on barley. It also said Monday it will investigate whether Australian wine exports had been unfairly subsidized.

Last week, Australia effectively blocked the sale of a dairy business to a Chinese company, claiming the acquisition "would be contrary to the national interest."

Steven Jiang and Michelle Toh contributed reporting.
Two tankers will be the first since January this year to load oil for export at the Libyan port of Brega, Bloomberg reports, citing unidentified source in the know.

One of the cargos, of 600,000 barrels of crude, will be shipped to Austrian OMV. The other is of a similar size but its destination has not been disclosed.

Libyas oil ports have been frozen by a blockade since January, when groups affiliated with the Libyan National Army of General Khalifa Haftar took over, suspending all exports and, as a result, most of the countrys oil production. The National Oil Corporation declared force majeure on oil exports following the blockade while the LNA led an offensive against Tripoli and the Government of National Accord. This force majeure has cost it billions in lost oil revenues.

Earlier this month, the GNA announced a ceasefire and if it holds, more oil might start leaving the war-torn North African country. Even though Libyas production has been decimated, plunging from over 1.2 million bpd to less than 100,000 bpd, there is a lot of oil in storage at the oil ports.

While any news of the reopening of ports is good for Libya, it is not that good for the global oil market. Libyas production deterioration has been positive for prices as OPEC+ fought oversupply with severe production cuts. Indeed, according to Rystad Energy, Libyas oil port blockade could help shrink the global oversupply by as much as 65 percent this year.

Yet for Libya, the blockade has been anything but positive. NOC's chairman Mustafa Sanalla has recently said that "The illegal oil blockade has had disastrous effects on our national economy and damaged the living standards of Libyans. Our reservoirs are suffering permanent damage, and stagnant fluids are corroding our pipelines, which will cost us huge amounts to repair."

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
TDT | Manama

His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa yesterday offered his best wishes on the new Hijri year and expressed his satisfaction with the responsible commemoration of Ashura. In a speech delivered to the nation at the end of the commemoration of Ashura, HM King Hamad praised the strong resolve and dedicated steadfastness of Team Bahrain in the fight against the coronavirus (COVID-19) and the role of religious shaikhs and scholars in explaining the significance of protecting people, saving lives, and avoiding harm, especially during the exceptionally trying times.

In his speech, HM the King said: At the end of the commemoration of Ashura, we would like to express our thanks and appreciation to all relevant institutions and entities, especially the Jaafari Endowments and the heads of the community centres, without forgetting the efforts of the volunteer fieldwork teams, for the good follow-up and the specific and smooth organisation, and for their responsible stances by following preventive instructions and applying the precautionary plans issued by Team Bahrain.

Team Bahrain continues, armed with the resolve of the strong and the steadfastness of the devoted, to do everything possible to limit the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and mitigate its effects, under the substantial supervision of our faithful Crown Prince and dear son, His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, may God assist him and bless his endeavours.

The cautious and disciplined measures that characterised the commemoration of Ashura this year, and the care and attention provided to this religious occasion to commemorate its essence in a manner commensurate with its value and position, stem from our Bahraini distinctiveness with its coherent social fabric that lives in peace and harmony.

With Gods will, such Bahraini particularity with its civilised model and the determination of our national resolve will remain a humane reference in the exercise of religious freedoms, respect for sectarian pluralism, and as a core for the genuine values of our religion with its great principles and the right approach.

We would like, in the context of the nationwide understanding and awareness and the prudent approach towards the challenges caused by this emergency situation, to express our special thanks to our distinguished religious shaikhs and scholars for their sincere efforts during this trying period.

They presented enlightened explanations related to the fulfillment of the most significant purpose of our Shariapreserving lives and protecting people from risks and harm. This is what has enabled us, by the grace of God, to uphold His rituals and to obey Him with ease in a safe and reassuring atmosphere. In concluding his speech, HM the King expressed his best wishes to all.
Across the world, negotiators will have seen a man from Maine given a prime spot at the Republican National Convention: Lobsterman Jason Joyce spoke about how President Donald Trump had brokered a deal to end European Union tariffs of 8% on Maine live lobsters and up to 20% on Maine lobster products. It is no coincidence that, in 2016, Trump won only one of Maines four electoral college seats. Trump, behind in the polls, is desperately trying to moderate the effects of his ...

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The team attained its first promising results years ago using a single type of meganuclease that proved effective in cutting the herpes virus DNA, but the results were short-lived. The virus could rely on the infected cells own DNA-repair programs  which dont distinguish between viral genes from their own  to fix the break most of the time.

But over time, the researchers found that they could eliminate up to 90% of the latent virus by using a mix of two or three different meganucleases. It is simply harder to repair two breaks than one. With more tinkering, the results continued to improve.

A workhorse of gene therapy

The researchers also refined their methods of transporting the molecular scissors to targeted nerve cells. From the beginning, Jerome and his team have relied on a harmless, hollowed-out virus that is drawn to the surface proteins of nerve cells. Called an adeno-associated virus vector, or AAV, it is the little workhorse of gene therapy. In this case, it is used to ferry to the infected nerve cells genetic instructions that cause them to make those meganucleases.

We inject the AAV vector, and it finds its way, Aubert said.

Latent herpes viruses lurk in clusters of nerve cells called ganglia, and researchers have found that some ganglia are harder to reach than others. Over the years, they discovered that some AAV strains are better suited than others to find specific types of nerve clusters, and this has helped them fine-tune the selection of these delivery viruses to match infected cells in different places.

In their mouse experiments, the team continued to improve their results, nudging them up to a 95% reduction in herpesvirus infection in one prominent nerve cluster using a selection of two different meganucleases carried by three different flavors of AAVs. By selecting vectors that are primed for harder-to-reach nerve clusters, the group expects to continue improving their ability to eradicate the virus.
Washington :

Donald Trump is planning to do "many big things" after being sworn in as president, his communications director said on Monday, adding that his boss has no intention to stop using Twitter.

Asked by ABC News what "one big thing" the public should expect from the president-elect once he takes office on January 20, spokesman Sean Spicer replied: "It's going to be not one big thing. It's going to be many big things."

Spicer said the Republican billionaire would immediately sign a series of executive orders to "repeal a lot of the regulations and actions that have been taken by this administration over the last eight years that have hampered both economic growth and job creation."

He also confirmed that Trump would institute a five-year ban on senior officials leaving government to become lobbyists, and a lifetime ban "on anyone who wants to serve a foreign government."

When ABC interviewer Jonathan Karl asked whether Trump would continue his highly unusual -- and deeply controversial -- approach of making major policy statements over Twitter, Spicer replied, "Sure, why not." "With all due respect," he continued, "I think it freaks the mainstream media out that he has this following of over 45-plus million people that follow him on social media, that he can have a direct conversation."

Spicer added: "Business as usual is over... There's a new sheriff in town." Karl asked Spicer repeatedly whether Trump might reverse President Barack Obama's steps -- including the expulsion of 35 Russian agents -- aimed at punishing Moscow for interfering in the US election.

While suggesting that Obama's action might have been "political retribution" and thus too harsh, Spicer would only say that Trump would delay any decision until he receives an intelligence briefing on the matter. The president-elect, still working to fill out his new administration, was to return today from his Florida resort to his Trump Tower apartment in Manhattan.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi: China on Monday (August 31) accused the Indian Army of crossing the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and purposely violating the consensus reached "multi-level talks" between the two nations. Notably, an attempt by the Chinese Army to transgress into Indian areas near the southern bank of Pangong Tso near Chushul in Ladakh on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday were thwarted by the Indian Army.

This is for the first time that China has faced such a situation that its official newspaper Global Times wrote that the border dispute will definitely go ahead, predicting a Sino-India war. It also wrote that China will have to take a tough stand against India or else the difficulties will increase for China.

"Indian troops have violated the consensus reached at the multi-level talks between India and China and again crossed the line of actual control at the border on Monday and purposely launched provocations," PLA`s Western Command was quoted as saying by China`s state-run Global Times.

DNA analysis will look into the basis of Chinese allegations and the truth behind it. The incident took place on the night of August 29/30 when PLA troops tried to make incursions near Pangong Lake in eastern Ladakh. This area is in India's possession, therefore, China is striving hard to have control over it to gain strategic advantage. The Indian Army, however, was already alert and took strong action against the Chinese PLA the moment an alert was sounded.

Indian soldiers reached a higher position and forced the Chinese army to retreat without firing a single shot. China wanted to open a new front against India after the Galwan clashes but the Indian army foiled this attempt. The southern side of Pangong, on which China wanted to open the new front, is on the other side of the lake, right in front of the Finger area.

On the other side of this southern edge lies the area between Finger 8 to Finger 4 which is currently under Chinese occupation. China wanted to dominate this area from both sides. On the southern bank of Pangong Lake is situated Chushul which is controlled by India, and has strategic significance. If China managed to reach Chushul, it would easily reach the Demchok area of Ladakh.

Large weapons like tanks and large carts can move easily in this area as it is situated in the middle of the mountains. This area also has an Indian airstrip and if China succeeded in reaching here, it could provide easy access to penetrate into Indian territory.

After pushing the Chinese army back, the Indian Army has gained an edge in this area with its strategic positioning. India and China are engaged in a standoff since April-May over the transgressions by the Chinese Army in multiple areas including the Finger area, Galwan valley, Hot springs, and Kongrung Nala.

The fresh attempt by China to change the status quo in the Pangong lake area is the first major incident in the area after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. China also suffered casualties but is yet to make the details public. According to an American intelligence report, it was 35.

According to Army sources, the Chinese Army had tried to transgress into Indian areas using a sizeable number of troops but the Indian Army came to know about their intentions and preempted the Chinese attempt and foiled their move.

"On the night of August 29/30, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo," said Indian Army spokesperson Colonel Aman Anand in a statement.

Anand further said, "The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquillity through dialogue but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity. A Brigade Commander level Flag Meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues."

Notably, Brigadier-level officials of India and China held talks in Chushul to resolve the issue, but the tension between the two forces remains. China's foreign ministry also made a statement denying that intrusions were not made by Chinese troops and blamed the Indian army of crossing the Line of Actual Control.

India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks in the last two-and-half months but no significant headway has been made for a resolution to the border row in eastern Ladakh. The two sides began a process of disengagement on July 6, a day after a telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in eastern Ladakh. However, the process has not moved forward since mid-July.

The PLA has pulled back from the Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang, and a couple of other areas. At the five rounds of Corps commander-level talks, the Indian side has been insisting on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to April.

Despite the ongoing talks between the two sides for the last three months, the Chinese Army has refused to withdraw or disengage completely from the Finger area. It seems to be buying time to delay its disengagement from there. India has also rejected the Chinese suggestion to disengage equidistantly from the Finger area in Eastern Ladakh.

Amid such a situation, China is apparently inciting India for war as it wants to divert global attention as Chinese President Xi Jinping is facing several challenges on the domestic front too.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday released the first part of his video series attacking the Modi government for the economic tragedy that the country is facing for the first time in 40 years.

He launched an attack on the Centre saying asatyagrahi (someone who doesnt have interest in seeking truth) are blaming God for the fallout. His tweet was an apparent counter to finance minister Nirmala Sitharamans statement last week where she referred to the coronavirus pandemic as an Act of God that may result in contraction of the economy this fiscal.

In a video series titled Arthavyavastha ki baat Rahul Gandhi ke saath or State of the Economy with Rahul Gandhi, the Congress leader claimed that the BJP government has attacked the informal structure of the economy and has attempted to turn people into slaves.

In 2008, the world was hit by an economic storm. It affected the entire world including the United States, China, Europe and Japan. Many banks and firms in the US and Europe shut down but India remained unaffected under the leadership of the UPA government, Gandhi claimed.

He said he asked former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh as to how India did not suffer losses like the rest of the world due to the recession and was told that there were two types of economies within the country: organised and unorganised.

Gandhi says Singh explained to him that as long as the nations unorganised sector, which includes farmers, small and medium size businesses and labourers, stands strong no economic storm can take down India.

For the past six years, the BJP government has been attacking the informal sector, he said and stated that demonetisation, wrong Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the Covid-19 lockdown were the biggest examples of the same.

The lockdown wasnt planned last minute, instead the aim of these three moves (demonetisation, GST, and lockdown) was to destroy the informal sector.

As many as 40 crore people working in the informal sector may face extreme poverty, he said citing an International Labour Organization report. At least two crore people have lost their jobs in the last four months, he added.

He claimed that the informal sector has a lot of money that the government cant touch and so theyre trying to break the sector to extort the money. The result will be that India will not be able to produce jobs as the informal sector generates over 90% of the jobs. Unemployment will be the highest in 45 years, he said.

He asserted that the government is cheating people and so the country needs to stand united to fight this.
Trade financing in China has maintained a sound growth momentum despite a challenging global trade environment in the past two years, according to a report from the China Banking Association.

In 2019, the business volume of international settlement at Chinese commercial banks totaled 6.89 trillion U.S. dollars, a slight decrease from the 2018 level, the report showed.

Favorable factors for the development of the country's trade financing business include progress in the Belt and Road construction, the development of pilot free trade zones, the integration of the Yangtze River Delta, the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, the construction of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the internationalization of the yuan, it said.

The report also noted that with further tightening of regulations, Chinese commercial banks are witnessing rising pressure from compliance risks this year.

Meanwhile, it warned that commercial banks should enhance risk prevention in cross-border businesses amid strong global efforts against money-laundering.
Whilst it may not be a huge deal, we thought it was good to see that Leon Serry, who is a company insider, recently bought AU$80k worth of stock, for AU$0.01 per share. While we're hesitant to get too excited about a purchase of that size, we do note it increased their holding by a solid 19%.

View our latest analysis for Reedy Lagoon

Reedy Lagoon Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

Notably, that recent purchase by Leon Serry is the biggest insider purchase of Reedy Lagoon shares that we've seen in the last year. So it's clear an insider wanted to buy, at around the current price, which is AU$0.01. Of course they may have changed their mind. But this suggests they are optimistic. While we always like to see insider buying, it's less meaningful if the purchases were made at much lower prices, as the opportunity they saw may have passed. In this case we're pleased to report that the insider bought shares at close to current prices. Leon Serry was the only individual insider to buy shares in the last twelve months.

Leon Serry purchased 15.00m shares over the year. The average price per share was AU$0.01. The chart below shows insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction!

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

Insider Ownership

Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. It appears that Reedy Lagoon insiders own 39% of the company, worth about AU$1.6m. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders.

What Might The Insider Transactions At Reedy Lagoon Tell Us?

Story continues

It is good to see the recent insider purchase. And the longer term insider transactions also give us confidence. But on the other hand, the company made a loss during the last year, which makes us a little cautious. When combined with notable insider ownership, these factors suggest Reedy Lagoon insiders are well aligned, and that they may think the share price is too low. So while it's helpful to know what insiders are doing in terms of buying or selling, it's also helpful to know the risks that a particular company is facing. For instance, we've identified 4 warning signs for Reedy Lagoon (3 shouldn't be ignored) you should be aware of.

Of course Reedy Lagoon may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of high quality companies.

For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions.

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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
They have banned him from entering, along with other 29 Belarusian officials.

Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania have declared Alexander Lukashenko, who has recently claimed a win in the Belarusian presidential election despite massive protests alleging rigged results, persona non grata.

Latvia's Foreign Ministry has issued a corresponding statement, noting that the move is "in line with what was decided by the Latvian Cabinet of Ministers, and in coordination with the Foreign Ministries of Estonia and Lithuania".

The Baltic States have banned entry to a total of 30 Belarusian officials.

Read alsoUkraine may impose sanctions against Belarus  FM Kuleba"Persons on this list are not permitted to travel to Latvia and this prohibition applies for an indefinite period of time," the statement reads, adding that included on the list are "individuals from the office and administration of the President of Belarus; the central election commission of Belarus; the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Justice; the office of the General Prosecutor of Belarus; the State Security Committee; the Investigations Committee; the Security Council; the State Audit Committee; and the Executive Committee of the city of Minsk."

These individuals are said to have been organizing and supporting the falsification of the August 9, 2020, elections for the President of Belarus as well as supporting the violent suppression of peaceful protests.

Latvian Foreign Minister Rinkevics says Latvia "strongly condemns" the falsification of the presidential elections, the beating of peaceful protestors, and persecution of journalists and activists in Belarus.

These individuals, through their personal actions, were organising and supporting the falsification of the 9 August 2020 elections for the President of Belarus as well as supporting the violent suppression of peaceful protests

Latvia has called upon the European Union "to promptly proceed with similar decisions."

Belarus protests: background, reactions

Presidential elections were held in Belarus on August 9. The Central Election Commission said over 80% of voters supported incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko, while his main rival, a political novice Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, gained just over 10%.

Thousands of Belarusians who believe the vote count was rigged took to the streets to protest election results. Security officials violently slammed on protesters, detaining thousands, beating and injuring many in captivity.

On August 19, leaders of EU member states agreed to impose sanctions on Belarus in response to falsified vote count and the use of violence against protesters. They have not recognized the presidential election results.

Ukraine has joined the EU declaration on Belarus. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Ukraine in no way intends to interfere in Belarus' internal affairs, while remaining ready to assist in settlement efforts.
Take a millionaire architect, a couple of prominent QCs, a Real Housewives of Melbourne star and a $US4.7 million ($6.3 million) jet aircraft claimed to be a dud and what do you have? A Supreme Court trial scheduled to start at 10.30am on Monday.

Andrew Norbury, the millionaire architect and developer, is taking time out from his day job as the husband of Real Housewives of Melbourne star Lydia Schiavello to sue Textron Aviation over a Cessna jet he says is now un-airworthy.

To argue his case Norbury, whose Metier3 firm designed Seven17Bourke, home to Channel Nine and The Age, has enlisted Ian Freckelton QC, the Victoria Police lawyer who has acted for police giving evidence in the Lawyer X royal commission and conducted the City of Melbourne inquiry into sexual assault allegations against former lord mayor Robert Doyle.

US-based Textron has hired Hamish Austin QC, whose expertise in commercial litigation has been recognised in the Victorian and Australian Senior Counsel rankings of Doyles Guide to the Australian Legal Profession, according to his Victorian Bar profile.

Over the past month the lawyers have been discussing with Supreme Court Justice Peter Riordan if court times need to be rescheduled to hear evidence from US witnesses and if his honour can view the jet under COVID-safe conditions.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Latin Metals Inc. (Latin Metals or the Company) - (TSXV: LMS) (OTCQB: LMSQF) announces that it has acquired the Auquis copper property (Auquis or the Project), located in the Peruvian Coastal Copper Belt (Figures 1 and 2). As a prospect generator, the Company already holds a portfolio of projects in Argentina and has been actively seeking to acquire copper and precious metal projects in Peru. The Company recently announced staking of the 4,000-hectare Lacsha copper project (previous news release August 4, 2020) and is now pleased to add the 2,900-hectare Auquis copper project to the portfolio in Peru.



Both Auquis and the previously announced Lacsha projects are located within the Coastal Copper Belt, where recent discoveries include copper porphyry, VMS, IOCG and intrusion-related gold deposits.

The Coastal Copper Belt in Peru has been a focus for discovery over the last 15 years, however much of the exploration effort has been focused in southern Peru, leaving much of the central and northern portions of the belt significantly under-explored.

Auquis Copper Project

The Project is located approximately 377 km south by road from Lima, 95 km from the coast, and is accessible year-round by paved road.

The Auquis project is a copper-molybdenum porphyry exploration project that has multiple untested geochemical stream sediment anomalies, including a single target area measuring 3.5 km by 2.0 km where all stream sediment samples grade >300pmm copper. A total of 42 historical stream sediment samples contain multi-element anomalies across multiple drainages, with copper assay results ranging from 48.7 ppm to 607 ppm.

A clearly defined metal zonation is evident in the stream sediment data across the survey area, with a central core of copper-molybdenum anomalies and distal silver and zinc-lead anomalies to the northeast.

Future Work

The Company plans to complete geological mapping combined with surface geochemistry in Q3 2020. Budgeted work includes stream sediment sampling, lithological and structural geological mapping, and rock chip sampling.

Figure 1: Map of the Auquis copper project, showing historical copper geochemistry results for sediment sampling, which defines a target area approx. 3.5km by 2.0km in area.

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/613536c8-8392-4e51-ab7b-7afa88180434

Figure 2: Project Location Map (left) and locations of operating mines & exploration projects (right), highlighting the Cretaceous mineral belt, the newly acquired Auquis copper project, and the Companys recently acquired Lacsha copper project.

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ec1b4798-265a-486c-a2d9-0347ab89aa2a

Technical Advisor

The Company announces that it has engaged Daniel MacNeil as a technical advisor to the Company. Daniel is a precious and base metal specialist with more than 19 years of experience from continental-scale project generation to in-mine resource expansion in a wide variety of geological settings throughout the Americas and Europe. Daniel currently consults with mid-tier, private and junior mining/exploration companies on mine resource expansion and early through advanced exploration target delineation, drill testing and exploration property evaluations globally.

Stock Option Grant

The Company also announced that it has granted 70,000 common share stock options (each an Option) to various employees and consultants of the Company and its affiliates. The Options entitle the holder to purchase shares at a price of $0.14 per share for a period of 36 months from the issue date.

Figure 3: Latin Metals Exploration Property Portfolio

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d9d2e37b-c751-46d3-bab5-633fd362baae

About Peru

Mining and extractive industries in the country account for approximately 15% of GDP and Peru is a significant producer of base metals and precious metals. In world production, Peru is ranked #2 in copper production and #7 in gold production. Politics in Peru is currently dominated by democratic center-right policy and the government understands the importance of mining to the national economy. Mining law and regulatory framework in Peru is well-established and the country is competitive with respect to labour and power costs. Fraser Institute Annual Survey of Mining Companies 2019 results show Peru is the second most attractive jurisdiction in Latin America and the Caribbean.

About Latin Metals

Latin Metals is a mineral exploration company with a diversified portfolio of gold and copper exploration assets in South America (Figure 3). The Company operates with an investor-focused Prospect Generator model, which brings potential advantages to shareholders such as exposure to multiple exploration projects reducing discovery risk. Most of the exploration expense could be borne by JV partners, potentially reducing dilution associated with funding ongoing exploration activities. The Companys project portfolio brings exposure to multiple commodities, reducing the impact associated with commodity price cycles. In all future deals, the Company intends to retain a minority interest across the portfolio, providing shareholders with exposure to potential discovery upside.

QA/QC

The Company has not assessed the QAQC of historical sampling and results thereof. Historical results are not consistent with the standards of disclosure defined by NI 43-101 and may not necessarily be consistent with CIM best practice. The Companys planned future work will include verification samples to verify the location and magnitude of the various surface geochemical anomalies discussed in this news release.

Qualified Person

Keith J. Henderson, P.Geo., is the Company's qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 and has reviewed the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for portions of this news release. He has approved the disclosure herein. Mr. Henderson is not independent of the Company, as he is an employee of the Company and holds securities of the Company.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of

LATIN METALS INC.

Keith Henderson

President & CEO

For further details on the Company readers are referred to the Company's web site ( www.latin-metals.com ) and its Canadian regulatory filings on SEDAR at www.sedar.com .

For further information, please contact:

Keith Henderson

Suite 2300

1177 West Hastings Street

Vancouver, BC, V6E 2K3

Phone: 604-638-3456

E-mail: info@latin-metals.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities legislation, including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the negotiation of the Option Agreements and exercise of the Option for the Properties, the anticipated content, commencement, timing and cost of exploration programs in respect of the Properties and otherwise, anticipated exploration program results from exploration activities, and the Company's expectation that it will be able to enter into agreements to acquire interests in additional mineral properties, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/reserves on the Properties, and the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Often, but not always, forward looking information can be identified by words such as "pro forma", "plans", "expects", "may", "should", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", "believes", "potential" or variations of such words including negative variations thereof, and phrases that refer to certain actions, events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, market fundamentals will result in sustained precious metals demand and prices, the receipt of any necessary permits, licenses and regulatory approvals in connection with the future development of the Companys Argentine projects in a timely manner, the availability of financing on suitable terms for the development, construction and continued operation of the Company projects, and the Companys ability to comply with environmental, health and safety laws.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors include, among others, operating and technical difficulties in connection with mineral exploration and development and mine development activities at the Properties, including the geological mapping, prospecting and sampling programs being proposed for the Properties (the "Programs"), actual results of exploration activities, including the Programs, estimation or realization of mineral reserves and mineral resources, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production, capital expenditures, the costs and timing of the development of new deposits, the availability of a sufficient supply of water and other materials, requirements for additional capital, future prices of precious metals and copper, changes in general economic conditions, changes in the financial markets and in the demand and market price for commodities, possible variations in ore grade or recovery rates, possible failures of plants, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated, accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry, delays or the inability of the Company to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required, including TSX-V acceptance for filing of the Option Agreements, any current or future property acquisitions, financing or other planned activities, changes in laws, regulations and policies affecting mining operations, hedging practices, currency fluctuations, title disputes or claims limitations on insurance coverage and the timing and possible outcome of pending litigation, environmental issues and liabilities, risks related to joint venture operations, and risks related to the integration of acquisitions, as well as those factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's latest Management Discussion and Analysis and other filings of the Company with the Canadian Securities Authorities, copies of which can be found under the Company's profile on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com .

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward looking statements. Except as otherwise required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking information in this news release or incorporated by reference herein.
Q: Several years ago, we had the wooden floors at our vacation home professionally painted white. The contractor used an industrial-grade paint for use on factory floors and/or high-traffic wooden floors. I believe it may have been latex enamel and not an oil-based paint, as I don't recall a chemical smell. We didn't lay carpets on it for nearly a month to allow the paint to set. We do have yellowing underneath the area rugs now, which I believe is due to a lack of UV light. The finish has held up remarkably well, but I am having difficulty getting the floors really clean. Can you suggest a product or technique?
And here we are in 2020, in a place where we are told that people must put themselves in harms way for the good of the stock market, while in some cases it still takes weeks to receive the results of a COVID-19 test. Now that we really need the government to do something, it has become incapable.
Shortly after former President Pranab Mukherjee passed away, leaders, including President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, paid tributes to him.

IMAGE: Former President Pranab Mukherjee receiving the "Bharat Ratna" from President Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Photograph: ANI Photo

"Sad to hear that former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee is no more. His demise is passing of an era. A colossus in public life, he served Mother India with the spirit of a sage. The nation mourns losing one of its worthiest sons. Condolences to his family, friends & all citizens.

"In his 5-decade-long illustrious public life, he remained rooted to the ground irrespective of the exalted offices he held. He endeared himself to people across political spectrum."

"He opened its gates for public visit. His decision to discontinue the use of the honorific 'His Excellency' was historic."

-- President Ram Nath Kovind

"I was new to Delhi in 2014. From Day 1, I was blessed to have the guidance, support and blessings of Shri Pranab Mukherjee. I will always cherish my interactions with him. Condolences to his family, friends, admirers and supporters across India. Om Shanti.

"India grieves the passing away of Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society."

-- Prime Minister Narendra Modi

"Deeply anguished on the passing away of former President of India, Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee ji. He was a vastly experienced leader who served the nation with utmost devotion. Pranab da's distinguished career is a matter of great pride for the entire country.

"Pranab Da's life will always be cherished for his impeccable service and indelible contribution to our motherland. His demise has left a huge void in Indian polity. My sincerest condolences are with his family and followers on this irreparable loss. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti."

-- Home Minister Amit Shah

"He brought distinction to every post he held. He established a genuine rapport with colleagues across the political spectrum, and he served our country with the utmost dedication.

"Pranab Da had been such an integral and prominent part of national life, the Congress party and the central government for over five decades, it is hard to imagine how we can do without his wisdom, experience, sage advice and deep understanding of so many subjects.

"His life over the past 50 years mirrored 50 years of the history of India, for he played a crucial role both in shaping the course of events as well as actively participating in them, whether as a cabinet minister, parliamentarian or President of India.

"I learnt so much from him. The Congress party deeply mourns his loss and will always honour his memory.



"Pranab Da has now been released from his suffering. May his soul rest in peace."

-- Congress president Sonia Gandhi

"I have learnt with profound sorrow about the passing away of Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Former President of India.

"In his death, our country has lost one of its greatest leaders of Independent India. He and I worked very closely in the government of India and I depended on him a great deal for his wisdom, vast knowledge and experience of public affairs."

-- Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

IMAGE: Prime Minister tweeted this image of himself with former President Pranab Mukherjee as he expressed grief over the passing of the former president. Photograph: Narendra Modi/Twitter

"Deeply anguished by the demise of former president of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee ji. He was widely respected by the people across all sections of society. His demise is a personal loss. He had tremendous knowledge of India's history, diplomacy, public policy and also defence.

"He served our country with diligence and dedication. His contribution to public life was invaluable. My deepest condolences to his bereaved family."

-- Defence Minister Rajnath Singh

"Saddened by the demise of former President and statesman Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has served the Country in many roles with diligence and determination. He is widely admired across the parties for his intellect and perseverance. My condolences to his family and followers."

-- Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda

"I am deeply saddened by the death of former President of India, Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee. His death is a great loss for the country. Pranab da was a rich and good friend of the great personality.

"He always gave priority to the country, rising above party politics. In this hour of grief, I express my deepest condolences to his family members. God bless his departed soul."

-- Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari

"With great sadness, the nation receives the news of the unfortunate demise of our former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee. I join the country in paying homage to him. My deepest condolences to the bereaved family and friends."

-- Congress leader Rahul Gandhi

"It is with deep sorrow I write this. Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee has left us. An era has ended. For decades he was a father figure. From my first win as MP, to being my

senior Cabinet colleague, to his becoming President while I was CM.

"So many memories. A visit to Delhi without Pranabda is unimaginable. He is a legend in all subjects from politics to economics. Will be forever grateful. Shall miss him

immensely. My condolences to Abhijit & Sharmistha."

-- West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee

"One of the many occasions I had to meet Pranab da. I always found our interactions to be memorable. His encyclopaedic memory meant he always had an anecdote to make the point under discussion.The last of a generation of politicians able to reach out across the political aisle."

-- National Conference leader Omar Abdullah

"Saddened to head the news of former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee's death. May God place the departed soul at their feet and give courage to his family and loved ones to bear this sorrow."

-- Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal

"Your thoughts, memories and sense of commitment to the Party, the People and the Nation lives on ..... Rest in Peace Pranab Da."

-- Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala

"I am deeply saddened to condole the passing away of my longtime and close colleague Shri Pranab Mukherjee ji. Pranab Da, as many of us addressed him with affection, was someone with whom I have had a long and cherished association.

"Although I am older, Pranab Da was one year senior to me as a Parliamentarian. I became a Member of Parliament in the year 1970 while Pranab Da became an MP in 1969. We belonged to different ideologies but from day one of my meeting him, a mutual bond of respect was formed between us.

"His own reflective nature, combined with his long and varied experience in public life, made him a statesman who was admired by people across the political spectrum.

"To me personally, he was more than a colleague and we have shared valuable moments both inside and outside of our public lives, which extended even to our families. The memories of various lunches we shared together will always be special in my heart. Though Pranab Da was hospitalised for the last couple of weeks, we were all hoping that he would recover soon.

"His passing away is a huge loss to the nation. I have lost a friend. May his soul rest in peace."

-- Senior BJP leader L K Advani

"India's former President Dr Pranab Mukherjee's passing away is a huge loss for all swayamsevaks who had come in contact with him. I had met him twice when he was President and three to four times afterwards.

"I felt like speaking to elder member of my family.

"We all became a fan of his simplicity and cordial behaviour when he himself came forward and stood up to introduce himself to all, saying 'as we all have gathered here to know each other, let me first introduce myself to you'. "This he did before the introductory remarks were made by the programme compere.

"We used to feel like keep talking and listening to him continuously if we could meet him and sit with him.

"He was a very successful politician and had a very successful political journey. He knew all political strategies, but, he rose above politics and always considered everyone as his own in the interest of the nation. He used to bring people together even if there was a political conflict.

We have lost a scholar and a patriot who was a true source of guidance. This loss cannot be compensated. Pranab da came in the life of people like me for a shorter period, but he will be remembered forever. We all are with his family in this time of grief for them.

-- Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat

-- With inputs from ANI
Technavio has been monitoring the intravenous fluid bags market and it is poised to grow by 667.51 mn during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 6% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200831005460/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Intravenous Fluid Bags Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire).

Although the COVID-19 pandemic continues to transform the growth of various industries, the immediate impact of the outbreak is varied. While a few industries will register a drop in demand, numerous others will continue to remain unscathed and show promising growth opportunities. Technavio's in-depth research has all your needs covered as our research reports include all foreseeable market scenarios, including pre- post-COVID-19 analysis. Download a Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impacts

Frequently Asked Questions:

What are the major trends in the market?

Innovation in IV fluid bags is a major trend driving the growth of the market.

Innovation in IV fluid bags is a major trend driving the growth of the market. At what rate is the market projected to grow?

The year-over-year growth for 2020 is estimated at 5.24% and the incremental growth of the market is anticipated to be 667.51 mn.

The year-over-year growth for 2020 is estimated at 5.24% and the incremental growth of the market is anticipated to be 667.51 mn. Who are the top players in the market?

Amcor Ltd., B. Braun Melsungen AG, Baxter International Inc., Fresenius Kabi AG, ICU Medical Inc., JW Lifescience Corp., Merit Medical Systems Inc., PolyCine GmbH, Sippex A MEDIPPEX Co., and Smiths Medical Group Ltd., are some of the major market participants.

Amcor Ltd., B. Braun Melsungen AG, Baxter International Inc., Fresenius Kabi AG, ICU Medical Inc., JW Lifescience Corp., Merit Medical Systems Inc., PolyCine GmbH, Sippex A MEDIPPEX Co., and Smiths Medical Group Ltd., are some of the major market participants. What is the key market driver?

The rising prevalence of chronic diseases is one of the major factors driving the market

The rising prevalence of chronic diseases is one of the major factors driving the market How big is the North America market?

The North America region will contribute 36% of the market share

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Amcor Ltd., B. Braun Melsungen AG, Baxter International Inc., Fresenius Kabi AG, ICU Medical Inc., JW Lifescience Corp., Merit Medical Systems Inc., PolyCine GmbH, Sippex A MEDIPPEX Co., and Smiths Medical Group Ltd. are some of the major market participants. The rising prevalence of chronic diseases will offer immense growth opportunities. To make most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

Buy 1 Technavio report and get the second for 50% off. Buy 2 Technavio reports and get the third for free.

View market snapshot before purchasing

Technavio's custom research reports offer detailed insights on the impact of COVID-19 at an industry level, a regional level, and subsequent supply chain operations. This customized report will also help clients keep up with new product launches in direct indirect COVID-19 related markets, upcoming vaccines and pipeline analysis, and significant developments in vendor operations and government regulations.

Intravenous Fluid Bags Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Intravenous Fluid Bags Market is segmented as below:

End-user Hospitals Home Healthcare Others

Geography North America Europe APAC South America



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR40565

Intravenous Fluid Bags Market 2020-2024: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. The intravenous fluid bags market report covers the following areas:

Intravenous Fluid Bags Market Size

Intravenous Fluid Bags Market Trends

Intravenous Fluid Bags Market Industry Analysis

This study identifies innovations in IV fluid bags as one of the prime reasons driving the intravenous fluid bags market growth during the next few years.

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Technavio's in-depth research has direct and indirect COVID-19 impacted market research reports.

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Intravenous Fluid Bags Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist intravenous fluid bags market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the intravenous fluid bags market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the intravenous fluid bags market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of intravenous fluid bags market vendors

Table of Contents:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five Forces Summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by End-user

Market segments

Comparison by End user

Hospitals Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Home healthcare Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Others Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by End user

Customer landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Volume driver Demand led growth

Market challenges

Market trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Amcor Ltd.

B. Braun Melsungen AG

Baxter International Inc.

Fresenius Kabi AG

ICU Medical Inc.

JW Lifescience Corp.

Merit Medical Systems Inc.

PolyCine GmbH

Sippex A MEDIPPEX Co.

Smiths Medical Group Ltd.

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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South Africa: Chikunga proposes register of sexual harassment perpetrators

Public Service and Administration Deputy Minister, Sindisiwe Chikunga, says a register should be set up to record the names of sexual harassment perpetrators in the public service.

Chikunga said the information on this proposed register should be made available to the entire management in the public service.

Women in the public service are dealing with a lot of injustices, sexual harassment being one of them, Chikunga said.

In her virtual keynote address to mark the end of Womens Month, Chikunga said there is a need to make education and training on sexual harassment policy compulsory in both the public and private sector.

She said governments efforts should always focus on empowering women and girl children to know and stand up for their rights and never compromise on social justice.

Gender-based violence and femicide know no age, race and class. The perpetrators are our brothers, uncles, colleagues, neighbours, husbands and pastors.

Various forms of abuse like economic abuse, blesser syndrome, illegal labour practices, emotional abuse, and physical abuse, which continue at alarming levels, must be addressed, Chikunga said.

Chikunga said government is committed to ending GBV.

Noting the disturbing prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace, it becomes imperative to reiterate the objectives, forms and mitigation measures that have been put in place through the Sexual Harassment Policy to deal with and eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace, especially in the public service.

We must lobby for stricter measures against sexual harassment, sexual abuse, gender-based violence and COVID-19 challenges, Chikunga said.

Chikunga said silence in acting against gender-based violence is silencing the rights of girl children yet to be born.

It is silence to inclusive sustainable development and the emancipation of women but most of all, it is silencing a nations soul, Chikunga said.

She applauded public servants, who, for the past seven months, have diligently rendered services under difficult conditions.

We appreciate the work of our frontline workers, who continue to provide services during this unprecedented time of COVID-19.

We pay tribute to the lives of all the public servants who have lost their lives in service of the nation. We convey our heartfelt condolences to their loved ones and the entire public service, she said.

This years Womens Month was launched under the theme, Generation Equality: Realising womens rights for an equal future.

The concept of Generation Equality is a global campaign and links South Africa to global efforts to achieve gender equality by 2030, calling for action to be a part of the generation that ends gender inequality.

Every year in August, SA marks Womens Month to pay tribute to more than 20 000 women who marched to the Union Buildings on 9 August 1956 in protest against the extension of Pass Laws to women.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Today we're going to take a look at the well-established Illinois Tool Works Inc. (NYSE:ITW). The company's stock saw a significant share price rise of over 20% in the past couple of months on the NYSE. As a large-cap stock with high coverage by analysts, you could assume any recent changes in the companys outlook is already priced into the stock. However, could the stock still be trading at a relatively cheap price? Lets take a look at Illinois Tool Workss outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if the opportunity still exists.

Check out our latest analysis for Illinois Tool Works

What is Illinois Tool Works worth?

According to my price multiple model, which makes a comparison between the company's price-to-earnings ratio and the industry average, the stock price seems to be justfied. Ive used the price-to-earnings ratio in this instance because theres not enough visibility to forecast its cash flows. The stocks ratio of 29.33x is currently trading slightly above its industry peers ratio of 26.52x, which means if you buy Illinois Tool Works today, youd be paying a relatively reasonable price for it. And if you believe Illinois Tool Works should be trading in this range, then there isnt really any room for the share price grow beyond the levels of other industry peers over the long-term. Is there another opportunity to buy low in the future? Since Illinois Tool Workss share price is quite volatile, we could potentially see it sink lower (or rise higher) in the future, giving us another chance to buy. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for how much the stock moves relative to the rest of the market.

Can we expect growth from Illinois Tool Works?

Future outlook is an important aspect when youre looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so lets also take a look at the company's future expectations. With profit expected to grow by a double-digit 17% over the next couple of years, the outlook is positive for Illinois Tool Works. It looks like higher cash flow is on the cards for the stock, which should feed into a higher share valuation.

Story continues

What this means for you:

Are you a shareholder? It seems like the market has already priced in ITWs positive outlook, with shares trading around industry price multiples. However, there are also other important factors which we havent considered today, such as the financial strength of the company. Have these factors changed since the last time you looked at ITW? Will you have enough conviction to buy should the price fluctuate below the industry PE ratio?

Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping tabs on ITW, now may not be the most advantageous time to buy, given it is trading around industry price multiples. However, the optimistic forecast is encouraging for ITW, which means its worth further examining other factors such as the strength of its balance sheet, in order to take advantage of the next price drop.

So if you'd like to dive deeper into this stock, it's crucial to consider any risks it's facing. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign that you should run your eye over to get a better picture of Illinois Tool Works.

If you are no longer interested in Illinois Tool Works, you can use our free platform to see our list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential.

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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is strangely embedded in the realities of Armenian society. The assessments of the official authorities differ significantly from the real situation, without reflecting an adequate attitude to the problems of interethnic relations, war and peace. The peoples of Azerbaijan and Armenia are by their nature non-conflict, close to each other mentally, have similar value systems.

But Armenian politicians invariably view the conflict in the context of a national victory, and not an intercommunal tragedy, keeping silent about what tests interethnic relations are subjected to, including outside the South Caucasus. For example, not a single provocation, including the most egregious antics of the Armenian diaspora in California during the July clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, was condemned by any Armenian politician. Even when the Los Angeles police apologized to the Azerbaijani community, the Armenian diplomacy did not comment on the very fact of the criminal activities of the representatives of the diaspora.

Yerevan does not seem to realize that people who live thousands of kilometers from Karabakh may suffer from the unsettled conflict. This is the real attitude to the problem of peace - the future of the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations in Yerevan seems to be something secondary.

The Armenian cultural doctrine has established itself in the fact that Armenia has long ago solved the Karabakh issue, "having won" the war, and now it is the turn for international recognition, which diplomacy is unsuccessfully engaged in. The efforts that Yerevan is making to resolve the problem as soon as possible are nothing more than rhetoric behind which, in essence, concrete financial interests are hidden. The "elite" of the so-called NKR or Yerevan politicians are quite satisfied with the fact that the Armenians of Karabakh have long ceased to care about their unrecognized status. For household needs and travel abroad, you can get a passport of an Armenian citizen literally in one day.

When it comes to the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, the authorities first of all pay attention to the formation of the "correct" perception of the problem among the population. There is a certain list of topics that can be discussed, and those that, in principle, are not customary to talk about. It is difficult to imagine that the head of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Zohrab Mnatsakanyan or Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will speak out loud about specific factors that significantly complicate the process of the Karabakh settlement. These include close intertwining (up to merging) in the conflict zone of interests of state actors, organized crime and financial monopolies.

When the authorities do not talk about something really important, it can be assumed that they differentiate information, defining "not of public importance". In the case of Armenian politics, which in everyday life and in the international arena is represented by completely different rhetoric, a number of key issues are deliberately removed from public discussion, on which the image of the entire Armenian government largely depends.

The most disgusting manifestation of such political hypocrisy lies not in a false commitment to peace, but in the fact that the reality created in the conditions of an unresolved conflict (including the blockade) is perceived as natural, and through this prism the Armenians look at the history of interethnic relations. This makes it possible to spread outright nonsense about the historical roots of tension in Armenian-Azerbaijani relations.
Miami:

Seven people, including three teenagers, were injured in a New Year's Day shooting in Miami-Dade's West Little River neighborhood, police said.

The Miami Herald quoted the police said the victims were standing outside a house at around 6pm when a car pulled and someone inside opened fire.

Police said six of the victims are in stable condition.

A 17-year-old is in critical condition. Police said there may be more than one suspect. A description of the suspect's vehicle was not given.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Kim Kardashian has found herself engulfed in an unwanted political narrative, amid her husband Kanye West's bizarre presidential bid.

But the SKIMS mogul appears to be doing damage control, while continuing her criminal justice advocacy.

She advocated for 'sensible moderate police reform' Sunday, as she took to Twitter to urge her followers to vote yes on California Senate Bill 731.

Police reform: Kim Kardashian advocated for 'sensible moderate police reform' Sunday, as she took to Twitter to urge her followers to vote yes on California Senate Bill 731

The 39-year-old wrote to her 66.5million followers: 'Right now its ok if a police officer in California breaks the law while on the the job. They cannot be sued for breaking the law.'

She followed up in another tweet: 'Please vote YES on #SB731 for sensible moderate police reform! This will just make police officers accountable if they break the law. Please we are calling for your leadership, @AssemblyDems and @Rendon63rd. #YesOnSB731'

It comes just days after police in Kenosha, Wisconsin shot unarmed Black man Jacob Blake four times in the back, paralyzing him from the waist down.

Black Lives Matter protests have previously take place across the country, following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, due to police brutality.

Kim recently reached a boiling point in her marriage to Kanye West, after he divulged sensitive private details at a campaign rally last month in South Carolina.

Kanye admitted earlier this month that his last-minute presidential bid was meant to split the vote in favor of Trump, telling Forbes: 'Im not denying it; I just told you.'

He previously outlined his bizarre platform in an interview with the publication, in which he came out against abortion, vaccines and Black History Month.

Marital issues: Kim recently reached a boiling point in her marriage to Kanye West, after he divulged sensitive private details at a campaign rally last month in South Carolina (pictured in July, 2020)

Splitting the vote: Kanye admitted earlier this month that his last-minute presidential bid was meant to split the vote in favor of Trump, telling Forbes: 'Im not denying it; I just told you' (pictured in October, 2018)

Common ground: But the Yeezy founder seemed to agree with his wife's stance on police brutality: 'One of my to-do lists is to end police brutality. The police are people, too. To end laws that dont make sense'

Fighting for justice: Kim has been working toward the bar exam, as she apprentices with the justice reform initiative #Cut50, which was explored in her recent Oxygen documentary Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Project

But the Yeezy founder seemed to agree with his wife's stance on police brutality: 'One of my to-do lists is to end police brutality. The police are people, too. To end laws that dont make sense.'

Kim has been working toward the bar exam, as she apprentices with the justice reform initiative #Cut50, which was explored in her recent Oxygen documentary Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Project.

She successfully lobbied President Donald Trump in 2018 to commute the sentence of Alice Johnson, a first-time nonviolent drug offender, who'd already served 21 years of a life sentence.

Trump announced Friday that he gave Johnson a full pardon, as he campaigns for his reelection in November.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 21:05:49|Editor: huaxia

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LUSAKA, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Zambian health minister Chitalu Chilufya said on Monday the COVID-19 pandemic will worsen non-communicable diseases, calling for a healthier lifestyle to lessen the impact.

Non-communicable diseases caused by things such as smoking, abuse of alcohol and inactivity are likely to be worsened by the pandemic, he told a daily update on COVID-19.

"One can easily die if such habits are not controlled," Chilufya said.

The minister said most patients dying of COVID-19 in the country had underlying diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, and urged those with such conditions to continue taking medication.

He said Zambia recorded one COVID-19 death in the previous 24 hours, bringing total deaths to 288.

The country also reported 72 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, out of 1,169 tests conducted, bringing cumulative cases to 12,097. Enditem
Agra, Aug 31 : Since the idea of women empowerment swept the world, women are becoming powerful every passing day and now more than ever, it is about improving the way the world perceives the strength of women, said Prof Namrata Pradhan of the Royal University of Bhutan.

She was delivering the keynote address at the international virtual conference on 'Women Empowerment, Gender Justice and Role of International Law' organised by the Law Society, Faculty of Law, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).

Prof Namrata pointed out that women were advancing in each and every field and the world was slowly marching towards gender justice which was indispensable for development, poverty reduction and human progress.

She highlighted how a woman Health Minister in Bhutan, Dechen Wangmo, successfully averted the Covid-19 crisis in the Himalayan country. With no coronavirus-related fatalities reported, Bhutan contained the pandemic despite limited resources.

Prof Namrata discussed laws relating to women in Bhutan. Sharing her life experiences, she elaborated on the role of her mother in making her a successful person.

Inaugurating the conference, AMU Vice-Chancellor Prof Tariq Mansoor highlighted the contributions of women leaders in various nations in tackling the coronavirus outbreak.

"Since the beginning of the pandemic, female leaders at the helm of different countries have effectively handled the Covid-19 crisis. The actions of female leaders in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Taiwan are cited as supporting evidence that women are managing the crisis better than their male counterparts," said the Vice-Chancellor.

He added that as women have come a long way in the past four decades, be as it may, a lot of work has to be done in order to achieve gender justice.

Prof Mansoor pointed out that nowadays, more women were joining the legal field as judges and lawyers in the apex and other courts of the country.

Director of the conference Prof Shakeel Ahmed Samdani (Dean, Faculty of Law) highlighted women's rights in Islamic law.

He mentioned that the religious scriptures guarantee property, remarriage and educational rights to women and curbed the practice of female infanticide.

Chief Guest Wafa Rashid Al Alyani, Director, Student Affairs Department, University of Buraimi, Sultanate of Oman delineated laws for the promotion of gender justice in Oman. She pointed out that 42 per cent of women in Oman were employed in various sectors.

Attending the conference as the Guest of Honour, Sadaf Khan, Princess Nora University, Riyadh, discussed reforms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for women empowerment.

Shad Ahmad Khan, Chair, Staff Professional Development, University of Buraimi, Oman, introduced the theme of the conference to the participants.

Over 3,000 academicians, researchers and advanced students from all over the world participated in the conference.
Reality stars have been criticised for allegedly exploiting money worries to peddle 'get rich quick' schemes to fans amid lockdown.

Instagram is rife with self-proclaimed 'bedroom traders' who claim to earn a fortune speculating on foreign currencies, or 'forex'. They post dazzling images of expensive cars, wads of cash and glamorous foreign trips to reel in unsuspecting new clients.

Customers are told the same luxury lifestyle is just a phone swipe away - if they follow the gurus' trading tips, also known as 'signals'.

But the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) says more than three-quarters of speculators end up losing their cash - at a cost of 1billion a year.

Campaigners say forex trading is so risky it should be regulated in the same way as gambling, and financial industry insiders say many of Instagram's 'traders' really make their cash by selling expensive courses and through signing up new customers to brokers.

Stars of Geordie Shore, Love Island and Ex On The Beach have used Instagram to promote forex traders to their legions of young fans.

One guru promoted by reality stars is Jordan Heyward, 24, of Plymouth, who boasts of having more than 4,000 clients.

Mr Hayward, who has been promoted by celebrities including Kyle Christie, Scott Timlin, Thomas Powell and Ross Worswick, tells new customers to stake a 'minimum' of 300 by opening a forex trading account with Mauritius-based brokers BDSwiss.

But the FCA has now issued a statement about Heyward, which says: 'This firm is not authorised by us and is targeting people in the UK.

Geordie Shore star Kyle Christie told his 1.3 million followers that Heyward - who markets himself on Instagram as @tradewithjordanfx - had been helping him earn 'incredible profits'

Using images of his gleaming white BMW and photos of him relaxing in a hot tub while doing deals on his phone, Jordan Heyward markets a 297 forex course, mentoring and trading tips

'Based upon information we hold, we believe it is carrying on regulated activities which require authorisation.'

Using images of his gleaming white BMW and photos of him relaxing in a hot tub while doing deals on his phone, he markets a 297 forex course, mentoring and trading tips.

He also uses screenshots of customers' 'daily profits' to lure new clients with promises of making an easy buck.

Posting on Facebook as Heyward Marketing Ltd, he boasted: 'During this isolation, clients have had nothing but time on their hands...time which they are using to follow our trades and learn from our e-books and videos.

'What you're seeing here is profits which not only they are making, but you can, too.'

Geordie Shore star Kyle Christie told his 1.3 million followers that Heyward - who markets himself on Instagram as @tradewithjordanfx - had been helping him earn 'incredible profits'.

Scott Timlin - who posts on Instagram as @scottgshore - was declared bankrupt last year with debts of 147k. But the 31-year-old's financial strife hasn't stopped him telling his 2.7 million followers that Heyward holds the solution to their pandemic money worries

He told fans in a video story: 'If you're losing out on money and your income due to this lock down, you need to give my mate Jordan a message.'

Scott Timlin - who posts on Instagram as @scottgshore - was declared bankrupt last year with debts of 147k.

And in January he was criticised for using social media to plug a horse racing tipster.

But the 31-year-old's financial strife hasn't stopped him telling his 2.7 million followers that Heyward holds the solution to their pandemic money worries.

'During this pandemic, my mate Jordan is helping thousands of people make a second income just from their mobile phones,' he said in an Instagram story on Heyward's page.

Meanwhile Love Island muscle man Thomas Powell, from Port Talbot, Wales, said in a video: 'If you're into making money off forex, Jordan is making a lot of money for a lot of his clients right now.'

And Manchester-based Ross Worswick, formerly of Ex On The Beach and founder of the 15m fashion empire, Couture Club, said: 'Jordan is absolutely killing the forex game at the moment.

Love Island's Thomas Powell, from Port Talbot, Wales, said in a video: 'If you're into making money off forex, Jordan is making a lot of money for a lot of his clients right now'

'If you want a second income, if you want to work from home and earn a bit of extra cash, give him a message - he'll get back to you and tell you exactly how to do that.'

Young people and low income earners are especially vulnerable to the Covid-19 financial squeeze.

Matt Zarb-Cousin, of Clean up Gambling, said: 'It's just awful.

'To knowingly peddle products which are going to cause vulnerable people even more financial harm is completely inexcusable.'

And consumer expert Martyn James of complaints site Resolver said: 'Using a platform like Instagram which is better known for selfies to flog a product with a fundamental high level of risk is totally inappropriate.'

Mr Zarb-Cousin, of Clean up Gambling, added: 'I don't believe that the people who are advertising this stuff are somehow blissfully unaware of what they're doing.

'If they're not aware then they shouldn't be advertising it. And if they are aware, it just shows what contempt they have for their own fans.'

Providing trading signals is classed as financial advice by the FCA which says traders who do it should be approved - or they risk breaking the law.

The FCA explained that forex scammers often pretend their wealth has come from trading and promise customers can do the same by copying their trades.

Heyward initially tried to claim he is regulated by the FCA before saying he did not need to be regulated 'because I don't give financial advice'.

Clean up Gambling added in a statement: 'Forex is a form of gambling dressed up as investing, which gives the misleading impression that these platforms are a way to make money in the long term.'
- Jowie urged his fans to take time off their day to be one with God

- He said anytime is always a good time for him to sing about the goodness of God

- Jowie shared a video of himself worshipping as his wife Ella held his hand in the car

As each day passes by, ex-remandee Jowie Irungu tries to show the world how much he has changed in a matter of months.

The murder suspect who is out on bail showed the world this salvation is not a joke through a series of touching Instagram videos shared on his timeline.

READ ALSO: Emmy Kosgei, 62-year-old hubby celebrate 7 years of marriage in lovely post

READ ALSO: DJ Mo proudly admires wife Size 8's hot body in lacy swimsuit

Jowie who now refers to himself as a dad posted a clip of himself singing to the almighty with so much conviction during a drive with his better half.

He sang along to his new hit Nishikilie with strength and passion as his missing rib held on to his hand the whole time.

Jowie had fire in his heart and wanted the world to see it was possible for anyone to embrace a better version of themselves.

READ ALSO: Francis Atwoli, wife Mary Kilobi enjoy much needed time away in Masai Mara

Jowie Irungu and Ella's daughter in his new hit Nishikilie. Photo: Jowie Irungu

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Donny van de Beek: Ajax star set for Man United move

In one clip, the man who was accused of murdering business lady Monica Kimani said every day is Sunday to him.

He added that worship never stops for him and he loved praising his creator every waking moment.

The dad said God's presence is always invited in his heart anytime no matter what he is doing at that moment.

READ ALSO: Mt Kenya kuchukua wadhifa wa Waziri Mkuu, asema David Murathe

As was previously reported TUKO.co.ke, his wife's ex gave them the go-ahead to raise his daughter in peace.

David bin Salem said he had no issue with Ella moving on and getting married to the ex-prisoner.

According to him, the mother of his child deserved to be loved and feel appreciated after everything she had been through.

He only hoped the new couple would protect his daughter from the limelight.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

My children are not a curse - Judy Kemuma | Tuko Talks | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
It didnt take long for Marcus Smart know he was going to get hot in Game 1. In fact, it only took about 30 seconds, as he watched his 3-pointer from the left corner thwap through net.

The Boston Celtics built a big lead in the first quarter with Jayson Tatum only scoring two points, mostly because Smart was feeling himself. When Smart hit a pull-up 3 fading towards the baseline in the right corner, Toronto Raptors guard Fred VanVleet threw his hands up in frustration. The Smart who had shot 2-for-14 from deep against Philadelphia was gone.

The last series for me wasnt my best shooting performance of the playoffs, Smart said after the blowout win. Things changed with different game plans, I got a great look off that first one and I just felt good the rest of the night.

According to Cleaning the Glass, the Raptors give up the most corner 3-pointers in the league. Thats a highly desirable shot, but the Raptors not only got away with it, but they built the leagues second-best defense despite it. The have an uncanny ability to still get out and challenge those shots, which is why they had the seventh-best opponent shooting percentage on corner 3s.

It didnt matter in Game 1.

Nearly a third of Bostons 3-pointers came from the corners. Boston shot 9-for-12 from those spots. Smart was 5-for-7. Normally, the Celtics might have expected Gordon Hayward to hit those shots. Smart more than made up for it.

Not one person is going to do what he does statistically what (Hayward) does every night, Brad Stevens said. Marcus was his normal self. Marcus today was unbelievable on both ends.

Smarts defense was on full display, as it usually is. He even had whats become a trademark for him: commit a bad turnover and then immediately make a ridiculous steal to get the ball back. This one game with a little more than three minutes left in the third quarter, when he ripped the ball back from VanVleet after casually tossing the ball away on a behind-the-back move.

Thats something weve all come to expect from Smart, and watching him direct the Celtics defense as a guard is always a fun thing to watch. But whenever Smart has it going on the offensive end, it creates an air of inevitability to a Boston win.

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The Director of Communications of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Yaw Buaben Asamoah believes that the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) wants to plagiarise its (NPP) manifesto for the 2020 general elections.



According to him, the decision by the NDC to postpone its manifesto launch from August to September was to enable the opposition party to copy policies from the NPP manifesto.





Mr Buaben Asamoah, who was addressing a press conference in Accra on Monday afternoon, August 31, 2020, said the deliberate decision by the NDC to postpone its manifesto launch was a clear indication that the party did not have anything better to offer the Ghanaian people.



Background



The NPP launched its manifesto for the 2020 general elections on August 22, 2020, at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in the Central Region.





However, its main contender for the 2020 general elections, the NDC, had set Monday, August 31, 2020, as the date for the launching of its manifesto. This was announced by the partys National Communication Officer, Sammy Gyamfi on August 24, 2020.



But the General Secretary of the party, Mr Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah, in a statement said the party had set Monday, September 7, 2020, as the date for the launch of the partys manifesto in Accra for the December 2020 general elections.



According to Mr. Asiedu-Nketiah, the decision to postpone the launch to September 7, is to enable the National Executive Committee and the Council of Elders to approve the policy principles and strategies promised in the Manifesto."



Why the delay?



But for Mr Buaben Asamoah, even before the NPP had thought of putting its manifesto together, the NDC had told Ghanaians that it had started collating ideas from the Ghanaian populace to enable the party to prepare its manifesto and wondered why the party still could not launch its manifesto as promised.



According to him, the only reason keeping the NDC from launching its manifesto was because the party had no substance in their manifesto and wanted to take time to read the NPP manifesto so that they could polish their own.



He said the NPP manifesto offered hope and had been prepared to catalyst the development and transformation of the country.



Mr Buaben Asamoah said it would be suicidal for the Ghanaian voters to hand over the leadership of the country to the NDC which had nothing to offer, pointing out that the NPP manifesto had clearly spelt out what the party would do in its next government.



No more experimentation



He said, for instance, that the mobile money interoperability which caused the current government some US$400 million was to be executed by the opposition NDC government for more than US$1 billion.



That, he said, was due to the incompetence of the NDC government, noting that the short period of the NPP government led by President Akufo-Addo had brought so much development in the country.



He said former President John Dramani Mahama, who is also the flagbearer of the NDC, simply cannot do it when he is elected as President.



Mr Buaben Asamoah explained that Mr Mahama had had everything opportunity to serve the country and during his tenure, he did not bring any development to the people of the country, saying Candidate Mahama does not stand for anything.



He said We cannot afford to go back to the days of experimentation and that Mr Mahamas idea that he had learnt his lessons in opposition and wanted to be given a second chance could not be trusted.



According to him, governance was not a process of experimentation and that Ghana cannot trust its leadership to Mr Mahama, stressing Ghana and Ghanaian lives cannot be used for experimentation.



He has, therefore, asked Ghanaians to reject Mr Mahamas plea to be given the second chance opportunity to rule the country since the country is not looking for a maintenance officer but a leader.

Source: Graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A group of independent Thirty-One consultants is working with Niagara-based Wise Guys charity to help kids start the new school year.

With help from local businesses and individuals, the consultants were able to collect enough school supplies to fill 105 of Thirty-Ones zipper pouches.

Each pouch also got masks, hand sanitizer and ear savers. Recently, the members from Thirty-One, along with Wise Guys members and some of their Wise Kids, stuffed the pouches to be sent to Boys and Girls Club of Niagara to distribute.

Thirty-One products include such items as stylish bags and totes, wallets, thermal pouches and numerous accessories.

Brock University, Dillons distillery find good use for schools leftover wine

A little wine really is good for the health  especially during the pandemic.

Five thousand litres of wine produced by the Brock University Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute will be turned into about 1,000 bottles of hand sanitizer, as a result of the schools recent donation to Dillons Small Batch Distillers, based in Beamsville.

When guests visit the institutes wine cellar, they often ask us what we do with our research wine once the projects have ended, said institute director Debbie Inglis, in a release from Brock.

Thanks to this partnership, we can tell them the wine is being given a second life, as well as keeping our community safe and healthy in the process.

Normally, the research wine  it is left over from staff and student projects  gets discarded to make room for new wine.

When Inglis found out Dillons  it normally produces spirits such as whisky, white rye, vodka and gin  could use that wine to make hand sanitizer, she contacted them.

The distillery has worked with the St. Catharines institute since 2012, so the decision was easy.

When the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the spring, Dillons swung into action by using its alcohol to manufacture hand sanitizer, which was provided to front-line workers in small bottles.

Distiller Louis Hinshelwood said Dillons makes hand sanitizer in a way similar to how it produces its premium spirits: in a still, the wine is heated to the boiling point so it releases alcohol vapour.

Next, it is run through a series of distillations to separate the pure ethanol, to which a mix of water, hydrogen peroxide and glycerol is added to create hand sanitizer that meets Health Canada standards.

Its nice that its literally coming from the hands and work of people in the community who are now benefiting from it, said Hinshelwood.
A furniture shop owner played one of the most important role in the Pulwama attack

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 31: Shakir Bashir was one of the most active among the locals part of the Pulwama attack. Bashir ran a furniture shop on the Jammu-Srinagar highway and played a key role in the Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF jawans were martyred.

Accused Shakir Bashir, Insha Jan, Peer Tariq Ahmad Shah and Bilal Ahmad Kuchey provided all logistics and harboured the JeM terrorists in their houses. From December, 2018 onwards, Shakir Bashir started doing reconnaissance of the movement and deployment of security forces on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway.

3 terrorists killed, 1 soldier martyred in Pulwama encounter

Mudasir Ahmad Khan arranged Gelatin sticks and handed them over to Shakir Bashir. RDX was brought by the Pakistani terrorists who infiltrated into India. Shakir Bashir collected the explosive material i.e. RDX, gelatine sticks, Aluminium power and Calcium-Ammonium Nitrate and stocked them at his house for making the IED.

In January 2019, Sajjad Ahmad Bhat purchased a Maruti EECO car for the purpose of carrying out the IED attack. The car was kept in the front-yard of Shakir Bashir's house. Waiz-Ul-Islam ordered 04 kgs of Aluminium powder from his Amazon account on the directions of accused Mohd. Ismail and gave the same to him, the NIA also said.

Towards the end of January 2019, Mohammad Umar Farooq, Sameer Dar and Adil Dar made the propaganda video clip of the suicide attack at Insha Jan's house which was released immediately after the attack.

In the first week of February 2019, Mohd. Umar Farooq, Sameer Ahmad Dar, Adil Ahmad Dar and Shakir Bashir made the IED using RDX, Calcium-Ammonium Nitrate, Gelatin Sticks and Aluminium Powder and assembled it in two containers, one weighing around 160 Kgs and the second one weighing around 40 Kgs.

The two IED containers were fitted in Maruti EECO car and were ready by the morning of 6th February 2019. However, because of heavy snowfall, the National Highway got closed for the vehicular movement.

On 14th February 2019 as the National Highway opened, Shakir Bashir drove Adil Ahmad Dar till National Highway, after which Adil Ahmad Dar took charge of the vehicle and drove on to the National Highway and carried out the suicide attack by ramming the Maruti EECO car laden with 200 Kgs of high- grade explosives into a bus of the CRPF convoy, resulting in 40 CRPF personnel getting martyred and damage to the tune of Rs.32,90,719/- to public property.

Paks terror policy allowed JeM deposit Pulwama attack money in 2 of its largest banks

Investigation has revealed that the Pakistan-based JeM leadership comprising Masood Azhar, Rouf Asgar and Ammar Alvi were continuously giving directions and guidance to the Pakistani JeM terrorists (who had infiltrated into India) both before and after the attack. They had also planned to carry out another suicide attack which got averted due to Balakot strikes and due to killing of main conspirator Mohd. Umar Farooq by the security forces. Further, due to international pressure, Pakistan lay low, the NIA also said.

Investigation also revealed a well-crafted mechanism by Pakistani establishment to push terrorists into the Indian territory from the launch pads located in Shakargarh (Pakistan) opposite Samba-Kathua Sector in Jammu.

The NIA chargesheet against 19 accused persons marks the culmination of year and a half long painstaking and meticulous investigation with valuable inputs received from other Central and State government agencies as well as foreign law-enforcement agencies.

Lot of digital, forensic, documentary and oral evidence establishing a fool-proof case against the accused for this dastardly and barbaric attack has been collected. The charge-sheet has brought on record the all-out involvement of Pakistan-based entities to carry out terrorist strikes in India and to incite and provoke Kashmiri youth.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 12:44 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c419f693 4 National Indonesia,Ombudsman,Government-Incentive-Assistance,social-aid,COVID-19,#COVID19,COVID-19-Jakarta,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,Jakarta-administration,new-normal,new-normal-in-Indonesia Free

The Indonesian Ombudsman has lambasted the government for prioritizing the economic recovery over public health in dealing with the double crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government has restarted economic activities in this period. All the talk is about the economy, because everyone thinks that the vaccine [discovery] is near, Ombudsman member Alamsyah Saragih said during an online discussion on Saturday, kompas.com reported.

The question is, will the vaccines be effective enough or not? he asked.

Alamsyah noted that as the government had shifted its focus mainly to the economic recovery, as several regulations, especially those related to health protocol, were starting to be eased.

Jakarta in the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic was all out to curb the spread of the virus; unfortunately, that only lasted for three to four months. When economic activities were resumed, people went out to Jakarta [] and the cycle happened [again], he added.

Alamsyah cited recent official data that showed that Jakarta has reclaimed the status as the countrys epicenter of COVID-19 with a total tally of 39,037 cases. The capital city recorded its highest daily increase on Sunday with 1,114 new cases.

Read also: Indonesia sees record high in COVID-19 cases for third day running

Alamsyah also pointed out that the government appeared to be scrambling to create effective regulations to deal with the pandemic, citing examples of the partial lockdown imposed under the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) and the distribution of social aid that critics said was prone to misuse and mistargeting.

He also criticized the government over the push for the so-called new normal while efforts to treat COVID-19 patients were still deemed lacking.

I see how the government funds were disbursed with improper timing, because our administrative system is complicated and our legal perspectives are old-fashioned, he said. (trn)
ANKARA, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Turkey will start the first space trials of its indigenous liquid-propellant rocket engines, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.

"I would like to announce the start of the first space trials of domestically developed liquid-propellant rocket engine technology," he said at the opening ceremony of local defense company Roketsan's Satellite Launch, Space Systems and Advanced Technologies Research Center and Explosive Raw Material Production Facility.

The country tested its first rocket by using solid fuel, while efforts are continuing for the hybrid-fueled rockets, he said.

Turkey aims to finalize the microsatellite launching project in 2025, he stated.

"We are now at the 'aerospace league' thanks to our national technology and local equipment," the president said.

Roketsan develops high-capacity hydrogen fuel cell technology, a clean energy source with applications for the space sector, as well as aviation and transportation, Erdogan said.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. government will implement an across-the-board payroll tax deferral for roughly 1.3 million federal employees starting in mid-September, potentially forcing these workers to take a temporary financial boost now that they will have to repay next year.

The policy, confirmed Monday by a senior administration official, comes in response to a widely panned policy directive issued by President Donald Trump earlier in August. Unions have sharply criticized the government's decision, fearing that federal workers may not have a choice in whether to take the deferral - resulting in them seeing smaller paychecks in 2021 until the past-due taxes are paid off.

Trump's order specifically targets the 6.2% tax that employers deduct from their workers' wages so that the government can fund Social Security. His directive postpones payment of those taxes until January, at which point employers are required to start collecting back what is owed, perhaps by withholding double the amount they usually take until May. The deferral only applies to people who earn up to $4,000 on a biweekly basis, and under $104,000 annually.

Trump in recent weeks has promised to "terminate" the tax bills Americans rack up during that time, hoping to spare workers from having to repay those debts down the road. But he can't cut taxes unilaterally, and his pledge has earned virtually no support on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers in both parties have been reluctant to touch the funding source for the country's cash-starved retirement programs - and are unlikely to do so before potentially millions of workers' tax bills become due.

The idea has proved so problematic that few businesses have expressed any interest in carrying out Trump's order, even as the government prepares to implement the change for federal employees starting in a few weeks. With so much lingering uncertainty, union leaders unleashed a barrage of criticism on the White House. Everett Kelley, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, blasted Trump's policy on Monday as a "scam that leaves workers with a substantial tax bill right after the holiday season."

"Workers will have to pay double their regular payroll tax rate during the first four months of 2021 and if they cannot do so, they will have to pay interest and penalties on amounts still owed if they're not paid back by May 1, 2021," Kelley said.

Rachel Semmel, a spokeswoman at the Office of Management and Budget, did not respond to questions Monday as to whether the deferral would be optional.

"The president put forward this action to give relief to all Americans during this pandemic," she said in a statement, adding that the executive branch as an employer is "implementing the deferral to give our employees relief as quickly as possible, in line with the presidential memo."

The early criticism of the government's plans highlights the wide-ranging confusion caused by Trump's order, signed in August in an attempt to circumvent a congressional logjam over coronavirus aid. Lawmakers, tax experts, business leaders and payroll-processing companies all have raised a host of concerns about its implementation, raising the potential that Trump's bid to boost workers' paychecks may result in little economic gain.

It remains unclear, for example, what might happen in the case an employee has their taxes deferred and leaves their job before their employer has a chance to collect what they owe. The implications for nonpayment are vast, threatening to widen the existing financial hole facing Social Security at a time when many budget experts warn that it is in significant need of policy change.

The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service only issued early guardrails describing the program on Friday, four days before Trump's directive is set to take effect. That's left few businesses in a position to begin deferring payroll taxes in time for Sept. 1, creating further logistical and technical challenges that make it "less likely" for companies to participate at all, said Pete Isberg, the vice president of government affairs for ADP, which processes payroll for roughly 670,000 firms.

For workers, meanwhile, the concern is that they may lack the means to pay back what they owe. Tony Reardon, the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said Friday that the roughly 150,000 federal employees he represents may be "unprepared for the higher tax obligation in 2021," creating particular challenges for IRS workers for whom "overdue tax debt can have severe job consequences."

Most federal agencies use one of four payroll processors, operated by the Defense, Agriculture and Interior Departments and the General Services Administration. About 60% of the 2.1 million executive-branch employees earn less than $100,000 a year, just below the cutoff set by Trump's order. Almost all federal employees pay into Social Security on the same terms as other workers; a small percentage are under a retirement system that does not include Social Security.

Almost all federal employees are paid on a biweekly pay cycle that ends on a Saturday; the current cycle started Sunday and will end Sept. 12. Most employees receive pay for that period late in the following week or early in the subsequent week. The aim is to implement the deferral starting with the second paycheck in September, the senior administration official said, setting up workers to begin seeing their taxes deferred around Sept. 18.

In doing so, Democratic Rep. Don Beyer, whose northern Virginia district includes a large share of federal employees, faulted the White House for treating federal workers like a "guinea pig" for Trump's policies.

"Their proposed payroll tax deferral would not really put money in workers' pockets, it would simply set up the members of the federal workforce who can least afford it for a big tax bill that many will not expect," he said in a statement.
A WA charity has blasted suggestions increased coronavirus payments have led to young people on welfare sparking alcohol-fuelled violence in Northbridge, calling the idea a misinformed cheap shot.

Police Minister Michelle Roberts said she believed some young people were treating every weekend like New Years Eve after social gathering restrictions were eased in late June, allowing nightclubs to reopen.

There are some people that are doing it very tough that have lost their jobs, she said.

There are others though that have had their benefits increased that may be leading to an increased purchase of alcohol and more disposable income for a small number of people.
Wells Fargo wants the court to appoint a receiver to take over the hotel  temporarily closed since March  until the bank can seize the property through the foreclosure process in court and sell it to try to recoup its losses. Thor also could try to negotiate a reduced loan payment to resolve the lawsuit.
CANBERRA, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has described the nation's domestic border closures as cruel.

Frydenberg on Sunday called for more common sense in the administration of border closures, saying that current restrictions were "inexplicable."

It comes after the death of an unborn twin after a pregnant woman from Ballina in northern New South Wales (NSW) was forced to travel about 750 kilometers (km) to Sydney for medical care instead of about 200 km to Brisbane in Queensland because of the border closures, according to The Australian report.

"There's too much confusion and, and ultimately too much cruelty, in the way that the borders have been closed. And what we need is more compassion," Frydenberg told Sky News Australia.

"It's inexplicable that a mother can lose their child because of confusion as to how they can access a hospital in Brisbane.

"Those jurisdictions have got questions to answer when it comes to the operation of their borders because what we can't see is people being denied medical treatment."

When asked about the tragic death of an unborn baby, Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles on Saturday said the border restrictions were "clear" that those requiring medical care were allowed to cross the border.

"This last 24 hours, watching politicians use this tragic event to further their political arguments ... it makes me sick," he said.

As of Sunday afternoon there had been 25,670 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, and the number of new cases in last 24 hours is 125, according to the latest figures from Department of Health.

The national death toll has risen to 611 after authorities in Victoria, Australia's hardest-hit state by the COVID-19 pandemic, confirmed 11 new deaths on Sunday, nine of which were linked to aged care facilities.

Of the new cases, Victoria confirmed 114. New South Wales confirmed seven new cases and Queensland another four.
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Linkedin Ganug Nugroho Adi (The Jakarta Post) Surakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 12:54 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41a0893 1 National Sragen,school-reopening,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-infection,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

Sragen regency administration in Central Java will reopen 63 elementary and junior high schools in 20 districts on Monday despite increasing transmission of COVID-19 in the country.

What we can take away from the last simulation is that health protocols have been implemented very well in schools. However, because of the situation, face-to-face learning can only be applied in some schools, Sragen administration secretary Tatag Prabawanto said on Monday.

The head of Sragens education agency, Suwardi, said the agency had chosen three schools - state and private schools - in each district that would start conventional instruction in classrooms. For Sragen city district, however, only six schools would be permitted to reopen.

Read also: Education and Culture Minister denies school clusters linked to reopening

The school reopenings in Sragen, according to Suwardi, was based on an agreement with parents, who are allowing their children to go back to school.

Sragen regency has seen a surge in COVID-19 infections in the last two weeks, with 89 new confirmed cases, bringing the total tally in the regency to 208 cases out of the nationwide tally of 172,053 as of Sunday.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic showing no signs of slowing, a poll by Cyrus Network in July suggested that the majority of respondents (80.2 percent of 1,230 respondents) were in favor of schools reopening.

Previously, the Federation of Teachers Associations (FSGI) expressed concern that the reopening of schools would increase the risk of COVID-19 infections, especially after the group received reports that at least 180 teachers and students across the nations had tested positive for COVID-19.

Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim has fended off criticism, saying that the policy was a necessary trade-off to maintain students spirit in a time of crisis. (trn)
<p>The Office for National Statistics (ONS) survey will test 150,000 people per fortnight by October and will extend to cover Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.</p><p>Currently, 28,000 people are tested for <strong><a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/coronavirus-8483" target="_blank">coronavirus</a></strong> per fortnight in England.</p><p>The survey is separate from the mass testing programme of people with symptoms.</p><p>It tests thousands of people in households representative of the population, whether or not they have symptoms.</p><p>Health Secretary Matt Hancock described it as "one of the biggest expansions of surveillance testing we have ever seen".</p><p>He said: "This ONS survey will be a crucial part of this work - improving our understanding of the rate of infection in the population and how many people have antibodies.</p><p>"This will allow us to further narrow down the areas potentially affected by local outbreaks and continue our fight to curb the spread ahead of winter."</p><p>Commenting on the government's handling of coronavirus so far, Tony Blair said it would be "unusual and odd if mistakes weren't made".</p><p>He told Sky News on Wednesday: "The challenge is enormous at every level.</p> <p>"I think the government would acknowledge we were too slow to lockdown.</p><p>"I'm not really interested in criticising at this point, but now I think it's clear we've got to put this testing infrastructure in place."</p><p>If there is a second peak, he says "I think it's very hard to see how you go back into lockdown - at least without really catastrophic economic damage".</p><p>It comes as <strong><a href="https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-heathrow-airport-unveils-plans-for-covid-19-testing-facility-to-replace-quarantine-measures-12052133" target="_blank">Heathrow Airport unveiled a new </a><a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/coronavirus-8483" target="_blank">coronavirus</a><a href="https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-heathrow-airport-unveils-plans-for-covid-19-testing-facility-to-replace-quarantine-measures-12052133" target="_blank"> testing facility</a></strong> which it hopes will prompt the end of the mandatory 14-day quarantine for those returning from certain countries.</p> <p>Passengers landing in the UK will be able to book swab tests and have results sent to them in seven hours under the scheme, which is being used in Germany and Iceland.</p><p>Heathrow executives hope those testing negative could leave quarantine five to eight days after landing, though the airport's programme needs government approval before it can begin.</p><p>Cabinet ministers will meet next week to discuss plans to replace blanket quarantines with COVID-19 testing for travellers, the Daily Telegraph reported.</p><p>The government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) found that double testing of travellers "significantly reduces the risk of false negatives and could enable quarantine duration of less than 14 days".</p> <p><strong>:: Listen to the Daily podcast on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sky-news-daily/id951048357?mt=2" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3ByZWFrZXIuY29tL3Nob3cvMzI4NzI0Ni9lcGlzb2Rlcy9mZWVk" target="_blank">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/3RdXZrbbG3NydLsPYmRSJy" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.spreaker.com/show/sky-news-daily" target="_blank">Spreaker</a></strong></p><p>Only around 28% of people testing positive for coronavirus reported experiencing any symptoms at the time of their swab test, or at either the preceding or subsequent tests, analysis published by ONS found.</p><p>The remaining 72% of positive cases either did not report having any COVID-19 symptoms on the day of their positive swab test, preceding or subsequent swab tests, or did not answer both questions, the ONS added.</p><p>It said the findings suggested that there was a "potentially large number" of asymptomatic cases of the virus.</p>
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 31, 2020) - Silk Energy Limited (CSE: SILK) (the "Company") is pleased to announce it has received approval from the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan (the "Government Approval") for the transfer of ownership of UnionField Group ("UnionField") to the Company's wholly-owned Norwegian subsidiary, Silk Energy AS ("Silk AS").

The Government Approval was received following delays caused by the global pandemic related to COVID-19 that resulted also in a State of Emergency being declared in Kazakhstan commencing in March 2020 and various stages of quarantine that followed.

The Government Approval (No 04-11/13533/14113) allows the Company to now focus on completing all necessary steps toward listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange and the London Stock Exchange.

The first drilling target after listing will be the Salken Prospect to the East of the 6,500 square kilometre license area. In the Competent Persons Report completed by McDaniel & Associates, they ascribed Salken with mean unrisked prospective resources of 66.432 million barrels, a low case of 10 million barrels and a high case of 145 million barrels.

Background

Silk Energy Limited is a Canadian resource company focused on the identification and exploration of oil and gas assets in Kazakhstan. Its particular focus is the Ustyurt Property for which an exploration license has been granted to a Kazakhstani limited liability partnership (the "LLP") with two limited partners, each of whom holds a 50% participating interest: KazMunayGas National Company JSC, Kazakhstan's state-owned leading vertically integrated oil and gas company, and UnionField, a British Virgin Islands company.

Silk AS has contracted to purchase all of the shares of UnionField from Right Way Ltd. (the "Vendor") through issue of a US $21 million convertible debenture, which bears interest at a rate of 6%, and the assumption of responsibility for funding UnionField's contributions to the LLP. These arrangements are described in further detail in the Company's news release dated April 27, 2020.

Story continues

Contact Information:

Steve Kappella

Chief Executive Officer

Silk Energy AS

Phone: +1 (647) 777-8375

E-mail: info@silk-energy.com

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forwardlooking statements based on assumptions, uncertainties and management's best estimates of future events. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the Company's application for listing on the CSE, completion of the acquisition of UnionField, the Company's oil and gas exploration activities in Kazakhstan, and its proposed listing on the London Stock Exchange. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that those expectations will prove to have been correct. Forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties (known and unknown) that could cause actual outcomes to differ materially from those anticipated or implied by such forward-looking statements Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forwardlooking statements include, but are not limited to, the Company's inability: to satisfy the CSE's listing conditions; to conclude the acquisition of UnionField; or to satisfy the London Stock Exchange's listing conditions. The forward-looking statements contained in this News Release are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable securities laws in force in Canada. The forward-looking statements contained herein are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

The CSE has not reviewed and does not take responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the contents of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/62879
CHP Alert For Missing Girl View Photo

San Andreas, CA  The CHP and Calaveras County Sheriffs Office are asking for help from the public in locating a missing girl.

The CHP believes that 11-year-old Selene Anderson was abducted by her mother, Rebecca Boyet, over the weekend. The two were last seen during a supervised visit with Child Protective Services. Anderson was wearing a white shirt and gray shorts.

Boyett may be driving a white 2020 Ram pickup truck with a California License Plate 55367Y2. If you see Boyett, Anderson, or the Ram pickup, authorities say you should call 911.

No additional information is immediately available.
Colleges across America have logged more than 26,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since March, according to the New York Times, which is pulling together university-specific data in the absence of a more formal database. The Times notes that this number is likely on the low sidewith no national tracking system, colleges are making their own rules for how to tally casesand that most of these cases have been reported since late July.

With no national strategy to fight the coronavirus, colleges have been left to make their own rules on if and how to reopen and what steps to take once an outbreak occurs. And the outbreaksthey are certainly occurring. Which means colleges are also needing to figure something else out: where to place the blame. The answer is often, as experts predicted, on the students. Heres why there have been outbreaks on college campuses, according to school administrators:

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Students going to bars. The campus with the most coronavirus cases as of Monday according to the New York Times is the University of Alabama at Birmingham (972 cases). [Update, Sept. 2, 2020, at 12:42 p.m.: UAB disputes the way the Times is counting cases; during the whole pandemic, there have been 239 cases among faculty and staff by the schools count.] We remain satisfied that the precautions implemented prior to the resumption of classesincluding masking, distancing, and a blend of in-person and remote instructionare appropriate and effective, Ricky Friend, the dean of the College of Community Health Sciences at UA, said in a statement published Friday concerning the three-school system of UAB, University of Alabama (in Tuscaloosa), and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. In-person classes are still in session, but school officials at UA specifically, which has logged 568 cases, did ask the mayor of Tuscaloosa to close bars, which he did for a two-week period, starting Aug. 24.

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Students holding parties. After an outbreak of more than 100 positive cases at SUNY Oneonta in upstate New York, five students have been suspended for holding parties against the college policy, said SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras in a statement sent out by Gov. Andrew Cuomos press office. Three organizations, campus organizations, have been suspended and were going to be tough not because we want to ruin their fun, but this is a different time and this goes to what other campuses have been doing. The campus is going virtual for two weeks, the statement also notes, and Cuomo is deploying a SWAT team which includes 71 contact tracers.

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Students gathering off campus: Leadership at the University of Notre Dame, where there have now been nearly 600 cases, explained in a statement that the vast majority of the positive cases discovered the week of Aug. 9 can be traced to a SINGLE off-campus gathering where individuals  were both outside and inside, together for some time, not wearing masks, in a crowded space, and drinking. Notre Dame later suspended in-person classes for a two-week period and announced that it would begin regularly testing students. At Georgia College, where 7 percent of the student body is infected, in-person classes are ongoing, reports Inside Higher Ed, but officials said in a statement to the news outlet that we continue to remind our students that COVID-19 can spread rapidly at off-campus social gatherings where social distancing and other mitigation measures are not maintained.

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Students gathering ON campus: Last night, a large group of first-year students selfishly jeopardized the very thing that so many of you claim to want from Syracuse Universitythat is, a chance at a residential college experience, said J. Michael Haynie, Syracuse Universitys vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation in an Aug. 20 statement titled Last Nights Selfish and Reckless Behavior. Pictures and video of the gathering spread on social media. The university has not experienced a major outbreak (yet).

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Students not wearing masks and breaking social distancing rules: The University of Miami is doling out warnings, fines, and suspensions for students who break safety rules, reports the Miami Herald. Ryan Holmes, associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students, told the Herald that depending on how extreme the case was, students could be suspended for breaking coronavirus rules. He didnt specify how much the fines were, but in Miami, you can be fined $50 by the city for a first offense of going maskless. The school has found 183 positive cases since Aug. 17.

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Too many people on campus. Following outbreaks, an announcement from Kevin M. Guskiewicz, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill chancellor, and Robert A. Blouin, executive vice chancellor, explained that the school was making important changes to de-densify our campus. (Namely, undergrad classes would go online for the entire semester, and students would be allowed to cancel their dorm room leases without penalty.) The reasoning Guskiewicz and Blouin use here is notable because it acknowledges the reality that students, many of them teenagers away from home for the first time, with limited support to combat loneliness and due to COVID boredom, will end up prioritizing the wrong thing. And it helps underscore the reality that the virus thrives when lots of people live in close quarters. Which brings me to the last, best thing to blame 

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We are simply in a pandemic. After logging 263 positive tests in one week, East Carolina University switched to an online semester. Before the uptick, interim chancellor Ron Mitchelson had scolded some students for being unmasked and irresponsible. But in an Aug. 23 statement, his messaging shifted to acknowledge the larger reality this semester exists within. He said in a video statement to the community: The decision to pivot in large part was the disease. Its a horrible pandemic that we face. We couldnt stand by any longer.

And there it is: an actual change in infrastructure that takes into account the fact that we are living in a pandemic. Its probably the only chance colleges have to get out of this mess.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
Grappling with labour shortage and transportation challenges in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, fruit growers of Himachal Pradesh have now urged the central government to take steps to check the sale of apples and kiwi fruit from Iran and Turkey that are finding their way into fruit markets across the country.

This year has been tough for apple growers. Himachals Rs 4,500-crore apple economy sustains the livelihood of 1.65 lakh families. Of the 12 districts, apple is grown in seven with Shimla, Kullu and Kinnaur being top apple-producing districts. The primary concern of fruit growers was the labour shortage with skilled Nepalese labourers unable to return in time due to the sealed borders. The apple orchardists managed with local labour and worked overtime as harvest got off to a slow start in mid-July.

Since the crop was lean, the growers got a good price for premium apples being sold for Rs 1,400 to Rs 2,500 per box of 20 kg. But the growers now fear that unregulated and uncontrolled imports from Iran and Turkey could have an impact on the apple prices.

Uncontrolled and unregulated cheap imports of kiwis and apples from these countries is affecting our realisation from the market, said Lokinder Singh Bisht, the president of the Progressive Growers Association. Bisht has written to Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal to draw his attention towards the issue.

Most of the imports with sanctions are routed through hawala transactions, undervaluing the fruit to ride over the 33% tax barrier of import duty. Besides the quarantine inspections are overlooked and the fruit is being dumped in third grade plastic, becoming an environmental hazard, he said in the letter.

If this goes on unchecked, it will not only lead to insects being imported with the fruit but will also make the cash crop unviable in our region, he said.

The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority data shows that Turkey dumped 7,500 metric tonnes of apples in 2017-18 which grew to 32,289 metric tonnes in 2019-20. While the apple import from Iran was 7,020 MT in 2018-19, it grew to 21,521 MT in 2019-20.

Three years ago, the Centre allowed the import of kiwis and since then the volume has grown to 30,000 metric tonnes in 2019-20.

Fruit imports should complement our consumption and not replace our domestic crop. There are more apples from Iran this time. The only way to differentiate the apple from Iran is from its packing, says Abhinav Jaggi, a Delhi-based apple importer.

Apples from Iran change the port of origin in Dubai. There are reports that the apples are also smuggled from Afghanistan and later sold under different trademarks.

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Being selfish, even in a dog-eat-dog workplace, doesn't get you ahead and 'nice guys' don't always finish last, a new study of 'disagreeable people' found.

Disagreeable people, who are selfish, combative and manipulative may be intimidating, but their lack of social skills cause them more harm at work than good.

University of California, Berkeley researchers asked 450 students to fill in personality surveys - then did the same a decade later also examining their career progress.

Selfish, deceitful and aggressive people were no further in their careers than people who were generous, trustworthy and nice, according to the study findings.

Researchers advise managers to consider how 'agreeable' someone is when looking at promotions - as 'nicer' people tend to be better for the organisation.

Disagreeable people, who are selfish, combative and manipulative may be intimidating, but their lack of social skills cause them more harm at work than good. Stock image

Students doing an undergraduate degree or an MBA at three different universities completed two different assessments twice - each a decade apart.

THERE ARE 'FOUR PATHS TO POWER', RESEARCHERS CLAIM There are four main ways people attain power, according to the authors of a new study into aggression at work. The ways include: Dominant-aggressive behavior: using fear and intimidation Political behavior: building alliances with other, influential people Communal behavior: Or helping others achieve their own goals and by build personal relationships Competent behavior: Basically by being very good at your job Researchers from the University of California, Berkley, asked subjects of the study personality trait questions. They spoke their co-workers to rate their place in the organisation. Authors found that disagreeable people do not get ahead faster than others. Advertisement

were offset by the disadvantages of having poor personal relationships with others, the study authors said.

Co-author of the study, Professor Cameron Anderson at University of California, Berkeley said: 'I was surprised by the consistency of the findings.'

'No matter the individual or the context, disagreeableness did not give people an advantage in the competition for power - even in more cutthroat, 'dog-eat-dog' organisational cultures,' Anderson explained.

'That's not to say that jerks don't reach positions of power. It's just that they didn't get ahead faster than others, and being a jerk simply didn't help.'

Nearly 450 undergraduate and MBA students at three universities filled in the Big Five Inventory (BFI) and the NEO Personality Inventory Revised (NEO PI-R) surveys.

The same people were then surveyed again 14-years later to determine their power and rank in the workplace, as well as their organisation's corporate culture.

The BFI survey examined five 'fundamental' personality dimensions, generally accepted by psychologists, including openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness.

NEO PI-RI, on the other hand goes deeper into the personality and looks at how people are able to attain power.

It looks whether it is through aggressive behaviour or using fear and intimidation, political behaviour or building alliances with people of influence, communal behaviour or helping others, and competent behaviour or being good at one's job.

Professor Oliver John, a co-author of the study said the study revealed that disagreeableness is a relatively stable aspect of personality.

'Disagreeable people tend to be hostile and abusive to others, deceive and manipulate others for their own gain, and ignore others' concerns or welfare.'

Putting a disagreeable person in a position of power can harm an organisation, according to Oliver and the team.

This is because they tend to 'cause abuse, promote self-interest at the expense of the company's success and end up creating a corrupt corporate culture and serving as a toxic role model for others, the study found.

Professor Anderson added: 'The bad news here is that organisations do place disagreeable individuals in charge just as often as agreeable people.

'In other words, they allow jerks to gain power at the same rate as anyone else, even though jerks in power can do serious damage to the organisation.'

Any advantages to being intimidating were offset by the disadvantages of having poor personal relationships with others, the study authors said. Stock image

'My advice to managers would be to pay attention to agreeableness as an important qualification for positions of power and leadership,' Anderson said.

'Prior research is clear: agreeable people in power produce better outcomes.'

The findings were true regardless of gender, race or ethnicity, industry, or the organisation's cultural norms.

They said more work would be needed to discover whether the same 'nice guy' findings apply in the world of politics as 'it's a very different environment'.

'Disagreeable politicians might have more difficulty maintaining necessary alliances because of their toxic behaviour,' said Anderson.

The findings were published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Politburo has approved the appointment of the Secretary of the Party Committees of Quang Ngai, Hau Giang, and Phu Yen provinces for the term 2015 - 2020.

Ms. Bui Thi Quynh Van

Under the decisions, Ms. Bui Thi Quynh Van, alternate member of the Central Party Committee, Standing Deputy Secretary of the Quang Ngai Provincial Party Committee, Chairwoman of Quang Ngai Provincial People's Council is approved to be the Party Secretary of Quang Ngai Province for the term 2015-2020.

Van is the youngest female Party Secretary, also the first female Party Secretary of Quang Ngai province. She was born in 1974 in the central province of Quang Ngai. She holds a master degree of literary theory and bachelor degree of literature.

Van used to hold various positions: Secretary of Quang Ngai Provincial Youth Union; Secretary of Tu Nghia District Party Committee, Head of the Public Relations Department of Quang Ngai Provincial Party Committee; Party Secretary of Ly Son District; Chair of Quang Ngai People's Council in the term of 2016-2021; Standing Deputy Secretary of Quang Ngai Provincial Party Committee for the term 2015-2020.

Mr. Le Tien Chau

Mr. Le Tien Chau, Vice Party Secretary of Hau Giang Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Hau Giang People's Committee was approved to be the Party Secretary of Hau Giang Provincial Party Committee, the term 2015 -2020.

Chau was born in 1969 in Tay Ninh province. As a doctor of law, who worked at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Law for 15 years (1994-2009). He then held the following positions: Director, Head of the Southern Representative Agency of the Ministry of Justice; Director of Personnel and Organization Department of the Ministry of Justice; and Rector of the Hanoi Law University.

In June 2016, Chau was appointed as Deputy Minister of Justice. On March 16, 2018, he was appointed as Deputy Secretary of the Hau Giang Provincial Party Committee. On April 17, 2018, Chau was elected as Chairman of the People's Committee of Hau Giang province.

Mr. Pham Dai Duong

The Politburo also approved Mr. Pham Dai Duong as Secretary of the Phu Yen Provincial Party Committee for the term 2015-2020.

Duong was born in 1974 in Hanoi. He holds a master degree of science and technology management. He used to be the head of the International Cooperation and Investment Promotion Department of Hanois Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park; Deputy Head of the Management Board of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park; and Head of the Management Board of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park.

On October 5, 2015 Duong was appointed as Deputy Minister of Science and Technology cum Head of the Management Board of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park, a member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

On August 1, 2018, he was appointed as Deputy Secretary of the Phu Yen Provincial Party Committee. On August 8, 2018, Duong was elected as Chairman of the People's Committee of Phu Yen province. On August 19, 2020, he was elected Deputy Secretary of the Phu Yen Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of Phu Yen Provincial People's Committee for the term 2015-2020.

Thanh Nam
BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 31

By Elnur Baghishov  Trend:

A total of 346,000 tons of cargo was loaded and unloaded in the Khorramshahr port of the Khuzestan Province (southwestern Iran) in the 5th month of the current Iranian year (July 22-August 21, 2020), Trend reports citing Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran (PMO).

According to the statistic, 338,000 tons of goods were loaded and 7.9 tons were unloaded at the port in the 5th month.

During the period, 338,000 tons of goods were exported and 7,100 tons were imported through the port.

"Over the 5th month, 763 tons of goods were unloaded for transit through the Khorramshahr port," the statistics said.

More than 457 tons of goods were loaded for other purposes and 2 tons were unloaded, the statistics added.

According to the report, 5,360 tons of essential products, 15,000 tons of metal products, 315,000 tons of construction and mining materials, 1,970 tons of equipment, vehicles, and spare parts, 1,940 tons of chemicals were loaded and unloaded through the Khorramshahr port during the reporting period.

Furthermore, 1,000 tons of leather, clothing, fiber, wood, and other similar products, 5,500 tons of container products, and 1 ton of oil products were loaded and unloaded.

In total, 5.93 million tons of goods were loaded and 4.08 million tons were unloaded through Iranian ports in the 5th month.
With protests continuing to rage in Kenosha, Wis., over the Aug. 23 police shooting of African-American Jacob Blake, President Trump will travel there Tuesday on a visit to the key swing state that will echo his law and order campaign message.

On Monday, Trump reiterated what he asserted at last weeks Republican National Convention: that he is the only person keeping the country from descending into chaos.

If I didnt INSIST on having the National Guard activate and go into Kenosha, Wisconsin, there would be no Kenosha right now. Also, there would have been great death and injury. I want to thank Law Enforcement and the National Guard. I will see you on Tuesday!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2020

Except under extraordinary circumstances, National Guard units are controlled by state governors, not the president. Trump has been calling for the Guard to be activated in numerous places that have experienced disorder, but he had no authority to insist that Wisconsins Democratic Gov. Tony Evers take that action, which he did on his own on Aug. 24 after protesters set cars on fire and smashed windows in response to Blakes shooting. Two days later, he increased the deployment from 125 troops to more than 600. That same day, 17-year-old Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse drove to Kenosha from his home in Antioch, Ill., to join a group of vigilantes who claimed to be protecting businesses from violent protests.

According to police, Rittenhouse shot three protesters, killing two. He was arrested in Antioch and is being held pending extradition to Wisconsin.

Trump announced last week that he would travel to Kenosha, prompting Evers to write him a letter discouraging the visit.

I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state. I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together, Evers wrote. I am likewise concerned that an in-person visit from you will require a massive re-direction of these resources to support your visit at a time when it is critical that we continue to remain focused on keeping the people of Kenosha safe and supporting the communitys response.

Story continues

Asked Monday why Trump was heading to Kenosha despite the governors request that he stay away, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, The president wants to visit hurting Americans.

Exactly which hurting Americans he seeks to comfort was not specified. According to the White House, as of Monday morning he had not yet spoken with Blakes family.

McEnany was also asked whether Trump would condemn Rittenhouses actions in Kenosha.

The president is not going to weigh in on that, McEnany said.

President Trump at a rally in New Hampshire on Friday. (Erin Clark/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Joe Biden, meanwhile, has offered his condolences to Blakes family and delivered a speech in Pittsburgh on Monday in which he blasted the presidents trip to Kenosha as little more than a publicity stunt.

We need to heal, the Democratic nominee said. The current president wants you to live in fear. He advertises himself as a figure of order. He isnt, and hes not been part of the solution thus far. Hes part of the problem.

Yet Biden also made clear that he had shared Trumps view that the violence in Kenosha and other cities needs to stop.

I want to be very clear about this: Rioting is not protesting, looting is not protesting, setting fires is not protesting. Its lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted, Biden said.

Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian, who said Sunday that he would prefer the president not visit his city at this point in time, told reporters Monday that his police chief was coordinating with the Secret Service as to the details of the presidents trip.

I think that Kenosha at this present time needs peace and needs to heal and needs people to allow us to do that, Antaramian told reporters at a press conference.

The mayor also noted the political dimension of the presidents visit.

Everyones going to be always doing this with the politics of whats happening because you have a presidential election, Antaramian said. At this point in time, you know what, I care about my community and I care about the people in my community, and thats what my focus is and thats what Im going to focus on.

For both candidates, what happens in Kenosha could weigh heavily on the November election. In 2016, Trump won Kenosha County by just 232 votes. He took the state by a margin of just 22,748 votes.

Black Lives Matter demonstrations have occurred sporadically since the death of Eric Garner in New York City in 2014 and have become pervasive since George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis in May, putting pressure on both presidential campaigns to formulate a response.

Bidens message is that the president refuses to take responsibility for the problems that have continued on his watch.

Donald Trump keeps telling us if he was president, you'd feel safe.



Well, he is president  whether he knows it or not.  Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 31, 2020

Trump is claiming that his opponent has failed to condemn Rioters, Anarchists, Agitators, and Looters.

Just watched what Biden had to say. To me, hes blaming the Police far more than hes blaming the Rioters, Anarchists, Agitators, and Looters, which he could never blame or he would lose the Radical Left Bernie supports!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2020

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Read more from Yahoo News:


Rimba Raya Technical Director Moch. As'ari addressing the opening ceremony at Seruyan River Cleanup Movement 2020



Head of Environmental Agency Priyo Widagdo hitting the gong to mark the opening of Seruyan River Cleanup Movement 2020

Seruyan, C Kalimantan, INDONESIA, Aug 29, 2020 - (ACN Newswire) - In celebration of World River Day on September 27, Rimba Raya Conservation (Rimba Raya) has partnered with the Seruyan Regency Environmental Agency to launch the Seruyan River Cleanup Movement 2020 satusampahseribubencana (one waste, one thousand disasters).The movement was launched with an opening ceremony in the pendopo (official house) of the Seruyan Regent, with the theme "Waste-Free River, Healthy Community, Beautiful Village"."We believe that this movement will make the people of Seruyan feel more responsible toward their own environment and appreciate the local and the planet's health," said Moch. As'ari, Technical Director of Rimba Raya."Our target is to collect 8 tons of waste from 11 villages and two sub-districts all along the Seruyan River," said Sylviana Andhella, Executive Director of Rimba Raya.During the Seruyan River Cleanup Movement, Rimba Raya will hold several activities. This will include writing and drawing competitions for primary to senior high school students to inspire and encourage the younger generation to be more aware of their environment and the need to protect it.Rimba Raya will collaborate with Balai TN Tanjung Putting National Park and Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) in these activities, which will be conducted until the final event, on the 17th of September.At the opening ceremony, the Head of the Seruyan Regency Environmental Agency said, "With this series of activities, we hope to create awareness, and an ongoing motivation to care for the environment and keep the rivers clean. With our continued efforts, we hope that the Seruyan river will become a destination for tourists which will certainly have a positive impact on the economic growth of this region."Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve is a project that focuses on Ecosystem Restoration. It aims to restore and preserve the tropical peat swamp forest which is essential habitat for orangutans and is managed under the principles of ecology, economic and social management.Rimba Raya acts as a vital buffer zone for TN Tanjung Putting National Park. The project implements initiatives that positively impact 14 villages across two sub-districts (Seruyan Hilir and Danau Sembuluh) in the Seruyan Regency, Central Kalimantan.Rimba Raya initiatives are developed by InfiniteEARTH with a focus on assisting local communities to improve their economic status and embrace the positive impacts of being a REDD+ project."We need to engage and empower local people to actively contribute to preserving the peat swamp forest. If we work together, we can protect mother earth and keep her from harm," said Djonni Andhella, President Director of Rimba Raya.Rimba Raya empowers local community members to play a role in protecting and conserving the peat forest with a long-term philosophy, "Local Community. Forest. Climate". The project aims to work towards consistently achieving the UN's SDGs, both within the project area and the bordering villages.In addition to the Seruyan River Cleanup movement, Rimba Raya, in cooperation with the Seruyan Regency Public Health Office, has launched the Floating Clinic Initiative aiming to provide health services to communities along the Seruyan River. These services include general public health, prenatal care, pediatric care for children, as well as improved nutritional advice and supplies.To build awareness, we have also introduced a 'Peatland Education Program' for primary school students, conducted in cooperation with the Peatland Restoration Agency.All the proposed activities are conducted in accordance with COVID-19 health protocols which include social distancing, the wearing of protective masks and no mass crowding.Frita JunitaCommunication Officer, Rimba Raya ConservationEmail: rimbarayajakarta@gmail.comSource: PT Rimba Raya ConservationCopyright 2020 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  President Rodrigo Duterte, in a gesture of condolence and respect, kissed the ground at the site of the deadly twin explosions in Jolo, Sulu during his visit on Sunday.

In the video of his trip to Jolo, Duterte can be seen kissing the ground after offering flowers and prayers. He said he did this for the 15 victims, including soldiers and civilians, who weren't able to pray before they perished on August 24.

"Kaya ako lumuhod, hinalikan ko ang lupa kasi hindi naman nakatawag ng Allah o sign of the cross before dying," he said in a taped address to troops, which aired on Monday.

[Translation: I knelt and kissed the ground because they weren't able to pray to Allah or even do the sign of the cross before dying.]

Duterte said he is open to a dialogue with terrorist groups, but ordered troops to remain steadfast in the fight against insurgency.

"If we cannot really agree, then we fight and we fight hard hanggang magkaubusan na (to the last man)," he said, but told troops "even as you fight, think about peace."
Im white, so I cant possibly understand how it feels to have skin colour that negatively affects my life. But I think I can understand how the shooting of Jacob Blake has stunned the Black Lives Matter movement.

It seemed that George Floyds killing was the straw that broke the camels back. Real change was coming  or so we thought. Protests were passionate and unrelenting, all over the world. Change was truly on the horizon; it seemed everyone was listening.

And then a Black man is shot in the back, at point-blank range, while his children watch.

A white man walks down the streets of Kenosha, Wis., with a long gun, in full view of police, and no one stops him. He kills two people.

I dont understand.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 31

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Export of chemical products from Turkey to Turkmenistan decreased by 13.60 percent in the first seven months of 2020 compared to the same period of last year, making up $66.6 million, the Turkish Trade Ministry told Trend.

In July 2020, Turkey exported chemical products worth $14.2 million to Turkmenistan, which is 13.70 percent less than in July 2019.

Turkey's export of chemical products to the world markets decreased by 13.4 percent from January through July 2020 compared to the same period of last year and stood at slightly over $10.1 billion.

Turkey's chemical products exports amounted to 11.3 percent of the countrys total export for the reporting period.

"In July 2020, Turkey's export of chemical products to the world markets slightly exceeded $1.5 billion, which is 8.5 percent less compared to the same month of 2019," the ministry said.

Turkey's export of chemical products in July this year made up 10.5 percent of the countrys total export.

During the last 12 months (from July 2019 through July 2020), Turkey's export of chemical products to the world markets made up $19 billion.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
A toddler who had become 'floppy and blue' and was rushed to a Sydney hospital was originally refused a bed by two separate nurses, an inquest has heard.

Less than 24-hours after Caitlin Cruz arrived at Westmead Children's Hospital in October 2016 she died from flu complications.

Paramedic Julia Hickman on Monday told the inquest into her death how she had to repeatedly advocate for Caitlin's need for urgent medical attention.

'We thought her condition warranted immediate attention and she shouldn't go into a waiting room,' Ms Hickman told the court.

Three-year-old Caitlin Cruz (pictured) was refused a bed by two separate nurses at the Westmead Children's Hospital before she died from flu complications, an inquest had heard

Less than 24-hours after Caitlin Cruz arrived at Westmead Children's Hospital in October 2016 she was dead

After one nurse noticed Caitlin was receiving fluids through a cannula in her arm she agreed she 'had to' have a bed, Ms Hickman said.

On Monday Caitlin's mother said many people had been fighting for answers and hoped the inquest would shed some light on what happened to her daughter.

'We are not doing this just for Caitlin, we're doing this for her little sister who will never know her,' she told reporters outside Lidcombe Coroners Court.

Caitlin's father Mitch said he wanted due processes to be examined so no other child 'falls through the cracks'.

Caitlin (pictured) was three years and nine months when she and her younger sister returned from preschool to their Lidcombe home with fevers

In her opening statement to the court counsel assisting the coroner, Maria Gerace, said if proper medical therapy had been implemented earlier it may have prevented the serious complications that arose and ultimately took her life.

A report prepared by the Health Care Complaints Commission found some medical staff who attended to Caitlin failed to recognise the seriousness of her condition.

Caitlin was three years and nine months when she and her younger sister returned from preschool to their Lidcombe home with fevers.

Paramedic Julia Hickman on Monday told the inquest into Caitlin's death how she had to repeatedly advocate for Caitlin's need for urgent medical attention (Caitlin's coffin pictured)

After regular doses of Ibuprofen failed to alleviate her systems, Caitlin was taken for a medical examination but continued to deteriorate.

On October 22 at Myhealth Rhodes Medical Centre, Caitlin collapsed in her father's arms before GP Sumeena Qidwai screamed at her assistant to call an ambulance.

'She was floppy and blue and her face and body looked pale,' she told the court.

'I was extremely concerned she's probably the sickest child I have ever seen.'

Caitlin was resuscitated and taken to hospital without a referral note as Dr Qidwai felt her life was in imminent danger, prioritising her ambulance expedition instead.

Dr Qidwai said Ms Hickman appeared dismissive and refused to take the business card of Caitlin's regular doctor.

But the paramedic said Dr Qidwai originally told her the patient had 'come up well' and failed to relay certain details including the fact that oxygen had been administered.

Veteran GP Sumeena Qidwai said Caitlin (her coffin pictured) 'was probably the sickest child' he had ever seen

She agreed there was no time for a referral letter to be written.

After Caitlin was conveyed to hospital she presented with seizure-like activity and an electrocardiogram was organised.

The ECG could not be performed until three-and-a-half hours later because the machine was out of battery, and the results were misinterpreted by a junior doctor with no oversight from a senior practitioner.

The HCCC found it unacceptable that this emergency investigation took so long.

The inquest continues before Deputy State Coroner Derek Lee.
Islamabad, Aug 31 : Expressing serious concern over the prevailing and increasing cases of poliovirus in Pakistan, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) in its latest assessment of the global polio eradication programme warned that if Pakistan does not adopt transformative measures to eradicate the virus from the country in the next six months, the situation could become dire.

The report has highlighted that Pakistan is at risk of wild poliovirus spread, with cases increasing up to at least 500 by the end of 2020 and vaccine-derived poliovirus cases reaching 1,000.

The 18th report of the IMB has warned that Pakistan needs to take immediate steps to eradicate poliovirus, making changes to its implementation strategies. Or else "the wheels will come off the Pakistan bus".

"Unless renewed, well-planned and sustained polio vaccination is resumed for the remainder of 2020, the consequences of the inevitable large outbreaks of both kinds of poliovirus will be dire for Pakistan, Afghanistan and probably other countries as well," the IMB report stated.

The report also expresses major concern over the outbreak of poliovirus in places previously declared as polio-free.

The IMB team was given a detailed briefing by Zafar Mirza, the former special assistant to the Prime Minister for Health, along with the National Emergency Operations Centre Coordination and representatives from the Pakistan Army.

However, the "unexpected" departure of Mirza came at a time when the IMB report was being compiled.

The report also highlights that currently there is no focal person to the Prime Minister for polio eradiation in the country. The report also maintains that Zafar Mirza was carrying a heavy workload which "inevitably meant that his time for polio would be under severe pressure".

The report also highlights the factor behind the failure in curbing the spread of poliovirus in Pakistan, asserting that the programme suffered a setback from the "absence of political unity".

"In November 2019 meeting, Mirza had announced that he would bring all political parties and interests together for regular meeting at national level. However, later the doctor told the board that no formal meeting of this kind has yet taken place, citing change in his approach to engaging with the political leadership through "behind the scenes" strategy.

"This sends a confusing message about the government's ability and determination to create an unambiguous and non-partisan commitment to everything necessary for success in polio eradication." Pakistan is among the very few countries in the world where poliovirus continues to show an active presence.

The report has called on Pakistan to take immediate steps towards ensuring the virus is eradicated from its soil, urging that proactive steps needs to be taken within a span of six months, before the virus starts spreading like wildfire.
COVID-19 Response

Rubric Helps Districts Identify Areas of Improvement for Fall Return

A bunch of education associations and education technology companies have weighed in on updates to a rubric for helping school districts determine their readiness for online learning. "Back to School Rubric v2.0" will also assist schools in identifying areas for improvement. The new tool is a product of 20 entities, including the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) and ClassLink, which produces a single-sign-on program for education.

The new rubric combines a back-to-school rubric with an education continuity scorecard and includes updated criteria to help district leaders identify gaps in their plans. Additional elements specifically address district leadership. It guides school leaders through an examination of their district performance in 29 areas:

Goals for the school year;

Governance, an executive group charged with executing on the plan;

A review team, for setting expectations on collaboration across district teams

Instructional delivery, for "a variety of scenarios";

Policies and procedures for grading, promotion and graduation;

School calendars and schedules that "reflect the effects of the pandemic";

Principles of resource allocation;

Family and community engagement;

Communication with families, students and the broader community;

Attendance policies, for both students and teachers;

Monitoring and evaluation of the district's plan and implementation;

Cleaning, health and hygiene protocols;

Meal delivery and distribution for various scenarios;

Transportation of students to and from schools;

Digital infrastructure for supporting online instruction;

Data privacy and security, including adherence to regulations;

Internet access, to ensure students have high-speed internet for remote learning;

Device access for students;

Vulnerable student populations, meeting the needs of special populations;

Whole supports, physical, mental and emotional, for students and staff;

Curriculum, providing targets that meet students' instructional needs, whether remote or in-person;

Instructional materials, both analog and digital;

Instructional design;

Differentiation of instruction based on student needs;

Feedback for students and teachers;

Expectations, both time and responsibilities, set for students, parents and teachers;

Assessment and data for helping to understand students' instructional and social-emotional needs;

Professional development for teachers and staff; and

Collaboration among teachers and other stakeholders, in supporting students.

"As school district leaders work tirelessly on back-to school plans, the ability to assess readiness for online learning and other top priorities is critical to success," said Keith Krueger, CEO of CoSN, in a statement. "This new rubric is a unique and highly valuable tool that will help leaders 'kick the tires' as they gear up for blended and fully virtual learning and returning to school in the fall."

The "Back to School Plan Rubric" is openly available in a Google Doc.
Marsha Weinstein is a native of Huntsville and the president of the National Collaborative for Womens History Sites (www.ncwhs.org).

As a daughter of Huntsville, I was thrilled beyond words to learn the city celebrated the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment when women won the right to vote by painting a suffrage mural on a highly visible downtown three-story building. Having graduated from Huntsville High School in 1969 and Samford University in 1973 without learning anything about the history of the suffrage movement, I was overwhelmed with gratitude that finally the story was being told about how over 50 percent of the population won the vote.

After a closer look at this spectacular piece of art, I was concerned it was not telling the accurate story of the 19th Amendment. It would take the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to open voting to all citizens, regardless of race. This meant the Black girl portrayed in the mural would not be fully eligible to vote until then. (Camillia King-Stanley, explained at the murals dedication : While the young girl is African American, she is an artistic representation of all generations of women who have fought before her to have the right to vote.

Nevertheless, this mural can serve as a teaser in opening vital community conversations about the true history of Alabamas sexist and racist past. Unfortunately, efforts to suppress the vote are still actively underway today.

Currently as the president of the National Collaborative for Womens History Sites, our organizations focus on celebrating the anniversary of the 19th Amendment has been developing a National Votes for Women Trail. The goal of the Trail is to document the campaign for womens suffrage by identifying the sites that were integral to the suffrage movement, making them accessible on a mobile friendly website and highlighting some of the sites by installing Pomeroy Foundation suffrage roadside markers in every state.

Donna Castellano, executive director of the Historic Huntsville Foundation has been actively researching Huntsvilles rich suffrage history and has discovered the unknown stories of white and black womens fight for the right to vote. A National Votes for Women Trail Pomeroy Foundation suffrage marker is going to be installed at the downtown YMCA where the first white womens Huntsville Equal Rights Association suffrage meeting took place in 1912. Plans are also underway to install a roadside marker at the site of the William Hooper Council High School, honoring six of Huntsvilles black women suffrage leaders.

Public art and roadside markers are invaluable in educating the public on their local history. Fortunately, the anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment has created a golden opportunity to raise public awareness about the valuable contributions of all women regardless of their color. If the history of the womens suffrage movement is still not adequately being taught in the Huntsville City School System, then teaching this history would be the most important contribution the school system could make in celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment!
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- After five months of being shuttered due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Michael Giliotti, co-owner of Intoxx Fitness, which has three Staten Island gyms, said he cant wait to open his doors on Wednesday.

The time has finally come for us to reopen, and we are beyond excited to see our members and resume business, he said of his fitness studios located in Tottenville, Oakwood and Grasmere.
The event saw the presence of Deputy Governor cum Deputy Secretary General of People's Government of Yunnan Province Liu Hongjian along with representatives from several diplomatic agencies and Vietnamese community in the province.

At the event, Vietnamese Consulate General in Kunming Nguyen Trung Hieu reviewed the countrys development over the past 75 years, especially noting its great achievements across many fields.

He also expressed his pleasure at the positive development of the relations between Vietnam and China, particularly between Vietnam and Yunnan Province, over recent years.

The Consul General noted that Vietnamese localities and Yunnan province have closely coordinated in prevention and control of Covid-19 pandemic as well as organised many online conferences to boost cooperation between the two sides, especially in economy and trade.

The management and protection of the land border between the two sides also achieved many positive results, contributing to maintaining stable management of the border area, facilitating friendly exchanges and promoting comprehensive cooperation, he added.

Consul General Nguyen Trung Hieu affirmed Vietnam's foreign policy of independence, autonomy, multilateralisation and diversification, notably attaching importance to the enhancement of friendly neighbourly relations and comprehensive co-operation with China.
Philips said the United States Department of Health had cancelled most of an order for 43,000 ventilators, leading the Dutch medical equipment maker to cut its 2020 earnings outlook.

The termination follows a July report by the US Congress House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy that found the White House had overpaid Philips by at least $500m. Philips denied any profiteering on ventilators.

Philips was one of several firms contracted by the US to supply 187,000 ventilators to the strategic national stockpile to treat patients affected by Covid-19.

It expanded capacity in Pennsylvania and California to meet sudden demand but said in a statement on Monday that it will now deliver just 12,300 hospital ventilators by the end of the year to the US Department of Health and Human services.

A spokesman said he expected Philips will find other buyers for the 30,700 excess ventilators.

Shares in Philips, which are down 4.3pc in the year to date, dipped 0.6pc to 40.84 euros.

We continue to expect to return to growth and improved profitability in the second half of the year, starting in the third quarter, Philips chief executive Frans van Houten said.

Philips had said in July that the surge in orders for medical equipment would enable it to achieve an adjusted EBITA (earnings before interest, taxes, and amortisation) margin improvement this year.

But it said on Monday it expects to deliver modest comparable sales growth with an adjusted EBITA margin of around the level of last year.

Philips core earnings fell almost a quarter in April-June to 418m as sales dropped 6pc to 4.4bn.

ING, which rates Philips shares hold, said in a note the news was a slight negative as analysts were already expecting flat margins this year.
New Delhi: After protected discussions, debates, and litigations, the National Testing Agency (NTA) is prepared to conduct the JEE Main exams from Tuesday (September 1, 2020) after it was postponed in April due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The NTA has taken several measures to keep in mind the safety of the students amid coronavirus and has reportedly increased the number of examination centres from 570 to 660. Around 8.58 lakh students have registered for the JEE main exams this year.

Here are the key steps that have been taken by the NTA:

- This year due to COVID-19 outbreak, the JEE Main will be in a Computer Based Test mode. As per reports, one seat will be kept vacant between two candidates and there will be a distance of six feet between students.

- The JEE Main exam shifts have also been increased from 8 to 12 where over 85,000 students per shift will appear in 660 centres across India from September 1 to September 6.

- The first shift will be held between 9 am to 12 pm, while the second shift will start at 3 pm and end at 6 pm.

- Students are not allowed to discuss the exam with their peers outside their examination centres.

- If someone has to wait outside the examination centre, he or she has to maintain social distancing.

- Shoes or footwear with thick soles and garments with large buttons are not permitted. If religion and customs require a student to wear specific attire, they have been advised to visit the centre early for thorough checking.

- It has also been decided to keep separate entrance and exit gates. The candidates will not be allowed to enter or exit in groups and will enter and exit one by one.

- Students can carry their original IDs along with the admit cards inside the examination centres. They can also carry a ballpoint pen, a photograph to paste on the attendance sheet, a hand sanitizer (50ml) and a water bottle.

- Students have to sign an undertaking (self-declaration) on A4 size paper that should be downloaded from NTA's site along with the candidate's admit card. Every candidate has to give a self-declaration that he or she has not contracted coronavirus nor has come in contact with any COVID-19 positive patient.

- Lab numbers will not be placed outside the examination centres to avoid gathering of crowds at one place.

- To avoid physical contact, the admit cards have been given a bar code. The centre's staff will scan the bar code on students' admit cards and will inform about the assigned labs.

- Students will be provided with a new 3 ply face masks before entering the examination centre and they will be required to remove the mask worn by him or her from home and use the mask provided at centre only.

- Body temperature will be checked at the entry points using Thermo Guns and frisking through Handheld Metal Detector (HHMD) will be carried out without touching the body.

- The seats along with the monitor, keyboard, mouse, webcam, and desks will be sanitized before every shift. The gap between 2 seats will be maintained as per GOI guidelines.

- The door handles, stair railings and lift buttons will also be sanitized.

- Hand sanitizers will be available in the examination centres and other required places for students and staff.

- Before the start of the exam, every student will be provided with five A4 size sheets for rough works. The rough sheets will be placed by the invigilator who must wear gloves. More rough sheets will be provided when asked by the students.

- No student will be allowed to leave the exam room before the examination is over.

- Students who have a body temperature above 99.4 degrees Fahrenheit will be taken to an isolation room. The student then will have to take the test there in the isolation room.

- Students who have recovered from COVID-19 will also have to take the exam in the isolation room.

- It is not mandatory for students to wear masks and wear gloves while taking the exam.

- The attendance will not be taken using thumb impressions.

Notably, several state governments have come forward to provide free travel for JEE and NEET candidates.

Earlier in the day, Indian Railways permitted JEE and NEET students and their guardians to travel by special suburban services in Mumbai on exam days.

Supporting students appearing for NEET & JEE exams, Railways has permitted them, and their guardians to travel by special suburban services in Mumbai on exam days. General passengers are requested not to commute. pic.twitter.com/bmfTZOnvnY  Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) August 31, 2020

The NEET-UG is scheduled for September 13.
It is being called Australias Black Summer, months of raging bushfires devastated the countrys southeast.

Australias bushfire commission has warned the government to be prepared for more frequent and intense natural disasters in the coming years.

The commission released its first report on summer bushfires that burned through millions of hectares of land.

Al Jazeeras Nicola Gage visited the community of Broulee near the capital Canberra to see how recovery efforts are going.
VICTORIA - British Columbia is expected to battle budget deficits for the next year and likely longer as the COVID-19 pandemic rattles economies provincially and globally, Finance Minister Carole James said Monday.

The pandemic turned B.C.s 2019-20 budget forecast from black to red in less than three months, and this years budget numbers are pointing to a 2020-21 deficit of $12.5 billion, she said.

James said the governments final budget numbers for the fiscal year which ended March 31 show a deficit of $321 million from a projected surplus of $274 million for the 2019-20 budget.

She said that while the first three quarters of the fiscal year saw steady economic growth, the provinces financial picture dimmed because of the pandemic.

COVID-19 has ravaged economies across the world and B.C.s not immune to those impacts, James said at a news conference. The effects started for B.C. as they did for other jurisdictions during the final quarter of the last fiscal year.

She said declines in tax revenues, losses at the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia and early measures to tackle the pandemic plunged the fiscal year into deficit.

In a fiscal update last month, James said B.C.s budget had been shattered by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a projected deficit of $12.5 billion for 2020-21. She said Monday more budget tracking details will be available during quarterly reports in the coming weeks, but Julys numbers remain firm.

The July update predicted an economic decline of 6.8 per cent by the end of this year.

Theres no question it will be a challenging year and a few challenging years ahead when it comes to the finances, James said.

The public accounts showed B.C.s economy grew by 2.8 per cent in 2019-20, above the national average of 1.7 per cent.

James said the government will release details shortly of its $1.5-billion economic recovery plan to help employers and employees rebuild during the pandemic.

The funding is part of the B.C. governments $5-billion pandemic plan introduced in spring that included tax deferral incentives for businesses and a $1,000 tax-free emergency benefit to workers whose ability to work was affected by the pandemic.

B.C. Opposition Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson said the recovery fund failed to include tourism operators whose businesses have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic.

This report was first published by The Canadian Press on Aug. 31, 2020.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said the projected surplus was $227 million.

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Taiwanese F-16 fighter jets fly in formation during an inauguration ceremony in Taichung, Taiwan on Aug. 28, 2020. (Ann Wang/File Photo via Reuters)

Taiwan Says China Still Lacks Ability for Full Assault on Island

TAIPEIChinas armed forces are growing in their prowess but still lack the capability to launch a full assault on Taiwan, the islands defense ministry said on Monday.

Beijing is stepping up military activities around what it views as sovereign territory. It has never renounced the use of force to bring democratic Taiwan under its control, a message reiterated by Chinese leader Xi Jinping last year, though Taiwan has shown no interest in being run by autocratic Beijing.

Xi is overseeing an impressive military modernization program, adding stealth fighters, aircraft carriers, and other equipment, and the Chinese air force and navy have undertaken regular exercises or missions close to Taiwan.

In its annual report on Chinas military prowess delivered to parliament, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, Taiwans Defence Ministry laid out scenarios for Chinese actions, including blockades and seizing offshore islands.

It said Chinas military continues to dedicate itself to strengthening live fire drills, building its strength for new types of battle and developing emerging technology and weapons.

But on the operation of tactics and strategy toward Taiwan, it is still restricted by the natural geographic environment of the Taiwan Strait, and its landing equipment and logistics abilities are insufficient, it added.

It still does not have the formal combat capability to fully assault Taiwan.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen speaks to the media in Taipei, Taiwan on Aug. 12, 2020. (Ann Wang/File Photo via Reuters)

President Tsai Ing-wen has made bolstering Taiwans own defenses a priority, building up its domestic defense industry and buying more equipment from the United States, the islands most important arms supplier and international backer.

Tsai says she wants peace with China and will not provoke conflict, but last week voiced concern about accidental hostilities erupting due to increased regional tensions.

Taiwans defense ministry said it was continuing to pay close attention to Chinese threats, both actual and verbal, and while it did not seek war, it was also not afraid of it.
FILE - In this Feb. 6, 2020 file photo, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers holds a news conference in Madison, Wis. Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' administration is moving ahead with plans to buy 10,000 ventilators and 1 million protective masks in the fight against the coronavirus. The effort comes after Evers' administration had clashed with Republican lawmakers over whether he needed their permission to make such purchases. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP, File) Associated Press

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers asked President Donald Trump in a letter to "reconsider" his visit to Kenosha, saying he is concerned Trump's "presence will only hinder our healing."

In a letter sent to the White House Sunday, Evers wrote that he was also concerned that an in-person visit from the president "will require a massive re-direction" of resources to support his visit "at a time when it is critical that we continue to remain focused on keeping the people of Kenosha safe and supporting the community's response."

Last Sunday, a Kenosha police officer shot Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, several times in the back after officers initially responded to what the department described as a "domestic incident."

A graphic video of the incident went viral, sparking statewide protests. Evers activated the National Guard in response on Monday.

In a statement to Business Insider, White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said Trump "looks forward to visiting on Tuesday and helping this great city heal and rebuild."

"The White House has been humbled by the outreach of individuals from Kenosha who have welcomed the President's visit and are longing for leadership to support local law enforcement and businesses that have been vandalized," Deere said in the statement.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers wrote to President Donald Trump asking him to "reconsider" his decision to visit Kenosha amid protests sparked by the police shooting of Jacob Blake last week.

In a letter sent to the White House Sunday, Evers asked Trump to reconsider his Kenosha visit, writing that he and "other community leaders" are concerned about what the president's "presence will mean for Kenosha and our state."

"I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing," Evers wrote. "I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together."

Story continues

He added he is also concerned that an in-person visit from the president "will require a massive re-direction" of resources to support his visit "at a time when it is critical that we continue to remain focused on keeping the people of Kenosha safe and supporting the community's response."

Last Sunday, a Kenosha police officer shot Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, several times in the back after officers initially responded to what the department described as a "domestic incident." Blake is in stable condition in the ICU, and his family and attorney said he is paralyzed from the waist down.

A graphic video of the incident went viral, sparking statewide protests. Evers activated the National Guard in response on Monday.

The following day, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Antioch, Illinois, arrived to the Kenosha protests armed with an AR-15. Rittenhouse told a reporter for The Daily Caller earlier that he was there to protect local businesses from looting. The Illinois teenager is charged with first-degree homicide in connection with the killings of two protesters and injuring of a third.

"Kenosha and communities across Wisconsin are enduring extraordinary grief, grappling with a Black man being shot seven times and the loss of two additional lives Tuesday night at the hands of an out-of-state armed militant," Evers wrote in the letter to Trump.

"It is our job as elected officials to lead by example and to be a calming presence for the people we know are hurting, mourning, and trying to cope with trauma," he continued. "Now is not the time for divisiveness. Now is not the time for elected officials to ignore armed militants and out-of-state agitators who want to contribute to our anguish."

In a statement to Business Insider, White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said Trump "looks forward to visiting on Tuesday and helping this great city heal and rebuild."

"The White House has been humbled by the outreach of individuals from Kenosha who have welcomed the President's visit and are longing for leadership to support local law enforcement and businesses that have been vandalized," Deere said in the statement.

Representatives from Evers' office did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider
by Dr Hocine Drouiche*

For purely electoral reasons, in the last municipal ballot, various parties of the right- wing, left-wing and even ecologists had radical Muslim candidates. For the imam of Nimes, vice-president of the French imams this is a danger for France and Europe: in the name of an impoverished local politics, political and combative Islam is valued, which does not seek coexistence, but to Islamize the continent, often with the help of Qatar and Turkey.

Paris (AsiaNews) - Several weeks after the municipal elections (15 March-28 June 2020) the question of Muslim "communitarianism[i]" still occupies minds.

The circumstantial electoral alliance between some republican political forces and representatives of a communitarian Islam that took place during these elections is increasingly disturbing.

By placing these self-styled protagonists, who consider themselves the only true representatives of the Muslims of France, in the forefront, our Republic is committing a grave mistake.

In this way, the Republic sells off its founding values, and risks retreating in the face of an aggressive political Islam which does not recognize itself in these values, and which has never wanted to abandon its socio-religious battle. This battle mixes issues such as unemployment and marginalization with religion, as well as all the delicate questions of the identity of French Muslims and their place in the national community.

The majority of these movements adopt an aggressive and confrontational strategy, and not a democratic and consensual one.

The main victims of these unnatural alliances risk being the indispensable and ineluctable reform movement of French Islam and the advance of the Enlightenment.

Between 2015 and 2019, in an immoral and illegal way, many French reformist imams were excluded from their posts as spiritual guides in certain mosques, from chaplaincies and from various charitable associations. The reason: their clear and strong condemnation of the Islamist terrorist attacks, their republican and humanist positions against hatred, separatism and radicalism.

For the republican imams, Muslim thought is reformable and evolutionary. The spiritual foundations of Islam are constant and immutable. But the Muslim elite must abandon the peremptory medieval fatwas, as well as undemocratic totalitarian methods, which impose conflicting and violent interpretations of Islamic religious texts.

The practice of a peaceful religious experience, more serene, human and above all compatible with modernity and contemporary humanistic values needs a courageous adaptation of Islam with European values and specificities. This will avoid an obligatory conflict, wanted and hoped for by Islamists who do not hide their intentions to Islamize Europe, without realizing that their suicidal strategy will lead to the end of Islam in Europe. European Muslims must in no way accept being held hostage in the hands of political Islam directed and financed by Qatar or Turkey. An independent and non-dominant European Islam may be able to adapt to local culture. Any foreign dependence means that Islam could become the cause of a serious and dangerous conflict that threatens social peace in a tolerant and welcoming continent, which for many decades has given so much to Islam and Muslims.

Unfortunately, republican Islam is set to enter a dark and more difficult period precisely because of that circumstantial Islamic-political alliance that emerged during the elections. Political Islam, strengthened by this opportunist alliance, will not fail to designate the republican Muslims and the leaders of these movements as the first victims, so as to bury any hope of adapting the Islam of France to the values of the republic and to the social and cultural characteristics of our democratic societies, values that have endured for centuries.

The humanist imams wept in communion with all the French people for the innocent souls who fell in the Islamist attacks of the Bataclan, of the Hyper Cacher, in Toulouse, in Brussels, in Nice. Now they risk being totally marginalized and disappearing, themselves victims of this storm.

The medium-term result of these alliances will tomorrows society increasingly move towards its radicalization, in which the majority of French Muslims, who reject this drift, will be increasingly isolated from the population.

This isolation, sown with hatred and violence, is the goal that the extremists hope for, the fertile ground in which to extend their project on their co-religionists. Stupidly, they dream in the short term of Islamizing French and Western society in its entirety, without realizing that this dominating and suicidal strategy, will mark the end of a peaceful and integrated Islam in France.

In his work "Territoires conquis de Islamisme [Territories conquered by Islamism]", Bernard Rougier described what awaits us after these municipal elections, despite the efforts of ministers Castaner, Nunez and Belliubet to fight what, in his speech in Mulhouse, President Emmanuel Macron called "Islamist separatism".

These municipal elections have made clear everywhere in France, the actions carried out by Islamists to seduce Muslim voters, thanks to the presence of Muslim candidates for some parties, who openly competed as Muslims. They are a part of the right-wing, of the ecologists and even of some of the republican right, all looking for voters who could ensure victory.

Instead of presenting themselves as citizens, French Muslims find themselves again taken hostage by conquering Islamism, which exploits the weakness of politicians, as well as the silence of the majority of Muslims, to present themselves as the only spokesmen for French citizens of Muslim confession.

At the local level, this entry of aggressive Islamism, hidden behind a facade of democratism, and through a pitying and intimidating communitarianism, can completely and irreversibly change the national political map and make it falter towards extremism.

In my opinion, the solution to this separatist drift can only be legalistic and republican.

Only a real, republican, voluntary emergency plan for the development, cultural integration, improvement in the daily and economic life of citizens who live in highly, often disadvantaged, Muslim neighbourhoods will be able to fight these "dream merchants" and limit the harmful influence of the various Islamist currents, which have proselytizing and separatist designs.

For those in power, the protagonists, the social workers, as well as for the imams linked to republican and human values, it is now time to take back these areas of no-law in order to free them from the clutches of these extremist activists, to reintegrate them back into the place that is theirs: Within the national community.

(*) Imam of Nimes - Vice-president of the Conference of Imams of France

[i] We thus translate the term "communautarisme", which indicates a mentality that emphasizes the unity of a group and at the same time the separation from others in society, in a kind of self-ghettoization (ed).
Thirty-five out of the resolved 370 microfinance companies and savings and loans companies and finance house companies, all Specialised Deposit-taking institutions (SDIs), have no books or records to enable validation and settlement of depositors claims.



Receiver of the resolved companies, Eric Nana Nipah, in a statement issued on August 28 in Accra, said, claims of depositors of the 35 companies was worth approximately GH252 million.



The companies include Abis Plus Microfinance Limited, African Trust Microfinance Limited, AG Microfinance Limited, Bedel, Bengay Microfinance Limited, Big Dreams Microfinance Limited, Godigo Microfinance Limited, Crown Capital Microfinance Limited, Boin Microfinance Limited, D-Vanc Microfinance Limited, Elite Microfinance Limited, ICS Microfinance Limited and Liberty Daily.



The rest are Kingdom Trust Microfinance Limited, Kapital Express Microfinance Limited and Golden Trust Microfinance Limited, Star Plus Microfinance Limited, Noble Dream Microfinance Limited, Man Capital Microfinance Company, Royal Future Microfinance Limited, Era Microfinance Services Limited, among others.



Mr Nipah noted that his outfit was working with the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) to locate and retrieve the records of the affected companies, in order to be able to validate and settle depositors claims made on these companies.



At the commencement of the resolution process, he said, his office was unable to locate and secure both manual and electronic books and records of 157 companies, because they were non-operational long before the Bank of Ghana (BoG) revoked their licences.



Following the collaborative arrangement with the EOCO on assets tracing and investigations, however, the Receiver said, his outfit had been able to retrieve books and records from 131 of those companies, which were not operational at the commencement of the liquidation exercise.



The BoG on May 31 and August 16, last year, revoked the operating licences of 347 microfinance companies and 23 savings and loans and finance house companies respectively for breaching the Banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930).



It explained that the revocation of the licences of these institutions was to get rid of insolvent and dormant institutions that have no reasonable prospects of rehabilitation and have denied depositors access to their deposits, thereby constituting a threat to the stability of the financial system.



It said, by the revocation of these licences, the BoG sought to protect the stability of the financial system and to protect affected depositors.



In accordance with Section 123(2) of the Act, the BoG further appointed Eric Nana Nipah, a Director of PricewaterhouseCoopers Ghana Limited (PwC), as the Receiver for the purposes of winding down the affairs of these companies.



The Receiver was mandated under Section 127(3) of Act 930 to maximise asset realisations for the benefit of creditors including, depositors, as well as settle the obligations of the company to its creditors.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









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
Tommy Hilfiger has revealed an ambitious program to accelerate the companys sustainability mission.

Its platform, called Make It Possible, is an approach to environmental and social sustainability that reinforces the companys commitment to create fashion that Wastes Nothing and Welcomes All. At the outset, the company is committing to 24 targets centered around circularity and inclusivity, outlined across four pillars toward 2030.

They are:

 Circle Round: Make products to be fully circular and part of a sustainable loop.

 Made for Life: Operate with sensitivity to planetary boundaries, in the areas of climate change, land use, freshwater and chemical pollution, from what the company buys to where it sells.

 Everyone Welcome: Be a brand that works for every Tommy Hilfiger customer, always inclusive and completely accessible.

 Opportunity for All: Create equal access to opportunity  no barriers to success.

Hilfigers strategy is supported by parent company PVH Corp.s Forward Fashion strategy, with a set of 15 priorities designed to reduce negative impacts to zero, increase positive one to 100 percent, and improve the more than one million lives across the companys value chain.

In these times of health, human, environmental and economic crisis, we share a responsibility to find innovative solutions that will encourage inclusivity and build a more circular future, said Martijn Hagman, chief executive officer of Tommy Hilfiger Global and PVH Europe. It is in our nature to drive change, even in the most challenging of times, which is why we are announcing our ambitious Make It Possible sustainability program, outlining 24 targets toward 2030.

He said Hilfiger has a decade-long track record of driving a more sustainable future, including pioneering denim processes, championing water stewardship and creating more inclusive collections. It started with building internal awareness, and doing pilot programs with its products. Now we feel were at the point that its fully embedded in our way of working, and weve had a significant impact. We are ready to raise the bar much higher and externally commit to it, he said.

Story continues

Among the initiatives of its program are that by 2025, the company looks to produce three million pieces of denim containing post-consumer recycled cotton. By that same year, it expects three of its most commonly purchased products will be completely circular, including the full traceability of key raw materials. Hagman said it hasnt been determined which three products.

In addition, by 2025 the company is working toward 50 percent of its denim products using low-impact manufacturing in finishes and fabrics; 100 percent of packaging in its operations and supply chain to be recyclable, reusable or compostable, and its products to be sold free of oil-based, single-use plastic packaging.

By 2025, its water leaving wet processors are expected to have zero hazardous chemicals and will be filtered for harmful microbes. The companys offices, warehouses and stores will be powered by 100 percent renewable electricity by that year, and will drive a 30 percent reduction in its supply chain emission by 2030. In addition, by 2030, all Hilfiger offices, distribution centers and stores will achieve zero waste and eliminate single-use plastics.

Further, Hilfiger looks to achieve gender parity in leadership positions by 2030 and by the same year expects to make professional and life skills development programs available to 200,000 women across the supply chain. By 2023, Hilfiger seeks to expand unconscious bias training and digital literacy programs to reach brand associates globally and all of its suppliers in two key production countries by 2025 and in four by 2030 will proactively support industry-wide collective bargaining to achieve living wages.

Being inclusive is a key element of Hilfigers program.

I opened my first store, Peoples Place, in 1969 in my hometown of Elmira [N.Y.] for people of all backgrounds to come together and share exciting pop-culture experiences, said Tommy Hilfiger. As our brand has evolved over the years, driven by this inclusive spirit, so has our commitment to social and environmental sustainability. With Make It Possible, we will go even further with our commitment. Were working toward our vision with the entire organization focused on it and, while were not there yet, we are going to get there.

Among some of the companys sustainability and inclusivity initiatives have been the launch of Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive, designed to make dressing easier for adults and children with disabilities, and the Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge, a global program aimed to support start-up and scale-up stage businesses developing solutions that promote inclusivity and sustainability in fashion. Earlier this month, Hilfiger introduced the Peoples Place Program to advance the representation of Black, Indigenous and people of color communities within the fashion and creative industries, as reported.

More than 80 percent of Hilfigers designers have been trained on circular design strategies, and the goal is to have 100 percent trained by next year, said Hagman. In 2019, 72 percent of cotton used globally came from more sustainable sources. In addition, 43 percent of all denim, or two million pieces globally, are finished in lower-impact processes, reducing the amount of water and energy used. With each season, Hilfiger continues to include more sustainable styles, as evidenced by the 50 recent more sustainable styles planned for spring 2021, double the amount from spring 2020.

Hilfiger joined with industry partners in signing The Fashion Pact in August 2019. The company also joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Make Fashion Circular and Jeans Redesign initiatives and in recent years partnered with the WWF to address water risk in its strategic supply chain locations.

Asked why it was necessary for Hilfiger to have its own sustainability program separate from that of PVH, Hagman said, It was important for the Tommy brand to have a sustainability program that was complementary to the PVH program. He said of Hilfigers 24 targets, most of them match the PVH program. Specifically, about 14 or 15 of them are equal to the PVH program and nine or 10 are specific to the Tommy programs. All those [Hilfiger] targets and commitments are consumer-facing. The ones that are part of the PVH program are industrywide and more vendor- and supply-chain facing, he said.

Is the Hilfiger customer willing to pay more for sustainable products? I think generally the customer is not so much willing to pay for it, but they do expect it from global brands like ourselves, said Hagman. We have not raised any prices. We feel its important to innovate and push the industry forward. We anticipated that if we work with more sustainable cotton, our [free on board] prices would go up, and we make lower margins. He said in reality, the industry is moving forward and the supply chain is become larger and the techniques are better. The impact on prices is relatively limited. So far, the argument that its more expensive is not really an argument for not doing it, he said.

As for whether COVID-19 put a crimp in some of their sustainability targets, Hagman said, The short answer is no, and its actually the opposite. He said some of the positives of the COVID-19 crisis is that theyve seen acceleration in certain parts of their business, and sustainability has been one of them. The end consumers are more conscious of the environment, in general, and are looking for brands that stand for those same things, he said.

Turning to human resources, Hagman feels that Hilfiger has a lot of work to do in cultivating and promoting more women and people of color to leadership positions. In leadership positions in the U.S., 19 percent are nonwhite in vice president positions and above, 4 percent are black, 5 percent are Hispanic, 7 percent are Asian and 3 percent, considered other. In the U.S., 33 percent of senior executives are women, 50.6 percent are vice president and above, 42.2 percent are senior vice president and above, 55.2 percent are vice presidents, 62.3 percent are directors and 67.3 percent are managers.

We have a way to go there. For me personally, the percentage is not high enough. I made a personal commitment to the U.S. organization as well as the European organization Im leading that we need to take more action to increase the share of female leadership as well as minorities and to become a more inclusive organization, said Hagman.

Its clear that a higher percentage of female leadership doesnt happen in how we recruit today. We are reviewing our recruitment policies to make sure when we recruit, we have the right representation. We need to take specific actions to make it happen, he said.

Finally, Hagman is seeing signs of life when it comes to brick-and-mortar. Theres clearly less traffic in the stores, less people coming into the physical stores, but those who do come in appreciate the measures were taking and they come in to buy something. Even though traffic in the physical stores is lower than it used to be, the conversion rate is much higher, he said.

All in all, our recovery is going pretty well. Considering the situation were at, were happy with the trend that were seeing. Lastly, we see a conversion to online, our own dot-com and pure-play web site. Thats where the traffic grew and where we see new consumers entering.

Would he consider opening secondhand stores and starting a rental service?

Hagman said theyre looking at all models.

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A Welshman is suing his former employer for racism after claiming his colleagues made repeated references to 'sheep sh***ing' and told him his native language sounded 'like someone spewing in a bucket'.

James Bracegirdle, 61, alleged workmates named an office mannequin used to display personal protective equipment 'baa-bera' and asked him whether he had received wellington boots for Christmas.

The health and safety expert believes the boots were a reference to 'sheep sh***ing', and said they implied Welshmen would put the animal's hind legs between their boots in order to have s** with them.

The married father-of-one worked as a Network Rail HSEQ adviser at Quinn Infrastructure Services Ltd, based in London, for two years before quitting in July 2019. He is from the coastal town of Llandudno, north Wales.

James Bracegirdle has accused his former employer, London-based Quinn Infrastructure Services Ltd, of racism. He claims the office had a personal protective equipment mannequin that they named 'baa-bera' and said his native language 'sounded like someone spewing'

In a preliminary hearing held in London, Mr Bracegirdle claimed he was subjected to 'staple insults heard more on a building site than in an office environment' that became 'increasingly hostile racist banter'.

Phrases flung at the employee included 'Taffy bastard', 'Welsh c***' and references to sheep sh***ing, he claimed.

The abuse got worse after his sister's 'sudden death' in April 2019, he added, when he needed to spend more time speaking to relatives on the phone in Welsh.

'The banter was said to have intensified when he had to make telephone calls in Welsh at work to family members following his sisters sudden death,' the judgement states.

'(He) says he was told that Welsh speech "sounds like you are spewing in a bucket".'

The health and safety expert, from Llandudno in North Wales (pictured), worked for the company for two years before quitting

Mr Bracegirdle told The Sun he was taking his employer to court to get 'respect for Welsh people'.

'We need to move on from stereotyping. Eventually it just wears you down,' he said.

Quinn Infrastructure Services Ltd, which provides infrastructure for the rail network, has denied all the allegations while also suggesting that Mr Bracegirdle encouraged and joined in on the banter.

They told the tribunal that when his colleagues wished him happy St Davids Day, he replied by saying there was not a sign of a willing sheep anywhere.

Quinn Infrastructure Services Ltd claim he left after his performance at work was criticised.

A further hearing will be held in due course by Employment Judge Goodman who allowed Mr Bracegirdles claims of racial harassment to proceed.

MailOnline has contacted Mr Bracegirdle and Quinn Infrastructure for comment.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 31

By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Uzbekistan increased to 41,528, Trend reports with reference to the statistics of the Uzbek Ministry of Health.

To date, 38,819 (93 percent) patients have fully recovered in the country, while 315 have died.

Under the instructions of president of Uzbekistan, unlimited movement of vehicles, as well as local air and rail travel in Uzbekistan, was resumed since August 15, 2020. Also, from August 17, 2020, Tashkent resumed public transportation.

Citizens are required to wear masks when entering public transport (buses).

Meanwhile, from August 20, 2020, clothing and building material markets, large shops, gyms, fitness clubs, and swimming pools resumed operations.

The first case of coronavirus infection in Uzbekistan was detected on March 15 in the laboratory of the Research Institute of Virology; it was an Uzbek woman who returned from France. The Ministry of Health later announced that her son, daughter, husband, and grandson also tested positive for coronavirus.

The outbreak in the Chinese Wuhan city - which is an international transport hub - began at a fishing market in late December 2019.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.

Uzbekistan as an active member of the WHO European Regional Office has joined the Coronavirus vaccination program.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
The Agriculture Department, under pressure from Congress and officials in school districts across the country, said on Monday that it would allow schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to any child or teenager through the end of 2020, provided funding lasts. Advocates for the poor hailed the announcement as an important step to ensure that more needy children are fed during the coronavirus pandemic.

It was a partial reversal by the department. Previously, the agency had said that when schools returned to session, whether remote or in-person, it would require them to resume serving meals only to students enrolled in their district  and to charge students who did not qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

But the departments announcement on Monday still fell short of what advocates and many officials had been pushing for, namely to extend the special rules through the end of the school year, in 2021.
A maskless customer was filmed screaming about his 'rights and liberties' as he squared up to Walmart staff after they ordered him to leave the store.

The heated exchange took place at a Walmart in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday.

Video footage, which has since gone viral, shows Walmart workers attempting to escort the man out of the store before he turns around and starts shouting at them.

A maskless customer (left and right) was filmed screaming about his 'rights and liberties' as he squared up to Walmart staff

Pointing his finger at a female staff member, he shouts: 'Get back on your highway to hell, and get out of a godly man's face!'

Store employees wearing masks can be heard asking the irate man to leave the store as he continues to shout at them.

'You've not established authority to tell me to leave,' he tells a staff member, before demanding to see the store manager.

A woman responds by saying there are four members of management present.

The man, whose name has not been released, continues to accuse the employees of 'taking away his rights'.

One female worker follows the man as he begins walking towards the door once more before he turns around and starts squaring up to her

'Are you exercising your rights as a private company to take away my rights... you can say you can refuse service, are you refusing my service?' he shouts.

When asked by the store employees not to yell, he says: 'I choose to yell and you cannot stop me.'

The irate customer then goes to leave before turning around again and accusing the workers of being 'ignorant'.

'Please return to your service of Satan in your ignorant belief you are right,' he shouts at them.

One female worker follows the man as he begins walking towards the door once more before he turns around and starts squaring up to her.

'Do you want to stop me?' he says, as the woman filming the incident can be heard saying: 'Don't touch her!'

'I've got you on video so why don't you just go ahead and leave.'

The female employee tells him several times to have a good day as he demands her to 'bring the police.'

He continues to shout that he has a 'right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' and that his 'happiness is best served by standing in your face and saying you're a fool and wrong and you have no authority over me.'

The man then turns his attention to the woman filming the video (left and right) and accuses her of threatening to hit him

The man then turns his attention to the woman filming the video and accuses her of threatening to hit him.

In a longer video of the incident posted to Instagram, the man eventually storms out of the shop exit and into the car park after telling employees that they 'aren't even human'.

In a statement provided to McClatchy News, Walmart said: 'It's unfortunate that this individual chose to express their displeasure in such an inappropriate manner, but we're proud our associates displayed patience and professionalism as they navigated this challenging situation.'

The video has been viewed over 9 million times since it was uploaded to Twitter on Sunday and has been retweeted more than 18,000 times.
VICTORIADr. Bonnie Henry stands in the teachers place at the front of a classroom, smiling at a class of children spaced apart.

In the advertisement, released by the government of British Columbia, the well-respected provincial health officer delivered her COVID-19 mantra  to be calm, kind and safe  in preparation for back-to-school, while listing some of the new safety measures schools will put in place.

For some teachers, parents and observers, the ad left a sour taste instead.

The (B.C. government) is capitalizing on the trust the public has in Dr. Henry in order to send a message about the safety of going back-to-school, Maya Goldenberg, a University of Guelph philosophy professor who studies public trust, said of last weeks B.C. advertisement.

I think Dr. Henry might have overstepped when she agreed to be in a commercial.

As back-to-school draws near, Henry is not the only public health official coming under scrutiny for how well they balance their air of scientific objectivity with their role advising and publicly supporting governments.

It speaks, perhaps, to the delicate balancing act health officials face as they seek to maintain crucial public trust and buy-in for the COVID-19 battle.

There are few topics more difficult than education.

In Ontario, the four major teachers unions have filed a labour board complaint, saying the province has not adequately responded to their safety concerns about class sizes and student cohorts.

And amid the fears being felt by educators and parents alike, step the figures who have been the heroes of the pandemic to many so far  the public health officers.

The B.C. Teachers Federation said the ad featuring Henry showed an idealized version of what a COVID-19 classroom would look like  with a sink for washing hands and lots of space for distancing between desks  rather than the reality for many classrooms.

In a statement responding to the criticism, the provinces Ministry of Education said it wanted the ad to help reassure families that B.C. is working to keep kids safe in the fall.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Albertas public health office, received criticism after issuing a public health order related to return-to-school over the weekend, rather than at her regular weekday updates on COVID-19.

The president of the Alberta Teachers Association took particular issue with the part of the order that says students in classrooms do not necessarily have to be seated two metres apart from one another, as they are expected to do outside of school. Hinshaw clarified Monday that the distancing exception was not a new part of the provinces back-to-school plan, but said she would issue official orders between Monday and Thursday, going forward, so the public knows what to expect from her, and when.

Although anxiety has been in high supply throughout the past six months of the coronavirus pandemic, it may be peaking in Canada as provinces and territories prepare for the biggest test of reopening society in the age of COVID-19 so far.

This is the big one, Goldenberg said, Opening up the schools is the biggest opening up weve done and, of course, it involves children and people across the political spectrum.

The provinces return-to-school plans have come under particular criticism from parents and teachers where the standards for physical distancing seem to contradict the advice given to the general public  such as allowing students in classrooms to sit closer than two metres apart.

Jason Ellis, an education professor at the University of British Columbia, said what parents and students need is clear advice and information on returning to school, and that public health officials such as Henry and Hinshaw have done a good job of explaining why the standards are different in school compared to in public.

We do all these things like physical distancing, hand washing, maintaining social bubbles so that we can limit community spread and do things like reopen schools, Ellis said. But it doesnt mean that in the schools we have to apply all those other (measures).

In other words, the aim in returning to school for public health officials is not only to reduce the COVID-19 risk as much as possible, but to accept some risk of spread with the understanding that school is too important to put on hold any longer.

In Quebec, where thousands of students returned to class last week, the risk of exposure to COVID-19 has already been on display. Dozens of teachers have been asked to quarantine after some individuals tested positive for the disease, and classes have been temporarily asked to stay home.

York University sociology professor Cary Wu said the way public health leaders communicate about going back to school will serve as a fresh litmus test for how trustworthy they are to many parents and teachers.

In general, people in Canada trust public health officials because theyve done a great job. Theyre showing up, they communicate with the public really well, he said. Depending on what kind of reactions students and parents voice when they go to school, how satisfied they are with schools doing their job  that may determine whether they continue to trust teachers and public health officials.

Goldenberg said maintenance of that trust is crucial for public health officials to be able to communicate the messages they need to get across  and that will become only more important.

Think about in a couple of years, when theyre trying to convince people to get a COVID vaccine, she said. If (distrust) becomes the takeaway message, then public health is in trouble.

Goldenberg said part of the difficulty of the present moment for public health officials is that theyre expected to communicate objectively as scientists  while also serving government ministries.

The governments are supposed to respond to the science, the scientists, she said. The worry is here is whether public health officials are overreaching in some of the endorsements theyre giving.

Read more about:
Two cases of COVID-19 linked to the Assiniboine Centre at the Brandon Regional Health Centre over the weekend were found in healthcare workers and the third was found in a patient, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said Monday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 31/8/2020 (507 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Two cases of COVID-19 linked to the Assiniboine Centre at the Brandon Regional Health Centre over the weekend were found in healthcare workers and the third was found in a patient, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said Monday.

The patient likely contracted the virus at the facility, according to Roussin.

These three cases at the hospital were first identified on Sunday but more specifics were not provided until Monday's COVID briefing.

Additionally, Roussin announced that an investigation discovered that a previously-identified case of COVID-19 is a healthcare worker at the Fairview Personal Care Home in Brandon and is a close contact of a previously-known case. Close contacts of the healthcare worker are being identified and the case investigation continues.

Though the risk of transmission is considered low, the entire Fairview Personal Care Home has been moved to level red in the province's health restriction system and outbreak protocols are being undertaken to reduce the risk to staff and residents. This means that like that the Hillcrest Place and Rideau Park care homes in Brandon, visitations are being restricted.

Most of Brandon is still under level orange, but the second floor of the Assiniboine Building at the hospital as well as the three care homes named above are under level red. As reported last week, the Brandon School Division is operating under less severe level yellow restrictions.

Officials are also warning that possible exposure to the virus may have occurred at Frederickson Performance Centre at Unit F-1212 18th St. in Brandon from 7 to 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 17 and from 9 to 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 23. The risk of transmission is considered low, but those potentially exposed and having symptoms appear are encouraged to get tested.

In total, there were 28 new cases of COVID-19 detected as of 9:30 a.m. Monday including 13 in Prairie Mountain Health. The number of active cases in Brandon has risen to 168, with 127 people having recovered.

In the province as a whole, there are 469 active cases with 11 people hospitalized and one person in intensive care.

Effective Sept. 1, all visitors to healthcare facilities in Manitoba will be required to wear a non-medical mask to be allowed to enter. Those exempt are people who cannot put on or take off a mask without assistance, those who have a medical condition that prevents them from safely wearing a mask or children under five years of age.

Read more in Tuesday's edition of the Sun.

 cslark@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @ColinSlark
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina condoled the death of Indias former president Pranab Mukherjee on Monday. In a letter written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sheikh Hasina called the Congress veteran a highly esteemed leader of South Asia who commanded the respect and admiration of all.

As a renowned scholar and statesman of India, and a highly esteemed leader of South Asia, Pranab Mukherjee commanded the respect and admiration of all. The tireless work of Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee for the welfare of the people of India will inspire the future generation of leaders not only in India but across the countries in the region, the Bangladesh prime minister wrote in the letter.

Also read | Pranab Mukherjee dies: A look at his illustrious political career

She called Mukherjee a true friend and said that he was always been highly revered and loved by the people of Bangladesh.

In the letter, she also wrote about Mukherjees support and contribution in strengthening relations between the two countries and said that he will always be remembered with the deepest respect in Bangladesh.

Also read | The other side of Pranab babu

In 2013, in recognition of this luminary, the government of Bangladesh conferred on him Bangladesh Muktijuddho Sommanona (Liberation War Honour) for his valuable contribution to Bangladeshs Liberation War of 1971, she said.

On behalf of the government and the people of Bangladesh, I express our heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the government and the people of India on the irreparable loss of this veteran leader, she also said in the letter.

Mukherjee, a veteran politician, died on Monday evening following a 21-day battle with multiple ailments. He was 84 and was survived by his two sons and a daughter.

On August 10, he was admitted to the Armys Research and Referral Hospital and was operated for a removal of a clot in the brain the same day.

The long-time Congress leader and seven-time parliamentarian had tested positive for Covid-19 at the time of his admission and was being treated for a lung infection. He had suffered a septic shock on Sunday due to it.
Utah's KSL-TV reports a 55-year-old man from Syracuse, Utah, is dead after likely being gored by a bison.

Utah State Parks issued this statement about the suspected bison attack:

A 55-year-old man was critically injured today while trail running at Antelope Island State Park. Two women who were on the Antelope Island State Park Lakeside Trail came across a lone trail runner who was calling out for help. The women called 911 and state park personnel responded. They then promptly administered first aid and called for a medical helicopter to transport the injured man to the University of Utah hospital for further treatment. The man's injuries are consistent with a possible bison encounter, but there were no known witnesses. This incident remains under investigation at this time.

From NBC News:

The man, whose name has not been released publicly, died on Saturday night, a family friend told KSL-TV. TODAY reached out to Utah State Parks for comment but did not immediately hear back. The friend said the man ran on Antelope Island regularly. The day before the attack, the official Instagram account for Antelope Island State Park posted a warning alongside a picture of a bison.

From KSL TV in Salt Lake City:
The BJP unit of on Sunday decided to postpone the meeting of the state working committee, scheduled for Monday, after the party's state chief Banshi Dhar Bhagat was diagnosed with COVID-19.

As per the statement by the party, Bhagat has been admitted in a hospital after being found COVID-19 positive.

"BJP state vice-president Dr Devendra Bhasin said that the meeting of the working committee has been postponed due to ill health of state president Banshi Dhar Bhagat. Bhagat is admitted to the hospital here due to being corona positive," a release by the party said.

Informing the party's decision to postpone the meeting, it added, "Keeping all these things in mind, it was decided to postpone the working committee meeting. Now the working committee will meet on Bhagat's recovery.
US-Swiss Agreement Published On Mandatory Binding Arbitration

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com Washington

31 August 2020

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has released the text of an arbitration agreement between the US and Switzerland, in Internal Revenue Bulletin 2020-35, published August 24.

The Competent Authority Arrangement sets out how US and Swiss authorities will resolve double tax disputes where discussions under the Mutual Agreement Procedure fail to resolve the dispute in a timely manner.

Paragraph 6 of Article 25 of the US-Switzerland double tax agreement provides for the appointment of an arbitration panel where the two countries cannot resolve a dispute under paragraphs 1 through 5 of Article 25 of the convention (Mutual Agreement Procedure). Paragraph 7, added by a subsequent Protocol to the agreement, provides for mandatory binding arbitration.

The release of the text of the Arrangement follows recommendations from the OECD that countries add provisions to their treaties to enable taxpayers to have an issue heard by an arbitration panel where there has not been a resolution to the dispute for two years to three years. It recommended that governments also release comprehensive guidance.

Most states are adding such provisions by adopting the BEPS Multilateral Instrument. However, the US, which already has provisions for such arbitration with Switzerland, has elected to not sign the BEPS MLI and negotiate with states on a bilateral basis.

The MAP is intended to provide certainty to taxpayers that double tax disputes will be resolved in a timely manner and that double taxation will be eliminated. Enhanced Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) arbitration provisions are included in Part IV of the MLI, which countries may choose to adopt on a voluntary basis. Where Part IV applies to a covered tax agreement, provisions in Article 19 of the MLI will provide that a taxpayer will be able to request arbitration with respect to an unresolved MAP case when the competent authorities are unable to reach a resolution within a period of two or three years.

In the case of the US-Switzerland deal, a request for mandatory binding arbitration may be sought when a case remains unresolved after two years.

The new notice from the IRS sets out when taxpayers can request binding arbitration and the rules regarding the appointment of an arbitrator and their conduct. It includes examples of the documentation that should be completed.

The guidance provides that requests for competent authority assistance must comply with the requirements of Revenue Procedure 2015-40 or the US equivalent guidance in "Factsheet on the mutual agreement procedure" of May 2018, or any applicable subsequent guidance.
The king of Thailand has pardoned his concubine after throwing her in jail last year and had her flown to Germany to join his Alpine harem, it is claimed.

Playboy monarch Maha Vajiralongkorn, 68, has spent much of the pandemic in Germany with a reputed entourage of 'sex soldiers' assembled as a military unit at a four-star hotel.

According to Bild, they are about to be joined by former royal bodyguard Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi, 35 - who was appointed 'royal consort' last year but quickly fell from grace and was stripped of all her titles.

Now, the king is thought to have granted her a royal reprieve - and went to Munich Airport himself to pick her up.

King and consort: Thai monarch Maha Vajiralongkorn appointed former royal bodyguard Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi as his consort last year (pictured together in August 2019) - but she soon fell from grace and was stripped of her titles

Experience: Sineenat had trained as a pilot in Thailand and abroad, served in the King's royal bodyguard unit, and in 2019 was awarded the rank of a major-general

The consort, also known as Koi Wongvajirapakdi, was gifted the title of royal consort to mark the king's 67th birthday last July.

It was the first time in nearly a century that a Thai monarch had taken a consort, after the king married his fourth wife Queen Suthida earlier in 2019.

Sineenat had trained as a pilot in Thailand and abroad, served in the king's royal bodyguard unit, and in 2019 was awarded the rank of a major-general.

During the king's elaborate three-day coronation ceremony, Sineenat was seen marching in full military uniform in a procession that travelled from the palace to several Buddhist temples.

However, Sineenat was out within three months and stripped of all her titles for 'disloyalty' and alleged 'ambition' to match the Queen's position.

Her actions showed 'she does not give any honour to the king and does not understand royal tradition... her actions are to benefit herself', a statement claimed.

Koi has apparently been in prison since then, although her exact whereabouts were unclear.

According to Bild, she was in the Bang Kwang maximum-security prison where inmates including drug dealers are constantly monitored with webcams.

The prison is said to include around 1,000 people on death row, and was the venue where Thailand carried out its first execution for nearly a decade in 2018.

Thailand expert Andrew MacGregor Marshall said she had been in a women's prison at a different compound in Bangkok.

However, he cited palace sources on Friday saying that Sineenat had been released and was due to fly to Germany imminently.

The report by Bild said she was taken straight to the airport and flown to Munich on a private plane, with a refuelling stop in Dubai.

The Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in southern Germany where the King of Thailand has reputedly been staying with a harem of women during the pandemic

Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida during their wedding ceremony in Bangkok in May last year. According to tradition, the King has a semi-divine status and must be seated higher than those around him

On Saturday morning, the king himself is said to have picked her up wearing his customary tank top at Munich Airport.

The king and his entourage then drove straight to the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in the German resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, it is claimed.

Reports earlier this year said the king had booked out the whole fourth floor which includes a 'pleasure room' and is decked out with 'treasures and antiques' from Thailand.

His 'sex soldiers' are said to be assembled as a military unit called the SAS like Britain's special forces - with the same motto, 'who dares wins'.

One hotel worker said staff are forbidden from the fourth floor where the king and his entourage have set up camp.

However, the king's diplomatic immunity means that there is little German authorities can do about it.

Queen Suthida reportedly spends most of her time at Hotel Waldegg in Engelberg, Switzerland, without her husband.

The king is protected from criticism in Thailand by one of the world's toughest defamation laws, with prison sentences up to 15 years.

However, some protesters have made veiled criticisms by asking what the weather was like in Germany.

A hashtag that translates to 'why do we need a king?' became popular in Thailand after an overseas activist posted about Vajiralongkorn's activities in Germany.

Others have dressed as Harry Potter characters and held up pictures of the series' villain Lord Voldemort, also known as He Who Must Not Be Named.

A room inside the Alpine hotel where the king's harem is reportedly about to be joined by his former consort

An outdoor area at the Bavarian hotel, where the Thai monarch has been spending much of the pandemic except for occasional visits to his home country

A view over Alpine scenery from a window of the hotel - which was closed to the public during the lockdown

One of the suites available in the hotel where the king is said to be staying

Critics' demands have included the reversal of a 2019 order that transferred two army units to the King's personal command, and a 2017 law that gave him full control of the crown's extensive property holdings.

Estimates of Vajiralongkorn's personal wealth start at $30billion and he has spent much of his time in Europe.

However, the monarchy is backed by the arch-royalist military, which has staged more than a dozen coups since the end of absolutism in 1932.

While the country has been roiled by decades of political turmoil, the constitution says the monarchy must be held 'in a position of revered worship.'

Vajiralongkorn succeeded to the throne in 2016 after the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had reigned since 1946.

The new king was not formally crowned until May 2019 when carried on a golden platform in a six-and-a-half-hour procession through Bangkok.

During the ceremony he was carried on a golden platform in a spectacular six-and-a-half-hour procession through Bangkok's historic quarter.

Just days before the coronation, the King married his long-term consort and gave her the title Queen Suthida, in a surprise move.

Suthida Vajiralongkorn na Ayudhya, a former Thai Airways flight attendant, had to lie on the floor as she was given a gift by the king during the marriage ceremony.
A small, fairly subdued crowd of protesters nonetheless drew a forceful police response Sunday, the night after a man was fatally shot in the waning hours of a pro-Trump rally that attracted crowds of counter-demonstrators in downtown Portland.

The shooting which came amid clashes between car caravan members, rallying in support of President Donald Trump, and opposing groups. The man killed, Aaron Danielson, was associated with the conservative group Patriot Prayer.

No arrests have been announced in the shooting, which drew renewed national attention to Portlands continued protests. However, police were investigating a 48-year-old man who regularly attended protests and who was accused of carrying a loaded gun at an earlier downtown Portland demonstration, sources familiar with the investigation told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Groups or individuals seeking to retaliate didnt materialize Sunday despite chatter online and concerns aired by Portland officials earlier in the day.

Demonstrations against police violence and anti-Black racism, touched off by the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, are now in their 95th consecutive day.

Just before 9:30 p.m. Sunday, just over a hundred protesters marched on the Penumbra Kelly Building, an office shared by Portland Police and the Multnomah County Sheriffs Office thats become a frequent target of protests.

Police quickly warned arriving protesters via loudspeaker not to enter the property or face arrest or force. Some protesters could be seen throwing eggs at police vehicles and the building. Rocks and other objects were also thrown, according to police. At least one person tagged the building with graffiti.

Nearly 30 people were ultimately arrested.

SMALL, MUTED CROWD: The approximately 100 protesters who gathered Sunday appeared smaller and less energized than similar events in recent weeks. Demonstrators chanted as police broadcast warnings against trespassing and throwing objects. The group diminished slightly in size as the night wore on  at least in part because of numerous arrests.

UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY BAR SET LOW: After an hourlong face-off, police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly at 10:41 p.m., citing the crowds blocking the street and throwing projectiles. Police have been tolerant of protesters blocking traffic while taking a dimmer view of thrown objects, fires and other provocations.

FORCEFUL ARRESTS: Around 10:48 p.m., police moved into the crowd quickly, converging on the crowd from two directions in a chaotic scene. Protesters were given little opportunity to move once police began their advance.

Officers appeared to pick individuals out of the crowd for arrest, including people who claimed to be press but failed to produce identification that satisfied officers. A dozen or more people appeared to have been detained. Police officers physically shoved others to the west, away from the building.

Officers from at least one of the law enforcement agencies policing the protest also fired pepper balls at some in the crowd. Portland police later said their officers did not fire crowd control munitions.

In a second police advance just before midnight, several more were detained.

ARREST DETAILS: Officers arrested 29 people, including two youths, on suspicion of charges that include disorderly conduct and interfering with a peace officer. The total is the highest from a single Portland demonstration in recent memory.

Two people who were arrested had loaded guns, police said. One of those people possessed their gun illegally and faces an additional charge as a result, according to police.

Other people who were arrested had knives and rocks, police said. At least one had an expandable baton.

One person who was arrested is accused of assaulting a public safety officer, among other charges. Two people had warrants for their arrest, according to police.

Police said they also recovered homemade spike strips made from pool noodles and nails.

STATE TROOPERS, SHERIFFS DEPUTIES REINFORCE POLICE: The shooting prompted officials, including Gov. Kate Brown, to take new measures to new measures to quell violence in the city. Brown announced she would enlist state troopers and neighboring law enforcement agencies to help police the demonstrations.

Oregon State Police troopers and Multnomah County sheriffs deputies assisted Portland police Sunday.

PLEAS FOR PEACE: Local leaders came together earlier Sunday, calling on protesters to avoid violence even as some people online discussed plans to seek retribution for the previous nights shooting. Mayor Ted Wheeler sought a reset for the city and urged outsiders bent on retaliation to stay away from the city. He said he intended to form a coalition of community leaders to condemn violence and plot a course forward.

Another march scheduled in downtown Portland earlier Sunday, billed for families with children, was called off.

CONTINUED FALLOUT: Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum addressed Saturdays shooting, tweeting that Our worst nightmare has come to pass: Someone tied to the protests in Portland is dead.

The investigation into this tragedy will reveal who is legally responsible, Rosenblum tweeted late Sunday. We already know the President is morally responsible. His conduct is craven and cowardly.

Meanwhile, Trump again decried Portland and its mayor Monday morning.

Portland is a mess, and it has been for many years, Trump tweeted. If this joke of a mayor doesnt clean it up, we will go in and do it for them!

READ MORE:

Man under investigation in fatal shooting after pro-Trump rally allegedly took loaded gun to earlier Portland protest

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to send state troopers to help police protests after fatal shooting

Portland Mayor to President Donald Trump: support us or stay the hell out of the way

Progressive community leaders call for Portland mayor, police chief to resign following deadly shooting

Portland police chief, President Donald Trump and Gov. Kate Brown react to killing of man near downtown protests Saturday night

Clashes escalate in downtown Portland after Trump rally in Clackamas

-- Jim Ryan; jryan@oregonian.com; 503-221-8005; @Jimryan015

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
China has said it is pulling ahead in what could be the final leg of the global coronavirus vaccine race, with four of seven possible candidates in last stage human trials - more than any other country.

However, some are concerned about the quality of the vaccines and that they are being used to gain political leverage. Beijing is so confident of its inoculations that authorities have been administering vaccines for more than a month before clinical studies conclude, authorities revealed last week.

People deemed at higher risk of infection, such as border officials and state-owned enterprise employees working overseas, have received jabs, after the government approved them for emergency use, according to state media. Soon, transport and service workers are expected to be vaccinated.

Read More

"Giving untested vaccines means that there is no guarantee that they are going to work, so people could wrongly assume that they are inoculated when they are not," said Nicholas Thomas, a health security expert and professor at the City University of Hong Kong. "In doing so, they could engage in behaviour that has a higher risk...[and] unwittingly put other people at risk.

"The reason why vaccines go through phase 3 trials is to reduce the short and long-term risk to the individual. Giving vaccine shots without this knowledge places individuals at significant risk."

The Chinese government has provided sparse details on which vaccines are being given to people, and how many have been vaccinated, leading to concerns participation may be forced and not voluntary.

Last week, Papua New Guinea cancelled a flight from China filled with arriving passengers believed to have received a coronavirus vaccine over worries of the unknown health impact to the local population.

In general, "it's better for a community if there's more people vaccinated, so there's less risk of an outbreak of Covid", said Ben Cowling, division head of epidemiology and biostatistics at Hong Kong University's School of Public Health. "At the same time, just having some vaccinated people wouldn't be enough to mean that social distancing could be relaxed."

Governments are under increasing pressure to find a lasting solution for the pandemic that has killed more than 840,000 people.

Winning the vaccine race would give China a new tool for diplomacy and potentially bring more allies into the fold.

Beijing has already vowed "to give priority" to a number of south-east Asian nations - the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam - if it develops a vaccine.

Whether the world will trust a Chinese vaccine remains to be seen.

It comes as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases globally has topped 25 million, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

The US leads the count with 5.9 million cases, followed by Brazil with 3.8 million and India with 3.5 million.

The real number of people infected by the virus around the world is believed to be much higher - perhaps 10 times higher in the US, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention - given testing limitations and the many mild cases that have gone unreported or unrecognised. The US has recorded the most deaths at 182,779, followed by Brazil with 120,262 and Mexico with 63,819.

The figures come as India registered a record 78,761 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours, the worst single-day spike in the world.

Meanwhile, the education minister in France has said not all classrooms in the country can safely reopen tomorrow, amid a persistent rise in infections. ( Daily Telegraph, London)
The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) says the opposition National Democratic Congress rescheduled its manifesto launch because its flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, has no vision for the country.

The NPP believes that the NDC has had to revise its policy document after learning of the plans the governing party has for Ghanaians.

The National Communications Director for NPP, Yaw Buabeng Asamoah, at a press conference, said the NDC cannot even be trusted to launch its manifesto on September 7 as scheduled.

Months before COVID-19 hit the world, John Mahamas NDC set up a manifesto committee on a perilous journey to go and find out what Ghanaians want. After 16 years of NDC in the 28-year-old fourth Republic which he [Mahama] has ruled in 6 years of those years and the final decision maker in Ghana, he is still struggling to find out what Ghanaians governance priorities are.

On July 1st 2020, the whole world was told that candidate Mahama has received the peoples manifesto and he said he was going to launch in August but when the NPP announced August 22 to launch its manifesto, the whole world was told theirs will follow on the August 29 and then came the bomb. Our manifesto hit them so hard making them postpone to 31st August and as we speak we are not sure it will come on as announced again on the 7th September.

Copy from our manifesto if you are out of ideas

Earlier at the launch of NPPs 2020 manifesto, the General Secretary of the party, John Boadu ridiculed NDC accusing the latter of running out of campaign ideas ahead of the 2020 general election.

He insisted that the opposition party was deliberately delaying the launch of its manifesto just to take cues from the campaign message of the Akufo-Addo led administration.

They announced two months ago that their manifesto is ready, but they have not been able to launch it. Obviously, they are waiting for us to launch our manifesto so they can copy as usual, since they have no original ideas. Well, we have launched ours, so they are free to copy, he stated.

 citinewsroom
PEORIA  The whine of aircraft engines drowns out all but the loudest of conversations as mechanics move back and forth across a wide aircraft hangar carrying instruments and equipment.

Soldiers with the Illinois Army National Guards B Company, 2nd Battalion, 238th General Support Aviation, based out of Peoria, hurry to make ready one of their helicopters, a CH-47 Chinook, for the long journey out to California. On Monday, that helicopter arrived safely in Mather, California, about 18 miles east of Sacramento, to help with the largest wildfires in Californias history.

These experienced soldiers, with their half-dozen aircraft all lined up neatly on the tarmac, move with the well-oiled ease of years of practice. Many of them wear deployment patches, indicating their service overseas in Afghanistan and most of them have participated in what the Guard refers to as domestic operations.

This is what I joined the guard for, said Illinois Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Chad Brown, a Macomb native, an aircraft mechanic and flight crew member with the 2-238th GSAB. Ive done a couple of deployments in Afghanistan but I like helping out the public and helping out other states if we can.

Domestic operations is a broad, inclusive term used to denote the wide range of homeland activities that fall within the unique mission of the National Guard. Unlike the active duty military and the reserves, the National Guard responds to floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters here in the homeland on state active duty. As an aviation unit, the 2-238th is capable of rapidly supporting a wide variety of these difficult situations.

A lot of times its really hard work and long hours but its good to be able to help people out, said Brown. In 2016, I went to hurricane relief in Puerto Rico with the [Military Police], and we were lugging cases of water around, carrying food door-to-door. It was really nice to see that. They really appreciated us being there and helping out.

This time, their mission is to help with the massive, multistate land fire-fighting operations engulfing the western United States.

Well work with CAL FIRE the entire time were out there to support the firefighters on the ground, said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Jason Rassi, of Mapleton, a pilot with the 2-238th and one of the soldiers departing for the west. Were not necessarily putting the fire out but were protecting the firefighters so they can do their jobs.

After two days of flying, theyll link with local authorities and first responders in California to provide both direct and indirect support to the firefighting mission. The CH-47 platform, which has been in service with the military since 1961, is capable of rapidly transporting personnel and equipment, as well as deploying water directly into the area of operations via a number of refit kits. The 2-238 flies the CH-47F, introduced in 2006; it can fly at speeds of approximately 200 miles an hour and carry more than 21,000 pounds.

This Illinois National Guard Chinook will be equipped with a Bambi Bucket, an articulated bladder capable of carrying 2,000 gallons of water that can be dispersed either directly onto fires or deployed as a method of moving and shaping a developing fire.

Once we get there and get on site, point us in the direction we need to drop the water thats going to be the easier part, said Rassi, explaining the different capabilities of the Bambi Bucket and its usefulness in firefighting operations.

The bucket, which has a variable valve that allows everything from a misting spray to a deluge, transports roughly the equivalent of an outdoor swimming pool and can be filled in either natural or man-made bodies of water before being lifted to the drop site.

The crew selected for this mission are among the most seasoned in the entire unit and have a host of domestic and overseas missions under their belts.

Weve done hurricane relief in different states, flood relief in different states but we havent done fire yet so this will be a new experience for us, Rassi said. Luckily, my entire crew has at least one deployment if not multiple[s].
ROSS TOWNSHIP, PA A North Hills High School student has a presumed positive case of coronavirus. The Allegheny County Health Department informed the school district of the situation over the weekend.

Contract tracing will be handled by the county health department. Anyone who was in close contact with the student without a mask on and for longer than 15 minutes will be contacted directly by the health department.

Students were in all of district school buildings for four days last week at 25 percent capacity

each day. During this time, all aspects of the districts health and safety plan were followed at all times. Anyone who experiences any of the signs and symptoms of COVID-19 is urged to contact their primary care physician immediately.





This article originally appeared on the North Hills Patch
ALBANY  The attorneys for a woman who was terminated from her position at the Division of Criminal Justice Services for her testimony in a sexual harassment investigation told a federal magistrate last week they are "suspicious" that the decision to fire her may have been made or authorized by someone in the governor's office.

The disclosure was made during a pre-trial discovery conference in a federal lawsuit filed in 2018 by Gina L. Bianchi, a DCJS attorney who was terminated from her position and told that it was due to her testimony in the sexual harassment investigation involving other female employees. Her lawsuit, filed in 2018, accuses the agency's leader, acting Commissioner Michael C. Green, of covering up the allegations against a former forensics director, Brian J. Gestring.

John W. Bailey, an attorney for Bianchi, told U.S. Magistrate Daniel J. Stewart that Bianchi's legal team have been unable to get Green to admit whether he alone made the decision to fire Bianchi after interrogating her about her testimony in a state inspector general's investigation.

"Theres still the possibility, judge, of naming a 'John Doe' here. We are suspicious that someone else, above Mr. Green, made this decision and we have good reason to be suspicious of that," Bailey said during the conference, without elaborating. "We may end up asking to name, I won't name names, but somebody in the governor's office as a defendant in this lawsuit."

The disclosure came as the state recently agreed to settle another federal lawsuit filed by a DCJS manager, Kimberly Schiavone, who accused officials of punishing her and ignoring sexual harassment complaints lodged against Gestring  after an inspector general's investigation had sustained the harassment allegations.

Scott P. Quesnel, an attorney hired by the state to represent Green in the cases, told Stewart that part of the reason Green had declined to answer questions about the decision to terminate Bianchi had to do with executive privilege and attorney-client privacy.

"The tripping up point here is they ask for the conversations or the contents of communications about that decision," Quesnel told the judge. ... Everybody involved in here is a lawyer and some of those communications involved communications between Mr. Green and ... DCJS counsel. The hang up has been the issue of privilege."

Spencer Freedman, the executive deputy inspector general who was involved in the DCJS investigation, had also invoked executive privilege and declined to answer questions about his interactions with the governor's office on the case, according to Bailey.

However, Quesnel told the judge that moving forward no one in the governor's office or administration will invoke that privilege as the case moves toward trial.

Settlement negotiations in Bianchi's case fell apart in May.

"This case, we need to bring to a close," Stewart told attorneys in the case last week. "It's getting old."

After she was terminated, Bianchi, who had been in a senior-level position, was able to fall back into a junior-level position at DCJS because of Civil Service rules, but she suffered a $44,000-a-year pay cut and lost her senior status.

"This horrible, life-changing incident destroyed my career, and I have suffered a stigma that I am not sure can ever be rectified," Bianchi wrote in testimony submitted in February 2019 to a legislative panel examining sexual harassment in the workplace  including misconduct that occurs in state government offices. No lawmakers took action to investigate Bianchi's case following that hearing.

Schiavone is a former forensic services manager who was transferred from her position against her wishes in 2017.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has declined to comment on the case. The last time the Times Union asked him about it, he said he did not know enough of the details to comment.

Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Cuomo, on Sunday said the assertion that someone in the governor's office authorized Bianchi's termination is "completely false."

In August 2018, the Times Union reported that Alphonso David, the governor's former chief counsel, met privately with state Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott and two top officials for DCJS in December 2017, a week after Bianchi was terminated for her testimony in the sexual harassment investigation.

The disclosure of the meeting confirmed that the governor's office, if it had not been made aware of it ahead of time, had been quickly made aware of Green's decision to fire Bianchi but did not directly intervene. Instead, a spokesman for Cuomo had said, their office referred the matter to the Governor's Office of Employee Relations, which took no action to undo Bianchi's termination.

The cases of Bianchi and Schiavone underscore what their attorneys and public records indicate has been a pattern in state agencies of punishing accusers while high-ranking male employees accused of sexual harassment or other workplace misconduct have received private counseling memos or job transfers, but no formal discipline.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Schiavone has worked for the state since 1996 and at DCJS since 2005. Her complaint alleges she was sexually harassed and bullied for years by Gestring before the agency transferred her to the new job against her wishes and moved her into an office that was formerly a storage closet.

The lawsuit alleges DCJS officials took no action after Schiavone reported that she "was subjected to repeated sexual jokes, comments, threats of physical violence, threats of professional retribution, hostile behavior, taunts, racist comments, sexist comments, and demeaning comments by ... Gestring."

Gestring and DCJS, in court filings, have denied the allegations. Gestring was fired from his job in March 2018 for what the agency claimed was an unrelated workplace misconduct complaint that took place more than a year earlier. His abrupt termination came after a series of Times Union stories highlighting the alleged coverup of the workplace misconduct investigations.

Earlier: State agency brushed aside inspector general's finding of harassment

For sexual harassment witness, the fallout has been 'devastating'

Leak investigation exposes inspector general's selective public disclosure

PAUL BUCKOWSKI

The women's cases received attention because the office of Leahy Scott  who left the inspector general's post in early 2019  turned over Bianchi's confidential testimony in the Gestring investigation to DCJS, which used it to interrogate Bianchi before she was fired from her senior-level position. Bianchi was able to fall back to a junior-level attorney position with the agency, but suffered a $44,000-a-year pay cut.

The agency never interviewed Schiavone about the complaint, her attorney said.

In a prior statement, DCJS said its decision in December 2017 to terminate Bianchi and transfer Schiavone were "appropriate actions ... to maintain the appropriate work environment at DCJS."

An acting state Supreme Court justice in Albany previously dismissed a petition by Gestring in which he sought a name-clearing hearing with DCJS. Gestring, a former New York Police Department scientist who was appointed director of DCJS's Office of Forensic Science in 2012, had denied that he had harassed anyone and noted that DCJS conducted an independent investigation  after receiving the inspector general's findings  that had cleared him of wrongdoing.

Gestring described Schiavone as a "constant complainer" and alleged her job performance was problematic.
The price of pigs slips on decrease momentum

In the past week, the price of pigs dropped VND15,000-18,000 (65-78 US cents) to VND77,000-83,000 ($3.35-3.60) per kg. Prices were the lowest in the central region with VND77,000-79,000 ($3.35) per kg.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), in the first seven months of this year, 130 local businesses imported 93,248 tonnes of pork, up 223 per cent on-year. Almost all of these products are imported from Canada, Germany, Poland, and the United States, among others.

In addition, in the period between June 12  when pigs from Thailand were allowed to be imported into Vietnam  and August 12, 40 Vietnamese enterprises registered for import quarantine. In reality, 97,338 units of which are imported to Vietnam. The price of imported pigs remains VND80,000-83,000 ($3.48-3.60) per kg.

The MARD's Department of Livestock Production reported that as of the end of June, Vietnam had a total of 25.18 million pigs, equalling 81.9 per cent of the pig population before the African swine fever broke out.

According to the report of 16 livestock companies, as of July, these companies raised 4.88 million pigs, up 52.8 per cent compared to the figure in January 2019. The figure is expected to increase to 5.17 million by the end of the third quarter, and 5.36 million by the end of the year.

C.P. Vietnam alone raised 2.7 million pigs by the end of July, up 200,000 units compared to January. C.P. Vietnam owns the largest pig herds in the country, while CJ has 756,000 pigs, Japfa 276,000 pigs, and Mavin 341,000.
The statement said the 'provocative military movement' violated the 'previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements'

Srinagar: India said on Monday its soldiers thwarted Chinas provocative military movements near a disputed border in Ladakh region amid a months-long standoff.

A statement by Indias defense ministry said Chinas Peoples Liberation Army carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo and violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements to settle the standoff in the cold-desert region.

It said Indian troops preempted the Chinese military activity on the southern bank of Pangong Lake.

The statement said Indian troops undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground.

China did not immediately comment.

The India-China face-off began in early May, first at three places, including the glacial lake divided by the de facto frontier between the rivals. Soldiers at the 134 kilometers (84 miles) long scenic lake ignored repeated verbal warnings, triggering a yelling match, stone-throwing and even fistfights.

By June, it escalated and spread to two other places toward the north in Depsang and Galwan Valley, where India has built an all-weather military road along the disputed frontier.

On 15 June, the situation turned deadly when the rival troops engaged in a nighttime medieval clash in Galwan.

According to Indian officials, Chinese troops atop a ridge at the mouth of the narrow valley threw stones, punched and pushed Indian soldiers down a ridge at around 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) leaving 20 Indians dead, including a colonel.
Imperial Valley News Center

NASA Researcher Arrested for False Statements and Wire Fraud in Relation to Chinas Talents Program

Houston, Texas - A criminal complaint has been unsealed Monday, charging Zhengdong Cheng, 53, of College Station, Texas, for conspiracy, making false statements and wire fraud.

Texas A&M University (TAMU) Professor Zhengdong Cheng is expected to make his initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sam Sheldon today at 10 a.m. in Houston, Texas. Authorities took him into custody Sunday, August 23.

Cheng allegedly led a team conducting research for NASA. According to the criminal complaint, for several years he willfully took steps to obscure his affiliations and collaboration with a Chinese University and at least one Chinese-owned company. The terms of Chengs grant prohibited participation, collaboration or coordination with China, any Chinese-owned company or any Chinese University, according to the charges.

Once again, we have witnessed the criminal consequences that can arise from undisclosed participation in the Chinese governments talent program, said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers. Professor Cheng allegedly made false statements to his university and to NASA regarding his affiliations with the Chinese government. The Department of Justice will continue seeking to bring participation in these talent programs to light and to expose the exploitation of our nation and our prized research institutions.

China is building an economy and academic institutions with bricks stolen from others all around the world, said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick for the Southern District of Texas. While 1.4 million foreign researchers and academics are here in the U.S. for the right reasons, the Chinese Talents Program exploits our open and free universities. These conflicts must be disclosed, and we will hold those accountable when such conflict violates the law.

As alleged, Zhengdong Cheng knowingly deceived NASA officials about his association with Chinese owned companies and universities, willingly accepted U.S. government funding, and defrauded his university, said Assistant Director Alan Kohler, Jr. of the FBIs Counterintelligence Division. The FBI is committed to aggressively pursuing those individuals who try and undercut our U.S. research institutions and government agencies by concealing their participation in Chinese talent recruitment programs and to hold them accountable for their actions.

NASAs funding restrictions are in place to protect taxpayer-financed research dollars and intellectual property, said Special Agent in Charge Mark Zielinski, NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) - Eastern Field Office. We will continue pursue anyone who attempts to circumvent these guidelines and conceal affiliations with Chinese institutions and companies in order to obtain NASA grant money.

Dr. Cheng is accused of hiding his affiliation with the Guangdong University of Technology, along with other foreign universities, while disregarding the rules established under his NASA contract during his employment at TAMU, said FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge Perrye K. Turner. These alleged actions came to light through the tireless work of the FBI-Bryan Resident Agency and NASA-OIG investigative teams. We are grateful to TAMU, TAMU System and TAMU Engineering Experiment Station for providing significant assistance through their partnership with us throughout this case.

The charges allege Cheng and TAMU received funds based on Cheng knowingly providing false information to TAMU and consequently to NASA. In addition to the funds, Cheng personally benefited from his affiliation with TAMU and NASA with increased access to unique NASA resources, such as the International Space Station, according to the complaint. This access allegedly allowed Cheng to further his standing in China at Guangdong University of Technology and other universities. The charges further allege he held senior research positions there unknown to TAMU and NASA and was able to serve in the Peoples Republic of China Talents program. Chinas Talents Plans are allegedly designed to attract, recruit and cultivate high-level scientific talent in furtherance of Chinas scientific development, economic prosperity and national security.

The FBI-Bryan Resident Agency and NASA-Office of Inspector General conducted the investigation with the assistance of TAMU. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carolyn Ferko and S. Mark McIntyre are prosecuting the case with the assistance of trial attorney Matthew McKenzie of the National Security Divisions Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
EGLE seeks public comment on proposed amended consent judgment for Gelman Sciences

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 31, 2020

EGLE Media Office, EGLE-Assist@Michigan.gov, 517-284-9278

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) is seeking public comment and has scheduled an online public meeting from 6-8 p.m. Sept. 14 regarding a proposed Fourth Amended and Restated Consent Judgment for the Gelman Sciences site in Ann Arbor and Scio Township.

The Gelman site involves a groundwater contamination plume of 1,4 Dioxane released from the former manufacturing facility. Gelman used the chemical in its manufacturing operations from 1966 until 1986. The plume has impacted approximately 3.5 square miles of the city of Ann Arbor and Scio Township. Impacted areas within Ann Arbor are served by municipal water. Currently, there are no known health risks associated with the plume.

Remediation of the contamination is governed by a Consent Judgment, which was first entered in Washtenaw County Circuit Court in 1992 and has been revised multiple times since then through amendments and court orders. This proposed Fourth Amended and Restated Consent Judgment provides for implementation of the revised groundwater cleanup criteria for 1,4-Dioxane.

EGLE Director Liesl Clark highlighted the improved remediation under the revised Consent Judgment and encourages interested persons to provide comments on it to EGLE.

The collective efforts of the state and local parties have resulted in substantial enhancements to the cleanup and monitoring efforts at the Gelman site and EGLE looks forward to overseeing implementation of the revised Consent Judgment. I encourage participation in the public comment process, Clark said.

Attorney General Dana Nessel commended EGLE, the intervening local governments, and Gelman for finding common ground and for bringing the proposal to the public for comment. "The hard work of the local government intervenors alongside the state has produced a shared proposal for more work at the site that all of the parties agree on," Nessel said. "Now the public will have the chance to weigh in on that shared proposal, a step I applaud on the part of both EGLE and the local governments.

The public review copy of the proposed Fourth Amended and Restated Consent Judgment is posted in the Whats New section on the EGLE Gelman Sciences web page.

The proposed Fourth Amended and Restated Consent Judgment will replace the 85 parts per billion (ppb) drinking water cleanup criterion for 1,4 Dioxane with the current 7.2 ppb criterion and 280 ppb criterion for groundwater venting into surface water (down from 2,800 ppb). EGLE and Gelman have in practice implemented the 7.2 ppb drinking water criterion since October 2016.

In addition to updating the criteria, other changes to the Consent Judgment incorporate additional safeguards to protect human health and the environment. These updates include increasing the number of contaminated groundwater extraction wells, the number of monitoring wells in Ann Arbor, the number of compliance monitoring wells in Scio Township and source removal efforts on the Gelman property; in addition to preparing advance contingency plans to extend municipal water to four areas that rely on wells for drinking water if data and information indicates that the plume will expand into these areas.

Meeting registration information

Register here to attend the online public meeting. After registering, participants will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join the meeting.

For those who would like to participate by phone, call (213) 787-0529 or toll-free at (888) 808-6929, and use conference code 881478.

Pre-registration is not required to attend the meeting. Individuals interested in attending can join the meeting when it begins at 6 p.m.

Those who wish to remain anonymous can click on the meeting link at the start of the event, and enter a first name and last name initial. Registrants who do not want to enter an email address, enter eglemeeting@mi.gov in the email field.

EGLE will collect public comments on the Fourth Amended and Restated Consent Judgment from Aug. 31 through Sept. 21. EGLE will only be taking comments, there will not be a question and answer session after the presentation. Interested parties may provide comments in the following ways:

During the Sept. 14 public comment session.

In writing by email: EGLE-RRD-Gelman@Michigan.gov

In writing through U.S. Mail: Dan Hamel, RRD project manager, Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, Jackson District Office, 301 East Louis Glick Highway, Jackson, MI, 49201-1556.

# # #
Last week, journalists in Michigan got word that there were 14 positive cases of COVID-19 in Michigan schools.

The first and most obvious question was where?

Fast forward to the end of this week and the question is stillwhere?

As parents all over the state wrestle with the decision to go with virtual learning options or face-to-face learning they are not being fully informed about positive cases in their childrens school.

Reporters have reached out to the governors office, to the Department of Health and Human Services and other state and local officials to find out where there are positive cases in our schools. To date, no one seems to know or be willing to supply this information.

Transparency matters more now than ever. Families need this information to make decisions about the education of their children. Being armed with facts will help them make those decisions.

Many people today are living in multi-generational homes. Not only is the safety of the student at play here, there may be concerns about elderly family members living in the same home or members of the family with underlying health problems.

Weve been told over and over how important it is to track and trace positive COVID-19 tests. We know the awful consequences of an outbreak in a community, we know how quickly one case can become many. There are no privacy violations involved in letting communities know which school has a problem so parents can make informed decisions.

Be it lack of transparency on purpose, or a case of poor preparedness, its time for the state and local departments of community health to step up and provide this vital information to the citizens of Michigan.

Dirk Milliman is the public policy committee chairman of the Michigan Press Association.
Luke Haywood was jailed for nine years in 2014 after he crashed into Police Constable Gareth Browning in Reading a year earlier

A police widow has backed calls for a new 'Harper's Law' to give life sentences to killers of emergency workers.

The man who mowed down Ruth Browning's husband will walk free from prison within days after serving just five years of a 13 year sentence.

Luke Haywood, 34, was jailed in 2014 for crashing into PC Gareth Browning in Reading while on day release from prison.

Haywood was speeding away from officers in a stolen car when he collided with PC Browning as the father-of-two attempted to lay down a tyre 'stinger' device.

PC Browning, 36, suffered catastrophic brain injuries which he battled for three years until his death in April 2017.

Haywood was then re-sentenced for manslaughter  the same crime which PC Andrew Harper's killers were convicted of earlier this year.

Mrs Browning, 40, is now backing Lissie Harper's campaign for 'Harper's Law' to give life sentences to those who kill police officers.

She told The Sun: 'Gareth went to work to help and protect others. The least we can expect from our justice system is that it ensures those who injure and kill those who are protecting us are given appropriate and substantial jail sentences.

'The person responsible will be out of prison later this year.

Police officer Gareth Browning battled his injuries for more than three years, but tragically passed away in April 2017

'Given the driver had to finish serving his previous sentence, this means he served just five years for killing my husband.'

Haywood from Chagford Road, Whitley, Reading, had been on a day release from jail where he was serving time for burglaries.

Haywood went straight to a B&Q store where he bought a crowbar to use to break into a series of sheds.

A friend gave him the stolen car to drive to his new burglary targets.

Minutes later, he was spotted driving the car and officers gave chase.

PC Browning knew Haywood was heading his way so tried to lay the stinger stop device.

However, before he could finish it, he was knocked down by the offender who then sped off and went on the run for two days.

He was eventually arrested, charged and hauled before Reading Crown Court.

PC Browning suffered extensive skull fractures and was moved to neuro-intensive care where he was put into a medically induced coma where he remained for several weeks.

He was able to regain some movement in his limbs and could open an eye, but he was unable to swallow or communicate.

PC Browning had recurring sickness and required assistance with all matters of his physical care.

A post-mortem examination revealed he died of broncho pneumonia as a consequence of his head injuries.

PC Andrew Harpers widow Lissie Harper, 29, is fighting for 'Harper's Law'

Albert Bowers (left) and Jessie Cole (centre) leaving Reading Magistrates Court following an appearance in relation to the death of PC Andrew Harper. The pair, both 18, were jailed for 13 years

Henry Long, 19, Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, both 18

PC Browning's Thames Valley Police colleague PC Harper, 28, was dragged to his death by a trio fleeing in a getaway car they'd intended to use to steal a 15,000 quadbike.

The driver Henry Long, 19, was jailed for 16 years, while his accomplices Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, both 18, were each jailed for 13 years.

They could all be back on the streets within eight years.

Lissie Harper's petition for such criminals to receive life terms has now received more than 500,000 signatures.
Sudans government and key rebel factions agreed on Monday to a peace deal in a crucial step towards ending the brutal civil war in Darfur that has raged since 2003.

According to the United Nations, the conflict has killed at least 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million. The accord also covers the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

 2003: rebels take up arms 

Rebels in the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) take up arms against Khartoum, accusing it of marginalising the vast western region of Darfur.

On February 26, 2003, rebels take the town of Gulu in northern Darfur.

The state-backed Janjaweed  a group of mostly Arab raiding nomads  respond, leading to allegations of atrocities including murder, rape, looting and burning villages.

 2007: international force 

A hybrid African Union-United Nations force called UNAMID takes over from an African force that has been in the region since 2004.

In May 2008, more than 220 people are killed when JEM rebels thrust hundreds of kilometres (miles) from Darfur to Omdurman, just across the River Nile from the presidential palace in Khartoum.

 2009: arrest warrants 

The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for then-president Omar al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

It issues another warrant the next year for genocide.

Late in 2010, after a lull in clashes that lasts several months, fighting resumes following the breakdown of an accord signed in 2006 with a faction of the SLM.

More than 2,300 people were killed in 2010, according to the UN.

 2011: Revolutionary Front 

In November 2011, Darfurs armed groups form an alliance  the Sudanese Revolutionary Front  committed to regime change in Sudan.

Sudan accuses newly independent South Sudan of working with the JEM, a charge denied by Juba, which Khartoum also accuses of backing armed revolts in its South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions.

 2014: abuses 

In March, the UN criticises restrictions imposed on humanitarian workers in Darfur and an increase in the number of displaced people.

The UN Security Council urges UNAMID to better protect the Darfur population.

In November, Bashir calls for a planned withdrawal of the force, after the peacekeepers probe accusations of gang rape by Sudanese soldiers.

 2016: ceasefire 

In a controversial April referendum, the division of Darfur into five states is maintained.

The government in June declares a unilateral ceasefire.

In August, negotiations break down between Khartoum and rebels on a cessation of hostilities in Darfur, the Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

In early September, Bashir says that peace has returned to Darfur.

That month, rights group Amnesty International accuses Khartoum of carrying out several chemical attacks, killing civilians in the west of the country. Khartoum denies the charges.

 2019: Bashir ousted, talks 

On April 11, Bashir is ousted by the military and detained after four months of popular protests demanding he quit.

In August, new Sudanese authorities entrusted with preparing the way for a civilian regime vow to restore peace to conflict-ridden regions, including Darfur.

 2019: draft accord 

On December 22, Sudanese prosecutors open a probe into crimes allegedly committed in Darfur from 2003, targeting officials from Bashirs regime.

On January 24, 2020, a coalition of rebel groups signs a preliminary agreement with the government after weeks of talks.

On February 11, a top Sudanese official says Bashir will be handed to the ICC.

 2020: Kushayb hands himself in 

In June, Janjaweed militiaman Ali Kushayb, wanted since 2007, turns himself in to the ICC where he is wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

On June 15, a Sudanese prosecutor says that Bashirs extradition to the ICC is not necessary.

In July, UNAMID condemns what it says are deadly violent incidents in North Darfur.

 Peace accord 

On July 16, the government and rebels enter the final stage of peace talks, focused on the creation of a single army.

On July 28, UNAMID calls on Khartoum to deploy security forces in Darfur as soon as possible, after a series of killings.

On August 28-29, government and rebels initial the accord aimed at ending 17 years of civil war.

The accord is officially inked during a ceremony on August 31 in Juba.
The European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT), Europe's collaborative peer network of professionals working in the field of stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy, announced today the results of the phase III RACE trial during EBMTs virtual 46th Annual Meeting. Preliminary data show that adding Eltrombopag to standard immunosuppressive treatment is safe and increases response rates in patients with Severe Aplastic Anaemia (SAA).

SAA is a condition in which the bone marrow does not produce enough new blood cells. It is a rare, yet potentially fatal disease which can be treated with bone marrow transplantation or, for patients who are not eligible to receive a transplantation, with immunosuppressive treatment. The most commonly used immunosuppressive regimen includes horse ATG (hATG) in combination with Cyclosporine A (CsA). However, about 35% of patients do not respond to treatment or eventually relapse.

Eltrombopag is a thrombopoietin receptor agonist that was developed to stimulate thrombopoiesis (production of platelets), but it was subsequently shown to restore trilineage haematopoiesis. A previous single-arm study showed that adding Eltrombopag to standard immunosuppressive treatment appeared to improve the response rate as compared to the use of hATG plus CsA alone. The first results of the randomised controlled RACE trial now confirm that adding Eltrombopag to standard immunosuppression leads to significantly higher response rates compared to standard immunosuppressive treatment alone.

The RACE trial is sponsored by the EBMT with the financial support of Novartis and Pfizer. Professors. Regis Peffault de Latour (Head of the French Reference Center for Aplastic Anemia and PNH, Saint-Louis Hospital, and University of Paris) and Antonio M. Risitano (Federico II University, Naples, and Head of Hematology and the BMT Unit, Ospedale Moscati, Avellino, Italy) served as Principal Investigators of the study, and they designed the study together with Professor Carlo Dufour (Head of the Hemato Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation Department. G.Gaslini Childrens' Research Hospital, Genova, Italy). Under the energetic and efficient coordination of Sofie Terwel, the trial was successfully conducted by the RACE study team at the EBMT Clinical Trial Office. The study was presented by Prof. Peffault de Latour at the presidential symposium of EBMT's virtual Annual Meeting and was granted the Van Bekkum Award, the most prestigious EBMT award for the best abstract submitted to the physician's programme.

The international, investigator-driven, open-label, phase III, randomised trial evaluated 197 patients with SAA. Patients were aged 15 years or older, had acquired SAA, and had not received prior immunosuppressive treatment. Patients were randomised to receive either standard immunosuppression (hATG 40 mg/kg x4d and CsA 5 mg/kg/d) or standard immunosuppression + Eltrombopag at the dose of 150 mg/d from day +14 until 6 months (or 3 months, in case of early complete response). The primary endpoint of the study is complete response (CR) at 3 months, with CR being defined as haemoglobin 100 g/L, neutrophils 1.0 g/L and platelets 100g/L, according to standard international criteria.

It was shown that three months after treatment start, patients who received the combination of hATG, CsA plus Eltrombopag had a significantly higher complete response rate compared to patients treated with hATG and CsA alone. These higher response rates were sustained at 6 months. Moreover, Eltrombopag was generally well-tolerated, with a comparable occurrence of adverse events in the two treatment arms. This trial also shows that in this rare disease, large randomised trials can successfully be run in collaboration with many expert centres in Europe.

Eltrombopag is registered in Europe for second line treatment of aplastic anaemia, so it is only available to patients who cannot receive bone marrow transplantation and have failed immunosuppressive treatment." Prof. Regis Peffault de Latour, Head of the French Reference Center for Aplastic Anemia and PNH, Saint-Louis Hospital, and University of Paris

Prof. Risitano states: "The RACE trial data shows that eltrombopag increased response rates for naive SAA patients who are not eligible for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The RACE study team is continuing to follow up the trial participants up to two years and furthermore aims to set up a long-term follow-up study to monitor the effectiveness and safety of Eltrombopag up to ten years.". "The EBMT Clinical Trial Office is already actively working on this new project, which likely will provide the final evidence about the benefit of using triple therapy as initial treatment for Severe Aplastic Anemia." concludes Prof. Dufour.
In the wake of Chadwick Bosemans untimely passing, people are calling on the mayor and city council of his hometown in Anderson, South Carolina to replace a Confederate statue with one of the actor. Multiple petitions have been launched on Change.org as its illegal in the state to remove the monument, which is located in front of the towns courthouse. The Black Panther star died on Friday from colon cancer at age 43.

People are asking city officials in Anderson, South Carolina to replace a Confederate monument with one of Chadwick Boseman. (Photo: Reuters)

Mr. Boseman spent his life uplifting the stories of Black Americans both real and fictional, one petition reads. In addition to his illustrious film career, Mr. Boseman made it a mission to give back to his community.  Mr. Boseman is without question an American treasure and his accolades go on and on. It is only fitting that his work is honored in the same place that birthed him.

The existing monument is dedicated to the Confederate veterans of Anderson County. It was erected in 1902. Under South Carolinas Heritage Act, a two-thirds vote of the state legislature is required to remove war monuments from public places.

We must move past the tragedies of our past in this nation and celebrate new heroes. Mr. Boseman is a hero to this nation but more importantly a hero to the town of Anderson. His legacy was one of excellence and equality. As fellow citizens go about their day they should have a face that sees all people as equal, the petition continues. It has over 10,000 signatures and counting.

A second petition suggests that while a Boseman statue goes up in town, the Confederate monument should be moved to The Anderson County Museum.

I believe the community should come together to honor someone from Anderson, South Carolina that was able to change the movie industry. He opened many doors for many young black people with his leading roles in movies such as Black Panther or Marshall. It is only natural that his hometown honors what he did, it says.

There is no need for political controversy in this decision, the petition continues. The old statue need not be destroyed; however, with the engravings on the base, it is beyond time for its retirement. The Anderson County Museum should be the permanent home to the Confederate Monument. It should be accompanied by the history of the monument and the reasoning for its relocation. It should preserve history, but not honor the ideals for which the Confederacy stood.  It is time to unify Anderson around a true local hero and time to honor all South Carolinians, not just the ideals of a few. Rest In Peace Chadwick Boseman.

Story continues

The Confederate monument was vandalized in June. Mayor Terence Roberts, the citys first Black mayor, condemned any defacing of the statue but said he and the city council would quickly get monument supporters and opponents together to talk about how to move forward. Yahoo Entertainment reached out to the mayor on Monday regarding the petitions but did not immediately receive a response.

The Boseman family announced the actors death on Aug. 28. In a statement, it was revealed he privately battled colon cancer since 2016.

A true fighter, Chadwick persevered through it all, and brought you many of the films you have come to love so much, the statement read. From Marshall to Da 5 Bloods, August Wilsons Ma Raineys Black Bottom and several more  all were filmed during and between countless surgeries and chemotherapy. It was the honor of his career to bring King TChalla to life in Black Panther.

Before his death, Boseman quietly married longtime love Taylor Simone Ledward.

Watch  Avengers stars honor Chadwick Boseman as a Generation-defining actor:

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
Will Hillary and the Dems get the civil war they are trying to provoke?

By The Saker

August 31, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - If you have not already seen this, check out this video of Hillary Clinton stating that, quote, Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances:

Any means any. That would include the (admittedly hypothetical) case of Trump clearly winning in by landslide. Again, any means any.

The direct implications of that is that the Dems should re-take the White House by any and all means and under any and all circumstances.

That is also a direct appeal to sabotage the US democracy which, as flawed as it is, is the only rule of law based option currently available to the people of the USA.

Will that result in a civil war?

That is rather unlikely, because for a civil war you need to have at least two credible parties which can coordinate attacks and defensive operations on, at least, a regional scale. I dont see that in the USA.

But I dont see how local/regional violence (at times severe) and political chaos can be avoided.

We already know that the Dems will never accept a Trump victory.

We also know that the Trump supporters will claims that the USPS cannot be trusted with mail voting (I totally agree with them, the USPS is one of the worst postal services of any developed country on the planet).

Then there is the following issue: as police departments are defunded and cops are resigning en masse (and I sure cant blame them!), simple citizens will have to increasingly protect themselves, which many of them can do, but the problem here is that these citizens are then charged while the surviving BLM and/or Antifa thugs walk free, even if they attacked first.

In some US states (like Florida, thank God for that!), the local Sheriffs will stand by their citizens and the local DAs will not prosecute those who used lethal force to defend themselves against a short list of forcible felonies (including home violations, carjackings, rapes, etc.). Just listen to this selection of FL sheriffs:

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I have been a Florida resident since 18 years now and I can sincerely say that I dont recommend BLM/Antifa try to loot or riot in Florida, because they will be met with a lot of force and a legal system which strongly favors the law abiding citizen, including in cases of self-defense.

But in northern states?!

So far, if I am not mistaken, most of the riots so far have taken place in northern states (Atlanta is in the south, but it is also not truly a southern city since it is run by BLM/Antifa sympathizers; the same could be said about Miami, FL, by the way).

This is probably not a coincidence. And this has nothing to do with southern racism (in my experience southerners are no more racist than northerners), but much more with a culture of self-defense, rooted in the land, which makes southern people much more likely to circle the wagons and act together.

And while I never bought the (rather silly) arguments that guns protect the people from tyranny (tyrants typically have trained and professional forces which can make minced meat of any armed civilians!), I do believe that armed citizens can very effectively stop rioting thugs (just remember how the Koreans of L.A. defended themselves and their stores during the L.A. riots).

Luckily, southern states are much more faithful to the US Constitution than those northern states which have castrated the 2nd Amendment by a thousand (legislative) cuts (there are, exceptions, of course).

This is not widely known, but in about 25%-30% or so of cases or armed robbery by thugs, their guns either dont work, or they are fake. Their ammo often sucks too (either bad condition, or completely inadequate). Why? Because criminals are too stupid and too cheap to invest in quality firearms and training. As a result, if BLM/Antifa thugs try to storm a residential neighborhood or some small town in the South, they might be greeted by a lot of very competent firepower.

I think that it is pretty clear that the US deep state and the Dem Party are using BLM/Antifa as footsoldiers to create chaos and prepare for even worse violence should Trump win. There are also some signs that the Dem leadership does not want to let the (totally senile) Joe Biden go against Trump in a debate. Here is an excerpt from a ZeroHedge report:

I dont think that there should be any debates, Pelosi said on Thursday, one day after President Trump demanded Biden take a drug test before the two square off. I wouldnt legitimize a conversation with him  nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States, she added. Pelosi said that Trump was disgraceful when he stalked Hillary Clinton during the 2016 debate by walking near her, and that he will probably act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency.

The message is clear: we do not recognize Trump as a legitimate opponent and should he win, this will be because of Chinese interference and/or and Russian interference and/or Republican bullying (whatever that is supposed to mean). Bottom line: we will under no circumstances accept another defeat.

Dunno about you, but to me this sounds like sedition. Here is how Wikipedia defines this concept:

Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or resistance against, established authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interest of sedition.

I dont see any evidence that Trump and/or the GOP leadership are guilty of sedition, at least not inside their own country  outside, of course, they are currently the single most subversive force on the planet. In fact, I would argue that in spite of all the many major differences, Trump is facing a situation not dissimilar to what Lukashenko faces in Belarus. The biggest difference is that Trump is not backed by Putin. In fact, he is backed by nobody (besides bone fide nutcases like Jair Bolsonaro and Ivan Duque Marquez or cheap prostitutes like Andrzej Duda or Dalia Grybauskaite).

I do see overwhelming evidence that the Clinton Gang & the US deep state & (pseudo-) liberal elites are all guilty of sedition. As a result of this egging on of rioting thugs, things happen which would have been quite unthinkable just a year ago.

For example: a US Senator and his wife almost got lynched by a mob just outside the White House. Is that even possible? Yes it is, see for yourself:

Friends, this is not Afghanistan or the Central African Republic. And a senator is one of the highest possible offices any man or woman can achieve. Yet in this country capital city, right outside the White House, cops were unable to protect a senator from a mob. Yet this is how the mainstream media presented this: Protesters confront Rand Paul outside White House after Republican convention. Since when are criminal thugs who attempt to lynch a senator and his wife called protesters?! And does confront not suggest that Senator Paul somehow deserved to be confronted.

Can you imagine what the media would have said if this had happened to a black senator?

Does this kind of mainstream reporting not show that this countrys political system is collapsing?

Conclusion

I dont see a civil war happening in the US. But I do think that this country can, and probably will, break-up into different zones so to speak. In some regions, law and order will be maintained, by force is needed, while in others something new will appear: what the French call des zones de non-droit, meaning areas of lawlessness in which law enforcement will be absent (either because the political leaders will refuse to engage them, or because they will simply have to withdraw under fire). Typically, such zones have a parallel black economy which can make the gangs which control such zones very wealthy (think of Russia in the 1990s). Eventually, a lot of people will flee from such zones and seek refuge in the safer areas of the country (this process has already begun in New York).

Right now, there are a little over two months before the election, and I think that it is safe to say that the situation will deteriorate even faster and much worse. By November 2nd the country will be ready (so to speak) for a massive explosion of violence followed by months of chaos.

Many will probably vote Trump just because they will (mistakenly) believe that he is the only politician who will stand against what the Dems promise to unleash against the majority of deplorables who want to keep their country and traditions. At the core, the conflict we are now witnessing is a conflict about identity, something which most people deeply care about. Sooner or later, there will be push-back against the Dems attempt to turn the USA into some kind of obese transgender liberal Wakanda run by crooks, freaks and thugs.

The Dems wont get their civil war  but they will suffer the blowback for their attempts to destroy the United States.

- " Source " -
Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter.

This article is a collaboration with The Appeal.

By Joseph Darius Jaafari of Spotlight PA and Joshua Vaughn of The Appeal

Around 10 a.m. on Nov. 6, 2013, a Pennsylvania state trooper pulled over a minivan on Interstate 81. He later wrote that he had seen a GPS device mounted on the cars windshield, possibly obstructing the drivers view.

While talking to the two people in the car  a man and his nephew, who said they were traveling from North Carolina  the trooper wrote that he noticed some large moving boxes covered by a blanket, according to the arrest affidavit. The trooper then issued a warning to the driver.

But the trooper continued to ask questions without notifying the driver or the passenger that they were legally free to go. After several more questions, the trooper asked to search the vehicle. The owner of the car said no.

The troopers main job that day was highway interdiction, a practice that involves looking out for drugs traveling along the states main roads and highways. A common tactic in highway interdiction is the use of pretextual stops, in which officers pull over motorists for alleged traffic violations, like speeding or traveling too close to another vehicle, in an effort to investigate if the people in the vehicle are involved in criminal activity.

The stops alone are generally legal, but courts have set limits and rules on how far officers can go to investigate, and on how long motorists can be detained.

In order to conduct a search, police officers have to be able to prove that they have more than a hunch that a crime is being committed. The proof can vary, but often it is the smell of marijuana or something more tangible, like paraphernalia visible from outside the vehicle. When officers lack that physical evidence, they often question people, relying on training that they say helps spot people lying or acting erratically.

The officers affidavit, a prosecutors first piece of evidence to move forward with a charge, did not mention any tangible proof nor erratic behavior. Instead, the officer wrote, I noticed criminal indicators indicative of persons involved in criminal activity.

The officer detained both people while a K-9 unit arrived to search the vehicle, and eventually, the dog alerted the officers to contraband in the van: hundreds of cartons of untaxed cigarettes. They were both charged with felony and misdemeanor counts.

More than 18 months after the charges were initially filed against the two, a judge in Cumberland County determined the search was illegal and suppressed all of the evidence found.

The charges against the two were dismissed.

While state police say these pretextual stops and searches effectively uncover drugs and weapons, a two-month review by The Appeal and Spotlight PA found many of them are conducted illegally and eventually get thrown out in court. There is also no way to tell how many of them turn up nothing illegal, because state police dont keep track of them or their outcomes.

Defense and civil rights attorneys and educators compare the searches to a version of highway stop-and-frisk, in which troopers pull over as many people as possible for small traffic violations in order to find drugs in some instances, thus justifying all of the stops. By casting a wide net, however, certain people may be disproportionately targeted despite having done nothing wrong.

The Appeal and Spotlight PA reviewed 32 cases from 2016 to 2020 that arose from stops by troopers with the Pennsylvania State Police interdiction unit in Cumberland, Franklin, and Dauphin Counties. The news organizations analyzed dozens of affidavits and court documents from the stops, and interviewed researchers who study traffic stops, civil rights attorneys, and police training experts.

In total, eight cases reviewed by The Appeal and Spotlight PA were thrown out in court because of the polices failure to establish probable cause, while nine more are still active and several have pending motions to suppress. More than a third of the cases have been sealed from public view because the charges were dismissed or withdrawn.

To justify their searches, state police often claimed that a driver was nervous, sweating, or eating. One officer said a dollar-sign tattoo on a mans neck was an indicator of criminal activity that justified detaining him for a K-9 search. Officers also used the same language to justify their stops, no matter the context or circumstances of the arrest, a violation of their training.

Police also held people during traffic stops longer than legally allowed. In one case, a man was held for nearly two hours before he was arrested. Drivers also had little choice in whether to allow police to conduct a search of their vehicles. In the review of cases, even when drivers had the legal right to deny a search, police still called in K-9 units, which courts have said is not an invasion of privacy.

More than half of the cases reviewed by the news organizations involved charges against a Black person, despite Black people accounting for only about 10% of the three counties population. For years, Pennsylvania State Police had stopped gathering race data during traffic stops, making it difficult to know how often people of color were pulled over and searched. After a Spotlight PA story published last year reported on the practice, the department said they would restart tracking racial data during traffic stops.

Critics also point the finger at prosecutors, who continue to bring these cases despite their shaky legal foundation.

A police officer can go make an arrest and do what they do, but its up to the prosecutor if that arrest goes anywhere, said Jamila Hodge, director of the Reshaping Prosecution Program at the Vera Institute of Justice.

So long as prosecutors continue charging people in these kinds of cases, critics say, police officers are likely to continue conducting illegal searches during traffic stops.

Mere suspicion

State police oversee large swaths of highways, interstates, and roads, as well as close to 1,800 municipalities across the commonwealth that dont have their own full-time police departments. There are 16 police barracks across Pennsylvania, each responsible for a handful of the states 67 counties.

In 2019, Pennsylvania State Police conducted close to 1 million traffic stops. In order to pull someone over, a trooper has to have mere suspicion of a crime, said Jeff Fagan, director of Columbia Law Schools Center for Crime, Community, and Law.

Its simple, officers can pull you over for any suspected violation of a states vehicle or traffic code, he said. The laws are vague and often expansive. Mere suspicion is sufficient. Suspicion that a passenger is not wearing a seat belt, suspicion that a brake light is not working, suspicion that a driver failed to signal before changing lanes.

In the dozens of cases The Appeal and Spotlight PA reviewed, troopers tasked with interdiction used the most mundane of traffic laws, such as driving in the left lane for too long or tires hitting the white line on the freeways shoulder, to pull drivers over and ask probing questions.

Youre not necessarily focusing on the most egregious violations that are causal, said Lt. Col. Scott Price, deputy commissioner of operations for the state police. He said that seemingly insignificant stops are often how officers get the opportunity to find bigger violations, such as drugs or weapons. For example, troopers looking for DUIs wont only stop people who are swerving.

The Appeals and Spotlight PAs review also found that police often held people for longer periods than necessary. According to a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2015, drivers cant be detained by police for any period longer than what would be reasonable. A broken taillight, in other words, should not result in a three-hour traffic stop.

But in one instance, state troopers pulled over and detained two men for six hours while they searched the owners car. A trooper pulled the driver over for an unlit license plate and speeding, and conducted a search based on the passengers conflicting statements. They ended up finding a small bag of heroin concealed in a DVD case.

The ends do not justify this, said Jonathan Smith, executive director of the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. If you illegally search a bunch of drivers and find some paraphernalia, that doesnt justify you illegally searching the other drivers.

It is hard to know how often police conduct these kinds of searches because state police dont track them. When asked if it had aggregate data for when K-9 units are dispatched versus how often drugs are found, Pennsylvania State Police said there is no specific audit on the frequency of calls for canine assistance in relation to contraband located.

Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. Scott Price said that seemingly insignificant stops are often how officers get the opportunity to find bigger violations, such as drugs or weapons. Joe Hermitt | jhermitt@pennlive.com

This is shocking

The Appeal and Spotlight PA found that police use boilerplate language on affidavits to justify keeping people longer than legally allowed.

Affidavits, according to Pennsylvania State Police, should be unique documents, articulating the facts behind why charges are being brought and tailored to each person. Boilerplate language would be a violation of their training, said a state police official. But in nearly every affidavit pulled, officers quoted  almost verbatim  that some kind of criminal activity was observed.

And that should raise alarm signals for prosecutors who look at these cases, said David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies police training and reviewed a few of the affidavits gathered by The Appeal and Spotlight PA.

This is shocking, he said, referring to the near-identical language from the police reports. Affidavits essentially justify an officer to take away someones liberty; the standard needs to be set much higher. If I was a prosecutor, I would be throwing these out.

But prosecutors overwhelmingly pursue charges anyway. In the past five years of cases reviewed, only three cases were dropped by magistrate judges. In 90% of the cases, prosecutors decided to follow through with charges in court.

Fred Barajas, a Hispanic man from California, took a plea deal before a judge could rule on his claim that a state trooper had illegally searched his vehicle in May 2019.

A trooper had pulled him over for speeding on the turnpike in Franklin County. In the affidavit of probable cause, the officer wrote that he noticed indicators of criminal activity while talking to Barajas. The indicators, according to a motion to suppress filed by Barajas lawyer, were that Barajas appeared nervous with shaking hands, a facial twitch, and a large dollar sign tattooed behind his right ear.

The trooper held Barajas for more than an hour, during which time a K-9 unit was dispatched and alerted troopers to 1,500 THC vape cartridges in the backseat compartment.

Pennsylvania State Police charged him with possession with intent to deliver, while the court held him on $50,000 cash bail for two days before paying a bondsman for his release. Barajas ultimately pleaded to a reduced charge and a sentence of time served plus more than $1,600 in fines, fees, and court costs in a deal worked out with prosecutors. He declined to comment for this story.

According to Hodge of the Vera Institute of Justice, prosecutors who offer these kinds of plea deals in cases that appear to involve police misconduct are giving permission for troopers to continue acting in a way that harms and oppresses people of color.

Hodge said prosecutors have the power to bring about much of the change in police reform that recent protests have called for by simply refusing to bring charges or dismissing cases where there is apparent police misconduct.

Its a power play that has shown promise in Californias Bay Area, where San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin recently attempted to limit police misconduct by instituting a policy on how his office will deal with cases that arise from pretextual searches. Boudin described the tactic as disproportionately harming minority communities and allowing racial profiling.

Under the policy, his office will only bring criminal charges for possession of contraband if police can articulate independent probable cause, such as drugs or guns seen in plain view.

Its more than just police accountability, Hodge said. It is imperative in this moment that prosecutors  who are one of the most powerful actors in this system that is fundamentally flawed  have to also step up and take a hard look in the mirror and change their own policies.

But while Fordham University Professor of Law John Pfaff agreed that prosecutors have an ethical duty to act as a check on police, he said he questions if that is enough to bring about change to policing.

Police in only five Pennsylvania counties must seek district attorney approval when filing criminal charges. It can take several days or even weeks before the district attorneys office gets involved with a case, and during that time, the person charged could be held in jail on bail. Even if prosecutors ultimately dismiss the charges, he noted, the criminal legal system will have already inflicted harm.

To some probably significant extent, much of the arrest practices are not necessarily aimed at anything beyond the arrest, he said. That has to be regulated at the level of the police.

100% ESSENTIAL: Spotlight PA relies on funding from foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results. If you value this reporting, please give a gift today at spotlightpa.org/donate.

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Fletcher Greene, 38, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the internet's dramas and daily displays. He can tell you which influencers are feuding, who hosted a socially undistanced party last weekend and where the Sway Boys ate lunch on Tuesday.

This wasn't always the case. But in recent months, as paparazzi in Los Angeles have worked tirelessly to track down the few masked A-listers in town, Greene has turned his focus to subjects in plain sight: the social media stars of Gen Z.

Fletcher Greene, creator of the Hollywood Fix, grabbing an interview with TikTok star Tony Lopez in West Hollywood. Credit:David Walter Banks/The New York Times

His brand, the Hollywood Fix, has become an essential source for on-the-ground coverage of their daily outings in pandemic-era Los Angeles. While drama channels and tea accounts like @TikTokRoom share screenshots and recordings of influencers' online behaviour, the Hollywood Fix captures their offline lives.

Greene's videos have become so ubiquitous on the teen internet that they're now a meme. Hundreds of young people on TikTok have posted Hollywood Fix parody videos, and YouTubers like Emma Chamberlain have referenced the Hollywood Fix in their videos. People often parrot Greene's signature catch phrase "The fans wanna know!" in videos and replies on Twitter.
Britfield Institute Launches National Campaign: Literacy in a Box

NEWS PROVIDED BY

Britfield Institute

Aug. 31, 2020



RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif., Aug. 31, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Britfield Institute's mission is to transform education throughout America, inspire literacy, equip children with the tools to succeed, and bring creativity back into classrooms.



America is engulfed in an educational crisis, with more than 30% of enrolled students not returning to school this fall. National literacy scores have drastically dropped since 2011 (ranked #13: PISA 2019). Creativity scores have consistently declined for twenty years. The emergence of AI threatens the job market where previously taught skills are becoming obsolete.



However, the Britfield Institute has launched a national campaign: "Literacy in a Box." Working with Title-1 schools and underprivileged demographics, Britfield is helping to improve education and inspire student's creativity, literacy and learning. The Institute is providing life-changing experiences for children and teachers by offering virtual writing, creativity, and entrepreneur workshops; mentoring programs and essential resources. With its cosponsored educational tour, the Britfield Institute has already had massive impact by traveling through 18 states and presenting at over 150 schools to more than 25,000 students.



With the growing importance of creativity, America has a limited number of individuals who are capable of finding and implementing solutions to problems our nation faces today as literacy and creativity scores continue to decline. The Britfield Institute was established to reverse these trends by providing engaging virtual courses that help students to excel as they discover their own unique gifts and abilities. Often marginalized based on their socio-economic status, these students will receive fresh learning opportunities and individualized attention in reading, writing and entrepreneurship.



While creativity is the #1 most important skill required in 2020 (PRCA), it is not being taught or fostered in our schools. The national economy will continue to decline unless our education is taken seriously, literacy is promoted, and creativity is implemented in our entire educational system. This is why the Britfield Institute has undertaken a national mission to help underprivileged students by providing them opportunities of a lifetime. Creativity is the most powerful competitive advantage a child can have.



Discussion/Article Topics

How this crisis will transform education and businesses



Why creativity is the most important skill in the world



Britfield's impact on literacy, creativity and education



The Homeschool Revolution

The Britfield Institute is a non-profit, committed to bringing creativity into the classroom, promoting literacy, and fostering a child's imagination. Impacting all demographics, we provide students, teachers, educators and schools the opportunity to read and write with passion while inspiring critical thinking, communication and collaboration.



SOURCE Britfield Institute



CONTACT: Chad Stewart, Managing Director, 858-436-5667, media@Britfield.com



Related Links



https://www.britfieldinstitute.org


Four candidates in frame to replace Shinzo Abe as PM, but public favourite Shigeru Ishiba lacks support within party.

Opinion polls show former Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba is the most popular choice among the public to be Japans next prime minister, as four hopefuls jockey to succeed Shinzo Abe in a party leadership election expected to take place in mid-September.

Under Japans parliamentary system the leader of the ruling party will become the countrys next prime minister. A general election is not due until October next year.

Ishiba has about 34 percent of the publics support, more than double the 14 percent for Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the second-most popular choice, a weekend Kyodo News survey showed.

A Nikkei/TV Tokyo poll showed 63-year-old Ishiba with 28 percent support, followed by current Defence Minister Taro Kono with 15 percent. Suga was in fourth place with 11 percent, the poll showed.

The surveys highlight a split between public opinion and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party where factional support is crucial, and analysts say Ishiba has maintained few friends.

Suga  a longtime lieutenant of Abes in a key supporting role  is expected to get the backing of the faction led by LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai and of other major factions, local media reported.





That would make it an uphill battle for Ishiba, a rare critic of Abe within the LDP who mounted an unsuccessful challenge against him in the partys last leadership race in 2018.

Lacking charisma

Another potential candidate, LDP policy chief Fumio Kishida, who was also foreign minister until 2017 and is said to be favoured by Abe, came in last place in both of the public opinion surveys.

Abes resignation announcement on Friday, citing the worsening of a chronic illness, set the stage for the leadership election. Public broadcaster NHK said the contest was likely to place around September 13 to 15. The party is expected to hold a meeting on Tuesday to finalise the date of the election with other Japanese media saying it would be held on September 14.

The LDP president is virtually assured of being prime minister because of the partys majority in the lower house of parliament.

Japans top government spokesman Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga speaks during an interview with Reuters in Tokyo, Japan [Issei Kato/Reuters]

Brad Glosserman, deputy director of the Center for Rule-Making Strategies at Tama University, said Suga was the safe bet in terms of internal LDP dynamics, but might not be so appealing come election time. A general election must be held by late October 2021.

He doesnt seem to have either the charisma or the vision to push Japan in a new direction. He seems to be the eternal Number Two  he delivers on promises made by his boss, Glosserman said.
On Friday, Elon Musks company Neuralink introduced the world to three pigs who seemed indistinguishable. Yet Gertrude, who was both shy and stubborn, had a secret: Two months prior, her brain had been implanted with Neuralinks newest version of a brain-computer interface, or BCI. She looked just like another pig with no such device and a third who had had a similar device in and then removed. As Gertrude walked around doing pig things, viewers saw a display of her real-time brain activity. If the device is lasting in the pig, as it lasted in there for two months and going strong, then thats a good sign the device is robust for people, Musk said.

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Though the live event was filled with theatrical claims and outlandish promises, like being able to store your memories as a backup and restore them later, realistic advances in BCIs are definitely happening right now at Neuralink and elsewhere. Decades of work on BCIs could enable profound new treatments for patients with neurological injuries and conditions, such as helping patients with paralysis to control the mouse of a computer or move a prosthetic limb just by thinking.

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The technology itself seems quite impressive and could be headed for clinical trials soon, which is exactly why we should take time to reflect on its goals. While Musk was emphatic that safety would be paramounthence Neuralink showing off Gertrude and her compatriot whose device had been safely removedthe main issues addressed at Fridays conference were physical harm and digital security. These are important hurdles for BCI development, but so are ethical concerns, which Musk mostly avoided during the event. One question left unanswered was: Who and what is Neuralinks BCI really for, and how does that change where the technology is headed? While Neuralink made multiple appeals to helping people with disabilities, recent statements from Musk and his team are beginning to make these appeals look more like a thinly veiled front for transhumanist dreams.

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Neuralink is one of multiple companies developing BCI devices. Neuralinks approach has been to create both a new type of electrodea neural lace or threadand a surgical robot to sew the BCI into the brain. Moving from animal testing to human trials will require regulatory approval, and according to Musk, the Food and Drug Administration has given Neuralink a breakthrough device designationmeaning it can receive a faster review process. Fridays event demonstrated progress in both the device and the robotic surgeon since last summer, and clinical trials are on the horizon, but it remains uncertain if the company will meet its initial goal of starting human trials in 2020.

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Notably, Musk began the event by stating that Neuralinks goal is to solve important brain and spine problems, and the teams neurosurgeon later noted that clinical trials would be for people with spinal cord injuries. Neuralinks 2019 concept paper suggests the same. While the initial goal of clinical use would be to help individuals with paralysis operate computers or machines, Musk suggested that Neuralinks BCI could eventually be used to restore the use of limbs after a spinal cord injury. And the event included claims that the BCI could one day assist with conditions ranging from blindness to hearing loss.

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However, comments from Musk and his team during and before the recent event were by no means limited to assisting people with disabilities. Musk suggested that not only could Neuralinks BCI assist people with hearing or vision impairments; it could also allow users to hear frequencies and see wavelengths beyond normal human limits or to stream music right into their brains. In addition to hope for controlling pain and restoring function lost due to aging, the Neuralink team expressed ambitions to pursue applications of their BCI in gaming, telepathy for faster-than-speech communication, and to save and replay memories or send memories into a new body or into a robot body. In an MIT Technology Review profile of a Neuralink engineer released in July, the employee is quoted as saying augmentation for even healthy individuals is an obvious result of their work and Musks vision.

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Musk also continues to cite his fears about artificial intelligence overtaking humans as reason to develop BCIs. He has made it clear that a long-term goal for Neuralink is to allow humans to merge with A.I., to make sure that humans can keep up with A.I. As he tweeted in July, If you cant beat em, join em: Neuralink mission statement. And in an interview this summer, Musk claimed A.I. could become vastly smarter than humans  less than five years from now, evoking a sense of urgency to the goal of human enhancement. During Fridays event, Musk reiterated that using BCI technology to find A.I. symbiosis might be the most important thing that a device like this achieves.

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These comments make it difficult to figure out Neuralinks goals: Is it to treat patients with neurological conditions and injuries or to pioneer human enhancement? If its both, Musks comments have made it clear he is more interested in augmenting healthy people, while treating patients along the way. And Neuralink isnt the only BCI company with this dual purpose. For example, Facebook likes to talk about its work on BCIs as a way to help patients with neurological damage speak again, which is truly a noble cause. Yet, the company also has substantial interest in getting many of its users access to these wearable devices, not just those with disabilities, to increase data collection on users.

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But who and what BCIs are being developed for matters. It changes whose interests are in the drivers seat and whose are sidelined. Even without placing judgement on using BCIs for human enhancement, pursuing this goal with aggressive deadlines may create problems by leaving communities with disabilities behind and not considering the well-being of other users (beyond avoiding physical harm from the implant).

If therapeutic and enhancement BCIs are developed in tandem, how will we protect the interests of people with disabilities once they represent a minority of the marketplace? This group will likely be the first to test the technology and provide the data needed to improve it, but focusing on their needs could become less profitable as nonmedical BCI use takes off. Then, will assisting people with disabilities remain a focal point of Neuralink and others business models? As the percentage of BCI users who are patients or have disabilities falls, will companies continue to prioritize their needs over the interests of consumers?

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Another question is: Who will own the enormous amount of neurodata generated by therapeutic BCIs, and what will be done with it? Could data from BCI patients with disabilities be used to help develop tools for human enhancement? Would they get a say? And just like with pacemakers, data from BCIs could likely be turned over to law enforcement without user consent, which could lead to extra surveillance for medical and nonmedical BCI users alike. Musk committed to making Neuralinks device affordable at the August event, though getting more data from patient and consumer use alike will ultimately benefit Neuralinks ability to develop its technology (to say nothing of how nonmedical data could be sold and monetized).

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Neuralink and other BCI developers still have time to address these issues, even if their long-term goal is augmentation. Companies must speak with andmore importantlylisten to the patient groups and communities with disabilities they have pledged to help. If BCIs are really being developed to help those groups, then their needs and voices should influence where the technology is headed right now. And communities with disabilities cant be treated as a monolith, eithercochlear implants should be a reminder that whether to use neurotechnology is a complex question, and individuals will differ on whether a device suits their desires.

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Given the FDAs role in approving BCIs, it should work with the industry and stakeholder groups to make sure BCI companies continue to update, maintain, and provide services to patients and users with disabilitieseven after they start offering BCIs to consumers. And since HIPAA privacy rules only apply to health data, it might be time for new rules that protect neural data regardless of whether that information has a health purpose, which has already been done for genomic data.

Ultimately, BCIs like Neuralinks look like powerful new tools that could create a future without neurological disease and injury, but also forever change the limits of human potential. Whose voices are heard and what risks we as a society are signing up for need to be addressed now.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
Burma Popular Kachin Party Calls for Abolition of China-Backed Dam in Election Policy Platform

Graffiti opposing the Myitsone Dam is seen on a rock at the project site near Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

YANGONA popular Kachin party has vowed to seek the permanent abolition of a controversial suspended China-backed mega-dam on Myanmars lifeline Irrawaddy River as part of its manifesto for the upcoming general election.

The Kachin State Peoples Party (KSPP) on Sunday published a 15-point manifesto for the 2020 election that pledges to tackle a range of pressing state issues including building a federal union, successfully concluding the peace process, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, improving education, health and the rule of law, creating job opportunities, and resolving the problems of internally displaced persons (IDPs).

In the ninth point in its manifesto, the party said it would continue to make efforts to halt the Myitsone Dam forever.

Gumgrawng Awng Hkam, the KSPPs vice chair and a member of its Central Executive Committee, told The Irrawaddy, Nobody wants to see the revival of the dam. Not only Kachin peoplea majority of the people in Myanmar. We are a peoples party. Our policy is in line with the peoples voice. So, we decided to put it in the manifesto.

The most effective way to stop the project permanently is to speak from the Parliament. We must work to stop the project from the Parliament, Gumgrawng Awng Hkam said.

I believe holding a transparent discussion in Parliament is the most effective way to achieve our goal, he said.

The party formed through a merger of six major Kachin parties in 2018 with support from stakeholders including religious leaders, cultural and social groups, civil society organizations, think tanks and ordinary Kachin people. The aim of the merger is to avoid splitting the ethnic vote and to establish a party that will be a genuinely strong contender in the 2020 election.

The KSPP expects to win a majority in the state parliament and many seats in both the Lower and Upper houses of the Union Parliament.

The US$3.6-billion (4.8-trillion-kyat) project is located about 3.2 km south of the confluence of the May Kha and Mali Kha rivers, which gives rise to the Irrawaddy River. If completed, the 6,000 MW dam would rank among the largest hydropower projects in the region. Work on the project was begun in 2009 by Chinas State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), which was then known as the China Power Investment Corporation (CPI). However, then-President Thein Sein suspended it in 2011 amid widespread public concern over the dams social and environmental impacts.

Environmentalists warn that the dam site has some of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world and that the project would both destroy the natural beauty of the Irrawaddy River and disrupt water flow. They also warn that it could potentially flood an area the size of Singapore, destroying livelihoods and displacing more than 10,000 people.

After taking office in 2016, the National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government set up a 20-member commission to review the dam, particularly its potential impacts on the environment and local communities. According to the government, the commission has produced two reports, but neither has been made public.

Last year, the Union minister for investment and foreign economic relations, Thaung Tun, said the government and a commission studying the project held serious discussions exploring all possible options for the project, including downsizing the dam, relocating it or developing other projects instead. However, it has not announced a decision yet.

Moreover, pressure from Beijing to revive the dam has fueled negative sentiment toward the project among the Myanmar public. After visiting Kachin in December 2018, then Chinese Ambassador Hong Liang claimed the Kachin people were not opposed to the dams resumption, sparking a series of protests in major cities calling for the project to be canceled.

Prominent civil society leaders, environmentalists and film stars also announced a One Dollar campaign to collect money from the public in order to compensate China in exchange for scrapping the dam. Despite this strong show of public opposition, the Chinese company continues to lobby local officials that the dam is safe and wont collapse in the event of an earthquake, and will not destroy the regions biodiversity or have other harmful environmental impacts. It maintains its position that the project should be revived for the benefit of both sides.

During Chinese President Xi Jinpings trip to Naypyitaw in January, nearly four dozen civil society organizations (CSOs) issued a demand that he terminate the dam permanently, saying it poses a threat to the public welfare and to friendly relations between the two countries.

However, the project is still in limbo, as the NLD government has not officially announced its stance on the dam.

During a trip to the state just before the 2015 election, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi promised the Kachin people that she would make public the details of the project contract that the military dictatorship signed with China. However, she has since maintained a long silence on her own stance on the dam.

Gumgrawng Awng Hkam said, [Daw Aung San Suu Kyi] doesnt keep her promises. Nothing has happened in reality, including on the peace process and IDPs. She did not speak out and stand up for the people when they were demanding [that the dam be halted]. As a Kachin party, we have a responsibility to follow the peoples will.

I also want China to abolish the project, as the people in this country dont want it. Moreover, they should understand that no project should begin without a proper discussion with local people, Gumgrawng Awng Hkam said.

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In Arlington County, Virginia, judges are pushing back against attempts by Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, the County prosecutor, to dismiss certain marijuana cases due to her disagreement with Virginia drug law. As we have reported, Dehghani-Tafti was elected prosecutor with the considerable help of George Soros money. She promised, among other things, to refuse to prosecute some marijuana cases.

Dehghani-Tafti is keeping that promise, and local judges are not amused. According to the Washington Post, when she moved to dismiss a marijuana possession charge shortly after taking office, the judge, Daniel Fiore II, demanded a written brief from the prosecutor explaining the reasons for the dismissal. He then scheduled oral argument on the motion.

The Post reports that Judge Fiore refused to dismiss the case based on Dehghani-Taftis unwillingness to prosecute. However, he dismissed it because he found the lab tests insufficient to support a prosecution.

Judge Fiore and three other members of the Arlington County bench have entered an order requiring prosecutors to spell out in detail and in non-conclusory terms the reasons supporting the good cause required by Virginia law for all nolle pros or non-prosecution motions. Dehghani-Tafti responded by petitioning the Virginia Supreme Court for mandamus.

Does this sound familiar? It does if you have been following Michael Flynns case. In that action, the Department of Justice moved to dismiss the case, but Judge Emmet Sullivan did not promptly dismiss it. Instead, he called for briefing and a hearing.

Flynn petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for mandamus. The matter is still pending before that court. [UPDATE: The en banc D.C. Circuit has just denied Flynns petition for mandamus]

The Posts Tom Jackman concludes his story on the dispute in Arlington between Dehghani-Tafti and the court by citing the Flynn case. He quotes a brief by Republican attorneys general supporting the right of the executive branch to have a case dismissed without any exercise of judgment by the judiciary. He does not quote any of the briefs that take the opposite view, which I believe is also that of the Post.

Why would he? Jackmans story slants in favor of the Soros-backed left-wing prosecutor.

But theres an important distinction between the Dehghani-Tafti dispute and the Flynn case  a distinction that cuts heavily against the Arlington prosecutor. The Justice Department dismissed the Flynn case because it concluded that it couldnt prove a key element of the case against Flynn. This kind of decision is invested with prosecutors.

Dehghani-Tafti refuses to prosecute some marijuana cases because she disagrees with the law that makes them a crime. But its the people of Virginia, acting through their legislature, who are invested with deciding what is and what is not a crime.

Simply put, Dehghani-Tafti is trying to nullify a law. Thats not the role of a prosecutor.

As Judge Fiore explained in the case discussed above:

Essentially, the Commonwealth argues public policy as the reason to disregard a criminal statute that was fully considered, voted on and passed by both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly. The Court will not sanction an executives opinion that a law passed by the Virginia legislature is an ineffectual law, for in doing so the Court would be partisan and thus violate the Judicial Canon prohibiting partisan consideration when rendering an opinion or judgment of the Court.

Makes sense to me. Virginia law on marijuana possession might be too harsh. If so, the legislature, not some local prosecutor, should modify the law.
A new series of images sent to Earth by NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars show a spinning 'dust devil' as it skirts across the surface of the Red Planet.

NASA Curiosity Rover has been moving across the Gale crater for the past eight years, conducting experiments and sending sending stunning still images to Earth.

Gale crater is going through its 'windy season', stirring up dust devils - caused by vortices of fast wind raising dust from the ground - captured by Curiosity.

According to NASA researchers, being able to study weather phenomena on Mars that we can also see on Earth can help us understand seasons on the Red Planet.

NASA hasn't confirmed the size of the dust devil as it was too far away for accurate measurements, but orbiting spacecraft have seen some reaching 12 miles high.

Top is a moving image shared by NASA showing the dust devil - highlighted with a red circle. Below is the Curiosity rover that sent the images of the spinning vortex back to Earth

Its almost summer on Mars and because of this the surface of the Gale crater is heating up - this heating runs from early spring through to the Martian mid-summer.

When the surface warms enough, it causes convection and in turn vortices made up of fast winds that whip around low pressure cores - much like on Earth.

When the wind is strong enough - as has happened this year - they can pick up soil from the surface and create dust devils that can be seen across multiple still images sent back to Earth by the Curiosity rover.

'We often have to process these images, by enhancing whats changed between them, before dust devils clearly show up,' wrote NASA scientist Claire Newman.

'This dust devil was so impressive that - if you look closely - you can just see it moving to the right, at the border between the darker and lighter slopes, even in the raw images.'

Dust devils happen the same way on Earth as on Mars and form best when the terrain is relatively flat and dry and the air is warmer at the surface than above it.

They are actually very common on Mars - but actually seeing on in motion is rare as they are relatively short-lived and Curiosity only sends back still images.

We know about them because Curiosity and orbiting spacecraft have spotted the tracks these dust devils leave behind them - rather than one in motion.

To capture a dust devil movie the team had to get Curiosity to take a lot of images of the same region for between five and 30 minutes.

Then back on Earth the team worked to stitch the images together to creation a moving video that allowed them to track its path.

Monitoring their motion can provide information about a dust devil's movement, where they initiate and how they evolve.

'Looking at how fast theyre moving and in what direction also tells us about the background wind speed and direction at their location,' said Newman.

'We also made sure to take meteorological measurements with throughout each movie, in case we image a vortex thats close enough for us to also measure its pressure drop, impact on local temperatures, or even UV radiation if its dusty enough to partially block out the Sun.'

NASA has captured images of spinning dust devils on the Red Planet from space - but this is a still image rather than showing it in motion. This one reached 12 miles high

Dust devils also form on Earth. This is the moment a team of workers in Java, Indonesia, tried to 'kill' one with tools after it started wreaking havoc in the flour at a food processing plant

Monitoring dust devils isn't the primary mission of the atmospheric team, their goal is to drill and sample material as part of a 'wet chemistry' experiment.

This involves transforming less volatile organic chemistry into forms that can be detected by the equipment onboard the Curiosity rover.

While drilling and checking the samples, cameras on Curiosity could be used to monitor and capture images of the dust devil.

They also examined the dust seen above the rover in the crater.

'The dust measurements will help us to track the regional dust activity on Mars that has been seen from the surface and orbit in recent years,' Newman wrote.

Curiosity is currently the only moving rover on the Red Planet, but Perseverance is currently in flight between the worlds and is due to land on Mars early in 2021.

Full details of the discovery can be found on the NASA Mars Mission updates blog.
Samsung Pay users in South Korea just got a new physical card that can be used for multiple tasks and comes with discounts that can reach 5 percent. This move comes not long after the introduction of similar cards in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Samsung has recently introduced the Samsung Pay Card in the UK together with Curve and Samsung Money in the US with SoFi . Samsung Pay and Google Pay have around 100 million users worldwide, less than half of Apple Pay's impressive crowd of over 220 million customers.

The Samsung Pay Card can also be used for international payments in stores all over the world  as long as those stores can handle NFC payments. In these cases, the discount goes up to 5 percent but has a monthly limit of KR100,000  roughly US$84.

The aforementioned discounts are 1 percent for offline stores and 1.5 percent for online purchases. However, a 0.5 percent additional discount will be available until December 31, but this does not stop here  payments made at the Samsung Pay coupon shop are eligible for a 3 percent discount. Lastly, a 2 percent discount applies to transactions that involve postpaid transportation services.

Today, the South Korean market gets a new card for Samsung Pay users. Simply called "Samsung Pay Card," this is a credit card specially created for Samsung Pay users and comes with a set of various discounts that will be supplemented until the end of the year with additional bonuses.

- 5530 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2013 Codrut Nistor - Senior Tech Writersince 2013

In my early school days, I hated writing and having to make up stories. A decade later, I started to enjoy it. Since then, I published a few offline articles and then I moved to the online space, where I contributed to major websites that are still present online as of 2021 such as Softpedia, Brothersoft, Download3000, but I also wrote for multiple blogs that have disappeared over the years. I've been riding with the Notebookcheck crew since 2013 and I am not planning to leave it anytime soon. In love with good mechanical keyboards, vinyl and tape sound, but also smartphones, streaming services, and digital art.
The claim: This was taken tonight in one of the parking garages used by (Texas General Land Offfice) and other state agencies in downtown Austin, the same night the City of Austin voted to cut $150 million from Austin police. The need for police funding is as clear as ever. This is a dangerous path to go down.  Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush

PolitiFact ruling: False. While we dont know for certain when the video was taken, we do know that the damage was discovered by state law enforcement officers at least five days before the vote on cuts to the police budget.

Plus, Bushs attempt to connect the damage with the police department is misleading, as the parking garage is not within the Austin Police Departments jurisdiction. The Texas Department of Public Safety discovered the damage and is conducting an investigation.

IN-DEPTH: How Trumps law and order rhetoric applies to Texas, and how it doesnt

Discussion:

The Texas Department of Public Safety is investigating the incident featured in the video on Bushs Twitter account.

Troopers with the agency discovered multiple vehicles with shattered windows during a routine early morning garage check at a parking garage near the Capitol on Aug. 8, according to a statement from the agency.

The vehicles are owned by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Texas Department of Agriculture and the General Land Office.

An investigation confirmed 14 vehicles had windows broken with what appears to be a BB or pellet air gun, reads the statement. At this time, no arrests have been made, and the investigation is ongoing.

The Texas Department of Public Safety is responsible for security at the Texas Capitol and the surrounding buildings.

The Austin City Council approved the citys budget for the coming fiscal year during a meeting on Aug. 13.

The $4.2 billion budget included about $150 million in planned cuts to the Austin Police Department, which was slated to receive $434 million in the initial budget proposal before the council.

Of the $150 million in approved cuts, about $20 million will be immediately removed from the departments funding by canceling three upcoming cadet classes, reducing overtime costs and pulling money from commodities and contractuals.

The money will be redirected to other programs and city departments, including violence prevention efforts and local emergency COVID-19 response.

The other $130 million will be moved from the Police Department budget into two transitional funds aimed at moving certain services out from under the umbrella of the police department, including support services, recruiting and traffic enforcement.
No one was injured in the altercation, which took place at about 8:50 p.m. Saturday when the officer stopped a 41-year-old Waukegan man on suspicion of driving under the influence, according to the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force. Instead of stopping, the task force said, the man accelerated and drove away before eventually stopping at the intersection of 24th Street and Dickey Avenue.
NOAA/NASA's Suomi NPP satellite captured two images that tell the story about the smoke coming off the fires in California. One instrument on the provided a visible image of the smoke, while another analyzed the aerosol content within. The images were captured on August 30, 2020.

The first image captured by the Suomi NPP satellite using the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) Corrected Reflectance imagery shows a true-color image (called true-color or natural color because this combination of wavelengths is similar to what the human eye would see) of the wildfires still burning across large swaths of the state. Smoke is pouring off the fires and traveling in two different directions. Some of the smoke is traveling northeast into Nevada and as far east (in this image) as Salt Lake City, Utah, and some is traveling west into the Pacific Ocean.

The second image was captured by Suomi NPP with the OMPS Aerosol Indexer and shows not only the direction of the smoke's travel but the thickness of the aerosol layer that has moved outward from the fires. The OMPS (Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite) Aerosol Indexer on Suomi NPP is an instrument that indicates the presence of ultraviolet-absorbing particles in the air coming from dust (desert) or, as in this case, soot from fires. The Aerosol Indexer found on the image as a scale is unitless, that is, the lowest and highest range do not relate directly to each other. It just indicates whether the scale is low or high. In this image of smoke coming off the California fires, the aerosols found were mostly in the moderate range (yellow) with some higher range areas (red). Higher concentrations can reduce visibility and impact human health. The Aerosol index is also useful for tracking long-range transport of these aerosols that move along jet streams.

NASA's satellite instruments are often the first to detect wildfires burning in remote regions, and the locations of new fires are sent directly to land managers worldwide within hours of the satellite overpass. Together, NASA instruments detect actively burning fires, track the transport of smoke from fires, provide information for fire management, and map the extent of changes to ecosystems, based on the extent and severity of burn scars. NASA has a fleet of Earth-observing instruments, many of which contribute to our understanding of fire in the Earth system. Satellites in orbit around the poles provide observations of the entire planet several times per day, whereas satellites in a geostationary orbit provide coarse-resolution imagery of fires, smoke and clouds every five to 15 minutes. For more information visit: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/missions/index.html

NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Worldview application provides the capability to interactively browse over 700 global, full-resolution satellite imagery layers and then download the underlying data. Many of the available imagery layers are updated within three hours of observation, essentially showing the entire Earth as it looks "right now." Actively burning fires, detected by thermal bands, are shown as red points. Image Courtesy: NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).

###

By Lynn Jenner

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
New Delhi:

The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack on a nightclub in the Turkish city of Istanbul that killed 39 people including two Indians on New Year's Eve.

In a statement circulated on social media, the IS said one of the "soldiers of the caliphate" had carried out the attack on the Reina nightclub.

Close to 70 others were injured in what authorities described as a terror attack. Three of the wounded were in critical condition.

The attacker, armed with a long-barreled weapon, killed a policeman and a civilian outside the popular club at around 1.15am (local time) before entering and firing on people partying inside. The search is on for the assailant in Turkey.

Turkey is a member of NATO and a partner in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group. The country is also facing renewed conflict with Kurdish rebels in the southeast, and across the border in Syria and Iraq.

(With inputs from PTI)

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
A county worker was killed and three firefighters were injured after a sidewalk in a Florida suburb collapsed on Friday.

The Seminole County Fire Department tweeted that firefighters responded to a report of a trapped person in Lake Mary. Officials say that the worker died and three firefighters were hurt.

Orlando television station WFTV reports that a county environmental service department worker was working on a water main leak beneath the sidewalk when it collapsed. The hole was near an electrical transformer and the three firefighters were shocked when the area became energized, according to WFTV.

Lake Mary is located about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Orlando.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Florida
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Monday asked a member of the Pinjra Tod, a women's collective, to consider if she wishes her bail application to be heard after two weeks when a charge sheet is likely to be filed for her alleged role in a case related to the communal violence in northeast Delhi during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act in February.

Justice Vibhu Bakhru noted that the police have two weeks' time left to conclude investigation in the case and they will have to file the charge sheet by September 17 before the trial court after which the bail plea can be filed there.

The high court was hearing a bail plea by JNU student Natasha Narwal, who was arrested in May and has challenged a trial court's order denying her the relief.

"As far as this petitioner (Narwal) is concerned, a charge sheet will be filed within the time given then you will have the entire material with you which this court has with it right now. We are of the prime facie view that there is evidence against you," the judge orally said during the hearing.

The judge said till now it has perused 20 per cent of the case diary of the police and it was of the prima facie that there is material against Narwal and the material is such which it do not think any court can ignore.

The high court, which said it will go through the case diary in detail, asked advocate Adit S Pujari, appearing for Narwal, to seek instructions from his client and apprise the court about it on Tuesday.

Initially during the day, the high court conducted a restricted video conferencing hearing in which the counsel representing Delhi Police and the investigating officer of the case were present and the judge perused the case diary. Narwal's counsel was not privy to the details of the case diary.

The high court had earlier issued notice to the Delhi Police on the plea challenging a trial court's order which had dismissed the bail application of JNU student Natasha Narwal.

Narwal and another member of the group Devangana Kalita were arrested in the case in May this year by the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police and booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including rioting, unlawful assembly and attempt to murder.

They have also been booked under the stringent anti-terror law - Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in a separate case related to the communal violence, for allegedly being part of a "premeditated conspiracy" in the riots.

Communal clashes had broken out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.

In all, four cases have been registered against Kalita, including in relation to the northeast Delhi riots earlier this year and violence in old Delhi's Daryaganj area during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in December last year. Narwal is accused in three cases.

On June 14, a trial court had dismissed bail pleas of Narwal and Kalita on the ground that there was no merit in the applications and that it was amply clear from the charge sheet that the investigation was still pending and it has been filed against other accused persons also.

It had said that considering the investigation so far and the nature of the offence and the role being ascribed to the accused, there were no reasons at all to grant bail.

The trial court was informed that the charge sheet has been filed against 10 persons in the case and investigation qua the accused persons was still being done. Kalita has also challenged the trial court's order denying her bail and the high court has reserved its decision on the plea.

Pinjra Tod (Break the Cage) was founded in 2015 with an aim to make hostels and paying guest accommodations less restrictive for women students.


In the cosmology of the Chinese Communist Party, the existence of Uighur Muslims is a threat not only to China's dominant ethnic group, the Han, but also to the broader economic goals of the Chinese state. As a result, the CCP continues its ruthless attempts to subjugate and control the ethnic and religious minority.



The Uighurs populate China's westernmost Xinjiang province. A thousand years ago this region was at the heart of the Silk Road, the network of trade routes that linked Asia with Europe. Today Xinjiang is a major logistics hub that is critical to China's ambitious global infrastructure plan, which aspires to link the old Silk Road again.



The CCP believes that unrest in Xinjiang, in the form of a Uighur separatist movement, could derail these grandiose plans. Therefore, expressions of Uighur identity are punished, while Chinese totalitarianism and religious intolerance rule the region. Chinese officials argue that China's policies in Xinjiang are simply an extension of the "global war on terror" and that the restive minority must be "re-educated" to combat religious and political extremism.



According to the United Nations, over 1 million Uighurs are being held without charge in what are being described as concentration camps. This may be the largest imprisonment of people based on religion since the Holocaust.



Not only do the Uighurs experience the full panopticon of surveillance by the Chinese state, they must endure forced labor, Communist Party orthodoxies and the suppression of their religion.



Particularly grotesque are the measures Chinese authorities have taken to slash Muslim birthrates. As reported by German scholar Adrian Zenz, Uighur women endure forced abortions and sterilizations.



The U.N. is in a position to draw attention to human rights abuses, but it has no ability to stop them, especially when they are perpetrated by a veto-wielding member such as China.



That makes it all the more imperative that the United States lead the world in applying pressure on China to adhere to the international human rights framework that protects ethnic and religious minorities from discrimination.



Led by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio _ Congress' loudest defender of the Uighur people _ the U.S. is using its diplomatic and commercial tools to disrupt the Chinese system of oppression.



In June, President Donald Trump signed into law the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, which placed sanctions on top Chinese officials associated with the human rights violations. The U.S. also blocked certain imports from the Xinjiang region and blacklisted companies that had ties to forced Uighur labor.



Beijing is set to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, and if the CCP's campaign of cultural genocide does not stop, the U.S. and its allies should consider an attempt to block the country from hosting the illustrious event. If imprisoning 1 million people in concentration camps is not enough of a reason to lose host privileges, then what would be?



The fact that these atrocities are taking place in a remote part of the world far from public view is even more of a reason that the U.S. should continue to assume global leadership and work to promote and secure the rights and freedoms of the Uighur people.





This editorial appeared at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and was distributed by Tribune Content Agency.


Beijing:

BRICS countries should enhance solidarity, cooperation and safeguard common interests as they face growing uncertainties and instabilities in international situations, according to Chinese President Xi Jinping, who assumes the Presidency of the five-member bloc this year.



Facing growing uncertainties and instability in international affairs, BRICS countries need to enhance solidarity and safeguard common interests, Xi said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russia President Vladimir Putin, South African President Jacob Zuma and Brazilian President Michel Temer, official media reported.



In accordance with an open, inclusive and win-win BRICS spirit, China will work with other BRICS countries to make the Xiamen summit a success and move forward BRICS cooperation to a new level, he said, state-run China Daily reported on Monday.



Briefing fellow BRICS leaders about Chinas blueprint for promoting cooperation among the member states during Chinas presidency of the bloc this year, Xi said Beijing will host the ninth BRICS leaders summit in Xiamen, a coastal city in southeastern Chinas Fujian province in September this year.



The summit will focus on four aspects, deepening pragmatic cooperation for common development, enhancing global governance to jointly counter challenges, carrying out people-to-people exchanges to consolidate public support for cooperation and promoting mechanism-building to construct broader partnership, said Xi, also the General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).



Xi attended last years summit of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) in Goa under Indias Presidency. The Presidency goes on rotation every year.



In the first decade of its existence, BRICS has moved forward on the economic front establishing BRICS bank called the New Development Bank (NDB), which was established with initial subscribed capital of USD 50 billion with total paid-in capital of USD 10 billion.



The Shanghai-based bank headed by Indian banker K V Kamath has started disbursing loans for various green infrastructure projects in the five countries.



Xis letter comes ahead of US President-elect Donal Trump taking over as President later this month amid apprehensions that he would pursue hardline US centric policies which Beijing avers will affect the current order of globalisation benefitting the emerging economies.



China hopes cooperation among BRICS grouping will move forward to a new level during its 9th summit, Xi said.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
OLATHE, KS (KCTV) -- A suspect who was being looked after at an Olathe hospital escaped on-foot Monday morning. The suspect was in custody at the hospital stemming from an aggravated assault case, according to the Johnson County Sheriff's Office. Deputies responded around 4:30 a.m. to Olathe Medical Center following the suspect's escape.
CENTENNIAL, Colo., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NioCorp Developments Ltd. ("NioCorp" or the "Company") (TSX: NB; OTCQX: NIOBF) is pleased to announce that its CEO and Executive Chairman Mark Smith will present to investors around the world on NioCorp's Elk Creek Superalloy Materials Project at 12:30 PM Eastern, Wednesday, September 16, 2020, via live webcast. The presentation is part of the 22nd Annual Global Investment Conference, sponsored by New York City-based H.C. Wainwright & Co.

WHAT NioCorp live presentation on the Elk Creek Superalloy Materials Project in conjunction with the 22nd Annual H.C. Wainwright & Co. Global Investment Conference



WHEN 12:30 PM Eastern, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020



WHO Presentation by Mark Smith, NioCorp CEO & Executive Chairman



AUDIENCE Hundreds of private equity firms, venture capitalists, institutional investors, family funds, and individual investors around the world



WEBCAST The public can watch the webcast live by going here: https://wsw.com/webcast/hcw7/niobf/1724990



REPLAY A replay of Mr. Smith's presentation will be made available as soon as possible after the conference on NioCorp's website at www.niocorp.com.

In addition to Mr. Smith's presentation to investors, he and NioCorp's Vice President for External Affairs Jim Sims will be participating in one-on-one virtual meetings with investors over the several days of the conference.

"We want to thank the great team at H.C. Wainwright for providing NioCorp with this platform once again, and we look forward to participating in what is always an excellent and top-shelf event," said Mr. Smith. "Telling the NioCorp and Elk Creek Project story to prospective new investors all around the world is an ongoing mission for all of us at NioCorp, and one that we never tire of."

More information on the conference can be seen here:

https://www.meetmax.com/sched/event_61861/conference_home.html

NioCorp $NB $NIOBF #Niobium #Scandium #ElkCreek #HCWainwright

For More Information

Contact Jim Sims, VP of External Affairs, NioCorp Developments Ltd., 720-639-4650, [email protected], https://www.niocorp.com

About NioCorp

NioCorp is developing a superalloy materials project in Southeast Nebraska that will produce Niobium, Scandium, and Titanium. Niobium is used to produce superalloys as well as High Strength, Low Alloy ("HSLA") steel, which is a lighter, stronger steel used in automotive, structural, and pipeline applications. Scandium is a superalloy material that can be combined with Aluminum to make alloys with increased strength and improved corrosion resistance. Scandium also is a critical component of advanced solid oxide fuel cells. Titanium is used in various superalloys and is a key component of pigments used in paper, paint and plastics and is also used for aerospace applications, armor and medical implants.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this new release may constitute forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the Company's expectation that it will present at the Conference referenced and participate in discussions with individual investors. Readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause a change in such assumptions and the actual outcomes and estimates to be materially different from those estimated or anticipated future results, achievements or position expressed or implied by those forward-looking statements. Risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause NioCorp's plans or prospects to change include risks related to the Company's ability to operate as a going concern; risks related to the Company's requirement of significant additional capital; changes in demand for and price of commodities (such as fuel and electricity) and currencies; changes in economic valuations of the Project, such as Net Present Value calculations, changes or disruptions in the securities markets; legislative, political or economic developments; the need to obtain permits and comply with laws and regulations and other regulatory requirements; the possibility that actual results of work may differ from projections/expectations or may not realize the perceived potential of NioCorp's projects; risks of accidents, equipment breakdowns and labor disputes or other unanticipated difficulties or interruptions; the possibility of cost overruns or unanticipated expenses in development programs; operating or technical difficulties in connection with exploration, mining or development activities; the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development, including the risks of diminishing quantities of grades of reserves and resources; and the risks involved in the exploration, development and mining business and the risks set forth in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators at www.sedar.com and the SEC at www.sec.gov. NioCorp disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE NioCorp Developments Ltd.

Related Links

http://www.niocorp.com


She was back in the United States following a short business trip to Paris.

But Kylie Jenner looked poised for another business meeting on Sunday as she showed off a business chic coat.

The 23-year-old Keeping Up With The Kardashians star posed in the look in a short video posted to her Instagram Stories.

Business chic: Kylie Jenner, 23, looked as if she were ready for a business meeting in her chic yellow coat, which she posted to her Insta Stories on Sunday

Kylie wore a paper-thin pale yellow jacket with wide notched lapels and a black blouse on underneath.

She wore her lightened brunette tresses pulled back with voluminous strands resting over one shoulder.

The reality star wore multiple jeweled earrings and sported cat-eye makeup.

She accessorized with a black alligator print handbag with a silver clasp.

Standing out: Kylie wore a paper-thin pale yellow jacket with wide notched lapels and a black blouse on underneath. She accessorized with a black alligator print handbag

Home turf: It wasn't clear what the faux billionaire was dressed up for, but she was back in the US following a quick business trip to Paris

Kylie leaned back to show off a bit of her outfit in the short clip, before leaning forward to highlight her impeccably made-up face.

It wasn't clear what the faux billionaire was dressed up for, but she was back in the US following a quick business trip to Paris.

She was spotted throughout the City of Lights, and also shared multiple snapshots from the photo to her Instagram.

Kylie took business meetings with executives from Coty Cosmetics, the company which bought a majority stake in Kylie Cosmetics, making her a near-billionaire.

Paris vacation: She was spotted throughout the City of Lights, where she traveled for in-person business meetings with executive of Coty Cosmetics, which bought a majority stake in Kylie Cosmetics

Pandemic outrage: The trip sparked outrage from social media users, as she ignored California guidelines not to travel, and she seemed to have ignored EU travel bans on Americans

However, the trip sparked outrage from some social media users over her trip for non-essential reasons in the midst of a pandemic.

'You don't have to deal with COVID if ur rich,' sniped one fan in the comments of a post.

'Is the pandemic over for rich people? I just see them taking luxurious vacations to tropical places or Europe like how is Kylie Jenner in Paris rn I don't understand,' wrote another.

Another remarked, 'Kylie Jenner going to Paris during Covid while the rest of the world can't travel or visit family in other countries/states due to border restrictions just doesn't sit well with me.'

Kylie seemed to have ignored guidelines issued by California Governor Gavin Newsom restricting travel.

The state government's official website website currently urges people to only travel for 'urgent matters.'

There have been nearly 13,000 deaths from the pandemic in the state of California, with over 700,000 cases.

In all of the US, 183,000 people have succumbed to COVID-19, while a stunning six million have tested positive for the illness

Puzzling: It's not clear how Kylie got an exemption to enter the EU, and she documented herself ignoring the 14-day quarantine period for entering France

Hanging out: Kylie shared some photos of herself hanging out with the Jenner family friend Fai Khadra

Other critics wondered how Kylie had even been admitted to Paris in the first place.

The European Union has instituted travel restrictions that ban people from the United States from entering any EU countries due to the US' failure to control its coronavirus cases.

Though the EU lists multiple exemptions to the travel restrictions, Kylie doesn't appear to qualify for any of them.

The official website of the US Embassy & Consulates in France currently states all arrivals in France from the US 'must provide the results of a virologic screening test (such as a PCR test) taken less than 72 hours before departure indicating a negative result for Covid-19.'

The website also states: 'Travelers arriving in France must self-isolate for 14 days if they have no symptoms. Anyone displaying symptoms could be subject to quarantine for up to 30 days.'

However, Kylie documented herself enjoying the town and not quarantining.
17:00





Mukherjee, who had tested positive for coronavirus and had been in coma after a brain surgery earlier this month, passed away on Monday evening at the Army's Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi. He was 84.





"I also request a postal stamp. If the government agrees, I will be very happy," he said. "And on personal side, I am planning to convert the first floor or the ground floor of the house my father constructed at Jangipur into a museum-cum-library," Abhijit said. "I will gather his personal belongings, particularly the vast number of books, gift items like plaques and put them into that museum," he said.





Abhijit, however, rued his father could never stay in that house for longer durations. By the time the house was constructed, he had gone to a bigger house, the President's House, he said, as the elder statesman left on his final journey.





Abhijit remembered he had brought a jackfruit for his father from their farm in Jangipur on August 4. "Jackfruit is available in Delhi, too, but I took all the pain because that's from our field. I travelled by a train and brought him one," the former Jangipur MP said. "My father ate it. Fortunately, his blood sugar level remained in control. I am happy I could at least fulfill this wish of my father," he said.





Abhijit said his father had told him that in politics and otherwise, one should avoid being revengeful. "His message was clear and I will always remember it. Abhijit also thanked the doctors for trying their best while treating his father. They tried everything but it seems he had completed his role in the world. He passed away at the right age. He got everything whatever a common man wants to have," Abhijit added.





Family members, relatives, friends, politicians, members of the general public and Congress workers paid their homage to the departed leader at his 10, Rajaji Marg residence.









Former President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit, a parliamentarian, Tuesday said he plans to convert one floor of their house in West Bengal's Jangipur into a museum-cum-library in the memory of the departed leader. Abhijit also said he would like the government to issue a postage stamp in honour of his father.
Burma Myanmars Military Blamed for Two Rakhine Civilian Deaths

Kyauktaw Township Hospital. / Min Aung Khine / The Irrawaddy

Sittwe, Rakhine State  Two civilians in Rakhine States Kyauktaw Township were allegedly shot dead by Myanmars military last week as the state experiences a COVID-19 surge.

A 30-year-old man from Shan Ywa village on the outskirts of Kyauktaw and a 36-year-old woman from Apaukwa village were killed by troops, according to their families.

Ko Maung Naing Win went out to relieve himself at around 10 pm on Aug. 26, said his sister Daw Ma Hla Mya.

We live on the outskirts of the town and have no toilet. As my brother went out to relieve himself, he encountered soldiers who shot him dead. Then they sent his body to the police station, saying that they killed an AA [Arakan Army] member, Daw Ma Hla Mya told The Irrawaddy.

Ko Maung Naing Wins body was covered in bruises besides gunshot wounds, said his relatives.

The militarys Tatmadaw True News Information Team said troops on patrol saw suspicious signaling with flashlights at around 1.35 am on Aug. 27 on the Kyauktaw-Wakin road. Two people ran away when troops told them to come for interrogation.

The troops fired warning shots. One escaped but the other died with a Quansheng walkie-talkie and an unlicensed Smash-125 motorbike. The body was taken to a police station, said the information team.

All the people in our ward know my brother opened a mobile phone shop and was supporting our elderly mother. He had no motorbike. That day soldiers came into our house and drank water. They looked for rice. They asked my husband how many children we had. And they took the motorbike from our neighbors, she told The Irrawaddy.

On Aug. 27, a woman was killed and two others, aged 33 and 37, were wounded seriously when an artillery shell fell on the farm where they were working in Apaukwa village by the Yangon-Sittwe road at around 10 km from Kyauktaw.

My sister and four other women were working on a farm to the west of the village at around 10 am on Aug. 27. We heard that troops at Yahtar railway station fired shots at someone from U Sun Taung village. They missed the target because he was riding a motorbike. Then my sister and her friends came out of the field thinking that the shooting was over. She was hit by shrapnel, said U Hla Maung Sein, brother of the victim, Daw Bu Ma.

The military-appointed Rakhine State minister for security and border affairs, Colonel Min Than, said there were no clashes near Apaukwa on Aug. 27.

Perhaps the three women were hit by artillery shells. It is unknown which side fired the shells, he told The Irrawaddy.

Two others are receiving treatment at Kyauktaw Township Hospital and the funeral of Daw Bu Ma was held on Friday.

Myanmars military has extended its unilateral ceasefire but not in Rakhine State, while it has seen the largest outbreak of COVID-19 in Myanmar.

In its Aug. 24 statement about the extension of the ceasefire, the military said its ceasefire will not take effect where armed groups are designated by the government as terrorist organizations. Rakhine State and Chin States Paletwa Township  where the AA is active  is therefore exempt from the ceasefire.

As the government has declared the AA a terrorist organization, The Irrawaddy was not able to contact the armed group for a comment.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

You may also like these stories:

Police Officer Stabbed to Death in Myanmars Rakhine State

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Strategic partnership with Southeast Asias largest proptech group will expand agency network to more than 15,000

proptech group

Singapores third-largest real estate company, with more than 4,300 agents, OrangeTee & Tie Pte Ltd (OTT), has entered into a strategic partnership with Juwai IQI, Southeast Asias largest proptech group and operator of real estate super-brands, Juwai and IQI Global. By joining forces, Juwai IQI and OTT will open up new opportunities for their combined force of more than 15,000 property agents across Asia, Australia, Canada and the Middle East to better serve buyers, sellers and developers.

Juwai IQIs operations currently comprise Juwai.com, Chinas largest online marketplace for overseas properties; Juwai.asia, the sole global property portal for Asia-based buyers and IQI Global, owner of Southeast Asias largest real estate network even prior to the partnership. OTT is currently marketing more than 70 developer projects in Singapore. The tie-up with Juwai IQI will provide Singapore developers with a single, end-to-end solution for marketing and selling their new homes to buyers locally and around the world. The combined network will also ensure that Singaporean buyers of overseas properties have access to more than 2.8 million property listings in 91 countries, as well as dedicated after-sales service by local agents in the countries of investment.

With the COVID-19 pandemic having accelerated the industrys rate of technological change, another key benefit of the partnership is the opportunity to combine both companies technological infrastructure to better support the combined network of agents and clients.

Steven Tan, Managing Director of OTT, said, At the heart of our culture is collaboration and innovation and we are delighted that Juwai IQI shares the same values and prioritises the use of technology to leverage growth and improve client service. Both are technology companies as much as real estate companies. Integrating our platforms and working jointly to build new capabilities will increase delivery speed and allow new features to be rolled out at a faster pace. The fact that Juwai IQI is the leading player in real estate technology is icing on the cake for us. OTTs position as a strategic partner of Juwai IQI will serve to connect overseas-based property buyers with Singapores real estate offerings and vice versa.

Story continues

Daniel Ho, Group Managing Director of IQI Global, said, We are tremendously pleased to welcome the OrangeTee & Tie team to Juwai IQI. Steven Tan is one of the stars of Singapores real estate industry.

This tie-up will allow our agents to help Singapore-based buyers purchase real estate in any of the 91 countries from which we market property. On the other hand, the expansion also makes it easier for us to help investors from other countries who want to own real estate in Singapore, which is one of the most popular destination markets in the region.

Now with our combined force of more than 15,000 agents, we can look forward to many joint-collaborations to empower agents to better assist their buyers in landing their dream property, locally and globally.

Kashif Ansari, IQI Global Group CEO, said, We are pleased to announce that IQI is now in Singapore. Buyers from China, Malaysia, India and South East Asia are leading investors in Singapore, and we have a very strong presence and network in each of these locations. Together, we will be able to cater to buyers investing in Singapore as well as take Singapore to the world.

The largest proptech group Juwai IQI Executive Chairman Georg Chmiel said, With Steven Tan and everyone at OrangeTee & Tie, our IQI agent network has the benefit of one of Singapores very best teams.

One key to success during the pandemic has been the rapid adoption of new technology. We have deployed technologies that improve agent productivity, enable remote property marketing and relationship building and give developers an end-to-end solution in advertising and selling their listings. We are now well positioned to help both buyers and developers in Singapore to discover new markets, just like we already do across Asia.

Mr Paul Ho, chief mortgage officer at iCompareLoan, said, OTTs partnership with South East Asiss largest proptech group sends a signal to the other players in the industry that they cannot continue to operate as they had done before. They must be bold in embracing new technology.

About OrangeTee & Tie Pte Ltd

Founded in February 2000, OrangeTee has firmly established itself as one of the most reputable, dynamic and fast-growing real estate companies in Singapore over the past two decades.

In 2017, the associate agencies of OrangeTee and Edmund Tie & Company merged to form OrangeTee & Tie. Today, OrangeTee & Tie has more than 4,300 property agents, making it the third-largest real estate agency in Singapore. The company remains at the forefront of technology and innovation within the property industry, as a champion for transparent and ethical advisory practices, while committed to building a sustainable business by building a sustainable world.

OrangeTee & Tie transacted more than 35,000 units of properties and sold more than US$5.5 billion of property in 2019. It is the first company in Singapore to introduce an agents review platform for customers to make informed decisions.

About Juwai IQI  Largest proptech group

Juwai IQI is the holding company that operates the Asian real estate super-brands dedicated to empowering residents of Asia to become residents of the world: IQI and Juwai. IQI is the No. 1 real estate network in Southeast Asia and the Middle East and sold US$1 billion of property in 2019. IQI now has more than 15,000 salespeople and associates across 15 countries. Juwai operates Juwai.com, the No. 1 Chinese marketplace for overseas property, as well as Juwai.asia, the first global portal for Asian buyers outside of mainland China. Juwai advertises US$4 trillion of property from 91 countries every year.

The post Orange Tee & Tie joins forces with SEAs largest proptech group appeared first on iCompareLoan Resources.
The Government of Sint Maarten would like to inform the public that the current Coronavirus data which provides more details, will be made available on the COVID-19 Page on the Government website. You can check the website page on a daily basis for updates.





The information was recently simplified in the graphics form and press releases and circulated to the media and the community via various forums and groups. This was done based on many complaints received that the numbers were confusing to the public and the decision was taken to keep the infographic as simple as possible depicting the breakdown of the total cases.





Due to many requests received, the detailed information will be made available via the Government website.





For more official information about COVID-19 disease as well as the latest detailed statistics, go to www.sintmaartengov.org/coronavirus.





Residents and visitors are reminded to adhere strictly to the COVID-19 Prevention Measures that have been promoted to protect public health against the COVID-19 virus.





The community must stay aware of the continued risk to contract the virus and how the spread of the virus can be decreased. All persons are requested to be on the alert and follow the prevention measures.





Everyone is potentially exposed to this virus, and it is essential to observe the proper hygiene measures and prevention protocols that have been promoted during the past seven-months.





You are reminded in order to break the transmission mode of the virus: Wash your hands with soap and water frequently (minimum 20 seconds) or sanitize your hand with 60 percent alcohol-based sanitizer if there is no soap & water available; Do not touch your eyes, nose and mouth (face); Cough and sneeze in a tissue or your flex elbow (remember throw all used tissues in garbage bin).





Maintain a physical distance a.k.a. social distance of two (2) meters from other persons; Wear your mask where social distance is not possible and in public places as requested.





If you are sick with flu-like symptoms, remain isolated at home and separate yourself from your family and call your physician or call 914 for additional information.
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP)  A Syrian Defense Ministry official said Israels military fired missiles Monday night on areas south of the capital Damascus killing two soldiers, wounding seven and causing material damage.

The unnamed Defense Ministry official, who was quoted by state media, said the strikes targeted military posts south of Damascus adding that Syrian air defenses shot down most of the missiles before they hit their targets.

The official said the missiles were fired from the area of Syrias Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The missile attack started at 10:40 p.m. (1940 GMT).

Residents of the capital Damascus said they heard explosions south of the city.

An opposition war monitor said Israels military targeted military posts south of Damascus. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian air defenses were responding to the attack.

Israel rarely comments on such reports, but is believed to have carried out scores of raids targeting Irans military presence in Syria. In the past three months alone, Syria has accused Israel of carrying out at least eight air raids on its territory. The last reported strikes came on July 20.

Iran is a key ally of the Syrian government in the nearly decade-long civil war. Israel views Iran as a regional menace and has vowed to prevent any permanent Iranian military buildup in Syria, particularly near the frontier.

In recent months, Israeli officials have also expressed concern that Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese militant group that operates in Syria, is trying to establish facilities to produce precision-guided missiles. Tensions have also risen along the Israel-Lebanon border.

During last month's strikes on Syria, a Hezbollah member was killed and the Lebanese militant group vowed to retaliate against Israel. On Sunday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed to kill Israeli soldiers whenever Israel kills Hezbollah fighters in Syria.
You mightn't believe me, but this happened: by attending the corporate box at a rugby game, a man with no experience in the insurance game was appointed as the chief executive of a major Australian insurer. And, with a reference from a radio shock jock, a man with no experience in the motor vehicle repair industry was appointed as chief executive of a large motoring service.

You'd better believe me. These things happened. And they're still prone to happen in corporate Australia, where mates appoint mates to boards. It's at the heart of a sickness in our corporate culture that deprives our company boards of true diversity and independence.

Roadside assistance? Some help is needed for Australia's outdated corporate culture. Credit:Elesa Kurtz

But let me take you back to early December 1990. Jane Singleton and I had just become the first new directors elected to the board of the NRMA since World War II, other than a director who'd been due to retire but was re-nominated. I caught the train into the city from West Ryde for my first NRMA board meeting.

Being the new kid on the block, I thought I should arrive a bit early. I got out of the lift to find I'd arrived right in the middle of the long-established pre-board meeting cocktail party. Looking a little lost, a kindly waiter wearing bow tie and cummerbund took me over to meet old Jim Millner, who was NRMA president and chairman of both Washington H Soul Pattinson and Brickworks Limited. The NRMA had the largest shareholdings in both companies next to those of Jim's family. A great voting bloc to have at any annual general meeting.
She is back in LA following a sun-soaked getaway to Cabo San Lucas.

And Kim Kardashian delighted fans with slew of sizzling snaps from her recent getaway to Mexico on Monday.

In the snaps, the reality star, 39, posed by the beach in her tiny hot pink string bikini.

'Happy place': Kim Kardashian delighted fans with slew of sizzling snaps from her recent getaway to Mexico on Monday

'Happy place', Kim captioned the photo series, which saw her walking along the sand with her gym-honed physique on full display.

The star styled her hair into two long pigtails which cascaded far past her chest, while using a smoky hue of eye shadow and bronze blush to amplify her features.

The first snap caught Kim lounging seductively in her infinity pool with the waves crashing just a stone's throw away.

In another snap, Kim playfully stuck out her tongue towards the camera.

Making waves: Kim lounged seductively in the beach front infinity pool

Tongue tied! The star playfully stuck her tongue out at the camera while posing by the waves

The fourth and final snippet from the slideshow was a brief clip of Kim lounging at the edge of the pool.

As Kim turned her head, she seductively raised her knee out of the water.

Kim was spotted on the beaches of Cabo earlier this month taking these photos, which are said to be for her KWW beauty range.

The shoot occurred amid a tumultuous time for Kim and her husband Kanye West, who have been embroiled in marital drama since his wild presidential rally in South Carolina.

Making a splash: The fourth and final snippet from the slideshow was a brief clip of Kim lounging at the edge of the pool

The couple, who share daughters North, seven, Chicago, two, and sons Saint, four, and Psalm, 14 months, subsequently headed to the Caribbean in a reported bid to save their marriage amid his bipolar struggles.

Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that Kanye is keen on purchasing another ranch in Wyoming, where he already spends much of his time working.

The Bound 2 rapper is reportedly interested in purchasing the Double Doc Ranch in Cody, Wyoming after visiting it the other day.

Family matters: The couple share daughters North, seven, Chicago, two, and sons Saint, four, and Psalm, 14 months

Giddy up: Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that Kanye is keen on purchasing another ranch in Wyoming, where he already spends much of his time working (pictured 2019)

The ranch, which operates as a horse breeding and training facility, is already home to three horses owned by the Kardashian-West family, TMZ reports.

Kanye's wife Kim previously revealed he wants to move to Wyoming but her law studies mean they can't just yet.

Kim must remain a resident of California so she can sit the state bar exam there in 2024. She said at the time: 'I know that my husband wants to move to Wyoming, but I love California.'

'Honestly, the sky, the air, everything is different in Wyoming. I love it. It's a happy place for me, and my sisters, we all want to get a ranch there. We just did a cattle drive down there. It's been amazing.'

However, she is currently based in Los Angeles.
The Czech senate's Milos Vystrcil and his wife wave to salute the press in Taipei, Taiwan, on August 30, 2020.

Czech Senate speaker Milos Vystrcil will "pay a heavy price" for making an official trip to Taiwan and China will not sit idly by, the Chinese government's top diplomat said on Monday, in a warning brushed off by Taiwan's government.

Vystrcil arrived in Taipei on Sunday on a visit to promote business links with Taiwan, saying the Czech Republic would not bow to Beijing's objections.

Speaking while in Germany, Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi said there would be retribution.

"The Chinese government and Chinese people won't take a laissez-faire attitude or sit idly by, and will make him pay a heavy price for his short-sighted behaviour and political opportunism," China's Foreign Ministry cited Wang as saying.
The statue of Sir John A. MacDonald lies headless on the grass after it was torn down following a demonstration in Montreal on Aug. 29, 2020. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

The High Cost of Turning a Blind Eye to Vandalism

Commentary

On a damp Saturday afternoon in Montreal this past weekend, a small mostly peaceful march under the banner of the Coalition for BIPOC Liberation ended with an attack on a monument to the memory of Sir John A. Macdonald. Unmolested by the local constabulary, the statue of Canadas first prime minister was unbolted, pulled down, and covered in graffiti by young demonstrators who just happened to be carrying ropes, bolt cutters, wrenches, and spray cans.

A leaflet distributed at the protest described the founding father of the Canadian nation as a white supremacist who orchestrated the genocide of Indigenous peoples with the creation of the brutal residential schools system, as well as promoting other measures that attacked Indigenous peoples and traditions.

There is much about this incident that ought to trouble us.

Firstly, this was another in a tedious series of attempts to express a currently fashionable opinion by an erasure of the past. This was something that Stalin used to do frequently. Photographs of the dictator beside a disgraced Politburo member or one of his secret-police chiefs whom he had murdered in a purge had to be altered to show that there never was such a person as a Zinoviev, a Kamenev, or a Yagoda.

In George Orwells dystopian 1984, a dissident is told by the officials of Big Brother: We do not allow the dead to rise up against us.  You will be lifted clean out from the stream of history. We shall turn you into gas and pour you into the stratosphere. Nothing will remain of you, not a name in a register, not a memory in a living brain. You will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. You will never have existed. The mob in Montreal wants to wipe our minds free of the past in the same way.

Then theres the priceless gift of uncritical publicity which this destruction gives the perpetrators. The CBC, the BBC, and our national newspapers all gave space to the views of these masked iconoclasts. No one was interviewed to engage with their puerile views; only the pro forma tut-tutting of elected officials. Articles described them as young activists, the same term that the vandals gave themselves in their self-glorifying handout where, thanks to news outlets happily amplifying their voices, we learn that they offered this action in solidarity with the Indigenous peoples of Tiotia:ke, Turtle Island and across the globe, and all those fighting against colonialism and anti-blackness in the struggle for a better world.

It will not have escaped Canadians attention that at some point in the recent past, police forces and/or their political masters have decided that enforcing the law against certain groups is an option. The march in Montreal was accompanied by several dozen police who chose (or were under orders) not to intervene. This complaisance in the face of open law-breaking was a repetition of countless instances in the past couple of years of official inaction while various groups of activists held sit-ins, occupied, blocked, or intimidated to their hearts content. Remarkably, the same police who stand by watching illegal actions by progressives suddenly find the energy to deal sternly with counter-protesters.

You can only erode the social contract so far without doing serious damage to democracy. Respect for the police has virtually disappeared from the left wing of the spectrum; now it is being eroded on the centre and right. The spineless behaviour of the Ontario Provincial Police in Caledonia is already legendary. The passivity of the police in the face of pipeline, road, and rail blockades, the disruption of urban traffic, and outright vandalism makes many in the middle class wonder if there really is just one law for all Canadians.

Indulging these gangs encourages the people they represent to ignore the legal channels of protest, to forget about the political process, the court system, or actually persuading fellow Canadians about the righteousness of their cause.

Moreover, the dialectic of history cannot be denied: an extreme movement on one side always provokes an extreme reaction on the other. In the streets of German cities in the 1920s, communist paramilitaries nightly battled the militias of the Nazi party and the Social Democrats; Germans lost faith in their constitution and voted in Adolf Hitler as a solution to lawlessness. In the United States today, we can see that antifa violence has led to vigilante violence by its opponents in Portland and Kenosha.

Do Canadians really want politics to be conducted in the streets by mobs and armed gangs? If we dont, our elected representatives and the forces of law and order had better start earning their money and defending a system of constitutional democracy that took centuries to build.

Gerry Bowler is a Canadian historian and a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. His latest book is Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the Worlds Most Celebrated Holiday.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Everywhere you look, responsible adults are wearing masks in public. This is great news and sure to help contain the deadly contagion COVID-19 from spreading and keep more of our friends, neighbours and community members safe.

Evidence is mounting on the effectiveness of masks with the World Health Organization recommending masks for the general public. Several Canadian cities and provinces have all mandated the use of masks in indoor public spaces and on public transit.

While N95 masks should be de rigeur among health professionals on the front lines of the epidemic, for the public, even homemade cotton masks are helpful to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

But theres one group that needs a different kind of mask: caregivers of young children. Caregivers of very young children should avoid wearing standard masks for long hours because it eliminates the childs ability to read and respond to caregiver facial cues.

Children under three years of age present a special case because their brains are still rapidly developing. According to the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, in the first few years of life, more than one million new neural connections form every second.

These early years are the most active period for establishing neural connections that can last a lifetime. After this period of rapid proliferation, connections are reduced through a process called pruning, which allows brain circuits to become more efficient.

For children under three years of age, their brain development is exquisitely sensitive to social cues  from their caregivers  and most of those cues are in the face. You may have heard of the importance of serve and return with young children, the back and forth interactions deemed essential to promote healthy brain development. In infants as young as nine weeks, mothers mirroring infant facial expressions and mothers marking special moments with smiles was found to underpin infant cognitive and social-emotional development.

In the famous still-face paradigm in which mothers are asked to keep their faces still for an extended period, infants and young children become very upset, initially trying to engage their mothers, and when that fails to elicit any response, the children typically dissolve into tears and hopeless withdrawal. For toddlers, evidence shows that they monitor their mothers smiles to judge whether to try novel activities that are essential to promote brain development and optimal mental health.

Standard masks would eliminate these visible cues for infants and young children and mimic aspects of the still-face.

The younger children are, and the longer they are exposed to blank, expressionless (save the eyes) faces, the more risk to the childs healthy brain development and mental health over the lifespan. While for older children, more subtle cues such as smiling eyes and auditory cues that signal intent may help fill the vacuum, for younger children, exquisitely sensitive to stimuli, brain development is more likely to be negatively impacted.

So, what can be done?

The solution is simple. Members of the deaf community have already offered it  clear masks. Where masks are to be worn in child care settings, caregivers should wear clear masks. Homespun versions have sprung up, however, some are even FDA approved.

Across the country, health authorities have scrambled to develop or adapt policies on mask wearing in childcare settings, but recommendations range widely.

In Quebec, daycare workers in direct contact with children should wear masks when unable to practice physical distancing, impossible with infants and young children. In Alberta, it appears that masks should be worn for prolonged close interactions, and mandatory if groups are larger than 10 or if a child develops symptoms. Toronto Public Health advocates for mask wearing when necessary, for example, when providing direct care or consoling a child.

To our knowledge, health authorities have not offered clear guidelines to differentiate the needs of older from younger children. They need to. Quality clear masks need to be demanded, produced, available and prioritized for use by all institutional caregivers of young children.

Without clear masks, childcare settings need funding to ensure that staff are working in environments that follow all public health guidelines to otherwise minimize the use of standard masks with younger children.

These are challenging times that require innovative solutions. But lets not forget to address and prevent collateral damage to our littlest citizens. One-size solutions dont fit all.
A woman was killed and a man wounded following a collision between a Vietnam Post truck and a motorbike in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang on Sunday morning.

At 9:30 am on Sunday, Le Van Vo, 59, along with his sister Le Thi Cam Van, 65, were on their way to a relatives funeral on a motorbike on National Highway 1 when a Vietnam Post express courier truck moving in the same direction slammed into their vehicle.

The siblings were trying to cross the roadway at the time, according to local residents.

The accident killed Van on the spot while Vo was severely injured and transferred to Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City for treatment.

The courier truck was operated by a 24-year-old driver from Chau Thanh District, Tien Giang, police said.

Police in Cai Be District of Tien Giang are investigating the accident.

Road crashes are a leading cause of death in Vietnam.

Nearly 6,800 accidents occurred in Vietnam in the first six months of 2020, killing more than 3,200 people and injuring over 4,900, according to the National Traffic Safety Committee.

Officers examine the site of a crash between a Vietnam Post express courier truck and a motorbike on National Highway 1 in Tien Giang Province, Vietnam, August 30, 2020. Photo: Hoai Thuong / Tuoi Tre

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Enforced disappearances 'rife across the world'  UN chief

30 August 2020 - More than a human rights violation against an individual, enforced disappearances have frequently been used as a strategy to spread terror within the whole of society, the United Nations said on Sunday, the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance.

"The crime of enforced disappearance is rife across the world", Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his message commemorating the day. "We see new cases almost daily, including the disappearance of defenders of the environment, who are often indigenous peoples".

"Meanwhile", he continued, "the excruciating pain of old cases is still acute, as the fate of thousands of disappeared people remains unknown, making the crime a continuous presence in the lives of the loved ones of the lost".

Global problem

Enforced disappearance has become a global problem  not restricted to any specific region of the world.

Once largely the product of military dictatorships, enforced disappearances can nowadays be perpetrated in complex situations of internal conflict, especially as a means of political repression of opponents, according to the UN.

Shining a spotlight

Particular concerns involve the ongoing harassment of human rights defenders, relatives of victims, witnesses and legal counsel dealing with cases of enforced disappearance.

The UN Committee and Working Group on Enforced Disappearances have identified additional worrying trends, Mr. Guterres said, "including reprisals against relatives of the victims and members of civil society, often in the name of security and counter-terrorism".

"Enforced disappearance also has gendered consequences particularly affecting women and LGBTI persons," he added.

Carte blanche

Also concerning is the use of enforced disappearance by States of counter-terrorist activities as an excuse for breaching their obligations along with the widespread exemption from punishment for the crime.

"Impunity compounds the suffering and anguish," underscored the UN chief maintaining that it is "critical to pursue credible and impartial judicial investigations."

Under international human rights law, families and societies have a right to know the truth about what happened.

"I call on Member States to fulfil this responsibility", he upheld.

Renewing UN commitment

Hundreds of thousands of people have vanished during conflicts or periods of repression in at least 85 countries around the world, attests the UN.

"With the support of international human rights mechanisms, States have a duty to strengthen their efforts to prevent enforced disappearances, to search for victims, and to increase assistance to victims and their relatives," the top UN official stated.

And special attention must be given to vulnerable populations, like children and people with disabilities.

"On this International Day, let us renew our commitment to end all enforced disappearances", the Secretary-General said, calling on all States to "ratify the Convention for the Protection of all Persons against Enforced Disappearances and to accept the competence of the Committee to examine individual complaints".

He called it "a first, but crucial step, towards the elimination of this atrocious crime".

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A Yoruba actor, Olusegun Akinremi aka Chief Kanran, has sought financial assistance to enable him secure accommodation after he lost his former abode to a fire incident in 2017.

The actor, who celebrated his 50th year in acting in 2015, revealed this in an interview with a popular radio talk show host, Kola Olootu of Lagelu FM 96.7, over the weekend.

In the interview, which was conducted in Yoruba language, the talented actor narrated how his fortunes changed after his house and film equipment were razed in a fire incident. He also narrated how he lost his wife to cancer and other issues.

He said, Seven years ago, things became bad for me but not as a result of an illness. My house got burnt three years ago and my wife and children deserted me.

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The studio which I owned also got razed by fire and I have been sleeping in church for over one year. I have no money to rent an apartment and feeding has been difficult. All of my four cars went with the disaster, some were sold, one got knocked, another got burnt.

He also shared his account number during the interview which was broadcast live on Facebook and YouTube.

Background

Kanran, who is famous for playing a wealthy man in movies, also explained how his colleague, Iya Rainbows late husband, Ayanfemi Phillips, was his pathway to fame in the movie industry

He said he started theatre from childhood at a time when dramas were staged during Easter and Christmas. He enrolled at the Centre for Cultural Studies (now Creative Arts Department), University of Lagos, in (1974/75.) before he proceeded to the Obafemi Awo OAU, where he bagged a diploma in directing, acting and film production.

After that, he hosted a television programme on MTV in Lagos, then ventured into film making full time.

During the interview, the actor who said he is a staunch member of Cherubim and Seraphim, revealed that he wears his own outfits in his movies.

He said he does not accept clothes and costumes because they were mostly borrowed from dry cleaners back in the day.

A cross-over actor, he starred in the now rested TV soap, Megafortune, playing the role of General Philips in 13 episodes.

Before then, he appeared in some episodes of Mirror In the Sun and it marked the beginning of his transition from stage to the screen.

Check out the full interview below
They soared to fame earlier this year when they appeared on the winter series of the hit ITV2 dating show.

And the Love Island 2020 girls enjoyed a fun reunion on Sunday night to celebrate the Bank Holiday Monday.

Shaughna Phillips was joined by Sophie Piper, twins Eve and Jess Gale, Leanne Amaning and Demi Jones for the fun night out in London.

Back together! They soared to fame earlier this year when they appeared on the winter series of the hit ITV2 dating show

Shaughna, 26, looked sensational in a Champagne-coloured silk corset crop top which she paired with a pair of skinny jeans.

Rochelle Humes' sister Sophie, 21, put on a very busty display in a strapless plunging black ensemble.

Jess, 21, opted for a very racy plunging black mini dress with daring cut-outs at the side while twin sister Eve, 21, wore a strapless white corset mini dress.

Work it: And the Love Island 2020 girls enjoyed a fun reunion on Sunday night to celebrate the Bank Holiday Monday

Fun: Shaughna Phillips (pictured) was joined by Sophie Piper, twins Eve and Jess Gale, Leanne Amaning and Demi Jones for the fun night out in London

Leanne, 23, looked incredible in a one-shouldered crop top and mini skirt combo for the night out.

Demi, 22, showcased her toned curves in a purple silk mini dress with a plunging neckline for the evening out.

The girls had a fun night out with dancing, food and cocktails which was shared to their social media platforms.

Fellow Love Island girls Paige Turley, Siannise Fudge and Molly Smith appeared to be absent from the evening out.

Busty! Rochelle Humes' sister Sophie, 21, put on a very busty display in a strapless plunging black ensemble

Racy: Jess, 21, opted for a very racy plunging black mini dress with daring cut-outs at the side while twin sister Eve, 21, wore a strapless white corset mini dress

Incredible: Leanne, 23, looked incredible in a one-shouldered crop top and mini skirt combo for the night out

It comes after Love Island bosses announced a new dating series called The Cabins, after they had to scrap the summer and winter editions of the show due to the COVID-19 crisis.

The channel announced on Thursday that they are set to launch a brand new format which will see singletons stay the night in a cabin in the middle of nowhere in the UK with potential suitors.

During the show, the couples will face 24 hours without a smartphone in a bid to truly connect with their date.

Speaking about the new show, Paul Mortimer, ITV's Head of Digital Channels and Acquisitions, said: 'This is a fantastic new format which challenges young people to delete the apps and attempt to date face to face, with no distractions.

Strike a pose: Demi, 22, showcased her toned curves in a purple silk mini dress with a plunging neckline for the evening out

Fun: The girls had a fun night out with dancing, food and cocktails which was shared to their social media platforms

'We're thrilled to be bringing this show to ITV2 viewers who will have front row seats, eavesdropping on our couples as they attempt to find true love.'

While Michael Mannes, who heads up production company 12 Yard who are making the reality show, added: 'We are delighted ITV2 have commissioned the series and can't wait to get into full production on what we hope will be a big hit with this exciting new twist on the reality dating format.'

Speaking of the show with The Sun, a source claimed: 'After 24 hours together they will be able to decide whether they stay together for a bit longer, or move on to someone new.

Missing? Fellow Love Island girls Paige Turley, Siannise Fudge and Molly Smith appeared to be absent from the evening out

Exciting: It comes after Love Island bosses announced a new dating series called The Cabins, after they had to scrap the summer and winter editions of the show due to the COVID-19 crisis

'If they remain as a couple for up to four days, we then give some other singles the chance to enter the cabin and potentially meet their Mr or Miss Right.'

On when the show will hit screens, the source added: 'They'll start filming in the next few months as they're casting now and it will air in the new year.'

The decision to scrap the summer and winter editions of Love Island came amid ongoing uncertainty relating to the coronavirus pandemic.

New format: The channel announced on Thursday that they are set to launch a brand new format which will see singletons stay the night in a cabin in the middle of nowhere in the UK with potential suitors

No phones! During the show, the couples will face 24 hours without a smartphone in a bid to truly connect with their date

Statement: Speaking about the new show, Paul Mortimer, ITV's Head of Digital Channels and Acquisitions, said: 'This is a fantastic new format which challenges young people to delete the apps and attempt to date face to face, with no distractions.'

Pre-production on the winter 2021 series was due to take place this summer, but due to social distancing measures, the series proved to be impossible to stage.

Kevin Lygo, ITV's director of television, previously conceded it simply wasn't possible to shoot the summer edition of the show in the midst of the health crisis.

The first-ever winter Love Island was won by Paige Turley and Finn Tapp and aired in January.

Love Island is currently hosted by Laura Whitmore, following the tragic death of presenter Caroline Flack on February 15.
August is not yet over but already among experts and healthcare managers there is a general conviction that an ominous autumn awaits Spain, where they expect a significant spike in mortality related to the coronavirus. The figures will not reach those of March and April, which allows the optimists to see the glass as half full, but they will be higher than many were forecasting until not so long ago.

Several weeks ago, cases began to grow significantly, explains Daniel Lopez Codina, from the computational biology and complex systems research group at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. And when that happens, without an effective treatment, the rise in mortality is inevitable.

Spain saw just a dozen Covid-19-related deaths a week on average during July. The curve even began to fall during the first two weeks, according to data from the Health Ministry, given that the majority were people who had fallen ill during the first wave of the coronavirus and had spent months in the intensive care unit (ICU). The trend changed when August arrived, and in recent days the weekly average has risen to 120 fatalities. This figure is, in reality, even higher given the delays in notifications from the regions to the central Health Ministry, and it is likely that the numbers will continue to grow on a sustained basis.

First the infections go up, then between 10 and 15 days later the hospitalizations rise, and then toward the third week, mortality rises Francisco Javier Falo, the general director of public health in Aragon

The data offered by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control  which is based on the information sent by the Health Ministry  show that mortality in Spain has doubled in less than two weeks, going from 0.4 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants to 0.8. The information from the regions confirms this trend.

Mortality is the last thing that rises, explains Francisco Javier Falo, the general director of public health in Aragon, the region that has seen the highest infection rates this summer. First the infections go up, then between 10 and 15 days later the hospitalizations rise, and then toward the third week, mortality rises. Its the last thing that goes up, but then later its very difficult to bring it down, because groups of patients in a very serious condition start to accumulate in hospitals and often they do not progress well.

In Aragon, cases shot up in the second half of July. At the end of that month, the deaths in the region were 15 a week, a number that was multiplied by five by mid-August, to reach 72. Since then, and despite the notable fall in new infections, the fatality rate is dropping a lot slower. In the last week the number came in at 62.

In Madrid, where the new spike in infections began three weeks ago, the number of fatalities is on the rise. According to the totals offered by a group of professionals from the regions hospitals, the number of deaths on August 21 were nine; on the 25th they were 13; and on Friday they rose to 22.

Spain emerged from lockdown with the virus still present in just two sectors: healthcare, and areas that continued to operate throughout the confinement period, such as the agriculture sector

The situation is very different to that of March, the experts point out. Then, practically all cases diagnosed were patients in a serious condition. The immense majority of the mild cases  and all of the asymptomatic cases  were not detected, something that caused the fatality rate to shoot up to nearly 20%. Now, while the rate is expected to rise, it is currently relatively low. The reason for this? The first infections were mostly in circles of young and healthy people, with a more intense social life, explains Daniel Lopez Acuna, the former director of emergencies at the World Health Organization (WHO). Although with the passing of the days, in their family and professional lives, they end up transmitting the virus to the elderly or vulnerable people.

The experts see this as the origin of the problem in Spain. The country emerged from lockdown with the virus still present in just two sectors: healthcare, and areas that continued to operate throughout the confinement period, such as the agriculture sector. In spite of all of the warnings, the coronavirus was still able to jump from these areas to young people first, before spreading via nightlife and family events, and will end up reaching the most vulnerable.

The reasons that explain this situation, according to sources consulted for this article, are a mix of the population dropping their guard in terms of protection measures, the inability of the regional governments to strengthen services to monitor the epidemic, and delays when it comes to adopting measures such as the 11 guidelines agreed by the Health Ministry and the regions two weeks ago, which included the closure of nightlife venues and the protection of senior residences, among others.

Once the virus has regained the lost ground, its very difficult to make it retreat. The only way to significantly reduce mortality now is to reduce infections, in particular among the vulnerable population, insists Miguel Hernan, an epidemiology professor at Harvard University. And there is no other way to achieve this but early diagnosis, the tracing of contacts and isolation measures.

Gradual and flexible measures

Jacobo Mendioroz, the head of the virus-monitoring unit at the Catalan government, argues that the experience in Catalonia  which ended up confining several areas, including Lleida  as well as that of Aragon show that what is needed is to act as soon as possible. The key, he continues, is to do so when infections are still happening among younger people, strengthening tracing and isolation, and control measures. This avoids transmission from reaching the vulnerable and the incidence from reaching very high levels. Thats when it becomes very difficult to bring down, particularly in cities.

These measures, Mendioroz explains, should be gradual and flexible, surgical, with the pressure rising or falling according to the epidemiological progress.

Miguel Hernan bemoans the clearly insufficient efforts that many regions have carried out in terms of epidemiological monitoring. It appears that their leaders believe that an explosion of cases can be avoided by the use of masks because a percentage of the population has already had the infection, and as such has a relative immunity for several months or years. I dont know if someone has done this calculation, but its the only justification that could explain the insufficient focus on monitoring measures.

English version by Simon Hunter.
Home Search ICH The Social Fabric of the U.S. Is Fraying Severely, if Not Unravelling



Why, in the worlds richest country, is every metric of mental health pathology rapidly worsening?



By Glenn Greenwald August 31, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - The year 2020 has been one of the most tumultuous in modern American history. To find events remotely as destabilizing and transformative, one has to go back to the 2008 financial crisis and the 9/11 and anthrax attacks of 2001, though those systemic shocks, profound as they were, were isolated (one a national security crisis, the other a financial crisis) and thus more limited in scope than the multicrisis instability now shaping U.S. politics and culture. Since the end of World War II, the only close competitor to the current moment is the multipronged unrest of the 1960s and early 1970s: serial assassinations of political leaders, mass civil rights and anti-war protests, sustained riots, fury over a heinous war in Indochina, and the resignation of a corruption-plagued president. But those events unfolded and built upon one another over the course of a decade. By crucial contrast, the current confluence of crises, each of historic significance in their own right  a global pandemic, an economic and social shutdown, mass unemployment, an enduring protest movement provoking increasing levels of violence and volatility, and a presidential election centrally focused on one of the most divisive political figures the U.S. has known who happens to be the incumbent president  are happening simultaneously, having exploded one on top of the other in a matter of a few months. No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Newsletter Lurking beneath the headlines justifiably devoted to these major stories of 2020 are very troubling data that reflect intensifying pathologies in the U.S. population  not moral or allegorical sicknesses but mental, emotional, psychological and scientifically proven sickness. Many people fortunate enough to have survived this pandemic with their physical health intact know anecdotally  from observing others and themselves  that these political and social crises have spawned emotional difficulties and psychological challenges. But the data are nonetheless stunning, in terms of both the depth of the social and mental health crises they demonstrate and the pervasiveness of them. Perhaps the most illustrative study was one released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month, based on an extensive mental health survey of Americans in late June. One question posed by researchers was whether someone has seriously considered suicide in the past 30 days not fleetingly considered it as a momentary fantasy nor thought about it ever in their lifetime, but seriously considered suicide at least once in the past 30 days. The results are staggering. For Americans between 18-24 years old, 25.5 percent  just over 1 out of every 4 young Americans  said they had. For the much larger group of Americans ages 25-44, the percentage was somewhat lower but still extremely alarming: 16 percent. A total of 18.6 percent of Hispanic Americans and 15 percent of African Americans said they had seriously considered suicide in the past month. The two groups with the largest percentage who said yes: Americans with less than a high school degree and unpaid caregivers, both of whom have 30 percent  or almost 1 out of every 3  who answered in the affirmative. A full 10 percent of the U.S. population generally had seriously contemplated suicide in the month of June. In a remotely healthy society, one that provides basic emotional needs to its population, suicide and serious suicidal ideation are rare events. It is anathema to the most basic human instinct: the will to live. A society in which such a vast swath of the population is seriously considering it as an option is one which is anything but healthy, one which is plainly failing to provide its citizens the basic necessities for a fulfilling life. The alarming CDC data extends far beyond serious suicidal desires. It also found that 40.9% of respondents reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition, including symptoms of anxiety disorder or depressive disorder (30.9%), symptoms of a trauma- and stressor-related disorder (TSRD) related to the pandemic (26.3%), and having started or increased substance use to cope with stress or emotions related to COVID-19 (13.3%). For the youngest part of the adult population, ages 18-24, significantly more than half (62.9 percent) reported suffering from depressive or anxiety s. That mental health would suffer materially in the middle of a pandemic  one that requires isolation from community and work, quarantines, economic shutdowns, and fear of illness and death  is not surprising. In April, as the realities of isolation and quarantine were becoming more apparent in the U.S., we devoted a SYSTEM UPDATE episode to a discussion with the mental health experts Andrew Solomon and Johann Hari, materially in the middle of a pandemic  one that requires isolation from community and work, quarantines, economic shutdowns, and fear of illness and death  is not surprising. In April, as the realities of isolation and quarantine were becoming more apparent in the U.S., we devoted a SYSTEM UPDATE episode to a discussion with the mental health experts Andrew Solomon and Johann Hari, both of whom described how the traumas of this pandemic  the unraveling of our way of life for however long that lasts, the compulsory viewing of all other humans as threats, and especially sustained isolation and social distancing  will exacerbate virtually every social pathology, including ones of mental health. But what makes these trends all the more disturbing is that they long predated the arrival of the coronavirus crisis, to say nothing of the economic catastrophe left in its wake and the social unrest from this years protest movement. Indeed, since at least the financial crisis of 2008, when first the Bush administration and then the Obama administration acted to protect the interests of the tycoons who caused it while allowing everyone else to wallow in debt and foreclosures, the indicia of collective mental health in the U.S. have been blinking red. In 2018, NBC News, using health insurance studies, reported that major depression is on the rise among Americans from all age groups, but is rising fastest among teens and young adults. In 2019, the American Psychological Association published a study documenting a 30 percent increase in the rate of death by suicide in the United States between 2000 and 2016, from 10.4 to 13.5 per 100,000 people and a 50 percent increase in suicides among girls and women between 2000 and 2016. It noted: Suicide was the 10th-leading cause of death in the United States in 2016. It was the second-leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 34 and the fourth-leading cause among people ages 35 to 54. In March 2020, the New Yorkers Atul Gawande published a survey of data from two Princeton economists, Anne Case and Angus Deaton, under the headline: Why Americans Are Dying from Despair: the unfairness of our economy, two economists argue, can be measured not only in dollars but in deaths. The decadeslong economic stagnation for Americans, the reversal of the American Dream, and the shockingly high mass unemployment ushered in by the pandemic are obviously significant reasons why these pathologies are rapidly worsening now. Observing these trends is necessary but not sufficient for understanding their breadth and their impact. Why is virtually every metric of mental and spiritual disease  suicide, depression, anxiety disorders, addiction, and alcoholism  increasing significantly, rapidly, in the richest country on earth, one filled with advanced technologies and at least the pretense of liberal democracy? One answer was provided by Dr. Laurel Williams, chief of psychiatry at Texas Childrens Hospital, to NBC when discussing the rise of depression: Theres a lack of community. Theres the amount of time that we spend in front of screens and not in front of other people. If you dont have a community to reach out to, then your hopelessness doesnt have any place to go. That answer is similar to the one offered by the brilliant book on depression and modern western societies by Johann Hari, Lost Connections, along with his viral TED Talk on the same topic: namely, it is precisely the attributes that define modern Western societies that are crafted perfectly to deprive humans of their most pressing emotional needs (a book by Hari on addiction, Chasing the Scream, and an even-more-viral TED Talk about it, sounds a similar theme about why Americans are turning in horrifyingly large numbers to serious problems of substance abuse). Much attention is devoted to lamenting the toxicity of our discourse, the hate-driven polarization of our politics, and the fragmentation of our culture. But it is difficult to imagine any other outcome in a society that is breeding so much psychological and emotional pathology by denying to its members the things they most need to live fulfilling lives. - " Source " - The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Post your comment below See also Prof. Richard Wolff: The System Is Failing The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Search Information Clearing House === The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Click Here To Support Information Clearing House Your support has kept ICH free on the Web since 2002. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) asked President Trump in a letter Sunday to reconsider his planned trip to Kenosha this week following protest unrest over Jacob Blake's shooting. But White House spokesperson Judd Deere told Axios the trip will go ahead.

The big picture: After Deere told reporters Saturday the president would "survey damage from recent riots," Evers told Trump he's concerned his presence "will only hinder our healing" and "delay our work to overcome division and move forward together."

Jacob Blake's attorney Benjamin Crump said earlier Sunday that the president hadn't contacted the Blake family about his visit to Kenosha on Tuesday.

The other side: Deere said in a statement emailed to Axios on Sunday night, "The White House has been humbled by the outreach of individuals from Kenosha who have welcomed the President's visit and are longing for leadership to support local law enforcement and businesses that have been vandalized.

"President Trump looks forward to visiting on Tuesday and helping this great city heal and rebuild."

Read Evers' letter in full via DocumentCloud:

Editor's note: This article has been updated with comment from Deere and more context.
A group of men incarcerated at a jail in Georgia are being credited with saving the life of a sheriffs deputy.

Gwinnett County Sheriffs Deputy Patrick Edmond was conducting a routine cell search in a housing unit at the county jail on Aug. 16 when some of the jailed men noticed something was wrong.

I could see in his eyes that he was starring off in space and he just wasnt right, John Queen told WGCL.

Edmond had been repeating the same phrase and had dropped a blanket he had been holding, Deputy Shannon Volkodav said the men told her. Video showed him staggering and at one point leaning over a table for support.

From left, John Queen, Darius Wilson, Matthew Fountain, Jattir Moton, Rodrequs Wells, and Brad Louden. (Courtesy of Gwinnett County Sheriffs Office)

It turned out that Edmond was experiencing a life-threatening stroke. And were it not for the actions of six incarcerated men who alerted staff to the medical emergency, the outcome could have been much worse, Volkodav told CNN.

No one would have known about it so quickly if it werent for the efforts of these inmates who intervened and made sure they got help to Deputy Edmond quickly, she said.

One man pulled up a chair for the deputy, while others helped ease him into it, Volkodav said. Another went over to the housing units phone to call for help, while two others used the deputys radio. Others started banging on the walls to get the attention of a deputy in the neighboring unit.

Medical assistance arrived in just a few minutes, Volkodav said.

Edmond underwent surgery after passing a blood clot in his brain and is now recovering at home, she added.

The men now get to watch movies and eat pizza

This is the second time in recent weeks that the heroic actions of inmates in Gwinnett County have made headlines.

Last month, three men in the county jail noticed that a deputy appeared to be feeling poorly while carrying out his security procedures in the housing unit. As the officer lost consciousness and hit his head on the floor, the men began pounding on the doors for help and rushed to administer aid.

Gwinnett County Sheriffs Deputy Patrick Edmond experienced a stroke while on duty on Aug. 16. (Courtesy of Gwinnett County Sheriffs Office)

Volkodav said this latest incident is evidence of the relationship Edmond has with the incarcerated people he supervises, adding that they speak very highly of him.

He encourages them to make better choices in their lives, she said. They know he cares about them.

Jattir Moton, one of the men who came to Edmonds aid, echoed that sentiment.

Hes a real stand-up dude, Moton told WGCL.  Some (officers) come, they dont care. They really dont care. They make our time hard. With him I can say, he gives respect.

Volkodav said the men in the housing unit were given movies on DVD and allowed to watch them for a week. They were also given a special meal last week and will get pizza on Friday, she said.

CNN Wire contributed to this report.
The RBI rejection is a second blow to BoB - the lead bank of both companies -- after a Delhi high court order on August 18 stayed a move by BoB and the entire consortium of lenders to classify these accounts as fraud, restraining them from taking any other coercive action till the next hearing.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has rejected the move by Bank of Baroda (BOB) to send Anil Ambani group companies -- Reliance Home Finance Ltd (RHFL) and Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd (RCFL) to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for debt resolution under Section 227 of the IBC.

According to a source, RBI is satisfied with the progress made by the lenders and by both companies towards successful resolution under its June 7 circular of last year.

BoB is the lead consortium of both companies and had sought RBIs permission in May this year asking the regulator to send the company to the NCLT. Section 227 of the IBC gives special power to RBI and the Union government for referring financial services companies to the NCLT for debt resolution.

BoB informed the rest of the lenders on Thursday about RBI's rejection of its application.

The RBI rejection is a second blow to BoB - the lead bank of both companies -- after a Delhi high court order on August 18 stayed a move by BoB and the entire consortium of lenders to classify these accounts as fraud, restraining them from taking any other coercive action till the next hearing.

Interestingly, while the forensic audit conducted for State Bank of India on Reliance Home Finance Ltd by audit firm, MK Aggarwal and Co had given the Anil Ambani company a clean chit but another forensic report prepared by Grant Thornton prepared for Bank of Baroda for the same accounts has classified the home finance company as a fraud account.

In March this year, the rating firm, Care had placed Rs 11,726 crore of RHFL loan in the default category.

While the litigation between Anil Ambani companies and lenders continues, few of the lenders, led by BOB, had invited bids for RCF and RHFL which received response from 13 potential bidders.

The EoI were received from Capri Global, India RF, JM Financial ARC, Edelweiss ARC, UV ARC, UGRO Capital, ARCIL, Authum Investment & Infra Ltd, Assets Care and Reconstruction Enterprise, CFM ARC, Invent ARC, Rare ARC, and International Assets Reconstruction company.

The last date to submitting EOI for the home finance company September 15th.

The bid process for RCFL is being run by Deloitte as the resolution advisors, while BOB Capital Markets Limited and EY Restructuring are the resolution advisors for RHFL.

RCFL is an NBFC with AUM (asset under management) of Rs 11,000 crore while Reliance Home Finance, has AUM of over Rs 14,500 crore.

On August 5, Reliance Home Finance had said it has net cash of more than Rs. 800 crore in the form of investment in liquid mutual fund.

However, the delay in debt servicing is due to prohibition on the company to dispose of, alienate, encumber either directly or indirectly or otherwise part with the possession of any assets, after an dated November 20, 2019 passed by the Delhi high court.

Photograph: Prashant Waydande/Reuters
The New Guinea singing dog, known for making harmonic sounds with its high-pitched barks and howls, was believed to only exist in captivity  until now.

Scientists spotted a pack of these dogs running wild in the hills of Indonesia after the animals were believed to have gone extinct in the wild 50 years ago.

The findings were uncovered following a comparison of DNA from canines observed in the wild back in 2018 with those in captivity, revealing the New Guinea singing dog is the predecessor of the Highland Wild Dogs.

Prior to this study, New Guinea singing dogs were believed to be the rarest and most ancient dog-like animal in existence, but Highland Wild Dogs now hold the title.

Scroll down for video

The New Guinea singing dog, known for making harmonic sounds with its high-pitched barks and howls, was believed to only exist in captivity  until now. Scientists spotted a pack of these dogs running wild in the hills of Indonesia after the animals were believed to be extinct 50 years ago

The New Guinea singing dog (NGSD) was first studied in 1897, and became known for their unique and characteristic vocalization that experts describe as 'wolf howl with overtones of whale song.'

There are no more than 300 currently living in conversation centers and have not been since in the wild since the 1970s, which have lost much of their genetic makeup due to extensive inbreeding.

Elaine Ostrander, Ph.D., NIH Distinguished Investigator and senior author of the paper, said: 'The New Guinea singing dog that we know of today is a breed that was basically created by people.'

'Eight were brought to the United States from the Highlands of New Guinea and bred with each other to create this group.'

The findings were uncovered following a comparison of DNA from canines observed in the wild back in 2018 with those in captivity, revealing the New Guinea singing dog (pictured) is the predecessor of the Highland Wild Dogs

In 2016 a team from the University of Papua traveled to Puncak Jaya, a mountain summit in Papua, Indonesia where they spotted 15 Highland Wild Dogs (pictured) near the largest gold mine in the world that looked very similar to the NGSD

For years, researchers speculated that NGSD had been wiped out in the wild due to loss of habitat and extensive breeding as house pets.

However, in 2016 a team from the University of Papua traveled to Puncak Jaya, a mountain summit in Papua, Indonesia where they spotted 15 Highland Wild Dogs near the largest gold mine in the world that looked very similar to the NGSD.

The team captured more than 140 photographs of the wild dogs, which range in color from cream, ginger, and roan, to black with white markings and darker roan or black with tricolor patterning.

The New Guinea singing dog (pictured) was first studied in 1897, and became known for their unique and characteristic vocalization

And, the camera traps revealed the presence of adults of both sexes, pregnant females, and pups ranging in age from about three to five months.

The team returned in 2018 to collect blood samples from three of the canines, along with demographic, physiological and behavioral data.

Heidi Parker, Ph.D., who led the genomic analyses, said: 'We found that New Guinea singing dogs and the Highland Wild Dogs have very similar genome sequences, much closer to each other than to any other canid known.'

'In the tree of life, this makes them much more related to each other than modern breeds such as German shepherd or bassett hound.'

The team suggests that the Highland Wild Dogs have genome sequences that New Guinea signing dogs lost while in captivity.

However they believe breading the two will help create a true New Guinea singing dogs population. In doing so, conservation biologists may be able to help preserve the original breed by expanding the numbers of New Guinea singing dogs.

The team suggests that the Highland Wild Dogs (pictured) have genome sequences that New Guinea signing dogs lost while in captivity

This kind of work is only possible because of NHGRI's commitment to promoting comparative genomics, which allows researchers to compare the genome sequences of the Highland Wild Dog to that of a dozen other canid species,' Dr. Ostrander said.

Although New Guinea singing dogs and Highland Wild Dogs are a part of the dog species Canis lupus familiaris, researchers found that each contain genomic variants across their genomes that do not exist in other dogs that we know today.

'By getting to know these ancient, proto-dogs more, we will learn new facts about modern dog breeds and the history of dog domestication,' Dr. Ostrander said. 'After all, so much of what we learn about dogs reflects back on humans.'
WILLIAMS BAY  Before most people in Williams Bay have had their breakfast, Clemente Perez is already planning their lunch or dinner.

The owner of La Fiesta Authentic Mexican Restaurant gets an early start every day, chopping the avocado, tomato and other fresh ingredients that he wants for his customers.

In the two months since La Fiesta opened, the restaurant at 99 N. Walworth Ave. has found a strong following with its emphasis on freshly-prepared dishes that offer a real touch of Mexico.

Its super-authentic, said Ashley Stellato, a regular customer.

Stellato, who lives in Fontana, said she and her family have eaten at many Mexican restaurants. La Fiestas menu choices and its attention to detail bring her back to the new Williams Bay eatery at least once a week.

Its always top-notch, she said. They are able to bring that extra something.

The extra something is an authenticity that Perez and his staff get from their familys Mexican heritage, plus years spent in the kitchen perfecting food preparation from the old country.

Perez treats his customers to handmade corn tortillas, homemade guacamole and other recipes handed down through the generations.

Although just 19 years old, the business owner said he has been learning the craft his entire life.

I got the hang of it right away, he said. And I knew that if I went to a restaurant, I would want my food to be fresh and served good.

For the past two years, Perezs family has enjoyed success with Taqueria El Gallo de Oro, a similar restaurant in Lake Geneva.

So when the Williams Bay spot became available, the family decided to expand.

La Fiesta opened in June in a space previously occupied by Red Dogs Sandwiches, a hot dog place that pulled up stakes and moved out of town. The 70-seat restaurant property got a face-lift, with new colors and remodeling that presents a traditional Mexican vibe, along with such comforts as an outdoor patio.

The business recently obtained a liquor license, too, so customers can enjoy beer or wine with their meals.

Williams Bay Village President Bill Duncan said he met friends at the new place and enjoyed a burrito that was so generous, half of it went home to become lunch the next day.

Duncan said he welcomes La Fiesta to join Williams Bays other restaurants. The new Mexican establishment, he said, seems to be offering something new and different.

Its good diversity, Duncan said. Were very pleased to have them.

The menu options at La Fiesta include a shrimp burrito, fajitas in five flavors, nine choices of tacos, beef tenderloin, quesadillas, other burrito choices and nachos.

The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Joanna Cisneros, who is cousins with Perez, moved from the familys Lake Geneva restaurant to become manager of La Fiesta. Other cousins and family members joined the staff, too, which helps with communication and keeps the operation moving smoothly.

Obviously, we enjoy each others company here, Cisneros said.

The restaurant originally was scheduled to open in May, but the coronavirus pandemic caused some delays. Management has since arranged seating and operating hours to allow regular cleaning and sanitizing.

Cisneros said customers have voiced appreciation for the new dining establishments authentic food and for its customer service.

People are getting to know were here, she said. And they are spreading the word.

As momentum builds, La Fiesta has started booking private parties, has received large catering requests, and has made plans to expand its menu with soups this winter and a Mexican fruit juice-beer drink called mango michelada.

Perez said he enjoys the hard work of maintaining the La Fiesta quality and of striving to meet customers expectations.

Watching the old hot dog place transformed into his image of a Mexican restaurant, he said, has been an exciting experience. Being surrounded by cousins and feeling the family support, he added, is a big part of the restaurants success  and its authenticity.

We talk to each other like family, he said. Thats one thing that a lot of places cant say.

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Gladiators beware. Scandal alum Tony Goldwyn is back on TV, and hes playing a very different role than the Fitz we all came to adore. Heres the scoop on the actors latest project, Lovecraft Country, and the villainous character he brings to life.

Tony Goldwyn | Leon Bennett/WireImage

What is Lovecraft Country about?

Lovecraft Country is the latest HBO original to premiere amid fanfare and anticipation. It follows in the footsteps of the premium cable giants other larger-than-life series, including True Blood, Game of Thrones, and Watchmen.

The drama, which is executive produced by Jordan Peele, J.J. Abrams, and Misha Green, is a historical series set in America during the Jim Crow era. In a twist, Lovecraft Country juxtaposes the very real horrors of racism and violence with supernatural monsters and magical villains. HBOs official synopsis reads as follows:

The one-hour drama series based on the 2016 novel by Matt Ruff, follows Atticus Black as he joins his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father. What follows is a struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the terrifying monsters that could be ripped from an H.P. Lovecraft paperback. HBO.com

Lovecraft Country boasts a compelling plot, high production value, and a rock star cast. Jurnee Smollett stars alongside Jonathan Majors, Courtney B. Vance, Michael Kenneth Williams, and Aunjanue Ellis. Onboard in a recurring role is Goldwyn.

Tony Goldwyn went from The White House on Scandal to white supremacy in Lovecraft Country

RELATED: Jurnee Smollett Became Obsessed With Her Lovecraft Country Character

Fans of Scandal were riveted by the forbidden love affair between political fixer Olivia Pope and the very married President of the United States, Fitzgerald Grant. Sure, Fitzie may have made some questionable calls during his eight-year stint in the Oval Office. But despite his lapses in judgment, no one ever accused him of racism.

On the other hand, Goldwyns Lovecraft Country character, Samuel Braithwhite, has a hateful and dangerous white supremacist attitude. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Goldwyn opened up about the role. He told the news outlet this:

Samuel Braithwhite is someone who feels totally entitled due to his birthright, and his lineage, wealth, and power to feel intellectually superior to all other ethnicities and social strata. He views himself as a member of the master race, and hes really committed to cultivating that in this whole fantastical mission, which he takes to the extreme in terms of immortality. You can line that up so nicely with the Aryan notion of the Final Solution. I thought that was so interesting because you take this sort of extreme, operatic situation, and you put it on a human level. And its not remotely uncommon in terms of how people view themselves in relation to other human beings. Tony Goldwyn in The Hollywood Reporter

Fans can catch Lovecraft Country Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO. And Gladiators who miss Scandal can head over to Hulu to stream the series from the beginning.

RELATED: Scandal Cast: We Are Still Totally Obsessed With Each Other, Says Kerry Washington

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Trude Lamb is a standout cross country runner at Robert E. Lee High School in Tyler, Texas, but the name on her jersey is a sharp reminder of a man who didnt believe people like me were 100% human.

The sophomore, originally from Ghana, told the school board this summer that she had seen the horrific conditions of slave dungeons on the African coast and cant support a name that celebrates a Confederate general who fought on the side of slavery. Along with many other students and alumni, she pushed to change the name this year in a campaign organized under the hashtag #wewontwearthename.

The school board approved the change in July after years of resistance.

That name was not a black supporter. He owned slaves. He did anything he could to get rid of Black people. Im like, No, not wearing this name on my jersey, Lamb told The Associated Press.

More than 100 public schools in the U.S. are named for Confederate figures  roughly 90 of those for Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis or Gen. Stonewall Jackson  according to a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Many were founded during the days of segregation as all-white schools but now also serve African American students. At least a dozen have majority Black student bodies.

A renewed push has emerged to rename many of the schools as ongoing nationwide protests over police misconduct and racial injustice have spurred the removal of Confederate monuments. Multiple school systems in Alabama, Texas and Virginia have voted to change school names in recent months, but local resistance and state laws make that no simple task.

Lamb, who gained national attention for her letter to the Tyler school board, has become a target of social media posts with racist language and even threats of violence, her mother said.

In Montgomery, Alabama, three high schools are named after Lee, Davis and Sidney Lanier, a writer and poet who was a Confederate soldier. The schools have student populations ranging from 82% to 99% Black.

Its a basic insult to all the African American children who would have to walk past a statue or go to a school that is named after a white supremacist, said Amerika Blair, a 2009 Lee graduate who was among those pushing for change.

The Montgomery County School Board voted in July to change the names of the three schools, but a 2017 state law protects Confederate monuments and other long-standing memorials and names. The school system will have to get a waiver from a committee, which could act in October at the soonest, or pay a $25,000 fine for breaking the law by changing the name without permission.

Like many other Confederate-named schools, Lee in Montgomery opened as an all-white school in 1955 a year after the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education that segregated schools were unconstitutional  as the South was actively fighting integration. But white flight after integration orders and shifting demographics meant many of the schools became heavily African American.

A statue of Lee stood outside the school for decades facing north to keep an eye on his enemies, according to school legend but was toppled from in pedestal in June. Four people were arrested for knocking over the statue but the charges were later dropped.

Similar pushes to rename schools are taking place across the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center said about 40 schools have been renamed, or closed, in the past few years.

In Virginia, the removal of Confederate names began in the states northern region in 2018, when J.E.B. Stuart High in Falls Church changed to Justice High. Washington-Lee High School in Arlington changed its name to Washington-Liberty at the start of the 2019-2020 academic year.

The trend accelerated and expanded beyond the liberal northern Virginia suburbs as the Black Lives Matter protests took hold after the police killing of George Floyd died in Minneapolis in May.

Fairfax County voted for a new name for Robert E. Lee High. Stonewall Jackson High was renamed in Manassas, the place where the Confederate general earned his nickname in the first Battle of Bull Run. Rural Shenandoah County also changed the name of its high school named for Jackson. In Hanover County, a conservative jurisdiction outside Richmond, the school board narrowly voted to change the name of Lee-Davis High.

Changing names is part of the transition from one era or epoch to another, said historian Wayne Flynt, who has authored multiple books on Southern history.

Flynt said the same views that gave root to the Confederate school names has also gave rise to education funding systems that often leave minority children in underperforming and underfunded schools, problems that will remain after the name changes,

What does bother me is when you get to the end of all the name changes, nothing has changed in terms the quality of the education or the property tax base in Alabama, which is pathetic, Flynt said.

___

Matthew Barakat contributed to this report from Virginia.
The Delhi High Court on Monday asked the state government to set up Covid-19 testing centres at inter-state bus terminals in the capital within seven days for migrants returning to the city from different states. The court said that since the Centre had issued new guidelines under Unlock 4, more people would come to Delhi and that it was important to check the spread of the virus.

The high court also asked the state government to re-strategise its policy for testing Covid-19 patients in the national capital to accommodate asymptomatic patients in the wake of the increasing number of cases. A bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Subramonium Prasad was hearing a plea filed through advocate Rakesh Malhotra on ramping up the number of tests in the city.

You ( Delhi government ) thought that you had slayed the dragon (Covid-19). However, this dragon has several heads which is making life miserable for people. Cases are rising in the city every day, the court said while expressing concern on the increasing number of cases in the city.

Expressing dissatisfaction on the number of tests conducted, the court sought to know from Dr Nivedita Gupta from the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), whether the strategy with respect to testing in Delhi can be changed. To this, Gupta said that ICMR is only an advisory body and is going to come out with fresh guidelines.

She, however, stated, that its guidelines do not stop any state government from coming out with their own rules. Citing the example of Punjab, Gupta said that the state government had done away with the need for prescription for getting tests conducted. She said that Maharashtra has also tweaked its (ICMR) rules according to its own needs.

To this, the court asked the Delhi government about the possibility of opening private labs for RT-PCR tests of asymptomatic patients, so much so that it does not affect the current functioning of the labs.

Dr Nutan Mundeja, DGHS, Delhi government, told the court that it would re-strategise the policy/plan for testing. We expect the Delhi government to come up with an advisory for private persons.., the bench said.

During the hearing, the court was given a comparative study of the two Sero Survelliance that has been conducted in the city. The bench observed that the data showed a steep rise in Covid-19 cases in three districtssouth east, south and West Delhiwhile stating that the result was alarming.

It observed that the report pointed out that a significant number of the population was asymptomatic which acted as silent spreaders and caused damage to the city. It said that there is an urgent need for testing such persons to curb the further spread more so because everything has been thrown open in Unlock-4 guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Saturday.

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Study reveals best anti-clotting strategy after heart valve intervention

Sophia Antipolis, France - 30 Aug 2020: The POPular TAVI trial has challenged current guideline recommendations on antiplatelet treatment after transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) in patients not taking oral anticoagulation. The findings are presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 2020.1

"Aspirin alone as compared to aspirin with clopidogrel reduced the bleeding rate significantly, with an absolute reduction of more than 10%," said coordinating investigator Dr. Jorn Brouwer of St. Antonius Hospital, Nieuwegein, the Netherlands. "At the same time, aspirin alone compared to aspirin with clopidogrel did not result in an increase in thromboembolic events as captured in the secondary outcomes."

Aortic stenosis (narrowing of the aortic valve) is the most prevalent heart valve problem in Europe. TAVI is an established treatment for patients with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis. It is estimated that the annual number of procedures in Europe could reach 177,000.

Risks of bleeding and ischaemic complications after TAVI are relatively high and are associated with increased mortality. Guidelines recommend adding clopidogrel to aspirin therapy for three to six months after the procedure to reduce thromboembolic events.2,3 However, explorative studies have indicated that the temporary addition of clopidogrel is linked with a higher rate of major bleeding without a decrease in thromboembolic complications.

The POPular TAVI trial investigated the optimal antithrombotic therapy in two cohorts: patients not on oral anticoagulants (cohort A) and patients on chronic oral anticoagulation (cohort B). The results of cohort B have been published.4 Both cohorts were powered separately for the study outcomes.

The current study (cohort A) excluded patients who had undergone coronary artery stenting using a drug-eluting stent within three months or bare metal stent within one month prior to TAVI. A total of 665 patients without an indication for oral anticoagulation were randomly allocated to aspirin alone (331 patients) or aspirin with three months of clopidogrel (334 patients).

The study tested the hypothesis that aspirin alone compared to aspirin with clopidogrel for three months would reduce the rate of bleeding at one year. The co-primary outcomes were: 1) all bleeding (procedural and non-procedural) and 2) non-procedural bleeding.

In addition, the study tested the hypothesis that aspirin alone would be non-inferior to aspirin with clopidogrel with respect to two secondary outcomes at one year. The first examined bleeding and thromboembolic events and was a composite of cardiovascular mortality, non-procedural bleeding, all-cause stroke, or myocardial infarction. The second examined only thromboembolic events and was a combination of cardiovascular mortality, ischaemic stroke, or myocardial infarction.

Regarding the co-primary outcomes, aspirin alone resulted in a significantly lower incidence of bleeding compared to aspirin with clopidogrel at one year. All bleeding occurred in 50 patients (15.1%) receiving aspirin alone versus 89 (26.6%) patients receiving aspirin with clopidogrel (risk ratio [RR] 0.57; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.42-0.77; p=0.001). Non-procedural bleeding occurred in 50 patients (15.1%) and 83 (24.9%), respectively (RR 0.61; 95% CI 0.44-0.83; p=0.005).

For the secondary outcome on bleeding and thromboembolic events, aspirin alone was superior compared to combined therapy. The outcome occurred in 76 patients (23.0%) receiving aspirin alone compared to 104 patients (31.1%) receiving aspirin with clopidogrel (difference -8.2 percentage points; 95% CI for noninferiority -14.9 to -1.5; p

The secondary outcome on thromboembolic events occurred in 32 patients (9.7%) receiving aspirin alone compared to 33 patients (9.9%) receiving aspirin with clopidogrel (difference -0.2 percentage points; 95% CI for noninferiority -4.7 to 4.3; p=0.004).

Dr. Brouwer said: "The trial shows that aspirin alone should be used in patients undergoing TAVI who are not on oral anticoagulation and have not recently undergone coronary stenting."

###

Notes to editors

Authors: ESC Press Office

Mobile: +33 (0)7 85 31 20 36

Email: press@escardio.org

The hashtag for ESC Congress 2020 is #ESCCongress.

Follow us on Twitter @ESCardioNews

This press release accompanies both a presentation and an ESC press conference at ESC Congress 2020 - The Digital Experience. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Society of Cardiology.

Funding: Funded by the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development.

Disclosures: Dr. Brouwer has no disclosures.

References and notes

1Abstract title: Aspirin With or Without Clopidogrel after Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (POPular TAVI Trial - Cohort A).

2Baumgartner H, Falk V, Bax JJ, et al. 2017 ESC/EACTS Guidelines for the management of valvular heart disease. Eur Heart J. 2017;38:2739-2791.

3Nishimura RA, Otto CM, Bonow RO, et al. 2017 AHA/ACC Focused Update of the 2014 AHA/ACC Guideline for the Management of Patients With Valvular Heart Disease. Circulation. 2017;135:e1159-1195.

4Nijenhuis VJ, Brouwer J, Delewi R, et al. Anticoagulation with or without Clopidogrel after Transcatheter Aortic-Valve Implantation. N Engl J Med. 2020;382:1696-1707.

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.

About ESC Congress

ESC Congress is the world's largest gathering of cardiovascular professionals contributing to global awareness of the latest clinical trials and breakthrough discoveries. ESC Congress 2020 takes place online from 29 August to 1 September. More information is available from the ESC Press Office at press@escardio.org.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: A history-sheeter, who has six murder cases pending against him, escaped narrowly when police learnt that he is joining the BJP in an event presided by the party's state president L Murugan near Vandalur on Monday and rounded up the venue.

The Chengalpattu district police said they have managed to arrest four of the history-sheeter Surya's accomplices and later released on station bail.

According to the police, Surya, a resident of Nerkundrum, has at least 38 cases pending, including six murders. The police said that they received a tip-off that Surya is to attend a function that is presided by the BJP state leader L Murugan.

ALSO READ | Modern untouchability towards language being practised in TN: BJP Chief L Murugan

"We rounded up the venue and conducted detailed searches. On sensing danger, Surya must have slipped without being noticed but we managed to nab four other accomplices of Surya. Police team searched the cars and recovered a few machetes from one of the cars that belonged to them," said a police officer.

The Otteri police have registered a case as per Section 41 of CrPC, against four of them and released them on station bail. Police said that they have collected the video recording of the event to confirm the presence of Surya and launched a hunt for the suspects.

Addressing the media, BJP leader Murugan said that he was not aware of the background of every person, approaching to join in the party. Later, Murugan swiftly left the press conference, as journalists asked him more related questions.

ALSO READ | Ties with AIADMK still strong: L Murugan

Earlier, a notorious rowdy Kalvettu Ravi of north Chennai joined BJP. Ravi was involved in more than 36 cases including six murders.

Preliminary inquiries revealed that a party functionary Natarajan of Otteri had invited Surya to join the party. "After hearing that Ravi joined the party in Chennai, the local BJP workers had planned to enroll the new members in presence of Murugan," said a senior police officer.
Taapsee Pannu and South actor Lakshmi Manchu have spoken out against the alleged media trial of actor Rhea Chakraborty, accused of abetment to suicide in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.

Lakshmi shared a long note on Twitter in which she said that she was pained" by the treatment meted out to Rhea and her entire family because of these so-called media trials."

Talking about the recent Rhea Chakraborty interview to India Today, Lakshmi wrote, I thought a lot about if I should respond or not. I see so many people so silent because the media has made a monster out of a girl. I dont know the truth and I want to know the truth and I hope the truth will come out in the most honest way. I have complete trust in the judiciary system and all the agencies that are involved in bringing justice to Sushant.

Quoting Lakshmis tweet, Taapsee wrote, I didnt know Sushant on a personal level nor do I know Rhea but what I know is, it only takes to be a human to understand how wrong it is to overtake the judiciary to convict someone who isnt proven guilty. Trust the law of the land for your sanity and the deceaseds sanctity."

I didnt know Sushant on a personal level nor do I know Rhea but what I know is, it only takes to be a human to understand how wrong it is to overtake judiciary to convict someone who isnt proven guilty. Trust the law of the land for your sanity and the deceaseds sanctity  https://t.co/gmd6GVMNjc taapsee pannu (@taapsee) August 30, 2020

Earlier, actress Swara Bhasker slammed the media for a witch-hunt" against Rhea.

Taking to Twitter, Swara wrote, I dont think even #Kasab was subjected to the kind of witch-hunt on media.. & media trial that #RheaChakrobarty is being subjected to! Shame on Indian Media Shame on us for being a toxic voyeuristic public consuming this poisonous hysteria.. #RheaDrugChat #SushantSinghRajput."
Former national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn passes by members of the media as he departs after his sentencing was delayed at U.S. District Court in Washington on Dec. 18, 2018. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Appeals Court Rejects Michael Flynns Appeal

The federal appeals court in Washington on Aug. 31 rejected a request for intervention filed by former national security adviser Michael Flynn, sending the case back to the district judge who had set up an unprecedented procedure to determine whether he should approve the governments motion to dismiss the case.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied the mandamus petition, arguing that Flynn hasnt exhausted other means of relief; two of the panels 11 judges wrote a dissenting opinion.

A mandamus petition is a form of extraordinary relief that asks a higher court to issue an order to a lower court.

We conclude that mandamus is unavailable because an adequate alternative remedy exists,' the court opinion (pdf) states.

Here, petitioner and the government have an adequate alternate means of relief, the opinion states. The District Court could grant the motion, reject amicuss arguments, and dismiss the case.

Flynns legal team filed a petition with the D.C. circuit court in May, shortly after the district judge in his case appointed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) to provide arguments against the prosecutions motion to dismiss the case. The unprecedented step pitted the judge against the defendant and the prosecutor before an appeals court.

A three-judge panel sided with Flynn, but Judge Emmet Sullivan hired attorney Beth Wilkinson and asked the courts full 11-judge panel, or en banc, to rehear the case.

Circuit Court Judge Neomi Rao dissented and argued that Sullivans conduct patently draws his impartiality into question. Sullivan voided his impartiality by acting as a party in the case before the appeals court, Rao said.

But his petition for en banc review with no legal support whatsoever [therefore] manifests, first, that he plainly appears to view himself as a party; second, and more important, that his attempted action removes any doubt that the appearance of impartiality required of all federal judges has been compromised beyond repair, Rao wrote.

Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017, but withdrew his plea prior to sentencing. The prosecutors later asked the judge to dismiss the case after discovering evidence that the bureau had no reason to conduct the interview during which Flynn allegedly lied. Sullivan responded to the motion by appointing a third-party judge to weigh in on the motion to dismiss to determine whether Flynn should be charged with perjury for walking back his plea.

The Flynn prosecution played a central part in shaping the false narrative that the Trump 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia to sway the 2016 election. After a 22-month investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of collusion, a finding recently affirmed by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

In recent months, the Flynn case became a political bombshell after records disclosed as part of the case showed that President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were directly involved in discussions about the investigation during the transition period in early January 2017.

With the mandamus appeal rejected, Flynn and his prosecutors will have to present their arguments before Sullivan against the amicus curiae, who has already opined that the court should reject the prosecutions motion to dismiss the case.
Before President Trump, the Republican Party, and the Democrat Party for that matter, were controlled by the ruling elites of their respective parties. Neither party had any interest in those they claimed to represent, instead bowing to big money donors in exchange for power and position.

Once called the military industrial complex, it is now the globalists, wealthy individuals and families happy to hide behind foundations and corporations, ruling America without the consent of the governed, using coercion and force if necessary.

This is what candidate Trump railed against. In an important, but largely ignored speech given just weeks before the 2016 presidential election, he made his case in the opening lines.

Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American People. There is nothing the political establishment will not do, and no lie they will not tell, to hold on to their prestige and power at your expense. The Washington establishment, and the financial and media corporations that fund it, exists for only one reason: to protect and enrich itself.

He was running against not only the Democrats and their allies in the media, academia, Wall Street, Hollywood, and in the Beltway, but he was also fighting his own party. Republican elites, feeding off the teat of the uniparty, wanted no part in replacing a political establishment that they controlled and benefited from.

The Never Trump movement grew in response to Trump going from a comedic longshot for the Republican nomination in mid 2015 to the front runner after he systematically targeted and destroyed darlings of the GOP establishment including Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich.

Failing to prevent his nomination, they then focused on stopping his election, even if it meant Madame President, a third term for the Obama agenda. Notable NeverTrumpers included two former Republican presidents, George HW Bush and his son George W. Bush, neither of whom voted for Trump.

In the summer ahead of the 2016 election, 50 GOP officials warned, Donald Trump would put nations security at risk. So-called conservative pundits from Bill Kristol to George Will, Max Boot to Jennifer Rubin, among others, opposed Trumps candidacy and his presidency.

YouTube screen grab

Here was President Trump, crossing the swamp reminiscent of George Washington crossing the Delaware River 240 years ago, implementing a conservative agenda that countless Republicans campaigned on in their own elections. Self-described conservative pundits pushed these ideas in opinion columns, books, speeches, newsletters, and think tank white papers.

Trump brought to life everything these faux conservatives claimed to have wanted, and ironically their vitriol against him only increased. From conservative jurists to tax cuts, from regulatory reform to a strong pro-life agenda, Trump was Ronald Reagans third term and the NeverTrump movement loathed the man responsible.

They never let up and now in 2020 with Trump cruising to a second term, they have doubled down. If they were confident about Biden winning in November, they would not be urging him to skip the debates or to not concede when he loses.

They despise his tweets and straight talk, instead preferring the genteel demeanor of John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Paul Ryan, all losers when the presidency was on the line.

Perhaps the biggest reason they hate Trump is that he doesnt need them. He has no interest in the wise council of Kristol or Boot. He didnt hire campaign consultants like Rick Wilson or Steve Schmidt. Like teenage girls not being invited to the school dance, they pouted and formed the Lincoln Project, with a goal of electing Republicans, just not the ones with a big mouth and orange skin. Who then? Mitt Romney? He had his chance and blew it.

They claim to be all about the Constitution, which is why they are supporting Joe Biden and the Democrats who want to take away free speech and the right to bear arms, who want to tax and regulate America to death, putting the knee of the federal government on the necks of working Americans who already cant breathe due to never-ending COVID mandates.

George Carlin was right, Its a big club and you (and Trump) aint in it. But Trump has turned that around. The GOP is now his club and the NeverTrump cranks aint in it and wont be as long as Trump runs the club. As Ivanka Trump observed in her RNC speech, Washington hasnt changed Donald Trump. Donald Trump changed Washington.

Remember the Koch Brothers and Chamber of Commerce, accused of being right-wing extremists? They are in their own club and the membership committee has blackballed Trump. The Koch Brothers, traditionally backing Republicams, dont support Trump.

The Chamber of Commerce, not just opposing Trump, will endorse and support over twenty House Democrats for reelection. Their club likes open borders for cheap labor and wants to write the crappy trade deals pushed by past Republican presidents, benefitting Wall Street but screwing Main Street.

Some Republicans have had second thoughts about which club they want to be a member of, the club of jobs or the club of mobs. The club of prosperity versus poverty, the flag versus the fist, tweets versus terror.

Famous NeverTrumper Glenn Beck changed his tune and apologized to Trump, He proved me wrong at almost every turn. A number of Democrat mayors in Minnesota endorsed Trump for 2020 after belatedly realizing that Democrats have made things progressively worse for their cities and constituents and that Trump has provided a lifeline out of their despair.

Trump is telling the GOP establishment that its his party now and they aint in it. This includes a bunch of ex-Bush officials now supporting Joe Biden. Most are deep swamp swimmers, assistant undersecretaries in the departments of irrelevance, with names familiar only to each other.

They never were conservative, meaning their boss President Bush wasnt either, or they are pouting because Trump hasnt kissed their asses and invited them into the current GOP club. Did any past Republican presidents or presidential candidates attend the RNC convention? Carter, Clinton, and Obama all spoke at the DNC convention. Where were the Bushes, Romney, Ryan? Its no longer their club.

Republican elites may not like their partys leader, but voters sure do. Trumps approval, according to Pew Research, within his own party is at 87 percent, higher base support than for any president since Eisenhower. Its Trumps Republican party now.

As Trump said in his above-mentioned speech,

For them, it is a war  and for them, nothing is out of bounds. This is a struggle for the survival of our nation. This election will determine whether we are a free nation, or whether we have only the illusion of Democracy but are in fact controlled by a small handful of global special interests rigging the system. This is not just conspiracy but reality, and you and I know it.

Fortunately, it is Trumps Republican Party and the crybabies standing outside and looking in can only kick and scream. But it is a big club, as the diversity of the RNC convention demonstrated, along with tens of millions of Americans ready to give Trumps club four more years.

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a Denver-based physician and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in American Thinker, Daily Caller, Rasmussen Reports, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Parler, and QuodVerum.

Image credit: John McNaughton, via shareable YouTube, screen shot
CARRROLLTON, Texas, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MB2 Dental enters Michigan, it's 17th state, with its most recent partnership with Dr. Jonathan Gillesby, owner of Dowagiac Family Dentistry. This totals 33 new practices for MB2 in 2020 to date.

Dr. Gillesby grew up in the Dowagiac area and graduated from Dowagiac Union High School in 1992. After earning a degree in Biology from Hope College in 1996 he attended the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. He graduated with his Doctorate in Dental Surgery in 2000 as part of the Omicron Kappa Upsilon Dental Honor Society.

Dr. Gillesby is currently a member of the American Dental Association, Michigan Dental Association, American Orthodontic Society, Omicron Kappa Upsilon (Dental Honor Society), and Lakeland Valley Dental Society with which he has served on multiple committees.

"MB2 Dental's business structure of allowing dentists to invest into other dentists' practices with similar track records and goals is so smart," said Dr. Gillesby, "Dr. V and his leadership team have developed a culture that is built to truly look out for the best interest of the practice owners  knowing that this only leads to greater success for the group as a whole. The a la carte nature of their business support services is unique in that it allows for continued autonomy of each practice. You are not required to run your business a particular way, yet you have a huge support team available and ready to help in all aspects of the professionI have never felt like a number or transaction. This is a group of good people who care about their organization and doctor owners."

Founded in 2007, by Dr. Chris Steven Villanueva, MB2 Dental's co-op model gives dentists the ability to leverage the company's scale and infrastructure to further increase their equity values while remaining in control of their practice as clinicians, business owners and entrepreneurs. Since the COVID-19 pandemic in March, MB2 has partnered with 15 additional practices and is projected to partner with 50 more practices before year end.

"We are pleased to welcome Dr. Gillesby and his team to the MB2 co-op and as our first partner in the state of Michigan," said CEO and Founder, Dr. Chris Steven Villanueva, "Dr. Gillesby is well aligned with the culture of MB2 and is a great addition to our family."

"It's hard to beat investing in your own profession. The fact that we are a group of Dentists investing in each other's practices is a special opportunity. I am very excited for what the future brings with MB2!" said Dr. Gillebsy.

Visit http://mb2dental.com for more information.

About MB2 Dental

Carrollton, Texas-based MB2 Dental is a first-of-its-kind dental partnership organization founded and led by dentist and entrepreneur, CEO Dr. Chris Steven Villanueva, with a mission to empower dentists to preserve their profession. Since its founding in 2007, MB2 has partnered with hundreds of dentists to help them stay in the driver's seat as they maximize their talents, connect as part of a community and build exceptional wealth. MB2 currently partners with affiliated practices in over 15 states.

Press Contact:

Lindsey Byrnes

9728693789

https://mb2dental.com/

SOURCE MB2 Dental

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The rise in number of COVID-19 cases should not be a cause of concern as long as the number of serious patients and deaths due to the disease remain low, say public health experts in Gujarat.

IMAGE: A health worker holds samples collected from construction workers for COVID-19 test via rapid antigen testing in New Delhi. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo

They are also of the view that the new cases being reported daily should be categorised as mild, moderate or severe to better understand the pandemic.

"We are finding new cases everyday, but the first thing we need to know is how many of them are serious," said Dileep Mavalankar, Director of the Gandhinagar-based Indian Institute of Public Health.

"The government should report how many new patients have been put on oxygen or ventilator support...we are reporting low mortality," he said.

The new cases should be divided into three categories- mild, moderate, if a patient needs oxygen, and severe, if he/she needs ventilator support, he said.

In a recent study, Mavalankar found that between March and July, the percentage of deaths due to COVID-19 compared to other diseases in India was 1.3, as against 13 per cent in the United States and 17.6 per cent in the United Kingdom.

He said the government should not neglect fatalities due to other reasons just to control the over one per cent COVID-19 deaths.

At the same time, the government should provide more data in the public domain for experts to understand the pandemic situation better, he said.

The data should include the nature of new daily cases, as to how many of them are mild, moderate or severe. The government should also provide data separately on the number of suspected COVID-19 cases and the cases being reported in urban and rural areas, Mavalankar said.

"The disease will, of course, spread. Even high profile people are getting the disease. We need to focus on reducing the number of deaths. In terms of data, we need to ask the government to separate mild cases from moderate and severe," he said.

In Gujarat, Surat city has reported the highest number of new COVID-19 cases in recent times.

"But, that alone should not concern us as only about 400 patients are hospitalised, and the rest, around 500, are in home isolation, taken care of by a dedicated team of doctors," Surat Municipal Commissioner B N Pani said.

There is a perception that the situation is quite bad because of the number of cases being very high. But a look at the bed occupancy shows the number of people in hospitals is very low, he said.

"There are currently 872 active COVID-19 cases in Surat, out of whom 400 patients are hospitalised. Plasma therapy and medicines like Ramdesivir have helped treat severe cases and reduce the number of deaths. Early detection is also reducing the mortality," he said.

Pani said the COVID-19 death rate has come down in Surat and the severity of cases has also considerably decreased.

He claimed Surat has achieved the highest number of plasma donations and use of plasma therapy in the entire country. So far, around 994 patients here have been given the plasma therapy, he added.

Also, the civic body has formed a task force for the diamond and textiles industries and issued standard operating procedures for them.

Till Sunday, Surat reported 20,855 COVID-19 cases and 809 deaths due to the disease. The state has so far reported 95,155 cases and 3,008 deaths, as per the health department.

Gujarat COVID-19 task force member Dr Tushar Patel said though more new cases of the disease are being reported every day, a large number of patients are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic.

"Hence, the situation is not worrying as such patients get treated with home isolation," he said.

"There are active cases, but the number of critically ill patients has gone down, as we can see empty beds in ICUs of dedicated COVID-19 hospitals. Active cases will remain, but at the same time the positivity rate has come down," he said.

Three months ago, reports of eight out of 10 people tested used to come out positive for COVID-19. Now only about two out of 10 come out positive, said Dr Patel, who is a pulmonologist.
SINGAPORE and MUMBAI, India and BOSTON, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Eruditus group, consisting of Eruditus Executive Education (www.eruditus.com) and its online division EMERITUS (www.emeritus.org), today announced the successful completion of its Series D funding totaling $113 million (including secondary sales) led by Leeds Illuminate and Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures) with participation from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and existing investors Sequoia India and Ved Capital. Eruditus, with offices in six countries, 650+ employees and more than 50,000 student enrolments over the last 12 months, is a global leader in the $280 billion global professional education market.

Eruditus partners with top-tier universities across the United States, Europe, Latin America, India and China to bring world-class business and professional education to a global audience. Eruditus has partnered with more than 30 universities to date, including MIT, Columbia, Harvard, Cambridge, INSEAD, Wharton, UC Berkeley, INCAE, IIT, IIM, NUS and HKUST, launching more than 100 courses and serving students from more than 80 countries. Many courses are offered and facilitated in multiple languages, including Spanish, Portuguese and Mandarin.

Eruditus will use the new funds to increase its engagement with existing and new partner universities, to deepen its operations in emerging markets and to invest in creating career-ready courses to meet the skills required of the global workforce in a post-pandemic world.

"We collaborate closely with our university partners to make high-quality education more accessible and affordable," said Ashwin Damera, Eruditus Co-Founder and CEO. "Covid-19 is dramatically accelerating change across higher education. We are engaging more deeply with universities worldwide to help them expand their online portfolio and global footprint. We chose Leeds Illuminate, Prosus Ventures and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative as mission-aligned partners that provide strategic value that goes beyond capital to support our growth."

"Eruditus delivers tremendous value to working professionals and global universities, and we are delighted to partner with this team," said Susan Cates, Managing Partner of Leeds Illuminate. "Innovative and interactive courses focused on skills of the future, delivered by sought-after global brands, create upward economic mobility for learners across the world. Eruditus provides the connective tissue to facilitate talent's rise and global universities' reach."

"Education technology is a major focus for Prosus Ventures, and we now have six edtech portfolio companies spanning education across K-12, vocational upskilling, lifelong learning, and now higher education with the inclusion of Eruditus," said Ashutosh Sharma, Head of Investments for India, Prosus Ventures. "Eruditus' goals are a great match for ours  democratizing access of quality resources for a much broader audience. The value of the teachings of the great institutions has been rationed to those who can physically and monetarily access their facilities. Eruditus unlocks those assets and enables those institutions to help a whole new cohort of learners around the globe. Ashwin, Chaitanya and the team have already built an impressive business with truly global reach, and we look forward to helping them build the company further."

"Eruditus serves as a critical innovation partner for top universities as they expand online course offerings in response to workforce needs and market demand," said Vivian Wu, Managing Partner, Ventures, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. "We're excited to support the growing partnerships between U.S. universities and those in India, China and Latin America that are making truly high-quality education accessible to a broad and diverse range of students."

Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to Eruditus on the transaction.

About Eruditus

The Eruditus group, consisting of Eruditus Executive Education (www.eruditus.com) and its online division EMERITUS (www.emeritus.org), offers professional education courses in collaboration with top-ranked universities: including MIT, Columbia, Harvard, Cambridge, INSEAD, Dartmouth, Wharton, UC Berkeley, INCAE, IIT, IIM, NUS and HKUST. Using technology and curriculum innovation, Eruditus enables working professionals who cannot enroll in full-time courses to access a top-tier, affordable education that will give them the skills needed to be the business leaders of tomorrow. The group's global team includes 650+ employees located in Singapore, Boston, San Francisco, Dubai, Mexico City, Mumbai and Shanghai.

About Leeds Illuminate:

Leeds Illuminate is a growth equity firm dedicated to partnering with exceptional management teams in high growth companies in education and workforce development. The Firm is committed to improving outcomes in education (pre-K though higher ed), workplace access and advancement. Together, Leeds Illuminate, with its focus on growth stage companies, and Leeds Equity Partners, with its focus on middle market buyouts, bring sector expertise and strategic insights to create long-term value for their partner companies and investors. Leeds Equity Partners was founded in 1993 and has deployed over $2.7 billion of capital across a broad spectrum of companies within the Knowledge Industries.

For additional information on Leeds Illuminate, see www.leedsilluminate.com

About Prosus

Prosus is a global consumer internet group and one of the largest technology investors in the world. Operating and investing globally in markets with long-term growth potential, Prosus builds leading consumer internet companies that empower people and enrich communities.

The group is focused on building meaningful businesses in the online classifieds, payments and fintech, and food delivery sectors in markets including India, Russia and Brazil. Through its ventures team investments, in areas including edtech and health, Prosus actively seeks new opportunities to partner with exceptional entrepreneurs who are using technology to address big societal needs.

Every day, millions of people use the products and services of companies that Prosus has invested in, acquired or built, including Avito, Brainly, BYJU'S, Codecademy, ElasticRun, eMAG, Honor, iFood, LazyPay, letgo, Meesho, Movile, OLX, PayU, Red Dot Payments, Remitly, SimilarWeb, Shipper, SoloLearn, Swiggy, and Udemy.

Similarly, hundreds of millions of people have made the platforms of its associates a part of their daily lives: Tencent (www.tencent.com), Mail.ru (www.corp.mail.ru), Ctrip.com International Limited ("Ctrip"), and DeliveryHero (www.deliveryhero.com).

Today, Prosus companies and associates help improve the lives of around a fifth of the world's population.

Prosus has a primary listing on Euronext Amsterdam and a secondary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and is majority owned by Naspers.

For more information, please visit www.prosus.com

About the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Founded by Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg in 2015, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is a new kind of philanthropy that's leveraging technology to help solve some of the world's toughest challenges  from eradicating disease, to improving education, to reforming the criminal justice system. Across three core Initiative focus areas of Science, Education, and Justice & Opportunity, we're pairing engineering with grant-making, impact investing, and policy and advocacy work to help build an inclusive, just and healthy future for everyone. For more information, please visit www.chanzuckerberg.com.

Contact: Kelly Cameron, [email protected]

SOURCE Eruditus

Related Links

http://www.eruditus.com


Adding to their trauma is the significant curtailment of all visiting schedules due to COVID-19. The only way to communicate with loved ones and lawyers is through the use of mobile phones.

Immigration detainees are, in theory, being held only for administrative purposes and yet they have fewer rights than those brought and found guilty before a court, including the most violent offenders. According to the Refugee Council of Australia, the average number of days spent in detention is 553. More than 370 of the 1458 people currently in detention have been held for more than 730 days.

The Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation centre at Pinkenba, near the airport. Credit:Michelle Smith

The acting Immigration Minister, Alan Tudge, has said this bill is aimed at the large proportion of people held in detention who have criminal histories and are still conducting criminal activity via their phones. While it is correct to say some detainees are convicted criminals now awaiting deportation, the majority are not accused or guilty of any crime at all. They are people who have overstayed their visas, or are refugees or asylum seekers waiting for their applications to stay in Australia to be processed. Or they are people who were transferred for medical reasons from Papua New Guinea or Nauru, where they have been stuck for more than seven years, and are now in limbo following the repeal of the medevac legislation last year.

And this is the problem with the bill. There is nothing in the wording that protects the majority of detainees who are not criminals from being stripped searched if a security guard thinks that person might be carrying out illegal activity on their phones. No search warrant is needed; that phone can be confiscated without proof of any wrongdoing. That leaves people powerless to contact their loved ones and lawyers. It also leaves them powerless to remind the outside world that they are still locked up, some for years, despite having committed no crime.




Haiti - FLASH Cap-Haitien : Logo competition





As part of the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the death of King Henry I, the Cap-Haitien 350th Committee is launching a logo competition aimed at all young Haitian graphic designers, graphic artists, artists and creators.



The winner will be chosen based on the following criteria:



Central Theme :

"Let us honor the 200th anniversary of the death of Henri Christophe, the king builder"



Objectives :

Create a logo that will serve as a graphic identity for the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the death of King Henri Christophe;

Promote Christophian pride especially among young people.



Logo Features :

Originality: the logo must be original and must not project any resemblance to another logo;

Simplicity: the colors, characters and shapes used must make it possible to easily and quickly identify the logo;

Readability: the logo must be legible, easily recognizable and memorable.



Technical constraints :

Be polychrome;

Have a maximum of three (3) colors;

Be in formats: JPEG, AI, PNG, TIFF, PDF and the basic software of the concept.



Conditions of participation :

Free participation for young Haitian graphic designers;

Be under the age of 30;

The contest participant accepts that the logo proposal becomes the exclusive property of the Town Hall of Cap-Haitien. The winner will waive all copyright and distribution rights for the use of the logo.



Submit the work before September 8, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. (E.T) to the email address : caphaitien350ans@gmail.com with the subject line "Concours commemoration des 200 ans de la mort de Christophe"



Prize : 60,000 Gourdes



For more information :



Telephones: 2260 1312/3333 8057

By email to the following address: caphaitien350ans@gmail.com



HL/ HaitiLibre


















En los estadios San Genaro, Cancha de los Muertos y Vista Alegre, nuestras Fuerzas Armadas y personal de @indeciperu se unen. "Estamos brindando el soporte alimentario a quienes mas lo necesitan, para garantizar su tranquilidad en este tiempo dificil", ministro #ChavezCresta. pic.twitter.com/n19fJt2viC
A 'greedy' customer has been shamed by a fish and chip shop after he tried to order eight half price meals on the Eat Out To Help Out scheme.

Waiters at Eglinton Diner and Fish Fry in Saltcoats, North Ayrshire, were left in 'disbelief' when a lone male walked in and asked for one meal to eat in and seven to take away.

When shocked staff asked him why he had placed the large order, he said he hoped to get enough discounted meals to last 'for a few days'.

After they explained this wasn't how the taxpayer-funded scheme worked the man took to social media to vent his rage - prompting a furious rebuke from the business.

Eglinton Diner and Fish Fry in North Ayrshire posted this response to the man on social media after he ordered eight meals on the taxpayer-funded scheme.

The diner said its waiters reacted in 'disbelief' when they received the lone male's order

Saying he did not recommend the restaurant, the man wrote: 'Attitude totally pants and insulting, lost out on eight different meals, KFC loved your money, long time customer never be back.'

The enraged restaurant responded: 'I can only assume you were the person in the diner yesterday who was dining alone but asked to order eight suppers.

'One to eat and the other seven to take away to keep you going for the next few days.

'Please read the rules on the Eat Out to Help Out scheme as this is certainly not the way it is intended to work.

'It is people with your greed that puts schemes like this in jeopardy and we value our business too much to be bending rules for greedy customers.

'I hope you enjoyed your meal.'

They then shared his review on their social media page with the caption: 'I think the attitude of the staff was utter disbelief. Trying to order eight meals for one person so he can get them half price. Unbelievable!'

Customers have voiced their support for the business on social media.

The Treasury has revealed more than 64 million meals have been claimed on the scheme, which discounts meals eaten in restaurants from Monday to Wednesday by up to 10.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Governor of Pennsylvania and first Secretary of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Thomas J. Ridge, and financier R. Brad Lane expand their National Advisory Board on Higher Education with distinguished Presidents, Provosts, and Chancellors.

Ted Mitchell : serves as President of The American Council on Education (ACE), the nation's most respected association of more than 1,700 colleges and universities, whose members educate two out of every three students in all accredited, degree-granting U.S. institutions. Dr. Mitchell served as U.S. Under Secretary of Education, where he oversaw postsecondary education policies and programs. He was President of Occidental College , Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of California , and Chair of the Department of Education at Dartmouth College .

Carol Christ : serves as Chancellor of the University of California  Berkeley , where she leads 350 degree programs across 14 colleges and schools with 45,000 students, ~$800 million in annual research and development, as well as affiliations with three national laboratories: Berkeley , Livermore and Los Alamos . Dr. Christ was President of Smith College , with prior roles at UC Berkeley including Director of the Center for Studies in Higher Education, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost.

Gary S. May : serves as Chancellor of the University of California - Davis , where he leads four colleges and six professional schools serving 39,000 students, garnering $850 million annually for research. Dr. May was Dean of the College of Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and served as Chair of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Board of Directors for the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.

Bob Caret: serves as Chancellor Emeritus of the University System of Maryland (USM), where he oversaw 12 universities, 3 regional centers, and its online degree program University of Maryland Global Campus, which collectively serve ~200,000 students. Dr. Caret was President of the University of Massachusetts System ( UMass ), President and Provost of Towson University , as well as President of California State University - San Jose . He served as Chair of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities as well as Chair of the National Association of System Heads.

Nancy Zimpher : served as Chancellor of the State University of New York ( SUNY ), the nation's largest comprehensive system of higher education, with ~500,000 students across 64 colleges and universities, where she spearheaded system-wide innovation including shared services, expansion of online learning, partnerships with administrators of K-12 districts. Dr. Zimpher was President of the University of Cincinnati , Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee , and Dean of the College of Education at The Ohio State University .

Michael Crow : serves as President of Arizona State University , where he leads 17 colleges, with 170 cross-disciplinary centers and institutes, offering 400 degree or certificate programs to ~100,000 students, recognized as the nation's most innovative school by U.S. News & World Report in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Dr. Crow was Executive Vice Provost and Vice Provost for Research at Columbia University , where he also served as Chief Strategist responsible for establishing Columbia Science and Technology Ventures.

Robert J. Jones : serves as Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - the flagship institution of the state university system, which contains 14 colleges with 150 undergraduate and 100 graduate programs, as well as a Research Park home to innovation centers for 90 start-up companies and multinational corporations. Dr. Jones was President of State University of New York - Albany ( SUNY ), as well as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Programs at University of Minnesota System.

Peter P. Smith : serves as Chair of Innovative Practices in Higher Education at the University of Maryland , responsible for strategic direction of University of Maryland Global Campus' (UMGC) 90,000 students and 6000 faculty on 4 continents. Dr. Smith was Senior Vice President of Academic Strategies at Kaplan Higher Education and President of Kaplan Open College, as well as Assistant Director General of the United Nations - Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) where he advised Ministries of Education in developing national education plans in 30 countries.

John S. Wilson Jr : served as President of Morehouse College , Senior Advisor to the President at Harvard University , and President in Residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education . Dr. Wilson was the Executive Director of the White House Initiative on HBCU's, an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at George Washington University , as well as Assistant Provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ).

Eloy Ortiz Oakley : serves as Chancellor of the California Community College System, which is the largest system of higher education in the United States , comprised of 115 colleges serving more than 2 million students, with a budget of $8 billion and additional Federal funding in excess of $1 billion . He serves on the board of the American Association of Community Colleges, and on the Board of Regents at the University of California System.

Paul LeBlanc : serves as President of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), which he grew from 2,500 students to over 100,000 with 200+ career-focused programs - ranked the second largest non-profit provider of online higher education in the country, and the first to have a full competency-based degree program untethered to the credit hour or classes that is approved by a regional accreditor and the US Department of Education. SNHU was #12 on Fast Company magazine's "World's Fifty Most Innovative Companies" list and was the only university included.

Eduardo J. Padron : is President Emeritus of Miami Dade College (MDC), having served as its President for ~25 years, credited with elevating MDC into a position of national prominence among the best and most recognized U.S. colleges and universities, including its rank as the largest degree granting institution in America. Dr. Padron was Chair of the Board of Directors for the American Council on Education and Chair of the Board for the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Daniel Greenstein : serves as Chancellor of Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), which oversees 14 state-owned colleges and universities. Dr. Greenstein was the Director of Post-Secondary Education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Programs at the University of California System, with responsibility for all 10-campus' representing 220,000 students, where he also served as Director for UC Online Education.

Marty Meehan : serves as President of the University of Massachusetts System ( UMass ), the state's public research university system, with college campuses in Boston , Dartmouth , Amherst , Lowell , and Worcester . He previously served as Chancellor of UMass Lowell . Mr. Meehan was elected to represent the 5th Congressional District of Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served for 14 years, including as a member of the Armed Services and Judiciary committees.

Dan Arvizu : serves as Chancellor of New Mexico State System of Higher Education (NMSU). Dr. Arvizu is the Director Emeritus at U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He led Sandia National Laboratories as Director of Advanced Energy Technology and Policy, as well as Director of Technology Transfer. Dr. Arvizu served as Chief Technology Officer at Emerson Collective and as Chairman of the U.S. National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation.

Kevin Reilly : serves as President Emeritus and Regent Professor of the 26-campus University of Wisconsin (UW) System, developing the long-term vision and strategic framework for the university, resulting in enrollment growth to ~200,000 and sponsored research in excess of $1 billion per annum, ranked among the five most productive state systems and public sectors of higher education. Dr. Reilly was the Associate Provost for Academic Programs and then Secretary of the State University of New York ( SUNY ) System.

"We are experiencing unprecedented and pervasive challenges to our nation's public education systems, where 20+ million post-secondary students are experiencing disruptions to the access of rigorous and relevant coursework in productive learning environments - which is critical to human development, workforce readiness, and economic productivity," said R. Brad Lane, CEO of RIDGE-LANE LP

"Our distinguished team brings an unparalleled breadth and depth of domain expertise - bridging research & practice, teaching & learning, private innovation & public implementation - with a mission of advancing novel solutions to grand challenges and critical needs of individuals, institutions, communities, and society as a whole."

RIDGE-LANE Limited Partners is a venture development firm  focused on root-cause solutions to grand challenges in Education, Sustainability, and Information Technology  with a team of General Partners, Venture Partners, and Senior Advisors who have served at the highest levels of finance, government, and the military.

We create value for our clients and society by bridging the gaps between private-sector innovation, investment capital, policy and procurement  across the Federal, State, and Local levels: an innovation ecosystem, providing corporate development to commercialize and scale novel technology companies, as well as place-based solutions that improve cities and quality of life.

Innovators tackling grand societal challenges: [email protected]

For more information visit: www.RIDGE-LANE.com

SOURCE Ridge-Lane Limited Partners

Related Links

www.ridge-lane.com


The National Recruitment Agency (NRA) will bring a paradigm shift in the recruitment system and help meet the aspiration of the youth in finding the proper job said Union Minister of State Dr Jitendra Singh. Speaking at the webinar on 'National Recruitment Agency and its role' organised in Kolkata, he said the decision is a game-changer in the recruitment sector that brings recruitment to the villages and towns.

He said that the job opportunities to candidates is a transformational endeavour that would greatly enhance ease of living for the youth. Singh emphasised on better student recruitment process and on best practices in the recruitment sector adding that it is not only a governance reform but also a socio-economic reform.

Experts from industry and government sector along with academicians deliberated and discussed the potential and role of NRA from recruitment sector and policy perspective.

Braj Raj Sharma, Former Chairman, SSC expressed optimism with the decision of National Recruitment Agency, as he said that job selection, recruitment and job opportunities have to see in totality. He said it is a WIN-WIN scenario for all in the value chain of recruitment, whether it is the job seekers, recruiting organisations or Human Resources personnel.

He said that to begin with Common Eligibility Test would include recruitments by three agencies, viz. Staff Selection Commission, Railway Recruitment Board and the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection. He said it would have a special emphasis on developing examination infrastructure in the 117 aspirational districts. For students, advantages are many, including doing away with appearing in multiple examinations and examinations in each district to encourage more and more women candidates, Divyangsand those from rural areas to apply for government jobs.

Braj Raj Sharma, Former Chairman, SSC expressed optimism with the decision of National Recruitment Agency, as he said it is WIN-WIN scenario for all in the value chain of recruitment, whether it is the job seekers, recruiting organisations or Human Resources personnel

The former executive director and joint secretary, Railway Board, Ministry of Railways mentioned about the challenges in examination infrastructure in aspirational districts. He said that positive aspect of the initiative is awareness and motivation for the rural candidates in job sector opportunities and the common eligibility test would enable the candidates to appear once and apply to any or all of the recruitment agencies for the higher level of examination.

Former Adviser Industrial Relations, Ministry of Railways, A Nigam, said that the decision has been seen in the context of recent government decision of National Educational Policy 2020. Vocational training at school level is a value addition for a job-seeker and would help the candidate in finding the job of their choice while applying for a specialised job description, he said.

So, other government initiatives have to been seen in sync with the decision of the government on the National Recruitment Agency. He said India could play a vital role in the global arena as a population of youth with the right talent is quintessential for growth and development of the country. He further said that proper HR planning and analysis at country/organisational level would be an add-on to the success of the initiative.

Arimardan Singh, Additional Director General, PIB Ranchi said just as the health sector, investment and reforms in recruitment and education sector are welcome initiatives. He said that the decision of the Government would help in better HR Management. He said that one examination i.e., CET in multiple languages, help ease the burden of candidates who are at present required to prepare for each of the examinations in a different manner as per the different curriculum.

Enunciating the positives of the National Recruitment Agency, Soumya Dutta, General Secretary, AIBOC and Asish Biswas, Former DGM SBI and Circle Development Officer, HR In-Charge, North-East Region, mentioned that the specialised job profile of banking sector would be helpful by one test at the preliminary level and thereafter, Tier 2 and 3 examination help in the placement of the right candidate for specific job description and profile.

Biswas said that NRA role is vital for selecting the right candidate at the right time for various Government job and help address the demand of youth in finding a job in fitment with their talent and potential.

Sanyuk Banerjee, Advocate, District Judges Court, PurboBardhamaansaid that the efficacy and efficiency of the National Recruitment Agency depend on the job-seeking candidates who have to be proactive in selecting the job as per their choice at the right time and right organisation. For candidates, performance in the National Recruitment Agency is an endeavour to find the right job of his/her choice, he said. He discussed the initiatives advantages for Women candidates and candidates from rural areas of the country and how the decision could help in more accessibility of recruitment opportunities for candidates.

Abdur Rahman Mallick, Advocate, Delhi High Court said that reforms in the recruitment sector with job opportunities for the younger population of this country is in line with the essence of Constitution of India  Right to Life with Human Dignity and a welcome initiative in that endeavour.
In this week's TravelSkills on SFGATE newsletter...

In an oddly timed move late Sunday afternoon, United Airlines announced it would permanently get rid of change fees on all standard Economy and Premium cabin tickets for travel within the U.S., effective immediately. However, the fees will remain on international tickets, as well as the airline's cheapest, most restricted "basic economy" fares. Within 24 hours, both Delta and American matched the move. Will it last forever as the airlines have promised? Hmmm. Read: Airlines end irritating, expensive change, standby fees for good

In airline route news, United could be canceling more flights on short notice if it doesnt have enough bookings; Alaska Airlines will introduce service to a new ski destination from Mineta San Jose this winter; San Francisco International reopens a number of gates that had been closed due to the pandemic; Delta sets new plans for recovery of its international network; American predicts deeper schedule cuts this fall without more federal aid; and Virgin Atlantic rolls out free insurance to protect passengers from COVID-19. Read: Routes: United cancellations, new SJC ski route, SFO revival + Delta, AA, Virgin Atlantic

The coronavirus pandemic is having one positive impact on the airline industry: It has forced carriers to develop new technologies that can stop COVID-19 and other toxic bugs from spreading to passengers. Airlines have already deployed rigorous new cleaning and disinfecting techniques for their aircraft and their airport facilities  everything from more efficient HEPA filters for cabin air to electrostatic sprays in cabins. Last week Boeing said it is building on its experience using UV light to disinfect aircraft lavatories by developing a new portable UV wand that can take that technology to all parts of the plane. Read: Airlines step up their anti-COVID tactics

Airline ramp workers are the hard-working folks fliers see outside plane windows loading and unloading checked baggage, providing pilots with directional help and doing the physically demanding below wing jobs that get an airplane ready for its next flight. Despite the downturn in air travel, airport ramp workers at some airlines are busier than ever. Why? Read: Airline ramp workers are busier than ever

San Francisco International Airport will reopen the "A gates" of its International Terminal on September 1 as more foreign airlines resume flights in the coming weeks. Its a sign that demand for air travel is slowly recovering, although passenger figures are still a fraction of what they were in 2019. SFO closed the 15-gate concourse (also known as "Boarding Area A"), on April 1. Read: SFO to reopen entire international terminal as airlines return

Evacuees from the multiple fires raging around the Bay Area need shelter. Hotels, with demand for rooms pummeled by the COVID-19 pandemic, need guests. Last week, the city of San Jose brought these two groups together with specially discounted rates for those affected by fires. Currently, 14 hotels in and around downtown San Jose are offering fire evacuees special $99 per night. Read: Fire evacuees, hotels form symbiotic relationship

Tell your friends about TravelSkills on SFGATE and have them sign up for our FREE weekly email alerts or forward this email to them!

Last week, SFO revealed that it now has a rapid COVID-19 testing site in operation for airline and airport workers only. Time will tell if it will one day open for travelers as it has in many other countries. Might getting tested for COVID-19 become the new normal for air travel? Read: SFO opens first airport COVID-19 rapid testing site in the US

Chris McGinnis is SFGATE's senior travel correspondent. Email: chris@travelskills.com. Get up-to-the-minute travel news via Chris's social feeds: Twitter: @cjmcginnis | Facebook: @TravelSkills
Ambassador Venu Rajamony, who served as press secretary to President Pranab Mukherjee during his tenure, salutes the statesman and political legend, who passed into the ages on Monday.

IMAGE: President Pranab Mukherjee delivers his Republic Day address to the nation, January 25, 2013.

Pranab Mukherjee was a rare and special phenomenon in Indian politics.

Few have served the country for the length of time he has and in such a multifaceted manner. Few can boast of 43 years in Parliament.

Pranabda, as he was popularly called, used to say (L K) Advaniji was senior to him in age, but junior in parliamentary tenure.

Pranabda saw Parliament as a second home and it was here he was the happiest. By virtue of his long innings in Parliament, he was an authority on parliamentary procedures and history.

He was also a powerful orator who enjoyed participation in debates within Parliament and crossing swords with the other side, irrespective of whether he was in the Opposition or on the ruling benches.

IMAGE: Then prime minister Indira Gandhi with a young Pranab Mukherjee.

It is little known that Pranabda initially joined politics as a member of a regional party, the Bangla Congress. His first entry into the Rajya Sabha in 1969 was through this party. This was the year when Indira Gandhi decided to nationalise private sector banks.

The opposition to the bank nationalisation was fierce and even Finance Minister Morarji Desai was against it. Pranabda was a socialist in his convictions. He felt nationalisation was a right move and decided to make a strong speech defending the decision.

He was then a back bencher and the Rajya Sabha was empty during his speech. But, by lucky coincidence, (then prime minister Indira) Mrs Gandhi walked into the House unexpectedly and heard his speech. His passion and eloquence caught her attention. She enquired from others who he was.

Subsequently, West Bengal Communist Party of India leader Bhupesh Gupta introduced him to Mrs Gandhi. The Bangla Congress went on to merge with the Indian National Congress and that is how he was appointed Deputy Minister by Mrs Gandhi.

Pranabda was appointed Deputy Minister for Industrial Development in 1973 four years after entering Parliament. The very next year, he was promoted as a Minister of State and by 1975 he had independent charge of Revenue and Banking.

IMAGE: In 1982, after Pranab Mukherjee delivered the Budget speech, then prime minister Indira Gandhi said of him, 'The shortest finance minister has delivered the longest Budget speech'. The speech lasted 1 hour, 35 minutes.

Indira Gandhi's return to power in 1980 saw him being made Cabinet minister for Commerce and Steel and Mines. In 1982, at 47 years, he was appointed the youngest Cabinet Minister for Finance India had seen. He then went on to hold many important portfolios including Defence, External Affairs and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission under four Prime Ministers -- Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh.

He was responsible for initiating major reforms in a number of different areas during his stints as Minister. He earned the reputation of being an able administrator and considerate boss who would always treat his colleagues and the public with utmost respect.

Pranabda was proud of the fact that he was a member of the Congress Working Committee for 23 years. Known as a scholar politician, he authored several books on the history on the Congress party.

In his view, for a party man, being a CWC member was more important than becoming a minister. During UPA I and II, he was the main architect of consensus on difficult national issues within the coalition and outside.

He was the principal troubleshooter who would be asked to find solutions to difficult challenges that confronted the government.

IMAGE: Pranab Mukherjee speaks at a condolence meet for Rajiv Gandhi. Photograph: Photo Division

Pranabda saw many ups and down in his political life. When Mrs Gandhi's assassination took place in 1984, Pranabda was campaigning with Rajiv Gandhi in West Bengal. They travelled together on the same plane to Delhi along with many other Congress leaders.

Since he was a known authority on history, the Congress leaders took him to the back of the plane (while Rajiv was grieving in front) and asked him whether there were any precedents on who should be the successor.

Pranabda responded, pointing out that Gulzarilal Nanda succeeded Nehru briefly after Nehru's unexpected death. This response led to others in the Congress conspiring against him and spreading rumours that he was trying to project himself as a successor.

Subsequently, after winning the elections in 1984, Rajiv Gandhi dropped him from the Cabinet. Later, he was also dropped from the Congress Working Committee and expelled from the party. He built a new party called the Rashtriya Samajwadi Party, but that was a disaster. It failed miserably in the West Bengal state elections of 1987.

Though he returned to the party after few years, his full rehabilitation had to await P V Narasimha Rao's election as prime minister. He was then made Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and subsequently given a ministerial portfolio.

Throughout his career, Pranabda was widely admired for his experience as well as wisdom not just by members of his own political party, but also leaders of other parties. He made it a point to be open to leaders of all political parties and shades of opinion.

During the Presidency, a virtual parade of political leaders would visit him from time to time. These included leaders of Leftist parties, especially Sitaram Yechuri, who was a favourite.

At the same time, he was also open to contacts with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat used to meet him both before and during the Presidency.

IMAGE: Pranab Mukherjee, often seen with his pipe, as a minister in Indira Gandhi's Cabinet.

As a child, Pranabda had a nickname. He was called 'Poltu'. His sister has described him as naughty and a mischief-maker. He would spend hours swimming in village ponds and climbing trees.

Pranabda has himself described the relative poverty in which he grew up in a home with no electric power and how famine ravaged Bengal in those days.

Two well known stories of his childhood was that he used to walk through paddy fields for miles to go to school. Sometimes when encountering rain water puddles, he would take off his uniform and wade through the water wearing nothing but a small towel. After crossing the puddle, he would change back into his uniform and proceed to school.

Pranabda has also given credit to his mother for the extraordinary memory power he was gifted. As a child, when he would return home in the evening, his mother would every day make him recount in great detail all that he did, including how much money he spent. He believed this laid the foundation of his encyclopedic memory which everyone later admired.

Pranabda loved wearing the traditional Bengali dhoti. That was his preferred dress at home and during social functions. At the same time, he also knew how to wear the dhoti in the South Indian style. This was always his dress when he visited temples in Kerala. He made memorable visits to the Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram and Guruvayoor temple as President.

IMAGE: Then external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee all set to perform the Chandi Path for Durga Puja in his village in West Bengal, October 2010. Photograph: Dipak Chakraborty

Pranabda was a devout Hindu. He would visit his village every year for Durga Puja and personally recite the Chandi Path for four days. He had good knowledge of Sanskrit. Daily pooja for about an hour every morning at home was a discipline he never broke.

He would wake up early morning and walk about five kilometres. He enjoyed reading newspapers with his tea. While his days were slow to start, his evenings would stretch until midnight and beyond.

Every day, he wrote at least one page in his diary. He felt, however, that these diaries were his private thoughts and reflections. He was very clear that they should not be published during his lifetime.

IMAGE: President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

As President, Pranabda believed defending the Constitution was his prime responsibility. His most important reform was to open up the Rashtrapati Bhavan to the people and make it a democratic institution.

Under Pranab Mukherjee's stewardship, the public were provided free access into Rashtrapati Bhavan for tours and museums opened to educate the public about the history of the building and important events post Independence. A change of guard ceremony was also started every week.

Pranabda believed Rashtrapati Bhavan belonged to the nation and its people. Its legacy must be safeguarded and protected. The Presidency should be brought closer to the people.

In keeping with this belief, he sought greater participation by ordinary Indians in Rashtrapati Bhavan. To this end, programmes were created to invite eminent writers, artists, teachers, students, innovators etc. to live on the Rashtrapati Bhavan campus and have a taste of its life.

He directed that steps be taken to revive interest in the history of Rashtrapati Bhavan and spread knowledge about the same.

Pranabda earned the reputation of being an 'Education President' by virtue of the emphasis he laid on his role as 'Visitor' to leading institutions of learning in the country. He was a pioneer amongst Presidents in providing substance to this position.

He convened periodic conferences of leaders of higher education institutions such as Central Universities, IITs, NITs and IIScs along with government leaders and experts in the field of education to stimulate collective efforts for the improvement of the quality of higher education.

He used every opportunity in his public speeches to highlight the need to take India back to the days when our Universities such as Nalanda and Vikramshila were global centres of learning.

He emphasised the need to connect creative and innovative energies at the grassroots to India's formal education system and for universities to become a bridge between innovators and universities.

IMAGE: President Pranab Mukherjee at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, July 19, 2014. He is flanked by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on his right and on his left by Venu Rajamony (with beard), then press secretary to the President. Photograph: Rashtrapati Bhavan

Pranabda had a special affection for Kerala. It was among the states he visited the most as President. Perhaps, his special connection with Kerala began after Rajiv Gandhi without any notice dropped him from the Cabinet. He was shocked and heartbroken.

He wanted to get away from the murky politics of Delhi immediately. He decided to seek refuge in Kerala. His son was working near Kochi at that time. Pranabda and his wife spent several weeks with his son and family.

Pranabda has told me he spent long hours walking on the beaches in introspection and contemplation before gathering strength to return to Delhi.

Some of the important events Pranabda attended in Kerala as President were his address to the Kerala legislative assembly, unveiling of a statue of former chief minister K Karunakaran in Thiruvananthapuram, inaugurating the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Ayyan Kali, visiting the Kochi Art Bienalle and inaugurating the Muziris Heritage Project in Kodungalloor.

He had special affection for the Malayala Manorama group and attended a number of functions at their invitation. He participated in the 125th anniversary celebrations of Malayala Manorama in Kottayam and at Rashtrapati Bhavan received the first copy of the biography of former chief editor and publisher K M Mathew, Eighth Ring.

He recalled on the occasion how he knew Shri K M Mathew from the beginning of his public life. He also revealed his love for the Manorama Year Book, whose Bengali version he would eagerly await every year.

I also recall Managing Editor Phillip Mathew presenting him a CD of Sama Veda brought out by Manorama Music at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Shri Shivakaran Namboodiri, the Vedic scholar who had also come, sat with his legs crossed on the top of the chair for guests in the President's office and recited shlokas in what must have been a first such occurrence.

Shri Namboodiri was embarrassed to sit like that on a chair in front of the President, but Pranabda encouraged him along without standing on any formality.

Pranabda delivered a memorial lecture in honour of my late father K S Rajamony in Kochi in March 2017 in the presence of the governor, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala and former chief minister Oommen Chandy.

A special memory is also the grand Onam celebrations organised at Rashtrapati Bhavan in 2017 with support of the state government in which the governor, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, a large number of state ministers, MPs and other dignitaries participated.

Pranabda greatly enjoyed the event and went around receiving guests, interacting with them and enquiring about their welfare. When others would request him to have his food, he said, 'I am the host, I should look after all of you first.'

IMAGE: President Ram Nath Kovind confers the Bharat Ratna upon former President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan, August 8, 2019. Photograph: Kamal Singh/PTI Photo

I conclude paying tributes to this great visionary and eminent but humble son of India. Pranabda always said he has received much more from the country than he has given. I disagree. It is true he became a popular and successful President. He was also awarded the Bharat Ratna.

I think he still deserved more. If he had become Prime Minister and Dr Manmohan Singh had moved to Rashtrapati Bhavan in 2012, political events post 2014 would perhaps have been very different.

Ambassador Venu Rajamony, a member of the Indian Foreign Service, is India's Ambassador to The Netherlands.

This tribute was written at the Malayala Manorama's request and kindly shared with Rediff.com by Ambassador Rajamony.
By Liu Xin

China has recently sent two coast guard ships to enforce fisheries law on the high seas of the North Pacific Ocean. [Photo/Official WeChat account of China Coast Guard]

BEIJING, Aug. 31 -- Recently, the China Coast Guard (CCG) dispatched two Coast Guard vessels to the North Pacific Ocean to carry out a 31-day high seas fishery law enforcement cruise mission, with a total voyage of 11,189 nautical miles and a cruising area of approximately 74,000 square nautical miles.

This move aims to implement the UN General Assembly Resolution 46/215 and relevant international conventions and agreements including the Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fishery Resources in the North Pacific Ocean, and to jointly maintain the order of high seas fishery production in the North Pacific Ocean.

It is known that since the Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fishery Resources in the North Pacific Ocean came into effect in July 2015, the CCG has proactively dispatched vessels to the North Pacific Ocean to carry out law enforcement on high seas fishery under the requirements of the Convention.

The mission of this time marks the first cruise mission of a CCG vessel, which has just obtained the right to board and inspect after registered at the North Pacific Fisheries Commission for law enforcement.

From July 25 to August 24, the fleet attached to the CCG observed and supervised the vessels operating in waters of the North Pacific Ocean, and recorded the basic information of a total of 105 Chinese fishing boats, ensuring a generally ordered fishery production.

Next, the CCG will continue to carry out in-depth high seas law enforcement cruises, intensify law enforcement and supervision for commercial fishing vessels, strictly crack down on illegal fishing, so as to jointly maintain the order of high seas fishery production.
If your children are in secondary school and are not writing essays, they are being swindled of their chance to do well in college. If you are a college student who is rarely required to submit a paper, you are being cheated of your chance to do well in life.  Intellectual Takeout
San Antonio diners don't need data to know eating out has changed since early March. Masks, spaced-out tables, and even "disinfecting portals" no longer raise eyebrows.

But the numbers are still startling. OpenTable, a restaurant-reservation company, has tracked the year-over-year percentage change in seated diners at eateries across the country.

On Sunday, there were 55.59 percent fewer people dining-in at San Antonio restaurants than on the same day in 2019.

READ ALSO: Spurs CEO speaks out about Gregg Popovich, Brooklyn Nets rumors

Even with that steep drop, San Antonio's seven-day average (-28.09 percent) still represented a smaller decrease in seated diners than other Texas cities  Austin (-46.33) and Houston (-54.94)  and was a far cry from New York (-83.33) and San Francisco (88.34).

The data, from a sample of restaurants on the OpenTable network, includes online reservations, phone reservations, and walk-ins. Year-over-year figures compare the same day of the week from the same week in the previous year.

The numbers reveal that residents and visitors in the Alamo City were dining out at normal levels through the end of February. There was no year-over-year difference on March 1.

That began to change the following week as city officials first declared a local state of disaster. The number of people dining out steadily dropped, all the way to 91 percent fewer seated diners on March 18, the day Mayor Ron Nirenberg ordered bars and restaurants to close.

There were no seated diners from March 19 to April 30, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's stay-at-home order expired. Few diners returned for most of the next month, with OpenTable data holding steady at 80 percent fewer in San Antonio until May 20.

Hungry customers have trickled into dining rooms since then.

But as Sunday's count shows, there are still plenty of empty tables at area restaurants.
The Supreme Court on Monday imposed a fine of Re 1 on lawyer Prashant Bhushan for the offence of criminal contempt of court for his tweets criticising the top court and Chief Justice of India (CJI), SA Bobde.

A three-judge bench headed by justice Arun Mishra ruled Bhushan will have to deposit the fine with the courts registry by September 15. If Bhushan does not pay the fine, he will have to undergo a jail term of three months and will also be debarred from legal practice for three years, it said.

The top court had on August 14 found Bhushan guilty for putting out the two tweets.

The case took 40 days to reach a conclusion from the date of its first hearing. It was registered on July 9 and the first hearing in the matter was held on July 22.

Here is what the top court said on Monday:

* We gave him several opportunities to express regret. The Attorney General also asked the court to close the case once he tenders an apology, the bench observed.

* The bench also state no such apology was offered by Bhushan.

* The court also took exception to the fact that Bhushan frequently went to the press even when the case was pending and gave wide publicity to his statements and gave interviews to the media about the case.

* Bhushans past conduct was also taken into account with the court observing that it had initiated contempt cases against Bhushan on previous occasions too for his statements.

* Publication of statements in the press by the contemnor before they were submitted before this court was done to interfere with judicial functioning, the bench which also comprised justice BR Gavai and justice Krishna Murari said.

* Bhushan had posted two tweets, one against the Supreme Court on June 27 and another against CJI Bobde on June 29.

* Bhushans first tweet said: When historians in the future look back at the last six years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the SC in this destruction, and more particularly the role of the last four CJIs.

* The second tweet referred to CJI Bobde. The CJI rides a Rs 50-lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] leader at Raj Bhavan, Nagpur, without wearing a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC on lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access justice! it said.
There is no doubting the fact that there are massive potentials for blockchain technology to transform the world. This has been shown in every field of human endeavor.

Blockchain technology has been deployed in the medical industry, engineering, and most importantly in the financial industry. But one thing stood out, governments and a lot of investors were at best, wary of the wholesome adoption of the technology.

The reason being adduced by everybody is that blockchain is not regulated. For blockchain to be widely accepted, there will be a need for some level of assimilation with the traditional way of doing things.

Blockchain as technology came up with a true peer-to-peer borderless transfer of value and innovative ways to raise capital or invest in promising projects, but then, there are two sides to a coin. One major use the blockchain was first deployed for, was the cryptocurrency, which a lot of people have variously used as a primary exchange of value for illicit activities, you cant also wish away the fact that many investors have been scammed off their resources through shady ICOs.

It was sweet music to the ears when Zurab Ashvil, founder and CEO of L3COS came up with the idea of the worlds first regulated blockchain-based operating system. Without a single universal platform for governments, businesses and individuals worldwide, there is no practical solution for addressing the underlying blockchain problems that we are facing today, Ashvil says.

Related: How DeFi Will Reshape Financial Services

With a three-layer transformation, that will enable the government to win voter trust, save money, and go green; businesses to minimize fines, globalize, and reduce operating costs; while the society will enhance democracy, ease international travels, and simplify taxes; a regulated blockchain is a gateway to our technological advancement.

What a regulated blockchain portends is that the impact the negative statements from government officials and the media along with regulatory uncertainties have been having on entrepreneurs, investors, the market, and the industry at large, will be a thing of the past.

One area where we have started seeing the positive impact and transformation in technology is the case of the digital currency. The internet was the precursor of cashless policy and internet banking all of which greatly reduced the stress people had to go through to conduct businesses.

The Chinese Government vehemently opposed cryptocurrency because it was decentralized but its of great relief to see that the People Bank of China (PBOC) is at the forefront of legitimizing digital currency.

As a part of a pilot program, PBOC introduced a homegrown digital currency across four cities, this is a huge leap towards actualizing the first electronic payment system by a major central bank. The Bank of England (BoE) is also toeing the footsteps of China but at a review stage as of July 2020.

Andrew Bailey, the Governor of BoE was reported to have said, I think in a few years, we will be heading toward some sort of digital currency.

Related: How Blockchain Is Revolutionizing Business-Communication Networks

In the U.S. too, concerted efforts are being made towards digital currency with U.S. investment bank JP Morgan being the first bank to create a digital token to help settle payments between clients in its wholesale payments business. This does not undermine the fact that the United States Federal Reserve has not made a categorical statement as to the position of the country on CBDC.

"We are supportive of crypto-currencies as long as they are properly controlled and regulated," says Umar Farooq, JP Morgan's head of Digital Treasury Services and Blockchain. It is on record that the bank has always maintained that the blockchain technology is of immense benefit, their only problem all along has been the inability to regulate it.

If you had expected to see a wholesome deployment of the blockchain technology even if for non-financial-related fields before now, you did not assume wrongly. What has obtained before the emergence of regulated blockchain technology is a situation where investors are treading with caution.

They are skeptical and rightly so at putting their resources into a venture that may come crashing any time as a result of the position of government officials and policymakers. The adoption of regulated blockchains like L3COS and others that will come up swiftly to compete will be based on the fact that it can automate a wide range of operations and cut bureaucratic procedures.

Related: 3 Blockchain Improvements That Will Lead to Its Mainstream Adoption

The automation is achieved using smart contracts. The system removes intermediaries between end clients (businesses and consumers) and central banks.

Aside from regulation, which is the primary source of concern to almost everybody that can assert an opinion about blockchain technology, one other area that has created a lot of misgivings is the environmental impact of business transactions. You can now afford to reduce the use of paper to an unprecedented minimum, thereby contributing significantly to the green world.

Cutting costs is very vital for the sustenance of your business especially when these costs arise from illegal activities you must have randomly or unwittingly done. This will become a thing of the past as the system will automatically do a compliance check for you any time you attempt an operation.

What this boils down to is that your operation will be blocked if it seems to be going against promulgated rules and regulations. Thus, the system ensures you dont fall prey to potholes and saves you from getting involved in illegalities while running your business.

A regulated blockchain ensures that transactions are supervised by regulatory bodies. The fear institutions have all along harbored, can now be laid to rest.

Ordinarily, with unregulated blockchains, institutions face the risk of financial loss and also the risk of further repercussions due to the misuse of the responsibility entrusted to you. There are also financial penalties to be paid as well as reputational damage to be taken into consideration.

Now that the world has no lack of regulated blockchains, it is a very good opportunity for any government or organization that wants to lead the global blockchain marketplace to act quickly. In a short time, leaders must have emerged and the others will just have to follow suit.

Related:

Regulated Blockchain: A New Dawn in Technological Advancement

Wipro Builds Blockchain Trading Platform for German Energy Major Uniper

How DeFi Will Reshape Financial Services



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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 21:53:09|Editor: huaxia

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PHNOM PENH, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia can make a bold step towards ending extreme poverty if about 1.5 percent of the kingdom's gross domestic product (GDP) is spent for a social protection floor, said a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report released on Monday.

Cambodia has achieved impressive rates of economic growth over the past 15 years, the report said, adding that as a result, poverty rate has fallen dramatically from a half of the population in 2007 to below 10 percent by 2016.

The public budget surplus in 2018 is equivalent to approximately 150 million U.S. dollars, which can nearly close the poverty gap if it is used for social safety nets, it said, adding that it represents more than double the amount needed to bring the share of Cambodians living in poverty below 3 percent.

"This report shows that a system of support based on a social protection floor is effective for reducing poverty to below 3 percent of the population, and in normal times is entirely affordable for Cambodia," Nick Beresford, UNDP Cambodia's resident representative, said in a press release.

The report said if annual spending for a social protection scheme was to be raised to reach 1.5 percent of the GDP, more than 800,000 Cambodians would be lifted above the national poverty threshold, while an additional 600,000 would see a significant improvement in their welfare.

The report also praised Cambodia for its emergency cash transfer program in response to the COVID-19, saying that it could lift over one million Cambodians out of poverty and improve the livelihoods of many more.

"This represents an unprecedented political stance and institutional progress towards more permanent and ambitious programs, including towards the establishment of a social protection floor," it said. Enditem
The Australian economy could shrink to where it was when Malcolm Turnbull narrowly won the 2016 election, with new figures revealing sales across almost every industry have collapsed, dragging down workers' incomes.

Ahead of Wednesday's June quarter national accounts, which will confirm Australia's first recession in almost three decades, Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed sales of accommodation and food services alone dropped by 39.1 per cent, while those in arts and recreation tumbled by 37.1 per cent.

An ABS survey shows a growing number of people facing financial pressures. Credit:Sharon Smith

Retail sales fell 3.1 per cent, the sector enduring a fifth consecutive monthly drop in activity for the first time on record. Even the mining sector recorded a 1.8 per cent drop in sales.

The only sector to avoid a drop in sales was utilities such as electricity, gas and water as millions of Australians were forced to work from home during the pandemic.
On Saturday morning, the Webb County Sheriffs Office unveiled a new program it hopes will better protect the property of all of the rural residents of the county.

Known as Operation Identification, it proposes that people can now inform the sheriffs office what property they have so they can be more efficient in searching for any stolen property. According to other counties around the country that have set up similar programs, the citizens burglary prevention program is for use in homes and involves marking property with an identifying number as a means of discouraging burglary and theft in the area.
BALTIMORE, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sage Growth Partners (SGP), a Baltimore-based healthcare research, strategy, and marketing firm, today announced that it has been retained by Pacify Health, the country's leading telehealth app for lactation support and pediatric care. Pacify has engaged SGP as its agency of record to help the company build brand awareness, credibility, and visibility in the market. SGP will achieve this through integrated marketing campaigns, including thought leadership, public relations, social media, and lead generation.

The relationship comes at a critical time when telehealth use is on the rise due to COVID-19. Designed to support new and expecting parents whenever and wherever they need it, the Pacify app connects users with certified clinicians, including nurses and lactation consultants, over a secure video chat. No appointments are necessary, and calls are answered in an average of less than 30 seconds. Pacify's solution was quickly signed on by the city of Philadelphia when shelter-in-place orders were implemented in mid-March, giving local moms critical tele-lactation support from the safety of home during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pacify serves a diverse range of mothers through contracts with a range of partners, including city and state departments of health, leading hospitals, employers, Medicaid managed care companies, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) programs, and breast pump manufacturers.

"Pacify is committed to helping parents, especially new moms, get vital lactation and pediatric health support any time they need it," said George Brandes, Co-founder and CEO at Pacify Health. "COVID-19 has increased the need for our services as parents try to minimize time outside the home, especially those with new babies. We see an opportunity to expand the number of families we serve, and look forward to having SGP help us develop our voice and reputation in the market. Their team has already helped us conduct a successful launch in Philadelphia through earned media and integrated communications, and we're energized for our continued work together."

"COVID-19 has proven challenging for everyone, but for expecting and new parents, there is a heightened level of concern," said Boh Hatter, Chief Marketing Officer at Sage Growth Partners. "Our integrated marketing team is excited to be working with a company that is able to meaningfully support this vulnerable population. The Pacify team approaches their work with tremendous rigor and passion, and we're looking forward to helping them expand their footprint."

About Pacify Health

Pacify Health was founded on the idea that more can be done to use mobile technology to help families access excellent prenatal and pediatric care. Pacify's industry-leading mobile platform provides instantaneous, 24/7 support to new mothers. Mothers who download the app can connect via video-visit with clinicians including nurses and lactation consultants. There are no appointments or scheduling, and calls are answered in an average of less than 30 seconds. Pacify serves a diverse range of mothers via contracts with leading hospitals, employers, Medicaid managed care companies, state Departments of Health, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, and breast pump manufacturers. In 2019, Pacify was acquired by Advantia Health as part of its commitment to continued investment in technologies that improve the lives and health of women and their families.

Advantia is transforming healthcare for all women  we're setting a higher standard of care and convenience while reducing unnecessary costs. Compassion and value inspire everything we do. We take time to listen, answer questions completely, and offer helpful technology between visits so that our patients are empowered and at ease. Alongside coordinated care, Advantia is pioneering care models that align incentives with the best interests of women and their families.

Learn more at AdvantiaHealth.com and Pacify.com

About Sage Growth Partners

Sage Growth Partners accelerates commercial success for B2B, B2B2C, and B2C healthcare organizations through a singular focus on growth. The company helps its clients thrive amid the complexities of a rapidly changing marketplace with deep domain expertise and an integrated application of research, strategy, and marketing.

Founded in 2005, Sage Growth Partners is located in Baltimore, MD, and serves clients such as Philips Healthcare, U.S. Renal Care, Quest Diagnostics, Vocera, Livongo, Olive, iN2L, and Aperture.

Media Contact

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Lyubov Sobol is stepping up her work in Mr Navalny's absense - DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images

Lyubov Sobol was already among the most visible dissidents in Vladimir Putins Russia. At 32, she has fronted a protest movement, calling thousands to the streets when she and other opposition candidates were barred from standing in Moscow city elections last year.

She staged a hunger strike and a sit-in at the offices of the Moscow election commission, eventually being lifted out of the building on a sofa after she refused to stand for police officers. A laughing Ms Sobol broadcast the incident live from her phone to her vast social media following.

She has been sued by one of the most powerful businessmen in the country, and her husband has survived a poisoning. In 2016 an unknown assailant jabbed a syringe into his leg and injected a psychotropic substance that left him convulsing and unconscious, an attack Ms Sobol believes was linked to her activism.

Now, with opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a coma in a German hospital after another suspected poisoning, the telegenic lawyer finds herself at the helm of his anti-Kremlin organisation.

Doctors at Berlins Charite Hospital, where Mr Navalny was transferred from a Siberian clinic, have said he will probably survive the ordeal but may sustain long-term damage.

Navalny profile

Neither they nor his supporters know when, or even if, he will return to his previous role.

Tests at the hospital showed Mr Navalny was poisoned with a cholinesterase inhibitor, a group of chemical compounds that includes Novichok, the nerve agent that was used against former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

Mr Navalnys team have laid the blame for the attack squarely on Russian authorities, but the Kremlin rejected the claims as empty noise and accused German doctors of rushing to conclusions.

Ms Sobol is part of a trio that have vowed to keep up the pressure of authorities in Mr Navalnys absence. While she runs his YouTube channels - which have a combined six million subscribers and produce regular reports of wrongdoing among the Russian elite - lawyer Ivan Zhdanov heads Mr Navalnys anti-corruption foundation and top aide Leonid Volkov oversees political campaigning.

Story continues

In an interview with the Telegraph, Ms Sobol said the group had no intention of scaling back their broadcasts or corruption investigations.

They also plan to campaign against the ruling United Russia party in regional elections next month. Mr Navalnys group no longer fields candidates itself but encourages supporters to vote for whoever has the best chance of beating United Russia, whether they be from communist or nationalist parties.

Im working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, said Ms Sobol, who has worked with Mr Navalny for a decade.

Any injustice gives me more strength and motivates me to work harder.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, his wife Yulia, opposition politician Lyubov Sobol - KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images

Before he fell suddenly ill on a flight to Moscow from Siberia ten days ago, Mr Navalny spent months at a time under house arrest or in jail, and relied on a team of legal staff, researchers and other dissidents to keep up pressure on the Kremlin.

There are dozens of people in our organisation all across the country, Ms Sobol said, pointing to offices in 40 regions of Russia. These are people who are professional and they are idealistic - they dont need a boss to make sure theyre in the office from nine to five.

And she argued the poisoning had also made an impression on the general public. People who were indifferent to the authorities and the opposition have come round to our side because theyve seen the dirty methods the Kremlin uses.

Lyubov Sobol - AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

The dangers of working against Mr Putin, however, are well documented: over his 20-year rule, dissidents have been attacked, poisoned, tried, exiled and, in the case of former opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, assassinated.

Mr Navalny himself is partially blind in one eye after an assailant threw green dye in his face on a Moscow street in 2017. Last year he was hospitalised from prison, where he was serving a short term for organising unauthorised protests, with what officials said was an acute allergic reaction but he believed was a poisoning.

Ms Sobol said she was saddened but not surprised by the latest alleged attack.

But I cant resign myself to the idea that this is normal life. If it can happen to Alexei Navalny, someone whos known all over the world, it means not a single person can feel safe.

We all understand what we have to do to continue our fight against the Putin regime.
Installation view of "Starry Beach," a multisensory installation by a'strict, a collaborative art unit by design company d'strict, at Kukje Gallery in central Seoul / Courtesy of Kukje Gallery



By Kwon Mee-yoo



Upon entering Kukje Gallery K3 in central Seoul, visitors will be engulfed by endless blue waves. The sea waves crash upon the wall of the black box space, making the visitors feel as if they are seeing the wave from a top view, accompanied with the roar of the sea.



The people who brought this multisensory experience titled "Starry Beach" into the gallery is a'strict, a media artist unit of digital design company d'strict.



The company uses digital media technology to create immersive experiences. It is best known for "WAVE," a giant digital public art piece featuring a crashing wave at COEX in southern Seoul, which gained international attention back in May. Shown on the largest high-definition outdoor advertising screen in Korea, "WAVE" was dubbed as the world's largest anamorphic illusion.



Lee Sung-ho, CEO of d'strict, said, "d'strict has been active in the commercial domain, combining art and technology. A'strict will continue to make artistic experiments autonomously and voluntarily using the accumulated knowhow."



Lee said "WAVE" also was a voluntary project of d'strict, which sowed the seeds of a'strict.



"The large-format outdoor display is mostly used for advertisements and other commercial projects. However, we thought of the public characteristics of the giant LED display as people would see it while walking down the street. So we came up with the public media art of the waves for everyone."



"Starry Beach" is the first artwork presented under the name of a'strict, presenting surreal scenery through art and technology.



"We launched this artist brand as a media art sub brand of the company. As far as I know, this is the first attempt to do so in Korea," Lee said. "D'strict is a design company and has been creating what the client wanted. While doing commercial projects, some of the products were appealing in the field of contemporary art in an era when the boundary between art and design is blurred. An artwork should touch the viewer's heart  if we could provide visual, intuitive impression through media technology, it could be contemporary artwork too."





Members of a'strict, a collaborative art unit by design company d'strict, pose in front of "Starry Beach." / Courtesy of Kukje Gallery
Kim Hee Sun star in SBS "Alice" is the guest for "Master in the House" with their charity auction.

The actress graced the show on the August 30th episode together with the cast of "Master in The House'' as they held an auction and sold tomatoes, which all proceeds for their chosen charity.

The auction was held via live broadcast on social media where Kim Hee Sun and the other cast members brought their personal items for people to bid on. More than 3,700 people joined the live broadcast.

Kim Hee Sun receives loving support from her husband and her co-star actor Joo Won from new drama series "Alice".

The beautiful actress is married to businessman Park Ju-Young, and they have two daughters. Throughout the live auction, he leaves messages to support his wife. His sweet comments like, "Take care of my wife please", while host Lee Seung Gi jokingly commented, "I am watching for his bids, this is real time love-stagram".

The actress brought her own personal items for auction like an expensive jacket, hat, sunglasses, and a pretty purse. The other cast of "Master in the House" like Kim Dong Hyun also brought gloves that he used in his 2008 match while Cha Eun Woo put up his own clothes he wore on Instagram.

Actor Joo Won messaged how he is fond of Kim Hee Sun and mentioned that he wishes to join though the video wasn't clear. The actress looks beautiful, on hearing this Kim Hee Sun raise her hands in showing heart-action on camera.

The show was able to raise 5,410,000 won approximately 4,600 dollars for their charity donation. Kim Hee Sun and the rest of the cast members were happy how the items were sold and made a good way to help.

It didn't stop there, the actress also joined the cast as they sold 300kg of tomatoes that they harvested themselves and made good sales. The members were happy and mentioned to continue the donation project as well.

Currently, the SBS "Alice" aired premiere episodes which reached 10.2 percent viewership in Seoul metropolitan area and gained up to 11.2 percent nationwide. This marked the highest viewership with other programs aired at the same time slot. This is Kim Hee Sun's comback drama after two years of hiatus. A story about time travelers on earth which the actress played as a genius scientist eager to track down time travellers to save the present earth.
UAE-based Arkan Building Materials Company has announced that its CEO Abdellatif Sfaxi has resigned from his post to pursue other career opportunities.

Following this, the board of directors have appointed Chief Operating Officer Engineer Abdelaziz Asad as the acting CEO.

Under the new arrangement, Sfaxi will continue to work closely with Asad for the next three months to ensure a smooth transition.

Despite the challenging market environment for construction industry, the business continues to perform well, with a broad portfolio of products and a strong order book.

On the development, Chairman Engineer Jamal Salem Al Dhaheri said: "On behalf of Arkans board, I would like to thank Sfaxi for his 12 years of service to the company. During his tenure as CEO he has reinforced Arkans market leadership, driven a broader product diversification, helped open new markets with innovative product solutions and driven efficiencies to address the challenging market environment in recent years."

Engineer Al Dhaheri said: "Asad is well suited for the role of acting CEO at Arkan given the many years he spent in senior management roles across the business."

Asad has nearly 30 years of experience in the building materials sector. Since he joined Arakan in 1991 he has held a wide range of senior management roles across the company.

"He will be supported by a strong executive management team enabling him to lead the business in the best interests of all stakeholders, positioning the Company for the current market cycle and future economic recovery," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
LAS VEGAS, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Purpose Pools (https://www.purposepools.com/) recently announced the official celebration of its one-year anniversary as the premier pool service, maintenance, and repair company in the area. Purpose Pools is a 360-degree pool specialist that also gives back to the community, often contributing to charities specifically chosen by its customers: most recently the March of Dimes, St. Jude's hospital, Las Vegas Rescue Mission, Animal Foundation, Nevada Child Seekers, and others. Utilizing trained professionals, a culture of accountability, a family-first focus, and a commitment to customer service that is second to none, the premium pool specialists look forward to many more years serving the Las Vegas community.

Swim with Purpose

Purpose Pools: Swim With Purpose

"We absolutely love the community of Las Vegas, and we're so happy they have embraced our company this past year," said Scott Reynolds, CEO of Purpose Pools. "Our 'Purpose' here at Purpose Pools is to make an impact in our local community; service-to-others has always been a part of my personal commitment. We want to show that small businesses can and should support the communities they live and serve in. We do this by providing concierge-level service in an industry that is unfortunately known for underserving its clients. That's not who we are. We are a relationship company  our clients are like our family. And we work with some of the largest pool builders and property management companies in the Vegas area because they trust us to take care of their pools with the professionalism and respect they deserve. Families come to us too, because they know they can trust us to work quickly, efficiently, and treat their backyards and pool spaces as if they were our own."

Purpose Pools: Services Offered

Certified Pool and Spa Operator, Licensed and Insured

Weekly Maintenance Service

Water Chemistry Analysis and pH Maintenance

Filter Cleaning and/or Replacement

Equipment Inspection and Repair

To learn more about the charities they support, the latest pool-cleaning specials, or to contact Purpose Pools about scheduling a consultation, call 702-703-2625 or go online at www.PurposePools.com.

About Purpose Pools

Purpose Pools is a full-service pool maintenance service that covers the greater Las Vegas area. Offering friendly, experienced professionals, Purpose Pools understands that a fully functioning, healthy pool involves more than just quick surface cleaning, and every pool is unique. Offering a complete range of pool repair, water analysis, and personalized maintenance services, Purpose Pools is a complete pool specialist. And Purpose Pools has always been dedicated to community responsibility, routinely giving back to charities chosen by its customers. Learn more at www.PurposePools.com.

Media Contact

Scott Reynolds, CEO

702-703-2625

[email protected]

SOURCE Purpose Pools

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Lewis Hamilton is eager to take his seventh world title in Formula 1, but if it was up to the Brit, there will be some more fights on the track with Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen. The Mercedes driver hopes for more exciting Grands Prix than that of Belgium.

"As soon as the start was done and the restart, you generally know that I dont make too many mistakes, and the same with these drivers, theyre very very consistent," Hamilton said during the press conference when asked whether Mercedes' dominance is a positive for Formula 1.

Not much happened at Spa-Francorchamps, so it was not a spectacular Sunday afternoon. "Its very difficult to overtake in this circuit so I can imagine, its definitely not the most exciting. I feel exactly the same as Max; it wasnt the most exciting battle. I generally really enjoy myself in the car because if you dont enjoy the moment, whats the point in doing in it. Im still enjoying the battle. Every time I come through turn 15, I look in my mirror, I see where Valtteri is, whether hes closer or further behind, taking in the knowledge of what times hes doing, the gaps between him and Max and really trying to get a perfect balance each and every single lap," Hamilton continues.

Hamilton on more struggles

Hamilton argues that this is still a huge challenge for him, but that he understands fans hope to see a different kind of Formula 1. "Its perhaps not as fun for people to watch but when youre in it; its a little bit different. But of course, I would love to have a real race. Ive definitely had races in the past here which are a little bit closer, trying to follow the Ferrari and stay on top of them but they could overtake because they had all that extra power. I think the Red Bulls have improved. I really hope that we have more of a race because I think everyone wants to see us all battling together," the six-time world champion concluded.
A further 58 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Northern Ireland on Monday.

It brings to 461 the total number of positive tests over the past seven days with 7,245 having contracted the disease since the outbreak here.

There were no further deaths over the weekend, with the total death toll remaining at 560.

There are 15 active care home outbreaks and two patients are in ICU with Covid-19 the latest figures show. There are 17 people in hospital with the virus.

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On Monday, public transport operator Translink apologised to a woman who said she was "sick" with anxiety after travelling on a busy train between Dublin and Belfast last week.

Elizabeth Byrne told the BBC Stephen Nolan show she felt compelled to self-isolate for two weeks after travelling on the "packed" train where she could see no signs of social-distancing.

Translink said the situation was "not appropriate" during the pandemic and has begun an investigation.

Read More

A Translink spokesperson said: "We have managed public transport services safely during Covid-19 and continue to do so, however these were exceptional circumstances on Saturday, with a power failure leading to operational difficulties, and an additional train was provided on the 11.20 from Dublin.

"We accept that communication was not adequate regarding this.

We are carrying out an investigation to ensure we learn from instances like this and are also reviewing our boarding and communications arrangements for passengers with our colleagues in Irish Rail.

Where services are busy, we do recommend that passengers allow additional time for their journey as it may be necessary to wait for the next train.

Read More

Meanwhile, a leaked scientific document prepared for the UK Government has claimed up to 1,900 people could die in Northern Ireland in a second wave of coronavirus this winter.

The "reasonable worst case scenario" is set out in a paper by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage). The Department of Health in Northern Ireland appeared not to accept the figure for Northern Ireland.

Check out our live blog below to see how Monday's developments unfolded:
Three policemen who were suspended for not taking adequate steps to save three men lynched by a mob in Maharashtras Palghar on April 16 have been sacked, a police spokesperson said on Monday. Sachin Navadkar, Palghar police spokesperson, said the three policemen were assistant police inspector Anandrao Kale, assistant sub inspector Ravi Salunkhe and constable Naresh Dhodi. Salunkhe, 57, and Dhodi, 45, have been compulsorily retired while Kale, 43, has been dismissed with immediate effect, said Navadkar.

The killing of the two saffron-robed men and their driver in April this year had sparked off national outrage after video clips showed policemen heading to safety inside the police station and leaving the three men at the mercy of hundreds of people who suspected the three were thieves.

Kalpvrush Giri, 70, Sushil Giri, 35, and driver Nilesh Telgade, 30, were dragged out of their vehicle and thrashed by the mob in Gadhchinchale village, about 110 km from Palghar. The seers belonged to Varanasi-based Juna Akhara and were on their way to attend the last rites of their guru Mahant Shri Ram Giri in Surat.

The three sacked policemen are among the five suspended after the Uddhav Thackeray-led government came under sharp attack from the opposition over the conduct of the police personnel. Union Home Minister Amit Shah had also spoken to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to advise him to order a probe.

The Maharashtra government transferred all personnel posted at Kasa police station soon after and overnight, brought in 47 personnel from other parts of the district. When Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh came a month later on a visit in May, he removed district police chief Gaurav Singh. An IPS officer, Singh was placed on compulsory wait and hasnt been given a new assignment yet.

The investigation into the lynching of the three victims was handed over to Maharashtras Criminal Investigation Department. Home Minister Deshmukh had then released a list of 101 people arrested for the violence, setting off a second round of back-and-forth with the opposition after the Congress claimed that those arrested included local BJP functionaries.

The CID, which initially looked at the role of 824 people for the violence, had arrested 165 tribals including 11 minors for the three deaths. Of them, 10 men and 9 minors have been released on bail since the CID did not charge them within the stipulated 90 days.

Two charge sheets running into 11,000 pages have been filed by the police in early July. On 6 August, the CID filed their third charge-sheet against 47 people arrested for attacking a police team that had gone to investigate the crime on 13 May. This time, the police had opened fire at the protesters to force them to retreat.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is resisting calls to mandate face masks on public transport, insisting as many as 60 per cent of people are already wearing them.

Ms Berejiklian cited data collated from surveys that require people to self-report whether they wear masks, despite recent Transport for NSW figures drawn from CCTV footage indicating the number could be closer to 30 per cent.

Passengers wait for a bus at Circular Quay on Monday. Credit:Kate Geraghty

Following the first suspected coronavirus transmission on Sydney public transport, Ms Berejiklian on Monday warned of the complexity of implementing mandatory mask use across the network.

"Our response has to be commensurate with the risk ... we also need to consider the broader implications of anything we change because it does have a huge impact on other parts," Ms Berejiklian said. "We need to put things into perspective."
A UK Army drone previously used in Afghanistan is to fly over the English Channel to monitor migrant boats as the crisis continues.

The Watchkeeper drone will be used to help tackle the dangerous crossings, the UK Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

It is the first time the eye-in-the-sky war technology, which has been used by the British Army in Afghanistan, will fly in the UK operationally.

It comes as migrants continue to risk the dangerous seas in the Dover Strait, though bad weather has limited crossings recently.

Other British armed forces aircraft, including Atlas A-400M, Shadow R1 and P-8 Poseidon have also been authorised to help monitor Channel crossings.

Meanwhile, the British Royal Navy is considering deploying small patrol boats to the Channel to assist the UK Border Force.

More than 5,000 migrants have crossed to the UK in small boats so far in 2020, analysis by the PA news agency shows.

A UK Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: The deployment of Watchkeeper provides further defence support to the Home Office in tackling the increasing number of small boats crossing the English Channel.

It will provide a leading surveillance and reconnaissance capability, feeding information back to the Border Force and allowing them to take appropriate action where necessary.

The unmanned air system (UAS) was used to support British armed forces in Afghanistan and was hailed as a battle-winning technology by then defence secretary Michael Fallon in 2014.

Now it is scheduled to fly from Lydd Airport and will be operated by 47th Regiment Royal Artillery.

The MoD says the unmanned aircraft hosts a range of sensors including Electro-Optic and Infra-red full motion video day and night camera, Synthetic Aperture Radar and a Moving Target Indicator radar.

The Watchkeeper programme has cost the UK more than 1 bn (1.1bn), figures released in 2017 showed.

However, the drones have been beset by issues in recent years.

Four Watchkeeper drones are known to have crashed, including two which plunged into the sea off the coast of Wales in early 2017.

The other two crashes happened in 2014 and 2015 whilst landing at West Wales Airport and MoD Boscombe Down respectively.
Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor, who heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology (IT), has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, saying the issue of Internet shutdowns in Jammu & Kashmir is no longer sub judice and thus taking up the matter is not in contravention of rules, HT has learnt. He cited the need to prevent misuse of social and online news media platforms and added summoning Facebooks representatives in this regard is within his mandate.

Also read: Kerala Congress chief steps in after party leader attacks Shashi Tharoor

The panel has summoned the social media companys representatives over a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report this month that said Facebooks India policy head, Ankhi Das, opposed applying hate-speech rules to a BJP politician whose posts targeted Muslims. According to a new WSJ report on Sunday, Das also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the strongman who had broken the Congress socialist hold. The comments were made in a Facebook group designed for employees in India, but it was open to a global audience.

The panel has been split over asking Facebook executives to explain the report. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker Nishikant Dubey, who is a member of the panel, has maintained Tharoor cannot call Facebook to seek an explanation because the House rules do not allow it. He cited Rule 269 and added the secretary-general has the power to summon.

Parties like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam have supported Tharoors decision to call Facebook for an explanation and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has demanded a criminal investigation into the matter.

Birla had written to the chairpersons of all parliamentary panels and asked them to select subjects in line with Parliamentary rules and conventions, which include not taking up subjects pending before courts.

In a letter to Birla last week, a copy of which HT has seen, Tharoor addressed various points the speaker has highlighted. He cited the Internet shutdowns in Jammu & Kashmir and referred to the May 11 Supreme Court judgment related to it and the dismissal of a subsequent contempt petition that followed to make his point.

The Centre on August 11 told the Supreme Court that restrictions on 4G mobile internet will be relaxed in one district each of Jammu and Kashmir divisions of the Union Territory after August 15 on a trial basis. The decision was arrived at on the recommendations made of a special committee constituted on the top courts May 11 directive to the Centre to review restrictions on high-speed mobile internet.

The Supreme Court was hearing a petition filed in June by the Foundation for Media Professionals, a non-government organisation, seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against the Centre and Jammu & Kashmir administration for failure to comply with the top courts May 11 directions to review restrictions on mobile internet speeds in the Union Territory, where people are only able to access 2G services.

The top court appreciated the stand taken by the Centre and closed the contempt case on August 11.

Tharoor added that since the matter has been addressed, it should no longer be considered sub judice and the panel would proceed on considering it. The panel was slated to hear from the Union home ministry, department of telecommunications and representatives from the states and Union territories on the issue on September 1.

HT on August 25 reported Birla had written to the chairpersons of all parliamentary panels on the selection of subjects based on rules and conventions.

In a partially modified agenda circulated among members on August 29, there was no mention of Jammu & Kashmir, even though the panel was still slated to hear from Delhi and Bihar on internet curbs. The modified agenda came after Dubey said since the issue was sub judice, it should not be discussed.

A member of the panel told HT that they would still like to hear from the government about the facts of the case. We should still like to hear the facts from the government, even if we do not have a discussion on J&K [Jammu & Kashmir], said the member on the condition of anonymity. A statement has been allowed in the past. It should not be against the rules.

According to experts, there is no rule that the panel cannot take up subjects pending before courts and a topic already bulletinised can be discussed.

Former Lok Sabha secretary general PDT Achary said a chairperson has additional powers, including a second casting vote. There is no particular rule that prohibits the panel from taking up matters that are pending before courts.

With reference to the Facebook issue that the panel is slated to hear, Tharoor, in his letter, said that under the topic of Safeguarding citizens rights & prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms summoning the social media company representatives is within his mandate.

The agenda of a panel is pre-approved by and bulletenised by the Speaker before it meets.
OTTAWA - The federal Liberals threw a credit lifeline to small businesses on the eve of rent coming due, extending a loan program as new figures showed a rent-relief effort is going to fall well short of expectations.

A report Monday from the parliamentary budget officer said the program aiming to provide rent relief to small and medium-sized businesses will cost $931 million after it was extended through to August.

The updated spending projections still put the program on a track to provide less help than the nearly $3 billion the Liberals had budgeted.

The program provides forgivable loans that cover half of rent for eligible small businesses, and also requires landlords to waive a further one-quarter of what theyd otherwise be owed.

Property owners have to apply for the help, and the Liberals have for months repeatedly asked landlords to use the aid  a request Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland reiterated Monday.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has asked the government to allow tenants to directly apply for help, or make changes to a small-business loan program so that more of the outstanding amount could be forgiven if paid back on time.

The groups executive vice-president warned some companies are ready to close with September rent due on Tuesday and hoped that Freeland, newly minted in the finance portfolio, would make amendments.

You qualify for the support, except that someone outside of your business and government have to nod their head and agree to it, Laura Jones said in an interview Monday.

Its just so fundamentally unfair that I have a hard time believing that anyone with common sense and smarts wouldnt see that unfairness and want to fix this.

NDP small business critic Gord Johns said Freeland needs to fix the program because asking landlords to apply isnt working.

The programs getting a fraction of expected use, not because small businesses are thriving, but because those that need the help cant access it, he said in a statement.

Speaking in Toronto, Freeland said the government would adapt aid programs as needed, and committed to listening and supporting small businesses to help them bridge tough times.

While many have reopened as restriction relax, their revenues are still low even if fixed costs like rent remain at 100 per cent, which is why many had looked to the Liberals to make a change to the program by now.

There are many businesses out there who are anxiously awaiting for a response from us, said Small Business Minister Mary Ng, seated alongside Freeland at the phone-in press conference, and I just want to assure you, were absolutely working on that.

Jenifer Bartman, a Winnipeg-based business consultant, said some landlords may not be applying for the program because they feel other supports may be able to help companies afford their rent.

Others, she said, may be worried about their own loans and mortgages given the economic uncertainty.

But without getting help to companies, some may opt not to renew their leases, close down and eliminate jobs, said Bartman.

Thats what I see as the real danger, she said. Companies go out of business ... then the spaces are empty, and landlords try to fill them in what could be the worst of times.

Aiming to help businesses in a different way, the Liberals on Monday announced an extension of the Canada Emergency Business Account until the end of October.

Freeland also said that the government is working with financial institutions to expand eligibility to companies that have been shut out of the program, including those who use personal rather than business bank accounts.

The government had said in mid-May that it was working to address that particular issue.

Freeland said details about eligibility changes will be released in the coming days, including a new process to open a business account.

Conservative small business critic James Cumming said in a statement that the Liberals needed to put a concrete timeline around a simplified application process.

Small businesses cant operate on soon and they definitely cant plan for a future in such uncertain terms, he said.

The government said the business loan program has provided more than $29 billion in credit through more than 730,000 loans.

Eligible businesses can receive interest-free loans of up to $40,000 through the program, and have one-quarter of the outstanding amount forgiven if the balance is repaid by Dec. 31, 2022.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2020.

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Istanbul:

Thirty-nine people, including many foreigners, were killed on Sunday when a gunman went on a rampage at an exclusive nightclub in Istanbul where revellers were celebrating the New Year.

As police launched a dragnet for the assailant, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the carnage sought to sow chaos and undermine peace, but that Turkey would never bow to the threat.

The shooting spree at the waterside Reina nightclub was unleashed when 2017 in Turkey was just 75 minutes old, after a year of unprecedented bloodshed that saw hundreds of people die in strikes blamed on Kurdish militants and jihadists and a bloody failed coup.

The assailant shot dead a policeman and a civilian at the club entrance and then went on the rampage inside where up to 700 people were ringing in the New Year.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the attacker had escaped and was now the target of a major manhunt, expressing hope the suspect would be captured soon.

He added that of 20 victims identified so far, 15 were foreigners and five were Turks. Another 65 people were being treated in hospital.

Many revellers threw themselves into the water in panic. Dogan news agency said the gunman was dressed in a Santa Claus outfit, although this has yet to be confirmed.

Soylu said the gunman had arrived with a gun concealed underneath an overcoat but subsequently exited the venue wearing a different garment.

No-one has yet claimed responsibility for the bloodshed. Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya indicated there were many Arabs among the wounded. Jordan said three of its nationals mere killed while the Tunisian foreign ministry said two Tunisians lost their lives.

An Israeli woman was killed and another injured, Israels foreign ministry said.

Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin said at the scene on the shores of the Bosphorus that the attacker targeted innocent people who had only come here to celebrate the New Year and have fun.

Television pictures showed party-goersincluding men in suits and women in cocktail dressesemerging from the nightclub in a state of shock.

Erdogan said in a statement that with such attacks, they are working to destroy our countrys morale and create chaos.

Turkey would deploy every means to fight terror organisations and the countries supporting them, Erdogan said, without giving details on which groups or nations he was referring to.

The attack evoked memories of the November 2015 carnage in Paris when Islamic State jihadists went on a gun and bombing rampage on nightspots in the French capital, killing 130 people including 90 at the Bataclan concert hall.

Also Read: 2 Indians amongst 39 killed in Istanbul's Christmas carnage, Sushma Swaraj arranges visit for victims' parents

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Victorian Police take the details of a man in Dandenong, Melbourne, Aug. 27, 2020. (AAP Image/James Ross)

Melbourne Protests Against Lockdown Continue with Three Arrested

Victoria Police have fined five more people in connection to the continuing protests against the CCP virus lockdowns across Melbourne, meanwhile, three people have been arrested for protesting in the citys north.

The protest activity has been ongoing for almost a week after a Facebook live video was published in which a person invited people to exercise within the five kilometre radius people are allowed from their homes for that express purpose.

To date, over 20 fines have been issued, and four arrests made, in connection to the gatherings, which are illegal under the states emergency powers legislation.
CAMBRIDGE  One petition, some angry neighbours and one suspicious fire later, the House of Friendships long-awaited addiction treatment centre has finally opened its doors in Cambridge.

To say its been a journey is an understatement, said Tara Groves-Taylor, Addiction Services Director with the House of Friendship.

The non-profit agencys residential addiction treatment program for men was set to move into its new space last spring, but a fire stalled renovations and left the program without a home.

Grand River Hospitals Freeport Hospital took them in. Then when the pandemic began, the hospital moved the group of men seeking treatment into another spot.

Last week the program finally moved into its new permanent location.

The new site on Concession Road is bigger and in a city that has a need for addiction treatment services.

I would like to think that having our centre located here will create awareness in the community, will allow us to integrate more readily into the community, Groves-Taylor said.

The House of Friendship announced its move from Waterloo to Cambridge in 2017 when it purchased the property at 562 Concession Rd. formerly used by Haven House womens shelter.

The new facility quickly became a source of contention in Cambridge, a city hit hard by the opioid crisis, and sparked an online petition. It gathered 3,500 signatures and asked House of Friendship to put the treatment centre somewhere else, away from homes, daycares and schools.

Groves-Taylor said that sentiment no longer exists.

Its been an evolution, she said. The fire was a turning point. We felt a groundswell of support after that happened.

She thinks news of last Mays devastating fire brought more awareness to what the treatment centre sought to achieve, and dispelled myths that circulated along with opposition to the centre.

Last week, the House of Friendship workers went around the neighbourhood to deliver flyers, informing residents they have moved into the space. Groves-Taylor said they were met with smiles, optimism and well wishes.

A treatment centre being located in a community, by virtue of it being there, shines a light on addiction and substance issues, she said.

Groves-Taylor hopes the visible location of the treatment centre will help educate people about addiction and substance use, and help people understand that addictions can happen to anyone.

The new residential treatment centre can house up to 20 men, but during the pandemic the facility is capped at 10 residents. The residential treatment program typically lasts between three and six months.

Day treatment programs will soon be available at the centre for men and women. This is a two-week intensive treatment program that runs during the daytime, one of many services for addiction treatment and counselling offered by the House of Friendship.

The House of Friendship started its residential addiction treatment program in 1975. It moved to Cambridge from an old farmhouse on King Street North in Waterloo.

A smudging ceremony was planned for Monday afternoon to bless the new facility. Groves-Taylor said it was a fitting ceremony to hold on Overdose Awareness Day.

When people come through our doors for service, its after a journey and its after a journey that likely involves a lot of pain, a lot of difficulty, a lot of decisions, a lot of loss, Groves-Taylor said.

So we need to be here when people are ready to have those conversations, to access those services, to change their lives.

The new treatment centre cost $5 million and was funded through donations, sale of the agencys Waterloo property as well a $1 community bond.
MILAN  At the end of July, Italy officially entered a recession as the countrys National Institute for Statistics ISTAT released a study estimating that local gross domestic product was down 12.4 percent in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the previous quarter. Earlier that month, the European Unions 27 national leaders agreed on a 750 billion euro Recovery Fund via grants and loans to help countries recover from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, and Italy is expected to be one of the main beneficiaries of the European Union agreement. Also, to support economic recovery, the Italian government has earmarked an injection of 25 billion euros for its 2020 budget, increasing its public deficit to 11.9 percent of its GDP  the highest of the euro zone.

But at the annual meeting of Catholic activist group Comunione e Liberazione at the end of August, Italys Minister of Economy Roberto Gualtieri struck an upbeat note, claiming that the country was showing the conditions for an extremely strong rebound in the third quarter of the year in the wake of the COVID-19 recession.

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Against this background, challenges loom ahead for a number of Italian fashion companies, which may avail themselves of any help they can get. Storied mens wear brand Corneliani, which in June submitted an application for admission to a composition with creditors procedure, is expected to receive a 10 million euro investment from the Italian government, the first fashion company to receive state funding under the Re-Launch Decree. This was developed by the Italian government to support the restart of the country after the global pandemic and includes the creation of a fund to support companies during the crisis. Controlled by Bahrain-based Investcorp, Corneliani is eyeing a revamp as the mens wear sector is grappling with lackluster demand for tailored clothing, which is weighing on companies ranging from Boglioli to Pal Zileri.

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Unemployment is also a concern as ISTAT at the end of July stated that Italys unemployment rate rose to 8.8 percent in June from an upwardly revised 8.3 percent the month before, as some 46,000 jobs were lost in the coronavirus crisis.

After months of strikes and protests against Roberto Cavallis planned decision to move its headquarters, more than 100 out of 170 employees at the brands complex outside Florence will not move to Milan and effectively lose their jobs in September. Roberto Cavalli is owned by the founder and chairman of Damac Properties, Hussain Sajwani, through his private investment company Vision Investments.

At the end of last year, Safilo Group revealed it would shed some 700 jobs this year as it revises its stable of licenses while it expects the exit of the Dior brand from Jan. 1 and that of the Fendi label beginning July 1. The eyewear group is also further developing its own brands, from Carrera to Polaroid and its online business.

The uncertainties are also fueling merger and acquisition rumors, with Kering said at one time or another to be circling Salvatore Ferragamo and Valentino, while speculation about the French groups interest in Moncler has petered out.

The return at the end of May of Michele Norsa as director of the board and executive deputy chairman at Salvatore Ferragamo fanned new rumors about a possible change of ownership  a development the Ferragamo family has always denied.

Norsa is a partner in FSI, which in 2018 took a 41.2 percent stake in Missoni, and this link could open up new scenarios. Analysts, including Equita, observed that Maurizio Tamagnini, ceo of FSI, has in the past pointed to the fund as a possible aggregator of luxury brands, and that Ferragamo would fit with this idea of a fashion conglomerate.

The Etro family has also denied any interest in selling the namesake company, but rumors repeatedly surface about the possibility.

After an excellent 2019 in terms of M&A operations in all consumer sectors, from fashion and design to beauty and wine and food, Alessio Candi, in charge of M&A at Milan-based Pambianco Strategie dImpresa, said he expects this year, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, to see an ongoing consolidation, no longer tied to the development, but rather to the necessary strengthening of the assets of many companies that will be forced to open their capital to survive. This, Pambianco believes, will lead to an increased polarization of the market between big players, that will capture more market shares and small players that will on the other hand have a hard time to be competitive.
A Queensland man got the shock of his life when he returned home from a night out to discover two snakes weighing about 18kg had crashed through his ceiling.

David Tait found the huge coastal pythons in his Lacey's Creek home, north-west of Brisbane, on Monday after walking inside to find part of the fibro ceiling in his dining room had crashed to the floor.

Mr Tait went searching through his home and found the 2.5m and 2.8m snakes, one in his bedroom and the other in the living area.

Steven Brown, 38, from Brisbane North Snake Catchers and Relocation, told Daily Mail Australia they were 'some of the fattest snakes' he had ever seen.

Queensland man David Tait returned home on Monday to discover two massive coastal pythons had crashed through his ceiling (pictured)

Steven Brown from Brisbane North Snake Catchers and Relocation said they were 'some of the fattest snakes' he had ever seen

Mr Brown said the snakes - weighing about 10kg and 8kg - may have been fighting over a female and there was a chance she was still close by.

'I did try looking for the potential female but there was no way I could get into the roof - it was impossible to get my arm in there. The home used to be the old Lacey Creek State School,' he said.

Mr Brown, who has been into snakes for the past 10 years and owned his own business for three, added it had been a busy start to snake season, which usually kicks off on September 1.

Steven Brown (pictured), 38, from Brisbane North Snake Catchers and Relocation, told Daily Mail Australia they were 'some of the fattest snakes' he had ever seen

Mr Brown (pictured) said the snakes - weighing about 10kg and 8kg - may have been fighting over a female and there was a chance she was still close by

'It actually picked up about a month ago,' he said.

'Normally snake and breeding season starts on the first of Spring and I don't get many calls until a couple of weeks into it ... but this season has started early and it's been busy.

'I think that's because of the warm winter we had ... we didn't get that cold we usually do.'

David Tait found the huge coastal pythons in his Lacey's Creek home, north-west of Brisbane , on Monday after walking inside to find part of the fibro ceiling in his dining room had crashed to the floor (pictured)

One of the snakes was located in the bedroom of the Queensland home (pictured), which used to be the 'old Lacey Creek State School'

Mr Tait said he occasionally saw snakes on his metal roof enjoying the sun.

'We have a lot of bush around here so you do see snakes,' he told The Courier-Mail.

'When I came back ... there was a large slab (of ceiling) on the kitchen table.

'I guessed what had happened and went looking. I found one snake in the bedroom and we found one in the lounge room.'

Mr Tait told Today on Tuesday he was not keen on the idea of having a third snake around.

'I don't care what size it is, I'm not keen on it,' he said.

Mr Brown urged anybody needing help with a slithering situation to 'call a snake catcher'.

'Do not take matters into your own hands,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

Images uploaded by Mr Brown to the Brisbane North Snake Catchers and Relocation Facebook page have caused a stir on social media.

It has attracted almost 350 comments and been shared 290 times.

Mr Brown safely relocated the snakes and said they may have been fighting over a female and there was a chance she was still close by

Users have commented on the 'chonky snakes', with some saying coming home to Mr Tait's situation was their biggest fear and others saying it was the result of 'rats or possums on the menu'.

'This is my fathers house. Thank you for taking them away!! Am a bit worried about the female that is still on the loose,' Mr Tait's daughter commented.

'Must be some good rats or possums on the menu there,' another wrote under the post.

'Omg this is my fear. How heavy would these snakes be? And how can you keep them out of the roof?' another added.

'They are gorgeous! They just need to brush up on their hide and seek skills a bit,' a third user joked.
OSLO: Norways $1 trillion wealth fund said it has excluded Taiwans Formosa Chemicals and Fibre, Formosa Taffeta and Indias Page Industries from its portfolio, saying they posed an unacceptable risk for violation of human rights".

The three companies named in a statement by the worlds largest sovereign wealth fund were not immediately available for comment on Monday. The Norwegian fund sells holdings before announcing such exclusions to avoid excessive market moves.

In recent years the fund, which operates under guidelines established by the Norwegian parliament, has focused on working conditions in textile factories in Asia, excluding companies it thinks pose an ethical risk to its investments.

Set up in 1996 to preserve Norways oil revenues for future generations, the fund holds around 1.5% of globally listed shares and its decisions are often followed by other investors.

At the end of 2019, NBIM held a 0.84% stake in Formosa Chemicals & Fibre, valued at $144 million, and a 0.64% stake in Formosa Taffeta valued at $12.2 million.

The stake in Page Industries at that time stood at 0.42%, with a market value of $15.4 million.

The fund said in the statement that its management will also scrutinise oil firm PetroChinas work, engaging in active ownership in the hope of boosting the companys anti-corruption practices.

PetroChina was not immediately available for comment.

PetroChina had been under observation for possible exclusion since 2017 and had not responded to inquiries from the funds ethics watchdog, the Council on Ethics, Norges Bank said.

The board of the Norwegian central bank, which manages the fund, concluded active ownership" was therefore appropriate.

The fund held 0.17% of PetroChina shares at the end of 2019, valued at $159.6 million. It did not say whether the stake had changed since the start of 2020.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Sunday it was only a matter of time before the group killed an Israeli soldier to avenge the death of one its fighters in Syria and that it would not be drawn into clashes on the Lebanon-Israel frontier.

Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah last fought a war in 2006, and tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border have been running high after the Shi'ite movement said one of its members was killed in an apparent Israeli air strike in July in Syria.

"Israel needs to understand that when they kill one of our mujahideen, we will kill one of their soldiers. This is the equation," Nasrallah said in a televised speech.

"We will not engage in exchanges of fire ... because this is what Israel wants," he said. "They know that we are not looking for a publicity achievement, but that we are looking for soldiers to kill and they are hiding them like rats."

Earlier this week the Israeli military struck what it said were Hezbollah posts after shots were fired at troops in Israel, which Nasrallah on Sunday denied. Last month, Israel said the group carried out an infiltration attempt, a charge it denied.

No casualties were reported on either side in the incidents.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah would not be drawn into clashes that would "waste the blood of our martyrs and our equation".

After two Hezbollah members were killed in Damascus in 2019, Nasrallah vowed the group would respond if Israel killed any more Hezbollah fighters inside Syria, where they deployed as part of Iranian-backed efforts to support President Bashar al-Assad in a war that spiralled out of 2011 anti-government protests.

Israel has stepped up strikes on Syria in recent months in what Western intelligence sources say is a shadow war, approved by Washington, that has undermined Irans military power in the region without triggering a major increase in hostilities.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam and Ghaida Ghantous, Editing by William Maclean and Nick Macfie)
MarianVejcik/iStockBy MEREDITH DELISO, ABC News



(BOSTON) -- Hundreds of people gathered Sunday to protest a new flu vaccine mandate for Massachusetts students, enacted as school districts prepare to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic.



At the demonstration in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston, protesters -- some of them children -- held signs that read "Unavoidably unsafe," "My child, my choice," "Parents call the shots" and "I am not a threat." "No forced shots" was written in chalk in front of the statehouse. Many demonstrators were not wearing masks or social distancing, according to photos and videos taken of the event.



The protest follows an Aug. 19 announcement from state officials that influenza immunization will be required for all children ages 6 months or older who are attending Massachusetts child care, pre-school, kindergarten, and K-12. Full-time undergraduate and graduate students under 30 and all full and part-time health science students attending school in the state must also get the vaccine.



Several protesters said that the flu shot should be a choice -- an argument frequently used against mask mandates, including in schools -- due to the pandemic.



"The flu vaccine should not be a mandate. It should be a choice," Jessica Marchant told ABC Boston affiliate WCVB.



Other protesters told the station they believe state officials are "taking advantage" of the fear caused by the virus.



"I think parents are vulnerable right now. They need their kids to go to school and they backed us into a corner," Taryn Proulx told WCVB-TV. "We feel like we have to just comply or rearrange our whole lives and homeschool our children."



The mandate comes as experts are bracing for what some have called a "twindemic" of COVID-19 and the flu. Children are more vulnerable to the seasonal flu than COVID-19, medical experts told ABC News. Those under 5 years old are at the highest risk of developing serious flu-related complications, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.



"It is more important now than ever to get a flu vaccine because flu symptoms are very similar to those of COVID-19 and preventing the flu will save lives and preserve health care resources," Dr. Larry Madoff, medical director of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences, said in a statement announcing the flu requirement.



Under the mandate, students must now receive the vaccine annually by Dec. 31. Medical or religious exemptions are allowed. Home-schooled or off-campus college students are also exempt. Elementary and secondary students who are remote are not exempt.



A majority of school districts in the state, including Boston, plan to reopen in the coming weeks with hybrid learning, according to an analysis by WCVB.



Massachusetts has some of the highest vaccination rates in the country. During the 2018-2019 flu season, 81% of children ages 6 months to 17 years and 53.5% of adults got the vaccine, according to the CDC.



Massachusetts is the first state to mandate the flu vaccine for all children and joins a handful of states that already require it for child care and/or preschool enrollees, according to research by the Immunization Action Coalition.



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
KITCHENER  Monday is International Overdose Awareness Day: an opportunity for people to raise awareness about drug overdose and reduce the stigma of drug-related death and drug use.

With already 54 confirmed overdose related deaths as of early August this year in Waterloo Region, Pete McKechnie, social support co-ordinator at Sanguen Health Centre, said he and many others believe we are on track for more deaths.

McKechnie works on the front lines supporting substance users and people who have been impacted by overdose. He reflected on the trauma and isolation that follows overdoses. The day brings awareness to the fact that people face death every day.

McKechnie said that many harm reduction workers and advocates use a common phrase about people who use drugs: These are your brothers and sisters. This is your family.

Normally, Sanguen and other agencies would organize a number of in-person events to commemorate Overdose Awareness Day. It used to be an event that people would come to and feel comfortable, McKechnie said.

Past events were always well attended, said Aaron Fisher, a peer harm reduction worker with AIDS Committee of Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo & Area (ACCKWA).

Fisher recalled one event where people wrote the names of family members who died from overdose on flags and stones, and that they appreciated connecting with each other and talk about those theyve lost.

Fisher also said that the day is pivotal to counter the backlash against substance users.

The shame and stigma is really bad, he said.

This year, ACCKWA, Sanguen, and other agencies and organizations are organizing small-scale local events for the populations they serve.

As for the wider community, Fisher will speak at an online panel discussion for Overdose Awareness Day, hosted by the Waterloo Region Integrated Drug Strategy. The event will take place on Wednesday, September 2 from 2-3 p.m.

Fisher knows from lived experience how important this day is. I've lost many friends and acquaintances over the years and this has been a particularly bad year for that. And it's difficult with our work because we love our clients.

Lately it has been getting worse. If you dont see someone, you wonder whether something has happened.

McKechnie agreed, emphasizing that with COVID, services are hard to access, resources hard to locate. Overdose becomes more of a reality. For the community, the pandemic just becomes another thing on the list of things they need to survive.

Its clear that COVID has forced people to navigate these challenges alone.

Harm reduction advocates and experts are increasingly calling for safe supply as the next step to ensure that more lives are not needlessly lost to drug overdose. Safe supply (or safer supply), as it is defined by the Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs, refers to prescribing individuals the substances/medication they need rather than themselves medicating on a dangerous toxic drug supply.

Safe supply initiatives are being piloted in cities such as Ottawa, Vancouver, and London. The Municipal Drug Strategy Co-ordinators Network of Ontario have recently sent letters ahead of Overdose Awareness Day to politicians and leaders across the province, and has circulated an online petition in support of safe supply.

Johanna Han, Coordinator of the Waterloo Region Integrated Drugs Strategy, said that she is involved with this provincial network pushing for safe supply. Although the Integrated Drugs Strategy has not finalized its own position on safe supply, Han wrote in an email that there is work underway  to examine how safe supply initiatives can be a strategy to prevent opioid overdoses and overdose deaths in our region.

Toronto recently received federal funding for two safe supply programs. Michael Parkinson of the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council also supports safe supply as a proven approach.

Safe supply initiatives with pharmaceutical medications ... in a therapeutic context are backed by more than 25 years of evidence, showing substantial benefits in both individual and community health and safety.

Parkinson wrote that for people using unregulated substances who find themselves marginalized by human structures and systems ... safe supply offers an opportunity to reverse the historical over-incarceration of our friends and neighbours at a fraction of the cost.

McKechnie said that with the borders closed, and usual supply lines disrupted, people are at a much higher risk of overdosing.

Its a toxic drug supply right now. Ive been doing this long enough to remember when people knew what they were taking. Now there is zero guarantee that what theyre taking is safe.

Fisher said he supports safe supply, and called current street drugs tainted concoctions.

He first started his advocacy around drug use and harm reduction eight years ago.

I got clean, and started doing research in harm reduction and safe consumption sites.

Fisher now sits on a regional co-ordinating committee for harm reduction. Drawing on his sobriety journey, Fisher believes safe supply would save countless lives.

So many people try to get off of the drug on their own ... but without that support there, it's almost impossible, right? Fisher said. If they've got a safe supply and they've got a doctor that's prescribing it to them and they've got counselling offered. They've got other wraparound services. I think they have a lot more success.

McKechnie said that safe supply offers a gateway into other services. Many people dont feel like they have the right to access services, because they feel stigmatized. [Safe supply] opens up connections to primary healthcare and treatment centres.

Safe supply is not the end all, be all McKechnie said. Its just one approach, and there is enough evidence to know that this will help a lot of people.
James Tensuan / The Chronicle

Six mail boxes removed from the streets of Oakland last week, drawing condemnation from local officials concerned about potential voter suppression, will be back in place Monday, the U.S. Postal Service said.

The Postal Service said the decision to remove the mail-collection boxes was a precautionary measure in anticipation of demonstrations in the city over the weekend.
Bear hug: A Trump supporter joins the caravan of trucks as it moved towards Portland. PHOTO: NATHAN HOWARD/GETTY

Police have called for videos, photos or eyewitness accounts of the fatal shooting in Portland, Oregon, that happened after hundreds of supporters of President Donald Trump clashed with Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters.

The shooting on Saturday night came about 15 minutes after a caravan of approximately 600 vehicles that were part of a pro-Trump rally left the city centre, police said.

It wasn't clear if the shooting was related to the clashes between Trump supporters and counter-protesters in the state's largest city, which has become a flashpoint in the US BLM protests since George Floyd was killed in May in Minneapolis, and an increasing centrepiece in Mr Trump's law-and-order re-election campaign theme.

Police have not released any information about the case but said they were aware of videos on social media that showed the shooting.

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"It is still early in this investigation and I ask everyone to give the detectives time to do their important work before drawing conclusions about what took place," said Police Chief Chuck Lovell.

"If anyone can provide information about this case, I ask them to please reach out to our detectives. This violence is completely unacceptable and we are working diligently to find and apprehend the individual or individuals responsible."

A freelance photographer heard three gunshots and then saw medics attending to the victim, who appeared to be a white man. The freelancer said he was wearing a hat bearing the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group whose members have frequently clashed with protesters in Portland in the past.

Police said the man was shot in the chest. He was not immediately identified.

Portland has been the site of nightly protests for more than three months since the police killing of Mr Floyd. Many have ended in vandalism and violence, and hundreds of demonstrators have been arrested by local and federal law enforcement since late May.

In the two hours following the shooting, protesters gathered downtown and there was sporadic fighting and vandalism, police said. Ten people were arrested.

The vehicles had arrived in the centre just as a planned protest was getting under way. The chaotic scene came two days after Mr Trump invoked Portland as a liberal city overrun with violence in his speech to the Republican National Convention. The caravan marked the third Saturday in a row Trump supporters have rallied in the city.

Patriot Prayer has a history in Portland and has repeatedly rallied supporters for pro-Trump rallies, beginning in 2017. The group was founded by right-wing political activist Joey Gibson and is based in Washington state; supporters periodically cross into Oregon for rallies and marches.

Counter-protesters have squared off with Patriot Prayer and other far-right groups, such as the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters, frequently in the city since Mr Trump's election.

Photos and videos taken late on Saturday show Mr Gibson arriving at the scene shortly after the shooting, but it wasn't immediately clear why he did so.

Yesterday, Mr Trump issued a flurry of tweets and retweets including several that blamed Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler for the death and one in which the president appeared to be encouraging his supporters to move into Portland.

"GREAT PATRIOTS!" Mr Trump wrote as he shared video of his supporters driving in to confront protesters.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf blamed local officials for failing "to protect their communities".

"I'm asking Portland officials, so that's the mayor, that's the governor and that's local law enforcement, to do their job to address any violent activity that is occurring in their streets," Mr Wolf told Face the Nation on CBS.

Mr Wolf said the federal government was prepared to send agents to Portland and other cities to protect federal buildings and assist police.

When federal agents increased their presence in July, the city saw some of the largest protests of the summer, with thousands of people turning out nightly. The crowds dissipated after the agents withdrew and state police agreed to protect federal buildings for two weeks.
As protests continue to erupt in the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, and across the world in outrage against the horrific shooting of Jacob Bla Read more
Nirad Mudur By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: An astronomical event is about to unfold. A space rock (asteroid) of 30 metres in diameter is hurtling towards Earth at a speed of 29,520 kmph and will give Planet Earth a close call on September 1.

But if you are worrying that this could be a catastrophic addition to the already existing woes induced by the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic, rest assured.

The asteroid  named 2011ES4  will not be impacting Earth, but will pass our planet at a distance of 1.28 lakh km.

Experts, however, say spotting the asteroid will be difficult by amateur astronomers as the asteroid, at such a huge distance, will not be emitting a tail like comets do.

The asteroid, which was discovered on March 2, 2011, has attracted much attention as even the distance from Earth when it passes by is astronomically considered close.

The same asteroid, 2011ES4, had given Earth an earlier fly-by on March 13, 2011, but that distance was fairly huge compared to the distance by which it will pass Earth this time.

Closest asteroid passing in decades

The National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) designates asteroids larger than 100 metres in diameter and within 19.5 lunar distance (LD  the unit distance between Earth and Moon) as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs).

By that standard, although 2011ES4 is less than one-third that size to qualify as a hazardous asteroid, it is just a fraction of the safe distance limit set by NASA. The safe distance of 19.5 LD translates to a whopping 74,95,819 km, while 2011ES4 will pass at a distance of 1,28,133 km (or 0.3 LD).

This is why astronomers are excited. They say this will be the closest that an asteroid will be coming to Earth in several decades. Asked about possibilities of an impact, astronomers from Akash Ganga Centre for Astronomy (AGCA) said such objects start disintegrating the moment they enter the Earths atmosphere.

Dr Bharat Adur, Director, AGCA, says though this one will not enter Earths atmosphere, there is a chance that its trajectory could change harmlessly as it comes within the planets gravitational influence.

A possible change in the asteroids trajectory due to Earths gravitational tug could decide whether this is the last visit to Earths neighbourhood or not.

According to Vishnu Reddy, Associate Professor,University of Arizonas Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, the size of an asteroid can vary from as much as 940 km in diameter to just two metres wide, the smallest so far studied being an asteroid named 2015 TC25, which made a fly-by of Earth in October 2015.

Most asteroids do not impact Earth as they just fly by. But Dr Adur cautiously points to the February 15, 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor, which is now understood to be an asteroid 20 metres wide. It had missed Earthy surveillance and entered the atmosphere, exploding over the Russian town at an altitude of about 30 km.

The blast caused shock waves that shattered glass windows and panes on the ground, with about 1,500 Chelyabinsk citizens sustaining injuries, but no deaths. The astronomers, however, say 2011ES4 will not be doing that.
This article will be updated throughout the week with coronavirus case counts and other need-to-know information about the pandemic in San Antonio.

Death toll nears 1,000: San Antonio officials on Sunday added 85 deaths from COVID-19 to the citys death toll, the vast majority of which occurred over the past several months, as they worked to reconcile a reporting backlog.

September 5

COVID-19 deaths rise: Bexar County saw an increase in new novel coronavirus cases Saturday with the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District reporting 131 compared to 114 reported Friday. The total of residents who have tested positive since the pandemic began in mid-March is now 47,315.

The district also reported 20 deaths Saturday, which occurred between July 11 and August 28.

Staying disciplined is the fastest way to beat COVID-19, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said at the start of the holiday weekend.

September 4

Threat continues as holiday weekend begins: San Antonio and Bexar County reported 114 new coronavirus cases on Friday, a modest increase compared to the daily surges recorded during July.

Since the pandemic began almost six months ago, 47,184 local residents have tested positive for the virus. As of Monday, 93 percent had recovered, according to San Antonio Metropolitan Health District statistics. Metro Health reported 22 deaths Friday related to COVID-19. That number includes two new deaths, along with 20 others reported by the state that occurred between July 5 and Aug. 25.

September 3

Commissioner Wolff urges caution: There were 157 new cases of the novel coronavirus in Bexar County Thursday, bringing the total number of cases to 47,070. The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District also confirmed 16 deaths Thursday. At the daily city-county briefing, County Commissioner Kevin Wolff urged residents to take precautions during the Labor Day holiday weekend. Mask up like you buckle up, said Wolff, filling in for his father, County Judge Nelson Wolff.

September 2

Cases jump, hospitalizations fall: Bexar County saw new cases of COVID-19 inch upward on Wednesday, although hospitalizations continued to fall. The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District reported 250 new cases, an increase of 28 from Tuesday and a jump of more than 200 since the city recorded only 40 cases on Monday.

Gov. Greg Abbott defends his decision to not enforce lockdowns: The governor replied to a constituent asking on Twitter for more clarity on the possibility of future pandemic-related shutdowns. Abbott received criticism during Texas' COVID-19 surge in June and July for not giving local officials the authority to shut down certain businesses or implement stay-home orders. In his Aug. 31 reply, he noted COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have dropped. He also hinted that he hopes to provide "next steps" next week.

September 1

Cases zoom: Officials intensified their call for San Antonians to celebrate at home over the Labor Day weekend to avoid starting another surge of the novel coronavirus as 222 new cases were reported in Bexar County.

CDC enacts eviction moratorium: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is issuing a nationwide eviction moratorium to prevent the spread of COVID-19 through the end of the year, a move that could protect nearly all renters in San Antonio from eviction if they cant afford to pay rent.

San Antonio inches closer to "safe" risk level: The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District has been assessing the city's COVID-19 risk level with a meter, ranging from safe to critical. After teetering between severe and critical since late June, San Antonio is now back on the other end of the spectrum, on the border of safe and moderate. The city and county reported 40 new cases Monday.

UTSA announces "return to the Alamodome" plan for football games: The university's athletics department shared "The Five Principles" they're asking Roadrunner fans to remember on campus and during home games. They include masking up in all public and common spaces, maintaining social distance of six feet, washing hands, vigilantly checking for symptoms and staying home if you feel sick. Attendance at home games will be reduced to 17 percent.

August 31

COVID-19 numbers: The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District reported 40 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, significantly down from the 110 new cases it confirmed on Sunday. The positivity rate  the percentage of coronavirus tests that come back positive  also dropped again.

Alamo church reopens: Nearly six months after it was closed to the public because of COVID-19, the Alamos mission-era church will reopen Thursday, using a timed ticket system to limit occupancy.

The new system will "help visitors practice social distancing and manage the number of people in the church," the Alamo said in a news release.

The move follows the Aug. 20 re-opening of the Alamo grounds, which had been closed since March 16 because of the pandemic.

August 30

COVID-19 numbers: To avoid another post-holiday spike in coronavirus cases, residents are being urged by Bexar Coutny officials to continue social distancing and avoid gathering with others outside their households. The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District reported 110 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, continuing a downward trend as the spread of the coronavirus slows.
Full details of the Andrews Government's plans to ease restrictions more broadly will be released on Sunday

A leaked government report has revealed the strict new rules that businesses will have to follow as Victoria prepares to ease its draconian stage four lockdown.

The state government announced its 'reopening roadmap' - the plan for the easing of Melbourne's stage-four COVID-19 restrictions and Victoria's stage-three measures - will be unveiled on Sunday.

Under Premier Daniel Andrews' new industrial plans, Victorians will be encouraged to work from home, car pooling will be banned and face masks will be mandatory in high-risk workplaces.

The new measures also require meetings and tea rooms to be held outside, while workplace 'bubbles' mean employees can't overlap during shift changes, The Age reported.

Areas that are commonly touched such as elevators and door handles will also need to be disinfected regularly.

Under Premier Daniel Andrews' new industrial plans, Victorians will be encouraged to work from home, car pooling will be banned and face masks will be mandatory in high-risk workplaces

Mr Andrews said there will be relief for hospitality businesses, as warmer weather means pubs, cafes and restaurants can offer outdoor table service

New rules for Victoria Mandatory masks at high-risk workplaces Carpooling banned Employees encouraged to work from home Regular cleaning for common touch points Work meetings and lunches must be outdoors Implementation of workplace 'bubbles' Employees not allowed to overlap during shift changes Restaurants, bars, cafes and pubs encouraged to have outdoor table service Advertisement

A traffic light system of closed, heavily restricted, restricted or open with a COVID-safe plan will be implemented in industry fields.

Mr Andrews said there will be relief for hospitality businesses, as warmer weather means pubs, cafes and restaurants can offer outdoor table service.

'We'll be having very detailed discussions with that industry,' he said.

Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Paul Guerra said state health authorities will need to have a backup plan to prepare for another dreaded outbreak.

'What are the fail-safe mechanisms that are going to be put in place? We know there are going to be outbreaks, sadly, so how do we deal with that without having to shut down all of industry and, in fact, all of the state?' he told ABC Radio.

'We need confidence in the contact tracing system because if that is working then the caseload should be limited by the fact that we're onto it and onto it quickly.'

The new road map will also detail whether Victorians will be allowed visitors in their homes.

'If we do this too quick, if we do this chasing something that might be popular for a few weeks, if we forget that it's a pandemic and think that it's a popularity contest, then Christmas won't look normal at all. It will be a very, very different Christmas Day,' Mr Andrews said.

'I want to find a COVID normal based on the best medical advice where there will be some rules but where we can lock that in for months.'

Full details of the government's plans to ease restrictions more broadly will be released on Sunday.

'Modelling scenarios [are] being run through various supercomputers,' Mr Andrews said.

'There is an enormous amount of work going on, and we will be in a position to be able to share that road map, what it will look like, its various components and phases, with the community on Sunday.'

Overall, Victoria's virus statistics continue to trend well, with Tuesday's 70 new coronavirus cases the lowest figure since July 3.

Even so, Mr Andrews continues to give no guarantee that the restrictions' due date of September 13 is when they will be eased.

Working from home where possible will be encouraged as Melbourne prepares to head out of stage four restrictions

Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Paul Guerra said state health authorities will need to have a backup plan in case of another dreaded outbreak

'We can't rule out settings in two weeks time. It is very difficult to know what those settings will be,' the premier said.

'What we will provide on Sunday will be the plan that we intend to put in place, the plan that, all things being equal, we will put in place.

'Everything has to have that asterisk next to it. I know that is deeply frustrating. It is frustrating for all of us.'

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton hopes new case numbers will be down to 40-50 by the end of the week.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth said it was difficult to see Melbourne coming out of its stage four restrictions on September 13, given the current numbers.

He said Victoria needed to be down near the lower numbers of NSW and Queensland.

Carpooling will be banned according to a leaked Andrews Government stage four lockdown exit plan

As summer approaches, Melbourne cafes, restaurants, bars and pubs could be able to offer outdoor table service as the city moves out of stage four lockdown

'But then again, the rate the number is (decreasing) is getting faster in Victoria, so you never know and we just have to look at it on a daily basis,' he said.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Monday described the premier's handling of the crisis as 'the biggest public policy failure by a state government in living memory'.

'Victorians want to hear a definitive plan from Daniel Andrews about the lifting of stage 4 restrictions,' he said.

'What has transpired in Victoria has been a like a slow-motion car crash.'

He said there had been a 'litany of failures' regarding hotel quarantine and the state's testing and tracing regime which became overwhelmed.

Victorian Opposition MPs told Daily Mail Australia that Mr Andrews has 'trashed' the state and should resign unless he comes up with a plan that can save livelihoods and restore hope.

Victorian Liberal MP James Newbury said Mr Andrews had ruined the state and should resign if he does not offer a good enough plan out of lockdown.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg (pictured) on Monday described the premier's handling of the crisis as 'the biggest public policy failure by a state government in living memory'

'Daniel Andrews has trashed the great state of Victoria,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'He let the pandemic out, crushed private enterprise and destroyed hundreds of thousands of jobs. Our state has been decimated.

'Yet the Premier has refused to soften current restrictions and instead delivers daily messages of pessimism.'

Mr Newbury added: 'Is there any wonder that mental health issues have crashed over the community like a tidal wave?

'Businesses need certainty, people need to provide for their families, and the community needs a pathway of hope.

'If Daniel Andrews cannot offer Victorians a 'Back to Life' plan of hope he should resign.'
President Donald Trump and John Kelly in 2017. SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

The former White House chief of staff John Kelly had a vivid simile for the experience of refusing President Donald Trump's requests, according to an upcoming book.

The book, "Donald Trump v. The United States," said that Kelly, a former Marine Corps general, has said that having to say no to Trump "was like 'French kissing a chainsaw,'" per an Axios report.

"Kelly has told others that Trump wanted to behave like an authoritarian and repeatedly had to be restrained and told what he could and could not legally do," the book says, according to Axios.

Neither Kelly nor Trump has responded to the book, which was written by Michael Schmidt, a correspondent for The New York Times.

The White House did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment for this article.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Video: How Republican convention speeches have changed through the years

The former White House chief of staff John Kelly has said that having to refuse President Donald Trump's requests "was like 'French kissing a chainsaw,'" according to a new book.

"Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President" by the New York Times correspondent Michael Schmidt is due to be released on Tuesday. The book's synopsis describes it as the story of Trump "and the officials of his own government who tried to stop him."

The chainsaw simile was included in an Axios report on the book.

"Kelly has told others that Trump wanted to behave like an authoritarian and repeatedly had to be restrained and told what he could and could not legally do," the book says, according to Axios.

It continued: "Aside from questions of the law, Kelly has told others that one of the most difficult tasks he faced with Trump was trying to stop him from pulling out of NATO  a move that Trump has repeatedly threatened but never made good on, which would have been a seismic breach of American alliances and an extraordinary gift to Putin."

Story continues

Kelly, a former Marine Corps general, was the secretary of homeland security before serving as the White House chief of staff from July 2017 to January 2019. His departure came after reports that he and Trump were no longer on speaking terms.

Neither the White House nor Kelly has commented on the book, which, according to its synopsis, used "secret FBI and White House documents and confidential sources inside federal law enforcement and the West Wing" in its reporting.

The White House did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment for this article.

Read the original article on Business Insider
A Chesterfield County man was killed early Monday when he stopped his vehicle in a southbound lane of Interstate 95 after it was struck by a stray tire that flew across the roadway, state police said.

The crash unfolded at 5:18 a.m. after a passenger vehicle lost a tire as it was traveling north on I-95 at the 61 mile marker near West Hundred Road. The tire crossed over into the southbound lanes and struck Silverio Santos-Cesarios Toyota Tacoma, damaging the vehicle and causing him to stop in the left southbound lane, police said.

Santos-Cesario got out of his disabled pickup truck and was standing along the shoulder when a Nissan Sentra traveling south struck Santos-Cesarios car. The impact caused Santos-Cesarios vehicle to strike him.

Santos-Cesario, 58, died at the scene, police said. A woman inside the Tacoma was taken to a hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

The driver of the Nissan, an 18-year-old man from Mineral, was taken to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries.

Police said the driver of the car that lost a tire was able to maintain control of his vehicle and pull off onto the shoulder without incident.
New Delhi:

Renewing its demand, India asked Pakistan for consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav, arrested on charges of espionage, and Nehal Ansari, who was caught for illegally entering the country from Afghanistan apparently to meet a girl he had befriended online.

India called for consular access to the two after it exchanged with Pakistan the lists of their citizens including civil prisoners and fishermen languishing in each others jails as per provisions of the bilateral Consular Access agreement.

The External Affairs Ministry said India remains committed to address on priority with Pakistan the humanitarian matters, including those pertaining to prisoners and fishermen in each others country.

In this context, we await from Pakistan confirmation of nationality of those in Indias custody who are otherwise eligible for release and repatriation.

We also await consular access to those Indian nationals in Pakistans custody for whom it has so far not been provided including Hamid Nehal Ansari and Kulbhushan Jadhav, the MEA said in a statement.

The Pakistani security forces had arrested Jadhav from Balochistan in March and alleged that he was a serving officer in the Indian Navy and deputed to the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Jadhav has been accused by Pakistan of planning subversive activities in the country.

India has acknowledged that Jadhav had served with the navy but denied that he has any connection with the government.

Ansari, a Mumbai resident, had crossed over illegally to Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2012 reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online and then went missing.

He was later arrested and tried by a Pakistani military court, which pronounced him guilty of espionage.

The agreement on Consular Access, signed on 21 May 2008, provides that a comprehensive list of nationals of each country lodged in other country's jails has to be exchanged twice each year, on January 1 and July 1.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Many people working in Vietnams tourism sector have had to earn a new living by running online shops after losing their jobs to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic.

After the country was hit by a new wave of COVID-19, which occurred when a locally-transmitted case was recorded in central Da Nang City on July 25, more employees of local travel agents and tourist firms have been asked to take unpaid leave.

They had no choice but to find other jobs to secure their income.

Statistics from the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism showed 80-90 percent of tourism personnel have had to take unpaid leave due to the pandemic.

Phan Thi Cam Thu, who worked for a big travel company in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, has been running an online store selling imported food for several months.

My company started asking employees to take unpaid leave in March as revenue was diminished by the pandemic. I've focused on selling online products for a living since then, Thu elaborated.

Thus first buyers were mainly her colleagues and her sales eventually improved thanks to competitive prices and quality service.

With proper investment and operations, Thu managed to open Food Fairy, a bricks-and-mortar store in District 3, in July.

Meanwhile, Thao Vy and her husband, who both worked for travel agents in Ho Chi Minh City, also lost their jobs to the prolonged epidemic.

It was a real shock. We were forced to quit our jobs after many years of working in the tourism sector and have been struggling to find an alternative, Vy stated.

The married couple then headed back to their hometown in the southern province of Binh Duong but was still unable to land any new job.

As Vys mother previously owned a diner in Binh Duong, she decided to learn from her mothers experience and open an online eatery.

The number of orders gradually increases because of a diverse menu, proper advertising, and good quality.

Vys husband is still trying to find a job, as the income from this online business is not sufficient to support the couple and their child.

She is looking forward to the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, so that she can return to the job that she loves.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Members of the St. Louis Police Department SWAT team stage near the scene of a shooting in St. Louis., on Aug. 29, 2020. (Jeff Roberson/AP Photo)

Gunman Who Shot 2 Officers Arrested After 12-hour Standoff

ST. LOUIS, Mo.A St. Louis police officer who was shot in the head while responding to a shooting on the citys south side remained in critical condition Sunday, police said.

A second officer who was shot in the leg was treated and released after the shooting around 6 p.m. in the South Grand neighborhood near Tower Grove Park, St. Louis Police Department spokeswoman Officer Michelle Woodling said.

The officer who was shot in the head is a 29-year-old man with 3 1/2 years of experience with the department. Woodling said the second is 30 and has been on the force for about six months.

The 43-year-old suspect was taken into custody Sunday morning, Woodling said.

St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Chief John Hayden said the gunman ordered a family out of their home at gunpoint and barricaded himself inside for almost 12 hours.

Officers were searching for another reported shooting victim when the gunman shot one of them in the head and the other in the leg, Hayden said.

Police work near the scene of a shooting in St. Louis., on Aug. 29, 2020. (Jeff Roberson/AP Photo)

The officers were trying to do their job, thats all theyre trying to do and theyre suffering under gunfire, Hayden said, adding that the incidents are part of a surge in violence this summer. He asked residents to pray for the officers.

Hayden said eight of his officers have been shot in the line of duty since June 1.

Were trying to cope through a very trying summer, and its very difficult. Its very difficult, he said.

While the man was barricaded inside, officers armed with rifles and a SWAT team assembled outside. Police closed surrounding streets and warned residents to stay inside. Police used a bullhorn to order the suspect out and fired tear gas into the house, but fired no gunshots, the department said.

The man was taken into custody around 5:30 a.m. Police have released no details about how the standoff came to an end.

Homeowners Mimi and Steve Haag said they were trying to call 911 to help another man who had been shot when the gunman just walked into their home.

I saw then he had a gun, Steve Haag told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He was very calm standing there with it in his hand and he just says to Mimi: Maam you need to get off the phone.

Police work near the scene of a shooting in St. Louis., on Aug. 29, 2020. (Jeff Roberson/AP Photo)

The Haags escaped through the back door and were unhurt in their encounter with the gunman. Police were unable to locate the other man who was apparently shot and wounded.

St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson tweeted her condolences following the incident.

Please keep our injured officers and all the men and women of @SLMPD in your thoughts and prayers as this situation continues to develop. Their friends, family, and loved ones, too, Krewson said.

Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who has a fractious relationship with the citys police, also issued a statement of support.

We extend our deepest concern and sadness surrounding todays unfortunate events, Gardner told KDSK-TV. I want to extend my prayers for the injured SLMPD officers and their families.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 15:15:36|Editor: huaxia

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FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- A Taliban shadow district chief was killed and two others were injured on Monday and the militants' attempt to gain ground in Maimai district, Badakhshan province had been foiled, provincial police spokesman Sanahullah Rohani said.

A group of Taliban militants stormed security checkpoints in Wadab area of Maimai district at 06:00 a.m. local time on Monday but police returned fire, killing Ziahul Haq, the shadow governor for Maimai district, and injuring two of his bodyguards. The insurgents were forced to flee, Rohani said.

This is the first time that the Taliban fighters attempted to influence Maimai district in Darwaz area along the border with Tajikistan.

Taliban militants who are in control of parts of Maimai's neighboring Nasai district haven't made comments yet. Enditem
In 1802, the U.S. Congress passed an act mandating that only a free white person could be employed as a postal worker.

That act was the result of a letter warning of slave uprisings led by mail carriers, sent to Congress by Gideon Granger, Jr., the nations fourth-ever postmaster general and a Connecticut native.

Connecticut gave the United States one of the most talented and in some ways one of the most problematic postmaster generals we've had in history, said Connecticut state historian Walter Woodward.

Granger, from Suffield, Conn., was one of the longest, if not the longest-serving postmaster general in the nations history. Before that he had been a state legislator. His son, Francis, followed in his footsteps and became postmaster general a few years later.

He had been appointed as postmaster by Thomas Jefferson in 1801, taking office the following year. Though the postmaster general did leave a complex legacy, Woodward said he is perhaps best known for a letter he sent to Congress early in his tenure.

Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

We cannot be too cautious, Grangers letter said. Plans and conspiracies have already been concerted by [slaves] more than once, to rise in arms, and subjugate their masters  The most active and intelligent [slaves] are employed as post riders  By traveling from day to day, and hourly mixing with people  they will acquire information. They will learn that a mans rights do not depend on his color. They will, in time, become teachers to their brethren  One able man among them, perceiving the value of this machine, might lay a plan which would be communicated by your post riders from town to town and produce a general and united operation against you.

Response to Haiti

Woodward explained that since the colonial times, enslaved African Americans and free African Americans had been used to transfer messages from place to place so they had a fairly long tradition at the time he took office, of helping to deliver communications.

About a decade before Granger took office, slaves in what would become Haiti had successfully rebelled. By 1802, there was some concern that the French, now under Napoleons rule, would attempt to reimpose a system of slavery and, again, there was armed conflict in the island nation.

Grangers letter, sent to to Sen. James Jackson of Georgia, chairman of the Committee of the Senate on the Post Office Establishment, specifically references  the scenes which St. Domingo has exhibited to the world.

The civil unrest continued for a long time, certainly into the time Granger took office, Woodward said. And many of the supporters of Jefferson were also Southern slaveholders. And they lived based on the experience of Haiti, one of the things they lived in kind of constant anxiety over was the possibility of a coordinated uprising of enslaved people in America.

Congress listened. Later that year, an act was passed proclaiming that After the first day of November next, no other than a free white person shall be employed in carrying the mail of the United States, on any of the post-roads, either as a post-rider or driver of a carriage carrying the mail.

That prohibition against Black postal workers stood for nearly 60 years, until the American Civil War.

Political expediency

Granger was, unlike many Connecticut politicians of his day, a Jeffersonian Republican.

He was one of those Connecticans who felt that there had been a group in power in Connecticut for way too long and they needed to transfer power and open up the vote and do a number of other things, Woodward said. So, in the elections of 1796 and 1800, Granger wrote letters and published essays in support of Jefferson and Jeffersonian policies.

That earned his appointment to the position of postmaster general, and it kept him sensitive to the perspectives of southern slave owners.

Granger, in trying to be sensitive to those concerns by the white Southerners, overturned that idea of having Black mail carriers and, in fact, he changed the law saying that no Black could carry the mail  he convinced Congress to deny Blacks the right to be mail carriers, Woodward said.

Granger was also responsible for expanding postal service to the new territories obtained after the Louisiana Purchase, perhaps setting the precedent that the mail should be accessible even to the last mile, the most remote homesteads in the United States.

That was a huge transformation in the country, Woodward said. I think it was really a kind of a progressive move. Grangers success is that he pulled it off.  Sub-contracting out rural routes actually made getting that last letter to the last outpost possible because a federal, completely centralized, postal service couldn't have done that kind of stuff.

Though this made some sense from a political sense  most of the new western states leaned toward Jeffersonian politics  Woodward said it was also a positive development for the country as a whole.

It was a good idea to develop mail communications between the core and the periphery of the United States, whatever your politics were. We are a new nation, and we're trying to create a cohesive, unified country, he said. So, it was a good move. It just turned out that the politics of that move favored the party of which Granger was a member.

That was not the only time a move by Granger had managed to benefit both his own political ambitions and the nation at large.

He was also responsible for reducing the cost to mail newspapers, which Woodward said was very important if you're advocating a political position to your base, though its also very useful for the country to make sure that people in distant places can get the latest news.

Slaves and a legacy of racism

Woodward said he didnt know if Granger himself had owned slaves.

I will tell you, by the early 1800s the number of slaves in Connecticut was quite low but, you know, that means nothing when it comes to this guy, he said. Whether he was a slave owner or not, one of the things that is true about Connecticut is that Connecticut had a kind of deeply embedded racism.

Though Grangers policies on white-only postal workers lasted until the Civil War, it took a while for things to change significantly.

According to official U.S. Postal Service history, it took then-Vice President Teddy Roosevelts square deal initiative to set a policy of fairness in federal appointments in 1902, exactly 100 years after Granger sent his letter to Congress.

Sixty years later, the U.S. Post Office was the largest single employer of African Americans in the country, though the vast majority of Black employees held lower-level positions. By the end of the 20th century, African Americans made up about 21 percent of the postal workforce, filling about 14 percent of top postal management positions.

Today, according to Pew Research, 23 percent of postal service employees are Black, 11 percent are Hispanic and 7 percent are Asian.

When asked if he thought that diversity in the postal service would have happened sooner, had it not been for Granger, Woodward said, no, thats not true.

The federal government had its own deeply embedded racism, he said. America was a deeply racist country for a long, long, long time.
Even if you only had to worry about the quality of your companys products or services and continued growth of its customer base, running a business would be challenging enough.

Other factors though, such as the coronavirus outbreak, seemingly come out of nowhere, taking a personal toll and making companies of all sizes rethink their short- and long-term plans.

In New Mexico, the coronavirus pandemic has impacted business revenues and the local economy at large. Organizations have faced significant disruptions, including operational closures, that have resulted in many financial challenges.

As businesses slowly reopen, the shift in the economic cycle has likely affected their cash flow, tightened credit access, rattled customers and suppliers, and threatened the survival of many organizations.

Weathering the conditions of COVID-19 doesnt just involve financing your business, it involves keeping up with industry trends, following broader assessments of the economic outlook, ensuring your employees safety and, most importantly, taking a close look at your operations. As you respond to the impacts of COVID-19, here are some key steps to make your business more flexible and resilient:

Take a look at your cash flow: During good and bad times, cash flow can be a challenge for businesses and is often cited as a top reason small businesses fail. Companies with great products and loyal customers can still falter without sufficient liquidity to meet payroll, pay suppliers and keep the lights on.

To safeguard against temporary shortfalls:

 Ask your banker about overdraft protection.

 Speak frequently with customers and suppliers to stay aware of any potential changes in their businesses that could ultimately affect yours.

 Review how reliably your customers pay what they owe and create a watch list of those who consistently fall behind.

Assess your credit situation: Credit can be a lifesaver during challenging times, but in a difficult economy, lenders may be especially cautious about companies they dont know well. In fact, most lenders like to understand how a business performs over an entire business cycle. During good times, have you made capital expenditures to grow the business? During bad times, have you responded well to downturns? Knowing that your business has weathered challenges effectively may give a lender confidence to extend credit.

Give your company survival training : When a cyberattack takes down your website, a natural disaster strikes or a public health crisis emerges, your companys everyday operations can be threatened. The risk of adverse events may be greater than you think, and they can be particularly devastating during times of economic stress.

By 2018, business cybersecurity breaches had increased by 67% in five years, and during the first seven months of 2019, the U.S. experienced six climate and weather catastrophes with losses of more than $1 billion each. Preparing your company to withstand challenging circumstances can make the difference between re-building and going out of business.

Keep tabs on expenses : During the Great Recession of 2008-2009, nearly 75% of company leaders identified cost cutting as a top priority. However, trimming expenses across the board during an economic crisis can backfire. Instead, take stock now of all of your processes, from front-line to back-office functions, to determine what kind of savings might be possible when needed.

Competing in business today requires endless resilience amid disruptions that can reinvent entire industries without warning. The more you do to plan essential aspects of your companys financial future, the more control youll have over your and your business future success.

Paul Mondragon is a senior vice president in business banking and also serves as market president for Bank of America in New Mexico. Bank of America has been serving New Mexico for 90 years. The executives desk is a guest column providing advice or information about resources available to the business community in New Mexico.
FORT EDWARD  Washington County supervisors were given $1,000 laptops to work from home, but some supervisors are refusing to accept them.

The county bought 50 laptops during the coronavirus pandemic shutdown. Seventeen of the $1,000 laptops were configured specifically for supervisors, who have been participating in committee meetings via Zoom from homes and offices.

This was a surprise to me, said Hartford Supervisor Dana Haff. I got an email, Your laptop is ready. Come get it.

Haff and several other supervisors voiced their opposition during a Government Operations Committee meeting last week.

If were having laptops just to have email, then to me its a waste to have laptops for the supervisors, said committee Chairman David OBrien, the Hampton supervisor.

Kingsbury Supervisor Dana Hogan said the laptops should be re-prioritized and given to employees who are working from home.

I have a $300 Chromebook that I paid for myself, and I would encourage supervisors to just incur the expense themselves and set a good example for the rest of the county, he said.

Right now, seven of the supervisors have accepted the laptops, but some may be giving them back, said County Attorney Roger Wickes. The supervisors were given until the end of last week to decide.

Salem Supervisor Evera Sue Clary said she appreciates the laptop provided by the county. She has been using her business laptop and doesnt want to mix county business with her personal business.

Our town computer is an antique, and its impossible to Zoom at the town office because of lack of internet, Clary said. So for me to do these county meetings I was doing them from home on a personal laptop that needed to be used as other things and not for county Zoom.

Easton Supervisor Dan Shaw said he does not need a laptop. He prefers to attend the county meetings in person.

Hebron Supervisor Brian Campbell, the budget officer, said providing laptops to supervisors was brought up five or six years ago to cut down on the use of paper. The county could save a lot of money by not mailing information to supervisors, but instead providing it electronically, he said.

Supervisors need to change with the times, he said, adding that YouTube and Zoom arent going away. All public meetings may be required to be virtual, even when supervisors can meet in person.

I dont like spending the money any more than anybody else, Campbell said, but sometimes spending the moneys important and actually saves you money in the long run.

County Administrator Chris DeBolt said the laptops could be used for more than just email.

We were trying to move forward to getting you more information and more useful information on the laptops, DeBolt told supervisors. It was never the intention that they be solely for email and Zoom, but it does take us time with everything else going on to get that done.

White Creek Supervisor James Griffith said he will be returning his laptop to the county, but said he understands that some supervisors need them because of connectivity issues in their towns.

I personally dont need the laptop, Griffith said, so Im going to be turning mine back in and have it repurposed.

Gretta Hochsprung writes hometown news and covers Washington County. You can reach her at ghochsprung@poststar.com or 518-742-3206. Follow her on Twitter @GrettaHoch or at her blog on www.poststar.com.

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The Supreme Court Monday directed fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya to appear before it on October 5 while dismissing his plea seeking review of the 2017 verdict which held him guilty of contempt for transferring USD 40 million to his children in violations of court orders.

The top court also directed the Ministry of Home Affairs to facilitate and ensure the presence of Mallya before it in October. Mallya, an accused in bank loan default case of over Rs 9,000 crore involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines, is in the United Kingdom. A bench of Justices U U Lalit and Ashok Bhushan, while dismissing his review petitions against the May 9, 2017 verdict said: In our considered view, the attempt on part of the respondent No.3 (Mallya) to have re- hearing in the matter cannot be permitted nor do the submissions make out any 'error apparent on record' to justify interference in review jurisdiction.

The bench said, Now that the Review Petitions are dismissed, we direct respondent No.3 to appear before this Court on October 5, 2020 at 2:00 pm and also direct the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi to facilitate and ensure the presence of respondent No.3 before this Court on that day. The top court had asked Mallya to appear on October 5 for hearing him with regard to the proposed punishment in the contemp case.

The top court directed that of this judgement be sent to the Home Ministry for facility and compliance. The bench recorded in its order that USD 40 million, part of a USD 75 million payment, was received in the account of Mallya on February 25, 2016 and within few days, on February 26 and February 29, 2016, it was transferred out of that account by Mallya. Despite repeated orders passed by this Court, no clear disclosure of his assets was made by respondent No. 3, nor any details of in-flow and out-flow of said amount of USD 40 million were disclosed by him. As a matter of fact, the existence of the concerned Bank account itself was not disclosed, the top court said.

Mallya had contended that in terms of the directions issued by the top court, he was required to disclose the assets as on March 31, 2016 and as such no direction issued by the Court was violated. He had said that the violation, if any, was of the orders passed by the Karnataka High Court and, therefore, the top court ought not to proceed in contempt jurisdiction.

The bench said its order of January 11, 2017 had given liberty to Mallya to file a reply to the banks' response in the case and it appears from the record that a reply was filed by him on January 30, 2017; however, the May 9, 2017 verdict mentioned that no reply was filed. From these facts it is clear that it was an error on part of this Court to have observed and proceeded on the premise that no reply was filed by respondent No.3 to the response filed by the banks, the bench said.

The bench said that during the hearing of the review plea it had asked Mallya's counsel whether in its January 30, 2017 reply, was there anything which contradicted or contested the banks' submission that funds were transferred despite the orders of the Debt Recovery Tribunal and Karnataka High Court.

It had asked whether any explanation was forthcoming in the reply of Mallya to support the stand that he was not guilty of violation of said orders. The bench said that his counsel was unable to refer to any such portion from the reply filed on January 30, 2017 but touched upon the questions whether the directions issued by this Court were violated and whether this court ought to have proceeded to exercise contempt jurisdiction.

The bench said the scope of review was limited and all the submissions made by his counsel have already been dealt with and rejected by the court in its May 9, 2017 verdict. The apex court had in June directed its registry to explain as to why Mallya's review petition had not been listed before the concerned court for the last three years. It had directed the registry to furnish all the details including names of officials who had dealt with the file concerning the review petition in the last three years.

The apex court's 2017 order had come on a plea by consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI), which had said that Mallya had allegedly transferred USD 40 million received from British firm Diageo, to his children in "flagrant violation" of various judicial orders. It was dealing with pleas of lending banks seeking contempt action and a direction to Mallya to deposit USD 40 million received from offshore firm Diageo respectively.

The banks had then alleged that Mallya concealed the facts and diverted the money to his son Siddharth Mallya and daughters Leanna Mallya and Tanya Mallya in "flagrant violation" of the orders passed by the Karnataka High Court. Mallya had in May lost his application seeking leave to appeal his extradition to India in the UK Supreme Court, setting a 28-day clock on his removal from the UK. The UK top court's decision marks a big legal setback to the 64-year-old flamboyant businessman, who had earlier lost his high court appeal against an extradition order to India on charges of alleged fraud and money laundering related to unrecovered loans to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

Mallya has been based in the UK since March 2016 and remains on bail on an extradition warrant executed three years ago by Scotland Yard on April 18, 2017.
The coronavirus pandemic demonstrates in the clearest terms why central banks must take a bigger role in fighting climate change even if the issue at first appears unrelated to monetary policy, European Central Bank board member Isabel Schnabel said.

Initially just a health crisis, the pandemic has set off economic shockwaves around the globe, affecting every nation and forcing central banks to provide unprecedented support to underpin economic activity.

With climate change posing an even bigger risk, the ECB must keep this issue high on its agenda as it reviews its policy framework, Schnabel told Reuters in an interview.

"Climate change is probably the biggest challenge we are facing, much bigger than the pandemic," Schnabel said.

"Even though this health shock was entirely unrelated to monetary policy, it nevertheless has huge implications for monetary policy," she said. "The same is true for climate change and this is why central banks cannot ignore it."

Through its supervisory arm the ECB could require banks to provide a climate risk assessment, which could then affect their access to central bank funding if this assessment has a direct implication on collateral valuations, Schnabel said.

The central bank should also push the European Union to add a green element to its long-delayed project to set up a capital markets union as a focus on green finance could give the bloc a competitive advantage, she argued.

Schnabel, who in the past has expressed skepticism about skewing ECB bond purchases towards green bonds, added that her view on the topic was still "developing."

"There is the view that we should stick very closely to market neutrality," she said. "And there is the alternative view that markets are not pricing climate risks properly, so there is a market distortion and therefore market neutrality may not actually be the right benchmark."

Already one of the biggest buyers of green assets, the ECB holds around 20% of the green bonds that are eligible for its purchases, leaving little scope for more buys under its current rules. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Le Kha Phieu was a career military man whose tenure as a hardline leader of Vietnam ended ignominiously when he was removed from office amid unusually public infighting.

He died on 7 August in Hanoi. He was 88. The Central Committee for the Protection and Health Care of Officials said he died after a period of illness, which it attributed to his old age and weak strength.

Phieu, who had fought for North Vietnam in its wars against French colonialists and American forces, was elevated to general secretary of the Communist Party in 1997, a time of power struggles and government gridlock.

An ideological conservative, he was considered a compromise selection. But he immediately faced constant factional strife with party reformers and, with his ouster in 2001, wound up serving less than four years of his five-year term.

Phieu was criticised for ineffective leadership, failure to revive Vietnams stagnant economy, inability to root out corruption, subservience to China, and anti-democratic behaviour in seeking to expand his power.

In what Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam specialist at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra, called a battle royal over his removal, he was also accused of misusing military intelligence services to conduct wiretaps on his fellow politburo members.

Thayer described Phieus years in office as a period of reform immobilism, a preoccupation with political stability that overshadowed economic concerns and limited decisive action on a range of issues, including corruption and the impact on Vietnam of the Asian financial crisis.

Phieu continued to support the leading role of large state-controlled enterprises, a conservative position that both western economists and liberals within Vietnam said was one of the chief hindrances to growth.

When he was chosen as general secretary, the three members of the incumbent ruling troika were named as advisers, a role that enabled them to cast a shadow over his leadership. During Phieus first year in office, one of the three, Do Muoi, the previous general secretary, not only attended meetings of the politburo but also continued to sit at the head of the table.

Phieu tried to abolish the role of advisers and adopt for himself the additional post of state president, moves that largely triggered the leadership struggle that led to his removal.

Phieu was a hard-liner in international affairs as well as on the economy, at a time when party reformers were seeking to reach out to the west. Just before US president Bill Clinton visited the country in 2001, Phieu warned that the battle against the west, to which he had dedicated his life as a soldier, had not ended with Vietnams wartime victory.

They continue to seek ways to completely wipe out the remaining socialist countries, he said. We should never relax our vigilance for a minute.

He ordered party officials to give Clinton only a low-key welcome and then berated the president about American imperialism.

Le Kha Phieu was born on 27 December 1931, in the northern Thanh Hoa province. He became a member of the Indochinese Communist Party in 1949. A year later he joined the Vietnam Peoples Army, beginning a rise through the ranks that would take him through the wars against the French and the Americans and the subsequent occupation of Cambodia.

He was elected to the Communist Partys central committee in 1991, elevated to the party secretariat a year later and joined the politburo in 1994.

Le Kha Phieu, politician, born 27 December 1931, died 7 August 2020

 The New York Times
The Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) has held a send-off ceremony for its Head of Scientific Metrology, Mr. Paul Michael Date, after 27 years of illustrious service.

Prior to his retirement, Mr. Date, one of the longest-serving staff of the GSA, also held various positions at the Authority including Acting Head of Industrial Metrology, Calibration Unit; Acting Head, Scientific Metrology Department; and Head, Legal Metrology from where he was reassigned in November 2018 to head the Department of Scientific Metrology.

His 27-year stint with the GSA from April 1993, earned him credit for how far the Metrology Department had come in terms of accreditation. The idea of calibration of measuring equipment was pushed by him so much that he was known in many circles as 'Calibration'.

The Director-General of the GSA, Prof. Alex Dodoo, expressed appreciation to Mr. Date for his dedication and service to the Authority during the ceremony held at the GSAs head office in Accra.

"Paul is a gentleman and is committed to the Authority, he told the gathering, which also included top management and junior staff.

He is an institution on his own and has a bank of knowledge especially in the field of Metrology which I hope staff learned from, he stated.

Prof. Dodoo urged staff of the Authority to emulate Mr. Dates hard work and dedication to work.

Mr. Date expressed his sincere appreciation to the Authority for all the support given to him during his time at the GSA.

"I will like to thank the staff for their contribution towards the successes chalked by the Metrology Directorate under my leadership. It's my fervent prayer that God will take GSA to greater heights," he added.
New Delhi, Aug 31 : The Congress on Monday attacked the Central Government soon after the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) plunged to (-) 23.9 per cent during the first quarter of Financial year 2020-21 saying the "fake narrative" has been exploded.

Addressing a virtual press conference, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said, "The CSO has released the provisional estimates of GDP for the quarter April-June 2020. And the GDP in the first quarter has declined by a whopping 23.9 per cent." "It means, about one quarter of the gross domestic output as on June 30 has been wiped out in the last 12 months. Another way of looking at it is, since the end of 2019-20, the gross domestic output has fallen by about 20 per cent," he said.

Taking a swipe at the government, Chidambaram said, "The Finance Minister who blamed an 'Act of God' for the economic decline should be grateful to the farmers and the gods who blessed the farmers. As the only sectors that have grown at 3.4 per cent are Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery." His remarks came after the CSO said that the country's GDP plunged to (-) 23.9 per cent during the first quarter (Q1) ended June 2020-21.

Chidambaram further said that every other sector of the economy has declined sharply, some precipitously. Lamenting at the government, he said that the estimates do not come as a "surprise" to us.

"They should be a matter of surprise to the government that was seeing green shoots on several days during the first quarter. They should also be a matter of shame to the government that did nothing -- literally nothing -- to cushion the fall by taking suitable fiscal and welfare measures, but we know that the Modi government has no shame and will not acknowledge its mistakes," the Congress leader said.

He also pointed out that the economic tragedy was foretold by many close observers of the Indian economy, most recently by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its Annual Report released a few days ago.

Chidambaram said, "All these had been anticipated, we had warned the government and we had urged the government to take preventive and pre-emptive measures." The Congress leader said that our pleas fell on deaf ears.

"The country, as a whole, is paying a heavy price, the poor and the vulnerable are in despair. It is only the Modi government that was nonchalant and uncaring. The government peddled a fake narrative, but that narrative has been exploded today by the CSO estimates," he said.

He further noted that it will take many months before the economy turns the corner and registers positive growth. "The inaction and ineptitude of the government gives us no hope that we will see light at the end of the tunnel at any time soon," Chidambaram added.
In a new survey from DonorsChoose, 42% of teachers indicated they'd be teaching in both online and in-person settings this fall, while 35% will be fully remote, and 8% will be fully in-person. While there arent yet any easy answers, its clear that teachers have concerns about the safety of in-person instruction, the efficacy of online learning, and the outsized impact the pandemic will have on our most vulnerable students.

Teachers are facing unprecedented challenges as school resumes this fall, and a new report from education nonprofit DonorsChoose reveals their experiences, feelings, and expectations on how COVID-19 will impact the new school year.

DonorsChoose surveyed 1,057 U.S. public school teachers in early August, finding that 42% of teachers were planning for a blended start to the school year, with a mix of both online and in-classroom instruction; 35% will begin the year fully remote, and 8% will be in the classroom full-time. However, 81% of teachers expect that, at some point this year, their school will be forced to close and move fully online. While two-thirds of teachers feel somewhat or very unsafe returning to the classroom, only 7% feel that online learning is very effective.

Teachers are also concerned about how the pandemic will widen the education equity gap. Last spring, teachers in low-income communities experienced lower rates of student engagement in online learning than teachers from wealthier communities; they also were more likely than teachers in high-income communities to report that most or all of their students struggled with lack of reliable internet access and difficulty using online tools.

Teachers are the professionals and essential workers we most need to hear from as our nation grapples with the return to school this fall, said Charles Best, founder of DonorsChoose. They know what their students need, theyre resilient and innovative, and they need our support, gratitude, and patience in navigating a school year that will be unlike any other. While there arent yet any easy answers, its clear that teachers have concerns about the safety of in-person instruction, the efficacy of online learning, and the outsized impact the pandemic will have on our most vulnerable students.

Other findings of the report include:



Nearly half (46%) of teachers would prefer to wait to return to school until infection rates reach safe levels established by public health officials, while 29% suggest waiting until an effective treatment or vaccine is available. Meanwhile, 4% feel safe returning to the classroom now, and 16% expect their school to institute changes that would make them feel safe.

Cleaning supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) were the most commonly named resources teachers need for in-person instruction, while instructional technology was the most commonly reported teacher need for online learning.

Half (52%) of teachers reported feeling more prepared to conduct online learning than they did last spring.

Nearly all teachers reported feeling anxious, uncertain, overwhelmed, and nervous as they prepared for the new school year, but 62% also felt hopeful, and half of teacher respondents felt somewhat or very excited, eager, and optimistic.

Requiring masks, providing hand sanitizer, and prohibiting shared use of school supplies were the most commonly reported measures schools are taking to make in-school instruction safer for students and teachers.

Since the beginning of July, donors have already funded over 45,000 projects to help teachers this fall, whether they plan to teach online or in the classroom. Over the summer, DonorsChoose expanded site features to offer flexible shipping options for public school teachers working remotely, so that they can receive critical learning supplies at home if their schools are closed. Currently, teachers have shared nearly 50,000 requests in need of support on the nonprofit website.

To read the full report from DonorsChoose, visit http://www.donorschoose.org/back-to-learning-report.

ABOUT DONORSCHOOSE

DonorsChoose is the leading way to give to public schools. Since 2000, more than 4.5 million people and partners have contributed $1 billion to support 1.7 million teacher requests for learning resources and experiences. As the most trusted crowdfunding platform for teachers, donors, and district administrators alike, DonorsChoose vets each request, ships the funded resources directly to the teacher, and provides thank yous and reporting to donors and school leaders. Charity Navigator and GuideStar have awarded DonorsChoose, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, their highest ratings for transparency and accountability. For more information, visit http://www.donorschoose.org.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 17:52:24|Editor: huaxia

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MACAO, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The total merchandise import to Macao grew by 3.0 percent year-on-year to 7.31 billion patacas (about 916.61 million U.S. dollars) in July 2020, the special administrative region's statistic department said here on Monday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) showed that the imports of beauty, cosmetic and skincare products, construction materials, and mobile phones surged by 238.1 percent, 107.8 percent and 90.2 percent respectively, but those of gold jewellery and watches declined by 64.1 percent and 52.6 percent respectively.

From January to July of 2020, the total value of merchandise import declined by 24.7 percent year-on-year to 36.89 billion patacas (about 4.63 billion dollars).

By place of origin, merchandise import from the Chinese mainland and the European Union decreased by 20.2 percent and 28.0 percent respectively year-on-year to 13.11 billion patacas (about 1.64 billion dollars) and 9.67 billion patacas (about 1.21 billion dollars) in the first seven months of 2020.

Besides, imports from the Belt and Road countries and the Portuguese-speaking countries shrank by 12.2 percent and 20.8 percent to 6.82 billion patacas (about 855.17 million dollars) and 400.00 million patacas (about 50.16 million dollars) respectively.

In the first seven months of 2020, the imports of consumer goods went down by 29.0 percent to 24.20 billion patacas (about 3.03 billion dollars), with imports of watches and gold jewellery falling by 55.8 percent and 64.6 percent respectively. Enditem
They recorded history in a very honest and vivid manner, even through the blood and tears of both the people holding the cameras and the characters in the photos.

The greatest value of the images that have been preserved until now is the existence of many photos which were taken chronologically. They directly and accurately recorded social events, the revolutions turning points and outstanding people of the country. As a result, viewers can feel the national spirit and democracy of the Vietnamese people through the rally march on May 1, 1938, at the Grand Palais in Hanoi through Nguyen Ba Khoans photo; discover more about the mournful famine in 1945 through Vo An Ninhs photo; and see the atmosphere of the August Revolution and the sacred and solemn scene of the ceremony marking Independence Day on September 2, 1945, at Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi through the records of photographer Vu Nang An. Since then, Vietnams photography sector has gone along with the nation during the fights for national construction and defence.

At the beginning of the fight against French colonialism, photographer Nguyen Ba Khoan took a set of photos on the resistance war in the southern battlefield. when he came to the north, Cuu Quoc (National Salvation) Newspaper enlarged his nearly 500 photos for display at an exhibition. After that, an exhibition was held in Hanoi to introduce his 200 photos on the war in the central and central highland region.

When the French army conducted aggressions in Hanoi and Hai Phong, photographers such as Ngo Le Dong, Nguyen Ba Khoan, Nguyen Tien Loi, To Na and many others joined the Capital Regiment and other military units, cultural agencies and newspapers to take historical photos while combating against the enemy. The resistance war in the south, Hanoi through 60 days and nights of fire were the series of photos that opened the heroic history chapters through the photographs later. For example, Le Van Thi captured the Vietnamese armys combat against the French in Bau Ca, Dong Nai Province (1947). Tran Dang Lan recorded the image of Vietnamese soldiers intercepting a French military train when it was leaving Bien Hoa Station in 1947. Nguyen Van Phu took a photo story of local soldiers destroying the French station in Soc Trang Province to control the national highway in 1950. Photographer Mai Loc recorded the enemys crime of beheading Vietnamese guerrillas in My Tho, Ben Tre Province, in 1949, while Khuong Mes photos featured Battalion 307 attacking Moc Hoa Station to destroy the enemys rescue attempt and capture French Chief Bertrand alive. In central region, the fierce Binh Tri Thien battlefield was thoroughly followed by photographer Bui A.

The French army repeatedly attacked the Viet Bac region (which included the six provinces of Ha Giang, Tuyen Quang, Bac Kan, Lang Son, Thai Nguyen and Cao Bang) in order to destroy Vietnams resistance base. However, the deeper they attacked, the more severe they failed. Vu Nang Ans photo on Uncle Ho working at Dong Khe battlefield made its debut in 1950. The photos on Dien Bien Phu historic campaign in particular, which were taken by photographers Trieu Dai, Ngoc Thong and Nguyen Dinh Uu from Quan doi nhan dan (Peoples Army) Newspaper, were highlights at that time.

In addition to the images of the fights outside the front, photographers also paid attention to the lives of people from all ethnic groups in the free regions as well as the patriotic emulation movements of people from all strata. Photos on the fighting fences in the villages, the popular classes to eradicate illiteracy, children studying from backs of buffalo, military civil engineers making DKZ guns and mines themselves, etc, taken by Hong Nghi, Dinh Dang Dinh, tran Phuong, Van Khiem, Dinh Thuy and many others, showed the strong changes of the rear.

Ending the nine years of arduous resistance war, Hanois people held flowers and national flags to welcome soldiers to take over the capital on October 10, 1954. Dozens of professional and amateur photographers recorded the important event enthusiastically. Reporters Nguyen Dinh Uu and Bui Duy Ly from Quan doi nhan dan Newspaper and Nguyen Ba Khoan from Cuu Quoc Newspaper as well as many others photographers such as Nguyen Duy Kien, Phan Xuan Thuy, Than Trong Ninh, Nguyen Du and Dao Trinh captured many valuable photos of the historic moment.

In order to fulfil the tasks of building socialism in the north, liberating the south and reunifying the country, the State invested and managed the photography sector in a public form. The Photography Division of Vietnam News Agency, which was formed in 1959, becasme the largest photo propaganda agency in the country, creating a new strength for Vietnamese photography.

In addition to the development of photography activities in Vietnam News Agency and the Nhan Dan (Peoples), Quan doi nhan dan, Cuu Quoc, Tien phong (Vanguard) and Hanoimoi (New Hanoi) newspapers, the photography of cultural departments in the localities were also strengthened and developed. As a result, the big, small and important events nationwide were not missed. The campaigns of cooperation of agriculture and handicraft in the south; the images of the US and quisling troops sweeping down villages and shooting guerrillas and civilians in the south; the Spring Mau Than 1968 General Offensive and uprising across the south; Khe Sanh Campaign; 12 days and nights of Hanoi and Hai Phong fighting with the US armys B52; and the Paris Agreement on Vietnam were all captured fully through the photos. The photos featuring the image of Vietnamese soldiers taking over the Independence Palace on April 30, 1975, expressed the pinnacle of the victory.

The southwestern border war and the battle to protect the north border in 1979 were also recorded thoroughly and honestly. They are pieces of undeniable historical evidence.

Another special value of photography is the representation of typical people, circumstances and events of the life. The images of farmers, workers, soldiers and intellectuals were carved into the nations cultural monument as the people who made history thanks to the photographs.

The photo, featuring a group of soldiers who were dressed in defence gear, held lunge mines and were willing to crash into French enemys tanks, became a symbol of indomitable Hanoians. It was a model for the sculptors to build a statue of death-braving soldiers on Dinh Tien Hoang street, near Hoan Kiem lake. Also, during the years of fighting against French colonialism, Nguyen Tien Loi was successful with his photo entitled Xung phong (Charge), which was taken during the Song Thao Campaign in 1949. It clearly showed the mettle of Uncle Ho soldiers entering the battlefield barefoot with guns to combat the enemy.

Such heroic images are more and more during the resistance war against the US imperialism. Vu Taos photo on the scene of anti-aircraft artillery soldiers calmly releasing bullets to fight back the jet aircraft of the US army to protect Phu Lang Thuong Bridge left an indelible impression on viewers. Two exploded bombs created giant poisonous mushroom clouds in the sky, one silver and one thick black. Photographer Luong Nghia Dungs photo on the gunfire at Doc Mieu highlighted two gunners suddenly jumping straight into the artillery dock pulling the trigger to retaliate against the American artillery from Con Tien, Doc Mieu and the 7th Fleet at sea hitting the battlefield. Meanwhile, Van Baos photo entitled From the thunder god to buffalo carriage proved the disastrous failure of the US air force.

Behind the victories were the sacrifices of blood, houses and assets of Vietnamese people. The photo Phuc Tan calling for revenge (in Hanoi) hurts viewers' hearts with the image of a 11-12 year-old girl screaming in front of her house which was destroyed by the US armys bombs. Such photos were the screams of indignation condemning the non-sensical war.

The photo was shot by one person. However, the success of photo in the press was thanks to the important contributions by the operational system behind it.

On the occasion of the Great Spring Victory in 1975, many photographic reporters were deployed in the provinces from Quang Tri to Ca Mau and two groups of photographers were added in Saigon. The Deputy Editor-in-chief of Vietnam News Agency Tran Thanh Xuan established a "headquarters" in Lo Go, Tay Ninh, to direct the reporters in the whole region. However, Editor-in-chief Dao Tung still did not want to direct anyone to Hanoi. On April 2, 1975, he led a group of special photo reporters to went to Tay Ninh and Saigon. In the evening of April 30, 1975, he reviewed directly the photos on the liberation of Saigon and sent telephotos from Tay Ninh to Hanoi so that they could be transferred abroad and to domestic newspapers.

Two reporters Ngoc Dan and Hoang Them took 18 film rolls to Da Nang airport on the afternoon of May 2. With the consent of his superiors, Hoang Thiem immediately boarded the transport plane C130 alone to take the film rolls to Hanoi. In Tay Ninh and Hanoi, the head and deputy head of the national news agency urgently worked together to promptly provide the people both in the country and abroad with historical photos highlighting the countrys glorious victory.
The House Oversight Committee intends to subpoena Postmaster General Louis DeJoy for documents about disruptions in mail delivery operations that are now central to questions over the ability to handle an onslaught of mail-in ballots expected for the November election.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the committee chair, sent a memo Monday saying DeJoy blew past last week's deadline to fully respond to the committee's request for more information. He has not provided any new materials, she said.

'It is clear that a subpoena has become necessary to further the Committee's investigation and help inform potential legislative actions,' she said.

Democrats are aggressively pursuing oversight of postal operations after President Donald Trump railed against mail-in ballots. Trump suggested he wanted to starve the Postal Service of funds to make it more difficult to handle the surge expected in November.

DeJoy, who was tapped to lead the agency in June, started quickly initiating changes at a time when the agency was already straining under the COVID-19 crisis. Reports of delays soon piled up.

Subpoena move: Carolyn Maloney, the Democratic chair of the House Oversight Committee, is hitting Louis DeJoy, the Postmaster General, with the legal order after his organization failed to provide documents on mail service cuts

Election controversy: Democrats are concerned that widespread USPS disruption will hit the November election, with a vast increase in postal ballots expected

Communities across the nation complained about widespread disruptions in postal operations this summer as blue mailboxes and sorting equipment were removed and employees said changes in trucking operations and overtime hours left mail on the loading docks, undelivered.

The committee produced internal postal service data showing widespread summer service disruptions.

DeJoy, who testified before the panel earlier this month, reiterated in a letter last Friday that the changes he was initiating are now being suspended 'until after the election is concluded.'

The committee is seeking documents about the changes, including the removal of sorting equipment and changes to overtime rules, which could be impeding mail delivery.

The panel also wants information about how DeJoy, who had no previous postal experience, was selected for the job, as well as any previously 'undisclosed communication between Mr. DeJoy and the Trump campaign.'

DeJoy in his Friday letter to the panel said the postal leadership team has expanded an Election Mail task force to work with local election officials in support of the November election to ensure ballots are delivered 'securely and on time.'

DeJoy also said his staff was working with the committee to provide the materials being requested.

Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., chairman of the panel's Government Operations Subcommittee, said, 'Mr. DeJoy's testimony before our committee has left us with more questions than answers.'

Connolly said: 'Congress must assert itself. The public demands it. Today's action is a necessary step in our efforts to hold the Trump administration accountable for its deliberate sabotage of the Postal Service, and to restore confidence in this revered American institution.'

But the top Republican on the Oversight panel, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, called the decision to subpoena DeJoy part of a pattern by Democrats 'to promote a baseless conspiracy theory about the Postal Service.'

Comer called the subpoena 'overly broad' and said Democrats should work with the Postal Service and Republicans 'to address their concerns.'
A hero who saved 1,200 lives during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and was played by Don Cheadle in the film Hotel Rwanda is arrested on terror charges.

Paul Rusesabagina, 66, who was portrayed as a hero in the film, has been arrested by the Rwandan government on terror charges, police announced on Monday.

A well-known critic of President Paul Kagame, Rusesabagina had been living outside Rwanda since 1996 but police did not say where he was apprehended.

He had been living in Belgium and then in Texas, USA.

Mr Rusesabagina, was shown to the press in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, on Monday by police wearing handcuffs and a face mask

In the 2004 film 'Hotel Rwanda', Mr Rusesabagina used his influence as a manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines, to shelter more than 1,200 Tutsis in the hotel's rooms

Mr Rusesabagina, was shown to the press in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, on Monday by police wearing handcuffs and a face mask.

He has not been formally charged in court yet.

Police said in a statement that Mr Rusesabagina had been arrested 'through international cooperation'.

They said: 'Rusesabagina is suspected to be the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits including the Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD) operating out of various places in the region and abroad,' police said.

There was an international arrest warrant for Mr Rusesabagina to answer charges of serious crimes including terrorism, arson, kidnap and murder.

A hero who saved 1,200 lives during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and was played by Don Cheadle in the film Hotel Rwanda is arrested on terror charges

These were perpetrated against unarmed, innocent Rwandan civilians on Rwandan territory, police said.

Police told the media in Kigali that investigations against him will continue and more information will be released about his alleged activities.

Mr Rusesabagina has previously denied the government's charges that he financially supports Rwandan rebels.

He has been a prominent critic of Kagame's government, calling it a dictatorship and urging Western countries to press the government to respect human rights.

Government supporters reject his criticism, saying Kagame's leadership supports democracy and economic growth.

Mr Rusesabagina was awarded the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2005.

The Rwandan government disputes his story about saving survivors at a hotel in Kigali during the genocide.

More than 800,000 Tutsi and Hutus who tried to protect them were killed by Hutus.

Mr Rusesabagina was awarded the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2005

In the 2004 film 'Hotel Rwanda', Mr Rusesabagina used his influence as a manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines, to shelter more than 1,200 Tutsis in the hotel's rooms.

Mr Rusesabagina, a Hutu who is married to a Tutsi, was played by actor Don Cheadle in the movie.

Naphatal Ahishakiye, executive secretary of Ibuka, a Rwanda survivors' organization, said that Mr Rusesabagina's arrest is good news for survivors of the genocide.

Mr Ahishakiye said Mr Rusesabagina had charged people money to be able to survive in the hotel.
(Natural News) Diana Becton, the progressive district attorney for Contra Costa County in the East Bay of California, is causing an uproar in her jurisdiction over major changes she has made when it comes to how crimes are charged. Now, police officers in her county have to consider whether a looter needed the goods they stole before they slap a charge on them.

Becton is planning to roll out looting guidelines that she says are keeping in line with her platform of only enacting policies that put racial equity first. The main goal of these is to give looters a way out from receiving long jail and prison sentences if they committed their crimes during a declared state of emergency.

In the document Becton published containing the guidelines, she said that their main goal is to promote equitable filing practices. This means that, before her office will even think about pressing charges against looters, they will have to take into consideration these five key points:

Was the target business open or closed to the public during the state of emergency? What was the manner and means by which the suspect gained entry to the target business? What was the nature, quantity and value of the goods targeted? Was the theft committed for financial gain or personal need? Is there an articulable reason why another statute wouldnt adequately address the particular incident?

This means that the DAs office has to go through each of the five points, which includes conducting a psychological and financial analysis of the suspect, before they can file charges.

Under California law, the crime of looting is strictly defined as an individual taking advantage of a state of emergency to commit burglary, grand theft or petty theft. People charged with looting can face up to three years in jail.

With Bectons new guidelines for prosecuting looters, it will be much more difficult for law enforcement officers to put criminals in jail and off of the streets. This will allow these criminals to escalate their actions, knowing that the police will not be able to put them away. (Related: Left-wing rioters in Kenosha are now setting fire to apartment buildings with families trapped inside.)

Putting race before the law

Becton, along with several other progressive DAs across the country, are pushing for lighter punishments for rioters. She, along with the DAs for Suffolk County, Massachusetts; Durham County, North Carolina; Cook County, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri, even published an opinion piece on Politico detailing how they believe Americas criminal justice system, which they say was made to control Black people and people of color, must place lighter sentences on minorities. Coincidentally, all five district attorneys who penned the op-ed are Black.

Instead of deterring crime with harsh punishments, Becton and the other attorneys believe that American society itself must change in order to better accommodate their needs. They also point to policies implemented across the country that help criminals go free, such as declining to prosecute minor offenses and refusing to take cases from officers suspected of being racially biased.

As elected officials use the law for their political gain, ordinary people across the country have been forced to take up arms in order to defend life and property. Listen to this episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, to learn about one such person, Kyle Rittenhouse, the young man who had to heroically defend himself against Black Lives Matter thugs who could have taken his life in Kenosha, Wisconsin, if he had not defended it.

Liberal district attorneys ignore crimes committed by rioters

Unfortunately, many of these left-wing district attorneys are already putting their planned policies into action, such as Mike Schmidt, the new leftist district attorney for Multnomah County, Oregon. Schmidt, in his first week on the job, effectively dismissed charges against most of the 600 rioters that were detained in Portlands jails, to the objections of law enforcement officers and other public officials in the county. Moving forward, Schmidt will also be declining to prosecute rioters charged with so-called minor offenses such as interfering with police officers, trespassing and disorderly conduct.

Kim Foxx, DA for Cook County, Illinois, is also in hot water for her alleged leniency towards the rioters and looters in Chicago. She has been accused of refusing to charge people arrested for rioting and looting during the current wave of engineered rioting in the city, which began in late May.

Criminals took to the street with the confidence that there would be no consequences for their actions, said Chicago police superintendent David Brown. And I for one refuse to allow these cowardly acts to hold our city hostage.

Foxxs reputation has gotten so toxic that even Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a fellow Democrat, has criticized Foxx for going too far. These people need to be held accountable and not cycled through the system, she said.

This blatantly unlawful conduct extends not just to DAs allowing Black Lives Matter and Antifa criminals to go free. Some DAs, like St. Louis, Missouri circuit attorney Kim Gardner, are going out of their way to persecute conservatives and other people who are exercising their right to defend themselves and their property.

This is what Gardner did when she decided that she would slap a charge of felony unlawful use of a weapon after Mark and Patricia McCloskey became infamous among liberal circles due to videos taken of them deterring a violent BLM mob from stepping foot on their property using their firearms.

Gardner is also preventing St. Louis police officers from doing their jobs. She placed 15 officers on an exclusion list, which means that any charges they file against criminals will likely be dropped and permanently banned seven officers from the Circuit Attorneys Office.

Bectons office also has a long history of persecuting conservatives, such as when one of Bectons deputy DAs, Nichelle Holmes, posted on social media about how she and the whole office wants to charge a couple who painted over a Black Lives Matter mural with more than a citation for vandalism. The office later charged the patriotic couple with a hate crime, but this charge will likely be dropped as it will be impossible for their office to prove racist intent.

Learn more about the corruption plaguing the American criminal justice system by reading the articles at Corruption.news.

Sources include:

WND.com

RedState.com 1

Politico.com

NYTimes.com

FoxNews.com

News.WTTW.com

NYPost.com

KSDK.com

RedState.com 2
By Ayya Lmahamad

President Ilham Aliyev has praised Azerbaijans contribution to the Soviet Unions victory in World War II, in an interview with Rossiya-24 and Rossiya-1 TV channels on the occasion of the opening of the Sambek Heights, a new military-historical museum complex of the Great Patriotic War in Russias Rostov Region.

Azerbaijan has made a worthy contribution to our common victory. A total of 128 Heroes of the Soviet Union are originally from Azerbaijan. Military equipment was produced in Azerbaijan. The enterprises worked day and night, Aliyev said.

The president stressed that 90 percent of the soldiers of the 416th Taganrog Division, which liberated the Rostov region, were from Azerbaijan.

The Kaiser Wilhelm Palace was captured by soldiers of this division. A group of servicemen led by Azerbaijani Lieutenant Majidov planted the Victory flag over the Brandenburg Gate the president said, adding that the 416th Taganrog Division liberated not only Rostov and but also the entire Rostov Region, including the city of Taganrog, after which the division was renamed into the Taganrog Division, as well as other cities - Melitopol, Chisinau, Odessa.

The 416th Division especially distinguished itself during the brilliant Mozdok operation. In essence, it prevented the capture of Baku by the Nazis, which would have had catastrophic consequences for the outcome of the Great Patriotic War. At that time Azerbaijan supplied 80 percent of fuel and 90 percent of grease oils. If Azerbaijan and its oil fields had fallen into the hands of the Nazis, the outcome of the war would have been completely different, the president stressed.

Likewise, the president highlighted that Azerbaijan honors the memory of those who fought against Nazis.

In Azerbaijan, veterans are surrounded by attention and care, and we have always been and are against the glorification of Nazis, for the preservation of historical truth about the role of the Soviet Union in the Victory over fascism.

I am sure that the opening of the new memorial will also testify to the fact that we are trying to make sure that the next generations do not forget the courage of our fathers and grandfathers, remember our common victory as a sacred value, know the truth about those who made a significant and decisive contribution to our common victory, the president said.

It should be noted that the newly-opened Sambek Heights military-historical museum displays thousands of artifacts from family archives, as well as exhibits found on the battlefields. The most modern technologies were used in the creation and activities of the museum.

The museum complex with the total area of about 14 hectares includes the Memorial of Glory, established in 1980 in honor of the soldiers who liberated Taganrog, the museum building with the permanent exhibition "The Don in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945", an interactive platform of military equipment of the opposing sides, "Alley of Memory", a chapel, information and exhibition center.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Where you live can increase your risk for experiencing delirium after surgery. So said a study that showed older adults who live in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods are two times more likely to experience delirium after surgery than their counterparts from more affluent communities. These findings by researchers from the Aging Brain Center in the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research (Marcus Institute) at Hebrew SeniorLife were published today in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Franchesca Arias, Ph.D., Assistant Scientist, and Sharon K. Inouye, M.D., Director of the Aging Brain Center, were lead and senior authors respectively on the study.

Delirium is a clinical syndrome characterized by acute decline in cognition, which can present as inattention, disorientation, lethargy or agitation, and perceptual disturbance. Delirium among older hospitalized patients can lead to poor outcomes, including prolonged hospital stays, deep psychological stress for patients and their families, functional decline, and in worst cases, death. To date, however, the association between delirium and community-based factors that can influence health outcomes, such as resources, health care access, and local economic conditions, has not been well-examined.

The study enrolled a prospective observational cohort of 560 patients aged 70+ undergoing major non-cardiac surgery between June 2010 and August 2013 at two academic medical centers in Boston. The research team used the Area Deprivation Index (ADI) to characterize participant's neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage.

ADI uses 17 United States Census indicators of poverty, education, employment, and physical environment to characterize the socioeconomic disadvantage of a census block group. This study found that neighborhood characteristics, such as poverty, lack of infrastructure, and density contributed to the two-fold increase in the number of patients who developed delirium after surgery. When compared with other social and economic risk factors for diminished health outcomes in older adults, including income and level of education, neighborhood characteristics emerged as the strongest predictor of delirium incidence.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on the consequences of economic health care disparities in the U.S., and this study is yet another example of how social, economic, and environmental marginalization impacts the health of those who live in disadvantage communities.

"Our hope is that by building awareness of barriers to care present in disadvantaged neighborhoods, clinical teams will tailor support and treatment recommendations based on the resources available within a patient's community," said Dr. Inouye.

"Patients with higher ADI percentiles may benefit from having additional support and periodic check-ins with treatment teams prior to surgery and/or participating in rehabilitation programs postoperatively," said Dr. Arias.

###

In addition to Drs. Arias and Inouye, study investigators included Amy J.H. Kind, M.D., Ph.D., Health Services and Care Research Program, Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health/ Madison VA Geriatrics Research Education and Clinical Center; Fan Chen, M.S., M.P.H., Aging Brain Center, Marcus Institute/Biostatistics and Data Sciences, Marcus Institute; Tamara G. Fong, M.D., Ph.D., Aging Brain Center, Marcus Institute and Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Haley Shiff, B.A., Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health; Margarita Alegria, Ph.D., Disparities Research Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Medicine and Psychiatry/Harvard Medical School; Edward R. Marcantonio, M.D., S.M., Division of General Medicine and Gerontology, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Yun Gou, M.A., Aging Brain Center, Marcus Institute/Biostatistics and Data Sciences, Marcus Institute; Richard N. Jones, Sc.D., Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Brown University, Warren Alpert Medical School; Thomas G. Travison, Ph.D., Biostatistics and Data Sciences, Marcus Institute/Department of Medicine and Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Eva M. Schmitt, Ph.D., Aging Brain Center, Marcus Institute.

This study was funded in part by the National Institute on Aging grants no. R24AG054259 (SKI), P01AG031720 (SKI). Dr. Inouye holds the Milton and Shirley F. Levy Family Chair at Hebrew SeniorLife. Dr. Marcantonio's time was supported in part by K24AG035075; Dr. Franchesca Arias' time was supported in part by grant no. 2019-45AARFD-644816 of the Alzheimer's Association; Dr. Kind's time was supported by National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities Award (R01MD010243 [PI 47Kind]) and National Institute on Aging RF1AG057784 [PI Kind, MPI Bendlin].

About the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research

Scientists at the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute seek to transform the human experience of aging by conducting research that will ensure a life of health, dignity, and productivity into advanced age. The Marcus Institute carries out rigorous studies that discover the mechanisms of age-related disease and disability; lead to the prevention, treatment, and cure of disease; advance the standard of care for older people; and inform public decision-making. For further information on the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife, please visit https://www.marcusinstituteforaging.org/.

About Hebrew SeniorLife

Hebrew SeniorLife, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, is a national senior services leader uniquely dedicated to rethinking, researching, and redefining the possibilities of aging. Based in Boston, the nonprofit organization has provided communities and health care for seniors, research into aging, and education for geriatric care providers since 1903. For more information about Hebrew SeniorLife, visit http://www.hebrewseniorlife.org and our blog, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Ex-PNB CEO: Political appointments taint investors' image of M'sian firms

The recent spate of political appointments to the boards of directors of various government-linked companies (GLCs) will have a terrible impact on the perception of investors on transparency and integrity in corporate Malaysia, said former Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) CEO Abdul Jalil Rasheed.

I think appointing politicians to board is going to set the country back a long way in terms of perception.

This recent spate of appointments has probably pushed Malaysia down in corporate governance ratings.

It has probably made Malaysia less attractive from an investment point of view, especially from foreign investors, Jalil said in an online podcast interview titled Bicara Minggu Ini.

Jalil, who was the CEO of an investment management firm in Singapore before his stint as PNB CEO, said foreign investors would scrutinise transparency and corporate governance when investing in emerging markets.

As a former emerging fund manager, the first thing we would look at is board composition because before we buy a stake in a company, we would want to be assured that our stake would be protected and that the board would act in our best interests even though we are a small shareholder.

But when you see a politician there, perception would fly about on whose interests exactly are being protected first, he said.

Political appointments have long been practised in Malaysia, including during the Pakatan Harapan administration.

At that time, BN MPs had criticised Harapans political appointments by claiming Harapan had made a written promise to end all political appointments.

However, Harapan, under item 22 of its 14th general election manifesto only stated that the government will ensure the appointment of state and national GLC Board members will be made based on merit and professionalism, not based on politics.

Harapans election manifesto made no mention of eliminating political appointments in other positions.

Jalil, who was the youngest PNB CEO, was himself appointed by the Harapan government to that position at the end of 2019.

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He resigned in June this year under the Perikatan Nasional government and was replaced by Ahmad Zulqarnain Onn, who was previously the deputy managing director of Khazanah Nasional Bhd.

The practice of political appointments has come under the spotlight again as Harapan-era appointments  whether political or otherwise  are being replaced by PN MPs.

Critics of the appointments said these posts incentivise the MPs to maintain support for PN and help Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin consolidate his grip on power.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 00:38:10|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese foreign ministry on Monday said Taiwan authorities and anti-China forces cannot change the fact that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and any attempt to engage in political manipulation and separatist activities to create "Taiwan independence" will not succeed.

"We strongly condemn and are seriously concerned about the egregious practices of anti-China forces in the Czech Republic who deliberately violate China's sovereignty, and blatantly interfere in China's internal affairs," said the ministry's spokesperson Zhao Lijian when asked to comment on Czech Senate Speaker Milos Vystrcil's visit to Taiwan.

Zhao said that State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi had made it clear that challenging the one-China principle on Taiwan question is an attempt to turn against the 1.4 billion Chinese people, and action of breaching international law and regulations.

Regarding Vystrcil's open provocation and the anti-China forces behind him, the Chinese government and Chinese people won't take a laissez-faire attitude and will make him pay a heavy price for his short-sighted behavior and political opportunism, Wang said Monday during his visit to Germany.

"We urge the relevant authorities of the Czech Republic to take immediate measures to eliminate the negative impact of this erroneous practice, so as to avoid damaging the overall situation of bilateral relations," Zhao said.

According to a release published on the Chinese foreign ministry's website on Monday, Vice Foreign Minister Qin Gang has lodged solemn representations over Vystrcil's Taiwan visit to Vladimir Tomsik, Czech Ambassador to China.

Qin said the Czech side must pay earnest attention to China's solemn position and grave concern, and take concrete actions to abide by the one-China principle, which is the political foundation of the bilateral relations. Enditem
A couple wearing face masks as a preventive measure take pictures at the Esplanade, during Singapore's National Day on 9 August, 2020. (PHOTO: LightRocket via Getty Images)

SINGAPORE  The Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed 41 new COVID-19 cases as of Monday (31 August), bringing the countrys total to 56,812.

All new cases are asymptomatic and were proactively detected via screening and surveillance, the MOH said.

Of them, three  all work pass or permit holders  are classified as cases in the community, while seven  including six Singapore residents  are imported, and the remaining 31 cases are foreign workers living in dormitories.

Overall, 15 per cent of the new cases have no established links.

All three cases in the community are currently unlinked and were detected via the rostered routine testing of workers in the construction, marine, and process sectors who are living outside the dorms, said the MOH.

The serological test result for two have come back positive, which indicate likely past infection, it added.

Epidemiological investigations of the cases are in progress, while all the identified close contacts of the cases have been isolated and placed on quarantine. They will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period.

Serological tests will also be conducted for their household contacts to determine if they could have been infected by them, said the MOH.

UPDATE: Summary of new community, imported cases in Singapore on 31 Aug https://t.co/20XSxhPaAI pic.twitter.com/FhtWwkqsS6  Yahoo Singapore (@YahooSG) August 31, 2020

Amongst the seven imported cases, six are Singaporeans or permanent residents who returned here from India between 17 and 19 August, and Malaysia on 17 August. The remaining case is a work permit holder currently employed in Singapore who arrived from India on 19 August.

All had been placed on 14-day stay-home notice upon arrival here and had been tested while serving their notice at dedicated facilities, said the MOH.

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The ministry noted that the number of new cases in the community has increased from an average of two cases per day in the week before to an average of three per day in the past week.

It added that the number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at an average of one case per day in the past two weeks.

Amongst the 31 cases residing in dorms, 16 had been identified earlier as contacts of previous cases and were tested during quarantine, said the MOH.

The remaining 15 cases were detected via surveillance testing. The MOH said it conducted serological tests to determine if some of these cases are current or past infections.

The serological test results for 11 cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infections, it added.

Overall, such workers make up 94.5 per cent  or 53,663 cases  of Singapores total COVID-19 tally.

Former nursing home staff tested positive back in home country

In a separate press release on Monday night, the Agency for Integrated Care said that a former care staff at Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home at 148A Silat Avenue has tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday in the Philippines, after returning home.

The worker was last at the nursing home on 26 August and she did not display any symptoms, it added.

All 90 staff and residents who might have been in contact with the case had been tested for COVID-19 and the results were negative. As a precaution, the nursing home has suspended visits to its premises.

Over 55,600 cases discharged; no patient in ICU

With 72 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Monday, 55,658 cases  or 98 per cent of the total  have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 78 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while none is in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

A total of 1,049 patients with mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Apart from 27 patients who have died from COVID-19 complications, 15 others who tested positive for the virus were determined to have died from unrelated causes, including three whose deaths were attributed to a heart attack and another four, whose deaths were attributed to coronary heart disease.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

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From troubled childhood to national wrestler, Danielle Lim's journey is far from typical
In this role, Riverso will serve as the lead voice for the DPC, which has been representing the governmental affairs and business interests of the design industry's largest firms since its founding in 1983. Recent programming developed by the DPC for its members has included such urgent and timely topics as diversity and inclusion in the workplace, cybersecurity, and best practices for delivering high-quality services remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I have been passionately engaged in the DPC for nearly a decade now, and I'm honored to be able to continue serving this vital organization for our industry as its chairman for the next three years," Riverso said. "The DPC provides a valuable resource to our industry by bringing together some of our best thought leaders to discuss lessons learned and best practices."

"Milo is exactly the kind of leader our coalition needs to guide us through these challenging times," said Debra Cohen Gordon, DPC vice president. "He has a strong vision for our industry and has been a mentor to many. We look forward to his leadership."

The DPC consists of 60 member firms and traditionally holds general membership meetings twice a year. Senior principals represent member firms in the coalition.

The DPC was initiated in 1983 as an informal group of senior principals working to address procurement issues that would have precluded leading architectural/engineering firms from competing for federal contracts. The Design Professionals later became the first American Council of Engineering Companies Coalition.

Riverso joined STV in 2005 as senior vice president of its construction management division, eventually becoming president of the firm in 2009, and chief executive officer two years later. During his tenure, STV has grown geographically, taken on increasingly complex assignments, and has seen its revenue increase by more than 70 percent.

Riverso has a long history of serving the design and construction industry. He is a chairman emeritus of the board of the New York Chapter of the ACE (Architecture Construction Engineering) Mentor Program of America, and former chairman of the Manhattan College Mentoring Program Board, the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA), and the New York Building Congress. Riverso is also on the Board of Advisors of the Center for Buildings, Infrastructure and Public Space at Columbia University, and is a member of Manhattan College's Board of Trustees. Additionally, he was recently elected to the prestigious National Academy of Construction and was named a CMAA Fellow.

About STV: Founded more than 100 years ago, STV is a leader in providing engineering, architectural, planning, environmental, and program/construction management services for transportation systems, infrastructure, buildings, energy, and other facilities. The firm is ranked 32nd in Engineering News-Record's Top 500 Design Firms survey. For more information, visit the firm's website at www.stvinc.com or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter.

For more information, contact:

Mark Ginocchio, (212) 505-4906

[email protected]

SOURCE STV

Related Links

http://www.stvinc.com


The city of St. Thomas will get 14 new zero-emission buses, along with new software and upgraded passenger amenities, as part of modernization efforts to improve transit across Southwestern Ontario.

A total of $16.2 million of joint municipal-provincial-federal funding will go toward 11 transit projects in St. Thomas, Woodstock, West Elgin, Point Edward, Leamington, LaSalle, Hanover and Chatham-Kent.

Federal Minister of Infrastructure and Communities Catherine McKenna made the announcement online last week. Elgin-Middlesex-London MPP Jeff Yurek, Oxford MPP Ernie Hardeman and St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston were among those present for the online announcement on Aug. 5.

The federal government will contribute over $6.7 million, the provincial government will chip in more than $5.6 million, and the municipal governments will provide around $3.9 million toward the projects. St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston praised the announcement during the meeting.

I cant thank you enough, and the citizens of St. Thomas will over time, he said. When that new bus pulls up instead of the old rattly one, theyre going to say Wow this is good. This is exactly what I needed to get to work.

The St. Thomas transit project gets the biggest share of the funding out of all other projects, with about $4.6-million total (with the city contributing about $554,000) spent on the removal of older, inefficient buses, and replacing them with 14 new zero-emission buses, new charging stations and solar-power generation retrofits.

There will also be upgrades to passenger amenities and transit-related technology, such as contactless payment and traffic signal prioritization.

We are really happy to receive this funding and start implementing the planned transit improvements. Focusing our resources on the busiest transit areas, extending our weeknight hours, and adding Sunday service will be great improvements, said St. Thomas Environmental Services director Justin Lawrence.

He said the city was preparing to switch over to the new route system in February 2021.

Woodstock is getting two new replacement buses, a bigger bus garage and storage facility, and transit software improvements, with two separate projects taking place in the region. The transit service expansion will cost about $3.1 million, and the bus wash will cost around $1.6 million.

West Elgin gets a specialized Handi-Van with a wheelchair-accessible lift to improve accessibility that will cost $90,000.

In Chatham-Kent, there will be 10 new transit vehicles, new bus shelters, and upgrades to the main bus terminal. Hanover will get 11 new vehicles  eight vans and three buses.

LaSalle will get 10 bike lockers at various locations throughout the municipality. Leamington will receive two new buses that will replace retiring buses, which will add more seating. Point Edward will see the resurfacing and installation of bike and pedestrian paths along public transit routes.

All eight communities applied for the funding last summer through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program, a cost-shared infrastructure funding program between the federal government, provinces and territories, municipalities and others. The Public Transit stream supports the construction, expansion and improvement of public transit.

This reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 10:44:35|Editor: huaxia

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WUHAN, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- No new confirmed, asymptomatic or suspected cases of COVID-19 were reported in central China's Hubei Province Sunday, the provincial health commission said Monday.

As one confirmed imported case was discharged from hospital after recovery, Hubei cleared its confirmed cases on Sunday.

Hubei has reported a total of 68,139 confirmed COVID-19 cases, and 63,627 patients have been cured and discharged from hospitals. The disease claimed 4,512 lives in the province. Enditem
In June, jihadists disguised in burqas killed seven people in a village not far from Fada NGourma, said a high-ranking army officer who did not want to be named. Sometimes the jihadists pretend to be cattle or food traders so they can spy, he said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The Bachelor favourite Bella Varelis was on the verge of dumping Locklan 'Locky' Gilbert and quitting the show due to a devastating family heartbreak.

Despite being smitten with the hunky lead, the 25-year-old admitted that during filming she was always thinking about her grandfather, who had been diagnosed with dementia and lung cancer shortly before she went onto the dating show.

Recalling how she was willing to give up on finding lasting love, Bella told New Idea: 'He had been given a while to live, but it was in the back on my mind knowing that he could pass at any time.'

Family circumstances: The Bachelor favourite Bella Varelis was on the verge of dumping Locklan 'Locky' Gilbert and quitting the show due to a devastating family heartbreak

The stunner added: 'Although [my grandfather] gave me his blessing to go on the show, family means a lot tome, so I would have wanted to be there for them.'

Bella revealed that Locky was aware of her family circumstances, and supported her decision to quit the show, even if that meant he was left brokenhearted.

'It was so beautiful seeing how Locky comforted me through this emotional roller-coaster - he really showed me a gentle, caring side of him that I hadn't seen before,' the brunette said.

'Back of my mind: Despite being smitten with Locky, the 25-year-old admitted that she was always thinking about her grandfather who had been diagnosed with dementia and lung cancer shortly before she went onto the dating show

Bella is tipped as the favourite in the competition, as is her friend Irena Srbinovska.

However, Irena admitted that she briefly stepped away from the show midway through filming earlier this year.

The 31-year-old nurse decided to head back to work in Melbourne to help patients suffering from coronavirus when production on the series briefly shut down in March during the height of the pandemic.

All of the bachelorettes bid farewell to Locky in Sydney and returned to their hometowns.

Heartbreak: Recalling how she was willing to give up on finding lasting love, Bella said: 'He had been given a while to live, but it was in the back on my mind knowing that he could pass at any time'

However, instead of sitting around and waiting to do Zoom calls with the hunky Survivor star, Irena was on the frontline fighting the virus.

Irena is currently the main frontrunner to win Locky's heart, with odds of $1.25 while Bella is expected to be runner-up at $3.75, according to TAB's latest betting odds as of Thursday.

The Bachelor continues Wednesday at 7:30pm on Channel 10.
Tourists are returning to Bulgaria for the top tourist months of July and August.

This year though, its a trickle not a waterfall. The demographic has also shifted, with hotel bookings down by some 90% at the start of August, and most visitors being Bulgarian, Czech, Polish or Romanian.

The British tourists who would normally be thronging the fine golden sands are nowhere to be seen, while the occasional Czech, Polish or Romanian family scurries to the beach through the deserted alleys or enjoy having a hotel pool to themselves, Euractiv reports.

CNN Travel reports that for more than a century, Bulgaria has had little trouble enticing people to its beach resorts scattered along the Black Sea coast.

For the first time in a long time that is no longer the case with (from a revenue point of view) dismally few city-breakers currently enjoying Sofia, Bulgarias capital, and Plovdiv, the 2019 European Capital of Culture (not to mention the beachy getaways littered along The Black Sea).

The situation is so dire the managing boards of tourist organizations and universities have signed a Charter of Bulgarian Tourism, the gist of which is a restart of Bulgarian tourism is needed.

Like Amsterdam, Bulgaria is taking this chance to reconsider the bigger picture of how it wants its tourism industry to look.

As we come out of this challenging time, there will be various factors that jig Bulgarian tourism back into action. One of them may end up coming from an unlikely place. That source? Twitter user @BasedBulgaria, which describes itself as Bulgarian conservative (and supporter of Eurosceptic political group Europe of Nations).

Despite the users cynical political views, @BasedBulgaria may have just done The Wanderlust Machine an unintended favour.

Sunny Beach, Bulgaria. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. pic.twitter.com/qUhQkgYWso  Based Bulgaria  (@BasedBulgaria) August 28, 2020

Based Bulgaria on Saturday took to Twitter, it appears, to complain about mass tourism in Bulgaria (specifically on Sunny Beach), calling it a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

However, other Twitter users responses to his post suggest he may have just sold the Bulgarian beachside experience better than any tourism campaign

Ukrainian dancers in Sunny Beach. pic.twitter.com/0NIf9JVPQf  Based Bulgaria  (@BasedBulgaria) August 28, 2020

Damn. You do know that millions are going to have to visit now, dont you. Youve sold it better than any tourist board could ever do, one wrote.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sunny Beach Bulgaria (@sunnybeachofficial) on Jan 12, 2016 at 12:42am PST

Other cast aspersions about the Russian mafia, beachfront development controversy and bemoaned the days this wasnt such a worst kept secret as hidden gem.

Went there a few years ago. Felt like I was in an episode of Land of the Giants, Russian and Bulgarian mafia everywhere, sure they even have their own hotel on the beach that nobody else can go near! Never again..  Justin (@justinstewart74) August 28, 2020

Another comment suggests Sunny Beach has been an interesting place to visit since the 70s:

Lol. Went there on family summer hols when it first opened up to tourism. Late 70s? Had a policeman point a gun at me after buying peaches off a street seller and also went to a fish restaurant only to find that when we ordered, fish was off.

For those looking for a more relaxed place to visit (i.e. youd rather check out a UNESCO attraction than a beachfront bar), Sunny Beach is located next to Nessebar, the crown jewel of Bulgarian coastal escapes.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Elena Sholokhova (@uvidim_mir) on Aug 12, 2020 at 10:54am PDT

This tiny ancient treasure trove is located at the end of a narrow strip of land and offers tourists the chance to explore cobbled streets, centuries of history and the fascinating legacies from ancient Greece and the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, (CNN Travel).

Seemingly wherever one walks in this UNESCO-listed town theres a Byzantine church in picturesque states of ruin. One, the 14th-century Church of Christ Pantocrator, now houses a museum of antique maps. Meanwhile, the Church of St Stephen contains dazzling 16th-century frescoes and icons.

To delve further into Nessebars story, theres the Archaeological Museum, which, despite being built in the 1990s, has been designed sympathetically in honey-colored stone, CNN Travel adds.

As for who can currently visit: citizens of the European Union at the time of writing are allowed entry, as well as other approved countries (see the full list here). Visitors from the United States have been banned until the 31st of August 2020 and it remains to be seen whether the ban will be lifted or extended (for more information consult the US embassy website).

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PALM BEACH, Fla., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Fluorspar, the name used for fluorite when it is sold as a bulk material or in processed form, is not an often discussed mining product. Fluorite has a wide variety of uses. The non-stick cooking surface known as Teflon is made using fluorine derived from fluorite. The primary uses are in the metallurgical, ceramics, and chemical industries; however, optical, lapidary, and other uses are also important. Recent industry reports project that the global Fluorspar Acid Grade market size is expected to reach US$ 2800.1 million by the end of 2026, with a CAGR of 8.9% during 2021-2026. Fluospar is sold in different grades including acid, metallurgical and ceramic. Acid grade fluorspar is a high-purity material used by the chemical industry. It contains over 97% CaF 2 . Most of the fluorspar consumed in the United States is acid grade even if it is used in lower grade applications. It is used mainly in the chemical industry to manufacture hydrofluoric acid (HF). The HF is then used to manufacture a variety of products which include: fluorocarbon chemicals, foam blowing agents, refrigerants, and a variety of fluoride chemicals. Fluorspar is also used directly or indirectly to manufacture products such as aluminum, gasoline, insulating foams, refrigerants, steel, and uranium fuel. Byproduct fluorosilicic acid production from some phosphoric acid producers supplements fluorspar as a domestic source of fluorine. Active stocks in the markets this week include Ares Strategic Mining Inc. (OTCQB: ARSMF) (TSX-V: ARS), Commerce Resources Corp. (OTCPK: CMRZF) (TSX-V:CCE), Lion One Metals Limited (OTCQX: LOMLF) (TSXV: LIO), McEwen Mining Inc. (NYSE: MUX) (TSX: MUX), Saville Resources Inc. (TSX-V: SRE).

Europe and North America are expected to increase over the next few years. Fluorspar Acid Grade markets in the Asia-Pacific region are expected to experience significant growth during the forecast period. Advanced technology and innovation are the most important characteristics of North America and the main reason why the United States dominates the world market. The Fluorspar Acid Grade market in South America is also expected to expand in the near future. A report from MarketsAndResearch shows much optimism for the market in the near future, saying: "Our analysts monitoring the situation across the globe explains that the market will generate remunerative prospects for producers post COVID-19 crisis. The report aims to provide an additional illustration of the latest scenario, economic slowdown, and COVID-19 impact on the overall industry Other factors that are driving the growth of the market can be the increased number of demands. The Fluorspar Acid Grade market is expected to propel during the forecast period from 2020 to 2025."

Ares Strategic Mining Inc. (OTCQB: ARSMF) (TSX-V: ARS) BREAKING NEWS: Ares Strategic Mining Inc. Completes Delineation Drilling Assaying and Confirms High Grades of Naturally Occurring Fluorspar - Ares Strategic Mining ("Ares" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has received all the assay results from its 12 Reverse Circulation delineation drill holes from the drill program conducted at its Lost Sheep Fluorspar mining operation located In Delta, Utah, US.

James Walker, President and CEO of the Company said, "The results have been a great validation of our project assessment and its potential. Not only do we have the only permitted and producing fluorspar mine in the U.S, but we can now confirm that high grades of naturally occurring fluorspar at our mine. This is excellent news for U.S. industries which import 100% of its fluorspar from abroad. Fluorspar is used in aluminum, steel, refrigeration units, electric car batteries, smart phones, medical supplies, cement, and hydrofluoric acid, and now U.S industry has the potential to source fluorspar domestically instead of from abroad. We have discovered large sections of fluorspar which already meet industry standards. We have commenced plant design work, block modelling, and resource calculations for the drilled and assayed fluorspar pipe. With the already completed metallurgical work, which the company recently announced had achieved the highest grade required by industry, Ares is advancing with its mine construction plans with the anticipation to supply to US industry in the near future."

High-grade fluorspar is located within discrete near vertical fluorite bearing volcanic breccia pipes hosted within competent limestone. Due to working safety and space limitations inside the actual LGP pit, all 12 RC drill holes were drilled from two locations/pads fanned through the fluorite bearing breccia pipe boundaries at different elevations to delineate the shape and grade distribution of the Fluorspar mineralization within it as well as the contacts with the limestone wall rock at different elevation levels.

A summary of the drill intersects and grades can be seen in the table below.

Hole ID Azimuth Dip From (m) To (m) Interval (m) %CaF2 LS-20-01 280 45 7.62 50.29 42.67 56.33% including



10.67 30.48 21.34 72.87% LS-20-02 280 65 12.19 41.15 28.95 54.30% including



15.24 36.57 21.34 68.47% LS-20-03 320 55 10.67 28.96 18.29 20.15% LS-20-04 250 65 12.19 35.052 22.86 41.97% LS-20-05 250 45 9.14 28.56 19.81 37.04% LS-20-06 220 55 21.36 25.91 4.57 59.52% and



39.62 68.58 25.91 20.77% LS-20-07 320 45 0 6.07 9.07 69.19% LS-20-08 360 90 0 30.48 30.48 58.91% including



0 25.91 25.91 68.15% LS-20-09 250 45 0 6.1 6.1 39.50% LS-20-10 170 65 0 19.81 19.91 63.60% and



56.39 60.96 5.57 17.46% LS-20-11 170 45 0 13.71 13.71 51.60% including



0 9.14 9.14 70.75% LS-20-12 210 40 0 9.14 9.14 47.70%

These assay results confirm the very high fluorspar grades reported from historic productions at the different mines that operated between the 1950's and the 1980' in the Spor Mountain by the USGS in various reports. These reports already indicated the fluorspar occurrences in the Spor Mountain rank amongst the highest naturally occurring fluorspar grades in the World. Read this entire release including full drilling results for the Ares Strategic Mining news at: https://www.financialnewsmedia.com/news-ars/

Other recent developments in the markets include:

Commerce Resources Corp.(TSX-V:CCE) (OTCPK: CMRZF) recently reported that the Ashram REE/ Fluorspar Deposit is the subject focus of two papers that will be presented at the upcoming 2020 Conference of Metallurgists (COM2020). The conference was originally planned to be held in Toronto this August; however, it has recently been rescheduled for October 14th and 15th and is modified to an online webinar format given recent events. COM2020 is organized by the Metallurgy and Materials Society, a section of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum (CIM).

The first paper, initially announced in news release dated May 13th, 2020, is a joint collaboration between the Company and CanmetMINING, a branch of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), and is titled "Mineral processing flowsheet options for the Ashram rare earth and fluorspar deposit". The authors, Tesfaye Negeri and Maziar Sauber of CanmetMINING and Darren L. Smith, the Company's Ashram Project Manager, detail in the paper recent test work completed by CanmetMINING where a marked improvement in flotation performance has been demonstrated through a combination of distributed reagent additions, reagent synergism, and reverse conditioning in a very simple and basic flotation circuit.

Lion One Metals Limited (TSXV: LIO) (OTCQX: LOMLF) recently announced , further to its announcements on July 23, 2020 and August 5, 2020, that it has completed a "bought deal" brokered private placement and concurrent non-brokered private placement of an aggregate of (i) 13,529,750 units (the "Tranche 1 Units") of the Company at a price of C$1.70 per Tranche 1 Unit (the "Tranche 1 Price") for gross proceeds of C$23,000,575, including the exercise in full of the underwriters' option with respect to Tranche 1 Units, and (ii) 8,189,821 units (the "Tranche 2 Units" and together with the Tranche 2 Units, the "Units") of the Company at a price of C$2.05 per Tranche 2 Unit (the "Tranche 2 Price") for gross proceeds of C$16,789,133, including a partial exercise of the underwriters' option with respect to Tranche 2 Units, for aggregate gross proceeds of $39,789,708 (the "Offering").

Each Tranche 1 Unit is comprised of one common share (a "Common Share") in the capital of the Company and one-half (1/2) of one common share purchase warrant (each whole common share purchase warrant attaching to a Tranche 1 Unit, a "Tranche 1 Warrant") of the Company. Each Tranche 1 Warrant shall be exercisable to acquire one Common Share (a "Warrant Share") at a price per Warrant Share of C$2.35 for a period of 12 months from the closing date of the Offering.

Each Tranche 2 Unit will consist of one Common Share and one-half (1/2) of one common share purchase warrant (each whole common share purchase warrant attaching to a Tranche 2 Unit, a "Tranche 2 Warrant") of the Company. Each Tranche 2 Warrant shall be exercisable to acquire one Warrant Share at a price per Warrant Share of C$2.75 for a period of 12 months from the closing date of the Offering. The net proceeds from the Offering will be used for exploration and development of the Company's Tuvatu Gold Project, as well as working capital and general corporate purposes.

McEwen Mining Inc. (NYSE: MUX) (TSX: MUX) recently reported its second quarter (Q2) results for the period ended June 30th, 2020, which included: Cash and working capital at June 30th, 2020 were $18.4 million and $25.5 million, respectively; Gold and silver production was adversely impacted by two factors: first, the temporary suspension of operations at all of our mines as a result of steps taken to stop the spread of COVID-19; and second, by operational issues. Production for Q2 was 15,700 gold ounces and 359,400 silver ounces, or 19,200 gold equivalent ounces ("GEOs") using the average gold:silver price ratio for the quarter of 104:1; and A net loss of $19.8 million in Q2, or $0.05 per share, compared to a net loss of $13.0 million, or $0.04 per share, in Q2 2019.

"I very much wish I could say that all our difficulties that started last year are now behind, but they are not, yet. The second quarter was challenging from an operational and health and safety standpoint. Our significantly lower production not only reduced our revenue, but also dramatically increased our costs per ounce. In addition, a change in how we account for development expenditures added significantly to our cash cost per ounce at Black Fox. However, our path to future growth and improved operational performance has become clearer.

Saville Resources Inc. (TSX-V: SRE) recently highlighted the fluorspar potential of its niobium project, optioned from its neighbor Commerce Resources Corp. (CCE.V)(CMRZF), which is busy developing its Ashram REE (Rare Earth Element) Project in Quebec, Canada, following the recent closing of a +$2.5 million CAD financing.



Ashram is not only one of the world's largest REE deposits but is also one of the largest fluorspar (CaF2) deposits globally with defined mineral resources. Therefore, the Ashram Deposit is not only an advanced-stage REE deposit, which remains the primary commodity of interest, it is also an advanced-stage fluorspar deposit. Historical drilling on Saville's adjacent property has intersected long intervals of high-grade fluorite.

DISCLAIMER: FN Media Group LLC (FNM), which owns and operates Financialnewsmedia.com and MarketNewsUpdates.com, is a third party publisher and news dissemination service provider, which disseminates electronic information through multiple online media channels. FNM is NOT affiliated in any manner with any company mentioned herein. FNM and its affiliated companies are a news dissemination solutions provider and are NOT a registered broker/dealer/analyst/adviser, holds no investment licenses and may NOT sell, offer to sell or offer to buy any security. FNM's market updates, news alerts and corporate profiles are NOT a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold securities. The material in this release is intended to be strictly informational and is NEVER to be construed or interpreted as research material. All readers are strongly urged to perform research and due diligence on their own and consult a licensed financial professional before considering any level of investing in stocks. All material included herein is republished content and details which were previously disseminated by the companies mentioned in this release. FNM is not liable for any investment decisions by its readers or subscribers. Investors are cautioned that they may lose all or a portion of their investment when investing in stocks. For current services performed FNM has been compensated forty nine hundred dollars for news coverage of the current press releases issued by Ares Strategic Mining Inc. by a non-affiliated third party. FNM HOLDS NO SHARES OF ANY COMPANY NAMED IN THIS RELEASE.



This 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. "Forward-looking statements" describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as "may", "future", "plan" or "planned", "will" or "should", "expected," "anticipates", "draft", "eventually" or "projected". You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, and other risks identified in a company's annual report on Form 10-K or 10-KSB and other filings made by such company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should consider these factors in evaluating the forward-looking statements included herein, and not place undue reliance on such statements. The forward-looking statements in this release are made as of the date hereof and FNM undertakes no obligation to update such statements.



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31.08.2020 LISTEN

I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea.

Yeonmi Park has told the harrowing story of her escape from North Korea as a child many times, but never before has she revealed the most intimate and devastating details of the repressive society she was raised in and the enormous price she paid to escape.

Parks family was loving and close-knit, but life in North Korea was brutal, practically medieval. Park would regularly go without food and was made to believe that, Kim Jong Il, the countrys dictator, could read her mind. After her father was imprisoned and tortured by the regime for trading on the black-market, a risk he took in order to provide for his wife and two young daughters, Yeonmi and her family were branded as criminals and forced to the cruel margins of North Korean society. With thirteen-year-old Park suffering from a botched appendectomy and weighing a mere sixty pounds, she and her mother were smuggled across the border into China.

I wasnt dreaming of freedom when I escaped from North Korea. I didnt even know what it meant to be free. All I knew was that if my family stayed behind, we would probably diefrom starvation, from disease, from the inhuman conditions of a prison labor camp. The hunger had become unbearable; I was willing to risk my life for the promise of a bowl of rice. But there was more to our journey than our own survival. My mother and I were searching for my older sister, Eunmi, who had left for China a few days earlier and had not been heard from since.

Park knew the journey would be difficult, but could not have imagined the extent of the hardship to come. Those years in China cost Park her childhood, and nearly her life. By the time she and her mother made their way to South Korea two years later, her father was dead and her sister was still missing. Before now, only her mother knew what really happened between the time they crossed the Yalu river into China and when they followed the stars through the frigid Gobi Desert to freedom. As she writes, I convinced myself that a lot of what I had experienced never happened. I taught myself to forget the rest.

In In Order to Live, Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Koreaand to freedom.

Still in her early twenties, Yeonmi Park has lived through experiences that few people of any age will ever knowand most people would never recover from. Park confronts her past with a startling resilience, refusing to be defeated or defined by the circumstances of her former life in North Korea and China. In spite of everything, she has never stopped being proud of where she is from, and never stopped striving for a better life. Indeed, today she is a human rights activist working determinedly to bring attention to the oppression taking place in her home country.

Parks testimony is rare, edifying, and terribly important, and the story she tells in In Order to Live is heartbreaking and unimaginable, but never without hope. Her voice is riveting and dignified. This is the human spirit at its most indomitable.

About the Author

Yeonmi Park is a human rights activist who was born in North Korea.

Visit http://bit.ly/1KfF28h for a larger version of this map.

Prologue

On the cold, black night of March 31, 2007, my mother and I scrambled down the steep, rocky bank of the frozen Yalu River that divides North Korea and China. There were patrols above us and below, and guard posts one hundred yards on either side of us manned by soldiers ready to shoot anyone attempting to cross the border. We had no idea what would come next, but we were desperate to get to China, where there might be a chance to survive.

I was thirteen years old and weighed only sixty pounds. Just a week earlier, Id been in a hospital in my hometown of Hyesan along the Chinese border, suffering from a severe intestinal infection that the doctors had mistakenly diagnosed as appendicitis. I was still in terrible pain from the incision, and was so weak I could barely walk.

The young North Korean smuggler who was guiding us across the border insisted we had to go that night. He had paid some guards to look the other way, but he couldnt bribe all the soldiers in the area, so we had to be extremely cautious. I followed him in the darkness, but I was so unsteady that I had to scoot down the bank on my bottom, sending small avalanches of rocks crashing ahead of me. He turned and whispered angrily for me to stop making so much noise. But it was too late. We could see the silhouette of a North Korean soldier climbing up from the riverbed. If this was one of the bribed border guards, he didnt seem to recognize us.

Go back! the soldier shouted. Get out of here!

Our guide scrambled down to meet him and we could hear them talking in hushed voices. Our guide returned alone.

Lets go, he said. Hurry!

It was early spring, and the weather was getting warmer, melting patches of the frozen river. The place where we crossed was steep and narrow, protected from the sun during the day so it was still solid enough to hold our weightwe hoped. Our guide made a cell phone call to someone on the other side, the Chinese side, and then whispered, Run!

The guide started running, but my feet would not move and I clung to my mother. I was so scared that I was completely paralyzed. The guide ran back for us, grabbed my hands, and dragged me across the ice. When we reached solid ground, we started running and didnt stop until we were out of sight of the border guards.

The riverbank was dark, but the lights of Chaingbai, China, glowed just ahead of us. I turned to take a quick glance back at the place where I was born. The electric power grid was down, as usual, and all I could see was a black, lifeless horizon. I felt my heart pounding out of my chest as we arrived at a small shack on the edge of some flat, vacant fields.

I wasnt dreaming of freedom when I escaped from North Korea. I didnt even know what it meant to be free. All I knew was that if my family stayed behind, we would probably diefrom starvation, from disease, from the inhuman conditions of a prison labor camp. The hunger had become unbearable; I was willing to risk my life for the promise of a bowl of rice.

But there was more to our journey than our own survival. My mother and I were searching for my older sister, Eunmi, who had left for China a few days earlier and had not been heard from since. We hoped that she would be there waiting for us when we crossed the river. Instead the only person to greet us was a bald, middle-aged Chinese man, an ethnic North Korean like many of the people living in this border area. The man said something to my mother, and then led her around the side of the building. From where I waited I could hear my mother pleading, Aniyo! Aniyo! No! No!

I knew then that something was terribly wrong. We had come to a bad place, maybe even worse than the one we had left.

  

I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea. Both of these events shaped me, and I would not trade them for an ordinary and peaceful life. But there is more to the story of how I became who I am today.

Like tens of thousands of other North Koreans, I escaped my homeland and settled in South Korea, where we are still considered citizens, as if a sealed border and nearly seventy years of conflict and tension never divided us. North and South Koreans have the same ethnic backgrounds, and we speak the same languageexcept in the North there are no words for things like shopping malls, liberty, or even love, at least as the rest of the world knows it. The only true love we can express is worship for the Kims, a dynasty of dictators who have ruled North Korea for three generations. The regime blocks all outside information, all videos and movies, and jams radio signals. There is no World Wide Web and no Wikipedia. The only books are filled with propaganda telling us that we live in the greatest country in the world, even though at least half of North Koreans live in extreme poverty and many are chronically malnourished. My former country doesnt even call itself North Koreait claims to be Chosun, the true Korea, a perfect socialist paradise where 25 million people live only to serve the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un. Many of us who have escaped call ourselves defectors because by refusing to accept our fate and die for the Leader, we have deserted our duty. The regime calls us traitors. If I tried to return, I would be executed.

The information blockade works both ways: not only does the government attempt to keep all foreign media from reaching its people, it also prevents outsiders from learning the truth about North Korea. The regime is known as the Hermit Kingdom because it tries to make itself unknowable. Only those of us who have escaped can describe what really goes on behind the sealed borders. But until recently, our stories were seldom heard.

I arrived in South Korea in the spring of 2009, a fifteen-year-old with no money and the equivalent of two years of primary school. Five years later, I was a sophomore at a top university in Seoul, a police administration major with a growing awareness of the burning need for justice in the land where I was born.

I have told the story of my escape from North Korea many times, in many forums. I have described how human traffickers tricked my mother and me into following them to China, where my mother protected me and sacrificed herself to be raped by the broker who had targeted me. Once in China, we continued to look for my sister, without success. My father crossed the border to join us in our search, but he died of untreated cancer a few months later. In 2009, my mother and I were rescued by Christian missionaries, who led us to the Mongolian border with China. From there we walked through the frigid Gobi Desert one endless winter night, following the stars to freedom.

All this is true, but it is not the whole story.

Before now, only my mother knew what really happened in the two years that passed between the night we crossed the Yalu River into China and the day we arrived in South Korea to begin a new life. I told almost nothing of my story to the other defectors and human rights advocates I met in South Korea. I believed that, somehow, if I refused to acknowledge the unspeakable past, it would disappear. I convinced myself that a lot of it never happened; I taught myself to forget the rest.

But as I began to write this book, I realized that without the whole truth my life would have no power, no real meaning. With the help of my mother, the memories of our lives in North Korea and China came back to me like scenes from a forgotten nightmare. Some of the images reappeared with a terrible clarity; others were hazy, or scrambled like a deck of cards spilled on the floor. The process of writing has been the process of remembering, and of trying to make sense out of those memories.

Along with writing, reading has helped me order my world. As soon as I arrived in South Korea and could get my hands on translations of the worlds great books, I began devouring them. Later I was able to read them in English. And as I began to write my own book, I came across a famous line by Joan Didion, We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Even though the writer and I come from such different cultures, I feel the truth of those words echoing inside me. I understand that sometimes the only way we can survive our own memories is to shape them into a story that makes sense out of events that seem inexplicable.

Along my journey I have seen the horrors that humans can inflict on one another, but Ive also witnessed acts of tenderness and kindness and sacrifice in the worst imaginable circumstances. I know that it is possible to lose part of your humanity in order to survive. But I also know that the spark of human dignity is never completely extinguished, and that given the oxygen of freedom and the power of love, it can grow again.

This is my story of the choices I made in order to live.

PART ONE

North Korea

One

Even the Birds and Mice Can Hear You Whisper

The Yalu River winds like the tail of a dragon between China and North Korea on its way to the Yellow Sea. At Hyesan it opens into a valley in the Paektu Mountains, where the city of 200,000 sprawls between rolling hills and a high plateau covered with fields, patches of trees, and graves. The river, usually shallow and tame, is frozen solid during winter, which lasts the better part of the year. This is the coldest part of North Korea, with temperatures sometimes plunging to minus-40 degrees Fahrenheit. Only the toughest survive.

To me, Hyesan was home.

Just across the river is the Chinese city of Chaingbai, which has a large population of ethnic Koreans. Families on both sides of the border have been trading with one another for generations. As a child I would often stand in the darkness and stare across the river at the lights of Chaingbai, wondering what was going on beyond my citys limits. It was exciting to watch the colorful fireworks explode in the velvet black sky during festivals and Chinese New Year. We never had such things on our side of the border. Sometimes, when I walked down to the river to fill my buckets with water and the damp wind was blowing just right, I could actually smell delicious food, oily noodles and dumplings cooking in the kitchens on the other side. The same wind carried the voices of the Chinese children who were playing on the opposite bank.

Hey, you! Are you hungry over there? the boys shouted in Korean.

No! Shut up, you fat Chinese! I shouted back.

This wasnt true. In fact, I was very hungry, but there was no use in talking about it.

  

I came into this world too soon.

My mother was only seven months pregnant when she went into labor, and when I was born on October 4, 1993, I weighed less than three pounds. The doctor at the hospital in Hyesan told my mother that I was so small there wasnt anything they could do for me. She might live or she might die, he said. We dont know. It was up to me to live.

No matter how many blankets my mother wrapped around me, she couldnt keep me warm. So she heated up a stone and put it in the blanket with me, and thats how I survived. A few days later, my parents brought me home, and waited.

My sister, Eunmi, had been born two years earlier, and this time my father, Park Jin Sik, was hoping for a son. In patriarchal North Korea, it was the male line that really mattered. However, he quickly recovered from his disappointment. Most of the time its the mother who makes the strongest bond with a baby, but my father was the one who could soothe me when I was crying. It was in my fathers arms that I felt protected and cherished. Both my mother and my father encouraged me, from the start, to be proud of who I am.

  

When I was very young, we lived in a one-story house perched on a hill above the railroad tracks that curved like a rusty spine through the city.

Our house was small and drafty, and because we shared a wall with a neighbor we could always hear what was going on next door. We could also hear mice squeaking and skittering around in the ceiling at night. But it was paradise to me because we were there together as a family.

My first memories are of the dark and the cold. During the winter months, the most popular place in our house was a small fireplace that burned wood or coal or whatever we could find. We cooked on top of the fire, and there were channels running under the cement floor to carry the smoke to a wooden chimney on the other side of the house. This traditional heating system was supposed to keep the room warm, but it was no match for the icy nights. At the end of the day, my mother would spread a thick blanket out next to the fire and we would all climb under the coversfirst my mother, then me, then my sister, and my father on the end, in the coldest spot. Once the sun went down, you couldnt see anything at all. In our part of North Korea, it was normal to go for weeks and even months without any electricity, and candles were very expensive. So we played games in the dark. Sometimes under the covers we would tease each other.

Whose foot is this? my mother would say, poking with her toe.

Its mine, its mine! Eunmi would cry.

On winter evenings and mornings, and even in summertime, everywhere we looked we could see smoke coming from the chimneys of Hyesan. Our neighborhood was very cozy and small, and we knew everyone who lived there. If smoke was not coming out of someones house, wed go knock on the door to check if everything was okay.

The unpaved lanes between houses were too narrow for cars, although this wasnt much of a problem because there were so few cars. People in our neighborhood got around on foot, or for the few who could afford one, on bicycle or motorbike. The paths would turn slippery with mud after a rain, and that was the best time for the neighborhood kids to play our favorite chasing game. But I was smaller and slower than the other children my age and always had a hard time fitting in and keeping up.

When I started school, Eunmi sometimes had to fight the older kids to defend me. She wasnt very big, either, but she was smart and quick. She was my protector and playmate. When it snowed, she carried me up the hills around our neighborhood, put me in her lap, and wrapped her arms around me. I held on tight as we slid back down on our bottoms, screaming and laughing. I was just happy to be part of her world.

In the summer, all the kids went down to play in the Yalu River, but I never learned how to swim. I just sat on the bank while the others paddled out into the current. Sometimes my sister or my best friend, Yong Ja, would see me by myself and bring me some pretty rocks theyd found in the deep river. And sometimes they held me in their arms and carried me a little way into the water before bringing me back to shore.

Yong Ja and I were the same age, and we lived in the same part of town. I liked her because we were both good at using our imaginations to create our own toys. You could find a few manufactured dolls and other toys in the market, but they were usually too expensive. Instead we made little bowls and animals out of mud, and sometimes even miniature tanks; homemade military toys were very big in North Korea. But we girls were obsessed with paper dolls and spent hours cutting them out of thick paper, making dresses and scarves for them out of scraps.

Sometimes my mother made pinwheels for us, and we would fasten them on to the metal footbridge above the railroad we called the Cloud Bridge. Years later, when life was much harder and more complicated, I would pass by that bridge and think of how happy it made us to watch those pinwheels spin in the open breeze.

  

When I was young, I didnt hear the background noise of mechanical sounds like I do now in South Korea and the United States. There werent garbage trucks churning, horns honking, or phones ringing everywhere. All I could hear were the sounds people were making: women washing dishes, mothers calling their children, the clink of spoons and chopsticks on rice bowls as families sat down to eat. Sometimes I could hear my friends being scolded by their parents. There was no music blaring in the background, no eyes glued to smartphones back then. But there was human intimacy and connection, something that is hard to find in the modern world I inhabit today.

At our house in Hyesan, our water pipes were almost always dry, so my mother usually carried our clothes down to the river and washed them there. When she brought them back, she put them on the warm floor to dry.

Because electricity was so rare in our neighborhood, whenever the lights came on people were so happy they would sing and clap and shout. Even in the middle of the night, we would wake up to celebrate. When you have so little, just the smallest thing can make you happyand that is one of the very few features of life in North Korea that I actually miss. Of course, the lights would never stay on for long. When they flickered off, we just said, Oh, well, and went back to sleep.

Even when the electricity came on the power was very low, so many families had a voltage booster to help run the appliances. These machines were always catching on fire, and one March night it happened at our house while my parents were out. I was just a baby, and all I remember is waking up and crying while someone carried me through the smoke and flames. I dont know if it was my sister or our neighbor who saved me. My mother came running when someone told her about the blaze, but my sister and I were both already safe in the neighbors house. Our home was destroyed by the fire, but right away my father rebuilt it with his own hands.

After that, we planted a garden in our small fenced yard. My mother and sister werent interested in gardening, but my father and I loved it. We put in squash and cabbage and cucumbers and sunflowers. My father also planted beautiful fuchsia flowers we called ear drops along the fence. I adored draping the long delicate blossoms from my ears and pretending they were earrings. My mother asked my father why he was wasting valuable space planting flowers, but he ignored her.

In North Korea, people lived close to nature, and they developed skills to predict the next days weather. We didnt have the Internet and usually couldnt watch the governments broadcast on television because of the electricity shortage. So we had to figure it out ourselves.

During the long summer nights, our neighbors would all sit around outside their houses in the evening air. There were no chairs; we just sat on the ground, looking at the sky. If we saw millions of stars up there, someone would remark, Tomorrow will be a sunny day. And wed all murmur agreement. If there were only thousands of stars, someone else might say, Looks like tomorrow will be cloudy. That was our local forecast.

The best day of every month was Noodle Day, when my mother bought fresh, moist noodles that were made in a machine in town. We wanted them to last a long time, so we spread them out on the warm kitchen floor to dry. It was like a holiday for my sister and me because we would get to sneak a few noodles and eat them while they were still soft and sweet. In the earliest years of my life, before the worst of the famine that struck North Korea in the mid-1990s had gripped our city, our friends would come around and we would share the noodles with them. In North Korea, you are supposed to share everything. But later, when times were much harder for our family and for the country, my mother told us to chase the children away. We couldnt afford to share anything.

During the good times, a family meal would consist of rice, kimchi, some kind of beans, and seaweed soup. But those things were too expensive to eat during the lean times. Sometimes we would skip meals, and often all we had to eat was a thin porridge of wheat or barley, beans, or black frozen potatoes ground and made into cakes filled with cabbage.

  

The country I grew up in was not like the one my parents had known as children in the 1960s and 1970s. When they were young, the state took care of everyones basic needs: clothes, medical care, food. After the Cold War ended, the Communist countries that had been propping up the North Korean regime all but abandoned it, and our state-controlled economy collapsed. North Koreans were suddenly on their own.

I was too young to realize how desperate things were becoming in the grown-up world, as my family tried to adapt to the massive changes in North Korea during the 1990s. After my sister and I were asleep, my parents would sometimes lie awake, sick with worry, wondering what they could do to keep us all from starving to death.

Anything I did overhear, I learned quickly not to repeat. I was taught never to express my opinion, never to question anything. I was taught to simply follow what the government told me to do or say or think. I actually believed that our Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, could read my mind, and I would be punished for my bad thoughts. And if he didnt hear me, spies were everywhere, listening at the windows and watching in the school yard. We all belonged to inminban, or neighborhood peoples units, and we were ordered to inform on anyone who said the wrong thing. We lived in fear, and almost everyonemy mother includedhad a personal experience that demonstrated the dangers of talking.

I was only nine months old when Kim Il Sung died on July 8, 1994. North Koreans worshipped the eighty-two-year-old Great Leader. At the time of his death, Kim Il Sung had ruled North Korea with an iron grip for almost five decades, and true believersmy mother includedthought that Kim Il Sung was actually immortal. His passing was a time of passionate mourning, and also uncertainty in the country. The Great Leaders son, Kim Jong Il, had already been chosen to succeed his father, but the huge void Kim Il Sung left behind had everyone on edge.

My mother strapped me on her back to join the thousands of mourners who daily flocked to the plaza-like Kim Il Sung monument in Hyesan to weep and wail for the fallen Leader during the official mourning period. The mourners left offerings of flowers and cups of rice liquor to show their adoration and grief.

During that time, one of my fathers relatives was visiting from northeast China, where many ethnic North Koreans lived. Because he was a foreigner, he was not as reverent about the Great Leader, and when my mother came back from one of her trips to the monument, Uncle Yong Soo repeated a story he had just heard. The Pyongyang government had announced that Kim Il Sung had died of a heart attack, but Yong Soo reported that a Chinese friend told him he had heard from a North Korean police officer that it wasnt true. The real cause of death, he said, was hwa-byunga common diagnosis in both North and South Korea that roughly translates into disease caused by mental or emotional stress. Yong Soo had heard that there were disagreements between Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il over the elder Kims plans to hold talks with South Korea. . . .

Stop! my mother said. Dont say another word! She was so upset that Yong Soo would dare to spread rumors about the regime that she had to be rude to her guest and shut him up.

The next day she and her best friend were visiting the monument to place more flowers when they noticed someone had vandalized the offerings.

Oh, there are such bad people in this world! her friend said.

You are so right! my mother said. You wouldnt believe the evil rumor that our enemies have been spreading. And then she told her friend about the lies she had heard.

The following day she was walking across the Cloud Bridge when she noticed an official-looking car parked in the lane below our house, and a large group of men gathered around it. She immediately knew something awful was about to happen.

The visitors were plainclothes agents of the dreaded bo-wi-bu, or National Security Agency, that ran the political prison camps and investigated threats to the regime. Everybody knew these men could take you away and you would never be heard from again. Worse, these werent locals; they had been sent from headquarters.

The senior agent met my mother at our door and led her to our neighbors house, which he had borrowed for the afternoon. They both sat, and he looked at her with eyes like black glass.

Do you know why Im here? he asked.

Yes, I do, she said.

So where did you hear that? he said.

She told him shed heard the rumor from her husbands Chinese uncle, who had heard it from a friend.

What do you think of it? he said.

Its a terrible, evil rumor! she said, most sincerely. Its a lie told by our enemies who are trying to destroy the greatest nation in the world!

What do you think you have done wrong? he said, flatly.

Sir, I should have gone to the party organization to report it. I was wrong to just tell it to an individual.

No, you are wrong, he said. You should never have let those words out of your mouth.

Now she was sure she was going to die. She kept telling him she was sorry, begging to spare her life for the sake of her two babies. As we say in Korea, she begged until she thought her hands would wear off.

Finally, he said in a sharp voice that chilled her bones, You must never mention this again. Not to your friends or your husband or your children. Do you understand what will happen if you do?

She did. Completely.

Next he interrogated Uncle Yong Soo, who was nervously waiting with the family at our house. My mother thinks that she was spared any punishment because Yong Soo confirmed to the agent how angry she had been when he told her the rumor.

When it was over, the agents rode away in their car. My uncle went back to China. When my father asked my mother what the secret police wanted from her, she said it was nothing she could talk about, and never mentioned it again. My father went to his grave without knowing how close they had come to disaster.

Many years later, after she told me her story, I finally understood why when my mother sent me off to school she never said, Have a good day, or even, Watch out for strangers. What she always said was, Take care of your mouth.

In most countries, a mother encourages her children to ask about everything, but not in North Korea. As soon as I was old enough to understand, my mother warned me that I should be careful about what I was saying. Remember, Yeonmi-ya, she said gently, even when you think youre alone, the birds and mice can hear you whisper. She didnt mean to scare me, but I felt a deep darkness and horror inside me.

Two

A Dangerous History

I think my father would have become a millionaire if he had grown up in South Korea or the United States. But he was born in North Korea, where family connections and party loyalty are all that matter, and hard work guarantees you nothing but more hard work and a constant struggle to survive.

Park Jin Sik was born in the industrial port city of Hamhung on March 4, 1962, into a military family with good political connections. This should have given him a great advantage in life, because in North Korea all of your opportunities are determined by your caste, or songbun. When Kim Il Sung came to power after World War II, he upended the traditional feudal system that divided the people into landlords and peasants, nobility and commoners, priests and scholars. He ordered background checks on every citizen to find out everything about them and their families, going back generations. In the songbun system, everyone is ranked among three main groups, based on their supposed loyalty to the regime.

The highest is the core class made up of honored revolutionariespeasants, veterans, or relatives of those who fought or died for the Northand those who have demonstrated great loyalty to the Kim family and are part of the apparatus that keeps them in power. Second is the basic or wavering class, made up of those who once lived in the South or had family there, former merchants, intellectuals, or any ordinary person who might not be trusted to have complete loyalty to the new order. Finally, lowest of all, is the hostile class, including former landowners and their descendants, capitalists, former South Korean soldiers, Christians or other religious followers, the families of political prisoners, and any other perceived enemies of the state.

It is extremely difficult to move to a higher songbun, but it is very easy to be cast down into the lowest levels through no fault of your own. And as my father and his family found out, once you lose your songbun status, you lose everything else you have achieved along with it.

  

My fathers father, Park Chang Gyu, grew up in the countryside near Hyesan when Korea was a Japanese colony.

For more than four thousand years there has been one Korean people, but many different Koreas. Legend tells us that our history began in 2333 B.C., with a kingdom called Chosun, which means Morning Land. Despite its soothing name, my homeland has rarely been peaceful. The Korean peninsula lay at the crossroads of great empires, and over the centuries Korean kingdoms had to fight off invaders from Manchuria to Mongolia and beyond. Then, in the early twentieth century, the expanding Japanese empire slowly absorbed Korea using threats and treaties, finally annexing the whole country in 1910. That was two years before the birth of North Koreas first Leader, Kim Il Sung, and eleven years before my grandfather Park was born.

The Japanese were despotic colonial rulers who tried to destroy Korean culture and turn us into second-class citizens in our own land. They outlawed the Korean language and took over our farms and industries. This behavior sparked a nationalist resistance to Japanese rule that was met with violent suppression. Like many Koreans, Kim Il Sungs parents moved the family across the northern border to Manchuria, then a part of the Chinese empire. After the Japanese invaded Manchuria in the early 1930s, our future Great Leader joined a guerrilla group fighting the Japanese occupiers. But at the outset of World War II, Kim Il Sung joined the Soviet army and (as I later learned), contrary to North Korean propaganda, which has him almost singlehandedly defeating the Japanesespent the war at a military base far from the fighting.

When I was growing up, we didnt talk about what our families did during those times. In North Korea, any history can be dangerous. What I know about my fathers side of the family comes from the few stories my father told my mother.

At the start of World War II, Grandfather Park was working for Japanese managers in the finance department of Hyesans administrative office, or city hall. It was there that he met his future wife, Jung Hye Soon, who was also working at the city hall. She was an orphan who had been raised by her aunt, and shed had a very hard life before she met my grandfather. Their courtship was unusual, because unlike so many Korean couples whose marriages are arranged by their parents, my grandparents actually knew and liked each other before their wedding.

My grandfather kept his civil service job all through World War II. After the Japanese surrendered on August 15, 1945, the Soviet army swept into the northern part of Korea, while the American military took charge of the Southand this set the stage for the agony my country has endured for more than seventy years. An arbitrary line was drawn along the 38th parallel, dividing the peninsula into two administrative zones: North and South Korea. The United States flew an anti-Communist exile named Syngman Rhee into Seoul and ushered him into power as the first president of the Republic of Korea. In the North, Kim Il Sung, who had by then become a Soviet major, was installed as leader of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, or DPRK.

The Soviets quickly rounded up all eligible men to establish a North Korean military force. My grandfather was taken from his job at city hall and turned into an officer in the Peoples Army.

By 1949, both the United States and the Soviet Union had withdrawn their troops and turned the peninsula over to the new puppet leaders. It did not go well. Kim Il Sung was a Stalinist and an ultranationalist dictator who decided to reunify the country in the summer of 1950 by invading the South with Russian tanks and thousands of troops. In North Korea, we were taught that the Yankee imperialists started the war, and our soldiers gallantly fought off their evil invasion. In fact, the United States military returned to Korea for the express purpose of defending the Southbolstered by an official United Nations forceand quickly drove Kim Il Sungs army all the way to the Yalu River, nearly taking over the country. They were stopped only when Chinese soldiers surged across the border and fought the Americans back to the 38th parallel. By the end of this senseless war, at least three million Koreans had been killed or wounded, millions were refugees, and most of the country was in ruins.

In 1953, both sides agreed to end the fighting, but they never signed a peace treaty. To this day we are still officially at war, and both the governments of the North and South believe that they are the legitimate representatives of all Koreans.

  

Grandfather Park was a financial officer and never fired a shot during the Korean War. After the armistice, he remained in the military, traveling with his family from post to post. He was based in Hamhung, about 180 miles south of Hyesan, when my father was bornthe fourth of five children and the youngest son. Later, when my grandfather retired from active duty, the government resettled him and his family in Hyesan. My grandfathers position as an officer and a member of the ruling Workers Party of Korea gave him good songbun status, and he was awarded another job as finance manager at the commissary that supplied goods to military families. At least for a while, the family prospered along with North Koreas growing economy.

During the 1950s and 1960s, China and the Soviet Union poured money into North Korea to help it rebuild. The North has coal and minerals in its mountains, and it was always the richer, more industrialized part of the country. It bounced back more quickly than the South, which was still mostly agricultural and slow to recover from the war. But that started to change in the 1970s and 1980s, as South Korea became a manufacturing center and North Koreas Soviet-style system began to collapse under its own weight. The economy was centrally planned and completely controlled by the state. There was no private propertyat least officiallyand all the farms were collectivized, although people could grow some vegetables to sell in small, highly controlled markets. The government provided all jobs, paid everyones salary, and distributed rations for most food and consumer goods.

While my parents were growing up, the distribution system was still subsidized by the Soviet Union and China, so few people were starving, but nobody outside the elite really prospered. At the same time, supply wasnt meeting demand for the kinds of items people wanted, like imported clothing, electronics, and special foods. While the favored classes had access to many of these goods through government-run department stores, the prices were usually too high for most people to afford. Any ordinary citizen who fancied foreign cigarettes or alcohol or Japanese-made handbags would have to buy them on the black market. The usual route for those goods was from the north, through China.

  

My father went into the military sometime around 1980, when he was in his late teens. Like most North Korean men from the middle and upper classes, he was conscripted for ten years of service, although with connections that could be reduced to as little as two. But less than a year after my father joined the army, he got very sick with a burst appendix. After four or five surgeries to control complications from the infection, his military service was over for good. This could have been a catastrophe for him, because North Korean men without military backgrounds are usually shut out of the best jobs. But when he returned to Hyesan with nothing to do, his father suggested he study finance. He was able to enroll in a three-year program at the Hyesan Economic College. The rest of the family was also doing well. My fathers older brother Park Jin was attending medical school in Hyesan, and his eldest brother, Park Dong Il, was a middle school teacher in Hamhung. His older sister had married and moved to Pyongyang where she worked as a waitress, and his little sister was attending school in Hyesan.

But disaster struck in 1980 when Dong Il was accused of raping one of his students and attempting to kill his wife. I never learned all the details of what happened, or even if the charges were true, but he ended up being sentenced to twenty years of hard labor. It was only because of Grandfather Parks connections that he escaped execution. It is common for nonpolitical prisoners to be released from prison before they die, to save the government the trouble of sending their bodies home. So after serving twelve years, Dong Il was let out on sick leave and he returned to Hyesan. Nobody in the family ever spoke about his past. I remember him as a frail and quiet man who was always kind to me. He died when I was still a little girl.

In North Korea, if one member of the family commits a serious crime, everybody is considered a criminal. Suddenly my fathers family lost its favorable social and political status.

There are more than fifty subgroups within the main songbun castes, and once you become an adult, your status is constantly being monitored and adjusted by the authorities. A network of casual neighborhood informants and official police surveillance ensures that nothing you do or your family does goes unnoticed. Everything about you is recorded and stored in local administrative offices and in big national organizations, and the information is used to determine where you can live, where you can go to school, and where you can work. With a superior songbun, you can join the Workers Party, which gives you access to political power. You can go to a good university and get a good job. With a poor one, you can end up on a collective farm chopping rice paddies for the rest of your life. And, in times of famine, starving to death.

All of Grandfather Parks connections could not save his career after his eldest son was convicted of attempted murder. He was fired from his job at the commissary shortly after Dong Il was sent to prison, although no official reason was given for his dismissal. Fortunately, his younger sons were less affected by the scandal and managed to complete their educations. My uncle Park Jin finished medical school and became a professor at Hyesan Medical University and later became administrator at the medical college. He was an excellent student and clever political player who managed to succeed despite his familys problems. My father earned his degree in economic planning and, like his father before him, was hired to work in the finance office in Hyesans city hall. But after only a year, there was a restructuring in the administrative offices and he lost his job. His poor songbun had finally caught up with him.

My father realized he would have no future unless he found a way to join the Workers Party. He decided to become a laborer at a local metal foundry where he could work hard and prove his loyalty to the regime. He was able to build good relationships with the people who had power at his workplace, including the party representative there. Before long, he had his membership.

By that time, my father had also started a side business to make some extra money. This was a bold move, because any business venture outside of state control was illegal. But my father was unusual in that he had a natural entrepreneurial spirit and what some might call a healthy contempt for rules. He also had the luck to be living at the right time and in the right part of the country to turn his business into a big success. At least for a while.

Hyesan already had a long-established tradition of cross-border trade with China and a small but lively black market for everything from dried fish to electronics. During the 1980s, women were allowed to sell food and handicrafts in makeshift markets, but general trading was still an underground and specialized activity. My father joined a small but growing class of black market operators who found ways to exploit cracks in the state-controlled economy. He started small. My father discovered that he could buy a carton of top-quality cigarettes for 70 to 100 won on the black market in Hyesan, then sell each cigarette for 7 to 10 won in the North Korean interior. At that time, a kilogram2.2 poundsof rice cost around 25 won, so cigarettes were obviously very valuable.

Originating at www.amazon.com
KPMG in Bahrain said that Mubeen Khadir will join the company effective September 1 as Tax Partner leading the Tax and Corporate Services team along with KPMGs Head of Tax and Corporate Services, Philippe Norre.



With this expansion, KPMG in Bahrain continues to lead and optimize their offerings of value-added tax (VAT) outsourcing, tax technology solutions and address specific tax requirements at an industry and sector level including the banking, insurance, manufacturing, retail, hospitality, export &import and oil &gas industry.



The growth includes the launch of an enhanced Managed Services Centre of Excellence (tax, accounting, payroll and back-office function support), catering to the growing needs of businesses as they recover and emerge through the pandemic.



Khadir previously led and managed the tax team at another Bahrain based consulting firm. Prior to that, he was member of the KPMG family in Saudi Arabia.



The team will also take on an additional eight experts making the team the largest, most diverse and experienced service provider in the Kingdom. In addition to Arabic and English, the team can provide professional support to clients in an additional fifteen languages.



Khadir said: I am delighted to be re-joining KPMG as tax partner. A number of team members will also be coming across which cements KPMG as the unparalleled market leader for tax services in Bahrain. I am thrilled to join the dynamic team of talented partners and consultants at KPMG and look forward to driving the growth of the tax practice along with Philippe Norre and the largest tax team in Bahrain.

Jamal Fakhro, Managing Partner at KPMG in Bahrain, added: Mubeen is an astute professional, and a valuable addition to our firm. The industry expertise he brings along with his wider team, coupled with our existing competencies reinforces KPMGs commitment to quality and demonstrates our continuous investment to bring the best and most practical business advice and assistance to our clients.



Philippe Norre, Head of Tax and Corporate Services at KPMG in Bahrain said: I am thrilled to be working alongside Mubeen to assist businesses with their Tax requirements and challenges. As businesses work towards their recovery and are evolving towards the new reality, optimization will be a key a requirement. We continue to enhance our tailored and cost-efficient tax technology innovations, including KPMG Enara, to support in-house compliance, reporting and data analytics.



Our team of lawyers, economists, accountants and technology specialists can support businesses with all their tax, corporate compliance and legal advisory needs. This includes technology-based solutions, outsourced services, board advisory services, while also providing them direct support from our Bahrain Centre of Excellence. Mubeen and his team are highly respected across the GCC and their enthusiasm and strategic insight will bolster our existing relationships and reputation in the marketplace, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
GST compensation: States told to opt for a cut or extended payment period

The centre has given states the option of an extended compensation period beyond the five-year period ending 2022 to make up for the estimated Rs2.35 lakh crore shortfall in GST compensation to states.

Alternatively, finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman has given states the option of a reduced compensation, which is in line with the massive contraction of the national economy and those of the states.

States, however, have sought a week to deliberate on the two options offered by the centre to make up for the shortfall in GST collections, the finance minister said at the end of a five-hour meeting of the GST Council on Wednesday.

"The centre may convene another GST Council meeting once the states have decided their options and the RBI agrees to the Centres proposal," Sitharaman said.

Sitaraman said it is the hand of God that led to the tanking of the economy and the subsequent shortfall in GST collection, leading to an expected Rs2.35 lakh crore compensation gap this year.

The centre has estimated GST looses to the tune of Rs1,38,000 crore due to the pandemic, which in turn would cause a Rs97,000 crore shortfall in compensation amount due to states. The centre has given the option to states to avail of a window under which they can borrow 0.5 per cent of their GDP without any conditions.

"Under the second option, the entire gap of this year can be met by the borrowing of states, and arrangements could be made with the RBI," said Sitharaman, but implied reforms in power tariff etc. She complimented the participants at the GST Council for displaying statesmanship by focusing on the issue at hand.

Opposition-ruled states have opposed the central governments proposal that the states borrow money to plug a shortfall in their revenue from the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Instead they want the centre to borrow or the RBI to print currency to compensate the states.

The finance ministers of Congress-ruled states said they were not happy with the outcome of the meeting as decisions were thrust upon them by the Centre.

Officials of some states also demanded an increase in the period of payment of compensation for GST revenue loss by the Centre to the states from the present five years until 2022 to 10 years.

West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra suggested that the Centre pay the compensation from the various cesses it collects and compensate the states rather than raise states debt burden.

Mitra considers the 14 per cent annual increase in GST revenue assured to the states for five years until 2022 as sacrosanct while Delhi deputy chief minister and finance minister Manish Sisodia says the central governments refusal to give GST compensation to states is a betrayed.

BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh asked for payment of around Rs12,000 crore compensation for the revenue shortfall caused largely by the Covid-19 lockdown during the current financial year.

No interest to be charged on past delays in GST payment

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) today clarified that the notification dated 25 August 2020 relating to interest on delayed payment of GST has been issued prospectively due to certain technical limitations and that no recoveries shall be made for the past period as well by the central and state tax administration in accordance with the decision taken at the 39 meeting of GST Council. This will ensure full relief to the taxpayers as decided by the GST Council.

CBIC explanation came in response to an assortment of comments in the social media with respect to notification dated 25 August 2020 regarding charging of interest on delayed payment of GST on net liability (the tax liability discharged in cash) with effect from 1 September 2020.
The FAA said a city plan requires the airport to take certain safety measures if crews on two consecutive flights report poor braking conditions during landings. The FAA said that at least three times on Nov. 11 crews on consecutive flights reported problems with an OHare runway, but the city agency didnt limit operations or tell airlines about the situation.
A new book explores the ancient India that is preserved in the traditions, art, and architecture of China, as also in Mongolia, Korea and Japan, including the contribution of two Indian monks to the Shaolin temple and martial arts.

From the wandering monks of Asia to the temples and monasteries they visited; from the statues and frescoes in grottoes to those in museums; from the diverse ethnicities of the people to their common gods and goddesses, the book "On the Trail of Buddha: A Journey to the East" attempts to touch upon the ethos of the East Asian culture and its deep-rooted linkages with the Indian civilisation.

Beginning at Karakhoja, the erstwhile capital of Xinjiang, the book covers ancient cities along the Silk Road in China, the north-south trade axis that connects China with Mongolia, travels from Sichaun in south-western China to Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar, thereafter moving from south-eastern coastal China from Hong Kong to Shanghai, and then to Taiwan from Taipei to Kaohsiung.

From there, it moves to Korea and Japan. Traversing 98 destinations across 37 locations, the journey is a voyage of discovery across East Asia.

Deepankar Aron, an Indian Revenue Service officer, has put together his passions for photography and travel in this book, published by Niyogi Books.

'Damo' or 'Tamo', as he is popular in China, came to the Shaolin temple, 22 years after it was founded in 495 AD. Born in a royal family in Tamil Nadu's Kanchipuram, Damo, who is also known as Bodhidharma, meditated for nine years in a cave about four km from the temple, the book says.

"While it (the temple) was set up by the Chinese emperor of the Northern Wei dynasty in honour of the Indian monk Batuo, it was Damo who has been synonymous with the temple," the author writes.

Bodhidharma is believed to have brought the South Indian martial art form Kalaripayattu to China, where it was later modified into kung fu or wushu, he says.

"He created the 'muscle-bone strengthening exercises' widely known as the source of Shaolin kung fu. In an iron box left by Bodhidharma, after he passed away, there were two books on the subject," the book says.

According to Aron, there are thousands of monks who travelled spreading Buddhism across Asia. From Dafo of Leshan, the world's highest rock-cut Buddha to the Floating Temple of Itsukushima-Jinja in Japan, he writes about many World Heritage Sites and unique destinations.
China has launched another investigation into Australian wine, targeting producers over subsidies and accusing the Australian government of giving them an unfair advantage.

The escalation is the fourth dispute between Australia and its largest trading partner this month, as the economic partnership is increasingly tied to the degenerating political relationship between the two countries.

A man sits in front of a wine shop that sells Australian wines in eastern Beijings Tongzhou district. Credit:Sanghee Liu

China's Ministry of Commerce on Monday confirmed it would conduct an anti-subsidy investigation on Australia wine in containers of two litres or less. China's own wine industry is heavily subsidised, with grants for winemaking and research and development propping up the emerging sector.

The latest announcement follows a separate anti-dumping investigation launched on August 18 that accused Australian winemakers of flooding the market with cheap wine to crowd out local producers.
DETROIT, MI  Detroit Fire Department Sergeant Sivad Johnson was described as trustworthy, caring and a man with a beautiful mind. He was lauded as a hero over the course of a ceremony held in his honor Monday at the Detroit Public Safety headquarters.

The ceremony  which was also streamed virtually and limited in physical attendance due to the coronavirus pandemic  was held 10 days after Johnson, 49, died Aug. 21 after diving into the Detroit River at Belle Isle to help save the lives of three young girls from drowning.



"Anyone could spend one day or 1,000 days with him and easily feel like you have a great friend or brother for life," said Roger Harper, a firefighter who served alongside Johnson.

Johnson's body was recovered from the Detroit River not far offshore from Belle Isle by the Detroit Police Department and Detroit Fire Department divers, the Detroit Free Press reported, citing Detroit Fire Department Director Dave Fornell.

He was found following a six-hour search Aug. 22.

Related: Body Of Missing Detroit Firefighter Found Near Belle Isle

Johnson was a second-generation firefighter in the Detroit Fire Department and served for 26 years. In 2017, he was honored with the Medal of Valor.

While off duty, Sivad was known for his artwork, which has appeared in children's books, at local businesses, and on television. He also designed the current Detroit Fire Department logo.

He is survived by his two daughters, a brother and father.

The service's officiant, Jennifer Ann Wilson, a reporter with WXYZ, read letters submitted by Johnson's family, which described the late firefighter as a hero and "a gift from God."



"He was larger than life in so many ways," Johnson's family said in a letter. "Sivad was enormous and living out his values of service and dedication."

Sivad Johnson's brother, Jamal Johnson, who is also a city of Detroit firefighter, said he always followed in his brother's footsteps and "knew that was the right direction to take."

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"You're going to hear a lot of stories about my brother, it's going to sound like someone is describing a fictional character," Jamal Johnson said. "But trust and believe me, every bit of it is true. It's been that way ever since we've been young.

"He's always had my back, and a lot of others," Johnson said. "And now we have the opportunity to have his."

Detroit Fire Commissioner Eric Jones took time to thank members of the Detroit Police Department and the harbormaster team for their work searching for Johnson Aug. 21.

"We watched your men, chief, search all night," Jones said. "They searched so long that we started fearing for their safety."

Detroit Fire Engine Operator Martin Rucker sang a rendition of "His Eye is On the Sparrow."

Patricia Wheeler, who knew Johnson from The Moth, a performing arts center in Detroit, said Johnson was an incredible storyteller.

"Some storytellers focus on the laugh or shock value of a story, and while Sivad's stories were always full of humor and were certainly always shocking, the point of his stories was always hope," she said.

President Tom Gehart of the Local 344 Detroit Firefighters Association described Johnson as a man with valor, honesty, integrity and loyalty.

"The diary of Sgt. Johnson's life as it is now written matches up nicely with the life he obviously vowed to live," Gehart said, shortly before presenting Johnson's family with a medal and a Bible.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan talked about how he had gotten to know Johnson through the words and stories of his friends and family and went on to praise Johnson and the life-saving efforts that ultimately took Johnson's own life.

"Firefighters are the best of us, and Sivad Johnson was the best of the best," Duggan said. "What he did will never be forgotten. I just want the Johnson family to know that this entire city shares your grief with you today."

Detroit Police Commissioner Darryl Brown thanked God for being able to work with and get to know Johnson.

"He was unselfish with himself, with his talent, with his advice and everything," Brown said.

Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist rounded out a series of speakers, describing Johnson as an idol and an icon.

"I'm thankful to be here as a man, as a father, as a Detroiter, as lieutenant governor of the state of Michigan, serving alongside our governor, Gretchen Whitmer, we bring both greetings and condolences on behalf of the entire state of Michigan," Gilchrist said.

At the same time of Monday's ceremony, the Detroit Fire Department placed apparatus on ramps with lights on in honor of Johnson.

Fire Companies throughout Michigan, across the nation and neighbors in Canada, also took part in the tribute. Many used the hashtag, #SivadStrong to pay respects to the fallen firefighter. The Detroit Public Safety Foundation shared many of the posts on its Facebook page.

#sivadstrong Novi Fire Department would like to offer our condolences and support to the Johnson family and the Detroit Fire Department as they mourn the loss of one of their own, Sgt. Sivad Johnson. Sgt. Johnson https://t.co/lAD5CRUy49

 Novi Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 3232 (@Novi3232) August 31, 2020

Members of @novifire stepped outside & turned on the truck lights to honor @DetroitFire Sgt. Sivad Johnson this afternoon. Johnson died earlier this month after rescuing two drowning girls. He is a true hero. #sivadstrong #hero pic.twitter.com/zssLcKHgG9

 City of Novi (@cityofnovi) August 31, 2020

From the crew Downtown across the river. RIP Brother #SivadStrong pic.twitter.com/rNiM2XuXXz

 Windsor Honour Guard (@honourguard455) August 31, 2020

This article originally appeared on the Detroit Patch
A man has opened up on his 30-year battle to convince police his brother was a victim of a gay hate crime after it was ruled he committed suicide by jumping off a cliff.

Scott Johnson, a Sydney-based American national, was found dead at the base of a cliff at Blue Fish Point, near Manly's North Head, on December 10, 1988.

An inquest in 1989 found the 27-year-old maths genius and PhD student had committed suicide, while a second inquest in June 2012 was left open.

Scott's death returned to court for a third inquest in 2017 and then-NSW Coroner Michael Barnes found he fell from the cliff 'as a result of actual or threatened violence' by an unidentified attacker who perceived him to be gay.

On May 12, 2020, Scott Phillip White, 49, was arrested at his home in Lane Cove, on Sydney's lower north shore, and charged with murder.

Scott Johnson (left), a Sydney-based American national, was found at the base of a cliff at Blue Fish Point, near Manly's North Head, on December 10, 1988. His brother Steve (right) spent decades fighting for justice

At a third inquest in 2017, the Coroner found Scott (pictured) fell from the cliff 'as a result of actual or threatened violence' by an unidentified attacker who perceived him to be gay

The fight for justice - which has stretched more than three decades - was led by his brother Steve, who could not accept Scott had taken his own life.

Steve arrived in Sydney about 36 hours after he was notified of Scott's death and was almost immediately advised his brother died from suicide.

'It was clear when I got to the police station, the Manly police station, that the police already assumed it was a suicide,' Steve told ABC's Australian Story.

'And I said, ''Impossible''. He'd just finished his PhD that he'd been working on for five years.'

In the years that followed, Steve was 'stonewalled' by police.

At the time of Scott's death, Steve was a graduate student. But after selling an idea to America Online and earning a large fortune, Steve was eventually able to properly investigate his brother's death.

About 20 years after Scott's death, Steve could put money into the resources for his investigation. He hired an investigative journalist and support grew from there.

'There was a lot of work to do, and so, over time, the team grew because people wanted to help. We called ourselves ''Team Scott'',' Steve said.

On May 12, 2020, Scott Phillip White was arrested at his home in Lane Cove, on Sydney's lower north shore, and charged with murder

'There were lawyers, there were journalists, and gradually we started to get some attention on my brother's case.'

Scott died a short four years after homosexuality was decriminalised in Australia but prejudices against the queer community remained.

Around the same time as Scott's death, other gay men had been thrown off cliffs at gay beats in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

Gay beats were places where queer men would meet for sex.

Upon learning of the similarity in the crimes, Steve and his team began to investigate if Blue Fish Point was a well-known gay beat.

They think Scott probably heard about the gay beat through his friends and was looking to enjoy himself at Sydney Harbour after finishing his PhD.

The fight for justice - which has stretched more than three decades - was led by his brother Steve, who could not accept Scott had taken his own life

Pictured: Police search the headland near Manly following the arrest in connection to Scott's death

'Took off his clothes, laid down, and so somebody probably walked up to Scott while he was there and proposed sex, proposed something,' Steve said.

Scott's body was found naked at the base of the cliff, while his clothes were folded neatly at the top.

Through Steve's quest for answers, a second inquest was launched in 2012. The suicide was overturned and the court returned an open finding.

'My team, or gang of friends now, group-hugged in the court. Lots of tears. And we went out to celebrate,' Steve said.

In 2013, NSW Police announced a $100,000 reward to for information into Scott's death.

'But after a few months of investigation, they came to me and said that they were done with the investigation and that no more could be done,' Steve said.

Scott's body was found naked at the base of the cliff, while his clothes were folded neatly at the top

Steve (pictured) leaves the Coroners Court after the third inquest in 2017. 'I am frustrated and dismayed that it took 12 years to finally get a ruling that Scott was killed,' Steve told reporters outside court

Steve and his team continued to work behind the scenes and the NSW Coroner's Court launched a third inquest in 2017.

The inquest found Scott was either pushed, frightened or chased off the cliff.

'I am frustrated and dismayed that it took 12 years to finally get a ruling that Scott was killed,' Steve told reporters outside court at the time.

'It's been many years working together on this.'

A $1million reward for information leading to an arrest was established in December 2018. Steve said he would match the $1million reward.

'With a reward of up to $2million on the table, I am hoping that Scott will finally get justice,' Steve said in a statement in March.

White was arrested in May and NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller phoned Steve to update him on the case.

White was arrested in May (pictured) and NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller phoned Steve to update him on the case

Steve said the arrest marked 'a very emotional day' in a video message shared by police

'Making that phone call this morning is a career highlight  Steve has fought so hard for so many years, and it has been an honour be part of his fight for justice,' Commissioner Fuller said.

'While we have a long way to go in the legal process, it must be acknowledged that if it wasn't for the determination of the Johnson family, which inspired me and the Strike Force Welsford team, we wouldn't be where we are today.'

Steve said it was 'a very emotional day' in a video message shared by police.

'It's emotional for me, it's emotional for my family, my two sisters and my brother who love Scott dearly, my wife and my three kids who never got to know their uncle but admire him,' he told the camera.

'Emotional for the gay community. For whom, Scott had come to symbolise the many dozens of other gay men who lost their lives in the 1980s and 90s in a world full of anti-gay prejudice and hatred.'

Steve said it was 'remarkable' authorities were able to apprehend the alleged killer during the coronavirus pandemic.

Police conduct a search of a headland on May 12 after an arrest was made in connection with Scott's death

The arrest proved 'times have changed' and it recognises 'that all of us deserve equal protection and justice under the law', Steve added.

He said his brother would be 'very happy' to see how far the gay community has come in 30 years.

'I hope the friends and families of the other dozens of gay men who lost their lives find solace in what's happened today,' Steve said.

'I hope it opens the door to resolve the other mysterious deaths of men who have not yet received justice.

'Again, on behalf of my family, I want to thank everyone that has worked so hard over the years to bring this great news today.

'Particular at a time during this pandemic when we all need to know that every single life matters.'
Immediately after Malis unpopular president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, was removed on Aug. 18 by the military in a swift and bloodless coup, many Malians celebrated.

Keitas ouster came after years of corruption, mismanagement and failed promises. Credible allegations of fraud and election-related violence further fueled popular anger after his contested reelection in March.

After his ouster, there was a veritable jubilee among the citizen protesters who had demonstrated since June to demand Keitas resignation. They flocked to the streets holding signs reading This isnt a coup, its a revolution and mission accomplished.

Some countries have seen democracy take root after an autocratic regime was ended by a coup, including Nigeria in 2010 and even Mali itself, back in 1991.

But there are very few good coups. Overthrowing a corrupt leader is an easy fix for the moment, but history shows the price is almost always political and economic instability  and, usually, another military coup.

Coup risk

I am a quantitative political analyst who uses coup data and a machine learning system called CoupCast to examine why coups happen and predict where they are likely to occur.

According to data collected by the research network I work with, there have been 466 coup attempts in 95 countries since Jan. 1, 1950. This data clearly shows that so-called coup events  that is, both failed and successful coups  substantially increase the risk of another coup event in the future.

Once a country has had a single coup event, it will have, on average, five such events over 70 years. Between 1950 and 2020 we find only 19 examples of countries that experienced just one coup, among them South Korea and Zimbabwe. Thirteen countries have had at least 10 coup attempts since 1950, with Bolivia topping the list at 22.

Research suggests a new authoritarian regime is most likely to emerge after a coup  and it may well use violent repression to assert its power in an unstable era.

Mali follows this pattern. Until President Amadou Toure was overthrown in a 2012 coup, its government was relatively stable. The post-coup period was characterized by popular anger, lack of political progress and economic troubles. By April of this year, Coupcast placed Mali among the countries most likely to see a coup event in 2020.

Why coups beget coups

Just one coup attempt can increase a countrys coup risk for up to 25 years, CoupCasts data analysis shows. Most countries will have another coup before their quarter-century of consequences ends. When that happens, it adds another 25 years of risk. Countries can become trapped in cycles of coups and post-coup crises.

At that point, coup risk can be diminished only by a long period of political stability. Both South Korea and Uruguay, for example, long ago surpassed the risk phase to become stable democracies.

Even after the restoration of civilian rule, though, coups can leave a precedent for military involvement in politics. Once generals have had a taste of political influence, it becomes increasingly difficult to stop further interference.

Coup events also negatively affect a countrys economy by decreasing foreign economic investment and diminishing domestic productivity. Such economic downturns feed into the coup cycle. As the economy crumbles, popular discontent rises and additional military interventions become more likely.

Mali was only eight years into its 25-year coup risk window when Pres. Keita was overthrown. Now the clock starts again. Hopes on the ground are high that the country will see a better future under a new leader. But history gives much reason to be cautious.

Besaw is a research associate with the One Earth Future Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes peace and security in post-conflict countries. This piece was edited and previously published in The Conversation.
There are dozens of reasons a mother-to-be would prefer not to discuss her pregnancy, particularly in front of millions of strangers on TV.

Yet in 2008, there was Mariah Carey, privately pregnant, sitting in front of Ellen DeGeneres on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," being coaxed into revealing that she was expecting a child. And as Carey recalls the moment today in New York Magazine, it was "extremely uncomfortable."

In the clip, which recently resurfaced on Twitter but is also available on the "Ellen" archive pages, DeGeneres addresses rumors at the time that the singer was pregnant, urging her to drink champagne to prove everyone wrong.

"I can't believe you did this to me, Ellen," says Carey in the clip. "This is peer pressure. You see what Ellen is doing? This is peer pressure."

"Let's toast to you not being pregnant," DeGeneres answers.

"Oh, my goodness. I can't believe her," Carey says. "Why would we toast to that?"

Eventually, Carey declares that it's "too early" to drink, then mimics taking a small sip of the drink.

"You're pregnant!" DeGeneres exclaims, and Carey denies it.

Mariah Carey and Ellen DeGeneres

It's a typical "Ellen" exchange, in which the host tries to get a scoop out of a reluctant celebrity, and even today the show's website paints it with a smile and a wink; the caption for the video reads, "Ellen Can Tell That Mariah Carey's Pregnant" and "Mariah Carey won't respond to pregnancy rumors, but Ellen knows how to get an answer out of her without saying anything."

And it might all have been just an amusing anecdote, except that Carey was pregnant and miscarried shortly after the interview. This, on top of the fact that she'd miscarried in the past, and so was reluctant to speak publicly about a new pregnancy.

Now, 12 years later, Carey  who is promoting her "Rarities" album and forthcoming memoir, "The Meaning of Mariah Carey"  told New York Magazine, "I was extremely uncomfortable with that moment is all I can say. And I really have had a hard time grappling with the aftermath.

Story continues

"I wasn't ready to tell anyone because I had had a miscarriage," she continues, then refers to recent headlines in which "Ellen" show workers declared that working there was problematic. "I don't want to throw anyone that's already being thrown under any proverbial bus, but I didn't enjoy that moment."

TODAY has reached out to Ellen's show for comment.

TNT's Christmas In Washington 2010 - Show (Theo Wargo / WireImage)

Asking a woman if she's pregnant is generally frowned upon. There have been some particularly horrible instances in which celebrities were asked about it, and some stars have developed good responses. When a fan asked on social media in June 2019 if Chrissy Teigen was expecting, she wrote back, "I know you didn't mean it to be rude, but think twice about asking this, there are people who have trouble conceiving and it hurts every time. I'm not pregnant but would be happy if I were. But I'm also happy not to be!"

TODAY's Savannah Guthrie responded to that sort of question in 2018 with an Instagram image indicating exactly when someone should ask a woman if she's pregnant (that is, never).

For the record, Teigen is now expecting her third child with husband John Legend. Carey has twins with ex-husband Nick Cannon: Moroccan and Monroe, who were born in 2011. Savannah has two children, Vale, 6, and Charley, 3.

Meanwhile, Carey adds that she hopes the situation simply won't come up again, and if it does, that the questioner thinks about it first. She explains that there's "an empathy that can be applied to those moments that I would have liked to have been implemented. But what am I supposed to do? It's like, (sings) 'What are you going to do?'"
The Ghana Police Hospital (GPH) in Accra and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi have appealed to relatives of patients who have been discharged but are still at the hospitals to go for them.

The call has become necessary because some patients have been discharged early this year, after they had undergone the necessary treatment, but have been abandoned there by their relatives.



At the Police Hospital, five patients have been left stranded, while two have been deserted by their family members.



Meanwhile, two patients at KATH have stayed at the wards for close to three months even though they have long been discharged.



The five at the GPH have been identified as Bob, 67; Stephen Gakpetor, 60; Abu Issah, 30; Thomas Yeboah, 27, and Kojo Ahe Mensah, 35.



Out of the number, four were taken to the facility by good Samaritans and Police patrol teams between August 22 and August 23, 2020, while the fifth has been at the facility since May this year.



The Head of Public Affairs at the hospital, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Mr Yaw Nketia-Yeboah, and the Social Welfare Officer of the Directorate of Medicine at KATH, Ms Rita Owusu-Ansah, made these known in separate interviews with The Mirror.



Unknown patients

Eight unknown patients were brought to the Ghana Police Hospital in January. Two of them were later identified and reunited with their relatives in Bibiani in the Western North Region and Dansoman in Accra. Two foreigners among them had their countrys missions contacted for them to take over their cases. Three of the seven could not recover.



27-year-old Thomas Yeboah from Akim Oda Aprade was found by the police by the roadside at Madina. The third victim is Stephen Gakpetor, believed to be in his late 50s or more.



Abu Issah has been left at the hospital



"He was brought in from the National Theatre area. The fourth person is Abu Issah, 28 years, from Zualungu. Meanwhile, Kojo Ahe Mensah, 35 years, was brought to us in May this year, Mr Nketiah-Yeboah said.



Appeal

Mr Nketia-Yeboah asked relatives of the victims to report to the police hospital and take them home.



He advised motorists not to run away when they knocked people down, but should take them to the nearest medical facility or call the National Ambulance Service for assistance instead of fleeing from such accident scenes.



KATH

Early June when KATH discharged the two patients, their bills stood at GH5,921.33 which had been waived by the hospital.

Since then the hospital has been taking care of these patients.



One of them, aside from being unable to talk, is unable to walk and the nurses have to lift him to be able to bath him and also change his diapers, as well as feed him.



As it stands now, we can't let them go as they have nowhere to go,she stated.



It is not only physical cash that is spent taking care of them but also man hours, she explained.

That, according to her, had made it very difficult for the Social Welfare Department to trace their relatives to come for them.



Dangers

Ms Owusu-Ansah said one of the patients posed a threat to the safety of other patients at the wards and even the staff due to his violent and unstable nature.



She said the previous night, he attacked one of the patients at the ward and had to be restrained by the security personnel and the staff on duty.



During a visit to the ward, this unnamed patient tried to attack this reporter as he chased him with a chair.



Homes for paupers

Ms Owusu-Ansah also called for the establishment of homes for paupers and destitutes to cater for such people.



She said there was the need for such homes to cater for the needs of paupers, the homeless and destitutes such that the streets would be rid of homeless people.

Ghana Police Service





Source: Graphiconline.com









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LOS ANGELES, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hemp Technology Inc. (HPTY: OTCBB), ("HPTY"), a vertically integrated, publicly traded holding company operating in the hemp industry, has successfully entered into a purchase and sale agreement dated August 11, 2020, to acquire substantially all of the assets of True Leaf Pet Inc. ("TLP"). TLP is a division of True Leaf Brands Inc. (CSE: MJ) (OTC Pink: TRLFF) (FSE: TLA).

We are pleased to advise that the Approval and Vesting Order was granted by the Court on Friday August 28, 2020.

The closing of the transaction pursuant to the Sale Agreement (the "Transaction") was subject to approval by the Court of the Transaction within 30 days of the execution date. The Transaction has been set to close September 11, 2020.

Hemp Technology Inc. operates and intends to further obtain a diversified portfolio of subsidiary companies. With a variety of assets, products, and ancillary offerings in the hemp and related industries, the Company's fluid business model is positioned to capitalize on, and quickly adapt to, changing market conditions.

The Company is continually seeking growth opportunities and strategic acquisitions that support its vertically integrated business model and maintain alignment with the dynamic industry environment. HPTY has employees/consultants, operations, and subsidiaries in the hemp, and ancillary product industry in both Canada the US and Europe. The company has broad experience with supply chain networks and distribution frameworks in hemp and related product supply, packaging supply, and accessory supply.

Hemp Technology is comprised of a highly experienced executive team with decades of combined business experience. With expertise spanning strategy, branding, business and product development, revenue generation, finance, and corporate governance, they have had demonstrated success launching profitable start-ups and shaping emerging markets.

TLP, the company currently sells their over 40 products globally via e-commerce, distributors, wholesalers, and in retail stores. TLP has current presence in over 3,500 stores and provides potential distribution reach of over 20,000 additional stores via True Leaf's current distribution network which generated $2.3 Million CAD in revenue Fiscal 2020.

HPTY shares TLP's original long-term vision and strategy for continued growth. With an existing similar pet product division Pettanicals Performance pet supplements and a team that has direct experience with comparable products in the hemp for pets industry, HPTY's understanding of the market is integral to the continued development and support of the True Leaf Pet brand and its goals for product distribution and line expansion.

About Hemp Technology Inc.

A vertically integrated, publicly traded holdings company, Hemp Technology Inc, (HPTY:OTCBB) operates and intends to further obtain a diversified portfolio of subsidiary companies. With a variety of assets, products, and ancillary offerings in the hemp and related industries, HPTY's fluid business model is positioned to capitalize on, and quickly adapt to, changing market conditions.

The Company is continually seeking opportunities and strategic acquisitions that support its business model and maintain alignment with the dynamic industry environment.

About True Leaf Pet

True Leaf Pet Inc., is a global pet care company offering high quality plant-focused wellness products that improve the quality of life for companion animals. The company is guided by its mission to "Return the Love" which was inspired by the unconditional love that pets give us every day.

The information contained herein contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements relate to information that is based on assumptions of management, forecasts of future results, and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. Any statements that express predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and may be "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof, and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. Actual events or results could differ materially from the Company's expectations or projections.

SOURCE Hemp Technology Inc.
The people of Idaho (well, it says men, but presumably women were meant, too) are free and equal, the state constitution says in its opening article.

Lets test that equality principle.

In 2014 and 2015, the group Add the Words, which was seeking to add anti-discriminatory language to Idaho law, held a series of sit-in protests at the Idaho Statehouse during legislative sessions. The events were peaceful, without violence or property damage. On several occasions, protesters were situated where they blocked access to legislative rooms. Mainly on the basis of that, over the course of those protests more than 100 people were arrested, including one former legislator. One protester recalled, We were shackled in belly chains, linked together via wrists and ankles and sent up to Ada County Jail.

The Idaho Legislature recently wrapped a special session, this one, too, marked by arrests. It took more this time to get to that point.

The session was called by Gov. Brad Little to consider expanding voting places and safety for the November general election and limiting legal liability for organizations that expose people to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the real action, not in the call and therefore surely invalid, concerned an effort to overturn the governors health safety orders relating to the pandemic.

Support for that idea roared forward. Robert Jones of Nampa expressed the sensibility: We are allowed to get sick if we want. We are allowed to do whatever we want as long as were not harming anybody else, but you guys have forgotten that. He seems to have forgotten that he has no right to harm other people by making them sick in the process of doing whatever we want; and that Idaho is a COVID-19 hotspot with more than 30,000 cases reported and still growing fast.

A crowd of pro-COVID protesters, led by celebrity provocateur Ammon Bundy, poured into the Statehouse, pushed their way past guards and law enforcement and smashed a glass door to get into the Idaho House, as one of them brandished an assault-style rifle while legislators looked on. Some social distancing had been required; that was abandoned. The Legislature originally required social distancing in the galleries; that was done away with to accommodate the protesters. The protesters packed committee meetings and shouted and yelled there, too.

They shouted and yelled during the proceedings. Rep. Linda Wright Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, whose husband is in fragile health  as she pointed out  said she was concerned that people there wear masks and behave to help keep people healthy. You might not have thought this would be a controversial statement, but no: She was booed.

Judiciary Committee Chair Greg Chaney remarked, Im not sure precisely what their goal is, but Im absolutely sure that the two individuals whom I asked to leave were intending to create a scene. At times in the last 24 to 36 hours, this building has descended into complete chaos, and the only way to make sure that all citizens feel comfortable coming here to be heard is to make sure that we dont allow rule deviations in general.

A tweet from Representative Ilana Rubel, D-Boise: This special session may be the worst super-spreader event since COVID hit Idaho. Hundreds packing into closed spaces with no masks. How will we ever get our kids back to school if our government actively makes community spread worse?

It took a while. The chaos continued through the first day. Finally, on the second chaotic day, Bundy and a few others were arrested. He returned to the Statehouse after arrest one and again, breaking the rules of the place, was arrested and this time ordered not to return for a year.

Do you think that will stop him from returning next session?

Its hard to see why it would. He successfully turned the place upside down for a couple of days before being thrown out. His crew delivered far more disruption and damage than any outside group probably ever has at the Idaho Statehouse, vastly more than the protesters of 2014 and 2015, and paid little price for it.

Simply, the standards were different for them than for the protesters of a half-dozen years ago. Were they helped by showing up armed? (Did they succeed in intimidating the Idaho state government?) Or were their politics of the preferred sort? Any other reasons for different treatment come to mind?

Randy Stapilus is a former Idaho newspaper reporter and editor and blogs at ridenbaugh.com. He can be reached at stapilus@ridenbaugh.com. His new book What Do You Mean by That? has just been released and can be found at ridenbaugh.com/whatdoyoumeanbythat and on Amazon.com.

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Its not clear what happened to the other two requests but neither has been validated by a U.S. court. While Colombian courts have judged Mancuso responsible for more than 1,500 acts of murder or forced disappearance, many of the crimes are not recognized as offenses under U.S. law because they stem from his position atop AUCs chain of command  not specific orders he gave. In 2001, the U.S. designated the AUC a foreign terror organization.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 09:09:44|Editor: huaxia

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by Keren Setton, Chen Wenxian, Shang Hao

JERUSALEM, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- "One of the things I take from my study of the Holocaust is how precious and how important is the preservation of human dignity," said Dr. Robert Rozett, a senior historian at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II (WWII). Ahead of the International Day of Peace to be observed next month, the United Nations has decided that the 2020 theme for the day is "Shaping Peace Together," calling on people to spread compassion, kindness and hope in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unfortunately, some people have been trying to use the virus to stoke discrimination and hatred, which are exactly the roots of awful events in human history, such as WWII and the Holocaust.

"I really think that people around the globe need to treat people with human dignity and I don't think that happens yet enough," Rozett told Xinhua.

"We hope that when you understand a horrible event like WWII and the Holocaust, of what it is and what it wrought, that it will certainly make you much less likely to want to engage in violence and war ... it helps you understand the price ... certainly there is a price of racism and the price of anti-Semitism," he said.

Some six million Jews were murdered at the hands of the Nazi regime in the genocide of the European Jews between 1941 and 1945 across German-occupied Europe.

Yad Vashem, established in 1953, is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the dead, honoring Jews who fought against their Nazi oppressors and Gentiles who selflessly aided Jews in need.

With a collection of over 200 million documents, 170,000 publications and over half a million photos, Yad Vashem is the leading center for Holocaust research in the world.

One of the important elements Yad Vashem uses are the visual records that they have collected from the Holocaust -- photos and videos which bring the memories to life and help people visualize the horror.

The most stunning place in the center, located in the midst of a green Jerusalem forest, is the Hall of Names, a repository in which a testimony, a short biography, of each Holocaust victim is stored.

So far, there have been over 2 million such pages stored and there is room for 6 million -- the total number of Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

"What we do is we try to teach history, a history that shows what happens when there isn't peace," Rozett said. "When you are doing a good job teaching, you are laying the groundwork for people to think and to reach conclusions."

As the International Day of Peace approaches, it is increasingly clear that keeping the memory alive is part and parcel in trying to prevent such events from happening in the future.

Rozett believes teaching is very necessary to everything he and his colleagues are doing, even though it is not sufficient by itself. Enditem
By Anibal Ramos, Jr.

After years of contentious education reforms that created division and acrimony in Newark, I participated in the process of bringing together key stakeholders to work together and to elect school board members with a shared, inclusive vision for the citys future.

This era of partnership among education reformers, traditional public school advocates and Mayor Ras Baraka has led to five consecutive elections where a unity slate has triumphed in school board elections.

Working together, the elected members have made great strides in achieving local governance, budgetary and other benchmarks that allowed for the return of local control after two decades under state control.

While we still have much work to do to ensure access to educational opportunity that is equitably shared by all students, I was pleased to read a newly released study that shows Newarks traditional district schools and public charter schools have made great improvements.

The study found that Newark is No. 1 in the nation for access to beat the odds public schools for both Black and Latino students.

And its not even close: the city has created schools where the rate of opportunity for Black students is nearly twice that of public schools in Boston, which ranked No. 2. Newarks district schools doubled the national average for access to beat the odds district schools, and 75% of Newarks charter schools qualified as beating the odds

The national study released by Margrady Research looked at how well students performed against the trends for students of similar demographics in their respective states. In New Jersey, we have for comparative purposes a good public school system, but too often Black and Latino students dont have access to the best schools and our statewide achievement gap is wide.

But thats what makes this studys look at Newark so inspiring: Our students are bucking those trends and beating the odds. And this isnt because our kids are smarter or otherwise different in Newark (every child has an inner genius) -- rather its because the city has made a dedicated effort to remake and improve its schools to let the talents of the youth shine their brightest. Put simply: its the adults who changed and allowed the kids to flourish as they always could.

Newarks adults have done a great job by most accounts. In a democracy, much of this starts with our elected officials and Newark is lucky to have a strong leader in Mayor Ras Baraka and great partners in the statehouse like Sen. M. Teresa Ruiz.

Many other stakeholders can take credit for our recent success, including parent advocates, the philanthropic community, students and nonprofits. Collectively, we may not always agree on the how but we are certainly committed to giving our students the best opportunities possible for success in life.

During the last decade, Newark has experienced drastic changes. New developments have changed our skyline, our neighborhoods are being revitalized, businesses are relocating to our city, the arts community is thriving.

Notwithstanding the coronavirus pandemic, Newark will continue its transformation into a thriving city that will continue to grow economically. But we must ensure that the next generation is well prepared and equipped to participate in Newarks resurgence.

That means we must continue to make progress on improving our education system in our city. Despite inevitable differences, we have too much at stake to turn our backs on the progress that has been made.

Educators at the district and charter schools have worked through difficult transitions on the citywide common enrollment system and other collaborations to benefit Newark families. Seeing eye-to-eye on these often difficult decisions isnt always easy but we must remember what is important and why we do this work.

While Newark led these national rankings, still just 39% of the citys Black students and 27% of Latino students had access to a beat the odds school. Its a stark reminder of how much difficult work lies ahead.

So while we should certainly celebrate Newarks number one ranking, we also must also strive to do better. Doing so will require us to look at what worked last time around, improve what didnt and chart a new course that fits todays era as the district schools return to local control -- and all accounts are that district superintendent Roger Leon plans just that.

It wont be easy. The collaborative lift of students, teachers, and leaders will be immense if we are to ensure that the next report 10 years from now shows the same amount of progress. Despite the challenges, I like Newarks odds.

Councilman Anibal Ramos, Jr. serves on the Newark City Council.

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At Miriti, a small village at Kirnahar in Bengals Birbhum district, Durga Puja at the Mukherjee familys ancestral home was never complete without a priest whose visit every October lighted up the festivities and hundreds of faces.

A devout Hindu, Pranab Mukherjee never missed his priests role except only in 2015, when his wife, Suvra, passed away just a few days before the annual festival. Although other priests performed the routine rituals, it was Mukherjees job to chant scriptures from the 13 chapters of Chandi. The puja was started by Mukherjees ancestor Jangaleswar Mukherjee 126 years ago.

To the villagers, who gathered in mourning on Monday evening, Mukherjee was always Poltu, the nickname his parents gave him. His elder sister Annapurna Devi, the only member of the family who lived in the house, died in January this year.

We lost our guardian as Bengal lost a glorious son. An era has ended and this void will remain forever, said Rabi Chattaraj, 71, the former Congress leaders follower in politics and a resident of Miriti. The village is located around 230 km to the South-West of Kolkata.

I became his disciple ever since I joined the Youth Congress as a young man. Dada was affectionate to me. Last year, when he came to attend the puja, he asked me to look after the guests and ensure that everyone gets the prasad, Chattaraj told HT as his voice choked.

The puja at Dadas home has always been devoid of any kind of luxury despite his stature. Thousands of people, including VIPs, have attended the puja. Dada used to request everybody not to leave without taking the prasad, said Chattaraj.

During his stay in the village, Mukherjee used to spend time with family and old friends, some of whom went to the Shib Chandra High School at Kirnahar which is more commonly referred to as Pranabs school.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

Robert Candelarias time as a volunteer for the Albuquerque Animal Welfare Department earned him statewide recognition in January after he made headlines for adopting the dog of a dying veteran.

But behind the scenes, Candelaria earned something else: the ire of co-workers who felt the way he went about trying to help animals was hugely problematic to the point of negatively representing the department, according to a recently released report by the city inspector general.

Staffers told investigators that even after months of complaints, counseling and a brief suspension, management hesitated to terminate Candelaria because it would have bad optics.

During the course of the investigation, numerous staff and other volunteers detailed negative and threatening experiences with the subject and expressed their frustration with management for not addressing, the OIG report says. Based on these reviews, it was clearly demonstrated that the subject volunteer has violated the volunteer training and manual.

The department denied the Journal an interview with Director Carolyn Ortega, saying she has not been in the position for long. But Ortega, in response to emailed questions, said she personally terminated Candelaria in June, a month before the IG report was released.

The Candelaria matter is just one of three Animal Welfare-centered investigations the Office of Inspector General has completed in the past year. The others found evidence of collusion in outside contracting and hundreds of animals unaccounted for in the departments record system, despite Mayor Tim Keller routinely touting improvements at the long-beleaguered department and saying in May that it was in a good place, having gone through a significant turnaround.

A spokeswoman for Keller said fixing one of the most historically broken departments will never be without bumps along the way.

Given the state that Animal Welfare Department was in when we took office, it has absolutely taken a 180-degree turn, Jessica Campbell said, adding that staffing and euthanasia rates have improved and that the department has addressed many backlogged calls.

According to the OIG report, which doesnt identify Candelaria by name, the complaints claimed the volunteer overstepped his bounds by bullying handlers, guilt-tripped prospective adopters, fired back at management and, without approval, fostered a paralytic dog that later drowned in his pool. The OIG also found that the department had never obtained Candelarias signature on liability or code of conduct waivers, which lay out the rules he is accused of breaking, and that he did not take the required training for adoption counseling.

Candelaria told the Journal that he was defiant when it came to euthanasia but that he never threatened anyone or raised his voice.

I was hard on them euthanizing dogs, without question. I fully admit that, but the whole intent was to be a voice for those that didnt have a voice, he said. I stood up and I challenged them, and I put them to shame every time, and they didnt like that.

Candelaria said he got in the departments way by questioning behaviorists and using loopholes to find homes for dogs deemed unadoptable by AWD.

Multiple people who worked with Candelaria describe him to the Journal as someone with a good heart who made some enemies with his antics but saved many dogs initially scheduled for euthanasia.

In October, Candelaria said, then-Director Danny Nevarez called him into his office and told him to tone it down and had him take a few weeks off.

Since then, he said, officials never mentioned his behavior until his termination as a volunteer.

I was advocating and going the extra mile  and if I had to do it all over again and it was going to save a pup, I would do it all over again, he said. I dont think it was wrong at all.

Complaints were already mounting in November when AWD thrust Candelaria into the public eye when he adopted Patch, a 5-year-old Yorkie terrier, after his owner, veteran John Vincent, was placed into hospice care.

The attention garnered a Spirit of New Mexico Award from the Journal for AWD Operations Manager Joel Craig, Hospice Worker Amy Neal and Candelaria, who gave an impassioned speech to a room of hundreds at Sandia Resort & Casino during the ceremony.

Six months later, Candelaria was gone.

If I was doing that much damage, fix it, fire me, he said. Why are they saying it all now? Why didnt they deal with it back then, if those things were really happening?

All for the animals

Employees dealt with ongoing harassment from Candelaria for years, according to the initial complaint. The acting director was made aware but did nothing because he did not wish for a controversy, and the complaints were brought up to the following acting director, as well.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, management discussed terminating (Candelaria) due to the media being too busy to pick up any complaints he may have however did not carry out any termination, the report says.

The complaint says that the unaddressed issue was one of many reasons an unnamed leadership member resigned and suffered a serious medical problem related to stress.

One manager told investigators they feared for their own safety around Candelaria, who was respectful and dedicated when he began volunteering in 2018.

The manager said Candelaria became generally abusive, manipulative and disrespectful, particularly when it came to the euthanasia of animals Candelaria was involved with. Candelaria would target the staff in those cases and would send abusive texts and become enraged.

In January, an animal handler complained that Candelaria sent an email expressing dissatisfaction after he was denied a dog named Gary that had been deemed unadoptable. The tails that wagged yesterday in hopes of a future, soon will lie still in the (landfill). I wanted to adopt that three-year-old pup and he would have had a great future, just stepped on the wrong toes, so Gary dies, Candelaria wrote in the email.

Two other complaints, both in February, involve Candelaria telling potential adopters that a dog would be euthanized if not adopted, causing one person to feel guilty and uneasy. In another instance, he text-messaged, I hope (the dog) dont get put down on my account of sending him to what I thought was his forever home to someone who had returned a puppy after a trial run.

Managers told investigators Candelaria also broke the rules by giving away leashes and harnesses during adoptions and sneaking non-AWD dogs into Lucky Paws for adoption, even after being told it was not allowed.

As management considered suspension, or termination, Candelaria sent text messages and emails threatening to go public with information  including paperwork on animals that shouldnt have been euthanized, according to the report.

After the COVID-19 pandemic hit, management discussed Candelarias knowledge of information that should not be made public or to volunteers provided to him by an AWD staff member. Around that time, employees said, management told them that the media were preoccupied with COVID-19 and would not have time for this story and it would be buried.

Despite multiple references to human resources referrals, an HR employee told investigators they werent aware of any documentation of the counseling and suspension of Candelaria. The HR employee said that Candelaria and Nevarez had a cordial meeting about overstepping his authority and that he agreed to take a few weeks off but didnt recall the word suspension being used.

Candelaria acknowledges that he sent the text messages and emails, he gave away the leashes and he pushed back on behaviorists decisions but said it was all for the animals.

The motive is I just have a big heart for those dogs, he said, adding that many  more than 50 by his count  were put down unnecessarily for kennel stress, characterized by pacing, bed chewing, refusal to eat and hyperactivity.

Discrepancies

The department was often mired in controversy in the years before Keller took office, from allegations that it adopted out potentially dangerous dogs to multiple whistleblower lawsuits.

That includes a onetime staffer who alleged she was fired in November 2017 for blowing the whistle on a former deputy director who moved highly adoptable pets from the citys shelter to her own, unlicensed animal rescues in Colorado, where they were adopted out for much higher fees. The city ultimately settled the case for $75,000.

Keller, who took office in December 2017, has repeatedly praised the departments progress since then, proclaiming after his first 18 months on the job that the department has done a complete 180 from being one of our most deeply challenged departments to becoming one of the shining star departments in the city of Albuquerque.

But stability has remained elusive, and problems have risen to the surface.

Including interims, the department is on its fourth director in less than three years.

And the office of Inspector General Kenneth Bramlett has released three Animal Welfare-related investigations in the past year alone.

That includes an investigation prompted by allegations that department leaders were deleting animal records from the system to camouflage higher euthanasia numbers. That claim was ultimately found to be unsubstantiated. However, the Office of Inspector General report dated in December raised questions about how the city determined it had achieved no-kill status, a designation that leaders touted last year when they said the shelter achieved a 90% save rate.

The OIG found that the number of animals recorded as alive, in the shelter or elsewhere, and the number that had died, by euthanasia or otherwise, did not add up to the total number reportedly in the shelters care. Investigators deemed that 378 animals were unaccounted-for in the departments software tracking system in fiscal year 2019.

It also identified instances of documentation that was missing, lacking and in error. For example, the OIG reviewed a sample of 40 euthanasia cases in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 and raised questions about nine of them.

One case cited no reason for why the animal was put down, according to the OIG report. Another was described as parvovirus-related, despite a negative parvo test, and one was euthanized although records reflected it had been trained only one time before being determined to be aggressive.

In response to the report earlier this year, a department head said that most of the animals described as unaccounted-for were in foster homes and blamed other issues on the software system, saying the city was working to resolve the problems.

A separate OIG investigation centered on allegations that Animal Welfare had hired an outside contractor named Beehive Technology as a front to bring in a subcontractor who had long worked for various city departments under the business name Organizational Change Management but now lived in Florida.

The OIG found that the department paid Beehive $50,000 from July 2018 to May 2019 for work that was only vaguely described in invoices and predominantly provided by the OCM owner, who had a long-standing relationship with then-department Director Danny Nevarez.

It cannot be determined exactly what services were provided to the City or how the amount of the compensation on each invoice was calculated, the OIG report said.

The OIG found evidence of favoritism, collusion and conflict of interest. It also found that Beehive got the work without a bid process. It recommended the city ban Beehive, OCM and any other companies with the same owners from any future city business.

Just as with any investigation, the Department reviews the OIG recommendations and puts controls and policies in place to mitigate potential issues going forward, Ortega said in an email.

Nevarez retired earlier this year.

Looking back

With his own time at AWD in the rearview mirror, Candelaria said he holds no ill will toward those who work at the department.

Its got a lot of great people. I know those decisions are tough, I certainly wouldnt want to make them, but I think there could be more consideration given before taking a pups life, he said.

The accusation that hurts the most is the one concerning the drowned puppy, Candelaria said.

He called AWDs story totally inaccurate and said he went through the proper channels and has the documentation to prove it. Candelaria said he loved that 4-month-old pitbull mix.

The puppy was initially named Sloth by AWD. Candelaria said he thought the name mocked his disability, and he changed it to Babe Ruth. He said the death was an accident that happened in minutes and left him in tears.

It was so painful, he said. For them to come out and say that I killed that pup.  I paid $150 to have that pup cremated and I still got him with me today.
US President has hailed as the "greatest" prime minister in Japan's history during a telephonic conversation between the two leaders.

Abe, 65, on Friday announced that he intends to step down because of poor health, his long-running battle with ulcerative colitis, ending a tenure as Japan's longest-serving prime minister.

President Trump on Sunday night telephoned Abe during which the two leaders spoke at length and reflected on the last four years.

"The two leaders remarked that their relationship is extraordinary; the President called Prime Minister Abe the greatest prime minister in Japan's history, the White House said in a readout of the call.

This was the first phone call between the two leaders after Abe's announcement to resign.

"The President said that Prime Minister Abe has done a fantastic job and that the relationship between the United States and is better today than it has ever been," the White House said.

"Although Prime Minister Abe will be leaving his position soon, the President noted that he will undoubtedly keep playing a big role in the future of Japan," it said, adding that the leaders said they look forward to continuing their wonderful friendship for years to come.

Abe, whose term ends in September 2021, is expected to stay on until a new party leader is elected and formally approved by Parliament.

On Saturday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US deeply values the enduring contributions of Abe in making the US- relationship the strongest it has ever been.

"He championed our alliance as a cornerstone of peace and security and he advanced a free and open Indo-Pacific by working with the United States to build a network of partnerships across the region," Pompeo said.

In a separate statement, Senator Ted Cruz said he is saddened to hear that Abe is resigning due to health reasons.

"In the last eight years, he has countered the Chinese Communist Party's expanding influence and has been the strongest Japanese prime minister to do so since 1946, the Texas Senator said.

"He has called for Taiwan's inclusion in organizations and he has also rebuilt much of the Japanese military, which, thanks to his leadership, is now doing military exercises with our allies Australia and India. Prime Minister Abe has also met with the threat posed by North Korea with strength," Cruz said.

Abe became Japan's youngest prime minister in 2006, at age 52, but his first stint abruptly ended a year later because of his health. In December 2012, he returned to power. He is credited with bolstering Japan's defence role and capability and its security alliance with the US.

Abe on Monday last became Japan's longest serving prime minister by consecutive days in office, eclipsing the record of Eisaku Sato, his great-uncle, who served 2,798 days from 1964 to 1972.

(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.)
Convicted drug smuggler Renae Lawrence has admitted settling back into life after prison hasn't been easy, amid calls for the remaining Bali Nine members to be released.

In 2005, nine Australians were arrested by Indonesian authorities as they attempted to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin strapped to their bodies from the holiday island.

The arrest caused widespread controversy because the tip they were carrying drugs came from the Australian Federal Police, who could have allowed them to land in Australia where they wouldn't have faced the death penalty.

Five of the nine members remain in squalid Balinese prisons, while Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen died from cancer in 2018.

Masterminds Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed by firing squad in 2015 on Nusa Kambangan or 'Prison Island'.

Bali Nine member Renae Lawrence compared coronavirus lockdown to her time behind bars, but said she feels for the remaining men still locked up in Bali

Lawrence served her sentence in Bangli jail after being convicted of attempting to smuggle 2.6kg of heroin into Australia through Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport on April 17, 2005

Lawrence was originally given life imprisonment, but her sentence was reduced to 20 years on appeal.

She then received numerous reductions for 'good behaviour' before being released in November 2018 and flying back to Australia.

The 42-year-old said she has struggled to find 'normality' after spending 13 years locked up in Bali's notorious Kerobokan and Negara prisons.

'I don't currently work. I am dealing with both mental and physical health issues. But I like to think one day I will be able to get back into the workforce and find normality again,' she told New Idea.

Lawrence compared coronavirus lockdown to her time behind bars, but said she feels for the remaining men still locked up in Bali.

'Isolation life for me was actually very similar to being in prison, in the way that I had to distance myself form my parents,' she said.

Mr Harris, who has campaigned for the group since their arrest, said Scott Rush's (pictured) parents are desperate to bring their son home so he can at the very least serve the remainder of his sentence in an Australian prison

In 2014, photos were released appearing to show Scott Rush smoking crack cocaine in Kerobokan prison

Earlier this year, Lawrence pleaded for the remaining five prisoners to have their sentences reduced.

She said staying locked up was 'like a death sentence' for the remaining five.

'We all did something stupid, we all regret it, but everybody deserves a second chance,' Lawrence said in February.

'If this doesn't happen, they have got no hope, they'll lose hope and the end will be devastating.'

Lawrence served her sentence in Bangli jail after being convicted of attempting to smuggle 2.6kg of heroin into Australia through Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport on April 17, 2005.

The drugs were found strapped to her body - and the bodies of three other drug mules - after the Australian Federal Police tipped off Indonesian authorities.

Meanwhile, a high-profile religious minister is calling on the Australian Government to bring the remaining members of the smuggling ring back to Australia.

Tim Harris, a bishop from Townsville, has called on the government to step in, saying languishing in a Balinese prison won't help the surviving five men get their lives back on track.

Mr Harris said the Indonesian prison, which houses Scott Rush, Michael Czugaj, Matthew Norman, Martin Stephens and Si Yi Chen has inhumanely rough conditions.

'[There is an] open toilet and a number of people in the room. I don't know how they've kept going. You've got to say this is torture with no end in sight,' he told New Idea this week.

Mr Harris, who has campaigned for the group since their arrest, said Rush's parents are desperate to bring their son home so he can at the very least serve the remainder of his sentence in an Australian prison.

'I think our justice system must be able to deal with it in a sensible way. They can't give up on these men, and need to try and get them back on track,' he said.

Left to right: Myuran Sukumaran, Scott Rush, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, Renae Lawrence, Si Yi Chen, Matthew Norman, Michael Czugaj, Martin Stephens and Andrew Chan

Australian 'Bali nine' alleged heroin traffickers (left to right) Myuran Syukumaran,,Andrew Chan, Si Yi Chen, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, Matthew Norman, Michael Czugaj, Scott Anthony Rush in Bali, December 2, 2005

In December last year, Rush vowed to become an anti-drugs campaigner in an emotional letter pleading for his life sentence to be reduced.

In the letter written from his prison cell in east Bali's Karangasem, the Queenslander said he is committed to turning his life around.

'I sincerely apologise to the government and citizens of Indonesia for the shameful impact my action caused to the country of Indonesia and its people,' the letter read.

The 34-year-old said he would like to become an 'anti-drugs ambassador' to make a positive contribution to society.

The impassioned letter came after photos were leaked in 2014 which appeared to show Rush smoking crack cocaine in Kerobokan Prison.

An unnamed source at the time claimed Rush regularly took meth, heroin and cocaine in the jail, which was 'like a supermarket' for drugs.

In December last year, Scott Rush (right) vowed to become an anti-drugs campaigner in an emotional letter pleading for his life sentence to be reduced

Ringleaders Myuran Sukumaran (left) and Andrew Chan (right) recruited six men and one woman aged between 19 and 30 years old and strapped heroin to their bodies in April 2005

Rush - whose death sentence was commuted to a life sentence in 2011 - moved to Karangasem jail in Balis east in early 2014.

He reportedly asked for the transfer because he was getting beaten up over a $5000 drug debt.

During the 2005 thwarted drug plot, ringleaders Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan recruited six men and one woman aged between 19 and 30 years old and strapped heroin to their bodies.

Lawrence, Stephens, Rush, Chen, Norman, Czugaj and Nguyen were arrested in a hotel and at Denapasar airport.

Chan and Sukumaran were executed in April 2015 by firing squad at Nusa Kambangan prison.

Rush, Stephens, Norman, Czugaj and Chen are all serving life sentences.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) continued to question actor Rhea Chakraborty for the fourth consecutive day on Monday in their probe into the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Rhea is at the centre of a controversy following the alleged death by suicide of Rajput, 34, on June 14. Rhea left her home at 10:30am on Monday to appear before CBI officials at the DRDO guesthouse in Santacruz (East) and was questioned for nine-and-a-half hours.

The agency also quizzed Rheas brother Showik, Rajputs cook Neeraj Singh, househelp Keshav Bachner, flatmate and creative manager Siddharth Pithani, and his former business manager Shruti Modi.

CBI officials, on condition of anonymity, said Rhea and the others were questioned about various financial transactions.

Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is conducting a parallel probe into money laundering allegations that have emerged in the case, questioned Goa-based hotelier Gaurav Arya for around nine hours on Monday. Arya reached the ED office in Mumbai at 10:45am, after he was summoned for questioning. Arya runs Hotel Tamarind and Cafe Cotinga in Goa.

ED officials had last week visited Hotel Tamarind at Anjuna, a coastal village in north Goa, but found the property to be shut. They have stuck a notice on the door of the hotel, which according to officials has been shut since the lockdown restrictions were enforced in March to contain the spread of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Arya has also been booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, and is being investigated by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). The NCB had last Wednesday registered a first information report (FIR) against Rhea, Showik, talent manager Jaya Saha, Modi and Arya under sections 20, 22, 27 and 29 of the NDPS Act.

Modis advocate Ashok Sarogi said, Rajput was a very ambitious person, and was looking for various kinds of investments. He had called a meeting of his chartered accountant (CA), advocate and others on how he could utilise his money, and how he could save money for his future. My client has no role to play with respect to the drugs angle that has come up in the case. But it is certain that Rajput used to do drugs. There are WhatsApp chats in their closed group in which people were chatting about it, Sushant was also in the group. Modi had just joined work, around mid-July last year. They used to chat in the group and she was asked to forward the message to another person and it seems that it was regarding drugs, and Modi was not aware. But subsequently, when she got to know by end-July, she clearly told Rajput that she was not here for all these things, and had offered to quit her job.

Sushant told her that she will not be part of the WhatsApp group, and after that she did not get any messages related to drugs and was not part of it, said Sarogi. She quit the job after she fractured her leg in February. As of now, NCB has not called her for inquiry. ED has already questioned her.

The NCB action came after the ED wrote to the agency, asking it to probe if drugs were supplied to Rajput and Rhea, who has been questioned multiple times by the latter.

Aryas name cropped in Rheas WhatsApp conversations related to drugs. ED officials, however, have so far refused to divulge details of whether there were any financial transactions between Arya and Rajput, or Chakraborty or others named in the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) registered by the central agency.

Rajput was found dead in his Bandra flat on June 14. The post-mortem report concluded he died by suicide. After a two-week quiet, a controversy erupted over the death, as a Bihar police team constituted to probe the case on a complaint by the actors family alleged it got no cooperation from its Mumbai counterparts. The probe was handed over to CBI by the Supreme Court, after it upheld the validity of the Bihar Polices first information report (FIR) filed on the basis of a complaint by Rajputs father, KK Singh, who has accused actor Rhea Chakraborty and her family of abetting his sons suicide and misappropriating his money.

Chakraborty, who has been questioned multiple times by the agencies, has denied all allegations levelled against her.
A rumoured Madonna biopic may have found its star, after the Queen of Pop began following Ozark actor Julia Garner on Instagram.

Fans spotted that Madonna and her long-time manager Guy Oseary both followed Garner last week (28 August). The actors striking resemblance to a young Madonna sparked speculation that they have their eyes on her for a rumoured biopic.

While a Madonna biopic has yet to be officially confirmed, the pop star has posted a series of videos to her Instagram this month in which she appears to be co-writing the story of her life with Oscar winner Diablo Cody.

Cody wrote the screenplays for films including Juno, Jennifers Body and Young Adult, as well as the book for the Alanis Morissette musical Jagged Little Pill. The show, which premiered in 2019, uses the musicians songs as the backdrop to a story of a family struggling through personal woes in Nineties suburbia.

When youre stuck in a house with multiple injuries what do you do? Madonna wrote on her Instagram on 8 August. Write a screenplay with Diablo Cody about..............?

In her Instagram Stories, Madonna has also posted various photographs of old diaries dated to the early 1980s, suggesting the possible biopic may only chronicle her early rise to fame.

In 2017, Madonna condemned plans for an unauthorised film biopic about her life. Titled Blonde Ambition, and put into development by Universal Pictures, the script was written by Elyse Hollander and explored the stars early days and the making of her first album.

Nobody knows what I know and what I have seen, Madonna wrote on Instagram at the time. Only I can tell my story. Anyone else who tries is a charlatan and a fool looking for instant gratification without doing the work. This is a disease in our society.

Madonna in 1987, and Julia Garner at the Sundance Film Festival in January (Snap/Shutterstock/Ilya S Savenok/Getty Images)

Garner, who appears to have followed Madonna back on Instagram, has appeared in films including The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Assistant, and the TV series The Americans.

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As well as being nominated for an Emmy for her role as young criminal Ruth Langmore on Netflixs Ozark, Garner is playing convict Anna Sorokin in a forthcoming Netflix limited series.

Sorokin sparked internet infamy in 2018 after a New York Magazine story explored her elaborate con on New York high society, which saw her pretend to be a wealthy German heiress named Anna Delvey.
A 46-year-old man who allegedly killed his wife last week and later covered her body with cow dung to revive her with help of a sorcerer in Betul district of Madhya Pradesh was arrested on Sunday, police said.

The accused Bhaiyalal Evne, is a resident of Chicholi village in the district.

Chicholi police station in-charge Deepak Parashar said, Police recovered the semi-decomposed body of Sunita Evne covered with cow dung from her house in Chicholi village on August 28 after some villagers complained of foul smell coming from the accuseds house. During the investigation, Bhaiyalal said he had gone out of town and did not know who had killed his wife.

Parashar said that during the investigation, police found that Bhaiyalal was an alcoholic because of which his three children had left their house and started living somewhere else.

He also used to fight with his wife. When police detained and interrogated him he confessed to have committed the crime, he said.

Bhaiyalal said his wife quarrelled with him on the night of August 26. He hit her in her head with a wooden stick and she died on spot. A sorcerer told him that he could revive anybody. On his advice he covered the body with cow dung. But before he could have called sorcerer for his practice, police recovered the body, said Parashar.

Police are trying to nab the sorcerer and further investigation are on.
FIGURE 1

Location of the Kharmagtai Project in the South Gobi porphyry copper belt.

Location of the Kharmagtai Project in the South Gobi porphyry copper belt.

FIGURE 2

The Kharmagtai Mining Licence showing LandSat data and location of the Kharmagtai Deposit (Stockwork Hill, White Hill, Copper Hill), porphyry centres, targets, and location of drill holes from the current drilling program.

The Kharmagtai Mining Licence showing LandSat data and location of the Kharmagtai Deposit (Stockwork Hill, White Hill, Copper Hill), porphyry centres, targets, and location of drill holes from the current drilling program.

FIGURE 3

The Kharmagtai Mining Licence showing ground magnetic data and location of the CSAMT lines.

The Kharmagtai Mining Licence showing ground magnetic data and location of the CSAMT lines.

FIGURE 4

Cross section through Zaraa showing drill hole KHDDH529.

Cross section through Zaraa showing drill hole KHDDH529.

TORONTO, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Xanadu Mines Ltd (ASX: XAM, TSX: XAM) (Xanadu or the Company) is pleased to advise it has commenced an accelerated drilling program at its flagship Kharmagtai copper-gold project (Figures 1 and 2), as part of an exploration plan funded by its recent, successful equity placement. The program increases diamond drill rigs from one to three on site and continues through the end of 2020.



Highlights

Exploration drilling fast-tracked to target material growth in resource tonnes and grade at Kharmagtai

Approximately 23,000 metres diamond drilling planned before the end of the year

Three diamond drill rigs now operating at Kharmagtai

Clear exploration strategy based on a robust geological model Step-out drilling to target extensions to known high-grade mineralisation Extensional drilling to test all remaining shallow, high-priority drill targets

Copper Hill CSAMT geophysical survey has commenced with results expected by early August

Strong financial position with ~$13 million* to pursue the Kharmagtai exploration strategy

Xanadus Chief Executive Officer, Dr Andrew Stewart, said Our team is pleased to be accelerating drilling at Kharmagtai. The 23,000 metres of drilling to be completed in 2020 is targeted to open-up both the tonnage and high grade potential for this project. Our recent drilling results support interpretations that the porphyry-breccia complex at Kharmagtai has the potential to be a world class copper-gold system with similarities to other significant deposits globally. Xanadu is entering an exciting period of discovery and growth.

Story continues

* includes $6.4M Tranche 2 placement subject to Shareholder approval at 1 October 2020 EGM.

Exploration Strategy

As reported in recent announcements (see ASX/TSX announcement dated July 8, 2020), Xanadu has returned to a long-term strategy of exploring for large-scale copper-gold deposits across its tenements in Mongolia. At Kharmagtai, this strategy seeks to build on the updated open-pit mineral resource and open pit scoping study (see ASX/TSX announcement dated April 11, 2019), which demonstrated a robust and economic open-pit starter project.

Xanadu is now focused on expanding known high-grade zones of mineralisation and discovering new, previously undrilled zones of copper and gold, aiming to define Kharmagtai as a world-class copper and gold project.

The first phase of this strategy is underway, designed to understand the scale of the mineralised system through extensional drilling with several large step-outs from known zones. This phase will map the mineral system by following broad geological/geochemical trends, allowing for more surgical drill targeting in the second phase.

Geophysical Program

A detailed geophysical program is underway (Figure 2) to provide a detailed 3D fault model from which known zones of high-grade mineralisation can be extended. A recent trial of Controlled Source Audio-Magnetotelluric (CSAMT) has recently been conducted over Copper Hill (Figure 3) with encouraging results. Based on these encouraging results, a larger CSAMT survey is currently underway, covering the mining lease. The results from this work will be used to develop extensional drill targets.

Drill Program

An additional two diamond drill rigs have been added to an ongoing drill program at Kharmagtai taking the total to three diamond drill rigs drilling through to the end of the year.

The first drill rig is focused on drilling the remaining 4 shallow highest-priority drill targets that are yet to be tested within the district. A second rig is currently drilling along strike from the Zaraa discovery. A third rig is following up on the high-grade bornite mineralisation below the Stockwork Hill deposit and extensional potential of the Copper Hill deposit (Figure 2).

The high-grade bornite zone at Stockwork Hill remains open along strike and at depth. A drill program has been designed to extend this zone of high-grade mineralisation. Similarly, mineralisation at Copper Hill remains open at depth and the faulted offset of Copper Hill has yet to be discovered. The recent trial CSAMT survey has produced numerous extensional targets for follow up drilling.

Recent Zaraa Drilling

Final drill results for the single diamond drill hole drilled at Zaraa and reported within the June Quarter report have been returned. Drill hole KHDDH529 has returned a +1,000m intercept of mineralisation.

KHDDH529 has returned 1,022m @ 0.22% Cu and 0.17g/t Au (0.31% eCu) from 298m including 117m @ 0.43% Cu and 0.33g/t Au (0.59% eCu) from 661m

This drill hole was terminated in mineralization and this intercept is open at depth.

The current 3D geological interpretations of Zaraa suggest mineralisation is hosted within a sub-vertical dyke like body starting around 250m depth and extending to well below 1,300m vertical depth (Figure 4). However, the existing drilling has only tested approximately 200m of strike of this body, where geophysical signatures suggest mineralisation may be open for over 1km of strike extent. Follow up drilling has been planned to begin testing the extent of Zaraa to the northeast and southwest.

Response to COVID-19

Currently, COVID-19 has had minimal impact on the Companys exploration activities in Mongolia. All necessary health and safety precautions are being taken and the Company remains well-funded to continue operations throughout this period.

About Xanadu Mines

Xanadu is an ASX and TSX listed Exploration company that discovers and defines globally significant porphyry copper-gold assets in Mongolia. We give investors exposure to large scale copper-gold discoveries and low cost inventory growth, and we create liquidity events for shareholders at peak value points in the mining life cycle. Xanadu maintains a portfolio of exploration projects and remains one of the few junior explorers on the ASX or TSX who control an emerging Tier 1 copper-gold deposit in our flagship Kharmagtai project. For information on Xanadu visit: www.xanadumines.com.





Andrew Stewart

CEO

Xanadu Mines Ltd

Andrew.stewart@xanadumines.com

+61 409 819 922

This Announcement was authorised for release by Xanadus Board of Directors.





Figures and Tables

FIGURE 1 is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8f37d897-3d45-44ae-a211-352c0353e5ed

FIGURE 2 is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e7454b53-557a-4049-b01a-a73762677d83



FIGURE 3 is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7d28f5a4-ccf1-4478-bb3e-16a4a76fcef8



FIGURE 4 is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/518458b1-d6d6-4f02-b569-c3681e807332







Statements and Disclaimers



Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves Reporting Requirements

The 2012 Edition of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (the JORC Code 2012) sets out minimum standards, recommendations and guidelines for Public Reporting in Australasia of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves. The Information contained in this Announcement has been presented in accordance with the JORC Code 2012.

Competent Person Statement

The information in this announcement that relates to exploration results is based on information compiled by Dr Andrew Stewart, who is responsible for the exploration data, comments on exploration target sizes, QA/QC and geological interpretation and information. Dr Stewart, who is an employee of Xanadu and is a Member of the Australasian Institute of Geoscientists, has sufficient experience relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity he is undertaking to qualify as the Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the Australasian Code for Reporting Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves and the National Instrument 43-101. Dr Stewart consents to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on this information in the form and context in which it appears.

Copper Equivalent Calculations

The copper equivalent (eCu) calculation represents the total metal value for each metal, multiplied by the conversion factor, summed and expressed in equivalent copper percentage with a metallurgical recovery factor applied. The copper equivalent calculation used is based off the eCu calculation defined by CSA in the 2018 Mineral Resource Upgrade.

Copper equivalent (eCu) grade values were calculated using the following formula:

eCu = Cu + Au * 0.62097 * 0.8235, Where Cu = copper grade (%); Au = gold grade (gold per tonne (g/t)); 0.62097 = conversion factor (gold to copper); and 0.8235 = relative recovery of gold to copper (82.35%). The copper equivalent formula was based on the following parameters (prices are in USD): Copper price = 3.1 $/lb (or 6,834 $ per tonne ($/t)); Gold price = 1,320 $ per ounce ($/oz); Copper recovery = 85%; Gold recovery = 70%; and Relative recovery of gold to copper = 70% / 85% = 82.35%.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this Announcement, including information as to the future financial or operating performance of Xanadu and its projects may also include statements which are forwardlooking statements that may include, amongst other things, statements regarding targets, estimates and assumptions in respect of mineral reserves and mineral resources and anticipated grades and recovery rates, production and prices, recovery costs and results, capital expenditures and are or may be based on assumptions and estimates related to future technical, economic, market, political, social and other conditions. These forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Xanadu, are inherently subject to significant technical, business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from estimated or anticipated events or results reflected in such forwardlooking statements.

Xanadu disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly or release any revisions to any forwardlooking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, circumstances or results or otherwise after the date of this Announcement or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, other than required by the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and the Listing Rules of the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). The words believe, expect, anticipate, indicate, contemplate, target, plan, intends, continue, budget, estimate, may, will, schedule and similar expressions identify forwardlooking statements.

All forwardlooking statements made in this Announcement are qualified by the foregoing cautionary statements. Investors are cautioned that forwardlooking statements are not guarantee of future performance and accordingly investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forwardlooking statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein.

For further information please visit the Xanadu Mines Website at www.xanadumines.com .





Kharmagtai JORC Table 1 (JORC 2012)

Set out below is Section 1 and Section 2 of Table 1 under the JORC Code, 2012 Edition for the Kharmagtai project. Data provided by Xanadu. This Table 1 updates the JORC Table 1 disclosure dated 18 September 2017.





JORC Table 1 - Section 1  Sampling Techniques and Data

Criteria Commentary Sampling techniques Drilling techniques Drill sample recovery Logging Sub-sampling techniques and sample preparation Quality of assay data and laboratory tests Verification of sampling and assaying Location of data points Data spacing and distribution Orientation of data in relation to geological structure Sample security Audits or reviews





JORC Table 1  Section 2  Reporting of Exploration Results

(Criteria in this section apply to all succeeding sections).

Criteria Commentary Mineral tenement and land tenure status Exploration done by other parties Geology Drill hole Information Timing RC Holes Metre DDH Holes Metre RC & DDH Metre Trench Metre Drilling <2015 155 24553 252 88511 0 0 106 39774 Drilling >2015 68 13107 116 57876 22 5323 17 5618 Total 223 37660 368 146387 22 5323 123 45392 Data aggregation methods Relationship between mineralisation widths and intercept lengths Diagrams Balanced reporting Other substantive exploration data Further work





JORC Table 1  Section 3 Estimation of Reporting of Mineral Resources

Mineral Resources are not reported so this is not applicable to this report.





JORC Table 1  Section 4 Estimation and Reporting of Ore Reserves

Ore Reserves are not reported so this is not applicable to this report.




Remembering her late actor-husband Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Kapoor shares an endearing family picture on Instagram. In the selfie, she is seen smiling ear to ear posing with daughter Riddhima Kapoor Sahani and grand-daughter Samara.

She captioned it, A part of you goes with the person who has gone and a part stays with you. The picture shows Neetu in a black top and Riddhima and Samara twinning in navy blue. Take a look:

The photo seems to taken from her recent get-together with sister-in-law Rima Jain for Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. On the auspicious occasion, the Kapoor family had come together to celebrate it together.

Taking to Instagram, Karisma posted snapshots of the fam-jam, which had the presence of the siblings parents Randhir and Babita Kapoor, cousin Armaan Jain, Kareenas four-year-old son Taimur, and Karismas children, Samiera and Kiaan.

Last month, Neetu Kapoor turned 62 and the family gathered for a small get-together that was hosted in her honour. Among those who attended the small celebration were Neetus kids Ranbir and Riddhima, her grand-daughter Samara, Rima Jain, Agastya Nanda and Karan Johar.

Neetu shared also some candid moments from her birthday celebration on social media. In one of the snaps, Ranbir is seen lovingly embracing his mother while in another they seem to be fighting over the birthday cake.

Rishi Kapoor breathed his last on April 30 this year. In 2018, he was diagnosed with cancer for the first time, following which the actor was in New York for nearly a year to undergo treatment. He returned to India in September 2019 after recovering. Neetu was always by his side during these difficult times.
The activist-lawyer, who faces imprisonment of up to six months or a fine of up to Rs 2,000 or both, refused to offer an apology for his tweets against the judiciary

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to pronounce today its verdict on the quantum of sentence to be awarded to activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan, convicted for contempt of court over his two tweets against the judiciary.

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra will pronounce its verdict against Bhushan, who faces simple imprisonment of up to six months or with a fine of up to Rs 2,000 or with both as punishment under Contempt of Court Act.

On 25 August, the top court was urged by senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan to show "judicial statesmanship" and not make Bhushan a "martyr" by punishing him for contempt over his tweets criticising the judiciary, after the activist-lawyer rejected fresh suggestions from the court for an apology.

As the top court reserved its verdict on the sentence to be awarded to Bhushan, Justice Arun Mishra, who presided over a three-judge bench, at the fag end of the nearly three-hour-long hearing had asked why he cannot seek an apology and what was wrong in using this word.

Justice Mishra is demitting office on 2 September.

The apex court on 14 August had held Bhushan guilty of criminal contempt for his two derogatory tweets against the judiciary saying they cannot be said to be a fair criticism of the functioning of the judiciary made in the public interest.

On 25 August, Dhavan, representing Bhushan, had suggested that the top court recall the 14 August verdict convicting him for contempt of court and not impose any sentence and urged it to not only close the case but also to bring an end to the controversy.

Attorney General KK Venugopal requested the court to forgive Bhushan with a message that he should not repeat this act.

The bench also comprising Justices BR Gavai and Krishna Murari, had given 30 minutes to Bhushan to "think over" on withdrawing his statements made in the court and said he made "disparaging remarks against the institution and the judges".

Venugopal had said Bhushan, who has been refusing to tender an unconditional apology for the tweets, should withdraw all statements and express regret.

The bench on 20 August had granted time till Monday to Bhushan to reconsider his "defiant statement" and tender "unconditional apology" for the contemptuous tweets.

Referring to Bhushan''s statements and his refusal to apologise, the bench had told Venugopal that mistakes were committed by all but they needed to be accepted, but here Bhushan was not willing to accept that.

Dhavan had argued that reprimanding Bhushan like "don''t do it again" as suggested by the attorney general will not be correct and instead a statesman-like message should be there like "Mr Bhushan though we disagree with many things, but from next time you should be more responsible".

Bhushan in his statement had refused to offer an apology to the Supreme Court for his two tweets against the judiciary, saying what he expressed represented his bona fide belief which he continued to hold.
Yonhap



Four South Koreans died after their car crashed into a U.S. armored vehicle on Sunday night in Pocheon, north of Seoul, police said.



The two couples were heading home when their sport utility vehicle rear-ended a U.S. armored vehicle at around 9:30 p.m. near the Rodriguez Live Fire Range.



The occupants, all in their 50s, were pronounced dead after being taken to a nearby hospital and receiving emergency treatment including CPR.



One American solider sustained a minor injury and was taken to a hospital.





Yonhap





Yonhap
Sonam Kapoor, who is living with husband Anand Ahuja in London, was one of the luckier ones to get a chance to watch Christopher Nolans latest release Tenet in the movie theatres. The film also stars Bollywood actor Dimple Kapadia in a prominent role, alongside John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh.

Sonam shared a glimpse of the scene featuring Dimple on Instagram, and wrote, So I went to watch @tenetfilm in the cinema today. Firstly the incredible experience of watching a film on the big screen is unparalleled. Secondly to watch the luminous Dimple Kapadia in the film gave me goosebumps. Nothing compares to cinema, the big screen and its magic. Nothing.

Sonam kept her mask on in the theatre and followed social distancing protocols, a glimpse of which she shared on her Instagram stories.

Sonam Kapoor shared a few pictures on her Instagram stories.

Sonams family, friends and fans back home in India had interesting reactions to her latest post as movie theatres continue to remain shut across the country due to the coronavirus pandemic. Sonams father Anil Kapoor shared several high-fives, camera and punch emojis to show his support in the comments section. Her uncle Sanjay Kapoor wrote, Lucky you. Jackie Shroffs wife and producer Ayesha Shroff also commented, Absolutely and totally agree with you. Designer Abu Jani wrote, Absolutely agree...there is nothing better than a cinema experience...love domple.

Also read: Happy birthday Rajkummar Rao: 5 must-watch films of the actor that prove he is one of the finest of his generation

According to Reuters, the spy thriller Tenet launched in 70 countries on August 26 ahead of the United States. Tom Cruise, whose Top Gun: Maverick was pulled from a release earlier this summer, donned a face mask to attend a preview showing of Tenet in London. Great to be back in a movie theater everybody, he said in a video shared on Instagram. I loved it.

In the video, Cruise is seen braving the London rain and going to the theatre in a car. He still gets identified by fans on the way, and says, How does that happen? I am wearing a mask. He is then seen watching the film in the theatre, clapping with fellow moviegoers as it opens on the silver screen.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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Vice-Governor of the National Bank of Romania Leonardo Badea is one of the picks considered by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) for prime minister if the censure motion against the incumbent government succeeds, according to PSD national chairman Marcel Ciolacu.

"He is one of the options considered at the moment and he is a man who deserves to have this proposal," Ciolacu told Antena 3 private broadcaster on Sunday evening.He said President Iohannis had "made a big mistake" at the start of the health crisis by failing to come up with a proposal for a national union government."President Klaus Iohannis made a big mistake for failing to come up, when the coronavirus crisis started, with a government of national union. Romania would have looked completely different now. (...) There were all the political forces involved in this effort, not just the PSD and the National Liberal Party (PNL); it would have been another much more coherent communication and I am sure that that government would not have moved away from the Romanians' agenda. He made a major mistake. A president back then should have placed the interest of the Romanians above the interest of the PNL and only the political agenda of the PNL," added Ciolacu.
SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In July, the members of Shincheonji's Daegu branch who recovered from COVID-19 agreed to donate plasma for COVID-19 treatment research. Hundreds took part in the plasma donations that month. Earlier this week, the Korean Center for Disease Control released a statement thanking the Shincheonji Church for its help and requesting its cooperation for another round of large-scale plasma donations:

Shincheonji Collaborates with Korean Government for Large-Scale Plasma Donations towards COVID-19 Research

During this situation where the whole world is at risk due to COVID-19, we thank Shincheonji Church of Jesus (Chairman Lee Man Hee) for actively cooperating with the needed group collection of plasma for coronavirus treatment research in July. Currently, COVID-19 cases have been resurging, and there is a request for the rapid development of a treatment by employing group collection of plasma. Thus, we desire to collect plasma through your organization and request for your active collaboration.

Affected Shincheonji members in Daegu agreed to donate, and a facility was set up for over 1,100 donors to donate plasma between August 26th and September 4th, 2020.



Unfortunately, South Korea is currently facing its second and largest major COVID-19 outbreak. Pastor Jun Kwang-hoon of Sarang Jeil Church in Seoul, a vocal opponent of South Korean President Moon, skirted government opposition and public health concerns to hold a large rally against Moon. Pastor Jun Kwang-hoon spoke to the crowd without a mask despite having the coronavirus.

The outbreak that occurred at the Sarang Jeil Church was at least ten times the size of the outbreak at Shincheonji's branch church in Daegu six months before. Sarang Jeil joins a growing number of protestant churches that are refusing to comply with the government mandate .

This recent outbreak recalls the earlier outbreak in February at Shincheonji Church's branch in Daegu. However, while other religious groups opposed government orders, Shincheonji Church has constantly complied and helped the government in its efforts to combat COVID-19.

When the COVID-19 outbreak occurred at Shincheonji's branch church in Daegu, the government followed protocol by requesting church members' personal information for contact tracing. Shincheonji Church provided the information of Daegu church members immediately, as well as an updated list the following day.

Although Shincheonji officially halted all church meetings and gatherings as soon as the outbreak occurred, public outrage was sparked at the news of the outbreak; rumors and worries went around that Shincheonji members were spreading the virus on purpose. Sensationalistic headlines that combined the public's fear of a "cult" with its fear of the coronavirus sent the public into a frenzy.

The Korean Government then requested a third list, this time containing Shincheonji Church's full membership domestically and internationally, and even members-in-training. Shincheonji Church did its best to comply with the government's requests, and Korean Minister of Health Kim Kang-Lip has publicly stated that Shincheonji cooperated fully with the government. However, Shincheonji's opponents launched allegations that the church did not cooperate fully and those allegations are being brought to court. Consequently, several Shincheonji leaders, including the founder, Lee Man Hee, are now detained facing criminal charges.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reported on the harsh treatment faced by Shincheonji members , and many NGOs and religious leaders have appealed to the United Nations and the South Korean government to call for an end to the oppression. However, there has been little reprieve and the South Korean government has not commented on the request. Shincheonji's Chairman, Mr. Lee, is still detained indefinitely as he awaits the prosecution. Meanwhile, Pastor Jung of Sarang Jeil Church has not been detained or charged.

Read more about the report here .

ABOUT THE PERSECUTED:

ThePersecuted.org is a news source dedicated to the factual research and analysis of human rights violations. For more information, visit ThePersecuted.org.

FOR INFORMATION: Mary Oliver Phone: (718) 962-9794 Email address: [email protected]

SOURCE ThePersecuted.org
By Gwladys Fouche and Terje Solsvik

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's $1 trillion wealth fund said it had excluded Taiwan's Formosa Chemicals and Fibre, Formosa Taffeta and India's Page Industries from its portfolio, saying they posed an "unacceptable risk for violation of human rights".

The world's largest sovereign wealth fund sells holdings before announcing such exclusions to avoid excessive market moves.

Formosa Chemicals and Fibre declined to comment. An official reached by telephone at Formosa Taffeta said the company was closed for the day. Page Industries was not immediately reachable for comment.

In recent years the fund, which operates under guidelines established by the Norwegian parliament, has focused on working conditions in textile factories in Asia, excluding companies it thinks pose an ethical risk to its investments.

Set up in 1996 to preserve Norway's oil revenues for future generations, the fund holds around 1.5% of globally listed shares and its decisions are often followed by other investors.

At the end of 2019, NBIM held a 0.84% stake in Formosa Chemicals & Fibre, valued at $144 million, and a 0.64% stake in Formosa Taffeta valued at $12.2 million.

The stake in Page Industries at that time stood at 0.42%, with a market value of $15.4 million.

The fund said in the statement that its management will also scrutinise oil firm PetroChina's work, engaging in active ownership in the hope of boosting the company's anti-corruption practices.

PetroChina was not immediately available for comment.

PetroChina had been under observation for possible exclusion since 2017 and had not responded to inquiries from the fund's ethics watchdog, the Council on Ethics, Norges Bank said.

The board of the Norwegian central bank, which manages the fund, concluded "active ownership" was therefore appropriate.

The fund held 0.17% of PetroChina shares at the end of 2019, valued at $159.6 million. It did not say whether the stake had changed since the start of 2020.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Alexander Smith and David Evans)
Police said the crash involved a tanker loaded with 81,000 pounds of waste water. At about 10 a.m., the passenger car swerved into the tanker for unknown reasons, a release said. The two vehicles became entangled and the tanker overturned, rolling on top of the passenger vehicle and trapping the driver, a release said.
Two attacks have left eight fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces dead, with ISIS and Turkish-backed groups being blamed reports North Press.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Press Center announced on Sunday that eight Self-Defense Forces (North and East Syrias local conscription-based force known as HXP) fighters lost their lives in two separate attacks in Deir ez-Zor and Ayn Issa.

The SDF Press Center said that Islamic State sleeper cells attacked an HXP point in Dashisha in Deir ez-Zor on Friday.

In a statement on the SDFs Facebook account, the SDF stated that four fighters were killed in the Deir ez-Zor attack, which was carried out simultaneously with an attack by Turkish-backed armed opposition groups on the village of Hoshna near the M4 highway. Four more fighters were killed in this attack.

Earlier in August, Turkish forces and its affiliated armed opposition groups targeted a vehicle belonging to the Defense Ministry of the Autonomous Administration on the M4 Highway, killing the driver and wounding a passenger.

Last week, SDF Commander-in-Chief Mazloum Abdi tweeted a call to guarantor countries in Syria to stop Turkish violations in northeastern Syria and protect both local citizens and Autonomous Administration employees from being targeted.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Patriot Prayer is a loosely organized right-wing group that has repeatedly been involved in brawls with left-wing antifascist groups.

Led by Joey Gibson of Vancouver, Washington, Patriot Prayer members have attended rallies and protests decked out in star-spangled clothes, Make America Great Again hats and T-shirts with USA emblazoned across them. Many are ardent Donald Trump supporters.

The man shot and killed late Saturday in downtown Portland was identified as Aaron Danielson. Gibson called the victim a friend and supporter of Patriot Prayer. Widely shared photos of the man after he was shot showed him wearing a Patriot Prayer ballcap.

Gibsons appearances in Portland have at times drawn hundreds of counter-protesters to downtown and triggered violent clashes between his supporters and antifascist activists, or antifa.

Over the past several years, some members of his group have come to Portland rallies armed with handguns on their hips or in one case a cache of weapons for a quick extraction effort for a Portland rally. In that incident, Patriot Prayer members brought three unloaded rifles to the rooftop of a parking garage before a summer 2018 protest in downtown Portland, causing concern.

Over the years, Patriot Prayer seemed to exist only for the purpose of challenging anarchists, antifascists and social justice protesters.

One particular rally staged just weeks after Jeremy Christian killed two men aboard a MAX train in 2017 drew calls from Mayor Ted Wheeler for federal officials to revoke Gibsons permit to protest at Terry Schrunk Federal Plaza, a popular gathering area for Patriot Prayer events at the time.

Months before that, Gibson ejected Christian from a rally in Southeast Portland for spouting racist slurs and antagonizing counter demonstrators.

Thousands turned out for the dueling demonstrations, the sight of which was repeated often in summers to come.

The demonstrations, frequently billed as free speech events, have been criticized because theyve attracted white nationalists and others who promote racist or bigoted views. Gibson publicly has denounced those beliefs.

Gibson visited downtown Portland Saturday evening and at one point was chased into a gas station on Burnside by a crowd countering a pro-Trump caravan that had driven through downtown earlier in the evening. He did not appear to be accompanied by anyone and was escorted out of the station. There is no indication that Gibson and Danielson traveled to Portland together.

Gibson became a conservative cause celebre after he attempted to organize rallies in the liberal cities of San Francisco and Berkeley. A video showed Gibson being physically attacked and blasted with pepper spray as he marched alone into a crowd of counterprotesters in Berkeley.

Since then, he had an ill-fated run for Congress as a Republican and has faded somewhat from public view.

Meantime, last week, Tusitala Tiny Toese, a fixture of right-wing demonstrations that typically end in fistfights in Portland and other cities, was arrested. Toese was long part of the Vancouver, Washington-based Patriot Prayer group and often seen alongside Gibson.
Angola, IN (46703)

Today

Cloudy early, becoming mostly clear after midnight. Low near 10F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy early, becoming mostly clear after midnight. Low near 10F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.
Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil (L) is greeted by Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (R) upon his arrival at the Taoyuan airport in Taiwan on Aug. 30, 2020. (SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images)

Czech Senate Speaker Arrives in Taiwan for Visit, to Beijings Ire

The head of the Czech Senate, Milos Vystrcil, arrived in Taiwan on Aug. 30 along with a large delegation for a rare trip by a senior foreign official that has angered Beijing, which considers the island a breakaway province ineligible for state-to-state relations.

Vystrcil, who as president of the Senate is effectively the second-highest-ranking official in the Czech Republic after the countrys president, said the multi-day visit would promote business links with Taiwan, and the Czech Republic wouldnt bow to Beijings objections.

The delegation is due to meet President Tsai Ing-wen and other top officials in Taiwan, where strict coronavirus measures will be observed during the meetings.

You cannot accept being someones servant, because if you do, then when you obey once, its assumed that you obey every time, Vystrcil told Reuters in Prague on Aug. 29 ahead of the trip.

Vystrcil said his visit underscored the values-based foreign policy put in place by then-President Vaclav Havel, an anti-communist dissident and personal friend of the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama.

For Taiwan, the Czech visit is a welcome sign of support amid growing tensions with the Chinese regime.

Taiwan and the Czech Republic both share the universal values of democracy, freedom, and human rights, Johnson Chiang, head of the European Affairs Office at Taiwans Foreign Ministry, told reporters this week.

Earlier in August, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar went to Taiwan in the highest-level visit by a U.S. official in four decades.

Czech President Milos Zeman has sought closer business and political ties with China since taking office in 2013, but his efforts have been hit by failed investment plans and Czech wavering about allowing Chinas Huawei Technologies to play a role in developing next-generation telecoms networks.

China warned of possible consequences for Czech companies with Chinese operations when Vystrcils predecessor started planning a trip to the self-ruled island.

Such a visit is deliberately undermining the political foundation between China and the Czech Republic, we condemn such a despicable act, Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Aug. 27.
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The annual VMAs are famed for bringing out the edgiest looks from the A-list.

And Sunday night's show was no different as a legion of stars opted for extremely funky ensembles, complete with futuristic styles, a bold pink look and barely-there bodycon for the pre-recorded show.

Landing themselves on the list of the show's kookiest, quirkiest and most bizarre looks were stars including Lady Gaga, Machine Gun Kelly and Madison Beer during the evening of the greats.

Wow: Lady Gaga, Machine Gun Kelly and Madison Beer led the kooky ensembles at Sunday's VMAs

Marking a bizarre return to the red carpet amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the event was filmed over days at several different locations with production abiding by social distancing guidelines as it aired 'live'.

The event was initially tipped to be hosted from Brooklyn's Barclays Center however a change in plans saw the show shifted to pre-records, despite MTV claiming much of the show would remain live.

Amid her nine outfit changes, Lady Gaga typically brought the dramatic goods in a series of ensembles which showcased her trademark kooky style to perfection.

Her most jaw-dropping style came in her volumunious silver look, which featured a puffball shirt dress. Doing her bit for the cause, all her looks of the evening included coordinated masks.

Evolution: Gaga had nine different outfit changes during the two-hour event including her red carpet look, with a futuristic ensemble, a bird-of-paradise type look and a billowing green gown

Tricon: Lady Gaga used the opportunity to promote the use of face masks

With her silver look however, she borrowed from the skies as she donned an astronaut worthy glass bowl on her head, which she noted was her being ahead of the trend with face coverings.

Another of her quirky looks saw the iconic songstress don a bird of paradise-inspired style, with a host of multi-coloured feathers drowning her incredible figure.

Making sure he was a stand out star of the red carpet, Machine Gun Kelly went showstopping in his style.

Borrowing from Ken Doll for inspiration, the rapper donned a bright pink tank top with coordinating suit trousers and jacket while going for a Sid Vicious-style hair do.

He later upped the ante further as he donned a bold purple-blue boiler suit.

Woah! Making sure he was a stand out star of the red carpet, Machine Gun Kelly went showstopping in his style

Oh my! He later upped the ante further as he donned a bold purple-blue boiler suit

While Madison certainly looked phenomenal, she seemed to have borrowed from the hosiery department with her eye-popping mini dress which left very little to the imagination.

A notable mention had to go to Miley Cyrus, who was returning to her raucous days in as sizzling sheer ensemble which showcased her sensational figure and edgy style.

Earlier this month, it was announced that the VMAs would not take place at Barclays as initially planned, instead taking the festivities outdoors as a precaution against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Oh my! While Madison certainly looked phenomenal, she seemed to have borrowed from the hosiery department with her eye-popping mini dress which left very little to the imagination

Ahem! A notable mention had to go to Miley Cyrus, who was returning to her raucous days in as sizzling sheer ensemble which showcased her sensational figure and edgy style

Green lady: Nicole Richie was also keeping things kooky

The decision was reached mutually between both MTV and representatives from the large Barclays venue, who said in a statement:

'The 2020 VMAs paid homage to the incredible resiliency of New York with several outdoor performances around [the city] with limited or no audience, adhering to all state and city guidelines.

'In close consultation with state and local health officials, it became clear at this time that outdoor performances with limited or no audience would be more feasible and safer than an indoor event,' the statement continued.

'The VMAs will highlight the boroughs in an exciting show and return to Barclays Center in 2021. MTV will continue to work closely with the Department of Health, state and local officials, the medical community, and key stakeholders to ensure the safety of all involved,' the missive concluded.

On the moon: Gaga later took a seat on the red carpet
Twenty-nine people have been confirmed dead after a village restaurant partly collapsed Saturday in north China's Shanxi province, local authorities said Sunday.

The accident happened at around 9:40 a.m. Saturday when relatives and fellow villagers were waiting to attend a birthday party banquet for an 80-year-old man at the Juxian Restaurant in Chenzhuang Village in Xiangfen County, according to the rescue team.

"The banquet hall collapsed with a crash," recalled Wang Guoping. The 61-year-old immediately rushed to the site as his wife and 5-year-old granddaughter were trapped under the collapsed hall with a floor area of about 100 square meters.

Twenty-one females were among the dead, including Wang's wife and granddaughter.

The rescue work was completed at 3:52 a.m. Sunday. A total of 57 people were pulled out of the debris of the collapsed two-story building. Twenty-nine of them were confirmed dead, seven were severely injured and 21 others suffered minor injuries. The conditions of the seven serious cases were not life-threatening.

Top provincial officials on Saturday ordered all-out efforts for the rescue operation involving 840 rescue workers and more than 100 medical staff.

Rescuers earlier used small tools and bare hands to search for trapped people as the narrowness of the collapsed site and fears of further collapse complicated the rescue efforts. They later continued the rescue operation with the help of large machinery, sniffer dogs, and life detectors.

"Large machineries could not be easily controlled and could cause further collapses," said Li Ming, a local paramilitary police officer. "Before big machineries were used, we tried our best to rescue all people out with small tools."

An investigation team has been set up to probe the accident.

The Work Safety Committee of China's State Council said Saturday it will supervise the investigation into the restaurant collapse, ordering to screen safety risks of illegal buildings.

The Shanxi provincial government has ordered a safety inspection over buildings and public gathering places across the province starting Sunday.
Actor Akshay Kumar took to Twitter on August 31 to share the trailer of his upcoming episode of Into The Wild With Bear Grylls. In the latest episode, the actor explores the wilderness with British adventurer and host Bear Grylls.

"I visualised stiff challenges prior to Into The Wild... but Bear Grylls completely surprised me with the elephant poop tea. What a day," the Sooryavanshi actor tweeted.



I visualized stiff challenges prior to #IntoTheWildWithBearGrylls but @bearGrylls completely surprised me with the elephant poop tea What a day @DiscoveryIn @DiscoveryPlusIn pic.twitter.com/m6YfQXmCcM

 Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) August 31, 2020

The teaser of his show begins with Bear introducing Akshay as the legend known for his action movies. I am a reel hero, he is a real hero, the actor is then heard saying in the clip.

Shot at Bandipur Tiger Reserve, 'Into The Wild with Bear Grylls and Akshay Kumar', will follow all military-style drills, with former British military personnel Bear Grylls taking charge along with fit and agile Akshay Kumar, son of a military officer, and as somebody who has donned multiple hats, including that of an actor, producer, martial artist, and philanthropist. It is here in the reserve that at one point the 52-year-old actor sips on the elephant poop tea he has mentioned in his tweet.

Talking about shooting with Bear Grylls for the show, the actor termed the experience as a "humbling" one. "I have always admired Bear Grylls for his energy, passion and what he has stood for all these years, reported ANI.

It was a humbling experience being with him in the wild as he went about unfolding one challenge after another. It is different out there, as compared to movie sets, as there is no back-up - that sense of realism is very overpowering," said Akshay Kumar.

The episode will also raise awareness about a cause close to Akshay Kumar's heart:'Bharat Ke Veer', which is a fund-raising initiative by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.

"What I found interesting about the show is how nicely purpose is incorporated in an entertaining, survival, and adventure led show. With regards to Bharat Ke Veer, it is a project, which remains close to my heart and I will continue to use all opportunities to help promote it with an aim to ensure that more and more countrymen become a part of it," he added.

Grylls on the other hand, lauded the Bollywood superstar's "humility" and his easy approach. "I did my homework prior to meeting Akshay, and knew he is a superstar, but what struck me the most during our time together, was his humility, his easy approach - he is, at heart, still that guy next door.

Lots of commonalities between the two of us - including passion towards fitness, dedication to family et al, I really enjoyed being with him," said Grylls. Akshay's eyes lit-up with the mention of a new challenge and believe me, not many celebrities, across the world, have reacted so warmly to some harsh tasks that I can conjure," added Grylls.

The buzz around Akshay Kumar's episode is immense as the show featuring PM Modi generated historic high ratings for the infotainment genre whereas 'Into The Wild with Rajinikanth' is the second-highest-rated show ever in the genre.

The special show will premiere on September 11 on Discovery Plus App and September 14 on DiscoveryChannel.

---With inputs from ANI
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - From the Israeli captains emotional greeting in Arabic upon takeoff in Tel Aviv, to the warm Emirati reception on the ground in scorching Abu Dhabi, it was obvious this was no typical flight.

Mondays El Al flight LY971 marked the first-ever direct flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates, placing a significant stamp on this months historic U.S.-brokered deal to normalize relations between the two nations.

The journey was steeped in symbolism. U.S. and Israeli flags adorned the tarmac at Ben-Gurion Airport as Israeli music played, and the word peace was emblazoned in English, Hebrew and Arabic above the cockpit window of the Boeing 737. On board, the Making History motto featured prominently on each seats headrest covering and complimentary fabric bags of the Abraham Accord Inaugural Flight were distributed.

A special menu was prepared, highlighting touches of Middle Eastern cuisine, and the director-general of Israels Health Ministry even handed out a limited-edition face-mask featuring the Israeli and Emirati flags. The American diplomats on board sported a tri-country face mask amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Prior to boarding, the deals mastermind, President Donald Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, waxed poetic on the flights meaning.

While this is a historic flight, we hope it will start an even more historic journey for the Middle East and beyond, he said. This is a very hopeful time and I believe that so much peace and property is possible in the region and across the world.

But only after takeoff did that take on concrete significance, as the El Al aircraft veered east toward the desert terrain rather than west over the Mediterranean Sea as it does on nearly all its outbound flights. Pilot Tal Becker proudly announced the historic moment when the El Al aircraft crossed into Saudi airspace for the first time ever, noting that the flight would now take just three hours and 20 minutes to Abu Dhabi, rather than the more than seven hours it would have taken to circumvent the Arabian Peninsula.

Kushner visited the travelling press corps in the back of the plane while over Saudi airspace to say it was gracious of the kingdom to make such an extraordinary gesture, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a recorded in-flight address over the loudspeaker noting so as well.

By granting Israel access, Saudi Arabia gave a strong indication of its approval of the newfound normalization with Israel and raised hopes it could be next to take its covert relations with Israel up a notch.

We are all excited and look forward to more historic flights that will take us to other capital cities in the region, advancing us all to a bold, prosperous future, Becker said over the loudspeaker system. Wishing us all salaam, peace and shalom.

Cognizant that that moment has yet to arrive, El Al official Stanley Morais noted that the 737, with its built-in anti-missile defence system, was required for the route for security reasons.

But a feel-good atmosphere mostly prevailed. The flight number itself, LY971, was a gesture to the UAEs international calling code number. Tuesdays return flight, numbered LY972, is named after Israels international calling code.

The flight itself caps weeks of a quickly warming relationship since the surprise Aug. 13 White House announcement establishing ties. In just over two weeks, telephone lines were connected between the countries, the UAEs ruler issued a decree formally ending the countrys decades-long boycott of Israel and several Israeli companies have already signed business deals with Emirati counterparts.

Kushner was joined onboard by national security adviser Robert OBrien, Mideast envoy Avi Berkowitz and envoy for Iran Brian Hook.

The Israeli delegation was led by national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, who spoke in Arabic upon arrival. It included the director generals of several government ministries who hoped to establish a rapport with their Emirati counterparts on issues of diplomacy, trade, science, technology and co-operation in countering the coronavirus pandemic during the short two-day visit.

For the Palestinians, the day was also symbolic  and painful. The Palestinians have long counted on the Arab consensus that normalization with Israel could come only after a Palestinian state is established. They have condemned the UAEs move toward Israel as treacherous.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said it hurts us very much to see the Israeli plane landing in the UAE. He noted that the plane was called Kiryat Gat, a southern Israeli town built where Arab villages once stood before the war surrounding Israels establishment in 1948.

We would have liked to have an Emirati plane landing in liberated Jerusalem, but we live in a difficult Arab era, Shtayyeh said.

While the Palestinians have cut off ties with the U.S., Kushner said the U.S. and the whole region is ready to help them. But they cant be stuck in the past. They have to come to the table, he said.

For veteran El Al purser Hedva Opatovsky, the flight marked a fitting final journey for her 46 years of air travel. After thousands of flights to dozens of countries, she was put on leave several months ago as El Al grounded its fleet due to the sudden virus-related downturn in air travel and had thought her career had come to an inauspicious end. Instead, the 67-year-old Opatovsky, who flew with Israeli prime ministers dating back to Menachem Begin and used to work the Tehran route before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, got one last trip to Abu Dhabi.

This journey has personal and national significance for me, she said, as she strolled the aisle. Its very exciting and it feels good to finish with a sense of hope.

____

Follow Aron Heller on Twitter at www.twitter.com/aronhellerap




Felix Awah Elijah

A Nigerian businessman, Felix Awah Elijah has been declared missing by his family following his arrest by Chinese police officers in Guanzu.

According to CowryNews , Elijah who hails from Abia state and speaks Chinese fluently after staying in the country for over 12 years was arrested at his Tomtom Plaza in Guanzu China.

He is said have no crime record and has lived in the country legally for years.

The report further stated that Elijah is married to a Chinese woman and they have two kids.

Since his arrest, his whereabouts has remained unknown leaving his family members to fear for the worst.
Top US Intelligence Official Ends In-Person Election Security Briefings for Congress

By Jeff Seldin August 30, 2020

U.S. counterintelligence officials will no longer brief lawmakers on threats to the upcoming presidential election in November, telling them such in-person briefings have led to leaks of "sensitive intelligence" and the politicization of information.

Officials with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence verbally informed key lawmakers and congressional committees of the change Saturday, saying the intelligence on threats to the November 3 presidential election would still be provided, just in a different form.

"We are committed to meeting our statutory responsibilities and keeping Congress fully and currently informed," an ODNI official told VOA on the condition of anonymity.

"For clarity and to protect sensitive intelligence from unauthorized disclosures, we will primarily do that through written finished intelligence products," the official said, adding, "We are concerned about unauthorized disclosures of sensitive information following recent briefings."

Notice sent to Congress

Letters with additional justifications for the change were also sent to lawmakers Saturday from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.

"I believe this approach helps ensure, to the maximum extent possible, that the information ODNI provides the Congress in support of your oversight responsibilities on elections security, foreign malign influence, and election interference is not misunderstood nor politicized," Ratcliffe wrote, according to a copy of the letters obtained by VOA.

"It will also better protect our sources and methods and most sensitive intelligence from additional unauthorized disclosures or misuse," Ratcliffe wrote.

Ratcliffe's letter did not provide any specific examples of what he considered to be harmful leaks, or misunderstood or politicized intelligence, as a result of previous in-person briefings.

However, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested without evidence late Saturday the blame lay with the House Intelligence Committee and its chairman, Congressman Adam Schiff.

"Probably Shifty Schiff, but others also, LEAK information to the Fake News," Trump tweeted. "these deranged lowlifes like the Russia, Russia, Russia narrative. Plays better for them. @DNI_Ratcliffe doing a great job!"

Schiff responded on Twitter, saying, "As usual, President Trump is lying and projecting.  Trump doesn't want the American people to know about Russia's efforts to aid his re-election."

Partisan anger

The change, coming just more than two months before U.S. voters head to the polls or face deadlines for submitting their ballots by mail, sparked immediate outrage from top Democrats in Congress, who accused ODNI of betraying its responsibility to lawmakers and the public at large.

"This is a shocking abdication of its lawful responsibility to keep the Congress currently informed, and a betrayal of the public's right to know how foreign powers are trying to subvert our democracy," Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

"This is shameful and  coming only weeks before the election  demonstrates that the Trump administration is engaged in a politicized effort to withhold election-related information from Congress and the American people at the precise moment that greater transparency and accountability is required," their statement said.

The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, also placed blame for the change on Trump and his administration, accusing them of trying to cover up his attempts to benefit from foreign interference.

Official: US Adversaries Taking Sides, Wielding Influence Ahead of Election

US counterintelligence officials, splitting with President Trump, warn Russian-linked actors are pulling for his reelection as China and Iran aim to put Democrat Joe Biden in the White House

"Our intelligence officials have said there's an active, ongoing assault on our democratic process from Russia," Schumer said in a statement. "President Trump is simply using John Ratcliffe to hide the ugly truth from the American people  that the president is again receiving the help of the Kremlin."

Democratic lawmakers, ODNI

Tensions between Democratic lawmakers and ODNI, which oversees all intelligence-based threat briefings, have been simmering for months.

Late last month, top Democrats slammed as insufficient a statement by William Evanina, the director of ODNI's National Counterintelligence and Security Center, for his public assessment of how Russia, China and Iran were seeking to compromise political campaigns and candidates and about the danger to U.S. election infrastructure.

"The statement gives a false sense of equivalence to the actions of foreign adversaries," the Democrats' statement said. "The Russians are once again trying to influence the election and divide Americans, and these efforts must be deterred, disrupted and exposed."

Earlier this month, Pelosi and Schiff again criticized the ODNI and Evanina, charging that an updated assessment of the threats posed by Russia, China and Iran to the November election understated the threat from Moscow, despite serious allegations against the Kremlin.

"Today's (August 7) statement still treats three actors of differing intent and capability as equal," they said at the time.

The Democratic lawmakers pointed specifically to Evanina's August 7 warning that while China and Iran would prefer to see Trump lose in November, Russia "is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President [Joe] Biden," Trump's Democratic opponent in the November elections.

"Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump's candidacy on social media and Russian television," Evanina added.

However, Republican Marco Rubio, the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the behavior of Democratic lawmakers in response to briefings, such as those from Evanina, has been unacceptable.

"His reward was to be smeared in vile and personal terms in a letter signed by Democratic leaders of Congress," Rubio said in a statement issued late Saturday.

"This situation we now face is due, in no small part, to the willingness of some to commit federal crimes for the purpose of advancing their electoral aims," he said.

"I have spoken to the Director Radcliffe, who stated unequivocally, that he will continue to fulfill these obligations. In particular, he made explicitly clear that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will continue receiving briefings on all oversight topics, including election matters," Rubio's statement said. It is unclear if the briefings will be in-person or a written report.

In contrast, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, called Ratcliffe's action "outrageous" and "an unprecedented attempt to politicize an issue  protecting our democracy from foreign intervention  that should be non-partisan."

Trump - Russia

While many Democrats have often pointed to warnings regarding suspected attempts by Russia to aid Trump, the president has repeatedly rejected any suggestions that Russia is trying to help his reelection bid.

"I don't care what anybody says," he told reporters following the August 7 threat assessment statement. "The last person Russia wants to see in office is Donald Trump because nobody's been tougher on Russia than I have, ever."

Trump has also consistently rejected the conclusions of a 2017 report by the U.S. intelligence community that found Russia aspired to help him win the 2016 presidential elections as a "political witch hunt."

Questions and concerns

Some former intelligence officials are also expressing concerns about the end of in-person briefings. They argue that while written intelligence reports can be helpful, briefings allow lawmakers to ask questions and get additional clarity  a sentiment echoed by Senate Intelligence Committee member Angus King of Maine.

"I have never been at a congressional hearing where members' questions failed to elicit important information not contained in prefiled written testimony," King said in a statement. "This includes our recent hearing with the director [Ratcliffe] on this very subject."

There are other questions, as well.

For example, it is not clear how the decision to end in-person election security briefings for lawmakers will affect briefings for congressional candidates or if there will be any changes to the way ODNI briefs the Trump and Biden campaigns.

ODNI officials did not respond to repeated questions on that matter from VOA.

White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman and congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson contributed to this story.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presides over the 6th Plenary Meeting of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang, Thursday. Yonhap



Spy agency analysis again fuels speculation on NK leader's health



By Yi Whan-woo



The analysis by the country's spy agency that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has partly delegating authority to his sister and aides is again fueling speculation over his health, following rumors and unconfirmed news in April that he was in grave danger after undergoing surgery.



Some experts said Friday that yielding power, even a bit, was unthinkable under any circumstances in North Korea led by the Kim family's three-generations of one-man rule.



They said Kim, whose obesity, chain-smoking and other health problems have always been an issue, is in a critical condition and that his regime is shifting to a new rule jointly led by his powerful younger sister Kim Yo-jong and other aides



The experts argue the NIS was mistaken when it briefed lawmakers in a closed-door session of the National Assembly Intelligence Committee, Thuerday, that Kim partly delegated his authority to reduce the stress he suffered from ruling the country for nine years.



The NIS also stated Kim left state affairs in general to Kim Yo-jong and defense, the development of strategic weapons and the economy to three trusted aides.



It claimed that the changes didn't appear to be linked to any major health problems.



"Kim Jong-un has been in a critical condition for months at least and the North Korean leadership, after panicking, eventually came up with an alternative to one-man rule," said Shin In-kyun, president of the Korea Defense Network. "And the NIS failed to see such a change and rather analyzed it as if the North Korean dictator was partly giving away his powers."



Shin said he "has no doubts" about speculation raised by another expert, Chang Song-min, who said Kim was in a coma but his younger sister had not taken over power despite the power restructuring.



A former aide to the late President Kim Dae-jung, Chang posted on Facebook, Thursday, that such an unstable shift in power was being witnessed through some of Kim Jong-un's powers being delegated to trusted officials.



"No North Korean leader would entrust any of their authority to another person unless he was too sick to rule or had been removed in a coup," Chang wrote.



He added that a complete succession structure had not been formed and Kim Yo-jong was "being brought to the fore as the leadership vacuum cannot be maintained for a prolonged period."



Other experts disagreed with the power restructuring being associated with a health problem. They speculated that while Kim has entrusted specific affairs to his aides this does not mean he is endowing them with permanent powers.



"I think the NIS should have been more careful in explaining about the change in Kim's rule," said Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong Global University. "The NIS made the wrong choice of words and this is causing misunderstanding about Kim's rule and promoting controversy over his health again."



Kim Dong-yeop, a research professor at the Kyungnam University Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said the NIS analysis of Kim being stressed out and partly delegating his authority was "disappointing."



"The NIS should have said the North Korean leader has been 'distributing missions' to his aides while being in control of all affairs, not delegating authority to his aides.'"



The professor pointed out Kim is in this mid-30s and handing over power to his aides because of stress was "even more nonsense."



"He is too young to give away his power just because he is stressed out," the professor said.


"Getting to meet them, and hear their stories, is just something super special. I know from speaking with other people that they enjoyed our presence just as much as we enjoyed theirs, and they inspire us to be better." Cadet Second Lieutenant Alexis Nyce.
Disgraced celebrity chef Pete Evans is promoting a hippy commune being developed in northern NSW.

The anti-vaxxer and 5G conspiracy theorist shared a video to his Instagram last week advertising the Nightcap on Minjungbal project at Mount Burrell near Nimbin.

The venture is offering people the chance to buy into the 3500 acre block of land and then build their own 'dwelling'.

'Exciting new adventure awaits for anyone wishing to create a new lifestyle for themselves and their family,' Evans wrote.

Pete Evans shared a video (pictured) to his Instagram promoting a hippy commune, Nightcap on Minjungbal, being established in northern NSW

In the clip, developer Adrian Brennock said the commune will act as a 'sanctuary' to protect residents from disasters that can take place in the outside world.

'If we do get locked down or there are food shortages, or whatever disasters befall us in the future, we are in a position here to be completely self reliant,' he said.

Brennock touts the land as having unlimited natural resources, including water and sun for solar power.

Investors' funds will go towards a commercial development on the site, which will include businesses such as service stations and pubs that can generate income that will feed back into the community.

Community centres, a 'sacred geometry pub', medical centre and healing hubs are also being designed to be erected on the grounds.

Evans said he jumped on board the project after discovering the ethos was 'do no harm'.

Nightcap on Minjungbal (site pictured) is being developed at Mount Burrell near Nimbin

Developer Adrian Brennock said the area has unlimited water and sunlight for solar power

People can buy into the 3500 acre block of land then build their own dwelling. Pictured is a blue print for a potential cabin

'This should be shouted to everybody  self-reliance, self-empowerment, connection to the earth, connection to spirit, connection to each other,' Evans says.

'Theres not much else to say but Im f----n in.'

Residents wishing to participate will buy shares from the company who owns the block, and then will be allocated an 'exclusive' 2.5 acre allotment.

To begin the process, members need to be 'invited in' to the project by the tribe and fellow community members, which includes some local indigenous leaders.

Applicants will then proceed through a series of interviews before they are accepted. It is unclear how much it will cost to buy in.

On its website, the Nightcap on Minjungbal writes the residents are expected to 'posses similar desires regarding lifestyle, environment and community'.

To join, members will need to be 'invited in' to the project (pictured) by the tribe and fellow community members

A map of the building site where prospective residents can buy shares into the company that owns the land in exchange for an exclusive lot

'It is expected that a level of genuine "Community" feeling will exist between all of those who reside on the land, and taking an active part in Community exercises and meetings is an important part of the decision to invite you on to the block,' it says.

'There is no desire to live in each others pockets or to be communal free loving hippies by any means, but an active group mentality is vital for those times that it is required.'

'We are very open to "alternative" style dwellings such as Earth-ships, Shipping Container Homes and so forth.'

The video has racked up more than 26,000 views, with a handful of fans expressing interest.

'Love you Pete! Im f***n in too...just need to work on my husband,' one woman wrote.

In the documentary, developers said there is ample wood from surrounding structures (pictured) that can be used for people to construct their own dwelling

The website says: 'We are very open "alternative" style dwellings such as Earth-ships, Shipping Container Homes and so forth'. Pictured is an example of a cabin built by a designer who is working on the project

Another added:'Exciting times looking forward to being part of the community. The sooner the better!'

'How much does it cost?' one man inquired.

The shared-housing community is flagged to be built on the same site where a similar venture recently failed- leaving creditors and would-be residents owed more than $2.5million dollars.

The Bhula Bhula Community Village, a colony where people paid up to $160,000 each to live off the grid in 'earthships' made from tyres, crumbled in 2017, leaving a trail of legal clashes in its wake.

Each unit holder in the village, featuring an 'amazing community centre' and 'much more', was promised three- to five-acres of private use land, in which they could 'living harmoniously' with 'co-operative power'.

However, no council development applications were lodged and Wollumbin Horizons Pty Ltd, the company behind the failed proposal, was placed into liquidation.

The site was recently bought for $2million annd was previously home to a similar project that collapsed, owing would-be-residents and creditors $2.5million

The liquidator sold the property for $2 million to another entity understood to be linked to figures involved in the previous project, the Courier Mail reports.

Adrian 'AB' Brennock, who appeared alongside Evans in the video, is the former director of Wollumbin Horizons.

However, he said the Night Cap project was 'unique'.

'It is a paradigm changing investment for people who are looking to buy into a land development that 'has never been done before,' he said in the video.

The Bhula Bhula Community Village was first marketed by the Truthology movement in 2014, with development commencing the following year.

The Tweed Shire Council launched action against the Wollumbin Horizons in the NSW Land and Environment Court in 2016 after investigations into the community found unauthorised structures and changes to vegetation on the lot.
The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) carried out provocative military movements on the southern bank of Pangong Tso on the night of August 29/30 to change the status quo in the area, the Indian Army said in a statement on Monday.

The army said it pre-empted the Chinese move. So far Chinese aggression was confined to the lakes northern bankthe Finger Area.

The statement said the army took measures to strengthen its positions and thwart the PLAs intention to unilaterally change facts on the ground on the lakes southern bank.

The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquillity through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity, the statement said. A brigade commander-level flag meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues.

Also Read: Situation in Ladakh as severe as it was during India-China war in 1962: Shiv Sena

The army said the PLA violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in eastern Ladakh. The development comes at a time when talks with China to reduce border tensions in eastern Ladakh are at a stalemate.

India and China were unable to bridge their differences on the disengagement and de-escalation process along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) during recent diplomatic talks, with New Delhi emphasising the need to resolve outstanding issues speedily, as reported by Hindustan Times on August 20.

People familiar with developments during the meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border affairs dismissed an assertion in a readout from the Chinese foreign ministry that the two sides had positively evaluated the progress in the disengagement process.

Also Read: Ahead of PM Modis visit, strategic Atal Rohtang Tunnel ready for inauguration

The military dialogue between senior commanders from the two sides has hit a roadblock due to Chinese reluctance to restore status quo ante in some key friction areas along the LAC. The commanders set the time-frame and method of disengagement while the WMCC monitors the process.

No dates have yet been fixed for the next round of talks between corps commander-ranked officers who have so far met five times but failed to break the deadlock.

The sizeable Chinese troop presence at friction points, particularly Pangong Lake and Depsang, remains an area of key concern for the Indian Army. The Finger Areaa set of eight cliffs jutting out of Sirijap range overlooking Pangong Lakehas emerged as the hardest part of the disengagement process. Disengagement has progressed somewhat smoothly at friction points in Galwan Valley and Hot Springs, but its pace remains sluggish in Gogra area.

There is growing consensus among Indian officials and China experts that military talks are unlikely to deliver further results, and the resolution of the issue will require political and diplomatic intervention. De-escalation along the disputed border can only begin after complete disengagement between the two armies on the LAC. The ground situation remains unchanged in Ladakh sector, where both armies have deployed almost 100,000 soldiers and weaponry in their forward and depth areas.

Last week, India pulled out of a multi-nation army exercise being hosted by Russia in which around 20 countries including China are expected to take part next month. Exercise Kavkaz-2020 will be held in southern Russias Astrakhan region from September 15 to 27. The Pakistan army is also likely to take part in the joint drills that are part of a four-year exercise cycle of the Russian army.

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Teresa Giudice has four children with estranged husband Joe Giudice: Gia, 19, Gabriella, 16, Milania, 15 and Audriana 11.

And on Sunday the 48-year-old Real Housewives Of New Jersey star reminded her followers that she still has an incredible figure.

The pinup shared new images where she was in a bikini as she spent time with her girlfriends in Mantoloking, a borough in Ocean County, New Jersey.

Looking good! Teresa Giudice, far right, modeled a yellow string bikini this weekend while in Mantoloking, a borough in Ocean County, New Jersey

The reality TV sensation was with her pals Jodi Brooke Gladstone, Lisa Fortunato and Kaitlin Parke.

'Suns out, guns out!' said one of her friends while the other remarked, 'Sunday Funday DTS  Love u' and another wrote, 'Summer time.'

All four women in the photos seemed to be in great shape as they posed away for the camera in swimwear.

Teresa had a very slender tummy as she wore a yellow string bikini.

The star had her breasts augmented earlier this year and took to social media to talk up the procedure with her fans.

Her pals: The reality TV sensation was with her pals Jodi Brooke Gladstone and Kaitlin Parke. 'Suns out, guns out!' said one of her pals with the other remarked, 'Sunday Funday DTS  Love u.' All four women in the photos seemed to be in great shape as they posed away

Another look: Here the TV veteran was seen on the far left while on a porch overlooking the ocean in New Jersey

'10 Years after my first Breast Augmentation I decided to have my breasts re-done. I am so thankful for Dr. Preminger @premingermd.... I was very nervous to re-do my breasts, but I felt it was necessary for me to feel like my best self,' said the star in January.

And the TV vet also commented: 'I encourage anyone who doesnt feel their best self to work on feeling better. Even if it is the smallest thing every day. If it is something that requires cosmetic surgery to feel better I highly recommend Dr. Preminger @premingermd, and could not be happier with the results. I felt like she understood me, and really made me feel comfortable.

'I am grateful to have had such a professional approach.'

Her pride and joy: The brunette shared rare photo with all four of her daughters earlier this summer. The girls are Gia, 19, Gabriella, 16, Milania, 15 and Audriana 11

This comes after the TV icon posed with her four daughters. She said in her caption she loves her kids while adding four heart emojis.

The ladies looked to be near the Jersey Shore where Teresa's brother Joe Gorga owns a home with his wife Melissa.

Teresa looked elegant in a low-cut black romper with neon yellow heels and her long brunette hair worn down.

Her kids were dressed casually in shorts and tank tops with sandals for the afternoon outing.

Daddy Joe: She had the girls with estranged husband Joe Giudice, who has been deported to Italy; a flashback photo

It is likely that they were shooting an episode of RHONJ as the series has resumed production with safety measures in place due to the pandemic.

Interestingly, her girls are almost as tall as she is.

Teresa shares Audriana and Milania, as well as daughters Gia and Gabriella with ex husband Joe Giudice, 48, who is currently residing in his native Italy after being deported from the United States last year.
Army officials at Fort Bragg, North Carolina today announced they are opening an investigation into a video posted on social media showing an Army officer telling a joke about Jewish people and the Holocaust.

The video, which began circulating on Twitter, shows Army 2nd Lt. Nathan Freihofer in civilian clothes standing in front of a mirror telling the hateful joke as he appears to render a Nazi salute.

"Listen to this one, what's a Jewish person's favorite, uh, Pokemon character? Ha ha. Ash," Freihofer said, breaking into a giggle. "And if you get offended, get the f--- out because it's a joke. Don't be a p----."

Read Next: New DARPA Chief Is 2nd Woman To Lead Pentagon's Secretive Research Arm

Freihofer is a popular TikTok influencer with 2.9 million followers. "*Videos do not represent the US ARMY," his TikTok profile reads. Many of his videos feature him in his Army camouflage working uniform.

The video with the Holocaust joke began to get more attention within the military community after Task and Purpose managing editor Paul Szoldra tweeted about it Monday.

The XVIII Airborne Corps quickly tweeted a response to the video.

"We are investigating reports of a soldier assigned to XVIII Airborne Corps allegedly making vile remarks on a social media video," the tweeted statement said. "The statement made in the video is completely inconsistent with our values. We will review all facts and take appropriate action."

XVIII Airborne spokesman Col. Joe Buccino told Military.com that the Fort Bragg officials have confirmed that Freihofer is a second lieutenant assigned to the XVIII Airborne and that the "highest levels of command are engaged in this."

The video ignited a storm of angry comments on Twitter.

"This person is in the military?" one reader commented. "This person is trusted to handle weapons and protect this country? This person lacks character."

Another person tweeted, "Tell this soldier, to try saying that joke to my face. I've stood where the ashes of millions lie. Under Title 10, of the [Uniform Code of Military Justice], Court Martial is warranted."

Another reader called the officer disgusting.

"I'm 82nd legacy, I served in Germany, I've been to Dachau. This 2nd Lt. is a disgusting example of what is WRONG right now! He does not need to be a leader of troops! PERIOD!"

In December 2019, the XVIII apologized after posting on social media channels a large photo of a notorious Nazi war criminal responsible for the massacre of American soldiers during the Ardennes Offensive when the command commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.

The Dec. 16 post, which ran on the Facebook pages of the XVIII Airborne Corps, 10th Mountain Division and the Defense Department, depicts a color image of SS Lt. Col. Joachim Peiper, a former adjutant to Heinrich Himmler.

The post resulted in outrage on Facebook and Twitter, prompting the XVIII Airborne officials to issue a statement saying that the post was "in no way intended to glorify the German forces, but to fully portray the odds stacked up against the Americans by December 19th."

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.

Related: Army Officials Apologize After Post Featuring Nazi War Criminal Triggers Backlash
Reopening restaurants now for indoor dining, at any level of capacity, is at best fraught and at worst an act of depravity.

On Aug. 26  the same day news broke that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under pressure from the Trump administration, had changed its COVID-19 testing recommendations to exclude asymptomatic persons whove come in contact with those carrying the virus (and who might be presymptomatic)  the president of the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association joined those pleading for restaurants to be permitted to open at 50% capacity. This request is based in part on the fact that restaurants havent been definitively linked to spikes in COVID-19 cases. Of course, they havent been definitively excluded, either. Reopening is a recipe for chaos and potential tragedy.

 READ MORE: Pennsylvania restaurants need 50% capacity to reopen | Opinion

As a restaurant owner, Im sympathetic to the PRLAs predicament. Once the cold weather makes outdoor dining an impossibility, indoor dining at 25% just means slow death for restaurants. We wont be able to retain all our staff or pay our bills. Fifty percent capacity might allow some  but not all, or maybe even most  of us to weather the winter months. Maybe we could retain most of our staff, but probably not.

Meanwhile, a photo of Mayor Jim Kenney dining indoors in Maryland, after hed mandated that Phillys dining rooms remain closed until Sept. 8, threatens to hijack and obscure the real issues. The mayors personal choices have nothing to do with formulating sensible public policy. While his decision might merit criticism, it does not undermine the science underlying the argument against indoor dining, nor eliminate the additional and unacceptable risks such dining presents.

Reopen or lose our restaurants remains a false choice. As I previously wrote for The Inquirer, this country has the resources to shut us (and all nonessential small businesses) down and provide our teams relief and protections, allow universal access to testing and health care, make testing readily available, and perform the contact tracing necessary to slow COVIDs spread. It simply chooses not to. Instead, were seeking to limit testing and deprive ourselves of the data essential to making educated choices. Its sociopathic.

 READ MORE: Le Virtu owner: Restaurants, including mine, should be shut down and given coronavirus relief | Opinion

The country clearly values commerce over human life. By passing the buck to restaurant owners (and others), were hoping to leverage their economic desperation to reboot the economy. My wife and I may own our restaurant, but we arent gods and dont feel qualified to make potential life-and-death decisions for our staff. Our people have cheerfully and professionally taken on the challenge of outdoor dining. And yes, were fortunate to have an outdoor area in which conscientious spacing still allows for a reasonable level of business. But indoors, where all evidence suggests that COVID-19 spreads with greater efficiency, is another story altogether.

Reopening wont even achieve its economic goals. At 25% or 50% of occupancy, restaurants will continue to die, and jobs will continue to be lost. We need additional relief in the form of Small Business Administration loans and Paycheck Protection Program monies that will allow us to fully retain staff (as weve done) through a winter shutdown and pay them a living wage. These steps and requisite testing, successful in other countries, will save our economy from long-term catastrophic loss. It will hold the fort until a vetted vaccine becomes available. This is what the PRLA and like organizations should advocate for.

 READ MORE: Philly restaurants got the green light for indoor dining at lower capacity. Do owners think its worth it?

Instead, as we head toward cold and flu season, with inadequate testing thats often hard to access and can take more than a week to provide results, were thinking of opening indoors. Every sniffle, every sore throat, every ambiguous symptom will become reason for fear. Is it COVID-19? Should we shut down the restaurant, have everyone tested, and wait for the results? Should we reach out to all our guests who mightve come in contact with a particular staff member? Should we contribute to a spike in this lethal virus  that leaves some survivors with potentially permanent, life-altering health issues  at a time when hospitals will be extra-stressed treating those suffering serious bouts of the flu? Should we just pass the buck to health-care workers, some of whom still lack adequate PPE?

My wife and I arent alone among restaurateurs in saying we wont reopen indoors. Not under these conditions. We dont believe our employees are disposable. Or our guests. We wont be part of a depraved system that values the almighty buck above human life. If that means Le Virtu is doomed, so be it. We have to be able to look ourselves in the mirror.

Francis Cretarola is the owner, with his wife Catherine Lee, of Ristorante Le Virtu.
Two men arrested on suspicion of terror offences after RAF fighter jets were forced to intercept a Ryanair flight into the UK have been released without charge.

A 34-year-old from Kuwait and a 48-year-old from Italy were detained under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act after they landed at London Stansted Airport from Vienna amid reports of a suspicious object left in the toilet.

Typhoon fighters from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire were scrambled to escort the passenger aircraft into the airport in Essex on Sunday night.

However, the object in the bathroom was later found to be a mobile phone.

Recommended Terror arrests after RAF jets scrambled to intercept Ryanair flight

Detective Superintendent Andy Waldie, the head of the Eastern Region Special Operations Units counter terrorism policing unit, said on Monday: We understandably take any reports of suspicious objects or behaviour on flights very seriously and thankfully on this occasion there was no cause for concern.

Id like to thank those on the flight for their cooperation and understanding while officers conducted their inquiries.

The force said neither of the two men was considered to have committed any offence.
It comes as last week the Cabinet rowed back on proposals to make it a criminal offence for more than six people to gather in a home, with it instead remaining a "civil offence" - a concept the Irish Council for Civil Liberties has said is adding to confusion.

The union for mid-ranking gardai has now said it is concerned the Government will introduce unworkable new laws in its push to shut down house parties during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Most of what AGSI hear is what we read in the media that seems to be leaked from Government sources, so there has been no consultation with us.

Antoinette Cunningham, general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) says they want to be consulted on any law changes that will involve gardai: Just to be clear, AGSI have not been consulted in any way in relation to any of the Government proposals around the policing of house parties or the extension of new powers around pubs.

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Most of what AGSI hear is what we read in the media that seems to be leaked from Government sources, so there has been no consultation with us about any new proposed legislation or any extension of powers to go in to peoples private dwellings.

Weve had no Government consultation whatsoever in relation to those matters.

The union has said that any plan to have garda officers raid people's homes to investigate house parties is "fraught with difficulties".

AGSI are of the view that entering a persons private home can only be done under the strictest of conditions in accordance with law and usually under warrant.

Ms Cunningham says the constitutional protections of the home are very serious: From the proposals that Government have been talking about in relation to the policing of house parties, AGSI are of the view that entering a persons private home can only be done under the strictest of conditions in accordance with law and usually under warrant.

So we would be asking the Government, if they are considering laws around the entering of a persons private dwelling, that they need to consider it really carefully and ask themselves whos going to enforce this law.
By Laman Ismayilova

Initiated by Azerbaijani Society in Barcelona (ASB), House of Azerbaijan has solemnly opened in Spain with the support of the State Committee for Work with Diaspora.

The opening ceremony was attended by Azerbaijanis living in Catalonia and representatives of communities of various nations friendly, APA reported. The event was held in accordance with the quarantine rules amid coronavirus pandemic.

The attendees were presented a congratulation letter from the Chairman of the State Committee for Work with the Diaspora Fuad Muradov addressed to Azerbaijanis living in Spain.

Furthermore, the guests enjoyed videos highlighting the 5-year activity of the Society of Azerbaijanis in Barcelona as well as the process of creating the House of Azerbaijan.

The chairman of Azerbaijani Society in Barcelona, the head of the House of Azerbaijan in Spain Kerim Kerimov, ASB board member Narmin Salayeva, Consul General of Georgia in Barcelona Ketevan Gogolashvili addressed the opening ceremony.

In their remarks, the speakers highly appreciated the activities of House of Azerbaijan. They stressed the House's role in uniting Azerbaijanis living in Barcelona and Spain as well as its activities aimed at promotion of national values and historical realities.

Detailed information was provided on 7 new projects to be carried out monthly in the House of Azerbaijan.

With support of the State Committee for Work with Diaspora, Houses of Azerbaijan are successfully functioning in Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Estonia and other countries.

Azerbaijani Society in Barcelona (ASB) is a an open space created by Azerbaijani people and international friends of Azerbaijan from Barcelona, Spain. ASB is a non-profit organization that was founded on 12 February, 2015.

The main objectives of the ASB is to increase support in the Azerbaijani Community, introduce cultures, customs , traditions and history of Azerbaijan to population of Barcelona the best way possible, etc.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Sex workers and other content creators who use the OnlyFans platform to support their livelihoods are blaming actress Bella Thorne for changes in its terms of service that include caps and holds on payments.

The changes came after a number of people were reported to have asked for refunds, saying Thorne charged $200 for a "naked" photo in which she was not nude, according to the Los Angeles Times. Thorne, who posted on her own accounts that she did not offer nudity, told the Times that the screenshot of the supposed offer circulating on social media was falsified.

Content creators say OnlyFans subsequently imposed payment caps of $50 on pay-per-view posts and a hold on payments that would force some international creators to wait 30 days to receive their money.

Users who earn a significant part of their income on OnlyFans blame Thorne for the new policies, which they say limit their ability to make money.

Thorne, 22, a former Disney star, made $1 million in her first day on the service, according to Variety.

OnlyFans said in a statement that the changes were not based on one user and that it aims to provide the best platform possible for its community.

"Transaction limits are set to help prevent overspending and to allow our users to continue to use the site safely," the statement said. "We value all of the feedback received since this change was implemented and we will continue to review these limits."

Thorne posted a series of tweets Saturday saying she apologized if she had affected sex workers' ability to make money. She said she intended only to normalize sex work and intends to speak with OnlyFans about the new restrictions.

"I wanted to bring attention to the site, the more people on the site the more likely of a chance to normalize the stigmas, And in trying to do this I hurt you," Thorne said.

Thorne told PAPER magazine that she was making a documentary about her experience on OnlyFans with Sean Baker, writer and director of the critically acclaimed films "The Florida Project" and "Tangerine." Baker denied any involvement in a statement Friday, claiming that he had only discussed a "possible collaboration" with Thorne in the "far future" and had advised her to consult with sex workers first.

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"I am an ally and have literally devoted my career to tell stories that remove stigma and normalize lifestyles that are under attack," Baker said. "I would never do anything that could possibly hurt the community."

OnlyFans is not only a platform for sex workers, giving a wide range of creators the opportunity to sell content to subscribers. It has also gained a reputation for offering a safe way for sex workers to earn money.

Critics who blame Thorne for the new policies have accused her of scamming her subscribers and hurting creators who use the platform as a primary source of income.

"I finally got caught up on Bella Thorne/ Only Fans, and a white Disney star and still *working* actress f------ up a platform that allowed sex workers to earn safely and with autonomy is basically THE snapshot of WW coopting spaces for the marginalized in the name of empowerment," a Twitter user wrote.

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Other users who have links to OnlyFans accounts and identify as sex workers also responded on Twitter, saying how frustrated they were with Thorne's joining the site and potentially inspiring massive changes when so many people in the community rely on it.

"The issue with Bella Thorne benefiting from OF is that she's not a sex worker and doesn't need to turn to this site to afford to live when so many of us rely on this money and she's totally f----- us for clout for her s----- new movie about sex work when she has no f----- idea," a user wrote.

Another user, who goes by the username missscarletthxo, asserted that thousands might suffer from what many see as the repercussions for Thorne's behavior.

"I'm sure she's a nice lady but that doesn't take away the fact MILLIONS of us now are screwed. MOTHERS who relied on that one week pay to feed their kids, DADS looking to make a little extra money for his family," missscarletthxo tweeted. "now due to her scam / "mistake".. THOUSANDS will suffer."

Rebecca Madison, a sex worker from Vancouver, British Columbia, who has worked in the industry for the past 15 years, said she earns all her income on OnlyFans during the coronavirus pandemic after she lost her "traditional" job. She has been able to live comfortably on her sole income from the site so far, but that might change soon.

"A lot of creators do only charge five or $10 or $20 to send out a whole bunch of videos to their fans and hope that some of them will buy it," Madison said. "But that really only works if you have thousands or hundreds of fans, and I personally do not have hundreds of fans. So I might only feel comfortable charging a higher amount."

For many in Madison's situation, it takes time to develop followings on OnlyFans after having worked in person for years. Madison said the website gave creators no notice about the changes, which hurt so many of them living from paycheck to paycheck.

"I think it's very important to note that it especially impacts sex workers who are already the most marginalized and having a harder time during the pandemic," Madison said. "So Black sex workers, Indigenous sex workers, queer sex workers, trans sex workers. Everyone that was already struggling."

Madison said Thorne's apology does little to correct the situation, and she wondered whether Thorne's foray into the OnlyFans platform was merely a publicity stunt.

"From my perspective, she has really made light of online sex work and made it into something of a joke and really not taken seriously the fact that this is how people are surviving, especially during a pandemic," Madison said.

Erika Heidewald, an OnlyFans creator, posted a thread on Twitter explaining the harm the reported changes created for sex workers. Heidewald detailed how the platform can lose money in processing fees for refunds, which are provided if users are scammed, and how the changes to protect the platform in turn hurt creators.

"Previously, the funds you made on OF were only pending for a week, so most creators got paid at least once a week," Heidewald wrote. "Imagine suddenly going from a weekly paycheck to a monthly paycheck. That's what's happening to 450,000 content creators."

The new $50 cap on posts comes out to about $30 for creators after platform fees and taxes, whereas workers used to be able to charge $150 to $200, Heidewald said. That results in a massive pay cut and only a monthly payday.

"Now a lot of people fundamentally do not care about this predicament bc you don't care about the lives and livelihoods of sex workers," Heidewald wrote. "And yet you still want to see porn, you just don't believe the people who create it deserve to survive."

Heidewald said in an interview that she moved to Los Angeles to work as an actress and musician but found that many in her personal networks were making good income from OnlyFans. She described her content on the website as lewd and sexy photos, and she found that the more she focused on OnlyFans rather than her other jobs, she was able to live more comfortably and worry less about rent.

She said the new changes, which creators got no warning about, had her panicked. In particular, she was worried about the 30-day hold on transfers.

"I was panicked, like definitely straight-up panicked and really upset, you know, really angry at someone for just, like, thoughtlessly coming in and harming my ability to make money like that," Heidewald said. "But yeah, I was also just scared, because, OK, I don't know when my money is going to be available before I have to pay rent."

Heidewald said that because so many OnlyFans creators have difficulty with the platform, they often withdraw their money as soon as possible in case their accounts are frozen or deleted.

Although OnlyFans has said the new policies were not implemented as a result of just one user, Heidewald is skeptical because of the timing. Even if the platform had been considering the changes, it seems likely that they were accelerated by the incident involving Thorne, Heidewald said.

"I'm sure she didn't come in, 'Yeah, I'm going to ruin things for sex workers,'" Heidewald said. "But you don't have to have that attitude to come in and ruin things for sex workers, because, really, she came in not personal, not thinking about the people who make their livelihood on this site and how she could affect them. But also, she never talked to people. She never did the research."

Heidewald hopes that if and when more celebrities decide to join OnlyFans, it happens in a way that does not push sex workers off the platform, as when Tumblr banned pornography years earlier.

"This is just a thing that happens. And so people see it happening with OnlyFans," Heidewald said. "And I think that's a real shame, because then it is also just adding to this idea that some entertainment is legitimate, other stuff isn't."

CORRECTION (Aug. 30, 2020, 4:50 p.m. ET):An earlier version of the article misstated when Rebecca Madison began using OnlyFans. She started using OnlyFans before the coronavirus pandemic, not after the pandemic began.
The All-In-One Workplace Management Platform Ranks No. 478 on the 2020 Inc. 5000 With An Impressive Growth Rate of 956-Percent

Inc. Magazine revealed that Edenthe all-in-one workplace management platform that empowers clients to work wondersis No. 478 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nations fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economys most dynamic segmentits independent small businesses. Eden joins Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia, and many other well-known names that first gained national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

Were proud to be named to the 2020 Inc. 5000 List, said Joe Du Bey, CEO and Co-Founder of Eden. COVID-19 has forced companies to reexamine what the future of the workplace will look like. Our goal is to meet the real demands of todays workplace occupiers as they navigate these evolving conditions, to create not only a productive work environment, but a safe one. As we strive to solidify our stance as the market leader for workplace management software and services, this recognition is incredibly exciting and I share this achievement with our entire team, customers, and investors.

Not only have the companies on the 2020 Inc. 5000 been very competitive within their markets, but the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior lists. The 2020 Inc. 5000 achieved an incredible three-year average growth of over 500 percent, and a median rate of 165 percent. The Inc. 5000s aggregate revenue was $209 billion in 2019, accounting for over 1 million jobs over the past three years. Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000.

The companies on this years Inc. 5000 come from nearly every realm of business, says Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. "From health and software to media and hospitality, the 2020 list proves that no matter the sector, incredible growth is based on foundations of tenacity and opportunism. The annual Inc. 5000 event honoring the companies on the list will be held virtually from October 23 to 27, 2020. As always, speakers will include some of the greatest innovators and business leaders of our generation.

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About Eden: Eden is the all-in-one workplace management platform that makes it easier for companies to run their offices. Edens best-in-class suite of workplace software enables companies to register visitors, seamlessly track employee ticketing and helpdesk requests, book rooms, manage their maintenance, and now helps teams safely return to the office with the newly-released COVID Team Safety app. Eden also offers a curated marketplace of facilities services where workplace teams can seamlessly book and manage services. Eden is based in San Francisco and investors include Y Combinator, Bessemer Venture Partners, Fifth Wall, S28 Capital, Reshape and JLL. Edens mission is to create a better place to work, for everyone. To learn more, visit www.eden.io.

More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000:

Methodology

The 2020 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2016 and 2019. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2016. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit, and independentnot subsidiaries or divisions of other companiesas of December 31, 2019. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2016 is $100,000; the minimum for 2019 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Companies on the Inc. 500 are featured in Inc.s September issue. They represent the top tier of the Inc. 5000, which can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000.

About Inc. Media The worlds most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multi-platform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit www.inc.com.

For more information on the Inc. 5000 Conference, visit http://conference.inc.com/.

Contact Details

Elise Szwajkowski

+1 212-402-3495

eszwajkowski@marinopr.com

Company Website

https://www.eden.io/
New Jersey restaurants will be allowed to reopen for indoor dining later this week for the first time in five months.

Governor Phil Murphy has announced that patrons can dine indoors again across the state from Friday.

The number of diners must be limited to 25 percent of the restaurant's capacity and tables must be spaced in accordance with social-distancing rules.

Masks will have to be worn except when eating or drinking.

'Reopening responsibly will help us restore one of our state's key industries while continuing to make progress against #COVID19,' Murphy tweeted on Monday.

Governor Phil Murphy has announced that patrons can dine indoors again across the state from Friday. Restaurants and bars have only been allowed to offer outdoor seating after they could reopen in June. Pictured above is a restaurant in Montclair, New Jersey in July

The governor is expected to elaborate later on Monday on the coronavirus status in the state, which has slowly been reopening its economy since May.

The announcement comes five months after the state shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Like neighboring New York City, restaurants and bars have only been allowed to offer outdoor seating after they could reopen in June.

Indoor dining has been prohibited in both New Jersey and New York since the coronavirus pandemic erupted in March.

Restaurants outside of NYC in other parts of the state have already been allowed to welcome back indoor diners.

There is still no word yet on when New York City restaurants can reopen for indoor dining.

New Jersey, the country's most densely populated state, was among the hardest hit in the months when the coronavirus first spread to the US.

It still has the second-most COVID-19 deaths of any state, with nearly 16,000, and is eighth among total cases with more than 193,000.

The state, however, has had much better control of the pandemic in the past several weeks with a transmission rate that has largely been below 1 percent.

Meanwhile, the New York City Hospitality Alliance has demanded that Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo release a plan for when indoor dining can resume across the city.

De Blasio had said earlier this month that there was no timeline yet for when indoor dining could resume.

Indoor dining was part of phase three of Cuomo's reopening plan for the state.

New York City entered phase three in early July but Cuomo and de Blasio have only so far allowed outdoor dining in NYC's five boroughs.

Every other county in New York state are currently allowed to have indoor dining at reduced capacity.
The Kremlin seeks to integrate Belarus.

Russia is moving to impose its economic interests onto Belarus, says Igar Tyshkevich, an international affairs expert with the Ukrainian Institute for the Future.

"It's important for Russia to do what they did in Ukraine from 2007 to 2010  the massive arrival of Russian businesses. In this format, how should they address this? Either having a weak [Alexander] Lukashenko, who has retained power through bloodshed, and is forced to peace and integration, or having a new president, who is not accepted by that very ruling vertical, the elite. In this case, Ms. [Svetlana ]Tikhanovskaya was a perfect pick because she ran without a program, and it would be naive to expect loyalty from middle-level officials," the expert told Ukraine 24 TV Channel.

The option where Belarusians reach accord is one of the worst ones for Russia

Tyshkevich has also spoken on why the founding of the Opposition Coordination Council is a threat to the Kremlin.

Read alsoPoland reacts to "Grodno annexation" allegations, condemns Russia's plan for military intervention in Belarus"In any of these scenarios, it is extremely important and beneficial for Russia to put pressure on Belarus from the perspective of integration, and that's exactly what they've been trying to squeeze out of Lukashenko. The emergence of the Coordination Council is of no benefit to Russia as this is an attempt by internal Belarusian forces to play their own game. The option where Belarusians reach accord is one of the worst ones for Russia," he said.

Belarus protests: background, reactions
NMDOT READY TO PULL POLITICAL SIGNS:

Its election sign season again. And the New Mexico Department of Transportation is ready to clean up.

Kimberly Gallegos, who handles public information for District 3, says in a Transportation Department news release that state law prohibits any person from placing, maintaining or displaying any unauthorized sign upon any highway. Especially during election years, signs are often posted on state road right-of-ways.  Signs that encroach on the right-of-way, including signs mounted to the fencing or signs/signal support posts, will be removed.

The says the department does not discriminate when removing signs. Any item that impedes the roadway or right-of-way can be considered a safety issue to pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists.

That said, you can try to get your signs back. While there is no guarantee NMDOT will have them or that they will not be damaged, Gallegos says if anyone believes their signs have been removed and collected from a state road right-of-way by the NMDOT, they are welcome to contact their local NMDOT district office to collect the signs at an agreed-upon time and district location within two weeks.

No right turn on red: Several readers have emailed in concerns about right turns. First, the no-right-on-red issue.

Dan Webster writes, Ive seen more people treat red lights as stop signs. Surprised there arent more accidents. Maybe there are. Even before the pandemic theres a very dangerous intersection near Old Town. Central Avenue/San Pasquale/Lomas is nuts.

Eastbound Central at San Pasquale clearly has a sign, No Turn on Red. Thats totally ignored. Ask any ART bus operator. The number of buses honking at motorists blowing through the red light to make their right turn to continue onto Central is staggering. Several times Ive had to brake quickly when my green arrow from westbound Central to southbound San Pasquale was interrupted by oncoming traffic turning right on red off eastbound Central/Lomas.

Similarly those turning off Lomas to San Pasquale or eastbound Central with their green arrow often have to dodge westbound Central motorists running the red light.

Traffic folks have said in previous columns that those no-right-on-red signs are placed for driver safety, especially when driver visibility is limited and/or its a complex intersection with multiple turning and through options.

Dans concern is if the city traffic department has not addressed this issue, eventually the Albuquerque Police and Fire and Rescue departments will have some cleanup to deal with.

BUT STOP IF YOU CAN TURN ON RED: Meanwhile, Marilyn Gruen writes that a reader remarked that many drivers do not come to full stops at stop lights before they turn right on a red light. This situation occurs frequently on Tramway, and I have had several close calls while biking.

When I have a green light and am biking straight through the intersection, I see the driver look quickly to the left to see if there is oncoming traffic. The driver then starts to make the right turn and proceeds into the merge lane onto Tramway. The driver has the red light, and I have the green light! Furthermore, when cars have tinted driver side windows, bikers cant tell whether they are being seen by the driver.

Marilyn asks for a reprint of the state statute. Here it is: 66-7-105C on red signals (1) vehicular traffic facing the signal shall stop before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection or, if there is no crosswalk, then before entering the intersection, and may turn right after standing until the intersection may be entered safely, provided that such vehicular traffic shall yield the right-of-way to all pedestrians and vehicles lawfully in or approaching the intersection.

AND KUDOS ON THE TRAMWAY UPGRADES: Marilyn also says, I was thrilled to read that the repaving of Tramway would be continuing northbound from Montgomery to the county line (Road Warrior, June 22). As a frequent biker on Tramway, its great to see that the new roads include designated bike lanes at the intersections.

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.
She has been keeping her delighted followers captivated with her racy social media snaps during her sunkissed break to Turkey.

And Ashley Roberts was up to her old tricks once more as she slipped into a tiny red bikini for a scenic pose by the sea in Turkey on Sunday evening.

The Pussycat Dolls star, 38, looked phenomenal as she drank in her surroundings while donning a barely-there red two-piece.

Stunner: Ashley Roberts was up to her old tricks once more as she slipped into a tiny red bikini for a scenic pose by the sea in Turkey on Sunday evening

Ashley was putting her breathtaking figure on full display for the impromptu shoot as she posed up a storm while thanking Mother Nature for her surroundings.

She scraped her blonde hair into a high bun with tendrils surrounding her face, as she shared another shot with her arms lifted above her head.

She added a caption on the duo of snaps reading: 'She holy hunni. How beautiful?! Heres to looking and hoping for a brighter rest of 2020 #wecanhope #adventure #motherearth #grateful'

Ashley revealed earlier this month she is open to the idea of adopting a child in the future. Speaking in an interview with Fabulous magazine, she said: 'I'm definitely open to the idea of adoption.

Hot stuff: The Pussycat Dolls star, 38, looked phenomenal as she drank in her surroundings while donning a barely-there red two-piece

Open and honest: Ashley revealed earlier this month she is open to the idea of adopting a child in the future. Speaking in an interview with Fabulous magazine, she said: 'I'm definitely open to the idea of adoption

'You just never know what the future is going to bring and the most important thing is to be happy and, whether my body naturally has kids or not, we'll see what life brings. I'm definitely open to that.'

Ashley also reflected on dating following her split from Italian Strictly Come Dancing professional Giovanni Pernice, 29.

The couple called time on their year-long romance in January after meeting during Ashley's stint on the BBC One dance competition in late 2018.

Red hot: She scraped her blonde hair into a high bun with tendrils surrounding her face, as she shared another shot with her arms lifted above her head

She said: 'I'm good on my own, though. I'm pretty independent. It's nice to have that connection with someone, but at the moment lockdown is still [effectively] here, so "me" is where it is.'

She said about dating in lockdown: 'You can get to know someone a bit more before other "things" can happen perhaps that's something that's positive. We'll see.'

Ashley previously revealed she tried to freeze her eggs a couple of years ago, but the process didn't work.
Reporter

Debra Pressey is a reporter covering health care at The News-Gazette. Her email is dpressey@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@DLPressey).
PODGORICA: President Milo Djukanovics pro-Western ruling party suffered a major setback in Montenegros parliamentary election, results showed on Monday, winning most votes but falling short of a majority and so requiring a coalition partner to stay in power.

The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), which has governed the tiny Adriatic republic for three decades, secured 35.06% of votes in Sundays poll, the state election commission said, based on the completed preliminary vote count.

An alliance of mainly Serb nationalist parties named For the Future of Montenegro, which seeks closer ties with neighbouring Serbia and with Russia, won 32.55% and a centrist grouping also opposed to the DPS, Peace is our Nation, got 12.53% of the vote.

The outcome is a disappointment for Djukanovic, who has steered Montenegro through the bloody collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the dissolution of a joint state with Serbia in 2006 and then took his country into NATO in 2017.

Trying to strike an upbeat note, Djukanovic told his supporters late on Sunday that the DPS, as the largest party, could secure 40 deputies in the 81-seat parliament with the help of smaller parties, but that is still one short of a majority.

The regime has fallen," said the leader of the pro-Serb opposition alliance, Zdravko Krivokapic, told his supporters.

A new day in free Montenegro has started," added Krivokapic, a university professor.

SERBIAN LINKS

Montenegrins who identify as Serbs account for about a third of the 620,000-strong population. Most Montenegrins and Serbs share a language and the Orthodox Christian faith, and many Serbian citizens have roots and families in Montenegro.

A pro-Serb government, if formed, might try to move the mountainous coastal nation closer to Serbia and Russia, but is not expected to take it out of NATO or abandon its bid to join the European Union.

Krivokapics alliance is backed by the powerful Serbian Orthodox Church, which since December has held daily protests against a law that allows the state to seize religious assets whose historical ownership cannot be proven.

Djukanovic, who faces re-election as president in 2023, and his top associates have in turn accused Serbia and Russia of using the Church and the pro-Serb opposition to undermine the independence of Montenegro and its pro-Western orientation.

Opposition leaders and democracy and human rights watchdogs have long accused Djukanovic and his party of running Montenegro as their own corrupt fiefdom with links to organised crime. The DPS denies the charges.

Montenegro deserves to be run by a government of experts," said Dritan Abazovic, leader of the green United Reform Action (URA) party, which received 5.53% in Sundays election.

Any future government must tackle an economic downturn that started in 2019 and was aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic, which gutted tourism revenues, a key driver of the economy.

The International Monetary Fund expects Montenegros economy to contract by nearly 9% this year.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
BRIDGEPORT  A 24-year-old man was found dead from a gunshot wound in Bridgeport overnight.

Officers responding to a report of a person near the corner of Iranistan Avenue and Hanover Street late Saturday found the man on the sidewalk with an apparent gunshot wound to the head, according to a release from Bridgeport police.

The man, whose identity has not yet been released, was pronounced dead at the scene by AMR emergency medical personnel, police said.

Bridgeport police detectives are asking anyone with knowledge of the incident to call Detective Cintron at 203-581-5227 or the Bridgeport Police Tips Line at 203-576-TIPS.

This is the second fatal shooting in Bridgeport this weekend. George John, 25, of Shelton, died after arriving at St. Vincents Medical Center around midnight Friday with a gunshot wound to the chest. Police said they received a ShotSpotter alert near 725 Beechwood Ave. at 11:21 p.m. Friday. John was taken to the hospital in a private vehicle.
China's 'Coercive Diplomacy' Backfires as Czech Senate Delegation Visits Taiwan

By Joyce Huang August 30, 2020

In defiance of China, a delegation, led by Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil, Sunday arrived in Taiwan on a six-day visit  the highest-level exchange between the two countries to cement economic and cultural ties.

Observers, whom VOA spoke to, noted that the visit says a lot about China's failing 'coercive diplomacy' in the Czech Republic although it remains to be seen if other European countries will follow suit to trigger a chain effect.

The Czech Republic adheres to the One China policy but maintains unofficial ties with Taiwan.

"This will be a trip to honor the spirits of late Czech President Vaclav Havel," Vystrcil told the 89-member delegation ahead of the trip, according to Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Formerly a playwright, Havel was first Czech president in 1993. He had served years in prison for his dissenting political views upholding civil activism, direct democracy and human rights  values that Vystrcil said China fails to share.

Values v.s. money

"My view is that if we focus on money, we will lose our values and the money, too" Vystrcil, the second-highest official in the Czech Republic, has repeatedly told media to characterize the delegation's visit to Taipei.

Upon the delegation's arrival, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen extended her warmest welcome by saying in a Facebook post that people in Taiwan "look forward to furthering cooperation in all areas" with the Czech delegation.

By contrast, China has nothing but negative words to say about the Czech delegation and its visit to Taipei.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian Thursday described the trip as a "despicable conduct."

China's condemnation

China's state tabloid Global Times Sunday cited China's embassy in Czech Republic to say that Vystrcil made the trip "based on his own political calculation," which has constituted an interference to China's internal affairs and a violation to the one-China principle.

China's objection, however, failed to renovate with the general public in the Czech Republic.

"In my opinion, I think he [Vystrcil] wants to send a very strong message to China that Czech Republic is a free and democratic country and we don't like any country, no matter it's China or some small countries to tell us what we should do," said Karel Picha, a Czech who has lived in Taiwan for eight years and currently runs the only Czech cuisine restaurant in Taipei.

"We don't like any country to blackmail us by [saying], hey, if you're gonna go to Taiwan, it will hurt you. So, it's a very strong statement to say that everything is not only about money," he told VOA, adding that most people in the CzechRepublic are aware of and support the visit.

China's failing coercive diplomacy

China's objections to the trip appeared to have backfired after the Czech Senate, in May, voted 50 to 1 in favor of Vystrcil's diplomatic visit to Taipei.

The vote came after the sudden death of Vystrcil's processor Jaroslav Kubera in late January, whose widow later accused China of coercing the late senator and threatening in a letter to retaliate against leading Czech companies if he were to make good on his planned visit to Taiwan.

Last Tuesday, 70 leaders from the European Parliament, U.S., Canada, and Australia issued a statement backing the Czech delegation's visit to Taipei and denouncing Chinese pressure to scuttle the trip.

Triggering a chain reaction?

But two professors in Taipei said that they are skeptical if politicians in other European countries will follow suit to trigger a chain effect, which they say will be a bigger headache to China.

"China isn't really intimidated by the Czech [delegation] as the Central European country is small. What worries China more is if politicians [across the Europe] will follow suit. A possible chain effect is what concerns China the most," said Cheng Ter-hsing, deputy executive at the Soochow University's Teaching and Research Center for Central and Eastern Europe in Taipei.

The professor said he didn't except many of Czech's neighboring countries to make a similar move as daring.

Like many governments in the Central and Eastern Europe, the Czech government, led by Czech President Milos Zeman and Prime Minister Andrej Babis, still favors closer ties with China, Cheng said.

Official statistics showed that bilateral trade between China and the Czech Republic stood at nearly $30 billion in 2019, more than triple of those between Taiwan and Czech.

Highest-level diplomatic exchange

China's relations with major European countries mainly Germany and Britian also look stable although Taiwan has now made a "diplomatic breakthrough" in the Czech Republic, said Shih Cheng-feng, a professor at National Dong Hwa University in Hualien of eastern Taiwan.

It hence remains to be seen whether the Czech delegation's visit to Taipei amplifies the overall anti-China sentiments in Europe or just the standoff in the Czech Republic between political parties with a different stance toward China, both Shih and Cheng said.

The Czech delegation is comprised of senators, politicians, including Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib, business leaders from some 40 Czech companies, scientists and media.

In the upcoming days, Vystrcil, accompanied by his delegation, is slated to attend a Taiwan-Czech investment forum on Monday and give a public speech to Taiwan's Parliament on Tuesday while making site visits in groups to several local companies in the high-tech, textile, biomedical industries.

Vystrcil and delegation members are also scheduled to meet with President Tsai on Thursday before wrapping up their last day on Friday in a forum, organized by American Institute in Taipei, to discuss shifting global supply chains.

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Ratcheting up the rhetoric, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday his country was ready to pay for its efforts to defend its rights in the eastern Mediterranean. He asked whether the people of Greece and France were ready to make the same sacrifices due to the greed and incompetence of their leaders.
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Longtime Wall Street trader makes a biblical case for capitalism: The best is yet to come

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As polling data shows that a large number of young Americans are embracing socialism, a former top Wall Street trader is making the biblical case for capitalism.

Charles Mizrahi, who was once crowned the No. 1 trader in the nation by Barrons, explained his perspective on capitalism during an interview with The Christian Post.

As a speaker at the Democrat National Convention this month called for the destruction of capitalism, Mizrahi argues that the pretense that capitalism is the cause of all of the problems that were having in the United States is misguided.

I couldnt disagree with that stronger, said the Orthodox Jew, who left his career on Wall Street behind. Capitalism has put the United States as the envy of nations throughout the world  and the greatest nation that ever existed on this planet.

Mizrahi, who now produces the newsletter Alpha Investor to show average Americans how to invest and has authored investing books, noted that capitalism can trace its roots back to the Old Testament.

For example, in Deuteronomy 15:11, God told the Israelites: There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded towards your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.

Mizrahi contends that Deuteronomy 15 highlights how the Bible  was very practical and understood the nature of people: that there will always be economic inequality.

There was never going to be a period of time where everyone was going to be equal, he asserted.

The Bible also advises a person who was blessed with wealth to provide for others and act as a social safety net, he stressed.

Multiple polls have demonstrated that many Americans, especially young Americans, do not share Mizrahis enthusiasm for capitalism.

In 2018, a poll conducted by YouGov and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found that 50% of millennials and 51% of Generation Z Americans have an unfavorable view of capitalism.

A 2019 poll from Harris Insights & Analytics found that 49.6% of millennials and members of Generation Z would prefer to live in a socialist country.

Mizrahi asked the critics of capitalism: Why is it that people are getting on ramps and rowboats and standing in line and trying to cross walls in order to come into this country? Why arent they doing that to North Korea or China or Russia?

He said that the U.S. will continue to be a great country, because of our system of government, because of our capitalist system, and because the American people are the most generous, giving people on the face of the Earth.

Mizrahi expressed disappointment that many Americans do not appreciate what an amazing country we have with the opportunity that we have.

Mizrahi predicted that the U.S. will bounce back from the difficult economic situation it finds itself in as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The best is yet to come, he asserted.

The Wall Street veteran made similar arguments in a recent Real Clear Religion op-ed titled Prosperity and Generosity: The Biblical Roots of Capitalism.

They have failed to understand that capitalism, as practiced in America, is based on Judeo-Christian values, Mizrahi argued.

In the op-ed, Mizrahi pointed to Deuteronomy 8:18, which states: Remember that it is the LORD your God who gives you the power to get wealth, in fulfillment of the covenant that He made on oath with your fathers, as is still the case.

But that wealth was not meant to be hoarded or to be used only for self-gratification and advancement, Mizrahi explained. There was an expectation from God concerning wealth and divinely ordained responsibility to be generous.

Government welfare interferes with mans responsibility to his God and his direct interaction with his community, Mizrahi continued. Is it any wonder that the atheistic leaders that dominated the communist and socialist worldviews were always quick to establish government as the source of benevolence and charity?

Mizrahis op-ed offers some advice on how to respond to the coronavirus.

We should not look for a global reset, attempt to undo the tenets of capitalism, or wait to see what the next round of government bailouts gives us, he proclaimed.

We should instead be taking hold of the opportunities that American capitalism, based on thousands of years of Judeo-Christian principles, provides to each and every one of us: to work hard, invest, thrive  and follow Gods commands to help our neighbors prosper.

Recent survey data from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University found that 98% of American respondents who said they prefer socialism over capitalism reject the biblical worldview.
Leading up to the 2020 edition of National Caretaker Appreciation Day virtual events taking place on the weekend of September 18 - 20, Standardbred Canada will profile caretakers from across the country in our Faces of Racing series.

The series continues with a profile on Shane Baglole of Cornwall, Prince Edward Island who is employed by the Steacy Stable based at First Line Training Centre.

As long as I can remember I was going to the barn with my dad, said 24-year-old Shane Baglole, an Ontario-based caretaker from Cornwall, PEI, he was always around or had horses.

With strong family involvement in the industry, Shanes passion for harness racing comes as no surprise. Ronota, his mother, is one of the track photographers at Red Shores Racetrack & Casino at Charlottetown Driving Park (CDP) and his father, Blaine, is a trainer-driver.

Baglole credits his family and friends with helping him cut his trade at the Maritime tracks. He, my dad, and Ronnie Matheson were the two biggest people that helped me get my start in the business. They taught me a lot, he told SCs Justin Fisher. I've looked up to my father and Gilles Barrieau, I've seen the way Gilles runs his stable back in the Maritimes, it's a top-notch, quality stable.

Baglole had some early success with a horse who would turn out to be one of his favourites - a No Pan Intended gelding by the name of Panacotta. With his Dad handling training and driving duties, Panacotta racked up 16 victories for the father-son partnership between August 2012 and the end of 2014, racing primarily at Red Shores at CDP.

After attending Holland College for two years, Baglole relocated to Ontario in 2016. Hes learned a great deal from the different trainers he worked with and his education in the sport hasn't stopped, but only accelerated upon entering the Shawn Steacy barn where hes been since July, 2018. The whole Steacy family has been great to me, Mark, Shawn and Clarke, they're great horsemen who have treated me amazing and are willing to teach.

Working under the trainees of champions such as Majestic Son, Hana Hanover and Sunshine Beach, Baglole, who is more interested in training than becoming a catch driver, is situated in an ideal location to continue his education. Most people want to drive, but I don't have a real interest in that. I'd rather learn more about the training side. Anybody can just drive a horse, but I'm more interested in learning how to be a trainer. If I went back home Id get my drivers license if I had a horse to drive week-in-and-week-out, but right now I'm just trying to learn more about training every day.

Working on your horse all week and then getting to see them race well, whether they win or not, it's nice to see all of your hard work you've put into the horse. It's a full week's worth of work for two minutes, so it's really rewarding when they race well, and it keeps the owners and your boss happy too, stated Baglole. One such horse that fits that description and was under the care of Baglole for over a year and happened to be one of his favourite horses to work with was pacing mare Hello Love, a winner of 17 races and more than $220,000. Hello Love made and continues to make her large contingent of owners -- including fractional ownership groups LandMark 10 and LandMark 11 -- happy week in and week out with her consistent racing efforts.

After settling in Ontario and working at the Steacy barn, Baglole began to find that he truly enjoyed breaking the yearlings and getting them to the races. The whole process of the babies coming in and [us] breaking them is my favourite part of the job, he admitted You hope that they make it and that they do well on the track. I personally enjoy the qualifying days because thats really when you get to sit back and see all you've done over those last few months with the babies. Im currently looking after five horses and they are all pretty much younger horses. Its kind of a whole years work when breaking the babies... it starts in the winter, training them down, then watching them qualify, and when they race it's like ok, now they have finally made it. Those cold days in the winter when you're out jogging them and wondering if it is all worth it...when your hard work pays off it's really nice to see.

That hard work paid off on August 25 as Moscow Moon, a two-year-old trotting colt under Bagloles care, broke his maiden in an Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots event at Woodbine Mohawk Park. A win always feels good, no matter what track or how much money youre going for! But a win with a horse that finally put everything together and figured out this racing thing is great, he posted on his Facebook account.

When asking many in harness racing what their bucket list race is, most cant say their horse has already crossed the wire first in it, or even raced in it, but the PEI native already crossed his off his list three years ago. I was lucky to have looked after Shadow Place for Kyle Fellows in the Gold Cup and Saucer in 2017 when he won, and being from PEI it's probably the biggest race for me now it would be the Little Brown Jug. I got to paddock in the Jugette last year and see how prestigious it and the Jug are, so that would be a major one to win for me, noted Baglole.

For those newbies not sure where to start, or for a seasoned veteran, Baglole believes that in a sport like harness racing everyone can learn something new each day if youre willing to listen and learn. Getting up everyday and having the ability to learn something new... nobody knows everything so if you can learn something new each day you're doing well. Just be a sponge, take everything in, absorb it all, and if you can learn something new from all the different people you work for you've probably done something right. Start small, start by doing stalls and then harness one, but mostly listen and absorb the information, you can learn something from everybody.

When asked to discuss National Caretaker Appreciation Day, Baglole had this to say, I like the day, NCAD, it's nice as a groom to get recognized because the groom looks after the horse and is probably around the horse more than anyone. The groom is the backbone of the industry in a way.

Once you're in, you get hooked and you're in for life.

(Faces of Racing image courtesy John Watkins)
Jeremiah just wanted to find his car and go home, but he was trapped.

A line of police in riot gear had just forced him and hundreds of other protesters out of Kenosha's Civic Center Park and into the street. After that, there was nowhere to go. Soldiers and cops blocked one end of the road. White guys with big guns blocked the other.

It was past 11 p.m. local time Tuesday, the third night of protests after a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back. Jeremiah had received a text from a friend saying a bunch of protesters had their tires slashed. He wanted to get to his car before vandals did. He decided the quickest path was to cut through a parking lot.

As he made his way toward it, Jeremiah saw more armed white men. Two crouched on the roof of a building, sniper style. Two or three others stood guard over the lot. One of them, a babyface with a backward ball cap, raised an assault rifle and pointed it at him.

Jeremiah, 24 and Black, was more annoyed than afraid. He'd been out protesting all summer, more than 90 days so far. He knew about these guys and their scare tactics, and he refused to be intimidated.

When the kid started yelling, Jeremiah shouted back: "I'm trying to get out of here. If you're gonna shoot me, just shoot!"

A few minutes later, Jeremiah saw the same guy pointing his weapon at someone else.

This time, Kyle Rittenhouse fired.

Rittenhouse, 17, has been charged with five felonies and a misdemeanor after shooting three people Tuesday night, two of them fatally. His lead attorney, John M. Pierce of the law firm Pierce Bainbridge, has said he plans to argue self-defense.

How we reported this story Information contained in this story comes from interviews with eight protesters who attended demonstrations in Kenosha. It also comes from firsthand observations of reporters who covered the protests and news conferences regarding the shooting of Jacob Blake by police and the shootings of three men on Tuesday night. Reporters also reviewed videos, websites, social media accounts, news releases, court records and numerous media reports. The witnesses quoted in this story were willing to have their full names published, but the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY Network, is using only their first names because of the serious nature of numerous threats and harassment directed at people involved in this case.

Story continues

Militia presence

That night had felt different from the start.

Among protesters, the rumor spread: Hundreds of white men with guns had answered an online call from a self-described militia group known as the Kenosha Guard and would be waiting in the park to shoot them.

Not nearly that many armed men showed up, but they were impossible to avoid. Some joined the marchers and pledged to protect them. Many protesters still felt more afraid than secure.

Early in the evening, before he became stranded in the search for his car, Jeremiah got into an argument with one of them. Jeremiah was talking to a reporter when an angry woman interrupted, telling him she was tired of people like him burning things down. As he argued he'd done no such thing, an armed man came up and shoved him.

"Be ready," Jeremiah recalls the man saying. "If you come toward us, we're gonna open fire."

The attitude of law enforcement was different that night, too, several people who have attended numerous protests told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. On Sunday and Monday, police had allowed demonstrators to linger in the park. But on Tuesday, what seemed like hundreds more cops than before stood shoulder to shoulder and forced them out. Several armored vehicles rolled through the grass.

Jeremiah later watched a video shot late Tuesday night that shows a law enforcement officer in an armored vehicle giving bottles of water to a group of armed men that included Rittenhouse. The officer thanks the men for their help, though they are clearly civilians in violation of the city's 8 p.m. curfew.

We appreciate you guys, the officer on the video says. We really do.

Fact check: Police gave Kyle Rittenhouse water and thanked him before shooting

In another clip, an unidentified armed white man in a baseball cap and a ballistic vest  an unofficial uniform of the self-styled militias  says this: "You know what the cops told us today? They were like, 'Were gonna push em down by you, 'cause you can deal with them and then were gonna leave.'"

Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth has said he did not deputize citizens and would never do so. Police Chief Daniel Miskinis didn't respond to the Journal Sentinel's question about whether he was cooperating with the Kenosha Guard.

Whether the statement on the video was true or not, Jeremiah believes that was the plan.

"They were pushing us to the area where the alt-right group was at," he said of law enforcement. "We were cornered."

Kyle Rittenhouse, left, with backward cap, walks along Sheridan Road in Kenosha on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2020, with another armed civilian. Prosecutors on Thursday, Aug. 27, charged Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Illinois, in the fatal shooting of two protesters and the wounding of a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during a night of unrest following the weekend police shooting of Jacob Blake.

'Avoid that guy'

Marimackenzie was serving as a volunteer street medic that night, providing first aid to injured protesters. Of Native American and Japanese descent, she'd decided to take on the role because she hated the thought of people being hurt while they were protesting violence.

Earlier in the evening, she'd treated a woman hit in the eye with a ricocheted rubber bullet and helped others wash away the tear gas that blurred their vision.

Fellow street medic Gaige Grosskreutz was helping people deal with tear gas, too. Marimackenzie, who had spent several evenings working with him throughout the summer of protests in Milwaukee, stopped to say hello. A 22-year-old with only 20 hours of street medic training to go with her CPR certification, she looked up to Grosskreutz, a licensed paramedic.

Another guy in the vicinity, one Marimackenzie didn't recognize, was telling people he was a medic, too. But he made her uneasy. He had an AR-15 slung across his chest; no medic she'd ever worked with carried a weapon like that.

Some medics arm themselves with handguns as a last resort for protection, but their priority was helping people. Usually, they were paired with security teams.

Marimackenzie's medic partner gestured to the young man.

"Avoid that guy. He looks like bad news."

She would later learn the man who'd drawn her partner's warning was Rittenhouse.

The two walked on. About 10 minutes later, Marimackenzie heard two men yelling at each other. She couldn't tell what they were saying. Shots rang out. A man fell to the ground 50 yards from her.

Before she could reach the man, later identified as Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, a group of bystanders had picked him up and placed him into a hospital SUV standing by for injured people at the edge of the Froedtert South medical center's parking lot.

"Back up!" Marimackenzie yelled at the crowds trying to livestream the scene. "Give the patient his privacy!"

She looked into the man's eyes. They were open and motionless.

As the SUV carrying Rosenbaum sped across the parking lot to the hospital's back door, Marimackenzie's medic partner told her the shooter was still in the area. The two medics crouched behind a brick hospital sign, hoping it would be enough to protect them if he opened fire again.

Her fellow medic didn't tell her until later that he'd seen the gunman run past them, less than 10 yards away.

Jeremiah saw the shooter flee, too, and he could tell the teen was scared.

"He knew he messed up," Jeremiah said. "He panicked. Even his people knew what he did was wrong. They were all shouting at him, 'What are you doing? What are you doing?' I saw it in their faces. I saw it in their body language."

A crowd of several hundred people throw things and harass law enforcement near the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha.

Kyle Rittenhouse

Rittenhouse lives in Antioch, Illinois, about 20 miles from Kenosha. Although its still not clear how he got to the scene of Tuesday night's protest, its not surprising he decided to go.

Rittenhouse considered himself a member of some sort of militia, trying to protect life and property, according to his social media posts and video interviews. Hours before the shootings, he stood in front of a boarded-up building for an interview with the Daily Caller.

"People are getting injured, and our job is to protect this business," Rittenhouse said on a video of the interview. "And my job also is to protect people. If someone is hurt, Im running into harms way. Thats why I have my rifle; Ive gotta protect myself, obviously. But I also have my med kit."

Rittenhouse idolizes the police. His social media accounts, before they were taken down Wednesday, were full of logos and memes supporting law enforcement and showing off his uniform as a member of the Illinois-based Grayslake and Lindenhurst Law Enforcement Explorer Program, which offers young people an inside look at policing.

Rittenhouse, the middle of three children, lived in Grayslake for four or five years, according to a former neighbor who declined to give her name. The children appeared to have a difficult home life growing up.

Those kids didn't have a chance," she said.

Rittenhouses parents are divorced, court records show.

In January 2017, his mother filed for a restraining order against two boys at her sons middle school. They had called him names and threatened to kick his butt, court records say.

They also had followed him and taken photos of him to post on social media. A month earlier, they had called the familys apartment and told Rittenhouse's mother she needed to watch her son or he would get hurt, she wrote in the court filing.

Rittenhouse's mother never got the restraining order. She didn't show up for a court hearing, and the matter was dropped.

Several former classmates at Lakes Community High School in Antioch told VICE News they remembered Rittenhouse as short-tempered and easily offended. He was known for his love of the police, guns and President Donald Trump, they said.

'They were heroes. They were trying to save our lives'

Jeremiah was near the back of the pack chasing Rittenhouse as he fled the parking lot where Rosenbaum died. Jeremiah was more concerned about getting to his car than he was about trying to catch the gunman.

Anthony Huber was near the front of the group. Jeremiah didn't know Huber well but had seen him around. A white ally, Huber had participated in June's Black is Beautiful Ride, a 16-mile trek to raise money for Milwaukee community groups.

At marches throughout the summer, Huber and his skateboard were a near-constant presence. He sometimes served as a scout, rolling ahead of marchers and radioing back about police or hazards along the route.

The last time Jeremiah saw him, Huber was confronting Rittenhouse, who had fallen as he ran.

"Those brave souls were the ones who ran toward him to try to grab his gun," Jeremiah said. "They were heroes. They were trying to save our lives."

Huber  armed only with his skateboard  rushed at Rittenhouse and hit him with it before being shot in the chest, stumbling a few paces and falling to the ground.

Another man stopped a couple of feet away, a handgun and a cellphone in his raised hands. A moment later, he moved toward the gunman again, without raising the gun. He was shot in the arm.

On a video, the wounded man can be heard shouting for a medic.

Rittenhouse stands and walks backward for a few paces, confirming he isn't being followed, the video shows. Then he turns and walks away.

"Everyone was yelling, 'That's the shooter!'" Jeremiah said. "And the police just let him pass."

Beth, the sheriff, has said the officers in the squad cars and armored vehicles Rittenhouse approached with his hands up probably didn't understand the shouts of the crowd because of the noise and chaos. According to his attorney, Rittenhouse went back to Antioch and turned himself in.

Response from Kyle Rittenhouse's attorney In a statement released late Friday, Rittenhouse's lead attorney, John M. Pierce of the law firm Pierce Bainbridge, characterized the shootings as self-defense. Among other things, Pierce contended:  Rittenhouse was "accosted," "verbally threatened and taunted" by "rioters" Tuesday night while guarding a mechanics shop along Sheridan Road with a group of armed men.  Rittenhouse was being chased by "rioters" when he heard a gunshot behind him. He turned and was faced with "an attacker lunging towards him and reaching for his rifle."  "A growing mob" chased Rittenhouse down the street until he fell. The people chasing him "kicked" him and "bashed him over the head with a skateboard."  "In fear for his life and concerned the crowd would either continue to shoot at him or even use his own weapon against him, Kyle had no choice but to fire multiple rounds towards his immediate attackers," the release says.

'No, I'm not OK!'

As Marimackenzie, the street medic, left her hiding place near the hospital, she came across a young woman in distress.

"Are you OK, ma'am?" Marimackenzie asked. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm not OK!" Huber's girlfriend, Hannah, screamed through tears. "My boyfriend just got shot!"

The woman was traumatized but not injured. There was nothing Marimackenzie could do.

Once Marimackenzie reached her car, she got a text: "Has anyone heard from Gaige?"

She texted back, not worried about the paramedic she respected so much: "I just saw him 15 minutes ago. I'm sure he's fine."

He wasn't.

Grosskreutz was the man shot in the arm. With no medics available to respond to his shouts for help, Grosskreutz supervised his own first aid, instructing a man who'd been livestreaming the shooting on how to apply a tourniquet.

Grosskreutz was wearing a hat and backpack that identified him as a medic when he rushed toward Huber, according to a close friend who didn't want her name used. "And yes, he had a gun because we're allowed to protect ourselves, but the gun was down, not pointed," she said.

His partner medic that night, who had first tried to help Huber, took Grosskreutz to two different hospitals, the friend said. At the first, they were asked to clear the waiting room because an injured officer was coming in. From the second, he was airlifted to Froedtert in Milwaukee for surgery.

Jeremiah also considers Grosskreutz a friend.

"He's a super-cool, laid-back guy," Jeremiah said of Grosskreutz, who is white. "He's a great advocate, a great ally, always speaking up for minority groups. He's just that person everybody loves talking to and he gives great advice."

Marimackenzie has turned to Grosskreutz for advice, too. She once called him from a Milwaukee protest when she encountered a woman with an open wound and didn't know what to do.

Marimackenzie said she's never seen him draw his weapon, not even when he was hit by a car driving through the crowd at another protest over the summer.

"Gaige is a very kind and peaceful man, and people who are trying to argue that he's not are just wrong," she said. "He never would have pulled that gun unless he thought his life was at risk."

Less than 24 hours later, the woman Marimackenzie saw outside the hospital was back in Kenosha, speaking to fellow protesters near the place where her boyfriend died.

Huber "had so much love in his heart for this city," Hannah said. "He took down an armed gunman with nothing but his f---ing skateboard, and he took that f---ing bullet.

Still traumatized by the events of the night before, Jeremiah stood and listened.

"I think we have to continue to fight," he said later. "We're trying to stop a war, not start another one. We're fighting to end racism. Fighting for a better future for our kids and our grandkids. I won't let this stop me."

Contributing: Ashley Luthern, Annysa Johnson, Jordyn Noenning, Ricardo Torres, Sarah Volpenhein and Samantha Hendrickson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Follow reporter Gina Barton on Twitter: @writerbarton

'Stay away' from Portland: City officials plead for peace after fatal shooting of 'Patriot Prayer' supporter

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Witnesses detail Kenosha shooting, seeing Kyle Rittenhouse at protest
A man was killed and another injured when a drinking party among five friends turned violent in the central Vietnamese province of Quang Nam on Saturday night, police said on Sunday.

According to preliminary information, the five factory workers are tenants at rental rooms run by landlady V.T.B. in Duy Nghia Ward, Duy Xuyen District.

On Saturday night, they gathered for a few drinks on the premises.

At around 8:00 pm, a heated row broke out among them, leading L.V.T., 40, to stab H.V.T., 48, to death with a knife.

P.D.T., 26, also sustained injuries in the struggle.

Both victims were hospitalized and treated at Quang Nam Region General Hospital while L.V.T fled the scene after the incident.

Local police are cooperating with the provincial Department of Police to take statements from witnesses, investigate the scene, and track L.V.T.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
She told The Irish Times she assumed the email was some sort of scam and dismissed it entirely until she scrolled further down through her inbox and realised there was also an email from the cottage owners and the Mayo-based auctioneer assisting with the home transfer.

She then realised she had secured her dream home way out west after an investment of just 50.

I bought five tickets a couple of weeks after reading about the cottage in The Irish Times earlier this summer but then I forgot about it completely, she said.

The home near Foxford, Co Mayo was raffled by the Canada-based Irish owners and raised just short of 1 million which will now be used to fund educational bursaries for frontline healthcare support staff.

The couple are both Covid-19 survivors and decided in June to raffle their house because they wanted to give something back after their experience with the virus.

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The winner, who wishes to remain anonymous, expressed the hope that she would be able to travel from her Dublin home to the cottage a couple of times a month and would also be able to stay there for extended periods. Like most people now I am working remotely so I will be able to do my job from anywhere, she told The Irish Times.

Her siblings can also look forward to getting keys to the new cottage and will be able to use it as a holiday home, as will her friends. It is just so brilliant, not only have I won but so much money was raised for charity and it is great so to see the health workers getting the recognition they deserve.
Kenosha Police Say 175 People Arrested in Week of Unrest

Police in Kenosha have provided a breakdown of their law enforcement activity in the week of unrest in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake.

The Kenosha Police Department said in a statement that a total of 175 people have been arrested since Aug. 24, the day after Blake, who was the subject of an arrest warrant for alleged sexual assault, suffered serious injuries in a confrontation with police.

Video of the incident showed Blake appearing to resist arrest before walking around his car while ignoring orders from the police, who had guns drawn, opening the driver side door, and reaching in. He was then shot seven times in the back by an officer. A second video showed him struggling with the officers, and state investigators said he had been tased twice, but to little effect. He survived the encounter and is recovering in the hospital, though family members and his attorney have said he is paralyzed from the waist down.

The shooting sparked a wave of protests, some turning violent, with rioters torching half a dozen buildings, including a number of small businesses. On the third night of unrest, there was a shooting that resulted in one injury and two deaths. Authorities imposed a curfew in a bid to quell the violence.

According to Kenosha police, 69 of the 175 arrests in the past week were solely for curfew violations, while 34 were arrested for breaking curfew plus additional charges, including burglary, possession of a controlled substance, and carrying a concealed weapon, with police seizing more than 20 firearms. Of those arrested, 44 were from cities other than Kenosha.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), in an op-ed published by Fox News, warned that the violence would spread unless authorities mount a tougher response to restore order and deter criminals.

Another American city is smoldering because weak politicians failed in their most basic duty: protecting the lives and property of their citizens, Cotton wrote.

The carnage will continue until mayors and governors get tough and allow the police to do their job. A return to normalcy wont come through weakness and passivity, but only by a decisive and overwhelming show of force that convinces these anarchists they cant blackmail and burn America into submission.

President Donald Trump, in a press briefing on Aug. 29, expressed interest in visiting Kenosha, with White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere later confirming that the president plans to visit the city on Sept. 1.

The White House has been humbled by the outreach of individuals from Kenosha who have welcomed the presidents visit and are longing for leadership to support local law enforcement and businesses that have been vandalized, Deere said in a statement.

President Trump looks forward to visiting on Tuesday and helping this great city heal and rebuild.

Senior Trump campaign adviser Lara Trump told Fox News on Aug. 30 that the presidents team was still working on setting up a meeting between the president and Blakes family.

Hes reached out to the Blake family, she said. I dont know if they were able to connect yet. And I dont know for sure if thats on the agenda.

The police officer who shot Blake has been placed on administrative leave and is under investigation by the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation under the states Department of Justice.
Students at a Baylor University dormitory are required to reside in place after a spike in positive coronavirus cases in a campus dormitory.

Baylor officials wrote in a letter to the community that the number of positive COVID-19 cases within Martin Hall increased from five to 21 cases within three days. All Martin Hall residents on the two affected floors  about 80 of 250 students  were notified about the next steps and university officials asked students to not leave their respective floor for four days.

Other Texas campuses also saw an increase of positive cases following the return to campus in mid-August.

Two people living in on-campus dorms have tested positive at the University of Texas at Austin, according to UT spokesman J.B. Bird. Since the beginning of August, 37 positive cases have been reported at UT.

The two people, who live in the Jester and San Jacinto residence halls, have been isolating and public health workers have reached out to any close contacts and advised them to get tested, Bird said.

Based on the timing of these cases, they would appear to be cases that fall into that time frame of when people came back to school, Bird said.

Since dorms opened on Aug. 20, eight students and five UT faculty and staff members have tested positive for COVID-19, but it is unclear how many of those individuals live in on-campus facilities or are working on campus.

The UT flagship has reported 493 COVID-19 cases since March 1 on its dashboard, which tracks the number of cases of the virus.

Baylor now plans to conduct daily rapid testing and assessment of symptoms and complete contact tracing. All positive cases have been isolated and are no longer in the dorm, university officials said. And residents on other floors were asked to not visit any of the upper floors and to contact Baylor Health Services to schedule COVID-19 testing.

In the meantime, Baylor also hopes to tailor its response to the outbreak without requiring a full quarantine for the residence hall. The university launched weekly surveillance testing Monday, which will conduct ongoing testing of 5 percent of the campus at random.

Additionally, officials reminded its campus community to wear face coverings, maintain social distance, upkeep hygiene and hand sanitizing, and to monitor for any COVID-19 symptoms.

The outbreak is just a fragment of the 645 positive cases at Baylor since the beginning of August, according to the universitys dashboard. The dashboard, updated daily at 3 p.m., showed that of those cases more than 450 are still active, and about 400 of those cases were produced in the last week.

Baylor spokeswoman Lori Fogelman said in an email that some of the positive cases noted are results from mandatory testing that occurred from before the semester began and nearly all cases have occurred off-campus. The school required all students, faculty and staff to turn in a negative test before they returned for the semester and received around 20,000 results with a positivity rate of less than 1 percent.

That means we were able to keep around 130 positive COVID-19 cases away from campus for the beginning of the semester, while also obtaining good baseline data for our ongoing mitigation efforts, Fogelman said.

Additionally, Fogelman said the dashboard numbers represent about 2 percent of the community.

Baylor anticipated an increase in cases as the semester began, but expects a decline in the days ahead as random testing begins for everyone, not just symptomatic students, Fogelman said.

Still, the rising number of COVID-19 cases has not affected Baylors plans for in-person instruction or campus activities, according to officials.

We will evaluate the need for stricter quarantine if evidence suggests that such action is necessary, Baylor officials wrote.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Summer enrollment increases at Houston colleges ahead of an unpredictable fall

Kevin Jackson, Baylors vice president for student life, said in an email to students on Aug. 25  just a day after classes began  that nearly all positive COVID-19 cases at the university came from activities and interactions among students living off-campus.

The school received reports of two off-campus parties near campus last week despite restrictions that prohibit gatherings of more than 10 people. At least one student who attended one of these gatherings has tested positive. As a result, several students have been placed on an interim suspension and at least one student organization has been suspended. The Baylor Lariat, the universitys student newspaper reported that the suspended organization was fraternity Phi Gamma Delta, which has been listed as inactive on the schools fraternity and sorority website.

Jackson advised any students who attended the parties to self-quarantine and get tested.

It is important for you to know that out of care for the entire University community, we will take swift disciplinary action to address incidents of misconduct related to COVID-19, Jackson said in an email to students. I understand these actions may seem harsh, but there is too much at stake to let the actions of a few negatively impact the health and well-being of our entire campus.

Other college campus have similarly publicized their positive COVID-19 cases, although the methods of reporting vary.

As of Monday afternoon, the updated list of August cases at Houston-area colleges are:

Prairie View A&M University: reported 57 positive cases, most of which have occurred since the mid-month return back to campus.

Texas A&M University: reported 54 positive cases  47 of the cases were from students from Aug. 1-17. The College Station flagship is working to produce a dashboard that will report COVID-19 cases.

Sam Houston State University: Of the 140 positive cases at the Huntsville college, 52 were reported in August alone. Forty positive cases have emerged since Aug. 17, Sam Houston States first day of classes.

University of Houston: The UH dashboard showed a total of 25 positive cases  seven of which were on campus.

Rice University: Of more than 9,000 people tested since the beginning of August, 10 students and six staff have tested positive, according to the Rice website. The college also reported that 28 people within its community are being quarantined  more than half of whom are off-campus  and 15 people are being isolated off-campus.

The Austin American-Statesman contributed to this report.

brittany.britto@chron.com
Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of Deere & Company

Global Credit Research - 31 Aug 2020

New York, August 31, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Deere & Company and other ratings that are associated with the same analytical unit. The review was conducted through a portfolio review in which Moody's reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), recent developments, and a comparison of the financial and operating profile to similarly rated peers. The review did not involve a rating committee. Since 1 January 2019, Moody's practice has been to issue a press release following each periodic review to announce its completion.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future. Credit ratings and outlook/review status cannot be changed in a portfolio review and hence are not impacted by this announcement. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Key rating considerations are summarized below.

Deere's A2 senior unsecured rating reflects the company's leading position as the world's largest and most competitive producer of agricultural equipment. The ratings also reflect the company's operating and financial disciplines associated with its business model, technology and expertise surrounding its precision farming, and the farm sector's favorable long-term demand fundamentals. However, the ratings consider inherent cyclicality in the agricultural equipment sector, near-term pressures from weak economy amid COVID-19, and uncertainties around U.S.-China phase one trade deal. Deere has adequate liquidity, driven by the funding requirements at its captive finance operations.

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This document summarizes Moody's view as of the publication date and will not be updated until the next periodic review announcement, which will incorporate material changes in credit circumstances (if any) during the intervening period.

The principal methodologies used for this review were Manufacturing Methodology published in March 2020, Captive Finance Subsidiaries of Nonfinancial Corporations published in August 2019 and Finance Companies Methodology published in November 2019. Please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of these methodologies.

This announcement applies only to EU rated and EU endorsed ratings. Non EU rated and non EU endorsed ratings may be referenced above to the extent necessary, if they are part of the same analytical unit.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Bruce Clark Senior Vice President Corporate Finance Group Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A. JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Robert Jankowitz MD - Corporate Finance Corporate Finance Group JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A. JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653

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Image: Pxhere

Indias ban on Chinese apps left gaping holes across sectors that homegrown apps rushed to fill in.

Before it was banned, CamScanner was a popular document scanning app, with more than 100 million downloads in India despite storing sensitive user data abroad and malware concerns. Now, an Indian startup wants to build a similar product but with a promise not to abuse users data.

Launched in the middle of June 2020 by entrepreneurs Snehanshu Gandhi, Gaurav Shrishrimal and Tamanjit Singh Bindra, Kaagaz Scanner has had 1.1 million downloads. It saw 200,000 downloads in three days after the Chinese apps were banned.

Chinese apps could still operate, but something needed to be done about the data abuse. For Kaagaz, the app, all its data is offline. Even when we launch online storage, our cloud servers will be only in India, Shrishrimal told Moneycontrol over the phone from Mumbai where the company is based.

The timing of the launch proved fortuitous. On June 30, India banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok and CamScanner, two weeks after 20 of its soldiers were killed in a clash with China along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.

Currently only on Android, Kaagaz Scanner averages about 15,000 downloads a day. The app works offline only, which means it stores no data online, on its cloud or anywhere else.

Around 60 percent of the growth is organic, without any marketing.

Also read: CamScanner alternatives: Here are five apps that you can use

A crowded space

On its initial promise, it has also raised an undisclosed amount in funding from First Cheque VC, an early-stage investor but despite this traction, challenges are aplenty.

For one, the market for digitising documents is huge. Not just startups, even technology giants such as Adobe and Microsoft, with its Lens product, have set sights on this market. These are companies with decades of experience in the digital work and productivity space and no shortage of cash.

A Google Play Store search throws up at least a dozen free documents and PDF scanner alternatives.

None of these apps charge users either. Even CamScanner, in its heyday, had a premium version for which users had to pay but the free version had enough users350 million, according to a person aware of the matter. The paid version never became mainstream.

Kaagaz faces stiff competition and Shrishrimal knows it.

We want to improve the product before launching the premium version. No one will pay for vanilla cloud storage. But I do think if we offer smart storage, people will pay for it. If you upload your documents they automatically get categorised and searchable. You are uploading so much data, the data should start working for you, he said.

Also read: Chingari has India hooked but what does it take to run a social media platform with millions of users?

The automatic sorting ties in neatly with Sorted AI, an app Shrishrimal and the other two founders launched a year before Kaagaz Scanner.

Sorted AI can automatically categorise documents, and read their dates, say insurance or passport renewal, and send reminders. This the founders believe gives them the edge.

We do have competition from big companies but we have been building our artificial intelligence (AI) product for a year now. No one else has that, Shrishrimal added.

For apps in general, downloads can be a vanity metric. The metric that determines revenue, advertising and even funding is retentionhow many users come back to the app after downloading it.

Kaagaz has about 60,000 returning users a day, which is not bad for a startup in a niche sector.

Monetisation for apps, in general, has been a challenge in India, though that is changing gradually in areas such as gaming and education.

Getting millions to pay for a service they have been getting for free for years will not be easy. But Kaagaz Scanners success will also depend on whether it can differentiate from a crowded field of competitors and can make users stick.
South Africa: Pensioner arrested for R4.3m UIF TERS fraud

Yet another suspect will appear before a commercial crimes court for alleged fraud and theft of large sums from the UIF COVID-19 Temporary Employer and Employee Relief Scheme (TERS).

The suspect, a 62-year-old, was arrested on Sunday by the Hawks Serious Corruption Investigation unit in Hammanskraal. He is expected to appear before the Pretoria Commercial Crimes Court on Monday.

This brings to 14 the number of people arrested linked to UIF (Unemployment Insurance Fund) TERS fraud.

In a statement, the Hawks said the pensioner will be charged with fraud, alternatively theft and money laundering.

The 62-year-old pensioner was arrested after he failed to disclose that he became an instant millionaire. The money was meant to remunerate employees of a certain company to be disclosed in court papers, the Hawks said.

The Hawks said they understood that the suspect worked for the same company and allegedly used the same reference number from his previous employer to apply for his UIF payout.

It was later found after numerous enquiries by the company that the money was actually paid but was redirected to the suspects account.

A case was registered and almost R4.6 million has already been recovered. He allegedly used almost R100 000 on himself.

Meanwhile, in a separate case, Sergeant Thokozane Mchunu (34), Sergeant Nqobile Witness Mzimela (39) and Sboniso Percival Khanyile (25) will also appear in the same court on Monday, after they were arrested last week in Durban for alleged fraud and money laundering of R692 000, also linked to the same UIF COVID19 TERS.

National Adhesive applied for relief funds for their employees. However, it emerged that the companys banking details were fraudulently changed and the R692 000 was redirected to another bank account.

It was ultimately found that the account belonged to Mchunu from the Durban Central Tactical Response Team.

He allegedly transferred the money to Khanyile and Mzimela, who is attached to the Durban tracking Team.

Almost R240 000 has already been frozen. A bakkie and land were also seized, and are expected to be forfeited to the State.

The National Head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI), Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya, has hailed the arrest as another breakthrough by the team, which is speedily arresting and bringing suspects to court.

This would not have been possible without a collective effort and the assistance of the National Prosecuting Authority, Asset Forfeiture Unit, Financial Intelligence Centre, Priority Crime Specialised Investigation and the Intelligence community. Their unwavering determination is highly appreciated, the Hawks said.

Lebeya said pensioners are supposed to be role models to their children and grandchildren. "Without suggesting the guilt of the suspect, behaviour of this manner suggests a bad role model."  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
President Klaus Iohannis remarks, in the message sent on Monday on the occasion of the Romanian Language Day, the effort of teachers abroad who "transmit to the new generations the roots inherited from the past and help them define themselves culturally and spiritually".

"A special message is addressed to those who speak and preserve the Romanian language abroad. I am convinced that it is not easy to preserve their identity, language and faith. I also want to note the efforts made by the Romanian language teachers abroad who pass to the the new generations the roots inherited from the past and help them define themselves culturally and spiritually. Their mission is often difficult, accomplished under difficult conditions, and therefore teachers deserve, in addition to our respect and appreciation, concrete measures to support them," said the head of state, according to the Presidential Administration.He adds that "the school not only transmits knowledge, but forms characters"."Encouraging reading, developing calligraphy, writing and pronouncing words correctly develop us as people, as a society and as a nation. Language is our treasure and it is the duty of each of us to protect it," Iohannis said.On the occasion of the celebration of the Romanian Language Day, the Cotroceni Palace will be illuminated on Monday, starting with 20:00, in the colors of the national flag.
The global race is on to develop a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19. Every country wants to make sure its scientists are at the cutting edge and its citizens arent left out once the vaccine is available.

That was the thinking in May when Canada, through the National Research Council, announced a collaboration with a Chinese company to conduct trials of a promising vaccine candidate at the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

At the time, the prime minister himself hailed the deal as a path to producing a vaccine right here at home. The NRC said it would potentially make Canadians among the first in the world to have access to a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19.

Sounded great. But its all ashes now that the NRC has pulled the plug on the arrangement. Chinese customs authorities simply wouldnt give permission for the company involved, CanSino Biologics Inc., to ship samples of its vaccine candidate, known as Ad5-nCoV, to Canada for testing. Research in this area is moving fast, and the delay effectively killed the project.

The Chinese government wont explain the hang-up and Canadas foreign minister refuses to draw the obvious conclusion: that its part of Chinas ongoing campaign to punish Canada for detaining Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Francois-Philippe Champagne just says he wouldnt necessarily link the two events.

Let us link them for him, then. If Beijing truly wanted to see cooperation between China and Canada on this vital public health issue, it would have cleared the way for CanSino to send the needed samples to Halifax. Trials would have started many weeks ago, to the benefit of Canadians, Chinese and potentially all humanity.

Aside from the possible health benefits, it would have sent a valuable signal that Beijing is willing to work with Canada despite the tense relations between the two countries.

Instead, the opposite signal has been sent  that China is practising what has become known as vaccine nationalism, using research on a potential treatment for the scourge of COVID-19 as yet another weapon in its search for advantage around the world.

It wouldnt be the first time. In July, for example, China announced it would give the Philippines preferential access to successful vaccines, just as that country reiterated its support for Chinas position in the South China Sea. The link was clear.

Perhaps this should come as no surprise, given the increasingly aggressive nature of the Chinese government under President Xi Jinping. But its still shameful, not to mention scientifically indefensible. If ever there was a problem that demands a world-wide solution and genuine cooperation among governments, its defeating the coronavirus.

The federal government has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the battle, through initiatives like the Global Coronavirus Response and GAVI, which distributes vaccines to less-developed countries. Its also putting millions toward supporting Canadian research.

This is all valuable and necessary, in part because Canada let its domestic capacity for manufacturing vaccines run down over many years. Were playing catch-up to rebuild capacity and make sure Canadians arent left out once an effective vaccine does become available.

That makes the collapse of the China deal all the more regrettable. The government is trying to fill the gap in several ways. In early August it signed deals with two major companies, Pfizer and Moderna, to secure millions of doses of vaccine candidates now in Stage 3 trials. And its working with two other promising vaccine research groups  one based in Massachusetts, the other at the University of Saskatchewan.

It all underscores the need for Canada to be at the forefront of research and to make sure Canadians have full access to a vaccine. We were caught short on PPE when the pandemic struck; theres no excuse to repeat that mistake when it comes to developing and distributing the eventual treatment.

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Pranab Mukherjee, an Indian politician who rose to high office alongside one of Indias longest-serving prime ministers, Indira Gandhi, died on Monday at a hospital in New Delhi. He was 84.

His death was announced on Twitter by his son Abhijit Mukherjee.

Before undergoing brain surgery in recent weeks, Mr. Mukherjee announced on Twitter that he had also tested positive for the coronavirus. He was later put on a ventilator and slipped into a coma, according to doctors who were treating him at a military hospital.

Though Mr. Mukherjee never became prime minister, the top post in Indias government, his ability to build consensus on contentious issues earned him the title of the indispensable man of Indias coalition-era politics. He played a major role in the government of Mrs. Gandhi and the political career of her daughter-in-law, Sonia Gandhi.

In 2012, Sonia Gandhi, the head of the Indian National Congress party, cleared the way for Mr. Mukherjee to become president, a largely ceremonial job, while passing him over for the chance to be prime minister.
A new interactive tool developed by a palaeontologist lets you see where your hometown would have been on the Earth over the past 750 million years.

The map tracks a changing world, from glacier covered continents, through the global continent of Pangea, and on to the Earth we know today.

The interactive tool was developed by Ian Webster, a former Google engineer using the PALEOMAP maps produced by geologist Christopher Scotese.

Webster created it as a way of helping people learn more about the world they live on and how continental drift has changed the planet over eons.

The world has changed dramatically over the past 750 million years and the new interactive tool lets you map this evolution

Webster said the goal was to show complicated scientific data in an easy-to-use way that teachers, parents or anyone interested int he history of Earth could use.

Browsing the history of the planet using the app shows that Florida was once submerged and the US was split by a shallow sea.

You can try the tool out for yourself on the Dinosaur Pictures website.

When loading the map you can change the year - ranging from 750 million years ago up until today - and select your home town and have it show as a pin in the map.

For example, you can type in London, England and watch it go from being landlocked to an island and back again over hundreds of millions of years.

'It shows that our environment is dynamic and can change,' Webster, told CNN.

'The history of Earth is longer than we can conceive, and the current arrangement of plate tectonics and continents is an accident of time. It will be very different in the future, and Earth may outlast us all.'

You can zoom in on different parts of the planet to see unusual features long lost to the movement of tectonic plates and geological history.

The map was built on top of geological models made by Scotese, who is also a paleogeographer - the models show plate tectonic development over time.

The first year available in the tool is 750 million years ago - not long after the first algae began to evolve in the ocean.

The map built by Webster also uses software geologists employ to visualise how the Earth's plates have evolved over geological time - called GPlates.

As you search the web app for a location it spins then puts a pin in the area of the Earth your town would have been - say 250 million years ago.

The red spot in these images shows where London, England would have been. On the left was 400 million years ago and the right just 50 million years ago

There is also a menu that lets you jump to key moments in the evolution of life on Earth - for example you can see that the first insects evolved 400 million years ago in a world of fractured continents and smaller islands.

Each 'time stamp' also includes an explanation of the most important developments during that period.

If you jump to 600 million years ago - with a world primarily made of a single continent - life was evolving in the sea and the first multicellular life was emerging.

'My software 'geocodes' the user's location and then uses (Scotese's) models to run their location backwards in time,' Webster told CNN.

'I built the interactive globe visualization and the geocoding and GPates integration myself so that people could plug in their own locations.'
MONTEREY COUNTY  The west side of the Salinas Valley is shielded from the Pacific Ocean by a vast network of oak-lined mountains that John Steinbeck once called dark and brooding  unfriendly and dangerous.

I always found in myself a dread of west and a love of east, he wrote in the opening chapter of his famous 1952 novel East of Eden, commenting on the birth and death of the day reflected by the opposite ridges framing either side of the agrarian valley.

Those imposing mountains may have never been as unfriendly and dreadful to so many people as when they began burning in August.

More than 48,000 wooded acres there were blackened by the River Fire, which destroyed or damaged 24 homes and at one point traced a menacing orange line across the western valley ridge. At night, flames were clearly visible from the produce fields below. Tens of thousands of people fled.

It was one of three major fires to besiege Monterey County in recent weeks. None was anywhere near the size of the huge LNU and SCU fire complexes further north, but the way they have intersected with the coronavirus pandemic and climate change reflects some of the most pressing issues facing the entire state.

Sara Gobets / Special to The Chronicle

At about 3 a.m. on Aug. 16, a lightning bolt suddenly struck near River Road and Pine Canyon Road a few miles south of Salinas. Dozens of homes are clustered there at the base of idyllic mountains overlooking the valley where much of the countrys lettuce and spinach is grown.

The next days brought two other nearby fires, one just to the west in Carmel Valley and another near Big Sur, that have burned more than 30,000 acres combined. Those blazes, the Carmel Fire and Dolan Fire, destroyed or damaged at least 56 homes and a condor sanctuary.

Though the county has had larger wildfires before, including in 1977, 2008 and 2016, local officials say theyve never seen such widespread burning make so many of their residents flee simultaneously.

This is history, said Michael Urquides, chief of the Monterey County Regional Fire District. Hes been a firefighter in the area since the late 1980s and has held his current role for about 15 years.

The fires came during an extreme and prolonged heat wave that sent temperatures skyrocketing across the western United States, prompting rolling blackouts in California when the states energy supplies proved surprisingly insufficient. Salinas endured several straight days with high temperatures at or above 90 degrees, which has never happened there in August before, according to the National Weather Service.

Monterey County, like the rest of California, can expect extreme heat and intense wildfires to continue, and even worsen, as the world continues warming.

California is very susceptible to these types of ignitions, said Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley. Its hotter. Its drier. Were more vulnerable.

Sara Gobets / Special to The Chronicle

The virus, heat and wildfire smoke have all uniquely harmed a group whose labor has been essential to the Salinas Valley since before Steinbecks time: the field-workers who make the region an agricultural powerhouse.

One recent day, Lauro Barajas, a regional director for United Farm Workers, stopped by a field alongside the road that gave the River Fire its name.

The smoke was so thick, he could barely see more than 150 yards ahead. After about 10 minutes, he found it hard to breathe. Workers picking strawberries had N95 respirator masks, but it was 4:30 p.m., suggesting they had been there for as much as nine hours straight, he said.

And the temperature was high, Barajas said. When you combine all that, the working conditions were pretty tough.

California workplace safety regulations require employers to protect workers when poor air quality meets certain thresholds because of wildfire smoke. But many of the farms around Salinas scrambled to keep their workers safe from heavy smoke in August. When farmers tried to order masks, some found out they could not get any for months, said Norm Groot, executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau.

So the countys agriculture commissioner helped secure a cache of masks from the state and about 175,000 of them were obtained for use by field-workers, Groot said.

Many others who labor outside on California farms did not have that protection. The union said 80% to 85% of the workers it recently surveyed statewide said they did not receive the smoke-protection masks required by law.

Panetta, the congressman, recently sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence seeking help from the White House with the timely procurement of safety equipment, including N95 masks for farmworkers.

Sara Gobets / Special to The Chronicle

Along the aptly named Sky Ranch Road, mountaintop properties offer sweeping views of the Santa Lucia and Sierra de Salinas mountains, along with the Carmel Valley below. Typically, its a peaceful and luxurious place. Now, its become another tragically Californian scene.

The Carmel Fire ignited nearby at 3 p.m. Aug. 18, and burned nearly 7,000 acres, some of it on Sky Ranch Road. Driving up to the neighborhood these days requires passing through barren hillsides and blackened trees that were once lush and green.

Not all of the properties burned. Thats partly due to the weather, the efforts of firefighters and, perhaps, Thomas Heinemann.

A 23-year resident of Sky Ranch Road, Heinemann, 62, stayed behind after the Carmel Fire broke out. Hes a search-and-rescue volunteer and is very familiar with devastating wildfires: He was one of the people who searched for human remains after the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa and the 2018 Camp Fire that nearly wiped out Paradise.

During the early stages of the Carmel Fire, Heinemann hopped in a firefighters pickup truck to help her get the lay of the land. He drove around on his scooter looking for hot spots. And he cared for the horses, chickens and goats his neighbors had to leave behind.

John Blanchard

The situation could have been much worse had the fire ignited later and moved with the same speed as wind-driven disasters like the record-setting Camp Fire, Heinemann noted Tuesday while drawing water from a 300-gallon tank to satiate neighborhood animals.

The escape would be really, really hairy, Heinemann said. It would have been something like that, like Paradise.

But it wasnt.

And Sky Ranch Road makes clear how the Monterey County fires avoided an even more damaging path in more ways than one. At one destroyed home, sunset now clearly illuminates a charred mountain range across the Carmel Valley. Its the southwestern side of the burn scar from the River Fire, which nearly merged with the Carmel Fire as it sent smoke pouring into the Salinas Valley fields.

Smoke exposure is just the latest in a long line of social ills that have fallen at the feet of Salinas Valley farmworkers. While Monterey County is not located within the Bay Area, its close enough to have felt the effects of that regions housing crisis as people scour the state for more affordable living space. The persistently high Salinas housing costs compared to farmworkers pay has often resulted in families, or at least generations, living under the same roof.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

Those crowded conditions made the coronavirus easier to spread. Among Monterey Countys 7,619 confirmed cases of the virus as of Friday, about 74% of the patients were Hispanic or Latino, county data shows. Nearly half of the total cases are concentrated in two east and north Salinas ZIP codes where many farmworkers live with their families.

Commuting adds another risk.

Workers get in a bus and sit shoulder to shoulder with each other, or they commute together in a vehicle in order to save money and to get to the right field, said state Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Salinas. Social distancing becomes very difficult.

Sara Gobets / Special to The Chronicle

Farmers have implemented precautions to slow the spread of the virus, including masks, an emphasis on handwashing and giving workers more space in the field. But the most effective tool available to other types of businesses  working from home  is impossible on the farms. Fruits and vegetables need to be picked, and Salinas Valley agriculture, with its Mediterranean climate and fertile soil, is a year-round industry.

The disease has just run through the Latino farmworker community who also have issues accessing medical care and trusting that, if they get sick, that theyll be able to get the care that they need, said Caballero, a former Salinas mayor. Its a terrible situation, because we depend on them for our food source, and yet they are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus.

Nic Coury / Associated Press

When the River Fire burned most intensely outside Salinas, a wall of fire and smoke imperiled numerous homes on and near Pine Canyon Road. Yet, as was the case in the Carmel Valley, most of the properties that were threatened were not incinerated.

Stacey Milanesa had long ago fortified her house to resist flames. After she saw how a 100-acre fire in the area lit up a eucalyptus tree like a matchstick, Milanesa decided to get a new roof made of stone-coated steel. She later added stronger windows too.

The River Fire destroyed one home on Milanesas cul-de-sac and damaged some others. Hers is one of two that remained unscathed as of Monday.

Though the latest round of fires were a more dire threat to her neighborhood than shed ever seen, Milanesa wasnt totally surprised, either.

Its California, she said. They call it the golden hills  I call it brown grass. Its dry. It burns.

Less than a mile away from Milanesas house, the view from a higher part of the Pine Canyon Road area is much different. The River Fire carved an unsparing path through that stretch of road. Where several homes once stood amid trees overlooking the Salinas Valley, today piles of ash and burnt vegetation clash against the green quilt of produce fields in the distance.

The sight is familiar to many Californians in fire zones: solitary chimneys and remnants of fireplaces surrounded by rubble, twisted metal and burned cars.

On Tuesday, mail carrier Ramon Sabillo drove his U.S. Postal Service truck up to the top of the devastated street, unsure of what he would find there. He was shocked to see the damage along the route hes driven for 15 years.

Its such a beautiful place  all greenery, all trees  now look at it, he said before turning around. Its like were in another world.

If past fires are any indication, however, the burn scar may fade faster than Sabillo realized. Winter rains will come and allow new plants to grow. The green will return, and life on the mountain will persist  as will the ever-changing threat of fires in California.

Correction: An earlier version of a map accompanying this story misidentified an area mentioned in the works of John Steinbeck. It is Corral de Tierra.

J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris
An Army drone previously used in Afghanistan is to fly over the English Channel to monitor migrant boats as the crisis continues.

The Watchkeeper drone will be used to help tackle the dangerous crossings, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

It is the first time the eye-in-the-sky war technology, which has been used by the Army in Afghanistan, will fly in the UK operationally.

The Watchkeeper drone, previously used in Afghanistan, is to fly over the English Channel to monitor migrant boats as the crisis continues

It comes as migrants continue to risk the dangerous seas in the Dover Strait, though bad weather has limited crossings recently.

Other armed forces aircraft, including Atlas A-400M, Shadow R1 and P-8 Poseidon have also been authorised to help monitor Channel crossings.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy is considering deploying small patrol boats to the Channel to assist the Border Force.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy is considering deploying small patrol boats to the Channel to assist the Border Force as the number of crossings continues to rise towards the end of the summer months

More than 5,000 migrants have crossed to the UK in small boats so far in 2020, according to analysis of Border Force records.

An MoD spokesperson said: 'The deployment of Watchkeeper provides further defence support to the Home Office in tackling the increasing number of small boats crossing the English Channel.

Watchkeeper WK450 drone stats Manufacturer: French defence contractor Thales First flown: 2010 Cost: 22 million Wingspan: 11 metres Weight: 485kg Capability: Range of 90 miles for 14 hours. Cruises at up to 16,000ft Technology: Synthetic aperture radar and a moving target indicator radar Deployments: Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, 47th Regiment Royal Artillery from Lydd airport in Kent. Advertisement

'It will provide a leading surveillance and reconnaissance capability, feeding information back to the Border Force and allowing them to take appropriate action where necessary.'

The unmanned air system (UAS) was used to support British armed forces from Camp Bastion in Afghanistan and was hailed as a 'battle-winning technology' by then defence secretary Michael Fallon in 2014.

Now it is scheduled to fly from Lydd Airport and will be operated by 47th Regiment Royal Artillery.

The MoD says the unmanned aircraft hosts a range of sensors including Electro-Optic and Infra-red full motion video day and night camera, Synthetic Aperture Radar and a Moving Target Indicator radar.

The Watchkeeper programme has cost the UK more than 1 billion, figures released in 2017 showed.

However, the drones have been beset by issues in recent years.

Four Watchkeeper drones are known to have crashed, including two which plunged into the sea off the coast of Wales in early 2017.

The other two crashes happened in 2014 and 2015 whilst landing at West Wales Airport and MoD Boscombe Down respectively.
A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com recalls how Kanyakumari MP H Vasanthakumar, the first parliamentarian to die of Covid-related complications, would address his constituents by their names, making it a point to ask after their work and family.

IMAGE: H Vasanthakumar campaigns in Kanyakumari during the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Photograph: PTI Phot.

The Congress party's member of he Lok Sabha from Kanyakumari, Harikrishnan Vasanthakumar, who passed away in Chennai on August 28 from Covid-related complications, was a down to earth man who wore his millions simply.

The 70-year-old MP was the younger brother of former Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president Kumari Ananthan. His niece, Tamilisai Soundararajan, headed the Bharatiya Janata Party's Tamil Nadu unit before being sent to Telangana as governor.

Vasanthakumar was a self-made billionaire who, in a Rediff.com interview in 2017, had told me that he had started out with only Rs 22 in his pocket to set up a retail shop selling FMCG.

Today Vasanth and Co has outlets in every district of Tamil Nadu as well as in two neighbouring states.

He also owned a television channel, Vasanth TV.

During the 2016 assembly election, we were traveling across southern Tamil Nadu and stopped over to meet Vasanthakumar who was then contesting from Nanguneri in Tirunelveli district.

In that election, his second to the state assembly, he was said to be the richest candidate in the fray.

As his convoy approached, Vasanthakumar, who was standing on top of a van and waving out to the villagers, spotted us on the wayside and asked us to hop on to the van with him.

A very friendly and down to earth candidate, he had none of that exclusive air about him.

In one village he pointed to two water tanks he had built for the residents. When asked why two tanks for one village, he said, "There are two groups in this village which don't like each other. They are both my supporters, so I built two tanks so that they don't fight over water."

In another village, there was a crowd outside a temple waiting for him and he got down to mingle with the people, calling out to many by name and enquiring after their work and families.

We asked him how he knew so many people by name, he said, "I am not new to this area, I was the MLA of this constituency from 2006 to 2011 and I have been visiting here regularly."

On how he managed to run his huge business as well as keep in touch with his constituents, he put across his mantra quite simply: "Monday to Friday is for business and weekends I spend in my constituency."

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, he won that election.

IMAGE: People take part in a silent procession organised as a mark of respect to the late MP Vasanthakumar in Kanyakumari, August 29, 2020. Photograph: PTI Photo

A few months later, I called him to say I wanted to meet him. He said he would be in his constituency for the weekend and I could meet him at Tuticorin airport when he flew down from Chennai.

There was a crowd waiting at the airport. When he saw me he invited me to travel with him in his car, so that we could finish the interview on the way. As usual he gave his answers in a direct, simple, way.

The next time I met him was at a marriage reception. He was sitting in the front row when I went over to greet him. He asked me to sit down with him and we chatted for a while. I stayed for only about five minutes as there were many people waiting to speak to him.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, he was the Congress candidate from Kanyakumari pitted against the BJP's Pon Radhakrishnan, a former Union minister.

During the election campaign I was in Nagercoil and called his mobile phone, and one of his assistants answered. He told me Vasanthakumar was busy canvassing, but he would be in Nagercoil in the evening for a public rally.

I waited at the site where the rally was supposed to be held. Soon a huge crowd gathered and the candidate arrived a little later. He got down from his car and after talking to a few party workers he approached the election van which was waiting for him. I was also waiting near that van.

He saw me, smiled, waved back as I greeted him and then climbed on to the van. He then called out to a young boy by name and asked if he was working hard for the elections. His memory for names was impressive as always.

He went on to win the election in what was a Narendra Modi wave elsewhere in the country.

Vasanthakumar asked many questions in Parliament. On March 20, he made a plea in Parliament that the coronavirus pandemic should be declared a 'national disaster', but the government did not take this demand seriously.

In a cruel twist of fate, he himself succumbed to the damned virus.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Sunday amplified his call for federal forces to help subdue protests in American cities, denouncing local Democratic leaders and fanning partisan tensions a day after a deadly clash between his supporters and social justice demonstrators in Portland, Ore., underscored the threat of rising politically motivated violence.

Scenes of Trump supporters firing paint and pellet guns at protesters during a "Trump cruise rally" caravan through downtown Portland - a liberal bastion that has been the site of weeks of street demonstrations - raised the specter that the nation's summer of unrest had entered a new phase in which the president's backers are rallying to defend businesses and fight back against Black Lives Matter and other groups he has labeled "anarchists" and "terrorists."

One man, thought to be a member of a pro-Trump group, was shot and killed Saturday night during the Portland unrest.

In tweeting a video of the caravan on the move, Trump called the participants "GREAT PATRIOTS!" The reaction marked a sharp contrast to his silence during a large and peaceful civil rights march on Friday in Washington that drew thousands to the National Mall, where some speakers denounced his leadership.

In a statement Sunday afternoon, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden "unequivocally" condemned the Portland shooting and accused Trump of "fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters."

"We must not become a country at war with ourselves; a country that accepts the killing of fellow Americans who do not agree with you; a country that vows vengeance toward one another," Biden said. "But that is the America that President Trump wants us to be, the America he believes we are."

The violence has escalated as Trump has seized on the social justice protests as a campaign wedge, attempting to tie Biden to "radical" elements on the left. Eager to shift the political debate from the rising deaths and economic toll of the pandemic, Trump has relentlessly attacked Democratic mayors and governors for failing to quell protests, and he dispatched federal law enforcement authorities into cities to help arrest demonstrators.

This week, Trump and Biden will move to address the protests in a more prominent way. Trump on Tuesday is set to travel to Kenosha, Wis., where the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black resident left paralyzed, provoked street protests that culminated in the shooting deaths of two others. Kyle Rittenhouse, a White 17-year-old who had illegally obtained a rifle, was charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the killings, which came after a fledgling militia group had posted a call to arms on Facebook.

White House aides said Trump will tour property damage and meet with law enforcement officials, but they did not disclose any plans for the president to meet with Blake's family.

Meanwhile, Biden aides said the candidate, who had maintained a lean campaign schedule, will launch a more robust public presence with a speech in southwestern Pennsylvania on Monday to address Trump's handling of the pandemic and his response to the social justice protests.

Trump aides, including White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, asserted recently that the violence and chaos will help his reelection bid.

"The only people to blame for the violence and riots in our streets are liberal politicians and their incompetent policies that have failed to get control of these destructive situations," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. "This President has condemned violence in all its forms. Americans want peace in their streets and for their children to grow up in safe neighborhoods, and only President Trump has shown the courage and leadership to achieve law and order and deliver results."

Trump's conservative supporters, including Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have seized on Rittenhouse as a figure of sympathy, suggesting that he acted legally and in self-defense. The president on Sunday appeared to offer his support by liking a tweet from a self-described former liberal activist who cited Rittenhouse as a reason to vote for Trump.

Conservatives also rallied around the Trump caravan in Portland, where the man who was killed was wearing a hat bearing the words "Patriot Prayer," the name of a far-right group organized in 2016 to bring pro-Trump rallies to liberal strongholds.

In a tweet, Trump referred to Biden as a "puppet" of "crazed leaders" on the left who envision the Portland chaos as emblematic of "Joe Biden's America."

"This is not what our great Country wants," Trump wrote. "They want Safety & Security, and do NOT want to Defund our Police!"

Biden has stated that he does not support efforts of some liberals to drastically cut funding for local police departments and instead has outlined a proposal that would increase funding for community policing programs by $300 million as long as local departments agree to conditions such as adopting new use-of-force standards and increasing diversity among their ranks.

In recent months, Trump has increasingly used official White House events, along with campaign rallies, to vilify protesters as violent and to fan fears along racial lines.

During his renomination acceptance speech, delivered Thursday at the White House for the Republican National Convention, Trump criticized Biden for not condemning "rioters and criminals spreading mayhem in Democrat-run cities." The former vice president had already spoken out against the violence and looting, saying the day before that "violence that endangers lives, violence that guts businesses and shutters businesses that serve the community - that's wrong."

"Trump has been inciting violence for years and with deadly effects," said author Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who studies authoritarian regimes. She pointed to a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, last summer by a gunman who in a manifesto cited anti-immigrant views with echoes of Trump's rhetoric.

In 2018, Cesar Sayoc, a Trump supporter, mailed inoperative pipe bombs to Trump's critics, a crime for which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. And in 2017, a white nationalist in Charlottesville, Va., drove a car into a crowd, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer as she protested the extremist "Unite the Right" march - a movement the president did not condemn unequivocally.

"Now he's trained his aim on Black Lives Matter protesters and antifa," said Ben-Ghiat, referring the racial justice group and to a loosely connected set of left-wing, anti-fascist groups. "So what is happening now with an escalation of violence is something beneficial to Trump. Strongmen leaders incite crises so they can pose themselves as the law-and-order solution."

Biden, who has sought to make Trump's handling of the novel coronavirus the focus of the election, is facing pressure from some Democrats to speak more forcefully on racial justice issues. While Biden has not outlined a clear course of action for what he would do as president to deal with protests that include violence or looting, he said last month that local authorities should arrest agitators who break the law.

"Joe Biden is not president. These things are happening now," Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said in an interview. Of Trump, Clyburn said: "How are you going to look at what's happening under your tenure and say this is what would happen with Joe Biden as your president? You are the president."

Homeland security experts said the combustible mix of sharply polarized and ideologically minded agitators mixing on the streets in cities where law enforcement authorities are strained and, in some cases, inadequately trained is a recipe for potential violence.

"It's important for government leaders at all levels to calm everyone and keep political rallies peaceful," said Tom Warrick, an Atlantic Council expert who left government service last year after serving as a career official at the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.

"The problem is that things can quickly get out of control and the uncertainty and chaos become weapons in the fight," Warrick said. "Merely the uncertainty that it will take days, or weeks, to sort out something that's happening in itself becomes a tool for division of the country, rather than the unity."

On Sunday morning, officials with binders bearing the presidential insignia joined members of the Secret Service and Kenosha police on a heavily damaged block in the city's Uptown neighborhood. As Secret Service members scouted alleys and various vantage points, White House staffers discussed the feasibility of Trump visiting the burned-out section of 22nd Avenue near 61st Street.

One building the White House advance team was surveying was the home of the Danish Brotherhood, a secular fraternal organization whose meeting place had been reduced to an ashen husk of brick and metal. A 71-year-old member of the organization was assaulted while trying to defend the building with a fire extinguisher on Monday during the protests.

A friend said the man was hospitalized, his jaw broken.

- - -

Klemko reported from Kenosha, Wis.
Made In Chelsea star Tabitha Willett has spoken out against followers asking if she was 'pregnant' as she reveals that she 'loves' how her 'tummy isn't flat anymore'.

The mother-of-one, who shares daughter Ottilie, 14 months, with club mogul fiance Fraser Carruthers, revealed how 'it's so personal and not something you should ask'.

It comes as Tabitha, 28, donned a mint green dress in an Instagram post with Ottilie on Monday as she revealed the family had the 'dreamiest little staycation'.

Natural: Made In Chelsea star Tabitha Willett, 28, has spoken out against followers asking if she was 'pregnant' and tells how her 'tummy isn't flat anymore' since becoming a mum

The influencer looked chic in the flowing high-neck dress while holding her little girl's hand at Danesfield House Hotel and Spa, Marlow-On-Thames, at the weekend.

With her blonde locks styled in a sleek middle parting, a fresh-faced Tabitha added height to her ensemble with baby pink court shoes.

Meanwhile little Ottilie looked adorable in a tartan romper with matching bow and sweet knee-high white socks.

Family time: The influencer looked chic in the flowing high-neck dress while holding her little girl's hand at Danesfield House Hotel and Spa, Marlow-On-Thames

Honest: The former reality star later posted to her Instagram Stories to reveal that she had received 'quite a few DMs' questioning if she was 'pregnant'

Captioning the snap, Tabitha, who promotes body confidence on social media, penned: 'The dreamiest little staycation this weekend.'

However the former reality star later posted to her Instagram Stories to reveal that she had received 'quite a few DMs' questioning if she was 'pregnant'.

Alongside the original picture, she wrote: 'I've had quite a few DMs asking if I was pregnant from my latest post, all from people I have never met.

Chic: Tabitha was originally set to exchange vows with Fraser at Fulham's Hurlingham Club in July

'I just thought I would say - no I'm not. I can't wait for that time to come but it's so personal and not something you should ask anyone until they feel comfortable to announce themselves.'

She continued: 'I speak really openly about my body and in particular how my tummy isn't flat anymore and I LOVE it and actually think it looks normal and feminine.

'This is real and that's the reason I haven't photoshopped out the shadow and I think I still look nice even with the tummy. Let's be nice to one another.'

Change of plans: The MIC star planned to exchange vows at the Fulham's Hurlingham Club in July with her beau but they will now get married at a register office for a smaller affair

It comes as Tabitha was originally set to exchange vows with Fraser at Fulham's Hurlingham Club in July in front of a host of celebrity guests until the pandemic forced the couple to cancel their plans.

The pair now plan to tie the knot at an intimate ceremony as soon as September with the setback meaning their toddler daughter will be able to walk with her down the aisle.

Speaking to HELLO! magazine, she said: 'We have a couple of options that we could pull off, even within two weeks notice - well, 29 days, because that's how long you need to legally leave it after you give your notice - but we're waiting for the current laws to change.'

Fraser proposed during a trip to Miami in November 2019, with a three-carat diamond engagement ring designed by Eden Rocks, the company run by MIC pal Spencer who is also expected to attend the wedding.

Made In Chelsea co-stars and new parents, Hugo Taylor and Millie Mackintosh are also expected to attend the intimate wedding ceremony.
A leading disease expert has called for Daniel Andrews to 'ring-fence' coronavirus hotspots in Melbourne in a bid to end the city's crippling lockdown.

Epidemiologist Mary-Louise McLaws said the strategy of ring-fencing COVID-19 concentrated areas would allow other parts of Victoria to safely ease restrictions.

Ring-fencing involves locking down communities in high-infection areas and having them unable to leave patrolled checkpoints without special exemptions.

The method was effective in containing coronavirus in China and during the SARS outbreak of 2003.

Melbourne is four weeks into strict stage four restrictions, with stage three stay-at-home orders implemented in regional Victoria.

WHO advisor Professor Mary-Louise McLaws said Victoria must 'ring-fence' COVID-19 hotspots in order to ease restrictions. Pictured: Police patrol outside Flinders Street Station on Thursday

Professor McLaws (pictured) believes a ring-fencing strategy is the safest way to ease restrictions through Victoria

'In order to get some compassion back, I would be thinking about identifying where are some of the hotspots within the metropolitan area, and have that ring-fenced and then ease up elsewhere,' Professor McLaws told ABC.

'But if you're going to do that, you can't have ring-fence lite. You can't have a lockdown in a hotspot, but let people leave for work.'

Professor McLaws previously suggested using a ring-fencing strategy in Victoria in June before the first stay-at-home orders were introduced in the state.

Her analysis of data groups infection numbers to find a 'red zone', where more than 100 new cases are discovered over 14 days, making the outbreak difficult to control.

Professor McLaws said Victoria is still experiencing too many cases to substantially ease restrictions.

'If you start loosening up restrictions, and I understand it's so hard, you'll never get out of this red zone and you'll have a hard border put up around you for a very long time,' she said.

She recommended using a 'traffic light' system to identify coronavirus risk areas using red, amber and green levels to ease into life after the pandemic.

Mr Andrews is under increasing pressure to reveal an exit strategy for Victoria's tough lockdown.

Premier Daniel Andrews (pictured) is under pressure to provide exit strategy for Victoria's lockdown

'It is still a bit too early for us to be able to map out an absolutely definitive plan,' he said.

'But it will not be much longer before we have more detail, we will have more to say in more detail and with the certainty that I think every Victorian is absolutely entitled to.'

The restrictions are dragging down the national economy and Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has warned the fallout will only get worse.

But with Victoria still recording very numbers of new coronavirus infections each day, the premier is in no rush to outline his plans.

The Morrison government is becoming increasingly animated in its criticisms but with federal parliament returning on Monday, it can expect to cop more uncomfortable questions itself about its mishandling of deadly outbreaks in aged care.

Walkers wearing face masks along Riverside Quay amid stage four coronavirus restrictions in Melbourne on Friday

New polling suggests people may have cooled on the federal government over its stewardship of nursing homes and overwhelmingly side with the premiers in a federal-state tussle over internal borders.

Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government was focused on blaming state counterparts instead of getting people back to work.

'It is no surprise Australians are tiring of a prime minister who chases headlines and not jobs,' he told reporters in Canberra.

Victoria recorded its deadliest day of the pandemic on Monday with 41 deaths and 73 new cases of coronavirus.

The figures bring the state's death toll from the virus to 565 and the national total to 652.

Melbourne's stage four restrictions are due to end in two weeks.

'It's hard to see that happening,' Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth told Nine on Monday.

'I think the numbers need to be a lot less than they are now.'
With the Celtics and Raptors officially kicking off one half of the Eastern Conference Semifinals on Sunday, its time to consider which two teams are most likely to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals next round.

The other half of the semis feature a much-anticipated series between the Heat and Bucks, with Game 1 scheduled to take place on Monday.

All four teams accrued impressive records during the regular season (Bucks at 56-17, Raptors at 53-19, Celtics at 48-24, and Heat at 44-29), and each have unquestionably earned the right to compete for a spot in the next round. Despite Miami finishing 12 games behind Milwaukee this season, the team is known for slowing down opposing stars and utilizing strategies such as zone defense when needed.

The Heat thrive on three-point shooting and are widely recognized as one of the top perimeter teams in the league behind the likes of Duncan Robinson, Tyler Herro and others. Therein lies a weakness for Milwaukee, which prefers to pack the interior while allowing a high rate of attempts from behind the arc.

Nevertheless, a clear talent disparity exists between the Bucks and Heat, with Milwaukee having the Defensive Player of the Year and perennial Most Valuable Player candidate in Giannis Antetokounmpo. The club also has a second All-Star in Khris Middleton, who averaged a career-high 20.9 points per game on 50% shooting from the floor and 42% from deep this season.

As for the Celtics and Raptors, Boston managed to take Game 1 behind Kemba Walkers 18 points and 10 assists  his first career playoff double-double  and Jayson Tatums 21 points. The team played without Gordon Hayward (right ankle sprain), who could return later in the series.

Toronto possesses a unique starting backcourt comprising of two smaller guards (Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet), both of whom are electric offensively and pesky on defense. However, it remains to be seen how successful the team could be in the playoffs with that undersized backcourt. The Raptors were able to force 22 turnovers on Sunday, but the team shot just 31-of-84 from the field (36.9%) and 10-of-40 from deep (25%).

What do you think? Who do you believe will reach the Eastern Conference Finals next round? Do you think the Raptors will return for a second consecutive year, or do you think the Celtics will make it for the first time since losing a seven-game series to Cleveland in 2018? Do the Heat have what it takes to defeat the star-studded Bucks, or will Milwaukee be too much to handle in a playoff series?

Vote in our poll, then take to the comments section below to voice your opinion!

Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court's decision in June striking down a Louisiana restriction on abortion clinics is giving abortion opponents an unlikely opportunity in other states.

Officials in Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Oklahoma have in recent weeks argued that the high court's 5-4 ruling actually bolsters their defense of anti-abortion laws, even though the justices ruled against Louisiana.

The states' arguments coincide with a federal appeals court decision earlier this month reinstating several abortion restrictions in Arkansas, which was based in part on the Supreme Court's seemingly pro-choice ruling.

The flurry of activity in federal and state courts is largely a result of Chief Justice John Roberts' concurring opinion in the Louisiana case  one that doomed the state's restrictions on abortion clinics and doctors but rebutted the standard used by the court's four liberal justices.

More: Supreme Court strikes down abortion clinic restrictions in Louisiana, a defeat for conservatives

The main opinion by Associate Justice Stephen Breyer said the Louisiana law, which required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, posed a "substantial obstacle" to women seeking abortions without "significant health-related benefits." Roberts, providing the crucial fifth vote, rejected the use of a balancing test and said the law should fall simply because of a 2016 Supreme Court precedent.

The court, he said, must "treat like cases alike. The result in this case is controlled by our decision four years ago invalidating a nearly identical Texas law."

Chief Justice John Roberts' separate opinion in the recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down Louisiana's abortion clinic restrictions has given abortion opponents new life in lower courts.

More: Year of surprise Supreme Court rulings shows influence of Chief Justice John Roberts

Abortion opponents have argued in several cases this summer that the five justices agreed only on the need to determine a law's burdens. That was the standard used by the high court in a 1992 Pennsylvania case that upheld abortion rights as well as reasonable state limits.

Story continues

Those defending abortion rights have responded that the balancing test standard from 2016 remains intact, giving them the ability to win if a restriction has little or no benefit to mothers or their fetuses.

What's clear for now is that the Supreme Court's latest abortion ruling "has led to more litigation rather than less," said Julie Rikelman, senior director at the Center for Reproductive Rights, who represented the Louisiana clinic at oral argument in March.

University of Virginia School of Law professor Richard Re, a scholar on court rulings that produce no majority opinion, said those arguments are likely to persist.

"This is the latest round of debate about what counts as precedent and how you evaluate precedent," Re said. "The debate will rage on."

'Strange world indeed'

Abortion rights demonstrators including Jaylene Solache of Dallas rallied outside the Supreme Court in March as the justices heard arguments in a Louisiana case.

The Supreme Court's ruling June 29 in June Medical Services v. Russo came as a surprise to abortion opponents. The court had struck down a similar restriction on clinics in Texas in 2016, but Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, who provided the fifth vote, later retired and was replaced by the more conservative Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Roberts, however, proved once again to be a stickler for process and precedent. He had dissented in the Texas case but said it should be followed in Louisiana.

Still, his separate opinion has opened the door for proponents of other restrictions  such as requirements for ultrasound tests, waiting periods and parental notification, as well as bans on the most common type of second-trimester abortions  to argue that Roberts' opinion helps their cause.

The chief justices opinion controls, because it announces the only legal proposition on which a majority of justices voting for reversal agreed: substantially burdensome laws may be unconstitutional, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Ohio is seeking to stop abortions sought at least in part because of a Down syndrome diagnosis.

Similarly, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron urged the same appeals court to reconsider its decision striking down a ban on the second-trimester abortion method known as dilation and evacuation.

Although (the Supreme Court ruling) has six different opinions, the reasoning of Chief Justice Robertss opinion governs because it has the only rationale on which the five justices who voted for reversal agreed, Cameron's office said.

Abortion rights advocates are fighting back against that argument. While acknowledging that Roberts rejected the liberal justices' test of balancing burdens and benefits, they said he did not erase prior high court rulings embracing that standard. They pointed to recent court decisions in Maryland and Texas, where judges ruled in their favor.

"It would be a strange world indeed if a single justice could overrule a prior binding decision issued by a majority of the court," said Jennifer Dalven, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's reproductive freedom project.

'Cutting their losses'

Abortion opponents demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court in June, when the justices ruled 5-4 against a Louisiana law imposing restrictions on abortion clinics and doctors.

Federal district and appeals court judges have been weighing in on both sides.

In Maryland, federal district Judge Theodore Chuang said Roberts did not single-handedly overrule the balancing test, which he then applied in striking down a federal requirement that women visit medical facilities to get abortion medication.

Chuang ruled that in-person visits provide no significant benefit and declared them unnecessary in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to block that ruling.

In Texas, a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals panel denied the state's effort to block a 2017 lower court ruling that struck down the state's ban on dilation and evacuation, the common second-trimester procedure. President Donald Trump's nominee on the panel, Judge Don Willett, dissented.

But the 8th Circuit ruling in Arkansas has given abortion opponents hope, as well as the decision by Planned Parenthood to drop its challenge to an Indiana law requiring women to get ultrasound tests at least 18 hours before an abortion procedure. That decision was due, at least in part, to an increased availability of ultrasound tests.

It seems clear that the positions taken by abortion advocates demonstrate an understanding that their cases have become much harder, said Steven Aden, chief legal officer at Americans United for Life. Theyre making strategic decisions that show that theyre cutting their losses."

Responds Rikelman: The other side is trying to use every means necessary to continue to restrict abortion" as part of a "coordinated national strategy."

Planned Parenthood isn't giving up on a separate challenge to Indiana's parental notice requirement. The two sides in that fight recently returned to court, where Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill said Roberts had the "controlling opinion" in the Louisiana case. ACLU lawyers said the 2016 Texas decision that used a balancing test "continues to provide the governing undue-burden standard."

One thing is clear in the wake of the Supreme Court's latest split decision: Battles over abortion restrictions that continue to rage in lower courts will be forced to address it.

That's already the case in federal appeals court fights over second-trimester procedure laws in Texas and Oklahoma, Ohio's Down syndrome law, Indiana's parental notice law and a Kentucky law requiring abortion providers to have agreements with local hospitals and ambulance services.

As the court fights continue, lawyers on both sides say a potential trend could emerge. Laws that impose restrictions on clinics, doctors and patients could receive more lenient treatment than tougher bans aimed at outlawing abortions at various stages of pregnancy.

The question, Aden said, is "where does the chief justice draw the line?"

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Abortion: Supreme Court's ruling for abortion rights boosts opponents
Charged are Josiah Davis, of the 10800 block of King Drive, Malik Lucas, of the 10600 block of Lowe Avenue, Elijah Morris, of the 11000 block of Wallace Street, Zion Perry, of the 10000 block of Wallace Street and Davion Rashad Smith, of the 700 block of 92nd Place, police said.
China has launched an investigation into drought subsidies for Australian wine producers, as new research shows Beijing's use of coercive diplomacy against foreign governments and companies has drastically increased over the past three years.

Australia was hit with the anti-subsidy investigation on the same day Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei quit as the major sponsor of the Canberra Raiders NRL team on Monday, lashing out at the "the continued negative business environment" it faces in Australia.

It is the fourth dispute between Australia and its largest trading partner in recent weeks after stoushes over the Mengniu dairy takeover, beef infringements and allegations of dumping, as the fraying economic partnership is increasingly tied to the degenerating political relationship between the two countries.

A man sits in front of a wine shop that sells Australian wines in eastern Beijings Tongzhou district. Credit:Sanghee Liu

Australia has made a number of moves in recent years to anger Beijing including the ban on Huawei from next-generation networks, foreign interference laws, pushing for an independent COVID-19 inquiry and last week's decision to increase its control over foreign agreements involving universities and state governments.
The most powerful tool for better health is education. To get our country off its sickbed and functioning again, it is crucial that we fully reopen both our schools and our universities.

But that won't happen as long as millions are terrified of returning to normal life. The Government urgently needs to send out a clear, concise message that the risk from Covid-19 is currently low.

This is evidenced by the death toll. It is vital that people understand that the mortality rate and the number of hospital admissions are the key figures  not the infection rate.

On Sunday, just a single death from Covid-19 was reported in Britain. That's one person out of a population of roughly 66million. Yesterday, it was two people  every death a personal tragedy for the families involved, but statistically a very low number.

Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the University of Oxford's Centre for Evidence-based Medicine, wants to see all children back at school

There are currently about 430 people in critical care beds being treated for the novel coronavirus. That is compared to 17,000 at the height of the crisis in April. The gulf is vast.

Don't be misled, as so many people are, by the rise in infections nationally. On Sunday, 1,715 people across Britain tested positive for Covid-19, the most since early June. It's easy to misinterpret that data and to assume that we're in the grip of the feared 'second wave'.

We are not. There is currently no second wave. What we are seeing is a sharp rise in the number of healthy people who are carrying the virus, but exhibiting no symptoms. Almost all of them are young. They are being spotted because  finally  a comprehensive system of national test and trace is in place.

And while young people might have an infection, they appear well and healthy, not showing any symptoms.

We also need to reassure parents that it's safe for children to return to school this week. School-age pupils are the least likely to display any Covid-19 symptoms, and it will be a tragedy if they are denied the chance to restart their education by ill-founded fears.

We need our children to be smarter than ourselves to ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of our current generation  we need them to be in class.

Pupils at Rosshall Academy wear face coverings as it becomes mandatory in corridors and communal areas on August 31,

The alarmists will say that such asymptomatic people are just as likely to spread the coronavirus  and are perhaps even more dangerous, because they don't know they have it. That fear simply is not borne out by the experience of the past six months.

On the contrary, when the whole country was locked down, it was the younger people who remained free of the infection. And while everyone stayed home, it spread like wildfire in our hospitals and, most deadly of all, in care homes for the elderly.

Care home cases have now fallen sharply, though we have yet to eradicate the danger. We know that infection rates have risen among the young, but we are not seeing any subsequent infections among the elderly.

The evidence is becoming clearer. Young people provide no protection to older members of society by staying away from school, university and work. But they wreak terrible long-term damage in other ways by maintaining their social isolation.

For anyone who has been sheltering since March, the situation seems frightening. If you haven't set foot in your office for months, naturally you will be anxious.

And how much worse that is for children and students who haven't seen the inside of a classroom or lecture theatre since the spring. They need reassurance, and it is the job of teachers and lecturers to provide that.

Boris Johnson wants the re-opening of our schools to be the springboard that brings the rest of Britain back to normality

That's why I am disappointed with any lecturer or university official claiming they are being forced into the firing line by uncaring ministers. We have to find a compromise that reflects the critical need to get students back into lectures and tutorials.

As a university lecturer myself, I know the answer is to be pragmatic. We can ensure proper social distancing is observed, by moving some (but far from all) of the work online. Large groups can then be split up and seen on a staggered schedule. We need to apply common sense to get Britain's education back on track. If that doesn't happen, the consequences will be catastrophic. Some activists want colleges to stay closed until January, which is ludicrous  everything we know about coronavirus pathogens tells us they are more virulent in winter. We might be in the grip of a genuine second wave by the New Year.

What happens then? If the spring term is cancelled, following an autumn no-show, university students will have been left to drift for a year. It's hard to imagine the system could ever fully recover: our top tier of education, the envy of the world, will be irreparably damaged.

That is brutally unfair on young people whose lives will be permanently affected. It will also have a devastating effect on the country's capacity to recover from the pandemic. We need young people with world-class education to reboot our economy. Without them, we are lost.

Denied the opportunity to complete the education that they have worked for all their lives, hundreds of thousands of young people's health and wellbeing could suffer. A new epidemic, far more insidious and afflicting the youngest generation of adults, will take hold.

We can all do our bit to suppress the spread of the infection. We need to be vigilant and flexible. Anyone who has even mild symptoms should get themselves tested, and self-isolate until they get their results back. Hand-washing and social distancing are as essential as ever.

These precautions have been effective in pubs and restaurants. We need the courage to apply them in the workplace too. There's no reason to fear infection in shops and offices  and everything to fear if we can't get them running normally again.

Above all, we need to restart our universities. They are Britain's brains trust, a resource of inestimable value for both students and the whole economy. We cannot allow them to disintegrate.

Professor Carl Heneghan is director of the University of Oxford's Centre for Evidence-based Medicine
The Constitutional Court of Armenia hasnt accepted for proceedings the applications of the Prosperous Armenia faction of the National Assembly of Armenia and independent MP Tigran Urikhanyan (Urikhanyan is not part of the faction) challenging the constitutionality of the law on constitutional amendments adopted by the National Assembly. This is what Secretary of the Prosperous Armenia faction Arman Abovyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Abovyan said the Constitutional Court didnt accept the applications for proceedings since the applications needed to be signed by 27 deputies, but there were only 26 signatures.

In any case, for us, applying to the Constitutional Court with 26 signatures was a political action. We knew very well what could have happened, and this is why I would like to remind that there is also another application that we have submitted with the Bright Armenia faction, Arman Abovyan said.

On July 26, the Prosperous Armenia Party applied to the Constitutional Court to challenge the constitutional amendments adopted by the Parliament on June 22.

Based on the amendments, Hrayr Tovmasyan had to be relieved of his post of President of the Constitutional Court, and judges having served for 12 years had to be dismissed.

The Bright Armenia faction didnt join the application, declaring that it will apply to the Constitutional Court after the end of the examination of the case of second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan in the Constitutional Court.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was admitted to the here on August18 for post-COVID care, was discharged on Monday morning, sources said.

TheAIIMS had said in a statement on Saturday that "he has recovered and islikelyto be discharged in a short time".

On August 2, Shah, 55, had said on Twitter that he had tested positive for COVID-19. He had undergone treatment at Medanta Hospital and was discharged after he tested negative for the disease.

He was later admitted to the following complaints of fatigue and body ache.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has built a plan to resume international air routes, firstly the ones linking with the Republic of Korea (RoK) and Japan on September 15.

Vietnam Airlines is the largest airline in Vietnam

CAAV Director Dinh Viet Thang told Vietnam News Agency on August 31 that the country has finished discussion about flight resumption with the two Northeast Asian nations.

Accordingly, there will be eight flights per week in total, four linking with Japan and another four with the RoK.

All passengers boarding those flights to Vietnam will be subject to mandatory 14-day quarantine to prevent COVID-19 transmission, he noted.

The Ministry of Transport is set to have a meeting on September 1 with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defence, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs to discuss the resumption of international air routes in detail, especially the quarantine of passengers.

Before the resurgence of COVID-19 in late July, the Transport Ministry had proposed commercial international air routes be reopened on August 1.

Facing the latest outbreak, air travel demand in the country has dropped sharply.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation forecast it would take until 2024 for the worlds aviation industry to recover their business to the 2019 level. Vietnamese airlines are predicted to suffer from losses of over 4 billion USD this year. VNA
Breakfast radio veteran Robin Bailey has revealed the heartbreaking truth behind a glamorous throwback picture of herself at a charity ball.

The 51-year-old, whose second husband died of cancer last September, shared a picture she associates with his memory on Monday, ahead of this year's Bravehearts Ball.

The 2019 event, which annually supports people affected by child sexual assault, was one of the last outings Bailey had with Sean Pickwell before he died on September 26.

The 56-year-old's death followed that of Bailey's first husband, Tony Smart, who took his own life in September 2014. He is the father of her children - Fin, Lewin and Piper.

Bailey, who was pictured with wings on at the charity event, detailed why she called it 'F*****d Off Fairy' in her post on Instagram and Facebook.

The 50-year-old, whose second husband died of cancer last September, shared a picture she associates with his memory on Monday (pictured), ahead of this year's Bravehearts Ball

'It was taken just over 12 months ago when Sean was very, very sick but put on his wedding suit to accompany me to the Bravehearts Ball (the theme was fairytales),' she said.

'I am one of their ambassadors and he really wanted to do this for me.

'This photo was taken as I was clearly deep in thought but says so much to me about believing in the best (with wings firmly in place) but facing up to the worst.'

Bailey then called on the public for its opinion on printing the picture in black and white or colour to mark the occasion.

Bailey is still grieving the death of Pickwell, and her post followed another highlighting her 'dark' weekend.

'I'm fine and I don't day this for sympathy but I also don't want to just go on social media showing happy snaps when the reality isn't that,' she said in an Instagram post on Sunday.

'I'm fine but I'm really, really sad and unlike most days, when these moments pass, this weekend they haven't.

'I have a list of tools I go through to try and push through the sadness and for me one is exercise.'

The Brisbanite's posts also followed a heartfelt message to her 30-year-old self in July, which offered words of hope and encouragement, despite enduring 'absolute devastation' in recent years.

'I'd tell Robin that she would have three incredible sons whose unique personalities would both challenge and excite her,' Bailey told The Courier Mail.

Sean Pickwell (pictured with wife Robin Bailey) was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2017, and proposed to Bailey just days after finding out his liver cancer had spread to his bones, blood and other organs. Pickwell died in September last year

Robin Bailey jetted off to India with her three sons (pictured) to 'reconnect as a family of four again' after the death of her second husband, Sean Pickwell, in September

'I'd tell her that everything she hoped for them would be marred by tragedy in their short lives but that they will be more than OK ... And finally I'd tell her that her life will be blessed and she will feel unbelievable love and absolute devastation.'

Bailey added she would 'survive' the devastation, which would make her more grateful for her closest friends and family in the years to come.

Bailey only returned to the airwaves in January, joining the Australian Radio Network's (ARN) 97.3 FM's breakfast show.

It is the first she has worked since resigning from Triple M Brisbane in September to spend more time with her dying spouse.

Robin Bailey and Sean Pickwell (pictured with Bailey's three sons family) made a conscious decision to make as many memories together as they can before Pickwell's imminent passing

Bailey was was given free reign over music choices in an emotional final program.

She played hits including 'Eye of the Tiger' by Survivor, and choked back tears throughout the bulletin.

'Leaving this show is the first time I have walked of my own accord,' Bailey said during the broadcast.

'I don't think anyone thought it was going to work. It did  we found a way of respecting each other.'

Fast-forward to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bailey said she was taking time to reflect on the past 12 months and was grateful for her job as a broadcaster.

'Every day I have moments of not wanting to face the world but so what, that's called life. No one can make my life better except me so I am bloody grateful for this job, that it is with people I respect, doing something I love and hopefully making a difference to people who need it,' she said.

Pictured: Robin Bailey with her first husband, who took his own life after a battle with depression

Pictured: Radio host Robin Bailey farewells her husband who died of cancer only a few years after her first partner took his own life in an emotional funeral service

Bailey shared the news of her second husband's passing on her Facebook page on September 26.

'What can I say ... my big beautiful panda has gone. He died as he lived ... his way ... at home with us holding him ... early this morning,' she wrote.

'In this moment there are no words or feelings that can truly express the love and gratitude I have for my husband Sean Pickwell.

'He came into our lives and healed us. He loved me so hard and taught me so much and now whatever life throws at us we will be stronger, wiser and more fierce because of him.

'He was my absolute soul mate, the true love of my life and whatever I do from now on he will be in my heart and in my corner cheering me on.'

Following the tragedy, Bailey sold her $500,000 home and embarked on a soul-searching trip to India with her three sons.

She regularly posted pictures of the family as she worked on reminding the boys 'how lucky they are'.

While in India, Ms Bailey uploaded regularly as she worked on reconnecting and reminding the boys 'how lucky they are'

Ms Bailey visited temples and mosques to enrich herself in the religions of India

'I want us to taste, smell, touch and feel things that challenge us,' she wrote on the day they set off to India.

The family visited temples and mosques to experience the different cultures in India.

On the second day, they visited a Sikh temple which helps feed 70,000 people, a market with cheap fake designer products, and then a lunchtime chat about the Indian caste system.

It was then she realised she was missing her husband, but was going to continue pushing through.

'I'm missing Sean desperately,' she captioned the photo.

'We used to have our travelling routine down pat but I'm pushing the boys to take some control as God knows I don't know how to do it all and we are working it out.'

For confidential support call the Lifeline 24-hour crisis support on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636
Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, left, U.S. President Donald Trump's senior adviser Jared Kushner, center, and U.S. National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien, right, board the Israeli flag carrier El Al's airliner as they fly to Abu Dhabi for talks meant to put final touches on the normalization deal between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, at Ben-Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, on Aug. 31, 2020. (Nir Elias/Pool Photo via AP)

First Direct Israel-UAE Commercial Flight Lands in Abu Dhabi

ABU DHABI, United Arab EmiratesA Star of David-adorned El Al plane flew from Israel to the United Arab Emirates on Aug. 31, carrying a high-ranking U.S. and Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi in the first-ever direct commercial passenger flight between the two countries.

The Israeli flag carriers flight marked the implementation of the historic U.S.-brokered deal to normalize relations between the two nations and solidifies the long-clandestine ties between them that have evolved over years of shared enmity toward Iran.

With the United States as matchmaker, Israel and the Emirates agreed earlier this month to work toward normalization, which would make it the third Arab nation to have full relations with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan. Unlike those two nations, Israel has never fought a war against the UAE and hopes to have much-warmer relations.

The American delegation included President Donald Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as national security adviser Robert OBrien. Israel was represented by national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and other top officials.

At an airport ceremony in Abu Dhabi, Kushner called the visit a historic breakthrough and expressed hope this will be the first of many such flights.

There is great urgency between the people of both countries to break down old barriers, to get to know each other, to form new and hopefully very deep friendships, he said.

U.S. Presidential Adviser Jared Kushner, center right, and U.S. National Security Adviser Robert OBrien, center left, pose with members of the Israeli-American delegation in front of the El Als flight, which will carry the delegation from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi, at the Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, on Aug. 31, 2020. (Menahem Kahana/Pool Photo via AP)

State television in Abu Dhabi broke into its broadcast to show the airplane on the tarmac and aired the comments of all officials, including Ben-Shabbat, who spoke in Arabic and Hebrew. No Emirati officials spoke at the ceremony.

We came here in broad daylight and before the eyes of all in a plane bearing the flag of Israel along with our American friends, Ben-Shabbat said. Israel and the UAE have much in common. Our region is full of challenges and threats. But we have the strength and the ability to stand against them.

The El Al flight, numbered LY971 after the UAEs international calling code number, flew into Saudi Arabian airspace shortly after takeoff and later passed over the capital, Riyadh. That marked another historic first for Israel and signaled acquiescence by the kingdom for the UAEs move.

They were very gracious to allow us to fly over their airspace, which theyve never done before, for an Israeli commercial plane, Kushner said.

U.S. National Security Advisor Robert OBrien, center right, and U.S. President Trumps senior adviser Jared Kushner, second from right, prepare to board a flight with an Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi for talks meant to put final touches on the normalization deal between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, at Ben-Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, on Aug. 31, 2020. (Nir Elias/Pool Photo via AP)

He said he would be traveling to Saudi Arabia after the visit. Kushner and other officials have said they hope more Arab nations will follow the UAE in establishing ties with Israel, even without a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Saudi King Salman, along with other Gulf Arab leaders to varying degrees, maintain their boycotts of Israel in support of Palestinians obtaining an independent state. Any regular flights between Israel and the UAE would require Saudi clearance to be profitable. Otherwise, the three-hour, 20-minute flight would have taken more than seven hours.

The plane was decorated with the words for peace in Arabic, Hebrew, and English above the pilots window.

The Arabic, English, and Hebrew words for peace is seen on the Israeli flag carrier El Als airliner which will carry Israeli and U.S. delegations to Abu Dhabi at Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, on Aug. 31, 2020. (Nir Elias/Pool Photo via AP)

The Israeli delegation will stay in the capital, Abu Dhabi, for one night before returning home on El Al flight LY972, a reference to Israels international calling code.

Private jets have earlier flown between the two nations as part of covert talks, and Abu Dhabis Etihad Airways flew cargo freighters to Israel before to deliver coronavirus aid to the Palestinians. But the high-profile flight on Aug. 31 looked to place a solid stamp on the surprise Aug. 13 White House announcement of Israel and the UAE establishing ties.

Since then, telephone calls were connected, and the UAEs ruler issued a decree formally ending the countrys decades-long boycott of Israel. Some Israeli firms have already signed deals with Emirati counterparts, and the visit is expected to usher in further business cooperation.

The UAE has touted the deal as a tool to force Israel into halting its contentious plan to annex parts of the West Bank sought by the Palestinians for their future state. It also may help the Emirates acquire advanced U.S. weapons systems that have been previously unattainable, such as the F-35 fighter jet. Currently, Israel is the only country in the region with the stealth warplanes.

The Palestinians, however, have fiercely opposed the normalization as peeling away one of their few advantages in moribund peace talks with Israel. Palestinians have held public protests and burned the UAE flag in anger.

In the West Bank, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said it was very painful to see the flight take place. He also criticized El Al for picking a plane named for Kiryat Gat, a southern Israeli city built near the ruins of what were once Arab villages before the 1948 establishment of Israel.

During the Arab-Israeli war at that time, thousands of Egyptian troops were encircled by Israeli forces, including future Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

It hurts us very much today when an Israeli plane lands in the Emirates, under the flight name Kiryat Gat, the settlement which was built on the occupied Palestinian lands of the town of Fallujah in which Gamal Abdel Nasser was trapped, in a clear and a blatant violation of the Arab position toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, he said.

Shtayyehs government has severed ties with the United States and rejected Trumps Mideast plan, saying it unfairly favors Israel.

In a reference to the Palestinians, Kushner said the very few who have been critical of this peace agreement are the ones with a long track record of failure and trapping their people in misery and poverty.

But he also said he sent a message of hope to the Palestinians.

When they are ready, the whole region is very excited to help lift them up and move them forward. But they cant be stuck in the past, he said.

Israelis eagerly anticipate the prospect of mutual embassies, expanding tourism to the Gulf, and solidifying business opportunities with another country that shares its penchant for technology and innovation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has touted the deal as validation of his vision that regional peace doesnt require Palestinian acquiescence or come at the cost of ceding land.

But he has come under fire from supporters at home for seemingly giving up on dreams of annexation and tacitly agreeing to the F-35 sale that could undermine Israels regional superiority. Kushner reiterated the U.S. commitment to maintaining Israels qualitative military advantage over its Arab neighbors.

For Trump, the accord delivers a key foreign policy victory as he faces a tough reelection campaign. It also helps solidify an emerging anti-Iran alliance that includes Israel and pro-Western Arab governments.

Right now, the biggest threat we see in the region is Iran, Kushner said.

By Aron Heller
US pressuring Saudi Arabia to join Israel-UAE meeting in Abu Dhabi: Report

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 5:53 PM

A new report has revealed that the Americans are mounting pressure on Saudi Arabia to join a trilateral summit of Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the US, which is due to be held in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said on Sunday that Saudi envoys may arrive in Abu Dhabi on Monday to join the trilateral summit, which will focus on the normalization deal that Washington brokered between Israel and the UAE earlier this month.

Earlier, Reuters quoted an informed source as saying that an Israeli airliner will fly to the UAE on Monday with aides to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump aboard to put final touches on the normalization pact.

The Israeli report said Jared Kushner, an advisor to Trump, National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien, US Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz and other US officials will travel to the UAE together with an Israeli delegation led by Meir Ben-Shabbat, the regime's security advisor.

Meanwhile, Kushner is also trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to join the signing ceremony of the normalization agreement in October.

"Ahead of the planned event in Washington, Kushner and his aides have recently been working with [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed] bin Salman to approve the dispatching of high-ranking Saudi envoys to Abu Dhabi as early as tomorrow, in parallel with the arrival of the Israeli delegation," Yedioth Ahronoth said.

The Middle East Eye news portal had previously revealed that bin Salman had pulled out of a planned visit to Washington DC to meet Netanyahu after he received reports that news of his trip had been leaked.

Sources told MEE that Trump and Kushner have been pushing for the meeting to happen to relaunch bin Salman's image as a young Arab peacemaker and shore up regional support for the deal between Israel and the UAE.

The US-mediated agreement for the normalization of ties between the UAE and Israel has already drawn stern reactions from the Muslim world, Palestinians in particular, and has been described as an act of treason and betrayal of the cause of Palestine by Palestinians and other Muslims nations.

Riyadh has no formal relations with Tel Aviv, but the two regimes have long had clandestine contacts. Under bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto leader, the kingdom has stepped up its overtures towards Israel.

Saudi Arabia reacted cautiously to the Israel-UAE deal, saying it will stand by a 2002 Arab peace initiative on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, without condemning the agreement that has angered supporters of the Palestinian cause.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Kushner, however, said it was inevitable that the Riyadh regime would follow suit in forging ties with Israel.

"I do think that we have other countries that are very interested in moving forward," he added. "And then, as that progresses, I do think it is an inevitability that Saudi Arabia and Israel will have fully normalized relations."

In highly controversial comments during an April 2018 visit to the US, bin Salman told the Atlantic that he recognized Israel's "right to exist," distancing himself from the kingdom's longtime policy of opposing Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

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- John Regala was once again featured on Raffy Tulfos famous and beloved program

- Raffy also featured Johns former assistant, Christian Teddy Imperial, on the same episode

- The former assistant alleged that John is using illegal drugs such as Nubain and shabu, which the veteran actor denied

- The ailing actor said that he has a doctors prescription for the painkiller Nubain but denied that he is still taking shabu

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Photo from Aster Amoyo's Facebook

Source: Facebook

John Regala was interviewed once again on the famous program of newscaster Raffy Tulfo.

KAMI learned that Raffy also featured Johns former assistant, Christian Teddy Imperial, on the same episode.

Teddy alleged that John is using illegal drugs such as Nubain and shabu, which the veteran actor denied.

According to John, he has a doctors prescription for the painkiller Nubain but denied that he is still taking shabu.

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He also denied Teddy's claim that they recently met with a drug dealer in Tandang Sora, Quezon City to buy more illegal drugs, saying that he is always staying in his condo unit and has not been going out recently.

The former assistant then asked Raffy to check with the guards of the condo if John is really always staying in his unit.

The episode ended with Raffy telling Teddy that he does not have concrete evidence against John and that he will continue to help the ailing actor.

PAY ATTENTION: Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news!

John Regala, or John Paul Guido Boucher Scherrer in real life, is a former actor in the Philippines. He is known for portraying antagonist roles in many movies.

In March this year, he appealed for help from Coco Martin and television networks.

The former action star also asked the public for any kind of assistance amid the difficult situation that he is in. John Regala also told Raffy Tulfo that his family allegedly left him behind due to his health and financial issues.

Please like and share our amazing Facebook posts to support the KAMI team! Dont hesitate to comment and share your opinions about our stories either. We love reading about your thoughts and views on different matters!

Source: KAMI.com.gh
Gemma Collins looked sensational on Monday as she posted an ethereal snap by the ocean.

Posing in a throwback from one of her recent summertime jaunts, the reality sensation, 39, donned a colourful swimming costume, with a matching headpiece and sarong.

Swishing the sarong around her frame, Gemma - who has recently shed three stone - flaunted her physique and showed off her deep tan.

Swept away: Gemma Collins looked sensational on Monday as she posted an ethereal snap by the ocean

She wore her blonde locks tumbling down her back and sported hooped earrings and a dramatic make-up look.

The colourful ensemble, in aquamarine, turquoise, gold and pink, offset against the stunning blue of the ocean and sky behind her.

Gemma went barefoot for the snap, which was taken on a wooden terrace with a clear glass balcony, thought to be in Greece.

Gemma proved to be her own best spokes-model, advertising the look from her own clothing brand.

Stunning: The colourful ensemble, in aquamarine, turquoise, gold and pink, offset against the stunning blue of the ocean and sky behind her

She has treated her followers to a plethora of sizzling snaps during her sun-soaked break to Mykonos following her staggering three-stone weight loss.

And she was at it again as she struck a sultry pose for a snapshot uploaded to Instagram on Saturday.

The reality star flaunted her physique in a flowing midi dress which boasted long sleeves and a striking leopard-print pattern.

Sizzling: Gemma Collins flaunted her physique in a flowing midi dress as she struck a sultry pose for a snapshot uploaded to Instagram on Saturday

She finished the look with high-heels with gold studded detailing and a pair of statement sunglasses.

Gemma styled her signature bleach blonde locks in loose curls before posing up a storm in front of the camera.

The TV personality uploaded the photo alongside a caption that read: 'She turned her cants into cans and dreams into plans. Big things coming with @inthestyle!

'Whilst I've been in Greece I've been shooting something exciting that I've been working on for months... can't wait to show you more.'

Exciting: The TV personality uploaded the photo alongside a caption that read 'She turned her cants into cans and dreams into plans. Big things coming with @inthestyle!'

It comes amid reports that Gemma is set to cash in with a mega bucks deal with fashion brand In The Style.

The deal follows the huge success of here meme collection with the retailer, with big names including Little Mix's Jade Thirwall seen wearing clothes from the range.

The blonde apparently raked in 100,000 in just one day earlier this year through sales of her new sweatshirt after Jade was spotted wearing one.

In The Style reportedly flew the TOWIE favourite to the Greek island to get snaps of her latest clothing range.

Big fan: The In The Style deal follows the huge success of here meme collection with the retailer, with big names including Little Mix's Jade Thirwall seen wearing clothes from the range

Meme Queen: The blonde apparently raked in 100,000 in just one day earlier this year through sales of her new sweatshirt after Jade was spotted wearing one

A source told The Mirror: 'Gemma's made a mint for In The Style  her meme range was a sell out and stars like Little Mix's Jade Thirlwall have been seen in her designs.'

They continued: 'They were desperate to get Gemma on board for a whole collection and she signed on the dotted line without hesitation.

'Gemma is so into her fashion and she loves the team at ITS so it was a no-brainer. Gemma flew out to Greece at the start of this week to model her debut line.'

MailOnline have contacted a representative of Gemma for comment.

Meanwhile on Thursday, the self-professed diva took to Instagram once again to show off her slimmed-down figure in a rainbow coloured swimsuit with matching sarong and turban.

The former TOWIE star struck a sultry pose as she gazed into the camera while standing in front of a stunning seascape for the breathtaking snap.

Wow! Gemma Collins, 39, took to the photo-sharing site on Thursday, to show off her slimmed-down figure in a rainbow coloured swimsuit with matching sarong and turban

Yes girl! The former TOWIE star captioned her snap with positive affirmations

Gemma looked incredible in the eye-catching ensemble, with the sarong drawing attention to her hourglass frame.

Showing her stylish side in all its glory, The GC wore a coordinating turban atop her head, while styling her platinum locks into Mermaid waves.

The reality star enhanced her beauty with a full face of make-up and accessorised with large gold hoop earrings.

Gemma captioned her snap with positive affirmations, which read: 'I LOVE MYSELF. repeat repeat repeat. I LOVE MYSELF SO MUCH. I AM BEAUTIFUL. repeat repeat repeat. try it everyone and watch the GLOW UP.'

Confident: On Tuesday, Gemma looked care-free as she posed up a storm on Instagram in a stylish swimwear combo from her getaway

She opted for a bright pink designer Fendi swimsuit and a matching hair wrap for her trip.

Posting a fun video of herself, Gemma exuded confidence as she posed up a storm and proudly showed off her swimwear.

The reality star wore her blonde tresses loose round her shoulders and looked glowing with a natural make-up look.

Gemma also took to her Stories to show her boarding a plane to get to her sun-soaked luxury location where she was staying in a huge villa with an infinity pool.

Glowing: The former TOWIE star opted for a bright pink designer Fendi swimsuit and a matching hair wrap for her trip

Sun-kissed: She has jetted off to a mystery sun-soaked location after denying she had found love with millionaire businessman Nadir Gul

Clearly happy to escape the stormy British weather, she captioned the sizzling post: 'Sending KISSES. GC my VITAMIN D TOUR continues!'

Although not clarifying where she had jetted off too, she played Greek music in one of her Instagram stories as she showed off her incredible villa.

Gemma's holiday comes after she insisted she's single following reports that she had found love with Nadir Gul.

She insisted she's 'just friends' with the millionaire businessman, as Nadir also denied the romance claims, pointing out that he's been in a relationship with someone else for 10 years.

Gemma took to her Instagram stories earlier last week to set the record straight, telling fans that the only person she's in love with is herself, one month after her explosive split from Arg.

Lovely: Posting a fun video of herself, Gemma exuded confidence as she posed up a storm and proudly showed off her swimwear

Getaway: Gemma also took to her Stories to show her boarding a plane to get to her sun-soaked luxury location where she was staying in a huge villa with an infinity pool

Speaking to camera while having fun with friends and family, Gemma added: 'Happy Sunday... and the only person I'm in love with right now is myself.'

Earlier in the day, Nadir took to social media to state that the stories about him and Gemma are 'crazy false' and that he's been with someone else for 10 years.

He wrote: 'Just woke up and seen all these crazy false stories. Gemma Collins and her family have been very loyal customers and friends of Shish meze and myself for many years.

'But please show some respect as I am a family man and had a partner for over 10 year.'

Not a thing! Gemma's holiday comes after she insisted she's single following reports that she had found love with Nadir Gul

Nadir also posted a picture of himself with his longtime love spending time together in Turkey.

Gemma and Nadir have allegedly known each other for years during their time in Essex, and the GC has often found herself eating at his restaurants.

Last month, Gemma announced her split from Arg by posting break up texts on her Instagram account in which James called her a 'hippo'.

In the texts, the musician also called his partner a 'fat f**k', after she suggested that he had bought another woman dinner and not her.

The series of texts began with Gemma saying: 'What man pays for another woman!!!', while Arg responded by saying: 'Insensitive.'

Over: Last month, Gemma announced her split by posting break up texts on her Instagram account in which James called her a 'hippo' and a 'fat f**k' (pictured in 2018)

Gemma later apologised for releasing explosive text messages he had sent her, while friends have urged James to 'sort his life out'.

In a screenshot obtained by MailOnline, the Diva On Lockdown star contacted her fellow reality star in the early hours of the morning.

She wrote: 'I am sorry about putting the messages up, I was just so hurt you suggested an open relationship, it didn't look like a joke when you typed it.

'I was so upset but I shouldn't have put the messages up, that was anger on my part which was wrong. I am so sorry about that x.' (sic)
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A team of researchers was able to detect space debris in broad daylight for the first time. The distance to the object was determined by scientists of University of Bern using a geodetic laser.

The discovery was made on 24 June 2020 at the Swiss Optical Ground Station and Geodynamics Observatory Zimmerwald. Scientists measured the distance from the ground to the debris using a satellite laser. Most of the space debris in orbit can be found within 2,000 km of Earth's surface. Within this altitude, the amount of debris varies considerably depending on which part of the low-Earth orbit you look. The highest concentrations is found between 800-850 km, according to NASA.

Speaking of the method used to locate the debris, Professor Thomas Schildknecht, head of the Zimmerwald Observatory and deputy director of the Astronomical Institute at the University of Bern, said that the observatory has been studying similar distance measurements for years but only a handful of "observatories worldwide have succeeded in determining distances to space debris using special, powerful lasers to date".

Space junk or space debris is "any piece of machinery or debris left by humans in space," as per the Natural History Museum. These can be large objects like dead satellites or spent rocket parts or even waste used by human beings dumped into space.

Satellites need to steer clear of any existent debris in order to avoid collision. With the growing number of satellites being launched, and rise in space traffic in orbit, the amount of junk left behind is also increasing at a rapid pace. The problem is such that the low-Earth orbit has become an "orbital space junkyard."

Hence, it is important that organizations work on steps to detect space debris more efficiently. The recent finding will help scientists detect collisions with satellites at an early stage and initiate evasive manoeuvres, as per a press release by University of Bern.

The laser technology used was previously thought to only work in the night, the release added.

The feat of tracking the debris in daylight was only possible because of a CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) camera that was actively tracking the debris. This was aided by real-time image processing and a real-time digital filter to detect the photons reflected by the object in the daytime.
Union Health Minister Dr on Sunday expressed confidence that the country's COVID-19 count will be "under control" by Diwali this year.

Inaugurating the 'Nation First' webinar series, organised by the Anathkumar Foundation, he pointed out that the country was much ahead in tackling the pandemic.

"The COVID-19 will significantly come under control by the Deepavali this year. The leaders and common people effectively worked together to fight the pandemic. He inaugurated Nation first webinar series organised by Ananth Kumar Foundation," the press release said.

He further said that the health officials had held a meeting much before the first COVID-19 case was reported in India.

"Later on, Prime Minister Narendra Modi formed a committee led by me which has already met 22 times until yesterday," he said.

"There was only one laboratory in June by February, which has now been increased to 1,583 nationwide. Out of this, more than 1,000 are government labs. The country is conducting about 1 million tests per day which is way ahead of the target," the health minister said.

He observed that compared to earlier there is no scarcity of PPE kits, ventilators, and N 95 masks now

"The scarcity of PPE kits, ventilators, and N 95 masks is no more now. Every day, five lakh PPE kits are produced in the country while 10 manufacturers are producing N95 masks. 25 producers are manufacturing ventilators," he added.

He said that vaccine trials are in full swing, with three clinical trials and four pre-clinical trials underway.

"We are expecting vaccines to be ready by the end of the year. It is because of the farsightedness of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that we could reach until here," he added.

(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.)
Jaipur, Aug 31 : In the pre-Deled exam (Diploma in Elementary Education) conducted in Rajasthan on Monday, a Covid-19 positive girl student reached the examination centre at Dausa's Ramkaran Joshi Secondary School and took the test alone.

The student was undergoing treatment at the Dausa hospital and had sought permission from the district administration to take the test.

After receiving permission, she was given separate arrangements at the examination centre and was allowed to sit in the room alone.

During this time, an invigilator wearing a PPE kit was also posted in the student's room.

The student was brought to the examination centre by an ambulance. Dausa DEO Ghanshyam Meena said the girl student expressed her wish to take the test.

"As soon as she gave her consent for the test, the administration went on active mode to ensure that she takes the test without fail." "Me along with the District Collector, the ADM and CMHO had a meeting to discuss the arrangements she should have been given. A separate room was given to her and was given a PPE kit as well to wear during the examination time. The medical team brought her in 108 ambulance to the exam centre. We arranged an invigilator to her room who was also given a PPE kit. Water and all other arrangements were made available in this room and social distancing norms were followed at length." "The student was there for three hours and she completed her test and then her answer sheet was duly sanitised, dried and was packed in a paper bag which was sanitised again. The medical team along with eight officials were present at the exam centre till the time she was taking the test. Soon after the test, she was taken back to the hospital in the 108 ambulance," he said.
An Australian journalist who kept a diary of the coronavirus pandemic has been arrested in China with no reasons given.

Cheng Lei, an English-language presenter with the state-owned China Global Television Network since 2012, wrote withering Facebook posts about the Communist Party.

The Beijing-based business journalist, who studied in Brisbane and Melbourne, mocked the earlier lockdown in Wuhan in March.

'The hottest word in Chinese social media is "gratitude", brought up by Wang Zhonglin the Wuhan party secretary at a press conference two days ago, in the context of asking Wuhan residents to be be "grateful (to the party, to Dear Leader)",' she wrote.

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Beijing-based Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who kept a diary of the coronavirus pandemic, has been arrested in China

'It immediately blew up the internet. Even in China, where the pool of material for satire never runs low, this is too rich.'

The host of CGTN's Biz Talk TV show also slammed the hypocritical nature of China's Communist Party leadership.

'In China, the belief "do as I say, not as I do" runs deep in public office,' she said on March 8.

'"Serve the people" goes the slogans, reality is the opposite.

'On today, International Women's Day, the joke is why do you never need a Leaders day? Officials' day? Cadres' day? That'll be the day.'

Two days earlier, on March 6, she mocked the Communist Party's Wuhan lockdowns.

'Chednecks (China-rednecks) slapping each other on the back about how awesome China's heavy measures are vs Chinkers (Chinese thinkers) who do not see the sacrifices in Wuhan as anything worth celebrating, who see respect for science and a balance between personal liberty and restrictive measures behind the best approaches,' she said.

The outspoken TV presenter's profile has now been removed from the CGTN website, after eight years with the network.

Her Twitter page links to her CGTN segments, up to July, have also been taken down.

She was previously the Asia correspondent for the American CNBC business channel.

Cheng Lei, an English-language presenter with the China Global Television Network in Beijing, wrote withering Facebook posts about the Communist Party

The host of CGTN's Biz Talk TV show also slammed the hypocritical nature of China's Communist Party leadership

Her detention in China is further straining relations between Australia and its biggest trading partner.

Cheng did a commerce degree at the University of Queensland and has two children in Melbourne.

Friends and family have been unable to contact her for weeks and her Facebook account appears to have been inactive since March.

The Australian government has confirmed she has been in custody since August 14.

Trade Minister Simon Birmingham used restrained language to confirm her arrest.

'We had consular access via video link on 27 August and continue to provide appropriate consular assistance,' he said on Tuesday.

'We equally are working with her family, who have issued a statement acknowledging they respect the process, and are urging people to respect their privacy and limit comment at this time.'

Cheng did a commerce degree at the University of Queensland and has two children in Melbourne. Her profile has since been removed from the CGTN website

Cheng has been the host of CGTN's English-language Biz Talk program since December 2012

No reason has been provided for her detention in the authoritarian, one-party state.

Under Chinese law, she could be held for months in a secret location without charge.

Confirmation of her detention came on the same day China announced a second inquiry into Australian wine exports.

Senator Birmingham said various issues were weighing on the 'vast and complex' relationship between Australia and China.

'There are obviously some issues of difficulty that arise from time to time. They have always arisen,' he said.

'There have long been different and difficult consular cases that exist in the Chinese relationship.

'There have always been other points of tension, be they on human rights or other matters.

Ms Cheng did a commerce degree at the University of Queensland and has two children in Melbourne

'But we continue to be committed to working as closely as we can and particularly in the areas of mutual interest and advantage for our two nations.'

China is furious with Australia for demanding an independent inquiry into the origins of coronavirus, with its ambassador in Canberra Cheng Jingye in April warning of Chinese consumer boycotts.

Beijing has imposed new import restrictions on Australian beef, barley and wine, and is slow to return phone calls from Australian ministers.

In an online video for the Australia Global Alumni posted two years ago, Cheng described herself as an anchor for the global business show on CGTN.

Cheng also speaks Mandarin, was born in China and grew up in the Chinese city of Yueyang.

She graduated from the University of Queensland in 1995 before working for Cadbury Schweppes and ExxonMobil in Australia.

After moving to China, Cheng - who speaks with a distinct Australian accent - worked for the Chinese state broadcaster, the country's biggest TV network

Her detention in China is further straining relations between Australia and its biggest trading partner

'The beauty of an Australian education is not about what is taught but more about what it doesn't teach,' she said.

'It doesn't teach you to just follow orders, it allows you the freedom to think for yourself, to question ... to judge for yourself.'

After moving back to China, Cheng - who speaks with an Australian accent - worked for the Chinese state broadcaster, the country's biggest TV network.

Her family have issued a brief statement.

'In China, due process will be observed and we look forward to a satisfactory and timely conclusion to the matter,' the family said.

Cheng's detainment follows the detention of Australian academic Yang Hengjun.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne has previously called for the immediate release of Dr Yang, who could face the death penalty if found guilty of spying charges.

He was detained in January 2019 and has been held since with limited consular contact.
Two persons were shot dead and another injured by gun-wielding men during the Homowo festival at Abossey Okai, a suburb of Accra on Saturday.



The dead were shot on their chest while the injured received a gunshot wound on his right arm.



The bodies of the two male adults yet to be identified have been deposited at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital mortuary, while the injured has since been treated and discharged.



No arrest has been made in connection with the shooting.



The Public Relations Officer of the Accra Regional Police Command, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Effia Tenge confirmed the incident to the Ghanaian Times in Accra yesterday.



She said on August 29, 2020, at about 4:40 pm, the Kaneshie Police received information that the chief and people of Abossey Okai organized their Ga Homowo festival without notifying the police.



She said in the cause of the celebration, while some customary rites were being performed, gunshots were heard outside and some people were injured and rushed to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and Sukura Community hospital.



DSP Tenge said police proceeded to the scene and after confirming the incident went to Sukura Community Hospital and Korle Bu Teaching Hospital where the victims were taken to.



She said hospital authorities confirmed that three persons were rushed in with gunshot wounds but two died while receiving treatment but the third victim who sustained an injury on the right arm was treated and discharged.



DSP Tenge said the investigation into the case was ongoing and efforts were being made to identify and arrest the perpetrators and she appealed to the public with reliable information to contact the police for further action.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









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On the morning of June 21, Greenlands National Day, inhabitants in the capital Nuuk woke up to the statue of the missionary Hans Egede painted over with Inuit symbols, red paint on his face and the word Decolonize written on the plinth. However, the fate of the statue followed a somewhat different trajectory compared to other colonial statues around the world.

In August, after weeks of very intense public debate in Greenland following the action of activists on National Day, inhabitants in the municipality of which Nuuk is part, took a public vote on the matter and decided  perhaps surprisingly  that the statue should remain in place, towering high over the oldest part of Nuuk, still referred to as The Colonial Harbour.

Mental decolonization

It is a worldwide common practice to remove the iconography of the former reign after regime changes and/or the declaration of independence. In Greenland, a process of political decolonization has unfolded since the 1960s. Greenland obtained Home Rule in 1979. In 2009, the Act of Greenland Self-Government replaced Home Rule and recognized Greenlanders as a people pursuant to international law. Greenland remains part of the Kingdom of Denmark. However, Greenlandic authorities could well have removed the statue already back in 1979. The fact that the statue remains in place has made it an unintended symbol of a question that keeps surfacing in Greenland as part of the gradual transition towards greater degrees of sovereignty: Is a political/legal decolonization process aimed at ultimate Greenlandic state sovereignty enough, or is mental and epistemological decolonization a prerequisite to get there  and what does the latter entail?

This summers debate on the statue plunged right into this question, which also was one of the main themes occupying the Greenlandic Reconciliation Commission, established in 2014. And just as the Reconciliation Commission met staunch internal opposition in Greenland, so did activists in this latest round of debate.

Recommended reading Lessons from the Greenlandic reconciliation process

A mixed symbol

The statue of Hans Egede has been in place for 98 years. It is a copy of an Egede statue in Copenhagen. It was erected in Nuuk a year after the commemorative celebrations of Egedes arrival in Greenland in 1721, organized by the Danish colonial administration. However the funds came mainly from donations collected amongst Greenlanders and then donations from Danish churchgoers. The funding by both churchgoers and the colonial administration mirrors Egedes double historical role as both the introducer of Christianity and of Danish state-sponsored colonialism.

Egede grew up in northern Norway in a time when Norway was controlled from Copenhagen. He believed that the wild people of Greenland, of whom he had heard from Norwegian whalers, might be either pagans, or the Catholic descendants of the Norsemen, who via Iceland had settled in the southern part of Greenland in the 10th century. Either way, they  in Egedes view  needed to know the Lutheran version of Christianity.

Egedes motivation was religious. Yet his initiative ended up having tremendous importance for the territorial claims of the Danish king.

For centuries, Danish kings had been unable to enforce sovereignty over Greenland, which they claimed belonged to Denmark from 1397 onwards, despite not setting foot there. The Inuit in Greenland only recognized themselves as the rightful inhabitants of the lands they would refer to as Inuit Nunaat (The Land of the People/the Human Beings), while the Greenlandic waters were dominated by Basque, British, and especially Dutch whalers.

All this changed dramatically on July 3, 1721 when Hans Egede first landed on an island not far from todays Nuuk. Backed by the King of Denmark, his arrival became synonymous with the advent of the Danish state in Greenland, thus securing the state of Denmark-Norway new possibilities to claim sovereignty over the entire North Atlantic region.

Time to decolonize our minds

After the painting of the statue on National Day, Greenlandic producer and artist Aqqalu Berthelsen published a statement from the group of anonymous activists that had painted it. Its about time that we stop celebrating colonizers and that we start taking back what is rightfully ours. It is time to decolonize our minds and our country. No colonizer deserves to be on top of a mountain like that. We need to learn the Truth of our History, the statement said.

The activists are part of a movement in Greenland calling for mental decolonization, who argue that despite large degrees of self-government compared to other indigenous peoples around the world, a wide variety of informal forms of colonialism are still governing Greenlandic people, making the transition away from the state of Denmark almost impossible.

In the intense and emotional debate that followed, several artists, bloggers, and cultural personalities expressed similar points of view. Many argued that the violence of Hans Egede himself and the structural violence caused by the introduction of Christianity and colonization had been glossed over to the degree that many Greenlanders have become unable to understand the link between historical events and todays socio-economic problems troubling Greenland.

Amongst the more pragmatic, some argued for the removal of the statue to a less conspicuous place, nearer ground level, close to a church or at a museum. Others  inspired by the overthrow of the Colston statue in Bristol, UK  suggested that it should simply be thrown into the sea.

However, despite the fact that future Greenlandic independence remains a political ambition shared by the vast majority of Greenlanders, the decolonizing movement met strong resistance. Opposition seems to be grounded in a blend of generational differences, religion, and an insistence that Greenland today is a mix of indigenous and European culture, plus opposition to the idea of being mentally colonized.

Approximately 94% of Greenlands population are Christian. Christian traditions are greatly valued by most and, especially amongst the older generations, Egede is often revered as the founder of the Greenlandic Church.

Should it stay or should it go?

Shortly after the painting of the Egede statue, two private petitions were initiated. One was led by college student Ria Sivertsen, who suggested that the statue be moved to the local historic museum. Its not about erasing history. But its a disparaging and humiliating symbol that he is still there on top of the hill and still possesses power over us, she explained to the Greenlandic news website Sermitsiaq.AG.

Proponents of keeping the statue quickly organized a counter-petition. Initiator Orla Dalager of Nuuks Local Historic Association explained to Sermitsiaq.AG that he saw the statue as a landmark for Nuuk and emphasized that citizens all over Greenland financed it. My own great grandfather, who was a shop manager in Kangeq [a settlement close to Nuuk], was amongst those who carried the statue up on the hill. Some bad things happened in the 18th century but how can we use that knowledge today? Not everything has been bad. Today, we are christened, confirmed [confirmation into Christianity by the age of 13-14], married and buried; that is something we would not live without, he said.

Responding to the recent surge of criticism of the statue while considering that it had mainly been financed by Greenlanders, Mayor of Kommuneqarfik Sermersooq (which the capital Nuuk is part of) Charlotte Ludvigsen decided to let the public take a vote on the issue. She initiated a referendum amongst citizens in the municipality on whether or not the statue should be taken down. 600 voted for the statues removal, and 921 voted for the statue to remain, thus cementing the statue to its current position.

Why the indifference of the majority

On the day after the referendum result, members of the older generations explained to Greenlandic news media that they had voted to keep the statue out of religious respect. Others said they opposed the very notion of being mentally colonized. While many supporters of the activists have invoked global indigenous, decolonial and Black Lives Matter movements, certain supporters of the statue argued that rather than copying trends from abroad Greenland should find its own ways.

The referendum also uncovered one other interesting fact: that many voters apparently felt indifferent about the statue. Of the 23.000 people who could vote, only 6,6% did.

What exactly caused the low voting rate is unclear. The vote was only open to inhabitants in the municipality of Kommuneqarfik Sermersooq, which covers 531,900 km, and towns on both sides of the vast ice cap. Many of its inhabitants have never visited Nuuk and often feel estranged from the capital. This could partly explain the low vote.

In the debate, many argued that bygones should remain bygones. Others again may have refrained from participating because they didnt know much of the early modern history of Greenland  as encapsulated in a comment by Nuuks mayor Charlotte Ludwigsen herself, who after the vote explained to KNR, the Greenlandic Broadcasting Corporation, that she was actually fine with the statue remaining in place. When I see the statue, I dont associate it with the colonial past, she commented.

From the Greenlandic Spring to Trump

This September, the city council of Kommuneqarfik Sermersooq will take a final decision on the fate of the statue based on this summers referendum. While the result seems given, it is probably not the last time the statue of Hans Egede will find itself in the centre of a debate on decolonization.

June 21, 2020 was not the first time either. Activism on the statue has previously often coincided closely with major political milestones in the Greenlandic transition towards sovereignty. The statue was first painted red in 1973 on the night of Labor Day in a period of intense political mobilization resulting in Home Rule in 1979. A plaquette left at the foot of the plinth read: Isnt he the one who robbed us of our soul? Do we need to continue honoring him? In 1977, the statue was once again painted, this time in red and blue. Then came a time of peace, at least for the statue. However, in the years following the introduction of Greenland Self Rule in 2009, the statue was painted at least twice: in 2012 with red paint and an inverted cross with the number 666; and in 2015 with golden paint, womens symbols, and the word utsuk, meaning cunt.

More recently, the statue featured in a number of artistic performances and installations, including the highly political music video Tupilak by Greenlandic rapper Joseph Tarrak-Petrussen. It is also a favored object to Greenlandic cartoonist Robert Holmene, who runs a very popular weekly column in Sermitsiaq, Greenlands main newspaper. Although known as a supporter of a continued Unity of the Realm, Holmene has not shied away from figuratively removing Hans Egede in all sorts of ways. Over the years, the Egede statue in Holmenes cartoons has been sent to the sky as a rocket, replaced by Darth Vader, flown away in a soap bubble, and eaten as a major bonus in the retro-computer game Pacman. In his most recent cartoon on the statue, Holmene replaced it with the US war monument from Iwo-jima as a commentary on the US announcement of soft-power investments in Greenland in April 2020, after Trumps failed attempt to buy Greenland in August 2019.

The Greenlandic cartoonist Robert Holmene made the statue of Egede disappear by multiple means  Courtesy of Robert Holmene

No celebration

While Egede remains on his plinth, this summers debate seems to have had at least one practical consequence. July 3, 2021 will mark the 300-year anniversary of Egedes arrival. Whereas the Church and colonial authorities celebrated the date in 1921, the 300 years is unlikely to be marked as a celebration. Last year, Kommuneqarfik Sermersooq set aside 3 million Danish krones (about 400,000 euros) for the coming anniversary. Already then, the city council stressed that the commemoration should focus on the cultural aspects, not the religious act. Since then the municipality has made a U-turn and decided that the money will be used on urban decoration and budget cuts due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

As Greenland continues on its transitional path towards sovereignty, the ambivalent symbolism of Hans Egede will no doubt be revisited again in the future.
Published on 2020/08/31 | Source

A seating area in a coffee shop in Seoul is cordoned off on Sunday.

The government declared another nationwide lockdown on Sunday and pleaded with the public to cooperate if a second wave of coronavirus infections is to be stemmed.

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Jung Eun-kyeong, the chief of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said, "Government officials and administrative orders alone cannot stop the daily activities of citizens. We urge the public to practice complete social distancing over the next week".

The number of new infections in the Seoul metropolitan area increased even after the government gradually tightened social-distancing rules since Aug. 16, including keeping schools closed and banning gatherings of more than 50 people.

New cases there surged from 66 a day from Aug. 9 to 15 to over 240 a day during Aug. 23 to 29. Across the country the number was over 300 per day last week.

But acting Seoul Mayor Suh Jung-hyup asked the capital's 10 million residents to " freeze " their activities as much as possible until Sept. 6.

Coffee and other franchise outlets can only offer takeaways. Restaurants and food trucks must close at 9 p.m. Jeju Island has banned gatherings of more than three people.

Meanwhile, Daegu in the southeast, which was a hotspot of the epidemic earlier this year, reported 30 new infections on Aug. 29, the most since March. A member of a church in the city attended and anti-government rally in Seoul on Aug. 15 and appears to have spread the virus among fellow worshipers, according to health officials.

As of Monday morning, Korea reported another 248 new cases, bringing to the cumulative total to 19,947.
Plano, Texas, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NEW YORK, August 12, 2020  Inc. magazine today revealed that RealManage is No. 4646 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nations fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economys most dynamic segmentits independent small businesses. Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

This accomplishment would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of our RM Family states Chris ONeill, CEO. We are proud and honored to see their commitment recognized in this prestigious award. It is a great privilege to work with such a dynamic group of people who have made this achievement possible through our industry leading client satisfaction and retention. We are excited for continued growth as we increase market share in our existing branches, and expand into new geographic markets and revenue streams.

Not only have the companies on the 2020 Inc. 5000 been very competitive within their markets, but the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior lists as well. The 2020 Inc. 5000 achieved an incredible three-year average growth of over 500 percent and a median rate of 165 percent. The Inc. 5000s aggregate revenue was $209 billion in 2019, accounting for over 1 million jobs over the past three years. Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000. The top 500 companies are also being featured in the September issue of Inc., available on newsstands August 18.



The companies on this years Inc. 5000 come from nearly every realm of business, says Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. From health and software to media and hospitality, the 2020 list proves that no matter the sector, incredible growth is based on the foundations of tenacity and opportunism.



The annual Inc. 5000 event honoring the companies on the list will be held virtually from October 23 to 27, 2020. As always, speakers will include some of the greatest innovators and business leaders of our generation.

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About RealManage



The RealManage operating history goes back more than 30 years through our various acquisitions and branch operations and ranks as one of the top four HOA management companies in the nation.



RealManage is a community management company that specializes in HOA and condominium management and manages hundreds of community associations across the United States. Branch operations are in California, Colorado, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Washington, and covers homeowner associations (HOAs), condominium associations, cooperatives, municipal utility districts, luxury high-rises, and large master-planned communities.



Learn more about RealManage at www.realmanage.com.



More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000



Methodology



The 2020 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2016 and 2019. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2016. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independentnot subsidiaries or divisions of other companiesas of December 31, 2019. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2016 is $100,000; the minimum for 2019 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Companies on the Inc. 500 are featured in Inc.s September issue. They represent the top tier of the Inc. 5000, which can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000.



About Inc. MediaThe worlds most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit www.inc.com.

For more information on the Inc. 5000 Conference, visit http://conference.inc.com/.

CONTACT: Amanda Causey RealManage marketing@realmanage.com




Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 19:50:55|Editor: huaxia

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KUWAIT CITY, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait on Monday reported 473 new COVID-19 cases and one more death, raising the tally of infections to 85,109 and the death toll to 531, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Currently, 7,354 patients are receiving treatment, including 91 in ICU, according to the statement.

The ministry also announced the recovery of 574 more patients, raising the total recoveries in the country to 77,224.

On Aug. 30, the Kuwaiti government lifted a nationwide partial curfew, while activities, including celebrations, parties, weddings, gatherings, banquets and funerals, will remain restricted to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

On Aug. 18, Kuwait moved into the fourth phase of its five-phase plan to return to normal life, during which, salons, gyms, barbershops, tailor's, and spas reopened and restaurants can offer more services.

Kuwait and China have been supporting each other and cooperating closely in combating the COVID-19.

Kuwait donated medical supplies worth 3 million U.S. dollars to China at the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak, while China has been facilitating the procurement of medical supplies by Kuwait.

On April 27, a team of Chinese medical experts visited Kuwait to assist the Gulf country's anti-coronavirus fight, through sharing with Kuwaiti counterparts their experience and expertise in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19. Enditem
on Monday said it has upgraded four government hospital buildings in Uttar Pradesh and into COVID-19 treatment centres and handed them over to the state governments.

The treatment centres in are in Sangli with 50 beds and Buldhana (104 beds). The centres in Uttar Pradesh are located at Gautam Buddha Nagar (168 beds) and Gonda (124 beds), said in a statement.

The facilities, including in-patient and out-patient wings, are permanent and supplement existing health care infrastructure in these locations, it added.

The treatment centres in Uttar Pradesh are in collaboration with a partner organisation, said.

Each hospital is armed with critical care capabilities, minor operation theatres, basic pathology, radiology, facilities for dialysis as well as blood storage, and telemedicine units,it added.

The construction was done by Tata Projects Ltd, the design aspect was handled by Edifice Consultants Pvt Ltd, and the equipment have been sourced from leading manufacturers, the statement said.

This is part of Tata Trusts' four-pronged approach to support India in tackling the pandemic, as declared by Tata Trusts Chairman Ratan N Tata in March that, "urgent emergency resources need to be deployed to cope with the needs of fighting the COVID-19 crisis, which is one of the toughest challenges the human race will face".

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Centre on Monday has decided to suspend operations of scheduled international passenger flights till September 30. In a circular, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said, "However, international scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on a case-to-case basis".

The circular added that suspension does not affect the operation of international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by the DGCA.

It must be noted that international flight operation in India has remained suspended since March 23 due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

However, special international flights are operating under Vande Bharat's mission and bilateral air bubble arrangements.

A few days back, the Ministry of External Affairs informed that over 12 lakh Indians have returned from abroad after the government launched the "Vande Bharat" evacuation mission on May 7.

The Vande Bharat mission has finished five phases to date. The sixth phase will begin from September 1.

Also read: Which top economies have suffered worst GDP fall due to COVID-19?

Also read: Q1 GDP data: Brace for worst quarterly economic growth since 1996
By Andrius Sytas

VILNIUS (Reuters) - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia imposed travel bans on President Alexander Lukashenko and 29 other Belarusian officials on Monday, signalling impatience with the West's cautious approach by announcing sanctions without waiting for the rest of the EU.

The three small Baltic states have led calls firm measures against Lukashenko, who is accused by opponents and the West of rigging an Aug. 9 election to prolong his 26-year rule.

The sanctions target officials they accuse of having a role in vote-rigging and in violence against protesters since the election. The inclusion of Lukashenko was a prod to other European countries, so far reluctant to back measures against him personally.

Belarus expressed "sincere disappointment" and signalled it would retaliate in kind to what it called "hasty steps".

"We said that we need peaceful dialogue and agreement between the regime and society, but we see that the regime is not ready for that," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said. "We see that we need to move forward and to show an example to other countries."

The European Union has been working on a list of individuals in Belarus to target with similar sanctions, expected to exclude Lukashenko. Western countries have mostly been cautious, wary of provoking an intervention from Russia.

"We have said before that Belarus will need to take adequate measures to respond to the initiators of these steps. This will be done," Anatoly Glaz, spokesman of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, told RIA news agency.

The three Baltic states are all members of the EU and NATO, and Lithuania and Latvia border Belarus. Lithuania has been hosting Belarusian opposition presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled there after the election her supporters say she won.

Tsikhanouskaya will speak to the U.N. Security Council on Friday at Estonia's invitation, her spokesman said.

Story continues

Seeking to keep pressure on Lukashenko to step down, Tsikhanouskaya's team called for students to hold a one-day nationwide boycott of schools and universities on Tuesday to coincide with the start of the new school year.

HUGE DEMONSTRATIONS

Three weeks into a mass demonstration movement that has peaked at weekends, tens of thousands of protesters again took to the streets in central Minsk on Sunday.

Lukashenko has shown no sign of bowing to the protests. The former Soviet collective farm boss has denied rigging the election but on Monday referred to Belarusian public life being governed by "a somewhat authoritarian system".

Lukashenko has threatened to cut off European transit routes across his country in retaliation against any sanctions. Goods from landlocked Belarus account for almost a third of Lithuania's rail traffic and port volume, and Belarus is also an overland route for European goods bound for Russia.

Belarus is Russia's closest ally among former Soviet states, and its territory is integral to Moscow's European defence strategy. President Vladimir Putin has invited Lukashenko to Moscow, a sign of Kremlin support, and the two countries' foreign ministers will hold talks on Wednesday in Moscow.

Last week, the Kremlin announced it had set up a reserve force able to intervene in Belarus, though Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated on Monday that Moscow still sees no need for action.

During the three weeks of protests, Lukashenko has lost the support of a range of public figures, from actors to sportsmen.

On Monday, the Catholic Church in Belarus, which has criticised the harsh treatment of protesters by the security forces, said its head, Tadeush Kondrusevich, had been barred from re-entering the country after a trip to Poland. The border guards declined to comment.

(Reporting by Andrius Sytas, Editing by Simon Johnson, Peter Graff and Timothy Heritage)
The government is being urged to map out a very clear strategy for the aviation sector in the midwest region after concerns were raised this week about Aer Lingus continued presence at Shannon Airport.

The airline's chief executive Sean Doyle said in July that they were reviewing the scale of their flying programme from Shannon and Cork airports and the ongoing viability of their regional bases.

The Irish Times reported this week that Aer Lingus may shift two Airbus A321 long-range craft from Shannon to the UK. The aircraft are used to serve Boston, New York and London Heathrow but have been grounded since March.

Aer Lingus would not comment on the reports when contacted by the Irish Examiner.

The Shannon Group who operate the airport said it is in ongoing discussions with Aer Lingus regarding the resumption of its Heathrow and transatlantic operations and said their resumption is critical for business and tourism across western and southern regions.

These and other services have been suspended due to advice against non-essential travel and their resumption are among the key recommendations of the Task Force for Aviation recovery, which included a call for a stimulus package for airports in the regions to encourage the rebuilding of traffic," a spokesperson said.

"The findings of this report must be implemented urgently so that these services are underpinned and we can begin the recovery with our airline partners in line with Government objectives on rebuilding connectivity and capacity in the regions. Among the Task Forces 12 recommendations, is the provision of a stimulus package for Cork, Shannon, Donegal, Ireland West and Kerry airports.

As part of this package, the State should directly provide the airports with a common fixed sum per passenger which will be used by the airports to stimulate traffic by reducing airport charges for airlines and restoring, and growing passengers, the Task Force recommendations state.

In a statement, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport said the task force report contains a number of recommendations aimed at job retention, route supports and supports for airports, including Shannon.

These recommendations are currently being examined in the context of the Government's plans to aid broader economic recovery and preserve connectivity.

The statement went on to say that Shannon Group - like other regional airports has been severely impacted by the economic impacts of Covid-19. The Group has asked for a range of supports from Government to help mitigate the impact of the crisis on both Shannon Airport and Shannon Heritage.

The Government has recently approved the provision of 6.1m in emergency grant funding to enable Shannon Airport to complete its Hold Baggage Screening Project."

Senator Timmy Dooley, Fianna Fail's spokesperson on Transport in the Seanad told the Irish Examiner that if Aer Lingus pulls out of Shannon it would be "devastating" for the mid-west region.

"Every airport is in trouble at the minute but we are all remaining hopeful that they will reopen, he said.

"It would be devastating for the mid-western region because we are dependent on two things here: business access; and tourism. A lot of tourists come through Shannon and if the access isnt there, they will go to Dublin and change the pattern of their holiday altogether."

The Government needs to map out a very clear strategy for the aviation sector and look at implement the recommendations of the Aviation Task Force.
An increasing number of people are learning the hard lesson that whatever goes up on the internet stays there. The latest is the high-flying Labour MP Chuka Umunna who joined an online club called ASmallWorld when he was 27 years old, and posted a lament about the trouble he was having finding somewhere cool to go out for the evening in Londons West End, when all the venues seemed to be full of trash and C-list wannabes.

Seven years later, that message on a private website has been blasted over the pages of The Sun and Daily Mail, and Umunna has issued an apology. He can expect to have that word trash hung around his neck for years.

There are different ways of looking at this take. To the Tory blogger Iain Dale, it is the kind of trivia that makes you wonder why anyone would want to be a politician. He thought the same about the story on the front of yesterdays Daily Mirror, about George Osbornes driver parking the ministerial limousine in a disabled parking bay while the Chancellor nipped into a McDonalds.

Others seemingly think that it is an issue of major importance. The Twitter feed for the Conservative Party press office was highly indignant that the BBC was not giving prominence to the Umunna story yesterday.

Another way of looking at them is that they are both stories about people in the public eye taking a pratfall. They are funny in the way that a man walking into a lamppost is funny, but do not matter very much.

---

The coalition government has an admirable commitment to localism, even introducing a Localism Act to encourage more decisions to be taken further down the food chain. Crewe used to be the only town in Cheshire, apart from Macclesfield, without a town council, so residents were asked if they wanted one, and voted 10,810 in favour, 1,390 against. The first ever Crewe Town Council election was on Thursday, but this exercised in localism has not pleased Crewes Tory MP, Edward Timpson. He calls it another level of bureaucracy imposed on residents who are clearly not enthused. I am sure his grudging reaction is no way influenced by the fact that all 20 seats on the new council were won by Labour.

Having a one-party council is not brilliant for democracy, though at parish level any harm is mitigated by the fact that there is comparatively little money involved. Crewe Town Council will have an annual budget of around 442,000. By contrast, Knowsley Borough Council, on Merseyside, spends more than 313m a year. All its 63 councillors are Labour, making it the biggest one-party local authority in the UK. There was some hope that a former Lib Dem councillor, Ian Smith, might recapture his old seat in the outlying town of Prescot in a by election this week, but he missed by fewer than 40 votes. Maybe next time.

---

Labours national executive council will draw up a shortlist today of candidates for the South Shields constituency vacated by David Miliband. The leader of South Tyneside council, Iain Malcolm, who was expected to take the seat, will not be on the list, having decided not to run. He is backing a fellow councillor, Mark Walsh, instead. Labour has held South Shields without a break since 1935.
The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), Hajia Alima Mahama, has given a firm assurance that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government will ensure the partisan election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in its second term in office.



She said when re-elected, the NPP government would activate a process for consensus building towards the amendment of certain constitutional provisions to pave way for MMDCEs to be elected on partisan basis.



The Minister stated this at a Meet- the-Press series held in Accra last Friday at which she outlined the achievements of the Local Government Ministry over the past three and a half years.



Manifesto promise



The election of MMDCEs was one of the manifesto promises made by the NPP in the run-up to the 2016 general election.



Upon assumption of power, the government activated processes to keep that promise by ensuring the review of some articles in the 1992 Constitution to pave way for the MMDCEs to be elected.



The articles that were amended were Article 243 (1) on the appointment of MMDCEs by the President and Article 55 (3), which prohibits the involvement of political parties in district level elections.



The process, however, halted after President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo withdrew the bill from Parliament, citing lack of consensus from Ghanaians.



Determined to see through the election of the MMDCEs, the NPP made a fresh promise in its 2020 manifesto that was launched on August 23 to ensure that the Chief Executives of the MMDAs were elected on partisan basis.



Commitment



Throwing more light on that promise, she said the President had demonstrated commitment to fulfilling that promise by clearly putting out a roadmap that saw the referendum for Amendment of Article 55(3) towards the election of MMDCEs:



A Roadmap to guide the Referendum process for the election of MMDCEs was developed, and following Cabinet approval, stakeholder consultations and sensitisation were conducted across the country and the processes for amendment of relevant provisions of the Constitution (Articles 55(3) and 243) commenced, she said.



Capacity building



The minister said the government was committed to ensuring popular participation in local democracy which was why it created 44 new municipal and district assemblies and elevated 32 districts to municipal status.



She added that the government had completed 23 office accommodation buildings commenced in April, 2016 for selected MMDAs by December 2017 and constructed 72 administration and assembly blocks.



Apart from the capital projects, the minister said the MLGRD ministry had collaborated with the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) to conduct a National Orientation and Training Programme (NOTP) for the newly elected and appointed assembly members.



She said 9,079 new assembly members benefitted from the programme.



Pursuant to Section 18 of the Local Governance Act, 2016 (Act 936), a new Model Standing Orders for MMDAs has been developed, she said, adding that those initiatives had improved the knowledge base of the assembly members.







Source: Graphic.com.gh









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With COVID-19 raging through the nation, and limited supply of PPE at hospitals, doctors and other critical care personnel are at high risk due to their increased and daily exposure to the virus. For health care workers, the need to plan for a possible worst-case outcome for themselves and their families has become an immediate concern. Doctors are spending limited weekend time urgently completing the paperwork so that their family is protected in case of the worst outcome. If a person were to pass away intestate (with no will or living trust), the legal system makes the decision on their behalf, which can be a long and expensive process.

To alleviate the stress, as a physician financial blogger, here is my suggestion on what exactly should be completed.

Dewan Farhana is founder and CEO, Betternest, and blogs at Doctor Finances.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, How doctors can rush to complete their wills.

Did you enjoy todays episode?

Please click here to leave a review for The Podcast by KevinMD. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app to get notified when a new episode comes out!

Do you know someone who might enjoy this episode? Share this episode to anyone who wants to hear health care stories filled with information, insight, and inspiration.

Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from.
A decison on whether to ease the lockdown on County Kildare is expected to be made today - and sources indicate that it will be good news for the Lilywhite county, with restrictions expected to be eased. A formal announcement is due early this evening.

The National Public Health Emergency Team is meeting this afternoon to consider whether or not the county can be released from the restrictions imposed three and a half weeks ago. Their advice will go to cabinet members for a final decision.

Travel outside County Kildare is still prohibited for residents, while pubs and restaurants cannot offer sit-down service. Many Kildare people have been forced to cancel staycations and trips within Ireland since the first raft of restrictions were announced on August 7, due to a spike of Covid-19 infections in Kildare, Laois and Offaly.

Laois and Offaly were released from these restrictions on August 21 due to the falling number of new cases in the county - but they were not lifted in Kildare.

Cases of Covid-19 in Kildare have fallen within the last week.
The Budget session of Parliament was adjourned sine die on 23 March 12 days ahead of schedule, due to the coronavirus outbreak

New Delhi: Parliament's Monsoon Session will begin from 14 September and continue till 1 October, notifications issued on Monday said.

The notification issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat said President Ram Nath Kovind has called the Lower House to meet on Monday, 14 September at 9 am.

In a separate communique, the Rajya Sabha Secretariat also said the President has summoned the Upper House to meet on 14 September.

"Subject to exigencies of business, the session is scheduled to conclude on Thursday, 1 October, 2020," it added.

The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs had earlier recommended that the Monsoon Session be held from 14 September to 1 October. There will be a total of 18 consecutive sittings with no holiday or weekend break, according to officials.

Hectic preparations are underway for the Session with several first-time measures because of the COVID-19 pandemic such as testing of all MPs, staggered sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and use of both chambers and galleries to accommodate members while following physical distancing norms, officials said.

The Budget session of Parliament was adjourned sine die on 23 March 12 days ahead of the schedule due to outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: For those aspiring to be a part of the political dispensation at the village, block, and district levels may have to fulfil certain conditions for contesting the next three-tier panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh. The state government is contemplating to make a minimum educational qualification

mandatory for the contestants.

Besides, the government may bring in an amendment in the Panchayati Raj Act to enforce the two-child norm for the contestants.

The panchayat elections were due in Uttar Pradesh in December 2020 but owing to the prevailing pandemic conditions, the state government, in all likelihood, may defer it to June 2021.

Additional chief secretary, Panchayati Raj, Manoj Kumar Singh, confirmed that the proposal for the minimum qualification and some other conditions for the candidates were being mulled at the government level and may take a concrete shape soon.

ALSO READ | RSS chief bats for two-child norm, says Kashi and Mathura not on Sangh agenda

The sources claimed that educational qualification for women and reserved category candidates for Gram Panchayat elections could be up to Class 8, while other candidates may be required to possess the qualification till intermediate pass (Class XII). Similarly, the female and reserved category contestants for

District Panchayat would have to have minimum educational qualification up to Class X and others up to Class XII.

The sources also said that the Adityanath government might bring the proposal to bring about these amendments in Panchayati Raj Act in the cabinet meeting soon and the bill is expected to be presented in the next session of the Legislative Assembly. However, the opposition has been crying foul describing the

state governments intentions arbitrary and unjust.

ALSO READ | Muslims will continue to produce more children: Assam MP Badruddin Ajmal on two-child policy

Uttar Pradesh will not be the only state to mull such a change in the Panchayati Raj system, but the model has already been implemented and working Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, and Haryana.

At the same time, political experts feel that those changes would lead to major socio-political implications as conditions like minimum qualification as the two-child norm would deprive a substantial number of aspirants, especially from the lower strata, of contesting the polls.

Even the gram pradhan associations are not taking the proposal with a pinch of salt as they feel that they should also be kept in the loop before making and implementing the changes.

However, the opposition parties, including the Samajwadi Party, feel that it will be a deliberate attempt by the state government to deprive the downtrodden of being a part of the political process.
Its an honor to be named a winner by IT World Awards. This recognition is a testament to our innovation in the world of artificial intelligence.

FutureAI announced today that it has won Silver in the 15th Annual 2020 Network Product Guides IT World Awards in the category of Start Up of the Year for Artificial Intelligence (AI). The company was recognized for developing the Brain Simulator II, an open-source software platform created to assist with the advancement of AI to artificial general intelligence (AGI).

The IT World Awards are industry and peer recognitions from Network Products Guide honoring achievements of worlds best in organizational performance, product and service innovations, hot technologies, executives and management teams, successful deployments, product management and engineering, customer satisfaction, and public relations in information technology and cyber security.

Its an honor to be named a winner by IT World Awards. This recognition is a testament to our innovation in the world of AI, said Charles Simon, CEO and founder, FutureAI. The Brain Simulator II enables experimentation into diverse AI algorithms to create an end-to-end AGI system with modules for vision, hearing, robotic control, learning, internal modeling, and even planning, imagination, and forethought  all necessary precursors to understanding and enabling AI to evolve into AGI.

Anyone interested in Brain Simulator II can follow along or participate in the development process by downloading the software, suggesting new features, and (for advanced developers) even adding custom modules. Visit http://brainsim.org. Follow Charles Simon on Twitter at https://twitter.com/futureai3.

About the IT World Awards

As industrys leading technology research and advisory publication, Network Products Guide plays a vital role in keeping decision makers and end-users informed of the choices they can make in all areas of information technology and digital + cyber security. The Annual IT World Awards is part of the SVUS Awards recognition program from Silicon Valley in the United States of America and organizations from all over the world participate each year. Learn more about the IT World Awards at https://networkproductsguide.com
Columbia University is taking the name of its medical school's founder off of a campus dormitory because he owned slaves and once advertised a reward for the return of one who ran away.

The Bard Hall building located on Haven Avenue in New York, which is home to clinical students studying at Irving Medical Center, was named after Samuel Bard when it opened in 1931.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger told students and faculty in a letter on Friday that it will be rechristened 'with a name that represents our University's values.'

Bollinger said a panel assembled in June to study campus names and symbols associated with race and racism unanimously recommended that Bard Hall be renamed.

Columbia University in New York is removing Samuel Bard's name from a campus dormitory (Bard Hall is pictured) because he owned slaves

Samuel Bard, who lived from 1742 to 1821, was a pioneer in obstetrics and helped develop a treatment for diphtheria

Bard, who lived from 1742 to 1821, was a pioneer in obstetrics, helped develop a treatment for diphtheria and served as the personal physician to President George Washington.

In 1767, he founded what is now known as Columbia's Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

In 1776, he placed an advertisement in the New York Gazette offering a $10 reward for the return of a tall, thin and talkative slave named James who was believed to have fled toward the East End of Long Island.

Bard owned three people as slaves, according to the 1790 census.

A Columbia project says he owned eight slaves in the 19th century.

Bollinger had asked asked Interim Provost Ira Katznelson to lead discussions about racial symbols.

He said that the university was not erasing Samuel Bard's contributions to the school 'but we must not recall this history without also recognizing the reason for our decision to rename Bard Hall.'

'We all understand how careful we need to be in shaping the environment, symbolic as well as physical, in which we ask our students to live and to call home,' Bollinger wrote in the letter announcing the change.

Excising Bard's name from the dormitory felt 'especially vivid' at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, he wrote, 'where the contradiction between the egalitarian health service norms they cherish and slavery's denial of full human standing is starkly blatant and offensive.'

President Lee Bollinger wrote in an August 28 letter to students that Columbia University is taking the name of its medical school's founder off of a campus dormitory because 'the contradiction between the egalitarian health service norms they cherish and slavery's denial of full human standing is starkly blatant and offensive'

In 1776 doctor Samuel Bard advertised a reward for the return of a slave who ran away

The building is home to clinical students studying at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (pictured) which was opened in 1931

Dr. Raymond Givens, a cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at Columbia, told CNN that he has wanted the name changed for some years.

'On the one hand it was a point of pride to be able to give my son that type of headstart in life,' Givens, who is Black, said. 'But knowing that I was dropping him off every day in a building named for somebody who would have seen him as property was kind of a heavy feeling.'

He started a petition months ago after the killing of George Floyd.

'Names matter,' Dr. Givens told the New York Times. 'When people protest these police killings, the chant is, "Say their names".'

Last month, Columbia's Teachers College announced it was removing psychologist Edward Thorndike's name from a campus building because he was a proponent of eugenics and expressed racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic views.

Bard's grandson, John Bard, founded Bard College north of New York City.
Beijing, Aug 31 : A Covid-19 patient from China has left the hospital after the longest-ever stay on a controversial life support machine, a report said on Monday.

The 62-year-old man spent 111 days on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine, almost twice as long as previous patients.

The patient was discharged from a hospital in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province last week after treatment for about seven months.

The man was admitted to a hospital in late January.

When his condition deteriorated, he was transferred to the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University in early February, the hospital said.

The patient was supported by extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy for 111 days starting from February 9, reports Xinhua news agency.

According to Zhong Nanshan, a renowned respiratory disease expert, the patient was obese and had several underlying diseases like hypertension and sleep apnea syndrome, which made treatment difficult.

After 111 days of multiple treatments, he was taken off ECMO on May 29 and gradually started recovering in the following days.

"The critical care team worked very hard during the treatment process. For the sake of people's health and lives, we will do whatever it takes as long as there is a glimmer of hope," Zhong said.
 Flash

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on Sunday said that the number of positive COVID-19 cases across the African continent rose to 1,237,070 amid growing impact on African economies.

The Africa CDC, which noted that only five African countries account for over 70 percent of all COVID-19 infections in the continent, also stressed that the death toll from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic rose to 29,430 on Sunday.

Some 968,962 people who were infected with COVID-19 had recovered across the continent so far, it said.

Amid the rapid spread of the virus across the continent, South Africa alone accounts for about 50 percent of all COVID-19 infections in the continent, followed by Egypt which has eight percent of all COVID-19 infections in the continent, the Africa CDC said.

The continental disease control and prevention agency said that South Africa is way ahead compared to the rest of the continent both in terms of number of COVID-19 cases and ratio of COVID-19 infected population, the country has so far reported 622,551 cases and 13,981 deaths as of Sunday.

The southern Africa country, which has so far registered 536,694 COVID-19 recoveries, has 1,060 cases per 100,000 population, according to the Africa CDC.

Egypt is the second most COVID-19 affected country with 98,497 positive cases and 5,376 COVID-19 related deaths, it was noted.

Morocco, which has so far reported 60,056 positive cases and 1,078 deaths, comes third with five percent of all COVID-19 infections in the continent, while Nigeria and Ethiopia round the top of five list. Nigeria has so far reported 53,727 positive cases and 1,011 COVID-19 related deaths, according to the Africa CDC.

Ethiopia's confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 49,654 as of Sunday morning, as the total number of COVID-19 related deaths in the East African country to 770, the country's Ministry of Health said. Some 18,116 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 had recovered, it was noted.

Noting that a total of 11.4 million tests have been reported by member States with an overall test per confirmed case ratio of 9.5, the Africa CDC stressed that some 11 African countries contribute 80 percent of the tests conducted so far, which are South Africa, Morocco, Ethiopia, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Mauritius, and Cameroon.

Meanwhile, in addition to the healthcare impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Africa, the AU also revealed that the pandemic has exacerbated an "already dire" domestic revenue situation across the African continent."

"Undoubtedly, the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose a devastating situation for health systems and national incomes globally. Governments continue to strain their fiscal revenues as they implement emergency measures and recovery plans to sustain economies," Victor Harison, AU Commissioner for Economic Affairs, said on Friday.

"This also has a significant negative effect on tax revenues, which provide a substantial source of revenue for most nations. In many African countries, the pandemic has exacerbated an already dire tax revenue situation," the AU Economic Affairs Commissioner added.

Figures from the 55-member pan African bloc show that Africa's GDP growth is projected to be between -4.9 percent and -2.1 percent in 2020, which would lead to a reduction of between 135 billion U.S. dollars and 204 billion U.S. dollars from pre-COVID-19 GDP of 2.59 trillion U.S. dollars.

According to the AU, the COVID-19 crisis has increased poverty with the African Development Bank (AfDB) estimating that COVID-19 pandemic will push between 28.2 million and 49.2 million more Africans into extreme poverty.

Noting that the contracting economies are expected to translate into weaker fiscal positions for governments across the continent at a time of maximum need, the AU said the impact of the pandemic adversely impact domestic resource mobilization efforts, and likely lead to a reduction in overseas development assistance as donor countries face their own cash crunch in the midst of economic turmoil.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug.31

Trend:

Transformation to digitalization is not optional, but mandatory in todays world of globalization, Huseyn Hajiyev, Mechanical Engineering Instructor / ADNOC Technical Academy, UAE told Trend.

He pointed out that non-digitalized companies will not exist after 10-15 year.

"The worlds most big companies are competing with each other in this sphere. They try to apply new digital technologies and get improved with the help of re-equipment. Over the past few years, the oil and gas industry has been reshaped by technology and new digital approaches have been introduced to simplify many operational processes, reduce human work hours and help improve equipment reliability and security," said Hajiyev.

He noted that digital transformation concerns the use of digital technology to solve business problems and make business processes more efficient.

There are 5 digital foundation aspects of digital transformation: Blockchain, Artificial Intellegence, Internet of things, Cloud and Cybersecruty, said the expert.

The potential benefits of going digital are increased productivity, shorter response and intervention times, cost savings, safer operations, and asset integrity, as well as sustainable resource treatment, according to Hajiyev.

He noted that all these processes can be done by people but it takes quite long time.

"New artificial technologies can reduce one-month human job to one day.

Smart devices provide a real competition-beating opportunity for oil and gas companies which play the digital revolution right," he said.

The recent report from World Oil states that approximately 69 percent of companies overrun in cost, and about 80 percent overrun in time, both of which leading to billions in operational losses, added Hajiyev.

He pointed out that private and government companies in Azerbaijan also show high activity in ensuring digital transformation of the countrys economy.

"SPEs (Society of Petroleum Engineers) 6th annual Caspian Technical Conference was successfully held in Baku, Azerbaijan. Over 500 industry professionals from 26 countries attended the conference. The Conference theme was "Digital Transformation: Enabling the Future". The event focused on various ways of using digital technology in the oil and gas industry and how they expect to be using it in the future," said the expert.

Hajiyev noted that digital transformation in Azerbaijans upstream oil and gas is already underway, as companies seek to identify the technologies that will bring added value to their enterprises.

"Azerbaijan International Operating Companies successfully applies digital technologies in Azeri and Chirag fields. Local oil and gas companies in Azerbaijan have already started to implement digital technologies on their sites. Today Azerbaijans State Oil Company SOCAR also operates on a global scale like other global oil and gas companies. It carries out different operations in around 40 countries. By applying these artificial intelligences like block chain technology on supply chain, they will be able to save a lot of wasted time," the expert said.

He noted that SOCAR and IBM have established Caspian Innovation Centre LLC joint venture.

"Caspian Innovation Centre is creating a single data source, which will allow for integrated planning, modeling, analysis, and monitoring of all oil production processes. SAP (Systems Applications and Products) software products provide powerful instruments for helping companies to manage their financials, logistics, human resources, and other business areas," added Hajiyev.

He noted that SOCAR is carrying out digital transformation of its oil and gas production.

"SOCAR organized making road map to implement digital transformation step by step in its different projects like drilling, exploration of new reserves, oil and gas production. Caspian Innovation Centre has set the main plan in Azerbaijan for the future: 1) successfully completing the implementation of digitization inside SOCAR in the new future; 2) applying these new technologies in other companies in Azerbaijan," said Hajiyev.

He pointed out that digitization affects all industries and sectors in Azerbaijan.
Portland has been wracked with Antifa and Black Lives Matter violence for three months, aided by a supine Mayor Ted Wheeler. A month ago, Mayor Ted Wheeler forced out federal agents who were pushing back against the militants. However, when a leftist militant killed a Trump-supporter last night, Wheeler left reality behind and launched a full-throated anti-Trump attack, based upon every hoax the left has thrown at the president.

Wheeler's attack has to be heard (or read) to appreciate how devoid of reality it is:

A Trump supporter was targeted and killed last night in Portland.



Portland Mayor @TedWheeler is blaming President Trump and his supporters.



This is absolutely unreal. pic.twitter.com/OjOaFx31nK  Benny (@bennyjohnson) August 30, 2020

In the remainder of this post, I'll break down the bizarre fantasies that fill Wheeler's mind. As you can see, he begins by implying that Trump-supporters cannot enter his city and, from there, goes on the attack:

Yesterday's events began with hundreds of cars filled with supporters of the President rallying in Clackamas County and then driving through downtown Portland. They were supported and energized by the President himself. President Trump, for four years we have had to live with you and your racist attacks on black people.

Trump has never engaged in any racist attacks on black people. Presumably, Wheeler is referring to the "fine people hoax," which is the product of a media lie. Thankfully, America's sane people don't believe it.

We learned early about your sexist attitudes toward women.

Trump stated, accurately enough, that if you're extremely powerful, women will let you do all sorts of things to them. He did not say that he did such things. He certainly could have added that Bill Clinton, Teddy Kennedy, and Joe Biden were all guilty of doing the grabbing he described  especially Biden.

We've had to endure clips of you mocking a disabled man.

Trump was not mocking a disabled man. He did that shuddering routinely as a visual representation of stupidity.

We've had to listen to your anti-democratic attacks on journalists.

There is nothing anti-democratic about a citizen, including a president, exercising his First Amendment right to challenge the media's lies. What was anti-Democratic was the way that Obama spied on the Associated Press, Fox's James Rosen, and Sharyl Attkisson. And of course, Obama spied on Trump.

We've read your tweets slamming private citizens to the point of receiving death threats, and we've listened to your attacks on immigrants. We've listened to you label Mexicans rapists.

I have no idea what Wheeler's talking about with death threats because of tweets, but I do know that Trump did not call Mexicans rapists. What he said was that Mexico was happy to shunt its criminal class, including rapists, across the border into America.

We've heard you say that John McCain wasn't a hero because he was a prisoner of war.

That's an opinion  and, to be honest, knowing that it was McCain that shopped around the fake Steele Dossier and that it was McCain who vindictively scuttled the effort to repeal Obamacare, one can understand Trump's animus.

And now you're attacking Democratic mayors and the very institutions of democracy that have served this nation well since its founding.

That would be Democrat mayors who have stood by and allowed rioting that led to murder and destroyed property, particularly black-owned businesses. The cities may take decades to recover, assuming they ever do.

Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence? It's you who have created the hate and division. It's you who have not found a way to say the names of black people killed by police officers even as people in law enforcement have. And it's you who claimed that white supremacists are good people.

Everything that Wheeler has said about Trump and race is a lie, including the "fine people hoax" that he alludes to again, above. Because he has only lies on his side, Wheeler has effectively proved that Trump is not responsible for the racist violence in America. I think Democrats, especially mayors, are the guilty ones right now...

Your campaign of fear is as anti-democratic as anything you've done to create hate and vitriol in our beautiful country. You've tried to divide us more than any other figure in modern history. And now you want me to stop the violence that you helped create.

Saying everything is Trump's fault is narcissism on steroids. The Republican convention showed a vision of America that's unified by values, not separated by color. The Democrat convention was like a mirror image of a KKK rally, with whites as the disfavored race rather than blacks.

As you can see, Wheeler is every bit as irrational someone in the 1950s who believed that Martians probed him or someone in the 1600s who believed that witches killed his cattle. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a damaging mass delusion, and I'm afraid more people will die before the sick half of the country snaps out of it.

Image: Ted Wheeler's press conference. Screen grab from shareable video.
In a significant development, a delegation led by Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil embarked on a six-day visit to Taiwan, despite China's criticism regarding the visit.

Vystrcil is on an official trip to Taiwan, which began on Sunday to promote business links and the visit marks the highest-level of exchange between the two countries to boost economic and cultural ties, Voice of America (VOA) reported.

Although the Czech Republic follows the one-China policy, it, however, maintains unofficial relations with Taiwan, which Beijing regards as its renegade province. The Czech Senate President's visit even as China's "coercive diplomacy" in the European country is failing, according to observers, although it is yet to be seen whether other European nations would follow suit.

Also Read: China constructs missile site at Kailash-Mansarovar amid border tensions with India

"This will be a trip to honour the spirits of late Czech President Vaclav Havel," Vystrcil told the 89-member delegation ahead of the visit, according to Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Havel, who was formerly a playwright, became the first Czech president in 1993. He was in prison for several years over his dissenting political views on civil activism, direct democracy and human rights -- values which Vystrcil said China does not believe in. "My view is that if we focus on money, we will lose our values and the money, too," said Vystrcil, who is the second-highest official in the Czech Republic.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen extended her warm greetings to the delegation, saying that the people in Taiwan "look forward to furthering cooperation in all areas" with the visiting delegation in her Facebook post, according to VOA. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson had termed Vystrcil's visit as "despicable conduct".

On Sunday, China's state-run Global Times cited the Chinese Embassy in Czech Republic saying that Vystrcil made the visit "based on his own political calculation", thereby interfering in China's internal matters and violating the one-China policy, which says that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is the sole legitimate government in the whole of China.

"In my opinion, I think he (Vystrcil) wants to send a very strong message to China that Czech Republic is a free and democratic country and we do not like any country, no matter it is China or some small countries to tell us what we should do," said Karel Picha, a Czech who has lived in Taiwan for eight years and currently runs the only Czech cuisine restaurant in Taipei.

"We do not like any country to blackmail us by (saying), if you are gonna go to Taiwan, it will hurt you. So, it is a very strong statement to say that everything is not only about money," he told VOA, while noting that most Czech people support the visit. Earlier today, China continued to issue negative and provocative comments regarding Vystrcil's visit to the Czech Republic, saying those who oppose the one-China policy will "pay a heavy price" for their moves.

"Those who attempt to challenge the one-China principle on the Taiwan question are making themselves enemies of the 1.4 billion Chinese people and will have to pay a heavy price for their moves," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was quoted as saying by CGTN. This is not the first that Czech Republic has challenged the one-China policy.

In October last year, Beijing and Prague terminated their three-year-old twinning deal after the Czech capital unilaterally backed out of a clause on the one-China principle with several officials making "erroneous moves and inappropriate remarks" on issues like Taiwan and Tibet. After a few months, Shanghai also scrapped its sister-city relationship with Prague.

Disagreement on the agreement took place following the November 2018 municipal polls, which saw Zdenek Hrib from the Czech Pirate Party being elected as the new Prague mayor. Hrib called for amendments to the Beijing-Prague sister-city deal, suggesting the exclusion of the clause acknowledging the one-China principle, according to CGTN.

(ANI)

Also Read: Japan mulls picking new Prime Minister on September 17
Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, and Bruno Lemaire, Minister of the Economy, Finance and Recovery, attended

Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, attended the opening of SEQENS innovative HPAPI unit. Bruno Lemaire, the French Minister of Economy, Finance and Recovery, also attended. The facility represents a $35 million investment demonstrates SEQENS' ability to design, develop and industrialize the most complex molecules while maintaining a high level of performance in terms of quality, safety and respect for the environment.

Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, attended the opening of SEQENS innovative HPAPI unit. Bruno Lemaire, the French Minister of Economy, Finance and Recovery, also attended. The facility represents a $35 million investment demonstrates SEQENS' ability to design, develop and industrialize the most complex molecules while maintaining a high level of performance in terms of quality, safety and respect for the environment.

French President, Emmanuel Macron, and Bruno Lemaire, the French Minister of Economy, Finance and Recovery, toured the opening of a SEQENS facility that will produce a fifth-generation contraceptive molecule with a superior safety profile for women and with a very high level of biodegradability, giving it a major environmental interest.

French President, Emmanuel Macron, and Bruno Lemaire, the French Minister of Economy, Finance and Recovery, toured the opening of a SEQENS facility that will produce a fifth-generation contraceptive molecule with a superior safety profile for women and with a very high level of biodegradability, giving it a major environmental interest.

NEWBURYPORT, MASS., USA & VILLENEUVE-LA-GARENNE, FRANCE, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SEQENS, one of the world leaders in pharmaceutical synthesis and specialty ingredients, inaugurates an innovative HPAPI unit for the production of highly active ingredients at its Villeneuve-La-Garenne site, in the presence of Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, and Bruno Lemaire, Minister of Economy, Finance and Recovery.

This investment of $35 million (30 million euros) in one of the three leading technologies in pharmaceutical synthesis, demonstrates the SEQENS group's ability to design, develop and industrialize the most complex molecules while maintaining a high level of performance in terms of quality, safety and respect for the environment.

This project, called UPP30, has been carried out in partnership with the Belgian biotech company Mithra for the production of a fifth-generation contraceptive molecule with a superior safety profile for women and with a very high level of biodegradability, giving it a major environmental interest. It demonstrates the interest for both major pharmaceutical laboratories and biotech companies to rely on local and perennial skills for the development and industrialization of their molecules.

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"Today, I am proud and happy to inaugurate the fruit of many years of work and to see that the SEQENS group continues to invest massively in the latest cutting-edge technologies to maintain and develop more than a hundred years of know-how and skills and thus continue to maintain in France real competences in pharmaceutical synthesis. It is the key to keep our health sovereignty over the long term." said JeanPhilippe Aubert, SEQENS' UPP30 project director.

As an integrated player in the drug production chain, from the production of intermediates to the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients and from research and development to industrialization, SEQENS has the technical and industrial capacities to relocate and increase the production capacity of essential and critical molecules.

For SEQENS, revitalizing our industrial footprint will be based on three pillars:

The development of skills. SEQENS is committed to doubling the number of its work-study students and apprentices, particularly in technical fields, and achieved that by early 2020. In 2021, more than 150 young people will be welcomed to our sites to learn our businesses. Similarly, SEQENS has set up a training program to offer a qualifying career path and radical career changes to people who want to discover the world of industry. Innovation and R&D. SEQENS has been able to withstand the waves of relocation by relying on its know-how and its ability to innovate. Ten percent of the group's employees work on the development of new products and innovative processes, always more efficient and respectful of the environment. The Seqens'Lab in Porcheville (78), inaugurated in June 2019 by Agnes Pannier-Runacher, Minister of Industry, is a world-class R&D campus that supports our customers in the development of their molecules from the pre-clinical phases through to industrialization. The quality and performance of our productions. SEQENS is above all an industrial group that relies on the high skills of its employees throughout its 24 production sites. It is an industrial culture of performance, rigor and continuous improvement that allows us to continue to offer our customers quality products in compliance with the strictest quality, environmental and safety standards.

It is the success of strategic projects such as UPP30, one of the world's best facilities, that guarantees the maintenance and development in France of value chains that are absolutely essential for the health safety of our country.

"Our sustainability will depend on the ability of our companies to innovate and boost productive investment in our territories. SEQENS is ready to take up the challenge by relying on innovation, R&D and the skills of our teams on our production sites! " said Pierre Luzeau< CEO of SEQENS.

About SEQENS: SEQENS is a world leader in pharmaceutical synthesis and specialty ingredients. With 24 production sites and 3 R&D centers in Europe, North America and Asia, SEQENS develops tailor-made solutions and ingredients for the most demanding industries such as healthcare, electronics, cosmetics, food and home care.

Driven by a culture of excellence and a strong entrepreneurial spirit, our 3,200 employees are committed to providing our customers with the highest level of service and quality while acting ethically in accordance with our corporate social responsibility program. press@seqens.com / www.seqens.com / Linkedin: SEQENS / Twitter: seqens_group

Attachments

CONTACT: Aline Rancony SEQENS 06 79 18 53 92 Aline.rancony@seqens.com




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Coronavirus infections across the United States are now averaging 40,000 per day as the total number of cases surpassed 6 million and states across the Midwest report an uptick in cases.

The country is now averaging just over 40,000 new COVID-19 infections a day for the first time since late June.

Deaths across the US are also declining and are currently averaging at 925 fatalities per day.

More than 183,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19 and the number of confirmed cases surpassed 6 million on Monday.

Deaths, which had been plateauing nationally for about three weeks before dropping, are a lagging indicator and can potentially rise several weeks after new cases start to decline.

The United States is now averaging just over 40,000 new COVID-19 infections a day for the first time since late June. The number of confirmed cases surpassed 6 million on Monday

Deaths across the US are declining and are currently averaging at 925 fatalities per day. More than 183,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19

While still high, the current daily death rate in the US remains below levels seen in April when an average of 2,000 people were dying per day from COVID-19.

The month-long national decline in cases is due mainly to the significant drop off in the hotspot states of California, Arizona, Florida and Texas after infections peaked there in mid-July.

The hotspot states, as well as others with high infections rates across the country, all implemented mitigation measures around July in a bid to stop the spread of the virus.

A large portion of the new COVID-19 cases are still coming from these hotspot states.

In addition to cases and deaths declining across the country, metrics on new hospitalizations and the positivity rates of tests are also dropping nationally.

There are, however, emerging hotspots in the Midwest with Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota recently reporting record one-day spikes in new cases.

Montana and Idaho are currently seeing record numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

Across the Midwest, infections have also risen after the annual Sturgis Motorcycle rally in South Dakota that drew more than 365,000 people from across the country between August 7 to 16. South Dakota reported a record 425 new cases on Saturday

Neighboring North Dakota reported a record 374 cases on Saturday - up from the 86 infections recorded exactly one month earlier

Many of the new cases in Iowa are in the counties that are home to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, which are holding some in-person classes. Iowa reported a record single day spike of more than 1,500 cases last Thursday

There has been an uptick in new cases in Minnesota in recent weeks with a record 1,154 cases reported on last Thursday

Alabama has also seen an uptick in cases since mid August. The state currently has more than 125,000 cases

Many of the new cases in Iowa are in the counties that are home to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, which are holding some in-person classes.

Colleges and universities around the country have seen outbreaks after students returned to campus, which has forced some of them to switch to online-only learning.

Iowa reported a record single day spike of more than 1,500 cases last Thursday.

Across the Midwest, infections have also risen after the annual Sturgis Motorcycle rally in South Dakota that drew more than 365,000 people from across the country between August 7 to 16.

The South Dakota health department said 88 cases in the state have been traced to the rally.

South Dakota reported a record 425 new cases on Saturday, which is up from the 149 daily infections reported a month earlier.

Many of the new cases in Iowa are in the counties that are home to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, which are holding some in-person classes

Across the Midwest, infections have also risen after the annual Sturgis Motorcycle rally in South Dakota that drew more than 365,000 people from across the country between August 7 to 16

Neighboring North Dakota reported a record 374 cases on Saturday - up from the 86 infections recorded exactly one month earlier.

More than eight months into the pandemic, the number of people being tested for COVID-19 has fallen in recent weeks.

Many health officials and at least 33 states have rejected the new COVID-19 testing guidance issued by the Trump administration last week that said those exposed to the virus and without symptoms may not need testing.

Public health officials believe the United States needs to test more frequently to find asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers to slow the spread of the disease.

While the US has the most recorded infections in the world, it ranks tenth based on cases per capita, with Brazil, Peru and Chile having higher rates of infection.

The US also has the most deaths in the world at nearly 183,000 and ranks 11th for deaths per capita, exceeded by Sweden, Brazil, Italy, Chile, Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Peru.
2020.08.31

831APP7.010001
Coronavirus vaccine, once available, will need to be administered in two doses. With this, stakeholders are seeing a potential problem in bringing this about.

Vanderbilt University health policy professor, Dr. Kelly Moore, said that there is no doubt that the coronavirus vaccination program will be the most extensive and most complicated in human history.

Moore added that to pull it off, it would need a level of effort and sophistication that has never been attempted before.

According to a report on CNN, potential problems seen in pulling off the program are in the logistics and convincing people to get vaccinated.

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, there has been difficulty in getting test kits and protective gear that point to issues in the supply chain.

With each person needing a double dose of the vaccine, this would mean that 660 million doses would be needed for 330 million Americans.

With this, stakeholders are looking at a huge issue in the supply chain.

Supply chain management professor at the Northeastern University, Nada Sanders, said that that this will be a challenging feat because they will not only be doubling the production of the vaccine alone but everything else concerning it in the supply chain.

This means doubling the syringes, the vials, the stoppers, and needles.

Considering that there was already a problem in the supply chain even before the coronavirus pandemic as marked by the shortage of a vaccine for shingles, Sanders said that she is worried about the task ahead.

As for convincing people, it will be difficult enough to convince them to get the vaccine once, what more asking them to come back for a second dose.

A poll conducted by CNN showed that 40 percent of the Americans would not have themselves vaccinated even if it will be given out for free or even if it will be easy to get.

It will also not be easy to ask people to return for the second dose, even for those who initially want to be vaccinated.

It means they would have to take time off work twice, or maybe have to wait long in lines for a second time and probably experience side effects twice.

However, on top of those problems is the question of when a vaccine will be available.

According to a report by The Guardian, the World Health Organization is tracking 170 candidate vaccines being developed around the world.

There is also the question of "is it safe," as normally, vaccines take years to be tested. However, scientists are attempting to produce a coronavirus vaccine in just less than two years' time.

In a report by BBC, a vaccine will be available most likely by the middle of 2021.

If that should happen, it will be a huge feat for the scientific experts, but considering the shortened period for its development, will it be guaranteed to work.

This, because the virus seems to be growing with four coronaviruses already afflicting humans.

This also begs the question whether the coronavirus vaccine being worked on now be used for all existing coronavirus strains.

Check these out:

Trump Announces $750 Million Deal With Abbott Labs for Rapid COVID-19 Tests

Wastewater Testing Prevents COVID-19 Outbreak at University of Arizona

New COVID-19 Testing Contract In California to Address Delays, Shortages
BOSTON, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - John Hancock Premium Dividend Fund (NYSE: PDT) (the "Fund"), a closed-end fund managed by John Hancock Investment Management LLC and subadvised by Manulife Investment Management (US) LLC, announced today sources of its monthly distribution of $0.0975 per share paid to all shareholders of record as of August 13, 2020, pursuant to the Fund's managed distribution plan. This press release is issued as required by an exemptive order granted to the Fund by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Notification of Sources of Distribution

This notice provides shareholders of the John Hancock Premium Dividend Fund (NYSE: PDT) with important information concerning the distribution declared on August 3, 2020, and payable on August 31, 2020. No action is required on your part.

Distribution Period: August 2020



Distribution Amount Per Common Share: $0.0975

The following table sets forth the estimated sources of the current distribution, payable August 31, 2020, and the cumulative distributions paid this fiscal year to date from the following sources: net investment income; net realized short term capital gains; net realized long term capital gains; and return of capital or other capital source. All amounts are expressed on a per common share basis and as a percentage of the distribution amount.

























For the period 8/1/2020-8/31/2020

For the fiscal year-to-date period

11/1/2019-8/31/2020 1









Source

Current

Distribution ($)

% Breakdown

of the Current

Distribution

Total Cumulative

Distributions ($)

% Breakdown

of the Total

Cumulative

Distributions Net Investment Income

0.0827

85%

0.7625

78% Net Realized Short-

0.0000

0%

0.0000

0% Term Capital Gains Net Realized Long-

0.0000

0%

0.0000

0% Term Capital Gains Return of Capital or

0.0148

15%

0.2115

22% Other Capital Source Total per common share

0.0975

100%

0.9740

100%







Average annual total return (in relation to NAV) for the 5 years ended on July 31, 2020

5.59%





Annualized current distribution rate expressed as a percentage of NAV as of July 31, 2020

9.15%





Cumulative total return (in relation to NAV) for the fiscal year through July 31, 2020

-13.25%





Cumulative fiscal year-to-date distribution rate expressed as a percentage of NAV as of July 31, 2020

7.62%

______________________________ 1 The Fund's current fiscal year began on November 1, 2019, and will end on October 31, 2020.

You should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the amount of this distribution or from the terms of the Fund's managed distribution plan.

The Fund estimates that it has distributed more than its income and net realized capital gains; therefore, a portion of your distribution may be a return of capital. A return of capital may occur, for example, when some or all of the money that you invested in the Fund is paid back to you. A return of capital distribution does not necessarily reflect the Fund's investment performance and should not be confused with "yield" or "income."

The amounts and sources of distributions reported in this Notice are only estimates and are not being provided for tax reporting purposes. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the remainder of its fiscal year and may be subject to changes based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report these distributions for federal income tax purposes.

The Fund has declared the August 2020 distribution pursuant to the Fund's managed distribution plan (the "Plan"). Under the Plan, the Fund makes fixed monthly distributions in the amount of $0.0975 per share, which will continue to be paid monthly until further notice.

If you have questions or need additional information, please contact your financial professional or call the John Hancock Investment Management Closed-End Fund Information Line at 1-800-843-0090, Monday through Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time.

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.

About John Hancock Financial and Manulife Financial

John Hancock is a division of Manulife Financial Corporation, a leading international financial services group that helps people achieve their dreams and aspirations by putting customers' needs first and providing the right advice and solutions. We operate primarily as John Hancock in the United States and as Manulife elsewhere. We provide financial advice, insurance, and wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups, and institutions. Assets under management and administration by Manulife and its subsidiaries were over CAD$1.2 trillion (US$900 billion) as of June 30, 2020. Manulife Financial Corporation trades as MFC on the TSX, NYSE, and PSE, and under 945 on the SEHK. Manulife can be found at manulife.com.

One of the largest life insurers in the United States, John Hancock supports approximately 10 million Americans with a broad range of financial products, including life insurance, annuities, investments, 401(k) plans, and education savings plans. Additional information about John Hancock may be found at johnhancock.com.

SOURCE John Hancock Investment Management
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Berlin, Germany  Mon, August 31, 2020 19:15 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41b54f1 2 World COVID-19,protest,Berlin,Angela-Merkel Free

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday condemned as "shameful" an attempt by protesters angry at coronavirus restrictions to storm parliament, saying they had abused the right to demonstrate peacefully.

Several hundred people tried to get into the Reichstag building during a rally against coronavirus rules in Berlin on Saturday.

"This right to demonstrate peacefully is of course a very valuable asset even during a pandemic," Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said at a government press conference in Berlin.

However, he said their actions were "a clear abuse".

"The result was disgraceful images at the Reichstag which are unacceptable, anti-democrats trying to make themselves heard on the steps of our democratic parliament," he said.

Police estimated 38,000 people, double the number expected, gathered in Berlin on Saturday to protest at restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus, such as wearing masks and social distancing.

Several hundred broke through barriers and a police cordon to climb the steps leading to the entrance to the Reichstag.

They were narrowly prevented from entering the building by police, who used pepper spray and arrested several people.

Merkel praised as "quick-witted and brave" three police officers who were seen pushing back crowds from the entrance to the Reichstag alone until reinforcements arrived.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday invited the officers to Berlin's Bellevue Palace to thank them for their work.

Steinmeier described the protesters' actions as "despicable", adding: "We will not tolerate any anti-democratic smear campaign or disparagement of the Federal Republic of Germany at the Bundestag."

About 300 people were arrested in scuffles with police, in front of the Reichstag but also outside the Russian embassy, where protesters pelted police with bottles.

Resistance to coronavirus restrictions in Germany has gathered pace in recent weeks with demos attracting a diverse crowd of conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and far-right or far-left activists.

Health Minister Jens Spahn was spat on at the weekend as he tried to talk to protesters in the northern city of Bergisch Gladbach.

Seibert condemned the incident, saying it was "certainly not democratic dialogue".
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty

When Fox News fired Ed Henry last month for alleged sexual misconduct, the network claimed it took swift actionas soon as it learned about complaints made against him by former producer Jennifer Eckhart.

But according to Eckhart, her co-complainant Cathy Areu, and several current Fox News staffersincluding one who also claims to have had an affair with the now-fired anchorHenrys reputation for such workplace misconduct was long an open secret inside the network. And theres simply no way Fox brass had only become aware of the rising-star anchors behavior just this summer, the women all claimed.

The Daily Beast reviewed text conversations in which Henry repeatedly sent graphic sexual messages and images to colleagues, and spoke with several current Fox News staffers, including one who claimed to have had a sexual relationship with Henryall revealing just how widespread Henrys alleged behavior was, despite Fox claiming to have only known about it from Eckharts complaint.

No one complained to FOX News about Ed Henry sexually harassing them, including former employee Jennifer Eckhart and on air guest Cathy Areu, until the Wigdor firm became involved in late June and July 2020, a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement.

On July 20, Eckhart, a former Fox News associate producer, filed a joint lawsuit in New York federal court alleging that Henry raped and sexually harassed her. (She is represented by Wigdor LLP, the New York-based firm that has filed numerous harassment and discrimination suits against Fox News.) Joining her in the suit was Areu, a frequent Fox News guest, who alleged that Henry, along with primetime stars Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, and other Fox men, sexually harassed her.

Ms. Eckhart was violently raped while helpless and restrained in metal handcuffs, as Mr. Henry performed sadistic acts on her without her consent that left her injured, bruised and battered with bloody wrists, the complaint read in part.

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Fox held up its July 1 firing of Henry as an example of its reformed workplace cultureone that is now helmed by a woman CEO, Suzanne Scott, and supposedly no longer tolerates the culture of sexual harassment and intimidation that allegedly occurred under the late Roger Ailes regime.

But in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, Eckhart suggested that her case shows otherwise. After she first complained about a toxic workplace environment to Fox News earlier this year, the network retaliated against her, she said. (Eckhart and I worked at Fox News around the same time, but our paths did not cross. I filed a gender and disability discrimination lawsuit in May 2017 against the network after working there for five years as an on-camera reporter. My complaint was settled in 2018 and I left the company.)

In February 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic, I told Fox Human Resources I was working in a toxic environment; my concerns were ignored. Human resources never once followed up with me about my serious concerns. Instead, they showed me the exit door, Eckhart recalled. With respect to [CEO] Suzanne Scott, [Fox News President] Jay Wallace, [Fox Business President] Lauren Petterson, and other executives in leadership positions at Fox, they have not only fostered and cultivated sexually inappropriate behavior in the workplace, but the tone at the top has consistently accepted and rewarded it, she continued, echoing allegations Eckhart made in the lawsuit. Fox told The Daily Beast in response that this is a gross mischaracterization and is flat out wrong given how much Suzanne Scott and her leadership team has done to transform the entire culture post Ailes.

Fox didnt think I had the guts to file my lawsuit. My reaction to that was quite simple: Watch me.

 Jennifer Eckhart

Elsewhere in the suit, the ex-producer stated that on Feb. 10, 2020, she registered a complaint with Denise Collins, Fox News senior vice president of human resources, and her supervisor, Brad Hirst. Neither of them followed up with Eckhart, nor did they appear to do an investigation into her claims of a toxic workplace. Months later, on June 12, Fox News informed Eckhart that her employment would be terminated two weeks later. And so she moved to sue.

I was retaliated against and informed my employment would be terminated effective June 26, 2020, after more than seven years of employment. On June 25, 2020, prior to the effective date of being terminated, I put Fox on notice that I had retained legal counsel and intended to bring claims in relation to Ed Henrys misconduct, Eckhart told The Daily Beast.

Jennifer Eckhart never reported any sexual harassment or sexual misconduct to HR and did not reveal anything about Ed Henry until after she was terminated on June 12. She was given a warning in February and a performance improvement plan in early March prior to the June termination and neither of the two meetings she had with HR regarding her performance involved raising any sexual harassment or sexual misconduct complaints, a Fox News spokesperson told The Daily Beast. On the same day that FOX News received Ms. Eckharts complaint about Mr. Henry from her lawyer at Wigdor, we retained an outside law firm to independently investigate the matter. On the basis of those investigative findings, FOX News terminated Mr. Henry less than one week later.

In response, Eckharts lawyer, Michael J. Willemin, partner at Wigdor LLP said in a statement: Notably Fox News does not deny that Ms. Eckhart complained of a toxic work environment, and that the company took no effort to investigate or even ask for information related to that complaint. As alleged in the lawsuit, Fox News knew about Ed Henry for years and did nothing until it knew this lawsuit would be filed. That is, of course, the Fox News playbooklook the other way as victims pile up and then pretend to do the right thing. No one buys it.

While the network publicly touted its swift action in firing Ed Henry, the 30-year-old Eckhart believes the conservative cable network fired him merely to salvage their public image while also effectively retaliating against her for having come forward.

I believe that my abusers employment was terminated because Fox News realized that it was on the precipice of a public relations nightmare, and wanted to rid itself of accountability, she explained, reiterating a prominent contention of the legal complaint. Foxs response to my lawsuit and my abusers termination is a textbook example of why many victims of sexual assault unfortunately choose to remain silent. Fox News intentionally downplayed the severity of what happened to me in a public statement by grossly mischaracterizing Ed Henrys actions as merely sexual misconduct, which is an utter slap in the face to every survivor of rape and sexual assault. Fox continues to avoid taking any accountability for permitting and encouraging this type of behavior.

According to Eckhart, Fox News consistently rewarded Henryonce considered a rising star at the networkwith prominent hosting gigs, even though his alleged licentiousness and inappropriate workplace conduct were, she said, well-known within the building.

Several current Fox News employees agree that Henrys reputation was well-known at Fox HQ long before the network gave him the boot. One staffer, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation from her Fox bosses, recalled how she was repeatedly warned about Henrys behavior before she engaged in a sexual relationship with him beginning in November 2016 and ending March 2020.

I think Fox News was aware of his behavior. His reputation was mixed. While some saw him as friendly and jovial, others believed he could be unpleasant and harsh-natured in the workplace. It was well-known he flirted with younger women in the office. I heard people say, in general, to be careful with him because of his flirtatious nature, the staffer explained. I am unaware of other women who warned upper management about Mr. Henry but I have heard stories of women to whom he sent suggestive messages.

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Two people have been barred from operating securities businesses in Alabama after investigators say they scammed an Alabama resident, and their church group, into investing their coronavirus stimulus checks into a bogus scheme.

The Alabama Securities Commission says Asic Bitpro and Elizabeth Cummings used a popular social media platform to carry it out, promising rates of return from 7,662% to 34,259% from a cryptocurrency cloud mining plan. They have been barred for fraudulent claims, deceptive advertising and failing to register with the ASC. The Better Business Bureau has issued an alert that verified Bitpro as an international fraud scheme.

The ASC says the scheme had several red flags. For example, no one can guarantee returns to investors, and the astronomical amount of the return promised was an obvious source of concern. Alabama law also requires that most investment products and professionals register with the ASC.

ASC Director Joseph P. Borg said investors should always ask if someone is licensed or if their products are registered, and check with the ASC to verify.

Technology buzzwords, such as cryptocurrency, cloud mining, and quantum computing, are often exploited by fraudsters to take advantage of well-meaning investors, Borg said.

The ASC did not disclose details regarding the Alabama victims or the social media platform used in the scheme.

If you see or suspect that you fell victim to a COVID-19 related investment scam, report it to COVIDCONS@asc.alabama.gov.
NEW YORK, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent market study published on the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market including global industry analysis for 2015-2019 & opportunity assessment for 2020-2030, delivers a comprehensive assessment of the most important market dynamics. After conducting a thorough research on the historical as well as current growth parameters of the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market, growth prospects are obtained with maximum precision.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05953997/?utm_source=PRN



Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market: Segmentation

The global vaginitis treatment is segmented in detail to cover every aspect of the market and present a complete market intelligence approach to the reader.



Drug Type

Nitroimidazole Compound

Lincosamide Antibiotics

Triazoles

Imidazoles

Indication



Bacterial Vaginitis

Fungal Vaginitis (Yeast Infection)

Trichomoniasis

Route of Administration



Oral

Cutaneous

Vaginal

Route of Administration



Oral

Cutaneous

Vaginal

Schedule of Drug



Prescription Drugs (Rx)

Over-the-counter Drugs (OTC)



Distribution Channel

Hospital Pharmacies

Retail Pharmacies

Drug Stores

Mail Order Pharmacies

Regions



North America

Latin America

Europe

South Asia

East Asia

Oceania

Middle East & Africa (MEA)



Report Chapters



Chapter 01  Executive Summary



The report initiates with the executive summary of the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market , which includes a summary of key findings and statistics of the market. It also includes market size and revenue distribution of market segment of the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market .



Chapter 02  Market Overview



Readers can find the definition and a detailed segmentation of the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market in this chapter, which will help them understand the basic information about the market.



Chapter 03  Key Market Trends



This section includes key product development trend and innovative market expansion strategies.



Chapter 04  Market Context



This section includes premium insights such as regulatory scenario, epidemiology analysis, pipeline analysis, reimbursement scenario and many more. This section helps readers understand the key factors associated with the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market .



Chapter 05  Market Background



This chapter explains the key macroeconomic factors, drivers, restraints, trends and opportunity analysis that are expected to influence growth of the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market over the forecast period. Moreover, in-depth information about the market dynamics and their impact analysis on the market have been provided in the successive section. This chapter also covered the COVID19 Crisis impact analysis on vaginitis treatment drugs sales.



Chapter 06 Global Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market Demand (in Value or Size in US$ Mn) Analysis 2015-2019 and Forecast, 20202030



This section explains the global market value analysis and forecast for the vaginitis treatment during the forecast period. This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the historical Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market , along with an opportunity analysis of the future. Readers can also find the absolute $ opportunity for the current year (2020), and an incremental $ opportunity for the forecast period (20202030).



Chapter 07  Global Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030, by Drug Type



Based on drug type, the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market is segmented nitroimidazole compound, lincosamide antibiotics, triazoles and imidazoles. In this chapter, readers can find information about the key trends and developments in vaginitis treatment and market attractiveness analysis based on drug type.



Chapter 08  Global Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030, by Indication



This chapter provides details about the vaginitis treatment based on indication, and has been classified into bacterial vaginitis, fungal vaginitis (yeast infection) and trichomoniasis. In this chapter, readers can understand the market attractiveness analysis based on indication.



Chapter 09  Global Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030, by Route of Administration



This chapter provides details about the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market based on route of administration, and has been classified into oral, cutaneous and vaginal. In this chapter, readers can understand the market attractiveness analysis based on route of administration.



Chapter 10  Global Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030, by Schedule of Drug



This chapter provides details about the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market based on schedule of drug, and has been classified into prescription drugs (Rx) and over-the-counter drugs (OTC). In this chapter, readers can understand the market attractiveness analysis based on schedule of drug.



Chapter 11  Global Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030, by Distribution Channel



This chapter provides details about the vaginitis treatment based on distribution channel, and has been classified into hospital pharmacies, retail pharmacies, drug stores, and mail order pharmacies. In this chapter, readers can understand the market attractiveness analysis based on distribution channel.



Chapter 12  Global Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030, by Region



This chapter explains how the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market will grow across various geographic regions such as North America, Latin America, Europe, South Asia, East Asia, Oceania and Middle East & Africa (MEA).



Chapter 13  North America Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030



This chapter includes a detailed analysis of growth of the North America Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market , along with a country-wise assessment that includes the U.S. and Canada. Readers can also find the regional trends, and market growth based on the drug type and countries in North America.



Chapter 14  Latin America Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030



This chapter provides the growth scenario of the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market in Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and the Rest of Latin America. Along with this, assessment of the market across target segments has been provided.



Chapter 15 Europe Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030



This chapter provides the growth scenario of the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market in Europe in several countries such as Germany, the U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Russia and the Rest of Europe are included in this chapter.



Chapter 16  South Asia Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030



This chapter provides the growth scenario of the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market in South Asia in several countries such as India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Rest of South Asia are included in this chapter.



Chapter 17  East Asia Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030



This chapter highlights the growth of the vaginitis treatment in East Asia by focusing on China, South Korea, and Japan. This section also help readers understand the key factors that are responsible for the growth of the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market in East Asia.



Chapter 18  Oceania Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030



This chapter highlights the growth of the vaginitis treatment in Oceania. This section also help readers understand the key factors that are responsible for the growth of the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market in Australia and New Zealand.



Chapter 19  Middle East & Africa Vaginitis Treatment Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030



This chapter provides information about how the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market will grow in major countries in the Middle East & Africa region such as GCC Countries, South Africa, Turkey, Northern Africa and the Rest of MEA, during the forecast period.



Chapter 20  Key and Emerging Countries Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market Analysis



This chapter provides information about how the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market will grow in key and emerging countries such as the U.S., Canada, Germany, U.K, France, Italy, China, India, Japan, South Korea, South Africa, Turkey and other countries during the forecast period.



Chapter 21- Market Structure Analysis



In this chapter, readers can find detailed company share analysis, and tier structure analysis.



Chapter 22  Competition Analysis



In this chapter, readers can find a comprehensive list of all the prominent stakeholders in the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market , along with a detailed information about each company, which includes company overview, revenue shares, strategic overview, and recent company developments. Some of the market players featured in the report are Pfizer Inc., Mylan NV, Novartis AS, Bayer AG and more.



Chapter 23  Assumptions and Acronyms



This chapter includes a list of acronyms and assumptions that provides a base to the information and statistics included in the vaginitis treatment report.



Chapter 24  Research Methodology

This chapter help readers understand the research methodology followed to obtain various conclusions as well as important qualitative and quantitative information about the Vaginitis Treatment Drugs Market .



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05953997/?utm_source=PRN



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.



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Ahead of the governorship elections in Edo and Ondo States, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu has warned politicians and their supporters to conduct themselves properly and play by the rules during the elections.

In a statement posted on the Nigerian Police Force twitter handle on Sunday, he urged politicians to steer clear of tendencies capable of undermining the electoral process in the states.

The statement revealed that, the IGP gave the warning having reviewed the Election Security Threat Assessment Reports submitted by the Commissioners of Police from both States in a meeting held Tuesday, 25th August, 2020.

The statement that reads, The Election Security Threat Analysis reveals amongst other indicators: arming and movement of political thugs, use of inciting statements during political campaigns, high likelihood of violence and possible cross attack by political opponents.

Misinformation/disinformation aimed at heating-up of the polity and deliberate efforts at delegitimizing government institutions involved in the electoral processes.

The IGP has therefore ordered the Commissioners of Police in the two States  Edo and Ondo  to rejig their preparations for the elections to accommodate and address the threats and emerging trends as contained in the security report.

He noted that the Force leadership is evolving customized security architecture to protect the people and ensure hitch-free elections.

The IGP however warns politicians and their supporters in Edo and Ondo that the Force will not hesitate to bring the full weight of the law on anyone or group, irrespective of status that may want to sabotage the security arrangement being emplaced for the elections.

Meanwhile, the IGP assures Nigerians, particularly the people of Edo and Ondo States that the Force remains committed to protecting the sanctity of the ballot in the country.

He reiterates that the Police will be neutral, apolitical and will work assiduously with all stakeholders in ensuring a level playing ground for all in the elections.

The elections are scheduled to hold September 19, in Edo and October 10, 2020 in Ondo State respectively.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 02:01:05|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Monday that as COVID-19 remains a pandemic and vaccines play a key role in humankind's victory over it, China stands ready to promote cooperation with Morocco on COVID-19 vaccine development and production.

Xi made the remarks in a telephone conversation in the night with Moroccan King Mohammed VI.

On behalf of the Chinese government and people, Xi extended sincere sympathies and firm support to the Moroccan government and people over their fight against the coronavirus disease.

Calling COVID-19 a daunting challenge for the whole world, Xi noted that the two countries have been standing together against the pandemic, and that he and the king have exchanged letters multiple times.

Xi recalled that in the early days of China's COVID-19 battle, Morocco offered China invaluable support and solidarity, and took care of Chinese citizens stranded in Morocco. Likewise, after COVID-19 broke out in Morocco, China has actively assisted the country with anti-epidemic supplies, he added.

The Chinese president said he has repeatedly made it clear that once a COVID-19 vaccine is developed and put into use in China, it will be made a global public good, and developing countries, especially African countries, will be among the first to benefit.

Meanwhile, he suggested that China and Morocco work with other countries to uphold multilateralism, support the World Health Organization in playing a leading role, and jointly safeguard the life and health of all people across the world.

China and Morocco, Xi stressed, enjoy a profound traditional friendship with consistent mutual understanding and trust, and have firmly supported each other on issues concerning their respective core interests and major concerns.

China, he added, encourages competent Chinese companies to invest and do business in Morocco, and stands ready to work with Morocco to steadily bolster cooperation in various fields within such frameworks as the Belt and Road Initiative, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, draw a new blueprint for people-to-people exchanges and cooperation in the post-pandemic era, and push for new achievements in the China-Morocco strategic partnership.

Recalling that he and Xi jointly announced the establishment of the Morocco-China strategic partnership during his visit to China in 2016, King Mohammed VI said Morocco is very glad to have such a strategic partner as China.

Thanks to its strategic cooperation with China, he added, Morocco has achieved sound development in recent years.

The Moroccan side regards China as its top priority for cooperation, and hopes that the two sides will strengthen cooperation in various fields such as economy, trade, science and technology, and make their bilateral relations more dynamic, the king said.

The Moroccan side, he said, firmly supports China's legitimate stance in safeguarding its core interests such as sovereignty and security.

King Mohammed VI also expressed his gratitude for China's valuable support to Morocco in the fight against the pandemic, expressing hope that bilateral cooperation in vaccine research and development, procurement and production will be strengthened. Enditem
Bareilly : , Aug 31 (IANS) A Samajwadi Party (SP) worker, who escaped from the Covid-19 ward of a hospital here, allegedly jumped to his death from an overbridge.

Station House Officer, Bhojipura police station, Manoj Tyagi said Raman Jauhari,40, a district-level SP leader, had escaped from the hospital on Saturday evening and his body was found under the overbridge on Sunday.

Jauhari was admitted to a private hospital after he tested positive for Covid-19 on August 25.

The hospital had informed police on Saturday that the patient fled by breaking the glass of a window.

A case has been registered in this regard and an investigation is underway, the SHO said.
David Fidler has a nightmare scenario: In three months, China announces one of its Covid-19 vaccines has successfully completed Phase III trials. The World Health Organization is enthusiastic. Beijing doles out doses to countries in Latin America and Africa and those with claims to the South China Sea.

The United States is nowhere to be found.

If China wins the race, exploits that advantage and we dont have anything equivalent yet, what do we do? he asks. That to me is what concerns me the most.

Fidler, an expert on global health and national security who has consulted for the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, isnt the only one pondering what could go wrong in the next few months, as great powers race to be first to get their hands on the Covid-19 vaccine.

After half a year of social distancing, soaring unemployment and unrelenting death, its easy to cling to rhetoric about Americas historic efforts to find a vaccine to stem the pandemic, to drink in news about promising results from early stage clinical trials or predictions of the high likelihood a vaccine will be ready for Americans by the end of the year. But health and vaccine experts caution that it is too early to know whether any of the eight vaccines currently in Phase III trials will prove safe and effective at fighting the coronavirus. Of those eight candidates, four are Chinese, three are funded by the Trump administrations Operation Warp Speed and one comes from Australia. Some experts already worry some of the most publicized candidates are overhyped.

Which means Fidlers fear isnt so far-fetched. Its very possible a Chinese vaccine could be the first to succeed in Phase III trials. If Warp Speed contenders fail, the U.S. could be perhaps six to eight months behind in developing one. What happens then?

Health and national security experts envision, in that case, the future unfolding like a kind of choose your own nightmare narrative, each potential pathway leading to geopolitical quagmires and thorny scientific traps. What if China refuses to give a safe vaccine to the United States, instead using it as a bargaining chip to combat U.S. power? What if the Trump administration, or a Biden administration, refuses to accept it? What if a Chinese victory pressures the U.S. or Europe to cut corners in their vaccine development or approval processa worry only increased by President Donald Trumps recent comments drawing the Food and Drug Administration into his political fights?

Story continues

A vaccine that works will be the most important human resource in modern history, says Larry Gostin, professor of Global Health Law at Georgetown University. Countries are going to use it strategically. After inoculating its own population, its very possible that Chinas not going to sell [a vaccine] to the highest bidder, he says. Theyll use it for political influence or political payback or part of the trade negotiations with the United States.  Its very possible the United States could be at the end of the line.

Even if a Chinese vaccine were to come with no strings attached, Fidler doesnt see it ending up in the U.S. If you have a situation where the FDA says, Yeah, looks good, then you have to buy it, he explains. Congress has to appropriate money to buy the vaccine from China when we wont let people in the United States use TikTok? I say that kind of tongue in cheek, but this is how bad this is.

The worries illustrate just how much geopolitics is shaping the worlds response to the worst health crisis in a century. In February, as the deadly pathogen swept around the world, many hoped that the spirit of global cooperation would have the worlds most powerful leaders convening in the marble halls of Zoom to share resources, cooperate on vaccine development and decide how best to allocate the doses. Some tried. But, with tensions between two world powers, the U.S. and China, at a level not seen in decades, the race to develop a vaccine has become an old-fashioned nationalistic competition for power and prestige. If the U.S. and China arent careful, global health is going to end up just another tooland another casualtyin their new great power game.

Thats the dusty Cold War part of my memory that Im bringing back because were back in a situation where those sorts of dynamics affect all policy areas, Fidler says. The balance of power distorts how the big powers and  those that are jockeying to create space between the major powers look at every issue.

Health is not going to escape that, he adds, no matter how much global health people dont want to either understand or accept that reality.

China has a more balanced portfolio

The Trump administration has called Operation Warp Speed one of the greatest scientific and humanitarian accomplishments in history. But Michael Kinch, director of the Centers for Research Innovation in Biotechnology and Drug Discovery at Washington University in St. Louis, says that if he could swap the U.S. vaccine portfolio with Chinas, he would. China, he believes, has a more balanced portfolio.

With tensions between the U.S. and China on the rise, the race to develop a vaccine has become an old-fashioned nationalistic competition for power and prestige. Top: President Donald Trump speaks as Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, listens during a media briefing in Washington in August. Bottom: Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, is briefed about the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan in March.

All the vaccines coming out of the U.S. and Europe currently in advanced clinical trialsas well as the five finalists receiving Operation Warp Speed fundinguse high-tech methods to generate immunity to a part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus known as the spike protein. Spike proteins, which protrude from the core of the virus and give it its crown-like shape, help the pathogen bind to human cell receptors and infect your body. By varying techniques, these vaccines all aim to prime your body to attack the spike protein before it can attach to your bodys cells in the first place.

But what if targeting the spike protein doesnt work?

It makes complete sense on paper and everything else, Kinch says. However, biology does a great job of showing the limitations of logical thought.

Kinch compares that approach with what China is doing: Some Chinese vaccine candidates target the spike protein. Others use more traditional methods with long track records that dont target a single part of the virus. For example, China is currently developing several inactivated virus vaccines, which use a dead version of the virus to teach the body how to fend off the live version. With those vaccines, the body decides how best to build immunity to the pathogen. It has lots to choose from, explains Kinch. Its not just the spike protein. Its going to choose what it thinks is going to work.

If evolutionarily or just by pure bad luck, we do not end up generating a sufficiently robust and durable response against the spike protein, perhaps because other coronaviruses share the spike protein then the U.S. could be back where it was in March, he says. My stomach rumbles when I think about the fact that we are putting so many eggs into that single basket.

Others, too, are worried about how Operation Warp Speed is picking winners. Earlier this summer, lawmakers grilled top administration officials about why the project seemed to favor novel rather than traditional vaccine technologies, some of which had never been used to create a commercially successful vaccine before. National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins defended the choice citing safety risks: In one tragic 1955 accident, the virus in a polio vaccine hadnt been completely inactivated, infecting and even killing some who received it. But it never happened again, and the FDA went on to approve many inactivated virus vaccines.

Meanwhile, some experts believe certain Warp Speed candidates might not be worth the hype theyre getting. Oxford University, whose vaccine will be manufactured by AstraZeneca, published the results of a Phase I/II trail to great fanfare in The Lancet in July. The trial gave 543 people the vaccine, but tested only 35 for neutralizing antibodies. Why only 35? Wheres the other 508 people? asks Paul Offit, who developed a rotavirus vaccine and is director of the Vaccine Education Center at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. And the data were OK, not great. Then, Oxford pulled 10 people (not at random) and gave them a second dose; the results were better. But, Offit explains, if AstraZenecas planning on moving forward with a two-dose vaccine, that was a 10-person study. And then theyre talking about how they can make tens of millions of doses. In total, AstraZeneca has inked deals to produce 2 billion doses, 300 million of which are slated for the U.S.

For someone whos done this for a long time, how about a little humility? Offit says. The road to a commercially successful vaccine is often loaded with some level of tragedy. Theres often a human price that comes with learning.

Im not sure the Chinese would give it to us

On the other side of the world, President Xi Jinping would like nothing more than to be first with a safe and effective vaccine. Hed be able to give it to his own population, pulling his economy and society back on track, while pointing out to the world that the U.S. is still struggling.

And then, he can look abroad.

Top Chinese officials and drugmakers are already wielding the vaccine as a tool of diplomacy, promising first access to countries of strategic interest. Priority will go to the Philippines and Indonesia, countries that have quarreled with China over territory in the South China Sea, and to Brazil, Chinas most important political and economic partner in Latin America one that has been gravitating to Trumps orbit since President Jair Bolsonaro took office last year. One Chinese pharmaceutical company, CanSino, is talking to several countries, including Pakistan and some in Latin America, about distributing the vaccine to essential workers on an emergency basis even before Phase III trials are complete, but no agreements have been reached.

Chinas approach is transactional and extractiveultimately theyll be seeking something in return, says Ned Price, who served on President Barack Obamas National Security Council. In Africa, China has invested heavily in the oil and mining industries in exchange for advantageous trade deals, while also increasing its military footprint there. Chinese high-rises dot African cities and Chinese highways connect them. China is also pouring money into Latin America, and Beijing has become the largest trading partner of several big economies there, including Brazil and Peru. Meanwhile, Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes, designed to boost Beijings influence, are popping up all over the region.

But a Covid-19 vaccine gives Beijing a chance to test out new waters: What the Chinese look for in many places is just an entrance. They push on open doors, Price says. And having a vaccine that no one else has is certainly a way to open doors around the world to countries who have been reluctant to allow the Chinese the same sort of access theyve garnered elsewhere.

These nations will have to decide whether to accept a Chinese vaccineeven if it comes with a sting in the tail as Fidler puts itor wait for other options, say from the U.S. or Europe. But what if the U.S. isnt close behind? With Trump talking about vaccinating the entire U.S. population first, what are the chances a U.S. vaccine will ever get to another country? You dont want to be in [the Chinese] sphere of influence, but if you dont have a United States thats willing to play ball, what do you do? asks Fidler.

He thinks that some of Americas closest allies could find themselves with that dilemma, too. In a context where the United States has done everything in its power to dis its allies, if youre Germany, does the U.S. have your back? Im not so sure, so I have to talk more seriously with the Chinese than I might otherwise if the U.S. was really there by my side, he games out. Everybodys scratching their head about is the United States really going to be there when China comes knocking.

And if Xi can prove that China is capable of developing a safe and effective vaccine and distributing it around the world, he might reap the rewards in other areas of high tech, such as 5G. Fidler doubts that nations will be so quick to reject Huawei or other Chinese tech companies if they have started working more collaboratively with China and not again turning to the United States.

Vaccine safety could get wrapped up in geopolitics too. What if the Chinese approve a vaccine, the WHO says it looks good, but the FDA says it doesnt? The reputation of the FDAonce the gold standard of medical regulationhas taken a hit, especially after the agency, under pressure from the Trump, approved the drug hydroxychloroquine for emergency use to treat Covid-19 in April only to revoke that status two months later while admitting the drugs potential benefits  do not outweigh its known and potential risks. If youre a low-income country without your own version of the FDA, whom do you trust? Thats when back channels to the European Medicines Agency and other respected FDA counterparts could be helpful.

If the FDA does review the Chinese vaccine and deems it safe, though, some doubt China will even let Americans have it. Im not sure the Chinese would give it to us, Gostin says. There are plenty of buyers outside the U.S. So thats a big risk for the United States.

Consider the reverse situation, in which the U.S. vaccine reigns supreme: Its very hard to see the U.S., once its satiated our population, deciding that were going to put China ahead of Europe or Africa or Latin America, he says. Or we might use it as a bargaining chip in our trade negotiations.

Warp Speed is a little bit of a black box

Its also possible China, eager to appear altruistic, will agree to give its vaccine to the U.S. without conditions. What happens then?

Trump has made attacking China and its coronavirus cover-up a key element of his reelection campaign, blasting the country at his campaign rallies, in news conferences and on Twitter. Nobody has been tougher on China than me, he said in April. In June, General Gustave Perna, one of the leaders of Warp Speed, said the U.S. would not work with China on a vaccine.

Gen. Gustave Perna, one of the leaders of Operation Warp Speed, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee during a nominations hearing on Capitol Hill in June in Washington.

The president has been known to change his mind, but its unlikely he will suddenly embrace China as his savior, admitting dependence on Beijing for one of the treasures of the 21st century. That could mean Trump tries to pressure the FDA into declining to approve a Chinese vaccine for use in America, regardless of its safety. Or it could mean refusing to consider the vaccine once the FDA has approved it.

Its not just Trump: Distrust of China is bipartisan. Fidler doesnt think Congress would appropriate the money necessary to buy a Chinese-made vaccine, even if the FDA says its safe. And hes equally skeptical that youd see a very different outcome were this to unfold in the early months of a Joe Biden presidency. Imagine the political pressure on a Biden administration.  Theyre gonna buy a Chinese vaccine? The political pressures not to do that will be so enormous that its impossible for me to see how that happens.

But if China ends up with a widely available vaccine first, the pressure on the U.S. to do the same will be even greater than it already isOperation Warp Speed has to get even more Warp Speed, predicts Fidler. And are we going to start cutting corners for political reasons?

This is what keeps health experts up at night: That the U.S. might prematurely approve a vaccine as a kind of Cold War propaganda triumphlike Russian President Vladimir Putin did earlier this month when he declared victory before his vaccine had even moved into Phase III trials. Does [another countrys announcement] put pressure on our administration to cut off the Phase III trials that are currently ongoing and  just pull something out of Warp Speed and say, OK, here you go? asks Offit. He particularly fears a premature announcement from Britain could influence the Trump administration. Prime Minister Boris Johnsons government has pumped tens of millions of pounds into the Oxford/AstraZeneca effort, and Oxford scientists have said they are willing to accelerate the process through controversial human challenge trials in which a small number of volunteers are inoculated before being infected with the virusbut which Offit considers a poor substitute for robust, large-scale Phase III trials.

The fear is well-founded: In the U.S., politics already appears to be scrambling the approval of Covid-19 treatments. First, there was the hydroxychloroquine embarrassment. Then, in August, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for a promising but unproven coronavirus treatment after Trump accused the agency of slow-walking the approval to hurt his reelection chances.

But the big prize for the White House will be a vaccine. Earlier this month, Trump blamed the deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA for making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. The president had to make sure that they felt the heat, Trumps chief of staff, Mark Meadows, explained. The Financial Times then reported that the Trump administration is considering fast-tracking approval of the Oxford vaccine if results from a 10,000-person late-stage clinical trial look promising, even though the FDA has said any vaccine seeking approval for use in the U.S. will need to show positive results in clinical trial of at least 30,000 people. (AstraZenenca said it had not discussed emergency use with the Trump administration.)

These are not trivial differences. Successful vaccines take time, and painstaking attention to detail. Sometimes important safety and efficacy concerns dont emerge until the late stages. The ongoing Phase III trials will already be much shorter than the norm for vaccines, lasting months rather than years.

Rushing out a vaccine without solid proof it works could turn the public against it, leaving Americans without a valuable tool in fighting Covid-19. Worse, it could do harm. A medicine will eventually wash out of your system. So if there are any toxicities, they will eventually wash out, Kinch says. A vaccine is meant to train the immune system to do something that will hopefully continue for the rest of the persons life. If that thing happens to be bad, then the problem is lifelong.

Offit remembers, when he was developing his vaccine, the FDA took a full year to validate every aspect of the process, right down to cleaning the vats at the end. Id like to believe that the FDA is holding the manufacture of Warp Speed to what they hold every vaccine-maker to do, he says. Because we dont know. Warp Speed is a little bit of a black box.

Top U.S. health officials have been trying to quell these fears, even as Trump continues to stoke them. FDA Chief Stephen Hahn, a Trump appointee, insists that the agency will only approve a safe, effective vaccine. Peter Marks, director of the FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, says he would resign if it doesnt.

Food and Drug Administration commissioner Stephen Hahn speaks during a media briefing in the White House on Aug. 23, 2020, in Washington.

But the fears arent going away, especially not without more transparency into exactly how vaccine approval will work, and who will make the final call. The administration has been willing to perturb science, says Offit, whether its the EPA or the FDA with hydroxychloroquine or the National Weather Service with Hurricane Dorian. How can the world have faith the administration wont do it again, simply because a rival appears to have gotten there first?

Fidler thinks its too much to hope that geopolitics can stop interfering with public health. The current clash between the U.S. and China means the era of U.S.-led altruistic health initiatives done without the motivation of power over a rival, like President George W. Bushs PEPFAR program to fight infectious diseases in Africa, is over. Today, great powers will try to press their advantage in whatever ways they can.

But China and the U.S. can try to keep the competition from spiraling out of control and destroying public health in its wake. In past eras of multipolar rivalry, antagonists have been able to set limits to that competition, singling out certain areas in which they can turn down the heat and cooperate a bit more. The U.S. and China could do that today, Fidler suggests, perhaps by agreeing to take their hands off the WHO.

That needs to happen soon. Because right now, nothing is off-limitswhich means neither is the destruction of decades worth of public health norms.

If we dont have some sort of global health detente between Beijing and Washington, warns Fidler, were in real trouble.
Cyient announced that it has agreed to acquire specialist Australian consulting firm, IG Partners, to expand its end-to-end offerings for the local and regional resources sector. The acquisition will enable customers to take advantage of the growing convergence of operational and information technologies by leveraging the synergies between Cyient's proven ability in operational efficiency, asset optimization, and digital transformation, and IG Partners' value creation and transformation in asset and capital-intensive industries.

Cyient has a growing presence in Australia, providing solutions to the mining, oil and gas, rail, telecom, and utility industries.

With rapid sectoral growth in the region, the company continues to invest in expanding its footprint and creating sustainable value for all stakeholders. The IG Partners transaction, the terms of which are confidential and remains conditional on regulatory approvals, will result in Cyient taking full ownership of the global partnership.

IG Partners was formed in 2012 and has a team consisting of partners, practice leads, consultants, project managers, and analysts. The partnership will enable the development of a unique customer proposition that allows its customers to take full advantage of the growing convergence between operational and information technologies.

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A civilized society can not exist without a love for the rule of law. A love for the rule of law means that society respects and supports those who uphold the law and order. Without these protectors, after all, laws simply become words on a piece of paper that have no practical significance.

Today, we have one political party that has abandoned the rule of law. Rather than engage honestly through the political process to effect the change it desires, it has endorsed riots, looting, and mayhem. Not only has the Democratic Party attacked our police, who have taken an oath to uphold the rule of law, but it is now determined to defund law enforcement and expose the public to lawlessness.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden has spearheaded the movement to undermine safety in our communities. Under the Obama-Biden administration, federal support for law enforcement decreased?by hundreds of millions of dollars. With leftist Kamala Harris by his side, Biden has not condemned the radical calls to defund the police, and has even embraced policy proposals that would greatly weaken local law enforcement. From the perspective of the radical left, our law enforcement heroes are the enemy.

While Biden and Harris are demonizing the defenders of public safety, President Trump has pledged his support for our heroes in blue.

In return, our law enforcement unions are voicing their historic support for President Trump. In the state of Florida, the largest police union voted unanimously to endorse President Trump  their first endorsement in eight years. The Arizona Police Association with over 12,000 members and the National Association of Police Organizations have also backed President Trumps re-election. These endorsements communicate a bigger picture  the Defund the Police movement means unsafe communities, and a massive increase in crime, and the American people are getting tired of it.

Never has the choice for safety been more clear. Americans want to uphold law and order, the foundation of our civilized society. We want our nation to be the beacon of freedom and human rights. On November third, we must remember that it is the police that stand between the common citizen and anarchy.

As a 20-year veteran sheriff in Pennsylvania, I know how important it is that the men and women in blue are supported by the community and their country. This support starts at the highest, most important political office in the land  the presidency. Can anyone imagine how discouraging it is to law enforcement officers to be attacked by the man who wishes to become our Commander-in-Chief?

Joe Biden and the radical Democratic Party are attempting to perpetrate the lie that it is the police themselves  not the rioters and looters  who are the source of violence in America. This despicable smear makes our choice in this election as clear as it can be: its President Donald Trump and the rule of law or Joe Biden and lawlessness.

Carolyn Bunny Welsh of Chadds Ford, is the first woman to be elected Sheriff of Chester County. She is an Advisory Board Member for Women for Trump.
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Mexico City on Sunday to demand the resignation of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, commonly referred to by his initials AMLO. The rally, called by the National Front Against AMLO group, first filled the area around the Revolution Monument, and later the main square, as protesters took to the streets with banners and posters with anti-AMLO messages.

The group's social media platforms have repeatedly compared the government of Lopez Obrador to that of Venezuela's Chavista regime, blaming the Mexican president for everything from the economic crisis and gang violence to a shortage of medicines.

"A three-year-old girl, who died out for lack of medicine, is a real little person," said Gilberto Lozano, the organizer of the protest. "And this murderer keeps giving 5,000,000 pesos (about $229,884 USD), daily to a political party, usurping the name of our motherland. Out with Lopez and his people."

Tani Segai joined the rally.

"My son already closed shop, he had a 72 or 90-employee business. He had to close it. He is now unemployed," said Segai.

Some bystanders criticised the protesters.

"All of these protesters are the anti-Mexican as they were stripped of their privileges. I don't know where all these people came from," said Gabriel Perez Valente.

Lopez Obrador has dismissed his domestic critics as "fifi"  Mexican slang for elitist or frivolous saying they need to spend more time with the poor and people in small towns. While Sunday's protest included a car caravan, several thousand people marched together while chanting "Fuera AMLO" or "Out with AMLO" along Mexico's iconic Paseo de La Reforma Avenue. The protesters wore face masks and mouth covers while keeping a healthy distance during the rally.
He has been distracting his wife with cheeky innuendos and pranks during the coronavirus pandemic.

But Stacey Solomon finally got her revenge on Joe Swash as she shared a 'floppy nose' filter which enlarged his snout for the whole word to see.

In response, The EastEnders' actor, 38, chased his TV host partner, 30, around their house and hilariously threatened to put his 'willy in her nose' on Sunday afternoon.

Revenge: Stacey Solomon posted a hilarious yet phallic 'floppy nose' filter of her partner Joe Swash to her Instagram story on Sunday while he was fast asleep at their Essex home

During the Bank Holiday weekend, she shared an unflattering snap of her boyfriend sound asleep on their bed, with an Instagram filter that distorted and enlarged his nose.

When Joe, found out, he was not a happy bunny and felt the image filter looked phallic.

To get his own back, he cheekily chased down Stacey and shouted: 'My nose?! I'm gonna put my willy on your nose.

Caught out: When the EastEnders' actor, 38, discovered what she had done, he chased his partner, 30, around their house and amusingly threatened to put his 'willy in her nose'

'Come on, how do you like it? I'll put my willy on your nose.'

The Loose Women panellist filmed the amusing interaction as she hid behind her bathroom door, while Joe poked his head around the door.

Stacey responded in a surprised manner: 'Oh my God, you can't do that!'

She also captioned the humorous video on her Instagram story: 'When he finally gets round to watching my Instagram stories.

Hiding: The Loose Women panellist filmed the interaction as she hid behind her bathroom door, while Joe poked his head around the corner and she said: 'Oh my God, you can't do that!'

'It's not a willy @realjoeswashy it's just a floppy nose,' accompanied by laughing emojis.

Stacey shares a 14-month old son, Rex, with Joe and also has two sons Zachary, 12, and Leighton, eight, from a previous relationship.

Joe, 38, is also the father to Harry Swash, 13, who he shares with his ex-partner Emma Sophocleous.

Earlier in August, Stacey revealed on Loose Women, that the couple plan to foster children in the future.

Family: Stacey is the mother to 14-month old son named Rex, who she shares with her partner and she also has two sons Zachary, 12, and Leighton, eight, from a previous relationship

The panel's debate was prompted by Gary Lineker's announcement that he will welcome migrants into his 4million luxury London townhouse after being called out by a Tory MP.

Stacey said: 'I think we should look at how we can help in the community.

'Joe's mum is a foster carer and she is brilliant at it. We've both had the discussion when our children leave home and they go off and do their own thing, it's something that we would absolutely love to look into.

'But I think you're right you have to look into your own circumstances and what can you offer, what do these people actually need and go from there.'
An indoor wedding held in Maine has been linked to 123 COVID-19 cases and an outbreak in two other towns after one woman who was infected by a guest died.

The venue owner has since admitted that they misunderstood local capacity rules and overbooked the event.

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (MCDC) revealed that the number of cases jumped by 99 after officials initially reported 24 confirmed infections last Monday.

On August 7, about 65 people attended the indoor event at the Big Moose Inn, according to MCDC spokesman Robert Long.

The state's limit on social gatherings is 50 people.

Those infected range in age from 4 to 78-years-old. Around 13 per cent of this infected are asymptomatic. Almost half of the cases thought to have come from the wedding are people who did not attend.

One person who did not attend the wedding ceremony or reception died after they and an infected guest came into contact.

About 65 people attended the indoor event on August 7 at the Big Moose Inn, according to Maine Center for Disease Control spokesman Robert Long

The Big Moose Inn was issued with an imminent health hazard citation and its health license suspended, Maine CDC Director Dr. Nirav Shah said. The Tri-Town Baptist Church in East Millinocket is understood to have held the wedding ceremony.

And now, the outbreak has spread to two separate towns that have reported a concerning uptick in cases since wedding.

The number of coronavirus cases at the York County Jail in Alfred rose from 18 to 54 last week - a 35-case increase that affected nearly all sectors of the detention center.

York County Sheriff William King told Bangor Daily News that 35 inmates had been infected, 16 corrections officers, two county government staffers and one employee with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services assigned to the jail.

As of Friday, jail officials were still waiting on around 85 other test results.

A woman has died of COVID-19 after being infected by someone who attended a wedding at this venue in Maine that caused a cluster of 53 infections

A jail employee had attended the wedding and was among one of the first employees to receive a positive diagnosis.

The facility housed 99 inmates as of July 31 after officials shrank county jails by 40 per cent early in the pandemic to curb infection.

Health experts noted inmates at jails and prisons were particularly vulnerable because they're overcrowded, typically unsanitary and have a limited supply of cleaning products.

The other group hit by the recent outbreak were residents at Maple Crest Rehabilitation Center, a nursing home in Madison.

Nine cases have been reported at the nursing home a month after the center celebrated being 'free from COVID-19.'

Officials have not reported any additional cases yet, but nursing homes and elderly citizens were also noted as vulnerable during the pandemic.

At York County Jail (pictured), 35 inmates had been infected, 16 corrections officers, two county government staffers and one employee with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services

The Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, was the site of a devastating outbreak that killed at least 37 residents and was linked to more than 30 cases.

Public health experts previously identified elderly citizens as one of the groups most at-risk of catching and dying from the virus.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the Maine CDC for further details about the outbreak.

On Friday, Maine officials reinstated the Big Moose Inn's health license and the owner issued a statement that attempted to explain why they violated health guidelines.

'Maine CDC is closely monitoring the establishment to ensure continued compliance,' Maine CDC spokesman Robert Long said.

The initial violation notice, obtained by Press Herald, found that employees at Big Moose Inn were not wearing masks, social distancing was not observed and tables were not six feet apart.

In response, owner Laurie Cormier claimed her establishment misinterpreted local health guidelines and the overcrowded wedding was a misunderstanding.

'It is important to note that because Big Moose Inn has separate rooms for dining as well as outdoor seating, the facilitys approved capacity during this time is 80 persons,' wrote Cormier, WAGM-TV reports.

'We understood that there could be no more than 50 persons in our largest room. We did make an error in the interpretation of that rule.

'Our interpretation was that we could take a wedding party of more than 50 persons, and split them between two rooms as long as it didnt exceed our total capacity or a specific rooms capacity.'

Cormier added: 'The State - perhaps, rightfully so - assumes that individuals from a larger group would ignore the room restrictions, and take the opportunity to co-mingle.

'Our interpretation of the rule put the Big Moose Inn in violation of the gathering of people over the maximum number allowed by Maine DECD guidelines.'

The statement said that all staffers were tested or self-quarantining. None of the servers who worked the wedding party have tested positive.

'Our employees have received 23 negative tests, two tests are still outstanding, and five self-quarantined. We have, however, had two employees test positive since the post-wedding dinner,' wrote Cormier.

'Internal contact tracing suspects the employees picked it up from an outside source. Those who tested positive have completed their quarantine.'

While the United States has amassed the largest number of coronavirus cases in the world, Maine's cases and deaths have remained relatively low compared to other states.

There have been 4,500 cases and 132 deaths over the course of seven months.

Penobscot County, where Millinocket is nestled, has recorded 214 confirmed cases, 15 probable cases and 6 deaths as of Monday morning.

Nearly 30 people have been hospitalized with coronavirus and 191 have been listed as recoveries.

Overall, the United States has counted nearly six million cases and 183,000 deaths.
The enemy has not ceased armed provocations.

Russian occupation forces on August 30 continued to violate the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine's Donbas by opening provocative fire in the direction of Joint Forces' defense positions.

That's per the morning update by the JFO Command on Facebook.

Outside Maryinka, the enemy employed small arms, firing several shots. In the same sector of the front, they used a man-portable anti-tank grenade launcher to remotely plant a POM-2 anti-personnel mine.

Read also"DPR" institutes death penalty  UN"In addition, in the Azov littoral, contrary to the agreements reached within the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group [on Donbas settlement], an enemy quadcopter-type was spotted," the report reads.

Over the past day, two enemy violations of the truce were recorded, which "posed no threat" to Ukrainian troops so Joint Forces did not return fire.

No combat casualties were reported in the past 24 hours.

Donbas truce: background

The latest full and comprehensive ceasefire has been operating on the contact line in the zone of the Joint Forces Operation in Donbas since July 27.

Russian invaders have been provoking Ukrainian troops by random gunfire, while no heavy artillery shelling has been reported in the warzone.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech as the 2020 Republican presidential nominee on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Aug. 27. Carlos Barria | Reuters

Workers who participate in President Donald Trump's payroll tax deferral will see a temporary increase in their take-home pay, but they'll likely see smaller paychecks in early 2021. Sept. 1 marks the first day of Trump's payroll tax deferral for employees, which he had handed down in an executive order in early August. The holiday is in effect until the end of the year. Employers and employees split the responsibility for a 12.4% levy that funds Social Security and a 2.9% tax to support Medicare. More from Your Money, Your Future:

Trump's payroll tax would 'terminate' Social Security, critics say

Self-employed people may miss out on payroll tax break

Why college students might get less financial aid next year The Social Security tax is subject to an annually adjusted wage cap ($137,700 in 2020), but the Medicare tax is assessed beyond that threshold. Trump's executive order applies to the employee's share of the Social Security tax and would affect workers whose biweekly pay is below $4,000 on a pretax basis. The IRS released guidance last Friday, making participating employers responsible for deferring and eventually paying the tax to the federal government. Companies must pay the deferred tax ratably between Jan. 1 and April 30. Penalties, interest and "additions to tax" will begin to accrue on May 1.

Employers may also "make arrangements" to collect the taxes from the employee, according to the guidance. Keep in mind that this payroll tax holiday is only a deferral. Although the president has promised to do away with the tax if reelected, it would require an act of Congress to wipe out the liability altogether. "The big issue, the surprise is that employers are going to be completely responsible for all the repayments, so they get all the responsibility for retaining the deferrals," said Pete Isberg, vice president of government affairs at ADP.

This is a holiday in which the work continues to pile up on your desk when you're gone, and you take care of it when you come back. Robert Delgado principal at KPMG

Meanwhile, employees who participate in the deferral can expect a short-term boost in their pay, but they may see a dip in their take-home pay in January. That's because not only will employers have to pay back the deferred taxes from this fall by April 30, but they also must start applying the payroll tax as per usual next January. "Employees are going to notice a reduced net pay in 2021 that's pretty much equal to the increase they'll enjoy in the next few months if they take this deferral," said Isberg.

A cash flow surprise

sturti | E+ | Getty Images

Having the deferred taxes withheld, along with paying the normal payroll tax in January, could hamstring employees who participate in the tax holiday. "This is a holiday in which the work continues to pile up on your desk when you're gone, and you take care of it when you come back," said Robert Delgado, principal at KPMG in San Diego. "I'd say employees have to clearly understand this isn't forgiveness, it's deferral." Questions also remain for seasonal employees and other workers who may part company with their employers by year end. "There are situations like job changers and seasonal employees who work through December," said Isberg at ADP.

"Maybe their last paycheck is Dec. 30 and that's the only opportunity that employer will have to recover those deferred taxes or else the employer will be liable for it," he said. One possible outcome in that case could be that the deferred tax may be withheld in one lump sum from that departing employee's last paycheck, Isberg said. The impact on workers' take-home pay could be significant. A minimum wage employee who's working full time and earning about $580 per biweekly pay period would lose about half of their paycheck if all the deferred taxes were paid at once, said Isberg.

Deferral impact
The city council announced several road blocks on Monday morning due to construction sites.

In the Gare quarter, a nightly construction site will operate in avenue de la Liberte from 10 pm until midnight on Tuesday 1 September. For the time being, the road will be closed between rue Jean Origer and rue Glesener. A diversion via rue Bonnevoie will be set up.

 VdL

In Hollerich, the route d'Esch, the nouvelle route d'Esch, and the rue de Hollerich will all receive a new coating over the course of 2 and 3 September. This means that the route d'Esch will be cut off from the motorway and the upper city centre from Wednesday 9 pm until Thursday 5 am.

 VdL

The bus-line 24 will therefore take a detour and will probably experience delays. The stop "Assurances Sociales quai 3" in route d'Esch will be replaced by the stop "Assurances Sociales quai 1" in rue de l'Acierie.

In Gasperich, rue Caroline Baldauff-Rothermel, rue Herbert Schaefer, and rue Benjamin Franklin will also receive a new coating, meaning that construction sites will be operating from 7 am on Thursday until 8 pm on Friday. All three roads will be completely closed for traffic during that period. The rue Christophe Colomb will be closed as well between rue Aristide Briand and rue Benjamin Franklin. The latter will also be closed between 6 am and noon on Friday.

These construction sites will also affect bus traffic, meaning that the stops "Clemenceau" and "Richard Wagner" will not be part of the lines 2 and 23. The stops "Bei der Auer" and "Millewee" will act as an alternative until Friday 6 pm.

The boulevard Royal will be closed starting Friday evening at 8 pm until 5 am on Monday. The City of Luxembourg advises all residents to get their cars out of the marked zone if they need it during that period.

 VdL

This construction site will also affect bus traffic:

- The stop "Hamilius quai 1" on boulevard Royal will be displaced further down the street, thereby affecting the lines 1, 2/4, 3/30, 9, 10/11, 14, 16, and 18 direction Limpertsberg. The same goes for the RGTR lines 120, 144, 172, 192, 194, 195, 740, 740, 800, and 810.

- The stop "Hamilius quai 2/Royal quai 2" on boulevard Royal will be cancelled and replaced by two alternatives:

Lines 1, 2/4, 3/30, 9, 10/11, 14, 16, and 18, as well as RGTR lines 120, 144, 172, 192, 194, 195, and 800 direction Gare will halt at a previsionary tram stop between avenue Monterey and place de Bruxelles.

Lines 8 and 12 direction place de l'Etoile will halt at a previsionary stop in avenue Monterey between boulevard Prince Henri and the stop "Monterey-Parc"

- The stop "Monterey quai 2" of lines 5/6, 13, 15, 21, 22, 28, and 31 direction West will be cancelled and replaced by the same previsionary stop.
The minister presented Cambodias viewpoints on eliminating trade barriers and market reopening which, together with the impact of COVID-19, were topics discussed at the meeting.

The participating ministers agreed on the need to prioritise a mechanism for the implementation of the Hanoi Plan of Action on Strengthening ASEAN Economic Cooperation and Supply Chain Activity in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Cambodian Minister of Commerce Pan Sorasak calls for the use of digital technology to restore trust between businesses and customers, during the 52nd Meeting of ASEAN Economic Ministers on August 29. (Photo: Cambodian Ministry of Commerce)



They also approved the CLMV Action Plan 2021-2022, which will foster trade and investment cooperation, regional commitments, the common framework for CLMV development, human resources development, and the post COVID-19 rehabilitation plan.

Within the framework of the AEM-52 and related meetings, which was held in the form of teleconferencing in Hanoi, the ministers had a consultation with partners outside the grouping, including India.

The event was co-chaired by Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh and Indias Minister of Railways and Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal.

The ministers said that to boost economic development and ensure macro-economic stability, it is necessary to reopen markets and ensure sustainable supply chains in the region, especially for essential commodities such as pharmaceuticals, medicine and food.

They recalled both sides efforts to ratify their investment agreement and review the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA).

They also highly evaluated activities of the ASEAN-India Business Council in 2020, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which they said have helped promote trade and investment cooperation and mitigate negative impact of the pandemic.

ASEAN statistics showed that the trade turnover between ASEAN and India accounted for 2.7 percent of the blocs total trade value, while Indias investment in the bloc made up 1.3 percent of the total FDI attracted by the bloc./.
The Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Transport have proposed that Vietnam's prime minister cease considering the establishment of Kite Air, a new carrier proposed by a local hospitality group, as the country looks to prioritize the recovery of its aviation sector post-pandemic.

The planning ministry, tasked with evaluating the Kite Air airline project, has backtracked on the proposal for the carriers establishment it put forward to the prime minister in January.

Vietnams Thien Minh Group applied for a license to launch Kite Air in the second quarter of this year with a capital investment of VND5.5 trillion (US$237.6 million).

If licensed, Kite Air will use six ATR72 planes in the first year.

Amid fears over the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of Transport in June proposed Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc focus on the recovery of the aviation market and removal of obstacles facing operational airlines.

The founding of new air carriers should only be considered after the aviation market recovers, it said.

According to the transport ministry, the application for Kite Airs establishment was made in 2018-2019, when the domestic and international aviation markets saw growth of 13.2 to 20 percent a year.

However, the aviation sector has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, with Vietnam being forecast to serve only 42.7 million passengers in 2020  a 46-percent year-on-year decrease, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) said in a recent review.

Currently, five Vietnamese airlines  Vietnam Airlines, Pacific Airlines, Vietjet Air, VASCO, and Bamboo Airways  with 214 aircraft in their fleets are only operating at less than 50 percent of their capacity on domestic routes and some international cargo flights, CAAV reported.

As such, the planning and transport ministries recommended that PM Phuc temporarily stop considering the founding of Kite Air to ensure the growth of the market and efficiency of the airlines.

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But companies from Giorgio Armani SpA to Capri Holdings Ltd.s Versace and LVMH Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton SE could still turn the strategy of tapping into luxury as a broader lifestyle to their benefit. They could offer extravagant getaways to high spenders happy to pay extra to dine, shop and relax in a safe and secluded environment. Or coax more potential local customers out for exclusive home-town retreats given people arent splurging on long-haul airfare. And they could expand their offering with a broader push into health and wellness, where spending was already booming before the pandemic.
RCEP countries plan to hold meeting in October, aim at deal signing within this year: Vietnamese official

HANOI, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Member countries of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) are expected to hold a meeting in October on preparation work for the deal's signing within this year, a Vietnamese official said Sunday.

Speaking at a press conference of the just concluded 52nd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Ministers' (AEM) Meeting and related meetings, Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh said signing the RCEP by the end of this year was prioritized by the AEM.

The meeting scheduled for October will continue to evaluate and review the preparing works for the RCEP's signing, before reporting to the 37th ASEAN Summit in November, and is believed to bring updated and supplemented information, Anh said.

He said when attending the eighth RCEP Ministerial Meeting via video conference Thursday, economic ministers from the RCEP countries had careful discussions and exchanges on orientations to solve the remaining issues in finalizing the RCEP negotiation and preparing for its signing within this year.

"It can be said that most remaining issues related to work contents and conclusion of the RCEP negotiation have achieved very positive results," Anh said.

The ministers also delivered specific directions regarding legal review issues, the continuation of internal process implementation, and promoting the completion of preparation work for the RCEP's signing by the end of this year while facilitating India to continue to join the signing process, he said.

He said the RCEP has been always among the priorities in Vietnam's integration strategy and is identified as one of the 13 priority goals in Vietnam's ASEAN Chairmanship 2020.

At the press conference, Anh also spoke highly of the achievements reached by the ASEAN and China regarding their relations, noting that the two sides have long term plans and programs to continue to promote trade exchanges and open markets.

He also said the ASEAN and China are committed to enhancing cooperation in important fields, especially in imperative fields in the context of COVID-19 and those with regard to vaccine production and distribution.
I will miss his tantrums.

With these words Sonia Gandhi had bid Pranab Mukherjee an emotional farewell at a Congress Working Committee meeting in June 2012 when the career Congressman was formally approved as the UPAs presidential nominee.

Years later, Mukherjee recalled Gandhis words in his book The Coalition Years, 1996-2012. After briefing the meeting on the presidential election, Sonia Gandhi bid me an emotional farewellThereafter, with a mischievous smile she looked at me and said Along with that, of course, I will miss some of his tantrums. Mukherjee wrote in the book.

The former President breathed his last on August 31 following an emergency surgery to remove a clot in his brain. Mukherjee had also tested positive for Covid-19 before the surgery.

The Coalition Years was the former presidents third political memoir, which gave several accounts of how UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi remained reluctant to approve his name for the countrys top constitutional post despite often acknowledging that he was the most suited" for the office.

Recalling the events in the run-up to the presidential elections in 2007 and 2012, Mukherjee had said the Congress chief told him that he could not be spared by the party on account of the crucial role" he played for it in the UPA government and Parliament.

Narrating the sequence of the CWC meeting on June 25, 2012, at the 7 Race Course Road residence of the prime minister, Mukherjee had noted that Gandhi, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, party office-bearers and chief ministers present finally gave him the green signal to run for the presidential office.

Mukherjee had said that prior to the meeting, he met Sonia Gandhi. She told me frankly, Pranabji you are the most eminently suited for the office, but you should not forget the crucial role you are playing in the functioning of the government. Could you suggest an alternative?" Mukherjee recorded in the book, adding that he told Gandhi he would abide by whatever decision she took.

The ties between Mukherjee and the Gandhi family soured in 2018 when the former president delivered a speech at an RSS event in the outfits Nagpur headquarters. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were also notably absent when Mukherjee was conferred the Bharat Ratna by successor Ram Nath Kovind in August 2019.
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El cambio radical de Sofia Vergara convertida en la reina de la cocaina de Colombia
David Ushery, a veteran of WNBC who has worked as an anchor on the stations news programs for years, has been given a new role  co-anchoring at 4 p.m. and the economically critical 11 p.m. newscast.

He replaces Stefan Holt, who is returning to WMAQ, the companys owned-and-operated affiliate in Chicago. Ushery will join Natalie Pasquarella, who has been co-anchoring at 11 p.m. since 2016.

David is a talented, experienced journalist who takes a thoughtful approach to every story he covers. As an anchor, hes an incredible newsroom leader who cares about the entire team, said Amy Morris, vice president of news for NBC 4 New York, in a prepared statement. Im delighted that David is taking on this new role. Ushery had previously been stationed as a co-anchor at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.

The New York late-news post can be an important milestone for any TV journalist. While the station is not considered part of the national newsgathering efforts of NBCUniversal, the work done there often has broader implications and the late newscast i- usually the final word of the day in any local stations programming cycle  is, in a major market, a critical role. Other WNBC anchors, including Sue Simmons, who left the station in 2012, and Chuck Scarborough, who continues to co-anchor WNBCs 6 p.m. slot, made careers by working the late-news shift.

Ushery, who has been with WNBC for 17 years, graduated from the University of Connecticut and began his broadcast career at WFSB, where he worked as the lead evening reporter. He also reported for the Hartford Courant and the Los Angeles Times. He gained early exposure to the business as an 11-year-old ,when was 11 years old when he was selected from a search to host the Connecticut edition of Kidsworld, a nationally syndicated television show. One of his first interviews was with news Walter Cronkite. Ushery hosted Kidsworld until he was 18.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 20:30:37|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister Wei Fenghe on Monday met with Vietnamese Ambassador to China Pham Sao Mai in Beijing.

Noting that bilateral relations have maintained stable development, Wei said China is ready to work with Vietnam to carry forward the special friendship forged by the old revolutionaries of the two Parties and countries.

China is prepared to strengthen solidarity and deepen cooperation with Vietnam to handle differences appropriately and jointly oppose hegemonism, interventionism and unilateralism, in order to make contributions to regional and global peace and stability, said Wei.

Pham Sao Mai noted that Vietnam is ready for joint efforts with China to promote traditional friendship and in-depth strategic cooperation between the two countries in the face of complex international and regional situations. Enditem
Even when a business is losing money, it's possible for shareholders to make money if they buy a good business at the right price. For example, although Amazon.com made losses for many years after listing, if you had bought and held the shares since 1999, you would have made a fortune. But while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?

So, the natural question for Bod Australia (ASX:BDA) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of cash burn. For the purposes of this article, cash burn is the annual rate at which an unprofitable company spends cash to fund its growth; its negative free cash flow. The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.

Check out our latest analysis for Bod Australia

How Long Is Bod Australia's Cash Runway?

A company's cash runway is the amount of time it would take to burn through its cash reserves at its current cash burn rate. When Bod Australia last reported its balance sheet in June 2020, it had zero debt and cash worth AU$6.4m. Importantly, its cash burn was AU$3.7m over the trailing twelve months. Therefore, from June 2020 it had roughly 21 months of cash runway. While that cash runway isn't too concerning, sensible holders would be peering into the distance, and considering what happens if the company runs out of cash. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.

How Is Bod Australia's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

Whilst it's great to see that Bod Australia has already begun generating revenue from operations, last year it only produced AU$5.9m, so we don't think it is generating significant revenue, at this point. Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis we'll focus on how the cash burn is tracking. Even though it doesn't get us excited, the 44% reduction in cash burn year on year does suggest the company can continue operating for quite some time. Of course, we've only taken a quick look at the stock's growth metrics, here. You can take a look at how Bod Australia is growing revenue over time by checking this visualization of past revenue growth.

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How Hard Would It Be For Bod Australia To Raise More Cash For Growth?

While Bod Australia is showing a solid reduction in its cash burn, it's still worth considering how easily it could raise more cash, even just to fuel faster growth. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash and drive growth. By comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate).

Bod Australia's cash burn of AU$3.7m is about 13% of its AU$27m market capitalisation. Given that situation, it's fair to say the company wouldn't have much trouble raising more cash for growth, but shareholders would be somewhat diluted.

So, Should We Worry About Bod Australia's Cash Burn?

The good news is that in our view Bod Australia's cash burn situation gives shareholders real reason for optimism. One the one hand we have its solid cash runway, while on the other it can also boast very strong cash burn reduction. Cash burning companies are always on the riskier side of things, but after considering all of the factors discussed in this short piece, we're not too worried about its rate of cash burn. Taking a deeper dive, we've spotted 4 warning signs for Bod Australia you should be aware of, and 1 of them is a bit concerning.

Of course Bod Australia may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks that insiders are buying.

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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
By PTI

KOLKATA: The West Bengal government will discuss with the Centre the issue of enforcing complete lockdown on certain days in September, after it disallowed states from imposing any shutdown outside containment zones under Unlock 4 without prior consultation, a senior official said on Sunday.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced last week that complete lockdown will be imposed across the state on September 7, 11 and 12, in bid to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Unlock 4 will come into effect across the country from September 1.

"We will discuss the matter with the central government and decide," a senior state government official said.

Containment zones will be notified on the websites of the respective district collectors and by the states/UTs, and information will also be shared with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, as per Unlock 4 guidelines.

Since July 23, the West Bengal government has been implementing bi-weekly lockdown.

A complete shutdown in the state is next scheduled on Monday.

Meanwhile, the discharge rate of COVID-19 patients in West Bengal rose to 81.9 per cent after 3,308 patients recovered from the disease on Sunday, the health department said.

A total of 1,30,952 people have so far been cured of COVID-19 in the state.

West Bengal reported 3,019 fresh coronavirus cases on Sunday, pushing the tally to 1,59,785, while the death toll mounted to 3,176 with 50 more fatalities, the department said in a bulletin.

Kolkata accounted for 19 deaths, followed by neighbouring North 24 Parganas (7), Bankura (5) and Purba Medinipur (4), it said.

Of the 50 deaths, 42 were due to comorbidities where COVID-19 was incidental.

The fresh cases include 594 infections from North 24 Parganas and 428 from the metropolis, the department said.

The state now has 25,657 active cases.

Since Saturday, 43,436 samples were tested for COVID- 19, and till date, 18,45,396 such clinical examinations have been conducted, the bulletin added.
This is an appeal to the people of my home county of Coles to protect my mom while she goes through chemotherapy this fall. As natives of Coles who now live elsewhere, my siblings and I are figuring out how to best support our mom remotely as she becomes immunocompromised during a pandemic. We dont have the luxury of safely engaging with her in person, but the people of Coles might on the rare occasions she may need to venture out, so can you please wear your masks in public?
At least nine Fort Hood soldiers have been found dead since the beginning of the year, and a dozen Texas senators are now calling for a congressional investigation into the military base.

In a letter sent to Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, members of the Texas Congressional Delegation, Liaison to the Secretary Scott Mras and Gov. Greg Abbott, the 12 Texas senators who are part of the Texas Senate Hispanic Caucus said they acknowledge the Army is taking steps to examine the base, but the review is being conducted by the Army itself.
Among the many things Covid-19 has changed is how we die. Managing the last days of a person's life, and supporting their immediate loved ones gathering and rallying around, was something it felt we did particularly well in Ireland. Covid-19 has changed all that.

Our new normal means that if a person is spending their last days in their own home, a family is cut off from the wider circle of relatives, friends and neighbours who would previously have sustained them during this difficult period. All charities have been hit by this crisis, but the services of the Irish Cancer Society night nurses, first established over thirty years ago, fully funded by public donations, have never been needed more. "The bottom line, what all of us night nurses would say, is without the help of the public, we wouldn't be in these people's homes," says Hilary Gough, who has worked as a night nurse for 23 years.

Hilary and her colleague will go into the home of a patient receiving palliative care to provide night-time support for the patient and respite for those looking after them. "When I started, it was three to five nights. Over the years it has built up to usually 10 nights with each patient. Approximately 9,000 nights were covered last year.

"Covid has changed the nature of our work, without a doubt," Hilary reflects. "Families are more wary of asking for support from outside people in case they compromise them. Pre-Covid, you would sometimes arrive and every room in the house would be filled. Neighbours, friends, extended family; there'd be a lot of people gathered. Whereas now we arrive to much smaller numbers."

People have had to readjust their expectations of how they might say goodbye to family members. "There are certainly episodes where they'll say 'oh I've a brother down in Cork, or a sister in Mayo. They'd love to come.' Once the restrictions changed to where you could travel outside your county, when we arrived in at night there'd be a high because maybe someone had managed to travel and come outside the door and wave in the window. To have that small contact; these tiny things, people were so grateful for them."

The effect of Covid-19 related restrictions hasn't been all negative, Hilary says. "On the flip side, we've had one or two cases who have found that the quietness, and the fact that they can't have people in much, is to their advantage. I would say it's probably been four cases where people said 'D'you know, it has been a blessing. We haven't been overpowered by people coming here. It has been nice, because it has been just us, and it has given us precious time with our family.' Sometimes houses are so busy, the immediate family are making tea for people, and they're not getting to sit beside their patient. You kind of have to go in and extract them."

In order to raise much needed funds, this year the annual Night Walk in aid of the Irish Cancer Society Night Nurses will still take place, only instead of a number of large walks, all those taking part with choose their own route and time in which to do the 5km walk.

Irish Cancer Society Ambassador Sile Seoige, who herself was diagnosed with thyroid cancer almost 10 years ago when she was 32, is supporting the initiative.

"I think anyone who's had an experience with cancer will realise how specialised this service is, and how important it is for the patient and the families. It's your worst nightmare," she says of a cancer diagnosis. "I suppose I feel incredibly fortunate that my own experience of cancer was so treatable. But for those who are not so lucky, I think night nurses are special people."

Sile's treatment involved a week in isolation undergoing radioactive iodine treatment, as well as two operations. "In the grand scheme of things, relatively speaking, it was ok, I was very fortunate," she says now.

She points out that sometimes it is easier for those beyond your circle of loved ones to support you in difficult times. "Sometimes the most compassionate interactions can be those outside your inner circle, because those who love you will feel your pain."

Like the support given by night nurses to people contending with cancer, Sile says that the way we react to someone who has received a diagnosis can be hugely important. "Sometimes, and the intention is always a good one, we try to fix things for people. And actually that can create more harm than good. Sometimes we're trying to fix by doing, or by the words we use, where actually sometimes less is more. Sitting with your friend in silence, putting the kettle on, just being there for them, letting them dictate the pace, is the most compassionate thing you can do for someone. Because often people sympathise, they don't know what to say, so they say, 'Oh god I'm so sorry, I feel awful for you, this is terrible'."

She recalls how after her own diagnosis, when she returned to work and told people what she was contending with, some reactions could ruin her composure, on a day she was otherwise coping.

"It was amazing that in the click of a switch, some people's behaviour towards me changed. I knew that their intention was good, but they could actually make me feel worse about myself, rather than better. I got the puppy dog eyes, and the 'poor you, isn't it terrible'. If I got that, that was liable to send me over the edge and I'd be bawling. I found that quite challenging."

Not long after going through cancer, Sile's relationship broke up. "I've been that person. I had the double whammy of it then, people saying, 'You'll do this and you'll do that'." She recalls thinking, "Stop, that's not what I need right now. I just need for where I'm at right now to be seen, acknowledged, and that's ok. It's ok if I'm feeling like shit right now. This is ok. This is normal, I'm meant to not feel great about it. You don't have to fix it."

In fact, frankly acknowledging the awfulness of a situation is often the best option, she advises.

"Sometimes the best thing is to say, 'I'm sorry. How are you? What can I do for you?' That's the most compassionate and gorgeous thing you can do for someone. Not 'oh Jesus, you poor thing, you must be feeling awful'. Just call it what it is," she advises. She is currently working on a bilingual documentary on miscarriage for TG4, informed both by her own experiences, and interviews with other women, including Rosanna Davison. "It's the first time the topic is going to be covered in documentary in Ireland," she points out. "I think there's a lot of shame and secrecy surrounding miscarriage. Does it come from the church? I suppose it does. Women were never encouraged to talk about anything, certainly not to do with bodily functions, or periods, or pregnancy, or miscarriage."

Of the Night Walk, she points out that it provides what we all need so much right now - a sense of connection with others.

"It's about connecting people. Doing the walk, you can head out with your neighbour, with your friend, on your own. You can be connected in that fact that loads of people are doing the same thing. You will be a part of a collective."
Kripya darwazo se hatt kar khade ho. Please stand away from the doors. This announcement is one that almost every Delhiite has come to love over the years, while rushing about the city from one place to another in the citys lifeline. Commonly referred to, by the millennials, as the voice of the Metro aunty / uncle, it has certainly been missed in all these five months when the Delhi Metro was made non-operational to curb the spread of Covid-19 pandemic. Now, however, the wait of denizens seems to finally come to an end.

As per the recent guidelines issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs under Unlock 4.0, Delhi Metro is expected to resume its services for public from September 7, in a phased manner. Further details on the functioning and usage of the Metro by the public will be shared soon in detail. Anuj Dayal, executive director, corporate communications, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), says, All necessary guidelines in place to combat the spread of the Covid-19 virus shall be implemented.

Talking about some of the new rules that will have to be followed in Delhi Metro, Dayal adds, Alternate seating will be allowed and stickers will be pasted on the prohibited seats. For standing passengers, one meter distance must be kept, all passengers will be checked with thermal scanners and their hands will be sanitised. Lifts will accommodate about two-three passengers only. Trains will halt a little longer at stations to allow social distancing while boarding and de-boarding.

No hour is rush hour?

Commuters maintain distance as they are seen during a mock drill at Sector 51 Metro Station in Noida. (PHOTO: Sunil Ghosh/HT )

So what can one expect in their Unlock metro experience? City-based entrepreneur, Akash Gupta says, I feel, there will be lesser people riding the Metro as many individuals will stick to #WorkFromHome in the new normal. Travel will be lot more need based, and hence this will lead to lesser pushing and shoving. However I just hope this trend continues for long and people use Metro facilities judiciously and with sanity.

Gupta jokes, What Ill miss is standing at Rajiv Chowk metro station boarding for Gurugram and just standing in the queue, waiting for the crowd to do the rest in terms of taking you in inside the metro.

Riding the metro without getting pushed around by the crowd? Thats a feat that Delhiites havent been able to witness often! When I used to travel via metro to my college, I used to travel at 8 am rush hour. I remember that usually at Rajiv Chowk there was so much rush in the womens section that the co-passengers often grabbed each others bags and even hair to enter the train. When the metro reopens now, the experience will be entirely different and surreal since metro is synonymous with dhakka mukki! Metro bin dhakka mukki is like chai without pappe, laughs Jacqueline Joseph, a graduate from Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University.

Kripya doori banaye rakhein/ Please maintain distance

Commuters will have to necessarily wear face masks, and maintain social distancing norms, as per the new guidelines of Unlock 4.0. (Photo: Raj K Raj/HT )

Will metro have some social distancing audio messages for riding passengers? Im hoping that the metro aunty (female voice of announcer) has a lot of fun one liners like Darwazo se hi nahi, kripya ek doosre se bhi doori banaye rakhe #janhitmainjari (Not just from the door, maintain distance from fellow passengers, too. Issued in public interest). It will be so much fun travelling via the metro with lesser passengers, poori foreign wali feel aayegi, like the London tube that Ive travelled in, says Jaskaran Singh, a photographer.

Is it a metro station or FBI office?

Commuters will have to take mandatory thermal scanning. (Photo by Raj K Raj/ Hindustan Times) (Raj K Raj/HT )

Thermal scanning being made mandatory before getting permission to ride the metro has made city residents wonder how will it feel like being at gunpoint. Tanishka Kapoor, an IT professional, says, Im happy that stringent measures to protect our health will be made by the DMRC. But I cant stop thinking how it will feel to be stopped at a (thermal) gun point from entering the metro. Ive kept my jokes prepared for the guards scanning every passenger. One of my jokes will be saying loud  Yeh metro station hai ya FBI ka office?

Sanitiser puffs to replace perfume puffs

Wearing a good perfume was common courtesy while riding the crowded metro trains in the pre-Covid era. But now I feel that with a cap on the number of passengers, a sanitisers puff will go a longer way! Seems like the rules have changed, says a gleeful Shweta Gupta, a merchandise designer from Delhi who is happy that travellers will finally give hygiene a priority when commuting via Delhi Metro. Im a hygiene freak! Im so excited to ride the spic and span Delhi metro that wont be messed up by people, she adds.

Auntiyon ki gossip will be missed!

Didi zara zor se boliye, social distancing ki vajah se awaz nahi sunayi de rahi. Delhi-based undergrad student Abhir Bhalla, will miss the over hearing conversations in the metro, on any average day, but feels personal space, would be better this time. He says, Since there are reports that metro will be keeping only a few gates open, itll be important that social distancing is followed. The community could really benefit from understanding and respecting the concept of personal space, which often does not happen in public transport. Id miss the funny conversations though. You tend to hear other people talking loudly on the phone. And if youre really bored, or your signal drops, and OTT isnt working, it can be amusing to listen to people talk so loudly, and the whole compartment ends up staring at that person.

Author tweets @FizzyBuddha and @NainaArora8

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The World Health Organization on Monday urged countries to continue implementing safety measures to control the spread of the coronavirus, such as limiting public gatherings and protecting vulnerable groups as they try to reopen businesses and services.

"The more control countries have over the virus, the more they can open up. Opening up without having control is a recipe for disaster," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a virtual news briefing from the United Nations health agency's Geneva headquarters. "No country can just pretend the pandemic is over."

Tedros outlined "four essential things that all countries, communities and individuals must focus on to take control." He said countries should "prevent amplifying events," which he said many countries have linked to large gatherings at stadiums, nightclubs and places of worship. He added that countries and people can find "creative ways" to be social.

He added that countries should prevent deaths by protecting vulnerable people, including older people, people with underlying conditions and essential workers. This will help save lives and alleviate the burden on countries' health systems, he said.

Tedros also said "individuals must play their part" by wearing masks, social distancing and washing their hands frequently. He added that governments can avoid stay-at-home orders by implementing targeted responses to outbreaks through testing, contact tracing and isolating.

"If countries are serious about opening up, they must be serious about suppressing transmission and saving lives," he said. "This may seem like an impossible balance, but it's not. It can be done and it has been done."

Tedros added that the WHO recently published guidance on how hotels, cargo ships and fishing vessels can safely resume operations as "part of our commitment to supporting every sector to reopen as safely as possible."

WHO officials said the so-called new normal will include at least some mitigation measures, such as social distancing and mask wearing. The organization has previously said that such measures will likely need to be followed in many countries even after a vaccine is eventually brought to market.

Dozens of vaccine manufacturers have launched trials for their coronavirus vaccine candidates, according to the WHO, and at least two have started large phase three trials. Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said over the weekend that his agency would consider issuing an emergency use authorization for a vaccine before its phase three clinical trial is fully complete.

But Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the WHO's chief scientist, warned Monday that authorizing a vaccine too early and with too little data could create a variety of problems.

"The risk of approving a vaccine prematurely for us is that, first of all, it will make it very difficult to continue with randomized clinical trials," she said. "And secondly, there's a risk of introducing a vaccine that's been inadequately studied and might turn out to have a low efficacy, thereby not doing the job of bringing an end to this pandemic or even worse, have a safety profile that's not acceptable."
BAGHDAD, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Qi Card, The leading electronic payment solution and national debit/credit card of Iraq, today announced the launch of Salifni, a temporary, emergency loan program allowing qualified, ministry employees to receive 200K IQD instead of waiting for their salary through traditional methods. Salifni was created to directly address the issue of delayed salary payments to nearly 2 million Iraqi government employees.

"We are excited to offer this program as one way to help the Iraqi people through lockdowns imposed from COVID-19," said Bahaa Al-Hadi, chairman and founder of International Smart Card, the company that owns and operates Qi Card. "This zero-interest loan program delivers government employee salaries directly onto their Mastercard and is available immediately."

Built on the successful Qi Card program platform, Salifni is designed to help government employees limit further exposure to potential scenarios that place citizens at risk of contracting the coronavirus. Instead of waiting in long lines to receive funds manually from populated bank branches, citizens can request their money directly from the comfort of their home by using their smartphone, computer or other mobile devices through a secure network.

"Salifni expedites salary payments while helping Iraqi people ease the worry and stress of having access to money during coronavirus lockdown orders," added Bahaa Al-Hadi. "Social distancing and eliminating any unnecessary movement throughout the community is vitally important to defeating the coronavirus pandemic. The ability of ministry-level employees to access their money early and safely is a top priority."

The loans are processed by a user-friendly, secure portal that can be accessed online where a list of ministry-level government employees is categorized and approved. The approved status of nearly 1.7M government employees is updated frequently to ensure continued eligibility. Upon accessing the secure portal, customers follow a series of basic questions regarding the loan and review the terms and conditions. Once the terms and conditions are accepted, customers engage with an OTP (one-time password) code as an added security feature. Upon acceptance, funds are uploaded directly to the customer's Qi Card in seconds.

To learn more about Qi Card's Salifni program, visit: qi.iq/loans

About Qi Card

Qi Card is the leading electronic payment services solution in Iraq, which employs biometric identity as the cardholder verification method. Qi Card is operated and managed by International Smart Card "ISC", the most successful public private partnership in the history of Iraq. With its State Bank partners, Al-Rafidain and Al-Rashed, it has successfully completed domiciliation of more than 7M citizens with its multi-biometric payment scheme. In just over 18 months, ISC was able to disburse 5T IQD in loans to over 800,000 Iraqi citizens. To date, Qi Card has an ecosystem of 17,000 POS and more than 6000 merchants using the Qi scheme to provide instant merchant funded installment and other commercial activities. Qi Card issues and acquires payment cards on behalf of fourteen affiliated banks in Iraq. Through its principle membership in Mastercard, ISC has now issued more than 1.8M Mastercard and is now the largest Mastercard provider in Iraq.

SOURCE Qi Card
As the French government called on Mali's military junta to 'quickly' organise a transition to civilian rule, the protest coalition, asking for a role in the transition, has proposed a maximum of 24 months.

The protest coalition that campaigned against former Mali president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has proposed that the military junta that ousted him organise a transition to civilian rule within 24 months, one of its leaders said Sunday.

The protest movement has demanded that the military junta give it a role in the transition, in keeping with its role in spearheading Keita's ouster.

It has proposed a transition of 18 to 24 months with civilians heading a transitional presidency, government and assembly

France warns against risk of terrorism

Earlier, in an interview with Europe 1 station on Sunday, Army minister Florence Parly warned that the region risked falling into the hands of terrorists, "because terrorists feed on the weakness of states and the Malian state is weak, very weak at the moment."

"Moreover, the international community, which has committed itself to the Sahel, and Mali in particular, could ask itself questions," Parly also warned.

France has more than 5,000 soldiers as part of Operation Barkhane, its military force in the Sahel.

The UN has deployed 13,000 soldiers to Mali in one of its biggest peacekeeping operations. Takuba, a European special forces group, as well as the G5 Sahel, an under-resourced force of regional soldiers, are also present.

Mali's military rulers on Saturday postponed the first scheduled meeting with political and civil organisations on the transfer of power.

A protest coalition that had campaigned against former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the 'June 5 Movement', was not invited to the meeting and accused the new military rulers of trying to hijack the coup.

Neighbouring West African countries, which are demanding a return to civil rule and elections within 12 months, decided Friday to maintain the closure of borders and a ban on trade and financial flows with Mali.
WOODBRIDGE  The first day of school was like a walk in the park, but with foot traffic headed in only one direction, according to the head of the Amity Regional School District.

It honestly seems to be going very, very well, said Superintendent of Schools Jennifer Byars. I have to commend the entire district team of administrators and teachers and paraeducators and school security guards.

Regional School District 5 includes students from Woodbridge, Orange and Bethany.

Byars said she started her day visiting the two middle schools, in Bethany and Orange, before heading to the high school. At all the schools, she said she saw students and staff following the safety protocols such as wearing a mask and keeping distance.

Byars said administrators at Amity Regional High School made a midday adjustment to arrows within school hallways to change the flow of traffic in some areas of the school to better accommodate social distancing.

By reopening at 50 percent capacity  splitting students into two cohorts that attend school in person two out of five days each week  the difference from full capacity was palpable, she said.

Cohorting students maximizes the physical distancing and minimizes student transitions, she said. It really is a significant difference from having everybody here. You can appreciate the value in maintaining that physical distancing when you see school buildings half-full.

About 1,450 students are enrolled at Amity High School, whereas about about 350 students attend both Amity middle schools in Bethany and Orange, according to state data.

Colleen Murray, superintendent of schools in Bethany, rode a bus to Bethany Community School, which is for elementary students, and served lunch in the cafeteria.

On Monday, students with last names beginning in A through K attended in person. On Tuesday, the rest of the students will attend their first day of school. Starting Wednesday, all of the schools roughly 360 students will attend school together for an early dismissal.

Its like a soft opening, Murray said. We wanted to start by easing them into mask wearing.

Murray said that most of the changes that will be made moving forward are usual beginning of year things, such as arranging for a more coordinated parent pickup after the final bell instead of COVID-19-specific initiatives.

I know a lot of parents and adults were worried about it, but they were troopers, she said.

Were doing outdoor education a few times during the day to get the kids out and during recess they can take off their masks, Murray said. Theyve had breaks throughout the day.

Bethany First Selectman Paula Cofrancesco said she had heard a small number of concerns about the hybrid model, but the overwhelming reaction she saw at Bethany Community School was one of happiness.

I saw a lot of smiling faces. Teachers were happy to see the kids and the kids were happy to see their friends. There was a little feeling of some normalcy, she said. It was nice to be back.

Cofrancesco said Bethanys Board of Education had been planning for Mondays reopening since March, when schools were first closed because of the spread of the novel coronavirus in the state and nation.

Orange First Selectman Jim Zeoli, a former school bus driver, said his phone lines had been similarly quiet Monday.

This year I think everybody was apprehensive, but I think its going OK, he said. It usually goes smoothly.

brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com
Taapsee Pannu is one actress who always speaks the truth and is never shy to talk about what she feels like. Today the actress has taken to her social media account to talk about and speak about the heated argument and the most controversial case in our industry - the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.





In the last few weeks, after Sushant Singh Rajputs father filed a complaint against Sushants ex girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, the media has been harsh on the young actress and netizens have already gave their verdict. While the CBI is still investigating the case, the social media has already made their theories about the late actors death and the mental stress he went through. South actress Lakshmi Manchu, who saw Rheas interview on National television, penned down her thoughts and shared a post on asking people not to take matters in their hands and let the investigation decide.



I didnt know Sushant on a personal level nor do I know Rhea but what I know is, it only takes to be a human to understand how wrong it is to overtake judiciary to convict someone who isnt proven guilty. Trust the law of the land for your sanity and the deceaseds sanctity AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA https://t.co/gmd6GVMNjc  taapsee pannu (@taapsee) August 30, 2020

Soon Taapsee Pannu quoted her tweet and shared her opinion on the same matter. She said, I didnt know Sushant on a personal level nor do I know Rhea but what I know is, it only takes to be a human to understand how wrong it is to overtake judiciary to convict someone who isnt proven guilty. Trust the law of the land for your sanity and the deceaseds sanctity.Now thats well said by the talented actress.
By AFP

BEIRUT: Lebanon's President Michel Aoun called Sunday for the proclamation of a "secular state" during a televised address to mark the upcoming centenary of the Lebanese state.

"I call for the proclamation of Lebanon as a secular state," Aoun said during a speech after an enormous explosion at Beirut's port in early August and months of deepening economic crisis.

He said such a state was the only way "of protecting and preserving pluralism" and creating real unity.

"Lebanon's youth are calling for change... for them and for their future," said the 85-year-old president, who has long been accused by protesters of being out of touch with the country's youth.

"I say yes, the time has come," he added. "There is a need to develop, modify, change the system."

ALSO READ: Hezbollah 'open' to French proposal for new Lebanon pact, says chief Hasan Nasralla

Aoun spoke a day ahead of Lebanon marking a hundred years since French mandate authorities declared the state of Greater Lebanon.

French President Emmanuel Macron is set to land in the country on Monday on his second visit in weeks to hammer home the need for reform in the wake of the deadly port blast that killed at least 188 people and wounded thousands.

Aoun said he would call for dialogue including religious authorities and political leaders to reach "a formula that is accepted by everyone and that would be embodied in the appropriate constitutional amendments".

ALSO READ: Half of Lebanese could face food shortages, says UN

Macron on Friday spoke of the "constraints of a confessional system" in the country's politics that was hampering reforms.

Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, an ally of Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, earlier Sunday said his Shiite movement was "open" to the French proposal for a new political pact for Lebanon as long as there is national consensus.

Aoun is to receive the representatives of parliamentary blocs and independent lawmakers on Monday to start consultations towards naming a new premier after the government resigned following the Beirut explosion.
Venezuela said on Monday it has pardoned more than 50 opposition politicians including 20 legislators who had mostly been accused of conspiring against President Nicolas Maduro, as the country heads toward parliamentary elections scheduled for December.

The effort signals that the ruling Socialist Party is seeking to boost participation in the upcoming vote, which part of the opposition had vowed to boycott on the grounds that it is rigged.

Those pardoned include legislator Freddy Guevara, who sought asylum in the residence of the Chilean ambassador, as well as Roberto Marrero, who had served as chief of staff to opposition leader and congress chief Juan Guaido.

We hope that all of these measures taken by the Bolivarian government help maintain the democratic focus of all of these political actors, Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said in a press conference.

Rights groups have harshly criticized Venezuelas government for arbitrarily jailing adversaries, often on charges made with little or no evidence and in violation of basic due process and parliamentary immunity of legislators.

Maduros government has in the past released small groups of jailed opposition leaders, but those releases have typically been followed by more such arrests.

The government denies holding political prisoners and says such accusations are part of US-backed efforts to tarnish its image.
Ultimately what remains are the voices of dissidents celebrated for speaking truth to power, for attempting a restoration of humanity

A man plays a guitar in front of riot police line during Belarusian opposition supporters rally near the Palace of Independence in Minsk, Belarus

The Nasdiya Sukta, a major verse in the Rigveda, states, Then He, who created all that is, or did not, Who looks upon everything from the highest heaven, He alone knows. Or maybe He too does not.

In its very first intellectual iterations the Indic civilization laid down its commitment to doubt and dissent, its determination to address the ambiguities of both the human mind and the omniscient gods through a critical lens.

It was this combination of constant seeking and continual absence of certitude that made our civilisation so fecund. A crucible of key human ideas and systems of thought.

Questioning shaped us. Our foundational texts, the key Upanishads, were exploratory, provisional, in their wisdom. No rajan, no rishi, no god, could escape the sincere question. None could turn their face away from the mirror.

Anyone could be cross-examined on their dharma, from the unimpeachable Yudhishthira, to the divine Rama and Krishna. Your conduct defined your stature. No ones station was fixed. It was made and re-made through beliefs and action. It was always up for interrogation.

The genius of Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Babasaheb Ambedkar  who gave up their entire lives to restore a wounded civilisation  lay in the same seed: constant self-examination and self-correction; and a brutal honesty inextricably aligned to the greater good.

The free society they struggled to create, even as it seems to borrow from the language of a more recent West, actually owes its deepest debt to our own ancient impulses.

The conviction that free citizens, thinking citizens, questioning citizens, lie at the root of the good society. The finest rajan is not the unquestioned master of the people. The finest rajan is the embodiment of a questioning people.

More than 1,600 years after the glorious triumph of dissent in the death of Socrates, the Magna Carta was the first successful act of political dissent in 1215. It hewed into stone the first principles of Constitutional Democratism and sowed the seeds of a million mutinies.

It proclaimed No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.

It gave birth to a central tenet of modern societies, Be ye ever so high, the law is above you, by holding that no man is above the law, not even the king. The Magna Carta has been for 800 years a plinth idea of free people, free societies and free nations around the world.

On the continent, the Magna Carta was succeeded by the Renaissance and Reformation and the battle between old blind feudalisms and dogmas against the engines of human thought was noisily afoot. Answers were demanded not just from divine rulers but also from divinity. Political dissidents were persecuted, exiled, and heretics often burnt at the stake.

But the tsunami of change was beyond being bottled anymore. The next few hundred years would see more change than the millennia and a half before. The fruit of human inquiry would flower. Technology in the shape of the printing press would spread dissident ideas rapidly and spark fresh questioning and reform movements. It would hasten the end of Europes Dark Ages.

The Age of Enlightenment would push for individual liberty and religious tolerance. The English Bill of Rights in 1689 would limit the powers of the monarch and set out rights of individuals including free speech.

The founding of the United States of America itself would itself become perhaps the most successful act of historical dissent  a revolt against the feudal order of Europe by people who went to the New World to create a new land of equality and opportunity.

Dissent is thus cardinal to the idea of the United States. The American founding fathers enshrined the right to dissent in the First Amendment to the Constitution for the American nation was baked in the oven of contesting ideas. Justice Oliver Wendell consecrated this in his famous dissenting opinion Abrams vs United States a century ago.

He wrote, But when men have realised that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas.

The twentieth century saw the rise of Communist and Fascist regimes. These regimes were set against all dissent. (One reason Nehru, with rare foresight and integrity, refused to meet Benito Mussolini in 1936, even while transiting through Rome.)

It saw the monstrous excesses of Stalin and Mao, just to name the worst two. An estimated 50-100 million people, including their finest minds, died due to their autocratic  not-to-be-questioned  policies. In time both schools of thought and governance collapsed, having inflicted untold suffering on innocent millions.

Adolf Hitlers concentration camp regime also commenced with the persecution of his political opponents, the Social Democrats. They were tortured and executed by the Nazi Gauleiters and Reichsleiters. While the Social Democratic ideal survived the ravages of Nazism, Hitler and his mistress were compelled to commit suicide and their bodies were charred beyond recognition. Mussolini and his mistress, similarly, were strung up in public by their own oppressed countrymen.

Ultimately what remains are the voices of dissidents celebrated for speaking truth to power, for attempting a restoration of humanity's faith in itself.

Writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Soviet communisms trenchant critic, built his Nobel Prize lecture around a Russian proverb: One word of truth outweighs the whole world. Andrei Sakharov, another famous dissident, stated that, A man may hope for nothing, but nevertheless speak because he cannot simply remain silent.

The Indian National Movement is easily the finest example of the power and creativity of dissent, both internal and external. One drove out by moral force and principled protest the most powerful colonial power in history since the Romans.

The other, the healthy, productive dissent within the key architects of the freedom struggle  arguably the greatest assemblage ever of remarkable leaders  is what made the former possible.

From their arguments, their disagreements and agreements, their unwavering goal of the greater good, that the sublime idea of India was born.

The argumentative Indian is not a trope. It is the truth upon which our civilisation stands.
The on Monday



directed the government to consider a representation made by the Bombay Parsi Panchayat (BPP) for holding prayers at a temple of the community in Mumbai on September 3, amidst the COVID-19 restrictions.

A bench of Justices RD Dhanuka and MJ Jamdar was hearing a petition filed by BPP trustee Viraf Mehta seeking permission to hold the annual 'Farvardiyan' prayers at the Doongerwadi temple at Kemps Corner.

Mehta had sought the permission citing the Supreme Court order allowing the Jain community to open three temples in the city for Paryushan festival.

Mehta's advocate Prakash Shah told the court the proposed prayers are not part of festivities, but are an annual ritual, whereby members of the community remember and pay respect to the dead.

He also said the BPP would ensure adherence to all safety guidelines including social distancing, hygiene etc.

The plea stated a total of 50 people are expected to offer prayers at the Doongerwadi temple on Thursday between 7 am and 4.30 p.m.

The temple premises would be divided into several pavilions of 1,000 sq ft each, and at a time, not more than 20 people would be allowed per section, it said.

The government submitted that guidelines of the state and the Centre currently didn't permit any religious festivals, or large gatherings.

Advocate General (AG) Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, however, told the bench that if the BPP agrees to hold a token or representative prayers, whereby just a few people would visit the temple on behalf of the entire community, the state could make a consideration for them.

It is very likely that if the petitioner is granted the permission to hold prayers in the temple in Mumbai, other members of the Parsi community might seek a similar relaxation elsewhere in the state, the AG said.

Union government's counsel Additional Solicitor General (ASG), Anil Singh, told the court the Centre's guidelines did not permit any "congregation" for religious festivities.

Both Singh and Kumbhakoni said the petitioner must clarify how many people would attend the prayers and who would take responsibility for implementing the SOPs on safety measures for COVID-19 etc.

The bench directed Mehta to visit the state secretariat, Mantralaya, here this evening and respond to the queries raised by the government.

The bench said Mehta and one more trustee of the BPP must makes a representation with their request for such prayers before secretaries of departments of home and disaster management.

The bench directed the government to inform the court of its decision and the reasons for the same by 11 am on September 2.

(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 wants Biden to win, Russia wants Trump to win," Sen. Ben Sasse said Monday.

"And both our enemies want Americans to turn on each other in this stupid, hyper-politicized moment," he said.

"Politicians  Republicans and Democrats  shouldn't use intelligence briefings and products to score political points and make news," Sasse said.

"The stakes are so much bigger than the current bickering."

That was Sasse's brief and blunt assessment in responding to an inquiry about his reaction to the intelligence community's decision to end in-person intelligence briefings for members of Congress about security threats to the 2020 presidential election.

Written assessment updates will still be provided.

Sasse is a Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Representatives of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence informed both the Senate and House Intelligence Committees about the briefing policy change over the weekend.

John Ratcliffe, chief of the intelligence office, said the move is an attempt to "ensure clarity and consistency" and to crack down on leaks.

Critics have said the change will interfere with the ability to question and test intelligence assessments in advance of the November presidential election.

Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman, was appointed by President Donald Trump in May.

The preferences of China and Russia have previously been summarized by National Counterintelligence and Security Center Director William Evanina.

Reach the writer at 402-473-7248 or dwalton@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSdon

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Former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain died on July 30. So it naturally came as a surprise when, two weeks later, his Twitter account tweeted a link to an anti-Joe Biden video with the caption, "Just in case you thought Biden's candidacy was going to be anything other than completely nuts, team Trump has released a new video. #JoeBiden #KamalaHarris."

It was the account's first tweet since announcing Cain's funeral services on Aug. 7.

At the time, the account still bore Cain's name and photograph. It looked as if the man himself had tweeted. He began trending, with outrage appearing alongside the many "Weekend at Bernie's" jokes.

"Come on @Twitter @jack!" tweeted journalist Lois Romano, referring to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. "You're ok with dead people attacking others?"

The account soon changed its name to the Cain Gang and changed its bio to "Official Twitter for Team Cain. Formerly run by Herman Cain, now supervised by his team and family. The mission continues."

After the initial bout of confusion, the account continued tweeting generally about politics, to little fanfare. On Sunday, however, it again made headlines, for sending out a tweet, which has since been deleted, reading, "It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be," with a link to the conservative political website the Western Journal.

Many users quickly noted the irony of the tweet, given that covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, caused Cain's death. Others wondered if someone else tweeting under Cain's former account violated Twitter's terms.

"Is it against Twitter TOS for the staff of a dead man to tweet from his verified account?" one Democrat-supporting user tweeted. " . . . Disgusting given that Herman Cain died of COVID." University College London professor Brian Klaas called the tweet Act IV of "a tragedy in four acts."

Cain's estate did not respond to The Washington Post's request for comment by press time. His daughter Melanie Cain Gallo wrote a blog post on Aug. 11 stating that the newly named "Cain Gang" would anchor his website and all his social media accounts.

"This is a timely reminder: The Cain Gang consists of different writers who have their own opinions. We all lean right, but we're also individuals," Cain's account tweeted on Aug. 13. "Each piece reflects the opinions of that writer. That's how Herman wanted it to work. But we agree on this: We love you all!"

More for you Cain mourned, celebrated at funeral

Not everyone thought the new posts were a good idea. "People were mostly careful and respectful when Herman Cain passed away from COVID-19, and boy that is going to disappear quickly now that his family and comms team have decided to keep tweeting out new political content under his name," tweeted Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University.

Twitter spokesperson Trenton Kennedy told The Post, "The account you referenced is currently not in violation of the Twitter Rules," and pointed to "the updated profile information and profile image indicating who is managing the account." In other words, since the name and the bio changed, the account could keep on tweeting - and remain verified.

The story of Cain's Twitter account isn't unusual in the social media age. Roger Ebert's wife Chaz, for example, took over his account following his death.

Many, though, find it unethical for an account run by someone other than the original account holder to remain "verified" - as depicted by a blue check mark - which, according to Twitter, "lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic." Novelist Michael Marshall Smith tweeted at Twitter Support and Dorsey, "People are using a dead person's verified account to talk trash. This place has some standards, right? A little bit?"

But even living celebrities and politicians often have a team tweeting on their behalf. As Slate's Tamara Kneese put it, "Death exposes the networks of people behind singular social media presences. A celebrity or influencer, just like a corporate brand, may have a rotating group of people, or in some cases bots, running the account."

Many people already know this, but the responses to Cain's continued tweeting suggest some don't like it. "Herman Cain got the coronavirus after attending Trump's indoor Tulsa rally without wearing a mask nor social distancing. Then he died. Now people are using his Twitter account" to claim the virus isn't very deadly, tweeted physician and scientist Eugene Gu. "This is just so wrong."
-- Efforts must be made to build a new modern socialist Tibet that is united, prosperous, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful, Xi said at a high-level meeting on Tibet-related work.

-- Xi stressed a long-term commitment to the CPC Central Committee's policy to ensure Tibet has support from the central authorities and assistance from the whole country.

-- Work related to Tibet must focus on safeguarding national unity and strengthening ethnic solidarity.

-- More education and guidance should be provided for the public to mobilize their participation in combating separatist activities, thus forging an ironclad shield to safeguard stability.

BEIJING, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping has called for efforts to build a new modern socialist Tibet.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the comments at the two-day seventh Central Symposium on Tibet Work, which ended in Beijing Saturday.

Xi underlined the need to fully implement the CPC's policies on governing Tibet for a new era.

Xi called for efforts to ensure national security and enduring peace and stability, steadily improve people's lives, maintain a good environment, solidify border defense and ensure frontier security.

Efforts must be made to build a new modern socialist Tibet that is united, prosperous, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful, Xi said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, speaks during a high-level meeting on Tibet work in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

Since the sixth symposium in 2015, Tibet has made comprehensive progress and historic achievements in its various undertakings, Xi said, noting achieving sustained stability and rapid development in Tibet constitutes a major contribution to the overall work of the Party and the state.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, policies on governing Tibet for a new era have taken shape, Xi said, stressing that the CPC leadership, the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the system of regional ethnic autonomy must be upheld to carry out work related to Tibet.

Work related to Tibet must focus on safeguarding national unity and strengthening ethnic solidarity, Xi said.

More education and guidance should be provided for the public to mobilize their participation in combating separatist activities, thus forging an ironclad shield to safeguard stability, Xi noted.

Xi stressed that patriotism should be incorporated into the whole process of education in all schools.

He called for continuous efforts to enhance recognition of the great motherland, the Chinese nation, the Chinese culture, the CPC and socialism with Chinese characteristics by people of all ethnic groups.

Tibetan Buddhism should be guided in adapting to the socialist society and should be developed in the Chinese context, Xi said.

While stressing the implementation of the new development philosophy, Xi noted that efforts should be sped up to advance high-quality development.

More work, measures and support are needed to consolidate the achievements made in poverty alleviation, Xi said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, speaks during a high-level meeting on Tibet work in Beijing, capital of China.(Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

A number of major infrastructure projects and public service facilities will be completed, including the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, Xi said.

Conserving the ecology of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the greatest contribution to the survival and development of the Chinese nation, Xi said, emphasizing that scientific research should be further advanced on the plateau.

He also stressed strengthening the building of leadership teams at all levels, cadre teams and primary-level Party organizations in order to improve the capacity to respond to major struggles and prevent major risks.

Cadres and workers in Tibet should be cared for and supporting policies regarding their income, housing, medical care and retirement, as well as education for their children, should be further improved and well implemented, Xi noted.

Xi stressed a long-term commitment to the CPC Central Committee's policy to ensure Tibet has support from the central authorities and assistance from the whole country.

Continued and increasing support will be offered to Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces in their Tibet-related work, Xi said.

Other senior Chinese leaders were at the symposium, which was presided over by Li Keqiang. Li Zhanshu, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng were in attendance, while Wang Yang spoke to sum up the event.

Xi's speech at the symposium is a guiding document on Tibet-related work in a new era, Li Keqiang said while presiding over the event.

In his concluding speech, Wang Yang also called for efforts to study Xi's speech, which laid out fundamental rules for carrying out Tibet-related work in a new era.
The World Socialist Web Site is publishing letters of support from Sri Lanka for historian Joseph Scalice, who was slanderously attacked by the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Jose Maria Sison, over a lecture that he delivered on August 26 exposing the role of the CPP and its Maoist ideology.

On the day prior to the lecture, the CPP took the extraordinary step of publishing a special edition of its newspaper Ang Bayan devoted entirely to an interview with Sison denouncing Scalice as a paid CIA agent, for which he provided not a shred of evidence.

Sison was reacting in particular to the parallel that Scalice had drawn out between the CPPs support for the fascistic Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and the support of an earlier Stalinist party for the Marcos dictatorship. In his lecture, Scalice comprehensively refuted Sisons blatant lie that the CPP had never supported Duterte and established that the partys repeated orientation to bourgeois politicians stemmed from the counter-revolutionary Stalinist perspective of the two-stage theory.

We call on our readers to come to the defence of Scalice by sending statements of support to the WSWS. By establishing the historical truth about the treacherous record of the CPP in the Philippines and the underlying reasons for its betrayals, Scalice has done a service to the working class in that country and internationally.

The following statements come from Sri Lanka:

Dr. Luxman Nugapitiya from Sinhala Department in University of Peradeniya said:

Historian Joseph Scalice delivered a lecture titled First as tragedy, second as farce: Marcos, Duterte, and the Communist Parties of the Philippines, dealing with brutal rule of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, hosted by Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

It explained how Stalinism and Maoism has propped up bourgeois politics for decades. It also exposed the disastrous role played by Maoist Communist Party in bringing dictator Duterte to office in 2016.

The founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Jose Maria Sison, made fraudulent interviews and baseless threatening statements through the media against Dr. Scalice days before the lecture. I reject all those. As an academic who cherishes democracy and justice, I stand for the right to the expression of the truth and also vehemently denounce anti-social remarks made by Maoist Sison against Dr. Scalice.

Journalist and writer Wimal Ranatunga stated:

The role played by the leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Jose Maria Sison is anti-social and it reflects the reactionary path to which Stalinist parties worldwide have turned. The exposures made by historian Scalice are important. It is clear that leaders of the Communist Parties have supported Marcos, who carried out dictatorial rule by imposing marshal law for 20 years, as well as the dictator Duterte, who came to power in 2016 in Philippines.

The Stalinist Communist Party makes a baseless accusation that historian Scalice is a pathologically rabid anti-communist and CIA psywar agent. I oppose that accusation outright as the provocative remarks of Maria Sison are against the freedom of expression and the right to carry out political work.

Sampath Wijesinghe, Attorney at Law, commented:

The lecture done by Joseph Scalice is a great historical point of view in respect of the revealing betrayal of the labour movement by Stalinism in the Philippines and in the world. Particularly in the midst of the developing class struggles, it is essential to elaborate and investigate the roots of the development and decline of Stalinism, the labour bureaucracy and trade union leaderships. Therefore, this valuable lecture will be a greater tool to sharpen the class consciousness of revolutionary workers. Finally, his lecture will be an important step regarding the establishment of the Trotskyist section in the Philippines.
President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday extended his condolences after Congress veteran and Indias former president Pranab Mukherjee died at a Delhi hospital. His passing comes at the age of 84.

Sad to hear that former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee is no more. His demise is passing of an era. A colossus in public life, he served Mother India with the spirit of a sage. The nation mourns losing one of its worthiest sons. Condolences to his family, friends and all citizens, President Kovind tweeted.

Sad to hear that former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee is no more. His demise is passing of an era. A colossus in public life, he served Mother India with the spirit of a sage. The nation mourns losing one of its worthiest sons. Condolences to his family, friends & all citizens.  President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) August 31, 2020

Endowed with perspicacity and wisdom, Bharat Ratna Shri Mukherjee combined tradition and modernity. In his 5 decade long illustrious public life, he remained rooted to the ground irrespective of the exalted offices he held. He endeared himself to people across political spectrum, President Kovind also said in the following tweets.

Also read | Pranab Mukherjee dies: A look at his illustrious political career

As the First Citizen, he continued to connect with everyone, bringing Rashtrapati Bhavan closer to the people. He opened its gates for public visit. His decision to discontinue the use of the honorific His Excellency was historic, President also said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also expressed his grief over the tragedy as he said, Mukherjee left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation.

India grieves the passing away of Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society, tweeted PM Modi.

A quintessential Congressman for five decades, the seven-time parliamentarian had worked as a teacher and journalist before taking his first steps in politics. His first stop in Delhi was the Rajya Sabha in 1969, the House that re-elected him four more times before he won his first Lok Sabha election from Bengals Jangipur in 2004. He was re-elected in 2009.

Mukherjee had suffered a fall at his Rajaji Marg house and had been operated to remove a blood clot in his brain on August 10. Doctors on Monday morning warned that there was a decline in his condition and he was in septic shock due to infection in his lung.

Later in the afternoon, his son Abhijit Mukherjee made the announcement of his passing.
STOCKHOLM, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Bambuser and Relatable today announces the launch of an exciting new partnership that sees Bambuser's industry-leading Live Video Shopping technology integrated with Relatable's capabilities to deliver new levels of data-driven influencer marketing and creative content creation at scale to Direct-to-Consumer brands globally. Together the businesses provide a broader, more competitive and comprehensive offering.

Relatable's advanced operating system will now include Bambuser's Live Video Shopping as part of its suite of software tools, enabling scalable influencer marketing across media channels for its clients. Moreover, the partnership encompasses several synergies and points of collaboration between the parties including mutual referral opportunities and co-marketing opportunities.

"Our partnership with Bambuser signifies Relatable's ever-growing expert ecosystem which includes collaborations with companies such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. Together, we can offer Fortune 500 companies world-class Direct-to-Consumer strategies fueled by creativity and powered by phenomenal technology," says Martin Garbarczyk, founder of Relatable.

"The coming of age of Gen Z signifies a massive change in consumer behavior. Smartphones, technology and an always-on lifestyle demonstrate that the future of digital marketing is Direct-to-Consumer. This partnership strengthens our leading market position, maximizes the potential of our technology, and paves the way for a broader global rollout. Relatable's technology and broad portfolio of millions of influencers enable Bambuser to capitalize on opportunities in traffic, distribution and creativity," says Sophie Abrahamsson, Chief Commercial Officer of Bambuser.

Contact information

Sophie Abrahamsson, CCO Bambuser, [email protected], +46 8 400 160 00

Martin Garbarczyk, founder Relatable, [email protected], +46 73 509 96 08

Bambuser is a software company specializing in interactive live video streaming. The Company's primary product, Live Video Shopping, is a cloud-based software solution that is used by customers such as global e-commerce and retail businesses to host live shopping experiences on websites, mobile apps and social media. Bambuser was founded in 2007 and has its headquarters in Stockholm. Erik Penser Bank AB is Bambuser's Certified Adviser.

Relatable is a global leading influencer marketing agency that helps consumer brands build and scale their influencer marketing programs, founded in 2016, and has since worked with more than 500 brands to create content, reach new audiences, and drive sales with influencers. With an unparalleled combination of technology, talent, creativity, and strategy. Clients include both Fortune 500 consumer brands and rapid-growing direct-to-consumer companies. Relatable has offices in Stockholm, London, and New York.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

The following files are available for download:

https://mb.cision.com/Main/15749/3185639/1299936.pdf Release https://mb.cision.com/Public/15749/3185639/8d19b9967d8f6e5d_org.jpg Martin Relatable https://mb.cision.com/Public/15749/3185639/ad84b31156fe2085_org.jpg Sophie Bambuser

SOURCE Bambuser
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  President Rodrigo Duterte said he is willing to talk with insurgents, apparently including Abu Sayyaf terrorists behind last week's deadly bombings in Jolo, Sulu even as he vowed the government would "fight hard" to crush extremism in the south.

In his televised speech before troops in Sulu aired on Monday, Duterte expressed concern over the August 24 twin bomb blasts in Jolo that left at least 15 dead and 75 wounded. The attacks were believed carried out by suicide bombers of the Abu Sayyaf, which has been tagged as a terrorist group.

"It is an impossible dream, it is an unreachable star. But it behooves upon us leaders even to try and even to talk as we wage war," Duterte told the military.

Addressing Sulu Gov. Abdusakur Tan, he said: "Why dont you try to help me within the next few months...just to talk about peace? It need not really be a  an arrangement, just talk about peace."

"Mahirap kasi because ang bomba hindi kasi namimili eh. Iyan ang problema," Duterte added. [Translation: It is difficult because bombs don't choose (who to kill). That is the problem]

Talking peace with Abu Sayyaf militants is a departure from the long-standing government policy not to negotiate with terrorists, although he made a similar invitation for talks with the group during a previous visit to Jolo in 2018. At that time, however, his spokesman Harry Roque explained that it was an invitation for the Abu Sayyaf to surrender.

Duterte's statement was also a shift from his earlier vow never to talk to terrorists and criminals but only to revolutionaries imbued with principles.

"If we cannot really agree, then we fight, and we fight hard hanggang magkaubusan na," he said. "Maybe by the time na ubos na ang lahat, wala na ang giyera."

[Translation: If we cannot really agree, then we fight, and we fight hard until no one's left. Maybe by that time, there will be no more war.]

He added that he will extend his support to the military to ensure that "terrorists will have no future" in the country.

The President noted that those who were responsible for the bombings must be held accountable regardless of religion.

Bound to step down in two years, Duterte also expressed hope that his children in office will have the chance to resolve the Moro-Christian problem in the country.

"Mahirap dito aregluhin kasi lahat may sugat na sa puso. It will take more than a generation to do this," he said. "I hope that any one of my children who will become a politician...could do something about this problem of the Moro and Christians."

[Translation: This is difficult to fix because everyone's heart has been wounded]

Duterte visited the blast site on Sunday to condole with the victims. He was seen offering prayers and kissing the ground in behalf of the soldiers and civilians who weren't able to pray before they perished.

READ: LOOK: Duterte kisses ground of Jolo blast site

Malacanang initially considered placing the whole province of Sulu under martial law, but the leadership of the Philippine Army withdrew its recommendation to consider other ways to address current threats.

Cash rewards of up to 6 million is up for anyone who can provide information on the mastermind and one other suspect behind the twin blasts.

Past experience

Zamboanga City Mayor Beng Climaco said the city is now under heightened alert following the bombings.

She said the military has already mapped out a strategy, adding that the local government is coordinating with the locals in addressing the terrorist threat.

The very important ingredient is we have to learn from our past experiences, to always involve the Muslim-Christian-Lumad population, she told CNN Philippines. Because you will only have a successful campaign if you coordinate with the civilian population.

Thus far, our residents, (including) Muslim residents have been very cooperative, such as allowing women of hijab to also frisk, using another female security force in the city, whether it's from the Philippine National Police or Armed Forces, she added.

Citing their experience during the bloody Zamboanga Siege in 2013, Climaco said the local government assured that the authorities will act immediately once they validated information regarding possible threats.

Every information that we get, we have to send them to the police and military to validate...This time we have to validate the information and act on it, she said. In 2013, the problem was, despite the intelligence information by the NICA [National Intelligence Coordinating Agency], the national government did not swiftly act on these intelligence reports that have been validated.
The Yankees have interest in Arizona outfielder Starling Marte, according to the New York Posts Joel Sherman.

Logical. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman doesnt truly know when right fielder Aaron Judge will return from re-injuring his strained right calf. From Cashmans comments, it sounds like Judge wont be ready until mid-September, at the earliest. Marte would provide an instant upgrade over Mike Tauchman, Brett Gardner and Clint Frazier as the Yankees await the return of Judge.
A framed photograph of James Tut, in cap and gown and receiving his Bachelors degree, takes pride of place at his home in Ethiopias western Gambella region. It captures one of the proudest moments of the 42-year-olds life.

I was very happy, says the South Sudanese refugee. Given half a chance, he added, he would go on and study for his Masters.

For every student, graduating from university is a cause for celebration  but for a refugee, it is a genuine triumph over the odds.

Only three per cent of refugees are enrolled in any form of tertiary education, compared to 37 per cent of their non-refugee counterparts globally. For those who have fled conflict in South Sudan, the proportion is smaller still.

James had hoped that with a degree in Community Development and Leadership from the University of Addis Ababa, he might find employment with the government of South Sudan. But by the time he finished his undergraduate studies in 2014, war had intervened and he had become a refugee in Ethiopia.

Later, his family managed to flee South Sudan and make it to the Gambella region, where they were all reunited.

"80 per cent of the population is illiterate  imagine."

Even though he has been unable to return home, a university education has stood James in good stead. For the past few years, he has been Vice-Principal of one of four primary schools in Gambellas Jewi refugee camp.

Smartly dressed and softly spoken, he exudes a calm authority amid the din of boisterous children as he walks from one classroom to another, carrying a box of chalk and his lesson plan.

Our country is the worlds youngest nation, yet 80 per cent of the population is illiterate  imagine. If you have more illiterate people with each passing generation, you have a problem, he says.

Years of violence in South Sudan have been a disaster for the nations children and youth. Two-thirds of all South Sudanese refugees are under the age of 18. Only 67 per cent of them are in primary school in Ethiopia, compared to an international average of 91 per cent.

It gets worse as they progress to the next academic level, with only 13 per cent enrolled in secondary education, compared to 84 per cent globally.

South Sudanese graduate wants refugee children to dream big (Linda Muriuki, Producer / Walter Kigali, Camera-Editor)

Education for refugees was already a major challenge but in a ground-breaking report, to be published on 3 September, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR warns the twin scourges of COVID-19 and attacks on schools, targeting teachers and pupils, threatens to destroy many hard-won gains and set it back decades.

The report also warns that COVID-19 could irreparably harm the chances of achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4  ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education for all (refugees and non-refugees) and calls for immediate and bold action by the international community to support innovative ways to protect critical gains made in recent years.

As a degree holder, James is living proof of what refugees can achieve if given the chance. But every day he goes to work, he is all too aware of the problems his pupils encounter daily.

He wishes there was more training available for his teachers, and more funds to pay them better. Many quit, saying that the 805 birr (US$27) they receive monthly as an incentive to teach is not enough to live on.

He would also like to see less overcrowding in the classrooms  students are regularly forced to stand or sit on the floor because there are not enough chairs and desks. And with the health protocols required for school reopening during the pandemic, overcrowding may also lead to students being forced to drop out.

James also worries that girls are more likely to miss out on education than boys. Fewer girls go to school here because of early marriage in the camp, he says. Sometimes a familys situation also forces girls to stay at home to do business, [such as] prepare food to sell in the market or run tea stalls.

James Tut reads a book with his children at their home.  UNHCR/Eduardo Soteras Jalil

South Sudanese refugee teacher James Tut is dedicated to education. "Children are the future of our country. When we return, they will build our country," he says.  UNHCR/Eduardo Soteras Jalil

South Sudanese refugee James Tut teaches a primary school class in Jewi camp, Ethiopia.  UNHCR/Eduardo Soteras Jalil

"I have been able to transfer the benefits of university to my family. I want the same for my children." A picture of South Sudanese refugee teacher, James Tut, hangs on the wall of his home in Jewi camp, Ethiopia.  UNHCR/Eduardo Soteras Jalil

Schools in Jewi do their best to keep girls in the classroom in spite of these pressures. If we see girls dropping out of school, we organize PTA [parent-teacher association] teams to go into the community to persuade parents, especially mothers, to send their children to school.

Without an education, generations of children risk growing up without the skills they need to rebuild their lives, their countries and their communities.

James is determined that his own children  three boys and two girls, aged between 18 months and 14 years  will avoid this fate. He has pledged to do everything in his power to ensure that they will enjoy the same level of education as he has had, no matter the odds against them.

"Children are the future of our country."

His wife is also a teacher and is currently studying at a teacher training college to get her qualifications.

I have been able to transfer the benefits of university to my family and my children. I want the same for my children. I plan for my children to reach where I have reached whether we are still refugees or we return back home to South Sudan, he says.

You educate your children for them to make their lives better ... Children are the future of our country. When we return to South Sudan, they will build our country.

FACTBOX
The Security Council on Friday unanimously adopted a resolution calling on UN members to boost the numbers of women peacekeepers, diplomats said, seeing the move as a way to improve the effectiveness and credibility of the missions.

The proposal put forward by Indonesia, a non-permanent member of the council, called on "Member States, the United Nations Secretariat and regional organisations to strengthen their collective efforts to promote the full, effective, and meaningful participation of uniformed and civilian women in peacekeeping operations."

The text specified that this effort must lead to the involvement of women "at all levels and in all positions, including in senior leadership positions."

UN member states are invited to develop "strategies and measures to increase the deployment of uniformed women to peacekeeping operations" through information campaigns, training and identifying obstacles to the recruitment and promotion of women peacekeepers.

The text highlighted the "indispensable role of women in increasing the overall performance and effectiveness of peacekeeping operations."

"The presence of women and better balance between men and women among peacekeepers contribute to, among others, greater credibility of the missions among the population," the resolution said.

Among the 13 peacekeeper missions currently carried out by the UN around the world, women make up about six percent of the 95,000 uniformed troops.
Titiaka, a farming community in the Kadjebi District of the Oti Region, has identified the lack of teachers' bungalow in the community as the topmost challenge.

They said the challenge was affecting effective teaching and learning in the area and called on the Kadjebi District Assembly to construct a teachers' bungalow for teachers of the Titiaka Primary School to help promote education in the area.

The community made the call at a social auditing engagement organised by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) with support from the European Union (EU).

Mr Daniel Agbesi Latsu, Kadjebi District Director of the Commission, has appealed to the citizenry to actively participate in decision-making processes at all levels adding that civic participation would help propel Ghana as perhaps the most prosperous country in the world.

Do not sit on the fence only to engage in blame games at the least provocation when things go wrong, he added.

He said civic engagement between citizens and public officials would help deepen the country's local governance system since participatory democracy occurred when people were involved in the decision-making processes at all levels.

Mr. Latsu said the process must be devoid of political capture to achieve the desired results.

Mr. Ezekiel Anidi, Oti Regional Programmes Officer of the NCCE, said Social Auditing sought to promote community ownership of development projects and policies, increase awareness of the operations of the Local Government and empower the citizenry to demand accountability from duty bearers.

He said it was a process to achieve desired results and should not be seen as witch-hunting but a means to influence policymaking, implementation, and evaluation.

A nine-member Social Auditing Committee was approved to assist in the implementation of the project.

Mr Francis Fefe, An Assistant Director of Education in-charge of Administration and Finance at the Kadjebi District Education Office, admonished parents to help their children study at home during the COVID-19 holiday.

He said asked them to monitor their children's especially the girl-child so that they don't go wayward during the holiday.

Mr Maxwell Kofi Asiedu, Kadjebi District Chief Executive (DCE), appealed to the residents to honour their tax obligations to enable the government to generate revenue to develop the country.

He said taxes were vital to national development since tax money helped the government to create jobs, provide social amenities such as roads, electricity, hospitals, potable water, schools and markets.

---GNA
MOSCOW: Comments by a senior U.S. official and moves by Britain towards the possible fast-tracking of COVID-19 vaccines show the West now accepts Russia was right to approve a vaccine as early as August, a Russian official said on Monday.

Russia granted regulatory approval to a COVID-19 vaccine this month after less than two months of human testing, prompting some Western experts to question its safety and efficacy.

The head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has since said he would be willing to bypass the normal approval process to authorise a COVID-19 vaccine as long as officials were convinced the benefits outweigh the risks.

The British government last week set out plans that would allow Britains medical regulator to grant temporary authorisation for any coronavirus vaccine before it has received a full licence if it meets safety and quality standards.

The United States and London were now exactly following the example of Russia," said Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Russias sovereign wealth fund, which has been heavily involved in Russias vaccine programme.

The Western world was shocked by Russias success (in producing a potential vaccine) and had to go through four stages of accepting the inevitable: denial, anger, depression, and ultimately acceptance," he said in a statement.

Recent statements show that we have already passed the stage of depression and it has now been accepted that Russias approach is the correct one."

Russia has now begun Phase III trials of the Sputnik V" vaccine that will test its efficacy on a bigger group of volunteers. It is also preparing to approve a second vaccine against COVID-19 in late September or early October.

Health Minister Mikhail Murashko has said mass vaccination of high-risk groups will begin in November-December.

(Editing by Andrew Osborn and Timothy Heritage)

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Weather forecasts for Labor Day weekend show another heat wave coming to the Bay Area, potentially increasing fire risk and compounding air quality issues.

The hot weather comes from a high-pressure system, which means that temperatures will be up though winds will be calmer. This means conditions will be drier, which would increase fire risk, according to David King, a local meteorologist at the National Weather Service.

The real question, he said, is just how dry those conditions will be  and whether theyre enough to warrant a Red Flag warning.

As of right now, its not, he said, but were constantly reevaluating weather parameters and working with our partners, with Cal Fire and other fire crews to determine whether or not to issue the warning.

He added that dry conditions also bring the risk of expanding existing fires because it makes it easier for embers to spread.

Areas far inland  including Livermore and Gilroy  may potentially see temperatures up to 100 degrees over the weekend, while coastal areas will also see a pronounced, though not as dramatic, heat wave.

Its not just going to be warmer during the day, but at night, temperatures wont be backing off also, National Weather Service meteorologist Brayden Murdock said.

The good news is that so far, the forecast does not show a chance of dry thunderstorms  the kind of weather that started wildfires over the past few weeks, he said.

But the poor air quality conditions across the Bay Area arent likely to let up, according to Aaron Richardson, public information officer at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

A Spare the Air Alert has been issued for the Bay Area through Thursday as a result of the wildfire smoke  the highest number of alerts ever consecutively issued in the region. The hot weather can also bring high levels of ozone pollution, which is different than the particles from smoke, and that could exacerbate the already bad air quality.

Its a bit too far for us to tell right now, but we are a little bit concerned about the ongoing impacts of this temperature increase, he said.

The air quality also depends on how much the fires are contained by the weekend, he said, but its looking like we will probably have poor air quality potentially extending through the weekend.

As of Tuesday afternoon, air quality was listed as unhealthy for sensitive groups in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Redwood City and Napa. Data from government air quality monitors are available only after a lag.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

The National Park Services Point Reyes division said on Twitter Monday that the Woodward Fire, one of the fires contributing to San Franciscos smoky skies, will continue to produce smoke for months.

The low winds mean that smoke thats in the air is unlikely to be pushed out soon, King said.

Theres not really going to be a lot of weather that can help it, he said.

The heat wave on top of the bad air quality means yet another reason for Bay Area residents to try and stay inside, both King and Richardson said.

Its just one more thing for the public to worry about, King said.

Chronicle staff writer Michael Williams contributed to this report.

Danielle Echeverria is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: danielle.echeverria@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DanielleEchev
TDT | Manama

The work ministry yesterday announced completing the expansion works of the vegetable market in the central market of Manama. A total of 1,000 square meters of the area and 40 booths are set apart for Bahraini farmers to market their products, Essam Khalaf, the Minister of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning, said.

He added: This will help farmers gain better visibility to market home-grown products. Farmers will start making use of the new floor, starting next month. Farmers market The newly expanded space, the minister said, almost works like the permanent farmers market which comes to life at dawn and continues until 10 am.

The project will also allow farmers to sell their products to wholesale buyers, Khalaf said. Works Ministry designed the project based on a request filed by farmers to the capital municipality to allocate more areas for marketing their products.

On this note, the minister thanked HRH Princess Sabeeka Bint Ibrahim Al-Khalifa, the Wife of His Majesty the King and President of the National Initiative for Agricultural Development, for her continuous support in the completing the project. Looking ahead, the minister said they are also working on several other projects to further support Bahraini farmers in the Central Market.

The ministry is keen to play a role in enhancing food security, and increase the availability of local products throughout the year in the market, he added. Khalaf said the ministry is working with agriculture affairs and NIAD to provide more support to local farmers.
A French right-wing magazine has sparked outrage over an illustration published in its most recent issue depicting the Black politician Daniele Obono as an 18th century slave.

The article in Valeurs Actuelles, entitled Daniele Obono in the Age of Slavery," is a fictional account of Obonos return to 18th century Africa, prompting criticism from across the French political class.

The story contains illustrations showing the left-wing member of the National Assembly with chains around her neck. Obono, who is of French-Gabonese origin, took to Twitter Friday to express her dismay at what she called racist shit." Obono remarked that it appears that we can no longer say anything."

Fortunately we can still write racist shit in a rag, illustrated by the images of a black French African deputy painted as a slave." Her remarks were accompanied by the image.

Valeurs Actuelles initially responded to Obonos remarks on Twitter, saying: Racist shit? Its a fictional story setting the scene of the horrors of slavery organised by the Africans in the 18th century."

Speaking to French TV station BFMTV Saturday, the magazines deputy editor Tugdual Denis said the magazine understood the symbolic charge" of the image depicting Obono. Denis said he personally" offered an apology to Obono, saying he regretted that it could have been thought that we are racist." Denis defended the aim of the story however, saying it sought to show the destroyers of history" that an inter African slave trade existed in tandem with the European one.

Obono also spoke to BFMTV Saturday evening saying the article had crossed a line" and was an insult to my ancestors" and an insult to the Republic."

The politician said the image expressed the reality" of the racism and stigmatization that millions of our French citizens suffer from."

CNN has reached out to both Obono and Valeurs Actuelles for comment.

Figures from across Frances political spectrum have been quick to react, criticizing the treatment of Black French politicians in the media.

Reaction from leading politicians

During her BFMTV interview, Obono confirmed she had a received a message of support from President Emmanuel Macron.

Prime Minister Jean Castex tweeted in support of Obono saying that he shared the indignation of the deputy Daniele Obono." Castex said the article warranted unambiguous condemnation," adding that the fight against racism, always, transcends all of our divides."

This show of support was echoed by Minister for the Interior Gerald Darmanin who in a tweet offered support to Obono in the name of the principles and values of the French republic that should rest more than ever at the heart of our political life."

Criticism of Valeurs Actuelles also came from the chair of Frances lower house, the Assemblee Nationale, Richard Ferrand on Twitter who branded it a deplorable representation of a parliamentarian." Ferrand also spoke of the fight against racism, saying he offered all my personal support and that of the Assemblee Nationale in facing this abjection."

Delegate Minister for Gender Equality, Diversity and Equal Opportunities, Elisabeth Moreno tweeted that while she did not share the ideas of Ms Obono," she offered her all her support. Moreno called on the magazine to apologize, adding that racism was contrary to republican values."

French Minister for Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti on Twitter remarked that French law did not prevent this kind of publication, saying that we are free to write a nauseating novel under the limits fixed by French law." He continued that we are also free to hate [the novel]", saying he himself hated it and stood by Obono.

Growing trend of racist illustrations

Valeurs Actuelles is a weekly current affairs magazine known for its right-wing stance. Leading figures from across the political spectrum, including Minister Delegate for Citizenship Marlene Schiappa, former Prime Minister Manuel Valls and even Macron, have been interviewed by the publication. An exclusive"tete-a-tete" with Macron in October 2019 focused on the themes of immigration and identity.

A member of Obonos own left-wing party, France Insoumise, Alexis Corbiere, who has also been interviewed by the magazine, tweeted that the attacks of a press crazy with hate against my colleague Daniele Obono are unbearable."

Valeurs Actuelles is not the only French magazine known for publishing controversial illustrations of French politicians. Minute, a smaller right-wing magazine, published a caricature of former French Minister for Justice Christine Taubira in 2013, sparking uproar. The illustration showed Taubira with the body of a monkey with the cover of the issue bearing the headline, Taubira finds her banana." After taking a case against the magazine, Taubira was awarded 10,000 euros in damages by the Court of Appeal in Paris in 2015 for insult of racial character" according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.

During the course of her BFMTV interview, Obono confirmed that she was conferring with legal advisers on whether to make a complaint against the magazine. I am considering it because despite it being presented in the form of fiction there are elements characteristic of public insult" she said. Obono added that she was committed to defending notions of equality" and playing a part in the fight against racism."

The leader of Obonos political party France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Melenchon was quick to decry in a tweet the nauseating harassment" Obono has experienced at the hands of publications such as Valeurs Actuelles, Marianne and Charlie Hebdo. Satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo responded saying that by including their title in his tweet Melenchon had thrown the right wing journal, Marianne and Charlie Hebdo into the same racist basket." Hebdo went on to say that despite Obono always refusing to support us," they could not help but voice their disgust but not surprise regarding the villainous Valeurs Actuelles article and the racist representation made of Daniele Obono"

French political scientist and professor of French politics at University College London Philippe Marliere tweeted Saturday saying that Frances right wing is partly responsible for this racist realignment of French politics under the cover of the defense of the values of the Republic."

During his interview with BFMTV, deputy editor Tugdual Denis said Valeurs Actuelles never wants to shock" or provoke." Denis said that Valuers Actuelles as a magazine goes where the others do not go," handling delicate and often contentious topics. According to Denis, its readers are frustrated" and challenged by politicians in France." Denis said the magazines readers find in them: people who are able to write about delicate, distressing and difficult topics."
Just a little over a week into the fall semester at Central Michigan University (CMU) in Mount Pleasant, Michigan at least 117 new COVID-19 cases have been reported, according to the Central Michigan District Health Department.

The reckless decision to force students, faculty and staff back onto the CMU campuses is part of a drive by the Trump administration, with support of Democratic politicians such as Governor Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, placing hundreds of thousands of lives in danger as the pandemic spreads unchecked.

Isabella County, home to CMU, has upgraded its COVID-19 risk status to Red, the highest level in Michigan, and declared a Public Health Emergency. The Health Department stated that the outbreak is directly connected to students returning to the Mt. Pleasant area.

The virus has quickly spread at the school of nearly 22,000 students, with confirmed cases nearly doubling on campus between August 17 and August 24. Isabella County also saw a 350 percent increase in infections in the third week of August compared to the previous week, coinciding with the restart of classes. CMU has yet to update the infections recorded on its website, stating that it will begin updating the count daily on Tuesday, September 1.

Central Michigan University

In an interview with the World Socialist Web Site, CMU student activist Emily Jones described the campus environment, noting the lack of any infrastructure to deal with exposure to the virus, with only one mask and one packet of hand-sanitizer distributed to each student and no real systematic testing protocols. Campus life resumed with relatively little monitoring according to Jones, with parties occurring on campus daily and local stores and supermarkets filled with students.

While other schools like University of Notre Dame and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill moved quickly to online courses after mass outbreaks emerged on their campuses, CMU has thus far refused to do so. As is now common practice across the country, CMU President Robert Davies and his administration has sought to blame students for the outbreaks.

A letter signed by Tony Voisin, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs at CMU, didnt hold back on this front. He wrote Without fail, at other institutions nationwide, large weekend parties have increased positive COVID-19 diagnoses  and in some, the shutdown of their entire campuses. He continued, The actions of a few selfish students have ruined an entire year for thousands of their peers. The same will happen here at CMU if students continue to engage in this type of reckless, irresponsible behavior.

These comments are a deliberate attempt to shift the responsibility for the consequences of the reckless decision to reopen the university onto the students and away from the administrators and politicians who have set this situation in motion. Living in communal housing with communal bathrooms and laundry rooms, with students exposed to a virus breeding ground environment all day, it is only a matter of time before the campuses are major centers of outbreak.

The statements are also hypocritical, as Twitter posts from August 15 show CMU President Davies actively participating in a campus party.

As the WSWS reported in the case of Notre Dame, Michigan State and UNC Chapel Hill, the outbreaks at CMU and the surrounding community demonstrate that safe in-person campus life is impossible under the current conditions. The campus re-openings are and will continue to have disastrous health consequences for students, faculty, staff, and local communities. The fact of the matter is that the drive to reopen schools and campuses at every level is a central element of the campaign to reopen the economy and force workers back to work. This campaign is being spearheaded by the Trump administration and backed by the Democratic Party.

Students at CMU responded to the decision to reopen the campus with a petition titled Not Fired Up For Fall, a rebuke of the administrations return-to-campus campaign titled Fired Up For Fall.

In her comments to the WSWS, Emily described some of the main demands of the petitiona general closure of campus that still provides in-need students with shelter and food, a general shift of teaching to online, reduction of fees, a ban on campus safety personnel arresting or assisting in the deportation of undocumented individuals or those committing non-violent crimes (as jailing them would increase spread in jails), a guarantee that staff who need to operate in person have proper PPE and an expansion of testing infrastructure to the broader Mount Pleasant community.

Other students and community members involved in the opposition to re-open the CMU campus also spoke with the WSWS.

Francesca Farzalo, a CMU alumnus and student activist, discussed the community response to the campaign against re-opening the campus: The petition gained traction fairly soon after we published it online, and it now has over 700 signatures from students, faculty, and community members. We had an overwhelming amount of folks signing the petition and saying that they were afraid to come back to campus for many different reasons. Namely that they were afraid to contract the virus and lose their job, their life, or expose someone close to them that is at risk.

The WSWS also contacted Autumn Giraud, who created the Not Fired Up For Fall campaign. In a statement she described her worry about how the reopening would damage the health of students, faculty, and staff, especially those at risk with pre-existing conditions, as the motivator behind founding the campaign. She adds, The folks living in Mount Pleasant, Isabella County, and of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe cant just choose to avoid students and the CMU community, it is their home.

She went on to note several concerns facing students on campus: I worry that not only will CMU leaderships unethical decisions cause lives to be unnecessarily lost, but will have devastating financial effects to so many in the CMU community and beyond.

Noting the worry of a sudden closure at CMU, she wrote: A sudden switch to all online or needing to evacuate campus and not providing proper refunds will disproportionately affect low income and black, indigenous, and brown students. The medical costs associated with COVID-19 and long-lasting medical problems for folks who survive will disproportionately affect similar students as well as the surrounding community.

Commenting on the general student sentiment on campus, she stated, Theyre scared to speak up and get in trouble for voicing their concerns, which I think says a lot about the environment CMU has created surrounding student activism and feedback. Theyre scared of what all of this means for their health, their peers, the community, and their loved ones back home.

Another student organizer, Amethyst Stewart, echoed other students, stating, Central Michigan Universitys newest motto is We do community, but they exclude surrounding communities. Mount Pleasant is more than CMU. We share this space with community members and the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe. With the latest declaration of Isabella Countys public health emergency, CMU boasts only 100 confirmed COVID cases, but these cases dont include anyone outside of the CMU community. She also pointed out the fact that only one of CMUs board members lives even remotely close to campus, in Midland Michigan, thus far away from the crisis unfolding on the campus theyve reopened.

CMUs president responded to the crisis with the statement, While any increase in cases may seem alarming, this figure represents less than one percent of our university population. Francesca, outlining the necessity of fighting the homicidal policies, said that she found the presidents comment horrifying. How many lives is he willing to sacrifice in the name of profit?

All of the students and activists expressed support for educators, students and staff facing similar situations at schools at every level across the country and were interested to learn of the development of the Educator Rank and File Safety Committees in the recent period.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  For almost 50 years, the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD), funded by the U.S. Department of Agricultures National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the land-grant universities in the 12-state region, has addressed issues critical to the growth and impact of rural communities.

On Tuesday (Sept. 1), the NCRCRD moves to Purdue University for the first time in its history. NCRCRD is one of four regional centers funded by USDA-NIFA and their member institutions.

Maria Marshall, the new NCRCRD director, is a professor of agricultural economics who joined the Purdue faculty in 2003. Marshall, who also is director of the Purdue Institute for Family Business, has a nationally and internationally recognized integrated Extension, research and teaching program focused on small and family business development.

Purdue and the College of Agriculture have always had a deep commitment to rural development. Interdisciplinary strengths are what we can bring to the rest of the region and for the betterment of rural communities across the nation and world, she said about the significance of NCRCRD moving to Purdue.

Michael Wilcox, Purdue Extensions assistant director and program leader for community development and a community and regional economics specialist in agricultural economics, will be the NCRCRDs associate director. He emphasized that the NCRCRD also will continue to build on existing priorities.

One of the things Michigan State University (where NCRCRD has been located for the past decades) started was to more deliberately involve the 1890 and 1994 universities. We want to build on that to foster rural development through diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Black land-grant universities were established in 1890, 28 years after the first land-grant legislation was passed. The 1994 Tribal Colleges and Universities are supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture through the 2018 Farm Bill. There are two 1890 universities and 19 1994 colleges and universities in the north-central region.

Among the goals outlined by Purdue during the selection process is the creation and maintenance of a north-central regional panel dataset that will enable and motivate collaboration across states and across research and Extension. Marshall describes this effort as leading to building more resilient rural communities.

The dataset will provide information to faculty who might not otherwise have the resources, she said. My whole career has been about developing multistate efforts that translated research in some shape or form to make peoples lives better. The center provides a platform for the region to be able to do that on a larger scale.

Jason Henderson, senior associate dean and director of Purdue Extension, described how Purdue will contribute to NCRCRD.

Purdue has a long history of collaboration that serves Indiana, the region, the nation and the world, he said. I know Maria and Michael will combine their strengths and amplify the impact of NCRCRD.

Bernie Engel, Purdue Agricultures associate dean of research, credited Purdues proposal for including a substantial research component to bring together strengths across the states.

The multidisciplinary approach of this proposal  including collaboration across areas such as health and human sciences, youth development and agricultural and natural resources  will create connective tissue across disciplines as well as states and institutions, he said.

Marshall and Wilcox bring previous experience with the regional rural development centers to their new roles.

NCRCRD has a wonderful opportunity to support research, Extension and teaching and bring together great minds to support rural development in our region and throughout the world, Marshall said.

Writer: Maureen Manier; 317-366-5550; mmanier@purdue.edu

Sources: Maria Marshall, 765-494-4268, mimarsha@purdue.edu

Michael Wilcox, 765-494-7272, wilcox16@purdue.edu

Kelly Sprute, kelly.sprute@usda.gov

Agricultural Communications: 765-494-8415;

Maureen Manier, Department Head, mmanier@purdue.edu

Agriculture News Page
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 16:13:00|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The State Council, China's cabinet, announced the appointment and removal of officials Monday.

Deng Li was appointed assistant minister of foreign affairs.

Chen Xiaodong was removed from the post of assistant minister of foreign affairs. Enditem
Egypt welcomed the peace agreement the Sudanese transitional government and Sudan's Revolutionary Front initialled in South Sudan's Juba on Monday, the Egyptian foreign ministry said.

Egypt reasserts its support of Sudan in its efforts for peace, stability and prosperity, the statement said, adding that Egypt is ready to continue its efforts to achieve stability in coordination with regional and international partners.

The deal was initialled with nine armed movements grouped under Sudan's Revolutionary Front after 10 months of mediation in South Sudan.

About 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since rebels took up arms there in 2003, according to the United Nations.

Conflict in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile erupted in 2011, in the wake of South Sudan's independence, resuming two decades of war.

The agreement covers key issues concerning security, land ownership, transitional justice, power-sharing, and the return of people who fled their homes because of fighting.

It also provides for the dismantling of rebel forces and the integration of their fighters into the national army.

Rebel members of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) had provisionally initialled the agreement with the government late on Saturday.

However, an SLM faction led by Abdelwahid Nour and a wing of the SPLM-N headed by Abdelaziz Al-Hilu refused to take part.

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Living in disadvantaged neighborhoods doubles post-op delirium risk for older adults

Where you live can increase your risk for experiencing delirium after surgery. So said a study that showed older adults who live in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods are two times more likely to experience delirium after surgery than their counterparts from more affluent communities. These findings by researchers from the Aging Brain Center in the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research (Marcus Institute) at Hebrew SeniorLife were published today in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Franchesca Arias, Ph.D., Assistant Scientist, and Sharon K. Inouye, M.D., Director of the Aging Brain Center, were lead and senior authors respectively on the study.

Delirium is a clinical syndrome characterized by acute decline in cognition, which can present as inattention, disorientation, lethargy or agitation, and perceptual disturbance. Delirium among older hospitalized patients can lead to poor outcomes, including prolonged hospital stays, deep psychological stress for patients and their families, functional decline, and in worst cases, death. To date, however, the association between delirium and community-based factors that can influence health outcomes, such as resources, health care access, and local economic conditions, has not been well-examined.

The study enrolled a prospective observational cohort of 560 patients aged 70+ undergoing major non-cardiac surgery between June 2010 and August 2013 at two academic medical centers in Boston. The research team used the Area Deprivation Index (ADI) to characterize participant's neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage.

ADI uses 17 United States Census indicators of poverty, education, employment, and physical environment to characterize the socioeconomic disadvantage of a census block group. This study found that neighborhood characteristics, such as poverty, lack of infrastructure, and density contributed to the two-fold increase in the number of patients who developed delirium after surgery. When compared with other social and economic risk factors for diminished health outcomes in older adults, including income and level of education, neighborhood characteristics emerged as the strongest predictor of delirium incidence.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on the consequences of economic health care disparities in the U.S., and this study is yet another example of how social, economic, and environmental marginalization impacts the health of those who live in disadvantage communities.

"Our hope is that by building awareness of barriers to care present in disadvantaged neighborhoods, clinical teams will tailor support and treatment recommendations based on the resources available within a patient's community," said Dr. Inouye.

"Patients with higher ADI percentiles may benefit from having additional support and periodic check-ins with treatment teams prior to surgery and/or participating in rehabilitation programs postoperatively," said Dr. Arias.

###

In addition to Drs. Arias and Inouye, study investigators included Amy J.H. Kind, M.D., Ph.D., Health Services and Care Research Program, Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health/ Madison VA Geriatrics Research Education and Clinical Center; Fan Chen, M.S., M.P.H., Aging Brain Center, Marcus Institute/Biostatistics and Data Sciences, Marcus Institute; Tamara G. Fong, M.D., Ph.D., Aging Brain Center, Marcus Institute and Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Haley Shiff, B.A., Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health; Margarita Alegria, Ph.D., Disparities Research Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Medicine and Psychiatry/Harvard Medical School; Edward R. Marcantonio, M.D., S.M., Division of General Medicine and Gerontology, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Yun Gou, M.A., Aging Brain Center, Marcus Institute/Biostatistics and Data Sciences, Marcus Institute; Richard N. Jones, Sc.D., Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Brown University, Warren Alpert Medical School; Thomas G. Travison, Ph.D., Biostatistics and Data Sciences, Marcus Institute/Department of Medicine and Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Eva M. Schmitt, Ph.D., Aging Brain Center, Marcus Institute.

This study was funded in part by the National Institute on Aging grants no. R24AG054259 (SKI), P01AG031720 (SKI). Dr. Inouye holds the Milton and Shirley F. Levy Family Chair at Hebrew SeniorLife. Dr. Marcantonio's time was supported in part by K24AG035075; Dr. Franchesca Arias' time was supported in part by grant no. 2019-45AARFD-644816 of the Alzheimer's Association; Dr. Kind's time was supported by National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities Award (R01MD010243 [PI 47Kind]) and National Institute on Aging RF1AG057784 [PI Kind, MPI Bendlin].

About the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research

Scientists at the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute seek to transform the human experience of aging by conducting research that will ensure a life of health, dignity, and productivity into advanced age. The Marcus Institute carries out rigorous studies that discover the mechanisms of age-related disease and disability; lead to the prevention, treatment, and cure of disease; advance the standard of care for older people; and inform public decision-making. For further information on the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife, please visit https:/ / www. marcusinstituteforaging. org/ .

About Hebrew SeniorLife

Hebrew SeniorLife, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, is a national senior services leader uniquely dedicated to rethinking, researching, and redefining the possibilities of aging. Based in Boston, the nonprofit organization has provided communities and health care for seniors, research into aging, and education for geriatric care providers since 1903. For more information about Hebrew SeniorLife, visit http://www. hebrewseniorlife. org and our blog, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 15:01:29|Editor: huaxia

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HANOI, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam attracted foreign investment of 19.5 billion U.S. dollars in the first eight months of this year, seeing a year-on-year decrease of 13.7 percent, according to its General Statistics Office said on Monday.

Specifically, Vietnam licensed 1,797 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects with total registered capital of 9.7 billion U.S. dollars, and saw 718 operational FDI projects raising their capital by 4.9 billion U.S. dollars, according to the office.

Between January and August, foreign investors also spent 4.9 billion U.S. dollars buying shares or contributing capital to Vietnamese firms, down 48.2 percent on-year.

Among the 11.4 billion U.S. dollars FDI disbursed, 71.1 percent were poured into the processing and manufacturing sector, 14.9 percent into the real estate sector, and 7 percent into the electricity, gas, hot water, steam and air-conditioner production and distribution sector.

Among 70 countries and regions which had investment projects licensed in Vietnam in the first eight months of this year, Singapore was Vietnam's largest source of foreign investment with 4.6 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 47.2 percent of total investment, followed by South Korea with over 10.7 percent and China with 10.5 percent, respectively, said the office. Enditem
Contributed Photo / Shelton Police Department

SHELTON  A 23-year-old New York woman is facing charges after she seriously injured another person while driving drunk, police said.

Shayna Persaud, 23, of Floral Park, N.Y., turned herself in to Shelton police on Thursday for her role in an accident that happened in March, police said.
Long-time Facebook Vice President Brian Boland announced last week that he will be leaving the social network to focus on his foundation.

The Facebook vice president in charge of the partnership product marketing team resigned last week, a source familiar with the matter told CNBC.

Brian Boland, vice president of partnerships, product marketing, operations, partner engineers and analytics, announced his resignation from the company last week on Workplace, the company's internal social network. Boland posted a picture of his badge, a custom among Facebook employees when they leave the company.

Facebook confirmed Boland's departure to CNBC. Boland will continue in his day-to-day role until the end of September, and he will continue to help Facebook find a new leader for the partnerships organization until the end of the year, a spokeswoman for the company told CNBC.

"Brian has had an incredible, 11-year track record of accomplishments at Facebook," said Marne Levine, Facebook's head of global partnerships, business development and corporate development, in a statement. Boland reported directly to Levine. "We're so grateful for all he's done for Global Partnerships, and Facebook. He will be missed and we wish him all the best in his new venture working on philanthropic initiatives that are near and dear to him."

Following his departure, Boland plans to focus his efforts on The Delta Fund, a foundation he co-founded with his wife that is focused on addressing poverty alleviation and inequity.

One of Boland's roles is overseeing partnership data, which includes advertising data the company and its partners share with each other and developers that tap into the company's application programming interfaces, or APIs. In April 2018, Facebook imposed new limits on how apps could use information from some of its APIs as part of a tighter focus on user privacy following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a political consultancy used information about Facebook users that it had gained improperly, although that case did not involve Facebook APIs.

Boland also served in a number of other roles during his time at the company, including the company's product marketing division.

At one point, Boland was in charge of Facebook's Audience Network, a tool that lets third-party software developers use Facebook's data to target ads to users on their apps. Last week, Facebook announced that it expects an upcoming change in Apple's iOS 14 to reduce revenue from Audience Network by as much as 50%.

Boland is one of Facebook's longest-tenured employees, having joined the company in 2009. Over that time, he has become a key insider, growing close with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg. Boland is also known for having high moral character, the source familiar said.
Admiral Prof. Jayanath Colombage (PhD) assumed duties as the Secretary to the Foreign Ministry today (14 August) following the appointment to the position by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The new Foreign Secretary Admiral Colombage was warmly received by the senior officials of the Foreign Ministry this morning, upon arrival at the Ministry.

Admiral Colombage was previously Additional Secretary to H.E the President for Foreign Relations since December 2019. In addition, he is presently serving as the Director General of the Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka.





Admiral Colombage has served the Sri Lanka Navy for a period of 36 years and retired as the Commander of the Navy on 01 July 2014. He is the 18th Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy and was decorated for gallantry and commended for exceptional service to the Navy.

Upon retirement from the Navy, Admiral Colombage served as the Director for Indo-Sri Lanka Initiatives and Law of the Sea Centers at the Pathfinder Foundation, which is a premier think-tank and research centre, based in Colombo. He has represented the Pathfinder Foundation and Sri Lanka in many bi-lateral, regional and international fora, presenting papers, participating in panel discussions and chairing sessions on international politics, strategic and maritime security related fields.

Admiral Colombage has been a guest lecturer in universities and training institutes in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, China, India, Japan and Pakistan. He has also been an editor and reviewer of a number of internationally renowned academic journals.

Foreign Secretary Admiral Colombage holds a PhD from General Sir John Kotalawela University, Master of Science in Defence and Strategic Studies from Madras University and Master of Arts in International Studies from Kings College, London. His PhD thesis Asymmetric Warfare at Sea; the case of Sri Lanka has been published by Lambert Academic Publishing in Germany. He is also a fellow of Nautical Institute of London.

Foreign Ministry

Colombo

14 August 2020

Read more: www.mfa.gov.lk

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Ihor Klymenko, the Head of the National Police of Ukraine

I chose such geometric definition of the problem of combating drug crime most deliberately. After all, these two figures most accurately characterize the main difficulties of work in this direction: a vicious circle of supply and demand and an organized pyramid of the criminal groups that have built an extensive network of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. Of course, it is important to block the transnational channels of sale or transportation of illicit drugs, but I personally believe that first and foremost we should focus our efforts on overcoming the "street" drug trafficking, which affects hundreds of thousands or even millions of our fellow citizens.

Since the beginning of the year, the staff of the Counter Narcotics Department seized almost 1,000 kg of narcotic and psychotropic substances, liquidated 54 drug laboratories and 68 organized groups and criminal organizations related to the drug trafficking. But the trouble is that the drug mafia is constantly reviving its activities. After all, if there is demand, there will be a supply quickly. This is exactly the vicious circle. Therefore, in order to detect the facts of drugs or psychotropic substances trafficking as quickly and effectively as possible we have changed our approach to detecting this category of crimes. The basis of the operational development is the tracking the entire vertical reaching of illegal drugs their end user. And we go along this criminal pyramid from the bottom to the top. From an ordinary stasher of drugs to a main organizer and supplier.

This does not mean that we will stop reacting or bring to responsibility "small-time" drug traffickers. No, we will systematize this work and solve the problem comprehensively. As an example, I can cite the resonant detention in April of this year of two criminal organizations of drug dealers consisting of 40 organizers and participants. During the searches, we seized the largest consignment of methadone in the history of the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies  over 60 kg, amphetamine - over 300 kg, as well as more than 2.5 tons of precursors. Although these figures are significant, I decipher to understand the real picture: about 240,000 doses of methadone, more than 1,200,000 doses of amphetamine were seized, and an average of more than 500 kg of various banned substances could be made from that number of precursors. And this is only one sale.

I recognize the fact that it has now become more difficult to detect criminal connections between members of a group because the drug traffickers have minimized personal contact with the customers. It's all thanks to the Internet: the orders, sales and "delivery" messages come through the anonymous channels in the messengers. And in such cases, the cyberpolice experts help not only to track down a lawbreakers, but also to quickly block the online store. Fewer platforms for sale  fewer opportunities to buy drugs or psychotropic substances. But the problem is that in place of a blocked channel or website another appears after a while. And so it will be until we get to the top of the pyramid that supplies and manages the illegal drugs trafficking. Because no one will voluntarily stop the criminal business which generates superprofits. On average, the daily income from the illegal activities related to the drug trafficking via the Internet is almost 7 million Hryvnias. For a month this figure reaches about 210 million Hryvnias.

I would like to note that the process of documenting a drug group (as a rule, there are very few single drug dealers, the drug dealers are working in whole groups) is complex, laborious and requires collection of the most complete evidence base. That's why sometimes we don't immediately block online drug and psychotropic substances sale platforms. We need time to procedurally record illegal actions.

It is one thing knowing the problem. We need to find ways to solve it comprehensively. And thats where we need the legislative changes. For example, the relevant committees of the Verkhovna Rada are currently considering a bill to amend the Article 183 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine  "Detention". It proposes to give the right to the investigating judge, the court not to determine the amount of bail in criminal proceedings opened for the sale of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. This means that those involved in the drug investigations will not be able to be released on bail and will have no chance to avoid justice in the future.

In addition, we urgently need the introduction of a legislative mechanism to ban the circulation of the "Nasvai" substance, which has become especially popular among young Ukrainians. Although it is not officially considered a drug, Nasvai has a negative effect on health and it is addictive. The average age of people who start using banned substances is 14 years. And the teenagers start just with such "light" drugs and psychotropic substances, and then most switch to the "heavier" substances, becoming drug addicts.

The list of toxic and potent substances with the definition of the mechanism of control over their circulation has long been in need of updating. Due to this existing gap, the investigators are still sometimes unable to classify the actions of the criminals in accordance with the Article 321 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which provides the liability for illegal production, manufacture, purchase, transportation, shipment, storage for sale or sale of the toxic or potent substances or toxic or potent pharmaceutical drugs. It is also time to introduce an electronic prescription for the controlled release of the narcotic and psychotropic drugs from the pharmacies in order to exclude the possibility of forgery of the document or its repeated use.

The drug business is deeply ingrained into the life of the country, so the fight against the drug crime is a process of more than one day or even a year. You can get out of this vicious circle by knocking down the organized drug mafia pyramids. Of course, you need to be realistic: it is impossible to eradicate such a phenomenon as the drug addiction. But it is possible and necessary to minimize its spread. We are working on this. And we hope that our legislative initiatives will find support within the walls of the Verkhovna Rada, and the police will receive additional tools to combat the illicit trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.
Shares in Asia Pacific were mixed on Monday, with Japan stocks leading gains among the region's major markets as investors monitored political developments in the country.

Mainland Chinese stocks shed earlier gains to slip on the day, with the Shanghai composite down 0.24% to about 3,395.68 while the Shenzhen component shed 0.672% to around 13,758.23. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was 0.13% lower, as of its final hour of trading.

China announced Monday that manufacturing activity expanded in August. The official manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for that month came in at 51.0, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. That was below expectations of a reading of 51.2 by analysts in a Reuters poll.

PMI readings above 50 signify expansion while those below that mark represent contraction. The readings are sequential and indicate on-month expansion or contraction. Chinese economic data has been watched by investors for clues on the state of the country's recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 gained 1.12% to close at 23,139.76 while the Topix index advanced 0.83% to end its trading day at 1,618.18, after losses on Friday as longstanding Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a surprise resignation on Friday due to health reasons. Developments in Japanese politics continued to be watched by investors on Monday, as the search for the country's new prime minister continues.

The Japanese yen traded at 105.69 per dollar, after strengthening sharply from levels above 106.5 against the greenback late last week.

Meanwhile, South Korea's Kospi fell 1.17% to close at 2,326.17. The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia dipped 0.22% to finish its trading day at 6,060.50.

Overall, the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index slipped 0.72%.
Last year, 139,123 people died by suicide and 421,104 were killed in accidents in India, according to the Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India report for 2019 released by the National Crime Records Bureau on Monday. Between 2018 and 2019, the number of people dying in accidents increased by 2.3% while for suicides, this number was 3.4%.

Traffic accidents were the single-biggest contributor to accidental deaths in India, amounting to 43% of all such fatalities. Sudden deaths, drowning and poisoning were other major causes of accidental deaths. These together led to 24% of accidental deaths. Forces of nature, such as natural disasters, killed 8,000 people, or 2% of all accidental deaths.

Eighty-five percent of deaths caused in traffic accidents were reported in road accidents while railway accidents and accidents at railway crossings caused the remaining 15% of these deaths.

Road accidents kill even those not travelling in a vehicle. Of nearly 155,000 people who died in road accidents, nearly 12,000 or 7.7% were pedestrians. Among motorised vehicles, two-wheelers were the deadliest with nearly 59,000 or 38% of all deaths being of those who were on a motorcycle or a scooter.

One in every three of the 140,000 people who died of suicide in 2019 took the step due to family problems. Being ill, and substance abuse were the other major known causes (together accounting for 23%). Bankruptcy or indebtedness, unemployment and poverty led to at least 11,500 suicides, about 8.2% of all such fatalities.

The report added that 10,281 farmers  cultivators and farm labourers  committed suicide in 2019, only 68 less than the number of farmers who committed suicide in 2018. Farmers comprise 7.4% of all people who died due to suicide in India. Suicides among daily wage earners was higher  about 32,500. They comprised 23% of those who died due to suicide.

The NCRB has not been publishing reason of suicides among farmers since 2015, when it last showed economic distress to be the biggest factor in most states.

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Traditional roadmaps for startups center around this idea of the exit. Oftentimes, the ideal exit in the minds of startups and venture capitalists goes one of two ways: IPO or acquisition by another company.

But there are other ways for startups to exit that could potentially bring more value to a larger variety of stakeholders. Exit to Community (E2C), a collaborative working project led by the University of Colorado Boulder's Media Enterprise Design Lab and Zebras Unite, explores ways to help startups transition investor-owned to community ownership, which could include users, customers, workers or some combination of all stakeholders. Today, the group released a digital and physical zine designed to serve as an introduction to Exit to Community.

The purpose of the zine is to provide an initial roadmap to all of the aspects of the conversation that need to happen so we can save founders pain in recognizing and validating theyre in the wrong fit and we need to co-create what does fit, Zebras Unite co-founder and zine co-author Mara Zepeda told TechCrunch. Its not a silver bullet. Its not like theres this other perfect thing that everyone needs to do. I describe it as running a Cambrian explosion of experiments in order to figure out what this future is. Its not just one thing. Thats how what were doing is really different. Sometimes there are these niche products or movements that pop up and say, this is the answer. There isnt one answer for this moment.

These alternative exit models also have the potential to open the door for founders in other markets, E2C co-organizer Nathan Schneider told TechCrunch. He pointed to tiphub, a company focused on Africa and the African Diaspora, that had been looking for alternative ways to support founders, given there isn't a huge mergers and acquisitions market in Africa.

"Because of the infrastructure that exists in the financial market, we don't have the same set of realities that a very active VC industry does in Europe or the U.S.," tiphub partner Chika Umeadi told TechCrunch. "There's just not as much private equity activity or M&A activity. We believe we have a strong hypothesis for how we can manufacture companies quickly, but we still need to build the other side of the market. There are companies that are valuable, but we now have to think about alternative methods of exiting."

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Already, there are a handful of examples out there of what exiting to community can look like. Buffer, a social media management platform, bought out its investors in 2018 because it became "clear that Buffer had become less of a fit for VC funding," Buffer CEO and co-founder Joel Gascoigne wrote in a blog post at the time.

Then, in 2019, SEO and Conductor bought back its content marketing company from WeWork. Now, the company is majority employee-owned.

"It was a dream that we always had that we would own the company and we gave a huge amount of ownership to all the people and now the company is almost entirely employee-owned," Conductor CEO Seth Besmertnik told me earlier this year. "And now we have everything we want to go and make our mission a reality.

Outside of the tech industry, E2C points to Organically Grown Company, an organic produce distributor based in Oregon that transitioned from an employee- and grocer-owned operation into a community-owned one.

"These types of glimpses suggest that it's possible," Schneider said.

For investors, while IPOs and acquisitions can elicit high returns, not all of the startups in their portfolios will be candidates.

"Their current exit options limit what kind of returns and outcomes they can see for their portfolio companies," Schneider said. "If a startup ends up not being a candidate for an IPO or acquisition, E2C can still help them get their money back, or get a decent return. There's also a class of investors trying to thread the needle of financial return with social return, and are looking for models that can help facilitate that."

Beyond the zine, the next step is to create a peer learning cohort of founders who are exploring some of these options. Down the road, the hope is to create standard documents for startups that make it easy for founders to pursue these alternative paths.
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After a fresh transgression attempt by Chinese Army in Ladakh, on Monday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asked him when he will give a befitting reply to China.

spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala demanded that the Prime Minister and Defence Minister should come forward and inform about the situation.

"The new adventure of occupation on the land of the country! New Chinese Infiltration Daily ........ Pangong So Lake area, Gogra and Galvan Valley, Depsung Planes, Lipulesh Transcripts, Doka La and Naku La Pass. The army stands fearless in defence of Mother India. But when will Modi ji's "red eye" appear? #IndiaChinaBorderTension," he tweeted.

The leader also posted a video on Twitter attacking the government over the issue.

"The sovereignty of India is being attacked. Our land is being captured. But where is Modi government? Press release of Defence Ministry is shocking that stated that the Chinese tried to capture our land and involved in a skirmish with Indian soldiers on August 29-30... Now it is not restricted to Ladakh but has reached Lipulekh in Uttarakhand," he said.

"Chinese missiles have been installed in Doka La and Naku La pass. It is a threat to India. Forces are protecting the border. But where is the Prime Minister? When will he give a befitting reply to China? Where is Defence Minister? We demand that the Prime Minister and Defence Minister should come forward and inform us about the situation. When will they remove Chinese transgression from our territory?" the Congress leader asked.

Earlier today an Army spokesperson said that the Indian Army has thwarted an attempt by the Chinese Army to transgress into Indian areas near the southern bank of Pangong Tso lake near Chushul in Ladakh on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday and talks are being held now to resolve the issue there.

"On the night of August 29/30, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo," said Army spokesperson Colonel Aman Anand in a statement.

The Indian Army took measures to strengthen its position and "and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on the ground".

India and China are engaged in a standoff since April-May over the transgressions by the Chinese Army in multiple areas including Finger area, Galwan valley, Hot springs and Kongrung Nala.

The talks between the two sides have been going on for the last three months including five Lieutenant General-level talks but have failed to yield any results, so far.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The term "racist" has been tossed around so often and so frivolously that it has lost its effect as a true statement about bigotry. If you're white and you haven't been called a racist, you're either afraid to disagree with blacks on any issue or you just have no contact with blacks in person or on social media  which, incidentally, probably means you're a racist. For the purposes of this column, I'm going only address only what occurs during dialogue on social media.

Before I begin, I want to recall what Mike Tyson said, "Social media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it." There's more than a bit of honesty in that statement because some people have a level of keyboard courage that they couldn't imagine having in a face-to-face confrontation. Even if you left out the violent aspect of it, most people would decline to engage in a heated debate about race during a family gathering or a dinner party with friends. However, once you sit in front of that computer, communicating from afar, you can figuratively take jabs at your opponents without fear of physical retaliation. Hence, if you live in Maine and caustically disagree online with someone from the West Coast, you're unlikely to end up with a fat lip.

Nonetheless, you might get your reputation distorted and smeared by some fanatic sitting in a dark room, hovering over a dusty, beer-stained keyboard, pounding out a plethora of hate-filled accusations against your character, while his mother is yelling in the background for him to get a job. Moreover, the cretin might find a way to use the internet to attack your employer for having such a "racist" in his company, thereby jeopardizing your employment. Inasmuch as we've arrived at a time in our history in which being called a racist is tantamount to being labeled a child-molester. It has become weaponized by the left as a way to control speech.

For example, if you're well versed in the politics of the day and articulate enough to make a good argument against the systemic racism myth, those who live prosperously off the long expired race card will view you as a threat to their bank account. One of the tactics often used is to challenge you with, "Are you saying that racism doesn't exist?" That's like the guy with a 5-pound ham under one arm and a loaf of bread under the other challenging you with, "Are you saying that hunger doesn't exist?" Either question puts you on the defensive because it seeks an answer that is obvious while seeming to win the argument for the questioner. The world has never been able to completely wipe out racism or hunger. Nevertheless, the USA has done a better job with each than any country in history. But don't expect that logic to placate the race-baiter, since his future is inextricably tied to the dividing of America.

I like what actor Morgan Freeman said during an interview with CNN's Don Lemon a few years ago. "Do you think that race plays a part in wealth distribution or a mindset that you can't make it in America?" asked the left-wing commentator. Freeman, without hesitation, responded, "Today? No, I don't. You and I, we're proof. What would race have to do with it? Put your mind to what you want to do and go for it." Freeman is also quoted as saying, "If you want to end racism, stop talking about it."

The Academy Awardwinning thespian's words from back then are not likely to get any awards from the Black Lives Matter or Antifa terrorists who can exist only if they force everyone not only to talk about race, but to submit to the threats of thugs who demand that whites admit to their bigotry or be beaten and killed on the streets of our cities. Using a level of twisted reasoning that would make any sane person cringe, those violent louts, who raucously proclaim their fight against racism, will assault anyone they see with white skin. Therefore, they are engaging in what they fraudulently declare they are against: racial stereotyping.

It's a tragic sort of irony that so many whites, who have fought for civil rights, free speech and other constitutional verities their entire lives, now find their reputations, if not their safety, being threatened whenever they try to exercise them.
DE PERE, Wis. - Alexis Arnold says shes sympathetic toward protesters who have peacefully fought racial injustice this summer. But as some demonstrations spiral into violence, her anxiety is building.

Why are we so broken right now? the 44-year-old art gallery owner wondered.

The uncertainty is drawing her to whatever stability President Donald Trump can offer. He has spent weeks pushing questions of safety and security to the forefront of the presidential campaign. And there are signs some Wisconsin voters are listening, after protests have sometimes become violent in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where a white police officer shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, seven times, paralyzing him.

The public just needs something to make them feel comfortable and safe again, said Arnold, who is white, has voted for Democrats in the past and is raising a biracial daughter. I almost rather see Trump stay and try to resolve it rather than bring somebody in new.

That sentiment could prove decisive in Wisconsin, a state that put Trump in the White House in 2016 after he carried it by less than 1 percentage point. The president has already used dark and misleading warnings of destruction in American streets following violence in Portland, Oregon, and is now seizing on unrest in Kenosha, where hell travel on Tuesday.

His Democratic rival, Joe Biden, has condemned violence and focused more on the victims of police brutality.

But the images of unrest in Kenosha  of protesters clashing with police, shattered windows and a teenager carrying an AR-15 style gun in the streets  are intensifying the partisan divide in Wisconsin. In interviews with dozens of voters in Green Bay and its suburbs, Democrats saw racism and fear-mongering in Trumps messages, part of a ploy to change the subject from the pandemic. Republicans, even those who admittedly cringed at Trumps style on other issues, were unwaveringly supportive.

And some of the rare voters unsure of their choice said they felt drawn to Trump in this moment, a warning sign for Biden, who has tried to make the election a clear referendum on Trump, his leadership and his handling of the coronavirus.

As part of that strategy, Biden has all but shunned in-person campaigning and generally kept a lower profile. (His campaign says that is due to change.) That approach has left some voters who havent ruled out Trump hazy on where Biden stands on race and criminal justice, a vacuum quickly filled with misinformation.

It was out there that he would get rid of the police, said Mike Guerts, referring to an often repeated falsehood about Bidens position.

Guerts, a wavering Trump voter, says a friend has inundated his phone with pro-Trump posts. The 55-year-old mail worker from Madison, who was in town visiting his father, said he knows not everything his friend sends is true but he doesnt yet know enough to feel comfortable with Biden.

Ive been a lifelong Republican. Im torn, he said, noting police brutality is a pressing problem. But that does not excuse the lawlessness.

There is far less ambiguity among Trump stalwarts. Many were quick to lump all protesters and Democrats together as socialists. Some disputed there is systemic racism in the U.S. and argued that Black Americans often provoke police into using force. And they rarely mention Kyle Rittenhouse, the white teenager who is charged with shooting three people, killing two, in Kenosha.

Instead, they saw Democrats and their celebrity allies as stoking the unrest.

They havent done anything to stop it, said Rick Demro, a 60-year-old, retired commander with the Green Bay police department. You dont see them back up law enforcement. Theyre quick to cast judgment before they facts come out. I think all that does is promote the rioting instead of trying to quell it. Part of me says, its to help them for the campaign purposes.

Demro said hes particularly angered by professional athletes and organizations speaking out against police brutality  including his beloved Green Bay Packers. He hasnt missed a home game since the early 1980s, and he waited for 30 years to get his season tickets. But this week, he talked to his wife about giving them up in protest. (She refused, he said, because she wants to pass them down to their children.)

Demro was among the Trump supporters who said they did see problems in policing. When he watched the video of a Minneapolis police officer pinning George Floyd to the ground until he stopped moving, the May incident that triggered a new, broadly supported movement for racial justice, he said he knew it was wrong.

But theres evidence to suggest that events in the months since have taken a toll on public support for protesters in the state.

A Marquette University Law School survey found support for the protests had fallen 13 percentage points from June to August and is now even with disapproval. The survey of Wisconsin residents conducted before the shootings in Kenosha found that support fell everywhere except the city of Milwaukee, including the suburbs, exurbs and large towns, where Trump and Biden are vying for supporters.

To win Wisconsin, Trump must run up the score in the conservative-leaning suburbs and exurbs across the state, working-class areas where trade unions allegiance to Democrats has faded and the pull of cultural issues has grown. While he dominated in Green Bays Brown County in 2016  winning by 11 percentage points  the area supported a Democrat-backed Supreme Court justice this spring, in a surprising surge of Democratic turnout.

They were Democrats like Michelle Yurek, a fourth-grade teacher who was preparing to go back to teach in a classroom last week, as Trump told the Republican National Convention that no one will be safe in Bidens America.

I dont think were safe in Trumps America, Yurek said, from her home in a neat subdivision on the edge of Green Bay where she lives with her husband and three children. I think hes caused a lot of the division.

Driving his supporters to the polls, while overcoming barriers to voting in the pandemic, is critical for Biden. That means winning over voters like Brittaney Leake, a 27-year-old support staff worker at a group home and a mom of three, with another on the way.

Leake says she didnt vote in 2016 because shes disillusioned with what she see as politicians unfulfilled promises. Biden hasnt given her a reason to change course, she said.

Just because hes a Democrat doesnt mean he has my vote, Leake said. If I cant specifically see what hes going to do for a change, Im not going to vote for him. ... There has to be action.

Arnold, the gallery owner, voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton four years ago. But she hasnt been unhappy with Trumps record. She thinks hes trying to look out for businesses like hers and shes heard positive things about his criminal justice reform bill.

It seems daunting now to switch leaders at a time when everyone is stretched so thin. Shes still mulling over her choice, wishing she could hear more from both candidates for a plan for a reset. I think were all just kind of worn out. And we just want to get back to somewhat of a normal life.
Two senior ministers had taken exactly opposite stands amid a looming economic crisis. It was 2008 and the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh quickly formed a group of ministersthe UPA eras favourite tool of settling policy troublesto suggest a solution.

At the GoM meeting, one minister maintained that the Indian corporate sector must be given some relief. The other and more powerful one took a stand that the government must not intervene in matters of private business. Mukherjee finally intervened and declared that the government has to take a political decision and not an economic one.

A few days later, India announced its first stimulus package to tackle the global slowdown triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the US.

In 2004, when the UPA came to power, Mukherjee had initially hoped for the home ministry portfolio. He even started brushing up the standing committee reports on home, the panel which he headed for a long time. But less than an hour before the swearing-in function, he was asked to take over the defence portfolio. The home portfolio went to Shivraj Patil.

Mukherjee initially felt somewhat sidelined in the stiff hierarchy of power but soon he would assume immense poweronly next to the Prime Minister in the government--thanks to his towering presence in nearly all groups of ministers. Between 2004 and 2012, every major policy of the UPA government had the imprint of Pranab Mukherjee as he headed dozens of GoMs or Manmohan Singhs kitchen cabinets.

Between 2004-2012, Shri Mukherjee was instrumental in spearheading critical decisions of the Government on a range of issues such as Administrative reforms, Right to Information, Right to Employment, Food Security, Energy Security, Information Technology and telecommunication, setting up of UIDAI, Metro Rail, etc through Chairmanship of over 95 Groups of Ministers constituted for the purpose, reads his official profile in the Rashtrapati Bhavan archive.

He got so engrossed in shaping Indias policies and the GoMs got such prominence that many people started lovingly calling Pradeep Gupta, a fine, upright officer entrusted with his GoM files, as GoM Gupta.

And it was these GoMs that highlighted his prowess to solve intricate problems and structural issues and help him consolidate his brand as an ace troubleshooter for the UPA. He was entrusted with delicate political situationsthe demand for Telangana in the early UPA years, the threat of a DMK withdrawal, Anna Hazares movement for a Lokpaland critical policy issues such as financing Air India, setting up a Direct Benefit Transfer mechanism framework and many pieces of rights-based legislation, which would ultimately become the hallmark of the UPAs success story.

It was not an easy task. He handled conflicting views, diverse interests and major ego trips before a GoM or an empowered group of ministers would arrive at a decision. Things would often get out of hand. During a GoM meeting on Air India, a furious minister stood up and announced his resignation, leaving everyone in the room speechless. Mukherjee held the ministers hand and announced a break for 15 minutes. After the meeting reassembled, the proceedings went on smoothly.

To be sure, there is an indelible imprint of Pranab Mukherjee in the worlds largest unique identity programme, the Aadhaar framework. Even as UIDAI chief Nandan Nilekani enjoyed excellent rapport with both Rahul and Sonia Gandhi, it was Mukherjee who gave him the crucial administrative and policy backing in the UIDAI versus NPR tussle. Mukherjee never learnt how to use a computer but he had the vision of a technology-driven unique identity network that would one day change the landscape of Indias targeted welfare programmes and a large part of income tax and other financial structures.

Manmohan Singhs success as the finance minister had much to do with the political support of PV Narasimha Rao. As Prime Minister, many of his flagship programmes and policies found administrative and political backing of Pranab Mukherjee. Mukherjee got so used to spending hours browsing files that after he was nominated as President, P Chidambaram rightly predicted that he would get bored in the highest office.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 04:55:35|Editor: huaxia

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DAMASCUS, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Two Syrian soldiers were killed and seven others wounded on Monday by an Israeli missile attack that targeted military sites south of the Syrian capital Damascus, state news agency SANA reported.

Citing a military statement, the report said the attack was carried out from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. It added that the Syrian air defenses intercepted most of the missiles before reaching their targets.

The attack left damage to the targeted sites.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said powerful explosions were heard in the countryside of Sweida and Daraa provinces in southern Syria as a result of the Israeli attack.

The attack targeted military sites south of Damascus and the towns of al-Sheikh Maskin and Izraa in the countryside of Daraa province, according to the Britain-based watchdog group.

It said the Syrian air defenses were triggered by the attack.

Throughout the Syrian crisis, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria, as well as convoys transporting weapons to the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia allegedly backed by Iran. Enditem
Patients with acute pulmonary embolism can be selected for home management using the sPESI score or the Hestia criteria, according to results of the HOME-PE trial presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 2020.

The pragmatic Hestia method was at least as safe as the sPESI score for triaging haemodynamically stable pulmonary embolism patients for outpatient care." Pierre-Marie Roy, Principal Investigator and Professor, University Hospital of Angers

Acute pulmonary embolism is the most severe presentation of venous thromboembolism (VTE). Incidence is approximately 60 to 70 per 100,000 people, but increases with age, in cancer patients, during prolonged bedrest or after surgery.

It occurs when a blood clot, usually in veins of the legs, travels to the right side of the heart and blocks the pulmonary arteries. The most frequent symptoms are acute dyspnoea and chest pain. In severe cases, patients may develop acute right heart failure with shock and, sometimes, sudden death.

Apart from haemodynamically unstable patients requiring specific management, treatment is mainly based on anticoagulation to avoid recurrence of pulmonary embolism and allow natural fibrinolysis. However, anticoagulation increases the risk of bleeding.

Historically, hospitalization was justified due to the risks of recurrence and bleeding. In the last decade, several studies have demonstrated the possibility of home treatment for selected haemodynamically stable patients. But controversy persists about the optimal referral strategies and eligibility criteria for outpatient care.

European guidelines recommend the Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (PESI) score or the simplified PESI score (sPESI) to assess the risk of all-cause mortality.

Patients with an sPESI score of 0 can be treated at home, providing that proper follow-up and anticoagulant therapy can be provided. American guidelines do not require a predefined score, and advise using pragmatic criteria such as those in the Hestia Study.

The HOME-PE trial examined whether a strategy based on the Hestia criteria was at least as safe as a strategy based on the sPESI score to select patients for home treatment. In addition, it evaluated whether the Hestia method was more efficient compared to the sPESI score - in other words, whether it led to more patients being selected for home treatment.

This was a randomized, open-label non-inferiority trial comparing the two triaging strategies. It was conducted in 26 hospitals in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, which had set up, prior to study initiation, a thrombosis team for outpatient care of patients with acute pulmonary embolism.

In 2017 to 2019, 1,974 patients with normal blood pressure presenting to the emergency department with acute pulmonary embolism were included. Patients randomised to the sPESI group were eligible for outpatient care if the score was 0; otherwise they were hospitalised.

Patients randomized to the Hestia group were eligible for outpatient care if all 11 criteria were negative; otherwise they were hospitalised. In both groups, the physician in charge could overrule the decision on treatment location for medical or social reasons.

The primary outcome was a composite of recurrent VTE, major bleeding, and all-cause death within 30 days. The Hestia strategy was non-inferior to the sPESI strategy: the primary outcome occurred in 3.8% of the Hestia group and 3.6% of the sPESI group (p=0.005).

A greater proportion of patients were eligible for home care using sPESI (48.4%) compared to Hestia (39.4%). However, the doctor in charge of the patient overruled sPESI more often than Hestia.

Consequently, a similar proportion of patients were discharged within 24 hours for home treatment: 38.4% in the Hestia group and 36.6% in the sPESI group (p=0.42). All patients managed at home had a low rate of complications.

Professor Roy said: "These results support outpatient management of acute pulmonary embolism patients using either the Hestia method or the sPESI score with the option for physicians to override the decision."

"In hospitals organized for outpatient management, both triaging strategies enable more than a third of pulmonary embolism patients to be managed at home with a low rate of complications."
Berkshire Hathaway Inc said it has acquired slightly more than 5% of the shares in five large Japanese companies, marking a departure for Chairman Warren Buffett as he looks outside the United States to bolster his conglomerate. In a statement on Sunday, Buffett's 90th birthday, Berkshire said it acquired its stakes in Itochu Corp, Marubeni Corp, Mitsubishi Corp, Mitsui & Co Ltd and Sumitomo Corp over approximately 12 months.

Berkshire said it intends to hold the investments for the long term, and may boost its stakes to 9.9%. A Berkshire insurance business, National Indemnity Co, is holding the shares. "I am delighted to have Berkshire Hathaway participate in the future of Japan," Buffett said in a statement. "The five major trading companies have many joint ventures throughout the world and are likely to have more... I hope that in the future there may be opportunities of mutual benefit."

Taken together, five 5% stakes were worth 655 billion yen ($6.21 billion) as of Friday's close, Reuters calculation showed based on Refinitiv data. On Monday, shares in the trading houses jumped as much as 11% in early Tokyo trade, outperforming a 1.5% rise in the broader TOPIX .TOPX share price index.

Also read: Elon Musk's net worth tops $100 billion, half of world's richest man Jeff Bezos

Marubeni was the biggest gainer among the five, surging 12%. Sumitomo and Mitsubishi rose more than 10% and Mitsui rose 8.2%. Itochu - the only one of the four with a price-to-book ratio above 1 - rose 5.4% to a record high. Shares of companies often rise when Berkshire discloses new investments, reflecting what investors view as Buffett's imprimatur.

The Japanese trading companies in many ways appear to be a typical Buffett investment: four of them trade well below book value, meaning their market capitalizations were below their assets. Several also have hefty amounts of cash on hand. Mitsubishi, for instance, has seen steady growth in its free cash flow per share over the last four years, Refinitiv data showed.

Further and in a likely attraction for Buffett - who famously avoids investing in companies he claims not to understand - the Japanese trading houses are deeply involved in the real economy: steel, shipping, commodities, and in some cases retail.

Also read: RIL-Future Group Deal: How Kishore Biyani, Indian retail sector's poster boy bowed to winds of change

U.S. DEPENDENCE

The Japanese investments will help Buffett reduce his Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate's dependence on the U.S. economy, which last quarter suffered its deepest contraction in at least 73 years as the coronavirus pandemic took hold. Many of Berkshire's own operating businesses have struggled, and Berkshire this month took a $9.8 billion writedown on its Precision Castparts aircraft parts business.

Berkshire owns more than 90 businesses including the BNSF railroad and Geico car insurer outright. It also invests in dozens of companies including Apple Inc, with a roughly $125 billion stake based on its holdings as of June 30, as well as American Express Co, Bank of America Corp and Coca-Cola Co.

Also read: Amazon boss Jeff Bezos creates another record; becomes first person to be worth over $200 billion

"Since Buffett's portfolio is becoming heavily skewed to Apple, maybe he was looking for something complete the opposite of Apple," said Hiroki Takashi, chief strategist at Monex in Tokyo. Most of Berkshire's operating businesses are American, though it has acquired a handful of foreign companies including Israel's IMC International Metalworking and German motorcycle apparel retailer Detlev Louis.

Additional investments in Japan could also help Buffett reduce Berkshire's cash pile, which ended June at a record $146.6 billion.
The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has reiterated its caution to water vendors, landlords, and landladies to desist from selling water to consumers during the period of July, August, and September 2020.



In a statement issued by GWCLs management on Monday, President Nana Akufo-Addo has directed that water be supplied to every citizen for free, hence, all its customers need to adhere to the directive.



It is wrong and illegal for any water vendor or landlord or landlady to sell water during this period; July, August, and September 2020.



The release then asked its customers particularly water vendors and house owners who sell water directly to tenants and other members of the community, to register with the district offices of the GWCL for their categories to be changed, to enable the system to generate compensation for them.



The general public is encouraged and entreated to contact the GWCL call center anytime they experience water supply challenges within their homes and neighborhood and also report pipe burst and leakages on the following numbers: 0800 40000 (Toll-free on Vodafone lines), 0302 2218240, 0207385088, 0207385089, 0207385090 and via GWCL WhatsApp lines (0555123393, 0555155524), it added.

Source: myjoyonline.com









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Linkedin Phil Hazlewood (Agence France-Presse) London, United Kingdom  Mon, August 31, 2020 22:03 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41b7a13 2 Lifestyle coronavirus,COVID-19,santa-claus,Christmas,Britain Free

It's late August, the long summer holidays are over and as children return to school in Britain, thoughts begin to turn to the end-of-year Christmas festivities.

But questions are already being asked about a time-honored tradition given the coronavirus outbreak and restrictions -- the visit to see Father Christmas.

James Lovell, though, has a plan, which he says will allow children to experience the magic of meeting Santa Claus while maintaining strict social distancing guidelines.

At a time when many people would usually be on the beach, Lovell, who runs the Ministry of Fun events company, has his attention firmly focused on the cold days of winter.

This year, as he has done for the past 25, he has already been preparing his 50-strong team of Santas for the coming season after a bumper 2019, when he had about 1,000 bookings.

"Normally we have got most of our bookings in the bag by August," he told AFP. "What's interesting is this year, we are at about half.

"People haven't cancelled, they're just not sure what they can do. There have been mixed messages about what's allowed. There's a lot of confusion.

"People need reassurance that Father Christmas can appear."

Read also: 'Harvard' of Santa Claus schools teaches Christmas spirit

Elf and safety

Unliked crammed theaters, which are only partially re-opening to audiences after months of closure, Lovell likens Santa's grottos to "social bubbles".

Venues such as department stores and tourist sites are already well-versed in organizing crowds who flock to see Father Christmas.

This year they have introduced even tighter controls around crowd management to curb the close-contact spread of the virus.

Lovell says only three small tweaks to the Santa experience are needed to ensure public safety and reassure worried store owners and parents, rather than postpone it altogether.

His team of Santas will have specially created red velvet and white fur facemasks as part of their costume, which costs up to 1,000 ($1,300, 1,100 euros) and includes beards hand-made by theater props specialists.

Presents will be positioned between Santa and his young visitors to maintain a safe distance, and gifts will be put on a miniature sleigh rather than handed out directly.

For Lovell, it's essential the trip to see Santa doesn't become yet another casualty of the global pandemic.

"You can't have Christmas without Santa," he added. "We have to make this work. It's very important. A child meeting Father Christmas is a really big deal.

"We all love the idea that Father Christmas is going to bring us magic. And we deserve it more than ever. It's been a ghastly year and we need that happiness."
Ranchi:

Several extremist groups in Jharkhand were reported to have incurred losses to the tune of Rs 80 crore following the demonetisation decision of the Central government on November 8, a top police officer said on Monday.

The ultra groups are desperate ever since the Narendra Modi-led government had decided to demonetise Rs 500 and 1000 currency notes, which had an adverse impact on the activities of Moists and extremists group in the state, additional director general (ADG), Jharkhand, RK Mallick said.

Quoting an intelligence report, he said at least Rs 80 crore cash of the Maoists groups has thus been destroyed due to demonetisation. The ultra outfits have weakened as their major economic system was destroyed post-demonetisation, which prompted thenaxals to indulge in looting cash in desperation, going against the Maoist ideology, Mallick claimed. However, the state police was prepared to foil all their nefarious design, he said.

Responding to a query, ADG said as per an intelligence report, the Maoists used to collect Rs 140 crore in the form of levy three years ago but it had come down to Rs 100 crore owing to intensified anti-Maoist operation launched by the security personnel during last couple of years.

Further quoting Intelligence report, Mallick said that the Maoists and other extremist organisations had saved around Rs 100 crore for meeting expenditure for one year but the money had suddenly become defunct in the wake of government's decision on November 8 last.

The ultra groups including Maoists, however, were reported to have succeeded in exchanging old currency notes into new currencies worth Rs 20 crore with the help of their over-ground workers and sympathisers as well as by threatening poor villagers and farmers, he said.

Elaborating stringent action launched by the state administration to crush Maoists in the state, Mallick said the ultras could not exchange majority of old currencies into the new one and they are now conspiring to loot cash vans of banks and post-offices in desperation.

He said around 100 incidents would have taken place across Jharkhand, where the ultras had tried to convert the old currency notes forcibly through banks, but could not succeed due to vigilant state police.

He said 37 Maoists had been killed while 35 surrendered during 1546 special campaign launched against them by the security personnel last year, claiming that the situation had worsened to such an extent at one time that extremist outfits were recruiting poor farmers and villagers forcibly to enhance their strength. A huge resentment was prevailing among the common man due to their bullying approach, he said, adding the development work being carried out by the government also restricted Maoists, who were left with no option but to leave the state.

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The massive storm hit Louisiana early on Thursday (August 27) with 150 mile-per-hour (240 kph) winds, damaging buildings, knocking down trees and cutting power to more than 650,000 people in Louisiana and Texas. However, Laura's storm surge was much less than predicted.

The Category 4 hurricane killed at least 15 people, including some killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from the unsafe operation of generators.

Officials called Laura the most powerful hurricane to strike Louisiana, surpassing even Katrina, which was a Category 3 storm when it hit in 2005.

U.S. President Donald Trump toured the area on Saturday (August 29) and signed a disaster declaration for Louisiana on Friday (August 28).
Hyderabad: The Telangana state government on Sunday acknowledged that its much-touted claim that asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 -- in which people do not require any care or attention -- dominate the disease in the state, has been wrong all along.

Information provided by the state's health department on Sunday showed that the government either grossly underestimated, or adopted a fictitious narrative, with respect to informing people about the true impact of Covid-19 on the people.

On Sunday, in the days Covid-19 bulletin, the health department inserted a new, table providing details of the number of asymptomatic and symptomatic Covid-19 cases so far in Telangana.

In this table titled Status of symptomatic/asymptomatic, the health department said of the total 1,23,090 Covid-19 cases so far, 84,932 were asymptomatic which works out to 69 per cent of all cases. The balance 38,158 cases, accounting for 31 per cent, have been symptomatic, the bulletin revealed.

The governments avowed stand till Sunday was that up to 90 per cent of all Covid-19 infected people remain asymptomatic and that they would not even be aware they caught the disease. Of the rest of the 10 per cent of cases, the governments stand was that half of them would have mild to moderate symptoms who could be treated without too many complications. It was the balance five per cent of cases who might require intensive care and specialized treatment, has been the state governments stance for months now.

Incidentally, Sundays Covid-19 bulletin for the 24-hour period between 8 p.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday, also included for the first time, details of tests done on primary and secondary contacts of people found to be Covid-19 positive. The health department said that in this 24-hour period, a total of 61,148 tests were conducted in the state and of these, 27,516 were on primary contacts of Covid-19 positive individuals while 8560 tests were performed on their secondary contacts. A further 27,072 tests were on other individuals.
Sushant Singh Rajput case: ED questions Goa hotelier; NCB continues probe

India

pti-Madhuri Adnal

Mumbai, Aug 31: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday questioned a Goa-based hotelier, Gaurav Arya, in connection with a money laundering probe linked to the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, officials said.

Arya arrived at the central probe agency's office here in Ballard Estate area around 10:30 AM accompanied by his legal team. The ED had summoned Arya last week to join the probe after it recovered some mobile phone messages reportedly sent by actor and Rajput's live-in partner Rhea Chakraborty to him in 2017 and they purportedly indicated discussion of certain banned narcotics, officials had said. The agency will record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), they said.

From debit card PIN to procuring weed, here is what the ED note says in Sushant Singh case

Arya, who runs two hotels in Goa, had earlier told news channels that he has never dealt in narcotics and his last interaction with Rhea was about three years ago, adding he will "comply" with all legal procedures. He had also said that he never met Rajput, 34, who was allegedly found hanging at his duplex flat in the Bandra area of Mumbai on June 14.

The agency is looking at the money laundering angle in this case and hence all conversations and entities that are linked to the matter are required to be questioned to establish facts and to find out if any criminality is involved, a senior ED official had said.

The ED has also recently intimated the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) about these purported drugs-linked chats which it recovered after 'cloning' two mobile phones of Rhea. It has already recorded Rhea's version, under the PMLA, about these chats that purportedly indicate procurement of banned drugs. Rhea, 28, the main accused in the case, her father Indrajit Chakraborty, brother Showik and multiple staff members of her and Rajput have been grilled by the ED till now. She is also being questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Santacruz area for the fourth time on Monday apart from few others who worked for Rajput.

The ED has questioned two out of Rajput's four sisters and his father, K K Singh. It is going to question a few more people who are linked to Rajput and Rhea during this week, officials said. Meanwhile, the NCB, the third federal agency probing the circumstances surrounding the death of the actor, is investigating the overall network of drug syndicates, suppliers and couriers who operate in Mumbai and some adjoining western India states like Goa.

The NCB is mandated with an "overarching charter" to check narcotics cartels and suppliers. Hence, it is probing a larger "criminal conspiracy and contravention of anti-narcotics laws" that includes the present case where Rhea and others have been allegedly found messaging about procurement and consumption of certain banned drugs, they said. It had also arrested two persons last week for allegedly dealing in marijuana (weed) but sources said the action was not linked to this probe.

Sushant Singh Rajput death case: CBI summons Rhea again, to be interrogated for second day

A special NCB team from Mumbai, led by Deputy Director (operations) K P S Malhotra, is stationed in Mumbai for the probe. The ED case under the PMLA stems from an FIR filed by Rajput's father on July 25 with the Bihar Police in Patna against Rhea, her father, mother Sandhya Chakraborty, Showik, Rajput's manager Samuel Miranda and Shruti Modi and unknown persons, accusing them of cheating and abetting his son's suicide.

Rajput's father has also alleged financial irregularities in his complaint to the police. Singh had alleged that an amount of Rs 15 crore was siphoned off from Rajput's bank account in one year to accounts of persons not known or connected to the late actor.

However, the ED has not found any direct transaction made from Rajput's account to that of Rhea except an instance where it intercepted a mobile phone message where Rhea allegedly talks about obtaining details of a debit card used by the late actor from his house manager Samuel Miranda.

Some cash deals in this case are also under the scanner of the agency. Rhea has maintained that she "never consumed" any banned narcotics and that she will cooperate with all the probe agencies as a law-abiding citizen.
Working parents across professions were forced to balance the demands of their jobs and their childrens remote education in the spring, and teachers were no exception. But this new school year has created even more logistical hurdles for teachers with kids at home.

In schools that have adopted a hybrid model of instruction where groups of students alternate days of in-person instruction, teachers are often expected to be in their classrooms full time. And in the schools that are beginning an entirely virtual fall semester, teachers will have to spend more time doing live instruction on video than they did in the spring. Yet in many cases, they will still be without child care.

Nearly half of teachers have childrenfrom preschoolers to teenagersat home, according to an analysis by researchers at the Brookings Institution. For many of these teachers, the spring semester was stressful: A recent survey of nearly 8,000 teachers in nine states found that 40 percent said caretaking responsibilities for children and/or other dependent adults made it difficult to do their jobs , and 16 percent said they were unable to balance their work with other responsibilities at home, according to an analysis by researchers including Brown Universitys Matthew Kraft.

When youre [teaching] from home and you have four kids under the age of 10, if you dont have a spouse, babysitter, or someone to sit there with them, its really difficult, said Sherri Dutton, a 2nd grade teacher in Las Vegas. As a teacher, I have to be available online to facilitate the instruction. It makes it so tricky to go between my classroom online and my own kids education.

In some cases last spring, districts even told teachers they could not work and watch their children at the same time.

Now, in hopes of making this school year more manageable, some districts are providing child care for teachers, while others are letting teachers children get priority for full-time, in-person instruction. Other districts are allowingor requiringteachers to work from their empty classrooms and to bring their kids if they need to. That option has been praised by some teachers, who say it gives them access to more reliable internet and a sense of structure for school-aged children. Others have balked at that idea, saying it puts them and their kids at risk for COVID-19 and shakes up any routine for small children.

In Massachusetts, Jeffrey Riley, the state commissioner of elementary and secondary education, wrote in an Aug. 21 memo that the state education department expects teachers in districts that are providing remote instruction to teach from their empty classrooms. He wrote that this approach will provide more consistency for students, allow teachers access to more instructional supplies and reliable internet, and foster more collaboration among educators.

Teachers who are parents in need of child care should be able to bring their kids to school with them, Riley said. Districts should also prioritize children of teachersin addition to students with disabilities, English-language learners, and other high-needs studentsfor full-time, in-person learning, he wrote. The department will release more detailed guidance for teachers with children at home soon, Riley added.

Still, teachers across the state are furious with this directive, said Merrie Najimy, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. They find it patronizing to be told where and how to teach, she said, and its added an extra burden on teachers who are parents.

She has heard from teachers who have said they dont know how their toddlers will be able to nap in a bright classroom while theyre teaching virtual classes. One school counselor asked how she is supposed to preserve her students privacy if her own child is in the room with her during counseling sessions. Other teachers are worried about exposing their children to COVID-19.

Its heartless and reckless, Najimy said. Are their infant children supposed to crawl around on the classroom floor?

Local unions are negotiating with districts about whether teachers will be required to come into classrooms to teach, she said.

Kristen Picard, an 8th grade English teacher in Northampton, Mass., is still waiting for her district and union to finalize an agreement on the details of remote instruction. But so far, her district superintendent has said it will be voluntary for teachers to work from empty school buildings.

Thats a relief, Picard said, because she doesnt feel comfortable bringing her 4-month-old daughter into a school building with poor ventilation thats filled with other people. She was already uncomfortable sending her 4-year-old son to daycare this fallbut she felt like it was the only option, given her teaching schedule and her husbands 14-hour workdays.

Ultimately, I said, if I kept both my kids home, Id feel like I was failing my son and failing my students because theres just no way, she said.

It will still be a challenge with just the baby home: Picard is teaching four 83-minute classes a day. Balancing all of that with breastfeeding and pumpingI just dont know what it looks like, she said. I dont know how well it will work out.

And there hasnt been clear guidance from her state or district for teachers who are dealing with these child-care issues, she said.

About 80 percent of teachers are women, and the ones who are making the decisions are not, and the feeling is just, Theyll figure it out, they always do, Picard said. And we dobut it comes with a lot of stress.

Lighten the Load

Some local teachers unions are negotiating how their districts can support teachers with children. For instance, the Los Angeles teachers union secured child care for its teachers who are working on school campuses. The agreement with the district also states that teachers working remotely shall not be subject to discipline if and when instruction is occasionally interrupted by their children or other family circumstances.

And some districts are preemptively finding solutions for their staff. Grant Rivera, the superintendent of the Marietta City, Ga., school district, knew balancing work and child care had to have been a challenge for his teachers with kids in the spring and would continue to be one as the district starts the fall semester remotely.

Teachers largely internalize the stress and just try to make it work, he said. It was a conversation that originated in central office from basically a position of common sense: If theyre trying to juggle their own child at the same time as theyre trying to teach someone elses, what can we do to lighten the load?

This fall, the district began offering child care for teachers kids, aged 4 to 12. There are 92 children enrolled in the program, and they each have Chromebooks to participate in remote learning. (Only five children are allowed in a classroom at once to ensure social distancing, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported .) The district reassigned school staff whose jobs are no longer needed during remote instructionlike bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and some substitute teachersto oversee the program.

For the first month, teachers had to pay $60 a week per child, which Rivera knew was a large, unanticipated expense. He asked community partners for help, and a local church has made a donation that will reduce the cost to $30 a week.

Some teachers in the Marietta City district have chosen to work in their empty classrooms, and the district has made sure that those teachers children are in the same building as they are so teachers can check in on their kids and eat lunch with them. Other teachers wanted to drop their kids off at the school building and then go back home to teach remotely.

Rivera said he doesnt have a preference on what teachers do, and if they want to teach remotely with their kids at home with them, thats OK, too.

Its nothing more than a service.  If this makes your life easier, were here to help, he said. We care about our staff as people first and educators second.

Making It Work

In the spring, the Madison, Wis., school district told teachers that they cannot watch [their] children and work at the same time, and must secure child care either outside or inside the home. Teachers were outraged, The Capital Times reported , and the district softened its policy, asking staff to plan ahead as much as possible for child care in [their] home so that interruptions are minimized.

This fall, the district hasnt issued a similar requirement, said Andy Waity, the president of Madison Teachers Inc., the local union. (A district spokesperson didnt respond to Education Weeks requests for comment.)

The expectation is that folks are doing their work, and theyre finding some way to arrange for support of their own children, and of course that presents a huge challenge for people, he said.

Waity said theres been an increase in teachers applying for leave. The federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act grants workers who need to care for a child whose school or child-care provider is closed or unavailable due to COVID-19 up to 12 weeks of leave at two-thirds pay.

Other teachers are just trying to make it all work. Greg, who asked for his last name to be withheld, and his wife both teach at the same private school in Florida where their three kids attend. In the spring, he and his wife would teach their Zoom classes in the mornings, and then deliver the provided curriculum for their then-kindergartner and 2nd grader in the afternoons. (Their other child, a middle schooler, was able to work more independently.)

It was chaotic but manageable, Greg said. But this fall, he and his wife are expected to teach until 3 pm. Their kids also have a full schedule of remote learning plannedand teaching their kids after teaching their students didnt seem feasible.

We end at 3 oclock, and all of a sudden, now were going to start helping the little ones? he said. How long can the day be?

Instead, he and his wife have hired a family friend to come for three hours a day to help the kids with their remote learning. At $20 an hour, its a large expenseespecially since Gregs secondary income stream from tutoring has shriveled up since the start of the pandemicbut he felt like it was the only option.

Meanwhile, a middle school teacher in North Carolina, who asked that her name be withheld, said shes taking it day by day. Shes working in her empty classroom alongside her two kids, because she has more reliable internet and access to more devices at school than she does at home.

Still, she said, teaching her classes while her kids are on their own video calls in the same room can be chaotic. And she has to take several breaks throughout the day from her own work to help her kids, one of whom has ADHD, do their lessons.

It feels very scattered [and] piecemeal, she said. In an email, she added, Right now, its working, but I am beyond tired and stressed. Im not sure how effective I am as a teacher and as a good mother.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 04:23:49|Editor: huaxia

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NEW YORK, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Oil prices finished Monday's volatile trading with losses as traders re-allocated their assets.

The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for October delivery lost 36 cents to settle at 42.61 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for November delivery erased 53 cents to close at 45.28 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.

Prices were under pressure as investors continue to worry about the outlook for crude demand amid COVID-19 uncertainty.

Global confirmed COVID-19 cases topped 25.3 million and deaths surpassed 847,000 as of Monday afternoon, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Based on the most actively traded contracts, U.S. benchmark WTI crude rose 5.8 percent in August, while the global benchmark Brent booked a monthly gain of about 4.6 percent. Enditem
Gov. Pete Ricketts ran the gamut from unemployment benefits to marijuana during a news conference Monday, with detours to Big Ten Conference football and the spread of the coronavirus on college campuses and among the prison population.

Ricketts said he is "still doing an analysis" about the state costs that would be incurred in participating in a federal program that provides an extra $300 in weekly unemployment benefits and noted that he has until Sept. 10 to make a decision.

In answer to questions, the governor said he is "very much against" the proposed initiative to legalize medical marijuana in the state.

"This is not a benign thing; this is a dangerous thing," Ricketts said.

After receiving sufficient signatures on petitions to place the issue on the November general election ballot, the initiative is facing review by the Nebraska Supreme Court in response to a lawsuit filed by Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner.

Ricketts said he believes "it is manageable" to play Big Ten football in Lincoln this fall, and he encouraged the conference to "reexamine what they're doing" in calling for what is at least a tentative halt to the season.
Ukrainian National Guard serviceman Vitaliy Markiv could not be involved in the death of Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli because he had another weapon in his hands, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said.

"Rocchelli died from mortar shrapnel, but Markiv had a machine gun in his hands, so it's impossible - the man had another weapon," Avakov said at a briefing on Monday, August 31.

He stressed that the Ukrainian side had put forward a great number of such arguments. He also expressed hope the Italian court would have an impartial attitude to this case.

In addition, Avakov said that Markiv was in fact deprived of his right to defense - Italian law enforcement officers never came to Ukraine, despite the fact that they were invited. "Any unbiased expert, if he climbs Mount Karachun, will agree that Markiv could not shoot - it is impossible," Avakov said.

"I want to emphasize that, unfortunately, Italian law enforcement officers never came to Ukraine and were not at the scene of the death of an Italian citizen. Thus, the investigation was not conducted in full, and Vitaliy Markiv was deprived of his unconditional right to an objective investigation and his right to defense," the minister said.

Deputy Chief of the National Police of Ukraine, Chief of the Main Investigation Department of the National Police of Ukraine Maksym Tsutskiridze also stressed that experts had removed from the body of the photojournalist fragments of a mine that was fired from a mortar. "A mine rather than a bullet" was the cause of death of the Italian photojournalist, he said.

Avakov called on the Italian government not to politicize the tragedy. He also called on the appellate court, which is to consider the appeal against Markiv's verdict, to consider the case impartially and objectively.

"I urge the Italian court to take note of the evidence collected by the Ukrainian investigation and take it into account when issuing a fair judgment," Avakov said.

Markiv was detained in Italy in the summer of 2017 on charges of alleged involvement in the murder of Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli near Sloviansk, Ukraine's Donetsk region, on May 24, 2014.

On July 12, 2019, a court in the Italian town of Pavia sentenced Markiv to 24 years in prison. Markiv's defense lawyers called the sentence "political" and declared their intention to file the appeal. The hearing of the appeal in the Markiv case was not appointed for a long time due to the coronavirus pandemic.

President Volodymyr Zelensky instructed the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the Prosecutor General's Office to make every effort to bring Markiv back home.

On July 24, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said that the consideration of the appeal against Markiv's sentence in Italy would begin in September.

op
31 Aug 2020, 10:23 AM

Indira Gandhi International Airport to see 73% decline in traffic in FY21

Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) may witness a massive 73 per cent decline in traffic in the current financial year. It is estimated the passengers' footfall at this airport will be roughly 1.8 crore, down from 6.7 crore in the financial year 2020-2021 due to coronavirus pandemic. Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), which manages IGI, expects that the airport will see recovery by FY24

Paytm Mall data breach: Intelligence firm claims cyber-attack; Paytm denies

Cyble, online cyber risk intelligence firm, has claimed that hackers targeted Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led Paytm Mall recently. The intelligence firm added that a cyber group demanded ransom after gaining unrestricted access to the entire databases of Paytm Mall. However, the online shopping platform has shrugged off all these claims. Last year also, the Paytm group had faced a "fraud" allegedly caused by its employees.

5G smartphones to capture 50% of global market by 2023, says IDC

The worldwide smartphone market is expected to decline 9.5 per cent year over year in 2020 with shipments totaling 1.2 billion units, according to a recent International Data Corporation (IDC) report. The smartphone market, however, is expected to return to a full recovery by 2022 on the back of strong 5G push. As per IDC report, 5G smartphones are expected to capture 50 per cent of the global market by 2023.

Reliance's Rs 24,713 crore deal with Future Retail includes Rs 12,000 crore debt

Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail Ventures (RRVL) will hold 13.14 per cent stake in Kishore Biyani's Future Enterprises Ltd (FEL) post the Rs 24,713 crore deal. RRVL will enter into a long term agreement with FEL for sourcing branded fashion and FMCG products. However, FEL will have the freedom to sell their products to other retailers also. According to sources, the value of Rs 24,713 crore includes Rs 12,000 crore debt of Future group.

Warren Buffett buys 5% stakes worth $6.21 billion in Japan's five biggest trading firmsBerkshire Hathaway Inc said it has acquired slightly more than 5% of the shares in five large Japanese companies, marking a departure for Chairman Warren Buffett as he looks outside the United States to bolster his conglomerate. In a statement on Sunday, Buffett's 90th birthday, Berkshire said it acquired its stakes in Itochu Corp, Marubeni Corp, Mitsubishi Corp, Mitsui & Co Ltd and Sumitomo Corp over approximately 12 months.

COVID-19 wreaks havoc in US! Number of cases reach 6 million; Midwest, schools witness outbreaksUS cases of the novel coronavirus surpassed 6 million as many states in the Midwest reported increasing infections, according to a Reuters tally. Nationally, metrics on new cases, deaths, hospitalizations and the positivity rates of tests are all declining, but there are emerging hotspots in the Midwest.
Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology together with their international collaborators developed a novel quantitative method to quantify the effects of plastic on marine animals. This method successfully shows that plastic ingestion by sea turtles might be causing population declines, despite a lack of strong effects on individual turtles.

Plastic debris in marine ecosystems is a serious global issue and is the research focus of leading scientists across the globe. Annually, around 10 million tons of waste, mostly plastic, finds its way into the world's oceans. Plastic debris in the open and coastal seas can jeopardize the health of marine wildlife, affecting human health and economy both directly and indirectly.

Almost 700 marine species have been documented to interact with plastic, most commonly by ingesting smaller pieces and becoming entangled in larger pieces. Among the most affected species are sea turtles. All seven known species of sea turtles have been seriously impacted by the presence of plastic waste in marine ecosystems. Ingestion of plastic waste is often not lethal for sea turtles, but it does reduce their ability to feed and can cause negative toxic effects. Scientists have been warning for over a decade about the negative non-lethal effects of ingested plastics, noting that these effects are "particularly difficult to quantify."

Now, in a new study, an international research group, comprising Asst. Prof. Marko Jusup (Tokyo Institute of Technology [Tokyo Tech], Japan), Dr. Nina Marn and Dr. Tin Klanjscek (Ruder Boskovic Institute, Croatia), and Prof. S.A.L.M. Kooijman (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands), presented the first mechanistic model for quantifying the effects of ingested plastics on individuals and populations of sea turtles. Their findings are published in the high-ranking scientific journal Ecology Letters .

The study achieved exactly what previous research has struggled to accomplish: a new method to assess and quantify the effects of plastics ingestion on growth, reproduction, and survival of individuals and consequently populations.

Asst. Prof. Jusup, who co-led the study with Dr. Marn, explains, "In this research, we focused on a well-known and globally distributed protected species of sea turtles--the loggerhead. Our aim was to quantify the effects of ingested plastics on individual animals and subsequently on whole populations. Differentiating between the individual and population breaking points is important because individuals can look healthy and even reproduce, but this may not be sufficient to offset the loss of individuals due to mortality. More extreme cases of plastics ingestion reported in the scientific literature cause the population ecological breaking point to be reached. This is why it is crucial to decisively act now, before it is too late."

Dr. Marn, co-leading author of this study, spent several months at Tokyo Tech working with Asst. Prof. Jusup. She explains her motivation, "Over the past few years, there have been frequent discussions about a large amount of plastic ending up in the oceans, but gathering reliable data on the direct effects of plastic on animal health is still a challenge for the scientific community. One of the main motivations of my doctoral research was therefore to link plastic in the oceans to effects on marine wildlife, particularly on the already endangered sea turtles."

Understanding the link between the amount of ingested plastic waste and reduction in feeding of marine wildlife is crucial to mitigate the negative effects of plastic on marine organisms.

An added value of this model is its wide applicability--not only to other sea turtles but also any of the over 2,000 animal species characterized in the online database called "Add-my-Pet." The database is a brainchild of Prof. Kooijman, another co-author of the study, and is maintained and updated by a collaborative scientific effort in which Dr. Marn participates.

Dr. Klanjscek, a corresponding author of this study, concludes, "The effects of plastics ingestion that we are focusing on are not the only non-lethal effects of ingested plastics; for example, there is also a toxicological aspect of (micro)plastics, which is something we do not characterize at this point. However, our model is a crucial step that brings us closer to a more complete understanding of the effects of plastics on marine organisms. A general approach such as this, combined with an extensive database, enables straightforward applications of our model to other organisms such as sea birds and sea mammals."

Indeed, this new model represents an important step towards conservation of the marine ecosystem, which is--no doubt--the need of the hour.

###

Related Links

We need to talk: Communication prevents inaction by leveraging goodwill : Tokyo Tech News

https://www.titech.ac.jp/english/news/2020/047245.html

Towards prosperous public goods with freedom of choice : Tokyo Tech News

https://www.titech.ac.jp/english/news/2020/047376.html

Marko Jusup

https://www.wrhi.iir.titech.ac.jp/en/people/jusup-marko/

About Tokyo Institute of Technology

Tokyo Tech stands at the forefront of research and higher education as the leading university for science and technology in Japan. Tokyo Tech researchers excel in fields ranging from materials science to biology, computer science, and physics. Founded in 1881, Tokyo Tech hosts over 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students per year, who develop into scientific leaders and some of the most sought-after engineers in industry. Embodying the Japanese philosophy of "monotsukuri," meaning "technical ingenuity and innovation," the Tokyo Tech community strives to contribute to society through high-impact research. https://www.titech.ac.jp/english/
RICHMOND, Va., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Capital Square, a national investment sponsor specializing in tax-advantaged real estate offerings, announced today that the firm has appointed Austin Griffin, CPM, as chief financial officer, and Colleen Nichols as associate general counsel.

"After an exhaustive national search, we are pleased to report that Austin Griffin has joined Capital Square as chief financial officer," said Louis Rogers, founder and chief executive officer of Capital Square. "Austin brings an exceptional background in real estate, management and construction, and will help lead Capital Square's executive management team."

In his new role, Griffin will be responsible for the overall financial strategy at Capital Square, including formulating, monitoring, directing and implementing strategic business plans involving the company's capital and profitability.

Griffin brings more than two decades of experience as a corporate executive to his new role at Capital Square. In his previous roles, he has overseen finance and accounting functions for multiple national retail portfolios, multifamily portfolios with more than 20,000 units, and others that included hotel/hospitality, commercial, office and manufactured housing real estate.

"I am thrilled to join the exceptional real estate team at Capital Square to assist with firm management and oversight of a growing number of real estate investments," said Griffin.

Prior to joining Capital Square, Griffin served as chief financial officer at The Caton Companies, which oversees operations and assets for a portfolio of nine companies with over $1 billion in assets and $350 million in revenue. Previously, Griffin served as chief financial officer at Tzadik Management, where he managed all finance and accounting functions, and also served as chief financial officer at F9 Investments, LLC, which oversees operations and assets for four companies with over $1 billion in annual revenue. Additionally, Griffin served as chief executive officer at 123 Global, the real estate and development company for Learning Care Group and La Petite, Inc.

Griffin earned a bachelor's degree in business from Indiana University, an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Chicago, and a master's degree in accounting from Keiser University. Griffin also earned and holds a Certified Property Manager (CPM) designation from the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) for 20 years.

In addition, Capital Square has appointed Colleen Nichols as associate general counsel at the firm. Prior to joining Capital Square, Nichols served as associate attorney with the real estate and securities practice groups of several Richmond, Virginia law firms, including Peake Law Group, Moran Reeves & Conn and Kaplan Voekler Cunningham & Frank.

"Colleen brings a wealth of knowledge and exceptional work ethic to her new position. Having worked on projects for Capital Square as outside counsel, she is ideally suited to join Capital Square's inside legal team," said Jeff Gregor, executive vice president, general counsel.

Nichols earned a Juris Doctorate degree from William & Mary Law School, where she graduated cum laude, and a bachelor's degree with distinction in English and American Studies from the University of Virginia.

About Capital Square

Capital Square is a national real estate firm specializing in tax-advantaged real estate investments, including Delaware statutory trusts for Section 1031 exchanges and qualified opportunity zone funds for tax deferral and exclusion. To date, Capital Square has completed more than $2 billion in transaction volume. Capital Square's executive team has decades of experience in real estate investments. Its founder, Louis Rogers, has structured hundreds of investment offerings totaling in excess of $5 billion. Capital Square's related entities provide a range of services, including due diligence, acquisition, loan sourcing, property/asset management, and disposition, for a growing number of high net worth investors, private equity firms, family offices and institutional investors. In 2017, 2018 and 2019, Capital Square was awarded by Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest growing companies. In 2017 and 2018, the company was also ranked on Richmond BizSense's list of fastest growing companies. In 2019, Capital Square was listed by Virginia Business on their "Best Places to Work in Virginia" and "Fantastic 50" reports. To learn more, visit www.CapitalSquare1031.com.

Contact: Lauren Burgos

Spotlight Marketing Communications

949.427.1399

[email protected]

SOURCE Capital Square

Related Links

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Kayts St. Anthonys Church celebrates 200 years View(s):

Tracing its origins to 1820, St. Anthonys Church, Kayts is one of the oldest churches in the Jaffna Peninsula and 2020 is its bicentennial year.

Having been damaged and abandoned during the hostilities in the North for many years, the church building underwent extensive renovations, thanks to the generous donations from community members in Colombo and many other parts of the world.

A grand celebration was planned for June 13, 2020 to coincide with St. Anthonys feast with the participation of community members from aroud the globe. However, COVID-19 caused the festivities to be postponed to 2021. Undeterred by the turn of events, the community rallied together for a grand ceremonial blessing and reopening of the renovated church on August 16 with Holy Mass concelebrated by Rt. Rev. Dr. Justin Gnanapragasam, Bishop of Jaffna and Rt. Rev. Dr. Thomas Savundaranayagam, Emeritus Bishop of Jaffna together with Rev. Fr. David Manuelpillai, Head of the Island Deanery, Kayts Parish Priest Rev. Fr. Mac Mayooran and several other prominent members of the clergy.

The event was attended by a large number of community members from Colombo and residents of Kayts and the live television broadcast was viewed by parishoners around the world.
A corner of Ho Chi Minh City (Photo: VNA)

HCM City  Ho Chi Minh City had disbursed nearly 21.28 trillion VND (920 million USD at current exchange rate) of public investment capital as of August 23, fulfilling 50.5 percent of the assigned capital this year, the citys Department of Planning and Investment reported.



At a recent online meeting on the issue, Director of the Department of Planning and Investment Le Thi Huynh Mai said both the amount of disbursed capital and the rate of disbursement were higher than the figures for the same period last year.



Specifically, the amount of disbursed capital was up 2.35 times year on year and the rate of disbursement up 1.89 times.



The official stressed that the achievement was a bright spot in the citys performance in 2020 considering the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic.



To fulfill the target for this year, the city has set a range of solutions. In early September, the Department of Planning and Investment will submit to the municipal Peoples Committee a plan of actions for the last three months of the year, designed to remove difficulties for production and business activities, thus supporting enterprises and economic recovery.



Those who hold the top positions will be required to bear responsibility for the disbursement of public investment capital. Agencies, organisations or businesses that fail to complete targets in this work will not be considered for any emulation titles or awards.



The municipal authority will hold regular meeting, once every two weeks, to review the pace of work and capital disbursement of each major project. Capital will be transferred from projects with low disbursement rate to those with high rate. The citys inter-sectoral working group will select key projects with low disbursement rate due to obstacles in procedures regarding investment, construction, bidding and land clearance to help them handle the problems.



Regarding projects using Official Development Assistance (ODA) capital, the city will work with the Ministry of Finance to reach agreement on the value of capital in Vietnamese dong in September.



Chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong required drastic actions towards the goal of disbursing 80 percent of public investment capital before October 15 and 100 percent by the end of the year.



He said district authorities should cut the time for procedure processing by at least 30 percent as well as reduce the time taken for land clearance.



Looking into the collection of contributions to the State budget, Phong required the citys taxation and customs agencies to review tax dossiers and tax policies to prevent tax losses and fraud.



Director of the municipal Department of Finance Pham Thi Hong Ha reported that in the first eight months of the year, the city collected an estimated 216.76 trillion VND (9.35 billion USD) for the State budget, fulfilling 53.4 percent of the yearly plan. She attributed the drop in State budget revenue to the decline in production and business activities under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.



To support the recovery of production and business activities, the city will continue to implement policies to exempt or reduce taxes and fees in accordance with policies adopted by the Government and the municipal Peoples Council.



Ho Chi Minh City aims to fulfill at least 85.45 percent of the task on State budget collection, equivalent to 347 trillion VND.



The citys authorities also plan to provide another support package for businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.



Speaking at a recent meeting, Chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong said the city is considering another support package, especially for enterprises that have suspended operations due to the impact of the outbreak.



The city will issue specific policies to help enterprises or industries heavily affected such as travel, restaurants, hotels, and transport and tourism-related services, he said.



More than 21,000 businesses in the city have suspended operations and laid off a large number of employees, said Phong.
A former governor of Oyo State, Adebayo Alao-Akala, on Saturday, said he would not contest any future gubernatorial elections in the state.

Mr Alao-Akala, a former police officer, was the governor of the state between 2007 and 2011.

He sought re-election for a second term in office in 2011 but lost to the immediate past governor, late Abiola Ajimobi.

Mr Alao-Akala contested again in 2015 and lost to Mr Ajimobi. In 2019, he lost the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket to Adebayo Adelabu who lost the main election to Seyi Makinde.

The former governor has, however, declared that he is done contesting gubernatorial elections in the state.

He made this announcement while speaking on a radio programme, Bosenlo on Lagelu FM 96.3 in Ibadan on Saturday, which was monitored by PREMIUM TIMES.

I am no longer interested in the governorship race in 2023, therefore, I am competent to talk to all the aspirants. All our aspirants are very competent but they should continue to pray for Gods guidance.

I can use my own (money) to encourage our people because I didnt have money when I became a governor.

As we are approaching 2023, it is possible to come and contest elections, just as some people invited Obasanjo to contest in 1999, because he didnt have money to contest elections at that time.

Mr Alao-Akala, who heads the APC reconciliation committee in the state, also said he will ensure a credible candidate emerges for the party in 2023.

He said his decision to step aside for the governorship election will make it possible for him to carry out the reconciliation task bestowed on him by the late former governor of the state, Abiola Ajimobi, without fear or favour.

He said the reason aspirants leave a political party is when they discover that the leadership of such a party cheats them by imposing candidates on them. He said this would be prevented in 2023.

My discussion with the former governor Abiola Ajimobi was lengthy, but for our party, we agreed that since he had been given an appointment in Abuja, I should wait behind to reconcile aggrieved members of our party in the state.

Some people were aggrieved after the last general elections. Ajimobi knew I was experienced and I could bring them together with my experience.

I have spoken with all the blocs in the APC and they are ready to return to the party. I begged some of them. I made sacrifices to some. We are all stakeholders in our party, since it is not a company belonging to someone, so we should work in unity.
French prosecutors on Monday opened a probe into allegations of racism after a right-wing magazine published images depicting a black woman MP as a slave, prompting a nationwide outcry.

The Valeurs Actuelles weekly unleased a storm of controversy with the publication of the images of left-wing MP Daniele Obono with a chain fixed to an iron collar around her neck.

A preliminary investigation has now been opened into "attacks of a racist nature", Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said in a statement.

The French presidency said at the weekend President Emmanuel Macron had called Obono, who is from the far-left party France Unbowed, and "expressed his clear condemnation of any form of racism".

Prime Minister Jean Castex said it was a "revolting publication that calls for clear condemnation" and told Obono that she had the government's backing.

Obono tweeted: "The extreme right -- odious, stupid and cruel. In short, being itself."

Valeurs Actuelles, which is seen by commentators as sympathetic to the far-right, however denied the image was racist.

It said the seven page story concerning Obono -- which it called an "imaginary fiction" -- was "a work of fiction... but never nasty."

France has witnessed several protests in June and July against racial injustice as well as colonial and police brutality, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd's death under the knee of a police officer in the United States.

Centrist Macron raised eyebrows when he gave an interview to Valeurs Actuelles last year and praised it as a "good magazine".

While he has pledged to root out racism, he also said France will not take down statues of figures linked to the colonial era or the slave trade, as has happened in other countries recently.

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Linkedin Matthias Blamont (Reuters) Paris, France  Mon, August 31, 2020 15:45 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41a8828 2 World sanofi,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-vaccines,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

Sanofi's confidence in its coronavirus vaccine candidates has increased this summer as the French drugmaker prepares to start clinical trials, its chief executive told Reuters.

The company is working on two of the more than 150 potential vaccines being developed across the world to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed more than 831,000 lives and sparked economic chaos.

One candidate, to be manufactured on the back of an existing platform that develops vaccines to treat flu, will use an adjuvant made by Britain's GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to boost its efficacy.

The other, being developed with U.S. company Translate Bio , relies on a different technology known as mRNA.

"The early data is saying that we're on the right track and that we have a vaccine," Paul Hudson said in an interview on Friday, referring to the vaccine being developed with GSK.

That vaccine is set to start clinical trials next month.

Around 30 experimental coronavirus shots are already in human trials. But Hudson said in June the probability of Sanofi obtaining a vaccine with an efficacy of more than 70% was higher than for rivals, in part due to its experience in vaccines.

"Our confidence has increased. We have work to do like everybody on manufacturing in large volumes. But we will have one, maybe two vaccines next year," Hudson said.

Translate Bio said on Tuesday the mRNA vaccine had induced an immune response in non-human studies, with trials in humans expected to start in November.

Sanofi has secured deals for the vaccine-plus-adjuvant with the United States and Britain, and is in advanced talks with the European Union to supply it with up to 300 million doses.

But the EU is offering only partial protection to vaccine makers against legal risks from side-effects of their potential shots, European officials said earlier this week, in a move that is hampering deals and contrasts with U.S. policy.

"I think with the level of protection, we have reached an 'agreed level'. And I think that has allowed us to go forward and sign. But I am aware there are different positions on how strong that is," Hudson said.

With vaccines being developed at record speed during the pandemic, there is potentially a greater risk they may have unexpected consequences or may not be effective.

The financial coverage of these liabilities is a key feature of drugmakers' talks with governments keen to secure vaccine shots in advance.

There is so far no approved coronavirus vaccine, except one authorized in Russia before large-scale trials.
South Africa: Kubayi-Ngubane promotes local tourism as sector reopens

South Africans are encouraged to travel locally as the tourism sector attempts to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We had envisaged that domestic tourism will be the first pillar upon which the tourism recovery will kick-start, the Minister of Tourism, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, said.

Addressing the Tourism Month media launch in Cullinan on Monday, the Minister said government will during Tourism Month drive its domestic tourism campaign aimed at getting South Africans to travel and explore the splendour of the country responsibly, under the guidance of the health and safety protocols.

South Africa has a diverse tourist attractions offering and I have no doubt that the varied needs of travellers will not only be met, but they will be exceeded, the Minister said.

The domestic tourism campaign will stimulate demand, which will have to be met with sufficient supply.

We are mindful that the pandemic has devastated a significant portion of the supply market. However, we are confident that we still have enough tourism products to meet the demand, Kubayi-Ngubane said.

The Minister said the supply market that is normally geared for international tourism will have to be innovative and quickly adapt to the needs of the local market.

Incentives such as affordable rates, discounts, upgrades and enticing packages will play a critical role in getting South Africans to travel their own country. I invite all players in the private sector to collaborate with us in creating a conducive environment to entice South Africans to travel in their country, the Minister said.

Government has taken some effort to understand the needs of domestic tourists.

Indications are that domestic travellers fall within the following characterisations:

 All travellers want attractions and tourism activities with strict adherence to the health and safety protocols.

 They are yearning to travel to escape the lockdown and discover previously undiscovered local attractions with renewed appreciation of local culture, history and nature.

 South Africans have been cooped up their houses for too long and they are yearning for large, open spaces with adventure.

 Domestic travellers are also looking for affordable travel packages, where they can take their families and friends, and have memorable experiences.

Tourism and Rural Development



Tourism Month will take place under the theme Tourism and Rural Development.

This years theme was conceptualised, as a recognition of the important role that tourism plays in the development of rural communities by way of poverty alleviation, employment creation and overall stimulation of economic activities.

Yet it is these communities that have suffered the most from the devastating impact the pandemic has had on the tourism sector. Without tourism, many of these communities have no other form of economic activity that can help them generate income, the Minister said.

Under this theme, government will undertake a set of activities to foster tourism awareness in local communities, especially within less visited rural areas of each province.

The media launch marks the kick-off of a series of tourism events that will happen during the month of September, culminating in the celebration of World Tourism Day on 27 September in Gauteng.

International travel



The Department of Tourism will working towards the reopening of international travel.

With the risk of the virus spread on a downward trend, we are hopeful that the opening of our borders will happen sooner than we are expecting. Again, I need to emphasise that the level of risk, as assessed by the experts, will be determinant of when this will happen, the Minister said.

In terms of demand stimulation, governments short-term focus, for now, will be on domestic tourism.

We believe that domestic tourism, South Africans travelling and getting to know their own country, can drive market demand to unprecedented levels, the Minister said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Boris Johnson will tell his Cabinet today that the reopening of schools should act as a springboard for more normality for the whole country.

Millions of children return to classrooms this week, with many heading back for the first time in almost six months.

Around 40 per cent of schools in England are expected to open today, with the rest following later in the week. They were closed by Covid-19 on March 20, with only vulnerable pupils and the children of key workers allowed to continue classes.

Union leader Geoff Barton said reopening schools would be a vital step in the process of national recovery.

Millions of children return to classrooms this week, with many heading back for the first time in almost six months. Pictured: Students at St Columba's High School, Gourock, disinfecting their hands

The general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders praised staff for their meticulous planning, saying: They have done a fantastic job in putting in place a complex set of safety measures to minimise the risks associated with coronavirus.

Schools will be focusing on the task of identifying where pupils have fallen behind with their learning during the lockdown period, and tailoring support to bring these young people back up to speed as quickly as possible.

A Government source said the Prime Minister will set out his priorities for the autumn during a meeting with ministers this morning as the first lessons of the new school year take place. He wants to gradually get back to more normality, and the return of schools plays a big part in that, the source said.

As children go back more parents will be freed up to return to work. At the same time, [Mr Johnson] wants to get further down the track to recovery on Covid  getting the test-and-trace regime improved and getting the local lockdown process beefed up, so that we never have to have a return to national lockdown.

And you will see a doubling down on the agenda from the election  levelling up opportunity across the country.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined a class of year 11 pupils at Castle Rock school, Coalville, on their the pupils' first day back

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith called on bosses to show some backbone and start getting their people back to work now that children are returning to school, adding: If we dont get this right, the economy will suffer, people will lose their jobs and more people will die. Fellow Conservative MP Steve Baker added: The return of schools holds out the hope that parents will start to return to the office. With that, our town centres can be rescued from ruin. The future is bleak indeed if parents stay at home.

Call to delay exams Pressure is growing on ministers to delay next years exams to help students who have missed out on months of teaching time. GCSEs and A-levels will take place in 2021 but Labour and some unions want the start date to change from May to June or July. Opposition education spokesman Kate Green said Year 11 and 13 pupils face a mountain to climb unless the timetable is altered. She added: This is too important to leave until the last minute. Pupils need certainty about the year ahead. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders union NAHT, said a delay was worth serious consideration. Regulator Ofqual has consulted on the issue but has not yet revealed its decision. Advertisement

While ministers are confident that the new term will go ahead as planned, their biggest fear is families refusing to send their children back to school.

The Education Secretary made a final bid to win over sceptical parents yesterday. Gavin Williamson  who is due to be grilled in the Commons over the summer exams fiasco today  stressed that children returning to classrooms is crucial not only for their education but for their development and wellbeing too.

His plea came as a report warned that pupils may have fallen as much as three months behind, with boys faring worse than girls.

Teachers in the most deprived schools were more than three times more likely to report that their pupils are even further behind, the National Foundation for Educational Research said.

Parents can be fined as a last resort if they keep their children away from school without good reason.

Local authorities may issue penalties of 120  cut to 60 if settled within 21 days  with parents facing the threat of prosecution if they fail to pay up. However, the NAHT, which represents head teachers, has called for this threat to be lifted as a fine is unlikely to make you feel any safer.

General secretary Paul Whiteman said: We can see few circumstances in which a fine would be appropriate in this Covid term.

Schools also fear that anti-virus measures will have a serious impact on stretched budgets. An estimated 2.4billion in extra funding may be required to help them cope, The Guardian reported.
We will continue to digitize the procurement process and connect companies on a global scale to ensure their continued business success and reduce risk."

ePlane announced it has successfully launched its ground-breaking way to source and pay for materials online. ePlane Fulfillment is a unique service in which ePlane can facilitate the purchase of an item for companies through a secured payment process anywhere in the world. From sourcing to payment, the ePlane Fulfillment gateway leverages intelligent technologies to pay and get paid.

The innovative process is simple for both buyers and sellers. As a buyer, you will simply click the Pay Now button next to the quotes you have received from the suppliers you have selected and then choose the payment that works best for you. Its secure and fast. As a next step, ePlane will finalize the process with the seller and assure the material you purchased is shipped according to the delivery terms of the purchase order. In addition, sellers can now expand their business to new buyers that they may have had difficulty with purchasing approvals prior.

The industry is experiencing unprecedented times and the ability to transact business securely is critical now more than ever, said, Gideon Shmuel. He further added, we will continue to digitize the procurement process and connect companies on a global scale to ensure their continued business success and reduce risk. Weve experienced tremendous growth through the COVID-19 period as companies realize the power of digital and automation.

Digital Transformation has been driving companies within the Aviation and Aerospace to improve business efficiencies. Industry B2B ecommerce leader, ePlane is enabling companies to complete transactions more rapidly, access valuable decision enabling data and minimizing potential roadblocks.

Earlier in January, ePlane received a landmark investment of $9M from Japanese trading and investment firm, Marubeni Corporation and the current shareholders. It is apparent that ePlane remains committed to bringing more efficiency to the Aviation & Aerospace industry through their AI driven, B2B Trading and Business Intelligence Insights Platform. ePlane will continue to push new developments as your solutions implementation partner to make your procurement processes seamless.

About ePlane

ePlane is headquartered in Cyprus and provides an online Trading and BI Insights marketplace dedicated to transforming the aerospace industry by helping companies worldwide to source & trade aircraft parts on an innovative e-commerce platform. Through advanced machine-learning technology and automation features, ePlane offers a nose-to-tail solution for buyers & sellers alike: a massive selection of parts and repair services for all platforms, reliable real-time inventories uploaded by vetted sellers from across the world, personalized statistics, business insight, and ePlane Autopilot  the revolutionary AI feature that fully automates the RFQ process.

For more information about ePlane:

Please visit http://www.eplane.com or contact hello@eplane.com.

Tel: +1-844-375-2631
The Federal Government has called for caution as some state governments announce reopening of schools, saying that COVID-19 remains potent and very dangerous.

Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman, Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, gave the warning on Monday in Abuja at the 62nd joint national briefing of the taskforce.

According to Mr Mustapha, as the nation plans to re-open more sectors, everyone must stay the course and stick with the winning strategy which is anchored on the ability of our health institutions to contain the virus.

While citizens wear facemasks properly, stay away from crowded places, avoid mass gatherings, maintain simple hygienic practices and as much as possible protect the elderly and most vulnerable to this pandemic.

It is in the above context that the PTF appreciates the on-going calls for re-opening of the education sector and indeed some sub-nationals are already making preparations for such.

Whilst the PTF does not discourage making such preparations, we need to be guided by experiences from countries such as Germany, France, the United States and the UK where opening of schools in some cities led to an increase in confirmed cases and fatalities, Mr Mustapha said.

The SGF also noted that the taskforce would be submitting the seventh Interim Report to President Muhammadu Buhari and would be guided by his directives on the next phase.

Mr Mustapha said that the decisions and approval would be transmitted at the national briefing on September 3.

Not yet uhuru

He said that as the nation entered the last few days of the extended eased lockdown phase of the Nations National Response this week, the PTF, like the global community, was confronted with a series of emerging new developments around the characteristics of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to him, the global number of confirmed cases has exceeded the 25 million mark and is attributable to resurgence in countries hitherto considered to have effectively contained the virus.

While a good number of countries that have relaxed restriction measures are actually re-introducing such, which in some cases are being made more stringent on the basis of lessons learned.

The PTF has observed that South Africa is no longer in the top five with the global cumulative cases. It has similarly observed that Ethiopia is also rising strongly.

The PTF will continue to monitor developments all over Africa even as we prepare to open up the international air space for flights.

The PTF has also observed that from the point the global numbers entered the 20th million, growth in cases has been on the average of a million cases every four to five days.

This is a trend that deserves a lot of attention and the PTF is doing that. For us in Nigeria, the last three weeks have shown a slowdown in the number of confirmed cases.

Indeed, in the last four months of testing, the lowest daily figure of confirmed cases, 138 was reported on 30th August 2020, he added.

He, however, called for caution and vigilance on the declining numbers because the virus was still potent and very dangerous.

Mr Mustapha said in spite of the nations enhanced testing capacity, the number of samples collected for testing have not been encouraging.

He said that while government intensify its targeted testing strategy, it still urged the states to expand the scope of their sample collection.

Not all bad news

The SGF also recalled that at the start of the pandemic, it was predicted that the African continent, with its weak health infrastructure and propensity to high disease burden, would be the worst hit.

He, however, said that a recent publication by the Weekly Science Review had indicated that in spite of having 17 per cent of the global population, Africa had accounted for just five per cent of global confirmed COVID-19 cases and three per cent of deaths.

A recent study by a group of African countries in East Africa indicates that Africa has weathered the storm of the pandemic with a death ratio of 1:10000 persons at a total of 23,000 so far.

According to the study, far more Africans have been infected with the virus and are now resistant to it for reasons such as more exposure to variants of the coronavirus and regular exposure to malaria and other infectious diseases, which prime the African Immune system to fight new pathogens.

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The PTF is, however, studying the manifestation of the virus in Nigeria and in other countries and continents in order to understand its nature.

This should ordinarily give us encouragement that we are winning the war against the COVID-19 pandemic.

But unfortunately, the science, data and experience from other parts of the world indicate that such data should be viewed with extreme caution, as it is prone to be very deceptive and could be misleading.

If we let down our guards and be influenced to deviate from our strategy of cautious optimism that have brought Nigeria this far.

The SGF said that the noticed gradual shift in areas of high infection burden with Plateau State reporting the highest number of confirmed cases could be related to increased testing by citizens of the state.

However, we also need to look at the flip side that there are a number of highly undetected cases lying around which we need to discover and deal with early, he said.

Vaccines

Mr Mustapha noted that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had published a draft landscape of the COVID-19 candidate vaccines and that as at August 2020, a total 173 candidate vaccines are under evaluation.

He said: Thirty three are under clinical evaluation (eight at phase 3 trials); 143 candidate vaccines are in pre-clinical evaluation;

As the PTF has always maintained, early testing, detection, tracing and treatment remains the second-best option for dealing with this pandemic, with the first being staying safe.

In this wise, we implore Nigerians to get tested and present cases requiring treatment early to reduce our avoidable fatalities.

Testing positive for coronavirus is not a death sentence, not testing and concealing cases of symptoms and presenting late is what leads to death, he said.

(NAN)
On Monday night's episode of Plate Of Origin, there was an explosive start to the cook off - literally.

Team Greece - cousins Dezi, 42, and Penny, 33 - found themselves suffering a dramatic hiccup when the dough for their loukoumades exploded.

The pair were making a loukoumades, fig and ice cream dessert when Dezi urgently called Penny over to the fridge.

Oh dear: On Monday night's episode of Plate Of Origin, Team Greece - cousins Dezi, 42, and Penny, 33, (both pictured) - found themselves suffering a dramatic hiccup when the dough for their loukoumades exploded

'Penny! You better come over here. Don't freak out you gotta come over here!' she cried out.

When Penny arrived at the fridge, she gasped as she saw a bowl of dough that had expanded and burst all over the fridge.

'Oh my god! It's exploded! It's exploded! My god it's exploded!' she cried out in panic.

Whoops: The pair were making a loukoumades, fig and ice cream dessert when Dezi urgently called Penny over to the fridge

There she blows: 'Oh my god it's everywhere, there is dough dripping off, like, literally strands dripping off the shelf,' Dezi said

Rush job: The only choice for the pair of cooks was to start over and Penny quickly got to work on a new batter

'It's like a volcano has erupted in the fridge,' she added.

'Oh my god, it's everywhere, there is dough dripping off, like, literally strands dripping off the shelf,' Dezi said.

The only choice for the pair of cooks was to start over and Penny quickly got to work on a new batter.

'I've seen you make a cake - a whole cake - for a birthday party in under 45 minutes, you can do this!' Dezi encouraged her.

Winners: The pair not only managed to complete and plate their dessert, they left Team France, entrepreneurs Austine, 28, and Leo, 32, (pictured) quaking in their wake

Looking good: The Greek team crushed them with 49 out of 60 with their main of octopus with garlic mash and loukoumades dessert

She added with a laugh: 'We wouldn't be Greek without the drama'.

The pair not only managed to complete and plate their dessert, they left Team France, entrepreneurs Austine, 28, and Leo, 32, quaking in their wake.

The French team received 40 out pf 60 for their duck and blackberries main, and raspberry cake dessert.

The Greek team crushed them with 49 out of 60 with their main of octopus with garlic mash and loukoumades dessert.

Plate Of Origin continues Tuesday at 7.30pm on Channel Seven
The on Monday targeted



the BJP for seeking reopening of temples in Maharashtra amid the COVID-19 crisis, and asked whether the NDA constituent will take responsibility if there is an "explosion" of cases again.

The opposition BJP in Maharashtra last week staged protests outside temples in parts of the state, demanding reopening of the places of worship.

Noting that Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis had said people understand how to observe social distancing when temples are reopened, the countered him referring to the "flouting of the norms" during his party's protest.

Therefore, the opposition leaders should first understand the situation in Maharashtra before raising the demand, it said.

"Will the opposition party take responsibility if there is an explosion of COVID-19 again?" the Sena asked in an editorial of party mouthpiece Saamana.

It wondered whether the BJP's protest was "religious or political", and said opposition leaders should first try to understand why temples had to be shut.

"The COVID-19 has spread wherever schools and places of worship were reopened. Tirupati Balaji temple has been hit due to it," the Uddhav Thackeray-led party said.

It said scores of families in the Kashmir Valley suffered as the Amarnath and Vaishnodevi yatras could not take place due to COVID-19.

Lakhs of people are dependent on temples for their livelihood and the places of worship should be reopened not only for mental peace, but also to ensure they get income, the Marathi publication said.

"The state's leader of opposition must first understand the meaning of 'mental peace' which he talks about. For lakhs of people, earning bread and butter is mental peace, while for some attaining power is mental peace," the quipped.

"Temples should be reopened, but not for the political mental peace. First ensure people are safe, rest can be seen later," it said.

(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.)
Kathleen Frisbee of Slingerlands is extra busy these days as an executive director of the Connected Health Office of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C.: She's helping lead an effort to provide telehealth options to veterans, especially those who live in rural communities.

Frisbee and two other team members, Neil Evans and Kevin Galpin, have developed vital telehealth options, mobile apps and digital services for veterans to receive health care virtually, while removing barriers to implementation through policy, regulatory and administrative changes.

Long before "coronavirus" became a household term, veterans were seeing doctors, therapists and other clinicians from the comfort of their own homes.

During the past decade, a Veterans Affairs office called Connected Care has been ramping up the number and types of remote health services available to the more than nine million veterans enrolled in Veterans Affairs health care.

Frisbee's, Evans' and Galpin's combined skills and leadership in technology, policy, regulation, medicine and management are guiding the VA's merger of health care with technology, according to Richard Stone, executive in charge of the Veterans Health Administration. "They've really set the vision for the future," said Stone. "The VA, in so many ways, has led this not only in the number of people served but also in the breadth of services offered."

Veterans use the technology for everything from scheduling video medical visits to connecting with clinicians via secure e-mail, text and chat. They can remotely fill prescriptions, receive text reminders to take their medications, make medical appointments, download apps for pain management, or consult with specialists from more than 50 health fields including cardiology, nephrology, dermatology, pulmonology and mental health.

Frisbee drives the technology and pragmatic work to make telehealth a reality, managing VA's mobile apps, secure messaging and other technologies for delivering virtual health care, Evans said. Frisbee developed mobile solutions for VA from the ground up, according to Shawn Hardenbrook, VHA's director of web and mobile solutions.

The success of the program can be seen by visiting the VA's mobile app store, which has more than 50 apps related to medical care, or VA's online patient portal My HealtheVet, which has more than five million registered users.

Frisbee "has really cultivated and developed these different tools to help supplement veterans' management of their own health care, to really get them engaged so, ultimately, they will have better health outcomes and lead better lives," said Treva Lutes, communications director for Connected Care.

A pilot program called ATLAS, or Accessing Telehealth through Local Area Stations, aims to provide a convenient health care option for veterans who do not have the technology or bandwidth at home to support a video medical visit. In 10 places around the country, either a Walmart or a veterans service organization is hosting a facility to enable video visits between veterans and clinicians. These sites are located minutes away from many veterans who otherwise might have to travel hours to a VA clinic.

Telehealth does not replace in-person medical care. It supplements it by, for instance, enabling veterans to ask questions and get advice, have a post-surgery test with a doctor performed via video with the help of an on-site nurse, or have a chronic illness monitored and managed.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Frisbee has worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs for more than 25 years. Prior to her current role, she served as the director of web and mobile solutions, where she led a number of mobile health initiatives including veteran and clinician mobile applications focused on supporting VHA delivery of patient-centered care.

Additionally, she has served as the special adviser to the chief consultant for patient care services and also as the associate deputy undersecretary for quality and safety. She was co-chairwoman of an initiative to develop a customized Veterans Health Benefits Handbook to enhance the veteran experience and access to health care. And she initiated the development of patient management software for primary care teams that incorporates predictive models for risk stratifying patients.

Frisbee has worked as the deputy director of the VHA Support Service Center, where she developed an information management system used widely throughout the VA and managed the technical and analytical work of the office. She also held posts at the Austin Outpatient Clinic and the Northeast Regional Office, where she provided various levels of technical support to the offices.

Frisbee received her bachelor of science degree in pharmacy from Albany College of Pharmacy. She earned a master's of public health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and completed her doctorate in engineering management at George Washington University.

News of your troops and units can be sent to Duty Calls, Terry Brown, Times Union, Box 15000, Albany, NY 12212 or brownt@timesunion.com.




Another case of the new coronavirus was confirmed at the foreign ministry building in central Seoul on Monday, officials said.







A ministry employee tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in the day after visiting a guesthouse in the southern resort island of Jeju last week, where a cluster infection has been reported.







About 10 people who came into contact with the patient went into self-quarantine, and the 9th floor of the building where the employee works was disinfected.







The case raised the number of infections reported at the ministry building to four. Two other cases were reported from the nearby main government building.







South Korea has been struggling to contain a resurgence in the number of the new coronavirus cases with sporadic cluster infections reported across the country.







On Monday, the country announced 248 new COVID-19 cases over the preceding 24 hours, raising the total caseload to 19,947. (Yonhap)










People who refuse to wear a face mask or comply with social distancing are more likely to have sociopath tendencies, a study has found.

Callousness, deceitfulness and manipulativeness - possible signs of a sociopath - were traits commonly found among people who broke Covid-19 safety rules.

The findings come from a survey of around 1,600 people in Brazil, which has the second highest number of reported Covid-19 cases in the world (3.8million).

The researchers said these people in society pose a risk to others, considering they still do not obey rules despite cases and deaths climbing.

It adds to research done by experts in Poland who made similar findings and said people with psychopathic or narcissistic traits may be more likely to disobey rules to stop the spread of the disease and to hoard essential items like toilet paper.

People who refuse to wear a face mask or comply with social distancing are more likely to have sociopath tendencies, a study has found. Pictured: A woman holds a sign and wears a mask as she protests in Hyde Park in central London on July 19

WHAT IS A SOCIOPATH? A sociopath is a term used to describe someone who has antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). People with ASPD cant understand others feelings. According to the NHS, people with ASPD may: exploit, manipulate or violate the rights of others

lack concern, regret or remorse about other people's distress

behave irresponsibly and show disregard for normal social behaviour

have difficulty sustaining long-term relationships

be unable to control their anger lack guilt, or not learn from their mistakes

blame others for problems in their lives

repeatedly break the law Theres no clinical difference between a sociopath and a psychopath. These terms are both used to refer to people with ASPD and are often used interchangeably. However, there are some key differences; sociopaths are prone to impulsive behavior and often seen as disturbed or unhinged, while a psychopath is cold and calculating, sometimes even charming and charismatic. Advertisement

Professor Fabiano Koich Miguel and colleagues at Universidade Estadual de Londrina, in a city in the south of Brazil, conducted the research.

They quizzed 1,578 Brazilian adults about their compliance with Covid-19 measures.

This included asking them, 'Do you think it is necessary to use a facemask/socially distance/wash your hands more frequently?'.

Each individual then took several personality tests online, between March and June, which saw them categorised into two groups.

The 'empathy group' comprised of about 1,200 people, who had displayed an interest in understanding other people's feelings and motivations.

These people also tended to be interested in 'developing positive social interactions' with others, The Times reported.

The second group, with about 400 people, had shown signs of antisocial personality disorder, otherwise known as being a sociopath or psychopath, with the two terms often used interchangeably.

These people tended to look for ways in which their interactions with others could benefit them personally. They were more likely to feel 'socially detached' and to engage in hostile behaviour.

It was these people who, the researchers said, were more likely to refuse to wear a mask or follow social distancing rules.

The difference between the groups was that those in the antisocial group had higher scores in callousness, deceitfulness, hostility, impulsivity, irresponsibility, manipulativeness and risk taking than people in the empathy group.

But those in the latter group scored higher in empathy and resonate with other people.

The researchers also divided participants into four groups according to adherence to containment measures, based on whether the person reported whether it was important.

The results showed those in the antisocial group were less likely to see Covid-19 rules as necessary, and therefore are likely less compliant.

Protests against mask wearing have drawn thousands of activists globally who refuse to wear a face mask believing they have no effect, remove freedom of choice or that Covid-19 is a conspiracy. Pictured: Protestors during a demonstration against the coronavirus disease restrictions, in Paris, France, August 29

Two women hold up stickers that read: 'From here on please without a mask!' as they march with coronavirus skeptics on August 29, in Berlin, Germany

Do face coverings help reduce coronavirus transmission? So, has the science evolved on face coverings? A report by the Royal Society suggests basic homemade face coverings can reduce transmission if enough people wear them. Dr Julian Tang, who is an associate professor of respiratory sciences at the University of Leicester, said wearing face coverings in public places could keep the R value below 1 by creating an 'artificial herd immunity'. But Dr Simon Clarke, an associate professor of cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said that while face coverings may reduce the spread of cough droplets, robust epidemiological evidence on their benefits is still lacking. Are there any benefits to wearing them? Experts say the risk of coronavirus transmission appears to be higher in poorly ventilated indoor spaces and wearing face coverings in small shops or enclosed shopping centres could help reduce the spread. In addition, there is also increased evidence which suggests that many people with the virus who do not have symptoms can still be contagious. What does this mean for those looking to go back to the office? Experts say wearing face coverings could provide an added line of defence amid growing evidence of airborne transmission of coronavirus. Dr Tang said: 'If half the people in the office wear a mask, it would increase artificial herd immunity to around 25 per cent, which can reduce transmission overall within the office, just by reducing the number of people who are susceptible.' Are there downsides to face coverings? There are many indoor spaces, such as pubs and restaurants, where the use of face coverings cannot be possible while eating and drinking. Some experts have also shared concerns that wearing face coverings may give the wearer a false sense of security, although Prof Neal said there is 'no evidence to suggest that is the case'. Waterways charity Thames21 has also warned single-use masks and gloves could clog up our oceans and rivers. Although they keep out pathogens effectively, single-use masks have a long afterlife after they are discarded, ending up in landfill or oceans. Research shared by University College London earlier this month estimates that if every person in the UK used one single-use mask each day for a year, we would create 66,000 tons of contaminated plastic waste. Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van Tam said in April: 'There is no evidence that general wearing of face masks by the public who are well, effects the spread of the disease in our society.' At around the same time, Dr Jenny Harries, a Deputy Chief Medical Officer, said masks could 'actually trap the virus', and cause the person wearing it to breathe it in. She explained: 'For the average member of the public walking down a street, it is not a good idea.' Are some face coverings better than others? The WHO advises a three-layer face covering in the community - the outer layer should be water resistant, the inner should be water absorbent and the mid-layer acts as a filter. The Government said coverings can be made from scarves, bandanas or other fabric items, as long as they cover the mouth and nose. But scientists at the Leverhulme Centre say some coverings are not as effective as others, with woven fabrics, such as scarves, shown to be least effective. Advertisement

They also tended to minimise the seriousness of the pandemic, according to the findings published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

The researchers said overall, their findings suggest 'adherence to containment measures is more challenging' for people with sociopathic traits.

'Our findings indicated that antisocial traits, especially lower levels of empathy and higher levels of callousness, deceitfulness and risk-taking, are directly associated with lower compliance with containment measures,' the researchers wrote.

'These traits explain, at least partially, the reason why people continue not adhering to the containment measures even with increasing numbers of cases and deaths.'

The team also concluded that those with antisocial tendencies may pose a risk to themselves and others during the pandemic.

But lead researcher Professor Miguel said that the findings had to be approached with some caution, The Times reported.

'We cannot state that if a person chooses not to wear a facemask, the only reason is because they are a sociopath,' he said. 'Although this is possible, there are likely other factors involved.'

Some people do not wear masks for health and disability reasons and may carry an exemption card.

However, Professor Miguel suggested cases in Brazil are not declining because people are following the lead of President Bolsonaro, who has been sceptical about the value of wearing masks and of the coronavirus generally.

Protests against mask wearing have drawn thousands of activists globally who refuse to wear a face mask believing they have no effect, remove freedom of choice or that Covid-19 is a conspiracy.

Demonstrators descended on Hyde Park in central London on July 19 to protest the wearing of face coverings before they became compulsory in shops and supermarkets on July 24.

They raised signs reading 'I will not be masked, tested, tracked' and 'no mask' as they gathered for the Keep Britain Free march.

Psychotherapist and organiser Leah Butler-Smith told Sky News it did not make 'any sense' that masks were being mandated and that the Government were trying to 'make people scared'.

The findings of the Brazilian study support two others previously published in the same journal which quizzed a collective 1,000 people from Poland.

Researchers from the University of Warsaw surveyed 755 people online between March 15 and 29, during the first month of the national lockdown.

And SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poznan surveyed 263 people between April 14 and April 30, at the height of the crisis in Europe.

They found people with psychopathic and narcissistic personality traits are more likely to ignore coronavirus restrictions and flout mask-wearing, hand-washing, social distancing and stay-at-home measures at the height of the pandemic.

The researchers believe this is because they either don't believe the measures work or they don't care about what effects ignoring them might have on others.

The studies also found psychopathic and narcissistic people were far more likely to hoard essentials during lockdown.

This was because they are typically more greedy and competitive than others and have an inflated sense of entitlement, the researchers say.

Those with narcissistic personalities tend to be greedy and self-centred, and their lack of empathy means they are more likely to exploit other people.

People with psychopathic tendencies, on the other hand, may be more cruel, deceitful and manipulative while coming across superficially charming.

Most, if not all, people demonstrate some of these tendencies from time to time - but the vast majority show remorse or regret their actions.

One in 100 people display patterns of self-centered, arrogant thinking and behavior, which is diagnosed as narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). There are thought to be a similar number of people who are psychopathic.
A Morrison's employee has been fired after she was filmed yelling at a black shopper and calling him a 'black c***'.

The employee hurled abuse at the black customer as security held the man back and staff tried to restrain the worker in a store in Palmers Green, London.

A Morrisons spokesperson said: 'The individual in question no longer works for Morrisons.'

Shocked bystanders looked on as colleagues repeatedly struggled to keep the woman under control and away from the man.

Employees tried to stop their co-worker (left) as she screamed abuse as a black customer in a Morrison's store in Palmers Green, London

The customer was restrained by security as he told the woman: 'They're going to have to sack you'

The video shows the man being constrained by security as a woman off-camera is heard shouting.

Still out-of-view the Morrison's employee says: 'All I said to you was turn the card over you stupid f**** c***.'

The black customer responds: 'They are going to have to sack you.'

The employee shrieks back: 'Come and hit me, hit me, then I can take you to court you c***'.

Suddenly the woman storms into the camera's view towards the man and screams: 'Hit me. I'll get someone to come and hurt you. 'You're going to hate me.

'You don't know who I am you p****. I'm sick and tired of everybody abusing me, that's what I'm sick and tired of.

'I come off my holiday and every time I come in this store someone's going to mentally abuse me.'

The Morrison's employee (left) continues a long rant as she hurls abuse at the customer while shocked bystanders watch

She continues to yell at the man as her co-workers battle to hold her back and calm her down.

Astonished shoppers can be heard gasping as they gather to watch the dramatic altercation.

The video was posted to Facebook with the caption 'Morrisons staff calling a customer 'Black c***' absolutely shocking.'

Social media users were stunned and outraged and called for the employee to be sacked.

Gina Johnstone wrote: 'I've had bad days in customer service but never used that as an excuse to unload verbal abuse against a customer.'

Simone G Meech added: 'Made a right a*** of herself there.'

Elish Gleeson wrote: 'Wow that's not on, I hope to god she got the sack.'

And one Twitter user reposted the video, saying: 'Morrisons can someone let us know if this vile racist piece of s*** has been fired yet? Palmers Green store!'
The court will consider compensation claims by victims' families.

Court hearings on the case of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 downing in Donbas in 2014 resume in the Netherlands on Monday, August 31.

That's according to a tweet by the Dutch court.

Here is the link to a live stream of the court session

One of the main topics for consideration during the hearing will be compensation claims by victims' families.

The court also expects to hear the defense regarding the requirements of an additional investigation.

Read alsoU.S. may have photos of MH17 missile, court hearsWithin the framework of hearings, three sessions of two weeks each are expected to be held: from August 31 to September 11, from September 28 to October 9, and from November 2 to November 13.

The first bloc will hear positions of legal advisers to victims' families, defense, and prosecutors, and judgments will be handed down on the issue if necessary.

The Court will raise the question of a deadline for filing such claims.

The Netherlands will consider the possibility of paying compensation to the relatives of those killed in the MH17 plane crash.

Also, the court is set to hear reports by the defense team on progress in formulating new requirements for additional investigations.

MH17 downing: background

Malaysia Airlines' MH17 Boeing 777 heading from Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur was shot down on July 17, 2014, over Russia-occupied territory in Donetsk region. All 298 people on board who were citizens of 10 countries were killed in the crash. The majority of the victims, 196, were citizens of the Netherlands. The Dutch Safety Board October 13, 2015, issued a report on the causes of the accident. It was revealed that the plane had been shot down by a Buk anti-aircraft missile system.

Read alsoMH17 anniversary: Ukraine calls on Russia to accept responsibilityThe Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in its report published on September 28, 2016, confirmed that the plane had been downed by a Russian-made Buk brought to Ukraine from Russia.

On June 19, 2019, JIT investigators accused four Russia-controlled military intelligence officers of involvement in a missile attack that shot down MH17. The first four suspects in the MH17 case are Russian terrorist Igor Girkin (AKA "Strelkov"), who in the summer of 2014 was the so-called "Minister of Defense of the Donetsk People's Republic" ("DPR"); Russian General Sergei Dubinsky (nom de guerre "Khmuryi"), who led the "DPR intelligence;" Oleg Pulatov (nom de guerre "Gyurza"), who in 2014 headed of "the 2nd division of the GRU of the DPR;" as well as Leonid Kharchenko (nom de guerre "Krot"), who was a leader of the "reconnaissance battalion" of Russia-led forces.

The MH17 trial launched on March 9, 2020.
As school districts around Pennsylvania continue to embrace virtual learning for the 2020-2021 school year, Camp Curtin YMCA in Harrisburg is starting a new initiative to give kids a space to attend remote classes away from home.

Cornerstone Academy starts on Sept. 8. Running Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will be a place where students can do their online work, receive help from tutors and have fun while parents are at work. Students will practice social distancing while at the academy and wear face masks. The academy will also provide breakfast and lunch for the students who attend. Its geared for students in grades 3 through 8.

Cornerstone Academy is available at a discounted rate of $60 per week or $25 per day for students in the Harrisburg School District. Students from other school districts will have to pay $85 per week or $35 per day. You can secure your childs spot in the academy by calling 717-238-9622. Cornerstone Academy is located at the Camp Curtin YMCA, which is at 2135 N. 6th St. in Harrisburg. You can learn more about the program at ymcaharrisburg.org.

Camp Curtin isnt the only YMCA to offer a virtual learning program. The East Shore YMCA has a space for students to complete remote school assignments on weekdays between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. It costs $40 a day or $180 per week

Harrisburg state representative Patty Kim has also partnered up with various area businesses to create Community Classrooms, spaces for Harrisburg students to work for a few hours each weekday. You can learn more about them at communityclassrooms.org.
Education is a hot topic this Legislative session. Here's what bills we're watching.

Here are some of the hot-button education bills were tracking at the Argus Leader. Check back each day to see where they stand as we update.
A federal appeals court on Monday rejected an effort by Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, and the Justice Department to force a lower district judge to throw out Flynn's criminal case.

In an 8-2 ruling, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said that D.C. District Judge Emmet Sullivan did not act improperly by not immediately accepting the Justice Department's controversial push to dismiss Flynn's case.

The court additionally said Sullivan's appointment of an outside former judge to argue against the department was not improper, reversing the judgment of previous three-judge panel from the court which had argued Sullivan was overstepping his authorities.

Flynn pleaded guilty in late 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the former Russian ambassador before seeking to withdraw his plea early this year, alleging misconduct against the agents who investigated him.

PHOTO: Former White House National Security Advisor Michael Flynn leaves the Prettyman Federal Courthouse following a sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court, Dec. 18, 2018, in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, FILE)

The ruling paves the way for Sullivan to hold a hearing as he considers the DOJ's request to dismiss Flynn's case or reject it and move forward with sentencing, though it's not clear whether Flynn's attorneys or the DOJ will seek to appeal Monday's order and prolong the case further.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.

The ruling comes as at least a temporary setback for Flynn and yet another delay in a politically fraught legal battle that has dragged on since Flynn first agreed to plead guilty to charges from former special counsel Robert Mueller in December 2017.

Attorney General William Barr intervened in the case this past March as Flynn, under new legal representation, was seeking to withdraw his guilty plea.

Barr said that findings from a U.S. attorney he had tasked with reviewing the case led him to believe that Flynn's lies during a January 2016 interview with the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador were not actually relevant to a legitimate investigation, and that the case should be dropped.

Story continues

Sullivan, however, did not immediately accept the DOJ's surprise reversal in the case, and appointed an outside former judge John Gleeson to present arguments against the DOJ, as well as determine whether Flynn may have committed perjury by reneging on his guilty plea.

Flynn's lawyers, later with support from the Justice Department, then appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals requesting an emergency order to force Sullivan to dismiss the case.

Flynn secured a temporary victory when a three-judge panel from the court moved to overrule Sullivan, though the case was then taken up by the full court which heard arguments from the DOJ, Flynn's attorney and an attorney for Sullivan earlier this month.

Sullivan's attorney, Beth Wilkinson, has noted that Sullivan has not decided one way or the other on whether to sign off on the Justice Department's motion to dismiss Flynn's case, and that his motivation in appointing an outside judge was to simply hear all relevant arguments.

Flynn (1) by ABC News Politics on Scribd

Appeals court rejects effort by Flynn, DOJ to force dismissal of criminal case originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Motorists will soon have a new traffic signal in Conroe after the city council agreed to move forward with a project to install the new signal at Montgomery Park Boulevard and North Loop 336.

During a regular meeting last week, the council approved a $245,684.15 contract with Houston-based City Lynx Inc.

According to Tommy Woolley, director of capital projects and transportation for the city, the project will include the signal heads, mast arms, pedestrian signals, traffic signs, luminaries, concrete access pad and paving.

The project is expected to be complete within about 210 days.

In other projects:

Water well blending: The council awarded a $2.4 million contract to Houston-based D.L. Elliott Enterprises for the construction of 2.5-mile pipeline between Water Well 22 and Water Well 24 for the purpose of blending the water. The project includes above and below ground piping, values and equipment, drainage and fencing.

The project is expected to take 210 days to complete.

Waterline: Woolley requested approval from the council to bosot the size of a waterline near Seven Coves Road and Farrell Road for a current project to construct an elevated storage tank in the area. Originally planned as a 12-inch line, Woolley said it needed to be changed to a 16-inch line.

The council unanimously approved the $134,836 for the line.

Mowing: The council approved an additional $60,000 to W.W. Excavation for the mowing of rights of way around the city. According to Public Works Director Norman McGuire, the extension of the mowing through the end of September was needed to ensure the mowing takes place.

cdominguez@hcnonline.com
Fran Ruchalski/The Enterprise

Cheniere Energy is restarting operations at its liquefied natural gas plant in Louisiana after reporting minimal damage from Hurricane Laura.

The Houston LNG company on Monday said its Sabine Pass liquefaction facility and pipelines in Cameron Parish, La., suffered no significant damage from the Category 4 hurricane, and has begun restarting LNG production. Bechtel, Cheniere's engineering and construction contractor, is also resuming work building a sixth liquefaction train and a third marine berth at the LNG terminal.
At age 24, Trey Colbeck isnt a 'youth' anymore, but hes been a harness racing fan from his early years, and wants a wider audience to know about family-friendly Miami Fair racetrack (not to be confused with Miami, Florida or Miami Valley Gaming, Ohio.). Colbeck calls the Saturday afternoon races at Manitobas lone fair track racing this summer, and has been promoting the local product on social media.

I was mostly just a fan. Then as a teenager, I started working at the fairs, said the University of Winnipeg student. His great-uncle Doug Sexsmith owned many Standardbreds who raced in Manitoba and sometimes Alberta. From a young age, Trey enjoyed watching them in action.

My grandparents are pretty big fans," he said. "They always took me to the fairs as a kid.

Fortunately, Miami has been able to host Manitoba fair dates and stakes races that would have been shared by other provincial tracks in a normal, non-pandemic year. Not many things can keep going through tough times like this, said Colbeck, reflecting on the 2020 season and the longevity of the half-mile venue in a region where Thoroughbreds have greater popularity.

Im always open to expand our fan base and talk horses, he also said, adding that spectators who might be considered too young to attend at some tracks are welcome to visit Miami.

There is a $5 admission fee for adults, with free admission for accompanied children. Pari-mutuel wagering is offered on-track and via Canadas Horseplayer Interactive ADW site for fans of legal age to bet, but theres no age restriction for the simple pleasure of enjoying the rural races in person. Up to 50 people can watch from the historic grandstand, while maintaining physical distance in the uncrowded outdoor setting.

Its a great track for kids, because its in a small town, said the father of two. You dont have to worry about anything. You can let them run around. Its a great place for kids to learn about horses and racing.

Treys sons Mason (five years old) and Jackson (two years old) are following the family tradition. While Jackson is interested in running around, Mason likes to pick which horse is going to win. Thats the first thing he tells me when I see him: how many horses he picked who win, said a proud Colbeck. Hes better than his dad!

The Miami meet ends Saturday, Sept. 12, unless a replacement date (Sept. 19) is required. When its plus-40 (degrees Celsius), the rain can come at any time, said the announcer, on the verge of wrapping up his first season, but almost certainly not his last.

(USHWA)
Emirati philanthropist Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair signed the donor contribution agreement with the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and UNICEF as the lead donor for the Global Muslim Philanthropy Fund for Children (GMPFC).



This contribution marks the first significant commitment from a philanthropist to the Fund. The $10million contribute by Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair will focus on supporting refugee education programs in the Mena region. This contribution represents an important step towards the activation of the Fund.



Over a virtual signing ceremony, Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair signed the Donor Cooperation Agreement with Dr Bandar Hajjar, President of IsDB as the trustee to the Fund. UNICEFs Executive Director Henrietta Fore, as the co-founder of the Fund, signed as a witness to the agreement.



The Global Muslim Philanthropy Fund for Children is a unique Shariah-compliant global platform for Muslim philanthropists to collectively help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for children and young people. The Fund aims to support children in need in IsDB member countries, particularly those facing humanitarian crises, by ensuring that children have access to health, education, safety and opportunity. The Fund is administered by the IsDB, which coordinates with UNICEF and donors the selection of programs and projects, which will reach children most in need and offer most long-term social benefit.



This initiative offers a platform to exchange ideas and solutions with a process to promote collaboration for delivering greater positive impact. This effort will result in supporting results-based programs that address the challenges facing children and youth with the goal of achieving the United Nations SDGs.



The Fund will address cross sectoral emerging needs in education, health and nutrition, water and sanitation, early childhood development, youth empowerment and more.



The signing of the Donor Cooperation Agreement is timely, given the unprecedented challenges resulting from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic crisis, as the Fund could play an important role in coordinating and channeling Muslim donor support to mitigate the public health and socioeconomic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on these vulnerable populations.



Commenting on this partnership, Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair said: We have to have collective action if we are serious about making the positive impact that is urgently needed and I hope that this partnership will encourage other philanthropists to follow suit. It is an opportunity to show how Muslim philanthropy is strategic.



We are looking forward to this important milestone to start the implementation phase which will have direct impact on children and youth in the Muslim world. We see this fruitful partnership with IsDB and UNICEF as an opportunity to showcase a new era of Muslim giving. Having more philanthropists join these efforts will institutionalize Muslim giving in a strategic way and make it easier to develop and support innovative homegrown solutions that will address the emerging challenges across all sectors in a holistic and impactful manner, he added.



Dr Bandar Hajjar stated: IsDB and UNICEF are grateful to H.E. Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair for his generous contribution to the Global Muslim Philanthropy Fund for Children, and for recognising the added value of our close collaboration. We are truly excited about this strategic partnership,



The IsDB chief went on to underline the forward-looking global prospects of Muslim philanthropy. It is my firm belief that Muslim philanthropy can play an important role in achieving the SDGs. As we grapple with the deep impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the time is now for Muslim philanthropists to act collectively and strategically to address the impact of the pandemic, and to tackle head-on poverty and disease in our member countries. I call upon Muslim philanthropists seeking to maximise their impact to consider joining this ground-breaking partnership, he added.



Henrietta Fore said: I am delighted to witness the important commitment from His Excellency Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, which is an important step forward in our shared vision of creating a Global Muslim Philanthropy Fund for Children. I am pleased that the contribution will support education in the Middle East and North Africa. Covid-19 has exacerbated the global learning crisis, which means nearly 1 in 3 adolescent girls from the poorest households around the world has never been to school. We hope many other leaders in Muslim philanthropy will join us in this critical initiative.  TradeArabia News Service
Thousands of pilgrims gathered in the holy city to commemorate the death of Imam Hussein. The authorities have reduced presences and events due to the coronavirus emergency. Inside, however, some traditional rites could favour the spread of the infection. Ayatollah Khamenei prayed alone in his residence.

Baghdad (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Thousands of Shiite pilgrims, in tears and wearing masks as required by the containment regulations of the new coronavirus pandemic, gathered yesterday in the holy city of Kerbala to celebrate the feast of Ashura.

The anniversary celebrates the killing of Imam Hussein by the forces of Caliph Yazid in 680 AD, one of the central events of Islam. His death is part of the dispute over the succession to the Prophet Muhammad, which then ended with the division between Sunnis and Shiites.

Every year millions of Shia from all over the world come to Iraq to commemorate the origins of their faith, to eat together, to pray and to gather together for discussions. However, due to the global emergency triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Iraqi (and Iranian) authorities have downsized events and ceremonies, limiting access as much as possible. In the region, the country is second after Iran in the number of coronavirus victims (almost 7 thousand).

Small groups of pilgrims gathered in the vast courtyards outside the main mosque of Kerbala, wearing the usual black colour of mourning and with the recent addition of medical masks and gloves. Among the crowd could be seen teams of sanctuary operators intent on spraying disinfectant spray or distributing masks to the (few) visitors with uncovered faces. To access the sanctuary, the faithful had to have their temperature measured, in front of gates similar to metal detectors. Inside, the signs on the carpeted floor indicated the distance to be kept between the faithful in prayer.

However, in the enclave where Imam Hussein is buried, pilgrims continued - as usual - to press their faces (without masks) against the ornate grid that separates them from the mausoleum. Other visitors were crying, wiping their faces with their bare hands, perhaps unaware that this is one of the main ways to encourage the spread of the infection.

Neighbouring Iran, the world's leading Shiite power, which usually sends tens of thousands of pilgrims to Kerbala, is the Middle Eastern nation most affected by the pandemic, with over 21,000 deaths from Covid-19. This year, the Islamic Republic banned traditional Ashura marches, indoor ceremonies, musical performances and banquets, while broadcasting various religious rituals on state television. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also prayed alone wearing a mask in the large empty mosque inside his residence.

In Lebanon hit by the economic, political and health crisis, and which this month saw an escalation in the contagions of the new coronavirus, the Shiite movements of Hezbollah and Amal have cancelled the large processions planned for Ashura. Their leaders addressed the faithful, asking them to follow the sermons online and through the media channels linked to the two formations.
Labour is calling on the government to ensure that, from this Tuesday, every young person turning 18 gets access to the trust fund set up for them by former chancellor Gordon Brown.

The Child Trust Fund was created by the former Labour government in 2005 to ensure that all teenagers have a nest-egg to get them started in adult life in the way that many children of wealthy parents do. But it was abolished by the coalition government under David Cameron in 2011.

With vouchers worth at least 250 issued for every child born between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011, the funds are accessible only to the young person when they reach their 18th birthday. It was hoped that by investing the cash through financial services providers, the CTF would generate a lump sum to put towards a deposit on a flat, a car purchase, starting a business or getting training.

The first recipients, due to gain access to their money on Tuesday, are expected to get a windfall of around 1,000 at the least, with those whose relatives put top-up savings into the tax-free accounts gaining as much as 70,000.

But many are not aware that the accounts exist, or do not know where their money has been invested. And financial service providers may not have up-to-date contact details of beneficiaries. Under the scheme, if parents did not set up an account, the government would do so on their behalf.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 17 January 2022 Bonhams Danny McIlwraith holds a Nigerian polycrome carved wood mask during a photocall for the sale of the Jim Lennon Collection at Bonhams in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 16 January 2022 The moon rises above the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 15 January 2022 Demonstrators outside Downing Street during a Kill The Bill protest against The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in London PA UK news in pictures 14 January 2022 Ecologist Emma Smart (left) and retired GP Dr Diana Warner outside HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, following their release from the prison where Emma undertook a 26-day hunger strike during her incarceration. Ms Smart was sentenced in November, along with other members of Insulate Britain, to serve four months for breaking a High Court injunction by taking part in a blockade at junction 25 of the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour on 8 October last year PA UK news in pictures 13 January 2022 A TV presenter holds a copy of a newspaper outside 10 Downing Streetafter the Prime Minister apologised for attending a gathering of colleagues in the Number Ten garden in May 2020, while the UK was in strict lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic Getty UK news in pictures 12 January 2022 Fitness guru Derrick Evans after receiving an MBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA 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

According to HM Revenue and Customs, about 6 million children hold a CTF with an estimated total value of more than 7.4bn in 2015-16.

Some 55,000 children are due to benefit from the scheme every month from now until January 2029, but only if they know about it and know where their account is.

The consumer group Which? last year estimated that as many as 3 million children and young people may be unaware of or unable to trace accounts containing as much as 2.5bn.

Labours shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Bridget Phillipson, said there was an onus on the government to ensure that young people are able to access their money.

Writing in The Independent, she said: A generation ago, a Labour government looked ahead to the future of todays young adults. People turning 18 today and for years to come will be the beneficiaries of their foresight and Labours determination to make lives better and society fairer.

The contrast with the mishandling of young peoples futures  on public health, on schools, on exams, on jobs  by the current government in Westminster could not be starker.

For every 18-year-old, this is the difference a Labour government makes in spreading power and opportunity in our society. Labours generation, the school-leavers for whose futures the last Labour government planned, meanwhile has been let down by a Tory government which doesnt do its homework.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 20:05:23|Editor: huaxia

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A teacher demonstrates class rules at a primary school in Longnan City, northwest China's Gansu Province, Aug. 31, 2020. Some primary schools in Longnan, the city that was hit by flood recently, opened for the new semester on Monday. (Xinhua/Du Zheyu)
The White House announced on Saturday that President Trump would visit Kenosha, Wis., after rioters caused millions of dollars in damage to the city following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Trump will arrive in the city on Tuesday, even after Wisconsin governor Tony Evers and Kenosha mayor John Antaramian expressed concern over the visit. Rioters have burned businesses to the ground and faced off against local police and National Guard members after a Kenosha officer shot Blake seven times during an arrest.

The rioting has died down after over 1,000 National Guard members were deployed to the city.

The White House has been humbled by the outreach of individuals from Kenosha who have welcomed the Presidents visit and are longing for leadership to support local law enforcement and businesses that have been vandalized, White House spokesman Judd Deere said on Sunday night. President Trump looks forward to visiting on Tuesday and helping this great city heal and rebuild.

Governor Evers had written that the presidents presence would not help the city at the current time.

I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together, Evers said. Now is not the time for elected officials to ignore armed militants and out-of-state instigators who want to contribute to our anguish.

Local Republicans, meanwhile, have welcomed the presidents visit.

Nobody said Evers coming to Kenosha was political. I think [Trumps visit] might bring up the morale of the people of Kenosha, Erin Decker, a Kenosha County board supervisor and chairwoman of the local Republican Party, said on Sunday. Im so happy hes coming by and that he cares enough about Kenosha to take time out of his busy schedule.

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The glamorous young girlfriend of an Irish backpacker allegedly messaged his mates for backup just before the victim's ear was viciously severed in a horror stabbing.

Katie Aileen Murtagh, 26, and her boyfriend Patrick Earle, 23, are both charged over the allegedly brutal attack on Oliver Solan, 30, in a unit on Young Street at Randwick, in Sydney's east on Saturday night.

Police allege Earle and four other men - who remain on the run - set upon Solan as he lay motionless on the floor of the apartment, using a knife to sever part of his ear and leaving him with a ruptured spleen.

NSW Police have since released pictures of the four men in the hopes they could assist with the investigation.

Daily Mail Australia can reveal Earle, Murtagh and Solan had been drinking together at an eastern suburbs pub earlier that night venue before returning to the couple's apartment.

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Young Irish couple Katie Murtagh and Patrick Earle (pictured together) have been charged over the alleged stabbing of a man that left him stranded in a unit block hallway with a partially severed ear

Neighbours found victim Oliver Solan, 30, barely conscious in a hallway at a Young Street apartment block in Randwick, in Sydney's east, about 8.40pm on Sunday

The unit block was splattered with blood after Oliver Solan was in the hallway after the alleged attack

NSW Police have since released pictures of the four men in the hopes they could assist with the investigation

While there an argument between the two men ensued, with Solan allegedly the first to attack his friend causing injuries to Earle's arm.

It was then that Murtagh allegedly sent a Facebook message to Earle's friends asking them to come over, at which point she let them in to the unit and hid in her room as they attacked Solan with a knife, severing part of an ear.

The glamorous Irish couple were arrested shortly after but the four other men remain on the run with NSW Police now appealing for public assistance to track them down.

NSW Police said the four men they wish to speak to are all originally from Ireland.

Earle, from Kilkenny, and Murtagh, from Dublin, both faced Waverley Local Court on Monday where they were refused bail.

Appearing in court via video link, Earle sat quietly wearing a hospital gown and with a bandage over his left ear.

He was taken into custody from Prince of Wales Hospital where he was treated for an injury to his arm on Saturday night.

The court was told he is facing a maximum of 25 years in prison if convicted, with a standard non-parole period of seven years.

The third male is described as white and about 170cm tall but clean shaven and had black stud earrings, while the last man is also white in appearance but with a short and medium build

Earle's girlfriend, 26-year-old Katie Murtagh, let four of her boyfriend's mates inside before going to hide in a bedroom as the alleged fight ensued

Murtagh and Earle are seen lounging at waterfalls and going on hikes exploring nature surrounding the harbour city together

Murtagh chose not to appear on screen in court and along with her boyfriend will be held in custody until October 27.

During that time the lovers turned co-accused will not be able to talk.

Police allege that Murtagh was aware of what would happen when she invited and let her boyfriend's backup inside their apartment.

When her boyfriend and the four men fled, CCTV footage allegedly shows her using her strength to drag Solan's bloodied body into the hall.

Distressed neighbours called police, who found Mr Solan with multiple stab wounds to his head and body and a chunk of his ear missing.

Paramedics rushed the 30-year-old to St Vincent's Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery and remains in a serious but stable condition.

As Mr Solan was being attended to by paramedics, police scoured the area hunting for Earle, Murtagh and the other alleged assailants.

Video shows police running through nearby streets and jumping fences in the desperate search for the people involved.

Police were called to the unit on Young St in Randwick on Sunday night after reports of a stabbing

Footage shows Earle being handcuffed and put into the back of an ambulance

Other images show the couple dressed up with friends and going to festivals while living in Sydney

Witness Ben Cary told 7News police had chased Earle down the street.

'I think he was jus trying to get into upstairs, all these cops were chasing him down the street,' Mr Cary said.

Photos on social media photos show the loved-up Irish couple living it up while in Sydney.

Murtagh and Earle are seen lounging at waterfalls and going on hikes exploring nature surrounding the harbour city together.

Other images show the couple dressed up with friends and going to festivals.

NSW Police are still looking for at least four other men involved in the alleged attack but are believed to know who they are thanks to social media messages and CCTV.

The first male is described as being white in appearance, 175cm tall and a slim build with tattoos on his left hard, with dark hair and a beard.

The second man is also white in appearance and 175cm tamm but with a medium build and dark hair with a beard.

The third male is described as white and about 170cm tall but clean shaven and had black stud earrings.

Meanwhile the last man is also white in appearance but with a short and medium build.

Photos on social media photos show the loved-up Irish couple living it up while in Sydney
SANTA ROSA, Calif., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CannaCraft , a large-scale cannabis manufacturer based in Northern California, announced today the recent appointments of Angela Pih as Chief Marketing Officer, and Ron Gray as Vice President of Sales. In their new roles, Ms. Pih and Mr. Gray will bring a new level of Marketing and Sales synergy to meet the company's long-term goals.

"We are excited to welcome Angela and Ron to the team. Cannabis is a rapidly evolving industry and it is imperative that we add new skills and capabilities to our management team to remain competitive as we enter the next phase of growth," said Jim Hourigan, CEO.

Ms. Pih is a skilled marketer with over two decades of experience in cannabis, fashion, beauty, wellness and premium brands. Pih most recently served as the Chief Marketing Officer for the cannabis brand Papa & Barkley where her work was recognized among Green Entrepreneur's list of "Top 25 Cannabis Brands that Killed it in Marketing." Prior to entering the cannabis sector, Pih held various executive marketing roles for premium brands and retailers including Halston, where she served as CMO of Halston + Haute Hippie, and Planet Blue as the SVP of Marketing. Additionally, Pih sits on the board of ThinkLA, a nonprofit association promoting Los Angeles as a network of creativity and innovation in media and marketing; is a founding member of the LA Chapter of Chief, a network of female executives; and is an Advisory Board member and Adjunct Professor at Loyola Marymount University.

Mr. Gray brings over twenty years of sales leadership experience, most recently serving as the SVP of Sales for Papa & Barkley. During his three years in that role, he helped the brand achieve 8 out of 10 top-selling topicals and 4 out of 10 top-selling tinctures, as well as launched their CBD line into national accounts. Before joining P&B, Gray spent over three years in hands-on roles exploring all facets of the industry, from cultivation to distribution. Prior to entering the cannabis sector, Gray held various sales leadership roles in the pharmaceutical industry.

"Angela and Ron's experience in cannabis and consumer goods will be instrumental as we continue to grow our wellness and recreational brands. Both executives will be critically important as we add several exciting new cannabis lines to our current portfolio of over 300 unique product SKUs," said Jim Hourigan. Adding, "As we R&D new technologies and products we will look to Sales and Marketing to help identify customer needs and target segments that could benefit from CannaCraft's quality, and price advantage."

About CannaCraft

CannaCraft is a vertically-integrated company, founded in 2014 with the mission to produce safe and effective cannabis products. With over 200 employees, the company currently manufactures and distributes AbsoluteXtracts, Care By Design, Care By Design Hemp, Lagunitas Hi-Fi Hops, Farmer & The Felon, Satori Edibles, and Loud + Clear Vapes from their licensed facilities in Santa Rosa, California. CannaCraft's product portfolio boasts hundreds of products, in unique applications including vape cartridges, sublingual drops, topicals, gel capsules, packaged flower, infused chocolates and gummies, and more. For more information about CannaCraft, please visit www.cannacraft.com .

Additional Information

Kial Long, VP Corporate Communications | CannaCraft, Inc.

[email protected]

Jim Walsh | Coppertop Media Relations

[email protected]

SOURCE CannaCraft

Related Links

https://www.cannacraft.com


JEE main 2020: To ensure adequate arrangements at the examination centres for conduct of Joint Entrance Examination (Mains) from September 1 to 6, authorities in Punjab are following standard operating procedures (SOPs) at the nine centres.

The exams will be conducted by the Tata Consultancy Services. In Ludhiana single examination centre has been set up at ION digital zone, near Sherpur Chowk for this purpose. A total of 13,995 candidates will appear for the JEE Mains 2020 exams in Punjab.

To ensure social distancing outside the examination hall, the entry and exit of candidates have been staggered. At the entry gate, the authorities will first check the admit cards of the students and every candidates temperature will be checked with thermo guns. In case, a candidate is observed to be having above normal temperature (37.5 degree C/99.4 degree F) or displaying any symptom of COVID-19, he/she will be placed in a separate isolation lab.

If the candidates temperature doesnt become normal in 15 minutes, they will be asked to give the exam alone in a separate room.

Students have been asked to report according to their shift timings. For the morning shift, candidates are advised to reach the center between 7am to 8.30am or else they wont be entertained. The examination will begin at 9am.

The second shift will start at 3pm and during the gap, computers, mouse, desk, chair, keyboard and the sitting area will be sanitised. The ION digital zone in Ludhiana can conduct the examination for 750 candidates in one day and has sufficient number of computers to hold the online exam.
The Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Oyo State council, on Monday, ordered its members to boycott a press conference allegedly called by a former minister of aviation, Femi Kani-Kayode.

The union gave this directive on Monday in Ibadan, the state capital.

Mr Fani-Kayode was recently seen in a viral video, while addressing a press conference, verbally assaulting a journalist in Calabar, Cross Rivers State.

Mr Fani-Kayode, who said he was in Calabar to inspect some projects built by the state government, called Charles Eyo, the Daily Trust correspondent in Cross Rivers, stupid.

The former minister has, however, apologised to the journalist, the NUJ, Daily Trust and any affected parties. In an apology letter sent to the national president of the NUJ, the former minister said he regretted his actions, and promised to have a better relationship with the union.

I wish to convey my regrets to the reporter for my response to him and I also wish to express my regrets to the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and members of the Nigerian media, whom I hold in high esteem, he wrote in the letter.

I believe that my reaction was disproportionate and unduly harsh even though I felt deeply provoked by the fact that the reporter asserted that I was being bankrolled by somebody for something that I was funding entirely on my own.I do hope that our relationship will continue as it has always been, he continued.

PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the former minister had arrived in Ibadan on Sunday to continue his tour and organised a press conference for Monday.

However, the Oyo State chapter of the union ordered its members to boycott the press conference.

The NUJ state chairperson, Ademola Babalola, in a statement made available to PREMIUM TIMES, added that he gave the directive in view of Mr Fani-Kayodes action.

It was about two hours ago that we learnt that FFK in his usual junketing across the nation allegedly landed in Ibadan last night. We heard that he has invited some of our colleagues to a press conference.

As I am talking to you now, we have not gotten any circular, any contrary position from the NUJ in Abuja to henceforth forgive him or attend any of his programme forthwith.

As a journalist, I expect a kind of sober reflection on the part of FFK. I had expected that he would pay a visit to the NUJ president, Chris Iziguso and possibly the management of Daily Trust Newspaper to atone for his many sins against the journalists in the country. So, for now Oyo NUJ position is still very clear that we are boycotting this press conference today in Ibadan.

Mr Babalola added that the former minister remains blacklisted by the journalists union, until otherwise stated by the national secretariat of the union.

For now, NUJ has not sent a circular down to various state councils in Nigeria to tell us the update; though we read on social media and newspapers that he has sent an apology letter.

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Mr Babalola, also wondered why the former minister is on a tour, visiting projects across the nation.

He had in the letter said he disappointed himself, friends and family over his attack on Eyo Charles. The reason for FFKs ongoing tour is still strange to all. This is what our colleague, Charles, was trying to unravel in Cross River, when FFK attacked him.

We wonder why he is travelling all about when he is not the PDP national chairman or assigned such duty by the PDP.

The head of the journalists union in the state, however, left the door open for some sort of reconciliation with Fani-Kayode

As a human being, to err is human but to forgive is divine. I agree but he should at least be more circumspect and allow the heat to go down.
Several Gulf Coast refineries began restarting operations after reporting minimal damage from Hurricane Laura.

Motiva Enterprises, which operates the nations largest refinery in Port Arthur, said its refinery, petrochemical plant and distribution terminals sustained minimal damage from the category 4 storm, and began restarting operations on Thursday.

Exxon Mobil, which operates a refinery in Beaumont, said its facilities needed minor repairs and began restarting operations Friday.

Timing on when operations can resume to normal will largely depend on the availability of power, product transportation infrastructure and the reopening of the Sabine Neches Waterway, an Exxon spokesman said.

Valero said it saw no visible storm damage to its Port Arthur refinery. The company is now looking to restart operations.

Citgo, which operates a refinery in Lake Charles, said it had no safety issues or fossil fuel releases despite taking a direct hit from Hurricane Laura.

However, high winds of up to 150 miles per hour damaged the refinery, and the company is coming up with plans to repair the facility over the coming days. Citgo said it does not expect an immediate restart.

Other refiners that operate in Lake Charles, including Total and Calcasieu, did not respond to requests for comment.

Energy analysts from S&P Global Platts said refineries in Lake Charles may have a bigger issue getting workers back into the plants than dealing with the damage from Hurricane Laura. Residents along the Gulf Coast were ordered to evacuate ahead of the storm.

Platts analysts also warned that power outages could delay restart of refineries, particularly in Louisiana, even if they suffered little damage from the storm.

Gulf Coast refineries in the projected path of Hurricane Laura shut down operations to protect workers and avoid spills from the Category 4 storm. However, as refineries burned off excess chemicals during the shutdown process, they emitted millions of pounds of pollution into the air, the company reported.

Facilities in the Beaumont and Port Arthur area released more than 4 million pounds of emissions between Monday and Thursday ahead of Hurricane Laura, according to notices filed to state regulators. The releases were about half of the estimated emissions during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which caused several refineries, including Motiva in Port Arthur, to close for weeks.

Reporter Erin Douglas contributed to this report.
Now Toyota says the Yaris Cross is available for customers in their home market of Japan, and they've just released more images of this new model, as well as more details.

They just surprised all of us (well, not all) with the release of the Toyota Corolla Cross, but a few months prior they actually launched something interesting too: the Yaris Cross . Yes, a smaller B-SUV based on the Yaris.

We live in the age of the crossover, and car manufacturers are starting to turn more and more of their standard passenger cars into quasi-SUVs. Toyota, the pioneer of the crossover trend with the RAV4 back in the 90s, is one such automaker that is jumping fully into this second wave.

We've been examining the photos of the Yaris Cross and found the look to be interesting. Toyota was clearly quite forward with the design of the Yaris Cross, focusing on an urbanized design aesthetic with the vehicle given the young target market. Some of the more interesting details include the larger air intakes and exaggerated bezels on the front, the black cladding that lines the wheel arches, the raised ride height, the black roof, and overall squared up appearance.

The interior is very modern and very youthful. Toyota certainly took liberties with some of the major design elements such as the dashboard, the two-tiered panel for the inner door handles, and window controls.

Cargo space is a big thing for the Yaris Cross, and Toyota focused on generating a big cargo space. Toyota says the Yaris Cross has class-leading cargo space and is able to take on about 390 liters with the deck board lowered. The Yaris Cross is the first Toyota crossover that has a 40/20/40 rear seat split.

There are two distinct power unit options for the Yaris Cross. The first is a naturally aspirated M15A-FKS 1.5-liter, while the other is a hybrid version of the same engine. Unusually, the 116 PS hybrid unit isn't as powerful as the naturally aspirated unit which has 120 PS. The power units are connected to a CVT and can be opted for in 2WD or 4WD. The 4WD system also has different mode settings depending on terrain.

The Yaris Cross has a long list of standard connectivity features, but the highlight of the whole list is Toyota Safety Sense, as the Yaris has things like pre-collision safety, low-speed acceleration control, emergency steering assist, adaptive cruise control, adaptive high beam, so on and so forth. It's also the first Toyota SUV to have automated parking assist.

Toyota also released the fuel consumption of the Yaris Cross: they say the front-wheel-drive hybrid version is able to achieve up to 30.8 kilometers per liter of fuel.

The Yaris Cross is now available in Japan, but there are rumors in the industry that the model could be released in Thailand. If Toyota does decide to produce the Yaris Cross in Thailand, that could open it to export to other ASEAN markets such as ours.

Would this be an interesting model to have in the Philippine market as a B-SUV below the newly-launched Corolla Cross?
With just a few days left before schools are due to reopen across Spain, there is growing concern about the conditions that students and educators will find themselves in amid a nationwide resurgence in coronavirus cases.

The youngest children  those aged three, four and five, for whom schooling is not compulsory although most Spanish parents enrol their kids  will not be wearing face masks while in class, following the experts recommendations.

At a time of their lives when learning is mostly based on touch and on physical experiences, children will not be given hard-to-clean materials such as plasticine. And teachers  many of whom will have to wear face coverings following regional regulations  must work out class routines that involve less group-based work.

In these classrooms, viruses are in constant circulation, and it will be difficult to differentiate Covid-19 from a common cold Sara Quiroga, Madrid school teacher

Yet few people believe that such young kids will be able to keep the social distance of 1.5 meters between themselves and other students and teachers. For these preschoolers, experts have devised a bubble system consisting of stable groups of students and teachers who will not be in contact with other groups at school. This solution has been tested with some success in other countries, but questions remain about its effectiveness because of the class sizes  up to 25 students  and because of the risk of contagion from contacts outside of school.

No extra resources

With a little over a week to go before classes start in Andalusia, the regional government has not allocated any additional resources to the Pinolivo public school in Marbella, which has 228 early-education students, the school principal notes.

Anyone who is familiar with the early-education system will know that in September, you can come across children who have been crying nonstop for five hours, and who may even start vomiting from separation anxiety, says Graciela Romero.

We normally ask parents to stay in class with them for the first few days to reduce the childrens anxiety and get them to trust the teachers, but we cant do that now, adds the school principal. There will be a period of time when we will have 25 students, many of them in tears, inside a 50-square-meter space.

In spite of this, Romero and other educators queried by this newspaper said that it is essential to reopen schools, and that they are planning to hold the children in their arms when they consider it necessary.

One of the pillars of this stage of education is emotions. We will implement all hygiene and safety measures, but it is impossible to keep a distance, because that would lead to significant emotional deficiencies for the children, says Romero. If we had more space and more teachers the risk would be lower, but that costs money.

Covid or the common cold?

Schools have a protocol in place for suspected Covid cases. But in early education, detecting cases will be a tough job.

In these classrooms, viruses are in constant circulation, and it will be difficult to differentiate Covid-19 from a common cold, says Sara Quiroga, who teaches at a Madrid school. There are children with bronchiolitis, others who are coughing due to laryngitis...Well see how we deal with it, because I dont know whether such young children are going to be tested for Covid-19 over just a mild fever.

Quiroga is also concerned about her own mother, who has a depressed immune system. I wont be able to visit her for a long time out of fear that I may be an asymptomatic carrier, she notes. I dont work in an office where I can take measures to protect myself: I work with little children who have other contacts outside the school.

While scientists have been producing relatively good news about childrens transmission rates, Maria Jose Mellado, the president of the Spanish Pediatrics Association, is calling for caution.

What we know so far is that their transmission capacity is lower, especially among children under 10. But these studies have been conducted in specific situations such as open-air summer camps, and even if the risk of transmission is low, it is there, and we should avoid breaking the closed groups outside of school. Having said that, we believe children need to go back to class.

Meanwhile, families are split about the benefits and risks of taking their children back to school. I know he needs to be with other kids again, but at the same time I dont know how theyre going to handle it, or what we will do if there is a positive case in his class and he has to quarantine, says Lucia Durban, a doctor from Valencia about her three-year-old son.

Economic reasons Preschool education is not so important in terms of the curriculum, but firstly because it has an economic function, says Dino Salinas, who teaches didactic methods and school organization at Valencia University.



Parents need to go to work and have someone to take care of their kids. And school is an ideal place for that, because it is normally a safe space in emotional terms, a place where children are looked after, where they learn routines, find friends with similar experiences to their own, and where they are guaranteed good nutrition, which may be a fundamental issue for some segments of society.

English version by Susana Urra.
"I am not entirely content  for obvious reasons," said Justice Elizabeth Fullerton as the face of the accused, former Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid, appeared sideways on four large screens in the court room.

The criminal trial of former mining minister Ian Macdonald, 71, and Obeid, 76, along with Obeids son Moses Obeid, 51, has been on hold for almost five months due to concerns over COVID-19.

Eddie Obeid's farm Cherrydale Park, in the Bylong Valley, was where a controversial coal exploration licence was granted.

On Monday, at the resumption of the trial, Mr Macdonald and Moses Obeid were present in Sydneys Supreme Court while Mr Obeid snr had been granted permission to appear via an audio-visual link.

From the rolling hills in the background, it appeared the former MP was giving evidence from Cherrydale Park, the Obeid family property at the centre of the long-running saga.
Cybersecurity veterans Michael C. Theis and Chris Kubecka among featured speakers at virtual event exploring new strategies for detecting and mitigating insider threats to data

Code42, the leader in insider risk detection and response, today announced that it will host the inaugural Insider Risk Summit 2020 in partnership with Crowdstrike, Cybrary, Duo Security at Cisco, Exabeam, Okta, Optiv, Palo Alto Networks, Rapid7, Splunk, Sumo Logic and The CyberWire. The virtual event will explore new strategies for detecting and mitigating insider threats to data and feature an impressive line-up of speakers, including cybersecurity veterans like Michael C. Theis and Chris Kubecka. The Insider Risk Summit, being held September 17, 2020, is open now for registration.

"We're living in a new world shaped by digital transformation. Businesses have widely adopted cloud-based collaboration technologies to speed productivity and innovation. While these technologies are good for business, they also have introduced new security risks to data," said Code42 President and CEO Joe Payne. "As a security community, we are at an inflection point. We need to rethink how data is protected and set new standards for insider risk programs and that is what we'll accomplish at the Insider Risk Summit."

Today, industry research notes that just over 50% of organizational data breaches are the direct result of insiders, yet only 10% of security budgets are allocated to internal threats. At the same time, cloud-based collaboration, decentralized work and job turnover are on the rise, causing today's security teams to be increasingly challenged to detect and respond to insider threats. The Insider Risk Summit will connect the information security community to identify strategies and solutions for mitigating insider risks to data.

Insider Risk Summit Speakers

The speaker roster at the Insider Risk Summit includes insider threat experts from top security and technology companies as well as consulting and research organizations. The speakers will outline key takeaways from newsworthy insider breaches, share actionable advice on how to build better insider threat programs and frameworks, and discuss the complex impact of imperfect humans on cybersecurity.

In addition to Code42's Joe Payne, speakers include:

Michael C. Theis, who will deliver the opening keynote speech, "Insider Threat or Insider Risk What Are You Trying to Solve?" Mr. Theis is a U.S. Intelligence community veteran, CISSP, special agent in charge (retired) and chief engineer for the Strategic Engagements National Insider Threat Center in the CERT Division, and serves as a senior member of the technical staff at the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University.

U.S. Air Force and Space Command veteran, cybersecurity expert and Cybrary Advisory Board Member, and CEO and founder of HypaSec NL, Chris Kubecka. She will share the real-life consequences of insider threat cases that involved pirates off the African continent and a nuclear facility.

Deloitte Consulting's Managing Director of their federal practice, Michael Gelles. His talk will be centered on managing insider threats during COVID-19.

Elsine Van Os, CEO of Signpost Six, who will explore "The Psychology Behind an Insider."

Retired U.S. Navy Chief Dr. Chase Cunningham, who will lead a deep dive on the zero trust model.

Top industry CISOs Dawn Cappelli from Rockwell Automation and Jadee Hanson from Code42, who will discuss the road ahead for CISOs.

Security practitioners, leaders and experts from Code42, Crowdstrike, the Department of Homeland Security, Duo Security at Cisco, Elevate Security, Exabeam, Okta, Optiv, Rapid7, Splunk, Sumo Logic and The Pokemon Company.

Register Now

Insider Risk Summit attendees will have opportunities for networking, taking in product demos, hosting 1:1 meetings or attending educational sessions and discussions. To register and learn more about the Insider Risk Summit, visit insiderrisksummit.com.

Earn CPE Credits

The Insider Risk Summit is expected to continue as an annual event every September during Insider Threat Awareness month. Security practitioners attending the summit are eligible to earn CPE credits.

Network while Cooking with Andrew Zimmern

Closing out the 2020 event will be a networking event with Andrew Zimmern, a four-time James Beard award-winning chef, TV personality, writer, teacher and social justice advocate. Mr. Zimmern will host a complimentary, interactive celebrity chef cooking class.

About Code42

Code42 is the leader in insider risk detection and response. Native to the cloud, Code42 rapidly detects data loss, leak, theft and sabotage as well as speeds incident response all without lengthy deployments, complex policy management or blocking employee productivity. With Code42, security professionals can protect corporate data and reduce insider risk while fostering an open and collaborative culture for employees. Backed by security best practices and control requirements, Code42's insider risk solution can be configured for GDPR, HIPAA, PCI and other regulatory frameworks.

More than 50,000 organizations worldwide, including the most recognized brands in business and education, rely on Code42 to safeguard their ideas. Founded in 2001, the company is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and backed by Accel Partners, JMI Equity, NEA and Split Rock Partners. Code42 was recognized by Inc. magazine as one of America's best workplaces in 2020. For more information, visit code42.com, read Code42's blog or follow the company on Twitter.

 2020 Code42 Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Code42 and the Code42 logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Code42 Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other marks are properties of their respective owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200831005386/en/

Contacts:

Kristin McKenzie

Public Relations Principal, Code42

kristin.mckenzie@code42.com

844-333-4242
HOUSTON - (Aug. 31, 2020) - Rice University researchers have received a $1.5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to develop an open-source platform to meet the urgent need of developing and validating machine-learning (ML) based innovations for future wireless networks and mobile applications.

The goal of the project led by Yingyan Lin, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice's Brown School of Engineering, is to develop a first-of-its-kind community platform to turbo-charge the research process of inventing novel ML-based techniques for intelligent wireless network management and optimization.

"Two of the biggest challenges in leveraging machine learning are the availability of large, diverse and labeled public datasets, and platforms to evaluate a new method in lifelike deployment," Lin said. "3DML will solve both problems by leveraging Rice's unique strengths in two complementary areas: embedded machine learning and large-scale wireless research platforms."

"Rice Wireless has been a leader in theory and development of next-generation wireless networks, and our concurrent NSF project developing the RENEW platform will beautifully complement the 3DML project," said Ashutosh Sabharwal, the Ernest Dell Butcher Professor of Engineering and a professor and chair of electrical and computer engineering at Rice, a co-principal investigator on 3DML and lead investigator on RENEW.

The researchers say 3DML will be the first platform designed from the ground up to facilitate the development of ML-based innovations for wireless networks.

They claim 3DML will advance next-generation intelligent wireless networks, including enhanced mobile broadband, a massive Internet of Things and ultralow-latency applications. These will support emerging applications like multiaccess edge computing for augmented reality, virtual reality and virtual core solutions.

All of the developed datasets, tools and libraries will be released at https://3dml.rice.edu.

"Wireless internet is an integral part of a nation's infrastructure, and as networks become more complex and diverse, we need new methods to manage and protect these networks," Lin said. "To invent those ideas, researchers need agile and flexible tools, and 3DML will provide those tools."

To achieve those goals, Lin is partnering with researchers at Rice and the University of Texas at Austin. They include Rice colleagues Joseph Cavallaro, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and of computer science; Rahman Doost-Mohammady, an assistant research professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Ang Chen, an assistant professor of computer science, and Zhangyang Wang, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Texas.

An educational component of the grant will provide for workshops, online courses and internships for undergraduate and graduate student at Rice and beyond, as well as for industry.

###

This news release can be found online at https://news.rice.edu/2020/08/31/nsf-backs-first-community-platform-for-smarter-wireless/

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Related materials:

Rice engineers offer smart, timely ideas for AI bottlenecks: http://news.rice.edu/2020/06/11/rice-engineers-offer-smart-timely-ideas-for-ai-bottlenecks-2/

3DML: https://sites.google.com/rice.edu/3dml/home

Efficient and Intelligent Computing Lab (Lin Group): https://eiclab.net

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: https://eceweb.rice.edu

Department of Computer Science: https://csweb.rice.edu

George R. Brown School of Engineering: https://engineering.rice.edu

Image for download:

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2020/08/0831_WIRELESS-1-WEB.jpg

CAPTION: Yingyan Lin. (Credit: 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 quality of life and No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 20:55:24|Editor: huaxia

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RABAT, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The European Investment Bank (EIB) announced on Monday the release of 100 million euros (119 million U.S. dollars) to Morocco to help deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Moroccan official news agency MAP, this amount is the first payment of an overall financing package of 200 million euros.

Moroccan Minister of Economy and Finance Mohamed Benchaaboun told Emma Navarro, vice-president of EIB, at an online signature ceremony that the loan will strengthen the country's health facilities and boost hospitals' capacity and efficiency.

For her part, Emma Navarro said that the funds were released in record time and are very important in limiting the pandemic's impact on Moroccans' health.

Since 2007, the EIB has granted Morocco over 5 billion euros in funding, the agency said. Enditem




Supreme Court

Governor Yahaya Bello has been affirmed as winner of the last governorship election in Kogi State by the Supreme Court.

In a unanimous judgment delivered a moment ago, the courts seven-man panel led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Ibrahim Tanko, dismissed the appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in the election, Musa Wada.

Justice John Okoro authored the lead judgment, which was read by Justice Uwani Abba Aji, in which the court held among others, that the appeal was without merit.

The court upheld the concurrent decisions of the trial tribunal and the Court of Appeal that the petitioners failed to prove their claim that Bello was not lawfully returned by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the winner of the election held November 16, 2019.

The court is about to deliver its judgment in the appeal by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and its candidate in the election.

Details shortly
* Russia has given regulatory approval to a COVID-19 vaccine

* Western experts have questioned its safety and efficacy

* US FDA head backs fast-tracking if benefits outweigh risks

* UK moves towards fast-tracking if safety tests are passed

By Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber

MOSCOW, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Comments by a senior U.S. official and moves by Britain towards the possible fast-tracking of COVID-19 vaccines show the West now accepts Russia was right to approve a vaccine as early as August, a Russian official said on Monday.

Russia granted regulatory approval to a COVID-19 vaccine this month after less than two months of human testing, prompting some Western experts to question its safety and efficacy.

The head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has since said he would be willing to bypass the normal approval process to authorise a COVID-19 vaccine as long as officials were convinced the benefits outweigh the risks.

The British government last week set out plans that would allow Britain's medical regulator to grant temporary authorisation for any coronavirus vaccine before it has received a full licence if it meets safety and quality standards.

The United States and London were now "exactly following the example of Russia," said Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Russia's sovereign wealth fund, which has been heavily involved in Russia's vaccine programme.

"The Western world was shocked by Russia's success (in producing a potential vaccine) and had to go through four stages of accepting the inevitable: denial, anger, depression, and ultimately acceptance," he said in a statement.

"Recent statements show that we have already passed the stage of depression and it has now been accepted that Russia's approach is the correct one."

Russia has now begun Phase III trials of the "Sputnik V" vaccine that will test its efficacy on a bigger group of volunteers. It is also preparing to approve a second vaccine against COVID-19 in late September or early October.

Health Minister Mikhail Murashko has said mass vaccination of high-risk groups will begin in November-December.

(Editing by Andrew Osborn and Timothy Heritage)
By Azernews





By Laman Ismayilova

Initiated by Azerbaijani Society in Barcelona (ASB), House of Azerbaijan has solemnly opened in Spain with the support of the State Committee for Work with Diaspora.

The opening ceremony was attended by Azerbaijanis living in Catalonia and representatives of communities of various nations friendly, APA reported. The event was held in accordance with the quarantine rules amid coronavirus pandemic.

The attendees were presented a congratulation letter from the Chairman of the State Committee for Work with the Diaspora Fuad Muradov addressed to Azerbaijanis living in Spain.

Furthermore, the guests enjoyed videos highlighting the 5-year activity of the Society of Azerbaijanis in Barcelona as well as the process of creating the House of Azerbaijan.

The chairman of Azerbaijani Society in Barcelona, the head of the House of Azerbaijan in Spain Kerim Kerimov, ASB board member Narmin Salayeva, Consul General of Georgia in Barcelona Ketevan Gogolashvili addressed the opening ceremony.

In their remarks, the speakers highly appreciated the activities of House of Azerbaijan. They stressed the House's role in uniting Azerbaijanis living in Barcelona and Spain as well as its activities aimed at promotion of national values ??and historical realities.

Detailed information was provided on 7 new projects to be carried out monthly in the House of Azerbaijan.

With support of the State Committee for Work with Diaspora, Houses of Azerbaijan are successfully functioning in Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Estonia and other countries.

Azerbaijani Society in Barcelona (ASB) is a an open space created by Azerbaijani people and international friends of Azerbaijan from Barcelona, Spain. ASB is a non-profit organization that was founded on 12 February, 2015.

The main objectives of the ASB is to increase support in the Azerbaijani Community, introduce cultures, customs , traditions and history of Azerbaijan to population of Barcelona the best way possible, etc.




A growing list of companies shares a common problem with Apple Stores. Technology may be the only solution as workers wait to return to their corporate workplace as the pandemic resurgence materializes.

Apple Stores recently tried to reopen but had to shut down again amid continuing COVID-19 infections. It only took a few weeks for Apple to close its retail stores after reopening to the public, sending its employees back to work from home. Many companies are likely to follow suit as coronavirus cases continue to spread.

For those business that got it right reopening their workplaces the first time around, they should be in pretty good shape for round two. But others that struggled to get a handle on operations will likely find themselves again in chaos  especially where IT is concerned for the transplanted work-from-home employees.

Unsolved challenges exist in either scenario. No one formula is an ideal approach for companies going back-and-forth between in-person and remote work. The lessons learned from the first transition suggest companies with the right tools and strategies in place will be significantly better off.

Most organizations will face common challenges with staff working in the same space again:

How do they use elevators in office buildings?

How do they cater in the cafeteria?

Do employees still have access to the break room with common appliances and a shared space?

How do employees organize meetings in conference rooms that are meant for a specific number of attendees?

These are the basic questions confronting business managers as they race to reopen their workspaces to large crowds of workers, observed Mounir Hahad, head of Juniper Threat Labs at Juniper Networks.

One of the serious challenges involves not only the health of employees but the health of company electronics. Those issues persist whether employees work from home or return to the office.

Unfortunately, during these times when many organizations have been forced to shift to a more distributed business model, hybrid work practices are causing organizational challenges related to rising cybersecurity risk, defenses being tested, and weaknesses being exposed, Hahad told TechNewsWorld.

Business continuity may lighten up or override previous security requirements to address system overload, which leaves vulnerabilities open. Companies must find a way to ensure cybersecurity remains a top priority and keep their guard up.

It is especially important that organizations emphasize employee education around cybersecurity, he urged.

Addressing Risks

Some advanced WiFi access points do have the ability to precisely monitor users locations throughout their workday as they move around the buildings and record the data for future use. This is of tremendous help to the security and safety team who can identify hot spots where employees tend to congregate, or to trace back the proximity of an infected employee to other employees or visitors, noted Hahad.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Additionally, hybrid work environments can identify new opportunities for organizations to reassess their business continuity plans and network security processes. As early experiences suggest, transparency, flexibility and iteration are key in return-to-workplace plans amid possibly several rounds of back-and-forth restarts, depending on COVID-19 infection rates.

Businesses must continue to address the ways employees connect to the network and how to deploy technology to enable and protect those connections, regardless of work environment, Hahad said.

Common Challenges

Navigating the remote-to-office scenario that companies face to regather their workforces is stressful for both the displaced workers and their company managers.

Coworkers will spend an inordinate amount of time reconnecting early on, which will likely have a large impact on productivity at first, suggested Chris Triolo, vice president of customer success at Respond Software.

Employees may struggle with productivity as they adapt back to the office environment. The return of the commute may affect employees happiness temporarily and likely will result in fewer hours worked per day, he told TechNewsWorld.

Two other primary issues surface in the WFH-to-office return flip flops. One is the Security Operations Center (SOC); the other is the deployment of corporate communications assets.

While some industries are suited for remote work, there are several industries for whom this working style presents many problems, Triolo noted.

For instance, cybersecurity operations is not an industry that should operate remotely long-term. Home offices tend to be on unsafe networks that lack all the security controls and technology that the corporate office maintains.

Another consideration is what to do with corporate assets, such as laptops and phones that were distributed. Are companies expected to collect them all upon return? A good deal of logistical work comes to mind with this scenario.

While everyone does appreciate a change now and then, we risk employees focus, happiness, and productivity by see-sawing back and forth between in-person and remote work. While some companies have run a hybrid model all along, most employees who are new to the work-from-home and/or the hybrid structure may really struggle with it, Triolo explained.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Lessons Learned

The first transition from office to WFH taught company managers some surprising lessons. Many companies learned for the first time that it is possible to have a remote workforce.

In addition, the productivity question was resolved: employees ended up just as productive  and in some cases more productive  than when they worked in the office full time.

We also began to recognize that remote employees can reduce the costs of running our business, for example, with the leasing of office building space, decreased spending on utilities, and day-to-day overhead costs, Triolo noted.

But businesses also learned that we had a lot of work to do to get our employees the tools they need to work from home safely. These include laptops, corporate VPNs, and other collaborative tools such as Zoom, Slack, and Microsoft Teams or Google Meet.

There was an initial scramble to put the technology and policies in place, but now that weve done it, we can move from the office-to-home work lifestyle again much more easily, he said.

The lessons businesses learned include a need for planning and major adjustment when it comes to making the switch between working at the business premises and remotely, according to Melissa Cadwallader, HR leader at ZenBusiness.

Businesses were initially required to make provisions for continued communication with socially distanced employees. There has also been a need to focus on the health and safety of those workers expected to return after the months of isolation. The wearing of face masks and arrangement of worker shielding has become the new workplace norm, given continuing concerns over the pandemic, she told TechNewsWorld.

The Journey Back

Transitioning back to the office will present companies with a need for the change and adoption of policies for the protection and engagement of employees going back and forth between in-person and remote work. There will also be a challenge when it comes to maintaining business as normal, Cadwallader offered.

Employees have to adapt to different working practices. There may well be a decrease in productivity and engagement given the continued uncertainty over working arrangements, she said.

The remote-to-office scenario poses serious challenges for companies from a health standpoint. It is opening more doors for COVID-19 contraction, warned Craig Williams, CIO at Ciena.

If employees coming into work have been quarantined, making them come into the office raises the question we seem to forget in the equation  how did they get to work? If the answer is by public transportation such as a train or bus, then the risks of exposure are further expanded, Williams told TechNewsWorld.

Then there is the liability issue that companies face in reopening corporate workspaces, warned Williams. Even if all the employees drove to work with their own cars so their exposure rates are low, without the right socially-distanced office setups  like plexiglass shields between cubicles  companies are facing immense liabilities by opening back up too soon and putting not only employees but their families at risk as well, he explained.

The first transition has clearly outlined why it is too soon to open back office spaces without taking all the right precautions, and it has also shown that perhaps even with all the seemingly right precautions, the virus can still run rampant.

Many employees are hesitant about going back to the office right now so companies must use this as an opportunity to listen and follow their lead, he suggested.

Growing Opposition

Remote workers made to rush back to the office too soon may actually choose to quit instead. According to a survey by Azurite Consulting that tallied the views of 3,500 people, one-in-four office workers would quit if asked to return too soon. That includes 26 percent of employees and 21 percent of managers.

Key findings from that survey include:

54 percent of high-risk employees want to continue working remotely.

70 percent of Americans see taking public transportation to work as unsafe.

To foster a safe return, office workers want face masks and investment in better hygiene before they return. A majority (56 percent) want mandatory face masks, while 42 percent want sanitizers or disinfectants at their desks, and 36 percent want reduced office capacity at any given time.

15 percent want daily temperature checks, and 16 percent want weekly COVID-19 testing.

The Azurite survey also revealed:

54 percent of companies in major downtown centers have intent to downsize their footprint, and 55 percent plan at least some relocation of employees.

11 percent of urban dwellers contemplate a suburban move and 25 percent a rural move. Meanwhile, 28 percent of suburban dwellers contemplate a rural move.

We are reaching a point where companies are looking to get people back in their office spaces, but clearly we cant resume pre-pandemic practices. Leaders now have to manage the influx of people arriving to high-rise office buildings in densely populated cities like Chicago and New York. Workers need to access the building, go up elevators and get to the office as safely as possible, Matt Fairhurst, CEO and cofounder, Skedulo  a deskless worker productivity software company  told TechNewsWorld.

Some spaces have made new rules limiting the number of people in an elevator or have enacted social distancing. Companies are taking it upon themselves to phase people back into the office. This involves limiting the capacity of employees allowed on a given day. But how can we more effectively manage this?, he questioned to illustrate the issues involved with return workers to corporate offices.

Potential Answers

Skedulo could have a solution to easing and managing the transition back to the office. The company is exploring the idea of applying high capacity-based scheduling technology, Fairhurst announced. That software automatically and intelligently helps organize large quantities of people using appointments to enter the office.

Think about scheduling workers arrival times, limiting the number of people in elevators, and taking into account the total number in an office, especially for large companies with one central office. This can be overwhelming to manage, he said.

If too many individuals arrive at once, people could congregate in the lobby, possibly breaking social distancing rules and increasing the risk of spreading COVID-19. Using capacity-based scheduling, an employee could check if a low volume window is available to work in the office, book his/her arrival time, check-in via a contactless QR code at the front desk, and ride up the elevator. All of that would follow appropriate social distancing measures with the knowledge you will not be turned away at the front door.

The technology can automate appointments and triage if there is a backup somewhere, meaning if a cluster of people arrives at once, it can intelligently reschedule the rest of the day, helping reduce potential exposure, said Fairhurst.
Lebanon's ambassador to Germany Mustapha Adib is set to be designated prime minister on Monday ahead of a visit to Beirut by the French president who will press for long-delayed reforms to steer the Middle East nation out of its deep crisis.

Emmanuel Macron has taken centre stage in international efforts to get Lebanon`s fractious leaders to start addressing a financial crisis that had devastated the economy even before a massive blast at Beirut port on August 4 killed about 190 people.

Adib emerged as frontrunner for the post of premier after being nominated on Sunday by former prime ministers, including Saad al-Hariri who heads Lebanon`s biggest Sunni Muslim party. The post of prime minister must go to a Sunni.

Former prime minister Najib Mikati was the first lawmaker to formally nominate Adib in consultations at the presidential palace on Monday. President Michel Aoun is required to designate the candidate with greatest support among MPs.

Senior Lebanese officials said Macron had pressed Lebanese leaders to agree on a candidate in the 48 hours before consensus emerged on Adib. Last week, Lebanese leaders were deadlocked over who should be the next prime minister.

Macron is due to arrive in Lebanon late on Monday and will meet politicians on Tuesday. After meeting Lebanon`s president on Monday, Hariri called for the quick formation of a government of specialist ministers.

Adib has a doctorate in law and political science and previously served as an adviser to Mikati. He has served as ambassador to Germany since 2013.

Lebanon`s dominant Shi`ite parties, Hezbollah and the Amal Movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, will both name Adib at the consultations, a senior Shi`ite source has said.

The Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), a political ally of Hezbollah which was founded by Aoun, will do the same, said Gebran Bassil, Aoun`s son-in-law and the party leader.

Once designated, the process of forming a new government will start. Until a new administration is agreed, the outgoing government continues in a caretaker capacity.

Lebanon`s financial crisis has sunk the currency by as much as 80% since October, locked savers out of their deposits in a paralysed banking system and fuelled poverty and unemployment.
Gardner Elementary coordinator Lali Oustinovskaya, seated, talks with parent Byata Dikker at a technology and supply pickup event before the start of the school year at the Hollywood campus. Enrollment at the school is down, according to a parent leader. (Josie Norris / Los Angeles Times)

Enrollment at the Los Angeles Unified School District has continued its downward trend for the 2020-21 academic year, with the decline in kindergarten enrollment  especially in the school system's lowest-income neighborhoods  about three times as large as in recent years.

"Overall enrollment is down at about the same level as prior years," L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner said in remarks broadcast Monday morning. "The main drivers of this are the lack of affordable housing in the communities served by our schools and the continued decline in birth rate."

But the district's youngest students are absent in the greatest numbers, a possible reflection of the hardships many families are grappling with during the COVID-19 pandemic and their inability to guide young children through the rigors of distance learning.

"The most significant change in enrollment is at the kindergarten level," Beutner said. "The biggest drops in kindergarten enrollment are generally in neighborhoods with the lowest household incomes. We suspect some of this is because families may lack the ability to provide full-time support at home for online learning, which is necessary for very young learners."

Enrollment in kindergarten so far this year is 36,914, according to figures released Monday by L.A. Unified  down about 6,000 students or 14% from last year. The two prior years, kindergarten enrollment had dropped about 2,000 students each year.

The Times requested the enrollment numbers last week when it reported growing concerns from some teachers and principals about the districts attendance counting policy.

In addition to a drop in kindergarten enrollment, some principals also are reporting that attendance in live online transitional kindergarten through first-grade classes is particularly low.

"The average class size is approximately 12 to 15 students per grade level," said Juan Flecha, president of the union that represents principals, who said the low class tallies come from his members rather than L.A. Unified. "I think parents are finding it extraordinarily difficult to manage their personal and professional lives while somehow keeping the tykes engaged on a device."

Story continues

Flecha's anecdotal numbers suggest that, in many cases, only 50% to 75% of kindergartners and first-graders are making it to live online sessions.

Under state law, parents do not have to enroll their children in kindergarten. Starting in first grade, however, schooling is mandatory, although parents are allowed to homeschool their children.

It's difficult to gauge the meaningfulness or length of student engagement based on the district's official attendance rates because the district's liberal attendance policy allows a student to be counted as present by simple actions, including emailing or being in brief contact with their teacher before midnight each day. Attending online classes is not mandatory for attendance purposes, but some form of daily online contact is required. The district policy is not at odds with state rules put in place during the pandemic, officials from other state agencies have said.

The district on Monday released an average daily attendance rate of 88.4%, which compares to last year's rate of 91.8%, when different in-person attendance rules applied.

The district lists its overall K-12 enrollment at 461,105, compared with 472,336 for last year. As Beutner indicated, the enrollment decline based on that count is similar to that of previous recent years.
Mumbai, Aug 31 : The Tata Trusts has upgraded four government hospitals -- two each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh -- into Covid-19 Treatment Centres and handed them over to the local administration of the country's two biggest states, an official spokesperson said here on Monday.

The facilities, including in-and-out patient wings, are permanent and would supplement existing healthcare infrastructure in these locations.

In Maharashtra, the Tata Trusts developed the hospitals at Sangli (50-beds) and Buldhana (104-beds) and in UP -- in partnership with another organization -- the centres are at Gautam Buddha Nagar (168-beds) and Gonda (124-beds).

Constructed by Tata Projects Ltd. each centres has critical care capabilities, minor operation theatres, basic pathology and radiology, dialysis, blood banks and telemedicine units.

The decision to upgrade the existing infrastructure was to bring speed and wherever possible utilize existing capabilities and services following a call given by Tata Trusts Chairman Ratan N. Tata.

Last March, Tata, as part of the Tata Trusts' 'four-pronged approach' had urged the need for deploying urgent emergency resources to cope with the requirements of combating the Covid-19 crisis which he termed as "one of the toughest challenges the human race will face".

Besides, the Tata Trusts have been donating to various 32 states and UT governments and hospitals things like Personal Protection Equipment, coveralls, masks, surgical masks, gloves and goggles, besides other Covid-related initiatives covering around 21 million people.

The Tata Trusts and Tata Group have tied up with Christian Medical College, Vellore and Care Institute of Health Sciences, Hyderabad for free online training and augmenting skills of Covid-19 health care professionals, and staff from 356 hospitals in 26 states have benefitted by this.
At a time when the coronavirus has killed 840,000 people worldwide, a new study conducted by the Pew Research Center has investigated how national populations in 14 countries feel about their government's management of the health crisis.

To this end, researchers from the Pew Research Center interviewed more than 14,270 people living in the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Australia, Japan and South Korea.

Although different states adopted different measures to contain the pandemic, 73% of respondents believed that the health crisis had been well managed in their respective countries.

For example, a large majority of Danes (95%) said they were satisfied with the manner in which Mette Frederiksen's government limited the spread of the disease in their country, which has reported 16,525 cases of covid-19.

The same was true of Australia and Germany, where a respective 94% and 88% of respondents found that the pandemic had been well managed by public authorities.

However, these scores were far removed from those for the United States and the United Kingdom, where less than half of those questioned said they were satisfied by the government's response to the health crisis.

A divisive impact on national unity

Notwithstanding their different opinions about how the crisis has been handled, 58% of those surveyed by the Pew Research Center agreed that the pandemic had changed their everyday lives.

Whereas at least three-in-ten people in South Korea, the US, Sweden and the UK believed that the virus had changed their lives a great deal, more than half of French citizens questioned (53%) said they thought their life was hardly affected or not affected at all. This positive view of the impact of the virus was also shared by a majority of Belgians (51%), Australians (53%), Dutch citizens (54%) and Danes (73%).

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The Pew Research Center survey also highlights the fact that close to half of those questioned (48%) believe that the pandemic has created more division in their countries.

This impression is very widespread in the United States, where more than three quarters of citizens (77%) said their country was more divided than before the pandemic. It should also be noted that the wave of protest that followed the death of George Floyd on May 25 has probably contributed to this high percentage.

On the contrary, both the Japanese and the Canadians, who are much more optimistic than the Americans, believe that the health crisis has brought people together in their respective countries.
A furious Jacinda Ardern has apologised after a social media blunder meant 750,000 New Zealanders were wrongly told to get coronavirus tests even if they did not have any symptoms.

The misleading message came in the hours before Auckland entered a 'level 2.5 lockdown' from Monday - with masks still compulsory on public transport for those older than 12-years-old and social gatherings limited to 10 people.

There are now 135 cases linked to a cluster of cases in the city.

Posted on the government's COVID-19-response unit page on Saturday about 5pm, the alert told all Aucklanders in the city's south and west to get tested.

The post was titled: 'If you're in South or West Auckland, please have a test' and led to long queues forming at testing centres across the country's largest city.

The New Zealand prime minister said there was 'no excuse' for the oversight and government staff had over-simplified the post.

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A nurse at a Otara Town Centre COVID-19 testing centre in Auckland tests a member of the public for the virus on August 26. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has apologised after a government mistake meant 750,000 New Zealanders were wrongly told to get coronavirus tests

'If we wanted over 700,000 people to get a test we wouldn't just leave it to an Instagram or Twitter post,' she told Newstalk ZB.

'That would be something we would be sharing openly from the podium.

'It caused anxiety for people and for that I apologise. No wants to see people afraid. No one wanted to see people unnecessarily lining up.

'It was a mistake, I fully acknowledge that.'

Ms Ardern said she found out about the mistake on Sunday morning and asked those responsible to remove it, but the post was still visible on Instagram during her press conference at 1pm that day.

She said she was 'angry, frustrated... and a range of emotions' after discovering what had happened.

Ms Ardern holds a 3D model of a COVID-19 cell during a tour of a research facility in Porirua, north of Wellington on August 20. All Aucklanders in the city's south and west were told to get tested even if they did not have any coronavirus symptoms

AUCKLAND'S 'LEVEL 2.5' LOCKDOWN Mask use is mandatory on public transport for commuters aged 12 and above in Auckland. Auckland residents are highly encouraged to wear a mask in other public settings. Social gatherings will remain limited to 10 people, despite Stage Two lockdown in the rest of the nation allowing gatherings of up to 100. Authorised funerals will be allowed up to 50 attendees Advertisement

The New Zealand prime minister is pictured on Monday during a visit to a Kainga Ora housing development in Auckland. She said there was 'no excuse' for the government's social media oversight

Auckland's tough Stage Three lockdown came to an end on Sunday night after several extensions, but the New Zealand leader said life won't yet return to a pre-COVID normal.

From 11.59pm on Sunday, restrictions in New Zealand's most populous city were eased after two-and-a-half weeks to a Stage Two warning, like the rest of the nation.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made the announcement on Sunday afternoon as she confirmed a further two coronavirus cases linked to the Auckland cluster.

But the eased restrictions won't look exactly the same as they do for the rest of the nation.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern demonstrates how she makes an improvised face mask during a video meeting with local community health leaders

A further two COVID-19 cases were identified in New Zealand on Sunday, both linked to the Auckland cluster

Ms Ardern wears a mask during a visit to the Kainga Ora housing development on Monday

Aucklanders will be subject to temporary 'Stage 2.5' restrictions, officials said.

Authorities will continue to stress the importance of wearing face masks where possible - without making them mandatory - and discourage non-essential public gatherings.

'No gathering can be larger than 10. I cannot stress how important this is. Much of this cluster has stemmed from social gatherings. If we want to stop the spread, we have to stop socialising for a time,' Ms Ardern said on Sunday.

People work at a drive-through COVID-19 testing facility in Brisbane as the Sunshine State battles a new outbreak, similar to New Zealand

Ms Ardern wears a mask meeting Auckland Mayor Phil Goff during a visit to Crave Cafe in Auckland on Monday

CORONAVIRUS IN NEW ZEALAND: A TIMELINE FEBRUARY 3: New Zealand bans travellers from China amid coronavirus outbreak. FEBRUARY 28: New Zealand records its first COVID-19 infection after a person in their 60s returned from Iran. MARCH 16: All return travellers must self-isolate for 14 days. MARCH 20: Borders close to everyone except citizens, permanent residents and their families. MARCH 26: Alert Level 4 'Eliminate' begins. Residents are required to stay at home. APRIL 28: New Zealand drops to Alert Level 3. MAY 14: Alert Level 2 begins. JUNE 9: New Zealand drops down to Alert Level 1. Residents encouraged to take precautions. AUGUST 9: 100 days without community transmission of coronavirus. AUGUST 11: New Zealand records its first community transmission in 102 days. AUGUST 12: Auckland enters Alert Level 3 lockdown. The rest of New Zealand moves to Alert Level 2. AUGUST 31: Auckland drops to restrictions Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern calls a 'level 2.5' lockdown Advertisement

Staff at Honey Bones cafe in Grey Lynn serve takeaway customers at level three lockdown

Authorised funerals will be granted exemptions to host up to 50 people.

'We are also keeping aged care facilities in Auckland on very strict settings. To those this affects, I am sorry. I know how hard this will be but we need to keep everyone in our aged care facilities safe,' Ms Ardern added.

The restrictions remain in place throughout Auckland, but the prime minister has urged anybody from the region who is travelling to exercise caution and 'common sense'.

'If you are an Aucklander, please don't just pop into an aged care facility no matter where it is in the country,' she said.

A person waits for a bus at a Karangahape Rd bus stop in Auckland after Ms Ardern made face coverings mandatory on public transport

A nurse checks on people as the arrive at the Mangere Town Centre testing clinic

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Sunday Auckland would enter a 'level 2.5' lockdown to ease out of Stage Three

A worker hands out information to people entering the Otara Town Centre COVID-19 Community testing centre

Ms Ardern visited a medical research clinic after allocating hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding to the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund

'Please don't attend a mass gathering, even if it is not in Auckland. And if you are sick, please stay home. Definitely don't travel.'

Ms Ardern told the public she highly doubted the virus had spread into other cities.

'We are still dealing with a single source, and a single cluster,' she said.

But the PM, who has acted swiftly at every stage of the pandemic, insisted she wouldn't hesitate in locking down the community again if she considered it necessary.

'We need the team of five million to help us get back where we need to be. Our system is only as good as our people,' Ms Ardern said.
Nine iconic buildings in Worcester will glow red Tuesday night as a sign of solidarity as the live event industry pushes Congress to pass the RESTART Act.

Worcester City Hall, the DCU Center, the Hanover Theatre, the Image Productions building, the Jean McDonough Arts Center, Mechanics Hall, The Palladium, Tuckerman Hall and 120 Front St. will all be lit in red Tuesday night as thousands of venues around the country plan to do the same.

In Northampton, The Calvin Theatre will also be lit in red.

While many businesses have started to reopen as part of Massachusetts reopening plans, live performance venues have been closed since March. Hundreds of shows across the state have been canceled as a result of the shutdown.

#WeMakeEvents, #RedAlertRESTART and #ExtendPUA organized the nationwide action to pressure Congress.

The RESTART Act extends the Paycheck Protection Program and establishes a loan program whereby the Small Business Administration guarantees 100% of program loan amounts made to small businesses with less than 5,000 full-time employees. The loans will be up to $12 million and no payments are required for the first two years of the loan. Like the original PPP loans, they also may be forgiven.

PPP funding started to run out for many businesses in June and July. The program was originally launched in April. While funding ran out, businesses remained closed without any means of generating revenue.

For the Hanover Theatre, which received PPP funding, it has lost about $5 million in revenue. However, since shows were canceled and employees have been furloughed, it anticipates losses are closer to about $1.8 million.

#BeAnArtsHero, a grassroots coalition of arts and cultural workers, said due to COVID-19, 94% of employees in the arts have reported income losses. It said 66% of workers say they are unable to access the spaces, resources, or supplies needed to perform their work.

The arts and culture sector of the United States normally employs 5.1 million people with an average salary of $23,500, #BeAnArtsHero said.

The North American event comes after more than 700 buildings were lit red in the United Kingdom.

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Zhang Yimings plan to sell the US operations of his short-video app TikTok to avoid a shutdown was thrown into jeopardy after China asserted authority over a deal already under scrutiny by the Trump administration.

Beijing on Friday added uncertainty to already thorny negotiations over the sale of ByteDance Ltd.s prized asset, claiming the ability to block a sale to foreign suitors Microsoft Corp. or Oracle Corp. with tighter restrictions on artificial intelligence exports. The commerce ministry added speech and text recognition and personalized recommendations to a list of products that require approval before theyre sold abroad.

These new areas cover the very technologies ByteDance employed to make TikTok a viral teen sensation from America to India. The company is now required to seek the governments sign-off on any deal, though it doesnt mean an outright ban, according to a person familiar with the matter. TikTok is dissecting the new regulations and thinks they will make securing a deal more difficult, a second person familiar with the matter said.

For China, the move helps gain leverage to prevent what state-run media called the theft of technology while underscoring to the US it has intellectual property worth protecting. It also increases the likelihood a deal could get held up and Trump will then move ahead with a TikTok ban ahead of Novembers election, depriving millions of teenagers of any updates to the app though they may still be able to use the current version.

AI is a foundational technology and is one of the key sectors that China aims to lead, competing with the U.S., said Rebecca Fannin, founder of Silicon Dragon Ventures. This pushback by Beijing could be seen as part of the growing U.S.-China tensions and tech cold war.

Chinas opaque regulations introduce more unknowns into an already delicate process involving multiple corporations, agencies and federal court, all converging days before Donald Trumps executive order banning TikTok takes effect ahead of November elections. It could take up to 30 days for ByteDance to get the greenlight to export AI, said Zhaokang Jiang, a trade attorney and managing partner of GSC Potomac.

The involvement of Beijing, which has denounced Trump administration bans on TikTok and Tencent Holdings Ltd.s WeChat, muddies the waters as American corporations and investors vie to hammer out a deal by the Trump administrations deadline. Microsoft and Oracle have submitted rival bids to acquire TikToks US business, while Centricus Asset Management Ltd. and Triller Inc. made a last-minute pitch on Friday to buy TikToks operations in several countries for $20 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Weve been seeing U.S. restrictions on China on a daily basis. We cant expect China to have no response at all, said Wang Huiyao, an adviser to Chinas cabinet and founder of the Center for China and Globalization.

Chinas Foreign Ministry criticized the American governments moves again on Monday.

We are opposed to the U.S. abusing the national security concept and state power to suppress specific businesses of other countries, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a daily briefing in Beijing. The U.S.s attempt to take economic bullying and political manipulation against non-American companies, whether it is politically coerced transaction or government enforced transaction, is no different from plundering.

Beijings new curbs on technology mirrors American sanctions against the sale of US software or circuitry to a plethora of Chinese firms. Apart from giving it a say in any imminent deal, the seemingly innocuous changes provide another bargaining chip in the US-China tech cold war.

Beijings responses to Washington over the past five months have largely been designed to appear retaliatory, but are in fact carefully calibrated to place Beijing on equal footing with the US while not escalating tensions  yet, said Kendra Schaefer, head of digital research at consultancy Trivium in Beijing. This move is no exception: it may give Beijing more equal footing so that decisions cant be made by the US unilaterally, but doesnt necessarily indicate Beijing will move to nix the deal.

ByteDance has become one of several Chinese companies at the heart of Washington-Beijing tensions. Trump accuses the companys app of being a threat to national security, echoing charges against telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co. The White House has now ordered Zhangs company to sell the apps operations in the U.S. and several other countries, with a valuation estimated at $20 billion to $50 billion.

Its unclear how the bidding process will now play out. Zhang has said the company, whose TikTok is also banned in India, is working rapidly to resolve its geopolitical headaches. But Beijings insertion into the process raises the chances that it may just decide to veto or at least delay a deal, with unknown ramifications.

Those outcomes may appeal to Zhang, the 37-year-old founder who built ByteDance into the most valuable startup in the world with a $140 billion valuation, according to CB Insights. He had long resisted giving up control of TikTok because he thinks the service is evolving into one of a handful of major online advertising businesses, alongside Facebook Inc. and Google.

His instincts may be to fight: He has scrapped with authorities in Beijing over politically sensitive content and with Chinese publishers over allegations of copyright infringement.

TikTok has asked a federal judge to block the Trump administration from enacting a ban on the fast-growing social media network, bringing a geopolitical fight over technology and trade into a US courtroom.

Even before the latest regulations, Microsoft or any other American owner faced the difficult task of hiving off TikTok US from ByteDances much larger Chinese business.

ByteDance runs TikTok in various regions, often employing code from Musical.ly, the progenitor to the app that ByteDance acquired in 2017. With ByteDance engineers in China still working on TikTok, its unclear how Microsoft could split the code and the underlying technology to ensure its free from Chinese interference -- or determine the value of a standalone operation that may not have access to ByteDances technical wizardry.

The rule revised Friday would cover cross-border transfers of restricted technologies even within the same company, while the impact and consequences of failing to make appropriate applications would be very different if an international business is spun off, said Cui Fan, a trade expert whos a professor at Beijings University of International Business and Economics.

We are studying the new regulations that were released Friday. As with any cross-border transaction, we will follow the applicable laws, which in this case include those of the U.S. and China, ByteDance General Counsel Erich Andersen said in a statement.
Former President Pranab Mukherjee passed away on Monday evening after prolonged illness. He was 84. The former president was admitted to the Armys Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi Cantonment on August 10 and was operated the same day for removal of a clot in his brain.BJP leaders express grief over Pranab Mukherjee's death.

Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday condoled the death of former president Pranab Mukherjee, saying that his demise has left a huge void in the Indian polity.Deeply anguished on the passing away of former President of India, Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee ji. He was a vastly experienced leader who served the nation with utmost devotion. Pranab das distinguished career is a matter of great pride for the entire country, the Home Minister tweeted. Pranab Das life will always be cherished for his impeccable service and indelible contribution to our motherland. His demise has left a huge void in Indian polity. My sincerest condolences are with his family and followers on this irreparable loss. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti, he added.

Several other leaders, cutting across party lines, mourned the passing away of Mukherjee.

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted, Deeply anguished by the demise of former president of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee ji. He was widely respected by the people across all sections of society. His demise is a personal loss. He had tremendous knowledge of Indias history, diplomacy, public policy and also defence.

He added that Pranab Mukherjee epitomised simplicity, honesty and strength of character. He served our country with diligence and dedication. His contribution to public life was invaluable. My deepest condolences to his bereaved family.

ALSO READ: Former President Pranab Mukherjee dies at 84: Prez Kovind, PM Modi share condolences

Pranab Da's life will always be cherished for his impeccable service and indelible contribution to our motherland. His demise has left a huge void in Indian polity. My sincerest condolences are with his family and followers on this irreparable loss. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti  Amit Shah (@AmitShah) August 31, 2020

Expressing grief, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said, I am deeply saddened by the death of former President of India, Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee. His death is a great loss for the country. Pranab da was a rich and good friend of the great personality.

He always gave priority to the country, rising above party politics. In this hour of grief, I express my deepest condolences to his family members. God bless his departed soul, he added in his tweet.

Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) president JP Nadda wrote, Saddened by the demise of former President and statesman Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has served the Country in many roles with diligence and determination. He is widely admired across the parties for his intellect and perseverance. My condolences to his family and followers.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan tweeted, I am very sad to hear the news of the demise of former President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee. I pray to God for the peace of the departed soul and the give strength of the family to bear this profound sorrow.

The honorable Pranab Mukherjee, who served the country and society through politics, will serve as a guide for generations to come. His quality of spontaneous dialogue and harmony with people of opposite ideology on welfare issues sets him apart from other leaders, he added.

ALSO READ: Didnt intend to disrespect SC: Prashant Bhushan responds to contempt case judgement

Saddened by the demise of former President and statesman Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has served the Country in many roles with diligence and determination. He is widely admired across the parties for his intellect and perseverance . My condolences to his family and followers.  Jagat Prakash Nadda (@JPNadda) August 31, 2020

   ,                       ,          Nitin Gadkari (@nitin_gadkari) August 31, 2020

Chouhan further stated, I had the privilege of meeting and discussing with the revered Pranab da several times. Whenever he met, he made suggestions for the welfare of the public. Like a great family member, he always guided me. He was always full of innovative ideas for the progress of the country and the progress of the people.

The huge void created by the death of the honorable Pranab Mukherjee will never be filled, he added.

Pranab da left no stone unturned to contribute to the development of Madhya Pradesh while being the Union Finance Minister. He also had good relations with the leaders of other parties. His departure is an irreparable loss for all of us and for the country. India will always remember his patriotism and public service, CM Chouhan tweeted.

Former President Pranab Mukherjee passed away on Monday at the Army Hospital (Research and Referral) Hospital where he was admitted earlier this month and had undergone surgery for the removal of a clot in his brain.His son and former MP Abhijit Mukherjee gave the information in a tweet.

ALSO READ: Andhra CM to launch YSR Sampoorna Poshana to address malnutrition in the state
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 30)  The number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines topped 217,000 on Sunday, with 4,284 more infections tallied by the Department of Health.

The latest report showed 217,396 people in the country have been afflicted by the viral illness, with 56,473 active cases or currently ill patients.

Of the new cases, the DOH said 88 percent, or 3,779, were detected in the last 14 days.

It added that 51 percent or 2,207 of the new cases are from Metro Manila, while 327 are from Laguna, 191 from Cavite, 161 from Batangas, and 147 from Rizal.

The department also reported that 22,319 more patients have been cleared of COVID-19, which include those tagged as recovered under its Oplan Recovery.

The Oplan Recovery program employs a time-based recoveries scheme, wherein a patient is tagged as recovered after a certain number of days in quarantine and after symptoms have disappeared upon a doctors assessment. This means a confirmatory RT-PCR testing is no longer performed.

To date, the DOH said a total of 157,403 patients, or 72 percent of the national case count, have already beaten the virus.

Meanwhile, the death toll is now at 3,520, with 102 new deaths. Metro Manila accounted for the most number of newly reported fatalities with 52, followed by Calabarzon with 14, and Western Visayas with 10.

There are now over 25 million COVID-19 cases across the globe, including more than 842,000 deaths and some 16.4 million recoveries, based on a tracker maintained by the US-based Johns Hopkins University.
WASHINGTON  On the eve of his visit to Wisconsin, President Donald Trump defended the 17-year-old who fatally shot two protesters in Wisconsin last week, embracing an attorney's account that Kyle Rittenhouse acted in self-defense.

Referring to cell phone video of the incident, Trump told reporters on Monday that Rittenhouse was "trying to get away from them, I guess, it looks like" and said that protesters "violently attacked him." Trump repeatedly noted the shooting remained under investigation but also appeared to lean into Rittenhouse's self-defense argument.

Rittenhouse has been charged with five felonies and a misdemeanor after shooting three people Tuesday, two of them fatally. Rittenhouse was acting as self-appointed security against rioting and considered himself a militia member, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

"I guess he was in very big trouble," Trump said of Rittenhouse. "He would have been, he probably would have been killed. But it's under  it's under investigation."

At the point of the evening the president describes, however, the teen had already shot and killed one protester, according to charging documents and video.

More: Trump mischaracterizes Kenosha protest shooting, defends Rittenhouse

Trump made the remarks a day before he is set to travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin, the latest flash point in violent protests after the police shooting Aug. 23 of Jacob Blake, a Black father who was left paralyzed from the waist down.

More: Trump has no plans to meet with Jacob Blake's family on Kenosha visit

More: Biden condemns violence 'on the left or the right' and challenges Trump 'to do the same'

The president has been using the unrest in many cities as a campaign argument against Democrat Joe Biden, arguing that local Democratic officials have not done enough to quell the violence. Biden and other Democrats have countered that it is Trump who is both stoking racial division and who bears responsibility  as the current occupant of the White House  for the violence.

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"Fires are burning and we have a president who fans the flames rather than fighting the flames, Biden said during remarks in Pittsburgh earlier Monday. "Donald Trump looks at this violence and he sees a political lifeline."

In a follow up statement Monday evening, Biden said Trump "wouldn't even repudiate one of his supporters who is charged with murder because of his attacks on others" and described the president as "too weak, too scared of the hatred he has stirred to put an end to it."

More: Biden hits back on Trump's attacks: 'Do I look like a radical socialist?'

Trump's comments Monday mirrored those of Rittenhouse's lawyer, who has cast his client as "a hero who had no choice but to defend himself." Attorney John Pierce, in an interview with USA TODAY, called the case against the 17-year-old "the most political prosecution in the history of this country."

Pierce said his client went to Kenosha after a local business owner there called for help in protecting properties, including a car lot and body shop, that the owner believed was threatened by the unrest in Kenosha. The attorney said he did not know who fielded the initial request, but he said Rittenhouse and other associates responded to the call.

He answered the call; he took his rifle because it was a war zone, Pierce said.

Other conservatives also have come to Rittenhouses defense.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently appeared to blame the shooting on the broader violence and chaos in the city.

"Kenosha's devolved into anarchy because the authorities in charge of the city abandoned it," Carlson said. "People in charge, from the governor...on down, refused to enforce the law. They stood back and watched Kenosha burn. So are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder?"

Over the weekend, Trump declined to comment directly about the Rittenhouse case, noting that the shooting remained under investigation.

Several former classmates at Lakes Community High School in Antioch told VICE News they remembered Rittenhouse as short-tempered and easily offended. He was known for his love of the police, guns and Trump, they said.

He is playing a very dangerous game, said former federal prosecutor Barb McQuade, now a law professor at the University of Michigan. Trumps supporters will see his cues and act in accordance with them. Vigilante justice is the opposite of law and order.

Contributing: Michael Collins, Bart Jansen, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

President Donald Trump talks with reporters as he tours a section of the southern border wall, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2019, in Otay Mesa, Calif.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump defends Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, arguing self defense
This weekend, millions of Americans will hit the road, fire up the grill, and swarm to the beaches for the Labor Day weekend. The holiday has evolved dramatically from its origins, which are debated today.

What is clear, though, is the designation of Labor Day as a federal holiday in 1894 arose from a tenuous labor dispute in Illinois. The Pullman strike, remembered today as a landmark in American labor history, caused such ill feelings between workers and the government that President Grover Cleveland, as a conciliatory measure, signed an order establishing Labor Day as a federal holiday on the first Monday of September.

However, Labor Day was nothing new in America. Some believe that its roots are actually Canadian, in an 1872 parade in Toronto to support a strike against a 58-hour work week. A decade later, a proposal was presented at a Central Labor Union meeting in New York in May 1882 for a monster labor festival in early September.

The result was the first Labor Day parade, held near city hall and along Broadway in New York on Sept. 5, 1882. Police, concerned that confrontations may occur, surrounded city hall on horseback and on foot, many of them carrying clubs.

An hour later, only a handful of marchers had shown up, and there was no musical accompaniment. Just in time, two hundred members from the Jewelers Union of Newark arrived with a band, and the procession began.

Spectators joined the parade, and finally, some ten to twenty thousand marched through lower Manhattan. At the end, some workers went back to their jobs, but many spent the rest of the day at a party which included speeches, cigars, and lager beer kegs  mounted in every conceivable place.

Who suggested the first Labor Day is of considerable debate. Many accounts credit Peter McGuire, the general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor.

McGuire reportedly proposed an annual celebration at a CLU meeting on May 12, 1882, to remember those who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold. He suggested a street parade to publicly show the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations. McGuire is said to have witnessed the 1872 commemoration in Toronto, and wanted something similar in the United States.

McGuires role, though, has been challenged in recent years by the emergence of the story of Matthew Maguire, a machinist and member of the Knights of Labor, whom some believe first proposed that the CLU organize a celebration of labor.

Adding credence was a recollection by the grand marshal of the 1882 New York parade, who corroborated Maguires role. In a 2011 interview, former Department of Labor historian Linda Stinson expressed confidence in the Maguire story.

Peter McGuires role may have also been embellished by Samuel Gompers, a close friend and American Federation of Labor powerhouse, who apparently disliked Matthew Maguires radical political views that reflected poorly on the AF of L. Maguire ran for Vice President on the National Socialist Labor Party in 1896.

Some states began to observe Labor Day on their own, starting with Oregon in 1887. Colorado, New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey followed suit.

Continued labor strife, though, forced the federal governments hand at designating a national holiday. The Pullman Palace Car strike of May 1894, ignited by layoffs and wage cuts amid unchanging rents in the company town of Pullman, Illinois. induced the American Railway Union, under the direction of Eugene Debs, to call for national boycotts of Pullman trains. Rioting, burning of cars, and other violence spread nationwide, and rail traffic was brought to a standstill in many areas.

Throughout the strike, President Grover Cleveland, worried about the political backlash in what was a midterm election year. Democrats, fearing a loss of Congress, and the president proposed a solution  to create a national holiday to honor the American worker, which was already being celebrated in 30 states.

Sen. James Henderson Kyle, a Populist from South Dakota, introduced legislation to designate the first Monday in September as a national holiday. The bill was rushed through Congress, and Cleveland quickly signed the proposal into law on June 28, 1894.

The September date was chosen so there would be no conflict with the International Workers Day celebration of May 1, which harkened back to the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in May 1886 and was viewed by many Americans as socialistic or anarchistic.

Six days after signing the bill, Cleveland, ostensibly concerned about interruption of mail service, sent 12,000 federal troops in as strikebreakers.

Reports vary, but at least two men were killed by deputy marshals in Kensington, a Chicago suburb. On August 3, the strike was declared over, and Debs was later sentenced to prison as the Pullman employees agreed not to unionize again. The Democrats lost both houses of Congress in 1894, and Cleveland was dropped from the ticket in the 1896 election.

Over the decades, Labor Day evolved into a three-day weekend and a shopping and recreational holiday that marks the end of the summer season. Few celebrate Labor Day as a remembrance of working Americans.

Today, union presence in the United States continues to diminish. According to Forbes magazine, fewer than 12% of the American workforce belongs to a union, down from a high of 33% in 1955.
He jetted to Cyprus to reunite with his boyfriend after being separated from amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

And Gogglebox star Lee Riley bade an emotional farewell to his partner Steve Mail as he flew back to the UK on Monday to film the new series.

The TV sensation, 51, looked sunkissed and happy as he posed with his boyfriend of 26 years in front of a hotel pool.

True love: Gogglebox star Lee Riley bade an emotional farewell to his partner Steve Mail as he flew back to the UK on Monday to film the new series

A smitten Steve captioned the snap: 'Never tire of this peaceful and chilled idyllic hideaway thanks for a fabulous time Lee Riley safe journey back to Blighty.

'Love you to the moon and back #vounikinghotelandrestaurant #cyprus2020 #gogglebox #series16.'

The pair have been together for the last month after COVID-19 travel restrictions forced them to stay apart for six months.

Steve lives in Cyprus, while Lee resides in a mobile home in Hull.

Reunion: The pair have been together for the last month after COVID-19 travel restrictions forced them to stay apart for six months

Long-distance: Steve lives in Cyprus, while Lee resides in a mobile home in Hull and appears on Gogglebox with his best friend Jenny Newby (above)

Lee is known for his hilarious moments with BFF Jenny Newby on Gogglebox, with the pair filming from her Hull caravan.

At the start of lockdown, Lee and his on-screen TV-watcher Jenny delighted fans with a throwback snap from 16 years ago.

The best friends - who appear on Gogglebox as they critique the week's TV from Lee's Yorkshire caravan - are seen in the throwback during a cruise in 2004.

The pair look very different in the snap - with both Jenny and Lee sporting dark brunette locks (these days they've got a few more greys) as they laugh jollily in the photo.

The photo looks a little like they're at a wedding - with Jenny clutching a bouquet of posies.

Long-distance love: Steve lives in Cyprus, while Lee resides in a mobile home in Hull

Lee was sure to inform fans that this was not a photo of them tying the knot.

'Old photo 16 years ago of me and Jenny on a cruise taking the p**s and no before you ask we didn't get married!' Lee captioned the snap.

This is the second throwback they have shared since joining Instagram in March.

Another was posted on April 9, in which the pair look even younger.

The old pals were staying together at Lee's caravan during the coronavirus lockdown, with Jenny moving out again when Gogglebox wrapped its most recent series in May.

Back in the day: At the start of lockdown, Lee and his on-screen TV-watcher Jenny delighted fans with a throwback snap from 16 years ago
Sonam Kapoor has weighed in on one of the most awaited films of the summer, Christopher Nolans Tenet. The Bollywood star, who is currently in London with her husband Anand Ahuja, took to Instagram to give a shoutout to Dimple Kapadia who plays a special role in the movie.

Sharing a still of Dimple Kapadia from the movie, Sonam Kapoor wrote, So I went to watch @tenetfilm in the cinema today. Firstly the incredible experience of watching a film on the big screen is unparalleled. Secondly to watch the luminous Dimple Kapadia in the film gave me goosebumps. Nothing compares to the cinema, the big screen, and its magic. Nothing."

Check out here post here:

A few days back, Tom Cruise had surprised moviegoers at a London movie theatre after he arrived at the cinema hall to watch Nolans Tenet. The actor, 58, had also shared a video of himself taking a car to see Nolans Tenet in theaters. Cruise shared the video on his Twitter account on Tuesday, writing, Big Movie. Big Screen. Loved it."

Tenet, from Warner Bros., is the first Hollywood tentpole to brave a theatrical release since the novel coronavirus brought cinemas worldwide to a screeching halt in March. The movie, starring John David Washington and Robert Pattinson, centers on The Protagonist (Washington), who must find a way to stop Kenneth Branaghs Sator from starting World War III through time-bending moves. Tenet also features Elizabeth Debicki, Branagh, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Michael Caine, Clemence Poesy, and Himesh Patel.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused the Modi government of destroying the informal sector of the economy and trying to enslave it. He charged that the government wants to break this sector and called upon the entire country to unite and fight against this.

He cited demonetisation, "wrong" GST and the lockdown as three examples of government's attempt to destroy the informal sector, that provides 90 per cent jobs to people.

"The BJP government has attacked the informal structure. There is an attempt to turn you into a slave," he charged.

"The BJP government has been attacking the informal sector over the past 6 years. I am giving you three massive examples right now- Demonetisation, wrong GST and Lockdown," he said in a new video series on the economy.

"Don't think the lockdown was unplanned. Don't think it was done at the last minute. The aim of these three decisions was to destroy our informal sector," he alleged

Gandhi said the informal sector, which comprises the poor, farmers and small traders, has a lot of money which the government cannot touch. "They want to break this sector and extort this money from them," he charged.

"The effects of this attack on the informal sector will be seen soon. The results will be that India won't be able to produce jobs. Because the informal sector produces 90 percent of the jobs. Once the informal sector is destroyed India won't be able to produce jobs," he said. "You are the ones who run this country, You take us forward and there is a conspiracy against you. You are being cheated and there is an attempt to turn you into slaves. We have to understand this attack and the entire country has to unite to fight against this," he also said in the 4-minute video "Let's talk economy".

The former Congress president said in 2008, the world was hit by an economic storm and it affected the entire world, the US, Japan, China and everywhere.

He said in the US banks fell, corporations fell and companies shut down and banks also fell in Europe, but India was unaffected and the UPA government was in power at the time.

Gandhi said he went to the prime minister and asked Manmohan Singh what is the reason why the entire world suffered an economic crisis but India remained unaffected.

"Manmohan Singh ji replied, Rahul if you want to understand India's economy, you will have to understand that India has two economic structures. One is the formal economy and the other is the informal economy.

"You know the big companies which constitute the formal sector. The informal sector comprises farmers, labourers, MSMEs. Till the time India's informal sector is strong, no economic storm can touch India," he said.

Gandhi's comments come ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament where the Congress party wants to corner the government over the state of the economy, besides other issues including the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Chinese aggression at the border.

The Congress has also accused the government of failing to handle the economy as well as the pandemic, alleging that the lockdown has failed to have the desired effect and has hit the poor and the marginalised the hardest.
By Akbar Mammadov

All occupied territories of Azerbaijan, including Gubadly, will be liberated and local Azerbaijanis will return to their homes, Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has said.

Bayramov made the remarks in a post shared on his Twitter page on Augsut 31 that marks the anniversary of the occupation of Gubadly by Armenian forces.

"27 years without Gubadly. The district occupied on 31 August 1993 by armed forces of Armenia, and Azerbaijani population were ethnically cleansed. All occupied territories of Azerbaijan, including Gubadly, will be liberated and local Azerbaijanis will return to their homes!", Bayramovs post reads.

It should be noted that as a result of the occupation, 238 Gubadli residents were killed, 316 were become to be disabled persons and more than 100 people were missing as a result of the occupation, adding that the administrative centre and 93 villages of the region were completely destroyed and looted, over 40,000 Gubadli residents became internally displaced persons.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Groups efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Vietnam remains on the radar of foreign buyers although COVID-19 pandemic drag down M&A activities

In the first eight months of 2020, there were over 4,804 cases of capital contribution and share purchases worth $4.93 billion, equalling 51.8 per cent of last year's period, according to the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

It was believed that Vietnams mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activities would pick up in numbers over the second half of 2020 as Vietnam grapples with successfully containing the pandemic.

However, a slight resurgence of COVID-19 infections in Vietnam has been dominating domestic and international news over the past few weeks, leading to a possible dampening of such activities in the very near future.

Le Viet Anh Phong, financial advisory leader of Deloitte Vietnam, told VIR that the return of COVID-19 in Vietnam will undoubtedly have a temporary negative impact on the M&A activities, especially for cross-border deals. The uncertainty associated with the coronavirus may require investors to be more prudent, especially when it comes to the recovery shape, resilience of the business model, and ultimately discount on valuation as well as tougher terms.

Physically, cross-border travel has become highly restricted and may continue to do so in any new normal. These restrictions will affect deal execution, where physical observations and face-to-face negotiations are still the norms and are not likely to change overnight. These factors will prolong the deal process and make it more difficult to complete for the foreign investors, Anh Phong explained.

This, however, will offer local investors a clear home run advantage. We believe that this presents a great opportunity for the financially sound local investors to be bold with their M&A strategies, said Anh Phong.

Meanwhile, Masataka Sam Yoshida, head of the Cross-border Division and CEO of Vietnam RECOF Corporation, told VIR that this wave of coronavirus has raised concerns among foreign buyers. Nevertheless, we expect the Vietnamese government to continue to apply necessary measures to control this new outbreak as effectively as it did early this year, Yoshida said.

The local community is now accepting and becoming familiar with the requirements of mandatory social distancing and quarantines, Yoshida added. The response from the government and the community in combination with the acceleration of multiple stimulus packages and public investment execution will help Vietnams economic recovery continue (as the only one having positive GDP growth among ASEAN countries), even though the speed of the recovery is probably slowing down, according to Yoshida.

In cross-border M&A settings, despite the governments efforts to start up exchange of travellers, travel restrictions together with isolation or quarantine requirements are still effective, making it the highest obstacle for business travellers to travel in or out Vietnam to facilitate M&A processes.

Insiders agree it is hard for foreign investors without a daily presence in Vietnam to make up their minds to carry out a substantial investment without meeting up and shaking hands with their counterparts in Vietnam, as well as making visits to offices, factories, and other sites.

Online meetings and virtual data rooms have helped to consummate necessary M&A steps but negotiations will have to be stopped in a situation where the last mile procedure is left until the physical meeting-up is realised, Yoshida explained. Thus, as long as entry restrictions are kept up, there will be a slowdown period in M&A activities. Once these restrictions are lifted, a rush of negotiations for investments will finally contribute to and be crystalised as a form of growth in Vietnam's economy.

Despite the challenges of the pandemic, Deloittes Phong said that they continue to observe strong interest from the foreign investors. Strategic investors from countries such as Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Singapore are continuing to seek growth and new market presence outside of their existing key markets, which may be lacking in growth and are severely impacted by COVID-19. The clear diversification trend of the global supply chain will boost the confidence and motivation of these investors.

He added that the tremendous effort of the government to contain the first wave and the swift coordinated responses on the resurgence are highly recognised by the international community. This, together with the passing of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement and important laws on investment, enterprises, and public-private partnerships strongly reinforce the credibility of Vietnam as a safe and stable investment destination. All of these will place Vietnam in an advantageous position in the region to bounce back strongly in the new normal.

The private equity players still have a lot of dry powder but exposure to Vietnam is rather limited. Whilst these players have spent more time in the last few months reviewing their existing portfolio, I expect these will be more active in seeking sizable opportunities in Vietnam. KKR-led investment into Vinhomes is a good example for such interest, Phong stated.

Importantly, the pandemic may help narrow the valuation gap that has generally been observed in the last few years in the high growth market of Vietnam. Instead, the focus of the sellers are moving toward financial resilience, synergies, and exponential growth potential post-pandemic, which are more aligned with investors intention.

RECOFs Yoshida said that as the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on global supply chains, not only do Japanese manufacturers but others across the globe are looking to de-risk from China. Japan recently has been reported to be paying about 12 billion ($113 million) to 30 companies to increase production in Southeast Asia, in the first round of a multi-billion-dollar programme to diversify its supply chains after COVID-19 and worsening relations between the US and China.

Among Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam is likely to be in a good position as many firms have been focusing on the nations young and rapidly-growing domestic market. Investors also credit Vietnam for its stable political leadership and ability to contain the coronavirus outbreak, although the nation has recently seen a spike in cases again. Vietnams success in raising participation in the global supply chain, especially with the EU by trade agreements coming into force this summer, has been providing a valuable advantage for firms seeking to diversify their supply chain.

The second half of this year will no doubt continue to be challenging, but we think Vietnam could be seeing Japanese investors divided into two groups, Yoshida says. One group of investors will be those who would want to follow the traditional way of wait-and-see after the worst is over. The other group, increasing among our customers, will be those who would want to grasp this opportunity to take advantage of having less competing buyers not for the purpose of buying cheap but for the purpose of exploring the best partner for their valuable expansion in the region.

During the first half of 2020, Japanese companies overseas investment had fallen by 33 per cent (at $106 billion) compared to the same period last year. However, at the same time, Japanese companies deposit amount increased by 19 per cent (reaching over $2.4 trillion), which is likely to be invested in order for Japanese companies to recover drops in investment during the pandemic as well as to realise their planned expansion in the regions.

Thus, when these investments will restart depends on the timing and how soon the biggest hurdle for investors (entry to the country with isolation or quarantine) will be relaxed, Yoshida concluded.
A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder is pioneering a new solution to the problem of spring cleaning on the moon: Why not zap away the grime using a beam of electrons?

The research, published recently in the journal Acta Astronautica, marks the latest to explore a persistent, and perhaps surprising, hiccup in humanity's dreams of colonizing the moon: dust. Astronauts walking or driving over the lunar surface kick up huge quantities of this fine material, also called regolith.

"It's really annoying," said Xu Wang, a research associate in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder. "Lunar dust sticks to all kinds of surfaces--spacesuits, solar panels, helmets--and it can damage equipment."

So he and his colleagues developed a possible fix--one that makes use of an electron beam, a device that shoots out a concentrated (and safe) stream of negatively-charged, low-energy particles. In the new study, the team aimed such a tool at a range of dirty surfaces inside of a vacuum chamber. And, they discovered, the dust just flew away.

"It literally jumps off," said lead author Benjamin Farr, who completed the work as an undergraduate student in physics at CU Boulder.

The researchers still have a long way to go before real-life astronauts will be able to use the technology to do their daily tidying up. But, Farr said, the team's early findings suggest that electron-beam dustbusters could be a fixture of moon bases in the not-too-distant future.

Spent gunpowder

The news may be music to the ears of many Apollo-era astronauts. Several of these space pioneers complained about moon dust, which often resists attempts at cleaning even after vigorous brushing. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, who visited the moon as a member of Apollo 17 in 1972, developed an allergic reaction to the material and has said that it smelled like "spent gunpowder."

The problem with lunar dust, Wang explained, is that it isn't anything like the stuff that builds up on bookshelves on Earth. Moon dust is constantly bathed in radiation from the sun, a bombardment that gives the material an electric charge. That charge, in turn, makes the dust extra sticky, almost like a sock that's just come out of the drier. It also has a distinct structure.

"Lunar dust is very jagged and abrasive, like broken shards of glass," Wang said.

The question facing his group was then: How do you unstick this naturally clingy substance?

Electron beams offered a promising solution. According to a theory developed from recent scientific studies of how dust naturally lofts on the lunar surface, such a device could turn the electric charges on particles of dust into a weapon against them. If you hit a layer dust with a stream of electrons, Wang said, that dusty surface will collect additional negative charges. Pack enough charges into the spaces in between the particles, and they may begin to push each other away--much like magnets do when the wrong ends are forced together.

"The charges become so large that they repel each other, and then dust ejects off of the surface," Wang said.

Electron showers

To test the idea, he and his colleagues loaded a vacuum chamber with various materials coated in a NASA-manufactured "lunar simulant" designed to resemble moon dust.

And sure enough, after aiming an electron beam at those particles, the dust poured off, usually in just a few minutes. The trick worked on a wide range of surfaces, too, including spacesuit fabric and glass. This new technology aims at cleaning the finest dust particles, which are difficult to remove using brushes, Wang said. The method was able to clean dusty surfaces by an average of about 75-85%.

"It worked pretty well, but not well enough that we're done," Farr said.

The researchers are currently experimenting with new ways to increase the cleaning power of their electron beam.

But study coauthor Mihaly Horanyi, a professor in LASP and the Department of Physics at CU Boulder, said that the technology has real potential. NASA has experimented with other strategies for shedding lunar dust, such as by embedding networks of electrodes into spacesuits. An electron beam, however, might be a lot cheaper and easier to roll out.

Horanyi imagines that one day, lunar astronauts could simply leave their spacesuits hanging up in a special room, or even outside their habitats, and clean them after spending a long day kicking up dust outside. The electrons would do the rest.

"You could just walk into an electron beam shower to remove fine dust," he said.

###

Other coauthors on the new research include John Goree of the University of Iowa and Inseob Hahn and Ulf Israelsson of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The Chairman of First Bank, Ibikun Awosika, has made her film debut in Kunle Afolayans latest movie, Citation.

Exploring the subject of social decadence in the educational sector, the yet-to-be-released movie is a college drama about a female postgraduate student who has to find a way of dealing with sexual harassment from a lecturer.

In the movie, Mrs Awosika plays herself, only this time around, Ibukun Awosika, a university faculty dean in the movie, heads the senate hearing panel of Moremi (Temi Otedola) and Lucien (Jimmy-Jean Louis),

Afolayan unveiled her as the surprise cast member in the film which already boasts an ensemble of A-list actors of diverse nationalities on Monday.

The filmmaker also revealed that the movie was privately screened at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) to align with his teams advocacy initiative. On the choice of OAU, he said, We showcased Citation first at Obafemi Awolowo University  the very location the production was shot; a university highly notable for their zero-tolerance to sexual harassment. This is evident in their Anti Sexual Harassment policy (ASH Policy).

Cast

Citation cast include Ivorian theatre icon, Bienvenu Neba; veteran broadcaster and actor, Sadiq Daba; upcoming Nollywood actress, Bukunmi Oluwashina; French-Ivorian actor and screenwriter, Raymond Reboul; theatre educator, Toyin Bifarin and veteran Nigerian film director and actor, Wole Olowomojuore, aka Baba Gebu.

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Afolayan said: it all began in 2018 with the pre-production of Citation, then the production in January 2020, and now the 30th of August, we officially had the first private screening of Citation at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU). Why OAU? Well, not only was Citation shot at the University, but our surprise cast is an alumnus of the school.

Temi Otedola, one of the daughters of billionaire Femi Otedola, will be making her acting debut in the new movie which focuses on sexual harassment on university campuses alongside Afolayans brother, Gabriel.

The film will be available for private screenings in September and October, 2020
BURLINGTON, Vt., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The increase in online car shopping activity demands an upgraded user experience. That's why Dealer.com is introducing an all-new search results page experience with strategic new upgrades that improve inventory search, browsing and digital tool usage for Dealer.com clients and their customers. Dealer.com's new search results page (SRP) enhancements help different types of shoppers find the right vehicle faster by guiding them to the critical inventory information they need, and ultimately making it easier for consumers to reach their destinationthe vehicle deal page (VDP)from any device, anywhere.

"Today, nearly every shopper spends time researching cars online with hopes of landing on the perfect VDP, but every customer's journey is differentfrom their approach to what device they are using," said Katie Wilkins, senior director Product Management at Dealer.com. "With this in mind, we built the new SRP experience to drive a faster more convenient path to the right vehicle across all device and shopper experiences."

Now, shoppers can make more vehicle comparisons and informed selections sooner in the shopping processno matter the device they are using. The majority of shoppers82%engage with search results on a dealership's website.1 The features of the new SRP experience benefit customers and dealers alike:



A free-form inventory search bar provides multiple ways for consumers to shop and select their vehicle of choice.

provides multiple ways for consumers to shop and select their vehicle of choice. Auto-complete suggestions within the search bar guide shoppers to the right vehicles and attributes.

within the search bar guide shoppers to the right vehicles and attributes. Mobile-friendly faceted search means fewer clicks for consumers to reach the vehicle information they want.

means fewer clicks for consumers to reach the vehicle information they want. Larger inventory photos and a convenient photo carousel allow shoppers to view multiple photos before visiting the VDP, eliminating back and forth and helping them more quickly identify their vehicle preferences.

allow shoppers to view multiple photos before visiting the VDP, eliminating back and forth and helping them more quickly identify their vehicle preferences. Tabbed Content areas , including standard vehicle specifications, OEM and dealership incentives, and stacked pricing make key inventory details organized and accessible.

, including standard vehicle specifications, OEM and dealership incentives, and stacked pricing make key inventory details organized and accessible. Responsive, redesigned listings deliver a more intuitive user experience.

deliver a more intuitive user experience. Flexible list view or grid view design allows consumers to customize their experience.

"What really stood out to us about the new SRPs is that they were created with a mobile first design. They perfectly capture the details the customer is looking for in a clean layout," said Jeffrey Ramsey, eCommerce Director at Jones Junction. "Being able to easily scroll through the images from the SRP has created a more valuable VDP visit. This has led to more leads and a higher percentage of our traffic converting. After spending the time and money it takes to get a customer to our site, you don't want to lose them when they're looking for a vehicle. With the easy to use sort and filter functionality, it allows shoppers to navigate our inventory seamlessly. Overall, the new SRPs have improved our customers shopping experience and helped create more sales opportunities for the Jones Junction organization."

The launch of the new SRP experience will begin in September and is a no-cost upgrade to all Dealer.com customers. For more information on the all-new SRP experience, visit Dealer.com/SRP.

About Dealer.com

Backed by unmatched expertise and unrivaled consumer behavior data, Dealer.com is the premier digital marketing solution for the automotive industry. Providing an integrated platform of Websites, Advertising, Digital Retailing and Managed Services, Dealer.com allows OEMs, dealer groups, retailers and agencies to leverage advanced digital technology, data and insights to deliver the shortest, fastest and most personalized path to customer engagement, delivering over 43M unique visitors monthly across 15,000 plus Dealer.com websites. The company practices a deep commitment to its culture of progress, with a focus on community, health, and wellness. Based in Burlington, Vermont, Dealer.com is a Cox Automotive brand. For more information, visit www.dealer.com.

About Cox Automotive

Cox Automotive Inc. makes buying, selling, owning and using cars easier for everyone. The global company's 34,000-plus team members and family of brands, including Autotrader, Clutch Technologies, Dealer.com, Dealertrack, Kelley Blue Book, Manheim, NextGear Capital, VinSolutions, vAuto and Xtime, are passionate about helping millions of car shoppers, 40,000 auto dealer clients across five continents and many others throughout the automotive industry thrive for generations to come. Cox Automotive is a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises Inc., a privately-owned, Atlanta-based company with annual revenues of $21 billion. www.coxautoinc.com

1 Google Analytics, analysis of Dealer.com website platform traffic, percentage of visitors that visit a VLP/SRP during their website session, 2019

SOURCE Dealer.com

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www.dealer.com


HomeLane, a home interiors company, on Monday said it has raised Rs 60 crore ($8 million) in a bridge funding round from Stride Ventures and existing investors. Bridge funding is a form of intermediate funding intended to cover a business' short-term expenses until long-term funding is secured.

Stride Ventures led this round, participating through debt funding of Rs 20 crore in the company, a statement said.

Existing investors Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, Evolvence India and JSW Ventures also participated, infusing another Rs 40 crore in equity, it added.

With this round, HomeLane's total fund-raising has crossed Rs 370 crore ($54 million) in the last six years.

"Our mission is to make home interiors easy for the world, and this hasn't changed during the pandemic. Virtual meetings, powered by our 3D design and collaboration platform SpaceCraft, have enabled us to meet customers and deliver superior design experience to them while practising social distancing," HomeLane.com CEO and founder Srikanth Iyer said.

He added that the company believes that there's still a sizable gap in the market that HomeLane can address.

HomeLane will deploy the new funds to enter new markets with a greater focus on non-metro expansion while strengthening the brand's presence across existing markets, the statement said.

Part of the funds will also be deployed to enhance HomeLane's technology offering to give consumers a better interior service experience by focusing on its proprietary 3D design platform, Spacecraft, it added.

"In the last 5 months, we've focused heavily on delivery predictability and safety. However, we also entered 3 new markets during this period - Visakhapatnam, Mysore and Coimbatore! With this round of funding, we are looking to invest in establishing our brand across existing and new markets..." Tanuj Choudhry, Chief Business Officer at HomeLane.com, said.

HomeLane recorded Rs 230.4 crore operating revenues for the year ended March 31, 2020, registering a growth of 130 percent over its revenues of Rs 99.95 crore during the previous fiscal.

The company said it is on track to reach EBITDA break-even by April 2021. HomeLane has presence across 10 cities with 19 experience centres and over 900 design experts on its tech platform.
By ANI

CANBERRA: In what could further strain relations between Beijing and Canberra, an Australian television anchor working with CGTN, China's state-run news channel has been detained in Beijing in a highly sensitive case.

A statement from Foreign Minister Marise Payne confirmed Cheng Lei was being held by authorities in the Chinese capital and Australian diplomats were permitted to speak to her last week via video conference, reported ABC.

"The Australian Government has been informed that an Australian citizen, Ms Cheng Lei, has been detained in China," Payne was quoted as saying in a statement.

The statement informed that formal notification was received on 14th of August from Chinese authorities of her detention.

"Australian officials had an initial consular visit with Ms Cheng at a detention facility via video link on 27th of August and will continue to provide assistance and support to her and her family," the statement read.

Relations between China and Australia have strained in recent times over several issues.

As per the report, friends became concerned when Cheng did not reply to messages in recent weeks, fuelling speculation among her Chinese state media colleagues.

She has not been charged but is being held under what is called "residential surveillance at a designated location", a form of detention in which investigators can imprison and question a suspect for up to six months while cutting them off from lawyers and the outside world.

Her family in a statement said they are in touch with the Department of Foreign Affairs and trade and doing everything to support her.

"Cheng has worked as an on-air anchor and reporter for CGTN for the past eight years. She was trusted to present coverage of some of the nation's most politically sensitive events, including China's annual political congress," the report said.

She is the second Australian, after writer and former Chinese Government employee Yang Hengjun, to be detained in Beijing. Yang, who is under an espionage investigation was taken by authorities in January 2019.

The report stated that in July this year, the Australian Government updated its information for Australians travelling to China, warning they could be at increased risk of arbitrary detention.
Kyle Rittenhouse, left, with backwards cap, walks along Sheridan Road in Kenosha, Wis., with another armed civilian, on Aug. 25, 2020. (Adam Rogan/The Journal Times via AP)

Pro-Gun Group Launches Fundraiser for Suspect in Deadly Kenosha Shooting

A pro-gun group is fundraising for the 17-year-old accused of killing two people and wounding another in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The National Foundation for Gun Rights said in a recent statement that people can donate money for Kyle Rittenhouses legal defense.

Dudley Brown, the groups executive director, argued that Rittenhouse was attempting to peacefully protest on Aug. 25 when he was attacked before using his gun in lawful self-defense.

Kyle was doing his best to protect business owners from losing their entire livelihoods when criminal actors instigated violence against him. Unfortunately for them, Kyle was armed with an AR-15 and their rocks, skateboards, and handguns stood no chance against his wellplaced shots, Brown said in a statement.

A similar argument was made by Lin Wood, who is representing the teen.

In this still image obtained from a social media video, a man is shot in his arm during unrest in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 25, 2020. (Brendan Gutenschwager/via Reuters)

In this still image, a man with a firearm, later identified as Kyle Rittenhouse, raises his hands up as he walks towards vehicles during a riot in Kenosha, Wis. on Aug. 25, 2020. (Brendan Gutenschwager/via Reuters)

A man is wounded by gunfire amid rioting in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 25, 2020. (@Louriealex/Instagram via Reuters)

A criminal complaint charging Rittenhouse with a number of crimes, including first-degree homicide, described video footage captured as the scene as showing the teen being chased by Jason Rosenbaum, a 36-year-old who a witness said was trying to take the teens gun, before fatally shooting the man.

Rittenhouse then took off running down the street. One male punched Rittenhouse, knocking his hat off. The teen kept running but soon tripped and fell to the ground.

A male jumped at and over the teen, prompting Rittenhouse to fire two shots. A second person, later named as Anthony Huber, approached with his skateboard and appeared to try to pull the gun away, according to the complaint. Rittenhouse fired again, appearing to strike Huber.

Gaige Grosskreutz, approaching Rittenhouse, was struck.

Huber and Rosenbaum died while Grosskreutz survived with a serious injury to his arm.

Rittenhouse is in custody in Illinois but wont be extradited to Wisconsin until at least Sept. 25.

Fundraisers for the victims remain up on GoFundMe, a popular fundraising platform that took down several pages for Rittenhouse.

Anthony Huber, left, in an undated photograph. (Help Hannah/GoFundMe)

Joseph Rosenbaum in an undated photograph. (DONATIONS for JoJo Rosenbaum/GoFundMe)

A fundraiser that remained live for the suspect on GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding website, had brought in over $264,000 as of Monday.

A spokeswoman for the website told The Epoch Times via email that the site is committed to giving both sides of the political culture in our society an equal chance to let their voices be heard and will not remove the campaign.

Brown told The Epoch Times in an email that his group has raised over $20,000 for Rittenhouse.

Woods organization, the #FightBack Foundation, is also raising funds for the teen. Wood said on Twitter that he is in charge of expenditures and two signatures are required for all payments.

College Republicans United, a student group at Arizona State University (ASU), is also taking donations that will be used to pay for Rittenhouses legal defense. It said it will send money to Woods foundation.

We do not condone the death of these individuals but take note that these are not model citizens, the group said of the three men who were shot, adding, Kyle Rittenhouse does not deserve to have his entire life destroyed because of the actions of violent anarchists during a lawless riot.

In a statement over the weekend, Joe Pitts, president of the universitys College Republicans, denounced the College Republicans United, calling them a radical, far-right extremist group masquerading as a club.

Pitts called for the college to investigate the splinter group.

Arizona State University said in a statement to news outlets: While there is no policy prohibiting student groups from raising funds for a cause such as this, ASU does not endorse or support this effort. ASU will be meeting with this student group to learn more about this decision.
HARTFORD  Gov. Ned Lamont plans to extend his coronavirus emergency powers for five more months after the Sept. 9 expiration date, until Feb. 9, and will soon make the announcement, he said Monday.

Lamont thought he had a deal with legislative leaders after emerging from a meeting early in the afternoon. But Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano and House Minority Leader Themis Klarides later said Democratic and Republican leaders need to discuss the issue further, and possibly vote on the extension within 72 hours of Lamonts announcement, as required by state law.

The confusing back-and-forth underscored the tension between legislators, especially Republicans, and the governors office over the role of the General Assembly in crafting the coronavirus rules. Most agree its not practical for lawmakers to manage the constantly evolving orders on public safety and the economy  how and whether bars can reopen, for example.

Still, they want a strong role and many want more opportunities for public input.

Leaders thought Feb. 9 was an appropriate time, Lamont said during his daily news briefing, about three hours after he met with leaders of the House and Senate. He said the timing would allow the next legislature to have met for a month or so.

The flap over extending the orders came on a day when the state once again announced strong numbers in keeping the virus under control, with less than 1 percent of the latest tests coming back positive  compared with more than 5 percent across the nation.

An extension of the public health and civil preparedness emergencies, which started March 9, does not require the approval of the full General Assembly. A 10-member group of legislative and committee leaders approved his initial six-month emergency declaration.

Emerging from a Capitol meeting room after a two-hour, closed-door session of leadership, Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz confirmed that Lamont was intent on extending the orders, which started March 9.

The governor has to still decide whether he will re-assert his emergency authority, and once thats answered then well talk, Aresimowicz said at about 2 p.m.. Based on what he said today, within the next couple days that decision should be reached.

Not so fast...

After Lamonts news conference, Fasano, R-North Haven, underscored the need for the leaders from both sides of the aisle to discuss it further.

It was never decided that any legislative leader would vote in favor of extending the governor's powers, Fasano said in a written statement. Republican legislative leaders made it very clear that we have serious concerns about expanding any emergency powers without also implementing a plan to give the public a voice in the process, which they have been entirely shut out of thus far.

Likewise, when leaders spoke with reporters in the Capitol after the midday meeting with Lamont, House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, said it makes sense for Lamont to soon extend the emergency, which has drastically changed life for state residents during the pandemic shutdown.

It would be logistically difficult to just say all of a sudden on September 10 everything goes back to pre-COVID, Klarides said. The original 10-member group, including committee chairmen of key legislative committees, is stacked with majority Democrats who support Lamont.

But later in the afternoon she said in an interview that the state is in much-different shape than back in March.

The governor is thinking in a very linear way, Klarides said. I think that is an all-or-nothing approach. When we started this, we were in a place we had never been before. It was necessary, in the beginning. Certainly were in a health pandemic, but the broadness of the orders have passed.

Klarides said big issues such as the ability of residents to sue nursing homes, prohibited under the orders, and the extension of bans on evictions until October, need to be examined by lawmakers.

The answer isnt all or nothing, Klarides said. A lack of transparency has been a hallmark of this administration...The Connecticut of September is different from the Connecticut of March.

Since March, when the governors executive powers began, Lamont has issued more than 90 separate orders, many of which contain multiple sections. They govern, for example, rules on social distancing and on how travelers from other states may visit Connecticut in the pandemic.

Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said that the September 9 date looms large. There would be nothing to prevent us from reopening if the order expires on that date, he said.

Lamont announced here were no new fatalities ove the weekend in the pandemic that has been linked to the deaths of 4,465 Connecticut residents since March 17. He reported a net reduction of eight patients for a total of 52 people hospitalized with COVID-19 statewide, down from 1,972 hospitalizations in April.

Electric grid regulation, police reform

With the next regular session of the legislature scheduled for the first week in January  after every member is either re-elected or replaced at the ballot box  some lawmakers have called for a special session in September. Leaders say the House and Senate may address issues with electric utility regulation that arose after the Aug. 4 tropical storm, and school construction bonding.

Some legislators and advocates say the police reform bill, enacted in the August special session, requires revisions. For example, police unions argue there are issues involving disciplinary records in the bill, which Lamont signed.

But legislative leaders said the issue of police accountability did not come up in the noon meeting with Lamont Monday, which was closed to the public and the media.

Some of the members want to do an energy bill in response to some of the issues that have been identified over the last storm, Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, said after emerging from a third-floor meeting room with other leaders after the two-hour session. I think theyre going to proceed with at least an informational hearing and putting a bill out there to gauge support, and then well meet with leaders and decide that.

Other general issues for a special session in September include the annual school-construction legislation; fees for state marshals; and possibly allowing condominiums to participate in the program to aid residents of eastern Connecticut with crumbling foundations due to an unstable mineral used in cement.

The General Assembly leaders will be communicating this week with members of the House and Senate, to check on schedules for a special session consisting of one day in the House and another in the Senate.

kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT
First-year Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Start Their College Experience

Beth Myers and Grace McDonald Photo: Syracuse University

Beth Myers and Grace McDonald Photo: Syracuse University

Samuel Clark Photo: Syracuse University

Samuel Clark Photo: Syracuse University

Syracuse, N.Y., Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- When Samuel Clark was looking at colleges, he had two criteriaa top film program and a path to success for students with disabilities. After he had narrowed his choices down to three options, InclusiveU at Syracuse University stood out for him.

Syracuse was really the top favorite for me, Clark says. I knew that it was going to be the one.

Clark will join the 95 students enrolled in InclusiveU this academic yearthe largest group since the initiative of the Lawrence B. Taishoff Center for Inclusive Higher Education began in 2014.

Weve grown drastically, says Beth Myers, assistant professor of inclusive education and executive director of the Taishoff Center. We plan to continue expanding to allow for more students in each incoming class.

Through InclusiveU, students with intellectual and developmental disabilities receive all the benefits of a Syracuse University education as they work toward a certificate in various areas of study, including sport management, food studies, broadcast digital journalism and biology. They are fully included with their peers as they take classes, attend campus activities and learn to be independent.

Syracuse University is seen as one of the best opportunities for an inclusive college experience, Myers says. Students are fully ingrained in all aspects of campus life, from joining organizations to living in the residence halls.

In 2019, InclusiveU boasted a 100% employment rate for graduates, compared to the national average of approximately 17% for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Our students really get to explore their own interests and work toward a career in that field, just like any other college student, Myers says.

Story continues

For Clark, it was important to be independent but close to his hometown in Pennsylvania as he made a new path forward. He knew he made the right decision when he learned he was accepted to the InclusiveU program. I felt really excited, Clark says. My parents were cheering with joy.

Clark plans to take classes in film, studio concept and acting as he works toward his goal of becoming a film director. Im excited about going to class, he says. I feel like I can definitely do this. Its going to be really hard work, but its OKits the next step of growing up.

Syracuse University is known all over the world as a leader in disability and higher education. Although InclusiveU is one of 20 model programs in the United States for transition and post-secondary programs for students with intellectual disabilities, being surrounded by a huge community of people who care about their success is what truly sets InclusiveU apart for students. And the campus community has seen firsthand how inclusion benefits everyone.

When you meet somebody who may look, act or communicate differently than you, or who has a different life experience than you, it can enrich everyones college experience, Myers says. When our students take classes, make friends, join clubs, and share real, meaningful experiences with their peers, there is a natural understanding that we all have something to contribute.

Through the Universitys online offerings to accommodate social distancing, InclusiveU has been able to reach and engage more students who may have barriers that prevent them from traveling to campus. We have students attending virtually this year because of the Universitys flexibility with online study, Myers says. This has been critical for students who need health supports during such a difficult time.

Setting students up with the support they need to be successful remains a top priority. Weve stepped up our advising process to make sure our students have a smooth transition to this new way of learning, Myers says.

First-year student Grace McDonald learned about the InclusiveU program at an annual event the program hosts. The State of the Art Conference on intellectual and developmental disabilities provides opportunities for colleges, universities, researchers, program staff, parents and self-advocates to learn about current research and practice in the field, and to network with each other. McDonald was thrilled to be accepted to the InclusiveU program. I was shocked, she says. I yelled and jumped up and down, I was so happy.

In August, both Clark and McDonald attended a virtual orientation as well as a residential first-year student orientation in which they were able to meet leadership staff and participate in activities while safely social distancing. Everyone has been nice, McDonald says. I am happy to be in the program.

This semester, McDonald is excited to take an inclusive entrepreneurship and design course through an interdisciplinary program in a partnership of the Blackstone LaunchPad & Techstars at SU Libraries, InclusiveU and the College of Visual and Performing Arts made possible by a donation by Gianfranco Zaccai 70, H09 and the Zaccai Foundation for Augmented Intelligence.

McDonald, who aspires to one day own a business, is feeling a bit nervous at the start of her first classes. It is going to be a lot of work, she says.

Despite any trepidation, McDonald is optimistic about this semester. She is eager to participate in Peer2Peer, a program in which InclusiveU students are paired with peer partners for additional support and encouragement. I am looking forward to making new friends, joining clubs and going to events, she says.

In the coming weeks, InclusiveU leadership staff will organize social events and provide support to ensure their students are benefiting from everything Syracuse University has to offer. As Myers welcomes the new and returning students, she says she is reminded how fortunate she is to participate in such a great initiative.

To meet a cohort of first-year students, full of ideas and nerves and excitementto watch them grow as individuals and go through all of the wacky and wonderful experiences of college, and know we will be there for themits just amazing. Im so grateful to be a part of this program.

--- By Shaina M. Hill

Attachments

CONTACT: Matt Michael Syracuse University 3152549037 mmicha04@syr.edu




New Delhi: Sushant Singh Rajput's sister Meetu Singh will be interrogated by the CBI for the first time today in the late star's death case. She is an important link in the case as Meetu was the one who had visited Sushant at his Mumbai home on June 8, the day on which his actress girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty left him.

Meetu stayed with Sushant for a few days. She reportedly left his home on or before June 13. She was also the first member from the family to be informed about Sushant's death.

Meetu as already recorded her statement with the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

As per sources, there is a list of some 31 important questions that the CBI would ask Meetu and these can also unravel the mystery pertaining to Sushant's death.

- What was the reason behind Sushant's call to you to come over to his house on June 8?

- Who all were present in the house when you reached? How was the environment like?

- Did Sushant, Siddharth Pithani or any member of the house tell you that Rhea has left home?

- Did anyone tell you about Rhea and Sushant's fight?

- Did you have any idea that Sushant was suffering from any mental discomfort for the last few days?

- Were you informed about the medicines Sushant took for relief?

- What was the conversation between

- From June 8 to June 13, what was your conversation with Sushant and the other members of the house?

- Did you speak to Rhea between June 8 to June 13?

- Did Sushant make any attempt to contact Rhea?

- What did Sushant mention about Rhea?

- Was Sushant disturbed about Rhea leaving the house?

- During this time, was Sushant under any mental stress or taking any medicines?

- Did Sushant speak to anyone in the family in this period?

- Did Sushant ever drink or smoke in front of you?

- What do you have to say about allegations that Sushant used to consume drugs?

- What was the environment at Sushant's home on June 13 before you left?

- What was your last conversation with Sushant?

- Did you have any conversation with Sushant, Rhea or any other family member after reaching home?

- At that time did you even feel that Sushant could take any major step like suicide in the next few hours?

- On the morning of June 14, when Sushant did not pick up your call, why did you immediately called Siddharth Pithani? Did you suspect something?

- Did you inform anyone from the family that Sushant is not opening his room door?

- Did you advise Siddharth Pithani to call a locksmith or break open the door?

- Who informed you about Sushant's death first?

- Who all were present at Sushant's home on June 14 when you arrived?

- Who called the police and the ambulance and when?

- Why did you go to Cooper Hospital with Sandip Ssingh?

- Do you know Sandip? Was he really a friend of Sushant?

- Why did you think there is a conspiracy behind Sushant's death?

- Why do you think Rhea is responsible for his death?

- Do you suspect anyone apart from Rhea? If yes, then why?
The government will



take all necessary precautions in view of COVID-19 pandemic to hold JEE and NEET examinations next month, state Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama said on Monday.

A total of 38,167 students are expected to appear for the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) for admission in engineering and pharmacy courses.

The test will be conducted by the Testing Agency (NTA) at 32 centres in 13 districts between September 1 and 6, Chudasama said in a statement.

He said the Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) orNEET (UG) will be held on September 13 at 214 centres in 10 districts, for which 80,290 candidates are expected to appear.

Chudasama and junior education minister Vibhavariben Dave on Monday held a virtual meeting with collectors, police, revenue and education officials from various districts regarding the exams.

"The state administration is ready to host JEE and NEET in a hassle-free manner amid pandemic scare. All collectors concerned have been asked to follow Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) laid down by the Centre about conducting such exams," Chudasama stated.

He said district authorities were also instructed to avoid crowding at test centres and to implement social distancing during the test.

Each student will be checked using a thermal gun at the time of entry to the examination centre, the minister said, adding that each exam centre will be completely sanitised before and after the test.

(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.)
(TNS) - With an influx in hospitalizations in Hawaii due to the surge in COVID-19 cases, health care officials have put out an urgent call for more nurses to assist.Hospitals are already short-staffed, said Daniel Ross, president of the Hawaii Nurses Association OPEIU Local 50 that represents approximately 4,000 members across the state. Its only going to get worse as time goes on, he said.Health care officials in the private, public and nonprofit sectors are collaborating on a multipronged initiative to bring more nurses in to the state to address the increasing caseload caused by the ongoing novel coronavirus outbreak.Within the past week, the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, the Hawaii State Center for Nursing and the state and federally authorized Hawaii Healthcare Emergency Management Coalition launched a recruiting campaign aimed at experienced nurses as well as recent nursing graduates.The state has waived licensing requirements under an emergency proclamation signed by Gov. David Ige to allow recent graduates to provide assistance in supporting roles such as screening and administrative work to free up experienced and qualified nurses to focus on COVID-19 patients.The Healthcare Association is a nonprofit trade organization that serves Hawaiis hospitals, skilled-nursing facilities and assisted-living facilities, home-care companies and hospices.>>Laura Reichhardt, director of the Hawaii State Center for Nursing, said it has received a vast response from available nurses and new graduates. We need their support and work immediately, she said.Hilton Raethel, president and chief executive officer of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, said it also activated the Hawaii Medical Reserve Corps in collaboration with the Hawaii Healthcare Emergency Management Coalition. Volunteers with the medical reserve corps, however, are available to help only for a few days at a time.Additionally, officials are contacting staffing agencies across the country to bring in travel nurses for short-term employment. The initiative presents a challenge because the nurses are in great demand throughout the U.S.Everybody is competing for travel nurses right now, said Mimi Harris, vice president of patient care and chief nursing officer at The Queens Health Systems.The Queens Medical Center alone is seeking an additional 40 to 60 nurses to care for patients in the areas of critical care, telemetry, medical/surgical units, emergency room and inpatient dialysis.Salaries are higher for a travel nurse compared to a staff nurse. Raethel said a nurse who resides in Hawaii could earn $3,000 a week at $75 an hour, compared to a traveling nurse, who may earn $4,800 a week at $120 an hour. The pay for traveling nurses is higher to cover travel and lodging expenses.Another initiative is seeking help from the federal government. Health care officials are currently preparing documents to seek federal assistance to bring 140 nurses and 12 respiratory therapists from the mainland. Raethel indicated Hawaii would first need to demonstrate that the state has exhausted all other efforts to acquire more nurses before tapping into federal resources.Were doing all the preparation now to put (in) a timely request, said Judy Kern, program manager of the Office of Public Health Preparedness at the Hawaii Department of Health.The Health Department would submit the request to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, which, if warranted, would then send the request on to the federal government.Raethel said the Healthcare Association of Hawaii is meeting daily with state health officials and federal partners to keep them apprised of the COVID-19 infection rate.The search for more nurses and respiratory therapists comes at a crucial time when daily new coronavirus case counts have remained in the triple digits for nearly a month.As of Friday, approximately 270 patients afflicted with COVID-19 were hospitalized at medical facilities throughout the state, according to Raethel. Of that figure, an estimated 90 are hospitalized at The Queens Medical Center at Punchbowl and about a dozen are at Queens-West Oahu.Officials say there is a sufficient number of beds  more than 3,000 statewide  to accommodate the surge in hospitalizations. However, on any given day, hospitals have a staff capacity to cover only 2,000 of those beds.Raethel noted hospitals were operating at full 100% staff capacity as of Aug. 21, which was the average capacity last year.As of Friday, hospitals were operating at 106% staff capacity, with 111 more patients needing care than the previous week. That means we have to find staff to take care of 111 more patients than what we normally take care of, Raethel said.So the dilemma is not the number of beds available but the staff needed to care for ill patients. What we dont have is staff, he added.Caring for patients with COVID-19 requires meticulous, time-consuming precautions and procedures when using personal protective equipment to prevent self-contamination.Ross said an unspecified number of nurses who are in quarantine because they tested positive for COVID-19 has contributed to the staffing shortage.Though he suspects most of the nurses who contracted the virus were infected while out in the community, Ross said, I guarantee that there some acquired at work. And even with proper personal protective equipment, there is still a risk of contracting the infectious disease.In addition to the 270 COVID-19 patients currently being treated at Hawaiis hospitals, nurses still need to take care of other patients with critical needs, such as individuals who suffered a heart attack or stroke.Ross said initiatives to bring in more nurses should have been done awhile ago. We need help, he said.He suggested to hospitals that they hire nurses who are currently working as a nurse aide or unit secretary because there were no available nursing jobs at the time they completed schooling. They could be hired as temporary registered nurses for a six-month period that could potentially turn into a permanent position based on their job performance, Ross said.He said the hospitals told him they would look into it.Health care leaders say bringing in more nurses is vital not only to care for patients but also to provide relief for the dedicated nurses who have been working long hours since the outbreak began.Carl Hinson, director of workforce development at Hawaii Pacific Health, the parent company of the Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children, Pali Momi Medical Center, Straub Medical Center and Wilcox Health on Kauai, said he has started to look into enlisting travel nurses because staff is working at a sustained high level.Travel nurses would give staff nurses time to recharge. There are so many heroes across the health care industry. People every day are going to work and knowing that disease is out there, Hinson said. Its just incredible to watch these teams do what they do every day.2020 The Honolulu Star-AdvertiserVisit The Honolulu Star-Advertiser at www.staradvertiser.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Theory suggests that quantum critical points may be analogous to black holes as places where all sorts of strange phenomena can exist in a quantum material. Now scientists are trying to pin down where this particular quantum critical point might be.

Among all the curious states of matter that can coexist in a quantum material, jostling for preeminence as temperature, electron density and other factors change, some scientists think a particularly weird juxtaposition exists at a single intersection of factors, called the quantum critical point or QCP.

"Quantum critical points are a very hot issue and interesting for many problems," says Wei-Sheng Lee, a staff scientist at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and investigator with the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES). "Some suggest that they're even analogous to black holes in the sense that they are singularities - point-like intersections between different states of matter in a quantum material - where you can get all sorts of very strange electron behavior as you approach them."

Lee and his collaborators reported in Nature Physics today that they have found strong evidence that QCPs and their associated fluctuations exist. They used a technique called resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) to probe the electronic behavior of a copper oxide material, or cuprate, that conducts electricity with perfect efficiency at relatively high temperatures.

These so-called high-temperature superconductors are a bustling field of research because they could give rise to zero-waste transmission of energy, energy-efficient transportation systems and other futuristic technologies, although no one knows the underlying microscopic mechanism behind high-temperature superconductivity yet. Whether QCPs exist in cuprates is also a hotly debated issue.

In experiments at the UK's Diamond Light Source, the team chilled the cuprate to temperatures below 90 kelvins (minus 183 degrees Celsius), where it became superconducting. They focused their attention on what's known as charge order - alternating stripes in the material where electrons and their negative charges are denser or more sparse.

The scientists excited the cuprate with X-rays and measured the X-ray light that scattered into the RIXS detector. This allowed them to map out how the excitations propagated through the material in the form of subtle vibrations, or phonons, in the material's atomic lattice, which are hard to measure and require very high-resolution tools.

At the same time, the X-rays and the phonons can excite electrons in the charge order stripes, causing the stripes to fluctuate. Since the data obtained by RIXS reflects the coupling between the behavior of the charge stripes and the behavior of the phonons, observing the phonons allowed the researchers to measure the behavior of the charge order stripes, too.

What the scientists expected to see is that when the charge order stripes grew weaker, their excitations would also fade away. "But what we observed was very strange," Lee said. "We saw that when charge order became weaker in the superconducting state, the charge order excitations became stronger. This is a paradox because they should go hand in hand, and that's what people find in other charge order systems."

He added, "To my knowledge this is the first experiment about charge order that has shown this behavior. Some have suggested that this is what happens when a system is near a quantum critical point, where quantum fluctuations become so strong that they melt the charge order, much like heating ice increases thermal vibrations in its rigid atomic lattice and melts it into water. The difference is that quantum melting, in principle, occurs at zero temperature." In this case, Lee said, the unexpectedly strong charge order excitations seen with RIXS were manifestations of those quantum fluctuations.

Lee said the team is now studying these phenomena at a wider range of temperatures and at different levels of doping - where compounds are added to change the density of freely moving electrons in the material - to see if they can nail down exactly where the quantum critical point could be in this material.

Thomas Devereaux, a theorist at SIMES and senior author of the report, noted that many phases of matter can be intertwined in cuprates and other quantum materials.

"Superconducting and magnetic states, charge order stripes and so on are so entangled that you can be in all of them at the same time," he said. "But we're stuck in our classical way of thinking that they have to be either one way or another."

Here, he said, "We have an effect, and Wei-Sheng is trying to measure it in detail, trying to see what's going on."

###

Ke-Jin Zhou of the Diamond Light Source co-led the experiments there, with cuprate samples provided by scientists at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan. Researchers from SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), which is a DOE Office of Science user facility; Stanford University; and Leiden University in the Netherlands also contributed to this research, which was funded by the DOE Office of Science.

Citation: Wei-Sheng Lee et al., Nature Physics, 31 August 2020 (10.1038/s41567-020-0993-7)

SLAC is a vibrant multiprogram laboratory that explores how the universe works at the biggest, smallest and fastest scales and invents powerful tools used by scientists around the globe. With research spanning particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, materials, chemistry, bio- and energy sciences and scientific computing, we help solve real-world problems and advance the interests of the nation.

SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.
Women need a special focus in the Morrison government's federal budget this October. This isn't an argument for political correctness but simply economic fact.

Australian women have, on average, been financially hurt by the coronavirus in a multitude of measurable ways. Part-time jobs and casual work, largely the realm of women, as well as frontline workers in aged care and health are among those doing it tough in 2020. That's not to mention childcare, a predominantly female industry, where workers have been cut off from JobKeeper early.

Childcare must be a core part of the federal government's budget this October. Credit:Peter Braig

The damage to the financial future of women will not be solved with just a traditional stimulus package.

The federal government has been clearly focused on infrastructure and development projects. Brilliant. We need it. Men have been hurt too during this downturn. But this is not the only answer to this crisis and so it should not be the only bright light the government offers up in October.
Industry data suggests that bulk of the SIP assets are less than three years old. Close to 65 per cent of assets are under the less than three years bucket, with 47 per cent of assets in the less than two years category. There have been instances where to chase higher returns or another asset class, investors have switched their SIPs and made new allocations, ...

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Digital Editor
On this weeks episode of Working, June Thomas spoke with writer Kurt Andersen, whose new book, Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America, was published on Aug. 11. They discussed his career path, how he came to write Evil Geniuses, and whether Spy magazine, which he co-founded and edited in the 1980s, could exist in the age of social media. This partial transcript of their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

June Thomas: If a stranger asked what do you do for a living, what would you say?

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Kurt Andersen: I would say Im a writer. Even when I was the host of a radio show and podcast for 20 years, Ive had writer on my passport. Its always seemed the correct thing and the thing that nobody could fire me from.

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Youre definitely a writer, but youve done a ton of other stuff too. Youve been a journalist. Youve written nonfiction books. Youve written novels. You edited New York magazine. You co-launched one of the great magazines of the late 20th century, Spy. You started the website Inside during the dot-com boom. You were the host of Studio 360 for 20 years. Have you always been conscious of wanting to mix things up, to not stay in your lane?

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I certainly have not stayed in a lane. Ive also worked in TV and written screenplays and done little stage things. It wasnt like I started out saying, I want to do so many things. I am a multidisciplinary person, but as things came up, and opportunities arose, and people I knew said, Hey, do you want to do this? Or, Have you ever thought about doing this? I said, Sure. They were always adjacent things to what I thought I knew how to do or had done. I didnt start writing novels until I was 44 years old. That, however, was something that, even as a child, I thought would be the brass ring. But I never thought of myself as somebody who would leap from this to this and try to do lots of different things.

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You have a new book out, Evil Geniuses, which you were writing while you were hosting Studio 360. When you were editing Spy, you were still writing your monthly Time magazine column about architecture. Are you a workaholic?

I certainly dont think of myself as a workaholic. I am ambitious. I really liked writing about design and being the architecture critic of Time magazine. It was a piece every few weeks, so why quit that while I was doing Spy? Also, Spy magazine was such an all-consuming, exhausting, scary, high-stakes, crazy adventure. It was nice to have this other thing that wasnt. It was a dependable thing I liked doing, and it was a nice paycheck. I could just write about buildings and things that I liked and why I liked them rather than Spy, which was, essentially, overseeing a staff of people finding out things they hate and figuring out why they should be hated.

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I am hugely nostalgic about Spy magazine. One of my happiest memories of that era is of sitting with my roommate, reading Spy, and laughing hysterically. What did you learn from that experience?

So much. I didnt think of myself as much of a risk taker before I did that. Saying, By God, were just going to do it, roll the dice and start this weird, eccentric magazine that lots of powerful people will hate. Screw it, well do it. And it worked. It worked the first time, so I learned to keep taking risks. When I was 44, and Id never finished and published a novel, I thought, let me try it.

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I was looking through Spy: The Funny Years, which is a more recent book that looks back at the magazine, and I saw that in your 1985 prelaunch vision of the magazine, you wrote the following sentence: The magazine will be almost thoroughly irreverent, often funny, and studded with inside information. Thats a very good description of how it turned out, but it made me wonder, could Spy have been launched or even have existed in 2020? Can you have a thoroughly irreverent magazine when some people or groups or positions are out of bounds, or in the age of social media?

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One of the strokes of luck of Spy was our timing. We started just a generation after the late 60s, so irreverence had seeped through the culture and become part of the establishment take. That was good for us. And the fact that we did it just before there was an internet was crucial. Our 200,000 then 300,000 subscribers really loved us. Most of them. The reason that was possible is because there was no internet. There were just a few channelsand by channels, I mean, magazines, book publishers, newspapers, TV networks, and so on. Doing this thing that none of them were doing, this month after month of funny journalism, got attention. If we did it well, we would be successful, and we were. We were the only game in town for a certain kind of manic, gleeful, connecting the dots, irony thing that just wasnt available anywhere else. Now its available in every third tweet. That enabled us to be successful then, and now, well, Gawker, a kind of a descendant of Spy, was put out of business because it pissed off powerful people, as we did, but they couldnt put us out of business the way they could Gawker.

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But social media is the big thing. Satire is always going to step toward and occasionally over the lines of appropriateness or offensiveness or whatever, its just going to, thats the nature of satire and comedy. Spy was a monthly magazine. If somebody thought, thats in poor taste, or thats too mean, what were they going to do about it? It wasnt possible to rile up a mob of offended people to take us down back in 1991.

To listen to the full interview with Kurt Andersen, subscribe to Working on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or listen below.
Nothing about remote education during the pandemic has proven easy  for students, teachers or parents. But for New York City and state residents who lack reliable, accessible or affordable internet service, remote learning was incredibly difficult. Now, even as some school districts finalize plans to send students back to the classroom for at least part of the time, families are grappling with the fact that online classes will continue for many students this fall.

While districts across the state have cobbled together short-term solutions to get all of their students connected to the internet, most of those plans fell short this spring, driving a wedge between the kids who had reliable access to a computer and high-speed internet, and those who did not. They may have had to share devices with their siblings, rely on a slower connection via Wi-Fi hot spots or cell service, or even receive instruction through paper packets distributed by the school.

And though districts are still working to get devices like iPads or Wi-Fi hot spots in the hands of kids who need them, some parents and advocates have doubts that remote learning will run any smoother this fall. Were starting out no better off than we were last March, despite everybody talking about the problem, and the governor saying, Well, we can do this now. Weve shown that we can operate from home and we ought to be expanding that, said David Little, executive director of the Rural Schools Association of New York State.

The state reported that 98% of residents and businesses in New York have broadband internet service, but high-speed internet access is harder to come by in rural parts of the state. The Federal Communications Commission reported that 87.1% of rural New York has broadband coverage  though many take issue with that calculation because the commission counted a census block as covered if even just one household had broadband access.

Were starting out no better off than we were last March.  David Little, Rural Schools Association of New York State

And while the existence of high-speed internet infrastructure isnt lacking as much in New York City, high prices mean that roughly 1.5 million New Yorkers dont have a home or mobile broadband connection. A 2019 report from New York City Comptroller Scott Stringers office found that about 44% of city residents in poverty lacked broadband access, and nearly one-third of Hispanic and Black New Yorkers lacked access, compared to about 20% of white residents.

For the students who are more likely to lack access to the tools needed for remote learning  including Black and Hispanic students, low-income families and students in rural parts of the state  another year of at least partially remote learning means the risk of falling even further behind. Of the roughly 337,000 students in New York City who have opted for full-time remote learning as of Aug. 24, about 37% are Hispanic, 20% are Black and 11% are white, though those numbers could change since students can opt for full-time remote learning at any point. Hispanic students make up roughly 41% of all public school students, Black students account for roughly 22% and white students account for 16%. As Chalkbeat New York reports, the data shows that New York City is mirroring a national trend of families of color being more skeptical of the return to the classroom. We know from a poll that we just did that two-thirds of Black, Latinx and low-income families will likely rely on remote learning, said Dia Bryant, deputy director at The Education TrustNew York, an advocacy group that focuses on low-income students and students of color.

There were already achievement gaps in New York schools that leave students of color less likely to graduate from high school in four years. Only 73% of students of color who started high school in 2012 graduated in four years, compared to 89% of white students, according to the state Education Department. Knowing the gaps that existed before the pandemic and thinking about that now, if we dont have remote learning right  these children actually stand to lose (the most), Bryant said.

Heres the problem: Getting remote learning right means correcting the long-standing digital divide that exists in New York  and across America. That divide cant be fully or equitably bridged by the short-term remote learning solutions that districts have come up with so far. As Little said, Providing internet access is not the business of a school district. Its not what they do.

That doesnt mean those districts arent trying. The New York City Department of Education undertook a massive effort this spring to distribute more than 300,000 internet-enabled iPads and other devices like Chromebooks to students in need. We know that a significant portion of instruction will happen remotely this fall, which is why weve distributed 175,000 school-based devices, lent 321,500 internet-enabled iPads with hot spots that allow up to five devices to connect to them, and accelerated broadband citywide, Danielle Filson, a city Education Department spokesperson, wrote in an email.(The last example refers to a commitment by Mayor Bill de Blasio in July to extend free or low-cost broadband service to 600,000 New Yorkers over the next year and a half.) Though it took weeks for some students to initially get their hands on those devices in the spring, the department prioritized distribution for students in homeless shelters.

Even though some lauded that effort  which cost the department more than $269 million  it failed to put all students on an even playing field. We know that theres been hiccups along the way, and we know that the city has done an enormous amount of work and effort to place equipment and technology in the hands of households and families that need it most, said Raysa Rodriguez, associate executive director for policy and advocacy at the Citizens Committee for Children of New York, a child advocacy group. But we also know that distance learning didnt work equally for all.

Some students also lacked adequate cellular service to take advantage of the LTE internet connection on the iPads. We heard about some students who were not able to connect at all and other students who were able to connect but the connection was very slow, said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children of New York, an education advocacy group that works primarily with low-income families. Unfortunately, if it takes you 20 minutes to download a three-minute video lesson, you might give up.

Distance learning didnt work equally for all.  Raysa Rodriguez, Citizens Committee for Children of New York

Rodriguez also said the primary way for parents to request a device in the spring was through an online survey on the departments website  something that some families werent able to do if they lacked internet access or a connected device. We rely too heavily on gathering information from families via surveys and other approaches that require equal access to the internet as well as the digital literacy skills to be able to engage in those approaches, she said.

Theres very little data available to determine just how many students remote learning failed to reach in the spring. The city reported that between April 6 and June 19, the daily average interaction rate for remote learning was 87%. But parents and teachers have criticized that statistic, noting that an interaction could be a student logging into a virtual classroom and walking away from the computer or even a parent sending an email to the teacher.

Other school districts in the state have tried to connect students to the internet, handing out school-owned devices or purchasing new ones for students to use at home. Some districts also sent out mobile Wi-Fi hot spots along with a tablet or Chromebook, so that the device could be connected to the internet. But because rural parts of the state lack not just affordable internet, but any internet connection at all, school districts sometimes had to get more creative. What we saw a tremendous amount of during the winter and spring was hot spots  cars parked in school parking lots with parents and kids, so that the kids could access the schools internet, Little said. Hospitals were giving out their Wi-Fi passwords so students could sit in their parking lots too, he said.

These solutions, of course, wont work for everyone. Relying on Wi-Fi hot spots in hospital or other parking lots requires a student to drive or be driven to that lot by a parent. As one July New York Times editorial put it: Doing schoolwork in the parking lot is not a solution.

If it takes you 20 minutes to download a three-minute video lesson, you might give up.  Randi Levine, Advocates for Children of New York policy director

Other times, a student might use his or her cellphone as a Wi-Fi hot spot, which can provide a much slower connection than high-speed broadband. When no tech solutions worked, school districts sent paper packets to students. Sometimes, the packets would be delivered on a bus, along with a students school lunch for the day. The bus would drop off a meal and a packet of information, Little said. We dont have any long-term or even short-term data on the amount of learning loss that took place over that time period. In these cases, students might not have any face-to-face contact with a teacher or peers during the day.

Some students did benefit from free broadband service offers from providers that included Charter Communications, Verizon Communications and Altice USA. Those companies offered a few months of free service to families with K-12 or college students, giving high-speed internet to some families who otherwise wouldnt have been able to afford it. But that fix was always going to be temporary.

On this front, students may actually be worse off ahead of the fall semester than they were in the spring. Those companies have so far not extended their offers of free broadband service, despite pressure from public officials to do so, though some companies offer reduced rates for qualifying low-income families. We need broadband companies to donate statewide and get out of the profit-making business during this period and make broadband free for every family that has distance learning and every school, state Sen. Shelley Mayer, who chairs the Education Committee, said during a City & State webinar this month. This idea that youre going to charge now in the middle of this pandemic, even a reduced fee, is ridiculous. This is a moment to do the patriotic thing and ensure everyone has broadband.

After the hardship that students experienced in the spring, the same students will likely be facing the same challenges this fall, with little changing in what options students have to get connected.

Like last year, New York City will loan students with internet-enabled iPads if they dont already have internet access. De Blasio said he will accelerate his Internet Master Plan, a $2.1 billion program announced in January to achieve universal broadband access. In July, de Blasio said the city will accelerate that plan and spend $157 million to expand broadband internet access to 600,000 New Yorkers  including 200,000 public housing residents  over the next year and a half. But even if it is completed in that time, New Yorkers will be unlikely to see any results from those efforts this year.

The primary way for parents to request a device was through an online survey  something that families werent able to do if they lacked internet access or a device.

New York City also announced it will have the capacity to supervise 100,000 students this year at learning labs, a child care program that will supervise young children of working parents at places like libraries. The program would also have the added benefit of providing a place to work for students without internet access. Rodriguez said spots in the program should be prioritized for students living in homeless shelters or temporary housing, but there are few details on how those learning labs will work or who will have access to them. City Hall did not respond to a request for comment about how the child care program will work.

For school districts in the state that will be operating remotely at least part time this fall, little has changed for their disconnected students. For the most part, school districts will rely on the same short-term solutions  handing out Chromebooks and Wi-Fi hot spots, for example  that fell short for some students in the spring.

Rochester City School District, which will be remote for the first 10 weeks of classes, will distribute laptops and personal Wi-Fi hot spots, but county legislators have objected to that solution, saying the connection offered by hot spots is too slow. At Yonkers Public Schools, which recently delayed plans for in-person instruction until October, officials have acknowledged that paper packets may need to be distributed to students who dont have the necessary technology or internet access.

The summer has afforded some schools more time to purchase devices for their students. Mark Davey, district superintendent at the Champlain Valley Board of Cooperative Educational Services, told City & State that North Country districts were able to purchase additional laptops and Chromebooks in preparation for the fall.

New York state has largely left these decisions up to individual school districts. The state Education Departments reopening guidance required individual districts to determine the level of internet access that students and teachers have at home, and address that need to the extent practicable and provide information technology support to students, parents and staff. Little, the executive director of the Rural Schools Association of New York State, said that as schools face 20% cuts in state aid, the task of equipping all students with the means to access remote learning cant fall on school districts alone.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo convened a Reimagine Education Advisory Council in the spring to come up with innovative ways to incorporate technology in education, while the state Education Departments reopening task force studied the issues posed by remote learning. Everybody came to the same conclusion: Damn, we better get some internet access out to kids that dont have it, Little said. But it doesnt happen overnight, and when the state doesnt have any resources to put behind that effort, all they can really do is double down on the threats theyve made to providers who have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is no emergency for them.

Cuomo also recently approved $94 million in school technology upgrades through the Smart Schools Bond Act, a $2 billion initiative that was approved in 2014 to invest in classroom technology and broadband connectivity. But that program existed before the pandemic and doesnt represent a new source of funding.

Theres not much debate that in 2020  and during the pandemic especially  internet access is a necessity. In part because of the challenges many students faced with remote learning, some state lawmakers said they support regulating broadband like a public utility  a move that could hold internet providers accountable for expanding service to where its needed most. I think broadband is going to remain a problem unless we find ways to significantly subsidize it, or make it a standard utility, said Bryant, of The Education TrustNew York. State Sen. Jen Metzger and Assembly Member Sean Ryan  sponsors of a recently passed bill that would require the Public Service Commission to conduct a detailed study of broadband availability in the state  have bothexpressed interest in treating broadband like a public utility. Last year, Cuomo vetoed a bill that would have studied the feasibility of a state-owned and operated internet service in New York, saying that it was well-intentioned but too expensive to complete.

In the meantime, state and local governments can subsidize the expansion of broadband service  as de Blasio plans to do  but the results of those efforts likely wont offer immediate benefits to help students with online classes this year. Not to mention the fact that state and local governments, facing major budget deficits, will be unlikely to make a huge investment in that effort anytime soon.

Bryant, however, remained hopeful that if lawmakers commit to creating equal access to education for students on the margins, universal internet access will eventually be a part of that solution. I think that if students (from) Black, Latinx and low-income families become a priority in the way were thinking about policies, theres no way that it cant, Bryant said. To not give access is a disservice.
Curtis Hicks/CBC

Many Syrian immigrant families in Newfoundland and Labrador are packing their bags and heading for greener pastures  a result of lack of opportunity within the province doubled by the squeeze on the job market caused by the ongoing pandemic, says a leader of the community.

At least 10 Syrian families have left in the last two months, with many more also considering the move, according to Khaled Alsharif, who has a family of 17. He has been in the province since late 2015 and spoke to CBC News through a translator on Friday.

Alsharif estimates about 10 people make up each family that has left.

Originally from Lebanon and now a Canadian citizen, Alsharif said he plans to leave for Toronto within the next year. He said he hasn't been able to find a steady job in St. John's and prefers to contribute to the community rather than rely on social assistance. He also wants more opportunity for his growing family, now with grandchildren.

"His profession, there's a lot of work for him there. ... [There are] more opportunities, more diversity there," said Yamen Shahwan, Alsharif's translator.

"Since the beginning, he didn't want to leave here because he feels like he's bringing diversity into Newfoundland society. Before him moving here not a lot of people knew about Arab traditions and the way they have their gatherings and stuff. So he feels like it would be a big loss."

Syed Pirzada, president of the Muslim Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, told CBC News he has seen a revolving door of immigrants come through the province over the last few decades.

Many, like Alsharif, tend to look at larger job markets outside of the province after staying for only a short period of time, he said.

Curtis Hicks/CBC

"I came 22 years, and the first thing I was asked was the same thing. 'When are you leaving?," Pirzada said.

"I feel that if anybody comes to Newfoundland, if they stay here for four-to-five years, they will definitely stay. But if in the first five years they cannot find their footing, they will probably start planning to leave because everybody has to live their life and everybody has to bring their family and put food on the table."

Story continues

Pirzada said many who immigrate to Newfoundland and Labrador are already skilled workers, but the difficult challenge is having their skills recognized ahead of applying for a job.

"I think when they go to [the] mainland, even if their job skills are not recognized they do find jobs. Maybe there are jobs [here], but still there are still much more opportunities for them [there.]"

The outmigration of immigrant families from Newfoundland and Labrador comes despite Premier Andrew Furey's pledge to attract new families and also keep them here long-term to balance the province's aging population and what will become a vacant labour market.

Furey's cabinet consists of a newly minted Department of Immigration.

Read more articles from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
Among active duty military members, 6 per cent more say they would cast their ballot for Democratic candidate Joe Biden than for President Donald Trump in November, a new poll revealed Monday.

In the Military Times/Institute for Veterans and Military Families survey, 43.1 per cent of active duty military said they would vote for Biden over the 37.4 per cent who said they would vote for the current Commander in Chief.

Public perception usually lends itself to considering active duty military and veterans as leaning right on several issues, including Second Amendment rights, Veterans Affairs and national security.

About 40 per cent surveyed identified as Republican or Libertarian, 16 per cent say they are Democrats and 44 per cent independent or another party.

A new poll released Monday shows more active duty troops plan to vote for Democratic candidate Joe Biden than President Donald Trump in November

The Military Times poll showed 43.1 per cent of active duty military plan to vote for Biden, 37.4 per cent for Trump and 13 per cent for a third-party candidate

The poll was taken July 27 - August 10  before the Democratic and Republican nominating conventions earlier this month  and surveyed 1,018 active duty troops.

A similar poll was conducted by Military Times shortly before the 2016 election that showed Trump leading Democratic challenger Hilary Clinton by a 41 per cent to 21 per cent margin among active duty military.

Trump, however, had major firepower in his rally speech against former Secretary of State Clinton that struck home military personnel  Benghazi.

The current poll also shows Trumps popularity among American troops have dropped.

Half of respondents, 49.9 per cent, have an unfavorable view of the president compared to the 37.8 per cent who have a favorable view of Trump.

Enlisted military members across all branches have a 12 per cent higher favorability of the president than officers with a margin of 47.1 per cent to 59.1 per cent.

The poll has a 2 per cent margin of error.

A similar poll taken in 2016 showed that Trump was beating then-Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton by a margin of 41 per cent to 21 per cent. But she was widley unpopular among military and veterans due to her involvement as Secretary of State in Benghazi

Thirteen per cent of respondents said they plan to vote for a third-party candidate in November  while 9 per cent say they are skipping out on the general election altogether.

The 2016 poll, which was conducted in October of that year, showed 34 per cent of troops surveyed planned to vote for a third-party candidate  but exit polls after the election showed only about 5 per cent of military personnel and veterans voted third-party.

Trumps popularity has depleted with this voting bloc during his time in office especially due to his continual involvement in Department of Defense affairs, including speaking against his own military advisers.

His decision to go against the grain of Pentagon advice even led to then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis ending his tenure with the Trump administration.
Iran FM: 'All options on table' means law of jungle, should wake Americans up

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 4:52 PM

Iran's foreign minister says the "all options on the table" threat, which has been a hallmark of the US policy toward other countries, is now being used against citizens of the US itself, expressing hope that this would serve as a "wake-up call" for the Americans.

Mohammad Javad Zarif made the remarks in reaction to statements by acting US Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf who told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that "all options continue to be on the table" to end violent protests in Portland, Oregon, including sending in federal law enforcement assistance.

He described Washington's frequently-used "all options on the table" threat as a "staple" of the country's foreign policy, which "simply means the law of the jungle: disregard for a fundamental principle of int'l law: Non-Use of Force."

Zarif's tweet also contains an innuendo to the fact that American officials have frequently used the sentence in an implicit threat of military force against Iran.

The top Iranian diplomat emphasized that the regime of US President Donald Trump is now "using the same threat" against the American people.

"A wake-up call? God willing," Zarif said.

Portland has been the scene of angry protests against police injustice and racial discrimination since May, when George Floyd, a black American, was killed by a white police officer in Minnesota.

Tensions in the city intensified in July after the Trump administration deployed federal agents to crack down on the protests.

On Saturday, one person was killed after clashes broke out between Black Lives Matter protesters and supporters of Trump, which is blamed for a rise in racism.

The New York Times reported that supporters of Trump and counter-protesters engaged in skirmishes on the streets, with people shooting paint ball guns from the beds of pickup trucks and protesters throwing objects back at them.

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Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 31 : Onam festivities in Kerala began on a sour note with the killing of two activists attached to the youth wing of the CPI-M. They were hacked to death by a group of five people. The dead include 24-year-old Haq Mohammed and 32-year-old Mithilaj .

The incident occurred on Sunday night, at Venjaramoodu, about 25 kms from the state capital suburbs. Four suspects are now in police custody. While the top CPI-M leadership including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan condemned the twin murder and ordered a probe into it, the Congress said their party has no role in it, which the local police too have now confirmed.

The incident occurred close to midnight when the two deceased who were travelling on a bike, were stopped and attacked by five people who came on two bikes. While Mithilaj died on the spot, Mohammed died at the hospital.

Chief minister Vijayan wrote on Facebook that all those behind these brutal murders would be arrested and the reason behind the gruesome killings will be unravelled. CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said on Thiru Onam day, the Congress party has created a floral carpet with blood.

"Two youths have been brutally murdered and this is the outcome of a conspiracy of the Congress party. We demand all those behind this should be arrested," said Balakrishnan.

But Leader of opposition Ramesh Chennithala said that the Congress party has no role in the killings. "The ruling CPI-M is trying to create a smokescreen over this incident. The Congress party has no role in this and the CPI-M wants to use this episode to cover up their failures in governance and want to use this for political reasons," said Chennithala.

Meanwhile a top police official said that this was an incident which happened following a personal rivalry that has been going on for a while. In a related incident, angry youth wing members of the CPI-M clashed with Youth Congress activists sitting on a protest in front of the Public Service Commission.

The police swung into action and managed to defuse the situation and in the melee, youths from the rival factions suffered injuries.
FLAGSTAFF  The brother of a onetime U.S. Air Force airman charged with murder has entered a plea agreement in a separate but related case that would spare him any time behind bars.

Samuel Gooch pleaded guilty on Aug. 25 to a reduced charge of facilitation to commit hindering prosecution, which carries a maximum of two years in prison. Under the agreement with prosecutors, Gooch would receive probation.

Samuel Goochs attorney, Joshua Davidson, said he would reserve any comment on the resolution of the case until after the Oct. 5 sentencing.

The prosecution didnt immediately respond to requests for comment.

Authorities had accused Gooch of flying to Arizona from Wisconsin in early May to pick up what he thought was the rifle used in the shooting of 27-year-old Sasha Krause.

Davidson recently sought to have the indictment against Gooch dismissed or the case sent back to the grand jury because he argued a charge of attempting to hinder prosecution was based on actions in another county. That became moot after Davidson told the court the parties agreed to resolve the case without a trial.

Goochs younger brother, Mark Gooch, has pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges in the death of Krause. In mid-January, the 27-year-old woman disappeared from a Mennonite community where she lived and taught Sunday school near Farmington. Her body later was found in the forest outside Flagstaff.

Mark Gooch, who was stationed at Luke Air Force Base in metropolitan Phoenix, is in jail. But he recently asked the court to set bail after the deadline passed for prosecutors to seek the death penalty in his case.
A man has been charged with murder after a 37-year-old was found dead in a park in north east London.

The body of Yassar Mustakim Moussa was discovered in St James Park, Walthamstow, last week.

A member of the public called the emergency services just after 1.30pm after Mr Moussa was found unresponsive.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

A post-mortem examination found his official cause of death to be a stab wound to the neck.

Richard Hand, 42, of Falmouth Way, Walthamstow, was charged with murder on Sunday, Scotland Yard said.

He will appear at Thames Magistrates' Court on Monday.
Pupils could be excluded for malicious coughing or sneezing or making inappropriate jokes about the coronavirus pandemic, a school has warned.

And at a second school, any pupil refusing to follow hygiene routines and social distancing will immediately be moved to a separate area, leaders say.

The Ark Alexandra Academy in Hastings, east Sussex, set out a list of coronavirus red lines that will result in fixed-term exclusions for pupils breaching them.

The academy says humorous, inappropriate comments or statements related to Covid-19 and purposeful physical contact with any other person are off-limits and will risk the child being sent home.

Deliberate or malicious coughs or sneezes will lead to the same punishment, pupils and parents are being warned.

Scientists say coronavirus spreads particularly through coughing and sneezing, which release respiratory droplets that carry the virus further than just breathing.

In a letter to parents, Jerome Scafe, network associate principal of the academy, wrote: Any student that needs to have a fixed-term exclusion during the pandemic will not return to main circulation until a risk assessment and we can be assured that the student will adhere to all our expectations.

Schools are preparing to welcome children back into their classrooms in England this week and next.

Under government plans, a rota system limiting numbers of pupils attending schools could be implemented in local lockdowns.

Meanwhile, Ark Byron Primary Academy in Acton, west London, part of the same group as the Ark Alexandra, said in its letter to parents that if a pupil refuses to follow hygiene routines and social distancing instructions they will immediately be moved to a separate area.

It wrote: Some behaviours (eg coughing deliberately on another person) that were previously simply anti-social are now potentially extremely serious.

The Department for Education (DfE) said pupils bad behaviour could worsen because of a lack of regular attendance and classroom discipline during the pandemic.

Recommended People to be jailed for coughing on emergency workers

The department said schools should clearly state the consequences for bad behaviour, particularly around new movement restrictions and hygiene rules.

In updated guidance for schools, it wrote: It is likely that adverse experiences or lack of routines of regular attendance and classroom discipline may contribute to disengagement with education upon return to school, resulting in increased incidence of poor behaviour.

The department added that schools should work with pupils who may struggle to re-engage by providing them with support for overcoming barriers to attendance and behaviour and to help them re-integrate back into school life.

A survey by the National Association of Head Teachers found that 97 per cent of schools plan to welcome back all pupils at the start of the autumn term.
Locked in a hyper-partisan presidential election-year stalemate, the largely do-nothing Congress has at least managed to pass legislation that will help steer veterans with mental health and substance abuse problems to court-supervised treatment programs instead of jail. We applaud this important criminal justice reform.

Recently, President Donald Trump signed the bipartisan Veteran Treatment Court Coordination Act of 2019 (HR 886), which requires the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Veterans Affairs to establish a federal Veterans Treatment Court Program, which will provide federal grants and technical assistance to enable state, local, and tribal governments to develop and maintain veterans treatment courts.

With this new law, thousands more veterans across the country facing the criminal justice system will have an alternative to jail time, ensuring they get the treatment they need, said Rep. Charlie Crist, DFlorida, who introduced the bill back in 2017 with Rep. Elise Stefanick, RNew York. The bill was co-sponsored by local Virginia Representatives Rob Wittman, R1st, and Abigail Spanberger, D7th.

The new federal program, along with a $30 million appropriation to fund it, will support existing veterans courts at the state and local level that give troubled veterans accused of non-violent crimes a second chance to successfully transition back to civilian life.

A study published in 2018 by the National Institutes of Health found that the concept works: The one-year recidivism rate for veteran court participants was nearly half that of other offenders.

The Rappahannock Veterans Docket, presided over by Spotsylvania Circuit Court Judge Ricardo Rigual, allows veterans charged with misdemeanors and non-violent felonies who are suffering from substance abuse, depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of their military service to enter a plea to have their charges reduced or expunged if they successfully complete an 18-month treatment program that includes mentoring, counseling and other support.

Those who fail to complete the program are required to serve their full sentences in jail.

The docket, which was started in Spotsylvania by Rigual, state Sen. Bryce Reeves, RSpotsylvania, and public defender Wendy Harris, has also accepted veterans facing criminal charges in Fredericksburg, Stafford and King George counties. Daniel Cortez, chairman of the Stafford County-based National Vet Court Alliance, which lobbied for passage of the federal bill, says his group is working to expand the concept to every county in the nation.

In Virginia, we have seven [veterans court] dockets and seeing how 700,000 veterans are in some phase of the criminal justice system, and 20 to 22 vets a day are still committing suicide, this bill will literally save lives, Cortez said. The alliance is also soliciting donations to help provide clothing, meals and transportation for veterans who are accepted in the local program.

The U.S. has a moral obligation to take care of those who fought to defend it. But this obligation has not always been met.

Providing a second chance for veterans who returned home from war with invisible wounds is a small, but important repayment of that overdue national debt.

The (Fredericksburg) Free Lance-Star
If you have concerns about the environment, homeless veterans, and the pandemic, youre not alone. Members of Netflixs Queer Eye bring up questions during a fundraising video for United States presidential candidate, Joe Biden.

Learn more about this upcoming grassroots campaign featuring Jonathan Van Ness and the rest of the Fab Five here.

Jonathan Van Ness, of the Netflix series Queer Eye, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) | Scott Olson/Getty Images

The Fab Five is raising money for a grassroots campaign with Jill Biden

These fashion, culture, and food experts are taking their activism to Joe Bidens presidential campaign. Recently, the Fab Five from Netflixs original series, Queer Eye, teamed up with the democratic nominee to raise some questions for voters.

Do you care about ending this pandemic? food and wine expert, Antoni Porowski, asked. Do you care about homeless veterans, about the environment? culture expert, Karamo Brown, said.

Fashion expert, Tan France, weighs in asked, Trans lives? Black lives? before Jill Biden said, Do you want to make life better for us teachers?

These Queer Eye hosts asked fans to join them in a grassroots fundraiser for Joe Biden, with Jonathan Van Ness encouraging viewers to donate whatever they can.

The Queer Eye experts posted their message to social media

According to the video, this grassroots fundraiser takes place on Sept. 1 and features members of the Biden family, as well as the Emmy award-winning hosts of Netflixs Queer Eye.

Within a few hours of being posted, the snippet earned thousands of likes from fans of the Fab Five. Some of the Queer Eye hosts even re-posted it onto their own accounts, with Jonathan Van Ness commenting, cant wait! on the original video.

RELATED: Heres What Queer Eye Fans Are Saying About The Mini-Series, Queer Eye: Were In Japan!

Jonathan Van Ness originally endorsed Elizabeth Warren

Many of the members of the Fab Five are vocal about their political beliefs on social media, especially Jonathan Van Ness. In addition to donating to her campaign, Van Ness joined Elizabeth Warren along her campaign trail, officially endorsing the Senator during September 2019.

According to CNN, Van Ness participated in a Community of Pride event with Joe and Jill Biden and actor Billy Porter. The Fab Five also spent time with U.S. Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez while they were in Washington D.C.

For Tan France, who previously had citizenship in the U.K., he recently became a United States citizen, meaning he can vote in the upcoming election. Earlier this August, France announced his support of Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, posting his endorsement on Instagram.

Even recent episodes of Queer Eye held a political undertone, taking place in the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia. There, they made over a climate change activist and even a pastor in the LGBTQ+ community.

Fans can watch episodes of this Emmy Award-winning reality series on Netflix. To learn more about the Fab Fives campaign with Joe Biden and Jill Biden, visit the presidential nominees website or his social media platforms.

RELATED: RuPaul, Billy Porter, and Other Celebrities Featured in Taylor Swifts You Need To Calm Down  Music Video
Kaycee Madu, the Nigerian lawyer recently named minister of justice in Alberta, a Canadian province, says he looks forward to a day when appointments are based on hard work and merit in Nigeria.

Mr Madu, also known as Kelechi, relocated to Canada with his wife in 2005. At that time, he had graduated from the University of Lagos with a law degree and had been called to the Nigerian bar.

Before his recent appointment, he was a member of the legislative assembly of the province representing the district of Edmonton-South West after winning the 2019 Alberta general election.

On April 30, 2019, he was appointed to the Executive Council of Alberta as the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

Premier Jason Kenney, in his address, said the appointment of Mr Madu, who is the first black man to be given such an opportunity, makes a powerful statement at a time when Albertans have grown more sensitive to racial prejudice.

However, in appreciation of the support coming from Nigeria and Nigerians in the Diaspora, Mr Madu stated that he anticipates the day when Nigeria and Africa become places where hard work and merit are rewarded.

Speaking with the British Broadcasting Corporations (BBC) Newsday, he said hard work and good work ethics earned him the new appointment.

I have always said if you work hard and play by the rules, you can achieve your dream and that is so true in Canada and certainly so true in Alberta. I have always said that my story could only have been possible in my province of Alberta because in Alberta, it doesnt matter where you come from. It doesnt matter the colour of your skin. What is important is your work ethic.

When asked if he would have attained that feat if he was in his motherland, the minister said: You know, I love my home country Nigeria, but there is no question that I look forward to the day when my fellow countrymen and women in that country can achieve their god-given potential regardless of the part of the country where they come from and regardless of who their parents are.

He also corroborated the Premiers statement on his appointment, noting that black people all over the world yearn for justice equality and the ability to pursue their God-given potentials.

READ ALSO:

I do have a tremendous opportunity to make sure that we use the vehicle of the justice system to ensure that people are able to live their lives. In a way that allows them to achieve their god-given potential there is no question, he said.

Speaking further, he restated Canadas immigration policy which he termed friendly to legal immigrants including Nigerian citizens.

We have been a nation that has been welcoming immigrants throughout our history and there is no question that if anyone from the continent once they come through legal means, they are welcome to Canada.
Rajkummar Rao's First Film Memory

In an interview with Mansworld India, the actor recalled, "I think it's Agneepath. I saw it with my family and I was so engrossed in that film. I remember I was howling into my pillow when Vijay Dinanath Chauhan dies in the end. I was really young, but I got really involved with the film and the performances."

Rajkummar Rao's Favourite Three Films

The actor once revealed in an interview that Forrest Gump, Godfather 2 and Andaz Apna Apna are the three films which he can watch over and over again.

When Rajkummar Rao Spilled Three Things About Him

"A lot of people think I'm married - I'm not. People think I'm from Hyderabad because my surname's Rao. I'm from Gurgaon. And lastly, I'm not always a serious guy, I can be funny and chilled out as well," the actor was quoted as saying in an interview.

Rajkummar Rao On The Book Which Shaped His Identity

The actor told HT Brunch in an interview, "It was Robert De Niro's biography. I wasn't a voracious reader before that but that book gave me a new perception towards acting." Further, Rao revealed that Saadat Hasan Manto, Ayn Rand and Walter Isaacson are his three favourite authors.

A Film Rajkummar Rao Wanted To Be A Part Of

The Stree actor has always confessed that he is a big fan of Shah Rukh Khan. In fact, he had even revealed that when he first landed in Mumbai, he stood outside King Khan's residence Mannat for 6-7 hours to catch a glimpse of his superstar. In an interview when Rao was asked to name a film he wished he was a part of, the actor said, "I would like someone to remake Swades with me." Well, we believe Rajkummar Rao with his stellar acting chops, would impress us as Mohan Bhargav just like how SRK did! What do you folks think?
Plymouth, Massachusetts--(Newsfile Corp. - August 31, 2020) -Plymouth Rock Technologies Inc. (CSE: PRT) (OTCQB: PLRTF) (FSE: 4XA) (WKN: A2N8RH) ("Plymouth Rock", "PRT", or the "Company") a leader in the development of cutting-edge threat detection technologies, is pleased to announce that it has produced definitive images of infrastructure corrosion utilizing its prototype MiRIAD Sensor system.

"Rust and corrosion changes the way a material reflects millimeter-waves, allowing areas of damage to be seen, even when concealed beneath paint, insulating foam or other lagging materials," stated Professor Stuart Harmer, Chief Scientific Advisor to PRT. "This breakthrough will result in the reduction of capital and maintenance costs for many industries."

The images below show that once impossible to detect corrosion through paint, now becomes visible using PRT's proprietary MiRIAD technology.





Image 1



To view an enhanced version of this image, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/5702/62833_plymouthfig1enhanced.jpg

"These visible results of the MiRIAD Sensor deliver another significant milestone for the both the PRT team, and the future for non-destructive testing industry," stated Dana Wheeler, President and CEO. "As assured to our customers and shareholders, our team is delivering clear and understandable scientific results."

This technology is being adapted for drone and robotic deployment. This will provide a new and more importantly, low-cost capability for detecting civil and military aircraft fatigue, tanker and naval vessel corrosion, pipeline safety for oil and gas installations and infrastructure/bridge fatigue. PRT also believes that safe, passive detection will ultimately be applied to medical skin analysis for burns and next generation walk through detection for modern airports.

About Plymouth Rock Technologies Inc.

We are on a mission to bring engineering-driven answers to the most critical problems that threaten our safety. We work with government, law enforcement and military to innovate solutions for national security, defense and space systems.

The Company is developing the next generation of threat detection solutions, The PRT X1 is a purpose built multirotor Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). The unit contains an integrated sensor package that combines Thermal detection with 4K HD real-time air-to-ground streaming. Our advanced threat detection methods fuse artificial intelligence with augmented reality interfaces to eliminate human operating error. Plymouth Rock products, both airborne and land-based, will scan for threat items at greater "stand-off" distances than current existing technologies. Our unique radar imaging and signal processing technology creates new opportunities for remotely operated, non-intrusive screening of crowds in real time.

Plymouth Rock's other core technologies include: (1) A Millimeter Remote Imaging from Airborne Drone ("MIRIAD"); (2) A compact microwave radar system for scanning shoe's ("Shoe-Scanner").

www.plyrotech.com

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Dana Wheeler

President and CEO

+1-603-300-7933

info@plyrotech.com

Investor Information:

Tasso Baras

+1-778-477-6990

Forward Looking Statements

Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding future financial position, business strategy, use of proceeds, corporate vision, proposed acquisitions, partnerships, joint-ventures and strategic alliances and co-operations, budgets, cost and plans and objectives of or involving the Company. Such forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to management. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "predicts", "intends", "targets", "aims", "anticipates" or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. A number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause the actual results or performance to materially differ from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. These forward - looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company including, but not limited to, the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions and dependence upon regulatory approvals. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/62833
Ed Tech Trends

Philly Program Targets 35,000 Students for Digital Connectivity

A public-private partnership in Philadelphia will help up to 35,000 students in low-income households acquire computing devices and internet access. "PHLConnectED,"as the program is called, will also provide digital skills training and tech support for families, in time for the start of school.

The district decided to begin all students online through Nov. 17. Then, as a reopening plan explained, it will "transition to a mix of in-person and digital learning as long as guidance from the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and other indicators support that it is safe to do so."

Recipients will receive:

Free wired, high-speed internet to the home from Comcast's Internet Essentials program, or a high-speed mobile hotspot for families who are housing-insecure or need a portable option;

Devices, such as Chromebooks, tablets or computers, which have been acquired by the school district, charter school or private funds; and

Free skills training and tech support for household members, to help them understand how to take advantage of the internet.

Current project sponsors include:

"The digital divide is an inequity that presents a significant barrier to our goal of helping all students in every neighborhood reach their full academic potential," said William R. Hite, Jr., superintendent of the school district, in a statement. "So, we...are pleased to see the city, legislators and business leaders come together to launch PHLConnectED, a program we believe can close the divide and allow for all students to have the access they need, especially now as we prepare for 100 percent digital learning to start the 2020-2021 school year next month."

Eligible households will be contacted by their schools directly via mail, email, calls and texts. This phase of the project will cost $17.1 million over two years. Philanthropic partners have donated $11 million; the city is contributing $2 million from CARES Act funding; and the remaining costs will be shared among the district and schools.

Mayor Jim Kenney added that PHLConnectED is a launchpad effort that serves as stage one of the city's larger ambition. "Our goal is to identify and implement affordable, simple and reliable digital access solutions for all our residents," he said. "By focusing on K-12 student households now, we can have an immediate impact in bridging the digital divide, especially to support distance learning for the upcoming school year."
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed an appeal brought against the re-election of Yahaya Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and affirmed him the governor of Kogi State.

The appeals were filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Musa Wada, and Social Democratic Party and its candidate, Natasha Akpoti

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Mr Bello as the winner of the governorship election held in November 2019.

But in a unanimous judgement on Monday, a seven-member panel of the apex court led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Tanko Mohammed, held that the appeal lacks merit and subsequently dismissed it.

The court was yet to rule on Ms Akpotis appeal, as of the time of filing this report.
By Gwynne Dyer



In twenty years of writing about Russia's President Vladimir Putin  he was completely obscure before 1999  I have never before had reason to mention him and Saint Thomas a Becket in the same sentence. Finally, however, the time has come.



Finnish President Sauli Niinisto phoned the diminutive Russian strongman at the behest of German Chancellor Angela Merkel Aug. 20 and assured him that he was not a suspect in the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The goal, of course, was to persuade Putin to let Navalny be flown to Germany for treatment.



Niinisto is clearly a persuasive man, because Putin agreed. (Did Putin know how long various poisons remain in the body? Hard to say. He was only in the KGB for 16 years.) Indeed, Putin even promised to "get the rat behind this." Which sounds a bit like a Cosa Nostra godfather on a bad day, but at least the man wants to see justice done.



So you can see why the late Thomas a Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, sprang instantly to my mind. Putin's position is rather similar to that of England's King Henry II, who ordered the assassination of that martyred cleric by accident, so to speak, and was then covered by shame and regret for his murder (or so he subsequently claimed).



It was in 1170, and Thomas a Becket was being difficult. He was the head of the Church of England, and he was resisting the king's attempt to make the church courts subordinate to the civil courts, which answered to Henry. It's a bit of a stretch, but you could say that Archbishop Becket was the closest thing in 12th century England to the leader of the opposition.



Henry II was used to getting his way, and in the course of one of his rants against the cleric he was heard to ask, "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Four knights at the court, hearing this, decided that the quickest way to rise in the king's service was to go to Canterbury and carry out the king's bidding, so off they went to do it.



They found Thomas a Becket on the altar of his cathedral, in front of a large congregation, and hacked him to pieces with their swords. This caused a great outcry throughout a horrified Christendom, and the knights did not get their desired promotions. Indeed, the king swore that it had all been a ghastly misunderstanding: he was only venting, not giving actual orders.



It was all smoothed over, as these things usually are. The knights fell into disgrace, the Church's law courts kept their independence, and the king did penance: he walked barefoot wearing sackcloth through the streets of Canterbury while eighty monks flogged him (gently) with branches.



Could something similar have happened in Russia last week? It won't end up with Putin barefoot being flogged by monks, of course, but maybe his minions just exceeded their instructions? After all, that was Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman's excuse when his henchmen chopped up journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul two years ago, and no government has officially questioned MbS's word on that.



The problem in Putin's case is that this is not the first time: becoming the leader of the opposition in Russia automatically invalidates your life insurance policy. Navalny's predecessor Boris Nemtsov was shot dead within sight of the Kremlin five years ago, and Navalny himself is partially blind in one eye as the result of a 2018 attack.



Moreover, poison is a favorite tool of Putin's security services. Critical journalist Anna Politkovskaya survived a poisoning attempt in 2004 (she was later shot to death). Defector Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium in London in 2006. Double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter nearly died from a nerve agent in Salisbury, England in 2018, and the Russian would-be assassins were caught on CCTV.



Maybe the boss doesn't sign off personally on each of these attacks, but it is very hard to believe that he doesn't know what is going on. The Russian counter-claim that all these incidents are actually "provocations" staged by hostile Western intelligence services is quite implausible: Russia is simply not important enough to justify the scale of the effort that would be required.



So what we are left with is smaller than it sometimes seems. It's a great state that has fallen into the hands of crooks in suits  no longer shiny suits; sartorial standards among the Russian criminal aristocracy have risen dramatically  who occasionally rub somebody out to protect their nationwide protection racket or just to maintain discipline within the organization. And they only kill other Russians.





Gwynne Dyer (gwynne763121476@aol.com) has worked as a freelance journalist, columnist, broadcaster and lecturer on international affairs for more than 20 years. He is the author of "Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work)."
A white St Louis couple facing felony charges for waving guns at Black Lives Matter protesters outside their home appeared in court on Monday, where their attorney said they're anxious to prove 'with absolute certainty' that they did not commit a crime.

One week after Mark and Patricia McCloskey spoke on video to the Republican National Convention, they were in court briefly Monday morning and did not enter a plea. The judge continued their case until October 6.

The McCloskeys, who are both lawyers, became the target of national media attention after they emerged from their Renaissance palazzo-style mansion in St Louis with guns on the night of June 28 when protesters veered onto their private street.

The couple said the demonstrators knocked down an iron gate and ignored a 'No Trespassing' sign, and they felt threatened.

Mark, 63, came out with AR-15 rifle and Patricia, 61, displayed a semiautomatic handgun, according to court records. No shots were fired.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey listen to their attorney Joel Schwartz address the media as they leave court after a first appearance on felony weapons charges on Monday in St Louis, Missouri. The couple were charged in July with one felony count of unlawful use of a weapon - exhibiting, after they confronted protesters who were marching through their private street en route to Mayor Lyda Krewson's house in June

Mark and Patricia McCloskey and their attorney Joel Schwartz (right) leave court after a first appearance on felony weapons charges on Monday. Schwartz told reporters that the couple are anxious to prove 'with absolute certainty' that they did not commit a crime

St Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner charged both with felony unlawful use of a weapon and said that their actions created the risk of bloodshed during what she called an otherwise peaceful protest.

'It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening manner at those participating in nonviolent protest, and while we are fortunate this situation did not escalate into deadly force, this type of conduct is unacceptable in St Louis,' Gardner said.

The McCloskeys did not speak to reporters after the court hearing. Their attorney, Joel Schwartz, reiterated their claims that no laws were broken.

'We are simply anxious to remove all the noise from this case, move the case forward, and have the facts heard by a jury and let the jury decide whether or not the McCloskeys committed any felony offenses because we are convinced with absolute certainty that there was no felony committed here,' Schwartz said.

Missouri law allows homeowners to use force, even lethal force, to defend their homes.

The case is expected to be heard by a St Louis grand jury, which will decide whether there is sufficient probable cause for an indictment.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has sought to dismiss the charges against the McCloskeys, but Gardner is firmly pushing back.

Governor Mike Parson has said he would pardon the couple if they were convicted.

The McCloskeys did not enter a plea at Monday's hearing and the case was continued until October. They are pictured arriving in court

The McCloskeys, who are both lawyers, became the target of national media attention after they emerged from their Renaissance palazzo-style mansion in St Louis with guns on the night of June 28 when protesters veered onto their private street

In addition to Parson, the McCloskeys drew support from President Donald Trump, Missouri Governor Mike Parson and other leading Republicans.

Trump considered the charges an 'egregious abuse of power,' his press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said.

Last week, the couple made the case in an opening night speech of the Republican National Convention that they had a 'God-given right' to defend themselves and their property.

During their RNC appearance the couple touted Trump's defense of the Second Amendment and also warned Americans of the 'mob'.

'At this moment in history, if you stand up for yourself and for the values our country was founded on, the mob  spurred on by their allies in the media  will try to destroy you,' Mark said as he sat beside his wife and addressed the camera in remote remarks.

Last week, the McCloskeys made the case in an opening night speech of the Republican National Convention that they had a 'God-given right' to defend themselves

The McCloskeys bemoaned the charges against them and warned others about the wider implications in an interview with Fox News ahead of their RNC appearance.

'You cannot have freedom and an opportunity to advance unless you have basic safety and security, and that it is not just limited to big cities. They are bringing it to a neighborhood near you,' Mark told the outlet.

Patricia added: 'You think you have a right to defend yourself and your family and it's shocking that we are still having the fallout. We have years of this following us.'

She described how protesters 'broke an iron fence down' before 'trying to set fire to the mayor's house'.

Several hundred demonstrators on June 28 veered onto the private street where the McCloskeys' mansion sits.

The couple, who have a 25-year history of filing a slew of lawsuits, said the protesters knocked down an iron gate and ignored a 'No Trespassing' sign.

Protest leaders said the gate was open and the demonstration was peaceful until the McCloskeys came out with guns.

Gardner, the prosecuting attorney, said the guns created the risk of bloodshed. A police probable cause statement said protesters feared 'being injured due to Patricia McCloskey's finger being on the trigger, coupled with her excited demeanor'.

The McCloskeys contend the protest was anything but peaceful.

'They broke the gate down,' Patricia said on Fox & Friends. 'They broke it open, then they broke what was left of it down to the ground, an iron fence, and came in and started screaming threats from the beginning. They had weapons, they had fire material.'

The McCloskey case drew Trump's attention, especially after Democratic St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner filed felony unlawful use of a weapon charges in July

Several hundred demonstrators on June 28 veered onto the private street where the McCloskey's Renaissance palazzo-style mansion sits

Patricia McCloskey described how protesters 'broke an iron fence down' before 'trying to set fire to the mayor's house'

The couple, who met when they were at Southern Methodist University law school, moved into the palazzo at One Portland Place having filed a lawsuit in 1988 to obtain the property.

They sued a man who sold them a Maserati they claimed was supposed to come with a box of hard-to-find parts, the paper reported.

In November 1996, Mark McCloskey filed two lawsuits, one against a dog breeder whom he said sold him a German Shepherd without papers and the other against the Central West End Association for using a photo of their house in a brochure for a house tour after the McCloskeys had told them not to.

For years the couple have been at war over the rights to a small patch of land bordering their property.

The McCloskeys, according to the paper, have also constantly sought to force their neighborhood trustees to maintain the exclusivity of Portland Place.

They accused the trustees of selectively enforcing the written rules for living in the neighborhood, known as the trust agreement, and in particular failing to enforce a rule about unmarried couples living together.

Their insistence was seen as an attempt to force gay couples from the community.

The trustees voted to impeach Patricia as a trustee in 1992 when she fought an effort to change the trust indenture, accusing her of being anti-gay.

In 2002, the Portland Place Association sued to foreclose on the McCloskeys' house because they were refusing to pay dues.

On a second property, in Franklin County, the couple had disputes with their neighbors over a gravel path, and sued for squatters rights to a section of land.

The McCloskeys also evicted two tenants from a modular home on their property in a period of just over two years.

He sued his employers for wrongful dismissal, and then turned on his own family, in particular after his father largely wrote him out of the will in 2008, sparking a family feud that would last eight years.

Mark filed a defamation case against his father and sister in 2011, dismissed it in 2012, and refiled it in 2013. By the time of the final filing, Bruce McCloskey was living in a memory care unit in Ballwin; he died in 2014.

In March 2013 McCloskey sued his father and his father's trust over a gift of five acres, promised in 1976, which never materialized.

A judge ruled against him in 2016.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey warned violence will come 'to a neighborhood near you' ahead of their appearance at the Republican National Convention last week

Mark told Fox News that Democrat-controlled St Louis 'is a very dangerous place,' and the statistics back him up. The city has long had one of the nation's highest homicide rates, and 2020 is shaping up to be the most violent year in decades.

'This is a prosecutor who has a remarkably low prosecution rate, a remarkably low conviction rate, and I think she's just trying to make an example out of anybody who's willing to stand up against the inherent lawlessness and violence in St Louis,' he said.

Gardner said in a statement that she was disappointed that the case 'has been exploited for political purposes, which in turn has opened the floodgates for gleeful racist and misogynistic messages and death threats.

'The people of St Louis expect me to pursue equal justice under the law without fear or favor, and that is what I intend to do.'

Gardner, St Louis' first Black circuit attorney, was elected in 2016 and appears headed to another term. She easily defeated a white former homicide prosecutor in the August Democratic primary and is heavily favored against her Republican opponent in November.

She's been at odds with high-ranking Republicans before.

In 2018, Gardner charged then-Gov Eric Greitens, a Republican, with felony invasion of privacy for allegedly taking a compromising photo of a woman during an extramarital affair.

The charge was eventually dropped but Greitens, who was also under investigation over ethics concerns, resigned in June 2018. He denied committing any crime.
Government backs off subs deal

THAILAND: The government has decided to temporarily back off from the controversial purchase of two submarines worth B22.5 billion from China after the Chinese government allowed the purchase to be delayed for a year, a source said.

militarymarineChineseeconomics

By Bangkok Post

Monday 31 August 2020, 09:13AM

Pheu Thai MP Yuttapong Charasathien, deputy chairman of a parliamentary subcommittee which has been scrutinising the budget, outlines his stance against the purchase of the two submarines. Photo: Apichart Jinakul.

The source at the House committee scrutinising the budget bill for the 2021 fiscal year said that after the Chinese agreed to the request for the delay, the government sent a signal to the committees members from coalition parties to slash the budget of about B3bn for the first payment.

The purchase of the first of the three submarines from China has already been finalised, using money from the 2017 budget. Delivery is expected in 2023.

The other two submarines, costing B22.5bn, require payments spread over seven years.

The budget to buy the second and third submarines from China was scrutinised by the sub-committee on durable product items, state enterprises, ICT equipment and revolving funds headed by Suphon Fongngam, an MP from the ruling Palang Pracharath Party.

The sub-committee was split equally, prompting Mr Suphon as chairman to cast his deciding vote in favour of passing the budget for the submarines.

The budget was then put to the main House committee examining next fiscal years budget headed by Deputy Finance Minister Santi Promphat.

The main committee will hold a vote today (Aug 31) on whether to approve the procurement.

The source also said the subcommittee today will inform the main committee of Chinas decision.

A source from the Royal Thai Navy (RTN) said the matter to put on hold the purchase of the two submarines was decided by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha who held talks with China. The source said the RTN respected the decision of the premier.

Yuttapong Charasathien, the Pheu Thai MP and deputy chairman of the subcommittee, said yesterday he would seek a Constitutional Court ruling on the validity of the procurement of the two submarines if the purchase is approved by the House committee.

He cited Section 178 of the constitution which stipulates that any agreement that may have a wide impact on security, the economy, society and trade and investment must be approved by parliament.

The section says parliament must approve the agreement within 60 days of the document reaching parliament.

Mr Yuttapong said that if the purchase of the two submarines is a government-to-government agreement, it must follow the procedure under the section.

However, he said that a check has found that no such government-to-government agreement had been submitted to the now-dissolved National Legislative Assembly or to the current elected parliament for approval.

This means the purchase contract is likely to violate the section, Mr Yuttapong said.

Still, Mr Yuttapong said he suspects the purchase may not be a government-to-government agreement.

I suspect it is not a government-to-government contract. I have never seen the Chinese government send a written quotation for the submarines to the government.

When I checked the contract for the purchase of the first submarine, the payment was made to a private company, not to the Chinese Finance or Defence Ministries. The company did not have a letter of authorisation from the Chinese government, Mr Yuttapong said.

He said the Royal Thai Navy had failed to explain details regarding the signing of the government-to-government procurement contract.

If there is any attempt to push the purchase of the two submarines through the House committee, he will recommend the Pheu Thai Party petition the Constitutional Court to rule on the legality of the procurement, Mr Yuttapong said.

He previously said the contract is not a genuine government-to-government deal as claimed because navy chief Adm Luechai Ruddit who signed on behalf of Thailand had no authority to represent the government and the Chinese company which signed the contract was also not representing the Chinese government either.

Only the prime minister or the foreign minister can legally represent the government in such deals and only the defence minister is able to be assigned that authority if necessary, said Mr Yuttapong.

However, the navy defended the procurement, insisting the subs were vital for protecting the countrys maritime security and the procurement of three submarines was a done deal.

Meanwhile, according to an opinion survey by Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, or Suan Dusit Poll, the biggest causes of worry for the public are political conflicts and the planned purchase of the two submarines.
(Repeats Aug. 30 story with no changes)

* TIM to sign off on KKR last-mile stake sale on Monday

* KKR deal is launch pad for govt-backed single network

* State to have final say on single network strategic issues

*

By Stephen Jewkes, Elvira Pollina and Giuseppe Fonte

MILAN/ROME, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Telecom Italia (TIM) is set to sign off on a landmark deal with U.S. fund KKR on Monday that could lay the groundwork for plans to create a single ultrafast broadband network promoted by the Italian government.

Rome is keen to create a single full-fibre network to close Italy's digital divide with other European countries and wants TIM to merge assets with smaller state-backed rival Open Fiber to create a national champion eligible for grants from Europe's Recovery Fund.

Earlier this month, TIM postponed to Aug. 31 a decision to sell 37.5% of its last-mile grid, FiberCop, to KKR for 1.8 billion euros ($2.1 billion) after the government asked for more time to broker the broad network agreement roping in Open Fiber.

But on Thursday the ruling coalition gave the go ahead to a Memorandum of Understanding setting out a road map for the creation of a high speed broadband network open equally to all operators and, crucially, acceptable to regulators.

"The last-mile deal with KKR is the launching pad for the much bigger deal further down the road," said a source involved in the process.

Industry Minister Stefano Patuanelli said on Saturday such an infrastructure could be eligible for 6 billion euros of EU Recovery Fund money.

TIM and Open Fiber have been talking for over a year about ways of combining their assets, but negotiations have foundered on governance and regulation.

Former phone monopolist TIM wants majority control of any single network while Open Fiber insists it should be wholesale only and not under the control of an incumbent with a big retail business like TIM.

Under the government plan, TIM could initially own more than 50% but will not have a majority of board members and the final say on strategic issues will lie with state-lender CDP.

Story continues

All market players should have equal access to the unified broadband network and its ownership structure should be open to newcomers, sources said.

CDP, which jointly controls Open Fiber with utility Enel , is TIM's second-biggest shareholder after Vivendi . It controls Italy's gas and power grids Snam and Terna.

Besides the deal with KKR, TIM's board on Monday will give its backing to the government's MoU, sources said, while TIM, KKR and CDP are set to negotiate an option for CDP to enter FiberCop capital.

At a later stage, and subject to prior regulatory clearance, the plan is to merge FiberCop and Open Fiber. TIM would then fold its primary network, connecting switching centres to street cabinets, into FiberCop, giving the new player the entire fixed-access network.

A source said CDP had also called a board on Monday to endorse the blueprint.

Enel is not expected to sign the MoU but sources said its CEO was onside with government plans.

The state-controlled utility will sell part of its stake to CDP to guarantee state control and can then sell the rest to whoever, a source close to the matter said.

Infrastructure fund Macquarie has already made a non-binding bid for all or part of Enel's stake in Open Fiber valuing the whole group at almost 8 billion euros including debt. It is expected to table a binding offer in September, sources said. ($1 = 0.8401 euros) (Reporting by Stephen Jewkes, Elvira Pollina and Giuseppe Fonte; editing by David Evans)
Rhea Chakraborty, who has been named as one of the suspects in the Sushant Singh Rajput's death case by his family, has registered a police complaint against the media gathering inside her building.

ANI tweeted, "Actor Rhea Chakraborty has filed a complaint against media for gathering inside her residential building. She has asked Police to convey to the media not to obstruct her way and work according to constitutional rights: Mumbai Police official."

A few days back, Rhea had taken to her social media handles to show how her family and her building's security guards were being harassed by the media. In a video which is being widely shared on the internet, journalists can be seen hounding Rhea's building security guards and policemen who were escorting Rhea to her house.

They are innocent Watchmen of the building where #RheaChakrobarty stays. They have nothing to do with the case. Now just watch the video what type of journalism is this? Forget journalism what kind behaviour is this? pic.twitter.com/6aK8Ky58gE  Saurabh Vaktania (@saurabhv99) August 27, 2020

Its a prerequisite to be inhuman, loudmouth,disgusting,and disrespectful to be an employee of the Republic .. the worst of them gets to be the prime time Boss .. https://t.co/DK4N7z1HdX  Anurag Kashyap (@anuragkashyap72) August 29, 2020

Sharing a video of her father getting mobbed by the media just outside her apartment, Rhea had written, "This is inside my building compound , The man in this video is my father Indrajit Chakraborty (retd. army officer). We have been trying to get out of our house to cooperate with ED , CBI and various investigation authorities to cooperate . There is a threat to my life and my family's life . We have informed the local police station and even gone there , no help provided . We have informed the investigation authorities to help us get to them , no help arrived . How is this family going to live ? We are only asking for assistance , to cooperate with the various agencies that have asked us . I request @mumbaipolice to please provide protection so that we can cooperate with these investigation agencies . #safetyformyfamily. In covid times , these basic law and order restrictions need to be provided . Thankyou."

In her tell all interview with India Today, Rhea spoke of the immense pressure on her and her family being created because people are not patient enough for the investigations and law to take its course. She admitted that suicide is constantly on her and her family's mind but the only thing that keeps them going is that they know 'truth is on their side'.

ALSO READ: Rhea Chakraborty To Take Action Against Sushant Singh Rajput's Family (Exclusive)

ALSO READ: Rhea Chakraborty: 'I Think About Suicide, It Is Only Because Of Truth That I Have Strength To Live'


MONROE COUNTY, MI  A Monroe man was killed Sunday night when his motorcycle left the roadway and he was thrown from the bike, police said.

Emergency crews were called at 9:15 p.m. Aug. 30 to a crash in the area of Dixon Road between Cherry and Sorter roads in Monroe Countys Raisinville Township, according to the Michigan State Police.

The 46-year-old man was riding a Kawasaki motorcycle east on Dixon Road when he drove off the roadway, crashed and was thrown from the bike, police said.

The man suffered significant injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene after attempts to revive him were unsuccessful, police said.

No other vehicles were involved in the crash and alcohol is believed to be a factor, police said.

The mans name has not yet been released pending notification of next of kin. The crash remains under investigation.

Anyone who witnessed the crash, or has information regarding it, is asked to call the Michigan State Police Monroe Post at 734-242-3500.

The Ida Township Fire Department, Monroe County Sheriffs Office, Monroe Community Ambulance and Michigan Department of Natural Resources assisted at the scene.

More from The Ann Arbor News:

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A near-riot in front of a hospital in the northeastern town of Recife in mid-August sent shock waves across Brazil. Inside, a 10-year-old rape victim was having an abortion.

Conservative religious groups and right-wing politicians connected to the more radical evangelical churches gathered in front of the hospital and attempted to break in to stop the abortion.

The case of Menina ("girl") as she became known because her identity cannot be disclosed, came to light after the Minister for Women, Family and Human Rights, Damares Alves, herself a pastor of a Pentecostal church, sent representatives to meet with the girl's family trying to convince her to keep the baby.

Menina had allegedly been raped by her uncle since the age of 6 and both girl and her legal guardian, her grandmother, decided that the abortion was the best and safest measure to take.

The case has sparked debate in this deeply conservative nation that is home to the world's largest population of Catholics and fast-growing evangelical faiths.

Brazil has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world. Abortion is illegal in the country, except in the case of rape or risk to the mother's life. Both instances were deemed to apply to Menina.

Dr. Melania Amorim is a professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the federal University of Campina Grande and has years of experience treating underage pregnancies.

"Study shows that pregnancies in 14 years-old and younger have a mortality rate four times higher than pregnancies in women 20 years old or older," said Dr. Amorim.

Such exceptional abortions are performed in public hospitals, quickly, quietly and, by law, anonymously, to avoid further trauma to the victims. But the right-wing government of President Jair Bolsonaro has empowered and emboldened anti-abortionists and religious groups once isolated to the fringe.

One militant Bolsonaro supporter gave out the name, date and location of the hospital where the abortion was going to be performed as well as the girl's name on social media.

The information brought the small but vocal group of protesters to the front of the hospital, forcing Menina and her grandmother to enter the hospital through a back door furthering the trauma and violence she had already suffered.

The attitude of the ultra-conservative and right-wing protesters outraged women's rights groups, sparking what they say is a long overdue debate in Brazilian society and brought to light some staggering numbers.

According to a 2019 report published by the Brazilian Forum for Public Safety, an NGO that uses official data from governments at state and federal levels, there were 66,000 rapes in Brazil in 2018. More than half were girls under 13 years old.

The SUS, Brazil's public health system, reports that it has performed 32,000 abortions in girls between 13 and 14 years-old since 2008. 26,000 carried pregnancies to term in the same time period. In short, 6 girls 13 years-old and younger have an abortion every day in Brazil. And every day there are six babies born to such girls.

The COVID-19 pandemic made matters worse. Domestic violence increased in Brazil and in many parts of the world where families have been forced to isolate.

But, according to Women and Human Rights activists, the government of President Bolsonaro is using the pandemic to defund the few hospitals prepared to support rape and domestic violence victims.

"We have an increase of violence, while the number of centers for support of those cases are diminishing. There was a cut of 45% in the number of hospitals that perform legal abortions," said Tatianny Araujo, a health worker and member of the Feminine Resistance.

Dr. Jefferson Drezett is a professor of public health at the USP-University of Sao Paulo and for many years worked in the implementation of care services for women victims of violence and the legal abortion services in the public health system.

"It is a very bad moment in Brazil. The government and a good part of the Brazilian congress is against abortion even in the circumstances in which it is allowed by law," said Dr. Drezett.

The Catholic church expressed sorry over Menina's abortion with a nuanced statement that said, "The church is saddened that a child would have to be killed to save the life of another child."

At the same time, it denounced the actions of the politicians and religious radicals in front of the hospital.

The abortion was performed and Menina is recovering well. Menina's uncle is now under arrest.

(Image Credit Pixabay)
INDIANAPOLIS, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The New Paper today announces the launch of its text message-based daily digest, which aims to make fact-first news easy to consume. By summarizing the day's top stories into a concise daily text message, The New Paper helps people start their day with a common set of facts.

The New Paper was started by Michael Aft and John Necef, Harvard Business School and Georgetown grads who worked at LinkedIn, The Hustle, Accel-KKR, and on Wall Street. The company raised $300,000 in pre-seed funding last year, including $80,000 from a pitch competition held by the Indiana state-backed VC fund Elevate Ventures . In only six months of private beta, The New Paper experienced significant growth with its subscription-based model that is already profitable with over 7,000 paid subscribers and $400,000 in annualized recurring revenue. The company offers users a 7-day free trial, after which it charges $5 per month.

"It's hard work to stay informed on what's happening in the world since the news is dominated by clickbait and sensational content," said Michael Aft and John Necef, co-founders of The New Paper. "We make it easy with the first-ever text message-based news digest. We initially focused on SMS because text messages have a 98% open rate, as opposed to email which is only 20%, but in the future we plan to develop an ecosystem of news products that offer the first touch of daily news across channels."

Each weekday morning, The New Paper's editorial team:

Curates the day's top news - prioritizing the most impactful stories across business, politics, the economy, and global affairs States each story factually - leading with the event that happened rather than an opinion. Provides easy access to more context - linking to a helpful reference or primary source.

"The New Paper's text is a refreshing change from all of the emails and push notifications that crowd my inbox every morning. It's a simple and easy way to start my day feeling informed," said Melissa Landry of Dallas, TX.

To learn more or sign up, visit: thenewpaper.co/learnmore

About The New Paper

Founded in 2019 by John Necef and Michael Aft, The New Paper makes fact-first news easy to consume with its text message-based daily news digest. The news-focused startup is based in Indianapolis and has raised pre-seed funding from investors such as Elevate Ventures . For more information, visit https://thenewpaper.co/ .

Media Contact:

[email protected]

SOURCE The New Paper

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Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has ordered the Transport Ministry to speed up resumption of commercial flights to South Korea, Japan and other countries considered safe.

He ordered the ministry to immediately arrange flights to transport Vietnamese workers to South Korea and Japan, the country's largest labor export markets, the Government Office said on Saturday.

Other flights should follow with specific safety plans, he said.

Vietnam suspended all international flights on March 25 to stem the spread of Covid-19.

In July the ministry suggested resuming flights to Guangzhou, Phnom Penh, Seoul, Tokyo, Taiwan and Vientiane at a frequency of one round trip per week. The government then agreed to resume commercial flights to and from China.

But the resurgence of community transmissions of the disease in late July put those plans on hold.

The Vietnam Aviation Business Association earlier this month called on the government to resume flights to countries that have contained the pandemic, and allow foreign tourists entry if they meet pandemic prevention requirements.

Those arriving from abroad on special flights currently undergo a two-week quarantine at free centralized facilities or at hotels by paying themselves, but the PM has decided to require everyone to pay from September 1. The government will continue to cover the cost of treatment for Vietnamese nationals. Foreigners have been paying for their own treatment.

On Sunday no new Covid-19 case was reported in Vietnam, the first such day since the second wave began on July 25. Its tally currently stands at 1,040 with 32 deaths.

The outbreak in Da Nang, Quang Nam, Hai Duong, and other localities is mostly under control, health officials said.
By Kang Seung-woo



North Korea's recent announcement that it would unveil a new five-year economic development plan early next year means its economy is facing a serious crisis due to the sustained international sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, which are emerging as a "big challenge" to leader Kim Jong-un, Pyongyang watchers said Sunday.





North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presides over a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party in Pyongyang, Wednesday. / Yonhap
An unannounced visit for the weekly Islamic Friday congregational prayers in Ashaiman by Vice-President Dr Mahamud Bawumia sparked a massive spontaneous endorsement of the ruling partys 2020 elections campaign slogan, 4 More 4 Nana, by traders in Ashaiman upon seeing the Vice-Presidents entourage.

After observing Jummah prayers at a community mosque at Fitter Line, a suburb of Ashaiman, the Vice-President had a torrid time making his way through the streets of Ashaiman as scores of traders spontaneously lined up on the streets to cheer him on.

Amidst chanting of popular NPP slogans and social intervention policies, the ecstatic traders and passersby raised up their four fingers, signifying the popular NPP 2020 campaign slogan, 4 More 4 Nana To Do More.

The NPP governments flagship Free SHS Education policy also took centre stage in the chants, with the traders, especially the women, chanting Free SHS! Free SHS!, as well as Free electricity and free water, referring to the governments Covid-19 social interventions.

As the Vice-Presidents entourage slowly made its way out, the charged traders blocked the pathway, obviously demanding to see the Vice-President.

Dr. Bawumia granted their request and waved at them through the opened roof of his car, before they opened way for his entourage to slowly drive out through the long stretch.

As the car moved, scores of people continued to follow the car and more traders in both shops and on the streets chanted and sang praises of Akufo-Addo's government.

After the Jummah prayers, Dr Bawumia visited the Ibn Abbas mosque where he interacted with fellow Muslims, including leadership of various Islamic sects in Ashaiman.

Dr Bawumia rounded off his visit by making stop overs at the Palace of the Muslim Chief of Ashaiman and Tema, as well as the Chief Imam of Ashaiman, where he interacted with the community members.

Throughout his interactions, Dr Bawumia stressed on the governments all-inclusive policies, especially the flagship Free SHS, which he said was providing free senior high school education for all regardless of social and economic status.

For deprived communities such as Zongos, Dr Bawumia said the governments vision was to accelerate development through the Zongo Development Fund and improve human resource through accessible education.

---Daily Guide
Savers unfortunate enough to have put their faith in disgraced fund manager Neil Woodford will shortly receive notification that a third wind-up payment from his LF Equity Income Fund has arrived or will soon be credited to their bank or investment account.

More than 15 months have passed since the most high-profile and far-reaching savings scandal of recent times and still there has been no reckoning for those involved.

Andrew Bailey  the regulator in charge of the Financial Conduct Authority in the build-up to the failure of the Woodford empire  has moved onwards and upwards as governor of the Bank of England.

Neil Woodford is still enjoying the fruits of the 8m fees he received while investors remained trapped in his funds, and is being sought for investment advice despite egregious failings

Woodford is still enjoying the fruits of the 8million fees he received while investors remained trapped in his funds, and is being sought for investment advice despite egregious failings.

Broker Hargreaves Lansdown, which exposed some 300,000 investors to losses in Woodford funds, is prospering on the back of some of the highest profit margins in the financial sector at around 50 per cent.

And Link, the authorised corporate director, has proved as hapless in winding up the Woodford funds as it was in making sure that savers' money was safe.

It contrived to bulk-sell a package of Woodford's biotech stocks hours before one of the key holdings, Synairgen, soared 420 per cent in value on the back of its promising treatment for Covid-19.

As all this has been going on, there has not been a peep from the rudderless FCA as to the outcome of its probe into the affair. It has a snail-like approach to inquiries and has been deliberately obstructive.

Only last week a former appeals court judge, Dame Elizabeth Gloster, criticised the FCA for delaying her investigation into the collapse of the mini-bonds firm London Capital & Finance with a late dump of 3,500 previously undisclosed documents.

We shouldn't be surprised by the dawdling, ineptness and legalistic approach of FCA regulation.

More than a decade after the collapse and rescue by Lloyds of consumer bank HBOS a report into management failings is still buried in the bureaucracy. The chairman of the FCA, Charles Randell, should be ashamed of this record.

New chief executive Nikhil Rathi needs to get a grip and order immediate publication of an interim report into the Woodford implosion. Investors, including this writer, deserve proper answers and need justice done.

Arm lock

One of the first big tests of Business Secretary Alok Sharma's attitude towards British high-tech will be the proposed sell-off by Softbank of the UK's smart chip champion, Arm Holdings, to US gaming chipmaker Nvidia.

Weekend reports suggested that if the 23billion sale were to go ahead, the Government would be inclined to sit on its hands.

Perhaps, someone should remind Sharma that when Theresa May's government allowed Arm to be sold down the river it required Softbank boss Masayoshi Son to make solemn commitments on doubling the workforce, maintaining investment and keeping Arm in Cambridge.

At the very least, those stipulations must be renewed and extended by the next owners or the deal blocked.

Rising Son

Reaching 90 doesn't seem to have inhibited the ambitions of Warren Buffett, who chose the last day of August to go East, buying 5 per cent stakes in several of Japan's big trading houses including Marubeni, Sumitomo, Mitsubishi and Mitsui at a cost of a neat 5billion. Many happy returns.
PLA launches new Type 055, Type 052D destroyers after decommissioning all Type 051 destroyers: reports

Global Times

By Liu Xuanzun Source: Global Times Published: 2020/8/30 21:44:00

China reportedly launched its eighth Type 055 and 25th Type 052D destroyers on Sunday, only two days after the decommissioning of two Type 051 destroyers attached to the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, which marked the retirement of China's all first generation of indigenous destroyers.

At a time when China has been launching new generation destroyers at a rapid pace, experts said Sunday that the PLA Navy's development has entered a new stage, with third generation warships becoming the main battle equipment and fourth generation ones beginning to enter service.

Hong Kong-based media group Takung Wenwei reported on Sunday that the PLA Navy's eighth Type 055 and 25th Type 052D destroyers were simultaneously launched in the Dalian Shipyard at Northeast China's Liaoning Province on Sunday morning.

These new Chinese warships are comparable to world's top destroyers, including the US' Arleigh Burke-class and Zumwalt-class, analysts said.

The launch of the two new ships comes after a decommissioning ceremony for the two old warships, the Zhanjiang and the Zhuhai, was held at a naval base in Zhanjiang, South China's Guangdong Province on Friday. The occasion marks that all China's first generation of indigenous destroyers have been discharged from active service, China Central Television reported on Saturday.

Between the 1970s and 1990s, China built 17 Type 051s, which were the PLA Navy's first modern destroyers with combat command capabilities. The vessels served as the Navy's main surface combat ships, Shanghai-based news website eastday.com reported on Saturday.

Having served in the PLA Navy for the past five decades, the Type 051 proved itself to be a powerful guardian of the country and a start to the country's domestically developed destroyers, analysts said.

With older ships decommissioned, China has been launching and commissioning new destroyers in recent years. The Diplomat magazine reported in July that China currently fields about 20 modern, aegis-type destroyers, and in four to five years the number would increase to 39 to 40, including six Type 052Cs, 25 to 26 Type 052Ds and eight Type 055s.

Looking back at the PLA Navy's development history, Zhang Junshe, a senior research fellow at the PLA Naval Military Studies Research Institute, told the Global Times on Sunday that China's first-generation destroyers were imported from the Soviet Union (in the 1950s.) The second-generation ones are of the Type 051, which is the first generation domestically developed and which entered service in the 1970s.

With the older generation warships decommissioned, China's main battle destroyers now consist of mainly third-generation vessels, including the Type 052Cs and the Type 052Ds, alongside the fourth-generation Type 055. The Chinese ships' displacement, technology and combat capability are on the rise as they have gained comprehensive combat capability in air defense, anti-ship and anti-submarine operations, Zhang said.

China's building of more and better warships is making up for the progress lost in the initial stage of reform and opening-up, when the country focused on economic development instead of national defense, Zhang said, noting that China now needs to boost national defense and military capability to safeguard its economic development.

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The recent resurgence of COVID-19 in many parts of Europe is challenging the preparation work of most schools across Europe, as they are set to open their campuses to students for the new school year in the coming days.

Ensuring the compulsory education while keeping kids safe has become a top priority for many European governments, who are rolling out various measures to hope to make it work.

Multiple measures, one goal

Spain has registered 43,747 cases in seven days last week, the worst weekly figure since the end of March. France's data released on Friday showed the highest daily COVID-19 tally since March 31. Infections are also rising in the United Kingdom, Germany and some other European countries.

Different authorities across Europe are working for one goal this time -- avoiding another blanket closure of schools this autumn.

The Spanish Health Ministry and Education Ministry published a list of 29 measures and five recommendations for the start of the school year. Key measures include taking teachers' and students' temperature every morning, wearing of masks for children over six years old and cleaning their hands at least five times during the school day. Schools are required to apply extra hygiene measures and create stable "bubble groups" of children, in which closer contacts will be allowed.

In Italy, where the reopening of schools on Sept. 14 is seen by many as the biggest challenge after the COVID-19 lockdown feat, wearing of face masks will be mandatory for teachers and staff all the time, and for students in primary and secondary schools (from six to 18 years old) every time the one-meter safety distance rule cannot be observed.

Similar face covering measures were also announced in countries, such as France, Britain, Ireland, Croatia, Serbia, although the age and prerequisite for the wearing varied.

In addition to some already observed preventive measures, such as social bubbles, social distancing and frequent hands washing, some countries adopted more sophisticated measures based on color-coded systems or flexible learning.

The Austrian government launched a four-color coronavirus "traffic-light" system to help avoid a second wave of the pandemic. The system is intended to increase public health awareness and thus prevent a second wave in autumn, especially in view of the upcoming start of school, said Health Minister Rudolf Anschober at a press conference.

Romania will also classify their schools into three categories: green, yellow, and red according to the severity of the epidemic. Schools in the green area can take classes normally, the schools in the yellow area combine offline and online teaching, while the ones in red area adopt online teaching.

Serbia is set to start its new school year in either "basic" or "combined" model.

Although the new school year will start normally in Lithuania, remote learning might be reinstated in specific schools if they become COVID-19 hotspots, according to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda.

Albania announced days ago three-scenario-based guidelines for the new school year, which requires distance learning once the pandemic worsens to certain extent.

Debate and worries

Despite the well-planned measures, worries remained among some parents and experts.

Children can carry coronavirus in their noses for up to three weeks, even if they have no or few symptoms, according to a study from South Korea.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) recommended children aged five years and under should not be required to wear masks, explaining that this is based on the safety and overall interest of the child and the capacity to appropriately use a mask with minimal assistance. Aged 6-11 should be based on some factors, such as whether there is widespread transmission in the area, where the child resides, the ability of the child to safely and appropriately use a mask. Aged 12 and over should wear a mask under the same conditions as adults.

The using of the masks is not only a technical problem in some countries.

The Britain's opposition Labour party accused the government of "passing the buck" on decisions back to schools, while some Tory MPs also criticized the move, the BBC reported. One of the Tory MPs, Huw Merriman, told the BBC that telling some pupils to wear face coverings sent "the wrong message" and suggested "schools are not a safe setting."

According to the Society for Virology, the largest virological society in Europe, infection rates in children and their role in the pandemic have so far only been incompletely recorded by scientific studies. And it warned against the notion that children are not involved in the pandemic and transmission. Such ideas are not in accordance with scientific knowledge.

Some Romanian health experts even admitted that the start of the new semester will bring more new cases to the country, not only the children themselves, but more parents, especially grandparents, will become new infected ones.

Lithuanian Minister of Education Algirdas Monkevicius voiced similar concerns. "We cannot be sure that the infection will not affect Lithuanian schools, therefore, we must be prepared for it and know what actions must be taken immediately," Monkevicius was quoted as saying in a press release on Tuesday.

Parents are in a mixed feelings in sending their kids back to school.

"I look forward to the new school year with concern, not so much for my children's health, because it seems kids are less at risk even if infected, but for the great uncertainty in terms of family organization," Rosanna Magnano, a Milan-based journalist and mother of two, told Xinhua.

Another working mother, Cristina Zen from northern Alessandria, Italy, worried about the broader impact of school reopening on the country.

"Since the end of the lockdown, this is actually the first such large movement. What if infections ramp up again and we need another lockdown?" she wondered.

Stevanic, a father of a student from Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, said although the school took various preventive measures, he was still a little worried about the pandemic, due to the increase in infection cases recently.

In Germany, where daily infections exceeded the 2,000-mark last Saturday for the first time since April, Chancellor Angela Merkel called on German citizens to prepare for difficult COVID-19 times in the coming months on Friday.

She stressed that everything had to be done to ensure that children would not become the losers of the COVID-19 pandemic. Education was the most important and "schools must not leave anyone behind."
TEL AVIV: The first official Israeli flight to the United Arab Emirates took off on Monday from Tel Aviv, carrying U.S. and Israeli delegates to talks on cementing an Israel-UAE normalisation deal brokered by Washington.

Saudi Arabia, which does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, has given permission for the El Al Airlines Boeing 737 to fly over its territory en route to the UAEs capital of Abu Dhabi, a source familiar with the flight plan said.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Home delivery manager Jenna Swartz wipes down bulk food container lids at Weavers Way Co-op in Mount Airy. Store employees regularly disinfect frequently touched surfaces to reduce potential coronavirus transmission. Read more

Once an hour, sometimes more, employees at Weavers Way Co-op grocery stores diligently wipe disinfectant on all high-touch surfaces: the checkout counters, the banisters, the plastic nozzles that dispense gourmet granola. At Whole Foods Market, workers sanitize even more often, wiping the credit-card readers between every customer.

Deep cleaning is the coronavirus catchphrase of the moment as more retailers, schools, and offices increase their indoor operations. And in at least one case, the goal seems to be deep and long-lasting: Witness American Airlines plan to use a cleaning spray that is said to keep surfaces virus-free for seven days.

There is nothing wrong with good hygiene, and for goodness sake keep washing your hands, especially as COVID-19 is joined in the coming months by the flu. But as more indoor spaces prepare to reopen this fall, infectious-disease experts say we dont need to be quite as fanatical about cleaning surfaces  at least not to the extent that it distracts from the main route of coronavirus transmission: through the air.

That means continuing to stick with methods that work. Wear masks. Practice social distancing  an effective safeguard against larger virus-laden droplets that fall to the ground within a few feet. And when going indoors  given that smaller viral particles can remain aloft  consider the ventilation.

At the Weavers Way location in Mount Airy, for example, it may help that the red-brick-and-stucco structure, built in 1925, still has some of its drafty original windows, said facilities manager Steve Hebden.

We can smell on the second floor when a neighbor has some good barbecue going, he said.

The science of air flow is complex  more below on how to tell if an indoor space is adequately ventilated. But first, a reminder that it can be hard to tell how an individual person was infected with the virus.

Despite evidence that the virus can live on surfaces for days, there are few, if any, confirmed reports of people getting COVID-19 from touching a germ-laden object, said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. One patient in Germany may have picked up the virus from touching a salt shaker, for example, and then presumably rubbing his eyes or nose. But other than that report, in Lancet Infectious Diseases, there is little else in the medical literature.

 READ MORE: Coronavirus spreads mainly between people, not via surfaces, CDC says. But nothing is certain.

That doesnt mean surface transmission of COVID-19 cant happen. It almost certainly does, given our knowledge of other viruses, said Gregory A. Poland, a vaccine researcher at the Mayo Clinic.

But short of a controlled laboratory experiment in which scientists expose people to a virus on purpose, such things can be difficult to tease out. Epidemiologists are left to trace how people were exposed after the fact  a challenge with a virus thats often spread by people who do not realize they are infected, said Adalja, a spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Imagine two people are on the couch talking, and theyre also eating cookies off the same coffee table, he said. Say one of them is infected, and the other gets sick a few days later. What is to blame, the talking or the cookie tray?

Regardless, the primary route through which the coronavirus spreads, say Adalja, Poland, and other infectious-disease experts, is the air.

That leaves two primary options for when indoors, said Michael S. Waring, a Drexel University professor of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering: Bring in fresh air, or filter the air already in the room. Or both.

Here are the basics for keeping spaces well-ventilated:

HVAC units

Office buildings tend to have boxy rooftop units to heat and cool indoor spaces while also adding air from outside, as indicated by what HVAC stands for: heating, ventilation and air-conditioning. Dampers can be opened to admit varying degrees of fresh air into the system. But in extremely hot or cold temperatures, it costs more to condition the outside air to a livable temperature, and there is a limit to how much fresh air some HVAC systems can handle, Waring said.

A high-quality system will refresh the air in a space multiple times an hour, though the ideal rate depends on the size of the room and how many people are in it.

 READ MORE: Influenza is about to make this coronavirus year even worse. What to know about flu shots.

Filters help

Commercial HVAC units generally are equipped with filters, rated with a system called MERV: minimum efficiency reporting value. Look for one with a rating of MERV-13, Waring said. That means it is designed to remove 90% of particles that measure one micron  a millionth of a meter  or more. Higher-rated filters are available, but they require more powerful fans to push the air through.

And just as important as the filters efficiency is how well it fits, Waring said. Gaps and leaks defeat the purpose.

In buildings without HVAC units, another option for removing viruses from the air is a standalone air-cleaning device equipped with a HEPA filter, Waring said.

Be wary of bells and whistles

Some air-handling systems tout the use of ultraviolet light, which is known to kill viruses. But be aware of its limitations, said Joshua Santarpia, an associate professor of pathology and microbiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Do not expect it to help much in air that is moving through ductwork. UV light takes tens of seconds to inactivate a virus, and the air in an HVAC system is moving faster than that.

You dont really get enough time, he said.

UV light might be useful, on the other hand, if the goal is to prevent microbial growth on a specific surface of an HVAC system, such as a cooling coil, he said.

Other fancy add-ons may do more harm than good, said Waring, director of Drexels architectural engineering program. For example, some standalone air cleaners emit ozone, which can irritate breathing.

Theres a big market out there right now, he said. I think a bunch of people are trying to make some money.

 FAQ: Your coronavirus questions, answered

Windows and box fans

In older buildings without HVAC units, including many schools in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, opening windows is a commonsense alternative.

Cross-ventilation works best: opening windows on opposite sides of the room. For improved flow, place an outward-facing box fan in one window and an inward-facing fan in the other.

But opening windows is not a workable solution on a hot day in mid-September, or an ice-cold one in January. Many school districts, including Eastern Regional in Camden County, have cited a lack of adequate ventilation as a reason they are starting the year with remote instruction.

Harvard public health experts provide more school-specific air-quality tips at schools.forhealth.org.

At the Weavers Way grocery in Mount Airy, the air-handling system does not admit outside air, though the doors are often open and there is that benefit of the drafty windows. The co-ops Chestnut Hill and Ambler locations, on the other hand, have advanced HVAC units.

In all three stores, COVID-19 cases among employees have been low, said general manager Jon Roesser. Since the beginning of the pandemic, just four of the co-ops 250 staffers have become infected  at least two of whom think they caught the virus outside the store, he said. All have recovered.

He attributed the success to a variety of precautions. One is reduced occupancy  just 12 people at a time are allowed in Mount Airy, 20 in Chestnut Hill, and up to 50 in Ambler. Another is a requirement to wear masks. Disposable gloves are provided for customers who wish.

And the cleaning? Roesser figures it cant hurt.

It probably doesnt matter whether you disinfect every hour or every couple hours, he said. It makes people feel good.
What Are The Differences Between JEE Mains and Advanced

After Odisha, Chhattisgarh, MP government to provide free travel for NEET, JEE candidates

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

Bhopal, Aug 31: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has on Sunday announced the government will arrange free transport for candidates appearing for JEE and NEET examinations.

The candidates will be provided free travel arrangements from the block or district headquarters to the examination centre by the government.

"I have given orders to arrange free transport service for students appearing in the JEE & NEET exams, from the district headquarters, in view of COVID-19. A guardian with students especially girls will also be given free pick and drop service", said the CM on Monday.

Students interested in availing this facility will have to register themselves by calling on 181, or through the portal https/mapit.gov.in/covid-19 , by August 31.

Chouhan made the announcement on his official Twitter handle on Sunday, saying, ''Government of Madhya Pradesh is arranging free-of-cost transport facility for students appearing in JEE/NEET exam. Arrangements will be done from Block HQ & District HQ of exam centre. Examinees can call at 181 or can apply by clicking on http://mapit.gov.in/covid-19 from August 31.''

In different tweets, the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said the free two-way transportation facility will be provided to students taking the exams to ensure that they do not face any problem due to coronavirus.

Earlier, Chief Ministers of Chhattisgarh and Odisha have also directed officials and their party leaders to help the students appearing in the exams.

As per the directions by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, the students who are appearing for the examination and need transportation and accommodation will be provided with the same facilities free of cost by the state government.

"The Chief Minister has also directed for the opening of nodal centres in every district to help the students and their parents. The candidates have to inform the nodal centres regarding their transport and accommodation requirements," State Chief Secretary said.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has also given instructions to all District Collectors to make arrangements for transportation of candidates for JEE and NEET exams to their examination centres and bringing them back.

Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Thursday said that the safety and future of the students was the topmost priority with regard to the conduction of the JEE and NEET amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
BRIDGEPORT Three men were injured early Sunday morning in a shooting at a memorial for a Friday homicide victim, according to officials.

Bridgeport Police Capt. Brian Fitzgerald said none of the injuries the men sustained were life-threatening and they are expected to survive. He said the shooting occurred just before 1:30 a.m. in the area of 1052 Howard Ave.
Intas will shortly launch a website to help recovered COVID-19 patients to locate the nearest Blood Bank where they can safely donate plasma.

The R&D team at Ahmedabad based Intas Pharma has developed COVID-19 specific Hyperimmune Globulin as treatment for patients suffering from moderate to severe COVID-19 infection.

Hyperimmune Globulin also has potential for use as prophylaxis for all high-risk population in contact with COVID-19 patients. This could be an important therapeutic option that can potentially help combat the disease until a vaccine is available.

Intas is among the world's first to adopt this approach for treating COVID-19 patients. This will be a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative from Intas in collaboration with all Indian Blood Banks, that will help to procure convalescent plasma (plasma extracted from patients recovered from COVID-19 infection).

Intas has received permission from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), to conduct clinical trial by using the newly developed COVID-19 specific Hyperimmune Globulin. After establishing its usefulness in the clinical trial, this product will be available for use in treating COVID-19 patients.

Commenting on the development, Dr Alok Chaturvedi, Head of Medical & Regulatory Affairs, Intas, mentioned that "This endeavour is a testament to Intas' commitment towards meeting unmet medical need of the society through research driven solutions."

Intas is establishing an alliance with medical and research institutions, blood donation groups to collect the plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients. Intas will shortly launch a website to help recovered COVID-19 patients to locate the nearest Blood Bank where they can safely donate plasma. The company seeks government support to facilitate the supply of convalescent plasma for the manufacturing of these enriched Hyperimmune Globulin and thereby help more patients conquer COVID-19.
Since January, nearly 5,800 people have been arrested in China for virus-related crimes like killing of health workers, selling defective medical equipment and lying about their travel history, said the state prosecutors office. According to the reports, 1 case involved the killing of a customer who reminded a shopkeeper to wear a mask. There are also cases that involve deliberate killings of medical workers. Reports suggest that 1 health worker was killed with a car while another case involved stabbing a health inspector with a dagger when monitoring temperatures.

Crimes increase amid pandemic

According to the reports, the Supreme People's Procuratorate on August 27 said in a statement that from the month of January to July a total of 5,797 people were arrested and 6,755 were prosecuted. There are people who have also been accused of embezzling money collected from fundraisers to help coronavirus patients. As per reports, China has a total number of 85,048 cases with 4,634 casualties. China has brought the virus under control and it is now slowly easing restrictions. China has not reported any locally transmitted infections in recent days.

Read: China: Schools In Wuhan To Reopen Next Week Amid COVID-19 Scare

The health authorities in the capital city of China have asked people to go mask-free further relaxing the coronavirus lockdown restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of novel coronavirus. According to the state media, a lot of people said that wearing masks made them feel safer and others said social pressures to wear the masks were also a factor. As per the reports, this is the second time the health authorities in Beijing have eased restrictions on wearing masks in the city which has returned to normalcy after months of strict lockdown.

Read: China's Top Diplomat Forced To Concede Xinjiang Atrocities; Gives Outrageous 'education' Spin

Following a months-long shutdown, Wuhan, the worst-hit in China, will reopen all its schools and kindergartens on September 1. The Chinese local authorities made the announcement on August 29. As per reports, the schools and kindergartens will reopen with measures and health guidelines in place. The authorities have reportedly asked students to wear masks to and from school and have also suggested to avoid public transportation if possible. The authorities have also made emergency plans to switch back to online teaching if risk levels change.

Read: COVID-19: Beijing Allows People To Go Mask-free As Cases Drop In China

Also Read: Indian Navy Deployed Warship In South China Sea Post Galwan Clash; Cornered China: Source

(Image Credits: Unsplash)
Former President Pranab Mukherjee was writing a book that chronicles his journey as India's head of state in exhaustive detail and its release is planned on his birth anniversary later this year, publisher Rupa Publications said on Monday.





'The Presidential Years' would be the fourth to be authored by Mukherjee, who passed away on Monday at the R&R hospital at the age of 84.

"This unique autobiographical account promises to give readers a bird's eye view of the functioning of Rashtrapati Bhavan, the inside story of the issues that made headlines -- from the imposition of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh to demonetisation," the publisher said in a statement.



"The book also talks about surgical strikes, his relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the National Democratic Alliance government and the functioning of the legislature, executive and the judiciary," it added.



The publisher said they are planning to release the book on his birth anniversary, December 11, this year.



Mukherjee had previously penned three books 'The Coalition Years' (2017), 'The Turbulent Years' (2016) and 'The Dramatic Decade' (2014) -- all parts of a trilogy throwing light on his extensive political journey and experiences.
A public interest litigation (PIL) has been moved in the Jharkhand high court seeking judicial order to the state government to immediately shift Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief and fodder scam convict Lalu Prasad to the Ranchi jail.

Prasad began his latest jail term on December 23, 2017, after his conviction in three fodder scam cases in quick succession.

But the former Bihar chief minister has been undergoing treatment in custody at Ranchis Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) for the last two years. He was shifted from the hospitals paying ward to the directors bungalow early this month due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

One Manish Kumar has filed the PIL highlighting how Prasad, unlike any ordinary convict, is availing VIP facilities at RIMS directors bungalow in flagrant violation of jail manual.

The petitioner alleged that Prasad was allowed to meet his acquaintances regularly without having any regard to the jail manual.

This all is happening under the garb of treatment right under the nose of the state government and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the prosecuting agency, which remain a mute spectator, said the petitioners lawyer Manoj Tondon.

He added that all convicted persons should be treated at par. When an ordinary convicted person is compelled to remain behind bars, why Prasad, being a political leader, should be given extra favour and why he should be allowed to enjoy the facilities at the directors bungalow, Tondon argued, saying, This is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.

Earlier, when Prasad was arrested in Bihar as an accused in the fodder scam, he was put in a guest house. After the Supreme Courts intervention, he was finally sent to Beur Jail, Patna, Tondon said.

He added that the said apex courts order was annexed with the PIL.

Prasad had suffered a major jolt in the fodder scam case on September 30, 2013, when a trial court in Ranchi held him guilty in the first of six cases against him. The conviction got him five years in prison, disqualification from Parliament and a ban on contesting elections. He was given bail by the Supreme Court in December that year.

The former Bihar chief ministers trouble renewed again after December 23, 2017, when he had been convicted in three other fodder scam cases in quick succession and awarded different terms of imprisonment.

After spending initial two months from December, 2017, to February, 2018, in Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi, Prasad had developed health complications in the middle of March, 2018, and he was shifted to hospital. Since then, he has not returned to jail.
(Newser)  President Trump plans to visit the hot spot of Kenosha, Wis., on Tuesday, and the state's governor isn't happy about it. In a letter to the president on Sunday, Tony Evers asked Trump to reconsider, reports Fox News. I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing, Evers wrote. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together. The state's lieutenant governor made a similar appeal earlier Sunday, but the White House says the trip is still on. "The White House has been humbled by the outreach of individuals from Kenosha who have welcomed the presidents visit and are longing for leadership to support local law enforcement and businesses that have been vandalized, the White House said in a statement.

story continues below

Trump plans to meet with law enforcement in the city and to survey damage from protests in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, per CNN. It wasn't clear as of Monday morning whether the president would meet with Blake's family. Unrest in Kenosha and elsewhere has become a flashpoint in the 2020 campaign, with Trump blaming Democratic lawmakers for riots and looting, notes the Washington Post. Biden, meanwhile, is blaming the president for "recklessly encouraging violence." Says Evers in his letter: "Now is not the time for divisiveness." (Trump and Portland's Democratic mayor are sparring publicly over that city's violence.)
The management of Stanbic IBTC has informed its shareholders about the delay in the release of its financial statement for Half Year 2020.

The bank said that it has not released the statement because it is seeking the approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Stanbic IBTC made this known in a disclosure notice sent to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday.

The notice was signed by Chidi Okezie, the Company Secretary.

The bank, a member of Standard Bank group, noted that the statement will be released on or before September 25.

This is to inform The Nigerian Stock Exchange as well as our Esteemed Stakeholders that we are experiencing a slight delay in the release of the 2020 Half Year Audited Financial Statements for Stanbic IBTC Holdings PLC (Stanbic IBTC), the bank said.

This delay is occasioned by the fact that we are currently seeking the approval of our primary Regulator, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for the Half Year Audited Financial Statements, following which the said Financial Statements will then be released to the Market.

We are working diligently to ensure that our Companys 2020 Half Year Results are published on or before Friday 25 September 2020. 

Apart from Stanbic IBTC, other banks whose half-year financial results have not been released include UBA, Access Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, among others.
JEE Mains 2020: The National Testing Agency (NTA) is all set to conduct the engineering entrance exam JEE-Mains from Tuesday amid elaborate arrangements to maintain social distancing at centres in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the governments of Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have assured students that they will provide transportation to candidates, a group of IIT alumni and students have also launched a portal to provide transport facilities to exam centres for the candidates in need.

Union Minister of Education Ramesh Pokhiyal Nishank has appealed to the chief ministers of various states to support the students appearing for the exam.

There has been a growing chorus for postponing JEE-Mains and medical entrance exam NEET amid the rising number of COVID-19 cases. The Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Mains for admission to engineering courses in IITs, NITs and Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (CFTIs) is scheduled to be held from September 1 to 6. The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) is scheduled on September 13. As many as 8.58 lakh candidates have registered for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Main and 15.97 lakh have registered for NEET.

I appeal to chief ministers of all states that support our students in such unprecedented circumstances and make appropriate arrangements so the aspirants do not have to face any inconvenience. I also appeal to students to have faith in agencies behind conduct of the examination, the Education Minister said.

Increasing the number of examination centres, alternate seating plans, fewer candidates per room and staggered entry and exit are among the steps the National Testing Agency has taken for safely conducting NEET and JEE.

According to NTA officials, before the start of each exam shift and after the last shift ends, all seats will be thoroughly sanitised and the work stations and keyboards will be disinfected. Hand sanitisers will be available at the entrance of the examination centre and inside the exam hall at all times. The usual process of checking the admit cards of candidates will be replaced with barcode readers, which have been made available to the examination centre authorities, an official said.

While all the candidates will be asked to go to the exam centres with masks and sanitisers, once they enter the centre, they will have to use the masks provided by the examination authority. Each candidate will be offered a 3-ply mask at the time of entry and expected to wear the same during the examination in order to avoid any form of unfair means at the time of examination, the official said.

There have been demands from several students and parents to further postpone the entrance exams in view of the increasing number of coronavirus cases. Several opposition leaders including Congress Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, her Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik, DMK President MK Stalin and Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia have also demanded that the exams be postponed.

The Supreme Court had earlier dismissed a plea seeking postponement of the two exams amid a spurt in the number of COVID-19 cases, saying a precious year of students cannot be wasted and life has to go on.

With barely days left for the JEE exams to start, the issue had escalated into a full blown political battle last week with ministers from six states -- Rajasthan and Punjab (Congress), West Bengal (Trinamool Congress), Jharkhand (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha), Maharashtra (Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena) -- seeking postponement of the exams in a manner that achieved the twin objectives of ensuring that the academic year of the students is not wasted and their health and safety is not compromised.

They filed a petition in the SC to review its order of conducting JEE and NEET UG 2020 entrance tests during the novel coronavirus crises.

The crucial exams have already been deferred twice in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The JEE-Main was originally scheduled to be held from April 7-11, but was postponed to July 18-23, the NEET-UG was originally scheduled for May 3, but was pushed to July 26. They were postponed again and are now scheduled in September. Based on the results of the JEE-Mains Paper 1 and Paper 2, the top 2.45 lakh candidates will be eligible to appear for the JEE-Advanced exam, which is a one-stop exam to get admission into the 23 premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). JEE-Advanced is scheduled to take place on September 27.
Hyderabad, Aug 31 : Former President Pranab Mukherjee, who passed away on Monday, had a special connection with the country's youngest state Telangana.

The veteran Congress leader had played a key role in the formation of the Telangana state, which was carved out of Andhra Pradesh as India's 29th state in 2014.

As a key figure in the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, Mukherjee was picked by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi to head a three-member sub-committee to go into the Telangana issue in 2004.

Then Union Ministers Dayanidhi Maran and Raghuvansh Prasad Singh were the other members of the panel.

The Telangana issue was included in the common minimum programme of UPA as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) had joined the Congress-led coalition.

Mukherjee, who was then the Defence Minister, held consultations with various parties on the issues of a separate state. He held a series of talks with TRS chief and then Union Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao.

However, the panel could not submit its report due to lack of consensus over the issue. Alleging betrayal by the Congress, the TRS pulled out of the UPA in 2006.

As a member of UPA core committee during the coalition's second term in power, Mukherjee was part of the key consultations after the Telangana movement was intensified by the TRS.

As Telangana Congress chief Uttam Kumar Reddy recalled, Mukherjee along with then Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram held a crucial all-party meeting over the Telangana issue on January 5, 2010.

Mukherjee continued to have a connection with Telangana even after he became the President in 2012.

As President, he gave assent to Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill 2014, paving the way for creation of Telangana state.

"The former President used to say that there was justice in demand for a separate Telangana statehood and he used to offer several useful suggestions to me. Pranab Mukherjee bestowed special praise on me saying that very few leaders have the rare opportunity of seeing the movement launched by them reaching its goal and he said I am privileged to have that rare opportunity and greatness," Chief Minister Chandrashekhar Rao said in his condolence message.

Citing Mukherjee's autobiography "The Coalition Years", he said: "In the book, Pranab Mukherjee also narrated an incident where I emphatically said that I was only interested in Telangana issue but would not care for any portfolio." Chandrashekhar Rao's son and state minister K.T. Rama Rao also recalled that Mukherjee played a key role in formation of the Telangana state.

"Pranab da was the head of the UPA committee on Telangana statehood demand. As the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee had signed the statehood bill and helped realise the dream of millions of Telangana people," said Rama Rao.
CAIRO: Two Katyusha rockets fell near Baghdad airport on Sunday but caused no casualties, the Iraqi military said, the third such attack on sensitive sites in the capital this week.

On Saturday, a rocket fell inside Baghdads heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and foreign missions, while three others landed there on Thursday. Those attacks also caused no casualties.

Washington blames such attacks on Iranian-backed militia groups. Iran has not directly commented on the incidents.

Iraq, often the scene of spillover violence from U.S.-Iran tensions, seeks to avoid being drawn into any regional conflagration.

The Middle East came close to a large conflict in January after a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at Baghdad airport. Iran-aligned militias have sworn to avenge their deaths.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Quebecers are the least likely residents of any Canadian province to wear protective masks, suggests a new survey, even though they account for half of Canadas COVID-19 cases and more than 56 per cent of the related deaths.

Overall, immigrants surveyed were overwhelmingly more likely to put on a mask than non-immigrants as a precaution against the coronavirus, said the study commissioned by the Association for Canadian Studies and released Friday.

The survey was conducted by Leger through an online panel over two periods, April 3 to 5 and 17 to 19. It interviewed 2,015 Canadians. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Over the two-week span, the percentage of mask-wearing respondents Canada-wide rose from 21 per cent to 32 per cent.

Forty per cent of those in Ontario said they wore masks in public areas, followed by 31 per cent of respondents in British Columbia, 30 per cent in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, 28 per cent in Alberta and 27 per cent in the Atlantic provinces, with just 21 per cent of Quebecers saying the same.

When asked if they had worn a mask in the past week, only 18 per cent of francophones said they had, compared to 32 per cent among anglophones and 53 per cent of the allophones, those whose mother tongue is neither French nor English.

We saw a big jump in the number of people wearing masks in public from March to April after health professionals suggested we do it, giving it legitimacy, but Quebec is a counter culture, said Jack Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies, who is himself a Quebecer.

As of Friday, Quebec had reported 21,838 COVID-19 cases, accounting for 51 per cent of the Canadian total of 42,750 cases. The province also recorded 1,243 deaths, or 56.6 per cent of Canadas overall 2,197 deaths.

Fifty-eight per cent of immigrants in Canada for less than five years said they wore masks in the past week, compared to 48 per cent among those who have been here for longer than five years and 28 per cent among their Canadian-born peers.

Some racial groups were also more likely than others to put on a mask, with Filipinos leading the trend at 76.5 per cent, followed by South Asian (56.9 per cent), Chinese (52.5 per cent), Black (50 per cent), Latin American (46.7 per cent), Arabic (35 per cent) and European/white residents (26.8 per cent).

Jedwab said he believes groups from Asia, South Asia and the Middle East are more accustomed to wearing protective masks due to air pollution in the countries from which their families have come. Previous exposure to SARS, MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) and H1N1 swine flu in those regions has also heightened awareness of pandemic precautions.

There was certainly a social stigma attached to wearing a mask here in Canada before COVID-19, but it has become more common and visible to people with masks now, Jedwab said.

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Victoria has recorded its highest death toll yet with 41 fatalities and 73 new cases of coronavirus on Monday.

The figures, confirmed by the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday, bring the state's toll from the virus to 565 and the national total to 652.

Monday's number includes 33 deaths in the weeks leading up to August 27, but were only reported to Victoria Health by aged care facilities on Sunday.

This means 8 people died in the 24 hours to Monday. The previous highest daily toll was 25 on August 17.

Of the deaths there were three males in their 70s, three females in their 70s and one female in her 100s.

The spike of fatalities come with just 73 new cases of COVID-19 after Victoria recorded 114 new cases on Sunday and 11 deaths.

Victoria has recorded its deadliest day with 41 deaths and 73 new cases of coronavirus reported on Monday (pictured, residents wearing face masks go for a walk in Melbourne on Saturday)

The figures, confirmed by the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday, bring the state's toll from the virus to 565 and the national total to 652

Victoria's Police Association on Monday called for state of emergency powers to be extended (pictured: people walking through Southbank on Saturday)

There are currently 453 Victorians in hospital and 21 people are receiving intensive care, with 13 of those on a ventilator.

Up to 14,435 tests were conducted on Sunday and there are 4,338 cases with an unknown source.

As of Monday there are 2,620 active cases across the state.

'There are 378 healthcare workers who were active cases so those numbers continue to fall,' Premier Daniel Andrews said on Monday.

'I will take this opportunity to thank and to congratulate every single member of our health workforce who are working so hard to provide care and attention and love and support to every patient, every resident, every client that needs that care and support, and we send our best wishes to those who have contracted this virus and wish them well.'

The premier has announced a restrictions roadmap that will be put forward on Sunday, after another week of data has been recorded.

'We will announce the roadmap to ease the restrictions we have all been living under,' he said.

'It is too early today to settle that roadmap and to lock that in as it were.'

'Another week's data is critically important to make sure that the strategy continues to work and for us to have a better sense of how long it will take to drive these numbers down to very, very low numbers so that they can be contained without the need to put restrictions back on over not just weeks and months.'

'These case numbers are too high for us to open up, and they are still too high for us to put forward a definitive plan,' he said.

'There will be a plan. It will come soon. But it will be one that we can be confident of, not something that potentially gets a few people being happier.'

Premier Daniel Andrews said on Sunday the number of cases were still too high to roll back restrictions

There are currently 453 Victorians in hospital and 21 people are receiving intensive care, with 13 of those on a ventilator

Mr Andrews said there were a 'number of key principles' in relation to the roadmap which will 'add to the enormous number of meetings and discussions that were held with businesses and unions'.

'There will be a number of key principles that underpin this opening up roadmap,' he said.

Physical distancing and density requirements will be taken into consideration, and the priority of getting people back to work.

The premier also said face coverings will need to be worn at all times and hygiene needs to be adhered to in workplaces.

Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said the 41 deaths reported date back to July.

'There are Commonwealth reporting obligations, state reporting processes, and we need to reconcile those cases, so that whatever the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre is reporting is absolutely consistent,' he said on Monday.

Victoria's Police Association on Monday called for state of emergency powers to be extended.

It comes as negotiations continue between the state government and crossbenchers over what should happen when the current state of emergency provisions expire on September 13.

Melburnians are subject to another fortnight of strict stage four restrictions including an 8pm to 5am curfew and Mr Andrews said the benefits from the first four weeks are starting to show.

Melbourne residents ignored warnings and enjoyed the sun over the weekend (one resident pictured walking her dog on Saturday)

The premier has announced a restrictions roadmap that will be put forward on Sunday, after another week of data has been recorded

Regional Victorians are under slightly less strict stage three restrictions for the same period.

Last week Mr Andrews sparked controversy when he announced the government had plans to extend the powers by 12 months to help deal with coronavirus.

With the opposition immediately saying it would not support the proposal, the government was forced into negotiations with crossbenchers.

There has been talk of a compromise, with the extension reduced to six months, but there is no confirmation ahead of parliament returning on Tuesday.

On Monday the police association, a powerful lobby group, released a statement on the issue.

'With 13 days to run on this current state of emergency, it is essential that parliament moves to maintain the framework that provides police and PSOs (public safety officers) with the capacity to help Victoria safely come out of lockdown,' it said.

'There can be no adequate plan for a return to some normality, if the framework designed to ensure it's done safely and incrementally, is removed.

Police officers are seen outside Flinders Street Station in Melbourne patrolling the city over the weekend

Last week Mr Andrews sparked controversy when he announced the government had plans to extend the powers by 12 months to help deal with coronavirus

'This issue is above politics. The safety of our community and our members in this precarious time is too important.'

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth said on Monday morning it was difficult to see Melbourne coming out of its stage-four restrictions on September 13, given the current numbers.

New cases dropped to 94 on Saturday but were back to 114 on Sunday before Monday's drop to 73.

'It's hard to see that happening,' Dr Coatsworth told Nine Network.

'I think the numbers need to be a lot less than they are now.'

Dr Coatsworth compared the state to NSW and Queensland, which are recording less than 10 new daily cases.

Restrictions across Melbourne are due to expire on September 13 but will be reduced gradually rather than removed completely.

Health officials have indicated that recommendations for face masks could remain in place for several more months.
In a video recorded shortly before two people were fatally shot last week in Kenosha, Wis., the accused gunman - Kyle Rittenhouse, 17 - circulates among a group of gun-wielding men who claim to be guarding a service station amid protests against police brutality.

Although it is well past curfew, police passing in an armored vehicle offer the group bottles of water and some friendly encouragement, saying over a loudspeaker: "We appreciate you guys. We really do."

As protesters march against racism and police violence in cities and towns across the nation, they are being confronted by groups of armed civilians who claim to be assisting and showing support for police battered and overwhelmed by the protests. The confrontations have left at least three people dead in recent days: In addition to the two protesters killed Tuesday in Kenosha, a man thought to be associated with a far-right group called Patriot Prayer was fatally shot late Saturday in Portland, Ore.

Both incidents have drawn complaints that local authorities abetted the violence by tolerating the presence of these self-appointed gunmen with no uniforms, varied training and limited accountability. The stated motives of these vigilante actors, who are virtually indistinguishable from one another once massed on the streets, range from protecting storefronts and free speech to furthering white supremacy and fomenting civil war.

Many sheriffs and police chiefs, including in Kenosha, have disavowed these armed civilians, saying police do not want their help. Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth, a Republican, said he responded "hell no" when asked to deputize civilians. And Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian, a Democrat, said this week, "I don't need more guns on the streets in this city when we are trying to keep people safe."

But elsewhere, local authorities have at times appeared to support people who took up arms against protests that have occasionally turned violent and provided cover for vandals and looters. In Snohomish, Wash., the police chief was ousted in June after welcoming dozens of armed men, including one waving a Confederate flag, who responded to false Internet rumors that "antifa" looters planned to ransack the town.

In Hood County, Texas, a constable in May encouraged the Oath Keepers - an armed group that claims to have thousands of members of current and former law enforcement and military agencies - to defend a Dallas hair salon after rumors of possible looting. And in Salem, Ore., a police officer was captured on video in June advising armed men to "discreetly" stay inside while police began arresting protesters for violating curfew.

On other occasions, police officers have been photographed smiling or fist-bumping with members of far-right armed groups. Even in Kenosha, individual police officers seemed to welcome the help of armed civilians, including Rittenhouse, a member of police and fire cadet training programs who said on video before the shooting that it was "our job" to help people and protect property.

"We were welcomed very warmly," said Kenosha Guard leader Kevin Mathewson, 36, a former city alderman who summoned armed men in Kenosha on the night of the shooting. "I was at the entrance to my neighborhood. [Police] rolled down their windows and said, 'Thanks for being here. We can't be everywhere.' "

Mathewson has said he does not know Rittenhouse. The teen, from the nearby town of Antioch, Ill., has been charged with homicide. His attorneys say he acted in self-defense after being "accosted by multiple rioters."

In a letter last week to Kenosha officials, Mary McCord, legal director at the Georgetown University Law Center's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, said "the bloodshed . . . throws into sharp relief the danger posed when private and unaccountable militia groups take the law into their own hands."

McCord has called on police and prosecutors to enforce laws that prohibit private groups from usurping law enforcement functions. In her letter, she noted that "several provisions of Wisconsin law prohibit private paramilitary and unauthorized law enforcement activity."

Raul Torrez, the district attorney in Bernalillo County, N.M., agrees. In June, one person was shot after members of an armed group that calls itself the New Mexico Civil Guard clashed with protesters trying to tear down a monument to Spanish conquistador Juan de Onate in Albuquerque. Torrez, a Democrat, filed suit against the militia, seeking to block it from assuming law enforcement duties.

"I don't think a lot of Americans understand how fragile democracy is," Torrez said. "One of the early signs of a troubled democracy is when people decide that they're no longer going to address their political differences at the ballot box - or in elected legislatures or in Congress - but they're going to do it on the street and they're going to do it with guns."

"Police officers, district attorneys, leaders in law enforcement here and across the country have to make it unambiguously clear to anyone that it is not their job - it is the role of law enforcement - to" defend property, Torrez said. Militia-type groups are "not hearing that message from enough leadership in law enforcement. And this takes us down a very, very dangerous path."

While racial justice protests typically condemn police behavior and include calls for defunding police departments, militia-style groups are predominantly pro-police and often rally behind slogans such as "Blue Lives Matter" and "Back the Badge." In Portland and other places, law enforcement has been accused of treating far-right groups more leniently than leftist protesters.

"The vigilantes will come out and their rally will be 'Back the Blue,' " said Alexander Reid Ross, a doctoral fellow at the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right, a London-based group.

Ross has compiled a database of 497 public appearances of militias and far-right groups in about 300 U.S. counties since May, including 56 that he says suggest collaboration with police.

This summer, a commissioner in Bonner County, Idaho, called on residents to mobilize against a Black Lives Matter protest planned for Sandpoint, the county seat. His Facebook post asked people to "help counter anything that might get out of hand," drawing a rebuke from Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad, who called it "grossly irresponsible."

The commissioner, Dan McDonald, said he stood by his message, despite critics who derided the assemblage as "Dan's private army."

"Most of the guys that showed up - I would bet because I know some of these folks - are former law enforcement, former military," he said. "They're well-trained and continue to train just for their own self-defense."

Elsewhere, local officials have advised civilians to be prepared to use violence to defend themselves. At a June news conference responding to rumors on social media of possible riots, the sheriff in Polk County, Fla., warned would-be lawbreakers that local residents "have guns. I encourage them to own guns. And they're going to be in their homes tonight, with their guns loaded."

The sheriff, Grady Judd, also encouraged people to shoot intruders.

"Shoot them so much you can read The Washington Post through them," he said in interview last week, adding: "I want people to take matters into their own hands when they're protecting their homes."

This month, a complaint was filed with Cottonwood Heights, Utah, by a resident who said he and his wife were "followed, harassed and intimidated by five heavily armed individuals in a White Dodge pickup" after protesting racial discrimination. The man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity citing fears for his safety, said he and his wife showed video of the encounter to police - including evidence that the truck lacked license plates.

"We said, 'We feel intimidated by the fact that they're anonymous. Can you have a conversation with them about it?' " the man said, adding that "police did nothing."

A response signed by Assistant Police Chief Paul Brenneman stated that the man's "complaint does not specify what actions, by the men, caused you to feel harassed."

In an interview, Brenneman said his department "doesn't take sides between protest or Second Amendment folks," adding: "We support everybody's rights to exercise their civil rights."

On the night of the Kenosha shooting, Mathewson, the Kenosha Guard leader, sent an email to Police Chief Dan Miskinis, asking him not to turn away armed residents.

"I ask that you do NOT have your officers tell us to go home under threat of arrest as you have done in the past," he wrote. "It is evident, that no matter how many Officers, deputies, and other law enforcement officers that are here, you will still be outnumbered."

Miskinis never responded, Mathewson said, but the request was fulfilled.

"The thing about militias is it's independent from the government. And you don't need permission" Mathewson said, adding that he was not upset with the chief for not responding. "There may be some liability implications there where if he says, 'we need you,' there could be liability for him if someone gets hurt."

One person who carried a rifle in Kenosha last week said these chaotic street protests cannot be reduced to two sides. "There isn't one group of protesters, there's dozens," said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly. "And likewise, there isn't one group of armed citizens. There had to be at least 10 different groups that I could distinguish."

The man described himself as a member of a libertarian militia unit that trains at least monthly. In addition to studying combat medicine, he said, they "shoot together, learn to move and communicate while shooting, and push each other to run faster and lift better."

The group views itself as "protecting the freedom of speech of private citizens," the man said. "When businesses were being destroyed in riots" after the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25, "we saw our fellow Americans being stripped of liberty as well."

Kenosha County Supervisor Terry Rose, a Democrat, said he does not think the armed groups have widespread support from public officials. But he said it's no surprise that individual officers might welcome their help.

"I suppose they did that because they felt outnumbered. I've been urging from Day 1, as a county board supervisor, that federal troops be called in," Rose said. Since video went viral of Kenosha police shooting Jacob Blake in the back on Aug. 23, "it was clear to me we had to have federal troops or we were going to be Portland or Minneapolis."

Blake, who is Black and appeared to be unarmed, was left paralyzed by the shooting. Violent protests quickly erupted, drawing Rittenhouse to Kenosha. Since then, some conservative politicians, activists and commentators have exalted the teenager.

"Are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder?" Fox News host Tucker Carlson said last week. "How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?"

Miskinis seemed to echo that view when he blamed the shooting on protesters violating curfew. "Had persons not been out involved in violation of that, perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened," he said last week. The "use of firearms" by Rittenhouse, he said, occurred "to resolve whatever conflict was in place."

Miskinis later backtracked, saying responsibility for the shooting rests "solely on the person who did that, not on the victims of this crime."

Another video suggests that police handled Rittenhouse differently from the typical murder suspect. That recording shows him in the middle of the street, rifle dangling, hands up in surrender. A man can be heard shouting that Rittenhouse had just shot several people.

Instead of taking the teen into custody, police drive right past him. According to his attorneys, Rittenhouse turned himself in to police later that night.

- - -

The Washington Post's Mark Guarino in Kenosha, Wis., contributed to this report.
A Maryland employee was fired Saturday after posting "divisive images and statements" on Facebook about the shooting of protesters in Kenosha, Wis.

Arthur "Mac" Love was deputy director of the Governor's Office of Community Initiatives, which coordinates community and volunteer service activities and oversees the state's ethnic and cultural commissions.

In recent days, Love posted statements and shared memes on his public Facebook page in support of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with homicide after allegedly opening fire on protesters in Kenosha, killing two and injuring one.

After people identified Love as a state employee, his posts received backlash, with some lawmakers calling for him to be removed from his role. On Saturday afternoon, Steve McAdams, executive director of the Governor's Office on Community Initiatives, said Love had been "relieved of his duties."

"These divisive images and statements are inconsistent with the mission and core values of the Office of Community Initiatives," McAdams said.

Shareese Churchill, a spokeswoman for Gov. Larry Hogan, released a separate statement saying, "These posts are obviously totally inappropriate. We fully support the immediate actions taken by Director McAdams to address this matter."

In a conversation with The Washington Post on Sunday, Love said he had learned about his firing through cable news on Saturday and received official notice of his termination Sunday morning. He declined to answer more questions until Monday but said he was talking to attorneys about his situation.

"There's a lot more to say and that I'd love to say," he said, laughing. "But I don't know if I'm allowed to."

Representatives for Hogan, a Republican, did not respond to inquiries asking when Love was informed of his firing or whether there is a state policy on what employees are allowed to share on social media.

Love's firing was first reported by Maryland Matters.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Love had been deputy director of the Office of Community Initiatives since 2015. He previously worked at the U.S. Labor Department, the Maryland lieutenant governor's office, and as a field operative on Republican campaigns.

The images and memes Love shared on his Facebook account sympathized with Rittenhouse, including one that said, "I'm grateful that conservatives are rallying behind this kid. He genuinely seems like a good person." Another post on his account showed a uniformed officer sticking two thumbs up with the caption: "Don't be a thug if you can't take a slug."

In an earlier post, dated July 24, Love weighed in on the clashes between armed officers and protesters in Portland, Ore., writing, "So at what point in time does the local militia gather to defend the local police from these radical anarchists and terrorists . . ."

As of Sunday, his Facebook account appeared to have been made private or removed.

In recent days, self-declared militia members and counterprotesters have flooded into Kenosha, confronting groups protesting against the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake. On Saturday night, one person was shot dead in Portland after supporters of President Donald Trump drove in a caravan through the city, clashing with counterprotesters.

Democratic lawmakers said Love's posts reflected badly on the state government.

Del. Vaughn Stewart, D-Montgomery, tweeted that in his role at the Office of Community Initiatives, Love had overseen the state Commission on African American History and Culture. "It goes without saying he is not fit to be a public servant in any capacity," he added.

Del. Darryl Barnes, D-Prince George's, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, said to Maryland Matters that there was "no sense" for Love's posts. "There's no reason someone like this should be part of our state government," he added.

Love was dismissed effective immediately Saturday, McAdams said. His responsibilities will be assumed by Kevin Craft, administrative director of the Commission on African Affairs.
It's a milestone that's most often celebrated with a huge party, but all Queen Rania of Jordan wants for her 50th is for her loved ones to be 'healthy and safe and nearby'.

The mother-of-four, who is married to King Abdullah II, 58, is celebrating her birthday today after a 'very difficult year' - with the global pandemic and her country's lockdown resulting in some days that 'seemed to last a lifetime' for the royal.

Speaking to Hello!, Queen Rania said: 'It has been a very difficult year, but I am thankful that my country is doing all it can to limit the spread of Covid-19 within our borders and put our peoples health and wellbeing first.'

Last week, Jordan reimposed some restrictions and extended curfew hours in response to increasing coronavirus outbreaks.

It's a milestone that's most often celebrated with a huge party, but all Queen Rania of Jordan (pictured with her husband earlier this month) wants for her 50th is for her loved ones to be 'healthy and safe and nearby'

Throughout the country's lockdown earlier this year, Queen Rania's children - Crown Prince Hussein, 26, Princess Iman, 23, Princess Salma, 19 and Prince Hashem, 15 - were with their family, which the mother said was a 'blessing'.

Throughout this global crisis, there have been days that seemed to last a lifetime, followed by months that flew by in a haze, the royal admitted.

When revealing her birthday wish this year, she said: On my birthday, as long as the people I love are nearby, and they are healthy and safe, I could not possibly ask for more.

The royal confessed that she usually wished for more time with her husband and their children, but said that time is all shes had this year, adding that they were grateful to be together.

The mother-of-four (pictured in 2019), who is married to King Abdullah II, 58, is celebrating her birthday today after a 'very difficult year' - with the global pandemic and her country's lockdown resulting in some days that 'seemed to last a lifetime' for the royal

Queen Rania of Jordan alongside her husband King Abdullah II and their four children, Crown Prince Hussein, 26, Princess Iman, 23, Princess Salma, 19 and Prince Hashem, 15

Queen Rania and King Abdullah II, who got engaged just six months after they first met at a dinner party hosted by a mutual friend, have been married since June 1993.

Glamorous Queen Rania went to school in Kuwait and studied a business degree in Cairo, Egypt, before marrying into royalty.

She paid a touching tribute to her husband on their 27th wedding anniversary in June.

Taking to Instagram, the mother-of-four shared a heartwarming snap where she was captured smiling and walking hand-in-hand with King Abdullah II.

Captioning the post in Arabic and English, she penned: 'How could you not fall in love with that smile, over and over again for 27 years! So lucky and grateful to have you by my side, happy anniversary. #Love #Jordan #LoveJO.'
Protesters march near the Minneapolis 1st Police precinct in Minneapolis, Minn., on Aug. 24, 2020. (Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)

Jacob Blake No Longer Handcuffed to Hospital Bed: Attorneys

Sexual assault suspect Jacob Blake is no longer handcuffed to his hospital bed, his lawyers said.

Benjamin Crump, who is leading the defense of Blake, said in a statement with co-counsels written to The Epoch Times that they learned the warrants for Blake were vacated, although the charges against him are still pending.

Fortunately, a man who is paralyzed and fighting for his life after being shot seven times in the back will no longer have to deal with the pain of having his ankles and wrist shackled and the traumatic stress of being under armed guard, the attorneys said.

Blake, 29, was rushed to Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee on Aug. 23 after a police officer shot him seven times.

Blake had a warrant out for his arrest for sexual assault, according to a criminal complaint obtained by The Epoch Times, when officers responded to a 911 call from a woman who said her boyfriend was at her home but was not supposed to be on the premises.

Blake resisted arrest and possessed a knife, investigators probing the shooting have said. The three officers involved were placed on administrative leave pending the investigation.

Jacob Blake with his sons in a file photograph. (Ben Crump/Twitter via CNN)

The office of Patrick Cafferty, the local counsel for Blake, said the lawyer spoke with Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley and arranged a $500 bond on the sexual assault charge.

Attorney Gravely cooperated with me to have the warrant vacated and the cuffs removed and have the deputy leave, Cafferty said in a statement released by the office.

The Milwaukee County Sheriffs Office (MCSO) said that Blake remained in custody from Aug. 23 to Aug. 28 on the felony arrest warrant. Deputies from the Milwaukee County and Kenosha County sheriffs offices kept watch over Blake.

MCSO worked very closely with the hospital and Mr. Blakes legal team to ensure a safe and dignified environment for Mr. Blake, consistent with best law enforcement and hospital practices for security and visitation, the office said in a statement.

Earlier today, Mr. Blake posted the bond underlying the arrest warrant, enabling his release from custody. The hospital watch was discontinued immediately after receiving this information from Kenosha authorities.

Kenosha Police Chief Dan Miskinis told reporters on Friday that Blake was being guarded because he was under arrest.

And it was for an outstanding warrant for third degree sexual assault, he said.

Vehicles are parked where Jacob Blake was shot by police in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 28, 2020. (Russell Contreras/AP Photo)

As far as Miskinis knows, the officers who responded to the Aug. 23 call knew of the outstanding warrant.

Blakes father said during a virtual appearance on CNN, also on Friday, that he didnt know why his son was handcuffed in the hospital.

Why do they have that cold steel on my sons ankle? he said. He cant get up, he couldnt get up if he wanted to.

Thats a little overkill, to have him shackled to the bed. That just makes no sense to me, he added.

Asked about the matter the day before, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said he was concerned about Blake being handcuffed.

I would have no personal understanding why that would be necessary. Certainly hes paid a terrific price already been shot seven or eight times in the back, he said. So I cant imagine why thats happening.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 18:25:41|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- China's success in controlling COVID-19 means the economy is in a steady revival mode. The following facts and figures indicate how the country is forging ahead in resuming work and production:

-- The purchasing managers' index (PMI) for China's manufacturing sector decreased to 51 in August from 51.1 in July, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.

A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below reflects contraction. It is the sixth month in a row that the figure remained in the expansion territory.

NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe said policies of balancing epidemic control and economic development yield notable fruit, and the economy keeps recovering with good prospects.

The PMI for China's non-manufacturing sector came in at 55.2 in August, up from 54.2 in July, the NBS said.

-- Trade financing in China has maintained a sound growth momentum despite a challenging global trade environment in the past two years, according to a report from the China Banking Association.

In 2019, the business volume of international settlement at Chinese commercial banks totaled 6.89 trillion U.S. dollars, a slight decrease from the 2018 level, the report showed.

Favorable factors for the development of the country's trade financing business include progress in the Belt and Road construction, the development of pilot free trade zones, the integration of the Yangtze River Delta, the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, the construction of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the internationalization of the yuan, it said.

-- China's fixed-asset investment (FAI) in transport sector rose by 9.4 percent year on year in the first seven months of the year, official data showed.

In the Jan.-July period, total FAI in the sector stood at nearly 1.796 trillion yuan (about 262 billion U.S. dollars), according to the Ministry of Transport.

Combined investment in highways and waterways took the lion's share of the total FAI with an inflow of 1.35 trillion yuan in the period, a year-on-year growth of 12.1 percent. Enditem
China will speed up poverty alleviation through consumption by launching a nationwide campaign in September to boost sales of products from impoverished areas, the countrys poverty relief authority said at a press conference held on Aug. 28.

Passengers buy poverty alleviation products from the first batch of vending machines at the waiting room of Beijing South Railway Station, Aug. 29. (Photo by Sun Lijun/Peoples Daily)

The month-long event has been jointly organized by 11 departments including the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

The relevant departments are introducing online and offline consumption-driven poverty relief platforms to facilitate the sale of goods from poverty-stricken areas. Customers can buy these products from e-commerce giants including JD.com, Pinduoduo, Taobao and Suning, as well as physical stores including Yonghui Superstores.

In addition, smart vending machines have also been installed at shopping malls, railway stations, hospitals, public institutions and so on to sell these poverty alleviation products.

So far, 76,152 poverty alleviation products from 22 provinces in the central and western regions have been included in the campaign. The figure is expected to rise to 100,000.

Wang Dayang, an officer of the leading group office, explained the certification procedures for these products. Companies or cooperatives can submit applications to county-level poverty relief departments. If the product is identified as a poverty alleviation product, the local government will publish the result under the supervision of municipal, provincial and national related departments.

Poverty alleviation through consumption is an effective way for enterprises and individuals to participate in poverty relief efforts.

Guangzhou in south Chinas Guangdong province has established a trading market for products from impoverished areas. Thanks to the local governments efforts and proper subsidies, the market-based model has opened up a fast track channel for consumption-powered poverty reduction.

According to statistics, sales of such products from poor areas have hit 24.3 billion yuan in the province.
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The Lagos State University has announced that its students would resume in batches. The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof. Olanrewaj...

The Lagos State University has announced that its students would resume in batches.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof. Olanrewaju Fagbohun, SAN, made this known on Monday.

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, had on Saturday announced that tertiary institutions will be allowed to open from September 14th, 2020, while primary and secondary schools may be reopened on September 21.

Fagbohun, while addressing questions during a radio programme on Eko 89.7 fm, explained that students in 400, 500 and 600 levels would resume before others.

The VC also stated that lectures would hold between 9 am and 3 pm on the university campus without giving a specific resumption date.

Fagbohun added that students in 200 and 300 levels would resume two months before the commencement of their examinations.

He said, A gradual phasing has been done for our students resumption. Students in 400 to 600 levels would resume for a duration of two months with an intensive lecture starting from 9 am to 3 pm for those that reside off-campus.

After the completion of 400 to 600 levels resumption, students in 200 and 300 levels are to resume for a two-month lecture before the commencement of their examinations.

Resumption of the students in 200 and 300 levels is divided into different days of the week.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, 300-level students would be on campus for lectures. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, 200-level students would be on campus. This is in order to maintain social distancing and to protect the lives of the students of Lagos State University and the staff.

In line with the NCDC requirement for medical facilities, LASU has a COVID-19 team to keep the university on toes in ensuring compliance.

Isolation places have been provided in the University. With the prepared roadmap, LASU is prepared to accommodate students and visitors.

He added that the university just concluded its online examination for post-graduate students.
A man charged with attempted murder after he allegedly attacked two men with a tomahawk on the Mornington Peninsula has refused to engage with a magistrate and labelled the hearing a "kangaroo court".

Jeffrey Cardwell is charged with two counts of attempted murder after he allegedly targeted and seriously injured two strangers outside the Rosebud Plaza shopping centre on Saturday morning in front of terrified onlookers.

Police at the scene of the violent attack at Rosebud Plaza. Credit:Nine News

Mr Cardwell, 48, had his case called at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday but did not have his video link activated from custody, and refused to engage with magistrate Greg McNamara.

"No, I don't want to speak to anyone, this is untrustworthy. Ridiculous," Mr Cardwell said before labelling the hearing "a kangaroo court".
China on Monday said its troops strictly abide by the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India, refuting the Indian armys statement that said the Chinese armed forces had carried out provocative military actions on the southern banks of the Pangong Tso.

Responding to a question on the Indian army statement, the Chinese foreign ministry said the troops of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) never cross the line.

Chinese border troops always strictly abide by the LAC. They never cross the line. Border troops on the two sides have been in close communication regarding the issues on the ground, ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian said.

Asked about any ongoing meetings to resolve this new development, he said: What I said is that the two sides through diplomatic and military channels maintain close communication. As to specific meetings and talks, if there is anything, we will release it in a timely manner.

Earlier in the day, the Indian army accused Chinese soldiers of trying to alter the status quo.

The statement said Indian troops had been able to pre-empt the PLA from trying to change the facts on the ground.

A Brigade Commander-level flag meeting is said to be in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues on the ground.

There have been several meetings between the two sides to disengage after border troops clashed in Galwan Valley on June 15, which led to casualties on both sides.

Chinese troops have been slow to pull back, particularly around Pangong Tso, the saltwater glacial lake spread across 700 sq km.

The Chinese effort to enlarge the border row came just two days after the defence ministry in Beijing told India that it should look at the big picture of bilateral ties and work with it and take concrete steps to bring the relationship back on the right track of normal development.

India has made it clear that China should work on complete disengagement, and then de-escalation of troops in eastern Ladakh, underlining that this can be achieved only through mutually agreed reciprocal actions. The message from New Delhi has been that the Indian army will stay firm on Chinese efforts to alter the status quo and has stressed that the PLA will have to return to their April 20 position.
TikTok has reportedly chosen a bidder for the sale of its US arm - as White House trade adviser Peter Navarro warned that the United States will target more Chinese-made apps.

Sources familiar with the deal told CNBC on Monday that TikTok could announce the sale of the popular video app as early as tomorrow.

Microsoft, in partnership with Walmart, and Oracle are considered to be the top contenders for the sale.

President Donald Trump earlier this month threatened to ban TikTok in the US if it was not sold to a US buyer within 45 days in an effort to separate the social media upstart from its Chinese parent ByteDance.

Navarro, one of Trump's trade advisers, said the US had more Chinese-made apps in its sights after TikTok and WeChat.

TikTok has reportedly chosen a bidder for the sale of its US arm and the deal could be announced as early as tomorrow, source have said

'It is critical that this country not use apps that are made in China, or that can take our data and go to servers in China. That data will be used to surveil, monitor and track you,' Navarro told Fox Business' Mornings with Maria.

'That's the policy position underlying why we have gone after TikTok and WeChat and there will be others because China... is basically going out around the world trying to acquire technology and influence.'

Despite the reports that TikTok has now chosen a bidder, the deal could potentially be derailed by the Chinese government after they published new rules on Friday that added 'civilian use' to a list of technologies that are restricted for export.

The new regulations could make it more difficult for Bytedance to sell the wildly popular video app.

Bytedance said the regulations now mean they must obtain a license from the Chinese government before they can sell to a US company.

The company said it would 'strictly abide' by China's technology law and its list of restrictions 'to handle business relating to the import and export of technology'.

The move marked the first time China has adjusted its list of technologies subject to export bans or restrictions since 2008 by adding 23 new items.

It comes after TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer quit last week just days after the company filed a lawsuit challenging the crackdown by the US government.

TikTok argued in the suit that Trump's executive order was a misuse of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because the platform is not 'an unusual and extraordinary threat'.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro warned on Monday that the United States will target more Chinese-made apps after TikTok and WeChat

The Trump administration has argued that TikTok is a potential national security risk due to the vast amount of private data the app is compiling on US consumers. TikTok claims about 100 million monthly active users in the United States.

Walmart last week became the latest company to want a piece of TikTok after making a joint bid with Microsoft.

Microsoft and Walmart are already business partners. Microsoft provides cloud computing services that help run the retailer's stores and online shopping. The two companies signed a 5-year partnership in 2018, enabling them to join forces against a shared rival: online shopping giant Amazon.

Walmart said in a statement that a deal with Microsoft and TikTok could help it expand its advertising business and reach more shoppers.

Other tech companies such as Oracle are also reportedly interested in a possible acquisition.

While ByteDance hasn't disclosed its asking price for TikTok, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that it is seeking roughly $30 billion for TikTok's US operations.

The Journal reported that bidders so far haven't been willing to meet that price.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos national poll released on Monday, 40 percent of Americans back Trump's threat to ban the videosharing app if it is not sold to a US buyer.

The poll, which surveyed 1,349 adult respondents across the US, found that 40 percent backed Trump's recent executive order forcing ByteDance to sell its TikTok operations by September 15.

Thirty percent of the respondents said they opposed the move, while another 30 percent said they didn't know either way.
This article about school segregation is part 2 in the American dream while Black series about the obstacles Black people face in achieving equity. Read part 1 on how homeownership is the prime driver of this country's ongoing wealth gap.

The death of George Floyd this spring turned Minneapolis into a symbol of Americas racial divide  a place where, as in many American cities, people of color feel sidelined, disrespected and cut off from opportunities.

But Minneapolis hasnt always had that reputation.

In the last decades of the 20th century, the Twin Cities were seen as a model of racial and economic integration, celebrated as a place where state laws and local initiatives created some of the most far-reaching school and neighborhood integration programs in the nation.

Those efforts didnt stamp out racism, said Helen Bassett, 70, a Black school board member in the suburban Robbinsdale Area school district near Minneapolis. But they gave people a way to better understand one another, to relate to them on the basis of human decency.

Today, however, the programs are mostly gone.

Like many U.S. cities that dismantled school integration programs in the wake of federal court decisions and shifting local politics, the Twin Cities have largely walked away from their once-touted initiatives, replacing them with a school choice system that was supposed to integrate schools by letting parents choose where to send their children, but has largely exacerbated segregation.

Bus routes that once transported students to intentionally integrated schools have stopped running. Magnet schools that once drew students from different neighborhoods have closed. And in the absence of those efforts, Black and white students have become increasingly isolated.

In the 1993-94 school year, less than one percent of Black students in the Minneapolis region attended highly segregated public schools  where 90 percent or more of the student body was not white, according to an NBC News analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Almost three decades later, in 2018, a quarter of the region's Black students were attending such schools.

Story continues

NBC News found a similar rise in school racial segregation in 74 of the 100 most populous metro areas in the United States. Across the country, nearly 40 percent of Black students were in highly segregated schools in 2018, up from 33 percent in 1993. And in places like Minneapolis; Charlotte, North Carolina; Milwaukee; and Tampa Bay, Florida, the increases were even sharper.

The consequences of that resegregation have been painful, said Rucker Johnson, an economist and public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

We must think of racism as an infectious disease and silence leaves the disease untreated, said Johnson, the author of Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works.

When communities resegregated schools, he said, they halted progress in bridging academic and economic gaps that had long existed between Blacks and whites. Johnsons book documents his research following thousands of students from the heyday of school integration in the 1970s and 80s. He found that when Black students attended integrated schools from kindergarten to 12th grade, they went further in high school and college, essentially eliminating differences in educational attainment between Black and white students. They earned higher wages compared to Black students who attended segregated schools, had more stable marriages, were more likely to avoid the criminal justice system and experienced health benefits later in life on par with being seven years younger.

We see a pretty transformative impact, said Johnson, who is African American and grew up in Minneapolis, where his mother was the superintendent of schools from 1997 to 2003. When schools began to resegregate, Black and Latino students increasingly landed in schools with fewer resources and less experienced teachers. Thats led to lower graduation rates, lower rates of college attendance and ultimately lower wages compared with their white peers.

NAACP protesting MPLS school board meeting -- Protestors fill a meeting room at the Minneapolis Public school headquarters to display their disagreement with recent school board policy regarding segregation and to support a NAACP lawsuit against the state (Marlin Levison / Star Tribune via Getty Images)

White students who attend predominantly white schools, meanwhile, are more likely to bring racial biases into adulthood, Johnson said, meaning that when cities like Minneapolis resegregated their schools they set themselves up for a future of housing and employment discrimination, racial bias in classrooms, unequal treatment for patients in hospitals, and  ultimately  incidents like the killing of Floyd, a Black man who died with his neck under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer.

When law enforcement assumes guilt over innocence, when educators perpetuate a culture of low expectations and when health care is not preventative and accessible care, Johnson said, the consequences are tragic and destroy our opportunities.

After Brown

The U.S. Supreme Court abolished school segregation in its Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. The Civil Rights Act a decade later made the ruling more enforceable. And by the 1970s, lawsuits filed on behalf of Black students had begun to desegregate schools.

In Charlotte, an ambitious effort to use busing to racially balance schools in Mecklenburg County was unanimously upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971. The ruling paved the way for court-ordered busing programs around the country and turned the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district into a national model for school integration for 25 years.

A cheerful busload of West Charlotte High School pupils on May 15, 1972.

Soon, hundreds of school districts were under court orders that redrew enrollment boundaries or put students on buses to take them to integrated schools.

As a result, the percent of Black students in highly segregated schools across the country was cut in half from 1968 to 1988, according to a 2019 report.

It wasnt perfect, said Erica Frankenberg, an education professor at Pennsylvania State University and one of the reports authors. Many technically integrated schools steered white students to advanced classes that excluded Black students. Others subjected Black students to racist discipline policies that made it harder for them to succeed. Private schools sprang up, particularly in the South, to serve white students whose parents wanted segregated schools.

In the North, as the suburbs expanded, some areas, like Boston and Detroit, saw integration efforts thwarted by a 1974 Supreme Court ruling that barred judges from forcing suburbs to participate. That meant white families could avoid integration by moving to the suburbs, which many did.

Police were on hand to provide protection as buses carrying Black students arrive at South Boston High School on Jan. 8, 1975. (AP file)

Despite those challenges, Frankenberg said, it was a start. We brought kids and teachers of different races together in the same building, which particularly in the South had not been done before, and the significance of that undertaking alone cannot be understated.

But then, Frankenberg added, we took our foot off the gas pedal for desegregation.

A Supreme Court ruling in 1991 gave judges broad leeway to end integration programs if they believed a district had already complied in good faith. And, one by one, desegregation court orders began to fall.

Increasingly isolated

Across the United States, the percent of Black students in highly segregated schools has grown since 1993.

Across the United States, the percent of Black students in highly segregated schools has grown since 1993.

Notes: Highly segregated schools refers to schools where at least 90 percent of the students are not white.Source: NBC News analysis of National Center for Education Statistics data

A white parents lawsuit toppled Charlottes integration program in 1999 despite objections from the district, which tried to defend it. Today, Charlotte has the most segregated schools in North Carolina, as well as significant achievement gaps between Black and white students.

While Black students represented just under a third of all students enrolled in public schools in the Charlotte metro area in 2018, an NBC News analysis found that a typical Black student attended a school that was disproportionately Black. This is a sharp change from 1988, when the average Black student attended a school that mirrored the demographics of the metro area.

Clustered together in Charlotte, North Carolina

White students are the largest racial group in Charlotte-area public schools, but Black students are still more likely to be in schools with other Black children.

Student demographics in a typical Black student's school in Charlotte, 2018-19.

Source: NBC News analysis of National Center for Education Statistics data

Other rollbacks had a similar impact. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, two integrated high schools created by a 1979 desegregation order were replaced by smaller, more segregated schools in 2000 when that order was thrown out. Since 1993, the percent of Black students in highly segregated Tuscaloosa-area schools has grown from 39 percent to 53 percent.

In the Milwaukee metropolitan area, over the same time period, the percent of Black students in highly segregated schools has tripled. Kenosha, Wisc., the latest city to land in the national spotlight after the shooting of a Black man by police, has a relatively small Black population but the percentage of students in highly segregated schools is inching up. A city that did not have a single highly segregated school in 1993 had two such schools last year.

And across the country, Black and brown children have been increasingly concentrated in schools with high teacher turnover, aging textbooks, fewer advanced courses, and, ultimately, lower test scores. Blacks have continued to lag behind white peers on many economic measures. Theyre less likely to attend and graduate from college, more likely to be unemployed, less likely to own their home and more likely to live in poverty.

We outlawed de facto segregation

The story of school integration in Minneapolis is somewhat different from the rest of the country since it was state and regional policy  not a federal court order  that made the Twin Cities an integration success story, said Myron Orfield, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who has spent his career documenting the resegregation of schools and neighborhoods in the Twin Cities.

Though Minneapolis schools were under a desegregation court order from 1972 to 1983, two local policies from that time had a bigger impact, Orfield said. One was a program that required municipalities in the region to develop affordable housing. That essentially prevented the suburbs from excluding low-income families that were more likely to be families of color.

The other was a state law that barred districts from concentrating too many students of any one race in any one school. If any school had significantly more Black or white or Latino students than the district as a whole, the district could lose state funding, Orfield said.

We outlawed de facto segregation, he said. We forbid it and didn't allow it to occur in any form.

Then the politics of integration began to shift. The housing policy fell victim to changes in federal funding and local priorities in the 1980s. The school desegregation law lasted into the 1990s, when the states governor and Legislature were on the verge of expanding it to include more of the suburbs. Then, in 1998, the states attorney general issued an opinion that largely gutted it, Orfield said.

The attorney general, Hubert H. Skip Humphrey III, was running for governor at the time. His opinion asserted, among other things, that existing desegregation programs were illegal.

He just wiped it out, Orfield said. He changed our civil rights law by 180 degrees.

Humphrey, who lost that race for governor, did not respond to requests for comment.

After that, Orfield said, desegregation efforts became largely optional  school districts that wanted to integrate could qualify for extra state funding, but districts could opt out without consequences, or use the funding ineffectively. At the same time, the rise of a new school choice system further hampered integration efforts.

Minnesota had been a national leader in school choice in the 1990s. It was the first state to allow privately run, publicly funded charter schools and it created programs allowing students to attend schools in neighboring districts.

Supporters believed choice would help integrate schools by giving low-income families of color a way out of low-performing schools. But in practice, some white families used choice to avoid integration.

If families did not want to send their kids to a school with, quote, those kids, they could escape, and a number did, said Bill Green, who was the superintendent of Minneapolis schools from 2006 to 2010.

Choice programs also hurt Minneapolis schools financially, Green said. As suburban schools recruited city students  sometimes using desegregation dollars to do so  city enrollment declined, as did state funding. And Green, who is Black and now a history professor at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, questioned whether students of color were getting a better education in schools that didnt necessarily have racially diverse teachers or curriculums.

As the choice system grew more popular, districts faced financial pressure and began pulling out of the multidistrict integration consortiums that, decades earlier, had created diverse magnet schools to comply with the law when it had more teeth. Most of those schools have closed.

The magnet schools had offered a real, visible, tangible way for the region to work toward a common goal of equity and inclusion, said Bassett, who served on the board of a regional integration consortium.

When districts walked away, they dismantled something that was unique, that really set us apart," Bassett said. The region's integration programs gave such hope," she added, "and then slowly, over time, it got chipped away and chipped away.

They can do it everywhere

Schools across the country have become more diverse in recent years as Hispanic and Asian populations have grown; white children are no longer a majority in public schools. But Black and Latino students in U.S. cities remain highly isolated. While 16 percent of U.S. public school students were Black in 2018, NBC News' analysis found that a typical Black student attended a school that was 48 percent Black.

Addressing this problem will require different solutions than those tried in the past, experts say. Recent Supreme Court rulings have largely barred the use of race in student enrollment, so districts would need to use other criteria, such as family income or ZIP code. Plus, suburban sprawl has spread students over larger areas, making busing to magnet schools more complicated.

Some experts, like Johnson, the Berkeley economist, say the solution includes housing policy changes aimed at integrating both neighborhoods and schools, as well as changes to school funding systems to prevent isolating needier children in financially strapped schools.

Others, like Frankenberg, from Penn State, said new technology such as computer models that could identify effective changes to school attendance zones could be deployed to help schools desegregate.

And in Minneapolis, Dan Shulman is using the tool that worked back in the 20th century: a lawsuit.

A suit Shulman filed on behalf of Minneapolis and St. Paul students in 2015  Cruz-Guzman v. State of Minnesota  won the backing of the state Supreme Court on a key argument and is now in mediation.

Shulman, a staff attorney for the Minnesota ACLU, said hes been working on a settlement with Attorney General Keith Ellison. The two are developing integration strategies that could withstand legal challenges, including adding magnet schools and hiring and retaining teachers who are highly qualified and diverse, Shulman said.

Just as protests on the streets in Minneapolis this spring inspired similar demonstrations in cities across the country, Shulman hopes his desegregation lawsuit can inspire efforts elsewhere.

Now we have a national black eye, which is well deserved and long overdue, he said, citing statistics that show large academic and economic gaps between Black and white residents of the region.

But he hopes his lawsuit can change that.

If we can do it here in one of the worst areas, with the greatest gaps and the most segregation, he said, they can do it everywhere.
Everyone is welcome in Roma High School teacher Taylor Lifka's advanced English class, and that's the message she was trying to convey by hanging Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ and Spanish posters in her virtual classroom.

But instead, she sparked controversy and was put on administrative leave.

My assistant principal told me, Please take the posters down. I guess once that happened, I knew that it might be a rocky road, but considering being put on leave? I never really thought that that was going to be their first step, Lifka said in an interview with The Texas Tribune.

SCHOOL NEWS: Two Texas A&M sororities now under chapter-wide quarantine after COVID-19 exposure

While thousands of parents, students and community members showed Lifka tons of support and bashed the district for "punishing her," even creating a Change.org petition in her honor, Roma school officials said several parents and community members filed complaints about the Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ posters, the Tribune reported.

Lifka said the situation kind of got out of hand when a screenshot of her virtual classroom that she posted to her personal account was shared to a pro-Trump Facebook group and further instigated by Republican Marian Knowlton, who is running for the District 31 state House seat. Knowlton has since deleted the post, but the Tribune reported that she accused the education system of "radicalizing" students and said Lifka's posters were an example of leftist indoctrination."

Just two days after being placed on leave, Lifka was reinstated and told she could keep the posters up, but she told the Tribune she doesn't plan to return until the district vows to show support and understanding for anti-racist policies and tolerance in classrooms.

"Why should a teacher be punished for creating a safe and inclusive environment for her students?" the Roma High School Student Council, which Lifka advises, said in a Facebook-released statement.
Health of Iranian Activist Hunger Striker Nasrin Sotoudeh Deteriorating: PEN America

07/22/20

Press release by PEN American, August 28, 2020

Nasrin Sotoudeh has been on hunger strike for two weeks, protesting condition of Iran prisons amid pandemic

(New York, NY) - Nasrin Sotoudeh, a renowned Iranian writer, human rights lawyer, and activist, is reportedly in critical condition after being on hunger strike in Tehran's Evin prison for over two weeks. PEN America today calls for her and other political prisoners' immediate release and for an end to judicial and legal harassment of her and her family.

Nasrin Sotoudeh, an Iranian writer and human rights advocate, has been on hunger strike for two weeks, protesting the horrific conditions facing prisoners amid the pandemic. Her health is deteriorating. It's time for Iran to #FreeNasrin. https://t.co/WWMwBSI1Qe  PEN America (@PENamerica) August 28, 2020

"We are heartbroken to see Nasrin's health deteriorate day by day while imprisoned on unjust charges in Tehran's notorious Evin prison," said PEN America's Director of Free Expression at Risk Programs Karin Deutsch Karlekar. "Nasrin has spent her life advocating for the human rights of Iranians, particularly women. On August 11, she started her second hunger strike this year to protest the maltreatment of Iranian political prisoners vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has ravaged the country's prisons. She is now facing the direst of consequences for her activism and expression. Her life hangs in the balance. We call on the government of Iran to rescind the unjust sentences meted out to Nasrin and other political prisoners. In addition, we call on the authorities to drop all charges against Nasrin's daughter, and to end the judicial, financial, and legal harassment of both her and her family."

Iranian officials have retaliated against Sotoudeh and her family for her continued activism from prison. In March, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sotoudeh started her first hunger strike to protest the continued and unjust detention of political prisoners in Iran. That same month, she made a public appeal in Time magazine arguing that Iranian authorities are keeping these prisoners incarcerated until the "horrors of this health crisis spread to their lives and impact their families, as well." In July, Sotoudeh's husband Reza Khandan reported that the Iranian prosecutors had frozen their family's bank accounts since May. On August 17, just six days after Sotoudeh announced her hunger strike, state security officers arrested her daughter, in what Khandan said is retaliation for Sotoudeh's activism from prison. Their daughter was later released on bail but faces charges of assaulting a prison guard.

The right to free expression is routinely restricted and severely punished in Iran, and authorities regularly employ a wide range of tactics to silence dissidents. PEN America's inaugural Freedom to Write Index found that Iran ranked fourth worldwide in terms of the number of writers and public intellectuals in jail in 2019, with 14 behind bars during the year.

Nasrin Sotoudeh was imprisoned from 2010 to 2013 on trumped-up national security charges. During that time, she was honored with PEN America's 2011 Freedom to Write Award, as well as the European Parliament's 2012 Sakharov Prize. She was arrested again in June 2018 on ambiguous charges; five months into her sentence, she faced spurious charges under a range of laws, including "propaganda against the state," "assembly and collusion to act against national security," "appearing at the judiciary without Islamic hijab," "encouraging prostitution," and "promoting immorality and indecency," bringing her total sentence to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes.
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijani Presidential Aide Hikmat Hajiyev has said that Baku is waiting for a more sincere explanation from Moscow about Russias military cargo delivery to Armenia amid the Azerbaijani-Armenian border clashes.

We are not completely satisfied with the explanations made by Russia in this regard. Our questions remain open. We are waiting for a more sincere and clear explanation of this issue such as, on what grounds and for what purposes the intensive arming of Armenia is continued, Hajiyev said in a presser on August 29.

He said that both the government and the public are concerned over Russias arming of Armenia.

Hajiyev said that Azerbaijan is also not satisfied with the answer that allegedly the Russian planes transported construction materials for the Russian military base in Armenia.

There is no need for intensive air flights for transportation of construction materials and they can be also transported in other ways, he stressed.

The official said that after the start of the cross-border clashes in Azerbaijant Toviz district on July 12, weapons have been intensively transported from Russia to Armenia by IL-76 aeroplanes since July 17.

Transportation of weapons is directly carried out in the direction of Mazdok, Minvod, Aktau, Turkmenbashi, Novshahr, Rasht, Mehri and Yerevan, which we would like to emphasize once again that is a matter of serious concern to the Azerbaijani public, Hajiyev noted.

Hajiyev stressed that Armenia's aggression in the Tovuz events and its continued occupation of Azerbaijani territories clearly show the nature of this state.

The presidential aide also touched upon the intensive transportation of weapons and ammunition from Armenia to Middle East countries.

Our recent observations also give grounds to say that weapons and ammunition are being intensively transported from Armenia to the Middle Eastern countries, Hajiyev said, adding that especially, flights are being carried out from Armenia to Syria.

Hajiyevs comments come after Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said in Baku on 26 August that the recent transport of military cargo from Russia to Armenia did not contain military equipment but the construction materials used in large-scale construction work carried out at the 102nd Russian military base in Armenia.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev also raised Russias military cargo delivery to Armenia during his phone conversation with Vladimir Putin on August 13. During the phone call, Aliyev informed the Russian president that the intensification of the transportation of military cargo from Russia to Armenia since July 17 after the clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, raises concerns and serious questions in the Azerbaijani society.

The Azerbaijani media recently revealed that over 400 tonnes of military cargo have been transported from Russia to Armenia through the air spaces of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran. According to the reports, the military cargo was transported to Armenia during and after the military provocation committed by Armenia in the direction of Tovuz district of the Azerbaijan-Armenia state border last month.

The reports revealed that nine flights were made from Russia to Armenia since last month. Two of these flights were made in the midst of the clashes on July 17. One flight per day was made on 18, 20, 27, 29 July and 4 August, while two flights were made on August 6.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Mixed reactions have continued to trail a publication on former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode by Daily Trust Newspaper days after he called its reporter stupid during a press conference.

In an a publication that has since been taken down by the Newspaper, the writer in his title described Fani-Kayode as the Drug Addled Thug in Designers Wear, despite the fact that Fani-Kayode had issued an apology to the reporter the following day .

Some Nigerian are of the opinion that the article was too extreme since he had already sent out an apology, while some have argued that it so sad that the newspaper has not previously extended this gesture to other politicians who sometimes act in same manner.

Some of the tweets below;

Not defending FFKs comments. But hes an easy target. Daily Trust has never written this way about Lai Mohammed who is actively taking actions to curb press freedom & muzzle free speech. https://t.co/EgiYO0Jfpl  Igala Alan Shore (@I_Am_Ilemona) August 30, 2020

Buhari has NEVER apologized for his role in the 1983 Military coup that ousted Shehu Shagari from office. Nigerias present economic woes are hinged on Buharis incapicitaton& inordinate malfunctioning to run the country. But Daily Trusts energy is on FFK. I laugh for 2.  President One.acre says Free Dadiyata (@NekkaSmith) August 30, 2020

The same Daily Trust that stopped the column of @farooqkperogi because he criticized Buhari?  chijioke, Ph.D., Nuclear Engineering(Affidavit). (@Ekwulu) August 30, 2020

Daily Trust is unforgiving of FFK in its editorial today. It was a lynching and if FFK reads it, he might just die. I am not reposting any link. I dont want to help in killing the so called drug addled thug. Happy Sunday guys!  Azubike Osumili (@azuosumili) August 30, 2020

Wailers have been unleashed against Daily Trust after that uppercut on FFK. They now say Daily Trust is aligning with Buhari. The same Daily Trust that Atiku has implanted people like Gimba Kakanda as columnists? The same Daily Trust that leaked military secrets to Boko Haram?  El Commandante (@MrLekanAdigun) August 30, 2020

Vocabularies daily trust used to decimate FFK.. boorishness, irascibility and thuggish behaviour unbecoming of the status he occupies in Nigerian public life

exhibit his base, yobbish, uncouth manners of an alley cat at persons who are his betters in all parameters of life.  YouTube : Tosin Olugbenga (@TosinOlugbenga) August 30, 2020

If check out how ex journos of @daily_trust who where critical of GEJ admin was rewarded with appointment by Buhari admin, you wont be surprised they are muted with all the happening under this admin.  Agala Uchenna (@UchebobAgala) August 30, 2020

Oh bro, dont even mention his apology, that was no apology, their was no remorse of guilt or whatsoever. Though, Daily trust probably took it too far.

I dont even care about any of them. They are most likely both puppet of some higher power.  Olami Lekan (@harmlezprinze) August 30, 2020

Fani-Kayode, in a viral video on social media was seen attacking a reporter with Daily Trust newspaper, Eyo Charles, calling him stupid.

Charles was reported to have asked him who was bankrolling his Tour across the South South States.

An infuriated Fani-Kayode who felt it was more of an assertion than a question said, I am saying this on live TV. What type of stupid question is that? Bankrolling who? Do you know who you are talking to?

I will not take any questions from this man. What type of insulting question is that? Which bankroll? To do what? Who can give me money for anything? Who do you think you are talking to? Go and report yourself to your publisher?

Please dont insult me here. I dont want to take any questions from this man. I could see from your face before you got here, how stupid you are. Dont ever talk to me like that. Who do you think youre talking to? Bankroll who? You think I am one of those ones you from who, when, how? You have a small mind, a very small mind. Dont judge me by your own standards.

But in a statement the following day, the former Minister apologised for his outburst on the journalist.

Parts of the statement reads, I met with my advisors till late last night and I wish to say the following. I hereby withdraw the word stupid which I used in my encounter with a journalist in Calabar.

I have many friends in the media who I offended by losing my cool and using such words. I hereby express my regrets for doing so.
BALDWIN  Community members showed up carrying signs that read Save Our USPS, as many came and went picking up their mail and taking advantage of the availability of the post offices Saturday hours.

The Lake County Democratic Party led a citizens protest at the US Post Office in Baldwin on Saturday.

Vice chair Clyde Welford said they were there to show support for the postal workers.

I want to preserve our post office, Welford said. The last thing we need in this rural community is to be without another very important organization that can help us survive this COVID thing, and deliver the medication and the checks we need.

As a somewhat isolated community, he said, they rely on the post office keep in touch with people and to communicate with loved ones, as well as receive medications and social security checks.

This is so important because you have seniors who depend on the mail whether it is for their social security checks, or just getting a nice card from a friend or a family member," said Webber Township Trustee Sandra Clarke. "And the veterans depend on it for their benefits and their medicines.

It makes no sense, Welford added. Its been here since the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, and now they want to undo that. That should tell us something. The only reason someone might not want a post office is so that they can control things and create chaos.

Its a bunch of malarkey and I dont like it. Thats why Im taking a stand out here, he added.

Welford said the attack on the post office signifies to him a changing in America that people need to wake up too.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, Welford said. Its a slippery slope. Whats next? The Veterans Administration could be next.

I hate to see what is happening in this country and I want people to wake up and come out and put their foot down, he added. One person can change the world  it has happened throughout history  but it wont happen if we dont get out here and do something about it.

A post on the organizations Facebook page states, "citizens in Lake County are concerned and want to push back against President Donald J. Trump's administration USPS policy changes, which include cutting overtime for employees, limiting post office hours, and removing some high-volume mail sorting machines from USPS facilities.

Democratic officials argue the new policies are intended to impede mail-in voting ahead of the November election.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, has denied the claims, saying the changes were intended to increase efficiency and save money.

The post office is not about making money, Welford said. Some things are about service. As soon as people started protesting about what Mr. DeJoy was doing, things started to change. At least he said publicly that they would halt, and that they wouldnt remove any more machines.

This protest is an appeal to let everyone know there are some serious things going on and we need to get out in November and vote, Welford added.

This is important for all the surrounding communities because so many of our folks depend on the post office, Clarke said. You can see that from the traffic thats here. For our communities to not have that access and to have to drive for miles for those essentials  we need to do better than that for our rural communities.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Sales of previously occupied homes fell in December for the first time in four months as many would-be buyers were frustrated by a lack of available houses, which fell to the lowest level in more than two...
Hurricane Laura update: Over 600,000 without power, Trump to visit this weekend

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More than a day and a half after Hurricane Laura made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, more than 600,000 residents of the southeastern United States are without power and the region continues to grapple with tornadoes as it cleans up the damage Laura left behind.

Lake Charles, Louisiana, was hit particularly hard by the storm. A fire began at a chemical plant near the city and officials point to Hurricane Laura as the cause of the blaze. Residents of the cities of Westlake, Moss Bluff, and Sulphur have been ordered to shelter in place, keep windows and doors closed, and refrain from using air conditioning.

Nearby Cameron Parish also felt severe impacts from former Hurricane Laura. The storm made landfall just 10 miles east of the small community of Holly Beach.

Storm debris spread across the entire town, a report from USA Today explained. Walls were blown off homes and businesses, revealing urinals and beer signs inside. Trailers were flipped and roofs of homes were crushed.

Six people across the state have lost their lives due to Laura and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards predicts that there could be more fatalities, according to New Orleans CBS affiliate WWL.

While the damage from the hurricane was severe, it could have been much worse, particularly for Texas, the second most populous U.S. state.

We dodged a bullet, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott proclaimed as he toured affected parts of his state Thursday. We were anticipating and it was prognosticated that there would be a storm surge that could very easily exceed 10 feet. I was told earlier that the storm surge was three feet, and that seven-foot differential means all the difference.

Still, Hurricane Laura caused power outages and tornadoes across multiple southern states. As of Friday afternoon, more than 600,000 residents of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas remain without power, according to PowerOutage.US, an on going project created to track, record, and aggregate power outages across the United States.

The overwhelming majority of the power outages are in Louisiana, where nearly 500,000 residents are without electricity. The power outages are concentrated in the western part of the state.

Texas had more than 100,000 power outages as of Friday afternoon; with nearly all of the power outages concentrated along the states eastern border with Louisiana. In Arkansas, approximately 30,000 residents do not have electricity. The amount of power outages fluctuated back and forth throughout the afternoon.

President Donald Trump is expected to visit Louisiana and Texas at some point this weekend to survey the damage caused by Hurricane Laura. An itinerary is forthcoming.

As residents of Louisiana continue to deal with the impact of Hurricane Laura, the charitable organization Samaritans Purse is working to help those in need. The organization has deployed disaster relief to hard-hit areas.

Louisiana families are struggling after Hurricane Laura, said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritans Purse. Please continue to pray for everyone in the storms path and our teams as they prepare to provide critical relief to people who are hurting.

Even as the worst of Laura has come and gone, other parts of the United States will feel the impact from the remnants of the storm over the next couple of days. According to the National Hurricane Center, a division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Laura will pass through the states of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky as a tropical depression, with sustained winds of less than 39 miles per hour.

The projected path of Tropical Depression Laura shows the storm hovering around the border of Kentucky and West Virginia early Saturday morning as a post-tropical cyclone. By Saturday evening, the storm will have passed through Virginia and will be concentrated over the Delmarva peninsula.

From there, the storm will move out to sea. By Sunday morning, the remnants of Laura will be located south of the coast of Maine.

The National Weather Service has issued flash flood watches for portions of northeast Arkansas, southeast Missouri, western Kentucky and Tennessee, northern of Mississippi, and northwest Alabama. The NWS predicts rainfall of one to three inches in the central and southern Appalachians and the mid-Atlantic states.

While Hurricane Laura continues to dissipate, the worst of hurricane season may be yet to come. Hurricane season is currently in its peak, which lasts through early October.

There are already two new storms on the horizon developing in the Atlantic Ocean. Both storms have a 30% chance of development, according to USA Today.
Alternative facts

It is disappointing to have to respond to inaccurate statements by Colin Smith in his recent Viewpoint column (MM August 19). As a member of the Local Board for almost four years, he has been provided with the correct information. It is mystifying why he would create alternative facts. To clarify 

Wellsford toilets replacement work proceeds this year with $80,000 budgeted to complete planning and a further $1m budgeted for construction, commencing in 2022.

The sewerage and water systems are not paid for from general rates. Watercare is user-pays so this is only funded by residents using this service. Currently the water treatment plant is being upgraded ($15m), 80 per cent of pipes have been tested and maintenance is ongoing, and dealing with legacy issues around stormwater flowing into the wastewater system are planned for 2021.

It is incorrect that Auckland Transport told the Local Board the bus services were not sustainable. The current usage and subsidy of the Wellsford service is on par with the Auckland Transport operated services in Warkworth. We expect, given the services are meeting targets, they will be taken over by Auckland Transport in 2022.

The 131 carparks are for the Warkworth Community Transport Hub, not for the Warkworth Showgrounds.

The two toilets provided in the Community Transport Hub are being paid for by Auckland Transport, they do not come from the Rodney Transport Targeted Rate.

The Rodney Transport Targeted Rate is not being used for a luxury path. I assume Mr Smith is referring to the Kowhai Park track, which links the showgrounds to the township, and is part of the Greenways Plan. This is not due to be built until 2023 and is primarily funded by Development Contributions paid in Warkworth.

Mr Smith refers to a tarseal targeted rate. I am unaware of such a thing. Auckland Transport has a budget line of $121 million for sealing gravel roads over 10 years. That is $3600 per Rodney household, most of which are not on unsealed roads. It is an unprecedented amount of funding for this issue. We are all deeply disappointed that there is only $1 million allocated from that budget for this year, but the decision on that budget spend lies with Councillors, not the Local Board. The question Mr Smith needs to ask is why Councillors did not direct Auckland Transport to spend more of that budget this year.

Phelan Pirrie, Chair, Rodney Local Board

National hypocrisy

I read the report of the Puhoi to Warkworth tolling meeting (MM August 5) with some bemusement. The charge appeared to be led by two National MPs, Matt King and Chris Penk. This road, aka the Holiday Highway, was commissioned under the National Government of the day. The final business case for this Public Private Partnership-based (PPP) initiative published on April 28, 2015 is quite clear in stating that it would be subject to a tolling consultation and recommendation. In addition, it is clearly stated National Party policy that new roads and tunnels proposed under their recent infrastructure announcements will also be subject to tolls. Turning up at a meeting advocating against tolling in this context feels hypocritical and a lot like populism, rather than genuine concern for our local citizenry and our significant tax burdens. My personal view is that tolls should not be applied for a range of pragmatic reasons, but the business case assumptions will make non-tolling difficult. The real discussion should be around the future total cost of this initiative as it is based on the same flawed PPP contractual model as Transmission Gully.

Tim Armitage, Warkworth
Maharashtra Congress general secretary and spokesperson Sachin Sawant on Monday met state home minister Anil Deshmukh and demanded a thorough probe into filmmaker Sandeep Ssinghs alleged links with the drug cartel in Bollywood and his relationship with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Sawant said he has also handed over a few documents as proof and the minister has assured him to pass on the complaint to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is currently investigating actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death.

BJP, however, rubbished the allegations and termed them a publicity stunt.

When HT called Ssingh for a comment, his phone was switched off, and he had not responded to messages till the time of going to press. Ssingh was one of first few people to reach the residence of Rajput after the news of his death emerged on June 14.

Sawant, in his three-page letter to Deshmukh, has pressed for the need to probe Ssingh in various cases. The producer of a biopic on PM Narendra Modi was the only filmmaker to sign a MoU worth Rs177 crore at the Vibrant Gujarat summit in January 2019, just days ahead of the release of the biopic. Did Gujarat government favour Ssinghs Legend Global Studio by signing a MoU with him just because he was the producer of the biopic? The MoU was signed despite the fact that the company had suffered financial losses of Rs66 lakh in 2017 and Rs4 lakh in 2019. On what basis did Gujarat government sign a MoU worth Rs177 crore with such a loss making company, said Sawant.

Sawant also alleged that Ssingh had called state BJP office 53 times from September 1, 2019, to December 23, 2019 during the Maharashtra Assembly elections. In the backdrop of the allegations of Ssinghs direct involvement in the drug cartel in Bollywood, the questions being raised are who in BJP was in touch with Ssingh and who is shielding the producer The producer is learnt to have briefed a senior BJP leader about the death case, Sawant alleged.

When asked about the evidence he has about Ssingh, Sawant said a probe will bring out the truth. I have submitted the balance sheet of Ssinghs company, the photographs of him signing a MoU and the records of a serious case registered against him in Mauritius. We have demanded a probe so that the truth comes out, he said.

BJP rubbished the allegations, saying it was just a publicity stunt by the Congress. Sawant has started levelling allegations the moment Rajput death case went to the CBI. If there was serious proof against Ssingh in the case, why did the state police not investigate it when the probe was with them for more than two months? Was the state police under political pressure to not probe certain angles? Instead of levelling allegations, Congress should give firm evidence to the investigating agency helping it to unearth the truth, said Maharashtra BJP spokesperson Keshav Upadhye.
Chandigarh: The Punjab government has revised the fee for several medical services in government hospitals in the state with effect from September 1, drawing sharp reaction from the Opposition.

Among the services, the charge for an ambulance has been raised from Rs 5 per km to Rs 15 per km, while the fee for an ECG has been increased from Rs 60 to Rs 75.

The OPD registration charge has been increased from Rs 5 to Rs 10 and the admission charge for general ward has been hiked from Rs 25 to Rs 40.

The operation charges for minor surgery have been revised upward to Rs 250 from Rs 100 earlier and for major surgery, the fee has been increased from Rs 750 to Rs 1,200, as per the order.

The fee for private AC room has been increased from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 per day and bed charges in general ward has been increased from Rs 30 to Rs 40.

However, the state health officials said these charges are meant for the maintenance of hospital buildings and other infrastructure.

They clarified that coronavirus patients will continue to get free treatment at all government hospitals in the state.

Opposition parties, the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Aam Aadmi Party, have slammed the Congress-led dispensation in the state for raising the charges for medical services.

The SAD accused the state government of profiteering during a time when the Covid-19 pandemic was at its peak. SAD leader and former minister Daljit Singh Cheema described the move as an unfortunate development and said that instead of making health services more affordable and ensuring free treatment to the poor, the government had raised rates of all services.

It seems that the Congress government wants to profiteer from the plight of the people, Cheema said in a statement here.

The rates of services, including stay in private ward which had been doubled from Rs 500 per night to Rs 1,000 to a 15 to 20% increase in X-ray, ultrasound, ECG and operation charges, would make treatment in government hospitals out of the reach of the poor and needy, said Cheema.

This hike in charges should be withdrawn immediately. The government should subsidise these services on humanitarian grounds instead of seeking to profit from them, said the Akali leader.

AAP leader Aman Arora said the state government has put an additional financial burden on the poor for availing health services by increasing charges.

Describing it as anti-people, Arora said the party would launch an agitation if this decision was not taken back.
The analysis also looked at the kinds of appliances and devices in use during that time that could be adjusted or rescheduled in order to reduce energy usage. It found that 88% of consumption came from air conditioning systems. The remainder of shiftable energy included water heaters, laundry machines (washers and dryers), pool pumps and EV chargers, all of which could be turned off or used at other times of the day or night.

To help prevent rolling blackouts, California residents can turn up their thermostats throughout the day or cool their home earlier in the day when renewable energy is abundant on the grid and then turn up the thermostat during the evening hours.

In the future, the electricity grid will be connected to peoples' homes and automatically control loads in response to high demand, but today's smart home technology, like the Sense Home Energy Monitor, already provides insights to consumers that can prompt them to reduce or shift consumption when energy supplies are constrained, reducing the risk of rolling blackouts. Sense is working with partners Schneider Electric and Landis+Gyr to build its intelligence into smarter, more efficient homes that respond to peoples' day-to-day needs while optimizing energy from the grid to reduce costs and carbon.

About Sense

Sense's mission is to make all homes intelligent by keeping people informed about what's happening in their homes, and helping to make homes safer, more efficient, and more reliable. Founded in 2013 by pioneers in speech recognition, Sense uses machine learning technology to provide real-time insights on device behavior, even for those devices that are not "smart." Customers rely on Sense for a wide range of uses including monitoring their home appliances, determining whether they left appliances running and identifying how to reduce their energy costs. Sense has received investments from two of the world's largest energy technology companies, Schneider Electric and Landis + Gyr. Sense is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. To make sense of your energy, visit: https://sense.com.

CONTACT: [email protected]

SOURCE Sense

Related Links

www.sense.com


NEW YORK, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Swiss Helvetia Fund, Inc. (NYSE: SWZ), a non-diversified registered closed-end investment company (the "Fund"), announced today that due to concerns regarding COVID-19 the location of the Fund's 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders will be held at 125 Broad Street, New York, New York at the offices of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. The previously announced date and time of the Annual Meeting, September 11, 2020 at 11:00 a.m., will not change.

As described in the Fund's proxy statement for the Annual Meeting, only stockholders of the Fund as of the close of business on July 17, 2020 are entitled to participate in the Annual Meeting. Those stockholders planning to attend the Annual Meeting must register in advance with the Fund's administrator, U.S. Bank Global Fund Services, and agree to comply with the identification, security and COVID-19 protocols required to enter the premises. Accordingly, stockholders that plan on attending the meeting in person must contact Jennifer Lima, U.S. Bank Global Fund Services at 414-248-4023 or [email protected] not later than the close of business on September 9, 2020. Eligible stockholders of the Fund that are unable to attend the Annual Meeting in person but are interested in listening to the Meeting and to a presentation by the Fund's investment adviser should contact Jennifer Lima, U.S. Bank Global Fund Services at 414-248-4023 or [email protected] for the dial-in details.

About The Swiss Helvetia Fund, Inc.

The Fund (www.swzfund.com) is a non-diversified, closed-end investment company seeking long-term capital appreciation through investment in equity and equity-linked securities of Swiss companies. Its shares are listed on the NYSE under the symbol "SWZ." The Fund seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing generally in Swiss equity and equity-linked securities that are traded on a Swiss stock exchange, traded at the pre-bourse level of one or more Swiss stock exchanges, traded through a market maker or traded over the counter in Switzerland. The Fund also may invest in Swiss equity and equity-linked securities of Swiss companies that are traded on other major European stock exchanges.

Closed-end funds, unlike open-end funds, are not continuously offered. Typically, shares of closed-end funds are sold in the open market through a stock exchange. Shares of closed-end funds frequently trade at a discount to net asset value. The price of the Fund's shares is determined by a number of factors, several of which are beyond the control of the Fund. Therefore, the Fund cannot predict whether its shares will trade at, below or above net asset value.

The Fund is managed by Schroder Investment Management North America Inc.

About Schroder Investment Management North America Inc.

Schroder Investment Management North America Inc. and Schroder Investment Management North America Limited, investment advisors registered with the U.S. SEC, are units of Schroders plc (SDR.L), a global asset management company with approximately $649.6 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2020. Schroder's clients include major financial institutions including banks and insurance companies, as well as local and public authorities, public and private pension funds, endowments and foundations, intermediaries and advisors, as well as high net worth individuals and retail investors. The firm has built one of the largest networks of offices of any dedicated asset management company with more than 500 portfolio managers and analysts covering the world's investment markets, offering a comprehensive range of products and services. Schroder Investment Management North America Inc. provides asset management products and services to clients in the U.S. and Canada.

Schroder Investment Management North America Inc. is an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Schroders plc, a U.K. public company with shares listed on the London Stock Exchange.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy, nor shall there be any sale of the Fund's shares in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer or solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the laws of such state or jurisdiction.

Contact:

Jennifer Brogadir

212-641-3863

SOURCE The Swiss Helvetia Fund, Inc.

Related Links

www.swzfund.com


David Blaine has delayed and amended his plans to soar into the sky over the Hudson River and into New York City, citing the stunts complexity.

The magician and performer shared the announcement on Sunday, the eve of his planned stunt.

The idea is I want to grab a bunch of balloons and go floating all the way up into the sky until I almost disappear, he explained.

Ive been working diligently on this with the best team in the world, but because of the complexity of this project, Im not going forward with my plans to do New York City at this time.

Blaine added that hes now working to perform the stunt, dubbed Ascension, in Arizona, the most beautiful backdrop that Ive ever seen in my life.

He hopes to ascend on 1 or 2 September, but everything is wind-dependant, he added.

The original plan would have seen Blaine fly from New Jersey to New York City on 31 August, in a set-up reminiscent of the Pixar film Up.

In an interview on the Today show on Monday, Blaine explained that the plan is to jump down and land safely at the end of the stunt, and that hes never done a full run-through.

Once hes up 5,000 to 6,000 feet, he plans on putting on a parachute.

The stunt will be live-streamed on YouTube in due time.
The murder of two Democratic Youth Federation of India (DFYI) activists allegedly by a group of Youth Congress workers late Sunday night on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram rocked Kerala on the harvest festival of Onam.

Police said Midhilaj (30) and Mohammad Haq (28) were waylaid and attacked with sharp-edged weapons when they were returning home on Sunday night. One person died on the spot and the other succumbed to injuries at the hospital, they said.

The DFYI, which is the youth wing of the ruling CPI (M), alleged that the Youth Congress workers were behind the attack but the latter distanced itself from the twin murder.

State Congress president Mullappally Ramachandran also said a tiff between two gangs led to the murder and the CPI(M) was busy blaming the Congress to divert attention from the sensational gold smuggling case which has cast its shadow on the government.

On Monday, angry DFYI activists clashed with Youth Congress workers at several places and the Kollam office of the district Congress committee was stoned. Five Youth Congress activists suffered injuries after their dharna site was attacked by DFYI workers in the state capital.

It was a well planned murder. The Congress leadership will have to explain a lot why they carried out such brutal murders on Onam, said CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.

But the police said the area had witnessed minor clashes between two groups in the last two weeks and they suspect the latest incident was a sequel to this. The deceased were block-level leaders of the DYFI.

The CPI (M) observed Monday as a black day in protest.

The Youth Congress said its workers had no role in it and a turf war between two gangs led to killings.

We condemn the murder in strongest terms. If anyone is involved, we will take strong action. We will not shield murderers like the CPI(M), said Youth Congress state president Shafi Parambhil. Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala also condemned the killings.

According to the police, the attack took place around 11.30 pm when the deceased were returning home on their motorcycle. They were waylaid and attacked by a group of five people. The victims received more than 25 stab wounds. CCTV visuals from the area showed the deceased also resisted the attack and it continued for 15 minutes.

Thiruvananthapuram rural police superintendent B Ashokan said four people have been detained in connection with the murder. Deputy Inspector General of Police Sanjay Kumar Gurudin said the real motive behind the murder can be established only after investigation.
In our recent special legislative session, I introduced legislation (House Bill 11) to remove the power the state of New Mexico holds to force individuals  under threat of house arrest  to receive vaccinations against their will, in the case of a public health crisis.

The governor would not allow my legislation to have a hearing.

At the time, I spoke to many folks who thought my concerns were alarmist. Unfortunately, no one can think that now.

On Aug. 13, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she plans to make the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory for nursing home residents, health-care workers, educators, first responders and corrections populations. She also seemed to imply that requiring the vaccine for school children was under consideration.

Lets consider the implications of such a policy.

First, mandatory COVID vaccination and medical freedom are mutually exclusive.

Forcing healthy people to take a vaccine under threat of legal prosecution is wrong. The government shouldnt be allowed to force you to undergo a medical procedure or inject something into your body against your will.

With this particular vaccine, if one is approved and produced, we will be dealing with a substance rushed through approval. With potentially unknown side effects, I would be very wary of forcing it on a large population, even without my belief in medical freedom.

Mandatory vaccinations might also violate the religious freedom of individuals with a religious objection to them, particularly to vaccines made with fetal cells. Any potential coronavirus vaccine could be derived from fetal cell lines, but this is still uncertain.

I am also concerned about the economic results if teachers, police officers, doctors and other professionals choose to leave the state if faced with mandatory vaccination.

If Gov. Lujan Grisham makes good on her promise, I may be forced to take the vaccine or give up the practice of medicine in New Mexico. I will not take a vaccine with such a high potential for unknown side effects.

Also, at the end of the session, I received a call from a lobbyist for a major pharmaceutical company, who was concerned that I would draft such legislation. Pharmaceutical companies stand to benefit more than anyone else from mandatory vaccinations.

Weve seen this type of corruption in state politics before: In 2007, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed an executive order mandating that all 11- and 12-year-old girls in the state receive the HPV vaccine. It was later revealed that not only had the company that produced the vaccine substantially donated to Perry, but also his former chief of staff had become a lobbyist for the company.

Pharmaceutical companies produce life-saving drugs, for which I am tremendously grateful. But they should not be given financial and political power at the expense of individual liberty.

I am a doctor, and I think most vaccinations in use today are extremely beneficial.

But the best tool, and the only tool worth using in a free society, is persuasion. There is a very wide gulf between recommended and required and its a gulf we, as Americans, should not cross.

(N.M. Rep. Gregg Schmedes of Tijeras represents District 22, which includes a portion of Sandoval County. Hes a Republican.)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-30 23:53:58|Editor: huaxia

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MINSK, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- A complex tactical military exercise in the Western Grodno region of Belarus has entered an active phase over fears of a possible invasion, the country's Defense Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

According to the statement, soldiers are now practicing responding to sabotage and reconnaissance groups as well as illegal armed formations of the enemy.

Earlier this month, citing concerns over foreign interference in the country's internal affairs, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin ordered the large-scale drills.

Meanwhile, following ongoing mass protests, President Alexander Lukashenko has repeatedly warned of an invasion from countries that border Belarus in the West. Enditem
SHELTON  Masks on their faces couldnt hide the enthusiasm Monday morning as students and teachers at Holy Trinity Catholic Academy came together for the first time in more than five months.

The Catholic school is holding in-class learning only, and HTCA Director Lisa Lanni said the first day reinforced the administrations confidence in its COVID-19 mitigation plans.

Today was just wonderful, Lanni said. It was far better than we anticipated. Everyone was so excited to be back.

Lanni said the school welcomed 53 new students this year, and that added to the excitement of seeing children making new friends.

Holy Trinity Catholic Academy is running half days for the week, with teachers and students spending the time getting acclimated to the rules  wearing masks, social distancing and before-school temperature checks, Lanni said.

Next week, Lanni said, staff and students will be back for full days of hitting the books.

We sent out a video to parents about the reopening plan, with hopes that they would go over everything with their children, Lanni said. They obviously did, from what we saw today. The kids did exactly what we asked of them. It was a good feeling to see them get it right.

The Diocese of Bridgeport has a detailed reopening plan that focuses on in-person instruction but does include a distance learning option if one or more of the schools under its direction are forced to close because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Lanni said her facilitys detailed preparation plans and focus on technology has created an uptick in inquiries for placement. Lanni said the school is still accepting students and could easily hold 199 students and still adhere to all social distancing guidelines with small class sizes.

HTCAs average class size is 15. Some classrooms can hold as many as 25 students, Lanni said, and still follow social distancing guidelines which call for six feet between desks and children remaining six feet apart.

The public schools have struggled to pull together its plans, said Lanni about why some parents are looking at private schools like HTCA. Because of their size, it is difficult to guarantee a safe environment for in-person learning. And parents need school. It is tough to play teacher as well as mom and dad.

School requirements call for all adults entering the building to wear face masks. Students must wear face masks at times when social distancing may not be possible, such as during recess.

Lanni said the staff had worries  will we get the temperature checks done quickly enough so it would not impact the school day? Will students stay 6 feet apart, or will they congregate as the day goes on? Will students keep masks on when required?

We all did it, Lanni said. It went smooth as silk. We want to take it one day at a time  make sure everyone keeps following the protocols  but if today is any indication, we are off to a great start.

In Trumbull, Rachel Ambrosini, principal, St Catherine of Siena, was prepping for their opening day on Tuesday.

"We're feeling confident and ready to go. We've got direction signs on the walls, and we've closed half the stalls in the bathrooms. We have the stickers, I call them lily pads, on the floor so the kids know where to stand when they're waiting for the bus," she said.

There are hand sanitizing stations in every room, and the school will operate with its windows and doors open, and ventilators circulating air in each classroom. The school also has two large tents that were donated that teachers can sign up to use for outdoor classes, she said.

brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com.

Staff reporter Don Eng contributed to this report.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Five things to watch for in the Canadian business world in the coming week:

Couche-Tard results

Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. will report its first-quarter results after the close of markets on Tuesday and hold a conference call with analysts on Wednesday morning. The Quebec-based convenience store chain said earlier this year that shopping patterns have changed during COVID-19 lockdowns with consumers purchasing larger-sized goods and stocking up on beer, wine and tobacco products.

Home sales

Home sales numbers for July are expected for Vancouver on Wednesday and Toronto on Thursday. The real estate market has been hot this summer, fuelled by homebuyers who were sidelined earlier this year due to the pandemic combined with ultra-low mortgage rates.

Trade numbers

Statistics Canada will release international merchandise trade and international trade in services figures for July. The numbers will help start to paint the picture of how the economy is recovering in the second half of the year after the steep decline due to the pandemic.

Jobs report

Statistics Canada will release latest labour force survey for August on Friday. The monthly jobs report for July showed the addition of 418,500 jobs as the labour market moved past the halfway mark in recouping the three million losses seen at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Laurentian Bank results

Laurentian Bank will report its latest quarterly results on Friday. Results from Canada's big banks so far generally have been better than expected, but much uncertainty still lies ahead as loan deferral periods and government relief efforts come to an end.
FILE PHOTO: Huawei sign is seen outside its store at a shopping complex in Beijing

By Lisa Pauline Mattackal

(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's restrictions on China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd have sparked widespread stockpiling of unsold product across the chip industry, and Washington's proposed aid to bolster the sector falls far short of what is needed to fill the gap, an analyst told Reuters.

"Under the surface, there's been lots of inventory build-up," Dan Hutcheson, chief executive officer of VLSI Research, told the Reuters Global Markets Forum on Monday.

"We're seeing integrated circuit inventory levels that are more typical in front of a downturn."

The Trump administration tightened restrictions on Huawei earlier in August, banning suppliers from selling chips made using U.S. technology to the Chinese telecom giant without a special license.

Amid this rivalry with China, efforts to bolster U.S. semiconductor companies and shift the center of manufacturing away from Asia are underway.

Legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate would provide more than $22.8 billion to domestic semiconductor manufacturers, but Hutcheson said it is less than half the amount required.

"[It] really lacks the funding levels needed ... $50 billion is more likely to have the desired result," Hutcheson said.

U.S. chip suppliers could see a boost in demand if the Trump administration's restrictions tighten Chinese supply, Hutcheson added.

"The bigger issue is if they get locked out of China's market, while the door remains open for other countries," he said.

Despite geopolitical setbacks, VLSI forecasts 7% global growth for the semiconductor industry in 2020, as coronavirus-prompted shifts to a "work at home" economy drive demand for electronics.

"The pandemic has restructured the economy to a level not seen since WWII," Hutcheson added.

"We see it (the chip industry) adding 4% to 6% additional annual growth for several years."

(This interview was conducted in the Reuters Global Markets Forum, a chat room hosted on the Refinitiv Messenger platform. Sign up here to join GMF: https://refini.tv/33uoFoQ)

(Reporting by Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Aaron Saldanha in Bengaluru, Divya Chowdhury in Mumbai; Editing by Maju Samuel)
Mumbai: Private banks' huge fund raising spree through qualified institutional

placement (QIP) route bloated August month foreign fund flows in

Indian equity market and balanced outflows due to profit taking by the

domestic mutual funds.

Total foreign portfolio investment stood at Rs 46,602 crore so far,

this is the highest foreign inflows in a month this year so far and

also during the last five years.

It should also be kept in mind that such a large inflow is coming in a

world flooded with abundant liquidity and after huge withdrawal by the

foreign portfolio investors (FPIs)earlier this year worth Rs 61,973

crore in March and Rs 6,884 crore in April 2020.

In the first half of August ICICI Bank raised Rs 15,000 crore through

QIP, also Axis Bank and home loan financier HDFC raised Rs 10,000

crore each through QIPs where both FPIs and domestic institutions were

bidders.

FPIs cornered lion's share in ICICI Banks QIP, the Government of

Singapore was allotted over 46.44 lakh shares comprising 11.08 per

cent of the total equity shares issued in the QIP issue. Morgan

Stanley Investment Managements Global Opportunity Fund was allotted

over 30.63 lakh shares (7.31 per cent of the issue) and Societe

Generale got over 23.24 lakh shares or 5.55 per cent of the issue.

Axis Banks after close of the QIP said,Despite a challenging

macro-economic environment, the placement has witnessed strong

reception from the global and domestic investor community, including

several large foreign portfolio investors, domestic mutual

funds and insurance companies.

FPIs shareholding in Axis Bank has gone up from 45.96 per cent as on

June 30, 2020 to 48.47 per cent as on August 11, 2020 as per the

updated shareholding data post the QIP closing.

In HDFC QIP of Rs 10,000 crore Government Of Singapore was allotted

over 75.96 lakh shares comprising 13.37 per cent of the total equity

shares issued in the QIP while another FPI Invesco Oppenheimer

Developing Market Fund was allotted over 31.40 lakh shares comprising

5.54 per cent of the QIP.

ICICI Bank and HDFC are yet to update FPIs shareholding post QIP

closing on the stock exchanges.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday (August 31) directed fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya to be present in person before it on October 5 at 2 pm, directing the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to ensure his presence in the courtroom on that day. The top court also dismissed his plea seeking review of the 2017 verdict which held him guilty of contempt for transferring USD 40 million to his children in violations of court orders.

Mallya, an accused in a bank loan default case of over Rs 9,000 crore involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines, is in the United Kingdom. Vijaya Mallya, who is based in the UK since March 2016, remains on bail on an extradition warrant executed three years ago by Scotland Yard on April 18, 2017.

A bench of Justices U U Lalit and Ashok Bhushan, while dismissing his review petitions against the May 9, 2017 verdict said, "In our considered view, the attempt on part of the respondent No.3 (Mallya) to have rehearing in the matter cannot be permitted nor do the submissions make out any 'error apparent on record' to justify interference in review jurisdiction."

The bench said, "Now that the Review Petitions are dismissed, we direct respondent No.3 to appear before this Court on October 5, 2020, at 2:00 pm and also direct the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi to facilitate and ensure the presence of respondent No.3 before this Court on that day".

In its order, the bench recorded that USD 40 million, part of a USD 75 million payment, was received in the account of Mallya on February 25, 2016, and within few days, on February 26 and February 29, 2016, it was transferred out of that account by Mallya.

"Despite repeated orders passed by this Court, no clear disclosure of his assets was made by respondent No. 3, nor any details of in-flow and out-flow of said amount of USD 40 million were disclosed by him. As a matter of fact, the existence of the concerned Bank account itself was not disclosed," the top court said.

Mallya had contended that in terms of the directions issued by the top court, he was required to disclose the assets as on March 31, 2016, and as such, no direction issued by the Court was violated.

He had said that the violation, if any, was of the orders passed by the Karnataka High Court and, therefore, the top court ought not to proceed in contempt jurisdiction. The bench said its order of January 11, 2017, had given liberty to Mallya to file a reply to the banks' response in the case and it appears from the record that a reply was filed by him on January 30, 2017; however, the May 9, 2017 verdict mentioned that no reply was filed.

The bench said that during the hearing of the review plea it had asked Mallya's counsel whether in its January 30, 2017 reply, was there anything that contradicted or contested the banks' submission that funds were transferred despite the orders of the Debt Recovery Tribunal and Karnataka High Court.

It had asked whether any explanation was forthcoming in the reply of Mallya to support the stand that he was not guilty of a violation of said orders.

The bench said that his counsel was unable to refer to any such portion from the reply filed on January 30, 2017, but touched upon the questions whether the directions issued by this Court were violated and whether this court ought to have proceeded to exercise contempt jurisdiction.

The bench said the scope of the review was limited and all the submissions made by his counsel have already been dealt with and rejected by the court in its May 9, 2017 verdict.

Earlier in June, the SC had directed its registry to explain as to why Mallya's review petition had not been listed before the concerned court for the last three years. It had directed the registry to furnish all the details including names of officials who had dealt with the file concerning the review petition in the last three years.

The apex court's 2017 order had come on a plea by a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI), which had said that Mallya had allegedly transferred USD 40 million received from British firm Diageo to his children in "flagrant violation" of various judicial orders.

It was dealing with pleas of lending banks seeking contempt action and a direction to Mallya to deposit USD 40 million received from offshore firm Diageo respectively.

The banks had then alleged that Mallya concealed the facts and diverted the money to his son Siddharth Mallya and daughters Leanna Mallya and Tanya Mallya in "flagrant violation" of the orders passed by the Karnataka High Court.

Notably, the UK top court's decision was a big legal setback to the 64-year-old fugitive businessman, who had earlier lost his high court appeal against an extradition order to India on charges of alleged fraud and money laundering related to unrecovered loans to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

(With Agency Inputs)
Mariah Carey has said she was made to feel extremely uncomfortable during an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, in which the pop star was pushed into revealing a pregnancy that she later miscarried.

Carey appeared on DeGeneres US talk show in 2008, when DeGeneres asked the star to either confirm or deny tabloid rumours that she was expecting a baby with then-husband Nick Cannon.

Despite Careys protests that she wanted to change the subject, DeGeneres offered Carey a glass of champagne to toast not being pregnant.

When DeGeneres spotted that Carey had faked sipping champagne from her glass, she shouted You are pregnant!

In 2010, Carey revealed that she was indeed pregnant at the time, but miscarried soon after the DeGeneres interview took place.

I was extremely uncomfortable with that moment is all I can say, Carey recalls in a new interview with Vulture. And I really have had a hard time grappling with the aftermath.

She continued: I wasnt ready to tell anyone because I had had a miscarriage. I dont want to throw anyone thats already being thrown under any proverbial bus, but I didnt enjoy that moment.

Carey went on to say that she had wished that empathy had been implemented in the moment, adding: But what am I supposed to do? Its like, What are you going to do?

The Independent has contacted DeGeneress representative for comment.

Mariah Carey and Ellen DeGeneres (Chris Delmas/Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

The 2008 clip of Carey and DeGeneres went viral on social media last month amid an internal investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, racism and workplace bullying behind the scenes of DeGeneres show. DeGeneres herself was not implicated in the allegations.

Three of the shows top producers have been let go from the series as a result of the investigation, while employees have been offered extended holiday and additional time off.
- English teacher Dorah Amondi wrote an informative article on Saturday Nation calling out artists over nudity in music videos

- The teacher was responding to the latest music from Kanungo hitmaker Otieno Aloka who became the talk of town over his controversial video

- Moral police Ezekiel Mutua was impressed with the article and awarded her KSh 20,000

- Mutua noted it was gratifying for a teacher who moulds the character of children to write such an informative article

Kenya Films Classification Board (KFCB) chief executive officer Ezekiel Mutua has awarded a woman from Vihiga county KSh 20,000 for an informative article championing for clean content.

Dorah Amondi, an English teacher in Chambiti Secondary School, wrote an article that was published in the Saturday Nation under the headline "Why clean content may not be such a bad idea."

READ ALSO: Takwimu : Idadi ya wanaume wanaougua ugonjwa wa Corona yazidi nchini

Kenya Films Classification Board chief executive officer Ezekiel Mutua. Photo: KFCB

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Perfect for bedsitter: Kenyans applaud innovative fundi who crafted convertible bed

In her article, which was shared by Mutua on Facebook, Amondi took issue with controversial musician Otieno Aloka who recently faced heavy backlash from his fans.

The musician became the talk of town after he performed a song titled Meru Nyar Kanye that was apparently filled with crude and vulgar language.

According to teacher Amondi, Aloko's song was nothing but the lowest level of a misguided belief that "the more sexually explicit a song is, the trendier it becomes."

Amondi attributed such immoral content to artists copying from overseas with the aim of entertaining their viewers but at the end of the day they end up influencing them negatively.

READ ALSO: Ferdinand Waititu's graft case hearing adjourned after ex-governor misses court, lawyer says he's battling COVID-19

Mutua was so impressed with the article saying Amondi was keen on following what KFCB was doing as far as they were advocating for clean content.

"Mwalimu Dorah didn't write for money. She doesn't know me or anyone in the Board. But from the piece, it's evident that she follows with keen interest and appreciation the work that we do.

"Rather than just bash or join the bandwagon of promoting obscenity in the name of art, she penned a well-thought-out piece on the subject. Teacher Dorah represents millions of others across the country who support our campaign for clean content," said Mutua.

He noted teachers were critical pillars in moulding the character of children and it was gratifying that the educator had taken her time to pen down such an informative article.

READ ALSO: William Ruto to choose woman as running mate in 2022 presidential race

"As a token of appreciation, I have honoured my pledge of KSh 20,000 through Sammy Ondimu Ngare, our diligent administration police officer and moral champion who traced and connected her to us," said Mutua.

The KFCB boss's latest move came barely days after he withdrew a KSh 50,000 donation to a jobless Kenyan youth for using Arap Mashamba pseudonym on social media.

The social media user had made a touching comment on his post in which he narrated of personal growth and the pain of delay in success.

The 33-year-old man confessed to Mutua that he was on the point of losing hope in life as he had no source of income despite crying out to some political leaders.

The moral police then got interested in his plight and the two began engaging at a personal level albeit online whereupon he opened his heart and asked for financial support which Mutua offered to give him but upon looking at his profile he changed his mind.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Archaeologists have uncovered a 3,200-year-old fortress in southern Israel that may give some clues to a lost people from the Bible.

Measuring 60 feet by 60 feet, the two-story citadel had watchtowers in each corner and a courtyard paved with stone slabs and columns in the center.

Researchers date the structure to the 12th-century BC, a time described in Book of Judges that was plagued by warfare.

The team believes the structure was built by the Canaanites, perhaps with help from their Egyptian overlords, to fend off invading Philistines.

Archaeologists uncovered this Canaanite fortress in a forest near Kiryat Gat, Israel. Dating to the 12th-century B.C. , the two-story citadel had watchtowers in each corner and a courtyard paved with stone slabs and columns in the center.

Hundreds of pottery vessels, including ones probably used for religious rites, were found inside rooms arranged on both sides of the courtyard.

Experts from the Israel Antiquities Authority uncovered the remains of the Canaanite fortification in the Guvrin Forest near Kiryat Gat, which sits about 35 miles from Tel Aviv.

Canaan was ruled by Egypt at that time and design elements and pottery fragments found at the site suggest Egyptian influence.

A massive threshold was found intact at the entrance, carved from a single stone and weighing some three tons.

Hundreds of pieces of pottery, some likely used for religious rituals, were found in rooms abutting the main courtyard. Archaeologists say some imitate styles of bowls made by the Canaanite's Egyptian overlords

The fortification was built during a time of bloody territorial wars, when the Canaanites were fending off attacks by the Israelites and the Philistines. 'The fortress we found provides a glimpse into the geopolitical reality described in the Book of Judges, in which the Canaanites, Israelites and Philistines are fighting each other,' the researchers said.

Experts from the Israel Antiquities Authority uncovered the remains of the Canaanite fortification in the Guvrin Forest near Kiryat Gat

Researchers date the structure to the 12th-century BC.

'The fortress we found provides a glimpse into the geopolitical reality described in the Book of Judges, in which the Canaanites, Israelites and Philistines are fighting each other,' said IAA archaeologists Saar Ganor and Itamar Weissbein.

'In this period, the land of Canaan was ruled by the Egyptians and its inhabitants were under their custody.'

The citadel follows the design of Egyptian 'governor's houses' and some of the pottery found at the site imitates the style of Egyptian bowls.

But the Egyptians left Canaan in the middle of the 12th century BC.

Without their protection, the Canaanites descended into territorial battles with the Israelites and Philistines and many of their strongholds and cities collapsed.

'The Israelites settled in unfortified communities on the central mountain ridge, while the Philistines gained great power in the southern coastal plain where they established large cities in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron and Gat,' the researchers said, according to The Times of Israel.

The citadel's strategic location would have given it a good view of the main road that passed along Nahal Guvrin, a ravine connecting the coastal plain to the Judaean plain. Without support from the Egyptians, who left Canaan in the mid-12th century B.C., numerous strongholds and cities collapsed

The fortress' strategic location would have given it a good view of the main road that passed along Nahal Guvrin, a ravine connecting the coastal plain to the Judaean plain.

The ruins were excavated with student volunteers from the Eretz Israel Dept. at the multidisciplinary school in Beer Sheva and from the Nachshon pre-military preparatory school.

The site is being opened for the first time for free public tours.
With the rent due on Sept. 1, what is a small business hit hard by COVID-19 to do?

Its a question lingering in the air this week as the federal governments much-criticized rent subsidy program for small businesses came to an end without a clear commitment that it would be extended into September.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland suggested at a Monday news conference that work on improving rent relief for businesses is ongoing.

She said that she has been speaking with her provincial and territorial counterparts about financial assistance, acknowledging costs for small businesses.

Were working on it, and were going to have more to say about it very soon, she said.

At the same time, Freeland announced that the government would extend the application deadline for its small business loan program, the Canada Emergency Business Account, to the end of October.

CEBA provides eligible businesses with interest-free $40,000 loans, with up to $10,000 forgivable if the loan is repaid by the end of 2022.

Freeland said more than 730,000 loans have already been approved, to the tune of $29 billion.

While the CEBA extension was welcomed, the uncertainty around rent relief going into the fall is only exacerbating the stress of small business owners, said Laura Jones, executive vice-president at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

The anxiety about rent relief has been through the roof for months, so Im hoping that this is very high on (Freelands) list of priorities and that we will hear something very soon, Jones said.

Under the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance program, property owners can receive forgivable loans to cover 50 per cent of the rent from April to August.

The loans are forgiven if the owner agrees to lower the rent by at least 75 per cent. The tenant business would pay the remaining 25 per cent.

Organizations representing businesses have complained that the programs major flaw is that it depends on the landlord to apply for it, and that not enough are doing so.

And in fact, the program has proven to be underutilized; the parliamentary budget office said Monday that it estimated the federal cost of the program in 2020-21 to be $931 million.

The government had budgeted $3 billion for the program, including contributions from the provinces who share the cost of CECRA.

Freeland wouldnt confirm on Monday that there has been a lack of applications to the program, but speaking directly to landlords, she said: We would also like to see you step up and play your part.

The challenge going forward is to get the rent relief directly into the hands of businesses, said Aleem Kanji, a spokesperson for SaveSmallBusiness.ca, a grassroots collective of 50,000 small businesses across Canada.

I think it was an acknowledgment that landlords need to embrace the program and participate, Kanji said of Freelands comment, adding that his organization believes landlord participation in the program should be mandatory.

They talked about change coming very soon, but businesses have to cut that (rent) cheque within hours, Kanji said on Monday, a day before the rent was due.

Is it going to be part of a throne speech? Or leaked before? Wed like to think its going to happen very soon, and get that money out the door that theyve already committed to small businesses.
An overflowing Narmada threw life out of gear in parts of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and water released from the Hirakud dam flooded several districts of Odisha on the weekend. At least 24 people were killed in flooding in MP and Odisha and thousands were displaced as heavy rainfall lashed other parts of India, causing reservoirs to overflow. Rainfall has been 25% more than normal in August, which India Meteorological Department (IMD) says is the highest for the month in 44 years. The previous highest in August was recorded in 1983, when rain was 23.8% more than the normal. Heres a quick look at reasons for flooding in central India:

 Persistent very heavy to extremely heavy rainfall, measuring over 20 centimetres (cm), was recorded in two-three days between August 25 and 27 in Odisha and from August 27 to 30 over Madhya Pradesh (MP).

MPs Chhindwara districts 12 weather stations recorded between 20 and 41 cm of rainfall on August 28 to 29. Chaurai recorded 41 cm in a day. India Meteorological Department (IMD) authorities are still assessing the data to come to the conclusion whether this is the highest-ever precipitation recorded on a day.

Gujarat region continues to record very heavy rain.

 A well-marked low-pressure area had formed over the Bay of Bengal, which moved very slowly from August 24 to 31 up to western Rajasthan bringing extremely heavy rainfall in its path. Our analysis shows extremely heavy spells over MP were recorded only during one day between August 28 and 29 that triggered flooding. There is no likelihood of another low-pressure area forming over the Bay of Bengal immediately, said RK Jenamani, senior scientist, national weather forecasting centre (NWFC), IMD.

 Now, rain will gradually reduce over central India and will begin over the northern plains, according to scientists. Extremely heavy rain in MP and other parts of central India is mainly because of the formation of strong low-pressure area over western MP and eastern Rajasthan. We are expecting rain to decrease gradually over central India but Gujarat may experience very heavy rains for one more day. Rains will increase over the northern plains, when the monsoon trough shifts northwards around Wednesday (September 2), said Dr Mrutyunja Mohapatra, director-general, IMD.

 Such unusually heavy rains led to rivers flowing at extreme flood situations. It signifies that the highest flood level is breached. Stretches of Mahanadi, Wainganaga and Narmada rivers are still flowing in extreme flood situations. Eight dams in Odisha, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and MP are at 100% capacity and will have to release water to accommodate more rainfall.

 While the floods have disrupted lives in these states, the excess rainfall can improve soil moisture and help with a good crop during the upcoming rabi season. There are different ways of harvesting water. But the most important source of water for agriculture is groundwater. The focus should be on local storage and recharge systems. We have to store rainwater and avoid its run-off, said Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator, South Asia Network of Dams, Rivers and People.

 The country has recorded 26.3% excess rains in August -- the highest in 44 years with 61.5% excess over central India, 36.7% excess over the southern peninsula, 19.1% deficient over east and the north-east and 1.9% excess over the north-west parts of the country.

Scientists have not linked the current spell with climate change, but central India has been recording a rising trend in extreme heavy rain events.

According to Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian Region, a report of the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) released earlier this year, showed that from 1950 onwards there has been a significant rising trend in the frequency and intensity of extreme heavy rainfall events over central India, along with a decreasing trend in the moderate rain events.

A study published in the Nature journal in 2017 by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) had concluded that there was a three-fold rise in extreme rainfall along the west coast and central India between 1950 and 2015.
A Republican student group at Arizona State University is being slammed for launching a fundraiser to help the 17-year-old gunman who fatally shot two protesters in Wisconsin during a demonstration sparked by the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

College Republicans United (CRU) announced Friday that half of any funds they raise during the semester will go toward paying for the legal defense of Kyle Rittenhouse,

He does not deserve to have his entire life destroyed because of the actions of violent anarchists during a lawless riot, the group said in a tweet, announcing the drive.

However, in a rebutting statement published Saturday night, a separate group, ASU College Republicans, denounced CRU as a radical, far-right extremist group, and urged the university to investigate them.

College Republicans United (CRU) announced Friday that half of any funds they raise during the semester will go toward paying for the legal defense of Kyle Rittenhouse (Pictured: Leaders of College Republicans United President Mark Northway, and co-founder Kevin Decuype are pictured above)

Kyle Rittenhouse (center), of Illinois, has been accused of shooting dead 26-year-old Anthony Huber and 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum with an AR-15 in Kenosha last Tuesday.

Rittenhouse, of Illinois, has been accused of shooting dead 26-year-old Anthony Huber and 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum with an AR-15 in Kenosha last Tuesday.

The victims were part of anti-racism demonstrations occurring in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake, 29, who was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot seven times in the back by police as he was attempting to get in his car.

The teen was formally charged with intentional homicide, one count of attempted first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment. He was taken into custody on Wednesday.

Rittenhouse told police he was trying to protect businesses and people and acted in self-defense. College Republicans United shared the same view, insisting he was acting to keep the city from descending into chaos.

Kenosha has devolved into anarchy because the authorities in charge of the city abandoned it, the group said. They stood back and watched Kenosha burn. Kyle Rittenhouse is not a vigilante but a citizen who attempted to help in a city in chaos.

The club said it does not condone the deaths of his victims, but claims they were not model citizens.

ASU College Republicans are calling for the university to launch a formal administrative investigation into the fundraiser and the operation of the organization dubbed College Republicans United.'

We do not associate with nor condone their recent actions involving contributing to the legal defense fund of a man who shot and killed several Americans in Wisconsin, according to the statement.

Rittenhouse told police he was trying to protect businesses and people and acted in self-defense. College Republicans United shared the same view, insisting he was acting to keep the city from descending into chaos

The university acknowledged they were aware of the fundraiser, saying while there is no policy prohibiting student groups from raising funds for a cause such as this, ASU does not endorse or support this effort.

The university said it will be meeting with CRU to learn more about this decision.

In their statement denouncing CRU, ASU College Republicans also accused the group of a pattern of blatantly racist and anti-Semitic conduct.

CRU, which split from the schools main Republican group around three years ago, previously came under fire last year after members of the group were found to have made racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic posts on social media.

CRU has not yet returned a DailyMail.com request for comment on how much the group has raised so far.

The group is not the only one raising money for Rittenhouse. A self-described Christian fundraising site, GiveSendGo, says it has raised more than $100,000 for his defense.
New' New Delhi, Aug 31 (PTi) The on Monday asked the AAP government to start at the earliest the online registration of legal documents, like wills, to minimise difficulties of public at large and minimise contact of officials with people during the prevalent COVID-19 pandemic. A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan said several states have started online registration of documents and even the has started e-filing of cases where a litigant can file a petition and even pay court fees from the comfort of his or her office or home. "You (Delhi government) can also do it. We expect the officials of respondent 1 (Delhi government) to initiate online registration of documents, We don't think it is impossible," the bench said. The counsel told the bench that such a system was already in place. However, the advocate sought time to take instructions with regard to the features the system has. The high court, thereafter, listed the matter for further hearing on September 23. The high court was hearing a plea, by advocate Gaurav Gambhir, claiming that sub-registrars in the capital are refusing to register 'wills' and other documents of senior citizens, persons with co-morbidities and pregnant women by citing risk of COVID infection. During the hearing via video conference, senior advocate Mohit Mathur, representing Gambhir, told the bench that the Delhi government's system only provides for taking appointments to visit the sub-registrar's office and on going there the people are verbally told that registrations cannot be done. He told the court that the states of Maharashtra, West Bengal and Haryana have started online registration of legal documents without having to go to the sub-registrar's office. Gambhir, in his petition, has soughtabolishing of "the archaic procedures and to adopt suitable mechanisms for registration of documents through digital or other means to avoid contamination as a preparedness to COVID-19 like situations". He has contended that senior citizens and others vulnerable to COVID-19 "are being unlawfully deprived and prevented from getting their testamentary and non-testamentary documents registered in the office of the Sub-Registrars in New Delhi on account of misinterpretation of lockdown guidelines".

(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.)
President Akufo-Addo in his 16th address on COVID-19, Sunday, announced the reopening of the Kotoka International Airport for resumption of international flights.



I am glad to announce that KIA will reopen and resume operations from Tuesday, September 1, 2020. This decision has been communicated to international airlines across the world. After weeks of thorough work, I am satisfied that it is safe to do so, he said.



He then revealed measures that have been taken to resume flights, and some of these include the fact that passengers upon disembarking from the aeroplane will undergo a mandatory Covid-19 test at the airport terminal, at a fee to be borne by the passenger. The test result will be available within 30 minutes.



Information available indicates that the fee for instant testing will be $150 (GHC864.71).



Renowned journalist and host of Peace FM's morning show 'Kokrokoo' had the hint while hosting Monday's edition of the show and it was subsequently confirmed by some government officials.







The mandatory testing, which is to be conducted for all passengers coming into the country forms part of directives outlined by the Ministry of Aviation and Health to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus and ensure that the deadly disease is not imported into the country.Speaking during a press conference to update the nation on measures taken ahead of the reopening of the airport on September 1, the Managing Director of the Ghana Airports Company Limited, Yaw Kwakwa said the accuracy of the test is around 99 to 100 percent.Defending the $150 fee for the testing, the Deputy Minister for Health Dr Benard Oko-Boye described it as a good bargain since nothing is more expensive than contracting Covid-19 itself.He also argued that the decision was taken after assessing charges by other countries.The cost of the test will not put unnecessary difficulty or burden on the passenger. We looked at what is being charged across the globe so when you go to a place like Zimbabwe you pay about $210 for a test.In China, you pay about $150 for a test and they are even doing PCR which is a very good test that identifies the virus itself. But in China after paying $150 you have to wait for about 6 hours average before you get results.Also remember that anyone coming into Ghana must have a negative PCR test and on the average, in Europe, if you enter a lab to do that, it is about 100 euros.The Deputy Minister also added that a percentage of the revenue generated from the testing will go into the development and maintenance of the airport.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A coronavirus testing site has been set on fire and injured one of the security guards on duty.

The closed testing tent in Mernda, north of Melbourne, was set alight at around 10.35pm on Monday.

Two security guards stationed at the Waterview Recreation Reserve site noticed the blaze and contacted emergency services.

A coronavirus testing site in Mernda, north Melbourne, (pictured) was set on fire around 10.35pm on Monday night and a security guard on duty contacted emergency services

Three firefighting crews attended to extinguish the blaze (the damaged testing marquee pictured above) and one of the security guards was treated for minor smoke inhalation

Fire Rescue Victoria rushed to the testing site to put out the blaze, which caused minor damage to the side of the marquee.

A Country Fire Authority spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia three crews responded to the fire on Waterview Drive.

'Three CFA units from Mernda and Doreen attended the incident.

'A stop was issued on the incident at 10.52pm and the scene was handed to Victoria Police,' the spokesperson said.

Paramedics also checked one of the security guards for minor smoke inhalation and he was cleared to resume work.

Victoria Police are investigating the incident and are seeking to speak to three men aged in their twenties.

The men were spoken to by the security guards shortly before the fire started.

Victoria Police are investigating the incident at the Mernda testing site (pictured) and want to speak to three men aged in their twenties who attended the site before the fire

Anyone with information has been urged to contact Crime Stoppers.

Victoria recorded 70 new cases of coronavirus and five deaths on Tuesday.

The figures come after the state recorded its highest death toll yet with 41 fatalities on Monday.

Melbourne remains under a draconian stage four lockdown where residents must remain indoors between 8pm and 5am.

Melburnians may leave their homes for one hour of exercise per day and must remain within 5km of their homes.

It is also mandatory to wear a mask unless conducting strenuous exercise or because of a valid medical condition.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is also expected to change the state of emergency legislation on Tuesday and prepare a roadmap to easing restrictions on Sunday.
Joint Forces Command of the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen: Interception, Destruction of Bomb-Laden UAV Launched by Terrorist, Iran-Backed Houthi Militia Toward the Kingdom

Saudi Press Agency

Sunday 1442/1/11 - 2020/08/30

Riyadh, August 30, 2020, SPA -- Statement by the Official Spokesman of the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen COL Turki Al-Malki: "Joint Coalition Forces have intercepted and destroyed this afternoon (Sunday) a bomb-laden UAV launched systematically and deliberately by the terrorist Houthi militia to target civilians and civilian objects in the Southern Region."

--SPA

14:50 LOCAL TIME 11:50 GMT

0010

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A manager at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center has been charged with accepting thousands of dollars in kickbacks to steer inflated or phony contracts to a Florida couple.

Investigators with the inspector generals office at the Department of Veterans Affairs say they caught Ralph Johnson, the chief of environmental services, accepting the bribes in cash-stuffed binders and packages mailed to his home in Lancaster County last year.

They began investigating him after two VA contractors indicted for bribing staff at hospitals in Miami and West Palm Beach, Fla., said they also made trips to Philadelphia to pay Johnson to secure contracts, according to court filings in his case.

Johnson, 54, who was charged last week, faces up to 15 years in federal prison if convicted on bribery charges.

His attorney, Hope C. Lefeber, described her client as a very respected employee of the department for nearly three decades. He has been suspended as a result of the investigation, she said.

Johnsons arrest is the latest in a series of prosecutions stemming from an effort to crack down on corrupt contracting within the system responsible for medical care for nine million veterans across the nation.

Last year, federal prosecutors in Florida indicted 15 VA employees and business owners, alleging that they had been involved in a scheme to bilk millions meant for veterans care through inflated or unfulfilled purchase orders.

Among them were Earron Starks, 50, and his wife, Carlicha, 41, of Hallandale Beach, who admitted in March to paying kickbacks on a collective $7 million in contracts for items ranging from toilet paper to sophisticated medical equipment, which were awarded to two companies they ran  EKNO Medical Supply and Colonnade Medical Supply  between 2009 and 2019.

They even paid a disabled veteran to lie that she was an owner of one of their businesses so they could take advantage of contracting rules that favored companies owned by those who had been wounded in service, prosecutors said.

The Starkses began cooperating with the investigation after their arrest and informed agents that they had also been bribing Johnson for over a year, according to court filings in Johnsons case.

Wearing recording equipment, they allegedly met with Johnson in June 2019 at his office on the hospitals campus in West Philadelphia and slipped him a binder filled with $5,000 they owed him from a contract he had previously sent their way.

He walked them out to the parking lot afterward, prosecutors said, and reminded them that their next kickback was due at the start of the following month  before the July Fourth weekend.

Thats going to be a long weekend  and I like to enjoy the weekend, he is quoted as saying in court filings. I like to work hard, but I sure like to play hard, too.

Two months later, the Starkses recorded Johnson again  this time meeting with him in a hotel suite in Orlando during a convention. He allegedly discussed steering a tree-trimming contract to one of their companies, explaining that while there was only $4,000 worth of work involved, the contract price would be $84,000. The Starkses would mail him $10,000, he said, and keep the remaining $70,000 for themselves, according to the transcript.

A spokesperson for the Philadelphia VA Medical Center did not immediately return requests for comment Monday.
Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg arrived for a press conference on June 11, 2020 in Canberra, Australia. (Sam Mooy/Getty Images)

Victoria Is Dragging Down Australian Economy

More Victorians are expected to be on JobKeeper wage subsidies by years end than the rest of the country combined.

New Treasury numbers paint a grim picture of the devastating impact Victorias second wave of coronavirus is having on the national economy.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is using the figures to pile pressure on the Victorian premier to chart a course out of harsh social and business restrictions.

Daniel Andrews has so far resisted demands to outline a roadmap, with more than 100 infections still being recorded across the state each day.

Strict lockdown measures have driven the number of Victorians on unemployment benefits up by eight percent.

Household spending has plunged by 30 percent compared to just three percent in the rest of the country.

The hospitality sector has borne the brunt of the restrictions, with spending on dining and takeaway meals down 60 percent, while accommodation has fallen 80 percent.

Frydenberg, Victorias most senior Liberal, accused the Labor premier of mishandling coronavirus outbreaks, likening the situation to a slow-moving car crash.

Restrictions imposed by the Victorian government have had a devastating impact on the economy, Frydenberg said on Aug 31.

As we have seen in other states, if you can successfully suppress the virus, jobs will return.

Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michele ONeil said health advice should be paramount in lifting restrictions.

This is not a choice between the economy and lives. We actually can and must consider both, she told ABC radio.

ONeil said paid pandemic leave, training for workers and providing workplaces with safety equipment would be key to a sensible reopening.

She noted there had only been one day during Victorias second wave with new cases below 100.

Treasury estimates 60 percent of the 2.24 million people receiving JobKeeper by the end of the year will be in Victoria.

While the number of people on wage subsidies is expected to fall to 1.75 million early next year, three in five recipients are still expected to be from Victoria.

Andrews has been working with unions on the easing of stage four restrictions across Melbourne, which are due to end in two weeks.

He is also meeting with business groups on Monday to discuss a possible pathway out of the lockdowns.

Daniel McCulloch in Canberra
Amid tensions with India over the standoff in Eastern Ladakh sector, China has reportedly built a surface-to-air missile near a lake, which is a part of the Kailash-Mansarovar.

New York [US], August 31 (ANI): Amid tensions with India over the standoff in Eastern Ladakh sector, China has reportedly built a surface-to-air missile near a lake, which is a part of the Kailash-Mansarovar. The development of the missile, according to experts, is a continuation of the aggressive provocation by the Chinese and it could further complicate the border tensions between the two countries, The Epoch Times reported.

Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar, commonly known as the Kailash-Mansarovar site is revered by four religions and is linked to culture and spiritual scriptures in India. While the Hindus consider the site as the abode of Shiva and his consort Parvati, the Tibetan Buddhists call the mountain Kang Rimpoche, the Precious One of Glacial Snow, and revere it as the abode of Demchog and his consort, Dorje Phagmo.

The Jains call the mountain Astapada and consider it to be the place where the first of their 24 spiritual masters achieved liberation. The Bons, adherents of the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, term the mountain Tise and revere it the dwelling place of the sky goddess, Sipaimen.

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The placing of the missile at the sacred site, which is also the origin of four transnational rivers  Indus, Brahmaputra, Sutlej and Karnali, a major tributary of the Ganges, menaces India, which has refused to back down against Chinese aggression on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

In my view, first and foremost, it is a continuation of the Chinese provocation against India, which we are seeing all along from the LAC in Ladakh to the eastern and middle sector bordering areas with India, Priyajit Debsarkar, author and a geopolitical analyst with the London-based think tank Bridge India, told The Epoch Times in an e-mail.

This move, of deploying a surface-to-air missile in Tibet, should not surprise us. It is pure authoritarian brinkmanship and provocation to India, which has refused to back down against Chinese threats and aggressive aggression, Debsarkar said.

India and China are engaged in a standoff since April-May over the transgressions by the Chinese Army in multiple areas including Finger area, Galwan valley, Hot springs and Kongrung Nala. In June, 20 Indian soldiers died in a violent face-off with Chinese troops in Eastern Ladakh.

Talks between the two sides have been going on for the last three months including five Lieutenant General-level talks but have failed to yield any results, so far.

Aparna Pande, a research fellow and the director of the Washington-based Hudson Institutes Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia, told the newspaper that China does not respect and believe in religion and culture.

We have to bear in mind that the Chinese do not care about Christianity. They do not care about any of the ancient Chinese practices. They believe religion is the opium of the masses and the only ideology they care about is their form of communism, Pande said.

They dont care about symbols and symbolism except those that are tied to the Chinese Communist Party, she was quoted as saying.

Harsh Pant, a New Delhi-based strategic analyst with the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), echoed similar sentiments and stated that Chinas move of creating military infrastructure at Kailash-Mansarovar will only intensify the anti-China sentiment within India.

The fact that this happens to be one of the most sacred religious sites for the Hindus is also indicative of the disdain Beijing has for Indian sentiments, Pant said.

This is only going to accentuate tensions in an already troubled relationship and will not only make Indian public even more antagonistic to China but will also make Indian policymakers even more determined to stand up to China, he added.

The missile base at Kailash-Mansarovar is a part of Chinas greater militarisation of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), according to Girish Kant Pandey, professor of defence studies at the Pandit Ravishankar Shukla University in Raipur.

The missile mounted near Kailash-Mansarovar is called DF-21. It is a medium-range, 2,200 kilometres ballistic missile. Its advantage is that it can cover all cities of north India, including New Delhi, Pandey told The Epoch Times over the phone.

From 2006 to 2010, China carried out 180 strategic projects, which it did not mention in its defence budgets. These projects include constructing four large airstrips, 14 small airstrips and 17 radar stations on the India-China frontier from east to west, Pandey said.

Earlier today, an Indian Army spokesperson said the Indian Army has thwarted an attempt by the Chinese Army to transgress into Indian areas near the southern bank of Pangong Tso near Chushul in Ladakh on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday and talks are being held now to resolve the issue there.

On the night of August 29-30, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo, said Army spokesperson Colonel Aman Anand in a statement.

The Indian Army took measures to strengthen its position and and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on the ground.

Meanwhile, Aparna Pande stated that China has placed missiles aiming at Japan, Taiwan, Australia, the US and ASEAN countries.

From their point of view, it is also important to now start placing missiles in the areas where they can target India and the Indian Ocean region. So Kailash-Mansarovar helps with that, Pande said.

Debsarkar noted that another reason for Chinas missile at the Kailash-Mansarovar site is a response to India, which recently built a road to a Himalayan pass of strategic value. He said the missile site is meant to provoke India as it has constructed a road up to Lipulekh, The Epoch Times reported.

Indias objective is, however, to facilitate our pilgrimage visiting Kailash, by making it much easier especially its dangerous to cross the preexisting treacherous path. The Chinese establishment is against the massive road construction across the Indo-China border, he said.

Indias Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had inaugurated a strategic road till Lipulekh passes on May 8. However, Nepal objected to it, claiming that Lipulekh is a part of its territory. Subsequently, the Himalayan nation issued a new controversial map incorporating Indian territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura.

In response, India said the updated map of Nepal is not based on historical facts and evidence and termed the claims by Kathmandu as artificial enlargement.

Also read: Amid LaC tensions with China, Indian navy deploys warships in S China sea
Russia says it will expel three Slovak diplomats after three staff at the Russian Embassy in Bratislava were told to leave earlier this month, a move that media in Slovakia have linked to last years killing in Berlin of a former Chechen rebel from Georgia.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the Slovak ambassador to Moscow was informed of the decision on August 31 and that the move was "based on the principle of reciprocity."

A resolute protest was expressed to him over the groundless expulsion of three staffers of the Russian Embassy in Slovakia in August," the ministry said. "We regard this unfriendly step by Bratislava as running counter to the traditional spirit of constructive relations between our countries."

On August 10, Slovakia announced its decision to expel three staff at the Russian Embassy, citing the misuse of a Schengen visa issued by Slovakia's Consulate in St. Petersburg that led to "a serious crimeon the territory of another NATO and EU member state."

Slovakia's Dennik N daily reported at the time that a Russian citizen used a Slovak visa to enter Germany in 2019 and later became a suspect in the Berlin killing of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian national of Chechen origin.

German authorities apprehended the suspect and prosecutors have accused Russia of ordering the murder, a charge that Moscow denies.

The investigative website Bellingcat earlier named the suspect as a Russian citizen, Vadim Krasikov, saying he was a contract killer who grew up in Kazakhstan.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus on August 11 welcomed Slovakias decision to expel the Russian diplomats, saying it has sent a clear signal that it will not tolerate Russias politically motivated criminal acts.

It is the second expulsion of European diplomats by Moscow in a week.

A Norwegian diplomat was forced to leave Russia on August 28 in response to Norway's removal of a Russian diplomat linked to the case of a Norwegian national recently arrested on espionage charges.

An Austrian diplomat was sent home on August 24 in another tit-for-tat move after Vienna announced the expulsion of a Russian diplomat reported to be involved in economic espionage.
Mumbai, Sep 1 : At least 4 persons were killed and 4 others injured when a speeding car rammed into an eatery in south Mumbai on Monday night, police said.

A Maruti Esteem car suddenly rammed into the Janata Cafe near Crawford Market at around 9 p.m.

The deceased have been identified as Nahim and three women - Saroja, Zuneda and one unidentified.

Mohmmad Juhi, 32, Nadim Ansari, 40, Kamlesh, 20, and Mohammad Nadim, 41, were injured and have been admitted to the Sir J. J. Hospital for treatment, said a police official.

Police are investigating the cause of the accident, including whether the driver was inebriated, and further details are awaited.
The Taj citys dreams of turning itself into a garment hub hinges on the allotment of approximately 45-acre of unutilized land for an integrated textile and apparel industrial park, say experts dealing with the issue.

The land in question is owned by the Uttar Pradesh State Industrial Development Authority (UPSIDA). It is part of the 1,000-acre land parcel that was originally earmarked for a theme park project visualised by a prominent actor-cum-film-maker.

While the textile park is expected to give employment to at least 25,000 workers, the theme park project is dying a slow death in files, those in the know of things have said.

So far, two private developers have come forward to submit e-tenders of their expression of interest (EOI) to the state textile department for setting up of the integrated textile and apparel industrial park in Agra.

They submitted their EOIs on 20.08.2020 (August 8, 2020) pursuant to the policy of the department of textile. These EOIs are particularly important for Agra, which is an ecologically sensitive area, being part of the Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ). In TTZ, no polluting industries are permitted, said KC Jain, chairman of the legal cell of the National Chamber of Industries and Commerce (NCIC), Agra chapter.

Also read: Indias GDP numbers could be worst in decades. What experts say

These EOIs were invited for seven tentative locations - Meerut, Agra, Jhansi, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Lucknow and Kanpur.

Since garment manufacturing is classified as a white category industry by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), there are no environmental hassles in setting them up. Recently, a virtual meeting was also held on 26.08.2020 (August 26, 2020) by Rama Raman, additional chief secretary, textiles, to have a dialogue with these private developers who have been asked to submit their detailed project reports (DPRs) in 45 days, Jain said.

One of these private developers, headed by Ashok Goyal of Surat, has asked for the allotment of 45 acres of land out of the 1,000 acres reserved for the theme park in Agra. Owned by the UPSIDA, this land is located on Inner Ring Road with connectivity to the Yamuna Expressway and the Lucknow Expressway, Jain added.

Jain further said that the land for the theme park project should be utilised for the apparel park and industrial cluster. The very purpose of the acquisition of the land for the theme park has become non-existent with the actor having given up on this project. This land for the theme park is lying unutilised since 2014 and the UPSIDA is incurring heavy liability on the payment of interest, he said.

Jain further said NCIC had recently conducted a demand survey of industrial plots in Agra. In the survey, 291 entrepreneurs responded and 206 favoured garment and accessories manufacturing units, reflecting the market demand.

Once the apparel and textile park comes up, these entrepreneurs can begin to set up their units there.

Ashok Goyal has also said the allotment is important as a government scheme envisages a subsidy of 50 percent on the purchase of land from a government agency. Without subsidy, it would not be possible to provide developed plots at an affordable price, he said.
Janice Dean reports on the weather for Fox News. She lost both of her in-laws to the Wuhan coronavirus. Both contracted the disease at long-term care facilities, but her mother in-law died at a hospital.

New York apparently does not include cases like the mother-in-laws in totaling up the nursing home death count. Thus, New York is under counting the number of deaths that arose at such facilities.

Dean has long wanted to testify about New York states disastrous response to the coronavirus in nursing homes. However, she was removed from the witness list for a hearing by the legislature on this subject.

Dean says a Republican New York Senator told her the Democrat majority was uncomfortable having [her] as a witness. Dean believes the majority was responding to pressure from Governor Cuomo or his associates. Cuomos office denies the charge.

The Republicans countered by inviting Dean to their own event. She called for an independent investigation into whether nursing homes kept coronavirus patients separated, had enough employees, tracked workers who worked at multiple health care facilities, and provided staffers with adequate protective gear. Theres also the fact that the Cuomo administration required these facilities to accept people known to be infected.

Because of the way New York counts coronavirus deaths (see above), no one knows how many people died from the virus after contracting it at such facilities. The Cuomo administration refuses to provide such information even though it has been requested by both Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature. Clearly, Cuomo is trying to prevent a full assessment of the carnage that resulted from his policies.

Fortunately, as I discussed here, the Trump Justice Department has sent a letter to Governor Cuomo (among other governors) seeking this information. The letter asks for:

The number of Public Nursing Home residents, employees, other staff, guests, and visitors who died of COVID-19 including those who died in a Public Nursing Home or after being transferred to a hospital or other medical facility, hospice, home care, or any other location.

(Emphasis added)

The DOJ requested this information, along with three other categories of information, in order to evaluate whether to initiate investigations under the federal Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), which protects the civil rights of persons in state-run nursing homes, among others. I hope the DOJ will succeed where Janice Dean and New York state legislators from both parties have failed in prying loose information that should have made public months ago.

The Cuomo administrations handling of the pandemic at long-term care facilities was scandalous. So are its efforts to cover up the consequences of the bungling. So are the efforts of the mainstream media  successful so far  to depict Cuomo as a hero of the pandemic.

Well see how well that narrative withstands the DOJs request for information and its possible investigation under federal civil rights law.
South Africa: Perseverance pays off for local businesswoman

Nomahlubi Nazo credits a former employers decision not to grant her leave as one of the propellants that pushed her closer to her dream of running her own business.

Instead of sulking, Nazo took it in her stride and decided to enter her dormant company into a competition.

I entered a business competition and I won and I was like okay, I quit, she says in an interview with SAnews.

A month later, the mother of two received a bursary to study Cosmetic Formulation Science at the University of Cape Town (UCT).

Without a job, Nazo had to downgrade her lifestyle, while also going through a divorce after her then-husband did not support her dream of becoming her own boss.

I had to decide, do I want to be married to someone who doesnt support my vision, or do I want to risk living a life that is not really how I want to live? the 37-year-old says.

She knew that staying in the relationship would stifle her progress and defer her dream.

While studying at UCT, she obtained an internship at Indigo Brands, formerly known as Yardley of London, at their research and product development lab.

She describes her former boss as a pleasant person and her co-workers as people who supported her drive to learn.

However, the urge to branch out on her own would not be silenced.

It was going to be a nice job to take career-wise but it wasnt the trajectory I wanted for my life and I didnt want to be sucked into the niceness of the career.

During the course of her internship, she ensured that she absorbed as much knowledge as she could before fully committing to her business in 2018.

Since then, the Cosmetic Formulation Scientist has never looked back.

She won most competitions in which she entered her company, Foi Science, and in the same year, she was named the FemBioBiz Pitching Den winner in the student category. She walked away with lab equipment from Merck.

She also scooped the SA Innovation Summit award, winning R70 000 from the SAB Foundation. The winnings have helped her to buy containers and raw material to develop cosmetics brands.

Her company converts fish scale waste into collagen to make hydrogels for burns, scars, slow-healing wounds and ulcers.

She also ventured into customised skin care solutions for customers to make ends meet.

In addition, the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), which is an entity of the Department of Science, and Innovation, has been funding Nazos business for the past two years.

So now I can register a patent and do a clinical trial for the wound care gels that I designed using biopolymer, says Nazo.

Today, Foi Science provides much-needed jobs to many other women in Nazos community.

I started training unemployed women and youth on how to make soaps and lotions, and convert agricultural waste into activated charcoal to make face masks, soaps, tooth whitening powders, air purifiers and pet care products so we can raise funds for the start-up, she says.

Nazo also recently welcomed 20 interns for the next phase of trade, as she begins her marketing drive.

Her skin, wound and hair care products will be hitting online shelves soon. These products will be sold locally as well as abroad.

The scientist is preparing to distribute her goods in Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Kenya.

If it wasnt for TIA, I wouldnt have achieved the things I did. Without them, I would not have been this far, she says.

Through TIA, Nazo also represented South Africa at the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development in Zimbabwe this year.

To get to where she is today, Nazo learnt some lessons along the way.

She initially registered her company in 2015 after taking a job at Unilever in Johannesburg. At the time, she thought she would tend to the company as a side job, while also completing her BTech at the Tshwane University of Technology.

I later found out that you cant do business as a side hustle when you have a very demanding job. I was studying at the time, had a child and I was pregnant.

Her company had to take a backseat but she continued her research into biopolymer, the substance or material consisting of very large molecules, or macromolecules.

In 2017, she then joined an importer and distributor of chemical raw materials, which find application in the adhesive, coatings, food, paper, plastics and rubber industries.

She took working for people that had set up their own factory as a prod to pursuing her business.

I think it was a nudge from the universe to say, this is something you want to do. I then decided maybe its time I do my own business.

The scientist, who at first graduated from the Nelson Mandela University with a National Diploma in Polymer Technology, remembers how her heart yearned for more, even though the job and paycheque were good.

When COVID-19 hit South Africa in March 2020, Nazo rolled up her sleeves and taught women how to make hand sanitisers and cloth masks, which were donated to hospitals and schools.

As anyone in business will attest, running a business is no walk in the park.

I do cry when the money is not coming together and expenses are way more than what Im currently making, and things arent working out as they should.

You tend to think; did I make the right decision by abandoning my career? I still have emails from recruiters asking if I want a job. If you have R100 between you and poverty, you kind of think, I want the job, she admits.

However, Nazo has come too far to walk away from the business that she started from nothing.

I think it would be selling out in a sense. I train other women on how to make cosmetic and home care products to feed their families as well.

Nazo is also grateful for her familys support as a single parent.

The kids stay with my mom when I have to travel. When I want to give up, she says Ive made too many sacrifices to give up now.

She describes her boys, aged 11 and 4, as the wind beneath her wings.

Nazos father, who was a teacher, was the most influential figure in the path she has chosen.

He really encouraged my inquisitive mind. I went to a girls school in Port Elizabeth. Our science teacher was an awesome lady and our school had a very nice lab, and I loved science, she recalls.

While her peers wanted to become medical doctors, it was in these corridors that the seed for Applied Sciences was planted.

I was quite a nerd. I wanted to invent things. I always loved people and thats why I wanted to be a social entrepreneur, she says.

Her journey, which no doubt has not been easy, has helped her to develop strength she did not know she possesses.

Ive learnt that as a woman in business, I mustnt hide my talent.

What also keeps her going are the two pillars of her establishment, which are to help and use science to uplift others.

With Womens Month coming to an end today, it is clear that Nazo is not only interested in pursuing success for herself but for society as well.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The first two quarters of the current year have been brutal to U.S. oil and gas companies. According to Refintiv data, the energy sector has recorded the lowest Q2 2020 earnings growth rate (-168.5 percent) of any U.S. sector with earnings clocking in at -$10.5B vs. $15.3B in the year-ago comparable quarter. That's far worse than the S&P 500 average earnings growth rate of -19.1 percent when you exclude the energy sector. As expected, oilfield service companies operating in the Shale Patch have been faring worse than most thanks to huge capex cuts by producers.

But U.S. shale producers can take some comfort in the fact that their counterparts elsewhere have not been doing much better.

Saudi and Chinese oil and gas giants have been booking massive losses, too, proving that Covid-19 is a pandemic of equal opportunity.

In the first half of 2020, Saudi oil revenue plummeted by 42.6 percent year-on-year to SAR 224.73 billion ($60.68B), compared to SAR 391.3 billion ($105.65B) for last year's corresponding period. April and May recorded the biggest revenue slumps at 65.4 percent and 66.1 percent, respectively, to SAR 24 billion ($6.48B) and SAR 23.87 billion ($6.44B), respectively.

Net profit at Saudi Aramco (ARMCO) slumped 73 percent to 24.6B riyals ($6.57B) in Q2 vs. estimates of 31.3B riyals. But unlike BP Plc. (NYSE:BP) and Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A), which cut their dividends in recent months, the majority state-owned company maintained its Q2 dividend of $18.75B. Aramco plans to cut 2020 capex to a range of $20-$25B in 2020 in order to pay the$75B dividend it pledged to investors during its IPO.

China--the world's largest oil importer-- has been importing less from Saudi Arabia as it boosts imports from the U.S., ostensibly in a bid to fulfill its obligations for the January trade deal. Related: Is This The Next Major Market For Russian LNG? Still, China is coming nowhere near holding up its end of the bargain: Last month, we reported that China's imports of U.S. energy products, including crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and metallurgical coal, clocked in at just $1.29B through June, or a mere 5 percent of the $25.3B energy target.

The Phase One trade deal committed Beijing to purchase an extra $52.4 billion of U.S. energy supplies over the next two years from a baseline of just $9.1 billion in 2017 and requires China to import an extra $200B worth of American goods over the next two years.

Maybe Beijing is betting on a Biden presidency granting its wish to have U.S.China relations return to the halcyon Obama days.

Chinese oil companies themselves have been having it just as bad. Right along with China's "big four" banks, the oil giants saw profit drops in the first half of the year--and that's unusual.

Asia's largest oil and gas producer and China's second-largest refiner, PetroChina (NYSE:PTR), has reported a first-half net loss of 29.98 billion yuan ($4.36 billion) compared with a profit of 28.42 billion yuan ($4.13B) while H1 revenue fell 22 percent to 929 billion yuan ($135.1B). That's despite crude oil output climbing 5.2 percent to 475.4 million barrels while natural gas production rose 9.4 percent to 2.15 trillion cubic feet thanks to the state giant sustaining domestic drilling in a bid to safeguard national supply security.

China has been ramping up its gas production following an earlier pledge to use the lower-carbon fuel more.

PetroChina has pledged to cut emissions to near zero by 2050, and plans to spend 3-5 billion yuan (440M-730M) annually on green energy sectors including solar, hydrogen, and natural gas power generation in the first few years of the 2021-2025 period before increasing the spend to 10 billion yuan ($1.5B) a year.

Meanwhile, China's largest petroleum refiner, Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Company Limited (NYSE:SHI), saw net losses of 22.88 billion yuan ($3.33 billion) in contrast with a net profit of 31.34 billion yuan ($4.56B) over last year's corresponding timeframe amid sluggish demand for refined products.

Related: Big Oils Petrochemical Bet Is A Risky One

Nevertheless, Sinopec reported net earnings of 4.8 billion yuan ($700M) for the second quarter thanks to China easing coronavirus restriction measures.

Sinopec says it expects demand for its refined oil products to recover even faster due to positive trends in the Chinese economy.

And despite the profit loss reporting at PetroChina and Sinopec, shares in both companies rose on Monday by more than 2 percent.

Indeed, Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said last week: "Look at China, their gasoline and diesel demand is almost at pre-COVID 19 levels. We are seeing that Asia is picking up and other markets (too). As countries ease the lockdown, we expect the demand to increase."

Now, industry sources are saying that Saudi Arabia will likely cut its crude oil official selling prices for Asian buyers even more. Another cut would be the second in two months, running parallel to lowering Middle East benchmarks and refining margins.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
What is particularly noteworthy is the fact that India has not condemned Chinas actions in Hong Kong, where it is severely suppressing the freedom movement. China is threatening Taiwan all the time and India has not expressed its concern about this. Chinas aggression in the South China Sea is watched by India silently.





by N.S.Venkataraman





Speaking in a meeting on 28th August,2020, Indias External Affairs Minister has said that realism should shape Indias China policy. He further said that Indias China policy will be critical to Indias prospects and will require going beyond traditional assumptions.













One really would not understand what the External Affairs Minister means by this statement, which obviously lacks clarity. When every Indian is wondering how India would tackle Chinas aggressive postures, the utterances of the Indias External Affairs Minister gives an impression of his indulging in academic exercise in a debating forum. Probably, one can understand if a professor or a retired diplomat would make such a statement, which would be read as a statement of no consequence and would simply be noted as the viewpoint of a thinker and an intellectual. Should the External Affairs Minister sound like an academician ?





What is conspicuous about the speech of the External Affairs Minister is that he has not condemned China clearly for its aggression against India. Obviously, he wants to make a soft speech that would not hurt China. Would such an approach of the External Affairs Minister help Indias cause in dealing with aggressive China ?





In the past, China has not concealed its intentions to belittle India at every opportunity. It claims Indias province Arunachal Pradesh as its own . It is holding thousands of kilometres of Indian territory that it occupied after 1962 war. China gleefully accepted the disputed land in Kashmir from Pakistan ( which increasingly appears to be a subordinate nation to China) and is constructing its projects in the Kashmir region that Pakistan gifted away. Repeatedly, China blocked Indias attempts to condemn the dreaded terrorist in the United Nations. Above all, China recently entered into a war with India in the month of May, 2020, when 20 Indian soldiers were killed by Chinese army.





In such circumstances, when the External Affairs Minister has said that realism should shape Indias China policy, one cannot but think that it was the similar policy adopted by the former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru , when he refrained from protesting when China occupied Tibet and massacred large number of Tibetan protesters.





One gets the impression that for the last several decades , China has been taking India for granted and has never considered India as an honourable neighbouring country whose sentiment should be respected.





After the recent attack by China in the month of May, there has been expectation in India that the present Indian government would do everything possible to ensure that China would give up its anti India posture. Certainly, appeasing China or adopting soft policy towards China will not make China behave better.





Of course, India has taken some steps recently to restrict Chinas investment and trade in India but this appears to be more of a cosmetic strategy , since it will not have any significant adverse impact on Chinas large economy. Indian government has also taken measures to strengthen Indian military ,expecting that India may have to face war at two fronts against Pakistan and China at the same time , as both these countries share common enmity and hatred towards India.





What is particularly noteworthy is the fact that India has not condemned Chinas actions in Hong Kong, where it is severely suppressing the freedom movement. China is threatening Taiwan all the time and India has not expressed its concern about this. Chinas aggression in the South China Sea is watched by India silently.





Chinas occupation of Tibet for several decades now has not been directly or indirectly challenged by India so far. On the other hand, India seems to be taking excessive care not to displease China, by not openly recognizing His Holiness the Dalai Lamas role as an apostle of peace. It is shocking that the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is known to be very communicative, has not cared to greet His Holiness the Dalai Lama on his birthday this year.





One wonders whether India External Affairs Minister wants to buy peace with China at any cost. His cautious statement that realism should shape Indias China policy makes one suspect that he believes that peace should be bought with China by appeasement.





Until China mend its ways and give up its aggressive postures , India has to necessarily oppose China in every forum. This is the only language that China can understand.





Several countries in the world are now realizing the need to contain China and defeat its expansionist ambitions. As a country sharing a border with China , India is a victim of Chinas aggression. Perhaps, one country which has suffered more than India due to Chinas ruthless policies and conduct is Tibet.





One cannot but wonder as to why India hesitates to reverse its earlier counterproductive policy of approving Chinas occupation of Tibet and voice its concern about the present plight of Tibet and stress the need for Tibet liberation. The voice of India will be heard in the world and China cannot but take note of it.





What has got India to fear about China, when China has already done the worst damage to Indias cause in several ways? There is no need for India to be afraid about Chinas military strength and in the unfortunate event of such war taking place, it certainly would not be a one sided affair and the world cannot afford to see China overwhelming India in the military confrontation.





Indias China policy as indicated by Indias External Affairs Minister is causing confusion and uncertainty about Indias determination to stand up to aggressive China. The speech of the Indias External Affairs Minister reinforces this confusion.





Soft pedalling China issue by India will only please China and none else. It is not in Indias interest. It is not in the interest of world peace also, as it is now clearly evident that Chinas expansionist ambitions is a clear threat to world peace.
A man, who was portrayed as a hero in the film Hotel Rwanda, has been arrested by the Rwandan government on terror charges.

Paul Rusesabagina, who was played by actor Don Cheadle in the 2004 movie, was depicted to save the lives of more than 1,200 people from the countrys 1994 genocide.

A well-known critic of President Paul Kagame, Rusesabagina had been living outside Rwanda - first in Belgium and then Texas - since 1996.

Police did not say where he was apprehended.

Paul Rusesabagina has been arrested / AP

In handcuffs and a facemask, Rusesabagina, 66, was shown to the press in Rwandas capital, Kigali, on Monday by police.

He has not yet been formally charged in court.

Through international co-operation, the Rwanda Bureau of Investigation wants to inform the general public that Paul Rusesabagina has been arrested, police said.

Rusesabagina is suspected to be the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits including the Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD) operating out of various places in the region and abroad, police said.

Paul Rusesabagina, the man who was hailed a hero in a Hollywood movie about the country's 1994 genocide is detained and paraded in front of media in handcuffs / REUTERS

There was an international arrest warrant for Rusesabagina to answer charges of serious crimes including terrorism, arson, kidnap and murder, perpetrated against unarmed, innocent Rwandan civilians on Rwandan territory, police said.

Police told the media in Kigali that investigations against Rusesabagina will continue and more information will be released about his alleged activities.

Rusesabagina has previously denied the governments charges that he financially supports Rwandan rebels.

President Bush awards Paul Rusesabagina the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award / AP

Rusesabagina has been a prominent critic of Mr Kagames government, calling it a dictatorship and urging Western countries to press the government to respect human rights.

Government supporters reject Rusesabaginas criticism, saying Mr Kagames leadership supports democracy and economic growth.

Rusesabagina has won numerous international honours including the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, which President George W Bush awarded him in 2005.

Mr Kagame disputes Rusesabaginas story about saving survivors at a hotel in Kigali, the capital, during the genocide, in which more than 800,000 Tutsi and Hutus who tried to protect them were killed by Hutus.

Rusesabagina has been among the most prominent critics of the Rwandan government and an opponent to President Kagame. His arrest will definitely weaken those who oppose Kagames leadership, Gonza Muganwa, a Rwandan political analyst said.

The 2004 film Hotel Rwanda showed Rusesabagina, a Hutu married to a Tutsi, as using his influence as a manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines, to allow more than 1,200 Tutsis to shelter in the hotels rooms.

Naphtal Ahishakiye, executive secretary of Ibuka, a Rwanda survivors organisation, said that Rusesabaginas arrest is good news for survivors of the genocide. Mr Ahishakiye said Rusesabagina had charged people money to be able to survive in the hotel.
A collage of images that went viral on social media depicting battered and bloodied police officers - and suggesting Democrats and Black Lives Matter demonstrators were responsible - has been shown to be disinformation.

The social media post included four photos of police officers suffering from various injuries, including one man whose face was wrapped up in bandages.

A post accompanying the photo claims the officers were assaulted by BLM activists and Democrats.

"50 police officers were injured by Dems and BLM rioters over the weekend in Portland, Seattle and other nearby cities," the post claims. "Pray for their safety."

OregonLive first reported that while the photos of injured police are real, they're depicting police officers in Australia, and their injuries did not occur over the weekend.

The photos cover a range of incidents in Australia between 2006 and 2019.

The photo in the top left of the collage shows an officer kneeling and bleeding from his head. The photo was taken in 2012 during a protest in Sydney, according to local news reports.

The photo on the top right shows a young woman officer covered in scratches and bleeding from her head and face. Local news reports from the time said she was bitten and scratched in 2019 when a parolee she was visiting for a welfare check attacked her.

The bottom left photo shows a police officer lying in a hospital bed in a blood-stained uniform. His eyes are closed and he appears to be in pain. He was attacked while trying to break up a bar fight, according to local news reports on the incident.

The photo on the bottom right depicts an officer with a badly swollen face - most of which is obscured by bandages - lying in a hospital bed. News reports of the incident suggest he was beaten with a brick during a fight in Western Australia.

A viral social media post that claims police were injured by Democrats and Black Lives Matter demonstrators. The police are actually Australian and the incidents are years apart. (Facebook)

While police officers have been injured during the protests that began in the wake of the George Floyd killing, the post was clearly made to deceive and further inflame the country's political divide.

Disinformation like the officer collage tend to blend fact with fiction in order to produce a desired response in a group.

US intelligence officials have warned lawmakers that countries hostile to the US are trying to sow discord by promoting disinformation on American social media networks. However, foreign entities are not the only ones trying to capitalise on chaos; plenty of home-grown dealers of deception have profited from the largely unregulated world of social media its market of content-hungry consumers.

The Washington Post spoke with the Alethea Group, an organisation that combats disinformation, about how creators make money slinging lies online.

"This is for-profit fearmongering enhanced by aggressive data collection," Cindy Otis, the group's vice president of analysis, told The Washington Post.

Building and maintaining a basic website is a relatively minor time and skill investment for a company, especially when compared to the potential profit it can turn by churning out fake stories that go viral.

The content creators pull images - or entire news stories - from unrelated or past events, rewrite the headlines and either suggest or outright state the stories occurred recently. Then they unleash them on social media, hoping to stoke anger and use the resulting outrage to drive shares and engagement.

When people click on the stories, the websites collect their data and then sell it off to marketing companies, who can then create their own targeted content and advertisements.

"It's a huge crisis," Chris Vargo, a data analytics and digital advertising professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder said. "There are thousands of these sites, fuelling hyperpartisanship, reinforcing people's existing beliefs and making it possible to target them with dangerous disinformation about anything from an election to a vaccine for the coronavirus."
The presidents and chancellors of the nation's 1890 universities have announced the celebration of the 130th anniversary of the federal legislation that designated them as land-grant institutions will occur Aug. 24-31.

The Morrill Act of 1890 established a land-grant university system of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in states where African Americans were banned from accessing a public higher education.

"The 19 historically black land-grant colleges and universities are more than just brick and mortar. They are beacons of hope," said South Carolina State University President James E. Clark. "For 130 years, 1890s have provided African Americans access to opportunities that have significantly changed their lives. Because of these opportunities, alumni of these institutions have made countless contributions to the advancement of their individual states, the nation and the world. SC State University celebrates this historical milestone, along with its sister universities and colleges."

Higher education leaders, elected officials and policymakers, business and community leaders will join in an online celebration of the 1890 land-grant universities anniversary, culminating with a two-hour online forum on Monday, Aug. 31 that will explore the history and accomplishments of these institutions and the important role they play in the nation's future. Registration for that convening is open to the public.

During the week of Aug. 24, leaders and members of the 1890 university community, policymakers, business and community leaders used an array of platforms to reflect on and celebrate the legacy of these land-grant institutions, including on social media using #Celebrate1890s. They highlighted innovative programs at the 1890 land-grant universities and their role in developing solutions for local, regional, and global challenges. This week of activities also included points of pride and/or significant accomplishments for each of the 19 1890 land-grant universities.

"The anniversary of the second Morrill Act heightens the platform for colleges and universities within the 1890 system to celebrate their individual and collective accomplishments," said Vice President and Executive Director for 1890 Programs Dr. Louis Whitesides. "As South Carolina's only land-grant HBCU, SC State is acclaimed for its many signature academic programs; for being the top producer of African American educators and administrators in the state; world renowned for its Bulldog Battalion, which produced 22 generals, second only to West Point; ranked annually among top universities for social mobility of graduates; and contributes to the economic vitality of the greater Orangeburg region with a $145 million impact."

The webinar will have two panel discussions. One panel will feature Makola Abdullah, president of Virginia State University; Heidi Anderson, president of University of Maryland Eastern Shore; Paul Jones, president of Fort Valley State University; and Peter McPherson, president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. The webinar will also feature a second panel with private sector leaders such as Fred Humphries, corporate vice president of U.S. Government Affairs, Microsoft Corporation; Kellie Adesina, director of government affairs, Bayer U.S. - Crop Science; and Karis Gutter of Corteva Agri-science.

The webinar will also feature remarks from prominent dignitaries such as Scott Hutchins, deputy undersecretary of agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics; Rep. Alma Adams, chair of the House Agriculture Committee; Rep. David Scott, lead sponsor of the 1890 Scholarship Program; Rep. Sanford Bishop, chair of the House Appropriations Committee; and Sherrod Brown, co-lead sponsor of the 1890 Centers of Excellence.

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In the summer of 2013, Physicist Timothy Koeth of University of Maryland received an unexpected gift from one of his friends. It was a small metallic cube, 2 inches per side, wrapped in a piece of paper. Koeth recognized the cube immediately from old grainy photos he saw in books on nuclear history, and if there was any doubt, the accompanying note settled it. It read: Taken from Germany, from the nuclear reactor Hitler tried to build. Gift of Ninninger.

This cube was one of hundreds that German nuclear scientists built for an experimental reactor, before the cubes were confiscated by Allied forces and shipped to the United States. Aside from a handful of cubes, like the one sitting on Timothy Koeths desk today, the whereabouts of the rest are unknown.

Photo: John T. Consoli, University of Maryland

Germany had a two-year head start on nuclear technology over the Americans. Their physicists were toying with atoms even before the war started. On December 1938, German chemist Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassman discovered nuclear fission for the first time. Within four months, German scientists were discussing nuclear reactors. They called them Uranmaschine, or uranium machine, and themselves the Uranverein or Uranium Club.

Work began shortly at the Georg-August University of Gottingen. But then, Hitler invaded Poland, and many physicist were called to military training, and the Uranverein was disbandedbut not for long. The German Army had already heard about nuclear energy and its potential application. Two weeks after Word War 2 began, a meeting was called in Berlin and the countrys top physicists were invited, including Walther Bothe, Siegfried Flugge, Hans Geiger, Otto Hahn, and Werner Heisenberg.

In one of these meetings, Heisenberg famously said:

in principle atomic bombs could be made.... it would take years.... not before five. I didn't report it to the Fuehrer until two weeks later and very casually because I did not want the Fuehrer to get so interested that he would order great efforts immediately to make the atomic bomb. Speer felt it was better that the whole thing should be dropped and the Fuehrer also reacted that way.

Nevertheless, it was Heisenbergs work that laid the theoretical foundations for all subsequent research on that topic. Heisenberg correctly foresaw that a nuclear reactor could be built in two different ways, each posing its own difficulties. One, by using enriched uranium and an easily obtained moderator such as ordinary water, and two, by using natural uranium and heavy water or extremely pure graphite as a moderator. For some reason, they chose the later.

Reconstructed research reactor in the Atomkeller-Museum, Haigerloch. Photo: LepoRello/Wikimedia Commons

To find out how this could work, German scientists devised an experimental reactor where they made 664 cubes of natural uranium and strung them together with aircraft cable. Then, they submerged the cubes in a tank of heavy water shielded by graphite to prevent radiation exposure. This was known as the B-VIII nuclear reactor, and it was built in a secret cave in Haigerloch, in southern Germany, between February and April 1945, just before the end of the war in Europe.

With the Allies closing in on Germany, Heisenbergs scientists quickly disassembled B-VIII and buried the uranium cubes in a nearby field. The heavy water was hidden in barrels, and some of the more significant documentation was hidden in a latrine. Heisenberg himself escaped by bicycle, carrying a few cubes in a backpack. The Allies recovered the buried cubes and shipped them to America, but what happened after that is not entirely clear.

Members of the US Alsos mission to Germany digging up the uranium cubes from a field. Photo: Samuel Goudsmit

Recent analysis suggest that the reactor the Germans built could not have achieved criticality, because they did not have enough uranium. In Heisenbergs own words, The apparatus was still a little too small to sustain a fission reaction independently, but a slight increase in its size would have been sufficient to start off the process of energy production.

As a matter of a fact, the Germans did have an additional supply of 400 cubes of the exact size and shape, that were being utilized on another reactor experiment. Had Germany pooled their resources together instead of dividing them, their combined inventory would have been more than enough to have achieved criticality in the B-VIII reactor, and Germany would have been significantly closer to their goal of building a working nuclear reactor, or maybe even a weapon.

After the war, the additional cubes the Allies failed to seize created a black market in uranium throughout Eastern Europe. For years, US officials would receive ransom notes asking hundreds of thousands of dollars, threatening to sell the uranium cubes to USs enemies. The profit seekers were not aware that these were raw uranium, and not enriched, and not that valuable or radioactive. The global market price for the metal at that time was only about 6 dollars per pound. The majority of the cubes eventually ended up in the Soviet Union.

The entrance to the laboratory of the B-VIII reactor experiment, underneath a castle in Haigerloch, Germany. The site is now home to the Atomkeller Museum. Photo: AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives, Goudsmit Collection

What became of the cubes that were shipped to the United States is a mystery. It was possible that some of them may have ended up at Oak Ridge, where they were melted, processed and manufactured into American atomic weapons. Since the discovery of the cube by Timothy Koeth, ten others were tracked down to private and public collections. The Smithsonian Institution has one, and so does Harvard University.

Koeth says the cubes represent a bygone era in science when researchers were just beginning to discover the subatomic world.

We hope that by finding the cubes and piecing together what happened to them we will return a small amount of context to forgotten objects that have played a monumental role in human history. The cubes and the science they represent still shape modern life decades later, he added.

There is a museum in Haigerloch today, housed inside the same rock cellar where German scientists built their failed nuclear reactor. The Atomkeller Museum was opened in 1980 and shows the history of German atomic research from Otto Hahn to the present day. There is also a replica of the research reactor with the hanging cubes, as well as two of the original uranium cubes.

Close-up of Haigerlochs replica reactor showing the hanging uranium cubes. Photo: Felix King/Wikimedia Commons

References:

# Geoff Brumfiel, Have You Seen Any Nazi Uranium? These Researchers Want To Know, https://www.npr.org/2019/08/31/755478866/have-you-seen-any-nazi-uranium-these-researchers-want-to-know

# Jennifer Ouellette, A tale of lost WW2 uranium cubes shows why Germanys nuclear program failed, https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/physicists-hunt-uranium-cubes-to-shed-light-on-germanys-failed-nuclear-reactor/

# Tracking the journey of a uranium cube, https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4202

# N.P. Landsman, Getting even with Heisenberg, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/148349619.pdf
The officers who were shot Sunday were part of the response teams that the department deployed this summer to bring violence under control. Despite the high number of shootings weekend after weekend, Brown said homicides are actually down by about 50% since he sent the teams into neighborhoods the end of July. Shootings are down 18% over the last six weeks, compared with the six weeks before the teams were activated.
In just a few short months, a Jersey Mikes Subs franchise has come to life on the east side of town.

This Wednesday, Sept. 2, the restaurant will host its grand opening at 10 a.m. at 1917 S. Saginaw Road, next to Tim Hortons. Customers can stop by to try any of their cold or hot signature sandwiches.

Franchise owner and Saginaw Township resident Jason Yatch said hes anxious and excited to open and bring the brand to Midland. Hes been hearing from eager customers about their excitement as well.

Im really excited. I think its a really good brand; its a really good company, Yatch said. I like the dynamics; the culture. Ive been able to put together a really good team.

Yatch said hes hired over 26 employees and has been training since April. Theyve been getting to know each other and preparing for opening day.

We have a good time in here, Yatch said. We want to really promote not only do we make good subs; we do it in a timely fashion; we do it accurately, but we also want to promote the fact that we have fun, we engage our customers  trying to build those relationships and have those dialogues.

In addition, Yatch said hes impressed with how the location has been transformed. The sub shop is the former Dawn Donuts, which Yatch has fond childhood memories in as a Midland native. He used Midland-based companies such as Great Lakes Bay Construction and Blasy Electric to get the renovation job done.

Once open, customers will have several options for ordering from Jersey Mikes. They can visit the location, order in-store, order through the smartphone app or online and pick up their order from the convenient pickup stand inside, or order using DoorDash. He said theyre happy to walk an order out to customers curbside, if requested, as well.

Jersey Mike's Subs is a fast-casual sandwich franchise with more than 2,500 locations open and under development nationwide. The first store was opened in New Jersey in 1956.

"It's funny, I think we have a lot of DuPont people that come from out East so, theyre familiar with this brand," Yatch said. "So, a lot of people say 'oh, thank goodness  its something we had out East and now its coming to Midland.' So, theyre excited about it."

Yatch said the restaurant is known for popular subs such as the Original Italian and a hot Mikes Famous Philly sandwich. Other menu items include the Jersey Shores Favorite, the Big Kahuna Cheese Steak and Stickball Special.

The sandwiches are freshly sliced and grilled and topped with fresh vegetables, meats and cheeses. The bread is baked fresh in the restaurant throughout the day and their roast beef top rounds are trimmed, tied and cooked right in store. Customers can also try The Juice on their subs, which is a blend of olive oil and red wine vinegar.

The Midland store will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week. Contact the store at 989-486-1478. To follow updates from the local franchise, visit the Facebook page.
The most important decision a school board makes is the hiring and firing of a superintendent. In light of recent events, a review of the last three-plus years is in order.

In March of 2017, your MISD board of trustees adopted specific student outcome goals, goal progress measures, superintendent constraints and constraint progress measures for the next three school years to provide a continuous improvement plan to improve student outcomes. We refer to it as MISDs Lone Star Governance Plan.

Later that spring, as part our search for a new superintendent, Orlando Riddick was furnished a copy of MISDs LSG Plan and informed our next superintendent would be evaluated on achievement of those three-year student outcome goals and progress measures.

A few weeks after Mr. Riddick began in the summer of 2017, we received exciting news from the Texas Education Agency: the number of MISD Improvement Required campuses had been reduced from nine to four in a single school year even though TEAs criteria to be a non-IR campus had actually been increased from the previous year.

We believed such dramatic improvement in one year had much to do with the leadership of our then interim superintendent, Rod Schroder. We were optimistic Mr. Riddick would improve on the significant progress the district had made.

More for you Things to know about the superintendents termination process

2017-2018 School Year

However, following the 2017-18 school year, the district did not meet the targets for the first two student outcome goals regarding reading at grade-level and additional reading and math standards, nor did the district meet most of the underlying progress measures for those two goals. The district did meet the third student outcome goal regarding increased graduation rates, but, and no reflection on him, Mr. Riddick had little or nothing to do with achieving that goal because of the one-year lag which exists in determining graduation rates.

Meanwhile, Mr. Riddick did meet all three superintendent constraint goals and, the district benefited from his leadership role in hiring a new chief financial officer, becoming a District of Innovation, and efforts to explore in-district partnership opportunities.

But, the number of improvement required campuses still remained at four and the districts preeminent objective still remained improving student academic performance.

2018-2019 School Year

For the 2018-19 school year, the district did not meet the targets set for any of the three student outcome goals nor did the district meet a majority of the progress measures set for any of those goals.

Most disappointing was TEA determined the number of failing campuses increased from four to nine.

The districts preeminent objective still remained improving student academic performance.

Meanwhile, Mr. Riddick had a leadership role in the successful negotiation and implementation of our Texas Partnership schools, and the progress made developing a school performance framework and a unified enrollment plan.

2019-2020 School Year

For this past school year, Gov. Greg Abbotts closure of schools following spring break prevented the district from compiling the end-of-year data necessary to determine whether any of the student outcome goals or progress measures were met. However, an analysis of the data obtained during this past school year on the progress measures  before COVID 19  shows the first two student outcome goals would not have been met and neither would most of the progress measures for those goals. The third student outcome goal was the only one which had a possibility of being met, but even that was unlikely utilizing historical data from the last two years.

Even more troubling was a comparison of actual data from this school year as compared to last school year showed on five out of the eight progress measures there was either no progress, very little progress, or even worse, a regression:

--Goal Progress Measure 1.1, which measures the percentage of kindergarten through second-grade students who are reading on or above grade level showed the middle-of-the-year percentage meeting that standard this school year was 3 percentage points less than the middle-of-the-year percentage last year. And that number for this school year was only 2 percentage points above what it was two school years ago.

--Goal Progress Measure 1.2, which measures the percentage of kindergarten through second-grade students who are reading on or above grade level showed the middle-of-the-year percentage meeting that standard this school year was 4 percentage points less than the middle-of-the-year percentage last year. And that number for this school year was 2 percentage points less than what is was two school years ago.

--Goal Progress Measure 2.1, which measures the percentage of third- through eighth-grade students on track to meet passing standard on both reading and math showed a 2 percent decrease in April this school year from May of last year. And, results from the start of this school year were 5 percentage points less than results from the start of school last year.

--Goal Progress Measure 2.2, which measures the percentage of economically disadvantaged third- through eighth-grade students on track to meet passing standard on reading and math showed the same percentage in April of this school year as May of last year. And results from the start of this school year were the same as the start of school last year.

--Goal Progress Measure 2.3, which measures third- through eighth-grade students achieving masters level on both reading and math only showed a 1 percent increase in April this school year from May of last year.

Meanwhile, we had final data results on the three superintendent constraint goals and that data showed none of those three goals were met, and only 1 of the 4 of the underlying superintendent constraint progress measures were met.

In short, because the district was making either no progress, little progress or even worse, regressing on a majority of the goal progress measures regarding student academic performance on which Mr. Riddick understood and agreed he would be evaluated, we made the unanimous decision to take the first step in seeking a new academic leader for our district.

To those who question whether now was the time to make this decision, our response is when your chief academic leader was not successful in achieving the districts student academic goals before the challenges of COVID-19 occurred, there is no reason to believe he will be successful in the midst of it.

Instead, we seek to begin the process to find the academic leader who can lead this district to meet this communitys expectations for improving academic performance. We welcome your prayers and support in achieving that goal.
With the death of Pranab Mukherjee, Pranab da as we all addressed him, India and Indian politics are left with a void. He served the Indian parliament and many Indian governments in leading positions in his five-decade-long political life.

He entered the Rajya Sabha when I was still in school. Despite his seniority, he never treated people like me in a condescending manner. As far as I am concerned, he had always treated me as an equal, never expressing any acrimony over our differences.

Right from the 1970s, there were occasions when l had to confront Pranabda, as Indra Gandhis trusted cabinet colleague, during the Emergency.

Differences continued all through my association with him for nearly four decades. Though not in parliament, in various political delegations I had to confront him when he, as the commerce minister, was negotiating the formation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and drawing India into supporting the Dunkel Draft. We were protesting on the streets of Delhi while Pranabda was presiding over Indias role in the WTOs formation.

However, it was during the period of the Vajpayee government and the efforts for uniting the secular opposition parties to defeat that government in the 2004 general elections that I had the opportunity to interact with him closely. During these discussions, particularly concerning the simultaneous assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh over seat adjustments, Pranabda was leading the Congress delegation. During the course of one of these often contentious discussions, he suddenly took me aside to ask my opinion on whether he should contest the Lok Sabha election. He had never entered the Lok Sabha as an elected MP till then. I recollect telling him that I am too junior to give someone like him any advice and refused. He, however, insisted. I told him that he should contest only if he was more than confident of victory. In those crucial elections, when we were working for the defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Pranabda losing would send a very wrong signal. Eventually, he contested and won from Jangipur and then emerged as the main pointsman of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the coalition government that was formed. He was indispensable for the UPA government, serving on every committee with the coalition partners, particularly, UPA-Left coordination committee.

He had always insisted that I should come to parliament. When the Party told me to, I entered the Rajya Sabha in 2005 and felt very touched by the manner Pranabda received me, giving me valuable tips about something that I had very little knowledge of, i.e. parliamentary proceedings. All through those years, till he was elected President of India, we had been having almost daily interactions.

On one occasion, claiming success for insulating India from the 2008 global financial meltdown, Pranabda told the Rajya Sabha that the Indian banking and financial system was spared thanks to Indira Gandhis bank nationalisation. This was soon after the Left withdrew its support from the UPA in 2008 following the disagreements over the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. I recollect my interrupting him and urging him to yield to allow me to make a point which he graciously did. Such parliamentary decorum and dignity has now become a thing of the past. I had then told the house that bank nationalisation was one of the conditions that the Left parties had then put before Indira Gandhi in return for their support to her presidential candidate V.V. Giri. In addition, the Left had also asked for coal nationalisation. Pranabda had a memory of an elephant. He recalled the details of the talks, of which I knew very little, and went on to say that one more demand was the abolition of privy purses. I was till then under the impression that this demand was raised by others whom Indira Gandhi had approached for support. Nonetheless, I recollect saying then that whenever the Congress Party heeded the advice of the Left, it not only helped its government but, importantly, benefited the country. However, unfortunately, this is not being followed with regard to the Indo-US nuclear deal. There was the usual merriment and interruptions in the proceedings but not for a minute did Pranabda lose his cool, having to contend with a person very junior to him in politics. He maintained that decorum of treating everyone on an equal footing, giving the highest priority to the culture of debate, discussion and decision in parliamentary proceedings.

The first official visit Pranabda undertook after becoming the President of India was to Bangladesh. He received a rousing welcome as the son-in-law of Bangladesh as his wife Surva migrated from this part of undivided Bengal. His knowledge of Bengal, its culture, the partition, the agonies and tribulations was phenomenal. He was a person who was deeply engrossed in the culture and life of the Bengalis.

All this was magnified, peppered with nostalgia, when we had visited Shilaidaha, the ancestral home of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. He would regale us with many an anecdote and stories about Tagores life and work which I had never known before.

I can go on narrating many such personal experiences, but these shall be cherished for a future occasion.

Pranab da will be missed.

My heartfelt condolences to his son Abhijit and daughter Sharmishta.

Sitaram Yechury is the general secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist)

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Climate TRACE to track real-time global carbon emissions

Posted on 31 August 2020 by Guest Author

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman

Combating climate change faces big challenges even beyond those that many people think about much. For instance, carbon emissions are not tracked as they happen, so policy makers and the public dont know whos polluting, when, and how much. That makes international agreements, like the Paris Climate agreement, tough to verify.

That could soon change. A new international initiative called Climate TRACE (Tracking Real-time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions) intends to independently detect emissions around the globe as theyre emitted. The initiative will use a combination of satellite image processing, machine learning, and sensors stationed worldwide.

Key spokesmen for the project include former Vice President and climate activist Al Gore and Gavin McCormick, executive director of coalition member WattTime. Thats a subsidiary of the Colorado-based nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, which developed technology so smart devices can draw electrical power from renewable energy power plants.

Doctors need tools. So do climate scientists.

The Earth is like a medical patient suffering from a condition called climate change, McCormick said in announcing the project. Trying to fix it with only years-late, self-reported emissions data is like asking a doctor to fix a serious disease with no more information than a list of symptoms the patient had years ago.

Theyll do their best, McCormick continued. But theres a reason hospitals use blood pressure monitors, stethoscopes  maybe an X-ray or MRI  to check whats wrong with you right now. If were serious about stopping climate change, its time we gave climate doctors the same kind of tools.

A vision of unprecedented transparency, accountability

Climate TRACE says it has so far signed on founding members across three continents. Tech companies include Blue Sky Analytics, which analyzes satellite and ground sensor data to assess climate change risks around the world, water quality, and other environmental changes; and Hypervine, which provides construction and mining industries with satellite imagery data and other digital intelligence to help them monitor and measure their carbon emissions.

New era of transparency, accountability

The idea for Climate TRACE originated about a year ago, when WattTime, UK-based Carbon Tracker, a financial think tank that analyzes the impact of the global shift toward renewable energy on capital markets, and other nonprofits teamed up to apply for Google.orgs AI Impact Challenge. The group proposed a project to monitor all global power plant emissions from space. Google.org awarded the group a $1.7 million grant and offered experts in data engineering and machine learning to help. As word spread about the project, more organizations have signed on.

Gore, who had been interested in finding ways to more reliably account for global carbon emissions as countries try to meet commitments under the Paris Climate agreement, also became interested. By tracking where carbon pollution is coming from, Gore in mid-July pointed to the globes entering a new era of unprecedented transparency and accountability. Climate TRACE will essentially create a massively distributed body cam for the planet, Gore told Time magazine. Explaining that point, Time climate reporter Justin Worland wrote: In other words, if a given country claims to have reduced, say power-plant emissions, other countries will soon be able to immediately tap into Climate Trace and get data to verify the claim.

Ambitious vision, novel approach

The program, when fully in operation, will allow countries to verify the claims of others, wrote Time climate reporter Justin Worland. Accurately monitoring the worlds emissions from afar would be a significant feat that could reshape many key points of debate among those working to fight climate change, he wrote. Countries would be able to verify that their counterparts are following through on emissions reductions commitments, governments could crack down on companies that are covering up their true footprint, and environmental groups could trace illegal forestry practices that are reducing forest cover and emitting carbon in the process.

Im thrilled that a big, smart, and well-resourced coalition is taking this on with an ambitious vision and a novel approach, says Taryn Fransen of the World Resources Institute.

Gore and McCormick explained in a post that Climate TRACE will use artificial intelligence to recognize human-generated carbon pollution in different kinds of imagery (including visible light and infrared light) gathered from remote sensing networks around the world. Those analyses will then be cross-checked with other data-sets to make sure theyre reliable. They said that measuring power plant emissions in real time, for example, will require:

 imagery from the European Space Agencys Sentinel 2 Earth observation satellites and from other orbiting satellite networks

 artificial intelligence algorithms from experts in computer vision at companies such as Pixel and Scientia Labs

 data pipeline engineering at Google.org

 power plant databases maintained by the World Resources Institute

 remote sensing capabilities from Valence Strategies

 power systems modeling from WattTime, and

 many other collaborations.

A boon to investors for monitoring, verifying

Investors are expected to be among users and beneficiaries of this new intelligence on carbon emissions, given their growing role in holding corporations accountable for their carbon emissions, explained Matt Gray, managing director of the Carbon Tracker Initiative. Climate TRACE offers a potentially powerful application for investors to monitor and verify emissions from those asset owners who are unwilling or unable to disclose timely and accurate data, he said.

Tracking carbon emissions in real time  and publicizing it  can be a powerful incentive for change. And there is precedent for this: For more than four months, from late October 2015 to mid-February 2016, invisible methane gas  100,000 metric tons of it  billowed from a well blowout at the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility north of Los Angeles. It was the worst methane leak in U.S. history, and it was invisible  until outside observers began to study levels of pollution at the site and film the billowing gas with infrared imagery. (The photo above illustrates how this might work in the case of invisible methane emissions, but the photo itself is not applicable specifically to what Climate TRACE is doing.)

The film was especially startling, showing a plume of methane gas  appearing black in the infrared imagery  shooting from the mountains above the blown well. Nearby residents were outraged, and the visually dramatic leak attracted widespread national media coverage for months. Once capped in February 2016, the well was plugged up for good.

Monitoring and tracking the Aliso Canyon methane leak gave regulators and the wider public hour-by-hour insights into what was happening. But such granular tracking of emissions today is the exception, and not the rule. The Keeling Curve, which traces the rise of carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere in the 20th and 21st centuries, offers an iconic global view of rising carbon emissions, but tracking where those emissions are coming from, as they enter the atmosphere, is another matter entirely.

Climate TRACE plans to offer its first accounting of global emissions ahead of the next COP26 climate talks in the fall of 2021, Gore has said. In the Time story, he added that he thinks real-time and near real-time data on carbon emissions will create a new reality in the effort to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change.

Only time will tell whether that new reality advances progress on global, sustained action to reduce carbon emissions. But it undoubtedly has the potential, as they say, to be one more important tool in the toolbox.
Seven persons, including three Senior High School (SHS) students of the Ngleshie Amanfrom SHS in the Central Region, standing trial for alleged impersonation in the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) have been granted bail.



The Agona Swedru District Court presided over by Mr Isaac Apeatu, last Friday granted them bail in the sum of GH10,000 with two sureties, one of which should be justified.



The case has been adjourned to September 9, 2020.



Facts



According to the prosecution, led by Inspector Chare N. Salia, five of the accused persons impersonated five students of Central SHS in Agona Swedru and allegedly wrote the core subjects in the ongoing examination for the students.



The prosecution said they had written the Integrated Science and Social Studies papers and Paper Two of the Core Mathematics paper for the students, and were about to write the Paper One of the same subject on August 17, 2020, when they were arrested.



The five are Osman Ahmed, an administrator at Central SHS; Clement Sarfo, unemployed; and David Bawah, Georgina Danso and Desmond Oduro, all SHS students.



The two others are Richard Nkrumah, aka Emperor, a teacher at Ngleshie Amanfrom SHS who doubles as the Assistant Headmaster of Central SHS, and Cedric Sefah Acheampong, a teacher at Central SHS.



WAEC inspection



Inspector Salia told the court that on August 17, 2020, a team from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) toured schools in the Agona West municipality to monitor the ongoing WASSCE.



He said at the Swedru SHS centre, the team noticed that some students of Central SHS had other people writing the examination for them.



He said Ahmed, Sarfo, Bawah, Danso and Oduro mentioned 0030912391, 0030912297, 0030912359, 0030912495 and 0030912298 as their respective index numbers during a verification process. But a check with the verification machine revealed the identities of different owners of those index numbers.



The prosecutor said the five persons mentioned Nkrumah and Acheampong as having contracted them to write on behalf of the five students.

Source: Graphic.com.gh









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Through a first-over grind, Major Hill landed in the winners circle of the $15,000 Preferred 2 Pace on the final card of the racing season at Georgian Downs Sunday (Aug. 30).

Driver Jonathan Drury floated Major Hill from post 7 into fourth as P L Jackson cleared command to a :27 first quarter. Premier Joy A soon circled to the lead before a :56.2 half while Drury tipped Major Hill first over with YS Lotus in tow. Up the backside Major Hill gained ground on Premier Joy A moving to three-quarters in 1:24 but lost ground circling the final turn. Once straightening for the finish, Major Hill surged past Premier Joy A to the front and strode to a 1:52.3 win by one-and-a-half lengths over YS Lotus. Bettor Cat closed for third.

A seven-year-old gelding by Art Major, Major Hill won his fifth race from 24 starts this season and his 22nd from 179 overall, earning $450,496. Carmen Auciello trains the $3.50 winner for owner Percy Elkins.

In the race following, Pedro Hanover pushed to a 1:52.2 win in the co-featured $9,500 Preferred 3 Pace. The five-year-old Somebeachsomewhere stallion sat off a quick clip set by 6-5 favourite Grand Poobah. Positioned fifth to a :27 first quarter, Pedro Hanover tipped first over heading to a :55.4 half and advanced towards the pacesetter as the tempo slowed to three-quarters in 1:24.1. Around the final turn Pedro Hanover inched a head in front of Grand Poobah and expanded that margin through the lane, winning by two lengths with Tigers Wayfrom second overfinishing third.

Owned by Brad Gray, Pedro Hanover won his first race from five starts this season and his 10th from 41 overall, earning $445,210. Corey Giles trains the $7.60 winner while Jason Ryan sat in the bike.

Captain Cash took the other division of the $9,500 Preferred 3 Pace with a 1:53.2 win off a pocket trip.

American Wiggle led the field through fractions of :27.1, :56.2 and 1:24.3 with mild first-over pressure coming from Paparazzi Hanover through the midpoint of the race. Race-favourite Awesomeness raced second over and launched off cover into the final turn while Captain Cash waited for racing room. When the passing lane opened, Captain Cash dashed through, outkicking Awesomeness to win by a length while American Wiggle finished third.

Owned by Mardon Stables, Captain Cash won his third race from 14 starts this season and his eighth from 37 overall, earning $70,900. Bruce MacDonald trains the four-year-old Captaintreacherous gelding while Aaron Byron drove the $7.10 winner.

With Sunday marking the end of the 2020 season at Georgian Downs, Brett MacDonald and Richard Moreau claimed the driving and training titles respectively. MacDonald added a win to his lead on Sunday, finishing the meet with 36 wins over Colin Kellys 29 wins. Moreau did not win on Sunday but kept his one-win lead over Ronald MacDonald to snag the training sash with 16 wins to 15.

To view Sunday's harness racing results, click on the following link: Sunday Results - Georgian Downs.
Chinese diplomacy is becoming more coercive, says new report - Markus Winkler/Getty Images

The Chinese Communist Party is increasingly resorting to the use of coercive diplomacy, taking advantage of the lack of a coordinated pushback from like-minded governments, according to a new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

The study analyses 152 cases of the CCPs use of coercive diplomacy across 28 countries, including the UK, Australia, New Zealand and in East Asia over the past decade, and concludes that governments need to counter its divide-and-conquer tactics through a joint strategy via multilateral institutions.

Our dataset suggests the CCP has begun to use coercive diplomacy far more actively. We found a sharp increase from 2018 onwards, said Fergus Hanson, Emilia Currey and Tracy Beattie, the ASPI authors, in a statement.

In the first eight months of 2020 we found 34 cases of coercive diplomacy, which equates to more than half of the number recorded in 2019. Unless states can come up with a better strategy to resist coercive diplomacy, we can expect this trend to continue.

Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, this week threatened Prague over a trip of Czech politicians to Taiwan - Kamil Zihnioglu/AP

The research uses open source information from media, company reports, academic research and government reports, to identify CCP pressure tactics through trade and investment sanctions, tourism bans, popular boycotts and in extreme cases through arbitrary detention or the death penalty.

China is the largest trading partner for nearly two-thirds of the worlds countries, and its global economic importance gives it significant leverage, it points out.

It cites one example as a threat against the UK in 2012 when Wu Bangguo, a former Chinese chief legislator, cancelled a proposed trip to Britain and threatened serious consequences after David Cameron, the then prime minister, revealed his intention to meet the Dalai Lama.

The British embassy in Beijing expressed its regret at the cancellation of the trip and Mr Cameron later distanced himself from the spiritual leader.

Milos Vystrcil, the Czech Senate speaker, meets Joseph Wu, the Taiwanese foreign minister - David Chang/EPA-EFE

Fast-forward to 2020, and Chinese state media has called for economic countermeasures against the UK for eliminating Chinese company Huawei from its 5G network, and the foreign ministry has threatened retaliation for Britains offer of a pathway to citizenship for Hong Kong residents.

Story continues

However, the UK is among a number of foreign governments, including Australia, Canada, Japan and India who are starting to call out the CCPs coercive diplomacy as it happens and are working on ways develop an effective counter-coercion strategy, says the report.

Smaller countries have also pushed back against bullying. On Monday, Prague summoned the Chinese ambassador after a threat from Wang Yi, the foreign minister, that the Czech Republic will pay a heavy price, for sending a high level political and business delegation to Taiwan.

China seeks to annex Taiwan, a democratically-governed island, and rejects its right to have international relations with other countries.

You cannot accept being someones servant, because if you do, then when you obey once, its assumed that you obey every time, said Milos Vystrcil, the Czech Senate speaker and delegation leader, ahead of the trip.
TORONTO, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- INV Metals ("INV Metals" or "Company") (TSX: INV) provides an update on the 100% owned Loma Larga gold-copper-silver property (Loma Larga or Project), located in Ecuador.



The Company has completed the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) for the Loma Larga gold-copper-silver project and is currently working with the Ministry of Environment and Water to submit the EIS for review and comment. As stated previously, the EIS is the culmination of a collaboration of work by the Company, various consultants and local universities based on many years of baseline data collection and study. The Company is focused on the permitting and financing of the Project with the goal to commence the development of Loma Larga in 2021, and is advancing discussions with finance providers, including debt and stream providers. A comprehensive communication program within the local and Cuenca region has commenced and will be executed over the next few months, reconfirming our commitment to honest and transparent communication.

Ms. Candace MacGibbon, CEO, stated, We are pleased to report that the Constitutional Court of Ecuador has once again denied the application to hold a referendum related to mining activities within the canton of Cuenca, in the province of Azuay.

Ms. Candace MacGibbon stated, We are committed to the responsible and sustainable development of the Loma Larga mine for the benefit of our local communities, the region of Cuenca, the country of Ecuador, and our stakeholders. While there will be significant economic benefits realized as a result of the development of Loma Larga for our future employees, local entrepreneurs, industrial supply and service providers, contractors, and significant tax revenues for the government, we recognize and support the promotion of human rights, including the right to clean water. Mining development and more specifically, the development of Loma Larga, will support many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs recognize the right of all people to have access to decent work and economic growth, zero hunger, no poverty, good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, reduced inequalities, clean water and sanitation, among other important goals. INV Metals is committed to advancing these goals in an impactful way within the province of Azuay.

Ms. Candace MacGibbon stated, I wish to reiterate, INV Metals has focused its efforts to design the Loma Larga underground mine and related infrastructure in an environmentally responsible manner, with a project footprint of less than 65 hectares. The mine site is not near any lakes or rivers. The Loma Larga Project will not discharge any water within the canton of Cuenca. Treated water will meet stringent Ecuadorian standards and the Company expects the treated water to be of better quality than the water currently found downstream of the discharge point. The underground mine is designed to produce concentrates which do not use cyanide for processing and ~55% of the tailings will be placed underground using the paste backfill method. The remaining tailings will be filtered and pressed to remove water to be treated and recycled within the processing facilities and will be placed on a geotechnically stable lined tailings facility, which will be covered and revegetated upon closure.

Referendum Application

On August 28, 2020, the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court (the Constitutional Court) denied the request to hold a referendum related to mining activities within the canton of Cuenca, which was presented for consideration to the Court on August 3, 2020. This was the third such request by the Prefect of Azuay in his personal capacity which we believe was politically motivated in advance of the 2021 Presidential Elections. The Constitutional Court denied the request stating the standards and criteria previously established by the Constitutional Court to hold a referendum regarding mining activities were not met.

We have been advised by our legal counsel that this and other previous rulings have set a precedent that any future referendum requests related to mining activities should not impact our legally granted mining concessions within Ecuador, and the related potential future exploration, development and mining activities on such concessions. If future referendum requests which meet the criteria previously set by the Constitutional Court are allowed to proceed, the potential impact should be related to future mineral rights not yet granted based on legally valid laws, rules and regulations. The Company and various stakeholders will also defend against any future requests.

The Ecuadorian federal government remains supportive of mining to achieve its goal of sustainable and responsible development for the future. Our team is looking forward to this exciting phase of Loma Largas development where we engage with our many stakeholders to convey the benefits of Loma Larga and to clarify misinformation.

Water Stewardship

Loma Larga is the most environmentally researched project by academia within Ecuador as a result of INV Metals commitment to transparency and environmental responsibility by providing access to researchers to our site and technical information. INV Metals maintains 18 surface and groundwater monitoring stations to provide a deep understanding of the hydrology and hydrogeology at and around the site. As a result of our significant and comprehensive data collection, we have developed models which support the preservation and stewardship of the characteristics and volumes of the water resources without adverse environmental impacts.

Past and ongoing Loma Larga research also includes 12 monitoring points as a result of the cooperation agreement with PROMAS University and ETAPA (the public utility company of the City of Cuenca), along with additional cooperation agreements with 11 national and international universities generating 60 undergraduate theses, 28 master theses, 43 scientific articles published internationally, and 7 scientific articles published at conferences.

The Company has a Technical Cooperation Agreement in effect with ETAPA, the University of Cuenca, the University of Azuay, and the Ministry of Mining, whereby the Company works with the universities to carry out independent monitoring programs on the biodiversity of the area and prepare technical studies and reports related to water issues.

Social Responsibility

INV Metals has partnered with our local communities for over 15 years to support the people and communities where we operate in, most recently working side-by-side to combat the COVID-19 crisis to help provide food security and medical and personal protective equipment.

Responsible exploration and development at Loma Larga are built upon cooperation, inclusion, equity, and above all, community participation. Our social responsibility programs are developed in conjunction with the local Management and Development Plans led by the parish or local governments based upon the cooperation model where the rights and privileges of the communities, INV Metals and Ecuador converge. We work together to promote the shared priorities of our local governments and INV Metals to support the self-determination of the communities and improve the quality of life for families.

Historically, the Project has contributed to the improvement of living conditions of our communities by developing in partnership, inter-institutional agreements, aimed at training, health, recovery of traditions, promotion of local human talent, and promotion of innovative ventures and entrepreneur programs. These programs have supported and strengthened more than 70 local organizations, impacting hundreds of families.

The development of Loma Larga is expected to provide substantial economic benefits to the future employees of INV Metals, our communities, and the local, provincial and federal governments of Ecuador. The development and operation of the Loma Larga mine will also provide numerous employment and business opportunities for the local communities and within the region. Various benefits are expected to include:

continuation of the Companys numerous social programs;

during the construction period of 18-24 months, an estimated direct employment of 875 people;

when the mine is in operation, an estimated 450 permanent direct jobs;

economic development and the creation of indirect jobs with local procurement initiatives and training opportunities;

the Loma Larga underground mine is estimated to provide opportunities for local Ecuadorian businesses to supply goods and services of over $150 million during the construction phase and $571 million during the operations over the mine life;

wages, social security and pension benefits are estimated at $15 million annually, for a total of $186 million over the mine life;

employee profit sharing taxes (3%) are estimated at $34 million;

taxes to the Government of Ecuador are estimated at: Corporate Income tax (25%) - $226 million State profit sharing tax (12%) - $135 million Employment taxes (35%) - $52 million VAT (12%) and import duties (0% - 5%) - $109 million Royalties (5%) - $120 million



About INV Metals

INV Metals is an international mineral resource company focused on the acquisition, exploration and development of precious and base metal projects in Ecuador. Currently, INV Metals primary assets are: (1) its 100% interest in the Loma Larga gold exploration and development property in Ecuador, and (2) its 100% interests in exploration concessions in Ecuador, including the Tierras Coloradas, La Rebuscada and Carolina exploration projects.

For further information, please contact:

Sunny Lowe

Chief Financial Officer

Phone: (416) 703-8416

E-mail: slowe@invmetals.com

Doug Flegg

Capital Markets Advisor

Phone: (416) 703-8416

E-mail: dflegg@invmetals.com

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking information. Forward-looking information contained in this press release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the EIS, the timing to enter into the permitting and financing phase of the Project, the timing to development of the Project, future communication programs, the design and impact of the Project on the environment, the support of the Government of Ecuador, statements with respect to the Companys intentions with respect to any future referendum requests, and the benefits of the Project, including to future employees, local communities and various levels of government and the various employment and business opportunities. These statements are based on information currently available to the Company and the Company provides no assurance that actual results will meet managements expectations. In certain cases, forward-looking information may be identified by such terms as anticipates, believes, could, estimates, expects, may, shall, will, or would. Forward-looking information contained in this press release is based on certain factors and assumptions made by management in light of their experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors management believes are appropriate in the circumstances. While the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such factors include risks inherent in the exploration and development of mineral deposits, including risks relating to changes in project parameters as plans continue to be redefined, risks relating to grade or recovery rates, reliance on key personnel, operational risks, regulatory, capitalization and liquidity risks. Please refer to the Companys Annual Information Form dated April 14, 2020 filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com for other risks that could materially affect the Company. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of the Companys forward-looking information. These and other factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on the Companys forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information that may be made from time to time by the Company or on its behalf, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.




Two persons, including a woman (32), have been arrested for allegedly duping investors in the name of lucrative insurance bonus or installation of mobile towers, Delhi Police said.

Also read: Man arrested for duping Delhi Speaker on pretext of donating plasma

The two also impersonated insurance and telecom officials, as many forged documents and identity cards (IDs) of such officials were recovered from them along with four mobile phones, a laptop, fake voter IDs, and permanent account number (PAN) cards issued against forged documents, said Delhi Polices crime branch officials, who are conducting the probe.

The arrested accused were identified as Brij Bhushan Sharma alias Vishal Sharma (34), the kingpin of the racket, and his aide, Neetu Pathak (32).

The duo belong to Modi Nagar in Uttar Pradesh (UP). They were caught on Saturday following investigation into a four-year-old cheating case registered at Uttam Nagar police station in west Delhi following a complaint of an Indian Army personnel. The case was transferred to the crime branch in March 2019, said BK Singh, additional commissioner of police (CP) (crime), Delhi Police.

The complainant, additional CP Singh said, in his complaint had alleged that in February 2016, he had received a call regarding investments in various insurance schemes for lucrative returns. The Army official was convinced that the schemes were genuine and he was tricked into transferring over Rs 25 lakh in various bank accounts, purportedly belonging to two companies, said Singh.

The culprits vanished after the funds were transferred. Soon, the Army personnel filed a cheating and forgery case, Singh added.

The case was transferred to Delhi Polices crime branch at the behest of the Delhi high court (HC) after local police authorities failed to make any breakthrough.

During the probe, an investigating officer (IO), who did not want to be named, said, the probe team examined details of the mobile numbers and bank accounts that were used in the crime. The call details did not reveal much. The bank accounts were opened following the submission of fake IDs. While the cheated sum had been withdrawn through cheques and ATMs (automated teller machines), the IO said.

However, the probe team stumbled upon a vital clue: one of the e-mail IDs mentioned in the account opening form was still operational. The details of the e-mail account were obtained from the service provider and the investigators found a mobile number that was still in use, said the additional CP.

We caught Pathak, who was using the mobile phone through which she had been accessing the e-mail ID. Her interrogation led to the arrest of Sharma and the recovery of several incriminating documents, he added.

During the interrogation, Pathak disclosed that she was part of the cheating syndicate and her job was to prepare forged documents such as voter IDs through which she applied for PAN cards. She also operated the fake e-mail IDs created in the name of the two fictitious companies. Sharmas role was to call the potential investors and lure them into their web, said the additional CP.

The police said that Sharma used to work as a tele-caller in a call centre and Pathak worked in another office close to him.

In 2013-14, the two along with their other associates -- Dushyant Bhardwaj, Krishan Sharma and Saurabh -- had started a fake call centre from a rented space in Ghaziabad in the national capital region (NCR).

They cheated many people on the pretext of insurance bonus, tower installation and other lucrative offers. The gang was disbanded in 2016 after the police went after them. However, Sharma and Pathak stuck together and kept on cheating people, said Singh.

Now, a hunt is on for the other members of the cheating syndicate, the police added.
After a WhatsApp chat between Sushant Singh Rajput's sister Neetu Singh and his former manager Shruti Modi which hinted at the late actor's family being aware of his condition, surfaced in the media, Swara Bhasker has now raised questions on whether Rhea Chakraborty was being framed in Sushant Singh Rajput's death case.

The actress also raised questions as to why this story was 'conveniently' ignored by 'shouting anchors'. Rhea is currently being questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).

Swara retweeted a conversation between Sushant's sister Neetu Singh and his former manager Shruti Modi, and wrote, "Hey Voyeurs & shameless conscience-less anchors! Chat Proves #RheaChakraborty had informed the family about the mental health of SSR way back in 2019. Why did all the high decibel, screaming shouting anchors conveniently ignore this story? Does it seem like Rhea is being framed?"

Sushant Singh Rajput passed away on June 14, 2020. A month after his demise, the late actor's father KK Singh filed an FIR in Patna, in which he accused Rhea Chakraborty and his family members of forcing the late actor to take his life and cheating.

Last week, Rhea sought police protection for herself and her family, alleging that there was a 'threat' to their lives.

She took to her Instagram page and wrote, "We have been trying to get out of our house to cooperate with ED, CBI and various investigation authorities to cooperate. There is a threat to my life and my family's life. We have informed the local police station and even gone there, no help provided. We have informed the investigation authorities to help us get to them, no help arrived. How is this family going to live? We are only asking for assistance, to cooperate with the various agencies that have asked us. I request @mumbaipolice to please provide protection so that we can cooperate with these investigation agencies. #safetyformyfamily In covid times, these basic law and order restrictions need to be provided. Thankyou."

Later, the CBI wrote a letter to Mumbai Police to provide police protection to Rhea Chakraborty whenever she travels to DRDO guest house in Santacruz for questioning.

Worried about your mental well-being or of someone you know? Help is just a call away. Reach out to the nearest mental health specialist at COOJ Mental Health Foundation (COOJ)- 0832-2252525, Parivarthan- +91 7676 602 602, Connecting Trust- +91 992 200 1122/+91-992 200 4305 or Sahai- 080-25497777/ SAHAIHELPLINE@GMAIL.COM

ALSO READ: Sushant Singh Rajput's Family Knew He Consumed Drugs, Claims Ex Manager Shruti Modi's Lawyer

ALSO READ: Taapsee Pannu, Hina Khan Condemn Media Trial Of Rhea Chakraborty; Say 'Trust The Law Of The Land'
Dozens of people have been spotted sleeping rough on one of London's most exclusive streets amid worries of a spike in homelessness.

More than twenty Eastern European men and women set up makeshift beds out of cardboard and dumped mattresses in front of luxury car showroom on Park Lane last night, metres from a string of five-star hotels.

A shopkeeper who asked to remain anonymous said the group were 'mostly from Romania' and would pitch up at 8.30pm each night.

He added that while they were peaceful, he was concerned that the size of the group sleeping rough had 'increased a lot'.

More than twenty men and women set up makeshift beds out of cardboard and dumped mattresses in front a Mercedes car showroom on Park Lane last night, metres from a string of five-star hotels

'I only see them at night, I don't know many but there were a lot there yesterday. And in the morning I am left to clear up their mess,' he said.

It comes at a worrying time for homelessness charities, as it is claimed hundreds of vulnerable people who had been staying in hotels since the start of lockdown have been kicked out while the pandemic is still ongoing.

Almost 15,000 rough sleepers have been housed in hotels or emergency accommodation since the lockdown began under the 'Everyone In' scheme, whereby local authorities in the UK were required to house rough sleepers with a 3.2m pot of funding from central government.

Most contracts for the project were scheduled to continue past June, but it is feared a large number of people have already been made to leave the hotels.

A shopkeeper who asked to remain anonymous said the group were 'mostly from Romania' and would pitch up at 8.30pm each night

Last week, charities warned the nation could face a wider homelessness crisis after Government statistics showed more than 75,000 households were homeless or at risk of becoming so before lockdown.

Some 36,690 households were classified as being homeless between January and March this year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

A further 38,450 households were assessed as being threatened with homelessness within 56 days over the same period.

Homelessness charities said the numbers showed many households had been 'badly affected' even before the worst of the coronavirus pandemic hit.

They fear rising job losses caused by the crisis and the end of a ban on evictions on Monday will lead to a spike in homelessness unless ministers take urgent action.

Some 36,690 households were classified as being homeless between January and March this year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)

Pictured: The famous Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane London. Park Lane is one of London 's most exclusive streets

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: 'Today's figures show private renters were already badly affected by homelessness when the pandemic was just taking hold.

'Thousands more renters have since had their lives turned upside down as the country descends in economic free-fall.

'With daily news of new job cuts and the eviction ban set to lift on Monday, the coming months are likely to see a devastating homelessness crisis unfold unless the Government steps in to safeguard people's homes. Some may even face sleeping on the streets as councils struggle to cope with the intense pressure on oversubscribed services.'

Jon Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, echoed a similar sentiment and said: 'Since March, the temporary eviction ban has protected thousands of renters from losing their home, allowing them to isolate safely and protect their health during this pandemic.

'What we face now is a backlog of evictions from earlier in the year as the ban lifts and the courts begin processing these previous claims, alongside a potential wave of new evictions as the economic impact of the pandemic starts to bite.'

Labour has called for the ban on evictions in England, introduced in March, to be extended until the Government has introduced new measures to protect tenants who are facing financial difficulties caused by coronavirus from losing their homes.

The total number of households considered homeless or at risk (75,140) between January and March was 2.4 per cent higher than the equivalent period last year.

There was a greater annual rise in the number of households considered homeless - 7.6 per cent up from the 34,110 households in the same quarter in 2019. Single households accounted for 88.4% of the increase.

Robert Jenrick, the Housing Secretary, is under pressure to extend a ban on evictions in England

The MHCLG said many of these households would not have been eligible for help prior to the Homelessness Reduction Act which came into force in 2018.

Therefore, it said, it is unclear if the rise is due to more households becoming homeless or more being offered help.

The figures show that less than half of the homeless or at risk households (36,200) were able to secure accommodation for at least six months.

At the end of the three-month period, on March 31, there were 93,000 households in temporary accommodation - an annual rise of 9.4 per cent.

The department said this may be linked to the Government's Everyone In scheme, which saw councils asked to urgently bring homeless people into safe accommodation due to the coronavirus crisis.

The figures also show that 19,160 households - a quarter of those which applied for help to prevent homelessness - were renting from a private landlord.

Of the households facing homelessness, a fifth (15,130) lost their last stable home due to the ending of a private tenancy.
India and China accused each other Monday of military provocation on their contested Himalayan border where a deadly showdown erupted in June  even as commanders from the two sides held talks aimed at easing tensions.

Chinas military said Indian troops had crossed the border Monday near Pangong Tso, a lake at 4,200 metres (13,500 feet), and engaged in open provocation and caused the border situation to become tense".

The Chinese military is taking necessary countermeasures," the Peoples Liberation Armys regional command said in a statement, accusing India of seriously violating Chinas territorial sovereignty".

A satellite imagery shared by the open source intelligence analyst, who tweets as @detresfa, shows a construction at the tri-junction of the borders of India, Bhutan and China, at a distance of about 100 km from Doka La (Doka pass) and Naku La (Naku pass).

The construction is said to be a heliport that China is building in close proximity to two new air defence positions that cover sensitive stretches of the disputed border in Doklam and Sikkim sectors.

Suspected PLA heliport infrastructure spotted part of an ongoing investigation near the #Doklam region of the #India #China #Bhutan tri junction, this support unit could sustain all weather & rapid troop deployments in the sector along with improving surveillance operations https://t.co/aOeZ3deGzI pic.twitter.com/ycS32tFxJe d-atis (@detresfa_) August 31, 2020

This heliport is apparently almost equidistant from the two sites at which the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) is developing surface-to-air missile facilities.

According to a report in Hindustan Times, the new missile facilities are located roughly 50 km from Naku La (Naku pass), where troops from the two countries had clashed on May 9, and Doka La (Doka pass), close to the Doklam plateau that was the scene of a 73-day military standoff between India and China in 2017. Four Indian and seven Chinese soldiers were injured in the clash at Naku La, the second such reported incident since the current standoff began in early May.

Earlier on Monday Indias defence ministry said Chinese troops had carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo" in the eastern Ladakh region over the weekend.

Military commanders from the two sides held talks Monday in a new bid to ease tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours, who fought a border war in 1962 and have staged regular high altitude clashes since.

China did not confirm Saturdays incident, but the foreign ministry said its troops have always strictly respected" the unofficial border known as the Line of Actual Control.

On June 15, troops from the two sides fought hand-to-hand combat in Ladakh in which 20 Indian troops were killed. China acknowledged casualties but did not give figures.

The two sides blame each other for recent clashes and the two armies have since poured tens of thousands of troops into the region. Military and diplomatic talks are at an apparent stalemate.

Massive troop buildup

Pangong Tso is one of several hotspots where troops have massed since June. Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the southern bank of Pangong Tso lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground," said Indias defence ministry.

Senior officers met at a border post near the scene of the standoff on Monday, it added. According to Indian military sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, Indian troops pushed back Chinese troops who crossed the Line of Control.

PLA soldiers walked into our area near the south bank of Pangong, but our soldiers were prepared and quickly pushed them back without any violence," said one source. They tried to come in again several hours later but we stood firm. There has been no such confrontation in this area in the past."

Chinas foreign ministry said Chinese troops have always strictly respected the Line of Actual Control and never crossed the line". Border troops from both sides have maintained communication over issues on the ground," foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a press briefing.

Amid calls for boycotts of Chinese goods, India has stepped up economic pressure on China since the June battle and repeatedly warned that relations would suffer unless its troops pull back.

India has banned at least 49 Chinese owned-apps  including the TikTok video platform  frozen Chinese firms out of contracts and held up Chinese goods at customs posts. China has complained about the action and warned that Indian consumers will suffer.

(With inputs from AFP)
The market snapped its six-day winning streak and fell sharply amid reports of India-China border tensions on August 31. Selling was seen across sectors with bank, automobile, metal and pharmaceuticals falling 3-5 percent.

The Sensex corrected 839.02 points, or 2.13 percent, to 38,628.29, and the Nifty plunged 260.1 points, or 2.23 percent, to 11,387.5. It formed a large bearish candle, which resembles a Long Black Day kind of pattern on the daily charts and engulfed the high-low range of the last six sessions.

"This pattern could be considered as a Bearish Engulfing pattern. Hence, formation of such pattern at the new swing highs and near the hurdle could be considered as an important reversal pattern. We need follow through weakness in the subsequent session to confirm the reversal pattern," Nagaraj Shetti, Technical Research Analyst at HDFC Securities, told Moneycontrol.

"The short term trend of Nifty seems to have reversed. We expect sell on rise opportunity on any upside bounce back attempt around 11,450-11,500 levels. One may expect further weakness in the short term and the next lower levels to be watched at 11,100-11,000," he said.

The broader markets were also caught in bear trap with the Nifty Midcap and Smallcap indices falling 4 percent and 4.75 percent, respectively.

We have collated 15 data points to help you spot profitable trades:

Note: The open interest (OI) and volume data of stocks given in this story are the aggregates of three- month data and not of the current month only.

According to pivot charts, the key support levels for the Nifty is placed at 11,210.8, followed by 11,034.1. If the index moves up, the key resistance levels to watch out for are 11,679.2 and 11,970.9.The Bank Nifty underperformed the Nifty, falling 769.50 points, or 3.14 percent, to 23,754.30. The important pivot level, which will act as crucial support for the index, is placed at 23,015.54, followed by 22,276.77. On the upside, key resistance levels are placed at 24,862.84 and 25,971.37.Maximum Call open interest of 19.55 lakh contracts was seen at 12,000 strike, which will act as crucial resistance in the September series.

This is followed by 11,500 strike, which holds 18.15 lakh contracts, and 11,800 strike, which has accumulated 12.56 lakh contracts.

Call writing was seen at 11,700, which added 2.03 lakh contracts, followed by 11,500, which added 1.91 lakh contracts, and 11,600 strikes, which added 1.08 lakh contracts.

Call unwinding was seen at 12,000, which shed 2.41 lakh contracts, followed by 11,900 strikes, which shed 53,250 contracts.

Maximum Put open interest of 26.08 lakh contracts was seen at 11,000 strike, which will act as crucial support in the September series.

This is followed by 11,300, which holds 13.02 lakh contracts, and 11,200 strikes, which has accumulated 11.68 lakh contracts.

Put writing was seen at 11,700, which added 1.03 lakh contracts, followed by 11,800 strikes, which added 19,425 contracts.

Put unwinding was witnessed at 11,300, which shed 3.18 lakh contracts, followed by 11,500, which shed 3.1 lakh contracts, and 11,600 strikes, which shed 2.91 lakh contracts.

A high delivery percentage suggests that investors are showing interest in these stocks.

Based on the open interest future percentage, here are the top 4 stocks in which long build-up was seen.

Based on the open interest future percentage, here are the top 10 stocks in which long unwinding was seen.

An increase in open interest, along with a decrease in price, mostly indicates a build-up of short positions. Based on the open interest future percentage, here are the top 10 stocks in which short build-up was seen.

A decrease in open interest, along with an increase in price, mostly indicates a short-covering. Based on the open interest future percentage, here is the stock in which short-covering was seen.

: Vikas Ecotech bought another 2.5 lakh shares in the company at Rs 38.04 per share on the BSE.

Sheela Foam: DSP Mutual Fund acquired 5.9 lakh shares in company at Rs 1,365 per share. However, Tushaar Gautam sold 10 lakh shares at the same price on the BSE.

Aavas Financiers: New World Fund and Nomura India Investment Fund Mother Fund bought 5.2 lakh shares each in the company at Rs 1,409.97 and Rs 1,410 per share, respectively. However, Partners Group ESCL and Partners Group Private Equity Masterfund sold 17,78,105 and 7,80,319 shares in the company at Rs 1,410.01 and Rs 1,414.96 per share, respectively, on the NSE.

Alankit: LTS Investment Fund acquired 10 lakh shares in the company at Rs 18.08 per share on the NSE.

Bharti Airtel: Integrated Core Strategies (Asia) Pte bought 3,80,10,584 shares in company at Rs 513.79 per share on the NSE.

CG Power & Industrial Solutions: Swapnil Mehta sold 32,51,471 shares in company at Rs 22.4 per share on the NSE.

Future Enterprises: Snehil Mehta bought 60,08,000 shares in company at Rs 21.09 per share on the NSE.

Future Retail: Norges Bank on Account of the Government Pension Fund Global sold 95 lakh shares in company at Rs 158.61 per share on the NSE.

Jash Engineering: Bellwether Capital Pvt acquired 62,126 shares in company at Rs 160 per share on the NSE.

(For more bulk deals, click here)

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Anant Raj, Fiem Industries, Shalimar Paints, etc will announce their June quarter earnings on September 1.completed divestment of its electrical and automation operations to Schneider Electric.

Biocon and Mylan launched insulin drug Semglee in the US market.

Century Textiles: Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC raised stake in the company to 5.23 percent from 4.94 percent earlier.

Bharat Dynamics: Q1 loss at Rs 78 crore versus a profit of Rs 65.54 crore, revenue at Rs 31.4 crore versus Rs 491.56 crore YoY.

JVL Agro Industries: Asia Investment Corporation (Mauritius) reduced stake in company to 3.01 percent from 5.03 percent earlier.

Zensar Technologies received US patent for its innovative tool enabling direct conversation with the organisation's leadership - ZenVerse.

JB Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals: Promoters sold 48,54,667 shares of company to Tau Investment Holdings, Singapore.

BEML bagged Rs 842 crore order from the Ministry of Defence.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 3,395 crore, whereas domestic institutional investors (DIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 681 crore in the Indian equity market on August 31, as per provisional data available on the NSE.One stock -- Vodafone Idea -- is under the F&O ban for September 1. Securities in the ban period under the F&O segment include companies in which the security has crossed 95 percent of the market-wide position limit.
ORANGE - President Donald Trumps stopover in East Texas was more rally than recovery following Hurricane Laura, just days after a dozen people died and hundreds of thousands lost power from the category 4 storm.

The path was a little bit lucky, Trump said, echoing earlier comments from state and local leaders when Texas dodged the brunt of Lauras wreckage, which ravaged parts of Louisiana the president visited earlier in the day. He marveled at the storms power, a fury known all-too-well to Gulf Coast residents.

You had trees ripped from the roots, Trump said. You had pine trees broken in half, and you dont see that kind of power.

Trump only saw Orange damage from the air or the motorcade, instead spending 90 minutes on the ground touring the Orange County Exposition Center where state police and county emergency management officials waited out the storm. The building, also the countys emergency operations center built after damage following Hurricanes Rita and Ike, can resist winds of 250 mph.

Wow, 250 mph, Trump said. Thats great.

Rather than recite the damage, the president, Gov. Greg Abbott, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and other leaders spent most of Trumps time lauding their swift response and readiness for the storm that didnt quite pack the expected punch.

Ive been in this seat for 10 years, we have never had this fast a response, state emergency management director Nim Kidd said.

The most significant damage this side of the border was in Orange County and concentrated in Orange city limits, near the Sabine River and north on Texas 87. High winds toppled trees which brought power lines down with them, while some metal and brick buildings buckled in the heavy storm.

Saturday, utility crews were fanned out in Orange erecting new poles to replace those splintered by the storm.

Well be back in a few days, I hope, John Samuelson said of his house which, like others in the vicinity, remains cut off. Samuelson, 77, and his wife are living in Beaumont with her brother.

At the peak of power outages, Abbott said 350,000 customers in Texas were without power. By Saturday afternoon, slightly more than two days after the winds died down, he said 120,000 remained in the dark. Of those evacuated by bus from the storm, 808 have returned.

Across Texas and Louisiana, Trump said emergency and recovery officials have delivered 400,000 liters of water and 250,000 meals to address needs in the community.

State officials cheered Trumps fast approval of a disaster declaration in affected counties, while local officials cheered the cooperation and guidance they received from the state.

We are getting good at something we dont want to be good at, Orange County Judge John Gothia said.

Officials also used Trumps attention to tout planned protections along coastal Texas, namely a $4 billion levee spine system meant to expand local storm barriers into Jefferson and Orange counties. Cruz, a champion of the plans, called it critical to protect petrochemical interests and homes in East Texas. Three separate levee projects will create 25 new miles of coastal barriers with 30 gauges tied into the broader flood and surge control system.

Collectively those projects will protect 100,000 people, said Gen. Christopher Beck, commander of the southwestern division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Approved projects by the Corps of Engineers also allow for studying of a protection system in the Houston area.

Trump expressed interest in the projects, but joked he wanted assurances of their effectiveness.

It will work right. We are not going to build it and say Oops it sprung a leak, he said.

Orange is friendly turf for Trump, who won with nearly 80 percent of the vote in 2016. All of Orange Countys elected officials are Republican. As a result the president felt free to veer into other political topics, criticizing the mayor of Portland, Ore., and the ongoing protests. Trump said if asked he would deploy the National Guard.

We could clear out Portland in 45 minutes, the president said.

Trumps Orange visit, while welcomed, barely registered with some residents and workers focused on rebuilding the town.

Are they gonna help fix my roof? Tom Reynolds asked, standing in front of his home that took a hit from a tree. I dont mean any disrespect, but this doesnt seem like the time to talk politics.

dug.begley@chron.com
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he invited a delegation from the United Arab Emirates to visit Israel.

The invitation, Netanyahu said, was extended by his national security adviser, who is heading a group of senior Israeli officials now in Abu Dhabi to finalise a pact marking open relations between Israel and the Gulf state.

"We will welcome them with a red carpet, like they welcomed us," Netanyahu said during a news conference.

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Pritam Singh, Singapore's Indian-origin politician scripted history on Monday when the city-state's Parliament conferred the duties and privileges to him as the country's first Leader of the Opposition.

Singh's Workers' Party won 10 parliamentary seats out of the 93 it contested in the July 10 General Election, making it the biggest opposition presence in Singapore's parliamentary history.

As the House began proceedings on Monday, one of the first orders of business was a ministerial statement by the Leader of the House Indranee Rajah on formally recognising Singh, 43, as the country's first Opposition leader.

Addressing Parliament, Singh underlined the need to focus on foreigners and their living conditions. He said how foreign workers are managed and accommodated needs to be improved.

Their (foreigners) presence gives a vitality that keeps us economically relevant and also provides jobs and opportunities to our fellow Singaporeans. Many of us count the foreigners in our midst - regardless of race, language or religion - as our friends, Channel News Asia quoted Singh as saying.

It is precisely because we need foreigners to help power our economy that we need to pay more attention to the worker... some of whom feel excluded from (the) opportunities created in their homeland, Singh said.

Leader of House Indranee, who is also of Indian-origin from the ruling People's Action Party (PAP), said, "With more opposition MPs reflecting a 'strong desire among Singaporeans for a greater diversity of views in politics' as noted by the Prime Minister (Lee Hsien Loong) in his swearing-in speech.. It is timely and appropriate that the position of the Leader of the Opposition be more formally recognised."



The PAP has an absolute majority in the House with 83 elected members.

The House passed a motion to double Singh's speaking time from 20 minutes -- which is allotted to backbenchers -- to 40 minutes, the duration allotted to office holders.

Singh took the seat directly opposite Prime Minister Lee in the chamber.

This is similar to the practice in other countries that formally recognise the role of the Leader of the Opposition, Indranee pointed out.

Singh called on the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to publish the names of "recalcitrant" employers who do not give locals a fair chance in hiring and promotion.

The MOM had recently placed 47 companies on the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) watchlist for discriminatory hiring practices.

A wealth management firm on the list was found to have almost three-quarters of its professionals from the same country, he said.

In another similar case, a bank was found to have two-thirds of its professionals from a particular country.

The obvious question is, how did those two companies get to those stages without the MOM taking action? he asked.

MOM website states at one point and I quote: MOM does not tolerate unfair hiring practices and employers who do not give locals a fair chance in hiring and promotion will face scrutiny and stiff penalties if found to have unfair hiring practices, he said.

Following the General Election, Prime Minister Loong had said Singh will be designated the Leader of the Opposition in the 14th Parliament, and that he would be given staff support and resources to perform his duties.

There have been de facto leaders of the Opposition in the past, such as former People's Party chief Chiam See Tong. However, this is the first time the position is being recognised officially.

During her address on Monday, Indranee, 57, reiterated that Singh will be given an office in Parliament, staff support and resources, as well as additional allowance.

The Leader of the Opposition will generally be given the right of first response among MPs to ask the lead question to ministers on policies, bills and motions in Parliament.

This will be at the discretion of the Speaker and subject to existing conventions, she said.

As Leader of the Opposition, Singh's duties include leading and organising the Opposition's parliamentary business. He may also take on other duties such as attending official state functions and taking part in visits and meetings with members of the Government and the public service.

He will also, from time to time, receive briefings by the government on confidential issues, and the matters to be briefed will be determined by the government, said Indranee.

These duties and privileges are based on the conventions and practices of other Westminster-style parliamentary systems, but reflect adaptations to Singapore's political and parliamentary context, she added.

"With greater diversity of views, we can expect more robust debate and, in some cases, sharper exchanges. But we should work to ensure that diversity does not lead to polarity, of the country or of the people," said Indranee.

"Experience elsewhere shows that unity in diversity is not an assured outcome. Our goal should be to harness this diversity of views in a constructive manner, so that we can as a Parliament better serve the interests of Singaporeans and Singapore."



Indranee added that the role of the Leader of the Opposition in Singapore will evolve with the country's

(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.)
WASHINGTON - A group of journalists at Voice of America is protesting moves made by the U.S.-funded outlets new chief that they say are endangering their colleagues and the international broadcasters credibility as a news source.

In a letter to VOA management sent on Monday, 14 senior VOA journalists expressed deep concern and profound disappointment with steps U.S. Agency for Global Media head Michael Pack has taken that they say also threaten to harm American national security.

The signatories said they were compelled to express our profound disappointment with the actions and comments of the chief executive officer of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which endanger the personal security of VOA reporters at home and abroad, as well as threatening to harm U.S. national security objectives.

They cited a litany of moves they deemed problematic including a purge of AGM executives, the dismissal of foreign journalists and comments Pack has made denigrating VOA and its sister outlets along with their employees since he took over in early June. At least 16 foreign VOA journalists will be forced to leave the country in the coming weeks unless their visas are renewed.

VOA has taken no action to renew them, citing alleged security lapses in the visa approval process and a need to implement reforms in hiring practices. Congressional aides say they believe roughly 70 employees, many of whom were hired for their critical foreign language expertise, may ultimately be affected.

Michael Packs actions risk crippling programs and projects for some countries that are considered national security priorities, the journalists wrote in the letter to acting VOA director Elez Biberaj. He has ordered the firing of contract journalists, with no valid reason, by cancelling their visas, forcing them back to home countries where the lives of some of them may be in jeopardy.

Given these concerns we fear that the current USAGM leadership is failing not only the news organizations of USAGM (one of the worlds largest broadcasting entities) and our audiences, but also our stakeholders, including the American public, they wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

There was no immediate response to the letter from USAGM.

Pack, a conservative filmmaker, ally of President Donald Trump and one-time associate of former Trump political adviser Steve Bannon, took the helm of USAGM in June and has made no secret of his intent to shake the agency up. His moves, however, have been criticized by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers who control the agencys budget.

Democrats in particular have expressed alarm about Packs actions, which they fear are aimed at turning VOA and other U.S.-funded broadcasters like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and the Cuba-focused Radio/TV Marti into Trump propaganda outlets.

VOA was founded during WWII and its congressional charter requires it to present independent news and information to international audiences.

In line with strictly upholding the VOA charter, which was signed into law in 1976, we insist on competent and professional oversight for VOA and our sister media organizations, the journalists wrote.
CHICAGO, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- HAAS Alert announced today an integration between its Safety Cloud collision prevention platform and Cradlepoint's portfolio of NetCloud-powered wireless routers, enabling Public Safety and Municipal Fleet customers to activate their vehicles on Safety Cloud via their Cradlepoint solution. Through this new capability, end customers can access HAAS Alert's safety solution easily and even more cost-effectively.

Safety Cloud enables emergency vehicles and work trucks to send real-time digital alerts to drivers to warn them in advance of upcoming hazardous situations they may present. These vehicles utilize Cradlepoint wireless routers to send location data to Safety Cloud, which then delivers alerts to nearby motorists through the Waze navigation platform on their mobile devices, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, or compatible vehicle infotainment systems, giving them more time to safely react. Since launching more than two years ago, Safety Cloud has processed more than 200 million driver alerts.

Jeremy Agulnek, HAAS Alert's Vice President of Connected Vehicle, said this integration is a direct result of end customer feedback. "A number of Public Safety departments and Municipal fleets expressed interest in activating their vehicles on Safety Cloud through their existing technology. We've heard several times 'Can HAAS Alert integrate with my Cradlepoint system?' Now we can respond 'Yes.'"

Todd Krautkremer, Chief Marketing Officer of Cradlepoint, said, "Our NetCloud Service extends the value of Cradlepoint mobile solutions by seamlessly integrating third-party solutions that help our public safety and first responder customers be safer and more productive. HAAS Alert's Safety Cloud is a perfect example of the benefits such solutions can provide."

To activate their vehicles on Safety Cloud through Cradlepoint NetCloud, customers simply need to authorize a software download that is sent over-the-air to in-vehicle routers. The installed software sends vehicle information to Safety Cloud in real-time.

To learn more about activating vehicles on Safety Cloud via Cradlepoint, contact [email protected] .

About HAAS Alert

Leaders in C-V2X collision prevention for emergency responders, roadway workers, and municipal fleets. HAAS Alert's Safety Cloud service sends real-time digital alerts to drivers and connected cars via in-vehicle systems, navigation application, and smartphones to aid drivers earlier in making safer, smarter driving decisions. For more information, visit haasalert.com or contact [email protected].

About Cradlepoint

Cradlepoint is a global leader in cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network edge solutions for branch, mobile, and IoT networks. Our Elastic Edge vision is brought to life through NetCloud, a subscription-based service with purpose-built endpoints that delivers a pervasive and secure wireless WAN edge to connect people, places, and things over LTE and 5G cellular networks. More than 20,000 enterprise and government organizations around the world, including 75 percent of the world's top retailers, 50 percent of the Fortune 100, and first responder agencies in 25 of the largest U.S. cities, rely on Cradlepoint to keep critical branches, points of commerce, field forces, vehicles, and IoT devices always connected and protected. Major service providers use Cradlepoint solutions as the foundation for innovative managed services. Founded in 2006, Cradlepoint is a privately held company headquartered in Boise, Idaho, with a development center in Silicon Valley and international offices in the UK and Australia.

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South Korea skipped a defense ministers' meeting with the U.S. and Japan in Guam on Saturday, where the two agreed on the importance of the "complete elimination of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction, their means of production, and their means of delivery." The also issued a warning to China by voicing "serious concern regarding Beijing's decision to impose a national security law in Hong Kong, as well as coercive and destabilizing actions vis-a-vis Taiwan." The two discussed the formation of a joint missile defense system and cooperation in intelligence sharing and surveillance operations. Discussions on how to deal with the threats posed by North Korea and China have a direct impact on South Korea's national security, but its defense minister was absent from the meeting with allies who have stood by its side since the Korean War.

The Defense Ministry said on Aug. 21 that it "could not set a suitable date for the meeting due to the itinerary of each side and the coronavirus pandemic." That is utterly ridiculous. The U.S. and Japan have been reporting higher numbers of coronavirus infection than South Korea, and quarantine efforts are none of the defense minister's business, plus the government has refused to say what urgent commitments were keeping the defense minister from attending the meeting in Guam. The government also said on Aug. 22 that top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi's visit to Busan instead of Seoul had nothing to do with the coronavirus situation here. So which one is correct, and who is supposed to believe the government's excuses?

The Moon Jae-in administration has constantly been terrified of agitating North Korea and China. The defense minister probably did not want to be seen at any meeting with the defense chiefs of the U.S. and Japan where comments about North Korea sanctions and criticism aimed at China were sure to be made. Yang warned South Korean officials during his visit here not to side with the U.S. But North Korea is close to completing a submarine-launched ballistic missile, while China continues to flex its muscle in the South China Sea. China and Russia, meanwhile, held their first joint military drills in the East Sea since the Korean War, while a Russian fighter plane intruded into South Korean airspace over Dokdo. The trilateral alliance between the U.S., South Korea and Japan is the only thing that can thwart these regional threats. Shrinking from agitating hostile states will not safeguard South Korea's national security.

This government deluded itself that North Korea would be willing to denuclearize and has now made a habit of appeasing North Korea and China even when it gets absolutely nothing in return. The country's military brass are only intent on keeping their jobs and are kowtowing to Moon. But the president has no mandate to realign the country with North Korea and China and ditch the U.S. and Japan for them. He is steering the country straight out to sea.


The write stuff: Biology professor's landscape ecology book honored for influence on field

Monday, Aug. 31, 2020



MANHATTAN  A Kansas State University ecologist is receiving the top book award from the prestigious British Ecological Society.



Kimberly With, the author of "Essentials of Landscape Ecology," published in 2019 by the Oxford University Press, is the recipient of the society's Marsh Ecology Book of the Year award. The award recognizes the contributions authors make to ecology and acknowledges the important role that books have on ecology and its development. It is awarded to a book published in the last two years that has had the greatest influence on ecology or its application.



A professor in the Division of Biology, With is among 11 distinguished biologists being recognized with an award from the British Ecological Society for work that has benefited the scientific community and society in general.



With calls earning the award one of the greatest honors of her career.



"I am beyond grateful to receive this recognition, especially as writing this book has been a very personal experience that required taking some professional risks," With said. "Researching and writing this book has been the most challenging project of my career and ultimately, the most satisfying for me personally as well as professionally."



A comprehensive textbook, "Essentials of Landscape Ecology" looks at the diverse and multidisciplinary field of landscape ecology and presents the principles, theory, methods and applications of the field in an accessible format, supplemented by examples and case studies from a variety of systems, including freshwater and marine.



With said the landscape ecology field has grown beyond the study and management of landscapes at human-defined scales to encompass the study of how spatial or environmental heterogeneity influences ecological patterns and processes across a broad range of scales.



With humans altering ecologies across a wide range of scales, With said there is an urgent need to understand how these cross-scale interactions between humans and other types of disturbances alter species distributions and critical ecological and evolutionary processes in ways that could affect the long-term resilience and sustainability of ecosystems. She said landscape ecology provides an ideal framework for addressing those sorts of pattern-process linkages.



"As an organismic biologist with training in population and community ecology, this expanded definition of landscape ecology very much appealed to my interests, but it was not a view that was well represented in any of the available texts or edited volumes on the subject," With said. "'Essentials of Landscape Ecology' thus grew out of my own research interests, as well as from my experiences teaching various iterations of landscape ecology over the past two decades."



A faculty member at K-State since 2000, With runs the Laboratory for Landscape and Conservation Ecology, which studies the effects of habitat loss, fragmentation and land management on species and their interactions across small experimental landscapes to broad regional landscapes.



With said she was challenged in writing her textbook with striking a balance between a review of basic ecological/evolutionary principles and a more advanced treatment of theory and analytical approaches that students may wish to implement in their own research.



"In that sense, 'Essentials of Landscape Ecology' represents a collaboration with the many students who have taken my landscape ecology course over the years," With said. "I have learned as much from them as I hope they have learned from me."



British Ecological Society award winners will be presented with their prizes in December 2021 at the society's annual conference. The meeting will bring together 1,200 ecologists from around 60 countries to discuss the latest advances in ecological research across the whole discipline.
TALLAHASSEE, Florida  A man who pulled a gun on protesters Saturday evening will not face charges after police say the man was defending himself after being physically attacked.

The evidence confirmed the physical altercation between numerous protesters and that the individual was knocked to the ground and under attack before lawfully defending himself, police say in a news release, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. TPD confirmed that the individual with the gun was lawfully carrying a concealed weapon as a license holder.

The Associated Press reports the protest was in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The Democrat reports the male with the gun was a counter-protester. He reportedly began arguing with the protesters and taking pictures of license plates.

Police say another protester pushed the man from behind and that a fight between the man and several protesters erupted. However, protester Adam Ferguson tells the Democrat that he was the person the man pointed the gun at. He says the man first shoved a female protester, leading another protester to shove him back. The counter-protester threw a punch that hit Fergusons girlfriend, Ferguson tells the Democrat.

A video posted on Twitter shows the encounter between the man and protesters leading up to the fight.

Heres a video of #TrumpViolence in Tallahassee as a psycho enters our protest and hits my GIRLFRIEND - he gets the hands put to him and pulls a gun like he didnt expect it. Arm yourselves. Tallahassee too strong for that. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/D7I6Am8ViT  Skid | #BLM | #FreePalestine (@skidpapi) August 30, 2020

Protesters scrambled after the man pulled the gun. Police officers arrive quickly and the man tosses the gun to the side and is handcuffed.

Police said in a statement that several videos of the incident were reviewed and that it was determined the man with the gun acted in self-defense. The man had a license to carry a weapon.

Tensions are very high, and TPD is calling for protests and actions to remain peaceful, the statement says. Verbal and physical altercations can quickly escalate into tragedy. Everyone must work together to de-escalate conflict.
(Natural News) Mosquitoes spread many diseases, such as dengue and Zika virus. To prevent these deadly diseases, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has allowed a UK-based tech company to conduct a nightmarish plan: The release of genetically modified (GMO) mosquitoes into Florida.

Oxitec created a modified male mosquito with offspring that dies before hatching. Named OX5034, the GMO mosquito was designed as an alternative to insecticides.

GMO mosquitoes to the rescue?

According to the Oxitec website, the company was founded in 2002 as a spinout from the University of Oxford.

Oxitec is allegedly a pioneer in using genetic engineering to control insect pests that spread disease and damage crops. It is a subsidiary of Intrexon Corporation that engineers biology to develop solutions for some of the worlds biggest problems.

Meanwhile, Intrexon Corporation creates biologically based products that improve the quality of life and the health of the planet. Not fishy at all.

Oxitec plans to release 750 million OX5034s into the Florida Keys, something that sounds like the beginning of a doomed science-fiction movie. But the most shocking thing here is the fact that Oxitec received the EPAs approval in May.

With the GMO mosquitoes, female offspring will die in the larval stage. Oxitec claims this will ensure that mosquito populations can die off rapidly. The companys creation will target the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which can carry deadly diseases like dengue, yellow fever and the Zika virus.

Following the EPAs approval, Oxitec released a statement back in May to explain the plan. The modified mosquitoes will be released into Florida over a two-year period, beginning this summer.

By next summer, the GMO mosquitoes will also be released in Harris County, Texas.

The GMO mosquito project has been seeking approval for over 10 years but last June, seven Florida agencies also unanimously approved the project, even giving Oxitec the Experimental Use Permit it needed to proceed with the plan. (Related: More than 750 million GMO mosquitoes to be released over Florida Keys  what could go wrong?)

A government-funded Jurassic Park experiment

Environmental advocacy groups and area residents are appalled at this unusual plan to address mosquito-borne diseases since the GMO mosquitoes can also disrupt nearby ecosystems.

On August 19, Wednesday, Jaydee Hanson, policy director for the International Center for Technology Assessment and Center for Food Safety, expressed these concerns. With all the urgent crises facing our nation and the state of Florida  the COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice, climate change  the administration has used tax dollars and government resources for a Jurassic Park experiment, said Hanson.

He added that no one knows what might happen if the potentially dangerous plan goes wrong, particularly since the EPA unlawfully refused to seriously analyze environmental risks. Without a further review of the risks, the ill-conceived experiment can now proceed.

Ed Russo, president of the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition, explained that the EPAs evasive answers and lack of management skills hint at their unprofessionalism and arrogance which speaks loudly of an unprepared regulatory process.

The GMO mosquitoes were developed after severe outbreaks of mosquito-spread dengue fever in the Keys in 2009 and 2010.

In a bid to control the situation, the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District contacted Oxitec for solutions in 2012. The company then proposed OX513A, a genetically modified male mosquito. But many Floridians objected to the project.

A Change.org petition against the GMO mosquitoes immediately gathered more than 100,000 signatures. The residents referred to OX513A as robo-Frankenstein mosquitoes and superbugs.

To address the residents concerns, Oxitec developed OX5034, a 2.0 version of its original OX513A friendly mosquito that was then approved by the EPA.

In May, Grey Frandsen, Oxitecs CEO, released a statement expressing the companys wish to win the growing war against disease-spreading mosquitoes, which requires a new generation of safe, targeted and sustainable tools for governments and communities alike.

Frandsen added that the company aims to empower governments and communities by giving them ways to effectively and sustainably control these disease-spreading mosquitoes without harmful impact on the environment and without complex, costly operations.

Frandsen concluded that Oxitecs technology has the potential to do so, noting that the EPAs approval will allow the company to eventually make the technology available in the US.

But at what cost to Floridians who will be exposed to potentially dangerous GMO mosquitoes?

How do mosquitoes spread diseases?

Dr. Omar Akbari, an assistant professor of entomology at the Center for Disease Vector Research at the University of California, Riverside, explained that tiny mosquitoes are possibly the most dangerous animals in the world.

Akbari said that mosquitoes are the primary vectors for major human diseases like dengue fever, malaria and yellow fever. These diseases infect hundreds of millions of people around the globe and kill millions every year.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also reported that over 50 percent of the worlds population is at risk from mosquito-borne diseases. But mosquitoes dont spread diseases themselves.

Rather, mosquitoes spread disease-causing agents.

Mosquitoes bite you to drink your blood and feeding lets mosquitoes produce eggs. When feeding, a mosquito pierces your skin like a needle then injects saliva into your skin. This then lets the disease-causing agent, like the Zika virus, enter your body.

Watch:



Sources include:

NYPost.com

Oxitec.com

Futurism.com

Healthline.com
Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

The number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 in the Houston area have improved significantly since July, but the pandemic remains a serious threat here.

The Houston region added 1,957 cases on Saturday, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis, bringing the total to 104,650.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 00:57:11|Editor: huaxia

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PARIS, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Following is the full text of the speech by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the French Institute of International Relations in Paris on Sunday:

Upholding the Trend of Peace and Development of Our World with Unity, Cooperation, Openness and Inclusiveness

Speech by H.E. Wang Yi

State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs of The People's Republic of China

Executive Chairman Thierry de Montbrial,

Distinguished Guests,

Friends,

It is such a pleasure to come back to Europe. In the past six months, the world was swept up in an unexpected coronavirus epidemic. The disease has held up a mirror to a complex international scene where heartwarming acts of partnership and collaboration such as those between China and Europe are juxtaposed with the undertows of blame games, unilateralism and bullying.

Yet, what is even more alarming than the coronavirus is a political virus that is stoking hatred and confrontation. Politicizing and attaching a geographical label to the epidemic, and even stigmatizing a specific country will not solve one's own problems. It will only erode international solidarity and cooperation.

Like Europe, China is one of the oldest and most respected civilizations in the world. As President Xi Jinping said, realizing national rejuvenation has been the greatest dream of the Chinese nation since modern times. Only nations that once achieved greatness could appreciate the meaning of rejuvenation. Only peoples that survived so many trials and tribulations would yearn for rejuvenation.

What China's rejuvenation is about is achieving the prosperity of the country, revitalization of the nation and happiness of the people. It is about bringing the Chinese civilization back to the forefront of human progress and starting a new era of openness and integration with the world.

The assertion that China's rejuvenation is to remake or conquer the world only reveals a lack of knowledge about Chinese history and the Chinese civilization.

Aggression never flows in the veins of the Chinese nation. For a long time in history, China was one of the world's most powerful countries, yet it never sought expansion or global dominance.

Among the traditional tenets of the Chinese civilization are phrases such as the "paramount importance of peace," "seeking harmony without uniformity," "fostering amity with one's neighbors" and "promoting harmony among all nations," to name a few.

Commitment to peace and harmony is deeply rooted in the mindset of the Chinese. It has also been the cultural inspiration behind China's active pursuit of a community with a shared future for mankind.

The Chinese civilization has a proud history stretching uninterrupted for several millennia, a rare achievement among the mega civilizations in the world. Today's China has creatively adapted its ancient civilization to seek new progress. Led by the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Chinese people have forged ahead against all odds, and embarked on a successful path of development leading toward national rejuvenation. It is the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Following this path, China has achieved leapfrog development and seen continued rise of its comprehensive national strength. Once an impoverished country, China has grown into the world's second largest economy.

Once a shortage economy, China has developed into a manufacturing giant, the only one equipped with a complete range of industries.

Once a semi-colonial country subjected to repeated aggression, China has emerged as a major country with a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.

Following this path, we the Chinese people have mastered our own fate and enjoyed a better life. In the past seven decades, more than 850 million Chinese people were lifted out of poverty; average life expectancy more than doubled from 35 to 77 years; nearly 1.4 billion Chinese people have made a historic leap from destitution to subsistence and to a life of moderate prosperity. A report by Boston Consulting Group on citizen welfare found that China jumped 25 spots in the last decade, the most impressive advance among the 152 countries polled globally.

Under the leadership of the CPC, the Chinese people are on course to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects and win a decisive victory against poverty this year. This means that China will eliminate absolute poverty for the first time in its history and meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals on poverty ten years ahead of schedule.

Friends,

China owes its development achievements, first and foremost, to the hard work, wisdom and courage of the Chinese people. It has also benefited from a peaceful and amicable international environment and win-win cooperation with the rest of the world. At the same time, China's development has not only benefited its own people, but also the whole world.

China has all along been a promoter of world peace, injecting positive energy into the evolving international architecture. Soon after the founding of the People's Republic, China adopted an independent foreign policy of peace. We incorporated "to safeguard world peace" into our first constitution, making China the first country in the world to make such a weighty commitment.

Over the past seven decades, China has never provoked a war or conflict, and has never occupied an inch of others' land.

Today, China is the second largest contributor to the UN regular budget and the peacekeeping budget, and has sent more peacekeepers to UN missions than any other permanent member of the Security Council. We are involved in the settlement of all the major international and regional hotspot issues.

China has all along been a defender of the international order, bringing stability to the global governance system. China has joined almost all the universal inter-governmental organizations and acceded to more than 500 international conventions. We have taken an active part in the reform and development of the global governance system. We have resolutely upheld the international system centered around the United Nations, the international order based on international law, and the multilateral trading regime represented by the WTO.

China has all along been a facilitator of globalization, making major contributions to building an open world. Today, China is one of the most open economies in the world. As of 2019, overall tariffs were brought down to less than 7.5 percent, lower than most countries in the world.

We have kept expanding market access. For two years running, China has been among the major economies that have made the biggest improvement in their business environment. We are the number one trading partner for 130-plus countries and regions and one of the most important markets for multinational companies.

In view of the new developments in globalization seven years ago, President Xi Jinping put forward the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for international cooperation. Since then, we have signed cooperation documents with 138 countries. Trade in goods with partner countries has exceeded 7.8 trillion U.S. dollars, and direct investment surpassed 110 billion dollars, providing a strong boost to local employment and social and economic development.

In the first half of this year, China's investment in BRI countries increased by 19.4 percent. China-Europe railway express, dubbed as "steel camel fleets," ran 5,122 cargo trips, up by 36 percent year on year. Bringing hope wherever it goes, the railway express has played an important role in maintaining smooth logistics and stable supplies between China, Europe and other BRI partners under the COVID-19 situation.

China has all along been a contributor to world development, providing sustained driving force for global growth. In the past four decades since reform and opening-up, China has been one of the fastest growing economies in the world, contributing over 30 percent to global growth for the past ten-plus years and over 70 percent to global poverty reduction. In both the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global financial crisis, China weathered the storms with its well-calibrated policies and solid economic fundamentals and served as a major engine driving regional and global economic recovery.

Over the past few months, in the face of the pandemic, China launched a global campaign of emergency humanitarian assistance at a scale unseen in the history of the People's Republic. China has provided timely medical supplies assistance to over 150 countries and international organizations in response to their needs. We have organized thematic video conferences between Chinese health experts and their counterparts in more than 180 countries. We have sent 33 medical teams to 31 countries badly in need.

These telling facts and figures all serve to show that the development path chosen by the Chinese people meets the aspirations of the 1.4 billion Chinese people and conforms with the trend of peace and development of our times. It is a path that serves the interests of not only China but also the entire world. Since it has been proven right, we have every reason to keep following this path.

Friends,

Despite the serious impact of COVID-19, the Chinese economy has stayed strong and demonstrated a robust momentum of recovery, great resilience and enormous potential. China's GDP expanded by 3.2 percent in the second quarter, back into positive territory, making China the first economy to register positive growth. IMF forecasts put China as one of the few countries that will maintain positive growth in 2020.

According to a latest survey, 99.1 percent of foreign companies in China will continue to invest and operate in China, and 89 percent of the surveyed EU businesses said they are not considering moving their industrial chains out of China. China remains one of the top three investment destinations for most European companies. All of these are, in a sense, a vote of confidence in China's development.

Given the evolving global environment, we have set out the goal of fostering a new, dual-cycle development architecture with the domestic cycle as the mainstay and with domestic and international development reinforcing each other. Such a development structure draws from the strengths of China's mega-sized market and the huge potential of domestic demand.

China will further tap into its domestic demand, expand opening-up and share more of its development dividends with the rest of the world. We hope our recovery and development will fuel common recovery and development of the world.

China will stay committed to peaceful development. China is not the former Soviet Union, still less will it or can it be another United States. No matter how developed China becomes, it will never seek hegemony or expansion. What China pursues is a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. We hope to forge broader partnerships and further expand our circle of friendship in the world.

China will stay committed to open development. China will not shut its door to the outside world, but only open it wider. We will further lower tariffs, shorten the negative list for foreign investment, ease market access, and make market rules more transparent and the business environment more attractive. We will upgrade our open economy and pursue openness and cooperation in all directions, at all levels and in all forms to create more opportunities for the world.

China will stay committed to cooperative development. China's development has benefited from cooperation with other countries. We will continue to strengthen coordination and cooperation with other major countries, increase friendship with our neighbors and enhance solidarity and cooperation with other developing countries. We will work closely with all countries to pursue greater security, better development and meet common challenges together.

China will stay committed to win-win development. China is against the zero-sum or winner-takes-all approach of development. We will never go down the beaten path of grabbing others' resources or sacrificing others' interests. We believe that global governance should be based on consultation, cooperation and shared benefits. By following a win-win strategy of opening-up, we will make the pie of cooperation bigger and pursue common development with all countries.

China is committed to inclusive development. We respect the right of other peoples to choose their own development path. We do not seek to export our system or model of development, nor are we interested in ideological confrontation. We will continue to take concrete actions to protect the diversity of civilizations and promote exchanges and mutual learning between development models.

Friends,

The world is undergoing changes unseen in a century, accelerated by the sudden onslaught of COVID-19. Faced with changes and a pandemic unseen in a century, humanity needs to once again make a crucial choice, a choice between progress and regression, between solidarity and division, and between openness and seclusion.

In modern history, the progress of human civilization had been halted several times by radical forces. What we are seeing now is that some are again maneuvering to draw a new Iron Curtain, erect another Berlin Wall, and start a second Cold War.

The China-U.S. relationship is in its most testing time since the establishment of diplomatic relations. It has come to this stage because some hardliners in the U.S. have gone to great lengths to portray China as a major rival. They have resorted to every possible means to suppress China's development. They have also been stoking ideological confrontation internationally, and publicly coercing countries into choosing sides, trying to drag China-U.S. relations into confrontation and conflict, and hijack other countries onto their chariot of major-country rivalry. These acts are threatening to push the world as we know it to the brink of turmoil and division.

The tide of history always moves forward. No attempt to turn it back will find support, nor will it last. At this crossroads in human history, China and Europe should and must keep in mind our responsibilities for mankind's future and the fundamental interests of our people. We must say no to hatred and confrontation. We must stand firm on the right side of history. Together, China and Europe can bring more stability to this complex and fluid world.

First, we need to resolutely safeguard peace and development and oppose global divisions. As a responsible major country, China firmly opposes any schemes to create a new Cold War, and will not allow any force to deny the right of the Chinese people and people around the world to pursue development and a better life. China hopes to join hands with Europe to send a strong message of our times, a message for solidarity and against division, for progress and against regression, for peace and development and against conflict or confrontation.

Second, we need to firmly uphold multilateralism and oppose unilateral acts of bullying. No matter how the international landscape may evolve, China will always stand firmly for multilateralism, and advocate extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits in global governance. China regards the European Union as a major force for a multi-polar world. We are prepared to work with the EU to uphold the effectiveness and authority of the multilateral system, promote fairness and justice and maintain the international order.

Third, we need to further expand mutually beneficial cooperation and oppose seclusion and decoupling. With China deeply interconnected with the world, decoupling from China means decoupling from development opportunities and from the most dynamic market. As two major economies in the world, China and Europe must stay committed to free trade, safeguard the stability of global industrial and supply chains, and play a key role in promoting development and prosperity in the post-COVID-19 world.

Fourth, we need to join hands to tackle global challenges and oppose the beggar-thy-neighbor approach. Humanity has never faced more frequent and unpredictable risks. Climate change, cyber security, terrorism, transnational crimes and other non-traditional security issues pose real threats to the world. Challenges of a global scale, such as COVID-19, could still emerge in the future. China and Europe need to set an example of advancing global governance by jointly strengthening the UN's coordinating role in international affairs. We need to reject the practices of putting one's own country first at the expense of others. We need to jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind.

Friends,

This year marks the 45th anniversary of China-EU diplomatic relations. The development of our relations over the past 45 years tells us that there is no fundamental conflict of interests between China and the EU; our cooperation far outweighs competition, and there are far more areas of common understanding than disagreements. Despite the difference in social systems, China and the EU are meant to be comprehensive strategic partners, not systemic rivals.

Over the 45 years, an important experience we have gained is: China and the EU are entirely able to enhance trust through dialogues on an equal footing, achieve win-win outcomes through mutually beneficial cooperation, properly address differences through constructive communications, and jointly tackle global challenges through stronger coordination.

President Xi Jinping pointed out that China and Europe are two major forces, two big markets and two great civilizations. What we stand for, what we oppose and what we work together on can make a difference for the world.

At this crucial moment of fighting COVID-19 and pursuing post-COVID-19 recovery, China and Europe should strengthen solidarity and cooperation. We should press the "continue button" to resume dialogue and cooperation across the board and act as twin engines of the world economy, to inject strong impetus to international solidarity and cooperation. To that end, I propose that we develop our partnership in the following four areas.

First, we need to build an anti-COVID-19 partnership, and promote cooperation on post-COVID-19 economic recovery. Nothing matters more than containing the virus and saving lives. China and the EU should strengthen cooperation on the development and production of vaccines, medicines and testing kits and support the WHO, Gavi and other international institutions in playing their roles.

Second, we need to enhance our investment partnership, and work for win-win results. China and the EU should take a cooperative approach in the negotiations on the bilateral investment agreement, find a solution to the outstanding issues as early as possible, and conclude a comprehensive, balanced and high-standard agreement within this year. On that basis, the two sides need to conduct a joint feasibility study at an early date to kick-start the FTA process.

China and the EU should also strengthen coordination on macro-economic policies, and conclude the China-EU 2025 Strategic Agenda for Cooperation as early as possible, to provide an institutional framework for all-round dialogue and cooperation.

Third, we need to foster a green and digital partnership, and create new growth areas of China-EU cooperation. We should deepen cooperation in such areas as environmental technology, circular economy, clean energy, and sustainable finance to develop a China-EU green partnership.

We should strengthen cooperation in areas like information and communications technology, artificial intelligence, e-commerce, big data, and cloud computing to forge a China-EU digital partnership, and make joint contributions to global standards and rules in the digital domain.

Fourth, we need to deepen our international partnership, and work closer in multilateral affairs. We should further strengthen dialogue and cooperation on climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development, and work together to tackle global challenges.

We should also jointly uphold the JCPOA, promote political settlement of regional and international hotspot issues, strengthen third-party cooperation with Africa, and contribute more to a safer and more sustainable world. Enditem
Chilean Vice Minister of Trade Rodrigo Yanez Benitez speaks with The Korea Times at the Chilean Embassy in Seoul, Aug. 26. / Korea Times photo by Yi Whan-woo



By Yi Whan-woo



Chilean Vice Minister of Trade Rodrigo Yanez Benitez finds growing business opportunities with Korea on the flipside of the COVID-19 that has stricken the world economy.



For instance, limited face-to-face contacts are driving the world into cyberspace and increasing demand for digital technology  an area in which the leaders of Chile and Korea agreed to bolster cooperation during their 2018 summit.



More consumers worldwide are paying attention to the immune system and turning to superfoods  key Chilean export items for which Korea has not yet opened its market.



These industry and market trends collectively add to a need for speeding up talks on updating the 16-year-old free trade agreement (FTA) between Chile and Korea, following three rounds of negotiations in November 2018 and last year in July and October.



Vice Minister Yanez flew to Seoul last week to discuss all these issues face-to-face with Korean government officials, entrepreneurs and other relevant parties.



"We have had months of online meetings, but face-to-face meetings are also important given that it provides a chance to meet different stakeholders and players," he said during an interview with The Korea Times at the Chilean Embassy in Seoul, Aug. 26.



"Resuming economic activity does not mean putting social distancing on the side. We hope to leverage on trade for economic recovery and we find Korea dependable for that purpose."



Serving his job since July 2019 under the foreign ministry, Yanez is the point man on Chile's trade.



The Korea visit was part of Yanez's first official overseas trip since the coronavirus outbreak. He also visited the United Arab Emirates and Europe.



He views trade as "the driver for the economic recovery" and that Korea, as Chile's fifth-largest trading partner, and Chile, as Korea's first FTA partner, "share almost identical principles in terms of our trade policy."



Among the people he met in Seoul were Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee, Deputy Trade Minister for Multilateral and Legal Affairs Kim Seung-ho and Second Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-ho as well as executives from KT and other leading companies.



The topics they discussed ranged from revision of the 2004 FTA to e-government, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, cybersecurity and climate change  the four areas that President Moon Jae-in and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera reaffirmed as having greater partnership potential in 2019 in accordance with their 2018 summit on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.



In particular, the talks with Minister Yoo dealt with Yoo's bid for next general director of the World Trade Organization (WTO).



Under the agreement reached in 2018 summit, Chile and Korea are working closely on the former's "Electronic Government Program" and "National Policy on Artificial Intelligence."



Chile is also assisting Korea's preparation for the P4G climate summit in 2021.



Bilateral trade volume totaled $6.13 million last year, with Chilean exports reaching $4.43 million.



A top world food producer, Chile's main sales items are wine, fresh grapes, pork, salmon and cherries.



Among them, Yanez said the 16 years of FTA especially helped Chilean wine "have the honor to become first preference for Korean consumers."

The volume of bottled red wine imported from Chile during the January-June period this year is already near the level of the entire year of 2019, reaching $21 million. The volume of Chilean white wine imports during the first six months of this year already surpassed all of last year's, recording $3 million.



The two most favored Chilean wines among Korean consumers are Reserva and Gran Reserva.



"Our wine has continued to develop to satisfy the needs and concerns of Korean consumers," Yanez said. "In this way, new varieties, wine blends, innovation and sustainability have been developed in the production process."

Asked about his favorite, he named cabernet sauvignon varietal, especially the 2017 vintage.



"Also, for some special moments with friends I prefer white wine, such as the chardonnay varietal from the Leyda Valley, Chile," he said.



The vice minister explained that fresh grapes, along with the nation's climate and long-standing vineyard technology, were behind the quality of Chilean premium wines.



In that regard, he noted that Chilean grapes are becoming popular in Korea, with 41,000 tons worth $115 million imported last year.



In relation to the COVID-19 era, Yanez said cranberries, maqui berries and other Chilean native superfoods that are rich in antioxidants can boost the immune system and could be new exports items to Korea.



Due to sanitary regulations and other measures, they are not imported here yet.



"We want to compete in the high-quality food sector and I think we're very well positioned to offer consumer-related products to Korea," he said.



The vice minister said circumstances have "changed profoundly" since the FTA was signed. This made it important for the 2004 agreement to be "modernized" and to facilitate related talks, especially on market, trade facilitation, intellectual property, labor, environment and gender-related issues.



"We consider that it is essential to have the highest standards regulating these aspects of our bilateral trade," he said. "Both our countries now have different interests in each other's markets, and it is important to take this process as an opportunity to boost our bilateral trade by further liberalizing and expanding trade."



Labor, environment and gender equality are categorized as "new generation disciplines" that are not covered in the 2004 FTA.



And updating the FTA will ensure that "trade is conducted in a responsible manner and that it will bring social benefits, job creation, employment, improvement in living standards and integrating people internationally," according to the vice minister.



On Korea's bid to become an associate member of the Pacific Alliance  a trade bloc comprised of Chile, Colombia, Peru and Mexico  Yanez reaffirmed Chile's support.



"Once the negotiation between the Pacific Alliance and Korea begins and shows progress, we can discuss how the results of our bilateral talks may be incorporated into the structure of negotiations," he said.


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Several thousand women marched in the capital of Belarus on Saturday waving flags, flowers and balloons in the latest in a series of anti-government protests that have gripped the country since a disputed presidential election this month.

President Alexander Lukashenko denies opposition accusations that he rigged the Aug. 9 election to prolong his 26-year rule. He says the protesters are funded by the West, and accuses NATO of massing forces on Belarusian frontiers, which the alliance denies.

The women on Saturday staged what they called a march of solidarity, calling on Lukashenko and his government to step down.

"This is our city" and "you better protect us," chanted the crowd, many of them sporting national dress.

Streets along the protest route were cordoned off by police and security troops. Rallies on a smaller scale took place in other cities and towns.

(Writing by Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; Editing by Frances Kerry)
New Delhi, Aug 31 : In the midst of a difficult economic environment caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, India Inc has raised a massive Rs 3.46 lakh crore in the five months between April and August.

An analysis by Antique Stock Broking on fund raising by companies in 2020-21, finds that Reliance Jio raised the lion's share at Rs 1.52 lakh crore, while Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), through its rights issue, raised Rs 53,135 crore.

The fund raising has happened through different routes like stake sale in a private company such as the case of Reliance Jio, initial public offer (IPO)/follow on public offer (FPO), qualified investors placement (QIP), offer for sale (OFS), secondary sale by promoters and private equity and rights and preference issues.

After Reliance Jio, the big chunk of funds raised came from rights and preference issue where also RIL dominated. Of the total Rs 65,442 crore rased, RIL raised Rs 53,135 crore. Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services raised Rs 3,100 crore.

In the preference issue category, Indusind Bank raised Rs 3,288 crore.

Another big chunk of fund raising has come from the QIP route with banks and financial institutions dominating. This route raised Rs 61,955 crore for India Inc.

While ICICI Bank raised Rs 15,000 crore, HDFC Ltd raised Rs 14,000 crore, Axis Bank Rs 10,000 crore, HDFC NCD issue raised Rs 9,000 crore, Kotak Mahindra raised Rs 7,460 crore, and PI Industries Rs 2,400 crore, among others.

The secondary sale route by promoters and private equity has raised Rs 34,652 crore. The big secondary sales by promoters include Bandhan Bank (Rs 10,000 crore), Bharti (Rs 8,433 crore), Kotak Bank (Rs 6,944 crore), HDFC Bank (Rs 1,000 crore), and Ultra Tech Cement (Rs 126 crore).

The big sales by private equity have been in Embassy by PE fund Blackstone to raise Rs 2270 crore and by Carlyle in Metropolis for Rs 760 crore.

Under the OFS route, HAL raised Rs 5,000 crore while HDFC AMC raised Rs 2,835 crore and HDFC Life raised Rs 1,985 crore among others.
Following the directions of the Bombay high court (HC), two Turkmenistan students who were stranded in India owing to the lockdown since February, were able to return to their country on Sunday.

The students, who are studying in Pune, had approached the HC, as they were kept in a shelter home at Mumbais Kandivli area after being rescued from a hotel at Andheri in a raid against human trafficking. While the magistrate had allowed the students to go back to their home country in February, their departure was delayed owing to incomplete documentation and non-availability of flights due to the lockdown. After the students informed the court that there was a flight available for them, the court directed the authorities to expedite the procedure and allow them to return home.

A single bench of justice CV Bhadang, while hearing the petition filed by the two foreign students, was informed by advocate Sujit Pathak that the women came to India to pursue the Bachelor of Arts course. While one of them enrolled in a Pune college in 2018, the other joined last year. The duo knew each other and resided in a rented room.

In January, they received a call from a mutual friend who invited them to Mumbai. The two students met the friend in a hotel, but soon thereafter, the social service branch of Mumbai Police raided the hotel and rescued them both, along with an Indian woman. It was only when they were produced before the magistrate court did the authorities realise that the caller had tried to trap them into a prostitution racket.

Thereafter the custody of the two students was handed over to two non-governmental organsations  Save the Child India and Rescue Foundation  which work to rehabilitate women rescued from prostitution rackets. The duo were kept in a shelter home at Kandivli. On February 10, after perusing the inquiry reports by the officers concerned, the magistrate passed an order allowing the repatriation of the two students to their home country. The students, however, challenged the order as they wanted to complete their education, but the order cast aspersions on their antecedents and restrained them from returning.

After their appeal was rejected later the same month, the students decided to return to their country and booked tickets. However, as the exit formalities were not completed, they could not board the flight. Though one of their friends in Pune sought their custody, it was not permitted and hence the students had to continue staying in the shelter home.

Pathak informed the court that due to the lockdown, the students were able to travel only in July, but their flight was cancelled. The stigma they faced and their stay at the shelter home was causing the students mental agony and hence, Pathak sought their repatriation at the earliest, as well as setting aside of the February 10 order.

On August 28, after the court was informed that a flight was available for the students, the judge directed the authorities to ensure that their exit procedure from India was expedited.

According to Pathak the students boarded a flight on the night of August 30 and had managed to leave after spending more than 200 days in the shelter home for no fault of theirs.
Uddalok Bhattacharya sums up Todays policy is yesterdays thinking: K P Krishnan takes you through a journey of economic reforms. Indias improvement on the index of doing business does not mean much. Debashis Basu tells you why There is a belief that credit growth can push economic growth. Can it? Shouldnt this be the other way round -- industry asks for money from banks when it wants to invest, seeing the growing demand? Tamal ...

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PALOS HEIGHTS, IL -- Chicago Christian High School is calling a remote learning day for students for Monday, Aug. 31, after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19. Parents received a text Sunday informing them of the development.

According to the text message, on Thursday evening, the high school learn3ed that a staff member had been in close contact outside the school community who had tested positive for COVID-19. A test was arranged for the staff member. School officials found out late Saturday evening that the test came back positive.

The staff member is in quarantine. The school is taking steps to clean the affected area and waiting for further guidance from the Cook County Department of Public Health. Students returned to school on Aug. 24.

Chicago Christian High School, 12100 S. Oak Park Ave., Palos Heights, is one of three campuses maintained by Southwest Chicago Christian School Association, with campuses for grades Pre-K in Tinley Park, and an elementary school for grades PreK-8 in Oak Lawn. The school system is rooted in the Reformed Christian faith.

School officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

This article originally appeared on the Palos Patch
Hyderabad: Among the more onerous duties performed by the Hyderabad police since the coronavirus troubles began is cracking the case of five cats kidnapped from the Gundlapochampally area and abandoned at a rivulet in Medchal a short while later.

The kidnappers allegedly were professional cat catchers who were paid to do this by a residential welfare society who for some completely crazy reason think cats are not worth keeping while dogs are.

Police were brought into the picture by the People For Animals and a rap under Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act has been slapped on the culprits, who include some residential welfare association members who ordered the contract kidnapping.

Dattatreya Joshi of the Hyderabad chapter of People For Animals (PFA) said the city has been witnessing a lot of pet abandonment cases under the cover of the coronavirus pandemic. Under Section 11 (i) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, abandoning an animal, even a dog, and leaving it in a situation that it suffers the pangs of starvation or thirst, is a punishable offence.

In the case of the cat kidnappings in Gundlapochampally it was the PFA that blew the whistle and swung the glare of the law upon a crime that has grown rampant since the pandemic gripped the city.

Police detectives interrogated residents in the neighbourhood and zeroed in on three professional cat catchers, led by one Mr Ashok, who for a fee carry out contract cat felonies at the behest of gated communities.

Police caught the contract cat kidnappers and booked a case against them at the Petbasheerabad police station on August 23. However, the culprits pleaded ignorance of the law and vowed to restore the cats to their rightful place in the gated community. In the interest of the cats, the police allowed them to come good on their promise.

However, a week later on August 29, upon verifying CCTV footage at the said gated community, police found that the cats brought back and released in the compound were not the same ones as were kidnapped. They were of an entirely different colour.

Narrating the case, Dattatreya Joshi of PFA said, "So in a span of a week the culprits committed two crimes (against cats) -- one, a kidnapping of these cats, and second, a kidnapping of those cats. We have learnt that the accused have been selling kidnapped cats to cat eaters. If found guilty the accused can be imprisoned for three months and penalised under Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960."

However, the fine is just Rs 50, he added.

Joshi said the Gundlapochampally case is just a tip of the iceberg. Cat kidnappings and abandonments have increased during the coronavirus lockdown period while Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has been distracted from its duty to cats.

Attempts to contact civic authorities on this issue proved futile as none of them were available.
The acquisition of a new batch [of Su-30SM jets] is planned, he told RFE/RLs Armenian service. Negotiations are underway at the moment.

Tonoyan, who most recently visited Moscow last week, gave no details of the negotiations.

In a significant boost to its small Air Force, Armenia has already purchased four such multirole jets at an undisclosed price. They were delivered to an airbase in Gyumri in December. Tonoyan said earlier in 2019 that Yerevan plans to acquire eight more Su-30SMs in the coming years.

Su-30SM is a modernized version of a heavy fighter jet developed by Russias Sukhoi company in the late 1980s. The Russian military first commissioned it in 2012.

Before receiving the first four Su-30SMs the Armenian Air Force largely consisted of 15 or so Su-25 aircraft designed for close air support and ground attack missions. The Armenian Defense Ministry contracted on August 24 a Russian defense company, United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), to modernize some of these aging jets.

Tonoyan revealed on Saturday that UAC will repair and upgrade four of them in Russia. He stressed the importance of that deal, saying that the Armenian military had sought it for years.

The deal was signed in Moscow in Tonoyans presence. While in the Russian capital, the latter also attended the opening ceremony of the International Army Games and met with Russias Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Tonoyan praised the current state of Russian-Armenian military cooperation and, in particular, defense contracts signed by Moscow and Yerevan in the last several years.

He also said: In the area of defense industry there have been quite interesting developments. I dont want to go into details now, but I am buoyed by the involvement of private companies in the creation of [Russian-Armenian] joint ventures in Armenia.

One such development is the production of advanced models of Kalashnikov assault rifles which was launched by the Armenian company Neitron in July. Russias Kalashnikov Concern has granted Neitron a 10-year license to assemble up to 50,000 AK-103 rifles annually.

Russia has long been the principal source of military hardware supplied to the Armenian army. Membership in Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) allows Armenia to acquire Russian weapons at knockdown prices and even for free.
According to the report, messages written by Das showed her praising Narendra Modi as the strongman who ended the Congress hold in India

Facebook's policy director for India and South and Central Asia, Ankhi Das, posted messages of her support for BJP for several years on an internal group of the companys employees, detailing efforts to help the party win the 2014 national election, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

According to the report, Das, just a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi swept the 2014 general election to victory had written: We lit a fire to his social media campaign and the rest is of course history.

This message, along with several othersposted between 2012 and 2014was reported by WSJ in its report published on 30 August.

Other messages by Das showed her praising Modi as the strongman who ended the Congress hold in India. Before the 2014 elections, she wrote that Facebook had been lobbying the BJP for months to include the companys top priorities in the partys campaign. Now they just need to go and win the elections, she wrote.

The posts were made in a Facebook group designed for employees in India, but it was open to a global audience, according to Hindustan Times.

According to The Wire, Das' Facebook colleague, Katie Harbath  a Republican and Facebooks top global elections official  had written that Das characterised Modi as the George W Bush of India.

Further, the Wall Street Journal report states, "When a fellow staffer noted in response to one of her internal posts that the BJPs primary opponent, the Indian National Congress, had a larger following on Facebook than Mr. Modis individual page, Ms. Das responded: Dont diminish him by comparing him with INC. Ah welllet my bias not show."

Taking note of the report, Indian National Congress on Monday launched a scathing attack on Facebook for interfering with India's electoral democracy.

The party has demanded that a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation should be launched on the matter immediately.

The Congress has also demanded a criminal investigation into the affairs of Facebook in India and the people involved.

"The article reveals how despite questions raised by other employees in Facebook India and the companys claims of neutrality, Das and her leadership team were arrogant and blatant in their biases," the party said in a press release.

Quoting the WSJ, the Congress has said that Facebook and WhatsApps role in subverting Indias democracy is now "unquestionable and beyond doubt." The companies' complicity in propagating hate speech and fake news to favour the BJP in elections is confirmed, alleged the Opposition party.

Aside from the parliamentary inquiry and criminal investigation, Congress has also demanded three additional measures that should be taken against Facebook. These are:

All pending approvals and licenses for Facebook & WhatsApp to be put on hold until the investigations are completed.

Suspension of Facebook Indias leadership team with immediate effect until the conclusion of the investigations.

An inquiry by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology into the activities of all Heads of Public Policy teams of foreign technology companies operating in India and establish a code of conduct.

Earlier, party leader Shashi Tharoor had said that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology "would certainly wish to hear" from Facebook about the report.

Das has been at the centre of a political storm after WSJs previous report revealed she had opposed applying hate-speech rules to some Hindu nationalist individuals and groups, as well as posts by a BJP politician.
Mother Nature Disagrees: Confederate Statue Brought Down By Hurricane Laura

Last Thursday night, a Category 4 storm Hurricane Laura tore through the Gulf Coast. Many think this disastrous storm is the result of the numerous refineries and chemical plants present in the region.

The hurricane didnt spare the Lake Charles region of Louisiana. Alongside a chemical fire that erupted on the outskirts of the city, the fate of a Confederate monument was decided by the storm. The South's Defenders monument, which stood on the grounds of a courthouse in Lake Charles, collapsed during Hurricane Laura.

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The Confederate statue was made in 1915 during the Jim Crow era as part of a wave of confederate monuments meant to intimidate Black people. This past summer, many citizens of Lake Charles have been calling for the statue to be moved to a museum to signify its place in the past. This is a view shared by Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter.

"When we think about this Confederate monument, it literally symbolizes white supremacy and enslaved African Americans," Cary Chavis, who started a petition to remove the statue, told a local TV station in June. "So, we have this monument out in front of our courthouse, which is to be a place where people can see justice and fairness and we have a monument that represents slavery in front of it, and that's not something we should ever support."

But on Aug. 13, the Parish Police Jury voted to keep the statue, saying that, of the 945 written responses from the public, 878 were against relocation. Then, on Aug. 27, Hurricane Laura reversed that decision. The statue was toppled into pieces on the ground during the disastrous hurricane.

This news spread like wildfire on social media platforms with many pointing out the irony of the incident.

While this is definitely an ironic and laughable event, we hope that the good people of Louisiana are staying safe during this catastrophic storm. It definitely seems that nature has a way of saying somethings should not stand forever.

header image courtesy of NASA via unsplash

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Georgia is a journalism student at The New School in Manhattan who loves writing, watching cartoons and intersectional feminism. She is an avid napper and cat lover. Because she is behind on the times, follow her only recently made twitter @georgiagrdodd.
AKAD RECORDS is a music discovery company, dedicated to discovering, supporting, and promoting visionary African artists from around the globe.

Its pioneer act, Lil Dee has been signed to the record label while the new company also aims to sign one of the hottest producers around.

CEO of the company, Akinwale Ademokoya offers a sneak peek into what this new record label has to offer; with the release of the hot new single by its artiste Lil Dee titled OWO featuring Jaywon.

As a Management Company, Akad Records will make its mark in West, East, and South Africa through their proposed offices in Nairobi, Kenya, and the companys launching is a boost for the music industry in Africa.

The Group Chief Executive of Akad Records, Akinwale Ademokoya, said this announcement was a watershed in the history of music in Africa. With the launch of AKAD RECORDS, we are now positioned as a uniquely Pan-African label, he said. We will coordinate releases to synchronize in unison from Lagos to Lesotho and from Nairobi to Niamey.

Adding that he was very excited about the opportunities of a borderless Africa.

I am excited to make a movement that is borderless and that exports Africas best talents to the world, Akinwale said. The world is about to experience a new superpower.

Expressing his excitement about the company, Akinwale also said this is a long time dream come through This is something I have been excited about for a long time, he said. We are joining forces with some international players in the industry who are already doing it big and we will keep pushing to make beautiful music.

At Akad Records, we believe in dreams, we believe in success, we believe in greatness, together [WE OWN THE CITY]

Akad Record is ready to begin a new journey by delivering the best of Africa to the rest of the world.
When Prime Minister Scott Morrison's national cabinet first met in mid-March, all state and territory leaders were dealing with very similar numbers of daily positive COVID-19 cases. While border restrictions have always been a bone of contention, the cabinet was able to come to a collective agreement on many policy fronts more often than not. The pandemic delivered political unison across the aisle rarely seen in this country.

The second surge of positive COVID-19 cases in Victoria has put enormous strain on that unison. As most Australians were having restrictions lifted, Melburnians in particular were confronted with ever tougher lockdown measures. It brought Australia's second largest city to a grinding halt, with NAB predicting the state's economy could contract by as much as 9.2 per cent, which equates to a $41 billion hit.

As federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's growing frustration has made evident, that is going to have an enormous impact on the bottom line for all Australians.

Amid growing pressure from Canberra and the business community, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has finally committed to offering a road map that will lay the ground rules for lifting the state out of strict lockdown. He intends to do that on Sunday. So when he sets the pathway to reopening the Victorian economy, he is also offering the whole nation a glimpse of the possibilities ahead.

As Victoria's new case numbers continue to fall, its return into line with the rest of Australia should provide the rationale for serious discussions towards reopening many of the borders. It should also re-energise talks with New Zealand for implementing a trans-Tasman travel bubble. Such a shift would offer much-needed hope that domestic and a limited amount of international tourism could return. It would also provide enormous relief to the many people who rely on crossing borders for a living or live nearby.
By Edward McAllister

DAKAR (Reuters) - When Michelle Alfaro left her office at the United Nations in Geneva on March 13, her job finding homes for the world's most vulnerable refugees was under control.

Four days later, the new coronavirus had knocked it into chaos. Governments across the world announced border closures, lockdowns and flight cancellations. The United Nations was forced to suspend the programme.

"Everything collapsed that week," said Alfaro, who manages resettlements for the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR.

Millions of people have been thrown into limbo by the new coronavirus. Those Alfaro works with had been promised escape from war, violence, conflict or persecution. After submitting to a review process that can take years, and winning a chance to make new lives in countries such as the United States and Canada, thousands suddenly learned - often by phone - their flights would no longer take off.

Ubah Mohamed was one of them. A 23-year-old Somalian, she ran away from her husband after he tried to force her to join the Islamist group al Shabaab, militants who would later kill her father. She was due to fly to the United Kingdom on March 24.

"I didn't know where I was going," she said of her five-year ordeal as a refugee. "I was just going. I had no control."

In the first half of 2020, refugee resettlements fell 69% from 2019 levels to just over 10,000, U.N. data show. The programme resumed in June, but at a much slower pace.

The pandemic has hit as attitudes to immigrants have been hardening, loosening another thread in increasingly frayed international efforts to maintain global solidarity.

Nationalism, fear of infection, economic worries and ageing voters' resistance to change are undermining a long-established post-war consensus that people at risk of persecution, abuse or violence deserve to be sheltered.

The British government this month asked the armed forces to help deal with a rise in the number of boats carrying migrants from France. In Greece, the government has rebuffed thousands of migrants from Turkey this year and stiffened patrols to stop refugees arriving by boat. The European Union has pumped billions of dollars into African states in an attempt to stem the flow of migrants to its southern shores.

Story continues

The United States rehouses the largest share of refugees in the programme, which in recent years has accounted for the majority of U.S. refugee intake. Arrivals under the programme have more than halved under President Donald Trump, who came to power in 2017 on an anti-immigration platform and is running for re-election promising more of the same. America accepted one-third of the refugees resettled by the United Nations last year, but is cutting its intake.

The United States stopped taking refugees from March 19 until July 29 because of travel restrictions, a State Department spokesperson told Reuters. As a result, the country resettled fewer than 3,000 people under the U.N. programme in the first half of 2020, compared with over 21,000 during the whole of last year, the data show.

Even before COVID-19, the United Nations says it struggled to raise funds and find new homes for the 1.4 million people it estimates need immediate help.

"It has been an especially difficult year for refugees," said Alfaro, the resettlement officer. "Every single resettlement country we have has been affected - no one is left unscathed."

NO CONTROL

Mohamed, the 23-year-old Somalian, is stranded 2,000 miles south of Geneva in a refugee camp on a sandy plain outside Niger's capital Niamey. The mother of two, who shelters in a small tent-like structure in the U.N.'s Hamdallaye camp, was told by UNHCR officials just days before leaving that her flight was off.

"I was so excited to go," she said in a phone interview with Reuters. "I live in a tent. If I can live in a home in a safe place, I will be satisfied."

Her journey started in 2015, on a bus to the coastal city of Bosaso, after her father told her the safest thing she could do would be to get away from her husband and leave her children behind.

A man offered her a place on a boat across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen - a common route for Somalians seeking refuge from conflict over the decades. By accepting, she unwittingly entered a network of migrant smugglers that would rob, rape and sell her from Yemen to Sudan to Libya.

Just days into her journey, she said she called her father to let him know where she was. Her step-mother answered the phone and told her the militants had killed him for helping her escape.

In southern Libya, a smuggler raped her repeatedly. She miscarried his child in the spring of 2016. He discarded her and she continued north.

Later that year, at a halfway house for migrants in northern Libya, another smuggler beat her when she told him she did not have enough money for her travel.

Crossing the Sahara Desert from Sudan to Libya in an open-back pick-up truck in 2016, sipping water that tasted of petrol, her mind was flooded with thoughts of her children. She thinks they are with family.

"I don't know where they are," she said. "I am a mother, and I cannot be with them. All I can do is cry."

She married a fellow Somalian refugee in northern Libya in 2017. The smugglers' network funneled them towards Europe. They were separated just before she boarded an overcrowded dinghy which broke down and drifted on the Mediterranean for days.

There, the Libyan Coast Guard picked her up and handed her over to the U.N. refugee agency and she was reunited with her husband at a migrant detention centre a few days later. The U.N. flew them from Tripoli to Niamey and moved them into the camp in March 2019, where the resettlement assessment began.

"I wanted to forget everything I had been through," she said.

She said she has not received any information about when she will leave for the United Kingdom. It has suspended resettlements indefinitely because of flight restrictions and limits to its own visa application services during the pandemic, a Home Office spokeswoman told Reuters. It wants to be sure that resuming arrivals does not pose a public health risk.

"We are not in a position to resume arrivals in the immediate short term," she said.

The United Nations said it does not comment on specific cases.

CAJOLING COUNTRIES

Alfaro's employer, UNHCR, has been resettling refugees since the 1950s when it found new homes for 170,000 who escaped the Hungarian Revolution. Over the past 25 years, it says it has helped one million people out of the world's trouble spots including Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Myanmar. Dozens of countries receive refugees under the programme.

The UNHCR identifies those most in need through interviews and refers them to a receiving country, which conducts its own assessments. Another U.N. agency, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), makes the travel arrangements.

When COVID-19 hit, receiving countries evacuated embassy staff, so U.N. officials could no longer reach them to help organise departures or process new referrals. Several countries told the United Nations they were suspending all or part of their refugee intake.

Local officials, confined by lockdowns, have been unavailable to stamp exit visas. House-bound U.N. field staff can't interview applicants. Officials from receiving countries have been unable to reach applicants for face-to-face interviews because of travel restrictions.

In March, Alfaro's days disappeared on long conference calls and briefings as she tried to persuade governments to keep their borders open to emergency cases, and to accept online interviews for new referrals.

A few hundred critical cases were resettled during the suspension, Alfaro said; some countries have agreed to video interviews. But others, including the United States, still require them to be conducted in person. The United States has taken in refugees at a far slower pace than pre-COVID levels, the State Department spokesperson said: There are still "few or no flights available" from many of the countries who send them.

Staff at the IOM have been scouring airline booking systems for ways to get emergency cases moving, even during the suspension. Flights would appear and then be cancelled.

In all, the agency cancelled 11,000 plane tickets because of the pandemic, said Rana Jaber, its head of resettlements, who worked with refugees in Iraq from 2015 to 2017.

"I felt like I was in Iraq again," she said. "My lord, my brains were fried."

SPACES LOST

Because of the slowdown in interviews, global referrals dropped from 40,000 to 20,000 in the first half of the year, the U.N. data show. This means a backlog of tens of thousands of people is building, and there's a risk these places will be lost indefinitely.

Now refugees are falling victim to COVID-19. In Iraq, Alfaro said the UNHCR is looking after a "significant number" of refugees with urgent medical needs who are unable to be resettled because of travel restrictions. At least two people have died of COVID-19 while awaiting the move.

In Uganda, COVID-19 has spread through slums of the capital Kampala where many who await resettlement are housed in crowded accommodations with no running water or electricity, aid workers said.

The U.N. has resettled about 2,100 refugees since resuming flights - way below the average pace of previous years, said the IOM's Jaber. Cancellations continue.

"Some are opening up, but not everyone is back online - maybe not until next year," said Alfaro. "We don't know how many spaces we're going to lose."

There have been bright spots. An Eritrean couple with a young baby were the first refugees to be resettled to Europe since flights were stopped in March, UNHCR said on Twitter on Aug. 14.

Just hours after a vast explosion devastated much of Lebanon's capital Beirut on Aug. 4, IOM staff were back at work. The ancient city holds hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled Syria's civil war.

That night, IOM got 30 of them on a flight out, said IOM's Jaber. In total, 61 were relocated that week.

"There are challenges still," she said. "We are back, it is slower, (but) it is working."

(Reporting By Edward McAllister; Edited by Sara Ledwith)
Myriam Borzee/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR and EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News



(NEW YORK) -- A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 847,000 people worldwide.



Over 25.2 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The criteria for diagnosis -- through clinical means or a lab test -- has varied from country-to-country. Still, the actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some national governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their outbreaks.



Since the first cases were detected in China in December, the virus has rapidly spread to every continent except Antarctica.



The United States is the worst-affected country, with more than 6 million diagnosed cases and at least 183,221 deaths. California has the most coronavirus cases in the U.S., with more than 706,000 people diagnosed. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 629,000 cases and over 621,000 cases respectively.



Nearly 170 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 are being tracked by the World Health Organization, six of which are in crucial phase three trials.



Here's how the news is developing today. All times Eastern:



Aug 31, 3:54 pm

Delta, American join United in permanently eliminating change fees



Delta Airlines and American Airlines are joining United in eliminating change fees -- a practice established during the pandemic.



Delta's no change fee policy is effective immediately. It applies to tickets within the U.S. as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The policy doesn't apply to basic economy tickets, Delta said.



American Airlines said change fees are eliminated for all U.S. flights as well as "short-haul international" flights. The policy applies to premium cabin fares and "most Main Cabin fares," the airline said.



On Sunday, United said it was immediately dropping change fees on all standard economy and premium cabin tickets for U.S. travel.



Aug 31, 2:44 pm

New York sees lowest single-day death toll so far



In New York -- which was the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic in March and April -- one person was reported dead from the coronavirus on Sunday, the state's lowest daily death toll so far.



"One New Yorker passed away and that New Yorker's family is in our thoughts and prayers, but we should pause a moment on that fact. There was a time when we were going through this crisis when we literally had hundreds of people dying every day," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement on Monday. "Together we did flatten the curve and we saved lives."



Hospitalizations and ICU patients also reached record lows. New York's number of COVID-19 hospitalizations has fallen to 418 -- the lowest since March 16 -- and the state's number of ICU patients has dropped to 109, the lowest since March 15, Cuomo said Monday.



Of those tested across the state on Sunday, less than 1% were positive, the governor said.



New York has the fourth-highest number of coronavirus cases in the U.S., with more than 434,000 people diagnosed, according to the state.



At least 25,328 people in New York have died.



Aug 31, 2:28 pm

California coronavirus cases climb over 700,000



The number of people in California diagnosed with the coronavirus climbed over 700,000 on Monday, according to data from the state's Department of Health.



With at least 704,085 confirmed cases, California has more coronavirus cases than any other state in the U.S.



Of those tested across the state in the last two weeks, 5.3% were positive for the virus, according to the state.



California's death toll stands at 12,933.



ABC News' Matt Fuhrman contributed to this report.



Aug 31, 2:20 pm

USDA extends school meal waivers through Dec. 31



The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has extended waivers allowing the distribution of meals to students outside of physical schools due to the pandemic through Dec. 31. This follows calls from school officials and anti-hunger groups who were concerned some students would go hungry if they continued with virtual-only learning.



But the USDA has not extended the waivers passed Dec. 31, saying Congress has not appropriated money to fund the additional cost to the programs.



"While there have been some well-meaning people asking USDA to fund this through the entire 2020-2021 school year, we are obligated to not spend more than is appropriated by Congress," the USDA said in a press release.



Congress also has not extended the Pandemic EBT program which gave families monetary benefits to cover the cost of meals children would have eaten at school, in some cases directly loaded onto their SNAP cards. The program has been lauded as the most sustainable way to help families struggling financially because they can buy food for themselves and spend at retailers in their area.



ABC News' Stephanie Ebbs contributed to this report.

Aug 31, 1:33 pm

NJ to reopen indoor dining with limited seating



Restaurants across New Jersey can start opening for indoor dining this Friday, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Monday.



Restaurants will be limited to 25% capacity and must incorporate social distancing between tables, he said.



"Reopening responsibly will help us restore one of our states key industries while continuing to make progress against" the virus, Murphy tweeted.



Staff must wear masks at all times and diners must wear masks while not in their seats, Murphy said at a Monday news conference. Parties will be capped at eight.



Windows must be open for air flow and air conditioning units must be turned on to allow the maximum outdoor air to flow into dining areas, the governor added.



Movie theaters and indoor performance venues can also reopen on Friday, the governor announced. Theaters and venues will be capped at 25% capacity or 150 patrons -- whichever number is smaller, he said.



New Jersey ranks No. 8 in the country for COVID-19 cases, with over 191,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. Out of those tested across New Jersey on Thursday, 1.41% were positive, Murphy said Monday.

Aug 31, 10:54 am

India sees its 2nd-highest daily case increase



India's health ministry reported 78,512 new coronavirus cases on Monday, just shy of Sunday's record high of 78,761 new cases.



Indian health authorities reported 971 new fatalities on Monday, bringing the nationwide death toll to 64,469.



With over 193,000 active cases, Maharashtra is India's hardest-hit state.



ABC News' Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.

Aug 31, 9:26 am

NJ to reopen indoor dining with limited seating



Restaurants across New Jersey can start opening for indoor dining this Friday, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Monday.



Restaurants will be limited to 25% capacity and must incorporate social distancing between tables, he said.



"Reopening responsibly will help us restore one of our states key industries while continuing to make progress against" the virus, Murphy tweeted.



New Jersey ranks No. 8 in the country for COVID-19 cases, with over 191,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. As of Sunday, the rate of transmission was at .87, according to state data.

Aug 31, 7:50 am

Hungary to shut its borders amid rising cases



Hungary will shut its border to non-residents on Tuesday in an effort to curb the rising number of COVID-19 cases, the countrys government announced Friday.



Meanwhile, Hungarian citizens returning home from abroad will be required to either self-quarantine for 14 days or test negative for COVID-19 twice, within 48 hours apart.



The move comes after Hungary identified 292 new cases on Sunday, the largest day-to-day increase the landlocked European nation has seen so far.



Overall, Hungary has reported at least 6,139 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 with 615 deaths, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Aug 31, 7:09 am

US reports over 35,000 new cases



There were 35,343 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Sunday, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.



Sundays tally is far below the country's record set on July 16, when 77,255 new cases were identified in a 24-hour reporting period.



An additional 429 coronavirus-related deaths were also recorded Sunday. The latest daily death toll is well under the record 2,666 new fatalities that were reported on April 17.



A total of 5,997,163 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 183,068 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.



By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country's cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up and crossing 70,000 for the first time in mid-July.



However, the numbers of new COVID-19 cases and new deaths in the United States have both decreased by substantial amounts in week-over-week comparisons, according to an internal memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency obtained by ABC News last week.

Aug 31, 6:36 am

94% of COVID-19 deaths in US had underlying conditions, CDC says



The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released information showing how many people who died from COVID-19 as of last week had underlying health conditions and contributing causes.



For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned, the CDC stated on its website, alongside the data. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or cases per death.



According to the CDC, some of the most common underlying conditions and contributing causes linked with COVID-19 deaths were influenza and pneumonia; adult respiratory distress syndrome, respiratory failure; hypertensive disease; cardiac arrest; heart failure; sepsis; diabetes; vascular and unspecified dementia; renal failure; and intentional and unintentional injury, poisoning and other adverse events.

Aug 31, 5:16 am

Global case count surpasses 25 million



The worldwide number of diagnosed cases of COVID-19 is now at 25,236,271, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.



At least 846,574 people around the globe have died from the disease.



The top five countries with the highest national tallies of cases are the United States, Brazil, India, Russia and Peru, respectively.



The United States alone accounts for more than 23% of the worlds diagnosed cases.



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Labour has called for GCSE and A-level exams to be delayed by up to two months next summer in order to give students a chance to catch up on education missed because of the coronavirus.

The shadow education secretary, Kate Green, said that the annual series of exams for year 11 and year 13 pupils in England should be pushed back from May to June or July to allow time for extra learning.

And she said that the announcement on a new timetable should come quickly to avoid a repeat of the chaotic last-minute decision-making around this years A-level and GCSE results and the arrangements for this weeks return to classrooms.

In a letter to Ofqual in June, the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, confirmed that his intention was for exams to go ahead in 2021, and he asked the regulator to draw up plans for this to happen fairly and without reducing academic rigour.

He acknowledged that some students may not have time to cover all elements of their courses to the usual depth, but he said that the content of courses should not be cut to make up for this.

Many students will also have experienced distress and hardship, he said, adding: At this point we cannot have a complete picture of the scale of the disruption or what the effects will be on education provision over the coming academic year.

But Ofquals response earlier this month set out only very limited changes, including a wider range of topics in English literature papers and reductions in the number of days of fieldwork required in some subjects. It rejected the call in a petition of more than 145,000 people for the content of exam courses to be reduced in order to give children a better chance of completing the work.

The regulator postponed any decision on the timing of the exams, pending further consultations, saying: While there was general support for a delay to the exams, to allow more time for teaching, respondents were less positive about this if it meant a potential delay to results.

Ms Green said that students preparing for exams in 2021 after having lost up to six months of face-to-face teaching time will have a mountain to climb unless the government steps in.

Ministers had warning after warning about problems with this years exam results, but allowed it to descend into a fiasco, said the shadow education secretary.

This is too important for Boris Johnson to leave until the last minute. Pupils heading back to school need clarity and certainty about the year ahead.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 14 January 2022 Ecologist Emma Smart (left) and retired GP Dr Diana Warner outside HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, following their release from the prison where Emma undertook a 26-day hunger strike during her incarceration. Ms Smart was sentenced in November, along with other members of Insulate Britain, to serve four months for breaking a High Court injunction by taking part in a blockade at junction 25 of the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour on 8 October last year PA UK news in pictures 13 January 2022 A TV presenter holds a copy of a newspaper outside 10 Downing Streetafter the Prime Minister apologised for attending a gathering of colleagues in the Number Ten garden in May 2020, while the UK was in strict lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic Getty UK news in pictures 12 January 2022 Fitness guru Derrick Evans after receiving an MBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA 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 26 November 2021 A killer whale (orca in the fjord of Skjervoy, northern Norway AFP/Getty

Labour is also calling on the government to review the existing support arrangements for post-16 students urgently, so that pupils preparing to sit their A-levels are not left without the support they need.

Ofquals business as usual approach to next years exams was greeted with dismay by teaching unions when it was announced earlier this month, with the National Education Union saying the government had its head in the sand over the degree to which students have lost out on learning because of Covid-19.

Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the NAHT union for headteachers, said then that schools and students were being left in the unenviable position that they will be expected to cover as much content as possible in a reduced amount of time, and described the situation as unfair on students and unfair on schools and colleges.

The House of Commons Education Committee gave its backing to a delay to exams in a report in July.

The cross-party committee said: We support a short delay for exams in summer 2021 as preferable to modifications to exam content.

Any delay must be a matter of weeks, not months. Ofqual must publish details of the 2021 exam series as soon as possible, and before the end of the summer term.

Shadow education secretary Kate Green (PA)

Responding to Labours call, a Department for Education spokesperson said: Getting all children back into their classrooms full-time in September is a national priority as they are the best place for their education, development and wellbeing.

We recognise that students due to take exams next summer will have experienced disruption to their education, which is why we prioritised bringing year 10 and year 12 pupils back to school last term.

Exams will go ahead next year, and we have been working closely with the sector, Ofqual and exam boards to consider our approach.
The searches are the latest in a series of systemic crimes by occupation authorities persecuting the dissenting Crimean Tatars, the president stressed.

The President's Representative Office for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea has condemned yet another illegal raid of Crimean Tatars' homes in the temporarily occupied Crimea.

That's according to a statement published via Facebook on Monday.

The Office says it documents each such action by occupation administration who persecute Ukrainian citizens with a public stance. Such reports about politically motivated persecution are added to the list of crimes Russia has committed in the occupied Crimea.

Read alsoLeak reported at chemical plant in occupied Crimea's north"Morning searches in homes of young Crimean Tatars' families are yet another crime of the occupation authorities. In the civilized world, little children shouldn't wake up in the morning from a knock on the door by the Russian Federal Security Service and a heap of armed people just because their parents are civic journalists and activists. Russia is trying to portray as extremists anyone that the regime finds inconvenient. Solidarity is what annoys them the most. The searches are the latest in a series of systemic crimes of persecution of representatives of the dissenting Crimean Tatars," write Tamila Tasheva, President's Deputy Envoy for the ARC.

Russia is trying to portray as extremists anyone that the regime finds inconvenient

At the same time, Ukraine's Prosecutor's Office for Crimea has launched a probe into the illegal searches.

Crimea raids: background
Kevin Mayer had what could arguably be described as the best job in America when 2020 began. He was the head of Disney+, the wildly successful streaming service from the largest media company on the planet. He had previously helped shepherd Disney's acquisitions of Pixar and Marvel. He was one of the most important people at the company and had been considered a candidate for the top job until he was passed over for another executive when Bob Iger announced he was stepping down in February.

Then, Mayer left for what would quickly become the worst job in America: CEO of TikTok. Honestly, I don't even think that's up for debate. Sure, the video app is wildly popular and has experienced incredible growth. It might look, on the surface, like a great gig. The only problem is that the company sits in the line of fire of the Trump administration and its war on everything associated with China.

Now, Mayer is leaving, just as an eclectic mix of buyers are circling around the company. Of course, the only reason any of this is happening is that President Trump has put TikTok on the clock to find an American owner or face a ban here in the U.S. In return the company has sued, saying the move is based on politics, not national security concerns.

It isn't hard to imagine why Mayer is leaving. This isn't the job he signed up for. Mayer said as much in an email to company employees:

In recent weeks, as the political environment has sharply changed, I have done significant reflection on what the corporate structural changes will require, and what it means for the global role I signed up for. Against this backdrop, and as we expect to reach a resolution very soon, it is with a heavy heart that I wanted to let you all know that I have decided to leave the company.

While Mayer's departure is unexpected, I don't think anyone would say it's a surprise. At least, not under these circumstances. It's pretty fair to say that TikTok will look very different on the other side of whatever happens next. That's also true of Mayer's now-vacated job, which started as an opportunity to lead a global business but would now likely feel like a step backward, with the CEO probably reporting to an executive within a giant tech company.

What is a surprise, however, is the growing list of companies that are apparently interested in acquiring TikTok. That list now includes Microsoft, Twitter, Oracle, and ... Walmart. That's right, the Bentonville, Arkansas, retail giant announced it is partnering with Microsoft in a joint bid for TikTok.

This seems strange until you look past all of the political drama and think about what TikTok really is: a platform with a growing audience, reams of data about that audience, and vast untapped potential.

A lot of that potential lies in TikTok's secret sauce, an algorithm that is far better at serving up exactly the type of content users are most interested in than any other social media network. That algorithm is also a powerful advertising tool, especially for social commerce, which involves influencers promoting products that users can purchase directly in the app.
Hong Kong: Govt follows up booking complaints

The Government today said it has taken resolute follow-up action on complaints involving suspected fraudulent use of others' personal data to register for the Universal Community Testing Programme.

It has received eight relevant complaints so far and referred three of them to Police's Cyber Security & Technology Crime Bureau for investigation. The bookings concerned have been cancelled.

The Government called on the public not to defy the law and stressed that fraudulent use of others' data without consent is unlawful. All suspected cases will be referred to Police for follow-up.

It also explained that the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer has adhered to three underlying principles in developing the online booking system. The principles are to facilitate the public, ensure safe and orderly workflow and protect the privacy of individuals.

The online booking system will not collect excessive data or examine the particulars of citizens. The booking process is also simple and easy.

Additionally, the system does not accept repeated bookings. Each Hong Kong identity card or birth certificate number can only be used to make bookings for one time slot at a time and anti-bot technology has been deployed to avoid abuse.

The system passed the information security risk assessment and audit as well as the third-party privacy impact assessment before its launch. Members of the public will need to present the original copies of their Hong Kong identity cards or birth certificates when they register at community testing centres.

As of August 29, more than 430,000 citizens have registered for the programme through online booking, the Government said.

It emphasised that cancelled bookings will not be counted and there is no question of figure manipulation.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Mashreq, one of the leading financial institutions in the UAE, has appointed Rania Nerhal as its chief client experience & conduct officer. She will be leading the banks newly formed Client Experience & Conduct Group (CXCG).

The new division will be responsible for enhancing the bank's client experience strategy. It will also ensure that business continues to be conducted efficiently, ethically and effectively, and all policies are clearly and regularly communicated to all clients.

Rania joined Mashreq in February 2018 as Head of Public Sector, Healthcare, Education & Energy. Under her leadership, relevant sector teams have established the Meed Energy Club as well as Frost & Sullivan Healthcare Forum which are landmark achievements to Mashreqs positioning within the respective industries, and which helped create market awareness of Mashreqs strong sector capabilities.

Rania brings more than 25 years of experience in client relationship management in the banking industry. Before joining Mashreq, she held executive management roles such as Head of Client Corporate Coverage and Head of Large Corporates & Public Sector at Egyptian American Bank, Commercial Bank of Dubai, and Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait.

Most recently she was with HSBC, where in addition to her role as Senior Corporate Banker, she was Head of Corporate Banking, Dubai, where she led corporate banking coverage teams in charge of a large portfolio of diversified industries and segments.

On the key appointment, Group CEO Ahmed Abdelaal said: "It gives me great pleasure to announce Rania as our Chief Client Experience & Conduct Officer. Having worked with her for the past few years, I am confident that she is the best person suited to take on this new role."

"Customer-centricity has always been at the heart of everything that we do but with this newly formed group, we will drive a laser-sharp focus onto improving our client offering, raising the benchmark even higher for client experience in the UAE and throughout our global footprint," he noted.

"Additionally, Rania will significantly enhance the Client Conduct division in line with the banks existing values and best practices and in adherence to all necessary regulatory requirements. I wish Rania the very best as she takes on this responsibility and look forward to working with her closely to make Mashreq the number one client experience and conduct brand across the region, she added.

On her new role, Nerhal said: "It is a great honour for me to step up to this new role at Mashreq. Having already spent a few years with the bank, I have seen how client needs have always been, and will continue to be, the deciding factor in all our business decisions and product and service offerings."

"I am also pleased to contribute to the banks efforts in the client conduct space which has been garnering a lot of attention recently. I look forward to working with all the teams across the bank to unify our client experience strategy with a client-first mindset and foster a culture of excellence in client experience throughout the bank," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Turkey's flight suspension to and from Iraq has been extended through October 1, Iraqs civil aviation authority announced Monday amid a rising number of coronavirus cases.

Turkey has resumed some international air travel, but in early August it suspended flights with Iraq through Sept. 1 citing recommendations from its Health Ministry. In Mondays announcement, the Civil Aviation Ministry in Iraq did not give a reason why the ban was extended another month.

In Iraq, airports were closed to international passengers in March to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. In July, Baghdad reopened its airport to commercial flights for the first time in five months.

Malls also reopened last month, but most restaurants remain closed and an overnight curfew is still in place. The Iraqi Health Ministry recently warned of "disastrous consequences" if social distancing and other preventative measures werent abided by.

Amid the easing of restrictions, the virus continues to spread in Iraq. Health authorities registered 3,757 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, pushing the total number of infections to 234,934. Of that number, the country has reported 7,042 deaths.

Turkey on Friday recorded its highest single-day toll since May. The health minister, Dr. Fahrettin Koca, said on Sunday that 1,482 more patients have been diagnosed, bringing the total number to 268,546.
Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., questioned Postmaster General Louis DeJoy (left) during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on the Postal Service on Aug. 24 in Washington. Read more

WASHINGTON  The head of the House Oversight Committee says the panel will issue subpoenas to compel the U.S. Postal Service and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to turn over documents on slowdowns in mail service and any communications DeJoy might have had with President Donald Trump or members of his reelection campaign.

Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., plans to subpoena USPS on Wednesday after DeJoy refused to provide records requested last week by committee members during a hearing.

"I trust my Aug. 24 testimony before the Committee on Oversight and Reform clarified any outstanding questions you had regarding operational changes that I have implemented," he wrote in a letter to Maloney on Aug. 28, two days after the deadline the committee imposed for USPS to voluntarily submit documents.

A Postal Service representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

During the hearing, House members requested any analysis the Postal Service ran on the affect of the operational changes DeJoy instituted at the agency, which included eliminating extra mail delivery trips and stricter dispatch schedules that have caused mail and packages to pile up undelivered.

Postal workers from coast to coast and national union leaders also say workers were told overtime hours would be eliminated and that the directive was issued by the postmaster general. Memos circulated to mid-level managers and obtained by The Washington Post stated that DeJoy planned to eliminate overtime hours.

"Carriers were ordered off the streets at 5 o'clock whether you finished your route or you didn't finish your route," said Al Friedman, president of the Florida State Association of Letter Carriers. "That was everywhere. That was all over Florida."

A letter carrier in New Jersey told The Washington Post he was ordered to do the same thing.

DeJoy denied in sworn testimony that hed ever given such an order, and suspended some of the cost-cutting moves until after the November election. But DeJoy is considering additional changes after the Nov. 3 vote. The plans under consideration, described by four people familiar with Postal Service discussions, include geography-based pricing, lower mail delivery standards and raising prices.
(TNS)  In the six years since the use of body cameras started to take off among American law enforcement agencies, Madison, Wis., police have been somewhere between supportive and agnostic about the technology  often seeing cameras as less of a choice than an inevitability.Madisons overwhelmingly liberal elected leadership, though, has been slow to make any definitive decisions about the cameras.Body cameras are in the spotlight again because of the police shooting Aug. 23 of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, where police also dont have the cameras. An officer shot Blake in the back seven times, leaving him paralyzed, his family said. Police said that Blake had a knife and fought with officers. A bystander video shows the shooting Madison first grappled with police body cameras in 2014, when nine days after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, then-Ald. Scott Resnick introduced a resolution, later passed, directing the Madison Police Department to study them. Less than four months later, the Obama administration proposed spending $263 million on body-worn cameras for police , largely in response to the Brown killing.At the time, some Madison Black Lives Matter activists favored police cameras, including current Madison School Board member Savion Castro, who as a college sophomore helping to organize a local solidarity with Ferguson rally, said good officers should welcome them because of the impartial evidence they can provide The Madison police report on body cameras, issued in November 2014, made no recommendations, and since then, three city committees have taken up the issue. Only one of them, the Community Policing and Body Camera Ad Hoc Committee, made a definitive recommendation, voting 4-2 in September 2015 against moving ahead with a pilot program out of fears the technology could be abused or seen as a false panacea for improving public trust in law enforcement, especially in minority communities.Meanwhile, the city has in recent years passed up opportunities to apply for federal funding for body cameras for patrol officers and rejected an offer from Taser International to outfit officers with free body cameras for a year. Twice the City Council has rejected budget amendments to pilot cameras.Madisons most recent dive into body cameras came when two camera skeptics  Alds. Shiva Bidar and Marsha Rummel  sponsored the creation of the Body-Worn Camera Feasibility Review Committee, which is expected to make a recommendation by January on whether police should adopt the cameras.Police, meanwhile, remain open to their use.We have never been opposed and this has been something the policymakers have discussed for years, assistant Madison police chief John Patterson said in an email. This is a decision with the (City) Council due to the significant budget needs we would have for full implementation  cameras, storage, personnel, etc.The unions position is we have always and will continue to welcome a body-worn camera program with open arms, said Kelly Powers, president of the Madison Professional Police Officers Association.Madison police cars are equipped with dash cams.Shifts in attitudeSince Resnicks resolution in 2014, there have been some subtle shifts in attitude on body cameras, with prominent people of color on the City Council joining its most outspoken police department defender, Ald. Paul Skidmore, in support of the cameras, and Madisons most progressive activists and vocal police critics, including many white people, among cameras detractors.In a statement last week, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, who is white, said there are mixed feelings in the community about the cameras and she looked forward to reviewing the report and recommendations from the most recent body camera committee.City Council leadership, however, is solidly behind cameras. Council president Sheri Carter, who is Black, said she would be supporting the cameras, while vice president Syed Abbas also supports them.Longtime community activist and Ald. Barbara Harrington-McKinney, who is Black, called them long overdue.Had a pilot study of the cameras been approved, it would have provided a small-scale preliminary study to be conducted in order to evaluate the feasibility, costs, adverse situations, the impact on certain communities and provide an opportunity to improve on the study design in consideration of any full-scale implantation, she said.In its report, the other former committee to study body cameras, the MPD Policy and Procedure Review Ad Hoc Committee, notes the sensitive and intrinsically political nature of many of the issues involved in adopting body cameras, including the impact they could have on privacy and undocumented immigrants.And it cites recent research on the effects of body cameras as a reason for revisiting the issue in the current committee. Such research has been mixed on whether the cameras help reduce the incidence of police use of force and complaints against police, or increase trust between police and citizens.Bidar in the past has expressed concerns that body camera video could be used by federal immigration officials to detain undocumented immigrants, or harm police relations with Latinos. Last week, she said she would support the recommendations of the current committee studying cameras.Rummel also said shes waiting for the committees report and weighing the benefit of more transparency with the requirement to add significant funds to police budgets for the cameras.The question will remain if we adopt cameras how will we make police more accountable and how policing of community members historically subject to overpolicing (not just excessive force) will change, she said in an email. If we go forward with body cameras, I would want a policy that addresses when they are worn, who is required to wear them, and how the video can be used.Not a panaceaMembers of the Body-Worn Camera Feasibility Review Committee were sympathetic Thursday to arguments against police body cameras made by one of Madisons most outspoken activist groups, Freedom Inc., which provides services to domestic violence victims and others but has gained attention for shouting down government meetings and blocking traffic to protest police state-sanctioned violence.Its not that we dont know what happened in police shootings of Black people, Freedom Inc. co-executive director M. Adams said. The real question is who has the power to interpret the footage and frankly, who has the power to make a determination of wrongdoing?These things do not produce the outcomes we want, Adams said of the cameras.Committee member Keith Findley, a UW-Madison law professor, however, said that when he worked in criminal defense, he would have given anything to have video, because in the absence of video, judges believe police over suspects.He said cameras generally can provide evidence that brings to light injustices that in the absence of cameras, wouldnt be exposed, and said police body cameras could be one tool to be used with other proposed police reforms.No one though is proposing that video cameras are a panacea, he said. Theyre not going to solve the problem. Theyre not going to save everybodys lives. Theyre not going to stop police violence. But they might incrementally make some changes.
New Delhi: Markets witnessed sharp dip on Monday with both equity indices giving up morning gains ahead of the release the country's GDP figures for the April-June period.

Aanalysts have opined that India might witness historical low quarterly GDP data following the coronavirus-related lockdowns.

At 1.42 pm, the BSE Sensex dropped 750.58 points or 1.90 percent to 38,716.73 while the NSE Nifty fell 203.65 points or 1.75 percent to 11,443.95. In the Sensex pack, other than ONGC, all the indices were trading in the red.

Meanwhile, on August 25, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released its 2019-20 annual report, wherein it has stated that Indias growth is projected at minus 4.5 percent for 2020-21.

In its latest update (June 2020), the IMF has projected global growth at (-) 4.9 per cent for 2020, with a steeply negative impact on economic activity in H1 and more gradual recovery than expected earlier. Indias growth is projected at (-) 4.5 per cent for 2020-21. The projections set out by the OECD on June 10, 2020 present two scenarios  single hit and double hit - the latter being one in which a second wave of rapid contagion erupts later in 2020, the RBI report said.

It further added, Global growth is projected at (-) 6.0 per cent in the single hit scenario and (-) 7.6 per cent in the double hit scenario [Indias growth is projected at (-) 3.7 per cent and (-) 7.3 per cent, respectively, in 2020-21]. In the Global Economic Prospects, the World Bank has projected the deepest global recession in eight decades in 2020, almost three times as steep as the global recession of 2009, despite unprecedented policy support. Some developments suggest that the shrinkage of world trade may be bottoming out in the third quarter of 2020.

The Central Bank cited its August 2020 MPC meeting that noted the heightened uncertainty surrounding the macroeconomic outlook on account of supply chain disruptions and cost push pressures.
Hundreds of President Trumps supporters marched across the Golden Gate Bridge on Sunday in what appeared to be a largely peaceful demonstration.

America is in great peril. We are in great distress, conservative activist Brandon Straka told the crowd gathered Sunday morning for the Rescue America rally and flotilla.

America is a damsel in distress tied to the railroad tracks as a freight train from the radical left is charging at her and waiting to obliterate her, he added. She is waiting for a hero to untie her and set her free, and that is what every one of you are today. Youre the heroes that America needs.

Just after 9 a.m., dozens of California Highway Patrol officers outnumbered protesters huddling near the Golden Gate Bridge welcome center, but the crowd soon swelled.

With nearly as many wearing red MAGA hats as face coverings, about 100 people marched from the welcome center to the flagpole on the south side of the bridge at 9:30 a.m. With American flags waving, and some draped over shoulders to form capes, the group doubled in size by 10 a.m. as the demonstration started.

Now Playing: Pro-Trump supporters gathered Sunday at the Golden Gate Bridge Video: San Francisco Chronicle

After playing the national anthem and bowing in prayer, organizers spoke to the crowd over a public-address system between chants of Four more years, U-S-A and Walk Away.

John Dennis, chairman of the San Francisco Republican Party, said Democrats are for lying.  Were for the great American experiment of liberty, and the Republican Party is fighting for that every day.

The group then set out to complete the 1.7-mile march across the bridge. After verbal barbs with about a dozen counterprotesters, the group made the trek in pairs with a police escort.

Kevin McGary joined the protest. He said he walked away from the Democratic Party during Ronald Reagans second term.

It was sort of like the veil was lifted, and I realized that the party that I was traditionally a part of did not represent my values or support policies that help the Black community come up, said McGary, who chairs the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a political consulting firm in Union City.

Carrying signs in support of Trump and bopping to country and patriotic music, the group marched across the bridge as honks and yells emerged from slowed cars. Midway through the march, a couple of counterprotesters verbally threatened the crowd, but the encounter did not escalate.

As the group neared the north side of the bridge, it expected to be met by a flotilla that had started two hours earlier at Ayala Cove on Angel Island.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

The boat parades received swarms of attention in August, first by possibly setting a world record with more than 1,500 vessels in Florida, and then when boaters swept up in the fervor of a Portland, Ore., demonstration were saved from drowning.

Annika Hammerschlag / Special to The Chronicle

Only about a dozen boats were visible in San Francisco on the overcast and chilly Sunday morning.

We dont care if you walk, run or boat away  as long as you quickly move away from the radical left, said Straka, who also took a verbal swipe at the Black Lives Matter movement, saying he was harassed by mobsters and thugs from the movement Thursday night after leaving a Republican National Convention event at the White House.

Black Lives Matter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Straka started the #WalkAway Campaign, which encourages people to leave the Democratic Party, ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. This was the seventh such rally in the nation this year.

Rusty Simmons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rsimmons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Rusty_SFChron
Political leaders cutting across party lines paid tributes to former President Pranab Mukherjee, who died at the age of 84 on Monday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi described him as a scholar par excellence and a towering statesman who was admired across the political spectrum. Modi said Pranab has left an indelible mark on the nations development trajectory.

As Indias President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee made Rashtrapati Bhavan even more accessible to common citizens. He made the Presidents house a centre of learning, innovation, culture, science and literature. His wise counsel on key policy matters will never be forgotten by me, the PM tweeted.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi recalled Pranabs long association with her party and said the void left behind by his demise would be difficult to fill. He brought distinction to every post he held, he established a genuine rapport with colleagues across the political spectrum, and he served our country with utmost dedication.

West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee expressed deep sorrow over the 84-year-olds death and said with his demise an era has come to an end.

So many memories. A visit to Delhi without Pranabda is unimaginable. He is a legend in all subjects from politics to economics. Will be forever grateful. Shall miss him immensely, Banerjee tweeted.

Kerala chief minister and Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Pinarayi Vijayan said that Pranab was a politician who played a significant role in upholding Indias prestige at the international level. He stood for the protection and empowerment of constitutional values and constantly strived to inculcate values in the society, including secularism, he said.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat hailed the former president as a great scholar and a patriot whose loss cannot be compensated.

Indias former President Dr Pranab Mukherjees passing away is a huge loss for all swayamsevaks who had come in contact with him. I had met him twice when he was President and three to four times afterwards, Bhagwat said in a video message in Hindi.

Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also expressed sorrow over the demise of Mukherjee.

His demise has caused an irreparable loss to the political arena of the sub-continent, Hamid said, describing Mukherjee as a real and sincere friend of Bangladesh. Hasina, too, called Mukherjee a true friend of Bangladesh and a guardian-like figure to her family. The news of Mr Pranab Mukherjees demise deeply saddened her . . . she became emotional and nostalgic as she reminisced her many memories with him, state-run BSS reported, quoting the premiers press secretary Ihsanul Karim.
Workers at the General Motors assembly complex in Silao, Mexico, reported to the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter that Jose Manuel Montes Torres, a worker in the paint area, died on August 22 after contracting COVID-19.

The rank-and-file group Generating Movement, which has been compiling reports of deaths, infections and unsafe conditions during the pandemic, told the Autoworker Newsletter that Montes kept working at the plant until Sunday, August 16, when they forced overtime.

Generating Movement issued a statement last week declaring: This [death] makes clear to us that the security protocol for a safe return to work facing the COVID-19 virus in this corporation is not working. There have been eight dead already.

GMs Silao Complex

The group has recorded 30 COVID-19 cases in the plant but notes that this is an incomplete count, given that they have relied on reports from co-workers and family members amid an atmosphere of threats and intimidation by the corporation.

GM, the largest automaker in Mexico, and the local corporate-controlled union Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), have refused to provide workers with any information about COVID-19 cases in the plant.

This has been the norm at auto and auto part factories internationally. Across the United States, COVID-19 cases are being covered up by the automakers and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, and workers are being told they cannot share information, even about their own illness. Workers at several plants have responded by forming rank-and-file safety committees independent of the trade unions.

In Silao, co-workers who had contact with Montes wrote that the corporation has refused to halt production, quarantine or test them. On August 27, one worker stated: Today, they called us to the medical service due to the death of our co-worker, having been a positive COVID case. They only checked our temperature and filled a paper. I dont know which questions it had since they simply said No to everything. They only asked for my name and payroll number.

To make matters worse, management has since announced last week that water at sinks will only be available during snack times. A worker commented: They tell us to take care of ourselves and they do these things to save costs. This happened specifically in the paint area.

Workers at the plant had also angrily told the WSWS that drinking fountains have been made unavailable during the pandemic, and there are only two short breaks to cool down during the 12-hour shifts.

On Friday, a worker at Silao with hypertension reported to the Autoworker Newsletterthat GM fired him for missing work. Generating Movement explained that they have recorded at least three firings of vulnerable workers. The plant called vulnerable workers back on August 10, when there were already numerous reports of COVID-19 infections at the plant.

Translation: Notice: We hereby inform that water will only be available in the sinks during snack time

Over the weekend, the wife of a worker in the engine area who had tested positive for COVID-19 also reported to Generating Movement that her husband had caught the virus in the plant and that he was released from the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) hospital in very poor condition, forcing the family to provide further care.

Four days after Montess death, Francisco Garza, president and CEO of GM Mexico, said to Vision Automotriz: We have implemented health and safety protocols in our plants with the strictest guidelines of the World Health Organization and the IMSS, from the transportation of people, the entry to their workstations, eateries, shift changes We were highly rated by the IMSS and it selected us as their model.

GMs professed concern for safety has been refuted by numerous reports from workers. Workers have described how they travel in buses packed like sardines, have shared videos showing how social distancing is not enforced during shift changes or inside the plant, and have stated that its impossible to keep a safe distance in the line.

Visits by health and labor authorities, moreover, are preceded by instructions from supervisors and union delegates, undoubtedly under the threat of reprisals. For instance, on August 6, workers wrote to the Autoworker Newsletter: As you know, there were visits by the Labor and Social Welfare Secretariat since yesterday at the company, where the delegates from the Miguel Trujillo Lopez trade union arrived to tell workers what they had to answer to the polls. Some of the auditors came from Mexico City.

General Motors had shut down production in Mexico on March 23, not to protect workers, but to prevent a wave of wildcat strikes in auto plants that had been spreading across Europe, the United States and Canada from reaching workers in the country. After starving workers on 55 percent of their salaries, General Motors gradually reopened its Mexican plants in late May after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador declared the auto sector essential.

We worked very closely with institutions like the Economy Secretariat in order to have the auto industry considered as essential, explained GM Mexico head Garza.

Mexican auto production in July was 0.7 percent higher than last year, with Expansion writing recently, The performance of the auto industry, after hitting bottom in April, has surprised analysts, distributors and auto executives. The Mexican auto sector includes 980,000 workers directly and 3.6 million more workers indirectly.

While corporations and the government are covering up the scale of the outbreaks and deaths, the revelations by workers signal that the toll of this murderous reopening, done at the behest of a tiny group of transnational corporations and their financiers, is massive. Mexico currently has the fourth highest COVID-19 death toll in the world, with nearly 65,000 confirmed fatalities, closely behind India, whose population is over 10 times greater.

The response by the ruling class and the government to the deadly outbreaks and denunciations by workers and their families has been to continue lying about the dire situation in an attempt to forestall any interruption to the process of generating profits for the capitalists.

The pandemic has exposed the populist demagoguery of the Lopez Obrador government, the trade unionswhether the corrupt CTM or the so-called independent unionsand their apologists. All of these forces have shown an unwavering commitment to defending capitalism above the lives of workers and their families.

In order to oppose effectively the global drive by the capitalist ruling elites to force them to work in deadly workplaces, workers in Mexico must respond to the call of the WSWS to build rank-and-file safety committees independently of the trade unions and all other nationalist and pro-capitalist organizations. These committees, genuinely democratic workers organizations, must be developed as part of a powerful and globally coordinated counteroffensive of the working class to take the defense of their lives and conditions in their own hands against globalized finance capital.
The Samajwadi Party has launched BicycleTV to extend its electronic reach to the public amid a challenging coronavirus pandemic. The move is in step with the increasing culture among political parties to adopt remote audio-visual means to inform and influence people. Bicycle is the election symbol of the SP.

The SP soft-launched the Bicycle TV (on YouTube) on August 15 - with the Independence Day message by party president Akhilesh Yadav. Since then, in a fortnight, the media team of the party handling the channel has uploaded a dozen curated short video documentaries. Some of them are a scathing attack on the ruling BJP and its government on various issues while others are publicising the party and its previous governments achievements.

The channel will be used to beam campaign, propagation of the partys ideas and ideologies, previous SP governments achievements, partys future programmes, announcements, expose the ruling party and their lies, live press conferences and live party events, said Abhishek Mishra, SP national secretary and former UP minister.

If Mission 2022: Baaees Main Bicycle (bicycle in 2022) nudges people to vote for the party in 2022 UP assembly elections, then Save UP, the heart of India targets the UP government and chief minister Yogi Adityanath. One short film is focused on Agra-Lucknow Expressway and another one on 108 ambulances, while Samajwadi Hausala (socialist grit) highlights the lathicharge on SP youth volunteers incident of August 28.

Some other BicycleTV video stories are: Bhagwan sabke hai (God belong to all), mismanagement of government hospitals in Covid-19 and Dharti-putra Mulayam Singh Yadav--the political journey of the party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The party has a team of media experts, researchers, curators, photographers and videographers that is creating content for the Bicycle TV.

The SP is the only regional party in UP to have an active channel, though it is not the first one to venture into it. The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) had launched a channel three years ago, but the channel has been dormant for two years. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) does not have one yet. Both Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress have their active YouTube channels with a large subscription base, but they are of the national outfit and not of UP counterparts.

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A breastfeeding mother has slammed the 'creepy' men who sexualize images of her nursing her child - with some going as far as to ask her if she can 'feed them too'.

Milliner Michelle Palmer, 40, who lives in New York, knew she wanted to try breastfeeding when she fell pregnant with her daughter, Alexandria, who is now 28 months old.

After Michelle gave birth to Alexandria on April 5, 2018, she struggled for the first few weeks to get her daughter to latch on properly which meant she couldn't always be sure of how much milk Alexandria was consuming.

Clapback: Breastfeeding mother Michelle Palmer has hit out at 'creepy' men who 'sexualize' Instagram images of her nursing her daughter Alexandria

Upset: Michelle, 40, from New York, gave birth to her daughter Alexandra in April 2018, and says she knew from the moment she fell pregnant that she wanted to breastfeed

Struggle: The mother-of-one found it difficult getting Alexandria to latch for the first few weeks, but once she got the hang of it, she began gaining confidence

Once Alexandria was able to latch easily and successfully, it took Michelle a month to get comfortable with nursing Alexandria in public and in front of friends and family but she soon adjusted.

Now, she doesn't hesitate to feed Alexandria whenever she is hungry and hopes that by feeding her child in public, she can encourage other mothers to do the same without feeling shame or embarrassment about the act.

Michelle also began posting images of herself nursing on Instagram using the 'lactivist' hashtag, in order to encourage others to feel more comfortable about breastfeeding in public.

While the content she shares online of her breastfeeding Alexandria is largely met with a positive response, Michelle has been subjected to creepy comments from men who seek to sexualize the natural act of breastfeeding by sending her messages which say 'my turn next'  which she believes contributes to society's discomfort with breastfeeding, especially when it comes to feeding an older child.

Some of Michelle's friends don't understand why she continues to breastfeed, and she is sometimes asked why she is still breastfeeding when out in public, when in reality weaning a baby at between two and four years is natural and normal.

'I always wanted to [breastfeed], but it took me a month or so to get comfortable doing it in public or around family who came over to visit a lot when she was new,' said Michelle.

'Part of that was coming up with ways to do it that felt a little discreet, or just learning to say f**k it. I'll ask them to leave the room if I feel uncomfortable.

'The most important part [of being a breastfeeding advocate] is just doing it. Sharing pictures is fun, but I just want other women to see me and maybe feel like, "If she's doing it then I can, too."

'So that means if I feel like I need to breastfeed my kid, I don't hold back out of shame, self-consciousness, or fear of what someone else might think or say. I do it and let other people think what they will.

Journey: Michelle says she initially felt embarrassed about breastfeeding in public, but she began to gain confidence - and now wants to share that feeling with other mothers

Empowerment: 'If I feel like I need to breastfeed my kid, I don't hold back out of shame, self-consciousness, or fear of what someone else might think or say,' Michelle said

Inspiration: Michelle began sharing images of herself breastfeeding on social media in the hopes of helping other moms gain the confidence to nurse without shame or embarrassment

'I was encouraged by friends to share pictures of breastfeeding, but never made the effort to take great pictures of myself breastfeeding until we were at Burning Man last year. I had a free ticket because I was invited to perform on aerial silks.

'That meant I had to bring Alexandria, since I wasn't ready to separate from her for more than a day. It's an intense environment, and breastfeeding helped keep her happy and relaxed.

'We were all dressed up. I was feeding her while holding her - a feat of strength many moms do every day. The sun was setting and my husband snapped some great shots. I was shocked at the response on social media.

'It was mostly positive, but there were a couple of men who made a few creepy comments - like, "my turn next", and that kind of thing. That happens almost every time I post any breastfeeding picture, and I see it all the time on other breastfeeding moms' picture comments, too.

'I think that's a huge reason that our western society is so uncomfortable with breastfeeding - we sexualize the female body to such an extent that we can't understand that a woman's nipples are a source of nourishment for the next generation, not just playthings for men.

'Even my liberal female friends have a hard time understanding that breastfeeding isn't enslavement. I'm not sacrificing my freedom until some date when I can be released from the shackles of breastfeeding - it's a beautiful way of giving my child the most perfect food she can get anywhere, with a huge amount of emotional benefits too.

'We're mammals. For the vast majority of human history, babies breastfed until they were at least two-and-a-half years old.

'So far the reaction when I'm out has either been neutral or inquisitive. They ask me how long I think I'll breastfeed; they'll ask if it's uncomfortable; or they will try to ignore it.

'What's interesting is that if my husband is there, they leave me alone. If I'm on my own with Alexandria, they will ask me questions or look at us.'

Unwelcome: The self-described 'lactivist' wants men to realize that women's breasts are not just 'playthings' for guys

Message: 'We sexualize the female body to such an extent that we can't understand that a woman's nipples are a source of nourishment for the next generation,' she said

Looking ahead: Michelle's daughter Alexandria is now 28 months old, and she plans to continue to breastfeed Alexandria until she is two-and-a-half to three-years-old

Questions: Because of Alexandria's age, Michelle says she faces a lot of queries, and even criticism, about why she is still nursing her

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that children are exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life and state that it is safe for children to still be breastfed past the age of two years  despite some societal misconceptions.

Michelle plans to continue to breastfeed Alexandria until she is two-and-a-half to three-years-old, but there's no set end date.

'There's an idea that once a baby has teeth or is 'old enough to ask for it,' that you shouldn't be breastfeeding anymore, or it no longer benefits the child,' said Michelle.

'This is completely untrue. How long a woman breastfeeds is up to her - but there are tons of benefits for the baby, and mum, who keep breastfeeding until two or even longer. Plus, I love that she can ask for it clearly now. Her developing communication makes my life easier.

'It's great for the baby's immune system, brain, independence, emotional development, and it's also good for the mom's health. Any Google search will tell you more.

'I was surprised to learn that breastfeeding in public only became legal in all 50 states as of 2018. So, it's not something we can take for granted.

'We really need to support moms and babies so much more than we do. We put emphasis on getting moms back to work, back to the factory, and the desk. What would be so much better for our society, would be to support a mum in giving the most loving, nourishing start to her baby that she can.

'Mothers should be educated, empowered and supported. The more love and good nutrition babies can get in their first few years of life, the better off they'll be in the long run and the happier we'll be as a society.

'So much of the harm that people inflict on others stems from not getting the love and support they needed when they were kids. It starts at birth.

Support: The proud mom says she has the support of her husband - but knows that other women are not as lucky to have family members who are as supportive

Changes: 'I hope skeptics will at least do some open-minded research before criticizing breastfeeding mothers or choosing not to breastfeed their babies,' she said

'I want other moms to see the pictures and think, 'hey, I can do that too.'

Michelle hopes that by sharing her story she can empower other women.

'Breastfeeding and birth have been so twisted by modern industrial societies,' she said.

'Every woman, when she has a baby, deserves free access to a lactation consultant who can help make the process of breastfeeding more comfortable and easy.

'Breasts are a source of nourishment for the next generation, not just sexual toys or objects to be gazed at by men. The only way onto this planet is through a woman's body. Let's start acting like that's something worth respecting, honoring and cherishing.

'I hope skeptics will at least do some open-minded research before criticizing breastfeeding mothers or choosing not to breastfeed their babies.

'Please at least look things up - learn about what a miraculous food breastmilk is. Learn about the long list of benefits of breastfeeding your children.

'Allow your employees the time and space they need to nurture their families as best as they can. Support women and let them love their children with respect and dignity.

'Follow your heart and your intuition when it comes to making choices as a mum, but be aware when fear is guiding your choices.

'Be a courageous and big-hearted mama and you will help heal the planet.'
Get on Up director Tate Taylor pays tribute to actor Chadwick Boseman, who died Aug. 28 of colon cancer at age 43.

Chadwick and I were on our way to Augusta, Georgia to meet James Browns family. We were hopeful the Browns would give our unlikely pairing the blessing to tell the story of the Godfather of Soul. Chad was relatively unknown at the time, having just played Jackie Robinson in 42 and I had just come off The Help.

We were both anxious about putting what would be our sophomore films into the world. We talked openly about fear and what part it had played in our lives up until now. Chad turned to me and said, What were really anxious about is proving to ourselves we can do it again.

At that moment I got a glimpse of how wise Chad was, and I wanted more. We won over the Browns that day and then as Chad put it with his intoxicating grin, This ss about to get very, very real. Later at the airport, we pledged to each other that if one of us thought the film wasnt working in any way due to him or myself thinking that one, both or the other wasnt up to the challenge, we could be truthful about it and stop the whole damn thing. I dont know what the studio would have done if that had happened but we didnt care.

Establishing that level of love, honesty, trust and commitment between two men was the only way we were going to pull it off. We embraced and in that moment became friends and brothers for life.

Chadwick was a perfectionist and a consummate professional. He shared my love of collaboration. He believed, like me, that good ideas can come from anybody anytime, anywhere. But he also taught me about dedication, resilience and so much about love. He listened to me as a partner, not as a critic. If he or I questioned the others opinion, we talked about it openly and deeply and always ended up with a solution neither of us saw coming. He let himself go in his performance without any sense that people were watching him. It was unlike anything Id ever seen. He stayed in character not because that was his method, but because he became James Brown. He would strut up to my first AD (a beautiful blonde from Mississippi) pull her into his arms and as Mr. Brown says, Hey pretty white lady, Mr. Brown needs a sandwich then give her a gentle kiss on the cheek. At one point my AD looked at him and begged Mr. Brown to never leave her.

Story continues

That is just how talented and charming Chadwick was.

The love and respect he had for the crew, the extras, the caterers was sincere and felt by all. In the beginning, he would ask for many takes because he had just discovered something else that he needed to try. In all seriousness, Chadwick explained to me that when he was acting in a scene, the real James Brown would talk to him from heaven. I would oblige him, and each take wasnt better, but it would be completely different and equally as wonderful. I told him that wed never finish the film under our limited time and budget. In character he said, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Brown needs to do it again.

Under the spell of that grin, we go again. The next morning, I came to his trailer and I handed Chadwick a plastic red card.

I told him that when I was happy with a take he needed to trust it as we promised each other in Georgia. When he wanted another take, he could present this card to me and Id do it his new way as many times as he needed until he was satisfied but he only got one card each day, so he better save it and choose wisely when to use it.

With curlers in his wig, he turned to me in character and very sternly said Mr. Taylor, you gonna tell the Sex Machine he needs a card to do his thing?! I immediately worried that I had done wrong. Not by Chadwick but by Mr. Brown. Then he burst out laughing and Chadwick, threw his arms around me and said that it was a good idea.

We used that card for the rest of the shoot and once a day, usually at the end, he would present it to me. It wasnt because he thought he could do better. It was because we were having so much fun together. How I wish I could go to him now and give him the red card and say Please do it again.

This past March I checked on my friend, as we did, asking if he was in South Carolina with his family riding out 2020. He told me he was sick and not comfortable traveling, but hed promised himself as a little boy he wouldnt be in California when the world came to an end.

Even as a little boy Chadwick knew his purpose and where his life was headed and where he was going to take it. Chadwick got what he wanted. He didnt die in California because South Carolina went to him and his wife and family were with him until the end. Chadwick told me he loved me that day and that was the last time we spoke. He never shared his illness with me. I now realize he was telling me goodbye the only way he could.

Chadwick Boseman wasnt just a talented actor, dancer, writer or superhero, he was a beautiful, majestic creature put on this earth to help people. He changed everyone he ever met or worked with. I am one of those fortunate people. Ill be talking to Chadwick just like Mr. Brown did with him because as James Brown always said, You cant stop the funk.

I miss and love you my friend.

Tate Taylor is a writer, actor and director whose credits include The Help (2011), Get on Up (2014) and The Girl on the Train (2016)

(Pictured: Chadwick Boseman in Get on Up)

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Samsung Display has sold its LCD plant in Suzhou, China, insiders reveal. The main buyer is the local company CSOT which is owned by TCL, the conglomerate that also builds the alcatel smartphones.

The (former) Samsung complex in Suzhou, China

The total deal is worth $1.8 billion - 60% of the plant will be owned by CSOT, 10% by its parent company TCL, while the rest 30% will be handed out to the Suzhou government. The plant produced 27% of Samsung Displays total amount of LCD panels, with most of them being for monitors and TVs.

This step is a confirmation to earlier reports that Samsung is trying to discontinue its LCD business and will refocus to quantum dot screens.

The Korea Herald reported that the plant has three 8.5-generation production lines and one 11-generation line, the latter planning to begin manufacturing from early next year. Interestingly enough, the report also revealed Samsung Display reinvested $723 million into TCL-related companies to acquire 12.33% of their shares.

Source
Roswells most iconic festival may have taken a year off amid concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, but city leaders have plans to make it bigger and better in 2021 and beyond. The City of Roswell announced earlier this month it will be taking direct control of the UFO Festival from MainStreet Roswell once the popular festival returns.

Kathy Lay, executive director of MainStreet Roswell, said turning the festival back over to the city allows the local MainStreet chapter, which focuses on developing the citys downtown district, to focus on helping local businesses that have been ravaged by the pandemic.

When the downtown is dead and blighted  it really sets the tone for our entire city, Lay said.

Moreover, it gives Roswell a chance to expand the popular event outside of the downtown core, showing off the whole city and surrounding areas, said city spokeswoman Juanita Jennings.

We see some opportunity where we can encompass the entire city, rather than one specific location, Jennings said.

Roswells UFO Festival began in 1997, the 50th anniversary of the supposed UFO crash near town. Jennings said the original festival  which was put on by the city  brought as many as 50,000 visitors to southeast New Mexico. In a typical year, the festival draws up to 20,000 visitors, Lay added.

I  know we sell out the hotels in Roswell, we sell out the hotels in Artesia, Lay said.

MainStreet Roswell has managed the festival since 2014. Lay said the city discussed transferring management back to the city before the pandemic, but the cancellation of the 2020 festival  outside of a few virtual events  allowed MainStreet and the city to think about how the event could evolve.

Jennings said the city saw an opportunity to expand it beyond its current footprint. Jennings said there will likely be a central, ticketed area, with a network of other activities in and around the city. For example, she said the Alien Chase, an extraterrestrial-themed race, could be expanded and moved to nearby Cielo Grande Recreation Area.

We want to show (visitors) our local flavor, Jennings said.

While Lay stressed that she and her colleagues still love the festival, she said expanding it beyond downtown moves it outside the organizations purview.

This was what they wanted, and we needed to let them handle it, Lay said.

While Jennings said the goal is to have an in-person festival once again in 2021, that may be difficult if state rules preventing large gatherings remain in effect.

Another potential obstacle is the loss of lodging tax revenue, which provides a portion of the festivals approximately $80,000 budget. Jennings said local hotels are averaging about 45% occupancy, compared to 78% during a typical summer.

While 2021 is still up in the air, Jennings said the city wants to show off a new and improved festival atmosphere for 2022, the 75th anniversary of the infamous purported UFO crash.

The end goal  is to really elevate the experience for those that do come to our community, and give them something that is lasting and a memory for them and their families, she said.
Sea Thai started in 2007 when K Shavitra and wife Fay wanted to open a small Thai restaurant that can create jobs for their family. We spoke to brother and chef Chef Jack Tawa Chavitranurak about their new Tuun pop up project inside Sea Thai.

Sea Thai recently underwent renovations to make it more fresh and modern looking. They have also started a new menu to offer more modern Thai with authentic flavor for the chef specials.

Chef Jack tells us, I just want to add some alternative and authentic Thai food that you never ever have tasted in the other Thai restaurants in Orlando. I feel like the food scene in Orlando is getting better and better everyday. People are more open minded and willing to accepted the new food culture.

Tuun features regional Thai dishes such as  Spicy basil braised beef fried rice with fried garlic and soft poached egg, Gaeng Hung Lay Northern Style braised Pork Belly Red Curry with fried shallot, Khao Soi, a chicken curry noodle dish, Tuun wings coated in tom yum sauce and kaffir lime and lemongrass. The menu is available every Friday  Sunday at dinnertime.

Interview with Chef Jack Tawa Chavitranurak  Sea Thai / Tuun

Tell us about your background and your earliest memories around food.

I was born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand. I came to Orlando in 2007 when my brother was opening his restaurant and he needed my help so he called me to come here and work with him  thats how I got to start working in kitchen.

Since I was a kid, I always saw my mom in the kitchen cooking food for us. She is a great cook  whatever we wanted to eat, she will try to get the recipe and cook it. We always had at least 3-4 dishes on the table every meal. Thats how I remembered my earliest memories around the food.

What inspired you to become a chef?

Me and my wife (@snackswag) are passionate about food. When we first got to the states and were working at my brothers place (Sea Thai), we always talked and shared the ideas about what we want to do with our food. Then one day, we were like why dont we go to school and go to work somewhere else to learn the new cooking techniques and the other cuisines. I went to obtain a degree in Culinary arts management from Valencia College in 2013.

My first American kitchen job started at Hyatt Grand Cypress hotel (Hemingway Restaurant), then I moved to work at Four Seasons hotel (Capa) for a couple years, and finally at 1921 Mt.Dora with Chef Camilo Velasco.

What were some challenges that you faced in the beginning and how did you overcome them?

For my first American kitchen , the most challenging aspect was how to make people accepted me to be apart of the team.

It was really hard for a couple months to get people to understand my accent and know what I can do in the kitchen, so I had to work harder and learn faster than anyones in the kitchen until they accepted me to be a part of the team.

What are your favorite memories from working there and what were some of the things you learned through your experiences?

There are so many great memories from working at 1921 beside working with a lot of talented people or cooking with a great product. I had an opportunity to go cook at the James Beard house in New York. It was an honor for me to cook in such a long storied and legendary kitchen.

From my experience that Ive been working in this industry for 10 years, some things that I learned from my experience is to never stop learning and be humble to people you work with. You will learn.

Find Sea Thai Restaurant at 3812 E Colonial Dr, Orlando, FL 32803 -(407) 895-0985  @tuunorlando Created by chef @jack.jone22 available for pick up @seathaiorlando every Fri-Sun at dinnertime.
Alarm bells have been sounded about a large amount hazardous material that is being stored at Tartous Port, with fears it could ignite reports Baladi News.

The head of the Department of Drug Control in the Syrian Ministry of Health, Majida Homsi, warned about the presence of large quantities of hazardous materials inside the abandoned warehouse at Tartous Port. The materials have been there for years, according to what was reported by the state-owned Tishreen newspaper.

According to Homsi, the materials entered the country in an illegal manner, which means there is major corruption and questions surrounding the case.

Homsi warned against a potential fire at the port and stressed the need to destroy the materials even if they pose the slightest danger to anyone. Homsi fears a large explosion, akin to the one that recently happened in Beirut.

The Director of Tartous Customs in the Syrian regime denied that customs is responsible in any way, throwing down the gauntlet to the port committee, which, according to him, handles hazardous materials.

The case goes back to Sept. 29, 2014, when 7,169 kilograms of washing powder and raw materials used in the manufacture of detergents entered the Tartous Port in 399 parcels, in addition to childrens toys, valued at 7,766 dollars (1.4 million Syria pounds).

A regime Criminal Security informant in Damascus confirmed that the substances are alpha-phenyl (powder) and phenylestro-nitrile (powder), which are used in the illegal manufacture of narcotics.

A decision was made to confiscate the substances, destroy them, and re-price them to pay fines amounting to 48,750 dollars (50 dollars per kilogram).

The case was closed on Mar. 22, 2015.

In light of the Beirut blast on Aug 4, 2020, the Minister of Transport in the Syrian regime, Ali Hammoud, recently confirmed that the Port of Tartous is free of any hazardous materials. This begs further questions about the reason for reopening the case, and whether there is really explosive or combustible materials.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
The unscientific test underscores complaints about the Postal Service's performance, complaints that were highlighted in recent congressional hearings.

The slowdown in mail service has big implications for the November presidential election when a record number of voters are expected to cast mail ballots.

Reporters in a dozen cities mailed 155 letters on a single Friday in mid-August to measure the Postal Service's on-time performance. Though half the letters reached their destinations within two business days, two weeks later a couple have yet to arrive.

The U.S. Postal Service is slowing down, based on an informal test by the NBC Owned Television Stations, NBCLX and Telemundo.

An individual deposits letters into a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) collection mailbox in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 14, 2020.

We mailed 155 letters from a dozen cities nationwide on Aug. 14, sending about a third within the same region, another third in the same state and the remaining third to a different state.

The USPS said that in the three months that ended on June 30, 93 percent of local first-class mail arrived within two days. In our test, by comparison, 75 percent of local letters arrived within two days, and 90 percent arrived within three days.

The USPS said that 82.5 percent of mail traveling longer distances arrived within 3 to 5 days. In our test, 75 percent of interstate mail arrived within 3 days and 90 percent arrived within four days.

However, two of the 155 letters in our test, 1.3 percent, failed to arrive after a 12 business days.

The NBC stations plan to repeat the mail test in September and again in October.

Complaints about missing or delayed mail have become increasingly common since new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy took office in mid-June with a mandate to cut costs.

Postal Service documents released by the House Oversight Committee bear out the complaints of delayed mail. A PowerPoint presentation made for internal Postal Service use shows that the on-time performance record for presorted first-class mail  which for months had routinely approached 95 percent -- plunged in early July to about 85 percent.

In the Postal Service's Eastern district, which encompasses most of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, another internal document released by Congress showed that on-time performance dropped in just three weeks from the low 90s down to 79 percent.

During testimony to the House Oversight Committee, DeJoy said there was a "temporary service decline, which should not have happened, (but) we are fixing this."

He insisted that the Postal Service can reliably deliver mail ballots for the November election, calling it a "sacred duty" and "my number one priority."

We reached out to the USPS, who referred us back to DeJoy's testimony.

The coronavirus pandemic is expected to prompt a record surge in mail ballots this November. The New York Times has estimated that as many as 80 million mail ballots will be cast  more than twice as many as in 2016.

While all states allow voters to cast ballots by mail under some circumstances, this year a record nine states plan to conduct their elections mostly or exclusively by mail.

Oregon, Washington, Utah and Colorado have run their elections by mail for years. Because of the pandemic, California, Nevada, New Jersey, Vermont and the District of Columbia are, at least temporarily, joining the list.

Other states are loosening restrictions on voting by mail because of the pandemic.

President Trump has claimed without evidence that mail voting will be "substantially fraudulent."

Millions will be casting ballots by mail for the first time. The latest CNBC/Change Research Poll, conducted August 21 - 23 found 33% of voters expect to vote-by-mail, but that's down from 36% earlier this month.

One potential obstacle to the mail option: unforgiving deadlines.

In 28 states mail ballots are due on Election Day, Nov. 3, according to the political data site, fivethirtyeight.com. In a 29th state, Louisiana, they are due the day before. The remaining 21 states and the District of Columbia accept ballots with Election Day postmarks, provided they arrive by a date ranging from Nov. 4 (Texas) to Nov. 23 (Washington State).

The NBC mail test offers an implicit warning for people who plan to vote by mail in states with hard deadlines: Vote early or risk losing your vote.

If you mail your ballot on Friday, Oct. 31, allowing the Postal Service Saturday, Monday and Tuesday to work, the test shows there is a 10 percent chance your vote will not reach the election office on time. In states where the postmark is enough, that's fine. In states where delivery is required by Election Day, your vote will not count.

Postal workers blame the delays on their new boss.

"Mail's backing up," said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union. "There's some veteran postal workers, 35 years (on the job), who said they've never seen anything like this in their 35 years.

"There's no question that the policies of reducing the hours of work of the workers, if the mail is there to be worked and you're just arbitrarily reduced hours, then guess what? The mail doesn't get work," Dimondstein said.

In his testimony to Congress, DeJoy denied that he personally ordered steps such as halting overtime or removing collection boxes and sorting machines. He said he has suspended "these practices to remove any misperceptions about our commitment to delivering the nation's election mail."

He did have some advice for voters, however.

"Get your ballot early," he said, "and please vote early."
A powerful orator and scholar, Mukherjee had been a Congress stalwart for long before he was elected as India's 13th President and served from July 2012 to 2017 in the top post.

Pranab Mukherjee, the 13th President of India, passed away on Monday.

Mukherjee's health had deteriorated after a brain surgery at the Army's Research and Referral hospital in Delhi. The 84-year-old had also tested positive for COVID-19 prior to the surgery on 10 August.

A powerful orator and scholar, Mukherjee had been a Congress stalwart for long before he was elected president in 2012, and served in office from July 2012 to 2017. He was a member of the Congress Working Committee, the highest policy making body of the party, for a period of 23 years.

Mukherjee also served as the president of West Bengal Congress for 10 years from 2000 to 2010.

Born on 11 December, 1935, in Mirati  a village in West Bengal's Birbhum district  Mukherjee completed his Masters in Political Science and History and LLB degree from University of Calcutta.

Here is a look at Mukherjee's illustrious career:

In a political career spanning five decades, Mukherjee was appointed to several ministerial posts in governments led by Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Sigh.

Mukherjee entered politics in 1969 as an election campaign manager for VK Krishna Menon, an independent candidate fighting a by-election for the Medinipur constituency in West Bengal. Soon after the successful campaign, the then-prime minister Indira Gandhi offered him membership of the Congress party.

Mukherjee then became a member of the Rajya Sabha in July 1969, reports said. He was reelected to the Upper House in 1975, 1981, 1993 and 1999.

Before joining politics, Mukherjee worked as an "upper-division Clerk in the Office of Deputy Accountant-General, Calcutta". Additionally, he also worked as a professor of political science and a journalist. He became "one of Indira Gandhi's most trusted lieutenants" and was appointed as a Cabinet minister in 1973. He was also active during the controversial Emergency which was imposed on India for two years  1975-1977.

Mukherjee was appointed as the finance minister from 1982 to 1984. During this period, he appointed Manmohan Singh as the RBI governor. Additionally, he held the portfolios of Commerce from 1993 to 1995; External Affairs from 1995 to 1996 and 2006 to 2009; Defence from 2004 to 2006.

He held the post of finance minister again from 2009 to 2012. Mukherjee was the Leader of the Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2012 till he resigned to contest the election for the President's office.

After the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, succeeding prime minister Rao, appointed Mukherjee as the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.

In 2012, Mukherjee retired from active politics to run for the post of President and on 25 July, 2012, he became the 13th President of India.

At the end of his tenure in 2017, he didn't run for re-election and retired from politics due to age-related health issues. He was succeeded by Ram Nath Kovind.

On 8 August 2019, Mukherjee was honoured with India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna by President Ram Nath Kovind.

Apart from ministerial posts, Mukherjee also served on the Board of Governors of the IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and African Development Bank, The Economic Times reported.

"He has led the Indian delegations to the Commonwealth Finance Ministers' Conferences in 1982, 1983 and 1984; UNGA in 1994, 1995, 2005 and 2006, the Conference of Commonwealth Heads of Government at Auckland in 1995, the Non-Aligned Foreign Minister's Conference at Cartagena in 1995 and the Conference to mark the 40th anniversary of the Afro -Asian Conference in Bandung in 1995," the report said.

Pranab Mukherjee and the Congress

Known for his loyalty towards the Indian National Congress, Mukherjee ruffled a lot of feathers by accepting an invitation to a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) event in 2018. While some leaders questioned his loyalty towards the Congress, that "Pranabs participation in the RSS event would give credence and respectability to an organisation known to be intolerant towards constitutional ideals, particularly those of secularism."

However, as Mukherjee writes in his book 'The dramatic decade: The Indira Gandhi years', his family was dedicated to the Congress. "Father traveled from village to village, sharing meals with the locals and preaching the Congress ideology," he wrote.

This dedication to the party carried forward through the "turbulent" years of Indira Gandhi's tenure as prime minister, including the period of the Emergency. In his book, he refers to his fathers advice to steadfastly support the party, and Indira in particular.

Mukherjee wrote, "He told me: I hope you will not do anything that will make me ashamed of you. It is when you stand by a person in his or her hour of crisis that you reveal your own humanity,". And added that "his meaning was clear, and I didnt then or later waver from my loyalty to Indira Gandhi".

However, Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984 resulted in shaky ties between Mukherjee and the Congress. When Rajiv Gandhi succeeded Indira Gandhi as the prime minister, Mukherjee found himself removed from the Cabinet without notice.

"I kept waiting for the call. Being dropped from Rajivs Cabinet was not even peripherally in my mind. I had heard no rumours When I learnt of my ouster from the Cabinet, I was shell-shocked and flabbergasted. I could not believe it," he wrote.

Soon after, in 1986, Mukherjee was also dropped from the CWC, The Print reported.

However, the two sides reconciled three years later when Mukherjee, who had founded his own party in 1986 called the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress in West Bengal, merged with the Indian National Congress "after reaching a compromise with Rajiv Gandhi," The Indian Express report said.

Despite missing the office of the prime minister two times  once, after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991 and the second, when Congress won the Lok Sabha polls in 2004  Mukherjee reportedly guided and nurtured leaders like Sonia Gandhi.

Under the prime ministership of PV Narasimha Rao, who took over after Rajiv Gandhi, Mukherjee was reappointed to ministerial posts.

Reportedly, Mukherjee played a big role in Sonia Gandhi's ascension to the post of the Congress president. "It is believed that Mukherjee played a key role in educating Sonia, mentoring her to tackle situations the way her mother-in-law had once done," the report said.

With inputs from agencies
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested a supervisor at Mundra dockyard in Gujarat, who allegedly worked as an agent of Pakistani spy agency ISI, an official said.

Rajakbhai Kumbhar, a resident of West Kutch in Gujarat, arrested on Sunday in connection with the investigation of 'Defence/ISI case' of Uttar Pradesh, the NIA official said.

The case pertains to an FIR registered on January 19 at Lucknow's Gomti Nagar police station on the arrest of Mohammad Rashid from Mughalsarai in Chandoli district, he said.

The NIA re-registered the case on April 6 under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), the official said.

During the investigation, it was revealed that Rashid was in contact with defence or ISI handlers in Pakistan and visited the neighbouring country twice, the official said.

He had transmitted photographs of sensitive and strategically important installations in India and also shared information about the movement of the armed forces with his ISI handlers in Pakistan, an NIA spokesperson said.

Investigation revealed that Kumbhar worked as an ISI agent and transferred Rs 5,000 through Paytm in the account of one Rizwan which was further handed over to the main accused Rashid, the spokesperson said.

This amount was remitted to Rashid by Kumbhar on the directions of ISI handlers for the information supplied, he said.

A search was conducted at the house of Kumbhar on Thursday and several incriminating documents were seized.

Further investigation in the case was underway.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday arrested a person in Gujarat after he was found to be working as an agent of Pakistans Inter-Sevices Intelligence (ISI).

Rajakbhai Kumbhar was arrested from the West Kutch region in connection with the Defence/ISI case originally reported in Uttar Pradesh.

The case pertains to an FIR registered on January 19 at Lucknows Gomti Nagar police station on the arrest of Mohammad Rashid of Chandoli districts Mughalsarai.

The NIA again registered the case in April this year. During investigation, it was revealed that Rashid was in contact with Defence/ISI handlers of Pakistan and had visited Pakistan twice.

According to NIA, he had transmitted photographs of some sensitive and strategically important installations in India and also shared information about the movement of the armed forces with ISI handlers in Pakistan.

The agency had conducted a search at the house of Kumbhar on Friday in connection with the case and found out that he had transferred Rs 5,000 through Paytm to the account of one Rizwan, which was further handed over Rashid.

The amount was remitted to Rashid by Kumbhar on the directions of ISI agents in lieu of the information supplied to them by the former.

During the search at Kumbhars house, incriminating documents were seized.
Two interrelated trends - the increased demand for flexible offices and the growth in remote working and working from home (WFH) - have combined to shape and define demand for office space at the global and regional level in recent years, according to global property consultant JLL.

While both of these trends predate Covid-19, the global pandemic has exacerbated their influence and their impact on how office spaces are reimagined for many years to come, it stated.

JLLs latest report highlights the evolving nature of office spaces and the attractions, limitations and market trends that will emerge as a result of flexible space being applied on a sustained basis.

The report indicates that flexible space will take a different form than it has in the past, but will continue to grow as corporates and investors respond to the increasing demand for flexibility brought on by Covid-19, it added.

"While we believe there is some short-term pain as demand for flexible office space contracts, it seems certain to grow in the mid-to-long term as businesses adjust and adopt solutions that increase their agility and reduce their response times," said Dana Salbak, Head of Research for JLL Mena.

"The impact is also expected to translate onto the business models of flexible office operators, resulting in a shift away from common facilities, shared services, and hot desks, to a corresponding growth in the proportion of private space, which ensures corporate privacy and data security," explained Salbak.

"In reality, in-office work and remote work are complementary, and neither can completely replace the other. The post-pandemic workplace will involve a combination of three distinct office environments: the corporate office, flexible co-working facilities and remote working," she stated.

The challenge for occupiers will be to establish the right mix and balance between the different settings and working patterns, she added.

Toby Hall, the Director (Head of Office and Business Space Leasing) for JLL Mena, said: "On a regional scale, extensive strides have been taken by Dubai to ensure flexible workspace frameworks are fixed and maintained in line with intensified measures aimed at combating Covid-19."

"To meet the growing demand, there has been a rapid increase in total supply of flexible office space in the emirate. Although the effort is gaining momentum, the level of flex space in Dubai remains below the EMEA average of 2.3%, suggesting there is room for further growth," stated Hall.

JLLs report identifies several key trends which will continue to drive demand for flexible space in the region over the long term. These include:

 A shift in demand: Based on structured conversations with more than 20 major corporates in Dubai, the report highlights that most companies see flex space as part of their overall portfolio mix going forward. The major factor in deciding which flex facility to favour appears to be the reputation of the operator, followed by the profile of other tenants.

Interestingly, factors such as cost, and location of the space appear to be considered of lessor importance in the choice of flex space compared to more traditional leases.

 Market consolidation: Driven by the shift in the global flex market away from SMEs to larger corporates, the Dubai market is expected to experience more concentration in the hands of fewer but larger operators.

This will inevitably involve a setback to some independent operators and is likely to be exacerbated by short time financial pressures resulting from Covid-19.

 The future is private: Covid-19 is resulting in a global shift away from shared co-working facilities to more private and enclosed spaces. This trend is also apparent with the majority of centres offering only enclosed offices or a hybrid mix of enclosed offices and co-working space.

Centres that were originally targeting the co-working sector are now seeking to remodel their space to offer more enclosed offices.

 Diversified locations: Another trend we anticipate is for more flexible office facilities to be accommodated in non-office buildings. Given the particular oversupply in the retail and hotel markets, a number of developers are currently looking at opportunities to incorporate flexible office concepts space within vacant or underutilised space within retail malls or hotels.

These properties offer a number of attractions for flexible office operators including generous parking & access to retail, food services and other supporting facilities.

While the increase in remote working will result in less demand for office space in the future, the reduction in densities due to new social distancing measures will increase the amount of space required to house a given level of office staff," observed Salbak.

"It is clear that the long-term impact of the coronavirus on office demand is far more nuanced than many are suggesting, with a broad range of factors impacting demand," she added.-TradeArabia News Service
KENOSHA, Wis.  Some residents in Kenosha fear a planned visit by President Donald Trump after unrest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake may stir more emotions and cause more violence and destruction in the divided southeastern Wisconsin city after several days of peace.

Others, though, welcome the president's trip, scheduled for Tuesday, when he will tour damage and meet with law enforcement. His visit comes as demonstrators are calling for the officer who shot Blake to be fired and face attempted murder charges, and more than a week after authorities say a 17-year-old from northern Illinois shot and killed two protesters.

The tension began Aug. 23 after a video showed a Kenosha police officer shooting Blake, a Black man, in the back while responding to a call about a domestic dispute. All last week, Black Lives Matter protesters held events to call for changes to policing, and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called a special session of the Legislature for Monday to take up a host of police reform measures. But Republicans dont plan to take immediate action.

Volunteers and businesses on Sunday worked to clean up from fires and vandalism that destroyed buildings and prompted surviving restaurants, grocery stores, and barbershops to board up.

Kenosha police said Sunday that they had arrested 175 people since the protests began in the bedroom community between Chicago and Milwaukee. Of those, 102 were from outside Kenosha, including 44 different cities. Many arrests were for curfew violations, and included possible charges for burglary, possession of illegal drugs and carrying concealed weapons without a permit, officials said. More than 20 firearms had been seized.

Family members say Blake, 29, is paralyzed, and a lawyer said most of his colon and small intestines were removed. His family led a large peaceful protest Saturday, just before Trump announced his plans to visit. On Sunday, Evers sent Trump a letter urging him not to come, saying the visit will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.

But Kenosha County Board supervisors also wrote to Trump, urging him not to cancel.

Kenoshans are hurting and looking for leadership, and your leadership in this time of crisis is greatly appreciated by those devastated by the violence in Kenosha, the letter from seven supervisors said.

Trump showed no signs of backing down, tweeting about the unrest in Kenosha and saying, " I will see you on Tuesday!

Diana Kreye, a 60-year-old resident of nearby Brighton, said Trump is exploiting the conflict.

I dont like that this has all become political, said Kreye, an undecided voter. Let the city heal. Now is not the time for a photo op.

Angel Tirado, 42, however, thinks Trumps visit could help. I hope he says something that can calm us all down, said Tirado. Maybe hell bring us together.

Others doubt the president had any intention of closing divisions and pointed to his recent tweets and history of making racist comments.

Hes not coming down here to heal, said David Sanchez, 66, a retiree and Kenosha resident who expects thousands of people to show up to protest Trump. Hes coming to Kenosha to start more trouble. I dont care what he says.

He has done nothing over the last three years to bring people together, said Raymond Roberts, 38, a data scientist and Afghanistan War veteran. This is a bellwether county in a bellwether state. Its all about his reelection.

Trump has throughout the summer sought to cast U.S. cities as under siege by violence and lawlessness, despite the fact that most of the demonstrations against racial injustice have been peaceful.

Still, Trump is likely to find some support in a county he won in 2016 by fewer than 250 votes.

On Sunday, a group of about 100 police supporters gathered downtown for a back the blue rally. That was a fraction of the size of a Saturday protest against police violence that attracted about 1,000 people.

Also Sunday, some Trump supporters walked by burned buildings and shouted that the Black Lives Matter movement was a terrorist organization.

Oscar Escobar, 41, a Kenosha resident who owns a moving company and co-owns a bar and grill, said he doesnt align with either Democrats or Republicans. He said its good that Trump plans to visit.

I think its a great thing for him to show that he cares about whats happening here in Kenosha and not turning his back on us and just leaving us alone, Escobar said.

_______

AP reporters Jennifer Peltz in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.
A 24-year-old woman who was trafficked from Bihar by an agent of a fake placement agency and later sold into prostitution, escaped from her confines last week and sought help from the Delhi Police.

Police said after her husband left her and with no source of income to raise her two children, the woman came to Delhi with the agent in the hopes of getting a job and later brought her children along as well.

But the agent allegedly sold her to another person who sexually exploited her and then forced her into prostitution, senior police officers said.

Police said last week, the woman fled the place where was being confined and approached the Delhi Police, seeking their help.

A team of the Netaji Subhash Place police station later carried out an operation and arrested three men, including the agent Sanjay Shah,34, the police said.

The other two arrested men were identified as Kishan Rai alias Krishnu,25, and Aarif alias Rahul,40, both from Delhi. Shah belongs to Bihar and he had allegedly lured the woman to Delhi in 2017, following his frequent visits to her native village to offer the women there employment in Delhi, a senior police officer associated with the case said, requesting anonymity.

Deputy commissioner of police (northwest) Vijayanta Arya said on August 23, the woman called the police and in her complaint accused one Kishan Rai of raping her and forcing her into prostitution.

The woman told the police that Kishan is the person to whom she was sold by Shah. She has alleged that Kishan raped her after promising to marry her.

When she learnt that he was already married and confronted him, Kishan forced her into prostitution. Aarif is Kishans associate and he too had raped her, the woman alleged.

The womans was counselled and her statement was recorded. She told the police that her husband left her and their two children and married another woman in their home town in Bihar. In 2017, she met Shah who promised her a job and brought her to Delhi. He got her a job as a domestic help in two houses in north and outer Delhi, the officer said.

The woman told us that in 2018, Shah made her steal cash and jewellery from her employer. She was arrested and remained in jail till February this year, when Shah got her released on bail and sold her to Kishan, who raped her and then pushed her into prostitution, the officer said, quoting the womans statement.

On August 24, the police team laid a trap by sending the woman to a park near Kishans house after she informed him about her return. When Kishan reached the park, the police caught him. His interrogation led to the arrest of Shah from Narela and Aarif from Vijay Vihar.

The three men were arrested under sections 376 (rape), 370 (buying or disposing of any person as a slave), 370 A (exploitation of a trafficked person), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code, DCP Arya said.
Captain Lionel Messi made good his threat not to appear on Sunday for the mandatory Covid-19 tests for Barcelona players ahead of preparation for pre-season activities.

Messi had informed the club he wants to move away from the Spanish giants, which he joined from childhood.

While other players attended the Ciutat Esportiva training ground for the test, Messi was conspicuously missing.

He was scheduled to appear 10:12am but was nowhere to be seen, fuelling speculation he was going to leave the club.

While Messi insists he is a free agent, the club argued he has an existing contract and can only leave upon payment of his $700m release clause.

Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
SheKnows

When Kim Kardashian became famous, she ushered in an era of highly curated and airbrushed photos  and she even influenced makeup trends with a heavily contoured face. But what we should be celebrating is how gorgeous she looks without all of the editing. The SKIMS founder was spotted in longtime friend Allison Statters birthday []
By Trend

Azerbaijan will always have Malaysia's support in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Ambassador of Malaysia to the Republic of Azerbaijan Dato' Yubazlan Bin Yusof said, Trend reports.

The ambassador made the statement during an event in the Malaysian embassy in Azerbaijan.

The ambassador added that Malaysia reaffirms the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the state borders of Azerbaijan and the inadmissibility of the use of force by Armenia.

Malaysia is committed to enhance and bolster the bilateral relations with Azerbaijan, the ambassador added.

Im very pleased to note that Malaysias bilateral relations with Azerbaijan are improving with each passing year, added the ambassador.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

Im very pleased to note that Malaysias bilateral relations with Azerbaijan are improving with each passing year, added the ambassador.
Mexicos state oil firm Pemex is not planning a shift toward curbing carbon emissions or green energy, as Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador continues to bet on oil exploration and a new domestic refinery to make the country energy independent and reverse the years-long decline in oil output, Reuters reported, citing government and company sources.

Lopez Obrador, a leftist populist, came to power with the promise to increase state support for Pemex and make the state-run major the pillar of a turnaround for the countrys declining oil production.

Petroleos Mexicanos, as Pemex is officially known, will continue to focus on oil exploration and production as well as a future $8-billion refinery, Dos Bocas, which is planned for Lopez Obradors home state of Tabasco, according to Reuters sources with knowledge of the government and company plans.

However, Pemexa heavily indebted companyrelies on issuing bonds to finance and refinance its maturities, and the financial situation at the Mexican state oil firm has further deteriorated since oil prices crashed earlier this year.

Many institutional investors hold a large part of Pemexs bonds, and those investors are already demanding that the oil firm take action to curb emissions and help the fight against climate change.

If Pemex continues to ignore investor demands to start acting on emission reductions, it could find itself in a position that it would be more difficult to issue debt, investors say, many of them feeling that the oil firm doesnt take their demands seriously.

It will become increasingly challenging for international institutional investors to invest in their bond issuances if they dont address their sustainability concerns - whether climate, oil spills due to oil theft and health and safety, Marie-Sybille Connan, an analyst with asset manager Allianz Global Investors, told Reuters.

Pemex itself touts the unparalleled government support it has, which implicitly guarantees the companys debt issues. But if lenders join the investors in the calls for climate action and withhold financing for the oil firm, Pemex could be forced to consider a climate action plan.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
A man demonstrates how winemakers would retrieve and taste wines from barrels in the barrel room in Adelaide hills, Australia on Oct. 11, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's Ministry of Commerce on Monday announced its decision to launch an anti-subsidy probe on wine imports from Australia.

The probe on wines in containers holding two liters or less is expected to end before Aug. 31, 2021, but may extend to Feb. 28, 2022 under special circumstances, according to a statement on the ministry's website.

The move was in response to a request from the China Alcoholic Drinks Association on behalf of the domestic industry, which claimed such wine imports had received subsidies from the Australian government, the ministry said.

Related Australian wine industries or companies may have benefited from a total of 40 subsidies from the government, according to the request from the association.

On Aug. 18, China launched an anti-dumping probe on wine imports from Australia.




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Experts say it's not a good idea to warm up your car in winter

Experts say it's not a good idea to warm up your car in winter. Here's why.
While movie theatre owners in India have been trying hard to reopen with necessary safety measures, the COVID situation in the country seems to be messing up their plans.

With uncertainty over the reopening of movie theatres, many movie-goers are also eagerly waiting for a green signal from the government.

 TOI

However, Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor Ahuja recently got lucky with being able to watch the much-talked-about film Tenet in a movie theatre in London, and going by her Instagram stories it wouldnt be wrong to say that she was ecstatic to be watching a movie on the big screen after so long.



Sharing multiple posts on her Instagram, Sonam wrote, At last...in the cinema..so so happy!

 Instagram Sonam Kapoor Ahuja

Sonam, who is currently in London, with husband Anand Ahuja, went to watch Christopher Nolans latest release Tenet which also stars Dimple Kapadia in a pivotal role, besides John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh.



She shared a selfie from inside the theatre where she could be seen wearing a mask and maintaining physical distance with other movie-goers.

 Instagram Sonam Kapoor Ahuja

Sharing an exclusive post about it, Sonam wrote in an Instagram post, So I went to watch @tenetfilm in the cinema today. Firstly the incredible experience of watching a film on the big screen is unparalleled. Secondly to watch the luminous Dimple Kapadia in the film gave me goosebumps. Nothing compares to cinema, the big screen and its magic. Nothing.(sic)



Multiple comments following this post were in support of Sonams claim that nothing beats the silver screen experience and we presume many of you reading this may also agree.

Meanwhile, the Ministry Of Home Affairs has allowed open-air theatres to resume operations from 21 September as part of the Unlock 4.0 guidelines.
Ankur Jain has achieved much of his success in business by creating win-win situations. With his company's latest initiative, he's trying to help displaced workers while at the same time filling a significant need in the health care industry.

Earlier this year Jain, the founder of New York City-based investment firm Kairos, came across a report that stated that about 40 percent of jobs lost in the economic crisis wouldn't return, in part because of the time needed to reopen businesses in hard-hit industries such as retail and restaurants. So the Kairos team started to think about what they could do to help create jobs quickly. Their solution: Pair out-of-work Americans with elderly and sick patients in need of home health care.

The idea made sense because, as the virus spread, elderly people began staying away from nursing homes to avoid getting sick. Meanwhile, according to Jain, the workers left unemployed by the pandemic were in the right stage of life to move into the 500,000 unfilled jobs in the health care industry. "When Covid hit, obviously there was the health care scare, but for our generation I think a lot of the fear had to do with the economic challenges," he says. "Most of the jobs that were lost were people under the age of 35."

Kairos pledged to fund the training of 10,000 American health care workers in partnership with CareAcademy and Care.com. Since the initiative launched in mid-July, about 2,000 people have signed up for the training. Kairos and CareAcademy cover the cost to trainees. Jain says a comparable program would cost about $1,000 and take about 60 hours to complete. Trainees can then find a job via CareAcademy placement partners like Care.com.

Home health care aides typically don't command high salaries--Glassdoor lists the average base pay as $22,470 per year--but Jain says it's comparable to a hospitality or retail worker's base pay. Plus, the training and job placement puts workers on the path to a career in health care by setting them up for further training as a licensed practical nurse or registered nurse.

"It's a no-cost option to build a skill set, and lets you get to work when you're ready," Jain says.

Kairos launched a similar job-training initiative in June through its London-based health care company, Cera. After 10,000 people were trained, the U.K. government agreed to take over and fund training for an additional 100,000 workers. If the program in the U.S. takes off, Kairos plans to make a similar handoff to the government. It's already in discussions with the city of Miami, which has a large number of elderly people and displaced hospitality workers.
The on Monday launched a fresh attack on the Congress, alleging that the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust received donations from organisations linked to Mehul Choksi, Rana Kapoor, Jignesh Shah and Zakir Naik, all of whom are being probed under money laundering charges.

Addressing a press conference, spokesperson Sambit Patra said all these donations were part of a "conspiracy", and alleged that trails of all "scams" lead to the Gandhi family.

Hitting back at the BJP, chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted that a "scared" central government will not answer questions about China's transgressions into our territory, "sinking" GDP numbers and job losses but will instead blame the Congress, its president Sonia Gandhi, RGF (Rajiv Gandhi Foundation), the weather and God.

Targeting the Congress, Patra said Choksi, an accused in the PNB fraud case who has fled the country, donated Rs 10 lakh to the foundation in August 2014 through a company owned by his family while Kapoor, the arrested founder of Yes Bank, donated Rs 9.45 lakh to the foundation in September, 2016.

Shah-owned Financial Technologies India Limited donated Rs 50 lakh to the trust in 2011, he alleged.

Naik, a hardline Islamic preacher, had donated Rs 50 lakh in 2011 to the trust, Patra noted and added that the money was returned by the trust to a different account after a controversy broke out.

"Since the main account was under probe, so the returned the money to another account," he said.

Patra alleged that the GVK group, which is being probed for a scam linked to the Mumbai airport, had also supplied 47 vehicles to the foundation for its use between 2011-12 and 2016-17.

leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury asked as to how these accused managed to flee the country under the dispensation.

"BJP is at the helm of affairs. If the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has committed any wrong or any legal infirmities are found, then the government is at liberty to do anything," he said.

He then asked as to how many Chinese companies have donated to the PM CARES Fund, and said this also should be investigated.

Patra cited the Supreme Court judgment, which had refused to direct the Centre to transfer the contributions made to the PM CARES Fund to the Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), and asked Chowdhury to trust the court.

Congress secretary Pranab Jha dismissed the allegations as "plants" and said these are rehashed, old charges.

"We reject them with the contempt they deserve," he said.

(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.)
Montenegro Voting for New Parliament; Election to Determine Path Forward

By VOA News August 30, 2020

Montenegrins vote Sunday in parliamentary elections, choosing between the path toward EU membership, led by the long-ruling pro-Western party, or closer ties with Serbia and Russia advocated by a coalition of opposition groups.

The elections are being held as a dispute over a religious property law opposed by the influential Serbian Orthodox Church brews.

The church argues the law permits Montenegro to confiscate its property in efforts to create a separate Montenegrin church, the government has denied the claim.

The main pro-Serb and -Russian opposition alliance, For the Future of Montenegro, backs the church.

Polls predict the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, a strong Western ally, in power for about 30 years, will finish first but may not have the votes to form a government alone.

Montenegro under the DPS and Djukanovic, broke with Serbia and Russia to join NATO in 2017, after declaring independence from Serbia in 2006.

Internally, DPS and Djukanovic, have faced accusations of an autocratic rule, as well as of widespread graft and criminal links.

Some 540,000 Montenegrins are eligible to vote in the Balkan country for the 81-seat Skupstina, or Assembly.

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NSF backs first community platform for smarter wireless

HOUSTON - (Aug. 31, 2020) - Rice University researchers have received a $1.5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to develop an open-source platform to meet the urgent need of developing and validating machine-learning (ML) based innovations for future wireless networks and mobile applications.

The goal of the project led by Yingyan Lin, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice's Brown School of Engineering, is to develop a first-of-its-kind community platform to turbo-charge the research process of inventing novel ML-based techniques for intelligent wireless network management and optimization.

"Two of the biggest challenges in leveraging machine learning are the availability of large, diverse and labeled public datasets, and platforms to evaluate a new method in lifelike deployment," Lin said. "3DML will solve both problems by leveraging Rice's unique strengths in two complementary areas: embedded machine learning and large-scale wireless research platforms."

"Rice Wireless has been a leader in theory and development of next-generation wireless networks, and our concurrent NSF project developing the RENEW platform will beautifully complement the 3DML project," said Ashutosh Sabharwal, the Ernest Dell Butcher Professor of Engineering and a professor and chair of electrical and computer engineering at Rice, a co-principal investigator on 3DML and lead investigator on RENEW.

The researchers say 3DML will be the first platform designed from the ground up to facilitate the development of ML-based innovations for wireless networks.

They claim 3DML will advance next-generation intelligent wireless networks, including enhanced mobile broadband, a massive Internet of Things and ultralow-latency applications. These will support emerging applications like multiaccess edge computing for augmented reality, virtual reality and virtual core solutions.

All of the developed datasets, tools and libraries will be released at https:/ / 3dml. rice. edu .

"Wireless internet is an integral part of a nation's infrastructure, and as networks become more complex and diverse, we need new methods to manage and protect these networks," Lin said. "To invent those ideas, researchers need agile and flexible tools, and 3DML will provide those tools."

To achieve those goals, Lin is partnering with researchers at Rice and the University of Texas at Austin. They include Rice colleagues Joseph Cavallaro, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and of computer science; Rahman Doost-Mohammady, an assistant research professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Ang Chen, an assistant professor of computer science, and Zhangyang Wang, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Texas.

An educational component of the grant will provide for workshops, online courses and internships for undergraduate and graduate student at Rice and beyond, as well as for industry.

###

This news release can be found online at https:/ / news. rice. edu/ 2020/ 08/ 31/ nsf-backs-first-community-platform-for-smarter-wireless/

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Related materials:

Rice engineers offer smart, timely ideas for AI bottlenecks: http://news. rice. edu/ 2020/ 06/ 11/ rice-engineers-offer-smart-timely-ideas-for-ai-bottlenecks-2/

3DML: https:/ / sites. google. com/ rice. edu/ 3dml/ home

Efficient and Intelligent Computing Lab (Lin Group): https:/ / eiclab. net

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: https:/ / eceweb. rice. edu

Department of Computer Science: https:/ / csweb. rice. edu

George R. Brown School of Engineering: https:/ / engineering. rice. edu

Image for download:

https:/ / news-network. rice. edu/ news/ files/ 2020/ 08/ 0831_WIRELESS-1-WEB. jpg

CAPTION: Yingyan Lin. (Credit: 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 quality of life and No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
A Lehigh County woman said she couldnt wait for an evening out with her husband after months of staying indoors amid the coronavirus pandemic.

But now shes stunned. She still cant believe a group of teens pulled her to the ground and attacked her husband in Eastons Downtown restaurant district.

Lehighvalleylive.com is withholding the name of the woman in her 60s because she requested privacy due to her job.

The woman opted to eat Saturday night at Amans Artisan Indian Cuisine at 336 Northampton St. in Easton. After a relaxing dinner, the couple left around 6:15 p.m. with a box of leftovers and what was left of the wine they brought.

As the couple walked to their car, the woman said she felt someone tug on her hair extensions.

It was a yank real hard and it pulled by head backward, the woman described to lehighvalleylive.com. It was so shocking. Ive never had anybody do that before.

The woman said she initially thought a young child was accidentally pulling at her hair. When she turned, she saw a female teenager and three teen boys who appeared to be the girls friends.

Her husband then yelled at the girl, What the hell did you do that for?, she said. He asked her questions and wanted to know how old the girl was. She said she was 14, according to the victim.

The woman claims the girl then threatened to beat her up and called out expletives. The girl pulled at her hair extensions again before dragging her head down at the pavement. The victim attempted to video the incident with her cell phone as the young girl pulled her to the ground and yanked her hair, she said.

The husband intervened, now grabbing the girl by the back of her own hair to keep her from grabbing his wife. Then the three boys jumped into the scuffle, punching the man in the face, neck and temple, the female victim claims.

My husband kept saying, If you walk away, Ill let her go, the woman recalled as her husband held the girl back. He threw no punches because of their age. He let them hit him and held her to prevent her from going back after me.

The boys, the woman said, then began calling out about the girl being held back, Why are you doing that to her?

Others walked by but no one stopped to help or call 911, the woman said.

I felt like people were passing us, she said.

While on the ground, the victim recalls being able to press 9-1-1 on her cell phone.

Get somebody here, were being assaulted. You got to get somebody here now, she recalls screaming to Northampton County 911 Dispatch.

A Good Samaritan then emerged. The victim believes the helper may have been a female merchant from a nearby store. The woman squeezed herself between the teens and her husband. The man then again told the boys, If you walk away, Ill let her go. He had to fend off a lot of punches, the woman said.

This time, the boys complied, her husband let go of the girl, and all four walked down the street toward the New Jersey side of the circle. The female victim estimates the fight lasted about 15 minutes. She contends nothing led up to the attack, no remarks were made and no one made eye contact with the teens.

The initial attack was unprovoked and without warning, she said. That is why I was unable to run. And why I was in such shock.

The couple went at the suggestion of police to an urgent care center for treatment of injuries. The man suffered multiple swollen areas and welts to his face and neck while the woman suffered bruises, scratches and cuts. She said parts of her hair extensions were pulled from her scalp. The extensions are microbeaded, which is why they pull from the scalp, she said.

Others posted about the incident on social media. At least one man captured video footage of the foursome just after the incident as they walked along the Eighth Street stairs above Northampton Street. Investigators quickly had a photo of all four suspects and found them in less than three hours, police Chief Carl Scalzo said.

Police have not provided ages of the juveniles. Police think an argument preceded the attack. Police said Monday theres no ongoing problem concerning violent young teens in the city.

All four are being charged as juveniles with simple assault and harassment, police said Sunday. The girl is being held at the juvenile detention center on Ferry Street while the boys were released with pending mailed summonses advising them of appearances before a judge, according to police.

Scalzo said hes had dinner Downtown with his family in recent days and got to see the police presence first hand. The chief said visitors and residents should feel safe in the neighborhood due to heightened patrols in the parking garages and on the streets.

The female victim said shes still stunned how brazen the group was to attack her on a well-traveled street and walk away like nothing happened.

Thats what scares me more than anything, she said.

Reporter Tony Rhodin contributed to this report.

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Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com.
NEW DELHI: Former Indian President Pranab Mukherjee passed away at the age of 84 in Delhi. Mukherjee, who served as the 13th President of India, was hospitalised at the Army Hospital on August 10.

Mukherjee's son Abhijit took to Twitter and made the announcement. In a post, he said, "With a Heavy Heart , this is to inform you that my father Shri #PranabMukherjee has just passed away inspite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital & prayers ,duas & prarthanas from people throughout India ! I thank all of You Folded hands."

He was admitted to the hospital in a critical condition and tests revealed a large clot in his brain for which he underwent an emergency life-saving surgery. Post-surgery Mukherjee remained critical and on ventilator support.

Ahead of his hospitalisation, the veteran Congress leader had tweeted, "On a visit to the hospital for a separate procedure, I have tested positive for Covid-19 today. I request the people who came in contact with me in the last week, to please self isolate and get tested for Covid-19."

President Ram Nath Kovind expressed his condolences on the demise and wrote on Twitter, "Sad to hear that former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee is no more. His demise is passing of an era. A colossus in public life, he served Mother India with the spirit of a sage. The nation mourns losing one of its worthiest sons. Condolences to his family, friends & all citizens."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, tweeted, "India grieves the passing away of Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society."

"As Indias President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee made Rashtrapati Bhavan even more accessible to common citizens. He made the Presidents house a centre of learning, innovation, culture, science and literature. His wise counsel on key policy matters will never be forgotten by me," PM Modi said in another tweet.

"I was new to Delhi in 2014. From Day 1, I was blessed to have the guidance, support and blessings of Shri Pranab Mukherjee. I will always cherish my interactions with him. Condolences to his family, friends, admirers and supporters across India. Om Shanti," PM Modi said in a series of tweets.

India grieves the passing away of Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society. pic.twitter.com/gz6rwQbxi6  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 31, 2020

As India's President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee made Rashtrapati Bhavan even more accessible to common citizens. He made the President's house a centre of learning, innovation, culture, science and literature. His wise counsel on key policy matters will never be forgotten by me.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 31, 2020

I was new to Delhi in 2014. From Day 1, I was blessed to have the guidance, support and blessings of Shri Pranab Mukherjee. I will always cherish my interactions with him. Condolences to his family, friends, admirers and supporters across India. Om Shanti. pic.twitter.com/cz9eqd4sDZ  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 31, 2020

Union Home Minister Amit Shah tweeted, "Deeply anguished on the passing away of former President of India, Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee ji. He was a vastly experienced leader who served the nation with utmost devotion. Pranab das distinguished career is a matter of great pride for the entire country."

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted, "Deeply anguished by the demise of former president of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee ji. He was widely respected by the people across all sections of society. His demise is a personal loss. He had tremendous knowledge of Indias history, diplomacy, public policy and also defence."

BJP president JP Nadda said he served the country with diligence and was admired across party lines. "Saddened by the demise of former President and statesman Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has served the Country in many roles with diligence and determination. He is widely admired across the parties for his intellect and perseverance . My condolences to his family and followers."

Pranab Mukherjee hailed from West Bengal. He famously attended every Durga Puja at his home town Mirati in Birbhum district.

Pranab's career in politics spanned over five decades.

In 2017, Mukherjee decided not to run for re-election and to retire from politics after leaving the presidency due to health complications relating to old age. His term expired on July 25, 2017. Prior to his election as President, Mukherjee was Union Finance Minister from 2009 to 2012.

For his distinguished service to the nation, he was first awarded India's second highest civilian award, Padma Vibhushan in 2008. In 2019, he was awarded India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna by the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind.
Its every mothers nightmare. Late at night, child with a high-temperature and no pharmacy open to buy any medication.

A Medigo shipper delivers medicine to a customer in HCM City.  Photo courtesy of Medigo

Thats exactly the situation single mother Le Thi Bich found herself in.

That was during the pandemics social distancing period and I was alone, said Bich who lives in HCM Citys District 12.

But thats to the power of social media, a solution was quickly found.

I asked for help on my Facebook and my friends introduced me Medigo app. Then I got connected to a nearby pharmacy which was still open at midnight, received consultation from a pharmacist and had medicine delivered to my house.

The app allows people in HCM City and Hanoi to order medicine or upload their prescriptions to connect directly with a pharmacist who can offer a consultation or have medicine delivered in less than 30 minutes.

Le Huu Ha, founder of Medigo, a one-year-old start-up in the healthcare sector, once experienced the same difficulty as Bichs when his relatives were in urgent need of medicine at night.

Ha thought he could create an app that helps parents solve the problem.

Medigo app was launched in early 2019 in HCM City and expanded the network in Hanoi early this year.

Via the app, pharmacists and doctors will offer consultations in terms of doses and have the medicine shipped to customers in the shortest time no matter it is daylight or mid-night.

Medigo selects pharmacy partners based on their experience and standards.

They must adopt Good Pharmacy Practices standards of the health ministry, have large stock and should open until midnight or even overnight, said Ha.

About 100 drugstores in HCM City and Hanoi have so far collaborated with Medigo.

Phung Vinh Hien, a resident living in HCM City, said: I happened to know Medigo on Google when I was trying to search for drug stores opened at night.

I downloaded the app and it took me two minutes to find a drug store near my house. After a while, I received a call from a pharmacist.

Pharmacist Bui Van Tuan, owner of a pharmacy on Nguyen Oanh Street, Go Vap District, HCM City said he had been busier since he collaborated with Medigo.

At first I just thought I would give it a try, he said.

After several months, sales at my store increased. Customers buy not only drugs but also bandages and even food through Medigo app. I started to learn more about new products to provide consultations to customers.

For Ha the founder, positive feedbacks from customers are a motivation for his Medigo team to improve their service.

Although Medigo is a young business, customers can completely trust in the service quality. They can give feedback on pharmacies and consultation quality to our customer service channel, he told Viet Nam News.

I believe that online medicine sale service is now an essential demand. When it is combined with consultations of pharmacists and doctors, customers will give priority to the service.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, more people tend to select online healthcare services including online pharmacies, remote diagnosing and teleconsulting.

A number of start-ups that apply technology in healthcare in Vietnam and around the world received huge investment in the first months of the year in spite of COVID-19.

Experts predicted that the pandemic was a golden time for healthcare start-ups.

Ha said: The demand of using online healthcare services has increased during the pandemic. Compared to start-ups in other sectors which saw decrease of 50 to 70 per cent in the first months of the year due to COVID-19, Medigo was lucky to witness growth.

It is an opportunity and also a responsibility of healthcare start-ups to improve service quality to meet market demand.

The core value we look for is gaining customers trust. The pandemic is temporary and will be over. What remains is trust from customers. The most important thing is the services satisfy customers or not.

Medigo looks to become an app connecting customers with doctors for healthcare check-ups and treatment as telemedicine is the future plan of the start-up.

We expect that customers will get connected with doctors, clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, testing labs through online consultation. They will get the treatment therapies while still staying at home. VNS

Khanh Duong

Ministry of Health issues warning over COVID-19 community infection Acting Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long has warned the country looks set to face new COVID-19 hotspots in the community in the coming days and urged localities to stay vigilant to quickly detect new infections.
JUBA, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Medical experts sent by the Chinese government to South Sudan had advised the east African country to strengthen the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. At the conclusion of their nine-day mission to South Sudan, the Chinese medics produced a report, which provided an in-depth analysis of South Sudan's coronavirus situation. The report released in Juba on Thursday reveals that South Sudan's COVID-19 response has deficiencies in the areas of emergency command system, community investigation, epidemic monitoring, infection prevention, clinical treatment, laboratory testing, health education, among others. The report also finds that there is lack of public attention to the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report recommends the government to undertake reforms in the area of testing, control, treatment, epidemiological investigation and awareness creation. The report also calls for strengthening of treatment and management of COVID-19 patients and asymptomatic cases by setting up centralized isolation and treatment centers across South Sudan. It further recommends enforcement of strict preventive measures in public spaces like schools and religious institutions before the government could lift a four-month ban on social gatherings. South Sudan only admits critically ill coronavirus patients at the Infectious Disease Unit (IDU) as asymptomatic patients are allowed to self-isolate in their homes. Liang Chaozhao, head of the Chinese medical expert team, said the report was compiled following days of extensive face-to-face interactions with South Sudanese government officials, humanitarian organizations and South Sudanese health experts. The Chinese medics also visited public places such as health facilities, markets and the Juba International Airport to assess control and prevention measures put in place by authorities. "South Sudan needs to raise the awareness of epidemic prevention and control to fully realize the long-term nature of prevention and control new pneumonia and implement external defense," Liang said. Speaking at the launch of the report, spokesperson of South Sudan's Ministry of Health Thou Loi, said the findings and recommendations of the Chinese medical experts would enhance the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. "We are doing a lot with the Chinese and we will be looking forward to doing more with the Chinese in the health sector and areas of international public concern," Loi said. Loi said the South Sudanese medics will continue to engage their Chinese counterparts whenever they need assistance and experience sharing. "We will be looking forward to more interactions with the Chinese medical experts so that we develop a resilient health sector for the people of South Sudan," Loi added. The eight-member team from China's Anhui Province arrived in South Sudan on Aug. 19 and they stayed until Aug. 27. The team consisted of experts in the medical fields including laboratory technology, infection, intensive care, public health, and nursing. During their nine-day mission, the Chinese medics shared knowledge and experience with senior South Sudanese government officials, local health experts, medical institutions and also trained South Sudanese medical staff on COVID-19 response. South Sudan confirmed its first COVID-19 case on April 5. The total number has since risen to 2,519, with 47 deaths and 1,294 recoveries as of Thursday. Enditem


The Supreme Court will pronounce its order Monday in a review petition filed by fugitive Indian businessman and former Member of Parliament Vijay Mallya against a May 2017 judgment of the top court. The court had pronounced him guilty of contempt of court for violating its orders and those of the Karnataka high court.

The judgment will be pronounced by a bench of justices UU Lalit and Ashok Bhushan.

He is guilty of disobeying the orders passed by this court (Supreme Court) in not disclosing full particulars of the assets as was directed by this Court. He is guilty of violating the express orders of restraint passed by the high court of Karnataka in the same cause from which the present proceedings have arisen, the Supreme Court had said in its order passed on May 9, 2017.

When the case came up for hearing in June 2020, the top court had sought an explanation from its registry officials regarding the undue delay in listing the review petition.

When the matter was taken up on August 6, it was adjourned again since some crucial records pertaining to the case could not be located. Eventually the case was heard on August 27 and reserved for verdict.

At least 14 banks had moved the Debt Recovery Tribunal, Bengaluru, against Mallya seeking recovery of over Rs 6,300 crore owed to them in 2016 by Mallyas companies. The banks had also prayed that Mallyas passport should be frozen and he should be arrested.

However, the DRT failed to hear those prayers, prompting the banks to approach the Karnataka high court seeking appropriate directions to DRT for speedy disposal of the applications they moved.

The high court had declined to grant such a prayer and the banks then moved the Supreme Court.

Mallya had fled the country by then. The Supreme Court in its May 2017 order had asked the Centre to produce Mallya before the court to decide on the punishment to be handed down to him for contempt of court.

We direct the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi to secure and ensure presence of Respondent No.3 before this Court on 10.07.2017, the order read.

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When police arrested the middle-aged Uighur woman at the height of China's outbreak, she was crammed into a cell with dozens of other women in a detention centre.

There, she said, she was forced to drink a medicine that made her feel weak and nauseous, guards watching as she gulped. She and the also had to strip naked once a week and cover their faces as guards hosed them and their cells down with disinfectant like firemen, she said.

It was scalding, recounted the woman by phone from Xinjiang, declining to be named out of fear of retribution. My hands were ruined, my skin was peeling.

The government in China's far northwest Xinjiang region is resorting to draconian measures to combat the coronavirus, including physically locking residents in homes, imposing quarantines of more than 40 days and arresting those who do not comply.

Furthermore, in what experts call a breach of medical ethics, some residents are being coerced into swallowing traditional Chinese medicine, according to government notices, social media posts and interviews with three people in quarantine in Xinjiang.

There is a lack of rigorous clinical data showing traditional Chinese medicine works against the virus, and one of the herbal remedies used in Xinjiang, Qingfei Paidu, includes ingredients banned in Germany, Switzerland, the US and other countries for high levels of toxins and carcinogens.

The latest grueling lockdown, now in its 45th day, comes in response to 826 cases reported in Xinjiang since mid-July, China's largest caseload since the initial outbreak. But the Xinjiang lockdown is especially striking because of its severity, and because there hasn't been a single new case of local transmission in over a week.

Harsh lockdowns have been imposed elsewhere in China, most notably in Wuhan in Hubei province, where the virus was first detected. But though Wuhan grappled with over 50,000 cases and Hubei with 68,000 in all, many more than in Xinjiang, residents there weren't forced to take traditional medicine and were generally allowed outdoors within their compounds for exercise or grocery deliveries.

The response to an outbreak of more than 300 cases in Beijing in early June was milder still, with a few select neighbourhoods locked down for a few weeks. In contrast, more than half of Xinjiang's 25 million people are under a lockdown that extends hundreds of miles from the centre of the outbreak in the capital, Urumqi.

Even as Wuhan and the rest of has mostly returned to ordinary life, Xinjiang's lockdown is backed by a vast surveillance apparatus that has turned the region into a digital police state. Over the past three years, Xinjiang authorities have swept a million or more Uighurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities into various forms of detention, including extrajudicial internment camps, under a widespread security crackdown.

Authorities say the measures taken are for the well-being of all residents, though they haven't commented on why they are harsher than those taken elsewhere. The Chinese government has struggled for decades to control Xinjiang, at times clashing violently with many of the region's native Uighurs, who resent Beijing's heavy-handed rule.

Xinjiang authorities can carry out the harsh measures, experts say, because of its lavishly funded security apparatus, which by some estimates deploys the most police per capita of anywhere on the planet.

Not all the recent outbreak measures in Xinjiang are targeted at the Uighurs and other largely Muslim minorities. Some are being enforced on China's majority Han residents in Xinjiang as well, though they are generally spared the extrajudicial detention used against minorities.

This month, thousands of Xinjiang residents took to social media to complain about what they called excessive measures against the virus in posts that are often censored, some with images of residents handcuffed to railings and front doors sealed with metal bars.

One Han Chinese woman with the last name of Wang posted photos of herself drinking traditional Chinese medicine in front of a medical worker in full protective gear. Why are you forcing us to drink medicine when we're not sick! she asked in a August 18 post that was swiftly deleted.

After the heavy criticism, the authorities eased some restrictions last week, now allowing some residents to walk in their compounds, and a limited few to leave the region after a bureaucratic approval process.

One Han businessman working between Urumqi and Beijing told the AP he was put in quarantine in mid-July. Despite having taken tests five times and testing negative each time, he said, the authorities still haven't let him out not for so much as a walk.

Since the start of the outbreak, the Chinese government has pushed traditional medicine on its population.

The remedies are touted by President Xi Jinping, China's authoritarian leader, who has advocated a revival of traditional Chinese culture. Although some state-backed doctors say they have conducted trials showing the medicine works against the virus, no rigorous clinical data supporting that claim has been published in scientific journals.

The government says that the participation rate in traditional Chinese medicine treatment in the region has reached 100%, according to a state media report.

When asked about resident complaints that they were being forced to take Chinese medicine, one local official said it was being done according to expert opinion.

(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.)
In the blast of social media messages, Trump also embraced a call to imprison New York Governor Andrew Cuomo; threatened to send federal forces against demonstrators outside the White House; attacked CNN and NPR; embraced a supporter charged with murder; mocked his challenger, former vice-president Joe Biden; and repeatedly assailed Portland's Democratic mayor Ted Wheeler , even posting the mayor's office telephone number so that supporters could call, demanding his resignation.

Many of the messages were inflammatory comments or assertions about violent clashes in Portland, Oregon, where a man wearing the hat of a far-right, pro-Trump group was shot and killed on Saturday after a large group of Trump's supporters travelled through the streets.

In a concentrated pre-dawn burst, the President posted or retweeted 89 messages between 5.49am and 8.04am on Sunday on top of 18 the night before. He resumed on Sunday night.

Washington : President Donald Trump has unleashed an especially intense barrage of Twitter messages, embracing fringe conspiracy theories claiming that the coronavirus death toll has been exaggerated and that street protests are actually an organised coup against him.

One of the most incendiary messages was a retweet of a program from the One America News Network, a pro-Trump channel that advances extreme theories and that the President has turned to when he feels that Fox News has not been supportive enough. The message he retweeted on Saturday night promoted a segment accusing demonstrators of secretly plotting his downfall.

"According to the mainstream media, the riots & extreme violence are completely unorganised," the tweet said. "However, it appears this coup attempt is led by a well funded network of anarchists trying to take down the President." Accompanying it was an image of a promo for a segment titled: "America Under Siege: The Attempt to Overthrow President Trump."

Trump likewise reposted messages asserting that the real death toll from the coronavirus was only about 9000  nowehere near 183,000  because the others who died also had other health issues and most were of an advanced age.

"So get this straight  based on the recommendation of doctors Fauci and Birx the US shut down the entire economy based on 9000 American deaths to the China coronavirus," said the summary of an article by the hard-line conservative website Gateway Pundit that was retweeted by the President, denigrating his own health advisers, Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Deborah Birx.

The post was a distortion of data available on the website of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which reports that 6 per cent of coronavirus fatalities list only the virus on the death certificates. For other deaths, the patients had an average of 2.6 other conditions or causes of death. The statistics do not mean that they did not die because of the virus, but help explain who is most vulnerable to it.
Fugitive killer Thomas McCabe fled Northern Ireland after being blamed on getting a fellow life sentence inmate recalled to prison.

The 56-year-old, who was arrested last Wednesday after more than two years on the run, was terrified that if he too was returned to Maghaberry Prison for licence breaches he would face the wrath of convicted murderer Dennis Hayes.

Prior to going on the run in January 2018, McCabe accused his former friend of beating him up during an all-day drinking session while they were on a period of temporary release.

This led to a furious Hayes, who was convicted of murdering a pensioner in 1983, being thrown back behind bars.

McCabe was also worried that he would be recalled for going on the boozing session, and fearing that would mean being locked up with Hayes, he fled across the border.

Irish police arrested McCabe last Wednesday just weeks after the Crimestoppers charity offered a 5,000 reward for information on his whereabouts.

He is now back in Maghaberry jail, where sources say his list of enemies extends well beyond 58-year-old Dennis Hayes.

"Tommy has a real bad drug problem and was in debt to all the big dealers in the prison, real hard inmates like Davy Conway and Davy Cummings," explained an insider.

"He was constantly being moved to different wings because of the threats against him. The other lifers call him 'Tommy the Tramp', that's how hated he is."

Our source explained how McCabe was close to Hayes, but they fell out after a drunken row while they were both on temporary release. "They were drinking in a flat in north Belfast and Tommy accused Hayes of beating him up," added the insider. "Hayes was recalled to jail and Tommy went on the run because he thought he would also be recalled."

McCabe, who is from the Newry area, was jailed for life with a minimum 17-year tariff for the 1990 murder of teenager Richard Hunt in London, who was his then girlfriend's cousin.

He was freed in 2007, but has been returned to prison on multiple occasions for breaching his licence. In a short film made the same year McCabe talked about the killing, revealing how it took place after he downed a bottle of vodka raw.

The thug said: "When she said to me her cousin was in the living room I automatically assumed he was there giving her drugs. It's hard to explain what happened next. It would be best to say a red mist clouded my eyes."

The murder which McCabe's former friend Dennis Hayes was convicted of also occurred in England. His victim was 73-year-old neighbour John Greaves, who he tied up, stabbed and then beat to death at his Yorkshire home in 1983 during a violent robbery.
A Chinese-born Australian journalist for CGTN, the English-language channel of China Central Television, has been detained in China, Australia's government said Monday.

Australian officials had a consular visit via video link with Cheng Lei at a detention facility last Thursday, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said in a statement. They will continue to provide assistance and support to her and her family, Payne said.

Australia had been informed by Chinese authorities on Aug. 14 of her detention, but made its first public statement on Monday.

Australia has not said why she was detained.

"Further comment will not be provided owing to the government's privacy obligations," Payne said.

Australia in July warned its citizens of a risk of arbitrary detention in China, as relations between the free trade partners have plummeted in recent years. China dismissed the warning as disinformation.

Australia has criticized China for charging Chinese-Australian spy novelist Yang Hengjun with espionage in March.

Australian Karm Gilespie was sentenced to death in China in June, seven years after he was arrested and charged with attempting to board an international flight with more than 7.5 kilograms (16.5 pounds) of methamphetamine. Some observers suspect that such a severe sentence so long after the crime was related to the bilateral rift.

Cheng is an anchor for the BizAsia program. She was born in China and worked in finance in Australia before returning to China and starting a career in journalism with CCTV in Beijing in 2003. Prior to joining CGTN, she was a reporter for CNBC.

She has reported on major Chinese events including Beijing's 2008 Olympics and Shanghai's 2010 World Expo.

CNBC contributed to this report.
Piketty casts doubt on Chinese book release after censorship row Chinese President Xi Jinping had used Piketty's research as proof of the superiority of the Chinese communist model

French "rock star" economist Thomas Piketty said Monday his latest book would probably not be released in China after the publisher demanded too many cuts.

His "Capital and Ideology" surveys the rapid rise of inequality around the world and includes attacks on the "plutocracy" of the Chinese regime, which he says has overtaken Western countries.

"In short, they want to remove all references to contemporary China, and in particular to inequality and transparency in China. I have refused these conditions, and indicated that I will only accept a full translation without any kind of cut," Piketty told AFP by email.

His 2013 book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" made him a global star in his field and sold hundreds of thousands of copies in China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has used his research on rising inequality in the United States and Europe as proof of the superiority of the Chinese communist model.

"The other Chinese publishing houses in contact with my French publisher have indicated that they would also demand cuts, so at this stage it is likely that this book will not be published in mainland China," Piketty said, confirming an earlier report in the South China Morning Post.

- 'Allies of hypercapitalism' -

The offending references feature in a chapter dealing with communist and post-communist societies, during which the economist attacks the "oligarchic and kleptocratic drift" of Russia and the "plutocracy" of China.

"In the late 2010s, China... is only slightly less inegalitarian than the United States and significantly more so than Europe, whereas it was the most egalitarian of the three regions at the beginning of the 1980s," Piketty wrote in a passage he said was taken out by the Chinese publisher.

In another excised passage, he wrote that Russia, China and some Eastern European countries had become the "staunchest allies" of "hypercapitalism".

Story continues

"This is a direct consequence of the disasters of Stalinism and Maoism and the consequent rejection of all egalitarian internationalist ambitions," he wrote.

Piketty's Chinese publisher Citic Press did not comment directly on his claims but told AFP the copyright of "Capital and Ideology" was still being negotiated.

evs/bar/jxb/wai
Andhra Pradesh: Boat owners seek subsidy on transponders

by Arpit Basu

August 31,2020 | Source: The Times of India

The fishermen associations in the state have sought subsidy from the Centre and state governments to install transponders in all the 2,700-odd mechanized fishing boats in Andhra Pradesh. They ensure security post 26/11 Mumbai terror attack and monitor fishing boats crossing the Indian marine border.



The cost of each transponder would be around Rs 13,000. Given the present condition, boat owners would not be able bear the cost. So we have requested the state government to provide 90% subsidy with the help of the Centre, while the boat owners would pay the rest 10%, said Arijili Dasu, executive secretary of District Fishermens Youth Welfare Association (DFYWA). The DFYWA, along with a few other fisheries unions in Andhra Pradesh have forwarded the same request to the state government. Such transponders would help track the location of the fishing boats and the crew can exchange information through text messages with the control room on shore and vice versa.
In another video Nanogirl discusses how soap kills the coronavirus. (In short, COVID-19 wears a double-layered coat made of fat which is burst by soap.) Dr Dickinson encourages parents to employ similar techniques to explain the virus. Loading Put some sticky, googly eyes on it and make it a soft toy and you can help children to imagine something  and therefore how they can get rid of it, she says. By having these conversations at home, children didnt think there was a big scary thing that grown-ups werent talking about, but instead felt included and then empowered to help keep the family safe by keeping their hands washed and sneezing into a tissue.

It was Dr Dickinson who persuaded New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to hold a special press conference just for children. I said to the Prime Minister, Look, I think we need to have conversations with children because they are scared  so we decided very quickly we were going to run a press conference just for children. Dr Michelle Dickinson, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Dr Siouxsie Wiles at the press conference for children in New Zealand. The kids-only press conference was held on March 18, just two days after Norways Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, held a similar event. We think children should feel they are taken seriously in a crisis like this, Ms Solberg told CNN.

The leaders were praised for paving the way in their response to the pandemic. Dr Dickinson says the children-only press conference was one of the most powerful things New Zealand did to start conversations about COVID-19 within families. We socially distanced children who came in and got to ask real questions about rumours they had heard in the playground or things they had heard Mum and Dad say and they wanted to know from a real scientist Was this true?  Dr Dickinson says. Questions like: Can I catch it from my friends pencil in their pencil case? Things that are really concerning children.

Loading Dr Dickinson believes its important to reassure children that young people who do get COVID-19 are often asymptomatic or have milder symptoms. She calls it their super immune system. Its that whole worst-case scenario. Actually as children even if they do get it, hopefully its not going to be a disaster. Dr Dickinson says she dreams of the day Victoria holds a kids-only press conference. I have been doing quite a lot of work in Victoria and I am surprised that the conversations are not happening with children still, she says.

There are lots of children scared about should I go to school, should I play sport, what happens if it comes back. In the meantime, we asked Age readers to submit questions to Dr Dickinson from their children about the coronavirus. The questions, which Dr Dickinson describes as utterly delightful, range from existential to practical to whimsical. Some, such as the grade one student who is scared to go back to school, are poignant: When are schools going to be safe for us? Wont it just happen again? Dr Dickinson responds that schools wont reopen until it is safe to do so, although she predicts they may flip flop between face-to-face and remote learning if there are local COVID-19 outbreaks.

And you need to understand that actually things might be different when you go back. Maybe you might not be able to sit as close to your friends, or maybe assemblies wont be whole school assemblies any more. Loading Dr Dickinson says there is no evidence eating a bat is how humans got the virus. (This rumour, she says, started from tourism videos of people eating bats, which were made outside China.) As for bats, they tend to host a lot of viruses that dont make them sick: So I think the bats are going to be OK. She predicts a vaccine is still 18 months away (a year is needed to test for side effects such as rashes and headaches). But when one is available, Dr Dickinson reassures a child worried they wont be able to go to school unless they are vaccinated, she doesnt think vaccinations will be mandatory. COVID-19 is so named because the virus was found in 2019, Dr Dickinson says. The virus looks like a spiky ball, with little slivers of instructions inside which are like spaghetti.

Four-year-old Stevie had a question about masks. Credit:Simon Schluter She tells four-year-old Stevie, from Sandringham, that the reason she doesnt have to wear masks when grown-ups do is that some four-year-olds keep touching their mask because it is annoying. Actually that makes you more at risk of being infected because you might get your mask dirty and then be breathing in some of those germs. But for some questions, Dr Dickinson doesnt have the answers. When Rafe, 7, from Fitzroy North, asks what we all want to know  When will the coronavirus be over?  Dr Dickson says we still dont know if it will be eradicated like SARS or return every year like the flu virus.

When will the coronavirus be over? Rafe, 7, from Fitzroy North, asked the question on everyone's minds. Credit:Justin McManus She says it is also not known yet if children who are infected will have long-term effects. And there are still mysteries, which is one of the reasons Dr Dickinson loves science. Asked by Seb, 7, from Wollongong, how COVID-19 popped up again in New Zealand after it was eliminated, Dr Dickinson admits the country is still trying to figure that out. She says genomic testing of people infected with COVID-19 who have come through quarantine does not match the new cases.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 17:10:18|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivers a speech during his visit to the French Institute of International Relations in Paris, France, Aug. 30, 2020. (Xinhua/Gao Jing)



3 basic ideas on China-U.S. relations:



- The divergences or competition between the two countries are over the choices of multilateralism or unilateralism, win-win cooperation or a zero-sum game.



- It seems that today's U.S. diplomacy has been reduced to unilateral sanctions and smear attacks.



- The door for China-U.S. dialogue is wide open.



PARIS, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The divergences between China and the United States are not about power, status or social system, but about the choices of multilateralism or unilateralism, win-win cooperation or a zero-sum game, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here on Sunday.

Wang made the remarks when responding to a question by Thierry de Montbrial, president of French Institute of International Relations, about how to avoid the so-called "new Cold War" between China and the United States.

China's position is very clear, which is that all countries are equal members of the international community and enjoy the right to their own development, Wang said.

Students have a computer class at Dulongjiang Center School in Dulongjiang Township of Gongshan Dulong and Nu Autonomous County, southwest China's Yunnan Province, April 23, 2019. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao)

"We congratulate the United States on its pioneered development. But China also has the right to development and the Chinese people have the right to live a happy life. Our brothers and sisters in other emerging economies and developing countries, including Africa, feel the same way. It is a very legitimate claim and very reasonable one," Wang said.

The top Chinese diplomat noted that China has always believed and maintained that the world is moving towards multi-polarity and that international relations also need democratization.

A healthy and stable world should not be dictated by just one or two countries. The sovereign equality of states is a fundamental principle of the Charter of the United Nations. As a world power, the United States should adopt an inclusive attitude towards the development of other countries and realize that the people of other countries have the same right to a better life as the American people, he said.

"If all the seven billion people in the world can move towards modernization, it will be a huge step forward for the human society as a whole," he noted.

Wang added that the United States may be reluctant to give up its global dominance, but the tide of history is inexorable. "We firmly believe that the day of common development of mankind will come. China never wants a 'new Cold War' with anyone, and in the era of globalization, there is no room for a 'Cold War' as it is impossible to divide the world into two or three factions."

Countries have become so interconnected as a community of shared interests that the future should see the world working together to build a community of shared future for mankind, as has been proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra and Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra perform during their Chinese New Year Concert in Philadelphia, the United States, Jan. 29, 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

On China-U.S. relations, Wang shared three basic ideas. First of all, the divergences or competition between the two countries are over the choices of multilateralism or unilateralism, win-win cooperation or a zero-sum game. "That's the nature of the current problems facing China-U.S. relations. It's clear to the world that the United States is on the wrong side of history," he said.

Second, it seems that today's U.S. diplomacy has been reduced to unilateral sanctions and smear attacks. In the face of the groundless accusations against China by the U.S. side, China must make the facts clear with necessary responses. As a sovereign nation, China has the right to do so, said Wang.

"We are not only safeguarding China's national interests and dignity, but also upholding the basic norms governing international relations," he pointed out.

Third, the door for China-U.S. dialogue is wide open. China is ready for candid and in-depth exchange of views with the U.S. side on issues of common concern, said the minister.

"We believe that there are still people in the United States who are willing to be reasonable and that the two sides can reach consensus," Wang said, adding that China also welcomes the constructive role that European countries, including France, can play in soothing China-U.S. relations, and is glad to see Europe adhere to strategic independence and provide stability for this uncertain world. 
Americans could still hope to get a second set of $1,200 stimulus checks in 2020 whether or not politicians are able to resume talks on a new coronavirus relief package or relief bill. On August 27, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters that officials want to agree on a new bill.

Stimulus checks in 2020

According to CNET, there are several factors that could affect the amount that would be given to eligible Americans. The first thing that politicians have to agree on is the size of the package and the amount of each individual payment.

Officials will then look into the eligibility requirements of the direct payments which would be based on several factors, including adjusted gross income.

The most-asked question is when or if Congress will settle on a second stimulus check plan. Senate members are on leave until the day after Labor day and are scheduled to resume sessions on September 8.

Republicans said that they plan to propose a new coronavirus relief bill which would also provide funding for the United States Postal Service (USPS). While the proposed legislation does not seem to include a stimulus check, the proposal of the Senate has not yet been released, which means there is still a chance it could be included.

Also Read: COVID-19 Continues to Hit Economy, 1M more Americans Apply for Unemployment Aid

Recently, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that it would be working on sending out 50,000 stimulus checks next month. The direct payments are part of the "catch-up" Economic Impact Payment that resulted from a mistake by the agency in the processing of the first direct payments, as reported by Forbes.

The tens of thousands of stimulus checks were held by mistake by the IRS due to the chaotic situation created by the coronavirus pandemic. What the agency did to try and mitigate the damage was providing the affected individuals with an offset of their stimulus checks for past-due child support owed by their legal spouses.

Incorrectly withheld direct payments

Authorities said that even those who filed Form 8379, the Injured Spouse Allocation, with their tax returns for 2018 and 2019. The form was used to notify the agency to avoid withholding the direct payments from the injured spouse due to their partners having outstanding obligations.

The IRS discovered the issue in May, and on the Economic Impact Payment Information Center, the agency said it was aware that some portions of payments to individuals who filed an injured spouse claim were offset by the past-due child support of their partners.

The agency said it was working with the Bureau of Fiscal Service along with the Office of Child Support Enforcement of the US Department of Health and Human Services to correct the mistake in as little time as possible.

While the IRS previously stated it was beginning to resolve the issue and distribute the payments to those who need it, it did not provide a timeline of when Americans could expect to see their stimulus checks being distributed.

Related Article: Stimulus Checks Remains Unlikely 15 Weeks After Passing HEROES Act

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Abstracts Confronting Mr Fairweather in his hideaway is a somewhat daunting experience. First there is a large "Keep Out" notice. Then comes the barbed wire. And finally  inside his fence  Mr Fairweather. This painter, whose abstracts hang in major Australian galleries and in the Tate Gallery in London, is an intensely private man. He really means it when he says that he wants to be left alone. But today after giving me a very long look from a pair of very light blue eyes, he invited me to duck through the barbed wire and come inside.

Mr Fairweather was barefoot, wearing a paint-stained sweater and an old pair of slacks. He smoked a cigarette. "I don't have to dress up much out here," he said. Another view of the studio. Credit:Geoff Henderson Drawbacks "That is one of the advantages of living in the bush." Mr Fairweather, a soldier in World War I and a wanderer in the Orient before coming to Bribie Island, has produced his most important works in this remarkable bush sanctuary.

"I don't have to dress up much out here": Ian Fairweather on September 1, 1970. Credit:Geoff Henderson And in spite of its many obvious drawbacks  it has no electricity, water or heating  he is determined not to move. "Of course things are difficult sometimes," he said. "I have to have all my water brought here in cans by taxi twice a week. "There is a well some distance away that I used to use, but I am afraid I am not up to carrying the stuff any more." Mr Fairweather, once a powerfully-built man, now suffers from pains in his legs. He finds it difficult to walk more than a short way. And recently he spent a fortnight in Royal Brisbane Hospital.

But he goes on working. He led the way inside his hut where four subtle, half-finished abstracts were propped against the crumbling walls. "I have not yet a name for any of these," he said with a smile. "Perhaps you could say that I have just a kind of vision of what I hope they will be." Mr Fairweather spoke of his two periods away from Bribie Island since he first came here. In 1952 he made a remarkable lone 16-day voyage by raft from Darwin to Timor. And two he went to India be a lot better and I could for six weeks. He said: "I had to come back to the island. I never want to go away again." Now Mr Fairweather fears that his hut may be condemned as a sub-standard dwelling and health risk unless he can make many improvements.

Caboolture Shire councillors have also complained that he is not paying rates. Loading Mr Fairweather said: "If I could get some power and water in here things would be a lot better and I could stay on in a bit of comfort and everyone would be happy." Then the old man whose paintings have sold for thousands of dollars turned away towards his hut and his work. Tonight a Caboolture Shire spokesman said: "We have given Mr Fairweather six months to bring his dwelling up to standards. There is no question of throwing him out."
Princess Martha Louise of Norway has praised her teenage daughter in a message celebrating her confirmation and said her late ex-husband Ari Behn would have been 'so proud'.

The-mother-of-three, 48, shared her congratulations with her daughter Leah, 15, as she had her confirmation, which marks the transition from childhood to adulthood.

In a gushing Instagram post, she called the teenager 'wonderful' and 'talented', writing: 'Your dad would have been so proud of you and said that you are the most talented young woman in the world embarking on a journey of great fame and success.'

Author Mr Behn, who was married to Martha Louise for 15 years and shared three children with the royal, was found dead after taking his own life on Christmas Day.

Princess Martha Louise of Norway, 48, praised her teenager daughter Leah, 15, in a gushing message celebrating her confirmation and said her late ex-husband Ari Behn would have been 'so proud'

The-mother-of-three, shared her congratulations with her daughter as she had her confirmation, which marks the transition from childhood to adulthood

Martha Louise is now in a relationship with US-based Shaman Durek Verrett.

Posting photographs of her daughter online, Martha wrote: 'My wonderful and talented Leah Isadora had her confirmation yesterday.

'You looked so beautiful in your new bunad. I am so proud of you, my darling.'

She continued:'You dare to follow your dreams and follow your intuition, you have inherited your artistic touch coming to light through from your dad, grandparents and great grandparents on both sides.'

Princess Martha Louise said her late ex-husband Ari Behn, who took his own life on Christmas Day, would 'have been so proud' of his daughter

'I love how loving and true you are with your emotions, I love your humor and your cheekiness, I love everything about you.'

She added: 'You are made for sharing your esthetic talent with the world. And with you in it, the world is just that bit more beautiful.

'Congratulations on your Confirmation, darling. I love you with all my heart.'

The post was accompanied by a slideshow of images of Leah wearing the 'bunad' which is the Norweigian term referring to the traditional rural clothes and folk costumes.

The mother-of-three said her teenage daughter looked 'so beautiful' in her bunad, which is traditionally worn for a Norwegian confirmation

What is a Norwegian confirmation? The Norwegian confirmation marks the transition from childhood to adulthood and is often one of the most important days in a Norwegians life. In Norway a Christian confirmation was required by law between 1736 and up until 1912 in order to gain the rights of adulthood. You could not enter the military service, get married, be a godparent or testify in court without a confirmation certificate. And if you had not signed up for confirmation by the age of 19 years, you could be punished with prison. It is now voluntary and takes place the year teenagers turn 15-years-old. The ritual, which is an official confirmation of baptismal grace, is conducted by a vicar who will say a prayer for the candidate and give their blessing. Preparations starts at least a year in advance and include registering the confirmation with a church, the booking of a venue, deciding on catering and buying a bunad the Norwegian traditional costume. The bunad is traditionally a gift for the confirmation and is usually worn at the event. It can take between 1-2 years to make by professional bunad seamstresses. Advertisement

It comes after Princess Martha Louise shared photographs online as she and her daughters 'took the knee' to show their support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

In June, the mother-of-three posted a self portrait on her Instagram page, as she took part in a 'virtual protest' while holding a sign reading: 'I commit to learn, listen and take action.'

She went on to share three other images of her daughter Leah as well as Maud Angelica, 17, and Emma Tallulah, 13, performing the action and holding protest signs reading: 'Black lives matter.'

Alongside the images, she wrote: 'Although we cant be at the protest in Oslo today because of the coronavirus, we still support all of you risking your lives every day out in the world for change.
False-color electron microscopic image of a microstructure (violet) contacted via gold tracks (yellow) after reopening the diamond anvil cell. Ruby spheres (red) are used to sense the pressure in the sample chamber via laser fluorescence spectroscopy. Debris particles are remnants of the pressure medium and pressure device.

An international team of scientists from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, and colleagues from the USA and Switzerland have successfully combined various extreme experimental conditions in a completely unique way, revealing exciting insights into the mysterious conducting properties of the crystalline metal CeRhIn 5 . In the journal Nature Communications, they report on their exploration of previously uncharted regions of the phase diagram of this metal, which is considered a promising model system for understanding unconventional superconductors.

First, we apply a thin layer of gold to a microscopically small single crystal. Then we use an ion beam to carve out tiny microstructures. At the ends of these structures, we attach ultra-thin platinum tapes to measure resistance along different directions under extremely high pressures, which we generate with a diamond anvil pressure cell. In addition, we apply very powerful magnetic fields to the sample at temperatures near absolute zero.

To the average person, this may sound like an overzealous physicists whimsical fancy, but in fact, it is an actual description of the experimental work conducted by Dr. Toni Helm from HZDRs High Magnetic Field Laboratory (HLD) and his colleagues from Tallahassee, Los Alamos, Lausanne and Dresden. Well, at least in part, because this description only hints at the many challenges involved in combining such extremes concurrently. This great effort is, of course, not an end in itself: the researchers are trying to get to the bottom of some fundamental questions of solid state physics.

The sample studied is cer-rhodium-indium-five (CeRhIn 5 ), a metal with surprising properties that are not fully understood yet. Scientists describe it as an unconventional electrical conductor with extremely heavy charge carriers, in which, under certain conditions, electrical current can flow without losses. It is assumed that the key to this superconductivity lies in the metals magnetic properties. The central issues investigated by physicists working with such correlated electron systems include: How do heavy electrons organize collectively? How can this cause magnetism and superconductivity? And what is the relationship between these physical phenomena?

An expedition through the phase diagram

The physicists are particularly interested in the metals phase diagram, a kind of map whose coordinates are pressure, magnetic field strength, and temperature. If the map is to be meaningful, the scientists have to uncover as many locations as possible in this system of coordinates, just like a cartographer exploring unknown territory. In fact, the emerging diagram is not unlike the terrain of a landscape.

As they reduce temperature to almost four degrees above absolute zero, the physicists observe magnetic order in the metal sample. At this point, they have a number of options: They can cool the sample down even further and expose it to high pressures, forcing a transition into the superconducting state. If, on the other hand, they solely increase the external magnetic field to 600,000 times the strength of the earths magnetic field, the magnetic order is also suppressed; however, the material enters a state called electronically nematic.

This term is borrowed from the physics of liquid crystals, where it describes a certain spatial orientation of molecules with a long-range order over larger areas. The scientists assume that the electronically nematic state is closely linked to the phenomenon of unconventional superconductivity. The experimental environment at HLD provides optimum conditions for such a complex measurement project. The large magnets generate relatively long-lasting pulses and offer sufficient space for complex measurement methods under extreme conditions.

Experiments at the limit afford a glimpse of the future

The experiments have a few additional special characteristics. For example, working with high-pulsed magnetic fields creates eddy currents in the metallic parts of the experimental setup, which can generate unwanted heat. The scientists have therefore manufactured the central components from a special plastic material that suppresses this effect and functions reliably near absolute zero. Through the microfabrication by focused ion beams, they produce a sample geometry that guarantees a high-quality measurement signal.

Microstructuring will become much more important in future experiments. Thats why we brought this technology into the laboratory right away, says Toni Helm, adding: So we now have ways to access and gradually penetrate into dimensions where quantum mechanical effects play a major role." He is also certain that the know-how he and his team have acquired will contribute to research on high-temperature superconductors or novel quantum technologies.
Huaweis landmark decision to sponsor the team in 2012 came months after the government banned the company on security grounds from involvement in the rollout of Australias National Broadband Network in 2011. The sponsorship was seen as an attempt to improve Huaweis public image in the eyes of lawmakers and senior bureaucrats who barrack for the Canberra team. (Photo | AP)

Canberra: Chinese telecom giant Huawei is ending its oldest major sporting sponsorship deal, saying Monday it was breaking its contract with an Australian rugby league team after nine years because of a great trade war between China and Australia.

Australia has barred the worlds largest maker of switching gear and major smartphone brand from involvement in crucial national communication infrastructure in recent years, while China has ratcheted up pressure for an Australian policy reversal.

Unfortunately as everyone knows, Huawei has been caught in the middle of a great trade war and the effects on our business is greater than we expected, Huawei Australias chief corporate affairs officer Jeremy Mitchell told reporters.

Huawei will end its current financial backing of the Canberra Raiders at the end of the current National Rugby League season, because of the negative business environment in Australia, Mitchell said. The grand final is on October 25.

Huawei will continue as one of the minor sponsors, as the team searches for a replacement major sponsor.

We wouldve loved to have stayed for another nine years or 10 years, but the business environment in Australia is very hard for a Chinese company, Mitchell said.

The Raiders is the only team in the national competition based in the Australian capital, the center of government and national policy-making.

Last year, Huawei had renewed its sponsorship deal for two years until the end of the 2021 season.

Huaweis landmark decision to sponsor the team in 2012 came months after the government banned the company on security grounds from involvement in the rollout of Australias National Broadband Network in 2011.

The sponsorship was seen as an attempt to improve Huaweis public image in the eyes of lawmakers and senior bureaucrats who barrack for the Canberra team.

Raiders board member Dennis Richardson, a former head of the Defence Department and of the main domestic spy agency, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, had been a vocal supporter of Huaweis sponsorship deal.

Mitchell said the governments decision in 2018 to ban Huawei from Australias 5G networks had had a major economic impact.

Huawei would consider renewing its sponsorship partnership with the Raiders if the business environment changes for us in Australia, he said.

The reality is weve gone from 1,000 staff. Next year well be 100 staff. The impact of the 5G ban and the greater Australia-China relationship has had a huge flow-on effect, Mitchell said.

Where we had hoped our business would pick up outside of the 5G hasnt happened, he added.

Raiders chief executive Don Furner said the team was very sad to be losing its major sponsor. Neither Huawei nor the team has ever made public the value of the sponsorship.

The Canberra Raiders and Huawei have enjoyed a fantastic partnership for nearly a decade - they have been by far our longest serving major sponsor, Furner said.

China has made Australia lifting its ban on Huawei on essential infrastructure a condition of turning around strained bilateral relations. The diplomatic relationship has since worsened because Australia called for an independent inquiry into the origins of and international responses to the coronavirus pandemic.

China has blocked exports of Australian barley and beef in recent months. China has also begun an investigation into whether Australia has breached trade rules by selling wine at inappropriately low prices on the Chinese market, an allegation that Australia rejects.

Australia has annoyed China by vetoing the $430 million sale of an Australia-based diary business owned by Japans Kirin Holdings Co. to Chinese company China Mengniu Dairy Co.

Australia maintains it does not want a trade war with China, its most important trading partner.

Australia is certainly not engaging in any type of war, Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said recently. What we want is a constructive trading relationship, one where we can work together in the areas of mutual interest.

Mitchell said the decision to end the Raiders sponsorship was solely because of Australian, rather than global, business conditions.

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Eighty-two residents of Mother Teresas Missionaries of Charity-run Prem Daan, a home for the destitute, have tested positive for Covid 19. The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has deputed a medical team at the centre for women to monitor the health of the patients who have been quarantined at the home. Their condition is reported to be stable.

An official of the home said, All those who have tested positive are asymptomatic and have been quarantined. NMMC is taking good care of everyone. There is nothing to worry.

The cases came to light after an NMMC antigen test camp was organised by former legislator Sandeep Naik through local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders. Sources said that apart from the residents of the home, two nuns and some employees have also tested positive.

Local BJP leader Sudarshan Jirge, who coordinated the camp, said, On the directions of Sandeep Naik, we contacted the civic officials and organised an antigen camp, as we had learnt that some of the inmates were sick and needed medical attention.Following the tests of 149 inmates on Sunday, 82 were found positive. They have been quarantined at the centre itself.

Navi Mumbai municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar said, An NMMC medical team has been deputed on a 24-hour basis at the centre. Patients have been divided into three wards. Oxygen levels are being monitored after every two hours and oxygen cylinders have been kept on standby at the facility itself.
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed review petition filed by former liquor baron Vijay Mallya challenging the order holding him guilty of contempt.

A bench of Justices UU Lalit and Ashok Bhushan said, We find no merits in review petitions. Review petitions dismissed.

He was found guilty by the apex court on May 9, 2017 for transferring USD 40 million received from Diageo into the accounts of his children.

Mallya owes over Rs 9,000 crore in form of unpaid loans towards consortium of banks led by SBI. The SBI had filed contempt petition against Mallya for not disclosing the bank accounts into which USD 40 million was transferred. Further, the Court found him guilty of siphoning off this amount which otherwise had to be deposited with the banks.

Mallya had filed review to consider an affidavit claiming this amount was not part of his assets. Further he claimed that he will lose his valuable right of appeal if held guilty by the Supreme Court.

When the case came up for hearing in June 2020, the top court had sought an explanation from its registry officials regarding the undue delay in listing the review petition.

When the matter was taken up on August 6, it was adjourned again since some crucial records pertaining to the case could not be located. Eventually the case was heard on August 27 and reserved for verdict.

At least 14 banks had moved the Debt Recovery Tribunal, Bengaluru, against Mallya seeking recovery of over Rs 6,300 crore owed to them in 2016 by Mallyas companies. The banks had also prayed that Mallyas passport should be frozen and he should be arrested.

However, the DRT failed to hear those prayers, prompting the banks to approach the Karnataka high court seeking appropriate directions to DRT for speedy disposal of the applications they moved.

The high court had declined to grant such a prayer and the banks then moved the Supreme Court.

Mallya had fled the country by then. The Supreme Court in its May 2017 order had asked the Centre to produce Mallya before the court to decide on the punishment to be handed down to him for contempt of court.
Another season of wildfires threatens an already reeling wine industry

When wildfires ravaged California wine country in 2017, four wine industry public relations pros swung into action with a GoFundMe campaign that raised nearly $100,000, plus matching funds from a handful of wineries. The four were San Francisco Bay Area-based Kimberly Charles, Tia Butts, Katie Calhoun, and Rebecca Hopkins.

As flames engulf much of Californias grape-growing regions once again, the ladies are back at it, plus Los Angeles-based Katherine Jarvis. In a press release, they note that California produces 81 percent of all wine made in the United States and is the worlds fourth-largest producer.

They also noted that as of Aug. 24, there were 19 fires raging over an area covering 949,697 acres, with only 20 percent containment. The wine regions affected are all in Northern California, including the high-profile Napa and Sonoma that are significant tourist attractions.

Their 2017 campaign was directed at farmworkers. In their Aug. 24 announcement, they pledged a similar effort. Anyone wishing to contribute to direct relief for those affected should visit the 2020 Wine Country Fire Relief Fund on the GoFundMe website. Anyone with questions should email press@charlescomm.com or call Charles Communications at 415-730-0064.

The California wine industry is an important component of the U.S. economy and employs more than 700,000 workers. Already rocked by COVID-19 shutdowns and, in some cases, severe reopening restrictions, the California wine industry is reeling.

Wildfires as harvest approaches have become more common and grown in intensity in recent years. One colleague has seen her home burn twice in recent years. Evacuations have become common. Wine Spectator writer Tim Fish recently asked on Facebook how many bottles of wine he should pack in his bug-out bag. Yes, everyone in the fire zone is packed and ready to flee at a moments notice.

The vineyards of Northern California are surrounded by heavily wooded hillsides that have dried out and are ready to burn by the end of summer. It doesnt take much to spark a blaze. The most recent fires seem to have been started by lightning strikes.

Even those a relative safe distance from the flames are affected by the smoke and poor air quality. Yes, these folks live in an idyllic setting and enjoy a lifestyle that is the envy of many. But there are times, and this is one, when it is a paradise lost.

Tasting Notes

Wines are rated on a 100-point scale. Wines are chosen for review because they represent outstanding quality or value, and the scores are simply a measure of this reviewers enthusiasm for the recommended wine.

Gustave Lorentz 2018 Pinot Gris, Alsace, France ($19.99): Value alert: This is one of the finest $20 white wines you will ever find. Perfectly balanced, combining richness and freshness, it shows luscious notes of dried apricot and peach, a hint of melon, and impressive length on the palate. Back up the car, open the trunk, and load it by the case! Best value. Rating: 93.

Gustave Lorentz 2018 Pinot Gris, Alsace, France. (Courtesy of Quintessential Wines)

Eponymous 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley ($59.99): This is winemaker Bob Pepis label, and that fact alone merits respect. One of the finest winemakers in the Napa Valley, Pepi all too often flies under the radar as a consulting winemaker for various other brands. This vintage of Eponymous soars with richly layered dark fruits, a hint of graphite, and impressive depth with big, bold tannins that will ensure longevity. Rating: 96.

Eponymous 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley. (Courtesy of Eponymous Wines)

Canvasback 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon, Red Mountain ($84): If youre wondering why so many wine enthusiasts are excited about the wines of Washington, look no further than this beauty from Washingtons Red Mountain district. Bold and muscular, with impressive extract that would be the envy of top wineries in the Napa Valley, the 2017 Canvasback is a towering example of Washington cabernet at its very best. This one shows aromas of blackberry and cassis, fine tannins, and a long finish that delivers plenty of oak spice. Rating: 95.

Canvasback 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon, Red Mountain. (Courtesy of Duckhorn Wine Company)

Jordan 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon, Alexander Valley ($58): Jordan cabernet sauvignon has been a California classic for more than four decades, yet it surprisingly remains affordably within reach for those wine enthusiasts reluctant or unable to spend $100 or more (sometimes considerably more) for comparable California cabernet. The 2016 is an example of prime Jordan, with rich aromas of blackberry and cassis, a strong savory note, subtle oak spice, and supple tannins. And it wont break the bank. Rating: 95.

Jordan 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon, Alexander Valley. (Courtesy of Jordan Winery)

Pascual Toso 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva, Maipu, Argentina ($24.99): Though cabernet sauvignon in Argentina is overshadowed by the excellence of Argentine malbec, there does exist a fine lineup of Argentine cabs for those willing to look. Pascual Tosos estate-grown grapes from the Maipu district of Mendoza deliver exceptional depth and complexity, which you will find in this outstanding Reserva. Notes of blackberry and blueberry with an overlay of wood spice and supple tannins make for a mighty tasty package. Rating: 90.

Pascual Toso 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva, Maipu, Argentina. (Courtesy of Quintessential Wines)

Follow Robert on Twitter at @wineguru. To find out more about Robert Whitley and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at Creators.com. Email Robert at whitleyonwine@yahoo.com. Copyright 2020 Creators.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 22:29:22|Editor: huaxia

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KAMPALA, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Uganda has suspended operations of 208 humanitarian agencies over violations of rules governing refugees in the East African country, a top government official said on Monday.

Hilary Onek, minister for relief, disaster preparedness and refugees, told Xinhua by telephone that some of the refugee partners were operating within the refugee settlements illegally, without valid Memorandum of Understanding with the Office of the Prime Minister and permits to operate in Uganda.

"Partners with invalid legal documents and non-complaint with the rules and regulations that govern refugee operations in the country should immediately leave the refugee settlements," said Onek.

The minister said all non-complaint aid agencies must regularize their documents with the National Non-Governmental Organization bureau.

"The government is strongly cautioning all refugee partners to comply with the rules and regulations that govern refugee operations in Uganda," said Onek.

"This is serious. Those who fail to comply with this order will have broken the laws of Uganda and will be subjected to prosecution," he added.

Government figures show that only 69 aid agencies are authorized to implement refugee response activities in the country.

Uganda largely relies on humanitarian agencies to distribute relief aid in refugee settlements in the country.

The country hosts some 1.4 million refugees from neighboring including South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, according to figures by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Enditem
The former Member of Parliament for Mampong Constituency and 2014 Flagbearer Aspirant of the ruling New Patriotic Party, Hon Francis Addai-Nimoh has been honoured by the Tertiary Education Students Confederacy (TESCON) at University of Energy And Natural Resources (UENR), Sunyani.

On the citation presented to the humble and affable Hon Addai-Nimoh commended him for his unflinching support towards TESCON UENR and NPP youth in general.

This is in recognition of your wonderful support to TESCON, UENR Chapter, of the New Patriotic Party and your exemplary leadership as our father and mentor who contributed in diverse ways towards the 2019/2020 academic year."

We eulogise your great deal of commitment and contribution and we present this as a token in appreciation. May you continue to be able to be a blessing unto TESCON-UENR and the NPP fanatics, the citation read.

Receiving the citation, Hon Addai-Nimoh expressed his enormous gratitude to TESCON UENR for the Honour Bestowed unto him and urge them to work hard for Victory 2020 in the December polls.

President of TESCON-UENR, Mr Philip Affum, made it known that they are honouring the former Mampong legislator for his enormous support and contributions to TESCON UENR and the party at large.
At least 20 people were intoxicated after attending a rave party happening in an underground bunker in the Norwegian capital Oslo on August 30. Following the incident, all the attendees, mostly in their 20s or 30s have been taken to the nearby hospital after complaining of carbon monoxide poisoning. As per experts, the poisonous gas might have been produced by portable generators, used to play music inside the bunker.

According to international media reports, the police of the area found all the partygoers in a dazed state near the bunker during a regular patrol. After which, they were all admitted to the hospital. In addition to the partygoers, two police officials who were helping the rescue process were also admitted with mild poisoning symptoms.

200 attendees

Taking to Twitter in the aftermath of the incident, the Oslo Police department reveal that at least 200 people attended the illegal underground rave party. A warning has been issued for all the attendees to immediately seek medical help in the case, if they feel dizziness, headaches, nausea etc, a British media outlet reported.

Read: Norway Arrests Citizen For Spying, Doesn't Identify Country

Read: China Warns Norway Against Awarding Nobel Peace Prize To Hong Kong Activists

Meanwhile, the Norwegian media reported that five of the total admitted in the hospital were in critical but non-threatening condition. Elaborating on their condition, chief physicist Fridtjof Heyerdahl at the Oslo hospital said that they were all out of danger and were improving with each passing day.

The area has been cordoned off and an investigation into why the party was not busted off earlier is ongoing. Speaking to international media reporters, an anonymous woman said that she had warned the police after learning about the party on social media, however, the authorities did not pay any heed to her complaint. Meanwhile, the police said that the bunker was locked, but partygoers entered through a small hole.

Read: China Warns Norway Against Awarding Nobel Peace Prize To Hong Kong Activists

Read: Man Killed By Polar Bear On Norway's Arctic Svalbard Islands

(Image credits: GEIR OLSEN / NTB SCANPIX /nrk.no)
Editorial

HAMMER & SICKLE

A SYMBOL OF FREEDOM

ALP candidate Maddy Northam, who is seeking election for the seat of Kurrajong in central Canberra in the upcoming ACT election, posted a photo of herself and her campaign team on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. The photo in question has caused controversy because, according to the ABC, a poster on the wall behind her, smaller than an A4 sheet of paper, displayed the hammer and sickle  a symbol long linked to the Soviet Union.

Not letting a political opportunity slip it by, Canberra Liberals and their associates have gone on the attack.

Liberal MLA Vicki Dunne, member for Ginninderra, stated: Many ACT voters would feel enormously uncomfortable that ACT Labor is drawing its inspiration from one of the most oppressive regimes responsible for the deaths of millions and millions of people, state-enforced famine, environmental degradation, and complete and utter economic carnage.

Let us ignore for a moment that USSR was/is not the sole owner of the hammer and sickle. It is no surprise that Dunne has flagrantly repeated anti-communist propaganda without reference to any actual events. Against such claims, we can refer to the principle: What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

Dunnes description of the USSR, however, could equally apply to Australia. Free speech in this country does not come without qualifiers. Throughout the entire history of the CPA, the Party and its members have been subject to bans and arrests. When Fred Paterson, a communist from Queensland, was elected to parliament, his electorate was split in two, effectively disenfranchising a portion of those citizens who he had represented from voting for him again. The BLM movement is suffering similar oppression with law enforcement moving to make every rally illegal.

Australias genocide and continued mistreatment of Indigenous peoples and its participation in the numerous imperialist wars, such as Vietnam and Iraq, leaves a legacy of bloodshed that can never be compensated for.

According to foodbank.org.au, in their Foodbank Hunger Report 2019: one in five Australians have experienced food insecurity at some point in the last 12 months. This means that for 21 per cent of Australias population, there has been at least one time in the last year when they didnt have enough food for themselves or their family and could not afford to buy more food.

On the question environmental degradation, Australias reputation is among the worst. Australia is the largest exporter of fossil fuels. The Brown to Green Report 2019 found that Australia is the only developed country deforestation hotspot in the world.

To speak of Australias economic mismanagement would require the length of this entire paper and then some. Suffice to say that regular readers of our paper should be all but familiar with grim policies and statistics we have presented each week as the Morrison government blindly wanders this economic storm (e.g. #1929 Unemployment disaster).

And as disgusting as the above comments may be, they cannot top those made by Stefan Romaniw, chair of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Associations: You can equate the hammer and sickle to the swastika.

Twenty-seven million Soviet men and women died during World War II to liberate Europe from fascism, liberated Jewish people, other ethnic minorities (such as the Romani), and various anti-fascists. With victory, where old empires use to stand, came the national liberation movements across Eastern Europe. To equate the symbol of the Party of the working-class with fascism disrespects those lost lives.

While the smear on Maddy Northam is nothing more than a cheap shot to delegitimise a political candidate, we cannot allow reactionaries to revise history and distort facts.

The Communist Party of Australia is seeking to run in elections in the future and we will unabashedly use the hammer and sickle. Under the hammer and sickle, the working-class from all over the world fought to liberate themselves from oppressive regimes whether that be an autocratic tsar like Nicholas II, a colonial power like France, or a fascist dictator like Batista. Just like those before us, we too will fight under the banner of the hammer and sickle, to win victories long overdue for the exploited masses of Australia.

Help us register our electoral body The Communist

www.cpa.org.au/communists-registration
HMAS Huon's starboard Mine Disposal Vessel is launched to conduct a mine search off the coast of Tasmania's Stony Head Military training area on March 3, 2020 (Australian Department of Defence)

Autonomous Naval Robots to Help Detect Threats: Defence Minister

Research in autonomous naval robots will be accelerated to assist Australian defence personnel with mine detection and clearance.

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds announced on Aug. 25, that the government was investing $15 million, over a five-year period, into the research and development of technologies in mine clearing.

Researchers will develop, test, and evaluate various teams of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle swarms and Autonomous Surface Vessels.

The drones could be dispatched from a command platform to survey an at-risk area for potential threats, including sea mines, and once cleared, return to command.

As announced in the 2020 Force Structure Plan, developing new systems for underwater mine detection and clearance are vital to protecting Australias maritime environment and advancing our interests, Reynolds said.

Australian Mine Warfare Team 16, MCDGRP, and DSTG staff operating the Bluefin 9 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) from a Mine Countermeasure Support Boat (MCMSB) at Pittwater, NSW on Feb. 5, 2020. (Australian Department of Defence)

The new Force Structure Plan, along with the Strategic Update, was announced by Reynolds, along with Prime Minister Scott Morrison on July 1, in response to rising geopolitical issues in the Indo-Pacific region.

The Update will see the Australian Defence Force (ADF) receive a $270 billion funding commitment over a ten-year period and significant upgrades to military technology.

Minister Reynolds said developing key technologies in the fields of artificial intelligence, big data, connectivity, and cyber security would be a big part of the latest initiative. It will assist with bolstering Australias maritime capabilities, as well as environmental data collection.

This will help to create a safer operating environment for ADF personnel, she said.

Michael Shoebridge, defence director at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told The Epoch Times that the Strategic Update pointed to an urgent need to increase the ADFs deterrent capabilities in the region.

Autonomous and unmanned underwater systems that can identify and neutralise mines and other threats to ADF platforms are essential for this, he said.

An Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) being prepared for a training exercise as part of AUV Summerfest at HMAS Creswell, Jervis Bay, ACT on Dec. 3, 2019. (Australian Department of Defence)

Development of these kinds of systems also will allow the ADF to use very similar technologies for offensive purposes in the undersea domain, he continued.

Shoebridge said the current potential threats that defence personnel face includes smart and conventional sea mines, submarines, as well as armed and unarmed underwater autonomous systems.

Minister for Defence Industry Melissa Price said Australian businesses will play a vital role in the project.

Our local business partners will be part of the team designing and developing a communication, simulation, and training solution for the new autonomous technologies, she said.

This will help us accelerate the development and deployment of autonomous systems and solutions in the area of mine countermeasures, Price continued.

The project will involve a partnership between the Defence Department, Australias Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence Cooperative Research Centre, and weapons contractor Thales Australia.

Research partners include Flinders University, the University of Sydney, the University of Technology Sydney, and Western Sydney University who will design, develop, test, and evaluate various platforms.
Amid a COVID-19 outbreak at the Billings jail where hes been held since March, Eugene Linwood said hes frustrated and worried.

I have concerns, he said, in a phone call Thursday from the Yellowstone County Detention Facility. Im 57 years old.

Linwood said he has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pre-diabetes, and has been issued an inhaler and put on a special diet for medical reasons.

He was one of 40 men to test negative last week for the virus. Another 30 are positive. Four female inmates tested positive last week, as well.

Linwood said he and others in the jail have been in touch with family and friends for support.

But they dont know what to do, he said. They shower me and others with, you know, their blessings and prayers, but we still are in the hot zone right now.

As of Friday, Linwood was one of 472 inmates inside the county jail, built to hold 434 people.

Officials say the crowding owes to an uptick in violent crime and ballooning numbers of inmates waiting for transfer to the state prison or other Department of Corrections facilities. The department is capping new inmate bookings at 25 a week at the mens prison in Deer Lodge, and six every two weeks at the womens prison in Billings.

An increase in domestic violence-related charges, many of which carry a mandatory arrest, may also be a factor.

Linwood's active cases are for nonviolent offenses, although his out-of-state criminal history includes bank robbery convictions.

Linwood's release was revoked on Aug. 4 after he admitted to parole violations earlier this year including: moving to Billings without approval, failing to keep an approved residence after his Belgrade landlord evicted him, and failing to keep in phone contact with his parole officer.

Hes also facing new charges, accused of failing to return a rental car he loaned to a friend and never recovered, and writing a check from a closed bank account to cover a used car purchase from a dealership.

Bail in the new cases is set at $100, but the parole revocation means he would remain in custody even if he posted the money.

Linwood has been frustrated about the response by county and state officials to his case. He argued to be released and placed on a GPS monitor, based in part on concerns for his health.

A lawyer for the Department of Corrections said on Aug. 5 that Linwoods request was based on speculation that he might contract the virus, but such infection has not occurred.

To Linwood, that translated to: If he gets the disease, then well do something about it, he said.

The language used by the department lawyer also appears in a Montana Supreme Court order from June 30, rejecting a similar argument for release by a Missoula County man.

"(Jamie) Chandler's request rests on speculation that he may acquire the disease but such infection has not occurred," the 5-0 order said.

Linwoods request was for a hearing to determine whether he was being jailed illegally. Those requests, called petitions for a writ of habeas corpus, are often filed by self-represented inmates, and frequently denied for legal insufficiency, as Linwood's was.

Linwood expressed frustration at having been tested only once for COVID-19 while at the jail, and at not being given a mask to wear each day.

I feel its necessary that the public needs to know, he said. You know, we got family members out there who are concerned for our safety as well.

Yellowstone County jail protocols

Jail staff has been following a directive issued March 13 outlining protocols for addressing COVID-19. Jail Commander Capt. Roger Bodine provided additional information below.

MASKS FOR INMATES: The jail isnt routinely issuing masks to every inmate. Theyll get one when they leave their housing unit and have it taken away and thrown in the trash when they re-enter the unit. The masks the jail provides are basic surgical masks that contain a small metal plate inside the stitching, which Bodine said could be used as a weapon. The jail also sees masks as a potential security risk if a fight breaks out and staff isnt quickly able to identify whos involved. Bodine also cited cost as a factor behind the decision not to issue masks to every inmate.

The jail isnt routinely issuing masks to every inmate. Theyll get one when they leave their housing unit and have it taken away and thrown in the trash when they re-enter the unit. The masks the jail provides are basic surgical masks that contain a small metal plate inside the stitching, which Bodine said could be used as a weapon. The jail also sees masks as a potential security risk if a fight breaks out and staff isnt quickly able to identify whos involved. Bodine also cited cost as a factor behind the decision not to issue masks to every inmate. MASKS FOR STAFF: Every staff member gets a mask, but theyre not required to wear it during their entire shift. It is required any time an officer is patting someone down or entering a unit where people have tested positive for COVID-19. Bodine said the building isnt subject to the statewide mask mandate because its not open to the public. He also said theres no routine reason for inmates to come within 6 feet of staff.

Every staff member gets a mask, but theyre not required to wear it during their entire shift. It is required any time an officer is patting someone down or entering a unit where people have tested positive for COVID-19. Bodine said the building isnt subject to the statewide mask mandate because its not open to the public. He also said theres no routine reason for inmates to come within 6 feet of staff. SANITATION: Inmates can request alcohol-based hand wipes. There are hand sanitizer pumps located outside of each housing unit, and inmates are supposed to use them upon exit and entry. Bodine said the jail doesnt provide better access to hand sanitizer because people might drink it, due to addiction. The jail has purchased electrostatic sprayers for regular disinfecting. To clean cells the jail bought a machine that has a hose that can spray down surfaces with cleaning solution and vacuum up the dirty liquid.

Inmates can request alcohol-based hand wipes. There are hand sanitizer pumps located outside of each housing unit, and inmates are supposed to use them upon exit and entry. Bodine said the jail doesnt provide better access to hand sanitizer because people might drink it, due to addiction. The jail has purchased electrostatic sprayers for regular disinfecting. To clean cells the jail bought a machine that has a hose that can spray down surfaces with cleaning solution and vacuum up the dirty liquid. ISOLATION PROTOCOL: New inmates are held in intake for 72 hours before being moved to general population. Bodine said the jail was holding new inmates for a full two weeks at the start of the pandemic but had to shorten the timespan due to crowding. There is one mens and one womens unit to quarantine anyone known to have or suspected of having COVID-19.

New inmates are held in intake for 72 hours before being moved to general population. Bodine said the jail was holding new inmates for a full two weeks at the start of the pandemic but had to shorten the timespan due to crowding. There is one mens and one womens unit to quarantine anyone known to have or suspected of having COVID-19. TESTING: Inmates showing any symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 are tested. Known contacts of those who test positive are not automatically tested but have been in some cases. Jail staff rely on guidance from Correctional Health Partners, the countys 24/7 on-site private medical provider, in determining when to test an inmate. The jail has no plans to conduct facility-wide surveillance testing.

Last weeks outbreak among men required staff to repurpose a former gym as a backup quarantine unit. The mens quarantine unit has 10 cells, enough to accommodate 20 men, but 30 men tested positive. Jail officials responded by putting the two men showing symptoms in the quarantine unit, leaving space for more if needed, and moving the 28 men who tested positive but were asymptomatic into the repurposed gym.

The gym has no toilets, showers or phones, so staff must escort the men to another section of the jail for those needs.

Bodine said the facility's staff has been stretched thin, and officers have had to take on extra shifts.

The jail now has two rooms dedicated to serving as courtrooms for video hearings, and theyre full time, Bodine said. Theyre going Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. Before the pandemic, the jail had just one, but as more hearings take place remotely, staff has had to create a new courtroom.

Chief Judge of the 13th Judicial District Mary Jane Knisely said all jail transports have been suspended indefinitely. Knisely called a meeting last week among court and jail officials for a briefing on the outbreak at the jail.

Other facilities

In Big Horn County jail staff are wearing masks, face shields and gloves while on duty, according to public information officer Rhonda Johnson.

At Department of Corrections Facilities across the state, inmates have been issued masks sewn by inmate laborers at the Montana Correctional Enterprises, the department's vocational program.

The department has committed to conducting sentinel testing to better understand the spread of the virus among asymptomatic people. But as of Friday the states testing and population data showed that less than half of the men at Montana State Prison and at Crossroads Correctional Center had been tested.

In Cascade County, Sheriff Jesse Slaughter told the Great Falls Tribune the jail issued all inmates masks after 53 inmates and two staff tested positive for the new coronavirus recently. He said theyd initially been unable to purchase masks appropriate for detention facilities, the Tribune reported.




Haiti - News : Zapping...





A Haitian from the diaspora killed in Petion-ville

On the night of Thursday to Friday, Wilner Bobo (41), a Haitian-Canadian living in Montreal, who had been living in Haiti with members of his family for several weeks, has been victim of an armed robbery while he was returning from a party in Petion-ville. Although offering no resistance and handing over his money to the thugs, the latter shot him dead before fleeing.



3 other innocent citizens shot dead

During the night of August 29 to 30, 3 people were killed by unidentified armed individuals, two in Bel-Air and one in Delmas 2.



New President of the National Media Association

On Saturday at the Montana hotel, the National Association of Haitian Media (ANNH) proceeded to elect a new President. It is the senior journalist Jacques Sampeur (sole candidate) also CEO of Radio Antilles Internationales (RAI) who was unanimously elected (for 2 years) as President of the association. He replaces Frantz Duval, editor-in-chief of the daily Le Nouvelliste.



Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe :

"I welcome the election of the CEO of Radio Antilles Internationales Jacques Sampeur at the head of the National Association of Haitian Media and I take this opportunity to congratulate the outgoing President Frantz Duval who has done a remarkable job during his two-year mandate," Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe.



Messages of Condolence



American Chamber of Commerce in Haiti

It is with immense sadness and indignation that the American Chamber of Commerce in Haiti (AmCham Haiti) learned of the assassination of the President of the Bar of Port-au-Prince, Me Monferrier Dorval, which took place in his residence on August 28, 2020 https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-31661-icihaiti-pelerin-5-assassination-of-the-president-of-the-bar-of-port-au-prince.html . Amcham Haiti expresses its deep sympathies to his family, his colleagues at the Bar of Port-au-Prince, his friends and his students. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31668-haiti-insecurity-rain-of-reactions-around-the-assassination-of-me-monferrier-dorval.html



Fritz Deshommes, Rector of the UEH

The Rectorate of the State University of Haiti (UEH) learned with amazement and deep bitterness, the villainous assassination of Professor Monferrier Dorval, President of the Bar of Port-au-Prince https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-31661-icihaiti-pelerin-5-assassination-of-the-president-of-the-bar-of-port-au-prince.html . The Rectorate, on behalf of the university community, welcomes the departure of this great professor of constitutional law and this eminent intellectual who has contributed enormously to the training of several generations of students of the State University of Haiti. Fritz Deshommes, the Rector of the UEH presents his sympathies to his family, to his colleagues in the basoche, to his friends and to all those affected by this completely unexpected death. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31668-haiti-insecurity-rain-of-reactions-around-the-assassination-of-me-monferrier-dorval.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Trump and his supporters have rallied behind Barrs intervention and Flynns effort to undo his guilty plea. Supporters say Flynn never should have been interviewed by the FBI. But scores of former and current Justice Department employees say the saga is a troubling example of the department bending to political pressure and the presidents interests.In high-profile political cases, the party affiliation of the President who appoints a judge becomes an explanation for the judges real reason for the disposition, and the legal reasoning employed is seen as a cover for the exercise of raw political power, he wrote. No doubt there will be some who will describe the courts decision today in such terms, but they would be mistaken.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Before the novel coronavirus hit, the worlds bling behemoths were pulling out the stops to sell experiences where their jet-setting customers could indulge in opulent lodging and dining, all while posting photos of themselves on Instagram. Between 2010 and 2019 demand for experience-based luxury, including fine wines and gourmet food, outstripped that for personal goods, such as watches and handbags.

Then Covid-19 upended the trend. Few are crossing oceans to stay at a Bulgari hotel or dine at a Gucci restaurant right now.

But companies from Giorgio Armani SpA to Capri Holdings Ltd.s Versace and LVMH Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton SE could still turn the strategy of tapping into luxury as a broader lifestyle to their benefit. They could offer extravagant getaways to high spenders happy to pay extra to dine, shop and relax in a safe and secluded environment. Or coax more potential local customers out for exclusive home-town retreats given people arent splurging on long-haul airfare. And they could expand their offering with a broader push into health and wellness, where spending was already booming before the pandemic.

LVMH, the worlds biggest luxury group, is probably the most advanced on this frontier. It acquired Belmond, owner of Venices Hotel Cipriani, to complement its exclusive Cheval Blanc hotel chain. Prada SpA owns the historic Milanese pastry shop Marchesi, Ralph Lauren Corp. has chichi bars and Kering SAs Gucci has opened Osteria restaurants in Florence and Los Angeles with three-Michelin-starred chef Massimo Bottura.

The investments were meant to cater to rich globetrotters, particularly from China. But while consumers around the world are prepared to travel domestically, or to nearby countries, demand for luxury lodging catering to international clients and long-haul flights remains severely depressed. Its not clear when the number of big-spending tourists snapping up Hermes scarves and Chanel handbags will bounce back.

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When it does, LVMH will be able to offer its affluent customers everything from breakfast in bed to the dress they wear to dinner. It could throw in a visit to one of it vineyards in France or a distillery in Scotland for a truly personalized experience.

In the meantime, with sales of top-end goods set to fall by as much as 35% this year, luxury adviser Mario Ortelli says stronger brands may get opportunities to acquire assets that wouldnt otherwise come onto the market. When it comes to hospitality, that could include trophy hotels.

Offering unique culinary experiences could also be a way for groups to pull in a hip local crowd in the U.S. or European markets. Some luxury brand restaurants are adapting to the new reality: Ralph Laurens Polo Bar in New York is offering home delivery.

While social-distancing measures may mean fewer diners, this is less of a worry for the big luxury groups. Hospitality is more about creating an aura around their collections than making money.

And if fewer Chinese are coming to Europe, there may be opportunities in exporting branded experiences to China. Luxury spending is recovering there as travelers stay home. While Burberry Group Plc hasnt reopened its Thomass cafe in London yet, theres one in its new Shenzhen store opened in partnership with Tencent Holdings Ltd. Gucci plans another restaurant in Tokyo, but there is no reason why its Osteria collaboration with Bottura couldnt be expanded to other Asian cities.

At home or abroad, health and wellness offers another area for experimentation. This could include beauty spas, but also wellness services in flagship stores, such as the vitamin infusions offered by Londons Harrods. With many consumers still nervous about hitting the gym, helping wealthy customers get in shape is worth exploring, particularly given the increasing fusion between fitness and fashion.

There are still risks. Running restaurants, hotels and health spas is very different to selling shoes and handbags. For hotels, it requires a distinctive aesthetic, not to mention pockets deep enough to ride out the current travel slump. Even before the pandemic, a bad stay, meal or skin peel risked alienating those who would buy clothing and jewelry. Now any brand offering services faces the additional peril of its premises becoming a source of infection.

No wonder LVMH has appointed an experienced executive to lead its charge. Andrea Guerra, formerly of Eataly and Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica SA, will soon take up the role of chief executive of LVMH Hospitality Excellence. Partnerships with restaurants, hotel operators or high-end fitness chains are another option. For example, Marriott International Inc. operates the Bulgari hotels.

Either way, expanding into new categories amid the worst luxury downturn in modern history is not for the fainthearted. But the biggest players take a long-term view. Offering extravagant experiences is one area where this approach could pay off.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Andrea Felsted is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the consumer and retail industries. She previously worked at the Financial Times.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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The following are two excerpts from Ben Mutschlers recent publication, The Province of Affliction: Illness and the Making of Early New England. The book explores the place of illness in everyday lifethe ways in which it shaped families and households and became bound up in governance at all levels. The passages below draw from the introduction to a chapter on smallpox and the politics of contagion, followed by a small portion of a case study based on the diary of Ashley Bowen. The sailor, ship rigger, painter, poet, husband, and father chronicled the ravages of smallpox as it burned through his town of Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1773an event at once terrifying and all-too-common in early New England.

Perhaps no other affliction in eighteenth-century New England received the attention given to smallpox. Even the most laconic of diarists noted its presence and charted its approach; others devoted entire journals to its rages. Letters written from infected areas to relatives, friends, and business partners survive despite authors pleas to burn such material lest the virulent distemper spread further. Newspapers reported on outbreaks throughout the Atlantic world. Chronologies of significant events compiled at the end of almanacs memorialized serious epidemics. Legislative records reveal extensive efforts to stop the communication of the disease, including last-ditch attempts to protect the members of the Massachusetts General Court, who on more than one occasion fled Boston for Charlestown, Cambridge, and Concord, and demanded that guards be posted at the doors of its sessions to keep out the infected.

Smallpox attracted such intense notice because of the threat of contagion. It was considered supreme among a host of malignant infectious distempers coursing through New England, diseases that were spread from infected persons (and objects with which they had been in contact) to other persons. Throat distemper in the 1730s and 1740s, yellow fever in the 1790s, measles outbreaks throughout the period, and sundry camp fevers associated with soldiers returning from colonial warsdebate raged during epidemics about whether they were infectious diseases. There was no such debate on smallpox. Shortly after exposure to infected persons or goodsNew Englanders thought anywhere from a few days to a few weeks; present-day epidemiologists would say from ten to eleven daysthose who had not already weathered the disease could expect a progression of symptoms: fever, backache, headache, nausea, and listlessness (days 1214); small pimples that turned to pustules (days 1524), which might remain distinct or run together (in a confluent and much more deadly form); scabbing (days 2530); and finally scarring revealed as the scabs dropped off, leaving pock marks as evidence of surviving the disease. . . .

**

Shortly after it became clear that his wife had been infected with smallpox, Ashley Bowen (17281813) sat down and wrote a memorandum, a short narrative that would assemble and inscribe in memory the events that had brought the scourge to his house. Bowen had long kept a meticulous diary of his work life. But smallpox required special attention, a separate journal to chronicle its ravages (and to keep track of other major afflictions, including disasters at sea). Several weeks earlier, on the first of June, a schooner had returned from Newfoundlands fishery to Bowens hometown of Marblehead, Massachusetts. One of the major fishing communities in eighteenth-century New England with about five thousand residents in 1765, it was the sixth largest town in British North America. While on the schooners voyage, a crew member, William Mathews, had boarded a French ship, something that Bowen noted was common for our fishermen to do, and purchased a piece of Castile soap. When Mathews returned home, he gave the soap to his wife, Sarah, who used it to clean his soiled sea clothes. Two weeks later, Sarah Mathews broke out and swelled to a great degree. At this point a doctor was sent for, and everyone assumed Mathews had been poisoned.

As Sarah Mathews became violently ill during the following week, neighbors and relatives came to visit and help. Her sister Mary (Mol) Ingalls assumed a large portion of the care, washing her sister with salt water and the liquor of elder and perhaps also aiding the doctor who attended. Despite their efforts, Sarah Mathews continued to deteriorate and, worse still, others who had been with Mathews began to feel unwell. Mathewss daughter, who had nursed her mother, fell ill, and she, too, was bathed by Ingalls while more neighbors all round took their turns to watchings as in any other sickness. Of perhaps greater concern for Mol Ingalls, however, was that her mother, the widow Sarah Shaw, had become dangerously sick. Some openly speculated that it was not poisoning but smallpox that afflicted the women. Ingalls steadfastly maintained that her seventy-nine-year-old mother was laboring under the infirmities of old age and spaired no pains for to get assistance to her. As Ashley Bowen later noted dryly, tis supposed that nearly an hundred or more of Mother Shaws relations and friends frequented the house all the time from her first complaint.

Bowen had been made privy to the alarming details of the outbreak by his second wife, Mary (Shaw) Bowen, who through her previous marriage to the late James Shaw was a sister-in-law to Sarah Mathews and Mol Ingalls and daughter-in-law to the elderly Sarah Shaw. Although Mary Bowen was not as deeply involved as Mol Ingalls in the care for Mathews and Shaw, she visited both women during their sickness and was especially worried about her mother-in-law. Ashley Bowen, as one of the principal riggers in Marblehead, was particularly harried in the summer months, and as he confessed in his memorandum, when his wife had initially informed him that her mother was a-dying with old age, he gave it no great attention. However, Bowen did become deeply concerned when he returned from his loft later that night and found his wife in bed with a fever. Mary Bowens sisters were summoned. They soon arrived, bound Marys head, and prepared a balm tea for her, leaving Ashley Bowen to sit up the fore part of the night with his wife to monitor her condition. The following day only one sister, whom Bowen noted had had the smallpox, came to attend; presumably others not immune to the disease feared that they might be infected if Marys poisoning was in fact the pox. By that night, Bowen could find no one to help. I sent for a watcher, but the next news it was said to be the smallpox and that five or six was complaining of it at Mother Shaws, so could get nobody to watch. Under the pressure and special conditions of the smallpox outbreak, the social network of healers who had formed so readily even a week earlier was now coming apart. And here, with smallpox poised to consume the affairs of the household, neighborhood, and town, Ashley Bowen ended his memorandum.

Ben Mutschler is associate professor of history at Oregon State University.

The Province of Affliction: Illness and the Making of Early New England is available now on our website or from your favorite bookseller.
In a further escalation of the ongoing military confrontation between India and China in eastern Ladakh, the Chinese People Liberation Army carried out provocative military movements" to unilaterally" change the status quo on the southern bank of Pangong Tso but the attempt was thwarted by the Indian troops.

According to officers, Indian Intelligence agencies had picked up noise of Chinese movement towards the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso in Ladakh and troops were moved to occupy the locations that the Chinese wanted to ingress to change the ground situation from the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements.

An officer said there was no violent clash as such between the rival troops, and hence, there was no question of injuries or casualties, denying early reports of injuries on both sides. By fending off the Chinese movement towards Southern Bank, the troops, he said, have averted what has happened in Northern Bank, where Chinese soldiers have come in into territory that India perceives as its own.

Chinese troops had physically occupied an almost 8-km stretch of what India considers its territory on the north bank of Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh after clashes in May and also created massive signage in the area to claim it as Chinese land. PLA soldiers had built dozens of fortifications, prefabricated huts, bunkers and pill-boxes after occupying the Finger-4 to 8 area on the north bank of Pangong Tso in a massive consolidation since early-May. India says the LAC is at Finger 8 and soldiers have for long been patrolling west to east till this point.

A brigade commander level flag meeting is currently in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues arising out of the fresh incident, Army Spokesperson Colonel Aman Anand.

In a statement issued earlier in the day, Colonel Anand said that, PLA troops violated the previous consensus on the night of 29/30 August and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo. Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground," the Army spokesperson said.

It is the first major incident involving the troops of the two countries after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. China also suffered casualties but it is yet to make the details public but according to an American intelligence report it was 35.

India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks in the last two-and-half months but no significant headway has been made for a resolution to the border row in eastern Ladakh. The two sides began a process of disengagement on July 6, a day after a telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in eastern Ladakh. However, the process has not moved forward since mid-July.

The PLA has pulled back from Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang and a couple of other areas. At the five rounds of Corps commander-level talks, the Indian side has been insisting on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to April.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced in mid-August is the product of a third phase of Israeli peacemaking that builds on lessons learned from previous treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and the failed peace accords with the Palestinians. It should be viewed in the context of weakening American engagement in the Middle Eastparticularly, of the drawdown of U.S. forces in the regionand the mounting challenges from Turkey and Iran.

Since its founding in 1948, Israel has struggled to establish ties with the states in the Middle East and Muslim-majority nations in Africa and Asia. Israels first phase of peacemaking was designed to counteract this predicament by seeking relations in countries on the periphery of the Arab world, such as Turkey, pre-revolution Iran and Ethiopia.

After conventional wars with its Arab neighbors between 1950 and 1973, Israel achieved a breakthrough when Egypt broke with the Arab League and signed a peace treaty in 1979. In practical terms, this ended any lingering fears that the creation of Israel could be reversed through war.

But the treaty with Egypt coincided with the Iranian revolution: Not only did Israel lose diplomatic relations with Tehran, the new Islamic Republic became one of its most hostile adversaries.

The second phase of Israeli peacemaking in the Middle East came with the push for Palestinian rights and statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. With the end of the Cold War and the emergence of an American global hegemony came an era of peacemaking, from Northern Ireland to South Africa. Against that backdrop, Israel and the Palestinians agreed to a peace process, known as the Oslo Accords, in 1993. This paved the way for Jordan to sign a peace treaty with Israel. (One other Arab nation, Mauritania, opened diplomatic relations with Israel in 1999, only to suspend them in 2009.)

If the agreement with Egypt ended the conventional military threat to Israel, the Oslo Accords were meant to end the Palestinian uprising. They succeeded for a few years before the bloody Second Intifada broke out. Nevertheless, they cemented in place an autonomous Palestinian control of Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

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In the third phase, Israel has been reaching beyond the Palestinians and the ring of states around it. The agreement with the UAE is expected to be the first of many. It was made possible in part by American support, which was key to treaties with Egypt and Jordan, as well as the Oslo Accords.

There are other motivating factors. The UAE expects the agreement to forestall Israeli annexation of large parts of the West Bank, and therefore preserve the hope for a Palestinian state. In effect, then, the agreement bolsters the deals with Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians. The UAE also offers Israel economic opportunities that it has been unable to develop with Cairo, Amman or Ramallah.

But at its core, the agreement is based on common adversaries, including Iran and Hamas in Gaza. The Emiratis view Hamas as part of a broader menace to regional stability from the Muslim Brotherhood. The UAE and Israel are also alarmed by Turkeys growing assertiveness in the Mediterranean and across the region. This forms the basis of a strategic alliance that includes Greece and Cyprus.

The third phase of Israeli peacemaking may result in the normalization of relations with other Arab and Muslim countries over time, but its immediate ramifications are to be found in regional strategic arrangements. As the U.S. withdraws from bases in Iraq and weighs its commitments in Afghanistan and Syria, a post-American Middle East is coming into view, in which regional alliances take on more importance.

Turkey is building its own alliance, with Qatar and the Libyan government in Tripoli, as well as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Irans network includes Syria, the Lebanese Hezbollah and militias in Iraq and Yemen. Both Turkey and Iran have already condemned the Israeli-UAE agreement.

As the result of this hostility, Israels ties the UAE will likely be closer than those with its older treaty partners. Despite its diplomatic relations with Jordan and Egypt, there have rarely been public meetings between the countries leaders. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed can be expected to have a warmer relationship because they share a regional worldview.

This would require getting over some initial hurdles, such as Israels opposition to the sale of F-35s to the UAE. But their shared interests will ensure that they develop the proverbial beautiful friendship.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Seth J. Frantzman covers Middle East affairs for the Jerusalem Post. He is the author of "After ISIS: America, Iran and the Struggle for the Middle East" and executive director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun has called for the formation of a "secular state" in an effort to rescue the country from confessionalism.

Confessionalism refers to a system of government that is a legally recognised mix of religion and

"There is a need to develop, modify, and change the system...call it the way you like; but most certainly, needs a new conception in running its affairs, based on citizenry and on the secularism of the state," Xinhua news agency quoted Aoun as saying in a televised speech on Sunday.

is governed under the National Pact, which is an unwritten agreement that laid the foundation of the country as a multiconfessional state between the Shia Muslim, Sunni Muslim, and Maronite Christian leaderships.

According to this pact, the President should always be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim and the Parliament Speaker a Shia Muslim.

Aoun said that and its people deserve, after a long suffering, a state where merit is the criterion, and law is the guarantor of the rights of all equally, and where the fundamental belonging is to the nation and not to the leaders of the confessions.

"I believe that only the secular state is capable of protecting and preserving pluralism and turning it into a real unity, I call for the proclamation of Lebanon as a secular state," he said.

Lebanese authorities have been incapable, over the past few years, to agree on proper reforms to be implemented in the interest of the country, due to the division of power in a system that distributes roles and positions based on sects.

This prompted the beginning of a nationwide protest on October 17, 2019 to demand for a change in the system and the whole ruling class.

--IANS

ksk/

(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.)
President Donald Trump unleashed a tweetstorm early Sunday about Portland, Oregon, hours after a man was killed there during clashes between a large group of Trump supporters and Black Lives Matter demonstrators.

The string of messages enlivened criticism from Democrats, including presidential candidate Joe Biden, that Trump is looking to inflame unrest in US cities because he believes it will help his re-election campaign.

The president retweeted a post that had used a profanity to describe Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler -- commenting only to Tone down the language, but TRUE! -- and others in which the original tweeters accused the mayor, a Democrat, of war crimes and of having blood on his hands.

Portland has been the site of protests, often violent, for months, following the killing of a Black man, George Floyd, by police in Minnesota in late May.

While labeling Black Lives Matter protesters in Washington as agitators and thugs, Trump praised as GREAT PATRIOTS the hundreds of his supporters who rolled into the city in a convoy of cars and trucks on Saturday. He concluded a string of dozens of tweets with the slogan LAW AND ORDER!!!

Video posted on Twitter from Portland showed some of the caravan participants driving pickup trucks into protesters and shooting what appeared to be tear gas and paint balls.

The man shot to death on Saturday night was a supporter of a right-wing group thats frequently clashed with other demonstrators there. He was identified by the group Patriot Prayer as Aaron Jay Danielson, who also went by Jay Bishop. Trump tweeted Rest in Peace Jay!

In a lengthy statement, Biden said it isnt a peaceful protest when you go out spoiling for a fight.

I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same, Biden said in a statement Sunday.

Biden said the job of a president is to lower the temperature and Trumps failure to call on his supporters to stop seeking conflict shows just how weak he is.

Wheeler, the Portland mayor, hit back at Trump during a press conference. Its you who have created the hate and the division, Wheeler said of the president. Youve tried to divide us more than any other figure in modern history. And now you want me to stop the violence that you helped create.

Earlier, Chad Wolf, Trumps nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, blamed local officials in Portland and other cities for an environment of lawlessness and chaos thats led to fatal shootings as Americas ideological divide clashes in an interview Sunday on CBS.

Another string of posts from Trump late Saturday night included one in which he shared a message from the conservative broadcaster One America News (OAN) that called ongoing protests against racism in the U.S. an attempted coup aimed to take down the president.

And Trump addressed a Twitter message Sunday at Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington, saying the Democrat should Clean up D.C. or the Federal Government will do it for you. Enough!!!

A White House spokesman said late Saturday that Trump will travel to Kenosha on Tuesday, days after the Wisconsin city was rocked by protests after police were filmed shooting a Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back multiple times at close range.

Since then, two people involved in a protest over Blakes shooting were killed and a third was seriously wounded. A 17-year-old Trump supporter from Illinois, Kyle Rittenhouse, has been charged as an adult with two counts of homicide.

Trump hasnt directly addressed the Rittenhouse incident. Talking to reporters in Texas on Saturday, Trump, he said the matter was under investigation right now and theyll be reporting back to me over the next 24 hours.

The president may meet with Blakes family while in Kenosha, campaign aide Lara Trump said on Fox News Sunday.

Representative Karen Bass, a California Democrat who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, said on CNN that Trump was traveling to Kenosha with one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to agitate things and to make things worse.

He will stoke it through his social media where he can, because he believes the violence helps him, said Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. That is the sad and tragic truth about this.
People on ventilator support in Delhi saw only 2-fold rise from Jan 1-14: Data

3-kg bomb at Delhi flower market: Police yet to zero in on any suspect

Delhi is buying Covid kits from market and does not want support from Centre: Satyendra Jain

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

New Delhi, Aug 31: Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain said on Monday that the state does not need specific support from Centre as long as they do not object to more testing.

Also, the state is buying COVID kits from the market, instead of taking from Centre.

Delhi is focusing on doing aggressive COVID-19 testing, and aiming not to leave any positive case untraced.

We also hope COVID-19 ends till Diwali, Satyendra Jain further said.

Earlier, Jain told Delhi Chief Minister gave instructions to double the COVID-19 testing but due to pressure from the Home Ministry, officials were not doing so".

"Delhi Chief Minister gave instructions to double the COVID-19 testing but due to pressure from the Home Ministry, officials were not doing so. I am happy that after my letter, MHA has clarified and cleared it and I am hopeful that testing will be doubled soon," said Jain.

"Home Ministry should first see COVID-19 cases in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and rest of India, then talk about managing Delhi. This is unfortunate that despite Delhi CM's approval for doubling the testing, the order had to be cleared by MHA also," the health minister added.

However, home ministry on Thursday refuted Delhi government's allegations that it was not allowing them to increase Covid-19 testing.

The Health Minister informed that so far 1,73,390 people have been infected, out of which 154,171 recovered in Delhi.

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Story first published: Monday, August 31, 2020, 15:14 [IST]
President Donald Trump is set to travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday to meet with law enforcement and take a first-hand look at damage from recent protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Kenoshas Democratic mayor would rather Trump stay away from the city that was engulfed by protests after the shooting. Realistically, from our perspective, our preference would have been for him not to be coming at this point in time, Mayor John Antaramian told NPR on Sunday. All presidents are always welcome and campaign issues are always going on. But it would have been, I think, better had he waited to have for another time to come.

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The mayor wasnt alone in his request. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, who is also a Democrat, is calling on Trump to nix the planned trip to Kenosha. In a two-page letter, Evers wrote Trump should reconsider his trip considering Kenosha is still in the process of healing after the shooting of Blake and the subsequent killing of two protesters. I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state, Evers wrote. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.

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Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes on President Trumps upcoming visit to Kenosha: I dont know how, given any of the previous statements that the President made, that he intends to come here to be helpful and we absolutely dont need that right now. https://t.co/M5hwow3MD5 pic.twitter.com/U8WnQjouF3  CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) August 30, 2020

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Earlier, Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes had also criticized the planned trip, calling attention to how Trump and others at the Republican National Convention had pointed to recent protests around the country to push a law-and-order message. You look at the incendiary remarks that the President has made, they centered an entire convention around creating more animosity and creating more division around what is going on in Kenosha, Barnes said on CNN. So, I dont know how given any of the previous statements that the President made that he intends to come here to be helpful. And we absolutely dont need that right now.

Last week, a White House official said there had been efforts to try to contact Blakes family. But an attorney for Blakes family, Ben Crump, said on CBS that they had not heard from the White House. The Blake family has not been contacted at this time, Crump said. The Blake family is very respectful of all our elected officials.
Ronan Hughes (Photo: Metro)

London  A 40-year-old Irish haulier pleaded guilty at Old Bailey Court on August 28 to the manslaughter of 39 Vietnamese migrants found dead in the back of a refrigerated lorry in Essex, the UK last October.

Ronan Hughes became the second man to plead guilty over the case, which shocked the UK and Vietnam late last year.He was extradited to the UK from Ireland and appeared before Southend Magistrates Court in the east of London by video-link from a police station on June 24 (local time).On April 8, 25-year-old lorry driver Maurice Robinson from Craigavon in Northern Ireland pleaded guilty to 39 counts of manslaughter at the Old Bailey.He had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and acquiring criminal property at the same court on November 25 last year.Meanwhile, another suspect, Eamonn Harrison, pleaded not guilty to 39 counts of manslaughter.Last October, the bodies of the Vietnamese nationals were discovered by emergency services on the back of the refrigerated lorry at an industrial estate in Essex.Among the 39 dead were ten teenagers, including two 15-year-old boys.
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
The President of New Juaben Corporative Cocoa Farmers Union, Mr Thomas Adjei, has said Ghana risks losing her spot as the second-largest cocoa-producing country in the world due to illegal mining.



According to him, the indiscriminate sale of lands by some chiefs and the unsupervised nature of illegal mining and sand winning activities have combined to destroy more than 3,000 square acres of cocoa farms in the Eastern Region with no compensation for the farmers.



Mr Adjei was speaking at a short ceremony at which the union handed over nine tricycles, a number of pairs of Wellington boots, hand gloves and hand sanitisers worth GH129,000.00 to cocoa farmers in eight cocoa communities at New Juaben in the Eastern Region.



The items were purchased from the annual loyalty bonus given to the respective cocoa unions by Cocoa Life Programme Mondelez International, which is calculated by collating the volumes of cocoa beans produced by these unions annually.



The tricycles are to support the cocoa communities such as Wurapong, Jumapo- Asougya, Oyoko, Baah Asare Nkwanta, Kofikrom, Asikesu, Mpaayem and Adomponsu to enable them to transport their cocoa beans from their respective farms to the market



Mr Adjei said their farmlands, which are mostly stool lands, were being sold to mining companies and other private investors without the farmers being informed, adding we only become aware when the cocoa trees are being pulled down without dialogue to evaluate and compensate us for our plantations that have been destroyed.



He said some chiefs had also sold land with cocoa trees on it to the All Nations University and Joy Industries Limited and that all their cocoa trees had been cut down and coconut trees planted in their place.



Mr Adjei expressed fear that failure on the part of the government and the Land Commission to intervene and avert the looming danger would plunge the country into severe economic hardship because cocoa production had proven to be the backbone of the countrys economy.



We are not saying the lands belong to us but whenever the chiefs want to sell their lands to other investors, they must value our cocoa trees and compensate us so that our labour and investments made in planting the cocoa should not go wasted, he said.



For her part, the Country Director of Cocoa Life Programme Mondelez International, Mrs Yaa Peprah Amekudzi, said the countrys land tenure system under which many of these cocoa farmers did not own the land that they cultivated but was in the hands of family heads or the chiefs was a very complex issue.



She indicated that her outfit had introduced the application of technology by supplying motorized pruners and motorized slashers to the farmers to weed their farms in order to make their work less difficult but increase productivity.



She said that was also to tune their minds against being lured into giving up the cultivation of cocoa in favour of other crops.



Mrs Yaa Amekudzi said use of the tricycles was another milestone in their partnership with cocoa farmers, and it was meant to put a stop to farmers carrying wet beans from their farms to their homestead and the use of school children on the farms.



She said the first batch of tricycles distributed to the unions had served almost like ambulances as they had been used to take people to the hospitals and as a school bus for children in the hamlets who would have walked to school sometimes over three kilometres.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









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The majority of the amount will be used to boost workforce salary to attract and retain high-quality staff, which the union said were key for turning around the aged-care sector.

The HSU said that labour spending accounted for the largest proportion of aged-care costs, with an estimated 100,000 full-time equivalent staff employed across the country. However, full-time personal care workers on award rates of pay earn between $20.73 and $25.18 per hour, only slightly above the minimum hourly wage of $19.49 set by the Fair Work Commission.

Paying aged-care workers such low wages undermines quality because it makes attracting and retaining high quality and well-trained staff difficult, HSU said in the report. Increasing rates of pay for personal care workers would further help address the quality of aged-care provision.

The union added that to get an estimation on the costs of improving the system, they used combination models of staff wage increases and rising care hours to align Australian aged-care standards with a star rating system that exists in the US.

Depending on the level of salary increase and rising number of staff caring for aged-care residents, a jump of 0.1% to 0.65% in the Medicare levy is required.

The last time the federal government raised the levy was in 2019, increasing it by 0.5% from 2% to 2.5% of taxable income to help fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

Increasing taxation is always challenging, the union wrote in the report. However, there is evidence that the public is prepared to support higher taxation where the revenue is being applied to clear areas of need, with costs and benefits broadly shared across the community.
COLLINSVILLE  At about 12:45 p.m. on Saturday, officers of the Collinsville Police Department responded to the area of Collinsville Crossing at N. Bluff Road in response to a report of gunfire.

Initial investigation of the incident has revealed several individuals, who had arrived in several different motor vehicles engaging in an exchange of gunfire in the parking lot of Waffle House and St. Louis Bread Company.
By Online Desk

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday imposed a token fine of Re 1 on advocate Prashant Bhushan after his conviction for contempt of court for tweets against the present CJI and six former CJIs.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra while reading out the verdict said, Court's decisions cant be influenced by publications or opinions in the media.

The bench further added, Bhushan's statements to press, even before they were considered by this court, was to influence the proceedings.

The court also said that the press conference by four apex court Judges in January 2018 was wrong and said, Judges are not supposed to hold a press conference.

The bench while imposing fine of Re 1 on Bhushan makes it clear that if he doesnt deposit the same by September 15, he will have to undergo 3-month imprisonment and be debarred from practice for 3 years.

Advocate prashant bhushan with Re 1 after the supreme court judgement of imposing the fine on him @NewIndianXpress @TheMornStandard pic.twitter.com/ZHrUYE5o01  kanusarda (@sardakanu_TNIE) August 31, 2020

On August 25, the top court was urged by senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan to show "judicial statesmanship" and not make Bhushan a "martyr" by punishing him for contempt over his tweets criticising the judiciary, after the activist-lawyer rejected fresh suggestions from the court for an apology.

Bhushan had filed a supplementary statement reiterating his position to stand by his tweets. He refused to apologise for the tweets for which he was held to be in contempt.

As the top court reserved its verdict on the sentence to be awarded to Bhushan, Justice Arun Mishra, who presided over a three-judge bench, at the fag end of the nearly three-hour-long hearing had asked why he cannot seek an apology and what was wrong in using this word.

Justice Mishra will be demitting office on September 2.

ALSO READ | Whats wrong in apology, is the word bad?: Excerpts of courtroom exchange on Prashant Bhushan case

The apex court on August 14 had held Bhushan guilty of criminal contempt for his two derogatory tweets against the judiciary saying they cannot be said to be a fair criticism of the functioning of the judiciary made in the public interest.

On August 25, Dhavan, representing Bhushan, had suggested that the top court recall the August 14 verdict convicting him for contempt of court and not impose any sentence and urged it to not only close the case but also to bring an end to the controversy.

This institution must have criticism and not just criticism but extreme criticism. Your shoulders are broad enough, Dhavan had said.

Justice Mishra observed: Had it been someone else, it was easier to ignore but when Mr Bhushan says something, it has some effect.

Attorney General K K Venugopal urged the bench to let off Bhushan with a warning or reprimand. But Justice Mishra had asserted: If a person says he didnt make a mistake and he wont apologize for it despite repeated opportunities, what will be the purpose of saying dont do it again. It is not about us or him. It is about the institution.

The bench also comprising Justices B R Gavai and Krishna Murari, had given 30 minutes to Bhushan to "think over" on withdrawing his statements made in the court and said he made "disparaging remarks against the institution and the judges".

Venugopal had said Bhushan, who has been refusing to tender an unconditional apology for the tweets, should withdraw all statements and express regret.

ALSO READ | Civil society groups hold demonstration in support of Prashant Bhushan in Raipur

The bench on August 20 had granted time till Monday to Bhushan to reconsider his "defiant statement" and tender "unconditional apology" for the contemptuous tweets.

Referring to Bhushan's statements and his refusal to apologise, the bench had told Venugopal that mistakes were committed by all but they needed to be accepted, but here Bhushan was not willing to accept that.

Dhavan had argued that reprimanding Bhushan like "don't do it again" as suggested by the attorney general will not be correct and instead a statesman-like message should be there like "Mr Bhushan though we disagree with many things, but from next time you should be more responsible".

Bhushan in his statement had refused to offer an apology to the Supreme Court for his two tweets against the judiciary, saying what he expressed represented his bona fide belief which he continued to hold.

(With ENS and Agencies Inputs)
The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) on Sunday flayed the invitation by the Senate ad-Hoc Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) to the public to submit Memorandum for further alteration of the provisions of the Constitution (as amended). It noted that the announcement gives all Nigerians only two weeks to submit their memoranda on all aspects requiring amendment of the current Constitution.

The Northern Elders Forum in a statement by the Director of Publicity and Advocacy, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, declared that the repetitive initiative of the Senate is of no value and a predictable waste of time, resources and energy of the nation, and should not be supported by Nigerians being alarmed by waste in governance at this difficult time when the economy is facing unprecedented challenges.

The Forum argued that virtually every National Assembly since 1999 had spent huge amounts of money on jamborees that give them false hope that the three arms of government respect the overwhelming desire of Nigerians for a holistic and genuine review and amendment of the 1999 Constitution. NEF maintained that nothing fundamental or of any value has come out of these grand schemes to exploit our collective desire to address our political and economic fundamentals. The Forum protested that the current National Assembly is also following suit, agitating that it should not be encouraged on this path.

NEF was of the view that only the Nigerian people can negotiate the countrys future which the Forum said rests largely on Nigerias willingness to address major constraints to equity and justice, a functional structure, consistent good governance, security for all citizens, a credible electoral process, growing understanding between and among all groups and an economy that grows and narrows inequalities between and classes and regions.

This cannot be achieved by a process that routinizes wasteful expenditure around false hopes, NEF declared.

The Forum decried that the legislative and executive branches of government have large quantities of reviews, recommendations and reports from past attempts at amending the Constitutions. These, NEF said, represent enough resources for a review if the legislature is serious about this vital national priority. NEF expressed skepticism that the federal government may not be sincere to accept genuine suggestions from the people.

Even this is not likely to produce a genuine effort to address the basic requirements of securing a stable, secure and prosperous Nigeria, because both arms of this administration are unlikely to accept to put through wide-ranging reviews of the Constitution.

The Forum specifically reminded the legislators and other leaders from the North that security of our communities, reduction of crushing poverty and widening distrust among communities should be their priorities, NEF stated.

The Northern Elders Forum, therefore, recommended an alternative that leaders of thought, elders, groups and professional organizations and representatives of government should freely discuss every element of our co-existence as a country under principles of voluntarism, genuine representation, mutual respect and integrity of the process.

A Nigerian Peoples Conference on Review of the Constitution will benefit from past work in this direction in addition to contemporary challenges which the country needs to address in a context that allows free and productive engagements without pre-determined ends. The outcome of this Conference should be submitted to the two arms of government which should provide for a referendum in the Constitution so that Nigerians can directly decide on how they want their nation to be structured and function.

The North is willing to discuss other options that will do justice to the current Constitution and the future of our great country, NEF declared.

The Forum, thereafter, invited attention of, particularly, northern groups to be wary of being railroaded into making submissions which the legislature will hold up as input, further justifying waste and deceit.

No northern group should encourage further waste of public funds which should be channeled into battling killers, kidnappers, poverty and poor governance.

The North wants a major review of the Constitution, but it is also ready to resist attempts to create wealth for a few while it leaves parts of the country to quarrel and blame each other for the state of the nation. Northerners are willing to discuss current challenges of the region and the state of the country with any group, anywhere, provided it sees evidence of sincerity and respect for each other, the Forum further declared.

The Forum, therefore, advised the National Assembly to direct its energy and mandate towards convincing President Muhammadu Buhari to bring an end to the insurgency in the North East and killings in most parts of North Central and North West and other parts of the country. The Forum also advised the Senate to jettison the wasteful idea of giving Nigerians the impression that it is involved in a serious review of the Constitution.

PV: 20
Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj of Libyas Government of National Accord (GNA) suspended Misratan-born Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha on Friday, setting up a major split within the Tripoli-based government that threatens progress toward a cease-fire in the wider civil war.

Sarraj suspended Bashagha, a former militia leader, after protests against living conditions turned violent in Tripoli last week. Sarraj ordered a curfew, citing the coronavirus, and promised an investigation after militiamen fired on protesters in Tripoli last Sunday. At least six protesters were reportedly abducted.

The allegiance of the militiamen was not immediately clear, but Amnesty International said the attack occurred in an area controlled by the pro-GNA Nawasi militia. The GNA has threatened to use force to disperse the protesters.

Bashagha previously voiced support for protesters demonstrating against corruption and living conditions in Misrata, Zawiya and Tripoli. His suspension came while he was in Turkey on a diplomatic visit.

Why It matters: Sarraj may have overplayed his hand. Tripoli cannot hold back Gen. Khalifa Hifters forces and certainly cant take Sirte and al-Jufra without the Misratans.

Bashagha has served unofficially as a representative of Misrata in the GNA and was central to the defense of Tripoli during Hifters year-long offensive against the city, repelled earlier this year.

His popularity has grown as he has criticized the GNA for corruption, and its becoming clear that Sarraj sees him as a threat.

The move also throws a wrench into hopes for a renewed peace process in Libya. Sarraj said on Aug. 21 said the GNA would halt its offensive as he called for a demilitarization of Sirte and withdrawal of foreign mercenaries from the country, in reference to Russian, Syrian and sub-Saharran African mercenaries. Eastern Libyas government echoed the call, though Hifters military forces rebuffed it.

Whats next: Sarraj has promised an investigation into Bashaghas alleged conduct by Monday and Bashagha agreed, on the condition that its proceedings be televised to ensure transparency.

The United States has urged the two sides to reconcile. Sarraj is widely regarded as central to the GNAs international legitimacy, and Bashagha to its security.

Know more: Fehim Tastekin shows how Turkeys blessing for Sarrajs cease-fire call is a reluctant but necessary concession for now, and one that some factions supporting the GNA are less than enthusiastic about.
Diplomat won votes from 90 MPs and must form a government to push through long-overdue reforms.

Beirut, Lebanon  Lebanese diplomat Mustapha Adib has been tasked with forming a government by an overwhelming majority of parliamentarians representing the countrys political establishment.

Adib received the votes of 90 MPs out of a possible 120, garnering the support of Hezbollah and its allies the Free Patriotic Movement and the Amal Movement, in addition to the Future Movement of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and a number of smaller blocs.

Adib said it was no longer the time for words and promises.

Its time for work to dovetail efforts and join hands, to restore hope among the Lebanese, Adib told reporters on Monday.

By the grace of God Almighty, we hope we will be successful in selecting professionals with proven expertise and efficiency to implement the necessary financial and economic reforms.

Seventeen MPs voted for other candidates, including 14 votes by the Lebanese Forces for International Court of Justice judge Nawaf Salam. About a dozen MPs either voted for no one or did not show up.

Like his predecessor Hassan Diab, who was named by a narrower margin by the countrys establishment following unprecedented anti-government protests that toppled a government last year, 48-year-old Adib is little known to the public.

He has been Lebanons ambassador to Germany since 2013, has for two decades been an adviser to billionaire former prime minister Najib Mikati, and is seen as being close to the countrys major parties.

Mondays binding consultations between President Michel Aoun and MPs amounted to little more than a rubber stamp on a decision that had been hashed out among the countrys sectarian leaders in the lead-up to French President Emmanuel Macrons second visit to Beirut in under a month.

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Macron arrives Monday night and has been in direct contact with Lebanese officials since his early August visit in the wake of a massive Beirut explosion that left at least 190 people dead and damaged large parts of the city.

Macron has urged Lebanons ossified politicians to come to a political understanding in order to pass through sweeping reforms and halt decades of corruption and mismanagement, which led the country into its deepest-ever economic crisis.

Blast fallout

Adib will now have to form a government that can push through long-overdue economic, financial and governance reforms in order to unlock international support for the crisis-hit nation, which was already collapsing before the explosion.

The World Bank on Monday estimated the blast caused between $3.2bn and $4.6bn in physical damage, mostly to the transport sector, housing and cultural sites, and incurred an additional $2.9bn to $3.2bn in losses to economic output.

The organisation estimated Lebanons immediate needs until the end of 2020 at between $605m and $760m, including for cash assistance, housing, and support for businesses.

Western donors see a resumption of stalled negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, as well as reforms to the electricity and financial sectors, as key conditions for providing large-scale financial assistance.

Adibs predecessor, Diab, was unable to push through reforms because of high-level political meddling that is common in Lebanon, a country where major decisions are traditionally made between the handful of ruling sectarian leaders rather than governments.



Syrian refugees affected by the Beirut explosion (2:55)

We know there are political forces behind these governments that dont necessarily align with the governments that they appoint, and that makes it difficult to have a programme and solutions to these complicated problems, Mike Azar, a senior financial adviser, told Al Jazeera.

He noted Diabs government had faltered because it didnt have a clear plan for how to address the countrys challenges, and included a hodge-podge of different people with different views, which led to chronic dysfunction.

Up-hill struggle

According to Azar, the country faces four key challenges: the recovery and reconstruction after the explosion, the criminal investigation into the explosion, the economic reform programme and financial restructuring, and the restructuring of the political system itself, which is the root cause of most of Lebanons current problems.

Most of the needed reforms will be politically and personally costly to the key political decisionmakers behind any government that emerges, he said. Without a clear strategy for how Adib intends to address these challenges in the face of great political resistance, there is no reason to believe that Adibs government will be any more successful than Diabs.

Adib, therefore, will find it difficult to push forward changes unless top politicians agree to them, even though many of these reforms go against their entrenched interests.

Designated Prime Minister Mustapha Adib meets with Lebanons President Michel Aoun and Lebanese Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri at the presidential palace in Baabda [Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]

Lebanons President Aoun and Hezbollahs powerful leader, Hassan Nasrallah, have both indicated they are ready to agree to a new political system in Lebanon, as long as it is based on consensus.

But Rima Majed, an assistant professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut who was involved in organising during Lebanons uprising, said it was clear Adib had been picked to maintain and protect the interests of the countrys governing class.

It still remains a republic of billionaires, but its now run by their men, their advisers, Majed told Al Jazeera. Its disturbing from a class aspect because they are reproducing the system and Adib is clearly coming to preserve the interests of those billionaires, be it Hariri, Mikati or [House Speaker Nabih] Berri.

She said Adibs government, once formed, would continue the counter-revolution that Diabs government had begun, putting an end to any chance of a political process that includes the uprising.

Part of this is also due to circumstance: Local actors had become more empowered to take part in national politics during the uprising, but the Beirut blast has thrown the process almost entirely to the international level.

Theres something bigger being cooked up that the uprising is unable to grasp, she said.
It is extraordinary that some of our ruling-elites still take it for granted that Ghanaian democracy, is safe and secure, from the kind of upheaval which could end up with the same gruesome-outcome that resulted in the events culminating in the execution of a number of military generals, and senior officers, in 1976. Yoooooo...

Do they not understand that a monkey-dey-work-baboon-dey-chop-democracy, is akin to a fine-structure, built on quicksand, anaaaaa? How extraordinary.

The question we must all ponder over is: Why are so many intelligent men and women, voted into power to put an end to a regime that gained notoriety as a corruption-riddled government-of-friends-and-favored-families, keeping silent, when the selfsame crime-against-the-masses, is being repeated by some of their ruling party's members? Yoooooo...

It is in light of that aberration that we must situate the exemplary example of Ghana's present Attorney General, Hon. Gloria Akufo.

She has demonstrated, in advising against the Agyapaapabi-Assaseyaa-Jersey-capper, tenacity, and determination, to be truthful, in serving the Ghanaian nation-state, faithfully. Bravo to her.

Clearly, she is a principled politician, who refuses to be used by thieves-in-high-places. Her name will be written in letters-of-gold, when the history of this shameful period, in our chequered history, is written. Hon. Gloria Akufo, wu ye bue, ankasa!

Ohemaa paaapabi, may God Almighty bless and protect you, always. Ghanaians thank you from the bottom of their hearts.

Now we are finally seeing the true colours of the hypocritical wolves-in-sheep's-clothing, who, only yesterday, were busy calling President John Dramani Mahama a thief, who had to be booted out of office, for running a government of family and friends.

Yet, not even John Mahama, and his family and friends, would have been this audacious. There will be consequences for what is now going on, in the asset-stripping of the enterprise Ghana, some day. For sure. Those involved in it, are the backstabbing-blackguards, busy destroying the honest and well-meaning President Akufo-Addo's legacy, such as it is, with the unfathomable-greed that drives them. Pity.

We will teach them a lesson one fine day. For sure. They will smell pepper, ankasa. And that is a promise, not a threat. All those backstabbing President Akufo-Addo, and brutally gang-raping Mother Ghana, today, will pay dearly for their greed. Hmmmm, Oman Ghana, eyeasem, ooooo - enti yewieye paaa enei? Asem kesie, ebeba debi, ankasa! Yoooooo...
An anti-Trump Democratic-aligned political action committee advised by retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal is planning to deploy an information warfare tool that reportedly received initial funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagons secretive research arm -- transforming technology originally envisioned as a way to fight ISIS propaganda into a campaign platform to benefit Joe Biden.

The Washington Post first reported that the initiative, called Defeat Disinfo, will utilize "artificial intelligence and network analysis to map discussion of the presidents claims on social media," and then attempt to "intervene" by "identifying the most popular counter-narratives and boosting them through a network of more than 3.4 million influencers across the country  in some cases paying users with large followings to take sides against the president."

Social media guru Curtis Hougland is heading up Defeat Disinfo, and he said he received the funding from DARPA when his work was "part of an effort to combat extremism overseas."

After this article was published, the Post updated its reporting to clarify that Hougland was "using open-source technology initially incubated with funding from DARPA." The Post originally reported: "The initiative is run by Curtis Hougland, who received initial funding for the technology from DARPA, the Pentagons research arm, as part of an effort to combat extremism overseas."
She got the all-clear in December 2014, and finally had her five-year discharge appointment last November.

And, Carol McGiffin, 60, branded husband Mark Cassidy, 36, her 'absolute rock' as she got candid about her breast cancer battle.

The Loose Women star also insisted that 'no kids' is the key to their 'great life,' as she opened up in a new interview.

Happily married: Carol McGiffin, 60, branded husband Mark Cassidy, 36, her 'absolute rock' as she got candid about her breast cancer battle (Pictured March 2019)

In a chat with OK! Magazine, Carol said of her cancer battle: 'I don't think I'd have made it through without him. Mark was my absolute rock.'

The presenter revealed that she knew she had cancer in early 2014 when the couple were on holiday in Thailand.

She said: 'I knew straight away what it was. As soon as I got home I got it checked out, I wouldn't let Mark come with me.

'I knew in my heart the diagnosis and I was fine hearing it.'

Great life! The Loose Women star also insisted that 'no kids' is the key to their 'great life,' as she opened up in a new interview

After the doctors confirmed what she'd suspected, she and Mark went to the pub and got 'roaring drunk.'

In terms of treatment, Carol explained how her mastectomy came first, before she had chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Discussing how she felt when her hair fell out, the presenter explained that at first she tried the 'cold cap,' but it was too uncomfortable.

Coping together: After the doctors confirmed what she'd suspected - that she head breast cancer - she and Mark went to the pub and got 'roaring drunk' (Pictured in 2013)

Carol soon decided to embrace the process, knowing her hair would 'grow back,' and said that as soon as her hair began falling out, Mark shaved it off for her.

The couple, who have been together for 12 years - met at a Loose Women wrap party, and Carol acknowledged that things 'moved pretty quickly' from that point.

Mark revealed that although they met in August, they had moved in together by December - just four months later.

The couple got engaged in 2008 but waited ten years to tie the knot, which they did in secret in Bangkok.

Their 22-year age difference got a lot of people talking when they first went public with their romance, and Carol admitted: 'It's nice to prove everyone wrong.'

The Loose Women panellist explained why she thinks they're so happy, saying: 'We have no responsibilities and have a great life - we have no kids, that's why!'
There are highly inbred populations of the dogs in zoos, and some are kept as exotic pets. But for more than a half-century they remained elusive in the wild until 2012 when an ecotourism guide snapped a photo of a wild dog in the highlands of Indonesias Papua province. It was the first seen since the 1950s, and Mr. McIntyre set to work. He received some funding from a mining company, PT Freeport Indonesia. The company, which has a history of conflict with the local population over environmental and safety issues and murky connections to the Indonesian military, operates a gold mine in the highlands near the wild dog sightings. In 2016 he spent about a month searching and captured 149 photos of 15 individual dogs.

The locals called them the Highland wild dog, he said. The New Guinea Singing Dog was the name developed by Caucasians. Because I didnt know what they were, I just called them the Highland wild dogs.

But whether they were really the wild singing dogs that had been considered extinct was the big question. Even the singing dogs kept in captivity were a conundrum to scientists who couldnt decide whether they were a breed, a species or a subspecies. Were these wild dogs the same as the captive population? Or were they village dogs gone feral recently?

In 2018, Mr. McIntyre went back to Papua and managed to get DNA from two trapped wild dogs, quickly released after biological samples were taken, as well as one other dog that was found dead. He brought the DNA to researchers who concluded that the highland dogs Mr. McIntyre found are not village dogs, but appear to belong to the ancestral line from which the singing dogs descended.
Indias GDP contracted by 23.9% in the April-June quarter this year compared to the same period last year. This suggests that the lockdowns toll on economic activity has been more severe than expected.

A Bloomberg poll of 15 economists expected the contraction to be 19.2%. India was under an almost complete lockdown for the months of April and May.

The lockdown was not the problem, but it is the manner in which it was implemented and the policy response which has followed that have made things worse, said experts.

To be sure, the GDP numbers released on Monday are only the first estimates and they could be revised downwards further.

This is because, the informal sector numbers, which are likely to have suffered more, will only become available at a later stage, Pranab Sen, Indias former chief statistician said.

The economic contraction has affected the entire non-farm economy including the government sector. Agriculture was the only silver lining with a growth of 3.4%.

Gross Value Added (GVA), which measures the value of production minus taxes contracted by 22.8%.

Even the Public Administration, Defence and Other Services sub-sector, which captures spending by the government, has contracted by 10.3%.

The contraction in government spending will only increase going forward as state governments are facing a severe resource crunch, said Himanshu, associate professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

This will only complicate the recovery going forward, he added.

The expenditure side numbers suggest that both consumption and investment demand collapsed during the lockdown. Private Final Consumption Expenditure contracted by 26.7%.

Gross fixed capital formation, which measures investment, suffered a contraction of 47.1%.Government Consumption Expenditure, however, grew by 16.4%.

Even nominal GDP contracted by 22.6%, which means that the base of tax collection will shrink.

The fact that wholesale price indices are in contraction mode should have left no doubt that producer prices are declining.

This is bound to show in nominal growth numbers, said Pranab Sen.

Krishnamurthy Subramanian, chief economic adviser (CEA), ministry of finance said the economic performance in the April-June quarter is primarily due to an exogenous shock (Covid-19 pandemic) that has been felt globally, and India has already started a V-shaped recovery after the lockdown was eased.

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(Natural News) After yet another night of violence grotesquely mischaracterized as peaceful protests in Portland, another person has lost their life, gunned down, apparently, by a Left-wing maniac simply because he disagreed politically with the victim.

According to media reports, a victim wearing a Patriot Prayer cap and other articles of clothing showing his support for police officers was shot and killed Aug. 29 right in downtown Portland, the epicenter of Antifa and Black Lives Matter anarchists.

Video of the horrific killing shows an unidentified person pumping two rounds into the victim at close range, then hightailing it out of there to avoid being identified. And that wouldnt be easy anyway, what with Portlands ongoing mask mandate, which is backfiring big time.

Clearest and closest or enhanced video of the #Portland shooting..  pic.twitter.com/eKs1qp38cm  CIA-Simulation Warlord  (@zerosum24) August 30, 2020

As you can hear in the video, it appears as though someone yells, Hey we got one right here, we got a couple right here, before two shots rang out. Afterward, the shooter jogs away as the victim turns, walks a few steps, then tumbles to the ground where he is nearly run over by a vehicle.

Another video clip posted later by someone who was very near to the victim shows him lying face down in the street before being pulled out of the roadway and rolled over onto his back by a bystander.

Warning: Graphic

Clearest and closest or enhanced video of the #Portland shooting..  pic.twitter.com/eKs1qp38cm  CIA-Simulation Warlord  (@zerosum24) August 30, 2020

This murder follows the shooting deaths of two rioters in Kenosha, Wis., last week, as well as the wounding of a third one by a teen who was being chased and threatened, according to several video clips.

The teen, Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, has been charged with murder in connection with the deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26. Video clips appear to show Rosenbaum chasing Rittenhouse and throwing something at him before he is shot; another clip shows Rittenhouse being set upon by at least a half-dozen rioters before he is clubbed with a skateboard and fires in what appears to be self-defense.

The wounded man, Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, appears to raise a handgun towards Rittenhouse before the teen fires, nearly severing his alleged attackers right arm at the elbow.

And these incidents follow months of Left-wing violence towards conservatives and Trump supporters  violence that was called for by congressional Democrats, including Maxine Waters of California.

At least twice in the past two years, Waters has publicly dog whistled to her supporters and supporters of her deranged party to harass and even attack Trump supporters and Republicans in general.

I really expect were going to have a growing number of Republicans that are going to join with us in this disapproval. Yes, theyre concerned if a Democratic president gets elected then they can use emergency powers to do a lot of the things they dont like, Water complained during a little-watched MSNBC interview in February 2019, regarding the presidents declaration of a national emergency along the U.S.-Mexico border at a time when migrant caravans were essentially invading our country.

Ive been talking about impeachment for a long time. Im absolutely stunned and amazed that the American people have taken so much off of this president. This president has lied, I think its been documented, 8,000 times in the last two years, Waters continued.

And so its time for everybody to stand up. All hands on deck to refuse this president these fake emergency powers that he would like to have. And so Im urging everybody get together  rally in every community across this country all this weekend, send a message to Washington, D.C., No, Mr. President, were not going allow you to do this, she said.

And this was after she told supporters earlier to tell Trumps Cabinet members they werent welcome anymore, anywhere.

Waters, and the disgusting Democratic Party she belongs to, are instigators of all the violence we continue to see around the countryin Democrat-run cities.

Dont ever forget that.

Sources include:

TheNationalSentinel.com

NaturalNews.com

Shootings.news
Former junior minister John Halligan has revealed he helped people find information about travelling to Switzerland to access assisted suicide - and said he would do it again.

The former Independent Alliance TD, who retired from politics earlier this year, has called on politicians to finish the work he started on a Bill that would decriminalise assisted suicide in specific cases.

It comes as patient advocate Vicky Phelan said the Dail should have "the balls" to pass a law to allow people with terminal illnesses like her to legally die with dignity in Ireland.

Stalled

In 2015, Mr Halligan introduced the Dying with Dignity Bill but it stalled after the government collapsed the following year. Mr Halligan became a junior minister in 2016 and was no longer able to move his own Private Member's Bill.

People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny has now introduced the same Bill. If passed, it would give people with incurable and progressive illnesses the right to assisted suicide if they are likely to die within six months.

At the moment, it is a crime in Ireland punishable by a prison term of up to 14 years.

Mr Halligan said he had been contacted by a number of people with terminal illnesses who wanted to access a legal assisted suicide in Switzerland.

"If someone comes to me and asks me to tell them how to get there and how to do it, I will," he said.

At the moment, aiding, abetting or counselling the suicide of another person is illegal. The former Waterford TD said he was not afraid of being prosecuted for passing on information about assisted suicide abroad.

"You can Google it, and all the information is there," he said.

Dignitas, the Swiss non-profit, has been helping to guide people through assisted suicide within Switzerland since 1998.

According to its figures, as of the end of last year, it had 56 Irish members.

Dignitas said it had helped a total of nine Irish people access assisted suicide since 2003.

Mr Halligan, who worked with Fine Gael during the last government, said he believed "conservative elements" in that party and Fianna Fail would try to block assisted suicide.

"But if there was a free vote, a lot of individual politicians would be in favour of it," he said.

He added that the Catholic Church would also staunchly oppose such a change, and that "religious" arguments would be involved.

"Would a God want to inflict unnecessary suffering on someone? I don't believe in God, but I think that if there was a God, He or She would not want that," Mr Halligan said.

In 2013, the Supreme Court rejected a right to die case from the late Marie Fleming, but the court said that the Oireachtas could pass legislation.

The Green Party's policy on assisted suicide is in line with the upcoming Bill.

Debate

A spokesman for Roderic O'Gorman, the children and equality minister, said any decision would be decided by the Government as a whole. Ossian Smyth, said he was "in favour of sensible legislation to regulate assisted dying."

"A public debate on the issue would need to be had, perhaps through a Citizens' Assembly," Mr Smyth said.

Vicky Phelan said she was totally against referring the issue to a Citizens' Assembly as it could take years before assisted suicide would be legalised.
The coronavirus has thrust many previously unknown pharma companies into the spotlight. You can certainly place Sorrento Therapeutics (SRNE) on this list. The companys unique approach to fighting COVID-19 has resulted in sky scraping surges, yet it hasnt all been plain sailing.

The Yale School of Public has recently won an FDA emergency approval for its saliva-based diagnostic test, which puts it ahead of Sorrentos COVI-TRACE. Adding more fuel to fire, Sorrento announced the ousting of its chief financial officer. In reaction, investors got cold feet, sending shares tumbling nearly 35% in the past two weeks.

Sorrentos playbook for fighting the coronavirus is to go at it from all angles. The company is developing a COVID-19 vaccine, has several therapeutic candidates, a diagnostic test, and an antibody test. The latter is code-named COVI-TRACK, and after watching a commercial for Abbotts 5-minute saliva-based COVID test, Dawson James analyst Jason Kolbert spoke to Sorrentos CEO about Abbots offering. The head honcho shared a few key thoughts: 1. This is great progress, but the test is designed to work once these China virus patients become symptomatic. 2. The Sorrento test (COVITRACK) is also rapid, saliva-based, is designed as a genomic assay and, as such, can detect the presence of virus in asymptomatic patients.

As such, Kolbert said following the conversation, We remain excited to see this test receive EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) and final approval for COVID.

The test has already been analytically validated. RT-PCR testing of sample cohorts from healthy donors and confirmed positive COVID-19 patient samples showed that COVI-TRACK had a specificity higher than 97% and diagnostic sensitivity of more than 94%.

Sorrento believes it can produce up to five million test kits per month and upon issuance of a EUA, the COVI-TRACK test will be available for distribution to clinical testing sites nationwide.

Down to the nitty gritty, then, what does it all mean for investors? Kolbert reiterated a Buy on SRNE shares to accompany a $21 price target. This conveys Kolberts confidence shares will soar by a hefty 190% over the next 12 months. (To watch Kolberts track record, click here)

Story continues

Over the past 3 months, only one other analyst has thrown the hat in with a Sorrento review. The additional Buy bestows on Sorrento a Moderate Buy consensus rating. Investors could be pocketing a massive 240% gain, should the $27 average price target be met in the year ahead. (See SRNE stock analysis on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for healthcare stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analyst. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
SACRAMENTO  Transgender women who face brutality being housed among men in California prisons could soon be allowed to decide whether to be housed in a womens facility.

The state Senate voted to give final legislative approval Monday to SB132 by Sen. Scott Wiener, which would allow transgender, intersex and gender nonbinary people to decide whether to be housed in a mens or womens prison.

In most cases, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation now houses transgender and other gender-variant people in prisons according to their sex assigned at birth.

Advocates and incarcerated transgender people say the policy exposes them to attacks. Transgender women in California prisons are 13 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than men, and 59% reported being assaulted while in prison, according to a 2007 study by UC Irvine researchers.

Transgender people say they are often retaliated against by guards or are put in isolation if they report sexual assault or harassment to the corrections department.

These things are happening right now, in 2020, said Jasmine Jones, a transgender woman who was released from prison in May. Those are the measures they take against Black trans women on a regular basis.

Jones said she was repeatedly raped and assaulted while in prison, and that other transgender women have similarly been victimized. I get phone calls since Ive been out here of trans women being raped by their cellmates, being assault by their cellmates, she said.

The bill now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom. He has until Sept. 30 to decide whether to sign it.

While the corrections department didnt take a position on SB132, although the final bill is the result of talks between supporters and corrections officials. Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said the agency is constantly working to create a safer environment.

CDCR maintains a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment, sexual violence, staff sexual misconduct and retaliation, Thornton wrote in an email.

Of the 102,000 people incarcerated in California prisons, 1,078 are transgender, nonbinary or intersex people, according to the corrections department. California doesnt track how many of them have been assigned to a prison of their gender identity.

Wiener, D-San Francisco, said the bill would allow them to also select whether to be housed in a mens or womens prison, based on where they feel safest.

We need to treat them with the basic respect and dignity that they deserve, he said.

Transgender is an umbrella term to refer to people who identify as a gender different from the one assigned at birth. Intersex refers to people whose sex anatomy doesnt fit typical definitions of female or male. Gender nonbinary describes people who have a gender identity that isnt exclusively male or female.

Under the bill, the corrections department could deny a transgender persons request to be housed with a specific gender population, if it can certify an articulable basis for doing so.

The bill passed the Senate by 27-10, with Democrats in support and all the no votes cast by Republicans. In the Assembly, the margin was 43-13, and many moderate Democrats did not vote.

A large coalition of transgender groups co-wrote the bill, including the Transgender Law Center, TransLatin@ Coalition and Equality California, an LGBTQ advocacy group.

Advocates say SB132 wouldnt eliminate the danger transgender people face in a system designed with narrow conceptions of gender. They called the bill a form of harm reduction.

Theres actually no way to keep trans people safe in prison, said Jen Orthwein, a partner at Medina Orthwein LLP, a law firm that has represented numerous transgender people in prison and helped write the bill.

Keeping people in cages doesnt keep anyone safe, particularly people who are vulnerable, she said.

Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner
Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 06:06:16|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken in Arlington, Virginia, the United States on Aug. 20, 2020 shows screens displaying images of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaking in a video feed of the 2020 Democratic National Convention. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Joe Biden criticized recent violence in U.S. cities, while Donald Trump accused Biden of "blaming the Police far more than he's blaming the Rioters."

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Democratic 2020 presidential nominee Joe Biden and his Republican rival, sitting President Donald Trump, traded blame on Monday over violence in U.S. cities.

"He's supposed to be protecting this country. But instead he's rooting for chaos and violence," Biden said in a speech from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, referring to Trump. "He can't stop the violence - because for years he has fomented it."

The former U.S. vice president went on to criticize violence in cities like Portland in Oregon, and Kenosha in Wisconsin, which came amid protests against police brutality and racial injustice.

"I want to be clear about this: Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting," Biden stressed. "None of this is protesting - it's lawlessness - plain and simple."

"And those who do it should be prosecuted. Violence will not bring change, only destruction. It's wrong in every way. It divides instead of unites," he added.

Trump, in a tweet, said he has tuned in for Biden's remarks, while accusing him of "blaming the Police far more than he's blaming the Rioters, Anarchists, Agitators, and Looters."

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before leaving the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on March 3, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Tim Murtaugh, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, issued a statement and claimed that people "won't be safe in Joe Biden's America."

The remarks came two days after a motorcade of Trump's supporters drove through downtown Portland, and confronted with people opposing racism and excessive use of force by police. Local police said they were investigating a deadly shooting of reportedly one of the pro-Trump protesters amid the skirmishes.

In Kenosha, protests have erupted after 29-year-old African American man Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back by a police officer during an arrest a week ago, which grew chaotic and violent at times when a teenager opened fire and killed two of the protesters.

Earlier this year, 46-year-old African American man George Floyd died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His death sparked nationwide protests as well as social unrest in some U.S. cities.

Trump has largely focused on violent aspects of the protests and sought to highlight his "law and order" message in days leading to the November election by blaming the chaos and violence on Democratic governors and mayors and doubling down on his support of police officers.

Biden, who has made improving race relations a pillar of his White House bid, has accused Trump of fanning the flames of hate and division and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters.

Trump will visit Kenosha on Tuesday "to meet with local law enforcement and survey damage from the recent riots." Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian said on Monday, adding he hoped the president could reconsider his trip because "the timing on this we felt was not good." 
Reaching India in time to be able to complete the mandatory quarantine period before the exam, arranging a stay before taking a flight back home, additional expenses, the risk of contracting COVID-19 and being quarantined again back home, are among several concerns on the mind of the aspirants.

Kindly note the image has only been posted for representational purposes. Photograph: Kind courtesy PTI Photo

Travelling to India to write the medical entrance exam NEET is not only stressful but also impractical, several candidates in Gulf countries have said, citing the risk of contracting COVID-19 and the need to undergo a mandatory quarantine, among other issues.

Some of them have decided the skip the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) altogether this year.

"What choice do I have? It is impractical," says Royston Mendonca, who is based in Dubai.

Several Indian students like him said the Supreme Court's refusal to allow exam centres for the NEET in Gulf countries has left them the lurch.

Many of these students have their JEE Main exam in the Gulf and the NEET in India. While exam centres have been set up abroad for JEE Main, there is no such plan for NEET.

Reaching India in time to be able to complete the mandatory quarantine period before the exam, arranging a stay before taking a flight back home, additional expenses, the risk of contracting COVID-19 and being quarantined again back home, are among several concerns on the mind of the aspirants.

The National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts medical and engineering entrance exams, has decided to hold NEET on September 13 and Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains from September 1 to 6.

"Even if I take the next possible Vande Bharat flight, I will not be able to finish my quarantine period by then," Mendonca tells PTI over the phone from Dubai. "And how can one appear for such a crucial exam amid this much stress?"

"I had contacted the Indian embassy here and I have been told that though I had not applied earlier, I would be accommodated in the next Vande Bharat flight. But it is too much of a hassle right before an exam for which I have been preparing for two years," says Shailaja Vishwanathan, a Doha-based candidate.

"I wish I was able to take the exam in Doha, but I don't have much choice. I will go anyhow."

Jonathan Vergis, who resides in the United Arab Emirates, has to write both these exams, the JEE-Main in Dubai on September 3 and the NEET in India 10 days later.

"If I leave after this exam (JEE Main), I will not be able to finish the quarantine period before September 13, when the NEET exam is scheduled," he says.

NTA officials say the JEE exam centre in such cases can be shifted to India and the students should reach out to the agency.

"This is very impractical," says NEET candidate Jasim, a resident of Saudi Arabia. "I have not travelled alone before this. If my parents fly with me, we will have to bear extra cost which is an added burden at the moment."

"The time taken to complete the quarantine, appearing for the exam and then completing quarantine here once back, will require a lot of leaves from work for them too. We are still working out what to do."

Another candidate based in Oman, who did not wish to be identified, says she has decided not to appear for the exam this year.

"I think I will take the exam next year now. I know a year is precious, but it is just not feasible to travel to India for the exam now. I was really hoping that they either postpone the exam or set up centres in Gulf countries too," she says.

The Supreme Court of India declined to pass direction to the central government to hold NEET in the Gulf countries.

The court directed the government to allow students to come through Vande Bharat Mission flights to write the exams.

The court was hearing a plea filed by parents of nearly 4,000 NEET candidates who alternatively had sought to postpone the examination until the coronavirus pandemic subsides.

The parents of these candidates, who reside in Doha, Qatar, Oman and the UAE, had approached the apex court challenging the Kerala high court order which had dismissed their plea in June.

The NTA informed the Supreme Court that it had duly consulted the Medical Council of India on the students's demand for overseas test centers.

However, the MCI had clarified that since the exam is conducted in pen and paper mode, it will not be feasible to have a different pattern for Gulf countries or establish a centre there amid the pandemic situation.

Among Indian states too, there has been a growing chorus for postponing the two exams in view of a spike in COVID-19 cases.

However, the ministry of education has clarified the exams will be conducted on schedule in September as any further delay now can lead to a zero academic year.
Its safe to say that the transition to online education in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has led many members of the Dalhousie on a learning curve. For Medical Sciences student Laith AlHadeed, this shift is another part of why his time at Dalhousie has been so unique.



Laith will be entering his third and final year of the Medical Sciences program in the Faculty of Science this fall. Originally from Jordan, the international student knew that he wanted to study abroad in Canada. Friends from home had travelled to Nova Scotia, some also beginning their studies at Dal, inspiring Laith to make the move to Halifax. Coming from a country with a warm climate, Laith was also drawn to the milder, more seasonal climate of Canadas East Coast.



Joining the Dal community





Each year, Dalhousie welcomes thousands of students from around the world. Starting university in a new country can be both an exciting and challenging experience. For Laith, getting involved on campus was essential in making the transition a smooth one.



As an international student from the Middle East I had to adapt to a new lifestyle and I had to meet new friends, says Laith. That was a challenge, but everyones friendly and it was a fun experience getting to know a lot of people. The soon-to-be third year student in the Faculty of Science Medical Sciences Program says he met a lot of his closest friends during Orientation week and at events targeted to his program.



Having previously completed a pharmacology class online, Laith already had some experience with online learning. He says the class was memorable, and that there was plenty of interaction between the professor and students. In-person teaching sticks with me more, however, the resources that were offered for virtual learning were diverse, and there was a lot to go back and reference, Laith says.



In March 2020, Dalhousies in-person classes had to quickly make the shift to online learning as students left campus last semester. Dalhousie made strong efforts with virtual learning, says Laith. His professors were able to answer questions through Zoom and offered online resources such as YouTube videos to help students continue to get the most out of their courses during what have been uncertain times.



Getting involved



The Fall semester will mark the beginning of Laiths final year of his program. Having taken advanced placement (AP) courses in high school, he was able to transfer credits over and complete an accelerated degree in Medical Sciences. During his time at Dal, Laith has been involved both on campus and in his community as well.



Laith is currently volunteering with the Canadian Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society. This is his second summer volunteering with the organization, but this year things have looked a little different. Since the pandemic, [the MS Society] has shifted their focus to virtual volunteering, he says. Many organizations are doing this, and they need a lot of help. These are great platforms for students to get engaged in.



Laith has also worked as a teaching assistant (TA) in Chemistry. As a TA, he has led experiments for first years, sterilized equipment, invigilated exams and more. This collection of academics and extracurriculars is what has shaped his Dal experience into something entirely his own.

Looking to the future



With the airports in Jordan closed, Laith will be completing the Fall semester from home, hoping to return to Halifax for his final semester in the New Year. In the meantime, hes looking to continue to share his love for science with others by creating educational YouTube videos that will help students with the concepts covered in their classes.



Teaching is a passion for me. I wanted to support a lot of first years throughout their journey. Thats why I applied to be a TA, says Laith, who in the long-term is aiming to become a medical practitioner and educator.



I feel like that also translates into my degree. At the end of the day, as you pursue medical sciences you also have to be a teacher. Starting young and helping other students is a good way to take those skills and apply them.



Reflecting on his experiences so far at Dalhousie, Laith passed on some advice he would offer to incoming students. Make yourself uncomfortable. Always challenge yourself to put yourself out there. Thats how you meet friends, engage and learn, he says. You have to keep an open mind. I feel like thats one of the necessary principles for first years to abide by. Thats how you learn.


Reading the tweets from the hearing, one could understand that the Supreme Court was in anguish about what had unfurled. Bhushan tried the case in the media as observed by Mishra J when he released his statements even before filing them in court.

The Prashant Bhushan saga ended today.

The Supreme Court sentenced the lawyer to a fine of Re 1 for contempt and in default to suffer imprisonment for 3 months and disbarment for three years. It has just been reported that Bhushan will be paying the fine of Re 1 and photos of Bhushan holding up a one-rupee coin are trending on social media.

As a matter of background, the lawyer had made two tweets that the supreme Court found worthy of contempt. He was pulled up and at the Bar he via this counsel defended these tweets. He refused to apologise no matter how many times the Court asked him to. He was heard on sentence and at the hearing once more maintained his stand. He invoked Gandhi when he said he could not apologise for a bonafide opinion that he held. After what must be some of the finest judicial theatre we have witnessed in a while, it came down to today.

A Re 1 fine and three months jail and 3 years disbarment in default. Hes agreed to pay the fine and the idea that he is a martyr will probably soon be put to bed along with this whole matter. He has indicated he wants to challenge the order, then so be it. But now that hes agreed to pay the fine, there wont be much cause celebre for his matter.

The thing is, when you invoke Gandhi, people will expect you to follow through with it. When someone says they are willing to go to jail for their principles, they are not expected to take the quick route out by accepting a token sentence of a fine of Re 1. This is as good as tendering an apology to purge oneself of contempt. A token sentence which is what a fine of Re 1 is, is acceptance of an admonition. If someone was adamant that what they did was correct, then they would go to jail for their principles.

When Bhushan invoked Gandhi and said he was ready to face the punishment, he won the admiration of an entire nation. A crusader against corruption, like Christ was ready to face crucifixion for the sins of the Judiciary. This morning the Supreme Court called his bluff with the Re 1 sentence and Bhushan was found bluffing. If he were made of sterner stuff, he would have suffered the imprisonment and brought attention to his cause.

The Supreme Courts reputation over the past few weeks has suffered a beating thanks to this drama that has played out. The judgement is still part of the record and consequently still the law of India. The standard by which Bhushan was held in contempt is still deeply problematic as is the very law that he was convicted under. It has come under fire from many sections of the legal community for this judgement. The judgement will be reviewed hopefully, and this entire problematic law will go once and for all. For this law, the law of Contempt of Court, does nothing but put a public institution at odds with the very public that it serves. By coercively demanding and establishing respect via the law of contempt, the Supreme Court with each step, loses the public confidence, confidence which is vital to maintain its legitimacy as the final arbiter in this system that we call Government in India.

While reserving judgement in the matter, Mishra J observed:

Tell us what is wrong in using the word 'apology'? What is wrong in seeking apology? Will that be reflection of the guilty? Apology is a magical word, which can heal many things. I am talking generally and not about Prashant. You will go to the category of Mahatma Gandhi, if you apologise. Gandhiji used to do that. If you have hurt anybody, you must apply balm. One should not feel belittled by that.

Which was a fair point. It was probably for the first time that I truly felt sorry for the Supreme Court in many years. They had backed themselves into a corner faced with a Bhushan who was ready to go down as a martyr for his beliefs. The only way left for them was to call his bluff and see if Bhushan would go down for his beliefs. Bhushan didnt. Everyone knows, paying a Rs.1 fine is as good as tendering an apology, for it is willing acceptance of a token punishment. If Bhushan had felt he was not entitled to any punishment, there was no need for him to pay the fine. He could have challenged the same under review and waited for that outcome. But by paying the fine, he has tacitly conceded that he had probably pushed the envelope just a little to far.

I, for one am glad this entire saga is over. Reading the tweets from the hearing, one could understand that the Supreme Court was in anguish about what had unfurled. Bhushan tried the case in the media as observed by Mishra J when he released his statements even before filing them in court. The sad part, even if the two tweets were not contemptuous in my view, Bhushans conduct by pushing the case in the press may have actually amounted to interference with justice and a contempt may have actually been maintainable in my view. But alas, drama is drama and story boards are story boards. One finds that in India, a lot of these issues end up becoming less about the law and more about the outcomes. The Court was rightfully hurt by Bhushans tweets and Bhushan knew they were hurt. Today when he agreed to pay the fine, I lost the little respect I had gained for him when he stood on principle and refused to apologise. The person most injured because of this drama is the Supreme Court and the administration of justice in India as a whole. One only hopes something will be done soon to tend to those wounds.




Parliament has withdrawn diplomatic passports for all Members of Parliament who were recalled by their political parties.





Clerk of Parliament Mr Kennedy Chokuda wrote to affected legislators yesterday directing them to surrender their diplomatic passports and revert to ordinary travel documents.





The Registrar-General holds the ordinary passport when a diplomatic passport is issued.It can return the ordinary one when the diplomatic one is surrendered.





In his letter, Mr Chokuda said the diplomatic passport facility had been extended to legislators by President Mnangagwa in September 2019.





You may recall conditions for use of the document were linked to the tenure of the current Parliament inclusive of you being a serving Member of Parliament of Zimbabwe, reads the letter.





One of the affected former legislator, Mr Charlton Hwende from the MDC Alliance, confirmed receiving the letter withdrawing his diplomatic passport.





It is not victimisation. The issue is the purpose for which it was issued has fallen away, they are no longer MPs, said Mr Chokuda.





He said every MP was eligible to take up a diplomatic passport although the facility was earmarked for certain categories of legislators when it was initially introduced.





What we are saying is the circumstances under which the diplomatic passport was issued have changed. Furthermore, we are saying they are surrendering the diplomatic passport in exchange for the ordinary passport, so there is no prejudice they will suffer, he said.





The MDC-T recalled at least 21 MPs while Zanu PF recalled one legislator, Mr Killer Zivhu, after he ceased representing the party in Parliament.




Upsets were the rule (until the last few races) during the Sunday (Aug. 30) card at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono, with the trend featuring in two $35,000 divisions of a Pennsylvania All-Stars contest for three-year-old pacing colts taken by Enough Sun ($29.00) and Tell Them Lou ($45.20).

Both winners found success sitting third-inside for most of the mile. The Somebeachsomewhere colt Enough Sun was content to stay behind favoured Manticore and Tru Lou most of the way, then backed out late turn to swing wide and pass four horses in the lane. He slid by to a half-length win over Manticore in a lifetime-best 1:50. David Miller drove the winner, unraced at two and now winner of half his eight starts, for trainer Brian Brown and owner Alan Keith.

Driver Scott Zeron won with the Sweet Lou gelding Tell Them Lou, a 1:50.2 winner. Favoured Cattlewash got to the half in :56 and looked like he could be tough to overhaul, but Zeron and Tell Them Lou got clearance along the inside and overpowered the chalk, coming their own last half in :54 for a one length victory. Jim Campbell trains the winner for Fashion Farms LLC and Judith Peres.

In the $14,000 conditioned distaff pacing feature, the veteran Lispatty sat behind favoured Alexas Power most of the mile, then overpowered the pacesetter by three-quarters of a length in 1:51.2. Marcus Miller drove the McArdle mare, who has now won $959,799 and 37 races, for trainer Gilbert Garcia-Herrera and owner Gilbert Garcia-Owen.

(PHHA/Pocono)
Officials in New York see robust diagnostic testing and swift contact tracing as key to maintaining the states low levels of infection. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio have blamed large national laboratories for a backlog in processing test results. While smaller labs can often produce results faster, there are not enough of them to handle tests on a citywide scale.

Since last month, the median wait time for coronavirus test results had gone up in New York City, from two days to three, a change that the citys Health Department has attributed primarily to slow processing by Quest Diagnostics laboratories. The city this month opened several express testing sites, promising results in 24 hours. (City officials said by the end of the month, the median was back down to two days.)

Some of the fastest turnaround times have been seen in hospital-based testing, especially samples from patients who are having surgery. For patients in the emergency room or admitted to the hospital, most results come back within a day, city officials said.

But for many others, the timeline is much less predictable.

During one week in early August, a quarter of all test results in New York City came back in more than 13 days, according to the Health Department. About a third of the tests were handled by Quest, the department said.

Quest, which can process some 150,000 coronavirus tests a day, has said recently that its turnaround times have improved. The company said in a statement on Tuesday that its average testing turnaround had been reduced to two days.

For those with an exacting clientele, there has been competition to establish relationships with smaller labs.

When we started, we had a regular lab, Quest, and we were getting results back in seven days, which is worthless, said Dr. Matthew Priddy, who runs a concierge medical practice in Indianapolis.
Exactly what caused the initial fire or explosion that triggered the massive blast is still unknown, investigators say. One of the possibilities being investigated is that sparks from the welding undertaken by the three workers  Syrians who left the port before the explosion and are now in custody  may have ignited a fire that eventually set off the ammonium nitrate. A person close to the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing process, said the Syrians worked at the site from July 31 until the day of the blast but had already left for home when the explosion occurred.
New moderate income housing program could be on the way to Long Beach
31.08.2020 LISTEN

A senior member of the ruling New Patriotic Party in the Volta region, Parlours Quashie, has said the opposition National Democratic Congress has nothing to show for the tremendous support it has enjoyed from residents of the Volta region.

According to Mr Quarshie, the monopoly the NDC has enjoyed in the Volta region since the start of the Fourth Republic is to account for the lack in development of the region.

He made the statement while addressing residents of Srohume and Awata in the Ketu South constituency, during a campaign tour on Friday, 28th August 2020.

He said, The NDC doesnt care about you because they know even if they dont do anything good for you, you people will still vote for them. They have taken you for granted for the past 28 years because of the relative monopoly they enjoy here in Ketu South and that I mean the entire Volta region [World Bank].

Look at your school buildings, your roads and water issues yet they are not bothered because theyre already assured of your votes, he added.

Mr Quarshie further urged the residents to create a good competition between the two major political parties in order to command the needed development the region deserves.

All I want is that, you must create competition between the NDC and the NPP by increasing the NPPs vote. What I mean is that, go to the polls and vote for the NPP parliamentary candidate [David Tianno Quarshie] and President Nana Akufo-Addo to send a signal to the NDC that they need to wake up; and by doing that, both parties would be forced to be addressing your developmental needs for fear of losing votes.

Mr Quarshie was a known member of the NDC but defected from the party prior to the 2016 general elections.

While the various parties begin to woo voters ahead of the polls, the NPP in the Volta region is strategically working towards increasing its votes, especially from the rural communities.

---starrfmonline
A pro-Trump album by Southwest Alabama songwriting duo Sugarcane Jane has piqued the interest of national conservative media outlet The Federalist, which premiered the video for the song What I See on Monday.

Sugarcane Jane is the husband and wife duo of Anthony Crawford and Savana Lee; Crawfords credits include time backing Neil Young, among other musicians of note. Earlier this summer the duo staked out a position strongly in support of President Donald Trump. Crawford and Lee stuck to their guns in weeks of highly polarized social media exchanges that followed and recorded the album Ruffled Feathers: Songs in the Key of Me in about a week.

What I See is a straightforward defense of Trump: How can you hate a man whos draining the swamp and exposing all the greed? the duo sing. Thats what I see.

Its a far cry from the whimsical, apolitical tone the duo struck at the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic, when they released Fellow Man, a video that made light of the challenge of stocking up for quarantine.

We felt we had no choice but to come out in support of President Trump, the couple told The Federalist. The man has been taking body blows for the last four years undeservedly, yet still continuing to accomplish so much for the American people.

For more information on the album, visit www.sugarcanejane.com. Though the group, like most, has been unable to tour during the epidemic, it has an upcoming live performance at a Republican Victory Dinner in Kissimmee, Fla., on Sept. 12.
Northern Ireland's company bosses are considering the wider social contributions of their businesses as they assess risks to future growth, according to a report.

The 2020 KPMG CEO Outlook showed that environment and climate change were uppermost in leaders' minds as agendas shift following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Existing concerns such as flexible working and digital transformation had also accelerated - but fewer people were confident about the performance of the global economy, compared to the findings of a survey earlier in the year.

But KPMG said chief executives here were slightly more optimistic about the growth prospects for Northern Ireland, with 44% upbeat about the economic outlook closer to home. But that is still a 36% decline from January.

Johnny Hanna, partner-in-charge of KPMG in Northern Ireland, said: "Northern Ireland's CEOs have managed through a period of unprecedented change over the last few months, facing up to the challenges which have emerged as result of the pandemic by flexing their operations and refocusing their strategies.

"As a result, they are reporting the fast tracking of transformation in areas such as digitalisation, of more flexible working alongside a renewed sense of corporate responsibility.

"And despite the challenges which CEOs have faced, environment and climate change remains top of their agenda, a sign that sustainability is firmly implanted at the heart of the economic future of Northern Ireland. Our leaders have a renewed sense of purpose which will help them to steer their businesses through the challenges in the next year and emerge stronger."

Two-thirds of Northern Ireland's CEOs say they will continue to build on their current use of digital tools. And the majority (80%) believe remote working has widened their available talent pool. One in six of respondents also said their health or the health of a family member had been affected by the virus."
Premier Daniel Andrews will release his reopening roadmap for Victoria this Sunday, September 6th.

In a statement released today, the Victorian Government has said they will release their plan to reopen the state from Stage 4 lockdown, aiming to provide certainty and clarity for the people and businesses within the state.

This announcement comes as Victoria reported 73 new cases in the last 24 hours.

We know every Victorian wants certainty about the future  for them, for their family and for their work, said Mr Andrews. By the end of the week, we will lay out a plan to re-open our state.

Mr Andrews decision to release his reopening roadmap has been made amidst criticism from Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

In a fiery interview with ABC News Breakfast early this week, Mr Frydenberg disapproved of the Premiers response to the pandemic, saying: We havent seen a definitive plan from the Victorian Premier and just yesterday he said it is too early for that. Well I disagree with him on that and so do Victorian businesses and a lot of Victorian families.

Related: Josh Frydenberg critiques Daniel Andrews response to COVID-19

Ahead of Sundays release, Victorias Government will commence an intensive, and extensive, round of discussions with industry, unions and community organisations to inform the final development of Victorias roadmap to COVID Normal.

This consultation will be based around six principles for industry on a COVIDSafe re-opening, based on the best advice from public health experts  and imperative to keeping the community safe.

The Victorian Government have said in a statement that voices of industry are imperative to a re-opening happening practically, safely and steadily.

Many of the key principles are things Victorian businesses and workplaces continue to practice every day:

ensuring physical distancing, including following density requirements, making sure staff work from home wherever possible, limiting the total number of staff and customers in an enclosed area, and stopping carpooling

wearing a face covering at all times in the workplace and ensuring full PPE is worn in high-risk settings

requiring hygienic workplaces , with high-touch points regularly cleaned, staff regularly washing their hands, and hand sanitisers available for all staff and customers

continuing to act quickly if staff become unwell by having a strict policy that supports them to stay home and get tested, even if they have mild symptoms. All places of work need to have a plan to act immediately if there is a confirmed case and records must be kept of all staff, customers and visitors.

Recognising there is no one size fits all solution, the Government will commit to tailoring guidance to different industries as part of the reopening roadmap.

Workplaces will need to look very different as we find our COVID Normal, said Mr Andrews. By working with business well make sure that can happen practically and safely.

Based on the outcomes of these consultations, the Government and our health experts will finalise the plan for re-opening by the end of the week.

Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Back in March, our government advised us NOT to come home from Singapore. Let me be clear: the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade advised us, and thousands of Australian expats like us, that if we had a job and a home where we were, it was probably best for us to remain in place.

The alternative was no job and no home in Australia. We would have become a financial burden because we would have knocked on Centrelinks door. We saved you, the taxpayer, about $30,000 by staying where we were. If 100,000 of us had come home in March to no job, it could have cost close to $3 billion.

Tens of thousands of Australians are still stranded overseas. Credit:

My business was Australian. We took motorcyclists to events such as the MotoGP at Phillip Island, the Malaysian MotoGP, and were about to expand to include the Thailand MotoGP, Tibet and Morocco. That business is now gone. These things happen.

I will look for further opportunities in domestic tourism, which I predict will become the next big thing, as the International Air Transport Association recently announced it expects global travel will remain devastated until at least 2024. Which brings me to my partners job. She works in corporate travel and after many years of hard work, she was offered a promotion that she truly deserved. This would see us relocate to Singapore. That was three years ago, and much like businesses that export their goods and services to overseas customers (think mining, oil and gas), she was exporting her skills and services with a net return to Australia. Our savings (if there is anything left after this adventure) will be returned to Australia.
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Saint Jane Frances Chantal

1572-1641

"Celse-Benigne," said the widow, a woman of gentle countenance but firm in stature, "do you want to keep me from the call of the good God?"

The boy was dressed as befitted a courtier of the king of France. He was a favorite at court, as he was gallant and brave, and he never would leave a friend in the lurch. That meant that when he grew up he would be embroiled in many affaires d'honneur, or what we would call duels. He was generous, impetuous, all made of fire. His mother loved him to distraction.

"I've settled our worldly matters, Celse-Benigne. You haven't been spending too much, have you?"

"No," said the son. "But this is madness! I won't let you go!" And he threw himself to the floor, lying across the threshold of what would become the first House of the Visitation. He wept.

The widow was deeply moved. "I am still a mother, after all," she said. But she stepped across him and entered the house. It was in Annecy, twenty miles south of Geneva.

The vision of a saint

Jane Frances, Baroness de Chantal, had made a vow of chastity to God after her husband died in a shooting accident, leaving her with four young children. That was in 1601. She longed for a spiritual director, and God granted her a vision of the man with whom she was to work until his death. She recognized him in the flesh in 1604: Saint Francis de Sales.

Recall that the followers of John Calvin had won over Switzerland and much of France, and in the gray city of Geneva there sounded no longer the bells of joy. Calvin had been a lawyer, and his theology followed the severity of his mind. It was manly, in a grim way; and neither the Swiss nor the French Huguenots could be won over by riches, laxity, and outward shows of religion. Francis de Sales had been made Bishop of Geneva, with his seat in Annecy. When he was a student he had almost lost his faith in despair at the thought that God might have predestined him to hell. But God brought him through that trial the more determined to delve deeply into mercy, to win the Calvinists back to the fold.

He and Jane Frances became close friends and collaborators. Her idea was to establish an order inspired by Mary's going to assist her elderly cousin Elizabeth when she was with child. They would not only visit the sick. They would take the infirm and the elderly into their ranks. Other orders of nuns followed rules that many women would find too taxing, physically; and some women simply did not feel moved to accept the severities. It was Mother de Chantal's inspiration to find a place for these women, and Francis de Sales' inspiration to found the new order upon a mild rule, establishing them as contemplatives rather than active in the world. He called them his "doves," from whose dovecote would come unceasing prayer for the Church.

When Mother de Chantal died in 1641, there were eighty-six of those homes for doves, spread throughout France.

Bringing the heart into discipline

If the Sisters of the Visitation did not have to pray the full divine office every day, and did not subject themselves to great periods of fasting, that did not mean there was no discipline. Both Jane Frances and Francis de Sales believed that if these sisters were less able to endure trials of the flesh, so much the more determinedly should they mortify the spirit.

In her letters we find her always recommending virtues that we often neglect. "May God give us genuine humility, sweetness, and submission," she writes to another superior, "for with these virtues there is truth, but without them usually deception." To a mistress of novices she says that we do well not to dwell on our feelings. "What does it matter if you are dense or stolid or over-sensitive? Anyone can see that this is all self-love seeking its satisfaction. For the love of God let me hear no more of it: love your own insignificance and the most holy will of God which has allotted it to you."

When we are humble we can more easily open ourselves up to the love of our neighbor. Jane Frances returns to that charity again and again, recalling how Francis de Sales won men to the truth as much by humility as by learning. "If our Sisters really love their holy Founder," she says, "they will prove it not only by the attention and pleasure with which they read his writings, for all the world delights in them, but also by faithfully carrying out his teachings. [They should practice above all] that incomparable love and sweetness towards their neighbor, that profound humility and lowliness of which he was so great a lover, and which put him at enmity with all ostentation."

But she was also a woman of passionate charity, and she never hesitated to express her admiration for the love she found in others. To an angelic girl of eighteen years, Sister Claire-Marie-Francoise de Cusance, now known as Saint Stanislaw Kostka of the Visitation, who at the time of the letter was dying of the plague, Jane Frances writes: "My dearest daughter: Your letter fills me with tender compassion, but it also gives me very real comfort, seeing how joyfully God is enabling you to make your passage through this life to him. You will love and adore him in an eternity of glory, for this is the only good that is worth setting our hearts upon." And she begs her to do her the great kindness of speaking of her to God when she sees him.

It was surely no coincidence that another sister of the Visitation, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, would bequeath to the Church her visions and her devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Family of souls

Jane Frances was always solicitous for the spiritual well-being of her children in the flesh, and that included her favorite, the scapegrace Celse-Benigne. So she writes to the young baron, who must live in a world of temptation: "I beseech you, my own beloved son, since your condition obliges you to row on the tempestuous sea of this world, try never to swallow its waters, but drink rather of those of divine grace, turning in all your needs with a loving, filial trust to that source of mercy." One year later the baron died the death of a patriot and a Christian. On the morning of battle against the English in the Thirty Years' War, Celse-Benigne prepared his soul by confession and the Blessed Sacrament. He led a troop of courtiers defending the fortress of Saint-Martin-de-Re, on the west coast of France. This he did for six bitter hours, his body punched full of holes  twenty-six pike wounds. He "breathed his last," wrote a contemporary, "in sentiments of the most sincere piety."

It was no small skirmish. The English were trying to foment rebellion among the Protestant Huguenots in nearby La Rochelle against the royal government of France. Their failure led them to withdraw from the more general war, and that ensured that France would remain Catholic.

Meanwhile, after the death of Francis de Sales, Jane Frances found another guardian in his younger friend, Saint Vincent de Paul. From the Apostle of Gentleness she thus went to the Apostle of Charity, and so near to one another were the hearts of those two men that Jane Frances found no loss and no difference in spiritual direction. It was a remarkable conjunction of three most fervent and blessed souls. Here Jane Frances writes to Vincent, on the arrival at Annecy of five of his priests: "Praised be our divine Savior who for his great glory and the salvation of many souls has brought your dear children happily here. We look upon them as our true brothers, with whom, in simple openheartedness and confidence we are as one, and they too feel this. Truly they speak as if they were daughters of the Visitation."

One of the last letters she wrote before her death in 1641 was to another holy woman, Sister Louise-Angelique de la Fayette, at the Visitation convent in Paris. She was to become the spiritual advisor to Catholic royalty across Europe, from the hapless Charles II and James II of England, to Louis XIII and Louis XIV of France. To her the saint writes that she must restrain her desire to be confirmed in her growth in perfection, but rather wait upon God, performing her duties even "without sensible feeling," so that she will find the peace that comes from submitting wholly to God's designs, instead of insisting upon her own inclinations.

That was typical of both her motherly good sense and her deep humility. May we learn from her, and come to raise spiritual families in turn, to our own joy and the great glory of God.
SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio -- The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner identified two adults and two teenagers found dead Sunday in a suspected murder-suicide in Shaker Heights.

Regina Tobin, 58; John Tobin, 57; Natalie Tobin, 15; and Graham Tobin, 15, were all found dead in the home on South Woodland Road near Torrington Road, the medical examiners office said.

The medical examiners office said Regina, Natalie and Graham Tobin died in suspected homicides. It did not offer a manner of death for John Tobin. Their causes of death have not been released.

Graham Tobin was an incoming freshman at Gilmour Academy, a private school in Gates Mills, Head of School Kathy Kenny said in a statement.

We are devastated by this tragic news, Kenny said in the statement. Graham was a member of our incoming freshman class and expressed so much positive anticipation during last weeks freshman orientation. Our prayers are with the entire extended Tobin family.

Natalie Tobin was a freshman at the Laurel School, Head of Laurel School Ann V. Klotz said in a statement.

Our hearts are broken, Klotz said. Natalie came to Laurel in the Eighth Gradea bookworm, scholar and volleyball player, she was a gentle, warm and thoughtful friend, looking forward with joy to Upper School.

Grief counselors will be available at Laurel School on Monday, Klotz said in the statement.

Officers found the four dead while conducting a welfare check at the home about 2:20 p.m. Sunday. A family member requested the welfare check, Shaker Heights police said in a news release.

Investigators did not find any signs of forced entry into the home. Police do not believe there are any additional suspects in the deaths.

More crime news from cleveland.com:

28-year-old man dies at Cuyahoga County Jail, officials say

Cleveland woman shot to death in apartment building parking lot, police say

Cleveland police respond to five shootings in less than 3 hours on citys East Side
BMO employees rank BMO among five best employers in the state on Forbes' annual list

MILWAUKEE, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - BMO Harris Bank has been recognized on Forbes Magazine's list of Best Employers in Wisconsin. The ranking is based on a survey of 80,000 Americans working for businesses with at least 500 employees. Respondents were asked to rate their employers on a variety of criteria, including safety of work environment, competitiveness of compensation, opportunities for advancement and openness to telecommunicating.

Forbes partnered with Statista to conduct the survey, asking respondents how likely they would be to recommend their employer to others and to nominate organizations in industries outside their own. The number of businesses ranked in each state was dependent on the number of qualifying employers and the size of the state's workforce.

"We are honored that our colleagues recognized BMO as one of the best employers in Wisconsin," said David Casper, Chair and Chief Executive Officer of BMO Harris Bank. "Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, we have put the safety of our colleagues, customers and communities first, and we've been focused on fostering the growth and development of our employees through initiatives that empower them to provide exceptional customer experience."

To see the full list of Best-in-State Banks for 2020, visit the Forbes website.

The full Best Employers in America list ranks the 1,461 employers that received the greatest number of recommendations in each of the 50 states as well as the District of Columbia.

Earlier this year, BMO was also named to Forbes' World's Best Banks 2020 list and Best Employers for Diversity list for the second year in a row. We were also included on the Bloomberg Financial Services Gender Equality Index for the fifth year in a row.

About BMO Harris Bank

BMO Harris Bank provides a broad range of personal banking products and solutions through more than 500 branches and fee-free access to over 40,000 ATMs across the United States. BMO Harris Bank's commercial banking team provides a combination of sector expertise, local knowledge and mid-market focus throughout the United States. For more information about BMO Harris Bank, visit the company fact sheet. Accounts are subject to approval. BMO Harris Bank N.A. Member FDIC. BMO Harris Bank is part of BMO Financial Group, a highly diversified financial services provider with total assets of CDN$987 billion as of April 30, 2020.



SOURCE BMO Harris Bank
New Delhi:

India and Pakistan on Sunday exchanged for the 26th consecutive year a list of their nuclear installations under a bilateral agreement that prohibits them from attacking each others atomic facilities.

India and Pakistan today exchanged, through diplomatic channels simultaneously at New Delhi and Islamabad, the list of nuclear installations and facilities covered under the Agreement on the Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear Installations between India and Pakistan, the Ministry of External Affairs said.

The agreement, which was signed on December 31, 1988 and entered into force on January 27, 1991, says the two countries inform each other of nuclear installations and facilities to be covered under the agreement on January 1 of every calendar year.

This is the 26th consecutive exchange of such list between the two countries, the first one having taken place on January 1, 1992.

The two countries also exchanged, through diplomatic channels simultaneously at New Delhi and Islamabad, the lists of nationals (including civil prisoners and fishermen) of each country lodged in their respective jails as per provisions of the Agreement on Consular Access, the MEA said.

The agreement on consular access, signed between the two countries on May 21, 2008, provides for exchanging a comprehensive list of nationals of each country lodged in their jails twice each yearon January 1 and July 1.

India remains committed to addressing with Pakistan on priority the humanitarian matters, including those pertaining to prisoners and fishermen in each others country. In this context, we await from Pakistan confirmation of nationality of those in Indias custody who are otherwise eligible for release and repatriation.

We also await consular access to those Indian nationals in Pakistans custody for whom it has so far not been provided including Hamid Nehal Ansari and Kulbhushan Jadhav, said the MEA statement.

The Pakistani security forces had arrested Jadhav from Balochistan in March and alleged that he was a serving officer in the Indian Navy and deputed to the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Jadhav has been accused by Pakistan of planning subversive activities in the country.

India has acknowledged that Jadhav had served with the navy but denied that he has any connection with the government.

Pakistan has so far turned down Indias request for consular access to Jadhav whom Pakistan claimed to be a RAW spy.

Ansari had crossed over illegally to Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2012 reportedly to meet a girl he had befriended online and then went missing. He was later arrested and tried by a Pakistani military court which pronounced him guilty of espionage.

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JERUSALEM  A chartered El Al airliner carrying Israeli and American diplomats landed in the United Arab Emirates at 3:38 p.m. local time on Monday, completing a symbolic first direct flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi that officials said would pave the way for formal diplomatic and commercial ties and might inspire other Arab nations to follow suit in normalizing relations with the Jewish state.

The Israeli and American delegations, led by Jared Kushner for the Trump administration and Israels national security adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat, arrived in Abu Dhabi for a day and a half of what were billed as professional meetings with Emirati counterparts on matters including health, commerce and security.

But the substance of those meetings seemed secondary, and not a close second, to the spectacle of the Israeli-marked El Al jet on the tarmac in Abu Dhabi. The plane flew the flags of all three nations and, with peace newly stenciled above the pilots side window in English, Hebrew and Arabic, provided the backdrop as a coterie of Israeli diplomats descended onto an Emirati red carpet, with Emirati television broadcasting the pageantry live.

Driving home the point, Mr. Ben-Shabbat, who wears a kippa, spoke in fluent Arabic. Im proud and very happy to be here as the head of the Israeli delegation, he said. We came here to transform the vision into a reality. There are no limits to the cooperation that we can develop in the fields of science, innovation, tourism, aviation, agriculture, energy and many other areas.
Patna: The Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) on Monday postponed a meeting of the proposed Third Front called by its president Jitan Ram Manjhi to discuss the strategy for the Bihar polls, amid clear indications of its return to the NDA. he meeting that was scheduled on Wednesday has been put off, a party statement said.

The HAM chief had invited some non-NDA and non-Grand Alliance parties, including Jan Adhikar Party of former MP Pappu Yadav, to discuss the strategy for the Bihar elections that is due in October-November.

Sources in the HAM said that after severing ties with the RJD-led Grand Alliance, Manjhi has been weighing options before "by and large" deciding to join the NDA, comprising of the JD(U), BJP and LJP.

Talks were earlier held even with Asaduddin Owaisi- headed AIMIM, which after winning the Kishanganj bypoll in 2019 is preparing to field a substantial number of candidates in the Seemanchal area that has a large minority population.

Though no reason was given for postponing the meeting, a senior leader of the HAM said there is no point in engaging in any such discussions when encouraging talks have already been held with the JD(U) headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Manjhi met Kumar last Thursday and believed to have held talks on seat sharing. The BJP also seems to have given the green signal to Manjhi's come back to the grouping with its Bihar unit head Sanjay Jaiswal on Saturday saying that whoever expresses faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership is welcome to the alliance.

Jaiswal had made the comment after BJP president JP Nadda's meeting with the party's MPs from Bihar. HAM national spokesperson Danish Rizwan told PTI that the Nitish Kumar government has done a lot for the poor, Dalits and minorities in the state.

Notably, Manjhi had on August 20 severed his ties with the Grand Alliance after spending two-and-a-half years in the opposition coalition. Besides RJD and Congress, the opposition grouping has RLSP of former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha and Bollywood set designer-turned-politician Mukesh Sahni's Vikasshil Insaan Party (VIP).

The CPI and CPI(M) have also shown interest to fight the state polls in understanding with the opposition coalition. The HAM chief is the lone member of his party in the assembly. But, induction of Manjhi would help NDA's outreach to Dalits, particularly other than Paswans which is the support base of the LJP.

Dalits in Bihar are over 16 per cent of the electorate and about 40 seats in the 243-member house are reserved for them. On the day he met Kumar, Manjhi told reporters that he would talk to the press on August 30 after a party meeting. But, the meeting was cancelled and the party announced the September 2 meeting of the prospective Third Front.

Reports suggest that Manjhi joining the NDA has almost been finalised and the delay in announcement is mainly on account of the final agreement on the number of seats HAM will get to contest in the upcoming elections.

HAM wants to contest 15-20 seats, mostly in the Magadh region to which Manjhi belongs. But the JD(U) is willing to leave for it 10-12 seats, the reports have said.

Manjhi had quit the JD(U) in 2015 after being forced to step down as the chief minister to make way for the return of Kumar. Later, he formed the HAM and contested 21 seats in the 2015 Bihar assembly elections as an NDA constituent. With the return of Kumar to the NDA in July 2017, he walked out of it to join hands with the opposition grouping.
A Statement By The Pro-Democracy and Leading Civil Rights Advocacy Group-: Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) on The Importance of President Muhammadu Buhari Deploying The Best of Ideas To Revive What is Left of the Economy and The Presidents Foot-Dragging on The Necessity of Rescuing The Waning Anti-Corruption War, Which is Destroying Local Economy and Exposing Nigeria to Global Disrepute.

BACKGROUND

Nigeria has the potential to build a prosperous economy, reduce poverty significantly and provide the health, education, and infrastructural services its population needs. However, available evidence indicates that these resources have not been judiciously used to meet the need of the population in terms of human capital development because of high level of corruption in the country. The current set of federal executive Council of Nigeria are perhaps the most corrupt set of Nigerians who are after their pecuniary pursuits and have shown no capacity to help Mr. President rebuild the battered and fast collapsing national economy.

According to the recent data sourced from the National Bureau of Statistics, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria decreased by 6.10%(year-on-year) in real terms in the second quarter of 2020, ending the 3-year trend of low but positive real growth rates recorded since the 2016/17 recession.

When compared with Q2 2019, which recorded a growth of 2.12%, the Q2 2020 growth rate indicates a drop of 8.22% points, and a fall of 7.97% points when compared to the first quarter of 2020 (1.87%). Consequently, for the first half of 2020, real GDP declined by 2.18% year-on-year, compared with 2.11% recorded in the first half of 2019. Quarter-on-quarter, real GDP decreased by 5.04%. Furthermore, only 13 activities recorded positive real growth compared to 30 in the preceding quarter.

Again, Nigerias unemployment crisis is becoming more worrisome and exposing Nigeria to global disrepute. The recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics, after a 20-month interval on the nations unemployment rate, indicated that unemployment rose to 27.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2020 from the 23.1 per cent recorded in Q3 2018.

Although the decline was largely attributable to significantly lower levels of both domestic and international economic activity during the quarter, which resulted from nationwide shutdown efforts aimed at containing the COVID-19 pandemic, several studies have been appraised and they reveal that the level of corruption in Nigeria over the years has significant negative impact on economic growth in Nigeria.

The report is particularly damning for the administration of Nigerias president Muhammadu Buhari, which rode to power on the crest of promises to deliver economic policies to drive growth and create jobs. Sadly, the unemployment rate has more than tripled since Buhari first took office in May 2015.

THE ISSUE:

In the first four years, under the watch of President Buhari, Nigeria overtook India as the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty. About 87 million Nigerians, or half the population, live on less than US$1.90 per day.

Economic growth has been lackluster since his election in 2015 and has continued since his re-election in 2019. The country went into recession in 2016, with a negative 1.6% growth rate. There was a rebound in economic growth of about 2% in 2018. Still the IMF forecasts that growth will remain anemic at an annual average of about 1.9% from 2019  2023.

There have been recent barrage of credible sources and analysis pointing towards a near collapse of the Nigerian economy imminently.

According to reports by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigerias capital imports plunged 78.6% in the second quarter year-on-year to $1.295 billion, as lower oil prices push the countrys economy towards recession.

Nigeria; Africas top oil exporter, has suffered its worst crisis in decades as low oil prices triggered by the coronavirus pandemic caused the economy to shrink in the second quarter, slashing government revenues and weakening the naira currency.

As have been observed by the World Bank in its latest World Bank Nigeria Development Update, the global spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent collapse of international oil prices are destabilizing Nigerias macroeconomic balances and its expected to plunge the Nigerian economy into a severe economic recession, the worst since the 1980s.

In the report titled Nigeria In Times of COVID-19: Laying Foundations for a Strong Recovery, the World Bank estimated that Nigerias economy would likely contract by 3.2% in 2020.

According to analysis, this projection, which assumed that the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria will be contained by the third quarter of 2020, added that if the spread of the virus becomes more severe, the economy could contract further.

Additionally, Before COVID-19, according to the World Bank, the Nigerian economy was expected to grow by 2.1% in 2020, which means that the pandemic has led to a reduction in growth by more than five percentage points.

With the uncertainty of the long-term economic impact of the global COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, a new economic analysis says the speed, quality and sustainability of Nigerias economic recovery will be determined by the effectiveness of its governments response.

Without bold reforms, strong fiscal and monetary policy actions, the World Bank report warned that the macroeconomic implications of COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021 will be severe including the loss of life, and the possibility of five million more Nigerians being pushed into poverty even if Nigeria manages to contain the spread of the virus.

Expectedly, in the midst of these pointers, a proactive President would have deployed the best of ideas available to revive what is left of the economy, create wealth and the enabling environment for the local economy to pick up through manufacturing, large scale farming and construction of infrastructure by making use of the revenues derived from different sources externally and internally to stave off the imminent mass hunger that won't augur well for the sustenance of constitutional democracy, but the reverse seem to be the case as no visible sign of an action plan is being implemented by the current administration.

Public debates recently in Nigeria have centred on the increasing rate of corruption resulting from inappropriate public finance planning and implementation mostly in some of the developing countries, Nigeria inclusive which in turn reduce the level of economic growth in the country.

Corruption has given room for diversion of the limited public funds, undermined economic progress and impeded policy changes required for development. On the whole, corruption has impeded growth and also eroded the already established economic value systems in the country. The President has not helped matters by appointing persons whose roles in the immediate dispensation were unsalutary and unenviable following multiple accusations of their deep involvement in corrupt practices to the tune of hundreds of billions of United States Dollars.

OUR POSITION AND WAY FORWARD:

President Buharis reform agenda probably faces its greatest threat in the form of lack of political will and corrupt, old-school politicians within his own All Progressives Congress (APC) party and it has become imperative for the President to deploy the best ideas in saving what is left of our economy.

The recent groundswell of accusations against the suspended Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission; Ibrahim Magu, and the alleged scale of corruption issues with the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) under the supervision of the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs; Godswill Akpabio are testaments of how the devastated effect of continuous corrupt practices in Nigeria has gone so bad.

In 2015, Akpabio; a former Governor of Akwa Ibom State was allegedly arrested by the EFCC over an alleged theft of N108.1billion of Akwa Ibom funds. He defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the Presidents Party; the All Progressives Congress and same man is Minister and the result is instantaneous with massive scale of alleged corruption and the President is playing hanky-panky with the war on corruption and hoping for magic to allow the economy grow which is a mirage.

We wonder why the President is foot-dragging on the necessity of rescuing the waning anti-corruption war if indeed the government is not just playing hide and seek with Nigerians. On both the economic sector and crime fighting aspect, the Buhari-led administration is not committed or has not shown patriotism in the war against corruption and this is why the economy is about to collapse.

The economy cannot grow fast without zero tolerance to corruption. We recommend that the activities or programmes of the anti-graft agency; the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) should be reorganized and strengthened without much ado by appointing competent professional outside of the Nigerian Police to lead that law based fight against economic crimes which are destroying the local economy and exposing Nigeria to global disrepute.

Nigeria is currently grappling with security challenges and no one will be willing to invest in an insecure environment. The growing insurgency, banditry and kidnapping should naturally frighten any serious government.

According to The Nigeria Security Tracker, run by the Council on Foreign Relations, in 2019, 25,794 Nigerians might have died in violent crises in the first four years of the President Buhari. On the other hand, Amnesty International in its latest report estimated that between January and June this year, bandits have killed 1,126 villagers in Nigeria. This is disturbing and ought to provoke the government to take decisive measures to curb the trend but all to no avail as Boko Haram Terrorist and Armed Fulani Herdsmen are being giving soft landing.

The mass hunger in the land, mass povertu and mass unemployment are unambiguous indicatators that have made professionals doubt this administrations capacity to attain higher GDP growth to achieve massive job creation and turn around the economy.

The current economic policies marred by scale of corruptions are not delivering desirable outcomes and this is why the administration of President Buhari has to fashion out more robust and effective fiscal and monetary strategies to save the day. The President recently set up an economic advisory team made up of some of the finest economic and policy scholars. However, it is unclear if truly Mr. President is implementing the far reaching economic reforms and measures being suggested by these individuals because we are shocked at the speed with which the Central bank of Nigeria devalues our national currency. Mr. President should task his ministers especially that of Finance, Power, Humanitarian Affairs and such vital revenue generating agencies such as the NNPC, the Federal Inland Revenue Services, The Nigerian Customs Services, The Nigerian Immigration Services, The Nigerian Ports Authority to be transparent and accountable because there are too many leakages and corruption going on within these strategic ministries and extra ministerial institutions to the detriment of the economic wellbeing of Nigeria.

We are by this statement reminding the President; His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR) that on his campaign catch-phrase was Next Level, which gestured his determination to build on programmes he claimed his administration initiated in the first term. Therefore, having re-elected him despite his unimpressive economic performance in the first tenure, Nigerians are giving him a second chance. The President must stop the mass hunger, mass joblessness, insecurity and instability that are tearing Nigeria apart. Mr. President must stop his cabinet level appointees from working at cross purposes and committing outrageous economic crimes against the Nigerian people and above all, Mr. President should stop mortgaging Nigeria into servitude through dubious debts from China which plans to take over Africa by hook or crook. President Muhammadu Buhari must search for 'a black goat now that it is still daylight and make hay whilst the sun shines. ARISE OH COMPATRIOTS AND SAVE NIGERIA".

**COMRADE EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO:

NATIONAL COORDINATOR.

*Miss. Zainab Yusuf:

DIRECTOR; National Media Affairs.

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA).
People visit the Sanlihe park of Dongcheng District in Beijing, capital of China, June 7, 2020. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong]

BEIJING, August 30 (Xinhua)  The Chinese capital Beijing, also an ancient city with thousands of years of history, is entering a new era as a fresh city plan is unveiled. The country has approved a detailed plan for the core area of Beijing for the 2018-2035 period, stressing its functions of serving central administrative organs as well as the firm and orderly relief of its non-capital roles.

Authorities in Beijing on Sunday unveiled a detailed plan for its core area for the 2018-2035 period, ushering in a new era for the city with a history of thousands of years.

Based on the plan that was initiated in 2017, the focus of the core area, covering about 92.5 square kilometers, will be on China's political center and other functions.

The goal of the plan is to build a core area with sound administrative environment, cultural appeal and ideal living conditions. It also stresses protecting the city's cultural and historical heritage.

By 2035, the permanent population in the core area would be about 1.7 million, and the floor area of above-ground buildings will be around 119 million square meters, according to the plan.

The permanent population in the core area is estimated to be about 1.55 million, while the floor area of the above-ground buildings will be around 110 million square meters by 2050.

The central authorities approved the plan, emphasizing its functions of serving central administrative organs as well as firm and orderly relief of its non-capital roles.

"The core area is where Beijing's functions as the nation's political, cultural and international exchange center are mostly located, and it's a key area for the preservation of historical sites," the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council said in an approval statement that was made public on Thursday.

People visit the Sanlihe park in Dongcheng District of Beijing, capital of China, June 7, 2020. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong]

Photo taken on June 10, 2020 shows the view after renovation of the former residence of Shen Jiaben, a leading Chinese judicial reformer in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), in Xicheng District of Beijing, capital of China. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong]

People walk along the Yangmeizhu Street in Beijing, capital of China, August 27, 2020. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong]

People wait to see their family doctors at a community health center in Xicheng District in Beijing, capital of China, August 17, 2020. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong]

Family doctor Xie Yan (L) receives patient Zhou Zizhong while communicating online with Wang Bo, doctor of the Emergency Department of Peking University First Hospital, at a community health center in Xicheng District in Beijing, capital of China, August 17, 2020. [Xinhua/Ju Huanzong]

(Source: Xinhua)
Tuesday marks the first time Massachusetts will process mail-in ballots for a state primary, but some of those votes likely wont be mailed in time to count, state officials say.

Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, however, says absentee voters who are worried their mail-in ballots wont be received by election officials by the 8 p.m. cutoff Tuesday have alternatives, in addition to dropping their ballots in a mailbox. They can find a local dropbox to submit their mail-in ballots, or they can vote again in-person.

We want to make sure that everyone who wants to participate tomorrow has the opportunity to do so, Galvin said.

While the prospect of voting twice might raise some eyebrows, Galvin said election officials across the state and in his office will have updated paperwork to make sure only those whose votes havent been counted yet can cast their ballot at a polling place on Tuesday.

Those who mailed in their ballots can track them on the states Track My Ballot webpage. If voters mailed in their ballots but havent seen them marked received by the state, they can cast their vote in person.

That vote will be marked by poll workers so that local election officials will know a ballot has already been cast for that person. Once the ballot comes into the election, local officials will be able to see a vote is already recorded for that person and will not count the ballot, Galvin said.

Local polling places will be able to detect who received mail-in ballots and whose ballots have already been marked received, Galvin said. Each polling place has paperwork with barcodes for each voter indicating the status of their vote. If a mail-in voters ballot was received, the barcode will reflect that and the person wont be allowed to vote twice.

When asked about this scenario, Galvin said the system has checks in place to make sure a voters ballot isnt counted twice.

I dont think the voter as you described in your hypothetical is a person deliberately trying to vote twice. Its a person simply trying to make sure their vote gets counted, Galvin told MassLive. We want that, but you cant do it twice. Weve got these little administrative pieces there to make sure it doesnt happen.

Voters with issues or concerns about voting in the 9/1 election are encouraged to call 1-800-462-VOTE (8683).  Steph Solis (@stephmsolis) August 31, 2020

Between 1.2 million and 1.4 million people are expected to cast their ballots for Tuesdays election, a historic turnout number for a primary despite the threat of COVID-19.

State election officials have received more than 856,000 ballots from Democrats and Republicans with more than half being delivered through the U.S. Postal Service, which has undergone several operational changes ahead of the general election.

More than 400,000 mail-in ballots remain outstanding, Galvin said. A significant number are expected to be returned Monday and Tuesday, barring USPS delays.

The vote-by-mail law that took effect earlier this year was implemented because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 8,800 people statewide. It enables people to vote-by-mail in the primary and the general election before expiring at the end of the year.

The 8 p.m. cutoff means ballots received by election clerks  not postmarked by that point  will be included in the tally for the primary. Any vote-by-mail law or policy that allowed ballots to be received and counted after Tuesday would create a domino effect preventing state election officials from meeting other, statutorily required deadlines for the Nov. 3 general election.

Congressional candidate Becky Grossman challenged the deadline, filing a petition to the Supreme Judicial Court to extend the ballot receipt period by 10 days. Grossmans attorneys argued in a hearing last week voters who applied to vote-by-mail and mailed in their ballots before Tuesday, following the states timeline, would be disenfranchised because if their votes werent counted.

The SJC sided with the commonwealth, whose attorneys said voters would still have several options to cast their ballots in the primary.

If someone is not certain whether mail-in vote would be counted, although they might prefer for obvious and understandable reasons to avoid human contact, they can still go in and vote in-person at an early voting site in which there ought to be less traffic and fewer people or, worst-case scenario, on Election Day, said Anne Sterman, who represented the commonwealth. Your vote will only be counted once.

Tuesdays primary has more than three dozen state House and Senate races, four contested congressional races and the long-anticipated face-off for the U.S. Senate between incumbent Ed Markey and Rep. Joe Kennedy III.

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Last year it was ABC journalist and author Leigh Sales who copped it at Perth's Disrupted Festival of Ideas, this year conservative Alice Springs politician Jacinta Price seems likely to be on the receiving end of the controversy.

WA's State Library has confirmed Ms Price has been booked as a keynote speaker for this year's event, and acknowledged her involvement might upset local Noongar people.

Jacinta Price is a Warlpiri/Celtic woman who grew up in Alice Springs. Credit:Facebook

But State Librarian Margaret Allen backed the move to invite Ms Price, saying the Disrupted Festival was about debate and exchange of ideas, not about everyone agreeing.

Ms Price is an outspoken Aboriginal conservative, an Alice Springs councillor and the director of the Indigenous program at the Centre for Independent Studies, a libertarian think tank.
I think Albertans have gone through some tough times, RE/MAX realtor Justin Havre told CBC News. We typically dont have the opportunity to defer mortgage payments when there is a collapse in energy payments, and when the opportunity was available to get mortgages deferred here in Alberta, I think a lot of people took the opportunity to preserve their cash because nobody really knew with this pandemic how long it would go on and what was going to come of it.

Siddall said that over the next few months, the incidence of unemployment and the prevalence of households drawing upon government aid will heavily influence deferrals and house prices  especially in markets labouring under economic conditions aggravated by the coronavirus.

The CMHC chief said that the next highest deferral rates were in Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, at 14.8% each. British Columbia hovered near the national deferral average at 11.1%, while Ontario had 10.1%.

Deferrals in oil-producing regions are evidently elevated, Siddall said.

The three Northern Territories and Nova Scotia each posted a 9.9% deferral rate in July, while Manitoba had 9.6%.
Pranab Mukherjee made Rashtrapati Bhavan accessible to common citizens, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday as he paid his tribute to the former president--the scholar par excellence and a towering statesman.

Mukherjee died at 84 in a Delhi hospital.

India grieves the passing away of Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society, the Prime Minister said in a series of tweets.

Also read| Pranab Mukherjee: The Vice-Captain who went on to be Referee

Modi offered condolences to the late Congress veterans family, friends, admirers and supporters across India and said he will always cherish his interactions with Mukherjee.

I was new to Delhi in 2014. From Day 1, I was blessed to have the guidance, support and blessings of Shri Pranab Mukherjee. I will always cherish my interactions with him. Condolences to his family, friends, admirers and supporters across India. Om Shanti, he tweeted.

The Prime Minister hailed Mukherjees role as the president of the country from 2012 until 2017 and said he ensured that the common masses had more access to Rashtrapati Bhavan.

As Indias President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee made Rashtrapati Bhavan even more accessible to common citizens. He made the Presidents house a centre of learning, innovation, culture, science and literature. His wise counsel on key policy matters will never be forgotten by me, Modi tweeted.

Also read| Pranab Mukherjee dies: A look at his illustrious political career

Pranab Mukherjee underwent brain surgery on August 10 and had since been in a coma. He was admitted to the Army Hospital (R&R) in the Delhi Cantonment area where he was put on ventilator support after the surgery.

Earlier in the day, the hospital had issued a statement saying there was a decline in the condition of the former presidents health. He died in the evening at the hospital. The news was shared on Twitter by his son Abhijit Mukherjee.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 31

By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:

Kazakhstan has exported 8,000 kg of lamb worth $29,760 to Azerbaijan in 1H2020, Trend reports with reference to Eurasian Economic Commission.

During the reporting period, Eurasian Economic Union has supplied 655,963 kg worth $2.05 million of fresh and frozen beef to Azerbaijan, which is 31.4 percent more in value than in 1H2019.

Kazakhstans share in the overall value of beef exports to Azerbaijan was 1.1 percent during the reporting period meaning it has exported beef worth $22,585 to Azerbaijan during the reporting period.

Kazakhstan has also exported frozen fish worth $32,353 to Azerbaijan during the reporting period, whereas Russia exported frozen fish worth $1.16 million. Overall EAEU export of frozen fish to Azerbaijan stood at 1.05 million kg worth $1.19 million, which is 2.5 times more in value than during the same period of last year.

The value of trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan amounted to $51.3 million over 1H2020, compared to $108.4 million during the same period of 2019.

Kazakhstans export to Azerbaijan amounted to $37.4 million over the period from January through June 2020, compared to $99.4 million during the same period of 2019.

In turn, Kazakhstans imports from Azerbaijan amounted to nearly $13.9 million over the reporting period, compared to $8.9 million during the same period of 2019.

---

Follow the author on twitter: @nargiz_sadikh
United Airlines says it listened to customers and is dropping an unpopular $200 fee for most people who change a ticket for travel within the United States.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/8/2020 (508 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FILE - In this June 25, 2020, file photo, rows of United Airlines check-in counters at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago are unoccupied amid the coronavirus pandemic. On Sunday, Aug. 30, 2020, United Airlines says it will be dropping an unpopular $200 fee for most people who change a ticket for travel within the United States. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford, File)

United Airlines says it listened to customers and is dropping an unpopular $200 fee for most people who change a ticket for travel within the United States.

When we hear from customers about where we can improve, getting rid of fees is often the top request, United CEO Scott Kirby said in a video posted Sunday.

United's move will put pressure on American Airlines and Delta Air Lines to drop their change fees, also $200 on domestic travel. Delta and American said they are waiving change fees for travel affected by the virus through the year's end. Southwest Airlines does not charge change fees, a policy which its CEO says has helped it gain more business.

United said that it eliminated change fees for people who buy a standard or premium economy ticket for U.S. travel.

United also said that it will extend a broad waiver of change fees  including for international travel  through Dec. 31. Customers who pay the lowest fares, called basic economy, can also change tickets free because of the extended waiver announced Sunday.

And starting in January, it will let customers fly standby for free on other flights the same day as their booked flight.

The moves come as United and other airlines try desperately to lure people back to flying despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. U.S. air travel has recovered modestly since April, but passenger traffic remains down about 70% from a year ago.

The four largest U.S. airlines lost a combined $10 billion from April through June. Airlines shared $25 billion in federal payroll aid under pandemic relief legislation and are lobbying for $25 billion more.

United has warned 36,000 employees that they could be furloughed in October. It received $5 billion in taxpayer money to keep workers on the payroll through September.

Consumer groups have long complained about the array of fees that airlines impose for things that were once part of the fare. Change fees draw particular scorn because, critics say, they far exceed airlines' costs of changing or cancelling tickets with a few keystrokes.

Fees on checked bags and ticket changes gained widespread use during an industry downturn in 2008. Since then, airlines have added fees on seats with more legroom, priority boarding and other amenities.

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.

They contributed to a highly profitable run that lasted for a decade, broken only by the pandemic. Now airlines are slashing flights and shrinking work forces to cope with the travel slump.

The United CEO acknowledged that airlines facing tough times have often made difficult decisions to survive, sometimes at the expense of customer service. Kirby said United is looking to serve customers better this time.

Since 2010, Chicago-based United has scooped up nearly $6.5 billion in change fees. Last year, it took in $625 million, third behind Delta and American, according to Transportation Department figures.

In Washington, several lawmakers have launched periodic campaigns to outlaw change fees. In 2018, the Senate approved a bill to prohibit unreasonable fees for changing or cancelling tickets, but the measure was scuttled in negotiations with the House.

___

David Koenig can be reached at www.twitter.com/airlinewriter.
BEIRUT, Lebanon  A little-known diplomat was designated as Lebanons next prime minister on Monday through a rushed process aimed at showing official progress in addressing the countrys many crises since a massive explosion destroyed parts of Beirut.

The diplomat, Mustafa Adib, has served as the Lebanese ambassador to Germany since 2013, and his official designation came hours before President Emmanuel Macron of France was to arrive in the Lebanese capital to press the countrys politicians on long-delayed reforms that could unlock international aid.

Lebanon has lurched from crisis to crisis since last fall, when mass protests against government corruption and mismanagement toppled a prime minister. The currency then began a slide that would erase 80 percent of its value, and a huge blast caused by a neglected store of ammonium nitrate in Beiruts port on Aug. 4 killed more than 180 people and caused billions of dollars in damage.

The countrys politicians have failed to take significant steps to address the crises, and protesters have repeatedly taken to the streets to demand the ouster of what they see as a corrupt political elite responsible for the terrible state of Lebanon.
By Chris Bragg | Times Union, Albany

Albany, N.Y.  In an April 28 memo, state budget Director Robert Mujica, in response to the states dire financial condition, ordered state agencies and public authorities to cease all hiring except for jobs integral to protecting public health and safety. In the four months since, there has been a strict hiring freeze within the ranks of New Yorks government.

But that hasnt stopped Gov. Andrew M. Cuomos office from making a number of hires involving employees with a background in politics, not pandemics or public safety.

In recent weeks, the governors office scooped up three political operatives who had worked on unsuccessful 2020 Democratic presidential campaigns, one of whom had previously worked at a political consulting firm with close ties to Cuomo.

And one of the new, taxpayer-funded jobs is for the explicit purpose of promoting Cuomos accomplishments, according to the job posting for the position.

Over the summer, Cuomos office placed the job advertisement on LinkedIn, the professional networking website. The new state employee, according to the Cuomo ad, would be responsible for devising strategies to successfully communicate the accomplishments of New York state to the public.

In August, Cuomo announced the hiring of Stephen Silverman, who previously worked as a consultant for the Clinton Foundation, where he focused on amplifying the achievements of former President Bill Clinton. Silverman also advised Michael Bloombergs unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign. Silvermans title in Cuomos office is senior communications advisor for speechwriting and strategic messaging, the position for which Cuomos office had been advertising.

Also this summer, ahead of Cuomos primetime speech at the Democratic National Convention, his office advertised on LinkedIn for a new speechwriter, an accomplished wordsmith to join our speechwriting team.

Its not clear if the hiring was made: No hiring of a speechwriter is reflected in state agency payroll records, and the Cuomo administration declined to say if someone had been appointed to the position.

Mujicas directive in April stated that his Division of Budget office would only grant waiver applications submitted by agencies  allowing them to make new hires  if the budget office deemed the positions essential to protect health and safety. Division of Budget spokesman Freeman Klopott asserted that the consultants hired by Cuomo fit that criteria.

Especially now, government needs to function and there is no question to anyone paying attention during this pandemic that the public health response, clear communication to New Yorkers writ large and to potentially vulnerable communities specifically has been crucial  and these backfilled hires didnt increase costs, Klopott said. To date, since the federal government has failed to provide relief, New York state has spent $4 billion less than last year by using cash spending controls and overall belt tightening  the hiring freeze remains in place and we evaluate any exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

E.J. McMahon, research director at the fiscally conservative Empire Center for Public Policy, said the Division of Budget, charged with deciding whether Executive Chamber waiver applications were granted, has little independence from Cuomos office.

This is a case of the governor just doing what he wants, McMahon said. The message is, Do as we say, not as we do.

While the Cuomo hirings are only a blip in the states projected $64 billion deficit over the next four years, they come at a time when Cuomo is requiring sacrifice from other offices and agencies. He has delayed raises for an estimated 80,000 state workers, and layoffs or furloughs could be necessary. The state is also expected to make deep cuts in payments to cash-starved local governments and schools.

Nonprofits aiding New Yorks most vulnerable have seen state grants delayed or canceled, threatening the organizations existence. The Cuomo administration caused a furor by nixing a $55 million printing and mailing contract that had employed 50 people with disabilities in Albany, calling the move a cost-saving measure.

On Aug. 7, Cuomo announced many of the new Executive Chamber hirings in a press release, stating that the employees would bring a wealth of knowledge that will help New York build back better than before.

Several of the hires had duties directly related to New Yorks response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Others seem farther afield.

Laura Montross is Cuomos new deputy communications director for policy and issue advocacy. She is listed in payroll records as a $117,000-a-year administrative assistant. Most recently, Montross worked as a director of womens outreach for Bloombergs 2020 Democratic presidential campaign.

Before that, Montross worked for three years as a principal at Kivvit, the political consulting firm founded by a close Cuomo advisor, Maggie Moran, who served as Cuomos 2018 campaign manager. The firms leadership also includes managing director Rich Bamberger, Cuomos former communications director.

Marquita Sanders most recently worked for New Jersey Sen. Cory Bookers unsuccessful presidential campaign, where she was director of scheduling and the advance work necessary to prepare for political events. Before that she worked in the Obama administration.

Sanders is now Cuomos new assistant secretary for scheduling and operations. In that role, Sanders is being paid $170,000-a-year, according to payroll records, with her title deputy secretary to the governor.

Klopott said that Sanders is in charge of scheduling for Cuomo, and replacing a long-time staffer, and fulfilling a critical need.

After Cuomos communications Director Dani Lever recently left for a job at Facebook, Cuomos senior deputy communications director, Peter Ajemian, was promoted in August to fill Levers position.

Yet according to Mujicas memo, promotions are also barred under the strict hiring freeze, unless specifically exempted by a waiver from the Division of Budget. To grant such a waiver submitted by a state agency or office, the Division of Budget must deem the position essential to protecting the public health and safety or find that it ensures the generation of state revenue, according to Mujicas memo.

While not publicly announced by Cuomo, back in May, the administration hired Matthew McMorrow as his statewide director of LGBTQ affairs. McMorrow works in Cuomos office, according to his LinkedIn profile, but his $115,000-a-year salary is being paid by the Department of State, where he is listed in payroll records as a citizens services representative.

Klopott, the Division of Budget spokesman, said the responsibilities of the recently filled positions had been held by employees that had left the administration. The combined salaries are ?spending neutral, he contends.

Klopott declined to provide the Times Union with copies of waiver requests Cuomos office had submitted to the Division of Budget, which would outline the administrations justifications for each hire. Klopott said the waivers needed to be requested through the states Freedom of Information Law, since the records involve personnel matters. There is no such exemption for those types of records under the states Freedom of Information Law and no provision of that law is directed specifically at personnel records.

Cuomos practice of hiring Executive Chamber employees, but paying them on the budget lines of state agencies, is familiar. So is his hiring of operatives from losing Democratic presidential campaigns.

In 2017, Cuomo announced the hiring or promotion of 27 people, nearly half of whom were veterans of Hillary Clintons losing 2016 presidential campaign or the Obama administration. Most of the hires worked in the Executive Chamber, but were paid on the budget lines of various public authorities and agencies, a practice that has allowed Cuomo and prior governors to obscure the true size and cost of the governors staff.

After the Times Union reported on the hiring practices, the FBI began investigating. No charges have resulted from the long-running inquiry.

Among the people Cuomo hired that year were two high-paid speechwriters, one of whom was placed on the payroll of an obscure agency and the other assigned to the payroll of a public authority.
Clock ticking for TikTok to remove Zing-owned tracks

The local tech circle is stirring with news that Vietnamese unicorn VNG has filed a lawsuit against TikTok, a China-based social networking platform, for illegally using audio tracks owned by VNGs subsidiary Zing.

According to the filing sent to Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Court, VNG is seeking almost $10 million in damages for this encroachment.

VNG requests TikTok to remove all music segments taken from Zing records from both the TikTok application and the website, and an indemnification for damages of over VND221 billion ($9.6 million), noted the document.

Specifically, VNG first discovered that its music was added to short videos on TikTok early last year and sent Recommendation No.29/2019/ZA-CV on June 7, outlining the violations to the China-based company. According to the document, the local company required TikTok to check and remove the audio segments from its platform.

However, TikTok has not yet complied with the request. As a result, VNG started legal proceedings against one of the biggest social network platforms in the world.

To date, TikTok has not commented on the accusations of VNG.

The filing also mentioned that TikTok gave authorisation to law consultancy Indochine Counsel to reply to VNGs recommendation in a document. In the document, TikTok refused to take responsibility for the violations but prepared no cohesive argument for its innocence. Moreover, TikTok asserted to have attained the rights to legally use the song excerpts.

In a response to VIR, Dinh Thi Hoang Nhung, director of HNLAW & Partners, said that to win the case, VNG must prove that the audio tracks used by TikTok are lawfully owned by VNG, TikTok has used them illegally, and that VNG has derived damages from its use.

Vietnams protection of intellectual property rights is fully stipulated in the Law on Intellectual Property 2005 (LIP), and the amendments to it made in 2009. According to Article 16.3 of the 2005 law, organisations and individuals that first fix sounds and images of performances or other sounds and images (referred to as phonograms and video recordings in the law) are eligible for protection of related rights. In addition, Nhung said a petitioner could also base his/her case on the Civil Law 2015, but the lawsuit would take longer to conclude in this case. The laws all detail the sanctions for the violations. VNG needs to clarify the violations of TikTok and apply the appropriate fines, said Nhung.

Regarding compensation, she said that plaintiffs can turn to articles 17-20 of Decree No.105/2006/ND-CP enacted in 2006 on details and guides the implementation of the LIP regarding protection of IP rights and state management of IP. The articles define damage as loss in assets, the reduction in income and profit, the loss in business opportunities, and the appropriate fees for preventing and recovering damages.

Regarding the VND221 billion, VNG has to prove that the damages caused by TikTok reach this magnitude, said Nhung.

Phan Vu Tuan, managing partner of Phan Law Vietnam cum vice president of the Ho Chi Minh Intellectual Property Association, said that VNG is defending its legitimate rights and interests with this lawsuit. For this, VNG must establish that TikTok has infringed on its copyrights, or rights related to the recordings that VNG owns or has exclusive rights to exploit.

This means that VNG needs to prove the criteria to determine a potential copyright infringement. Firstly, it needs to prove that the music and audio excerpts are protected. Then it needs to show TikTok videos contains infringing elements. After that, VNG will have to show that the person that committed the infringing act is neither the IP right holder nor any person permitted by law or a competent agency of the LIP. The examined act also needs to take place in Vietnam  however, in the case that it occurs on the internet, it will be deemed to have taken place in Vietnam if targeted at its consumers or information users.

Once VNG ticks these boxes, it has legal grounds to sue TikTok to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests, Tuan said. Disputes related to copyright in general and copyright-related rights to musical works, in particular, are becoming more and more numerous. Individuals and organisations have become more aware of the protection of their copyrights and hold more respect for the copyrights of others.

However, successful copyright lawsuits are still relatively few in number. Therefore, if the dispute between VNG and TikTok is resolved thoroughly and satisfactorily, it will be a major legal development that would serve as precedent for subsequent cases.
By Deepak Chopra,TM MD

Meditation has a built-in problem that needs solving, the problem of noncompliance. Countless people have taken up the practice, motivated by the benefits of meditation supported by literally thousands of studies. The first few sessions go well, which is encouraging, but it is only a matter of time before meditation becomes one more thing we dont have time for.

Letting your meditation drop away seems to affect every kind of practice, no matter how simple, including mindfulness, mantra meditation, Buddhist Vipassana, and so on. Even sitting for 10 minutes following your breath, which is the simplest meditation of all, doesnt manage to stick. The result is that the vast majority of people stop meditating and never go back, while a much smaller number meditate when I feel I need it.

The number one reason for noncompliance is that everyday life is too busy, too full of work, family, TV, texting, eating out, and all the rest. But if we reframe the situation, meditation can be effective and effortless at the same time. Lets accept that occasional meditation, although it might bring a moments respite from a busy day, hasnt worked out for you. Instead of feeling guilty, you can begin a radically different practice.

In place of occasional meditation, you can shift to total meditation, a useful term for bringing the mind into a meditative state anytime you want. The technique is simplicity itself. Whenever you notice that you are distracted, stressed, feeling burdened, anxious, or out of sorts, use this as a trigger to return to the minds natural state of inner peace and quiet. The steps are as follows:

Find a quiet place where you can be alone and undisturbed.

Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.

Put your attention on the area of your heart.

Breathe easily until you feel relaxed and quiet inside.

Total meditation, being spontaneous, is effortless. And because you do it anytime you like for a few minutes, the practice fits into the busiest days. At first you might find yourself doing the practice six or more times a day. but over time your mind will become trained to seek the meditative state more quickly and easily.

I describe the implications of this practice in a new book, Total Meditation, whose basic principle will surprise many people. In medicine it has long been known that the body automatically seeks a balanced state known as homeostasis. If you go for a run or a session at the gym, your body adapts to the increased activity in many ways that include changes in heart rate, blood pressure, oxygenation of muscles, digestion, and much more. Homeostasis is dynamic and holistic.

But there has been a reluctance to grant the mind the same automatic return to a state of balance, even though the evidence is quite clear. Between every thought your mind goes into a silent gap from which the next thought emerges. If you experience a momentary emotional upset, your mind can stay there only so long before the upset is gone. Even long-term upsets like grief over losing a loved one will eventually, for the vast majority of people, return to the persons emotional set point.

Without knowing it, perhaps, you are already experiencing how important the minds rebalancing ability is. The chief benefit is a healing one. Every school and type of meditation takes advantage of this healing effect.

Mindfulness is the way your mind recovers from distraction. You are brought back into the present moment.

Self-Inquiry is the way your mind recovers from habits. By asking yourself, Why am I doing this? you bring conscious attention to a situation where you have been ruled by habit, routine, obsessive behavior, knee-jerk reactions, and stagnant beliefs.

Reflection is the way your mind recovers from thoughtlessness. You regard your behavior, see what is self-defeating or troubling about it, and realize what is actually going on.

Contemplation is the way your mind recovers from confusion. When faced with multiple choices, each with its pros and cons, you sort everything out by contemplating the situation until you have a certain level of clarity.

Concentration is the way your mind recovers from pointlessness. It is pointless to do a careless job, having careless opinions, and relate to other people in an unconcerned or arbitrary way.

Prayer is the way your mind recovers from helplessness. By contacting a higher power, you are acknowledging a need for connection.

Quiet mind is the way your mind recovers from overwork. The mind is constantly processing daily life and its challenges, but when mental activity becomes burdensome, there is a risk of exhaustion, anxiety, and mental agitation. The mind naturally wants to be quiet when no activity is necessary.

There is no firm dividing line among these practices, and all arise naturally out of the minds natural tendency to rebalance itself whenever it detects a state of imbalance. Total meditation expand upon this natural tendency and consciously directs it as needed. It is effortless to center yourself during the day, and the more you make it a habit, the deeper your meditative state will be. More importantly, your life outside meditation will become more conscious, again without effort on your part. (In the book I address examples of stress, habits, and old conditioning that have become chronic. They can be serious conditions, but they are still open to the healing touch of meditation, if approached in the right way.)

Ive come to feel that occasional meditations problems can be solved in this simple way. The problems wont go away simply by promising yourself that you will try harder to keep up your practice. Its good news, I think, that a better way exists.

DEEPAK CHOPRA TM MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers.His 90th book, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential, unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.
Nadiya Hussain has spoken of the horrific racism she faced when she used an apple in a Cornish pasty recipe.

The former Bake Off winner, 35, revealed that she has experienced more racism in the last five years than in her entire life.

She explained that she was 'really affected' by the online hate she received for replacing the traditional swede with apple in a Cornish Pasty recipe in 2017.

'I got so much abuse on social media,' the mother-of-three told Radio Times. 'What I constantly read was, "What gives you the right to make a Cornish pasty?" And that really affected me.

'I've definitely experienced more racism in the last five years than I have in my whole life.'

Nadiya, who is the daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants, doesn't see any end in sight as racist trolls often face no consequences.

Former Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain, 35, told how she was racially abused after she used apple in a Cornish pasty recipe. Pictured, on April 20, 2020 in London

The TV star explained that she was 'really affected' by the online hate she received for posting a Cornish pasty recipe in 2017, where she'd replaced traditional swede with apple. Pictured, the recipe featured in her 2017 BBC show, Nadiya's British Food Adventure

She said: 'People get away with being racist and if you say, "Well, that was racist", then it's, "Take it on the chin" or "Oh, she's got a chip on her shoulder".

'There's definitely a sense that I should be grateful for what I do.

'I've had to learn to have a thicker skin over the last few years, but I've also learnt that it's really important to voice things and not just hold back.'

Nadiya, who won The Great British Bake Off in 2015, is back on screen with BBC show Nadiya Bakes on Wednesday, where she will create her favourite homemade cakes, bakes and pastries.

The controversial pasty recipe, which also contained peas, was featured in her 2017 show Nadiya's British Food Adventure.

Nadiya said she constantly read, 'What gives you the right to make a Cornish pasty?" Pictured, the chef was criticised for using apple in her Cornish pasty recipe

Speaking about what it's like to be one of the few women of colour and faith on primetime TV, she said: 'I now work in an industry that's very much middle-aged, Caucasian, male, and there I am - a five foot one Muslim brown girl, and it's not my world.

'We have to question why there aren't more people of colour working in television, publishing, the hospitality industry.

'When I did this show I looked around and I thought, "Wow, there's literally just me and the home economist, who's Korean."'

Nadiya, who lives in Milton Keynes with husband Abdal and their three children, admitted that speaking out is hard because she worries that her TV work will dry up if she is seen to be 'complaining' about anything.

Nadiya, who won The Great British Bake Off in 2015, is back on screen with BBC show Nadiya Bakes on Wednesday, where she will create her favourite homemade cakes, bakes and pastries

She said: 'I have this god-awful fear that nobody will want to work with me ever again. So I'm really scared.

'The times that I have called it out, I've met with some serious negativity....I'm trying to get better.'

Nadiya, who received an MBE for services to broadcasting and the culinary arts in the New Year Honours in 2019, made a documentary about her lifelong struggle with anxiety, which aired last year.

She admitted that her mental health took a turn for the worse during lockdown.

'Lockdown caused a massive decline in my mental health, and I have really, really bad days and sometimes I have really good days,' she explained.

'We know lots of people who have been diagnosed with Covid. We also know people who are not following the rules, so there's this constant anxiety, which has been really tough.'
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Film director and journalist Indrajit Lankesh, who recently made explosive comments about drug abuse in the Kannada film industry, has given names of 10-15 actors to the police. Lankesh, who was summoned by the Central Crime Branch (CCB) officials to appear before them and share the information he had, was grilled for more than five hours on Monday. A team of officers of the Anti-Narcotics Wing of the CCB gathered information from Lankesh about the alleged nexus of some film personalities with drug dealers. The entire proceeding was reportedly video recorded.

Speaking to reporters later, Lankesh, also a film producer, said that he had shared all the information with the police. Though the police had some clues about Kannada film actors who are involved in drug abuse, they were shocked when I revealed the names of some artistes along with evidence. I have given names of 10-15 actors along with proof. I believe the police will investigate their involvement and reveal their names shortly, he said.

Lankesh has submitted photographs and videos related to some actors and it is said one video reveals a well-known actress misbehaving at a party under the influence of drugs.Besides information related to substance abuse and links of film actors with drug peddlers, it is also learnt that the director has shared information about some actresses being allegedly involved in honey-trapping and also into prostitution.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sandeep Patil said that the police will investigate the information provided by Lankesh and take appropriate legal action. We appreciate that he came forward to give whatever information he has. We request others also to share any information and support us in our fight against drugs, Patil added.Sources said that the names revealed by Lankesh included some of the top actors of Sandalwood. We are gathering more details about their involvement. If it is established that they are into drug abuse or having nexus with drug dealers, legal action will be initiated, an official said.

With govt on combating drugs: Arshad

Mysuru: Congress MLA Rizwan Arshad on Monday agreed that there is rampant peddling and abuse of drugs in Bengaluru. Arshad said that he had personally complained about the drug racket to the Bengaluru police commissioner. We have extended our full support to the government. It needs to be checked effectively and should be curbed in the interest of youngsters and the student community, he said.

Drug money used to destabilise JDS-Cong govt, says HDK

Bengaluru: Janata Dal (Secular) leader H D Kumaraswamy on Monday said that the JDS-Congress coalition government, he headed, had tried to take action against drug peddlers in the state, and some of them had escaped to Sri Lanka. Speaking to mediapersons in Tumakuru on Monday, the former CM alleged that it was one of the reasons for the coalition governments fall as money from illegal activities was used to destabilise his government. When I was the CM, I tried to put an end to the drug mafia, and some people escaped to Sri Lanka at that time, he claimed. It is unfortunate that young people are falling prey to drugs. The state government should not have any mercy even if these offenders are from influential families. The government should take action against them, he said.
PITTSBURGH, Aug. 31, 2020 - The development of safe and effective HIV prevention methods for cisgender women has long been a global health priority, yet research in women during pregnancy and breastfeeding, when they are most vulnerable to infection, has lagged years behind.

Women need safe and effective methods for HIV prevention they can use at all times of their lives, say researchers from the National Institutes of Health-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN), who have just launched a new study called B-PROTECTED, or MTN-043. B-PROTECTED will enroll women who are breastfeeding, as well as their babies, at trial sites in Malawi, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

In these and other sub-Saharan African countries, women are estimated to be up to four times more likely to acquire HIV when breastfeeding - more than any other time in their lives, including during pregnancy. And if they get HIV, chances are higher they will transmit the virus to their babies, as well.

The first sites to begin the B-PROTECTED study are the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI) Shandukani Research Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the Makerere University-Johns Hopkins University (MU-JHU) Research Collaboration in Kampala, Uganda. A similar study involving pregnant women, called DELIVER (MTN-042), is also ongoing at these two sites; both studies will be conducted at the Malawi and Zimbabwe sites as well.

Both B-PROTECTED and DELIVER are open-label Phase IIIb studies designed to evaluate the safety of two HIV prevention methods - a daily antiretroviral (ARV) pill called Truvada, an approach known as oral PrEP (short for pre-exposure prophylaxis) that is already approved in many countries, and the monthly dapivirine vaginal ring, a new HIV prevention method, which in late July received a positive opinion by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), a significant step toward its potential approval in African countries. The EMA's review of the ring was conducted in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) through the Article 58 procedure.

If approved by national regulatory authorities, the monthly dapivirine ring would be the first biomedical prevention method designed specifically for cisgender women and the first long-acting method. Importantly, the ring would represent another option for women who are unable or prefer not to use daily oral PrEP.

DELIVER and B-PROTECTED aim to collect the kind of information needed for regulatory authorities and national programs to consider making the dapivirine ring available to pregnant and breastfeeding women. The results of these studies will also enable health care providers, and women themselves, to make informed choices about whether to use the ring or oral PrEP during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Both methods have been shown to be well tolerated and to reduce the risk of HIV in previous trials involving nonpregnant and non-breastfeeding women.

Most of the information about the safety of Truvada (which contains emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate), during pregnancy and breastfeeding is from women living with HIV who used it in combination with other drugs as treatment. It's based primarily on this safety data that the WHO recommends Truvada as daily oral PrEP during pregnancy and breastfeeding, while also acknowledging the need for safety data specifically in HIV-negative women. Thus far, a growing body of evidence suggests that PrEP use does not pose significant risk to the mother, her pregnancy or baby. Less is known about the use of the dapivirine ring during pregnancy and breastfeeding. B-PROTECTED is the first study of the ring in women who are actively breastfeeding. Likewise, DELIVER is the first study of the ring in pregnant women.

The dapivirine ring, which was developed by the nonprofit International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), slowly releases the ARV dapivirine into the vagina - the potential site of HIV infection - during the month it is worn. Women can insert and replace the ring themselves.

B-PROTECTED will enroll up to 200 HIV-negative breastfeeding mothers and their 6- to 12-week-old babies. Participants will be randomly assigned to use either the monthly dapivirine ring or Truvada as daily oral PrEP, with more participants assigned to use the dapivirine ring than oral Truvada. Women will use their assigned product for three months and be followed by the study team for an additional two weeks. Researchers will assess how much drug from Truvada and the dapivirine ring passes into breast milk and how much passes to the baby after breastfeeding, and will measure the effects, if any, this may have on the health and safety of both mother and child.

In an earlier study called MTN-029/IPM 039, MTN researchers found dapivirine was absorbed at very low levels in breast milk and noted no safety concerns. MTN-029/IPM 039 enrolled 16 women in the United States who were no longer nursing their babies but still producing milk and who used the dapivirine ring for 14 consecutive days. The study was designed so that babies wouldn't be exposed to drug, but based on levels measured in maternal breast milk, researchers estimated an infant's daily exposure to drug would have been very low.

B-PROTECTED will be important for confirming these results in women who are actively breastfeeding and using the ring, as well as provide additional insight about the safety of Truvada as daily oral PrEP so that decisions about the use of these products while breastfeeding can be made based on evidence rather than guesswork.

"Quite simply, we want what's best for both mothers and their babies. We want babies to be able to receive the nutritional benefits that only breastmilk can provide and we want moms to remain HIV-free during the time they are breastfeeding," said Maxie Owor, MBChB, MMed (Paed), MPH, who is protocol chair of the B-PROTECTED study and based at the MU-JHU site.

Protocol co-chairs are Jennifer Balkus, Ph.D., MPH, from the University of Washington School of Public Health, and Lisa Noguchi, Ph.D., CNM, from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who also led the MTN-029/IPM 039 study.

"We aren't adequately addressing women's needs for HIV prevention unless we provide tools that can safely reduce their susceptibility while they are pregnant and breastfeeding, which for many women, adds up to be several years of their lives," commented Sharon L. Hillier, Ph.D., professor and vice chair of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and MTN principal investigator.

"The MTN identified this as an imperative in our scientific agenda more than 14 years ago, when we were first funded as an HIV/AIDS clinical trials network. It's only fitting that the B-PROTECTED study be the final study we initiate as a network."

In addition to the two sites that have just started the study, B-PROTECTED will also be conducted at the College of Medicine-Johns Hopkins University Research Project in Blantyre, Malawi; and the University of Zimbabwe College of Health Sciences Clinical Trials Research Centre, Zengeza. B-PROTECTED is anticipated to be completed and report results in 2021.

In parallel, and through a collaborative procedure coordinated by the WHO, IPM will seek regulatory approval of the dapivirine ring in Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, where the public health need is great and previous studies of the dapivirine ring took place. The first of these approvals could be as early as mid-2021. IPM will seek approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well. Also, in parallel, the WHO will review evidence on the ring as part of its treatment and prevention guidelines process and conduct an abbreviated review for the ring's prequalification, a quality assurance designation that facilitates access to medicines that meet global standards for quality, safety and efficacy.

Until data from the B-PROTECTED and DELIVER studies is available, national programs and health care providers are unlikely to recommend the ring's use by women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.

###

The MTN and the B-PROTECTED study are supported by U.S. National Institutes of Health grants UM1AI068633, UM1AI068615 and UM1AI106707.

More information about B-PROTECTED can be found at https://mtnstopshiv.org/news/studies/mtn043 and https://mtnstopshiv.org/research/studies/mtn-043 or click here to watch a short video about both it and the DELIVER study. For more information about the dapivirine ring go to http://www.ipmglobal.org.

About the Microbicide Trials Network

The Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) is an HIV/AIDS clinical trials network established in 2006 by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases with co-funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Mental Health, all components of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Based at Magee-Womens Research Institute and the University of Pittsburgh, the MTN brings together international investigators and community and industry partners whose work is focused on the rigorous evaluation of promising microbicides - products applied inside the vagina or rectum that are intended to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV - from the earliest phases of clinical study to large-scale trials that support potential licensure of these products for widespread use. More information about the MTN is available at http://www.mtnstopshiv.org/.
(Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway Inc <BRKa.N> has bought a 5% stake in each of Japan's five biggest trading houses, together worth over $6 billion (4.4 billion pounds), marking a departure for Chairman Warren Buffett as he looks beyond the United States to diversify his conglomerate.

The long-term investment in Itochu Corp <8001.T>, Marubeni Corp <8002.T>, Mitsubishi Corp <8058.T>, Mitsui & Co Ltd <8031.T> and Sumitomo Corp <8053.T> could see the stakes rise to 9.9%, Berkshire said on Sunday, Buffett's 90th birthday.

"The five major trading companies have many joint ventures throughout the world and are likely to have more," Buffett said in a statement. "I hope that in the future there may be opportunities of mutual benefit."

The investment will help reduce Berkshire's dependence on the U.S. economy, which in the last quarter contracted the most in at least 73 years as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Many of its businesses have struggled, including aircraft parts maker Precision Castparts from which it bore a $9.8 billion writedown.

Buffett's choice in Japan, however, surprised market players as trading houses have long been far from investor favorites. As well as significant exposure to the energy sector and resource price volatility, tangled business models involving commodities as varied as noodles and rockets have long been a turn-off.

"Their cheap valuation may have been an attraction," said Norihiro Fujito, chief investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities in Tokyo. "But it is un-Buffett-like to buy into all five companies rather than selecting a few."

BELOW BOOK

Berkshire bought the little-over 5% stakes in about a year through insurance business National Indemnity Co. Together, five 5% stakes were worth 700 billion yen ($6.63 billion), Reuters calculations showed based on Refinitiv data.

Firms' shares often rise when Buffett discloses investment, reflecting what investors view as his imprimatur. On Monday, Marubeni and Sumitomo ended up over 9%, followed by Mitsubishi and Mitsui at over 7%. Itochu rose 4.2% to a record high.

Story continues

Berkshire shares were flat in premarket trade.

Even so, Marubeni, Mitsubishi and Sumitomo are still 10% down on the year, versus a 6% fall in the Topix <.TOPX> index. Itochu, which has shifted towards consumer-related businesses, is the only one whose share price is higher than last year.

Indeed, Itochu is the only one whose stock trades above its book value. That means, for the other four, their market capitalization is less than the value of their assets, making them attractive to a value investor like Buffett.

Several have large amounts of cash on hand, raising their appeal. Mitsubishi, for instance, has seen steady growth in free cash flow per share for four years, Refinitiv data showed.

Trading houses are also deeply involved in the real economy in areas such as steel, shipping, commodities, putting them on the radar of an investor such as Buffett who famously avoids investing in businesses he claims not to understand.

Asked about the investment, Mitsui told Reuters it aims to improve returns for all shareholders. Marubeni and Mitsubishi said they will continue efforts to improve corporate value. Sumitomo said it will communicate with Berkshire as with all other shareholders.

Itochu Chairman Masahiro Okafuji in an emailed statement welcomed Buffett's interest in Japanese trading house stocks, which he said have lagged global financial markets, adding the investment "will be a catalyst for revitalizing the industry."

U.S. DEPENDENCE

Berkshire owns more than 90 businesses outright including the BNSF railroad and Geico car insurer outright.

It also invests in dozens of companies including American Express Co <AXP.N>, Bank of America Corp <BAC.N> and Coca-Cola Co <KO.N>. It has a roughly $125 billion stake in Apple Inc <AAPL.O> based on its holdings as of June 30.

"Buffett's portfolio is becoming heavily skewed to Apple, so maybe he was looking for something the complete opposite of Apple," said Monex chief strategist Hiroki Takashi in Tokyo.

Most of Berkshire's operating businesses are American, though it has acquired a handful of foreign companies including Israel's IMC International Metalworking and German motorcycle apparel retailer Detlev Louis.

Additional investments in Japan could also help reduce Berkshire's cash pile, which ended June at a record $146.6 billion.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, and Hideyuki Sano and Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo; Additional reporting by Bhargav Acharya in Bengaluru and David Dolan and Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo; Editing by Paul Simao and Christopher Cushing)
Turkeys opening to Africa, which began as a diplomatic and humanitarian endeavor two decades ago, is becoming increasingly militarized, fueling the regional influence wars between Turkey and Qatar on one side and Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and France on the other.

Dating back to an action plan adopted in 1998, Turkeys opening to Africa gained momentum in 2005, which Ankara declared as Year of Africa. The outreach, marked by active diplomacy and humanitarian aid, turned into a passionate venture for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after his regional ambitions shot up during the Arab Spring. Africa became an attractive new ground for Ankaras pursuit of influence, met with suspicion in the Middle East as a neo-Ottoman quest. Though the Ottoman legacy may bring back unpleasant memories in North Africa, Turkey has found ground for smoother exchanges in many other corners of the continent.

Since 2002, the number of Turkish embassies in Africa has risen from 12 to 42 and its business cooperation councils from six to 46, while the African routes of the Turkish Airlines have increased from four to 60. Drawing on this expanded network, Erdogan has moved to add military dimensions to bilateral ties. In his visits to the continent, he has not only advertised Turkish military products but also sought to forge military collaborations.

In the fall of 2017, six years after Erdogans memorable visit to war-torn Somalia, Turkey inaugurated a $50-million military base in Mogadishu that established a new equilibrium in the Horn of Africa.

Later in the year, Sudan agreed to lease its Suakin Island to Turkey for 99 years, sparking anxiety of an Ottoman return to the Red Sea among rival countries. The deal involved the restoration of historical monuments on the island, once an Ottoman post, but Turkeys plans also included the construction of a port for civilian and military purposes. Egypt responded in kind, wary that Sudan, emboldened by Turkish support, would grow more assertive in the disputed Halayeb triangle on the Red Sea coast. In addition to building the Mohamed Naguib military base near the Libyan border that facilitated Emirati operations in the region, Egypt reinforced the Halayeb triangle and sent troops to the Emirate base in Eritrea, not far from the Sudanese border. For Eritrea, Egypts dispatch of soldiers was a welcome boost against a common adversary, Ethiopia, which was amassing troops on the Eritrean border.

In a further show of force earlier this year, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi inaugurated the Berenice military base, the largest in the Red Sea region, in a ceremony attended by Abu Dhabis crown prince and the Saudi deputy defense minister. Egypt is reportedly also seeking a military base also in Somaliland, adding to tensions with Ethiopia over the latters Renaissance Dam on the Nile.

Amid Turkeys thriving ties with Somalia, the UAE has sought to boost its clout in Somaliland and Puntland, both of which broke away from Mogadishus control in the 1990s. Emirati companies have won multi-million-dollar projects to expand and develop ports in the two regions. The influence war in the Horn of Africa has prompted Saudi Arabia to acquire a base in Djibouti, following in the steps of China, France and the United States.

The ouster of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2019 came as a blow to Turkey in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, with the Saudis and Emiratis seeking to woo Sudans new leadership with $3 billion in assistance.

Erdogans ambitions in Africa, however, have flared up anew since the signing of two critical deals with the Tripoli government in November 2019 and the ensuing Turkish military intervention in Libya. Turkey is seeking a lasting air and naval presence in Libya, a plan that if realized would further boost its Africa venture. Erdogans efforts to advance ties with former French colonies such as Chad, Gabon, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal have already stoked the rivalry between Turkey and France.

In the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia is emerging as a second potential partner for Turkey after Somalia amid the countrys simmering dispute with Egypt and Sudan over the waters of the Nile. The enmity between Ankara and Cairo since the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 has already brought them to loggerheads in Libya, so it seems logical that Turkey might try to use ties with Ethiopia as a further leverage against Egypt.

And lacking any Arab backing against Egypt, Ethiopia appears eager for a counterbalance with a Muslim country like Turkey. A special envoy of Ethiopias prime minister met with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara July 17. Some saw the visit as a Turkish gesture of support for Ethiopia in its water row with Egypt, and there was even speculation that Ankara might offer radar and missile systems to protect the Renaissance Dam. Turkish media claimed the Ethiopian envoy suggested a mediation role for Ankara, but with the ongoing crisis in Turkish-Egyptian ties, Ankara is hardly capable of such mediation.

The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper commented that Turkey already enjoys a strategic alliance with Somalia in the Horn of Africa and developing a similar relationship with Ethiopia amounts to a clear message to the UAE and Egypt.

An analysis run by the state-owned Anatolia news agency, meanwhile, argued for a cautious approach to the Egypt-Ethiopia row. Some may conclude that Turkey will side with Ethiopia for the sake of weakening the Sisi regime, but Turkey should follow a more cautious policy as it cannot afford losing both Egypt and Sudan in the long term, the analysis read. Ethiopia is unlikely to back Turkeys position in Libya, it stressed, adding that some dark quarters are already on the lookout for an opportunity to accuse Erdogan of striking Arabs via the Blue Nile.

According to Anatolia, the Ethiopian ambassador to Turkey, Girma Temesgen Barkessa, told the press at home that Ankara would provide expertise to Ethiopian diplomats on hydro-political negotiations in a show of support for the Renaissance Dam. Barkessa had earlier described Turkey as a strategic partner and called for more Turkish investments in Ethiopia. They currently amount to $2.5 billion, or a third of all Turkish investments in Africa.

Libyas southern neighbor Niger is another country on Turkeys radar in the influence war in Africa. Cavusoglu visited Niger July 21, signing a cooperation deal on military training among others. The deal sparked speculation that Turkey is seeking a military base in Niger, though no reliable information has emerged thus far to corroborate the claims. Similarly, Turkey has been sounding Chad out to add a military dimension to its ties with Libyas second neighbor to the south.

Turkeys cooperation with Niger involves the field of mining  another irritant for the French, who hold a 63% share in the operation of Nigers uranium mines. In January, Turkey signed a deal for mineral exploration in three fields in southwestern Niger. Around the same time, Erdogan said Somalia had invited Turkey to explore for oil in its seas. Somalia is expected to announce the winners of its first oil and gas licenses early next year.

Despite all those ambitious moves, Turkish trade and investments have yet to grow to an impressive level in Africa. According to official figures, the countrys annual trade volume with the continent stood at about $21 billion in 2018 and 2019. And by militarizing its Africa policy, Turkey risks opening cracks in the network of ties it has built across the continent over the past two decades.
B oris Johnson is facing mounting pressure for clarity from Tory backbenchers after a series of coronavirus U-turns.

It comes as MPs return to Westminster after the summer recess.

The Prime Minister has come under fire for presiding over several U-turn decisions over the last few weeks, including on exam results and face coverings in schools.

After months of what one Tory MP called a megadisaster from one day to the next, many are now demanding reassurances from ministers as Parliament resumes.

A senior Conservative MP said that backbenchers were tired of the U-turns.

Theres that element of calamity  and frankly there are people from the Red Wall seats who are getting jittery.

Huw Merriman tells ministers to get a grip as he slams U-turn on schools

But not only Red Wall seats, but other people who havent got marginal seats like that.

Wed like to be in a Government that has the impression of being competent  rather than lurching from one issue to another and then after a short time doing a U-turn.

He said MPs were left with egg on their face each time they defended Government policy to constituents, and then had to reverse their stance.

The backbencher urged the Government to say it would be more careful in decision making to avoid future U-turns, and also called for clarity on tax policy to avoid the Tory party having a public row.

Coronavirus hits the UK - In pictures 1 /81 Coronavirus hits the UK - In pictures A deserted Westminster Bridge PA A man wearing a face mask or covering due to the COVID-19 pandemic, walks past customers sat outside a restaurant AFP via Getty Images Boris Johnson addresses the nation on the Coronavirus lockdown Andrew Parsons Runners pass cardboard cutouts of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William during the London Marathon in London AP An empty escalator at Charing Coss London Underground tube station Jeremy Selwyn Electronic bilboards displays a message warning people to stay home in Sheffield PA A sign is displayed in the window of a student accommodation building following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Mancheste Reuters People take part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square, organised by Stop New Normal, to protest against coronavirus restrictions, in Londo AP People sing and dance in Leicester Square on the eve on the 10PM curfew Reuters Hearts painted by a team of artists from Upfest are seen in the grass at Queen Square, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Bristol Reuters Graffiti reads 'good luck and stay safe', as the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases grow around the world, under a bridge in London Reuters A sign is pictured in Soho, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London Reuters Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures, during a coronavirus briefing in Downing Street, London AP A person runs past posters with a message of hope, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in Manchester REUTERS Riot police face protesters who took part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square, organised by Stop New Normal, to protest against coronavirus restrictions in London AP An image of The Queen eith quotes from her broadcast to the UK and the Commonwealth in relation to the Coronavirus epidemic are displayed on lights in London's Piccadilly Circus PA Military vehicles cross Westminster Bridge after members of the 101 Logistic Brigade delivered a consignment of medical masks to St Thomas' hospital Getty Images Durdle Door in Dorset Reuters Captain Tom Moore via Reuters Mia, aged 8, and Jack, aged 5, take part in "PE with Joe" a daily live workout with Joe Wicks on Youtube to help kids stay fit who have to stay indoors due to the Coronavirus outbreak PA An NHS worker reacts at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital during the Clap for our Carers campaign in support of the NHS Reuters Goats which have taken over the deserted streets of Llandudno @AndrewStuart via PA Tobias Weller PA Novikov restaurant in London with its shutters pulled down while the restaurant is closed London Landscapes: Hyde Park and the Serpentine, central London. Matt Writtle A newspaper vendor in Manchester city centre giving away free toilet rolls with every paper bought as shops run low on supplies due to fears over the spread of the coronavirus PA Theo Clay looks out of his window next to his hand-drawn picture of a rainbow in Liverpool, as the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continue Reuters A young man cuts another man's hair on top of a closed hairdresser in Oxford Reuters General view of the new NHS Nightingale Hospital, built to fight against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London via Reuters Jason Baird is seen dressed as Spiderman during his daily exercise to cheer up local children in Stockport, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues Reuters A woman wearing a face mask walks past Buckingham Palace Getty Images A man holds mobile phone displaying a text message alert sent by the government warning that new rules are in force across the UK and people must stay at home PA Medical staff on the Covid-19 ward at the Neath Port Talbot Hospital, in Wales, as the health services continue their response to the coronavirus outbreak. PA Prime Minister Boris Johnson taking part in a virtual Cabinet meeting with his top team of ministers PA A shopper walks past empty shelves in a Lidl store on in Wallington. After spates of "panic buying" cleared supermarket shelves of items like toilet paper and cleaning products, stores across the UK have introduced limits on purchases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have also created special time slots for the elderly and other shoppers vulnerable to the new coronavirus. Getty Images People on a busy tube train in London at rush hour PA Mia, aged 8 and her brother Jack, aged 5 from Essex, continue their school work at home, after being sent home due to the coronavirus PA Children are painting 'Chase the rainbows' artwork and springing up in windows across the country Reuters Social distancing in Primrose Hill Jeremy Selwyn A general view of a locked gate at Anfield, Liverpool as The Premier League has been suspended PA Homeless people in London AFP via Getty Images A piece of art by the artist, known as the Rebel Bear has appeared on a wall on Bank Street in Glasgow. The new addition to Glasgow's street art is capturing the global Coronavirus crisis. The piece features a woman and a man pulling back to give each other a kiss PA The Queen leaves Buckingham Palace, London, for Windsor Castle to socially distance herself amid the coronavirus pandemic PA A general view on Grey street, Newcastle as coronavirus cases grow around the world Reuters Matt Raw, a British national who returned from the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan in China, leaves quaratine at Arrowe Park Hospital on Merseyside PA Britain's Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty (L) and Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance look on as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks during a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) news conference inside 10 Downing Street Reuters The ticket-validation terminals at the tram stop on Edinburgh's Princes Street are cleaned following the coronavirus outbreak. PA Locked school gates at Rockcliffe First School in Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear PA A sign at a Sainsbury's supermarket informs customers that limits have been set on a small number of products as the number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases grow around the world Reuters Jawad Javed delivers coronavirus protection kits that he and his wife have put together to the vulnerable people of their community of Stenhousemuir, between Glasgow and Edinburgh AFP via Getty Images A sign advertising a book titled "How Will We Survive On Earth?" Getty Images A man who appears to be homeless sleeping wearing a mask today in Victoria Jeremy Selwyn A pedestrian walks past graffiti that reads "Diseases are in the City" in Edinburgh AFP via Getty Images Staff from The Lyric Theatre, London inform patrons, as it shuts its doors PA A quiet looking George IV Bridge in Edinburgh PA A quieter than usual British Museum Getty Images A racegoer attends Cheltenham in a fashionable face mask SplashNews.com A commuter wears a face mask at London Bridge Station Jeremy Selwyn A empty restaurant in the Bull Ring Shopping Centre Getty Images A deserted Trafalgar Square in London PA Passengers determined to avoid the coronavirus before leaving the UK arrive at Gatwick Airport Getty Images

Finding a way to pay for the economic impact of coronavirus is already dividing Conservatives.

Another senior Tory said that it was right to consider a temporary change to the triple lock on pensions for one year  as is reportedly being considered  to take account of the fact that it is the younger generation who are bearing the brunt of the effects of Covid.

Another suggested Chancellor Rishi Sunak take a leaf out of his predecessor Nigel Lawsons book, by reducing taxes in a bid to encourage growth.

One other mooted policy is to cut the foreign aid budget  which stands at 0.7 per cent of the UKs gross national income.

Another suggested Chancellor Rishi Sunak take a leaf out of his predecessor Nigel Lawsons book, by reducing taxes in a bid to encourage growth / REUTERS

But Conservative former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell said: With the ink hardly dry on our manifesto, I dont think the House of Commons would easily agree to balance the books on the backs of the poorest women and children in the world.

And Tory chairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee Tobias Ellwood said the proposal was shortsighted in failing to appreciate how well targeted aid can strengthen relationships and open up new markets  thus helping the Treasury.

The Government is also under pressure to ensure the reopening of schools in England this week goes without a hitch  and that the move does not push up coronavirus cases.

Conservative chairman of the Education Select Committee Robert Halfon said that he wanted the Government and exam regulators to provide absolute clarity on the syllabuses so teachers know what to teach  as well as reassurance for parents and teachers that it is safe to return.

He also said schools should run tests to assess pupils academic attainment, mental health and wellbeing  and send the results to the Department for Education and Ofqual to help determine when exams should take place next year.

Im not talking about nationwide exams  I think thats the last thing we need  but just some basic understanding of what catch up is needed and to work out what delay is needed if (exams) need to be delayed, he told PA.

Other challenges facing the Government this autumn including trying to strike a Brexit deal before the end of the transition period, the merger of the Foreign Office and Department for International Development, and the expected rise in unemployment when the furlough scheme ends.
Is pet insurance right for you? Its a personal choice for pet owners everywhere. Knowing what pet insurance is all about, though, makes the decision easier.

Dr. Albert Ahn, veterinary adviser for MYOS Pet, has provided the top five things people should know about pet insurance:

It can cover unexpected accidents and illness in a budget-friendly way. It can be customized to meet your pets needs, with a wide variety of policy benefits to choose from. Pet insurance is best obtained at a young age to avoid the generally higher costs and exclusions that can accompany senior dog plans. When its bought early, the insurance coverage will usually remain unchanged during the life of your pet. You can visit any veterinary office you choose with pet insurance. While it doesnt cover pre-existing conditions, it will likely cover undiagnosed future illnesses and injuries.

The best time to get pet insurance is when you get your pet  the sooner (and younger), the better. When purchased early, its more likely that the conditions your pet may face as he/she ages will be covered, whereas an insurance plan obtained in the pets senior years may have many coverage exclusions.

Pet insurances purpose is to cover the financial burden of unexpected major health issues and the procedures, medications, and supplements associated with treatment. And different breeds have different needs. Large breed dog owners have found that different breeds usually have variable insurance policy costs associated with them. Smaller breeds, like Chihuahuas, tend to have less expensive insurance policies compared to large breeds, like Great Danes. This is because larger dogs are at higher risk of certain illnesses and injuries.

If youre able to find a policy thats financially affordable and provides benefits that are worth the investment, its definitely a great decision to opt to insure your pet. Insurance gives you the opportunity to potentially have access to more advanced and expensive treatment options, and it allows you to make the best healthcare choices for your pet in the face of injury or disease without the added stress of significant out-of-pocket costs.
The total number of coronavirus cases in the United States has surged past the six million mark, with states including Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota reporting daily records. More than 183,000 people have died from the disease in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The number of cases globally has gone past 25 million, with deaths exceeding 844,000. More than 16.5 million people have recovered.

New Zealand has made face masks compulsory as it eases coronavirus restrictions in Auckland that were imposed after a sudden spike in cases.

Here are the latest updates:

Monday, August 31

20:35 GMT  UN chief says COVID-19 deepens gender inequality

The United Nations chief has said that the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened inequality between men and women and reversed decades of limited and fragile progress on gender equality and womens rights.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned young women from civil society organizations at a virtual town hall meeting that without a concerned response, we risk losing a generation or more of gains.

During the pandemic, he said women have been on the front lines of the response, as health care workers, teachers, essential staff and as carers in their families and communities. A majority of health care workers are women, but less than a third are in decision-making roles, he said.

Guterres said the pandemic has impacted physical and mental health, education, and labor force participation. He also noted reports in some places of increases in teenage pregnancies and gender-based violence.

20:30 GMT  US coronavirus infections exceed 6 million

The number of coronavirus cases in the United States topped 6 million on Monday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, while global cases have exceeded 25 million.

The grim milestone comes around three weeks after the toll reached 5 million in the US, which leads the world by far in confirmed infections.

The US also has the highest number of COVID-19 deaths, at more than 183,300, as well as one of the worst figures on a per capita basis. Experts expect the figure to rise, with one model from research institute IHME predicting at least 317,300 fatalities by December 1.

The pandemic has shown signs of easing in states including California and Florida, which were some of the main drivers of the weeks-long surge in infections that began in mid-June.





18:25 GMT  EU offers 400 mln euros to WHO-led COVID-19 vaccine initiative

The European Commission has said that it would contribute to an initiative led by the World Health Organization to buy COVID-19 vaccines, while the WHO said Germany had joined the pact and that the agency was still negotiating with the bloc.

The Commission, announcing that it would provide 400 million euros ($478 million) in guarantees, did not clarify whether EU states would acquire shots through the WHO scheme.

Germany has joined the COVAX facility today, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Gheybreyesus told a news conference in Geneva without elaborating the terms.

And also were negotiating with the rest of EU members. One possibility we are checking is for the EU members to join as a bloc. I think the best way to end this pandemic is through solidarity, through cooperation, through oneness, Tedros added.

17:50 GMT  Italy daily coronavirus cases drop to 996

Italy has Monday reported a daily increase of 996 in its novel coronavirus infections count, the first time the closely-watched figure fell below 1,000 since August 25.

The Health Ministry said total infections rose to 269,214, while there were six new fatalities, raising the overall death toll to 35,483.

During August 26-30, daily infection figures hovered between 1,300 to 1,400, the highest levels since early May, a time when Italy began easing strict lockdown measures.

Italy was the first Western country to be hit with the pandemic, but, after a severe health emergency in March and April, it brought infection rates under control in the following months.

17:35 GMT  France reports 3,082 new coronavirus cases

French health authorities have reported 3,082 new COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, sharply down from a caseload of above 5,000 each on the two previous days, but the Monday figure always tends to dip as there are less tests conducted on Sundays.

The seven-day moving average of new infections, which smoothes out reporting irregularities, stood at 5,167, reaching a new record for a fourth day in a row, versus a low of 272 on May 27, two weeks after the country ended its two-months long lockdown.

Frances cumulative total of COVID-19 infections has reached 281,025, up 50% in comparison with the July 31 figure.

The number of people hospitalised with the disease are up for the second day running after going down for almost two weeks.





16:50 GMT  Emergency authorisation of COVID-19 vaccines needs great care: WHO

The emergency authorisation of COVID-19 vaccines requires a great deal of seriousness and reflection, the World Health Organization has said.

Although every country had the right to approve drugs without full trial, it is not something that you do lightly, WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan told a news conference.

16:35 GMT  Opening up without control of COVID-19 is a recipe for disaster: WHO

The World Health Organization called on countries to persevere with restrictions to tackle COVID-19, director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said, adding that opening up without control of the virus would be a recipe for disaster.

Tedros recognised that many people are getting tired of restrictions and want to return to normality after eight months of the new coronavirus.

We want to see children returning to school and people returning to work places, but we want to see it done safely, Tedros told a news conference.

No country can just pretend the pandemic is over, he said. The reality is this virus spreads easily. Opening up without control is a recipe for disaster.





16:10 GMT  Spain reports more than 23,000 new coronavirus cases since Friday

Spain has registered more than 23,000 new coronavirus cases since Friday, health emergency chief Fernando Simon told a news conference, suggesting the infection rate had declined slightly from a peak reached the previous week.

Health ministry data showed 2,489 new cases were diagnosed in the past 24 hours, while the cumulative total of cases since the onset of the pandemic hit 462,858.

Five people died in the past day, bringing the total death toll to 29,094, the data showed. The latest statistics could be modified in future as Spain retroactively adjusts its daily data.

15:40 GMT  UK records 1,406 new coronavirus cases

The United Kingdom has recorded 1,406 daily confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to government data published on Monday, down from 1,715 a day earlier.

Two people died within 28 days of testing positive for the disease, the daily statistics release said, bringing the total death toll under that measure to 41,501.





15:00 GMT  Mayor of Libyas Misrata dies of coronavirus

The mayor of the western city of Misrata has died of the novel coronavirus, Libyas unity government said, as the conflict-scarred country struggles with mounting cases.

It was with great sadness that we learned of the death of Moustafa Karwad, mayor of Misrata, Monday morning, after a battle against the coronavirus disease, the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord said in a statement on its Facebook page.

The municipality of Misrata, 200 kilometres (120 miles) east of the capital, said local elections would go ahead as planned this week in accordance with the wishes of the deceased and the wish of members of the (city) council, after a mourning period of three days.

The United Nations support mission in Libya, UNSMIL, tweeted its condolences, calling Karwad a dedicated person totally omitted to serving citizens and the nation.

14:25 GMT  Russia to vaccinate high risk groups against COVID-19 towards end of year

Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko has said that mass vaccination of high risk groups in the country against COVID-19 would begin in November-December this year, Russian news agencies reported.

Russia this month became the first country to grant regulatory approval to a COVID-19 vaccine after less than two months of human testing, prompting international experts to question its safety and efficacy.





12:15 GMT  UAE flies aid to Syria to help battle coronavirus

The UAE has sent medical aid to war-torn Syria to combat the novel coronavirus, in the first such delivery since their leaders broke a nine-year silence, the Syrian Red Crescent said on Monday.

The shipment included medicines, ventilators and disinfectant, the Red Crescent and state news agency SANA said.

It comes after President Bashar al-Assad and Abu Dhabis Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan spoke on the phone in March for the first time since Syrias war erupted in 2011.

11:25 GMT  At least 100 Indonesian doctors die of COVID-19

At least 100 Indonesian doctors have died after testing positive for the novel coronavirus since the onset of the pandemic, the countrys medical association said.

The number of our colleagues who have fallen during the fight against COVID-19 has reached 100, Daeng Faqih, chairman of the Indonesian Medical Association, said in a statement.

The number of other health workers who have succumbed to the disease also continues to increase, he said, without citing a number.

10:35 GMT  EU offers $476m in guarantees to WHO-led COVID-19 vaccine initiative

The European Commission said it would contribute 400 million euros ($476m) in guarantees to an initiative led by the World Health Organization to buy COVID-19 vaccines.

Countries wishing to be part of the WHO initiative, dubbed COVAX, had to submit expressions of interest by Monday.

10:05 GMT  Scientists see downsides to top COVID-19 vaccines from Russia, China

The COVID-19 vaccines developed in Russia and China are based on a common cold virus that many people have been exposed to, potentially limiting their effectiveness, some experts say.

CanSino Biologicss vaccine, approved for military use in China, is a modified form of adenovirus type five, or Ad5.

A vaccine developed by Moscows Gamaleya Institute, approved in Russia earlier this month despite limited testing, is based on Ad5 and a second less common adenovirus.

The Ad5 concerns me just because a lot of people have immunity, said Anna Durbin, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins University. Im not sure what their strategy is  maybe it wont have 70 percent efficacy. It might have 40 percent efficacy, and thats better than nothing, until something else comes along.

09:30 GMT  Ghana to reopen international airport after five months

A health worker checks the temperature of a traveller as part of the coronavirus screening procedure last January at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, Ghana [File: Francis Kokoroko/Reuters]

Ghana will reopen its international airport on Tuesday but with new regulations in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the president announced.

Kotoka International Airport, located outside the capital Accra, was closed in March along with other border points in a bid to contain the virus in the West African country.

Land borders would remain closed, President Nana Akufo-Addo said in a nationwide broadcast.

09:00 GMT  Hong Kong to resume face-to-face school classes by late September

Hong Kongs Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung said the city will resume face-to-face school classes from September 23.

The citys government had said at the start of August that face-to-face classes would be suspended indefinitely as the Chinese special administrative region battled to control a third wave of the coronavirus.

Schools in the former British colony have been mostly shut since January with many having switched to online learning.

08:40 GMT  Gaza Strip registers 69 new virus infections

Palestinian health authorities reported 69 new infections from the coronavirus in the blockaded Gaza Strip.

In a statement, the health ministry said the territorys virus count rose to 356 confirmed cases, including four deaths and 17 recoveries.

The ministry warned of a shortage of necessary medical supplies to curb the virus outbreak due to the 14-year Israeli blockade on the strip.

07:40 GMT  Russias coronavirus cases approach one million

Russia has reported 4,993 new cases of the coronavirus, bringing its nationwide tally to 995,319  the fourth largest caseload in the world.

Russias coronavirus task force said 83 people had died over the last 24 hours, pushing the official death toll to 17,176.

07:10 GMT  Pakistan reports lowest daily COVID-19 cases

Pakistans daily number of COVID-19 infections continued to drop as authorities reported 213 additional cases, the lowest daily figure since May.

The total number of infections to date reached 295,849, with 603 patients in critical condition, according to the health ministry data.

The data also shows a gradual decline in the number of fatalities, with six more deaths from the disease across the country, raising the death toll to 6,294.

06:50 GMT  Paris to make free COVID-19 tests available in the capital

The Paris local municipality said it would look to make free COVID-19 testing available in all of the capitals 20 districts (arrondissements), as authorities battle against signs of a re-emergence of the virus in France.

The Paris mayors office added in a statement that from Monday onwards, three permanent laboratories would be set up to conduct free COVID-19 tests, as well as two other mobile laboratories that would go around the capital.

Hello, this is Linah Alsaafin taking over the blog from my colleague Ted Regencia.

05:24 GMT  Malaysia marks Independence Day amid COVID-19 pandemic

Malaysia marked its 63rd Independence Day on Monday amid the coronavirus pandemic restrictions, including international tourism until the end of 2020.

On the eve of the celebration on Sunday night, thousands of people gathered in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, but celebrations were muted with the government cancelling the usual fireworks display.

Malaysia has seen a significant decline in the number of cases, with 17 new infections reported on Sunday.

On Friday, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said, It will be a long time before our country is free from the dangers of COVID-19.

05:00 GMT  Thailand reports single imported coronavirus case, no new fatalities

Thailands Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration reported on Monday that a British woman has tested positive for COVID-19, raising the countrys total infections to 3,412.

No new deaths were reported on Monday, keeping the death toll at 58.

All of Thailands cases in the past three months have been detected in quarantine [File: EPA]

04:36 GMT  India coronavirus cases surge to 3.62 million

India reported 78,512 new novel coronavirus infections on Monday, just less than 200 compared with the record number of daily cases the country registered the previous day.

India now has a total of 3.62 million cases, just behind the US and Brazil. It has the third-highest fatalities at 64,400, according to Johns Hopkins University.

04:10 GMT  Thousands arrested in China for pandemic-related offences

Chinas state prosecutors office has reported that nearly 5,800 people have been arrested during the pandemic for committing crimes ranging from killing health workers, selling defective medical equipment and lying about their travel history.

One case involved a shopper beating to death a customer who reminded him to wear a mask in a supermarket, according to AFP news agency.

From January to July, 5,797 people were arrested and 6,755 were prosecuted, the Supreme Peoples Procuratorate said.

Other cases involved alleged embezzlement of and stabbing of a health inspector.

03:42 GMT  Germany reports 610 new COVID-19 cases

Germanys Robert Koch Institute, which monitors infectious diseases in the country, has reported 610 new cases, bringing the total to more than 242,000 as of Monday.

The death toll has reached 9,298, up three fatalities from the previous day.

03:25 GMT  US eyes giving COVID-19 vaccine emergency approval

Stephen Hahn, the head of the US Food and Drug Administration, has raised the possibility of giving an emergency approval on coronavirus vaccines being developed in the country, even before trials are concluded.

If they do that before the end of phase three, which involves large-scale human testing, we may find that appropriate. We may find that inappropriate, we will make a determination, Hahn told the Financial Times.

The US has reported almost six million cases and 183,000 deaths, raising criticism and questions against the Trump administrations handling of the deadly pandemic.

03:01 GMT  Greeces coronavirus cases surpass 10,000

Greeces health authorities reported that the coronavirus cases in the country have exceeded 10,000, half of which were reported just in August.

At least 157 new cases were reported on Sunday, including 41 from overseas.

Greece also reported two more deaths bringing the countrys total to 262.

02:45 GMT  Half a million people sign up for free COVID-19 test in Hong Kong

Despite calls for a boycott, more than 420,000 Hong Kong residents have registered for free universal coronavirus testing, which is set to begin on Tuesday, according to Hong Kong authorities.

According to the Gov.HK website, since the online booking system started, at least 80 community testing centres have been fully booked.

The Hong Kong government has initially set a seven-day testing period, although it has not set a target for testing.

02:10 GMT  China reports 17 new coronavirus cases

All 17 cases reported on Monday were imported and there were no additional deaths recorded [Ng Han Guan/AP]

Chinas National Health Commission reported on Monday at least 17 new coronavirus cases  all imported  as of the end of Sunday.

That brings the total number of imported cases to 2,499, according to Xinhua news agency.

There were no new reported deaths in the mainland keeping the total at 4,634. Most of Chinas 85,048 COVID-19 patients have recovered.

01:45 GMT  South Korea reports decline in new cases

The number of daily new coronavirus cases in South Korea has stayed below 300 for the second consecutive day on Monday, Yonhap news agency reported quoting Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The country reported 248 new COVID-19 cases, including 238 local infections, raising the total caseload to 19,947, KCDC said. Thats down from the 299 cases reported on Sunday.

One more patient died from the novel coronavirus, raising the death toll to 324. Almost 15,000 of the cases have fully recovered.

01:30 GMT  Australias Victoria reports lowest infections since July 3

Australias state of Victoria has recorded 73 new coronavirus cases on Monday  its lowest total since July 3.

The states death toll also increased by 41, including 22 cases at an elder care facility that were reported belatedly.

Meanwhile, New South Wales raised its health alerts in some areas after a cluster of infections. It reported seven new cases on Sunday.

Australia has reported more than 24,000 cases, at least 3,100 of them active. It has recorded at least 652 deaths.

01:05 GMT  Mexicos coronavirus death toll surpasses 64,000

Mexico has confirmed 4,129 new coronavirus infections and 339 additional fatalities, bringing the total number of cases to 595,841 and 64,158 deaths.

The number of cases and deaths, however, continues to be on a downward trend, according to data from the ministry of health, although the government has long acknowledged that the real number of infections could be higher than the numbers being reported.

People demanding the resignation of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, commonly referred to by his initials AMLO, in a protest organised by the Frente Nacional anti-AMLO or National Front Against AMLO, at the Plaza de la Republica in Mexico City, on August 30, 2020 [AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo]

00:30 GMT  New Zealand eases restrictions for Auckland residents

New Zealand has eased coronavirus restrictions in the city of Auckland, and made the use of face masks compulsory.

The New Zealand Herald reported many of the citys residents swarming to the citys airport to take advantage of the travel opportunity.

New Zealand has reported more than 1,700 cases and 22 deaths from coronavirus.

00:15 GMT  Several US states report daily record of COVID-19 cases

The total number of coronavirus cases in the United States is nearing six million, with states including Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota reporting daily records.

More than 183,000 people have died from the disease, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Meanwhile, the US states of Montana and Idaho have reported record numbers of COVID-19 hospitalisations, according to reports.

In an interview with CBSs Face the Nation on Sunday, Dr Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said the trend was worrisome.

00:01 GMT  Brazil reports 566 deaths and 16,000 new cases

Brazils health ministry has reported 566 additional coronavirus deaths over the past 24 hours and 16,158 new cases, bringing the countrys death toll to 120,828 deaths, with 3,862,311 total infections.

The numbers of deaths and new cases as of the end of Sunday were significantly lower than those on the previous day, which could either be attributed to delays in reporting by the state government, or an overall continuing downward trend.

The country has the second-highest number of deaths and infections. It leads in the number of recoveries at 3.2 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.

_______________________________________________________________

Read all the key developments from yesterday (August 30) here.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Peace and Harmony Committee headed by Raghav Chadha has decided to call upon some witnesses on August 31 to further determine the veracity of the allegations against social media giant Facebook.

The step comes consequent to the information which has come to light in the previous proceedings of the committee as well as careful deliberation of the material on record. The list includes Awesh Tiwari, state bureau chief of Swaraj Express, Chhattisgarh who has lodged an FIR against Ankhi Das (Senior official of Facebook) and two other individuals alleging offences of the likes of creating enmity between different groups and criminal defamation; Kunal Purohit - an independent journalist who has allegedly brought to light new pieces of evidence which point towards the alleged biasedness of Facebook towards the current ruling dispensation.

Prabir Purkayastha- editor- NewsClick; Subhash Gatade, an independent Journalist; and Kiruba Munusamy - advocate and a social, political and judicial activist are also in the list.

According to the committee, the complainants have made scathing allegations of biasedness and deliberate inaction on the part of Facebook.

It was alleged that the manner in which Facebook has behaved it invites the ingredients of Section. 153A, 295A, 505 of the IPC.

It had been alleged in the complaints that Facebook, despite its policies and regulations on curbing unabated dissemination of hateful and offensive content, in place, has been turning a blind eye to mass manufacturing and propagation of hateful communal content which have potential to erupt violence and riot-like situations.
Although nearly 30 years old, cloud computing is still a new technology for most organizations. The cloud promises to reduce costs and increase efficiencies through storage and management of large repositories of data and systems that are theoretically cheaper to maintain and easier to protect.

Given the growing rush by organizations to move to the cloud, its no surprise that some policymakers in Washington are calling for regulation of this disruptive technology. Last year, Representative Katie Porter (D-CA) and Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), urged the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to consider cloud services as essential elements of the modern banking system and subject them to an enforced regulatory regime. Their calls for this kind of oversight came in the wake of a major data breach of Capital One in which an employee of the financial institution was able to steal more than 100 million customer credit applications by exploiting a misconfigured firewall in operations hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

A study released today by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace aims to give lawmakers and regulators a basic understanding of whats happening in the cloud arena, with a particular focus on the security of these vast reservoirs of information. Cloud Security: A Primer for Policymakers, written by Tim Maurer, co-director of the Carnegie Endowments Cyber Policy Initiative and Garrett Hinck, a doctoral student at Columbia University and a former Carnegie Endowment research assistant, argues that the debate about cloud security remains vague and the public policy implications [are] poorly understood.

From a public policy perspective, the image of a cloud obscures as much as it explains, the report states. A more nuanced picture emerges when the cloud is considered in terms of its layersfrom the physical data centers and network cabling that form its foundation to the virtual software environments and applications that everyday users interact with.

Systemic cloud security risk

But, the paper states, cloud service is concentrated in the hands of a few providers including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, so-called hyperscale cloud service providers, with firms like Alibaba Cloud and Tencent playing a similar role in China. The rising cost of cyberattacks means that most companies cant effectively defend themselves, leaving organizations better off entrusting their security to these external firms security teams. However, that solution raises a new problem which is the systemic risk associated with a centralized approach.

Theres very little understanding of what the cloud is, Maurer tells CSO. There is very little out there that describes what the cloud is and how to think about cybersecurity.

Cloud security policy concerns

Although the Carnegie Endowment report steers clear of public policy recommendations, it does note there are two key policy concerns that have to be balanced.

The first one is the current and known problem of cyber insecurity," Maurer says. "Most organizations still struggle to effectively protect themselves against hackers.

Few organizations can rival the Fort Knox level of security provided by Google, Amazon or Microsoft, so they might be better off entrusting security to these giants. For them, migrating to the cloud can actually improve their cybersecurity because they can then outsource and delegate the protection to the really high-paid security teams of the top security providers, Maurer says. Those organizations would still need to properly configure their cloud setups to avoid accidental data exposure, which the report is one of the most common events to disrupt cloud services.

The second concern is the systemic risk cloud providers pose, namely that allowing so much data to be stored in the hands of giants could invite rare but catastrophic events. The report cites a 2018 Lloyds of London study that estimates a three- to six-day outage of a major cloud service provider could cause economic losses of up to $15 billion. Moreover, like Fort Knox, cloud services could become juicy targets for attackers because of the amount of riches they contain.

A growing number of policy makers in Congress but also other places around the world are starting to become more concerned that the more companies and governments migrate to the cloud, the more of a concentrated risk there is, the more systemic risk that migration to the cloud poses, Maurer says. If there is a major incident affecting one cloud service provider, then it could affect an entire industry and have a broader sector-wide impact.

The cloud is more secure than on-premises

Still, the systemic risk shouldnt overshadow the security benefits of moving to the cloud. Were actually on the verge of people worrying too much about the systemic risk and losing sight of the fact that migration to the cloud can actually help us solve the current cybersecurity problem, Maurer says. A CISO recently told Maurer that migrating to the cloud makes the organization ten times more secure than what his security team could achieve on their own.

Other concerns briefly raised in the report center on the dominance of the American cloud providers overseas. Security is only one of the things governments think about. Theres also a question of data localization, a question of antitrust, a question that many of them want to build out their own domestic tech industries and are therefore imposing laws that they try to restrict the primarily American cloud service providers.

A collaborative approach to cloud security

Looking ahead, cloud security would benefit from a collaborative approach among those giant providers, Maurer argues, given that the breakneck competition among them stands in the way of protecting against threats that affect all of them. If we look at the current level of maturity and culture in the tech industry, it is so hyper-competitive that they actually rarely talk to each other and they rarely discuss security that could impact all of them, he says.

Although some critics of a collaborative cloud security initiative might raise antitrust concerns, there are models of similar approaches in other industries, including finance and aviation, Maurer says. If you look at other highly competitive industries like the financial industry, like the aviation industry, they have all formed specific industry consortia that are designed to help address security because they recognize the risks in the entire industry and not just individual companies.

It will be much more important in the future for the major cloud service providers to come together to share and compare notesand to also potentially share data about threat actors that may be targeting them, he says. That is likely to pay off more in the future than a regulatory framework would, which is down the road.
How would you spend 340 ($450)? Its a lot of money  enough for a haute couture purse from Yves Saint Laurent. It is also the market rate for a kilogram of scales from the worlds most trafficked animal.

The story of how the trade of pangolin scales became one of the most profitable illegal businesses in Africa is one that unfolds alongside the globalisation of crime and the increased Asian presence in Africa.

In the first part of this series, the conditions that forced destitute locals to poach pangolins were examined. But what happens afterwards? And what are the sophisticated networks behind this illegal trade that deliver these animal parts to consumers halfway across the world?

Pangolin scales are trafficked more like drugs than ivory, explains Steve Galster of non-governmental organisation Freeland. [With ivory], buyers want a full tusk. You can move scales in different quantities, disguise them as fish scales, put them in canvas bags.

They can make their way over long distances without degrading from dampness, unlike cocaine.

Based in Bangkok, Freeland seeks to combat international wildlife trafficking and human slavery. It is also part of the EndPandemics alliance of NGOs that are campaigning to address the root cause of all zoonotic outbreaks  the wildlife trade and destruction of wild habitats.

Asian demand for pangolin parts has quickly outpaced potential supply from Asian pangolin populations. The Zoological Socety of London lists the four Asian pangolin species  Chinese, Sunda, Philippine and Indian  as critically endangered or endangered.

The African trade in pangolins has grown exponentially in recent years, pretty much because the four Asian species have been decimated, says Professor Ray Jansen from the African Pangolin Working Group.

The Covid-19 conservation crisis has shown the urgency of The Independents campaign

African pangolins now form a large proportion of the scales that reach consumer populations in China and Vietnam. Jansen believes that this change has only taken hold in the last four years. Before, pangolins were poached in Africa for their meat but the scales were largely seen as a waste product.

You used to see piles of scales lying openly in chop shops and bushmeat markets, he says. Asian expat workers, who now number over 1 million in 54 African countries, came across them in markets and realised their value. Four years ago, they went from a waste product to an expensive commodity. It was a whole new form of income for African people.

The trade has since been turned on its head, with the shimmering keratin scales now eclipsing the meat as a commodity. According to Freeland, 97 tonnes of pangolin scales were recorded to have left the African continent  the equivalent of about 150,000 pangolins. Its incomprehensible, Jansen says.

As pangolin numbers dwindled in China, India and southeast Asia, criminal syndicates began to look to the African market. According to Freeland, Vietnamese organised crime leads the procurement of scales in Africa, with the implicit consent of bureaucrats and the military in those countries.

Theyre running the black-market FedEx, moving stuff from A to Z, Galster says. And its not just pangolin scales that these gangs run. Theyre offering coke, drugs, anything. The Vietnamese sent their own sourcing agents to African countries, where they would set up and control the trade. The Nigerian gangs that control the cocaine trade coming out of Africa and into southeast Asia are also involved.

Douglas Hendrie is the director of counter-wildlife-trafficking operations at the wildlife crime and investigations unit of Educating Nature Vietnam. In 2005, they created a national hotline for people to report wildlife crime in Vietnam. They now receive five new cases a day.

He tells The Independent of the last major seizure, on 31 March, that left Nigeria for Vietnam but was intercepted in Malaysia. Authorities found 6 tonnes of scales nestled between shipments  the equivalent of over 9,000 pangolins.

A report by the NGO Traffic from 2017 emphasises the global nature of the pangolin trade. An average of 33 countries and territories were involved in international pangolin trafficking per year. Notably, an average of 27 new trade routes were identified each year, highlighting that wildlife trafficking occurs through a highly mobile trade network with constantly shifting trade routes.

The top 29 trade routes that have been used five times or more in international pangolin trafficking incidents between 2010 and 2015 (n = 539). The directional arrows (edges) are weighted by the normalised total number of incidents occurring along each unique trade route. The 12 trade routes that have also been used in five or six consecutive years are displayed in red. Single arrow heads (>) indicate a transit edge in a trade route, and double arrow heads (>>) indicate the last edge in the trade route. Note: The start and end points of a trade route have been approximately centralised per country/territory and do not indicate a specific location within it a country. (Copyright: Traffic) (Copyright: TRAFFIC)

An unfortunate pangolin in Cameroon could find itself plucked out of a burrow by a local, who would then sell it to a middleman to pass on to an agent of a Nigerian crime syndicate in Yaounde.

Its body parts would be frozen and transported to a port in Nigeria, where a Vietnamese syndicate would organise for it to be shipped to Laos. From Laos, it would cross the "golden triangle" (the border region between Laos, Vietnam and China) into consumer markets in Vietnam and China.

Huge, highly organised trafficking networks collect scales on the ground [in Africa], says Professor Jansen. He says that Nigerian ports are responsible for 70 per cent of the African pangolin trade.

It has evolved into a cat and mouse game, explains Galster. Phones seized from traffickers that reveal how they pick one lane or country one week. Rival gangs are intensely competitive and often hostile. Some seizures are just the result of one syndicate ratting on another, he adds.

With the help of organisations such as Freeland, Asian customs forces are able to crack down on pangolin smuggling. Vietnamese and Malaysian officials have received specialised training. The Chinese and Hong Kongers have been on the ball, according to Galster. Syndicates have been forced to route shipments through Europe, notably Germany and the Netherlands.

Some scales end up in the United States too, where there is a persistent market for pangolin parts and other wildlife. In 2015, an investigation by the Humane Society International found medicinal products containing or likely to contain pangolin parts openly for sale online and on the high street.

Other shipments cross the border into China by oxen cart, but much of it goes through southeast Asia, Galster explains. The Golden Triangle is one of many spots where smuggling occurs. In fact, the bulk of wildlife trafficking that occurs through Thailand happens in plain sight, passing through airports, seaports, and major highways, hidden under the cover of legal cargo.

Slowly but surely were starting to close routes down, but these guys find ways.

Traffics report states that the top 10 countries involved with pangolin-trafficking incidents are China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, the United States, Nigeria and Germany.

The top trade routes used for large-quantity shipments of pangolins, based on the available data of international incidents with quantitative information. Trade routes for body parts are depicted in blue (sum 100 body parts), for scales in red (sum 1000 kg), for whole animals in yellow (sum 500 animals). Large-quantity shipments are weighted equally (using the same line thickness) across the three different commodities. Single arrow heads (>) indicate a transit edge in a trade route, and double arrow heads (>>) indicate the last edge in the trade route. (Copyright: Traffic) (Copyright: TRAFFIC)

Since the start of the pandemic, global shipping has sharply declined and pangolin seizures along with it. Industry analysts expect that demand for container transport will drop by 30 per cent this year.

This time last year we had tracked 70 tonnes of scales. Today we are only sitting on 10 tonnes, says Jansen.

But wildlife experts do not think that poaching and wildlife crime levels have significantly changed in comparison with last year. Instead, pangolin parts are sitting in warehouses across Africa and southeast Asia.

According to Hendrie, Vietnam has only seen 10 seizures of live pangolins this year. All our sources close to the trade are saying that Vietnam is dry  even from ivory and tiger parts. Our African sources tell us that poaching is continuing, stockpiles are building up in Africa and waiting for the resumption of shipping.

According to Freelands report, criminal syndicates will actively benefit from the continued threat of extinction to pangolins. Organised criminal networks favour population reductions and even extinction of pangolins because it drives up the value of their stockpiled pangolin scales.

In both China and Vietnam, pangolins are a traditional part of culture and alternative medicine. According to a 1938 edition of the British weekly scientific journal Nature, the scales have a range of applications: Fresh scales are never used, but dried scales are roasted, ashed, cooked in oil, butter, vinegar, boy's urine, or roasted with earth or oyster shells, to cure a variety of ills. Amongst these are excessive nervousness and hysterical crying in children, women possessed by devils and ogres, malarial fever and deafness.

Ground-up pangolin scales are also believed to promote menstruation and lactation in women. Meanwhile their meat, organs and foetuses are served as luxury dishes in Africa and southeast Asia.

Pangolins, like bats, are known to carry coronaviruses. One working theory of the outbreak of this coronavirus is that it came into the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan in a bat. The bat may then have passed it to a live pangolin at the market, which could have allowed the virus to make the jump to humans.

Recommended Endangered pangolins for sale on Facebook

China made headlines in June by supposedly banning pangolin scales from use in traditional Chinese medicine, as well as increasing protections for its native pangolin populations. In February, China permanently banned consumption of wildlife, including pangolins.

Campaigners hailed these steps as a victory, but the Environmental Investigations Agency has cast doubt on whether pangolin scales have been completely removed as an ingredient in remedies. And what will happen to those tonnes of pangolin scales, waiting to enter the market?

Hendrie, who has worked in Vietnam since 1996, has seen the astronomical growth in prosperity of the country's middle classes. Vietnams rise in wealth from 2000 to now is probably a repetition of what happened in China 20 years ago.

Yet the bulk of consumers of pangolin meat, he explains, tend to be the older generations in Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi  for whom it remains a status symbol and luxury dish. The kids who grew up now are more global citizens  internet savvy and globally valued. They grew up in a different Vietnam.

There is hope that attitudes towards pangolins are changing across the world. Hendrie notes that 15 years ago the only exotic food readily available to wealthy Vietnamese was wildlife. Now in terms of the diversity of food available, it is no longer the only, limited choice.

We used to say  boy, if we could open up a franchise of Indian restaurants across Vietnam, we could end the wildlife trade in one swoop."
Defying the social distancing norms, scores of members of the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi and Warkaris launched a protest on Monday demanding reopening of the famous temple of Lord Vitthal in Pandharpur town at Solapur in Maharashtra. During their agitation near the temple, which has been shut due to COVID-19 restrictions, Ambedkar said they were waiting for a response from the district collector over the demand and added that "I am here to break rules," prompting the Shiv Sena and the Congress to hit out at him.

The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) is supporting the demand of the Vishwa Warkari Sena, an outfit of devotees of Lord Vitthal, which had given a memorandum to the Solapur district administration seeking that all temples be reopened in Maharashtra. The police barricaded roads leading to the temple to stop the protesters.

During the protest, Ambedkar was seen asking the protesters to maintain social distancing and keep calm. To a question on protesters gathering in a large number and there being no social distancing, he said it is the sentiments of people that have brought them to Pandharpur.

Reacting to it, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and opposition leaders will find away out on the issue of reopening temples, and urged against talking about breaking rules at least on health issues. He said Prakash Ambedkar is a "patient leader, a student of law and a heir of Dr B R Ambedkar".

"In such a situation, when a medical emergency is prevailing, for a key person like Prakash Ambedkar to speak the language of breaking rules is like provoking people," Raut told reporters in Mumbai. "We could see social distancing norms, which are key in combating the crisis, being violated blatantly today outside the temple. Thousands of people have gathered there and the disease can spread due to it," he said.

The chief minister has not given permission for reopening temples sensing these pit falls, he said. He claimed even Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not in a mood to lift the lockdown completely, but (some) leaders are talking about breaking rules.

He said the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in the state is resuming activities hit by COVID-19 in a phased manner. The state government will discuss the issue of reopening temples and resuming train services in the time to come, the Rajya Sabha member said.

"The opposition parties will do a favour to people of Maharashtra if they (opposition parties) observe patience,"Raut said, adding that leaders like Ambedkar, who have masses behind them, should speak directly to the chief minister or Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on the issue. "But (they) should not hold people to ransom outside Vithobas temple in Pandharpur and not make the situation in Maharashtra, which is improving, tense," Raut said.

Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant saidit was unfortunate that Prakash Ambedkar violated social distancing norms as he led the agitation in Pandharpur. Representatives of sections of societies should cooperate with the government when a pandemic is prevailing, Sawant told reporters in Mumbai.

"I would like to tell Prakash Ambedkar saheb that there is Ambedkar in your name and (Dr B R) Ambedkar has drafted the Constitution. Hence, it is very unfortunate that you broke rules, he said.
(Photo : SkyDrive ) SkyDrive Conducts First Public Manned Flight in Japan  SD-03 manned model makes its world debut (Photo : Volocopter) Daimler's Volocopter

JAPANESE FLYING CAR 2020: Auto company Sky Drive Inc. has successfully did a manned test drive of its flying car on August 25 at the Toyota Test Field.

In the statement released on August 28, the company announced the car's successful flight manned with a pilot controlling the aircraft. The car called SD-03 took off and circled in for about four minutes around the Toyota Test Field where the company's development base is located. A computer-assisted control system helped ensure the safety of the test flight.

"We are extremely excited to have achieved Japan's first-ever manned flight of a flying car in the two years since we founded SkyDrive," CEO Tomohiro Fukuzawa said in a statement adding that the company aims to commercialize the aircraft.

Japan flying car test

The company claims that SD-03 is the world's smallest electric vehicle that takeoffs and lands vertically. It only takes up about two car park space and has eight motors to guarantee safety during emergencies.

The CEO also said they want to offer an alternative mode of transportation. Flying cars are accessible and convenient means of transportation, providing people with "safe, secure, and comfortable new way of life."

Meanwhile, Design Director Takumi Yamamot said that they want the vehicle to be futuristic and desirable for their clients with SkyDrive's advanced technologies.

"In designing an unexplored, new genre of transportation known as the flying car, we chose the keyword "progressive" for inspiration," Yamamot said.

The company statement also confirmed that the success of the manned flight paves the way for future tests beyond the Toyota Test field by the end of 2020. The company also vowed to continuously enhance the vehicle's safety and technology to ensure they meet industry standards before its launch in 2023.

While the price is yet to be announced, Fukuzawa said the company aspires to develop markets across the globe to make "an urban air mobility society" a reality in Japan and worldwide.

Read also: [BREAKING] China's Mars Rover Hits 100 Million KM Travel Mark, Beating NASA's Perseverance

Luxury cars that fly

While Sky Drive launched Japan's first flying car, European car manufacturers have been on the front-run in designing an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) model.

In 2019, the German luxury carmaker Porsche has partnered with Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences in developing a prototype for its own flying car model. Boeing NeXt Vice President and General Manager Steve Nordlund said that the two companies will convey style and innovation as well as precision engineering to "accelerate urban air mobility worldwide."

Another German multinational car manufacturer Daimler, known for its Mercedes brand, has developed Volocopter, which already successfully made its test flight in Europe. Chinese automaker Geely, owner of Sweden's Volvo and a major Daimler shareholder, recently invested $59.5 million on the Volocopter.

Meanwhile, a California-based automaker also envisioned to create a "flying car" that would fit in the garage and drive on roads while deploying its wings for take-off in 2018. Geely also invested on developing Terrafugia Transition, which the company promised to produce in 2019. However, the project is yet to materialize as of this writing.

Read also: Fastest Limousine That Can Go up to 60mph in 6 Seconds Now on Sale for $289,000 in Australia

This is owned by Tech Times

Written by CJ Robles

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Beijing: China has said it is pulling ahead in what could be the final leg of the global coronavirus vaccine race, with four of seven possible candidates in last stage human trials - more than any other country.

However, some are concerned about the quality of the vaccines and that they are being used to gain political leverage. Beijing is so confident of its inoculations that authorities have been administering vaccines for more than a month before clinical studies conclude, authorities revealed last week.

The initial announcement of a vaccine will primarily be a political event.

People deemed at higher risk of infection, such as border officials and state-owned enterprise employees working overseas, have received jabs, after the government approved them for emergency use, according to state media. Soon, transport and service workers are expected to be vaccinated.

"Giving untested vaccines means that there is no guarantee that they are going to work, so people could wrongly assume that they are inoculated when they are not," said Nicholas Thomas, a health security expert and professor at the City University of Hong Kong.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates The ruler of the United Arab Emirates issued a decree Saturday formally ending the countrys boycott of Israel amid a U.S.-brokered deal to normalize relations between the two countries.

The announcement now allows trade and commerce between the UAE, home to oil-rich Abu Dhabi and skyscraper-studded Dubai, and Israel, home to a thriving diamond trade, pharmaceutical companies and tech start-ups.

The announcement further cements the Aug 13 deal opening up relations between the two nations, which required Israel to halt its contentious plan to annex occupied West Bank land sought by the Palestinians. But Palestinians so far have criticized the accord as undercutting one of its few bargaining chips with Israelis in moribund peace negotiations.

The state-run WAM news agency said the decree formally ending the boycott came on the orders of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi and the Emirates leader.

WAM said the new decree allows Israelis and Israeli firms to do business in the UAE, a U.S.-allied federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula. It also allows for the purchase and trade of Israeli goods.

The decree of the new law comes within the UAEs efforts to expand diplomatic and commercial cooperation with Israel, WAM said. It lays out a road map toward launching joint cooperation, leading to bilateral relations by stimulating economic growth and promoting technological innovation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the decree. This is an important step toward advancing peace and prosperity in the region, he said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said in a statement the UAE decision is an important step towards peace, which will yield substantial economic and commercial achievements for both people while strengthening the stability in the region.

Already, some Israeli firms had signed deals with Emirati counterparts. But the repeal of the law widens the likelihood of other joint ventures, such as in aviation or in banking and finance.

Dubai International Airport, home to the long-haul carrier Emirates, has been the worlds busiest for international travel for years. The Dubai International Financial Center also hosts major firms who trade in the hours between Asian and European markets. Dubai already has a major gold market and growing diamond trade.

Emirati firms likely also want to access Israeli technological know-how. Some already had even before the deal  with the cybersecurity firm DarkMatter reportedly hiring Israeli military-trained hackers.

On Monday, the first direct commercial flight by Israels flagship carrier El Al is expected in Abu Dhabi, carrying U.S. and Israeli officials including President Donald Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Telephone calls already can be made between the nations.

The decree formally eliminates a 1972 law on the UAEs books since just after the countrys formation. That law mirrored the widely held stance by Arab nations at that time that recognition of Israel would only come after the Palestinians had an independent state of their own.

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, criticized the UAEs decree Saturday as undercutting the efforts of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement targeting Israel. Israel has accused BDS activists of seeking to delegitimize its existence.

While (hashtag)BDS is proving to be an effective tool of peaceful resistance & responsible, ethical investment & consumer responsibility to hold Israel to account, this happens! Ashrawi wrote on Twitter.

Hamas, the Islamic militant group governing the Gaza Strip since seizing it in 2007, has reiterated its rejection of the UAE-Israel deal and the ending of the boycott.

The decree boosts the normalization with the Israeli occupation and legitimizes it on the Palestinian land, Hamas official Bassem Naim said.

The decree shows the UAEs eagerness to advance ties and maximize its potential benefits such as trade amid an economic slowdown, said Elham Fakhro, the senior Gulf analyst at the International Crisis Group.

The decision sends a clear message that the UAE is committed to its decision to normalize relations with Israel, Fakhro said. It does also raise questions about possible repercussions for anyone in the country calling for the boycott of Israeli goods, now that doing so contradicts the state policy.

The UAE is becoming the third Arab nation after Egypt and Jordan to currently have diplomatic relations with Israel. However, while widespread public distrust of Israel persists in those nations, the UAE never fought a war against Israel, nor did it have a historic Jewish population.

In recent years, the UAE has held quiet talks with Israel and allowed Israelis with second passports into the country for trade and talks. Opening ties may also help the Emirates access advanced American weaponry, like the F-35 fighter jet that right now only Israel flies in the Mideast.

Sheikh Khalifa has ruled the UAE since 2004. He suffered a stroke on Jan. 24, 2014, and underwent emergency surgery. He has been rarely seen since in public, though state media typically publishes images of him around Islamic holidays.

Abu Dhabis crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has served as the UAEs day-to-day ruler since Sheikh Khalifas stroke. Sheikh Mohammed has focused on increasing the Emirates military might amid his suspicions of Iran _ an enmity shared by Israel.

While Sheikh Khalifa holds the title of president, the UAE is governed by autocratic sheikhs. Abu Dhabi, as the countrys oil-rich capital, has grown increasingly powerful since the UAEs founding in 1971 despite each sheikhdom largely governing its own affairs.

The decree comes after a trip through the Mideast in recent days by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who hoped to build on the UAE-Israel deal.

The accord also came as a major foreign policy win to Trump as he campaigns ahead of the November election against Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Both Israel and the UAE have viewed the Republican president as an ally.

Associated Press writer Fares Akram in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report.

Photo: Aerial view of big highway interchange with traffic in Dubai, UAE, at night.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics USA
The Governor of Massachusetts Charlie Baker has ordered that it is mandatory for all students under 30 to get flu shots in order to attend school. Following the order massive protests were organised outside the State House Sunday morning demanding that Governor Charlie Baker rescind the public health mandate.





Earlier this month, Baker announced what is believed to be a first-in-the-nation order requiring the vaccination for anyone 6 months or older who is in a school or day care center, with some exemptions.

I would hope people would understand this is an important part of how we continue to fight the [corona]virus here in Massachusetts, Baker told reporters at a State House news briefing on Aug. 20. The more people who get the flu shot dont get the flu and dont wind up in the ER.

In front of the State House steps, a series of speakers said they did not want to abide by the flu shot mandate because of distrust in the government and in pharmaceutical companies and concern that they would not have control over their medical decisions.

This is about using the fear of COVID to take away a persons ability, and their human right, to make decisions for themselves and their children  unnecessarily, said Allison Chapman, a member of the executive leadership team at an organization called Health Choice.

In a statement Sunday, a state Department of Public Health spokeswoman said the commonwealth has an obligation to advance policies that protect students, teachers, and staff, particularly during a flu season that overlaps with the COVID-19 pandemic.

As students return to in-person learning in the classroom, this vaccine requirement provides an additional and necessary layer of protection and safety, the statement said.

Protesters also complained that the vaccine companies have been exempt from any liabilities.

A senior executive of AstraZeneca has revealed in shocking details that the company could not be on receiving end of any constitutional motion or face legal action for any possible side effects or unwanted reactions induced by its Covid-19 vaccine.https://t.co/Q53SPaHuJ5  GreatGameIndia (@GreatGameIndia) August 4, 2020

As reported by GreatGameIndia earlier, a senior managerial executive of the pharmaceutical giant, AstraZeneca revealed in shocking details that the company could not be on the receiving end of any constitutional motion or face legal action for any possible side effects or unwanted reactions induced by its Covid-19 vaccine. The company has agreements with governments as per which AstraZeneca cannot be held responsible for any side effects of COVID-19 vaccine and those affected will have no legal recourse.

Meanwhile, in a move right out of George Orwells 1984, New Zealand has announced it would put all COVID-19 patients into mandatory quarantine camps. The Prime Minister of New Zealand has said that your each and every activity will be monitored in these camps and those that refuse to be tested would be forced to stay in the camps for a longer duration.

GreatGameIndia is a journal on Geopolitics and International Relations. Get to know the Geopolitical threats India is facing in our exclusive book India in Cognitive Dissonance. Past magazine issues can be accessed from the Archives section.
Campaigners are calling for a nationally significant artwork in a redundant church to be given listed status.

The Crucifixion by artist George Mayer-Marton was created on the wall of the Church of the Holy Rosary in Oldham in 1955.

But, according to Save Britains Heritage, there are fears it could face vandalism, theft or demolition as the church has remained closed since 2017.

 Hot off the press  SAVE calls for listing of rare Oldham mural by Hungarian artist George Mayer-Marton under threat. See the full story here  https://t.co/rFktGNfS3F pic.twitter.com/ioKepPbfr3  SAVEBritainsHeritage (@SAVEBrit) August 17, 2020

A spokesman for the conservation charity said it was backing calls to rescue the artwork and had written to Historic England urging them to recommend it was listed.

The Diocese of Salford, which owns the church, said it was committed to finding a new home for the work and had stepped up security around the site.

The mural includes a mosaic of the figure of Christ and paintings of Mary and John the Apostle on a background of blue.

The paintings, created using the technique fresco, where paint is put directly onto plaster, have since been covered over but campaigners hope the original work remains intact and could be restored.

Henrietta Billings, director of Save Britains Heritage said: This is an incredibly rare, well executed and important mural for Oldham and for England by a leading 20th century artist and lecturer, it needs protection and national recognition through listing and Save is ready to help find a secure future for it.

A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Salford said: Since the closure of the Church of the Holy Rosary in 2017, protecting George Mayer-Martons rare work of art has been of paramount importance to us.

Story continues

We have taken action to improve the security of the building to ensure the safety of the work and have cooperated with parties who have shown an interest in it.

The Diocese of Salford is committed to finding a new home for the work of art and we continue to explore options to find a place where it can be permanently displayed and made available to members of the public for years to come.

Mayer-Marton, of Jewish-Hungarian origin, was a leading figure in the art world in Vienna, Austria, the 1920s and 1930s before he and his wife escaped to Britain in 1938.

In 1952 he became a lecturer at the Liverpool College of Art and while there was commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church to carry out works at a number of churches in Lancashire and Cheshire.

Another of his murals, the Pentecost, can now be seen at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King in Liverpool.

A spokesman for Historic England confirmed an application to list the church had been received and was being carefully considered.
The day has finally arrived! On the week of September 14th construction crews will begin demolition on the Animal Welfare Associations (AWA) 55 year old animal shelter. By late 2021, in its place will be a new, state-of-the-art, 25,000 sq. ft. animal shelter, vet clinic and education center.

The demolition and subsequent start of construction are the result of AWAs 2-year-long, $2.5 million dollar Capital Campaign, Building a Place Where Happiness Begins. With 286 loyal and supportive donors giving and pledging over 80% of the campaigns goal we are now able to begin the construction process, shares Lynn Fryckberg Capital Campaign Committee co-chair and Board member.

A lot of planning and hard work have gone into this new building, and its going to be spectacular when it is completed - far more than just bricks and sticks! It will serve as the home base for AWAs unique animal-and-people-centered programs, said Jonathan Furlow, Board President. With over 60 new spacious dog kennels, 60 state of art glass cat adoption cages, new dog and cat behavioral and training rehabilitation space, fully outfitted shelter medical area and public meeting room the new center will be a resource for the community.

To celebrate this long awaited step in AWAs growth and transformation, AWA will hold two If I Had a Hammer open house event on September 9th and 10th, 10am to 6pm. The community is invited to come and take a whackor twoor three at some portion of the old building. This will be the communitys opportunity to tour and say good-bye to an old building that served AWA, and thousands of companion animals, so well for many, many years. Of course, masking and social distancing will apply.

Animal Welfare Association, a private, non-profit, 501(c)3 animal welfare organization, serves the people and animals of southern New Jersey. AWA is dedicated to eliminating animal suffering, promoting the importance of the human-animal bond, and improving the role of animals in the well-being of people. Through a variety of programs including adoptions, veterinary services, pet therapy, and humane education, in 2019 over 16,000 pets were served through AWA programming. AWA is South Jerseys leader in progressive companion animal care. https://www.awanj.org/capital-campaign/

If you would like more information about Building a Place Where Happiness Begins, please call Maya Richmond at 856-424-2288, x109, or email at mayar@awanj.org.
Annual Fundraiser Supports Pediatric Cancer Research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute



QUINCY, Mass., Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- September marks National Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month, which means its also the start of Stop & Shops annual Help Cure Childhood Cancer campaign to support pediatric cancer research and care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). This years campaign will run at all Stop & Shop stores from now until September 30. Last year, thanks to its generous customers and associates, Stop & Shop raised $2.5M for the two hospitals.

Help Cure Childhood Cancer is Stop & Shops largest charitable campaign thanks to its generous customers across the Northeast who donate at checkout. This year, shoppers will be able to round-up their purchases to the nearest dollar at both self-checkout and mainline registers, with 100% of the change going to the hospitals. In New York, New Jersey and Fairfield and New Haven counties in Connecticut, proceeds will support MSK Kids, the pediatric program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Stores north of New Haven in Connecticut, plus all Massachusetts and Rhode Island stores will raise funds for Dana-Farber.

Additionally, customers will find reusable bags with artwork created by patients from both hospitals. The reusable bags will retail for $0.99 with $0.25 from the sale going to the respective pediatric cancer center. Furthermore, those shopping at StopandShop.com for Pickup or Home Delivery can also make a difference by donating $1, $3 and $5 when they checkout.

Help Cure Childhood Cancer provides Stop & Shops caring customers and dedicated associates an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of children and young adults who have been affected by cancer, said Stop & Shop President, Gordon Reid. Their generosity is only matched by their impact.

One of the most recognizable aspects of the campaign is the in-store signage that highlights patient ambassadors - local children aged 5-15 who are being or have been treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering and Dana-Farber and have benefited from donations from companies like Stop & Shop.

MSK Kids is dedicated to all children, young adults, and families facing childhood cancer. With specialized expertise and care focused on the individual child, more families turn to MSK Kids for cancer care than any other hospital in the United States. And as pioneers in research, MSKs physicians and scientists are working to develop and deliver more effective strategies to prevent, treat and cure childhood cancer.

We are honored to be continuing our longstanding partnership with Stop & Shop this year, says Dr. Andrew Kung, Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, Memorial Sloan Kettering. For nearly two decades, the company and its dedicated associates and customers have shown an unwavering commitment to supporting research and care at MSK Kids. This dedication to philanthropy, particularly during these challenging times due to the COVID-19 crisis, allows our team to develop and provide the best treatment options to kids today, while making discoveries that will bring new hope to more families tomorrow.

Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, is an integrated pediatric hematology and oncology program through Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Childrens Hospital, providing  in one specialized program  world class pediatric cancer and blood disease care at the #1 childrens hospital. Dana-Farber/Boston Children's offers an unrivaled breadth of treatment options for children and young adults with cancer and blood disorders, from standard protocols and advanced therapies to clinical trials.

Thanks to generous support from Stop & Shop, the doctors, nurses and scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are performing groundbreaking work that is discovering and developing new approaches to treat childhood cancer, said Dr. Scott Armstrong, Chairman, Department of Pediatric Oncology Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. These new approaches promise to be effective against some of our most difficult to treat cancers. The support from Stop & Shop is always critical but even more so this year as the pandemic has influenced everything we do. This critical support will allow us to continue to push forward unabated to provide children with the most effective and least toxic treatments so that one day we can cure all children with cancer.

About Stop & Shop

A neighborhood grocer for more than 100 years, todays Stop & Shop is refreshed, reenergized and inspired, delivering new conveniences for customers. Committed to helping its communities enjoy better food and better lives, Stop & Shop has a longstanding history of giving back to the neighborhoods it serves with a focus on fighting hunger and helping children to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company LLC is an Ahold Delhaize USA Company and employs nearly 60,000 associates and operates over 400 stores throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey. To learn more about Stop & Shop, visit www.stopandshop.com .

About Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is one of the worlds leading centers of cancer research and treatment. Dana-Farbers mission is to reduce the burden of cancer through scientific inquiry, clinical care, education, community engagement, and advocacy. We provide the latest treatments in cancer for adults through Dana-Farber/Brigham and Womens Cancer Center and for children through Dana-Farber/Boston Childrens Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. Dana-Farber is the only hospital nationwide with a top 10 U.S. News & World Report Best Cancer Hospital ranking in both adult and pediatric care.

As a global leader in oncology, Dana-Farber is dedicated to a unique and equal balance between cancer research and care, translating the results of discovery into new treatments for patients locally and around the world, offering more than 1,100 clinical trials.

About the Jimmy Fund

The Jimmy Fund, established in Boston in 1948, is comprised of community-based fundraising events and other programs that, solely and directly, benefit Dana-Farber Cancer Institutes lifesaving mission to provide compassionate patient care and groundbreaking cancer research for children and adults. The Jimmy Fund is an official charity of the Boston Red Sox, the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, the Pan-Mass Challenge, and the Variety Children's Charity of New England. Since 1948, the generosity of millions of people has helped the Jimmy Fund save countless lives and reduce the burden of cancer for patients and families worldwide. Follow the Jimmy Fund on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: @TheJimmyFund.

About Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK):

As the worlds oldest and largest private cancer center, Memorial Sloan Kettering has devoted more than 135 years to exceptional patient care, influential educational programs and innovative research to discover more effective strategies to prevent, control and, ultimately, cure cancer. MSK is home to more than 20,000 physicians, scientists, nurses and staff united by a relentless dedication to conquering cancer. Today, we are one of 51 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, with state-of-the-art science and technology supporting groundbreaking clinical studies, personalized treatment, and compassionate care for our patients. We also train the next generation of clinical and scientific leaders in oncology through our continually evolving educational programs, here and around the world. Year after year, we are ranked among the top two cancer hospitals in the country, consistently recognized for our expertise in adult and pediatric oncology specialties. www.mskcc.org.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 22:40:29|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Iran's health ministry on Monday reported an overnight registration of 1,642 novel coronavirus infections, bringing the tally in the country to 375,212.

Out of the new cases, 573 patients have been hospitalized, the spokeswoman for Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education Sima Sadat Lari said at her daily briefing, as quoted by official news agency IRNA.

The pandemic has so far claimed 21,571 lives in Iran, up by 109 in the past 24 hours, Lari said.

In total, 323,233 patients have recovered and been discharged from hospitals since February, while 3,729 remain in critical condition under intensive care.

The number of laboratory tests carried out for COVID-19 in Iran has so far reached 3,231,110, according to Lari.

The spokeswoman pointed out 13 Iranian provinces out of 31 are in high risk of infection, while 15 others remain in alert over the virus.

Iran announced its first cases of COVID-19 on Feb. 19.

Iran and China have offered mutual help in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

In mid-February, at the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak in China, Iran lit up the Tehran Azadi (Liberty) Tower to show its solidarity with China, and donated 3 million masks to China.

In return, China has delivered several shipments of medical supplies to Iran. On Feb. 29, a five-member Chinese medical team visited Iran for a month-long mission to help Iran fight the pandemic. Enditem
Aug 31 (Reuters) - Novavax Inc said on Monday it had reached an agreement in principle with Canada to supply up to 76 million doses of its experimental coronavirus vaccine.

The company said it expects to finalize an advance purchase agreement to supply doses of the vaccine beginning as early as the second quarter of next year. (Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 30

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

The Turkish English-language international news channel TRT World showed a telecast on the military provocation of Armenia in the direction of the Tovuz district on the border with Azerbaijan, made on July 2020, Trend reports.

The Turkey-based channel prepared a video segment in the territories of Azerbaijan, exposed to the provocation from Armenia.

TRT Worlds reporter Ubay Shahbandar said that the clash on one of the world's most vulnerable borders has brought him back to Azerbaijan, a country with which he got familiarized over the years.

Shahbandar enlightened viewers on the provocation of the Armenian armed forces.
I guess the goal in my view is to remind people that this is not a moment but a movement and that we have to keep pushing for change and bringing attention to the issues, said Jinkala. Its not just something thats trendy to be anti-racist, its about doing the work not only here in the community by showing up to a protest, but then taking it back to our community and how to make these changes long lasting, Jinkala said.
Liberal MP Tim Wilson has savaged airlines "gouging" Australians for tens of thousands of dollars as a result of the travel bans set by the national cabinet that have effectively locked tens of thousands of Australians out of the country.

Mr Wilson, formerly a Freedom Commissioner with the Human Rights Commission, said he had "real issues" with the travel bans when they were first imposed in March as a way of trying to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Liberal MP Tim Wilson has criticised airlines for the high prices some people are being charged to fly back to Australia. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"I remember when it was first discussed and I was flabbergasted at the prospect," he told Parliament on Monday.

"I believe that every Australian should have a right to return to their country and that limitations or barriers should not be unreasonable. But the practical reality is that, at this time, there are many Australians stranded in other parts of the world who want to get home and they can't."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 05:45:43|Editor: huaxia

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ZAGREB, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- More than 2.5 million tourists visited Croatia in August and there were 20.7 million overnight stays which is 64 percent of the figure of last year, head of the Croatian Tourist Board told national news agency Hina on Monday.

Kristjan Stanicic, director of the Tourist Board, noted that Croatia achieved extremely good results in August, given the circumstances and the coronavirus pandemic.

"Our further strategy and marketing will depend on the epidemiological picture in Croatia and the surrounding countries," Stanicic said.

According to the Tourist Board, German tourists had the most overnight stays here. There were also many visitors from Slovenia, Poland, and the Czech Republic. And the Istria County was the most visited in August.

Stanicic said the Board plans to launch a campaign for domestic tourists and encourage their consumption in the off-season by offering tourist services at lower prices.

With more than 1,000 islands along the Adriatic coast, Croatia attracts most of its tourists in July and August. This July saw some 15 million overnight stays or around 59 percent compared with the same period in 2019.

Croatia's economy is largely dependent on the tourism industry which contributes almost 20 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). That's the main reason why the country opened its borders in May and eased epidemiological measures during the summer.

In the last few weeks, Croatia saw steady growth in new COVID-19 cases. In the last 24 hours, 146 new cases were recorded. Since late February, when the first case of the COVID-19 was reported, 10,269 people have been infected in Croatia and 186 have died, according to the Croatian Institute of Public Health.

After a sharp rise in new cases recently, Croatia has been put on the epidemiological warning lists of Austria, Britain, and Slovenia -- countries that are an important source of tourism revenue here. Enditem
*seeks citizens avid support for more landmark achievements

From Chuks Collins, Awka

President Muhammadu Buhari has received a very warm commendation for the rebuilding and opening of the strategic Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu.

The message to the president which came from one of the illustrious son of Anambra State and a governorship hopeful on the platform of the All Progressives Congress(APC) in the forthcoming next years election in the state -Mr TobeOlisa Olih noted that the APC-led administration has again demonstrated its responsiveness to the yearnings of the citizens.

He said that the President has again demonstrated his commitment and determination to sustain investments in critical infrastructure across the country with the successful completion of the rehabilitation and upgrade of the airport, in Enugu.

Describing the airport as very strategic to Nigerians especially people of the South East geopolitical zone and others visiting or passing through the area, Mr Olih said his joy and that of other citizens know no bounds over the literal brand new airport.

According to him, we appreciate Mr President for being actively focussed in critical sectors of our economy for the benefit of all. 

I wish to convey my deepest appreciation to your administration for undertaking the reconstruction of the airport from beginning to commissioning

The APC Anambra governorship aspirant noted that with the improved facilities at the airport now, the capacity of the airport has been strengthened. Its passenger strength will increase and the economy of the area would equally record a big boost henceforth.

Mr Olih listed other key projects successfully undertaken or currently being undertaken by the Buhari administration to include the Second Niger Bridge at Onitsha, the OwerriUmuahia Federal Highway, the Enugu-Port Harcourt Highway, Alaojii Power Station, Ziks Mausoleum and the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway among others.

He described the list and other achievements of President Buhari as remarkably historical. He therefore urged all Nigerians irrespective of status, tribe or religion to rally round the president tto move the nation forward.
31.08.2020 LISTEN

Private schools in the country have been advised against charging fees to provide online teaching and learning before the new academic year for its continuing students in January 2021.

The Executive Director of the African Education Watch, Kofi Asare made this call after the government set the return to school for all nursery, kindergarten, primary, Junior High School and Senior High students to the beginning of 2021.

However, some schools with the required logistics and infrastructure are considering going ahead with the regular running of the academic calendar online at a cost to be borne by parents.

But Kofi Asare, in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show, said these sessions cannot be considered part of the academic year.

He added that any attempt by the private institutions to run a new academic year at this time will be illegal and in defiance of the governments directive.

Whatever they are doing is good for the academic loss but its complimentary and not obligatory for parents to subscribe too. You can roll out this intervention but it shouldnt b obligatory because its non-scoring. So if the school tells me that this term is obligatory, I wont agree.

It is illegal and every parent can go to court on that. It will be inequitable because that wasnt part of the arrangements for your child to be in school. The school doesnt have the right to open the term. The government determines the term opening. You cant force the parents to pay because there is no 2020/2021 term yet in Ghana.

Meanwhile, second-year Junior High School and Senior High School students will be returning to school on October 5, 2020 .

Schools in the country were shut down in March 2020 after Ghana recorded its first two cases of Coronavirus infection.

Final year students were later allowed to return to schools to enable them to sit for their exit exams; the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for JHS students and the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for SHS students.

After five months of closure, however, many have called on the government to reopen the schools to make up for lost academic contact hours.

 citinewsroom
Washington, Aug 31 : Typhoon Maysak is slowly approaching the Korean Peninsula on Monday, passing through waters 470 km south of Japan's Okinawa island, the weather office said.

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said Maysak, this year's ninth typhoon, packing wind gusts of 43 meters per second was travelling northward at a speed of 31 km per hour, reports Yonhap News Agency.

Later in the day, the typhoon is expected to gain force with wind gusts of 49 meters per second.

"When the typhoon makes landfall in the country, it is expected to sustain winds of around 40 meters per second," the KMA said.

"It is highly likely that rains and storm surge on the coastal area could cause casualities and damage to structures, so people should thoroughly prepare for the typhoon in advance." But its path is still subject to change, Yonhap News Agency quoted KMA as saying.

The typhoon is expected to arrive 320 km south of the resort island of Jeju at on Wednesday morning.

On early Thursday it is projected to make landfall on the southern coast of Namhae and pass inland 20 km northwest of Busan.

It is expected to move over the southeastern cities of Ulsan and Gyeongju and eventually move to the East Sea.
Adani Airport Holdings (AAHL), the Adani Groups holding company for its airports business, is acquiring a controlling stake in Mumbai International Airport (MIAL). It will take on current owner GVK Airport Developers Limiteds debt, and also acquire Bidvest and Airports Company of South Africas stakes in MIAL for the controlling interest.

This will allow Adani Group to convert the acquired debt to equity of GVKADL on mutually agreed terms, subject to obtaining necessary regulatory approvals."

GVK ADL is the holding company through which GVK Group holds 50.50% equity stake in Mumbai International Airport Limited, which in turn holds 74% equity stake in Navi Mumbai International Airport Limited (NMIAL).

Bidvest and Airports Company of South Africa together hold a 23.5 percent stake in MIAL.

GVK statement

The aviation industry has been severely impacted by COVID-19, setting it back by many years and has impacted the financials of Mumbai International Airport Limited. It was therefore important that we bring in a financially strong investor in the shortest possible time to improve the financial position of MIAL, as well as to help achieve Financial Closure of the Navi Mumbai International Airport project, which is a project of national importance. It is under these circumstances that we agreed to cooperate with Adani so as to achieve these twin objectives, GVK Reddy, founder and Chairman, GVK said in a statement.

Separately, in a filing with exchanges today, GVK said it has terminated its agreement with Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) and Canada's PSP Investments, signed last year, for its airports business. Recent reports indicate a consortium led by ADIA, NIIF, PSP Investments had served a legal notice on the GVK group saying the stake sale in MIAL to the Adani group would be a breach of their agreement.

Adani gets control of both MIAL and NMIAL

In a statement to the BSE, Adani Enterprises said: The Adani Group will also take steps to complete the acquisition of a 23.5 percent equity stake from ACSA and Bidvest in MIAL for which it has obtained CCI approval. This will give it a controlling interest in MIAL.

GVK Airport Developers, a subsidiary of GVK Group, owns a 50.5 percent stake in MIAL. Bidvest and Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) own 13.5 percent and 10 percent of MIAL, respectively.

MIAL, which manages the Mumbai International Airport, will operate the upcoming Navi Mumbai International Airport as well.

GVK Group and AAHL, a unit of Adani Enterprises, have agreed that AAHL will offer a stand-still to GVK.

A standstill agreement is a form of anti-takeover measure where a violation can effectively stall or stop the process of a hostile takeover if the parties cannot negotiate a friendly deal, as per a definition by Investopedia.

The GVK Group and AAHL have agreed that AAHL will offer a stand-still to GVK, in addition to release of the guarantee given by GVK Power and Infrastructure Limited with respect to the debt acquired by it, Adani Enterprises said in a statement.

AAHL intends to infuse funds into MIAL to ensure that MIAL receives much needed liquidity and also achieves financial closure of Navi Mumbai International Airport to be able to commence construction, Adani Enterprises said.

The Adani Group has already received permission to operate the Lucknow, Jaipur, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, and Mangaluru airports through the public-private partnership (PPP) model.

Deal contours



Acquisition of debt by Adani from various GVK lenders, including a Goldman Sachs-led consortium and HDFC.

GVK to be released from various obligations, securities and corporate guarantees given in respect of the debt to be acquired by Adani.

Adani to have option of converting the acquired debt to equity in GVKADL, on mutually agreed terms, subject to obtaining necessary regulatory approvals.

Infusion of funds by Adani into MIAL to provide liquidity.

Adani to achieve financial closure of Navi Mumbai International Airport project at the earliest in order to commence construction.



The valuations and financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but, elaborating on its contours, GVK Power & Infrastructure said the terms of cooperation include:

Legal notice

According to recent media reports, a consortium of foreign investors, led by the UAEs sovereign fund ADIA, Indias sovereign fund NIIF, and Canadas Public Sector Pension Investments had served a legal notice on the GVK group, saying the stake sale in MIAL to the Adani group would be a breach of the agreement they had signed last year.

GVK clarified the reasons for termination of the deal with the foreign investors consortium in its filing to the exchanges today, citing a deadline for resolution with lenders, among other factors.

Separately, GVK has notified the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, National Investment and Infrastructure Fund and PSP, collectively, that the transaction documents stand terminated, as it is no longer effective and implementable. The reason for this decision was a) the terms of the transaction envisaged in the Transaction Documents were not implementable and b) the alternative proposals discussed would not provide a resolution to the lenders of ADL by the end of August, which was a requirement of our lenders, the firm said.
A trial has been delayed from hearing how a Vietnamese woman had been brought to the U.K. illegally and died in a truck.

The victim, Pham Thi Tra My, was one of 39 Vietnamese found dead in a container truck near London last year. She was a resident of Can Loc District of central Ha Tinh Province.

The case commenced Monday morning in Ha Tinh with an expected seven defendants and 64 witnesses.

The seven defendants are Tran Dinh Truong, 35, of Ha Tinh; Nguyen Thi Thuy Hoa, 36, Vo Van Ky, 58, Vo Van Ho, 68, Le Van Hue, 53, of the neighboring Nghe An Province; Nguyen Quoc Thanh, 26, of southern Can Tho City, and Nguyen Thi Thuy Diem, 30, currently living in China with her Chinese partner.

One of the defendants, a resident of Nghe An, is receiving cancer treatment in hospital and could not attend the trial.

Just one witness showed up to court.

The six defendants present wanted to proceed while the father of the victim, Pham Van Thin, called on the court to make a ruling.

But the prosecutors and the court decided to delay the trial until September 14 as too many witnesses were absent.

According to the verdict, reached in early June last year, Truong contacted Hoa and Diem to build a file for My, who was 26 then, so she could sneak into the U.K. to work.

Following the rings guidance, My was taken to China before being sent to France. By then, My had paid the ring $22,000. Truong kept $1,000 and submitted the rest to Hoa and Diem.

In the next phase, My was brought from France to the U.K. inside a refrigerated truck along with 38 other Vietnamese. She and the rest died along the way lacking oxygen. Their bodies were found when the truck entered Essex, a county in southeast England on October 23 last year.

Investigators later identified eight people, including Truong, Hoa and Diem, for being involved in the ring transporting Vietnamese to work illegally in Europe. In February, seven of its members were arrested by Ha Tinh police.

The deaths of the 39 Vietnamese had made international headlines. Their identities were revealed by authorities last November. The youngest were two 15-year-old boys and the oldest, a 44-year-old man. Their remains were brought home later that month.

My's last text message to her mother went viral, horrifying people across the globe. Part of it, quoted by many news agencies, read: "Im sorry Mum. My journey abroad hasnt succeeded. Mum, I love you so much! Im dying because I cant breathe ... Im from Nghen, Can Loc, Ha Tinh, Vietnam ... I am sorry, Mum."

The father and mother of Pham Thi Tra My, one of the 39 Vietnamese found dead in the U.K. truck tragedy, stand outside the court in Ha Tinh Province, August 31, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Duc Hung.

Twenty one of the victims were from Nghe An Province and 10 from Ha Tinh. The rest hailed from Quang Binh and Thua Thien-Hue Provinces in the central region, and Hai Duong Province and Hai Phong City in the north.

In June, a court in Nghe An Province sentenced local woman Nguyen Thi Tham, 25, to 15 months in jail for helping a friend, Nguyen Van Hiep, break into the U.K. Hiep was among the 39 Vietnamese deaths.

Related to the case, 40-year-old Irish Ronan Hughes pleaded guilty last Friday to the manslaughter of the 39 Vietnamese, after Northern Irish truck driver Maurice Robinson pleaded guilty in April.
The Scottish government has been told to clamp down on livestock worrying by introducing increased penalties and supportive education for dog owners.

Scottish Land & Estates (SLE), an organisation which represents landowners and rural firms, said the country needed a 'clear and consistent approach' to the crime.

It has sent evidence to the Scottish Parliaments Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee on the proposed Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill,

Livestock worrying in the United Kingdom cost farmers 1.2 million last year, according to NFU Mutual figures.

A survey by the insurer found 63% of dog owners allowed their pets to roam free in the countryside, despite half admitting their dog did not always come back when called.

SLE highlighted the extreme financial and emotional stress such livestock worrying incidents can cause, as well as the animal welfare issues.

Emma Steel, Policy Assistant at SLE, said increased penalties and robust enforcement were 'vital' to its prevention.

Livestock worrying is a traumatic issue, it can have a massive impact on the animal owners and on the business.

We fully support increasing the penalties for livestock worrying, as proposed in this Bill."

She said current penalties did not reflect the seriousness of this type of incident, and proposed the maximum penalty of 5,000 as suggested in the Bill should be raised higher for the most serious cases.

A consistent approach to recording livestock worrying and attack incidents will be vital to providing a clear picture of the ongoing scale of the issue and will allow us to understand the effectiveness of these new measures," she said.

Police Scotland can also play a 'vital role' in addressing livestock worrying through increased training to ensure full investigations can be carried out into reported incidents.

While strengthening the legislation around penalties and enforcement is important, we also believe additional supportive measures could be introduced to help reduce incidents of livestock worrying and attacks," Ms Steel added.

"For example, we would like to see more education and awareness campaigns on the dangers posed by dogs around livestock, and more training provided for dog owners on how and when to control dogs around livestock.
Sudans transitional government on Monday signed a much-anticipated peace deal with various armed groups, raising hopes of an end to 17 years of conflict.

Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok and Transitional Sovereignty Council Chairman Abdel Fattah al-Burhan signed the agreement with the Sudan Revolutionary Front, a coalition of armed groups operating mainly in the volatile Darfur, Blue Nile, and South Kordofan regions, the countrys national broadcaster reported.

After nine months of tough negotiations, the signing took place in Juba, the capital of neighbouring South Sudan, under the auspices of President Salva Kiir, who has been instrumental in mediating the deal.

The landmark pact includes agreements regarding power sharing, land ownership, compensation, reconciliation as well as the return of those displaced from their homes during 17 years of conflict.

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It also foresees the dismantling of rebel forces and their integration into the national army.

One armed group, the SPLM-North led by Abdulaziz Al-Hilu, withdrew from the negotiations, claiming Sudans paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had recently attacked its supporters.

Armed groups have been the cause of ongoing violence in the volatile nation on the Horn of Africa since 2003, when unrest erupted in the restive Darfur region.

Some 300,000 people have been killed due to the conflict and millions have been displaced, according to the United Nations. (dpa/NAN)
Tom Bradley, special counsel at Shine Lawyers, told the Brisbane Times that there was a strong moral imperative to provide frontline staff with the security that comes with a workplace injury designation, adding without them we wouldnt be able to control the virus at all.

He said most claims provided relatively small coverage for employees who missed work due to persistent symptoms of the virus as most recover within weeks of being infected.

Medical groups had already been urging the state government to guarantee that doctors, paramedics, and other healthcare workers who contract COVID-19 at work be automatically eligible for the WorkCover scheme. So far, there has been no response.

Julian Rait, president of the Australian Medical Association at Victoria, told the Brisbane Times that he had brought the issue to the state government several times over the past weeks and has grown very frustrated with the lack of adequate response.

Rait also shared that he had already talked to some healthcare workers who were unable to qualify for life insurance or income protection after being infected.

Danny Hill, secretary at Victorian Ambulance Union, said he already wrote to Minister Hennessy in April and Premier Daniel Andrews in early August asking them to create a new presumptive right for those in the healthcare frontline. He hasnt heard back from them as well.

Were disappointed that were seeing other states in Australia make this change and that Victoria hasnt taken that step yet, he told the Brisbane Times. What we want is our members go to work feeling safe.

The latest data from the Health Department revealed that four-fifths of healthcare workers who tested positive for COVID-19 had contracted it from work. In Victoria, healthcare staff represents 14.5% of the active cases, with about 2,700 medical workers getting infected since the pandemic began.

Coronavirus clusters involving hundreds of workers in different sectors, particularly abattoirs, meat processing and retail distribution, have also been identified in the state.

At present, the federal government has allocated a one-off $1,500 payment for workers who lost their income because they are required to self-isolate or are caring for someone who contracted coronavirus.

But because employees who test positive for COVID-19 while at work are not automatically qualified for compensation in Victoria, they would have to potentially resort to lawsuits for payouts.

Add this to the difficulty of showing precisely where the virus was acquired, making workplace infections very challenging to prove legally.
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the Medical Council of India (MCI) is not empowered to make regulations providing for reservation in favour of in-service candidates for admission to post-graduate medical courses.

The five-judge bench headed by justice Arun Mishra held MCI is a body constituted for the regulation of medical education and profession but the right to provide reservation lies with the respective states. States, the bench held, can frame regulations for separate entry for such in-service candidates. Such doctors, who are already working, should, however, be mandated to serve in rural and tribal areas for five years.

It held that MCI regulation that barred such reservation was unconstitutional and arbitrary. It has asked the states to formulate a scheme for rural and remote service by in-service doctors after completing their postgraduate degree.

The ruling came on a plea by doctors from Kerala, Maharashtra and Haryana who said granting reservation benefits would encourage those working in government hospitals and in rural areas. The doctors had challenged the validity of the Postgraduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000, framed by MCI.

At present, 50% seats in PG diploma courses are reserved for medical officers in the government service but MCI regulations barred it in PG degree courses. All admissions to PG degree courses are conducted through the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) exams and 50% seats are filled through all-India quota while the remaining 50% are from state quota.

The in-service candidates had submitted that they work round the clock and hardly find any time to update their knowledge and compete with the general category merit candidates.

The Centre and MCI had opposed the plea saying granting reservations or a separate source of entry for in-service candidates would directly impinge on the authority of MCI to coordinate and determine standards of medical education.

(With agency inputs)
Netflix is allowing nonsubscribers to watch several movies and shows for free, including popular hits like Stranger Things and Bird Fox, without having to create an account with the streaming giant.

Anyone using a desktop or Android browser can start streaming a select few pieces of content free of charge, though the service is not yet available to those with iOS browsers.

Netflix is offering just the first episodes of series like Stranger Things, Elite, When They See Us, Love Is Blind, Our Planet, Boss Baby, and Grace and Frankie.

But viewers can watch the entirety of select films including Netflix originals like Bird Box, Murder Mystery, and The Two Popes.

Netflix is seeking to attract new subscribers by offering a select number of series and films for free streaming without the need to sign up for an account

Netflix is offering just the first episodes of series like Stranger Things, Elite, When They See Us, Love Is Blind, Our Planet, Boss Baby, and Grace and Frankie. The above image shows an episode from the third season of Stranger Things

Viewers can watch the entirety of select films including Netflix originals like Bird Box, Murder Mystery, and The Two Popes. The above image shows a scene from the 2018 film Bird Box

The free sampling, which will be available in all of the more than 200 countries where Netflix is streaming, was first reported by the website OnlyTech.

Netflix told Fox Business: We're looking at different marketing promotions to attract new members and give them a great Netflix experience.

Netflix has been one of the beneficiaries of the coronavirus pandemic as the service has added millions of subscribers in recent months.

In the first half of 2020, Netflix added 25.86 million subscribers - the most ever for a six-month period.

Thats almost as many subscribers that joined Netflix in all of 2019.

Last week, Netflixs stock price reached an all-time high after announcing the news.

As of around 3pm on Monday, Netflix was trading at around $530 per share.

Just before the pandemic in early March, Netflix was trading at around $380 per share.
Mysuru : , Aug 31 (IANS) With no let-up in the Covid cases in the state, Karnataka farmers on Monday urged the state government to avoid grand Dasara celebrations between October 17 and 27 and use the funds to compensate them for the loss incurred due to the pandemic spread and extended lockdown.

"As there is no sign of coronavirus abating even 5 months after it became a pandemic, the state government should not celebrate the 10-day Dasara festival in a grand way this year as people, especially farmers are in distress," said state farmers' association president B. Nagandra in a statement here.

Though the state government is yet to decide on the 10-day world famous Dasara festival celebrations in this city of palaces as it battles the virus, Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa recently hinted that the annual event would be low-key in view of the pandemic.

"As people are struggling to cope with the Covid crisis, which has severely affected everyone's livelihood, the festival should be simple, traditional and confined to the palace for avoiding large gathering in public places during its 10-day fete," Nagendra asserted.

Mysuru is about 150 km southwest of Bengaluru in the southern state.

"The Dasara festival will be simple but in a traditional way under Covid-induced guidelines to maintain social distancing and prevent large gathering in public places for containing the virus spread," Yediyurappa said on August 21 after praying and worshipping the Cauvery river at the nearby brimming KRS dam.

On the 10th day of the grand fest (Vijayadashmi), a victory parade on caparisoned elephants is held from the Amba Vilas palace in the city centre to Bannimantap ground, to celebrate the triumph of good over evil.

The celebrations also mark the return of Hindu god Ram to Ayodhya after defeating demon king Ravana in Sri Lanka and the death of demon Mysasura at the hands of Goddess Durga astride a tiger.

"As people are facing hardships due the virus disrupting life and livelihood, this is not the time for celebrations, as hundreds are testing positive daily and as many are under treatment for the infection across the state," state sugarcane growers' association president K. Shantakumar told IANS on phone.

People in the state had faced similar difficulties in the past due to drought, floods and other disasters and Dasara had been celebrated in a simple manner. The state government and the erstwhile ruling Wodeyar family, which jointly celebrate the fest, can celebrate it grandly next year, said a farmer.

"The Dasara fest was conducted in a simple way without fanfare many times in the past to maintain the tradition and continuity," Hunsur farmer Lingappa said.

Though an estimated 10 lakh people visit Mysuru during the grand fest, the restrictions in Covid times are likely to keep footfalls low this time.

"Dasara is the peak tourist season for Mysuru, with maximum number of visitors on the 9th and 10th day of the festival for ayudha (armoury) puja and Vijayadashami. A subdued festival will affect the tourist and hospitality sectors, as Covid-induced curbs will keep people away," said Mysuru Hotel Owners Association president C. Narayana Gowda here.

Latest updates on Navratri Festival 2020
While SpaceX didnt pull off a doubleheader Sunday launch like it planned, the company still managed a rare feat. Instead of launching eastward like every other Cape Canaveral rocket, the Falcon 9 headed south toward Cuba, close to populated areas on Floridas coast (via The Verge). The SAOCOM 1B mission marks the first such polar launch from Florida since 1969, made possible by a special Air Force exemption for SpaceX.

Satellites bound for polar orbits (where a satellite passes over both the North and South Poles), usually launch from Vandenberg Air Force base in California. That way, they can head due south directly over the ocean without passing over any populated areas. By contrast, flights from Florida always head east over open seas, as southbound flights have been off-limits due to the presence of cities like West Palm Beach below.

However, due to wildfire dangers near Vandenberg, the Air Force decided to allow SpaceX  and only SpaceX  to launch south from Florida. It made the exception because the Falcon 9 has an automatic flight safety system that can destroy the rocket it it has an anomaly or goes off its intended path. Its critical that the rocket can make that decision without human intervention, because the rocket engine blast can interfere with self-destruct commands from the ground.

The key danger point for SpaceX was shortly after take off as the Falcon 9 skirted the Florida coast. The first stage dropped before the rocket arrived over Cuba, and after that, it was high enough not to threaten the island.

While only SpaceXs Falcon 9 has the exemption for now, existing and upcoming rockets like the United Launch Alliance Vulcan, Blue Origins New Glenn and SpaceXs Falcon Heavy will all eventually be equipped with automated self-destruct systems. At that point, theyll all be allowed to fly south from Cape Canaveral as well.

The SAOCOM 1B satellite launched by Argentinas space agency will follow a sun-synchronous orbit that will allow it to monitor spots on Earth at the same time each day. Itll use radar to monitor Earth for disasters that could affect its agricultural, mining and other industries. The Falcon 9s stage one rocket used in the launch has now flown four times in total  and will fly again, thanks to another successful ground landing near the launch pad.
China Town in Little Bourke Street is seen on March 22, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. (Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Immigration Minister Warns Foreign Interference at an Unprecedented High

Poor English-Language Skills Disrupting Social Cohesion and Leaving Gaps for Interference

Foreign interference is at an unprecedented high and is a significant factor disrupting Australias social unity, according to the Acting Minister for Immigration.

In a speech focused on social cohesion presented to the National Press Club on Aug. 28, Minister Alan Tudge said foreign actors were encouraging Australian residents and citizens to position their loyalties elsewhere.

They seek to sow distrust in government and institutions, he said. Every sector of our community is a potential target, including parliamentarians, their staff, and all levels of government, the media, opinion makers, business leaders, and the university community.

Tudge said he was particularly concerned about the effect of foreign interference in Australias multicultural communities, echoing similar concerns from the countrys intelligence agency in August.

Australias Minister for Cities Alan Tudge at a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on July 9, 2020. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)

Members of the community were being harassed and exploited to further the cause of foreign governments and authorities.

Some who criticise their former country are silenced through threats and intimidation, including to family members back in their country of heritage, he said.

Others are persuaded or forced to monitor or harass members of their own community who may hold views contrary to those of the governing regimes in their former countries, he added.

In August, the Uyghur Association of Victoria warned in a submission (pdf) to a parliamentary inquiry into diaspora communities that family members in China were coerced into contacting Australian-based relatives and tell them not to engage in activities unfavourable to the Chinese regime.

The association also claimed local Chinese and Uyghurs were offered inducements to spy on community members and spread Beijings propaganda.

Omer Kanat, from the World Uyghur Congress, speaks at a Human Rights Walk rally in Melbourne, Australia on Dec. 9, 2018. Omer Kanat is calling on the Australian Government to demand the Chinese Regime stop the ongoing repression in East Turkistan/Xinjiang Province. (Rita Li/Epoch Times)

Minister Tudge also said misinformation or propaganda was being spread through multicultural media including foreign language media controlled or funded by state players.

Over the last decade, pro-Beijing Chinese language newspaper publications have proliferated in Australias capital cities. Some publications with direct links to Beijing have been established, while other long-running newspapers have shifted their editorial stance to be more in line with the communist regime.

Part of the reason for the shift is many Chinese businesses or state-owned companies, are being instructed to direct advertising to newspapers with favourable views on Beijing, which in turn, can influence the content published.

Independent publications, meanwhile, such as the Chinese-language Epoch Times, have seen some advertising partners face pressure to end their relationship with the newspaper.

Tudge said local foreign-backed media have an enormous influence on Australians with poor English.

A lady crossing the street in Melbournes Chinatown February 14, 2020 (William West/AFP via Getty Images)

The minister said close to a million Australian residents have poor or non-existent English-speaking skills.

Without English language skills, migrants are less likely to get a job, less likely to integrate, and less likely to participate in our democracy, he said.

Half of the overseas-born residents in Australia still cannot speak English well, even after 15 years of residency.

The minister flagged a series of new measures to counteract threats to social cohesion.

Currently, new migrants are accessing, on average, 300 hours of free English language tuition (from an available 510 hours), with only 21 percent finishing their courses with a functional level of English.

Pedestrians in the Chinatown district on March 04, 2020, in Sydney, Australia. (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)

The minister said this was not good enough. In the future, caps would be lifted, and citizens allowed access to classes until they reach a vocational level of English.

Further, the citizenship test will be revamped, with new questions focused on values such as the rule of law, freedom of speech, and individual responsibility.

The government will also update the Australian Values Statement signed by temporary and permanent migrants.

The stronger focus on Australian values in citizenship testing will be an important part of helping protect our social cohesion into the future, Tudge said.

Other factors affecting social cohesion outlined by Tudge include strict COVID-19 lockdown restrictions making it difficult for families and communities to connect, and new digital media creating online echo chambers for young Australians.

He warned the lack of interaction between people of different viewpoints increased the risk of hateful, divisive content proliferating.

Dont get me wrong. I am not making an argument against technology. It can be brilliant at joining people up and creating digital communities  But it also has immense power to divide individuals and communities, as we have already seen, he said.
Supporters of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo, who lives in Belgium after being tried by the International Criminal Court, and exiled former rebel leader Guillaume Soro on Monday filed their candidacies for a tense presidential election in October.

Both had been barred by the electoral commission from running due to convictions in the countrys courts and it is unlikely that the Constitutional Court will clear their candidacies.

President Alassane Ouattara, 75, and former president Henri Konan Bedie, 86, submitted their dossiers last week.

The October 31 election in the worlds top cocoa grower comes after years of political turbulence and civil war, and Gbagbos return to national politics is highly sensitive.

The country remains scarred by a conflict that erupted after the 2010 vote when Gbagbo refused to hand over power to the victor, current President Alassane Ouattara. Around 3,000 people lost their lives in several months of violence.

Gbagbo, who was freed conditionally by the ICC after he was cleared in 2019 of crimes against humanity, has not made any public statement about whether he wishes to run again.

He is living in Brussels pending the outcome of an appeal against the ICC ruling. In the meantime, he can travel, provided the country of destination accepts him.

We have just submitted the candidacy file of our political leader, president Laurent Gbagbo, the father of democracy in Ivory Coast, said Georges-Armand Ouegnin, president of the pro-Gbagbo coalition called Together for Democracy and Sovereignty (EDS).

 Struck from electoral lists 

Independent Electoral Commission chief Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert has said that anyone convicted of a crime cannot contest.

Gbagbo, 75, was sentenced in absentia to a 20-year term last November over the looting of the local branch of the Central Bank of West African States during the post-election crisis.

He could be jailed if he were to set foot in Ivory Coast.

Ouegnin said the decision to block Gbagbo from running was political, while judicial sources said they believe his candidacy is unlikely to be validated.

Ouegnin called for the release of all political prisoners and the return of political exiles, including Gbagbo.

Relatives and supporters of Soro, a rebel leader who became prime minister, echoed those sentiments and called for his candidacy to be validated.

Soros spokeswoman Aminata Kone-Zie accused the government of subterfuge to make our president (Soro) ineligible under an alleged criminal conviction.

 Midnight deadline 

Soro, 48, has been forced into exile in France in the face of a long list of legal problems at home.

He was sentenced in April to 20 years in prison for concealment of embezzlement of public funds.

Soro was a leader in a 2002 revolt against Gbagbo that sliced the former French colony into the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south and triggered years of unrest.

He was once an ally of Ouattara, helping him to power during the post-election crisis in 2010, but the two fell out.

Candidates have until midnight Monday to submit their dossiers with the electoral commission, which said it expects to receive a total of 40 submissions.

The Constitutional Council then has 15 days to release the list of approved candidates. Sources close to the commission have said that fewer than 10 are likely to be validated.

Violence erupted after Ouattaras announcement he is seeking a third term, claiming the lives of at least eight people in August.

The constitution limits presidents to two terms, but Ouattara and his supporters argue that a 2016 constitutional tweak reset the clock.
The United States neared six million coronavirus cases on Sunday, nearly a quarter of the planets total, as nations around the world battle to contain the raging pandemic.

Global coronavirus infections soared past 25 million, as countries tightened restrictions to halt the health crisis that has upended life for most of humanity.

A million additional cases have been detected globally roughly every four days since mid-July, according to an AFP tally, with India on Sunday setting the record for the highest single-day rise in cases with 78,761.

The worlds hardest hit country, the United States, had recorded 5.99 million cases of infection as of 0030 GMT Monday, according to Johns Hopkins Universitys tracker. And the death toll is just over 183,000.

The US hit five million cases three weeks ago, just 17 days after reaching four million, the tracker said.

The virus has hobbled the US economy, the worlds largest, and cast a shadow over President Donald Trumps once-promising re-election prospects.

As Trump faces enormous pressure to curb the contagion, the head of the US Food and Drug Administration, Stephen Hahn, raised the possibility that a still-elusive vaccine might be given emergency approval before the end of trials designed to ensure its safety and effectiveness.

The virus has proven a tenacious foe even in nations such as New Zealand and South Korea, which had previously brought their outbreaks largely under control but are now battling new clusters of infections.

On the other side of the world, Latin America  the worst-hit region  is still struggling with its first wave, with Covid-19 deaths in Brazil crossing 120,000, second only to the United States.

Nearly 855,000 people have died of Covid-19 globally, and with no vaccine or effective treatment available yet, governments have been forced to resort to some form of social distancing and lockdowns to stop the spread of the virus.

Masks will become mandatory from Monday on public transport and flights in New Zealand, which went more than 100 days without local transmission before the current cluster emerged.

And tightened virus curbs kicked in on Sunday in South Korea, which is also battling fresh clusters  including in the greater Seoul region, home to half the countrys population.

In Iraq, thousands of Shiite pilgrims wearing gloves and masks flooded the holy city of Karbala to mark Ashura, in one of the largest Muslim gatherings since the pandemic began.

Typically, millions of Shiites from around the world flock to the shrine, but this years commemoration was subdued with employees spraying disinfectant mist, checking temperatures and enforcing social distancing.

It stands out because there are so few people," said Fadel Hakim, a blue medical mask cupping his chin.

Despite all the grim numbers, there has been steady opposition to lockdowns and social distancing measures in many parts of the world, often because of their crushing economic cost.

But resistance has also come from the extreme right and left of the political spectrum, as well as conspiracy theorists and anti-vaccine campaigners.

In Berlin on Saturday, thousands gathered to march against coronavirus restrictions  but police later stopped the rally because many participants were not respecting social distancing measures.

Protesters waved German flags and shouted slogans against Chancellor Angela Merkel often used by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
German politicians have condemned attempts by far-right protesters to storm the parliament building following a protest against the countrys pandemic restrictions.

Hundreds of people, some waving the flag of the German Reich of 1871-1918 and other far-right banners, breached a security barrier outside the Reichstag on Saturday night but were intercepted by police and forcibly removed.

Reich flags and right-wing extremist provocations in front of the German Bundestag are an unbearable attack on the heart of our democracy, Germanys president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said on Sunday. We will never accept this.

Mr Steinmeier said people had the right to express their anger about the coronavirus restrictions and to question them publicly, including with demonstrations.

My sympathy ends where protesters allow themselves to be used by enemies of democracy and political agitators, he added.

Recommended Thousands rally in Berlin against coronavirus restrictions

Police used pepper spray to drive back the protesters, who earlier in the day had participated in a large rally through the capital.

About 300 people were arrested in front of the Reichstag and following an incident at the Russian embassy, according to police.

Berlins top security official, Andreas Geisel, praised three officers who had stood alone against the protesters outside the Reichstag until reinforcements arrived. Opposition parties criticised the polices failure to station sufficient officers around Parliament despite public warnings from far-right extremists that they planned to try to enter the building.

Robert Habeck, the co-leader of Germanys Green party, called for a thorough investigation into the incident.

The fact that Nazis with imperial war flags try to storm the Bundestag recalls the darkest period in German history, he told the Funke media group.

A protester wrapped in an imperial German flag. (Getty Images)

An incident like on Saturday evening must not be allowed to happen again, Mr Habeck said. I expect Interior Minister Horst Seehofer to decisively combat right-wing extremism at all levels.

The head of Chancellor Angela Merkels center-right party, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, expressed anger at the incident. That the Reich flag should fly again at the German Bundestag is intolerable, she said.

Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, described the protesters who tried to storm the building as a few vandals whose behaviour was unacceptable. Members of her party had taken part in the rally against the pandemic restrictions earlier in the day.

Germanys vice chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is seeking to succeed Ms Merkel in next years election, said he was confident security forces would closely analyse what had happened Saturday and ensure it couldnt occur again.

But he insisted that the incident shouldnt distract from the fact that the overwhelming, very big majority of citizens in this country are clever and sensible, and they agree with all of the decisions that we took to protect peoples health and for the benefit of the economy and social cohesion.

Opinion polls show only one in 10 Germans reject the countrys current prevention measures, such as the requirement to wear masks on public transport, in stores and in some public buildings such as libraries and schools.

Police on Sunday ordered an anti-mask gathering of about 2,000 people at the Victory Column to disband, saying people werent respecting distancing rules. Several people were detained.

Associated Press
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce (L.A. Area Chamber) and Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) today announced they will jointly offer a Virtual Job Fair for those seeking employment in the greater L.A. area. The Virtual Job Fair will showcase job openings from a range of companies as well as provide tips on how to complete job applications, prepare for interviews, and get workforce ready training if needed. Companies including SoCalGas, Ralphs, Henkels & McCoy, FedEx, Meruelo, Primoris ARB, Spectrum, ACS, Paxon and UPS, will discuss their job opportunities and skills they're seeking. The Virtual Job Fair will be held Thursday, September 3 from 10:00 a.m. to Noon. Participants may register beginning today at this link.

"The unemployment rate in the Los Angeles area now exceeds 19%, so Angelenos definitely need help finding work," said Denita Willoughby, L.A. Area Chamber Board Chair, and SoCalGas vice president of supply management and support services. "This event will help provide access to numerous job opportunities for those who may not be aware of them."

"Our communities are facing unprecedented challenges during the current economic and health crisis. The L.A. Area Chamber and our partners are focusing on solutions that provide opportunities and build a viable workforce for the Los Angeles region," said Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Maria S. Salinas.

The Virtual Job Fair will be held using the Zoom meeting platform. Job seekers will log in to a full-group session, then select from several Company Showcase breakout sessions featuring career opportunities in areas such as: Technology, Construction, Professional Services/Engineering, Information Technologies, Business Development, and Project Management, as well as Clerk, Courier and Customer Services. Represented companies will be available to discuss their open positions and answer questions. L.A. Area Chamber staff and participating companies will also provide concurrent training breakout sessions to share recommended strategies for getting job interviews, acing the interview and landing the job.

The Virtual Job Fair is part of the Chamber's work in providing opportunities for the Los Angeles region's workforce. SoCalGas is serving as the event's presenting sponsor as part of its support for COVID-19 recovery efforts. The utility has given more than $2.74 million to nonprofit organizations since March to support the region's workforce, feed the hungry, provide bill assistance to customers, and more.

Together, the Sempra Energy family of companiesincluding SoCalGas's sister California utility San Diego Gas and Electric, and the Sempra Energy Foundationhave donated more than $12.5 million to those in need during this crisis.

For more information on SoCalGas's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit www.socalgas.com/coronavirus.

About Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce

The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce represents the interests of business in the Los Angeles region. The Chamber's mission is to design and advance opportunities and solutions for a thriving regional economy that is inclusive and globally competitive. Founded in 1888, the Chamber is the oldest and largest business association in the region. Its member companies work together to promote a prosperous economy and quality of life in the Los Angeles region.

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% 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% of electric power generated in the state comes from gas-fired power plants.

SoCalGas' vision is to be the cleanest 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% 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.

SOURCE Southern California Gas Company

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YEREVAN, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS. Reputed crime boss Andranik Zap Leninakansky Soghoyan is under arrest for allegedly leading an organized crime syndicate as a thief in law.

The Committee of Investigations said the man was in charge of an organized crime group since February 22, 2020 and used his illegal influence by issuing instructions to members of a criminal subculture group to resolve a problem of a private matter.

Soghoyan is said to have used his influence as a thief in law to release a man who was being kept by another mafia member in Garni on July 11 in a financial dispute.

Soghoyan is charged with Article 223.2  Creating or Leading a Criminal Subculture Group.

Under the Armenian law enacted earlier this year, it is illegal to belong to a criminal subculture even if no specific other crime has been committed.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Thousands of people have rushed to a remote Brazilian town after hundreds of chunks of a 4.6 billion-year-old meteorite began to fall 'like rain' from the sky.

As many as 200 fragments of the meteorite, which fell on August 19, have been found so far in Santa Filomena, northeastern Brazil.

The biggest weighed 40kg and is worth over 20,000 - the same as 10 years' worth of the average salary in the area.

Locals living in the town, in a bean-planting region in Brazil's Pernambuco state, now refer to the meteorite storm as a 'miracle' and the day when 'money fell from the sky'.

The meteorite is believed to be a rare chondrite which dates back to the origins of the Solar System - before the Earth was formed.

Meteorite hunters scour the area in a bid to find remaining chunks of the rare rock

The meteorite is believed to be a rare chondrite which dates back to the origins of the Solar System - before the Earth was formed

As many as 200 fragments of the meteorite, which fell on August 19, have been found so far in Santa Filomena, northeastern Brazil

Only 1% of meteorites are of this type, and specimens can sell for tens of thousands of pounds.

Local people from the poor, rural town who have found one have become instantly rich.

Student Edimar da Costa Rodrigues, 20, remembered how he was at home in Santa Filomena when he saw the sky 'fill up with smoke'.

He then started to receive WhatsApp messages from townsfolk saying it was 'raining rocks'.

People hold up chunks of the meteorite, which many are going on to sell

Locals said hundreds of pieces of the 4.6billion-year-old rock fell 'like rain' from the sky

Most of the biggest rocks were also found around the church (above), further convincing locals that the rare meteorite was 'sent by God'

Rodrigues went out to the street and found a 7cm-wide meteorite, weighing 164g, next to the Catholic church on the town's main square.

He said he later sold the rock to an American meteorite hunter for around 1,000.

Most of the biggest rocks were also found around the church, further convincing locals that the rare meteorite was 'sent by God.'

One, weighing 2.8kg, was being negotiated by Brazil's National Museum for around 15,000.

Meteorite hunters travelled to the town from other parts of Brazil, as well as professional collectors from the US and Uruguay

Locals living in the town, in a bean-planting region in Brazil's Pernambuco state, now refer to the meteorite storm as a 'miracle' and the day when 'money fell from the sky'

What is a chondrite? About 86% of meteorites are chondrites, which are named for the small, round particles they contain. They are mainly composed of silicate minerals that likely melted when they were free-floating in space. Chondrites are thought to represent material from the asteroid belt that never formed into large bodies. Like comets, chrondite asteroids are some of the oldest materials in the solar system. The study of chondrites provides important clues for understanding the origin and age of the Solar System. There are more than 27,000 chondrites in the world's collections. The largest chondrite ever recorded weighs 1,770kg and was recovered from the Jilin meteorite shower of 1976. Advertisement

Mr Costa Rodrigues said: 'The price is getting close to 40 reals (5.50) per gramme, and it's getting higher. Only a few days ago it was half that.

'Ninety per cent of the town's population are farmers. There aren't many shops, nothing that generates jobs. It's a humble place, with people on a low wage.

'Most people think it's a really good thing. Lots of people have found a rock, and it has come at a time when many really need some money to pay the bills.'

Within hours of the rocks falling, meteorite hunters travelled to the town from other parts of Brazil, as well as professional collectors from the US and Uruguay.

When four scientists from Brazil's National Museum in Rio de Janeiro arrived in Santa Filomena on the day after the meteorite shower, the town's only hotel was full and they had to rent a room in a local family's home.

The team is also trying to negotiate a price for the biggest 40kg stone.

They fear they won't be able to beat the price being offered by an American hunter, and that the rare rock will be shipped out of Brazil.

Gabriel Silva, from Sao Paulo University's Chemistry Institute, said: 'This meteorite is of the chondrite type.

'It is one of the first minerals that formed in the Solar System, before the Earth.

'The meteorite could tell us much about how the universe was formed.'

Many believe locals shouldn't be allowed to find and sell the space rocks, especially to foreigners who will export them out of Brazil for good.

Many believe locals shouldn't be allowed to find and sell the space rocks, especially to foreigners who will export them out of Brazil for good

Antonio Miranda, from Pernambuco state's federal university, said: 'Meteorites are rare things, a diamond of science, and they are worth a lot of money.

'But for me they should be treated the same as the discovery of a diamond or gold deposits, and belong to the person who own's the land on which they are found.

'The most just thing would be for the authorities to say that any rock which will fell on the town belongs to Santa Filomena and cannot be sold or take away.'

Mr Silver agrees, and said: 'This meteorite caused a lot of excitement among collectors and researchers. The demand is high and so the price suddenly shot up.

'There aren't many Brazilians who are able to buy the 40kg meteorite, so foreign millionaires are buying them to take abroad and sell for even more.

'Instead they should open a museum in the town and display the meteorite pieces. It would attract tourists and would enable scientific research.'
Lebanon President Michel Aoun called Sunday for the proclamation of a "secular state" during a televised address to mark the upcoming centenary of the Lebanese state.

"I call for the proclamation of Lebanon as a secular state," Aoun said during a speech in which he acknowledged the need "to change the system", after an enormous explosion at Beirut's port in early August and months of deepening economic crisis.
Kevin Callahan was a twenty-something backpacking through Europe when he first visited the American World War II cemetery in Normandy, France.

Staring at the gravestones of men who had died in the war  many of whom were around the same age as Callahan at the time  was a powerful experience. Going to the cemetery really affected me, says Callahan, who lives in the Rowayton section of Norwalk. These people sacrificed (themselves) so that I could travel years later through a free Europe.

He had another profound realization 10 years ago, while traveling through Italy with his wife and his three sons. The family visited another World War II cemetery, the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery near Anzio. While there, Callahan saw two burial markers for soldiers who shared a last name. He asked whether the men were related, and found out that they were brothers.

Here I am with three young boys, and, again, it really struck home, Callahan says.

His experiences, more than a decade apart, at the two cemeteries inspired him to write the book Brothers in Arms: Remembering Brothers Buried Side by Side in American World War II Cemeteries, which was released July 4. In the book, Callahan profiles 72 sets of brothers who died in the war and are buried overseas.

I thought someone should tell stories of these brothers, Callahan says. Who were they? Where did they come from?

Kevin Callahan / Contributed

But the goal of Brothers in Arms, Callahan says, isnt just to tell the stories of the brothers. It also aims to draw attention to the many American World War II cemeteries located in other countries, which include not just France and Italy, but the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the Philippines and many others.

I dont think that people realize that there are multiple American cemeteries around the world, Callahan says.

The concept of burying soldiers began during World War, Callahan writes in the book. He says the government allowed families of the fallen to decide whether to have the remains of their loved one repatriated back home or buried near where they fell. That practice continued during World War II.

The timing of the book is fortuitous, as Sept. 2 marks the 75th anniversary of V-J Day, also known as Victory over Japan Day, which marked the official end of WWII. Callahan says that may seem like a long time ago, but to those who lost loved ones its like the war happened yesterday. Because for them, in many ways it did.

The men featured in the book come from all over the country, including big cities, such as Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, and small towns such as Windsor Locks, Conn. Callahan says he started with a much longer list, consisting of more than 200 sets of brothers, and sought out their families.

Some were really hard to track down and some were too emotional to talk about it, Callahan says.

But other relatives embraced the idea. That includes the family of Edward F. Smalley, and his brother, Francis E. Smalley of Windsor Locks, buried in the Brittany American Cemetery in France. The siblings died just days apart. Edward was killed in action on Sept. 14, 1944, and Frank was killed Sept. 4, 1944, while clearing mines for advancing troops

The VFW Hall in Windsor Locks in named in their honor.

Other brothers highlighted in the book include the Akimoto brothers from Los Angeles. While the men fought and died in the war, their parents, who were Japanese immigrants lived in an internment camp. There are some well-known families featured as well, including the sons of President Theodore Roosevelt and the Niland brothers, who reportedly inspired the film Saving Private Ryan.

Callahan says he was surprised by how many of the men were married with families. In some cases, he says, the men died before the children were born, or while they were very young. Some of these children never even knew their fathers, yet were still very emotional talking about them, he says.

In many cases, Callahan says, the family members knew little about how the loved ones had died, and had spent a lifetime tracking the information down.

Its incredible to meet these families and hear their own personal stories of discovery and remembrance, he says.
LANDOVER, Md., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Epilepsy Foundation awarded $200,000 total to two of the finalists who competed in the 9th Annual Shark Tank Competition on August 27 at the 2020 Epilepsy Pipeline Conference, which this year was held virtually. Inspired by the television show "Shark Tank," the Epilepsy Foundation's annual competition invites entrepreneurs from around the world to pitch their products and compete with five other finalists for funding. The winners, selected by a panel of "sharks," will use the funding in the development and commercialization of a new product, technology, or therapeutic concept to benefit the epilepsy community.

"The Epilepsy Foundation is committed to supporting solution-oriented innovative research," said Sonya Dumanis, PhD., Vice President, Research & Innovation. "Over the years, we have funded concepts ranging from seizure alert systems, to educational platforms, which have made a huge impact in helping to improve the quality of life of people with epilepsy. We have an incredibly talented community, and we want to empower individuals who have an innovative idea to take on the challenges that people living with epilepsy face every day, and work together with us to find solutions that will benefit the 3.4 million people in the U.S. affected by epilepsy."

Winner of this year's Shark Tank competition are:

Jong Woo Lee , MD and Andres Rodriguez (Soterya) for a medical-grade smart-mattress device known as Chorus to reposition individuals and stimulate them post-seizure to prevent Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP). Received $75K based on the audience voting; and $50K from the judges.





, MD and (Soterya) for a medical-grade smart-mattress device known as Chorus to reposition individuals and stimulate them post-seizure to prevent Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP). Received based on the audience voting; and from the judges. Keely McArthy , PhD, parent of a child living with epilepsy, for an emergency epilepsy band accessory to ensure that rescue medications are always where a person needs them to be. She received $75K from the judges.

The remaining finalists include:

Attila Borbath (Synergia Medical) for a vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) therapy called NAOVNS, a non-metal implantable neurostimulator that delivers personalized stimulation therapy through fMRI analysis, associated with full body MRI capability and a precise, efficient rechargeable battery.





Boris Goldstein , PhD (Brain Scientific) for a next-generation stamp-size EEG with graphene based imprint electrodes that can improve the sensitivity of detection and allow for better remote monitoring of individuals living with epilepsy.





, PhD (Brain Scientific) for a next-generation stamp-size EEG with graphene based imprint electrodes that can improve the sensitivity of detection and allow for better remote monitoring of individuals living with epilepsy. Aditya Kadambi (Mocxa) for an automated privacy enhancement system known as the 360DID that morphs faces in videos to allow the sharing of seizure features in videos among clinicians and researchers while protecting the privacy of the patient.

The winning entries were selected through voting by conference attendees via a virtual poll following the pitches, as well as a panel of expert judges representing physicians and scientists, corporate executives, leading industry investors, people with epilepsy, and advocates. Among other things, criteria included the potential benefit and appeal to people with epilepsy and their families, and the likelihood of development of their product.

Since 2012, the Epilepsy Foundation has distributed $1.2 million to 16 Epilepsy Foundation Shark Tank winners. Nine previous Shark Tank winners have already made significant advances for people with epilepsy, and five have made it to market, including: SAMi by HiPass Design, UNEEG Medical (CE approved 2019), Embrace (FDA-approved December 2018), Fafanuka (launched in Kenya in 2018), and Zeto (FDA-approved April 2018), which technology is currently part of a groundbreaking EEG study at Methodist University Hospital in Tennessee.

This year's Shark Tank competition also featured updates from last year's winners, Curadite and Eysz. Following Epilepsy Foundation seed funding, Curadite has won additional awards for its smart pill packaging and medication adherence platform. They have begun testing their prototype in users for smart pill packaging and has optimized their design based on user feedback. Similarly, Eysz was able to receive follow-on funding including an investment from UCB and a grant from Greenwich Biosciences. In the past year, Eysz has expanded its IP portfolio and completed a Pre-Sub meeting with the FDA confirming the regulatory path forward. Eysz has also initiated a multicenter clinical study toward FDA clearance using analysis of passive eye movements to detect seizures.

In addition, Mary Ann Brodie, the executive director of the Epilepsy Study Consortium, formally accepted the Epilepsy Foundation's 2020 Lifetime Accelerator Award, which was announced earlier this year. Ms. Brodie received the award during the Accelerator Award Virtual Reception & Presentation from Rusty Katz, M.D., former director of the Division of Neuropharmacological Drug Products at the FDA; Marc Dichter, M.D., former president of the American Epilepsy Society; and Emilio Perucca, M.D., former president of the International League Against Epilepsy.

For more information about the Shark Tank Competition, please visit: Epilepsy.com/sharktank. If you would like to submit an idea to the 2021 Shark Tank, please send an email to [email protected].

About Epilepsy

According to the World Health Organization, epilepsy is the most common serious brain disorder worldwide with no age, racial, social class, national or geographic boundaries. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) estimates that 3.4 million people in the United States are affected by epilepsy. It is the underlying tendency of the brain to produce seizures which are sudden abnormal bursts of electrical energy that disrupt brain functions.

About the Epilepsy Foundation

With a network of nearly 50 partners throughout the United States, the Epilepsy Foundation is leading the fight to overcome the challenges of living with epilepsy. The Foundation connects people to treatment, support and resources; leads advocacy efforts; funds innovative research and the training of specialists; and educates the public about epilepsy and seizure first aid. For more than five decades, the Epilepsy Foundation has shone a light on epilepsy to promote awareness and understanding, and to advocate for laws that matter to people with epilepsy, while also funding $68.7 million for epilepsy research and supporting 3,091 epilepsy investigators and specialists in their early careers. Over the past 18 years, in partnership with the CDC, the Epilepsy Foundation has helped to improve access to care for people with epilepsy, expanded its digital reach and online resources in homes across the country, and trained more than 500,000 school and community personnel in how to recognize seizures and administer seizure first aid. The Foundation has also assisted more than 123,470 people through its 24/7 Helpline in the past five years, and continues to focus on innovation, new therapies, community services, advocacy and education as key priorities. To learn more visit epilepsy.com or call 1.800.332.1000. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

SOURCE Epilepsy Foundation

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www.epilepsyfoundation.org


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Extinction Rebellion activists today dressed up as banshees to protest the construction of a new tunnel that it believes is 'racist, colonial and unjust'.

Eco-warriors rallied outside the TfL headquarters in Stratford, East London, in a show of anger at the forthcoming twin-bore road, which will pass under the Thames from Silvertown to Greenwich.

The environmentalist group says the project will cause pollution in Newham that will hit the BAME community the hardest.

The stunt comes amid a wave of demonstrations planned by the environmentalist group, including a march on Parliament tomorrow and a disruptive cycle ride through London.

XR protesters also today staged a Titanic-themed dinner party in the sea to shine a light on global warming.

Climate activists wearing fine dining dress waded into the water off Chalkwell Beach, Southend-on-Sea, to quaff Champagne and sip tea around a semi-submerged table.

The stunt was designed to illustrate the 'obliviousness' of the 'elite' in the face of rising sea levels as the planet warms up.

Banshees also paraded through Woolwich, a few miles away, where they lay sprawled on the ground to demonstrate against the Silvertown Tunnel

Extinction Rebellion protesters today staged a Titanic-themed dinner party in the sea to shine a light on rising sea levels

Environmentalist messages were also blared from East London today where eco-warriors dressed as banshees rallied against the building of the Silvertown Tunnel

Activists from the Climate protest group Extinction Rebellion enter the DLR station at Woolwich Arsenal in south east London

Posters which were scattered on the beach blazoned warnings such as 'we want to live', 'planet over profit' and 'act now'

Climate activists wearing early 20th Century dress waded into the water off Chalkwell Beach, Southend-on-Sea, to quaff Champagne and sip tea around a semi-submerged dining table

Senior XR sources were unaware of this morning's Titanic protest when approached by MailOnline, suggesting it was organised independently of the group's national leadership.

Campaigner Jonathan Fuller explained on Facebook that two local XR branches joined forces to pull off the eye-catching stunt.

He wrote: 'Southend and Chelmsford XR came together today for the Southend Under Sea action. Chelmsford brought the band and we brought the elite, completely oblivious to the disaster all around them as their Titanic gradually sinks.'

Activists banged drums as several 'diners' in the sea, many of whom wore masks, pretended to enjoy a meal under a banner which read: 'Stop global warming or we're sunk'.

Other posters which were scattered on the beach blazoned warnings such as 'we want to live', 'planet over profit' and 'act now'.

Ecological messages were also blared from East London today where eco-warriors dressed as banshees rallied against the building of the Silvertown Tunnel.

XR's Hackney Branch tweeted: 'On the way to the TfL headquarters in Stratford to tell them exactly what we think of their toxic and racist tunnel! #NoToxicTunnel.'

The group said that building the underwater tunnel will cause traffic in some of the most 'polluted and deprived areas', and branded the project 'racist, colonial and unjust'.

Senior XR sources were unaware of this morning's Titanic protest when approached by MailOnline, suggesting it was organised independently of the group's national leadership

Campaigner Jonathan Fuller explained on Facebook that two local XR branches joined forces to pull off the eye-catching stunt and raise awareness of rising sea level

Activists banged drums as several 'diners' in the sea, many of whom wore masks, pretended to enjoy a meal under a banner which read: ' Stop global warming or we're sunk'

Outside Transport for London's headquarters, campaigners laid 26 pairs of shoes, 'one for each person who dies prematurely every day from air pollution in London'

The group said that building the underwater tunnel will cause traffic in some of the most 'polluted and deprived areas', and branded the project 'racist, colonial and unjust'

A statement said: 'Newham is home to 72 per cent BAME population and less than 50 per cent owns a car: building this road is a racist, colonial and unjust policy.

It added: 'This outdated project has no place in a time of climate emergency and the dangers of traffic pollution in the air.'

Outside Transport for London's headquarters, campaigners laid 26 pairs of shoes, 'one for each person who dies prematurely every day from air pollution in London.'

Banshees also paraded through Woolwich, a few miles away, where they lay sprawled on the ground to demonstrate against the Silvertown Tunnel.

TfL maintains the new road will reduce congestion at the Blackwall Tunnel and shore up the 'reliability and resilience of the wider road network'.

Today's protests continued a string of XR rallies across the UK, which will be ratcheted up tomorrow with a march on Parliament.

At 11.30am, crowds of activists will descend on Westminster for a demonstration and series of rabble-rousing speeches.

The activity will continue all week and target landmarks including Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and the Bank of England.

At 3pm on Thursday, protesters will attempt to wreak havoc on the capital's roads with an event called Ride For Our Lives, which encourages people to 'join the rebel riders for a disruptive cycle around London'.

The Banshees exit Stratford station and march towards the headquarters of TfL to protest the building of the Silvertown Tunnel

The XR activists sweep through Westfield shopping centre in Stratford today. The protests kick off a wave of demonstrations this month

An XR statement said: 'Newham is home to 72 per cent BAME population and less than 50 per cent owns a car: building this road is a racist, colonial and unjust policy'
After the As had their game at Houston on Sunday postponed by a positive coronavirus test, the team received at least some good news Monday.

The rest of Oaklands traveling party tested negative, sources told The Chronicle, and the team underwent more testing Monday and must await results from that second round of tests before leaving quarantine in Houston. The As announced that their three games at Seattle will be postponed through Wednesday, leaving the team looking at a minimum of three doubleheaders in September if MLB decides all of the games must be made up.

The individual who tested positive, under the MLB protocols for 2020, likely will remain behind to quarantine and for additional testing. A player with a positive test must test negative twice, with tests administered at least 24 hours apart. Close contacts of an individual who tests positive also might be required to test negative twice before being cleared for traveling.

Oakland, which leads the Astros by 2  games in the AL West, had been scheduled to open a series at Seattle on Tuesday. The team had postponements Thursday and Friday as first the As (at Texas) and then the Astros decided against taking the field in order to make a statement about police brutality and racial injustice. After Houston swept a doubleheader Saturday, Sundays game was postponed by Oaklands positive virus result based on testing completed Friday.

Including Tuesday and Wednesdays games, thats five postponements in one week, with only one makeup game completed. The team could play a doubleheader at Seattle on Thursday, but Oakland faces the Mariners only once more: at the Coliseum in the final series of the season. Depending on the standings at that point, there is the potential a game or two might not need to be made up.

The As will play a doubleheader against the Rangers on Sept. 12 to make up for Thursdays game, and theyre likely to play two against Houston sometime during the four-game series at the Coliseum next week, the last time the As see the Astros in the regular season.

The As unexpected time off might help in one respect: Shortstop Marcus Semien missed the second game of Saturdays doubleheader with left-side soreness. An MRI exam that night showed no major injury, and The Chronicle learned he doesnt have an oblique strain and isnt expected to go on the injured list. With the team sidelined until at least Thursday, Semien will have longer to heal.

General manager David Forst said Monday that Semien has had a similar injury each of the past two years and played through it; its not muscular or a soft-tissue injury, and the team has ruled out a rib-cage stress fracture. Its hard to really judge how he is now compared to Saturday because hes been in a hotel room, Forst said. He did say theres a little less discomfort. ... The thought is cooling down between games of the doubleheader and warming up again is what irritated it more, but Marcus knows his body and he will let us know when hes ready to push through it.

On Monday, the team took utilityman Chad Pinder, who can play shortstop if needed, off the paternity list and sent outfielder Seth Brown back to the taxi squad and the teams alternate site in San Jose.

Susan Slusser covers the As for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: sslusser@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @susanslusser
Bowser told reporters that she is worried about this country descending into a race war and the continued incitement of violence from leadership, an apparent reference to President Trump. While unrest in the District has involved relatively few people and minor incidents, some other cities are contending with mass protests that have turned deadly. A White teenager is charged with fatally shooting two people protesting police violence in Kenosha, Wis., and a White man linked to a right-wing group was killed over the weekend in Portland.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 31

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The export of carpets from Turkey to Uzbekistan decreased by 52.22 percent from January through July 2020, compared to the same period in 2019, and amounted to $1.2 million, the Turkish Ministry of Commerce told Trend on August 31.

In July 2020, the export of carpets from Turkey to Uzbekistan decreased by 73.23 percent compared to July 2019 and amounted to $252,000.

From January through July 2020, the export of carpets from Turkey to the world markets decreased by 7.3 percent compared to the same period of 2019 and amounted to $1.3 billion.

The export of carpets accounts for 1.4 percent of the country's total export volume for the mentioned period.

In July 2020, Turkey exported $249 million worth of carpets to the world markets, which is 12 percent more than in the same month in 2019.

The export of carpets in July 2020 accounted for 1.7 percent of the country's total export volume.

For the last 12 months (July 2019 - July 2020) Turkey exported carpets worth $2.4 billion.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Geneva, 31 August 2020 (SPS) -Over 240 Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) composing the Geneva Support Group for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in Western Sahara on Saturday advocated the creation of a mandate of special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Sahrawi occupied territories.



In a communique released on the occasion of the International Day for the Victims of Enforced Disappearances celebrated on 30 August each year, 245 NGOs urged the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to create a mandate of special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Occupied Western Sahara.



They underlined the need to very first Article of each of the four Geneva Conventions and to ensure that Morocco complies with the provisions of the said Convention under any circumstance in occupied Western Sahara, said the communique.



In this regard, the signatories called the International Red Crescent Committee (IRCC) to cooperate with the Polisario Front, the only legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, in its search for the missing Sahrawis.



The Geneva Group NOGs also urged the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) to schedule the examination of Moroccos compliance with the Convention.



On 14 May 2013, Morocco had ratified the International Day for the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. However, the Kingdom of Morocco has still not submitted its initial report on this issue to the CED, recalled the NGOs.



Some hundreds of Sahrawis are missing, both militants and civilians, following the Moroccan military invasion of 1975 and Morocco's prolonged occupation of Western Sahara. Since October 31, 1975, the lowest estimates are around 1,000 cases, 80% of which occurred between 1975 and 1977, said the communique. (SPS)



062/SPS/APS
Police will allege the man stole her handbag and phone following the assault

A young man has been charged over the sexual assault and robbery of a 14-year-old girl.

The teenager was walking through a park in Yagoona, in Sydney's south west, at about 5pm on Sunday when she was allegedly attacked.

Police allege the man stole her handbag and phone following the assault.

The girl was walking through a park on Cooper Road in Yagoona in Sydney's south west at about 5pm on Sunday when she was allegedly attacked (stock image)

The teenage girl alerted a member of the public and police were called, prompting an investigation by Bankstown Police Area Command.

She was taken to Westmead Hospital for treatment.

Following inquiries, officers searched a home on Rookwood Road in Yagoona at 1.15pm on Monday.

Officers searched a home on Rookwood Road in Yagoona at 1.15pm on Monday where an 18-year-old man was arrested (stock image)

'An 18-year-old man was arrested at the home and taken to Bankstown Police Station,' police said in a statement.

He was taken to Bankstown Police Station where he was charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault and two counts of sexually touching a child under 16, aggravated robbery and goods in custody.

The man was refused bail to appear at Bankstown Local Court on Tuesday.
Thiiruvananthapuram, Sep 1 : Jose K. Mani, son of Kerala Congress-Mani's late founder K.M. Mani, now has something to cheer after the Election Commission recognised his faction as the original party.

Going through the claims of the rival factions led by Jose Mani and party veteran and senior legislator P.J. Joseph, the poll panel allotted the party symbol of two leaves to his faction.

Expressing his happiness, Jose Mani said truth has finally triumphed.

"This is a victory for K.M. Mani. We lost the Pala by-election because we did not have the symbol. We will now seek the resignation of the legislators in the faction led by Joseph," he said.

On the other hand, Joseph said they will go in appeal against the EC directive.

K.M. Mani, who represented Pala assembly constituency in Kottayam district from 1967 till he passed away last year, was the final authority in their party and Joseph was second in command.

But soon after the 2016 assembly polls, when the party broke away from the Congress-led UDF and decide to sit as a separate bloc, differences surfaced between K.M. Mani and Joseph and the rift intensified after his death. The feud even led to the party stronghold of Pala falling into the Left's hands.

While Joseph has three legislators, the Jose Mani faction has two.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The Maharashtra government is all set to roll out more relaxations from the first week of September after the maximum number of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases and fatalities were reported in August.

In August, Maharashtra reported 3,58,571, or 45.93%, Covid-19 cases, and 9,405, or 38.55%, fatalities related to the viral outbreak.

The state had reported its first Covid-19 case on March 9.

Also Read: Maharashtra reports 16,408 new Covid-19 cases, 296 deaths

The state government is likely to issue a notification on Monday announcing more relaxations under its Mission Begin Again campaign.

State government officials said the decision on interdistrict, interstate travel, reopening of gymnasiums, allowing more employees in private and government-run officials would be taken on Monday.

The relaxations will be rolled out in a phased manner in a bid to avoid a sudden spike in Covid-19 cases. Though the Centre has mandated lockdown only in containment zones, the state is unlikely to lift it entirely from the red zones that are spread across its 19 civic body areas, where there are still a high number of active Covid-19 cases, said a state government official.

Maharashtra is inching towards the mark of 800,000 Covid-19 cases. The state has reported 780, 689 Covid-19 cases and 24,399 deaths until Sunday.

The highest number of Covid-19 cases in the state was reported over the past four weeks.

Newer hotspots in rural and suburban areas were added to the growing list. Cities such as Pune, Solapur, Nagpur, and Malegaon have reported a spike in viral outbreak cases.

The state health authorities expect the surge to hold the line until the first two weeks of September.

In July and June, the state had reported 247,357 and 107,106 Covid-19 cases, respectively. The two months had accounted for 31.68% and 13.71%, respectively, of the total number of Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra to date. In July, 7,139 people had died of the viral infection, while the corresponding figure for June was 5,569. These months had contributed to 29.25 and 22.82% of deaths, respectively, due to the contagion.

Maharashtras case fatality rate (CFR) is still high at 3.13%, as compared to the national figure of 1.81%.

However, the state has reported a steady drop in its CFR.

In August, the CFR is 2.62% , as compared to 2.89%, 5.20% and 4.40% in July, June and April, respectively.

The steady rise in Covid-19 cases in August has pushed the states projection of the flattening of the viral curve by a few more weeks. We didnt experience the plateauing of the infection curve in August because of a spike in Covid-19 cases. Its difficult to give a realistic timeline. The state is likely to achieve a peak by mid-September and by Diwali, which is to be observed in the second week of November, the curve is likely to move faster towards the baseline, said Dr Pradeep Awate, surveillance officer, Maharashtra.

The spread of the contagion in the rural areas has penetrated faster over the last few weeks. The percentage of Covid-19 cases in rural areas has increased by 34% -- 7,175 out of 16, 408 --- until Sunday from 21% --1,024 out of 4,878 --- on June 30.

The penetration in the rural areas, where the health infrastructure is comparatively weaker, is a cause for concern, as the containment of its spread is a challenging task, said an official.

The state authorities are planning to tackle the spread by launching Chase the Virus initiative in rural areas from the second week of September.

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A mural honoring a slain Philadelphia police officer was vandalized over the weekend.

The mural is dedicated to Sgt. Robert Wilson, who was killed by two armed robbers in 2015, NBC 10 is reporting.

The mural at 60th Street and Philadelphia Avenue was found spray painted Sunday with the acronyms ACAB and FTP as well as the circle-A anarchy symbol, reports indicate.

Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw responded on Twitter, telling the culprit, You didnt earn any woke-points. Youre not brave. Youre not a revolutionary. Youre certainly no hero.

To the coward who did this: You didn't earn any extra "woke-points". You're not brave. You're not a revolutionary. You're certainly no hero. And despite all of your failings, heroes like Rob will still answer your calls for help. My full statement below: pic.twitter.com/jnTkIGdAPq  Danielle M. Outlaw (@PPDCommish) August 30, 2020

The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 5 union is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in this case, reports indicate.

Wilson was a 30-year-old father who was in uniform at a North Philadelphia GameStop, buying a gift for his son, when two armed men attempted to rob the store on March 5, 2015, NBC 10 reports.

Reports indicate Wilson got into a shootout with the gunmen, diverting gunfire away from the customers. He was struck six times and died from his injuries.

The gunmen, Carlton Hipps and Ramone Williams, were sentenced to life in prison without parole, according to reports.

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Washington: A federal appeals court in Washington has declined to order the dismissal of the Michael Flynn prosecution, permitting a judge to scrutinise the Justice Department's request to dismiss its case against President Donald Trump's former national security adviser.

The decision keeps the matter at least temporarily alive and rebuffs efforts by both Flynn's lawyers and the Justice Department to force the prosecution to be dropped without any further inquiry from the judge, who has for months declined to dismiss it.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Credit:AP

The ruling represents the latest development in a criminal case that has taken unusual twists and turns over the last year and prompted a separation of powers clash between a veteran federal judge and the Trump administration.

The conflict arose in May when the Justice Department moved to dismiss the prosecution despite Flynn's own guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition period. But US District Judge Emmet Sullivan, signalling his scepticism at the government's unusual motion, refused to immediately grant the request and instead appointed a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department's position.
There are so many things that have gone on in this community, and it just seemed to me, and I think others, that it would be better for us to be able to pull together, let the community get together and actually heal up  and start dealing with the concerns we have that need to be addressed, he said. So it would have been nice if (he) had waiting for a little longer down the road, but it is what it is.
Bella Thorne on the red carpet during the opening gala of the Oldenburg International Film Festival. 11 September 2019, Photo by Mohssen Assanimoghaddam/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Actress Bella Thorne has taken to social media to apologise after facing a backlash following her OnlyFans success.

The former Disney star signed up to the site earlier this month, selling images of herself in lingerie to fans.

It is reported she made $1 million (750,000) within 24 hours of launching the page.

Read more: Bella Thorne says she earned 1.5m in one week on OnlyFans

The site subsequently changed the structure of the financial element to the site, which resulted in other other OnlyFans stars being out of pocket - something many blamed on Thornes success.

The 22-year-old has now addressed the backlash in a series of tweets.

She wrote on Twitter: PT1 Remove the stigma behind sex, sex work, and the negativity that surrounds the word SEX itself by bringing a mainstream face to it thats what I was trying to do, to help bring more faces to the site to create more revenue for content creators on the site.

PT1 Remove the stigma behind sex, sex work, and the negativity that surrounds the word SEX itself by bringing a mainstream face to it thats what I was trying to do, to help bring more faces to the site to create more revenue for content creators on the site.  BITCHIMBELLATHORNE (@bellathorne) August 29, 2020

I wanted to bring attention to the site, the more people on the site the more likely of a chance to normalize the stigmas, And in trying to do this I hurt you.

I have risked my career a few times to remove the stigma behind sex work, porn, and the natural hatred people spew behind anything sex related.

Actress Bella Thorne speaks at the 4th annual Women's March LA: Women Rising at Pershing Square on January 18, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images)

I wrote and directed a porn against the high brows of my peers and managers because I WANTED to help with the stigma behind sex.

She continued: I am a mainstream face and when you have a voice, a platform, you try to use you in helping others and advocate for something bigger than yourself.

Read more: Bella Thorne directs X-rated adult film

Story continues

Again in this process I hurt you and for that Im truly sorry.

She ended the thread, saying: Ps. Im meeting with only fans about the new restrictions to find out why!!! This is f***ed up and Im sorry comment any ideas or concerns you want brought up to OF!! and send me your links and a pic so I can promote you guys.

Though OnlyFans users theorised the rule changes were down to Thornes success, OnlyFans bosses insist this isnt the case, saying transaction limits are set to help prevent overspending and to allow our users to continue to use the site safely.




Haiti - Economy : The President of Unibank explains the penalty of 865.4 million Gourdes





Wednesday August 26 at a press conference, Jean Baden Dubois, the Governor of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH) announced that two commercial banks were sanctioned for non-compliance with the rules in force including Unibank which will have to pay a penalty of 865.4 million gourdes without revealing the reasons for this sanction https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31658-haiti-news-zapping.html



Reacting to this penalty F. Carl Braun, Pesident of the Board of Directors of Unibank, in a circular addressed to Unibank and National Financial Group (GFN) employees dated August 28, explains that "[...] suite to the inspection of the BRH (April 2018 to August 2019) relating to operational and financial data as of December 31, 2017, the BRH imposed on Unibank, as announced by the Governor, a penalty of 865.4 million of Gourdes"



Continuing "[..] Unibank was surprised by the application and the announcement of this penalty while it was in communication with the BRH and that it was working, in good faith, on the recommendations transmitted by this last.



This penalty of such a large amount, representing the equivalent of US $7.2 million, is broken down as follows:



Failure to transfer inactive accounts to the accounting classification "deposits not subject to employment", ie 59.8% of penalties;



Failure to submit documents in the format required by the BRH, ie 32.7%;



Failure to update client files (56 cases), or 7.1%;



Exceeding the daily limit of the net foreign exchange position, ie 0.4%;



Negotiating checks in favor of people banned from checkbooks (17 cases), or 0.004%"



President Braun of Unibank, specifies that this penalty, which represents "7.09% of the bank's own funds, which amounted to July 31, 2020 to 12.2 billion gourdes and 39.94% of the results of the current financial year (October 2019-July 2020) does not affect its current operations or its regulatory ratios, which are still largely adequate."



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Like most people who make it in the art world, I bought a yacht to cruise the Med, Banksy wrote on Instagram when introducing the Louise Michel, a vessel tasked with a somewhat different mission than an arriviste party boat: picking up refugees from countries like Libya and Turkey lost at sea. Anyone whos followed Banksys art career knows he possesses a well-developed instinct for catching and keeping public attention, and it has hardly deserted him in this venture. Why sponsor a refugee rescue boat, after all, when you can sponsor a bright pink feminist refugee rescue boat, emblazoned with a piece of original art?

Despite having been named for the 19th-century feminist anarchist Louise Michel, the motor yachts operations encompass an even wider variety of causes: The Guardians Lorenzo Tondo and Maurice Stierl quote Lea Reisner, a nurse and head of mission for the first rescue operation, saying that the project is also meant to bring together a variety of struggles for social justice, including for womens and LGBTIQ rights, racial equality, migrants rights, environmentalism and animal rights. This multidirectional activism would seem to suit the artistic sensibility of Banksy, whose work strikes out in as many critical directions as both his admirers and detractors can interpret.





The Louise Michel, as Tondo and Stierl reported last Thursday, set off in secrecy on 18 August from the Spanish seaport of Burriana, near Valencia, and is now in the central Mediterranean where on Thursday it rescued 89 people in distress, including 14 women and four children. After picking up the first group of refugees, reports the Washington Posts Miriam Berger, it then encountered a ship traveling from North Africa to Europe with 130 people aboard and some bodies of people who had died during the journey, and as a result quickly became overcrowded and could not properly steer, its Twitter posts said. All this happened at sea around 55 miles southeast of Lampedusa, an Italian island off the North African coast that has become a migration transit point.

Hours later two other vessels, one operated by the Italian coast guard and one by a German nongovernmental organization, came to take on passengers. Though hardly smooth sailing, the Louise Michels first rescue mission proceeded more favorably than some: A vessel named the Talia, which rescued 52 people almost two months ago, wasnt allowed into the port for 5 days, says Dazed. Now, a boat named the Etienne is in the longest record stand-off between authorities and rescuers ever, having spent three weeks at sea being denied disembarkation in Malta. Banksy publicized the Louise Michel, which he sponsors without involvement in its operations, only after it had set sail. But for anyone with an interest in showing the world the dire circumstances of refugees today, the highly visible boats highly visible difficulties certainly arent bad publicity.

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Banksy Debuts His COVID-19 Art Project: Good to See That He Has TP at Home

Watch Dismaland  The Official Unofficial Film, A Cinematic Journey Through Banksys Apocalyptic Theme Park

Banksy Shreds His $1.4 Million Painting at Auction, Taking a Tradition of Artists Destroying Art to New Heights

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall, on Facebook, or on Instagram.
Center for BrainHealth's Adolescent Reasoning Initiative named Nonprofit Team of the Year

DALLAS (August 28, 2020) - The Center for BrainHealth, part of The University of Texas at Dallas, was honored this week when its Adolescent Reasoning Initiative was named Nonprofit Team of the Year at the third annual Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship Awards.

This honor reflects the team's work in training teachers to guide middle and high school students in improving their executive function skills. For more than a decade, Jacquelyn Gamino, PhD and her team at BrainHealth have trained teachers in cognitive science-based programming that instills reasoning, problem solving and innovation among students across the entire curriculum.

"We are grateful for this recognition of the work the Adolescent Reasoning Initiative does to ensure that students learn to use executive function that not only improves their academics, but also opens the way to a lifetime of problem-solving, reasoning, and innovating. These skills will enable today's students to be tomorrow's movers and shakers, filling the workforce with problem solvers and creators for the future," said Dr. Gamino.

Results That Matter

"People equipped with strong executive function are better prepared to make thoughtful, informed decisions and to fuel economic growth through career readiness," continued Dr. Gamino. "Investing in adolescent brain potential cultivates future communities of young adults with the cognitive prowess to generate workable solutions to overcome the challenges that plague our world - economic, health-related, social inequity and more."

Jonathan Smith, principal at D.W. Carter High School, is a longtime BrainHealth partner. He said, "I started working with the BrainHealth team when I was principal at T.W. Browne Middle School. In three short years, we moved from the bottom 5% of the state to the #1 spot in the Dallas ISD, and BrainHealth was an integral part of that work. Now as principal at Carter High School, we've also seen improvement - in many areas, double-digit gains - among students who have participated in the BrainHealth program."

Adolescent Reasoning Initiative Looks Ahead

To date, the Adolescent Reasoning Initiative has trained more than 600 middle and high school teachers, who in turn have reached over 80,000 students - with results that are measurable, significant and lasting.

This summer, the Adolescent Reasoning Initiative team successfully moved from an in-person model to an immersive virtual platform, engaging teachers in active, meaningful learning. Virtual classroom training modules are being finalized to enable the team to maintain their momentum this fall, in the midst of the global pandemic.

The team appreciates the hundreds of teachers and thousands of students who have trusted BrainHealth to improve their brains. Just as importantly, the Adolescent Reasoning Initiative (previously called Middle School Brain Years) is grateful to the many supporters who have helped fund this important work: State of Texas, Simmons Foundation, Communities Foundation, RGK Foundation, Meadows Foundation, AT&T Foundation, Joel Robuck and Friends, and many other generous community members.

About the Awards

The Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship Awards are offered by D CEO in partnership with Communities Foundation of Texas, with the goal of honoring professionals and organizations in the nonprofit world that continue to make a positive impact on the community, often under difficult financial constraints. They also recognize corporations that support the nonprofit community, including this year both corporate and nonprofit efforts surrounding COVID-19 community response.

D CEO managing editor Will Maddox added, "I used to be a public-school teacher... and I've got to say that having someone who wants to pour into you as a teacher and educate you is really refreshing, really important."

This year's awards attracted more than 510 nominations and included two new categories to recognize efforts in response to COVID-19. Winners in several categories were selected from among 80 finalists.

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR BRAINHEALTH

The Center for BrainHealth, part of The University of Texas at Dallas, is a research institute committed to enhancing, preserving and restoring brain health across the lifespan. Scientific exploration at the Center for BrainHealth is leading edge, improving lives today and translating groundbreaking discoveries into practical clinical application. By delivering science-based innovations that enhance how people think, work and live, the Center and its Brain Performance Institute are empowering people of all ages to unlock their brain potential. Major research areas include the use of functional and structural neuroimaging techniques to better understand the neurobiology supporting cognition and emotion in health and disease.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
TSKHINVALI, Georgia -- The former leader of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, has called on the region's current leader, Anatoly Bibilov, to resign amid a political crisis sparked by the death of a man in custody.

In a video statement on Facebook on August 31, Kokoity said that he is currently in Russia's North Caucasus region of North Ossetia and accused Bibilov of "launching a war against his own people."

"You are doing everything to prevent my visit in South Ossetia. You will not succeed in that. I will be in South Ossetia. However, if you are so afraid of that, I give you my word: I will not come to South Ossetia, if you, by noon on August 31, resign and stop torturing the Ossetian people," Kokoity addressed Bibilov.

Local media reports said earlier that Kokoity has been barred from entering South Ossetia.

Kokoity's statement came three days after South Ossetia's government resigned in the wake of protests in the regional capital, Tskhinvali, after a 28-year-old man died in a hospital of severe injuries he sustained while being held in custody.

Inal Jabiyev was arrested on August 26 on suspicion of involvement in shooting at a car belonging to the breakaway region's de facto interior minister, Igor Naniyev, on August 17.

He was rushed to a hospital from police detention on August 28, where he died.

Photos of his body revealing severe injuries were shared by many in the region via social media. Hundreds gathered in front of the hospital on that day after information spread that authorities were hesitant to hand Jabiyev's body over to his relatives.

Bibilov met with the protesters and promised that those responsible for Jabiyev's death would be punished, but his pledge did little to satisfy the protesters, who continued to demand the leader's resignation.

He said he was ready to step down as leader if "people are demanding my resignation," adding that he is open to holding a no-confidence vote if need be.

Later that day, his de facto cabinet resigned.

Russia recognized South Ossetia and Georgias other breakaway region, Abkhazia, as independent nations after Russia and Georgia fought a brief war in August 2008.

Kokoity led the region between 2001 and 2011.

Bibilov was elected as de facto president of the region in 2017.
He also wrote a novel The Copperhead Club, which a friend described as a thriller based in Washington and the hills of Kentucky where he grew up, in a family of nine brothers and two sisters. He wrote the novel in longhand on yellow legal pads while riding the Metro rail from his home in Arlington to work in Washington. It was self-published in 2015.
When you think about the sheer number of components it takes to build a business, your mind starts to race. There are the structural elements, such as the type of business, products and services, the marketing, client fulfillment and more.

As an entrepreneur, your focus might tend to be on what you need the most right now. An informal poll of entrepreneurs would probably point toward a discussion of prospecting and closing new business. It would center around getting more sales and the filling of pipelines.

While the here-and-now are essential, successful entrepreneurs think strategically. They focus on long-term moves they can make, because they understand thats the most powerful way to scale a business.

Related: 5 Personal-Finance Habits of Wealthy Entrepreneurs

Improve your relationship with money.

Too many of us start our adult life having to figure it out when it comes to money and wealth creation. The beginning years of adulthood tend to leave marks, and we carry those into entrepreneurship. This can mean pricing what we offer lower than the value we provide. It often manifests in taking on clients that an entrepreneur knows will not be a good fit, or failing to think about money as something that provides freedom.

Finances dont have to be a constant source of stress if you understand their purpose. You dont have to compromise on what you offer for consumers that arent your ideal client. The stats tell us that there were 4.3 billion internet users, 5.1 billion mobile users, 3.4 billion social media users daily, according to We Are Social. That means we dont lack opportunities to get new clients and build our business in this hyper-connected digital information age. The issue becomes how you show your ideal target client that you can help them.

Working on and creating a healthier relationship with money will reduce stress, beat fear and allow your mind to focus on what will bring in more revenue. Some things you can do are:

Educate yourself about finances through books, courses, videos and other forms of available content.

Hire professionals who can help you organize your finances right now and plan for the future.

Related: 5 Personal-Finance Mistakes That Kill Promising Companies

2. Plan for more than right now.

Many entrepreneurs choose this lifestyle because we would do what we love, even if it were for free. That is great, but it also sets us up to work in our business and not run it as a CEO. It creates a familiar situation where entrepreneurs arent planning for the future.

You may want to work until your body and mind can no longer handle it, but you should have a financial plan in place that takes care of you and your family, whether or not youre running your business.

Financial planning for retirement is not a popular topic with entrepreneurs, but its one that needs to be addressed. Building a legacy is about more than accolades  its creating financial security through a business that aligns with your values.

Successful entrepreneurs plan strategically. Part of that planning includes setting aside money for emergencies, and using funds to build the kind of wealth that allows an entrepreneur to retire in comfort. This includes investments, assets, savings, and other financial management strategies.

You dont have to go through life feeling stressed, worried or unsure of finances and their impact on your business. You can create wealth that allows you the freedom to work, whether you want to or now.

This starts with acknowledging your current beliefs around money and doing the work to make any necessary changes. We live in the information age, which means many solid resources that can bring clarity, help you plan and beat any fear.

Plan for all possibilities and take control of your financial future.

Related:

Adoption Of Technologies Like AI, ML By the Insurance Sector

12 Leadership Lessons with NerdWallet CEO Tim Chen

Implementing These 2 Strategies Can Help Entrepreneurs Reduce Financial Stress



Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Wagners reports steep drop in profits for 2020

31 August 2020

Wagners, the Australian construction materials business, reported a lower after-tax pro-forma profit of AUD3.92m (US$2.9m) for its 2020 annual results, down from the AUD13.7m in the prior year.

Company CEO, Cameron Coleman, said the cement pricing dispute with competitor Boral, now resolved, and the loss of major infrastructure projects negatively impacted the company over the past 12 months.

The key message that Im trying to communicate to investors is (the result was because of) reduced cement sales due to the dispute with Boral, as well as a lack of major infrastructure work, leading us to shut down our precast business.

It was a tough year, but weve got Boral back to normal supply levels, and weve got contracts secured so we expect continued growth. Mr Coleman said investors could expect business growth over the coming year. Weve got AUD40m of work in hand for our casting business through the CRR, he said.

The other key thing is our contract crushing services saw little revenue last year, but we already have the AUD30m contract at the Carmichael Mine. We look forward to the increase in infrastructure activities with the government bringing forward shovel-ready projects to help us recover from COVID-19.

Published under
In the immediate wake of the murder in Portland, Biden released a statement that read in part: The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable. Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by any one, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same. It does not matter if you find the political views of your opponents abhorrent, any loss of life is a tragedy.
The National Public Health Emergency Team has given its latest update on Covid-19 confirmed cases and deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight Sunday 30th August, the HPSC has been notified of 53 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 28,811* confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today 25 were in Dublin, 11 in Limerick and the remaining 17 cases are located in Kildare, Longford, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Laois, Meath, Roscommon, Tipperary, Westmeath.

28 are men / 25 are women

75% are under 45 years of age

27 are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case

14 cases have been identified as community transmission

There have been no new deaths reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre today. There has now been a total of 1,777 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.



Dr Ronan Glynn, Acting Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said; This evening, I want to recognise the very significant impact of the measures on individuals, communities and businesses in Kildare over the past three weeks. The improvement in the epidemiological situation there is a testament to the willingness of everyone to adhere to the public health guidance and measures implemented.

At a meeting of the National Public Health Emergency Team today, NPHET thanked people in Kildare  and in Laois and Offaly previously  for their forbearance and noted that their actions are a demonstration, and a further reminder, of what can be achieved through collective action as we continue to strike a balance between living our lives and behaving in a way that protects one another.

Dr Siobhan Ni Bhriain, Consultant Psychiatrist and Integrated Care Lead HSE, said; As we continue through the school year, we expect cases and these will be responded to rapidly, tailored to that outbreak and led by public health doctors. These public health doctors will communicate with school staff and parents as indicated.

Rachel Kenna, Chief Nursing Officer, Department of Health said; We can all support parents and school children in our communities by following public health advice. We all have a responsibility to keep our schools open by applying this advice to our daily lives. Remember the key protective behaviours, regular hand washing, physical distance, wearing face coverings where appropriate, reduce your social contacts, know the symptoms and know when to isolate.

Dr Sumi Dunne, General Practitioner, said; We are aware that this is an anxious time for parents and guardians. GPs across the country are here to support them. If you feel your child is unwell, outside of a blocked/runny nose and seasonal sneezing, please do not send them into school. Keep them at home, restrict your movements and make contact with your GP.
Ex-President Jerry John Rawlings was in Lome, Togo on August 30, to commiserate with the family of Edouard Kodjovi Kodjo, a former Prime Minister of Togo, who passed away in April this year.

The late Mr Kodjo, popularly known as "Edem Kodjo", was also a former Secretary-General of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).

A statement issued by Mr Kobina Andoh Amoakah, the Communications Director of the Office of the former President, which was copied to the Ghana News Agency said the former President was received in Aflao by Togolese Minister of Security, General Yark Damehane, Professor Robert Komlan Edo Dussey, Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Integration and Togolese Abroad and officials of the Ghana Embassy in Lome.

It said former President Rawlings also paid a courtesy call on President Faure Gnassingbe of Togo.

It noted that upon arrival in Lome, the former President first called on the family of the late Prime Minister and was received by the widow, Valentine Kodjo, the children, and other family members.

It said the former President extended his sympathies to the deceased's family and presented customary drinks and an undisclosed amount of cash to the family.

The statement said former President Rawlings also visited the Cimetiere de la Plage (Beach Cemetery) where the former Prime Minister was buried, to lay a wreath and pay his final respect to the late Edem Kodjo.

It said before departing to Ghana, the former President called on and held private discussions with Togolese President, Faure Gnassingbe at his official residence.

GNA
KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MI -- The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the digital divide in Michigan and the plight of working parents faced with the challenge of children being home from school.

School districts that shifted to online learning have discovered two major difficulties: Some students do not have internet access; and parents working inside and outside the home are struggling to either find affordable child care or grappling with taking care of kids while working at home.

But one Michigan school district has come up with plan to tackle the Wi-Fi and childcare issues.

Portage Public Schools is offering secondary students the option of taking their online classes in a school building, rather than at home, when classes resume Monday, Aug. 31, according to its Return to Learn Plan.

Middle and high school students, who need the in-building support, will be able to social distance in common spaces like the school auditorium to learn online. As of Aug. 27, 894 students were signed up but officials say the number fluctuates daily.

Portage North Middle School Principal Travis Thomsen said providing a safe space that is supervised for secondary students helps parents who need to go to work or care for younger children.

He said the work spaces where students can complete their online courses in the buildings will be supervised by a combination of administrators, counselors and other support staff.

This learning option, available to students in grades six through 12, will be provided Mondays through Thursdays.

Under the districts plan, elementary students will be offered either face-to-face traditional instruction or online learning while older students are limited to online learning only.

The students will gather in common spaces like the auditorium to social distance, Chris Furlong, president of the Portage teachers union, said. He said teachers are not going to be in the buildings with students, rather teaching virtually from home.

The district chose to provide in-building support for virtual learning for many reasons including internet access and daycare needs, Thomsen said.

A driving force behind providing this support is to provide access and equity to internet resources for all of our students, he said.

Access to high-speed internet in a virtual learning environment is needed and we know that not all of our families have the same access. We also know that some students need a more structured environment and we are able to provide that through our in-building supports.

Districts across the state are implementing back-to-school plans -- in-person, online or a hybrid -- after having to close buildings in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kalamazoo, Ann Arbor and Flint schools are among those starting online-only this fall.

The virtual instruction available to all students is full-time and provided by Portage teachers. The option includes live instruction and teacher-directed work from Monday through Thursday and at-home time on Fridays to complete independent work, according to the Return to Learn plan.

Thomsen said the the district can provide strategic and more intensive support by creating small, safe learning opportunities for our students. He said this can help students who may need additional support in reading or math, for example.

Integrated in the virtual learning for all students are mental health and social and emotional learning support, according to the districts plan.

Students can schedule appointments with counselors, and there will be social emotional learning support systems embedded into each online course including check-ins.

The district has also assigned a mental health liaison to each school building.

Like elementary students attending traditional in-person learning, secondary students who will complete their online instruction inside the school building will be offered a bus ride to and from school.

Students will be required to wear masks and use hand sanitizer when entering the bus. They will be spaced as much as possible for social distancing and will be seated with family members enrolled, according to the districts plan.

The district will use similar cleaning and safety protocols for students in the school buildings getting support for online instruction as they do for elementary students in traditional face-to-face instruction.

Students will self-screen for symptoms every morning. The district will use handwashing schedules and mandate that all students wear masks during the in-building time.

At Portage North, students will be divided by grade level and use separate entrances, exits and bathrooms from other students, Thomsen said.

There will be minimal opportunity for students of other grade levels to interact with one another once they enter the building, he said. This will help us with contact tracing should we need to go down that path.

The students online attendance and participation will be required and monitored, according to the plan.

The districts Return to Learn Plan was approved by the Board of Education by a 6 to 1 vote earlier this month. The plan was created based on feedback from parent and teacher surveys, which said top concerns were students health and safety, social and emotional well being and rigorous instruction.

Board member Joanne Willson voted against the plan because of the in-person option available to elementary students. She said the students cant properly social distance and wont be screened daily for temperature checks.

To help you navigate this complicated fall, were pleased to offer you a simpler way to get all of your education news: Our new Michigan Schools: Education in the COVID Era newsletter delivered right to your inbox. To receive this newsletter, simply click here to sign up.

Also on MLive:

Laid-off Portage teachers recalled, middle school sports reinstated amid better budget outlook

These are the pros and cons for Michigan parents still looking at education options for the fall

Grand Valley students moving back to campus amid pandemic excited to be here while it lasts

First day of school looks much different this year in Jackson Public Schools
Tens of thousands of ethnic Mongolian students and parents are demonstrating in northern China over unannounced plans by the Chinese government to phase out Mongolian-medium teaching in the region's schools.



Protests have broken out across major cities in China's northern region of Inner Mongolia over the weekend, including Tongliao, Ordos, and the regional capital, Hohhot, while one student jumped to his death, RFA has learned.



Local residents said one high-school student had died after jumping from the roof of the Sheebert Mongolian High School in Horchin Left Banner, a county-level administrative division.



"On the evening of Aug. 30, a Mongolian student ... reportedly jumped from the building to his death," SMHRIC said, posting video footage showing an ambulance leaving the school amid angry protests.



An ethnic Mongolian resident confirmed the report.



A school in Tongliao locked down its campus, shutting the students inside," the resident said. "The parents went to get the students, and then the armed police came."



"A student on the fourth floor jumped off ... because his mother was detained outside the school," the resident said.



A directive from the Inner Mongolia education department recently ordered an end to Mongolian-language classes for first-year primary students and an end to Mongolian-medium teaching and materials in favor of the Chinese language, teachers in the region have told RFA in recent weeks.



Police cordons broken



Students across the region forced their way through police cordons around schools that had been designed to hold them in, to join their parents who were protesting outside, several video clips showed.



At the gate of one school, kneeling students in school uniforms shouted: "Our language is Mongolian, and our homeland is Mongolia forever! Our mother tongue is Mongolian, and we will die for our mother tongue!"

Meanwhile, local authorities dispatched riot police to a high school in Zaruud Banner, a county-like division, after the authorities tried to lock down the campus amid widespread protests over an end to Mongolian-medium education.





Hundreds of ethnic Mongolian parents gathered in front of the Gahait Mongolian School demanding the authorities release their children after it became clear that the authorities were ending Mongolian-medium teaching in schools across the region without making the policy public ahead of the start of the new semester.



"SWAT teams and hundreds of riot police poured to the scene, preventing the parents from accessing the school dormitories," the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC) reported.



"Following hours of standoff, parents finally broke through the police barricade and proceeded to pick up their children," it said.



Parents beaten by police



Meanwhile, in Horchin Left Rear Banner and Huree Banner, police beat and detained several protesting parents amid protests outside schools there, SMHRIC said, adding that hundreds of Mongolian activists have either been detained or placed under residential surveillance, a form of house arrest.



Authorities also began a region-wide censorship campaign, shutting down Mongolian WeChat groups and removing Mongolian-language books from the shelves of retail outlets.



"The crackdown is very serious," ethnic Mongolian herder Bukhbataar from Urad Middle Banner told RFA on Saturday. "More than 70 groups had been closed [by this evening]."



"In some places, the local police have been beating people up, beating up ethnic Mongolians, for protesting in the streets," he said. "This is oppression of ethnic minorities."



Khubis, an ethnic Mongolian from China now living in Japan, said students at schools in Hohhot had boycotted class.



Classrooms were empty at the Inner Mongolia Normal University in Hohhot, while only around 50 out of 2,000 students had turned up to attend a primary school in the city.



There should be more than 2,000 students in Xinan Road Primary School in Hohhot, but today, only around 50 showed up for school," Khubis said.



Bater, a herder from Ganqika township in Horqin Left Rear Banner, said more than 3,000 students from three local primary schools had also boycotted class.



"In Ganqika, there are three Mongolian schools with a total of 3,000 students," Bater said. "Most of the parents have already taken them home."



Tuyaa, a parent of a student from the Xilin Gol League, estimated that around 80 percent of the region's 23 million ethnic Mongolians were taking part in civil disobedience and protests linked to the new language policy.



"We are not sending our kids to school now," she said. "Mongolian across the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region are rebelling."



Many who call for rebellion are being detained.



According to SMHRIC, police have detained Ulaantuyaa, a teacher from Zaruud Banner, and Nasanbayar, who rallied local people publicly to protest the new language policy, while herder activists Bao Guniang and Yanjindulam have been ordered to remain in their homes.



Nonetheless, protests continued throughout the weekend after the authorities brought forward the starting date of the new semester without publicly announcing details of the new language policy.



Hundreds of students in school uniform gathered in front of the Tongliao Mongolian Middle School, one of the largest Mongolian schools in Southern Mongolia, chanting in tears, Our mother tongue is Mongolian. Until death, we are Mongolian! SMHRIC reported.



Government workers, police refuse orders



Government officials, education bureau workers, and even some police of Mongolian ethnicity are refusing to execute orders, SMHRIC said.



It said almost half of the Bairin Right Banner police force are ethnic Mongolians who are refusing to arrest protesters or take part in any official propaganda activities.



"Artists, bands, and sport clubs across Southern Mongolia are sending out joint statements to protest the new language policy that was set to take effect Sept. 1, 2020," the group said.



"Colorful signatures with red finger prints and their names and pictures have gone viral via social media," it said.



Traditional Mongolian-language storytellers have begun using their art form to call on all ethnic Mongolians to oppose the new policy, and to save the Mongolian language.



"For tens of thousands of years, our mother tongue has been Mongolian," sang one in a video posted to YouTube. "How can we accept Chinese as our mother tongue?"



Protests also erupted at Chinese embassies and consulates in the United States, Europe, and Japan, while citizens of the independent country of Mongolia said they were planning a protest in front of the Chinese embassy in their capital, Ulaanbaatar.



Cultural genocide



Many see the new language policy as the next step in a policy of "cultural genocide" by Beijing.



The protests come amid a region-wide boycott of schools, with empty classrooms pictured across the region, SMHRIC said, citing photos and videos it received from participants.



"Ignoring the school authorities pressure and threat to terminate employment, all Mongolian teachers in Ereen-hot City in Shiliin-gol League have gone on strike," it said, adding that there are signs of a region-wide move to homeschooling by ethnic Mongolian families.



Some retired teachers and even college students are volunteering to teach all subjects in Mongolian, while others are calling for simultaneous protests across major cities in the region, SMHRIC said.



It said ethnic Mongolian lawyers and legal professionals are providing guidance to people looking to defend their rights, and are mulling potential lawsuits against the government over the changes, which they say are in breach of ethnic Mongolians' constitutional and legal rights under national minorities legislation.



One parent said in a video clip posted by SMHRIC: "This might be my last live broadcast. They said they will arrest me in a month. I told them they are very welcome to do so."



"No matter what, what I say will still be the same: I categorically reject so-called bilingual education. I urge all Mongolian parents not to send their children to school on September 1."



Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Supply of steel scrap in Australia is being squeezed by regional Covid-19 lockdowns and a general decline in economic output, scrap market participants have told Fastmarkets.

The reduction in scrap generated in Australia is reducing the volume of material being offered for export from the country and raising prices for whatever material is being offered.



Covid-19 transmission in the country is affecting scrap supply in southeastern Australia - where strict lockdowns are in place - and in areas where outbreaks have been less prevalent, such as the country's West Coast.



Scrap is becoming scarce, and so, I foresee prices going up further in September, a major South Asian exporter source told Fastmarkets on Monday August 31.



Even prices in Chennai, India, are going up because Australian scrap, which usually comes, is not being offered, he said.



Australia and New Zealand have become more significant exporters of steel scrap to Asia in the last year. Oceania countries exported 250,016 tonnes of scrap to India in 2019, up 24.5% year on year, according to data from the International Bureau of Steel Statistics.



Australia-origin scrap was largely out of the Indian market during the past week, but a small quantity was offered in containers to India at $285 per tonne cfr Nhava Sheva on August 28. This was $5 per tonne more expensive than material from the United Kingdom and $5 per tonne less than offers for material from the United Arab Emirates.



Fastmarkets weekly price assessment for steel scrap, HMS 1&2 (80:20 mix), import, cfr Nhava Sheva, India was $280-290 per tonne on August 28, unchanged week on week, but sheared HMS was being sold at as much as $300 per tonne cfr Chennai by Monday, the exporter said.



In Bangladesh, the absence of containerized Australian scrap has given more market share to Brazilian exporters of scrap, with several deals closed from the country in the last few weeks.



Scrap generation suffocated

A scrap exporter on Australia's West Coast told Fastmarkets that there had been a gradual slowing in demolition projects in and around his area, thus choking off scrap supply.



It is a snowball effect. I can see that, in another month, we will be scrambling around for scrap, he said.



We have to go further out of our area to get scrap, then we get to the point of no return, where that is uneconomical to do, he added.



Conditions are even worse in the state of Victoria. The area entered a strict lockdown on August 6 following a sharp rise in Covid-19 infections largely clustered in Melbourne, the state capital.



One scrap buyer in Victoria said he opened at 8am and closed at 2pm, and there was not one delivery in that time, an Australian trader said.



A lot of scrap is generated from [demolition], and the Australian government has also blocked construction and other non-essential work in Victoria, he added.



Stronger currency

The strengthening Australian dollar is also making scrap prices more expensive, the West Coast exporter said, partially due to rising prices for iron ore - of which Australia is a major producer.



The currency was trading at A$1 to US$0.736 on August 31, according to currency exchange website Oanda.com. That is its highest level since December 2018, and it is up from A$1 to US$0.718 one month earlier.



That means that steel scrap valued at A$400 per tonne cfr on August 31 is US$9 per tonne cfr more expensive than it would have been one month before.



Our nemesis is the US dollar, the exporter said. "It is rare that overseas demand for scrap goes up and the Australian dollar goes down. It happens once a year sometimes."



More information about Fastmarkets expanded Asian scrap coverage can be found in our new Asia Steel Scrap Spotlight. Sign up today for free price and news alerts by clicking here.
More than 400 refugees are waiting in the central Mediterranean off Sicily for assignment to a safe haven. The weakened and partly injured refugees were saved from drowning last week by the private sea rescue ships Louise Michel and Seawatch 4. The Louise Michel, which had taken in more than 200 of the shipwrecked refugees, was so overcrowded that it was unable to maneuver on the waves for more than a day.

Calls for help to the Maltese and Italian authorities remained unanswered. In addition, 27 migrants, including children and a pregnant woman, have been waiting on the Danish tanker Maersk Etienne for almost four weeks without being able to go ashore.

Due to the discontinuation of all state sea rescue missions in the central Mediterranean, accidents involving refugee boats, often with fatal results, have increased sharply in recent weeks. Due to the illegal detention of private sea rescue vessels such as the Ocean Viking, the Alan Kurdi and the Sea Watch 3, no civilian sea rescue vessels patrolled the central Mediterranean for weeks.

The Louise Michel after a rescue operation on August 29 (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

But just how dramatically the humanitarian catastrophe in the sea area between Libya and Italy has developed is shown by the rescue missions of Seawatch 4 and Louise Michel, financed by the British street artist Banksy.

The Seawatch 4 departed from Burriana in Spain on August 15 and rescued more than 200 refugees from the sea within 48 hours after arriving in the destination area on August 22 and 23. Most of the people rescued this morning were weak and disoriented, smelled strongly of fuel and showed symptoms of fuel inhalation. More than 90 people needed emergency showers because they were exposed to the gasoline that powers the engine, generates harmful fumes and is highly corrosive in combination with salt water, wrote the medical project coordinator of the relief organization MSF on board the Seawatch 4, Barabara Deck.

A few days later the Louise Michel also set sail from Burriana. The former patrol boat of French customs, only 31 meters long, is too small to accommodate and care for hundreds of refugees for several days. With a maximum speed of 27 knots, however, it is much faster than other civilian rescue ships and can therefore initiate rescue operations on the spot. The crew has thus supported the recovery of more than a hundred refugees by the Seawatch 4.

Last Thursday the Louise Michel had to take in 89 refugees. The next day, the ship responded to an emergency call from the reconnaissance aircraft Moonbird, which is operated by refugee aid workers. The Moonbird had discovered a rubber dinghy that was no longer moving and was full of water. We were shocked when we saw the rubber boatit was incredibly overcrowded and people onboard were trying to shuffle water out of the boat with their bare hands. We knew this was a grave emergency situation and decided to send out a mayday relay to all authorities and actors in the vicinity. Responsible European authorities failed to react to our distress call and only the Louise Michel responded to this serious distress case, explained Neeske Beckmann from the Moonbird.

While the European authorities did not fulfill their duty of sea rescue and ignored all distress calls, the Louise Michel rescued 130 refugees from acute distress at sea on Friday morning. One refugee could only be recovered dead from the dinghy, three others had drowned before. Many of the rescued have severe burns from the mixture of gasoline and salt water in the boat, explained Lea Reisner, who was responsible for the operation of the Louise Michel.

Since the Louise Michel could not accommodate 219 refugees on board, the crew attached a life raft to the hull, but this rendered the ship unmaneuverable and it needed help itself. For hours the emergency call of the Louise Michel was ignored by the rescue control centers in Italy, Malta and Bremen. It was not until Saturday that an Italian coast guard ship came to the aid of the helplessly drifting Louise Michel near the Italian island of Lampedusa and took over 49 refugees who were in urgent need of medical assistance. Later, the Seawatch 4 took another 150 refugees and is now waiting with 350 refugees on board to reach a safe haven.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) called on the European Union to immediately provide a safe haven for the more than 400 refugees on the high seas. In a joint statement, the two organizations emphasized that it is a humanitarian duty to save human lives. The lack of EU-wide cooperation to take in refugees is no excuse for denying vulnerable people a safe haven and the assistance they need, as required by international law, the declaration goes on to say.

But the authorities in Malta and Italy refuse to comply and block the landing of the refugees. In Italy, the government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte continues its racist and anti-refugee policy even without the extreme right-wing Lega and its former Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini. In July, the new independent Minister of the Interior, Luciana Lamorgese, declared that Italy was facing serious health problems due to uncontrolled immigration during the COVID-19 pandemic and ordered military units to Sicily.

In doing so, she fuels racism in the style of Salvini and tries to blame refugees for the renewed increase in the number of cases, for which in reality the Italian government is responsible. Although in Italy tens of thousands of people died of COVID-19 in the spring, the Conte government is also pushing ahead with the reopening policy pushed by all European governments, thereby endangering the health and lives of millions. The refugees are declared scapegoats in order to enforce the opening of schools and the maintenance of production in the factories.

In fact, it is clear that the refugees who make the crossing from Tunisia or Libya to Italy are no risk for the spread of the virus. But instead of being systematically tested and placed in safe and humane conditions, they are held for weeks on quarantine ships or in completely overcrowded refugee camps. Only a week ago, the president of the Italian region of Sicily ordered that all the reception centers on the island be closed and all refugees deported. Regional President Nello Musumeci also justified this barbaric plan with fear of rising COVID-19 infections.

In his order, Musumeci, who had been hoisted into office by right-wing and right-wing extremist forces, further decreed that no refugee was allowed to enter, pass through, or stop on the island. Also affected by the order are the civilian sea rescue ships of the aid organizations, including now the Seawatch 4 and the Louise Michel.

Since the beginning of the year, almost 19,000 refugees from North Africa have landed in Italy, with a particularly sharp increase in the proportion of Tunisians fleeing their country. According to official figures, 359 refugees have drowned in the Mediterranean. The actual number of victims is probably far higher. Since the European Union has withdrawn from sea rescue and at the same time civil sea rescue has been largely blockedrescue ships are repeatedly being moored for flimsy reasonsmany boat accidents in the central Mediterranean go unnoticed.

This is also suggested by reports from the Alarm Phone organization, which registers calls for help and forwards them to the sea rescue services. Between August 16 and 23, Alarm Phone received four calls for help from refugees in a single week. The organization assumes that at least 100 refugees drowned in these four accidents. Another 160 refugees are missing.

This is an incomplete list of recent tragedies.

 On August 18, an inflatable boat with at least 95 passengers bursts in international waters off the Libyan coast. However, the emergency response service in Rome does not want to intervene, since the Libyan coast guard is supposedly responsible. The coast guard in turn points to technical problems and cannot provide a boat. Hours later an EU reconnaissance plane circles over the scene of the accident, but does nothing. Only the next day does a Libyan fishing boat pick up 65 survivors and take them back to Libya.

 On August 16, an inflatable boat with 82 refugees on board is fired upon off the Libyan coast and catches fire. Forty-five people die, the survivors are brought to Libya and interned in camps although they need urgent medical attention.

 The same day another boat capsizes off the Libyan coast. Only one of the 40 refugees on board survives.

 On August 18, a refugee boat gets into distress off the Tunisian coast. Three of the 18 occupants die.

The indifference of the European Union to the thousandfold death of refugees in the Mediterraneansince 2014 alone, more than 14,000 refugees have officially drowned in the Mediterraneanis a blatant violation of international law and constitutes a humanitarian crime. Under the German Council Presidency, the murderous policy of Fortress Europe will be further intensified. There are plans to intern refugees at the EUs external borders and to carry out fast-track asylum procedures and massive deportations.

However, the essentially racist and fascist actions of the European elites are meeting with ever-increasing resistance. The donation of the Louise Michel by the British street artist Banksy, reportedly after a conversation with the captain and sea rescue worker Pia Klemp, is only one expression of this development.

The Louise Michel adorns a variation of Banksys famous graffiti Girl with a Balloon in the form of a refugee child pointing to a heart-shaped life ring. In a video published on Instagram, Banksy justifies the foundation of the ship, named after a French author and anarchist who defended the Paris Commune in the 19th century, with the words: Like most people who have made it in the art world, I bought a yacht to cruise around the Mediterranean. It is a French Navy ship that we converted into a lifeboat because the EU authorities deliberately ignore distress calls from non-Europeans.

A petition on Change.org entitled Impunity for Sea Rescue, which was initiated last year after an Italian court prosecuted Klemp, has now received over 460,000 signatures.
Anticipating that a return to their offices is unlikely before next year, businesses that shifted to remote work in the spring have settled in for the long haul--and are saving money on rent, travel, and office amenities. Many have reallocated some of those funds to re-create a comfortable office environment in workers' homes, providing home-office stipends or discounts on ergonomic chairs, monitors, lighting, and internet upgrades. But companies are also introducing perks to meet new needs, such as those related to mental health pressures and child care obligations.

If you're rethinking your benefits package in light of the coronavirus pandemic, here are four ideas to help keep your team happy, healthy, and engaged.

1. Create options for parents.

Child care benefits don't have to be limited to subsidized daycare or babysitting--especially during a pandemic, when many parents aren't comfortable sending kids to school or using in-home sitters. "What parents need is things taken off their plate so that they can help their kids themselves," says Jordan Peace, co-founder and CEO of Fringe, a Richmond, Virginia-based benefits startup. That could mean offering flexible work hours, chipping in for virtual babysitting or tutoring, sending kid-focused subscription boxes with meals or activities, or simply giving employees a stipend to use for child care-related expenses.

2. Replace office snacks with home delivery.

Businesses accustomed to lunch meetings and well-stocked office pantries are redirecting that budget to feeding remote employees. Companies like SnackNation and SnackMagic will deliver packaged treats to workers' homes, while Fringe's platform, which allows employers to allocate points to individual workers that can be redeemed for a wide variety of benefits and discounts, offers food-delivery services, grocery boxes, and even coffee and tea subscriptions.

Alternatively, you can let employees expense meals or groceries. Wilbur Labs, a "startup studio" in San Francisco that launches and invests in tech companies, ordinarily provides at least one meal per day in its office, co-founder and CEO Phil Santoro says. Now, each remote employee instead receives a $35 daily food stipend. The company encourages staff to use it at local small businesses, especially Black-owned restaurants and grocery stores, Santoro says.

3. Go the extra mile on health and wellness.

While mental health care was already a growing trend in workplace benefits, the added stress of the pandemic and remote work have led many businesses to formalize their approach. Beyond subsidizing therapy and offering subscriptions to apps for meditation, yoga, and fitness, companies are more willing to give employees something that might have seemed unfeasible before: time away from work. Fearing rampant burnout, more businesses are experimenting with a four-day workweek, more generous vacation policies, and flexible scheduling.

Austin-based public-relations agency Kickstand Communications allows employees to step away from their screens for up to three "mental health hours" per week. The company already provided a monthly wellness stipend of $50 per person, and decided not to cut that benefit despite other belt-tightening measures earlier this year, says co-founder and CEO Molly George. She expects the company will continue to prioritize this kind of support. "There's a kind of trap of feeling like mental health is not as urgent of a situation as it was in the beginning of the pandemic, when things were so scary and so bad," she says. "But just because it doesn't feel as urgent doesn't mean that it's not just as important as it was five months ago."

4. Let employees choose.

One easy way to determine what perks are best suited to your team's needs in the current climate is to ask your employees. That could yield unexpected results: With pet adoptions on the rise, some companies have opted to pay adoption fees or grant "pet paternity leave." Others have paid for Netflix subscriptions, matched employee donations to racial-justice organizations or Covid-related charities, or even given out stock options.
The province announced on Sunday that three COVID-19 cases previously identified in the Prairie Mountain Health region have been linked to a unit on the second floor of the Brandon Regional Health Centres Assiniboine Centre.

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This article was published 31/8/2020 (507 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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The province announced on Sunday that three COVID-19 cases previously identified in the Prairie Mountain Health region have been linked to a unit on the second floor of the Brandon Regional Health Centres Assiniboine Centre.

As such, the site has initiated outbreak protocols on this floor to reduce the spread of infection to hospital patients and staff. This means that visitations will be restricted now that the floor is designated as threat-level red (critical) under the provinces new Pandemic Response system.

Sundays news release went on to claim that all this information has already been shared with close contacts of the infected, including family members and fellow staff.

However, Andrea Playter told the Sun that the BRHCs communication with families of patients has been very poor in light of this news.

The Minnedosa resident said she is particularly concerned about the health of her 78-year-old father, who was administered to the hospital after suffering a stroke earlier this month.

"We cant go in and see him. Were told nothing and Im really, really afraid that the next phone call were going to get is to tell us that  our dad contracted COVID and then died alone," she said on Sunday afternoon. "Were just sort of sitting in limbo, and he seems to be deteriorating physically."

This revelation about the three cases at BRHC comes days after the province previously announced that COVID-19 cases have been linked to two personal care homes in Brandon: Hillcrest Place and Rideau Park. Both facilities have also been place under threat-level red.

Moving into this week, Michelle Gawronsky from the Manitoba Government and General Employees Union said she will be keeping a close eye on the BRHC and other health-care facilities in the region to make sure that they are abiding by the current provincial health protocols.

"If its PPE or its a non-medical mask, the expectation is that the employer has them available, and the expectation from our members is that you will wear them, and that is how we are going to protect each other," Gawronsky said on Sunday.

Otherwise, the province announced 90 more coronavirus cases over the weekend  55 on Saturday and 35 on Sunday  bringing the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Manitoba up to 1,186.

Of these 90 cases, almost half came from the PMH region, with 31 having been announced on Saturday and 12 on Sunday.

Preliminary investigations suggest that eight of the cases announced on Sunday are close contacts of previously announced cases.

Right now, Manitoba is contending with 462 active cases and a five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate of 2.2 per cent.

Updated hospitalization and intensive care unit data was not made available on Sunday due to data system upgrades. The province expects this data will be available this afternoon.

As of Friday, five Manitobans were hospitalized due to the virus, with one individual being in intensive care. The provinces COVID-19 related death toll remains at 14.

An additional 1,542 laboratory tests were completed in Manitoba on Saturday, bringing the total number of tests completed since early February to 134,920.

 kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @KyleDarbyson
Arshad Khan By

Express News Service

GVK Power & Infrastructure Limited on Monday formally announced that it, along with its subsidiaries, GVK Airport Developers Limited (GVKADL) and GVK Airport Holdings Limited (GVKAHL) (collectively GVK), have agreed to cooperate with Adani Airport Holdings Limited (AAHL), the flagship holding company of Adani Group for its airports business (and a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL) (collectively Adani).

Under the agreement, Adani would infuse funds into Mumbai International Airport Limited to provide liquidity support. GVK in a statement said Adani would achieve financial closure of the Navi Mumbai International Airport project at the earliest in order to commence construction.

GVK ADL is the holding company through which GVK Group holds 50.50% equity stake in Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), which in turns holds 74% equity stake in Navi Mumbai International Airport Limited (NMIAL).

The Adani Group will also take steps to complete the acquisition of a 23.5% equity stake from South African entiy ACSA and Bidvest in MIAL for which it has obtained CCI approval.

"Upon the acquisition of the debt of GVK ADL, Adani Group will take steps to obtain necessary customary and regulatory approvals, as may be required, to acquire controlling interest in MIAL," Adani said in a regulatory statement. Adani would be acquiring debt of various GVK lenders including a Goldman Sachs led consortium and HDFC. It would also release GVK of various obligations, securities and Corporate Guarantees given in respect of debt to be acquired by Adani.

GVK Reddy, Founder & Chairman, GVK said, "The aviation industry has been severely impacted by COVID-19, setting it back by many years and has impacted the financials of Mumbai International Airport Limited. It was therefore important, that we bring in a financially strong investor in the shortest possible time to improve the financial position of MIAL, as well as to help achieve Financial Closure of the Navi Mumbai International Airport project, which is a project of national importance.

It is under these circumstances that we agreed to cooperate with Adani so as to achieve these twin objectives. Further, when the transaction is consummated, which is subject to customary approvals, we would be reducing a significant portion of liabilities to our lenders, which is of utmost importance to the group.

Separately, GVK has notified the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, National Investment and Infrastructure Fund and PSP, collectively (Investors) that the Transaction Documents stand terminated, as it is no longer effective and implementable.

The reason for this decision was a) the terms of the transaction envisaged in the Transaction Documents were not implementable and b) the alternative proposals discussed would not provide a resolution to the lenders of ADL by the end of August, which was a requirement of GVK's lenders.
PHOENIX, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ombudsman Arizona Charter Schools, a ChanceLight Education alternative learning program, was recognized by Microsoft for its dedication to providing students with an innovative, transformative and personalized learning experience. Ombudsman Charter East was named a Microsoft Showcase School for the second year in a row and is once again the only school in the state to receive this distinguished classification. Ombudsman Charter Northwest and Ombudsman Charter Metro were named Showcase Incubator Schools which signifies they are on the path to Showcase status.

"It's an honor to be recognized for the second consecutive year as the only Microsoft Showcase School in Arizona, and we are delighted to add two Microsoft Incubator Schools to our list of achievements," said Michael Goto, Associate Superintendent, Ombudsman Arizona Charter Schools. "When our schools went completely virtual in March due to COVID-19, our teachers and students continued to stay focused and determined despite the unique challenges. Earning these accolades, which includes being one of only 39 Microsoft Showcase Schools in the country, is a true testament to the success of our program that helps ensure non-traditional learners reach their full potential."

Ombudsman Arizona Charter Schools, which has eight locations throughout Phoenix and Tucson, offers free, flexible education programs and college and career counseling services to students ages 14-21 who struggle in the traditional high school environment due to behavioral issues, poor academic standing or adult responsibilities, or those who have dropped out or are at risk of dropping out of school. The Ombudsman curriculum and support services help students get back on track and graduate and prepares them to enter college or the workforce.

Many Ombudsman students have adult responsibilities such as work, family and childcare that make regular attendance challenging. Students miss instruction when they are absent, which can cause them to fall further behind in coursework. To help ensure students succeed, Ombudsman focuses more on independent-led teaching utilizing Microsoft technology like OneNote and PowerPoint, allowing students to access learning materials 24 hours a day from a variety of devices and stay current on their schoolwork.

As a Microsoft Showcase School, teachers incorporate Microsoft 365 technology into the curriculum and student assessments and provide training during the orientation process, so students are prepared to use the technology from day one. Students become proficient in utilizing basic Office software, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and utilize more advanced programming, such as Microsoft's Teams platform for communication and OneNote for project management. Students use this technology to provide feedback on school activities and complete classroom projects at least twice each semester.

In addition to the Showcase School top honor, 14 Ombudsman Arizona Charter School educators were named Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts. According to Microsoft, the Innovative Educators program recognizes global educator visionaries who use technology to pave the way for their peers to enhance the learning experience and improve student outcomes. The 2021 Microsoft Innovative Educators from Ombudsman include: Rachel Armock, Veronica Bates, Dorothy Cohen, Katherine Crooks, Jessica De La Cruz, Stephanie Delacruz, Michael Goto, Lupita Ingram, Tiffany Lenzi, Jonathan Lindsay, Andrea Lopez, Andrea Rodriguez, Tina Romero and Patricia Wood.

Several of the Ombudsman Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts commented on the how the school's non-traditional learners are more engaged and motivated as a result of the Microsoft program.

"As a Microsoft Showcase School, our program is more accessible to different types of learners and makes the learning process more individualized. Platforms like Microsoft Teams increases personal interaction with students and allows us to develop deeper, more meaningful connections," said Rachel Armock, English Teacher at Ombudsman Charter East Microsoft Showcase School.

"Many of our students feel unsuccessful or uninterested in a traditional public high school, and it's our responsibility to spark interest and excitement in their academic experiences. Our blended learning model and various Microsoft tools help us engage students and teach them the skills they need to succeed in their careers. Our students improve their academic, critical thinking, technology and innovation skills; and graduate well-rounded contributors of their community," said Lupita Ingram, Principal at Charter Metro High School Microsoft Incubator School.

"As we engage in remote learning, we depend on Microsoft tools more than ever to enhance connections and provide opportunities for face-to face interaction. We continue to find innovative ways to use Microsoft technology to keep our students engaged academically and to create effective communication, school community and emotional connections," said Dorothy Cohen, Principal at Charter East Microsoft Showcase School.

Ombudsman encourages students to complete the self-paced Microsoft certification program that improves their proficiency in the software, helps prepare them for a career, and proves their experience and expertise to employers. Ombudsman covers the cost of the exam fee for students. For many, this certificate opens doors to careers previously unattainable without a college degree.

Schools throughout the country and the world submit applications and only the most impressive and innovative programs are selected as Microsoft Showcase Schools. "It's extremely rewarding for our teachers and staff to be recognized for their commitment to ensuring our students succeed in school and beyond," said Goto. "Our program empowers students to achieve their academic goals and gives them a second chance at a high school diploma and a promising future."

About Ombudsman Charter Schools:

Ombudsman, a division of ChanceLight Behavioral Health, Therapy and Education, provides highly personalized, technology-rich blended learning programs for middle and high school students who have not been successful in traditional school programs. Our program is for students who are at risk of dropping out, who wish to recover credits to advance with their classmates, or who have adult responsibilities and would benefit from a flexible schedule. For more information, visit www.arizonadiploma.com.

CONTACT: Robin Embry

Lovell Communications Inc

[email protected], 615-750-9033

SOURCE ChanceLight Education
Pupils who pretend to cough at UK schools could be sent home when the new term starts this week.

At least two schools have warned students they will be excluded if they cough or sneeze deliberately at someone else.

Jerome Scafe, an associate principal at Ark Alexandra Academy in Hastings, East Sussex, sent a letter to parents outlining coronavirus red lines to prevent the spread of the infection.

He wrote: The following behaviours may result in a fixed-term exclusion: deliberate or malicious coughs/sneezes at any point; humorous, inappropriate comments or statements related to the coronavirus; purposeful physical contact with any other person; repeated failure to follow instructions within an appropriate timeframe resulting in the student needing to be removed from lesson.

Byron Academy in Acton, West London, has also banned coughing deliberately on another person.

The offence was previously deemed anti-social but is now being viewed as potentially extremely serious.

The school said parents should expect that their child may be excluded if they did not follow instructions.

Face coverings are mandatory for children in secondary schools that are in areas in England that are locked down.

This does not include classrooms and does not apply to primary-aged pupils.

In all other parts of the country, it will be up to headteachers to decide whether masks are required.

In Scotland and Northern Ireland face coverings should be worn by staff and pupils when moving around secondary schools.

Wales has left it up to schools and councils to decide if pupils should wear face coverings.

While different schools will have different term start and end dates, many institutions are set to open on Thursday,

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Uber Technologies Inc. vowed to make public more safety information regarding its self-driving cars after the National Transportation Safety Board placed partial blame for a fatal 2018 crash on the companys policies.

The company made the pledge in an update to its voluntary safety assessment, filed Friday with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It marked the first major attempt by Uber to allay criticism of its autonomous driving program since the NTSB board reached its conclusions regarding a Tempe, Arizona, crash in 2018 believed to be the first fatal pedestrian accident involving a self-driving vehicle.

We support the idea of transparency and making the public understand what we do, Nat Beuse, head of safety at Ubers Advanced Technologies Group, said in an interview. The new filing is a complete update from Ubers initial offering to regulators in 2018, he said.

In the document, Uber touts enhancements, including the public release of a Safety Case Framework that it pledges to make open-sourced for peer review. The company also details new internal safety management procedures and the establishment of an independent Safety and Responsibility Advisory Board.

So far, 23 companies have made their self-driving safety assessments public, according to NHTSA, including Apple Inc., Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., Lyft Inc., Mercedes-Benz AG, Toyota Motor Corp., and Waymo. Beuse, a former NHTSA associate administrator for vehicle safety research, said Uber is among a handful that have updated its voluntary disclosures.

Pedestrian Hit

The fatality occurred around 10 p.m. on March 18, 2018, when a 49-year-old woman was hit by a 2017 Volvo XC90 SUV operated autonomously by Uber, according to police in the Phoenix suburb. Authorities said the vehicle was in self-drive mode with a safety operator behind the wheel when the pedestrian, who was walking a bicycle outside of a crosswalk, was struck. She died at a local hospital.

The NTSB voted in 2019 that the probable cause of the crash was the failure of the vehicle operator to monitor the environment and the operation of the automated driving system because she was visually distracted throughout her trip by her personal cellphone.

The board also cited three shortcomings by Uber: the companys inadequate safety risk assessment procedures; ineffective oversight of vehicle operators; and lack of adequate mechanisms to address complacency by operators as the cars drove themselves.

Voluntary Approach

Safety advocates have criticized the Trump administrations voluntary approach to self-driving car regulation. They say the voluntary reports submitted so far resemble slick marketing brochures instead of stringent regulatory filings.

The Tempe crash roiled the debate about self-driving cars in Washington, where legislation was being considered to drastically increase the number of such cars auto manufacturers would have been able to put on public roads. Uber suspended all testing of self-driving cars for four months before resuming testing in Pittsburgh in July 2018. The company closed its driverless testing program in Arizona and let go almost 300 workers there in May 2018.

Consumer advocates have seized on the incident to urge tougher regulations of self-driving cars.

Its nice that Uber has decided this is the right time to update its so-called report, but a consumer-focused agency would have long ago mandated all driverless vehicle manufacturers regularly submit useful safety details regarding their public road tests, said Jason Levine, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety.

NTSB members applauded Uber for cooperating with its nearly two-year long investigation when it released its findings in late 2019, but also cited an ineffective safety culture that played a role in the 2018 crash.

Beuse said Ubers filing isnt an attempt to rebut the NTSBs findings. The said the company hopes to show that safety is paramount to what were trying to do.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Legislation Auto Personal Auto Sharing Economy Autonomous Vehicles Ridesharing
The allGeo platform gives us comprehensive visibility into our field activity in real time. It also helps us automate our expense reporting process for the care providers by recording mileage via a mobile app and reducing paperwork to avoid user errors -- Lizette Toscano, Charter Healthcare Group

Abaqus, a leading Field Service Automation platform, announced today that its allGeo platform has been expanded to incorporate the 3 Pillars framework - Scheduling, Monitoring and Reporting. This makes it easier for businesses to customize and manage all aspects of their field service workflow, delivering the end-to-end capabilities that enterprise customers need to better manage their field service operations, boost productivity and reduce costs.

Scheduling

Field service workers live by their calendars in order to see as many customers and prospects as possible in the shortest amount of time. With Context-Based Scheduling & dynamic jobs assignment, allGeo customers can better manage operations like patient visits, outside sales tasks, facilities inspections, work order assignments, and dispatch & deliveries. Companies can also import daily assignments from Outlook, Google Calendar and CRM systems to consolidate daily tasks into one app for their field employees. Employees can use a single allGeo app to view and complete their daily jobs while being freed up to spend more time delivering excellent experiences to their customers and less time driving, clicking, and typing.

We have over 500 caregivers who visit patients and communities, providing them exceptional care and life enhancing services. Monitoring their daily schedule and visits, getting accurate mileage information and generating reports for payroll are all capabilities that are vital to our business, said Lizette Toscano, Director of Payroll at Charter Healthcare Group. The allGeo platform gives us comprehensive visibility into our field activity in real time. It also helps us automate our expense reporting process for the care providers by recording mileage via a mobile app and reducing paperwork to avoid user errors. allGeo Reports are easily integrated with our ADP payroll system. By automating these key steps in our workflow, we are able to focus on providing a high level of care to the patients and communities we serve."

Monitoring

When managing hundreds or thousands of employees in the field, having full visibility into all the field activities becomes critical. The value that a business provides hinges on how well field activities are being performed. The second component of the 3 Pillars, Monitoring field activities in real-time, helps businesses stay on top of every field activity. It includes tracking of jobs, employees, mileage, safety and real-time exceptions. It also includes electronic field data collection through field staffs smartphones enabling them to collect a wide variety of information such as mobile forms, notes, pictures, signatures and QR codes.

Analytics

Analytics & Reporting, the third component of the 3 Pillars, helps businesses generate useful reports for each aspect of their field activity and measure results against goals. It is an analytics and performance measurement tool that helps businesses continually evaluate their operations and identify gaps in performance that they can remedy.

As weve expanded from a point solution into a field service automation platform, our customers have been asking for more automation in their workflow, specifically in the area of Scheduling and Task assignments for workers based on dynamic conditions in the field, a highly complex process and a huge pain point said Shailendra Jain, CEO of Abaqus. With this added capability, our customers can now use the allGeo platform to address all aspects of their field service workflow which is embodied in the 3 pillars - scheduling, monitoring and analytics, all of which are needed for a complete solution. The 3 pillars will help companies better streamline their field operations & satisfy their customers needs.

About allGeo:

Abaqus, based in Silicon Valley, CA, is a leading provider of cloud-hosted, low-code / low-IT field service automation platform that helps midsize and Enterprise businesses achieve field service excellence. The allGeo platform helps businesses customize and automate their field service workflows to better manage and optimize their operations, field employees & assets. With allGeo, Field service businesses can significantly reduce payroll and operations costs while improving productivity and accountability. The allGeo platform hosts a suite of turnkey apps that can be rapidly deployed in a wide range of industries e.g. Scheduling, Time Clock, Tracking & Monitoring, Mileage, Dispatch, Electronic Visit Verification, Lone Worker Safety, and Field Inspection using QR / mobile forms. Visit http://www.allgeo.com for more information.
The Supreme Court (SC) will pronounce its judgment on Monday on the sentence to be awarded to activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan for the offence of criminal contempt of court.

On August 14, the SC had found Bhushan guilty for putting out two tweets criticising the apex court and the Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde.

The case was registered on July 9 and the first hearing in the matter was held on July 22.

The case took 40 days to reach a conclusion from the date of its first hearing.

Here is a timeline of how the case progressed and a conclusion was reached in little over a month:

June 27: First Tweet

The first of the two tweets criticised the functioning of the SC in the past six years. The tweet alleged that the historians would mark the role of the apex court in contributing to what Bhushan considered as destruction of democracy.

When historians in the future look back at the last six years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the SC in this destruction, and more particularly the role of the last four CJIs, the tweet had alleged.

June 29: Second tweet

The CJI rides a Rs 50-lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] leader at Raj Bhavan, Nagpur, without wearing a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC on lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access justice! Bhushan had alleged in his second tweet that had accompanied a picture of CJI Bobde, sitting on a stationary Harley Davidson motorcycle.

July 9: Petition against Bhushan

Mehek Maheshwari, an advocate, filed a petition before the SC seeking initiation of criminal contempt proceedings against Bhushan for his tweets. As per Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act and Rule 3 of Rules to Regulate Proceedings for Contempt of SC, the consent of the Attorney- General (A-G) or the Solicitor-General (S-G) is required before the apex court can hear a criminal contempt petition filed by an individual.

Maheswaris petition did not have such consent, but the court still decided to proceed suo motu (on its own motion) based on Maheshwaris petition.

July 22: First hearing in Supreme Court, notice to Bhushan

The SC listed the case suo motu based on Maheshwaris petition and issued notice to Bhushan seeking his response. The court also issued notice to A-G KK Venugopal seeking the assistance of the veteran lawyer in his personal capacity.

August 2: Bhushan refuses to apologise

Bhushan filed his response before the SC in which he refused to apologise for his tweets stating that it fell within the domain of free speech. This would be the first time in this case that Bhushan would refuse to apologise.

Bhushan in his defence cited similar criticism of the SC made by its sitting and retired judges.

So serious were the misgivings of the senior sitting judges that they (the four judges) felt compelled to disregard the code of judicial conduct to call a press conference and warn citizens of danger to democracy because of danger to a free judiciary, Bhushan submitted before the apex court.

August 5: Hearing

A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Arun Mishra and also comprising Justices BR Gavai and Krishna Murari, heard the case for a day and reserved its verdict.

August 14: Bhushan pronounced guilty, sentence hearing deferred

In a strongly-worded judgment, the three-judge bench held that the allegations levelled in the tweets against the apex court and CJI are malicious in nature and have the tendency to scandalise the SC and such conduct was not expected from Bhushan, who is a lawyer of 30 years standing at the Bar.

The tweets, the apex court held, were based on the distorted facts and have the effect of destabilising the foundation of the Indian judiciary, the court said holding him guilty of criminal contempt of court.

The court then posted the case for August 20 to hold a separate hearing to decide on the punishment to be given to Bhushan.

August 20: AG KK Venugopal urges court not to punish Bhushan

When the case came up for hearing on sentencing, Bhushan found an unlikely ally in A-G Venugopal who prayed before the SC to take a lenient view and not to punish him taking into account his contributions in the fight against corruption and for the poor.

Bhushan maintained that he would not apologise and quoted the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi:

I do not ask for mercy. I do not appeal to magnanimity. I am here, therefore, to cheerfully submit to any penalty that can lawfully be inflicted upon me for what the court has determined to be an offence, and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen.

The court gave Bhushan time to think over and concluded the hearing.

Read More: History will judge the court: Kapil Sibal on Prashant Bhushan contempt case

August 24: Bhushan stands his ground

Bhushan submitted another statement before the apex court maintaining that he would not apologise. He said that the views expressed by him through his tweets represented his bona fide (good faith) beliefs and, as a result, an apology for expressing such beliefs would be insincere.

An apology cannot be a mere incantation and any apology has to be sincerely made. If I retract a statement before this court that I otherwise believe to be true or offer an insincere apology, that in my eyes would amount to the contempt of my conscience and of an institution (SC) that I hold in highest esteem, read the supplementary statement.

August 25: Verdict on sentencing reserved

The court heard Bhushan on the statement submitted by him the day before. While the A-G urged the SC to let Bhushan off with a warning, the apex court said that it cannot do so unless Bhushan expresses regret for his tweets.

Since no such regret was forthcoming, the SC said that it would not close the case and proceeded to reserve its judgment on the sentence to be awarded to Bhushan.
Former President Pranab Mukherjee passed away on Monday evening. The Congress leader was in deep coma and on ventilator support after a brain surgery. He was 84 years old.

Mukherjee was admitted at the Army's Research and Referral hospital. The doctors who were monitoring him had stated that his condition deteriorated today after a septic shock.

Pranab Mukherjee was admitted to the hospital on August 10 and was operated on for the removal of a clot in the brain the same day. Later, he developed a lung infection.

ALSO READ: Remembering Pranab Mukherjee and his economic legacy

Mukherjee, the 13th President of India, leaves behind a rich legacy. The former Finance Minister had an illustrious career spanning five decades. Pranab Mukherjee had also served as the Defence Minister and Minister for External Affairs.

Born in West Bengal's Birbhum district, Mukherjee's political career had begun in the state in 1969 when he managed a successful by-election. When the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi recognised his talent, she recruited him in her party.

Pranab Mukherjee served as the External Affairs Minister of India in 1995. He was appointed the Defence Minister from 2004-2006 during then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's tenure. Mukherjee was reappointed as EAM in 2006.

However, he was first appointed the Finance Minister during Indira Gandhi's tenure in 1982. He was later appointed the Finance Minister in 2009. He presented the annual budgets in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Mukherjee had also served as the Commerce Minister from 1980-82 and again in 1984.

Pranab Mukherjee was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2008 and Bharat Ratna in 2019.
Deputy Health Minister Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye has defended the governments decision to charge arriving passengers at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) $150 for the Covid-19 test.



His strong defense comes after the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDCs) Dr. Edward Omane Boamah criticized the government for the $150 charge for passengers, accusing it of attempting to cash in on the pandemic.



In a tweet, he said why charge 150 dollars for PCR at the airport when it costs below $100. Dont cash in on Covid-19.



But addressing the media at the Airport Monday, Dr. Okoe Boye said the government assessed the global situation before arriving at the cost.



He cited countries like Zimbabwe, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria, where arriving passengers have to pay higher than the $150 government, has decided on.



So with all these considerations, remember that anyone coming to Ghana must have a negative PCR test, he stated.



Earlier today, government officials have been outlining new stringent measures that will be put in place to keep the virus at bay as Ghana prepares to re-open the Kotoka International Airport to international passenger traffic on Tuesday, September 1.



The airport was shut down about five months ago following the closure of the countrys borders to halt the importation of the novel disease caused by the coronavirus.



Also at the briefing the Ghana Health Service Director-General, Dr. Patrick Kuma Aboagye highlighted the measures that will be implemented when the airport officially starts operating.



There is a digitized health declaration form that people can fill, so passengers can complete that in the plane before they arrive at the airport. This will tell us [health workers] the risk level for us to know how to properly access it.



The mandatory Covid-19 test on arrival as President said will also be done and by the time you go through all of that and get down to the Immigration, your results will be out for them to also process you and allow you in [the country].



GHS Director-General outlines new stringent measures on arrival at Kotoka International airport.



He noted that the flight crew will not be subjected to compulsory testing unless they are entering the country. For those who test positive for COvid-19,



Dr. Kuma Aboagye said, the port health will take over to assist you through the immigration so as to prevent further contamination.



There will be a holding room and after that, they will all be sent to Ga East hospital for retrial after which the necessary protocols whether it is treatment, isolation, etc will take place.



















Source: Myjoyonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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In May, Chinese troops annexed 60 square kilometres of Indian territory in Ladakh - Prakash Singh/AFP

Indian troops have captured an important Chinese military post after allegedly fighting off an attempt by the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) to occupy further Indian territory in the disputed border region of Ladakh.

On Saturday evening, around 500 Chinese troops had tried to cross into Spanggur, a narrow valley near the village of Chushul and three hours of hand-to-hand combat ensued.

A senior Indian police source told the Telegraph the attack had been repulsed and a retaliatory special operations battalion seized a Chinese camp in the surrounding hills of Pangong Tso Lake in the early hours of this morning.

Video: China warns India to withdraw troops from LAC

It has not commented on the nature of the clash or whether either side suffered any casualties.

Today, the Indian Government accused Beijing of provocative military movements three months after Chinese troops annexed 60 square kilometres of Indian territory in Ladakh.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry denied its troops crossed the disputed Line of Actual Control, which separates the two superpowers, and accused the Indian Army of occupying its territory.

Indias move has seriously violated Chinas territorial sovereignty, severely undermined the peace and stability of the Sino-Indian border area, and rebelled against this. China strongly opposed this, said Zhang Shuili, a spokesperson for the People's Liberation Army Western Theatre Command.

We solemnly request the Indian side to immediately withdraw its illegally crossing troops, strictly control and restrain the front-line troops, earnestly abide by its commitments, and avoid further escalation of the situation.

A senior Indian police source warned the situation had the potential to escalate, saying its troops had opened a new front by pushing Chinese troops back and capturing territory near the village of Chushul.

Military commanders from both nations met along the frontier today in an attempt to resolve the dispute, according to Indias Ministry of Defence.

Story continues

Beijing is increasingly wary of close ties between India and the U.S

It reiterated Indias commitment to dialogue but warned it was also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity.

We never had any problem in this place and we hold it pretty strongly, said Lieutenant General D.S. Hooda, the Indian militarys former northern commander.

After relative calm, China has suddenly opened a fresh, brand new front. Its a huge provocation.

S. Jaishankar, Indias Minister of External Affairs, warned tension between the two countries is at its highest since the two agreed a ceasefire after the Sino-Indian War in 1962.

On June 15, at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed, the first fatalities along the LAC in at least 45 years, after Chinese troops used nail-studded bats to attack Indian soldiers.

While sporadic fist-fighting has broken out along the border over the years, weapons had not been previously used, as this was seen as a declaration of war.

Military officials from New Delhi and Beijing have been locked in unsuccessful military talks following this incident.

China is said to be trying to assert its authority in the region in the wake of strengthening India-U.S. ties, which it sees as a threat.
Last week, his best friend Kim Kardashian gushed about his brand new Food God Truffle Ketchup, which is available now.

And on Saturday, Jonathan Cheban, known as Foodgod, was seen leaving lunch with a small beverage in hand.

The 46-year-old star cut a casual figure after enjoying lunch with a pal at celeb hot spot Ill Pastaio in Beverly Hills.

Out and about: Jonathan Cheban, known as Foodgod, was seen leaving lunch with a small beverage in hand on Saturday

The star donned light green trousers with a black and white T-shirt that said Obsession across the torso.

Jonathan donned sneakers with aviator sunglasses, while opting to forgot a watch, just weeks after he was robbed.

His watch, a $250,000 model was stolen at gunpoint earlier this month in the quiet, upscale neighborhood of Englewood Cliffs in New Jersey while the star was with a friend and mother, Galina.

'It was frightening, I want the guys caught,' Cheban told DailyMail.com exclusively.

Casual: The 46-year-old star cut a casual figure after enjoying lunch with a pal at celeb hot spot Ill Pastaio in Beverly Hills

'The mugger had a gun pointed at my mother's head. There were two gunmen. It happened at 8:30 pm just as the sun was going down.'

Cheban also told DailyMail.com this week that though he talked to police who had sketches of the criminals made up, the attackers have not been caught yet.

Last week Jonathan said he does not want to be in New York City these days, even though the incident happened in New Jersey.

Weekend fun: The star donned light green trousers with a black and white T-shirt that said Obsession across the torso

Grinning: Jonathan donned sneakers with aviator sunglasses, while opting to forgot a watch, just weeks after he was robbed

'I can't be there. It's very traumatic to be there,' the 46-year-old told Page Six on Monday. 'I want to sell my apartment in New York for sure because I can't imagine living there again.'

While he was robbed in New Jersey, Cheban slammed Mayor Bill de Blasio for his lack of action over a recent spike in armed robberies, among Manhattan's Upper East Side.

'Daytime, nighttime, afternoon, Midtown, Uptown, Downtown, the mayor has destroyed the city,' he told the outlet. 'It's depressing. It's scary. I was on edge before, but now I'm even more on edge, obviously.'

He added: 'I'm just confused as to how they're allowing this to happen. I just cannot believe [New Yorkers] would vote for this idiot two times.'

His outing on Saturday comes as his best friend Kim Kardashian promoted his brand new Foodgod truffle ketchup, which is $19.95 for a 9 ounce bottle.

Lovely: His outing on Saturday comes as his best friend Kim Kardashian promoted his brand new Foodgod truffle ketchup, which is $19.95 for a 9 ounce bottle
Gov. Kay Ivey has awarded $10 million from the states Coronavirus Relief Fund to help Alabama timber owners affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The money comes from the $1.8 billion the state received under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by Congress.

In a press release, Ivey said the $10 million will be used to set up a grant program administered by the Alabama Forestry Commission.

Qualifying timber owners can receive grants up to $10,000 on a first-come, first-serve basis if they harvested timber in Alabama during the months of March through July. The payment rate will be $1 per ton of timber sold.

The forestry industry has an economic impact of over $23 billion in the state of Alabama and provides over 40,000 jobs in some of the most rural parts of our state, Ivey said in a press release. CARES Act funds are intended to stabilize our economic losses and help our state recover from COVID-19.

The Legislature gave Ivey the authority to administer the CARES Act funding within 10 categories. The money going to timber owners is out of a $300 million allocation to support citizens, businesses, and non-profit and faith-based organizations of the state directly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Alabama Forestry Commission understands that forest landowners in the state have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus, State Forester Rick Oates said in the press release. These assistance payments will not make landowners whole, but they will help. An even more important effect of this program will be that this money will not sit in peoples bank accounts. It will help landowners better care for the forest resources with which they are entrusted, and in doing so, will be reinvested in the economy and be spent several times.

Alabama Farmers Federation President Jimmy Parnell said the pandemic reduced prices that timber owners received for timber to make lumber and pulpwood to make paper.

This funding will help lessen the blow for those who sold timber this spring, Parnell said in a press release.

About $1.5 billion of the $1.8 billion in Alabamas coronavirus relief fund has been designated for programs such as education, hospitals and nursing homes, and reimbursing state, city and county governments for COVID-19 costs. About $222 million of that had been spent as of Sunday. The CARES Act requires the funding to be spent this year or the state would have to return it.

The Ivey administration maintains a list of budgeted items and expenditures in the coronavirus relief fund.

Related: Most of Alabamas coronavirus relief fund committed.
Donald Trump has been urged to abandon his planned visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin, by the states governor, who said he was concerned the presidents arrival would only hinder our healing.

The city south of Milwaukee has been the scene of a new wave of Black Lives Matter demonstrations and violent clashes since 23 August when a white police officer shot black 29-year-old Jacob Blake seven times in the back, leaving him paralysed.

The unrest, which has seen hundreds of National Guardsmen called in and an emergency curfew implemented, turned deadly on Tuesday when three protesters were shot by a vigilante gunman, two of whom died of their injuries.

Seventeen-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse has since been charged with the killings of Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum.

White House deputy national press secretary Judd Deere nevertheless trailed a presidential visit from Air Force One on Saturday but the announcement received a swift written response from Wisconsin governor Tony Evers who warned against it.

I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state, Mr Evers wrote on Sunday.

I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.

It is our job as elected officials to lead by example and to be a calming presence for the people we know are hurting, mourning, and trying to cope with trauma. Now is not the time for divisiveness, he continued.

Now is not the time for elected officials to ignore armed militants and out-of-state instigators who want to contribute to our anguish.

The governor argued that a visit from the president would mean redirecting resources to accommodate his security detail at a time when it is critical that we continue to remain focused on keeping the people of Kenosha safe and supporting the communitys response.

Mr Everss forceful letter echoed comments made earlier on Sunday by the states lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes.

You look at the incendiary remarks that the president has made, they centred an entire convention around creating more animosity and creating more division around what is going on in Kenosha, Mr Barnes told John King on CNNs Inside Politics.

So, I dont know how given any of the previous statements that the president made that he intends to come here to be helpful. And we absolutely dont need that right now.

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

Justin Blake, Jacob Blakes uncle, has explicitly blamed Mr Trump for inciting the violence seen in the streets of Kenosha  and other American cities before it  as police reform advocates clash with law enforcement and right-wing agitators.

How could they not be feeding on violence when the man in the White House is steadily drumming it up? he said on ABC News, adding that the Blake family does not want anything to do with the president.

While Mr Trump lashed out at rioting, looting, arson and violence in Democratic-run cities during his acceptance speech as the Republican Partys political nominee on Thursday, his challenger, Joe Biden, accused him on Sunday of fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and challenged him to condemn the unrest.
Bella Hadid recently reunited with ex-boyfriend The Weeknd, as they filmed their parts for this year's virtual Video Music Awards.

And the model reminded her occasional lover just what he's missing, putting on a sizzling display with her red carpet look.

She left little to the imagination Sunday in a sexy sheer black ensemble, as she presented the inaugural Tricon Award to Lady Gaga during the MTV awards show.

Back in black: Bella Hadid left little to the imagination Sunday in a sexy sheer black ensemble, as she presented the inaugural Tricon Award to Lady Gaga during the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday

The 23-year-old donned a see-through off-the-shoulder long-sleeve top, layered with an almost-as-sheer black bra.

She complemented the top with some high-waisted black slacks and a pair of black strappy stilettos with jeweled details.

Hadid put on a sleek black cat-eye with a flawless glam look, framed by gold hoop earrings and black flat-ironed wisps, dangling from a '90s chic updo.

She previously took to Instagram with an impromptu photo shoot, posing in her stunning ensemble.

Barely there: The 23-year-old donned a see-through off-the-shoulder long-sleeve top, layered with an almost-as-sheer black bra

Glam display: She complemented the top with some high-waisted black slacks and a pair of black strappy stilettos with jeweled details. Hadid put on a sleek black cat-eye with a flawless glam look, framed by gold hoop earrings and black flat-ironed wisps, dangling from a '90s chic updo

For the 'gram: She previously took to Instagram with an impromptu photo shoot, posing in her stunning ensemble

Make believe: The brunette beauty filmed her brief segment in front of a green screen, as this year's awards show took precautions against COVID-19, ditching the usual live audience format

The brunette beauty filmed her brief segment in front of a green screen, as this year's awards show took precautions against COVID-19, ditching the usual live audience format.

The 2020 VMAs were originally scheduled to be held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, before the coronavirus pandemic forced organizers to re-think the entire event.

This year's show marks the first time the bash has been held at various different locations, with performances taking place in and around New York City, without packed audiences to abide by social distancing guidelines.

MTV explained its plans for the show to '[span] all five boroughs' of New York, to 'pay homage to the strength, spirit and incredible resilience of NYC and its beloved residents.'

Hadid's appearance came after her ex The Weeknd (whose real name is Abel Tesfaye), 30, opened the show with a performance of Blinding Lights from Hudson Yards in Manhattan.

Opening act: Hadid's appearance came after her ex The Weeknd (whose real name is Abel Tesfaye), 30, opened the show with a performance of Blinding Lights from Hudson Yards in Manhattan

Winner winner: He was nominated for six awards, winning Video of the Year and Best R&B, both for Blinding Lights

Using his platform: Tesfaye yielded his time for both acceptance speeches, instead asking for 'justice for Jacob Blake and justice for Breonna Taylor'

He was nominated for six awards, winning Video of the Year and Best R&B, both for Blinding Lights.

Tesfaye yielded his time for both acceptance speeches, instead asking for 'justice for Jacob Blake and justice for Breonna Taylor.'

The Starboy artist reunited with Hadid last week in New York City, where they filmed their appearances from a studio.

A source told DailyMail.com that the exes appeared to be 'on good terms': 'They played it cool and crossed paths with each other, same place, same time.'

Hadid and Tesfaye were first romantically linked back in early 2015, before taking another break from their on-again, off-again relationship last August.

Reunited: The Starboy artist reunited with Hadid last week in New York City, where they filmed their appearances from a studio: They played it cool and crossed paths with each other, same place, same time' (pictured in May, 2016)
Face coverings are now required in enclosed public spaces as a bylaw throughout the Town of Aylmer, following the Southwestern Public Health letter of instruction.

The bylaw went into effect Aug. 6 and will be enforced by Aylmer bylaw officers and Aylmer Police.

Aylmer council unanimously passed the bylaw during a special council meeting on Aug. 4. However, a technical malfunction prevented audio from being broadcast, so exact quotes from the meeting could not be determined.

We take this very seriously. Weve moved as quickly as we can. I know a lot of people wished it was quicker, but these things take time, said Aylmer Mayor Mary French in a later interview.

Several surrounding areas implemented similar face-covering bylaws weeks earlier.

The hasty implementation comes among a rapid rise of confirmed COVID-19 cases in town throughout the past week. There were 47 confirmed cases in Aylmer as of Aug. 6, the day face coverings became mandatory. It was zero in mid-July.

Because weve had a spike here in Aylmer, weve been very anxious to get this done, said French.

The health unit has stated the rise in Aylmer cases is not due to one particular incident  some are family clusters, some are individuals, and some are workplaces or other transmission sources.

French said the municipality was focusing on an education-first approach to enforcement, and will operate on a complaint basis.

Individuals or businesses not in compliance could be fined from $500 to a maximum of $10,000.

Children under two, or children under five that cannot be persuaded to wear one by a caregiver, are exempt from wearing a face covering. Police officers, firefighters, or paramedics are exempt when it might interfere with the performance of their duties.

People with health conditions that make it difficult to wear one are also exempt. Businesses may not ask anyone for proof of exemption.

The Aylmer Express asked French about the possibility of mandating face coverings in early July. At the time, she said it had not yet been a topic of discussion in the towns meetings with Southwestern Public Health, pointing to issues with enforcement.

When asked if enforcement was still a concern now, French said: It certainly is. Were not sure how many complaints were going to get. Maybe we wont get hardly any. If we did get a lot of complaints, it could get quite overwhelming for our police department and our enforcement officers.

When asked if mandating masks at an earlier date could have prevented an outbreak, French said, I dont know, because it would just be speculation.

French said the emergency control group was tentatively looking for the bylaw to be in place until the end of 2020. This is subject to change, depending on whether COVID-19 cases rise or lower.

This reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.
By Shennell McCloud

President Barack Obama recently observed at John Lewis eulogy that, We no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar to cast a ballot. But even as we sit here, there are those in power doing their darndest to discourage people from voting...

Hes right, and its not just President Donald Trump. Even in New Jersey, the State Republican Party and its leaders are adopting similar tactics to suppress the vote.

With a pandemic still claiming 1,000 lives per day, the stakes are too high to play politics with voting - the cornerstone of our democracy.

So lets separate the facts from the fear-mongering.

New Jerseys first large-scale experiment with a nearly all vote-by-mail election was in May when several towns held special and local elections, and the result was increased turnout nearly across the board. Of course, it wasnt a perfect election. Based on data my organization received in response to an OPRA request to Essex County, 1,129 out of 9,992 (11.3%) ballots cast in Essex County were rejected, consistent with a statewide rejection rate of nearly 10%. By far the most common reason for rejection in Essex County (6.7% of all ballots cast) was because the ballot was received after the polls closed.

The state learned from the experience. For the primary election in July, ballots were accepted if they were postmarked by Election Day and received by the Board of Elections within seven days. The rejection rate in Essex County plunged from 11.3% to 1.75% (2,053 out of 117,134 ballots cast). In fact, the biggest reason for ballot rejections in the prior election was virtually eliminated - there were just two ballots rejected for being received after polls closed.

Some have pointed to the charges of voter fraud in Patersons primary election as a failure of the vote-by-mail system but the arrests and prosecution show that the system is working to catch and root out bad actors.

The fact remains that voting by mail is safe and increases turnout, and there is no evidence of widespread abuse.

Thats why its so troubling that even in New Jersey, a state that endured the brunt of the pandemic, Republicans are adopting the same tactics as President Trump, who is trying to make voting more confusing, difficult, and even unsafe.

The New Jersey Republican State Committee joined the Trump campaigns lawsuit to oppose Gov. Phil Murphys expansion of vote by mail for the November election. The lawsuit is just the latest element of a broader effort by New Jerseys Republican leadership to discourage voting.

In a series of disturbing tweets, Assembly Republican Leader Bramnick adopted the dangerous Trumpian tactic of undermining the legitimacy of the election by raising fears about voting by mail and outright lying about voting in person.

Leader Bramnick wrote on Aug. 15: I am very concerned about privacy and the mail-in ballot. Who opens the ballot? Voters might be very concerned that whoever opens your ballot will know how you vote. Voting must be 100 percent private. Scary.

The fact is that mail-in ballots are designed with a tear-off certification flap, which can be removed before the ballot is tallied by a different person - specifically to maintain anonymity. Leader Bramnick knows that, but he chose to stoke fear.

Bramnick also tweeted the following day that no one can vote in person - a flat out lie. Anyone can vote in person via provisional ballot if they choose to.

Whereas generations of Americans fought and bled for the right to vote, these actions and statements are designed to do the opposite - to scare, cast doubt, and confuse voters. They are part of a pattern - a long and shameful tradition of ever-changing and thinly veiled tactics designed to disenfranchise voters, particularly voters of color. We may not be counting jelly beans, but we need to call out and reject this behavior for what it is: the latest incarnation of voter suppression.

History will judge our elected leaders on whether they stood up for Americans most fundamental right - the right to participate in our democracy - or chose the Trumpian path of fear, lies and division. Some of our local leaders would do well to remember this. Tell the truth and stop spreading fear. Our democracy is too important.

Shennell McCloud is the executive director of Project Ready, an organization that seeks to engage more Newark families in decision-making.

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Gettyimagesbank



The remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, known for embracing a gross national happiness index and outlawing television before 1999, has now made the unusual decision to reverse a ban on the sale of tobacco, blaming the COVID-19 pandemic.



The decision comes even though smoking is considered a sin in the mostly Buddhist country, where a tobacco control law was first passed in 1729 and the plant is believed to have grown from the blood of a female demon.



The country of about 750,000 banned the sale, manufacture and distribution of tobacco in 2010 but allowed smokers to import controlled amounts of tobacco products after paying hefty duties and taxes  sparking a thriving black market for cigarettes smuggled over the border from India.



When Bhutan closed its frontier with India earlier this year because of the coronavirus pandemic  India has more than 3 million confirmed cases, while Bhutan has fewer than 200  under-the-counter tobacco prices soared fourfold as the traffickers found it harder to get into the country.



Some continued to sneak in however, and on Aug. 12 a Bhutanese worker handling goods coming in from India tested positive for coronavirus in the border town of Phuentsholing.



This prompted a rethink by the government of Prime Minister Lotay Tshering, a qualified doctor who still practices at weekends.



His administration lifted the decade-old ban to temper demand for the smuggled cigarettes and, in theory, lessen the risk of cross-border contagion.



Tshering insists the reversal is temporary.



The decision allows smokers to buy tobacco products from state-owned duty-free outlets, and adds them to the list of essential products available in the country's pandemic lockdown.



The government further argued that keeping it from those who are addicted and stuck inside might lead to tensions in the home.



"This is the wrong time to rehabilitate a person or to change their habits," Tshering told a local newspaper.



At one duty-free shop in the capital Thimphu, branch manager Dechen Dema said she gets about 1,000 calls a day and works from 8:00 am until midnight catering to orders.



"We get so many desperate calls, we don't even get proper time to eat," Dema said.



Long-term smoker Regyal Chophel, 35, who works for the state media, was relieved to get his fix.



"Old habits die hard and I was getting quite desperate. I am thankful for the government to have come up with this arrangement," he said. (AFP)


Citing the catastrophic collapse of our local and national economy due to COVID-19 and damage to local businesses from civil unrest, Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday laid out a $1.2 billion budget shortfall for 2021  what she called Chicagos pandemic budget.

Filling the historic deficit will likely require personnel cuts and could lead to layoffs, while the mayor promised to use a TIF surplus and consider a possible computer lease tax as other potential measures. Lightfoot made no mention of a possible property tax hike in her prepared remarks.

Asked afterward for specifics about cuts or taxes, Lightfoot said that all options are on the table, though property taxes and job cuts are at the back of her list.

And facing a resurgence of the coronavirus in the suburbs around Chicago, Cook County officials are launching a digital ad campaign to push the necessity of wearing a mask, officials announced days after the region was placed on a state COVID-19 warning list.

In addition to launching the Mask Up Cook County campaign, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle also warned of the potential for further restrictions should the rise in cases, which she said was driven by young people, not ebb.

On Monday, Illinois public health officials announced 1,668 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 7 deaths. Overall, Illinois has reported 235,023 cases, including 8,026 deaths.

Heres whats happening Monday with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:

6:48 p.m.: I thanked the Creator. Man wins freedom after COVID-19 delays, philosophical change on teenage sentences

A man once sentenced to life in prison for murder as a teenager won his freedom Monday after serving 26 years behind bars  including a monthslong series of delays that kept him locked up during the deadly coronavirus outbreak.

LaRon Warren said he almost broke down as the judge reduced his sentence.

I thanked the Creator. I said a silent prayer and thanked him, Warren told the Tribune. He recalled his late mother, who advocated for sentencing reforms. I know my mom was sitting beside the Creator rejoicing.

Warren, 44, was convicted in the murder of Ebony Higgins, a pregnant teen who was shot dead on Easter Sunday in 1994. At the time, Warren was 17 and on bond for a different murder charge from the year before in what court documents describe as a drug deal gone bad.

Warrens release is the result of an evolution in how the legal system thinks about young people who commit serious crimes like murder.

Read more here. Ray Long and Megan Crepeau

6:02 p.m.: Deerfield to issue $50 fine - as last resort - for not wearing face coverings amid COVID-19

Deerfield village trustees have approved a plan to fine those who go against the mayors emergency declaration enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including a $50 penalty for not wearing a face covering.

Mayor Harriet Rosenthals declaration was originally enacted in March and subsequently extended and amended to include a requirement that residents wear face masks when out in public.

From our perspective we sense the increasing need for this tool as an interim step, Village Manager Kent Street said of the recent addition of fines for scofflaws.

Under the ordinance, those who refuse to wear a mask can be issued a compliance ticket for $50. If the ticket is not paid within 10 days of issuance, the fine increases to $100. Also, those ticketed can request a day in court if they wish to contest the ticket.

Read more here. Alicia Fabbre

4:19 p.m.: Big Ten reveals the vote count that resulted in fall football being postponed

Now it can be told.

The Big Ten really, truly did take a vote before scrapping fall football, and the result was 11-3. Sources told the Tribune that Ohio State, Nebraska and Iowa dissented.

The conference opted to reveal the 11-3 vote Monday by filing a brief in response to the lawsuit brought by eight Nebraska players, who allege that the Big Ten is in breach of contract by not following its governing documents.

The lawsuit sought transparency on the vote and alleged the Big Tens decision was based on flawed medical information.

The Big Ten has countered by saying conference bylaws require a 60% vote of university presidents and chancellors and that 11-3 represents a 78.6% tally.

The conference cited in the brief ongoing health concerns that could imperil not only players, but also coaches, staff and referees. The conference relied on counsel from the Big Tens task force for emerging infectious diseases and sports medicine committee, as stated in its Aug. 11 announcement that it was postponing all fall sports.

Read more here. Teddy Greenstein

3:39 p.m.: American, Delta follow United lead, ditch $200 ticket-change fees for US travel

This could be the final boarding call for the $200 ticket-change fee that has enraged so many U.S. airline travelers over the past decade.

Delta Air Lines and American Airlines said Monday that they are dropping the fee on most tickets for domestic flights, copying United Airlines move one day earlier.

Southwest Airlines didnt levy change fees to start with, so Mondays announcements mean that the four biggest U.S. carriers will have roughly similar policies.

Read more here. Associated Press

2:15 p.m.: A Zoom Thanksgiving? COVID-19 summer could give way to a bleaker fall

As the Summer of COVID draws to a close, many experts fear an even bleaker fall and suggest that American families should start planning for Thanksgiving by Zoom.

Because of the many uncertainties, public health scientists say its easier to forecast the weather on Thanksgiving Day than to predict how the U.S. coronavirus crisis will play out this autumn. But school reopenings, holiday travel and more indoor activity because of colder weather could all separately increase transmission of the virus and combine in ways that could multiply the threat, they say.

Heres one way it could go: As more schools open for in-person instruction and more college students return to campuses, small clusters of cases could widen into outbreaks in late September. Public fatigue over mask rules and other restrictions could stymie efforts to slow these infections.

A few weeks later, widening outbreaks could start to strain hospitals. If a bad flu season peaks in October, as happened in 2009, the pressure on the health care system could result in higher daily death tolls from the coronavirus.

Read more here. Associated Press

1:56 p.m.: Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle announces Mask Up Cook County campaign as suburbs second surge of coronavirus

Facing a resurgence of the coronavirus in the suburbs around Chicago, Cook County officials are launching a digital ad campaign to push the necessity of wearing a mask, officials announced days after the region was placed on a state COVID-19 warning list.

In addition to launching the Mask Up Cook County campaign, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle also warned of the potential for further restrictions should the rise in cases, which she said was driven by young people, not ebb.

This has been a challenging year for everybody, Preckwinkle said. You know the challenge isnt over.  Young adults must, must continue to be vigilant and wearing masks and not partaking in high risk or large group activities.

Read more here. Alice Yin

1:45 p.m.: Chicago buildings will be lit in red to spotlight need for arts industry pandemic relief

Buildings across Chicago and the nation will be lit in red Tuesday night to dramatize the urgent need for financial relief in the arts and other live events industries.

Chicago Theatre, the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, the Aragon Ballroom and Allstate Arena in Rosemont are among the local spots scheduled to take part in the Red Alert campaign, which will light the buildings from 9 p.m. to midnight.

The display, organized by entertainment industry volunteers, is meant to bring pressure on Congress to pass the RESTART Act that would help companies that make live events get through the near total collapse of their business in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read more here. Steve Johnson

1:26 p.m.: Citing catastrophic collapse of economy, Mayor Lori Lightfoot says Chicago faces $1.2 billion shortfall in 2021 pandemic budget

Citing the catastrophic collapse of our local and national economy due to COVID-19 and damage to local businesses from civil unrest, Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday laid out a $1.2 billion budget shortfall for 2021 -- what she called Chicagos pandemic budget.

Filling the historic deficit will likely require personnel cuts and could lead to layoffs, while the mayor promised to use a TIF surplus and consider a possible computer lease tax as other potential measures. Lightfoot made no mention of a possible property tax hike in her prepared remarks.

Asked afterward for specifics about cuts or taxes, Lightfoot said that all options are on the table, though property taxes and job cuts are at the back of her list.

Read more here. John Byrne and Gregory Pratt

12:56 p.m.: It feels like were blocked at every turn: With threats of $10,000 fines for COVID-19 violations, some restaurants say the punishment doesnt fit the crime

As with so many aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, there had to be a learning curve for Chicago restaurants and bars as they reopened in early June  something the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection emphasized at the time.

But right before the July Fourth weekend, the city made it clear: the grace period was over, and establishments faced fines up to $10,000 and potential closure if they didnt comply with restrictions.

As the news rolled out, bar and restaurant owners began expressing their frustration with the eye-catching potential fines. Many said they wished there was more leeway or some sort of warning system before the city levied a fine that could financially devastate them. However, very few wanted to speak publicly about it, for fear of being targeted by enforcement agents and punished for speaking out.

For some, flying under the radar is their best bet at staying open and making ends meet, they said  especially with investigators looking to enforce guidelines.

Read more here. Grace Wong

12:06 p.m.: 1,668 new known COVID-19 cases, 7 additional deaths

The state Department of Public Health announced 1,668 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 7 deaths. Overall, Illinois has reported 235,023 cases, including 8,026 deaths.

Chicago Tribune staff

11:20 a.m.: Need to get your drivers license renewed? Be prepared to wait  maybe for hours  or take advantage of extended deadlines

As the COVID-19 pandemic changes traditional business practices, the dreaded wait at the secretary of states office has gotten longer  much longer  with more customers in line because of social distancing guidelines and the backlog from offices being closed during the pandemic shutdown.

Read more here. Jessica Villagomez

9:26 a.m.: Iowas coronavirus numbers varied widely this weekend because of website issue

The numbers on Iowas online coronavirus tracker varied widely this weekend because of a maintenance problem with the site.

The Iowa Department of Public Health reported Saturday morning that 1,108 Iowans had died from COVID-19. Later in the day, the number of deaths fell to 894 before rebounding Saturday evening to 1,109.

Several other key statistics also fluctuated on the state website Saturday. For instance, the number of cases of coronavirus dropped from 63,122 to 51,183 before being restored after 9 p.m. Saturday.

Read more here. Associated Press

9:19 a.m.: Lower gas tax revenue due to coronavirus pandemic may delay some Illinois road construction projects

Some Illinois road construction projects scheduled to be completed this year could be delayed until next year because of lower-than-anticipated gas tax revenues during the coronavirus pandemic.

State Transportation Department Secretary Omer Osman said the department hasnt yet assessed how many projects might be pushed back, the State Journal-Register reported. He told lawmakers during a Senate Transportation Committee hearing Thursday that the department will prioritize projects related to safety improvements.

6 a.m.: Anxious foster parents say its not the right time to switch fragile kids into new managed care plan

The state is set to roll out a new managed health care plan for thousands of foster children on Tuesday amid concerns from some caregivers and child welfare advocates who question whether the for-profit company that runs the plan has built a provider network that is adequate to handle the populations unique needs.

Many of the children and teens require specialized services because of their medical conditions or trauma they have experienced. Parents and advocates argue the launch is poorly timed given the coronavirus pandemic and the stresses that crisis has put on families, the health care industry and the government.

Read more here. Christy Gutowski

6 a.m.: United Airlines says it will drop ticket-change fees for U.S. travel

United Airlines says it listened to customers and is dropping an unpopular $200 fee for most people who change a ticket for travel within the United States.

When we hear from customers about where we can improve, getting rid of fees is often the top request, United CEO Scott Kirby said in a video posted Sunday.

Uniteds move will put pressure on American Airlines and Delta Air Lines to drop their change fees, also $200 on domestic travel. Delta and American said they are waiving change fees for travel affected by the virus through the years end. Southwest Airlines does not charge change fees, a policy which its CEO says has helped it gain more business.

The moves come as United and other airlines try desperately to lure people back to flying despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. U.S. air travel has recovered modestly since April, but passenger traffic remains down about 70% from a year ago.

The four largest U.S. airlines lost a combined $10 billion from April through June. Airlines shared $25 billion in federal payroll aid under pandemic relief legislation and are lobbying for $25 billion more.

United has warned 36,000 employees that they could be furloughed in October. It received $5 billion in taxpayer money to keep workers on the payroll through September.

Read more here. Associated Press

In case you missed it
Those who attempt to challenge the one-China principle on the Taiwan question are making themselves enemies of the 1.4 billion Chinese people and will have to pay a heavy price for their moves, said Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday.

Wang, who is on a visit to Germany, made the remarks when answering a question about Czech Senate Speaker Milos Vystrcil's recent visit to Taiwan.

Calling the visit a provocation, Wang stressed that Taiwan is an inseparable part of China and China will not sit by idly.

Vystrcil is leading a delegation of about 90 people, including Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib, to visit the southeast China island from August 30 to September 4 with a "trade mission."

On Saturday, the Chinese embassy in the Czech Republic expressed strong opposition to the visit.

The senate speaker is seriously interfering in China's internal affairs and infringing on China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity, said the embassy spokesperson, warning Vystrcil's move has violated the basic norms of international relations and bilateral political commitments.

The spokesperson also urged the Czech side to abide by the one-China principle and take concrete actions to safeguard the overall situation of China-Czech relations.

Earlier, Chinese Ambassador to the Czech Republic Zhang Jianmin also warned of possible consequences as a result of the trip.

China-Czech ties have been challenged by certain politicians who violate the one-China principle and international rules, Zhang said in an interview with local newspaper Halo noviny. Such a behavior sacrifices the interests of Czech companies and people and harms the pragmatic cooperation between the two sides, he added.
The federal courts in New Mexico, which have struggled under heavy caseloads and a depleted bench, are on the verge of having a full complement of district court judges for the first time in several years.

The nominations of Albuquerque attorney Brenda Saiz and longtime federal prosecutor Fred J. Federici III could go to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for hearings in early September  providing they get the green light (actually a blue slip) from Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, both D-N.M.

Thats exactly what should happen, for the sake of the courts and the public they serve.

Both Saiz and Federici were nominated by President Donald Trump in May from a list of candidates approved by Udall and Heinrich. And both received well qualified rankings from the American Bar Association earlier this month  the highest rating possible by the ABA. The associations Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary assesses nominees on integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament.

The two nominees would bring expertise and gravitas to the bench.

Saizs civil law practice concentrated on medical malpractice, trucking law and product liability issues. She also taught at the University of New Mexico School of Law. Federici worked in the U.S. Attorneys Office for 25 years as a prosecutor, head of the criminal division and chief of the offices national security section.

The New Mexico district is allotted seven full-time district judges and now has five with the addition of Judge Kea Riggs in December.

In an interview last year, Chief Judge William P. Johnson and Judge Martha Vazquez talked about the crushing caseload that included more than 900 cases for each of the four sitting judges at the time. Judges from other districts were being called in to help.

Were drowning, Vazquez said.

The situation has improved with the confirmation of Judge Riggs, but that doesnt mean the problem has been fixed.

Given this districts heavy caseload, my colleagues and I are hopeful that Sens. Udall and Heinrich will allow these two nominees to have their confirmation hearings and to hopefully join the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico, Johnson said last week.

The court here, one of the nations busiest, has been shorthanded for too long. The nominees have been thoroughly vetted, and our senators should let them move to the committee and full Senate confirmation hearings.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
Adam Burakowski, Ambassador of Poland to India, took to Twitter on August 30 to share some beautiful shots of the Qutub Minar. These images showed the monument, situated in New Delhi in a unique light. More specifically, the pictures presented the Qutub Minar illuminated in red and white, colours of the Polish flag.

To commemorate 40th anniversary of Solidarity movement in Poland we illuminated Qutub Minar in white and red, reads the text shared alongside four photographs. Burakowski also used the hashtags #Solidarity40 #Poland and #India.

Three of the four snapshots show the monument itself lit up in red and white lights against the night sky. One of the images features Burakowski himself standing next to a sign which reads, 40 Solidarnosc, which in English translates to 40 Solidarity.

Check out the tweet which has currently garnered nearly 500 likes and almost a 100 retweets.

To commemorate 40th anniversary of Solidarity movement in Poland we illuminated Qutub Minar in white and red.



Here are next photos#Solidarity40 #Poland#India pic.twitter.com/cQ4ZICCId7  Adam Burakowski (@Adam_Burakowski) August 30, 2020

Here is how tweeple reacted to the share. One person said, Felicitations. Another individual wrote, More power... let us make our relationship more strong.

Looks beautiful, read one comment on the thread. Somebody else also proclaimed, Looks neat.

Solidarity, the independent Polish trade union, was formally founded when 36 regional unions united under the name Solidarnosc in 1980. The creation of the trade union marked a major and historic societal change for the country, reports The Guardian.

This isnt the first instance wherein a light show has been used to show transnational solidarity. The southern municipality of Zermatt in Switzerland broadcasted the Indian flag on the Matterhorn, a mountain in the Alps, in March to show support for Indias efforts in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

What are your thoughts on this share?
- President Akufo-Addo has cut sod for the construction of the country's first modern foundry and machine tooling centre

- The facility is expected to produce agro-processing machines and equipment

- It will provide technical support for policy initiatives of the government such as One District, One Factory

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has cut sod for the construction of the country's first modern foundry and machine tooling centre.

This facility is expected to produce agro-processing machines and equipment, farming implements, and spare parts for maintenance and repairs.

President Akufo-Addo in a post shared on Facebook stated that the facilities at the Centre will provide technical support for policy initiatives of the government such as One District, One Factory.

Nana Addo cuts sod for Ghana's first modern foundry and machine tooling centre Source: Facebook (Nana Akufo-Addo)

Source: UGC

He also added that the foundry and machine tooling centre will put Ghana in a position to develop and grow its talents of skilled and innovative young Ghanaians, who graduate from our schools, colleges and universities.

The event was held, Monday, August 31, 2020.

READ ALSO: READ ALSO: Fact check: Two claims by Bawumia on infrastructure that are false and misleading

Esther Abbey Mensah believes the country would have gone far if every leader was like President Akufo-Addo

If everyone that came to power did as you are doing will would have gone far by now continue the good work and GOD is with you 4 more for you to do more

Nana Kofi Amoah announced his unflinching support for such projects

Am always for industrialization agenda n any government who charter that path has my unflinching support.

Suley Mohammed said his leadership skills be forever be remembered by Ghanaians

Your name is forever written in indelible gold. Your leadership and footprints will forever remain memorable for this generation and those to come and see.

Prince Ofosu Nkrumah believes this is a game changer for Ghanaians

This is a game changer for Ghanaians to realize Ghana Beyond Aid, #4more2domore#. The battle is still the Lord's

Benjamin Boahene thinks this is a great initiative

Great initiative. I also wish you could help existing organizations like Neoplan to survive

READ ALSO: Fact check: Two claims by Bawumia on infrastructure that are false and misleading

In other news, the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called on Ghanaians to reject former president John Mahama at the December polls because he lacks focus.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Monday, August 31, 2020, the national director of communications of the NPP, Yaw Buaben Asamoa, said Mahamas records make him unfit to seek for another mandate.

It is the NPPs strong contention that candidate John Dramani Mahama does not have the focus and competence necessary to take this country in the right direction, Mr. Asamoa noted at the presser which was monitored by YEN.com.gh.

READ ALSO: John Mahama lacks focus - NPP jabs

"We don't want NPP or NDC. We want another party in power" - Angry Ghanaian speaks | #Yencomgh

Got a story you think we should know about? Get interactive via our Facebook page!

Source: YEN.com.gh
The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), says it has paid over $5.9 million (about N2.28 billion) for tuition and stipends owed stranded scholarship students in the United Kingdom.

Charles Odili, NDDC Director of Corporate Affairs, said in a statement in Port Harcourt on Monday that the commission disbursed the sum to 197 scholarship beneficiaries of 2019.

He added that the commission had also begun processes for the payment of school fees owed 94 scholarship beneficiaries for 2018 batch.

The National Assembly and the presidency are currently beaming a searchlight into the finances of the commission and have so far unearthed several cases of corrupt diversion of funds and mismanagement at the well-funded agency.

SEE ALSO:

In the past, several scholars running programmes abroad under the sponsorship of the commission have complained of being abandoned to their fate.

Some NDDC-sponsored scholarship students recently took to the streets in the United Kingdom to demand payment of their tuition and stipends.

After the protest, President Muhammadu Buhari on August 5 directed the immediate payment of the fees owed to the students.

Paid

Among the 197 beneficiaries are 43 scholars for Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D), comprising 12 for 2016 and 31 for 2019.

The beneficiaries under this category got 30,000 dollars (N11.56 million) each, amounting to 1.29 million dollars (N496.65 million).

In the Master of Science (MSc), category, 154 beneficiaries of 2019 were paid 30,000 dollars each, amounting to 4.42 million dollars (N1.702 billion).

In addition, the payment processes for 94 beneficiaries of 2018: 40 for Ph.D. and 54 MSc beneficiaries are ongoing, Mr Odili stated on Monday.

Mr Odili said the Interim Management Committee (IMC), of the NDDC commend the determination of the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, in seeing to the payment of the students.

The NDDC spokesman blamed the delayed payment to the death of Ibanga Etang, the then acting Executive Director of Finance and Administration (EDFA), of NDDC.

Under NDDC finance protocol, only the EDFA and the Executive Director of Projects can sign for the release of funds from the commissions domiciliary accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The NDDC foreign scholars represent the future manpower and professionals that we are building to help transform the Niger Delta region.

The foreign scholarship scheme started in 2010, with the objective to address the dearth of qualified professionals in the oil and gas sector, he said. (NAN)
The podcast host says the new season of her hit show will bring shocking twists and turns

Rachel Lindsay is no stranger to reality TV twists, but even she wasnt ready for the some of the surprising moments that took place during season two of MTVs Ghosted: Love Gone Missing.

The 35-year-old Bachelorette alum said the seasons premiere episode, which airs on Wednesday, left her in shock.

I was frazzled, she said during an Instagram Live session with theGrio on Aug. 28. There were so many twists and turns all the wayeven until you got to the end of it. You know, like, theres a phone call that happens that I was not prepared for at all. I dont know if it comes through or not, but Im like, my voice is shaking, Im frazzled. Im feeling like Im all alone. Im like, This has never happened before what do I do!'

Read More: The Bachelor announces 1st Black lead for season 25

She continued, I think thats whats so great about the show, in general, is there are so many dynamics when it comes to ghosting that you never know what youre going to get. You never know what to expect, and youre depending on these people to tell you the truth, and a lot of times they dont.

Now a happily married woman, Lindsay had her own experiences with ghosting (ending a relationship without any communication) back when she was single. The Higher Learning podcast host was once left in the dark for two years about a former love, who ghosted her to return to his childs mother.

I was dating a guy and its one of those relationships, I look back on it now and Im like, it was so toxic. We were not right for each other, she said about her ghosted relationship. Im dating him for years and one day I call himand I talked to him the day beforeand the number it goes, The number you have reached is no longer in service. Im like, He changed his number on me!'

Story continues

She continued, Two years later, I found out why he ghosted me. I ran into him, he had a child and he went back to the childs mother. Now, theyre married and they have other kids and they have happily ever after. But for two years, I never had a serious relationship because I was stuck in a place of wondering, Did I do something? Is he okay? You know, like, your pride is hurting. Theres shame and embarrassment associated with the fact that this guy just disappeared on you.

The experience makes her especially qualified to co-host Ghosted alongside Travis Mills. It also gives the TV personality, who is married to Bryan Abasolo, a bit of insight on how single folk can avoid the harmful behavior.

That [experience is] what gives me the heart and the passion that I have when it comes to the show, Ghosted, because Ive been there. I feel you, I know what youre going through, she explained. The only thing I would say is that you cant be prepared for ghosting. A common theme is that the person whos ghosted, blames themselves. I dont know if thats human nature or what, I did it in my own experience. What did I do? And a lot of times its nothing that you did, its that person.

The Bachelorettes Rachel Lindsay celebrates Birthday with husband Bryan Abasolo at SugarHouse Casino on April 21, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Lisa Lake/Getty Images for SugarHouse Casino )

In addition to co-hosting Ghosted, Lindsay is also speaking out about several issues that are important to her, including the Black Lives Matter movement and the lack of diversity within Bachelor Nation.

With the announcement of the first black Bachelor (Matt James) and the reported confirmation of a second Black Bachelorette (Tayshia Adams), Lindsay is hopeful that the changes within the popular franchise are permanent.

Read More: Rachel Lindsay considers cutting ties with The Bachelor due to racism

The reason I continue to speak about diversity and inclusion is because I finished in 2017. I havent seen much change from then to June 2020, she shared. I have to remember why I wanted to do this and who I wanted to make a path for [young Black woman]. I have talked with production and seeing changes that theyve made, from statements to hiring people of color in production, to the rumor that theres Tayshia as the Bachelorette, whos a Latina and a Black woman, all of that I see.

She concluded, You want it to be a movement and not just for the moment. So my hope is thatI dont want to be in a negative space where Im thinking that this is just for now. I want to think that theyre putting the necessary changes in place where it doesnt have to be a conversation, you just see it. You see it by the people that are coming on the show, by the couples that leave the show, by the leads, the contestants, whos in the decision-making room. Where it doesnt have to be a conversation because its just the lifestyle within the franchise.

Ghosted: Love Gone Missing premieres on MTV on Wednesday, September 2 at 9PM ET/PT. Fans can watch theGrios full interview with Lindsay above.

Have you subscribed to theGrios new podcast Dear Culture? Download our newest episodes now!

The post Rachel Lindsay talks MTVs Ghosted season 2, growing diversity in Bachelor Nation appeared first on TheGrio.
Haryana IAS officer Ashok Khemka on Monday trained his guns at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seeking performance accountability from the probe agency.

In a cryptic tweet in Hindi, Khemka said the CBI has an annual budget of 800 crore. But how many convictions and acquittals (in the cases probed by the central agency). How will be the accountability fixed? If we take into account cases investigated in the last few years Did any big wheel get sentenced? Khemka tweeted.

Haathi ke daant dikhane ke kuch aur khane ke kuch aur hote hain (The visible teeth (tusks) and those used by an elephant to eat are not the same, the officer wrote on the micro-blogging site, hinting at the possible double standard in the agencys working.

Responding to a follower who asked whether the Supreme Court ruling on punishing cops when accused get let off in criminal cases was relevant, Khemka said, Has any cop ever been punished when an accused gets acquitted. Bofors? 2G Spectrum? Or any other.

To another follower, he wrote: The question is who will appoint an honest and effective officer. Everybody liked a flexible spine. In reply to a question about an alternate solution, the officer asked: What is the solution to a weak character?

While the IAS officer refused to comment on the intent behind his tweet, it clearly showed his disillusionment with the functioning of the central agency tasked with probes involving politicians, bureaucrats and high-profile individuals.

Khemka, who has been in a whistle-blower in several major scams, is also learnt to be disappointed with the way the CBI has probed cases involving former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, including the Manesar land release case.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has claimed Donald Trump did not see the video of Trump supporters in Portland, Oregon, firing paintballs and pepper spray at counter-protesters over the weekend  even though the president retweeted a video of such scenes on Sunday.

"I don't think the president has seen that video. Nor have I," Ms McEnany told reporters at a press conference on Monday, a comment that strains credulity considering Mr Trump's retweet of and comment on a video from New York Times correspondent Mike Baker showing exactly that.

"But if you're going to ask about paintballs, it's incredible that for 90 days I've stood at this podium talking about officers who have [had] lasers flashed in their eyes in an attempt to blind them, commercial grade fireworks being thrown at them," Ms McEnany said, referring to the pockets of violence against police that has marked some protests against police brutality in the wake of several shootings of black Americans this summer.

Mr Trump fired off dozens of tweets on Sunday, including several ripping into locally elected Democratic leaders of cities and states that have experienced riots this summer and hailing the people parading vehicles through Portland this weekend flying Trump 2020 flags as "GREAT PATRIOTS!"

Retweeting Mr Baker's tweet on Sunday with the video of pro-Trump demonstrators firing paintballs at counter-protesters, the president wrote of Mayor Ted Wheeler: "The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and [sic] incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing. The people of Portland wont put up with no safety any longer.The Mayor is a FOOL. Bring in the National Guard!"

In Mr Baker's initial tweet, he wrote that there were "clashes" along the parade route. "Trump people unload paintballs and pepper spray. They shot me too," he wrote.

Ms McEnany highlighted at her press conference that a man shot and killed in Portland amid the demonstrations over the weekend, Aaron Danielson, was a supporter of Mr Trump, and that he was allegedly killed by a 48-year-old military veteran who has claimed to be "100% ANTIFA all the way!"

Despite the violence in Portland on Saturday, the Trump administration will not invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to quell unrest in Portland and Kenosha, Wisconsin, where some protesters have set fire to buildings and right-wing and left-wing demonstrators have clashed after the police shooting of a 29-year-old black man, Jacob Blake, last week.

"The President does not want to invoke the Insurrection Act, which has been used very sparingly. But what he does want is to help the cities where he can," Ms McEnany said.

"When you see Kenosha, when federal forces came in, there was peace. In Minneapolis [as well]. And in both of those cases, it was at the invitation of the governor. So we want to work collaboratively with Democrat mayors and governors. They after all do hold the police power as embedded in the Constitution to control their streets, but we as the federal government are willing to supplement."

Mr Trump's opponent this November, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, challenged him to quit "fanning the flames of hate" by neglecting the message of peaceful protesters and leveraging the ideological divide of the country for political advantage.

"The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable. Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same," Mr Biden said in a lengthy statement on Sunday.

"It does not matter if you find the political views of your opponents abhorrent, any loss of life is a tragedy. Today there is another family grieving in America, and Jill and I offer our deepest condolences," Mr Biden said.

Mr Biden issued his statement the day after Mr Danielson was shot in Portland.

The statement came also on the heels of a 17-year-old boy from Illinois, Kyle Rittenhouse, being charged with first-degree intentional homicide and several other violent felonies after he allegedly shot and killed two people in Kenosha last week amid a protest-turned-riot against the police shooting of Mr Blake.

Ms McEnany expressed a similar sentiment as Mr Biden about non-violence and peaceful protests on Monday on behalf of the president.

"The President believes that people of all ideologies should be able to peacefully protest and not have their lives put at risk," Ms McEnany said.

Mr Trump is scheduled to visit Kenosha later this week, where he plans to meet with "local law enforcement and some business owners to help survey the damage" from the rioting last week, Ms McEnany said.

The president does not plan to meet with Mr Blake's family, though the administration has reached out.
Open letter: Dr Ronan Glynn said the decision to reopen schools has not been taken lightly Photo: Gareth Chaney

The fall in the number of new Covid-19 infections in Co Kildare is raising hopes the county's lockdown will be lifted later this week.

Kildare Independent TD Cathal Berry said the downward trend signalled a welcome end to what he termed "Kildare's third lockdown".

The former army doctor and Ranger-wing commando said it was hard to argue with the science which prompted the three-county lockdown in Kildare, Offaly and Laois earlier this month, and then its renewal for Kildare last week.

But Dr Berry said these specific lockdowns on Kildare, following on from the national lockdown beginning in March, had taken a toll on people's morale and put business people especially under stress.

Read More

He welcomed the latest figures released last night which continued the downward trend of the virus in the county.

In the first two weeks of August, before the local lockdown was instituted, there were 300 Covid-19 cases recorded in Kildare. That was almost eight times the national county average and twice as many as any other county.

Latest figures showed just 20 cases in Kildare raising the prospect of much lower averages over seven and 14 days.

Dr Berry said there was a strong emerging case for ending the Kildare lockdown later this week.

"I'm very hopeful we will be coming out of the lockdown by this coming weekend. The ending of lockdown in Laois and Offaly brought a big boost in morale and I have no doubt the same will happen in Kildare because it has been hard and stressful on people," he said.

Dr Berry said that in general the official three-pronged policy of "contain, suppress and support" was a valid one.

He said the grant aids to business were a vital part of the three-phased approach but he also said clusters in Kildare's meat factories and direct provision centres had boosted the figures for the county.

The latest figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre show there were 42 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the country.

There were no new virus-related deaths recorded, leaving the total number of lives lost to the virus in Ireland at 1,777.

The latest cases include 15 associated with outbreaks or close contacts of a confirmed case while six cases were identified as coming from community transmission.

There were 24 in Dublin, six in Limerick, and the remaining 12 were located in Carlow, Clare, Galway, Kildare, Longford, Offaly and Sligo.

There have now been a total of 28,760 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified from midnight of Saturday, August 29, 20 are men and 22 are women with 71pc under 45 years of age.

Meanwhile, as children across Ireland return to school, the acting chief medical officer has moved to reassure parents about the risk posed in schools.

In an open letter to parents, Dr Ronan Glynn said the "decision to reopen schools has not been taken lightly".

He said the best available international evidence shows that "child-to-child and child-to-adult transmission of Covid-19 in schools is uncommon".

"The importance of schools for the overall health and wellbeing of children cannot be overstated, and the risk of Covid-19 has been carefully weighed against the very real harm that can be caused by sustained school closures," he said.

"Schools are at the heart of our communities and the best way to protect them is to keep the level of Covid-19 in the community low."
Editor's note: Wamika Kapur is a fellow at international think tank Global Policy Insights and an Indian PhD scholar of international relations at South Korea's Yonsei University. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.





Chinese social media app TikTok, a platform where videos go viral, has itself been viral in the news circles since President Trump signed an executive order requiring ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, to sell its U.S. business holding within 90 days along with the destruction of all U.S. user data.

In this race, before the Trump administration bans the app, the business and tech circles have been abuzz trying to predict who will purchase the TikTok service in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with Microsoft, Walmart and Oracle as the top contenders. Amid this, Kevin Mayer, CEO of TikTok and COO of ByteDance, resigned after just four months. TikTok has also sued the U.S. government accusing the current administration of depriving the company of due process.

However, watchers of U.S.-China relations have been asking one question  what will China do?

According to the New York Times, China's Commerce Ministry and its Science and Technology Ministry have implemented new rules on artificial intelligence technology exports that will specifically focus on the technologies it considers sensitive, for example, "technology based on data analysis for personalized information recommendation services." This means that ByteDance may have to obtain a license from the government to proceed with TikTok's sale to an American company.

As discussed in my interview on CGTN's "The Link," there are multiple reasons this issue is of huge significance to China.

America and China are in the middle of a geo-techno war for global influence and a fight for who will control modernity.

TikTok is China's first social media app to gain global influence, with two billion downloads globally in April, in a world dominated by Western apps like Snapchat and Facebook's Instagram.

The sale of TikTok's Western operations, while being a commercial decision, would solely be a consequence of American bullying and a loss of face for China. On a larger scale, it will severely damage China's soft power by reinforcing the perception that Chinese tech comes with security risks.

Collectively, imposing export controls will escalate tensions between the countries, push them toward more protectionism and even lead to a "splinternet" scenario with two separate online ecosystems. Banning apps, instead of reducing risk, is likely to build up distrust among countries and companies.

Many, including myself, argue that America's moves against Chinese apps and companies like Huawei and ZTE have had multiple motivations.

America, a techno hegemon, is using bullying tactics to preserve its position as the world leader in technology by killing innovation in other parts. These companies have enough domestic popularity in China that their operations cannot be terminated.

The secondary aim is, if you can't kill the competition, you must control it. This can be seen in the form of domestic bans, accusations of national security risks and lobbying allies to form a united front against Chinese tech aimed at preventing them from having a global presence.

Considering that these companies are private companies, by the logic of simple business prudence, they were supposed to cave to American pressure. Apart from a few statements by Chinese officials condemning American actions, China has been relatively inactive until now. However, these export rules give Chinese companies more time to resist American pressure and cater to domestic sentiment against selling to America.

Apart from being a political hotpot, the issue has been mired with legal conundrums of its conception.

First, America, a democracy, is going against the two fundamental principles of a democracy: freedom of speech and the free market. Second, on an international level, these bans are against the World Trade Organization (WTO) principles of free competition, its trade and competition policy, and domestically, its anti-trust laws. The WTO has often advised against using "national security" as an excuse for protectionism. Third, TikTok has sued the U.S. government over the lack of due process, stating that the administration "failed to follow due process and act in good faith, neither providing evidence that TikTok was an actual threat, nor justification for its punitive actions."

If there was an issue with the app, the company should have been made aware of such issues allowing for rectification before the executive order using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act for the regulation of economic transactions in a national emergency. This furthers the argument that it's a completely political move with absolutely no proof of a national security threat.

Trump has publicly claimed credit for the potential future sale and demanded that proper economic benefits from the sale must go to the United States Treasury. In response, China needs to take a stance on U.S. extortion and abuse of the commercial process. Instead of catering to reactive politics, China must lead its narrative on the global presence of Chinese tech companies.
They "reaffirmed the strength of the U.S.-Japan alliance" and discussed how to eliminate North Korea's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

Only U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper met his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono in Guam to discuss their defense against North Korea and China.

South Korea skipped an annual defense ministers meeting with the U.S. and Japan last week amid unresolved tensions with its island neighbor.

Esper "reiterated the U.S. commitment to the full implementation of President [Donald] Trump and [North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's] joint statement at the 2018 Singapore summit, which includes the complete elimination of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction, their means of production, and their means of delivery," the Pentagon announced in a press release.

The two sides also agreed that North Korea must fully implement UN Security Council resolutions to dismantle its ballistic missiles of all ranges.

In remarks targeting China and its expansionist ambitions in the region, they "exchanged views on their shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region."

Espeper "expressed serious concern regarding Beijing's decision to impose a national security law in Hong Kong, as well as coercive and destabilizing actions vis-a-vis Taiwan." He "welcomed Japan's efforts to strengthen cooperation with other likeminded partners" but South Korea came a long way down the list after ASEAN, India and Australia.

The South Korean snub came just as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resigned for health reasons, having presided over more than a decade of boorish chauvinism in the island country.

There was no official comment from Seoul why it skipped the talks, but it seems the government here is trying not to get involved in any action against China and sit out what it hopes will be Trump's last couple of months in office.


Mr Clement Nii Lamptey Wilkinson, the Municipal Chief Executive for Ga West, has urged Ghanaians to vote massively for President Akufo-Addo in the December General Election to advance his agenda towards making Ghana a self-reliant and industrial prosperous nation.

He said Government led by the President had done a lot for the country, especially in infrastructural development, job creation, education, agriculture and health, hence the call to renew his mandate to continue with his good works.

Mr Wilkson made the call when he spoke with journalists on the sidelines of a workshop on renewable energy, at Amasaman.

The workshop was to sensitise the Assembly on how to integrate renewable energy utilisation into their midterm development plan.

The workshop was organised by 350 Ghana Reducing Our Carbon (G-ROC), a network of youth into environmental climate change.

Mr Wilkson said the people of Ga West Municipality were benefiting a lot from a number of projects, such as the provision of CHPS compounds, school structures, while a 76-kilometre road project was ongoing at Amasaman.

GNA
A fire has burned through a shopping centre and struck a hotel in Spain's Costa del Sol.

Around 30 homes were also evacuated due to the blaze, which broke out in Malaga on Saturday.

Jose M Garcia Urbano, the mayor of Estepona, shared an image of the fire in the El Padron area of the Spanish town on social media.

He said the fire was under control on Saturday afternoon, and had burned the Laguna Village shopping centre and also affected the Kempinski hotel in the area.

No one was hurt, he added.

Images showed black smoke billowing in the sky as buildings were alight.

People shared their videos on social media, which captured the blaze in the distance from where they stood on the beach or by a pool.

Mr Urbano shared pictures of him visiting the damaged shopping centre after the fire, vowing to help rebuild it.

"I also want to thank all the staff and professionals who have worked to quickly extinguish this tragic fire," he tweeted on Saturday evening.

The blaze comes around a week after a fire at a luxury hotel in Costa del Sol killed one person and injured nine others.

A French tourist died after the Sisu Boutique Hotel in Puerto Banus burst into flames one morning last week.

Images shared on social media showed people trying to escape by climbing out windows up the building.
It is unfortunate that at a time when an array of issues are crying for urgent attention, and action on the domestic front and at the international level where India could play a global leadership role, the Narendra Modi government is busy harping on terrorism emanating from Pakistan. Delivering a lecture at the prestigious The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar dwelt on Pakistan as a hub of terror whose primary export is terrorism. While Pakistan and especially its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have for decades used terrorism as state policy and nurtured outfits to carry out terrorist attacks in India and other countries, the Narendra Modi government seems obsessed with drawing global attention to the problem. It has been going on and on about Pakistans support to terror groups at every forum, even if these meetings have nothing to do with counter-terrorism. For instance, TERI is engaged in research and advocacy on issues like climate change. While Jaishankar spoke about the importance of multilateralism too, his focus on terrorism underscored yet again the Modi governments preoccupation with Pakistan and terrorism. Indias diplomacy has sunk to that of Pakistan. While Islamabad obsesses over Kashmir at every opportunity, India cannot take its eyes off Pakistan.

Terrorism is an important global and Indian concern. However, India has managed to contain it by and large and major terrorist attacks by groups based in Pakistan have reduced over the years. Terrorism is not an existential threat to our country anymore and a country of Indias size and capacity cuts a sorry figure when it persists with whining and whimpering at every available forum about its woes with its troublesome neighbour. Does it not have the capacity to speak directly to Pakistan? Does it have to complain at every global meeting and to every visiting dignitary about its problems with Pakistan to get bilateral issues resolved?

In recent years, Indias diplomatic energies have been dissipated by its obsession with getting Pakistan reprimanded internationally. In the process, geopolitical issues including the Chinese threat to our border, Beijings growing strategic ties with countries in the Indian Ocean Region and its mounting influence in the neighbourhood have taken a backseat. Endlessly raising Pakistan and terrorism is useful to the Modi governments Hindutva agenda; it also keeps the publics attention diverted away from its poor governance and failures in dealing with the economic crisis, the pandemic, etc. India has the capacity to play a leadership role on global issues like climate change and environment. Under Modi, it has abdicated this role.
The Bachelor's Bella Varelis has set the record straight on hurtful rumours she is an 'aspiring actress' who once planned to relocate to Los Angeles.

The 25-year-old addressed the speculation on Instagram over the weekend, responding to a fan who'd questioned her motives for appearing on the dating show.

Bella, who works in marketing, made it clear she wasn't an actress and had never 'moved to LA' to further her career.

Her truth: The Bachelor's Bella Varelis (pictured) has set the record straight on hurtful rumours she is an 'aspiring actress' who once planned to relocate to Los Angeles

'I've never moved to LA, I've never wanted or tried to be an actress in Australia, never wanted or tried to get work as an actress in LA and certainly am not acting on the Bachelor,' Bella wrote.

Without naming names, she went on to claim that people had tried to 'fabricate' stories about her in order to feel 'relevant' and 'important'.

'It's unfortunate that you and many other people have believed it but I can confirm - my tears weren't acting, they were real,' she added.

Hitting back: The 25-year-old addressed the speculation on Instagram over the weekend, responding to a fan who'd questioned her motives for appearing on the dating show. Pictured with Locky Gilbert on The Bachelor

Bella also addressed some of the rumours about her links to former Bachelorette stars, including Samuel Johnston and Dean Unglert.

'I haven't "slept around with Bachie boys",' she wrote. 'I dated my ex [Samuel] before he even did the show, some people see a few dots and like to try connect them when they have absolutely no reason to be connected or justified.'

Earlier this month, talent manager Michael Beveridge claimed that Bella had once planned to move to Hollywood to pursue her dreams of stardom.

Speaking on the Friendship Rose podcast with comedian Rose Callaghan, Michael claimed: 'She said she was moving to Los Angeles. Bella wanted to be an actress, or wants to be an actress.'

He explained that Bella had been signed to an influencer management company that he used to run with his ex-girlfriend.

Hmm! Without naming names, Bella claimed that people had tried to 'fabricate' stories about her in order to feel 'relevant'. She may have been referring to Michael Beveridge (pictured), her former manager who claimed earlier this month that Bella was a wannabe actress

'Bella was one of the very first girls that we got,' he said, adding that he was shocked and skeptical when he saw her in trailers for The Bachelor.

Michael claimed he'd spoken to his ex-girlfriend about Bella's appearance on the Channel 10 reality show and was given some surprising information.

He claimed his ex had told him Bella was 'moving to Los Angeles' to pursue acting and modelling.

When the podcast host asked if Bella had any professional training, Michael replied: 'When you're hot, you don't have to!'

He also alleged that Bella had scrubbed her social media accounts of any reference to her acting career before making her debut on The Bachelor.

Michael went on to say that he secured Bella modelling work when he was managing her career, including a campaign for Koala mattresses.

Just a holiday? In late 2018, Bella visited Los Angeles and New York on an extended trip, but there is no evidence she ever 'moved' to the United States

In late 2018, Bella visited Los Angeles and New York on an extended trip, but there is no evidence she ever 'moved' to the United States.

In September 2019, Bella said she was represented by Five Twenty Management, but it's unclear if that is the same agency Michael was referring to.

The management company told Daily Mail Australia they no longer represent Bella.
The Bhartiya Janata Party has made into a drug destination, alleged Pradesh Congress Committee President Girish Chodankar and demanded an investigation in the sudden death of former Director-General of Police, Pranab Nanda.

"With Goa connection now emerging in most drug cases, an investigation needs to be done on the sudden death of former DGP Pranab Nanda last year and its likely connection to BJP-drug mafia nexus. We demand that detailed investigation should be done of the sudden death of former DGP of Goa who died of cardiac arrest in Delhi in November last year immediately after landing in Delhi. He was a very efficient officer and was probing in various drug-related cases. He was fit and had no reason to get a severe cardiac arrest unless he had come under heavy pressure," Chodankar said in a statement.

He further alleged that the BJP government pressurised DGP Nanda to go slow on the investigation but he refused to do so.

"The BJP Government pressurised DGP Nanda to go slow on the investigation but he refused to do so and continued with inquiry in which one of the influential police officers was indicted and was above to be suspended," he added.

The Goa Congress further demanded a detailed investigation on the late actor's friend and producer of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi biopic Sandeep Singh stating that his links with the top brass of BJP need to be thoroughly investigated.
United States President Donald Trump greets Rep. Jim Banks on the tarmac at Indianapolis International Airport, where he arrived to speak at the annual Future Farmers of America Convention and Expo at Banker's Life Fieldhouse, Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018.

INDIANAPOLIS  U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican, introduced a two-page bill Friday that would ban people from receiving federal unemployment aid if they are convicted of a federal offense related to protests such as those rocking much of the country.

Those convicted of such a crime also would have to pay restitution for the cost of policing the protests, the amount of which would be determined by a court.

With Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, the bill likely has little chance of moving.

Antifa thugs are descending on suffering communities," the Fort Wayne Republican said in a news release, "disrupting peaceful protests and leaving violence, looting and vandalism in their wake. They turned Milwaukee, Seattle and Portland into warzones, and now theyre moving the chaos to Kenosha, Wisconsin.

A $600 federal boost to unemployment insurance expired in July. Some states, including Indiana, can give those who file for unemployment an additional $300 in federal money under a short-term grant the president authorized in an executive order.

Banks told Fox News he filed the bill after friends of his who walked out of the White House were confronted by protesters. No one was arrested in that incident.

In the interview and in his news release, Banks specifically targeted left-wing "thugs" involved in protests. He made no mention of right-wing activists who have been arrested at recent protests, such as Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who has been charged with fatally shooting two protesters and wounding a third in Kenosha.

Follow IndyStar reporter Chris Sikich on Twitter: @ChrisSikich.

'That's the shooter': Witnesses describe the night Kyle Rittenhouse opened fire in Kenosha

Protest updates: State police return to Portland after protest shooting; Trump plans to visit Kenosha

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Rep. Jim Banks would ban 'thugs' from receiving unemployment stimulus
Growing up, Peter Marina saw his father and other police officers as something like a superhero.

To me, he was a hero, he was Batman, said Marina, an associate professor of sociology at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

However, Marina has been disquieted by the militarization of police, the violence and the deaths of Black men across the U.S. at the hands of law enforcement.

He wanted to find a way to teach officers how to protect themselves as police officers, but also protect the human rights of all human beings.

Human rights need to be something that are kind of in your heart, in your soul. It needs to come from your empathy, Marina said.

When speaking with his father, retired New Orleans police officer Pedro Marina, he was inspired to create a course that would show officers how to apply human rights in everyday policing.

Human rights policing is all about, How can we preserve the inherent dignity of all human beings in our interactions with them as police officers? Marina said.
Nahjai Scott of Boston gets a hand from mom Jamie Tull and her husband Michael Tull on Saturday. The freshman was moving into Hoosac Hall. Students arrival times were staggered to reduce contact. A portable testing site was set up near Hoosac Hall on Saturday because of rain but a larger center was set up on Ashland Street. The campus is normally set up for reopening events but those types of gatherings won't be happening this year. PreviousNext

MCLA Welcomes Students Back, Implements COVID-19 Precautions



MCLA has signs around the campus reminding everyone to mask up and social distance. NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  Move-in weekend at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts has generally been a celebratory affair as hundreds of students show up with parents and family in tow to prepare for the fall semester.

This year was a low-key affair as the annual event played out over several days with staggered arrivals and mandated COVID-19 testing  another sign of the changes wrought by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

"It looks very different, we've spread out moving over a few more days," said Gina Puc, dean of enrollment management and community relations. "[Students have] been encouraged and instructed to bring one car with them and one helper."

Instead of student volunteers helping move, faculty and staff were on hand to greet and to direct students to their single rooms. A drive-through testing facility was set up in the facility department's parking lot on Ashland Street.

About half the college's total enrollment of 1,180 is expected to attend in person this fall, including at the extension campus in Pittsfield. Puc said that was projected at about 600 but it will be a few weeks before the final numbers are known. The rest of the student body will be working remotely  after Thanksgiving break, everyone will switch to remote.

Students have to sign what the college is calling the Trailblazer Agreement, guidelines for health and safety that they are expected to abide by, such as gatherings and use of facilities. Those attending on campus must wear face coverings, wash hands, monitor their health, take COVID-19 tests when asked and work with the contact tracing program.

"Remember that the opportunity to remain on campus to live and learn depends on our ability to control the spread of COVID-19, which is dependent upon all community members adhering to the guidelines set by MCLA and our local and state health agencies," reads the return to campus guide.

Violations will be dealt with via the college's code of conduct through the student services division.

The reopening of colleges and universities during the pandemic has seen further spread of the coronavirus that has infected more than 6 million in the United States. CNN reported on Sunday that there have been more than 8,700 recent new cases at colleges and universities, 1,200 at the University of Alabama alone.

One case was reported Sunday at nearby Williams College, which also has set up a perimeter around the campus and Spring Street that students aren't supposed to break.

That type of geographic limitation won't work at MCLA.

"We are integrated into the community and a large portion of our students are commuters," Puc said, adding that the college will be diligent in monitoring social distancing measures and masking. "Students are being tested upon arrival so that will help in mitigating spread."

All resident students are being tested on arrival on campus and once a week through September. After that, 20 to 25 percent of the student body will be scheduled for randomized testing. Commuter students will be offered testing by appointment through MCLA's health services.

Puc said the college is contracted with the Broad Institute for testing and that results are expected in 24-48 hours. Broad has been running "a slick operation" of up to 30,000 tests a day at this point, she noted. "As new as it is for everyone it's been relatively seamless to get it up and running."

MCLA is also planning an online public dashboard similar to what Williams has done; the private Williamstown college is starting its third week of testing.

"We're lucky in that as a regional state university a majority of our students are coming from low-risk areas," Puc said.

The college has been monitoring daily directives, seven-day average positive test rates and bed and ICU capacity, she said, as well as setting aside isolation beds.

The virus has intertwined public health and education, forcing schools to innovate in ways they've never considered  from the basics such as hand-sanitizing stations to cameras in classrooms for synchronous learning.

"I think it's a moment of opportunity, higher ed has really come together. There are regular meetings we attend, we've been talking to our colleagues at Williams College," Puc said. "The stress and uncertainty is balanced by how the entire collge community has come together ... that's been sort of a silver lining in this for all of us."

Most importantly, she said, the college wants students to have "as close to a normal experience as possible."

Berkshire County has among the lowest transmission rates for COVID-19. Since March, there have been 661 positive cases identified and 46 deaths; there have been no hospitalizations for the virus in several weeks.

Nahjai Scott was arriving for her first year at MCLA from the Boston area. The environmental science major said she was excited to be on campus.

"Everybody's worried," she said when asked if she was concerned about COVID-19 spread. "I feel like at first, you're definitely going to be very worried. But you know, a lot of people are in the same boat. So we're all kind of going through that together."

Scott had read through the precautions being taken and said it made her more confident.

"I feel like soon you'll get used to it and settle in and it'll be all good," she said.
Greece is ready to spend part of its cash reserves to support its armed forces as early as this year, the country's finance minister said on Monday, after years of belt-tightening in defence spending.

During its decade-long debt crisis which erupted in late 2009, Greece slashed its defence spending under the terms of three international bailouts that helped it stay afloat.

Greece emerged from its third bailout in August 2018.

In an interview with Alpha TV, Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said that his mandate includes "supporting the armed forces' prevention force".

He made the comments as tensions between Greece and its NATO Turkey have escalated over energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean region.

"We, the finance ministry, will do everything possible to support the government's decisions in this area," Staikouras said.

He said that the government's strategy does not only concern arm purchases and will unfold over the next years starting in 2020, without providing a figure on the money that could be invested or any further details.

"It depends on the government's and the defence ministry's orders on certain priorities," he said.

Greece has created a cash buffer of 34 billion euros ($40.6 billion) from unused bailout funds and money raised from markets.

The country was looking forward to an economic recovery this year but the coronavirus pandemic has turned its expectations upside down and the government now sees its economy shrinking up to 10%. ($1 = 0.8372 euros)

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Ahmedabad-based Adani Group today announced the buyout of 74 per cent stake of GVK and two other entities (Airport Company of South Africa and South African Bidvest) in the Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL). The deal also includes acquisition of Navi Mumbai International Airport Limited (NMIAL), in which MIAL owns 74 per cent equity stake.

Although the size of the deal has not been revealed, it entails the acquisition of GVK's debt by Adani Enterprises, and will help release the guarantees given by GVK Power and Infrastructure (a GVK group company) for the debt that the airport entity had taken.

"AAHL [Adani Airport Holdings Limited] intends to infuse funds into MIAL to ensure that MIAL receives much needed liquidity and also achieves financial closure of Navi Mumbai International Airport to be able to commence construction," the official statement said.

ALSO READ: Adani group to acquire GVK ADL's debt; gets controlling stake in Mumbai airport

So while this development seems surprising on two counts, experts say that the logic behind the transaction is clear. The first surprise element is on account of the "exclusivity deal" signed by GVK last October to sell its stake in GVK Airport Holdings to Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Canada's Public Sector Pension (PSP), and National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF). Then how did Adani Group manage to sign this deal - unless ADIA and others backed off.

The other surprising part is that less than three months ago, the Adani Group had reportedly sought more time from the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to take over Lucknow, Mangalore and Ahmedabad airports citing uncertainty in the airports business following the pandemic.

So despite having to postpone its plans for three airports, why did the group acquire MIAL? Sources involved in the transaction say that the pulling off this deal was not easy, especially since the entire matter has reached the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) when ADIA and PSP asked for the government's intervention in ensuring transparency around the takeover saga.

Adani Enterprises' ambitions in the airports sector began last year when it had aggressively bid for six airports that were awarded under the first round of public-private partnership (PPP) model. Around the same time (in March), the group had reportedly shown interest in buying Bidvest's stake in MIAL but its efforts were thwarted by GVK over technical grounds.

ALSO READ: Govt shouldn't be running airports, airlines; hope to privatise Air India in 2020: Hardeep Singh Puri

So far, the group has been awarded three airports (Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Mangaluru) for operations and maintenance while the leasing out of the remaining three airports - Jaipur, Thiruvananthapuram and Guwahati - were recently approved by the Cabinet. But the state government in Kerala has opposed handing over the Thiruvananthapuram airport under the current PPP arrangement, and has reportedly asked to form a special purpose vehicle (SPV) where the state government would be a majority shareholder.

Experts say that acquisition of a large airport like MIAL makes sense for the Adani group since the economics of smaller airports - the ones that it had acquired in the last round - have gone for a toss. "The larger airports would see an uptick in demand prior to traffic picking up at other airports. Airlines would look to cater to demand progressively and operationalise their networks. Reaching the pre-COVID air traffic level could take almost 24 months," says Peeyush Naidu, partner at Deloitte India.

Even as the smaller airports have turned unattractive, the government seems to be going ahead with the second and third round of bidding that covers 12 more airports. "After some back and forth, some decision on the second round of bidding is likely soon. International airports with over 3 million passenger traffic have financial viability under the PPP model. Unless AAI gives subsidies, the government cannot continue to bid airports," says an industry consultant. As per official estimates, AAI manages 137 airports, including 24 international airports and 103 domestic airports at the moment.

ALSO READ: Adani's bid to acquire stake in Mumbai airport faces new hurdle
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 31 (Reuters) - South Africa's AngloGold Ashanti said on Monday that it and Barrick Gold had agreed to sell their effective 80% stake in the Morila Gold Mine in Mali to Mali Lithium.

Mali Lithium, based in Australia, will buy the company holding the two miners' stake in the mine for an estimated purchase price of between $22 million and $27 million, in a transaction AngloGold Ashanti said was in line with its strategy to rationalise its portfolio and maximise shareholder returns. (Reporting by Emma Rumney; Editing by Kim Coghill)
A BMW driver who caused multiple hit-and-run accidents in downtown Ho Chi Minh City on Friday night was found to be severely intoxicated while behind the wheel.

Police of District 1 in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday issued a warrant to seize the BMW vehicle used by L.T.H.L ., 35, the previous day during a hit-and-run spree in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, a source told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

On the late evening of Friday, L. was operating her BMW car while traveling eastbound on Pham Viet Chanh Street when she collided with another car that was stopped on the side of the road.

L. fled the scene, but she was chased by passers-by who witnessed the collision. To outrun her pursuers, L. was seen accelerating and trying to block off their bikes.

When headed off by a motorbike standing in the middle of the way, L. even ran over the obstacle, dragging the bike under the chassis of her BMW for a length.

She was only stopped after arriving on Cach Mang Thang 8 Street, where commuters surrounded her vehicle before police officers from Ward 11 of District 3 came to detain her.

A BMW car is chased by motorbikes after a hit-and-run incident in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, August 28, 2020.

Follow-up breath alcohol testing revealed L. had an alcohol concentration of 1,017 mg/l.

According to the Vietnamese Law on Road Traffic, the mere presence of alcohol in one's system already amounts to a violation, while an alcohol level of 0.4 mg/l of breath or 80mg/100ml of blood would merit the most severe punishment for drunk driving.

Three vehicles were hit by L., but no injuries were reported.

An investigation found that L. had been on a drinking spree on Friday, starting from 2:00 pm that day.

Responding to Tuoi Tre on Saturday, L. said she had been at a restaurant in District 1 before the accident.

Upon putting her car in reverse to leave the restaurants parking lot, she was surrounded by 4-5 motorbikes, whose riders knocked on her car door, insisting she had caused collisions with their vehicles and demanding that she pull over, the woman explained.

It was late into the night, I was highly vigilant of the threat of car heists, so I did not stop and instead fled. After a short while, I realized that they had pulled out weaponry and were smashing my wing mirrors and my car. Seeing peril, I ran even faster, L. claimed.

L. also admitted to having run over the motorbike. It was only after she saw police officers that she felt safe and pulled over, L. said.

Regarding the crashes that took place outside of the restaurant, L. assumed them to be small damage.

Had there been severe crashes, I would have known. I know the guards at the restaurant, my booking details are also there so they would have informed me [if I had crashed into vehicles there], the woman claimed.

It was late at night and a group of men were chasing me. I am a woman. I thought I was in danger so I tried to find somewhere safe to pull over."

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Cowslip is a distylous species with two morphologically different types of flowers. Plants with short-styled or S-morphs (photo A; sometimes referred to as thrum plants) carry flowers with a short style and long anthers, while long-styled L-morphs (or pin plants; photo B) have a long style and short anthers. Generally, successful fertilization takes place only in case of reciprocal pollen flow between different morphs, while within-morph crosses lead to no progenies. Credit: Tsipe Aavik

About half of the individuals of cowslip (Primula veris) have flowers with a short style, while the other half of individuals produce flowers with a long style. Recent discoveries have suggested that the loss and fragmentation of habitats may shake this optimal balance of morphologically different plants. This, in turn, decreases the reproductive success of plants and jeopardizes their future viability.

As the primary habitat, cowslips prefer semi-natural grasslands, which have experienced a dramatic area loss over the last hundred years throughout Europe. The study coordinated by the ecologists of the University of Tartu and the Estonian Fund for Nature aimed to examine whether this drastic landscape change has led to deviations in morph balance. To collect data across Estonia, they decided to implement a citizen science approach. A specifically designed web platform (www.cowslips.eu) facilitated an easy upload of data. "In addition, the task and importance of the cowslip observation campaign were explained in detailed guidelines, numerous videos, social media, and other communication platforms," commented Tsipe Aavik, the lead researcher of the heterostyly project.

Novel insight into fundamental research

Nearly 1,700 observations obtained during the campaign led to unexpected discoveries, is now published in the Journal of Ecology. First, data revealed a systematic dominance of short-styled morphs over long-styled morphs. Second, morph frequencies were more likely to deviate in smaller populations and deviations increased in landscapes with higher human population density.

"We are very thankful to all participants who helped to collect heterostyly data at such an unprecedented scale," commented Tsipe Aavik. "Although the first discoveries on heterostyly were made already by Darwin more than 150 years ago, data obtained in the citizen science campaign has helped us to add novel aspects into this fascinating topic with a long history of research."

The findings brought novel insights into fundamental research: the systematic dominance of the short-styled morphs is an intriguing but previously undescribed aspect in this otherwise well-studied plant mating system. However, perhaps even more important are the implications of these findings for conservation because deviating morph frequencies are likely to jeopardize the viability of heterostylous plants. The findings thus describe another threat in the list of negative consequences of habitat loss.

Perhaps Europe could be looking for cowslips one day

The surprising findings of the study have seeded an idea to widen the geographic scope of the study to examine whether the observed patterns are confirmed in other European countries. Furthermore, the discovery about the role of human population density altering morph balance encourages to look at the patterns of heterostyly in landscapes with more intense human impact than Estonia with its relatively low human population density. "In the spring of 2020, when we repeated the campaign, Latvian citizen scientists warmly welcomed the opportunity to contribute to heterostyly observations. But perhaps one day we all can participate in a project, 'Europe is looking for cowslips'," adds Aavik with a hope that there still are places in Europe where one can find this beautiful and intriguing plant, cowslip.

Explore further Grazers and pollinators shape plant evolution

More information: Tsipe Aavik et al, Landscape context and plant population size affect morph frequencies in heterostylous Primula veris  results of a nationwide citizenscience campaign, Journal of Ecology (2020). Journal information: Journal of Ecology Tsipe Aavik et al, Landscape context and plant population size affect morph frequencies in heterostylous Primula veris  results of a nationwide citizenscience campaign,(2020). DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.13488

Provided by Estonian Research Council
New York City has reached the largest settlement recorded over an inmates death at the Rikers Island jail complex, agreeing to pay $5.9 million to the family of a 27-year-old transgender woman who died there last year while in solitary confinement.

Layleen Polanco was found unresponsive in her cell in June 2019 after having an epileptic seizure. Her death prompted protest marches to draw attention to the discrimination transgender people say they often face in the criminal justice system. Her case also spurred Mayor Bill de Blasio to call for an end to solitary confinement in city jails altogether.

The settlement, which is still being finalized, resolves a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by Ms. Polancos family in August 2019. Still, her sister, Melania Brown, said in an interview on Monday that it was just the beginning of justice.

I have no faith in the city, I have no faith in anything that they do, besides them paying people out, thats all they do, she said. Thats their way of saying sorry. I do hope this settlement makes a powerful statement that Black trans lives do matter and that we need a change moving forward.
Pakistani Christian girl flees after court orders her to live with Muslim rapist

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A 14-year-old Christian girl, who was ordered by a court to return to the Muslim man who had abducted her and forcibly married and converted her to Islam, has escaped and is in hiding in Pakistans Faisalabad area, according to reports.

Catholic teenager Maira Shahbaz has fled the home of her alleged husband, Mohamad Nakash, weeks after the Lahore High Court ruled that Shahbaz was legally married to her abductor and ordered her to be returned to his custody, the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern reported.

Judge Raja Muhammad Shahid Abbasi ruled earlier this month that Shahbaz must return to the home of the married man who had kidnapped her at gunpoint during the COVID-19 lockdown and whom the judge referred to as her husband, on the basis that she had converted to Islam.

With this ruling, no Christian girl in Pakistan is safe, a family friend and advocate, Lala Robin Daniel, was quoted as saying at the time.

The order is unprecedented and will likely mean Maria will never return to her family, Shazia George, a Pakistani human rights activist, told ICC after the ruling.

Judge Abbasi overruled a lower courts decision that she be allowed to leave her captors home and stay at a womens shelter until her case was heard by the Lahore High Court.

The Christian girl was abducted by Nakash and two accomplices while she was walking home in the Madina Town area in Faisalabad District. According to witnesses, the abductors forced Shahbaz into a car and fired gunshots into the air as they fled the scene, ICC reported earlier.

Nakash, a married man, was accused of presenting a false marriage certificate to the lower court that said Maira was 19 years old and they had wed in October 2019. The document not only failed to provide proof of consent from Nakashs first wife, with whom he has two children, but the Muslim cleric whose name is listed on the certificate had denied involvement in the sham marriage.

Lawyer Daniel earlier said that if Maira stayed in Nakashs home, she might be forced to become a sex worker.

This case has highlighted the wicked tactics used to force victims to make statements in favor of their abductors before the courts in Pakistan, Suneel Malik, a human rights defender in Pakistan, told ICC. Victims are threatened with dire consequences if they speak the truth in court.

William Stark, ICCs regional manager for South Asia, said, The threats that Mairas abductor has issued against Maira and her family are very real and must be taken seriously. We are also deeply disappointed by the High Courts decision to return Maira to the custody of her abductor. This has placed Mairas safety at risk and is likely why she and her family have gone into hiding.

Stark added that Pakistan must do more to combat the issue of abductions, forced marriages and forced conversions to Islam. For too long perpetrators have used the issue of religion to justify their crimes against Pakistans religious minorities, he said.

A 2014 study by The Movement for Solidarity and Peace Pakistan estimated that about 1,000 women and girls from Pakistans Hindu and Christian community were abducted, forcibly married to their captor, and forcibly converted to Islam every year.

The issue of religion is also often injected into cases of sexual assault to place religious minority victims at a disadvantage, ICC said. Playing upon religious biases, perpetrators know they can cover up and justify their crimes by introducing an element of religion.
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Description

GIS  31 August 2020: The region of Trou dEau Douce up to Le Bouchon has been declared as a Restricted Zone for fishing, swimming and any other sea activities. This was announced, on Friday 28 August 2020, by the Minister of Blue Economy, Marine Resources, Fisheries and Shipping, Mr Sudheer Maudhoo . He was speaking during a press conference held at the seat of the Ministry in Port-Louis.

The Minister further shed light on the death of 39 dolphins in the South-East region of Mauritius. In 2005, he recalled, a similar incidence occurred where 40 dolphins were found dead in the same region. He indicated that when dolphins enter the lagoon, they are prone to get injured by coral reefs.

The authorities with the collaboration of the fishermen community are therefore taking necessary actions and emitting sounds to prevent the dolphins from entering the lagoon, said Mr Maudhoo.

The Minister underlined that according to the first report of the tests conducted by the authorities, no traces of hydrocarbons were found in the dolphins. Samples have been sent to Reunion Island for advanced test to determine the exact cause of the death of those dolphins, he stated.

Also present at the press conference, the Director of Fisheries, Mr Dev Norungee, said that tests are being conducted on fish samples collected both in the restricted zone and across the island. Since 14 August 2020, samples of some 115 fishes have been tested to determine the presence of hydrocarbons, he indicated. Tests reveal that fishes in the non-restricted zone are not contaminated and are safe for consumption, he added.

For his part, the Director of Shipping, Mr Alain Donat, assured the population that no explosives have been used in the sinking of the bulk carrier MV Wakashio. All fuels were removed before the sinking of the ship at 11.2 nautical miles, he said.
Grace Geng, daughter of Gao Zhisheng, a renowned human rights lawyer in China, speaks about her father's book "A Human Rights Lawyer under Torture the auto narratives of Gao Zhisheng," during a press conference at the Legislative Council Complex in Hong Kong on June 14, 2016. (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)

US, European Officials Raise Awareness for Missing Chinese Human Rights Lawyer

U.S. and European officials are calling on the Chinese regime to release information about the missing Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng.

On Aug. 30, which is International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China posted a Twitter message: The Chairs call on the #Chinese govt to provide information to the family of human rights lawyer #GaoZhisheng, who has been missing since #Beijing police detained him in 2017.

The commission is chaired by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).

Gao, a self-taught lawyer and a devoted Christian, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times. He began practicing law in 1996, defending victims of government land seizures; families of miners, who are seeking compensation after their loved ones died in coal mining accidents; as well as persecuted Christians and adherents of Falun Gong.

We have not forgotten about Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, whose whereabouts remain unknown three years after he disappeared. Gao devoted himself to defending Christians, Falun Gong practitioners, and other vulnerable individuals.  Amb. at Large for International Religious Freedom (@IRF_Ambassador) August 14, 2020

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice with meditative exercises and moral teachings. According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, there were 70 million to 100 million adherents of the practice before the Chinese regime banned it in 1999. Since then, hundreds of thousands have been detained and tortured in jails, brainwashing centers, and labor camps.

In December 2004, Gao published an open letter addressed to Chinas rubber-stamp legislature, the National Peoples Congress, appealing to the Chinese regime to stop persecuting adherents of Falun Gong. Gao published two more open letters urging an end to the suppression of Falun Gong in 2005.

Amid his advocacy for Falun Gong adherents, his law firm in Beijing was ordered to close for a year in November 2005. He was subsequently stripped of his lawyers license in August 2006.

In December 2006, Gao was sentenced to three years in prison, with a five-year-probation, after being convicted of inciting subversion of state powera catch-all charge the Chinese regime often uses against dissidents.

The Chinese regime also threatened Gaos family, which prompted Gaos wife, Geng He, and their two children to flee China in January 2009. They now live in the United States.

Gao was interviewed by the Associated Press in 2011, in which he recounted how he was repeatedly tortured while in detention, including at the Xinjiang polices detention center.

In December 2011, Chinese state-run media Xinhua reported that Gao had been sent back to jail to serve his three-year sentence due to probation violations. He was freed from prison in August 2014 but was immediately placed under house arrest.

Gao went missing in August 2017 and his whereabouts remain unknown.

Geng, in a recent interview with The Epoch Times, said she was worried that Chinese authorities would intentionally infect her husband with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, and make his disappear permanently.

Several members of the European ParliamentReinhard Butikofer and Evelyne Gebhardt from Germany, and Hilde Vautmans from Belgiumtook to their Twitter accounts to voice support for Gao on Aug. 30.

China needs to ratify the Intl Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, wrote Vautmans. The document calls on signee nations to end enforced disappearances and investigate any such cases.

Amnesty International USA also released a video on its Facebook page on Sunday to bring awareness about Gaos disappearance.

The United Nations declared Aug. 30 the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances beginning in 2011.
TWO questions are being raised in the public chatter on the subject of lawyers going out of their homes and displaying the "Lawyer on Board" (LOB) sign:

[1] Are lawyers in the list of persons authorized during general quarantine to leave their shelter?

[2] Is it illegal or ethical for a lawyer to announce that there's a lawyer in the vehicle?

The first does not have to be tied to the second, or vice versa.

THEY'RE IN LIST. Lawyers are in the list. No question about it. Both the IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force) omnibus guidelines and executive orders issued by local governments in Cebu say so, according to IBP (Integrated Bar of the Philippines) Cebu City chapter president Regal M. Oliva.

Atty. Oliva cited to SunStar last Sunday, August 30, the IATF resolution: #46, series of 2020. The resolution allows "transit of lawyers who will provide legal representation... necessary to protect the rights of persons under custodial investigation, to bail, and to counsel during inquest proceedings."

Under Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella's executive order #88 dated August 15, an example of what the local EOs say, legal and accounting services are among the offices that may reopen at 50 percent capacity. The lawyers' offices are in Category III but they're in the list. Their employees are among the people exempted from the "stay-at-home" order.

NOT APOR 'PER SE.' But those who love to nitpick, as many lawyers do, may point out that the APOR right for them is restricted by the IATF condition that the travel is necessary for protecting rights of arrested persons. Lawyer Vincent Isles last Sunday told SunStar, "lawyers are not APOR per se; they are APOR only when attending to bail or inquest proceedings and... to maintain the rights of a person in custodial investigation."

That's the IATF rule. But Mayor Labella's executive order opens law offices under GCQ -- more so, it must be, under MGCQ -- up to half each office staff. Surely the lawyers are included and thus can travel under that clause.

Story continues

THE STICKER THING. The LOB sticker is not required under IATF or LGU rules. Police patrol or checkpoint most likely does not look for that.

In Cebu City, only the community quarantine pass is needed, along with his ID and maybe, if the enforcer is finicky and suspects the nature of the trip, the court notice of the trial or some other paper specifying the nature of his trip.

Perhaps that's what the LOB sign is for: to tell the police they're dealing with a law-abiding citizen, not a terrorist, and one who could talk to them to death about law and order and the lawyers' role in upholding them.

As to whether using the sign violates ethics, it does not, unless maybe the sign screams "Atty. Vincent Isles, a Lawyer, Aboard." That would be more advertising than an appeal.

A COLUMNIST WONDERS. The Cebu City IBP, trying to be helpful to its members during the emergency, has provided an ID to each lawyer who applies for it. And, besides the ID card, the big LOB sign.

Publio Briones III, in two SunStar columns (August 26 and 29), said he has nothing against lawyers who sport the LOB sign in their vehicles.

Yet Briones III wonders if lawyers should be exempted from the stay-at-home CQ order, are they essential, and if not why are they displaying that sign. And he went further: Do they expect special treatment and be not covered by quarantine rules imposed on the general population?

Those who reacted to that "point" say the rules include them in the list of APORs, lawyers may not be as urgently essential as the health workers but the machinery of justice needs to work even during the pandemic. Atty. Isles said he thinks "the pushback against Briones is uncalled for." Instead of castigating him, the lawyer said, they should look at his "piece" as "a good starting point to addressing the ill-conceived provisions in the IATF guidelines."

"SPECIAL TREATMENT." The LOB sign is not required for the APOR's right to go out of his shelter. Irrelevant, as lawyers put it. And yet many lawyers put them up, which made non-lawyers ask, What's the deal?

Ascribing ill motive to a sign may be unfair. Professional emblems are common, pandemic or not, be it a plague or the underrated flu. Emblems for different occupations are so common that suppliers of signs and stickers are flourishing.

Journalists display PRESS on their vehicles or on large IDs around their neck. "Baby on Board" is seen on SUVs where parents worry about reckless drivers. Occasionally spotted is 'Trained Owner of Firearms," or, more frequently, "Drivers are Best Lovers."

Are the signs a call for special treatment? More of a caution that journalists need to reach their destination or be spared from harm, particularly in conflict-torn areas. That babies must be protected. Or drivers are worth spending time with on bed. Or better not argue with a lawyer and save time for everyone.
Former Irish Defence Forces member Lisa Smith who is charged with membership of the Islamic State terrorist group and with financing terrorism has been returned for trial at the Special Criminal Court.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Declan Dempsey, this morning (MONDAY) granted an ex-parte application - where only one side is present in court - by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to try Ms Smith at the non-jury court.

Last December at Dublin District Court Ms Smith, a 38-year-old from Co Louth, was initially charged with an offence contrary to the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005 which carries a possible 10-year sentence, for being a member of unlawful terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) between October 28, 2015 and December 1, 2019.

On July 24 last, a further charge was bought against the mother-of-one under the same legislation for financing terrorism by sending 800 in assistance, via a Western Union money transfer, to a named man on May 6, 2015.

At today's brief hearing, State Solicitor Michael O'Donovan said that the DPP was applying to the court to make an order under Section 49 of the Offences Against the State Act that the accused woman be tried before the Special Criminal Court.

In certain cases, the DPP can certify that in his or her opinion the ordinary courts are inadequate to secure the effective administration of justice.

Mr Justice Hunt made the formal order for the case to be heard in the non-jury court.

Ms Smith was previously sent forward for trial at the Special Criminal Court when she last appeared at Dublin District Court on July 31, where Sergeant Gareth Kane of the Special Detective Unit served the book of evidence on the accused woman on that date.

Ms Smith, who denies the charges, was not present in court today for the legal formality.

The case was listed for mention before the three-judge court on September 14 next, when the Dundalk woman is required to be in attendance.
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IDBI Bank has accused AC Muthiah of being a "wilful defaulter" after a company, which he co-promoted, failed to repay a loan of Rs 508 crore to the private lender.

In a public note, the bank said, First Leasing Company of India, promoted by the Muthiah and Farouk Irani, is in default of over Rs 508 crore as on August 27.

Moneycontrol could not get a comment from the former chairman of the MAC group of companies.

As the name suggests, First Leasing Company of India was the first company in India to undertake leasing of assets. The company came under the scanner after a series of fund diversions which led to multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the firm's operations.

In August 2016, the ED had arrested Farouk Irani, under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in an alleged bank loan fraud case of about Rs 500 crore.

The law enforcement agency had begun a criminal investigation based on CBI's FIR, filed a year earlier, which booked Irani and the Chennai-based firm for allegedly cheating IDBI Bank and SBI to the tune of Rs 274 crore and Rs 248 crore, respectively.

In June 2018, the CBI filed a chargesheet against Muthiah and Irani for causing a loss of Rs 102.87 crore to Syndicate Bank.
(TNS) - When state fire authorities announced recently that the CZU Lightning Complex fire had quadrupled in size in just one day, an audible gasp rose from the audience.Although lightning fires have been scorching the state since prehistoric times, the speed with which the SCU and LNU lightning complex fires became the second- and third-largest blazes ever recorded in California has startled emergency officials and strained firefighting resources. The fires have killed seven people, destroyed more than 2,100 buildings and made air unhealthy across the Bay Area.And things may only get worse in the future, experts say.Theres a direct relationship between heat and fire, and increasing heat is inevitable for at least a few decades, said Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia Universitys Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. If you like 2020, youre going to love 2050.So why have this years fires burned more than 1.4 million acres of the states scenic coastal mountains and hills surrounding wine country? After all, the Lightning Siege of 2008, when nearly 800,000 acres burned, was the first time the National Guard had been called in to help in 40 years as resources were stretched to the limit.The answer is complicated.The destiny of all wildfires is shaped by the fire behavior triangle  fuel, weather and topography  according to Craig Clements, a professor at San Jose States Fire Weather Research Laboratory.But there were additional factors involved in this most recent outbreak. A summer heat wave magnified by climate change combined with tropical moisture and storm energy to create thunderstorms. The resulting lightning strikes pelted a region with a history of difficult firefighting and another area thats seen numerous fires in the recent past.The state- and locally-maintained coastal mountains in Central California, where the CZU Lightning Complex is burning, have a history of challenging firefighters. In 2016, in Monterey County north of the current fire, a firefighter died helping contain the stubborn Soberanes fire, which burned 50 homes while flames lived for months in the ranges steep canyons and impassable terrain.In 2003, south of Livermore, where a part of the SCU Lightning Complex is now burning, 53 firefighters were overrun in the middle of the night and used their shelters in what may have been the second-largest shelter deployment by crews in U.S. history, Clements said.In both instances, just as is happening now, temperatures did not drop significantly overnight nor was any ocean moisture reintroduced into the landscapes higher elevations. In the summer, a high-pressure system settles over the Pacific and rotates, steering warm, dry air over the coastal ranges upper elevations while squeezing cool, moist air into the marine layer below, said San Jose State atmospheric scientist Alison Bridger.Its basically why we dont get rain in the summer, she said.Throw in an extreme heat wave, and fire risk rises significantly.The fact we got such extremely large, fast destructive fires without any offshore winds is very unusual, said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. All of this hints at something which we know to be true  the state of the vegetation, the state of the fuels was pretty extraordinary.In fact, most of the areas burning in the three lightning complex fires are considered to be in moderate to severe drought, according to the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor report released Thursday. Huge chunks of each fires footprint include areas that havent seen fires in decades and were jackpots of dead and dry tinder.Unfortunately, as the climate continues to warm, the table is being set for these extreme fires more often, Swain said. It means the ceiling on how bad these fires can be is continuing to increase.The night that the hundreds-of-miles-wide lightning storm set all these fires in motion, a heat burst before sunrise hit parts of wine country, sending predawn temperatures in areas such as Travis Air Force Base from 80 to 100 degrees in under two hours. While experts say it probably didnt have a direct impact on the fires, it certainly didnt help matters and foreshadowed the challenging conditions to come.From Tuesday to Wednesday, winds flowed downslope into the Sacramento Valley from the mountains between Oregon and California, shedding moisture along the way. When they hit the wine country hills, they were bone dry and influenced the fires explosive growth, said National Weather Service meteorologist Cory Miller. The LNU Lightning Complex fire grew tenfold in 36 hours, from 12,200 acres the morning of Aug. 18 to 124,000 acres the following night, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.Sarah Johnson and the Emerald Hills Horse Ranch, in Winters, were in the fires path.Johnson, 29, is originally from Ohio and knows thunderstorms, so two weeks ago she kicked back in a hammock to enjoy a flavor of the Midwest as lightning flashed across the horizon around Lake Berryessa and Mt. Vaca.But soon, the storms were replaced with smoke, and then falling ash. Johnson and her boyfriend were glued to their phones, listening to scanner traffic from first responders about the fires movements. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection website was working only intermittently, overwhelmed by a surge in web traffic from around the globe.As the fire made its late-night surge Aug. 18 and 19, Johnsons boyfriends phone began ringing incessantly, the ranchs boarders trying to reach him to warn him of the incoming fire.The couple woke up and sprung into action, waking neighbors, loading up horses as trailers arrived and helping to knock down small spot fires that dotted the ranch pasture. The ranch lost power sometime during the scramble.It was incredibly windy and smoky and you could see a fire tornado forming, and the rate of spread was incredible, Johnson said. The fire was just so bright, thats how we were able to see everything.Over the next several hours, their neighbors homes burned. The fire was fast and the countys emergency alert system didnt reach many of them until it was too late, if at all, Johnson said.I remember at one point I just stopped and looked and said, Where are all the fire trucks? and it was just another surreal moment and I realized that nobody was coming, she said.Theres a concern that as these fires hit the same areas again and again, theyll permanently change California, and not for the better.A moderate fire can clear out underbrush and competing trees, giving a healthy forest room to breathe. But if it visits again and again  as has happened in parts of Napa County in recent years  those native grasses and plants give up the fight and invasive plants move in, similar to whats happened in Southern California. Oftentimes those new species can spread fire faster.California has choices to make since fire is inevitable and megafires are increasingly possible, said Gerrard, the Columbia climate law director. Building codes can be updated. Utility infrastructure can be modernized and better regulated. Decisions on where homes are built and how forests are managed can be made with fire risk and native ecology in mind.Its very much like managed retreat on the coastline, Gerrard said. The hope is that recurrent, related disasters will be a wake-up call.2020 Los Angeles TimesVisit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Education Minister announces details of independent review following Welsh A-level results fiasco

This article is old - Published: Monday, Aug 31st, 2020

Wales Education Minister has announced details of an independent review which is set to be carried out in the wake of the A-level results fiasco.

Earlier this month, almost half of the countrys students saw their marks initially downgraded because of the system used to calculate results.

The Welsh Government was then forced into a U-turn after announcing the grades originally predicted by teachers would be used instead.

It followed anger from educators, students and opposition parties.

Following the reversal, Kirsty Williams MS said a review would be held to look at the situation that unfolded following the cancellation of exams due to Covid-19.

She has now revealed further details of how it will be carried out in a written statement to Senedd Members.

Ms Williams said: At the Children, Young People and Education Committee on 18 August, I stated that I would be commissioning an independent review of events following the cancellation of this years exams.

I am pleased to announce that Louise Casella has agreed to chair an independent review of the arrangements for awarding grades for the 2020 exam series.

Louise is Director of The Open University in Wales and has extensive experience in strategic roles in the education sector in Wales.

The review will consider key issues that have emerged from the arrangements which were put in place for this summers exams, and the challenges resulting from the 2020 experience.

It is essential that lessons are learned from this years experience so that the review can provide recommendations and considerations for approaches for 2021.

These recommendations will be centred on the needs of our learners and their progression, and on the continued need to maintain standards and the integrity of the education system and qualifications here in Wales.

She added an interim review of key findings would be produced by October given the pressing need to put measures in place for the 2021 exam series.

Its then expected that a final report and recommendations will follow by mid-December.
Street meetings

"At the meeting of the Camperdown branch of the A.L.P., a resolution was carried unanimously protesting against the 'savage sentences' inflicted upon those who took part in the unemployed demonstration in Macquarie St and other street meetings. The branch said the prosecutions were 'mere camouflage', intended as an attack upon the right of freedom of speech of the workers by the Nationalist Government."

Insulin not a cure

"The Medical Journal of Australia, in dealing with the treatment of diabetics with insulin, states that a considerable period will have to elapse before the full therapeutic significance of this patented preparation can be ascertained. 'The Public has been told much that is not true [about] the remedy, and it is now convinced that diabetes can be cured by this means. This is not the first time this tragedy has been enacted.'"

Rebuilding Palestine
Health experts and prominent physicians have called for the formation of a commission that will review coronavirus vaccine trial data independently from the Food and Drug Administration before a vaccine is released in the market.

The clamor stemmed from the increasing distrust in vaccines and numerous criticisms on the government.

At the moment, a vaccine is allowed to be placed on the market as soon as the FDA gives it a green light. However, physicians and health experts have stated that following the "government blunders" that have happened amid the pandemic, the only way to put the public's trust on the vaccine is if an independent review is done.

According to CNN, a poll that was conducted on August, 4 out of 10 Americans are not willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine even when it becomes available and is for free. The health experts have indicated that the low response to vaccination may become a hindrance in totally controlling the virus. They also stated that the US may not achieve herd immunity if this happens.

In a statement by Harvard Medical School assistant, Dr. Kathryn Stephenson, her belief is that the idea of creating an independent panel started when some of her colleagues stated that they would not want to get the vaccine. She said that having a panel separate from the government and the FDA will increase people's trust in vaccines and erase the skepticism.

Bioethicists Arthur Caplan also shared the same sentiments as Stephenson and reached the same conclusion.

Read also: German Researchers Simulate a Pop Concert to Study How COVID-19 Spreads in Crowds

According to Caplan, in the past people have trusted the FDA and CDC that when they approve a vaccine for public use, However, amid the present health crisis, Caplan believes that the FDA's approval won't be sufficient to change the mind of the public. Thus, he stated that an independent commission is desperately needed.

Meanwhile, the FDA has stated that they are already enforcing measures that will re-enforce reassurance that the vaccine that will be developed and approved will be safe and effective. The statement was posted in a blog in Health Affairs which was posted by DR. Stephen Hahn, the Commissioner of the FDA, and two other health experts.

In a statement, Hahn pledged that the FDA will review the available data according to its deliberative and rigorous scientific process. He also added that the data from the clinical trials will be reviewed by an advisory committee of the FDA, adding that the said committee will give the organization guidance in making any decisions. The said committee will be convening on October 22.

Fifty percent of the committee will consist of experts who are in the academe and are currently working in research centers and universities.

Meanwhile, several experts believed that the advisory panel negates the need for an independent committee since it would consist of people who do not work for the FDA.

However, NYU ethicist, Caplan expressed his worries that the Americans have lost faith in experts even with their credentials. He said that relying on the endorsement of experts and the FDA alone is a mindset that should have existed in days before the pandemic happened.



Related article: CDC Alters COVID-19 Testing Guidelines, Announces Asymptomatic Cases No Longer Need Testing

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Sound strange? Perhaps. But perhaps this factual story of Mr Bronte and his child-raising techniques with his future famous children, Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell, have more in common with today than at first glance.

The child would put the mask on and the father would (and in my imagination the father is seated in a leather wing-back) begin to ask the child questions to try to ascertain how the child was really feeling, what he or she thought about their siblings, if the punishment he as a father was giving was fair.

I read recently of a widower who had a unique method of dealing with his children. Hed shut the door of his study and pull out a mask - like a full face mask, perhaps made of fabric, or a white Phantom of the Opera style one, I dont know.

Mr Bronte tapped into something in the psyche in the 19th century that is still prevalent today. Its helped me understand the recent experience of Melbourne actor Shane Jacobson, who has been targeted for appearing in a government ad encouraging people to wear a face mask during the pandemic.

A mask, whether literally or metaphorically, can liberate the consciousness and the mouth of its wearer so they say things they wouldnt ordinarily say. I connect the physical mask of Mr Brontes with the mask of the screen. Some, naturally, would argue that being behind this screen encourages bravery. There is a body of blogs, websites and rants that can support and attest to this; people sharing vulnerabilities online with ease and are well received, encouraged and supported in doing so. Some users of social media in this manner even gain popularity the more they disclose of their selves, warts and all.

But then there are those who use the mask of a screen to project anger, hate and frustration through vitriol and insults. This mask of the screen, so different to the kind Jacobson was advocating, has the power to unleash words that wound. I wonder what Mr Bronte would think about this. The mask of the screen offers and even seduces the wearer into becoming someone else  an alter ego that potentially suspends the persons normally civilised behaviour.

Or perhaps, more frighteningly, it doesnt. Perhaps the mask of the screen just reveals who the person really is, and the normal facade is the act? I remember an observation made by Lucy in the childrens book by C.S Lewis, Prince Caspian: Wouldnt it be dreadful if some day in our own world, at home, men start going wild inside, like the animals here, and still look like men, so that youd never know which were which.

The irony, of course, is that the masks Jacobson was advocating protect and save lives. But more than that, when a person puts on the kind of mask Jacobson was talking about, you can still see their eyes, you can still see those same eyes crinkle when they smile and you can still hear the friendly tone in their muffled voice.
Suspended Aam Aadmi Party councillor Tahir Hussain received cash from 'dubious entities' and hawala operators and used the money to 'fuel' anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests and riots in Delhi in February, the Enforcement Directorate said on Monday.

IMAGE: Suspended AAP councillor Tahir Hussain in police custody. Photograph: Dinesh Joshi/ ANI Photo

The central probe agency had arrested Hussain last week and a local court on August 28 sent him to ED custody for six days.

The agency on Monday brought him to its office here from Tihar jail for interrogation.

Hussain, the agency said, has been 'arrested in connection with ongoing PMLA investigation into his role in money laundering and funding of anti-CAA protests and organising riots in north-east Delhi during February, 2020'.

The ED had booked Hussain and others under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after studying multiple first information reports of the Delhi Police's crime branch to probe the riots.

'Probe revealed that companies owned and controlled by Tahir Hussain and his relatives transferred huge amounts of money to dubious entities and entry operators (people involved in hawala transactions) which was returned by them in cash,' the agency said in a statement.

'The cash received by Tahir Hussain through entry operators was used to fuel the anti-CAA protests and Delhi riots,' it said.

The ED investigation also found 'involvement of Tahir Hussain and his companies in illegal laundering of money in the past too'.

It had raided premises linked to Hussain, his relatives and associates in Delhi, Noida and Greater Noida on June 23.

'The search operations had led to the recovery of incriminating documents and evidences including fake invoices which were used for the fraudulent transfer of money,' the ED said.

Hussain was earlier arrested by the Delhi Police in connection with the riots case in February.

He has also been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in a conspiracy case related to the riots. He was also arrested in connection with the murder of Intelligence Bureau official Ankit Sharma during the riots.

The riots were preceded by protests that were held in Delhi and other places against the enactment of the CAA.

Communal clashes broke out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters spiralled out of control, leaving at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.

Hussain was an AAP corporator for ward number 59, under the Mustafabad assembly seat in the national capital.
At a kite festival in Taiwan yesterday, a 3-year-old girl was accidentally swooped high into the air caught in a huge kite's tail. She was flying for around 30 seconds before she fortunately was brought down to terra firma. From CNN:



She was immediately rushed to the hospital with her mother and festival staffers, but miraculously only suffered minor injuries with abrasions to her face and neck, according to Taiwan's government-run Central News Agency. She has since been discharged and is home with her family.

In a statement on Facebook, Hsinchu Mayor Lin Chih-chien apologized for the incident, and said the festival was immediately suspended to ensure attendees' safety.

"We will review the circumstances to prevent accidents like this from happening again, and hold people accountable," he said.
In this article we are going to estimate the intrinsic value of Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited (TSE:CTC.A) by taking the forecast future cash flows of the company and discounting them back to today's value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. Models like these may appear beyond the comprehension of a lay person, but they're fairly easy to follow.

Companies can be valued in a lot of ways, so we would point out that a DCF is not perfect for every situation. If you want to learn more about discounted cash flow, the rationale behind this calculation can be read in detail in the Simply Wall St analysis model.

View our latest analysis for Canadian Tire Corporation

The model

We use what is known as a 2-stage model, which simply means we have two different periods of growth rates for the company's cash flows. Generally the first stage is higher growth, and the second stage is a lower growth phase. To begin with, we have to get estimates of the next ten years of cash flows. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years.

Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast

2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 Levered FCF (CA$, Millions) CA$795.3m CA$908.9m CA$1.00b CA$1.08b CA$1.15b CA$1.20b CA$1.25b CA$1.29b CA$1.32b CA$1.35b Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x3 Est @ 14.27% Est @ 10.49% Est @ 7.84% Est @ 5.99% Est @ 4.69% Est @ 3.78% Est @ 3.14% Est @ 2.7% Est @ 2.39% Present Value (CA$, Millions) Discounted @ 8.3% CA$735 CA$775 CA$791 CA$788 CA$772 CA$746 CA$715 CA$682 CA$647 CA$612

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = CA$7.3b

Story continues

After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the initial 10-year period, we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all future cash flows beyond the first stage. The Gordon Growth formula is used to calculate Terminal Value at a future annual growth rate equal to the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield of 1.7%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 8.3%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2030  (1 + g)  (r  g) = CA$1.4b (1 + 1.7%)  (8.3% 1.7%) = CA$21b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= CA$21b ( 1 + 8.3%)10= CA$9.4b

The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is CA$17b. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of CA$138, the company appears quite undervalued at a 50% discount to where the stock price trades currently. Valuations are imprecise instruments though, rather like a telescope - move a few degrees and end up in a different galaxy. Do keep this in mind.

dcf

The assumptions

The calculation above is very dependent on two assumptions. The first is the discount rate and the other is the cash flows. Part of investing is coming up with your own evaluation of a company's future performance, so try the calculation yourself and check your own assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Canadian Tire Corporation as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 8.3%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.098. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business.

Next Steps:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it ideally won't be the sole piece of analysis you scrutinize for a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Instead the best use for a DCF model is to test certain assumptions and theories to see if they would lead to the company being undervalued or overvalued. If a company grows at a different rate, or if its cost of equity or risk free rate changes sharply, the output can look very different. What is the reason for the share price sitting below the intrinsic value? For Canadian Tire Corporation, we've compiled three fundamental items you should further research:

Risks: Case in point, we've spotted 1 warning sign for Canadian Tire Corporation you should be aware of. Future Earnings: How does CTC.A's growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart. Other Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered!

PS. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow valuation for every stock on the TSX every day. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here.

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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Riyadh, Aug 31 : Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud announced the discovery of two oil and gas fields in the Kingdom.

The two fields, Hadat Al-Hajrah gas field in the Al-Jawf region and Abraq Al-Talul oil field in the northern border region, were discovered by the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), reports Xinhua news agency.

The company will work on assessing the quantities of oil, gas and condensate in the two fields, as well as digging more wells to determine their area and size, the Minister said.

Saudi Aramco is the world's most valuable company and pumps more oil on a daily basis than any other producer.
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe arrives to brief congressional leaders on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 2, 2020. (Leah Millis/Reuters)

Intelligence Chief Coordinating With John Durham, Plans to Declassify More Documents Soon

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe plans to declassify more documents soon related to the investigation into the alleged Donald Trump campaign collusion with Russian actors.

Ratcliffe is coordinating with U.S. Attorney John Durham, who recently obtained a guilty plea in his review of the origins of the investigation.

Ratcliffe said in an Aug. 30 interview with Fox News Sunday Morning Futures that he plans to declassify more documents.

When he was a congressman before becoming intelligence chief, Ratcliffe said, he didnt believe the FBI had proper predicate to continue the counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign, a belief bolstered by the guilty plea from former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith and documents that Ratcliffes office has released.

The question now is: Did the FBI have a proper predicate to begin a counter-intelligence investigation at all? And thats the issue that John Durham is looking at, and thats the issue that Im continuing to look at, Ratcliffe said.

I pledged to a bipartisan group of senators that I would look at all of the underlying intelligence surrounding the intelligence communitys assessment of Russias interference and this idea of TrumpRussia collusion.

So, Ive spent the last three months, and Ive declassified certain documents, and I plan to declassify additional documents. But Im not going to prejudice John Durhams work in connection with that, so weve had to coordinate with his office about the timing of that. But Im optimistic that Ill be declassifying additional documents soon.

Attorney John Durham speaks to reporters on the steps of U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn., on April 25, 2006. (Bob Child/AP Photo)

Intelligence officials have been making sure Durham has access to all the documents he needs.

Hes looking at the same documents that I am, Ratcliffe said. And so our work is running on a parallel path. Now his is a criminal investigation, hes not sharing his findings or the work that hes doing. But Im coordinating with him to make sure that he has the intelligence documents that he needs to do his work.

Some documents that might otherwise be declassified will not if it would impact Durhams work, the intelligence chief said.

Records declassified by Ratcliffe and his predecessor revealed important information about the attempts to link the Trump campaign with Russia.

One document showed the FBI failed to disclose that ex-British spy Christopher Steele was receiving money from the Democratic National Committee and the campaign of Hillary Clinton, who was running against Trump.

Declassified transcripts from a conversation between Trumps incoming national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and a Russian ambassador highlighted how Flynn didnt discuss sanctions with the ambassador, undercutting a key claim against Flynn.

Ivan Pentchoukov and Petr Savb contributed to this report.
North America has just experienced a groundbreaking week with great excitement about two appointments that shatter glass ceilings.

In the United States, Senator Kamala Harris, former California attorney general, was nominated on 11 August as the running mate for 77-year-old Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Harris is the third woman be nominated for such a position, and as the daughter of Indian and Jamaican parents, she is the first racialised woman.

Seven days later, Chrystia Freeland was named the first woman finance minister in Canada. I had dreamt that I would be the one breaking through that particular glass ceiling when I was the official opposition finance critic for the New Democratic Party. It was not to be, but I am delighted for Freeland. There have been women who have run the finances in Canadas provinces, but never federally, until now. These changes offer hope to girls and young women everywhere.

But change takes such an awfully long time. As we look around the world, there are only 16 elected world leaders who are women  about 10 per cent. Neither Canada nor the US has ever had a woman elected to the very top position. Corporate board rooms dont fare much better: the proportion of male CEOs globally far outweighs the proportion of women CEOs.

Recommended Kamala Harris accepts VP nomination in historic DNC speech

Both Harris and Freeland assume their positions in the midst of troubling times, leading some to ask, why does it take a crisis to promote women? And the answer seems to be because they perform very well.

The current US administration has mismanaged its response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has resulted in more cases and deaths than any other country. The Black Lives Matter protests have challenged the racialised impact of policing and the continued dominance of white privilege in political, corporate, economic and social life. In the US, there are fears that their very democracy is at risk due to the actions of President Trump.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, centre, on stage at the Democratic National Convention, with their partners (AFP/Getty) (AFP via Getty Images)

Harris breathes life, generational change, energy and excitement into the Democratic campaign to win back the presidency. She should motivate progressive, young, racialised and women voters to get out and unseat the current president. And while her nomination in this election is ground-breaking, if she can make it to the next level, to the presidency, she may well help the United States fully recover from its bout of ill temper and instability.

Even with a gender-equal cabinet, Canada ranks 61st in the world for the representation of women in national parliaments. This is shameful

Here, in Canada, how unfortunate that the Liberal government is mired in its third major ethics scandal. Having been found in violation of ethics rules twice before, the prime minister was desperate to change the political channel. But just when the government released thousands of documents about a scandal involving state funding and the charity WE, the former finance minister, Bill Morneau, resigned. Freeland, a former journalist and author, then replaced him; she remains as the deputy prime minister.

Freeland has demonstrated her negotiating chops in renewing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and as the point person on intergovernmental affairs. She is talented, competent and experienced. She can do the finance job, and many are seeing her as a future prime minister  so its sad that she is seen by some as a political fig leaf.

Excellent leadership: New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern (Getty) (Getty Images)

Without question, both Harris and Freeland are strong, accomplished and up to their new jobs. Perhaps this is the best time to call in the women to fix so much of what is wrong with politics. Some argue that if we compare the record of women leaders during the pandemic, these women perform very well, especially when compared with strongman leaders.

Even with a gender-equal cabinet, Canada ranks 61st in the world for the representation of women in national parliaments. This is shameful and we need to elect more women MPs who represent the broad diversity of Canada.

But history is not destiny.

Looking around the world, there is a new generation of women leaders such as Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand and Sanna Marin and her coalition of five young women leaders in Finland, who have been providing excellent leadership.

Whether in Canada, the US, New Zealand or Finland, we expect that this next generation will not only aspire to power for themselves, but they will open the doors of power to better representation. Enough of shattering glass ceilings: just equality please.

Peggy Nash is a senior advisor to the Dean of Arts at Ryerson University, Toronto. This article first appeared on The Conversation
A legal battle over a gasoline cargo turned over to the U.S. by a shipowner worried that it violated sanctions against Venezuela appears to have ended with a court-ordered sale.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas approved a bid from trading firm Kolmar Americas Inc. for $2.75 million for the 95-octane gasoline, according to an order filed last week. The cargo was sold at a steep discount to market prices because of a high content of manganese and other chemicals, said Paul Teta, Kolmars vice-president of public and government affairs. At current market prices, a cargo of 93-octane gasoline that meets standard specifications is valued at about $5.59 million, according to Bloomberg calculations.

The court decision caps a five-month odyssey that took the gasoline from Panama to Aruba, where the shipowner took over the cargo, to the port of Houston. The seizure of the cargo, believed to have been intended for Venezuela, demonstrates how far and wide the U.S.s expanding net of sanctions stretches as it seeks to choke off most fuel transactions that could benefit Nicolas Maduros regime.

The ships owner began to suspect the cargo would ultimately end up in Venezuela soon after the vessel Alkimos was chartered by Sea Energy Company Inc. to carry gasoline from Panama to Aruba. The ships registered owner, identified as the Marshall Islands-based Brujo Finance Company in the complaint, discovered the charterer intended to transfer the cargo onto another vessel, the Beauty One, which had been on service for Venezuelas state oil company PDVSA in the past year.

That would have potentially put the ship owner in breach of U.S. sanctions, according to the legal complaint. On March 31, the owners told the charterer through brokers, Owners WILL NOT participate in any illegal trading, the complaint shows.

The shipowner alleged the charterer of the vessel, acting on behalf of the owner of the gasoline, ES Euroshipping AG, failed to provide assurances that the cargo was not bound to Venezuela. Brujo then exercised a lien over the cargo and ordered the Alkimos to sail to the U.S., according to the documents.

The Alkimos arrived in Houston in June, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show. The court seized the cargo to satisfy the lien and offered the cargo for sale in a public auction in July. After the auction failed to attract bids, the court received a few private bids from little-known companies before Kolmar emerged as a potential buyer.

The gasoline is expected to be discharged at the Deer Park terminal in Houston on Monday, Kolmars Teta said. The high content of manganese make it unsuitable to be blended straight into gasoline so the company will probably blend it into the chemical or petrochemical feedstock pool, he said.
With the government's focus on Atma Nirbhar Bharat, there have been big investments in electronics manufacturing. Even though the government is extending its full support, realising the strategic importance of Electronics and Semiconductors, there hasn't been big investments in semiconductor manufacturing recently.

"We are seeing green shoots of interest in semiconductor manufacturing especially for ATMP (OSAT). Multiple companies are exploring these possibilities. The other area which is gaining traction is speciality semiconductor fab to produce devices for power electronics like GaN or Silicon Carbide (SiC) which are used in multiple applications such as chargers, electric vehicles, LED drivers, base stations, data centres and many other high-volume applications," says Dr Satya Gupta, Chairman, India Electronics and Semiconductor Association [IESA]).

The recently announced policies (PLI, SPECS and EMC2.0) are the steps in the right direction. "As commercial semiconductor manufacturing cannot be done in academic and government entities in the current environment, it is a responsibility for all of us to find a right commercial model and partner to spearhead these projects with support from the government and industry," adds Gupta.

To build the right ecosystem for electronics products, there is a need for a large number of start-ups to focus on the product development. IESA is working on a plan 1K-10K-100K, which implies 1K products start-ups, 10K IPs created and 100K crore of business value. Out of 1K product start-ups companies, 100 could be fabless chip product area and 900 in the electronics product area. To enable this biggest obstacle is the seed funding. Commenting on the challenges, Gupta adds, "one of the inputs we are getting from global players is, it has to be a long-term engagement. Announcing a policy now after three to five years does not really work. You need an assurance of 15-odd years that the government policies, incentives, and all of those things will remain intact, even if the government changes. Because if the government changes, the incentives will change, and the new government will come and do something different. The time is ripe, and it is no longer an economic need of the country, it has become a strategic need at this hour."

Commenting on India's contribution in the global semiconductor industry, Gupta says, "any chip getting done in the world will have some contribution from Indian semiconductor ecosystem. More than 90 per cent of semiconductor companies have their R&D Centres in India where cutting-edge chip development work takes place. The semiconductor R&D alone produces almost $2.5 billion in revenue and $20 billion including the Electronics Products and Embedded system. The total employment generated is approximately 6 lakhs in India."

The semiconductor consumption in India was about $21 billion in 2019, growing at the rate of 15.1 per cent, according to IESA ESDM Market Report 2020 done in association with F&S. The overall consumption of Electronics component is $31 billion dollars, of which about 2/3 is semiconductors.

Recently, IESA conducted its Vision Summit 2020 event to drive initiatives and policies for the Intelligent Electronics & Semiconductor products and solutions that will propel the government's vision of a self-reliant or an #AtmaNirbharBharat. The event focussed on "Make India an Electronics Product Nation" supported by design and manufacturing, set-up a "National Electronics Mission" - a body similar to ISRO to spearhead all the activities for Electronics and Semiconductor in India. The idea behind the formation of such a body is that it should directly report in PMO and run by professional management with Industry experience. The summit also highlighted the idea of focussing on Electronics Systems in the area of Agriculture, Education, Medical, Automotive and Strategic Security all supported by Telecom Networking Infrastructure built with Indigenous products.

Multiple speakers at the vision summit also recommended creating $500 million of a seed fund for the Fabless companies and creating $500 million of a seed fund for the electronics product companies.

Started in 2005, IESA is an association of electronics and semiconductor companies in India. An organisation of about 300 people, IESA is more as a knowledge partner to the government and other bodies.

Also Read: Govt spending saved the day for GDP in June quarter

Also Read: Remembering Pranab Mukherjee and his economic legacy

Also Read: Worst in 24 years! India's Q1 GDP contracts 23.9% in June quarter
An assistant sub-inspector (ASI) of Chhattisgarh Police was allegedly killed by Maoists in Bijapur district of Bastar division, police said on Monday. ASI Nagaiya Kosa went missing on Sunday evening from Kutru area of the district.

ASI Nagaiya Korsa was abducted and killed by sharp-edged weapons. As per the primary investigations, we think that he was killed by Maoists. His body found along Kutru-Naimed roadside in Bijapur district on Monday, said director-general of police (DGP), Chhattisgarh, DM Awasthi.

The DGP further said that on Sunday evening, sub-divisional officer of police (SDOP), Kutru, received a tip that militia cadres of CPI (Maoist) were spotted between Kutru-Naimed road.

Also read: Man in MPs Betul kills wife, covers body with cow dung to revive her

The SDOP, along with his team, rushed to the spot and spotted the ASIs motorcycle lying along the roadside. Korsa had left for his native village in Awapalli from the police station on Sunday, said the DGP.

The DGP further said that it primarily appears that the ASI was first abducted by the local militia cadres of CPI (Maoist) and later killed by them. The investigation in the case is going on, said the DGP.

Meanwhile, district police have launched a hunt for the Maoists and combing operation in the area is going on.

In March 2020, a District Reserve Guard (DRG) jawan was kidnapped by Maoists and was found dead in a village last night in Sukma district. His body was found in Dornapal police station limits of Arghatta.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Ottawa, Canada  Mon, August 31, 2020 21:33 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41b79f5 2 World Novavax,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-vaccine,pandemic,Canada,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

The Canadian government announced Monday a deal with American biotech firm Novavax for 76 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine in development, if it proves to be effective against the new coronavirus.

The NVX-CoV2373 vaccine candidate, which is currently in Phase 2 clinical trials to evaluate its safety and immunogenicity, could be delivered in the second quarter of 2021, Ottawa and the company said in a joint statement.

Procurement Minister Anita Anand said the deal "will give Canadians access to a promising COVID-19 vaccine candidate."

The deal comes as the US government granted Novavax US$1.6 billion to help fund development and manufacture of the vaccine, giving the US priority for the first 100 million doses.

Maryland-based biotech Novavax has already signed partnership or vaccine delivery agreements with Britain, Japan and India.

Canada, meanwhile, has also concluded agreements with Pfizer and Moderna for deliveries of millions of doses of their experimental vaccines, now in Phase 3 trials -- among the most advanced.

Early tests showed Novavax's vaccine candidate was "generally well-tolerated" and elicited a "robust antibody responses," Novavax said.

"We are moving forward with clinical development of NVX-CoV2373 with a strong sense of urgency in our quest to deliver a vaccine to protect the world," said company president Stanley Erck.

As of Monday, Canada reported nearly 128,000 cases of Covid-19 and some 9,150 deaths.
A celebration takes place in Kyrgyz city of Bishkek for the 28th anniversary of Kyrgyz Republic's Independence Day in 2019. / Courtesy of Embassy of Kyrgyzstan



The following is a contribution from the Embassy of Kyrgyzstan in Korea.  ED.



The Kyrgyz Republic celebrates the 29th anniversary of its Independence on Aug. 31, 2020.



In fact, the statehood of the Kyrgyz people dates back several centuries. According to history, the Kyrgyz nation had their own state in the VIII, X, XVII centuries. Kyrgyz people maintained wide diplomatic ties with Mongolia, China and other states. From the year of 860 to 873, the Kyrgyz sent three plenipotentiaries to China. Later, due to number of reasons, the Kyrgyz state collapsed and has become dependent on the conquerors. The centuries-old history of the Kyrgyz people is marked by severe losses, incessant struggle for freedom and independence. Starting from the XVII century until the October Revolution in Russia the Kyrgyz people no longer had their own statehood. Later, in 1936 Kyrgyzstan became a republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). After the collapse of the Soviet Union Kyrgyzstan gained the independence.



On Aug. 31, 1991 the Supreme Council of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan adopted a declaration on the state sovereignty. The countdown of the new history of Kyrgyzstan, which has become an independent, sovereign, democratic state, begins from that date.





Kyrgyz Ambassador to Korea Dinara Kemelova

Since the beginning of its sovereignty, the Kyrgyz Republic has chosen the presidential-parliamentary path of development, the elections of the first president of Kyrgyzstan were held in 1991. The state has taken a course towards the development of a market economy and the implementation of democratic principles, the protection of human rights and freedoms.



The Constitution of Kyrgyzstan, state symbols  flag, coat of arms, anthem  were adopted on May 5, 1993.



Since March 2, 1992, Kyrgyzstan has been a member of the U.N. Kyrgyzstan was the first country among the countries of the former USSR to introduce its national currency, the som, and is the first country out of the region to join the WTO in 1998.



Over the years of its independence, Kyrgyzstan has established diplomatic relations with 164 countries and is a member of 124 international organizations.



However, along with its achievements, the Kyrgyz Republic, which had a winding path towards democracy, has had certain difficulties too. The freedom-loving people of Kyrgyzstan had protested twice against the authoritarian regimes of the country, against the corrupted family-clan rule in 2005 and 2010. As a result of these mass protests of the population, two presidents of the country have been displaced from the post.



As an outcome, a new Constitution was adopted through consensus building in 2010, which introduced parliamentary system of governance. Openness and accountability of the government to the people is now bearing fruit.



Thanks to the introduction of the advanced technologies in the electoral process, transparent and competitive parliamentary and presidential elections were held in Kyrgyzstan in 2015 and 2017. This is a progressive example of democracy in the region.





Kyrgyz Prime Minister Mukhammedkaly Abylgaziev and Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon visit Ala-Archa gorge in July 2019. / Couresty of Embassy of Kyrgystan



Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992, Kyrgyz-Korean relations have been developing progressively on the basis of mutual respect and mutually beneficial cooperation. Nowadays both sides have an active political dialogue, and the dynamic cooperation is supported by high-level visits, as well as various collaborations of ministries, business circles of the two countries, an expansion of the number of joint projects, teachers' and students' exchanges, as well as Kyrgyz labor migrants in South Korea.



One of the significant events of the past year was the first in the history of bilateral relations, the official visit of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea Lee Nak-yon to Kyrgyzstan on July 17-19, 2019.



Within the official visit, the prime minister of the Republic of Korea had meetings with the President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sooronbai Zheenbekov and the head of government Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev, which were accompanied by a business forum with the participation of 50 Korean companies and 200 entrepreneurs from the Republic of Korea. During this visit, important arrangements on expanding cooperation in the fields of trade, tourism, agriculture, industry, information technology and education were reached.



Taking into account the fact that the Republic of Korea is one of the most dynamically developing countries in the world, the Kyrgyz Republic continues to study the Korean experience of economic reforms, the development of e-government, information technologies, health care, agriculture, textile and processing industries.



The KOIKA representative office has been operating in Kyrgyzstan since 2015, which promotes important projects for the development of agriculture, regional development, ICT and education.



The Korea Program for International cooperation in Agricultural technology (KOPIA) is planned to open this year in Kyrgyzstan, which will promote the cooperation in agricultural research and capacity building in Kyrgyzstan in agriculture.





The 7,134-meter tall Lenin Peak on the border of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikitan / Courtesy of Ushakov





Apricots are one of the eco-friendly products from Kyrgyzstan / Courtesy of Embassy of Kyrgystan
N ext year's GCSE and A-level exams could be pushed back to give pupils more time to study the syllabus, the Education Secretary has said.

Gavin Williamson said England's exams regulator, Ofqual, was working with the education sector to decide whether there should be a "short delay" to the exam timetable in 2021.

It comes as he calls from Labour to show how he will "make up for the damage already done" to pupils following the exam "fiasco" that came amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Williamson told the Daily Telegraph: "I know there's some concern about next year's exams, and that's why we've been working with Ofqual on changes we can make to help pupils when they take GCSEs and A-levels next year.

"Ofqual will continue to work with the education sector and other stakeholders on whether there should be a short delay to the GCSE, A and AS-level exam timetable in 2021, with the aim of creating more teaching time."

Exam season usually begins in May, but the paper said sources suggested they could be pushed back to June and July - but they would not cut into the summer holidays.

Mr Williamson's comments - on the eve of many schools in England reopening to all pupils for the first time since March - follow a call from Labour for a delay to next year's exams.

Shadow education secretary Kate Green said pupils entering Year 11 and 13 who have lost up to six months of teaching time face "a mountain to climb" unless the timetable is changed.

Kate Green: Labour calls for GCSE and A Level delay

She said: "Ministers had warning after warning about problems with this year's exam results, but allowed it to descend into a fiasco.

"This is too important for Boris Johnson to leave until the last minute. Pupils heading back to school need clarity and certainty about the year ahead."

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders' union NAHT, said: "Labour's suggestion of a delay to help with 'catch-up' is worthy of serious consideration.

"A delay is not without its problems, a consequential delay to the publication of results will put pressure on higher education providers such as universities and colleges as well as employers. All this will need to be dealt with."

Next year's GCSE and A-Level exams delay decision will be made soon says schools minister

Ahead of schools reopening and MPs returning to Westminster, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Mr Williamson should go to Parliament to "tell us how he will protect our children's futures".

Sir Keir said Mr Williamson "needs to explain how he will make up for the damage already done, bring pupils up to speed and mitigate against the ongoing risk from the pandemic".

The Labour leader, who accused the Government of taking a "chaotic approach" to education, said this week would bring a mixture of excitement and anxiety for millions of families across England.

Keir Stamer has demanded that the Education Secretary explains how he will make up for the damage done to pupils amid the coronavirus pandemic / Getty Images

"Excitement for children who will be back in the classroom for the first time in months. But anxiety for teachers and parents about a year ahead that is full of uncertainty because of a pandemic that continues to cast its shadow over children's education.

"I want to pay tribute to the extraordinary dedication of our teachers and school staff who have worked tirelessly over the summer to make sure schools can reopen safely.

"Labour want and expect children to be back at school. Every day that schools were closed was a day of opportunity, learning and support lost. This situation was worsened by the exams fiasco and the Government's chaotic approach to education.

"We cannot keep repeating those same mistakes. Young people's futures cannot be held back by the Conservatives' incompetence."

Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought to blame the recent A-level and GCSE results chaos on a mutant algorithm.

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Mr Johnson acknowledged the stress caused by the situation which eventually resulted in a U-turn  with grades in England awarded based on teachers assessments rather than the Ofqual moderation process.
The threat of intervention by Russian, Chinese, or the Iranians with leaked security information from the Democrars, is a concern for National Intelligence. This considerations comes after confidence erodes as to how secure election information is keep in closed doors.

According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, there will be no more briefings as usual, but only updates instead. This came as the developments have accelerated as elections draw near.

This was reported by CNN as the information was gathered. The concerned parties will update for the meantime, including congressional panels.

One official added that the agencies which have jobs regarding national security that Department of Justice, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security are still going to debrief congress, reported CNN.

Some have commented that is irregular with the concept of transparency and briefings that are considered important to the election. This is considered truancy by certain sectors.

The development follows after there were reports of intrusions by China, Russia, and Iran who are intent on causing mayhem in the upcoming elections of 2020. This was preceded by a statement by a top intelligence official recently. Democrats denounced the move and want the public to know the information.

Last Saturday, President Trump weighed in and said that the Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe had enough of these leaks. He wanted other options to do things differently despite objections from the Democrats.

He added that the DNI Ratcliffe went to the committee, and the intel got leaked in a Texas event, backing up the move and mentioning the leakers who might include the democrats. When everything is supposed to be confidential, it said that it will be looked into later, notes Bloomberg.

Also read: Man Spent 20 Years in Jail Because of Kamala Harris Who Wrongly Convicted Him

This drew a reaction from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who said in response to the accusations about the Democrats as the info leaks that Trump is lying and projecting, as he kicked out the last DNI. He accused the President of ill moves and once again threw dirt on his intentions. Since the last election was lost, the democrats have been eating the credibility of the White House, ignoring the mistake of the Obama administration, cited WCIZ.

Democrats starting demolition job

There are allegations that the ODNI letter sent on Friday to Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was received on Saturday night at 5 p.m., hours after CNN broke the story. Also aide to Chuck Schumer, Democrat Minority Leader got it on late Saturday.

According to the House Intelligence Committee, they got the verbal notification of the notification last Friday. It was odd that they side that the letter was not received till late Saturday later than 5 p.m., told by the Senate Intelligence Committee getting it at 5:10 p.m. exactly, confirmed CNBC.

On Saturday, the Democrat leaders went on the offensive and spurned the ODNI's decision to limit access to the election security meant for good intentions, preferring for others to have access to it, and make the election more tenuous.

They charge the ODNI's decision and allude to the administration, attacking the decision to protect election security. This has been their pattern and chipping way as the elections draw near.

Related article: Joe Biden's Family Record Show Drug Usage, Drunk Driving, and Other Charges But No One Was Jailed

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Office of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza says agreement has been reached to end aggression against our people.

Hamas, the Palestinian group running the besieged Gaza Strip, has announced it has reached a Qatari-mediated deal to end the latest escalation of violence with Israel.

After talks with Qatari envoy Mohammed el-Emadi, an understanding was reached to rein in the latest escalation and end [Israeli] aggression against our people, the office of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar said on Monday.

There was no immediate comment by Israel.

The Israeli army has carried out attacks on Gaza almost daily since August 6 in what it says is a response to the airborne incendiary devices and, less frequently, rockets launched into southern Israel.

The fire balloons are widely seen as an attempt by Hamas to improve the terms of an informal truce under which Israel committed to easing its 13-year-old crippling blockade in return for calm.

But so far, Israels response has been to tighten the blockade.

It has banned Gaza fishermen from going to sea and closed its goods crossing with the territory, prompting the closure of the Palestinian territorys sole power plant for want of fuel.

What Hamas says about the agreement is that it will stop incendiary balloon launches as well as what it calls its night-time confusion operations where groups go along the fence and throw explosives and cause disruption, said Al Jazeeras Harry Fawcett, reporting from Jerusalem.

In return, it says that Israel is undertaking to go back to the pre-escalation situation which means allowing fishermen out into the Mediterranean, easing the restriction on goods coming in and also presumably the restoration of fuel supplies to Gazas only power station.





Mondays announcement came amid a flurry diplomatic activity from Qatar whose envoy delivered the latest tranche of $30m in aid Gaza before holding talks with Israeli officials in Tel Aviv.

Sources close to the Qatari delegation said the Israelis told al-Emadi they were willing to resume fuel deliveries for the power plant and ease their blockade  if there was an end to the fire balloons.

Financial aid for the impoverished territory from gas-rich Qatar has been a major component of the latest truce first agreed in November 2018 and renewed several times since.

Mediation efforts have grown more urgent in recent days as authorities in Gaza have detected the first cases of local transmission of the coronavirus. Hamas has imposed a lockdown in the coastal enclave, which is home to two million Palestinians.

Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Israel says the blockade is needed to keep Hamas from expanding its arsenal, but critics view it as a form of collective punishment.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars and several smaller battles since the closure was imposed.

The restrictions have pushed Gazas economy to the brink of collapse, leaving more than half the population unemployed, and years of war and isolation have left the healthcare system ill-equipped to cope with a major outbreak.
Premier Daniel Andrews is expected to announce a 'roadmap out of lockdown in Victoria' despite saying Stage Four restrictions won't be lifted on September 13.

The roadmap will be released on Sunday and is being finalised with community groups, businesses and unions as well as extensive modelling by health experts.

Victoria recorded 41 deaths and 73 new coronavirus cases on Monday, bringing the state's toll to 565 and the national total to 652.

Monday's number includes 33 deaths in the weeks leading up to August 27, but were only reported to Victoria Health by aged care facilities on Sunday.

This means eight people died in the 24 hours to Monday. The premier says the roadmap will be put forward after another week of data is recorded.

'We will announce the roadmap to ease the restrictions we have all been living under. It is too early today to settle that roadmap and to lock that in as it were,' Mr Andrews said.

Premier Daniel Andrews will announce a 'roadmap out of lockdown in Victoria' on Sunday but said stage four restrictions may not be lifted in two weeks

The figures, confirmed by the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday, bring the state's toll from the virus to 565 and the national total to 652

Victoria's Police Association on Monday called for state of emergency powers to be extended (pictured: people walking through Southbank on Saturday)

'Another week's data is critically important to make sure that the strategy continues to work and for us to have a better sense of how long it will take to drive these numbers down to very, very low numbers so that they can be contained without the need to put restrictions back on over not just weeks and months.'

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth said it was difficult to see Melbourne coming out of its stage four restrictions on September 13, given the current numbers.

New cases dropped to 94 on Saturday but were back to 114 on Sunday before Monday's drop to 73.

'It's hard to see that happening,' Dr Coatsworth told Nine Network.

'I think the numbers need to be a lot less than they are now.'

Mr Andrews agreed and said he could not rule out what the numbers would be like in two weeks time.

'We can't rule out settings in two weeks' time, it is very difficult to know what those settings will be. They have to be guided by the data, the science and the very best medical advice,' he said.

Mr Andrews said the current case numbers are too high for Victoria to open up, and still too high to put forward a definitive plan.

'There will be a plan. It will come soon. But it will be one that we can be confident of, not something that potentially gets a few people being happier,' he said.

The premier said there were a 'number of key principles' of the roadmap which will 'add to the enormous number of meetings and discussions that were held with businesses and unions'.

Physical distancing and density requirements will be taken into consideration, and the priority of getting people back to work.

The premier has announced the restrictions roadmap will be put forward after another week of data is recorded (Locals exercising by the Polly Woodside)

Police officers are seen outside Flinders Street Station in Melbourne patrolling the city over the weekend

'We will announce the roadmap to ease the restrictions we have all been living under. It is too early today to settle that roadmap and to lock that in as it were,' Mr Andrews said

The premier also said face coverings will need to be worn at all times and hygiene needs to be adhered to in workplaces.

'Finally, continuing to act quickly if a staff member becomes unwell, and having a policy that can be fairly described as strict when it comes to keeping staff at home if they are unwell, and making sure that they are not at work between when they have a test, because they have the onset of symptoms, and when the test result comes back,' Mr Andrew said.

'They are commonsense principles, but they are very important and they will have to underpin each and every one of the decisions that we will announce, and the pathway that we will share with Victorians on Sunday.'

However the premier said stage two and three restrictions may look 'substantially different' under the roadmap out of COVID-19.

'They will be substantially different framework. This will be a traffic light system and we will move through different phases and there will be some elements that might be similar to the stages  but it will be very different,' he said.

'We have another week's data, and the week's data is very precious.'

There are currently 453 Victorians in hospital and 21 people are receiving intensive care, with 13 of those on a ventilator.

Premier Daniel Andrews will announce a 'roadmap out of lockdown in Victoria' while stage four restrictions won't be lifted on September 13

There are currently 453 Victorians in hospital and 21 people are receiving intensive care, with 13 of those on a ventilator

The premier has announced a restrictions roadmap that will be put forward on Sunday, after another week of data has been recorded

As of Monday there were 2,620 active cases across the state.

Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said some of the 41 deaths reported on Monday date back to July.

'There are Commonwealth reporting obligations, state reporting processes, and we need to reconcile those cases, so that whatever the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre is reporting is absolutely consistent,' he said on Monday.

Victoria's Police Association on Monday called for state of emergency powers to be extended.

It comes as negotiations continue between the state government and crossbenchers over what should happen when the current state of emergency provisions expire on September 13.

Melburnians are subject to another fortnight of strict stage four restrictions including an 8pm to 5am curfew and Mr Andrews said the benefits from the first four weeks are starting to show.

Regional Victorians are under slightly less strict stage three restrictions for the same period.

Last week Mr Andrews sparked controversy when he announced the government had plans to extend the powers by 12 months to help deal with coronavirus.

Last week Mr Andrews sparked controversy when he announced the government had plans to extend the powers by 12 months to help deal with coronavirus

Victoria has recorded its deadliest day with 41 deaths and 73 new cases of coronavirus reported on Monday (pictured, residents wearing face masks go for a walk in Melbourne on Saturday)

With the opposition immediately saying it would not support the proposal, the government was forced into negotiations with crossbenchers.

There has been talk of a compromise, with the extension reduced to six months, but there is no confirmation ahead of parliament returning on Tuesday.

On Monday the police association, a powerful lobby group, released a statement on the issue.

'With 13 days to run on this current state of emergency, it is essential that parliament moves to maintain the framework that provides police and PSOs (public safety officers) with the capacity to help Victoria safely come out of lockdown,' it said.

'There can be no adequate plan for a return to some normality, if the framework designed to ensure it's done safely and incrementally, is removed.

'This issue is above politics. The safety of our community and our members in this precarious time is too important.'
2020 was a year marked by hardships and challenges, but the Fauquier community has proven resilient. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you for your continued support, wed like to offer all our subscribers -- new or returning --

4 WEEKS FREE DIGITAL AND PRINT ACCESS.

We understand the importance of working to keep our community strong and connected. As we move forward together into 2021, it will take commitment, communication, creativity, and a strong connection with those who are most affected by the stories we cover.

We are dedicated to providing the reliable, local journalism you have come to expect. We are committed to serving you with renewed energy and growing resources. Let the Fauquier Times be your community companion throughout 2021, and for many years to come.
The coronavirus pandemic continues to cause financial issues across America as businesses and families struggle to regain their footing after months of virus-related shutdowns.

Early in the crisis, the federal government responded with economic stimulus payments to help Americans deal with the closures. A second payment remains in limbo, however.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reportedly resumed talks this week over the stalled COVID-19 aid package that could include stimulus checks. So far, however, the two sides have yet to reach a compromise on the total cost of a relief package and what all it will include. And while negotiations are continuing, lawmakers arent expected to vote on the matter until they reconvene in September after the Labor Day holiday.

That, according to financial website The Motley Fool, means it will likely be October before people see money from second stimulus in their back accounts. Even then, theres no guarantee the funds are on their way, though both Republicans and Democrats have indicated they support a second round of direct payments.

How much the stimulus could be remains to be seen.

The last round provided $1,200 for individuals earning up to $75,000 and $2,400 for married couples filing jointly who earn up to $150,000. Recipients who earned more than those amounts saw their payments reduced by $5 for each $100 above the income threshold. Single filers who earned more than $99,000 and joint filers who earned more than $198,000 were not eligible. The stimulus also provided $500 for each qualifying child.

A positive note - the IRS worked out many of its delivery issues in the first round of payments meaning the process should go smoother and quicker this time around.
Ana Recendez swabs her nose for a coronavirus test. Two new studies offer hope that many people could skip the uncomfortable procedure by collecting saliva samples instead. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

If theres one thing we can safely predict about the COVID-19 pandemic, its that plenty of coronavirus tests lie in our future. Luckily, researchers have some good news on that score.

Two new studies have found that tests that look for the virus in samples of saliva are about as reliable as tests that require a sample from the back of the nose.

Thats sure to be a welcome development to anyone who would rather avoid the discomfort of having a long, stiff swab inserted so far back into their nasal cavity that it feels like its tickling their brain.

But its not the only benefit. Pretty much anyone can administer a saliva-based test, so theres no need for a trip to a testing center. It also frees up the time of medical personnel and spares them potential exposure to the virus.

In one of the new studies, a team from Yale identified 70 hospital patients with COVID-19 whose infections had been confirmed with the traditional nasopharyngeal swabs. Each time a healthcare worker carried out additional nasal swab tests, the researchers asked the patients to give themselves a saliva test as well.

The saliva tests did a better job of detecting the virus formally known as SARS-CoV-2, the researchers found. In the first five days after diagnosis, 81% of the saliva tests came back positive, compared with 71% of the nasopharyngeal tests. A similar gap remained through the 10 day after diagnosis.

In addition, the researchers detected more copies of the virus genetic material in patients saliva than in the samples taken from the back of their nasal cavities.

To see how the tests stacked up among people with asymptomatic infections, the researchers recruited 495 healthcare workers with no signs of COVID-19 and gave them the saliva test. Thirteen of the tests came back positive.

Among those 13 people, nine had given themselves nasal swabs on the same day, and only two of those tests came back positive. However, all 13 of the saliva tests were later confirmed by additional nasopharyngeal tests.

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The results were reported Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Given the growing need for testing, our findings provide support for the potential of saliva specimens in the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection, the Yale team wrote.

In the second study, researchers from Canada recruited nearly 2,000 people with either mild symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or who had no symptoms but were at high risk of infection. The study design was meant to simulate the conditions of mass screening, the authors wrote.

Participants submitted to a standard nasal swab test and also collected their own saliva samples. Of the 1,939 pairs of tests, 34 came back positive for coronavirus infection. There were also 14 cases where the virus was detected in the saliva sample but not the nasal sample, and 22 cases where the reverse was true.

These results were published Friday in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Although the nasal swab test detected more infections than the saliva test, the latter performed well enough to earn consideration as a screening tool, wrote the team from the University of Ottawa, Dalhousie University and Canadas National Microbiology Laboratory.

Saliva testing presents potential advantages, the researchers wrote. Collection does not require trained staff or personal protective equipment, can be done outside testing centers, and may be better tolerated in challenging or pediatric populations.

The Yale team noted some of those same benefits and added a few more. Saliva tests eliminate the need for healthcare workers to come into contact with people who might be infected, reducing transmission risk. Being able to conduct a test without medical personnel on hand also removes a major testing bottleneck, the team wrote.

Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has also noted that the saliva tests can allow screening to proceed even when the chemical reagents needed for nasal swab tests are in short supply.

At least five saliva tests have received emergency use authorization from the FDA, including one developed at Yale.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
New Delhi, Aug 31 : The Delhi High Court on Monday disposed off a petition seeking a permanent solution to water-logging problems in the national capital during the rainy season. It directed the authorities to act on the matter and decide on it in accordance with the law.

"We hereby direct the respondent authorities concerned to decide the representation of the petitioner in accordance with law, rules, regulations and government policies applicable to the facts of the case," said a division bench of the High Court presided by Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan while disposing off a petition seeking a permanent solution to the water-logging problems in the capital during the rainy season.

The petition was filed by an organisation 'Anti-Corruption Council of India' through advocates Hussain Mueen Farooq, B Sudha and A K Singh. The petitioner submitted that the respondents have not shown interest in making proper arrangements for solving the problem of water-logging and have been ignoring the plight of Delhiites.

The plea sought directions to the Delhi government and others to make arrangements to prevent water-logging and sought to ensure proper cleaning and maintenance of the drainage and sewerage systems in a time-bound manner.

The plea said there should be adequate compensation to the families of those who lost their lives due to water-logging and persons whose houses have been damaged should also be adequately compensated.
By PTI

KATHMANDU: Nepal's coronavirus tally reached close to 40,000 on Monday with 899 new COVID-19 cases recorded across the country, a senior health official has said.

The country has recorded at least seven coronavirus-linked deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the toll to 228, said Dr Jageshwar Gautam, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population.

He said four men, two elderly women and one four-year-old girl child died due to coronavirus infection.

During a regular media briefing, the official said that 899 persons had tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.

Of the newly-infected, 596 are males and 303 are females.

"With this figure, the number of people to be infected with COVID-19 has soared to 39,460," Gautam said.

The Kathmandu Valley alone recorded 298 new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, he said.

Nepal's coronavirus infection cases have doubled in one month.

On July 31, a total of 19,771 COVID-19 infections were detected in Nepal.

In total, 588 persons, who earlier tested positive for the virus, have been discharged from various isolation centers across the country after full recovery in the past 24 hours, the official said.

"With this, the country's COVID-19 recovery tally stands at 21,410," he said.

Nepal has so far conducted 6933,472 coronavirus tests.
Rating Action: Moody's revises Powerlong's outlook to positive

Global Credit Research - 31 Aug 2020

Hong Kong, August 31, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service has revised to positive from stable the rating outlook of Powerlong Real Estate Holdings Limited.

At the same time, Moody's has affirmed Powerlong's B1 corporate family rating and its B2 senior unsecured debt ratings.

RATINGS RATIONALE

"The change in outlook to positive reflects our expectation that Powerlong's credit metrics will improve over the next 12-18 months, driven by strong revenue recognition as well as good profit margins," says Cedric Lai, a Moody's Vice President and Senior Analyst.

"We also expect Powerlong's growing investment property portfolio will strengthen its recurring rental income, in turn supporting its cash flow stability and profitability", adds Lai.

Powerlong's total contracted sales grew 11.3% to RMB39.0 billion in the first seven months of 2020 compared with last year despite disruptions from the coronavirus outbreak, after robust 47% year-on-year growth to RMB60.4 billion for the full year 2019. Moody's expects its contracted sales will increase in 2020 to around RMB70 billion when compared with 2019, supported by good sales execution abilities and its focus on the economically strong Yangtze River Delta region with robust housing demand.

Such contracted sales growth will help fund the company's business expansion and will support revenue growth and liquidity over the next 12-18 months.

Moody's further estimates that the company's gross profit margin will remain around 34% over the coming 12-18 months because of its low-cost land bank. Its low land costs provide the company with pricing flexibility.

Consequently, Moody's expects Powerlong's debt leverage -- as measured by revenue/adjusted debt - will improve to 55%-65% over the next 12-18 months from around 50% for the 12 months ended June 2019. Similarly, Moody's expects adjusted EBIT/interest will remain strong at 3.0x-3.4x from about 2.9x over the same period.

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Moody's expects that Powerlong's rental income will grow 25% annually to around RMB2.1 billion over the next 12-18 months from RMB1.9 billion in 2019, underpinned by the scheduled opening of its new retail malls. The company plans to open ten retail malls in the second half of 2020, and a further 13 malls in 2021. This will support its rental income growth and strengthen its capability to service interest payments.

Powerlong's B1 corporate family rating (CFR) reflects its (1) track record of developing and selling commercial and residential properties; (2) growing recurring revenue, which improves the stability of its debt servicing; and (3) expansion into cities with strong economic fundamentals where demand for its properties is more favorable. However, the company's credit profile is constrained by the execution risk related to its business expansion, the high capital needs associated with its business strategy and its moderate debt leverage.

The B2 senior unsecured debt rating is one notch lower than the corporate family rating due to structural subordination risk. This risk reflects the fact that the majority of claims are at the operating subsidiaries and have priority over Powerlong's senior unsecured claims in a bankruptcy scenario. In addition, the holding company lacks significant mitigating factors for structural subordination. As a result, the likely recovery rate for claims at the holding company will be lower.

Powerlong's liquidity is good. Its cash holdings of RMB26.4 billion as of 30 June 2020 could fully cover its short-term debt of RMB22.9 billion. Moody's expects the company's cash holdings, together with expected operating cash inflow, will be able to cover its committed land purchases, dividend payments, as well as capital spending and payables for its previous acquisitions, over the next 12-18 months.

In terms of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, Moody's has considered the company's concentrated ownership in its controlling shareholder, Hoi Kin Hong and Hoi Wa Fong, who held a 59% stake in the company as of 30 June 2020.

Moody's has also considered (1) the fact that independent directors chair the audit and remuneration committees; (2) the low level of related-party transactions and dividend payouts; and (3) the presence of other internal governance structures and standards as required by the Hong Kong Exchange.

Moody's regards the impact of the deteriorating global economic outlook amid the rapid and widening spread of the coronavirus outbreak as a social risk under its ESG framework, because of the substantial implications for public health and safety.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

Moody's could upgrade the ratings if Powerlong continues to grow in scale while maintaining its adequate liquidity and sound credit metrics, and improves its debt leverage to a level that matches its business model of holding investment properties. Credit metrics that could trigger a ratings upgrade include: (1) adjusted EBIT/interest rising above 3.0x; and (2) revenue/adjusted debt in excess of 60%-65%.

A rating downgrade is unlikely, given the positive outlook. However, Moody's could revise Powerlong's outlook to stable if the company's sales weaken or if it pursues a more aggressive expansion strategy that weakens its credit metrics. Credit metrics that could trigger a ratings downgrade include: (1) adjusted EBIT/interest falling below 2.5x; (2) revenue/adjusted debt failing to trend toward 55%..

The principal methodology used in these ratings was Homebuilding And Property Development Industry published in January 2018 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1108031. Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

Powerlong Real Estate Holdings Limited is a Chinese property developer focused on building large-scale integrated residential and commercial properties in China. The company listed on the Hong Kong Exchange in October 2009. The founding Hoi family held a 59% stake in the company at 30 June 2020.

At 30 June 2020, Powerlong's land bank for development totaled around 28.6 million square meters in gross floor area under development and for future development.

REGULATORY DISCLOSURES

For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and Sensitivity to Assumptions in the disclosure form. Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions can be found at: https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_79004.

For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.

For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit support from the primary entity(ies) of this credit rating action, and whose ratings may change as a result of this credit rating action, the associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity. Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures, if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.

The ratings have been disclosed to the rated entity or its designated agent(s) and issued with no amendment resulting from that disclosure.

These ratings are solicited. Please refer to Moody's Policy for Designating and Assigning Unsolicited Credit Ratings available on its website www.moodys.com.

Moody's considers a rated entity or its agent(s) to be participating when it maintains an overall relationship with Moody's. Unless noted in the Regulatory Disclosures as a Non-Participating Entity, the rated entity is participating and the rated entity or its agent(s) generally provides Moody's with information for the purposes of its ratings process. Please refer to www.moodys.com for the Regulatory Disclosures for each credit rating action under the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page and for details of Moody's Policy for Designating Non-Participating Rated Entities.

Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.

Moody's general principles for assessing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in our credit analysis can be found at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1133569.

The Global Scale Credit Rating on this Credit Rating Announcement was issued by one of Moody's affiliates outside the EU and is endorsed by Moody's Deutschland GmbH, An der Welle 5, Frankfurt am Main 60322, Germany, in accordance with Art.4 paragraph 3 of the Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 on Credit Rating Agencies. Further information on the EU endorsement status and on the Moody's office that issued the credit rating is available on www.moodys.com.

Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.

Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.

The first name below is the lead rating analyst for this Credit Rating and the last name below is the person primarily responsible for approving this Credit Rating.

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Rushing to Judgement Is Evidence of Poor Leadership

Commentary

When analyzing a police intervention, one should always keep in mind that police work is delicate by nature, and the variables to consider are many.

Its useful to remember that police are often called when citizens are at their wits end, when a situation requires more than the average person can handle, and when things are so urgent and so out of hand that an authority figure must intervene to restore the peace.

Thankfully, the vast majority of encounters with police end peacefully, but sometimes people react in unpredictably dangerous ways, and sometimes the use of force is indeed necessary.

Observers react differently when faced with the ugly reality of police use of force. Some reactions reflect a naive denial of the existence of evil altogether; some reflect an outright contempt for authority; some reflect a lingering suspicion of authority; and some reflect an attitude that gives authority the benefit of the doubt. But regardless of ones emotional inclinations, pause should be taken for the benefit of peace, and some level of trust, even if minimal, should be granted to the systems and processes in place, especially from our political class.

Mobs, however, are not prone to take pause, and they are currently benefiting from the support of high-level politicians, media pundits, and professional athletes. Without the benefit of a full investigation, and with only a few fragmented pieces of video footage available, many have decided to publicly condemn the actions of the officer who shot Jacob Blake. Was the shooting justified? No one truly knows the answer to that question just yet, though many have allowed their biases to prematurely shape their conclusions by assuming that this was a senseless and racially motivated action.

The most worrisome aspect of their many statements is their acknowledgment that theyre missing information, while simultaneously casting judgement and inflaming tensions.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said, While we do not have all of the details yet, what we know for certain is that he is not the first black man or person to have been shot or injured or mercilessly killed at the hands of individuals in law enforcement in our state or our country.

If he admits to not yet having all of the details, how can he possibly claim to know this for certain? Should he not wait to have all of the details before drawing such conclusions?

Vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris made a similar statement, saying, I believe there should be a thorough investigation, and based on what Ive seen, it seems that the officer should be charged.

Isnt the point of an investigation to gather the facts before making such a determination? If she has already made a near determination of guilt, then why even bother calling for an investigation?

Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, took things a step further in the case of a young woman who tragically died by falling off a balcony in Toronto. Even after officers were cleared of wrongdoing by a Special Investigations Unit (SIU) investigation, which is a civilian law enforcement agency that is independent of the police, Singh disregarded the facts and findings of the investigation with the following statement: Regis Korchinski-Paquet died because of police intervention. She needed help and her life was taken instead. Why would he further inflame anti-police sentiment when there was no wrongdoing on their part?

Some may remember that, early on in his presidency, Barack Obama made a similar mistake when he prematurely commented on an alleged case of police racial profiling, saying that the officer acted stupidly. To his credit, he realized his mistake and attempted to defuse further tensions by having the parties over for beers at the White House, in what came to be known as the beer summit.

The question here isnt whether the above-mentioned police interventions were unjustified, or whether they were racially motivated; the question is whether our leaders are willing to exercise wisdom and discernment, whether they are able to put their biases aside to think critically and engage in proper analysis, whether they trust our institutions to carry out full and proper investigations, whether the truth matters to them, and whether they prefer mob-rule over the rule of law.

If our leaders are so quick to demean our peacekeeping institutions, then why should anyone ever respect those institutions, and how could this possibly help restore the peace?

Kevin Richard is a freelance writer with a professional and educational background in policing and criminal justice. His articles have appeared in various publications, including The Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Sherbrooke Record, La Presse Plus, and HuffPost Quebec.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
GMR Group will work towards expanding its footprint in the airport business in the long term, said G.M. Rao, Chairman of the group.

His message to the shareholders in the annual report of GMR Infrastructure said that the company will also continue to invest in technology.

"From a longterm perspective, the Group will continue to invest in technology and work towards further expanding our footprint in the Airport business. We will ensure that the Group is ready for a strong economic comeback post the pandemic," Rao said.

He noted that the aviation industry across the globe is facing an unprecedented situation with a very significant adverse impact due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Not only has air travel been restricted due to the government-initiated lockdowns to curb the spread of Covid-19, the general passenger sentiment has also been adversely impacted, Rao said, adding that larger countries such as India, however, are expected to recover faster because of a strong domestic market.

"In line with our strategy, we believe that in spite of the ongoing turbulence, the airport business has huge underlying strength and will continue to be the growth engine for the group," he said.

Noting that the fundamental long-term growth drivers for the Indian economy and aviation sector remain intact and strong, he said: "We are actively pursuing suitable airport opportunities in India as well as globally. "
Sophia Antipolis, France - 31 Aug 2020: Patients with acute pulmonary embolism can be selected for home management using the sPESI score or the Hestia criteria, according to results of the HOME-PE trial presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 2020.1

Principal investigator Professor Pierre-Marie Roy of the University Hospital of Angers, France said: "The pragmatic Hestia method was at least as safe as the sPESI score for triaging haemodynamically stable pulmonary embolism patients for outpatient care."

Acute pulmonary embolism is the most severe presentation of venous thromboembolism (VTE). Incidence is approximately 60 to 70 per 100,000 people, but increases with age, in cancer patients, during prolonged bedrest or after surgery. It occurs when a blood clot, usually in veins of the legs, travels to the right side of the heart and blocks the pulmonary arteries. The most frequent symptoms are acute dyspnoea and chest pain. In severe cases, patients may develop acute right heart failure with shock and, sometimes, sudden death.

Apart from haemodynamically unstable patients requiring specific management, treatment is mainly based on anticoagulation to avoid recurrence of pulmonary embolism and allow natural fibrinolysis. However, anticoagulation increases the risk of bleeding. Historically, hospitalisation was justified due to the risks of recurrence and bleeding. In the last decade, several studies have demonstrated the possibility of home treatment for selected haemodynamically stable patients. But controversy persists about the optimal referral strategies and eligibility criteria for outpatient care.

European guidelines recommend the Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (PESI) score or the simplified PESI score (sPESI) to assess the risk of all-cause mortality.2 Patients with an sPESI score of 0 can be treated at home, providing that proper follow-up and anticoagulant therapy can be provided. American guidelines do not require a predefined score,3 and advise using pragmatic criteria such as those in the Hestia Study.4

The HOME-PE trial examined whether a strategy based on the Hestia criteria was at least as safe as a strategy based on the sPESI score to select patients for home treatment. In addition, it evaluated whether the Hestia method was more efficient compared to the sPESI score - in other words, whether it led to more patients being selected for home treatment.

This was a randomised, open-label non-inferiority trial comparing the two triaging strategies. It was conducted in 26 hospitals in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, which had set up, prior to study initiation, a thrombosis team for outpatient care of patients with acute pulmonary embolism.

In 2017 to 2019, 1,974 patients with normal blood pressure presenting to the emergency department with acute pulmonary embolism were included. Patients randomised to the sPESI group were eligible for outpatient care if the score was 0; otherwise they were hospitalised. Patients randomised to the Hestia group were eligible for outpatient care if all 11 criteria were negative; otherwise they were hospitalised. In both groups, the physician in charge could overrule the decision on treatment location for medical or social reasons.

The primary outcome was a composite of recurrent VTE, major bleeding, and all-cause death within 30 days. The Hestia strategy was non-inferior to the sPESI strategy: the primary outcome occurred in 3.8% of the Hestia group and 3.6% of the sPESI group (p=0.005).

A greater proportion of patients were eligible for home care using sPESI (48.4%) compared to Hestia (39.4%). However, the doctor in charge of the patient overruled sPESI more often than Hestia. Consequently, a similar proportion of patients were discharged within 24 hours for home treatment: 38.4% in the Hestia group and 36.6% in the sPESI group (p=0.42). All patients managed at home had a low rate of complications.

Professor Roy said: "These results support outpatient management of acute pulmonary embolism patients using either the Hestia method or the sPESI score with the option for physicians to override the decision. In hospitals organised for outpatient management, both triaging strategies enable more than a third of pulmonary embolism patients to be managed at home with a low rate of complications."

###

Notes to editors

Authors: ESC Press Office

Mobile: +33 (0)7 85 31 20 36

Email: press@escardio.org

The hashtag for ESC Congress 2020 is #ESCCongress.

Follow us on Twitter @ESCardioNews

Funding: The study was funded by a grant from the French Ministry of Health for France, Belgium and Switzerland and by an unrestricted grant from participating centres for the Netherlands. It was endorsed by the French research network on venous thromboembolism: INNOVTE.

Disclosures: Prof. Roy reports grants from the French Health Ministry during the conduct of the study; personal fees and other from Bayer Health care, Boehringer Ingelheim France, Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, Aspen, Daiichi Sankyo, Sanofi Aventis France, outside the present work.

References and notes

1Abstract title: Hospitalization or outpatient management of patients with acute pulmonary embolism - HESTIA versus simplified PESI: an international multicentre randomized controlled study (HOME-PE study).

2Konstantinides SV, Meyer G, Becattini C, et al. 2019 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and management of acute pulmonary embolism developed in collaboration with the European Respiratory Society (ERS). Eur Heart J. 2020;41:543-603.

3Kearon C, Akl EA, Ornelas J, et al. Antithrombotic Therapy for VTE Disease: CHEST Guideline and Expert Panel Report. Chest. 2016;149:315-352.

4Zondag W, Mos IC, Creemers-Schild D, et al. Outpatient treatment in patients with acute pulmonary embolism: the Hestia Study. J Thromb Haemost. 2011;9:1500-1507.

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.

ESC Congress is the world's largest gathering of cardiovascular professionals contributing to global awareness of the latest clinical trials and breakthrough discoveries. ESC Congress 2020 takes place online from 29 August to 1 September. More information is available from the ESC Press Office at press@escardio.org.
With early voting just over 40 days away and Election Day just over 60 days away, its not too early to start thinking about voting strategies.

We are not talking about whom to vote for  although doing homework on the candidates and sales tax measures is extremely important, especially on a long ballot such as this one.

We are talking about how and when to cast your ballot during a pandemic when there are concerns about public health and the speed of mail-in voting.

Gov. Greg Abbott has extended the early voting period by a week. It starts Oct. 13 and runs through Oct. 30. Election Day is Nov. 3. Extended early voting gives voters greater opportunity to avoid the long lines from an anticipated record turnout this presidential election.

Voting during the early voting period is always highly recommended, but especially this year. The ballot will be exceptionally long with the May election races moved to November due to the pandemic.

Some voters can skip the line and cast their ballots by mail. Voters who are eligible to cast a mail ballot should do so. This will help limit the spread of COVID-19, and it will also shorten the line for those voters who dont have a mail-in vote option.

In Texas, mail balloting is available to eligible voters with a disability, those older than 65, voters who will be away from their county on Election Day and during early voting hours, and those confined in jail.

One in 5 registered voters in Bexar County is 65 or older and qualified to vote by mail, although a small percentage do so.

So, how to vote by mail?

To vote by mail, a voter must request a ballot. That application can be submitted now, and the ballot will be mailed in late September.

An application for that ballot can be found on the Bexar County Elections Departments home page: bexar.org/1568/Elections-Department. On the left side of the page, at the bottom of a gray box, is a link that says Vote by mail.

Many voters older than age 65 may have already received an application in the mail from political parties, candidates or other organizations. Mailing in an application does not commit the voter to cast a ballot for any particular candidate, but it triggers the mailing of a ballot to the voter.

One of the most important items on the application is the voters signature. It will be used to match the signature on the completed ballot when it is returned to the elections office. The space for the signature is located on the flap sealing the ballot envelope. Do not forget to sign this.

Voters who requested mail ballots earlier this year and indicated they wanted to vote by mail in other elections this calendar year will have a general election ballot automatically mailed to them. Voters have to opt in for the automatic mailed ballots each calendar year.

Military mail ballots for the general election will go out first. Federal law requires those ballots be sent out 45 days before the election. This year the mailout will be on Sept. 19. Civilian ballots go out nine days later.

When does your ballot need to be returned? Hand-delivered mail ballots need to be in the Bexar County elections office by 7 p.m. election night. Mailed ballots must be postmarked by 7 p.m. election night and received the next business day.

Voters have until Oct. 23 to get in their request for a mail ballot to the Bexar County elections office. The sooner, the better. Requests received after that date, even if they have a postmark prior to the deadline, will not be honored.

Does your vote matter? Absolutely. We just saw a Republican primary congressional race decided by 45 votes. Local elections have shown a single vote can determine the outcome. If voting by mail, know the process and make an early request for a ballot.

If voting in person, wear a mask, honor physical distancing and show kindness to other voters and the elections workers who are showing up despite the risk of the pandemic.
Editor:

Having just read N.M. Sen. Craig Brandts editorial (Aug. 23 Gov. does not follow science), I have a question for the senator.

Where is your scientific proof that it is safe to gather indoors in restaurants, churches, etc.? Cases spiked dramatically in Georgia when they opened schools, restaurants, etc., and they had to shut down again.

This is not a letter to defend the governor; this is a request to the senator to supply for his viewpoint the same kind of evidence that he seeks.

The threat to public health is real, and we all must do our best to be responsible. Unsubstantiated criticism does nothing to promote health and well-being for his constituents.

Karen Schafer

Rio Rancho
More than a quarter of a million workers at stalwart British firms have been laid off since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the Mail can reveal.

Gatwick Airport, sandwich chain Pret a Manger and BMW Mini became the latest to swing the jobs axe last week, meaning around 255,000 roles have been cut or marked for the chop since March, according to a Mail audit.

This number includes overseas workers laid off by British firms. But now more than 153,000 positions have been slashed in the UK alone.

Sobering sign: The jobs crisis will deepen in the coming weeks as the furlough scheme draws to a close

The crisis will deepen in the coming weeks as the furlough scheme draws to a close. The Bank of England has forecast unemployment to hit 7.5 per cent, affecting around 2.5m people, by the end of the year.

In a sobering sign of the potential cuts to come, one in eight workers  around 4 million  were still making use of the furlough scheme at the start of this month. As the support begins to taper off, struggling companies are expected to make heavy cuts.

Conservative MP Jesse Norman, financial secretary to the Treasury, acknowledged the risk this month. He said: 'It's sobering to reflect that many more people will almost certainly face redundancy or unemployment in the next few months.'

Pret a Manger announced it was cutting 2,800 jobs last week as it closed 30 stores, due to fewer office staff going into work. Gatwick Airport is slashing 600 jobs amid a nightmare for the travel sector.

BMW has said 400 agency personnel working at its Mini car factory in Oxford are losing their jobs.

The Mail has highlighted the importance of getting staff back to work safely to support the economy.

Conservative MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: 'Most jobs are created at smaller and medium-sized companies. Smaller businesses cannot be up and running unless big companies get staff back to the office.

'It's very selfish of big companies to say, as some have, their staff won't be going back until January. It will lead to massive job losses.'

Tej Parikh, chief economist at lobby group the Institute of Directors, said: 'The Government must boost the wider jobs market by reducing the burden of employment taxes, helping businesses to retain and hire staff.'
India's economic growth suffered its worst fall on record in the April-June quarter, with the gross domestic product (GDP) contracting 23.9 per cent. The coronavirus-related lockdowns mainly weighed on the already-declining consumer demand and investment. The numbers are the worst since India started reporting quarterly data in 1996.

Barring China, the world's second-largest economy, all other major economies have felt the negative impact of coronavirus pandemic. In the April-June quarter of 2020, Chinese economy grew by 3.2 per cent.

Here's how the major economies of the world have performed (YoY) during the period:

Click here to Enlarge

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom (UK) reported a 21.7 per cent contraction in the April-June quarter of 2020. It is the UK's second consecutive quarterly decline. On account of government restrictions, there has been a record quarterly fall in services, production and construction during the period.

France

France's GDP contracted by a record 18.9 per cent in the April-June quarter of 2020 amid coronavirus lockdowns. Even as the GDP numbers were better than forecast, the performance was much worse than other Eurozone economies.

Italy

Italy's GDP shrank 17.7 per cent in the April-June quarter of 2020. These numbers are the lowest on record since Q1 of 1995. "After the significant decrease recorded in the first quarter (down 5.5 per cent), in the second quarter of 2020 the Italian economy suffered an unprecedented contraction...due to the full deployment of the (COVID-19) health emergency," the government agency which releases Italy's official statistics wrote in a note.

Canada

The GDP of Canada contracted by 13 per cent (as per CEIC) in the April-June quarter of 2020. The contraction was on account of fall in consumer spending, business investment, imports and exports due to COVID-19. The GDP contracted at a 38.7 per cent annualised rate in the given quarter.

Annualised rate is a rate for a period of less than a year. But, it is calculated as if it's a rate for a full year. In other words, it is an estimated rate of annual return that is extrapolated mathematically.

Germany

The GDP of Germany contracted during this year's April-June quarter by 11.3 per cent. It is the steepest since the country's statistical office began tracking quarterly economic data a half-century ago.

Japan

Japan's economy shrank a record 9.9 per cent in the April-June quarter of 2020 amid the coronavirus induced economic woes. It is the worst economic contraction for Japan since comparable data became available in 1980, eclipsing the brutal impact of the 2008 global financial crisis.

US

The US GDP shrank 9.1 per cent for the April-June quarter of 2020. This is the largest quarterly decline since the series began in 1947, even as the market expectations were much lower than the actual number. The GDP contracted at a 31.7 per cent annualised rate in the given quarter.

Also read: Worst in 24 years! India's Q1 GDP contracts 23.9% in June quarter

Also read: India's GDP growth to see strong pick up in second half of 2020: Moody's
The Emergency Palace in the early 1900s  neglected and abandoned. Courtesy of Hyunuk Park



By Robert Neff





Detail of the Emergency Palace in the early 1900s. Courtesy of Hyunuk Park

"[Namhansanseong] was in the past the favorite retreat for the [Joseon] King," declared Ensign George C. Foulk when he visited the site in October 1884 and then went on to add:



"This most notable occupancy was during the last Chinese invasion of Korea, when it was vainly besieged by a Chinese army while defended by its villagers and 120 soldiers. The Queen and Prince having been captured at [Ganghwa Island] and the people at large at the mercy of the Chinese, [King Injo] voluntarily left the fortress and sued for peace."



Foulk's description of the incident seems over-simplified and, perhaps, a little biased and we are left to wonder where he acquired his knowledge. Perhaps it was from the official who met him in front of the emergency palace.



The official, whom Foulk described as being "dressed [in] flowing silk robes of blue, yellow, and crimson, with a retinue of uniformed soldier priests and a native band of boy musicians," served as his guide. Unfortunately, part of the tour does not appear to have been the emergency palace.



In his notes, Foulk wrote:



"Ascending the hill back of the palace slowly over a narrow path in the pine forest to the weird music of the boy band, we came to a graceful [pavilion] raised above the wall  the stand of the military commandant."





Oehaengjeon  the king's office  at the Emergency Palace, May 2020. Robert Neff Collection



This was probably Sueojangdae, where King Injo commanded his small army, and Foulk seems to have been fairly impressed with its location and, compared to the rest of the fortress, wrote quite a bit about it.



"From here a most wonderful panoramic view of the whole river drained area as far as [Ganghwa] was presented. From this elevation (1350 feet) the dark outline of the capital seemed to be directly under Samgak mountain and the river but a winding silver thread in which the distant junks seemed but dots.



"To the west and south was an endless area of hilly country in which the valleys appeared as innumerable dark lines to the eastward and south-eastward craggy frowning mountains rose one above the other from close at hand to as far as the eye could reach bring to them compactness of size and close sites under mountains and hills, habitations were not visible at all except in the flat plain close below; here I counted in one small area, partly broken by sparse hills, seventeen villages."





The throne room at the Emergency Palace, May 2020. Robert Neff Collection



While on the tour he noticed "a reservoir for holding water to be used in time of siege, there long storehouses for food, and a field of jars filled with bean sauce for the garrison. Beyond these came the main part of the village with small fields below it on which enough can be produced to supply the fortress vassals in case of siege."



In addition to the walls of the fortress, there were "nine Buddhist temples with arsenals attached; in these live 120 soldier priests. To the east of the [village] on a second mountain crest is a small walled retreat guarded likewise by Buddhist priests."



The village in front of the emergency palace had (according to Foulk) "no products worth mentioning and no evidence of trade  the inhabitants being simple peasants [ who] seemed singularly docile, kind to each other, and markedly less rough in general conduct than at any other cities" he had visited.





Sleeping quarters at the Emergency Palace, May 2020. Robert Neff Collection



Foulk claimed  perhaps rightfully so  he was the first Westerner to visit the fortress and found the villagers "evinced much curiosity about him" but also "seemed desirous to do all in their power to make my visit pleasant." When he returned to his palanquin, he found it decorated with brilliant red maple branches.



Despite the docile nature of the villagers, the governor and his immediate subordinates did not deign to live among them. In the areas surrounding Seoul, most high officials lived in Seoul and only occasionally visited their posts to transact business.



Content with his short tour, Foulk resumed his journey to Seoul so that he could prepare for his epic journey the following month throughout the southern part of the peninsula.



Namhansanseong is a great day trip for tourists and residents of Seoul. Unfortunately, due to COVID 19 and restoration projects, many of the buildings  such as Sueojangdae  are not open. However, if you enjoy a good hike and a beautiful view (now that the skies are clear)  this is a place to go.





View from the palace, May 2020. Robert Neff Collection





Iwijeong Pavilion at the Emergency Palace, May 2020. Robert Neff Collection





Sueojangdae in the early 1900s. Courtesy of Hyununk Park





The view of Lotte Tower from the walls of Namhansanseong near Sueojangdae, May 2020. Robert Neff Collection
The United States calls on Russia to stop violating human rights and freedoms in the occupied Crimea, as well as to cease its campaign of conscription of Crimeans into the Russian army.

On International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, we call on Russia to end its abuses of fundamental freedoms in Crimea, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine posted on Facebook.

The embassy also called for the release of Ukrainians who were illegally imprisoned by Russia in retaliation for their peaceful dissent, as well as an end to the campaign of conscription of Crimeans into Russias armed forces.

The United Nations (UN) observes the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on August 30 each year.

As reported, six non-EU countries aligned with the European Council's decision to extend sanctions against Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol.

Among them were the Candidate Countries Montenegro and Albania, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries Iceland and Norway, as well as Ukraine and Georgia.

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A black female politician has been depicted as a slave in chains in a right-wing magazine, sparking a criminal racism inquiry.

Valeurs Actuelles (Current Values) faces prosecution for the seven-page illustrated feature on 40-year-old Daniele Obono.

Ms Obono, who is French-Gabonese, said she was sickened by the cartoon, and branded those responsible as odious, stupid and cruel.

The feature, titled Obono the African, gives a fictional account of Ms Obono returning to 18th century Africa.

It includes a cartoon where she is pictured with an iron collar around her neck.

Ms Obono, who is French-Gabonese, said she was sickened by the cartoon, and branded those responsible as odious, stupid and cruel

Following numerous other complaints  including from President Emmanuel Macron  Paris Prosecutor Remy Heitz on Monday confirmed the opening of a preliminary inquiry for racist insults.

Ms Obono said the detailed strip cartoon was an example of institutional racism in France.

Describing those responsible as racist s***, she said: I hurt for my republic, I hurt for my France.

Ms Obono shared a grab of the cartoon on her Twitter account, Describing those responsible as racist s***, she said: I hurt for my republic, I hurt for my France'

Ms Obono, who is a member of the France Unbowed party, claimed that the drawing was a political attack on those who fight against the racism and stigmatisation that millions of our compatriots are subjected to.

Mr Macron telephoned her personally on Saturday to express his clear condemnation of any form of racism, said a spokesman.

The row is a particularly incendiary given that President Macron granted Valeurs Actuelles an interview last year, despite its controversial reputation.

Valeurs Actuelles has defended the cartoon  saying it was part of a summer fiction feature in which public figures travel through time.

Ms Obono said I hurt for my republic, I hurt for my France', in response to the magazine's feature

A statement from the magazine rejected claims that it was racist, but added that it regretted hurting Ms Obono personally, adding that they apologise to her.

The row comes five years after millions around the world united under the Je Suis Charlie slogan, which called for cartoonists to be given freedom to draw what they liked.

Twelve staff from the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine were murdered by two Al-Qaeda gunman in Paris after mocking Muslims, and other faiths.

SOS Racisme, one of Frances biggest anti-racism groups, said Valeurs Actuelles' strip cartoon was typical of the hate speech aimed at ethnic minorities in France.

Prime Minister Jean Castex tweeted: This revolting publication must be unambiguously condemned. The fight against racism will always transcend our differences.

Mr Macron telephoned her personally on Saturday to express his clear condemnation of any form of racism, said a spokesman

Elisabeth Moreno, the junior minister for equality and the only black member of the current French government, said also offered her support to her left-wing parliamentary colleague.

I dont share Daniele Obonos ideas, but today I offer her all my support, said Ms Moreno.

And Richard Ferrand, the leader of the National Assembly, wrote on Twitter: At her side in the fight against racism and for the respect due to all elected representatives of the Republic.

Gabon was called the Orunga Kingdom in the 18th Century  a time when tribal leaders regularly sold their own people for profit.

By the 1780s, the country was exporting around 5,000 slaves a year, while also buying humans for its own use in exchange for ivory.

It was not until 1853 that King Ombango-Rogombe of Orunga agreed to finally outlaw slavery for good.

Despite this, the Orungu continued to secretly sell members of their own community, including alleged witches, adulterers and swindlers - many of whom ended up on Portuguese slave ships.

Without the funds provided by the slave trade, the Orungu Kingdom began to fall apart in the late 19th Century, before parts were sold off to French colonisers.

In 1910, Gabon became one of four territories of French Equatorial Africa, before being granted independence exactly 60 years ago, in August 1960.

Previous comic strips in the Valeurs Actuelle summer feature focusing on public figures going back in time have included former Prime Minister Francois Fillon.

Mr Fillon, who was depicted during the French Revolution, was this year convicted of fraud alongside his British-born wife, Penelope Fillon.

President Macron has pledged to fight racism in France, but refuses to remove statues of historical figures associated with the slave trade, as Black Lives Matter activists have campaigned for.
Indian industry on Monday paid rich tributes to former president Pranab Mukherjee, lauding his contribution to the economy and describing him as a great statesman and outstanding administrator.

Mukherjee, 84, died in an army hospital here on Monday. He was admitted to the hospital on August 10 and a health bulletin this morning said he was in a deep coma and on ventilator support.

"India has lost one of its most remarkable public figures today who was respected across the board. FICCI condoles the passing away of Pranab Mukherjee, a supporter of the Indian industry, astute leader and a great nationalist," Ficci President Sangita Reddy said.

RP- Group Chairman said that "a big banyan tree of Indian democracy" is no more.

"All I can do is to join my countrymen to mourn the loss of a great statesman who from a village boy became a teacher and then moved forward non-stop to create history as a great legislator and an outstanding administrator," Goenka stated.

Assocham Secretary General Deepak Sood said, "With his demise, the country has lost a seasoned politician, a great administrator and an Indian who was truly a Bharat Ratna".

Sood said Mukherjee's contribution to the Indian economy in various capacities was of high standard and great depth.

"Saddened by the demise of former President He was an excellent statesman, great leader, loved & admired by ppl across political lines.My condolences, thoughts and prayers with his family and loved ones. Om Shanti,"JSPL Chairman said.

Mukherjee was the 13th president of India from 2012 to 2017. He had also served as the country's finance minister.

In a tweet, Reserve Bank Governor said he was deeply saddened by the demise of the former president.

"Deeply saddened by the demise of Shri His knowledge and memory about independent India's economic history were phenomenal. A sharp mind. A true statesman. Was privileged to work with him closely as Joint/Additional Secretary Budget. May his soul rest in peace," he said.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A radio hijacker who stopped vessels receiving directions as they approached port by transmitting music, racist abuse and threats to make a bomb on the frequency used by maritime authorities has avoided jail.

Charlie Vaughan, 25, spent three months disrupting communications for vessels sailing into and out of Southampton port.

He sent messages including 'enjoy the bomb', 'I am going to blow up your ship' and 'I am going to cut your throat', as well as racial slurs against Polish, Chinese and black people.

Port authorities were forced to give vessels directions via mobile phones and, at one point, had to send a tug boat to pull a 1,000-foot cargo ship, one of the largest in the world, into port.

Vaughan, who is unemployed and supported by his partner, was only stopped when he was traced by Ofcom engineers.

He pleaded guilty to a charge of sending malicious electronic communications at Southampton Crown Court and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years. This included a six-month sentence for assaulting two emergency workers on April 29 last year.

Charlie Vaughan, 25, spent three months sending nuisance messages over the frequency used by Southampton port authorities to communicate with vessels before he was caught. (He is pictured arriving at Southampton Crown court before sentencing)

He pleaded guilty to a charge of sending malicious electronic communications and received an 18-month sentence suspended for two years

The broadcasts forced Southampton port authorities to communicate with vessels via mobile phones

Prosecution barrister, John Upton told the court Vaughan used special equipment to send nuisance transmissions on the same radio frequency as Vessel Traffic Services - the maritime equivalent of air traffic control.

The court heard how his actions could have easily caused a ships to sink, collide or led to people getting killed.

He sent more than 400 messages over the maritime channels between April 1 and June 27 this year.

He was only traced after Ofcom engineers got involved, and spent more than 450 hours trying to locate the source of the signals.

Sentencing him Judge Gary Burrell QC said: 'This is a very, very serious case. It endangered the safe navigating of ships on the Solent.'

He was also ordered to pay 1,335 court costs.

Vaughan is unemployed and supported by his partner. The court how he could have easily caused a ship to sink, collide or caused people to get killed

When he was arrested, police found him lying on his bed surrounded by three handheld radios. He had been given two by his partner as a birthday present.

He also had a selection of radio user guides and manuals.

Defence barrister Mark Florida-James said his client had mental health issues and suffers from ADHD and Asperger's syndrome.

A statement from Vaughan read on his behalf said: Sorry. I really am sorry for the upset I have caused.
On Sunday, three-time Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo shared another tribute to his fallen Avengers castmate - Chadwick Boseman - who died, age 43, on Friday after a private four-year battle with stage IV colon cancer.

The Kenosha-born 52-year-old - who boasts 31.7M followers - tweeted snaps of children mourning the SAG Award winner with their action figures, writing: 'This is his power and impact on the next generation. #ChadwickForever'

Mark was especially touched considering he's the father of three children - Keen, 19; Bella, 15; and Odette, 12 - with his wife of a decade, Sunrise Coigney.

'#ChadwickForever': On Sunday, three-time Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo (R) shared another tribute to his fallen Avengers castmate - Chadwick Boseman (L) - who died, age 43, on Friday after a private four-year battle with stage IV colon cancer (pictured in 2017)

'All I have to say is the tragedies amassing this year have only been made more profound by the loss of #ChadwickBoseman,' Ruffalo previously wrote on Friday.

'What a man, and what an immense talent. Brother, you were one of the all time greats and your greatness was only beginning. Lord love ya. Rest in power, King.'

The Dark Waters actor and Chadwick co-starred as Bruce Banner/The Hulk and T'Challa/Black Panther, respectively, in Avengers: Infinity War in 2018, and Avengers: Endgame in 2019.

The Kenosha-born 52-year-old tweeted snaps of children mourning the SAG Award winner with their action figures, writing: 'This is his power and impact on the next generation'

'#TBT': Mark was especially touched considering he's the father of three children - Keen, 19; Bella, 15; and Odette, 12 - with his wife of a decade, Sunrise Coigney

'Rest in power, King!' Ruffalo and Chadwick co-starred as Bruce Banner/The Hulk and T'Challa/Black Panther in Avengers: Infinity War in 2018, and Avengers: Endgame in 2019

Boseman's other co-star Viola Davis shared three tributes to him - one of which featured an African-American boy crying over his Black Panther action figures while giving the Wakanada Forever crossed arm pose.

The South Carolina-born 55-year-old quoted Mary Elizabeth Frye's 1932 poem Do Not Stand at My Grave and wrote: 'The power of legacy is that you become immortal. Thinking about you today Chadwick and all you left. You did so good!'

Viola - who's a Grammy away from EGOT status - had the privilege of acting with the Denzel Washington protege in his final film, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which starts streaming later this year on Netflix.

'Touched my broken heart to see this today': Boseman's other co-star Viola Davis shared three tributes to him - one of which featured an African-American boy crying over his Black Panther action figures while giving the Wakanada Forever crossed arm pose (pictured in 2016)

The South Carolina-born 55-year-old quoted Mary Elizabeth Frye's 1932 poem Do Not Stand at My Grave and wrote: 'The power of legacy is that you become immortal. Thinking about you today Chadwick and all you left. You did so good!'

On-set snap: Viola - who's a Grammy away from EGOT status - had the privilege of acting with the Denzel Washington protege in his final film, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which starts streaming later this year on Netflix

ABC will air a lifetime tribute special honoring the legacy of Chadwick following a commercial-free screening of Black Panther on Sunday night at 8pm (7pm central).

Chadwick Boseman - A Tribute for a King was produced by ABC News and it will be hosted by Good Morning America co-anchor Robin Roberts.

It will feature a look back on Boseman's life and career as well as the many tributes from friends, celebrities, political figures, and fans.
More foreign participation is forecast in Vietnams construction market over the coming years, buoyed by the gradual opening up of the Vietnamese economy to foreign investors and the Governments emphasis on infrastructure development.

The enactment of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Law in 2020 signals the Governments intention to attract more private sector investments in the infrastructure sector. (Photo: luatvietnam.vn)

The information was included in a recent report by Fitch Solutions on the outlook for Vietnams construction and infrastructure sector.

According to analysts from the UK-based financial data and research group, more than half of construction roles are awarded to foreign contractors, reflecting the openness of Vietnams construction market. Foreign participation is mainly represented by the Republic of Korea, Japanese and Chinese engineering companies. Japanese financiers are particularly active in supporting projects in Vietnam, highlighting their dominance as an important exporter of infrastructure.

When analysing the mix of nationalities of companies operating in Vietnams burgeoning construction and infrastructure market, we note that the country has one of the most diverse competitive landscapes within the Southeast Asia region, the analysts noted.

According to Fitch, opportunities for foreign companies to participate in Vietnams construction market exist mainly in areas where private or foreign companies have competitive advantages. These areas include designing, consulting, building and managing projects and supplying high-value industrial goods such as rolling stock and wind turbines.

Based on data from Fitchs proprietary Infrastructure Key Projects Database (KPD), local Vietnamese companies unsurprisingly dominate the construction scene, holding 43 percent of construction roles awarded.

The enactment of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Law in 2020 signals the Governments intention to attract more private sector investment in the infrastructure sector, and we believe foreign players will play an increasingly important role over the next decade, Fitch said.

Leading the foreign nationalities in construction roles are RoK and Japanese.VNA

Law change offers construction clarity The National Assembly has passed amendments to the Law on Construction, which will take effect from January 2021.
New Delhi: Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday launched a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government, alleging that it has destroyed the economy by repeatedly assaulting the informal sector.

There is an attempt to turn you into a slave, he said in a 3.38-minute video on the present state of economy.

In 2008, Gandhi said the world was hit by an economic storm, affecting the entire world, including the United States, Japan, Europe, China, everywhere.

In the US and Europe, banks collapsed, corporations companies shut down their businesses, but India remained unaffected, he added.

India had a UPA government at that time. I went to the Prime Minister and asked him, Manmohan Singh ji, what is the reason that when the entire world has suffered an economic crisis India has remained unaffected? the former Congress chief said.

Manmohan Singh ji replied, Rahul if you want to understand Indias economy, you will have to understand that India has two economic structures. One is the formal economy and the other is the informal economy, he added.

The video is a part of Gandhis fresh series on economy. He had earlier released a five part series on Chinese incursions in Ladakh.

You know the big companies which constitute the formal sector. The informal sector comprises of farmers, labourers and MSMEs. Till the time Indias informal sector is strong, no economic storm can touch India, he said.

But in the last six years, the BJP government has been attacking the informal sector. I am giving you three massive examples right now- demonetisation, wrong Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the lockdown enforced to contain the coronavirus pandemic, Gandhi alleged.

Dont think the lockdown was unplanned. Dont think it was done at the last minute. The aim of these three decisions was to destroy our informal sector, he alleged.

From March 25, India witnessed phases of nationwide lockdown to check the spread of coronavirus pandemic. Gandhi had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and criticised the move, saying it will have disastrous consequences on the economy.

In the fresh video, Gandhi again took on Modi, saying he needs the media and marketing to run the government. This media management and marketing is done by 15-20 people.

Gandhi said the informal sector has a lot of money which the government cannot touch. They want to break this sector and extort this money from them, he added.

Gandhi said the effects of this attack on informal sector will be seen soon. The results will be that India wont be able to produce jobs because the informal sector produces 90% of the jobs. Once the informal sector is destroyed India wont be able to produce jobs, he claimed.

The Congress has been attacking the government over unemployment, saying it had assumed fearsome proportions. It also claimed that a record of 45 years of unemployment has been broken as around 135 million youth are likely to lose their jobs due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

You are the ones who run this country. You take us forward and there is a conspiracy against you. You are being cheated and there is an attempt to turn you into slaves. We have to understand this attack and the entire country has to unite to fight against this, Gandhi said in his message to those involved in the informal sector.

The BJP, however, took a jibe at Gandhi, saying he should release a video about the G-23, a reference to 23 dissenters who wrote to Congress president Sonia Gandhi seeking complete overhaul of the party organisation.

People are trying to seize his house. There are talks of election, selection, inability to have a president... He (Rahul) should worry about it. The country is very much in safe hands. He should worry about his party, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said.
Steele Honda, a dealership in St. Johns, is currently offering a $1,000 Civic Bonus with the lease of a 2020 Honda Civic Sedan DX 6MT. The dealership is currently hosting the Honda Checkered Flag Event and this special offer is one of many available at the dealership right now.

When drivers lease the 2020 Honda Civic Sedan at Steele Honda during the event, they can get a weekly lease from $52, with zero down payment and zero security deposit. Lease rates may vary, and customers must apply for credit approval through the dealership, which they can do at the dealerships website, steelehonda.com.

The dealership offers many helpful functions on its website, including the ability to start shopping for a vehicle online. For customers who like to do most of their shopping from home, Steele Honda is a great option. Once at the dealerships website, drivers can navigate to the new car inventory, which is linked at the top of the site. From there, drivers can use search filters to find the vehicle that they are looking for. Alternatively, drivers can hover over the New drop-down menu to find a specific Honda model.

To take advantage of the $1,000 Civic Bonus, drivers should hover over the New drop-down menu and select Civic Sedan. In that inventory, drivers can narrow down their search to find the specific features they are interested in. Once a vehicle is chosen, drivers can request information or build their deal online.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 23:34:43|Editor: huaxia

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WINDHOEK, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Namibia's national airline, Air Namibia, has extended the suspension of domestic flight operations following the extension of stage 3 restrictions.

The airline in a statement on Monday said the extension will remain until local travel will be allowed.

Additionally, the suspension of regional and international flights has been extended until further notice, depending on market demand and reopening of international borders of countries where the airline operates, the airline added.

"As an active stakeholder in the tourism industry, Air Namibia will continue to participate in the tourism revival initiative," they said.

Meanwhile, although scheduled regional and international flight operations will resume later, Air Namibia as an essential service provider remains available to offer charter flights worldwide.

"We have taken practical measures aligned to national COVID-19 measures, to ensure maximum safety and protection for our passengers, employees and other stakeholders," said Air Namibia's interim CEO Theo Mberirua. Enditem
Volcanic activity worldwide 31 Aug 2020: Pacaya volcano, Fuego, Popocatepetl, Dukono, Reventador, S...

Mon, 31 Aug 2020, 21:00 21:00 PM | BY: SEVERAL CONTRIBUTORS 21:00 PM | BY: SEVERAL CONTRIBUTORS

Map of today's active volcanoes

Satellite image of Ebeko volcano on 30 Aug 2020

Satellite image of Manam volcano on 31 Aug 2020

Eruption from Sinabung volcano this morning (image: PVMBG)

Satellite image of Dukono volcano on 30 Aug 2020

Lava flow from Pacaya volcano (image: @chejinimendez/twitter)

Glowing lava bombs thrown from crater of Fuego volcano yesterday (image: INSIVUMEH)

Ash content from Copahue volcano (image: SERNAGEOMIN)

(30 Aug

(31 Aug

(31 Aug



Lahars (mud flows) could also occur if heavy rainfalls remobilise the fresh ash deposits.

... [ show less Lahars (mud flows) could also occur if heavy rainfalls remobilise the fresh ash deposits.

(30 Aug

(31 Aug



Incandescent material is being ejected to an approximate height of 100 to 150 meters above the Mackenney summit crater.

The seismic station records internal tremor associated with magma rising within the volcano.

... [ show less Incandescent material is being ejected to an approximate height of 100 to 150 meters above the Mackenney summit crater.The seismic station records internal tremor associated with magma rising within the volcano.

...31 Aug:



INSIVUMEH reported that lava flow has started to descend on the slopes and continues to be active on the southwest slopes of the volcano, currently about 550 m long.

Additionally recorded weak to moderate explosions at regular intervals of 6 to 9 per hour that generated a grey ash plume which reached approx. 14,763-15,419 ft (4,500-4,700 m) altitude. Ash fall is extending about 10-20 km to the west and northwest direction of the volcano. Small fumarolic activity was observed.

... [ show less INSIVUMEH reported thathas started to descend on the slopes andof the volcano, currently about 550 m long.Additionally recorded weak to moderate explosions at regular intervals of 6 to 9 per hour that generated a grey ash plume which reached approx.altitude. Ash fall is extending about 10-20 km to the west and northwest direction of the volcano. Small fumarolic activity was observed.

(31 Aug

Volcano Activity Summary for 31 Aug 2020:

Previous news
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Care homes in England experienced the highest increase in excess deaths at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to those in the rest of the UK, according to new research.

A studyco-ordinated from the University of Stirling's Management Schoolfound that care homes in England recorded a 79 percent increase in excess deaths, compared to 66 percent in Wales, 62 percent in Scotland and 46 percent in Northern Ireland.

Professor David Bell is lead author of the research, which analyzed excess deaths in care homesthose above the five-year averagein each country. The findings form part of a larger study offering crucial insights into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the UK's care sector.

Professor Bell said: "Given the variation in testing and death registration practices across the UK, it will never be possible to unequivocally assign care home deaths during the pandemic to COVID-19 or other causes. Therefore, measuring excess deaths presents the most reliable approach by which to assess the relative failure or success in handling the pandemic in care homes. Based on that internationally recognized approach, Scotland, Wales, and particularly England appear to have performed poorly."

Of all deaths registered as COVID-19 related in the UK, 17,127 (31%) occurred within care homes and at least 21,775 (40%) were accounted for by care home residents.

In Scotland, 47 percent of deaths attributed to COVID-19 occurred in care homes. This compares with 42 percent in Northern Ireland, 30 percent in England and 28 percent in Wales.

While Scotland had the highest proportion of care homes affected by COVID-19 and the highest proportion of care home deaths attributed to the virus, it had a lower proportion of excess deaths in these facilities compared to England and Wales. Northern Ireland had both the lowest share of care homes infected and the lowest level of excess deaths in care homes. This may reflect differences in testing practices and death registrations across the nations, the experts said.

The research team analyzed comparable datasets on deaths in care homes for each of the UK nations, and on the number and share of care homes where an infection took place.

Gaps

The study revealed significant gaps in the availability of data, including a lack of accurate and timely information on the transfers of patients from hospital and into care homes, and reliable data on the testing of residents and staff. It also identified an "erratic" testing strategy, constrained by the availability of tests.

England is the only UK nation that has released COVID-19 mortality data on those receiving care at home.

Co-author Elizabeth Lemmon, from the University of Edinburgh, said: "The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the urgency of appropriately funding long-term care. This includes the need to develop robust data collection and infrastructure that will allow us to understand and meet the needs of those individuals receiving care across the UK, not only during a pandemic. A crucial next stage for the analysis of the impact of COVID-19 in care homes will be to understand how the virus got into care homes in the first place. This will be very difficult with currently available data. There is also a huge gap in our understanding on how the pandemic has impacted those receiving social care in their own homesthis needs to be addressed."

Deficiencies

Co-author Dr. Dermot O'Reilly, of the Center for Public Health, Queen's University Belfast, added: "The production of this report was significantly hampered by the dearth of accessible and timely data about those in contact with social services. This is in stark contrast to the quality and availability of data relating to patients within the health system. These deficiencies, although acknowledged in previous government reports, have been dramatically highlighted during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. There is an urgent need to improve the quality of social services statistics to better understand the lived experience of the most vulnerable members of society."

The analysis covers the period from the registration of the first COVID-19-related death, in the week ending 13 March, until the week ending 26 June.

The report, "COVID-19 mortality and long-term care: a UK comparison," is published by the International Long Term Care Policy Network.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: COVID-19 mortality and long-term care: a UK comparison. COVID-19 mortality and long-term care: a UK comparison. ltccovid.org/wp-content/upload  -final-Sat-29-v1.pdf
She was the vivacious blonde who married one of Britains richest aristocrats, before becoming chatelaine of Castle Howard. But friends of the effervescent Annette Scruff Howard are in mourning today, following her death aged 71.

And none are more distressed than her goddaughter Cara Delevingne and her sisters, Poppy and Chloe.

My girls are devastated, their mother, Pandora, tells me.

Its horrible for all of us  Cara especially, on the other side of the world. She was an amazing woman  quite extraordinary, like a second mother to them, always there for them.

Scruff, was also bewitching to men.

Annette Scruff Howard, Cara Delevingne's godmother, has passed away at the age of 71

By the age of 25 she had become a countess, marrying Earl Compton, as his second wife, in 1974.

The marriage ended in divorce after just three years.

But within five years Scruff was installed in arguably the most fabulous of all British stately homes, Castle Howard in Yorkshire, after marrying Simon Howard who had taken it over from his father, Lord Howard of Henderskelfe, aged only 27.

We used to go up to Castle Howard and stay for three or four weeks, in the summer, recalls Pandora.

She was like a sort of Pied Piper to kids. She loved them and they loved her  had that magic.

Scruff led them across the 10,000-acre estate and beyond  to Scarborough to eat fish and chips in newspaper. They adored her.

Castle Howard had by then become known to a global audience, after its starring role in the television adaptation o f Evelyn Waughs novel, Brideshead Revisited.

Scruff helped restore 20 rooms as well as taking charge of the houses 52 guides.

Actress Cara Delevingne would spend her childhood visiting Castle Howard in Yorkshire, the home of her godmother, Annette Scruff Howard

But there was what Pandora calls one desperate sadness  a lack of children of her own.

I was pregnant with Cara when she was trying her last round of IVF; I said: Were going to have these babies together, Scruff. But it proved not to be.

If youre a woman like that  a huge character who loves life, laughter and children, and adventure  and you dont get to get them yourself, when you want them really badly, its shattering. But she held her head high. She never complained.

Her marriage to Simon Howard ended after 17 years.

Yet such was her generosity of spirit that, when Howards new wife, Rebecca Sieff, gave birth to twins, Scruff unhesitatingly sent her flowers. An amazing thing to do, reflects Pandora.

Ooh la la. Game Of Thrones star Maisie Williams reveals shes moved to Paris to learn French.

Ive always wanted to learn French so Ive come here to do that, she explains.

Its much easier being immersed in the language. Paris is a magical place and since Im unemployed at the moment, I was free to be somewhere I wanted to be.

The 23-year-old adds: I dont go out much anyway so the virus hasnt really affected me much at all. I think its been much harder on people who like socialising.

Iris Law poses in... knot a lot

Jude Laws daughter Iris is a woman of many talents. Not only has she starred in major fashion campaigns for Burberry and Fendi, but the 19-year-old is now proving a deft hand at design.

Iris Law took to Instagram to show off the criss-cross pink and blue swimsuit that she designed

On holiday in Italy this week with her boyfriend, artist Jyrrel Roberts, Iris showed off the criss-cross pink and blue swimsuit she created herself.

I designed and sewed this bikini the day before I came away, she explains.

Iris, whose mother is actress Sadie Frost, has a passion for ecoconscious clothing and was due to start an internship with Stella McCartney  the queen of sustainable fashion  before lockdown scuppered her plans.

TVS Richard Osman insists fame has come with no downsides at all.

Thats largely because I got recognised after the age of 40  by which time my personality was fully formed, he says.

Id worked through the issues of my 20s and 30s. I mean, Im 6ft 7in  so my whole life, Ive stood out.

I cant get on the Tube without people staring. At least now they stare at me and smile.

Lila is set to gather Moss... in quarantine

Kate Mosss model daughter, Lila, is letting her hair down before going back to school.

Kate Moss' daughter Lila, 17, posed in a 585 Silvia Astore corseted dress, describing the outfit as her 'favourite clothes in the world'

The Marc Jacobs campaign star, 17, turned a shopping trip at Annies Ibiza  a boutique on the Spanish island  into an impromptu fashion show.

Lila, who is signed to her mothers eponymous talent agency, and who has featured in dad Jefferson Hacks magazine, Another, posed in a 585 Silvia Astore corseted dress.

My favourite clothes in the world, she comments.

Now poor Lila presumably faces two weeks quarantine before she can catch up with school pals...

Countess puts her foot down

Who says the Countess of Carnarvon does not have a racy side?

The chatelaine of Highclere Castle, the setting for TVs Downton Abbey, reveals she has just had to take a speed awareness course after rushing back home one evening along the A4.

The road was nearly entirely empty but I had clearly drifted just over the speed limit, she says.

Annoyed with myself, I waited and wondered whether I would receive a letter  which of course I did. I was a mixture of emotions: self-righteous thoughts about my speed being fine given the circumstances, annoyance at being caught and resignation that I had indeed been breaking the law.

I found the day unexpectedly fascinating and a timely reminder that we are each asked to compromise for the benefit of others.

What would the Earl of Grantham say?

Toby bags Getty girl Ivy with a sparkler

She stands to inherit a chunk of her familys billion-pound fortune, but artist Ivy Getty is also lucky in love.

Jean Paul Getty's great-granddaughter Ivy has got engaged to London-born tech entrepreneur, Toby Engel

Ivy Getty announced her engagement to Toby Engel while holidaying on the Italian island of Capri

The 25-year-old great-granddaughter of Jean Paul Getty has got engaged to London-born tech entrepreneur, Toby Engel.

We met through my cousin three years ago, but only started dating two years ago when we ran into each other in Paris, Ivy tells me.

He proposed in Capri, in a spot overlooking the whole island, with his mothers vintage engagement ring.

Toby, 28, is the son of former Coronation Street actress, Cheryl Prime, and Austrian businessman Peter Engel.

Lockdown has had a silver lining for James Bond star Timothy Dalton, who lives in LA.

I feel like Ive been in a coffin for six months, he says.

The interesting thing about isolation is how wonderful it is to find new stimuli... when something happens that reminds you youre a human being.

'Yesterday I was talking to people in Spain and Italy, and all of a sudden the brain starts working again. Its exciting, talking about work and creativity. Shaken and stirred, Tim.
Former president Pranab Mukherjee, who had recently undergone a surgery for removal of a clot in his brain, passed away on August 31. He was 84.

Prior to the surgery, the Mukherjee had also tested positive for COVID-19.

Mukherjee's son, Abhijit, informed about the development in a tweet.

ALSO READ: A staunch Congressman, Pranab Mukherjee cultivated friendships across party lines

"With a Heavy Heart , this is to inform you that my father Shri #PranabMukherjee has just passed away inspite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital & prayers ,duas & prarthanas from people throughout India ! I thank all of You (sic)," he tweeted.

The Indian Army's Research and Referral Hospital in New Delhi had said late on August 12 that Mukherjees condition had remained critical and that he was on ventilator support.

ALSO READ: In pics | Pictorial tribute to Former Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, fondly known as 'Pranab Da'

A multidisciplinary team of doctors was constantly monitoring the health of the former president.

ALSO READ | Pranab Mukherjee: A statesman whose legacy will live on

Before serving as the President of India between 2012 and 2017, Mukherjee was a senior union minister in the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
Coal power plant: NGOs worry as US court rules World Bank can't be sued for 'damages'

by Kate Fried, Mir Jalal

August 31,2020 | Source: Counterview

On August 24 evening, a federal court ruled that the World Bank Group cannot be sued for any damage caused by its lending, despite last years Supreme Court ruling in the same case that these institutions can be sued for their commercial activity in the United States.



In Jam v. International Finance Corporation (IFC), US District Judge John D. Bates ruled that farmers and fishers from Gujarat, India, cannot sue the World Banks corporate lending arm for funding and enabling a disastrous coal power plant that has destroyed their livelihoods. The plaintiffs, represented by EarthRights International, will appeal.



In a landmark decision issued in March 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that IFC and other international financial institutions could be sued in cases based upon their commercial activity carried on in the United States. But Judge Bates concluded that a lawsuit over the IFCs lending is not based upon IFCs activity at all. He held that even if IFC knew when it made the loans that the power plant would harm these communities, the institution cannot be sued.



The court ruled that a lawsuit against IFC, for harms caused by IFCs lending, is not based upon IFCs lending, said Richard Herz, Senior Litigation Attorney at EarthRights. That is not right. The same law applies to foreign governments and their corporations, so this would mean that a Chinese state-owned bank that profits from causing harm to Americans in the United States cannot be sued here either.



The construction and operation of the 4,150MW Tata Mundra coal power plant along the Gujarat coast is harming livelihoods and destroying the natural resources that generations of local families have relied on for fishing, farming, salt-panning, and animal rearing.



The plaintiffs tried to raise their concerns through the IFCs internal grievance mechanism, but when the IFCs leadership ignored the grievance bodys conclusions, plaintiffs filed suit in the United States in 2015 as a last resort. In addition to its destructive impact on local communities, the power plant has been an economic albatross from the start; it has lost money since the day it started operating, causing its operator to fight with local governments to raise electricity rates from the low prices that had been promised.



While we are disappointed with the dismissal of the case, we are determined to appeal, said Bharat Patel, the head of the local fishermens organization, Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Sangathan (Association for the Struggle for Fisherworkers Rights) (MASS), a plaintiff in the case. We will keep up our fight to hold the IFC accountable while demanding reparation for the damages caused to our community due to the IFCs reckless lending.

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
Nigerias steel giant, KAM Steel Integrated Company, a subsidiary of KAM Holding, has acquired the steel plant assets owned by the Standard Metallurgical Company, (SMC) in Sagamu, Ogun State, as part of efforts towards boosting its capacities for iron and steel production.

The firm promised to create about 10,000 jobs in Nigeria and urged the federal government to expedite actions towards supporting indigenous manufacturers in local capacity building for the steel industry in the country.

Speaking at the official handing over ceremony of the assets, the chairperson of KAM Holding, Iyadunni Yusuf, stressed that, If Nigeria must come out of the wilderness of poverty, unemployment and insecurity among other social vices, therefore, the Federal Government must deploy its machineries to support local manufacturers in their bids to survive and grow.

According to her, The steel industry being a very important integral part of the nations economy necessary for speedy economic growth and socio-infrastructural development, there is need for government to focus more on the sector, recognize and declare Iron and Steel as national products to boots our foreign exchange earnings in the face of dwindling price of Oil in the global market.

In 2016, His Excellency, Vice President of Federal Republic of Nigeria performed the foundation laying of our integrated steel plant with rolling mills in Jimba-Oja, Kwara State and by the last quarter of 2019, the project was completed ready to contribute to the local steel market.

Today, KAM Steel has acquired the steel plant formerly owned by SMC and we believe that with this milestone, our capacities would increase tremendously and will reposition Nigeria as a self-sufficient nation and we hope that the Federal Government shall continue to provide the enabling environment and support for continuing the actualization of the vision of the highly committed Nigerian behind this project.

It is our target to create about 10,000 jobs to promising Nigerians in the next coming months as a way of complementing governments efforts in tackling youths restiveness, boost Internally Generated Revenue, (IGR), as well as promoting our Corporate Social Responsibilities in the society.

In his remarks, the Minister for Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, said the Nigeria economy with a GDP of about $440 billion is one of the fastest growing economies in Africa without the production of liquid steel.

He added that, Nigeria has over 30 steel manufacturers, it can only produce 2.2million tons per annum using scraps and billets imported mainly from china. It is on record that Nigeria spends an Average of about USD 3.3 billion importing metals annually.

Represented by his Senior Special Assistant (Technical), Olu Adedayo, the minister maintained that, The decline in GDP as a result of the fluctuating oil prices compelled the present Administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to commit itself to the diversification of Nigeria economy, thereby prioritizing the development of the minerals and metal and agricultural sectors.

READ ALSO:

The Management of the Ministry has been working assiduously towards the enactment of the Nigeria Metallurgical Industry Bill in order to have an enabling law for effective regulation of the Metal Sector in Nigeria. The Ministry Solicits the support of all stakeholders especially metal sector operators in order to realize this.

The Ministry is also working hard towards fast tracking the operationalization of ASCL and NIOMCO. The Government is encouraging Metal sector operators, especially local producers of metallurgical Mineral raw materials and steel metal products to synergize with miners towards ensuring local beneficiation of raw materials in Nigeria.

This would put an end to the dig it and ship it syndrome and boost down stream activities in the metal sector for jobs and wealth creation, the FGN is also encouraging all metal sector operators to comply with set standard for the production of all metal products in order to ensure that our local products compete favorably in the international market. In order to do so, metal operators, artisans and other skilled operators in the metal sector are encouraged to sharpen their skills via the metallurgical training centers in Nigeria.

He said the federal government is working towards eradicating the import of metallurgical raw materials and products that can be produced locally and support the development of home-grown technologies in line with local content.

It is therefore with immeasurable joy that I congratulate, MD/CEO, Dr. Kamorudeen and his team for achieving this great Milestone in the history of indigenous effort at steel making in Nigeria. Prior to the take over of standard Metallurgical Company (SMC) by KAM Industries, my metallurgical field officers had reported following their inspectorate duties

The acceleration of industrial development lies primarily on the private sector while the Government provides the enabling environment. On this note, I want to once again congratulate KAM Steel and thank stakeholders and everyone present here today. I wish you success in your future endeavors, thank you and God bless.

Also speaking, the General Controller of Standard Metallurgical Company, (SMC) Mr. Hussein Nourdein, disclosed that the acquisition process was highly competitive stressing that, At last, the powerful and giant finally have. We are delighted that KAM Steel Integrated Company acquired our steel plant assets and we promise them our continuous working and business relationship.
DyeMansion, a Munich, Germany-based tech company advancing additive manufacturing finishing systems, raised $14m in Series B funding.

Backers included Danish growth fund Nordic Alpha Partners, which joined existing investors UVC Partners, btov Partners, KGAL, and AM Ventures in the round.

The company, which has raised $24M in total funding to date, intends to use the funds to expand its development efforts and further strengthen its global presence and fulfillment capabilities via new demo facilities, regional application consultants and commercial business infrastructures.

Led by Philipp Kramer (CTO & Co-founder) and Felix Ewald (CEO & Co-founder), DyeMansion is the global leader in Additive Manufacturing finishing systems that turn 3D-printed raw parts into high-value products, from. e.g. fit eyewear to personalized car interiors. Its Industry 4.0 ready systems can be integrated into every production.

The companys equipment is used by over 600 customers worldwide including companies like BMW, Daimler, Under Armour, or Jabil.

FinSMEs

31/08/2020
Two thirds of children who were cyberbullied during lockdown were targeted through private messaging apps, according to new research

Two thirds of children aged between 14 to 16 who were cyberbullied during lockdown were targeted through private messaging apps, according to new research.

A Dublin City University anti-bullying researcher has called for a debate on the regulation of private messaging apps following the finding.

Dr Tijana Milosevic, researcher at the Anti-Bullying Centre (ABC), made the statement after a major study into children's online use during the pandemic.

The research found that of almost 66% of children between 14-years-old and 16 who reported being bullied, stated it was more prevalent on private instant messaging platforms, such as WhatsApp and Viber.

Dr Milosevic said: "I would like to draw attention to the increase in cyberbullying on direct messaging/instant messaging apps, which we notice for children who were cyberbullied in the 14-to-16 age group.

"There's some debate about how to go about regulating such technology, having in mind the private nature of conversations there, which makes these distinct from social media.

"Cyberbullying can look different on private messaging. This can create challenges for prevention and intervention."

Almost a third of children (28%) and youths from 10-years-old to 18, suffered online bullying, during the extended period at home.

Among those cyberbullied, 39% said this happened more frequently during lockdown, 37% said it happened about as frequently as before, while 23% said it happened less frequently.

Cyberbullying was found to be more prevalent within younger age-groups, between males and on private messaging apps.

Some 42% of parents reported being worried about cyberbullying and 62% worried about their children's mental health.

Dr Milosevic said: "We expected to see an increased worry in parents but these findings reveal a number of parents also experience benefits related to digital technology use."

Over half (57%) of parents, also reported concern the pandemic would have a negative impact on their child's education, such as falling behind in schoolwork, or failing in exams etc.

The study found 71% of children and young people reported using their smartphones more than ever during lockdown, as they tried to stay connected to peers. Half of the children also witnessed someone else being bullied.

While 58% of parents reported being more worried during lockdown about excessive internet and digital technology use.

Dr Milosevic said: "While we definitely need to be careful about cyberbullying and ensure that every child who experiences it receives adequate help - especially as children's lives become ever more dependent on digital technology - these numbers may not be as alarming as we might have expected them to be."

The survey consisted of over 1,000 parents and children aged between 10 and 18.
Iran registers 1,905 new COVID-19 cases, 371,816 in total

Global Times

Source: Xinhua Published: 2020/8/30 9:09:56

Iran's COVID-19 cases on Saturday rose to 371,816 with the registration of 1,905 new infections over the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health and Medical Education reported.

Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for the ministry, said during her daily briefing that out of the new cases in the past 24 hours are 857 hospitalized.

The pandemic has so far claimed the lives of 21,359 Iranians, up by 110 in the past 24 hours, she added.

Besides, 319,847 patients have recovered and been discharged from hospitals while 3,791 remain in critical condition.

According to Lari, 3,184,857 laboratory tests for COVID-19 have been carried out in Iran by Saturday.

She said 13 provinces out of 31 are still at high risk of infection, while 15 others in alert situation over the disease.

Iran announced its first cases of COVID-19 on Feb. 19.

Iran and China have offered mutual help in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

In mid-February, at the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak in China, Iran lit up the Tehran Azadi (Liberty) Tower to show its solidarity with China, and donated 3 million masks to China.

In return, China has delivered several shipments of medical supplies to Iran. On Feb. 29, a five-member Chinese medical team visited Iran for a month-long mission to help Iran fight the pandemic.

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UK may make at-home medical abortions permanent; some 90K performed during shutdown

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The United Kingdom is seriously considering making permanent a temporary measure allowing for women to do medical abortions at home without going to a clinic.

Earlier this year, in response to shutdowns aimed at curbing the COVID-19 pandemic, the British government temporarily lifted a rule requiring women taking mifepristone and misoprostol to end a pregnancy to visit a clinic.

However, according to Nigel Nelson of The Mirror, the government may consider making the temporary rule suspension permanent, as about 90,000 at-home medical abortions have occurred since March.

While the temporary rule suspension was set to expire after 18 months, Health Minister Lord James Bethell said that there will be a public consultation on permanent home use of both pills for early medical abortion," according to The Mirror.

Dr. Jonathan Lord, of the prominent abortion provider Marie Stopes UK, expressed support for the decision, arguing that it was a step forward for womens health.

Thanks to telemedicine, women have been able to access the timely, high-quality care they deserve, stated Lord, as reported by the Mirror. Had this not been available the consequences could have been catastrophic.

In March, the U.K. Department of Health and Social Care temporarily changed abortion regulations, allowing women seeking an abortion before the 10th week of pregnancy to take abortion-inducing pills at home.

The policy says a medical abortion can only be carried out at home if the patient had a consultation with an approved place via video link, telephone conference or other electronic means or had consultation with a registered medical practitioner via video link, telephone conference or other electronic means.

Critics, among them Dr. Helen Watt is Senior Research Fellow at the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, a Roman Catholic organization, denounced the temporary suspension.

In a column published by The Tablet before Bethell's comments, Watt argued that the governments decision came in the teeth of opposition from those pointing out the dangers to women: severe bleeding and infection, undiagnosed ectopics, inability to check the stage of gestation, inability to check for the presence of coercion.

The location of a baby does not change its moral status, she argued. Even in normal cases, medical abortion is painful, bloody and distressing."
In mid-August, 2020, an unusual heat wave fixated over California, leading to a series of lightning storms across the state and numerous wildfires. Hundreds of thousands of acres were burned and tens of thousands of residents were forced to evacuate their homes. Below is an account of how the fires spread and officials responded to the emergency.

Read the previous updates from Aug. 25-26.

Read the next updates from Aug. 29-30.

Live Updates from Friday, Aug. 28

8:10 p.m. Evacuation orders downgraded to warnings in some areas of Sonoma County for LNU Complex: Cal Fire announced that some evacuation orders related to the LNU Lightning Complex were downgraded to evacuation warnings in some areas of Sonoma County including: Westside Road south of Sweetwater Springs Road, north of the Russian River, west of the Hacienda Bride to Korbel, north and east of Lion Head Ranch Road at King Ridge Road, and southwest of 14900 Stewart Point Skaggs Springs Road. Cal Fire urged residents returning home to stay vigilant for fire activity and to comply with road closures and evacuation orders.

7:45 p.m. CZU Complex burns 83,133 acres: Cal Fire said the CZU Lightning Complex burned 83,133 acres and was 27% contained as of Friday evening. The fires, which are burning across San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, have destroyed 575 residences, damaged 71 residences, and are threatening another 10,207 structures, according to a Cal Fire incident update. Authorities are helping residents return home now that more evacuation orders have been lifted. Infrastructure crews are working to clear hazardous trees, restore utilities and working to open roads, Cal Fire said. Slightly cooler weather was expected Saturday.

7 p.m. LNU Complex burns 372,344 acres: Cal Fire said the LNU Lightning Complex has burned 372,344 acres and was 35% contained on Friday evening. The fires have destroyed 1,080 structures, damaged 272 structures and are threatening another 30,500 structures, according to a Cal Fire incident update. Cal Fire said 2,777 personnel are battling the blazes along with 308 engines, 67 water tenders, 17 helicopters and 77 dozers. Officials said damage inspection teams have been conducting a thorough inspection of the affected area, and crews are expected to take advantage of favorable conditions on Friday evening to construct more control lines. Five civilians have died in connection to the complex, and four civilians have been injured, Cal Fire officials said.

3:26 p.m. SF clears barber shops, nail salons, gyms to open outdoors  just in time for wildfire smoke: Outdoor personal services can restart in San Francisco on Tuesday, the mayor and citys health director announced Friday. But as one salon owner put it, Mother nature is going to dictate how successful this is going to be. Who wants to be outside getting a haircut and inhaling smoke? Read the full story here.

3:21 p.m. Smoke-choked Bay Area headed into another wildfire weekend: Crews continued to make progress Friday beating back the three massive wildfires burning across the Bay Area  the effects of which were acutely felt throughout the region, as smoke covered and diminished the air quality in San Francisco and Oakland. A look at the days firefighting progress and the weekend ahead is here.

3:16 p.m. Evacuation orders lifted in portions of Santa Cruz County for CZU Complex: Cal Fire announced that evacuation orders for the CZU Lightning Complex have been lifted in some areas of Santa Cruz County including parts of Zayante, Bear Creek Road and the Mt. Hermon area. Cal Fire officials urged residents returning to their homes to be cautious because emergency vehicles are still operating in the area.

3:14 p.m. More time to file 2019 state income taxes: The California Franchise Tax Board has extended state income tax filing deadlines for people in disaster areas as declared by the governor or the president. They now have until Dec. 15, instead of Oct. 15, to file their 2019 tax return. The deadline for paying any taxes due for 2019 are not eligible for relief because they were due July 15 this year, before the fires started. On Monday, the IRS extended federal tax-filing deadlines for people in Lake, Monterey, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, and Yolo. The Federal Emergency Management Agency also said it would provide grants and loans to people and businesses affected by the wildfires in the same eight counties.

11:20 a.m. Unemployment assistance for fire victims: Employees and self-employed people who lost their jobs or businesses or had their work hours substantially reduced because of the wildfires  but do not qualify for other forms of state or federal unemployment benefits  can apply for temporary benefits from the federal Disaster Unemployment Assistance program. They must live in one of the following counties declared disaster areas: Lake, Napa, Monterey, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, and Yolo counties. The program provides up to $450 a week for up to 27 weeks beginning the week of Aug. 16. To apply, go to the EDDs website here or call 1-800-300-5616.

11:12 a.m. Firefighters looking to encircle Walbridge blaze: Cal Fire officials said theyre looking to soon close off the last open line of the Walbridge Fire, part of the massive LNU Complex. Theyll be focused on an area of rugged terrain between Middletown and Calistoga. Around 83,000 people remain evacuated as a result of the fires. The complex is now 35% contained.

8:40 a.m. Fire rages in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park: Authorities blame suspected arson for the Dolan Fire, which began last Wednesday near Dolan Road and Highway 1 in the Los Padres National Forest. It had grown to 21,861 acres and was 20% contained as of Thursday evening. The fate of several endangered California condors living at a sanctuary that was destroyed by the blaze remains unknown.

8:39 a.m. Air quality registers unhealthy levels: The Chronicle Air Quality Map registered unhealthy levels across San Francisco on Friday morning. The map displays locations of ongoing Bay Area fires, wind direction and speeds, air quality data from local sensors and local smoke forecasts. Plus, we asked health experts at what level it becomes unhealthy to take kids to the park, go for a run outside, walk your dog and do other outdoor activities. The Chronicle also provides guide to resources for monitoring and understanding your local air quality.

8:05 a.m Napa locals go cowboy by bulldozing their own firebreaks to save wineries and homes: In a testament to how thinly spread resources are right now, many residents and vineyard owners relied on their own knowledge and equipment to remove brush in hopes of stopping spreading fires. Cal Fire doesnt condone residents doing this, but locals said they felt they had to act. Its harder to get resources out here. But there are a lot of us who live out here. And were gonna do everything we can to protect each other, said Diane Eackle Hawkins of Pope Valley Winery. Read the full story here.

7:41 a.m. Fire evacuees boosting struggling hotel industry: Thousands of evacuees fleeing recent wildfires are seeking shelter in hotels, in part to help keep their distance from others during a pandemic. The business has been a small boon for the hotel industry, which has been devastated by the coronavirus. Read the full story here.

7:34 a.m. Fire crews battle unseen dangers: As residents return to their homes in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, crews battling the CZU Lightning Complex now have to contend with hidden dangers, like collapsing roadways, fire-weakened trees  and even a pipe bomb. Read the full story here.

6:52 a.m. SCU Complex grows slightly; containment flat: The historic SCU Complex fires reached nearly 373,000 acres as of Friday morning, growing by about 3,500 acres overnight, Cal Fire said. Containment as of Friday morning remained at 35%. The fires, burning parts of seven counties, including Santa Clara, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties, is still threatening some 20,000 structures.

6:30 a.m. CZU Complex now 26% contained: Containment of the CZU Complex fires burning in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties grew by 3% overnight, to 26%, Cal Fire officials said. The fire grew by just over 1,000 acres overnight, and as of Friday morning stood at 82,540 acres.

Updates from Thursday, Aug. 27

7 p.m. Evacuation order reduced to warning in portions of Napa County for LNU Complex: Cal Fire said that an evacuation order has been reduced to an evacuation warning for the following areas: Deer Park Road from the upper end of Sanitarium Road to the intersection of Deer Park Road, Howell Mountain Road, and White Cottage Road; and Howell Mountain Road (also known as Old Howell Mountain Road) from Conn Valley Road to the intersection of Howell Mountain Road, Deer Park Road, and White Cottage Road. Cal Fire officials asked people to remain alert of fire activity in the area, and to drive slow and yield to first responders in the area. Cal Fire officials said White Cottage Road and Howell Mountain Road northeast into Angwin will remain under an evacuation order.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

6:40 p.m. East Bay fires update: The SCU Lightning Complex fires grew modestly Thursday, adding less than 1,000 acres to reach a total 369,471 acres scorched across seven counties since the wildfire started on Aug. 16. A total of 28 structures have been destroyed. Nearly 2,000 firefighters are working the fire.

6:25. p.m. Evacuation order downgraded to warning for much of Guerneville: Sonoma County sheriffs officials said the evacuation order for most of Guerneville was downgraded to an evacuation warning on Thursday. The order was downgraded to warning for the following areas: North of the Russian River, south of Rio Nido Road at Armstrong Woods Road, west of Foothill Boulevard at River Road, and east of Old Cazadero Road. Sheriffs officials warned that residents returning to Guerneville must use Highway 116/Pocket Canyon, Bohemian Highway or Highway 1. River Road remains closed from Hacienda Bridge to the intersection of Foothill Boulevard at River Road, officials said. Authorities also said residents may return at your own risk and that these areas are still at risk from the fires blazing in the area. The following areas still remain under evacuation orders: the community of Rio Nido; the area of Old Cazadero Road north of Old Cazadero Road at Chimney Rock Road; and Pool Ridge Road.

6:00 p.m. Mapping the toll of the LNU fires: Cal Fire officials have begun the process of mapping out the status of homes and other structures within the area of the LNU Lightning Complex fires. The Cal Fire link identifies where homes or other buildings have been destroyed, damaged or without damage. The map does not identify addresses, but allows the user to zoom in to see street names and other features like lakes.

3:09 p.m. How to evacuate safely with your pets: Animals are just as vulnerable to the hazards of wildfires as their owners  from burns and smoke inhalation to secondary complications from evacuations. But there are ways to mitigate those risks, experts say, and it begins with a little bit of preparation. Read the whole story here.

3:05 p.m. Evacuation orders lifted for all of Scotts Valley in CZU Complex: Cal Fire announced that evacuation orders related to the CZU Lightning Complex were lifted for all of Scotts Valley, including unincorporated areas of Scotts Valley. Evacuation orders have also been lifted in Paradise Park and the Cave Gulch area, Cal Fire said. Please exercise caution when returning to your residences, as the City of Scotts Valley will continue to serve as the fire operations base camp, Cal Fire said in a statement. Expect to see a tremendous amount of emergency vehicles and fire personnel in the City while the fire continues to be battled in the San Lorenzo Valley.

12:57 p.m. Regulators search for answers on rolling blackouts: California utility regulators expect to publish an analysis in a few weeks about what caused the states recent rolling blackouts. They are pushing back at the idea that renewable energy was responsible. Read the story here.

11:21 a.m. August numbers staggering, with worst months of fire season to come: Cal Fire officials presented a stark picture of the 2020 fire season Thursday. To date, over 1.6 million acres have burned since Aug. 16. Last year at this time, that number was 55,000 acres. Since Aug. 15, 700 fires have sparked statewide  with 46 new fires in the last 24 hours.

11:15 a.m. LNU Complex firefight continues near Middletown: Cal Fire officials focused on the LNU Complex fire in Napa, Solano, Sonoma, Lake and Yolo counties said they were again focused on a region south and east of Middletown, currently the most intense front of that fire fight. Other areas affected by the LNU Complex are better off, with residents beign invited back to their homes.

10:57 a.m. Unhealthy conditions in air quality forecast: The air quality forecast for most of the Bay Area calls for unhealthy conditions for everyone in the inland portions of the East Bay and the Santa Clara Valley, with the air unhealthy for people with sensitivities and health conditions that make it more difficult to breathe in the rest of the region. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has issued a Spare the Air alert warning of unhealthy air through Friday.

8:22 a.m. LNU Complex grows 1,000 acres overnight: The inferno has burned 368,868 acres in five North Bay counties, while containment remained steady Thursday morning at 33%. About 2,300 first responders are fighting the fire, which has killed five people and destroyed more than 1,000 buildings.

7:30 a.m. SCU Complex grows, but so does containment: The SCU Complex, which has torched parts of seven Bay Area counties, grew by 1,300 acres overnight, to 368,671 in total. Containment improved, too, from 30% to 35%, Cal Fire said in an update Thursday morning.

7:23 a.m. Two men who live in evacuation zones missing in Santa Cruz County: Authorities asked for anyone with information on the whereabouts of Shane Smith, 21, and Micah Szoke, 37, to call the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Office at 831-471-1121. A third man who was missing was found alive Wednesday.

6:08 a.m. More progress against CZU Complex: The cluster of fires burning in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties grew by fewer than 200 acres overnight, Cal Fire officials said, to just over 81,000 acres in total. The fires are still 21% contained. Firefighteres are hoping to make progress again Thursday and continue cleanup efforts to slowly repopulate communities. Still, more than 23,000 structures remain threatened.
New Delhi, Sep 1 : Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, former Union ministers P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, and several other Congress leaders on Monday paid rich tributes to former President Pranab Mukherjee, who passed away at a hospital here.

"With great sadness, the nation receives the news of the unfortunate demise of our former President Pranab Mukherjee. I join the country in paying homage to him. My deepest condolences to the bereaved family and friends," Rahul Gandhi, the former Congress president, tweeted.

In a tweet, Sibal said: "Pranab Mukherjee, a colossus who strode the political firmament for decades. He guided the Congress party with his acumen and wealth of knowledge. In Opposition, he was a force to be reckoned with. He firmly believed in constitutional procedures. India has lost a great son." Senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury also condoled the death of former President.

In a series of tweets, he said: "The sad demise of former President of India Pranab Mukherjee is a remorseful moment for me. I have enjoyed a long association with him." "He was an epitome of an institution who during his entire political career had been exhausting all his energies for the growth of the nation. The loss of a man of prodigious dimension is simply irretrievable.

"He was the precious jewel adorning the crown of India for whom the interest of the nation was supreme, he was by all his virtues a true statesman. May God reposes his soul in peace and tranquillity," Chowdhury added.

Congress General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal tweeted: "Deepest condolences to Pranab da's family at this time of grief. Pranab da was an incredible leader, father, and friend. He will always be remembered for his innumerable contributions to our nation in the many positions he held. I will remember him fondly for his guidance and love." Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, at a press conference here, said: "There is no one in this country who does not know the life and contribution of Pranab Mukherjee. I had worked with him for many, many years, and worked with him very closely between 2004 and 2014." Chidambaram said Mukherjee had a phenomenal memory, a very sharp insight into political and economic developments, along with a thorough understanding of the economy, and matters that concerned the ordinary people.

"With his passing away, not only the Congress but the entire political spectrum of this country has lost a lifelong and a valiant soldier. To us in the Congress, it is an irreparable loss. Such a man or woman appears on the political scene very rarely. Pranab Mukherjee was such a rare man that he left an imprint on anything that he came in contact with," he said, adding: "We will miss him sorely, the nation will miss him sorely." The Congress party, expressing condolence over the death of the former President, posted on its official Twitter handle: "We are deeply pained by the passing away of Pranab Mukherjee -- former President of India and one of the tallest leaders of the Congress Party." "Mukherjee will always be remembered for his integrity and compassion. Our prayers are with his family, followers, and the nation." The party's national media in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala, condoling the death of the veteran Congress leader, said "an era has come to an end".

"Your thoughts, memories, and sense of commitment to the party, the people and the nation lives on... Rest in Peace Pranab Da," Surjewala tweeted." "Deeply saddened at the demise of former President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. The nation has lost a great leader, thinker, and statesman. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the nation. My heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, and supporters. May his soul rest in peace," another veteran Congress leader and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot tweeted.

The Congress veteran was admitted to the hospital at 12.07 p.m. on August 10. He was hospitalised for over 20 days. His condition turned critical following brain surgery.

Mukherjee was the President of India from 2012 to 2017. He was conferred the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award, in 2019, and the Padma Vibhushan in 2008.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
A breakthrough scanning technique for womens hearts has been found which could detect problems more quickly.

Doctors can often miss female cardiac issues because they do not show up like those suffered by men.

But a new in-depth scan displays the unique differences in womens hearts, particularly in older age.

Experts used radiomics image analysis with a high-powered computer more often used in cancer diagnosis.

Doctors can often miss female cardiac issues because they do not show up like those suffered by men (stock image of heart scan)

It revealed men have a more coarse heart muscle with a larger surface. Women appeared to have more tissue damage, scarring or stiffness in the muscle.

This may explain why females are more likely to suffer a specific type of heart failure and could help identify those at risk.

Dr Zahra Raisi-Estabragh, lead researcher of the study from Queen Mary University of London, said: If the differences which we have seen are linked to specific heart diseases then we could develop a blueprint to diagnose women, and men too, more quickly and accurately.

We could also give a healthy person a prediction of their chances of developing problems.

Scientists did MRI scans on the hearts of 309 men and 358 women aged 45 to 74. They then used radiomics to analyse the main pumping chamber, the left ventricle. Older females heart muscles appeared brighter in scans, which may indicate damage and stiffness.

This could explain why women more often suffer heart failure where it pumps normally but cannot get enough blood around.

At least half of the cases in females are of this type.

It may also be caused by the muscles in womens organ having a smaller surface area than men, which was also seen in the cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) scans.

As conditions like type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol cause changes in the heart, the scans could be used to try to detect peoples risk of these problems too.

Experts believe men and womens organs are different due to different levels of hormones.

Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, of the British Heart Foundation which funded the research, said: CMR scans give us a wealth of information about the heart.
Vietnam will issue new technical regulations for terminal devices of terrestrial mobile communication, which will include integrating 4G into such devices.

The webinar to assess the impacts of a draft circular on national technical regulations on terminal devices of terrestrial mobile communication

The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) last week held a webinar to assess the impacts of a draft circular on national technical regulations on terminal devices of terrestrial mobile communication.

According to representative of the MICs Information Technology Department, the building of national technical regulations on terminal devices of terrestrial mobile communication is one of the breakthrough solutions to spur domestic business and manufacturing activities. The draft circular includes the requirement that terminal devices of terrestrial mobile communication must be integrated with 4G.

The building of the draft draws on lessons from a range of other countries including Singapore, where terminal device manufacturers and suppliers have to ensure their support of IMT-2000 technology, which are 3G and LTE-Advanced (4G).

Addressing the event, Phan Tam, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications, said that technology changes constantly, especially mobile communication. Globally, some countries have deployed 5G, and Vietnam is among the pioneers.

Vietnam, agencies, and businesses related terminal device manufacturing and trading and mobile operations are not exempt from this trend. The government's goals for national digital transformation cannot be realised on 2G, he noted.

The deputy minister asked agencies and businesses to discuss measures and solutions to accelerate the transformation in a way that minimises impacts on businesses and the locals.

Currently, the draft circular is available for comments on the MIC portal.

The trend of online applications has been blossoming, especially in the COVID-19 landscape. In addition, the governments Decision No.749/QD-TTg dated June 3, 2020 on the approval of the national digital transformation programme by 2025 with vision to 2030 creates the foundation for digital transformation in digital infrastructure development: 5G network infrastructure; upgrading of 4G; commercialisation of 5G; and building regulations and a roadmap for the integration of 4G and 5G into smartphones and IoT devices.

At present, Vietnam has six mobile telecommunications service providers with over 129 million subscribers. 2G, 3G, 4G are available, and 5G will be commercialised soon.

Addressing the webinar, some mobile telecommunications service providers recommended that it is time to consider turning off 2G, maybe by 2025. 4G will bring about more values but needs time to develop services. However, the extension of 2G will facilitate businesses and associations of transportation businesses because over one million automobiles are equipped with 2G-based cruise control devices, in addition to many fishing boats. VIR

Bich Thuy
By the Rev. Dr. Charles F. Boyer

The effects of COVID-19 are worsening the racial inequities in health care that have burdened our communities for too long. Black and Latinx people in the United States are three times more likely to be infected by COVID-19 than white people and twice as likely to die from it.

Across the board, Black workers are more likely than white workers to have jobs deemed essential, but less likely to have employer-paid sick days and adequate health insurance to go to the doctor.

In 1966, The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. remarked that injustice in health care was the most shocking and inhumane form of inequality. More than half a century later, we are forced to reckon with a crisis of health-care inequality that threatens the lives of those we have deemed as essential to a functioning society and economy.

New Jersey legislators can take action now to help right this injustice for about 10,000 mostly Black and Latinx workers in our state by passing the Healthy Terminals Act (S989/A2487). This bill requires employers of contracted airport workers at Newark Liberty International Airport and its train terminal to pay at least $2 an hour more than any state or Port Authority minimum wage, starting in 2021. It also requires a stipend for urgently needed health care, plus paid sick leave. For most of the wheelchair attendants, baggage handlers, cleaners, food service workers and others at the airport, the health insurance their employers offer currently is too expensive.

The labor union local SEIU 32BJ has already won for represented airport workers wage increases that helped lift them out of poverty so that they can afford food and rent. Many now make too much to qualify for Medicaid and/or Medicare  but not enough to afford health insurance on top of other bills. These workers are putting their lives on the line servicing the billion-dollar airline industry and shouldnt be uninsured or underinsured, least of all during a pandemic.

A New York State version of the bill, already approved by their legislature, covers workers at John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. In mid August in New Jersey, the Senate Labor Committee voted to release the bill, which was then referred to Senate Budget and Appropriations. The Assembly has yet to act at all. I am counting on the Legislature to do the right thing and move this bill through both chambers swiftly.

The Healthy Terminals Act isnt a new idea. Federally contracted airport workers are already covered by a similar law. San Francisco and Los Angeles have also mandated health care supplements for contracted airport workers. New Jersey airport workers need and deserve it, too.

Largely because of the coronavirus, the Black death rate in New Jersey increased by 68% in the first seven months of 2020, compared to a normal year, versus a 28% increase among whites. The difference stems from a lack of access to preventative care, the effects of toxic stress from enduring racism, and the fact that Black Americans are more likely to suffer from pre-existing conditions that make us vulnerable if we get the virus.

In fact, Black workers are 60% more likely to lack health insurance than white ones. And, Black workers are more likely to live in multigenerational households with high-risk members, which means a greater exposure risk to entire families.

We need to do everything we can to protect workers and their families  and that includes ensuring that they can afford adequate health insurance.

Passing the Healthy Terminals Act is an important step we can take right now. Im calling on both houses of the Legislature to approve it soon.

The Rev. Dr. Charles F. Boyer is the founder of the Salvation and Social Justice nonprofit group and the pastor of Bethel AME Church in Woodbury.

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Whats new: The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and Hong Kongs Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) have approved the first four exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to be listed in Shenzhen and Hong Kong under a new program, widening access for investors to put money into each others stock market.

The CSRC has approved two ETFs to be listed in Shenzhen, each of which will invest at least 90% of its assets in an SFC-authorized ETF currently listed in Hong Kong through the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) mechanism, it said (link in Chinese) on Friday. The QDII program, launched in 2006, allows Chinese mainland companies to invest in offshore securities.

The SFC also said in a statement on the same day that two ETFs it approved will each invest 90% or more of their total net asset value in a CSRC-approved ETF currently listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange through the Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (RQFII) program. Launched in 2011, Chinas RQFII program allows overseas investors to buy mainland securities.

Caixin has learned from sources with knowledge of the matter that the two ETFs the CSRC approved are managed by Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd. and Yinhua Fund Management Co. Ltd.

The two ETFs approved by the SFC are managed by Hang Seng Investment Management Ltd. and CSOP Asset Management Ltd., the sources said.

Whats the background: The scheme is a testament to the deepening of cooperation between the Mainland and Hong Kong capital markets, and will provide Hong Kong and Mainland investors with more investment opportunities and product choices through access to each others market, the SFC said in the statement.

The new arrangement comes as China aims to further open up its financial markets.

In May 2019, China and Japan approved six similar cross-border ETFs to make it easier for investors to access stock markets in both countries.

Quick Takes are condensed versions of China-related stories for fast news you can use. To read the full Caixin article in Chinese, click here.

Related: In Depth: Progress and Pitfalls for Foreign Investors in Chinas Capital Markets

Contact reporter Timmy Shen (hongmingshen@caixin.com) and editor Marcus Ryder (marcusryder@caixin.com)

Support quality journalism in China. Subscribe to Caixin Global starting at $0.99.
The extent of Western Australia's "hidden health crisis" has been laid bare, with one regional city outranking Melbourne in overdose deaths and the state recording unprecedented overdose figures, according to the latest data from the Penington Institute.

Mandurah, already suffering huge rates in unemployment due to COVID-19, has now been named WA's drug overdose capital. Credit:iStockphoto

More people from WA die from unintentional drug overdoses than anywhere else in the country, but in the state's regions, it's Mandurah where the majority of these fatalities occur.

"In the five years between 2014 and 2018, there were 66 unintentional overdose deaths in Mandurah," Penington Institute chief John Ryan said.

"That's a staggering three-fold increase on the number of unintentional overdose deaths recorded during the previous five-year period. That's an unacceptably high number, and it's 66 too many."
KIGALI: Rwanda said it had arrested Paul Rusesabagina - the man who was hailed a hero in a Hollywood movie about the countrys 1994 genocide - on terrorism charges, and paraded him in front of the media in handcuffs.

Rusesabagina was played by Don Cheadle in the Oscar-nominated film Hotel Rwanda which told the story of how he used his job as a hotel manager and his connections with the Hutu elite to protect Tutsis fleeing the slaughter.

On Monday, two police officers brought the 66-year-old to a press conference at the headquarters of the Rwanda Investigations Bureau and let media film him and take photographs.

Rusesabagina, who wore a facemask, did not speak. He has said in the past he is the victim of a smear campaign in Rwanda.

Rusesabagina is suspected of being a founder or a leader or sponsor or member of violent armed extremist terror outfits  operating out of various places in the region and abroad," the bureaus spokesman, Thierry Murangira, told journalists.

He said Rusesabagina would face several charges including terrorism, financing terrorism  arson, kidnap and murder."

The bureau said on Twitter he had been arrested through international cooperation", and had been the subject of an international arrest warrant, without going into further details.

Rusesabagina, a critic of President Paul Kagame, moved abroad after the genocide and won worldwide acclaim, receiving the United States highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2005.

But back home he has sparked outrage with warnings of another genocide, this time by Tutsis against Hutus. He has drawn criticism from some genocide survivors and Kagame who accused him of exploiting the genocide for commercial gain.

In 2010, the prosecutor general told Reuters that authorities had evidence Rusesabagina had funded terrorist groups, though no charges were brought.

Authorities have since said he had a role in a string of alleged attacks by National Liberation Front (FLN) rebels in southern Rwanda along the border with Burundi in 2018.

Rusesabagina, whose father was Hutu but mother and wife were Tutsi, has denied exaggerating his role in rescuing Tutsis. He has not publicly responded to the charges of supporting armed groups.

About 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered in 100 days in the central African nation from April 6, 1994.

Soldiers of the then Hutu-led government and ethnic militia allies orchestrated the genocide in which victims were hacked to death with machetes, burned alive or shot.

The killings ended when Tutsi rebels, led by Kagame, seized control and triggered an exodus of more than 2 million Hutus.

(Editing by Elias Biryabarema and Andrew Heavens)
A northern suburbs daycare worker is being investigated by police after parents complained of scratches on their child.

Suspicions were first raised after up to six families reported their children had come home from the Goodstart Early Learning centre with scratch injuries, with another child at the centre initially thought to be responsible.

However, last week a worker at the northern suburbs centre  which cannot be identified for legal reasons  was sacked, and child abuse squad detectives are investigating on the back of a complaint from the parents of a three-year-old child.

Goodstart, a not-for-profit which operates hundreds of centres around Australia, said the accused carer had completed a working with children check and received regular, mandatory training on child safety.
Seven out of every 10 people in Kilkenny are worried about their job security, according to a new report from Irish recruitment company, FRS Recruitment. In total 73% of people in Kilkenny are concerned about their employment prospects, a figure above the national figure with 46% worried about their job security across the country.

The FRS Recruitment Employment Insights Survey also revealed that 70% of people in Kilkenny believe they would secure a new job within 3 months. Nationally 2 out of 3 (66%) would expect to secure a new role within that timeframe.

If their current job was at risk, 83% of people in Kilkenny would consider a reduction in their working week. This is higher than the national average of 76%. When asked if they would consider a pay cut in those circumstances, 50% of Kilkenny people said they would, lower than the national average of 56%.

Four in every 10 employees in Kilkenny are expecting a wage increase in the next 12 months, with 40% believing they are due a raise. This is slightly below the national average of 51%.

While almost 8 out of every 10 people in Kilkenny (78%) would like to remote work some or all of the time.

When choosing a new job/ organisation, the salary on offer (28%) and the job itself (28%) are the most important factors for people in Kilkenny.

A total of 1,951 people across the country participated in the survey. FRS Recruitment is one of the leading recruitment businesses operating in Ireland. They have 10 offices nationwide, with locations in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Tipperary, Limerick, Kerry, Kilkenny, Offaly, Cavan and Roscommon. A 100% Irish business, FRS Recruitment is part of the FRS Network  the social enterprise co-operative. Further information is available on www.frsrecruitment.com

Speaking about the survey results, Colin Donnery, General Manager of FRS Recruitment said, People in Kilkenny and across the country are thinking very carefully about their employment prospects in light of the pandemic. There is a lot of uncertainty out there. However some comfort should be taken that the Irish people are considerably more optimistic about their employment prospects than they were ahead of the last recession when nationally six out of every 10 people feared for their job security.

It is also important to note, that even in these disrupted circumstances, there is still a bright outlook for employees. Four in every 10 workers in Kilkenny believe they will get a wage increase over the course of the coming year, while 70% believe they would find new employment within 3 months if they were unfortunate enough to lose their jobs.

This confidence aligns with separate research we have conducted on employer attitudes, with 60% saying they are currently either hiring or planning on hiring in the next 6 months. The jobs market is an effective canary in the coalmine when it comes to illustrating economic reality, so all of this is a positive indicator for the countrys employment outlook.

It is also interesting to note how the pandemic has impacted ways of working, with both employees and employers being strongly in favour of remote working options being available. Both businesses and workers have seen the benefits that can arise from remote working as part of day to day operations, with most recognising that productivity levels have not diminished. That has created an appetite for utilising this approach on an ongoing basis, with almost 8 out of every 10 people in Kilkenny wanting to undertake some remote working as part of their employment. Given the demand for remote working in Kilkenny and around the country, businesses will have to consider offering this as part of their employee packages in future, Mr. Donnery concluded.
Armie Hammer is living and spending time with a family friend following his split with Elizabeth Chambers.

The 34-year-old actor shared a shot of his friend, whose name is Ashton Ramsey, as they embarked on a hike at California's Joshua Tree National Park.

'This one of my best friends, Ashton. For the last 2 months or so I have lived with Ashton, worked construction with Ashton, and hiked with Ashton every day,' the Santa Monica, California native said. 'He has been such a good friend (and boss) and has been the most supportive friend anyone could ever ask for.

Support circle: Armie Hammer is living and spending time with a family friend following his split with Elizabeth Chambers. The actor, 34, on Friday shared a shot of his friend, whose name is Ashton Ramsey, as they embarked on a hike at California's Joshua Tree National Park

'Today might be my birthday, but I just wanna say thank you to @ashtonramsey and say I love you dude.'

The Call Me by Your Name leading man and Chambers, 38, said last month that they were splitting up.

'Thirteen years as best friends, soulmates, partners and then parents. It has been an incredible journey, but together, weve decided to turn the page and move on from our marriage,' Chambers and Hammer, who are parents to daughter Harper, five, and son Ford, three, said in a joint statement July 10.

The parted pair said they would remain cordial and friendly in the wake of the parting.

Parting: The Call Me by Your Name leading man and Chambers, 38, said last month that they were splitting up. They were snapped at the Oscars two years ago

Focused: The Hollywood actor was pictured appearing on The Tonight Show last year

'As we enter into this new chapter, our children and relationship as co-parents and dear friends will remain our priority,' they said. 'We understand this news lends itself to public dialogue, but in the interest of our children and our family, were asking for privacy, compassion and love during this time.'

Hammer wrote on Instagram of the split: 'Thirteen years as best friends, soulmates, partners and then parents. It has been an incredible journey, but together, we've decided to turn the page and move on from our marriage.'

Chambers, who exchanged vows with the actor in May of 2010, wrote to Hammer, 'You are loved' in an Instagram Stories post on Friday.

In filing for divorce in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Chambers cited 'irreconcilable differences' in the relationship; she has asked for primary physical custody and joint legal custody of the kids.

An insider previously told US that the split had been inevitable with the way the couple had drifted apart.

'They have been having trouble in their marriage for quite a while and each doing their own thing,' the source told the outlet of the couple, who had spent the earlier part of the COVID-19 in the lockdown in the Cayman Islands.

A separate source told the outlet that the pair remained focused on parenting amid the tough times, as 'their children are their top priority and always will be.'

The source added, 'Right now, their biggest concern is their children and how this change will impact them ... the split is amicable and they will work through this difficult time with love and respect.'
Tanner Jameson, age 20, from McKinney, Texas unexpectedly passed away early Saturday morning, August 22, 2020, leaving his family and friends with a giant-sized hole in their hearts. His death was a tragic accident and it is gut-wrenching for us, but it was also classic Tanner. He died being exactly who he was...carefree, happy, goofy, fearless, and unapologetically himself.



Tanner was born on June 9, 2000 in La Plata, Maryland. He lived in Mechanicsville, Maryland until July of 2017 when he moved to McKinney, Texas with his mom, sister and niece to be near his brother who was attending University of Dallas. He attended McKinney Boyd High School for his Senior year, and was currently enrolled in Collin College in McKinney studying audio engineering while simultaneously carrying a full load of lawn maintenance contracts for the family's lawn care business.



Tanner was an avid skateboarder, gathering multiple broken skateboards and bones along the way. He was a gifted artist from the time he was little which led to him purchasing a tattoo gun, tatting himself for hours (them legs!!) and then ultimately doling out tattoos to whomever was lucky enough (maybe brave enough?) to let him practice on them (note that if you're one of those lucky ones, treasure that tattoo...it's even more special now). He was also an extremely talented music producer, spending hours upon hours perfecting dope beats for people to buy. He loved it. He was awesome at it. He was proud of it, and he should have been.



Tanner was kind, sweet, patient, loving and caring. He was one of the best "Girl Uncles" on the planet, evidenced not only by the hundreds of selfies found on his phone of him and his niece, Ellie-Rae, but by the multiple pictures of him with bows in his hair or nail polish on his fingers courtesy of Ellie. He was her playmate, her model, her comfy place. Now he is her guardian angel, a job he will be awesome at. She's a lucky little girl.



Tanner is survived by his mother Jerilynn Jameson of McKinney, his sister Kayce Jameson of McKinney, his brother Tucker Jameson of McKinney, his niece Ellie-Rae Jameson of McKinney, his grandparents Jackie and Jerry Wallmark of Fort Mill, SC, his aunt and uncle Kristin and Alan Kagen of Frisco, Texas, and his cousins Kylie Cammon of Dallas and Jonah Kagen of Frisco. We love you. We miss you. But we see you here (close your eyes), we feel you here (put your hand on your heart), and we hold you here (big squeeze). Look over us and protect us when you're not giving the Big Guy Upstairs some fresh ink.



He is also survived by his father Ronald Jameson of Mechanicsville, Maryland, his grandmother Patsy Jameson of Summerfield, Florida, his aunts and uncles Karen and Ed White of Brandywine, Maryland, and Jamie and Paul Jameson of Hollywood, Maryland, and his cousins Dylan White of Brandywine, Maryland, and Campbell, Ryan, Ian and Tyler Jameson of Hollywood, Maryland. He is predeceased by his grandfather Leonard Jameson of Byrdstown, Tennessee.
Around 43 per cent of the total coronavirus cases in India have been recorded from just three states, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, the Union health ministry said on Monday.

IMAGE: Municipal workers wearing PPE prepare to cremate the mortal remains of a COVID-19 patient, in Karad, on Saturday. . Photograph: PTI Photo



It asserted that the Centre is regularly engaging with the states and Union Territories that are reporting a spurt in cases and those with a higher fatality rate.

Such states and Union Territories have been advised to undertake aggressive measures to ensure higher testing, effective clinical management to lower fatality and save lives along with efficient monitoring at various levels, the health ministry said.

'India has registered 78,512 cases in the last 24 hours (August 30). Hence the report by certain media entities of about 80,000 cases in the last 24 hours is without any basis,' it said.

The ministry also said that seven states have contributed to 70 per cent of these new cases in the last 24 hours.

Of these, Maharashtra has contributed the maximum caseload amounting to almost 21 per cent, followed by Andhra Pradesh 13.5 per cent, Karnataka 11.27 per cent and Tamil Nadu with 8.27 per cent.

Of the total number of cases, around 43 per cent were recorded in just three states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, it said.

Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka also account for about 50 per cent of the deaths added in the last 24 hours due to COVID-19, with Maharashtra leading with 30.48 per cent, the ministry said.

The coronavirus tally in India crossed 36 lakh on Monday with 78,512 new cases, while the number of recoveries surged to 27,74,801, pushing the recovery rate to 76.62 per cent, according to the health ministry data.

The death toll climbed to 64,469 with 971 more people succumbing to the infection in 24 hours.

India has exhibited a determination to expand testing. This has led to an exponential hike in the number of COVID-19 testing, the ministry said.

Starting from a single test in one lab in Pune in January, the daily testing capacity has been scaled up to more than 10 lakh in August 2020.

The cumulative tests have crossed 4.23 crore with 8,46,278 tests conducted in the past 24 hours.
By Arthur I. Cyr





"A riddle, wrapped in an enigma, inside a mystery."



Winston Churchill described the Soviet Union with those words. He was speaking in October 1939, right after World War II commenced in Europe.



Churchill's words have direct importance for continuing and current developments in the strange world of Vladimir Putin's Russia. The regime, society and underlying culture remain fundamentally different from those of the United States and the wider Western world.



Alexei Navalny, a prominent and influential Russian opposition leader, is currently in a coma. German doctors state he was poisoned. Navalny is now in Berlin, flown in a secure German aircraft for specialist medical treatment.



In Britain on March 4, 2018, a police officer found Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury, a city near London. Authorities immediately hospitalized them in intensive care. The nerve agent also sickened the officer, likewise hospitalized.



They were the victims of an extremely rare chemical not readily available to the public, or even the criminal underworld. The military nerve agent is a product of Russia.



Skripal worked for the GRU, the military intelligence arm of Russia's government. He also started working as a double agent for British intelligence in 1995.



In 2006, a Russia court convicted him and imposed a prison sentence of 13 years. In 2010, authorities freed him as part of a U.S.-Russian spy swap, following the exposure of a ring of Russian espionage agents in the United States.



In September 2018, opposition activist Peter Verzilov became severely ill after a court hearing related to a protest and his subsequent arrest. He also was flown to Berlin for specialist medical treatment, where poisoning was diagnosed as the likely cause.



Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition leader and journalist, suffered two severe health attacks in 2015 and 2017. The diagnosis in each case was probable poisoning. He is vice chairman of Open Russia, an organization founded by successful business entrepreneur Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a strong Putin opponent who has been persecuted and imprisoned.



A particularly prominent victim is Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London in November 2006 from acute radiation poisoning. Litvinenko was a former colleague of Putin in the KGB, the principal arm of state security in the Soviet Union, an agency rightly feared for its ruthless methods and effective results. Putin is a product of the KGB's distinctive culture.



Litvinenko defected to Britain, where he until silenced was a prominent and influential public critic of Putin and the government of Russia. After a meticulous thorough investigation, representatives of Scotland Yard testified in a public inquiry the Russian government was involved in his killing.



Earlier, critics of Russia's regime sometimes died violently gangland style, in public. In early 2009, in a public street near the Kremlin on a sunny day, a gunman murdered activist attorney Stanislav Markelov. Journalist Anastasia Baburova was murdered as well, trying to aid him. The hit man was a practiced pro, his pistol equipped with a silencer.



Markelov had publicly denounced the early release from prison of Colonel Yuri Budanov, sentenced to 10 years for strangling a woman during the war in Chechnya.



Churchill observed "the key" to Russia was national interest. Alliance with the Soviet Union was vital during World War II, when our interests joined.



Today, as in the past, national interest should guide policy. Scientific collaboration, including space exploration, should continue. NATO should shield Europe. We must condemn criminal behavior, including election meddling.





Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of "After the Cold War" (NYU Press and Macmillan). Contact acyr@carthage.edu


Hearst Connecticut Media / Tara O'Neill

NEW HAVEN  A 37-year-old West Haven man was shot and killed in the citys Newhallville neighborhood on Sunday night, according to police.

Jerome Christopher Moye, 37, of West Haven, was shot around 8:15 p.m. Sunday on Hazel Street, police spokesman Capt. Anthony Duff said.
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Linkedin Stephen Weizman (Agence France-Presse) Jerusalem  Mon, August 31, 2020 07:10 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c4189e90 2 World Israel,Arab-nations,Arab-states,normalization,diplomatic-relations Free

Israel is in secret talks with several Arab states on establishing ties, premier Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, ahead of the Jewish state's first commercial flight to the UAE following a normalization accord.

"There are many more unpublicized meetings with Arab and Muslim leaders to normalize relations with the state of Israel," the prime minister said, without naming any countries.

A US-brokered agreement between the Jewish state and Dubai to normalize ties was announced on August 13, making the UAE the first Gulf country and only the third Arab nation to establish relations with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan.

The first-ever commercial flight from Israel to the UAE will on Monday morning carry a US-Israeli delegation led on the American side by White House advisor Jared Kushner, who stood next to Netanyahu during the Israeli premier's remarks on Sunday.

"Today's breakthrough will become tomorrow's norms," Netanyahu said.

"It will pave the way for other countries to normalize their ties with Israel."

Netanyahu's office said last week that National Security Advisor Meir Ben Shabbat will lead the Israeli delegation.

The talks in Abu Dhabi will seek ways to boost cooperation in areas including aviation, tourism, trade, health, energy and security, Netanyahu's office said.

Since the agreement between the UAE and Israel was unveiled, there have been frequent bilateral phone calls between ministers and the signing of commercial contracts.

On Saturday, the Emirates repealed a 1972 law boycotting Israel.

"It will be permissible to enter, exchange or possess Israeli goods and products of all kinds in the UAE and trade in them," read a federal decree issued by UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.

'New sense of optimism'

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week undertook a regional tour, which took him to Sudan, Bahrain and Oman, in the hope of convincing other countries in the region to follow the Emiratis.

"While this peace agreement was thought to be impossible, the stage is now set for more," Kushner said of the Israel-UAE accord on Sunday.

"What I felt over the last couple of weeks is a new sense of optimism, and we must seize that optimism and we must continue to push to make this region achieve the potential that it really has."

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who also met with Kushner on Sunday, called on "other Arab and Muslim states to follow this path of friendship and to establish full and warm relations with the State of Israel - peace between nations and peoples, peace for peace."

As part of the normalization agreement announced by US President Donald Trump, Israel agreed to suspend planned annexations in the occupied West Bank, although Netanyahu quickly insisted the plans remained on the table in the long-run.

The Palestinians dubbed the UAE's agreement with Israel a "stab in the back", as it opens the Arab world to the Jewish state while their own conflict remains unresolved.

Saudi Arabia, in keeping with decades of policy by most Arab states, says it will not follow the UAE's example until Israel has signed a peace deal with the Palestinians establishing an independent Palestinian state.
Condoling the demise of former President Pranab Mukherjee, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on August 31 described him as a "guide" for the Sangh and said he didn't believe in political untouchability.

Mukherjee was an able administrator who kept national interest supreme, Bhagwat said in a joint statement along with RSS general secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi.

Mukherjee didn't practice political untouchability and was respected by all parties, the statement said.

"He was a guide for Sangh and was affectionate towards the organisation and his passing away is irreparable loss to the RSS," it added.

Mukherjee was attacked by the Congress itself in June 2018 for attending an event of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh the ideological mentor of the ruling BJP.

But later, the Congress was all appreciation after Mukherjee in his speech emphasised that the soul of India is pluralism, tolerance and inclusion.

In his speech, Mukherjee had warned that any attempt to define India through "religion, hatred, dogmas and intolerance" will dilute our existence and said public discourses must be freed of all forms of violence.

Mukherjee's message to hundreds of "pracharaks" and top-brass of the RSS, which is often described as a Hindu right-wing organisation, was described as a "mirror of truth to the RSS" by the Congress, whose several leaders had earlier been critical of his decision to attend the event here at the Sangh headquarters.
The Traveller family who were due to move into a house which was destroyed in an overnight fire are said to be devastated by the development.

Gardai in Galway are investigating the blaze at the house at Carnmore near Galway Airport, which was discovered shortly before 5am this morning.

Galway City Council have told the family that the house at Kiltulla on the outskirts of the city will be fully restored and allocated to them.

Council officials have been in touch with the family, who currently live in a rat-infested site at Carrowbrowne off the Headford Road.

The family were due to soon move into the house near Galway Airport in Carnmore which was purchased for over 388,000 earlier this year, with several more thousand allocated to renovate the four-bedroom dwelling.

Independent.ie can reveal this is the second incident reported at the property in recent weeks.

Tradesman carrying out repair works on the house were intimidated and blocked from leaving the property.



In the latest incident its understood a number bales of wrapped silage were placed across the entrance to house.

Fire experts also believe some form of accelerant was used to ignite the blaze which has caused significant structural damage to the house.

Nobody was injured in the incident.

Expand Close Galway fire brigade was drafted to the scene near the former Galway airport site shortly before 5am Photo: Ray Ryan / Facebook

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Whatsapp Galway fire brigade was drafted to the scene near the former Galway airport site shortly before 5am Photo: Ray Ryan

The four bedroom home had been unoccupied for a number of years.

The move was opposed by local residents and also by some councillors who voiced concern about city authority purchasing a house in a Galway County Council area.

Former city mayor, Cllr Niall McNeilis, said there is concern that the fire might have been started deliberately to prevent the Traveller family moving in there.

If this is arson then it is 100 steps backwards for society, he said.

Expand Close Gardai at the scene following a fire at an unoccupied house in the Carnmore area of Galway Photo: Ray Ryan / Facebook

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Dermot Mahon, Acting Director of Services in the housing department, in a memo to councillors, said the house was comprehensively damaged by the fire.

Council staff were on site this morning to assess the damage. The property was insured and a report will be prepared and issued to our insurers. Our legal representatives have been informed.

The cause of the fire is not yet known and An Garda Siochana are investigating.

The family to whom the property is to be allocated are devastated and we have been in contact with them. Housing staff will be meeting them later today.

I will also be meeting the family tomorrow to give them assurances that we intend to refurbish the property and allocate it to them as planned, said Mr Mahon in the communication to councillors.

Another former city mayor, Cllr Noel Larkin, said that there had been tension in the area since the house was purchased for the Traveller family.

It is unfortunate this has happened. It could be accidental, it could be an electrical fault, but Im sure the property was well insured, he told Galway Bay FM.

There was quite a bit of tension in the area. I have been vocal about it. We need to find a solution to our housing problem, we have 3,700 on our housing list.

But I dont think the solution is buying a house in an area without consulting with the locals. Its not that people are racist, if people have genuine fears for their own property, then they must be addressed.

And in this case the very fact that Galway City Council outbid two young couples that were trying to purchase that property in the beginning seems to me to be a bit of an outrage, people who are paying taxes were outbid by the council. Where is the equity and fairness in that? It doesnt seem right to me, he said.

A Garda spokesman said investigations are ongoing.

Gardai are investigating a fire that took place at a derelict house at Kiltulla, Oranmore, County Galway, at approximately 5:10am on Monday August 31 2020.

No injuries were reported but there was significant damage to the house. The fire was extinguished by Galway Fire Services.

Investigations are ongoing into this matter.
Macfrut, the organizer of the worlds largest fruit and vegetable fair, has launched the Macfrut Digital fair scheduled to take place in Cesena, Italy between 8th to 10th September. The fair, which is the first and only digital trade fair for the fresh produce industry is being held in partnership with ICE, the Italian Trade Agency, and seeks to showcase fresh fruits and vegetable produce from across the globe.



The fair has over 530 exhibition spaces, 40% of which will be hosted by foreign companies, and has so far registered 600 buyers from all over the world with over 4,000 visitors registered.



A number of players in the fruit and vegetable sector within the agribusiness industry in Ghana will be taking part in Macfrut Digital thanks to the support provided by ICE and the United Nations Organization for Industrial Development (UNIDO). Benefits to accrue to participants include an opportunity to showcase their produce to the world and have direct connection to hundreds of buyers from around the world.



Renzo Piraccini, President of Macfrut, explains: We have embarked on a new adventure and we can safely say that the fruit and vegetable sector has responded extremely well. We believe that we are pioneering a project that has huge potential, which was unimaginable until a few months ago. The fact that the health emergency is ongoing, resulting in a level of uncertainty at international level, demonstrates that we made the right decision, which has changed the way we approach the sector.



Exhibitors, including those from Ghana, will have a privileged channel where they will be able to communicate with the over 600 buyers that have already registered on the platform and organize B2B meetings. Macfrut Digital will offer two levels of interaction: one for visitors, who will be able to visit the virtual stands, communicate with each other, ask for information and make contact to schedule business meetings, and the other for exhibitors, who will be able to schedule B2B meetings with buyers through a programmed agenda.



Dr. Alessandro Gerbino, the Head of ITA for Ghana, Nigeria and Cote dIvoire, has implored vegetable and fruit producers to take advantage of Macfrut Digital to expand and grow their businesses. According to him every misfortune presents an opportunity and we believe the decision of Macfrut to go virtual this year offers an excellent chance for the thousands of vegetable and fruit producers in Africa to take part to showcase their produce to the world.



The event can be accessed from any Internet device (PC or smartphone), while B2B meetings will be accessible online but only from PC, via a dedicated link provided by organizers of the event.



Registration for the event is free. Interested participants can access the registration portal from this link: www.macfrut.com/en/c/135/macfrut_registration









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National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested a person identified as Rajakbhai Kumbhar from West Kachchh in Gujarat in connection with the investigation of Defence/ISI case of Uttar Pradesh. Kumbhar, a supervisor at Mundra dockyard, has been found to be working as an ISI agent.

This case arose out of FIR No.01/2020 dated January 19 at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh pertaining to the arrest of accused Md Rashid of Chandoli district in Uttar Pradesh.

Notably, the case was re-registered by NIA on April 6, 2020 under section 123 of IPC and sections 13, 17 & 18 of UAPA Act. During investigation, it was revealed that accused Md. Rashid was in contact with Defense/ISI handlers of Pakistan and had visited Pakistan twice. He had also transmitted photographs of some sensitive and strategically important installations in India and also shared information about the movement of the armed forces with his ISI handlers in Pakistan.

Investigation further revealed that accused Rajakbhai Kumbhar worked as an ISI agent and transferred an amount of Rs.5,000/ through Paytm in the account of one Rizwan which was further handed over to the main accused Md. Rashid. This amount was remitted to accused Md. Rashid by Rajakbhai Kumbhar on the directions of ISI handlers in lieu of the information supplied by Md. Rashid to ISI agents.

A search was conducted at the house of accused Rajakbhai Kumbhar on August 27 and several incriminating documents were seized.
UPDATE: The AMBER alert issued for Shamada Howard was canceled Monday night after she was located, ALEA reported.

Original story continues here:

Authorities are asking for the publics help in finding a 15-year-old girl who disappeared early Sunday morning near Montgomery.

Shamada Howard, 15, was last seen around 3 a.m. Sunday near Malone Court in Prattville. She was wearing a gray shirt with Boss on it, blue shorts and a wig, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said Monday.

Shamada was described as 5-foot 3-inches tall, 180 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information on Shamadas whereabouts was asked to call Prattville police at 334-595-0208 or 911.
Prior to the reopening of the Kotoka International Airport on Tuesday, September 1, 2020, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has visited the airport to inspect the preparedness of the facility for full operations.



President Akufo-Addo on August 16, 2020, announced in his address to the nation on the Covid-19 pandemic that the country is set to open up its air borders due to ongoing measures being put in place to control the spread of the new coronavirus at the airport.



As part of the safety measures at the Kotoka International Airport, the management of the Ghana Airport Company Limited and the government have conducted simulation exercises and drills to ascertain the full implementation of the safety protocols.



The exercise according to the Aviation Minister Hon Joseph Addah is also to see that the International Airport is ready to prevent importation of the virus into the country through arriving flight ahead of the September 1, 2020 airport reopening.



On his visit to see for himself the readiness of the reopening, President Nana Akufo-Addo described the reopening as a big step that needs a rigorous procedure to execute.



We have to make sure the procedures are tight and that they work so that people are not too inconvenienced, he said.



He was in the company of the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, and Aviation Minister, Joseph Kofi Addah.



Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye however explained to President Akufo-Addo the procedures passengers arriving in the country have to go through before they can touch the soil of the country.



The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service again hinted that those who will test positive to the Covid-19 will be given different nose masks in order not to infect others at the Airport; adding that the test will be done and the result given within 30 minutes.



He added that cubicles have been provided for the testing of passengers at the Kotoka International Airport and as well as those who will be tested positive.



The management of the Ghana Airport Company Limited also assured the President that plans have been made to ensure that passengers arriving in the country have their nose masks on in the flight and the nose masks will be changed for the passengers when they touch down.





Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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As essential services like hospitals, healthcare clinics and grocery and home improvement stores remained open during the pandemic, it was unsurprising when the data revealed that first responders and healthcare workers filed the greatest number of workers compensation indemnity claims related to COVID-19. The group accounted for over 65% of the total claims made in the state as of July 31, 2020.

Of the claims filed related to COVID-19, 4,345 were filed by protective service workers filing claims. Another 3,432 was filed by healthcare workers, and another 2,897 claims were filed by people classified as service workers  an umbrella category for workers in restaurants, hotels, grocery stores and other retailers.

The state report noted that of the 11,872 indemnity claims filed as of July 31, 5,527 were filed with private insurance companies. About 55% of those claims were denied or partly denied by the insurers.

By comparison, private self-insured funds denied or partially denied 30% of claims, while government self-insured funds denied or partially denied 31%.

In terms of individual counties in Florida, Miami-Dade County leads the state in the number of pandemic infections and workers compensation claims. According to the report, the county accounted for 34% of the indemnity claims filed as of July 31.

News Service of Florida reported that the state report does not include information on medical-only claims, and instead focuses on indemnity claims  claims involving workers injured for at least eight days and are eligible to recoup lost wages.
A staff member displays samples of the COVID-19 inactivated vaccine at Sinovac Biotech Ltd, in Beijing on March 16, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING -- Four Chinese COVID-19 vaccine candidates have started international phase-3 clinical trials, according to the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19.

Some of the phase-3 trials are expected to complete the first round of vaccinations in early September, with preliminary data expected as early as November.

Phase-3 clinical trials usually involve thousands of people to verify the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines, which are key to their market approval.

As the epidemic has been brought under control in China, the country no longer has conditions for large-scale clinical trials, so all the phase-3 trials are being carried out overseas.

Two inactivated COVID-19 vaccines developed by the China National Biotec Group (CNBG) have been approved for phase-3 clinical trials in several countries in the Middle East and South America, involving more than 30,000 people, according to Yang Xiaoming, president of the CNBG.

An inactivated COVID-19 vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech Co Ltd is undergoing phase-3 clinical trials in some countries in South America and Southeast Asia, according to Yin Weidong, chairman and CEO of Sinovac.

A recombinant COVID-19 vaccine with the modified defective adenovirus as the vector is also undergoing phase-3 trials.

According to a guideline for the clinical evaluation of COVID-19 vaccines recently released by the National Medical Products Administration, the vaccine should provide immunity for at least six months, preferably for more than a year.

A total of 10 COVID-19 vaccines have been approved to enter clinical trials in China. In addition to the above four vaccines that have entered phase-3 clinical trials, the rest include recombinant protein vaccines, nucleic acid vaccines and vaccines using attenuated influenza viruses as vectors.

A recombinant protein vaccine jointly developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a biopharmaceutical company in Anhui Province is now undergoing phase-2 clinical trials.

Before mass production, all the vaccines will need to be strictly monitored and evaluated for safety and efficiency.

According to the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19, China approved a trial scheme on June 24 for emergency use of COVID-19 vaccines and gave the green light to two vaccines for emergency use. On July 22, the country officially initiated the emergency use of COVID-19 vaccines.

Zheng Zhongwei, an official of the National Health Commission, said that certain people with high risk of exposure to the virus, and who are unable to take effective protection measures, can receive the emergency vaccination.

However, those who have received the emergency vaccination should also take continuous protective measures.

Medical staff, epidemic prevention workers, immigration officers and those ensuring basic operation of cities are eligible for emergency vaccination.

Some people sent to work overseas have been injected with the inactivated COVID-19 vaccines, along with certain medical personnel and some people working in markets.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  The countrys first government-owned slaughterhouse that can produce export-quality meat products will start its operations in November, the agriculture department said.

The 187.2-million facility in Tanauan City, Batangas was funded jointly by the department and the city government of Tanauan, it added in a statement released Sunday.

The triple A facility has a total floor area of 2,588 square meters and has a mechanized system that can process 500 head of hogs in eight hours. It also has three chilling rooms, two blast freezers, three cold storage rooms, as well as a meat laboratory and a waste water treatment facility.

Dr. Reildrin Morales, director of the National Meat Inspection Service, said since the facility complied with international standards, its meat products could be exported.

Agriculture chief William Dar also allotted 50 million for the addition of a cutting plant. The city government will acquire adjoining lots for this expansion.

Meanwhile, Dar also also committed another P50-million for the establishment of cold storage and poultry cutting facility in San Jose, Batangas.

The country has a government-owned triple A poultry dressing plant in Bamban, Tarlac that is also set to operate this year.
Iranians Deserve Freedom Not Bullets, State Department Says

Radio Farda August 30, 2020

In response to a tweet by Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei accusing the United States government of "murdering" young American protesters, State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said on Saturday that Iranians deserve "freedom and a future, not the Basij's bullets."

"Khamenei's thugs killed 1,500 Iranians on the streets of Iran last November," Ortagus wrote, quoting Khamenei's tweet. "At least 23 were children. They deserved freedom and a future."

In his tweet on August 27, Khamenei had said that when young Americans go into the street, they can't be sure that they won't be murdered by a gun.

Khamenei was apparently referring to recent protests in some U.S. cities against police violence against African-Americans, some of which led to clashes and deaths.

In fall 2019, protests erupted across Iran in response to the sudden tripling of gas prices. Thousands were arrested, and according to Amnesty International, at least 304 protesters were killed in 37 Iranian cities, with many of the victims suffering gunshot wounds in the upper part of their chest, evidencing that security forces had a shoot-to-kill order.

Reuters, in a December 2019 report, quoted three sources close to Khamenei's inner circle claiming that 1,500 Iranians were killed during the protests. Khamenei had previously told the security forces in a public meeting to "do whatever is necessary to stop" the protests.

U.S.' Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, estimated the death toll at around 1,000 protesters killed by Iranian security forces in November 2019.

Following the protests, the Iranian government stayed silent on the deaths for nearly seven months, despite criticism by Iranian and international media and political figures, until May 2020, when Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli suggested that the death toll stood around 200 protesters.

Regime officials have also claimed that "enemies" and opposition groups, including monarchists, Mujahedi-e Khalq (MEK) and ISIS, were training the protesters for armed conflict, and that some protesters had also killed other protesters.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iranians-deserve- freedom-and-future-not-bullets-state-department -spokesperson-says/30811704.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Henry Nana Boakye, National Youth Organizer of the New Patriotic Party, has called on Ghanaians to remember President Nana Akufo-Addo in their prayers.



According to him, the President has proven to be a good leader and therefore needs every support he can get from the nation.



Henry Nana Boakye, affectionately called Nana B, made this comment while discussing some major social interventions by the President since the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic.



He alluded to the free six months water and subsidized electricity supplies to Ghanaians as part of measures to ease their hardships and the President's commitment to ensuring the disease is defeated in the country.



Nana B commended the President for his hard work and efforts to safeguard the citizenry and urged Ghanaians to give him a second term in office.



''Let's continue to pray for him. Let's continue to support him, for in times like this that the nation needs quality leadership'', he said on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo''.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Osaka Gas received the Energy Corporate Innovation Award from Plug and Play at its Summer Summit 2020. Osaka Gas is one of the longest standing partners of Plug and Play Energy and has been leveraging the Plug and Play ecosystem to source startups.

"We've been really excited to work with Osaka Gas the past four years, and we are grateful to see that their participation in Plug and Play activities across different verticals to source startups for their US subsidiary and various business units in Japan has increased," said Wade Bitaraf, Founder of Plug and Play Energy. "They also have had multiple mergers and acquisitions. They recently acquired Sabin Oil & Gas, and have invested in SolAmerica, a US solar project developer, Igloo, a UK household energy supplier, and HACARUS, a Japanese lightweight and explainable AI startup."

"It's a great honor to be able to accept this award on behalf of Daigas Group. We look at innovation as a critical driver to grow our company and the innovation ecosystem at Plug and Play is an excellent source for us to reach out to startups in various fields such as smart cities, industrial IoT, enterprise software, cyber security, and of course, energy and sustainability," said Junji Yoshida, Senior Vice President, Silicon Valley Office, at Osaka Gas USA. "We are really looking forward to collaborating with not only startups but also large enterprises."

About Plug and Play

Plug and Play is a global innovation platform. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Plug and Play has built accelerator programs, corporate innovation services and an in-house VC to make technological advancement progress faster than ever before. Since inception in 2006, its programs have expanded worldwide to include a presence in over 30 locations globally giving startups the necessary resources to succeed in Silicon Valley and beyond. With over 30,000 startups and 400 official corporate partners, it has created the ultimate startup ecosystem in many industries. Companies in the community have raised over $9 billion in funding, with successful portfolio exits including Danger, Rappi, Dropbox, Lending Club and PayPal. For more information, visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com.

About Osaka Gas

Osaka Gas is a gas company based in the Kansai region of Japan, focusing on the production, supply, and sale of city gas, gas applications, and electricity. On March 8, 2018, Osaka Gas Co., Ltd. launched a new group brand, Daigas Group. The Daigas Group, the new group brand, symbolizes Pursuing Innovation. Daigas embodies the pledge of being "Dynamic and Innovative" to achieve the vision, while being "Genuine and Studious" to find the needs of customers and offer innovative solutions to enhance their life and business, which has been practiced in the Group's business for over 110 years. Together with other group companies, Osaka Gas aims to be an innovative energy and service company that continues to be the first choice of their customers. For more information, visit https://www.osakagas.co.jp/en/.

SOURCE Plug and Play

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At first, I wanted the defendant to get help, Higgins mother wrote. I thought because I am a child of God, this is what I should feel, but the more I found out about him, the angrier I got. ... He needs to be punished for what hes done. He robbed Ebony and her baby of their lives, hes robbed me of my only child and grandchild, and my mother of her grandchild and great-grandchild.
Nine weeks from the national U.S. election, President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, sparred Monday over blame for street violence linked to racial injustice and police treatment of minorities that erupted in recent days.

Trump tweeted Monday that he plans Tuesday to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, where protests turned violent last week in the aftermath of a police shooting of a Black man as they attempted to arrest him. A white teenage vigilante claiming to protect businesses in Kenosha was accused of fatally shooting two people and wounding a third during a street demonstration.

Referring to Biden, Trump said the Wisconsin violence, and unrest in Portland, Oregon, in the U.S. northwest, forced Slow Joe out of his basement at his home in Delaware, where he has campaigned for the November 3 election to avoid crowds during the unabated coronavirus pandemic.

In a speech Monday in Pittsburgh, Biden blamed Trump for the violence that has erupted across the country as the United States deals with widespread and sometimes violent protests and counter-protests over police treatment of minorities and inequality in U.S. society.

This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country," Biden said. "He can't stop the violence, because for years, he has fomented it.

Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is re-elected?" Biden asked.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers urged Trump to skip his visit to the Midwestern city along the shores of Lake Michigan.

"I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together," Evers said.

Evers first ordered National Guard troops into Kenosha to quell the street violence after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back, leaving him partially paralyzed. Evers accepted more federal law enforcement assistance.

But Trump took credit on Twitter.

If I didnt INSIST on having the National Guard activate and go into Kenosha, Wisconsin, there would be no Kenosha right now. Also, there would have been great death and injury. I want to thank Law Enforcement and the National Guard. I will see you on Tuesday!

The White House said Trump had no plans to visit with Blakes family while he is in Kenosha.

Trump also commented again about the violence in Portland, where a caravan of Trump supporters in 600 trucks clashed Saturday with Black Lives Matter protesters demonstrating against police treatment of minorities.

During the evening, a white man was found dead in a street from a gunshot wound to the chest. Witnesses said the man was wearing a hat bearing the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group based in Washington state that has previously clashed with protesters.

Trump attacked Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democratic critic of the president, for the three months of sporadic violence in the city.

Portland is a mess, and it has been for many years, Trump tweeted. If this joke of a mayor doesnt clean it up, we will go in and do it for them!

Trump also claimed, The Radical Left Mayors & Governors of Cities where this crazy violence is taking place have lost control of their Movement. It wasnt supposed to be like this, but the Anarchists & Agitators got carried away and dont listen anymore - even forced Slow Joe out of basement!

In a statement Sunday, Biden said of Portland, Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same.

Biden added, We must not become a country at war with ourselves. A country that accepts the killing of fellow Americans who do not agree with you. A country that vows vengeance toward one another. But that is the America that President Trump wants us to be. The America he believes we are.

Sunday brought continued protests in Portland, along with pledges from the states governor to both reinforce police and address the underlying issues that have driven months of demonstrations against racial injustice.

One group of protesters went Sunday to a building used by law enforcement, and like many nights during the demonstrations, the Portland police declared the assembly unlawful and made arrests.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown said in a statement late Sunday that everyone, including elected officials, law enforcement and community leaders, needs to come together to stop the cycle of violence in Portland, and that real change will come from the hard work to achieve racial justice.

Brown announced the Oregon State Police will be sending officers to Portland to free up local investigators to arrest and charge those engaging in violent acts, and will hold a public forum with Wheeler, the Portland mayor, protest organizers and community leaders.

She also criticized the actions of armed right-wing vigilantes who have confronted protesters in various U.S. cities.

The right-wing group Patriot Prayer and self-proclaimed militia members drove into downtown Portland (Saturday) night, armed and looking for a fight, Brown said. Every Oregonian has the right to freely express their views without fear of deadly violence. I will not allow Patriot Prayer and armed white supremacists to bring more bloodshed to our streets.
Pompeo Raises U.S. Concern About Chinese Investment In Ukraine In Call With Zelenskiy

By RFE/RL August 30, 2020

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has spoken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy about U.S. concerns over China's attempt to purchase a Ukrainian engine manufacturer, the State Department said on August 29.

Pompeo raised concerns over "malign" Chinese investment in Ukraine, including Beijing's efforts to acquire the Motor Sich engine manufacturer, in a telephone call on August 26 with Zelenskiy, spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

The United States has previously lobbied against the possible sale of the strategic company and its advanced technology to China.

The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Ukraine said late last year that there were U.S. companies studying the possible purchase of Motor Sich, one of the world's top makers of aircraft engines for the defense industry.

"There are some serious American and other companies interested in Motor Sich," William Taylor said in an interview on December 26, 2019 with Ukrainian media outlets prior to leaving his post on January 2.

He did not disclose the names of the American companies.

Motor Sich is privately owned by its chief executive, Vyacheslav Bohuslayev. He reportedly has agreed to sell the bulk of his shares to Chinese companies, but the deal has yet to receive Ukrainian government approval.

Ortagus said Pompeo and Zelenskiy also discussed the situation in Belarus, Ukraine's efforts to combat COVID-19, attempts to reach a diplomatic resolution to Russia's aggression in eastern Ukraine, and the restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty in Crimea.

Pompeo also congratulated Ukraine on the country's Independence Day on August 24 and emphasized that the United States will continue to stand with the Ukrainian people "in order to advance the rule of law, foster economic growth, attract foreign investment, and eliminate endemic corruption that constrains Ukraine's potential."

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/30811085.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Manchester United have reignited their long-standing interest in Dayot Upamecano as they attempt to follow up the imminent capture of Donny van de Beek.

United are ready to try and prise centre back Upamecano away from RB Leipzig. The 21-year-old is viewed as one of the best young defenders in Europe.

He helped Leipzig finish third in the Bundesliga and impressed in the Champions League knockout stages in Portugal as they reached the semi-finals.

Manchester United are looking to secure a deal for RB Leipzig defender Dayot Upamecano

United are ready to try and prise centre back Upamecano away from RB Leipzig

Upamecano's form was recognised last week when he was named in France's senior squad for the first time. United have tried to sign him before.

He visited Old Trafford for a tour of the club in 2015 before moving from Valenciennes to Red Bull Salzburg aged 16 for about 2million. He then joined RB Leipzig in 2017 for a fee in the region of 9m.

Sources say United will have to make Leipzig an offer that is too good to refuse to secure Upamecano as he does not have an active release clause for this window in his contract.

Upamecano did have a buyout clause of around 54m in his previous deal. Manchester City were weighing up a summer move but cooled their interest following the season's restart.

Upamecano signed a new deal in July which runs until 2023. It includes a release clause of about 38m that cannot be triggered until next summer.
Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry has announced the winners of 5th Dubai Smartpreneur Competition during a virtual event, which saw 10 shortlisted startups from the UAE and abroad pitch their businesses to an expert panel of judges.



ProvenMed, a UAE-based medical devices innovation start-up, was name as the first place winner, Callix, a UAE-based startup offering intelligent cloud-based call answering solutions, took second place, while PlasticFri, a social enterprise from Sweden with a mission to tackle plastic pollution by transforming renewable plant resources, claimed third place.



During his keynote speech, Dr Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, Minister of State for Entrepreneurship and SMEs, said: SMEs are the backbone of contemporary economies. Thanks to the directives of its wise leadership, the UAE is considered one of the leading countries in the region in the development of a legislative and institutional framework that supports entrepreneurship and SME incubators, believing in the importance of the sector as a major engine that drives diversification, innovation and competitiveness in terms of economic performance.



The minister further noted that the UAE ranked fifth in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) in 2019, with the sector contributing 53% to the country's GDP in 2018. He commended the role of the distinguished initiative in promoting a culture of innovation among entrepreneurs in the country and enhancing their participation in shaping the foundations of the future economy.



Dr. Al Falasi further underscored the Ministry of Economys keenness to support all initiatives that complement its efforts to develop the UAEs entrepreneurship culture, especially in fields related to technology, knowledge, research and development.



The Ministry continues its efforts to launch programs and initiatives to support the SMEs sector; empower entrepreneurs; and provide them with necessary training and support in a way that enhances their contribution to advancing the UAEs economic growth, increasing its resilience and sustainability." Dr. Al Falasi added.



Hisham Al Shirawi, 2nd Vice Chairman of Dubai Chamber, who presented the winners with their prizes, noted that the fifth cycle of the Dubai Smartpreneur competition saw a 23% increase in applications compared to previous cycle, while 82% of business ideas were submitted by startups based in the UAE, which he said reflected the countrys strengthening reputation as a preferred hub for innovation-focused startups.



The fifth cycle of the competition exceeded our expectations and achieved its objectives of attracting high-potential startups and harnessing the potential of aspiring entrepreneurs who are bringing innovative ideas to the market. The prestigious competition is a key pillar of Dubai Chambers comprehensive entrepreneurship strategy, which aims to provide entrepreneurs with the knowledge and tools they need to thrive and grow, said Al Shirawi.



Prior to the awards ceremony, the top 10 participating startups - ProvenMed Global FZ-LLC, VYND, PlasticFri, Callix, uqudo, Caddie Engineering LLC, Lexyom, beXel, Cerebian and ONE MOTO  made their business pitches in the final round of the competition. The shortlisted startups will get the opportunity to exhibit at Expo 2020 Dubai, while the top 3 winning startups received AED 150,000 in combined cash prizes.



Over 1,900 startups from around the world have applied over the last five cycles of the Dubai Smartprenuer Competition. The fifth cycle, held earlier this year, attracted 315 smart business ideas aligned with the Expo 2020 Dubai sub-themes of Opportunity, Mobility and Sustainability.



Open to all entrepreneurs in the UAE and abroad, the Dubai Smartpreneur Competition gives the opportunity to become part of Dubai Governments strategy to elevate the city into a global platform for innovative startups.  TradeArabia News Service


MILWAUKEE, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- An affiliate of Phoenix Investors ("Phoenix"), a national private commercial real estate firm headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, announced it leased approximately 300,000 square-feet of the former Maytag Facility located at 1801 Monmouth Blvd, Galesburg, Illinois to Corteva Agriscience.

Corteva Agriscience, is a major American agricultural chemical and seed company that was the agricultural division of DowDuPont prior to being spun off as an independent public company. DowDuPont announced the Corteva name in February 2018, saying that it was "derived from a combination of words meaning 'heart' and 'nature.'" Corteva became a public company on June 3, 2019 and trades on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Monmouth building remained vacant since Maytag closed this plant over a decade ago. Phoenix purchased it in June 2019 and commenced a complete renovation of the existing building. The renovation work will be completed this Fall and Corteva will take occupancy.

"For nearly a year I worked with Corteva Agriscience and public partners to create a distribution hub in Galesburg. This lease represents the fruit of hard work by Phoenix, Corteva Agriscience, and our public partners," stated Ryan Holzhauer, Vice President of Phoenix Investors.

"As Mayor, I am very happy to see the reuse of the former Maytag facility on Monmouth Blvd. Galesburg has made tremendous strides over the past five years in regard to filling up vacant properties. I would like to extend a welcome to Corteva Agriscience and offer sincere congratulations to Phoenix Investors for successfully completing the turnaround of this important property," stated John Pritchard, Mayor of the City of Galesburg.

"The transformation of the former Maytag facility into a modern, usable space in less than a year has been exhilarating to witness. I want to extend a warm welcome to Corteva Agriscience and also recognize the tremendous work by Phoenix Investors in bringing this property back to life. This is a big day for our community," stated Ken Springer, President, Knox County Area Partnership for Economic Development.

"We are grateful to the City of Galesburg and Regional Economic Development partners for their help in making this extraordinary outcome a reality," stated Frank P. Crivello, Chairman of Phoenix Investors, "We welcome Corteva Agriscience to our renovated industrial complex."

About Phoenix Investors

Phoenix Investors is a national commercial real estate firm based in Milwaukee, WI whose core business is the revitalization of former manufacturing facilities throughout the United States. This strategy leads to positively transforming communities and restarting the economic engine in the communities we serve.

Phoenix's affiliate companies hold interests in approximately 31 million square feet of industrial, retail, office, and single tenant net-leased properties across 21 states. NREI's most recent survey ranked Phoenix Investor's as having the 28th largest total industrial real estate portfolio. Today, Phoenix principally specializes in the renovation and repositioning of large, former single tenant industrial facilities throughout the United States that were previously owned by major corporate clients, REITs, or financial institutions.

For more information visit https://phoenixinvestors.com

SOURCE Phoenix Investors

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One of Brazil's most attractive tourist hotspots, the beautiful archipelago of Fernando de Noronha has announced that it will allow outsiders to tour the island easing coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

According to The Guardian, the tourists have been banned from the UNESCO World Heritage site since March when the pandemic forced several parts of Brazil into partial shutdown. According to the John Hopkins Coronavirus tally, Brazil has the world's second-highest death toll with the number crossing over the 120,000 mark.

READ: COVID-19: Brazil Reports Three Million Recoveries, Total Cases At 3,846,153

Proof of tests required

As per reports, the visitors will be permitted into the island situated 211 miles off Brazils north-eastern coast from Tuesday with test results certifying that they do not carry the infection or have been infected and recovered. The results of two types of tests  PCR virus tests and IgG antibody tests  will be accepted if conducted at least 20 days before arrival.

The archipelagos administrator Guilherme Rocha is reported to have said that during the first phase of reopening, only those tourists who have had and recovered from COVID-19 will be allowed on the island since they cannot spread the disease to a next person.

Fernando de Noronha contains a spectacular chain of 21 islands with islets and volcanic outcrops considered to be one of Brazils most attractive tourist destinations. Rocha said that the island witnesses 100,000 tourists each year who pays a daily tax to support conservation efforts.

READ: Top Brazil Official Says No Halt To Amazon Rainforest Protections

Brazil, which is the second worst-hit nation from the novel coronavirus, has recorded more than three million recovered cases now. According to the latest data from the Health Ministry, the country has reported more than 120,000 fatalities from the virus taking its total tally of infections nearly to 3,847,000.

Health professionals in Brazil have denounced President Jair Bolsonaro for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, accusing him of committing "crimes against humanity" in a judicial complaint to the International Court of Justice. The medics have accused the far-right leader of neglect and contempt by promoting large gatherings, medication like hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19 without any scientific proof, and venturing into public without a mask.

READ: Brazils Environment Ministry Says Government Released Funds To Fight Deforestation

READ: Brazil's Hotel Rooms Turned Into Offices During Pandemic
This redesigned newspaper that you hold in your hands has been in the works for at least eight months, or BC, as some people have started referring to events of that vintage (Before Corona, if you must know). Even then, the idea was not so much to redesign the newspaper, but to use the redesign to effect a change in the newsrooms approach to content across platforms (print and digital). For readers (and listeners and viewers), that means a few things. One, this change will be dynamic and ongoing.

What you see today in the newspaper and the website is, to use a cliche, just the tip of the iceberg. Over the next few months (and perhaps even beyond that), you will continue to see changes, new features, and new utilities (especially on the website).

All of them began from the exercise we kicked off in January - the first result of which you hold in your hands. Two, this change is more than skin deep. It will be reflected in how we treat stories and themes across print and digital. It will affect the choice of stories. And it will be showcased in how we display our work.

This is best not spoken of, but experienced over time. Three, even as we have embarked on these changes, we have retained all that is good - the constancy, the reliability, the credibility, the respectability, the authoritativeness, and, above all, the rich legacy of Hindustan Times, which was founded in 1924.

The new masthead is a direct result and also a manifestation of this- as is our new tagline, FirstVoice, Last Word (but more on this in a bit).

The design of the paper itself has been driven by the most important drivers of how all of us have begun to interact with any content, including news, over the past decade (but more so in the past five years). Two words best encapsulate this approach - share and save.

Everyone is starved for time (and also low on attention), so the immediate tendency when we come across something that requires more than a few minutes (sometimes more than a few seconds) is to save it. And often, when we encounter something we like, we like to share it, preferably through social networks.

The print media does not encourage or facilitate sharing and saving. The design of the new HT seeks to address that inadequacy by using QR codes for most important articles (scanning them on a mobile phone will take readers to a web version of the article; a larger version; or a video, podcast, or interactive related to it) and by visualising important articles differently and through the filter of visual social media platforms.

The social media cards that you will see across the print edition of the new HT are also influenced by this, as is the packaging of important must-reads as readily Instagrammable stories.



This is also an area on which the HT newsroom will continue to work in the months to come millennial reader. Bookended by aides and multimedia stories from ) the Einstein riddle and news-youen mental health. Its *the* paper to with one purpose - deepening audience engagement.

The coronavirus disease hit India in early March. The lock-down imposed to slow its spread (in late March) disrupted most activities, including the circulation of newspapers. At least some readers whose newspaper-reading moved online in this period may not return to the print paper.

While the objectives of the HT redesign, when we started in January, did not visualise this short-term eventuality (of newspaper vendors not being allowed in some neighbourhoods on account of the pandemic, or, in a more extreme manifestation, of people

entertaining baseless fears about the newspaper carrying the infection), it did recognise that ultimately, many readers would do their newspaper-reading online. The redesigned print paper was always going to be a tasting menu of sorts for the website www.hindustantimes. corn

Now, it will be even more so - doing more than just its traditional role in the continuum of news that most readers dip into at various times of the day. At the same time, the clean design, with a clear hierarchy of headlines, and smart navigational nudges, is aimed at making the paper itself easy to read, or browse. For we must not forget that, even in this connected world, the daily newspaper serves as a record of history in a manner that no other medium or platform does.

Now for the tagline. Traditionally, websites (even websites of newspapers) correspond to speed and print to credibility and authoritativeness. HTs redesign exercise seeks to combine and balance the two -providing readers with news, information and knowledge fast (and sometimes, first), but while ensuring that this is done without compromising on clarity, credibility, depth and perspective Being both the first voice and the last word has required the redefinition of roles and processes within the larger HT newsroom and a change in how we work.

Wed like to be the first voice, but we definitely want to be the last word.
More than 6 million Americans have been infected with COVID-19.

According to a database by the New York Times, more than 6,004,500 people have been infected and nearly 183,000 Americans have died as of Sunday evening.

While the pace of new cases is slowing, the latest milestone is a reminder of the scope of the pandemic: the Times noted that it took more than three months to hit 1 million reported cases, but just 22 days to go from 5 million to 6 million. It took just 16 days to go from 4 million cases to 5 million, the Times reported.

Nearly 900 new deaths and 44,639 new cases were reported across the country on Saturday, the Times reported. Nearly 42,000 new cases were reported each day for the last week, a dip from last weeks average by 4%, according to the Times.

Daily death totals are approaching 200,000, far fewer than the pandemics peak months ago, but nearly double the average for July, the Times found.

The United States, by far, has the most confirmed cases reported. The second-closest country is Brazil, with 3.8 million cases, followed by India, with 3.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. Russia is reporting just under 1 million cases.

In Massachusetts, public health officials on Sunday reported 174 new cases of COVID-19 and 13 more deaths linked to the virus.

The commonwealth has tallied at least 118,483 cases of coronavirus and 8,816 deaths since the pandemic began, the state Department of Public Health said Sunday.

The latest totals come as state and national public health officials are encouraging or requiring Americans, including students, to get flu vaccines. Public health experts have long worried about a tough flu season hitting right as the nation tries to pull out of the pandemic during vaccine development.

People gathered in Boston Sunday outside the State House to protest the mandated flu vaccine.

It is always a good idea to get the flu vaccine but especially this year with the #COVID19 pandemic, FDA Administrator Dr. Stephen Hahn tweeted on Sunday. Reducing the number of people who get the flu is a national priority.

It is always a good idea to get the flu vaccine but especially this year with the #COVID19 pandemic. Reducing the number of people who get the flu is a national priority. https://t.co/CSFQqE3nMG  Dr. Stephen M. Hahn (@SteveFDA) August 29, 2020

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Alondra Klemek (R) picks up a box of supplies from a re-entry pod at the Chevron gas station in Carmel Valley, Calif. on Aug. 26, 2020. (Nancy Han/NTD)

Volunteers Help as Carmel Fire Evacuees Return Home

CARMEL VALLEY, Calif.A blue tent was set up next to the Chevron gas station on West Carmel Valley Road on Aug. 26. Welcome Back. Complimentary comfort kits available here, read a large sign beside it.

The comfort kits, consisting of disposable gloves, surgical masks, hand sanitizer, and water, were neatly presented on the tables.

Starting Aug. 24, Carmel Valley Village residents were able to return home after having evacuated during the Carmel Fire. Upon arrival, they were welcomed with essentials and community support.

Its customary that when we have evacuees for any type of traumatic event or a natural disaster that we have a re-entry pod, Debra Wilson, Monterey County deputy section chief of logistics, told The Epoch Times. We supported them when they left, and were supporting them as they come back.

The Chevron pod was set up Aug. 24Aug. As cars pulled up to it full of returning residents, Wilson waved at them. Volunteers handed out the comfort kits. Another pod was set up near Tassajara Road.

Carmel Valley Village residents return home to see comfort kits available for them to pick up at the Chevron gas station in Carmel Valley, Calif. on Aug. 26, 2020. (Ilene Eng/The Epoch Times)

Alondra Klemek, a Carmel Valley resident whose husband is a firefighter, stopped by the pod to get some supplies she could distribute to others who had requested them. She is one of the many people in the close-knit community trying to help in their own way.

On Aug. 21, Klemek was evacuated, while in the middle of preparing meals for evacuees.

So we had to run home and get our pets, but still be putting on these meals, Klemek told The Epoch Times. Theres a saying that it takes a village, and we are an amazing village. This village takes care of its own.

Since the beginning of the evacuations, Klemek and other locals have made meals and brought them to dozens of evacuees. Aug. 25 was the final night for making evacuee meals. They continued making hot meals for firefighters.

The Carmel Fire and nearby River Fire were close to 95 percent contained as of Aug. 31.

With reporting by Nancy Han.
The 91st edition of the City Braderie is an unconventional one due to coronavirus and the tram works.

Mandatory masks and fewer stands, but also more buses will switch things up on the streets of this year's Braderie. If all goes well, merchants only need to hold on for few a months more.

The first test drives are scheduled for October, and the tram to the central station is expected to be in operation by December. Guill Kaempff, President of the the Commercial Union of Luxembourg City (UCVL), admits there have indeed been hard times for businesses due to the tram works. He does, though, see a light at the end of tunnel, and hopes for an improvement in shopkeeper's fortunes in the coming months.

Patrick Goldschmidt, councillor of mobility for Luxembourg City, looks at it from a different perspective. He outlines the silver lining that the pandemic has brought in light of the tram works.

The double hit of coronavirus and the tram works worsened business for merchants in the Gare district, but the government's financial assistance has been of great comfort. He also takes the opportunity to acknowledge and congratulate those who have been able to keep themselves above water.

But what happens when the tram finally drives to the station? Will more international businesses look into the revalued Gare district? Goldschmidt speculates, he believes that trends indicate that the current merchants would not be able to keep up with rents.

Although the situation remains uncertain Goldschmidt predicts that rents will most likely be lowered initially, though this would depend on the specific contracts and individual landlords.

Goldschmidt assured he would monitor the situation closely.
Defying the social distancing norms, scores of members of the Prakash Ambedkar- led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi and Warkaris launched a protest on Monday demanding reopening of the famous temple of Lord Vitthal in Pandharpur town at Solapur in

During their agitation near the temple, which has been shut due to COVID-19 restrictions, Ambedkar said they were waiting for a response from the district collector over the demand and added that "I am here to break rules," prompting the and the to hit out at him.

The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) is supporting the demand of the Vishwa Warkari Sena, an outfit of devotees of Lord Vitthal, which had given a memorandum to the Solapur district administration seeking that all temples be reopened in

The police barricaded roads leading to the temple to stop the protesters.

During the protest, Ambedkar was seen asking the protesters to maintain social distancing and keep calm.

To a question on protesters gathering in a large number and there being no social distancing, he said it is the sentiments of people that have brought them to Pandharpur.

Reacting to it, MP Sanjay Raut said Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and opposition leaders will find a way out on the issue of reopening temples, and urged against talking about breaking rules at least on health issues.

He said Prakash Ambedkar is a "patient leader, a student of law and a heir of Dr B R Ambedkar".

"In such a situation, when a medical emergency is prevailing, for a key person like Prakash Ambedkar to speak the language of breaking rules is like provoking people," Raut told reporters in Mumbai.

"We could see social distancing norms, which are key in combating the crisis, being violated blatantly today outside the temple. Thousands of people have gathered there and the disease can spread due to it," he said.

The chief minister has not given permission for reopening temples sensing these pitfalls, he said.

He claimed even Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not in a mood to lift the lockdown completely, but (some) leaders are talking about breaking rules.

He said the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in the state is resuming activities hit by COVID-19 in a phased manner.

The state government will discuss the issue of reopening temples and resuming train services in the time to come, the Rajya Sabha member said.

"The opposition parties will do a favour to people of if they (opposition parties) observe patience," Raut said, adding that leaders like Ambedkar, who have masses behind them, should speak directly to the chief minister or Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on the issue.

"But (they) should not hold people to ransom outside Vithobas temple in Pandharpur and not make the situation in Maharashtra, which is improving, tense," Raut said.

Maharashtra spokesperson Sachin Sawant said it was unfortunate that Prakash Ambedkar violated social distancing norms as he led the agitation in Pandharpur.

Representatives of sections of societies should cooperate with the government when a pandemic is prevailing, Sawant told reporters in Mumbai.

"I would like to tell Prakash Ambedkar saheb that there is Ambedkar in your name and (Dr B R) Ambedkar has drafted the Constitution. Hence, it is very unfortunate that you broke rules, he said.

(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.)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday that New York City would take its latest step toward police reform, and join an Obama Foundation pledge related to the topic.

A surge in gun violence and homicides throughout the city have raised concerns about growing crime, while protestors across the nation have called for police reforms following several high-profile instances of police brutality.

The citys latest step toward reform, a disciplinary matrix, outlines the NYPDs internal penalty guidelines. A draft of the matrix will be posted to the departments website for 30 days during which the public can submit comment on the procedures.

City officials will review the public comments at the end of the 30-day period, and a finalized version of the matrix will be made available to the public by Jan. 15, according to the NYPD.

We want discipline to be a very straightforward matter. We want it to be clear that when certain actions are taken and certain mistakes are made that there will be accountability, de Blasio said during a press briefing.

And it is so important for the public trust in our police  and that weve proven over the last seven years  when that trust grows, when that relationship grows, as it has in the city so many times, it allows us all to be safer, he continued.

The announcement drew mixed reactions from parties on opposing sides of the issue.

Pat Lynch, the president of the citys Police Benevolent Association, compared the public disciplinary guidelines to mandatory minimums, and predicted that the system to would not remain consistent.

Apparently mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines are unfair to criminals but perfectly fine for cops. This matrix has nothing to do with fairness. Its an avenue for the City Councils policing experts  the ones who brought chaos back to NYC  to manipulate NYPD discipline to further their radical political goals, Lynch said.

Just watch as the punishment guidelines are changed based on headlines and poll numbers, rather than any objective sense of justice or fairness, he predicted.

The Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) is an independent agency responsible for investigating allegations of police misconduct, and recommending disciplinary actions against officers. It was one of several organizations that city officials received input from when drafting the disciplinary matrix.

CCRB Chair Fred Davie characterized Mondays announcement as a first step toward greater police accountability, and expressed his hope that it would lead to more uniformity between CCRB discipline recommendations and the decisions imposed by the commissioner.

New Yorkers deserve accountability in policing. By raising standards for discipline in law enforcement and establishing a transparent procedure that will make the NYPD more responsive to independent civilian oversight, the proposed disciplinary matrix serves as a significant first step to achieving greater accountability, Davie said.

I am encouraged by some of the clear standards laid out in this new set of rules and look forward to reviewing it further with my fellow Board members and CCRB staff, and look forward to discussing this proposed matrix at a public board meeting, he continued.

Some of the standards laid out in the matrix draft include presumptive penalties to a variety of misconduct determinations, and possible mitigating and aggravating factors that could be used to justify the commissioners deviation from the presumptive penalties.

The presumptive penalty serves as the starting point for analysis during the penalty phase of a case, which must include consideration of the totality of the circumstances and any aggravating and or mitigating factors that may be relevant, the draft reads. The Police Commissioner, who is statutorily empowered to adjudicate discipline, makes the final determination and may deviate from the presumptive penalties.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea characterized the matrix and the broader Obama Foundation pledge as the latest steps in reform undertaken by the NYPD.

Since de Blasio took office in 2013, the NYPD has undergone several attempts toward reform, including the wearing of body cameras, and the implementation of several new training programs.

Earlier this summer, Shea announced the disbandment of the NYPDs anti-crime unit -- a decision that some have linked to the spike in gun violence. The city and state legislatures also passed reform packages that included chokehold bans.

Over the past nearly seven years, our NYPD officers have worked tirelessly to carry out a series of cutting edge reforms, all geared toward increasing fairness, impartiality and accountability in policing and to deepen our ties with those we serve in every New York City neighborhood, Shea said.

According to a City Hall media release, de Blasio took the Obama Foundation Mayors Pledge in June. It commits the city to reviewing police use of force policies, engaging communities by including a diverse range of input, reporting the findings of the review, and reforming police use of force policies.

New York City joins a number of other cities around the country whose mayors signed onto the pledge, which was launched by the foundation of former President Barack Obama and his family, including Boulder, Colorado and Vienna, Virginia.
Students are due to return to schools in England and Wales on Tuesday (Jane Barlow/PA)

Education unions are calling for a temporary ban on school absence fines as thousands of pupils return to classrooms in England and Wales.

Approximately 40% of schools are expected to welcome back students for the start of the autumn term today, despite concerns being raised about their ability to reopen safely.

It will be the first time many pupils in England have stepped into a classroom since March, when schools were closed except to look after vulnerable children and those of keyworkers.

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said the Government should temporarily scrap fines for parents who do not send their children back to class due to fears around coronavirus.

NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said: If you are a parent and you are worried about safety, a fine is unlikely to make you feel any safer.

The Government understands this, but the threat of fines still remains, so were urging the Government to take the threat of fines off the table for the coming term.

This would send a powerful signal to parents and families and could well mean that more of them are willing to bring their children back to school, which is what we all want to see.

Expand Close Schools have been been required to introduce new measures ahead of the autumn term (Danny Lawson/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Schools have been been required to introduce new measures ahead of the autumn term (Danny Lawson/PA)

The school leaders union said while it hoped attendance would be as close to 100% as possible, it understood there will be some families who do not yet feel ready to return.

Its recent survey of more than 4,000 school leaders in England and Wales found that 97% plan to reopen their schools to all pupils at the start of the autumn term, with the date varying across the country.

The remaining 3%, which were not immediately reopening, were planning transition periods for new pupils or phasing entry to alleviate students anxieties, according to the survey.

Meanwhile, more than a quarter (26%) of parents said they were not planning to send their child back to school at the start of term, while a further 20% remained undecided, according to a poll by the charity Parentkind.

Its survey of 3,400 parents also found that 78% opposed fines for school absences during the autumn term.

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The Department for Education (DfE) said fines for parents who refuse to send their children to Englands schools will only be used as a last resort when classes resume.

Local authorities can fine parents 120  cut to 60 if paid within 21 days  over a childs absence from school, with the threat of prosecution if they fail to pay.

Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU) said fining families for school absences will not resolve the fears or anxieties felt by many.

She said the Government also needed to improve facilities for remote learning and IT access for children to ensure their education continues with as little interruption as possible in the event of a future lockdown.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called on Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to face parliament to explain how he will protect childrens futures.

He said: He needs to explain how he will make up for the damage already done, bring pupils up to speed and mitigate against the ongoing risk from the pandemic.

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Mr Williamson said in a statement: I do not underestimate how challenging the last few months have been, but I do know how important it is for children to be back in school, not only for their education but for their development and wellbeing too.

The teachers union NASUWT said there was still considerable work to be done around how the Government intended to ensure schools followed its own safety guidance.

NASUWT general secretary Patrick Roach added: The government has also failed to provide any guidance on schools on steps which should be taken to minimise any discriminatory impacts of coronavirus, despite the wealth of data showing that those from BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) backgrounds have a disproportionately higher risk of death or hospitalisation from Covid-19.

He said the unions latest research found that three in 10 teachers believed budgetary constraints will affect their schools ability to reopen safely.

It comes as a poll by Tes found that 86% of nearly 6,000 school staff in England said minimising contact between pupils would not be possible.

More than a third (35%) also felt that the Governments approach to coronavirus safety in schools would not work and left them at risk.

Schools in Scotland began to reopen on August 11, while all pupils in Northern Ireland were due to return from August 31.
A man who became the first person known to be infected with COVID-19 twice had two separate strains of the virus, sparking fears it has mutated.

The otherwise healthy 33-year-old man from Hong Kong didn't experience any symptoms during his second bout.

Dr Norman Swan appeared on the ABC's 7.30 to explain the man's second positive test indicated the infection could be unrecognisable even in a body that had already beaten it once.

'There are two possible reasons for reinfection,' Dr Swan said, describing the man as a 'worrying case'.

'One is that the person's immunity has waned. The other is that the virus has mutated so much that the immune system doesn't recognise it. Both have implications for the future of this pandemic and its control.'

Passengers wearing protective masks collecting baggage after arriving on a Jetstar flight from Melbourne at Sydney Airport

But Dr Swan said the 'good news' to come from the second infection was that the man never felt sick the second time around.

'That might mean that whatever immunity he had left saved him from COVID-19 disease which is actually what most vaccines are being designed to do,' he said.

Both test results were analysed by Dr Kelvin To, a clinical microbiologist from the University of Hong Kong.

Dr To appeared on the ABC on Monday night to explain he and his team 'found they were different versions of the coronavirus, confirming it was a second infection'.

The alternative would have been that he'd never recovered from his first infection.

The 33-year-old first tested positive to the deadly respiratory virus in late March, before testing positive again four-and-a-half months later at an airport in Spain on the way home from a trip away.

Travellers are temperature tested by health officials after arriving on a Qantas flight from Melbourne to Sydney on July 7

Dr To appeared on ABC on Monday night to explain that he and his team 'found they were different versions of the coronavirus, confirming it was a second infection'

Dr To described the man's asymptomatic second case as 'reassuring'.

'We know that from many studies, patients (who) have the immunity, actually it is not as good  a few months after the first infection, especially for the decreasing antibody levels, so that is one possibility,' Dr To said.

'I am also glad to see this patient had a very mild or asymptomatic infection in the second episode. That is reassuring, in some sense, but remember this is only one patient.'

A woman wearing a mask as a preventative measure against the coronavirus in Sydney at the height of the first wave
Czech Senate speaker Milos Vystrcil will pay a heavy price for making an official trip to Taiwan, the Chinese government's top diplomat said on Monday, in a warning brushed off by Mr Vystrcil who said he was not seeking political confrontation.

Mr Vystrcil arrived in Taipei on Sunday on a visit to promote business links with Taiwan, saying the Czech Republic would not bow to Beijing's objections. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province ineligible for state-to-state relations.

Speaking while in Germany, Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi said there would be retribution.

The Chinese government and Chinese people won't take a laissez-faire attitude or sit idly by, and will make him pay a heavy price for his short-sighted behaviour and political opportunism, China's Foreign Ministry cited Mr Wang as saying.

Mr Wang said the Chinese government and people will not tolerate such open provocation by Mr Vystrcil and the anti-China forces behind him, though gave no details of how exactly Beijing would react.

Mr Vystrcil said in a statement that Mr Wang's comments were an interference in the Czech Republic's internal affairs.

We are a free country seeking to have good relationships with all countries and I believe this will be the case in the future irrespective of the statement of the Minister. And let me repeat again that this visit is by no means meant to politically confront anyone, he said.

Taiwan Economics Minister Wang Mei-hua declined direct comment on China's attack on Mr Vystrcil, but said the two had much in common.

The Czech Republic and Taiwan are free and democratic countries which put great store on human rights. We have the same values as the Czechs, she told reporters, speaking before a joint business forum with Mr Vystrcil.

He is due to meet Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen later and will address Taiwan's parliament before leaving on Friday.

Czech President Milos Zeman has sought closer business and political ties with China since taking office in 2013, but his efforts have been hit by failed investment plans and Czech wavering about allowing China's Huawei Technologies to play a role in developing next-generation telecoms networks.

Reuters
The Agyapa Mineral Royalty Limited is 100-percent entity owned by Ghana government, the Finance Ministry has said.



Deputy Minister of Finance, Charles Adu Boahen, making a presentation to the media in Accra last Thursday said contrary to views held that some unseen hands owned Agyapa, it is 100% owned by government of Ghana.



According to him, the company (Agyapa Mineral Royalty Limited) is to be listed on the London and Ghana Stock Exchanges after the approval by appropriate regulatory authorities in Ghana and London.



Once listed Government of Ghana through MIIF will be the majority shareholder with at least 51% of the shares, he noted.



According to him, listing will provide transparency and high international standards of good corporate governance.



London is one of the major stock markets for listing mining companies. In order to realise maximum value for the shares that are being sold, London, is the ideal way to ensure this, he said



Given the amount of funds, the government needs, that amount cannot be raised only on the Ghanaian stock market.



He said Parliament had approved the investment agreement, saying it ties the royalty flows to the life of the underlying mining leases for the specific gold mines, explaining that only 16 gold mines in which government receives annual royalties will be affected.



Agyapa Royalties is a gold royalty company which will offer financing to gold mining companies that want to develop their mines in exchange for royalty or revenue related stream.



He said Agyapa Royalties will focus its activities in Ghana and Africa and in the gold mining sector only.



It will be the first African focused minerals royalty company, and also the first to be listed by an African Government.



He indicated that there were several other listed royalty companies on various stock exchanges in the world, citing Franco Nevada, Royal Gold, Wheaten Precious, Sandstorm and Osisko as examples.



According to him, royalties will flow from the specified gold mining assets to Bank of Ghana and be split.



He said only 75.6 percent of the royalties will go to the Minerals Income and Investment Fund, with other statutory bodies getting their shares.



The statement that all the traditional authorities lose right to royalties is untrue, he said, adding that the 20 percent share of Minerals Development Fund is still intact.



According to him, 75.6 percent of the royalties will flow to Agyapa Royalties from 16 gold assets with four under development.



He stated that 2.4 percent will go to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) as a revenue management fee, and 2 percent to the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF) to cover costs of running the fund.



Benefits



This means GoG (Government of Ghana) will get the following benefits: benefit from investment of the significant amount of funds received from issuing shares in the company; will receive dividends from the company based on the royalty flows; as the majority shareholders, they will also benefit from the potential capital gains in the shares into perpetuity.



He assured that Agyapa has the ability to facilitate the development of mines in Ghana and Africa and hence develop the sector and economy as a whole.



This will, all other things being equal also benefit shareholders, including the majority shareholder, Government, he added.



He said the listing on the stock market will ensure high level of transparency and good corporate governance as every investor including critics of the deal is welcomed to buy shares.



Criticisms



There have been criticisms from a section of Ghanaians including civil society organizations and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) about the ownership and transparency of the Agyapa deal.



He stated that the deal will ensure that government can raise capital for development in affordable housing, education, road among other capital projects without adding to the debt stock.



But also speaking to the media on Thursday, August 27, 2020, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Attta, says it was sad that since Independence from colonial rule, Ghana had not been able to have a listed company on the international stock exchange for its mineral resources.



He said the country has to maximize the value of income that it is due.



According to him, it is for that reason that Minerals Income Investment Fund was brought into being to ensure Ghana derive the best from its mineral resources.



He stated that gold companies, oil companies that are in most cases ready to pay premium for Ghanas resources exist beyond Ghana.



He called for Ghanaians to be creative to expand the countrys sources for income generation, if they want to expand their share of the international pie.



For centuries, Africans have been getting far less than they deserve for their mineral resources, he said.



This is due to the fact that the resources leave the shores of Africa without value addition.



President Nana Akufo-Addo is clear in his mind that to move Ghana Beyond Aid we must add value to our resources, he said.



Key Areas



Mr. Adu Boahen says the four key areas for the Agyapa Mineral Royalty are: education, health, infrastructure, and housing.



Background



Parliament on August 14th approved the Agyapa Mineral Royalty Limited agreement with the government of Ghana despite a walkout by the Minority.



About two years ago, Parliament passed the Minerals Income Investment Fund Act 2018 which establishes the Fund to manage the equity interests of Ghana in mining companies, and receive royalties on behalf of government.



The fund is supposed to manage and invest these royalties and revenue from equities for higher returns for the benefit of the country.



The law allows the fund to establish Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) to use for the appropriate investments. Last month, government introduced an amendment to the act to ensure that the SPVs have unfettered independence.



However, there have been concerns about the deal by many including the Minority in Parliament who have questioned the credibility of the agreement.



They have also called for a withdrawal of the deal.



Also, 15 Civil Society Organisations on Tuesday held a press conference to kick against the deal.



At the conference, the CSOs made an emphatic demand for a suspension of the deal until all documents relating to the beneficial owners of the deal are disclosed.



But Mr. Adu Boahen stated that the confusion over Agyapa Mineral Royalty Limited is because it is quite novel in this part of the world.



He said it was unfortunate that the MIIF is something that we hastily put together.



He said the Ministry of Finance worked with five institutions including Ghana Revenue Authority, Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Ministry of Justice, etc.



He said there were engagements with mining companies.



No Hidden Beneficiaries



Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, says suggestions that the Agyapa Mineral Royalty Limited deal was opaque are thrash.



He said there has been full transparency.



Mr Ofori-Atta said there were no hidden beneficiaries to the Agyapa deal.



He said Agyapa is going to be the biggest company in Africa in the mineral space if it is well managed.



The MIIF, he said, is not hasty, its not new, saying people may be politicizing it because of elections.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused the Narendra Modi government of destroying the informal sector that generates 90% jobs, in a bid to gain control over it and extort money.

The informal sector has a lot of money which the government cannot touch. They want to break this sector and extort money from them, the former Congress President said in a short video, the first of a series on the Indian economy.

He had earlier released a five-part series on Chinese incursions in Ladakh.

Rahul said the three decisions  demonetisation, wrong GST and lockdown were implemented as a plan to destroy the informal sector that had shielded India from the 2008 global financial crisis.

Dont think the lockdown was unplanned. Dont think it was done at the last minute. The aim of these three decisions was to destroy the informal sector, he said in a 3-minute 38-second video.

Rahul said the impact of this attack on the informal sector would be seen soon.

The results will be that India wont be able to produce jobs. Because the informal sector produces 90% of the jobs. Once the informal sector is destroyed, India wont be able to produce jobs, he said.

You are being cheated and there is an attempt to turn you into slaves, Rahul said, adding that there was a need to understand this attack and unite to fight against it.

He said the 2008 global financial crisis had affected all the big economies such as the US, Japan, China and European countries, but India had remained unaffected.

India had a UPA government at that time. I went to the Prime Minister and asked him, Manmohan Singh ji, what is the reason that when the entire world has suffered an economic crisis India has remained unaffected, the former Congress chief said.

Manmohan Singh ji replied, Rahul if you want to understand Indias economy, you will have to understand that India has two economic structures. One is the formal economy and the other is the informal economy, he added.
Dr. Davor Sutija joins the NexWafe management team as CEO of the company. Dr. Stefan Reber will continue as CTO and Managing Director.

FREIBURG, Germany, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NexWafe today announced that Davor Sutija will join the company as CEO starting September 1st.

Davor Sutija has extensive experience in leading technology companies and driving their global expansion. He is a veteran in silicon wafer production, having co-founded SiNor (now Norwegian Crystals), acquired by REC in 2004. As SVP at FAST, an enterprise search company, and as CEO at Thin Film Electronics, a global leader in printed electronics, he succeeded in creating shareholder value through the establishment of new markets and pioneering of groundbreaking technology products.

"I am very pleased to announce Davor Sutija's appointment as CEO, as the company enters the commercial phase. His extensive management experience and proven leadership skills, as well as his strong commercial orientation and impressive track record of value creation will greatly benefit the company as we begin shipments to customers early next year," said Peter Pauli, NexWafe's chairman.

Dr. Stefan Reber, co-founder and CTO says: "As NexWafe moves forward to commercial shipments, I am happy to welcome Davor on board. Davor will complement our team, focusing on helping us build a world-class technology product company."

NexWafe has pioneered the use of continuous-process epitaxy to produce monocrystalline silicon wafers that have half of the carbon footprint of ordinary wafers. By minimizing waste through a direct-gas-to-wafer manufacturing process, NexWafe can produce thinner, full-square wafers with superior properties. The company is ramping up a 5MW pilot production in Freiburg/Germany and expects to start supplying qualification customers in H1/2021. By enabling highest solar cell efficiency, NexWafe's products will lower electricity cost from photovoltaics by more than 20%. After completion of qualification, NexWafe expects to begin industrial scale up at its Bitterfeld production facility to reach over 450 million wafers per year by 2023. With its highly efficient and ultra-thin EPINEX products ready for shipment early 2021, NexWafe is poised to lead photovoltaics and the solar industry into a new age.

About NexWafe GmbH

www.nexwafe.com

NexWafe focuses on the industrialization of innovative technology for the epitaxial production of silicon wafers for photovoltaics. In Freiburg, Germany, the company operates a pilot production line for high quality monocrystalline wafers that are fully compatible with conventional solar cell and module manufacturing. In NexWafe's proprietary EpiWafer process, a crystalline silicon layer is deposited on a seed wafer and then detached. This groundbreaking technology enables wafers to be produced in any desired thickness. Thanks to the new, simplified manufacturing process, capital investments are reduced by 50% compared to conventional crystal growth and CO2 emissions from manufacturing are reduced by 70%. NexWafe was spun out from Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in 2015. Lead investors include Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures (SAEV) and Green Growth Fund 2 (GGF2).

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1246569/NexWafe_EpiNex.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1246568/NexWafe_Logo.jpg

Contact:

NexWafe GmbH

Dr. Stefan Reber

Chief Technology Officer and Founder

Phone: +49 761 7661 18600

Email: stefan.reber@nexwafe.com
New research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine is shedding light on the development of the brain's immune defenses - and how those defenses respond to strokes that strike one in 4,000 babies in the first month of life.

The brain's frontline defenders are immune cells known as microglia. These cells make up 10%-15% of all cells found in the brain. But their origins have been hotly debated. UVA's Chia-Yi "Alex" Kuan, MD, PhD, has discovered that many were previously white blood cells known as monocytes. During brain development - and in response to infant strokes - the monocytes undergo an amazing conversion into troops to defend the brain.

"Most people believe that blood monocytes only come into the brain after injury to provoke damage, and then they either die or leave the brain. Some even say monocytes and microglia live in parallel universes," said Kuan, of UVA's Department of Neuroscience and its Center for Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG). "But our results showed that many microglial cells actually come from the blood monocytes, both in normal development and after newborn brain injury."

The Brain's Immune Defenders

The finding is the latest from UVA's Department of Neuroscience and BIG center, which have in recent years revolutionized our understanding of the brain's relationship with the immune system. To explore the origins of the brain's immune defenses, Kuan and his colleagues developed an innovative new lab model that should greatly benefit future research. That model allowed his team to trace the origins of microglia in the brains of lab mice.

The researchers found that many monocytes transform into microglia over the course of brain development. This was a surprise - prior to UVA's discovery, scientists widely believed that microglia do not come from the blood monocytes. But Kuan's team used a process called "fate mapping" to reveal the microglia's secret origins.

In addition, Kuan's team found that monocytes rush to the rescue during neonatal stroke. Neonatal strokes are interruptions of blood flow to the baby's brain in the first 28 days after birth. Such strokes have a wide variety of causes, from blood clots to developmental abnormalities. Common symptoms include seizures and extreme sleepiness, though in some cases there are no symptoms until much later in life, when children can develop speech difficulties and balance problems.

In such strokes, Kuan found, there is an initial rush of monocytes, which then gradually become more like microglia. This lasts at least 62 days after the brain injury. Some of these monocytes are ultimately reprogrammed to join the brain's defense forces, the UVA researchers determined.

"But do monocyte-descended microglia continue to impair brain development in infants that suffered from newborn stroke, leading to neurological deficits? Can we target these disguised monocytes to improve the outcomes of newborn brain injury?" said researcher Hong-Ru Chen, PhD, the first author of the new study. "These are fascinating questions that beg for more research."

###

Findings Published

The researchers have published their findings in the scientific journal Science Advances. The research team consisted of Chen, Yu-Yo Sun, Ching-Wen Chen, Yi-Min Kuo, Irena S. Kuan, Zheng-Rong Tiger Li, Jonah C. Short-Miller, Marchelle R. Smucker and Kuan.

The research was supported by National Institutes of Health grants NS095064, NS100419, NS108763 and NS106592. Hong-Ru Chen was supported by American Heart Association postdoctoral fellowship 18POST34080334.

To keep up with the latest medical research news from UVA, subscribe to the Making of Medicine blog at http://makingofmedicine.virginia.edu.
The decision keeps the case at least temporarily alive and rebuffs efforts by both Flynns lawyers and the Justice Department to force the prosecution to be dropped without any further inquiry from the judge, who has for months declined to dismiss it. The ruling represents the latest development in a criminal case that has taken unusual twists and turns over the last year and prompted a separation of powers tussle involving a veteran federal judge and the Trump administration.
Additional staff have been brought on board at the Service Ontario location in St. Catharines, after offices throughout Niagara and across Ontario have experienced long lineups since reopening following the COVID-19 shutdown.

Ministry of Government and Consumer Services spokesman Nicko Vavassis said the publicly-operated St. Catharines Service Ontario office at 301 St. Paul St. has recruited three more employees to expedite services and support service delivery.

He said the pandemic put unprecedented pressures on our front-line workers across the province, including those dedicated Service Ontario staff who serve communities across the province every single day.

Our government is grateful for the incredible contribution they are making to overcome the challenges created by COVID-19, Vavassis added.

Although opposition MPPs recently cited a $4.9-million funding cut from last years provincial budget as an underlying cause of the lineups at the facilities, Vavassis said the problems were entirely the result of service interruptions associated with the pandemic  not funding.

The savings that our government has been able to make are a result of modernization efforts on Service Ontarios back-end and have had no impact on funding for front-line services, he said.

This is a government that actually respects the taxpayers dollar and believes in making service delivery more efficient. We are focused on making smart investments that result in better services for Ontarians.

He said the cuts in the 2019-20 budget were made to offset savings realized through the implementation of technical enhancements and digitization to Service Ontarios back office operations.

Meanwhile, he said, funding available to support service delivery was increased by about $16 million this year to assist government service providers during the pandemic.

Our government has not decommissioned any publicly operated locations; and if a private service provider makes the decision to exit the business, we take all reasonable steps to find a new local service provider, Vavassis said.

RELATED STORIES Niagara Region Long lines continue at Service Ontario locations

Users of Service Ontarios website have reported problems, including Niagara-Centre MPP Jeff Burch.

Vavassis, however, said the sites also provide real time information about the status of Service Ontario offices across the province.

During COVID-19, in busy offices, customers can obtain an assigned time ticket and return to the office at a later time on the same day without having to line up a second time, he said. Customers should check our website prior to visiting a Service Ontario to confirm that the office has not reached capacity and is still open on that day.

Read more about:
A 60-year-old disabled grandmother in North Parramatta, Australia, might have been strangled to death by an intruder had it not been for the heroic intervention of her pit bull, Caesar.

On Aug. 23, Susan Bandera awoke at around 4 a.m. to find a man with his hands around her throat, violently assaulting her. Luckily, Caesar entered her bedroom in time and defended his owner, biting her assailant several times.

Bandera was able to get the bathroom and hide there until the faithful pit bull had driven the attacker out of the house. He then fled down the sidewalk leaving a trail of blood along the way, Australias 9 News reported.

As Bandera is confined to a mobility scooter due to spinal cord injuries (resulting from a police shooting in 2009), she would have had no way of escaping the attacker had it not been for Caesar. Just from what mom said, she didnt know if she was going to make it, the victims daughter, Natasha Bandera, told the news outlet, after the incident.

Police later arrested 32-year-old Peni Naiserelagi, and he is now facing charges for assault with intent to murder and breaking and entering.

Of Caesars courageous rescue, daughter Natasha Bandera said shes really proud of him and added, Hes such a good boy and I couldnt be happier with how he reactedand just being there for her.

It was determined that Naiserelagi had previously rented a room in the home after he arrived in Australia from Fiji. Then, there was some sort of dispute having to do with Bandera evicting him and refusing to give him his important documents.

Naiserelagi is due to appear in court on Oct. 15, 2020.

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc
U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper listens during a news conference at the U.S. Department of State following the 30th AUSMIN in Washington, D.C. July 28. Reuters-Yonhap



By Do Je-hae



A recent meeting of the defense chiefs of U.S. and Japan has raised questions here as to why Korea did not participate in the meeting, which was initially to be arranged as a trilateral one.



Concerns are rising over South Korea being sidelined in security issues surrounding the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.



According to the U.S. Department of Defense, a wide range of bilateral issues as well as issues regarding security in Northeast Asia were discussed during a meeting between U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper and Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono in Guam, Aug. 29.



"Secretary Esper reiterated the U.S. commitment to the full implementation of President Trump and Chairman Kim's (Kim Jong-un) Joint Statement at the 2018 Singapore Summit, which includes the complete elimination of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction, their means of production, and their means of delivery," according to a department statement released after the bilateral meeting.



The U.S. defense secretary also thanked Japan for its "strong leadership" in implementing United Nations Security Council Resolutions sanctioning the North. He also noted Japan's efforts to strengthen cooperation with "likeminded partners, including ASEAN, India, Australia and trilaterally with the U.S. and Republic of Korea."





In this file photo taken on January 15, 2020 Japan's Minister of Defense Taro Kono listens during a press conference U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. AFP-Yonhap



According to South Korea's Ministry of National Defense, it was South Korea that had been seeking the trilateral meeting among the defense chiefs since May. As to South Korea's absence, the ministry said they could not find a date that was suitable for all three countries, considering the COVID-19 situation and the schedules of the three parties.



But despite COVID-19, other South Korean officials have participated in meetings overseas, such as Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha who visited Germany recently to discuss G7 expansion and other bilateral issues.



Some conservative media are raising suspicions that South Korea may have been lacking interest about a meeting involving U.S. and Japan, particularly at a time when Seoul has been making active efforts to advance relations with China.



Just a week before the U.S.-Japan meeting in Guam, President Moon Jae-in's national security adviser Suh Hoon met with China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Busan, Aug. 22, to discuss a possible reciprocal visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which Cheong Wa Dae has pursued as a primary diplomatic objective this year.





Natioanl Security Adviser Suh Hoon, right, talks with China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi after their talks at a hotel in Busan, Aug. 22. Yonhap
Another nail in democracys coffin

The case of Julian Assange

A group of 152 eminent legal experts and fifteen lawyer associations from around the world have issued an open letter to the British government, documenting a long list of legal abuses perpetrated against Julian Assange. The letter states that the British government has perpetrated a litany of abuses against Julian Assange through the countrys judiciary and the various governments that have pursued the WikiLeaks founder for the past decade.

This letter was released just days after the US Government once again introduced a new indictment of Assange, less than a month before his extradition hearing is due to resume on 7th September. This action was also more than one year after the deadline expired for the US to submit its final charge sheet; so why was it accepted?

This has confronted Assanges lawyers with an impossible choice. Do they accept the hearing proceeding in September, having had no time to prepare arguments or evidence against this new indictment, or do they, once again, appeal for a delay which simply prolongs his life-threatening detention. This extradition, if enacted, would see Assange face 175 years in a US Federal prison.

The 10-page letter by the legal experts is a meticulous review of Assanges case, and came to an unambiguous conclusion  that the campaign against Assange has been based upon gross violations of domestic and international law. It demonstrated that this unprecedented situation is the culmination of ten years of legal abuses.

The letter also referred to the blatant illegality of the attempt to extradite Assange to the US. If handed over to his American persecutors, Assange faces a show trial at the infamous Espionage court of the Eastern District of Virginia before which no national security defendant has ever succeeded. He would be denied the right to a trial before a jury of his peers, instead being judged by a handpicked collection of intelligence agents and government patsies.

The letter also stated that Assanges rights to legal privilege in such a proceeding has already been violated by the well-documented surveillance conducted against him, as a political refugee in Ecuadors London embassy, by the US Central Intelligence Agency. The unlawful recordings of his discussions with attorneys, constituted an irremediable breach of Mr Assanges fundamental rights to a fair trial under Art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and due process under the US Constitution. The protection of legal privilege contained in the ECHR, has, the letter stated, long been recognised in English common law, while the inalienable right to a fair trial is enshrined in the United Nations Model Treaty on Extradition.

The dispatch of Assange to the US would be unlawful under the existing treaty arrangements between the US and Britain, which explicitly prohibit extraditions for political offences. Assange has been charged on the basis of an explicitly political legislation, the US Espionage Act.

The gross contempt for democratic procedure can be seen in the veil of secrecy drawn over these court hearings. For instance, last Friday only five journalists were allowed into the courtroom and the dozens of journalists and international observers dialling in by telephone were not connected.

There is only one interpretation to be had about this case which is that there is a state conspiracy insofar as Julian Assange is concerned. It is a sustained offensive against the democratic rights of the working class. Assange exposed imperialist war crimes and the diplomatic shenanigans and intrigues, which everyone suspected but couldnt prove. His leaks galvanised a global whiplash, which did not go down well with those in power.

At this point of time, it is crucial for the international working class to rise up in Assanges defence. There is a fundamental link between Assanges persecution, the defence of democratic rights and the struggle against the capitalist system, which is intent on plunging the world into war and barbarism.
Williams Valley School District in Dauphin and Schuylkill counties said it has canceled school and will hold an emergency school board meeting tonight.

The district said on its website, Due to concerns regarding live streaming, school will be canceled until further notice. An emergency board meeting will take place on Monday at 7:30 p.m. with executive session at 7 p.m. Visitors may attend electronically. Thank you.

The district said the board will meet in the high school library along with administrators for an executive session at 7 p.m. followed by the board meeting at 7:30 that residents can attend electronically.

The district said a link will be posted at 7:15 p.m.

General public comments or questions must be emailed to WVSDMail@wvschools.net prior to the board meeting. The school board is temporarily suspending public comment on non-agenda items.

The first day of school in Williams Valley was supposed to be today. The district announced the cancellation yesterday.

Commenters were not happy about the last-minute notice.

One said, You had all summer to plan for this. All summer. Another posted, You shouldve been had this all figured out!! The night before school starts really!!

School districts across the region have been forced to have multiple plans in place for the return to school during the coronavirus pandemic. Some districts returned to full in-person school while others are using a hybrid and still others are fully online.

In South Western School District in York County, it was announced that school is moving entirely online on Sept. 1 after having two confirmed cases of the coronavirus. All buildings will be closed until Sept. 4.

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Caracas is regularly criticised for arbitrarily jailing politicians in opposition to President Nicholas Maduros rule.

Venezuela said on Monday that it had pardoned more than 50 opposition politicians, including 20 legislators who had been accused of conspiring against President Nicolas Maduro, as the country heads toward parliamentary elections scheduled for December.

The effort signals that the ruling Socialist Party is seeking to boost participation in the upcoming vote, scheduled for December, which part of the opposition had vowed to boycott on the grounds that it is rigged.

Those pardoned via a presidential decree include legislator Freddy Guevara, who sought asylum in the Chilean diplomatic residence, as well as Roberto Marrero, who had served as chief of staff to opposition leader and congress chief Juan Guaido.

We hope that these measures taken by the Bolivarian government help maintain the democratic focus of all of these political actors, Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said at a news conference.

Many of those mentioned participated in a failed 2019 rebellion that sought to persuade members of the military to drop their backing for Maduro but ultimately failed to sway top commanders.

Some of those pardoned are imprisoned, while others have sought diplomatic asylum or are in exile.





Opposition leaders say Maduros 2018 re-election was fraudulent, and have recognised Guaido as the legitimate president. More than 50 other countries, including the United States, followed suit.

Maduro isnt president and Im not a delinquent, wrote lawmaker Americo de Grazia, who was mentioned in the decree. If you want to contribute to peace, give Venezuela a pardon from your usurpation of power.

The measure made no mention of Leopoldo Lopez, one of the oppositions most high-profile leaders, who was jailed in 2014 for leading protests against Maduro and is now living in the Spanish diplomatic residence.

Nor does it mention military officers locked up on charges of plotting to overthrow Maduro.

Rights groups have harshly criticised Venezuelas government for arbitrarily jailing adversaries, often on charges made with little or no evidence and in violation of basic due process and parliamentary immunity of legislators.

Maduros government has in the past released small groups of jailed opposition leaders, but those releases have typically been followed by more such arrests.

The government denies holding political prisoners and says such accusations are part of US-backed efforts to tarnish its image.
Nicola Sturgeon was branded 'petty' today for demanding the words 'UK' and 'Britain' are dropped from the branding for a nationwide festival.

The Scottish Government has objected to the working title of 'UK Festival 2022' for the event - aimed at celebrating the best of Britain.

Initially announced by former Prime Minister Theresa May in 2018, planning is well under way for the 120million celebration.

At the time, Mrs May said it would help to strengthen 'our precious Union' with events to take place across the four nations.

But it emerged yesterday that the plans have stalled after the SNP Government failed to approve the use of 'UK' and 'Britain' in branding for promotional materials.

Nicola Sturgeon's (pictured at Holyrood last week) Scottish Government has objected to the working title of 'UK Festival 2022' for the event - aimed at celebrating the best of Britain

The national festival planning is being overseen by Martin Green, who was head of ceremonies for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (pictured)

Whitehall insiders say the cultural festival, which will celebrate achievements in fields including science, technology and engineering, will bring 12million to Scotland, with the creative contracts worth an additional 3million.

However, the contracts have been delayed due to the disagreement and sources say bids cannot be put out to tender until an agreement is reached.

A UK Government source said: 'The Scottish Government are causing unnecessary delays because they want to remove all references to Britain or the UK when we launch the next phase.

'It is incredibly petty and hugely frustrating. The creative sector is crying out for support right now.'

The wrangling comes amid a high-stakes battle over the future of the union, with polls showing the coronavirus crisis has boosted support for independence north of the border.

Ms Sturgeon says she has put aside the issue during the chaos, with planning for a fresh vote 'paused', but has faced accusations of trying to use the situation for political advantage.

A Panelbase poll earlier this month found that when undecided voters were excluded, 55 per cent favoured Scotland leaving the UK, with 45 per cent preferring to stay in the union

In the 2014 referendum - billed as a once-in-a-generation decision - Scots voted by a convincing margin of 55-45 per cent to stay in the UK.

But a Panelbase poll earlier this month found the mirror opposite.

When undecided voters were excluded, 55 per cent favoured Scotland leaving the UK, with 45 per cent preferring to stay in the union.

Overall, 51 per cent of those questioned said they support independence, 42 per cent said they would vote to stay in the UK and 7 per cent of voters were undecided.

The traction for Ms Sturgeon's separatist cause has sparked growing alarm in Westminster.

Rishi Sunak was dispatched to Scotland earlier this month to stress the scale of the financial support allocated by Westminster.

Figures published last week showed funding allocated to Scotland is much higher per person than that for England.

Spending on public services is equivalent to 14,829 per person there, some 1,633 per person higher than the UK average.

In another sign of the government's determination to strengthen the bonds of union, Mr Johnson spent his 'staycation' north of the border with fiancee Carrie Symonds and their baby Wilfred.

Event planning for the festival is being led by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport but it is understood ministers are taking a fournation approach with 'collaboration with devolved nations'.

Ten events are being planned, with at least one to be held in Scotland.

The Scottish Government said it had been 'engaging positively since very early in the process on this issue' and 'any suggestion to the contrary is unfounded'.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Sweden attracted worldwide attention earlier this year when it famously stayed open throughout the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, and now it is holding out again, this time refusing to recommend the use of masks.

While most of the world has come to terms with covering their noses and mouths in crowded places, people in Sweden are going without, riding buses and metros, shopping for food, and going to school maskless, with only a few rare souls covering up.

Public health officials here argue that masks are not effective enough at limiting the spread of the virus to warrant mass use, insisting it is more important to respect social distancing and handwashing recommendations.

"I think it's a little bit strange. Sweden, as a small country, they think they know better than the rest of the world. (It's) very strange," says Jenny Ohlsson, owner of the Froken Sot shop selling colourful fabric masks in Stockholm's trendy Sodermalm neighbourhood.

The Scandinavian country has the world's seventh highest death toll at 575 per million inhabitants, mainly due to its failure to protect the elderly in nursing homes in the early stages of the pandemic.

Sweden never closed its schools, businesses or cafes and restaurants, allowing the virus to circulate, and has therefore had a consistently high level of community transmission.

But unlike many countries in Europe seeing a resurgence of casessuch as France, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Spain and ItalySweden's data now seem to be pointing in the right direction: down.

Its daily death toll peaked in April and is now down to a couple of deaths a day, the number of cases have been in steady decline since early June, and its R-number has pretty much stayed under 1 since early July.

Trust the science?

Sweden's public health officials say they see no reason to change their strategy given the seemingly positive trendincluding their stance on masks.

State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell of the Public Health Agency insists scientific studies have not proven that masks are effective in limiting the spread of the virus, suggesting they can do more harm than good if used sloppily.

"There are at least three heavyweight reportsfrom the World Health Organization, the (EU health agency) ECDC and The Lancet report that the WHO citeswhich all state that the scientific evidence is weak. We haven't carried out our own assessment," he recently told reporters.

KK Cheng, an epidemiologist at the University of Birmingham's Institute of Applied Health Research, told AFP that such reasoning was "irresponsible" and "stubborn", and called on Sweden to change tack.

"If he's wrong, it costs life. If I'm wrong, what harm does it do?"

Tegnell insists Sweden's numbers have gone down since routines were improved at nursing homes, and because people now stay home when they are sick, work from home, and respect social distancing.

"To try to replace those measures with face masks won't work," Tegnell insisted.

"Several countries that introduced masks are now seeing big resurgences," he said on August 14.

Nordic U-turn

Sweden's Nordic neighbours were long holdouts on the mask issue as well, but they have all changed their tune in recent weeks.

Finland now recommends wearing masks in public places, Norway advises it on Oslo public transport, while Denmark has made it mandatory on all public transport and in taxis.

A group of 23 doctors and researchers in June urged Tegnell and the Public Health Agency to reconsider the no-mask policy in an editorial in daily Aftonbladet, a call that has been repeated at regular intervals since then, by them and others.

Tegnell's standard response is that public health officials are "keeping an eye on" the issue and could introduce the measure if deemed necessary.

It remains to be seen whether Sweden's COVID-19 transmission will continue to decline.

Stockholmer Gilbert Sylwander, 69, peruses the masks at Ohlsson's shop, admiring the bright designs. He says he has faith in the Swedish Public Health Agency's strategy.

"It seems as if they were right about many things with their research," he tells AFP.

He does not wear a mask, but would if it were official policy.

"If everyone else is wearing a mask and they are afraid of being contaminated, of course I will use a mask, just to be polite to other people. But since this is not the case here...," he says, his voice trailing off.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 AFP
A federal judge on Friday rejected the New York Times bid to dismiss Sarah Palins defamation lawsuit over a 2017 editorial she said falsely linked her to a mass shooting.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan said that while much of Palins case was circumstantial, it was strong enough for a jury to find the Times and former editorial page editor James Bennet acted with actual malice by clear and convincing evidence. in publishing the editorial.

Rakoff scheduled a Feb. 1, 2021 trial.

Were disappointed in the ruling but are confident we will prevail at trial when a jury hears the facts, Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades-Ha said in an email.

Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor, sued over a June 14, 2017 editorial published after an Alexandria, Virginia, shooting that wounded four people, including then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.

The editorial referred to a January 2011 shooting where six people died and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously wounded, and said Palins political action committee had before that shooting circulated a map that put 20 Democrats including Giffords under stylized cross hairs.

It also contrasted the shootings, saying the Scalise attack had no sign of incitement as direct as in the Giffords attack.

The Times later corrected the editorial, saying there was no link between political rhetoric and the Giffords shooting, and Bennet has said he had not intended to blame Palin.

But Rakoff said Bennets having substantially rewritten an earlier draft, and admission he was aware incitement could mean a call to violence, could suggest actual malice.

The judge also said evidence Bennet may have ignored materials inconsistent with his angle for the editorial could suggest his reckless disregard for the truth.

Palins lawyers, Shane Vogt and Ken Turkel, in an email said she appreciated Rakoffs careful consideration of the merits.

The case is Palin v New York Times Co et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 17-04853.

Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Sandra Maler and Tom Brown)

Photo: Former Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Topics Lawsuits Legislation New York
Vietnam reports four more imported Covid-19 infection cases

Three Indian nationals and a Vietnamese woman who recently returned from India have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, raising the total number of Covid-19 patients in Vietnam to 1044.

A health worker takes samples for Covid-19 testing.



The Ministry of Health announced on Monday evening that the three Indian men arrived in Vietnam to work on August 28 and 29. Two of them aged 32 and 33 were sent to a quarantine area in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau and the 62-year-old man was monitored in the northern province of Phu Tho.

They all tested positive for the virus on their first tests and are now being treated at hospitals in Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Hanoi.





The new Vietnamese patient is a 29-year-old woman in Phu Tho Province. She boarded the same flight with the 62-year-old Indian man to Noi Bai Airport in Hanoi on August 28 and also tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 the same day with him.

She is also being treated at the Hanoi-based Naitonal Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

With these latest infection cases, the number of imported Covid-19 patients have risen to 354 while those related to Danang City have increased to 550 since July 25, the ministry said.

The same day, 12 more Covid-19 patients were released from hospital following their full recovery, raising the total number of recoveries in the country to 707. There have been 34 deaths.

At present, 57,097 people who had close contact with Covid-19 patients or returned from virus-hit areas are being monitored at hospitals, quarantine facilities, and at home.
Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Deploys SWAT Team to SUNY Oneonta to Contain COVID-19 Cluster

August 30, 2020

A rush transcript is available below:

Governor Cuomo: We have a new chancellor of the State University System of New York and he happens to be on the phone with us, Jim Malatras. SUNY, I think, is lucky because Jim has been involved with the entire COVID management system from day one so he gets it clearly. He's brought that orientation to SUNY - he's action today at Oneonta that I think is right and we have him on the phone and I'd like him to speak about the situation at Oneonta and the actions he's taking today. Chancellor Malatras?

Chancellor Malatras: Thank you, Governor. Thank you, everyone. We have had reports of several large parties of our students at Oneonta last week and unfortunately because of those larger gatherings there were several students who were symptomatic of COVID and upon testing we found that 20 were positive for the COVID virus. As a result, we deployed the SUNY Upstate Medical Team to down to SUNY Oneonta, one of our premier medical research facilities to test all students, the nearly 3,000 or so at Oneonta, which began on Friday and right now as of this morning we have 71 positive confirmed cases up from 20. And because of our efforts, we're confirming another 34 tests, so we're about 105 positive tests at SUNY Oneonta, which is about 3 percent of the total student and faculty population that are on campus at SUNY Oneonta this year. As a result of the increase of tests - the positive tests for COVID - we are going to be closing the SUNY Oneonta campus for two weeks for instruction and we will assess the situation working with the state and local health departments after two weeks. I want to thank the Governor and Commissioner Zucker; they've deployed case investigators and contact tracers to help with the situation and the state is deploying a SWAT team to come into the Oneonta community to set up three rapid results testing facilities so that any resident of the Oneonta community can be tested. It's a 15-minute test. The hotline will be, and the locations will be, released on Monday and we will start testing on Wednesday because many of the students, of course, live off-campus. There's a lot of interaction in the community. There's a private college nearby, so we want to manage the, any potential spread and address it immediately. But we're taking this action because we think it's necessary in order to show folks that this can spread quickly and we have to address it quickly - and the other piece that we wanted to mention, because the Governor mentioned it, we understand students are coming back, we understand people want to party. But individual responsibility plays into the collective good, so your individual actions have enormous consequences on everyone else in your college community. Five students in Oneonta have been suspended for holding parties against the college policy. Three organizations, campus organizations, have been suspended and that goes along - we're going to be tough not because we want to ruin their fun, but this is a different time and this goes to what other campuses have been doing. We had to suspend 43 students at SUNY Plattsburgh for similar things because we have to address this during the new-normal. So, we will be doing that today. We're going to be meeting with the local community leaders and the school to go discuss that at 1 p.m. today, so thank you, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much, Jim. And just to echo what Mr. Malatras discussed and this should be a message to the private colleges also. I understand college life. Jim said, "students like to party." I never used the expression "party;" I said "socialize," which I thought was a more appropriate term to use in the academic setting. But we understand that and I understand the tension between the school administration and the student population, but if you the lesson is always the same. If you are not prepared, if you don't have the right precautions, or if you don't enforce the precautions, then the virus spreads and then you have to take more dramatic action which is more disruptive and generates a more energy, a more negative energy. So private colleges, I think if you are slow to enforce the rules, then the virus will spread and then you will have to take more dramatic action. If a private college doesn't take the dramatic action, the local health department can make the college take close-down procedures. If the local community doesn't do it, the state can do it. A 3 percent infection rate, you know, that's a high infection rate in a congregate situation. Three percent is high in a dense environment, like a dense urban environment where you have people taking public transportation; it's a crowded environment. Three percent is high, so I think the Chancellor is doing the exact right thing at Oneonta and I think he's taking the right actions across SUNY, and I think the private colleges should really follow the example. As I said before, I think the colleges are the canary in the coal mine. I think what we're seeing at colleges we're going to see at the K-12 setting when those schools start to reopen. I know there's a lot of conversation in districts across the state. I speak to many school administrators, many parents about this. They have to have the right plan in place. Look at the colleges. Look at what's going on. Have the right plan and be in a position to actually implement the plan. Some school districts were having conversations about testing and what they'll do in terms of testing.

It's one thing to have a plan that says you're going to do X number of tests. It's another thing to actually have the capacity to do that number of tests. So it's not just the plan. It's the implementation of the plan, right? And bureaucracies are not the best change-oriented systems and this is a major change for a bureaucracy and this is a test that has to be completed quickly so it's an entirely new system, an entirely new task that has to be completed very quickly so a plan on paper is one thing. Being able to do it is a second question that has to be asked and my advice to the K-12 is the same - err on the side of caution. Err on the side of caution. If you go to in-person education and you are not prepared or you can't actually implement the plan and do it on day one, you will see the numbers go up and then you'll see more disruption. So err on the side of caution, smart plan you can implement, and if you're not ready, better you start when you are ready. You know? Everybody is anxious to get back to school. I get it. But everybody should be anxious to get back to a safe school, right? We're opening safe schools this year - that's what we're doing. Not just schools - we're opening safe schools.

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By Luke Johnson

San Jose Spotlight

Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez walked on stage but before she could speak, a group of young children shouted from a distance, "Black Lives Matter!"

While cheers erupted from the crowd, she smiled from ear to ear and responded, "That is the future that is here right now. That is awesome."

About 80 people gathered outside the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office Friday for a rally hosted by the county's Probation Peace Officers Union.

Their message: End systematic racism.

Mark Murray, the union president, said this was the first time in Santa Clara County a law enforcement agency hosted a rally to address these issues.

"What we realized, rather than asking other systems to do a deep dive into what they do, before we can ever do that, we need to make sure we do that internally first," Murray said. "We tried to find other unions and law enforcement that have done any kind of (rallies) and we've not been able to identify any of those, so I think we may be the first - and certainly the first in the area."

Murray added there weren't any formal or informal complaints made against the Probation Peace Officers Union, but the group took the initiative to raise the issue shortly after the death of George Floyd in May.

Shelyna Brown said she found herself at a crossroads when she became a Superior Court judge in Santa Clara County.

"I realized the system in which I serve supports systematic racism," she said. "I am a superior court judge but when I leave that courtroom, I am a black woman. When I walk through the mall or at the park, I am no longer protected by that role."

Brown said whenever she sees systematic racism in her courtroom, she calls it out.

"I want to know why this offer was made for this person and why another offer was made for another (person)," she said.

Outside the district attorney's office, dozens of protesters wore black shirts produced by the probation officers union. They displayed several words in white font such as: equality, unity and Black Livers Matter. Many people also held signs that read, "End systematic racism."

At the end of the rally, Murray led protesters to chant "si se puede" -- which translates to "yes we can" in Spanish.

"As human beings, once we recognize that black lives matter, all lives will then matter," said Rev. Jeff Moore, president of the Silicon Valley NAACP. "We must condemn all unjust killings - no matter who does it."

Moore said California is one of five states that doesn't decertify police officers and that needs to change.

San Jose Councilmember Raul Peralez and Assemblymember Ash Kalra were among the guest speakers. As a former police officer, Peralez said he's in a unique position to bridge the gap between politicians and law enforcement.

Kalra spoke on billion-dollar companies needing to be held accountable for systematic racism -- similar to what he said at a Juneteenth celebration at San Jose City Hall.

Murray said he believes San Jose is ahead of the curve when it comes to systematic racism but there is still a lot of progress to be made.

Contact Luke Johnson at 18johnson.luke@gmail.com and follow @Scoop_Johnson on Twitter.

Copyright  2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
Silva, according to the documents, told police he and Kerner left the high school in Kerners Jeep Grand Cherokee and traveled to Kerners grandparents home in Hebron to meet with Grill and Lanham. Silva told police he turned off his location services on his cellphone settings when he and Kerner got in the Jeep to go to Hebron.
France has accused the UK Government of deliberately stalling post-Brexit trade deal negotiations and having unreasonable expectations.

The 27-nation EU and the UK remain deadlocked in their talks on future trade ties after a transitional divorce period ends on December 31.

It has raised concerns that no agreement will be in place in time and that tariffs and other impediments to trade will have to be enacted at the start of next year.

Expand Close German foreign minister Heiko Maas, left, and French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrive for the opening session of the French ambassadors to European countries in Paris (AP/Michel Euler) / Facebook

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Whatsapp German foreign minister Heiko Maas, left, and French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrive for the opening session of the French ambassadors to European countries in Paris (AP/Michel Euler)

Speaking to his nations ambassadors, French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said: Negotiations are not advancing, because of the intransigent and unrealistic attitude of the United Kingdom.

His comments underscored the recent tone of the EUs chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, that the talks seem to be moving backward.

The UK left the EU on January 31 but both sides hoped that a chaotic Brexit could be avoided during 11 months of negotiations.

Both sides have said that September will be a crucial month in the discussions. The EU, for its part, insists that the talks conclude before November to allow time for parliamentary approval and legal vetting.

And Mr Le Drian insisted that the bloc of 27 will not buckle under pressure from London.

He said: On Brexit we always showed unity and proved wrong those who saw signs of an overall implosion of Europe. It is in staying united that we can stick to our line of a global accord.

The main points of difference appear to centre on rules for state aid for businesses and on fisheries.

The EU is insisting on a level playing field for companies from both sides, so British firms cannot undercut EU firms by disregarding stringent rules on environment and social affairs and others. The UK is also frustrated by EU demands for long-term access to British waters.

Both sides say they want to avoid a no deal scenario ahead of the next session of talks in London next Monday. They have also said that their divorce should not impede co-operation in the fields of defence, security and crime.

German foreign minister Heiko Maas, who shared the floor with Mr Le Drian, said that the significance of the co-operation between diplomatic heavyweights France, Germany and the UK will not remain the same if it is not co-ordinated with EU headquarters in Brussels. He said that would result in countries such as Italy, Spain or Poland taking greater responsibility for shaping EU foreign policy.

The UK accuses the bloc of making demands that it has not imposed on other countries it has free trade deals with, such as Canada.

A Government spokesman said: The EU is still insisting not only that we must accept continuity with EU state aid and fisheries policy, but also that this must be agreed before any further substantive work can be done in any other area of the negotiation, including on legal texts, making it unnecessarily difficult to make progress.
Thousands of people have signed a petition calling for a statue of the late actor Chadwick Boseman to replace a Confederate memorial in Anderson, South Carolina.

Boseman, who grew up in Anderson, South Carolina, and was known for starring in Black Panther, 42, Get On Up and Marshall, died of colon cancer last week at the age of 43.

Over 5,000 signatures have been added to the petition as of Monday night.

The Confederate Monument belongs in a museum, but has no right to be displayed there, the petition reads. I believe the community should come together to honor someone from Anderson, South Carolina that was able to change the movie industry. He opened many doors for many young black people with his leading roles in movies such as Black Panther or Marshall. It is only natural that his hometown honors what he did. There is no need for political controversy in this decision.

The petition is addressed to the Mayor of Anderson, Terrence Roberts, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, the South Carolina State Senate and the South Carolina State House.

The Confederate Monument belongs in the Anderson County Museum, the petition states.

It should preserve history, but not honor the ideals for which the Confederacy stood, the petition reads. I suggest that the Anderson City Council decide to replace the statue as soon as they possibly can.

Boseman was diagnosed in 2016 with stage 3 cancer, which developed into stage 4 over four years. His diagnosis did not become public knowledge until the Boseman family detailed it in a statement announcing the actors passing.

Related Content:
Empagliflozin also significantly reduced the relative risk of first and recurrent hospitalization for heart failure by 30 percent and significantly slowed kidney function decline 1

Results were consistent in subgroups with and without type 2 diabetes 1

Heart failure is the leading cause of hospitalization in the U.S. and Europe 2

Results from the Phase III EMPEROR-Reduced trial were published today in The New England Journal of Medicine1

Full results from the EMPEROR-Reduced Phase III trial in adults with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, with and without diabetes, showed that empagliflozin was associated with a significant 25 percent relative risk reduction in the primary endpoint of time to cardiovascular death or hospitalization due to heart failure.1 The trial evaluated the effect of adding empagliflozin (10 mg) versus placebo to standard of care.1 The results will be presented today at the ESC Congress 2020, the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology,3 and published in The New England Journal of Medicine,1 Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) announced.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200829005006/en/

The findings from the primary endpoint were consistent in subgroups with and without type 2 diabetes.1 Key secondary endpoint analyses from the trial demonstrated that empagliflozin reduced the relative risk of first and recurrent hospitalization for heart failure by 30 percent.1 Additionally, the rate of decline in eGFR, a measure of kidney function decline, was slower with empagliflozin than with placebo.1

"Heart failure is a devastating and debilitating cardiovascular condition. Not only does it limit quality of life, but it is also a progressive disease that requires repeated hospitalizations and is accompanied by a loss in kidney function, said Milton Packer, M.D., Chair of the Executive Committee for the EMPEROR Program and Distinguished Scholar in Cardiovascular Science at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, U.S. Results from the EMPEROR-Reduced trial show that, when given to adults with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, empagliflozin reduces the number of heart failure hospitalizations while slowing the decline of kidney function. These results are highly statistically significant and clinically important.

In an exploratory analysis, the absolute risk reduction observed in the primary endpoint of EMPEROR-Reduced corresponded to a number needed to treat of 19 patients over 16 months to prevent one cardiovascular death or hospitalization for heart failure.1 An additional exploratory analysis showed that empagliflozin decreased the relative risk of a composite kidney endpoint*, including end stage kidney disease and a profound loss of kidney function, by 50 percent.1

In EMPEROR-Reduced, the efficacy results were achieved with a simple dosing regimen, with once daily dosing and no need for titration.1 The safety profile was similar to the well-established safety profile of empagliflozin.1 There were no clinically meaningful differences in adverse events including hypovolemia (decreased blood volume), hypotension (low blood pressure), volume depletion (loss of fluids), renal insufficiency (poor kidney function), hyperkalemia (high potassium levels) or hypoglycemic events (low blood sugar) compared with placebo.1

Heart failure affects over 60 million people worldwide,4 with more than one million people being hospitalized due to the condition every year in the U.S. and Europe.2 Heart failure occurs when the heart cannot pump sufficient blood to the rest of the body and is the most common and severe complication of a heart attack.5,6 People with heart failure often experience breathlessness and fatigue, which can severely impact their quality of life.7,8 Individuals with heart failure often also have impaired kidney function, which can have a significant negative impact on prognosis.9

Heart failure can have a profound impact on people living with the condition, with the potential of life limiting consequences for the heart and the kidneys, said Waheed Jamal, M.D., Corporate Vice President and Head of CardioMetabolic Medicine, Boehringer Ingelheim. "Empagliflozin was the first SGLT2 inhibitor to demonstrate a reduction in cardiovascular death and hospitalization due to heart failure in people with type 2 diabetes and established cardiovascular disease, based on the EMPA-REG OUTCOME trial. We continue to break new ground with the EMPEROR-Reduced results, which provide robust evidence that empagliflozin can transform the lives of millions of people through reducing cardiovascular outcomes and slowing the progression of kidney damage in people with heart failure. We look forward to exploring these data further and are planning regulatory submissions for later this year.

Tens of millions of people live with heart failure and kidney disease, said Jeff Emmick, M.D., Ph.D., Vice President, Product Development, Lilly. Results from EMPEROR-Reduced show that empagliflozin can help improve heart failure outcomes while also slowing kidney function decline. We are excited to share these data and, through our ongoing EMPOWER program, hope to redefine how people living with these conditions are treated.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation to empagliflozin for the reduction of the risk of cardiovascular death and hospitalization for heart failure in people with heart failure.10 This designation is for the EMPEROR program, which consists of the EMPEROR-Reduced and EMPEROR-Preserved trials. EMPEROR-Preserved is exploring the effect of empagliflozin on cardiovascular death or hospitalization for heart failure in adults with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction,11 an area that currently has no approved treatment options. EMPEROR-Preserved results are expected in 2021.

Additionally, the ongoing EMPA-KIDNEY study is evaluating the effect of empagliflozin on the progression of kidney disease and occurrence of cardiovascular death in adults with established chronic kidney disease, with and without diabetes.12 The FDA has also granted Fast Track designation to empagliflozin for the treatment of chronic kidney disease, demonstrating the urgent need for new treatment options for people living with the condition worldwide.13 Results from EMPA-KIDNEY are expected in 2022.

The EMPEROR and EMPA-KIDNEY studies are part of the EMPOWER clinical program, the broadest and most comprehensive of any SGLT2 inhibitor, exploring the impact of empagliflozin on the lives of people across the spectrum of cardio-renal-metabolic conditions. The program also includes the EMPACT-MI study, which will investigate the effect of empagliflozin on all-cause mortality and hospitalization for heart failure in adults, with and without diabetes, who have had a heart attack14, and the EMPULSE study, which is exploring empagliflozin in adults, with and without diabetes, who are hospitalized for acute heart failure and have been stabilized.15

* Composite exploratory endpoint included chronic dialysis or renal transplant or sustained reduction of  40% in eGFR (CKD-EPI) or a sustained eGFR < 15 mL/min/1.73m2 (for patients with baseline eGFR  30) or sustained eGFR < 10 mL/min/1.73m2 (for patients with baseline eGFR < 30 mL/min/1.73m2).

+++

About the EMPEROR Heart Failure Studies11,16

The EMPEROR (EMPagliflozin outcomE tRial in patients with chrOnic heaRt failure) heart failure studies are two Phase III, randomized, double-blind trials investigating once-daily empagliflozin compared with placebo in adults with heart failure with preserved or reduced ejection fraction*, both with and without diabetes, who are receiving current standard of care:

EMPEROR-Reduced [NCT03057977] investigated the safety and efficacy of empagliflozin in patients with chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).

Primary endpoint: time to first event of adjudicated cardiovascular death or adjudicated hospitalization for heart failure

Number of patients: 3,730

Completion: 2020

Link to lay summary

EMPEROR-Preserved[NCT03057951] investigates the safety and efficacy of empagliflozin in patients with chronic heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF).

Primary endpoint: time to first event of adjudicated cardiovascular death or adjudicated hospitalization for heart failure [Time Frame: up to 38 months]

Anticipated number of patients: approx. 5,990

Estimated completion: 2021

*Ejection fraction is a measurement of the percentage of blood the left ventricle pumps out with each contraction.17 When the heart relaxes, the ventricle refills with blood.

HFrEF occurs when the heart muscle does not contract effectively, and less blood is pumped out to the body compared with a normally functioning heart. 17

occurs when the heart muscle does not contract effectively, and less blood is pumped out to the body compared with a normally functioning heart. HFpEF occurs when the heart muscle contracts normally but the ventricle does not fill with enough blood, so less blood can enter the heart compared with a normally functioning heart.17

About the EMPOWER program

The Alliance has developed the EMPOWER program to explore the impact of empagliflozin on major clinical cardiovascular and renal outcomes in a spectrum of cardio-renal-metabolic conditions. Cardio-renal-metabolic conditions are the leading cause of mortality worldwide and account for up to 20 million deaths annually.18 Through the EMPOWER program, Boehringer Ingelheim and Lilly are working to advance knowledge of these interconnected systems and create care which offers integrated, multi-organ benefits. Comprised of eight clinical trials and two real-world evidence studies, EMPOWER reinforces the long-term commitment of the Alliance to improve outcomes for people living with cardio-renal-metabolic conditions. With more than 257,000 adults studied worldwide in clinical studies, it is the broadest and most comprehensive clinical program for an SGLT2 inhibitor to date.

The development program encompasses:

EMPEROR-Reduced, in adults with chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death or hospitalization due to heart failure 1

EMPEROR-Preserved, in adults with chronic heart failure with preserved ejection fraction to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death or hospitalization due to heart failure 11

EMPULSE, in adults hospitalized for acute heart failure to improve clinical and patient reported outcomes 15

EMPACT-MI, to evaluate all-cause mortality and hospitalization for heart failure in adults with and without type 2 diabetes who have had an acute myocardial infarction, with the aim to prevent heart failure and improve outcomes 14

EMPA-KIDNEY, in adults with established chronic kidney disease to reduce the progression of kidney disease and the occurrence of cardiovascular death 12

EMPERIAL-Reduced, in adults with chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction to evaluate functional ability and patient reported outcomes 19

EMPERIAL-Preserved, in adults with chronic heart failure with preserved ejection fraction to evaluate functional ability and patient-reported outcomes 20

EMPA-REG OUTCOME  , in adults with type 2 diabetes and established cardiovascular disease to prevent major adverse cardiovascular events, including cardiovascular death 21

, in adults with type 2 diabetes and established cardiovascular disease to prevent major adverse cardiovascular events, including cardiovascular death EMPRISE, a non-interventional study of the effectiveness, safety, healthcare utilization and cost of care of empagliflozin in routine clinical practice in adults with type 2 diabetes across the cardiovascular risk continuum22,23

About Heart Failure

Heart failure is a progressive, debilitating and potentially fatal condition that occurs when the heart cannot supply adequate circulation to meet the bodys demands for oxygenated blood or to do so requires increased blood volume leading to fluid accumulation (congestion) in the lungs and peripheral tissues.5 It is a widespread condition affecting over 60 million people worldwide and expected to increase as the population ages.4 Heart failure is highly prevalent in people with diabetes;24 however, approximately half of all people with heart failure do not have diabetes.4,25

The empagliflozin heart failure program was initiated based on data from the EMPA-REG OUTCOME trial, which assessed the effect of empagliflozin (10 mg or 25 mg once daily) in adults with type 2 diabetes and established cardiovascular disease when added to standard of care, compared with placebo.21

About Cardio-Renal-Metabolic Conditions

Boehringer Ingelheim and Lilly are driven to transform care for people with cardio-renal-metabolic conditions, a group of interconnected disorders that affect more than one billion people worldwide and are a leading cause of death.18

The cardiovascular, renal and metabolic systems are interconnected, and share many of the same risk factors and pathological pathways along the disease continuum. Dysfunction in one system may accelerate the onset of others, resulting in progression of interconnected diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, heart failure, and kidney disease, which in turn leads to an increased risk of cardiovascular death. Conversely, improving the health of one system can lead to positive effects throughout the others.26,27

Through our research and treatments, our goal is to support peoples health, restoring the balance between the interconnected cardio-renal-metabolic systems and reducing their risk of serious complications. As part of our commitment to those whose health is jeopardized by cardio-renal-metabolic conditions, we will continue embracing a multidisciplinary approach towards care and focusing our resources on filling treatment gaps.

About Empagliflozin

Empagliflozin (marketed as Jardiance) is an oral, once daily, highly selective sodium glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor and the first type 2 diabetes medicine to include cardiovascular death risk reduction data in its label in several countries.28,29,30

Inhibition of SGLT2 with empagliflozin in people with type 2 diabetes and high blood sugar levels prevents sugar being re-absorbed by the kidneys, leading to the excretion of excess sugar in the urine. In addition, initiation of empagliflozin also prevents salt being re-absorbed, leading to increased excretion of salt from the body and reducing the fluid load of the bodys blood vessel system (i.e. intravascular volume). Empagliflozin induces changes to the sugar, salt and water metabolism in the body that may contribute to the reductions in cardiovascular death observed in the EMPA-REG OUTCOME trial.31

Please click on the following link for Notes to Editors and References https://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/press-release/emperor-reduced-heart-failure-full-data

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200829005006/en/
ANSONIA  A 20-year-old woman was found at the scene of a reported hit-and-run on Sunday, but police say she may have died as the result of an attack.

Police responded to reports of a person struck in a hit-and-run crash around 4:50 p.m. Sunday in the area of Coe Lane in Ansonia.

But police say a car accident likely didnt occur at the scene, which is a quiet residential neighborhood.

When officers arrived on scene, they found a 20-year-old female suffering from upper body injuries that were not consistent with a motor vehicle accident but rather an assault, said Lt. Patrick Lynch, a police department spokesman.

The woman was transported to Griffin Hospital, where she later died, Lynch said. The name of the victim will be released once the next of kin has been notified, Lynch said.

The Ansonia Police Department is working with the states chief medical examiner to determine the cause and manner of the 20-year-olds death.

The Connecticut State Police Major Crime Central District is also assisting with processing the scene on Coe Lane and North Coe Lane.

A black Pontiac Aztek motor vehicle involved in this incident has been located and is being investigated by the Ansonia Police Department.

Detectives, with the assistance of the Derby Police Department, which first received reports of the incident, are following up leads to identify a suspect.

Anyone with information can contact the Ansonia Police Department at 203-735-1885. Tips can also be left anonymously through Tip411.
August 31, 2020 marks the 23rd death anniversary of Princess Diana.

She was loved not only by the Brits but all over the world, which is why she was called The People's Princess.

Diana Spencer knew the dangers of being the Princess of Wales. Before marrying Prince Charles on July 29, 1981, the paparazzi were already hounding her. Everybody wanted to see who the future Queen Consort was. Everybody wanted to know every waking detail of the blonde beauty.

Even after her divorce, Princess Diana had little to no privacy. Everywhere she went, she was always being followed. The media attacked her, and many people had bad things to say about her.

Which is why she took drastic measures because she was frightened for her life.

According to the late princess' former private secretary Patrick Jephson, the mom-of-two always carried around a fridge full of her blood stocks as a precaution in case they need it for medical purposes or if she was attacked.

"Particularly, when we were abroad or in the developing world, we would carry a little refrigerator full of spare supplies of Diana's blood," he told the Daily Star.

"A part of the job that was easy to forget, and then you'd get a sharp reminder. Diana was quite often under the threat of physical danger. "

According to him, he and the rest of Princess Diana's security team also had their blood types checked to see if they were a match, in case she would need it.

"Each of us was tested so the doctors knew which of us could give her blood if she needed it.

Patrick was the private secretary of the former Princess of Wales from 1988 until 1996, the same period she divorced the Prince of Wales and was put aside by the monarchy.

He also hasn't forgiven the British monarchy for how they treated his former boss and believed that Queen Elizabeth II and the rest of the royal family underestimated Princess Diana.

"That is a real shame, and I think it doesn't reflect well on the royal family."

He continued, "She was out there flying the flag for Britain and by any measure doing a great job for the monarchy, but received very little recognition, let alone thanks for it at the time."

"She was a young single mother working hard, and she had no supportive network, she had no proper mentoring, the organization was overwhelmingly masculine even though there was a woman at the top of it."

Patrick added, "She had her work cut up just surviving, let alone driving as a royal performer."

The former secretary further said that it was a real shame the British monarchy didn't realize how Princess Diana, even after her death, was an asset to the monarchy.

Describing his former employer, Patrick called Di "a natural monarchist," and "not a natural rebel."

Princess Diana's death was one of the most tragic events that happened that century. According to Independent UK, the firefighter treated her as she lay fatally injured in a tunnel in Paris heard her last words.

Sergeant Xavier Gourmelon confirmed that Princess Diana's last words were, "'My God, what's happened?'"

READ MORE:Prince Harry Set To Return To the UK After Receiving Touching News
SKOPJE, Macedonia - North Macedonias parliament approved a new left-wing coalition government late on Sunday.

The Social Democrat-led government is to eventually be headed by the countrys first ethnic Albanian prime minister, according to its coalition agreement.

After two days of heated debate, lawmakers voted 62-51 in favour of the new government led by Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev, 46. Seven members were absent.

Zaev and his coalition partners won 62 of the Parliaments 120 seats in the July election.

Zaev, who led the previous government from 2017 to 2020, formed a more streamlined Cabinet with 19 members, seven fewer than before. Nine ministers either kept their positions or were moved to new ones. Seven posts went to ethnic Albanians.

Zaev told lawmakers his new Cabinet will focus on reviving the economy, dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and fighting corruption. He announced 1 billion euros ($1.19 billion) in new foreign investments, a 40% increase in the minimum wage and pensions and a planned judiciary reform.

According to the power-sharing deal with the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration party, Zaev will hand the prime ministers office over to an ethnic Albanian politician proposed by his junior partner 100 days before the end of the governments four-year term, in 2024.

It would be the first time a representative of the largest minority ethnic community have held that position since North Macedonia split from the former Yugoslav federation in 1991.

The conservative opposition fiercely criticized the new Cabinet, claiming it is incapable of dealing with the pandemic and fulfilling its promises.

During parliamentary debate, a few hundred people held a rally in front of the European Unions offices and the parliament building in downtown Skopje, protesting the change of the countrys name to North Macedonia and disparagement of the Macedonian national identity and dignity in a push for the countrys Euro-Atlantic integration.
The move was initiated by Vietnam in its capacity as ASEAN Chair.

In the statement, ministers expressed their profound condolences to the Philippine Government and people, especially families of victims, and hoped that the injured will soon recover.

In the current difficult time, they said ASEAN affirms solidarity with the Philippine Government and people and support the Philippine Governments efforts to deal with the case, soon arrest and bring culprits behind the terrorist attacks to the court.

ASEAN also reaffirms commitment to enhancing cooperation with the international community in the fight against terrorism in any forms, they added.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 22:12:17|Editor: huaxia

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KAMPALA, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has honored 600 Ugandan troops guarding UN facilities and personnel in volatile Somalia, a Ugandan official said on Monday.

Lt. Col. Deo Akiiki, deputy Ugandan military spokesman, tweeted that the troops, serving under the sixth United Nations Guard Unit in Somalia, received medals from Guterres.

"The medals are recognition of the one-year selfless service... in securing the UN facilities and personnel against al-Shabab threats," Akiiki said, referring to the al-Qaida-linked extremist group.

An award ceremony, held in Somalia, was presided over by James Swan, special representative of the UN secretary-general for Somalia. The troops are deployed in Somalia on a rotational basis.

Besides providing protection services to the UN, Uganda provides the bulk of the troops under the African Union Mission in Somalia.

Uganda has over 6,000 troops deployed in Somalia. Enditem
Qutub Minar illuminated in red and white to mark Poland's Solidarity movement

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

New Delhi, Aug 31: Embassy of Poland and Polish Institute in Delhi illuminated Qutub Minar in Poland's national colours, white and red, on Sunday to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the creation of Poland's Solidarity movement. This year, 2020, marks the 40th anniversary of the creation of Solidarity.

The Solidarity movement of Poland is a trade union based on Gandhian principles of non-violence that fought for civil rights in the country during the communist rule.

Solidarity was originated in Gdansk, Poland on 31 August 1980 and in a short time gathered 10 million members.

Millions of Poles, through the mass civic movement, established "Solidarity", to resist the injustice prevailing in their enslaved country based on Gandhian principles of ahimsa.

Among most important leaders of the movement, Lech Waesa and Anna Walentynowicz, can be named.

The movement was crushed by communist military take over in December 1981, but it continued and finally won in 1989 leading to first partially free elections and then to the regaining of the independence of Poland.

Marking this special anniversary, Poland unites behind all nations striving for freedom and democracy in their countries.

To celebrate it Embassy of Poland and Polish Institute in New Delhi had organized the illumination of Qutub Minar on 30 August and will conduct a lecture in the India International Centre on 31 August.

The Chief Guest at the Qutub Minar function is Dinesh K Patnaik who is the Director General of the Indian Council of International Relations.

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Story first published: Monday, August 31, 2020, 12:58 [IST]
Selbyville, Delaware, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --



Global Market Insights, Inc. has recently added a new report on VSAT market which estimates the global market valuation for very small aperture terminal will cross US$ 18 billion by 2026. The increasing demand for advanced satellite-based communication systems for a range of outdoor & indoor applications is expected to positively impact the market growth.

The growing demand for secure and efficient commercial operations across unmanned/manned vehicles, aircrafts and earth stations is expected to support VSAT market growth. The advanced capabilities to provide accelerated broadband connection for both commercial and personal communication are driving the demand for VSAT terminal platforms. VSAT platform supports both narrow & broadband data transmission and assists in providing customized internet services. These VSAT networks are also easy to deploy and communicate directly with the satellites through ground stations.

Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/4802

The Ku band segment is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of above 7% from 2020 to 2026. The growth is attributed to increasing adoption of dedicated satellite communication. The Ku band frequencies allow communication through high power signals followed by significantly reduced power consumption. In addition, an equipment of the size of 1.8 meter supports the Ku band applications. With the need for limited area for installation, the demand for Ku band frequency solutions for satellite applications with limited bandwidth is growing significantly.

The SCPC-based terminal segment is expected to grow significantly over the forecast timeline. This technology segment is majorly adopted for broadcasting and audio/video communication applications. The SCPC is developed for point to point communication link and support unique transmitting & receiving VSAT. It eliminates the need for central control hub and provides flexibility in expansion. It also supports dedicated high bandwidth in absence of contention or sharing.

The video broadcasting application segment is projected to witness significant growth from 2020 to 2026. The need for visual broadcasting across & between geographically dispersed remote outstations and headquarters is driving the adoption of VSAT terminals. The companies in telecommunication leverage remote VSAT systems to create high speed internet connectivity to broadcast visual information. In addition, VSATs are also used in large ships and aircrafts for business applications. Furthermore, the companies such as KVH Industries Inc. offer an innovative VSAT based video streaming services .

The star network architecture is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 8% over the forecast timeline. In star structured network, VSATs are classified as sub-networks and connect to large hub station. The information is transmitted across multiple connected VSATs through central hub. Moreover, the star-based architecture minimizes the costs and reduce the size of VSAT terminals required at remote sites. However, the significant delay between VSAT to VSAT communication caused by star topology may affect the adoption.

Browse key industry insights spread across 250 pages with 376 market data tables & 25 figures & charts from the report Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) Market Share & Forecast, 2020-2026 in detail along with the table of contents:

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/very-small-aperture-terminal-vsat-market

The adoption of stabilized VSAT terminals for airborne platforms like commercial, military aircrafts and UAVs has increased significantly. The need to deliver audio/video and data services across airborne platforms along with high bandwidth capacity is supporting the adoption of VSAT terminals. VSAT provides enhanced bandwidth and connectivity to support mission critical applications including data and internet. The VSAT solutions are used for commercial airlines, business jets and mission-based aircrafts.

Europe is expected to hold over 30% share of the global VSAT market by 2026. The extensive growth in aerospace and defense industry followed by strategic partnerships between satellite communication companies is supporting the market growth. For instance, in September 2019, Russian Satellite communications company partnered with Thaicom Public Company Limited. Under the partnership, both the companies jointly developed maritime satellite broadband connectivity using VSAT network.

The companies operating in the market are focusing on development of advanced VSAT terminals. VSAT terminal providers are continuously developing and advancing their VSAT solutions as per the technology evolution. For instance, in July 2020, Hughes Network Systems, LLC launched the latest version of its VSAT platform named JUPITER. The company added dynamic return channel switching, higher level protocols in layer 2 transport and adaptive coding and modulation on TDMA return channels. This helped the company to offer advanced platform to support backhaul connectivity.

Some major findings of the VSAT market report include:

The growing need for VSAT systems to provide high-speed broadband connections for business activities across maritime, aerospace and naval industry are supporting technology development in the market.





Increasing requirement of enterprise of ensure data safety to support adoption of private networks.





Minimal infrastructure requirement to establish a ground station is one of the major market accelerator.





Europe is expected to hold a major share of VSAT market due to extensive growth in aerospace and defense industry followed by government initiatives.





Companies operating in the market are focusing on the development of advanced VSAT platforms, such as Hughes Network Systems JUPITER.

Major players operating in the VSAT market are Honeywell Corporation, General Dynamics, Singtel, L3Harris Technologies, Inc., Thales Group etc.

Browse complete reports table of contents (ToC): https://www.gminsights.com/toc/detail/very-small-aperture-terminal-vsat-market

Partial chapters of report table of contents (TOC):

Chapter 3. VSAT Industry Insights

3.1. Introduction

3.2. Industry segmentation

3.3. Industry landscape, 2015 - 2026

3.4. Impact of COVID-19

3.4.1. Impact by region

3.4.1.1. North America

3.4.1.2. Europe

3.4.1.3. Asia Pacific

3.4.1.4. Latin America

3.4.1.5. MEA

3.4.2. Impact on industry value chain

3.4.3. Growth strategy

3.5. Evolution of VSAT

3.6. Industry ecosystem analysis

3.7. Technology & innovation landscape

3.8. Regulatory landscape

3.8.1. North America

3.8.2. Europe

3.8.3. APAC

3.8.4. LATAM

3.8.5. MEA

3.9. Industry impact forces

3.9.1. Growth drivers

3.9.1.1. Rise in usage of cellular devices across the globe.

3.9.1.2. Introduction of AI, cloud computing and HetNet.

3.9.1.3. Increasing launch of commercial satellites.

3.9.1.4. Rising demand of personalized communication network.

3.9.1.5. Low ground station infrastructure investment.

3.9.2. Industry pitfalls & challenges

3.9.2.1. Huge initial investment for satellite launch

3.9.2.2. Rising cyber threats

3.10. Growth potential analysis

3.11. Porter's analysis

3.12. PESTEL analysis

Browse related report:

Synthetic Aperture Radar Market Size By Frequency Band (Single-Frequency Band [X Band, C Band, L Band, K/Ku/Ka Band], Multi-Frequency Band), By Component (Receiver, Transmitter, Antenna), By Application (Spacecraft, Aircraft, UAV), By End-Use (Research & Commercial Applications [Public, Safety, Environmental Monitoring, Natural Exploration], Defense), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Growth Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2020  2026

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/synthetic-aperture-radar-sar-in-space-sector-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.
MIAMI, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, CBT College started today the Fall semester via a hybrid academic model. This learning approach allows students to get hands-on training in the recently updated College's labs while receiving the lectures through the latest online resources.

Founded in 1988 by Gladys and Fernando Llerena, CBT College is a trade and vocational school that offers career training in Electricity, Refrigeration, Construction, Information Technology, and Health Information Management, among others. For the past 31 years, the school has evolved into a premier technical accredited and military-friendly institution with three campuses in Hialeah, Cutler Bay, and Flagler St. in Miami, Florida.

"None of us expected to live in a time like this," said Mrs. Gladys Llerena, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors. "But besides these challenges produced by COVID-19, we are working together to continue reinforcing the Vision and Mission of CBT College. Now we are going for the upcoming 2020 Fall semester with better curriculum and technology techniques to fulfill our students' expectations and improve our student's outcomes." Mrs. Llerena also highlighted the continued effort of the faculty and the staff "on this endless process of learning the new technology that will benefit our students and our community."

With their students in mind and after four months of completely online distance education, "CBT College decided to transition from a fully online platform to a hybrid approach once it was allowed by Miami-Dade County and the State of Florida execution orders," remarked Luis Llerena, President & CEO of CBT College. "We began offering lab training as of July 6th and continued to deliver the lecture portion using online platforms. As per CDC guidelines, we continue following social distancing and sanitizing practices throughout all our facilities," he added.

The hybrid learning and teaching approach consists of a combination of remote and residential (in person) training, a type of education key in the line of the school's academic model and success in teaching technology and trades-related careers. "For CBT College, most classes have a lecture component that is delivered online, while the hands-on portion of the class is delivered using the campus's physical facilities," said Hector Duenas, Director of Academic Operations. For online delivery, CBT has implemented a variety of techniques that allow students and faculty to have synchronous and asynchronous sections. The labs are already updated to comply with current sanitary regulations.

According to Llerena and Duenas, CBT College surveyed the student population after the first two weeks of the hybrid implementation. 80% expressed that they are learning as much with the approach and 76% would prefer to continue taking classes using this format, so "CBT College has decided to continue the hybrid approach on a permanent learning modality," Llerena announced.

"As per the faculty, their level of satisfaction is high, and the main reason is the decision from CBT College to start the lab hours at the campuses, which is a key factor for students' satisfaction," continued Duenas.

The implementation of the hybrid approach and the changes produced by the COVID 19 crisis came with its challenges. "CBT College enrolls students with diverse backgrounds, whose need is to find skills to better their current situation," stated Monica Llerena, Corporate Communications Officer. "The hybrid approach will give students the flexibility to continue to support their current needs while being able to pursue the opportunities to Be More. It will prepare students to be a more versatile learner in this advancing technology era due to this new normal," she said.

In this sense, CBT College provided laptops to students who did not have a computer at home to help the student population adopt the new learning modality and get through these difficult times. Also, the Career Services department provides placement support for those students who lost their job and informational resources that could assist their families (such as food banks and testing information). Mr. Luis Llerena also noted that "Students received a stimulus check from the CARES grant that CBT College applied for and received the funding to help and support our community."

FACILITIES PREPARATION

During the past months, CBT College has prepared the facilities in their three campuses following the CDC and local government agencies' regulations. Their goal is for the students, staff, and faculty to be safe and at the same time to use technology to their advantage.

Maricel Spezzacatena, Chief Operations Officer, stated that the planning contemplated both the residential and the online learning environments. "We separated stations in the labs with Plexi Glass to provide more protection to the students and divided big groups into smaller groups to ensure social distancing. Besides, we have a system where we measure the temperature of all students coming to the school and provide a sticker if they are clear, so the faculty can look at the sticker and allow them to enter class. We change the sticker color every day."

CBT also set a particular protocol to track students with symptoms or with the virus. In this regard, Mrs. Spezzacatena highlighted that "We are thinking outside the box and putting new things in place so students are not behind if they cannot be part of the rotation due to the COVID 19. The last implementation was live classes in the lab environment. Our Lead Instructors, alongside our professors, are recording the classes and doing live sessions for those who cannot come in person, so they don't get behind. Lastly, we have increased the cleaning in high traffic areas."

Regarding the overall operation, Spezzacatena indicated that CBT College is adjusting to the current situations and finding solutions that allow their business to operate efficiently. "At the staff level, we are maximizing the use of our current CRM Software to allow students to complete enrollment online. We are also looking for new software to automate processes and create workflows so our departments can provide a more efficient service to our students."

EMPATHY AND COMMUNICATIONS

During the pandemic, CBT College launched the #CBTCollegeCares campaign, focused on providing students and Alumni the resources they might need to continue studying while dealing with the "new normal." In this respect, the leader of the campaign, Mrs. Monica Llerena, indicated that "Empathy and communication are two words that have multitudes of layers. To reach a layer of understanding and collaboration between our students and teams has been a lesson for us. It is inspiring to witness how resilience can run alongside determination during this pandemic. Launching new virtual platforms was pinnacle on our successful retention of students and connecting with our community."

During the upcoming months, CBT College plans to continue presenting virtual events such as Virtual Job Fairs and Virtual Open Houses (both in English and Spanish) to engage with students, alumni and business partners. "We strictly abide by our vision and mission when making decisions about enriching our students and redefining our Campuses' safety," stated Mr. Llerena to finish ensuring that CBT College will intentionally continue to focus on their student's best interest.

About CBT College:

CBT College provides career training through a hands-on learning approach within the construction, technology, and allied health fields at its three locations across Miami-Dade County ( Cutler Bay, Flagler , and Hialeah .) Over the past 31 years, the organization has graduated thousands of students into the Miami-Dade County workforce throughout more than 70 graduation ceremonies. The College's involvement with employers, local organizations, and strategic business initiatives has opened up plenty of opportunities for our current students and graduates.

CBT College is also listed as a Military-friendly school and participates in the Yellow Ribbon GI Education Enhancement Program, as well as is approved by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to participate in the Student Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) to enroll International F-1 Visa students. The College is nationally accredited by ACICS, licensed by the Commission of Independent Education (CIE), and certified by the US Department of Education to receive Title IV funding.

SOURCE CBT College

Related Links

http://www.cbt.edu


Katie Price has received a hot pink scooter to travel around in as she continues to recover from an operation on her broken feet.

The former glamour model, 42, underwent surgery earlier this month after breaking her ankle and feet in a horror accident during a holiday in Turkey.

The star - who is now resting at home on doctors orders - will now be able to travel around near her home on the scooter. She is currently in the middle of a two year driving ban.

Here she comes: Katie Price has received a hot pink scooter to travel around in as she continues to recover from an operation on her broken feet

A source told MailOnline: 'Katie will be able to claim back a bit of independence,

'The scooter has been given a total make over by Robbie at Valetmagic - he reached out to Katie offering his team to work their magic, putting a smile back on her face will certainly be speeding up her recovery.

The star added to The Sun: 'I won't be breaking any speed limits on this - that's for sure.'

Helping hand: The former glamour model was assisted by daughter Princess as she attempted to ride the colourful scooter outside her Surrey home

Awkward: Katie didn't look comfortable as she gingerly moved from one vehicle to another

All aboard: Princess tried out her mother's wheelchair after she climbed into the four wheeler, which came with a natty basket fixed onto its steering chassis

The scooter has been customised to Katie's standards and features a 'Pricey' registration plate.

Katie recently revealed she was stepping out of the spotlight on Thursday on medical advice as she has been told to 'rest in order to heal'.

Amid the social media hiatus, Katie appeared in a promotional fake tan video shared on her Instagram on Sunday evening - with her representatives confirming this was a pre-scheduled post.

Guidance: The 42-year old appeared to get one or two useful tips before she gave her new ride a test drive

Let's go: Katie appeared to be in high spirits as she set off on her personalised scooter

Faithful friend: The brunette was joined by her pet pooch while navigating the vehicle across the street

They said: 'I can confirm that Katie has not returned to social media. Katie's team posted the Instagram and this was not posted by Katie herself.

'It was filmed prior to her hiatus.'

The star posted a statement to Instagram Stories on Thursday, which read: 'Katie is taking some time out of the media spotlight.

Get well soon: It is hoped that the scooter will help speed up Katie's recovery from foot surgery

My girl: The former glamour model got an affectionate hug from her daughter as she sat in her wheelchair

When push comes to shove: Katie was aided by a friend as she examined her new scooter

'Her family and Dr's have told Katie that she must rest in order to heal. Katie wants to thank everyone for their ongoing support and will be back when she feels ready.'

Katie's representative told MailOnline: 'Katie is taking a much needed break. Katie has found the past few weeks terribly draining, both mentally and physically challenging and in order to bounce back is convalescing.'

Yet despite her Instagram statement, just minutes later, Kate posted a supportive tweet to her pal Kerry Katona, which she hastily deleted. It is likely it was pre-scheduled before her announcement.

Injury: Katie has been using a wheelchair to get around since her horror accident (pictured this month)

Here she is: Amid the social media hiatus, Katie appeared in a promotional fake tan video shared on her Instagram on Sunday evening - with her representatives confirming this was a pre-scheduled post

It read: 'Loved @KerryKatona7's newest YouTube video of their holiday in a 15 MILLION SUPER VILLA!!! Go check out how amazing this place is!!!' she then posted links to Kerry's YouTube.

Earlier in the week, she bemoaned the challenges of being in a cast after breaking both her feet, as she attempted to have a bath on Monday.

The former glamour model took to Instagram Stories to share a glimpse of the tiring attempts to get washed off, warning fans she couldn't get her casts wet.

Ahead of her statement, Katie had returned to social media on Monday after being rushed to hospital with a suspected infection over the weekend, following surgery on her broken feet earlier this month.

Recovery: They said: 'I can confirm that Katie has not returned to social media. Katie's team posted the Instagram and this was not posted by Katie herself. 'It was filmed prior to her hiatus'

On her Instagram Stories, Katie revealed she first had to try and get from her wheelchair into the bath with her feet in the air.

She wrote: 'Got to use my upper body strength to get in the bath legs up run the water and CANNOT get my cast wet.. such a mission to have a bath.'

This comes amid claims Katie has been warned by doctors that she must keep her legs elevated in order to aid her recovery, after she was rushed to A&E at Epsom hospital in Surrey.

The star was said to have been in 'excruciating agony' earlier on Saturday when she'd visited the hospital, according to The Sun.

A source speaking to the publication claimed: 'Katie has been sent home and told in no uncertain terms that she must keep her legs up or they won't heal properly.'

The insider went on to say: 'She's just going to have to lie down and give herself time to heal.'

MailOnline contacted Katie's representatives for comment at the time.

It was reported earlier in the day that she was suspected to have an infection and required further treatment at Chelsea and Westminster hospital, just a week after undergoing major surgery.

The star broke both her feet during a freak accident while on a family holiday in Turkey earlier this month.

An insider told The Sun: 'Katie was in excruciating agony all night, couldn't eat, couldn't focus and nothing was working. Painkillers weren't touching it so pals rushed her to A&E in Epsom.

'Doctors decided to move her to the Chelsea and Westminster hospital for further treatment but the fear is she could have an infection.'

A representative for Katie Price told MailOnline: 'She had a terrible night. I can confirm Katie was taken to her local A&E hospital ( Epsom ) and then referred back to the Chelsea and Westminster.'

It comes after Katie was left devastated after a surgeon confirmed the extent of her 'smashed' feet and stated she 'couldn't have done a worse job' of injuring herself.

Taking to her YouTube channel earlier this month, Katie explained: 'The surgeon made it clear that I couldn't have done a worse job to myself.

'They're smashed, broken and it's bad, really bad. It's bad, life changing injuries what I've done, so they're just going to do their best.'

She shared her doctor's recent diagnosis before entering surgery on August 14 2020, as they confirmed her injuries are 'life-changing' and will leave her with horrendous scars.

Tough time: Katie recently revealed that she is stepping out of the spotlight on doctor's warning as she has been told to 'rest in order to heal'

Honest: The star posted a statement to Instagram Stories on Thursday, which read: 'Katie is taking some time out of the media spotlight.'

Katie discussed her shock at hearing the news while wearing a medical robe and resting on her hospital bed, as she prepared for her next operation at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital.

The reality star recorded herself eight hours later following the operation,and she seemed in brighter spirits as the anaesthetic slowly wore off.

She revealed that a member of staff told her, when they opened her legs up in surgery, they were more 'smashed and mangled' than they appeared on the x-ray and the op was much harder than anticipated.

Katie experienced the horrendous accident after she jumped off a wall at the Land of Legends theme park in Turkey and broke both her ankles and feet.

It's been a stressful year for Katie after she was admitted to The Priory earlier in 2020 following a string of personal woes, including being declared bankrupt and dealing with her mother Amy's terminal illness.

The statement added: 'Her family and Dr's have told Katie that she must rest in order to heal. Katie wants to thank everyone for their ongoing support and will be back when she feels ready.' (pictured with her boyfriend Carl Woods)

Bizarre? Yet despite her statement, just minutes later, Kate posted a supportive tweet to her pal Kerry Katona, which she hastily deleted. It is likely it was pre-scheduled before her announcement

Talking about her rehabilitation centre visit on her reality series My Crazy Life, she admitted that 'the only reason I'm here is because of my children'.

Katie was spotted outside the The Priory in February 2020, following a host of rehab stints over the past two years in the wake of legal issues and substance abuse.

The episode saw the TV star in the run up to her breakdown with 'severe stress' as she tried to cope with bankruptcy and her split from on-off fiance Kris Boyson. She is now happily loved-up with new beau Carl Woods.

Katie last visited The Priory in September 2018 and spent 28 days in the facility after her family urged her to seek help following wild partying antics in Mallorca.

Medical advice: Katie was warned by doctors to keep her feet elevated as she returned home on Saturday after being rushed to hospital following surgery on her broken feet

At the time, she was confronted by her loved ones after shocking footage emerged of her rapping 'I love coke' during a booze-fuelled hen do.

Katie broke down after the intervention and admitted she needed help to get over her chaotic behaviour, which she blamed on her PTSD.

In November 2019, the mother-of-five was declared bankrupt at a court after facing further legal action over her spiralling debts, said to be worth 800,000.

The CBB star had been pursued by creditors and the taxman after revealing she has spent her entire 45million fortune.

Stay strong: According to the reality star, she is convinced she will make a full recovery and doesn't care about scarring on her feet as long as she is able to walk again

Meanwhile Katie split from fiance Kris, 31, late last year after a nearly two-year on-off relationship.

The couple were thought to have rekindled their romance in December with a festive 'make-or-break' trip to New York.

Katie admitted she had cheated on the fitness enthusiast twice over the course of their relationship.

She was last seen outside The Priory in February 2020 with a source telling MailOnline: 'Katie was at the Priory for an appointment with a welfare doctor as protocol with ITV for filming My Crazy Life'.

If you have been affected by this story, you can call the Samaritans on 116 123 or visit www.samaritans.org.
Kim Kardashian is revealing the secrets to wearing the right undergarments.

In new video clips posted to her Instagram Stories on Sunday, the 39-year-old reality star showed fans a new clay-colored underwear ensemble from her SKIMS line, that she claims is great for when you want your body to look 'snatched.'

'I wanted to show you guys my go-to shapewear, when I wear something underneath,' she explained in the video, while posing in her underwear.

Secrets: Kim Kardashian reveals the SKIMS undergarments she wears when she wants her body to look 'snatched' in a new Instagram video

She explained: 'I love this shapewear bra, if you don't want to wear an underwear bra, but you need something that snatches you, that is so supportive, then this bra is the best.'

'And the shapewear brief just snatches you and makes you feel really secure, because sometimes you can't wear a thong, especially if you're wearing a sheer something and you need to show like a full bottom,' she continued.

Meanwhile, it was revealed over the weekend, that Kim's husband Kanye West is keen to purchase another ranch in Wyoming.

Her secret weapons: Kim showed off her favorite undergarments that make her outfits pop

Looking good: Kim showed fans a new clay-colored underwear ensemble from her SKIMS line, that she claims is great for when you want your body to look 'snatched.'

Tricks: Kim said this color is great for wearing under a dress, and will not get noticed in photos

The Bound 2 rapper is reportedly interested in purchasing the Double Doc Ranch in Cody, Wyoming after visiting it the other day.

The ranch, which operates as a horse breeding and training facility, is already home to three horses owned by the Kardashian-West family, TMZ reports.

Kanye's wife Kim previously revealed he wants to move to Wyoming but her law studies mean they can't just yet.

Sashay away: The reality star strutted along her corridor at home in the video

Telling all: Kim gave fans a little impromptu tutorial on Sunday afternoon

Kim must remain a resident of California so she can sit the state bar exam there in 2024. She said at the time: 'I know that my husband wants to move to Wyoming, but I love California.'

'Honestly, the sky, the air, everything is different in Wyoming. I love it. It's a happy place for me, and my sisters, we all want to get a ranch there. We just did a cattle drive down there. It's been amazing.'

However, she is currently based in Los Angeles.
By Dan Williams

OVER SAUDI ARABIA (Reuters) - High above a vast expanse of desert the Israeli pilot's voice broke through the passengers' chatter on Monday to announce that the plane had just crossed into Saudi airspace.

Members of the Israeli and U.S. delegations paused for a light ripple of applause, as food carts moved through the aisle with barely enough room to squeeze past the throng of White House aides, officials and journalists.

El Al flight LY971, the first Israeli direct flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi, had just made aviation history by flying over Saudi territory en route to U.S.-brokered normalisation talks between Israel and the Emirates.

Security had been tight in advance - the route had been kept under wraps by officials for as long as possible, even though the schedule of the flight all but confirmed that it would pass over Saudi territory -- an alternative route would have doubled the flying time.

And even before take-off, when traveling reporters arrived for COVID-19 testing they were given a code-phrase -- "I'm here for the 'experiment'" -- to be fast-tracked through by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Wishing us all salaam, peace and shalom, have a safe flight," Captain Tal Becker told the passengers in Arabic, English and Hebrew - matching the words painted above the cockpit window - as they boarded at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport in the morning.

The delegates included President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. U.S. national security adviser Robert O'Brien and his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat. All sat cheek by jowl with agents from the U.S. Secret Service and Israel's Shin Bet domestic security agency. Netanyahu himself delivered a mid-flight message to mark the occasion.

A spokesman for El Al said the plane was equipped with a C-Music anti-missile system on its rear carriage -- standard for the 737s in the carrier's fleet.

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As the aircraft passed over Oman and approached the UAE - an unusually indirect route, perhaps to keep away from Iran on the other side of the Gulf - passengers took photographs and video of the coastline beneath them.

Then after three hours and 20 minutes, the Boeing 737 touched down in Abu Dhabi and came to a halt, ready for the red carpet reception by Emirates officials. Protocol over, the politics could begin.

(Reporting by Dan Williams; Writing by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Jeffrey Heller, William Maclean, Gareth Jones)
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes coronavirus disease (COVID-19), is still actively spreading like wildfire, with nearly 300,000 new infections reported daily across the globe. Early on in the outbreak in China, scientists said that the virus could spread through respiratory droplets, when a person coughs, sneezes, or speaks.

Recent evidence shows that the virus can remain suspended in the air and travel long distances as aerosols. Another recent study shows that infectious SARS-CoV-2 aerosols can travel up drain pipes in toilets in buildings and apartments, even reaching several floors above.

Now, a team of researchers says they have evidence that a woman contracted the coronavirus on a flight, perhaps in the airplanes toilet.

The study, published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, reveals evidence of transmission on an evacuation flight from Milan, Italy, to Seoul, South Korea, in late March.

Image Credit: Jordan Tan / Shutterstock

Evacuation flight

Before boarding the flight, about 300 people were screened for the symptoms of COVID-19. The medical staff performed physical examinations, medical interviews, and body temperature checks outside the airport.

About eleven passengers who had symptoms were removed from the flight, and the medical team, which was dispatched by the Korean Centers for Disease Control (KCDC), were trained in infection control procedures based on the World Health Organization guidelines.

The medical staff provided N95 masks to all the passengers, and they were kept 2 meters apart for physical distancing during the preboarding procedure. During the duration of the flight, all the passengers kept their masks on, apart from mealtimes or when they used the toilet.

After the 11-hour flight, 299 asymptomatic passengers arrived in South Korea and had undergone a 2-week quarantine period. The passengers were brought to a government isolation facility, and they were tested for SARS-CoV-2 by reverse transcription PCR twice, on the first day of the quarantine, and by the 14th day.

Positive patients

Six of the travelers tested positive at the start of the quarantine period but were asymptomatic or had no symptoms of COVID-19. Meanwhile, a seventh passenger tested positive on the seventh day of the quarantine, despite previously getting negative results.

The passenger had worn her N95 mask for the entire flight duration, except when she used the bathroom. She also was seated three rows ahead of the asymptomatic travelers.

Given that she did not go outside and had self-quarantined for 3 weeks alone at her home in Italy before the flight and did not use public transportation to get to the airport, it is highly likely that her infection was transmitted in the flight via indirect contact with an asymptomatic patient, the researchers said.

The patient-reported symptoms such as coughing, runny nose, and body pains on the 8th day of quarantine and was transferred to a hospital on the 14th day. The remaining 292 passengers were released from quarantine on the 15th day.

Flight transmission of pathogens

Previous studies have shown that inflight transmission of other respiratory infections, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and influenza, may occur in people who sit near an infected person. This considering the difficulty of airborne infection transmission during the flight due to the high-efficiency particulate-arresting filters used in aircraft ventilation systems.

Usually, the transmission of the virus occurs when passengers are boarding, moving, or disembarking. Meanwhile, the researchers believe the woman contracted the virus in the planes toilet.

Since the KCDC performed robust infection control procedures, the woman may have been exposed to the virus in the toilet when an asymptomatic passenger may have used it before she did.

The team also noted that other explanations might indicate that she had previous SARS-CoV-2 exposure; she had a more extended incubation period or had other unevaluated situations where she contracted the virus.

Our research provides evidence of asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 on an airplane. Further attention is warranted to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 on aircraft. Our results suggest that stringent global regulations for the prevention of COVID-19 transmission on aircraft can prevent public health emergencies, the team concluded.

The coronavirus pandemic is sweeping across the globe, with most of the cases tied to asymptomatic spread. With the airborne or aerosol transmission a possibility, many people may get infected if they do not practice infection precautions, such as proper hand hygiene, wearing masks, and physical distancing.
Alia Bhatt poses for happy pictures for a magazine cover as sister Shaheen Bhatt turns photographer for her. Alia Bhatt had shared some vibrant and happy pictures on her Instagram that were clicked by her sister Shaheen Bhatt, see photos here.

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], Aug 30 (ANI): Sharing a refreshing picture with her fans, actor Alia Bhatt on Sunday treated fans with a stunning picture shot by her sister and life line Shaheen Bhatt.

The Highway actor posted a picture on Instagram wherein she looked glamorous in a colourful dress. In the picture, Alia is seen posing as she looks off the camera while sporting a no make-up look. The actor looks enchanting in the lush green backdrop. Taking to the caption, the Raazi actor captioned the post as shot by my life line @shaheenb. (as she tagged sister Shaheen and left a yellow heart emoji).

She posted another picture in the same dress, clicked by her sister Shaheen Bhatt. She wrote a caption along quoting Maya Angelou, You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

Also read: Disha Patani gives hilarious twist to Rasode Main Kaun Tha rap, shares video with pets

Also read: BJP leader Ram Kadam criticizes Maharashtra govt for not providing security to Kangana Ranaut

With the post hitting Instagram, more than 9 lakh fans along with filmmaker Zoya Akhtar liked the adorable post. Celebrity fashion designer left heart emojis in the comments section, while Fatima Sana Sheikh left a red heart and lovestruck emojis.

Lately, Alia has been keeping her fans updated on her activities by posting pictures and videos on social media. Most recently, Alia Bhatt shared her reprised version of Ankit Tiwaris Tum Se Hi song for the from her latest movie Sadak 2.

Also read: Superstar Rajinikanth is not just about style, hes a fabulous actor: Director Suresh Krissna
Helena Bonham Carter, Sam West and Michael Gove will be among those listening to the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy reading at Foyles in London today, confusingly, at the launch of a book based on an app. On iF Poems, you can listen to verses being read, or record them for others to hear. Now it's being turned into a hardback. According to Tim Burton, in The New York Times, Helena will be wanting to get home in time for Downton, revealing she's a fan. But is he? Bizarrely, he likens it to "a morphine injection". Yet another accolade for Julian Fellowes.

Gove eyes 'free Eton' for his boy

Boasting alumni such as Hilary Benn and Polly Toynbee, Holland Park School is sometimes known as the "socialist Eton". So there was much eyebrow-raising when Michael Gove made a visit to the London comprehensive last week, not in his capacity as Education Secretary but as prospective parent. I can disclose that he is considering sending his son to the school, as the Goves live in the catchment area. Gove himself was both state and privately educated, although most of his friends went to Eton. The move would be unusual for a Tory minister; figures show that 50 per cent of Notting Hill residents send their children to fee-paying schools. Controversially, the local council has just spent 60m on a swanky new building for the school. Only last year, Mr Gove was attacking architects for "creaming off" money that could be better spent on teaching. That should make him popular at the school gates.

Officer class

Actor Bertie Portal is much in demand for his plummy tones; he once starred in a Merchant Ivory spoof called Stiff Upper Lips. Earlier this year, he took a break from acting to row across the Atlantic, raising an astonishing 400,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. Giving a talk at the Royal Geographic Society last week about his heroic endeavour, which included capsizing and running out of oars, he revealed that he and his rowing partner, James Cash, would while away the hours by debating Bond girls. Despite his upper-crust credentials, he admitted the food he craved most during the 59-day ordeal was "not champagne or lobster but a cheese and tomato sandwich in really naff white bread". Asked which Bond girl won, he said: "Ursula Andress, of course."

Air Cate

Cate Blanchett dented her popularity in Australia last year, when she popped up on telly to advocate a controversial "carbon tax". The Oscar-winning star of films such as The Talented Mr Ripley is a committed environmentalist, but was dubbed "carbon Cate" after she started lecturing her fellow Australians, who are among the world's worst polluters. So what will her critics make of news that a British theatre troupe is flying out to appear at the Sydney theatre where she is co-artistic director? After spotting Sasha Regan's all-male cast at Wilton's Music Hall, she has asked them to take their Pirates of Penzance out to Australia next year. Blanchett is a fan of Wilton's, the shabby-chic east London venue, and is a regular theatregoer. Next year will be her last season in her role at the Sydney Theatre. Let's hope audiences are too wowed by the performers to make a song and dance about their air miles.

Biggins's turn

Christopher Biggins may be a favourite on the pantomime circuit, but he's less popular when he sits in the stalls. The larger-than-life actor was at the opening night of Sandi Toksvig's new anti-war play, Bully Boy, and spent much of the evening roaring with laughter. Though the play has its comic moments, the humour is used in a moving way, and those who sat near Biggins couldn't concentrate because of his guffawings. One theatre critic wrote afterwards: "Had there not been so many luvvie witnesses, I would happily have throttled him." It's not the first time Biggins has fallen foul of the critics: in 2006, Mark Shenton of the FT dedicated a whole blog posting to his "near-hysterical, hyena-like braying" at a first night, noting that "no envelope has ever been opened without him being present". Shenton added the same was true of Su Pollard, "a whole show in herself whenever she's at one (since she's rarely these days actually in one)". As it happens, Pollard was at Toksvig's play, too, screeching away. Is it time for her and Biggins to be put in a box of their own?

Toe-curling

Nigel Farage hailed Lord Stevens of Ludgate as a "giant of Fleet Street" when he welcomed the Tory peer's defection to Ukip last week. The former Express chairman is now Ukip's third representative in the upper house. But for a newspaper man, Stevens can be surprisingly sensitive: he hates any reference to his late wife's book, Woman as Chameleon, which advised women: "Always kiss your husband's body, starting with his toes." When Melissa, Countess Andrassy, subsequently died by choking on a peach, The Daily Telegraph duly reported the toe-sucking in its obituary. Stevens threw an almighty wobbly, and it took some time before the Telegraph's proprietor, Conrad Black, could calm him down.

Put Downton

Viewers of last Sunday's first episode of the new series of Downton Abbey were gripped by the arrival of Cora's American mother, Martha, played by Shirley MacLaine. She and Maggie Smith compete to see who can produce the most withering put-down. But some were distracted by a brief mention of her surname: Leveson. What could Julian Fellowes be trying to tell us? That the man tasked with thrashing out the future of newspapers is about to put a rocket up the old system, just as Martha does at dusty old Downton? Let's not get carried away: her name is, in fact, Levinson. Still, have we discovered Downton's first nuance?

Hot chefs

Antonio Carluccio has thrown down the oven glove to Jamie Oliver. At the launch of a new branch of Carluccio's in Bath, within breadstick-lobbing distance of Jamie's Italian, the chef said: "If it were an operation for just churning money, I wouldn't be interested. I've kept myself away from the cheap circles who do publicity for supermarkets. I'm not earning the money, but, for me, it is more important to keep my standards and people's respect for my food." Carluccio, 75, opened his first restaurant in 1999, but this is the first branch in Bath, where Jamie's Italian has enjoyed enormous success since 2008. Carluccio is clearly enjoying the prospect of a peppery rivalry, saying: "When I came here 37 years ago I saw many restaurants doing Italian food but I call it Britalian. Spaghetti bolognese doesn't exist  it's tagliatelle bolognese." And will Jamie be welcome? "Carluccio's accommodates everybody who likes good food, good manners and good ambience." Buon appetito!

Peacenik

Andrew Mitchell's extraordinary behaviour could come straight out of a P G Wodehouse novel. Bertie Wooster is forever getting into trouble for insulting policemen, most memorably by pinching a bobby's hat. And his friend George "Sippy" Sipperly is arrested for assaulting an officer at the Boat Race. One little-known fact about Mitchell is that he was once a UN peacekeeper. But even Jeeves might struggle to get him out of this pickle.
Kayakers visit California sea lions lolling on a raft in Morro Bay. (Danna Dykstra Coy / Morro Bay Tourism)

In April my husband and I were set to take our grandsons, ages 6 and 9, on a getaway to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and a nearby resort. COVID-19 and the shutdown crushed our plans. As summer approached I had hopes for a beach getaway with them, but COVID-19 remained a grim deterrent to travel. Crowded hotels were out of the question. I turned to Airbnb to find a vacation rental where we could stay on our own.

It was reassuring to learn that in response to COVID-19 the worlds most popular vacation-rental website mandated a new protocol for sanitizing and disinfecting rental spaces informed by recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (See box.)

I launched a search for Airbnbs in beach destinations near Los Angeles. Apparently I wasnt the only one; most of the best rentals were already booked. I expanded my search farther north and came up with a possibility.

The quiet coastal town of Morro Bay is best known for its massive rock, the remnant of a long-extinct volcano. On the San Luis Obispo County website



I discovered a list of social-distancing outdoor activities ideal for the boys, including spotting otters and other wildlife. I pitched a Morro Bay trip to them as a marine version of San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

I bookmarked a one-bedroom, one-and-a-half bathroom condo on the waterfront. I messaged the host, Beach-N-Bay Getaways, a local rental-management company, to ask about COVID-19 safety precautions. They assured me they followed Airbnbs strict cleaning protocol. They also explained the condo had keyless entry and that high-touch items such as decorations and games had been removed.

Visitors take in the sunset over Morro Bay. (Paul Boorstin)

The price was higher than Id planned  $466.43 a night, including cleaning and service fee. But I figured we wouldnt be spending money on restaurants, shopping, whale-watching excursions or other activities that might put us in proximity to a crowd.

I reserved the condo for two nights. (After our trip I discovered that if I had booked on the Beach-N-Bay website instead of on Airbnb, I would have saved about 10%.)

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To further ensure a virus-free condo, I brought along my own disinfectant and cleaning supplies. I packed sheets and pillowcases as an extra precaution. For food security, I ordered groceries for delivery from the local Albertsons.

On the three-hour drive to Morro Bay we stopped for a picnic-lunch break at the vista point in San Marcos Pass (Highway 154) between Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Valley. An hour later we arrived at the condo. I snapped on latex gloves and grabbed my cleaning and disinfecting supplies. Dont come in until I deem its safe, I told my grandsons.

As I stepped into the spacious living/dining/kitchen area, I was distracted by the spectacular view of the bay and the rock  and the condos cleanliness.

Nevertheless I disinfected every high- and low-touch surface inside as well as on the barbecue-equipped balcony. When converting the pullout sofa into the boys bed I sandwiched the blankets between two brought-from-home sheets, then opened all the doors and windows. One blast of fresh sea air quickly dissipated the disinfectant smell.

Finally it was time to have fun. The boys grabbed binoculars and made for the balcony. The first thing they searched for was the source of the raucous squabbling that echoed across the bay. It was a raft overflowing with 800-plus-pound California sea lions. Theyre not social distancing, said the 9-year-old.

They spotted kayakers, stand-up paddleboarders and sailboats just a few yards away. And then  could it be? Was that dark object floating on a kelp bed a sea otter? They called us to the balcony with such excitement, I swear the furry critter turned its head to see what all the commotion was about.

A sea otter snoozes while floating in the kelp in Morro Bay. (Danna Dykstra Coy / Morro Bay Tourism)

The next morning we strolled along the Morro Bay waterfront. Most shops and restaurants were open. Many people were wearing masks, but not enough to suit me. The boys enjoyed exploring the collection of old boats and the Jules Verne-ish deep-submergence rescue vehicle at the free outdoor Morro Bay Maritime Museum.

Across the street, just offshore from a sign that proclaimed otter nursery, they were thrilled to spot a mother otter and her way-too-cute pup lolling on their backs among the kelp. The animals didnt blink an eye when three lumbering sea lions hoisted their bulbous bodies out of the water and onto a nearby dock for a snooze.

When the morning fog gave way to crystalline blue sky, we piled beach gear into the car and drove to Morro Bay State Park. To the north of the towering landmark, at Morro Rock Beach, surfers rode waves I deemed too daunting for my grandsons  or me. I rummaged in the trunk for the kite wed brought along on earlier beach vacations without liftoff success. In the brisk wind, today was the day. The bobbly eyed squid kite shot high into the air and danced to the boys delight.

A young visitor attempts to launch a kite on Morro Rock Beach. (Paul Boorstin)

Later we walked to the south side of the rock. Here boulders line the channel that the Army Corps of Engineers dredged in the 1930s to create a harbor. A handful of visitors lolled on a sandy beach with gentle waves. We made our way down a rocky path and found an uncrowded spot to spread our beach blanket.

The boys busied themselves building sandcastles, but the clear water beckoned. We quickly discovered it was a lot colder than at the beach in Santa Monica. The boys wiggled into their wetsuits. Because there was no lifeguard, I donned mine. As we swam and frolicked in the water, we spotted two playful dolphins.

When we brought the boys home the next day, the first thing our younger grandson said to his mother was, We swam with dolphins, but dont worry. We social distanced.

Airbnb cleaning protocol

Airbnb hosts who commit to its enhanced cleaning protocol earn an Enhanced Clean designation on their listing site.

This means the host has committed to do the following before each guest stay:

Sanitize every high-touch surface, down to the doorknobs

Thoroughly clean room by room using AirBnBs extensive cleaning checklist

Wash all linens at a high-heat/temperature setting

Use cleaning supplies approved by health experts, such as disinfectants with 70% alcohol or more

Wear mask and gloves while cleaning

Comply with local laws and safety guidelines that call for additional cleaning

If guests believe that the host has not complied with Airbnbs commitment, their recourse is to write a negative review and give the host a low rating for cleanliness. This can lead to Airbnb removing the hosts Enhanced Clean designation.





This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Its designed to help businesses in the event of them wanting to defend a dispute or pursue a dispute relating to their core business activities, she explained. Its there to be able to allow small businesses to potentially deal with issues that could be resolved earlier, and not lead to full-on litigation.

Read more: Solution Underwriting on specialised NDIS support

Lane concedes that the new cover is not a substitute for general liability or professional indemnity, but it is instead designed to complement them.

The heads of cover were designed with the SME space in mind, in terms of which areas of legal protection matter most to these businesses, while also giving them access to legal advice through Sparke Helmore lawyers.

Each head of cover is designed and written in plain English. Its one of those policies where its got a heading, it tells you what it covers and doesnt cover, and its very clear [with its]intention, Lane continued.The first head of cover is contractual dispute and it always ties back to the clients core business A contractual dispute is not only about defending their claim, but its also about pursuing a claim in the event of there being any sort of issues relating to retailers with product suppliers.

The second head of cover is tax audit, which people can [also] buy as a standalone product  It [covers] the cost associated with businesses having to be audited and getting your accountant to put everything together, going through the audit process and then again, finding out at the end of it if theres been any issues.

Read next: Protecting your business from COVID-19 scams: Expert

Lane believes the commercial legal protection cover is competitive and delivers value to the SME market because most other insurance policies are about defending yourself, while this cover actually gives the client the ability to be able to pursue a dispute as well and take it on knowing they have the comfort of legal advice and legal expenses being paid for them, she said.I think theres a lot of people who think I dont know where to go [and] its going to cost me lots of money to actually stand up for myself.

Moreover, Lane noted that every policyholder will have access to advice via email, phone or other methods of communication. Notably, they will not only have this for heads of cover under this policy, but any legal question or matter that comes back to the clients core business.
Energy-strapped Turkey has announced the discovery of a vast natural gas field in the Black Sea containing 320 billion cubic metres of natural gas, which could start producing by 2023.

Making the announcement, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the find historic and vowed to step up energy exploration in Aegean and eastern Mediterranean waters that Greece says it controls.

"Turkey has made its biggest natural gas discovery," said Erdogan at a news conference adding that the discovery offers Turkey a "new era."

The Turkish president said the new gas fields production will coincide with the centenary celebrations marking the foundation of the Turkish Republic.

Sources claimed the find could meet Turkish energy needs for the next 20 years.

The discovery of indigenous energy reserves is a critical strategic goal of Ankara.

Turkey is a major gas importer. It is one of the fastest-growing energy consumers. Turkey is heavily energy-dependent on imported gas and oil. It spends around $40 billion a year on imported oil and gas. A significant factor behind the Turkish currencys chronic weakness, which hit a record low this month, is that Turkey spends more on imports than exports, causing a large account deficit.

Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, speaking from the drilling ship that discovered the gas field, said the energy discovery was a financial game changer. "It will remove the current account deficit," said Albayrak. "We will be soon talking about current account surpluses."

"Turkey is committed to long-term contracts of buying piped gas from Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia. You can't simply walk out of those contracts," said Yesilada. "Selling gas on the world market will not be easy either, as there is an oversupply."

The Black Sea gas find is the fruit of the Turkish government's aggressive search for energy. Since 2017, Ankara purchased five research vessels that have combed Turkey's surrounding seas for years.

The Black Sea gas discovery is giving impetus to Turkish efforts in the Mediterranean. We hope to see similar good news in the Mediterranean as well," said Erdogan. We will be accelerating our drilling activities in the Mediterranean." -- Tradearabia News Service
An Australian couple who are stranded in the Ukraine with their newborn surrogate twins have pleaded with Scott Morrison to help them get home.

Candice and Chris Dix left their two young sons with their grandparents in Perth three weeks ago to travel to Kiev to collect their daughters.

They were due to fly home on Sunday, but in a devastating turn of events Ukraine closed its borders that same day after recording 2,096 new COVID-19 cases and 35 new deaths.

With all flights to Australia now suspended for months, the parents are now trapped in the Ukraine with no idea when they will be able to see their boys again.

Candice and Chris Dix (pictured) left their two young sons with their grandparents in Perth, Western Australia, three weeks ago to travel to Kiev to collect their daughters

The couple told 9 News it has been 'really hard' to get a hold of the Australian embassy in Kiev due to the sheer quantity of people trying to leave the eastern European nation.

The father-of-four said they feel 'completely powerless' to change the situation and made a desperate plea to the Prime Minster for help.

From one father to another Scott, Im begging you mate ... help me get my family home,' he said.

'Help us get home to our boys and introduce our precious girls to their older brothers.'

Mrs Dix explained the pair had no choice but to travel to the Ukraine during the pandemic for the birth of their twins, but left their sons behind to 'keep them safe'.

'No Australian in their right mind would travel here right now, or to any European city right now, but we had no choice,' she said.

Mrs Dix explained the pair had to travel to the Ukraine during the pandemic for the birth of their twins (pictured)

Mrs Dix also said they decided to leave their sons (pictured) behind to 'keep them safe'

'Our surrogate mum was halfway through the pregnancy when COVID-19 hit, and any parent would know, you can't leave your babies.'

If the Dix's mange to get on a flight to Australia, they will likely have to fly to Sydney and then pay for two weeks in a government-approved quarantine hotel before flying to Western Australia and quarantining again, adding a month to the length of time before they can see their kids.

Australia closed the nation's international borders to tourists to halt the spread of COVID-19 on March 20 and told citizens overseas that they should return as soon as possible.

In early July, however, tight international arrival caps were introduced limiting the number of passengers a plane could bring into the country - only 4,000 a week.

If the Dix's mange to get on a flight to Australia, they will likely have to fly to Sydney and pay for two weeks in a government-approved quarantine hotel before flying to Western Australia

The decision was made due to Australia's commitment to strict hotel quarantine for 14 days for every returning travel, amid fears large numbers of arrivals could disrupt the complicated system.

According to government estimates, 18,800 Australians in other countries are looking to return home.

Opposition Foreign Affairs spokesperson Penny Wong on Friday said the government should be providing financial support for those Australians stuck overseas.

The government has advised those stranded to access early superannuation withdrawals and there have been reports of consular staff advising citizens to start crowdfunding pages.
Trio sent to jail for smuggling Chinese into Da Nang

Ho Thi Thu Trinh, Chen Xian Fa and Huynh Ngoc Diem (from left) at the Da Nang People's Court in Da Nang City, August 29, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Dong Ho.

A Chinese man and two Vietnamese women in Da Nang were sentenced to 5-8 years in prison on Saturday for brokering illegal entry into Vietnam.

Chinese national Chen Xian Fa, 27, was sentenced to eight years in jail, while Ho Thi Thu Trinh, 24, was sentenced to six years and Huynh Ngoc Diem, 41, five years. All were charged with "brokering illegal entry into Vietnam," the central city's People's Court heard.

Trinh was a student of Chinese and Diem a teacher at a secondary school in Da Nang. They met when Diem hired Trinh to teach her Chinese. The due often found houses available for rent, and published the info about the houses on Chinese social media app Wechat.

On June 23, Fa contacted Trinh, saying he wanted to rent a house. Both Diem and Trinh knew Fa did not have a visa to enter Vietnam, but still accepted his request.

Diem subsequently rented a house in Ngu Hanh Son District for VND19 million ($820) a month, before deciding with Trinh to raise the rent to VND23 million a month so they could gain from the deal. The renting period was three months.

On June 28, Fa, along with three other Chinese nationals, entered Vietnam illegally from China. They were then taken by a Vietnamese driver to Da Nang.

While Fa and the other Chinese stayed in the house, Diem and Trinh helped them buy food and other necessities. When police inspected the premises on July 11, they found the Chinese and several laptops and mobile phones. Diem and Trinh were summoned soon after.

Fa, with the assistance of Diem and Trinh, had successfully brought Chinese into Vietnam illegally several times, prosecutors said.

In court, Fa stated he had moved to Da Nang to market Vietnamese products to online Chinese customers, adding the laptops and phones were used to such ends.

After completing his sentence, Fa will be deported from Vietnam, the court further heard.

In recent years, Da Nang police have solved several cases in which Chinese have illegally entered Vietnam for online gambling purposes.

Culprits were reported to have rented houses, using scores of laptops and cell phones along with their own wireless routers to ensure a private internet feed.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last Wednesday that Ottawa is providing $2 billion in additional funding to the provinces to support their reckless drive to reopen schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The funding will enable hard-right premiers like Francois Legault in Quebec, Doug Ford in Ontario, and Jason Kenney in Alberta to force millions of students, teachers and education staff into overcrowded school buildings in the coming weeks and underscores yet again that Trudeau Liberals government is spearheading the corporate elites drive to reopen the economy, irrespective of the cost in human life.

In announcing the funding, Trudeau stressed that reopening schools is critical to restarting the economy, since it allows parents to return to work without stressing about the health of their children. No parent, Trudeau continued, should be losing sleep because they have to go back to work, but arent confident schools are properly prepared.

The fact that reopening schools has nothing to do with the hypocritical concerns offered up by politicians about the welfare of children and their right to education and everything to do with the interests of big business was underscored by the Canadian Chamber of Commerces full-throated support for Trudeaus announcement. Our members have repeatedly stated that the biggest impediment to more fulsome participation by women in business is access to reliable and affordable childcare and safe, full-time return to school policies across the country, said Leah Nord, the director of workforce strategies and inclusive growth for the Chamber, which is a right-wing mouthpiece for Canadian big business.

The Trudeau governments spearheading of the homicidal reopening of the economy is in keeping with its policy throughout the pandemic, which has been based on defending the wealth of the super-rich and big business at the expense of working people. With the support of its trade union allies, the Liberal government crafted a $650 billion bailout for the financial oligarchy and big banks in March, while placing millions of workers who lost their jobs on rations. It is now exploiting the social crisis produced by these policies to bully workers back to their jobs, eliminating the CERB (Canada Emergency Response Benefit) and slashing government aid to the jobless, so that the ruling class can continue to enrich itself through stepped up exploitation.

Provincial governments have prepared for schools to function as little more than holding pens for children so that their parents can be forced to return to unsafe workplaces. Decades of budget cuts have led to dilapidated school buildings, shortages of teaching and education staff, outdated equipment, and a lack of resources to implement even basic hygiene measures. Yet provincial governments from Quebecs right-wing populist Coalition Avenir Quebec regime to British Columbias New Democrats have announced no more than a handful of one-off spending pledges that do not even come close to addressing the basic health and safety needs of students and education staff. (See: Canadian authorities to reopen schools, facilitating COVID-19 spread)

They have also made clear that they have no intention of closing schools or childcare facilities, even when the inevitable increase in COVID-19 infections takes place.

Quebecs Health Minister Christian Dube bluntly informed the population on the provinces first day of school last Thursday that they should prepare for a spike in cases, and by implication more deaths. I need people to understand, said Dube, that we might start with a few teachers who have to be isolated, but later on there will be outbreaks. We have to expect it and take the required steps.

Referring to the provinces childcare facilities, Families Minister Mathieu Lacombe added, We do not intend to shut down the entire childcare network as we did in the first wave. A second wave is more than probable, but with our plan, we are ready.

This is similar to neighbouring Ontario, where the Ford government has all but ruled out local or district school shutdowns. It has handed over to local school boards the decision on whether to keep open individual schools facing COVID-19 outbreaks, with specific instructions that total school closures should be avoided as far as possible. Government guidelines even state that if a school must be shut down due to an outbreak, it can reopen before the outbreak is declared over.

The education unions are complicit in the government-big business drive to reopen the schools and the placing of students, teachers, support staff, and parents at grave risk. Across the country, the unions have suppressed any opposition to the school re-openings, while promoting illusions that the capitalist state can oversee safe conditions for teachers and students. In Ontario, for example, the provinces four education unions have vowed to challenge the Ford governments reopening plan at the Labour Relations Board, which has dismissed hundreds of workers complaints about unsafe working conditions related to COVID-19. Meanwhile, the unions have refused to organize strikes or any other form of protest. (See: Ontarios teachers unions facilitate right-wing Ford governments reckless back-to-school drive)

There is growing opposition across the country to the recklessness and contempt for the lives of students, teachers and parents being shown by the federal and provincial governments, big business, and the trade unions.

In British Columbia, concerned parents have established the group Safe September BC. The group held a rally in Vancouver earlier this month to call for major changes to the NDPs school reopening plan.

In Ontario, over 200,000 people have signed a petition that demands the Ford governments reopening guidelines be substantially revised to take account of the safety and wellbeing of students and teachers.

In Quebec, 150 physicians, epidemiologists, and other scientists signed an open letter to the Legault government denouncing the school reopening. The current back-to-school plan in Quebec needs to better consider all the available scientific evidence to prevent outbreaks in schools, to avoid jeopardizing the safety of our children, teachers and parents, as well as, to prevent a resurgence of SARS-CoV2 (COVID-19) in our community, the letter states. It needs to be promptly reviewed and revised to ensure a safer return to school for all.

The mass popular opposition to the ruling elites back-to-school drive and premature reopening of the economy must be mobilized into a working class political movement to put the protection of human life ahead of corporate profit. The Educators Rank-and-File Committee, set up by teachers in the United States to organize the opposition to reopening schools, has stressed that under present conditions, there can be no safe return to in-person learning.

What is required is the allocation of billions of dollars to purchase equipment to ensure all students have access to high-speed internet and online learning, the hiring of thousands of teachers and support staff to provide the best possible education to students amid the pandemic, and guaranteed full income for parents forced to stay at home to look after their children. Information on COVID-19 infections at schools and other education institutions must be made public to assist with containing the disease and contact-tracing, and there must be an end to all persecution of whistleblowers who expose the appalling health and safety conditions in their schools.

To fight for these demands, teachers, parents, students, and their supporters must organize rank-and-file committees in schools, other education institutions, and neighbourhoods independently of and in opposition to the pro-capitalist trade unions. These committees should coordinate education workers struggles, establish links with other sections of workers confronting dangerous working conditions, and organize and politically prepare job action up to and including a nationwide general strike to stop the reckless reopening of schools. We strongly urge all of our readers who agree with this program to read the Educators Rank-and-File Committee statement and sign up to the WSWS Educators Newsletter to receive further information on how to get involved.
But Colonel Henderson soon asked to move over to combat arms, a transition that Marines who know him said demonstrated that he wanted to fight with his men, bearing the risk and responsibility that accompany it.

Colonel Henderson moved through the ranks at a lightning pace. He was a rifle platoon commander and was promoted to captain six years after joining the Marines. Five years later, in 2000, he made major. Three years after that, he was leading Marines in Iraq as the XO  executive officer  for the Third Battalion, Seventh Marines. After Iraq, Colonel Henderson was sent to Afghanistan.

Colonel Henderson was hard not to like, said Cpl. Josh Sams, who had the colonel as a battalion commander on his first deployment to Afghanistan in 2008. To the Marine, then 22, Colonel Henderson stood out like an action figure. He did not spend his time barking at his Marines about grooming standards or attire and instead barked at them about how to stay alive.

At one point, Colonel Henderson challenged the entire battalion to a fight after a hazing episode in the barracks rippled through the ranks. Some of the Marines who reported to him called him silverback, a reference that is both complimentary and racist.

In an interview published in 2018 by Herocare, a benefits organization, Colonel Henderson spoke of commanding Marines in southern Afghanistan in the most vicious fighting he said he had ever seen.

As the commander of the First Battalion, Sixth Marine Regiment, Colonel Henderson had to come up with a plan to overrun a Taliban stronghold in the Garmsir District known as Jugroom Fort. It was defended by about 200 to 400 Taliban members who had been fighting the British in Helmand Province, a new flash point in the war.

Colonel Henderson led his Marines through three days of intense battle in blistering heat. By the end, the Taliban fighters withdrew toward Pakistan. It was a short-lived victory for the American-led NATO troops in Afghanistan, and for Colonel Hendersons Marines as well. The insurgent group would return in force in the following months, bloodying the influx of American troops deployed under President Barack Obamas surge in late 2009.
It is now critical that organisations understand the data they process and own, have systems that allow decision-makers to derive insight and are able to do so in a way that is both secure and compliant.

As the economic impact of coronavirus starts to come into clearer focus around the world, business leaders are starting to ask  what do we know about changing customer demands, the economic context, and our business efficiency? And what are we going to do next?

In this context, data-related questions that companies have been asking IT for years have taken on a new level of significance. As they battle to bounce back, it is more critical than ever that organizations understand the data they process and own (particularly as it moves towards the edge of the network), have systems that allow decision-makers to derive insight from that data, and are able to do so in a way that is both secure and compliant.

Unfortunately, if Arubas latest report Data to Decisions: A Rulebook to Unlock the Power of your Data, is anything to go by most companies havent made as much progress in these matter as they would like. Featuring survey results from over 170 IT decision makers and network engineers in EMEA, the report examines the current state of data decision-making within organisations, and outlines a series of key steps for any organisation looking to unlock the power of data to help them make better decisions now and in the future.

So what did the report find? And what does this mean for organisations struggling to answer todays data-related questions? Here are three of the key steps:

Rationalize: 51 percent of respondents identified not being able to look at data holistically as one of their top three data challenge.

Despite the importance of data to almost every organisation, for many there is still a basic issue around understanding what data they hold and how they can use it. Addressing this problem must be the starting point for all businesses trying to get a hold of their data assets, and that means coming up with a clear and consistent plan for how data should be managed in the first place.

IT decision makers need to have a complete understanding of what data their organisation has, who is responsible for it and what the protocols around it are. There needs to be a data rulebook with clear ownership and responsibilities as well as a governance group that reports to the top.

Having interesting data is one thing, but the value it creates is closely correlated to how well organisations can rationalise and organise what they hold. Without having the basic processes in place, theyll soon run into trouble.

Organize: 40 percent of respondents said one of their main challenges was the network being able to manage the increased pressure.

More and more companies are trying to bring in data-reliant technologies such as AI and automation to propel their businesses into the future. And yet these transformative technologies cannot be powered by a legacy tech stack.

So while AI application is a priority for many CEOs, some are trying to run before their networks can walk. Before they can get anywhere near the data insights such technologies promise, companies must take a step back and sort out their network infrastructure so it can cope with what is being thrown at it now  and in the future.

To do this they will need to give up the illusion of control and accept that there will continue to be a lot of unknowns in their data future. Instead, the priority is being nimble and ensuring that they have a system that can scale and adapt as their data needs evolve.

Supervise: 28 percent of respondents said that employees failing to comply with data policies was their biggest concern about the explosion of data.

Perhaps the most essential of all the steps is the supervision of data within an organisation that assigns ownership and access, and ensures security and compliance. Hand-in-hand with the business opportunities that arise from data are the threats, problems and costs that come from failing to safely manage it.

The current pandemic makes this even more prevalent, as home working becomes the new norm. People are often the weakest link in any organisation, so organisations must train their people to pay attention to their digital habits outside the office. Here, scenario-based training has been proven as an effective way to demonstrate the different kinds of threats in a memorable way.

But security planning shouldnt just be about prevention. Despite clear usage policies, robust systems and training, businesses need to work on the assumption that some attacks will succeed. In which case they will need to prepare a solid contingency plan along with set of defined steps for communicating with customers and the OpSec community.

Despite some of our topline findings, there has been significant progress in recent years in how data is stored, processed and used within organisations. Many now acknowledge data as critical to optimising their business model, understanding their customers and accessing new technological opportunities. They are making commensurate investments in data skills, systems and security.

But there is still some way to go  and more steps to follow. Skills need to be enhanced across organisations and knowledge deepened in boardrooms. Priorities need to be more clearly targeted. Networks must be designed with edge capabilities and future scalability to the fore.

And there can be no let-up in pursuit of enhanced security and compliance.

Edited by Maurice Nagle
With over 10,600 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, Andhra Pradesh overtook Tamil Nadu and became the second worst-hit state in India after Maharashtra. For health officials, this is an alarming development. While Andhra Pradesh has undertaken the maximum number of tests per million population, its positivity rate is also climbing. According to a report in The Times of India, the previous one lakh cases were reported in the last 10 days alone.

However, a silver lining is that there is a gap of more than three lakh cases between Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. The total number of cases in the Andhra Pradesh stands at 4,24,767, while as on Sunday evening, cases in Tamil Nadu were 4,22,085. Maharashtra tops the national toll with around 7.64 lakh infections. The Covid-19 tally in Andhra Pradesh has climbed to 3,884 with 88 new deaths reported on Sunday. At the moment, there are 99,129 active cases in the state. Meanwhile, the total recoveries are 3,21,754, resulting in a recovery rate of 76%.

On July 27, Andhra Pradesh surpassed the one-lakh case mark, close to 135 days after the state recorded its first infection. However, it took just 11 days for the state to add on the next one-lakh cases to reach the two-lakh-mark, the report added. Notably, the third one lakh cases surfaced in 11 days as well. Andhra Pradesh saw the recent one lakh infections in merely 10 days to breach the four-lakh mark on August 28.

Tamil Nadu saw its first infection on March 7 and reached the one lakh- mark on July 3. However, Tamil Nadu, took more time, i.e., 55 days, to arrive at the four-lakh case figure

as opposed to Andhra Pradesh which took just 32 days for the latest 3 lakh infections.

But Andhra Pradesh remained at the top in terms of tests, by undertaking 67,478 coronavirus tests per every one million population, Tamil Nadu ranked third among the states with around 60,000 tests per million people. Tamil Nadu saw 7,231 coronavirus-related deaths with a mortality rate of 1.71%, while Andhra Pradesh, till now, recorded 3,884 fatalities with 0.91% mortality rate.

In terms of recovery rate, Tamil Nadu is in a better position with more than 85%. Andhra Pradesh is presently seeing around 10,000 infections a day as opposed to around 6,000 daily cases of Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, falling in line with the Unlock IV guidelines released by Centre, Tamil Nadu on Sunday announced to throw open gates to the long-prohibited activities such as public transport, malls, clubs, resorts and places of worship.
But only after takeoff did that take on concrete significance, as the El Al aircraft veered east toward the desert terrain rather than west over the Mediterranean Sea as it does on nearly all its outbound flights. Pilot Tal Becker proudly announced the historic moment when the El Al aircraft crossed into Saudi airspace for the first time ever, noting that the flight would now take just three hours and 20 minutes to Abu Dhabi, rather than the more than seven hours it would have taken to circumvent the Arabian Peninsula.
Rae Bareli : , Aug 31 (IANS) A 19-year-old Dalit boy, who was detained at the Lalganj police station in Rae Bareli, died in police custody on Sunday night.

The family members of the deceased have accused the police of "torture" and the locals staged a protest against the police and blocked a road.

The district administration has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident.

Meanwhile, the SHO of Lalganj police station has been suspended for unlawful detention.

A departmental inquiry has also been ordered by the Superintendent of Police (SP), Swapnil Mamgain, into the incident.

According to reports, Mohit and his brother Sonu, residents of Behta Kalan village, were detained by the police on suspicion of vehicle theft on Friday and taken to Lalganj police station.

While Sonu was released after a few hours, Mohit was allegedly tortured by the police personnel at the station, the family members said.

As his condition deteriorated, Mohit was taken to the district hospital where he was declared dead.

The body has been sent for post-mortem.

The SP told reporters, "We have received a complaint from the family members of the deceased in which they have alleged torture and accused two sub-inspectors (SI). The complaint is being verified on the basis of which we will also lodge a FIR." One of the accused SI has been accused of misconduct in the past also and has two departmental inquiries ordered against him.

"Prima facie, SHO Lalganj, Hari Shankar Prajapati, was found accused of unlawful detention beyond 24 hours at police station. For this, he has been suspended," the SP said.

Senior officials have met the family members and assured them of a swift investigation into the matter.

Rae Bareli is the parliamentary constituency of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
They say 90 is the new 70, and in Warren Buffett's case, it may be true.

The chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway announced Sunday  his 90th birthday  that his company has acquired a slightly more than 5% stake in each of the five leading Japanese trading companies. The companies are Itochu Corp., Marubeni Corp., Mitsubishi Corp., Mitsui & Co., and Sumitomo Corp.

Berkshire said it acquired the holdings over a roughly 12-month period through regular purchases on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Based on Friday's closing prices for the trading houses, a 5% stake in each would be valued at roughly $6.25 billion.

The Japanese trading companies  known as sogo shosha  are conglomerates that import everything from energy and metals to food and textiles into resource-scarce Japan. They also provide services to manufacturers. The trading houses have helped grow the Japanese economy and contributed to the globalization of its business.

But as they have extended their footprint overseas, they've also become more vulnerable to global predicaments, like the financial crisis from a decade ago. The trading houses also face increasing competition from venture capitalists and private equity funds.

For Buffett, the move is no quick trading play. Berkshire says it intends to hold the investments for the long term, and that it may increase its holdings in any of the companies up to a maximum of 9.9%, depending on price. Berkshire also pledged to make no purchases beyond a 9.9% stake in any of the companies unless given approval by the trading companies' boards of directors.

In describing its intentions for the investment in the trading houses, Berkshire pointed to its history of long-term, passive holdings in companies like Coca-Cola Co., American Express Co., and Moody's Corp., which each span multiple decades.

"I am delighted to have Berkshire Hathaway participate in the future of Japan and the five companies we have chosen for investment," said Buffett, adding that the trading houses have many joint ventures around the globe. "I hope that in the future there may be opportunities of mutual benefit."

Berkshire also said that despite its large, yen-denominated bet, it would have little exposure to currency fluctuations because it holds 625.5 billion of yen-denominated bonds ($5.93 billion) that will mature at various dates from 2023 through 2060.
(TNS)  Its now legal for cryptocurrency exchange platforms to do business with Hawaii consumers under a two-year pilot project that began Wednesday.A dozen digital currency transmitters were selected to participate in the program formed by two state agencies.State officials said the new Digital Currency Innovation Lab program is intended to position Hawaii as a place where financial technology, or fintech, can grow in a way that leads to new economic opportunities while also protecting consumers against risks that come with digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, ZCash and others.Hawaii-based consumers can look forward to a variety of options for services offered by digital currency companies in the state, Iris Ikeda, state commissioner of financial institutions, said in a statement. I anticipate leveraging this opportunity for our state to develop a robust understanding of one of the most exciting areas in fintech.The pilot project also is intended to yield insights on how to revise state law to allow the industry to expand and operate under fair and safe regulations.Cryptocurrency exchanges had effectively been blocked from doing business in Hawaii since 2016 when the Division of Financial Institutions, part of the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, interpreted state law governing money transfer businesses as applying to virtual currency brokers. That interpretation subjected cryptocurrency brokers to licensing and asset reserve requirements that were too burdensome.This law, according to a 2018 claim by one industry supporter, made Hawaii the only state where consumers couldnt trade virtual currency.Under the new program created by the DCCA and the Hawaii Technology Development Corp., the 12 brokerage firms are allowed to do business without complying with the law, though they will be supervised by the Division of FinancialSecurities and must report transaction data and customer complaints to the agency.The 12 participating companies, which were selected from 19 applicants, include the Facebook-owned entity Novi Financial, popular stock investment app Robinhood and Maui-based Cloud Nalu.Apex Crypto, bitFlyer USA, BlockFi Trading, CEX.IO, Coinme, ErisX, Flexa Network, Gemini Trust Co. and River Financial round out the group.The U.S. affiliate of Tokyo-based bitFlyer said its in business in the Aloha State as of Wednesday.We are happy to partner with the state of Hawaii to bring our world-class services here, Joel Edgerton, bitFlyer USA chief operating officer, said in a statement. Now residents in Hawaii have access to a trusted, licensed exchange to support their Bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading.Hawaii regulators have had concerns about the industry harming consumers.Two years ago, the Division of Financial Institutions supported a bill at the Legislature that would have made virtual currency brokers provide Hawaii consumers with this warning: Most virtual currencies are based upon computer cryptography and derive their value solely from the marketsperception of their value, which can experience great swings.  You should be aware that there is a potential for you as a consumer to lose all of your virtual currency.That bill, which would have amended regulations on digital currency transmitters, didnt pass.Now the pilot program should help shape future regulations for cryptocurrency trading in Hawaii.DFI is leveraging its statutory authority to provide an innovative way to introduce digital currency issuers into the state of Hawaii, while ensuring the safety of our consumers, Ikeda said in a statement in March announcing plans for the program. By acknowledging digital currencies as a transmission vehicle of the future, we will be able to craft legislation that is conducive to its development in Hawaii.Len Higashi, acting High Technology Development Corp. executive director, added: By spearheading the Digital Currency Innovation Lab, Hawaii can position itself on the forefront of financial technology and, potentially, reap the economic benefits that accompany the leadership stance taken. Through the (lab), we hope to identify opportunities for economic development through this effort and (are) very optimistic that we will be able to do so.
by Vladimir Rozanskij

About a hundred protesters took refuge in the religious building. For Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, the police action is inadequate and contradictory and constitutes an attack against religious freedom. It cannot lead to reconciliation.

Moscow (AsiaNews)  The Belarus Special Purpose Police Detachment[*] yesterday blocked access to the Red Church,[] a Catholic church located in central Minsk where about a hundred protesters had found refuge after being chased by police.

Metropolitan Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, head of the Catholic Church in Belarus, slammed the attempt to deny the right of sanctuary and limit the rights of believers.

The prelate said that police "are by definition called to protect the fundamental freedoms of people, including religious freedom, not hinder them.

In a statement posted on the website of the Catholic Church in Belarus, the prelate described the police action as "inadequate and contradictory", and called for an investigation into the incident, demanding that perpetrators be punished in accordance with the law.

The communique goes on to say: At a time when the Catholic Church is working with all its power for reconciliation and dialogue, these and similar actions by law enforcement do not help ease tensions in favour of a speedy restoration of peace and harmony in Belarusian society and the resolution of a political conflict never seen before in our country.

The archbishop was joined by Bishop Yury Kasabutski, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Minsk-Mohilev, who, in a statement posted on catholic.by, said: The ban on entering and leaving the church contradicts peoples right to freedom of conscience and religion, guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus; it offends the feelings of believers and oversteps the limits of the laws of men and God.

Last night, the police dispersed thousands of protesters in Minsks Independence Square. About a hundred fled to the Red Church where some worshippers were celebrating Vespers.

The Special Police blocked the entrances for hours, and after opening the doors arrested several people coming out of the church.

[*] AMAP (Belarusian:    , i.e. Special Purpose Police Detachment) or OMON (Russian:    , i.e. Special Police Detachment).

[]  , transl. Cyrvony kasciol.
Thirty-seven labourers working at a construction site in Thanes Teen Haath Naka area were tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday. The labourers are undergoing treatment at the Covid-19 facility in Bhayanderpada.

Their results came positive after reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests were conducted on 82 labourers at the construction site.

We had asked all the construction site owners and developers within the jurisdiction of the civic body to conduct mandatory testing of all their labourers to ensure that there is no spread of the virus. The results of 37 labourers came positive during the testing at one of the sites. The construction site is sealed and the other workers are sent home, said deputy municipal commissioner Sandeep Malvi.

Thane city recorded more than 26,000 Covid-19 cases till August.
Amid worsening ties with many countries including the United States, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is visiting Europe. Wang is covering five important countries - Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, France and Germany. The exclusion of the United Kingdom from his itinerary reflects rising tensions with Britain over Hong Kong security law.

The choice of Europe for his first visit abroad since coronavirus hit Wuhan shows the growing importance of Europe in Chinese geopolitical calculations. The head of the Communist Partys foreign affairs committee and politburo member Yang Jiechi is also visiting Greece and Spain this week.

The European Union (EU) and China are both economic heavy weights. They play an important role in global governance institutions. Though economically deeply engaged with each other, European political positions are hardening. This is due to Beijings handling of coronavirus, its assertive foreign policy behaviour and the Hong Kong national security law. The US moves to build a transatlantic alliance against China are also shaping European responses.

The recent EU-China summit was also not very successful. Europeans are becoming cautious about deploying a 5G network built by Huawei. The EU supports Hong Kong autonomy under the One Country Two Systems principle. It has also restricted sensitive technologies for end use in Hong Kong. China is also under an EU arms embargo since the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says that Europe has been naive about China but its approach is now becoming more realistic. However, European business interests in China are so huge that it is not easy for the EU to decouple its ties easily. Although the EU has declared China a systemic rival, Beijing believes that it has no fundamental conflicting interests with EU.

In a rapidly changing global geopolitical landscape, Beijing is trying to convince the Europeans not to be part of US designs to counterbalance China. Wangs first stop in Italy was strategic. In recent years, Chinas ties with Rome have become closer. It was the first major western country to join Chinas Belt and Road (BRI) initiative. So far, Italy has not imposed any restrictions on Huawei.

The Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said that he has discussed with Wang how to relaunch (their) strategic partnership from the economic and industrial view point. At the same time, he asserted that the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong citizens will have to be respected. Without directly mentioning the United States, Wang emphasised that China did not want to see a Cold War and asserted that we will not let other countries do this for their own private interests, while damaging the interests of other countries.

China is looking for a free trade agreement with Norway. This non-EU country is rich in energy resources, a member of the Arctic Council and a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. In Oslo, Wang doubted the Chinese origin of COVID-19. He said while China was the first country to report it to the WHO, it does not mean that the virus originated in China. He also warned Norway against granting the Nobel Peace Prize to Hong Kong democracy activists. Between 2010 and 2016, diplomatic relations between the two were frozen when Nobel Peace prize was awarded to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

In France, Wang emphasised that China appreciates President Macron's call for Europe to strengthen strategic independence. He met Macron and said that China and Europe have always been partners instead of rivals with their consensus far outweighing differences. Reports indicate that during the meeting Macron expressed strong concerns about Hong Kong and the human rights situation in Xinjiang. In the Netherlands, Wang refused to meet a parliamentary foreign affairs committee which wanted to discuss human rights issues. France may not ban Huawei but indicated that it would prefer European solutions.

The most important part of the visit will be Germany. As Chinas top economic partner within the EU, Angela Merkel is keen to finalise an EU-China investment treaty under German presidency of the Council of the EU. There are still unresolved issues concerning state-owned firms, subsidies and sustainable development. Merkel is also scheduled to hold a virtual summit with President Xi Jinping and other EU officials in September. The EU economy has seen a historic decline. A stabilising Chinese economy may provide opportunities to kick start some economic activities.

Europes position towards Beijing is hardening. To further its trade, technology and geopolitical interests, China may use its economic engagements including investment agreements to neutralise European concerns. The major challenge for Europe is to balance its values and norms with economic interests.
The situation in the South Caucasus, which has been torn apart by ethno-territorial conflicts for four decades, has dramatically escalated this summer. It seems that after the intense July battles on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, in which dozens of people on both sides were killed and wounded, there will be no return to the "freeze" which was so convenient for international mediators of the conflict.

If you look at the current situation properly, without the liberal-pacifist approaches in the spirit of "always concerned" Europeans, then there are practically no ways left to preserve the fragile military-political stability in the region. To date, de-escalation resources have been exhausted, while the effectiveness of long-term diplomatic recipes of the parties to the conflict is limited .



Thus, the supporters of the Armenian narratives in the settlement relied on the maximum preservation of the status quo (the inadmissibility of which is constantly stated by Azerbaijan and the OSCE MG co-chairs). The calculation was:

1. A few generations later, Azerbaijanis will put up with the "loss of territories" and recognize the independence of the separatist entity, as well as abandon a couple of regions adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh, in fact, giving the go-ahead for the unification of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.



2. In parallel, the world community, actively cultivated by the Armenian diaspora, will take the Armenian interpretation of the conflict settlement as a basis, forcing Azerbaijan to come to terms with the results of the military aggression carried out against it.



3. At least a certain part of the world community, a number of influential players, will recognize the subjectivity of the separatist "NKR" following the example of Kosovo.

26 years after the conclusion of the Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire with Russian mediation, it can be stated that none of the goals set by Armenia was fulfilled.



First, Azerbaijanis do not plan to retreat from Nagorno-Karabakh - neither young nor old. A vivid example of this was tens of thousands of citizens of military age who joined demonstrations in support of the Azerbaijani army amid the July clashes this year. For several days of fighting, more than 50 thousand volunteers turned to recruitment offices.

Second, despite the Armenian diaspora's intense activities, the world community did not take Armenia's part in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The whole world continues to consider the territories of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions occupied. Among the latest documents on this topic, we can mention paragraphs 8 and 10 of the European Parliament recommendation to the Council, the Commission and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on the Eastern Partnership in the run-up to the June (2020) summit.

Finally, no country in the world, including Armenia, has recognized the "NKR"; the idea of "the subjectivity of Karabakh" is seriously slipping, and after Pashinyan's statement that "Karabakh is Armenia", it was compromised by Yerevan itself. Thus, the separatists not only did not come close to their goal - on the contrary, there was a certain regression in this area. This year Germany, in an ultimatum order, banned the activities of the so-called "NKR embassy". It is expected that other European countries with "quasi-representation" of the unrecognized regime will follow Berlin's example.



However, the situation is far from encouraging for Azerbaijan either. Baku's key problem is that since the conclusion of the ceasefire in 1994, the internationally recognized Azerbaijani territories have remained under occupation, and there has been no progress on the issue of liberating them.

One can, of course, recall the April battles in 2016, which allowed Azerbaijan to strengthen its positions on the front line and take back control over 2,000 hectares. Head of the parliamentary commission to investigate the April battles Andranik Kocharyan admits that the Armenian army lost two dozen positions in those days. There were successes in the Nakhichevan direction in 2018, when the Azerbaijani army regained control of about 11,000 hectares. However, these individual victories did not solve the problem of occupation (the July battles of 2020 were not considered in this context, since no territorial losses or acquisitions were recorded by the parties).

Moreover, no economic sanctions have been imposed on Armenia by the international community in 30 years, despite its recognition of the occupation of Azerbaijani territories. Even if the Azerbaijani-Turkish blockade weakens Yerevan's economic and demographic potential, it did not force it to abandon its claims to Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent territories. Neighboring Iran and Georgia, which could effectively "bully" Armenia into peace, did not join the blockade, preferring to support Baku in words.



That is, each of the parties, to one degree or another, realizes now the low efficiency of continuing its current Nagorno-Karabakh settlement policy, subjecting it to revision.

On the Armenian side, after Nikol Pashinyan came to power, there is a maximum tightening of its position, despite the relative calm at the front in the first two years of his term. During this time, Yerevan put forward several high-profile conditions: the participation of "NKR" in the negotiations as a full-fledged negotiating party (which was refused by Azerbaijan and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs), the public refusal by the Armenian authorities of the "territory-in-exchange-for-peace" formula, and, finally, the well-known Pashinyan's statement - "Karabakh is Armenia. Period."

In response, Baku is asking a rhetorical question - what should we negotiate with Armenia about? Today in Azerbaijan, they started talking at the highest level about the need for "offensive diplomacy". Apparently, President Aliyev dismissed Elmar Mamedyarov, who did not meet the set task, and appointed Jeyhun Bayramov, who recently made a first visit to Moscow. The latest trend, seen in the statements of Azerbaijani diplomats, boils down to the following - Baku does not intend to negotiate "without substance", and any meetings should be built around a specific agenda - namely, the de-occupation of Azerbaijani territories.

However, the problem is not limited to the fact that the positions of the parties are now diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive, the negotiating agenda is simply absent, and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have actually withdrawn themselves from the process under the pretext of a pandemic. Armenia has become more active in the issue of illegal settlement of the occupied territories, bringing in the families of Lebanese Armenians who suffered after the Beirut port explosion. Before that, there were July clashes, which, according to Sergey Lavrov, were provoked by Armenia's actions. According to him, the clashes were caused by Armenia's decision to revive the old border checkpoint located 15 kilometers from the Azerbaijani export pipelines, which launched a flywheel of confrontation on the border. This decision caused heightened concern in Azerbaijan and an "unjustified response" from Armenia.

All the aforementioned points bring us to a rather inconsolable picture: the negotiations have been disrupted, their foundation has been destroyed, the public space is overheated, and the provocative actions of one of the parties to the conflict do not stop (by the way, on August 30, Pashinyan visited Nagorno-Karabakh - in combat positions). There has been a frightening silence in the region after the July battles, being broken only by intensive military exercises of the parties to the conflict. And the main question now is who will break this protracted silence - diplomats or guns.
After staying put for months due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation will resume services from September 7, in a phased manner.Now, the official Twitter handle of Delhi Metro has also shared a quirky post to share the update. This tweet has sparked mixed reactions among netizens - while some are excited, a few have shared their concern as well.

Taking cue from the popular song Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day, the handle shared a clip that shows the word ends being struck through. The word is seen replaced with start implying the commencement of services.

Several months have gone so fast, Wake me up when September starts. #MetroBackOnTrack, reads the caption along with the clip.

Take a look:

Several months have gone so fast,

Wake me up when September starts. #MetroBackOnTrack pic.twitter.com/9pWba62ANn  Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (@OfficialDMRC) August 31, 2020

Posted a few hours ago, the clip has garnered over 5,600 views and over 370 likes along with mixed reactions from netizens. While some were more than excited to travel by metro, many showed concern about the proper precautions that need to be taken in the metros and the stations as well.

Dear Delhi Metro, hope you took good care of yourself. Time is coming to get yourselves back on track. So hope you are all buckled and oiled up.   Deepesh Kumar Sao (@DKumarsao) August 31, 2020

Now please provide some happy moments to those, who are eagerly waiting for their joining after waiting for so long.

"Mai to kab se jaag gaya,

Ab to September bhi aa gaya"  Vivek dadhich  (@imVdadhich) August 31, 2020

What precautions are taken by Delhi Metro to prevent to spread of Covid 19.  Diwakar Rana (@ranadiwakar84) August 31, 2020

Yeaahhhi m really looking forward to it  Rishu (@Rishu53524756) August 31, 2020

Please share travel guidelines too  Abhishek Vikram Singh (@Abhi06Singh) August 31, 2020

What about you? Are you eager to travel by metro again?
Photo credit: Buyenlarge - Getty Images

From Popular Mechanics

In April 1861, Richard Jordan Gatling watched hundreds of Union soldiers march through Indianapolis, ready to ride the rails to the front. In the opposite direction came a never-ending stream of badly wounded men, to say nothing of those who lost their lives. Gatling set about inventing a "labor-saving device for warfare" he hoped would minimize the number of men needed to fight a war, and thus minimize the number of men exposed to its horrors.

DIVE DEEPER  Read best-in-class military features and get unlimited access to Pop Mech , starting now.

A Destructive Weapon Meant for Good

Working throughout the summer of 1861, Gatling developed the invention that would carry his name though history: the Gatling gun, a weapon featuring a barrel that was 2.21 feet long and weighed a total of 170 pounds. The Gatling is the most famous of late 19th century's manual machine guns and paved a way for the modern machine guns we recognize today.

In an age of slow-loading rifles, the Gatling offered unprecedented firepower. Even today, a century and a half after its design, the gun retains its iconic status. So why does the world still know the name of gun that's been obsolete for a hundred years?

Photo credit: US Patent Office

Gatling would refine the basic design of his gun over its 40-year lifespan, but the basic operation remained the same. The Gatling featured four to 10 barrels arrayed around a central axis and a top-loading magazine which loaded each barrel in turn before the continuing turn of the gun's crank fired the weapon. Each barrel fired with one turn of the crank, and the weapon's rate of fire was limited only by the speed at which the gunner could crank it. Early models fired up to 200 rounds per minute (later ones could get up to 700 to 1,000 rounds in 60 seconds)all this while an enemy soldier in the line of fire took the same amount of time to charge and fire once.

Yet this fast-firing weapon got off to a slow start. Gatling earned his first patent in November 1862, for the "Improvement in revolving battery-guns," his idea for reducing the number of men needed to fight the American Civil War. In hindsight, we know how flawed this logic proved to be, as the Gatling gun and later machine guns caused untold death and destruction. At the time, Gatling had a difficult path even getting his weapon into the war. While the new weapon was promising, the U.S. army's reluctance to embrace the machine gun meant Gatling was ignored, at least at first.

Story continues

It wasn't until summer 1863 that the Washington Navy Yard began testing the Gatling gun, with an evaluating officer reporting: "The mechanical construction is very simple, the workmanship is well executed, and we are of the opinion that it is not liable to get out of working order."

Despite this glowing report, the U.S. Navy declined to adopt the gun and it would wait another three years before the military took it seriously. A few Army officers bought Gatling guns themselves and throughout 1864-5, Union General Benjamin F. Butler first used the gun at the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, but the invention would see little action in the war that inspired its creation.

Photo credit: U.S. Army

The U.S. Army made its first order for 50 1-inch and 50 .50-caliber Gatling guns in 1866, right after war's end, and Gatling approached Colt to manufacture them. Following tests at Fort Monroe, the U.S. Army used the Gatling extensively throughout the 1870s during its campaigns against Native American tribes in the West.

Custer's 7th Cavalry left their two Gatling guns behind when they embarked on the ill-fated 1876 summer expedition of the Great Sioux War. Custer believed they'd slow his advance, but without them, he and his men were famously overwhelmed and massacred.

The Gatling Gun Goes Abroad

Foreign interest charged up. In Europe, Russia became the first country to buy Gatling guns directly from Colt while the British W.G. Armstrong & Co. became one of the first European manufacturers to purchase a license to build and sell the new weapons

The first British use of the Gatling gun came in 1879 during the Zulu War. At the Battle of Gingindlovu, two guns broke up a Zulu attack with long bursts of suppressive fire that forced the Zulus to take cover. At the Battle of Ulundi the guns were used to great effect, despite several jams. The British commander, Lord Chelmsford, later wrote that the Gatlings: "proved a very valuable addition  machine guns are, I consider, most valuable weapons  where the odds against us must necessarily be great."

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Indeed, this statement typified the use of the Gatling during the late 19th century: The guns, with their incredible volume of firepower for the time, acted as force multipliers in engagements where the enemy were far more numerous. The Gatling would go with British units to Afghanistan, Egypt, and the Sudan in the late 1800s, remaining in service until the Maxim gun came around.

Photo credit: Bettmann - Getty Images

The British were not the only European nation to embrace the Gatling gun, Imperial Russia made large orders, and the Tsar used his Gatling guns against the Ottoman Empire during the Russo-Turkish War 1877-8 and again in 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War. Gatling guns went to South America during the War of the Pacific, with Peru deploying them first in 1879. By 1880, nations and individuals around the world had bought Gatling's guns.

The Gatling gun of the late 1870s was greatly improved from the early models, of tremendous rates of fire they were lighter, more reliable and extremely well made. The improved Gatling gun's finest hour came during the Spanish-American War. During the Battle of San Juan Hill, Lieutenant John Parker's Gatling Gun detachment laid down suppressive fire on Spanish positions by firing over 18,000 rounds during the American attack, preventing the Spanish from firing down on the U.S. forces.

The detachment turned back the Spanish counter-attacks, too, by decimating an attacking battalion of Spanish regulars. This success helped to prove to the U.S. Army that machine guns could be used offensively as well as defensively, with President Theodore Roosevelt himself praising Parker's "invaluable work on the field of battle, as much in attack as in defense."

The End of an Era

But the end was approaching.

Photo credit: USMC Historical

Despite American forces using the weapon into the 1890s, the Gatling gun fast became obsolete. The culprit in its quick death was Hiram Maxim's new automatic machine gun, introduced in 1886. The weapon would come to define early 20th century warfare.

Maxim's gunlike the Gatling gunwas hand operated, too, but took much less work to fire. Instead of turning a crank, the Maxim machine gun was recoil-operated, using the recoil energy created when the weapon was fired to cycle the action. All the user needed to do was keep their finger on the trigger. Feeding from a cloth belt, the Maxim could fire up to 600 rounds per minute.

Gatling tried several times to revive his design after he saw market share slipping away. In 1893 he patented a Gatling powered by an electric motor. In 1895, he tried to create a truly automatic gas-operated Gatling gun. These designs proved to be too complex or cumbersome, losing the simple practicality that made the original Gatling so good. In 1911, the U.S. Army declared all its remaining Gatling guns obsolete and began a process of rearming with automatic machine guns.

Gatling himself never confined his life's work to firearms design. The inventor patented a successful seed planter and wheat drill in 1855. He later patented designs for flushing toilets, a device to control wagon reins, and a steam plough. He died in February 1903 at the age of 84.

More than 100 years later, the Gatling gun is one of a rare few weapons that are iconic and instantly recognizable. The Gatling owes a lot of its fame to its unique operation and appearance, one cemented in the public imagination, first through Buffalo Bill's Wild West Shows and later through comics, pulp fiction, and countless films.

Today, Gatling's design lives on in the form of electrically powered M134 Minigun and fearsome auto-cannons like the GAU-8 used in the USAF's A-10. There's even a helicopter-mounted version of the Gatling gun called the Vulcan minigun which is also referred to as "Puff, the Magic Dragon" because it produces flames and smoke while firing. The Vulcan minigun is able to fire 6,000 rounds per minute and the 20mm Vulcan, the larger version of the mini, is used against other aircraft.

Even now, in the 21st century, the Gatling gun is easily distinguished from other classic weapons thanks to its distinctive design.

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Seven in 10 Aussies say strong community bonds sustain them through COVID19, but more action needed to prepare for future lockdowns and looming disasters.

Thats one of the key findings of the latest annual nationwide survey by Red Cross on the state of Australias readiness for emergencies, as the charity urges people to get ready for more bushfires, floods as well as COVID19 outbreaks and lockdowns.

Image Credit: Sylvie Masson Photography / Shutterstock

Our 2020 survey reveals close to seven in 10 (65%) credit strong connections with friends and family as the most important factor in helping them manage during what has been a year of extremes with the summer fires and now the pandemic, says Red Cross National Resilience Adviser John Richardson. In a true sign of community spirit, Australians will give the shirt off their own back for one another, with strong levels of community trust, with around six in 10 (58%) believing the community will come together to help in a crisis.

The survey also showed around four in five (77%) Australians believe we need to prepare better for pandemics, but over half (52%) dont know-how.

Living through COVID19 more than half of us (56%) are thinking of the risks for future outbreaks but fewer are inclined to actively prepare. Alarmingly around one in five (20%) are taking no action saying its not even realistic to prepare, adds Mr. Richardson.

Red Cross wants to assure people that preparing for another virus outbreak and indeed any other weather-related or manmade crisis later this year is possible. Its something well within our control, and it will help us recover better in the long term.

The great majority are aware of increasing weather-related crises, but only around two in five (35%) are taking active steps to prepare for the next fire season.

Even in communities where people are highly confident their town is prepared for future emergencies, just under half (40%) still dont believe their community is ready for bushfires, heatwaves and floods.

We are making excellent progress in awareness, with most of us considering possible risks, but we will need to take more action, as just one in five (21%) of us have identified a safe place to meet or identified someone who could help in a crisis for instance.

We know from our long experience of responding to emergencies that taking simple actions like being informed, having a reliable person you can call on for assistance and getting organised by making a plan makes people more resilient in the face of increasing hazards in our region.

In Emergency Preparedness Week, Red Cross is encouraging people to take action. We want to help every Australian get prepared, both physically and emotionally, for the emergencies they may face, Mr Richardson said.

From Monday 31 August to Monday 7 September, Australian Red Cross runs its annual Emergency Preparedness Week urging all Australians young and old to get ready and be prepared. You cant stop emergencies from happening, but you can reduce how much they affect you. Take action now to prepare yourself and those you love for whatever may come your way: redcross.org.au/prepare

* Red Cross research conducted the survey with a random representative national online sample of 1,000 Australians over the age of 18 in August 2020

Background information

Four simple steps can make you better prepared for any emergency

GET IN THE KNOW : about your risks, where to get information, and how to manage stress

: about your risks, where to get information, and how to manage stress GET CONNECTED : by identifying emergency contacts, meeting places, and people who can help

: by identifying emergency contacts, meeting places, and people who can help GET ORGANISED : with important documents, medical information, insurance and pet plans

: with important documents, medical information, insurance and pet plans GET PACKING: with a list to help you survive and personal items that are important to you

For everything you need, visit redcross.org.au/prepare

Top line survey data

Close to seven in 10 (65%) credit strong connections with friends and family as the most important factor in helping them manage a year of extreme emergencies. And six in 10 (58%) believe their community will come together in a crisis.

Around four in five (77%) Australians believe we need to be more prepared for pandemics, but 2 in 5 (52%) say you cant truly prepare and dont know-how.

More than half of us (56%) are thinking of the risks for future outbreaks, but around one in five (20%) are taking no action saying its not even realistic to prepare

Around seven in 10 (67%) have noticed increasing weather events, but just under two in five (35%) are taking active steps to prepare for the next fire season.

Even for emergencies where Australians strongly believe their town is ready for floods, fires and heatwaves for example just under half (40%) feel their communities are not prepared. For example, two in five (40%) feel their community is not prepared for the next bushfire season.

While half of Australians (51%) have thought about the risks of an emergency, there are significantly lower rates of taking other actions besides storing documents and assets.

Around two in five (43%) have thought about an emergency plan or stored important documents (40%), three in 10 (29%) have taken steps to protect assets or sentimental belongings and around one in four (25%) identified someone who needs help.

Around one in five (23%) have got an emergency kit, talked to neighbors about whats needed (22%), identified someone to help you (22%), taken steps to psychologically prepare (21%); identified a safe place to meet (21%). Only one in 10 (10%) have written a plan.

There has been an increase in regional Australians acting to prepare for emergencies year-on-year across all indicators. Notably, a seven percent increase in putting emergency kits together.
Friends and family of a Australian BMX star have been left heartbroken after he tragically died in a freak kayaking accident.

The body of Charlie Gumley, 26, was found by a fisherman at 5.30am on Thursday, just days after he left for a kayaking trip along the Logan River.

His fiance Shanade Klarissa Thorley has paid tribute to the talented rider by sharing a picture of the pair together on Facebook.

Shanade Klarissa Thorley has paid tribute to her talented fiance Charlie Gumley after his body was found in the Logan River

In the image the happy couple are smiling in the image, she has her arm draped lovingly over his shoulder.

The post has been flooded with messages of support for the young woman and her family.

'My baby, my heart is breaking for you,' one woman wrote.

'Thinking of you,' another wrote.

'Beautiful picture of you two,' wrote another.

Mr Gumley has been remembered for his impressive skatepark skills. He is the originator of the Twix - a jaw-dropping move where a rider spins the handlebars into a tailwhip

Friends and family of a Australian BMX star have been left heartbroken after he tragically died in a freak kayaking accident (Pictured: Charlie Gumley and Shanade Klarissa Thorley)

Mr Gumley has been remembered for his impressive skatepark skills.

He is the originator of the Twix - a jaw-dropping move where a rider spins the handlebars into a tailwhip.

Footage of his stunts have been widely shared on social media over the past decade.

Close friend Taylor King told The Courier Mail Mr Gumley had hit the country's BMX community.

'He was a very talented BMX rider, he was very well known at the Beenleigh Skatepark, he was an absolute animal on a bike.

'He has made such a special place in everyones hearts.'
Pilot project turning Playa del Carmens 10th Avenue into pedestrian walkway begins

Playa del Carmen, Q.R.  A test project has begun along Playa del Carmens 10th Avenue that sees only pedestrians along the avenue during evening hours. Mayor Laura Beristain Navarrete says the avenue is open to vehicular traffic from 4:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., after which time, the avenue becomes pedestrian only.

She says the project is a test that will be carried out at the same time as a citizen consultation to determine if the avenue could become a pedestrian walkway. The change projected for this avenue, to make it a second Fifth Avenue, is for the benefit of the merchants established along the area. She says the decision was made to do the test pilot project after a meeting with area businessmen and the local delegation of Coparmex (Confederacion Patronal de la Republica Mexicana).

Mayor says 80% voted in favor of 10th Avenue pedestrian-only project

Beristain Navarrete pointed out that the project has the support of 80 percent of the merchants on the avenue, however, she mentioned that it needs to be properly consulted to include reactions of local citizens. She says that a citizen consultation will be held in September (no official date provided), so that the citizens themselves can decide on the future of this avenue.

The addition of 10th Avenue will expand the Downtown Playa del Carmen project

In the meantime, she explained that as of August 31, the avenue will be closed to vehicular traffic from 4:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m., when it will become a second pedestrian walkway. The partial closure of this avenue, she said, is added to the Downtown Playa del Carmen project, proposed by the entrepreneurs of Solidaridad to integrate the commercial and tourist area of the first square of the city.
Loss runs are insurance carrier reports that show how many claims have been filed under business insurance policies. Insurance carrier underwriters and brokers require loss runs for every business they insure, and use the prior claims history to help price premiums, analyze and reduce risks, and identify weaknesses.

Personal lines insurance carriers for personal auto and property claims have the benefit of use of the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange (CLUE), a contributory claims database used to review claims history. Unfortunately, no such central repository exists for commercial claims.

As a result, the process of getting claims history from insurance carriers, creating the loss summaries, and analyzing the loss data is an extremely cumbersome and manual process that drains significant amount of effort and time.

With over 5 million business establishments with more than 20 employees (US Census Bureau  2017 County Business Patterns), requiring commercial insurance coverage, there are millions of loss runs in circulation annually.

Carriers provide loss runs in unstructured PDF and Excel formats specific to carrier templates with no industry standards. Given that an average business customer has multiple insurance policies across multiple carriers  obtaining a consistent claims view for any one business is a tedious challenge given that the brokers need to manually convert the unstructured data into one comprehensive structured format they can analyze.

Brokers typically procure loss runs 90 days prior to the policy renewal. This is most important milestone for controlling insurance costs and retaining clients by helping them keep losses low. Having visibility into this critical information will reduce vulnerabilities and positively impact the bottom line for customers, agents, and carriers.

The manual nature of procuring and analyzing loss runs for any one business makes this process time consuming, expensive, and inefficient. On average, each business has 2.3 insurance policies (auto, property, general liability, workers compensation, and more) with brokers receiving the loss runs at least twice a year. Given that there are millions of businesses in the United States, a very large number of loss runs are in circulation with millions of hours and billions of dollars spent annually by the industry.

Carriers Arent Motivated to Invest in Simplifying the Problem

Loss runs are an essential component for obtaining quotes for new business and insurance carriers must comply with the regulatory requirement of providing loss runs to brokers and the insured clients. However, if carriers simplify and consolidate the process of procuring loss runs, brokers will more easily obtain better quotes from competing carriers. Keeping the status quo means brokers are more likely to stay with one carrier out of simplicity, rather than shopping around.

Challenges in Solving the Problem

Commercial insurance carriers have their own loss run formats that establish how and what is shared regarding claims history. No consistent terminology exists on how to report policy type, lines of business, or claim categories, making it extremely complex to analyze loss runs in a normalized format across carriers. For example, few carriers provide loss description without a cause of loss detail, leaving brokers to determine the cause of loss by manually reviewing loss descriptions of hundreds of claims in a loss run report.

Extracting data from unstructured documents such as PDFs is an emerging area but training algorithms to extract the extremely complex loss run templates from different carriers is an extremely difficult task.

The challenge is made even more complicated in that it also requires significant knowledge specific to the insurance industry, such as policy types, types of claims, what is included & excluded in claim payments, carrier formats, etc. This domain knowledge is scarce in the technology world.

Evolution of InsureTech and Cognitive AI

The first wave of InsurTech focused on digital distribution of insurance products and many new InsurTechs are evolving that are purpose built for solving more complex core insurance problems. The insurance industry is full of unstructured data in policies, loss runs, quotes and submissions and emails. According to our estimates the insurance industry is unable to use the 80 percent of the data in these unstructured documents that are stored in their file repositories.

Advances in cloud computing and machine learning is showing significant promise to tackle the seemingly limitless unstructured data that exists today.

Extraction and ingestion of unstructured data is a growing space, especially in property and casualty (P&C) insurance use cases such as streamlining submissions and intake, claim analysis from loss runs, and policy checking to identify coverage gaps.

The Solution to the Loss Run Problem

Any solution to the loss run challenge needs to address the 4 areas identified below.

Obtaining loss runs from carriers

As part of digital initiatives, carriers are working to create more application programing interface (API) integrations between carriers, brokers, and customers. The industry would benefit tremendously if carriers could share the structured loss information through API. Brokers are using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) bots to access carrier websites and download the loss runs. Structured data exchange through API is the best way forward but take times to establish wholesale adoption and it is still in its infant stages. Fortunately, with more emerging carrier and broker digital initiatives the hope is that the process will accelerate quickly.

Extracting the data from the loss runs

As carrier loss runs are delivered in PDF or Excel formats, InsurTechs that are working on loss runs need to demonstrate that they can extract data accurately and also at a level of granularity for each claim. For any InsurTech to succeed in this space, they need to target achieving 99% accuracy levels. The industry simply will not accept algorithms that only produce 60 percent to 70 percent accuracy.

In the United States alone, there are over 2,000 property and casualty insurance carriers, with each carrier creating its own proprietary loss run templates. However, the top 100 P&C carrier loss runs cover 70 percent to 80 percent of the commercial market. InsurTechs that have trained the top 100 carrier loss run templates with acceptable accuracy levels stand to gain significant market share.

Standardizing the data into a carrier agnostic common format

The next challenge is rationalizing different carrier formats into a common industry dataset. Different carriers have different ways of sharing claim details  policy types, claim types, payment types, and what is included or excluded in payments varies from carrier to carrier. Hence the solution needs to provide a comprehensive industry dataset that can be created from any carrier loss run.

Creating actionable insights from loss history

To provide the most value, the solution should provide actional insights into claim history, allowing brokers and customers to prevent losses and analyze trends.

Any solution that can address these four areas will have significant impact and will drive tremendous value to the insurance industry.

Opportunities and Benefits

If successfully solved, this can open many new opportunities. For example, brokers will have customer claims history across multiples lines, independent of carrier, to analyze and advise their clients on risk control and prevention. Furthermore, carriers receive many loss runs as part of new business submissions, but are unable to leverage this data due to their inability to extract data from unstructured documents efficiently. However, with available InsurTech solutions that can accurately extract unstructured data, carriers can create a huge repository of historic claim data that allows for more loss analysis, risk control, loss prevention, and automating the process of experience rating calculations.

Brokers, carriers, risk control, and actuarials can all significantly benefit from this new pool of data that is otherwise currently unavailable without significant manual effort.

The ability to analyze loss runs accurately and timely will eliminate common blind spots and give a complete view of clients losses, allowing better business decisions. This will help reduce vulnerability to risk and improve organizations bottom line.

Summary and Conclusion

Analysis of commercial loss runs is one of the big pain points in the insurance industry, complicated by nonstandard, unstructured loss runs (PDF, Excel) from carriers. Until recently there has been no solution to this problem and the industry has accepted the manual review and laborious review process. Thanks to cloud computing and advancements in machine learning, computer vision, and artificial intelligence technologies, InsurTechs are making tremendous progress in solving the problem of unstructured data including loss runs. The end to end solution that can address the problem of getting the loss runs from carriers, extracting the data, converting to a common format, and delivering actionable insights will significantly add value to the industry by saving effort, time, reducing losses, and eliminating coverage gaps.

Most of the InsurTechs focus on digital distribution, but as the InsurTech industry expands, new players are emerging to solve the complex and deep industry problems such as loss runs.

It is only a matter of time before the industry sees a leader emerge that can solve the complex problem of loss runs in commercial lines.
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Thompson Thrift Retail Group (TTRG), a wholly-owned company of Indianapolis-based Thompson Thrift, announced Friday the sale of a freestanding, co-branded Bank of America/Merrill Lynch financial center in the Columbus suburb of Gahanna.

The 1-acre parcel is located at the Northeast corner of Hamilton and Blendon Place Roads. Construction commenced on the location earlier this year and the two-story, 8,830-square-foot financial center is scheduled to open later this year.

"We are excited to announce the sale of this extremely high quality, co-branded asset," said Chris Hake, senior vice president, director of the Southwest region for Thompson Thrift. "This is the fourth development we have successfully completed with the Bank of America team and we look forward to working with them on additional projects as they continue their expansion throughout Ohio."

Dylan Mallory of Hanley Investment Group represented TTRG on the sale.

TTRG is a full-service real estate development company focused on ground-up commercial and mixed-use development across the Midwest, Southeast and Southwest. During the past 30+ years, Thompson Thrift has invested more than $2.2 billion into local communities and has become known as a trusted partner committed to developing high-quality, attractive retail and multifamily projects.

About Thompson Thrift Real Estate Company

Thompson Thrift is an integrated full-service real estate company with offices in Indianapolis and Terre Haute, Indiana; Houston, Texas; and Phoenix, Arizona. Three service pillars drive Thompson Thrift's successThompson Thrift Retail Group which is focused on ground-up commercial development, Watermark Residential which is focused on upscale multifamily communities and luxury leased homes, and Thompson Thrift Construction, a full-service construction company. Through these business units, Thompson Thrift is engaged in all aspects of acquisition, development, construction, leasing, and management of quality multifamily, mixed-use, retail and office projects across the country. We are passionate about our customer's success and strive to ensure our projects not only meet the needs of our customers but also the communities we serve. For more information, please visit www.thompsonthrift.com.

Contact:

Jennifer Franklin

Spotlight Marketing Communications

949.427.1385

[email protected]

SOURCE Thompson Thrift
By PTI

HYDERABAD: A former Andhra Pradesh minister was arrested for allegedly threatening some canal construction workers with a gun in Nalgonda district of Telangana, police said on Monday.

According to police, the incident happened last evening when G Mohan Reddy reportedly objected to the canal digging works taken up in his farm land and took out his licensed weapon and allegedly intimidated the site engineer and other workers to stop the work.

In a video, which has gone viral on social media, the former minister of unified Andhra Pradesh is purportedly seen pointing the gun towards a man following an argument and later chasing another man,who was apparently shooting the video.

"The land was acquired by the government and compensation was also paid to him (former minister). He had some grievance and entered into an argument with the site engineer and threatened him with the weapon to stop the work," Nalgonda District Superintendent of Police A V Ranganath told PTI.

Following a complaint, acase was registered under relevant sections of IPC and the Arms Act and the former minister was arrested, the SP said.

The police seized his weapon and were in the process of cancelling the license also, the senior police official said.

Mohan Reddy had served as a minister in the early 1980s for a brief period.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused the Modi government of destroying the informal sector of the economy and trying to enslave it. He charged that the government wants to break this sector and called upon the entire country to unite and fight against this.

He cited demonetisation, "wrong" GST and the lockdown as three examples of government's attempt to destroy the informal sector, that provides 90 per cent jobs to people. "The BJP government has attacked the informal structure. There is an attempt to turn you into a slave," he charged.

"The BJP government has been attacking the informal sector over the past 6 years. I am giving you three massive examples right now- Demonetisation, wrong GST and Lockdown," he said in a new video series on the economy. "Don't think the lockdown was unplanned. Don't think it was done at the last minute. The aim of these three decisions was to destroy our informal sector," he alleged.

Gandhi said the informal sector, which comprises the poor, farmers and small traders, has a lot of money which the government cannot touch. "They want to break this sector and extort this money from them," he charged. "The effects of this attack on the informal sector will be seen soon. The results will be that India won't be able to produce jobs. Because the informal sector produces 90 percent of the jobs. Once the informal sector is destroyed India won't be able to produce jobs," he said.

Also read: India Q1 GDP preview: GDP estimates to be out today; economy may shrink to historic low

"You are the ones who run this country. You take us forward and there is a conspiracy against you. You are being cheated and there is an attempt to turn you into slaves. We have to understand this attack and the entire country has to unite to fight against this," he also said in the 4-minute video "Let's talk economy". The former Congress president said in 2008, the world was hit by an economic storm and it affected the entire world, the US, Japan, China and everywhere.

He said in the US banks fell, corporations fell and companies shut down and banks also fell in Europe, but India was unaffected and the UPA government was in power at the time. Gandhi said he went to the prime minister and asked Manmohan Singh what is the reason why the entire world suffered an economic crisis but India remained unaffected.

Also read: Give money to poor, not tax cuts to industrialists: Rahul Gandhi tells govt

"Manmohan Singh ji replied, Rahul if you want to understand India's economy, you will have to understand that India has two economic structures. One is the formal economy and the other is the informal economy. "You know the big companies which constitute the formal sector. The informal sector comprises farmers, labourers, MSMEs. Till the time India's informal sector is strong, no economic storm can touch India," he said.

Gandhi's comments come ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament where the Congress party wants to corner the government over the state of the economy, besides other issues including the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Chinese aggression at the border. The Congress has also accused the government of failing to handle the economy as well as the pandemic, alleging that the lockdown has failed to have the desired effect and has hit the poor and the marginalised the hardest.
Two Katyusha rockets fell near Baghdad airport on Sunday but caused no casualties, the Iraqi military said, the third such attack on sensitive sites in the capital this week.

On Saturday, a rocket fell inside Baghdads heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and foreign missions, while three others landed there on Thursday. Those attacks also caused no casualties.

Washington blames such attacks on Iranian-backed militia groups. Iran has not directly commented on the incidents.

Iraq, often the scene of spillover violence from US-Iran tensions, seeks to avoid being drawn into any regional conflagration.

The Middle East came close to a large conflict in January after a US drone strike killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at Baghdad airport. Iran-aligned militias have sworn to avenge their deaths.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 21:35:32|Editor: huaxia

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DUBAI, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- A U.S.-Israeli delegation, led by Jared Kushner, senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, arrived at the presidential airport in Abu Dhabi on Monday, according to the official WAM news agency.

The delegation left in the morning onboard an Israeli commercial plane on which the word "peace" was printed in Arabic, English and Hebrew above a cockpit window.

The delegation, comprised of representatives from investment, finance, health, civil space and aviation, foreign policy, diplomacy, tourism, and culture sectors, will meet with representatives of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government agencies to discuss ways to develop relations and promote cooperation, WAM reported.

It added that this visit comes as part of trilateral efforts to initiate normalized relations with the aim of "achieving peace, stability, and support for bilateral cooperation."

The two-day visit will include working meetings of the joint teams ahead of the signing of cooperation deals following the U.S.-brokered agreement to normalize ties between Israel and the UAE, which was announced on Aug. 13.

A statement from Israeli Prime Minister's Office said ahead of the departure that the meetings will focus on issues related to "the civil and economic spheres."

The visit will also include a trilateral meeting in Abu Dhabi between the heads of the delegations. Enditem
Rwandan investigators announced Monday they had arrested Paul Rusesabagina, whose heroic actions during the 1994 genocide were depicted in the Oscar-nominated movie Hotel Rwanda, accusing the high-profile government critic of terrorism.

The Rwanda Investigative Bureau (RIB) said Rusesabagina, who lives in Belgium, had been detained through international cooperation and was being held at a police station in the capital on serious charges.

With the cooperation of the international community, Paul Rusesabagina was arrested and he is now in the hands of RIB, RIB acting spokesman Thierry Murangira told reporters in Kigali.

Murangira refused to detail how the arrest occurred or the extent of involvement of international authorities in detaining the outspoken critic of long-ruling President Paul Kagame, claiming doing so could jeopardise investigations.

Eric Van Duyse, spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutors office, told AFP they were informed of Rusesabaginas arrest by Rwandan authorities but we have no details of the circumstances.

Murangira said Rusesabagina, who has agitated for political change in Rwanda from abroad, was the subject of an international arrest warrant and suspected of financing and creating terror groups operating in East Africa and overseas.

He is accused by investigators of terrorism, arson, kidnap and murder, including against his own countrymen on Rwandan soil in two incidences in June and December 2018.

 Fierce critic 

During the 1994 genocide, as manager of the Hotel des Diplomates in Kigali, Rusesabagina used his influence and connections to shelter 1,268 Tutsis and moderate Hutus from being slaughtered by the Interahamwe militia.

American actor Don Cheadle played him in the 2004 Oscar-nominated film Hotel Rwanda.

From Belgium, where he sought asylum with his wife and children, Rusesabagina became a fierce critic of Kagame, who has been in power since 1994 when his forces overthrew the genocidal regime.

Rusesabagina has accused Kagames government of killing opposition figures and detaining and torturing activists both at home and abroad.

The RIB has said the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD), which Rusesabagina co-founded abroad, and its armed wing, the FLN, are extremist terror outfits. Rwanda has also accused neighbours, including Burundi and Uganda, of harbouring the group.

Rusesabagina, in a video posted to YouTube in December 2018, said the FLN was seeking to liberate Rwanda from an oppressive government in Kigali.

Once championed in Western capitals as a reformer, Kagame has been criticised for overseeing constitutional changes to prolong his rule and cracking down on opposition voices.

str-np/erc

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A day after Covid-19 cases crossed the 10,000-mark, Ludhiana recorded its biggest spike in casualties with 18 deaths on Monday. The previous surge was on August 29 when the district had reported 17 deaths.

So far, 411 persons have succumbed to the virus in the district. August alone accounts for 323 deaths.

Mondays casualties include, a 93-year-old male from New Shivpuri, a 33-year-old man of Baba Deep Singh Nagar and another one from Basti Jodhewal, a 59-year- old man, a 56-year-old man from New Subash Nagar, a 35-year-old man from Salem Tabri, a 71-year-old man from Basant Avenue, a 71-year-old man from Barewal, a 59-year-old man from Janakpuri, a 62-year-old man from Gandhi Nagar, a 61-year-old man from Moti Nagar, a 62-year-old man from Raj Guru Nagar, a 69-year-old woman from Patel Nagar, a 58-year-old man from Chander Nagar, a 43-year-old man from Ludhiana, a 42-year-old man from Partap Nagar, a 58-year-old man from Chander Nagar, a 43-year-old man from civil lines, a 42- year-old man from Partap Nagar.

Besides, as many as 183 new cases took the districts tally of positive cases to 10,222. Of these, 1,729 cases are still active.

Dont fall prey to rumours: DC

Deputy commissioner Varinder Sharma appealed to the residents to not fall prey to rumour-mongering. He was reacting to rumours that doctors were extracting organs of patients by declaring them Covid-19 positive. He further added that there is another rumour that the state government is getting Rs 3 lakh per patient in lieu of declaring a patient Covid-19 positive. The DC said that such rumours are having a detrimental effect in the fight against the virus.

Man who jumped from hospital buildings succumbs

The 43-year-old Covid-19 patient, who jumped off the first floor of Bhagwan Ram Charitable Hospital on Daresi Road, on Sunday afternoon, succumbed to injuries. The patient had been rushed to the civil hospital, where he died during the wee hours on Monday. Civil surgeon Dr Rajesh Bagga said that a report has been sought and the hospital has been served a notice. Dr Bagga said that the man was admitted in the hospital for five days following complaints of liver issues. He had tested positive for the virus during treatment.

The district administration has started 24x7 psychological support helpline: 7814718704, 6284531852.

ADC Neeru Katyal Gupta, who had battled Covid-19 successfully, said that counselling could be an added benefit for a patient.
When Pranab told Rajdeep not to interrupt and raise his voice

Pranab Mukherjee had suffered head injury in an accident in 2007

RIP Pranab Mukherjee: Timeline of the political journey of Congress stalwart

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

New Delhi, Aug 31: Pranab Mukherjee, former president of India and Bharat Ratna, passed away at 84 after battling a long illness.

Mukherjee underwent a surgery for removal of a clot in his brain and was admitted at Indian Army's Research and Referral Hospital in New Delhi on August 10.

He had also tested positive for Covid-19 prior to the surgery.

Here is the timeline of Pranab Mukherjee's political life:

Mukherjee's talent was noticed by Congress leadership after he successfully managed V K Krishna Menon's campaign from the Midnapore by-election in 1969.

Widely viewed as a Gandhi family loyalist, Mukherjee has held top positions within the All India Congress Committee.

He later went on to become a close aide of Indira Gandhi. He was a part of Gandhi's Cabinet and remained active through the emergency (1975-77).

A testimony to his prowess, he emerged unscathed in the post-emergency era becoming Finance Minister (1982-84).

Mukherjee's first major political appointment was as the Union Deputy Minister for Industrial Development in Indira Gandhi's cabinet.

He later served as Finance Minister (1982-84), commerce minister (1993-1995), as external affairs minister (1995-96) and as defence minister in the Manmohan Singh government (2004-2006).

He was also appointed as leader of Rajya Sabha in 1980 and in Lok Sabha in 2004 and later in 2009.

Expelled from the Party during Rajiv Gandhi's Prime Minister-ship, he formed the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress in 1986, and later came back strongly under the Narasimha Rao government.

Mukherjee was the 13th president of India from 2012 to 2017.

He has also rejected around 30 mercy petitions including those of 26/11 attacker Ajmal Kasab and Yakub Memon.

Addressing Parliamentarians at his farewell, Mukherjee conveyed that he has tried his best to follow the Indian Constitution, 'not just in letter, but in spirit' and added that the ordinance provision should only be used in compelling circumstances.
The concept of disability has changed significantly throughout history. At one point, disability was seen as the result of sin, either by the person with the disability or his or her parents. Disability was associated with guilt and shame, and people with disabilities were hidden away.

Merriam-Websters definition of disability: limitation in the ability to pursue an occupation because of a physical or mental impairment; lack of legal qualification to do something; or a disqualification, restriction or disadvantage. Most of the time, we apply these definitions to a person who has a disability. What if it is society that has the disability, not the individual?

With the advent of modern medicine, a medical understanding of disability developed. In a medical model of disability, the person with a disability is seen as having an illness, which presumably should be cured. The person with a disability, as someone who is sick or diseased, is excused from normal life and responsibilities such as working, family obligations and household maintenance.

The approach of the Social Security Administration supports the idea of disability as something that excludes one from a normal life. To fit the administrations definition of disability, a person must be able to prove that he or she is incapable of gainful employment. The inference is that by having a disability, one remains outside mainstream society.

Yet there is another and more dignified way to view disability. This view considers disability as a natural part of life. After all, most of us will have a disability, whether temporary or permanent, at some time in our life. As many people with disabilities will attest, their disabilities are integral to what makes them who they are. It isnt the disability that needs to be changed. The physical and attitudinal barriers people with disabilities face are what need to change.

Much of our community is unaware of free resources that exist in our community to assist individuals with disabilities to maintain their independence. One such resource is a Statewide Amplified Phone Program.

IMPACT Center for Independent Living offers FREE amplified phones, cellphone amplifiers and CapTel devices to qualified individuals through the Illinois Telecommunications Access Corporation (ITAC).

ITAC has been issuing FREE equipment in Illinois since 1988. ITAC is a Not-for-Profit serving the Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Late-Deafened, Deaf-Blind, and Speech-Disabled communities. There are no age or income restrictions to qualify for the program.

To qualify for the program, applicants must:

Be a legal resident of Illinois

Fill out the program application (available at IMPACT CIL location)

Have standard phone service in residence (land-line) and/or cellphone service.

Have a difficult time hearing on the phone

Have your application signed by your doctor, audiologist, or Illinois Department of Human Services Counselor

Test the phone thats right for you. There are many different types and degrees of hearing loss. Because a phone works for another person does not mean it will work for you. There are various differences in tone and clarity that must be matched to your needs. The only proven way to do this is to try the phones on a real call. The phones are superior in amplification, features, adjustability, and durability. And theyre free.

And the good news, ITAC has two new amplified phone and cellphone amplifier to replace with the current ones we have. Come and check it out.

Our Selection Center at IMPACT CIL are set up to help you test the phones Monday through Thursday during COVID-19 centers restrictions between the hours of 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. To call for an appointment is necessary. If you have questions or would like to schedule an appointment, contact us at: IMPACT CIL, 2735 E. Broadway, Alton, IL 62002 or call 618.462-1411.

Cathy Contarino, Executive Director of IMPACT CIL., can be reached at 618-474-5314 or contarino@impactcil.org
It's late 1998 and three men are working overtime to define the initial technical plan for a startup. They're jammed into an office space no bigger than the average bedroom. The scene has a familiar ring to it. '98 is still the heart of the dot-com craze, and similar setups are in place all over the valley-in San Francisco lofts, Palo Alto apartments, Stanford dorm rooms, and the like. These are days when everyone thinks they have a shot at being the next Yahoo!But this particular setup is a little different. The three men in the tiny office are not really traditional "dot-comers." They have all just left senior positions at Oracle, and, to make things more interesting, the Oracle stock that they left on the table is on its way to quadrupling in value since their departure. The three men are, no doubt, a little uneasy about their decision to start out on their own. It seems they have put their careers on the line.Yet are they really taking a big risk? Because the other unique thing about this scene is that the office that the three men are working from--though small--is the furthest thing from a loft, dorm room, or out-of-the-way office building. Here, the parking lot looks like it might be a combined Mercedes and BMW dealership, with sparkling new examples of German auto engineering on all sides. This is no ordinary setting for a startup. We're on peaceful Sand Hill road and the sign on the door of the building reads "Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers."VC IncubationWhat were these three guys doing at the world's top VC firm? The three men mentioned above are Asera co-founders Kenneth Ng, Anil Nori, and Chin Hong. The story goes that Ken Ng "bumped into" Vinod Khosla in mid '98 and Khosla pitched him an idea that he had for a new company--now Asera. Ng, Nori, and Hong became Khosla's hand-picked management team, and the three were "incubated" in a manner of speaking by the VC firm. Khosla had hired someone from Stanford Business School to write up a business plan for the prospective company and it was the three engineers' job, in Khosla's words, "to decide if it was a good enough plan.""In a sense I feel spoiled," concedes Anil Nori about living his first entrepreneurial venture with the backing of Kleiner Perkins from day one. "I've heard stories about going from venture capitalist to venture capitalist," he says in a manner that would make many young entrepreneurs mad with envy. But to be fair, Nori and the team were not just along for the ride.It's true that Khosla and KPCB had already agreed on the funding structure from day one. It's also true that they were waiting for the founders to prove to them that they could build a viable business. Says Khosla, The question wasn't what the deal would be, but if we would do it." While Nori, Hong, and Ng were still in the tiny office, watching their abandoned Oracle stock increase in value, and trying to prove that they could make Khosla's idea a reality, Kleiner was just looking on and waiting for the results. Khosla explains, "We wanted to know--can we do it? In how much time? Is it competitive?"Soon more people came on board. "Money wasn't a problem," Nori explains, "Vinod believes in recruiting key guys in each area." The object was to reach critical mass quickly in order to execute the plan. In January of '99 the team presented the plan to all the Kleiner partners and the company was funded. In February, Asera had a core team of 30 people in place.The BusinessSo what was this idea that Vinod Khosla just had to bring to life? Nori explains, "At a company like Cisco, all interactions are done over the Web-from customer interactions, to interactions with the sales force. Cisco brings in 80 percent to 90 percent of its revenue over the Web. But to achieve that they spend millions of dollars and have an IT department that numbers in the thousands." The Asera goal was to build an architecture that would offer the same level of Internet integration as a pioneer like Cisco, but achieve it at sharply lower cost and offer the system as a service to the masses.It was a time when the concept of "everything as services"--championed by Khosla--was just beginning to emerge. The ultimate plan involved offering any number of application solutions for B2B companies in a customized framework that would offer a unified look and feel, as well as a unified business process. The goal was to make the product highly service oriented.Admittedly, the initial Asera concept sounds like a pitch for a B2B-based ASP (application service provider). But Nori assures that Asera has grown into much more than that. He maintains, "Asera is not a pure ASP. Asera provides a service that is customized for our customer...and where customers can plug in their own applications as well. Typical ASPs offer little scope for customization and personalization." Asera is also unique in that it generates revenue through activation charges and subscription fees--making it a kind of monthly service for its customers. Says Nori, "It's like subscribing to a phone company--you try out call waiting and if you don't like it you drop it. That's a very attractive model for the customer."For now, none can argue with Asera on paper. The company has just received $115 million in series C funding-on top of a previous $50 million. Asera's investors have tagged the company with an impressive valuation of approximately a billion dollars-up from a previous $250 million for the series B round. "It's a huge market space," says Vinod Khosla. But will the company live up to the multiples? Asera will undoubtedly not be alone in the space--but it's hard to ignore the power of the Khosla/KPCB pedigree.Taking On the GiantsAll of this said, the quest for success, per se, is not really the end of the road for this blossoming Kleiner-incubated venture. Asera is now housed in its own building--a brilliant white structure in Belmont, CA. The company has over 350 employees and has customers like BP Amoco and Novell. But there's more to be achieved.Anil Nori asks himself the question, "Can I build a company that can topple Oracle?"
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Linkedin Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, September 1 2020

The adoption of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that aims to empower women peacekeepers marked the end of Indonesias month-long council presidency in August, as the nation entered the last stretch of its two-year term on the esteemed global body.

The UNSC adopted Resolution 2538 (2020) regarding female personnel in UN peacekeeping missions on Aug. 28 by consensus.

Resolution 2538 [2020] is the first resolution in the history of Indonesian diplomacy [to be adopted by] the UN Security Council, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said over the weekend.

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CIBC (TSX:CM)(NYSE:CM) stock has been picking up traction in recent months, with shares now up a whopping 54% since its March lows. The number five bank of the Big Five has been criticized on numerous occasions in the past for its greater exposure to Canadas frothy housing market, leaving it vulnerable to amplified downside if Canadas housing market were ever to crumble.

As a result, shares of CIBC have historically traded at a considerable discount to its bigger brothers in the space. Following the COVID-19 crisis sell-off, all big banks were thrown into the bargain bin, and CIBCs discount fell unprecedentedly low levels despite demonstrating greater resilience than some of its bigger brothers in the banking scene.

Theres still deep value in the Canadian banks

With the Canadian economy on the mend, CIBC and its banking peers still have a lot of room to run, as headwinds and EPS pressures fade. However, its important to acknowledge the profound magnitude of uncertainty brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Were not out of the woods yet  at least not until an effective vaccine is available for broad distribution. Another big wave of COVID-19 cases and shutdowns shouldnt yet be ruled out.

If such a bear-case scenario were to happen with the pandemic, theres no question that CIBC and other bank stocks could surrender a big chunk of the gains posted over the past few months, as its the banks that tend to wind up holding the bag as heavily-impacted small- and mid-sized businesses become unable to meet their debt obligations as a result of the COVID-19 impact.

The banks are still not without their risks. As such, investors should still have a strong preference for Canadian banks such as CIBC, which are in a good position to weather another potential storm without having to bring their dividends to the chopping block.

CIBC: A perennial underperformer no more!

CIBC has been a perennial underperformer compared to its peer group for quite some time. The bank got caught with its pants down during the Great Financial Crisis, and as a result, the mortgage-heavy less-geographically-diversified bank got slapped with a discounted multiple.

Story continues

As a reputation for folding in the face of crises, CIBC was an underdog going into the COVID-19 crisis. To the surprise of many, the bank actually had its pants on this time around, with decent profitability numbers and some strength in its capital markets business.

I guess you could say CIBC did a pretty good job of weathering the COVID-19 impact following its latest third-quarter results. CIBC suffered an EPS drop (falling 13% year-over-year), but the bottom-line damage was pretty average compared to its Big Five peers.

The bank didnt deliver the worst results of the Big Five and had its pants on for this crisis, unlike the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, during which CIBC got obliterated.

As Canada looks to bounce back in conjunction with the Canadian economy in 2021, I see CIBC roaring much higher. And if it turns out another several waves of COVID-19 are to hit, CIBC looks more than able to hold its own. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, CIBC isnt the most vulnerable bank this time around, with less relative exposure to industries feeling the full impact of COVID-19 such as oil and gas.

Foolish takeaway on CIBC stock

As long as the COVID-19 crisis doesnt implode the Canadian housing market, I view CIBC as a terrific bank to buy amid this pandemic at todays valuations. Its not a bottom-of-the-barrel Big Five bank stock amid this crisis, yet the valuation seems to suggest otherwise.

The stock trades at just 1.3 times book alongside a bountiful 5.6% yield. If youre in the market for a cheap dividend, CIBC ought to be near the top of your shopping list at this critical market crossroads.

The post CIBC (TSX:CM) Stocks Recovery Rally Isnt Over Yet appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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Pranab Mondal By

Express News Service

KOLKATA: The rift The rift in West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) surfaced once again after state president Dilip Ghosh shot down a list of Yuba Morcha office-bearers circulated by Saumitra Khan, chief of the state youth wing.

According to the sources in the BJP, Khan was one of those MPs who had met the party brass in Delhi last month and expressed their displeasure over Ghoshs dominance in the partys daily affairs.

After rejecting the list by Khan, Ghosh said that as the head of the Bengal chapter of his party, he would take the final call on who would be the presidents of the youth wing.

Khan had announced the names of the district-wise presidents of the partys youth wing on Friday without a go-ahead from Ghosh, said a BJP leader.

Khan not only circulated the names of the district presidents through WhatsApp but also posted the list in the official group, he said.

The admin of the WhatsApp group had to delete the list posted by Khan following Ghoshs instruction.

Khan and Ghosh were to meet on Saturday but the meeting did not take place. Ghosh did not approve some names proposed by Khan. On the other hand, Khan is reluctant to change the names, said another BJP leader.

In July, the rift in the saffron camp became known after senior party leader Mukul Roy expressed his discontent and opposed Ghoshs claim that BJP would bag as many as 190 assembly seats out of 294 in 2021.
The Director-General of the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA), Stephen Asamoah Boateng says he would terminate the Teshie Desalination Project contract if he had his way.

He believes the system was set up to milk the country.



According to him, it does not make sense that with the abundance of fresh water bodies in the country, the best way to provide potable water was to desalinate sea water.



Speaking on the topic Making State Enterprises Profitable and Resilient on GTV, Mr Asamoah Boateng said had it not been for contractual obligations, he would have terminated it altogether.



Why would you want to desalinate sea water when you have clean water bodies like the Volta that has been dammed at Akosombo and, you can even supply to Togo if you are serious. It is terrible, if I had my way, Ill cancel it, he said.



Further justifying why he thought the deal was a bad one, the SIGA boss said, The deal was set up in a way to milk the system. Why would you want to change sea water and its not like we are on a desert. I can understand Libya or Israel will go in for such a deal but we have a lot of water bodies in Ghana so you cannot develop that? And to make it worse, the deal was backed by Government Sovereign Guarantee.



Mr. Asamoah Boateng went ahead to highlight some other deals undertaken by the previous administration which he said call for termination.



He said such deals bequeath state entities with legacy debts as the government did not consult the management of the institutions before they secured finances to undertake those projects.



Why would you for instance, contract a loan of $275m to develop Terminal 3 when it could have even built a brand new airport? So you go and contract and commit the state entity without talking to them and then you give them legacy debt, then you tell them to turn things around.



The policy direction must be correct and this why President Akufo-Addo has said you cannot go and do anything without talking to the central body that oversees the institutions activities. The SIGA DG questioned whether the Mahama government understood good corporate governance practice?



Meanwhile the SIGA boss has commended the Chief Executive Officers of the various state owned businesses for how they have handled their institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic.



According to him, the CEOs have to be applauded for their management of the institutions, such as for cutting down expenditure to ensure that their institutions are being run efficiently in these abnormal times.



I want to commend the CEOs because they have realized especially in the Covid era that you have to cut down on the wastage to prune down your expenditure.

Source: ghanaweb.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Drew Pavlou is seen talking to the media outside the Brisbane Magistrates Court in Brisbane, Australia, on Aug. 10, 2020. (Darren England/AAP Image)

We Won: Australian Government to Launch Parliamentary Inquiry into Foreign Influence at Universities

Australias Morrison government will launch an official and broad-ranging parliamentary inquiry into foreign interference at universities including the involvement of academics in Beijings Thousand Talents recruitment programwhich has been covered extensively by The Epoch Times.

On Aug. 31, News Corps The Australian reported that Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has outlined the terms of reference for the inquiry in a letter to Andrew Hastie, the chair of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security.

The inquiry will reportedly examine if publicly-funded research is being unknowingly transferred to foreign nations, such as China, against Australias national interests.

The inquiry was championed by independent federal MP Bob Katter after the University of Queensland suspended undergraduate student, Drew Pavlou, who is known for organising demonstrations against Chinese Communist partys (CCPs) influence on campusin particular through Beijings soft-power organ the Confucius Institutes.

We did it [Drew Pavlou], Katter wrote on Twitter on Aug. 30. On the night before parliament was set to vote on my inquiry into foreign interference at Australian universities, the govt. has launched the inquiry referring it to the Security and Intelligence Committee.

Pavlou also wrote on Twitter: We won. Government launching full inquiry into CCP interference in Australian universities. No student will ever have to go through what I went through for speaking out.

The Australian published an excerpt from Duttons letter to Hastie: I wish to refer to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security the matter of potential interference conducted by, or on behalf of, foreign actors, in Australian universities, publicly funded research agencies and competitive research grants agencies.

Special focus should be given to options that reduce technological and knowledge transfer from Australia that may be detrimental to our national interests, while not undermining international productive research collaboration, wrote Dutton.

The announcement comes after the Morrison government announced last week a new Foreign Relations Bill that will allow the Commonwealth to scrutinize and potentially throw out arrangements made by any federal, state, and local governmentsand government-related entities like universitieswith foreign governments or related bodies that are deemed to work against Australias national interests.
Hitting back at the Congress after it targeted the Central government over the Chinese aggression in the intervening night of August 29 and 30 along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Ladakh sector, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday asked why the opposition party was crying when the Indian Army has kept the nations territorial integrity intact by thwarting the neighbouring countrys designs.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said at a press conference that India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had shown the proverbial laal aankh (red eyes that imply danger) to China and questioned as to why the Congress is showing its moist eyes.

Also Read: PLA building heliport at tri-junction of India, Bhutan and China, shows satellite imagery

He was responding to Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewalas jibe at the government earlier in the day.

Surjewala had tweeted, Another brazen attempt at aggression by China in Pangong Tso lake. Everyday there is a Chinese intrusion ... Pangong Tso lake area, Gogra and Galwan valley, Depsang plains, Lipulekh pass, Doka La and Naku La. Our armed forces are standing fearlessly to protect Mother India. But when will Modiji show his red eyes?

Patra said the issue pertaining to China is not about a single party but about the country. He said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has issued a statement in which it said that Chinas Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) troops tried to violate Indian sovereignty, but its attempts were thwarted.

The BJP and the people of India salute the Indian Army. The bravery with which they have discharged their duty and protected Indias sovereignty deserves our salute, he said.

Also Read: Chinese troops strictly abide by the LAC, never cross the line: Beijing

Attacking the Congress, he said, India and Modi ji have shown their red eyes (laal aankh). Indian Army has shown its red eyes (anger). That is why Indias sovereignty is intact. Nobody can challenge it. Everyone has trust in the Indian Army and Modiji, and stands by them.

Patra said nobody played with the countrys sovereignty.

I want to ask Randeep Singh Surjewala and Rahul Gandhi that we have red eyes, but why do you have moist eyes? Whenever we are attacked or we carry out a surgical strike to destroy terrorist camps, then why do you start crying? You should be happy, he said.

Our army has valour, and our government and the PM have self-confidence, he added.

In a fresh incident in eastern Ladakh, the Chinese PLA had carried out provocative military movements to unilaterally change the status quo ante on the southern bank of Pangong Tso lake but the attempt was thwarted by Indian troops, the Army had said in a statement earlier in the day.

Patra also levelled a series of allegations at the Congress.

He alleged that there were contributions made by Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapur, fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi and absconding Islamic cleric Zakir Naik or companies linked to them to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF).
BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Political party leaders from around the world have firmly opposed some U.S. politicians' smear against China, and objected to their interference in China's internal affairs and severe undermining of China-U.S. relations.

In their messages sent recently to the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, they called on all parties to strengthen communication and cooperation, and jointly safeguard world peace, stability and development.

Iran's Islamic Coalition Party said in a message that attacks on China by some U.S. politicians are groundless, which are obviously intended to divert the U.S. public dissatisfaction with and pressure on the government.

China has repeatedly and explicitly stated its position to the international community, and shown through concrete actions that China has always been a builder of world peace, contributor to global development and defender of the international order, the party noted, adding that the anti-China rhetoric of U.S. politicians will make the Chinese people more united and more cooperative with the people of the world.

Cevdet Yilmaz, deputy chairman of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party, said the COVID-19 pandemic has posed a grave challenge to the world, which requires the international community to find a solution together.

Turkey appreciates China's efforts to achieve global stability and prosperity, closely follows the current development of China-U.S. relations, and hopes that the two sides can resolve relevant differences through peaceful and constructive dialogues, he said.

Gennady Zyuganov, chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, said the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating economic and social problems in many countries around the world.

The U.S. administration is resorting to the same trick again, trying to solve its own problems with an aggressive foreign policy. The United States has taken various measures to suppress China, but such attempts have failed one after another, said Zyuganov.

Vojtech Filip, leader of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia and also the first deputy speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic, expressed his strong disapproval of the U.S. acts that politically attack China and cripple regional peace and stability.

Presently the COVID-19 pandemic continues raging worldwide, considerably threatening the humankind's life and safety as well as global economic development, Filip noted, calling on all the countries to work together to safeguard peace and security, uphold international trade rules, respect the authority of international laws and build equal and win-win international relations.

Ivona Ladjevac, head of the center for the Belt and Road Initiative at the Institute of International Politics and Economics in Serbia, said that the U.S. plan to block WeChat and TikTok was to put its selfish political interests prior to market principles on the pretext of national security threat.

This act harms others without benefiting itself, Ladjevac said, adding that it will backfire on the United States at last.
KATIE GLUECK: I had this moment last fall where Id been with him for quite a long time in Iowa, and the speeches were a little low on energy. He is someone who tries so hard to connect with audiences, and for a variety of reasons, it was not working for him there. And then I went with him to North Carolina. He was speaking to a crowd there, and he was a different candidate. He was so energetic. The crowd was responding to him, and it was a reminder that, depending on the environment, he absolutely can bring that energy.

Matt, you wrote about why this campaign worked for Biden  it was his third run for president over more than 30 years. Why was this the moment?

MATT FLEGENHEIMER: In 88, he ran on a personal integrity message, despite his relative youth. In 08, as the kind of elder statesman senator, he ran on experience and foreign policy knowledge. That didnt work either.

In some ways hes marrying those two in this campaign. There is the steady hand statesman who has seen it and done it and knows all the players. And theres this dominant frame around his own integrity, all the losses he has suffered, all the resiliency hes demonstrated.

Thats it for this briefing. See you next time.  Melina

Thank you

To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.

 Were listening to The Daily. Our latest episode features a Black police officer in Flint, Mich., talking about what it means to be part of the police force in his hometown.

 Heres our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Nut for a squirrel (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.

 On Sept. 4, watch The New York Times Presents, our documentary series, as our reporters investigate what happened in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 23:42:55|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Health Ministry on Monday reported 3,757 new COVID-19 cases, as the total number of deaths reached 7,042.

A statement by the ministry said that the new cases brought the total nationwide infections to 234,934.

It also reported 83 deaths during the day, raising the death toll to 7,042, while 3,722 more patients recovered in the day, bringing the total number of recoveries to 176,602.

The new cases were recorded after 18,578 testing kits were used across the country during the day, and a total of 1,605,904 tests have been carried out since the outbreak of the disease, according to the statement.

Meanwhile, Deputy Health Minister Hazim al-Jumaili warned of the deterioration of the health situation due to the absence of applying penalties against the violators of the health preventive measures, which led to the further spread of the disease in the country.

Al-Jumaili said in a press release that the risk of further spread of COVID-19 in the country will be greater if the non-compliance by the citizens with the preventive measures continues.

The ministry has held awareness campaigns in coordination with media and government institutions to inform the citizens about the danger of the pandemic, he noted.

"All the citizens have information about the seriousness of coronavirus, but the problem is the lack of compliance with the health preventive measures and the absence of penalties against the violators of these measures," al-Jumaili added.

Iraq has been taking a series of measures to contain the pandemic since February when the first coronavirus case appeared in the country.

China has been helping Iraq fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

From March 7 to April 26, a Chinese team of seven medical experts spent 50 days in Iraq to help contain the disease, during which they helped build a PCR lab and install an advanced CT scanner in Iraq's capital Baghdad.

Since March 7, China has also sent three batches of medical aid to Iraq. Enditem
Statewide

All information from the Iowa Department of Public Health, except where noted.

Cases of coronavirus: 64,713

The total number of people who have ever tested positive for active novel coronavirus infection since testing began March 1, 2020.

14-day average cases per day: 780

Percent change in cases over 14 days: 147.2% National average: -19.6% (Info: KFF.org)

National ranking in cases per capita: 14th (+2; Arkansas now 15th, District of Columbia now 16th) (Info: kff.org)

Rate of spread: 1.22 (3rd-highest in U.S.)

The average number of people who currently become infected by an infectious person. Over 1.0 means the virus will spread, and below 1.0 means it has stopped spreading. (Info: Rt.live)

Positive testing rate in past 14 days: 10.9%

As of May 12, the World Health Organization recommends a positive testing rate of less than 5% or lower for at least 14 days before an area reopens.

Deaths: 1,112

The total number of people who died of the novel coronavirus beginning March 1, 2020.

14-day average deaths per day: 6.9

Fatality rate: 1.7%

National ranking in deaths per capita: 24th (no change) (Info: kff.org)

Recoveries: 46,663

As of June 30, IDPH now classifies anyone not hospitalized or deceased after 28 days to be recovered.

Recovery rate: 72.1%

Positive serology tests: 3,052

The number of people with no current infection who tested positive for antibodies of the novel coronavirus, indicating they may have already had the virus.

Hospitalized patients with COVID-19:

Statewide: 299 (-9)

299 (-9) RMCC Region 6 (Northeast Iowa): 57 (no change)

57 (no change) RMCC Region 2 (North Central Iowa): 63 (-3)

Patients admitted in last 24 hours:

Statewide: 23 (-19)

23 (-19) Region 6: 7 (-5)

7 (-5) Region 2: 8 (-4)

Hospitalized in intensive care units:

Statewide: 85 (-3)

85 (-3) Region 6: 11 (no change)

11 (no change) Region 2: 14 (no change)

Hospitalized on a ventilator:

Statewide: 46 (+2)

46 (+2) Region 6: 7 (no change)

7 (no change) Region 2: 10 (-1)

Long-term care facility outbreaks: 36 (+2)

An outbreak is added when a facility has three or more residents test positive, and removed when no new cases appear.

LTC outbreak cases: 1,136 (+27)

1,136 (+27) Percentage of total cases: 1.8% (-0.1%)

1.8% (-0.1%) LTC outbreak deaths: 598 (+17)

598 (+17) Percentage of total deaths: 53.8% (no change)

State prisons: (Info: doc.iowa.gov/covid19. Some staff numbers are self-reported.)

Anamosa State Penitentiary

Inmates positive: 0 (no change)

Inmates recovered: 0 (no change)

Staff positive: 5 (no change)

Staff recovered: 3 (+1)

Inmate COVID deaths: 0

Clarinda Correctional Facility

Inmates positive: 0 (no change)

Inmates recovered: 3 (no change)

Staff positive: 0 (no change)

Staff recovered: 3 (no change)

Inmate COVID deaths: 0

Fort Dodge Correctional Facility

Inmates positive: 2 (no change)

Inmates recovered: 358 (no change)

Staff positive: 0 (-1)

Staff recovered: 39 (+1)

Inmate COVID deaths: 3 (no change)

Iowa Correctional Institute for Women (Mitchellville)

Inmates positive: 0 (no change)

Inmates recovered: 0 (no change)

Staff positive: 2 (no change)

Staff recovered: 8 (no change)

Inmate COVID deaths: 0

Iowa Medical Classification Center (Coralville)

Inmates positive: 148 (+60)

Inmates recovered: 102 (+25)

Staff positive: 9 (+2)

Staff recovered: 17 (no change)

Inmate COVID deaths: 0

Iowa State Penitentiary (Fort Madison)

Inmates positive: 0 (no change)

Inmates recovered: 0 (no change)

Staff positive: 14 (+5)

Staff recovered: 5 (+1)

Inmate COVID deaths: 0

Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility

Inmates positive: 38 (+35)

Inmates recovered: 2 (no change)

Staff positive: 3 (+1)

Staff recovered: 0 (no change)

Inmate COVID deaths: 0

Newton Correctional Facility

Inmates positive: 0 (no change)

Inmates recovered: 0 (no change)

Staff positive: 1 (no change)

Staff recovered: 2 (no change)

Inmate COVID deaths: 0

North Central Correctional Facility (Rockwell City)

Inmates positive: 0 (no change)

Inmates recovered: 0 (no change)

Staff positive: 0 (no change)

Staff recovered: 0 (no change)

Inmate COVID deaths: 0

------------------

Black Hawk County

Cases: 3,788 (+26)

14-day average cases per day: 26.9 (-0.3)

Recoveries: 2,948

Deaths: 74 (+2)

14-day average deaths per day: 0.6 (no change)

Percent currently infected of total infections: 17.0% (+2.0%)

Fatality rate: 2.0% (no change)

Total population currently infected: 0.6% (+0.1%)

Total population ever infected: 3.4% (+0.1%)

Percent positive in past 14 days: 11.1% (+1.3%)

Iowa school districts may request a temporary waiver to send students home for 14 days and move all instruction online if 10% of students are absent and a 14-day average shows at least 15% of county residents screened for coronavirus test positive.

Long-term care facility outbreaks: 2

Added Aug. 25: Pinnacle Specialty Care in Cedar Falls : 10 cases (+5), 0 recovered

: 10 cases (+5), 0 recovered Added Aug. 25: Northcrest Specialty Care in Waterloo: 44 cases (+4), 0 recovered

University of Northern Iowa (Cedar Falls): (Info: forwardtogether.uni.edu/covid19-dashboard)

Number of faculty, staff and students testing positive: 54

Positive testing rate: 32.14%

Number in isolation: 28

Number in quarantine: 83

Data below from blackhawkcovid19.com:

Reported cases by zip code as a percentage of total county cases:

Cedar Falls (50613): 19.6%

Dunkerton (50626): 0.9%

Elk Run Heights, Evansdale, Raymond (50707): 4.7%

Gilbertville (50634): 0.5%

Hudson (50643): 0.6%

La Porte City (50651): 1.3%

Waterloo (50701): 22.6%

Waterloo (50702): 26.7%

Waterloo (50703): 20.5%

Reported cases by sex:

Male: 53.6% (no change)

Female: 46.4% (no change)

Reported cases by age:

0-17: 5.1% (no change)

18-40: 52.2% (no change)

41-60: 29.6% (no change)

61-80: 10.5% (no change)

80+: 2.6% (no change)

Reported cases by race:

Asian: 9.9% (no change)

Black: 23.7% (no change)

Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 2.2% (no change)

White: 64.2% (no change)

Reported cases by ethnicity:

Hispanic/Latinx: 16% (no change)

Non-Hispanic: 84% (no change)

Hospitalization rate: 4.3% (no change)

------------------

Bremer County

Cases: 299

14-day average cases per day: 4.6 (+1.5)

Recoveries: 187

Deaths: 7 (no change)

14-day average deaths per day: 0 (no change)

Percent currently infected of total infections: 34.3% (+1.0%)

Fatality rate: 2.3% (-0.2%)

Total population currently infected: 0.4% (no change)

Total population ever infected: 1.2% (+0.1%)

Percent positive in past 14 days: 10.0% (+2.4%)

Iowa school districts may request a temporary waiver to send students home for 14 days and move all instruction online if 10% of students are absent and a 14-day average shows at least 15% of county residents screened for the coronavirus test positive.

Wartburg College (Waverly): (Info: wartburg.edu/knights-care)

Number of faculty, staff and students testing positive or inconclusive: 15 (+9)

15 (+9) Number in isolation: 19 (+13)

19 (+13) Number in quarantine: 72 (+48)

-----------------

Buchanan County

Cases: 174

14-day average cases per day: 2.6 (+0.4)

Recoveries: 110

Deaths: 1 (no change)

14-day average deaths per day: 0 (no change)

Percent currently infected of total infections: 35.4%

Fatality rate: 0.6% (no change)

Total population currently infected: 0.3% (no change)

Total population ever infected: 0.8% (no change)

Percent positive in past 14 days: 3.9% (-2.1%)

Iowa school districts may request a temporary waiver to send students home for 14 days and move all instruction online if 10% of students are absent and a 14-day average shows at least 15% of county residents screened for the coronavirus test positive.

------------------

Butler County

Cases: 204

14-day average cases per day: 5.1 (+1.8)

Recoveries: 156

Deaths: 2 (no change)

14-day average deaths per day: 0 (no change)

Percent currently infected of total infections: 22.1% (+3.7%)

Fatality rate: 1.0% (-0.1%)

Total population currently infected: 0.3% (+0.1%)

Total population ever infected: 1.4% (+0.2%)

Percent positive in past 14 days: 13.2% (+2.9%)

Iowa school districts may request a temporary waiver to send students home for 14 days and move all instruction online if 10% of students are absent and a 14-day average shows at least 15% of county residents screened for the coronavirus test positive.

---------------

Fayette County

Cases: 138

14-day average cases per day: 3.1 (+0.3)

Recoveries: 81

Deaths: 1 (no change)

14-day average deaths per day: 0.1 (no change)

Percent currently infected of total infections: 37.3% (-0.3%)

Fatality rate: 0.7% (-0.1%)

Total population currently infected: 0.3% (no change)

Total population ever infected: 0.8% (+0.1%)

Percent positive in past 14 days: 4.5% (-0.9%)

Iowa school districts may request a temporary waiver to send students home for 14 days and move all instruction online if 10% of students are absent and a 14-day average shows at least 15% of county residents screened for the coronavirus test positive.

----------------

Floyd County

Cases: 215

14-day average cases per day: 3.2 (+1.9)

Recoveries: 171

Deaths: 3 (no change)

14-day average deaths per day: 0 (no change)

Percent currently infected of total infections: 18.2%

Fatality rate: 1.4% (-0.2%)

Total population currently infected: 0.3% (+0.2%)

Total population ever infected: 1.4% (+0.1%)

Percent positive in past 14 days: 5.6% (-0.4%)

Iowa school districts may request a temporary waiver to send students home for 14 days and move all instruction online if 10% of students are absent and a 14-day average shows at least 15% of county residents screened for the coronavirus test positive.

--------------------

Grundy County

Cases: 128

14-day average cases per day: 3.1 (+1.0)

Recoveries: 73

Deaths: 1 (no change)

14-day average deaths per day: 0 (no change)

Percent currently infected of total infections: 40.6% (+3.9%)

Fatality rate: 0.8% (-0.1%)

Total population currently infected: 0.4% (no change)

Total population ever infected: 1.1% (+0.1%)

Percent positive in past 14 days: 9.7% (+1.1%)

Iowa school districts may request a temporary waiver to send students home for 14 days and move all instruction online if 10% of students are absent and a 14-day average shows at least 15% of county residents screened for the coronavirus test positive.

Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Hong Kong authorities have denied the work visa of an editor for Hong Kong Free Press. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) rejects the denial of a work visa to the local English-language outlet and warns that this is the most recent impact of its sweeping new security law.

Police conduct an ID check on a man (C) before a planned protest for press freedom in Hong Kong on August 11, 2020. Credit: Isaac Lawrence/AFP

The statement released by Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) on August 27 identified the editor as Irish national Aaron McNicholas. Authorities rejected an application to transfer McNicholas work visa after an almost six-month wait, without giving an official reason.

HKFP said that the visa denial is not another tit-for-tat measure under the US-China trade dispute, and that they have been targeted under the climate of the new security law and because of our impartial, fact-based coverage.

Hong Kong Free Presss editor-in-chief, Tom Grundy, said it appeared they were targeted under the climate of the new security law and because of our impartial and fact-based coverage.

We are a local news outlet and our prospective editor was a journalist originally from Ireland, so this is not another tit-for-tat measure under the US-China trade dispute, he said.

HKFP has been noteworthy for delivering frequent coverage on the regions pro-democracy protests and being critical of Beijing. McNicholas also covered the Hong Kong protests and implementation of the national security law.

The IFJ was part of a recent campaign to protest the new security, which has seen the criminalisation of acts relating to subversion, foreign collusion and terrorism. The joint statement raised concerns of the laws potential for abuse in establishing a climate of fear and self-censorship and the threat it poses to rule of law and fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong.

The visa denial is seen as another step to curtailing press freedom and undermining democratic rights.

The IFJ said: Preventing journalists from working is an attack on democracy and public interest journalism. This denial of a work visa for a highly reputable local publication is a direct obstruction of press freedom and only validates concerns raised about the new security law in Hong Kong.
Almost six months after it was first detected in Latin America, the coronavirus death toll has reached 250,000 and exacerbated poverty and inequality, threatening to undo a decade of slow social progress.

Among the 620 million people in the region, 6.4 million have been infected.

In marginalized neighborhoods the virus has spread alongside financial desperation due to the economic meltdown caused by lockdown measures, with thousands of families facing a stark choice between shielding themselves from the virus and trying to fill their stomachs.

In the worst cases, they've been unable to do either.

"Because of this pandemic I was left unemployed. There are days when we don't eat," said Milena Maia, who lives in a modest home in Heliopolis, which with 200,000 people is one of the largest favelas in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The 36-year-old single mother worked as a cleaner but now relies on handouts from an NGO to feed her three children.

She told AFP she knows people that died of COVID-19 and "many that are infected."

Priscila Tomas da Silva, her husband and six children had to leave the home they were renting and build their own makeshift accommodation from wood and plastic in a parking lot for trucks on the outskirts of Sao Paulo.

Within a few weeks, 700 such shacks sprung up in the parking area, creating a new favela.

- Set back 10 years -

Latin America represents nine percent of the world's population but has provided 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the last two months.

That "shows us how big the impact has been," Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva, Latin American director for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) told AFP.

Without effective political reaction, "at a regional level we can talk about a regression of up to 10 years in the levels of multidimensional poverty," he added.

Faced with surging cases, many governments -- such as Peru, Argentina and Venezuela -- have rolled back on the easing of confinement measures and pledged support for the poorest sectors of society, although it's often been meagre or failed to reach those that need it.

Story continues

Chile and Peru allowed people to withdraw money from their pension funds, providing much-needed immediate financial relief.

But some experts warn those measures could weaken already fragile social protection systems.

"The quarantine and pandemic are exposing deep realities: structural injustice is becoming more visible," priest Lorenzo de Vedia, from the sprawling Villa 21 neighborhood of Buenos Aires, told AFP.

"There's not enough State presence and it's disorganized," he added.

Throughout the region, people have set up communal kitchens to help those worst affected.

Yet anger is widespread. Chile saw violent protests a few weeks ago with road blocks and looting, while in Bolivia people marched demanding government solutions.

- 231 million poor -

The UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) predicts unemployment could reach 13.5 percent this year -- meaning 44 million people out of work, 18 million more than in January.

The regional economy is also expected to shrink by nine percent.

The World Labor Organization warns that two thirds of people have either lost their job, lost work hours or earnings.

As a result, the pandemic has pushed 45 million people out of the middle classes. There are now 231 million poor: 37 percent of the population, according to ECLAC.

Peru, which has enjoyed above average growth in recent years, has seen its GDP shrink by 17 percent, with the number of middle income families receding.

That's what happened to Sara Paredes and Raul Cisneros, who saw their income disappear from one day to the next.

"It's five months since anyone gave me a translation," said Cisneros, 46, a translator and Quechua teacher.

Paredes, 45, has been unable to perform in the theatre or give classes in Lima's School of Fine Arts.

They're struggling to feed their two children.

- 'Pre-existing conditions' -

On top of the health and economic crises there's also been an increase in deaths from treatable disease, such as dengue, and domestic violence and truancy.

In countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador, hugely dependent on remittances, gang violence has risen again after initially subsiding when the virus struck.

Lopez-Calva said that, just as those most vulnerable to COVID-19 are those with pre-existing conditions, "the most vulnerable economies and societies to the pandemic are those with pre-existing conditions."

"That's to say those with high inequality, ineffective policies and public institutions, with low trust in the institutions and fiscal incapacity," he continued.

ECLAC has pushed governments to provide a basic income and food stamps during the crisis.

It has also called for debt grace periods for small and medium-sized companies and greater access to finance under favorable conditions for middle income countries, particularly in the Caribbean.

burs-ll/lda/bc/st
The Supreme Court on Monday directed businessman Vijay Mallya to be present at court on 5 October at 2 pm. The apex court also asked the Union ministry of home affairs to ensure his presence in the courtroom on that day.

Now that the Review Petitions are dismissed, we direct respondent No.3 to appear before this Court on 05.10.2020 at 02:00 p.m. and also direct the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi to facilitate and ensure the presence of respondent No.3 before this Court on that day. A copy of this judgement be sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs for facility and compliance."

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Mallya's plea seeking review of 2017 verdict holding him guilty for contempt of court. Mallya had sought a review of its May 2017 order holding him guilty of contempt for transferring $40 million to his children in violation of the court's order.

Liquor baron Mallya, promoter of the defunct Kingfisher Airlines has been charged with alleged fraud and money laundering charges amounting to estimated 9,000 crore. He is presently in the UK.

The United Kingdom government can not set a timeline for extradition of liquor baron Vijay Mallya, the British High Commissioner Sir Philip Barton told news agency PTI last month. "The extradition of Vijay Mallya is an ongoing legal case and I can't comment any further on it. I can't say anything at all about timescales," Barton said.

Barton further added, "The UK government and the courts, which are independent of the government, are absolutely clear about their roles in preventing people avoid justice by moving to another country. We are all determined to play our part in any case, and to make sure that we are working together to ensure that criminals can't escape justice by crossing national borders."

Citing the unresolved legal issues, the UK government earlier indicated that Mallya is unlikely to be extradited to India anytime soon. In May, Mallya lost his appeals in the UK Supreme Court against his extradition to India.

In May, Mallya lost his appeals in the UK Supreme Court against his extradition to India. Mallya had sought asylum on humanitarian grounds, particularly under Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). However, India has requested the UK government not to consider Mallyas asylum request, the Indian foreign ministry said earlier.

We have requested the UK not to consider his asylum as requested by him because there appears to be no ground for his persecution in India," Indian foreign ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava told.

Mallya was arrested by the UK authorities on April 20, 2017 on the request of the Indian investigative agencies.

A spokesperson in the British High Commission said that there was a legal issue that needed to be resolved before Mallya's extradition can be arranged, according to a report in PTI.

"Under United Kingdom law, extradition cannot take place until it is resolved. The issue is confidential and we cannot go into any detail. We cannot estimate how long this issue will take to resolve. We are seeking to deal with this as quickly as possible," the official had said.

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Actor Ruslaan Mumtaz, the son of veteran actress Anjana Mumtaz, said that he did not get his mothers support when he stepped into the industry in 2007 with MP3: Mera Pehla Pehla Pyaar. He further said that he wanted to become an actor to just become famous.

Talking to ETimes, Ruslaan said, She has been closely associated with this industry and she knew that it is not easy to make your space here. Many people, including me, joined the industry for the glamour part of it. I wanted to become an actor but I did not have the right reasons. I did not become an actor because I loved acting. I became an actor because I wanted to become famous. And she saw that and she did not want me to pursue this career for popularity.

She discouraged me and wanted me to get a regular job that wouldnt affect my life so much," he added, stating that the profession affects ones personal life to a great degree.

Ruslaan also weighed in on the nepotism debate raging online since the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Ruslaan said that the association value of star-kids will always be there as their parents are known by people. He said that no matter how much people crib about star-kids being launched and nepotism in Bollywood, kids of superstars will always interest them more than any other newbie getting launched.

He added that it is easy for people to sit at home and crib about nepotism in Bollywood. However, it is the same people who will go watch a star-kids film and make it successful, once theatres open.

Ruslaan and wife Nirali Mehta recently welcomed a baby boy in March. Ruslaan was last seen in Jabariya Jodi. He is currently a part of the TV serial Yeh Rishtey Hain Pyaar Ke.
Salmon Falls Resort

Ketchikan is an Alaskan city, facing the Inside Passage along the state's southeastern coast. It's known for its many Native American totem poles, on display throughout town. Nearby Misty Fiords National Monument is a glacier-carved wilderness featuring snowcapped mountains, waterfalls and salmon spawning streams. It's also home of black bears, wolves, and bald eagles. Nearby is the Salmon Falls Resort. It is also only 90 minutes from Seattle.

This resort is unveiling all-inclusive travel specials and new offerings for travelers seeking last-minute, endless summer trips and outdoor explorations. There are unusual reasons for these new benefits.

Salmon Falls Resort

Due to the lack of cruise ships this year 2020, there have been changes to the Alaskan eco-system as exemplified by a second run of Coho Salmon, rare for this time of year. More salmon combined with an influx of travelers looking for a convenient last minute summer escape, led to this extended season. The resort will also be opening 6 weeks earlier in 2021 due to increased demand.

We are thrilled to introduce an extended season with exciting new programming and favorable rates in a time when travelers are seeking a change from their daily routines, says Matt Herod, General Manager, of the Resort. Salmon Falls Resort is an accessible and safe destination, surrounded by the worlds most beautiful scenery, yet just a short flight away from the West Coast."

Salmon Falls Resort

Committed to providing a safe environment for guests and staff, Salmon Falls has introduced enhanced health and safety measures include social distancing, stringent cleaning measures, personal protective equipment for staff, in-room safety kits and more. Upon arrival at Ketchikan International Airport, guests must show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours prior to arrival in Alaska. Salmon Falls will assist with optional testing services and send tests directly to travelers if requested.

With 51 rooms, the resort has catered to discerning travelers for more than 30 years -- and is best known for its majestic setting and world-class salmon fishing. Ketchikan has been called The Salmon Capital of the World, and the area is renowned for great salmon fishing, as well as its rich Alaskan culture and pristine surrounding wilderness.

Salmon Falls Resort

For U.S. travelers wishing to extend their summer travels of 2020, the resort is offering its popular all-inclusive guided fishing package with special rates starting at $1,500 for three nightsavailable for travel through the end of September. Guests are also able to book flightseeing float plane tours to the Misty Fjords National Monument and guided bear watching throughout the Alaskan rainforest. Guests also have the opportunity to lock in rates now for stays next season, beginning May 1, 2021.

New resort experiences for 2021 will focus on adventure, cultural and culinary themes that honor the extraordinary setting and heritage of the Alaskan Panhandle. Standout offerings include fishing expeditions to remote locales, flightseeing float plane tours to the Misty Fjords National Monument and guided bear watching throughout the Alaskan rainforest.

Follow Salmon Falls on Facebook at Facebook.com/SalmonFallsResort and Instagram at @SalmonFallsAK.

Salmon Falls Resort

Fishing for Salmon, near Salmon Falls Resort
MPs who switch parties could be forced to fight by-elections under proposals being put forward in parliament by a Conservative MP this week.

Anthony Mangnall wants legislation to trigger a recall petition automatically whenever an MP crosses the floor, with signatures from one in 10 constituents needed to force them to seek re-election.

The MP will make his case in the Commons on Wednesday for a bill to extend recall provisions, which currently allow a petition only if MPs are jailed, suspended from parliament for 10 days or more or found guilty of expenses fraud.

Some 17 MPs quit their parties to join another group or go independent last year, surpassing the tally for the previous two decades combined.

The defections convulsed Westminster, seriously undermining Theresa Mays efforts to force her Brexit deal through parliament and raising questions over Jeremy Corbyns leadership of Labour.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 18 January 2022 Surfers enter the sea as the sun rises over Tynemouth on the North East coast PA UK news in pictures 17 January 2022 Bonhams Danny McIlwraith holds a Nigerian polycrome carved wood mask during a photocall for the sale of the Jim Lennon Collection at Bonhams in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 16 January 2022 The moon rises above the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 15 January 2022 Demonstrators outside Downing Street during a Kill The Bill protest against The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in London PA UK news in pictures 14 January 2022 Ecologist Emma Smart (left) and retired GP Dr Diana Warner outside HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, following their release from the prison where Emma undertook a 26-day hunger strike during her incarceration. Ms Smart was sentenced in November, along with other members of Insulate Britain, to serve four months for breaking a High Court injunction by taking part in a blockade at junction 25 of the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour on 8 October last year PA UK news in pictures 13 January 2022 A TV presenter holds a copy of a newspaper outside 10 Downing Streetafter the Prime Minister apologised for attending a gathering of colleagues in the Number Ten garden in May 2020, while the UK was in strict lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic Getty UK news in pictures 12 January 2022 Fitness guru Derrick Evans after receiving an MBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA 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

But none of those switching sides stood down to fight a by-election under their new party colours. And of the 11 who went on to fight the December general election, not a single one kept their place in parliament.

The best results were achieved not by those who defended their existing seats in the hope of capitalising on local popularity, but those like Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger and Phillip Lee who chose to fight new constituencies.

Mr Mangnall himself secured a seat in the House of Commons in December by defeating Sarah Wollaston, who had represented Totnes in Devon for Conservatives since 2010, but quit over Brexit to join Change UK and then fought the election for the Liberal Democrats, limping in a distant second.

The Tory MP told The Independent that last years election made clear that voters have little time for MPs who change their party colours.

My bill is about restoring faith in politics, encouraging transparency and making people feel that their vote matters, said Mr Mangnall.

Sarah Wollaston (front left) was among 11 MPs who quit their parties to form the Change UK group in 2019 (PA)

As MPs, we are the representatives of a constituency but we should not forget that we are elected because we stood on a party manifesto, using party emblems, party support and party values.

Im not saying that people should be any less independent. Every MP has the right to speak freely.

But if you have been elected on the basis that you represent one party and you now want to join another, you should give your constituents the opportunity to decide if they want to be represented by your new party.

If you really feel you have been elected entirely on your own merits as an individual, that should pose you no problem.

Mr Mangnall said he had received support from parliamentary colleagues, including several of the new MPs who, like him, arrived in Westminster after taking a former defectors seat.

He said the question was a big issue in Totnes during last years campaign, with many constituents voicing anger that they had been denied a by-election when Dr Wollaston left the Tories, who had previously held the seat and its predecessor South Hams since 1924.

Mr Mangnalls proposal for a Recall of MPs (Change of Party Affiliation) Bill has little or no prospect of becoming law without support from the government, but he said he had not yet had discussions with ministers over whether he will receive their backing.

Only two MPs have faced recall under existing rules, introduced in 2015. Former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya stepped down after a petition forced a by-election in Peterborough following her conviction for lying about a speeding offence, while Tory Christopher Davies lost Brecon and Radnor in a by-election triggered by false expenses claims.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 12:03:40|Editor: huaxia

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by Yao Lan

HONG KONG, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Floods triggered by heavy rains continued to wreak havoc in South Asia, the one of the world's most densely populated geographical regions, pummeling countries that have already been battered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the monsoon season began, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Nepal are among those being affected in the region that houses one-fourth of the world's population, accompanied by growing risks of malaria, dengue, diarrhea and coronavirus.

The monsoon season of South Asia, which affects the Indian subcontinent every year from June through September, often brings cyclones and devastating floods in recent years and causes the displacement of millions of people living in low-lying areas.

Researchers suggested that climate change is causing more frequent extreme rainfall events and an increased risk of flooding in developed areas.

AFGHANISTAN IN TRIPLE WOES

In Afghanistan, the flooding has added to the country's woes posted by war and the ongoing pandemic.

At least 122 people were killed in torrential floods, 147 others wounded and several others went missing in 12 eastern provinces till Thursday, said the office of state minister for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs.

The deadly floods also destroyed 1,500 houses, 23 shops, and more than 1,100 hectares of agriculture land in the region while 600 farm animals had also been lost, according to the ministry statistics.

Bomb attacks and violence are also witnessed in the country in the unresolved conflict between the Taliban and militants.

In the first six months of the year, more than 1,200 civilians had been killed and over 1,700 others injured, according to Naeem Nazari, deputy head of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

The war-battered country on Sunday reported 22 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases after health authorities have conducted 247 tests since early Saturday, bringing the total number of cases to 38,165 with 1,402 deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic in February.

FLOODS PLUS PANDEMIC

Monsoon rains are also pounding Pakistan and India at a time when the authorities are trying to contain the spread of COVID-19 and other contagious diseases, which has caused around 70,000 deaths altogether in the two countries.

At least 12 people were killed in floods and rain-related incidents in India's eastern state of Odisha, officials said Saturday. August has seen the highest rainfall in the past over four decades, according to India's state-run broadcaster All India Radio (AIR).

According to Bihar Disaster Management Department (BDMD), the ongoing floods have inundated 16 districts across the state affecting a population of 8,362,451.

While in Pakistan, at least 163 people have been killed while 101 others were injured since June 15 of this year in separate incidents triggered by torrential monsoon rains, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said in a report on Sunday.

South Sindh province was the worst hit where 61 people were killed and 22 others injured in the rain-related incidents, the authority said, adding that 59 houses were also damaged in the heavy downpour.

Provincial capital Karachi of Sindh was worst-hit in the rains where urban flooding brought life to a standstill. According to local media reports, 90 percent of commercial activities were halted in the city after heavy downpours started lashing the city days ago and are still continuing.

Chief Minister of Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah told a press conference on Friday that 604-mm rainfall was recorded in Karachi during August, breaking the years-long record of heavy rains in the city during the month.

"Vast inland seas of stagnant water create an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes, with a soaring risk of diseases like dengue and malaria," said Abhishek Rimal, IFRC's Regional Emergency Health Coordinator in Asia Pacific.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department has predicted more torrential rains in parts of the country on Monday and issued warning of urban flooding in some cities including Karachi.

On the front of the pandemic, India on Sunday reported 78,761 new daily COVID-19 cases and 948 deaths as the COVID-19 tally surpassed 3.5 million. The total number of cases rose to 3,542,733, with 63,498 deaths, showed the latest data released by the country's health ministry.

Pakistan recorded a total number of 295,636 cases and 6,288 deaths, according to the latest figure released by the government, while the fatality from the pandemic in Nepal doubled in just two weeks on Saturday.

WATER LEVELS RECEDE IN BANGLADESH

In a similar crisis faced by Bangladesh, 1,897 new COVID-19 cases and 42 new deaths were reported on Sunday, making the total tally at 310,822 and total deaths at 4,248 respectively, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.

The overall flood situation in Bangladesh, after three waves of devastating floods, has improved in most of the districts with water levels receding at most of the 101 observation points across the four major river basins.

According to a flood report of the country's Health Emergency Operation Centre and Control Room, the floods have killed 226 people in 33 (out of 64) districts since June 30. The loss of crops due to floods has been put at 13.23 billion taka (about 156.4 million U.S. dollars).

Bangladeshi Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque told journalists last week that crops on 1.58 lakh hectares of land in 37 districts had been destroyed. Enditem
Maria Romero, daughter of an Arkansas poultry worker who was hospitalized with COVID-19, photographed in Rogers, Arkansas, on Sunday, June 28, 2020.

This story is part of a collaborative reporting initiative between the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and the USA TODAY Network and is supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Maria Romeros phone rang one day in June with the terrifying sound of her mother gasping for air.

The 59-year-old Arkansas poultry plant worker struggled in a weakened whisper to tell her daughter shed been rushed to the emergency room, where she was diagnosed with COVID-19. Romero could barely understand the words, but she knew her mother was frightened and confused.

She knew something was wrong, but she didnt know what was going on, Romero, 36, said. I could sense that she was scared.

Romeros mother, who asked that her identity be protected for fear of losing her job, is among at least 4,627 Arkansas poultry workers to have been infected by the novel coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.

More than half of them, like Romeros mother, are Hispanic.

Americans rely on low-wage workers to produce a steady supply of beef, pork and poultry. But as the coronavirus sweeps through meatpacking plants across the country, minorities like her have disproportionately borne the brunt of the diseases spread.

Hispanics, Blacks and recent immigrants staff eight out of every 10 of the nations frontline meatpacking jobs, the Center for Economic and Policy Research found.

And they now account for 90% of the countrys meatpacking-related coronavirus cases, based on a 21-state analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than half of them are Hispanic.

Nowhere is that more evident than Arkansas, the second largest poultry producing state by weight in the nation. Unlike many other states with large outbreaks in meatpacking plants, Arkansas collects coronavirus case count data for the meatpacking industry by race and ethnicity.

That data, obtained by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and USA TODAY, shows Latinos accounting for 33% of all poultry workers in Arkansas but roughly half of all COVID-19 cases in poultry plants.

Story continues

The news outlets asked for the same data from several other states with large outbreaks at meatpacking plants, including Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska. The states said they didnt maintain it.

The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and USA TODAY spent two months interviewing workers, plant officials and health experts about the disproportionate rate of minority infection among meatpackers. They also examined hundreds of pages of government records and reports as part of this story, which was funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center.

Cheap chicken, beef came at a cost:How American meat plants bred coronavirus hot spots.

Even before the pandemic, these employees faced long hours in dangerous conditions for meager pay. For years, the federal government has detailed the industrys systemic problems while doing little to correct them.

But now, with a deadly virus plaguing these plants, the government has taken an even more hands-off approach to worker safety. The Trump administration in late April provided guidance on how to safeguard plants from the pandemic but stopped short of mandating or enforcing the measures.

Even as case numbers in poultry plants soared, pleas from workers and activists for basic safety measures were met with months of inaction and indifference from the government and meatpacking companies.

In northwest Arkansas, the heart of the states poultry industry, a CDC investigation found widespread transmission of the disease and faulted the state government for the disproportionate impact on the Latino and Pacific Islander communities.

Jennifer Dillaha, state epidemiologist with the Arkansas Department of Health, said the state is trying to implement as many of the CDCs recommendations as possible and recently contracted two companies to conduct contact tracing.

But with limited government oversight of COVID-19 safety measures in plants, churning out packages of chicken breasts and nuggets has come at the expense of workers lives, workers and advocates said.

This is a nationwide, multi-company problem. The meatpacking plants were not prepared for this epidemic, League of United Latin American Citizens president Domingo Garcia said. There was a failure early on from the management and owners of the five major meatpacking players to respond to it as fast as they could, and it did cost lives.

Spokesmen for two of the largest meatpacking operations in the country told reporters theyre taking every precaution to protect workers by implementing safety measures such as temperature checks and plastic workstation barriers.

Derek Burleson of Tyson, which operates 20 poultry plants in Arkansas, said the companys priority is the health and safety of workers and the community. He said the company has implemented a variety of safety measures and done large-scale testing of its Arkansas workers.

The Tyson plant on West Olrich Street in Rogers, Arkansas, on Sunday, June 28, 2020.

Cameron Bruett of JBS, which operates one plant in the state, provided a similar statement.

We are doing everything we can to provide a safe working environment for our team members who are producing food for the country during these unprecedented times, Bruett said.

Such measures did not prevent Romeros mother from falling ill. The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and USA TODAY is not naming the plant where she works to protect her identity. But state records show her facility has hundreds of COVID-19 cases.

The day her mother was hospitalized, Romero was so busy interpreting her mothers Spanish and fielding calls from anxious relatives she didnt cry until after she put her children to bed.

Then, she said, she broke down in tears and begged God to keep her mother alive. She hadnt asked God for anything in four years  since the day she found out she was pregnant with twins. She promised then not to ask for another favor. Now as relatives across the country prayed the rosary for her mother, Romero sank to her knees too.

Dont do this. I need her, she recalled praying. I need her to make it through. I need her to have recovery so we can hang out again and live this life that you have for us.

'People coming in sick to work'

Arkansas has deep roots in the poultry industry dating back to the late 1800s with the formation of the Arkansas Poultry Breeders association and is home today to one of the largest poultry producing companies in the U.S.: Tyson Foods, based in Springdale.

The state has nearly 6,000 poultry producing farms and more than 60 poultry processing plants that collectively employ about 40,000 workers. About a third of them are Latino. More than one in five are Black or Asian.

As of mid-August, 30 Arkansas poultry plants have had outbreaks, according to state data. At least seven have now seen hundreds of employees test positive for COVID-19.

Yet despite calls from workers to temporarily shut down plants for deep cleaning, the state hasnt ordered any plant closures. Tyson, the largest chicken processing company in the U.S., hasnt idled any of its facilities in the state. It instead implemented a series of measures like installing dividers between workers, providing masks to employees and designating monitors to enforce social distancing. The company has also announced it will test some employees for COVID-19 weekly.

Although its spokesman, Burleson, said the company meets or exceeds CDC safety guidelines, workers rights groups filed a civil rights complaint in early July against the two largest meatpacking companies in the U.S., saying the companies lax safety measures during the pandemic disproportionately exposed minority workers to COVID-19 and amounted to racial discrimination.

Alfredo, 37, a machine operator in a Tyson poultry plant, said he has seen firsthand how the company responded to the coronavirus outbreak. He called it insufficient.

Alfredo, a poultry plant worker, at his Home in Springdale, Arkansas, on Thursday, July 2, 2020.

A Mexican immigrant, Alfredo said he and other workers often cant afford to stay home when sick and are pressured by their supervisors to return to work. He asked to be identified only by his first name out of fear of being fired.

There are people coming in sick to work, he said through an interpreter.

A 2016 Government Accountability Office report also noted a reluctance on the part of undocumented and immigrant workers to report sickness and injuries.

Alfredos elderly parents tested positive for COVID-19 and believe they contracted the disease through their jobs at poultry plants. His children cried as his parents broke the news to them, convinced their grandparents would die.

It's really overwhelming, he said.

Less than two weeks after his mother tested positive for COVID-19, the Tyson plant where she worked called her multiple times urging her to return to the production line, he said. His mother, still coughing and running a fever, refused to work until she tested negative.

Burleson, the Tyson spokesman, said employees are not allowed to work if they show symptoms.

If the team member tests positive, they receive paid leave during the quarantine period required by the CDC and may return to work only when they have met the criteria established by the CDC and Tyson, he said.

But Alfredo said Tyson workers arent paid to self-quarantine unless a company doctor sends them home or they receive a positive COVID-19 test. Workers and activists have said employees are usually cleared to work as long as they dont have a fever.

Workers who have come in contact with someone who tested positive do not have to self-quarantine and can keep working as long as they have no symptoms, Dillaha, the state epidemiologist, said.

Poultry activists have said employees are expected to work even if they were exposed to someone with COVID-19, a concern when the virus can be spread by asymptomatic people.

Workers are often reluctant to admit theyve tested positive for COVID-19 or have symptoms, said Lorena Quiroz, founder of the Mississippi-based Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity.

They will go into work if they're asymptomatic because they're fearing they're going to get fired or the community is going to treat them differently or even affect their immigration status, she said.

About 91% of Arkansas poultry workers lack paid sick leave, and two-thirds reported working while sick before the pandemic began, according to a study led by the Northwest Arkansas Workers Justice Center. For poultry workers, staying home can mean losing weeks worth of pay or even their jobs.

The company is exposing them to get sick, and they don't care for their health or lives, Magaly Licolli, founder of the Northwest Arkansas-based poultry workers rights group, Venceremos, said.

Magaly Licolli, a poultry worker activist, stands in the Orchards Park Recreational Area in Bentonville, Arkansas, on Monday, June 29, 2020.

More than 120 social justice groups including Venceremos launched a week of action demanding that Tyson offer paid sick leave, slow line speeds and provide regular testing for workers. For months, Venceremos has held protests and circulated petitions calling for the shutdown of Arkansas plants with COVID-19 cases.

It is clear that the main reason workers feel compelled to go to work when they're sick is that they don't have access to paid sick leave, said Angela Stuesse, anthropology professor at the University of North Carolina and author of the book Scratching out a Living: Latinos, Race, and Work in the Deep South.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act that guaranteed paid sick leave for employees with COVID-19 excluded companies with more than 500 employees, meaning the handful of large companies that dominate the meatpacking industry are exempt from the requirement.

Undocumented immigrants and their families have so far been excluded from receiving assistance from the federal stimulus package intended to reduce the financial pain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Vox.

We need our immigrants who feel symptoms to not work, and many of them don't have that option because they don't have access to safety net programs and they were left out of the economic stimulus, said Mireya Reith, the executive director of the immigrant rights group, Arkansas United.

'I dont feel safe'

After 10 days in the hospital, Romeros mother returned home lightheaded, achy and fatigued. Facing a looming medical bill, she returned to her job at the poultry plant that provides some of the only work left in her rural town, where she loads uncooked chicken into plastic foam trays and onto a conveyor belt, the mother said.

A doctors note has put her on light duty  a result of lingering weakness from her bout with the virus as well as the searing back and shoulder pain she accumulated from 13 years of repetitive movement on the production line. Now, she lifts 3 pounds at a time instead of 7.

Although her plant has installed plastic barriers between workers and increased the distance between employees, she worries about getting sick again when workers crowd together in the cafeteria and as they stream out of the plant, Romeros mother said.

Romero said she wonders if her mothers body could endure another fight with the virus. In a plant where hundreds of workers have contracted the virus, her mother makes around $11 an hour and has received no hazard pay, she said.

Meanwhile, at the Tyson plant, Alfredo works shoulder-to-shoulder with other employees, separated from them by a thin plastic sheet or nothing at all, he said. Although workers have their temperatures checked and are given masks and face shields, they are crowded together when they clock in, change clothes and use the bathroom.

Alfredo, a poultry plant worker, at his home in Springdale, Arkansas, on Thursday, July 2, 2020.

The plant installed a handful of hand sanitizer stations, but Alfredo said it doesnt clean or disinfect inside, even as an increasing number of workers test positive. He worries that the virus lingers on the machinery, common spaces and in the air, alongside the tangy smell of rotting meat.

I don't feel safe, he said. I always feel nervous when I'm there and afraid of working because they never closed the plant to disinfect or to clean. The virus is still inside.

He works six days a week, nine hours a day grinding blocks of frozen chicken into a pulp used to make chicken nuggets. By the end of the day, his mask is damp with sweat. He rubs hand sanitizer over his face and hands and strips his clothes onto the lawn before walking into his home.

What I'm worried about the most is one day I will go to work, and then I will get sick and eventually I will get my kids, my family, all sick, he said.

The meatpacking industry has been notorious for low pay, high injury rates and few benefits. Now during a pandemic, Alfredo said its become more clear how much the industry ignores worker safety. As workers emptied out of the plant by testing positive, self-quarantining or simply leaving, working mandatory overtime exhausts him, he said. He said his children wont work in poultry like their parents and grandparents.

He knows workers who have gotten sick and two that have died, some of whom came from the same small town in Mexico where Alfredo was born.

Instead of getting better, its just gotten worse, he said. I feel impotent for not being able to help. The only thing that I can do is pray for them.

Contributing: Frank Hernandez of the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Arkansas poultry plants hit hard by COVID-19, and Hispanics bear brunt
TROY  The Rensselaer County Legislature Democratic minoritys third attempt to pass a resolution condemning systemic racism will not get out of committee for the September meeting, the Republican County Legislature chairman said Monday.

The Democrats, who hold six of the 19 legislative seats, have been unable to convince the Republican majority at the last two meetings to move ahead with the legislation.

Lets move forward and stop talking about the past, County Legislature Chairman Michael Stammel, R-Rensselaer, said.

At the August meeting, the Republicans stood against the proposed measure due to the Democrats adding the words "Black People" to the title of a resolution that Republicans originally entitled "Calling for Racial Justice for People of Color."

The Democrats introduced the initial resolution for the July meeting following the peaceful Troy Rally for Black Lives that drew an estimated 11,000 participants. That demonstration along with others in the Capital Region and across the country were in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis while being arrested by that citys police. The four officers involved were fired from their jobs and now face homicide-related criminal charges.

Minority Leader Peter Grimm, D-Troy, promised the Democrats would be back with a measure for the Sept. 8 legislative meeting. The resolution introduced by the Democrats remains titled with the words Racial Justice for Black People and People of Color."

"It is a forefront issue everywhere else. Black Lives Matter has brought forward the issue of racial inequity," Grimm said. "We've heard a lot about this not only in Troy but from throughout the county."

The Democrats submitted a memo in support of this resolution saying they had again filed a resolution to eradicate systemic racism and the harm that it causes.

They also called upon all elected colleagues and Americans to recognize and continue to work on combating inequality and inequity and to make everyone aware of the injustices that exist. Our mission is to demand change that will provide our agencies and institutions with the skills and tools that will eliminate these injustices.

The Democrats lost the support of half of their caucus over the resolution submitted for the July meeting that included language viewed as too harshly anti-law enforcement. This language was modified for the August meeting as the Republicans worked on the draft resolution. But it was the addition of the words Black People by the Democratic leadership that pushed Republicans reject it.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

I think the resolution is some sort of crusade the minority is on, Stammel said.

The Democrats are now united in resubmitting the resolution from the August meeting, said County Legislator Carole Weaver, D-Troy, who withdrew her support from the July resolution along with fellow Legislators Bobby Burns, D-Troy, and Erin Sullivan-Teta, D-Troy. They join Grimm and Legislators Cindy Doran, D-Troy, and Mark Flemming, D-Troy, in backing the resolution.

I support this resolution. Its very disturbing to know it will never get out of committee, Weaver said.

Stammel as chairman of the County Legislatures Rules Committee determines whether this resolution will go before the entire legislature. He said he doesnt want to put the Republican caucus through the debate for a third time.
An official investigation into 'jihadi textbooks' used in British-funded Palestinian schools was branded a farce yesterday  after researchers mistakenly analysed Israeli textbooks that promote peace.

Ministers promised urgent action in February after the Mail revealed how 120 million of UK foreign aid helps pay for schools in Gaza and the West Bank, where reading exercises for six-year-olds include the words 'martyr' and 'attack' and ten-year-olds learn the most important thing is giving their life for 'jihad'.

The Government promised that a joint UK-EU study would provide a 'thorough independent review' of the books and pledged to make the Palestinian Authority take action.

An official investigation into 'jihadi textbooks', pictured, used in British-funded Palestinian schools was branded a farce yesterday after researchers analysed the wrong book

The report, which is being carried out by Germany's Georg Eckert Institute, will be completed in October.

But major concerns were raised after a 177-page presentation of the interim report included glaring omissions, with some of the worst examples of violence and anti-Semitism in the books 'inexplicably' overlooked.

Most extraordinarily, in several cases researchers presented textbooks edited and published in Israel to teach children in Arabic-language east Jerusalem schools as those being taught to pupils in the Palestinian Authority.

Researchers cited these books as showing how the Palestinian books were being 'transformed' for the better.

They praised a science book for 'explicitly promoting peace' by explaining potential energy with the example of a bow and arrow.

In fact, in the textbook used in the Palestinian Authority, physics is taught to 11-year-olds with the image of a boy with a slingshot targeting Israeli soldiers.

The interim report also makes no mention of horrific language and images used in many of the Palestinian textbooks, including a reading comprehension about the burning of Jewish bus passengers with Molotov cocktails using the expression 'barbecue party'.

Also omitted is how Arabic language is taught through a story promoting suicide bombings and illustrated with Israeli soldiers in a tank being shot by a Palestinian gunman.

A letter from Conservative Friends of Israel to the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary signed by former ministers Stephen Crabb and Eric Pickles said the revelations raised 'fundamental questions' about the inquiry into a curriculum that 'glorifies violence and encourages discord'.

A letter from Conservative Friends of Israel to the Prime Minister signed by former minister Stephen Crabb (pictured) said the revelations raised questions about the inquiry into a curriculum that 'glorifies violence'

It adds: 'There are worrying problems including basic translation errors, glaring omissions...

'Palestinian children deserve better. It is unacceptable that these children will continue using textbooks that promote violence and hatred of Israel and Jews, taught by teachers paid for by the UK.'

Marcus Sheff, of Israeli research institute Impact-se, who analysed the presentation, said: 'The review has been a comedy of errors from start to finish.'

The Department for International Development and The Georg-Eckert Institute both declined to comment on the presentation into the interim report.

A DFID spokesperson added: 'The UK Government has a zero tolerance approach towards incitement to violence and lobbied our European partners to conduct a thorough independent review of textbooks used in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which is now underway.

'This review is ongoing, and the final report is not due to be released until the end of 2020. We will study its findings carefully.'

The EU denied that the Israeli edited and published textbooks were 'Israeli textbooks', describing them instead as versions of the Palestinian Authority textbooks that had been 'modified by Israel', and said the final report would put the material analysed within its 'specific context' as part of a comparison between the books.
South Africa: Have your say on greenhouse gas emissions guidelines

The Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries has invited public comments on draft Technical Guidelines for Validation and Verification of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGs).

The invitation for comments was published in Government Gazette 43644 (Notice No. 920) by the Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Minister, Barbara Creecy, on 24 August 2020.

The purpose of the verification guidelines is to support the implementation of the mandatory greenhouse gas reporting regime in South Africa.

South Africa is currently implementing a voluntary mitigation system, focusing on the countrys greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments. These are contained in South Africas Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), deposited with United Nations in 2015.

South Africa has committed to mitigating the effects of climate change through the reduction of emissions under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

In terms of the verification guidelines for reporting GHGs under the National Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting Regulations (NGERs), the department said certain processes need to be followed to verify the emissions data and submissions made by data providers.

The guidelines provide further detail required for implementation of Section 11 of the Regulations. This section outlines the legal requirements for verification of information submitted by data providers to the competent authority (the department).

The proposed guidelines provide direction to the competent authority, data providers and independent verifiers on the verification process for the NGERs, and details the responsibilities of these role players. It applies to all anthropogenic emissions by sources, and removals by sinks, the department explained.

The guidelines also outline:

The structure of the NGERs Verification Programme;

The independent verification process to be followed;

Accreditation requirements of independent verification bodies, and

Important considerations for all role players during the verification process.

The verification guidelines are intended for use in conjunction with the NGERs and the Methodological Guidelines for Reporting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, the department said.

Members of the public are invited to submit written representations or comments to the Minister by 24 September 2020.

These can be sent to the following addresses:

By post to The Director-General: Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, for Attention: Mr Jongikhaya Witi, Private Bag X447, Pretoria, 0001

By hand at the ground floor (Reception) of Environment House, 473 Steve Biko Road, Pretoria.

By email GHGReporting@environment.gov.za.

By fax to 086 615 4321.

The document can be accessed on https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/gazetted_notices/nemaqa_greenhousegasemissions_technicalguideline_g43644gon920.pdf.

Any inquiries in connection with the draft guidelines can be directed to Jongikhaya Witi at 012 399 9048 or 067 417 3831.

Comments received after the closing date may not be considered, the department said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
In this Aug. 27, 2019, file photo, actress Lori Loughlin departs federal court in Boston after a hearing in a nationwide college admissions bribery scandal. A new prosecution filing in the college admissions cheating case targets defense claims by Loughlin and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli. Read more

Lori Loughlin, aka Aunt Becky on Full House, was sentenced recently to two months imprisonment in the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal. You may have read objections to this lax punishment, compared with heavier penalties levied on Black defendants.

Yet, beyond her prison sentence, Loughlin actually received a harsh penalty, making her a representative victim of our unfair and irrational criminal justice system. After prison, shes sentenced to two years of supervised release, restricted by a long list of conditions and supervised by the probation office.

How did Aunt Becky end up on supervised release? Shes unlikely to reoffend, with no criminal record and no more children to sneak onto the rowing team. Her crime was born of greed and insecurity but doesnt call out for rehabilitative treatment.

The answer is that in the federal criminal justice system, practically everyone is sentenced to supervised release. Judges impose supervised release on 99% of eligible defendants, for an average of 47 months, and more than 110,000 people are currently subject to supervised release. Conditions of supervision are broad and intrusive, including drug testing, house searches, computer restrictions, financial obligations, DNA collection, and more.

 READ MORE: Judge accepts Full House actor Lori Loughlins plea deal in college bribery scheme

I saw these excesses firsthand working at the federal public defenders office in Philadelphia. Judges sentenced my clients to years of supervised release, without even mentioning the burden this would impose on them. Prosecutors sought lengthy prison sentences for minor violations that were symptoms of mental illness or addiction. One of my clients was even charged with violating his supervised release for using medical marijuana in compliance with state law.

To be fair, supervision likely kept some out of my clients out of trouble. The probation office was rightly proud of the reentry court services it offered to a handful of defendants. Yet too often, supervised release became a trap, amplifying punishment and creating another opportunity for arbitrary imprisonment.

As a law professor, I now study the history of supervised release. I was surprised to discover that the system began in 1984 as a limited program, aimed at eas[ing] the  transition to the community. There was originally no way for judges to revoke supervised release because Congress did not believe that a minor violation  should result in resentencing of the defendant.

Yet over the next 30 years, Congress passed a series of punitive measures making supervised release harsher and more expansive. Today, one-third of all defendants are found in violation and sent back to prison for an average 11-month sentence. In 2019, judges revoked release in nearly 16,500 cases. Revocations are also racially disparate; Black defendants are less than one-quarter of the population under supervision, yet more than one-third of those found in violation.

Of course, Loughlin has money, family support, and a fierce team of attorneys. But for every Aunt Becky, there are thousands less privileged defendants on supervised release. Beyond the federal system, 4.5 million people are on state probation or parole, and 280,000 are incarcerated for violations. Black defendants are 3.5 times more likely to be serving community supervision, and 20%-40% more likely to be revoked. As Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner declared, mass supervision is a major driver of mass incarceration.

 READ MORE: Philly DA Larry Krasner: We took on mass incarceration. Now were addressing mass supervision.

So lets close by turning from Aunt Becky to Grace from Michigan, a 15-year-old Black girl sentenced to probation in April for fighting with her mother and stealing a classmates cell phone. Her case earned headlines in May when a judge revoked her probation for failing to do her homework. Grace spent two-and-a-half-months in prison before an appeals court finally ordered her release.

As our country grapples with a legacy of race and wealth disparities in criminal justice, the best way to mitigate the harmfulness of community supervision is to shrink its footprint. Supervising fewer people for less time will save resources and reduce the burden on defendants. Locking up fewer violators will reduce incarceration rates. In our era of mass supervision, calls to rethink police and prisons should also include the probation office.

Jacob Schuman is an assistant professor at Penn State Law School, where he studies criminal law, criminal procedure, and sentencing.
A day before he demitted office on July 25 in 2017, then President Pranab Mukherjee received a letter that read, Three years ago, I came to New Delhi as an outsider. The task before me was huge and challenging. In these times, you have always been a father figure and a mentor to me. Your wisdom, guidance and personal warmth have given me greater confidence and strength.

The letter was from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mukherjee posted it on Twitter with a message that the letter touched my heart!

Modi who after the historic victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections spoke about being an outsider to not just Delhi politics, but to politics per se; put on record how Mukherjees intellectual prowess helped his government. He also referred to Mukherjees affectionate, caring side, calling to ask about his health and well being at the end of the day.

ALSO READ | Pranab Mukherjee, ex-president and Congress veteran, dies in Delhi hospital

The Modi-Mukherjee equation was that of camaraderie; unlike the relationship between a President and a Prime Minister, which is dictated by protocol and defined by the boundaries of courtesy. Associates of both the leaders say there was an ease in their relationship. There was no evident friction here that was unmistakable between KR Narayanan and the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government or APJ Abdul Kalam and the Manmohan Singh government.

The personal equation between Mukherjee and Modi was excellent. There was mutual respect. The PM valued Mukherjees experience and the President valued Modis vision. The friction that was evident between PMs and Presidents in the past was totally missing. There was an understanding between the two. Whenever Mukherjee wanted to say something, he did so with empathy and without acrimony, said former minister and author MJ Akbar, whose book was released by Mukherjee in February this year.

The acquaintance that was made much before they came to occupy the two most important addresses on Raisina Hill; Mukherjee in Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official residence of the President and Modi in South Block, where the Prime Ministers office continued even when Mukherjee retired to a private life.

On May 28, 2019, two days before he was sworn in as Prime Minister for the second time, Modi called on former President Pranab Mukherjee at his 10 Rajaji Marg residence and tweeted about his meeting. Meeting Pranab Da is always an enriching experience. His knowledge and insights are unparalleled. He is a statesman who has made an indelible contribution to our nation. Sought his blessings during our meeting today, the PM wrote.

ALSO READ | The other side of Pranab babu

In the photographs accompanying the tweet, Mukherjee, known for his reserved, even stern demeanour was seen offering sweets to Modi, in the traditional Indian way of felicitation or celebration.

The bonhomie between the two was different; they showed reverence for each others leadership qualities despite being from different political ideologies. Mukherjee recognised Modi for being a mass leader and Modi respected his political acumen and long political innings. Mukherjee worked like a statesman and worked with the (NDA) government just as he did with the previous one (UPA), shedding his party affiliation, said Sanjay Kumar of the Centre for Studies of Developing Societies.

Easy working ties

The Presidential assent to the recommendations for the imposition of Presidents Rule in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand; his approval for the big-ticket Goods and Services Tax (GST), an initiative he had tried to implement as finance minister were seen as politically expedient decisions. For the critics of the BJP government, these were also tell-tale signs of Mukherjee, a veteran Congressman deviating from the Nehruvian political thought that he belonged to. But Mukherjee followed the copybook to the T.

Mukherjee was a stickler for the Constitution and understood it in letter and spirit. Having been in several Cabinets he knew there was no room for irresponsibility on the Presidents part in this equation, said Akbar.

An associate of Mukherjee who did not wish to be identified said the former President who was elected from Gujarat to the Rajya Sabha from 1981-1987 was familiar with Modis vision and working style. Even as the chief minister of Gujarat he had several interactions with Mukherjee as finance minister. There was clarity on administrative and governance issues, but it did not stop Mukherjee from stating his views on the contemporary polity; social issues or when communal amity or nation security was under threat, the associate said.

The associate also said that the President did not demure from asking questions and grilling ministers and bureaucrats about the intricacies of what was put before him.

Managing Disagreements

While the working relation between Rashtrapati Bhavan and the government was marked by the absence of public quibbles; there were disagreements.

Mukherjee himself let it be known that there were key divergences between him and the PM. Surely there have been divergences of views, between me and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We have been able to keep those divergences, if there be any, only to ourselves. It did never find any place anywhere and did not affect the relationship between the President and the PM, between the titular head and the actual head of administration and council of ministers, he said speaking at the release of the book, President Pranab Mukherjee - A statesman.

However, the message that Mukherjee wanted relayed was done without discordant exchanges between Rashtrapati Bhavan and the government.

In January 2015, the Modi government was reproached for overlooking legislative processes. The governments push for promulgating as many as 10 ordinances to sidestep the opposition to key policy changes in the Rajya Sabha, led to Mukherjee reminding the government that it has limited powers to issue ordinances.

Two years later, in March 2017 when protests between students in Delhi Universitys Ramjas College spiralled into the streets, Mukherjee firmly pointed out there is no room in the country for the intolerant Indian. There must be space for legitimate criticism and dissent, the President said speaking at a lecture in Kochi. At the same event, he chided politicians for betraying the trust of people and showing disregard for legislative processes.

Speaking at the launch of a newspaper, he underlined the need for introspection after reports of mob lynching poured in. Are we vigilant enough to save the basic tenets of our time? I believe that vigilance by citizens and the media can act as the biggest deterrent to forces of darkness and backwardness Posterity will demand an explanation from us about what we have done. I raise this question within myself, he said.

In the backdrop of the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, Mukherjee who was then not the President anymore while delivering the second Atal Bihari Vajpayee Memorial Lecture, reminded the government that numerical majority in elections gives the right to make a stable government, but the lack of popular majority forbids it from becoming a majoritarian government.

BJPs national vice president Vinay Sahahsrabuddhe said the PMs ability to forge relationships played a key role towards the absence of acrimony in working ties. Contrary to the impression, he has had cordial relations with leaders across party lines. For instance, Mamata Banerjee with whom he has friendly ties, the political barbs aside, he said.

Bharat Ratna and Sangh

Mukherjees decision to attend the third year Sangha Shiksha Varga (SSV) as chief guest at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur in June 2018 stoked a political controversy. The Congress, which has been ideologically opposed to the Sangh was at a loss to explain the decision; though senior leaders and his former cabinet colleagues Jairam Ramesh, P Chidambaram and CK Jaffer Sharief made public entreaties to skip the function.

As pressure from former party colleagues mounted, Mukherjee told a Bengali newspaper, Whatever I have to say, I will say in Nagpur. I have received several letters, requests and phone calls, but I havent responded to anyone yet.

In Nagpur, he visited the Sangh founder KB Hedgewars home and in the visitors book described him as a great son of Mother India. Later addressing the volunteers, he spoke about diversity, pluralism and co-existence.

We derive our strength from tolerance. We accept and respect our pluralism. We celebrate our diversity. These have been a part of our collective consciousness for centuries. Any attempt at defining our nationhood in terms of dogmas and identities of religion, region, hatred and intolerance will only lead to dilution of our national identity, he said.

The criticism did not stop. The Sangh stop-over was seen by many as a precursor to the highest civilian honour bestowed on Mukherjee in 2019, when the government announced the Bharat Ratna for him, Sangh ideologue Nanaji Deshmukh and Assamese bard Bhupen Hazarika.

The award was also perceived as an election ployBJPs bid to woo the voters by picking the man from West Bengals Miriti for the top honour to a political masterstrokea snub to the Congress, which overlooked Mukherjee for the PMs post twice.

The BJP dismissed the conjecture, pointing out that it disregarded political and ideological differences to honour the former President. Former President Pranab Mukherjee ji was conferred Bharat Ratna by BJP government for his contribution. We did not consider the party he was affiliated with, Union home minister Amit Shah said in response to the criticism.

Alok Kumar, the international working president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad who played a key role in Mukherjees presence in Nagpur said meetings between RSS chief Mohan Bhagwatthere were severaland the former President were always cordial and conversations centered on areas of common interest. He was a perfect gentleman and a great host and knew how to cultivate and respect relationships. Even though he had been ideologically distant from us, he did not compromise on his own ideology but found common points and a way to walk together on that common ground. He could take everybody along, Kumar said.

Iftar snub

The Modi governments decision to not show up for the Iftar hosted by the President Mukherjee was seen as a snub. It was probably the only time that the government failed to show up for an event hosted by the President.

The fact that it was a month before Mukherjees presidency ended had little effect on the BJP; which has chosen to dispense with the practice of government functionaries hosting Iftar.
New Delhi:

In the wake of currency ban by Narendra Modi government, bank employees worked day and night to even the burden of demonetisation in the entire country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi lately, in one of his speeches, praised the bank employees for the hard work done during the demonetisation period.

Soon after, a bank union demanded overtime for the extra hours put in by staff during the 50-day window that ended on December 30.

National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW), an affiliate of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, Bank employees have worked 12 to 18 hours a day during the last 50 days. Only few banks have considered overtime for extra working. Kindly advise the management to consider the overtime for beyond working hours worked by bank employees.

The letter also drew the attention towards the problem of understaff and called for stepping up recruitment activities.

NOBW vice president Ashwani Rana also pitched for decent salary hike in the wage revision due in November this year.

ALSO READ: (Demonetisation: 50-day deadline to deposit junked Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in banks ends)

Wage revision of bank employees is due in November 2017. Your government has already advised IBA to implement it on due date. We wish to bring to your kind notice that bank employees are far behind government employees in salary structure. Kindly give a good rise to bank employees and bring them at par with Govt employees, it said.

PM Modi in his address to the nation had said, during this period, bank employees have worked day and night. Female employees too worked till late hours as part of this mission.

He had also hailed Post office staff, banking correspondents who all did exceptional work during the demonetisation period.

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Barclays boss Jes Staley is facing fresh calls to resign after he was dragged into efforts to hunt down the wealth of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Authorities in the US Virgin Islands have ordered JP Morgan, Staley's former employer, to hand over the banker's communications with paedophile Epstein.

Increasing pressure: Barclays boss Jes Staley is facing fresh calls to resign

The renewed scrutiny has prompted activist investor Edward Bramson to renew efforts to remove the banker.

In a letter sent to investors in his fund, Sherborne Investors, Bramson said: 'The kindest thing the board could do for him would be to let him go'.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on Staley's part.
SPRINGFIELD  Interior environmental cleanup continues at the long-awaited Court Square project downtown, but developer Peter A. Picknelly said he and his restaurant partner Andy Yee are already discussing a new restaurant for the first floor.

Were working with a design team, Picknelly said following a city-led celebration of the project Thursday featuring Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal and others.

Picknelly is a partner in the project through his Opal Real Estate Group.

Developers plan a 74-unit apartment building with 59 market-rate upscale apartments and 15 workforce apartments restricted to tenants earning up to 80% of the area median income. Plans also call for 11,000 square feet of retail space on the first floor, with room for the restaurant and other tenants. There would be 11,000 square feet of office space on the second floor.

Picknelly said the restaurant would be in the northwestern corner of the building, the area fronting Court Square nearest to the citys historic courthouse.

Indoor dining. Outdoor dining, Picknelly said. This going to be the hottest restaurant in Springfield.

The city and developers including the Picknelly family have been working for 30 years to redevelop the block 13-31 Elm St. and its neighboring building, the Byers Block at 3-7 Elm St. Picknellys late father, Peter L. Picknelly, worked on the project.

Yee said hes humbled to be asked by developers including WinnCompanies to work on a restaurant concept for the space.

Yee said he and Picknelly havent decided on a concept. But it wont be German  the pair are already partners in the Student Prince and the Fort restaurant. And it wont compete with the Caputo familys local favorite Red Rose Pizzeria just a few blocks away.

We want to complement the city with another restaurant use that will be enjoyable for all for an incredible dining experience, Yee said.

Yee, Picknelly and partners saved the Fort from certain closure in in 2014. Picknelly recruited Yee, whose family Bean Restaurant Group owns restaurants in the area. Since then Yee, Picknelly and various others have partnered on a series of restaurants:

The Wurst Haus at the Big E

Iya Sushi and Noodle in Amherst

The McLaddens group, with locations in West Hartford and Simsbury, Connecticut

The Northampton Wust Haus, which previously was a McLaddens

And starting just this month, White Hut

The Springfield Redevelopment Authority and the city of Springfield are completing a $4 million environmental cleanup at 13-31 Elm St., scheduled to be complete in November.

On Thursday, officials celebrated project funding from numerous sources including $5 million from MassMutual, $14.5 million from MassHousings Workforce Housing Initiative, and $16 million from MGM Springfield, with this funding collectively structured as a loan.

The developers have also secured approximately $11.3 million in state and federal historic tax credits. They will apply the credits with developer equity, a conventional mortgage and a commitment from the unions trades to assist with $500,000 of housing funds to round out the total of $51.3 million of required funding.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The condition of former President Pranab Mukherjee declined on Monday morning and he has suffered a septic shock due to his lung infection, the Army's Research and Referral Hospital said.

Doctors attending on the 84-year-old Mukherjee said he continues to be in a deep coma and is on ventilator support.

Mukherjee is being managed by a team of specialists, they added.

The former president was admitted to the hospital in Delhi Cantonment on August 10 and was operated the same day for removal of a clot in his brain.

He later developed a lung infection.

"There has been a decline in the medical condition of Shri Pranab Mukherjee since yesterday. He is in septic shock due to his lung infection and is being managed by a team of specialists. He continues to be in a deep coma and on ventilator support," the hospital said in a statement.

Mukherjee was the 13th President of India from 2012 to 2017.
A Welland man who dropped off a cellphone filled with images of child pornography at a local pawn shop has been granted a conditional discharge.

Antelmo Cuevas-Barranco pleaded guilty Monday in Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines to a charge of possession of obscene material and was placed on probation for 12 months.

Court heard the 40-year-old first-time offender came to Canada as a refugee three years ago and a criminal conviction could jeopardize his standing in the country.

He wants to remain in Canada, defence lawyer V.J. Singh told the judge.

A conditional discharge means a person pleads guilty but is discharged from the offence as long as specific conditions of a probation order is met.

The defendant went to a Welland pawn shop in November 2018 and pawned his cellphone for $100.

When the father of two failed to return to the pawn shop within the required time, the store closed his contract.

In making the phone ready for resale, the employees observed what they thought to be images to child pornography stored in a folder on the phone, said Crown attorney Michal Sokolski.

Police conducted a forensic examination of the phone which revealed 91 images which met the legal definition of child pornography.

Singh told the judge there were potential triable issues if the case had gone to trial.
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Linkedin Budi Sutrisno (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 18:01 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41b09de 1 National puan-maharani,disease,contagious-disease,health,law Free

House of Representatives Speaker Puan Maharani said the House and the government must immediately discuss the revision to Law No. 4/1984 on communicable disease outbreaks in order to improve the national health system amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said the revision of the bill, which has been included in the 2020-2024 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas), would help to improve health infrastructure, drug and vaccine development, availability of medical devices and health research.

Prevention, detection and response to infectious diseases need to be adjusted to international guidelines, developments in science and technology, changes in the cross-border transmission of diseases and changes in transportation, globalization and free trade, Puan said in a statement on Monday.

Puan said the government should use the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to improve the national health system, while highlighting the importance of expanding the role of community health centers (Puskesmas).

According to Puan, strengthening the role of Puskesmas was vital as she said she had received many reports about designated COVID-19 hospitals becoming overwhelmed.

Indonesia, with its diverse social and demographic characteristics, needs Puskesmas to play an increased role to reach all people in their operational areas, said Puan.

Puan said the House would support comprehensive measures to handle the COVID-19 outbreak, and reminded the community to do its part to prevent further transmission.

This uncertain situation can only end soon through our adherence to health protocols while we wait for a COVID-19 vaccine. All elements of society must cooperate in the fight against COVID-19, she said.
Republican Rep Steve Scalise is facing fierce backlash after he tweeted a video that manipulated an activist's computer-assisted voice in an interview with Joe Biden to make it sound like the Democratic presidential nominee agreed to defund the police.

Twitter slapped the video with a 'manipulated media' tag on Sunday after activist Ady Barkan accused Scalise, the House minority whip from Louisiana, of doctoring his words.

In the original interview recorded in early July, Barkan, who uses a computerized artificial voice due to his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), asks Biden if he agrees 'that we can redirect some of the funding' to public safety and mental health services.

Biden replies: 'Yes, absolutely.'

The clip tweeted by Scalise on Sunday inserted the words 'for police' into Barkan's question using the same computerized voice.

Scroll down for video

Republican Rep Steve Scalise (left) is facing fierce backlash after he tweeted a video that manipulated activist Ady Barkan's voice in an interview with Joe Biden to make it sound like the Democratic presidential nominee agreed to defund the police. Barkan (right) uses a computerized artificial voice due to his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

In the original interview recorded in early July, Barkan asks Biden if he agrees 'that we can redirect some of the funding' for police departments to public safety and mental health services. Biden replies: 'Yes, absolutely'

The screengrabs above show Barkan's question in the original interview (left) compared with the version that was doctored in the video shared by Scalise (right)

'No police. Mob rule. Total chaos. That's the result of the Democrat agenda. Ask yourself: Is this what you want in your town next?' Scalise wrote alongside the video.

Barkan responded to the post soon after and called for Scalise to take the video down.

'These are not my words. I have lost my ability to speak, but not my agency or my thoughts,' he tweeted.

'You and your team have doctored my words for your own political gain. Please remove this video immediately. You owe the entire disability community an apology.'

Scalise ultimately took down the video but his office insisted that the video accurately portrayed Biden's stance on police reform.

A spokesperson for the congressman, Lauren Fine, told The Washington Post: 'Obviously, for a one-minute Twitter video featuring several short clips, we condensed to the essence of what [Barkan] was asking, as is common practice for clips run on TV and social media, no matter the speaker.

'We paired the police portion with Barkan's final question for clarity because we couldnt include an entire three-minute clip in a one minute montage.

'We believe Biden's position and answer is clear regardless: When asked twice, he says "yes" he is open to redirecting funding away from the police, and that is clear in our video.'

Twitter slapped a 'manipulated media' tag on Scalise's since-deleted tweet with the doctored video, in which the second-highest ranking House Republican slammed 'the Democrat agenda'

Barkan responded to Scalise's post and called for him to take the doctored video down

Scalise offered a similar message on Twitter Sunday night as he shared the original clip and wrote: 'Twice in one interview Biden says "yes" & "yes absolutely" to questions about "redirecting" police funding.

'Dems & their partners in the media want to blame "editing" to pretend this isn't exactly what he believes.'

Biden has repeatedly rejected calls to defund police departments, which reached a fever pitch this summer amid widespread protests against police brutality and racism.

The former vice president joined other top Democrats in condemning the manipulated Barkan clip on Sunday.

'This video is doctored - and a flagrant attempt to spread misinformation at the expense of a man who uses assistive technology. It should be removed. Now,' Biden tweeted.

A spokesperson for the Biden campaign, Andrew Bates, called the video a 'deep fake'.

'To doctor the words of an extraordinarily courageous and selfless American with a disability who speaks with the assistance of eye gaze technology, and who shows more strength, resolve, and care for others in every millisecond than Donald Trump has in his entire life is both morally abhorrent and a sign of utter panic,' Bates said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also chimed in on Twitter, writing: '.@SteveScalise tried to steal @AdyBarkan's health care with more than 60 votes to repeal or undermine Americans' health care.

'Now, he's trying to steal Ady's words by lying. Congressman Scalise must take his doctored video down and apologize immediately.'

Liz Jaff, who co-founded the Be a Hero PAC with Barkan, said: '@AdyBarkan uses assistive technology to speak and navigate the world. I've seen how hard it is. I've seen him lose his ability to speak.

'What he says matters. His words are his own. To change his words like this is horrific. Take it down. Apologize.'

Biden called the manipulated video 'a flagrant attempt to spread misinformation at the expense of a man who uses assistive technology'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused Scalise of 'trying to steal Ady's words by lying'

Liz Jaff, who co-founded the Be a Hero PAC with Barkan, said: 'What he says matters. His words are his own. To change his words like this is horrific'

Barkan endorsed Biden in July and interviewed him as part of a video series for Now This.

In the video that sparked the current controversy, 36-year-old Barkan, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2016 after the birth of his son, begins by sharing his heartbreak at missing out on important moments in his children's lives.

He then shifts to talk about black Americans who have been killed at the hands of police in recent months.

'George Floyd had five children, Breonna Taylor was only 26 and had decades of hopes and dreams ahead of her, but America's commitment to white supremacy stole away those relationships and those futures,' Barkan says.

'The leaders of the Movement for Black Lives believe that we have been trying to reform police departments for many decades and it is not working. Instead they believe that the solution is to reduce the number of interactions that civilians have with the police.

Barkan, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2016 after the birth of his son, endorsed Biden in July

'We can reduce the responsibilities assigned to police and redirect some of the funding into social services, mental health counseling, and affordable housing.'

Barkan refers to the June police shooting of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta as an example where a 'wellness officer' should have been sent instead of cops before asking Biden: 'Are you open to that kind of reform?'

'I've proposed that kind of reform,' Biden replies. 'And by the way, the idea, though  that's not the same as getting rid of or defunding all the police.'

The nominee then lists his own police reform ideas before Barkan interjects: 'But do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding?'

'Yes, absolutely,' Biden replies before continuing to explain his stance.

After Republicans began using that video in advertisements accusing Biden of wanting to 'defund' the police, Barkan came out to insist that the former VP didn't say that.

'Though Ady would have loved Joe Biden to announce in this interview that he is in favor of defunding the police, the Vice President never said it,' Be A Hero co-founder Liz Jaff said in a statement to CNN last month.

Barkan and other critics have asserted that the GOP exploited his disability in manipulating the video because his computerized voice was easier to replicate.
Following last week's price rally, oil prices move higher on Monday morning, on bullish demand figures coming from China. Additionally, U.S. dollar weakness contributed to last week's price rally. Traders are also expecting deeper OPEC+ cuts of 1.15 million bbl/d in August and September. As a result, Brent crude traded above $46 which was mainly driven by the supply disruption triggered by the hurricanes in the Gulf Mexico, which affected around 84% of the USGC production where around 1.7 million bbl/d remain offline.

Laura, a category 4 hurricane made landfall early Thursday last week, in the Southwestern part of Louisiana. becoming one of the most powerful storms in history to hit the state. More than 310 offshore platforms, out of 643, were evacuated in addition to nine refineries leading to a 2.7 million bbl/d outage, around 15% of the US refining capacity. Furthermore, initial reports reveal that the damage caused to the refineries is minor, but continuing power outages could delay the resumption of refining operations.

The impact of the supply disruption on the markets wasn't too large as fuel inventories continue to balloon. With the impact of the hurricane dissipating, BP is said to be preparing to inspect its facilities in the Gulf of Mexico in preparation to restart its operations.

On the other hand, the situation in India continues to affect the market sentiment as India reported around 79 thousand COVID-19 daily cases for three consecutive days. There has also been a rebound in the number of cases in France and the United Kingdom sparking concerns about the possibility of a new lockdown.

Chinese oil demand at record high

Prices continue to be supported by Chinas affirmation of its commitment to the phase 1 trade deal with the United States. Chinese oil demand is said to have risen by 16.7% m/m to stand at 14.16 million bbl/d in July, which reflects the strength of its economic recovery. Julys demand figures are also higher than one year ago, reaching 12.83 million bbl/d. This is also 2.02 million bbl/d above our forecast for the month of July. Yet, Chinas stockpile of oil and refined products, which grew significantly during the price downturn in Q2-2020, continues to be high, and are expected to draw down at a slow pace.

The abovementioned factors are expected to cap the price rally during the month of September. Furthermore, India announced that it will halt oil product imports from China, which means that Chinese refiners may find it hard to find overseas buyers for their surplus output. Earlier this month, Indian refiners already stopped chartering Chinese-owned and Chinese-flagged tankers for oil and fuels as tensions between the two countries continue to rise as a result of the ongoing border dispute. Related: Supermajors Still Struggling Despite Oil Price Recovery

On the other hand, Chinese imports of U.S. crude oil hit a record high last month, and are likely to continue to rise in August and September as part of the U.S.-China trade talks. China promised to purchase as much as $25.3 billion in value of U.S. energy products, and has currently only imported slightly above $3 billion. The United States is the 4th largest supplier of crude oil to China at 863 thousand bbl/d, after Saudi Arabia at 1.26 million bbl/d, Iraq at 1.36 million bbl/d, and Russia at 1.73 million bbl/d, data from July 2020 suggests. Last month, the U.S. exported 863 thousand bbl/d to China, about six times its June exports , which stood at just 143 thousand bbl/d. In total, China imported 12.08 million bbl/d in July.

Saudi Arabia has traditionally been the top exporter of crude oil to China. Yet, recent OPEC+ production cuts, lower compliance from Russia and Iraq, and Aramco price hikes, affected the Chinese choice of crude imports. Last May and June, Saudi crude oil exports to China reached 2.16 million bbl/d. However, Saudi Aramco has cut its oil deliveries to Asia by 10-30% while raising prices which led to a reduction of its market share.

US energy data remain bullish yet with cautious outlook

Bullish figures continue to emerge from the EIA, but the news failed to move markets. Last week, the EIA reported a decline in commercial crude oil inventories by 4.7 million barrels to stand at 507.8 million barrels combined with a decline in the SPR by 1.8 million barrels to stand 649.5 million barrels. Gasoline inventories also dropped by 4.6 million barrels to stand at 239.2 million barrels, while middle distillates rose by 1.4 million barrels to stand at 179.2 million barrels. U.S. net imports declined by 1.041 million bbl/d due to rising exports. Based on EIA figures, we estimate U.S. oil demand to stand at 17.265 million bbl/d, down by 0.815 million bbl/d w/w, considering net crude oil imports, which stand at 2.55 million bbl/d and refinery runs which stand 14.712 million bbl/d. The U.S. oil rig count reversed again, and fell by 3 to total 180 rigs, while oil production rose by 0.1 million bbl/d w/w to stand at 10.8 million bbl/d.

By Yousef Alshammari for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The White House had Vice President Mike Pence on stand by in November last year when President Donald Trump made an unplanned visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, a new book claims.

In November 2019, the president made an unannounced trip to the hospital for 'quick exam and labs' as part of his annual physical exam out of anticipation of a 'very busy 2020,' the White House said at the time.

But the surprise nature of the trip lead to questions about the president's medical condition.

And in Michael Schmidt's 'Donald Trump v. the United States,' out on Tuesday, the author writes Pence was on standby if the president had to undergo a procedure that would have required anesthesia.

The White House had Vice President Mike Pence on stand by in November last year when President Donald Trump made an unplanned visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

President Trump in route to Walter Reed on Saturday, November 16, 2019, for a visit the White House said was part of his routine physical

It is the job of the vice president to assume executive powers should the president be incapacitated in some way, according to the 25th amendment to the Constitution.

Section Three of 25th Amendment Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President. Advertisement

Schmidt writes, according to a New York Times review of his book: The White House wanted Mike Pence 'on standby to take over the powers of the presidency temporarily if Trump had to undergo a procedure that would have required him to be anesthetized.'

Pence obviously never had to step in.

The last time a vice president took such a step was Dick Cheney in July 2007 when George W. Bush underwent a colonoscopy and was under sedation.

In a statement at the time of Trump's hospital visit, then-White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said that Trump had undergone a 'quick exam and labs' and that he 'remains healthy and energetic without complaints.'

She also said that the president had taken advantage of a 'free weekend' in Washington to 'begin portions of his routine annual physical exam.'

But Trump's trip raised so many questions about the then 73-year-old's health that the White House released a memo a few days later denying 'speculation' that he had been treated for a medical emergency.

Dr. Sean Conley, the president's personal physician, wrote that Trump's 'interim checkup' had been 'routine,' and was only kept secret because of 'scheduling uncertainties.'

'Despite some speculation, the President has not had any chest pain, nor was he evaluated or treated for any urgent or acute issues,' Conley wrote in the memo. 'Specifically, he did not undergo any specialized cardiac or neurologic evaluations.'

Michael Schmidt's 'Donald Trump v. the United States,' is out on Tuesday

The full results of the president's physical were released in June and he was reported to be 'healthy.'

Schmidt's book, meanwhile, 'tells the dramatic, high-stakes story of those who felt compelled to confront and try to contain the most powerful man in the world as he shredded norms and sought to expand his power,' according to its Amazon.com description.

It is the latest in a spat of books to come about the Trump administration, including Bob Woodward's upcoming book 'Rage' and Michael Cohen's upcoming 'Disloyalty.'

There are also recently published books from Mary Trump, about her uncle's upbringing, and former National Security Adviser John Bolton about his White House tenure. Even the first lady has not been immune. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's memoir about her work with Melania Trump, the two were long time friends, comes out Tuesday.

The book also documents the tenure of former White House general counsel Don McGahn, who shepherded Trump's two Supreme Court nominees successfully through the Senate before departing the administration.

McGahn then got caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and featured prominently in that report, which found the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia in the 2016 election but left it an open question as to whether or not the president attempted to obstruct the probe.

The book claims McGahn left the White House after Trump granted clemency to Alice Johnson: 'It was only after Trump granted a woman clemency at Kim Kardashian's request that McGahn knew he truly had to leave the White House. He could no longer abide the accumulation of Trump's actions.'

The last time a vice president took over for a president was Dick Cheney in July 2007 when George W. Bush underwent a colonoscopy and was under sedation

Schmidt's book documents the tenure of former White House general counsel Don McGahn

Book reports McGahn left the White House after President Trump gave clemency to Alice Johnson (standing to the right of Trump) at the behest of Kim Kardashian

President Trump gave Alice Johnson a full pardon last week

Other random details in the book include that Senate Republican Mitch McConnell once fell asleep during a classified briefing on Russia.

And, on Feb. 23, 2018, McGahn sent a two-page memo to then-Chief of Staff John Kelly arguing that Jared Kushner's security clearance needed to be downgraded, the book reports according to Axios.
Amid tensions with India over the standoff in Eastern Ladakh sector, China has reportedly built a surface-to-air missile near a lake, which is a part of the Kailash-Mansarovar.

IMAGE: Military vehicles with DF-21D ballistic missiles head to Tiananmen Square during a military parade in Beijing. Photograph: Damir Sagolj/Reuters

The development of the missile, according to experts, is a continuation of the aggressive provocation by the Chinese and it could further complicate the border tensions between the two countries, The Epoch Times reported.

Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar, commonly known as the Kailash-Mansarovar site is revered by four religions and is linked to culture and spiritual scriptures in India.

While the Hindus consider the site as the abode of Shiva and his consort Parvati, the Tibetan Buddhists call the mountain Kang Rimpoche, the "Precious One of Glacial Snow," and revere it as the abode of Demchog and his consort, Dorje Phagmo.

The Jains call the mountain Astapada and consider it to be the place where the first of their 24 spiritual masters achieved liberation.

The Bons, adherents of the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, term the mountain Tise and revere it the dwelling place of the sky goddess, Sipaimen.

The placing of the missile at the sacred site, which is also the origin of four transnational rivers -- Indus, Brahmaputra, Sutlej and Karnali, a major tributary of the Ganges -- menaces India, which has refused to back down against Chinese aggression on the Line of Actual Control.

"In my view, first and foremost, it is a continuation of the Chinese provocation against India, which we are seeing all along from the LAC in Ladakh to the eastern and middle sector bordering areas with India," Priyajit Debsarkar, author and a geopolitical analyst with the London-based think tank Bridge India, told The Epoch Times in an e-mail.

"This move, of deploying a surface-to-air missile in Tibet, should not surprise us. It is pure authoritarian brinkmanship and provocation to India, which has refused to back down against Chinese threats and aggressive aggression," Debsarkar said.

India and China are engaged in a standoff since April over the transgressions by the Chinese Army in multiple areas including Finger area, Galwan valley, Hot springs and Kongrung Nala.

In June, 20 Indian soldiers died in a violent face-off with Chinese troops in Eastern Ladakh.

Talks between the two sides have been going on for the last three months including five Lieutenant General-level talks but have failed to yield any results, so far.

Aparna Pande, a research fellow and the director of the Washington-based Hudson Institute's Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia, told the newspaper that China does not respect and believe in religion and culture.

"We have to bear in mind that the Chinese do not care about Christianity. They do not care about any of the ancient Chinese practices. They believe religion is the opium of the masses and the only ideology they care about is their form of communism," Pande said.

"They don't care about symbols and symbolism except those that are tied to the Chinese Communist Party," she was quoted as saying.

Harsh Pant, a New Delhi-based strategic analyst with the Observer Research Foundation, echoed similar sentiments and stated that China's move of creating military infrastructure at Kailash-Mansarovar will only intensify the anti-China sentiment within India.

"The fact that this happens to be one of the most sacred religious sites for the Hindus is also indicative of the disdain Beijing has for Indian sentiments," Pant said.

"This is only going to accentuate tensions in an already troubled relationship and will not only make Indian public even more antagonistic to China but will also make Indian policymakers even more determined to stand up to China," he added.

The missile base at Kailash-Mansarovar is a part of China's greater militarisation of the Tibet Autonomous Region, according to Girish Kant Pandey, professor of defence studies at the Pandit Ravishankar Shukla University in Raipur.

"The missile mounted near Kailash-Mansarovar is called DF-21. It is a medium-range, 2,200 kilometres ballistic missile. Its advantage is that it can cover all cities of north India, including New Delhi," Pandey told The Epoch Times over the phone.

From 2006 to 2010, China carried out 180 strategic projects, which it did not mention in its defence budgets. These projects include constructing four large airstrips, 14 small airstrips and 17 radar stations on the India-China frontier from east to west, Pandey said.

Earlier today, an Indian army spokesperson said the army has thwarted an attempt by the Chinese Army to transgress into Indian areas near the southern bank of Pangong Tso near Chushul in Ladakh on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday and talks are being held now to resolve the issue there.

"On the night of August 29-30, PLA troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo," said army spokesperson Colonel Aman Anand in a statement.

The Indian Army took measures to strengthen its position and "and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on the ground".

Meanwhile, Aparna Pande stated that China has placed missiles aiming at Japan, Taiwan, Australia, the United States and ASEAN countries.

"From their point of view, it is also important to now start placing missiles in the areas where they can target India and the Indian Ocean region. So Kailash-Mansarovar helps with that," Pande said.

Debsarkar noted that another reason for China's missile at the Kailash-Mansarovar site is a response to India, which recently built a road to a Himalayan pass of strategic value.

He said the missile site is meant to provoke India as it has constructed a road up to Lipulekh, The Epoch Times reported.

"India's objective is, however, to facilitate our pilgrimage visiting Kailash, by making it much easier especially it's dangerous to cross the preexisting treacherous path. The Chinese establishment is against the massive road construction across the Indo-China border," he said.

India's defence minister Rajnath Singh had inaugurated a strategic road till Lipulekh pass on May 8.

However, Nepal objected to it, claiming that Lipulekh is a part of its territory.

Subsequently, the Himalayan nation issued a new controversial map incorporating Indian territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura.

In response, India said the updated map of Nepal is "not based on historical facts and evidence" and termed the claims by Kathmandu as artificial enlargement.
PARIS, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Although China and the European Union (EU) have different social systems, they should be comprehensive strategic partners rather than institutional rivals, visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here on Sunday.

Both sides should strive to build a partnership in four areas at a crucial time in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and seek post-pandemic economic recovery, Wang said when delivering a speech entitled "Solidarity, Cooperation, Openness and Inclusiveness, Jointly Safeguarding the Progressive Trend of Peace and Development of Mankind" at the French Institute of International Relations in Paris.

Wang said that this year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of China-EU diplomatic ties. Over the past 45 years, an important message from the development of China-EU relations is that there is no conflict of fundamental interests between the two sides, cooperation is far greater than competition, and consensus is far greater than difference.

During the past 45 years, the growth of China-EU relations has shown that it is entirely possible for the two sides to enhance mutual trust through equal dialogue, to achieve win-win results through mutually beneficial cooperation, to properly handle differences through constructive communication, and to jointly meet global challenges through enhanced coordination.

Quoting Chinese President Xi Jinping's remarks that as two major forces, huge markets and great civilizations in the world, what China and the EU advocate and oppose and in what areas they cooperate has global significance, Wang said that China always attaches importance to the status and role of the EU and supports Europe in playing a bigger role in international affairs.

He noted that China and the EU should further strengthen solidarity and cooperation, press the "reset button" for dialogue and cooperation in various fields, give full play to the "twin engines," inject a strong impetus into international solidarity and cooperation, and strive to build a partnership from the following four perspectives.

First, China and the EU need to build a partnership against COVID-19 and promote cooperation in post-epidemic economic recovery. Nothing is more important right now than containing the epidemic and saving lives.

China and the EU should strengthen cooperation in the research, development and production of vaccines, drugs and testing reagents, and jointly support the active role of the World Health Organization, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization and other international agencies. China speaks highly of the EU's launch of a large-scale recovery fund and stands ready to speed up the construction of a "fast track" for people-to-people exchanges and a "green track" for the exchange of goods to boost the EU's economic recovery.

Second, China and the EU should strengthen investment partnership for mutual benefit and win-win results.

China and the EU should follow the principle of flexibility and pragmatism and meet each other halfway to find an early solution to difficulties in the China-EU Investment Agreement negotiation. A comprehensive, balanced and high-level investment agreement should be reached within this year. On this basis, it is necessary for the two sides to conduct a joint feasibility study on a free trade agreement as soon as possible and launch the free trade process. The two sides should also strengthen macroeconomic policy coordination and conclude the China-EU Cooperation 2025 Strategic Plan at an early date, so as to provide an institutional framework for their all-round dialogue and cooperation.

Third, China and the EU should build a green and digital partnership and expand new growth areas for bilateral cooperation. China and the EU are highly complementary in green and digital fields and enjoy broad prospects for cooperation.

Both sides should deepen cooperation in environmental technology, circular economy, clean energy, sustainable finance and other areas to build China-EU green partnership; strengthen cooperation in information and communication technology, artificial intelligence, e-commerce, big data, cloud computing and other fields; and build a digital partnership to make contributions to the global digital standards and rules.

Fourth, China and the EU should deepen multilateral cooperative partnership and strengthen bilateral cooperation in international affairs. Multilateral cooperation between the two sides in the field of climate change has become a banner and model for bilateral cooperation and a benchmark for the world's sustainable development.

China and the EU should step up dialogue and cooperation on climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development and work together to overcome global challenges. The two sides should also work together to uphold the Iranian nuclear agreement, promote political settlement of international and regional hotspot issues, strengthen trilateral cooperation with Africa, and make greater contributions to building a more sustainable and safer world.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 11:19:28|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Commerce on Monday announced its decision to launch anti-subsidy probe on wine imports from Australia.

The probe on wines in containers holding two liters or less is expected to end before Aug. 31, 2021, but may extend to Feb. 28, 2022 in certain circumstances, according to a statement on the ministry's website. Enditem
Rhodes University gospel artist and final year Bachelor of Arts student, Praise Ntsako Mathebula.

It has hardly been a month since the release of his gospel single and Rhodes University gospel artist and final year Bachelor of Arts student, Praise Ntsako Mathebula is already leading the Google Play Gospel charts with his song-Pfuxelela, which means Revive.

Praise Smo, his stage name, recorded his debut album in August last year at the Rhodes University Box Theatre. The 15-track album includes his hit single, Pfuxelela which has been dubbed The Revival Prayer by his fans.

His single was released on 14 August 2020 and it has been very well received. It has been in the top 10 of the Google Play Gospel charts since its release, rose to number 9 on the overall Google Play chart on 17 August, and made its way to the number one spot by 22 August.

I wrote this song as a prayer to God for revival, not just for me but for the world at large. It has been well-received by the public, even those that do not speak Xitsonga  because it is very relevant for the times that we are currently living in. The pandemic has hurt every one of us in different ways. I firmly believe that we are all in need of a revival, explained Praise.

The 24-year old student hails from Mpumalanga, Bushbuckridge and grew up in a music-loving staunch Christian family. However, his music career only started gaining traction when he left home for university. Before that, music was just a hobby even though I was under the vigorous music tutelage of my uncle Daniel Mdhluli (instrument playing) and my aunt Tiyiselani Ndhlovu (voice). It was only after I left for university that I began having a serious urge to forge out a music career. I used every opportunity to be involved in musical activities in and around campus, he said.

Praise's interest in music started getting serious when he met his current producer, manager and mentor Elijah Madiba, a manager at the International Library of African Music (ILAM) at Rhodes University in his first year of study. Madiba fine-tuned my musical abilities and provided me with the platforms and resources to realise my dream of being a musician, he said.

His lecturer in music, culture, history and instrumental music studies, Boudina McConnachie, said she watched Praises growth from his first year. Praise joined the department to specialise in music when the new African Musical Arts course was introduced. I knew from then that he was motivated and passionate enough to go far in his music career. The whole ILAM team is doing an amazing job of nurturing young talent through the teaching of African music. I believe that this is just the beginning of his journey, she said.

Source: Communications

Please help us to raise funds so that we can give all our students a chance to access online teaching and learning. Covid-19 has disrupted our students' education. Don't let the digital divide put their future at risk. Visit www.ru.ac.za/rucoronavirusgateway to donate
The Toronto Blue Jays have acquired left-handed pitcher, Robbie Ray from the Diamondbacks. Arizona will also be sending over $300K in cash and in return they'll receive southpaw Travis Bergen.

Ray has approximately $1.42MM left on his contract this year.

OFFICIAL: Weve acquired LHP @RobbieRay and cash considerations from the Dbacks for LHP Travis Bergen.



Welcome to the #BlueJays, Robbie! pic.twitter.com/5RGfVuZ7Kq  Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) August 31, 2020

Thank you, @RobbieRay, for so many memories over the last 6 years. pic.twitter.com/kSyrnOoZYi  Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) August 31, 2020

The 28 year-old is 1-4 with a 7.84 ERA in seven starts this season. He has allowed the most earned runs (27) and walks (31) in the National League. He has also thrown an NL-high six wild pitches.

In over seven MLB seasons, Ray has a 4.25 ERA and 4.09 FIP. He was an All-Star in 2017 and is set to become a free agent at the end of this season.

If he can get his level back to where it was in 2017, this could be a great addition for Manager Charlie Montoyo and his squad.

On the other hand, Travis Bergen made one relief appearance for the Blue Jays in 2020. He yielded one hit and one walk while striking out three in 1 2/3 innings.
He will fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Neasa Hourigan.

Deputy O Cathasaigh admitted the government has struggled with communications across the three parties since taking office.

He says he will work to improve the lines of communication and bring about joined up thinking and coherent action.

As is outlined in the programme for government, Deputy O Cathasaigh will also take the position of assistant government whip. The vacancy had arisen following the resignation of Neasa Hourigan back in June.

Ms Hourigan resigned from the role after voting against the governments Residential Tenancies and Valuation Bill.

She said at the time "I hold significant concerns as to the impact of the government legislation on people living in precarious tenancies.

Clear communication

In the past, Mr O Cathasaigh was a member of Waterford City and County Council for the Tramore local electoral area from 2019 to 2020.

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Laura Swift was co-opted to O Cathasaigh's seat on Waterford City and County Council following his election to the Dail.

Commenting on his appointment today, he stressed the importance of the role and the need for clear communication:

It is no secret that this government has had a difficult start to its term. Some of that is from outside pressures, but we have to acknowledge as well that our communications across the three parties of government have not been good enough.

I believe I can play my part in making those structures work better and to improve those lines of communication.

"We need joined-up thinking and coherent action between parties and departments to most effectively steer our way out of the current health and economic crises."

He said he hopes as a government a "constructive approach" will be taken to how Dail business is conducted to make sure all voices are heard.
Pupils return to Kelso High School for the first time since the start of the CCP virus lockdown in Kelso, Scotland, on Aug. 11, 2020. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Life Chances at Risk If Children Lose Schooling Due to Virus Fears: UK Education Chief

The British government sees it as a priority to get all children back to school, as the loss of schooling could put a huge dent in their future life chances, UK Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said on Sunday.

If a child is not in school, they stand to lose far more than just a few months of learning. It could well put a huge dent in their future life chances, he wrote in an open letter to parents.

UK Education Secretary Gavin Williamson on Downing Street in London, UK, on Dec.17, 2019. (Hannah McKay/Reuters)

Our priority now is to get all our children back, he said. It really is the best place for them to be. Nothing can match being in a classroom with a real teacher to inspire them and their friends to share their discoveries.

Williamsons letter follows a direct appeal from Prime Minister Boris Johnson urging parents to return their children to the classroom.

Its vitally important that we get our children back into the classroom to learn and to be with their friends, he said in an Aug. 24 statement, as nothing will have a greater effect on the life chances of our children than returning to school.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson joins a socially distanced lesson during a visit to Bovingdon Primary School, near Hemel Hempstead, UK, on June 19, 2020. (Steve Parsons  WPA Pool/Getty Images)

British schools closed in late March as part of the lockdown measures imposed to contain the outbreak of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus. Only children of essential workers such as doctors, police officers, and food retailers were allowed to attend school.

As the summer break draws to a close, Scottish schools re-opened on Aug. 11. Schools in England are due to open later this week.

Williamson sought to allay fears that children may get infected with the virus at school.

I would urge you to keep in mind that all four of our countrys chief medical officers, including Chris Whitty, are unanimous in believing the health risk posed by COVID-19 to children is extremely low, he wrote.

Children sit at individual desks during a lesson at the Harris Academys Shortlands school in London, UK, on June 4, 2020. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

In an unusual move, the chief medical officers and deputy chief medical officers of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales issued a consensus statement on Aug. 22 in support of the governments decision to reopen schools.

Our overall consensus is that, compared to adults, children may have a lower risk of catching COVID-19 (lowest in younger children), definitely have a much lower rate of hospitalisation and severe disease, and an exceptionally low risk of dying from COVID-19, they said in the statement.

This has to be set against a certainty of long-term harm to many children and young people from not attending school, they wrote, adding a lack of schooling increases inequalities, reduces the life chances of children and can exacerbate physical and mental health issues.

A study released by Public Health England on Aug. 23 shows CCP virus outbreaks and infections in schools are rare.
French President Emmanuel Macron called on Monday for the swift formation of government to lead crisis-hit Lebanon, following the designation of a new prime minister.

Speaking on his arrival at Beirut airport, Macron said a new line-up should be agreed "as soon as possible" to rescue the country, which is reeling from the deadly August 4 port explosion, an economic collapse and the coronavirus pandemic.

Macron arrived in Beirut hours after Lebanese leaders named diplomat Mustapha Adib as the new prime minister on Monday under French pressure, and will press for reforms aimed at dragging the Middle East nation out of a financial abyss.

With its economy devastated by a financial crisis, a swathe of Beirut in tatters following a huge port explosion on August 4, and sectarian tensions rising, Lebanon is facing the biggest threat to its stability since the 1975-90 civil war.

Macron was met at the airport by President Michel Aoun in the French leader's second visit in less than a month. "So President, it's been a busy day, hasn't it," Macron told Aoun.

He also addressed the Lebanese people in an Arabic-language tweet, saying he had returned as promised to "work together to create necessary conditions for reconstruction and stability".

Macron will push politicians to enact reforms that donors have demanded to tackle corruption and waste before they will release financial support.

Senior Lebanese officials said Macron's mediation was essential in securing agreement on a new prime minister in the 48 hours before consensus emerged on Adib, the former ambassador to Germany. Politicians had been deadlocked last week.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS, AFP)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 05:36:43|Editor: huaxia

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SANTIAGO, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Chile on Monday reported a total of 411,726 people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) since the onset of the pandemic and 11,289 people have died from the disease.

According to the Ministry of Health, 1,753 new cases of infection were detected in the previous day, and 45 more patients died.

Health authorities said 383,879 people have recovered from the disease while 16,558 confirmed cases are considered still active.

Eight small towns, or communes, within the capital Santiago and the Metropolitan Area on Monday began the process of emerging from lockdown.

Cathy Barriga, mayor of Maipu, a commune in the southwest of the capital that's home to more than half a million residents, told local press: "We want to move forward."

However, "we must promote the safety measures" to reopen without risking public health, she added. Enditem
A seven-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, whose parents were told he would never walk, has raised over 10,000 climbing Britain's tallest mountain.

Caeden Tompson, from Corby, Northamptonshire, managed to trek 1,345m (4,413ft) up the country's highest peak, Ben Nevis, in order to raise money for disability equality charity Scope.

Born 12 weeks prematurely, Caeden has bilateral spastic cerebral palsy and has undergone intense physiotherapy to help with his symptoms, today walking using a frame or stick.

Proud mother Lisa Thompson appeared with her son on This Morning today, where she insisted that her son deserves 'an award' for his climb, and told the money raised is going to 'amazing causes'.

Caeden Tompson, from Corby, Northamptonshire, (pictured climbing Ben Nevis) managed to trek 1,345m (4,413ft) up the country's highest peak, Ben Nevis, in order to raise money for disability equality charity Scope

Proud mother Lisa Thompson (pictured) appeared with her son on This Morning today, where she insisted that her son deserves 'an award' for his climb

'There are no words better than being proud,' said Lisa. 'Proud isn't good enough, this boy needs an award.

'As we were going up, he was saying "Come on, keep moving" and we all took it in turns saying "When is this going to end?".'

The group set off at 9am, reaching the mountain's summit at 5.30pm before returning home at 10.30pm, taking a total of 13 and a half hours to complete the entire climb.

Lisa told: 'We started at 9 o'clock and reached the top and half past five and finally got back down at half past ten, it was a long long day.

Lisa told hosts Ruth Langsford and Eammon Holmes (both pictured) that the group set off at 9am, reaching the mountain's summit at 5.30pm before returning home at 10.30pm

'[We did the climb] to raise funds for others, because Caeden wants to give back for all the support and help he has had.

'Caeden would not have had the support he has had throughout his life without the NHS and people like Scope, so the money raised is going to amazing causes.

'The Ben Nevis thing was more of a family discussion, it had to be something challenging, so why not aim for the highest mountain in the UK?'

She went on to explain that by the time their group reached the top of the mountain, the temperature had dropped, making an already 'emotionally draining' journey harder.

'The top was the hardest bit', she said. 'Because emotionally it was draining and the temperature had dropped so much, it was making him struggle more it. He went pale, he really struggled and we started to head back down considering it was 5.30.'

Caeden's condition causes his muscles to become tense, and spastic and Lisa told how frequent physical activity is an essential part of her son's therapy

WHAT IS SPASTIC CEREBRAL PALSY? Spastic cerebral palsy is the most common form of the disorder, affecting around 70% to 80% of all people diagnosed. This form of cerebral palsy mainly affects the muscle groups, but may cause associated disorders as well. Spastic cerebral palsy occurs as a result of brain damage, usually before or during birth, or sometimes within the first years of a childs life. Its a disorder that affects coordination and control of motor function. This causes the child to be delayed in reaching normal developmental milestones, and that is when it becomes more evident. Children born with spastic cerebral palsy do not usually have limb deformities at birth, but over time these may develop, due to muscle tenseness and stretching limitations. Spastic cerebral palsy may be classified as quadriplegic, diplegic, or hemiplegic, according to how and where it affects the body. Source: Cerebral Palsy Guidance Advertisement

Caeden's condition causes his muscles to become tense, and Lisa told how frequent physical activity is an essential part of her son's therapy.

'Caeden has bilateral spastic cerebral palsy', she explained. 'And within his body, he's quite stiff.

'It mostly effects his right side, because he had two bleeds a grade three and a grade four, the grade four effects his right side of his body where he uses splints to walk properly. In his ankles his tendon is really tight, his hamstrings are really tight.'

'He has a little YouTube channel, where he shows everyone how he deals with it and the physio we do all the time and how he copes with things - but being physical all the time and doing challenges like this is super helpful for his condition.'

As for what's next for Caeden, Lisa told: 'We've been talking about it, we'd like to have people's opinions what do they want to see Caeden do next.'
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31) The Health Department on Monday cautioned against the use of the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine for COVID-19, saying theres still no sufficient evidence that the product used to combat tuberculosis disease can help offer protection from the coronavirus.

In a media forum, Health spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said it would be best for authorities to await the results of ongoing studies on BCG before it can be used to manage COVID-19 infections.

Wala pa pong sapat na (Theres still no sufficient) evidence that would say that BCG can have this good effect for COVID-19 Let us wait for the result of the studies that are being undertaken in other countries so we can be properly informed, Vergeire said.

It is not being used for COVID-19 yet. Kailangan natin ng sapat na ebidensya muna bago tayo gagamit ng mga ganitong technology, the Health official stressed.

[Translation: We need sufficient evidence before we can use this kind of technology.]

The BCG vaccine is used in several countries with high prevalence of tuberculosis, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The product is often given to infants and small children.

In July, CNN reported that some researchers from different countries found the vaccine as a potential tool to help aid the fight against the coronavirus. In a research published on the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, international experts reported that countries which have used the vaccine tallied less mortality rates from COVID-19.

The World Health Organization, however, also earlier issued a warning against the use of the BCG vaccine until more information surfaces.

CNN Philippines correspondent Carolyn Bonquin contributed to this report.
Katyayani Shankar Bajpai - a career diplomat who had the unique distinction of being the only person to serve as Indias envoy to the US, China and Pakistan, and became a mentor to several generations of diplomats - has died of Covid-19. He was 92.

Bajpais family had a long association with diplomacy  his father Girija Shankar Bajpai was appointed the first secretary general of the external affairs ministry and his brothers Uma Shankar and Durga Shankar too were diplomats  and he was highly regarded for his advocacy of better ties with the US over the decades, with some saying he was ahead of his times in this area.

He joined the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in 1952 after being educated in Washington, Oxford and Geneva and went on to serve in key positions within the country and around the world. After retiring, he moved effortlessly into the world of academics and became known as a strategist and columnist.

External affairs minister S Jaishankar was among those who counted Bajpai as a mentor. He tweeted shortly after his death on Sunday: Deeply grieved at the passing away of Amb. Shankar Bajpai, mentor and friend. Will be missed by so many of us.

Bajpai played a key role in a long string of events during his distinguished career, from being part of prime minister Lal Bahadur Shashtris delegation to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, for talks with Pakistan brokered by the Soviet Union that ended the 1965 war, to acting as Indias representative to Sikkim during 1970-74 and assisting in its integration with the Indian union, and serving as the envoy to the US during a groundbreaking visit by prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

A statement issued by his family said: Bajpai was a man for many seasons. He could quote poetry classics from memory, was widely and eclectically read, was an avid film buff, but above all was known for his culinary skills and as a consummate host.

Former ambassador Rajiv Bhatia, distinguished fellow for foreign policy studies at Gateway House, remembered Bajpai as a very profound and sober man and accomplished diplomat.

He was the only diplomat to have served as the envoy to China, Pakistan and the US, and at times when the relationship with each was very complex and complicated, and India was managing three most challenging relationships, Bhatia said.

He was also a confidant of prime minister Indira Gandhi and was known as a legendary host during his stint in Washington, he added.

Bajpai was Indias envoy to the US when prime minister Rajiv Gandhi made his first visit to Washington in 1985, during which he addressed a joint session of the Congress. He also played an important role for prime minister Indira Gandhis visit to the US in 1982, during which she interacted with president Ronald Reagan.

As a young diplomat, he served as a political officer in Pakistan during the 1965 war. In 1966, he accompanied prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to Tashkent for the summit with Pakistani president Ayub Khan.

Over the years, he also had postings in Bonn, Ankara, Bern, San Francisco and the Netherlands, and his stints in New Delhi saw him focusing on Arab affairs, the UN and disarmament.

After retiring from government service in 1986, Bajpai transitioned to academic life in many universities, including the University of California, Los Angeles, during 1987-88, and was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, during 1989-92.

He went on to become the first professor of non-Western studies at Brandeis University during 1992-93 and a visiting fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, in 2002.

Besides creating the think tank Delhi Policy Group in 1994, Bajpai served as chairman of the National Security Advisory Board during 2008-10 and was informally consulted by the government on several issues, particularly relations with the US. He was also involved in track two interactions with the US and Pakistan.

He remained engaged with Indias foreign policy and governance, and at the time of his death was working on a biography of his father and his own memoirs. Bajpai is survived by his wife Meera Bajpai and two sons Dharma and Jayanti Bajpai.
PHILADELPHIA  Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie has watched over the past five-and-a-half months as the coronavirus pandemic spread rapidly across the United States and caused death, economic peril and significant societal upheaval.

Under the daily deluge of deaths, new cases and more, Lurie knows that it could be easy to become numb to the numbers of the pandemic, so he attempts to keep it in perspective.

Lets look whats really happened here, Lurie said Sunday during a Zoom call. We have 800,000 deaths and rising around the world. We have almost 200,000 deaths in the United States. This is from COVID-19 alone. Thirty-thousand in the month of August. Over 1,000 in the United States  over 1,000 every single day. So if I told you that yesterday, five Boeing 737s crashed in the United States, everybody died, well, thats every single day right now, every single day. Its been like that for many weeks.

Lurie spoke with reporters Sunday for the first time in more than a year, and his media session, which began with a 17-minute opening statement and lasted nearly an hour overall, touched on a number of topics that are at the forefront of American society.

Lurie spoke emotionally about systemic racism, and he also volunteered Lincoln Financial Field as a polling place for the November general election, if needed.

Read more: Philadelphia Eagles Jeffrey Lurie offers Lincoln Financial Field as polling place in 2020 election

But some of his most pointed comments came regarding the coronavirus pandemic and how it was handled in this country.

Id rather just say it straight out from my heart, Lurie said. Its heartbreaking. These are needless deaths. Needless. We should be similar to most countries on this planet, and yet we are an embarrassment and a tragic embarrassment. Thats where we stand.

On Sunday, the United States passed 6 million confirmed infections with a death toll of nearly 183,000, according to The New York Times. The country added 33,452 new cases and 374 new deaths. Earlier this month, The Times reported the true coronavirus toll has exceeded 200,000 deaths.

In Pennsylvania, there were 133,504 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 with at least 7,673 reported deaths from the virus, as of Sunday afternoon. In Philadelphia, there have been 33,607 confirmed cases and 1,749 deaths, according to the city.

Read more: Eagles Doug Pederson: A lot of our Black players are hurting

Lurie went to great lengths to highlight the disparity between the resources present in the United States and the response to the pandemic. According to Johns Hopkins, the United States has the most confirmed coronavirus cases and the most deaths from the virus.

You know, we are 4% of the worlds population, 21% of the fatalities, Lurie said. Theres a lot to figure out. Why is that the case? Why? A lot of questions to be answered, a lot of questions that will be answered, but the fact of the matter is, like when I discussed George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, its feeling the pain of all those people in the United States and all over the world and wondering, were the wealthiest country in the world, and 21% of the deaths? Were able to socially distance better than any country or we have the potential to, we have lifesaving mechanisms more than any third-world country, but we are and have been the epicenter of exactly what has taken place.

Lurie has worked to help the fight against the coronavirus locally. In early April, he donated $1 million to Penn Medicine to establish the COVID-19 Immunology Defense Fund, which went toward a research program to test front-line health care workers for potential immunity to COVID-19 and provide flexibility to staff in their research of the coronavirus, according to a press release.

Read more: What Jalen Mills, Rodney McLeod shared with Philadelphia Eagles teammates during social justice discussion

Later that month, Lurie and the Eagles donated another $1 million to provide critical assistance to promote the well-being of essential healthcare workers and their families, while supporting local businesses during this global pandemic, according to a press release.

Lurie referred to the coronavirus outbreak as a once-in-a-100-year pandemic, and he wants people to look at the facts, look at the numbers of what happened, even if it isnt necessarily pretty.

Lurie recognizes the long-lasting effect the pandemic could have on society. He wants to see the country take responsibility.

Thats our history, Lurie said. We have to own this. We have to own the questions of leadership. We have to own the questions of policy, and theres a lot to be discussed here on that in the future. "

Daniel Gallen covers the Philadelphia Eagles for PennLive. He can be reached at dgallen@pennlive.com. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Follow PennLives Philadelphia Eagles coverage on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work.
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City centres across Britain were last night teeming with jubilant revellers toasting in the August Bank Holiday Monday.

Nightclubs remain closed but pubs and bars drew crowds of people seizing upon the long weekend, and a day off work, to enjoy an evening out.

Unseasonably cold temperatures of 6C in the North East did not deter drinkers in Newcastle and Leeds, who headed out into the chill wearing only light clothing.

People even braved outdoor seating areas, which have boomed during the pandemic as venues looked to increase space as capacity indoors was limited by social distancing rules.

But social distancing appeared to fray as the celebrations continued into the early hours and drinks glasses were emptied.

Drunken revellers were seen staggering home looking worse-for-wear, while in Leeds the night was marred by injury as a man with a bloodied nose was seen being tended to by friends.

City centres across Britain (Leeds pictured) were last night teeming with jubilant revellers taking advantage of the long weekend by enjoying a Bank Holiday booze-up

Three women pose for a picture in Newcastle city centre where the bars and pubs were heaving with revellers toasting in the Bank Holiday Monday

In Newcastle, Geordies braved tumbling temperatures of 6C to head out on the Toon wearing only light clothing

Social distancing appeared to fray as the celebrations continued into the early hours and more drinks were emptied

A woman is helped up off the floor in Newcastle city centre as Bank Holiday celebrations get underway yesterday

Crowds of people were pictured bunched together outside bars and pubs in Leeds, which is famed for a vibrant nightlife

Three women in Newcastle head out on the Toon during Bank Holiday celebrations, with most Britons enjoying a Monday off work today

Venues are expected to be packed again tonight as the Government's Eat Out to Help Out scheme draws to a close.

Rishi Sunak's initiative to drive footfall into cash-starved eateries by offering half-price meals on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays throughout August was popular with millions of diners.

It helped breathe life back into the beleagured hospitality industry, which suffered a hammer-blow during the three months of lockdown.

But while the threat of a second spike looms large - 1,715 people tested positive yesterday, the biggest daily rise in 12 weeks - coronavirus curbs remain.

Pubs and bars and expected to make their venues Covid-secure by enforcing social distancing, with many encouraged to embrace al-fresco style dining to free-up space indoors.

Most require customers to provide contact details so they can be traced in the event of a case of infection by another punter.

Yet while Covid-19 continues to cast a shadow over much of daily life, there were little signs of social distancing during yesterday's Bank Holiday celebrations.

Crowds of people were pictured bunched together outside bars and pubs in Newcastle and Leeds, both famed for their vibrant nightlife.

Many bar-goers seized upon a rare Monday off work to get especially merry, with some drunken revellers seen staggering home looking worse-for-wear

Pubs and bars and expected to make their venues Covid-secure by enforcing social distancing, with many encouraged to embrace al-fresco style dining to free-up space indoors

A woman is seen sat on some steps while a friend gives her some water after a night out in Leeds

A man in Leeds seeming worse-for-wear leans against a wall after enjoying a night out in the city centre

A woman puts an arm around her friend as they head away from the heaving bars and pubs in Leeds city centre

Two women dressed up for a night out in Leeds walk through the streets of the city, which was packed with Bank Holiday revellers last night

A trio of friends laugh as they join thousands of revellers for a night out in Leeds city centre yesterday

A man in Newcastle gives two thumbs up as he walks through the city streets of Newcastle

Landlords are braced for another busy night as diners plan to leap upon the final night of discounted meals, bankrolled by the Treasury.

The deal, dubbed 'Rishi's dishes', means the government pays 50 per cent of the bill up to 10 per head for people who eat at participating restaurants between Monday and Wednesday.

The Chancellor said more than 64million meals had been claimed since the initiative was launched at the beginning of August.

But there are calls for the subsidy to be maintained in city centres, amid fears they are being hollowed out by millions of people working from home during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, pub operator JD Wetherspoon has said it will fund discounts on meals from Monday to Wednesday until at least November 11, describing the scheme as a 'great boost' to the hospitality industry.

The programme was part of an attempt to boost the hospitality industry in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

Mr Sunak said: 'As the Eat Out to Help Out scheme draws to a close, I want to say thank you to the diners who have fallen back in love with their local.

'To the managers who have spent weeks ensuring their restaurants were safe and to the chefs, waiters and waitresses across the country who have worked tirelessly, sometimes with more customers than they've ever had before - all helping to protect 1.8 million jobs in the hospitality sector.

'The scheme reminded us why we as a nation love dining out and I urge diners to maintain the momentum to help continue our economic recovery.'

Yet while Covid-19 continues to cast a shadow over much of daily life, there were little signs of social distancing during yesterday's Bank Holiday celebrations

A group of women brave unseasonably chilly weather to head out in Newcastle for the Bank Holiday weekend

Two friends walk the pavements of Newcastle, which was teeming with people at bars and pubs last night

A group in Newcastle walk through the city centre for a night on the Toon, which was heaving with Bank Holiday celebrations

Leeds was bustling with people last night as the long weekend drew people to the city centre for a night of drinking

Two women swig from a wine bottle in Leeds last night, as Bank Holiday weekend revelry continued into the early hours

Three women walk through Newcastle, which welcomed the Bank Holiday with a night of fun in bars and pubs

Women in Leeds walk through the city centre for a night in bars and clubs, as nightclubs remain shuttered

Both Leeds (left) and Newcastle (right) are famed for their vibrant nightlife, which yesterday drew crowds to city centres

Venues are expected to be packed again tonight as the Government's Eat Out to Help Out scheme draws to a close (Newcastle pictured last night)
Nearly 7 years ago, Omar Pliego was on #StatenIsland to visit family, when he was shot and killed by a violent criminal. @NYPDDetectives need your help as they continue to investigate. Theres now a $22K reward. Contact @NYPDTips if you have any info. pic.twitter.com/OOAsJ9ddzw
Authorities have charged four people in connection with the shooting deaths of two men during an apparent robbery attempt on Aug. 19 in Glassboro.

Officers responding to a home on Warrick Avenue for a well-being check found Manuel DelaRosa Jr., 26, and Shantal Farrow, 36, shot to death. At the time, investigators said they believed this was not a random act.

Officials confirmed the arrests Monday.

Devon J. Conover and Abdelgadi H. Hassan, both 19-year-olds from Trenton, and Daniel P. Hall, 23, of Teaneck, are each charged with two counts of murder, felony murder, conspiracy to commit murder and robbery, along with weapons offenses.

Altaifjoe H. Hassan, 23, of Glassboro, is charged with two counts each of conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit felony murder and conspiracy to commit robbery. The Hassans are brothers, according to court documents.

Conover was identified as a suspect based on cell phone data that showed him on Warrick Avenue on the night of the killings, according to his criminal complaint.

He admitted to investigators that he went to the home with the intent to rob the victims of money and marijuana.

Conover identified a .38-caliber revolver later confirmed to be the weapon used to kill DelaRosa, the complaint states.

A search of his residence turned up a pair of bloody Puma sneakers and Conover admitted disposing of the clothes he wore the night of the killings.

Investigation revealed that multiple people were involved and cell phone data ultimately linked all four to the crime, according to court records.

Multiple photos obtained from a cellphone showed Hall in the home of another of the suspects about an hour before the killings in possession of three firearms consistent with the weapons used the night of the homicide, according to his affidavit of probable cause.

Hall was identified by a co-defendant as one of the shooters involved in the killings, his complaint states.

Abdelgadi H. Hassans complaint notes similar photos showing him in possession of two firearms, and both men are described as posing with a revolver thats consistent with the gun identified as the murder weapon.

In addition, surveillance footage placed a defendants vehicle near the victims residence moments after the homicide, according to court documents.

All four were also charged in connection with a home invasion robbery at a Franklin Road residence in Glassboro the day before the killings.

The victims in that case awoke to find two males dressed in all black clothing and wearing ski masks. Both carried handguns and struck the victims before making off with $700 cash and a Movado watch. At least one of the victims was struck in the face with a handgun, police said.

Through investigation, police identified the pair as the Hassan brothers. Altaifjoe H. Hassan was known to police as a Rowan University student, according to criminal complaints.

Conover admitted to police that he waited in a vehicle outside during the robbery.

The four are jailed pending detention hearings.

Acting Gloucester County Prosecutor Christine A. Hoffman praised all involved in cracking the case, citing GCPO detectives and Glassboro Police Department for their work.

They have worked tirelessly and in partnership with various other law enforcement agencies to identify and arrest the individuals involved in the murders, Hoffman said. Their level of competency and commitment to their profession led to bringing this senseless act of violence to a quick resolution.

The investigation involved various agencies across the state.

Those assisting included U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force, Gloucester County SWAT, Gloucester County Emergency Response Team, New Jersey State Police, Mercer County Sheriffs Department SWAT, Morris County Sheriffs Department, prosecutors offices in Atlantic, Camden, Mercer and Morris counties, and police departments in Trenton, Galloway Township, Ventnor and Dover.

The investigation is ongoing and authorities ask anyone with information to contact prosecutors office Detective Brian Lloyd at 609-221-4849 or Glassboro Police Investigator Haley Mangione at 856-340-0661. Information may also be emailed to tips@co.gloucester.nj.us.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com.
After a deadly summer surge during which hundreds of Bay Area residents died from COVID-19, some parts of the Bay Area are finally seeing a slowdown in the spread of the coronavirus.

New coronavirus cases are stabilizing or declining in eight of the nine Bay Area counties, according to cases reported by county health departments and compiled by The Chronicle.

The Bay Area as a whole saw a 4.8% decline in new cases for the week that ended Aug. 23, compared with the week that ended July 26, according to Chronicle data.

John Blanchard

During those periods, the nine Bay Area counties reported 1,000 new cases per day in mid-August, down from 1,050 cases per day in mid-July. Those periods were mostly unaffected by the computer glitch that caused delays in reporting at the state level, though the July figures may be slightly underreported.

The trend is similar to statewide and national slowdowns in new infections. New cases in California are down 34%, dropping from an average of nearly 9,400 cases a day during the week that ended July 26, to fewer than 6,200 the week that ended Aug. 23. Hospitalizations are also down 40%, declining from the July 21 peak of about 7,200, to 4,200, state officials said Friday. COVID-19 deaths appear to be stabilizing, hovering from 120 to 130 per day, on average, for the past two weeks.

The slowdown sets the stage for the state and region to attempt a second, slower economic reopening plan, which Gov. Newsom announced Friday. The hope is that cases can remain on a downward trend while businesses, schools and other societal functions can resume to some degree of normality.

Nationally, cases also declined 35%, from nearly 66,000 cases a day to fewer than 43,000 during those same periods. Still, the U.S. outbreak remains one of the worst in the world, behind just India and Brazil in new daily cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

We really are in the downslope of this second wave of the epidemic here in the U.S., Dr. George Rutherford, head of UCSFs division of infectious disease and epidemiology, said during a briefing with reporters Wednesday. It looks like were on the downslope (in California) as well.

The main factors driving the statewide and regional slowdown are that people are wearing masks, social distancing and socializing less  and more carefully  with friends and family, experts said.

The reason its going down is people are wearing masks and social distancing, period, Rutherford said. It has nothing to do with herd immunity. People are doing the things it takes to not get infected.

We have flattened the curve, Marin County Public Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis said Tuesday during a COVID-19 update to the Board of Supervisors. The second large wave has flattened in July and is now on its way down. That seems to be a reliable pattern of improvement.

Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

Marin, like the Bay Area as a whole, initially flattened the curve in the spring, only to see a larger, second surge of cases begin in May, after reopenings began. Marin was averaging 163 cases a day in the week leading up to July 3, and that has since tapered off to 27 a day in the week leading up to Aug. 28, according to Chronicle data. Much of the summer surge was linked to outbreaks that began in June at San Quentin State Prison, which reported about 2,000 cases. The prison has reported almost no new cases in the past few weeks, which accounts for much of the decline. New cases in the community, separate from San Quentin, also rose during the same period and are now falling as well.

In Solano County, new daily cases peaked at 101 in mid-July and have since declined relatively steadily, reaching 31 on Aug. 27  the lowest seven-day average since mid-June, according to county data.

While people are still socializing  gatherings with friends and family are a major source of transmission  it seems that fewer people are doing it, which is helping reduce infection rates, said Dr. Bela Matyas, health officer for Solano County. The recent heat wave and poor air quality from the wildfires may also have driven people to stay home more, he said.

It could be people are listening to the messaging and trying to interact with one another in safer ways, he said. Its hard to know because were not in peoples homes to see what theyre doing.

Some local health officers noted this month that cases in their counties appeared to begin stabilizing or declining in July. But because the glitch in the states data reporting system, CalREDIE, happened around the same time, it took some time to determine whether cases were in fact declining or whether the apparent decline was because of underreporting. A technical problem with CalREDIE, caused by a server malfunction on July 25, led to many cases being temporarily underreported. State officials say the issue has been resolved.

At first we werent sure if it was real because of the state data problems, but those have been resolved satisfactorily so we can trust the numbers, Matyas said.

In San Francisco, new cases peaked July 20, when the city reported a seven-day average of 130 cases per day; that has since declined to 72 cases a day as of Aug. 22, the most recent day for which there is reliable data, according to county data. The data reflect the previously underreported cases from CalREDIE, though the city is continuing to verify the figures.

That number has been coming down in the recent weeks, but it remains in the red zone, San Francisco Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax said Friday.

It is too early to tell whether San Francisco is indeed flattening the curve, and the city will remain vigilant, according to a statement from the San Francisco COVID Command Center.

John Blanchard

Cases in San Mateo, Contra Costa and Alameda counties have also been stabilizing or declining over the last few weeks.

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.

But Sonoma County is not seeing a slowdown. And the recent wildfires forced thousands of Northern California residents to evacuate and congregate in shelters and homes where households mix  raising concerns that such environments may lead to more virus transmission.

I wouldnt say we have a slowdown in cases, Dr. Sundari Mase, health officer for Sonoma County, said Wednesday.

She noted that the R naught, one measure of how fast the virus is spreading, is decreasing, which could signal movement in the right direction.

But we had fire and evacuations, people mingling, whether it be in shelters, family and extended family and friends homes, she said. Well have to see. ... I dont think we can say things are slowing down at this time.

Given that the Bay Area flattened the curve in the spring  only to reopen quickly and see a surge in new cases  businesses and residents will have to move more slowly and cautiously to reopen this time around, infectious disease experts say.

San Francisco is poised to begin allowing some outdoor personal services Tuesday, including nail and hair salons and outdoor gyms, Mayor London Breed announced Friday while acknowledging that reopening may lead to more spread.

As more things open in San Francisco, the possibility for spread goes up, so the last thing we want to do is to go backwards, she said.

Starting Monday, California will embark on a new reopening plan in which counties are grouped into one of four tiers based on how well they are controlling the virus. The tiers are color-coded: the most severe and restrictive, purple, signifies the highest case rates and test positivity rates. The least restrictive, yellow, allows counties to be nearly fully reopen. The vast majority of the state, including seven of the nine Bay Area counties, is in the purple tier. Counties must sustain case rates and test positivity rates for at least three weeks before progressing to the next tier.

UCSFs Rutherford is especially concerned about schools. Outbreaks have already been reported at the University of North Carolina, Notre Dame and dozens of other colleges and universities.

Were going to have to go slow, he said. The colleges, high schools and middle schools need to really be advocates for masks. ... Its not going to be college as usual, high school as usual, life as usual for quite a while. But if we want be able to keep case counts down, we want to not crush the intensive care systems that weve developed, were going to have to wrap our heads around wearing masks and not being able to do whatever we want to, whenever we want to.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Mike Massa and Audrey DeBruine contributed to this report.

Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho
Hundreds of criminal trials in Victoria will not be heard until 2021 at the earliest, after the County Court cast doubt on contested hearings returning at all this year.

Jury trials have been suspended since March due to coronavirus social-distancing rules, and Victoria's second wave of infections halted plans to resume in July.

The County Court is unlikely to resume jury trials this year. Credit:Penny Stephens

The County Court, which hears the bulk of the state's criminal trials, now concedes it is unlikely trials will return in October, given uncertainty about the end date of stage four restrictions.

Chief judge Peter Kidd said on Monday: "Public statements indicate that any easing of restrictions will be staged and any opening up will be gradual and cautious.
29 People, 2 With Loaded Guns, Arrested During Riot in Portland

Two people with loaded handguns were arrested during rioting in Portland overnight Sunday, just one day after a man was shot dead downtown.

Unrestprimarily riots, broken up by occasional peaceful nightshas taken place in Oregons largest city since May 28.

A crowd of about 150 people marched to the Penumbra Kelly Building, which houses the Multnomah County Sheriffs Office, around 8:30 p.m. on Sunday. Many were wearing heavy protective gear like helmets, gas masks, and external armor. Some carried shields and reflective squares, which were used to reflect police lights back toward officers.

Rioters began throwing rocks, eggs, and other items at police officers. They ignored warnings broadcast over loudspeaker to disperse or face arrest or the use of crowd control agents.

Police officers, with assistance from Oregon troopers and county sheriffs deputies, forcibly moved the crowd and arrested 29 people. Two of those arrested possessed loaded handguns. Isaac Schott, 22, of Salem, Oregon, was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, the Portland Police Bureau said in an incident summary.

Demonstrators march in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 30, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Police detain a person amid rioting in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 30, 2020. (Gravemorgan/Twitter via Reuters)

Two guns seized from people during rioting in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 30, 2020. (Portland Police Bureau)

Among the other 28 arrested was Kristopher Donnelly, a 26-year-old Portland resident who federal authorities had issued an arrest warrant for. Donnelly was charged with disorderly conduct, interfering with a peace officer, and resisting arrest. He was previously arrested during rioting on Aug. 7.

Part of the mob returned to the building following the dispersal. The crowd fizzled out by 1:30 a.m.

City, county, and state officials have been unable to quell the rioting, which exploded following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.

The state troopers presence was the first time they were helping respond to riots since leaving the city about two weeks ago. The move stemmed from the district attorney overseeing Portland deciding not to pursue some criminal charges, a spokesman for the state police told The Epoch Times.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, ordered the troopers back to the city after the fatal shooting Saturday.

Mayor Ted Wheeler, Police Chief Chuck Lovell, and Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt told reporters on Sunday that the people or person responsible for the killing would be held responsible.

Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell speaks to reporters at City Hall in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 30, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Joey Gibson, leader of Patriot Prayer, arrives at the scene of a shooting in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 29, 2020. (Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Reuters)

A man shot in Portland, Ore., is treated on Aug. 29, 2020. The man later died. (Paula Bronstein/AP Photo)

The shooting death wasnt the first in the city, Lovell said, pointing to a 16-year-old teenager being gunned down in a city park last week.

Some may not even be aware it happened as it hardly generated any headlines. Weve witnessed an increase in more and more uncivilized activity in our city and in our nation. Its incumbent on all of us to do better. So no more lives are lost. Portland desperately needs calm, he said.

Shootings have spiked in the city this year as police struggle to respond to 911 calls, fatigued from responding to unrest nearly every night.

Wheeler, who oversees the police bureau, said it was hard for him to say that city officials did everything they possibly could in light of the killing over the weekend.

I think it would be preposterous for me to do so. But Im certainly being introspective, he said. Im working with my team and others. And were talking about how do we make sure that that is the only time somebody dies on the streets of our city that way? It was one too many.
Rajkummar Rao turned 36 on Monday. From his 'Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga' co-star Sonam Kapoor Ahuja to Actor Ayushmann Khurrana, wishes poured in for 'Kai Po Che!' star on social media. Besides Bollywood celebrities, several fans also wished the 'Newton' actor on his 36th birthday.

Wishes poured in for Kai Po Che! star Rajkummar Rao as he turned 36 on Monday. Raos Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga co-star Sonam Kapoor Ahuja took to Instagram to share several pictures of herself with him and penned a birthday wish. Happy happy birthday my darling friend @rajkummar_rao the best person and best actor.. all my love .. see you at the movies, Sonam wrote in the caption.

Filmmaker Farah Khan also shared a picture of herself with Rao on Instagram and wrote, Happy birthday my dearest @rajkummar_rao .. sending u loads of love till we can meet again. Actor Ayushmann Khurrana, who had shared the screen space with the actor in their superhit film Bareilly Ki Barfi, dedicated his Instagram story to Rao.

Also Read: SSR death probe: Taapsee Pannu, Lakshmi Manchu, Hina Khan call for #JusticeForRheaChakaborty

Khurrana posted a picture of himself and the birthday boy and wrote, Happy Birthday @rajkummar_rao. Have a good one badass babua. Anushka Sharma also took to her Instagram stories and shared a picture of the Stree actor and wrote, Happy Birthday to one of the finest actors. Have an amazing one Rajkummar.

Kai Po Che actor Amit Sadh also penned down a birthday wish for his co-star. Happy birthday Raju I look upto your art and you have my love for life, tweeted Sadh. Besides Bollywood celebrities, several fans also wished the Newton actor on his 36th birthday. (ANI)

Also Read: Alia Bhatt turns muse for Shaheen Bhatt for a magazine cover, see photos
Queensland insists complaints about its border restrictions are in the minority, as it sets up a dedicated unit to deal with border exemption requests.

The state recorded one new virus case on Monday, linked to an ongoing cluster of cases in south-east Queensland centred on the Wacol Youth Detention Centre and the Corrective Services Training Academy.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced a dedicated unit to deal with border exemptions.

There are 24 cases now linked to that cluster, with a total of 27 active cases in the state.

Queensland Health issued new contact tracing locations linked to the latest case, including the Logan Hyperdome and five of its stores: Best & Less, K-Mart, The Reject Shop, Footlocker, and Platypus Shoes.
Photos have emerged of hundreds of university students ignoring coronavirus rules while attending a pool party.

The partygoers, many of whom were students at the University of South Carolina, were busted after they were spotted in the pool area at The Apartments at Palmetto Compress in Columbia flouting social distancing rules and ignoring mask mandates.

Columbia Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins told local media he discovered at least 200 people milling around the pool about 6pm Saturday (local time).

He told News 19 he was disturbed by a young mans excuse for snubbing the rules, who told him I cant catch COVID.

Hundreds of people attend a pool party in Columbia, South Carolina. Source: News 19

Chief Jenkins added the party had the ultimate conditions for the coronavirus to spread.

That was just a perfect storm to spread the virus. If someone in that crowd had it, it was just a perfect storm, he said.

South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Protection tweeted on Sunday (local time) there were 1,019 new confirmed cases and 28 new probable cases of coronavirus in the state. It also reported 11 additional deaths.

US nears six million coronavirus cases

The shocking photos of the pool party come as the United States passed six million total coronavirus cases, nearly a quarter of the worlds total.

The US hit five million cases three weeks ago, just 17 days after reaching four million, according to Johns Hopkins Universitys tracker.

The countrys death toll is now just over 187,000.

According to the states health department, people are required to keep a distance of at least 1.8 metres and avoid large crowds and gatherings.

Shocking photos showed hundreds of revellers ignoring social distancing and mask mandates. Source: News 19

People in the state are also required to wear a cloth covering that covers the mouth and nose when around others in public settings.

Chief Jenkins told The State newspaper the pool party was almost like Mardi Gras.

I saw a large crowd in the pool, in the area on the side of the pool, and on top of the pool house, he said.

If nothing was going on (like the COVID-19 pandemic), there still would have been too many people in the pool.

Story continues

Nobody was practising social distancing. Nobody was wearing a mask. But there was lots of drinking going on.

University students self-indulgent idiots

The photos also outraged people on social media, with one tweeting the university needed to get its students under control.

Another dubbed them self-indulgent idiots who should be banned from the university campus.

Entitled USC kids, a third added.

Six sorority houses have been forced into lockdown at the university after a number of people tested positive. Source: Getty

Classes commenced for the new semester at the University of South Carolina on August 20 and The State reports 620 students in total had tested positive, while 553 cases remain active. Six sorority houses had also been placed into lockdown after a number of people tested positive.

In a statement to News 19, The University of South Carolina said it had worked with private apartment complexes housing university students for months to promote safe public health standards.

Unfortunately, some have chosen not to manage their properties appropriately to protect the community. We also urge our students to remember their responsibilities and please use good judgement, avoiding situations where social distancing isnt possible, it said.

The Apartments at Palmetto Compress had not responded to requests for comment.

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio - The number of people who tested positive for coronavirus on Saturday dipped to 3.9%, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

This is below the seven-day rolling average for the states positivity rate of 4.4%, the health department said Monday.

The health departments Monday report shows positivity rate data that lags by two days.

A positivity rate under 5% for 14 days is the level that the World Health Organization recommends for governments to reopen the economy during the pandemic.

In addition to Ohio, only 22 other states, plus Washington, D.C., have achieved this.

Cases and deaths

The number of newly reported coronavirus cases was 895 higher on Monday from the day before, health department figures show.

That number remains under the 21-day rolling average of 1,020 cases.

Health department figures show 123,157 people have had coronavirus in Ohio since the outbreak began; 102,632 are presumed to have recovered.

The number or people who have died with coronavirus is up 10 from Sundays report to 4,138. The 10 deaths are below the seven-day average of 22 deaths.

The new cases and deaths didnt necessarily all happen in the past 24 hours. There can be a lag of when they occur and when they are reported by local entities.

The cases and deaths of coronavirus are both those confirmed through testing and those the state and federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consider probable, which means they are diagnosed by a physician, among other criteria.

Other testing data

Over 2.23 million coronavirus tests have been performed in Ohio, according to Mondays report. This is up 47,209 from Sundays report.

This figure represents the total number of tests performed. Some people get more than one test.

Regardless of how many tests a person gets, however, they are only counted as one case.

If you have the symptoms of COVID-19, the state offers free tests at its pop up, mobile stations. No appointment is necessary. Visit here to find a pop-up testing site.

Hospitalizations

Seven hundred seventy-four people were staying in Ohio hospitals who had tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Ohio Hospital Association figures for Sunday.

That includes 244 people in intensive-care units and 140 people on ventilators.

Sundays figures are lower than a week ago, when the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 was 806  including 277 ICU beds occupied and 149 people on ventilators.

Worldwide figures

About 25.2 million people have had coronavirus across the globe, according to Johns Hopkins Universitys Center for Systems Science and Engineering. That includes nearly 850,000 deaths.

The top five countries in number of cases are:

-U.S., with 6 million

-Brazil, with 3.8 million

-India, with 3.6 million

-Russia, with 992,000

-Peru, with 639,000.

The top five countries in numbers of deaths are:

-U.S., with 183,000

-Brazil, with 120,000

-India, with 64,400

-Mexico, with 64,100

-U.K., with 41,000.

Other coverage:

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As repairs to vandalized Ohio Supreme Court are completed, Chief Justice Maureen OConnor pushes for reforms

2.2% of Ohioans who have been tested by American Red Cross have coronavirus antibodies, far from herd immunity
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she has made her own face covering to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

According to Reuters, the Pacific nation of 5 million people had seemed to stop community transmission of COVID-19 due to tough lockdown measures but reintroduced restrictions in its largest city - Auckland - this month, following a fresh outbreak.

Facebook/Jacinda Arden





With restrictions to scale back on Sunday, Ardern said in a Facebook post that she was taking matters into her own hands before masks become compulsory on public transport across the country the following day.

At a meeting with local community health leader Dave Letele, "One of the things we talked about was face coverings, and how to make your own at home," Ardern, who faces a general election in October, wrote in the post. "I had a go at making one," she added, alongside a photo of a patch of fabric, scissors and two elastic hair ties.

Also Read: Meet The Doctor Who Powered India's Decision To Make Face Masks Compulsory



A follow-up video showed her crafting a simple red mask, the colour of the Labour Party.

"That's my first time crafting," she said. "I'm going to pull out my glitter gun later."

Speaking with Dave Letele from Buttabean Motivation As promised, heres the video with Dave Letele from Buttabean Motivation. We caught up earlier this week to talk about how Auckland is doing, some of the COVID myths that are out there, and how to make your own face covering. Thanks again Dave! Really enjoyed chatting with you. Posted by Jacinda Ardern on Thursday, August 27, 2020

Ardern is under pressure ahead of an upcoming general election, with the main opposition National Party accusing the government of failing to secure quarantine facilities and withholding information.



Also Read: 2020 Is All About Jewellers Making Snazzy Gold Face Masks Worth Lakhs, But Are They Worth It?

Reuters

New Zealands successful fight against COVID-19 was hailed globally, and the Pacific island nation of 5 million was seen as one of the safest places, as the pandemic raged globally.

Also Read: After Becoming Covid Free, New Zealand Is Cutting Its Research In Antarctica To Keep It Virus Free

It marked 100 days without a domestic transmission of the coronavirus on Sunday, but warned against complacency as countries like Vietnam and Australia which once had the virus under control, were battling resurgences.

Calls have grown to postpone the national election scheduled for September 19, as political parties suspended campaigns due to the new restrictions.
The New Guinea Singing Dog, a dingolike animal with a unique howling style, was considered extinct in the wild. But scientists reported Monday that the dogs live on, based on DNA collected by an intrepid and indefatigable field researcher.

Their analysis, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that the dogs are not simply common village dogs that decided to try their chances in the wild. The findings not only solve a persistent, though obscure, puzzle, they may shed light on the complicated and still emerging picture of dog domestication in Asia and Oceania.

Claudio Sillero, a conservation biologist at Oxford University and the chair of the canid specialist group at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature said that the study confirms the close relatedness between Australian and New Guinea dogs, the most ancient domestic dogs on earth.

James McIntyre, president of the New Guinea Highland Wild Dog Foundation and the researcher whose forays in the field were central to the discovery, first searched for New Guinea Singing Dogs in the forbiddingly rugged highlands of the island, which is split between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, in 1996. He was taking a break from studying intersex pigs in Vanuatu, but thats another story. McIntyre has degrees in zoology and education, and has worked at the Bronx Zoo and other zoos, private conservation organizations and as a high school biology teacher.

There are highly inbred populations of the dogs in zoos, and some are kept as exotic pets. But for more than a half-century they remained elusive in the wild until 2012 when an ecotourism guide snapped a photo of a wild dog in the highlands of Indonesias Papua province. It was the first seen since the 1950s, and McIntyre set to work. He received some funding from a mining company, PT Freeport Indonesia. The company, which has a history of conflict with the local population over environmental and safety issues and murky connections to the Indonesian military, operates a gold mine in the highlands near the wild dog sightings. In 2016 he spent about a month searching and captured 149 photos of 15 individual dogs.

The locals called them the Highland wild dog, he said. The New Guinea Singing Dog was the name developed by Caucasians. Because I didnt know what they were, I just called them the Highland wild dogs.

But whether they were really the wild singing dogs that had been considered extinct was the big question. Even the singing dogs kept in captivity were a conundrum to scientists who couldnt decide whether they were a breed, a species or a subspecies. Were these wild dogs the same as the captive population? Or were they village dogs gone feral recently?

In 2018, McIntyre went back to Papua and managed to get DNA from two trapped wild dogs, quickly released after biological samples were taken, as well as one other dog that was found dead. He brought the DNA to researchers who concluded that the highland dogs McIntyre found are not village dogs, but appear to belong to the ancestral line from which the singing dogs descended.

For decades weve thought that the New Guinea singing dog is extinct in the wild, said Heidi G. Parker of the National Institutes of Health, who worked with Suriani Surbakti and other researchers from Indonesia and other countries on analyzing the DNA samples that McIntyre returned.

They are not extinct, Parker said, They actually do still exist in the wild.

The highland dogs had about 72% of their genes in common with their captive singing cousins. The highland dogs had much more genetic variation, which would be expected for a wild population. The captive dogs in conservation centers all descend from seven or eight wild ancestors.

The 28% difference between the wild and captive varieties may come from some interbreeding with village dogs or from the common ancestor of all the dogs brought to Oceania. The captive, inbred dogs may simply have lost a lot of the variation that the wild dogs have.

Their genes could help reinvigorate the captive population of a few hundred animals in conservation centers, which are very inbred.

Elaine A. Ostrander of the NIH, a co-author of the report, says the finding is also significant for understanding more about dog domestication. The New Guinea Singing Dogs are closely related to Australian dingoes and are also related to the Asian dogs that migrated with humans to Oceania 3,500 years ago or more. It may be that the singing dogs split off around then from a common ancestor that later gave rise to breeds like the Akita and Shiba Inu.

They provide this missing piece that we didnt really have before, Ostrander said.

Laurent Frantz, an evolutionary geneticist at Queen Mary University of London who studies the domestication and evolution of dogs and was not involved in the research, said, the paper makes clear that these populations have been continuous for a long time.

But exactly when and where the dogs became feral and what is wild, what is domestic are still thorny questions, which the new data will help to address.

McIntyre did finish his work on the intersex pigs of Vanuatu, by the way, and you can find out more at the website of the Southwest Pacific Research Project. They are bred on purpose because they are highly valued by islanders.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Patients with acute pulmonary embolism can be selected for home management using the sPESI score or the Hestia criteria, according to results of the HOME-PE trial presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 2020.

Principal investigator Professor Pierre-Marie Roy of the University Hospital of Angers, France said: "The pragmatic Hestia method was at least as safe as the sPESI score for triaging haemodynamically stable pulmonary embolism patients for outpatient care."

Acute pulmonary embolism is the most severe presentation of venous thromboembolism (VTE). Incidence is approximately 60 to 70 per 100,000 people, but increases with age, in cancer patients, during prolonged bedrest or after surgery. It occurs when a blood clot, usually in veins of the legs, travels to the right side of the heart and blocks the pulmonary arteries. The most frequent symptoms are acute dyspnoea and chest pain. In severe cases, patients may develop acute right heart failure with shock and, sometimes, sudden death.

Apart from haemodynamically unstable patients requiring specific management, treatment is mainly based on anticoagulation to avoid recurrence of pulmonary embolism and allow natural fibrinolysis. However, anticoagulation increases the risk of bleeding. Historically, hospitalisation was justified due to the risks of recurrence and bleeding. In the last decade, several studies have demonstrated the possibility of home treatment for selected haemodynamically stable patients. But controversy persists about the optimal referral strategies and eligibility criteria for outpatient care.

European guidelines recommend the Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (PESI) score or the simplified PESI score (sPESI) to assess the risk of all-cause mortality. Patients with an sPESI score of 0 can be treated at home, providing that proper follow-up and anticoagulant therapy can be provided. American guidelines do not require a predefined score, and advise using pragmatic criteria such as those in the Hestia Study.

The HOME-PE trial examined whether a strategy based on the Hestia criteria was at least as safe as a strategy based on the sPESI score to select patients for home treatment. In addition, it evaluated whether the Hestia method was more efficient compared to the sPESI scorein other words, whether it led to more patients being selected for home treatment.

This was a randomised, open-label non-inferiority trial comparing the two triaging strategies. It was conducted in 26 hospitals in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, which had set up, prior to study initiation, a thrombosis team for outpatient care of patients with acute pulmonary embolism.

In 2017 to 2019, 1,974 patients with normal blood pressure presenting to the emergency department with acute pulmonary embolism were included. Patients randomised to the sPESI group were eligible for outpatient care if the score was 0; otherwise they were hospitalised. Patients randomised to the Hestia group were eligible for outpatient care if all 11 criteria were negative; otherwise they were hospitalised. In both groups, the physician in charge could overrule the decision on treatment location for medical or social reasons.

The primary outcome was a composite of recurrent VTE, major bleeding, and all-cause death within 30 days. The Hestia strategy was non-inferior to the sPESI strategy: the primary outcome occurred in 3.8% of the Hestia group and 3.6% of the sPESI group (p=0.005).

A greater proportion of patients were eligible for home care using sPESI (48.4%) compared to Hestia (39.4%). However, the doctor in charge of the patient overruled sPESI more often than Hestia. Consequently, a similar proportion of patients were discharged within 24 hours for home treatment: 38.4% in the Hestia group and 36.6% in the sPESI group (p=0.42). All patients managed at home had a low rate of complications.

Professor Roy said: "These results support outpatient management of acute pulmonary embolism patients using either the Hestia method or the sPESI score with the option for physicians to override the decision. In hospitals organised for outpatient management, both triaging strategies enable more than a third of pulmonary embolism patients to be managed at home with a low rate of complications."

Explore further High rate of pulmonary embolism found for patients with COVID-19

More information: Abstract title: Hospitalization or outpatient management of patients with acute pulmonary embolism - HESTIA versus simplified PESI: an international multicentre randomized controlled study (HOME-PE study).
New speculations circulated in North Korea about the current location of the sister of Kim Jong-un just weeks after she stated that she was poised to assume power in the Hermit State.

Based on the reports that spread across the Korean Peninsula, the last public appearance of Kim Jong-un's sister Kim Yo-jong was on July 27 and after until now, her whereabouts are not determined.

While her brother the North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un keeps taking long breaks prompting claims that the Hermit state leader's health is declining, Kim Yo-jong was the one attending on some appearances and became more visible this year, Mirror reported.

The latest pictures of the North Korean leader include other high-ranking officials in recent days however rumors arose as his sister is missing on the said photos.

The international branded Kim Yo-jong as the second in command in the Hermit state next to Kim, which prompted concerns that her notorious brother was up on something against Kim Yo-jong as he sees her as a potential threat.

Korea University professor Nam Sung-Wook shared that in the history of the Hermit state, anyone was deprived of their position from the time that you will be described or labeled as the number two person in North Korea.

Read also: Kim Yo Jong Gets More Powerful in NoKor as Kim Jong-Un Delegates Part of his Authority to Her

He also added that there must be a semblance of balances and checks, although his sister Kim Yo-jong is a family member.

The professor also mentioned that it is also possible that the now labeled number two in the North has retreated for her own accord.

According to News.com.au, even the son-in-law of his dad was not able to escape as Kim has only a little time for his rivals and he is willing to do executions even on a highly regarded official.

During the time that Kim Jong-Il, Kim Jong-un's father was ill, Jang was tagged as the Hermit State's de facto leader.

Jang disappeared in 2013 after a statement coming from the North Korean leadership came out wherein, he was described as "worse than a dog" and his only intent was to grab the supreme power by the most cunning a sinister means.

Based on the unconfirmed and unreleased reports, they are claiming that the family of Jang met the same fate as the bloodthirsty current Hermit state leader choose to clamp down his rival at that time.

On the other hand, Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Professor Sung-Yoon Lee shared that it is clear that they are grooming Kim Yo-jong for power and supremacy.

He also added that in order to build her credibility and net worth plus the respect that she needs, playing nice is not an option instead she needs to be a cruel dictator to her people and be a legitimate nuclear threat to the United States and even the entire world.

Professor Sung-Yoon Lee also stated that she can also prove herself that she is more tyrannical and fiercer than his brother Kim Jong-un, father, or even his grandfather Kim Il-sung the Hermit state's founder.



Related article: Kim Jong Un in Comatose? Kim Yo Jong to Take Over Regime, South Korean Diplomat Says

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Businesses will have to ensure employees wear masks while working and tea rooms and meetings will have to be located outside. Workplace "bubbles" will require that employees do not overlap during shift changes and common touch points will need to be regularly cleaned. Industry will be subject to four traffic-light levels of restrictions: closed, heavily restricted, restricted or open with a COVIDSafe plan. Mr Andrews also offered a glimmer of hope to hospitality businesses, saying warmer weather would provide options that were previously unavailable, such as outdoor service and eating options for pubs, restaurants, cafes and bars.

"Well be having very detailed discussions with that industry," he said. Tony Roussos, who owns The Quarter cafe in Melbourne's Degraves Street dining hub, said businesses were desperate to see the government's plans for lifting restrictions. Tony Roussos, owner of The Quarter cafe in Degraves Street, Melbourne, is among the traders eagerly awaiting news on plans to reopen. Credit:Paul Jeffers He said businesses were uncertain whether customers would feel comfortable reverting to pre-pandemic habits such as sitting in crowded restaurants, but any indication of a way forward would help them prepare. "I welcome any plan thats going to give us some degree of certainty so we can start planning for our future," he said.

Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Paul Guerra, speaking to ABC Radio, said any plans for easing restrictions needed to be backed up by the government's health response. "What are the fail-safe mechanisms that are going to be put in place?" he asked. "We know there are going to be outbreaks, sadly, so how do we deal with that without having to shut down all of industry and, in fact, all of the state? "We need confidence in the contact tracing system because if that is working then the caseload should be limited by the fact that were onto it and onto it quickly." Another 41 deaths were announced on Monday, but only eight of them occurred within the previous 24 hours, with another 33 cases added to the tally since late July following changes in reporting obligations for aged care services in August.

Three men aged in their 70s, four women in their 70s and one woman aged over 100 were among those newly added to the death toll, now at 565 Victorians. Loading Meanwhile, the Andrews government has backed down on its proposal to extend state of emergency powers for a further 12 months, and made concessions during its negotiations with crossbench MPs on Monday. The government is seeking to extend the orders by six months and has agreed to table in Parliament the Chief Health Officer's advice on state of emergency extensions every four weeks. The number of active coronavirus cases has fallen from almost 7500 to 2620 in the space of two weeks.

The new road map is set to include information on whether Victorians will be allowed visitors in their homes, including people who live on their own. But large groups of people gathering in homes was a "massive contributor" to the second surge, Mr Andrews said. "If we do this too quick, if we do this chasing something that might be popular for a few weeks, if we forget that its a pandemic and think that its a popularity contest, then Christmas wont look normal at all. It will be a very, very different Christmas Day. "I want to find a COVID normal based on the best medical advice where there will be some rules but where we can lock that in for months." Epidemiologist Professor Mary-Louise McLaws has been advocating a traffic-light pandemic response system in Australia, and said under her proposed system fewer than 10 cases a day over two weeks could still be enough to prompt a red alert in Melbourne.

A handful of cases could warrant short lockdowns of smaller regional communities, in a conservative model aimed at preventing the disease spreading beyond the capacity of contact tracers, Professor McLaws said. "Green" restrictions would be introduced after a metropolitan city recorded up to 59 coronavirus cases in two weeks, triggering measures such as mandatory mask wearing on public transport and only small numbers of people being allowed to each home. Loading "Amber" restrictions would kick in if there were between 60 and 99 cases over two weeks, prompting further limits on socialising. "Red" restrictions would be triggered as cases hit 100 or more over the same period, similar to the stage four rules currently in place in Melbourne.

Under Professor McLaws' traffic-light plan, these tough rules would have started on June 18 at the latest, weeks before stage three restrictions were reintroduced across Melbourne and Mitchell Shire on July 7, and she said they may have prevented the worst of the second surge. "[Melbourne] was already in amber and flicking to red in May and June," she said. "But you dont wait until it gets to 100 until you act. The best time to act is when youre in the amber zone so you never had to go to a hard lockdown." On Monday Mr Frydenberg was highly critical of the Andrews government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and lack of transparency on plans to emerge from lockdown. The federal Treasurer accused the Premier of overseeing the "biggest public policy failure by a state government in living memory", in one of his strongest remarks yet against the Victorian Labor government.

"Victorians want to hear a definitive plan from Daniel Andrews about the lifting of stage four restrictions," Mr Frydenberg said in Canberra just before 9am. "What has transpired in Victoria is like a slow-motion car crash, and you saw the over-reach from the Premier just a few days ago asking for a 12-month extension of emergency powers. "So whether its the litany of failures on hotel quarantine, whether its the testing and tracing which is not up to the standard of other states, whether its the rejection of the Defence Force personnel that were on offer from the Commonwealth, there have been mistakes in Victoria." The Premier said he did not have time to argue with Mr Frydenberg and insisted he was focused on battling the pandemic. "None of us have the luxury to be playing politics with these things, Im just not going to do that," he said in response to the Treasurers comments. "Our nation and our state requires all leaders of all political persuasions to work together  Im just not interested in having an argument or a fight with anything or anybody other than this wicked coronavirus."
By William Hollingworth, KYODO NEWS - Aug 31, 2020 - 15:02 | Feature, All, World, Japan

New light is being shone on the British royal family's 400-year association with Japan after fresh research into their extensive holdings of artworks.

Curators have been studying more than one thousand Japanese pieces and, for the first time, have been able to establish the provenance of several key items thanks to new information.

Many of the standout objects in the collection are gifts to mark visits, coronations and treaties. Direct interaction between rulers only really happened after Japan reopened to the West in the 1850s after a period of seclusion from the 1630s.

Thanks to an investigation, staff have been able to establish that a pair of folding screen paintings in the collection were those given to Queen Victoria by Shogun Tokugawa Iemochi in 1860 following the signing of a treaty in 1858.

Similarly, researchers only recently established that a silk embroidered screen showing the different seasons was, in fact, a present from Emperor Meiji to King Edward VII on his coronation in 1902.

Many of the pieces have never appeared in print, which is why the Royal Collection, the body which looks after the royal family's works of art, has decided to publish a book to accompany an exhibition of the items which will take place at Buckingham Palace in April 2022.

The event was to have taken place this year, timed to coincide with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 400th anniversary of the death of William Adams, the first Englishman to arrive in Japan. But it had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking to Kyodo News, the exhibition's curator, Rachel Peat, said the Japanese holdings "are significant due to the provenance of the objects. Many are official, imperial gifts of exceptional quality." Some were made by Living National Treasures (outstanding practitioners of traditional Japanese arts) or official suppliers to the Imperial Household Agency.

"Many were prepared specifically for presentation to the British royal family. Some were personalized for their recipients, making them unique."

"This 400-year process of exchange has never really been told before."

Other highlights in the collection include a dagger and scabbard presented to Queen Victoria's second son, Prince Alfred, in London in 1871, two years after his first visit to Japan. The gift was not ready for presentation during the prince's trip, which was the first by a royal of any nationality.

The Royal Collection has now established Emperor Meiji personally designed the scabbard and hilt made of gold, ray skin, and lacquered wood in a cherry blossom design.

Peat says other presents are highly symbolic.

Emperor Hirohito gave Queen Elizabeth an ornate lacquer cosmetics box by eminent lacquerer Shosai Shirayama as a coronation gift in 1953. It features a fluffy white heron on the lid.

This item is one of the most "fascinating" for Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, the Sainsbury Institute's research director for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, who has cast her critical eye over the collection.

She told Kyodo News, "Just after the devastation of World War II and the occupation of Japan, this work feels as if it was carefully chosen to communicate the deep ties between the two nations that remained unruffled."

Another highlight and reflection of both cultures mixing is a square stoneware glazed vessel made by leading artist Shoji Hamada. It was presented to Queen Elizabeth on her state visit to Japan in 1975. The potter had worked in England and was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, while the Queen gave the emperor a plate by Hamada's friend and colleague Bernard Leach.

Other interesting items include a lacquer bowl and silver stag given to Queen Victoria in 1865 after British and Japanese forces exchanged fire following a dispute at Kagoshima in 1863. The gift was designed to be a token of friendship.

Staff at the Royal Collection have also been trawling through archives at Windsor Castle and have unearthed letters, diaries and photographs reflecting on royal trips to Japan.

Prince George of Wales, later George V, describes getting dragon and tiger tattoos on his arms at the tender age of 16 in Japan in 1881. He really appreciated the detail that went into Japanese art, the letters note.

Rousmaniere said she is "thrilled" about the book and exhibition as the Japanese collection is "exceptional," and the pieces are in "excellent condition." She added the beauty of the book is that it tells each item's biography and how that enriched relations between Britain and Japan.

Many works can be found in the state apartments at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, which are used for official events attended by members of the royal family.

Peat said, "The Japanese works of art have been treasured by successive generations of the royal family for many centuries."

And over the years, monarchs have allowed certain Japanese items to be loaned to museums and exhibitions.

The Royal Collection is not owned personally by Queen Elizabeth but is held in trust by her as sovereign for her successors and the nation.

The earliest gift in the collection is a samurai armor set to James I in 1613 after Britain obtained trading rights for the East India Company.

After Japan shut itself off to the rest of the world in the 1630s, royals were left to buy Japanese porcelain and lacquer on the open market, often from Dutch and English traders.

In the early 20th century, Queen Mary (Queen Elizabeth's grandmother) ensured several rooms at Buckingham Palace were specifically devoted to Japanese artworks.

"Japan: Courts and Culture," the book to accompany the forthcoming exhibition, was published in May by the Royal Collection Trust.

Related coverage:

Imperial couple's visit to Britain postponed amid coronavirus spread

Emperor, his family cancel summer retreat due to pandemic

Princess Mako's marriage to boyfriend in limbo amid virus pandemic




Illustrative image (Source: Reuters)

The event was held online on August 29 within the framework of the 52nd ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting (AEM-52).

Participants discussed the implementation of a comprehensive recovery plan, together with the enforcement of the Hanoi Plan of Action on economic cooperation among ASEAN member states, and supply chain linkages in response to the COVID-19 to minimise the pandemics impact on regional economy.

They exchanged views on reports that senior economic officials submitted to Economic Ministers, as well as preparations for dialogues with ASEANs partners and the business community in the region.

They shared opinions on the reform process of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Participating ministers also discussed and approved several documents submitted by senior economic officials, including ASEAN digital integration indicator, Terms of Reference (TOR) on connecting ASEAN innovation centres, and guidance to boost comprehensive business in ASEAN. Of note, ASEAN digital integration indicator and TOR on connecting ASEAN innovation centres are two among 13 priority initiatives of Vietnam as ASEAN Chair in 2020./.
As co-founder of SkipTheDishes, I never thought Id see the day when our prime minister would advise us to stay at home and order food delivery.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 31/8/2020 (507 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

As co-founder of SkipTheDishes , I never thought Id see the day when our prime minister would advise us to stay at home and order food delivery.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, more than three million Canadians have lost their jobs, and small businesses have been forced to close. This needs to get us thinking about the future and what putting the pieces back together looks like.

Generations of small businesses in Canada are currently at risk of permanent closure due to COVID-19 and international competition. Action needs to be taken to protect our local businesses and preserve the value they add to our communities.

Putting our money where our mouth is

While we say we support local businesses, the numbers dont add up. Social media may lead you to believe that local businesses are supported by the masses , but the market share of large companies paints a different picture. For example, five companies control 80 per cent of Canadas grocery market with 7,000 small businesses making up the remainder. Thats a lot of mouths being fed from a small slice of the pie.

As consumers, we need to start valuing small businesses beyond the price we pay at the till, including the 7.7 million people they employ and the hundreds of thousands of new jobs they create each year.

Small businesses must take a page out of the playbook of larger enterprises and make it easier for consumers to support them  until then, Canadians wont actually follow through. Our tolerance has worn thin toward small businesses lack of flexibility in adapting to todays lifestyle and digital habits and will continue to drive purchasing decisions toward tech-forward commerce.

Why small businesses are trailing behind

While digital technology and social media can make it easier for small businesses and customers to build relationships, there's a price to pay for every connection. Big Tech media monopolize 80 per cent of the digital ad market , driving up prices and blocking small businesses from reaching their customers. Many small businesses cant afford to make their connections online, where most consumers spend their time and money.

Small businesses will continue to struggle to survive amidst a highly digital market if they cannot find ways to gain insights into consumer behaviour that are more reliable than surveys or comment cards. Not having consistent access to such information makes it challenging to attract new customers and build loyalty.

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 reality is, were losing the local businesses we love. The cost of COVID-19 has been steep, with the CFIB reporting that 158,000 small firms may close in Canada and that, coincidentally, four in five Canadians are worried their local businesses may close. Canadas unemployment rate may skyrocket upwards of 20 per cent into next year.

Recovery plan: Create win-win relationships with small businesses and consumer

Despite all the drawbacks, small businesses still have a fighting chance if they move swiftly and play to their strengths. With far less legacy tech debt and more agility, they can level out the playing field.

On a normal day in Canada, small businesses already operate at maximum capacity in the pursuit of competing with their larger, cash-rich competitors. When we add the additional layer of COVID-19 to the mix, which has impacted our communities for nearly half the year, its not hard to see why so many of our local favourites face the peril of permanent closures.

Changes need to come from both sides of the cash register to mitigate these widespread closures  some of which have already begun. Small businesses need to embrace technology in order to deliver more relevant, timely value to customers. As customers, we need to do better to make intentional spending decisions on local options in our neighbourhoods.

Small businesses are the heart of our communities. Without them, our country wouldnt be the same. Its time to protect what we stand for and come through for all Canadians.
Why am I so overweight? I've been asking myself this since childhood.

Is it because - as my doctor has suggested - I just eat too much, and too many of my meals come from a restaurant that serves their food in a bucket?

Perhaps it's because when I do eat a home-cooked meal, I eat off a plate that's too big? Or that I eat everything on that big plate? Or that I tend to eat everything on that big plate in front of a big TV watching Murder, She Wrote?

Is it my lack of exercise? Faulty genes, perhaps? Am I just big boned?

Or could I be listening to the wrong kind of music?

This isn't as ridiculous as it might sound. Over the last four decades, scientists have been studying the extraordinary effects that music can have on what we eat and how we eat.

For starters, they found that the ambient music volume in a supermarket or restaurant can influence our food choices there. When researchers at the University of South Florida manipulated the ambient music in a cafeteria, for example, turning the volume up triggered an incredible 20pc increase in the number of customers ordering "unhealthy" meals.

Music volume also influences alcohol consumption. In an experiment by the Universite de Bretagne-Sud, researchers manipulated the music volume in two bars on a Saturday night while covertly monitoring the drinking behaviour of a number of customers.

They found that when the music was loud, the customers drank more - considerably more, and in a shorter space of time.

According to Nicholas Guegen, who led the research, there were two possible reasons for this behaviour.

"One, in agreement with previous research on music, food and drink, high sound levels may have caused higher arousal, which led the subjects to drink faster and to order more drinks," he said. "Two, loud music may have had a negative effect on social interaction in the bar, so that patrons drank more because they talked less."

But it's not just the volume that affects our eating - and drinking - behaviour. Music tempo has been found to affect how quickly we eat; while music genre - rock, pop, classical, jazz etc - can influence how much we enjoy the food we're eating.

Even wine choices can be manipulated by the music playing in the wine aisle.

 TEMPO & ARTICULATION

Recently, in an effort to better understand music's influence on eating behaviour, researchers at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, led by Signe Lund Mathiesen, carried out a couple of experiments.

"I have a background in musicology and art history," says Signe, "and on the surface that has nothing to do with food or food science.

"But we had found that, while a lot of the previous studies reported on the effects of music on eating behaviour, they did not pay much attention to the music's features. They didn't really discuss the music in any way.

"I think it's important that when we use music in scientific studies, we discuss the features of the music."

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For these experiments, the team focused on tempo and articulation.

"Much of the literature is reporting on tempo as the main feature of music that can modulate eating behaviours," explains Signe. "And we decided on articulation because it hasn't been explored to any meaningful extent in the literature - especially not within food science."

Tempo, of course, is how quickly a piece of music is played. Articulation refers to how the notes are played in that piece of music: either staccato, where each note is short and played separately from the others; or legato, where the notes are tied together and played smoothly, one after the other, with no breaks.

In the first experiment, the participants were told that they were going to be evaluating five pieces of chocolate while listening to music. They did not know they were going to be timed while they ate the chocolate.

Two versions of the same piece of music were created for the experiment: one slow (45BPM) and legato articulated; the other fast (180BPM) and staccato articulated. After eating the first piece of chocolate in silence, each participant ate two pieces while listening to the slow/legato music and two pieces while listening to the fast/staccato music.

The covert timing revealed that the participants spent significantly more time eating while listening to the slow/legato music.

In the second experiment, four versions of the same piece of music were used: slow and legato; slow and staccato; fast and legato; and fast and staccato. The researchers found that, compared to silence, all of the musical variations led to a longer eating time, with the slow and legato combination providing the best results.

"It may not be the most surprising result," said Singe, "but it's definitely an eye-opener that the eating time significantly increased with just the presence of music."

Signe believes that a couple of factors could be behind the music's effect on eating speed. One of those factors is called the entrainment effect.

"Entrainment means that you align some physiological functions to external stimuli," she explains. "In this case it's the beat. The entrainment effect can be quite strong. You see it a lot in fitness training. Joggers, for example, will design playlists that will give them a better run."

The other factor is distraction. Normally, distractions during meals - such as watching Murder, She Wrote - are frowned upon, but Signe believes that musical distractions warrant a closer look.

"Put it this way," she says, "it's something that we're designing new studies to investigate further."

 SLOWLY & MINDFULLY

Regardless of what's behind the phenomenon, it seems fair to conclude that the team have established that the mere presence of music can slow our eating rate.

But why is a slow eating rate important?

Well, it's important because our bodies can be quite sluggish when it comes to letting us know that we've had enough to eat - quite often we've already eaten too much before we start to feel full.

But by eating slowly - and more mindfully, we give our bodies a chance to get the message to us before we've had a chance to over-indulge. So, theoretically, while you might be eating for longer, you would be eating less.

"Our study alone can't say anything about portion size because it used fixed sample sizes - and we instructed the participants to eat each sample," says Signe. "But the fact that eating time can be manipulated points towards a possible effect on portion size - or at least food intake rate, which may ultimately lead to some modification of portion size."

There are many practical public health applications of this research. For example, music could be created for the sole purpose of manipulating eating behaviour and used alongside other strategies to combat obesity.

And as the researchers suggest in their paper, music could be utilised in school and workplace cafeterias with a view to "encouraging healthier attitudes".

"If the public health sector is interested in more cost-effective drivers of healthier behaviours then an obvious place to begin would be directing attention to how food surroundings are designed," she says. "Music is a cheap way of creating a healthier environment. It requires little infrastructure. If you have speakers, you can do this."

However, all of this - if it happens - will be some time in the future. Fortunately, just about anyone can exploit these musical effects now.

"If people would like to explore eating with music, definitely go for music that's low arousal - something that won't really trigger your heart rate," she explains. "If we think about the entrainment effect, 60 beats per minute corresponds to a resting heart rate.

"And people listen to music around that tempo - such as classical music and piano music - when they want to relax. And we have reason to believe that relaxation is a trigger for a more enjoyable meal experience.

"And again, if we think about mindfulness and savouring, enjoying the meal more could also affect food intake."

According to Signe, it's an area ripe for individual experimentation and creativity.

"Try a bunch of things," she says. "Experiment with playing music - and think about how you would pair different types of food with different types of music. Create your own playlists.

"Even playing music while cooking can be quite rewarding."

And when we're shopping or eating out, Signe advises that we should try to become more aware of our surroundings.

"Pay attention to the sound around you," she says. "If you're out for dinner, really pay attention to the music the restaurant's playing. Ask yourself: how is this affecting my mood? How is this affecting the setting?

"And if people become more aware, they might be able to self-monitor their behaviour more. People are notoriously bad at monitoring their own behaviours. We can't assess how much food we've eaten or how long ago we ate.

"So, becoming more aware of these things might help people to take more active responsibility for their food habits."
Drivers on e-hailing platforms in Nigerias Lagos State are embarking on a week-strike starting on Monday to protest against some aspects of the new regulations by the state.

The president of the National Union of Professional App-Based Workers Ayoade Ibrahim told The Guardian on Monday morning that the representative of the union was not a party to the agreement reached between operators such as Uber and Bolt, Lagos State and the Professional E-hailing Drivers and Private Owners Association.

App companies like Uber and Bolt push their responsibility to us, Ayoade said. We want to negotiate with Lagos State Government about the regulations and our responsibility.

Uber and Bolt did not immediately reply to enquiries about the matter.

The government announced on August 14 that the new regulations which were to become operational on August 20 have been modified after an initial outcry by the drivers on the burden the regulations will put on them.

For the drivers, one contentious regulation was the service tax to be charged on each trip while the e-hailing operators like Uber and Bolt were to pay up to N25 million license fee and N10 million annually for renewal of the license.

The commissioner for transport Frederic Oladeinde said the government would instead charge N20 per trip instead of 20 percent of the charges for each trip. There was also a 20 percent reduction in the license and renewal fees.

The drivers were also given up to 90 days to complete the necessary paperwork.

But Ayoade insisted on Monday that his union, which had already had five meetings with the official of the states Ministry of Transportation, was deliberately sidelined from the August meeting with the governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, because of its stance on the new regulations.

He said parts of the amended regulations still put heavy burdens on the drivers.

They did not call us for the final conclusion with Mr Governor, Ayoade said. They know our stand. That is why they sidelined us during the governors meeting. They denied us the opportunity to tell Mr Governor of our problems.

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Lebanons President Michel Aoun chose Mustapha Adib as prime minister-designate, tasking the little-known diplomat with steering a country still reeling from the deadly blast that tore through the capital Beirut.

Adib was confirmed with 90 of 128 votes in parliament on Sunday. Adib, the country's ambassador to Germany, was a close aide to former Prime Minister Najib Mikati. He said in a televised speech there is "a need to form a government in record time and to begin implementing reforms immediately.

Adib promised to restart talks with the International Monetary Fund over assistance for Lebanon, which is experiencing the worst economic crisis since its civil war in the aftermath of an explosion that killed at least 190 people on Aug. 4. Under intense public pressure, Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab and his ministers resigned less than a week after the blast, which authorities say was caused by some 2,700 tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate stored unsafely at Beiruts port since 2014.

Adib is eligible for the premiership under Lebanons sectarian-based power-sharing system, which requires the prime minister be a Sunni Muslim. Along with an endorsement from the Iran-backed Shiite Hezbollah movement, Adib has the backing of four former prime ministers, including Saad Hariri, who leads the main Sunni bloc known as the Future Movement.

Opposition groups in Lebanon swiftly rejected Adibs nomination, dismissing him as more of the same. Demonstrations that erupted in October over government corruption and economic mismanagement have gained steam in the wake of the Beirut blast, which protesters blame on negligence by Lebanons political class.

Adibs designation came the same day French President Emmanuel Macron was due to arrive in Beirut for a two-day visit. Macrons trip to the former French protectorate  his second in less than a month  is part of an effort to push for long-overdue reforms needed to pull Lebanon from the brink.

This story contains reporting from Agence France-Presse.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed hope that the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine would pass the bill on nationwide referendum at second reading in the near future.

"We wrote the program together with the people. Together with the Ukrainian people we defeated old politicians. We promised the rule of the people through a referendum, and this is another important point of the program, which should be implemented. The first law, which is necessary for this, is ready for second reading and, I am sure, it will be considered soon by the Ukrainian parliament," the head of state said during a congress of the Servant of the People Party on Monday.

Zelensky emphasized that for the first time in the history of Ukraine the citizens will be asked about their opinion on the nationwide level.

"It is you who will form the agenda, decide on the key issues, what is good and what is bad, what the country needs and what it does not need. Together we will decide on all important and very complicated tasks, just like our forefathers did hundreds of years ago," he said.
Gim Young-seo, the author of "Even Tears Shine in the Light"



By Kim Se-jeong




Billerica, Massachusetts, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Meridian Adhesives Group, a leading manufacturer and custom formulator of high-value adhesives technologies, recently announced the appointment of Brandon Willis to President of the companys Electronics Division.

Meridians Electronics Division currently encompasses three companies - Epoxy Technology, Inc., located in Billerica, Massachusetts; Epoxies, Etc., located in Cranston, Rhode Island; and Epoxy Technology Europe, located in Marlborough, United Kingdom. Willis will work with Meridian leadership to advance the divisions technological reputation and further its focus of being a premier solution provider to customers.

Willis comes to Meridian from his 10-year tenure with Uniseal, Inc., a global sealants and adhesives supplier owned by LG Chem. Willis most recently served as President and CEO of Uniseal, Inc., while simultaneously holding the title of Global Sr. Leader of Adhesives Business for LG Chem. Prior to this position, Willis worked as Director of Marketing and New Business Development for Uniseal, Inc. He also spent 17 years in the high performance coatings industry.

I am incredibly excited to be joining the Meridian team, said Willis. I look forward to leveraging my experience with the extensive skills and history of Epoxies, Etc. and Epoxy Technology to continue building a global business that delivers value to our customers as well as our supply chain partners.

Michael Harrington, current president of Epoxies, Etc. and the divisions commercial leader, will transition to retirement as Willis moves into the new position.

After 30 years of leading Epoxies, Etc., it is time to step aside and let new leadership take over, said Harrington. I have been fortunate to have developed friendships with customers, suppliers and employees over the years. This is what I will miss most about retiring from Epoxies, Etc. Brandon Willis is the right person to lead Epoxies, Etc. and the entire Meridian Adhesives Electronics Division. Brandon understands the importance of excellent customer service and driving creative technical solutions for challenging applications.

Harrington leaves a notable legacy at Epoxies, Etc. Having founded the company in 1987, he has been instrumental in its significant growth over the last 30 years and the development of the expert team that will continue to drive innovation and technological advancement.

I am extremely pleased to have Brandon joining our team, said Daniel Pelton, CEO of Meridian Adhesives Group. Brandon brings the right experience and leadership to take our electronics division to the next level of service for our clients and partners. Michael Harrington has been a solid operating consultant to myself and the broader Meridian Group, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

About Meridian Adhesives Group

Meridian Adhesives Group is a leading manufacturer of high-value adhesives and sealants technologies. Its portfolio of solutions includes high-performance specialty epoxy, polyurethane, hot melt and hybrid adhesives for the electronics, flooring, infrastructure and packaging markets. The company has operations in Dalton, GA; Fontana, CA; Billerica, MA; Pompano Beach, FL; Cranston, RI; Columbus, OH; Marlborough, UK; Augsburg, Germany; and Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information, visit www.meridianadhesives.com.

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LAS CRUCES  Jacob Gonzales, the man investigators believe to be responsible for the Aug. 20 kidnapping and battery of his ex-girlfriend, was arrested Thursday in El Paso by El Paso police.

Gonzales, 25, is charged with one first-degree felony count of kidnapping, one third-degree felony count of aggravated battery against a household member and a misdemeanor count of interference with communication.

Nathaniel Baca, 22 and Gonzales cousin, was arrested last week for his alleged part in the incident. Baca is charged one second-degree felony count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Baca was arrested about 8:30 a.m. Aug. 24 after crashing a vehicle and leading officers on a brief foot pursuit near Delano Drive.

Police became involved with the kidnapping incident when they were dispatched about 4:30 a.m. Aug. 20 to Memorial Medical Center where a 27-year-old woman was being treated for multiple non-life-threatening injuries.

Others are reading: Father who kidnapped children and took them to Mexico pleads guilty, awaits sentencing

The woman told investigations that Gonzales, her ex-boyfriend, and Baca, were armed with a rifle and handgun. Gonzales and Baca are accused of forcing the woman into her own vehicle where she was allegedly beat by Gonzales. Baca drove them to an undeveloped area where the suspects forced the woman to remove her clothes and shoes. They forced her into the vehicles trunk and drove to an unknown residence before returning to her home early Thursday morning. When the two suspects left her residence, the woman sought medical attention at the hospital.

Gonzales is expected to be extradited from El Paso to Las Cruces to face charges. Baca remains in custody at the Dona Ana County Detention Center. Both suspects will initially be held without bond.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: El Paso police arrest second Las Cruces kidnapping suspect

___

(c)2020 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
On the eve of President Donald Trumps visit to Kenosha, where a police shooting and related protests have spurred calls for reform, Wisconsins Republican-controlled Legislature took a pass on swift action.

The Legislature on Monday afternoon opened a special session called by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on police accountability and transparency. But in what is known as a skeletal session, there was no debate and most senators were absent. The session will remain open until Thursday, when it could be closed or extended.

Evers ordered the session last week after the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha in order to take up legislation he introduced in June that would ban no-knock warrants, mandate training on de-escalation techniques and create statewide standards on police use of force.

Trump reiterated late Monday his plan to visit Kenosha amid heightened tensions and a week of protests over Blakes shooting. Trump is moving forward with the visit despite Evers request he cancel because it would distract from the citys healing process.

Trump had a different view.

It may also increase enthusiasm and it could increase love and respect for our country, and thats why Im going because they did a fantastic job, Trump told reporters, referring to National Guard members who were called to respond to Kenoshas civil unrest.

Trump isnt planning to meet with Blakes family, who Trump said wanted to have lawyers involved in any conversation. On Monday, seven members of the 23-member Kenosha County Board urged Trump not to cancel his visit.

A quiet start

Midday on Monday, Reps. Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, and Tyler August, R-Lake Geneva, gaveled in the Assembly, while Senate Chief Clerk Jeff Renk gaveled in the Senate.

Few Republicans were present during the session, while a group of Democrats, including the Legislative Black Caucus, addressed media beforehand.

Steineke, addressing reporters in front of a darkened Assembly chamber filled with scaffolding for renovations, said meeting in a spur-of-the-moment special session to debate a package of major legislation is just not how it works. He said the bills should go through the normal legislative process, which would involve months of review by lawmakers and committees before possibly going to the floor.

He said a new task force created by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, to examine public safety and police policies and standards will instead review the legislation over the coming months and potentially develop other ideas to address police accountability.

Steineke, who was appointed chairman of the task force, said it will be composed of a diverse set of participants, with few legislators. Steineke said he anticipates the Legislature would come to the floor by Jan. 1 with a broad package of bills.

I think the momentum for change is clearly with us now, and so I want to capitalize on that, Steineke said when asked why Republicans didnt begin the process of developing policing legislation months ago, after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

Evers cites letdown

Under state law, the governor has the power to call lawmakers into session, but cannot force them to act and pass legislation. Republican lawmakers did not take action on Monday, just like in other special sessions called by Evers on topics such as gun control and changes to the spring election in response to COVID-19.

The people of Wisconsin dont want another task force or more delays  they want action and results, and they want it today, not tomorrow or some day months down the road, Evers said in a statement.

Its disappointing that theres no sense of urgency from Republicans, and its a letdown to all the people who are asking us to lead. We have been talking about these bills for months, and Republicans have had plenty of time to consider them on the merits.

Outcry over racism

Black legislators tore into Republicans for not taking action, and said the bills introduced by Evers are just one step in the right direction. Black leaders also called for the Legislature to take up Medicaid expansion and other policies that would help reduce racial disparities within Wisconsins Black community.

Blame for Jacob Blakes shooting does not fall at the hand of just one officer, said Rep. Shelia Stubbs, D-Madison. That day, our community was failed by leaders in action, leaders who have long overlooked the systemic injustices in our policing system. They failed us.

On policing, Rep. Kalan Haywood, D-Milwaukee, said he believes not all police officers are bad apples, but that just one or two can affect the entire police force.

Why is it that when men, women, children, Black and Brown people are being murdered, we dont change policy? Haywood said. Were faced with barriers, excuses, political posturing and every reason in the world why we cant make change. We must address excessive force immediately.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said last week the chamber over the coming months plans to examine the police accountability legislation put forward by Evers, as well as a package of bills by Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, to increase transparency and community involvement in law enforcement. Fitzgerald, however, provided no details on when, if ever, the Senate would meet to pass legislation.

Fitzgerald, who is running for Congress, also said he wants to see legislation that would enhance penalties for violence against police, firefighters and emergency responders.

Evers highlights

The legislation proposed by Evers would, among other things:

Establish statewide use-of-force standards for all law enforcement agencies that would allow deadly force only as a last resort.

Prohibit discipline of law enforcement officers for reporting violations of the use-of-force policy.

Develop a model use-of-force policy.

Require eight hours of annual training on use-of-force options and de-escalation techniques.

Ban chokeholds.

Require the Department of Justice to publish an annual report on use-of-force incidents.

Prohibit no-knock search warrants.

Wanggaards highlights

Wanggaards package of bills doesnt go as far as Evers on use of force. Among other things, it would:

Penalize cities and towns for reducing their law enforcement budgets.

Create an Independent Use of Force Review Advisory Board that would investigate police use-of-force incidents and make recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Require law enforcement agencies to have a policy on use of force.

Require the public be involved in selection of police and fire commissioners in Madison and Milwaukee.

Require the Department of Justice to publish an annual report on law enforcement use-of-force incidents.

Prohibit training in the use of chokeholds.

Photos: Scenes from a week of unrest in Kenosha

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Simplilearn said the pandemic had accelerated demand for skills in areas such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data science and cybersecurity.

At a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the jobs market and resulted in layoffs, salary freezes and pay cuts, edtech firm Simplilearn is witnessing an increasing demand from professionals to upgrade their skills.

The firm, which provides digital skills training, is doubling down on its global expansion, especially in markets such as the Middle East, Africa and the Far East, where it is observing most of the demand for its products and services.

The firm said the pandemic had accelerated demand for skills in areas such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data science and cybersecurity.

There are concerns over job losses. Enrollments for our courses have grown by 100 per cent, said Krishna Kumar, founder and CEO, Simplilearn, in an interview.

There have been job losses across the sectors.

"But the sectors which have been impacted big time (due to the pandemic)have not touched their digital skills teams such as travel tech which include data scientists and analytics professionals," he said.

The firm, which has dual headquarters in San Francisco and Bengaluru, is also witnessing a higher demand for its courses from professionals, who have lost their jobs and they are being provided free access to some of the courses through its app.

The world has changed, it is not the world of our parents' generation, where you would get the job, do it for the rest of your life and get a pension once you retire.

"You now need to learn continuously and make sure you are desirable (for employment), said Kumar.

Otherwise, don't be surprised if someone who is junior to you looks for the same job and you end up losing that job, he said.

Simplilearn said that it was identifying local partners who could represent it in different markets to provide its skilling courses.

The firm said it had bagged a major customer in the Middle East - Gulf Business Machines (GBM) - a leading end-to-end digital solutions and services provider there.

Through this partnership, Simplilearn will enable employee skilling programmes by providing access to an array of live instructor-led classes across new-age technologies such as AI, cloud computing, data science and cybersecurity.

This learning initiative will equip the employees with industry-specific skills, preparing them to meet the demands of a digital future and contribute to the organizations growth.

The learning programme offered by Simplilearn follows a blended learning approach which combines expert instructor-led live classrooms with applied learning components. Programmes are available for beginner, intermediate and advanced learning levels.

Along with 24/7 teaching assistance, all programmes offer sessions with subject matter experts, industry-certified Capstone projects and hands-on practice on Integrated Labs.

On completion of the programmes, learners will receive certificates of completion from Simplilearn, and related industry partners and universities.

Simplilearn's Kumar said that the company was collaborating with partners in foreign markets such as Africa, which along with the government, were focusing on providing digital skills to youth.

He said with an increasing number of professionals working from home, regions such as Africa were expecting a lot of outsourcing projects.

Simplilearn, which is backed by investors such as Mayfield, Kalaari Capital and Helion Venture Partners, is expecting to cross revenues of Rs 500 crore in the financial year 2020-21.

The firm has helped more than 1 million professionals and 1,000 companies across 150 countries.

About 70 per cent of its business comes from outside India.
Northern Territory Dept. of Tourism, Sport and Culture/AP/Shutterstock The 770-pound crocodile

A massive crocodile likely had Australian wildlife rangers saying "Crikey!" this week after they discovered the 770-pound creature swimming at a tourist destination.

Wildlife rangers confirmed on Monday that they had trapped the enormous reptile in Australia's Flora River at a remote nature park, just 75 miles southwest of the Outback town, Katherine, according to the Associated Press.

The saltwater crocodile measured in at a whopping 4.4-meters (14.5-feet) and a total of 350-kilograms (770-pounds)  marking the largest croc in years to be trapped in Australias Northern Territory, Katherine senior wildlife ranger John Burke told the AP.

Burke said the newly-captured reptile was taken to a crocodile farm, where it is expected to become part of a breeding program.

According to The Katherine Times, the crocodile was spotted after two poor wet seasons in the Katherine region and in a river that has recently experienced low flow.

Burke told the local outlet he believes the crocodiles are migrating because of the rising temperatures, and that the recent capture in the tourist area serves as a "serious reminder you are in croc country."

RELATED: 7-Foot Crocodile Swims in Ohio Creek While Children Play: 'We Had No Idea What Awaited Us'

"Crocodiles can be found in any waterway in the Top End region and you should always be Crocwise," Burke told The Katherine Times. "Never be complacent around the water and only swim in designated swimming areas or pools."

Burke also pointed out to the AP that crocodiles have been increasing in Australias Northern Territory since the early 1970s when a federal law was passed, making them a protected species.

"They certainly are increasing [in number], and thats part of the reason we have the [wildlife] management zones  to reduce the numbers in high-visitation areas so theres less chance of interaction between salties and people," he told the outlet.

Story continues

Prior to Monday, the last major crocodile sighting was three years ago in the Katherine River, which is located in the same wildlife management zone, Burke shared with the AP. That reptile measured 4.7-meters (15.5-feet), the outlet reported.

RELATED VIDEO: Man Loses Leg After Crocodile Attack in Costa Rica

Man Loses Leg After Croc Attack in Costa Rica

The Colorado surfer was crossing a river with a friend when he was attacked

A total of 167 saltwater crocodiles have been captured in the Northern Territory region this year, according to The Katherine Times.

On their website, the Northern Territory promotes crocodile sightings as part of their tourist experience, writing, "The Top End is also known for its rich wetlands, wild rainforests and cascading waterfalls, which are all on show at nearby Kakadu and Litchfield national parks. Birds congregate in their thousands around the Top Ends wetlands, as do other iconic animals like the saltwater crocodile."

"There are plenty of opportunities to encounter crocs  safely  in the Top End: on a river cruise, at dedicated crocodile parks and in the famous Cage of Death in Darwin city," the site adds.
MELBOURNE, Fla., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Kona Gold Solutions, Inc. (OTCQB: KGKG), a holding company focused on product development in the hemp and CBD functional beverage sector, is pleased to announce it has entered into an agreement with Global Imports LLC, who will exclusively distribute Kona Gold Hemp Energy Drinks Internationally. Global Imports, based out of North Carolina, have partnerships around the world and will be focusing on bringing Kona Gold Hemp Energy Drinks to key international markets.

Global Imports LLC is a Supply Chain, Distribution, and Logistics company with firm roots in the Importing & Exporting Business. Global Imports started as an Importing & Exporting Business managing a variety of goods from locations all across the Globe to the United States and other Countries abroad. After creating an extensive network abroad, Global Imports has since expanded operations into Wholesale, Distribution, Supply Chain, and Logistics. By providing a wide range of Business Services within these Industries, which includes Sourcing, Transportation Management, Project Management, and various other Operations, they arrange for Customized Business Solutions & Products for Customers around the World.

"Global Imports is all about connecting countries with the best products possible. Kona Gold has put their faith in the illustrious Global Imports name and has asked for our expertise to support them in making their lifestyle brand globally known. By doing this, we take their products into our hands with the utmost care and ambition to assist them in achieving their worldwide goals. We look forward to our partnership and future in the hemp industry together," stated Tony Bowling, Chief Executive Officer, Global Imports LLC.



"Kona Gold has been diligently working on solidifying key partnerships as we focus on bringing our beverage brands into new markets. We are excited to announce our new partnership with Global Imports, who will be bringing our Kona Gold Hemp Energy Drinks to International markets," stated Robert Clark, CEO of Kona Gold Solutions, Inc. "Global Import's relationships with partners in key International markets creates exciting opportunities for Kona Gold, expanding its product reach beyond the U.S. market."

Chris Selinger, V.P. of Sales for Kona Gold Solutions, Inc. added, "This is our first International partnership and marks a significant milestone for the Company. We have been seeking a strategic partner to represent Kona Gold outside the United States and we are excited to be working with Global Imports. We have already begun to receive interest from some very exciting International markets."

For more information regarding Global Imports, please visit:

https://www.globalimportsnc.com

For more information regarding Kona Gold, please visit:

https://www.konagoldhemp.com

https://www.facebook.com/konagoldhemp

https://twitter.com/konagoldhemp

https://www.instagram.com/konagoldhemp/

For more information regarding HighDrate, please visit:

https://www.highdrateme.com

https://www.facebook.com/HighDrateMe/

https://twitter.com/highdrateme

https://www.instagram.com/highdrateme/

For more information regarding Gold Leaf Distribution, please visit:

https://www.goldleafdist.com

https://www.facebook.com/GoldLeafDist/



Kona Gold Solutions, Inc.:

Kona Gold Solutions, Inc., a Delaware corporation, has created wholly-owned subsidiaries, Kona Gold LLC, HighDrate, LLC, and Gold Leaf Distribution, LLC. Kona Gold, LLC has developed a premium Hemp-Infused Energy Drink line; please visit its website at www.konagoldhemp.com. HighDrate, LLC has developed the beverage industry's first CBD-Infused Energy Water, available in 6 delicious flavors; please visit its website at www.highdrateme.com. Gold Leaf Distribution, LLC was created to fill the Company's distribution needs in markets that it wants to enter quickly; please visit its website at www.goldleafdist.com. Kona Gold and its family of companies are located on the east coast of Florida in Melbourne and in Greer, South Carolina.



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," "expects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "project," "intend," and similar expressions. The Company may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in press releases and other written materials, and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate. The Company cautions that these forward-looking statements are further qualified by other factors including, but not limited to, those set forth in the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-1. 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, delays in completing various engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technological advances and delivering technological innovations, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, and various other factors beyond the Company's control. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any statements in this release, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Investor Relations Contact:

Robert Clark

+1-844-714-2224

[email protected]

SOURCE Kona Gold Solutions, Inc.

Related Links

https://konagoldhemp.com


(Natural News) Some Americans continue to believe that when they go to the internet they will get a free flow of useful information that will guide them in making decisions or coming to conclusions about the state of the world. That conceit might have been true to an extent twenty years ago, but the growth and consolidation of corporate information management firms has instead limited access to material that it does not approve of, thereby successfully shaping the political and economic environment to conform with their own interests. Facebook, Google and other news and social networking sites now all have advisory panels that are authorized to ban content and limit access by members.

This de facto censorship is particularly evident when using the internet information search sites themselves, a service that is dominated by Google. Ron Unz has observed how when the CEO of Google Sundar Pichai faced congressional scrutiny on July 29th together with other high-tech executives, the questioning was hardly rigorous and no one even asked how the sites are regulated to promote certain information that is approved of while suppressing views or sources that are considered to be undesirable.

(Article by Philip Giraldi republished from UNZ.com)

The information sites generally get a free pass from government scrutiny because they are useful to those who run the country from Washington and Wall Street. That the internet is a national security issue was clearly demonstrated when the Barack Obama Administration sought to develop a switch that could be used to kill it in the event of a national crisis. No politician or corporate chief executive wants to get on the bad side of Big Tech and find his or her name largely eliminated from online searches, or, alternatively, coming up all too frequently with negative connotations.

Google, for example, ranks the information that it displays so it can favor certain points of view and dismiss others. Generally speaking, progressive sites are favored and conservative sites are relegated to the bottom of the search with the expectation that they will not be visited. In late July, investigative journalists noted that Google was apparently testing its technical ability to blacklist conservative media on its search engine which processes more than 3.5 billion online searches every day, comprising 94 percent of internet searching. Sites targeted and made to effectively disappear from results included NewsBusters, the Washington Free Beacon, The Blaze, Townhall, The Daily Wire, PragerU, LifeNews, Project Veritas, Judicial Watch, The Resurgent, Breitbart, Drudge, Unz, the Media Research Center and CNSNews. All the sites affected are considered to be politically conservative and no progressive or liberal sites were included.

One has to suspect that the tech companies like Google are working hand-in-hand with some regulators within the Trump administration to purge the internet, primarily by removing foreign competition both in hardware and software from countries like China. This will give the ostensibly U.S. companies monopoly status and will also allow the government to have sufficient leverage to control the message. If this process continues, the internet itself will become nationally or regionally controlled and will inevitably cease to be a vehicle for free exchange of views. Recent steps taken by the U.S. to block Huawei 5G technology and also force the sale of sites like TikTok have been explained as national security issues, but they are more likely designed to control aspects of the internet.

Washington is also again beating the familiar drum that Russia is interfering in American politics, with an eye on the upcoming election. Last week saw the released of a 77 page report produced by the State Departments Global Engagement Center (GEC) on Russian internet based news and opinion sources that allegedly are guilty of spreading disinformation and propaganda on behalf of the Kremlin. It is entitled Understanding Russias Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem and has a lead paragraph asserting that Russias disinformation and propaganda ecosystem is the collection of official, proxy, and unattributed communication channels and platforms that Russia uses to create and amplify false narratives.

Perhaps not surprisingly, The New York Times is hot on the trail of Russian malfeasance, describing the report and its conclusions in a lengthy article State Dept. Traces Russian Disinformation Links that appeared on August 5th.

The government report identifies a number of online sites that it claims are actively involved in the disinformation effort. The Times article focuses on one site in particular, describing how The report states that the Strategic Culture Foundation [website] is directed by Russias foreign intelligence service, the S.V.R., and stands as a prime example of longstanding Russian tactics to conceal direct state involvement in disinformation and propaganda outlets. The organization publishes a wide variety of fringe voices and conspiracy theories in English, while trying to obscure its Russian government sponsorship. It also quotes Lea Gabrielle, the GEC Director, who explained that The Kremlin bears direct responsibility for cultivating these tactics and platforms as part of its approach of using information and disinformation as a weapon.

As Russia has been falsely accused of supporting the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and the existence of alternative news sites funded wholly or in part by a foreign government is not ipso facto an act of war, it is interesting to note the evidence that The Times provides based on its own investigation to suggest that Moscow is about to disrupt the upcoming election. It is: Absent from the report is any mention of how one of the writers for the Strategic Culture Foundation weighed in this spring on a Democratic primary race in New York. The writer, Michael Averko, published articles on the foundations website and in a local publication in Westchester County, N.Y., attacking Evelyn N. Farkas, a former Obama administration official who was running for Congress. In recent weeks, the F.B.I. questioned Mr. Averko about the Strategic Culture Foundation and its ties to Russia. While those attacks did not have a decisive effect on the election, they showed Moscows continuing efforts to influence votes in the United States

Excuse me, but someone writing for an alternative website with relatively low readership criticizing a candidate for congress does not equate to the Kremlins interfering in an American election. Also, the claim that the Strategic Culture Foundation is a disinformation mechanism is overwrought. Yes, the site is located in Moscow and it may have some government support but it features numerous American and European contributors in addition to Russians. I have been writing for the site for nearly three years and I know many of the other Americans who also do so. We are generally speaking antiwar and often critical of U.S. foreign policy but the contributors include conservatives like myself, libertarians and progressives and we write on all kinds of subjects.

And here is the interesting part: not one of us has ever been told what to write. Not one of us has ever even had a suggestion coming from Moscow on a good topic for an article. Not one of us has ever had an article or headline changed or altered by an editor. Putting on my ex-intelligence officer hat for a moment, that is no way to run an influencing or disinformation operation intended to subvert an election. Sure, Russia has a point of view on the upcoming election and its managed media outlets will reflect that bias but the sweeping allegations are nonsense, particularly in an election that will include billions of dollars in real disinformation coming from the Democratic and Republican parties.

Putting together what you no longer can find when you search the internet with government attempts to suppress alternative news sites one has to conclude that we Americans are in the middle of an information war. Who controls the narrative controls the people, or so it seems. It is a dangerous development, particularly at a time when no one knows whom to trust and what to believe. How it will play out between now and the November election is anyones guess.

Read more at: UNZ.com
The World Trade Organizations director-general Roberto Azevedo steps down on Monday, leaving the already-damaged global watchdog leaderless as it faces the biggest crisis in its 25-year history. As the WTOs influence seeps away, rising international tensions and protectionism during a Covid-induced slowdown, most obviously between China and President Donald Trumps US administration, make reform of global trade rules ever more urgent. This is indeed a new  though alas not unsurprising  low point for the WTO, said Rohinton Medhora, ...
While Houston didn't necessarily answer the call to defund or abolish the police, the Houston city council is taking action by proposing policy changes to help create a more harmonious relationship between civilians and police.

Related: Houston does the exact opposite of 'defunding the police'

On Monday, city council members came forward with a list of 25 suggestions for reforming the Houston Police Department in an open letter to Mayor Sylvester Turner. The council members want the demands to be included in the next Meet and Confer Agreement, as the city is about to begin negotiations with the police union.

"The urgency needed to address police misconduct and racial injustice requires solutions that lead to actionable and impactful reform," the letters authors wrote.

The letter makes suggestions like conducting targeted recruitment efforts at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions and designating a citizen, appointed by the new oversight board, to be present at the scene of all walk-throughs of officer involved shootings.

The letter's standout request is for a complete overhaul of the Independent Police Oversight Board. The letters asks that a new board be put in place to allow "complete autonomy, access to all unclassified information from the HPD and investigative power."

The open letter is signed by councilors Jerry Davis  District B, Edward Pollard  District J, Tiffany D. Thomas- District F. Dr. Carolyn Evans-Shabazz- District D and Vice Mayor Pro-Tem Martha Castex-Tatum  District K.

In the closing of the letter, the council members say they believe "these policy changes can be implemented immediately and will ensure needed oversight, transparency, and accountability in policing from the local level."

Read more on HoustonChronicle.com.
People in the imperial capital of Hue are very good at cooking so they have many recipes to create unique and delicious dishes using salt with cereals, vegetables, meat and fish. One of these delicacies is rice served with salt.

Rice served with nine kinds of salt. (Photo: Vietnam Pictorial)

There are up to a dozen kinds of salt, such as muoi tieu (pepper salt), muoi vung (sesame salt), muoi sa (lemongrass salt), muoi rieng (galingale salt), muoi tom (shrimp salt) and muoi thit heo (pork salt). The dish is imbued with the culinary art of Hue and is a favourite of both the poor and the rich.

People are finicky about processing the different kinds of salt by frying, steaming and braising. It depends on the processing methods to create the distinctive colours and tastes of each kind of salt.

Previously, only special guests were given a feast of rice with different kinds of salt and the dishes were placed on small, antique plates or bowls that looked eye-catching and smart. The rice was cooked from fragrant Nang Huong rice in a small earthen pot.

When enjoying the dish, it is necessary to chew slowly to enhance the fragrance of the rice and the salty, peppery, sweet, greasy taste of different kinds of salt.

At present, some cooks make the effort to search and preserve recipes to make the dish with the hope of preserving a culinary feature of Hue. For this reason, visitors to Hue will have a chance to enjoy this delicacy. Nhan Dan

Hue approves night market plan Local authorities in the central province of Thua Thien Hue have approved a plan to set up a night market in the existing parking lot of Dong Ba Market, in the former imperial citadel, as a destination for tourists.
Guwahati/Agartala/Shillong, Aug 31 : The Chief Ministers and political leaders of eight northeastern states cutting across political lines remembered their personal experience and expressed deep grief for former President Pranab Mukherjee, who passed away on Monday evening in Delhi.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal tweeted: "The end of an era. My deepest condolences at the demise of former President of India, Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee. I join the nation in solemn prayers as one of our towering personalities in public life leaves for the heavens above.".

Assam Finance and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is also the convenor of the BJP-led alliance, North East Democratic Alliance, said that a legend leaves us ! "Pranab Da, one of modern India's finest leaders, a statesman and a visionary, is no more with us. His legacy shall be something to cherish forever," Sarma said in a tweet.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma said: "My father Purno A. Sangma and Pranab Mukherjee not only shared the race towards the Presidential chair but also shared a friendship of mutual respect.

"He was a great statesman who was spoken highly of by my late father. His demise is a huge loss to our country, said Sangma, also the President of the National People's Party.

Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb in a tweet said : "Deeply saddened to learn about the demise of former President of India Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee. He had served the nation with utmost dedication. He was a true leader and inspiration to many." Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh said that he was deeply saddened after hearing about the passing away of Pranab Mukherjee. "His demise has left a political vacuum which can never be filled," Singh said.

Mizoram Chief Minister and ruling Mizo National Front President Zoramthanga said : "Saddened by the demise of former President of India Pranab Mukherjee. My heartfelt condolences and sympathy to his family and loved ones. He will be remembered !" Describing Pranab Mukherjee as a formidable political strategist, draftsman and parliamentarian with an astute legal mind, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu said that India has lost a legendary leader and statesman.

"Mukherjee was a quintessential seven-time parliamentarian starting his political journey as Member of the Rajya Sabha in 1969. He was re-elected four more times before winning his first Lok Sabha election from Bengal's Jangipur in 2004. He was re-elected in 2009," Khandu said in a statement.

"People of Arunachal Pradesh will always be indebted to him for having a soft corner for the state throughout his political career," Khandu added.

Former Tripura Chief Minister Samir Ranjan Burman, who was Mukherjee's classmate in Kolkata when both studied law in 1959 said he had served the nation with utmost dedication and was a true leader and inspiration to many.

Burman, a veteran Congress leader, said : "I have never seen a leader like Mukherjee. He was a broad hearted leader, who helped people irrespective of political affiliations. I have lost a true friend."
Victorians are desperate to see a road out of their current situation. After one month of stage four restrictions, including a night-time curfew, and six months of varying degrees of restrictions, Melburnians in particular long for a return to some kind of normal life.

A few things are clear. First, lockdown works! For example, stage three restrictions averted between 9000 and 37,000 new cases in Victoria. The combination of mandatory masks and stage four restrictions has led to a steady decline in the seven-day average of new daily cases, which is now approaching double digits.

Effective as lockdowns are for the control of COVID-19, there is huge collateral damage and as a result it is very difficult to maintain community support indefinitely. And in any case, the idea of lockdown is not just to reduce coronavirus transmission, but to buy time to strengthen interventions that are proven to work but do not require disruptive lockdown.

These measures will allow us to live in a functioning society for at least the next 12 months, without a game-changing intervention like a vaccine, preventive therapy, or an effective treatment drug. Nevertheless, Victoria should resist external pressure to announce a time-bound road map until it is clear what the epidemiological situation is at the time of decision-making. It was a mistake when the state moved from stage three to stage two during the first wave of infections under pressure from the National Cabinet. Lifting the number of people allowed in a household from five to 20 overnight probably contributed to the rapid spread of the virus through north-western Melbourne in the early stages of the second wave.
New Delhi, Aug 31 : The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed fugitive business tycoon Vijay Mallya's plea seeking review of a 2017 judgment which held him guilty for contempt of court.

The top court had held him guilty of contempt, as Mallya did not truthfully disclose the full account of his assets.

He was also found guilty for violating a court order by siphoning $40 million from his account, as Mallya was restrained from any such withdrawal.

On Monday, a bench comprising Justices U.U. Lalit and Vineet Saran dismissed the review petition.

The apex court's order came on a review plea filed by Mallya against the July 14, 2017 judgment wherein he was found guilty of contempt for not paying Rs 9,000 crore dues to banks despite repeated directions.

On June 19, the Supreme Court had sought explanation from its registry regarding Mallya's appeal.

The bench said that according to the record placed before it, the review petition was not listed before the court for the last three years.

In 2017, the apex court passed the order on a contempt petition against Mallya by a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India.
By Azernews





By Akbar Mammadov

President Ilham Aliyev has hailed the countrys fight against COVID-19, saying that timely measures to curb the spread of the pandemic have helped to keep the situation under control.

Aliyev made the remarks on August 31 when a new hospital of modular type was opened at the Medical Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, designed to treat COVID-19 patients.

Addressing the opening ceremony in a video format, the president reminded that the country has 46 hospitals for COVID-19 patients, which were created as a result of the implementation of state programs for socio-economic development of regions. Out of these hospitals, 41 have been built in the last 17 years.

It is not too difficult to imagine what problems we could have faced today if we hadnt taken this step on time. I can say with full responsibility that if these hospitals had not been built on time, we would be in a very difficult situation today. The hospitals were not only built, but they were also fitted with the state-of-the-art equipment, and this process continues today. The material and technical infrastructure of our healthcare system play a special role in the fight against COVID, the president said.

Moreover, the president emphasized that recently, the number of laboratories in the country increased by several times and reached 45 today compared to six laboratories at the start of the pandemic.

More than 900,000 tests have been conducted and Azerbaijan occupies the leading place in the world by the number of tests carried out per capita."

Furthermore, the president said that the government has allocated large funds for the construction of hospitals in the county.

The available bed capacity was insufficient to successfully fight this terrible pandemic. In just six months, the bed capacity of our country has expanded significantly."

"It is planned to build seven hospitals of modular type. It is not necessary for the time being because the number of patients in our country is decreasing and, if necessary, it will be possible to quickly build additional hospitals with 1,400 beds, he added.

Social support amid COVID-19

Furthermore, the president underlined that that government is taking measures to curb the effects of pandemic on the socio-economic situation in the country.

About five million people are covered by a large social package. Both the public and private sectors, as well as the unemployed, including those working informally, vulnerable people  all categories of people, are provided with financial support by the state. This shows once again that the well-being of our people, their social status and, of course, their health is a key issue for us, he said.

The president reiterated his earlier comments that the government prioritized citizens health over the economy, adding that, however, the economic situation in Azerbaijan is better than in other countries.

As a result of the measures taken in our country, the economy fell by only 2.8 per cent in seven months. Given the global landscape, I think this is a good indicator, he said.

Furthermore, Aliyev touched upon the special attention paid to Azerbaijani doctors, saying that people working in the healthcare system are always taken care of by the state.

The president noted that all work done is bearing fruit, and it is no coincidence that the situation in the fight against COVID has become more positive in recent weeks. We see positive dynamics, and I hope that this dynamic will be maintained in the future, he added.

Aliyev underlined that Azerbaijan has been in close contact with the World Health Organization since the outbreak of pandemic and these contacts continue to this day.

As you know, the World Health Organization has praised the work done in Azerbaijan in this area and described Azerbaijan as an exemplary country. This is indeed the case. In other words, the work we have done, the state funds allocated to this area, the mobilization work, the construction of hospitals, the laboratories, the implementation of social programs  all these, have played a key role in our struggle, the president stressed.

Moreover, President Aliyev spoke about the purchase of the COVID vaccine, saying that we are currently actively working with several companies to bring the COVID vaccine to our country. I hope that Azerbaijan will be among the first countries to receive the vaccine in this area because we have been working on this issue for some time.

The president pointed out that currently, 100 to 200 people are infected in the country every day, and this is certainly a better result than in previous months. Aliyev stressed that however, daily monitoring is and will be carried out to keep the situation under control. At the same time, mitigation steps should be taken in such a way that the number of patients does not increase sharply. This is the key issue, and we will certainly take our steps very carefully, he added.

The sharp rise in the number of patients in some European countries makes us think and urges us to take more cautious steps. I want to say again that the primary issue is people's health. If our citizens continue to act responsibly  I should say that we do see and feel this responsibility recently and this is reflected in real results  then I think that we will be able to return to normality, to normal life in a short time, Aliyev noted.

The president highlighted that the preventive measures taken in the country, especially the quarantine regime is bearing fruits.

Civic responsibility

The president stressed the importance of the civic responsibility in curbing the spread of COVID-19, saying that there are still cases of flagrant violation of anti-epidemiology rules.

He stressed that punitive measures must be taken against any violators of quarantine regime without discrimination.

Everyone is equal before the law regardless of their social status. Equality, justice and the rule of law are the main principles in Azerbaijan, and I call on all our citizens to act responsibly. First, they must act responsibly in order to protect themselves and their loved ones, he said.

Aliyev noted that those breaking the rules, organizing large-scale events and violating the laws and existing rules of the country in a demonstrative manner will be and are being punished.

The public is also being informed about this issue. I think that the people of Azerbaijan are well aware that law is the law for everyone. No-one can be above law, no-one can have any privileges and no-one can and will be given any concessions.

If we look at the global statistics on COVID, we will see that the results obtained in our country are very effective and valuable. I think that it is thanks to these measures, that we have saved the lives of thousands of people, Aliyev said.




Nothing people make is without environmental consequences; our challenge is to maximize the benefits while minimizing the damage.

Many people remain skeptical about electric vehicles, questioning their environmental impact. Does the world have enough raw materials? Wont old batteries generate pollution? Are EVs charged with non-renewable energy just as damaging?

Many of these concerns are strawman arguments spun out by the fossil fuel industry. Oil producers worry that consumers will adopt these new technologies and so do their best to malign them. But for those genuinely curious, here are some facts I have gleaned.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: New battery tech will pull electric vehicles even with petrol-fueled cars

First, there is the obvious. Electric vehicles have no tailpipe, no dipstick and no radiator. The battery cooling fluid is replaced every 100,000 miles. The car does not produce any emissions during daily operations, while internal combustion engines generate tons of pollution during their working life.

Electricity, though, has to come from somewhere, and many readers have complimented me on my coal-powered Chevy Bolt. Yes, depending on where you live, the electricity used to charge your battery could come from coal-fueled boilers, nuclear reactors or natural gas turbines.

In Texas, though, its pretty easy to game the system. Wind turbines generate most of the states nighttime electricity, so EV owners who use their mobile phone app to charge at 3 a.m. can feel virtuous.

The more critical issue is that most U.S. carbon dioxide emissions come from the nations 276 million tailpipes. If we can shift the burden of cutting emissions from hundreds of millions of mobile sources to tens of thousands of stationary power plants, fighting climate change will be a lot easier.

We already see a positive evolution, with wind and solar projects making up the vast majority of new power plants. Every year dozens of coal and natural gas-powered generators are closing. The grid is getting cleaner through attrition.

The elephant in the room is where manufacturers are obtaining their raw materials for EV batteries and how much pollution their factories are producing. Truth be told, a well-intentioned family in the Texas suburbs can unwittingly support slavery and environmental destruction in poor countries.

The most difficult-to-obtain materials used by current battery technologies are lithium, graphite and cobalt, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission. Those materials primarily come from countries with weak environmental and labor laws.

Chile and Argentina are the largest lithium producers. They evaporate brine of salt lakes, and biologists warn this lightly-regulated process is damaging water supplies, hurting wildlife, and impairing local farmers and shepherds. More study and regulation are needed.

Two-thirds of the worlds graphite currently comes from China, where miners suffer from respiratory issues similar to coal miners due to poor working conditions. The miners also use acid to purify graphite, damaging local water supplies.

While many battery makers are trying to move away from cobalt, they still rely on mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ive visited Congolese mines, and they are dismal places where child labor and slavery are commonplace with government collusion.

EV defenders will point to similar problems with internal combustion engine supply chains, but two wrongs do not make a right. If EV makers want to stake out the high ground, they must demand more robust environmental and labor codes from their suppliers or face righteous condemnation.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: General Motors CEO betting on ACES, a new vision for transportation

The second big environmental challenge for EVs is still on the horizon: what do we do with the old batteries?

Two weeks ago, I wrote about solid-state batteries coming in 2025 that will last much longer than existing lithium-ion batteries. But Tesla and GM rolled out in June a lithium-iron battery they say will last for 1 million miles. Longer-lasting batteries reduce waste.

Meantime, scientists and entrepreneurs are dreaming up ways to reuse and recycle the tens of millions of EV battery packs that the industry will produce over the next 30 years. Companies in Norway, where EV adoption is highest, have plans to crush old batteries and recover their minerals.

Other companies plan to repackage EV batteries for use in stationary solar power storage sites for the electric grid, where they do not need to recharge as quickly or as often. By using old EV batteries that still have a lot of life in them, these companies will make it easier to adopt more wind and solar power.

Electric vehicles will not completely clean up modern transportation, nor is anyone making that claim. But they will undoubtedly cause less damage than current internal combustion engines in the long run and simultaneously benefit consumers with lower operating costs.

Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy.

twitter.com/cltomlinson

chris.tomlinson@chron.com
A wing tip with the Star of David is visible through the window of the Israeli El Al airliner just before the plane landed in Abu Dhab (Nir Elias/Pool Photo via AP)

A Star of David-adorned El Al plane has flown from Israel to the United Arab Emirates.

The direct commercial passenger flight carried a high-ranking American and Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi and was the first ever of this type between the two countries.

The Israeli flag carriers flight marked the implementation of the historic US-brokered deal to normalise relations between the two nations and solidifies the long-clandestine ties between them that have evolved over years of shared enmity towards Iran.

Expand Close Pilots of the plane that carried a delegation of Israeli and American officials (Nir Elias/Pool Photo via AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Pilots of the plane that carried a delegation of Israeli and American officials (Nir Elias/Pool Photo via AP)

With the US as matchmaker, Israel and the UAE agreed earlier this month to work toward normalisation, which would make the UAE the third Arab nation to have full relations with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan. But unlike those two nations, Israel has never fought a war against the UAE and hopes to have much-warmer relations.

The American delegation includes US President Donald Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as national security adviser Robert OBrien, Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz and envoy for Iran Brian Hook. Israel will be represented by national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and the director generals of several ministries, who will meet with their Emirati counterparts.

While this is a historic flight, we hope that this will start an even more historic journey for the Middle East and beyond, Mr Kushner told reporters before boarding the plane.

Expand Close Jared Kushner, centre, after the El Al plane landed in Abu Dhabi (Nir Elias/Pool Photo via AP) / Facebook

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Mr Ben-Shabbat said he was excited about the trip and that the aim was to lay the groundwork for co-operation in areas like tourism, medicine, technology and trade.

This morning the traditional greeting of go in peace takes on a special significance for us, he said.

The El Al flight, numbered LY971 as a gesture to the UAEs international calling code number, flew into Saudi Arabian airspace shortly after take-off and later passed over the capital, Riyadh. That marked another historic first for Israel and at least an acquiescence by the kingdom for the UAEs move.

Expand Close The plane was decorated with the the words for peace in Arabic, Hebrew and English above the pilots window (Menahem Kahana/Pool via AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp The plane was decorated with the the words for peace in Arabic, Hebrew and English above the pilots window (Menahem Kahana/Pool via AP)

Saudi King Salman, along with other Gulf Arab leaders to varying degrees, maintain their boycotts of Israel in support of Palestinians obtaining an independent state. Any long-term flights between Israel and the UAE would require Saudi clearance to be profitable. Otherwise the three hour and 20 minute flight would take more than seven hours.

El Al spokesman Stanley Morais said the 737-900 is equipped with a missile-defence system, a standard feature on these types of planes and a requirement for this flight. After grounding its fleet due to coronavirus, it is the airlines first flight since July 1.

The plane was decorated with the the words for peace in Arabic, Hebrew and English above the pilots window. Journalists were handed special face masks decorated with the Israeli and Emirati flags. The seat protectors said Making History in all three languages, and Israeli folk music played in the background.
Korean-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KGCCI) President and CEO Barbara Zollmann, center, poses with other participants of the Half-Year Economic Outlook 2020 online conference hosted by the KGCCI, Aug. 27. / Courtesy of KGCCI



By Yi Whan-woo



The Korean-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KGCCI) hosted an online conference, Aug. 27, on Korea's economic outlook in the second half of 2020.



Titled "Half-Year Economic Outlook 2020," the biannual meeting was held in cooperation with the Yellow Sea Free Economic Zone Authority (YESFEZ) with more than 80 participants joining live from Korea and Germany.



Among them were KGCCI President and CEO Barbara Zollmann, German Chairman of KGCCI Peter Tiedemann, Embassy of Germany in Korea Deputy Head of Mission Peter Winkler, Germany Trade and Invest Representative Correspondent Frank Robaschik, Institut Pasteur Korea Executive Director Marc Windisch, State University of New York Korea professor and dean Lee Johng-ihl, Hanwha Q CELLS Director Albert Park, YESFEZ Director Lee Min-Woo and YESFEZ Project Manager Han Sang-bong.



The conference was divided into two sessions, with the first on bilateral economic relations in the COVID-19 era and the second on business potential in Korea in accordance with President Moon Jae-in's Korean New Deal aimed at creating 1.9 million jobs.



Winkler, one of the three speakers in the first session along with Robaschik and Windisch, underscored that "trade flows and unrestricted business travel are all the more important" during the COVID-19 crisis. He stressed the need for Korea to lift visa restrictions for EU citizens, saying, "Germany for its part is prepared to lift all entry restrictions for Korean nationals and residents immediately."



Robaschik highlighted Germany becoming the fourth-largest supplier of goods to Korea and the latter's exports to the former in an upward trend in the first seven months of this year.



In the second session, Lee said the pandemic is interfering with cooperation between German and Korean companies on manufacturing and production.



Park speculated the supply of renewable energy, especially photovoltaic, is likely to increase in the short term, and this trend is already being witnessed with the Korean New Deal.



The KGCCI is the second-largest foreign chamber of commerce in Korea.



Established in 1981, it has been tasked with bolstering economic relations between the two countries.



It has about 500 members and 22 full-time staff who are multilingual.


NEW DELHI: Almost two months after the violent cash at the Galwan Valley, proof of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) casualties is finally out. Pictures of graves of Chinese soldiers killed in the clash are going viral on Chinese social media.

According to an American intelligence report, almost 35 personnel of Chinese Army were killed in the violent Galwan Valley. As per Indian intelligence inputs, anywhere between 45-47 Chinese army personnel were killed in the clashes. However, fresh viral pictures suggest that there have been more deaths than the speculated figure.

Meanwhile, the Indian Army said on Monday that on the night of August 29 and August 30, 2020, People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff and carried out 'provocative military movements to change the status quo'. "Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the southern Bank of Pangong Lake, and undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground," it said.

The Indian Army also stated that they are committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but are also equally determined to protect the country's territorial integrity.

Both countries are engaged in an around four-month-long standoff at the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh. Despite several levels of dialogue, there has not been any breakthrough and the deadlock continues.
Hyderabad, Aug 31 : Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao's announcement that the state legislature will pass a resolution to seek India's highest civilian award Bharat Ratna for former Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao has further annoyed Muslims groups already angry over the government organising the late leader's birth centenary celebrations.

The series of announcements made by the Telangana Rashatr Samithi (TRS) including development of a memorial for the former Prime Minister, naming Hyderabad's Necklace Road after him and the proposal to the Centre to change the name of University of Hyderabad as Narasimha Rao University.

The groups, including those who had extended support to TRS in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, questioned KCR's sudden love for Narasimha Rao. They said Muslims could never forget the fact that it was during his regime that Babri Masjid at Ayodhya was demolished.

The latest announcements by the government came amid ongoing movement by various Muslim organisations against the demolition of two mosques in the state secretariat. The mosques were razed during the demolition of various existing blocks to construct a new secretariat complex.

Demanding reconstruction of the mosques at their original sites, the groups have targeted the TRS government for taking no steps in this direction even a month after the demolition.

Eminent cleric Moulana Hussamuddin Saani Jaffer Pasha went to the extent of describing Chandrashekhar Rao as the real successor of Narasimha Rao. "KCR is acting like the successor Narasimha Rao," he said referring to demolition of mosques at the state secretariat.

This is a major shift in the stand of Muslim leaders, who till recently used to hail KCR as a leader with true secular outlook.

Majlis Bachao Tehreek (MBT) leader Amjed Ullah Khan questioned KCR about his sudden and so much love for Narshimha Rao who was involved in demolition of Babri Masjid and foisting of TADA cases on thousands of Muslims during his regime.

Khan wondered why KCR government was celebrating the centenary celebrations and demanding Bharat Ratna for Narasimha Rao when it is a fact that he was not in support of statehood to Telangana.

"If Narasimha Rao had so much love for Telangana, he would have formed a separate state when he was the Prime Minister," Khan said.

He challenged KCR to show one scheme or project announced for Telangana by Narasimha Rao during his rule.

KCR announced last week that the state legislature, whose monsoon session is beginning on September 7, will pass a resolution demanding the Centre to confer Bharat Ratna on Narasimha Rao.

The state government also decided to install a portrait of Narasima Rao in the Assembly and said it will request the centre install his portrait in the Parliament.

Through a resolution to be passed in the State Legislature, the Centre will be urged to rename the Central University of Hyderabad as PV Narasimha Rao Central University.

KCR also announced establishment of P V memorial in Hyderabad. He said Necklace Road abutting Hussainsagar lake will be renamed as PV Gnana Marg.

It also decided to develop Laknepally, the village where PV was born and Vangara where he grew up as tourist spots.

The government also plans to propose to UNESCO to confer awards in the name of PV to those made rich contributions in the fields of literature, science and technology.

"PV Narasimha Rao is a symbol of Telangana existence. He was a reformer who initiated several reforms in the country. He was recognised as a great intellectual all over the world. He was the Telanganite who rose to the level of the country's Prime Minister. We will discuss the greatness of PV and his achievements in the Assembly. We have decided to have a comprehensive debate on PV. We will pass a resolution urging conferring of Bharat Ratna on PV," said the chief minister.

Last month, an umbrella group of various Muslim organisations had appealed to KCR to withdraw the decision to celebrate birth centenary celebrations of Narasimha Rao, saying the move has hurt the sentiments of the Muslim community.

United Muslim Forum (UMF) said KCR's move to organise year-long programmes to celebrate the centenary had hurt the sentiments of those sections of people who believe in secularism and especially Muslims.

UMF is headed by Moulana Raheemduddin Ansari, who is the chairman of Telangana Urdu Academy, a government body.

The group comprises organisations and leaders considered close to All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), a friendly party of TRS.

Meanwhile, all eyes will be on the stand AIMIM will take when the State Legislature takes up resolution seeking Bharat Ratna for Narasimha Rao. The party led by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi has seven members in 119-member Assembly and is the second biggest group after TRS.

AIMIM has still not reacted to the series of announcements made by KCR as part of Narasimha Rao's centenary celebrations. Its critics have been questioning its silence over the issue.

In February 2005, AIMIM had refused to support a condolence motion in the state assembly of then undivided Andhra Pradesh to pay tributes to Narasimha Rao, who died on December 23, 2004.

The party legislators led by floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi MIM members walked out of the assembly after the motion was moved.

This was perhaps the first time in the parliamentary history of India that a party had refused to endorse a condolence motion to pay tributes to an ex-PM.

"We cannot, or even history will not, forget the demolition of Babri Masjid, which was caused due to his political inaction," Akbaruddin Owaisi had then said.
Medical experts have flagged that many people not wearing masks and violating social distancing norms have contributed to the sudden spurt in novel cases in in the past few days, cautioning that the situation should still be treated as a "health emergency".

From doctors at leading hospitals to officials of nationwide testing labs, all concurred that a "sudden degree of complacency" has crept in the psyche of the masses, especially the youth, who feel that "all is back to normal" since lockdown has eased.

"We are seeing the younger population mostly starting to go out, posting pictures on social media about sitting at a cafe or a restaurant, which is quite a dangerous trend," Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH) Director B L Sherwal told PTI.

"This sends out a wrong message to other people that things are okay now as economy is also slowly reopening," Sherwal said.

The RGSSH is one of the major dedicated COVID-19 facilities run by the government.

"A large number of people going out of their homes, either not wearing a mask or wearing it only on their chin. That can immediately spread infection and that is one of the reasons we seeing a spike in cases in the last several days," Sherwal said, adding that they "should not lower their guard".

recorded 2,024 new cases on Sunday, the highest single-day spike in cases in August, taking the tally to over 1.73 lakh, while the death toll rose to 4,426 with 22 more fatalities.

On Saturday, there were 1,954 new cases. On preceding two days, the number of infections were in the excess of 1,800.

Suranjit Chatterjee, senior consultant of internal medicine at Apollo Hospitals said opening of the economy had led to increase in contact among people and that has also contributed to the rise in the number of infections.

"Cases had begun to come down in Delhi in July and economy is being slowly opened up since June, because one cannot keep economy locked indefinitely.

"However, that does not mean, people should not treat the situation anymore as a health emergency. A degree of complacency has set in among a section of people that 'all is fine now'," Chatterjee said.

He warned that the second wave during the Spanish Flu of 1918 had come after a gap of a few months, adding that people should, therefore, listen to experts and adhere to all safety norms to contain the virus.

Mahesh Verma, a doctor and head of a Delhi government panel set up earlier to strengthen the preparedness of hospitals to battle COVID-19, said multiple factors could be responsible for this spike.

"Laid-back attitude of many people in adhering to safety and social distancing norms is one factor," he told PTI. "Also, there is another school of thought and there have been some evidence that a less virulent strain of the virus could be in circulation, which leads to less deaths but more cases."



Opening up of the economy, too, has led to people interacting more and a greater chance of spreading infection, Verma said.

Various sectors are slowly getting permit to resume operations while strictly adhering to coronavirus-safety protocols.

After being closed since March 22, the Delhi Metro has received the nod from authorities to resume services from September 7 in a "calibrated manner" as per the new guidelines for Unlock 4.0 issued by the Centre, officials had said on Saturday.

Dr Meenu Bajpai of the plasma bank set up in July at state-run Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, said people would have to learn to be "socially responsible" too.

"We are literate, but we, as a society, sometimes don't behave responsibly, as it is seen in not observing civic sense and many educated people throwing garbage in the open," Bajpai said.

This is the time that we have to show the true value of our education and listen to experts and behave responsibly, according to Bajpai.

She cautioned that "eating and drinking socially" in the time of pandemic had to be a "strict no-no", saying that to consume something, one would have to pull the mask down and that is "not advisable".

Max group medical director Sandeep Budhiraja cautioned the youth to not get swayed in by the lure of the social media, as many of those are putting out pictures of going out and socialising in cafes and restaurants, with or without wearing masks.

"Yes, social media does affect the psyche of people and behaviour of people," he said, and cautioned that "a young person may get infected and recover from COVID-19, but if they unnecessarily go out and socialise, they run the risk of spreading it to older people around them, including their parents and grandparents".

Medical experts in Delhi also flagged the spread of COVID-19 cases to semi-urban areas and villages on the outskirts of Delhi.

"A pandemic that has originated from outside generally follows this trajectory, from foreign countries to another country, then to bigger cities, and from urban areas to rural areas," Sherwal said.

Dr Lal Path Labs executive chairman Arvind Lal cautioned that people should not go out unless extremely necessary, as "they may catch infection from asymptomatic ones".

"We are still living in a health emergency, we should not forget that," Lal said.

(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.)
Parliament's monsoon session will begin from September 14 and continue till October 1, notifications issued on Monday said.

The notification issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat said President Ram Nath Kovind has called the lower house to meet on Monday, September 14 at 9 am.



In a separate communique, the Rajya Sabha Secretariat also said the President has summoned the upper house to meet on September 14.

"Subject to exigencies of business, the session is scheduled to conclude on Thursday, October 1, 2020," it added.



The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs had earlier recommended that the monsoon session be held from September 14 to October 1. There will be in total 18 consecutive sittings with no holiday or weekend break, according to officials.



Hectic preparations are underway for the session with several first-time measures because of the COVID-19 pandemic such as testing of all MPs, staggered sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and use of both chambers and galleries to accommodate members while following physical distancing norms, officials said.



The Budget session of Parliament was adjourned sine die on March 23 -- 12 days ahead of the schedule due to outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Egypts prosecution ordered on Monday the detention of three people pending investigations into a gang rape that allegedly took place at the Fairmont Nile City Hotel in Cairo in 2014.

The prosecution also ordered the release of three people on EGP 100,000 bail and the release of another person pending investigations into incidents they have been accused of during the current investigations into the rape of a girl at the Fairmont Nile City Hotel.

The prosecution ordered the defendants be examined for drugs by the forensics authority with two of the defendants being medically examined as well, read the prosecution's statement released late Monday.

The prosecution also sent the mobile phones found with the defendants to the Ministry of interiors Technical Aids General directorate to transcribe chats on social media networks, download its data, and retrieve deleted data.

The prosecution's statement made no mention of the names of the defendants in the case that has gripped the attention of Egyptian social media users.

The Fairmont incident, which allegedly took place in August 2014, gained widespread attention on social media in July after an anonymous Instagram account accused a group of young men of being involved in a gang rape following a dance party at the luxurious hotel.

Seven defendants in the case left the country via Cairo International Airport in July, days after the alleged crime went viral on social media, according to a previous statement by the prosecution.

Lebanese authorities say they have arrested three Egyptians who are wanted in Egypt in connection with the case, and that two of the other suspects have fled Lebanon.

Another defendant in the case, Amir Zayed, was arrested last week as he attempted to flee Egypt and is being detained pending investigation.

Defendant Omar Hafez was arrested earlier on Friday at Egypts North Coast.

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Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, was charged with first-degree intentional homicide after killing two protesters in Kenshoa, Wisconsin. TikTok

College Republicans United (CRU), a student group at Arizona State University, has announced that it will raise money for the legal defense of Kyle Rittenhouse, the Associated Press reported.

Rittenhouse is accused of shooting and killing two people and injuring another at an anti-police-brutality protest in Wisconsin on Tuesday.

Members of College Republicans United believe the shootings were an act of self-defense, but ASU College Republicans, a separate group from the CRU, have called for an administrative investigation into the group and do not support the raising of defense funds.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A conservative student group at Arizona State University has announced that its members will raise money for the legal defense of Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old who has been accused of killing two people at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the Associated Press reported.

On August 27, College Republicans United tweeted that half of all the funds it raises for the year will be dedicated to Rittenhouse's legal defense fund.

"He does not deserve to have his entire life destroyed because of the actions of violent anarchists during a lawless riot," the group says in the tweet.

As Business Insider previously reported, Rittenhouse is said to have traveled from Illinois to Wisconsin with a firearm on Tuesday and is accused of shooting and killing two people and injuring another at an anti-police-brutality protest that came in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

While the teen's attorney says he acted in self-defense, charges against Rittenhouse include first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, and first-degree reckless endangerment. In addition, he also faces a misdemeanor charge of possession of a deadly weapon while under the age of 18.

"Kenosha has devolved into anarchy because the authorities in charge of the city abandoned it. They stood back and watched Kenosha burn," the CRU website reads. "Kyle Rittenhouse is not a vigilante but a citizen who attempted to help in a city in chaos."

Story continues

ASU College Republicans, a separate group from the CRU, have called for an administrative investigation into the group and do not support the raising of defense funds for Kyle Rittenhouse.

The student group did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

Read more:

A timeline of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, which has reignited anti-racism protests nationwide

If the police officer who shot Jacob Blake can prove he feared an 'imminent risk of death or great bodily harm,' his shooting could be legally justified

Kenosha residents say the way police handled the 2 shootings this week tell you all you need to know about whether the city is racist

Jacob Blake is no longer handcuffed to his hospital bed now that his July arrest warrant has been vacated, lawyer says

Read the original article on Insider
Rebecca Deng with Ginger Kolbaba. FaithWords, $22 (304p) ISBN 978-1-5460-1320-4

War never brings healing, writes Deng, one of 89 Lost Girls of Sudan and an international speaker, in this affecting debut memoir. At six years old, Dengs home was attacked by marauders, and she was forced to flee, an escape she recounts in harrowing, riveting detail. Then, in the mid-1990s, living in a stultifying refugee camp with meager food, chronic depression, and constant violence, Deng found hope and fellowship with a makeshift church. After eight years in the camp, she was given the opportunity to move to the U.S. in 2000, but just two days before her departure she was raped by a man in the camp. She forged forward nonetheless, more excited than ever to be leaving after learning that her foster parents went to church. Once in America, Deng learned she was pregnant and, at first, felt a deep sadness. In the end, though, she writes that her love for the baby made it possible for me to begin to forgive the man who raped her. She adds, What brings healing is honoring the pain, acknowledging its impact, trusting God to secure lasting justice, and forgiving those who have caused our suffering. Her gripping account attests to the power of faith and forgiveness to transform suffering into love.
Union Minister for



Shipping, Mansukh Mandaviya will welcome the barge carrying 50 tonne of cement from Daundkandi in to Sonamura in Tripura's Sepahijala district on September 5 through video conferencing from Delhi, officials said.

The Sonamura-Daudkandi protocol route connecting to would be made operational on the day in presence of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb and Chairman of the Land Ports Authority of India (LPAI), Aditya Mishra, Secretary of Tripura's Industry and Commerce Department, Kiran Gitte said.

The 90-km long Sonamura-Daudkandi route, included in the list of Indo-Bangla protocol (IBP) routes in May this year, is expected to boost trade, Gitte, who visited the spot, told reporters on Sunday.

Director of Land Port Authority of India (LPAI) Ajit Kumar Singh, said that a barge carrying goods would arrive at Sonamura on September 5.

"A floating jetty was constructed just near the integrated check post. The place is beautiful, which has also the potential to be developed as a good tourist spot. At present barges carrying goods would come and later tourists from both the countries can come by using the waterways," he told PTI.

On August 25, Deb had said in a Facebook post, ".... The trial run is scheduled in the first week of September 2020, during which 50 MT cement will be transported in barges from Dhaka to Sonamura. This is for the first time in history that any kind of goods will be reaching by ship.."



The chief minister said that the Inland Water Transport Authority has given permission for a trial run from Daundkandi in Comilla district of the neighbouring country to Sonamura in via River Gomati.

Tripura had set up a floating jetty on the river on July 4 as part of the Indo-Bangla international connectivity project.

Traders of India and Bangladesh had demanded a trial run of vessels on the Gomati river to operationalise the Indo-Bangla protocol route between Sonamura and Daudkandi, officials said.

A high-level team of officials of the Bangladesh Shipping Ministry had surveyed the riverine protocol route on August 12, Sonamura sub-divisional magistrate Subrata Majumder said.

"Of the 90-km stretch, around 89.5-km is in the neighbouring country," he said.

Gomati is a seasonal river and the water route can remain operational for only 3-4 months in a year and silts should be lifted on a regular basis from the Gomati to keep the route operational, Singh said.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 20-year U.S. military veteran set his Freemansburg neighbors garage on fire as a result of his post-traumatic stress disorder, according to his attorney.

Attorney Steven Mills said Alan Davis was sentenced Monday to seven years probation after he previously pleaded guilty but mentally ill to arson.

He has significant mental health and medical issues related to his combat, Mills said Monday.

Davis, 62, was trying to burn ants on July 12, 2019, when he set fire to the two-story garage on the Willow Grove Hotel property at 655 Main St. in Freemansburg, according to police. Mills said its not clear whether there were any ants there.

Mills said Davis didnt intend to set the garage on fire. He was honorably discharged from the military and has never been in trouble with the law, Mills said.

Three firefighters suffered minor injuries putting out the fire, police said.

The seven-year probationary sentence will give Davis the time he needs to chip away at the $28,000-plus he needs to raise to pay off the damage to the garage, according to Assistant District Attorney Abigail Bellafatto.

Mills said Northampton County Judge Jennifer Sletvold also ordered Davis to continue his mental health treatment as well as keep up with his medical issues.

It was a really difficult situation, especially with someone who has no prior criminal history but did something so dangerous. I think we came to the best possible solution in this case, Bellafatto said.

Mental health is a serious thing. I think thats what led (Davis) to where he is, Mills said. I dont think hell be in trouble ever again.

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Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. If theres anything about this story that needs attention, please email him. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
Nursery, kindergarten, primary, JHS one and SHS one students will go to school in January 2021.

However, JHS two and SHS two students will recommence classes on October 5.

Appropriate adjustments would be made to the curriculum to ensure that nothing is lost from the previous year, President Akufo-Addo has said in his 16th update on measures taken against the spread of COVID-19 on Sunday night.

The relevant dispositions will also be made so that the presence, at the same time, in school of all streams of students, can occur in safety," he added.

The President said the decision of the gradual reopening of all schools was taken by the Government after further consultations by the Ghana Education Service (GES).

He said he appreciated fully the inconvenience and the financial burden the continued stay at home of children had on parents and guardians.

These are a necessary price to pay in our efforts to protect the lives of our children, as well as to limit and contain the spread of the virus in our country, he said.

Meanwhile, all final year students of SHS are still writing their final exit examinations, as announced in the 15th update of the President, while the JHS three students are billed to start their final papers on Monday, September 14, to Friday, September 18.

---GNA
Japan's PM Shinzo Abe resigns over failing health

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe today announced his resignation citing poor health, ending a long stint at the helm during which he sought to revive growth and bolster the countrys defences, ending decades of pacifist policies.

Abe, Japans longest-serving premier, said he wont allow his illness to get in the way of decision making, and apologised to the Japanese people for failing to complete his term in office.

"I apologise to the people of Japan," he said, adding he would "firmly execute my duty to the end" until a replacement was chosen.

The 65-year-old has suffered for many years from ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease, but he said his condition had worsened recently.

Last year, he became Japan's longest serving prime minister. His current period in office began in 2012.

Abe did not give any hint of who will take over, rather leaving the decision to his Liberal Democratic Party, which has been in control of the worlds third-biggest economy almost continuously since 1955.

While Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga and Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso are considered Abe, observers do not consider them as likely candidates for prime minister in the faction-ridden LDP.

In 2007 he resigned abruptly from an earlier term as prime minister because of his struggles with ulcerative colitis, a chronic condition that he has lived with since he was a teenager.

Abe has a reputation as a staunch conservative and nationalist, and for stimulating growth with his aggressive economic policy known as "Abenomics".

He also bolstered Japan's defences and boosted military spending, but has been unable to revise the constitution's pacifist Article 9, which bans a standing army for anything other than self-defence.

The prime minister said his health started to decline as his ulcerative colitis made a resurgence around the middle of July.

He was now receiving a new treatment for the condition which had to be administered on a regular basis and would not give him enough time to carry out his prime ministerial functions, he added.

He said he could not make any mistakes in terms of important decision making, and therefore had decided to step down.

"I made a judgement I should not continue my job as a prime minister," he said.

"I would like to sincerely apologise to the people of Japan for leaving my post with one year left in my term of office, and amid the coronavirus woes, while various policies are still in the process of being implemented," he added, making a bow.

He also expressed regret at not fulfilling his core pledges - forcing North Korea to return Japanese citizens abducted decades ago; sorting out a territorial dispute with Russia; and overhauling the constitution to give more power to the military.

Abe, who seemed drained and appeared emotional at times, spoke without the use of a teleprompter, which is unusual for him. Rather than addressing prepared questions, the prime minister mostly took questions.
Floridas Order to Reopen Schools Remains Effective Following Appeal Court Ruling

The mandate to reopen schools across Florida will remain in effect after an appeals court ruled on Monday in favor of state education officials, as multiple lawsuits challenging the orders constitutionality move forward.

Floridas First District Court of Appeal imposed a stay on an earlier ruling from a county circuit judge, who issued a temporary injunction against an emergency order that required the states public schools to offer brick and mortar classes five days per week. The Florida Education Association, which brought the lawsuit, argued that the order violates the Florida Constitutions guarantee of safe and secure public schools by forcing students and teachers back into classrooms amid the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic.

The Emergency Order does not compel any student to choose in-person instruction or attend a brick-and-mortar school. Rather, students and parents are free to choose a brick-and-mortar school for in-person instruction, the appeal court judges wrote in their opinion (pdf), emphasizing the fact that by the time the circuit judge issued his ruling last week, some 711,000 students had chosen to return to school for in-person classes.

As to school districts, none have been forced under the Emergency Order to offer in-person instruction for students, the judges continued. It is left to the individual school districts to determine whether offering in-person instruction poses risks to the welfare and safety of their students, teachers, and school personnel.

Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, who signed the reopening order (pdf) in early July, said on Monday during an education roundtable event that he welcomed the ruling. He also noted that 1.6 million students across the state, or 60 percent, are now back to in-person-learning, not including the 18 districts that are opening this week.

Thats the whole point of what the governor laid out, said Corcoran. Parental choice works, and we know that we can provide that education. Whether it is face-to-face, whether it is distance learning, we can provide it for those parents who want that choice, and theyre going to have good outcomes, and we can do it in a safe manner.

Corcoran was joined by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Scott Atlas, a top medical adviser to President Donald Trump. Atlas said that evidence is incontrovertible that children are at very low risk from the COVID-19, and do not transmit the illness as much as adults do.

We cant panic. Theres no place for fear in public policy, said Atlas. The children are not at any significant risk, although there are exceptions. But the exceptions, of course, exist in every medical illness. If you are a doctor you understand that, they do not overwhelm the rest of the evidence.
The Dolan Fire south of Big Sur in Monterey County has, as of Sunday night, burned almost 28,000 acres of vegetation, but on Sunday a smoke inversion on top of the typical marine layer combined to quell the fire somewhat in the area, the California Interagency Incident Management Team reported.

Containment was listed at 25 percent Sunday night for the Dolan Fire, which started Aug. 18 north of Limekiln State Park 10 miles south of Big Sur, apparently by a lightning strike. More than 1,000 firefighters have been battling this blaze. No injuries have been reported, but approximately 30 structures have been destroyed.
TORONTO/CHICAGO: High-profile COVID-19 vaccines developed in Russia and China share a potential shortcoming: They are based on a common cold virus that many people have been exposed to, potentially limiting their effectiveness, some experts say.

CanSino Biologics vaccine, approved for military use in China, is a modified form of adenovirus type 5, or Ad5. The company is in talks to get emergency approval in several countries before completing large-scale trials, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

A vaccine developed by Moscows Gamaleya Institute, approved in Russia earlier this month despite limited testing, is based on Ad5 and a second less common adenovirus.

The Ad5 concerns me just because a lot of people have immunity," said Anna Durbin, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins University. Im not sure what their strategy is  maybe it wont have 70% efficacy. It might have 40% efficacy, and thats better than nothing, until something else comes along."

Vaccines are seen as essential to ending the pandemic that has claimed over 845,000 lives worldwide. Gamaleya has said its two-virus approach will address Ad5 immunity issues.

Both developers have years of experience and approved Ebola vaccines based on Ad5. Neither CanSino nor Gamaleya responded to requests for comment.

Researchers have experimented with Ad5-based vaccines against a variety of infections for decades, but none are widely used. They employ harmless viruses as vectors" to ferry genes from the target virus  in this case the novel coronavirus - into human cells, prompting an immune response to fight the actual virus.

But many people already have antibodies against Ad5, which could cause the immune system to attack the vector instead of responding to the coronavirus, making these vaccines less effective.

Several researchers have chosen alternative adenoviruses or delivery mechanisms. Oxford University and AstraZeneca based their COVID-19 vaccine on a chimpanzee adenovirus, avoiding the Ad5 issue. Johnson & Johnsons candidate uses Ad26, a comparatively rare strain.

Dr. Zhou Xing, from Canadas McMaster University, worked with CanSino on its first Ad5-based vaccine, for tuberculosis, in 2011. His team is developing an inhaled Ad5 COVID-19 vaccine, theorizing it could circumvent pre-existing immunity issues.

The Oxford vaccine candidate has quite an advantage" over the injected CanSino vaccine, he said.

Xing also worries that high doses of the Ad5 vector in the CanSino vaccine could induce fever, fueling vaccine skepticism.

I think they will get good immunity in people that dont have antibodies to the vaccine, but a lot of people do," said Dr. Hildegund Ertl, director of the Wistar Institute Vaccine Center in Philadelphia.

In China and the United States, about 40% of people have high levels of antibodies from prior Ad5 exposure. In Africa, it could be has high as 80%, experts said.

HIV RISK

Some scientists also worry an Ad5-based vaccine could increase chances of contracting HIV.

In a 2004 trial of a Merck & Co Ad5-based HIV vaccine, people with pre-existing immunity became more, not less, susceptible to the virus that causes AIDS.

Researchers, including top U.S. infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, in a 2015 paper, said the side effect was likely unique to HIV vaccines. But they cautioned that HIV incidence should be monitored during and after trials of all Ad5-based vaccines in at-risk populations.

I would be worried about the use of those vaccines in any country or any population that was at risk of HIV, and I put our country as one of them," said Dr. Larry Corey, co-leader of the U.S. Coronavirus Vaccine Prevention Network, who was a lead researcher on the Merck trial.

Gamaleyas vaccine will be administered in two doses: The first based on Ad26, similar to J&Js candidate, and the second on Ad5.

Alexander Gintsburg, Gamaleyas director, has said the two-vector approach addresses the immunity issue. Ertl said it might work well enough in individuals who have been exposed to one of the two adenoviruses.

Many experts expressed skepticism about the Russian vaccine after the government declared its intention to give it to high-risk groups in October without data from large pivotal trials.

Demonstrating safety and efficacy of a vaccine is very important," said Dr. Dan Barouch, a Harvard vaccine researcher who helped design J&Js COVID-19 vaccine. Often, he noted, large-scale trials do not give the result that is expected or required."

(Additional reporting by Christine Soares in New York, Kate Kelland in London, Polina Ivanova in Moscow and Roxanne Liu in Beijing; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo has announced six measures that have been put in place at Ghana's Kotoka International Airport to prevent the importation of Coronavirus cases.



The President in a televised address said the measures which apply to all arrivals are to ensure that the reopening of the airports, does not lead to the importation or resurgence of the virus in the country.



As of Sunday, August 30, 2020, Ghana has recorded 44,205 cases with 42,777 recoveries, 276 deaths and an active case count of 1,152.



The President said: "It has been well-established that the very first cases of COVID-19 in Ghana were imported into our shores. We are determined to make sure this scenario does not recur. The commitment to ensuring that the gradual easing of restrictions, including the reopening of our airports, does not lead to the importation or resurgence of the virus into our country, is firmly in place. That is why the following measures have been taken and duly communicated to airlines wishing to resume flights to Ghana:



Health Ministry widens coronavirus screening at Kotoka airport

1. any passenger arriving in Ghana must be in possession of a negative COVID-19 PCR test result from an accredited laboratory in the country of origin. The test should have been done not more than seventy-two (72) hours before the scheduled departure from the country of origin. All airlines have been instructed to ensure compliance with this directive for all passengers wishing to travel to Ghana, and those airlines who fail in this regard will be duly sanctioned;



2. disembarking passengers must do so wearing face masks;



3. upon disembarking from the aeroplane, each passenger will undergo a mandatory COVID-19 test at the airport terminal, at a fee to be borne by the passenger. The test result will be available within thirty (30) minutes;



4. children under the ages of five (5) will not be required to undergo testing at the airport;



5. passengers, who test positive for COVID-19, will be handled by the health authorities for further clinical assessment and management; and



6. passengers, who test negative, can, thereupon, enter Ghana to go about their lawful activities, and will be advised to continue to observe COVID-19 safety precautions during their stay in Ghana".

Background



Ghanas air, sea and land borders were first closed on Sunday, March 22, 2020, following an order by President Akufo-Addo as part of efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country.



Addressing the nation in a televised broadcast, the President said the countrys borders will remain closed for two more weeks beginning Monday, April 20.



The President in that address explained that it was because the majority of confirmed COVID-19 cases have come from travellers or from people who have come into contact with travellers.



"It is, therefore, incumbent on us to continue to be vigilant about travellers into our country until further notice, and to congratulate the men and women of the Immigration Service and the Marine Police Unit for their work in securing our borders, he said".



"The arrest of ten West African nationals in Tamale who all tested positive for the virus; the arrest of the six Nigerian travellers who entered Ghana through unapproved routes along the Ghana-Togo border near Aflao, who also tested positive for the virus; and the recent arrest of ten fishermen in the Western Region, who returned from Cote d'Ivoire and have been quarantined, testify to the determination of our security services to protect our borders. I have, thus, signed an Executive Instrument, to extend the closure of our borders for two more weeks, beginning Monday, 20th April".







Source: Graphiconline.com









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Featured Video
Got a Very Serious Book to sell about the dangers of radical right-wing overreach? In book publishing, this is the summer of the Sith Lord design palette. Just in the past two months, three high-profile new booksKurt Andersens Evil Geniuses (on the conservative movement since the 1970s), Robert Drapers To Start a War (on the Bush administrations invasion of Iraq), and Julian Zelizers Burning Down the House (on Newt Gingrich)have all hewed close to this same look. Its characterized by an imposing black background with a combination of red-and-white, boldface, sans-serif font. (As if in an accidental homage to Separated at Birth, the Andersen-edited Spy magazine feature, New York Magazines Approval Matrix recently featured his and Drapers books nestled right near each other in the highbrow-brilliant quadrant.)*

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And next week, Michael Cohens Disloyal, a tell-all about his years working for Donald Trump, will go out to stores with a fittingly downmarket version of the same look.

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This isnt an entirely new trend. Im working on the next season of Slates Slow Burn, about the leadup to the Iraq War, and in the course of my research for the podcast, my desk started to pile up with books whose dust jackets similarly featured Darth Vaders favorite colorway. I begin to think of this loose template as the Angler cover, after Pulitzer winner Barton Gellmans 2008 biography of Dick Cheney, which became a best-seller. There was the Draper book, and 2007s Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency, by Pulitzer winner Charlie Savage, and Joby Warricks Pulitzer-winning Black Flags: The Rise of Isis. I started to notice Angler-style covers everywhere. On Devils Bargain, Joshua Greens No. 1 New York Times bestseller, about Steve Bannon. On Fascism: A Warning, by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, which also topped the bestseller list.

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Of the look, a book designer told me that the colors are simply grabby (there are only so many colors we have  and these are just the most serious colors we have in the crayon box), and this sort of refined but bold design telegraphs ambition. Editors, the designer says, always believe a big book has to look like a big book. Several of the Sith Lord books share the same publisher, Penguin Press, which publishes a lot of serious nonfiction, and the cleanest, simplest execution of the look seems to come from that house. The designer also suggested to me that the Patient Zero for this oft-imitated design style was Penguins 2004 Pulitzer winner Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll, which seemed to establish a visual language for the ambitious work of journalism about the world that 9/11 made. (Colls 2018 book Directorate S comes wrapped in another, slightly more fanciful riff on the look.)

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It makes a certain kind of intuitive sense that the Sith Lord palette would have taken off in the years of the Bush administrations War on Terror and returned in earnest when Trump was elected. The colors are the American flag in mourning, the more tranquil blue blotted out by black. The whole look is one of warning, of red-alert. The red, white, and black color scheme is echoed, in a less spare and streamlined look, in some of the Resistance-aimed, less journalistically rigorous barnburners of the past few years, like Cliff Sims Team of Vipers or Michael Wolffs Siege.

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Meanwhile, on balance, big political books of the Obama yearseven the ones about the financial crisistend to come in jauntier packaging. Red beats out black, blue shows up, and white gets to be the background rather than the font color. (One exception is Jonathan Chaits book Audacity, which has a very Angler-y vibebut while it was about Obama, it was published at the dawn of the Trump years, which seems to have cast a shadow. Still, theres a trace of Democratic blue.) This may, of course, simply reveal the worldview of the publishers and journalists and the readers to whom the books are marketed.

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One of the more interesting twists on the Angler cover is Clinton Cash, the right-wing book that author Peter Schweizer (along with his longtime collaborator Steve Bannon) deliberately and explicitly intended to be the kind of investigation that wouldnt just ping around the Fox News-sphere but would also infiltrate the pages of the mainstream media. I wouldnt be surprised if the cover choice, in the visual vernacular of ambitious journalism, was deliberately selected to help that mission along.

Sign up for the Slate Culture newsletter The best of movies, TV, books, music, and more, delivered to your inbox three times a week. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again. Please enable javascript to use form. Email address: Send me updates about Slate special offers. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Sign Up Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time.

The book designer I spoke to told me its relatively common practice in an initial brainstorming meeting to look to a recently successful book on a similar subject area and try to do a new riff on it. For what its worth, Draper, Gellman, and Andersen all told me that their covers werent designed as any kind of deliberate homage to another authors book or reference to a certain color scheme. (No one was ferociously advocating the red/black motif, Draper said, suggesting that instead it might have beenas Paul Wolfowitz famously said of weapons of mass destruction as a reason for going to warthe one thing everyone could agree on.)

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I asked Andersen if theres anything annoying about having a book that looks so much like others on the market. No, no! Its the Zeitgeist, he replied. And to tell the truth, in the age where people buy books online, that sense of Oh look, the book on the shelf here looks like that other one,  I think people are less aware.
Black Panther director Ryan Coogler has paid a moving tribute to Chadwick Boseman, saying he has been left broken by his death.

Bosemans family announced on Friday that the 43-year-old star had died following a private four-year battle with colon cancer.

The news sent shockwaves through a dazed Hollywood. Former US president Barack Obama was among those paying tribute, while Bosemans Marvel co-stars also shared their memories of the actor.

Expand Close Ryan Coogler, who directed Chadwick Boseman in Black Panther, has shared a moving tribute to the actor (Ian West/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Ryan Coogler, who directed Chadwick Boseman in Black Panther, has shared a moving tribute to the actor (Ian West/PA)

Now, Coogler has shared his own tribute, writing a lengthy note about his time working with the actor.

The filmmaker said he wasnt privy to the details of the actors illness, reflecting on how he worked with Boseman but had no idea he had cancer.

After his family released their statement, I realised that he was living with his illness the entire time I knew him, Coogler said.

Because he was a caretaker, a leader, and a man of faith, dignity and pride, he shielded his collaborators from his suffering. He lived a beautiful life. And he made great art.

Day after day, year after year. That was who he was. He was an epic firework display. I will tell stories about being there for some of the brilliant sparks till the end of my days. What an incredible mark hes left for us.

Coogler told how he inherited Bosemans Black Panther casting, first seeing him in the role of TChalla in 2016s Captain America: Civil War. He was impressed by Boseman insisting the character speak Xhosa, one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Coogler said he learned the lines, in a foreign language, in a day. I couldnt conceive how difficult that must have been, and even though I hadnt met Chad, I was already in awe of his capacity as actor, he added.

The pair met for the first after Boseman sneaked into a hotel while Coogler was promoting the film Creed.

I noticed then that Chad was an anomaly, Coogler wrote. He was calm. Assured. Constantly studying. But also kind, comforting, had the warmest laugh in the world, and eyes that seen much beyond his years, but could still sparkle like a child seeing something for the first time.

I havent grieved a loss this acute before. I spent the last year preparing, imagining and writing words for him to say, that we werent destined to see Ryan Coogler

Coogler has been working on Black Panther 2, set for release in May 2022. However, it is now unclear how Disney will approach the film.

I havent grieved a loss this acute before, Coogler said, while discussing his work on the upcoming movie. I spent the last year preparing, imagining and writing words for him to say, that we werent destined to see.

It leaves me broken knowing that I wont be able to watch another close-up of him in the monitor again or walk up to him and ask for another take.

It hurts more to know that we cant have another conversation, or Facetime, or text message exchange. He would send vegetarian recipes and eating regimens for my family and me to follow during the pandemic. He would check in on me and my loved ones, even as he dealt with the scourge of cancer.

Coogler finished the message by describing Boseman as an ancestor, adding: And I know that he will watch over us, until we meet again.

Bosemans Da 5 Bloods co-star Clarke Peters broke down as he paid tribute.

Talking about working with the late star, he told Good Morning Britain: My wife asked what Chadwick was like and I was really excited to work with him.

I said, I think hes a little bit precious and she said Why? And I said, Because hes surrounded by people who are fawning over him  a Chinese practitioner whos massaging his back when he walks off set, hes got a make-up lady whos massaging his feet, his girlfriend is there holding his hand, and Im thinking Well, maybe the Black Panther thing went to his head.

Getting emotional, Peters added: But now I regret even having those thoughts because they were really looking after him.

He said: Weve lost a very sweet soul. Weve lost a fine actor, weve lost a man of integrity. What weve gained is a man who put a lot of younger people of colour on track.

If everyone has a purpose in life, he certainly played the role of a hero in many, many ways.

The actor added: He had to be here for the time he was here to do what he did and he did it well. Someone said hes resting in peace with the angels, I said No, hes probably flying with them now.'
Polly is a 10-year-old black-and-white Holstein cow, the oldest in a herd of about 300 on the Bar-Way Farm in Deerfield, Mass. Together they produce 2,000 gallons of milk each day. They also make enough poop to fill about two garbage trucks. The farm makes money off of both.

In 2014, Bar-Way began working with Vanguard Renewables to install a biodigester, which uses specialized bacteria to convert organic materialfor example, cow poopinto biogas, a versatile fuel. Once its purified, this biomethane, also known as renewable natural gas (RNG), is chemically identical to the main ingredient in the fossil-based natural gas that comes out of your stove or heats your water.

My grandfather always told me that to be successful, youve got to use every asset you have to its fullest, says Peter Melnik, whose family has owned Bar-Way Farm Inc. for 101 years. He wont disclose how much hes profited from the arrangement, but he will say its made the business that much more viable.

Without a doubt, small family farming in the United States is incredibly tough, he adds.

So is pumping natural gas, at least these days. Under intense pressure from investors, customers, and climate activists, three interstate gas pipelines worth about $10 billion were canceled, choking off Appalachian producers access to new Northeast and Southeast customers. More than 30 cities have banned gas in new buildings since July 2019.

Its gotten to the point they need a proactive decarbonization strategy, says Jigar Shah, co-founder of clean energy financier Generate Capital Inc., one of the largest RNG owners in the country. Natural gas producers now believe their growth prospects are more limitedto the degree that some people said we should be planning for the obsolescence of the natural gas utility.

PROJECT ASTRA: Exxon Mobil debuts effort to tackle methane emissions

Thats where renewable natural gas is supposed to come in. Bovine waste is typically stored in vast open lagoons that emit methanea greenhouse gas more than 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide over 20 years making agricultural waste the single biggest contributor to the countrys total methane emissions from human activity. Both biogas and fossil natural gas are mostly methane, and though they burn more cleanly than the megapolluter coal, they still emit carbon dioxide. But by diverting cow poop into biodigesters in the process of making RNG, gas companies argue, the effect is a net climate win. Virginia-based utility giant Dominion Energy Inc. claims that supplying only 4% of its customers with biogas would be enough to offset the emission from its entire gas system.

Thats the type of math that irks Matt Vespa, an attorney for the nonprofit climate litigation group Earthjustice. Just 4% of the gas needs to be renewable gas, and then all of the sudden you have 100% clean energy, he says, requires some shoddy assumptionsfor instance, that all the methane coming out of all those lagoons is inevitable in factory farming. But there are plenty of other ways to solve this problem that dont extend our reliance on polluting fuels, Vespa says.

Earthjustice is far from the only climate organization ringing the alarm bells about RNG. Mark Kresowik, a deputy director of the Sierra Clubs Beyond Coal campaign, says RNG is a costly distraction that will only slow the energy industrys transition away from hydrocarbons. (The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization created by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder and owner of Bloomberg News parent company Bloomberg LP.) This is the last gasp of the gas industry. They know that electrification is superior, Kresowik says. If you go down that dead-end route, it increases the cost to consumers in the long run.

That said, getting rid of gas wont be easy. Its enjoyed unprecedented growth over the past decade as the boom in shale oil and gas production made costs plummet. Today gas accounts for about a third of Americas total energy consumption, and its projected to rise to 40% this year, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show.

Nationwide, RNG could be used to displace 13% of total U.S. gas demand by 2040, according to a study commissioned by the American Gas Foundation last year, along with EIA data. Generate Capitals Shah, who keeps a map of all viable U.S. RNG spots, says that cap is likely closer to 3% of U.S. gas demand. Still, thats a sizable market. People have a hard time understanding what 3% is, but thats enough to put RNG on par with where solar is today, he says.

Over the years, RNG has had an uneasy relationship with the fossil fuel industry, much as solar and wind have clashed with traditional utilities. Its also a tougher sell as an investment: A typical RNG project costs about $17 million, but can top out as high as $100 million, according to industry lobbying group RNG Coalition. Thats compared to the $6 to $8.5 million price tag for an Appalachian gas well, which can also pump many times more gas in a day than a digester can produce, according to BloombergNEF. The name renewable natural gas itself is a marketing term, coined a decade ago to play off the name recognition of its fossil fuel twin.

But the name also points to what makes RNG many gas companies lifeline of choice: They can use their existing infrastructure to deliver it. The more you deploy renewables, the more you need the gas grid, says Jonathan Peress, senior director of regulatory affairs with Sempra Energys SoCalGas, the largest U.S. gas utility, who was formerly senior director of energy markets and utility regulation at the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group.

SoCalGas has been campaigning the state to embrace RNG amid a push to electrify buildings. So far the effort appears to be paying off. The California Public Utilities Commission is considering a rule that would require the states gas utilities to procure a certain percentage of RNG. SoCalGas is also pushing for an RNG credit for both residential and commercial customers, and its announced plans to replace 5% of its gas supply with RNG by 2022 and 20% by 2030.

California is by far the biggest market for RNG, but others are coming up. Over the summer, Oregon finalized rules that will allow utilities to supply as much as 30% of gas customers with RNG by 2050, and several other states are considering paying fees to those adding RNG to the grid, similar to existing credits for wind and solar power. Dominion Energy announced it will invest as much as $2 billion in RNG over the next decade, in part through partnerships with Vanguard Renewables and pork-producing giant Smithfield Foods Inc. Utility owner Duke Energy Corp. made its first investment in the renewable gas sector by acquiring a minority stake in SustainRNG in July.

Melnik started looking into biodigesters more than a decade ago with other Massachusetts farmers as a way to diversify their income and make their operations more sustainable. He spent more than five years researching digesters, traveling to plants in Germany and across the U.S., to figure out the right technology to use, then how to pay for it and permit it. It was through the financing process that he came across Vanguard.

Each week, Melnik adds about 175 tons of manure, mixed with about 15 to 20 trucks worth of food waste from 19 Whole Foods Market stores, a Cabot Creamery plant, New England Natural Bakers, Tree House Brewing, the MGM Springfield casino, and Hood ice cream. Whats left behind is a liquid fertilizer, which can then be further processed to create fluffy dry bedding for the barn. Polly, the grande dame of the herd, had most of her joint pain disappear once Melnik subbed in the biodigester bedding for the hardwood chips she used to sleep on. Shes now one of the farms top milk producers. Extracting the methane eliminates almost all of the odor, so neighbors no longer complain about the scent.

The farm has drawn visitors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; utility representatives; national, state, and local regulatory officials; and businessmen from Japan to learn about the process, according to Vanguard Chief Executive Officer John Hanselman. The company currently runs biodigesters on five Massachusetts farms, including Bar-Way, and is in the final stages of setting up another one in Vermont; yet another one planned for upstate New York is in the permitting stage.

Every farm that we worked with and met with, they all want to be good stewards of the landthey understand climate change better than anybody, says Hanselman, whos also working on projects in Georgia and Texas.

The thing with the bedding, though, is just a happy accident. We knew we would be able to get the energy out, we knew we would be able to recycle food waste, but we didnt know how valuable the bedding material is, Hanselman says. Its like unintended consequences.
The leading pan-African banking group, Ecobank, has won the Award for Innovation in Financial Services at the 2020 edition of the prestigious African Banker magazine Awards.



The Awards, which reward banking excellence in Africa, were announced at a virtual ceremony held on 26th August.



The African Bankers judging process sought to recognize the African banks that have demonstrated original and practical uses of technology to provide customer convenience, improved and more affordable services, and greater access to the financial services sector in Africa.



Group Chief Executive Officer, Ade Ayeyemi receiving the award said: Winning the Award for Innovation in Financial Services from the African Banker magazine is such an honor. It provides public recognition of our pioneering role in harnessing technology to complement our pan-African presence and partnerships, to deliver accessible, convenient, affordable, and innovative banking products that are making a difference to millions of lives and businesses across sub-Saharan Africa.



Five years ago, we commenced a digital transformation journey to transform our banking products and services. This award attests to the success of that journey and we are delighted that our significant investment in technology is yielding the desired results.



Our one bank model, powered by our robust pan-African banking digital platform provides diverse products and services to governments and corporate clients using our digital platforms including Ecobank Omni Plus amongst others, Ecobank Omni Lite for our SMEs and commercial bank clients as well as our Ecobank Mobile App and Ecobank Online for our consumer clients.



These are in addition to the highly effective cash management, transaction banking solutions, and our cross-border Rapidtransfer remittance solution - a few of the headline-grabbing innovations that we have delivered to meet and exceed the evolving needs and expectations of our customers. I applaud all my Ecobank colleagues for their continued commitment and dedication to serving our customers especially during these challenging COVID-19 times.



Other African banking awards won by Ecobank so far in 2020 include amongst others, Most Innovative Bank in Africa, Best Bank for Payments& Collections, Best Integrated Corporate Banking Site in Africa (Global Finance), and the Best Bank for Corporate Responsibility (Euromoney Awards for Excellence).





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.

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The alleged leader of a crystal meth drug ring has been arrested along with ten others in the group, according to Attorney General Josh Shapiro. Shapiro announced the arrests on Aug. 31.

According to Shapiro, the drug ring would traffic meth from Reading out to Snyder, Union and Northumberland counties between 2017 and 2019. The groups ringleader is supposedly Russell Kinslow, a 51-year-old from Snyder County. Kinslow is already in prison for selling drugs.

While he was in prison, Shapiros office says that Kinslow manufactured fake credit cards in order to get cash advances at casinos. His accomplices were supposed to use these cards to get money needed for him to get an attorney and post bond so he could get out of jail.

Kinslow allegedly had a team of people involved in the drug trafficking, all of whom were paid with doses of methamphetamine.

Those charged in the crystal meth trafficking are Kristal Mondillo of Easton, Uriah Fausey of Altoona, Jamie Ross Aughenbaugh of Selinsgrove, Felicia Buck of Beavertown, Renee Herbster of Palmyra, Ronald Boney of Mifflinburg and Daniel Zeigler of Cogan Station. Monica Strocko and Samala Wilson, who are serving sentences at Snyder County Prison and Muncy State Prison respectively, were also charged, as was Jadrick Haines.

Addiction is a disease, but trafficking drugs and peddling poison in our community is crime we wont let up on, Shapiro said in a press release. Todays arrests show how our efforts havent let up during COVID-19. With the assistance of local and state authorities, we are helping Central Pennsylvania towns stay safe by locking up dangerous drug dealers.

Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work.
HALIFAXNova Scotia is reporting two new cases of COVID-19, as well as two probable cases at universities in the province.

Public health officials said today the first confirmed case is in the eastern zone, which encompasses Cape Breton, Guysborough and Antigonish, and is related to travel outside Atlantic Canada.

The second confirmed case involves a student attending Universite Sainte-Anne in Pointe-de-lEglise, on Nova Scotias west coast.

The two probable cases involve students who attend Dalhousie University in Halifax and Acadia University in Wolfville and who received indeterminate COVID-19 test results.

Authorities say both students are from outside the Atlantic bubble, live off-campus and have been isolating.

The public health agency says indeterminate test results can occur if someone is tested before COVID-19 is fully detectable in their system, or if the virus is still detectable in the system of a person who previously had COVID-19.

Nova Scotia says the two probable cases will be tested again before their 14-day isolation period ends.

Since the start of the pandemic, the province has reported 1,085 COVID-19 cases and 65 deaths attributed to the coronavirus.

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The Supreme Court on Monday imposed a Re 1 fine on activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan days after holding him guilty of criminal contempt of court for two tweets against the apex court and Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde. It said if he fails to pay the fine by September 15, Bhushan will have to undergo three-month simple imprisonment and be barred from practising for three years.

Bhushan said he gratefully accepted the judgement and his lawyer, Rajiv Dhavan, immediately paid the fine. My lawyer & senior colleague Rajiv Dhavan contributed 1 Re immediately after the contempt judgement today which I gratefully accepted, he tweeted

According to the Contempt of Courts Act, the offence of criminal contempt carries a punishment of up to six months in prison or a fine up to Rs 2,000 or both. The court has also barred lawyers found guilty of contempt from practising before it for a limited period while refraining from imposing any jail sentence.

The verdict was reserved on Tuesday last after the court gave Bhushan a fresh opportunity to apologise, withdraw his comments, or express regret.

Also Read: How Prashant Bhushan criminal contempt case progressed in Supreme Court

Dhawan and Attorney General of India KK Venugopal, the Centres top law officer who appeared in his personal capacity, last week urged the court to not punish the activist-lawyer and let him off with a reprimand. Dhavan said the effect of punishment will make Bhushan a martyr and urged the court not to do so.

The court considered these requests and wanted Bhushan to apologise before taking a lenient view. The bench, headed by Justice Arun Mishra, suggested that Bhushan must express regret for his tweets, and subsequent statements defending them.

At one point last week, the court gave Bhushan time to think over his responses and consider retracting his statements. But no apology or retraction was offered as Bhushan maintained that it would be ingenuous and a contempt of his conscience. He argued that his criticism came with the best interests of the court in mind.

The bench said the court welcomes fair criticism, but critics should not attribute motives to judges.

Justice Mishra, who will retire on Wednesday, last week said lawyers and judges are part of the same institution and should work together to ensure that the dignity of the institution is not compromised.

Several eminent jurists have said that the court was being overly harsh in initiating criminal contempt proceedings against Bhushan.

The bench last week said Bhushan has declined to apologise and has also filed statements sticking to his stance.

Bhushan had posted two tweets, one against the Supreme Court on June 27 and another against CJI Bobde on June 29.

Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association secretary Rohit Sud called the apex courts order harsh while underlining the need for the Bar and bench try to maintain cordial relations.

DPS Randhawa, the associations president, said there should not be a hitch in dialogue between the two. The court should have referred the matter to the Bar Council [of India] so that relations between the two remain cordial.

Mandeep Bedi, the president of the Senior Advocates Association of Punjab and Haryana High Court, said Bhushan should not have been fined. A fine, whether of Re 1 or Rs 10,000, is a fine. He should have been let off with a warning because it was just a tweet.

Former Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana chairman Lekh Raj Sharma called the decision a balanced one. The rule of law should prevail and I think it has been upheld in this case to save the institution. In the name of fair criticism and freedom of expression, no one should be allowed to scandalise the courts, he said.

Mehek Maheshwari, an advocate, filed a petition before the Supreme Court on July 9 seeking contempt of court proceedings against Bhushan for the tweets. Based on his petition, the court took suo motu (on its own) cognisance of the matter and listed it for the first time on July 22 and issued notice to Bhushan the same day.

The court then heard the matter on August 5 and held Bhushan guilty of contempt of court on August 14. It then posted the case for hearing on August 20 to decide the sentence.

When the matter was heard on August 20, Bhushan read out a statement expressing dismay over his conviction. He said that he was standing by his tweets, which he described as an attempt to discharge his duty towards the country.

The three-judge bench said it could show leniency only if Bhushan expressed regret and reconsidered his statement declining to apologise. It gave Bhushan time to submit an unconditional apology by August 24 failing which it would proceed against him.

Bhushan submitted a supplementary statement before the court on August 24 persisting with his stance and refusing to offer an apology. He submitted his views represented his bona fide (good faith) beliefs and, therefore, offering an apology for expressing them would be insincere.

His tweets were not intended to malign the apex court or the CJI but only offered constructive criticism so that the court could arrest any drift away from its longstanding role as a guardian of the Constitution, Bhushan said.

Dhavan suggested on Tuesday last that the court should close the case after issuing a general direction that the Bar should exercise restraint while criticising the court. He also pointed out instances when lawyers and judges have criticised the court and its judgments.

One of Bhushans main arguments was that criticising courts is protected by free speech and will not amount to contempt.
Sophia Antipolis, France - 30 Aug 2020: Dapagliflozin reduces the risk of kidney failure, death from cardiovascular causes or heart failure hospitalisation and all-cause mortality in chronic kidney disease patients with or without type 2 diabetes. That's the main result of the DAPA-CKD trial presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 2020.1

The DAPA-CKD trial tested the hypothesis that treatment with dapagliflozin is superior to placebo in reducing the risk of renal and cardiovascular events in patients with chronic kidney disease (with or without type 2 diabetes) already receiving a stable dose of either an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) as background therapy.2

The primary composite endpoint was worsening kidney function (defined as >_50% sustained decline in estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] or onset of end-stage kidney disease), or death due to kidney disease or cardiovascular disease.

The secondary endpoints were, in hierarchical order: 1) a composite endpoint of worsening kidney function (defined as >_50% sustained decline in eGFR or onset of end-stage kidney disease), or death from kidney failure; 2) a composite endpoint of hospitalisation for heart failure or cardiovascular death; and 3) all-cause mortality.
The ruling Shiv Sena took on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over its Ghantanaad protest, which has demanded reopening of temples in Maharashtra, and asked if the opposition party would take the blame for a surge in coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in the state following the relaxation.

The Maharashtra unit of the BJP on Saturday had warned the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government that it would forcibly reopen all the temples in the state if the government did not give permission for it.

Also read: States to resume buses, trains

The BJPs threat came after a day-long ghantanad andolan held across Maharashtra.

As part of the protest, party workers had assembled outside temples ringing brass bells, blowing conches and chanting hymns across various cities and towns in Maharashtra, demanding their reopening.

People would get mental peace through the reopening of temples, but if there is again an explosion in Covid-19 cases, will the opposition take responsibility of it? Devendra Fadnavis said that people understand how to maintain physical distancing after religious places are reopened. But it was visible how the physical distancing was maintained in the ghantanaad andolan held by the BJP the other day. The opposition should understand the situation rather than making such unrealistic demands, said an editorial in the Sena mouthpiece Saamana on Monday.

It questioned if the demand to allow reopening of religious places had anything to do with faith or it was only a political ploy.

Prakash Ambedkar, the president of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, has also demanded the reopening of the Vitthal-Rukmai temple at Pandharpur in Solapur district.

The editorial cited that All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) Member of Parliament (MP) Imtiaz Jaleel had also threatened that he would break the locks of mosques in Aurangabad on September 2, if the state government did not allow them to reopen.

The demand for reopening of religious places has been going on for around a month, but the Uddhav Thackeray government is treading cautiously to avoid crowding because Covid-19 cases have been steadily climbing in Maharashtra.

Fadnavis, the leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra legislative assembly, had questioned the rationale behind keeping temples shut while allowing shopping malls, liqour stores etc to remain open.

There are many aspects, including livelihood of the poor, interlinked to pilgrimage centres to social aspects, which cannot be overlooked. Its a matter of an individuals faith and belief, which the government should respect and open temples, Fadnavis had said on Saturday.

In an apparent response to Fadnavis, the editorial said, ... Besides peace of the mind, temples should be reopened, as they are a source of livelihood for lakhs of families. The locks on temples should be opened for peace of mind, but not for political reasons. First, let people live, the rest will be dealt with later.

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The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has condemned the arrest of the President of the Concerned Small Scale Miners Association, Michael Kwadwo Peprah.



Micheal Peprah, was reportedly arrested at his residence in the Ashanti Region.



According to a statement signed by the National Communications Officer of the NDC, Michael Peprah was arrested over a facebook post.



"The National Democratic Congress has just learnt of the arrest and detention of the President of the Concerned Small Scale Miners Association, Michael Kwadwo Peprah for a post he made on his Facebook wall, ahead of the Associations planned press conference to expose the Akufo Addo-government on mining-related issues.



"Michael Kwadwo Peprah was arrested in the Ashanti region last night and is currently at the Central Police Station in Kumasi waiting to be transported to Accra, on the orders of the Environment Minister and Chief Galamsey promoter, Professor Frimpong Boateng," Sammy Gyamfi stated.



Read the full post below



The National Democratic Congress, has just learnt of the arrest and detention of the President of the Concerned Small Scale Miners Association, Michael Kwadwo Peprah for a post he made on his Facebook wall, ahead of the Associations planned press conference to expose the Akufo Addo-government on mining related issues.



Michael Kwadwo Peprah was arrested in the Ashanti region last night and is currently at the Central Police Station in Kumasi waiting to be transported to Accra, on the orders of the Environment Minister and Chief Galamsey promoter, Professor Frimpong Boateng.



The NDC condemns this shameful act, which is part of a desperate scheme by the oppressive and despotic Akufo Addo-government to intimidate, harass and silence critical voices ahead of the 2020 general elections.



We are reliably informed, that as we speak, Michael Kwadwo Peprah has not been given access to his lawyers by the Police. We humbly entreat the media and CSOs to follow this matter and give it the attention it deserves.



Lets us speak up against the culture of oppression and tyranny being supervised by President Akufo Addo, because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. #IstandWithMichaelKwadwoPeprah



SAMMY GYAMFI ESQ.



National Communication Officer, NDC

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Congratulations, googleplus.com got a very good Social Media Impact Score! Show it by adding this HTML code on your site:

Googleplus.com scored 79 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 4/5.0 Stars by Social Team

This CoolSocial report was updated on 5 Sep 2019, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want.

This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared, liked or recommended the googleplus homepage on Facebook + the total number of page likes (if googleplus has a Facebook fan page). The total number of people who shared the googleplus homepage on StumbleUpon. The total number of people who shared the googleplus homepage on Delicious. The total number of people who shared the googleplus homepage on Google Plus by a google +1 button. This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared the googleplus homepage on Twitter + the total number of googleplus followers (if googleplus has a Twitter account).

Basic Information

PAGE TITLE Browser not supported - Google+ DESCRIPTION KEYWORDS OTHER KEYWORDS browser, not supported, supported, google,



The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of the site. The title found in the head section of the homepage. The description meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. CoolSocial advanced keyword analysis tool is able to detect and analyze every keyword on each page of a site. The keywords meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage.

Domain and Server

DOCTYPE HTML 5.0 CHARSET AND LANGUAGE English UTF-8English DETECTED LANGUAGE English English SERVER ESF OPERATIVE SYSTEM

Represents HTML declared type (e.g.: XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.0, the new HTML 5.0) Character set and language of the site. Type of server and offered services. The language of googleplus.com as detected by CoolSocial algorithms. Operative System running on the server.

Site Traffic trend during the last year. Only available for sites ranked <= 100000 in the world.

Referring domains for googleplus.com by MajesticSeo. High values are a sign of site importance over the web and on web engines.

Facebook link

FACEBOOK PAGE LINK NOT FOUND

A Facebook page link can be found in the homepage or in the robots.txt file. The URL of the found Facebook page. The description of the Facebook page describes website and its services to the social media users. The type of Facebook page. The total number of people who like website Facebook page. The total number of people who tagged or talked about website Facebook page in the last 7-10 days. Facebook Timeline is the new layout of Facebook pages.

Twitter account link

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Cobra firework. Credit: Karlijn Bezemer

The police frequently encounter explosives in their forensic investigations related to criminal and terrorist activities. Chemical analysis of explosives can yield valuable tactical information for police and counter-terrorist units. Within the compass of her doctoral research, Karlijn Bezemer has developed a new generation of tools which can be used to not only identify signature properties of explosives and their raw materials but also to enable comparison of explosives. Bezemer, who works at the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), is set to obtain her Ph.D. at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) on Wednesday, 2 September.

In traditional forensic casework, explosives experts focus on matters such as the chemical identification of an explosive. "Identifying the type of explosive material isn't the only important aspect, though," Bezemer explains. "Increasingly, the Public Prosecution Service is asking the NFI whether there might be a link between two crime scenes (e.g. different attacks on ATMs), or between material found at a crime scene and raw materials found at a suspect's home. The distinctive chemical profiles of explosives can be used to establish (or refute) commonalities in terms of source, thereby assisting with forensic investigations. If the police don't have a suspect yet, but tactical information can be derived from the explosive material, this could put them on a suspect's track."

Bezemer's research enables her to cross the boundary from forensic evidence into forensic intelligence. In the future, information obtained through explosives profiling and intelligence could even be used to prevent incidents with explosives from happening. Bezemer has focused her research on three main topics: organic explosives, fireworks, and the detection of firework traces.

Homemade explosives

The use of explosives is popular among terrorists. Terrorist attacks often entail the use of organic, homemade explosives. These are relatively straightforward to make and the necessary raw materials are generally easy to acquire. The highly explosive material TATP is commonly used in terrorist attacks, including the attacks on the Stade de France in Paris (2015) and the Manchester Arena (2017). ETN, an organic nitrate ester, is increasingly being used as well. Bezemer made a large number of batches of both explosives. To be clear: she made them in safe conditions and in small quantities under varying synthesis conditions, each time using different processes, under varying conditions and with different raw materials. "This enables us to compile databases that we can use for the chemical profiling of organic explosives, which are badly needed. In comparison, for drug-related forensic research, a vast number of databases are readily available, containing information on the chemical composition and production processes. These databases can be created because of the ample availability of drug samples from ongoing investigations. For explosives, this situation is of course quite different, which means that you have to create your own samples in order to obtain such information."

Flash bangers

"Organic explosives account for only part of the casework in the Netherlands. Most cases involve firework misuse," says Bezemer. "This poses a serious safety risk, and not just because of irresponsible, risky behavior by the people involved, usually young adolescents. Criminals also use heavy fireworks, so-called 'flash bangers,' for example for extortion, assaults, or attacks on ATMs. In addition to the illegal use of legally produced fireworks, there is also the issue of cheaper imitation flash bangers, particularly with the Cobra. These look virtually identical to real Cobras, but are a lot less reliable and therefore much more dangerous as well. They often contain cheap filler material, such as gravel or sawdust, and the fuses are usually substandard."

Bezemer developed methods to distinguish between different batches of Cobras and imitation Cobras. To this end, she created a large collection of batches of Cobra fireworks in collaboration with the police. This enables to distinguish different types of seized batches of fireworks from each other. This can assist the police in their fight against the illegal trade in, and the misuse of, Cobras for criminal and terrorist activities. In the case of post-explosion investigative work, most of the external features of a flash banger have been destroyed and the residues found rarely allow the firework's characteristic properties to be determined. Bezemer devised a method which still makes it possible to distinguish between different batches of fireworks based on the trace elements in the plastic caps, which are almost always found partially or even completely intact.

Trace detection

Firework legislation differs from country to country, but even in countries with strict regulations like the Netherlands heavy fireworks are relatively easy to obtain on the black market, for example using the internet. This makes it possible for criminals and terrorists to make powerful explosives in relative anonymity and with fewer safety risks than if they were to produce an organic explosive at home. Consequently, police and investigation services are increasingly focusing on the illegal production of fireworks and their distribution (whether legal or illegal). Bezemer investigated two screening techniques for the detection of firework traces on packaging materials. The initial findings she identified could help in the future with the large-scale screening of mailed parcels, aimed at detecting the illegal distribution of fireworks.

Explore further Protection against terrorist attacks with homemade explosives
The unsettled autocrat leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, made it a 66th birthday to remember on Sunday with a show of force against protesters that tilted the countrys 20-day civil uprising to a new militaristic level.

It was the logical continuation of a week of tightening screws.

The immediate backdrop to what protesters were calling a march for peace and independence was anything but auspicious. Arrests of journalists, strike leaders, protesters, and protest leaders seemed calibrated to undermine the resolve of the people.

To some degree, the tactics worked. Amid explicit orders to stay away from central Minsk, and a very obvious police presence from early morning, the numbers of protesters were obviously down from last weekends demonstrations. Even so, perhaps 50,000 defied the warnings.

Arrests began even before the 2pm scheduled start, with authorities hitting hard and early in an operation of almost cartoonish menace.

Recommended Belarus moves to expel journalists working for western media

First, police trucks pulled up alongside demonstrators as they headed towards Independence Square, the advertised gathering point for the protests.

As the doors of some of the trucks swung open and operatives began grabbing people, a handful of the vehicles performed a volte face, and drove at demonstrators from the other side of the road.

Isolated scuffles broke out between police and what appeared to be fleeing protesters. One demonstrator seemed to resist being detained  one of the very few instances when protesters have engaged on similar terms with the regime.

Within what felt like less than a minute, a new line of riot police came into view.

These units appeared to have been waiting for the moment from a position just off the square. This was the main entrance of the Omon, Mr Lukashenkos loyal lieutenants, who have been closely associated with the extreme violence that took place between 9 and 12 August, and who are capable of sending Belarusians into panic mode by their very appearance.

The Omon officers arrived in Mad Max-style black jeeps, fronted by three-metre metal mesh shields. They pushed forward in two lines, with rifle-toting officers peeking out from above the mesh bumpers. They were followed by lines of riot shields, water cannon and police trucks.

The sense that they were some kind of advancing army was only heightened by the green-and-red flags they flew  a symbol of the Lukashenko regime.

Eventually, authorities cornered a few thousand protesters around the central intersection of Lenin Street and Independence Avenue.

They were kept there for nearly an hour, and separated into two groups. Some managed to break through the cordons, though some male protesters were detained. The vast majority of the 140 reported arrests took place in the first phase of the protest.

By 3.30pm, large crowds had assembled elsewhere and continued the march on its pre-planned route towards Mr Lukashenkos residence two miles away. This second part of the march was much more peaceful in comparison, literally dampened by pouring rain.

As the crowds approached the barriers that had been erected outside the residence, some dropped off presents and placards they had prepared for the rulers birthday. They included slippers, an early symbol of the protest, along with a wreath and a coffin.

The most prominent of the placards left behind communicated a simple message. We have truth, you have Omon, it said.
JEFFERSON CITY  The number of people on Medicaid in Missouri has jumped by nearly 100,000 people since the pandemic hit the United States.

Although some of the growth is likely due to the economic fallout of shutting down the economy to slow the spread of COVID-19, a federal relief package providing more money to states for Medicaid costs also is a factor.

In March, President Trump signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act that allowed states to draw down extra cash for the public health insurance program for low-income people.

In order for states to be eligible, they were barred from altering eligibility rules and from raising premiums. They also arent allowed to terminate coverage for those already enrolled in the program.

In Missouri, state officials suggest the lack of terminations, known as churn, may be playing a role in the growth of the rolls.

Consistent with the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act, the Department of Social Services will not terminate eligibility for any Medicaid participant unless the individual is deceased, requests a voluntary termination of eligibility, or the individual ceases to be a resident of the state through the end of the federal emergency COVID-19 declaration, said Department of Social Services spokeswoman Rebecca Woelfel.

Through much of the second half of 2019, the number of people enrolled in the program hovered around the 850,000 mark.

But, after the federal relief bill went into effect this spring, the number has risen, topping 957,000 at the end of July.

The increase comes after Gov. Mike Parsons administration came under fire last year over a drop in the number of children receiving Medicaid benefits.

Medicaid enrollment began climbing from around 840,000 in October 2014, according to data from the Department of Social Services. It peaked at nearly 997,000 in April 2017 and slowly declined until July 2018, when it began to fall more rapidly. In December, total enrollment stood at about 847,000.

The majority of those dropped from the rolls were children: 97,989 left the Medicaid program over that period. Most of the rest who lost coverage were custodial parents, 26,690 of them.

Enrollment is likely to continue growing as administration officials are preparing to implement a constitutional amendment approved by 53% of Missouri voters in the August primary that would expand Medicaid coverage to an estimated 230,000 additional low-income people.

The decision will mean adults between the ages of 19 and 65 whose income is at or below 138% of the federal poverty level will be covered. As of this year, that amounts to $17,608 for an individual and $36,156 for a household of four.

The federal government now covers about 65% of Medicaid costs, while the rest comes from the state. But populations covered under Medicaid expansion would have 90% covered by federal funding.

Parson and Republican officials have warned the strain of the pandemic on state coffers will force lawmakers to reduce spending on other areas of the state budget, including schools and universities, to accommodate the added costs.

But, an analysis by the Washington University-based Center for Health Economics and Policy found that expansion would add 231,000 adults and 40,500 children to the rolls, save $39 million a year and spur the creation of thousands of jobs.

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China, France should safeguard JCPOA, other intl. agreements against unilateralism: FM

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 2:26 PM

In an implied rebuke of US' unilateral policies, China's foreign minister says Beijing and Paris should work to promote multilateralism and safeguard major international agreements, such as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, in the face of unilateralism.

Wang Yi made the remarks in a Saturday meeting with his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, in Paris, where he said the two sides "should strengthen coordination and cooperation on international affairs, and safeguard major outcomes of international agreements and multilateral diplomacy, such as the Iran nuclear deal."

US President Donald Trump, a hawkish critic of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), unilaterally withdrew Washington from the agreement in May 2018, and unleashed the "toughest ever" sanctions against the Islamic Republic in defiance of global criticism.

Following its much-criticized exit, Washington has been attempting to prevent the remaining signatories from abiding by their commitments and thus kill the historic agreement, which is widely viewed as a fruit of international diplomacy.

Both China and France are among the remaining parties to the Iran deal.

Wang further took an indirect jab at the Trump administration for pulling the US out of major international and multilateral organizations and treaties, saying, "Unilateralism, including irresponsible withdrawal from international organizations or violation of international agreements, is unpopular."

He added, "Without multilateralism, the multilateral mechanism and international order established since World War II will be seriously damaged, and small- and medium-sized countries will suffer a huge impact."

Wang emphasized that "unilateralism is on the rise today as some countries ignore international agreements and refuse to fulfill their international obligations."

The Chinese call comes amid yet another illegal US push at the UN Security Council to use a provision in the JCPOA to renew all UN sanctions against Iran, turning a deaf ear to calls by the remaining signatories that Washington is no longer a party to the deal and is in no position to do so.

Trump has made several controversial decisions since he took the oath of office in January 2017, including ones that forced the US out of international treaties in defiance of global outcry.

The Trump administration pulled the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia last year. The 1992 treaty allows member countries to conduct short-notice, unarmed, reconnaissance flights over the other countries to collect data on their military forces and activities.

Trump has also pulled his country out of the UN culture and education organization UNESCO, the Paris climate accord and the Human Rights Council.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Wang said that maintaining multilateralism was the biggest consensus reached during his trip to Europe, urging China and France, as major responsible countries, to actively promote and practice multilateralism under such circumstances.

"The two sides should strengthen multilateral institutions. The United Nations is the most important platform for supporting and practicing multilateralism, and the two sides should support the United Nations in playing its due central role in international affairs," the Chinese foreign minister pointed out.

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(Newser)  In an ominous sign for the commercial real estate market market, a social media company has decided to cough up $89.5 million instead of proceeding with a deal to rent new offices in San Francisco. The company cited the shift toward working from home for its decision to cancel its lease of space in the yet-to-be-constructed 88 Bluxome complex, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Pinterest, which has around 2,200 employees around the world, says it will continue to rent its existing San Francisco offices. SFist estimates that if Pinterest hadn't paid the one-time fee to cancel the lease, it would have ended up paying around $440 million for offices that would have remained largely empty.

story continues below

"As we analyze how our workplace will change in a post-COVID world, we are specifically rethinking where future employees could be based," Pinterest Chief Financial Officer Todd Morgenfeld said in a statement Friday. "A more distributed workforce will give us the opportunity to hire people from a wider range of backgrounds and experiences." Other Bay Area tech companies have said working from home is likely to remain the norm after the pandemic, with Twitter telling employees they never have to return to the office. A recent Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research found that 42% of the US labor force now works remotely and around a third are out of work, leaving only around 26% working from offices and other sites, the Sacramento Bee reports (Read more Pinterest stories.)
Nearly 350 Vietnamese citizens return from the US

Nearly 350 Vietnamese citizens from the US were brought home on a repatriation flight which landed safely at Van Don International Airport in the northern province of Quang Ninh on Sunday.

Nearly 350 Vietnamese citizens from the US were brought home on a repatriation flight on August 30. Photo by Baoquocte



According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the flight was arranged by authorities of the two countries and the national flag Vietnam Airlines.

Passengers include children aged under 18, the elderly, the ill, workers with expired visas and labour contracts, students without accommodations, stranded tourists, and those in disadvantaged circumstances.

After landing at the airport, all passengers and crew members of the two flights were given health check-ups and sent to quarantine areas in line with regulations.

To date, over 110 repatriation flights have been arranged by Vietnamese authorities since April 10 to help over 32,000 local people stranded abroad due to Covid-19 return home, the ministry said, adding that more such flights are set to be conducted in the coming time.
Im often asked to impart advice to aspiring food writers these days, a situation that always generates a Who, me? expression in my brow. Usually I lean on giving advice on matters that are immediately practical, like Ask for more money, or Share your rates with other writers, but I learned that thats not very romantic, and its also not what anyone really wants to hear.

Instead, Ive been telling people this: Refine your technique by writing about something unremarkable. Its easy enough to describe the spectacular in food, like the jaw-dropping, larger-than-life hand molded from chocolate that Atelier Crenn pastry chef Juan Contreras uses to plate his mignardises course. (No, you shouldnt lick it  especially now.) Or the electricity of a bite of ripe mango, which makes you shiver as its tartness practically dances down your spine.

Instead, its worth taking another look at the more functional things we tend to pass over, like bottled water, iodized salt or the shredded iceberg lettuce that forms the bed of Swan Oyster Depots seafood salads. Like the sight of our noses, weve been trained to block them out; we have to intentionally pause and observe. Oftentimes, we dont have the words.

I love how in a recent piece for Food & Wine restaurant editor Khushbu Shah describes yogurt rice, a dish that is exactly what it sounds like. It sounds boring. Yet she leans into its plainness, holding it up as a virtue. Its a food that brings her to equilibrium  gentle, calming and restorative. In a brief essay in Curator Magazine, poet L.L. Barkat puts a cabbage under a literary microscope. The humble vegetable is a fat baby-faced candle you keep peeling back, only to find it has no wick, just a ruffly heart that, at the last, clings to a core of root flesh and holds nothing but air.

Sometimes, while fluffing white rice with a plastic paddle in my rice cooker, I try to think of new ways to name its sensations. The bouncy mound of its warm kernels overfills a bowl like a babys belly peeking out of a too-small shirt. Its humility exists in such powerful contrast to its use as racialized descriptor of Honda Civics modified with a bunch of decorative flair by Asian American ricers; the kinds of cars you see racing up and down US-101 at night. To close your eyes and smell it is to imagine yourself standing equidistant between a bread bakery and a movie theater, getting delicate whiffs of popcorn and bread crusts in each nostril. Theres a lot to rice!

So, my challenge to new food writers is, if you were to describe a bowl of plain rice, could you fill a page before your ideas were exhausted? Can you let that bowl take you somewhere surprising?

On the podcast

Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

This week on Extra Spicy, Justin Phillips and I talk to the two Shawns to rule them all: Shawn Naputi and Shawn Camacho, co-founders of Guamanian restaurant Prubechu. We discuss how theyve struggled to adapt their Mission District restaurant to the realities of outdoor dining: from refining how they talk to diners about the rules of engagement to watching garnishes fly away on breezy evenings. Even though the pandemic derailed their vision of what Prubechu was meant to be, they remain steadfast in their dedication to teaching San Franciscans about what Guam has to offer.

What Im eating

Traveling cocktail and Cantonese food pop-up GamSaan made an appearance at the Showdown bar last week, selling treats like teriyaki tofu musubi and an overwhelmingly buttery and rich rendition of shrimp with garlic noodles. The surprise for me was the version of Chex mix, a.k.a. the Cereal Killer ($7), a mix of Bugles, flat pretzel chips, Chex and nori tossed in a sweet and salty seasoning. It was as saccharine as kettle corn, with little of the Worcestershire-powered savoriness that characterizes the usual version. I thought it wasnt to my taste, but then I looked up after my workday and noticed that Id eaten the entire quart. I guess I did like it after all.

Over the weekend, I checked out Tastebuds, a brunch spot in the Richmond District. While the timing wasnt right for me to enjoy its collaborative pop-up with Oaklands Smokin Woods BBQ, I was able to indulge in a classic take on Southern shrimp and grits ($15). The cheesy grits had a smooth texture with just a little bite  a welcome belly-warmer for those foggy Richmond mornings. And the shrimp, cooked with plenty of butter and spice, were plump and generously doled out. The flavor brought me back to afternoons in New Orleans, when I ladled out countless bowls of the same dish while working in the French Quarter. I havent had grits that good in a long time.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Recommended reading

 In case you missed it: I checked out Broke Ass Cooks, a joint culinary project by three unemployed restaurant veterans whove been selling family-style platters of chicken and rice out of their West Oakland home to make ends meet. While I was first drawn to them by the sheer honesty of their moniker, what kept me coming back was the bomb grilled chicken.

 Resys Chinatown package is a great set of stories, but my favorite is this tour of San Franciscos classic Chinese American dishes, written by the incomparable Jonathan Kauffman. Each entry, from the yi fu wontons at Far East Cafe to the meat pie special at Henrys Hunan, details the fascinating and sometimes dramatic histories of the families who invented them.

 Dont overlook this powerful first-person essay by Scott Chang-Fleeman, founder of Shao Shan Farm in West Marin, on how the concept of resilience fails to truly capture what farmers like him have been going through in recent months. In the North and South Bay, farmers and the campesinos who harvest many of our states crops have worked through the smoky afternoons and evacuation warnings  but at what cost, he asks?

Bite Curious is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicles restaurant critic, Soleil Ho, delivered to inboxes on Monday mornings. Follow along on Twitter: @Hooleil
Remarks by President Trump in an Emergency Operations Briefing | Orange, TX (August 29, 2020)

August 30, 2020

Orange County Convention and Expo Center

Orange, Texas

August 29, 2020

3:59 P.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, everybody. I very much appreciate you being here. Thank you. And we  we love this state. It's been a great state for me, and it's been a great state for everybody in this room, I can tell you, Governor, right? And we're here to help.

We're joined today by Governor Greg Abbott, a very special man. And he's doing a fantastic job for the state of Texas, and he has from day one.

And Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, another friend of mine. And thank you, Dan. And I watched you the other night on a very important show, and you did incredibly well representing the state.

And State Attorney General Ken Paxton, where he's a very aggressive attorney general, and that's what we like. And you have got some very big ones, including the mail-in ballots, right? "Unsolicited," I call them. The "unsolicited" mail-in ballots, where people are sitting home and they just get hit with mail-in ballots all over the place.

STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL PAXTON: That's a good way to put it.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I hope you're going to be successful. I think it's actually a very important case, not only here but for the whole country. So I know you're  you're really on top. I think we have about 18 of those cases throughout the country. In Pennsylvania, we have, and North Carolina. We have a lot of them, so we'll see.

But you're one of the great leaders. Thank you very much, Ken. I appreciate it.

A man who's really been there when we need him, and he's  he's been incredible for Texas and he's been my friend: Ted Cruz. Thank you.

SENATOR CRUZ: Mr. President, welcome.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Ted. We spent a lot of time before, and we're working on getting Texas everything they need. And we'll bring it back.

SENATOR CRUZ: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Congressman Brian Babin. Brian, thank you very much. A warrior and a really terrific guy.

And Randy  where's Randy? Randy, thank you. Randy Weber, congressman. Thank you very much.

And we have a couple of people who have been friends of mine, and I won't mention too much, but they got a little shot of COVID. And I understand they're going to be perfect; they're going to be absolutely fine.

I want to say hello to Becky Ames. Becky, thank you very much. Beaumont  you're doing good, right? Everything okay?

MAYOR AMES: Yes, sir. We are.

THE PRESIDENT: Were you hit hard?

MAYOR AMES: Not as hard as we could've been.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, it could've been a lot harder.

MAYOR AMES: It could've been a lot harder.

THE PRESIDENT: That's great.

MAYOR AMES: And we're recovering, and we appreciate you being here, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, Becky. I hear you're doing a great job.

And again, we were talking before about the path and the path  it could have been much more, because the power was incredible. Louisiana took a very, very hard hit, but even Louisiana, who was over just a little bit further, it would have been a record-setting hit because the power was record setting. It was at 185 and 175; it went to 150  150 miles an hour when it hit. But it was even worse than that, and it came quickly. It came very quickly. It came  in fact, I guess you would say, Pete, they were looking at that as a storm, and all of a sudden, the storm became a monster.

ADMINISTRATOR GAYNOR: Yes, sir. Thirty-six hours, a Cat 4.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. It went from a storm to 185 and 175 miles an hour. And then, when it hit, it was  and I think they say it was the most  the strongest that they've had in Louisiana and Texas in 150 years. But the path was a little bit lucky, so we got a little bit lucky, so that's great.

I want to also introduce Chad Wolf, who, as you know, we just took the "acting" away from his name. And you're doing a fantastic job  Homeland Security. And hopefully, Ted, we'll be pushing that very hard, and we'll get him through quickly because he's done a fantastic job.

ACTING SECRETARY WOLF: Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Chad.

SENATOR CRUZ: He'll get confirmed.

THE PRESIDENT: He'll  he'll do it, all right?

SENATOR CRUZ: Yeah, we'll get it done, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. If he says it, that means it's a good sign. (Laughter.) That's a good sign.

And FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor, who's been doing this with me for a long time, and we haven't had a loss yet. We haven't had a loser. I'll tell you, we do it good and we do it fast, and we get you back up.

And everything, I think, Governor, has been signed and you're ready to go? Right?

GOVERNOR ABBOTT: Yes. Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: You're ready to go. I will dispense with all of the different numbers; you know what they are. We just sort of did it. We were in Louisiana and we went through, and they have been hit hard. They  we went through a couple of areas. I have never seen anything quite like it. You had trees ripped out from the roots. You had pine trees that were broken in half, not even from  and you just don't see that kind of power.

So we went through something that was pretty, pretty bad. I don't think you got anything like that, and that's good. So we took the emergency declaration. We gave it to the Governor immediately. And Dan called about it also, and I appreciate that call. And between the two of them, that's a great one-two punch. The Governor told me that himself, so I appreciate it.

And FEMA has delivered 400,000 liters of water and 250,000 meals already. We've worked with the private sector to restore power to remaining 200,000 residents, and they think the power is going to be restored almost  in very good order, I believe.

GOVERNOR ABBOTT: Pretty quick.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. I believe so.

And all of the other things that we've been doing  the infrastructure, all of the elements that we've been working on. And we're working very close with Ted Cruz and with John Cornyn, who I hear is doing very well, by the way. I hear he's doing  he's a great senator. He's doing a fantastic job. And  and we've been working with the Governor and with Dan, and I think maybe it'd be good if you would tell us how are we doing and what can we do and how can we help you, Governor.

GOVERNOR ABBOTT: Sure. First, I need to thank you for the way that you have stepped up. People don't know this, but on midnight, as the storm was crossing the shoreline, you called me. And then  so that was 1:00 a.m. your time, and then we spoke again the morning after it happened.

You have been there for us every step of the way, helping us. Never have I seen such a swift response to our request as we have received from Administrator Gaynor. We cannot thank you enough. I call him, and it's like he knows in advance I'm going to be calling him. (Laughter.) And so he just says "yes" immediately.

And so, of all the storms I've been through  which, as you know, has been a lot  I've never received a swifter response from the administration. And so on behalf of everybody in this room and everybody across the state of Texas, we want to say "thank you."

I want to thank the local officials. Judge Gothia and  whose county we're in right now  we appreciate you and your leadership. The members of Congress, Becky, and the other mayors in the region, we appreciate everything you do. And of course, Nim Kidd.

If I could share some details  I know you covered the details in Louisiana  just real quick.

I have declared a disaster in 62 counties, and the President has similarly declared a disaster in each of those counties. So on behalf of all of those 62 counties, we all say thank you, Mr. President, for that.

Right now, our areas of focus are on power, water, points of distribution, safe return of evacuees, and damage assessment. On power and water restoration, peak power outages exceeded 350,000 locations across 35 counties. Current outages, as of 9:00 a.m. this morning, are about 120,000 locations in 23 counties, meaning that emergency repair crews have quickly restored more than 250  I mean, 230 of those power outage incidents.

For drinking water assessments, 111 of 171 drinking water system est-  or assessments have been completed; 84 are operational; 26 systems are under boil water notice.

In addition to things like that, we have 19 points of distribution set up in the impacted region that are providing things like water, ice, MREs, while their power and water systems are  remain inoperable.

There were over 10,000 evacuees that are in shelters throughout the state in approximately 3,300 hotel rooms. Of the shelter residents, the Texas Division of Emergency Management under Nim Kidd is tracking more than 2,200 shelter residents who are from Louisiana. Very important is that more than 10,000 of those evacuees were in what's called non-congregate settings. What that means is they were in hotel rooms, typically. That is so important because we had to respond to Hurricane Laura while also responding to COVID-19, and the best setting for someone who's an evacuee from a hurricane is not in a large congregate setting, but in separate settings to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

We succeeded in getting through Hurricane Hanna without this spread of COVID-19, and I believe we will succeed in getting through Hurricane Laura without spreading COVID-19.

A total of 808 residents were returned on 43 buses with more missions scheduled for today, and 160 state buses are ready to assist the ongoing re-population efforts.

Let's see. That's about it. We continue to assess damages throughout the region. We are on top of this because of the swift and effective leadership of Chief Nim Kidd. But we are better capable and swifter in responding to this hurricane because of the way you and your administration so swiftly stepped up and helped out the people of Texas.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, Governor. You're doing a great job in every way. In fact, I notice your COVID  you say "COVID-19." Many different names. At least 20 different names, right? But you call it "COVID-19." That's okay with me, at least for today. (Laughter.) Generally, I call it something else.

But you're doing very well in that. You're coming down very rapidly  Texas  and so is Florida and so is  Arizona has been incredible; it's down to its lowest numbers. So it's really  it's really doing well. So, that's part of this.

And I like what you're doing with respect to keeping people separated during this problem with the hurricane. Great job.

GOVERNOR ABBOTT: Sure.

THE PRESIDENT: Really great job. Thank you very much.

GOVERNOR ABBOTT: Sure. Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks, Greg.

Ted, please.

SENATOR CRUZ: Well, Mr. President, we appreciate your being down in Texas once again. And let me say something that I just told the FEMA administrator a few minutes ago, which is that the consistent report I've gotten from the Governor, I've gotten from local officials, state officials, is the responsiveness of the administration throughout this hurricane has been extraordinary. In many ways, we had a blessing with this hurricane, and then it could have been much, much worse.

There was significant damage from this hurricane, but compared to what we've seen in the past, Texas could have gotten hit much worse. We obviously grieve that our neighbors in Louisiana took the brunt of this storm. And just as Louisiana stepped up and helped Texas, particularly with Hurricane Harvey but other hurricanes as well, we're now stepping up to help our neighbors in Louisiana who are really suffering.

But one of the things that's really impressive also is just the level of coordination. You know, Mayor Ames and I were laughing about how we've got an inadvertent and unfortunate expertise right now, and that Texas has been through some major, major disasters. And what we see consistently is a degree of interaction between the city officials, the county officials, the state officials, the federal officials, where you don't get bickering and you don't get turf jockeying. You just get everyone working together.

And as these disasters have come, you have reached out repeatedly. I still remember talking with you when Hurricane Harvey was in the Gulf, and I was in the Lucchese factory at El Paso.

THE PRESIDENT: That's right.

SENATOR CRUZ: And you said then, and it was the case then and the case now  you said: Everything Texas needs  the federal government, the resources will be there.

And thank you for that leadership. It's important, and it's a testament here to the strength and expertise of the Texans at this table working with the federal government that we minimize the damage as much as possible with a very dangerous storm.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Great job. Thank you very much.

Dan, please.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PATRICK: I was in the state senate when Ike hit. And the difference in your response, personally, and the response of the administration and FEMA is, of scale, they were a 1 and you're a 10.

The fact that you called the governor at one in the morning, your time 

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I knew  I knew he was going to be up, so  (laugher). With him, I don't have to worry about that.

SENATOR CRUZ: Dan, you need to make it at 11, like Spinal Tap.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PATRICK: Yes, let's make it 11. I mean, night and day.

We went years where we weren't paid by the former administration, where our counties and our cities didn't get paid.

THE PRESIDENT: No, I know. I know. I see the records.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PATRICK: You've done a fabulous job.

Secondly, on COVID, to give you the numbers, our highest point in the hospital was 10,883 in July; we're now under 4,800.

THE PRESIDENT: That's great.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PATRICK: And on COVID in ICU, we're down almost 60 percent in many hospitals; 70 percent in some hospitals, in the ICU. So the Governor's leadership here and all of Texans working together, we've really turned that corner.

THE PRESIDENT: That's great (inaudible).

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PATRICK: And then I want to give the judge credit. We were here two days ago, and the Judge said, "Look, we weren't hit as hard as some other areas, so whatever we have that other people need" And so many Texans  we respect the Cajun Navy that came for us. We don't have a name for our volunteers  the Texas brigade, the Texas volunteers, whatever you want to call them. But I've seen on all the newscasts, thousands of Texans have gone over to Louisiana, and that's the spirit of Americans working together.

THE PRESIDENT: That's great.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PATRICK: So, Judge, thank you for  right away, you said, "Hey, we want to help everyone else." So thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Good job, Judge.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PATRICK: You've been here so many times for us.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Dan. I appreciate it. Ken? Please.

STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL PAXTON: So, Mr. President, I did not grow up in Texas. My dad was an Air Force pilot; we grew up all over the place. But one of the things I love about Texas is we get stuff done, and you fit the culture of Texas because you get stuff done. So, thank you, because you truly have accelerated the pace of getting relief to our state like nobody else. So thank you.

And this governor has been exceptional in dealing with disasters like literally no governor I've ever seen. So I want to give you credit as well. So that's all I wanted to say is: Thank you both.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Brian?

REPRESENTATIVE BABIN: Yes, sir. Thank you for being here, Mr. President. It's an honor to have you in our district, and I can't thank you and your administration enough for the rapid response. We're still actually cleaning up after Imelda and after Harvey and other storms that have hit us. And your administration has been absolutely on the money.

And I'd also like to  he's not here today, but I want to  I want to brag a little bit on the Orange mayor who is not here.

THE PRESIDENT: That's right.

REPRESENTATIVE BABIN: His name is Larry spears. He's done a tremendous job. And he is  I'm a former mayor myself, and I appreciate Mayor Spears and what he does.

But, Mr. President, your  your administration has done  we're not supposed to get political here, and I realize that, but it has been like night and day from what we've seen in the past, and I just wanted want to say thank you 

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Brian.

REPRESENTATIVE BABIN:  for what you're doing.

THE PRESIDENT: Appreciate it.

REPRESENTATIVE BABIN: Okay.

THE PRESIDENT: And say hello to the mayor. He'll be fine; I know it. Just tell him to get well.

REPRESENTATIVE BABIN: I will.

I also want to say one quick thing: For Chad Wolf, I met your daddy yesterday. (Laughter.) And I don't know if you  did you grow up in Orange at all?

ACTING SECRETARY WOLF: I did not. I grew up north of Dallas.

REPRESENTATIVE BABIN: That's right. He told me that. But anyway 

ACTING SECRETARY WOLF: He's right back there.

REPRESENTATIVE BABIN: Oh, yeah! There he is. That's right.

THE PRESIDENT: You checking him out, right? (Laughter.) He's very good.

SENATOR CRUZ: So should we have asked him if Chad should be confirmed? (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: He knows more.

GOVERNOR ABBOTT: (Inaudible) witness. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: That's great. He's doing a great job. Thank you very much. Thank you, Brian.

REPRESENTATIVE BABIN: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Randy? Please.

REPRESENTATIVE WEBER: Well, thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for being here. Of course, this is Dr. Babin's district. I'm probably the oldest guy in the room. And that I grew up on the Gulf Coast, never left  I've probably been through more hurricanes than anybody here, starting in '61 with Hurricane Carla.

I was going into the Texas House in 2008 when Ike hit, and I've never  never  seen this kind of responsiveness from the federal government. It is a testament to your leadership, Mr. President. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

And our great state people are here too: our great Governor; Nim Kidd; Lieutenant Governor; Attorney General. I could run down the list. And you have done everything you said you would do for Texas and more, and my district loves you and we appreciate you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Randy, very much. You're doing a great job.

Chief? Please.

CHIEF KIDD: Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank the local officials. And Texas mayors and county judges are the only ones with the authority to mandate an evacuation, and that's a courageous decision to make. And Mayor Spears, Judge, for the work that you did  that saved lives. The reason we have the low death count that we have is because you took the evacuation orders in this storm and took them seriously. So thank you for doing that.

To my Governor and the state elected leaders here, thanks for giving us the authority and the funding to go do good work. And we try really hard at that. But from our Regional Administrator Tony Robinson to Administrator Gaynor to Secretary Wolf, thank you for the dedicated leadership.

Mr. President, we've never had this quick of answers. I've been in this seat for 10 years. I think 17 or 18 major disaster declarations and about 300 (inaudible) later, we've never had this fast of a response, so thank you for that.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, thank you very much. A very important state; a great state. And we're going to take care of the people of Texas. That's all there is to it.

Becky, please.

MAYOR AMES: Thank you, Mr. President. I echo everything that's been said here. It's been unbelievable. I was elected mayor in 2007, and four months later, we had Umberto, and then shortly after, Ike, and going through Harvey and Imelda. We have had 26 federal declarations since 1953, and 19 of them have been since I was elected mayor in '07.

So I've gotten to know all of the people at this table very, very well. And the local officials work very close together and with the state. And Governor Abbott and our Senate and our Congress have been just unbelievable, and I just thank you for coming. It means a lot to us, and it means a lot to the people who live here 

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much.

MAYOR AMES:  to see that our President will take the time to come and say hello to us.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.

MAYOR AMES: So we appreciate it.

THE PRESIDENT: You're doing a great job. Thank you, Becky, very much.

MAYOR AMES: Thank you so much.

THE PRESIDENT: Judge, I want to thank you very much. I hear just the job you do is incredible. And I can see the passion you have for it. It's really great. We appreciate it.

JUDGE GOTHIA: Well, thank you. You know, it's fantastic. I cannot tell you how much we appreciate you coming. And the governor has been here multiple times. And everybody involved  you know, we have a great concern for our community. We have a great concern for Texas. We have a great concern for Louisiana, and we're going to do what we can to help them.

But a couple people for sure that  and I hate singling people out  but, for sure, Chief Kidd, thank you in the response that you and the Governor's office has had and answering the phone calls, because there's been many all the way through COVID down to this.

I'm kind of like Mayor Becky Ames: I've been in office four years; this is the sixth  disaster number six for me. So it's  you know, we're getting good at something we really don't want to be good at, but we're going to be good at it, and we're going to get it taken care of.

But when we come to, one of the biggest things we're looking at now, other than the storm itself, was what was caused by that, and that was some of our  getting our energy back up and getting our power back up. And we have someone in the building today who is the president and CEO of Entergy Texas, and their team, Sallie Rainer. And she  their team is in here in force and getting this power and stuff restored as quickly as possible so that our citizens that are on their way home can have power as quickly as possible to get back to repairing their homes.

And so there's so many people that do so much for Texas. You know, one of the big projects we have  and I want to recognize General Beck with the Army Corps of Engineers. We've been working for a project. I know the Governor and Senator Cruz  Senator Cornyn is not here  but everybody is involved with it, which is the Coastal Spine Levee project. Twenty-six miles a day, which will be 

THE PRESIDENT: How is that going?

JUDGE GOTHIA: Well, it's made huge progress in the last three weeks. The state and the General Land Office has helped fund Orange County share of that portion of it, and because of that, we're able to move forward with the Corps. And when you're working at the next legislative session, to continue that and to deal with that, that is huge for us.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you think it'll work? Because I love the Army Corps.

JUDGE GOTHIA: It's absolutely going to work.

THE PRESIDENT: They happen to be building our wall, just so you know. (Laughter.) They're doing a very good job. Ten miles a day. We're up to 300 miles. It's going good.

How is that working?

GENERAL BECK: Sir, are you asking the wall?

THE PRESIDENT: No, the wall I know. The wall is good. (Laughter.) The levee.

GENERAL BECK: Sir, that's another one (inaudible).

THE PRESIDENT: Call it the levee.

GENERAL BECK: Sir, so, within Orange, we're excited. As the Judge said, we have the ability now with the  we're moving forward with design. It'll end with about 25 miles of wall, different types of wall. It'll also end up with about seven pump stations in about 30 days.

THE PRESIDENT: So that'll stop the water from pouring in?

GENERAL BECK: Sir, we're confident that it will. And also, not only in Orange, but with two neighboring communities in Port Arthur and Freeport, it's going to create a system  those two communities have walls. We're going to continue to develop and improve those walls. And, collectively, those three projects are going to improve the protection on over 100,000 residences in this community, critical infrastructure, and also critical energy sector infrastructure.

Sir, they're 

THE PRESIDENT: What is your timing on that?

GENERAL BECK: Sir, we're starting to design right now with Orange. Right now we're looking at all three of those projects being completed between '25 and  2025 and 2027. So we're moving forward.

And what makes them impressive  and the Judge is a great partner in this  is we're doing this with the local community. We're doing this with the state. This is a partnership we talked about in allowing us to develop something that not only will withstand, as you said, the storms, but also allow the communities to take care of these projects, and the residents behind them, in the future.

THE PRESIDENT: What do you think the cost will be of the entire project?

GENERAL BECK: Right now, with the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, we got $4 billion to move these three projects forward. So we have that funding in hand and are moving forward.

Also, as part of that act, we received additional funds to study the remainder of the Gulf Coast. So we're working hard. We've got a study that we're going to publish an interim report on in the near future, within the next month. And it looks at Houston, it looks at Galveston, it looks at Bolivar Peninsula.

THE PRESIDENT: Is that part of the original approval  Houston?

GENERAL BECK: Sir, that is part of the  when we got the Bipartisan Budget Act, that was  that study was part of that.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. Okay, good.

SENATOR CRUZ: So, Mr. President, what Congress 

THE PRESIDENT: You know, the Governor, Ted, called me. He said, "Would you do me a favor? Just one more favor. That's all I want. It's very small." I said, "How much, Governor?" (Laughter.) He said, "It's not much. Ten billion dollars." I said, "Ten billion dollars?" But he said that would really do something with respect to this tremendous flooding every time you have a hurricane.

And so your phase one  really, phase one is what we're talking about, but you could do something, and that'll also take care of the Houston area.

GOVERNOR ABBOTT: Right.

SENATOR CRUZ: So Congress has already directed $3.8 billion, and that was with strong bipartisan support 

THE PRESIDENT: Good. Yeah.

SENATOR CRUZ:  and your support. And so that's constructing  beginning construction of the Coastal Spine, but we're also studying the continued expansion to complete it. And obviously a lot of  a lot of families and homes and a lot of businesses and energy infrastructure is all along the Gulf Coast.

THE PRESIDENT: And it will work, right?

GENERAL BECK: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: We're not going to build it and we're going to say, "Oops, it sprung a leak," and that's the end of that. It's a big  it's a big project, but it will work, right?

GENERAL BECK: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. If you guys do it, it's going to work.

From law enforcement down on the other side, and you've done a fantastic job, do you have anything to say?

SHERIFF MOONEY: Yes, sir. I would like to, Mr. President. I appreciate you being here. My community appreciates it. Thank you for what you do for our country.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

SHERIFF MOONEY: We really appreciate that. I also want to thank Judge John Gothia and somebody we didn't mention, Joel Ardoin; he's our emergency management coordinator. They've done an outstanding job, and we appreciate the work they've done.

I also want to thank everyone in this room that has helped us here in the community. Thank you very much.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.

SHERIFF MOONEY: Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Greg, do you want to finish it off?

GOVERNOR ABBOTT: One thing that Texans have shown, whether it be Harvey, whether it be all these other storms you've heard  they have been through it, and it shows the resilience and perseverance that Texans have. But we are made even stronger by the swift and profound and effective support that we get from our leaders in Washington, D.C. You are the "Builder President." You are helping to build that Coastal Spine that will protect Texas, but you are right now helping Texas rebuild in the aftermath of this hurricane. And we say thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: It's my honor. Thank you very much.

Do you have any questions for the Governor or the Senator or anybody? Anybody have any questions?

Q For the Governor: Governor, what is the status in Galveston Bay with the refineries and the hundreds of chemical plants? If you could share just an update on the economic and environmental impact.

GOVERNOR ABBOTT: Sure. Just real  real quick: So the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality continues to monitor those, both with regard to air quality and water quality. They have mobile units engaged to make sure they're going to be able to adequately go to all the impacted areas and do the monitoring and make sure that if there is any type of environmental situation, it will be swiftly contained.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Anybody else?

Q Mr. President. I have a question. This is obviously an important trip to visit these communities. Do you plan to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, as well  another community that's obviously in pain?

THE PRESIDENT: Probably so. We've had tremendous success, as you know. We were finally able to get the go-ahead from the local authorities to send in the National Guard. We sent in the National Guard, and within a few minutes of the Guard, everybody cleared out, and it became safe. We have  that was three days ago. We've had absolutely no problem.

We sent in 1,000 National Guard, and that's not even a big force. We could clean out  as an example, Portland: We could fix Portland in, I would say, 45 minutes. And the people in Portland should protest because the mayor doesn't know what he's doing. He has no clue. He doesn't even have a clue. And this has been going on for years in Portland, and it's now been going on 94 days.

And if he would call or if they would ask, or if the governor would ask, we would have  we would have the National Guard in there in a very short period of time, and that would be cleaned out in a matter of literally minutes, and you'd have a safe Portland. It's ridiculous that they go on like this.

So, with Kenosha, it's been in very, very good shape from the moment they set foot in that area. The sheriff has been great. The police commissioner, the police chief has been great. We've been working with all of them. But the governor let us do what we had to do, and we cleaned it out, and we'll see what happens. We have to keep it going. But it's  we won't have any problem.

Q Can I follow up, sir, with one thing on that? I think yesterday you did comment on the killing of Jacob Blake. You said you didn't like how it looked.

THE PRESIDENT: I didn't like it, no.

Q I wondered if you could comment about the other shooting that took place in that community.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, I see it.

Q You mentioned the National Guard going in  law enforcement  but this was a young man, 17-year-old, who's facing murder charges for having shot two people.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q There are some folks who've said conservatives are holding up this young man as  you know, having done so within his rights, so sort of self-protect. And I'm wondering if you've read much about this case, if you have concerns about ordinary residents with guns in situations like this and what dangers that might present.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, that's under investigation right now, and they'll be reporting back to me over the next 24 hours, 48 hours maybe, max. And we'll have a comment about it.

But that is  right now, we're being  we're looking at it very, very carefully. What we are doing with  it's a great state, Wisconsin. Great state. And they should not have to put up with what they went through. And so the National Guard has done a fantastic job.

Any other questions?

Q Mr. President, why is the DNI no longer going to be updating the House and the Senate on election security issues in person?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I could have Mark answer that question. Mark? Please.

MR. MEADOWS: Yeah, I'd be glad to answer it. And I talked to Director Ratcliffe, and as you know, he's been giving briefings. So he's going to ultimately give full briefings in terms of not oral briefings, but full intel briefings.

But it really comes down to one simple thing: The last time they gave briefings, a few members went out and talked to the press and disclosed information that they shouldn't have disclosed. And so he's going to make sure that there's the proper tools for their oversight and make sure that they contain it in a way that it does not jeopardize sources and methods for the intel that we gather.

THE PRESIDENT: Director Ratcliffe brought information into the committee, and the information leaked. Whether it was Shifty Schiff or somebody else, they leak the information before it gets in. And what's even worse: They leak the wrong information.

And he got tired of it. So he wants to do it in a different form, because you have leakers on the committee  obviously, leakers that are doing bad things. Probably not even legal to leak. But we'll look into that separately. But they were leaking the information as brought in.

How would you  you don't have that in Texas. Ken, you wouldn't allow that in Texas.

STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL PAXTON: No way.

THE PRESIDENT: I guarantee Ken will not be allowing the leakers to be doing that.

So we were  he wanted to make sure that it doesn't leak.

Yeah, please.

Q Mr. President, one question about Laura. So in June of this year, NOAA issued a report indicating that climate change is at least in part responsible for increasing sea temperatures, which then, in turn, lead to storms like Laura and Harvey. In an area where petrochemicals and the energy industry are so critical, how do you balance that with, at the same time, attacking climate change so that storms like this don't continue to ravage the Gulf Coast?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I tell you, you've had tremendous storms in Texas for many decades and for many centuries, and that's the way it is. We handle them as they come. All I can do is handle them as they come, and that's what we do, and nobody has ever done a better job of it.

And we love the people of Texas. And, Governor, it's an honor to be with you. Thank you very much. Ted, thank you very much. Great job. Thank you, Dan. Please.

Thank you very much, everybody.

END

4:30 P.M. CDT

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Roger Stone has described the impending 2020 presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden as a struggle between good and evil and the godly and the godless during a speech at a Tennessee church on Sunday.

The polarizing political figure also stated that he believed God spared my life for a purpose after he was granted clemency by the president in July following his conviction for lying and witness tampering in the Special Counsel investigation into possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia in 2016.

The comments came as part of an appearance at the Mt. Juliet church, alongside controversial Global Vision Bible Church Pastor Greg Locke, in which the political spin-doctor spoke about re-discovering his faith.

'We are in the most dangerous time ever in America. We say this in every election but this time its the truth,' Stone told the crowd. 'Make no mistake about what we face. This is an epic struggle between dark and light. This is an epic struggle between good and evil. This is epic struggle between the godly and the godless.'

Among the hundreds of attendees, New York's notorious 'Manhattan Madam' and Stone's close friend Kristin Davis, who was known for running a high-end prostitution ring in the 2000s, was pictured beaming front and center.

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Roger Stone described the impending 2020 presidential election between Trump and Joe Biden as a struggle between good and evil and the godly and ungodly during a speech a Tennessee church on Sunday

Among the hundreds of attendees, New York's notorious 'Manhattan Madam' Kristin Davis, who was known for running a high-end prostitution ring in the 2000s, was pictured beaming front and center

Stone described the impending 2020 presidential election between Trump and Joe Biden as a struggle between good and evil and the godly and ungodly

Attendance at the church was far above the 600 chairs that had been set up under a tent outside of the building, according to the Tennessean. Dozens also stood outside the tent to hear Stone speak.

Footage from the event shows dozen of people standing shoulder to shoulder with one another at the footage of the stage. Many of the crowd were wearing pro-Trump memorabilia; none visible in shot were wearing face coverings or masks.

The 68-year-old recounted at length his personal story about being charged, tried, and convicted as he spoke to the Global Vision congregation.

Stone said he felt he was unfairly targeted by investigators and recounted how the alleged injustice spurred his re-commitment to Christianity in January.

Prayer works, and God will deliver for his people, Stone preached to the crowd.

He then went on to endorse President Trump for re-election, saying the incumbent ran for the White House in 2016 not to be someone, but rather do something.

He saw what was happening to America and he did not like it, Stone said, adding that Trump was the 'greatest president of my life time'.

The 68-year-old recounted at length his personal story about being charged, tried, and convicted to the Global Vision congregation.

While those in attendance rallied behind Stone, clapping and cheering in response to a number of his statements, his appearance at the church had prompted controversy in the area since the event was announced earlier this month

Trumps former adviser characterized the upcoming November vote as a struggle between good and evil and godly and ungodly.

'This is not just a struggle for the salvation of the United States of America, this is a struggle for the preservation of western civilization as we know it,' Stone continued, fumbling over his words.

While those in attendance rallied behind Stone, clapping and cheering in response to a number of his statements, his appearance at the church had prompted controversy in the area since the event was announced earlier this month.

The church was marred with graffiti denouncing Stone and Locke last weekend.

One of the tags, written in orange scrawl on the western wall of the church, read: Locke + Stone will burn in Hell.

The letters FU were all spray-painted on the pastor's pulpit, Locke said, in addition to a rental tent, tent stage area, the church sign and a number of chairs also being damaged.

The total cost of the vandalism was valued at $5,000. No suspects have been identified by police.

Sundays service, however, suffered no interruptions. Police had increased patrols in the area throughout the event.

I've spoken in political meetings, union halls, topless clubs, houses of ill-repute, Stone told the animated crowd. This is the first time I've spoken at a church and I've got to tell you it felt good, it felt great. It might be my first, but it most definitely [will] not be my last.

Locke described Stone's visit to the congregation as an historic event.

Locke described Stone's visit to the congregation as an historic event'

The total cost of the vandalism was valued at $5,000. No suspects have been identified by police.

Stone is pictured front row with close friend and famed madam Kristin Davis on Sunday

Here is a man that was reached in the very same type of a venue that we're putting on now and he's the man that is able to propagate the message and now here we are reaching people the exact same way Roger was reached, Locke said.

The pastor reached out to Stone after he participated in a recent conference call for Evangelicals for Trump, an organization the pastor is on the advisory committee for.

Locke himself was invited to Trumps live acceptance speech for the GOP presidential nomination on Thursday at the White House.

The controversial pastor has a large social media following and has produced a number of videos that have gone viral, drawing widespread controversy.

Such clips have included Islam in public schools, denouncing transgender bathrooms in Target stores, in addition to speaking out in opposition to abortion.

More recently, Locke has uploaded a number of videos denouncing the use of facemasks to stem the spread of COVID-19 that centered on his experience at a Dunkin Donuts coffee and donut chain, when he was asked to leave for failing to wear a face covering.

Stone, meanwhile, was convicted in 2019 of lying and witness tampering during the investigation into collusion between Russia and Trump's campaign but was pardoned by Trump in July just days before he was due to report for a 40-month prison sentence.
Stepping up its offensive on Facebook for its alleged interference in India's electoral democracy, the Congress on Monday demanded criminal investigation into the affairs of the social media giant in India. It also urged the government to put all pending approvals and licenses for Facebook and WhatsApp on hold until the investigations are completed.

Addressing a joint virtual press conference, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury along with Praveen Chakravarty and Rohan Gupta said the expose of Facebook's interference and assault on India's electoral democracy is a criminal offence. They highlighted a recent article by the Wall Street Journal on Facebook having colluded with the ruling BJP and how questions were raised by Facebook employees on its India team's neutrality. "Facebook and WhatsApp's role in subverting India's democracy is now unquestionableTheir complicity in propagating fake news to favour the BJP in elections.

"What makes it worse is that Facebook's global leadership team was well aware of the biases and partisanship of their India leadership team but were willing participants, as the latest Wall Street Journal article reveals," Chowdhury said. The Congress has written two letters to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeking action against its India team and an independent probe into their functioning and replacing them.

Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad had attacked former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, saying he believes that any organisation that does not work to his liking is acting under the pressure of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Facebook had earlier said the company's social media platform prohibits hate speech and content that incites violence, adding these policies are enforced globally without regard to political affiliation. Chowdhury said India is a sovereign republic and will not tolerate interference in its domestic affairs by anyone, let alone a foreign company.

"We will not allow this hard-won democracy to be manipulated and tarnished." "The Indian National Congress demands a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation immediately and a criminal investigation into the affairs of Facebook India and the people named. "The party also demands that all pending approvals and licenses for Facebook & WhatsApp be put on hold until the investigations are completed. Besides, we demand suspension of Facebook India's leadership team with immediate effect until the conclusion of the investigations," Chowdhury said.

The leaders also demanded an inquiry by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology into the activities of all Heads of Public Policy teams of foreign technology companies operating in India and establish a code of conduct.
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By Lee Min-hyung





Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju-yeol
The day I stepped beyond the electric fence of New York's Lakeview prison after serving a seven-year sentence for running a drug ring, I thought of myself as a new man. I had been handed an envelope with $40. A bus ticket. And my freedom.

Id be a returning citizen, and my rights would be restored.

Or so I thought.

I learned quickly that even after someone has paid his debt to society and is released from prison, he faces more than 44,000 collateral consequences in America. I couldnt vote. I couldnt find viable employment. I couldnt get life insurance. I couldnt get an apartment.

I came home from prison with genuine remorse and intent on becoming a productive member of society. I also returned with a dream: to build a fitness business called CONBODY that would hire only formerly incarcerated individuals who would teach the world how to be healthy.

Ive met the smartest people I know inside prison.

The system discards so much untapped human potential and productivity because of past mistakes. Accountability for wrongdoing is an essential part of justice  but so are second chances.

Coss Marte, the founder of CONBODY.

Changed, but still judged

When I went to prison, I was grossly overweight. In fact, after an initial exam, I was told by a prison nurse that I had high cholesterol and that I was in danger of having a heart attack within five years if I didn't lose weight.

I was sentenced to seven years, and my first thought was that I didn't want to die in prison.

So I decided to get in shape using the minimal tools at my disposal: my prison cell and my own body weight. Within six months, I had lost 70 pounds.

I began teaching my exercises to other inmates. I loved it. Not just because of the transformation we saw in our health, but because of the symbolic message that came with it: As human beings, we can change  not just in body but in mind, in soul and in action.

After prison, I focused on hiring returning citizens because I knew theyd have to contend with the same discrimination, stigma and pain of constant rejection that I did. And I wanted to help.

Story continues

I had searched relentlessly for an entry-level job when I left prison. But every time I handed my application to a store manager, his eyes would stop short upon noticing a check mark in the box that asked whether I had a criminal history. The conversation quickly ended. It was extremely frustrating, and unfair.

I finally found a job cleaning houses and offices, but it barely paid for my monthly couch surfing rent that year.

Two years after I started that job, I learned about Defy Ventures, a nonprofit organization that helps formerly incarcerated individuals launch their own businesses, and I started to work on making my fitness company dream a reality.

I began running my workout classes in a New York City park and marketing my services to people who ran by and saw me doing pullups with a broken pipe. After two years, I had finally built a following.

I began searching for real estate to hold classes. But I faced the same barrier on my application: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Brokers told me that landowners wouldnt want former inmates working out in their spaces. After a year of rejections, a Buddhist landlord gave me that second chance and allowed me to rent space in her basement.

Marte with some of his CONBODY students.

The hurdles didnt stop there. I needed to purchase business insurance, and due to my record I was either denied or quoted thousands of dollars a month more than the average person.

In 2015, I was fortunate to speak at a roundtable discussion sponsored by the state of New York on hiring practices that limit opportunities for the formerly incarcerated. I taught fitness classes to business executives who wanted me to share my story. I told members of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's team about all the roadblocks that were put in front of me and other formerly incarcerated individuals when they seek employment.

The next year, Cuomo instituted a key policy reform: Business insurance companies in New York state are no longer permitted to deny coverage because of criminal records.

After years of hitting walls, I was finally able to start my business. To date, CONBODY has employed more than 40 formerly incarcerated individuals.

Living America's values

Theres still much work to be done.

Today, too many formerly incarcerated individuals cant secure employment after release. There are more than 10,000 regulated restrictions that formerly incarcerated people face while trying to obtain occupational licenses. Is it any wonder that the U.S. recidivism rate is more than 75%?

To help change public perceptions about formerly incarcerated individuals, I also launched Second Chance Studios, a nonprofit that trains and employs returning citizens in audio engineering, podcasting and video production to give them a voice. We also provide job placement support by pairing them with mentors who are industry experts.

Access to meaningful employment is critical not just for reducing recidivism and making our communities safer, but also for making our economy stronger. And its not just good for business, its good for society, too. America was founded on values of new beginnings, human dignity and redemption.

After all, what if the world defined you by the worst thing youve ever done?

Coss Marte, who spent six years in prison on drug-related charges, is now the owner of CONBODY.

Leaders of Change

Overview: A mayor, a filmmaker, a Navajo Nation president: Our take on Leaders of Change

Social and Criminal Justice:We allow 'the most marginalized among us to be exploited'

Policing reform: 'Theres so much at stake, but we were built for this moment'

Politics: We're holding our prosecuting offices responsible

Economy: 'When people have the resources to help themselves, they are going to'

Education: 'Black girls were experiencing harm ... beyond the rate of the boys'

Children's rights: 'We must redress racial inequality for children'

Health care: 'Unnamed wound is what I have come to understand as racial trauma'

Environment: No community should be saddled with more environmental burdens

Religion: 'Neighbors who did not understand neighbor love'

Arts, entertainment and athletics: 'Only we can create a better world. A world worthy of Lewis love'

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: As human beings, we can change. My company hires former inmates who prove it
Black Panther director Ryan Coogler has paid a moving tribute to Chadwick Boseman, saying he has been left broken by his death.

Bosemans family announced on Friday that the 43-year-old star had died following a private four-year battle with colon cancer.

The news sent shockwaves through a dazed Hollywood. Former US president Barack Obama was among those paying tribute, while Bosemans Marvel co-stars also shared their memories of the actor.

Ryan Coogler, who directed Chadwick Boseman in Black Panther, has shared a moving tribute to the actor (Ian West/PA)

Now, Coogler has shared his own tribute, writing a lengthy note about his time working with the actor.

The filmmaker said he wasnt privy to the details of the actors illness, reflecting on how he worked with Boseman but had no idea he had cancer.

After his family released their statement, I realised that he was living with his illness the entire time I knew him, Coogler said.

Because he was a caretaker, a leader, and a man of faith, dignity and pride, he shielded his collaborators from his suffering. He lived a beautiful life. And he made great art.

Day after day, year after year. That was who he was. He was an epic firework display. I will tell stories about being there for some of the brilliant sparks till the end of my days. What an incredible mark hes left for us.

Coogler told how he inherited Bosemans Black Panther casting, first seeing him in the role of TChalla in 2016s Captain America: Civil War. He was impressed by Boseman insisting the character speak Xhosa, one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Coogler said he learned the lines, in a foreign language, in a day. I couldnt conceive how difficult that must have been, and even though I hadnt met Chad, I was already in awe of his capacity as actor, he added.

The pair met for the first after Boseman sneaked into a hotel while Coogler was promoting the film Creed.

I noticed then that Chad was an anomaly, Coogler wrote. He was calm. Assured. Constantly studying. But also kind, comforting, had the warmest laugh in the world, and eyes that seen much beyond his years, but could still sparkle like a child seeing something for the first time.

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Coogler has been working on Black Panther 2, set for release in May 2022. However, it is now unclear how Disney will approach the film.

I havent grieved a loss this acute before, Coogler said, while discussing his work on the upcoming movie. I spent the last year preparing, imagining and writing words for him to say, that we werent destined to see.

It leaves me broken knowing that I wont be able to watch another close-up of him in the monitor again or walk up to him and ask for another take.

It hurts more to know that we cant have another conversation, or Facetime, or text message exchange. He would send vegetarian recipes and eating regimens for my family and me to follow during the pandemic. He would check in on me and my loved ones, even as he dealt with the scourge of cancer.

Coogler finished the message by describing Boseman as an ancestor, adding: And I know that he will watch over us, until we meet again.

Bosemans Da 5 Bloods co-star Clarke Peters broke down as he paid tribute.

Talking about working with the late star, he told Good Morning Britain: My wife asked what Chadwick was like and I was really excited to work with him.

I said, I think hes a little bit precious and she said Why? And I said, Because hes surrounded by people who are fawning over him  a Chinese practitioner whos massaging his back when he walks off set, hes got a make-up lady whos massaging his feet, his girlfriend is there holding his hand, and Im thinking Well, maybe the Black Panther thing went to his head.

Getting emotional, Peters added: But now I regret even having those thoughts because they were really looking after him.

He said: Weve lost a very sweet soul. Weve lost a fine actor, weve lost a man of integrity. What weve gained is a man who put a lot of younger people of colour on track.

If everyone has a purpose in life, he certainly played the role of a hero in many, many ways.

The actor added: He had to be here for the time he was here to do what he did and he did it well. Someone said hes resting in peace with the angels, I said No, hes probably flying with them now.'
By Kirsty Needham

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Chinese authorities have detained an Australian citizen who worked as a high-profile television anchor in China, Australia's foreign minister Marise Payne said in a statement on Monday.

Tensions between Beijing and Canberra have been running high since the Australian government called for an international inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus. Beijing has since imposed trade tariffs and anti-dumping probes on multiple Australian products.

China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Australian citizen and journalist Cheng Lei, who worked for Chinese state television's international channel, CGTN, in Beijing, had been detained for two weeks, the statement said.

It said the Australian government received formal notification of her detention from Chinese authorities on Aug. 14.

A statement issued by Cheng's family in Australia said it hoped for "a satisfactory and timely conclusion" and was in close consultation with Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Australian officials spoke to Cheng at a detention facility via video link on Aug. 27, Payne said, adding consular officials would continue to provide support to her and her family.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Additional reporting by Gabriel Crossley in Beijing; editing by Barbara Lewis)
As Chicagos Neighborhood Hotel, we are committed to helping provide the funds that make it easier for families to get better together.

In an effort to give back to the community in which it serves, Hotel Chicago West Loop is donating 10 percent of each hotel room booked with a special new rate code to benefit children and families at Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland & Northwest Indiana (RMHC-CNI), effective immediately. Donations will be applied to any room type, any time, now through the end of the year whenever guests use code RMHC1 when booking direct through http://www.hotelchicagowestloop.com or 312.243.2900. The three-year-old independent property is known for providing a Chicago cultural experience, with hallways that double as art galleries and select guest rooms that feature murals painted by local street artists.

Ronald McDonald House is an essential extension of the critical medical care children are receiving at local hospitals by providing their families with a safe and comfortable place to stay just minutes away, said Jean-Luc Laramie, General Manager of Hotel Chicago West Loop, which also offers a special reduced rate plan to Ronald McDonald House families. Because pediatric illness does not stop, Ronald McDonald House is always there for thousands of families every year. As Chicagos Neighborhood Hotel, we are committed to helping provide the funds that make it easier for families to get better together. In addition to donating 10 percent of each room rate booked, we invite our community to make a donation to RMHC-CNIs summer fundraising campaign to help even more families in need. To contribute today, go to http://www.ronaldhousechicago.org/donate/summer2020.

Families with critically ill children are under a tremendous amount of stress and rely on Ronald McDonald House to keep them close to their hospitalized children, said Lisa Mitchell, Vice President of Program & Services, RMHC-CNI. Meanwhile, we rely on our community to enable us to continue providing these essential services. We are incredibly grateful to Hotel Chicago West Loop for encouraging our community to come alongside and help others in their greatest time of need.

The Ronald McDonald House in Chicago aims to keep families together with their hospitalized children who are being treated at Lurie Childrens, which is just a few minutes away. Hotel Chicago West Loop supported this Ronald McDonald House in 2019 when the entire hotel staff donated a day to cook and serve families homemade meals. The hotel also assists Chicagos medical community by housing some of the families in need who are receiving medical attention in the Illinois Medical District nearby.

More About Hotel Chicago West Loop:

Hotel Chicago West Loop is a stylish boutique property that has been called one of the Top 10 budget-friendly hotels by USA Today. A stay here includes cultural immersion, as the dual-purpose neighborhood hotel doubles as a full-functioning art gallery. The Annex at Hotel Chicago West Loop encompasses the lobby, all four levels of guest hallway spaces, and select guestrooms with over 100 pieces of 2-D media including murals, both permanent works and rotating exhibits. To further support the local arts community, Hotel Chicago West Loop donates 10 percent all regular room rates (when booked using promo code ANNEX) to designated local non-profit organizations that promote artistry such as Shirley Ryan AbilityLab.

https://www.hotelchicagowestloop.com/

1622 W Jackson Blvd Chicago, IL 60612

(312) 243-2900

FB: Hotel Chicago West Loop

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CHESTER  A financial recovery plan filed by Receiver Michael T. Doweary earlier this month outlines several steps the cash-strapped city must take to rein in two fiscal crises impacting its deep, intertwined and complicated financial problems.

The 84-page document filed Aug. 20 notes Chester has been subject to financial oversight from the state since 1995 under Act 47, also known as the Municipalities Financial Recovery Act. While other communities have been able to exit this oversight or made progress toward doing so, Doweary says Chester continues to struggle with multi-million dollar deficits, past-due obligations to pension plans and only marginal investments in infrastructure.

The two fiscal issues most strongly impacting the citys ability to move forward are in the general fund that supports day-to-day operations and a police pension fund that is dangerously close to insolvency, according to the report.

The report notes that Chester has not made a full mandatory minimum obligation payment to its three pension plans since 2013, leading to a severely underfunded pension situation. By the beginning of 2020, the report says, those liabilities accounted for $28.8 million and could rise as high as $40 million by the start of next year.

Meanwhile, Doweary says there have been an unprecedented number of disability retirements and benefit provisions that allow pension spiking by running up overtime just before retirement that the city will not be able to afford.

For example, three police officers ages 44, 45 and 42 recently entered the (deferred retirement option plan) with pensionable salaries of $210,874, $207,414 and $143,311 respectively, the report says. Under the current benefit provisions, these officers will receive annual pensions of $108,073, $103,707 and $71,652  significantly more than the median household income of Chester residents.

The report notes that the city took some steps to address these issues in 2017, including putting retirement eligibility at 55 years of age with 25 years of service, limiting the benefit structure, increasing employee contributions and limiting disability pensions to 50 percent of salary instead of the previous 100 percent.

Those changes will not help in the near-term, however, and the city only has $1.75 million in the police pension plan, which could likely only cover about three months. Chester does plan to borrow another $1.9 million, but that would only allow for less than four more months of solvency, the report says.

Unless something changes quickly, the plan will run out of cash and fail to make pension payments to retired police officers and their surviving beneficiaries in the first half of 2021, according to the report.

There are also additional Other Post-Employment Benefit, or OPEB, liabilities. As of 2017, Chester was carrying more than $250 million in unfunded OPEB liabilities that include things like prescription plans, dental, vision, life insurance and other benefits for past employees. These are more pay as you go and the city is not obligated to pre-fund those liabilities, but they are of critical financial concern, the report states.

On the general fund side, Doweary notes Chester has run multi-million dollar deficits in every year since 2012 but one. In 2017, the city had to take on $12 million in unfunded debt and a $2 million emergency loan from the commonwealth to avoid a deficit, but it now faces a $3.7 million deficit in 2021 budget projections and similar shortfalls for several years thereafter.

Chester approved a $56.3 million budget for 2020, which has since been amended down to $51.7 million. Expenses under a revised budget are expected to come in just over $50 million. A 2021 preliminary budget shows revenues of $51.5 million with expenses next year topping $55 million.

Gov. Tom Wolf declared a Fiscal Emergency for Chester on April 13, due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic, which the report said has had a deep, negative impact on the citys finances. The full extent of how coronavirus and its accompanying shutdowns  including that of Harrahs Casino  will impact finances is still unknown, or how another round of shutdowns might further impact that figure, the report says.

The declaration allowed for Doweary to be appointed receiver and lay out a plan for fiscal health going forward, but he said he has only had about 60 days to put together an initial report in the midst of a pandemic, so it will require tweaking as time goes on.

Chester furloughed about 31 percent of its workforce in April and put certain expenditure controls in place that should allow the city to end the year in the black, though only just. The report indicates these financial controls should continue as they are frequently monitored by the receiver and his team.

The report outlines other steps Chester has undertaken in recent years to right its financial ship, including appointing a Chief Financial Officer, the creation of an Economic Development Committee, and working with unions in 2017 to set certain caps that Doweary anticipates building on in negotiations with Teamsters, whose agreement with the city expires at the end of the year.

The city also recently paid off its 2020 tax revenue anticipation note and does intend to borrow further to fund operations this year, according to the report.

Doweary has signaled that he will step in to manage the headcount of city government, including taking over hiring and firing duties, assignments of full- or part-time positions, restructuring department operations, reassigning personnel and overseeing non-public safety overtime.

He was also critical of the commission form of government that the city has adopted, rather than a top-down approach, and questioned its effectiveness in the face of continuing financial issues. The report notes there is a pattern of failing to adopt a realistic budget or follow the budget as adopted, and said the city has a bad habit of kicking its obligations into the next fiscal year.

Chester must eliminate its structural budget deficit, but it also must address management and operational issues that are holding the city back, writes Doweary. Beyond reviewing Chesters form of government, my team will conduct an organizational assessment of each city department that will include a review of staffing, reporting structure, process and workflow, policies and procedures, and other pertinent factors affecting performance.

Doweary additionally signaled his support for the citys ongoing resolve to sell the Chester Water Authority, which could bring in a one-time revenue shot of between $60 million and $410 million, and monetization of parking in certain sections of the city.

Both of those issues are currently pending in courts, as the CWA contends Chester does not actually own the authoritys assets and Widener University has secured a temporary injunction against placing meters on and around its campus. A Commonwealth Court hearing is expected in November on the CWA litigation and a future court date is likewise expected on the meter issue, though the judge in that case has encouraged both parties to work toward a resolution on their own.

Doweary has recommended that any monetization of city assets realized from those actions be used first to shore up the unfunded pension obligations and build up a general fund reserve, which had a negative balance of $15.3 million as of Chesters comprehensive annual financial report for 2017, the last on record.

The report also recommends Chester officials work to make the city more business friendly by reducing regulatory burdens that restrict new investment, continue to support an ongoing downtown revitalization and increase blight remediation by taking large landlords who are not adequately maintaining properties to court.

Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland said he agreed with much of the reports conclusions, especially about pensions that he said have been an albatross around the citys neck for decades.

Hopefully, with some clever financial work and shifting, well be able to get out of that hole  and thats the biggest hole, he said. Our goal is to make sure that were in a position, and our firefighters and police officers are in a position, to have a pension when they retire. Thats why folks work for a long period of time and stay in the same place for a long period of time, so the goal is that, once they retire, to have a pension they can fall back on, so we want to make sure thats going to be there.

Kirkland said the city is committed to working with Doweary as a team to implement the plan if it means putting Chester on more stable financial footing. This includes taking a more realistic approach to budgets to make sure that guaranteed, and not hoped-for monies, are available to the city, he said.

For example, were guaranteed to get money from Covanta, were guaranteed to get money from the casino, were working with the Storm Water Authority that is a relatively new authority in the city, which could be a great possibility of guaranteed opportunities for financial relief, so when we can nail those down, then we can talk about things like taxes, property taxes, employment taxes and other things to fill in the gaps, he said. We want to get rid of debt and we want to get into a position where we have a rainy day fund. The city has never had a rainy day fund to my knowledge or in my time. I dont think you can just plug a hole in our finances or fill a hole in our finances, but you have to build a solid base, and a solid base means that you have to provide enough finances for a rainy day fund, even things like interest bearing savings accounts for the city. I think we can do it. Im very optimistic about that.
Union health minister Amit Shah has been discharged from AIIMS. He has fully recovered and is now fit to resume routine activities. He had tested positive for Covid-19 on August 2.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has been discharged on Monday from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, where he was admitted for post-COVID care. He has fully recovered and is fit to resume his routine activities, according to a press release by the hospital.

Amit Shah, Home Minister was admitted at AIIMS, New Delhi for post-COVID care. He was discharged today at 7 am. He has fully recovered and is fit to resume his routine activities, read the release. The Minister was admitted to AIIMS on August 18 for post-COVID care.

On August 2, Shah had informed through Twitter that he had tested positive for coronavirus. The Minister was admitted to Medanta Hospital in Gurugram from where he was discharged on August 14 after testing negative for COVID-19.

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Sunday expressed confidence that the countrys COVID-19 count will be under control by Diwali this year. Inaugurating the Nation First webinar series, organised by the Anathkumar Foundation, he pointed out that the country was much ahead in tackling the pandemic.

The COVID-19 will significantly come under control by the Deepavali this year. The leaders and common people effectively worked together to fight the pandemic. He inaugurated Nation first webinar series organised by Ananth Kumar Foundation, the press release said. He further said that the health officials had held a meeting much before the first COVID-19 case was reported in India.

He said that vaccine trials are in full swing, with three clinical trials and four pre-clinical trials underway. We are expecting vaccines to be ready by the end of the year. It is because of the farsightedness of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that we could reach until here, he added.
How many of these brave warriors fell victim to this virus is not known to the public as yet. They should be declared national heroes as those in many in other fields have accorded with such titles and materially rewarded.





by Gamini Weerakoon





Sri Lanka can truly claim to be a front runner in the war against the coronavirus pandemic with 2,984 infected cases reported and only 12 deaths while the pandemic is raging across the world with 24,662,073cases and 836,346 deaths by August 28.





The worlds most powerful country, the United States, has recorded 6,048,404 cases and 184,834 deaths while the worlds second most populous country, India, is accelerating its deadly pace  3,392,295 cases and 61,725 deaths. Some reports doubt the accuracy of the Indian statistics due to the vastness of the country and the number of its people.





Dr. Anil Jasinghe: Promoted

Unlike Lankas victory in the Terrorist War, the COVID-19 Wars heroes are neither being declared nor are there any direct claimants.





The global Covid war is undoubtedly the deadliest war fought by humanity. The enemy was not known and there were no weapons to fight it with. Yet, our doctors, nurses, attendants, manual workers went into battle with the only protective weapon, they thought they had, the flimsy facemask. Many did not even have that at the start.





Like in a military conflict, they were on the frontline facing the deadly virus. They risked not only their lives but those of their family members, too, because after long hours of work in hospitals they went back home with the risk of carrying the virus home.





How many of these brave warriors fell victim to this virus is not known to the public as yet. They should be declared national heroes as those in many in other fields have accorded with such titles and materially rewarded.





These medical workers worked as a team and cooperated with each other showing a degree of cooperation not usually witnessed amongst them in the pre-Covid times. And they had a captain, Dr. Anil Jasinghe MD, Msc, MD (Med Adm), MPA, the then Director General of Health Services. We have not known him or spoken with him but on TV he effused an image of a typical professional in a tie and simple attire. His speeches on TV  flanked by flamboyant khaki uniformed officials of the services  were the point with a single objective: control of the disease.





In this column on July 5 this year, we said that with the general election a month away, a new brand of heroes  COVID-19 heroes  were being marketed as those who saved Lanka from the Covid pandemic. Indeed, this claim was made in the election campaign and it did not include this intrepid band of medical personnel.





We wrote: To the discerning public, the true heroes of this pandemic are those who worked on the frontline and if a superhero is called for, we recommended Dr. Jasinghe.





We did so because in these times when you cant help not bumping into a pickpocket or like on the street, who is also a proclaimed hero of some sorts, there could be plenty of claimants for Covid hero awards. The real heroes of this war against an unknown enemy should, as a poet said, cannot be forgotten: unheard, unwept and unsung.





But where is Dr Jasinghe now? He has been promoted as the Secretary to the Ministry of the Environment. A secretary to a cabinet minister is a post in the highest rungs of the administrative ladder. But there is also the cynical view that this is an instance of a square peg in a round hole and the promotion in reality is a kick upstairs to accommodate someone else with the title the Hero of the Covid War. Dr Jasinghes expertise is in public health and not on the environment. But to be fair by the doctor and all concerned, he deserved the promotion.





It could be argued that Dr Jasinghes expertise in the spread of communicable diseases is essential for environmental protection purposes. The spread of communicable diseases such as malaria, filaria, and dengue is connected with the environment and knowledge of which he possessed as a medical professional would be vital in the performance of his new job.





However, as we are all aware, the Covid pandemic is still not over though it appears to be under firm control in this country.





The threat looms over the Palk Strait. On April 26, we wrote in this column: While Sri Lankan government officials are backslapping one another on the success achieved so far in containing the pandemic, a threat with devastating potential could be developing just 22 miles away across the Palk Strait in neighbouring India. The COVID-19 virus is stepping up each day in the nation of more than one billion people and has spread right across the sub-continent. If a devastating coronavirus bomb builds up in India and there is a Covid vacuum in Sri Lanka, such a difference could unleash havoc here. This is a challenge that our Virus Warriors have to anticipate without basking in the glory of what has been already achieved.





The Covid virus is now swamping the whole of India, more so the southern states such as Tamil Nadu. Already an infected Sri Lankan who had been resident in a refugee camp in Tamil Nadu had smuggled himself across the sea and been detected by the authorities. The Sri Lanka Navy is on the alert for illegal migrants across the sea, recent press reports from the North have said.





Daily reports speak of increasing warmth of relations between the new Rajapaksa Government and New Delhi and Indian assistance on this vital issue would be welcome. It is also an opportunity for heroes in the COVID-19 Virus War to make their claims.





(Gamini Weerakoon is a former editor of The Sunday Island, The Island and Consulting Editor of the Sunday Leader)
(Newser)  Joe Biden spoke out on the protests gripping American cities in a speech in Pittsburgh Mondayand he didn't pull any punches when it came to President Trump, the New York Times reports. He accused the president of "stoking violence in our cities," adding: "He can't stop the violence because for years hes fomented it." Biden also forcefully condemned looting, which Trump has accused him of ignoring. "Rioting is not protesting," he said, per the Washington Post. "Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. Its lawless. ... And those who do it should be prosecuted." He also rejected Trump's claim that he is a radical, the New York Times reports. "Ask yourself: do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?" he said.

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"I want a safe America. Safe from COVID, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops," Biden said. "Let me be crystal clear: safe from four more years of Donald Trump." He went on to call the president a "toxic presence" that has been "poisoning the values this nation has always held dear, poisoning our very democracy," the AP reports. "In just a little over 60 days, we have a decision to make: Will we rid ourselves of this toxin? Or make it a permanent part of our nations character?" he asked. In a tweet, Trump said it sounded to him like Biden was "blaming the Police far more than hes blaming the Rioters, Anarchists, Agitators, and Looters." The White House later added a 5:30pm news conference to Trump's schedule. (Read more Joe Biden 2020 stories.)
Almost a million people could eventually jet into space with Virgin Galactic, sending the company's revenues sky high, according to new research announced on Monday.

Cowen, a global investment management, banking and research firm, on Monday published a note to investors detailing their latest findings on Sir Richard Branson's firm.

Virgin Galactic on June 25 completed its second test flight from its new base in New Mexico - an extraordinary 'spaceport' from where the paying astronauts will take off. All of the previous test flights were from their site in California's Mojave desert.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Unity is pictured above New Mexico on June 25

On Monday research by investment firm Cowen suggested almost a million people could fly on the space flights organized by Sir Richard Branson's company Virgin Galactic

There are still a few more test flights to be done this year, and passengers paying $250,000 are expected to start flying early in 2021 - with Branson on the first flight.

Oliver Chen, an analyst for Cowen, said on Monday that they had found 'a high level of interest among high-net-worth individuals', according to the note obtained by CNBC.

They classed 'high-net-worth individuals' as those with a fortune of at least $5 million.

Chen calculated that Virgin Galactic's 'total addressable market' was about 2.4 million people.

Of those individuals, about 39 per cent are interested in paying at least $250,000 for a ticket.

So far around 600 people have signed up - among them Ashton Kutcher, Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Bieber.

The space ship takes off attached to a mothership, and is released before rocketing skywards

'The market for space travel is gigantic,' said Branson in December 2018, when the first test flight reached space.

'The price will go up a little bit in the short term, and then in the next three years it will come down. And the more space craft we build, the lower the price will become.'

Chen wrote that one of the biggest challenges to the business was 'supply constraints'.

The company currently has one spacecraft flying and has announced plans to build as many as five more in the coming years, with two currently under construction at their Mojave operational center.

Each spacecraft can carry up to six passengers on a flight to the edge of space, in addition to the two pilots that fly it.

Virgin Galactic in July released photos showing inside the cabin for the paying astronauts

Cowen estimated that, if Virgin Galactic builds 11 spacecraft by 2030, the company could 'potentially fly ~3,400 passengers per year,' with flights nearly every day.

'Virgin Galactic is uniquely positioned to benefit from the growing consumer interest toward luxury experiences, especially among high-net-worth individuals,' wrote Chen.

'We believe a substantial growth opportunity lies ahead with the commercial spaceflight business, which already has ~600 reservations.'

Shares of Virgin Galactic rose about 3 per cent in trading from its previous close of $17.46.

Cowen began research coverage of Virgin Galactic on Monday, giving the stock an 'outperform' rating and a $22 price target  meaning the firm expects shares will rise 26 per cent in the coming year.

Virgin Galactic's share price rose on the news of the potential reach of the firm

Virgin Galactic is believed to be on track to outpace its rivals, Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk's Space X in the race to get paying passengers into space.

Both Bezos and Musk have taken a different approach to Branson.

Bezos's model will not have pilots inside the capsule, and will be controlled from the ground.

Musk is focusing on taking one person around the Moon. A Japanese billionaire has paid $2 million for the opportunity, and expects to go into space in 2023.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 31

By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:

The value of trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Hungary amounted to $64.7 million over 1H2020, compared to $48.2 million during the same period of 2019, Trend reports with reference to Kazakhstans Statistics Committee.

The share of Hungary in the total value of Kazakhstans trade turnover stood at 0.2 percent during the reporting period compared to 0.1 percent during the same period of 2019.

Kazakhstans export to Hungary amounted to $6.7 million over the period from January through June 2020, compared to $5.9 million during the same period of 2019.

Hungarys share in the total volume of Kazakhstans export also amounted to 0.026 percent during the reporting period of 2020 compared to 0.02 than percent during the same period of 2019.

In turn, Kazakhstans imports from Hungary stood at about $59.6 million over the reporting period, compared to $42.3 million during the same period of 2019.

Hungarys share in the total volume of Kazakhstans import amounted to 0.4 percent during the reporting period of 2020 compared to 0.2 percent during the same period of 2019.

The total volume of Kazakhstans trade turnover amounted to $42.5 billion over the period from Jan. through June 2020 which indicates a decrease from $46.1 billion during the same period of 2019.

Kazakhstans export amounted to $26 billion during the reporting period of 2020 ($28.6 billion in the same period of 2019), whereas imports amounted to $16.5 billion ($17.5 billion in 2019).

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On the Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearances, scores of people protested outside the consulate in against the forceful abductions of people from the minority communities in by its Army and intelligence.

"Today, we are here to protest against all those disappearances which the Pakistani army has enforced and the Pakistani intelligence has been carrying out for a long time. There are thousands of people including politicians, political workers and journalists who have been forcefully disappeared," said Najeeb Khan, a Pashtun who lives in Balochistan.

"We are here at the consulate to raise our voice. We want the world to know that Pakistan has become a huge prison for minority religions today," he added during the protest on Sunday

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Declaration for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance,s and the 10th anniversary of the Convention for the Protection of All Persons against Enforced Disappearances.

Meanwhile, another protestor outside the Pakistan consulate here said that for the past two decades, Pakistan has been committing atrocities on the minority communities and the cases have been increasing rapidly.

"Before it was Balochistan, but now they have started in other regions of Pakistan. One of the major problems that we are facing is that we don't have any access to information about the enforced disappearance happening in Pakistan," he added.

He further said that close to 50,000 individuals have been disappeared by the Pakistani security forces and kidnapping and brutal killing of Baloch people was taking place in Balochistan on an everyday basis.

Speaking on the brutality being committed by Islamabad, a Pakistani journalist said: "I am here meet the people that have gathered to protest against the policy of Pakistan military who abducts people that don't necessarily agree with their policies."

He said: "There is a complete media blackout in Pakistan regarding these issues. The reporters are afraid to report on critical human rights issue which has been going on in the last 20 years, especially in the tribal areas. Its high time Pakistan should take notice of this situation because the world is taking notice.
A Kremlin critic was in hospital today after being assaulted outside his home - a week after fellow opposition leader Alexei Navalny was taken ill in a suspected poisoning.

Yegor Zhukov, 22, was left with a bloodied and swollen face after an attack by 'two thugs who disappeared on scooters' outside his home in Moscow.

Zhukov is a popular blogger and radio host who was hauled to court on extremism charges last year after making videos that criticised Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, Germany today demanded that 'Russia should contribute more' to investigating the suspected poison plot against Navalny, who remains in a coma at Berlin's Charite hospital.

Russian opposition activist Yegor Zhukov was badly beaten (left) outside his home in Moscow last night, a week after Alexei Navalny (right) was taken ill in a suspected poisoning

Zhukov's team posted a picture of his face covered in bruises and gashes on Telegram, saying he was attacked and beaten near his home in Moscow.

Hours before he was attacked, Zhukov said he had been barred from enrolling in a masters degree at the prestigious Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

He said that a university administrator told him the decision had been taken 'on orders from above'.

Russia's opposition have complained of a growing number of attacks and punitive legal cases against Kremlin critics in recent months.

Peter Stano, a spokesman for the European Commission, said the attack on Zhukov appeared to be part of a 'a very negative trend on human rights in Russia'.

The Moscow police force said it was seeking to identify and detain Zhukov's assailants, who his allies said had fled the scene on scooters.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he hoped Zhukov's attackers would be found and punished.

Zhukov was among more than 1,000 people detained in Moscow in July 2019 in one of the biggest crackdowns on anti-Kremlin demonstrators in recent years.

A Russian court later found him guilty of inciting extremism on his YouTube channel and banned him from using the Internet for two years.

The attack on Zhukov comes just 10 days after Navalny fell ill after boarding a plane in Siberia.

He was initially treated in a local hospital before being flown to Berlin for treatment, where doctors say they have found signs of poisoning.

Navalny's supporters blame Vladimir Putin (pictured) and the Russian government for the alleged poisoning, but the Kremlin denies this

Medics suspect the anti-corruption campaigner was poisoned with a substance that inhibits the cholinesterase enzyme, a feature of nerve agents.

Navalny's allies say he may have been poisoned by a cup of tea he drank at Tomsk airport in Siberia, and have pointed the finger at Putin.

But the Russian doctors who first treated Navalny said their tests did not find any toxic substances, and the Kremlin has rejected calls for an investigation.

The hospital said on Friday that there was 'some improvement' in Navalny's condition but the 44-year-old remains in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator

German foreign minister Heiko Maas said today that 'we have the expectation that Russia should contribute more to clearing up of the Navalny case than it is doing at the moment'.

Maas said that Europe needed 'constructive' relations with Russia for the sake of security, but warned that 'dark clouds' were hanging over bilateral ties.

Elsewhere, a lawyer for Navalny's anti-corruption foundation said bailiffs had seized $460,000 from her bank accounts today.

Lyubov Sobol said the full sum had been debited from her account, leaving her deep in the red.

It comes nearly a year after a court ordered damages from her and Navalny in a case surrounding a company that provides school meals in Moscow.

The firm is linked to businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed 'Putin's chef' because he has previously supplied catering services to the Kremlin.

A court last year ordered Navalny, Sobol and the Anti-Corruption Foundation to pay almost 88million rubles ($1.2million) to the firm.

Navalny formally closed the Anti-Corruption Foundation in July in a move to avoid paying its share of the court-ordered penalty.
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Linkedin Ghina Ghaliya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 20:05 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41b6d51 1 National AGO,Attorney-General,kejaksaan-agung,house-of-representatives Free

The House of Representatives plans to revise Law No.16/2004 on the Attorney General's Office (AGO), which has been included in the 2020 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas).

According to Pangeran Khairul Saleh, the deputy chairman of House Commission III overseeing legal affairs, the revision aimed to strengthen prosecutors position in the government system.

"The Attorney General's Office and prosecutors must have one special law," he said on Monday, noting that a number of regulations currently stipulate the distinct roles of the attorney general, the AGO and prosecutors.

The National Mandate Party (PAN) politician said the revision would focus on several points, such as improving the prosecutor's authority to investigate certain crimes that would not be limited to corruption.

We will give them more authority to investigate money laundering, forestry crimes, serious human rights violations and other crimes stipulated in prevailing laws," Pangeran said.

The revision will also grant prosecutors the authority to provide considerations and information in helping a court decide the legal violations in a criminal case.

It will also emphasize the role of the prosecutor in maintaining the integrity and sovereignty of the state and nation in times of danger, civil and military emergencies and war, he added.

The House Legislation Body (Baleg) agreed on Monday to form a working committee to revise the 2004 law. The chairman of the body, Supratman Andi Agtas of the Gerindra Party, was appointed to lead the committee.

Pangeran said laws related to prosecutors' duties had been challenged several times at the Constitutional Court (MK), which had affected prosecutors duties.

One of them was a Constitutional Court ruling on Oct. 13, 2010, that annulled Law No. 4 PNPS/1963 on prohibitions on printed materials that also revokes the authority of a prosecutor's office to supervise and withdraw printed materials from being circulated in the public without a court trial.

In law enforcement, Pangeran added, prosecutors were also expected not to merely use repressive preventive approaches but also to have an alternative dispute resolution, such as penal mediation.

Penal mediation is a form of settlement outside the court or alternative dispute resolution (ADR).
THE acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn has urged Limerick people to take extra care and to comply with the Covid-19 guidelines.

It comes as 11 new cases of the deadly condition were confirmed in the city and county this evening.

Limerick has had the fourth highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases over the last fortnight, with 98, it was also revealed this evening.

Locally, there are now almost 750 cases confirmed.

No new deaths have been reported nationally, meaning the total number of fatalities from coronavirus remains at 1,777.

There were 53 confirmed new cases, with the majority, 25, in Dublin.

With 11, Limerick had the second highest amount overnight, with the remaining 17 cases spread around 10 other counties including Clare, Kerry, Tipperary and Cork.

It comes as the lockdown restrictions in Co Kildare were lifted after three weeks.

Dr Siobhan Ni Bhriain, the consultant psychiatrist and integrated care lead at the HSE, said: "As we continue through the school year, we expect cases and these will be responded to rapidly, tailored to that outbreak and led by public health doctors. These public health doctors will communicate with school staff and parents as indicated."

Rachel Kenna, chief nursing officer at the Department of Health added: "We can all support parents and school children in our communities by following public health advice. We all have a responsibility to keep our schools open by applying this advice to our daily lives. Remember the key protective behaviours, regular hand washing, physical distance, wearing face coverings where appropriate, reduce your social contacts, know the symptoms and know when to isolate."

Dr Sumi Dunne, general practitioner, said: "We are aware that this is an anxious time for parents and guardians. GPs across the country are here to support them. If you feel your child is unwell, outside of a blocked/runny nose and seasonal sneezing, please do not send them into school. Keep them at home, restrict your movements and make contact with your GP."
A Star of David-adorned El Al plane has taken off from Israels Ben-Gurion Airport, carrying a high-ranking American and Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi in the first-ever direct commercial passenger flight to the United Arab Emirates.

The Israeli flag carriers flight marks the implementation of the historic US-brokered deal to normalise relations between the two nations and solidifies the long-clandestine ties between them that have evolved over years of shared enmity towards Iran.

With the US as matchmaker, Israel and the UAE agreed earlier this month to work towards normalisation, which would make the UAE the third Arab nation to have full relations with Israel, after Egypt and Jordan.

But unlike those two nations, Israel has never fought a war against the UAE and hopes to have much warmer relations.

While this is a historic flight, we hope that this will start an even more historic journey for the Middle East and beyond Jared Kushner, senior adviser to Donald Trump

The American delegation includes President Donald Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as national security adviser Robert OBrien, Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz and envoy for Iran Brian Hook.

Israel was represented by national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and the director generals of several ministries, who will meet with their Emirati counterparts.

While this is a historic flight, we hope that this will start an even more historic journey for the Middle East and beyond, Mr Kushner told reporters before boarding the plane.

Mr Ben-Shabbat, head of the Israeli delegation, said he was excited about the trip and that the aim was to lay the groundwork for co-operation in areas such as tourism, medicine, technology and trade.

This morning the traditional greeting of go in peace takes on a special significance for us, he said.

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The El Al flight, numbered LY971 as a gesture to the UAEs international calling code number, is expected to fly over Saudi Arabian airspace. That would mark another historic first for Israel and at least an acquiescence by the kingdom for the UAEs move.

Saudi King Salman, along with other Gulf Arab leaders to varying degrees, maintain their boycotts of Israel in support of Palestinians obtaining an independent state. Any long-term flights between Israel and the UAE would require Saudi clearance to be profitable.

El Al spokesman Stanley Morais said the 737-900 is equipped with a missile-defence system, a standard feature on these types of planes and a requirement for this flight. After grounding its fleet due to the coronavirus, it is the airlines first flight since July 1.

The plane was decorated with the the words for peace in Arabic, Hebrew and English above the pilots window. Journalists were handed special face masks decorated with the Israeli and Emirati flags. The seat protectors said Making History in all three languages, and Israeli folk music played in the background.

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The planes captain, Tal Becker, said he has not worked for several months and received a call out of the blue asking him to prepare for the flight. He said it took about a week to get up to speed.

The 45-year veteran, who is the senior captain in El Als 737 fleet, said he never dreamed of flying to Abu Dhabi, calling it a very special feeling.

The Israeli delegation will stay in the capital, Abu Dhabi, for one night before returning home on El Al flight LY972, a nod to Israels international calling code.

Private jets have earlier flown between the two nations as part of covert talks, and Abu Dhabis Etihad Airways flew cargo freighters to Israel before to deliver coronavirus aid to the Palestinians. But the high-profile flight on Monday, eagerly promoted by US officials, looks to place a solid stamp on the surprise August 13 White House announcement of Israel and the UAE establishing ties.
A power company does repairs in Ventura, California

A Southern California Edison crew installs a new overhead switch for circuit reliability on May 13, 2020 in Ventura, Calif. Credit - Brent StirtonGetty Image

For people who lost jobs or income during the pandemic, life has been a series of terrifying deadlines. There was July 24, the end of a federal eviction moratorium from government-backed housing, which had protected about one-third of renters. There was July 30, when a program providing an extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits expired, reducing the incomes of tens of millions of Americans.

Now, the beginning of September looms as yet another deadline as utility companies resume cutting power to customers who have fallen behind on their bills. In some states, moratoriums preventing them from doing so are ending, and in other states, utility company pledges to keep customers connected are winding down. Residents in Ohio, Florida, Maryland, Indiana, and Illinois are all at risk of shutoffs in early September; shutoffs can resume in late September or October in North Carolina,Tennessee and Texas.

Were facing a tidal wave of terminations, says Charlie Harak, senior attorney for energy and utilities issues at the National Consumer Law Center.

There is no national account of how many customers could lose power, but there are certainly millions of people who risk disconnection at a time when people need their utilities the most. Kids need electricity to attend online classes, which will be the norm for hundreds of thousands of them as schools reopen. They need light in the evening to do homework. And in large swaths of the country facing extreme heat, life without power means no fans or air conditioning. Additionally, cutoffs can increase risks of COVID-19 infection by forcing some people to leave their homes and squeeze into cramped quarters with friends or relatives who have electrcity.

Based on data from Massachusetts, Harak estimates that as many as 10% of U.S. households are so far behind on their bills they are at risk of termination when moratoriums end. A report by Carbon Switch, an energy efficiency startup, estimates that around 34.5 million people could lose their utility shutoff protections in 14 states in the next month.

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Duke Energy, which serves 7.8 million customers across seven states in the southeast and Midwest, tells TIME that 300,000 of its customers are 60 days or more behind on their gas or electric bills. In early August, Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) said that 258,000 customers were behind on payments; Tampa Electric Company said that 92,000 of its customers were behind. A public interest group said in June that 800,000 Pennsylvanians were at risk of service termination. More than 300,000 residential households in Minnesota were past due by the end of July, according to data filed with Minnesotas Public Utilities Commission.

The impending wave of shutoffs is one more sign of how the economic measures to help Americans who lost jobs during the pandemic have fallen short. There were still 27 million Americans receiving unemployment benefits the week ending August 8, according to the latest Commerce Department data. The end of the $600 in extra weekly unemployment benefits hit many people hard, but many of the people I talked to for this story had not even received the regular unemployment benefits or stimulus checks they were due. State unemployment offices, slammed with a surge in applications and running on outdated systems, are still trying to catch up with applications and appeals. One in three families struggle to pay their utility bills in normal times; even more are falling behind because of the sudden loss of income.

Cars line up to receive food from the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida at Carter Tabernacle Christian Methodist Episcopal Church on Aug. 8, 2020 in Orlando. Paul HennessyNurPhoto/Getty Images

Brandy Wilcoxson, 42, a single mother in Atlanta who works as a security guard, has seen her weekly hours cut from 40 to around 13 because of the pandemic. Shes limited in the shifts she can take because her two kids, ages 14 and 10, are doing virtual learning, and she has to be home to supervise. She should qualify for unemployment benefits under the CARES Act, which allows people who are underemployed during the pandemic to collect benefits, but her benefits ended abruptly in July with no explanation, she says. Now, she owes around $1,000 in back electric bills, and when she contacted her power company to enter into a payment plan, she says she was told she would need to pay $192 a month just to catch up on her bill, in addition to whatever shell owe monthly going forward. Its money that Wilcoxson, who makes $13 an hour and who struggles to cover rent and food, does not have. It would be robbing Peter to pay Paul, she says.

She recently learned that she may be evicted soon, so she is hesitant to pay to keep the power on if shes just going to lose her home anyway. My next move will be probably to hold a sign at the corner saying I have two kids, and asking for help, Wilcoxson tells me.

The coming wave of utility shutoffs illuminates the patchwork nature of laws in the U.S. controlling access to basic necessities like water, electricity, and gas. Depending on where you live, you probably get your utilities through either a big investor-owned utility, a small municipal utility affiliated with your city or town, or a rural cooperative. State utility commissions only have authority over big, investor-owned utilities like Duke Energy or Florida Power & Light, so most state moratoriums did not cover municipal and rural cooperatives, which could proceed with shutoffs in many states.

In the wake of the pandemic, the most sweeping protections were enacted in New York state, which passed a legislative ban on utility shutoffs until early 2021. It covers investor-owned and municipal utilities, and included gas, water and phone service on top of electricity. Californias public utility commission ordered investor-owned electric and gas companies to suspend disconnections until April 2021, but that order does not include municipal power companies or rural cooperatives.

Read More: Heres What Its Like to Lose $600 a Week in Extra Unemployment Benefits

In most other states, moratoriums are winding down. Within a few months, were only going to have five or six states that have moratoriums on shutoffs, says Harak.

An Illinois stoppage of disconnections ended July 26, but many power companies volunteered to extend it until September. A Maryland ban expires Sept. 1. A ban on shutoffs by North Carolinas utility regulator expires Sept. 1.

All of the big investor-owned utility companies pledged not to shut off power for nonpayment in early March, but many ended those moratoriums in July and August and planned to proceed with shutoffs in September after having given customers 30 days to try and catch up. A Duke Energy spokesman told TIME the company will begin shutting off customers in Ohio and Florida in September, and in North Carolina in October. Tampa Electric will also resume disconnections on Sept. 1. The Tennessee Public Utility Commissions moratorium on disconnects ended Aug. 30, but since power companies must provide 30-day written notice of disconnects, they cant start disconnecting until Sept. 28.

Though some moratoriums protected customers from accruing late fees, others allowed the fees to pile up, meaning some customers are going to be hit with higher-than-expected bills once theyre expected to resume payments.

Utility companies defend their decisions to resume shutoffs, saying that as long as customers know their power wont be cut, they stop trying to make payments. As evidence, they say that calls to utility call centers went down during the pandemic, indicating customers arent contacting providers about working out payment plans. Adam L. Benshoff, the executive director of regulatory affairs for the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric companies, says this means customers will continue racking up bills that they may not be able to pay.

The moratorium is having some unintended consequences that are placing customers in a worse spot long term, says Benshoff. (Jean Su, the director of the Energy Justice Program at the Center for Biological Diversity, which is advocating for a nationwide moratorium, calls the idea that people are choosing not to pay a red herring, and says there is no evidence people who can pay their bills stop doing so because of moratoriums.)

Its not just consumers who are struggling, according to the American Public Power Association, which represents 2,000 public power utilities serving 49 million people, or about 15% of U.S. utility customers. Some small nonprofit utilities saw revenues drop as factories shut down and as consumers fell behind on bills, APPA says. It estimates that member revenues are down $5 billion in 2020. One small nonprofit utility provider, the town of Elizabeth City, in North Carolina, said in June that it was facing insolvency and was granted a waiver from the states ban on shutoffs. APPA has asked Congress for forgivable loans for members affected by the pandemic.

Bigger utility companies say they also are hurting because theyre getting less money from non-residential customers like office buildings and factories, so they need to push consumers to start paying their bills again. At some point, you do have to return to normal billing operations for business reasons, said Neil Nissan, a spokesman for Duke Energy. (In August, Duke reported $5.4 billion in revenues for the three months ending June 30, 2020 and earnings per share of $1.08 for the quarter.)

Read More: What Life is Like For Millions Facing Financial Ruin During the Pandemic

Lucy Cabrera, who is three months behind on payments to Florida Light & Power, says shed pay if she could, but her income doesnt cover the rent much less the power. I just send $100 in here and there, and pray for the best, says Cabrera, 55, who lives outside of Miami with her husband, who is disabled. Cabrera drove for Uber, Lyft, and Postmates until the pandemic began; she stopped driving because both she and her husband have health problems that put them at higher risk for contracting COVID-19.

The weekly $600 in extra unemployment benefits helped her keep up with her bills; now that has ended, her familys only income is her husbands monthly $578 Social Security check and her weekly $125 unemployment benefit. Her electricity bill alone is around $240 a month, powering the air conditioning that makes life tolerable during Floridas sweltering summer months.

The pandemic has forced people struggling to pay their bills to consider something that would have seemed unthinkable a year ago; life without basic services like electricity or water. This comes at a time when people are stuck at home because of the pandemic and need these utilities more than ever. Tanya Barie, 36, who lives outside Philadelphia, realized this when her water was shut off in mid-August after she fell behind on payments following a pandemic-related job loss. She couldnt mix formula for her baby or give her children baths. You dont realize how much you need it until you dont have it, Barie, who had a job as a florist, told me. She took her children to stay with her mother until she was able to borrow money from relatives to get the water turned on again.

Consumer advocates have urged Congress to impose a national moratorium on all utility shutoffs. We need to be able to maintain utilities if we want to beat the virus, says Al Ripley, the director of the consumer and housing project at the North Carolina Justice Center, an advocacy group that works on poverty issues. If people lose their power, theyll be forced to move in with friends or family, increasing the risk of transmitting the coronavirus, Ripley says. The HEROES Act, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May, included a moratorium on disconnection of water and home energy for nonpayment, but it did not have support in the Senate.

There is some federal funding available for people who fall behind on utility bills. The CARES Act, signed into law in March, provided an extra $900 million for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, which helps families pay their energy bills. But most consumers dont know how to access LIHEAP money, which is usually distributed through community organizations or state agencies, and besides, that money is quickly running out. Some energy companies also offer programs that allow customers who can pay their bills to round up and donate to help pay the bills of those that cant. Californias public utility commission said recently it would test a program that would cap bills at a percentage of income customers can afford to pay.

That so many Americans are falling behind on utilities has future implications for everyone. With revenues down, many utility companies will likely raise rates to recoup lost payments. Some already are trying. In Indiana, 10 electric and natural gas companies in June asked regulators to let them raise rates because of lost income due to the pandemic; their request was denied. Citing the threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic and volatility in capital markets, Appalachian Power in Virginia, has asked regulators to let it raise rates 6.5%. (The request has not yet been approved; the Attorney Generals office called it unconscionable in a filing.) Indianas utility regulatory agency approved Duke Energys request for a rate increase in June of this year. Duke is also asking North Carolinas utility commission for permission to raise rates to account for costs associated with the pandemic. Utility commissions in 33 states are tracking how utility companies finances are hit by the pandemic, in order to potentially help them make up the revenue.

Read More: Renters Are Being Forced From Their Homes Despite Eviction Moratoriums

Higher rates raise bills for everybody but would put a greater burden on low-income families, who devote three times as much of their income to energy costs as do higher-income households. A June survey of low-income households by researchers at Indiana University found that 22% of respondents had to forgo or reduce household needs like medicine or food to pay their energy bill; 4% of those surveyed had already had their service disconnected. People of color who have been hardest hit by the pandemic may also be the same people who lose their power because of non-payment, elevating their health risks.

Of course, there are some states that are continuing to prevent shutoffs, acknowledging that the coronavirus pandemic is continuing and that economic opportunities are few and far between. Wisconsins utility commission voted to extend its moratorium on utility disconnections until October 1; Virginias utility regulator extended its ban on shutoffs from Aug. 31 to Sept. 15; Massachusetts extended its moratorium from Aug. 31 to Nov. 15. This may help people through the winter, since many states prohibit shutoffs during cold winter months, or if the temperature falls below freezing.

It wont help people whose landlords are using utility shutoffs on people behind on the rent, in an effort to force them to move. Lawyers say this is happening more frequently as property owners look for ways around eviction moratoriums that remain in effect in some places.

Anallive Calle, 32, who is eight months pregnant and has two young children, lives in Miami, where landlords are not able to take final action and evict people for nonpayment if the tenant can show they have been affected by the pandemic. Still, Calle says her family has been without power for a week. Calle lost hours at her job at a salon when the pandemic hit, and her husband is temporarily disabled with a foot injury. They fell behind on their rent, but Calle says they were paying what they could. Then one morning, they woke up sweating to find their air conditioner no longer working. The landlord had cut the power, which was included with their rent.

All the food in the refrigerator spoiled, and since Calle cannot cook without power, shes feeding the children crackers and other non-perishable food. Her kids dont understand why its so hot in their apartment or why they cant watch anything on their tablet. She doesnt know how shes going to bring an infant into the house in this situation. Its basically like living in the street, she says.

Calle has applied for what government assistance is available but says she never received her $1,200 stimulus check or any unemployment benefits. When shes gone to seek assistance, Calle says there is always a long line of people ahead of her, also looking for help.
While crossing a busy road may sound complicated to some, a new study from the University of Iowa reports that parents who use road crossings as teachable moments help their youngsters learn road-crossing skills faster and become better at crossing streets.

The study highlights that learning to cross a busy street is anything but easy for a child, especially in places where the traffic doesnt stop.

Children must first identify a safe gap in traffic, use refined motor skills to precisely step off a curb the moment a car passes, and safely reach the other side of the street before the next vehicle arrives. Research says parents can help their children in the same.

The researchers learned this by watching sets of parent-child duos--with the children varying in age from 6 to 12 years old--cross a virtual road with continuous traffic.

A finding says that children who received constructive advice from their parents--especially the pointing out of safe gaps in traffic ahead of time--learned best-practices in crossing more readily and crossed more safely.

This is something children need to learn how to do. Its an important, common, real-world skill, said Elizabeth ONeal, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Iowa and the first author on the study.

Children learning ahead of time how to choose a sizable gap between vehicles leads to safer crossing outcomes. We found theres a lot that parents can do to help their children learn those skills and to keep their kids safe, added ONeal.

By far, the safest way for a child to cross a road is at an intersection with a walk sign, a stoplight, or with marked crosswalks. But vehicles may not stop, even at crosswalks, and there are many roads where no crossing markings exist.

This puts children at risk. In 2018 alone, 175,000 youngsters between the ages of 1 and 14 were injured as pedestrians, according to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, a branch of the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Iowa researchers wanted to understand whether parents could help their children cross roads more safely, as well as study how the parents offered help. In multiple rounds, 64 parents with a child aged 6, 8, 10, or 12 crossed a virtual, single-lane road with a line of oncoming vehicles travelling at 25 miles per hour. The participating pairs were instructed to watch the traffic and then decide together when to cross.

The main results show that across all ages, parents proactively pointed out safe traffic gaps in just 30% of the crossing exercises. In other instances, parents simply instructed their children to cross or began crossing without saying anything.

When parents gave helpful instruction, their children showed a 10 percent improvement in how quickly they entered the road after the first car passed and a 7 percent gain in the margin of time between when they reached the other side of the road before the next car arrived. The researchers say those seemingly small gains in motor timing substantively increase the chances of a successful crossing.

When youre crossing roads with your child, dont just say, Lets go! when you want to go. Help the child look at the oncoming traffic and pick out ahead of time which gap youre going to choose. It helps the child learn how to pick the gap ahead of time and to correctly time when to cross, said Jodie Plumert, a professor in the UI Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and a co-author of the study.

The findings add to previous results by researchers in the UIs Hank Virtual Environments Lab (led by Plumert and Joseph Kearney, a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Iowa) showing that most children dont fully grasp how to identify gaps in traffic and correctly time their road crossings until age 14.

That study appeared in April 2017 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, published by the American Psychological Association.

A few previous studies have looked at how children crossroads and then interviewed their parents afterwards. According to the Iowa researchers, it was clear from those studies that on the whole, parents werent actively helping their children learn how to safely negotiate road crossings.

Plumert says the most recent study is the first to examine how parents can help children learn to prospectively control their movements and to understand what is needed mentally and physically to cross safely.

If this was something that parents were doing most of the time, then that would be great, Plumert said.

But our study shows that parents arent using effective strategies to help their child learn about safe road crossings all that often. But the times the parents do have useful instructions, its really helpful to the child. They just show much better performance crossing roads, added Plumert.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

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GREENWICH  The new assistant principal at New Lebanon School is returning to the school where she began her career in Greenwich a decade ago.

Lindsey Eisenstein has been appointed the new assistant principal of New Lebanon School, replacing Klara Monaco, who was recently named principal at Glenville School, Greenwich Public Schools announced Monday.

Eisenstein arrives at New Lebanon after working as an advanced learning program teacher and math interventionist at Hamilton Avenue School.

We are excited to have Lindsey rejoin the New Lebanon School community in this leadership role, Superintendent Toni Jones said in a statement. She brings with her a love of teaching, combined with a strong background in educational leadership. She also has a unique global perspective through the numerous awards and grants she has received, making her a great addition to the New Lebanon Schools International Baccalaureate community.

In her new role of assistant principal, Eisenstein will supervise and evaluate the staff, facilitate the special education process, maintain a safe and welcoming school climate, and advocate on behalf of all students, the school district said in the announcement.

Eisenstein also served as an administrative intern at Hamilton Avenue School for the 2019-20 school year.

I am honored and truly humbled to accept the assistant principal position at New Lebanon School, she said. I started my Greenwich career 10 years ago at New Lebanon and feel that this return is a true homecoming. I look forward to working with (the principal) Mrs. (Alexandra) Michaelson, parents, students, staff, and the community to continue the mission of empowering students to become compassionate citizens of our ever-changing world.

Before working for GPS, Eistenstein worked at Public School 36X in the Bronx, N.Y., holding roles as a general education second grade teacher and as a science teacher for kindergarten through fifth grades. She also taught at the Westchester Fairfield Hebrew Academy in Greenwich.

Her educational career began in Stamford at the Summer Institute for the Gifted, where she spent six years, beginning as a teacher and moving into the leadership roles of program coordinator, recreation director and assistant director.

Eisenstein holds a bachelor of arts in Spanish from Manhattanville College, a master of arts in teaching in elementary and early childhood education from Manhattanville and a master of science in education with a science, technology, engineering and mathematics specialization from Hunter College.

More News CT schools COVID-19 case tracker

She also earned a master of science in educational leadership from Mercy College and completed a Gifted and Talented Certification Program at Lehman College and an International Baccalaureate Certificate Program in the Primary Years Programme through the University of San Marcos.

dfierro@greenwichtime.com
The 48-year-old was born in the northern city of Tripoli. From 2000 to 2004, he served as an advisor to Najib Mikati, a billionaire and former prime minister who backed his nomination on Monday

Lebanese prime minister-designate Mustapha Adib vowed Monday to swiftly launch a reformist government and seek international financial assistance after the Beirut blast deepened a political and economic crisis.

In a televised speech after his nomination, Adib said there is "a need to form a government in record time and to begin implementing reforms immediately, starting with an agreement with the International Monetary Fund".

An AFP correspondent then spotted him in an immaculate white shirt, tie and face mask touring the Gemmayzeh neighbourhood, which was hard hit by an August 4 Beirut explosion.

"I want your trust," the AFP correspondent heard him tell a resident.

The PM-designate also met with volunteers spearheading relief efforts in the blast-hit district, telling them he wanted the state to work with them in rebuilding Beirut.

No other senior government official has visited neighbourhoods near the port since the explosion.

Lebanon, mired in its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, started IMF talks in May but they have since hit a wall.

Three negotiators with the government's team have already quit in protest over the government's handling over the crisis.

An August 4 Beirut explosion that killed more than 180 people and laid to waste entire districts of the capital has compounded the country's economic woes.

It caused up to $4.6 billion worth of physical damage, according to a World Bank assessment. In addition, the report calculates the blow to economic activity at up to $3.5 billion.

In his speech, Adib said there "was no time for words, promises and wishes," pledging instead to enact swift reforms long demanded by the international community.

Adib has been Lebanon's ambassador to Germany since 2013 and his name only emerged on Sunday to replace Hassan Diab, whose government resigned in the aftermath of the deadly August 4 blast.

The 48-year-old was born in the northern city of Tripoli.

From 2000 to 2004, he served as an advisor to Najib Mikati, a billionaire and former prime minister who backed his nomination on Monday.

In 2011, then-prime minister Mikati appointed Adib as his chief of cabinet.

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US National Security Adviser Robert OBrien said on August 30 that more Arab and Islamic countries are likely to follow the United Arab Emirates in normalising relations with Israel. OBrien was in Israel along with US President Donald Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a day before heading to Abu Dhabi for formally finalising UAE-Israel ties.

We believe that other Arab and Muslim countries will soon follow the United Arab Emirates lead and normalise relations with Israel, OBrien told reporters.

While the security adviser didnt name the Arab and Muslim countries he was referring, Israeli officials have reportedly claimed that Oman and Bahrain will be heading towards in the direction. Last week, US State Secretary Mike Pompeo met Bahranian Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa who welcomed the initiative taken by the United States to reach an agreement between the UAE and Israel which halted annexation of West Bank.

OBrien and Kushner will join an Israeli delegation on August 31 in the first flight of Israeli commercial airline to UAE to hold talks in Abu Dhabi. Kushner said that the normalisation of ties was a giant step forward towards regional peace. Invoking his Jewish roots, Trumps senior adviser said that it means more to him and to his family that he can ever express.

Read: Israel Hopes To Sign US-brokered Peace Deal With UAE By Mid-September

Read: UAE Issues Decree To Formally End Israel Boycott Law Allowing Economic Agreements

On August 24, Pompeo told a press briefing in Jerusalem that the deal was brokered by US President Donald Trump with Netanyahus assistance. He opined that the deal has been a boon to peace and regional stability as it heralds a new era. The top US diplomat added that Israel and UAE are two of the most advanced economies in the world brimming with innovation.

Its a natural fit. And the support of the United States makes this, I think, something with international ramifications, he said.

Opposition to the deal

However, the deal has been opposed by several Islamic countries in the Middle East, including Turkey and Iran. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the move against Palestine is difficult to stomach and he has informed the foreign minister that the government may pull back its ambassador from Abu Dhabi. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the United Arab Emirates made a huge mistake by reaching an agreement with Israel to normalise their relationship.

Read: US Secy Pompeo Terms Israel As America's 'most Reliable Partner In The Middle East'

Read: Bahrain Stresses Two-state Solution During Pompeos Visit To End Israel-Palestine Conflict

(Image: AP)
Weve survived 11 years, navigating our little path through the big stuff.

The Gertrude Opera company event that is now known as the Yarra Valley Opera Festival has always offered something different: a touch of Glyndebourne in the Yarra, a taste of New York-style contemporary opera under a marquee at a farm homestead.

An empty stage at the Yarra Valley Opera Festival 2019. Credit:

But this year the festival will be very different again, thanks to the pandemic.

Yes, its that 2020 cliche: the pivot to digital. But, says Gertrudes artistic director, Linda Thompson, they'd been heading online anyway.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visits a typhoon-hit area in North Korea's southwestern province of South Hwanghae, state media reported Friday. Yonhap



North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited a typhoon-hit area in the country's southwestern province of Hwanghae and called for all-out efforts to minimize damage to farming fields and a reduction in harvests, state media reported Friday.



Kim's trip to South Hwanghae Province, which came after Typhoon Bavi passed along the North's western coastline Thursday, is seen as aimed at highlighting his image as a leader caring for the lives of his people as they have been reeling from recent back-to-back natural disasters.



During the visit, Kim said that the scale of damage is smaller than expected and "positively appraised national crisis control system against natural disasters taking up proper shape and the ability to counter the crisis making remarkable improvement," the Korean Central News Agency said.



He stressed the need to "direct efforts to minimizing the damage in the agricultural field in particular and reduction in the harvest," while urging "an all-out campaign" of completing the recovery so that the country can mark the 75th founding anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party next month "with proud of achievement."



Hwanghae Province is one of the largest rice-producing areas of the country.



"It is one of top-priority tasks to be surely carried out by our party to go among the people and encourage and sincerely help them when they are in trouble and feel difficult and the Central Committee of the party should always be with them both when they are in weal and woe," Kim said, according to the KCNA.



The KCNA did not reveal when his trip took place, but it appears to have come hours after Typhoon Bavi made landfall in South Hwanghae Province early Thursday.



The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North's ruling party, said that the typhoon hit farming areas of Hwanghae Province, in particular, dealing a blow to corn stalks, rice paddies and other crops.



Hundreds of acres of farming land in North Hwanghae Province were affected, the paper said, reporting on broken trees, flooded houses and roads in the region. Damage in areas near Pyongyang was also reported. The paper, however, did not mention any casualties.



In an unusual move, the country's state TV network has provided real-time coverage of damage caused by wind gusts and rainfalls in recent days, showing the sense of urgency and efforts to provide updated info on the storm to people.



North Korea had stayed on high alert as it feared the typhoon could be stronger than Typhoon Lingling that devastated many areas of the country last summer.



Kim held a politburo meeting Tuesday, calling for stepped-up efforts to brace for the approaching typhoon and minimize damage.



North Korea has been facing multiple challenges, including the fallout from its protracted antivirus campaign and floods caused by recent heavy downpours.



North Korea has claimed to be coronavirus-free, but it keeps a high level of border control and quarantine, which appear to be taking a toll on its already fragile economy under the strain of crippling global sanctions.



Making matters worse is that it was hit hard by recent heavy downpours, which reportedly wrought havoc on its rice-producing areas, raising worries that its chronic food shortage problem could worsen.



Last week, leader Kim unusually acknowledged failure in implementing his five-year economic development plan, citing "severe" and "unexpected" challenges. He said that he will unveil a new development scheme in a rare party congress to be held in January. (Yonhap)


Greece.

Just saying that word puts a smile on many peoples faces.

Images of warm, sandy beaches spring to mind.

Cristal clear, blue water and endless skies.

Its the land of lovers and ancient poets and any romantic with a beating heart.

No wonder my wife and so many other people around the world adore this sun-drenched paradise made up of thousands of islands sprinkled throughout the Aegean and Ionian seas.

But theres one thing many people outside of Greece often dont think of when they think of this country - wine.

And not just ordinary wine.

Really great wine.

Then again, it shouldnt come as a surprise since so many other fruits and vegetables thrive throughout Greece, whether its olive or fig trees and some of the freshest vegetables youll ever taste in your life.

So this week, I decided to focus on several Greek wines, especially since so many of them taste so great on warm, summer afternoons.

The six different Greek wines featured this week are each made with a different grape - two reds, two roses, one white and one only-in-Greece wine.

One of the great things about Greek wines is the wide array of less well-known grapes often used to make many of the wines there.

Sure, you can find Greek wines made with Chardonnay grapes and other familiar names.

But why limit yourself when you can discover what different wines taste like made with other types of grapes?

Let me add that all six of these wines were purchased at Provisions in Northampton for $82, which recently put together this sampling of six different, affordable Greek wines for customers. I hope you enjoy these delicious, affordable wines as much as I did. Yamas, which is cheers in Greek.

WINES RECOMMENDED THIS WEEK

Tetramythos Retsina

2019 Domaine Paterianakis Melissokipos Assyrtiko White

2019 Domaine Zafeirakis Limniona Rose

2019 Troupis Winery 3617 Moschofilero Rose

2016 Naoussa Melilzani Xinomavro Red

2018 Troupis Winery Fteri Agiorgitko Red

ABOUT GREEK WINES

As you might expect in one of the oldest inhabited places, people have been making wine in Greece for thousands of years. Specifically, Greeks have been making wine for more than 6,000 years. Many ancient Greeks even worshipped Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. Wine was also sometimes used for medicinal purposes to treat different ailments.

POPULAR GREEK WINE GROWING REGIONS

You can find wines made with grapes grown throughout many parts of Greece. On the mainland, Macedonia has several popular wine growing areas, including Naoussa, where one of todays featured red wines comes from. The island of Crete is another popular place for wine production, along with several Aegean Islands (including Santorini and Rhodes) and Ionian Islands (including Corfu and Kefalonia).

GRAPES USED TO MAKE GREEK WINES

One of the great things about Greek wines is the wide range grapes used to make their wines. Some of the more popular grapes include:

Red Wine - Agiorgitko, Limniona and Xinomavro

White Wine - Assyrtiko, Malagousia and Moschofilero

WINE TASTING NOTES

Tetramythos Retsina

Region - Mount Aroania, North Peloponnese

Grape - Roditis

Tasting Notes - Lets start with the most well-known (and perhaps most misunderstood) Greek wine - Retsina. If you have ever heard of Retsina, you might not have a great impression of this wine which used to be made with pine resin. But this wonderful wine from the mountainous region in the northern part of the Peloponnese peninsula will make you rethink Retsina. This charming wine has a soft, subtle finish with a dash of lime and hay flavors. Everything about this wine is delicate and understated. A great start to a great Greek wine tasting.

2019 Domaine Paterianakis Melissokipos Assyrtiko White

Region - Crete

Grape - Assyrtiko

Tasting Notes - Many travelers know the island of Crete for its rocky coastline and crystal-clear blue waters. This large Greek island also makes many outstanding wines, particular white ones. This crisp, refreshing wine abounds with soft, subtle fruit flavors, ranging from lemon to a hint of lime with a dash of sea salt. You can almost even taste the foam of the ocean caressing the sand if you close your eyes and imagine this charming Greek island.

2019 Domaine Zafeirakis Limniona Rose

Region - Mount Olympus, Tyrnavos

Grape - Limniona

Tasting Notes - Made with grapes grown in the mainland of Greece, this hearty rose wine overflows with wonderful fruit flavors, ranging from peach and pear to rose petals and a dash of sea salt. Darker in color than some rose wines, I was thoroughly impressed by its refreshing, subtle flavors.

2019 Troupis Winery 3617 Moschofilero Rose

Region - Mantinea Plateau, Peloponnese

Grape - Moschofilero

Tasting Notes - The first of two wines from Troupis Winery recommended this week, this dry, refreshing rose will appeal to those who enjoy drier, more understated wines. Here, the peach, rose petal and sea salt flavors are among the driest and subtlest of all the wines recommended this week. Truly delightful wine.

2016 Naoussa Melilzani Xinomavro Red

Region - Naoussa, Macedonia

Grape - Xinomavro

Tasting Notes - Made with Xinomavro grown on the Greek mainland, this big, earthy red wine reminds me of red wines from Frances Southern Rhone region. This robust wine has a long, dry aftertaste filled with dry fruit flavors, including blackberries and plumbs. A great wine for a hearty, rustic meal.

2018 Troupis Winery Fteri Agiorgitko Red

Region - Peloponnese

Grape - Agiorgitko

Tasting Notes - The second wine from Troupis Winery on the Peloponnese peninsula, this red wine has a lighter, slighter fruitier finish compared to the other red wine recommended this week. Let me add, though, that this isnt a sweet wine. The berry flavors (including raspberry and cherry) are simply more front and center and vibrant. A great finish to a great Greek wine tasting.

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 and Instagram and Facebook.
Claudia Martinez (right) talked about her uncle as she stood outside Jefferson Health Torresdale Hospital in Philadelphia on June 24, 2020. Immigration activists say Jefferson Health sought to medically repatriate an undocumented Guatemalan man with a serious brain injury in an effort to rid itself of his care. City Councilwoman Helen Gym is at rear. Read more

An undocumented, seriously injured Guatemalan immigrant who supporters say was nearly medically repatriated by Jefferson Health to a homeland less able to help him has now been moved to a long-term care facility in the Philadelphia region.

If we had not gone to the hospital and raised a stink, he would be in Guatemala right now, and might not be alive right now, said Philadelphia immigration lawyer David Bennion, director of the Free Migration Project, an advocacy organization.

Bennion declined to say where the man, identified by his family only as A.V., is now being treated, because that could alert ICE agents to his location. A.V. suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was hit by a motorcycle, and his long-term prognosis is uncertain, but his family believes that American medical care represents his best hope for recovery.

Guatemala struggles to provide basic health care for less-wealthy citizens even in good times, and today the largest country in Central America is being ravaged by the coronavirus.

A.V. has become the public face in Pennsylvania of an unregulated, little-known practice thats been criticized as international patient dumping, in which hospitals send costly, uninsured immigrant patients back to poorer homelands. Its usually only a matter of time before those patients die there, because they cannot afford the care they need, according to a study by Jennifer Smith, a professor at the Florida A&M University College of Law.

Asked about A.V.s move from Jefferson Torresdale Hospital in Northeast Philadelphia, a health-system spokesperson said she could not share specifics about any particular patient, but Jefferson Health transfers patients in coordination with the patient, or if the patient cannot consent, a family member or their legally appointed decision maker. ... Jefferson works very closely with family members to develop transfer or discharge plans, no matter how complex.

Bennion and A.V.s niece, Claudia Martinez, dispute that. They say Jefferson sought only to rid itself of the cost and complications of his care.

My uncle is much better, is better attended, and when we talk on the phone he can recognize me, but he is still quite confused, Martinez said. What I want to happen is that he recovers, that he has the care and attention that he needs no matter how long it takes. ... My family is in total agreement on what is best for my uncle.

The drama became public on June 23 amid outcry from medical students who organized an online petition to stop the removal. A.V. had been brought to Jefferson Torresdale in May after suffering broken legs, fractured ribs and severe neurological trauma when he was hit by a motorcycle. On June 24, immigration activists gathered at the hospital for what they said would be a physical attempt to block any vehicle carrying him to the airport.

That proved unnecessary. By afternoon, amid continuous news coverage and the arrival of City Councilwoman Helen Gym and other officials, any plan to remove the 48-year-old had been halted.

A health-system statement issued at the time did not deny that A.V. was being, in effect, privately deported, but said all transfers are the result of planning between hospital staff, patients, and families.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement played no role in the case.

More than 6,400 people ultimately signed a petition on A.V.s behalf.

The situation emerged not only amid a lethal pandemic but also during national protests over systemic racism in policing, government, courts, and medicine. Doctors and nurses in Philadelphia and elsewhere marched to demand an end to health disparities and better treatment for Black Americans and others, including immigrants, who often lack access to high-quality care.

So-called medical repatriations of undocumented migrants have gone on quietly for a long time in the U.S., and often patients have not given their consent, according to the Norris McLaughlin law firm, which practices in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Decisions are made by insurance companies, doctors, hospital financial officers and administrators, and patients and their families are not necessarily part of those discussions, the firm said.

Hospitals are bound by federal laws to arrange post-stay care for patients who need it. But such cases present financial predicaments, particularly with patients whose brain injuries can require lifelong care.

Undocumented patients generally are ineligible for government-paid services, so hospitals may not be able to discharge them to nursing homes or home-care facilities. Community agencies wont take on huge costs with no chance for reimbursement. That means hospitals can see their choices as limited: Keep the patients forever, or remove them to their homelands by flights and ambulances, a practice criticized as screen, stabilize and ship.

Undocumented immigrants can be eligible for certain discrete medical-assistance programs. A.V.s care is being paid for by Emergency Medicaid, a special government-sponsored function of the larger Medicaid health program. The funding is not indefinite. Emergency Medicaid, which is administered by the states, provides help to people who suffer a critical medical situation.

Now that A.V. has left Jefferson Torresdale, Bennion said, efforts to help him are focusing on new, potential challenges:

Theres concern that A.V. may not be protected from arrest under the ICE sensitive-locations policy, which dissuades agents from taking action at hospitals, schools and churches. While the policy designates medical treatment and health-care facilities as off-limits, it specifically names them as hospitals, doctors offices, accredited health clinics, and emergent or urgent care facilities.

A.V. also could be at risk of arrest upon leaving the long-term care facility.

In addition, while A.V. is undocumented, having lived about 20 years in the United States, its uncertain whether he may have had legal status in the past. Bennion is seeking to locate any documents connected to his status. A.V.s family also is attempting to raise money to help his mother in Guatemala, as she has depended on funds sent to her by her son.

His family is very interested in making sure this doesnt happen to someone else, Bennion said. Somebody made the decision, Wed rather hire a private flight to Guatemala.  His family believes he wouldnt be alive right now if that plan had gone forward.
Medical experts have flagged that many people not wearing masks and violating social distancing norms have contributed to the sudden spurt in novel coronavirus cases in Delhi in the past few days, cautioning that the situation should still be treated as a "health emergency". From doctors at leading hospitals to officials of nationwide testing labs, all concurred that a "sudden degree of complacency" has crept in the psyche of the masses, especially the youth, who feel that "all is back to normal" since lockdown has eased.

"We are seeing the younger population mostly starting to go out, posting pictures on social media about sitting at a cafe or a restaurant, which is quite a dangerous trend," Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH) Director B L Sherwal told PTI. "This sends out a wrong message to other people that things are okay now as economy is also slowly reopening," Sherwal said.

The RGSSH is one of the major dedicated COVID-19 facilities run by the Delhi government. "A large number of people going out of their homes, either not wearing a mask or wearing it only on their chin. That can immediately spread infection and that is one of the reasons we seeing a spike in cases in the last several days," Sherwal said, adding that they "should not lower their guard".

Also read: 30% non-resident coronavirus patients admitted to Delhi hospitals in August

Delhi recorded 2,024 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the highest single-day spike in cases in August, taking the tally to over 1.73 lakh, while the death toll rose to 4,426 with 22 more fatalities. On Saturday, there were 1,954 new cases. On preceding two days, the number of infections were in the excess of 1,800.

Suranjit Chatterjee, senior consultant of internal medicine at Apollo Hospitals said opening of the economy had led to increase in contact among people and that has also contributed to the rise in the number of infections. "Cases had begun to come down in Delhi in July and economy is being slowly opened up since June, because one cannot keep economy locked indefinitely.

"However, that does not mean, people should not treat the situation anymore as a health emergency. A degree of complacency has set in among a section of people that 'all is fine now'," Chatterjee said. He warned that the second wave during the Spanish Flu of 1918 had come after a gap of a few months, adding that people should, therefore, listen to experts and adhere to all safety norms to contain the virus.

Also read: Coronavirus uptick not worrying if serious cases, death count low: Indian Institute of Public Health

Mahesh Verma, a doctor and head of a Delhi government panel set up earlier to strengthen the preparedness of hospitals to battle COVID-19, said multiple factors could be responsible for this spike. "Laid-back attitude of many people in adhering to safety and social distancing norms is one factor," he told PTI. "Also, there is another school of thought and there have been some evidence that a less virulent strain of the virus could be in circulation, which leads to less deaths but more cases."

Opening up of the economy, too, has led to people interacting more and a greater chance of spreading infection, Verma said. Various sectors are slowly getting permit to resume operations while strictly adhering to coronavirus-safety protocols. After being closed since March 22, the Delhi Metro has received the nod from authorities to resume services from September 7 in a "calibrated manner" as per the new guidelines for Unlock 4.0 issued by the Centre, officials had said on Saturday.

Dr Meenu Bajpai of the plasma bank set up in July at state-run Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, said people would have to learn to be "socially responsible" too. "We are literate, but we, as a society, sometimes don't behave responsibly, as it is seen in not observing civic sense and many educated people throwing garbage in the open," Bajpai said.

Also read: Google search for 'chest pain' soar to record high amid coronavirus pandemic

This is the time that we have to show the true value of our education and listen to experts and behave responsibly, according to Bajpai. She cautioned that "eating and drinking socially" in the time of pandemic had to be a "strict no-no", saying that to consume something, one would have to pull the mask down and that is "not advisable".

Max Healthcare group medical director Sandeep Budhiraja cautioned the youth to not get swayed in by the lure of the social media, as many of those are putting out pictures of going out and socialising in cafes and restaurants, with or without wearing masks. "Yes, social media does affect the psyche of people and behaviour of people," he said, and cautioned that "a young person may get infected and recover from COVID-19, but if they unnecessarily go out and socialise, they run the risk of spreading it to older people around them, including their parents and grandparents".

Also read: Coronavirus: 78,512 new cases in 24 hours; India's COVID-19 tally jumps to 36 lakh, death toll reaches 64,469

Medical experts in Delhi also flagged the spread of COVID-19 cases to semi-urban areas and villages on the outskirts of Delhi. "A pandemic that has originated from outside generally follows this trajectory, from foreign countries to another country, then to bigger cities, and from urban areas to rural areas," Sherwal said. Dr Lal Path Labs executive chairman Arvind Lal cautioned that people should not go out unless extremely necessary, as "they may catch infection from asymptomatic ones". "We are still living in a health emergency, we should not forget that," Lal said.
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The Credit Suisse Momentum index and "Credit Suisse", and any trademarks, service marks and logos related thereto are service marks of Credit Suisse Group AG, Credit Suisse International, or one of their affiliates (collectively, "Credit Suisse"). The Accumulation Protector PlusSM Annuity is not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by Credit Suisse, and Credit Suisse has no relationship to Sentinel Security Life Insurance Company or Atlantic Coast Life Insurance Company, other than the licensing of the Credit Suisse Momentum Index and its service marks for use in connection with the Accumulation Protector PlusSM Annuity, and certain hedging arrangements and is not a party to any transaction contemplated hereby. Credit Suisse shall not be liable for the results obtained by using, investing in, or trading the Accumulation Protector PlusSM Annuity. Credit Suisse has not published or approved this document and accepts no responsibility for its contents or use. Obligations to make payments under the Accumulation Protector PlusSM Annuity are solely the obligation of Sentinel Security Life Insurance Company or Atlantic Coast Life Insurance Company and are not the responsibility of Credit Suisse. The selection of the Credit Suisse Momentum Index as a crediting option does not obligate Sentinel Security Life Insurance Company, Atlantic Coast Life Insurance Company or Credit Suisse to invest annuity payments in the components of the index.



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Credit Suisse AG is one of the world's leading financial services providers and is part of the Credit Suisse group of companies (referred to here as 'Credit Suisse'). Our strategy builds on Credit Suisse's core strengths: its position as a leading wealth manager, its specialist investment banking capabilities and its strong presence in our home market of Switzerland. We seek to follow a balanced approach to wealth management, aiming to capitalize on both the large pool of wealth within mature markets as well as the significant growth in wealth in Asia Pacific and other emerging markets, while also serving key developed markets with an emphasis on Switzerland. Credit Suisse employs approximately 48,800 people. The registered shares (CSGN) of Credit Suisse AG's parent company, Credit Suisse Group AG, are listed in Switzerland and, in the form of American Depositary Shares (CS), in New York. Further information about Credit Suisse can be found at www.credit-suisse.com.

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AmeriLife is a national leader in developing, marketing and distributing life and health insurance, annuities and retirement planning solutions to enhance the lives of pre-retirees and retirees. For nearly 50 years, AmeriLife has partnered with the nation's leading insurance carriers to provide value and quality to customers served through a national distribution network of over 150,000 insurance agents and advisors, 25 marketing organizations, and 50 insurance agency locations. Visit www.AmeriLife.com and follow AmeriLife on Facebook and LinkedIn for more information.

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China and France, as major responsible countries, need to actively promote and practice multilateralism which is essential for the well-being of most countries, especially small- and medium-sized ones, visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Paris on Saturday.

In talks with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, Wang said that upholding multilateralism is the biggest consensus reached during his trip to Europe.

He said that unilateralism is on the rise today as some countries ignore international agreements and refuse to fulfill their international obligations.

Without multilateralism, he said, the multilateral mechanism and international order established since World War II will be seriously damaged, and small- and medium-sized countries will suffer a huge impact.

"Under such circumstances, China and France, as major responsible countries, should actively promote and practice multilateralism," he said, making a four-point proposal for the two countries.

First, China and France need to adhere to the concept of multilateralism. The two sides should actively promote multilateralism on various occasions, resist unilateralism and make multilateralism the consensus of the international community.

Second, both sides should take multilateral actions. China supports France in continuing to play a leading role in tackling climate change. China has already met its 2020 emission reduction target ahead of schedule and is actively studying the next step. The two sides should support each other in the upcoming Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kunming, China, and the World Conservation Congress in Marseille, France, both to be held next year.

Third, China and France should abide by multilateral agreements. Unilateralism, including irresponsible withdrawal from international organizations or violation of international agreements, is unpopular. China and France should strengthen coordination and cooperation on international affairs, and safeguard major outcomes of international agreements and multilateral diplomacy, such as the Iran nuclear deal.

Fourth, the two sides should strengthen multilateral institutions. The United Nations is the most important platform for supporting and practicing multilateralism, and the two sides should support the United Nations in playing its due central role in international affairs.
Supporters of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro on Monday filed their candidacies for a tense presidential election in October.

The candidacies of the exiled leaders add to those of incumbent President Alassane Ouattara and former president Henri Konan Bedie  while the top Catholic leader warned the country was approaching a dangerous point.

Both Gbagbo and Soro had been barred by the electoral commission from running due to convictions in the countrys courts.

We have just submitted the candidacy file of our political leader, president Laurent Gbagbo, the father of democracy in Ivory Coast, said Georges-Armand Ouegnin, president of the pro-Gbagbo coalition called Together for Democracy and Sovereignty (EDS).

Gbagbo, 75, was sentenced in absentia to a 20-year term last November over the looting of the local branch of the Central Bank of West African States during the post-election crisis.

He could be jailed if he were to set foot in Ivory Coast.

Ouegnin said the decision to block Gbagbo from running was political, calling for the release of all political prisoners and the return of political exiles, including Gbagbo.

But Independent Electoral Commission chief Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert has said that anyone convicted of a crime cannot contest.

The courts have previously backed the bodys position, and judicial sources said they believed his candidacy was unlikely to be validated.

 Soro camp cries foul 

The country remains scarred by a conflict that erupted after the 2010 vote when Gbagbo refused to hand over power to the victor, current President Alassane Ouattara. Around 3,000 people lost their lives in several months of violence.

Gbagbo currently lives in the Belgian capital Brussels after being tried by the International Criminal Court. He was freed conditionally by the ICC after he was cleared in 2019 of crimes against humanity, a ruling prosecutors are appealing.

He has not made any public statement about whether he wishes to run again.

Meanwhile, relatives and supporters of Soro, a rebel leader who became prime minister, called for his candidacy to be validated.

Soros spokeswoman Aminata Kone-Zie accused the government of subterfuge to make our president (Soro) ineligible under an alleged criminal conviction.

Soro, 48, has been forced into exile in France in the face of a long list of legal problems at home.

He was sentenced in April to 20 years in prison for concealment of embezzlement of public funds.

A former ally of Ouattara, Soro was a leader in a 2002 revolt against Gbagbo that sliced the former French colony into the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south and triggered years of unrest.

 Radicalisation of positions 

President Ouattara, 75, and former president Bedie, 86, submitted their candidacy papers last week.

Violence erupted after Ouattaras announcement he was seeking a third term, claiming the lives of at least eight people in August.

Although the constitution limits presidents to two terms, Ouattara and his supporters argue that a 2016 constitutional tweak reset the clock.

On Monday, the head of the countrys Catholic Church, Cardinal Jean-Pierre Kutwa, warned the country is approaching a dangerous turn.

He said Ouattaras candidacy is not necesssary, adding his duty as guarantor of the constitution is to take the time to organise elections in an environment pacified by reconciliation.

As the presidential elections approach, we are witnessing a radicalisation of positions from one side or the other, he warned.

These have become even more pronounced since the declaration of the presidents candidacy.

The cardinal called on all sides to move towards dialogue.

The October 31 election in the worlds top cocoa grower comes after years of political turbulence and civil war.
Chadwick Boseman, who died from colon cancer on Friday at age 43. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Keke Palmer paid tribute to Chadwick Boseman in the opening segment of the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards, calling him "an actor whose talent and passion is a true inspiration to all the fans he touched, and everyone he encountered. We dedicate tonight's show to a man whose spirit touched so many. He's a true hero, not just on screen, but everything he did. His impact lives forever."

Boseman, whose role as Black Panther redefined the superhero genre for a generation of young Marvel fans, died at 43 last week, after a short but resonant career playing roles as iconic to the Black experience as James Brown, Jackie Robinson and Thurgood Marshall. Boseman, behind the scenes of some of his most successful films, battled colon cancer since 2016, but never talked about it publicly. The news of his death came as a shock to all but his closest peers and family. But also lent a hard-to-fathom resilience to his roles in hindsight  imagine doing that work while suffering under the knowledge of terminal illness.

At Sundays VMAs  a fading but still comprehensive spectacle of contemporary pop culture  the awards show tried its best to acknowledge Boseman amid the madcap scramble to assemble a show under COVID-19 regulations. A telecast already guaranteed to look unlike any other VMAs in history now had to mourn the face of the most inspiring mass-market movie event of the decade.
Omjasvin MD By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: A group of doctors at the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital are currently doing a study on identifying the presence of Covid-19 infection by clinical diagnosis, prior to the RT-PCR lab test results.

The study aims to prove the accuracy of CT Scan findings over RTPCR findings, giving room for early diagnosis and treatment.

Dr Paranthaman, Professor of Medicine at KMC, who is heading the study, said that a total 300 patients are part of it which aims to identify Covid-19 very early using X-Ray, CT (Computed Tomography) -Scan and SpO2 monitoring.

"Patients who had come to hospital with low oxygen saturation, cough, fatigue, tiredness, exertion and breathlessness were taken into the study,'' Dr Paranthanam said.

Dr Paranthaman said that the methodology involves taking CT-SCAN of patients who have symptoms similar to that of Covid-19 with oxygen saturation below 90 and putting them to treatment immediately.

"Even if RT-PCR is negative, we may observe the patient as clinically positive based on CT and SpO2 findings. This observation is only for patients under an intensive care set up,'' said Dr Paranthaman.

The doctor said that this move to identify Covid-19 by clinical diagnosis would facilitate early treatment and thus, prevent mortality.

"We have an example of a patient who had severe breathing issues and he was clinically positive and was negative in RT-PCR. However, we began treatment based on CT findings, and he came out positive in the second RTPCR test subsequently,'' added Dr Paranthaman.

However, he added, if a patient continues to remain negative in subsequent PCR tests, they would be considered Covid negative in the final report but observations would state the patient required similar

treatment to that of the virus as they were clinically positive based on the findings of CT, SpO2 levels under an intensive care set up.

Since August, the Chennai Corporation has started sending symptomatic patients directly for treatment, instead of waiting for the RT-PCR test results, which may take upto 24 hours.

A top Corporation official told The New n that about 800 patients have been sent directly to government hospitals from fever camps.

Another senior doctor with the hospital, who is part of the study, said that the patients were administered steroids and supportive treatment in the early stages after their CT-Scan findings.

"If you take the past records, many patients have died within days of arrival. Thus, clinical diagnosis can be effective to stabilize their health condition from worsening even before their RT-PCR results arrive,'' said the doctor, adding that, previously, clinical diagnosis was done only after the patient was positive in RT-PCR.

Globally too, studies have shown that CT-Scan finds were much more effective than RT-PCR findings.

A study done by doctors of Mount Sinai in the United States, with a sample of 1000 patients, published in the journal 'Radiology', concluded that CT-Scan findings helped in prompt diagnosis of Covid-19, and also was more "reliable, practical and rapid".

The doctors part of the study said that they were able to find specific patterns in the lungs as markers to identify the infection.

They concluded that CT-Scan should be used as the primary screening tool for Covid-19.

Meanwhile, Dr Paranthaman said that study was showing positive results and it may be over by the end of September. "We are currently collating the data. It should be over soon,'' he said.

He said that the details of gender, age, comorbidities and clinical conditions have been recorded and is now in the process of compilation.

"We have not ruled out the option of publishing the report but the observations would be used as treatment protocols and study material,'' added Paranthaman.
Elon Musk confirmed last week that a Tesla employee reported a credible ransomware plot. The employee had been offered $1 million dollars to install the ransomware at their Giga Nevada facility, according to the FBI.

Via Wired, which has excellent coverage of the details:

Earlier this month, according to a recently unsealed criminal complaint, a 27-year-old Russian man named Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov met an old associate who now worked at Tesla at a bar in Reno. They drank till last call. At some point in the evening, the FBI says, Kriuchkov took the person's phone, put it on top of his own, and placed both devices at arm's lengththe universal sign that he was about to say something for their ears only. He then invited the Tesla employee to collaborate with a "group" that carries out "special projects." More specifically, he offered the staffer $500,000 to install malware on his employer's network that would be used to ransom its data for millions of dollars. Just a few weeks after that Reno meeting, FBI agents arrested Kriuchkov in Los Angeles as, the Department of Justice says, he was trying to flee the country. His recruitment scheme failed, the complaint says, when the employee instead reported Kriuchkov's offer to the company, which in turn alerted the FBI, leading the bureau to surveil Kriuchkov and arrest him not long after.

Image: Pixabay
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  Gyms, tutorial centers and businesses offering grooming services outside salons and barbershops are now allowed to resume operations starting Tuesday, Sept. 1.

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez made the announcement during the Laging Handa briefing with public officials.

These services were previously suspended when Metro Manila eased from modified enhanced community quarantine to general community quarantine (GCQ) two weeks ago.

"By tomorrow, yung na-defer po natin na sector na hindi natin nabuksan dahil nag-GCQ tayo, 'yung ibang sektor kagaya ng personal grooming services, tutorial and review centers, ang mga gyms itutuloy na sa pagbukas starting tomorrow, Sept. 1."

[Translation: By tomorrow, some sectors which were deferred and were not allowed to open under GCQ, such as personal grooming services, tutorial and review centers, and gyms, may resume their operations starting tomorrow, Sept. 1.]

Lopez did not mention whether internet cafes and drive-in cinemas, which were included in the earlier suspension, may now resume operations. Dine-in restaurants have already been allowed to open, with their maximum capacity determined by local government units.

Lopez said the Task Force for the Management of the Emerging Infectious Diseases is in close coordination with Metro Manila mayors to ensure smooth operations during the transition to a more open economy under the "new normal."

"Sa sector na bubuksan bukas, may kanya-kanyang health protocol na mas angkop sa sector na iyon," he added.

[Translation: The sectors which will be opened tomorrow will conduct their own health protocol appropriate for them.]

Lopez said the IATF members are currently meeting before they give the other finalized recommendations to President Rodrigo Duterte.

The IATF is also considering extending the period of the general community quarantine from more than 14 days to a month, Lopez said.

Face shields not a guarantee?

Meanwhile, as more non-essential establishments re-open, an infectious disease expert believes that wearing face shields in public will not guarantee total protection from the virus.

I only believe that the face shield is very important inside the hospital setting. But outside the hospital setting, I personally do not feel that a face shield is as important as a mask, said Dr. Benjamin Co in an interview with CNN Philippines.

He noted that some people find face shields bothersome and inadvertently touch their face.

Although some studies showed that an additional layer of protection is makakabuti, kaya lang minsan rin, it's bothersome, to the point that you keep touching it. Posible talaga na magkaroon ka ng cross-infection, Co added.

[Translation: Although some studies showed that an additional layer of protection is better, but sometimes its bothersome, to the point that you keep touching it. So cross-infection is still possible.]

Duterte is set to decide on Monday evening on the latest quarantine classifications of Metro Manila and other areas in his public address in Malacanang.
The Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit (GMIS) said that Dr Sultan Al-Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology will be taking on the role of co-Chair of GMIS, alongside LI Yong, Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).



GMIS aims to place manufacturing at the heart of economic regeneration and government policymaking, and to be a tool for global cooperation and collaboration. A virtual edition of the Summit (#GMIS2020) is scheduled to take place on September 4-5.



Dr Sultan Al-Jaber, who is scheduled to deliver a keynote on the first day of the Virtual Summit, was recently appointed to lead the newly-formed UAE Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology.



The Virtual Summit is taking place during a time where the Covid-19 pandemic has placed public health systems and the global economy under severe strain, reinforcing the pressing need for a cross-industrial and cross-functional platform for leaders to share their experiences and knowledge related to advancing manufacturing through the application of fourth industrial revolution technologies, and building more resilient global value chains in a post-pandemic world.



Dr Sultan Al-Jaber said: In just a short period of time, the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit has evolved to play an important role in advancing a transformational global agenda that is needed now more than ever. I look forward to working with LI Yong, the Director General of UNIDO to help achieve consensus among stakeholders on how the manufacturing community can drive inclusive and sustainable industrial development. In particular, I look forward to exploring opportunities for greater collaboration between government, industry and technology sectors that can enhance global resilience, while accelerating economic growth and prosperity.



LI Yong, Director General of UNIDO, said: UNIDO has cooperated extensively with the Government of the United Arab Emirates through GMIS and several other initiatives, especially the Abu Dhabi Declaration on advanced technology, and we look forward to enhancing this relationship in the years to come. No matter how influential, no one actor can control this phenomenon alone. We can only hope to shape an inclusive and sustainable 4IR through building strong multi-stakeholder partnerships with representatives of national governments, multilateral organizations, the private sector, the research community, and civil society.



This is why we co-convene GMIS: to leverage our combined knowledge, insights and resources to fuel inclusive and sustainable industrial development. With initiatives such as GMIS we hope to convert theory and best practices into action on the ground.



The Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit was launched to build bridges between manufacturers, governments and NGOs, technologists, and investors to shape the future of the manufacturing sector and highlight the role of fourth industrial revolution technologies to enable the regeneration of the global economy in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.



The first two editions of the Summit were held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates in March 2017, and Yekaterinburg, Russia in July 2019, respectively, with each welcoming over 3,000 high-level delegates from over 40 countries.



Under the theme  Glocalisation: Towards Sustainable and Inclusive Global Value Chains, the #GMIS2020 Virtual Summit will feature a cross-section of close to 100 influential global leaders from the public and private sector, including Heads of State, Ministers, and thought-leaders from some of the worlds leading organisations.



The Summit will feature more than 20 virtual sessions, including keynote addresses, panel discussions, and fireside chats, and will cover topics such as Germanys Marshall Plan with Africa and the Global Hydrogen Economy, as well as key topics impacting global value chains, the adoption of 4IR technologies, localising production capabilities and capacity building, and spreading inclusive and sustainable industrial development.



The Summit will also hold five working group sessions gathering a cross-section of experts from world-leading organisations to discuss the challenges and opportunities related to promoting the role of women in manufacturing; enhancing industrial safety and security; advancing the decarbonisation of industry; developing future leaders of industry; and setting up an Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Performance (ISID) Index that helps measure the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) performance of public and private sector entities.  TradeArabia News Service




Find tires for your Hyundai at Hyundai of St. Augustine.

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The service department at Hyundai of St. Augustine has a variety of services available. Not only is Hyundai of St. Augustine a local resource for preventative maintenance, but the dealer is also able to help customers navigate through a variety of brands and tires to find the right tire. Shop for summer tires, winter tires, and all-season tires at Hyundai of St. Augustine to find the perfect fit today. Shoppers can select their tires from the dealerships website or by shopping in person at the dealerships physical location.

Customers can also find a variety of service coupons available at Hyundai of St. Augustine. From oil changes and tire rotations to filter and brake pad replacements, there are many perks to shopping at this dealership. Hyundai of St. Augustine also has a blog to assist customers as they research their future vehicle, which can be found at http://www.hyundaiofstaugustine.com.

Shoppers who are interested in discovering the right tires for their Hyundai vehicle are encouraged to contact Hyundai of St. Augustine today. The dealership can help customers find the tires appropriate for their vehicle, and answer any questions they have. The experienced service team will also be able to assist them in changing the tires as well.
<! Toke Makinwa >

Nigerian radio personality, television host, vlogger, entrepreneur and author Toke Makinwa took to Twitter to write a heart warming message.

The 35 year old actress and social media sensation in a statement said she loves when shes a blessing to others, as nothing else makes her happier.

Nothing makes me happier than putting a smile on someone elses face. I love for moment where Im a blessing to others. Priceless  Toke Makinwa (@tokstarr) August 31, 2020

Makinwa is popular for her YouTube vlog series Toke Moments. Her book On Becoming dropped in November 2016.
Find all of the most important pandemic education news on Educating N.J., a special resource guide created for parents, students and educators.

A massive shortfall of laptop computers in the Paterson school district has been averted, nine days before the school year will begin with all-remote learning in the states third-largest city.

Paterson Schools Superintendent Eileen Shafer announced Sunday night that approximately 9,600 Chromebooks purchased from Trox, an education technology company, arrived in the K-12 district over the past three days.

I could not be happier to announce to our students and their families that they will have the best remote learning experience possible now that we have enough Chromebooks for all of our students, Shafer said in a statement provided by the school district.

The cost of the laptops was not disclosed by the district.

Laptops will be delivered to all schools by Tuesday and parents will be contacted about picking them up, according to the statement from the school district.

Up to 11,000 of Paterson 29,000 students had been bracing for the possibility of not having laptop computers when the 2020-21 school year begins Sept. 8. The school board recently approved all-remote learning for the district until at least Nov. 2.

Many students were lacking computers and Internet access when all school buildings in New Jersey closed in March and everyone switched to virtual instruction. The district began distributing 7,000 Chromebooks to all high school students in April and launched a fundraising campaign for additional purchases that remains ongoing.

Paterson had ordered 13,845 laptops on June 2, at a cost of $3.4 million, after the district was told it would receive funding for the purchases via the federal CARES Act  the $2.2 trillion economic stimulus package prompted by the pandemic and signed into law in March.

Keep up with the latest in N.J. schools coverage. Sign up with your email here:



However, on Aug. 11, it was notified that a Chinese company that was working with the districts vendor faced allegations of human rights violations from the U.S. Department of Commerce, and that as a result the laptops might not arrived until possibly a month after schools got underway.

Trox, which has an office in New Jersey, at some point reached an agreement to sell the nearly 10,000 Chromebooks to Paterson.

Moreover, the district is in the process of refurbishing 6,000 laptop and tablet computers, enabling them to perform many of the same functions as Chromebooks.

Shafer, in the districts statement, thanked Deputy Superintendent Susana Peron, Chris Lewis and Yacine Abada in the Information Technology Department, staff members in the Central Stores Department, the Facilities Department, the Security Department and everyone who worked with them to achieve this result.

They put in the long hours and worked through the weekend because they put the education of Paterson Public Schools students first, above anything else. For that, I am very grateful, and our students will be much better off as they begin the new school year, Shafer said.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com.
A 19-year-old Dalit man, who was illegally detained at a police station in Lalganj area of Uttar Pradeshs Raebareli district, died in police custody on Sunday. The family members of the deceased have accused police of torture and, along with some locals, staged a protest against the police and blocked a road.

The district administration has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident. The station house officer (SHO) of Lalganj police station has been suspended for unlawful detention. A departmental inquiry has also been ordered by the Superintendent of Police (SP), Raebareli, Swapnil Mamgain, into the incident.

Mohit and his brother Sonu, residents of Behta Kalan village, were detained by the police on suspicion of vehicle theft on Friday and taken to Lalganj police station. While Sonu was released after a few hours, Mohit, according to family members, was tortured by the police personnel at the station.

He was rushed to the District hospital on Sunday where he died at around 11 am. The body was sent for postmortem investigation.

We have received a complaint from the family members of the deceased in which they have alleged torture and accused two Sub Inspectors(SI). The complaint is being investigated on the basis of which we will also lodge an FIR, said the SP.

One of the accused SI has been involved in accused of misconduct in the past and has at least two departmental inquiries ordered against him.

Prima facie, SHO Lalganj, Harishankar Prajapati, was found accused of unlawful detention beyond 24 hours at police station. For this he has been suspended, added the SP.

Meanwhile the angry family members of the deceased and at least 50 local residents staged a protest against the police on Sunday evening. The protesters also tried to block the state highway passing through the area. The police resorted to use of force to disperse the protesters.

Senior officials also met the family members and assured them of swift investigation into the matter.
The Commissioner for Health in Lagos State, Akin Abayomi, has tested negative for Coronavirus, an official of the state government announced on Monday.

Gbenga Omotosho, the commissioner for information in the state, confirmed this development.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that Mr Abayomi tested positive for the virus last week Monday.

Mr Abayomi has been leading the battle against coronavirus in Nigerias commercial capital, Lagos.

According to a statement released by Mr Omotosho on Twitter, he said the commissioner recovered and tested negative for the virus.

It is with gratitude to God that I announce the recovery and subsequent negative test for COVID-19 of the Honorable Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi.

Following the mandatory isolation, the Commissioner retook a COVID-19 PCR test which returned negative yesterday evening.

Governor Sanwo-Olu, the Incident Commander, is excited by the news and urges Lagosians to realise that COVID-19 is still with us; they should keep obeying the guidelines- watching their hands, wearing face masks and avoiding large gatherings, among others.

He will be returning to his full duties gradually and remains resolute in delivering the mandate of Mr. Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, whom he says stood by him steadfastly in these trying times and is very appreciative of.

Professor Abayomi is very grateful and humbled by the deep concern shown and expressed by Executive Council members, civil servants, Lagos residents, Nigerians, both locally and in the diaspora, through prayers, messages, phone calls and gifts, he added.
Last week, the department said the expiration date for valid drivers licenses held by Illinois drivers who are 75 or older has been extended. These drivers with 2020 drivers license expiration dates do not need to visit a facility to renew their drivers licenses until shortly before their birthday in 2021. For those younger than 75, expired documents will remain valid until Nov. 1 so some can avoid waiting in line in the hot weather.
The Army stated that the Chinese troops tried to change the status quo leading to provocative action on the Indian side

Two months after violent clashes along Line of Actual Control between the Chinese tropps and the Indian armed forces, fresh clashes have been reported at the Pangong Tso.

According to a statement released by the Indian Army, the new development was triggered after the PLA violated consensus arrived at the high level military talks between India and China over the Eastern Ladakh standoff.

The Army stated that the Chinese troops tried to change the status quo leading to provocative action on the Indian side.

Army spokesman Colonel Aman Anand released a statement which read: Indian troops preempted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground. The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity.

He said the Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect India's territorial integrity.

It is the first major incident involving the troops of the two countries after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15 in which 20 Indian Army personnel were killed. China also suffered casualties but it is yet to make the details public but according to an American intelligence report it was 35.

India and China have held several rounds of military and diplomatic talks in the last two-and-half months but no significant headway has been made for a resolution to the border row in eastern Ladakh.

The two sides began a process of disengagement on July 6, a day after a telephonic conversation between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on ways to bring down tensions in eastern Ladakh. However, the process has not moved forward since mid-July.

The PLA has pulled back from Galwan Valley and certain other friction points but the withdrawal of troops has not moved forward in Pangong Tso, Depsang and a couple of other areas.

At the five rounds of Corps commander-level talks, the Indian side has been insisting on complete disengagement of Chinese troops at the earliest, and immediate restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh prior to April.

The face-off began on May 5 following violent clashes between the two armies in the Pangong lake area. The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 9.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control(LAC).

Prior to the clashes, both sides have been asserting that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it is necessary to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas.

Even as both sides were engaged in diplomatic and military talks, the Indian Army stepped up its strength in all key areas along the LAC to deal with any eventualities.

Chief of Army Staff Gen MM Naravane has already conveyed to all the senior commanders of the Army, overseeing the operation of the frontline formations along the LAC, to keep up a significantly high state of alertness and maintain the aggressive posturing to deal with any Chinese "misadventure", sources said.

The tension between the two sides escalated manifold after the Galwan Valley clashes.

Following the incident, the government gave the armed forces "full freedom" to give a "befitting" response to any Chinese misadventure along the LAC.

The Army sent thousands of additional troops to forward locations along the border following the deadly clashes. The IAF has also moved air defence systems as well as a sizeable number of its frontline combat jets and attack helicopters to several key air bases.
Belarus' authorities on Monday detained the organiser of a strike at a top industrial plant, part of a methodical effort to stifle weeks of protests demanding the resignation of the country's authoritarian leader of 26 years after an election the opposition denounced as being rigged.

President Alexander Lukashenko has dismissed the protesters as western puppets and rejected the European Union's offers of mediation. After a ferocious crackdown on demonstrators in the first days after the 9 August vote that caused international outrage, his government has avoided large-scale violence against demonstrators and sought to end the protests with threats and the selective jailing of activists.

Anatoly Bokun, who leads the strike committee at Belaruskali, a huge potash factory in Soligorsk, was detained by police Monday and is facing a 15-day jail sentence on charges of organising an unsanctioned protest. The factory, which accounts for a fifth of the world's potash fertiliser output, is the nation's top cash earner.

The Belaruskaili strike committee spokesperson, Gleb Sandras, said authorities had managed to halt a strike at the factory that began two weeks ago and all its potash mines are now working.

He said that agents of Belarus' State Security Committee, which still goes by the Soviet-era name KGB, had pressured workers to end the labour action.

KGB agents have inundated the factory, tracking down the most active workers and using various means of pressure, Mr Sandras told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. The authorities have powerful economic instruments. They are blackmailing workers with mass dismissals.

Strikes at Belaruskali and many other leading industrial plants have cast an unprecedented challenge to Mr Lukashenko, who has kept the bulk of the economy in state hands and relied on blue-collar workers as his main support base.

Belarus Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Nazarov acknowledged on Monday that the strikes posed a problem, but said that all major industrial plants have resumed normal operations.

Mr Bokun's detention follows the arrests of strike leaders at two other major industrial plants in Minsk last week. The organiser of a strike at the Grodno Azot, a major producer of nitrogen fertilisers, fled to neighbouring Poland to escape detention.

Seeking to stem the protests, Belarusian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe against the opposition Coordination Council created to negotiate a transition of power, accusing its members of undermining the country's security. Last week, Belarusian courts handed 10-day jail sentences to two council members and summoned several others for questioning, including Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature.

The US and the European Union have criticised the 9 August election that extended Mr Lukashenko's rule as neither free nor fair and urged Belarusian authorities to engage in a dialogue with the opposition  calls the 66-year-old Belarusian leader has rejected.

In a bid to win time and to assuage simmering discontent, Mr Lukashenko touted the prospect of a vaguely-described constitutional reform that could see a new presidential election at an unspecified time. On Monday, he bluntly dismissed the opposition push for restoring the country's earlier constitution, which envisaged broad parliamentary powers.

Following a fierce clampdown on peaceful demonstrators in the days after the vote that left nearly 7,000 people detained, hundreds injured by police rubber bullets, stun grenades and beatings and at least three protesters dead, police let the demonstrations go unhindered for the next two weeks, but last week again cranked up the pressure on demonstrators and began dispersing rallies.

The Belarusian government also cracked down hard on the news media, deporting some foreign journalists from the country and revoking the accreditation of many Belarusian journalists. Two Moscow-based Associated Press journalists who were covering the recent protests in Belarus were deported to Russia on Saturday. In addition, the AP's Belarusian journalists were told by the government that their press credentials had been revoked.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists said over the weekend that accreditation rights were also taken away from 17 Belarusians working for several other media, including Germany's ARD television, the BBC, Reuters, AFP, and US-funded radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said five of its journalists lost their accreditation.

The US and the EU officials have strongly condemned the media crackdown.

The detention of hundreds of demonstrators last week didn't deter the opposition from mounting another massive rally on Sunday, which saw an estimated 100,000 flood the streets of the Belarusian capital amid a heavy police presence.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, hailed the protesters' courage and urged Mr Lukashenko on Monday to recognise the reality in the country  there needs to be an open dialogue between the leadership, opposition forces and all of Belarusian society to bring about a peaceful solution to this current crisis.

AP
KITCHENER  A 34-year-old man faces various mischief-related charges after a man was seen smashing windows with a rock and a pipe at businesses around Fairview Park Mall on Sunday.

Waterloo Regional Police were called to the Kingsway Drive area just after 9 p.m. for a man causing property damage to businesses.

The man was arrested and faces four counts of mischief under $5,000, three counts of mischief over $5,000, breach probation, assault with a weapon and break, enter and commit.

Damage is estimated at $22,000. No one was hurt.
SINGAPORE, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- EMURGO - a global blockchain solutions company and a founding entity of the Cardano blockchain - announces the important release of its latest product development, " Oracle Core ," for the developer community.

Following the recent double announcements of EMURGO's newly formed strategic technical partnership with Ergo - a proof-of-work, UTXO-based blockchain protocol built to be an efficient and secure financial contracts platform - and the appointment of EMURGO's Head of R&D and smart contract developer Robert Kornacki to the board of The Ergo Foundation - a community-driven entity focused on promoting the widespread adoption of the Ergo Platform blockchain protocol & a decentralized financial infrastructure - the "Oracle Core" is a successful byproduct of the EMURGO-Ergo partnership.

In-depth research led by EMURGO's Robert Kornacki reimagined a new model - Oracle Pools - for UTXO-based dApps. Oracle pools generate accumulated oracle data with built-in theoretical incentives for oracles to provide more accurate datapoints - an improved attempt at upgrading current oracles. Oracles are an integral part of allowing data outside the blockchain (off-chain) to interact and be used on the blockchain inside of smart contracts, and have played a significant role in the surging popularity of DeFi services which "require access" to off-chain financial data.

By utilizing the "Oracle Core", developers may now build and run their own oracle pools on top of the Ergo blockchain. The "Oracle Core" will provide the blockchain developer community at-large with all the necessary tools such as code, tooling, and smart contracts, to build and run oracles pools. This marks an important moment in the history of UTXO-based dApps, as technically competent users now have the ability to earn crypto for running core smart contract infrastructure.

Leveraging the formed partnership, The Ergo Foundation has already deployed two public oracle pools ADA/USD and Erg/USD, which can be accessed by the public here and here , respectively, in addition to this newest release of the "Oracle Core." Further data can be accessed here .

"EMURGO is taking a structured approach to providing important building blocks for the expansion of decentralized financial services leveraging smart contract functionalities. We are strongly committed to furthering useful development for the developer community through our research department, our partnership with Ergo, and our connection to the Cardano blockchain," said EMURGO CTO Nicolas Arqueros.

The actions taken by the EMURGO-Ergo partnership thus far are some of the foundational first steps to providing efficient DeFi products & services for UTXO-based blockchains such as Cardano and Ergo. For Cardano, the oncoming Goguen era in Cardano's continuing development is poised to bring smart contract functionalities which aligns with the oracle pool development work undertaken by the EMURGO-Ergo partnership to eventually provide DeFi services and more, on Cardano in the future.

About EMURGO

EMURGO is a global blockchain technology company providing solutions for developers, startups, enterprises and governments. EMURGO develops enterprise-grade applications, builds developer tools, invests in startups, and provides blockchain education.

EMURGO has offices and manages projects in Singapore, Japan, the USA, India, and Indonesia. EMURGO is a founding member of the Cardano protocol. To connect and learn more, visit https://emurgo.io.

For further information from EMURGO

Florian Bohnert

Chief Marketing Officer

[email protected]

+65 8648 1576

SOURCE EMURGO

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She bagged the Best Hip-Hop Award for song Savage at the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night, as well as being nominated for a string of other categories.

And Megan Thee Stallion was feeling more than confident ahead of the festivities on Sunday, when she uploaded some incredibly revealing selfies in a teeny orange string bikini to her Instagram.

What's more, the WAP superstar also shared a video of herself seated at her computer in the same outfit, throwing down an impressive freestyle rap to a beat track she was playing.

Baby got back: Megan Thee Stallion was feeling confident ahead of the VMAs on Sunday, when she uploaded some incredibly revealing selfies in a teeny orange string bikini to her Instagram

The Texas-born rapper, 25, had her outfit coordinated down to her hat and manicure, but the main focus of attention was of course her ample derriere in the duo of selfies she posted.

In addition to her scanty bikini, Megan accessorized with a matching yellow-orange Von Dutch trucker hat, featuring a camouflage pattern.

The green of her hat was picked up in her sharp green manicure.

Co-ord: The Texas-born rapper had her outfit coordinated down to her hat and manicure, but the main focus of attention was of course her ample derriere in the duo of selfies she posted

What's more: The WAP superstar also shared a video of herself seated at her computer in the same outfit, throwing down an impressive freestyle rap to a beat track she was playing

Other than that, the Savage star had her hair in a long braid that teased her backside.

Her only other accessory was a pair of large silver hoop earrings.

Megan's rap, true to form, was explicit enough to be impossible to transcribe, but it pulsated with the same energy of some of her best hooks.

Killer attitude: Megan's rap, true to form, was explicit enough to be impossible to transcribe, but it pulsated with the same energy of some of her best hooks

The hitmaker, born Megan Jovon Ruth Pete, posed in a nearly identical way just one week ago, in another string bikini and Von Dutch hat, only this time she was outdoors and holding a fishing rod.

MTS is nominated for at least five Video Music Awards this Sunday, including the coveted Artist Of The Year, Song Of The Year for Savage and Best Hip-Hop Video for the same.

She's also up twice for the Song of Summer Award, as featured artist on Cardi B's opus of raunch WAP as well as for her Savage remix featuring one Beyonce Knowles.

Toasting her success: Later, the rapper was seen celebrating as she took home the Best Hip-Hop Award at the 2020 MTV VMAs on Sunday

If it ain't broke don't fix it: The hitmaker posed in a nearly identical way just one week ago, in another string bikini and Von Dutch hat, this time was outdoors and holding a fishing rod

Other nominations this year were dominated by pop performers Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande, with nine nods each, while Billie Eilish and The Weeknd followed closely behind with six each.

Additional categories were unveiled last week, including Song of Summer, Best Group and Everyday Heroes: Frontline Medical Workers, with the latter created to celebrate performances by Covid-19 first responders.

Other new one-off award categories this year are for Quarantine Performance and Best Music Video from Home.

The first VMA ceremony was held in 1984 at New York City's Radio City Music Hall, where Madonna performed her hit Like a Virgin wearing her iconic wedding gown/bustier combination.
has had secret talks with several Arab countries to normalize relations, Prime Minister said.

"There are many more unpublicized meetings with Arab and Muslim leaders," Netanyahu said during joint remarks here on Sunday alongside Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, and National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien.

Netanyahu said these Arab leaders "recognize that their true interests are to normalize relations with Israel", reports Xinhua news agency.

Kushner referred to the so-called Abraham Accord, the August 13 US-brokered peace agreement between and the UAE to normalize ties, as a "historic breakthrough," saying "the stage is set" for other Arab states to follow the UAE.

The August 13 announcement has paved the way to "previously unthinkable" economic, security and religious cooperation between and the UAE, Kushner added.

Kushner and O'Brien will join an official Israeli delegation that will fly to Abu Dhabi, UAE on Monday.

This will be the first commercial flight between the two states.

The Israeli delegation will be headed by the chief of the National Security Council Meir Ben Shabbat.

According to the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, the talks will focus on "ways to promote cooperation in a variety of fields such as aviation and tourism, trade, economy and finance, health, energy, security and more".

--IANS

ksk/

(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.)
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Last week, MIRA BEAUTY unveiled a new brand logo and visual identity, symbolic of a strategic realignment with its rapidly growing audience. The brand's bold, remarkably more modern direction is featured on MIRA BEAUTY's redesigned website and various communications channels.

As part of the creative overhaul, MIRA BEAUTY introduced a new monogram as an essential quotient within the brand's high-impact aesthetic. Designed to act as an emblem for the brand, the monogram's emotional territory is rich.

MIRA BEAUTY

The mirroring effect of the monogram represents the act of seeing oneself through someone else's experience. The name 'MIRA BEAUTY' comes from mirror and the Spanish imperative for "look" (Mira!)

The M represents the initial of the brand. Additionally, the juxtaposition of M's and reversed M's, read as W's, is designed to break gender stereotypes.

The symmetrical aspect of the monogram represents inclusivity  four separate sets coming together in a cohesive manner, to form a supportive community.

The boldness of the fonts represent self-confidence.

The monogram will also appear on merchandise, gifts, and in the emblematic form of a tattoo.

Photography

The brand's photography encapsulates the visual, sensorial and experiential dimension of beauty products. Shades, textures, and finishes come alive in movement. Models were carefully selected to represent a diverse range of skin tones, skin types, ethnic backgrounds and stages of life.

Motto

Punctuated by the brand's new motto, "Your beauty. Less of the rest," MIRA BEAUTY will continue to bring more simplicity and personalization to help guests cut through the noise and discover products that are right for their unique selves.

As a collaborative effort months in the making, the new branding was created by MIRA BEAUTY's creative and marketing team, in collaboration with Creative Director Saul Appelbaum from The Pioneers. Inspired by iconic high-fashion and beauty labels, MIRA BEAUTY's new identity uniquely blends boldness with elegance and an edgy sensibility, positioning the company as a genuine player in skincare and cosmetics.

"We knew the old branding wasn't doing justice to our technology's level of sophistication, but the element declencheur for a more thorough rebrand was data," said Benjamin Lord, who took the creative helm as CMO of MIRA BEAUTY nine months ago. "The beauty community is our true north, and our goal was to meet their standards of taste, quality, and inclusivity. Together with The Pioneers, we elevated the digital experience through a logo-leaning, streetwise, and emblematic aesthetic that also lends itself to a monogram print and future 3D applications."

"Much like the new brand identity, MIRA BEAUTY's future is epic. The new brand identity represents a 180-degree shift that will help the company realize their vision for building the beauty shop of the future," said Saul Appelbaum, Creative Director at The Pioneers.

For high-resolution imagery and source files, go to MIRA BEAUTY Media Kit.

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The pandemic has driven many businesses, organizations and politicians to prioritize bringing needed donations to their communities. And one product that has been donated more than others is milk.

Milk donation drives have become common throughout Laredo and Webb County. Thousands of gallons of milk have been donated as various organizations have teamed up with community leaders.

The idea of donating milk came to be because of the pandemic and the fact that we have always donated food and other small items to the people when our church was open, which it is not at the moment due to the continuing pandemic, the Universal Life Church minister Rito Javier de Anda said. Therefore, this idea stemmed from an extension of such services.

Also, the idea stemmed from the fact that we go to a church that donates to us 10 gallons of milk. But I told my wife that we needed more than just 10 gallons to help all of the people in our community and city, so we ventured into this.

Knowing the need was real, De Anda looked into how they could bring the milk from his own church to the community, and he came into contact with Salvador Henriquez, who works for Borden Diary and told De Anda he could get a grant if he had a nonprofit organization.

Although he did not have a nonprofit with the church, he decided to call Gabriel Lopez, a representative from the South Texas Afghanistan Iraq Veterans Association, to help apply for the grant.

We then proceeded to apply together and got the grant for the whole month of August, De Anda said. Due to this, Wednesday (was) our last donation drive.

Efforts have also been made in other areas of Webb County like in the cities of El Cenizo and Rio Bravo.

READ MORE: Imaginarium of South Texas undergoes changes after reopening amidst COVID-19 pandemic

One of their main efforts that has been ongoing for the past two months is in El Cenizo. The city worked in coordination with the American Latin Lutheran Church due to the hard work of Pastor Mariana Mendez. She not only helped donate to the residents of the city but also to neighboring Rio Bravo.

Milk is mainly for the children as it is considered a food source due to the many vitamins it has, El Cenizo Mayor Elsa Degollado said. As mayor, I seek help without committing myself politically so that they give us donations for my people.

Gallons of milk were also donated by organizations like the South Texas Food Bank.

The City of El Cenizo is thankful to the South Texas Food Bank who generously donates to many nonprofit organizations, El Cenizo press secretary Jaime Montes said. The recent milk donation supplied by the food bank came in handy during this pandemic as many children are home. This donation allowed families to stay within the community and not have to travel to a larger supermarket. Residents will be notified of any future produce, dairy or food distributions.

The churches and other organizations have combined to donate thousands of gallons of milk. De Anda said he donated over 500 gallons in the first week of August, 1,800 gallons in the second week of August, 1,704 in the third week and approximately 1,700 last week.

De Anda said STAIVA and his efforts cost about $18,600 for the milk, transportation and other expenses.

Though Wednesdays donation marked the last time De Anda was holding the event, he said several of the organizers he worked with might be able to continue until December as long as grants are available.

During his donation efforts, Guadalupe De Leon, owner of the primary home care company Lionsitos, also participated by donating diapers and other pads for the elderly. De Anda said he will try to work with De Leon and others to bring extra goods during their donation efforts to help out more people if necessary.

Milk donation drives in El Cenizo are also conducted on Wednesday mornings, and there are food donations on Saturday mornings.
Albany, N.Y.  Hospitalizations due to the coronavirus in New York fell 11 to 418 on Sunday, a new low since March 16.

A total of 109 patients were in intensive care units with the virus on Sunday, down three, and 51 people were intubated, up four. A total of 29 people were newly admitted to hospitals with the virus.

Just one person in New York died due to the virus on Sunday. New deaths reached a peak of 800 in mid-April. The statewide death toll is now 25,328.

Flattening the curve actually saved lives, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today during a conference call with reporters. No expert believed we would be that successful.

The statewide positive test rate for the virus was 0.99% on Sunday. It was the 24th day in a row with a positive test rate under 1%.

The state conducted a total of 66,241 more tests for the virus on Sunday and confirmed 656 new cases, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 434,756.

Central New Yorks positive test rate was 1.3% on Sunday, up from 0.8% on Saturday and 0.4% on Friday.

A caution flag continues for Western New York, Cuomo said. The regions overall positive rate was 2% on Sunday, compared with 1.6% Saturday and 1.2% Friday.

A series of rapid testing sites in the region will continue until the end of the day Wednesday. Those sites found a positive test rate of 4.8% in the city of Buffalo, 0.6% in Erie County without Buffalo included, 4% in Niagara County and 1.4% in Chautauqua County.

Cuomo said the region needs increased compliance with virus-related rules and guidelines. Local governments also need to respond to the situation, he said.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

How do you bus kids to school in the middle of a pandemic? A look inside one districts plans

Educating CNY: Syracuse.com launches initiative to inform, connect community around school reopening

SUNY Oneonta to suspend in-person classes for 2 weeks after 105 coronavirus cases found

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598
China's top legislature on Friday initiated a nationwide inspection of the Public Cultural Service Guarantee Law in an effort to further improve the country's public cultural services.

Six inspection teams from the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress will travel to Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Anhui, Henan and Qinghai from September to early November.

Another five provincial level legislatures will be authorized to inspect the implementation of the law within their respective administrative areas.

The inspection will mainly focus on the improvement of the urban and rural public cultural service system, and the construction and management of public cultural facilities, among other areas.

The Public Cultural Service Guarantee Law came into effect on March 1, 2017, with the aim of improving the country's cultural services. Enditem




CINNAMINSON, NJ  Gov. Phil Murphys announcement Monday morning that indoor dining can resume in New Jersey this week is a positive sign for both the local and state economies, Cinnaminson Mayor Ryan Horner said.

The township is very happy to hear that Governor Murphy has authorized the resumption of indoor dining beginning on Friday, September 4, Horner said. Not only is this great news for our restaurants and local economy, but the governors decision is also a positive signal that our state leaders are confident that New Jersey is making progress in combating the COVID-19 health pandemic.



Murphy announced Monday morning that indoor dining can resume at 25 percent capacity and with social distancing between tables at 6 a.m. Friday. He also announced that movie theaters and indoor performance venues can resume on Friday as long as capacity is capped at 25 percent, or 150 people. Read more here: Gov. Murphy: NJ Movie Theaters To Resume Amid Coronavirus Crisis



New Jersey Coronavirus Updates: Don't miss local and statewide announcements about novel coronavirus precautions. Sign up for Patch alerts and daily newsletters.



This is nice, the Whistlers Inn said in a post on social media. More exciting news to come today from us as well. But none of this is possible without the amazing support of the staff and community. Its been incredibly stressful but great to see how weve all responded to this crisis. That said, Id prefer to not do it again.



The announcement came a week after Murphy announced that gyms and indoor amusement parks could reopen at 25 percent capacity as of Sept. 1.



Restaurants were permitted to remain open for takeout and delivery when non-essential businesses were shut down to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in March. In June, restaurants were allowed to reopen for outdoor dining only. In July, Township Committee gave final approval to legislation that outlined how Cinnaminson restaurants could open for outdoor dining.



Story continues

Murphys announcement has been long awaited in the restaurant community throughout the state. Some restaurants have been forced to close permanently, but others were eligible for government loans. See related: $50K Loan For Cinnaminsons Jug Handle Inn Amid Pandemic



With reporting by Tom Davis



See more stories about New Jersey's coronavirus recovery.

This article originally appeared on the Cinnaminson Patch
By John Baer

Pennsylvanias Legislature, rarely a source of good or smart policy, is suddenly positioned to improve elections and democracy.

But thats only if it can find the time.

After all, its busy brawling with Gov. Tom Wolf over his COVID-19 restrictions, mounting new fights over how to vote by mail and railing against his fall agenda of new spending and legalizing weed (as if, by the way).

Still, this legislature only last year passed welcome and prescient reform by giving the state mail-in voting  before anybody knew about any pandemic.

Now it can follow up with election reform that empowers people over politicians. More on that in a bit.

First, though, the Republican-run House is back for voting days this Tuesday and Wednesday. The GOP Senates back Sept. 8. That means clashes start soon over voting in November.

Issues include deadlines to apply for mail-in ballots; use of ballot drop boxes intended to help voters living far from county courthouses and/or wary of U.S. Postal Service promises to deliver the mail on time; and GOP efforts to allow poll watchers to serve not only in their home county but in any part of the state.

(I envision armed Sullivan County poll watchers working in Philadelphia  after having voted by mail.)

Mostly, we face conflict over how, where and when mail-in works. And this within  by the time lawmakers and Wolf work it out, or the courts weigh in  weeks prior to an election. What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile, theres an opportunity to do something right.

Its pending legislation that would create a citizens commission to handle redistricting of congressional seats starting next year after completion of the Census.

Its timely, and lets ordinary voters pick congressional maps.

Youll recall our 18 congressional districts were ordered in place by the Democratic-majority state Supreme Court for 2018 elections, which evened the balance of our delegation to Washington at nine Republicans, nine Democrats.

This followed a ruling by the same court saying districts created in the legislature after the 2010 Census, producing a delegation of 13 Republicans, five Democrats, were gerrymandered to benefit the GOP.

Well, after the Census and the expected loss of one of Pennsylvanias 18 seats, the legislature gets to draw the once-every-10-year maps again.

Unless House Bill 2327 passes, and soon.

(I know, youre thinking about COVID, school, sports, the election and everything else thats out of balance, but stick with me, this, too, is important.)

Its a lift. Lawmakers are averse to change, especially if it means giving up power. Citizen commissions have been rejected for years. Lawmakers only care about their seats, not Congress. So, Republicans dont care. And Democrats figure, We got the state Supreme Court, why change anything?

But. This change comes as people are focused on politics and government. It has bipartisan support. It benefits neither party. It doesnt matter whos in power. And given that partisan divides arent diminishing soon, its good for democracy.

It was put together by conservative Republican Rep. Jim Gregory, of Blair County, and liberal Democratic Reps. Jared Solomon and Pam DeLissio, of Philadelphia.

Its got more than 20 bipartisan cosponsors, including GOP House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff.

The status quo has to be changed, Gregory says, politics need to be taken out.

The bill draws 15 commissioners from volunteer pools of 60 Democratic, 60 Republican and 60 Independent voters. No lobbyists, elected or party officials or members of their families are eligible.

Each pool is culled to reflect age, ethnic, geographic, racial and gender diversity. Legislative leaders get to pick a few from their party pools. The Secretary of State randomly picks Independents for balance. Eventually, nine commissioners are picked, and those commissioners pick six more to get to 15.

The process provides involvement of the state agency that runs elections and of the legislature, says Solomon. There are public hearings along the way, and anyone can submit a map.

A final map goes to the legislature for an up or down vote.

DeLissio says shes worked on redistricting since taking office in 2011: I saw firsthand, as a freshman, the process we use. Maps were not available. Narratives were not available  I couldnt get straight answers from either party.

This bill brings transparency to the process. It does not require the multi-year slog of amending the state Constitution. It can make state politics more inclusive. It can make citizens more engaged.

And, yes, its a long shot in an institution that specializes in layups. But its good for the state, and the right thing to do.

John Baer may be reached at baer.columnist@gmail.com.
President Donald Trump Tuesday took his tough law and order message to Kenosha, the latest US city roiled by the police shooting of a black man, as he branded recent anti-racism protests there as "domestic terror" by violent mobs.

Trump has been hoping for months to shift the election battle against Democrat Joe Biden from a verdict on his widely panned handling of the coronavirus pandemic to what he sees as far more comfortable territory of law and order.

And in the Wisconsin city of Kenosha, in upheaval since a white police officer shot 29-year-old African American Jacob Blake in front of his three young sons, the Republican found his mark.

"These are not acts of peaceful protest but really domestic terror," Trump said after touring damage in the city, describing multiple nights of angry demonstrations last week that left two people dead.

Crowds lined the barricaded sidewalks along the street where the president's motorcade passed, with Trump supporters on one side and Black Lives Matter protesters on the other, yelling at one another across the street.

Trump was seen in his limousine smiling and waving at supporters who cheered in return, while opponents shouted boos at the president.

Under heavy security, Trump visited a burned out store where he told the owners "we'll help you rebuild."

"These gentlemen did a fantastic job," he said pointing to sheriff's officers, a reference to law enforcement units that quelled the violent protests.

"This is a great area, a great state," Trump added.

Meeting the Blake family during his high-profile visit was not on the president's public itinerary but just before leaving Washington he suggested it was possible.

"I don't know yet. We'll see," he said when asked. "We'll be making that determination."

A microcosm of the racial and ideological tensions of the Trump era, Kenosha has seen Black Lives Matter protests, riots, and the arrival of armed, white vigilantes, culminating in an incident in which a 17-year-old militia enthusiast, Kyle Rittenhouse, allegedly shot dead two people and badly injured another.

Story continues

Democrats and police reform advocates see Kenosha as a symbol of institutional racism.

They see Rittenhouse, a Trump supporter, as emblematic of right-wing militias that are increasingly brazen about brandishing weaponry in political settings and attempting to act as amateur law enforcers.

Trump, however, comes with a different priority: countering what he has repeatedly described as the "anarchy" in Democratic-led cities.

But Trump controversially has refused to condemn the growing presence of armed vigilantes and militias on the streets, calling the alleged killings by Rittenhouse "an interesting situation."

- Fanning 'flames' -

Trump accuses Biden of weakness on the spate of violent protests in cities like Kenosha and Portland, seeking to paint the Democrat as incapable of controlling the party's left wing.

On Monday night the president floated a baseless theory on Fox News, saying without evidence that "people in the dark shadows" are behind Biden's campaign.

The comment seemed to take even pro-Trump interviewer Laura Ingraham by surprise: "That sounds like a conspiracy theory," she told him.

In the same interview Trump likened police officers who err when making split decisions to golfers who "choke" under pressure.

"Shooting the guy in the back many times. I mean, couldn't you have done something different?" he said. "But they choke. Just like in a golf tournament, they miss a three-foot putt."

Biden has accused Trump of deliberately fomenting violence for political gain.

"Fires are burning and we have a president who fans the flames rather than fighting the flames," he charged on Monday.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers had asked Trump not to visit Kenosha, and the city's Democratic Mayor John Antaramian also said over the weekend it was not a good time for the president to visit.

But Trump ignored their pleas, declaring that his trip "could increase love and respect for our country."

Watching from her front porch as police closed nearby streets on Tuesday, local resident Nicole Populorum took issue with Trump's statement that he saved Kenosha from burning down by deploying the National Guard.

"The community came together, so for him to say if it wasn't for him there would be no Kenosha is ignorant and insulting," Populorum said.

sms-mlm/jm/ec
The board of trustees of Liberty University announced on Monday that it had retained an independent forensic firm to conduct an investigation into the schools operations under Jerry Falwell Jr., who resigned last week in the wake of a sex scandal after serving as its president and chancellor since 2007.

The statement from the board of trustees said the firm would conduct a thorough investigation into all facets of Liberty University operations during Jerry Falwell Jr.s tenure as president, including but not limited to financial, real estate and legal matters.

Mr. Falwell had been on leave from the university since Aug. 7, after he posted and then deleted a photograph to Instagram in which he had his pants partially unzipped and his arm around a young woman he later said was his wifes assistant. He was holding a glass of dark liquid that he joked in the caption was just black water.

The photo prompted widespread criticism and led to unusually swift action from the evangelical universitys conservative board, handpicked for its loyalty to Mr. Falwell. The board placed Mr. Falwell on indefinite leave and appointed Jerry Prevo, a retired Alaska pastor and chairman of the board, as acting president.
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Peter Navarro, director of the National Trade Council, speaks to members of the media outside the White House in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Aug. 28, 2020.

A House Oversight subcommittee has opened a probe of all federal contracts negotiated by White House trade advisor Peter Navarro after the Trump administration abruptly canceled the bulk of a $646 million ventilator contract with Royal Philips, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., told CNBC on Monday.

Krishnamoorthi, chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, said the panel is looking into Navarro as part of an ongoing investigation into contracts awarded by the Trump administration related to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Under the management of Peter Navarro, Senior Advisor to President Trump, the administration was taken advantage of by Philips Respironics when negotiating the price of life-saving ventilators," Krishnamoorthi said in a statement to CNBC. Philips Respironics is a subsidiary of Netherlands-based Royal Philips.

The Philips contract, announced by the Department of Health and Human Services in April, sought to bolster the U.S. national stockpile of ventilators as hospitals, primarily in the New York area, faced shortages at the peak of their Covid-19 outbreak in the spring. The contract ordered 2,500 ventilators due by the end of May with an additional 43,000 ventilators due by the end of 2020 from the Dutch health technology company.

But Philips said Monday that HHS abruptly canceled the remainder of the contract, requiring Philips to instead supply only 12,300 ventilators. Shares of the company traded in the U.S. closed down 3.5%.

HHS declined to provide comment for this story because "this contract is subject to an internal HHS investigation and legal review," Stephanie Bialek, spokeswoman for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at HHS, said in a statement.
By Akbar Mammadov

President Ilham Aliyev has hailed the countrys fight against COVID-19, saying that timely measures to curb the spread of the pandemic have helped to keep the situation under control.

Aliyev made the remarks on August 31 when a new hospital of modular type was opened at the Medical Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, designed to treat COVID-19 patients.

Addressing the opening ceremony in a video format, the president reminded that the country has 46 hospitals for COVID-19 patients, which were created as a result of the implementation of state programs for socio-economic development of regions. Out of these hospitals, 41 have been built in the last 17 years.

It is not too difficult to imagine what problems we could have faced today if we hadnt taken this step on time. I can say with full responsibility that if these hospitals had not been built on time, we would be in a very difficult situation today. The hospitals were not only built, but they were also fitted with the state-of-the-art equipment, and this process continues today. The material and technical infrastructure of our healthcare system play a special role in the fight against COVID, the president said.

Moreover, the president emphasized that recently, the number of laboratories in the country increased by several times and reached 45 today compared to six laboratories at the start of the pandemic.

More than 900,000 tests have been conducted and Azerbaijan occupies the leading place in the world by the number of tests carried out per capita."

Furthermore, the president said that the government has allocated large funds for the construction of hospitals in the county.

The available bed capacity was insufficient to successfully fight this terrible pandemic. In just six months, the bed capacity of our country has expanded significantly."

"It is planned to build seven hospitals of modular type. It is not necessary for the time being because the number of patients in our country is decreasing and, if necessary, it will be possible to quickly build additional hospitals with 1,400 beds, he added.

Social support amid COVID-19

Furthermore, the president underlined that that government is taking measures to curb the effects of pandemic on the socio-economic situation in the country.

About five million people are covered by a large social package. Both the public and private sectors, as well as the unemployed, including those working informally, vulnerable people  all categories of people, are provided with financial support by the state. This shows once again that the well-being of our people, their social status and, of course, their health is a key issue for us, he said.

The president reiterated his earlier comments that the government prioritized citizens health over the economy, adding that, however, the economic situation in Azerbaijan is better than in other countries.

As a result of the measures taken in our country, the economy fell by only 2.8 per cent in seven months. Given the global landscape, I think this is a good indicator, he said.

Furthermore, Aliyev touched upon the special attention paid to Azerbaijani doctors, saying that people working in the healthcare system are always taken care of by the state.

The president noted that all work done is bearing fruit, and it is no coincidence that the situation in the fight against COVID has become more positive in recent weeks. We see positive dynamics, and I hope that this dynamic will be maintained in the future, he added.

Aliyev underlined that Azerbaijan has been in close contact with the World Health Organization since the outbreak of pandemic and these contacts continue to this day.

As you know, the World Health Organization has praised the work done in Azerbaijan in this area and described Azerbaijan as an exemplary country. This is indeed the case. In other words, the work we have done, the state funds allocated to this area, the mobilization work, the construction of hospitals, the laboratories, the implementation of social programs  all these, have played a key role in our struggle, the president stressed.

Moreover, President Aliyev spoke about the purchase of the COVID vaccine, saying that we are currently actively working with several companies to bring the COVID vaccine to our country. I hope that Azerbaijan will be among the first countries to receive the vaccine in this area because we have been working on this issue for some time.

The president pointed out that currently, 100 to 200 people are infected in the country every day, and this is certainly a better result than in previous months. Aliyev stressed that however, daily monitoring is and will be carried out to keep the situation under control. At the same time, mitigation steps should be taken in such a way that the number of patients does not increase sharply. This is the key issue, and we will certainly take our steps very carefully, he added.

The sharp rise in the number of patients in some European countries makes us think and urges us to take more cautious steps. I want to say again that the primary issue is people's health. If our citizens continue to act responsibly  I should say that we do see and feel this responsibility recently and this is reflected in real results  then I think that we will be able to return to normality, to normal life in a short time, Aliyev noted.

The president highlighted that the preventive measures taken in the country, especially the quarantine regime is bearing fruits.

Civic responsibility

The president stressed the importance of the civic responsibility in curbing the spread of COVID-19, saying that there are still cases of flagrant violation of anti-epidemiology rules.

He stressed that punitive measures must be taken against any violators of quarantine regime without discrimination.

Everyone is equal before the law regardless of their social status. Equality, justice and the rule of law are the main principles in Azerbaijan, and I call on all our citizens to act responsibly. First, they must act responsibly in order to protect themselves and their loved ones, he said.

Aliyev noted that those breaking the rules, organizing large-scale events and violating the laws and existing rules of the country in a demonstrative manner will be and are being punished.

The public is also being informed about this issue. I think that the people of Azerbaijan are well aware that law is the law for everyone. No-one can be above law, no-one can have any privileges and no-one can and will be given any concessions.

If we look at the global statistics on COVID, we will see that the results obtained in our country are very effective and valuable. I think that it is thanks to these measures, that we have saved the lives of thousands of people, Aliyev said.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine strongly protests against another wave of illegal searches and detentions of residents of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.

This was said in a comment by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine on yet another wave of illegal searches and detentions in the occupied Crimea.

According to the available information, following searches in the houses of Aider Kadyrov (village of Rozlyvy, Nizhnyohirskyy district), Ayder Abliakimov (village of Soniachna Dolyna, Sudak district), Rydvan Umerov (town of Sudak), and Enver Topchi (urban village of Ichki (Sovietskyy), Ichki district), these people were illegally detained. During the previous wave of arrests in July, the occupation administration detained seven Crimean Tatars, the Foreign Ministry recalled.

Russia has systematically used a repressive apparatus to persecute journalists, including citizen journalists, and activists, and continues to pursue a policy of persecuting all those who disagree with the occupation, from which representatives of the Crimean Tatar people suffer the most... We demand that Russia immediately release the four persons detained today, as well as all Ukrainian citizens illegally detained by Russia. As of today, Russia illegally holds about 100 Ukrainian citizens behind bars," the Foreign Ministry said.

Ukrainian diplomats called on the international community to continue active protection of the rights and freedoms of residents of the occupied Crimea and to increase pressure on Russia to end its gross human rights violations on the temporarily occupied peninsula.

As Ukrinform reported, on Monday, August 31, the Russian occupation authorities raided the houses of Crimean Tatars in the occupied Crimea. Four people were detained. Ukraine opened a criminal investigation into the illegal searches in Crimean Tatar homes on the occupied peninsula.

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Photo-Illustration: Vulture and Getty Images

Were going to need a lot of mac and cheese to fully process this: Brad Pitts new girlfriend, the 27-year-old German model Nicole Poturalski, is reportedly married but in an open relationship with her 68-year-old husband. Page Six reports that Poturalski has been married to prominent German restaurateur Roland Mary for about eight years, and the couple share a young son, Emil, together. Call it modern, call it weird, call it a slap in the face to Angelina Jolie, but sources say that Pitt and Poturalski actually met at one of Marys restaurants in Berlin while Pitt was doing a press tour for his Oscar-winning Once Upon a Time in Hollywood role in August 2019, and the couple were subsequently spotted hanging out at a Kanye West concert in Los Angeles three months later. When contacted by the Daily Mail to confirm his wifes relationship with Pitt (which has now reached the gallivanting around the south of France stage), Mary said no comment and hung up. In his defense, wed assume nobody would be too chatty if their wife started dating Brad Pitt.
Miners' body FIMI has urged the government to introduce a mechanism to monitor the price and sale of domestic steel, which has witnessed a steep rise in recent months. According to the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI), the hike in the prices of steel is leading to "windfall gains by few steel players" at the cost of the entire Indian economy, including upstream mining industry and downstream user industries.

"We request your urgent intervention for introducing a price monitoring and regulation mechanism for sale of steel by integrated steel producers, to ensure that there is no unreasonable hike in domestic steel prices due to any increase in international iron ore prices, since integrated steel players have got their own mines and not dependent on imported iron ore," FIMI Secretary General R K Sharma said in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He also urged the government for complete withdrawal of import duty on steel and stressed that the move will benefit the downstream industries and the citizens at large.

Subsequent to auction, the integrated steel players have now got their own iron-ore mining leases post March 31.

"Having secured sufficient raw material for their own steel plants, they are now taking the plea of high international iron-ore prices to hike steel prices in India, while they are not dependent on international iron-ore for making steel.

"This is despite the fact that 162 million tonnes of iron-ore... has been lying unused in the country for decades due to non-lifting of such ore by the steel industry," he said.

While the steel industry advocates and uses trade barriers (export duty on iron ore) to squeeze the mining industry, it advocates a free market for domestic sale of steel at par with international prices.

Consequently, the high price of steel in the country has deprived domestic consumers' common usage of steel and is the prime reason for the low per capita consumption of steel in India at 74 kgs, compared to 208 kgs globally.

Further, in all government procurement, there is a preference to domestically manufactured steel products at a price higher than good quality imported steel products. It means that for the sake of benefiting few steel producers, the exchequer and taxpayers have to pay more, Sharma said.

All these protectionist measures have helped few steel players to make windfall profits, while artificially hiking the cost for downstream industries and consumers, thereby leading to subdued demand and stunted economic growth.

The artificially inflated steel price has also led to higher cost of infrastructure and construction projects both in the private and public sector.

Just as iron ore is a raw material for steel, steel is raw material for downstream engineering and various other products, many of which are exported.

"If the steel industry is protected by the government from international competition, then it must pass on the benefits to downstream sectors, or else the import duty on steel and its various products should be removed to bring parity.

"Hence, there is an urgent need to monitor and regulate the price of steel in India for boosting economic activities throughout the economy, as steel is a major input for all sectors, private and public," Sharma explained.
A mother takes a walk with her child at the Palais Royal in Paris, France, Aug. 29, 2020. (Xinhua/Gao Jing)

Ensuring the compulsory education while keeping kids safe has become a top priority for many European governments.

LJUBLJANA/BRUSSELS, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The recent resurgence of COVID-19 in many parts of Europe is challenging the preparation work of most schools, as they are set to open their campuses to students for the new school year in the coming days.

Ensuring the compulsory education while keeping kids safe has become a top priority for many European governments, which are rolling out various measures to hope to make it work.

MULTIPLE MEASURES, ONE GOAL

Spain has registered 43,747 cases in seven days last week, the worst weekly figure since the end of March. France's data released on Friday showed the highest daily COVID-19 tally since March 31. Infections are also rising in the United Kingdom, Germany and some other European countries.

Different authorities across Europe are working for one goal this time -- avoiding another blanket closure of schools this autumn.

The Spanish Health Ministry and Education Ministry published a list of 29 measures and five recommendations for the start of the school year. Key measures include taking teachers' and students' temperature every morning, wearing of masks for children over six years old and cleaning their hands at least five times during the school day. Schools are required to apply extra hygiene measures and create stable "bubble groups" of children, in which closer contacts will be allowed.

Children pose for photo at the Smile Safari, an Instagram and TikTok museum, in Brussels, Belgium, Aug. 7, 2020.(Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

In Italy, where the reopening of schools on Sept. 14 is seen by many as the biggest challenge after the COVID-19 lockdown feat, wearing of face masks will be mandatory for teachers and staff all the time, and for students in primary and secondary schools (from six to 18 years old) every time the one-meter safety distance rule cannot be observed.

Similar face-covering measures were also announced in countries such as France, Britain, Ireland, Croatia, Serbia, although the age and prerequisite for the wearing varied.

In addition to some already observed preventive measures, such as social bubbles, social distancing and frequent hands washing, some countries adopted more sophisticated measures based on color-coded systems or flexible learning.

The Austrian government launched a four-color coronavirus "traffic-light" system to help avoid a second wave of the pandemic. The system is intended to increase public health awareness and thus prevent a second wave in autumn, especially in view of the upcoming start of school, according to Health Minister Rudolf Anschober.

Romania will also classify their schools into three categories: green, yellow, and red according to the severity of the epidemic. Schools in the green area can take classes normally, those in the yellow area combine offline and online teaching, while the ones in red area adopt online teaching.

Serbia is set to start its new school year in either "basic" or "combined" model.

Although the new school year will start normally in Lithuania, remote learning might be reinstated in specific schools if they become COVID-19 hotspots, according to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda.

Albania announced days ago three-scenario-based guidelines for the new school year, which requires distance learning once the pandemic worsens to certain extent.

Children wearing face masks play on a street in Paris, France, Aug. 20, 2020. (Xinhua/Gao Jing)

DEBATE AND WORRIES

Despite the well-planned measures, worries remained among some parents and experts.

Children can carry coronavirus in their noses for up to three weeks, even if they have no or few symptoms, according to a study from South Korea.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) recommended children aged five years and under should not be required to wear masks, explaining that this is based on the safety and overall interest of the child and the capacity to appropriately use a mask with minimal assistance. Aged 6-11 should be based on some factors, such as whether there is widespread transmission in the area, where the child resides, the ability of the child to safely and appropriately use a mask. Aged 12 and over should wear a mask under the same conditions as adults.

According to the Society for Virology, the largest virological society in Europe, infection rates in children and their role in the pandemic have so far only been incompletely recorded by scientific studies. And it warned against the notion that children are not involved in the pandemic and transmission. Such ideas are not in accordance with scientific knowledge.

Some Romanian health experts even admitted that the start of the new semester will bring more new cases to the country. Not only the children themselves, but more parents and grandparents will become new infected ones.

Lithuanian Minister of Education Algirdas Monkevicius voiced similar concerns. "We cannot be sure that the infection will not affect Lithuanian schools, therefore, we must be prepared for it and know what actions must be taken immediately," Monkevicius was quoted as saying in a press release on Tuesday.

A child walks in a fountain in the city center of Birmingham, Britain, Aug. 24, 2020. (Photo by Jon Super/Xinhua)

Parents have mixed feelings in sending their kids back to school.

"I look forward to the new school year with concern, not so much for my children's health, because it seems kids are less at risk even if infected, but for the great uncertainty in terms of family organization," Rosanna Magnano, a Milan-based journalist and mother of two, told Xinhua.

Another working mother, Cristina Zen from northern Alessandria, Italy, worried about the broader impact of school reopening on the country.

"Since the end of the lockdown, this is actually the first such large movement. What if infections ramp up again and we need another lockdown?" she wondered.

Stevanic, a father of a student from Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, said although the school took various preventive measures, he was still a little worried about the pandemic, due to the increase in infection cases recently.

In Germany, where daily infections exceeded the 2,000-mark last Saturday for the first time since April, Chancellor Angela Merkel called on German citizens to prepare for difficult COVID-19 times in the coming months on Friday.

She stressed that everything had to be done to ensure that children would not become the losers of the COVID-19 pandemic. Education was the most important and "schools must not leave anyone behind."
Andaman and Nicobar Islands: How Mangroves on Car Nicobar Fought Back Sea-Level Rise After the 2004 Tsunami

August 31,2020 | Source: The Wire

In the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake-tsunami, as land sank and the sea suddenly rose at Car Nicobar Island, mangroves facing the land were unable to survive. But the abrupt disturbance did not affect the sea-facing mangroves dominated by the Rhizophora spp., a study has said. Seaward mangroves dominated by Rhizophora spp. could fight back the prolonged flooding and the pounding of the waves. But the landward mangroves comprising the Bruguiera spp., Lumnitzera spp., Sonneratia spp. could only take so much  they were unable to survive the sudden one-meter land subsidence at Kimios Bay in Car Nicobar Island, a part of the Nicobar Islands, during the major seismic event.



The abrupt sea-level rise (SLR) in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands due to the sinking of the earths crust by 1.1 metre provided insights on species-level responses of mangroves to SLR, said study author Nehru Prabakaran of Wildlife Institute of India. He suspects the resilience of Rhizophora spp. is probably due to the frequent geologic events in the Nicobar Islands and their adaptability to thrive in habitats that experience a long duration of flooding by seawater.



There is a varying degree of resilience among species. For example, each mangrove species have different levels of resilience (high or low) to sea-level rise, mainly due to their morphological (structural) adaptations to thrive in different depths of tidal flooding, said Prabakaran, stressing that the inter-specific resilience among mangrove species to SLR is a key to design conservation strategies for this economically important ecosystem that is among the most vulnerable to SLR. The 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake followed by the catastrophic tsunami gobbled up landmass. It stripped the coast off trees in the Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean  the landmass closest to the earthquake epicentre. Mangroves, which flourish where land and water meet, bore the brunt of the natural disaster. According to a 2018 study by Prabakaran, the event destroyed as much as 97% of mangrove cover on Nicobar Islands.



Among the sites with surviving mangroves, Kimios Bay in Car Nicobar Island was the only patch with more than 80 hectares of mangrove area that survived despite the 1.1 metre of land collapse. This 80-hectare patch is the unaffected Rhizophora vegetation. The affected spots dominated by Bruguiera gymnorhiza and Lumnitzera racemosa span roughly 100 ha. Expanding on the ability of Rhizophora species to adjust to sea-level rise, Prabakaran said, across the world, these plants predominantly grow in the seaward side, mainly due to their pneumatophores/stilt roots that are specialised aerial breathing roots.



In Rhizophora spp, roots diverge from stems and branches and penetrate the soil some distance away from the main stem as in the banyan trees. These roots (in Rhizophora spp.) strengthen the plants to withstand high wind speeds (frequent in the seaward zone) and longer hours of tidal water flooding. On the other hand, the Bruguiera spp. have knee roots, which means the roots go into the soil for a distance and then come out, said Prabakaran.



Knee roots are horizontal roots growing just below the soil surface periodically grow vertically upwards then immediately loop downwards to resemble a bent knee. By repetition, a single horizontal root develops a series of knees at regular intervals. The aerial portions (knees) of these roots help in aeration of the whole root which because it spreads so widely, improves anchorage in the unstable mud, according to information about mangroves on a National University of Singapore webpage.



According to the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2019, about 40% of the worlds mangrove cover is found in southeast Asia and South Asia. India has about 3% of the total mangrove cover in south Asia. The current assessment shows that mangrove cover in the country is 4,975 sq km, which is 0.15% of the countrys total geographical area. Mangrove cover in the country has increased by 54 sq km (1.10%) compared to the previous assessment. West Bengal has 42.45% of Indias mangrove cover, followed by Gujarat with 23.66% and Andaman and Nicobar Islands with 12.39% cover. Mangroves have a complex root system that efficiently dissipates seawave energy protecting the coastal areas from tsunamis, storm surge, and soil erosion. Their protective role has been widely recognised, especially, after the 2004 tsunami.



Keeping pace with sea-level rise



Mangroves dont go down without a fight. They can keep pace with sea-level rise and avoid flooding by trapping sediments vertically, which allows them to maintain soil levels suitable for plant growth. The faster root growth of Rhizophora spp. also allows them to quickly trap sediment and build soil to match up with the global sea-level rise, said Prabakaran. But a 2015 study on mangroves in the Indo-Pacific region suggests that mangrove forests at sites with low tidal range and low sediment supply could be submerged as early as 2070. In 69% of study sites, the rate at which the mangroves accrete sediment is not fast enough to match the current rate of sea-level rise, the paper said. A recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report cautioned that current ecosystem services from the ocean are expected to be reduced at 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming, with losses being even greater at two degrees Celsius of global warming.



Agreeing with the findings at Kimios Bay, coastal systems research scientist R. Ramasubramanian at M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation said a one-meter rise in sea level resulting in sudden submergence usually would not be a threat to Rhizophora plants. These plants grow 6-10 metres high in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and have a large number of roots above the submergence level.



The mangroves species such as Avicennia spp. and Bruguiera spp. can also withstand the normal sea-level rise of about a few millimeters a year (around 3 mm/year). This is because the root modifications (pneumatophores and knee roots) will also gradually grow along with the sea level and will be able to withstand the rise in sea level, said Ramasubramanian.But the 2004 event was a rare one where the SLR rise happened suddenly, and the submergence for a long period killed the mangroves that have shorter pneumatophores.



The frontline plants that face the sea, such as Rhizophora spp., take the worst hit from tsunamis. As the waves move towards the mangrove vegetation, their energy will be considerably reduced from sea to land. The seaward mangrove zone experiences the high wave energy, and the landward zone experiences the least. Therefore, the physical uprooting of trees is high in the frontline seaward mangrove zone. In contrast, the tree death due to subsidence/submergence related sea-level rise was high in the landward mangrove zone, explained Prabakaran.



Legacy effects may have also shaped the resilience of Rhizophora assemblage. In the last two centuries, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have experienced four strong earthquakes in 1847, 1881, 1941, and 2004 due to tectonic movements. The mangroves in these islands have perhaps undergone numerous sudden sea-level changes, the paper states. Records of mangrove and coastal vegetation being drowned due to subsidence are available across the Andaman and Nicobar Islands dating back to 1868 (Kurz 1868; Oldam 1884; Tipper 1911). Particularly noteworthy was the 1881 earthquake, which caused uplift and subsidence in Car Nicobar (Ortiz and Bilham 2003), the study said.



The survival threshold of Rhizophora spp. appears to be between 1.1 m (as recorded in Car Nicobar) and 1.35 m of abrupt subsidence. However, further studies focusing on microcosm experiments to understand Rhizophora spp. resilience to rapid SLR at the study site is required to strengthen these observations, Prabakaran said. The Bruguiera spp. is coming back slowly. It is coming up in areas where earlier there were coconut plantations. These areas have become intertidal where the tidal water comes and goes, said Prabakaran.



The United Nations Environmental Programme emphasises that mangrove forests are among the most powerful nature-based solutions to climate change. But with 67% of mangroves lost or degraded to date, and an additional 1.0% being lost each year, they are at risk of being eradicated. Without mangroves, 39% more people would be flooded annually and flood damage would increase by more than 16% and USD 82 billion. They protect shorelines from eroding and shield communities from floods, hurricanes, and storms, a more important service than ever as sea levels continue to rise. The UNEP recently came out with Guidelines on Mangrove Ecosystem Restoration for the Western Indian Ocean Region to analyse risks and challenges to restoration projects and point to potential solutions.



Prabakaran emphasised that the choice of mangrove species matters for mangrove restoration projects. We cannot confirm that Rhizophora species across the globe would show similar adaptability to a sudden increase in sea level, like in Car Nicobar. But a number of other researchers have confirmed that Rhizophora species across the globe are certainly performing better against the global sea-level rise (which is a gradual process unlike the sudden increase in Car Nicobar) compared to many other mangrove species, he said.



If the objective of any mangrove conservation and restoration projects is focused on combating sea level rise, then Rhizophora species would be comparatively the better species of choice for the frontline seaward mangrove zones, while other mangrove species should also be planted based on their habitat preferences (eg. seaward zone or landward zone), Prabakaran added. Most mangrove ecosystems have the species diversity to tolerate a wide range of salinity and submerge tolerance observed Ramasubramanian.



Succession will take place naturally based on environmental conditions. Even in the Indian part of the Sunderbans, the freshwater-loving species Heritiera fomes are slowly disappearing, and other saltwater tolerant species are gradually occupying the area. The Sunderbans mangroves are resilient, and they will recover on their own. In Muthupet in Tamil Nadu, the recent cyclone Gaja had a huge impact. Large areas of mangroves were lost. Slowly it is recovering on its own, added Ramasubramanian.
Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih among other international leaders condoled the demise of former President Dr Pranab Mukherjee on August 31 after being put in a coma following brain surgery at Army Hospital (R&R) in New Delhi. The tragic news was confirmed by his son Abhijit Mukherjee who also expressed gratitude to the hospital staff and doctors for their efforts.

While sharing an image of Pranab Mukherjee, Nepal PM KP Sharma Oli said he is deeply saddened by the news and sent in heartfelt condolences not only to the Indian government and his family but also to all Indians. Expressing grief, Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih also condoled the demise and lauded Pranab Mukherjee for being a public servant of the highest calibre. He also noted that passing away of former Presiden is a tremendous loss for both India and the South Asian region.

I am deeply saddened by the news of passing away of former President of India H.E. Pranab Mukherjee. Heartfelt condolences to the government and people of India as well as the bereaved family members. pic.twitter.com/YGZEFpWc7F  K P Sharma Oli (@kpsharmaoli) August 31, 2020

Sincere condolences to his family and the people of India following the passing of former Indian President Shri Pranab Mukherjee. Mr Mukherjee was a public servant of the highest caliber and his passing is a tremendous loss not only to India but the entire South Asian region.  Ibrahim Mohamed Solih (@ibusolih) August 31, 2020

Read - Pranab Mukherjee Served Country With Diligence; Admired Across Party Lines: BJP Chief JP Nadda

Read - Pranab Mukherjee Passes Away: Lata Mangeshkar, Shraddha Kapoor & Others Pay Tribute

Pranab Mukherjee passes away at 84

Pranab Mukherjee was hospitalised on August 10 to undergo the brain surgery for the removal of a clot and had also tested positive for COVID-19. However, despite the expertise of medical professionals, the former President passed away at the age of 84 after being in a deep coma and on ventilator support. Since August 10 he was haemodynamically stable while being treated for a lung infection. Even though he had been operated for removal of a clot in the brain, he had additionally developed a lung infection and had a renal dysfunction apart from being infected with COVID-19 at the time of admission.

With a Heavy Heart , this is to inform you that my father Shri #PranabMukherjee has just passed away inspite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital & prayers ,duas & prarthanas from people throughout India !

I thank all of You   Abhijit Mukherjee (@ABHIJIT_LS) August 31, 2020

Read - Sushil Kumar Shinde Saddened By Pranab Mukherjee's Demise, Remembers Him As 'fighter'

Born in the small village of Mirati in Birbhum District of West Bengal as the son of freedom fighters, Shri Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee and Rajlakshmi on December 11, 1935, Pranab Mukherjee was the 13th President of India from 2012-2017. He acquired a Masters degree in History and Political Science and a separate degree in Law from the University of Kolkata, became a college teacher and a journalist. Eventually, he joined the Congress party and was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1969.

Read - Pranab Mukherjee Passes Away: Virender Sehwag & Gautam Gambhir Pay Tributes

Read - Fmr Prez Pratibha Patil Mourns Pranab Mukherjee's Death, Says 'India Lost A Great Man'




Aaron "Jay" Danielson shot in Portland, Ore., is treated on Aug. 29, 2020. He later died. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Possible Portland Shooting Suspect, an Antifa Member, Identified by Sister

The man who allegedly fatally shot a President Donald Trump supporter in Portland on Aug. 29 was identified by his sister as Michael Reinoehl.

We reached out to police and confirmed that we recognized Michael in the screenshots taken from video from the shooting scene, the sister told The Oregonian.

Reinoehls sibling said the 48-year-old has been estranged from the rest of the family for three years.

On the one hand, this whole thing surprises the daylights out of us, because we always thought he is a lot of bark, not a lot of bite, she said. But hes also been very impulsive and irrational.

Sgt. Kevin Allen, a Portland police spokesman, told The Epoch Times via email that theres an active homicide investigation into the shooting, preventing the release of any further information. Any reports youve seen beyond what has been released via press release is unconfirmed and unverified, he said.

Reinoehl, on social media profiles reviewed by The Epoch Times, said that he is a member of Antifa, a far-left, anarcho-communist group that has committed brutal violence at demonstrations in the past.

Every Revolution needs people that are willing and ready to fight. There are so many of us protesters that are just protesting without a clue of where that will lead. Thats just the beginning thats where the fight starts. If thats as far as you can take it thank you for your participation but please stand aside and support the ones that are willing to fight, he wrote on Instagram in June. I am 100% ANTIFA all the way!

Reinoehl wrote that Antifa members do not want violence but we will not run from it either!

It will be a war and like all war there will be casualties, he wrote.

Reinoehl was present during riots and protests in Portland on a number of nights, posting photographs and videos while in attendance. He says he is also a Black Lives Matter activist who supports cutting funding to the police. He used the phrase Hands up dont shoot! referring to the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson. Activists falsely stated that Brown had his hands up when he was shot.

Reinoehl, who didnt respond to a request for comment, describes himself as a professional snowboarder.

In an interview with Bloomberg in July, Reinoehl claimed to have intervened in a fight between a man and multiple young people of color, minors.

A man shot in Portland, Ore., is treated on Aug. 29, 2020. The man later died. (Paula Bronstein/AP Photo)

Im not sure what started it, but I would imagine that he probably said something that wasnt appropriate, and they went to put him in place, and he got aggressive with them, and they started getting aggressive with him, he said.

As soon as adults intervened, the man pulled out a gun, Reinoehl said. He then jumped in and grabbed the gun, but was struck by a bullet in an arm.

Reinoehl said that he had been providing security and that he had military experience.

He was cited on July 5 during rioting in downtown Portland for three misdemeanors: possessing a loaded gun in a public place, resisting arrest, and interfering with police, according to online court records.

An arraignment scheduled for July 30 was marked no complaint and the case appeared to be marked closed, according to the records.

But a spokesman for the Multnomah County District Attorneys Office said in an email that the majority of cases received as a citation in lieu of bookings, including this case, remain pending review. Arraignments for misdemeanors were and still arent occurring because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have neither rejected nor declined prosecution on this case, he told The Epoch Times. The incident remains an ongoing investigation.

In an earlier message, the spokesman said prosecutors didnt have all the available police reports when the court date arrived.

Reinoehl is wanted for failing to appear in court in a case brought after he and his son, 17, allegedly raced cars up after midnight in Baker County, Oregon, in June.

According to a summary of the police report obtained by The Epoch Times, a state trooper saw two vehicles racing by at 111 miles per hour.

Reinoehl showed signs of impairment and was arrested for driving under the influence. He had a loaded, concealed Glock pistol but didnt have a concealed handgun license.

His 11-year-old daughter was in the vehicle.

The shooting came after a rally by pro-Trump demonstrators, including some with Patriot Prayer, a conservative group. Shots were fired around 8:45 p.m. in the area of Southwest 3rd Avenue and Southwest Alder Street, according to the Portland Police Bureau.

Supporters of President Donald Trump attend a rally and car parade in Clackamas, Ore., on the way to Portland, Aug. 29, 2020. (Paula Bronstein/AP Photo)

Detectives are aware of videos circulating on social media that show the shooting, the bureau said. Witnesses who saw what happened or those with video were asked to contact detectives.

It is still early in this investigation, and I ask everyone to give the detectives time to do their important work before drawing conclusions about what took place, Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said in a statement. If anyone can provide information about this case, I ask them to please reach out to our detectives. This violence is completely unacceptable and we are working diligently to find and apprehend the individual or individuals responsible.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat who also serves as police commissioner, told reporters on Aug. 30: Ive said, my greatest fear is somebody will die. And now somebody has.

The victim was identified as Aaron Danielson, also known as Jay by Patriot Prayer.

We love Jay and he had such a huge heart. God bless him and the life he lived, Joey Gibson, the founder of the group, wrote on Facebook.

In a post on Instagram on July 3, Reinoehl shared a text message exchange. Someone messaged him saying Patriot Prayer was planning events in various cities on July 4 and warned Reinoehl to watch his and his friends back.

Thank you my friend we are ready, Reinoehl responded.

Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified the shooting victim. It also incorrectly described the timing of the shooting. The Epoch Times regrets the errors.
Shiv Sena leader and Member of Parliament (MP) Sanjay Raut has termed the protest outside Pandharpurs Vitthal-Rukmai temple by Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) founder Prakash Ambedkar a joke on social distancing.

Ambedkar and his supporters staged a protest outside the temple on Monday, demanding the reopening of temples and other religious places in the state. He and 14 others also went inside the temple and declared it a victory of the agitation.

Raut on Monday said that the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government , led by Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, will gradually lift all the restrictions. He added that the government has spoken to all the stakeholders who run temples as well as the representatives of the Varkari community on the gradual reopening of the famous temple at Pandharpur.

The Sena leader said that Ambedkar, who is the grandson of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, should not have violated the law and the measures put in place to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Prakash Ambedkar is a patient leader, who has studied law and hes also the descendant of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. Such statements about going against the law, especially during a medical emergency, is like instigating people... The Covid-19 situation in the state is improving and Prakash Ambedkar should not create any sort of tension in the state, Raut said, while speaking to reporters in Mumbai.

He further said that the protest led by Ambedkar made a joke of social distancing as the crowd that had gathered at Pandharpur for the protest was pushing each other.

Social distancing, which is the most important step to break the Covid chain, had become a joke outside the temple today. Thousands of people gathered there. The transmission of Covid-19 can spread through this [gathering]. The chief minister has anticipated this and thus has not so far allowed the reopening of religious places. Even Prime Minister Modi is not in the mind set to completely lift the lockdown, Raut added.

He also expressed confidence and said Thackeray and the political opponents will collectively find a solution on the reopening of religious places in the state. But Raut also added that no leader should take an anti-law stance on the issue and must engage with the government.

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George Eustice today revealed no target has been set for the return of more civil servants to his Whitehall department despite ministers encouraging people across the UK to ditch working from home.

The Environment Secretary said this morning that 'we don't have a target' for the return of staff and that the priority is to 'make sure that it is safe for people to return'.

He said that 'not everybody' will be able to return to their desks but the hope is that 'as many people as possible are able to return to work, even if it's for some days a week'.

His comments come after Health Secretary Matt Hancock suggested last week that he did not care where his staff worked as long as they are productive.

Those remarks appeared to be at odds with the Government's back to work message, with Boris Johnson expected to launch a drive later this week to get more people back to their normal commute.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said today he does not have a target for how many civil servants he wants to physically return to his Whitehall department

Ministers are increasingly concerned about the fate of struggling town and city centres and they want more workers to return to give a boost to businesses which are reliant on commuter footfall.

Some in Whitehall believe civil servants should set an example to the rest of the nation and stop working from home.

But Mr Eustice said this morning he does not have a target for the number of staff he wants back at their desks in his department next month.

He was asked during an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme whether the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had a target for staff returning after the bank holiday.

'We don't have a target other than to make sure that it is safe for people to return to work, and that does require, for instance, fewer work stations,' he said.

'So not everybody - we won't get a 100 per cent return-to-work - but we want to ensure that as many people as possible are able to return to work, even if it's for some days a week so you don't have an entire team in everyday.

'That's the kind of approach we'll be taking and it's the sort of approach that I'm sure many other businesses will be too.'

Ministers have faced accusations in recent days of sending out mixed messages on whether people should stop working from home.

Mr Hancock told Times Radio last week that he cared about how effectively people work rather than their location at home or in the office.

'What I care about is how effectively people work, obviously people should come back to the office if that is what they need to do their job, obviously employers need to make sure the offices are Covid secure,' he said.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma has been leading calls for firms to get workers back into offices.

But he was accused of hypocrisy after it emerged just five per cent of his own department's 1,800 staff had arrived at its central London HQ on one day last week.

Just 95 staff were seen entering the Whitehall building one morning even though the Government has urged the nation's workforce to physically return to workplaces.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Stephen Barclay said yesterday the Government was 'keen' for people to stop working from home where possible.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma has led calls urging firms to get workers back to their desks. But he faced accusations of hypocrisy after just five per cent of his own departments 1,800 staff arrived at its central London HQ

Mr Barclay told Times Radio: 'We are keen to get people back in the office. We think that's best for the economy to get back to normal as part of our recovery.

'The whole purpose of the furlough scheme has been to retain that link between the employee and their business.

'Obviously, people coming back as the furlough scheme starts to unwind, back into the workplace in a more active way. So, we are keen to see that take place.

'Clearly, these are conversations that businesses will be having with their staff.'

Critics have questioned ministers' insistence that workplaces are safe.

Lawrence Waterman, chairman of the British Safety Council, said: 'I think many of us don't understand why there's such firm advice with ministers stating that workplaces are now safe - there's no evidence for that.

'Indeed, there is an argument which says that workplaces are so rarely inspected with the cuts that have occurred to the Health and Safety Executive and to local authorities over the last 10 years, that it's probably more likely that you'll win the lottery than be visited by an inspector.'
President Donald Trump gestures after delivering his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination on the South Lawn of the White House on Aug. 27, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Trump Says Hes Still Going to Kenosha, Over Local Objections

President Donald Trump is still planning to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sept. 1, despite repeated calls to reconsider by local authorities, he said on Aug. 31.

If I didnt INSIST on having the National Guard activate and go into Kenosha, Wisconsin, there would be no Kenosha right now. Also, there would have been great death and injury, Trump said on Twitter.

I want to thank Law Enforcement and the National Guard. I will see you on Tuesday!

After the White House said on Aug. 29 that Trump would visit Kenosha to meet with law enforcement officials and survey damage inflicted by rioters, Gov. Tony Evers, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, and Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian, all Democrats, then urged Trump not to take the trip.

Im concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together, Evers wrote in a letter to the president.

You look at the incendiary remarks that the president has made, they centered an entire convention around creating more animosity and creating more division around what is going on in Kenosha, Barnes said during an interview with CNN. So, I dont know how given any of the previous statements that the president made that he intends to come here to be helpful. And we absolutely dont need that right now.

But others say they want Trump to come.

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes speaks to the crowd gathered at Civic Center Park located outside of the Kenosha County Courthouse, in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 29, 2020. (Jim Vondruska/Reuters)

Flames engulf the Community Corrections Division building as police officers watch during rioting in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 24, 2020. (Stephen Maturen/Reuters)

Kenoshans are hurting and looking for leadership, and your leadership in this time of crisis is greatly appreciated by those devastated by the violence in Kenosha, the Kenosha County Board of Supervisors said Aug. 30 in a letter to Trump that he shouldnt cancel his plans to visit.

Unrest began in Kenosha on Aug. 23 after a police officer shot Jacob Blake, a black man who officers sought to arrest for violating a restraining order stemming from an alleged sexual assault claim resisted being taken into custody.

Rioters burned and looted buildings and businesses for three consecutive nights in unrest culminating in the fatal shooting on Aug. 25 of two protesters.

Evers dispatched National Guard troops, and a bolstered force finally helped end the riots, which have since died down.

Trump has painted the failure to quell rioting in some cities, principally Portland, Oregon, and spikes in shootings in others, such as New York City, as the fault of Democratic governors and mayors.

The Radical Left Mayors & Governors of Cities where this crazy violence is taking place have lost control of their Movement. It wasnt supposed to be like this, but the Anarchists & Agitators got carried away and dont listen anymore, he said in another tweet on Aug. 31.

City and state officials, in turn, have repeatedly rejected offers of federal law enforcement assistance from the Trump administration.

Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis said hes preparing for Trumps visit. There have been 175 arrests in Kenosha since Aug. 24, he said, including 102 with addresses from outside the city.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters at the White House that Trump will show up, highlighting the planned visit to Kenosha.

He will go to cities where Americans are hurting, she said.
MIDDLETOWN  As the school district plans for the first day of its hybrid learning model Thursday amid the coronavirus pandemic, high school staff took delivery of 220 donated face mask exoskeletons intended to create a firm, custom-made seal to enhance teacher safety.

The Secure Fit frames, worn outside a disposable or cloth face covering, are 3D-printed using facial recognition technology, according to Connecticut Biotech spokesman Bruce Morris, who on Monday brought along boxes bound for schools across the district.

The creations of the South Windsor-based start-up soon will number 900 for use by every educator in Middletown. Each helps to improve the filtration of viruses and other pathogens.

By putting this mask and frame on with an ASTM Level 3 surgical mask, you are equivalent to an N95 mask, Morris said.

Were always here to experiment with innovation  not just from the academic sense, but the operational standpoint of keeping people safe and healthy, Superintendent of Schools Michael Conner said outside the high school on La Rosa Lane.

Conner takes pride in looking at practices differently: being creative in how we educate our students.

The University of Connecticut, under the leadership of UConn Health research team leader Dr. Cato T. Laurencin, developed the patented technology.

Each provides enhanced efficacy in protection against COVID-19 and other airborne pathogens, according to the company.

Middeltown so far is the only district in Connecticut to take part in the pilot program. Soon, South Windsor Public Schools also will receive the biodegradable masks.

When the company contacted a number of schools in the state, Middletown was the first to jump aboard. We could not say no, Conner said. This does have a broader impact on our community.

Customers upload two photographs so theres no need for an in-person fitting, Connecticut Biotech spokesman Sean Burns said.

Theyre created through a filament-based process using mainly thermoplastic polymer, which is melted into a paste. Thats whats injected by the 3D printer, he said.

Middletown High School World Languages Department leader Andre Alfonso, art instructor Julie Shvetz and family and consumer science teacher Kristen Hamilton modeled the product for those gathered.

From start to finish, each one takes three hours to create, Burns said. Most disposable and fabric face coverings have gaps at the edges  these do not.

The technology was developed by UConn in the spring, and Connecticut Biotech began manufacturing them in June, Burns said. Were in the process of ramping up production right now, he said.

The companys 12 printers have the capability to produce 100 masks a day.

You can tell that it grips the mask to your face when you can feel it moving in and out as youre breathing, Burns said.

Those who wear glasses know most of the paper and fabric masks fog up due to the release of warm exhalations. The Secure Fit frame prevents that because it makes a tight seal, he said. Its not going out the top and the bottom, Burns said.

Teachers will have no need to worry about the kids understanding what they are saying, Morris said.

When students start the 2020-21 academic year this week, theyll find three-sided plastic desk shields for use by students and teachers, as well as hand sanitizer stations throughout the building, reminders to wash their hands frequently, and other measures.

Flexibility is the districts mantra moving forward, the superintendent said, to ensure rapid response to any COVID-related incidents.

Everyone entering the districts facilities will have their temperature checked, something 73 percent of polled parents wanted, Conner said.

Getting Back To Innovation And Equity 2020-2021, the school districts hybrid model of distance and in-person learning, was developed based on feedback from teachers, staff and parents, Conner said. It also incorporates elements from the successful use of personal protective equipment during the districts Summer Learning Academy, where children became used to wearing masks in the classroom, he said.

There were no coronavirus infections during lessons this summer, the superintendent said. That is a model we can learn from. The priority is to make sure every single person that walks out is COVID-free.

Based on feedback to be provided by public school teachers, Conner said the district would possibly consider distributing these new masks to students in the future.

Having this extra protection is another way our district is adhering to making sure all our students and staff are safe, Director of District Operations Marco Gaylord said.

For information, visit ctbiotech.com.
The Amazon Fresh store, in Woodland Hills, California, is designed to reach a broader segment of shoppers than the pricier Whole Foods Markets chain Amazon acquired in 2017, signaling its intention to become a significant player in the huge grocery business. It also marks a new phase in Amazons competition with larger grocery chains, such as Kroger and Walmart, that expanded features and services such as online ordering for delivery and in-store pickup to make shopping more convenient  features that have become more popular during the pandemic.
In a glittering career, he served in every capacity he was asked to but never the one he wanted

New Delhi: Former president Pranab Mukherjee died on Monday in an army hospital here, his son Abhijit said. He was 84.

"With a Heavy Heart, this is to inform you that my father Shri Pranab Mukherjee has just passed away in spite of the best efforts of doctors of RR Hospital and prayers duas and prarthanas from people throughout India! I thank all of You Folded hands," Abhijit Mukherjee tweeted.

The former president was admitted to the hospital in Delhi Cantonment on August 10 and was operated the same day for removal of a clot in his brain. He later developed a lung infection.

President Ram Nath Kovind and prime minister Narendra Modi paid fulsome tributes to the late Mukherjee.

"His demise is the passing of an era," said Kovind. "The nation mourns one of its worthiest sons."

Modi said he was blessed to have the guidance of president Mukherjee when he became prime minister. "He left an indelible mark on India's development trajectory; a scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, admired by all," Modi said.

"Mukherjee made Rashtrapati Bhavan more accessible to citizens; made it a centre of learning, innovation, culture, science and literature," the PM added.

Pranab Mukherjee became the 13th president of India (2012-2017) after a stellar career in the upper echelons of multiple governments. Universally acknowledged as Prime Minister material, although he went close to several times spread our three decades.

Although he was a trusted troubleshooter for three Congress prime ministers, Pranab Mukherjee's climb up the political ladder stopped just short of 7 Race Course Road, instead sending him to the Rashtrapati Bhavan as the country's first citizen.

A people's person till the end, 'Citizen Mukherjee' used Twitter to communicate to the world that he had tested positive for COVID-19 on August 10. It was his last post, and his last words to the public.

Demonstrating his ability to quickly adapt to situations as they arose, Mukherjee was at ease with the new mode of communication. Twitter was a platform he used often, to express his condolences on the death of leaders and friends, greet people on festivals or wish them on their birthdays.

Some politicians don't fade into the background. And so it was with the scholarly Mukherjee too. He remained a presence to contend with even after he demitted the office of president, often making headlines as he attended book launches and delivered lectures.

It was a life of many firsts and accomplishments for the man famed for his encyclopaedic memory, razor-sharp intellect and deep insight into issues.

In 1982, he became India's youngest finance minister when he was just 47. In the years that followed, he served as India's minister for external affairs, defence, finance and commerce and was the first Indian president to have done so.

Mukherjee managed the rare distinction of serving three prime ministers as minister -- Indira Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh.

Mukherjee was also India's only non-prime minister who was leader of the Lok Sabha for eight years. He was also leader of the Rajya Sabha from 1980-85.

There were other landmarks in a remarkable political career, which started in 1969 as a Rajya Sabha member for the Bangla Congress which subsequently merged with the Congress.

When he became president in 2012, Mukherjee was heading 24 of the 39 GOMs (groups of ministers). Between 2004-2012, he chaired 95 GOMs.

Mukherjee was famous in political circles as a consensus builder. He inspired trust among leaders across the political spectrum, an asset that proved handy at the time of his election as president.

It was a many splendoured political career, which ended at the presidential palace. But the prime minister's post eluded him, even though it was a position he openly aspired for.

In his book 'The Coalition Years', Mukherjee acknowledged that he had hoped to get the post in May 2004 after then Congress president Sonia Gandhi herself declined the position.

"Finally she named Dr Manmohan Singh as her choice and he accepted. The prevalent expectation was that I would be the next choice for prime minister after Sonia Gandhi declined," Mukherjee wrote, admitting that he had initially refused to join the cabinet of Manmohan Singh who had been his junior in the past but agreed when Sonia Gandhi insisted.

Mukherjee remained the UPA's chief crisis manager through its tumultuous years, starting 2004 until he became president on July 25, 2012.

Born on December 11, 1935 in the small village of Mirati in West Bengal's Birbhum district, Mukherjee received early lessons in life from his freedom fighter parents. His father, a Congress leader, endured great financial hardship and was sent to jail several times for his role in the freedom struggle.

The roots were strong and never forgotten, taking him back often from the corridors of power to his village during Durga Puja, even when he became president. Photographs of Mukherjee, performing prayers in a traditional dhoti, made it to the public domain through his years as minister and president.

In 2015, he lost his wife Suvra Mukherjee. He is survived by his two sons Indrajit and Abhijit, and daughter Sharmistha, who was by his side during important events of his president years.

Mukherjee, who served in the Rajya Sabha for five terms and in the Lok Sabha twice and was one of India's longest serving parliamentarians, became a member of the Congress Parliamentary Party when the Bangla Congress merged with the Congress in 1971.

Though he occupied various positions in the government, Mukherjee was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time only in 2004 when he won from West Bengal's Jangipur constituency. He had lost the previous two Lok Sabha contests -- from Malda in 1977 and Bolpur in 1980.

With his vast knowledge of post independence political history and governance, Mukherjee remained a key figure and active participant in shaping the course of India's development.

From 2004-2012, Mukherjee played a key role in critical decisions of the Manmohan Singh-led government on issues such as Right to Information, food security as well as the setting up of the UIDAI and the Metro Rail project.

He was also known as one of the chief architects of the post-Congress era of Indian politics, playing an active role in galvanising the outside support which the Congress offered to the United Front governments led by then prime minister H D Deve Gowda and later I K Gujral.

Most of his political life spent as a committed Congress member -- except for a brief spell between 1987 and 1988 when he was out of the party -- was fairly non-controversial.

But in June 2018, a year after he demitted office, Mukherjee triggered huge controversy by visiting the RSS headquarters in Nagpur and delivering a valedictory address there.

In 2019, he was conferred India's highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna by the BJP government, a development that became a subject of intense political debate.

Ending his political career as president of India, he left his mark on the highest office of the land too.

He will be remembered for the steps he took to make the Rashtrapati Bhavan closer to the people. He opened it up for the public and made it a museum.

The Durbar Hall was refurbished with Mukherjee ensuring during his presidency that events were held under its lofty dome. The library was renovated as well with researchers getting access to its extensive catalogue of books.

Besides, he opened the gates of the presidential palace for writers, artists, innovators, scientists and students through an in-residency programme

The keen intellectual with an avid interest in history, international relations and parliamentary processes has gone. And with him, one more witness to India's growth story and evolution through the decades.
By Jian Seo and David Tizzard





Society is composed of a variety of collectively gathered interest groups: Religious groups, politicians, journalists, educators, businessmen and so on. While they all are essential in creating the fabric of our society, their respective characteristics differ greatly.



What unites these different interest groups is a common goal. Currently, one particular goal should be taking preference over many others: the health of the nation.



Thus, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, artists have held shows and exhibitions on YouTube rather than stages; some restaurant owners have voluntarily closed their businesses; bus drivers, academy owners, delivery drivers, cleaners, electricians, medical workers, and a whole host of others have demonstrated their necessity to a society that had previously largely disregarded them.



These people took on burdens and discomfort in order that the common goal might be achieved. But these benevolent acts and sacrifices should not be taken for granted.



South Korea had been widely praised by the international community for its response in tackling this unforeseen and unprecedented health disaster. Even when the church-like cult of Shincheonji caused a great spike in numbers in the Daegu area, the country was able to recover and reduce the speed of virus diffusion through a collective effort from the citizens. Much of this included a public compliance with social distancing measures as well as shop owners abiding by quarantine rules.



This is what we Koreans proudly call "collective intelligence" (jip-dan ji-sung). Global media outlets from Belgium to Bono applauded our efforts and recovery and brought a great sense of achievement to the country.



But then something happened. Our once proud reputation was shattered. The previously record high numbers produced by the Shincheonji cult have been eclipsed by a new series of outbreaks  once more centered on places of religious gatherings and worship.



Despite being asked to self-isolate along with the 4,000 members of his church so as to undergo COVID-19 tests and take necessary precautions, Reverend Jun Kwang-hoon of the Sarang Jeil Church organized an anti-government protest in the country's capital. Jun, his wife, and nearly 1,000 members have since all tested positive for Covid-19.



These are worrying numbers for a country that was used to seeing only single-figure increases. But the real problem was that, by design or not, members of this church have then spread the virus in drastic numbers. And now the daily lives of citizens are being directly affected by a religious group that many in the past simply ignored.



Jun Gwang-hoon has previously courted great controversy by alleging President Moon to be "worse than Hitler" and "doing the devil's work". These are bold words from someone known by his critics as the "Panty Pastor" for having apparently suggested that female members of his congregation would "become children of God if they take off their underwear for him."



Jun even suggested that the virus now afflicting him and his church was not his responsibility but instead, in something reminiscent of a Cold War spy tale, was planted by North Korean agents intent on bringing around the downfall of the South Korean nation-state through communization. The communion wine must be good over there.



On Aug. 15, Korean National Liberation Day, despite the government's request for social distancing and care to be taken, we saw protesters sharing meals, singing hymns, and praying without the face masks that are now legally enforced. Many of those gathered publicly proclaimed that they would not follow the government's social distancing guidelines, refused to get tested, and would not cooperate with authorities.



Three major Korean media platforms (Chosun Ilbo, Joongang Ilbo, and Donga Ilbo) ran paid advertisements for the rally in Gwanghwamun. Through other paid advertisements, they also publicized Jun's opinions, including the aforementioned "North Korean spy hypothesis" as well as criticism of the government's attitude towards religious groups.



These media outlets have come in for criticism amid demand for journalistic and professional standards. Advertising and news should not be so easily confused, particularly when these advertisements can bring about danger to the nation's health and present information that contradicts the scientific consensus on how to best cope with the pandemic.



These paid announcements in conservative media outlets, with Jun Kwang-hoon crying conspiracy regarding the testing and confirmed cases to anyone who will listen, cause a great strain on the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are working hard to persuade people to remain vigilant in personal hygiene and to come forward should they show any symptoms, yet their trust as an institution is being undermined by the actions of this individual and his cohorts.



Late last week, lawyers of Jun's church then had the temerity to file complaints against Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, acting Seoul Mayor Seo Jeong-hyup, Health Minister Park Neung-hoo and Jang Ha-yeun, chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. They have argued that a ban on in-person worship is an "abuse of power", "violation of religious freedom," that their offices were "illegally raided," and Jun's mobile phone obtained without notifying his attorney.



President Moon has responded in no uncertain terms saying, "Prayer or services can bring peace of mind, but they cannot defend against the virus. All religions should accept that quarantine is not the domain of God, but the domain of science and medicine." Strong words from South Korea's second sitting Catholic president.



The situation the country is experiencing, the discomfort placed upon the shoulders of all those that acted responsibility, and the heightened restrictions on our daily behavior, could have all been prevented. Following the government's order that churches cease communal eating and gatherings beyond the scope of regular worship, many churches flagrantly disregarded these and acted in clear defiance of health and safety warnings.



Last week, the Busan Metropolitan Government issued an administrative order that prohibited face-to-face worship as social distancing restrictions increased. And yet, despite this, 279 of the 1,765 churches in the area completely ignored the order and went ahead with their worship anyway. It is likely they will face punitive action.



Looking at those numbers it would be wrong to tar all churches with the same brush of dangerous and paranoid behavior. Many have followed the government's orders and placed their worship online. Some have even come out and apologized for the behavior of others and asked for the public's understanding.



And to provide a sense of perspective why it would be incorrect to perceive all Korean churches or Christians as cut from the same cloth, consider that there are apparently more distinct Protestant organizations in South Korea than there are chain convenience stores. According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, there are 55,104 Protestant organizations and only 38,855 convenience stores. Believe it or not, it is easier to get blessed by Jesus than it is to buy a cup ramyen and a triangle kimbap.



Christianity has deep and powerful roots here. Pyongyang used to be the home of Korean Christianity before the peninsula was divided and the Kim family began a seven-decade long reign over the citizens there that brought an end to the "Jerusalem of the East". Many early Protestant missionaries to Korea, such as Horace Allen and Horace Underwood in 1884 and 1885 respectively, also played important roles in establishing the institutions required for democracy: schools, newspapers, and hospitals. In the 1919 Declaration of Independence, 16 of the 33 Korean signatories were Protestant.



Until its defeat in World War II at the hands of the allies in 1945, Japanese Imperialism and the presence of Shintoism meant that only 3 percent of the Korean population was Protestant. The subsequent revival of Christianity in Korea then went very much hand-in-hand with its economic fortunes as the "prosperity gospel" and mammonism found fertile ground here. Western money flooding into the country during the 1960s and 1970s created the impression that if you were a Christian nation like the United States, you would be rich. Conversely, communism and North Korea were associated with the devil.



By 2000, 31 percent of the Korean population was Christian, and by 2006 it was exporting more missionaries than any other country except the United States. Three years ago, in 2017, it sent 27,000 missionaries overseas to spread the gospel. While more than half of the South Korean population now profess to not being religious, more than half of those that do are evangelical Protestants.



A generation gap has appeared, however. South Korea has the world's third-largest age gap vis-a-vis affiliation to a religion: less than 40 percent of those under 40 are religious while 63 percent of those over 40 are. Combine this with a continued failure of church leadership as certain pastors become embroiled in a whole host of rather shocking controversies as well as conflicting attitudes towards modern issues such as abortion and homosexuality and it would seem the once prosperous revival is coming to an end.



And so is Korea's once positive response to the pandemic. It remains to be seen how many people have become infected as a result of Gwanghwamun protests and surrounding issues, but the numbers are not good and the public and businesses are suffering as a result. But what of the courts' responsibility?



On Aug. 20, a petition demanding the dismissal of a judge who allowed rallies in Gwanghwamun to take place on Liberation Day was uploaded to the Blue House's website, gaining nearly a quarter of a million signatures in less than three days. The petition charges the judiciary with having failed to protect people's health and putting citizens' lives at risk.



While seven out of the 10 applications to hold rallies on Liberation Day were rejected and one was outright dismissed by the Seoul Administrative Court, the Hankyoreh reports that Judge Park Hyung-soon permitted two rallies to take place. One was to protest against perceived fraud in the recent national election; the other was held by the group "Ilpa Manpa". These largely Protestant groups congregate in the capital and believe they are saving the nation from the devil (President Moon and North Korea) and also take credit for orchestrating the dismissal of former Justice Minister Cho Kuk.



Judge Park suggested that if these rallies were to only take place for 4-5 hours, have no more than 100 people, and maintain constant temperature checks and social distancing, the rallies could take place. With permission to enter Gwanghwamun having been granted, and contrary to the court's initial judgment, the number of participants is said to have reached somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000; a flagrant disregard of the rules while hiding behind a shield of religious freedom.



Courts in Korea have been perceived to have bowed down to many of the churches here during the pandemic, often withdrawing rules or restrictions as a result of pressure being applied by religious groups and the cries of discrimination. The relationships between power, politics, and religion remain deeply entrenched.



Ex-President Lee Myoung-bak, imprisoned on charges of bribery, embezzlement, and tax evasion, professed he would dedicate the city of Seoul to God and under his administration (2008-13) extended space for Gangnam's Church of Love was controversially secured  land to which the Seoul Supreme Court has said the church is not entitled.



Churches are also sometimes aligned with political parties and thus carry a great deal of political and economic clout. Jun Gwang-hoon even tried teaming up with other like-minded people to create his own party to run in the 2012 parliamentary elections. The Christian Liberal Democratic Party was short-lived, however, as most decried the direct relationship between the church and the state. Jun's policy to improve the nation's birth rate, to imprison anyone with fewer than five children, was also understandably not that popular. And you thought his previous comments were outlandish



Just like anywhere else, churches in South Korea provide comfort and companionship to people. Yet here they are often run as a state within themselves  a landlocked fully autonomous government. The leader takes on huge responsibility for his flock, finding marriage partners, jobs, political opportunities, and more. Allegiance is often paid to this leader rather than the government or ruling party and church cohesion among the congregation becomes incredibly high as a result. These idiosyncratic features could explain why some worshippers ignored quarantine rules: they were simply doing what their "Lord" told them. But what about when that affects us, too?



The crisis is a reality and hospitals strain under the number of infections and people's livelihoods are hampered by the inability to go to work or open their restaurants, cafes, and clubs. We are as strong as our weakest link and our collective intelligence is needed once more. If the country is to eventually overcome this, it will require the efforts of everyone, including those of the churches that have thus far not adhered to the social contract.



Before we wish for whatever salvation or future might be written in any of our individual hearts, together let's at least first dream of a world free from masks. And for those crying about their own religious freedoms, while you are certainly entitled to them, do be careful and tread softly. We are poor and have only our dreams  dreams on which you are treading.





Jian Seo (jiannieforever@gmail.com) studies International studies and Clothing & Textiles at Hanyang University. She is a society section editor at The Hanyang Journal, a member of Hanyang University Major Manager, and a former member of the Hanyang Debate Society.



David Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) is an assistant professor at Seoul Women's University where he teaches Korean Studies. He discusses the week's hottest issues on TBS eFM (101.3FM) on "Life Abroad" live every Thursday from 9:35 a.m. to 10 a.m.


UAE intelligence agents training YPG militants in northern, eastern Syria: Report

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 30 August 2020 1:35 PM

The United Arab Emirates (UAE)'s spy agency has reportedly been training Kurdish militants affiliated with the anti-Damascus People's Protection Units (YPG) in areas under their occupation in northern and eastern Syria over the past few years.

Turkey's official Anadolu news agency, citing multiple sources, reported on Sunday that Signals Intelligence Agency (SIA) officers held secret talks with the Kurdish militants back in 2017, and were dispatched to YPG-held areas in Syria the following year.

The report added that SIA agents purportedly train YPG militants to carry out espionage and counter-espionage operations, acts of sabotage as well as assassinations. The Kurdish militants are also being taught how to conduct signal intelligence, information security and cryptography on communication networks.

Such training missions are said to be underway in the Kurdish-populated northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli as well as major cities of Hasakah and Dayr al-Zawr.

Anadolu further noted that Emirati intelligence officers have even established a secret direct hotline with YPG militants.

The UAE has long been accused of sponsoring the militant groups, which have been operating across Syria since early 2011 to topple the Damascus government.

The YPG  the backbone of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)  has America's support in its anti-Damascus push. The Kurdish militants seized swathes of land in the northern and eastern parts of Syria from the Takfiri Daesh terror group in 2017, and are now refusing to hand their control back to the central government.

Turkey views the YPG as a terrorist organization tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey since 1984.

On October 9, 2019, Turkish forces and Ankara-backed militants launched a cross-border invasion of northeastern Syria in an attempt to push YPG militants away from border areas.

Two weeks after the invasion began, Turkey and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding that asserted YPG militants had to withdraw from the Turkish-controlled "safe zone" in northeastern Syria, after which Ankara and Moscow would run joint patrols around the area.

Back on June 14, an unnamed security source at the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) told the London-based al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper that the UAE had allegedly provided financial aid to PKK militants in Iraq's northern semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

The source said KRG authorities had imposed limitations on money transfers coming from the Persian Gulf state, and that the measure applied to all exchanges in Erbil, Duhok and Sulaymaniyah.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 22:08:21|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) on Monday launched a 60 million U.S. euros anti-COVID-19 assistance program for Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) member states.

Speaking at the 60 million euros anti-COVID-19 assistance launching program in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Johan Borgstam, Head of the EU delegation to Ethiopia, said the program intends to help IGAD member states tackle the health and socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region.

"Through this project we will procure 3.5 million surgical masks and gloves, 70,000 test kits (including 105,000 swabs), eight mobile labs and 24 ambulances," said Borgstam.

IGAD, founded in 1986, is an east African trading and security bloc that includes Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda.

Borgstam emphasized the COVID-19 pandemic is a global health threat that knows no border and as such can only be dealt through international partnership.

"We're a time when the spread of the pandemic is accelerating, affecting the most vulnerable communities including migrants, refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)," said Borgstam.

"Specifically, for Ethiopia, the EU has mobilized and disbursed 10 million Euros in April 2020 as part of its ongoing Health Sector Budget Support to respond to COVID-19 crisis in Ethiopia while about 50 million euros is being mobilized for the economic response," he said.

Workneh Gebeyehu, Executive Secretary of IGAD, while appreciating the 60 million Euros anti-COVID-19 assistance program, emphasized there is much that needs to be done to beat the pandemic in the east African region. Enditem
A 57-year-old American martial artist is discharged from the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases after recovering from Covid-19, August 31, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Anh Thu.

Five Covid-19 patients in HCMC, including an American man and his wife, were discharged Monday, along with 12 others in Hanoi and Da Nang.

"Vietnam vo dich! (Vietnam's the champ!)" the 57-year-old American exclaimed as he walked out of the hospitals quarantine zone with his wife, supporting himself with a stick.

He and his 46-year-old Vietnamese wife were the city's first locally transmitted novel coronavirus infections in Vietnam's second Covid-19 wave that started late July. Their diagnosis was confirmed on July 29.

Nguyen Thanh Phong, head of the Infection D Department at the hospital, said the American martial artist was the most seriously ill Covid-19 patient the hospital had received in the second wave. He had earlier been to several other medical facilities in the central city of Da Nang, the epicenter of the second wave, and HCMC.

"During his first day at the hospital, his condition was severe. He had pneumonia and pneumothorax, requiring constant oxygenation and intensive care for nearly two weeks," Phong said.

At the point of his discharge, his underlying conditions, including diabetes, hypertension and arthritis, had been stabilized. But he still needs a stick to support himself when walking due to joint pain.

Five Covid-19 patients, including the American man and his wife (L), are discharged from the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases, August 31, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Anh Thu.

His wife said the couple have lived and worked in Da Nang for several years. When they traveled to HCMC for treatment on July 20, they were not prepared for the Covid-19 diagnosis as Da Nang at that time had not recorded any new cases in months.

"We were really shocked when test results returned positive for the coronavirus. I'm healthy so that's fine, but my husband's already old and has several underlying conditions," she said.

They were also worried that theyd affected the community as they had been in contact with several medical workers, friends and family members before they were confirmed infected, the wife said. When the husband was hospitalized, she encouraged him to do light exercises and read positive news so he could relax and recover quickly.

The martial artist thanked the numerous medical workers who tended to him. He said Vietnam's Covid-19 prevention and treatment protocols were top-notch.

The three other Covid-19 patients released Monday afternoon were all women, between 26 and 61 years old. The HCMC Hospital for Tropical Disease now has no Covid-19 patients left.

Also Monday, Hanoi announced seven new Covid-19 recoveries, aged 7 to 54, after the patients tested negative for the virus at least four times.

In Da Nang, five Covid-19 patients at the Da Nang Hospital for Lung Diseases, aged 30-47, were announced recovering Monday after testing negative for the virus at least three times.

Vietnam has recorded 1,040 Covid-19 cases to date, with 297 active cases and 33 deaths.
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Linkedin Alexandria Sage (Agence France-Presse) Rome, Italy  Mon, August 31, 2020 14:03 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41a2da4 2 Entertainment Venice,Venice-Film-Festival,film-festival,Italy,film,coronavirus Free

What if you threw a film festival and nobody came?

That, in essence, is the challenge facing organizers of this year's Venice Film Festival, the glamorous annual competition where stars, critics, photographers and industry executives mingle on the bustling Lido, overlooking sandy beaches and the blue Adriatic.

Provided, of course, it's a normal year.

But in 2020, the world's oldest film festival is forced to walk a tightrope between preserving its luster as the premier launch pad for Academy Award-winning films, while safely navigating the coronavirus crisis and averting the controversy over gender inequality that has dogged it in the past.

Opening Wednesday and continuing until September 12, the prestigious event now in its 77th year will be the first international film festival since the pandemic shuttered competitions around the world.

It has put in place a host of safety measures -- from limited seating to thermal scanners, to a fan-free red carpet -- to protect attendees as COVID-19 cases continue to climb in Italy and around the world.

In July, festival director Alberto Barbera declared the event "saved" as he announced the 18 films among the approximately 60 presented that would vie for the top award, the Golden Lion.

He promised that the festival would preserve the "liveliness of contemporary cinema".

Despite its scaled-down size with theater capacity reduced by about half, La Biennale di Venezia takes on greater importance this year due to the cancellation of rival film festivals across the globe, among them the glitzy Cannes Film Festival on the Cote d'Azur in France.

Read also: Masks, gel and empty seats for Venice Film Festival

Unprecedented territory

But just days ahead of the opening, organizers are scrambling to navigate unprecedented territory amid uncertain attendance and last-minute cancellations.

Whereas Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep and Scarlett Johansson provided the star firepower at last year's festival, ongoing travel restrictions -- especially a travel ban from the United States into Europe -- mean that most Hollywood elites will be no-shows, along with actors and directors from China, India and South America.

Those arriving from outside Europe's Schengen zone will have to submit results of a COVID-19 test just before their departure, with a second test carried out in Venice, meaning that some attendees may have to cancel.

Earlier this week, the festival announced that American actor Matt Dillon would be a last-minute substitute on the jury for Romanian director Crisit Puiu.

No reason was given for Puiu's absence, but industry trade magazines noted he had given a speech earlier this month in which he said it was "inhumane" to watch movies with a mask on.

Those confirmed as attending include, among others, British actress Tilda Swinton, Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, US director Oliver Stone and Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen.

Read also: Venice Film Festival 'saved' with focus on Italian fare

More women directors

The uncertain lineup of stars and dearth of top names leaves Australian actress Cate Blanchett, president of the jury, to take up the mantle of celebrity -- and social activism -- at Venice.

Blanchett was the leader of the #MeToo women's march up the red carpet steps at Cannes two years ago that sought to bring attention to the lack of parity and diversity in cinema.

The presence of Blanchett helps raise such awareness while the festival seeks to stanch criticism leveled in recent years over the glaring lack of women directors in festivals' top lineups.

The Oscar-winning headliner told Variety magazine on Thursday that this year's eight women directors in the main competition lineup of Venice is "a direct response to the positive advances that have been made this year".

Others say it is too early to tell whether a page has turned.

"It's all about being consistent and diligent and believing that women make movies as well as men, and using that in the way you program," said Melissa Silverstein, founder and publisher of Women and Hollywood, which advocates for gender diversity and inclusion in film.

Last year's festival opened under controversy after the inclusion in the lineup of French-Polish director Roman Polanski, who fled the United States after his 1977 conviction of rape of a 13-year-old girl.

There were also only two female directors in the selection. In both 2018 and 2017, only one female director was represented.

Blanchett said more was riding on the jury's decisions this year, given the limited opportunities for filmmakers to show their work publicly, due to the coronavirus closures.

"So, whatever the deliberations the jury will make will be more impactful. I don't take that responsibility or privilege lightly."
(Natural News) One of my favorite Twitter accounts is that of Katherine Birbalsingh (@Miss_Snuffy), the Headteacher of an experimental school in a deprived part of London, Michaela Community School. The experiment involves conveying knowledge to the children in an environment in which teachers and pupils do not live in constant fear of being assaulted. Naturally, this is an almost unique experiment, and she is constantly attacked by the progressive teaching establishment. There are precedents for her approach, however, and she expressed her dismay when one of these, the American Charter School chain KIPP, explained that in light of the Black Lives Matter movement that it had decided to change its motto and discipline policy. It explained:

(Article republished from LifeSiteNews.com)

We are retiring Work hard. Be nice. as KIPPs national slogan; it ignores the significant effort required to dismantle systemic racism, places value on being compliant and submissive, supports the illusion of meritocracy, and does not align with our vision of students being free to create the future they want.

The obvious response to this statement is that if children cling to an attitude of angry non-cooperation toward their teachers, they are not going to learn anything or do well in any exams, and if they start off in deprivation, then they will stay there. KIPP, like Miss Birbalsinghs school, has as its mission lifting children out of poverty and desperation, and if the school is giving up on that, this is a tragedy.

Sometimes a bit of angry non-cooperation may be appropriate. St. Clement Hofbauer denounced the heresy he was being taught in Vienna from the lecture room benches. But his experience wasnt entirely an exception to the general principle: he lost his chance of getting ordained in Austria, although he was able to join the Redemptorists in Italy.

The more fundamental contrast is this. St. Clement was, like many orthodox seminarians since his time, protesting against the misrepresentation of the teaching of the Church, a misrepresentation being pushed by an anti-clerical cultural and political establishment: the version of this in his day was Josephism. The suggestion, being made in all seriousness by KIPP, and many educationalists responding to Miss Birbalsingh on Twitter, is that self-discipline, classical culture, and even correct English usage is bad, and so children, who may well have lots of things to be angry about, should be told by the cultural and political establishment to be angry about being taught those things.

I dont think this is a conscious attempt by the elite to keep the underclass in its place, but if it were, it would be pretty effective.

Is old-fashioned school discipline a training in deference to the existing order? History does not suggest this. Great revolutionaries, both intellectual and political, usually had good, classical educations  in many cases, in fact, at the hands of Catholic teachers. This education gave them a grasp of how the establishment works and made them articulate and effective rebels against it  sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad. The French and Russian revolutionaries, for example, were people who could write convincingly and do sums.

The example of St. Clement Hofbauer should remind us of something else as well: that even a successful formation in Christian humility shouldnt turn people into doormats. Reading the Life of St Bernard of Clairvaux in Butlers Lives of the Saints, I was struck by this statement:

True humility removes a soul as far from pusillanimity and abjection as from pride and presumption; for it teaches a man to place his whole strength in God alone. Hence sprang that greatness of soul and undaunted courage 

St. Bernard was no shrinking violet. Similarly, Moses, the meekest of all men (Num. 12.3), and Jesus Christ, who tells us to learn of him to be meek and humble of heart (Mt. 11.39), were capable of anger and even violence.

At this point, we may have to modify our conception of what meekness and humility really mean. They mean not asserting ourselves or seeking our own good at the expense of others. The meek and humble man should be filled with zeal for Gods honor (John 2:17) and anger against injustice toward human beings (Mark 3:5). The proud man cares more for his own reputation and comfort and takes up good causes only as a cover for advancing his own interests. The soldiers first lesson is not to place excessive importance in his own safety, and this makes him a model for the Christian.

Classical education doesnt turn people into robots all running the same program. Cooperation with it, inasmuch as it is still being offered in schools, is not a matter of conceding to structures of injustice, but of encountering cultural artifacts that, while always imperfect, are good in themselves, and gaining the tools necessary to do anything useful in life, including dismantling structures of injustice. In the words of Katherine Birbalsingh, I will die on this hill!

Read more at: LifeSiteNews.com
The statue of Sir John A. Macdonald lies on the ground, with its head a few metres away, at Place du Canada in Montreal after it was torn down by activists on Aug. 29, 2020. (Eric Thomas/AFP via Getty Images)

Tearing-Down of John A. Macdonald Statue Condemned by Politicians

A number of municipal, provincial, and federal politicians have spoken out against the toppling of Sir John A. Macdonalds statue by activists in Montreal this past weekend.

Whatever one might think of John A. Macdonald, destroying a monument in this way is unacceptable, Quebec Premier Francois Legault said on Twitter. We must fight racism, but destroying parts of our history is not the solution.

Vandalism has no place in our democracy and the statue must be restored, Legault added.

Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante also spoke out against the vandalism of the statue of Canadas first prime minister, perpetrated by group of activists in the aftermath of a march through downtown on Aug. 29 calling for the police to be defunded.

I strongly condemn the acts of vandalism that took place this afternoon in downtown Montreal, which led to the John A. Macdonald statue being torn down. Such gestures cannot be accepted nor tolerated, Plante said in a tweet.

Conservative Party Leader Erin OToole called on politicians not to sit by while attempts are made to deface Canadas history.

Canada wouldnt exist without Sir John A. Macdonald, OToole tweeted. We will not build a better future by defacing our past. Its time politicians grow a backbone and stand up for our country.

The statue of Sir John A. MacDonald is shown torn down and sprayed with graffiti following a protest in Montreal on Aug. 29, 2020. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

A video posted on social media captured the act of tearing down the statue; the crowd can be heard cheering as the statue fell.

The Montreal protest was part of a nationwide series of rallies organized by the Coalition for BIPOC Liberation. BIPOC stands for black, indigenous, and people of colour.

The coalition wants police budgets decreased by 50 percent and the funds invested in mental health treatment, civilian conflict resolution services, and trauma-based emergency services.

It also calls for the removal of all statues, plaques, and emblems on both public and private property of any person, act, symbol, or movement that promotes or has promoted slavery, anti-Black racism, or anti-Indigenous racism.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney also lashed out on Twitter over the vandalism.

Many of those on the extreme left responsible for this kind of violence claim that Canada is an illegitimate state, all the while enjoying Canadas rights, freedoms, privileges & prosperity. None of those things were created by accident, he wrote.

Kenney noted that Macdonald was an immigrant who suffered unimaginable personal trauma throughout his life, which he overcame to forge an enormous country out of divided factions.

Its right to debate his legacy and life. But it is wrong to allow roving bands of thugs to vandalize our history with impunity, he wrote.

Kenney added that if the City of Montreal decides not to restore the statue to where it has stood for 125 years, we would be happy to receive it for installation on the grounds of Albertas Legislature.

The head of the Sir John A. MacDonald statue in Place du Canada in Montreal lies on the ground after the statue was torn down following a protest on Aug. 29, 2020. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

Alberta MLA Kaycee Madu, the first black justice minister in Canada, also condemned the act of vandalism in a tweet.

This madness needs to stop. Governments across our country must take steps to rein in these violent activists. They serve no identifiable good to the cause of justice or equality, Madu wrote.

We must strengthen our law enforcement and make reforms where needednot defund the police or defame those who bear enormous risks to keep our people and communities safe.

On Aug. 31, two days after the statue was torn off its pedestal, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was deeply disappointed by the incident.

I understand the impatience, the frustration, of Canadians who faced systemic discrimination and racism throughout their lives and their concern that we act quickly on that, Trudeau told reporters in Montreal.

But we are a country of laws, and were a country that needs to respect those laws, even as we seek to improve and change them. And those kinds of acts of vandalism are not advancing the path toward greater justice and equality in this country.

With files from The Canadian Press
Education unions are calling for a temporary ban on school absence fines as thousands of pupils return to classrooms in England and Wales.

Approximately 40% of schools are expected to welcome back students for the start of the autumn term today, despite concerns being raised about their ability to reopen safely.

It will be the first time many pupils in England have stepped into a classroom since March, when schools were closed except to look after vulnerable children and those of keyworkers.

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said the Government should temporarily scrap fines for parents who do not send their children back to class due to fears around coronavirus.

NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said: If you are a parent and you are worried about safety, a fine is unlikely to make you feel any safer.

The Government understands this, but the threat of fines still remains, so were urging the Government to take the threat of fines off the table for the coming term.

This would send a powerful signal to parents and families and could well mean that more of them are willing to bring their children back to school, which is what we all want to see.

Schools have been been required to introduce new measures ahead of the autumn term (Danny Lawson/PA)

The school leaders union said while it hoped attendance would be as close to 100% as possible, it understood there will be some families who do not yet feel ready to return.

Its recent survey of more than 4,000 school leaders in England and Wales found that 97% plan to reopen their schools to all pupils at the start of the autumn term, with the date varying across the country.

The remaining 3%, which were not immediately reopening, were planning transition periods for new pupils or phasing entry to alleviate students anxieties, according to the survey.

Meanwhile, more than a quarter (26%) of parents said they were not planning to send their child back to school at the start of term, while a further 20% remained undecided, according to a poll by the charity Parentkind.

Story continues

Its survey of 3,400 parents also found that 78% opposed fines for school absences during the autumn term.

New coronavirus safety measures have been introduced by schools (Andrew Matthews/PA)

The Department for Education (DfE) said fines for parents who refuse to send their children to Englands schools will only be used as a last resort when classes resume.

Local authorities can fine parents 120  cut to 60 if paid within 21 days  over a childs absence from school, with the threat of prosecution if they fail to pay.

Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU) said fining families for school absences will not resolve the fears or anxieties felt by many.

She said the Government also needed to improve facilities for remote learning and IT access for children to ensure their education continues with as little interruption as possible in the event of a future lockdown.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called on Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to face parliament to explain how he will protect childrens futures.

He said: He needs to explain how he will make up for the damage already done, bring pupils up to speed and mitigate against the ongoing risk from the pandemic.

Secretary of State for Education Gavin Williamson (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Mr Williamson said in a statement: I do not underestimate how challenging the last few months have been, but I do know how important it is for children to be back in school, not only for their education but for their development and wellbeing too.

The teachers union NASUWT said there was still considerable work to be done around how the Government intended to ensure schools followed its own safety guidance.

NASUWT general secretary Patrick Roach added: The government has also failed to provide any guidance on schools on steps which should be taken to minimise any discriminatory impacts of coronavirus, despite the wealth of data showing that those from BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) backgrounds have a disproportionately higher risk of death or hospitalisation from Covid-19.

He said the unions latest research found that three in 10 teachers believed budgetary constraints will affect their schools ability to reopen safely.

It comes as a poll by Tes found that 86% of nearly 6,000 school staff in England said minimising contact between pupils would not be possible.

More than a third (35%) also felt that the Governments approach to coronavirus safety in schools would not work and left them at risk.

Schools in Scotland began to reopen on August 11, while all pupils in Northern Ireland were due to return from August 31.
The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has opposed the proposed review of the Nigerian constitution by the Senate describing it as a waste of time and resources.

The forum faulted the huge monetary allocation for the constitution review process since 1999 saying it makes little or no meaningful impact on the lives of Nigerians, Daily Trust Newspaper reports.

The forums Director of Publicity, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, made this known at a press conference in Abuja on Sunday where he urged the National Assembly to convince President Muhammadu Buhari to end the insurgency in the North-east and killings in other parts of the country rather than review the constitution.

He also advised Nigerians against supporting the proposed constitution review at this difficult time when the economy is facing unprecedented challenges.

The Senate has since commenced the constitution review process.

The 57-member ad-hoc committee on the review of the 1999 Constitution, headed by the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, has since sent out an invitation to the public to submit a memorandum to assist the further alteration of the provisions of the constitution (as amended).

About N1 billion has been allocated to the committee for this task, an aide to Mr Omo-Agege told PREMIUM TIMES.

Mr Baba-Ahmed, however, faulted the entire process describing it as a predictable waste of time, resources and energy of the country and advised the Senate to scrap the wasteful idea of giving Nigerians the impression that it is involved in a serious review of our Constitution.

Nothing fundamental or of any value has come out of these grand schemes to exploit our collective desire to address our political and economic fundamentals. This National Assembly is also following suit and it should not be encouraged on this path, he said.

Nigerias future rests largely on its willingness to address major constraints to equity and justice, a functional structure, consistent good governance, security for all citizens, a credible electoral process, growing understanding between and among all groups and an economy that grows and narrows inequalities between and classes and regions.

The legislature and executive branches of government have large quantities of reviews, recommendations and reports from past attempts at amending the constitutions. These represent enough resources for a review if the legislature is serious about this vital national priority.

Even this is not likely to produce a genuine effort to address the basic requirements of securing a stable, secure and prosperous Nigeria, because both arms of this administration are unlikely to accept to put through wide-ranging reviews of the constitution.

Other priorities

The forum further reminded legislators and other leaders from the North that security, reduction of crushing poverty and widening distrust among communities should be their priorities.

The Northern Elders Forum recommends the alternative of leaders of thought, elders, groups and professional organisations and representatives of government to freely discuss every element of our co-existence as a country under principles of voluntarism, genuine representation mutual respect and integrity of the process.

A Nigerian Peoples Conference on Review of the Constitution will benefit from past work in this direction in addition to contemporary challenges, which the country needs to address in a context that allows free and productive engagements without pre-determined ends.

The outcome of this conference should be submitted to the two arms of government, which should provide for a referendum in the constitution so that Nigerians can directly decide on how they want their nation to be structured and function.

The North, he said, is willing to discuss other options that will do justice to the current constitution and the future of Nigeria. He urged northern groups to be wary of being railroaded into making submissions which the legislature will hold up as input, further justifying waste and deceit.

No northern group should encourage further waste of public funds which should be channelled into battling killers, kidnappers, poverty and poor governance. The North wants a major review of the constitution, but it is also ready to resist attempts to create wealth for a few while it leaves parts of the country to quarrel and blame each other for the state of the nation.

Northerners are willing to discuss current challenges of the region and the state of the country with any group, anywhere, provided it sees evidence of sincerity and respect for each other, he said.

Senate reacts

In its reaction, the Senate urged the Northern Elders Forum to engage it through proper legislative channels  in a memorandum to the Constitution Review Committee.

The Senate spokesperson, Ajibola Basiru, who acknowledged the concerns raised by the forum, wondered if past lawmakers and executives have failed in this regard, then it can never be achieved?

Their statement even implied an agreement by them that there is need for fundamental restructuring exercise which is the purpose of the present endeavour of the 9th National Assembly. Their views can be encapsulated in a memorandum to the Constitution Review Committee.

Having commenced the constitution review process, the committee is expected to deliberate and review all bills that seek to alter the constitution.

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The chairman of the committee has said the panels report will be ready by the first quarter of 2021.
Islamabad, Aug 31 : At least three Pakistani soldiers were killed and four others injured after terrorists attacked security forces in South Waziristan district, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.

According to the statement issued late Sunday night, the soldiers were killed after terrorists opened fire at security forces during a search operation, reports Xinhua news agency.

Local media quoting sources reported that Pakistan Army personnel launched the search operation after receiving a tip-off about the presence of terrorists in the area.
Vietnams trade revenue estimated to exceed 336.2 billion USD in 8 months

Hanoi  Vietnam's import-export turnover is estimated at 336.32 billion USD in the first eight months, an annual reduction of 0.3 percent, according to the General Statistics Office.

The domestic sector remained a bright spot with its export and import values reaching 60.8 billion USD and 72.05 billion USD, both recording on-year increases of 15.3 and 2.9 percent, respectively.

The eight-month export turnover was about 174.11 billion USD. There were 27 products reeling in over 1 billion USD each. They included phone and components (31.5 billion USD); electronic devices, computers and components (27.6 billion USD); and apparels (19.2 billion USD). However, most of agricultural products saw a reduction in their export revenue.

The US was the biggest importer of Vietnam, purchasing goods worth 46.7 billion USD, an annual growth of 19 percent. The market was followed by China (27 billion USD), the EU (22.9 billion USD), the Republic of Korea (RoK) (12.6 billion USD), and Japan (12.5 billion USD).

The countrys import in the period, meanwhile, was estimated at 162.21 billion USD, down 2.2 annually. Vietnam spent 151.6 billion USD and 10.55 billion USD on buying production materials and consumer goods overseas, down 1.7 percent and 9.2 percent on year, respectively.

China was the biggest exporter of Vietnam, with its turnover estimated at 49.3 billion USD, followed by the RoK (28.7 billion USD) and ASEAN member countries (19.4 billion USD).




Haiti - Diplomacy : The Core Group condemns the assassination of the President of the Bar Association





In a note, the Core Group, made up of the Ambassadors of Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the United States of America, France, the European Union, the Special Representative of the OAS and of Helen La Lime the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations "condemns in the strongest terms" the assassination on Friday August 28 of Me Monferrier Dorval, President of the Bar of Port-au-Prince https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-31661-icihaiti-pelerin-5-assassination-of-the-president-of-the-bar-of-port-au-prince.html



"Me Dorval was not only a respected jurist but also a committed man, serving the consolidation of democracy and the rule of law in Haiti. His murder is an attack on these fundamental values.



It is imperative that the circumstances surrounding his death be clarified as part of an investigation by the relevant authorities, including the Haitian National Police, and that the perpetrators of this assassination be arrested and brought to justice. The same goes for other serious crimes committed in Haiti. The Core Group encourages the Haitian authorities to increase their efforts to improve the security climate and fight impunity in strict compliance with existing laws and human rights. The members of the Group welcome the public commitment made to this end by President Jovenel. He also calls on actors in Haitian public life to unite decisively against the violence affecting Haiti so that the population can enjoy their fundamental rights.



The members of the Group extend their condolences to the relatives of the deceased, to his colleagues as well as to the Haitian people and join in their pain in these difficult times."



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31668-haiti-insecurity-rain-of-reactions-around-the-assassination-of-me-monferrier-dorval.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-31661-icihaiti-pelerin-5-assassination-of-the-president-of-the-bar-of-port-au-prince.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















The top U.S. intelligence official, National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe, told lawmakers that they would only be receiving written updates about election security to help ensure the information is not misunderstood nor politicized. (AFP)

Washington: The White House has revealed it is to end in-person briefings to congressional intelligence committees about foreign election interference, sparking accusations Saturday that it was covering up Russian help for President Donald Trump's reelection.

The move comes two months ahead of the general election, with Trump playing down the threat of foreign interference and accusing Democrats of leaking sensitive information.

"Probably Shifty Schiff, but others also, LEAK information to the Fake News," the president tweeted Saturday, referring to House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff.

He offered no evidence for the claim, which he has made several times during his presidency.

"No matter what or who it is about, including China, these deranged lowlifes like the Russia, Russia, Russia narrative. Plays better for them," he added.

Congress will still have access to classified written reports, but lawmakers will no longer be able to question officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) about what they learn.

Democrats in Congress reacted with fury, describing the move as "shameful" and accusing Trump of covering up Russian interference.

"As usual, President Trump is lying and projecting. Trump fired the last DNI for briefing Congress on Russian efforts to help his campaign," Schiff tweeted.

"Now he's ending briefings altogether. Trump doesn't want the American people to know about Russia's efforts to aid his re-election."

Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called in a separate statement for the administration and intelligence community to resume the briefings.

"If they are unwilling to, we will consider the full range of tools available to the House to compel compliance," they said.

DNI John Ratcliffe wrote to the top lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate intelligence committees explaining the change, in a letter dated August 28, which was circulated in US media Saturday.

'Unprecedented

"I believe this approach helps ensure, to the maximum extent possible, that the information ODNI provides the Congress in support of your oversight responsibilities on elections security, foreign malign influence, and election interference is not misunderstood nor politicized," he wrote.

"It will also better protect our sources and methods and most sensitive intelligence from additional unauthorized disclosures or misuse."

White House chief-of-staff Mark Meadows said during a visit with Trump to hurricane-hit Louisiana and Texas Saturday that "the last time they gave briefings, a few members went out and talked to the press, disclosed information that they shouldn't have disclosed."

But Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner called the decision to stop in-person briefings an "unprecedented attempt to politicize an issue -- protecting our democracy from foreign intervention -- that should be non-partisan."

Members of the US intelligence committee as well as former FBI chief Robert Mueller have said publicly that Moscow is reprising its 2016 campaign to help Trump win the election.

William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, warned earlier this month that China, Russia and Iran were all seeking to interfere, using online disinformation and other means.

The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee earlier in August released the most detailed report to date on Russian interference in 2016.

It accused the Trump campaign of welcoming Moscow's help, and set out new information on contacts between Russian intelligence officials and Trump's inner circle.

Trump has never criticized Russia over the issue and infamously sided with President Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence agencies at a 2018 summit in Helsinki.
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The City of Los Angeles Department of Aging and Element3 Health today jointly announced the launch of the End Loneliness Initiative, a collaboration aimed at curtailing the rise of social isolation and loneliness in older adults that is growing in the face of ongoing "shelter in place" measures. Loneliness and isolation had been a significant factor in older adults' health before COVID-19 and has been exacerbated by the ongoing crisis.

The initiative seeks to correct and prevent a rise in loneliness, particularly among older adults, who are expected to be hardest hit by continued "shelter in place" measures. As a founding partner of the End Loneliness Initiative, the City of Los Angeles Department of Aging will help provide free solutions to provide meaningful, safe social connections for the region's 1.2 million older adults.

As a leading expert in providing meaningful social connections for older adults, Element3 Health spearheaded the initiative to proactively address the loneliness epidemic. The initiative is focused on providing individuals with free access to meaningful social connections centered around activities that they enjoy. Too many other efforts are well-intended but only offer standardized formats which do not address individual interests, talents and hobbies that compel people to become and stay engaged.

"To protect themselves against the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles, older adults find themselves increasingly cut off from their friends, families and communities. This has put them at increased risk of social isolation, loneliness and depression. The End Loneliness Initiative could not have come at a better time," said Laura Trejo, general manager of the City of Los Angeles Department of Aging. "We are excited to work with the End Loneliness Initiative to provide older adults with social activities that they enjoy and can do from home."

Social isolation and loneliness carry the same health risk as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and is associated with an increased risk of premature death. Stay at home and social distancing measures created a new urgency to what had been a growing problem.

"As devastating as COVID-19 is, formidable health consequences are still looming on the horizon," said Element3 Health chairman and CEO David Norris. "Active, healthy older adults have been finding themselves socially isolated, physically inactive and alone. If we don't do something now, a 'second pandemic' of heart disease, cancer and other loneliness and isolation-related illnesses will hit us in the years to come."

The Los Angeles Department of Aging was drawn to the Initiative's commitment to address social isolation and loneliness by creating engaging connections between older adults. The 1.2 million older adults in the region includes 20,000 retirees of the City of Los Angeles, who are part of the Los Angeles City Employees Retirement System (LACERS).

"LACERS is looking forward to integrating this program into its retiree wellness program, LACERS Well, to bring more opportunities of social engagement and connectedness to its retirees," said Neil Guglielmo, LACERS General Manager.

Julianne Holt-Lunstad, professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Brigham Young University, whose research helped establish a definitive link between loneliness and declining health, said people who have strong social connections are as much as 50% less likely to die over a given period of time than those who have weaker social bonds.

"Interventions to tackle this health problem should be as paramount as smoking cessation, physical fitness and nutrition interventions," she said.

In this current climate, those interventions are few and far between, which is why the End Loneliness Initiative is focused squarely on solutions that motivate older adults to join and participate.

As part of the End Loneliness Initiative, Element3 Health is marshalling resources to provide all older adults in the nation, starting with Los Angeles, free access to virtual social and activity clubs. These virtual clubs are designed to connect older adults based on their shared passions in activity clubs that meet virtually on a safe and easy-to-use platform. Virtual chess, embroidery, dance, tai chi and other clubs are helping older adults stay healthy and socially connected, while maintaining the physical distance necessary to preserve their health and the health of their peers.

"The urgency of the moment requires immediate action," Norris said. "We couldn't wait for someone else to do this, so we and our supporters are addressing this issue today. We applaud the City of Los Angeles for taking this proactive step with us."

Other coalition members include the Global Coalition on Aging, Homethrive and Home Instead. Agencies, companies and organizations interested in helping older adults during this crisis by joining the End Loneliness Initiative can contact [email protected].

About the End Loneliness Initiative

The End Loneliness Initiative is a coalition of health industry leaders, healthy-aging experts and others who are dedicated to ending social isolation and loneliness in older adults. Launched during the height of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the initiative aims to provide older adults with safe ways to connect socially and improve the quality of life for people who are homebound, have limited mobility or are "sheltering at home." http://endlonelinessinitiative.com/

About Element3 Health

Element3 Health is a healthcare solution provider for social isolation, loneliness and inactivity. By engaging people around their passions, Element3 Health increases their physical, social and mental activity in a way that is effective and enduring. Physical, social and mental activity are the three most powerful elements of health. Combining them into one cohesive solution, Element3 Health tackles the $75 billion of unnecessary healthcare spending associated with physical, social and cognitive decline. The company's GroupWorks engagement platform supports the company's robust network of social and activity clubs across more than 100 different types of passions nationwide. https://element3health.com

SOURCE Element3 Health

Related Links

https://element3health.com


Taking inspiration from Prime Minister Narendra Modis clarion call for an Atma Nirbhar Bharat, two final year B.Tech students pursuing Civil Engineering at IIT Bombay, launched AIR Scanner, a free-of-cost document-scanning mobile application.

The AI (Artificial Intelligence) based Reading Assistant and Document Scanner app is developed by Rohit Kumar Chaudhary and Kavin Agrawal, both students of IIT Bombay.

According to a Press Information Bureau (PIB) release issued on Sunday, the app was launched on August 15, as an indigenous alternative to ban Chinese counterpart.

Initially, we had been working on developing an app to make the reading experience easy for people who find it difficult to read English. It was then that the Indian government banned many Chinese apps including mobile scanner apps, said Chaudhary, one of the developers.

He added that after the ban on the Chinese app called CamScanner, both the developers surveyed and found that people are facing issues in scanning and organising documents through their mobile phones.

It was then we decided to add scanning features too to our existing AIR App, Chaudhary added.

As per Chaudhary, what makes his app special are its exclusive safety features.

AIR Scanner app does not collect any information about the user and all the documents are stored in the phones local storage. We are not using any cloud storage to store the documents of the users. The app guarantees complete user security, he said.

According to the release, the document scanned using a mobile camera will be saved in PDF format and will be stored in the device only.

Talking about the motivation behind the innovation, Chaudhary said he wanted to help people in education.

As of now, it is available in the English language only, but we are planning to make it available in multiple languages which will make it easy for anyone to read any language.Soon we are planning to convert this project into a Start-Up, he said.

Chaudhary added that currently the app is available for Android users only but soon it will be released for iOS users too.
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Hospitals, medical research institutes, as well as governments, across the globe are hiking their healthcare IT spending to bring reforms in both, operations and outcomes. Instating databases is turning out to be more of a necessity for healthcare institutions, particularly for the field of radiology.

Criticality of data produced and used by radiologists is compelling them to utilize speedy & error-proof data transference systems. Correspondingly, the transformation of global healthcare industry through digitization trends is also necessitating the deployment of radiology information systems .

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Company Profiles

Cerner Corporation

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Epic Systems Corporation

General Electric Company

Koninklijke Philips N.V.

Siemens AG

McKesson Corporation

Merge Healthcare Incorporated

Medinformatix Inc.

Novarad Corp.

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In its latest publication, Persistence Market Research has compiled more of such factors that will keep driving the growth of global radiology information system market in the years to come.

According to this report, the global market for radiology information systems, which is presently valued at US$ 580.2 Mn, is anticipated to soar at 8.3% CAGR and reach US$ 1,179.2 Mn value by the end of 2024.

Titled as Radiology Information Systems Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016-2024, the report reveals that global demand for radiology information systems continues to grow on the account of rising incidence rate of lifestyle-related diseases.

Increasing consumer awareness to radiological procedures, and easy accessibility to these technologies are also serving as proponents for adoption of radiology information systems. Since installing radiology information systems supports a value-based healthcare model, medical practitioners are also promoting it as the immediate future of digitalized radiology.

The report reveals that in 2017 and beyond, the demand for cloud-based radiology information systems will remain considerably higher than on-premise systems.

Deployment of cloud-based radiology information systems is projected to bring more than US$ 800 Mn by the end of 2024, while revenues emanating from on-premise deployment will soar at 7.3% CAGR. During the forecast period, a little over 45% of global revenues will be accounted by sales of radiology information software.

Access Full Report @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/checkout/2816

The adoption of radiology information services is also slated to grow robustly, while radiology information hardware is likely to incur a moderate dip in revenues.

Through 2024, medical institutions adopting radiology information systems will continue to do so on integrated platforms. Similar to the current scenario, integrated radiology information systems will procure over three-fourth of global market value by the end of 2024.

Standalone radiology information systems, however, will be valued at just over US$ 280 Mn by the end of projection period. And, hospitals will undoubtedly be the largest end-users of radiology information systems.

More than US$ 600 Mn worth of global radiology information system revenues will be emanating from hospitals spanned across the globe. Adoption of such systems will also be considerably high in diagnostic labs and ambulatory surgical centers.

By the end of 2024, North America will remain as the largest market for radiology information systems in the world. In 2016, the regions radiology information systems market was valued at US$ 269 Mn.

Meanwhile, Europes advanced healthcare infrastructure will also work in the favor of radiology information system adoption. Throughout the period, Europes radiology information system revenues will soar at a health CAGR, and contribute to nearly 23% share. Although, fastest revenue growth is expected to be recorded by Latin America and the Asia-Pacific regions  revenues from which will surge at more than 8% CAGR.
Former minister John Halligan has revealed that he helped people travel to Switzerland to access assisted suicide and said he would do it again.

The former Independent Alliance TD, who retired from politics earlier this year, has called on politicians to finish the work he started on a bill that would decriminalise assisted suicide in specific cases.

It comes as Vicky Phelan, the patient advocate, said the Dail should have "the balls" to pass a law to allow people with terminal illnesses like her to legally die with dignity in Ireland.

Read More

In 2015 Mr Halligan introduced the death with dignity bill but it stalled after the government collapsed the following year.

Mr Halligan became a junior minister in 2016 and was no longer able to move his own private member's bill. Gino Kenny, the People Before Profit TD, has now introduced the same bill.

If passed, it would give people with incurable and progressive illnesses the right to a legal assisted suicide if they are likely to die within six months. At the moment, assisted suicide is a crime in Ireland which is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Mr Halligan said he had been contacted by a number of people with terminal illnesses who wanted to know how to access a legal assisted suicide in Switzerland.

"And I've told them. If someone asks me to help them, I will. I don't care," Mr Halligan said.

"If someone comes to me and asks me to tell them how to get there and how to do it, I will."

At the moment aiding, abetting or counselling the suicide of another person is illegal. The former Waterford TD said he was not afraid of being prosecuted for passing on information about assisted suicide abroad.

"You can Google it, and all the information is there," he said.

Dignitas, the Swiss non-profit group, has been guiding people through assisted suicide in Switzerland since 1998. According to its figures, as of the end of last year it had 56 Irish members.

Members can include supporters or those who are planning to access assisted suicide. Dignitas said it had helped nine Irish people access assisted suicide since 2003, most recently in 2018.

Mr Halligan, who worked with Fine Gael during the last government, said he believed "conservative elements" in that party and Fianna Fail would try to block assisted suicide.

"But if there was a free vote, a lot of individual politicians would be in favour of it," he said.

He added that the Irish Catholic Church would also staunchly oppose such a change, and that "religious" arguments would be involved.

"Would a God want to inflict unnecessary suffering on someone? I don't believe in God, but I think that if there was a God, he or she would not want that," he said.

In 2013, the Supreme Court rejected a right-to-die case from the late Marie Fleming, but the court said the Oireachtas could pass legislation on the issue.

The Green Party's policy on assisted suicide is in line with the upcoming death with dignity bill. The Irish Independent contacted Green Party TDs and asked if they would support the bill.

A spokesman for Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman said any decision on the bill would be decided by the Government as a whole.

Green TD Ossian Smyth said he was "in favour of sensible legislation to regulate assisted dying".

He said he had not read the bill, but added it would be easy to get the legislation wrong.

"A public debate on the issue would need to be had, perhaps through a Citizens' Assembly, to find a consensus," he added.

Vicky Phelan, the cancer patient who unearthed the CervicalCheck scandal, said she wanted the legal right to die with dignity in Ireland. Ms Phelan said she was against referring the issue to a Citizens' Assembly because it could take years before assisted suicide would be legalised.

"I also don't think that it is something that should be voted on by a Citizens Assembly since the courts ruled that there is nothing to stop the Oireachtas from legislating to allow for assisted dying as long as the appropriate safeguards are in place. I believe that this bill provides those safeguards," she said.

"I would like to see this Dail having the balls to deal with this bill and to vote it through to give people like me the option of dying with dignity at home here in Ireland."

Neither MS Ireland nor the Irish Cancer Society has taken a clear position for or against a change in the law on assisted suicide. It is understood that the issue is viewed as extremely sensitive by both organisations.
TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Satori , the industrys leading provider of data governance and secure data access, today announced that Anita Lynch will be joining its advisory board. Anita Lynch is an experienced leader in data architecture, analytics, data science and data governances, heading key enterprise teams for major industry players including Yahoo, Amazon and Disney. As an expert in tech, data and strategy, Lynch has led and advised organizations to successfully achieve competitive advantage through data and effectively scaled data platforms in businesses ranging from startups to global enterprises.



Cybersecurity Excellence award winner Satori has built a new data access architecture allowing companies to accelerate data-driven innovation by making responsible, compliant and secure usage of data the path of least resistance. Data teams using Satoris Secure Data Access Cloud can move away from ad-hoc and time-consuming data governance projects to gain complete visibility across their data stores and implement security and privacy by design.

Satoris platform solves one of the most challenging problems data leaders across multiple industries face every day: the overwhelming complexity of data usage driven by the rapid evolution of privacy laws and compliance requirements, the movement of data to the cloud and the volumes of data companies process, said Lynch. Data is a strategic asset for companies to establish competitive advantage and operational excellence and Satoris service eliminates the barriers to maximizing the value of that data.

Were thrilled and honored to have Anita join Satoris advisory board on our journey to help organizations maximize their data-driven competitive advantage. Anitas years of experience working with the best data teams in industry powerhouses will guide our product and go-to-market strategies, said Eldad Chai, co-founder and CEO of Satori.

About Satori Cyber

Satoris mission is to help organizations maximize their data-driven competitive advantage by removing barriers to broad data access and usage while ensuring its security and compliance. The Satori Data Access Cloud is the first solution on the market to offer continuous visibility and granular control for data flows across all cloud and hybrid data stores.

Debra Montner

Montner Tech PR

dmontner@montner.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5123a9b5-0578-4ced-bc12-a3cef2ee6428
Getting the flu jab while pregnant doesn't increase the baby's risk of being diagnosed with autism later on, another study has found.

Researchers in Sweden compared autism diagnoses among seven-year-old children whose mothers had a swine flu vaccine during pregnancy and those whose did not.

Of almost 70,000 children, 39,700 had been exposed to the H1N1 vaccine - which will be included in this seasons jab - while in the womb.

Rates of autism were no different compared with children whose mothers did not get vaccinated, confirming there is no link.

Child health is a touchy subject for people who are against vaccines, and the Swedish researchers said people have claimed in the past that there may be a link between the H1N1 jab and autism.

Uptake of the flu jab during pregnancy is moderate at best, experts say, and one reason mothers-to-be are put off may be due to safety concerns.

Scientists do not know what causes autism but they have repeatedly stressed it is not related to vaccines and evidence continues to prove this.

Pregnant women are encouraged to get the flu jab every year - they can get it free on the NHS in Britain - because they are at higher risk of complications from the common virus.

The Swedish researchers' study showed autism rates were the same in both groups - 1 per cent in the vaccine group and 1.1 per cent in the non-vaccine group.

Getting the flu jab while pregnant doesn't increase the child's risk of being diagnosed with autism later on, another study has found (stock image)

Pregnant women are considered to be at high risk for serious illness if they catch the flu and their babies may be born prematurely.

Studies have shown that it's safe to have the flu vaccine during any stage of pregnancy, from the first few weeks up to your expected due date, the NHS says.

Furthermore, a number of studies show the jab gives the baby immunity in their first few months.

But despite this, many still refuse to take the crucial jab - which is free on the NHS.

During the most recent flu season, between September 2018 and February 2020, flu vaccination uptake decreased in England.

Some 43.7 per cent of pregnant women accepted the flu jab compared to 45.2 per cent the previous year and 55.9 per cent in 2015-2016.

The aim is to get 75 per cent of pregnant women vaccinated against flu this winter, amid concerns an outbreak will coincide with another Covid-19 wave.

The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in the US also encourages women to get a flu jab during pregnancy saying millions of women have safely done so throughout history.

This flu season, vaccines will contain a strain nicknamed 'A/Brisbane/02/2018' which is similar to H1N1 - better known as 'swine flu'.

The 2009 swine flu pandemic lasted for about 19 months and was the second of two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus - the first being the 19181920 Spanish flu pandemic.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, say several studies have examined babies after maternal H1N1 vaccination during pregnancy, consistently finding no increased risks.

CLAIM VACCINES AREN'T SAFE IS 'ABSOLUTELY WRONG' The UK's chief medical officer  the top advisor to the Government  last year criticised people spreading lies about vaccines being unsafe. Dame Sally Davies, speaking on the 30th anniversary of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jab, said people spreading the 'myths' were 'absolutely wrong'. She said in November: 'Over 30 years, we have vaccinated millions of children. It is a safe vaccination, we know that, and we've saved millions of lives across the world. 'People who spread these myths, when children die they will not be there to pick up the pieces or the blame.' One myth is based on research done by Andrew Wakefield in the 1990s which claimed MMR led to autism, but his results were later found to be fake, and the work was called 'fatally flawed', 'fraudulent' and 'dishonest' by experts in the field. Others claim the vaccine doesn't work  but after the introduction of MMR in 1963, global measles deaths dropped, on average, from 2.6million to around 100,000, according to the WHO. The vaccine was introduced by the NHS in 1988, a year in which there were 86,001 cases of measles in England  within 10 years, in 1998, this had dropped to just 3,728 reported. The figure has fluctuated since, believed to be partly due to the Wakefield scare in the mid-90s, but in 2017 there were reports of only 1,693 measles cases in England. (Note: Figures quoted are cases reported to Public Health England and not lab-confirmed numbers) Advertisement

However, the long-term risks of exposure to the H1N1 vaccination in the womb have not been studied in detail.

They studied live birth records between October 2009 and September 2010 - when Swedish authorities recommended the entire population get vaccinated against H1N1 influenza.

Vaccinations with Pandemrix, developed by drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), were offered free of charge during that period.

The 69,019 babies studied were in the womb at some point during the vaccination campaign and were followed up until December 2016.

In total, 39,726 infants were prenatally exposed to the vaccine (13,845 during the first trimester), and 29,293 were unexposed.

They then looked at diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD)  the medical name for autism  a condition a person is born with or shows very early in life.

After a mean follow-up of 6.7 years, the researchers found that autism cases were virtually the same between vaccine-exposed and unexposed children.

One per cent of vaccine-exposed children (394) were diagnosed compared with 1.1 per cent (330) in the unexposed group.

And there were no more autism diagnoses among children born to mothers who had their vaccination in the first trimester of pregnancy.

The findings, published today in Annals of Internal Medicine, are reassuring that vaccination strategies focusing on pregnant women are safe.

Lead researcher Dr Jonas Ludvigsson and colleagues wrote: 'A clinically meaningful increase in risk associated with H1N1 vaccine exposure in pregnancy seems unlikely.

'Furthermore, no association was found for vaccine exposure in the first trimester and ASD or the secondary outcome, AD [the most severe form of autism].'

The results are in stark contrast to those of a recent US study, which claimed a 20 per cent increased risk for autism in the children of women who had a flu jab during the first trimester.

Kaiser Permanente in Northern California looked at almost 200,000 children born at its centres from January 2000 to December 2010.

But they admitted the 20 per cent increased risk may just be due to chance, and not exposure to the flu vaccine.

Dr Ludvigsson suggested the findings from the team at Kaiser Permanente could have been 'spurious' because the link vanished when taking caveats into consideration.

Another study by Karolinska Institutet, published in 2015, found no association between childhood autism and H1N1 vaccine exposure during pregnancy.

But it had a shorter follow-up period of four years compared to the new study.

Writing in a linked editorial, Dr Anders Hviid, a senior researcher from Statens Serum Institut and University of Copenhagen, Denmark, said today's findings were 'unsurprising'.

Writing in Annals of Internal Medicine, Dr Hviid said: 'We know that autism has a strong genetic component and that no credible science supports the belief that vaccines administered in pregnancy (or in childhood) can cause autism.

'A comprehensive and proactive approach to vaccine safety is needed now more than ever with the hopefully imminent arrival of Covid-19 vaccines.

'We will have very limited information on pregnancy safety from the current ongoing trials, and if pregnant women will be offered the vaccines, we must have observational studies in place that can promptly evaluate the overall safety of vaccination in pregnancy.'
Anti-racism demonstrators took to the streets of London on a day that would normally have seen hundreds of thousands of people turn out for the Notting Hill Carnival.

The organisers of the inaugural Million People March said they wanted to give the community a louder voice in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the death of George Floyd.

Observers estimated that the group swelled to around 400 people as it travelled from Notting Hill to Hyde Park at 1pm on Saturday.

Protesters chanted The UK is not innocent and Enough is enough and lay down in the road while raising their fists at several places along the route. At one point they broke into a rendition of Redemption Song by Bob Marley

The march was organised by Ken Hinds, an adviser to Scotland Yard; Sasha Johnson, a youth worker and activist; rapper 2 Badda, and author Anthony Spencer, after the traditional Notting Hill Carnival was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This is not a hardened protesters march, this is a family protest march for people who dont normally protest, Mr Spencer said.

Were trying to have a louder voice. This is like a rowing expedition from one side of the Atlantic to the other side on a little boat. Its a huge task.

The groups manifesto includes diverting police funding into youth and community services and ending excessive use of force and stop and search against black people.

They also want the government to introduce a race offenders register  which would work in the same way as the system for sex offenders  to help employers stamp out racism and abusive behaviour.

Mr Spencer said: This is a fight that can be won by laws. The race offenders register is a tool that we believe can begin the changing of behaviour right across wherever racism exists.

Were looking at bringing in laws to protect our black citizens. We protect everything else. We protect dogs, we protect eagles, we protect dead statues. Lets protect black people.

A protester blocks the road in Notting Hill during the march. (AP)

Once we see theres actual true intention to protect the lives of black people and change systemic suffering, we will stop marching and we will work with the government.

Ms Johnson said she hoped the movement would empower the community to strive for better.

As a people, were not going to stop until we have equal rights and justice, she said. Our message is listen to us, hear our words, we want sustainable and tangible change.

We dont just want tokenistic promises, we dont want it to come from a hegemonic standpoint. We want it to be for the people.

(EPA)

Ahead of the Bank Holiday weekend, the Metropolitan Police warned campaign groups they could be committing a criminal offence by taking part in gatherings of more than 30 people.

On Saturday Piers Corbyn, the brother of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, was arrested at a protest against lockdown restrictions and the wearing of face masks in Trafalgar Square.

He later tweeted that he had been held for 10 hours and fined 10,000 for organising the event after being reported under the new coronavirus legislation.

Mr Corbyn told the Huffpost he would refuse to pay the penalty notice and added: There was no justification whatsoever for this fine. The order for my arrest appears to have come from on high, nothing to do with local police. When I asked the police, they said to me it came from on high.

Metropolitan Police commander Bas Javid said the forces response to each event may be different "according to our operational decision making, based on information given to us subject to the new legislation.

He added: There have been a number of demonstrations in central London and we were actively out on the ground, speaking with people taking part continuing to emphasis the public health risk and the regulations, and that it was incumbent on them to fulfil the requirements under the new legislation to check the position and ensure that they were not committing an offence by being involved in a large gathering or they may be subject to a large fine.

Additional reporting by Press Association
Another alleged witch was nearly lynched on Saturday night by the youth at Sumpini, a farming community in the West Gonja Municipality of the Savannah Region.



The alleged witch identified as Meri Ibrahim, a 60-year-old woman was beaten mercilessly by the youth of the community and she sustained cutlass and stone injuries on the head and the face.



Madam Ibrahim and three other women who managed to escape from the attackers were suspected to be bewitching the youth of the community and the mob alleged that she and her colleagues were planning to kill a gentleman of the community, hence the attack.



A resident of Sumpini who only gave her name as Zelia, in a telephone chat with the Ghanaian Times, said for the timely intervention of elderly men in the community the alleged witch would have been lynched by the youth.



According to her, the youth attacked the alleged witch in her room and subjected her to severe beatings until she fell unconscious and it took the elders some time before they persuaded the youth to stop the beating and was rushed to the Bussunu clinic for treatment.



Savannah Region Police Public Relations Officer, Sergeant Owusu Agyekum, in an interview, said police personnel were dispatched to the community to investigate the matter and the victim was taken to the Damongo district hospital for medical care.



It would be recalled that a 90-year-old woman alleged to be a witch was lynched at Kafaba in East Gonja district of the same Savannah Region last month and the act was condemned.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The illegal release of deer in Omaha Scenic Reserve, near Mount Tamahunga, has sparked a joint Auckland Council and Department of Conservation (DOC) operation to hunt them down.

Deer are a legally declared pest species in Auckland and are considered feral whenever they are not held behind fencing that meets deer farming regulations.

In a memo to the Rodney Local Board, Auckland Council relationship advisor Anna Halliwell wrote that deer are selective browsers that tended to target some forest species over others. This could result in a significant change in the forest make up and have adverse knock-on effect on animals who rely on the plants.

She said failure to address the issues caused by the illegal release could lead to a deer population becoming established and put the high ecological value of the area at risk.

The memo explained that a reliable source had informed a DOC contractor that six fallow deer had been illegally released in the Tamahunga area, following a deer sighting on March 16.

Four deer have since been shot. Council head of natural environment delivery Phil Brown says Council is confident that they will be able to eradicate the remaining deer, though culling had to be suspended to check whether it could still be carried out under Alert Level 3.

Our quick action means deer are near zero in that area now, he said.

Mr Brown said sometimes deer were released by a farmer who no longer wished to keep the animals.

Releasing them from captivity is seen as an easy option to remove them from the farm. Recreational hunting may also be a driver for feral deer releases, he said.

It is illegal to release deer into the wild and perpetrators can face up to $15,000 in fines.

The public is encouraged to report sightings of feral deer by emailing biosecurity@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz or calling 09 301 0101.
Now, when he checks the status of his application, the website no longer provides an estimated wait time. Instead, it reads: We are taking longer than expected to process your case. You do not need to do anything at this time. So said he remains hopeful: I wanted to be naturalized because I have faith, and I continue to have faith, that there is a role for someone like me in this country. Thats why Im here, and thats why I want to do this.
Photo: Twitter

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government has signed agreements with two more American suppliers to reserve millions of doses of their experimental COVID-19 vaccines for Canadians.

Deals are now in place for Canada to get access to vaccines being tested by both Johnson & Johnson and Novavax. Earlier this month Ottawa signed similar deals with Pfizer and Moderna.

"Their most recent vaccine tests show promising results," said Trudeau. "That's why we're making sure that if one of these potential vaccines is successful, Canada and Canadians will have access to the doses they need."

The vaccines are still in either Phase 2 or 3 clinical trials and won't be purchased unless they are deemed safe and effective by Health Canada.

Trudeau says all told Canada could get access to at least 88 million doses of vaccines. Some vaccines will require more than one dose to be effective.

The agreement with Novavax, a Maryland-based biotech company, is for up to 76 million doses of its vaccine, which is in Phase 2 clinical trials in the United States and Australia right now. That means it's being tested for safety and efficacy in a fairly small number of people. The earliest date that vaccine might be ready for widespread use is next spring.

The agreement with Johnson & Johnson is for up to 38 million doses. A Phase 1 and 2 trial of that vaccine is underway in the U.S. and Belgium.

The government says some of the doses of whatever vaccine is approved may be produced at a new biomanufacturing facility at the Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre in Montreal. The new facility is intended to produce up to two million doses of vaccine a month by the end of next summer.
An $80 million military radar plane has crashed in Virginia, with four air crew parachuting to safety shortly before it hit the ground.

The EC-2 Hawkeye crashed at 3:50pm near Nelsonia, along Mason Road, on Monday afternoon.

A Navy spokesman confirmed to DailyMail.com that all four servicemen on board - two pilots, two other crew members - bailed out of the plane before it crashed.

The Hawkeye - an airborne early warning aircraft which features a distinctive radar dome on top - was reportedly on a training mission when it got into difficulties.

A military plane which crashed in Virginia on Monday afternoon was completely destroyed

An E-2C Hawkeye, similar to the one pictured, crashed on Monday in Virginia

Little remained of the plane except charred pieces of metal and ash in the field

Two of the four crew members are pictured shortly after bailing from their plane

Cmdr. Jennifer Cragg, Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic Public Affairs, told DailyMail.com that the plane crashed near Wallops Island.

She said the plane was assigned to Airborne Command & Control Squadron (VAW) 120 Fleet Replacement Squadron, out of Naval Station Norfolk.

'Initial reports indicate no structures or personnel on the ground were damaged or injured in the mishap,' she said.

'The cause of the mishap is under investigation.'

Aurora Intel, a monitoring service, said that a C-30J (OTIS22) and a T-38 (MIG2) were flying over the crash site.

Shore Daily News said the road next to the crash site had been reopened by 5:25pm.

The Hawkeye is described as 'the eyes of the fleet' and is used for surveillance

Fire trucks were quickly on the scene, near Wallops Island in Virginia

Crews are seen on Monday afternoon inspecting the debris from the crash

The plane was utterly destroyed in the wreck, but all four on board parachuted to safety

The U.S. Naval Academy describes the Hawkeye as 'the Navy's all-weather, carrier-based tactical battle management airborne early warning, command and control aircraft.'

The plane is a twin engine, five crewmember, high-wing turboprop aircraft.

Hawkeyes have a distinctive 24-foot diameter radar rotodome - a rotating radar - attached to the upper fuselage.

The Navy describes the Hawkeye as 'the eyes of the fleet', and they have been used since the Vietnam War.

The current version of the Hawkeye, the E-2C, became operational in 1973, and surpassed one million flight hours in August 2004, the Navy said.
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One hundred and fifty thousand children had been on the brink of starving to death, but thanks to the kind gift of a very generous billionaire, every child now had enough food to keep him alive. That gift had arrived in the form of one big check.

The horror was now over. It was finished. It was just a matter of distributing the food using the few relief workers we had. Without them to get the food to the children, there would have been many more deaths.

Some days later, a frantic worker burst into the camp and cried, Some of the relief workers have stopped distributing food. Masses of children are dying!

Why would the workers stop when there was plenty of food? It didnt make sense. The distraught man said, Its because one of them held up a sign that said, Feed the starving children. Where necessary, use food. That has caused some of the workers to simply befriend the starving children without giving them food. Its insane!

Im sure you have heard of Saint Francis of Assisi. The first time I ever heard him was back in 1965. It was during the surf movie The Endless Summer. Four surfers who were chasing the sun discovered the perfect wave, at a place in South Africa called Cape Saint Francis.

The sight of the perfect wave excited me beyond words. The next time I heard of him was when I heard that he said Preach the Gospel at all times. Where necessary, use words. That statement upset me beyond words, because it was a philosophy that I knew sounded deeply spiritual . . . to those who were spiritually shallow. It made as much sense as Feed starving children. Where necessary, use food.

On July 16, 1228, Francis of Assisi was pronounced a saint by Pope Gregory IX. Thats a long time ago, so its a little late for questions, but if I could I would like to find out why anyone would say such a strange thing? Was it because he was fearful to use actual words to preach the truth of the Gospel? Or was it because he thought that people would see that he had good works and hear the message of salvation without a preacher, something contrary to Scriptures How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? (Romans 10:14).

Whatever the case, 800 years since Francis we have many who profess faith in Jesus, and are no doubt using this popular philosophy to justify being speechless. To them, salvation truly is an unspeakable gift. Recently someone told me about a conference where 100,000 Christians gathered to worship God. When I asked if they were exhorted to go out and preach the Gospel to every creature, it was no surprise to me that they werent. Instead, they were exhorted to live a life of worship. Again, that sounds spiritual, but you cant worship God without obedience to His Word, and His Word commands us to preach the Gospel to every creature.

I regularly meet those who think they can obey the Great Commission without using words. When they hear the Gospel preached they are usually offended and say things like, I appreciate what you are saying, but I dont like the way you are saying it. With a little probing, they are the relationship folks, who think preaching the Gospel means building relationships with the lost, and never mentioning words like sin, Hell, and Judgment Day. They think that real love is to withhold the Bread of life from those that are starving to death.

Remember that Jesus said, Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels (Mark 8:38).

According to the dictionary, a sissy is a timid or cowardly person. From what I understand of Saint Francis, he was no sissy. He was a loving man who was not afraid to use words when he preached. He wasnt frightened to preach repentance to a sinful world. However, there have been times when I could have been called that name.

I have felt the grip of fear and have wanted to drop words such as sin, Hell, repentance and Judgment Day when I have preached to sinners. I dont want to come across as being unloving or judgmental, but I fear God more than I fear man. So when Gods Word tells me to use words, I use words, despite the consequences.

Listen to the Apostle Pauls sobering warning to his hearers: Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God (Acts 20: 26-27). Perhaps he spoke about being free from their blood because he was familiar with God Himself warning Ezekiel of his responsibility to warn his generation: When I say to the wicked, You shall surely die, and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. (Ezekiel 3:18).

When someone thinks that they can feed starving children and not use food, thats their business. But when their philosophy spreads throughout the camp, it becomes an unspeakable tragedy. If we become passive about the Great Commission because we are more concerned about ourselves than the eternal well-being of others, we may be able to hide our motives from man, but not from God. He warns, Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, Surely we did not know this, does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds? (Proverbs 24:11-12).

Theres an interesting irony to this story. After a little research, I came across a quote about the famous saying. It is from someone who had been a Franciscan monk for 28 years  and had earned an M.A. in Franciscan studies. He contacted some of the most eminent Franciscan scholars in the world to try and verify the saying. He said, It is clearly not in any of Francis writings. After a couple weeks of searching, no scholar could find this quote in a story written within 200 years of Francis death.

So if it wasnt Saint Francis who said not to use words, who was it? Who is it that would like to see the truth of the Gospel hindered from being preached to every creature? That doesnt need to be answered.

The time is short. The laborers are few. Please, cast off your fears and equip yourself to preach the Gospel with words. They are necessary.
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Alliance Data Systems Corporation (NYSE: ADS), a leading global provider of data-driven marketing, loyalty and payment solutions, today announced its Card Services business, a premier provider of branded private label, co-brand and commercial card programs, has launched two new private label credit programs with Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SBH), the largest distributor of professional beauty supplies in the U.S., with revenues of approximately $3.9 billion annually. Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, Alliance Data is providing private label card services for the company's two business units, Sally Beauty Supply, which sells to both retail consumers and salon professionals, and Beauty Systems Group, whose Cosmo Prof stores sells exclusively to professional stylists and salons.

The card programs will offer enhanced benefits to cardmembers by accelerating the earning of rewards and other exclusive benefits that complement the existing Sally Beauty Rewards program. Cosmo Prof customers will benefit from special savings when they use their card and additional purchasing power that supports their salon business.

To support Cosmo Prof's unique business model, Alliance Data is providing its patented Frictionless Mobile CreditSM technology giving customers the ability to apply for credit directly from their mobile devices. With just a few entries, the application process stays in the hands of the customer, providing additional safety and security.

"The products and capabilities that Alliance Data provides, coupled with its extensive experience in multi-channel credit marketing, made them a clear choice for a branded credit partner," said Chris Brickman, president and chief executive officer, Sally Beauty Holdings. "By offering a unique credit program for both consumers and salon professionals, we now have the right credit tools to align with the preferences of our diverse customer base and continue our digital transformation."

"Sally Beauty and Cosmo Prof have done a terrific job meeting their customers where they are by delivering a seamless brand and shopping experience across channels," said Val Greer, chief commercial officer, Alliance Data. "We are excited to leverage our robust tools to support these winning beauty brands in their digital journey by providing secure card programs that help drive sales and customer engagement."

About Alliance Data

Alliance Data (NYSE: ADS) is a leading provider of data-driven marketing, loyalty and payment solutions serving large, consumer-based industries. The Company creates and deploys customized solutions that measurably change consumer behavior while driving business growth and profitability for some of today's most recognizable brands. Alliance Data helps its partners create and increase customer loyalty across multiple touch points using traditional, digital, mobile and emerging technologies. A FORTUNE 500 and S&P MidCap 400 company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Alliance Data consists of businesses that together employ over 8,500 associates at more than 50 locations worldwide.

Alliance Data's Card Services business is a provider of market-leading private label, co-brand, and business credit card programs. LoyaltyOne owns and operates the AIR MILES Reward Program, Canada's most recognized loyalty program, and Netherlands-based BrandLoyalty, a global provider of tailor-made loyalty programs for grocers. More information about Alliance Data can be found at www.AllianceData.com.

Follow Alliance Data on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

About Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc.

Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SBH) is an international specialty retailer and distributor of professional beauty supplies with revenues of approximately $3.9 billion annually. Through the Sally Beauty Supply and Beauty Systems Group businesses, the Company sells and distributes through 5,062 stores, including 158 franchised units, and has operations throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany. Sally Beauty Supply stores offer up to 8,000 products for hair color, hair care, skin care, and nails through proprietary brands such as Ion, Generic Value Products, Beyond the Zone and Silk Elements as well as professional lines such as Wella, Clairol, OPI, Conair and Hot Shot Tools. Beauty Systems Group stores, branded as CosmoProf or Armstrong McCall stores, along with its outside sales consultants, sell up to 10,500 professionally branded products including Paul Mitchell, Wella, Matrix, Schwarzkopf, Kenra, Goldwell, Joico and CHI, intended for use in salons and for resale by salons to retail consumers. For more information about Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc., please visit sallybeautyholdings.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This release contains 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. Forward-looking statements give our expectations or forecasts of future events and can generally be identified by the use of words such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "project," "plan," "likely," "may," "should" or other words or phrases of similar import. Similarly, statements that describe our business strategy, outlook, objectives, plans, intentions or goals also are forward-looking statements. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements we make regarding, and the guidance we give with respect to, our anticipated operating or financial results, completion of strategic initiatives, future dividend declarations, and future economic conditions, including, but not limited to, fluctuation in currency exchange rates, market conditions and COVID-19 impacts related to relief measures for impacted borrowers and depositors, labor shortages due to quarantine, reduction in demand from clients, supply chain disruption for our reward suppliers and disruptions in the airline or travel industries.

We believe that our expectations are based on reasonable assumptions. Forward-looking statements, however, are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the projections, anticipated results or other expectations expressed in this release, and no assurances can be given that our expectations will prove to have been correct. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, factors set forth in the Risk Factors section in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the most recently ended fiscal year, which may be updated in Item 1A of, or elsewhere in, our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed for periods subsequent to such Form 10-K. Our forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made, and we undertake no obligation, other than as required by applicable law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, subsequent events, anticipated or unanticipated circumstances or otherwise.

Contacts:

Alliance Data

Tiffany Louder  Investor Relations

214-494-3048

[email protected]

Shelley Whiddon  Media

214-494-3811

[email protected]

Sally Beauty Holdings

Jeff Harkins  Investor Relations

940-297-3877

SOURCE Alliance Data Systems Corporation

Related Links

http://www.alliancedata.com


Press Release

31 August 2020

HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee - On Thursday, 27 August, STR's SHARE Center recognized a group of professors, schools and partners for their ongoing support of hospitality and tourism education.

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As part of the recognition, colleges and universities around the world were lauded for their number of students who have obtained the renowned Certification in Hotel Industry Analytics (CHIA). Four schools have surpassed 900 certified students:

Cornell University (1,862)

Penn State University (1,455)

Johnson & Wales University - Providence (950)

Cal Poly Pomona (938)

Launched in 2011, and jointly offered with the American Hotel & Lodging Education Institute (AHLEI) and the International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education (ICHRIE), the CHIA has been earned by nearly 18,000 students and 3,000 industry professionals.

A newer certification, the Certification in Advanced Hospitality and Tourism Analytics (CAHTA), is a step above the CHIA and has been awarded to nearly 400 students. The certification has recently been extended to industry professionals. Schools were also recognized for the number of students who completed the CAHTA, such as the Chinese University of Hong Kong (93 students) and EHL (75 students).

"It has been a privilege to work with this distinguished group of professors, schools and academic organizations from around the world," said Steve Hood, SVP, Research and Director, SHARE Center. "We are excited that these analytics certifications have become the most popular in the global hospitality and tourism industry, and we look forward to certifying even more students and industry professionals in the years to come."

The SHARE Center will host its fifth-annual Student Market Study Competition on 20-21 November. The virtual event will feature 49 teams from 16 countries. Given the online format, industry professionals will be able to observe the final presentations. For more information, please contact [email protected].

About the SHARE Center

The STR SHARE (Supporting Hotel-related Academic Research and Education) Center supports schools around the globe by providing large volumes of hotel and tourism data, as well as related resources to professors and students for research, student projects and use in the classroom. The SHARE Center's objective is to help improve the quality and increase the industry relevance of hospitality and tourism research and education. Launched in 2011, nearly 1,000 schools are involved from 80 countries.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Imagine a bidder wanting to buy KFC, but being told the deal might not include the Colonels 11 secret herbs and spices. Thats effectively what Beijing has told the list of U.S. companies keen to purchase short-video app TikTok: The key ingredients may be out of reach.

At first it looked like the Trump administration had it all figured out.

ByteDance Inc., it decided, was a risk to national security and the Chinese companys main product for international markets had to be sold. For reasons that remain confounding, Satya Nadella entered the fray and Microsoft Corp. put in a bid. Soon, suitors were apparently lining up to buy the hip new product that claims 100 million U.S. downloads. A short deadline  Sept. 15  helped build a sense of urgency. TikTok is essentially going through a forced sale.

Then Beijing stepped in. Chinas Commerce Ministry added new items to its list of export controls late Friday. Now, artificial intelligence interface technologies such as speech and text recognition, as well as methods to analyze data and make personalized content recommendations, are matters of national security.

That means ByteDance will need Chinese government approval to sell TikToks U.S. operations, Bloomberg News reported Sunday; a person familiar with the matter said the new rule is aimed at delaying the sale, not an outright ban. But with AI and its content recommendation engine among the key ingredients of the companys success, Beijing becomes the arbiter of TikToks fate. Not the U.S. administration.

As much as critics  including U.S. senators and the secretary of state  express concern about the data TikTok collects, its really the algorithms that matter most to the company, and anyone who buys it. These are the magic formulae that tell the app which data points will predict future behavior, and keep you staring at the phone longer. If you linger on hip-hop videos and swipe past cooking tips, then chances are youll be seeing more lip-synced DJ Khalid and fewer turkey-stuffing recipes. Speech and text recognition allow TikTok to peer deeper into content to extract a better sense of whats being said and written.

Story continues

Facebook Inc., Snap Inc. and Alphabet Inc. are among those pouring billions of dollars into better predicting user behavior. This is the bread and butter of search-engine results and timeline feeds, helping them sell more-targeted ads at higher prices. Notice that Google tends to return better results than Bing, despite having access to the same pool of data (the entire internet!), and you get a sense of why algorithms matter.(1)

TikToks algos are gold. At least, thats what bidders seem to think.

And it looks like Beijing agrees. Effectively, the Chinese government is saying, You wanna buy TikTok? Go ahead, but that doesnt mean youll get your hands on the secret sauce.

This development will surely send Microsoft, Oracle Corp. and everyone else back to their bankers, and lawyers, trying to figure out what TikTok would be worth without those algorithms. ByteDance, for its part, will need to work out what it can and cannot throw into the package its being forced to sell. Thats not easy.

At worst, this may require trawling through millions of lines of code to sort out whether content is allowable or forbidden. Its not black and white. What one person considers AI may be viewed by another as mundane software technology.

As bidders rush to guess what Beijing may allow them to buy, and reassess whether they want to make an offer, some may simply conclude that its too fraught with uncertainty. Any final transaction will surely be couched with provisions about what theyll be able to obtain  managements fiduciary duty to shareholders requires no less.

This move puts the ball back in Donald Trumps court. The U.S. president may need to contend with the real possibility that TikTok doesnt find a buyer, and hell have to decide whether one of the nations most popular products should be removed from the app store of its most valuable company.Trump may think that strong-arming China will boost his re-election chances, but being outplayed could backfire. Its also possible that if TikTok ends up being banned altogether, there will be a backlash by the apps fans.With U.S.-China trade talks inching slowly forward, Beijing has found itself a bargaining chip. Whether or not Trump is found to be bluffing, both sides now think they have the stronger hand.

(Updates with rule aimed at delaying sale, not an outright ban. An earlier version of this article misstated the number of herbs and spices in the KFC recipe.)

(1) It's important to remember that the two search engines also create, and use, their own data based on user behavior. This data collection is driven by their proprietary algorithms, creating a virtuous circle of algorithm and data.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Tim Culpan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. He previously covered technology for Bloomberg News.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
The Indian Medical Association has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking that all doctors who have died of COVID-19 be treated at par with martyrs of the armed forces, and their dependents be provided government jobs in accordance with their qualifications.

IMAGE: Medics prepare kits after collecting samples for COVID-19 tests, at Alipore in Kolkata. Photograph: PTI Photo

In a letter to the prime minister, the country's largest body of doctors said only an 'inclusive national solatium' for all doctors who have lost their lives fighting the pandemic would render justice to the sacrifice of their families.

The IMA cited government data and said 87,000 healthcare workers had been infected and 573 of them had lost their lives due to COVID-19.

However, the Centre has not officially released these figures.

Noting that the data has raised concerns all across the country, the IMA said its data for doctors alone has registered 307 deaths and a total 2,006 infected. It said 188 of those died are general practitioners who are the first point of contact for people.

'Doctors suffer a higher viral load and a higher CFR (Case Fatality Rate) as a community. IMA is constrained to point out that they could have stayed back at home during the epidemic safely. They chose to serve the nation in the best traditions of the medical profession,' said the letter dated August 30.

The solatium approved by the government for their colleagues in government services in all fairness is deserved by the children of these martyrs as well, the association said.

'All doctors who have laid down their lives in fighting this epidemic should be treated at par with the martyrs of Indian Armed Forces and acknowledged appropriately.

'The surviving spouse or dependent should be provided a government job as per their qualifications,' the IMA said.

It also raised the issue that whatever solatium that is in place had failed to reach the beneficiaries due to the inadequacy of the chosen instrument and the 'indifference'.

"The scheme is reported to have been lapsed as well. There is a pressing need to reconsider the same on merit and create a dedicated system to administer," the IMA said.

A national scheme to support the 'soldiers fighting a pandemic' cannot be allowed to degenerate into just another pecuniary benefit for government servants, it said.

'We once again appeal to your goodself that such a sacrifice by doctors needs to be acknowledged by the highest office of the nation irrespective of the sectors,' the IMA said in the letter to Modi.

'We are also writing to you at this juncture since it has been predicted that India will top the world in number of cases in a few weeks. Healthcare manpower is precious. Uniform practices have to be put in place throughout the country,' it said.

The IMA said substantial differences were noticed from district to district in how doctors and healthcare workers were deployed.

It asserted that districts were not sensitive to the safety angle, and the concerns of stress and fatigue of the medical manpower.

Noting that the nation deserves a radical approach to the situation, the IMA appealed to the prime minister for the government to bring in appropriate reforms, which it said were long overdue.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol Criminal Investigations Division is seeking the publics assistance to identify individuals related to the vandalism of the Edward Carmack Statue atop of the state Capitol Motlow Tunnel entrance in Nashville on May 30.

During the protest, approximately three individuals can be seen toppling the statue, authorities said.

A reward of up to $2,500 is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the offender(s).

If you have any information that will aid investigators in identifying the individual(s) involved with the vandalism of the Edward Carmack Statue, contact the THP Criminal Investigations Division at 615 251-5185 with attention to Sgt. Andrew Naylor.
Having sold 20 taels of gold for more than one billion dong, Nguyen Hong Minh in Hanoi doesnt know what she would do with the money.

Minh regularly bought 1-2 taels a year over more than 10 years as savings. As the gold price has escalated to VND60 million per tael, Minh could make a considerable profit.

It is unsafe to keep cash. But I dont think it would be wise to continue to buy gold. The gold price has become too high and it will decrease in some days, she said.

Minh regrets that she did not buy real estate 10 years ago. A friend of hers then suggested investing VND300-350 million in real estate, but she decided to buy gold, which was priced at VND35 million per tael. Now, she can have VND600 million from selling 10 taels of gold, but with this amount of money, real estate has become unaffordable for her.

In 2010-2020, the prices of houses in Ba Dinh district in Hanoi increased by 335 percent, while prices in district 5, HCM City rose by 213 percent. Meanwhile, the gold price increased by 22 percent only during the same time and the VN Index 45 percent.

Real estate is the safest and most profitable investment channel, she concluded.

In 2010-2020, the prices of houses in Ba Dinh district in Hanoi increased by 335 percent, while prices in district 5, HCM City rose by 213 percent. Meanwhile, the gold price increased by 22 percent only during the same time and the VN Index 45 percent.

Asked why she doesnt use the money to do business, she said it would be profitable to run restaurants and eateries. However, she has to spend time for her small child, and her husband is away for business.

Nguyen Van Thai, an investor, said he bought an apartment in Hanoi and is still seeking to buy more real estate.

It is the right time to buy real estate because the prices are very reasonable in a recession, he explained.

You wont be sure of making profit if you invest in securities or gold, because prices are unpredictable and they depend on many factors, he said. But you wont have any worries when injecting money into real estate, because houses cannot be stolen or damaged and the prices wont decrease."

Tran Minh, a real estate consultant, said investors should invest property with actual potential, which has already been built and can be used immediately.

According to Nguyen Quoc Anh, deputy general director of Batdongsan.com.vn, the number of searches for real estate declined in March, but increased rapidly again in April. This shows peoples high interest in the real estate sector despite Covid-19.

Bao An

Real estate market on standby again Real estate firms are again postponing sales and investment plans after new Covid-19 cases were discovered in late July in Da Nang.
Pivoting to plastics, the industry has spent more than $US200 billion ($271 billion) on chemical and manufacturing plants in the United States over the last decade. But the United States already consumes as much as 16 times more plastic than many poor nations, and a backlash against single-use plastics has made it tougher to sell more at home. In 2019, US exporters shipped more than 1 billion pounds of plastic waste to 96 countries including Kenya, ostensibly to be recycled, according to trade statistics. But much of the waste, often containing the hardest-to-recycle plastics, instead ends up in rivers and oceans. And after China closed its ports to most plastic trash in 2018, exporters have been looking for new dumping grounds. Exports to Africa more than quadrupled in 2019 from a year earlier. James Wakibia helped inspire Kenya's plastic-bag ban. Credit:Khadija Farah/The New York Times Ryan Baldwin, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, said the group's proposals tackle the global importance of dealing with waste. The letter says that there is "a global need to support infrastructure development to collect, sort, recycle and process used plastics, particularly in developing countries such as Kenya." The Chemistry Council includes the petrochemical operations of Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Shell, as well as major chemical companies including Dow.

The talks are in early stages, and it is not yet clear if trade negotiators have adopted the industry's proposals. But industries typically have a strong voice in shaping trade policy, and business lobbyists have won similar concessions before. In talks with Mexico and Canada in 2018, for instance, chemicals- and pesticides-makers lobbied for, and won, terms making it tougher for those countries to regulate the industries. At the same talks, trade negotiators, urged on by US food companies, also tried to restrict Mexico and Canada from warning people about the dangers of junk food on labelling but dropped the plan after a public outcry. The Kenya proposal "really sets off alarm bells," said Sharon Treat, a senior lawyer at the nonpartisan Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy who has worked for more than a decade advising trade talks in both the Trump and Obama administrations. Corporate lobbyists "frequently offer up very specific proposals, which the government then takes up," she said. The plastics industry's proposals could also make it tougher to regulate plastics in the United States, since a trade deal would apply to both sides. The Office of the United States Trade Representative did not respond to interview requests or to detailed lists of written questions, nor did officials at Kenya's Trade Ministry.

Last year, Kenya was one of many countries around the world that signed on to a global agreement to stop importing plastic waste  a pact strongly opposed by the chemical industry. Emails reviewed by The Times showed industry representatives, many of them former trade officials, working with US negotiators last year to try to stall those rules. From Appalachia to Nairobi Royal Dutch Shell's 386-acre plastics plant outside Pittsburgh is billed as the anchor for a new petrochemical hub in Appalachia, a region reeling from the collapse of the coal industry. Plants like these have revolutionised the plastics industry by turning fracked natural gas into the manufacturing material for millions of plastic bottles, bags, clamshell containers, drinking straws and a parade of other products, tapping into a seemingly endless supply of cheap shale gas from America's booming oil and gas fields. Among local communities, the plants have raised air pollution concerns. Oil giants like Exxon Mobile have been pummelled during the pandemic. Credit:Bloomberg In Appalachia, Texas and nationwide, almost 350 new chemical plants are in the works, according to an industry tally, together representing oil companies' life-or-death bet on plastics as the future.

But now the coronavirus pandemic has caused not only oil and gas prices to plummet, but plastics prices, too. Last month, oil giants including Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron reported some of their worst financial results in history, leading some analysts to question whether the new plastics plants would deliver on the profits the companies expected. A Shell spokesman said that while the "short-term outlook for this business is challenging," over the long term, "products derived from petrochemicals will continue to grow and provide attractive returns." An Exxon Mobil spokesman said the company "shares society's concern about plastic waste" and aims to invest more in solutions to end it. Dow referred queries to the American Chemistry Council. Chevron did not respond to requests for comment. Against that backdrop, Kenyatta visited the White House in February, eager to start trade talks. Kenya currently can send most of its exports to the United States duty-free under a regional program, but that expires in 2025. The petrochemicals industry sensed an opening. Exxon Mobil has forecast that global demand for petrochemicals could rise by nearly 45% over the next decade, significantly outpacing global economic growth and energy demand. Most of that would come from emerging markets.

The American Chemistry Council's April 28 letter to the trade representative's office laid out the group's vision. Kenya's growing ports, railways and road networks "can support an expansion of chemicals trade not just between the United States and Kenya, but throughout East Africa and the continent," Brzytwa wrote. To foster a plastics hub, he wrote, a trade deal with Kenya should prevent the country from measures that would curb plastic manufacture or use, and ensure Kenya continues to allow trade in plastic waste, demands that experts said were unusual and intrusive. Loading Those terms could "literally encapsulate every kind of bag ban, bottle ban," said Jane Patton, a plastics expert at the Centre for International Environmental Law. She called it an industry-led effort "to erode these democratically enacted policies" in foreign countries. Daniel Maina, founder of the Kisiwani Conservation Network in Mombasa, Kenya, said the trade talks were coming at a particularly vulnerable time, as Kenya was starting to feel the economic effects of the pandemic. "If they were to force this sort of trade agreement on us, I fear we will be easy prey," he said.
The crisis brought about by climate change or global warming has had many consequences, not the least of negative effects on human health. Massive changes such as wildfires, drought, torrential rainstorms, flooding, and extreme heat have a major bearing on our bodies. Climate change has led to a worldwide crisis in public health.

Heatstroke and dehydration heat has many important consequences, including major drying of vegetation and droughts. These, in turn, create an ideal environment for and lead to a rise in wildfires. In people, these can lead to an increased risk of dehydration and heatstroke, as well as other heat-related health problems.

The hottest temperatures on record keep topping their previous levels. Last July was the hottest ever recorded July; last September was also the hottest; so was January and May of this year.

READ: Climate Change: Unborn Children From Morwell Fire Has Increased Risk of Respiratory Infection





Hunger-related health conditions

The ever-increasing heat pattern is caused by the ever-increasing levels of carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas contributor to global warming. Its presence in the atmosphere has risen 31% since 1950 and 9% since 2005.

The UN IPCC or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a special report saying how the planet's temperature already had an increase of 1.5 C since pre-industrial times. It says that an increase of two degrees will cause unprecedented extreme heat, water scarcity, and food shortages worldwide.

Food and water shortages will lead to hunger. An inadequate supply of these will lead to the lowering of the quality of health and susceptibility of the body to infections. It will lead to many health problems, including metabolic, infectious, and other diseases. The poor and elderly sectors, young children, and communities of color are not as resilient to the heat, and they are the ones most affected by it.

Threats to energy and water security due to high energy expenses are caused by and worsened by the heat. Less access to these necessities leads to impairment in health.

Anxiety, heat exhaustion, and impaired cognitive function

Heat beyond normal levels affects each part of the body, leading to anxiety, heat exhaustion, and impaired cognitive function. These effects are being recognized more and more across the US, and it pushed medical practitioners, such as therapists, pharmacists, medical students, nurses, and doctors, to advocate for positive change.

READ ALSO: 10,000 Die Each Day from Fossil Fuel Air Pollutants

Premature death

The heat also exacerbates and even triggers premature death due to the many complications that it brings to the body. It may worsen pre-existing heart and lung diseases or trigger them.

Heat-related cardiac failure is also a risk, which can especially affect the elderly and those with heart conditions. Furthermore, their medications increase patients' sensitivity to heat.

Allergy symptoms

The cause of global warming is the rise in levels of carbon dioxide. An increase in the amounts of this greenhouse gas causes more plants to photosynthesize, leading to increased pollen levels in the atmosphere. Pollen can cause allergic reactions and worsen the symptoms of allergy.

Asthma and respiratory inflammation

PM2.5 are fine particulates that pollute the air. It comes from fossil fuel burning, which is the main cause of global warming. As people breathe in PM2.5, the particles go through the respiratory airway and settle in our lungs' alveoli, small air sacs involved in respiration.

The PM2.5 particles in the alveoli worsen the symptoms of asthma and cause inflammation. The impact and risks to human health from these particulates are complex and massive.

Ozone pollution is also exacerbated with hotter temperatures, causing increased harm to asthmatics and people with respiratory ailments.

If climate change is not mitigated or stopped, human health impairment will increasingly occur, affecting the economy and overall quality of human life on the planet.

READ NEXT: Health Impacts of Pesticides, Plastics, Synthetic Chemicals Doubled the Past 5 Years, Study Says

Check out more news and information on Climate Change on Nature World News.
Many things had changed when the COVID-19 pandemic started, from food shopping behavior, working setups, healthcare, and now telehealth for pets.

Human healthcare is not the only thing that adapted to these changes with the introduction of telehealth.

It is no surprise that veterinary services and animal healthcare also changed during this new normal.

Dr. Paula Yankauskas, practice founder and owner of Lamoille Valley Veterinary Services in Hyde Park, Vermont, changed her practices when the pandemic started.

Yankauskas started using telehealth on a limited basis before the COVID-19 pandemic. But they began increasing the number of appointments.

Yankauskas said that they had been doing some telehealth for pets in people who would send videos and photos of their pets and describe the issue.

How Telehealth for Pets Work

Dr. Laura Pletz, scientific services manager at Royal Canin, said that telehealth for your pets rely "on a good history from the pet's owner and any other assessments of your pet,"

This includes a visual inspection and some auditory input through telehealth for pets platforms.

Dr. Derek Paul, vet advisor for Rocco and Roxie, a pet supply company based in Provo, Utah, said the main difference between telehealth for pets and humans is the patient's ability to describe what the specific complaints might be.

"While we can ask a human patient a series of questions to determine the problem, we can only ask a pet's owner similar questions to determine the problem. A pet's behavior can be interpreted in many different ways, which represents a challenge in making a diagnosis via telehealth," Paul was quoted in a report.

Is Telehealth for Pets The Next Big Thing?

About two-thirds of U.S. households own a pet, and Americans are seen to spend about $75 billion on their pets this year.

Pet owners had fewer options other than the traditional visit to the vet before COVID-19 pandemic.

But when the Food and Drugs Administration lifted its requirement on in-person veterinary examinations, telehealth for pets has boomed.

Airvet recently announced a $14 million Series A funding round and is delivering on-demand virtual care to pet parents everywhere.

Airvet is one of the many online platforms that has seen an increase.

Daily downloads of telehealth for pets' apps rose by 40 percent in March.

VCA Animal Hospitals have added a video consultation to their menu as a way to adapt to the changing landscape of animal healthcare.

Is Telehealth for Pets Reliable?

Questions like the reliability and efficacy of telehealth for pets are being asked, with pets' inability to describe what they are really feeling.

However, Pletz says that vets are really good at figuring out a problem with just a few clues.

"Since our patients can't talk to us, veterinarians are quite skilled at asking the right questions to learn as much as possible about the situation," Pletz was quoted.

Telehealth for pets has helped practices keep up with some of the changes. But Yankauskas said that vets do not use it for everything.

Yankauskas said that it is only good for certain things.

Yankauskas said that some of their sensories are missing, such as touch and feel and smell.

Pletz said she liked to look at the telehealth for pets as another communication tool with veterinarians to give proper advice.

Check these out:

Virtual Forever: These Things Will Be Done Virtually Even After the Pandemic Ends

Tele-Abortion Technology 'Silver Lining' of COVID-19 Crisis, Says Planned Parenthood

Telehealth Clinics As An Alternative To Conventional Health Care
(Newser)  For a decade, a US program spent hundreds of millions of dollars to train scientists in dozens of countries around the world to search for threatening new animal viruses. The initiative sussed out more than 1,000 new viruses over its life span, but the Trump administration let the program, known as Predict, quietly die off last year, right before the coronavirus pandemic struck. Now, per the New York Times, it looks like the infectious disease program will get somewhat of a second life. The program, which began in 2009 under the Obama administration in response to the H5N1 bird flu, was managed by the US Agency for International Development and involved researchers looking in places like wet markets, bat caves, and camel pens for deadly pathogens. One grant Predict awarded went to train Chinese scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to examine bats for viruses.

story continues below

That lab was the same one rumored, without evidence, to have accidentally let the coronavirus leak to the rest of the world. USAID let Predict die last October after its funding ran out, alarming researchers worldwide. Now, USAID is touting Stop Spillover, a new $100 million initiative it says will build upon the data that emerged out of Predict to further stop the spread of deadly viruses. Predict founder Dennis Carroll, however, tells the Times that Predict's demise was the work of "risk-averse bureaucrats" and that he designed Stop Spillover years ago just as a "companion piece" to Predict. He says by touting the new program as a revival of the old one, USAID is simply "trying to create an optic that gets them out of the blowback for ending Predict." Meanwhile, Joe Biden tells the Times that if he's elected, he'll restore Predict, as well as other programs designed to search for viruses that vanished during the Trump administration. Much more here. (Read more viruses stories.)
By Sanjana Shivdas and Allison Lampert

Aug 31 (Reuters) - Aviation training specialists, which saw simulator sales plummet when the coronavirus pandemic brought air travel to a near halt, are getting some relief from an uptick in demand from cargo carriers and airlines gearing up for the Boeing 737 MAX's return to service.

Simulator makers Textron and CAE had bet on a sales bonanza with Boeing recommending fresh pilot training on a MAX simulator for the aircraft grounded since March 2019 following two deadly crashes, when it finally flew again.

The pandemic dashed those hopes, crippling air traffic and casting doubt over the jet's future.

Now they look to business aviation, a lifting of travel restrictions, revived hopes for the MAX's certification later this year or early next, and heavier cargo traffic to boost training and help through the simulator sales drought.

TRU Flight Training Iceland, a joint venture between Icelandair and Textron's TRU Simulation + Training, for example, is seeing continued demand from cargo pilots training on its Boeing 757 simulator, its managing director Gudmundur Orn Gunnarson said.

Cargo carriers and Icelandair are now the center's top sources of training activity, though that is roughly at half of where it was a year ago, Gunnarson said.

Canada's CAE, the world's largest civil aviation training company, said it was in advanced discussions with airlines about doing more training after it reported a sharp drop in simulator deliveries.

Both CAE and its U.S. rival Textron built 737 MAX simulators last year without formal orders, betting on pent up demand, but the pandemic dashed those expectations.

A CAE spokeswoman said the majority have since been converted to orders and been delivered.

CAE delivered 56 full-flight simulators in fiscal year 2020 ended on March 31, but only two in April-June. Textron in June suspended the production of simulators at its Montreal plant, cutting up to 1,950 jobs across several business units.

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Textron and CAE see a quicker recovery in business aviation, where flights have dropped 4% in the U.S. year-to-date compared with 2019, even as commercial traffic plunged 45%, according to Flightaware.

Textron also sees demand in the simulator training market from schools and the military, said Vance Ontjes, TRU's director of training and customer services.

Gunnarson said the Icelandair joint venture has orders to lease the 737 MAX simulator for pilot training, though that will happen only when the plane is close to being certified.

Jonathan Norman, aerospace consultant at Frost & Sullivan, expects MAX's certification in the U.S. to fuel extra demand for training for a year.

"That's the amount of time it is going to take airlines to re-certify all their pilots," he said, adding Southwest Airlines - the largest operator of the MAX worldwide - may need to retrain all of its pilots.

Job cuts across the industry and many experienced pilots retiring, with new recruits furloughed or laid off, will also require retraining many who remain.

"It creates a cascade effect," said aviation consultant Kit Darby.

U.S. airlines, which received $25 billion in March to cover payroll and protect jobs until September, are asking for a further installment, though talks on another government COVID-19 stimulus remain stalled.

American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines are bracing for pilot cuts.

The government program's expiry could even overwhelm training providers, says Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association that represents AA pilots.

"Potential furloughs should they hit are going to drown the training facilities with the amount of training that needs to be done," he said.

Longer-term, training and simulator providers will have to contend with smaller fleets and fewer pilots given industry predictions of air travel returning to pre-pandemic levels in 2024.

Analysts also doubt an upswing in cargo business can last given the underlying weakness of the global economy. (Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Chris Reese)
The Supreme Court verdict for Prashan Bhushans case over his two tweets against the judiciary, which was seen as a contempt of court, read that the lawyer-activist either pay a fine of Re 1 or serve jail time for three months.

Now, while Prashant Bhushan has respectfully paid the fine imposed upon him and called the verdict a watershed moment for freedom of speech and (which) seems to have encouraged many people to speak out against injustices, a vast section of the society does not seem to be able to swallow this development that easily.

 Twitter pbhushan1

The SC verdict has irked many sympathisers of Justice CS Karnan, who was similarly found guilty of disrespecting the courts of law after he decided to out the names of 20 'corrupt' judges in a letter to PM Modi in 2017.



A case was filed against Justice Karnan and the act was regarded as a violation of the Contempt of Courts Act, which has a maximum punishment of six months jail term and/or fine of Rs 2,000. Justice Karnan was sent to jail for six months.

 Twitter Dr Prashant Rathor

Not only did Justice Karnan serve the maximum sentence, but even his review appeal was rejected both by the Parliament as well as President Pranab Mukherjee.



Now, under current circumstances, when Prashant Bhushan has only been asked to pay Re 1 as a fine and given half the jail term, many people have been forced to look at the incident through the prism of caste privilege.

For those who may not know, Justice Karnan is a Dalit man.

 Twitter TOI

One look at the #JusticeKarnan on Twitter will reveal why a section of the society doesnt find this verdict to be fair.



Not saying that the claims are right (or wrong) but this does merit some thought as to how law enforcement functions in our country and whether caste plays a role in verdicts and punishments delivered. Because if not, we would like to know why the same charges bring on two different verdicts.

People on Twitter have been raising similar questions:

Does #SupremeCourtOfIndia keep different yardsticks for different judges ?



"Justice Karnan" & @pbhushan1.



Is #Law not same for all ?

  SHANKAR BARADHWAJ (@shankar6763) August 31, 2020

Contempt of court:



Case 1. Justice Karnan served 6 months imprisonment.

Case 2. Prashant Bhushan fined  1.



That, my friends, is called caste privilege and social capital.#__  Mohit Tiwari (@Tiwary_mohit_) August 31, 2020

Prashanth Bhushan was fined Re 1. But Justice Karnan was imprisoned for 6 months.Why?  S Raghunatha Prabhu (@SRaghunathaPra1) August 31, 2020

No one above the rule of law. But for the contempt of court. Former high court justice Karnan has been served with six months imprisonment. But for the advocate, Mr. Prashant Bhushan fined with Rs. 1 only.#CastePrivilege | #JusticeKarnan  . .  (@ManiTwitz1) August 31, 2020

Prashant bhushan gets Rupees one fine whereas Sudha Bharadwaj gets bail denied. Justice system works differently for different victims. Everything is distraction. Complete waste of time.  urbanomed (@udhan_khatola) August 31, 2020

While we believe that the Supreme Court of India is above any class or caste-based bias in dealing out punishments to the guilty, it would be prudent to hear from a figure of authority on this matter and understand the logic behind these varying judgements delivered.
Police have launched an appeal to find two boys who helped a member of the public pull two black bin bags containing human remains from a river in Suffolk.

A murder investigation was launched last Thursday when two black sacks filled with bones were pulled out of the River Stour, near Sudbury.

The two black bin bags were spotted in the river by a member of the public and reported to a ranger who called the police.

A shopping trolley was found a little further along the river from where the bags were located.

Police want to speak to two boys who helped pull human remains out of the River Stour in Sudbury on Thursday. Marine officers have continued to search the water since the discovery

Investigators have said that an initial post-mortem examination has not shed any light on cause of death or the identification of the deceased.

The remains will now undergo further forensic tests, but officers warned previously that it will be a lengthy process before any further details are established.

On Saturday, police said they had closed an area around the river to allow their search to continue.

The force said they had shut the footpath between Meadow Gate and Croft Gate, including Croft Road footbridge.

An emergency navigation closure for the River Stour at the Croft Road footbridge had also been put in place, police said.

Both the river and its banks are being searched with the help of divers from the Metropolitan Police's marine policing unit.

They are now keen to speak to anyone who uses the footpath regularly, and in particular two boys who tried to help the person who made the discovery pull the bags out of the water.

Extensive searches have been carried out around the River Stour after two black sacks with human bones inside were pulled from the water on Thursday

Suffolk Police has also urged a man seen swimming in the area of the river known locally as the 'Victorian bathing pool' on August 20 to contact them.

The Croft Road footbridge and footpath between Meadow Gate and Croft Gate remains closed while searches continue, the force said, and police divers are searching the river itself.

Temporary Detective Superintendent Mike Brown of Suffolk Police said: 'We would still like to speak to anyone who uses the route regularly and to ask anyone who may have dash-cam footage of the area of the Croft to check this, in case there is anything relevant to the investigation.

The Croft Road footbridge and footpath between Meadow Gate and Croft Gate remains closed while searches continue

'Thank you to those individuals who have already come forward with information and also to the local community for their patience as we continue with our searches.'

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Suffolk Police on 101 quoting reference number 37/49998/20.

Alternatively, they can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or via Suffolk Police's online portal.
Julio Cesar Mora Tapia slipped away from his parents to secretly marry Waldramina Maclovia Quinteros Reyes on one February day, as both families disapproved of them being together.

However, now, 79 years later, theyre still togetherhe is 110 years of age, and she is 104, both lucid and in good health, though relatives say theyre a little depressed because they miss their big family get-togethers due to the pandemic.

Julio Mora Tapia, 110 years old, and his wife, Waldramina Maclovia Quinteros Reyes, 104 years old, pose for a photo at their house, in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, Aug. 28, 2020. (Dolores Ochoa/AP)

There are longer marriages, but at the moment not between people so old, according to a statement by Guinness World Records on Aug. 24a combined 214 years 358 days.

Julio was born on March 10, 1910, and Waldramina on Oct. 16, 1915. The couples love story began when Waldramina during one of her vacations in school made a visit to her sister who happened to reside in the same building as Julio. The two met because Waldraminas sisters husband was one of Julios cousins. Their friendship blossomed into a relationship, and seven years later, the couple tied the knot on Feb. 7, 1941, in the first church built by the Spanish in Quito: La Iglesia de El Belen.

As the families didnt agree to their relationship, the ceremony was small and attended by their godparents and closest friends.

The two retired teachers currently live in Ecuadors capital of Quito, where in mid-August they received the Guinness certification.

The couples daughter Cecilia says, according to the Associated Press, theyre both lucid and active, although they no longer have the agility they had before. But for a month they have been different, more downcast because they miss large family gatherings.

Julio Cesar Mora Tapia, 110 years old and his wife, Waldramina Maclovia Quinteros Reyes, 104 years old, at their house, in Quito, Ecuador, Friday, Aug. 28, 2020. (Dolores Ochoa/AP)

And for them, they can gather quite a crowd: 4 surviving children, 11 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren, and 1 great-great-grandchild.

Since March, we have not had any of that, Cecilia said. My parents need family contact.

She added that her father enjoys watching television and drinking milk and that her mother, who enjoys desserts, likes to read the newspaper every morning.

Additionally, for those who are curious to know the secret to their long-lasting marriage, it has been due to love and maturity, according to the Guinness World Record statement.

The love and maturity that we had as a couple from the beginning of the marriage allowed us to know each other and grow emotionally to define our future, the couple said. The secret formula = love + maturity + mutual respect.

On achieving the title of worlds oldest married couple, they said: For us, Julio Cesar and Waldramina, it is a great honor and pride to have a Guinness World Records title because it is the highest award that the world recognizes.

Previously listed as the oldest were Austin, Texas, couple Charlotte and John Henderson, who have a combined age of 212 years and 52 days.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group Limited (Evergrande Auto), the electric car arm of China Evergrande Group, announced that its total revenue for the first half of the year reached 4.51 billion yuan ($655,723,332), surging 70% over a year ago, and the gross margin skyrocketed 107% to 1.262 billion yuan ($183,486,218).

For the first six months of 2020, the company saw its net loss widened to 2.457 billion yuan ($357,231,092) from 1.984 billion yuan ($288,460,109) for the previous year.



(Photo source: Evergrand Health's WeChat account)

The first-half revenue gained from new energy vehicle (NEV) business amounted to 53 million yuan ($7,705,840), plunging 81.34% from a year earlier. The majority contribution stemmed from the sale of lithium batteries and relevant technology services, which generated 26.607 billion yuan ($3,868,476,872) and 23.411 billion yuan ($3,403,800,205) worth of revenue respectively.

The company has officially changed its name to China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group Limited from Evergrande Health Industry Group Limited, according to an announcement released on August 26, as the NEV has become its most important business.

Evergrand Auto said it has to-day established a full industrial chain for NEVs covering vehicle manufacturing, electric motor control, power batteries, vehicle sales, smart charging and shared mobility.

According to the interim financial report, the NEV business of the company and its subsidiaries (collectively called the group for short) has made a number of breakthroughs during the first-half 2020, including but not limited to:

(Gemera, photo source: Evergrand Health's WeChat account)



On March 3, 2020, the Gemera, the new energy super sport car jointly developed by the Group and Koenigsegg, made its world debut.

(Hengchi 1, photo source: Evergrande Group)



On August 3, 2020, the first six models under the Hengchi brand were revealed worldwide. They are named Hengchi 1, Hengchi 2, Hengchi 3, Hengchi 4, Hengchi 5 and Hengchi 6, covering all classifications from segments A to D, as well as a full range of PV types, including sedan, SUV and MPV.

On August 7, 2020, the production bases in Shanghai and Guangdong were officially unveiled. Constructed in accordance with Industry 4.0 Standard, the two major bases have been equipped with 2,545 intelligent robots. At present, the entire manufacturing line has entered the stages of equipment installation and debugging.

Evergrande Auto said the Shanghai and Guangzhou bases are expected to be available for trial production by September 2020, and each of such production bases has a planned capacity of 200,000 vehicles for the first phase.

Besides, the Hengchi-branded models are planned for trial production in the first half of next year and the group will strive to achieve the mass production in the second half of 2021, according to the financial results.
The Journal editorial Aug. 14 regarding the extension of a 7.3-mile pipeline from the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Authoritys (ABCWUA) western-most water tank to the village of Tohajiilee (included) an important point. The Navajo Nation has water rights to the water that would flow to Tohajiilee.

The sticking point to allowing that water to flow to the 2,000 residents has been the refusal of land owner Barclays Bank of England and the Western Albuquerque Land Holdings (WALH) to provide an easement on their property for a water line. Although there was a meeting (recently) between the parties, WALH is demanding documents that are not appropriate for it to demand. The ABCWUA has the authority to provide this water and has verified the water rights to Tohajiilee are valid. Therefore, it appears that the best way for this problem to be solved is for the county to pursue condemnation of the needed right of way.

It is important to note that WALH has also been battling to develop Santolina, a proposed 90,000-person community south of Tohajiillee and southwest of I-40 and 118th Street. This development is in a holding pattern because the ABCWUA has specifically required that the development must pay for the infrastructure needed to create a water treatment facility and water lines, which has been reported to cost as much as $600 million. There is great concern by many that water should not be transferred from the valley and the core of Albuquerque to this large proposed new city. The water-line proposed to extend across WALH property to Tohajiilee is completely separate from the proposed development of Santolina because Tohajiilee currently has Native water rights. WALH should not be allowed to use the waterline extension to Tohajiilee as a negotiating point or leverage relating to Santolina.

Kudos to our local leadership including U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich and Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie OMalley, who have advocated for the extension of this lifeline of water to the Tohajiilee community now. The Navajo Times on Aug. 10 reported the following: While the developer (WALH) promotes how it is advancing urban growth, Commissioner OMalley points out that WALH has benefited from numerous state and county resources  for example: planning, zoning, tax breaks, entitlements and road improvements. OMalley is quoted, I am so angry, especially that they have benefitted from how much we have done and this is the way they are acting. That is not right. Heinrich has called this a humanitarian crisis.

Together, as a community, we must protect our most precious natural resource, water. We all hope that WALH sees the importance of collaboration and works with the Navajo Nation and Tohajiilee to provide an easement to convey water in this crucial time of COVID-19 where clean water can mean life or death. If not, the county must pursue condemnation for the pipeline. Water rights are human rights.

This is truly a humanitarian issue and an issue of social justice to provide water to an indigenous community of New Mexico.
The attorney for Breonna Taylor's family says law enforcement offered her convicted drug trafficking ex-boyfriend a plea deal in exchange for naming the slain EMT as his co-defendant in a drug case months after she was killed.

Jamarcus Glover, who was arrested in a drug raid the same night Taylor was shot dead by police in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment, was offered the plea deal last month.

As part of the deal, Glover would have had to admit that he and co-defendants, including Taylor, trafficked drugs in Louisville, according to court documents.

He refused to take the deal from the Jefferson Commonwealth's Attorney's office that could have potentially seen him released on probation for criminal syndication, drug trafficking and gun charges.

Jamarcus Glover (right), who was arrested in a drug raid the same night Breonna Taylor (left) was shot dead by police in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment, was offered the plea deal last month

Sam Aguiar, the attorney who is representing Taylor's family in a wrongful death lawsuit, has slammed law enforcement and accused them of going to extreme lengths to try and tarnish the slain woman's name in the wake of her death.

'The fact that they would try to even represent that she was a co-defendant in a criminal case more than a month after she died is absolutely disgusting,' Aguiar told WDRB.

In a Facebook post, Aguiar added that the plea deal was being used to justify the search of her home and her subsequent killing.

'Breonna Taylor is not a 'co-defendant' in a criminal case. She's dead. Way to try and attack a woman when she's not even here to defend herself,' the attorney said.

Aguiar noted the plea deal was made on July 13 - exactly four months after Taylor was killed.

Glover was arrested in a drug raid just moments before Louisville police stormed into Taylor's apartment about 10 miles away on March 13.

Sam Aguiar, the attorney who is representing Taylor's family in a wrongful death lawsuit, has slammed law enforcement and accused them of going to extreme lengths to try and tarnish the slain woman's name by offering Glover a plea deal

In a Facebook post, Aguiar added that the plea deal was being used to justify the search of her home and her subsequent killing

Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical worker, was shot dead by police serving the 'no knock' narcotics search warrant at her apartment.

Officers never found any drugs in her home.

An officer was shot during the raid by Taylor's boyfriend who has since said he thought he was defending against a home invasion.

Taylor's ex-boyfriend, who was arrested last week on new drug charges, has repeatedly said on recorded jail phone calls that Taylor was not involved in any drug operations.

Glover, who had an on-and-off again relationship with Taylor starting in 2016, has also previously questioned why officers would search her home.

The warrant used to enter Taylor's home was secured by police observing Glover, a suspected drug dealer, who had been spotted at her home two months earlier.

Officers had been tracking Glover for several months and, at one point, saw him getting out of a vehicle registered to Taylor that was later spotted several times outside a suspected drug house, according to the New York Times.

Glover listed Taylor's apartment as his address and was spotted on surveillance leaving her home with a package as recently as January.

Taylor's ex-boyfriend (above), who was arrested last week on new drug charges, has repeatedly said on recorded jail phone calls that Taylor was not involved in any drug operations

She had cut ties with Glover about a month before the fatal raid that ended her life. Taylor's family attorney said police failed to recognize this before they decided to storm into her apartment

Taylor had also paid Glover's bail in 2017 and 2019 when he was arrested on drug charges.

In a jail call in January when Glover asked her to pay bail again, Taylor told him that she was stressed when he was around 'because I just always be worried about you with the police'.

She had cut ties with Glover about a month before the fatal raid that ended her life.

Taylor's family attorney said police failed to recognize this.

'Breonna was a woman who was figuring everything out in her life, who had turned a corner,' Aguiar told the NYT.

'Breonna was starting to live her best life.'

In a jail call after Taylor was shot dead, Glover told an unidentified man that Taylor had been 'hanging onto my money'.

He claimed she had $14,000 of his money in her apartment.

'She had the eight I gave her the other day... and she picked up another six,' Glover said in the call.

Aguiar said no money was found in Taylor's apartment following her death.
Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi president Prakash Ambedkar arrived at Pandharpur on Monday to visit the famous Lord Vitthal temple as part of agitation to open religious places in Maharashtra.

Ambedkar, who is grandson of BR Ambedkar, arrived at the Shivaji square where a large number of followers accompanied him to enter the temple. He later marched towards the temple with a select number of followers.

We have submitted a letter to Solapur district collector for allowing us to enter the temple. I am waiting for the administrations response. I am appealing to all not to cross barricades put up by administration, Ambedkar told reporters at Pandharpur.

The local administration at Pandharpur has put up checkpoints at entry and exit points to the temple town while barricading the roads leading to Lord Vitthal temple in view of Mondays agitation by the Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi (VBA).

Several varkari organisations (pilgrims) have extended their support to VBA agitation that demands opening of religious places across Maharashtra.

According to Solapur Superintendent of Police, Manoj Patil, notices have been issued to VBA workers. We have served them notices under section 149 of CrPC. We have also barricaded streets leading to the temple in order to prevent anyone visiting the religious place, Patil said. The notices asked protesters not to break the law.

To prevent anyone from entering into the temple town, the state transport bus service has been suspended in Pandharpur for a day.

Since March 25, all the places of worship across the state have been closed for devotees in view of Covid pandemic. However, there is a growing chorus from various sectors for opening temples and other religious places. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday staged ghatna-nad (bell ringing) agitation across the state pressing for its demand to open temples.
Southeastern Victoria reported 114 new cases, a day after the daily tally fell to 94, its lowest in nearly two months. Its capital, Melbourne, is four weeks into a six-week hard lockdown that authorities have said may ease only gradually.

"At 100, 94, at 114, whatever the number, we simply could not open up," state premier Daniel Andrews told a televised briefing.

The nation of 25 million has suffered about 25,600 infections and just over 600 deaths since the start of the year.

Australia's closest neighbour, New Zealand, reported two new virus cases on Sunday, taking its tally of infections to 1,378, while the death toll stands at 22.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said curbs in Auckland would be eased from Monday (August 31), but would be tightened again if needed.

Limits will stay on public gatherings and movement in Auckland, however, with masks made mandatory nationwide from Monday.

The programme of curbs has worked well, Ardern said, telling a televised briefing, "It is designed to keep us on track with our elimination strategy."

Both New Zealand and Australia have proved far better able to rein in the spread of the virus than many other nations, moving swiftly to clamp down with social distancing measures.

However, the high cost of the measures for both nations has been reflected in the largest loss in gross domestic product in decades.
Hashima Island



By David Tizzard and Benjamin Acree



One of Northeast Asia's greatest challenges is for there to be constructed an account of history that is acceptable to Koreans, Chinese and Japanese people alike. If history is real, such a thing should be possible: the facts should stand clear and distinguishable.

One should be able to read a text and not know where the Korean historian put his pen down and the Japanese historian picked his up. A single narrative that recounts the factual events that have taken place here over the past couple of centuries.

Such an idea, however, even as we enter the second decade of the 21st century seems little more than wishful thinking. History hurts, it scars, and it lingers. The past is still well and truly alive today, particularly for South Korea.

South Korea's current relations with Japan are probably at their lowest ebb in the modern age. Paradoxically, this is probably good news for President Moon and Prime Minister Abe as they bolster their relative domestic positions by mobilizing their support base against an external enemy which, in turn, helps detract from their own internal problems.

Family Housing Apartments

Single Worker Apartments



Despite suggestions to the contrary, the "make our country great again" tactic which focuses on demonization and otherization is not limited in its use by people with bad hair, white skin, and an inability to walk normally down a ramp.

The Empire of Japan extended over much of the region and ruled eventually through a process of military dictatorship and totalitarian rule. Ralph Blumenthal has described what took place as an "Asian Holocaust", and estimates the human casualties in a range from 3 to 14 million as a result of the many massacres, forced labour, sexual slavery, human experimentation, and other atrocities.

Japan's frequent apologies over the years have all been rejected as either non-existent by that do not care for them to have taken place or inauthentic by those with a closer eye on history. The latter group definitely has more of a case, particularly when such apologies are then followed by Japanese politicians making visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine which remains home to 14 Class A war criminals.

This glorification of, for what is many, a brutal and murderous history rankles. The Japanese are accused of whitewashing their past and not repenting for the imperialism and brutality to which they subjected their neighboring countries. The accusations are correct for the most part, but it is also a charge that applies to most other countries focused on post-colonial nation building, particularly in the Northeast Asian region. One doesn't find many famous Noam Chomsky-esque dissidents in places such as China, North Korea, Russia, or South Korea.

Thus the decision by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in 2015 to designate 23 Meiji industrial sites as locations of "world heritage", including Battleship Island (otherwise known as Hashima) rightly caused some consternation here in South Korea.

Lighthouse and Management Buildings

Seawall Boat Landing



Younger readers might know Hashima as the location of Raoul Silver's lair, the antagonist of the 007 film Skyfall played by Javier Bardem. Its ominous vertical buildings dropping sharply into the water that surrounds it on all sides while dust whistles through the streets of what is now essentially a ghost town.

Despite UNESCO's frequent recommendations that the Japanese government include a full account of the locations' history, and South Korea's vocal protestations that argue the same point, for the most part visitors are still subjected to Japanese rose-tinted glasses and all the chrysanthemums that come with it.

However, eventually an agreement was reached between Korea and Japan and the following declaration made public: "Japan is prepared to take measures that allow an understanding that there were a large number of Koreans and others who were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some of the sites, and that, during World War II, the Government of Japan also implemented its policy of requisition."

Undersea Coal Mine Access Tunnel

Takazane Yasunori



This could and perhaps should have been a welcome resolution. However, while the Koreans took this as an admission of Japan's use of forced labour, in Tokyo the Foreign Minister played a game of semantics and suggested that being "forced to work" is very different from "forced labour". Any element of good faith was quickly lost.

Lee Young-chae, a South Korean professor at Keisen University in Japan, has long advocated a civil society approach to improving relations, particularly vis-a-vis Japan's right-wing anti-Korean sentiments. Professor Lee visited Hashima in April 2019 and lamented the fact that before departure, and on the island itself, there was no mention of the forced labour, terrible working conditions, or discrimination suffered by the Korean (and Chinese and Japanese) workers.

Instead it was presented as a site of incredible technological and industrial achievement as well as a demonstration of Japan's generosity and forward-thinking for allowing different nationalities to work together. The reality was of course far from the GAP commercial portrayed.

Suh Jung-woo was one of the Korean labourers fortunate to actually survive the island. In a 1983 interview, he recounted the harrowing experience he and others faced. For Suh, Hashima was a symbol of despair: an oceanic prison with no Napoleonic grand ending.

Former Administrative Buildings, Destroyed by Tsunami



Suh states: "I was one of two boys forced onto a truck in my village and taken to the government office, where several thousand other Koreans ranging in age from about fourteen to twenty had been gathered. After a night at an inn, we were taken by truck to a nearby city, then by train to the port at Pusan and ship from Pusan to Shimonoseki. About 300 members of the group, including myself, were then taken by train to Nagasaki, where we arrived the following morning. All of us were being sent to Hashima.

"The island was surrounded by high concrete walls, and there was ocean, nothing but ocean, all around. It was crowded with concrete buildings as high as nine stories.... We Koreans were lodged in buildings on the edge of the island. Seven or eight of us were put together in a tiny room, giving each person no more than a few feet of space."

"We were given uniforms like rice bags to wear and forced to begin work the morning after arrival. We were constantly watched and ordered around by Japanese guards, some of whom were wearing swords. It was excruciating, exhausting labor. Gas collected in the tunnels, and the rock ceilings and walls threatened to collapse at any minute."

"I was convinced that I would never leave the island alive. Four or five workers in fact died every month in accidents. Modern concepts of safety were nonexistent. The corpses were cremated on Nakanoshima, the little island beside Hashima."

Suh's distressing depiction of life in the prison is one that no-one should be forced to endure. Yet that was the reality that he and many others faced; a reality which Japan seemingly still seeks to deny.

Yet there are some dissenting voices in Japan, none more so than Takazne Yasunori, professor emeritus at Nagasaki University and director of the Oka Masaharu Memorial Nagasaki Peace Museum. Yasunori references locations such as Auschwitz in Poland, the atomic dome in Hiroshima, and Liverpool's slave-trade port as World Heritage sites that "provide materials for humanity's self-examination, and warnings of actions that must never be repeated."

If Hashima is to be remembered, he believes that it should be remembered for the correct reasons and not to celebrate a time in which humans had fallen from the light.

Yasunori has explained that he only truly became aware of the level of agony that took place through a Korean documentary rather than his own country's recounting of history. He then visited Korea and spoke to the survivors in an effort to understand their personal experiences and stories of suffering.

He has published much that seeks to shed light on the plight of Korean and Chinese forced labour at the hands of the Japanese Empire and continues to work with Korean survivors of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki.

The world needs more Yasunoris, however.

UNESCO's decision to label Hashima a World Heritage site is not in and of itself problematic as there are others around the world which similarly stand in recognition of the darkness from which we emerged. However, requiring Korea and Japan to resolve the issue of its classification and description without any external adjudication is deeply problematic.

Japan repeatedly refuses to account for its past in a meaningful way. It has certainly paid lip service to remorse and regret, yet then negates this through actions which raise the ire of its regional neighbours.

Successive South Korean governments have responded differently to the problem and there is no monolith consensus. Moreover, with current Democratic lawmaker Yoon Mi-hyang facing serious allegations of misappropriating funds donated by the public for surviving Korean victims of Japanese sexual slavery, there are demons to be addressed on both sides.

If Northeast Asia is going to get its history correct - a notoriously difficult job in a region home to states such as North Korea and China - it is imperative that locations such as Hashima are recognized for what they are. Complex, troubling, and part of a dark period of history - but still very much a part of the thread upon which the modern states stand.

Yasunori suggests that Japan has "a duty to not be swept up in facile celebrations but instead to face history earnestly." Few could argue with that.

David Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) is an assistant professor at Seoul Women's University where he teaches Korean Studies. He discusses the week's hottest issues on TBS eFM (101.3FM) on "Life Abroad" live every Thursday from 9:35 a.m. to 10 a.m.



Benjamin Acree (benjamin.acree@egs.edu) is a photographer and PhD candidate in philosophy at the European Graduate School.
Doctors attending on the 84-year-old Mukherjee said he continues to be in a deep coma and is on ventilator support.

New Delhi:The condition of former president Pranab Mukherjee declined on Monday morning and he has suffered a septic shock due to his lung infection, the Army's Research and Referral Hospital said.

Doctors attending on the 84-year-old Mukherjee said he continues to be in a deep coma and is on ventilator support.

Mukherjee is being managed by a team of specialists, they added.

The former president was admitted to the hospital in Delhi Cantonment on 10 August and was operated the same day for removal of a clot in his brain.

He later developed a lung infection.

"There has been a decline in the medical condition of Shri Pranab Mukherjee since yesterday. He is in septic shock due to his lung infection and is being managed by a team of specialists. He continues to be in a deep coma and on ventilator support," the hospital said in a statement.

Mukherjee was the 13th President of India from 2012 to 2017.
USS Durham, we hardly knew you.

Ships and aircraft from ten nations participating in the Rim of the Pacific exercise sank the former amphibious cargo ship in a dramatic live-fire exercise Aug. 30, according to Navy releases.

Durham, a Charleston-class amphibious cargo ship, entered service in 1969 and was decommissioned after 24 years in 1994. The 575-foot, 10,000-ton ship, which deployed in support of the Vietnam and Gulf War conflicts, was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in 2015, and has since awaited disposal at the Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility.

The sinking exercises, or SINKEX, with former U.S. Navy warships are a regular part of RIMPAC, the world's largest biennial international maritime warfare exercise. This year, the exercise involved ten nations, 22 ships, one submarine, and approximately 5,300 personnel. It was held Aug.17-31 near the Hawaiian Islands.

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SINKEXs aim to develop proficiency and confidence in various weapons and systems for participating units through realistic training that could not be duplicated in simulators, a Navy release states.

"Simulation is a critical part of our training but there is nothing better than to conduct live fire training," Royal Australian Navy Capt. Phillipa Hay, commander, RIMPAC 2020 Task Force One, said in a statement. "Sinking exercises are an important way to test our weapons and weapons systems in the most realistic way possible. It demonstrates as a joint force we are capable of high-end warfare."

Former Navy warships designated for sinking, known as hulks, are prepared strictly under Environmental Protection Agency regulations and in line with the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act, officials said.

Each hulk is sunk in at least 1,000 fathoms, or 6,000 feet, of water and at least 50 nautical miles from land, with surveys that ensure people and marine mammals are out of the dangerous area during the exercise, according to the Navy.

The Navy said each vessel also undergoes a rigorous cleaning process to remove any harmful chemicals, particularly, liquid polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from transformers, large capacitors and small capacitors; and to get rid of all trash, floatable materials, mercury or fluorocarbon-containing materials and readily detachable solid PCB items. Petroleum is also cleaned from tanks, piping, and reservoirs.

Additionally, a Navy environmental, safety and health manager and a quality assurance supervisor take responsibility for environmental remediation following a SINKEX. Upon completion of the environmental remediation, the manager and supervisor provide signed certification of the work under EPA requirements.

-- Bing Xiao can be reached at bingxiao2020@u.northwestern.edu.

Related: 20 Ships Participating in Reduced RIMPAC in Hawaii
Pranab Mukherjee Death News, Former President dies at 84, Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee passed away today: Former President Pranab Mukherjee has passed away. He breathed his last at the Delhi's Army Hospital, wherein he was in a state of deep comatose and on ventilator support.

Pranab Mukherjee Death News, Former President dies at 84, Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee passed away today: Former President Pranab Mukherjee passed away at the age of 84 on Monday. His son Abhijit confirmed his demise on Twitter. Condoling his demise, President Ram Nath Kovind wrote on Twitter that the passing away of Pranab Mukherjee is the end of an era. Meanwhile, PM Modi addressed him as a scholar par excellence, a towering statesman and someone who was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society.

The senior congress leader was undergoing treatment at Delhis Army Hospital and a team of specialists was monitoring his health. Hospitalised after testing positive for novel coronavirus Covid-19, the 84-year-old also underwent a surgery for the removal of a clot in the brain, after which he developed lung infection and kidney dysfunction. Due to the health complications, he was in a deep state of comatose and on ventilator support for quite some time.

One of his last tweets was about him informing everyone that he has tested positive for coronavirus. In the tweet, he confirmed testing positive for coronavirus and asked people who came in his close proximity to quarantine themselves and get tested. A maha mrityunjaya yajna was also organised at his ancestral village Kirnahar in early August. Mukherjees family and several villagers attended the puja.

With a Heavy Heart , this is to inform you that my father Shri #PranabMukherjee has just passed away inspite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital & prayers ,duas & prarthanas from people throughout India !

I thank all of You   Abhijit Mukherjee (@ABHIJIT_LS) August 31, 2020

Sad to hear that former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee is no more. His demise is passing of an era. A colossus in public life, he served Mother India with the spirit of a sage. The nation mourns losing one of its worthiest sons. Condolences to his family, friends & all citizens.  President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) August 31, 2020

India grieves the passing away of Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee. He has left an indelible mark on the development trajectory of our nation. A scholar par excellence, a towering statesman, he was admired across the political spectrum and by all sections of society. pic.twitter.com/gz6rwQbxi6  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 31, 2020

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The 84-year-old served as the 13th president of India from 2012 until 2017 and was succeeded by Ram Nath Kovind. A senior Congress leader, Pranab Mukhejee also served as Defence Minister from 2004-2006, External Affairs Minister from 2006-2009 and Finance Minister from (2009-12).

Also Read: China violates consensus on LaC again, meet to resolve matter underway
The Atlantic is showing no signs of losing steam following Laura's wrath along the U.S. Gulf Coast last week, with two new systems forming early this week. Tropical Storm Nana developed in the western Caribbean Sea on Tuesday, joining Tropical Storm Omar in the basin.

Potential Tropical Cyclone 16 was dubbed by the National Hurricane Center at 11 a.m. EDT Tuesday after hurricane hunter planes flew through a "vigorous" system in the Caribbean and recorded 40-mph maximum sustained winds. Just over an hour later, the system was named Tropical Storm Nana as it became better organized with a notable center of circulation visible on satellite. Maximum sustained winds had increased to 50 mph with higher gusts. By late Tuesday evening, maximum sustained winds increased to 60 mph.

This image, captured on Tuesday morning, Sept. 1, 2020, showed that Tropical Storm Nana over the Caribbean Sea had developed both a low-level circulation and a high-cloud structure. Forecasters say the feature was much better organized than it was on Monday. (NOAA / GOES-East)

Nana was churning about 300 miles east of Belize City, Belize, moving westward at 18 mph early Wednesday morning. A hurricane watch and tropical storm warning are in effect for the entire coast of Belize. In addition, a tropical storm warning is also in effect for portions of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico

A tropical storm watch is in effect for northern Honduras as well as Roatan Island and the Bay Islands of Honduras, as well as the northern coast of Honduras and the Caribbean Sea coast of Guatemala.

AccuWeather meteorologists say the system, which they have been monitoring for days, could strengthen further as it heads toward Central America.

"Additional strengthening is likely as Nana tracks over warm waters and through an environment with light wind shear. As a result, we expect Nana to become a hurricane before making landfall," AccuWeather's lead hurricane expert Dan Kottlowski said.

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The longer the system remains over very warm waters in the region, the greater the chance of additional strengthening prior to landfall.

Heavy rain, gusty winds and rough surf are expected across portions of Central America later this week and into this weekend.

"The greatest threat to lives and property in Central America will be from torrential rain that can unleash flash flooding and mudslides," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Rob Miller added.

AccuWeather meteorologists believe the RealImpact Scale for Nana will be a 1 due primarily to the storm's small size but also the flooding and mudslide potential. This scale was introduced by AccuWeather in 2019 to better relay the full impact of hurricanes and tropical storms. Unlike the Saffir-Simpson scale, which is based solely on wind speeds, the RealImpact scale factors in other key weather elements.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP

Jamaica was affected by Nana into Tuesday night with rounds of heavy rain and gusty thunderstorms. Small craft should remain in port until this system passes to the west on Wednesday.

Heavy rain and gusty winds are expected to target areas from northern Honduras to northern Guatemala, Belize and southeastern Mexico Wednesday into Thursday.

"Wind gusts of 55-65 mph can occur with an AccuWeather Local StormMaxgust of 70 mph," according to Kottlowski.

"Wind of this strength can knock down trees, cause damage to weak structures and lead to power outages," Miller added.

A general 2-4 inches of rain will fall on portions of Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and southern Mexico through Thursday. An AccuWeather Local StormMax of 6 inches is forecast.

As the system moves westward, organizes and strengthens, seas will become agitated over the Caribbean, which means that conditions will become rough for small craft. Rough surf is likely along the south shores of the northern Caribbean islands as well as the north shores of South America. Seas and surf will build in the western part of the Caribbean Sea at midweek prior to the system's arrival in Central America.

Soon after the system pushes inland over Central America, it will lose wind intensity, but areas of flooding rain can continue through the end of the week.

"At this time it appears the current Caribbean system will not be a threat to the U.S. as a belt of high pressure that extends westward through the Gulf of Mexico will act as a roadblock and prevent the feature from morning northward," Miller said.

Nana set a new early-season formation record for the letter "N" in the Atlantic when it was named Tuesday. It beat out Nate from the 2005 season, which formed on Sept. 5, for the title.

Tropical Storm Omar followed suit later on Tuesday afternoon and broke the same record for the "O" storm. The previous record-holder was Ophelia from Sept. 7, 2005.

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season has already generated 16 depressions, of which 15 have become tropical storms, four have strengthened into hurricanes, including one major hurricane. The 2020 season is on record pace that could rival the notorious 2005 season that gave birth to Emily, Katrina, Rita and Wilma.

Early this summer, AccuWeather meteorologists predicted a hyperactive peak hurricane season, which is now underway, and like the notorious 2005 season, Greek letters may be needed beyond the designated list of names for the 2020 season. AccuWeather meteorologists are calling for up to 24 tropical storms and up to 11 hurricanes this season.

Marco was the latest tropical system to set an early-season formation record for 2020. Marco formed on Aug. 20. Even though Marco brought some rain and wind to part of Central America and southeastern Mexico, and briefly reached hurricane status, it was quickly overshadowed by Laura, which prevailed after Marco's demise along the upper Gulf Coast. Laura struck southwestern Louisiana with devastating effects as a Category 4 hurricane early on Aug. 27. Thus far Laura is the only major hurricane for 2020.

Cristobal, Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo, Hanna, Isaias, Josephine, Kyle, Laura and Marco all set new records for their designated letters in 2020. That trend is likely to continue through most letters of the alphabet and perhaps Greek letters as well.

In addition to the feature east of the Carolinas, the area from the coast of Africa to the central Atlantic will have to be watched for development in the coming days.

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
The Congress on Monday attacked the government over the Chinese aggression at the border and asked when will Prime Minister Narendra Modi show his "red eyes" to China.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Nimu in Ladakh to interact with Indian troops, on July 03, 2020. Photograph: Press Information Bureau

"Another brazen attempt at aggression by China in Pangong Tso Lake. Everyday there is a Chinese intrusion...Pangong Tso Lake area, Gogra and Galwan valley, Depsang plains, Lipu Lake, Doka La and Naku La pass.

"Our armed forces are standing fearlessly to protect Mother India. But, when will Modi ji show his red eyes," Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said in a tweet in Hindi.

Another Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said China remains consistent and persistent in indulging in LAC misadventures altering status quo, but alleged that "the BJP Government remains hesitant in even admitting the reality".

"Aatmanirbhar, Toys and Love for Indian Dogs can divert attention but should not be confused with strategy and scheme to evict China," he said in a series of tweets.

In a fresh incident in eastern Ladakh, the Chinese PLA carried out "provocative military movements" to "unilaterally" change the status quo on the southern bank of Pangong Tso lake but the attempt was thwarted by the Indian troops, the Army said here.

Army Spokesperson Col Aman Anand said troops from China's People's Liberation Army "violated" the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements on the ongoing standoff in eastern Ladakh, and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo on the night of August 29/30.
Barnier wants "parallelism" - where a range of issues must be agreed before talks can move forward - BLOOMBERG

Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, is refusing to open discussions on Britain's new fisheries proposals until the UK budges on other issues, it has emerged.

Mr Barnier, who is meeting David Frost, the UK's lead negotiator, in London on Tuesday, is insisting on "parallelism"  where multiple aspects on a range of issues must be agreed before moving forward.

Britain is keen to move on and progress talks, and the pair are meeting outside of the scheduled negotiating timetable to try to straighten out the stagnated talks with the official, eighth round resuming in London on Monday September 7.

The UK had wanted a deal done at the end of July and Mr Barnier says an agreement has to be in place by the end of October for it to be ratified around Europe by the end of the year.

Fisheries remains just one of the main sticking points, and if there is no deal by October, European fishermen will be completely excluded from British waters under international law, causing a devastating impact on their fishing communities.

Fishermen in Hastings. Without a deal, Europe's fishing boats will lose access to British waters - GETTY IMAGES

Brussels is also fearful that state-funded British companies will have an unfair advantage over European ones in the EU market and wants to get the UK to commit to a so-called level playing field.

Whether or not the EU's top courts will regulate the trade deal is also a red line for either side.

It came as Frances foreign affairs minister blasted the UKs Brexit negotiating team for having an uncompromising and unrealistic attitude.

Jean-Yves le Drian is one of the first major voices from an EU government to speak out after Mr Barnier started phoning around EU capitals to demand they step in and support him.

Additionally, during the same address to French ambassadors, the countrys state secretary for Europe, Clement Beaune, said were not moving on our position, we cant be weak.

Mr Frost is expected to express his frustration at Brussels refusal to discuss proposals on how to manage fish stocks.

Story continues

The EU has always said that fishing is a key issue for resolution but has subsequently declined to discuss it, a source told The Times. We had hoped to make progress and presented room papers but, unfortunately, the EU refused to engage due to their self-imposed requirements.

Jean-Yves le Drian said the UK was being unrealistic - GETTY IMAGES

Last week, German chancellor Angela Merkel said she expects her team to be busy with Brexit until the end of the year.

Her country holds the rolling six months presidency of the EU Council however and decided to remove Brexit from a meeting of deputy ambassadors taking place this week here in Brussels.

It was deemed that there had not been enough progress in the negotiations to make it worthwhile.

A decision now sits with EU Council president Charles Michel about whether to put Brexit on a special summit called for later in September.

It was called to talk about Greece and Cypruss concerns about Turkeys gas exploration missions in their waters.

But with Mr Barnier demanding leaders step in, and the clock running out in the negotiations, the two-day summit may be hijacked by Brexit.

EU sources told the Telegraph the decision on the agenda for the summit will be made after next weeks Brexit talks in London.
Five Romanian police officers will participate, between 31 August 2020 and 26 February 2021, as operational support specialists, in a joint operative mission in France.

According to a Romanian General Police Inspectorate (IGPR) release, Romanian police officers will support French police officers and participate in police cooperation activities to prevent and combat crime. The five police officers will join three other police officers who began their mission in France on 17 August 2020.The purpose of the operative mission is to provide direct support and assistance to the relevant French authorities handling legal cases relating to crime.The action also aims to facilitate the exchange of data and information in cases investigated between the French and Romanian authorities.The police officers participating in the missions have experience in the operative structures of the Romanian Police and have gone through a selection process which consisted of verifying the theoretical legislative knowledge and the level of knowledge of the language of the country in which they will carry out the mission.
RESTON, Va., Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Leidos (NYSE: LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology company, will attend the Citi 2020 Virtual Global Technology Conference webcast.

Roger Krone, Leidos Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, will participate in a question and answer "fireside chat" on Tuesday, Sep. 8, 2020 at 9:50 a.m. ET.

A live audio webcast of the event will be available on the Leidos Investor Relations website at http://ir.leidos.com. A replay of the webcast will be available following the presentation at the same link listed above for 30 days afterward.

About Leidos

Leidos is a Fortune 500 information technology, engineering, and science solutions and services leader working to solve the world's toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, civil, and health markets. The company's 37,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $11.09 billion for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2020. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.

SOURCE Leidos

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KYIV, Ukraine: Belarus authorities on Monday handed a jail sentence to a factory strike organizer and detained a leading opposition activist, part of a methodical effort to stifle weeks of protests against the countrys authoritarian leader after an election the opposition says was rigged.

President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the 9.5-million nation with an iron fist for 26 years, has dismissed the protesters as Western puppets and rejected the European Unions offers of mediation. After a ferocious crackdown on demonstrators in the first days after the Aug. 9 presidential vote that caused international outrage, his government has avoided large-scale violence against demonstrators and switched to threats and the selective jailing of activists to stem the protests.

Anatoly Bokun, who leads the strike committee at Belaruskali, a huge potash factory in Soligorsk, was detained by police Monday and handed a 15-day jail sentence on charges of organizing an unsanctioned protest. The factory, which accounts for a fifth of the worlds potash fertilizer output, is the nations top cash earner.

The Belaruskali strike committee spokesman, Gleb Sandras, said authorities had managed to halt a strike at the factory that began two weeks ago and all its potash mines are now working. He said agents of Belarus State Security Committee, which still goes by the Soviet-era name KGB, had pressured workers to end the strike.

KGB agents have inundated the factory, tracking down the most active workers and using various means of pressure, Sandras told The Associated Press. The authorities have powerful economic instruments. They are blackmailing workers with mass dismissals.

Strikes at Belaruskali and many other leading industrial plants have cast an unprecedented challenge to Lukashenko, who has kept the bulk of the economy in state hands and relied on blue-collar workers as his main support base.

Belarus Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Nazarov acknowledged Monday that the strikes posed a problem, but said all major industrial plants have resumed normal operations.

Bokuns detention follows the arrests of strike leaders at two other major industrial plants in Minsk last week. The organizer of a strike at the Grodno Azot, a major producer of nitrogen fertilizers, fled to neighboring Poland to escape detention.

Seeking to stem the protests, Belarusian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe against the opposition Coordination Council created to negotiate a transition of power, accusing its members of undermining the countrys security.

Last week, Belarusian courts handed 10-day jail sentences to two council members and summoned several others for questioning, including Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature. Another leading council member, Lilia Vlasova, was detained by police on Monday.

This is the governments response to our peaceful actions and offers of dialogue, council member Maria Kolesnikova told the AP. It means that protests will grow."

Belarusian authorities on Monday also denied entry to Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the 74-year-old archbishop of Minsk and Mohilev. Yury Sanko, a spokesman for the Catholic Church in Belarus, said the Belarusian border guards kept Kondrusiewicz waiting for four hours on the border before turning him back to Poland.

Last week, Kondrusiewicz strongly criticized Belarusian police, who locked the doors of a Catholic church in the Belarusian capital of Minsk where several dozen protesters found refuge as police were dispersing a protest.

Both the U.S. and the EU have criticized the Aug. 9 election that extended Lukashenkos rule as neither free nor fair and urged Belarusian authorities to talk with the opposition calls that the 66-year-old leader has rejected.

EU foreign ministers agreed last week to prepare a sanctions list of up to 20 senior Belarus officials suspected of election fraud and the crackdown on protesters. On Monday, the EUs Baltic members Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia slapped their own travel sanctions on 30 top Belarusian officials, including Lukashenko.

Belarus Foreign Ministry spokesman, Anatoly Glaz, warned that Minsk would retaliate. Last week, Lukashenko threatened to respond to the sanctions by redirecting the flow of Belarusian imports via Lithuanian ports and blocking the transit of European cargo across Belarusian territory.

The detention of hundreds of demonstrators last week didnt deter the opposition from mounting another massive rally on Sunday, which saw an estimated 100,000 flood the streets of Minsk amid a heavy police presence.

German Chancellor Angela Merkels spokesman, Steffen Seibert, hailed the protesters courage and urged Lukashenko on Monday to recognize the reality in the country  there needs to be an open dialogue between the leadership, opposition forces and all of Belarusian society to bring about a peaceful solution.

In a bid to win time and to assuage simmering discontent, Lukashenko touted the prospect of a vague constitutional reform that could see a new presidential election at an unspecified time. On Monday, he bluntly dismissed the oppositions push for restoring the countrys earlier constitution, which envisaged broad parliamentary powers.

A fierce clampdown on peaceful demonstrators after the vote left nearly 7,000 people detained, hundreds injured by police rubber bullets, stun grenades and beatings and at least three protesters dead. Police then let the demonstrations go unhindered for the next two weeks, but last week again cranked up the pressure on demonstrators and began dispersing rallies.

Over the weekend, the Belarusian government also cracked down hard on the news media, deporting some foreign journalists from the country and revoking the accreditation of many Belarusian journalists. Two Moscow-based Associated Press journalists covering the protests in Belarus were deported to Russia on Saturday. In addition, the APs Belarusian journalists were told by the government that their press credentials had been revoked.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists said that accreditation rights were also taken away from 17 Belarusians working for several other media, including Germanys ARD television, the BBC, Reuters and AFP. The U.S.-funded radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said five of its journalists lost their accreditation.

The U.S. and the EU officials have strongly condemned the media crackdown.

___

Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania contributed to this report.

___

Follow APs coverage of Belarus at https://www.apnews.com/Belarus

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Niagara is still waiting for COVID-19 test results longer than provincial targets, something the regions acting medical officer of health is concerned about as the resumption of school approaches.

Dr. Mustafa Hirji said public health has been tracking turnaround times for lab results for the past few months and has never met the 24-hour goal of getting 60 per cent test results back.

Unfortunately, we have not had a single week where the Ontario Health and the lab network is meeting their turnaround targets, he said.

Thats becoming a bit more of a concern to us now because we are seeing fewer cases in the province so there should be better turnaround, youd think.

Hirji is most concerned about results being made available faster as kids go back to school.

Children who have symptoms that could be COVID-19 will have to leave their school until they have isolated for 14 days. But if they get tested for COVID-19 and get a negative result, they can go back to school after theyve recovered from whatever sickness they have.

Hirji said slower turnaround times for test results is going to impact how quickly a child without COVID-19 is able to go back to school.

For the week of Aug. 22, Niagara Public Health received 33.3 per cent of test results in 24 hours, well below the target of 60 per cent of results.

In the two weeks prior, just more than 18 per cent of results were coming in within 24 hours.

The goal of receiving 80 per cent of results in 48 hours has been more achievable, with the target reached four times in the past 11 weeks.

Anecdotally, public health has seen incidents for which its not getting test results until four or five days later.

Thats actually quite worrying because in many of those cases it was actually linked to an outbreak, so those are test results that really should have been a priority for us to get back earlier, Hirji said.

Ontario Health told the St. Catharines Standard the provincial laboratory network is experiencing a weekly average of more than 24,000 tests daily.

A spokesperson said in an email it is not seeing instances for which test results are significantly beyond turnaround targets, but there are unique situations that have resulted in longer than anticipated time lines. It said Niagara continues to have a high number of tests processed.

In order to increase lab testing capacity heading into the fall, Ontario Health has been working, and will continue to do so, with the Ministry of Health and health system partners across the province, Ontario Health said.

This involves securing the equipment, key supplies, technology and human resources that are needed.

Hirji said it may be time to stop indiscriminate and untargeted testing of people who are asymptomatic and focus on people who have symptoms or are at risk because of recent exposure in an effort to get test results back faster.

Right now we feel a lot of our testing is not really targeted, he said. Its not testing being recommended by a health-care provider necessarily, its testing being done in people where theres no reason to suspect theyre having infections.

Testing long-term care and retirement home workers every two weeks, for instance, is not resulting in cases being detected, he said.

Hirji said there is no reason to suspect those workers have infections unless they are part of an outbreak. Homes now screen people before they come inside, cohort staff so theyre not working with every resident and require masks on shifts to limit the spread of infection.

I think there are a lot of good measures in place that are preventing the spread of infection in long-term care homes and those are things that werent in place back in March when we started to first have outbreaks, he said.

Besides not finding positive cases, Hirji said testing workers every two weeks has low value as people can become infected and spread infections in between tests.

He said to protect the population from cases, they need to be testing every day like they do in the NBA, because the infection can pop up at any point.

Doing it over a spread out period is not really going to be effective, Hirji said.

Our feeling is were seeing not much value from this and its perhaps better to re-prioritize to make sure we have the capacity so our students and teachers and staff can feel safe and we dont have unmanaged outbreaks in schools because were waiting too long to get test results back.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 15:42:41|Editor: huaxia

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HAIKOU, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Fruit peels, vegetable leaves, deserted clothes, used plastic bottles and bags -- an eco-awareness center in south China's island province of Hainan is trying to find an alternative destination for these items other than trash cans.

In Baishamen eco-awareness center, Haikou City, Zhao Yueying was using a sewing machine to turn secondhand garments donated by local residents into cloth bags, which she will gift to residents and tourists to replace their plastic bags.

"The more cloth bags I make, the less plastic bags will be used. It's a contribution to the society," said 83-year-old Zhao, who made four or five bags a day.

China's campaign to establish an urban garbage sorting system has given the center an extra educational function: here, visitors can explore how common trash can have a second life.

In its yard, dozens of sealed blue tanks contained rotten fruits and deserted vegetables collected from local markets.

Jiang Fujun, Zhao's son and director of the center, said such kitchen waste, after mixing with water and brown sugar, will turn into "eco-friendly enzymes" after three months. The fermented juice would be used to clean stains, grow flowers and deodorize toilets.

The second floor of the center is an exhibition hall displaying exquisite cloth bags, aprons and sachets made from waste cloth. A large stool was made of hundreds of plastic bottles, each stuffed with colorful plastic bags. Jiang said the furniture reuses the waste that would otherwise contribute to the white pollution.

The center is playing a central role in the local drive to raise public awareness of garbage sorting. Last year, the center received more than 23,000 visitors, including residents, students and staff of public institutions seeking inspiration in garbage sorting. It also sent out over 24,000 cloth bags and 30,000 bottles of enzyme for free.

To encourage more people to participate in garbage sorting, Jiang built three more eco-awareness centers with the support of the government of Meilan District.

One center built this July became a summer vacation hotspot, where children play "garbage-sorting games" and are trained to be volunteers to promote garbage sorting knowledge in the neighborhood.

Having been there less than a week, 12-year-old Mao Zhisen was already conversant in garbage sorting rules and took pride in his volunteer work.

"Trashes have polluted the earth we are living on, so every one of us should take an active role in protecting the environment," he said.

Wang Caili, a local resident, took a bag of waste paper boxes to the center with her three-year-old son. "My son enjoys playing here and he has learned a lot, including dropping trash in the right bins," said Wang, noting it is important to teach children to form habits of garbage sorting.

Residents who brought sorted, recyclable garbage here receive rewards from soaps and bottled enzymes to cloth bags. Jiang said such rewards are particularly popular among the elderly residents. "Some even mobilized their family members to join them," he said.

The aroused enthusiasm may pave the way for the government's plan to fully enforce household garbage sorting in four cities in Hainan starting Oct. 1 this year.

"Promoting garbage sorting and eco-awareness will benefit future generations," said Jiang. "It's my dream to build 1,000 eco-awareness centers around the island." Enditem
A day before the Autumn Session



of Assembly, four more MLAs tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday, taking the total number of legislators contracting the virus in the state to 24, a senior official said.

The reports of Naren Sonowal (AGP), Rituparna Baruah (BJP), Anwar Hussain Laskar (AIUDF) and Najrul Hoque (AIUDF) came out positive at a testing camp in the assembly, he said.

"Four MLAs tested positive on Sunday out of 32 lawmakers. The Health Department is making necessary arrangements for their treatment," Legislative Assembly Principal Secretary Mrigendra Kumar Deka told PTI.

During the three-day testing camp in the assembly, a total of 24 people, including a journalist and five MLAs, have tested positive out of 431 samples, an official said.

BJP MLA Bir Bhadra Hagjer had tested COVID-19 positive on Saturday.

Of the 24 legislators who have contracted the virus so far, 13 are from the BJP and five from its allies, including three from the AGP. The Legislative Assembly has a total strength of 126 MLAs.

Hill Areas Development Minister Sum Ronghang became the first minister of the BJP-led Assam government to be diagnosed with COVID-19 on August 25.

The four-day Autumn Session will take place from August 31 with 50 per cent presence of the MLAs to maintain social distancing norms, Deka said.

"There will be supplementary grants and presentation of 19 bills in the session. Out of the four days, three days will have Question Hours. No visitors will be allowed," he added.
Horrifying footage shows the moment a 4ft snake was removed from a Russian woman's mouth after it slithered inside her while she slept.

The reptile crawled inside her as she slept in the yard of her home in Levashi village in Dagestan, reports say.

Feeling unwell, the young woman was rushed to hospital where she was put under general anaesthetic.

The footage shows the gloved hands of a male doctor removing the snake after inserting a tube down her throat.

Removed: The snake is extracted from the woman's mouth with a black tube (left) and is held up by a horrified doctor (right) at the hospital in Russia

As the unusual operation is performed, one of the doctors is heard off camera saying: 'Let's see what this is'.

A female medic grabs the snake with a horrified expression on her face as it is pulled from the woman's mouth.

She jumps back startled and medical staff scream as they realise the long length of the snake inside the patient.

The reptile is then dropped into a medical bucket, but it is unclear if the snake is still alive or how long it was inside the woman.

The ministry of health in Dagestan, a mountainous republic bordering the Caspian Sea, has not commented.

Operation: The snake was taken out of the woman's mouth while she was under general anaesthetic (left), before it was put in a bucket (right)

Locals say such incidents happen infrequently and older citizens advise the young not to sleep outside because of the risk of snakes slithering inside their mouths.

The female patient was not identified, nor was the type of snake specified.

The village of Levashi has a population of 11,500 and is at an altitude of 4,165 ft.

Some commenters claimed the creature could be a parasite or giant worm but it appears too big for this.

Other victims have complained of 'something alive' inside them after snakes slithered into their mouths.
Data emerging about two groups coming down with COVID-19 have caused some public health officials to pay more attention to Hispanic teens.

The coronavirus is continuing to infect a younger population, with recent data suggesting more teenagers are testing positive. At the same time, positive cases among Hispanics of all ages have increased.

The knowledge and perception of the coronavirus and the disease caused by it, COVID-19, have evolved dramatically over the course of this year. Initially, the pandemic was thought to predominantly affect an older population. As cases became more evenly distributed across age groups, reports began to show how it disproportionately affected people of color.

And now, data is suggesting an uptick in cases among children and teenagers. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Childrens Hospital Association, new child cases increased 21 percent nationwide (adding 74,160 cases) between Aug. 6 and Aug. 20.

More than 442,000 children have tested positive for the disease since the pandemic began, though mortality remains low. In the 45 states (and New York City) that reported mortality by age, no more than 0.7 percent of children with COVID-19 have died since the pandemic began.

Bexar County experienced an uptick during the summer in the share of infections involving those under 18 and in Hispanics of all ages, Metropolitan Health District assistant director Anita Kurian said. The percentage of those infected who were children under 18 rose from 6.4 percent in mid-June to 12.9 percent last week, she said.

Hispanics continue to have the highest proportion of total infections in Bexar County of any racial or ethnic group, climbing from 71 percent in mid-June to 76 percent last week, Kurian said.

In both Hispanics and the younger age group, she said, the reason for the increases was largely due to close contact settings, often with family and friends, where people have grown lax about social distancing and wearing face coverings.

In data for the nine-county Houston area, COVID-19 cases among all people under 20 years old increased 34 percent between April 30 and early August. Most of those cases were in people 15 to 20 years old, said Dr. Paul Klotman, the president of Baylor College of Medicine, citing information that he said came from Eric Boerwinkle, dean of the University of Texas School of Public Health.

Boerwinkle declined to provide the raw data, saying it came from Harris County and the Texas Medical Center and that he did not have permission to share it.

Klotman said there might be gatherings of young Latinos where the disease is spreading.

If it was just families, you think itd be all age groups, he said.

Nationwide, children who are hospitalized are more likely to be Hispanic or Black. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of 526 children hospitalized between March 1 and July 25 (for whom race and ethnicity were reported), 46 percent were Hispanic, 30 percent were Black and 14 percent were white.

This is a virus that were still learning about. It affects many different parts of the body: blood vessels, lung, kidney, brain, said Dr. Rob Phillips, chief physician executive at Houston Methodist. People can respond to it differently. And what were seeing is that there are certainly some young people who will have very serious consequences from this, including death.

In a paper published online with the JAMA medical journal, Houston Methodist noted the second COVID-19 surge had an overall younger age demographic admitted to its eight Houston-area hospitals.

The virus does not spare any community, Phillips said. And for reasons which I dont think we really completely understand, the Hispanic community now is having a higher rate. Its possible that theyre in jobs in which they are not as able as others to social distance.

More Hispanic people could have essential worker jobs in retail, food service or construction  jobs they cant do from home, said Porfirio Villarreal, public information officer for the Houston Health Department.

They might also have two jobs, and they may live in dense apartment complexes that make social distancing difficult. Chronic illness and pre-existing conditions might contribute, too.

Villarreal said the health department began noticing the greater impact of COVID-19 on the Hispanic community in May, and it launched the Todos Juntos. Mejor. (Better Together) educational campaign on July 6  three weeks before launching the broader, English-language Better Together campaign.

Efforts to reach Hispanic communities have included passing out masks and information at popular flea markets, setting up COVID-19 testing sites at churches and hiring a bilingual staff to go into communities and talk to people, said state Rep. Armando Walle, the Harris County COVID-19 Recovery Czar, said .

We need to get the message to them, Klotman said. They can help us by being careful: mask-wearing, keeping groups down to less than 10, not having big social events.

Staff writers Bruce Selcraig and Todd Ackerman contributed to this report. andrea.leinfelder@chron.com
Berkshire Hathaway said it has acquired slightly more than 5 percent of the shares in five large Japanese companies, marking a departure for Chairman Warren Buffett as he looks outside the United States to bolster his conglomerate.

In a statement on August 30, Buffett's 90th birthday, Berkshire said it acquired its stakes in Itochu Corp, Marubeni Corp, Mitsubishi Corp, Mitsui & Co and Sumitomo Corp over approximately 12 months.

Berkshire said it intends to hold the investments for the long term, and may boost its stakes to 9.9 percent. A Berkshire insurance business, National Indemnity Co, is holding the shares.

"I am delighted to have Berkshire Hathaway participate in the future of Japan," Buffett said in a statement. "The five major trading companies have many joint ventures throughout the world and are likely to have more.... I hope that in the future there may be opportunities of mutual benefit."

Also read: Here are Warren Buffett's top stocks and deals

The Japanese investments will help Buffett reduce his Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate's dependence on the US economy, which last quarter suffered its deepest contraction in at least 73 years as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

Many of Berkshire's own operating businesses have struggled, and Berkshire this month took a $9.8 billion writedown on its Precision Castparts aircraft parts business.

Berkshire owns more than 90 businesses including the BNSF railroad and Geico car insurer outright.

It also invests in dozens of companies including Apple Inc, with a roughly $125 billion stake based on its holdings as of June 30, as well as American Express Co, Bank of America Corp and Coca-Cola Co.

Most of Berkshire's operating businesses are American, though it has acquired a handful of foreign companies including Israel's IMC International Metalworking and German motorcycle apparel retailer Detlev Louis.

Additional investments in Japan could also help Buffett reduce Berkshire's cash stake, which ended June at a record $146.6 billion
Four people were shot and injured Sunday at a night club in Kansas City, Missouri, where a mass shooting occurred in January, police said.

Kansas City Police spokesman Sgt. Jake Becchina said the latest shooting at the 9ine Ultra Lounge was reported around 2:30 a.m. Sunday. Investigators said the shooting was related to an argument that started inside the club and then moved outside where several people fired shots.

One victim found at the scene with several gunshot wounds was taken to a hospital. Three others arrived separately at hospitals. All four victims remained stable in critical condition Sunday afternoon. The victims included a man in his 40s, a man in his 30s, a man in his 20s and a woman in her 20s.

On Jan. 19, a man opened fire on a line of people waiting to get inside 9ine, killing a 25-year-old woman and wounding 15 other people before security guards working at the club shot and killed the gunman.

The shooting Sunday was the first reported at the nightclub since the January shooting.
A Tanzanian-national woman was shot at on the leg and robbed of 9,000 by a man after both celebrated his birthday at a hotel on Ferozepur road, police said on Monday.

The victim has been identified as Magnaza Janite Comen Roger, 32. She is pursuing BBA from Lovely Professional University. The woman sustained a bullet injury on the leg and was taken to a private hospital.

In her complaint to the police, Magnaza said that on August 29 she came to Ludhiana to meet her sister Charity Jon who lives on Ferozepur road. On Sunday night, she had received a call from her friend, Tisha, a resident of Hyderabad, inviting the 32-year-old to attend her friends birthday party in Sarabha Nagar.

Magnaza said that at around 11 pm on August 29, the accused came to pick her up. The duo went to a hotel where they both celebrated the accuseds birthday. On Sunday, at around 4 am, the accused offered to drop Magnaza at her sisters place on his bike. When they reached near Government Senior Secondary School, Sarabha Nagar, the accused stopped the vehicle and pointed a gun at her.

He robbed me of 9,000 He then asked to give him my watch and mobile phone to which I refused. The accused tried to snatch it and when I resisted, he shot me in the leg. Later, he fled the spot, the victim said.

The woman called her sister who took her to a private hospital. Thereafter the police were informed about the incident.

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP, city 3) Sameer Verma said that the victim was not known to the accused. She met him for the first time to celebrate his birthday. The woman has given the accuseds phone number to the police, who are trying to trace him.

A case under Sections of 307 (attempt to murder), 397 (robbery or dacoity, with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt) of the IPC and sections of the Arms Act has been registered at Division Number 5 police station.
Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - The signing of the peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the Sudan Revolutionary Front should deliver peace, dignity and justice, Amnesty International said here Monday
The turnout, at least as large as those of the previous two Sundays, indicated that an explosion of popular fury that began with the Aug. 9 presidential election is nowhere close to abating. Mr. Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory that is widely believed to have been falsified, and initially responded to the mass demonstrations that followed with an aggressive crackdown.

On Sunday, the demonstrators deployed an angry wit but virtually no violence. The authorities refrained from widespread use of force or mass detentions, though the police said more than 100 people had been detained in the capital, Minsk.

Voices: People have gotten tired of everything and stopped being afraid, said a protester, amid cries of Shame! Other demonstrators chanted, Go away! in the direction of the palace. Since it was the presidents birthday, there was also: Lukashenko, come out! We will congratulate you!

Closer look: For most of Mr. Lukashenkos time in office, Belarusians have tolerated the authoritarian leaders eccentricities. But the coronavirus and the presidential election have together changed the equation.
A hip replacement x-ray. Credit: Musculoskeletal Research Unit, University of Bristol

A study analysing over 650,000 hip replacement patients across England and Wales over 14 years sought to investigate why one hospital has consistently been identified as having better than expected outcomes compared to other settings. The findings have shown that the outstanding hip implant survival results seen in one centre in the UK are associated with implant choice more than surgeon skill.

The study by researchers from the Musculoskeletal Research Unit at the University of Bristol, the NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre, and the University of Exeter, using data from the National Joint Registry has been published in PLOS Medicine.

Mr Jonathan Evans, Academic Clinical Lecturer at the Bristol Medical School; Translational Health Sciences (THS), based at Southmead Hospital, Bristol and lead author, said: "These findings are vitally important to making sure as many of our patients have a good outcome from their hip replacement as possible.

"We want patients across the country to feel empowered to ask their surgeon not only what implants they plan to use for their hip replacement but more importantly to ask for the long-term evidence that the implant works well. If they do not feel happy with the answer, then patients should feel confident asking for another opinion or even vote with their feet and go to a different hospital."

In 2017, there were over 822 different types of hip replacements implanted in England and Wales, but the Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust (RD&E) has used only three in the last 14 years. In the RD&E, only 1.7 percent of hips needed to be re-done 14 years after the hip replacements were put in, but in the rest of the country this figure was 2.9 percent. Given that about 100,000 people have a hip replacement every year, this difference could lead to many more patients needing further surgery.

The researchers considered age, sex and general health in their analyses and showed that when the patient's outcomes from the RD&E were compared to cases nationwide where the same implants had been used, there was no difference in how many of the hips lasted 14 years. This suggests that consistent use of a reliable hip replacement implant may be a more important determinant of success than the surgeon performing the operation.

It has long been seen that there is variation in success rates between hospitals (as seen in the National Joint Registry annual report) and it is a priority of the NHS to reduce this variation, ensuring best possible results for all patients. The Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) initiative in the UK seeks to reduce variation in outcomes between hospitals and learning from centres with statistically "better than expected" results is key to that.

A hip replacement principally consists of two components, one that replaces the ball and another that replaces the socket. There is variation in how these parts are fixed to the bone, as well as in the materials used to create the bearing (contact) surface.

Hip and knee replacements are two of the most common and effective forms of surgery. Yet even in the best-case scenarios, they will eventually fail due to processes such as infection, fracture, normal wear and tear or reaction to wear particles. In many of these cases, patients require revision surgery which is more prone to failure, associated with poorer function and more expensive than primary surgery. Making the first hip replacement last as long as possible is in the best interest of patients, surgeons and the NHS as a whole.

Mr Michael Whitehouse, Reader in Trauma and Orthopaedics at the Bristol Medical School: THS and joint senior author on the study feels this information is critical to help patients make the best decisions about their care. He explained: "It is important to recognise that this study is not about encouraging surgeons to use one particular implant but to use the information available to them in the National Joint Registry and other reliable sources to choose implants with a track record of long-term success.

"Our study shows that long-term survival of a hip replacement is primarily down to a surgeon's implant decisions rather than the particular way they perform the operation."

Explore further Study reveals hip and knee replacement performance in England and Wales

More information: 'Factors associated with implant survival following total hip replacement surgery: A registry study of data from the National Joint Registry of England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Isle of Man' by Jonathan Evans, Michael Whitehouse et al in PLOS Medicine. Journal information: PLoS Medicine 'Factors associated with implant survival following total hip replacement surgery: A registry study of data from the National Joint Registry of England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Isle of Man' by Jonathan Evans, Michael Whitehouse et al in
Benjamin Dada

Getting your webpages to the top of Google search page results is absolutely crucial if you want to grow your business. More than 70 percent of organic search traffic goes to the first page, with the vast majority of that going to the first three listings. If you're not ranking for the things your business does well, you're very likely missing out on potential customers.

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Leading marketing and advertising agency search aggregator Agency Spotter has released its list of the Top Digital Agencies of 2020, pulled from a network of more than 4,600 digital agencies. Creative Digital Agency (CDA) is proud to be included on the list, due in large part to our work driving business impact through cross-media campaigns for clients like the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board, Airbnb, and Merck Pharmaceuticals.

The Top Digital Agencies Report evaluates more than 4,600 digital agencies based on their competitive portfolios, client reviews, and user engagement. Agency Spotters team ranks agencies and firms across different service areas on a regular basis, making it easier for prospective clients to find the perfect agency to fit their specific needs. Numerous factors help the site produce the list of top agencies with some of these criteria:

Competitive Portfolio

Agencies have an exceptional, well-rounded portfolio of work that clearly articulates what makes them stand out.

Client Reviews

Satisfied clients fully share who they are and are eager to give decision-makers more context about what working with the agency is like.

Project Completeness

The more project work an agency shows will help establish their competency in the service area being reported on.

User Engagement

Based on a combination of the size of each agency and their geographic scope, the report looks at how Agency Spotters registered users engage with an agencys portfolio.

About Creative Digital Agency

Creative Digital Agency, Inc. is a boutique, full-service agency, with a tightly-knit team of strategists, storytellers, and cross-media advertising experts. They specialize in unique media habits, creative formats, and voice required to reach and engage a modern, digital audience age 22-40.

CDA handles each step of the process; everything from kindling the first spark of an idea, to building the finished product, to planning and executing targeted cross-media ad campaigns.

They are also a 3-time recipient of the Mobile Marketing Association Global Smarties Awards, a recipient of Mobile Marketing Magazines Effective Mobile Marketing Awards, and are ranked in the top specialist agencies in the world on the Mobile Marketing Associations Global Business Impact Index.
RICHARDSON, Texas, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX) has begun considering proposals for the 2021 Healthy Kids, Healthy Families (HKHF) grant cycle, and is seeking partnerships with nonprofit organizations affecting health and wellness as well as those addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and social determinants of health.

Last year, nearly $1.6 million in HKHF grants were awarded to community-based organizations statewide. And while the key focus of the HKHF program has not changed, the COVID-19 pandemic and unrest associated with social justice initiatives in the United States, reinforces BCBSTX's focus on health equity and our core purpose to stand with our members and the communities we serve in sickness and health.

"Our long history  of identifying and supporting strategic partnerships with organizations that have a shared interest in creating communities of healthy Texans  has never been more important than it is now," said Dr. Paul Hain, Chief Medical Officer, BCBSTX. "It's important that we aid community-based organizations that are directly supporting children and families who have been impacted by the health, economic, and social implications of this pandemic."

Since the inception of the HKHF program in 2011, the investment strategy has been predicated on four key pillars - disease prevention and management, nutrition, physical activity and safe environments. However, the 2021 HKHF grant cycle also will include emphasis on programs that create measurable results to address the current public health pandemic and social factors exacerbating health inequalities and social determinants of health such as lack of housing, food deserts, education and jobs and mental health.

The BCBSTX grant cycle is a two-step process:

Stage 1: September 1, 2020  September 15, 2020 . This is the initial step in the process to apply for funding. After review, if selected, program will be notified and provided details to continue to Stage Two of the application process. To submit your LOI, click here.

. This is the initial step in the process to apply for funding. After review, if selected, program will be notified and provided details to continue to Stage Two of the application process. To submit your LOI, click here. Stage 2: October 5, 2020  October 18, 2020 . This is the application process. Once your application has been submitted, you will receive an initial email indicating that your application has been received. The application link will be deactivated at 5 p.m. (CST) on the last day of each stage. Applicants should give themselves enough time to complete the process to ensure access to the page.

The following criteria are required for review of all HKHF grant proposals:

The community lead organization must be a nonprofit, tax exempt, 501(c)(3) organization.

a nonprofit, tax exempt, 501(c)(3) organization. The community lead organization must have the financial capacity and qualified staff to oversee and manage the project. For this request for proposal (RFP), "financial capacity" is defined as organizations operating a current annual budget of $2 million or more.

The community lead organization must collaborate on proposed program with a health partner  i.e., hospital, clinic, federally qualified health center.

Nine years ago, the HKHF program started as a three-year initiative designed to improve the health and wellness of at least one million children through community investments. The program was extended as BCBSTX's ongoing commitment to the health and well-being of children and families in Texas. The HKHF program has impacted the lives of millions of Texas children and families through the more than $13 million in grants awarded by BCBSTX to community organizations statewide.

For more information on how to apply for a HKHF grant, contact Francisco Martinez at [email protected].

About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX)  the only statewide, customer-owned health insurer in Texas  is the largest provider of health benefits in the state, working with nearly 80,000 physicians and healthcare practitioners, and 500 hospitals to serve more than 5 million members in all 254 counties. BCBSTX is a Division of Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) (which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Texas, Illinois, Montana, Oklahoma and New Mexico), the country's largest customer-owned health insurer, and fourth largest health insurer overall. Health Care Service Corporation is a Mutual Legal Reserve Company and an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

BCBSTX.com | Twitter.com/BCBSTX | Facebook.com/BlueCrossBlueShieldOfTexas | YouTube.com/BCBSTX BCBSTX 2016 Social Responsibility Report

SOURCE Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas

Related Links

www.bcbstx.com


The book examines other aspects of Indias Sri Lanka policy not directly related to Haksar. It argues that the Indian government needs to take the interests and sensibilities of contiguous Indian states while dealing with foreign policy in the immediate neighbourhood.





by M.R. Narayan Swamy





Book Title: Haksar on Indias Sri Lanka Policy; Authors: V. Suryanarayan and Ashik J. Bonofer; Publishers: Centre for Asia Studies, Chennai, and Bookventure; Pages: 96; Price: Rs 200





This is a slim but informed and, if I may say so, an accidental book. It would not have been written but for the recently published letters from the late P.N. Haksar to Thomas Abraham, a highly respected diplomat, on the Sri Lankan conflict in the 1980s. For one who was once very close to Indira Gandhi, Haksar took a stand totally divergent from that of the Prime Minister and her Special Envoy to Sri Lanka, G. Parthasarathy. The letters are a small part of Jairam Rameshs well researched 2018 book on Haksar and Indira Gandhi. But they form the crux of this study.













Parmeshwar Narain Haksar (1913-98) was an erudite scholar, diplomat and administrator who helped to politically mould Indira Gandhi in the first six or seven years as Prime Minister, a period which included the birth of Bangladesh. Although Haksar was sidelined later, the scholar in him continued to live on.





Haksar was perhaps the first of his stature to realize that India had blundered by taking Tamil militants from the fractured island under its wings even as it insisted on talks between the moderate TULF and Colombo within the framework of a united Sri Lanka. When massive anti-Tamil violence erupted in Colombo in July 1983, inflaming passions in Tamil Nadu which Indira Gandhi could not ignore, Haksar wanted Thomas Abraham to be made the Special Envoy to Sri Lanka. The Prime Minister instead chose Parthasarathy, a Tamil, although Abraham knew Sri Lanka well.





In a letter to Abraham on September 30, 1983, Haksar complained  referring to Parthasarathy  that the public image is of a Tamilian missionary speaking for Tamilians and on behalf of Tamilians. This may have been good for domestic politics in India, but I am not sure whether anyone has worked out in detail the consequences of promoting Eelam.





If you look at history with the wisdom of hindsight, this was knowledge at its best  as far as Indias then still evolving Sri Lanka policy was concerned.





Two months later, on November 2, Haksar proved (again in hindsight) that his assessment of the situation was on the dot though he was out of power. He moaned that the noises India was making are not Indian concerns but narrowly Tamilian. He told Abraham that even if the Sri Lankans en masse were against India, it is not in our interest to make it appear so. And he was aghast that the Eelam boys were gloating that the next time there is a massacre of Tamils in Sri Lanka, India shall occupy parts of the island as the Turks did in Cyprus.





Haksars disenchantment with New Delhi on Sri Lanka continued even in 1985 when he told Abraham (December 25) that his first instinct was not too wrong that India should not get involved at all as a mediator between the Tamils and Colombo. He strongly favoured that India should appear at all times to be well-wishers of all the inhabitants of Sri Lanka.





With the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, Parthasarathy faded away from the political scene and whatever little he had achieved as a point of discussion was dumped. Rajiv Gandhi may have been friendly to Sri Lanka compared to his mother but the fact that India continued to provide sanctuary to Tamil militants and even armed and trained them covertly did not endear New Delhi to Sri Lankans.





For one who was far removed from the emotive politics of Tamil Nadu, Haksar turned out to be right on Sri Lanka, in every sense of the term. In a letter to Abraham on January 21, 1988, Haksar opened his heart: I have a peculiar sense of satisfaction when I contemplate the whole mess in Sri Lanka. I had advised Indira Gandhi, if you recall, that India should not assume a mediatory role and certainly not under the Tamil flag (read Parthasarathy). He said the Sri Lankan disaster was compounded by New Delhis pathetic reliance on M.G. Ramachandran and the LTTE. Our intelligence had no clue whatsoever.





By the time this 1988 letter was written, Indira Gandhi had been assassinated, Parthasarathy had gone into oblivion, MGR was dead, hundreds of Indian soldiers had been killed and more would die while the LTTE was only three years away from Rajiv Gandhis assassination.





The book examines other aspects of Indias Sri Lanka policy not directly related to Haksar. It argues that the Indian government needs to take the interests and sensibilities of contiguous Indian states while dealing with foreign policy in the immediate neighbourhood. West Bengal under Jyoti Basu is cited as an example. I am not sure if this is sound. Indeed, there are those who say that Indias Sri Lankan policy got derailed precisely because it weaved Tamil Nadu too solidly into its strategic planning.





The books authors also feel that given the volatile nature of our neighbourhood, India cannot rule out the possibility of its armed forces being deployed again abroad to promote Indian interests. After the Sri Lanka fiasco, one prays that this does not happen. A quick go-and-return military operation like it happened in the Maldives is one thing; deployment with no time limit is another.





Courtesy: Mainstream Weekly
In a stringent punishment, the government has dismissed one suspended cop and slapped compulsory retirement on two others in a fallout of the April 16 Palghar case which claimed the lives of two sadhus and their driver, an official said here on Monday.

"Following a departmental enquiry, Assistant Sub-Inspector Anandrao Kale has been served with dismissal orders while his colleagues, API Ravi Salunkhe and Constable Naresh Dhodi, have been compulsorily retired, all with immediate effect," Palghar Police Spokesperson Sachin Navadkar told IANS.

The dismissal and retirement orders were issued late on Saturday by Konkan Range Inspector-General of Police Niket Kaushik in the matter.

In a major reshuffle after the incident, in April-May, two policemen Sudhir Katare and Santosh Mukne were suspended by the then Palghar Superintendent of Police Gaurav Singh while another 35 police personnel of Kasa Police Station were transferred to other parts of the district.

Later, during his visit to the Gadchinchale village in Kasa - where the lynchings took place -- Home Minister Anil Deshmukh had sent SP Singh on compulsory leave and he awaits a posting till now.

On April 16 night, the victims -- Kalpavrikshagiri Maharaj, 70, his assistant Sushilgiri Maharaj, 35, of the Juna Akhada, and their driver Nilesh Telgade, 30, were waylaid when they were en route from Mumbai to Surat for a funeral during the lockdown.

Mistaking them to be robbers or kidnappers, a huge mob of over 800 tribals and villagers pounced on them with stones, sticks and sickles, and the trio later succumbed to grievous injuries -- sparking a nationwide political furore.

The case which was subsequently handed over to the state CID resulted in three chargesheets filed against a total of 126 accused before the Dahanu Magistrate Court, besides 11 juveniles and 28 others against whom the investigations are still underway.

The accused have been booked under various sections of Indian Penal Code, Disaster Management Act, Epidemic Diseases Act, Police Act, Damage to Public Property (Amendment) Act with charges pertaining to murder, attempt to murder, armed rioting, using criminal force to prevent a public servant from discharging his duties, etc.

--IANS

qn/in

(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.)
Melania Trump's former friend said she and the first lady laughed during the 2016 campaign after the infamous 'Access Hollywood' tape came out and revealed Donald Trump saying he liked to grab women 'by the p****.'

'The day that the 'Access Hollywood' tape came out she reached out to have lunch. Now, if any other human being or any other one of my friends I would have expected to see them in tears, right? She was smiling. It was as if nothing happened,' Stephanie Winston Wolkoff told ABC's 'Good Morning America' ahead of the Tuesday release of her memoir 'Melania & Me'.

'I said to her, how many times have you heard the word P**** and president in the same sentence and we burst out laughing. Then I said are you upset and doesn't it get you angry and Melania is a pragmatist. Melania, if you can't control people's emotions, then why even worry about it. And that's how she lived her life and that is what she stood by every day,' she added.

In October 2016, The Washington Post revealed the existence of Trump's comments to 'Access Hollywood,' made during a 2005 interview when he and host Billy Bush were preparing to meet actress Arianne Zucker.

Trump said of being famous that it let's you do what you want with women, including 'grab 'em by the p****.' The comments shocked the public and caused many Republicans to withdraw their endorsement of Trump. Pressure was on him to drop out of the race but he stayed in - apologized for the comments - and prevailed in the election.

Wolkoff's memoir recounts her friendship with Melania Trump and her work with her, including on the presidential inauguration and in the East Wing.

The book also reveals the rivalry and in-fighting between Melania Trump and her step-daughter Ivanka Trump. It also reveals Melania once described Ivanka Trump and family members working in the White House as a bunch of 'snakes.'

'Ivanka turned into the princess who wanted to be queen,' Wolkoff told ABC News.

She refused to confirm or deny recent reports that she secretly recorded conversations with Melania Trump.

'I'm not going to comment on whether there's audio or not,' Wolkoff said. 'I can back up everything that's in the book 100% ... and Donald and Melania know that.'

The White House has disputed much that is in the book, arguing Wolkoff has some 'imagined need for revenge.'

'Anybody who secretly tapes their self-described best friend is by definition, dishonest,' Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump's chief of staff, told DailyMail.com in a statement. 'The book is not only full of mistruths and paranoia, it it is based on some imagined need for revenge. Wolkoff builds herself up while belittling and blaming everyone she worked with, yet she still managed to be the victim. Sadly, this is a deeply insecure woman who's need to be relevant defies logic.'

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania Trump's former friend, said she and the first lady laughed during the 2016 campaign after the infamous 'Access Hollywood' tape came out

Wolkoff told 'GMA' that she can back up all the claims in her book '100 per cent' and that 'and Donald and Melania know that'

Pressure was on Donald Trump to drop out of the 2016 race after comments were revealed in a 2005 'Access Hollywood' interview when he and host Billy Bush were preparing to meet actress Arianne Zucker

Wolkoff's book also details the tension between Ivanka Trump and Melania Trump

The book claims Melania Trump plotted to keep Ivanka Trump out of the photos of President Donald Trump taking the oath of office on Inauguration Day with her 'Operation Block Ivanka.'

The first lady approved seating arrangements for the inauguration platform that would keep Ivanka Trump out of the camera shot during the moment her father was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.

The plot is unveiled in an excerpt of Wolkoff's book published in New York Magazine earlier this week.

Wolkoff writes that: 'Ivanka texted me a photo of Barack Obama's swearing-in, his hand on the Bible, Michelle, Malia, and Sasha standing to his left. She wrote, 'FYI regarding the swearing in. It is nice to have family with him for this special moment.''

But, instead, Wolkoff and the incoming first lady launched 'Operation Block Ivanka' to keep the first daughter out of the shot.

The two women went to great lengths to thwart Ivanka.

They took advantage of Wolkoff's position on the inauguration planning committee to gain advance information on how the day would play out in order to make their scheme work.

Melania Trump plotted to block Ivanka Trump from being in photos of President Trump taking the oath of office on Inauguration Day, in what was dubbed 'Operation Block Ivanka'

Melania Trump wanted an image like the one above - with her Trump and their son Barron

A forthcoming memoir about first lady Melania Trump - seen above with President Trump on night three of the Republican National Convention - details her tense relationship with Ivanka

Wolkoff, a former Met Gala planner and personal friend of Melania's, was tapped to help produce Inauguration Day and the events surrounding it.

Using her position, she had an executive of her company, WIS Media Partners, take detailed notes on the inauguration platform at the U.S. Capitol building during one of the walk throughs that proceed such events. Walk throughs allow organizers and staff of the attendees to do a practice run of how the day will play out. It allows all the details of the day to be worked out: what time people arrive and in what order, where they will sit, and how the day will play out in precise order.

Using the detailed sketch her employee drew up of the platform on the East Front of the Capitol, where Trump was sworn in with his family and VIP guests behind him, Melania and Wolkoff were able to work out where the cameras would be located on and how the chairs for the family should be positioned to get the images they wanted.

'Using his sketch, we were able to figure out whose face would be visible when Donald and Melania sat in their seats, and then when the family stood with Chief Justice John Roberts for Donald to take the oath of office,' Wolkoff wrote. 'If Ivanka was not on the aisle, her face would be hidden while she was seated. For the standing part, we put Barron between Donald and Melania.'

Melania and Wolkoff then arranged for Donald Trump Jr., the president's oldest son, to be stand next to Melania instead of Ivanka, further keeping her out of the shot.

Wolkoff blames 'exhaustion and stress' for some of the drama but also acknowledges the pettiness of it.

'Yes, Operation Block Ivanka was petty. Melania was in on this mission. But in our minds, Ivanka shouldn't have made herself the center of attention in her father's inauguration,' she wrote.

A wide shot of the swearing-in on Inauguration Day shows Ivanka Trump positioned near the back of her siblings

Ivanka Trump can be seen behind Melania Trump on the inaugural platform at the U.S. Capitol

A rare shot of Ivanka and Melania together on Inauguration Day - this was taken at the viewing stand in front of the White House where the first family watched the inauguration parade go by

She notes their Operation Block Ivanka was a result of the first daughter trying to control the schedule for inauguration day and make sure her family - husband Jared Kushner and their three children - had prominent positions on the big day.

'It was Donald's inauguration, not Ivanka's. But no one was brave enough to tell her that. Melania was not thrilled about Ivanka's steering the schedule and would not allow it. Neither was she happy to hear that Ivanka insisted on walking in the Pennsylvania Avenue parade with her children,' she noted.

Wolkoff's book gives legitimacy to years of talk of a rivalry between Melania and Ivanka that has accumulated in an intense, competitive relationship between the two women.

The two most prominent women in President Trump's life - his 50-year-old wife and his 38-year-old eldest daughter - have little overlap in the White House complex: Ivanka Trump, who serves as an adviser to her father, has an office in the West Wing. Melania Trump works out of the East Wing on the opposite side of the building.

They have never hosted a joint initiative or event. And are rarely seen together at events.

Mary Jordan's book 'The Art of Her Deal' portrayed a tense, at times combative, relationship between the two with Melania calling Ivanka 'Princess' and Ivanka referring to her stepmother as 'portrait.'

Jordan's book also claimed Ivanka tried to have the First Lady's Office be renamed the First Family's Office, which the White House has denied.

An administration official told DailyMail.com that Wolkoff was a 'disaster' in her role in the East Wing and 'took advantage' of the first lady.

'Stephanie was a complete disaster in her temporary role at the White House. She was erratic and dishonest, and was extremely mean to everyone. She threw the First Lady's name around a lot without her knowledge, making people fear Mrs. Trump for no reason,' the administration official said.

'I think the most disturbing aspect was her extreme paranoia. I recall one time she was convinced the wrong shade of paint had been applied to an office on purpose, as a way to show disrespect to the East Wing. The truth is that she only began to claim how close the two were once President Trump took office  she took advantage of Mrs. Trump and was abusive to everyone around her,' the person said.

Wolkoff confirms that Melania refers to her stepdaughter as 'Princess' and paints an unflattering portrait of Ivanka trying to amass power and prestige at her stepmother's expense.

New York magazine's Olivia Nuzzi confirms in her piece that Wolkoff has tapes of conversations she had with the first lady. Nuzzi described what she heard: 'Melania's voice was familiar, but she sounded softer, not quite as guarded and steely as she does in public. She was reassuring Wolkoff that things would be okay, that she didn't do anything. It was a bit hard to follow, but it sounded like she cared. Like she was trying to be there for a friend.'

She offers details about Ivanka such as this: 'I received an email from her office. 'I notice that Ivanka's car is not part of the family motorcade. Is there any way to add that?' It. Never. Ended.'

Melania Trump was also reported to be annoyed Ivanka Trump wanted to walk with them in the inauguration parade

Instead, the adult children marched further back: Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Ivanka Trump and Tiffany Trump

Wolkoff's memoir traces her friendship with the first lady, going back to their days when Wolkoff worked for Vogue and the then-Melania Knauss was a struggling model dating a New York real estate mogul.

The two women evolved into a friendship that included monthly lunch dates and New York society events.

But that friendship crashed and burned, starting with Trump's election.

Wolkoff also details her side of the story about her dramatic and controversial exit from the East Wing, where she was a contract employee, in February 2018 amid questions about the money her firm had made from its work on President Trump's inauguration celebration.

Wolkoff, a Manhattan socialite, is a longtime event planner for some of the highest-profile fashion events in New York City. In addition to her work on the Met Gala - know as fashion's biggest night - she also orchestrated Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week's Lincoln Center expansion and has worked closely with legendary Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

It was during her work at Vogue that she met Melania. The then-Melania Knauss was a model dating Trump and about to be launched into society at the Met Gala. Trump proposed to Melania at the 2004 event. Then-Vogue fashion director Andre Leon Talle traveled to Paris with her to help her pick out her wedding dress.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's book 'Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady' will be released on September 1

'Before her Vogue makeover, Melania was a very pretty young woman who seemed like she was playing fancy dress-up - more a brunette Marilyn Monroe than a Jackie O. After Melania's makeover, Andre Leon Talley's achievement, she was transcendent, high fashion, editorial worthy,' Wolkoff writes in her memoir.

'And the more time I spent with Melania, the more I genuinely liked her. Being with her was like having the sister I never had before - but a really confident, perfectly coiffed, ultimate older sister. In her world, nothing was a big deal, and everything was just as it should be. Just being with her made me feel good. She had her s*** together!,' she added.

The two women became friends. In addition to her work on the inauguration, Wolkoff was one of Melania's first hires for her East Wing staff, where she had a contract position instead of being a fulltime government employee.

Wolkoff recounts how, in January 2017, it was just her and Melania's then-chief of staff Lindsay Reynolds working in the vast suite of East Wing offices when Reynolds got notice that some of Kushner's staff were coming to look at office space on their turf.

At the time of the incident, Melania Trump was still living in New York, where she was spending the first part of 2017 so Barron could finish out the school year.

Turf wars are common in the White House under every administration where the cramped, crowded office space is at a premium. The East Wing, however, is usually the purview of the first lady's office and areas under her control, such as the office that coordinates White House tours. There are other auxiliary offices there, such as the military liaison office.

But Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were looking to move their people in.

'The West Wing wasn't big enough for the Kushners. They wanted the East Wing as well,' Wolkoff writes.

'I called Melania to tell her what was going on, and she said, 'This is ridiculous! You have to do something!',' she recounted.

'I dug into my bag; pulled out my red Sharpie and yellow Post-it notes; scribbled 'conference room,' 'chief of staff,' 'deputy of advance,' etc., on them; and slapped them on the office doors. By putting our mark on each office, Jared's people couldn't very well say, 'Well, if no one's using it  we'll take it,'' Wolkoff wrote.

A person who worked on the transition team denied that Ivanka and Kushner tried to take East Wing office space, telling DailyMail.com it didn't happen.

She also describes a conspiracy to keep Melania Trump from hiring the full amount of staff a first lady needed, using the budget and staff vetting process 'like a weapon to prevent Melania from filling them.'

She argues Ivanka enlisted then-chief of staff Reince Priebus, his deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh and influential staffer Hope Hicks to help her efforts.

'Ivanka was relentless and was determined to be the First Daughter Lady and to usurp office space out from under Melania; she wanted to be the only visible female Trump on the premises, and she was actively using her influence with Katie Walsh, Reince Priebus, and Hope Hicks to thwart our efforts,' Wolkoff says.

'Ivanka wasn't playing by the rules, but she never, ever, got in trouble,' she added.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's memoir has tapes of Melania Trump speaking ill of Trumps; above Pamela Gross Finkelstein, Judith Giuliani, Melania Knauss Trump and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff attend a luncheon in New York together in 2006

David Wolkoff, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Melania Trump and Donald Trump at an event in New York in February 2008 - Wolkoff served as an informal, unpaid adviser to Melania in the East Wing until she left amid the controversy surrounding the inauguration

Wolkoff's memoir, 'Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady,' is the first book to come from a former member of the first lady's inner circle.

Melania Trump has been the subject of two biographies by journalist - CNN's Kate Bennett's 'Free Melania' and The Washington Post's Mary Jordan's 'The Art of Her Deal' - but Wolkoff was a longtime personal friend to the first lady.

The two women had a falling out over Wolkoff's work for the inauguration and reports on how much money she was paid for the gig.

Wolkoff left the East Wing in February 2018 after news reports showed that her firm, WIS Media Partners, received a $26 million payment for its work on the inaugural.

The firm in turn spent $24 million on subcontractors, a person familiar with the inaugural planning told DailyMail.com at the time. The source said Wolkoff provided 'the whole look and feel  the creative vision' for 18 or 20 inaugural events.

Her personal take from Trump's inaugural committee was reported to be about $500,000 while the rest went to other producers working on the event.

Melania Trump dismissed her from the East Wing with an email.

'I am sorry that the professional part of our relationship has come to an end, but I am comforted in the fact that our [friendship] far outweigh[s] politics,' the first lady wrote. 'Thank you Again! Much love.'

Wolkoff's book will address the financial controversy but it will also be about the loss of her friendship with the first lady.

Additionally, the tapes she has of Melania Trump show the first lady trashing her husband Donald Trump and his adult children, with the harshest words coming for Ivanka, according to media reporter Yashar Ali, who first reported their existence.

He did not have details of the statements Melania Trump allegedly made but noted they will be in Wolkoff's book. He added that Wolkoff taped the first lady without her knowledge.

Ali tweeted: 'In her book, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff quotes the First Lady making disparaging remarks about Ivanka Trump and some of the president's other adult children. She even makes some negative remarks about her husband, President Trump.'

Stephanie Grisham, Melania's current chief of staff, said she's never heard the first lady make any disparaging remarks about President Trump or the first family.

'No. I've never heard Mrs. Trump say anything disparaging about the family,' Grisham told MSNBC's Hallie Jackson on last week.

'They're a close-knit family. She's talked about them many times publicly,' she added.

Grisham was dismissive of the speculation that the first lady trash talked the family.

'I've heard a little bit about this book. I don't know much about it. It sounds like it's just another one of those books that unfortunately people are writing,' she said.

Grisham also noted if the first lady was recorded without her knowledge it was 'unfortunate' that she would be taken advantage of by a friend.

'If there were any recordings taken it's really unfortunate to take advantage of somebody's trust like that while being a friend, but I don't know much about the book. We're focused on the work we're doing,' she said.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff came under investigation for her role in planning Donald Trump's 2016 presidential inauguration - she's seen with Melania Trump at a January 2017 dinner ahead of the inaugural

The book will address some of the most controversial and infamous moments involving Melania Trump, including Stormy Daniels claim she had an affair with Trump, which he has denied, and that infamous jacket she wore: 'I really don't care, do u?'

The pre-order blurb for the book hints at a string of revelations.

'How did Melania react to the Access Hollywood tape and her husband's affair with Stormy Daniels? Does she get along well with Ivanka? Why did she wear that jacket with 'I really don't care, do u?' printed on the back? Is Melania happy being First Lady? And what really happened with the inauguration's funding of $107 million? Wolkoff has some ideas,' the description says.

'What Melania wants, Melania gets' - reads the tag line in the book's description on Amazon.com.

Wolkoff, the former director of special events at Vogue who headed nine Met galas, met Melania Knauss in 2003 and 'had a front row seat to the transformation of Donald Trump's then girlfriend from a rough-cut gem to a precious diamond,' the book's description reads.
Companies in most industries are struggling. According to LinkedIns June 2020 U.S. Recovery Tracker, key factors in the labor market havent improved, such as hiring rate, job postings and employer confidence. Its important for businesses to find opportunities that maintain or grow revenue, as well as operate cost-efficiently given the new normal in U.S. consumer and B2B demand.

However, there are long-term trends that are too disruptive to ignore. A seismic change in consumer behavior is the growing use of messaging apps for more than sending and receiving texts. Ecommerce and social messaging apps are enabling internet shoppers to send payments, book reservations, watch multimedia and purchase items, among many features. Chatbots are unleashing the power of social and ecommerce by providing customer support 24/7, year-round.

There are a number of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted conversational bots that can help give your enterprise a competitive edge in acquiring sales, automating customer support and saving money. Here are three I personally recommend.

Related: Top 10 Best Chatbot Platform Tools to Build Chatbots for Your Business

Founded in 2016, veteran strategists at San Diego, California-based School of Bots help marketers and companies acquire sales, automate operations and provide 24/7 customer engagement, largely through chatbots deployed on Facebook Messenger and SMS, with training available for other big messaging platforms. School of Bots's experts teach proven strategies on platforms with whom they have close partnerships and create custom chatbot marketing systems for startups and consultants alike. An example of such a tailor-made bot might accompany a prospect down the sales funnel and nudge him or her into an eventual transaction.

This year, more people are using messaging apps than social media platforms, according to eMarketer, and that could indicate a major shift in consumer behavior, says Kyle Willis, CEO of School of Bots. E-HUB, the company's chatbot training platform, gives members access to checklists, instructional videos, standard operating procedures and hands-on mentorship. After undergoing training, members are accredited to offer consulting and agency services. Moreover, the platform enables participants to earn certifications, hire qualified bot builders or get hired and connect with fellow members in a virtual coworking space.

School of Bots works with tools such as ManyChat, which provides reach through Facebook and, explains School of Bots cofounder Natasha Takahashi, "has superior capabilities for automation and tracking that allow us to produce maximum ROI."

Bots can be a partial solution for businesses that have laid off customer-support staff during the recession. Automated bots prevent consumers from visiting competing sites, and therefore help to capture sales opportunities. Moreover, they streamline operations and boost productivity. They can be programmed to answer frequently asked questions, book a meeting with a sales rep, troubleshoot problems and move online shoppers towards checkout.

Drift positions itself as a conversational marketing platform to emphasize the revenue-generating features of its bots. The company is a well-known solutions provider that installs chatbots that are able to qualify leads 24/7/365. Drifts bots are used by large brands such as GrubHub, GitHub, Marketo and Ellie Mae. The tech is also geared more towards B2B sales and enterprise use cases. Drifts conversational AI can tell when a user is making a statement (instead of asking a question) so that it can recommend certain products and display pricing. Other features include automatically booking meetings, as well as routing conversations to a sales team.

According to a Drift survey published on Salesforce.com, people use bots for these top reasons: 32 percent get an answer to a question; 29 percent get a detailed explanation; 27 percent resolve a problem; and 27 percent receive customer service. Bots give businesses a competitive advantage given todays consumer preference for interacting with messaging apps. Moreover, a big chunk of mobile users want immediate answers to queries. This automated ability to give real-time engagement ups the ante for every B2B and B2C business.

According to a 2018 Accenture survey, 56 percent of executives say conversational bots are disrupting their sector, and 57 percent say the technology can deliver large returns on investment with minimal effort. AI and machine learning are the most revolutionary innovations of our lifetime, and a bad recession wont stop the adoption of automated conversational interfaces. These platforms are growing more sophisticated. For example, AI is becoming better at natural language processing (NLP), which enables the tech to have conversational dialogue with humans.

Intercom has been around for nearly a decade and deploys custom bots that engage prospects, route conversations and reduce the need for web forms and emails. The company offers clients a proprietary Business Messenger app that provides automated real-time answers. This messaging software enables Intercom to differentiate itself in the bot marketplace. Mostly B2B users receive data they need to make timely business decisions. That includes dashboard info such as order status, invoice data and educational articles within the messaging app. In a 2018 Bloomberg interview, CEO Eoghan McCabe noted that emails are increasingly ineffective, and that more business professionals and consumers are turning to messaging apps for real-time business communication.

Intercom builds chatbot solutions to help enterprises make purchase decisions, such as by personalizing buying experiences and giving product tours. Access to certain features depends on your monthly subscription. A basic plan includes live chat and outbound messaging while an advanced plan is geared more towards B2B lead generation, automated workflows and reporting tools.

Related: 5 Innovative Ways to Train Your Sales Team

Chatbots are great sales tools that are seeing more use in B2B and B2C, and they provide a competitive edge by enabling companies to offer 24/7 customer support. Because bots are growing in sophistication, they can be programmed to book reservations, set up meetings and other functions without human involvement. They can also be implemented cost-efficiently compared to hiring human personnel. So with all businesses tightening their wallets, now is the time to consider automating the customer experience where you can.

Related:

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Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
New Delhi:

A man threw shoe at Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party's national convenor Arvind Kejriwal while he was addressing a rally in Rohtak, Haryana on Sunday.

According to reports from Indo-Asian News Service the shoe fell short of the stage.

In response to theA attack Kejriwal alleged that supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi were behind the attack.

Shoe hurled at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in Rohtak (Haryana), CM escapes unhurt; man who threw shoe taken into custody by Police pic.twitter.com/pt8WVnzu9q a ANI (@ANI_news) January 1, 2017

Earlier on Sunday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal A demanded a awhite papera and an independent inquiry on demonetisation, dubbing it as the ascam of all scamsa even as he claimed that the reputation of Prime Ministeras Office has been tarnished globally under Narendra Modi.

Terming Modias new year eve speech a ashama, Kejriwal sought responses from the Prime Minister and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on the amount of money deposited and the eventual gain out of the 50-day-exercise that was announced on November 8.

aDemonetisation is the biggest scam of independent India and is entirely guided by politics and corruption. The scam of all scams.

aWe demand that an independent inquiry be conducted and a white paper be released on the what was gained and lost due to demonetisation,a Kejriwal told a press conference at his residence here.

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The CEO of BATM Advanced Communications Ltd. (LON:BVC) is Zvi Marom, and this article examines the executive's compensation against the backdrop of overall company performance. This analysis will also evaluate the appropriateness of CEO compensation when taking into account the earnings and shareholder returns of the company.

See our latest analysis for BATM Advanced Communications

Comparing BATM Advanced Communications Ltd.'s CEO Compensation With the industry

Our data indicates that BATM Advanced Communications Ltd. has a market capitalization of UK586m, and total annual CEO compensation was reported as US$653k for the year to December 2019. That's a modest increase of 6.7% on the prior year. In particular, the salary of US$503.0k, makes up a huge portion of the total compensation being paid to the CEO.

On examining similar-sized companies in the industry with market capitalizations between UK300m and UK1.2b, we discovered that the median CEO total compensation of that group was US$937k. In other words, BATM Advanced Communications pays its CEO lower than the industry median. Furthermore, Zvi Marom directly owns UK129m worth of shares in the company, implying that they are deeply invested in the company's success.

Component 2019 2018 Proportion (2019) Salary US$503k US$516k 77% Other US$150k US$96k 23% Total Compensation US$653k US$612k 100%

Speaking on an industry level, nearly 74% of total compensation represents salary, while the remainder of 26% is other remuneration. Our data reveals that BATM Advanced Communications allocates salary more or less in line with the wider market. If salary is the major component in total compensation, it suggests that the CEO receives a higher fixed proportion of the total compensation, regardless of performance.

BATM Advanced Communications Ltd.'s Growth

Over the past three years, BATM Advanced Communications Ltd. has seen its earnings per share (EPS) grow by 99% per year. Its revenue is up 23% over the last year.

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Overall this is a positive result for shareholders, showing that the company has improved in recent years. It's a real positive to see this sort of revenue growth in a single year. That suggests a healthy and growing business. Looking ahead, you might want to check this free visual report on analyst forecasts for the company's future earnings..

Has BATM Advanced Communications Ltd. Been A Good Investment?

We think that the total shareholder return of 629%, over three years, would leave most BATM Advanced Communications Ltd. shareholders smiling. So they may not be at all concerned if the CEO were to be paid more than is normal for companies around the same size.

To Conclude...

As we noted earlier, BATM Advanced Communications pays its CEO lower than the norm for similar-sized companies belonging to the same industry. Considering robust EPS growth, we believe Zvi to be modestly paid. Plus, we can't ignore the impressive shareholder returns, and won't be surprised if some shareholders were to reward such excellent all-around performance with a raise.

CEO compensation can have a massive impact on performance, but it's just one element. We did our research and spotted 2 warning signs for BATM Advanced Communications that investors should look into moving forward.

Arguably, business quality is much more important than CEO compensation levels. So check out this free list of interesting companies that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.

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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Arrests Made As Tens Of Thousands Of Protesters Rally In Minsk

By RFE/RL's Belarus Service August 30, 2020

MINSK -- Tens of thousands of Belarusians have streamed into the center of the capital for the latest mass demonstration against longtime authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Columns of protesters on August 30 joined what was called a Peace and Independence March toward Minsk's Independence Square, which was previously cordoned off by security forces.

Many participants waved banned red-and-white flags that have long been a symbol of opposition to his regime.

Riot police blocked crowds from advancing in several areas of the city, and detained at least 125 protesters near Independence Square and elsewhere, according to the Interior Ministry.

The protesters were carried away into prisoner transport vehicles as other demonstrators shouted "shame." Armored vehicles were brought into Minsk and parked near the residency of Lukashenka "to strengthen the security of personnel," the Interior Ministry said.

Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti on August 30 posted a photograph of Lukashenka walking around his residence with an automatic weapon that it said it received from the Belarusian leader's press secretary. It was unclear whether the photo was taken that day.

Some of the protesters began to leave the square late in the day amid heavy rain.

Belarus has been rocked by 22 days of protests and strikes over a disputed presidential election that has given Lukashenka a new six-year term. The protests have posed the greatest challenge yet to Lukashenka's 26-year rule.

Ahead of the planned march, the Interior Ministry has warned citizens not to take part in the unauthorized rally, while Minsk police recommended journalists covering the rally to stay at least 100 meters away from the protesters "for their own safety."

On previous Sundays, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Minsk over an August 9 presidential election widely believed to have been rigged in favor of Lukashenka, who claimed a landslide victory.

Anti-government demonstrations held over the past few days have been disbanded and participants detained by riot police.

Amid Western condemnation of the vote and the harsh police crackdown on opposition protesters, the Kremlin announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart planned face-to-face talks in Moscow in the coming weeks.

The two leaders have recently spoken on the phone several times amid the ongoing political crisis in Belarus, including on August 30, when Putin congratulated Lukashenka on his 66th birthday.

Both sides reaffirmed their intention to strengthen and expand their neighborly alliance, according to the Kremlin.

On August 29, a crowd estimated at up to 10,000 people, mainly women, marched through the city center, singing and chanting "Sasha, You're Fired!" -- a reference to Lukashenka.

A total of 29 protesters were detained in Minsk and elsewhere in Belarus that day, according to the Interior Ministry.

Meanwhile, the national Security Council stripped accreditations from at least 17 journalists from major foreign news organizations who have been covering the country's turmoil.

The Foreign Ministry said the decision was taken for security reasons.

Attacks On Media Freedom

Acting RFE/RL President Daisy Sindelar denounced "a desperate and ominous move by an authoritarian government to stifle the independent media and ruthlessly control the availability of credible information inside Belarus."

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab condemned "these clear attacks on media freedom," while the U.S. Embassy in Minsk called on the Belarusian authorities to "demonstrate restraint."

"We stand by our long-term commitment to support Belarus's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the aspirations of the Belarusian people to choose their leaders and to choose their own path, free from external intervention," the statement said.

A spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that instead of "intimidating and hindering media in reporting," the authorities should "focus on reflecting on and addressing the desires and aspirations of the Belarusian population."

A week ago, public anger drew at least 100,000 demonstrators in the capital despite a brutal police crackdown against protesters and widespread evidence of beatings and torture of those detained.

The leading opposition candidate, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has told the European Parliament that at least six people have been killed in the crackdown and dozens of protesters have gone missing after being detained by authorities.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-braces-for- more-postelection-protests-amid-attacks -on-media-freedom/30811205.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Michigan is launching a new program to provide more overdose-reversal kits to people at the scenes of non-fatal opioid overdoses in an effort to combat the recent rise in overdose fatalities.

On Monday, Aug. 31, the Department of Health and Human Services announced its EMS Naloxone Leave Behind Program, a partnership with emergency medical services providers that will hand out extra naloxone kits. Each kit comes with the medication to reverse opioid overdoses, and instructions for use.

The program will allow first-responders to leave naloxone kits with the patient, family and friends, or bystanders at the scene of a non-fatal overdose. Survivors are at high risk for repeated overdoses, so providing naloxone to these individuals and their loved ones is particularly important.

Far too many Michiganders die from opioid overdoses and tragically the opioid crisis has only gotten worse during the pandemic, said Robert Gordon, MDHHS director, in a prepared statement. Thats why MDHHS is proud to work with the states EMS providers to give Michigan families another resource to prevent overdose deaths. It is more urgent than ever that we take decisive action to prevent overdose deaths and dismantle the stigma around addiction.

In 2018, overdoses killed 2,599 Michiganders. Nearly 80 percent of those deaths involved opioids.

This year, county health departments around the state have reported increases in opioid-related deaths as the stress and anxiety related to coronavirus and coinciding economic recession have placed added pressures on individuals. A spokesperson for MDHHS said it was too soon to look at statewide overdose data for 2020, but they noted a deeply concerning trend in the rising number of 911 calls related to opioid use during the pandemic.

Related: Opioid-related deaths surge in parts of Michigan during coronavirus pandemic

From April through July 2020, EMS responses for opioid overdose in Michigan were 22% higher than the same period in 2019, according to statewide data compiled by MDHHS. Responses increased in all regions of the state and in every age demographic except for those aged 65 and older.

The state announced its new naloxone program on Monday in recognition of Overdose Awareness Day -- a day meant to memorialize the individuals whose lives have been lost to an overdose, and marks an occasion to offer support to the family, friends and communities impacted by this epidemic, according to MDHHS.

Naloxone, commonly known by the brand names Narcan and Evzio, has been used by EMS providers to treat overdoses for more than 30 years. The nasal spray allows an individual experiencing an opioid overdose to breathe again, and does not have negative effects if opioids are absent.

Michigans EMS providers are standing by 24/7 to treat medical emergencies including helping prevent overdose deaths, said Jack Fisher, Michigan Association of Ambulance Services (MAAS) president and executive director of Medic 1 Ambulance in Berrien County.

We look forward to having this extra resource to combat the serious overdose problem in our state, but still urge Michiganders to call 911 in all emergencies, even if naloxone has already been administered.

Medical Control Authorities, which act as local EMS governing boards, will determine whether to adopt the new leave-behind program, according to state officials. EMS agencies will be able to order naloxone kits as needed from the states online portal where community organizations can request free naloxone.

The state health department has $4.98 million in funding for the naloxone portal for the current fiscal year, which is roughly enough for 66,396 kits, according to MDHHS. The funding is from the State Opioid Response grant, a federal grant that funds much of the states opioid crisis response work.

Michigan residents can prevent or reduce overdose deaths by carrying naloxone. Organizations like Naloxone for All and NEXT Distro will mail the overdose-reversal medication at no cost to anyone in Michigan.

For more information about overdoses and resources for prevention and treatment, visit Michigan.gov/opioids.

Read more on MLive:

Put your kids on a news diet and other tips to coping with anxiety during a pandemic

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BOSTON  Just two years ago, Joe Kennedys star was so bright that he was asked to deliver the Democratic Partys response to Donald Trumps State of the Union speech. Now, if he cant turn things around before Tuesdays Massachusetts Senate primary, hell be out of politics.

A handful of recent polls show the 39-year-old congressman trailing incumbent Sen. Ed Markey  the septuagenarian incumbent whose campaign is improbably powered by younger progressive voters. Among voters under the age of 35, one of those polls reports, Markey is leading Kennedy by an almost 2-to-1 margin.

"The AOC, Sunrise Movement, Justice Democrats embrace of Ed Markey to me is twofold. That is what has allowed this remarkable makeover of Ed Markey to combat the fact he's 74 years old and been in Congress 44 years. The way they did that was to make him the darling of the climate change warriors, and instrumental to that is [New York Rep.] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," said Mary Anne Marsh, a Boston-based Democratic consultant who is neutral in the race but whose firm works for the Kennedy campaign. "Without her, I think it would've been a much harder effort to make him into the Ed Markey people see in this race, which is very different from the Ed Markey people in Massachusetts have seen in 44 years."

This airbrushed portrayal of Markey is a source of frustration for Kennedy and his supporters. The congressman points to Markey's vote for the Iraq War, his support of the 1994 crime bill, his evolving position on health care and his decision to vote present on a resolution authorizing military force in Syria. That present vote came at a time when Secretary of State John Kerry, whose Senate seat Markey had just won, sorely needed support for the Obama administration's action in Syria.

But younger voters are captivated by Markey's work on the Green New Deal and his partnership with Ocasio-Cortez. The Markey campaign has spent almost a half-million dollars airing an ad that doesn't even feature the candidate. In the 30-second ad, Ocasio-Cortez talks directly to the camera, and it has appeared on Bay State television 1,200 times.

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Markey's supporters also champion his work on the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which President Bill Clinton signed before many of them were born. Kennedy, however, has sought to make that telecommunications law a blemish on Markey's record by cutting a campaign ad featuring a union official walking around Markey's hometown of Malden listing the ways the law hurt union workers. Amplifying that message, another pro-Kennedy union often drives a truck past Markey's daily outdoor events with a sign that reads, "ED MARKEY WHY DID YOU SELL OUT WORKING FAMILIES?" The truck plays an ice cream truck jingle, a jab at Markey's old summer job.

Behind the scenes, in conversations with reporters, Kennedy's advisers have sought to cast doubt on the accuracy of the recent polling  some of which puts Markeys lead in double digits.

Publicly, Kennedys campaign manager said the race is "neck-and-neck" in a memo to supporters about the raft of new survey data.

"Our internal modeling shows a very tight race and  most critically  one that is trending in Joe's direction in the final stretch," spokesperson Emily Kaufman wrote on Twitter.

But a few days later, Kennedy told a television reporter he didn't trust even his own pollster.

"With all due respect to any pollster at the moment, I wouldn't trust any of them. I don't trust my own," Kennedy told television station WPRI. "The closer you are to this race and the closer you talk to some of those pollsters that I think are following what's happening, they'll also say 'We don't know, best guess.'"

Kennedy has a point  Massachusetts rolled out a new coronavirus-inspired vote-by-mail system for the primary, which has added a considerable amount of uncertainty to the campaign.

While the consensus is that Kennedy remains within striking distance, critics are already celebrating the end of an era. The Kennedy dynasty may be well and truly over, the New York Post headlined.

END OF AN ERROR splashed the Boston Herald, accompanied by a picture of Kennedy.

One point of concern for Kennedy is Markeys cash advantage: The incumbent has around $2 million more than Kennedy in the final days of the race, despite the fact that the young congressman began the race by outraising him in quarter after quarter.

But Kennedy spent $2.4 million of that campaign cash on television ads in the spring. Ceding his cash advantage  in January, Kennedy had $5.5 stashed million in the bank, compared with $1.4 million now  is a move many of his supporters now view as a mistake.

Recognizing his deficit, Kennedy is scrambling. He criss-crossed the state on a 27-hour campaign day last week and has sharpened his criticism of his rival. In addition to whacking Markey for the behavior of his "toxic" online supporters, Kennedy has accused the senator of misrepresenting his legislative record for political gain, criticized his work on racial justice and pointed out times he failed to get results for his constituents.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., addresses The Road to the Green New Deal Tour final event at Howard University in Washington, Monday, May 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

Kennedys campaign believes Markey has an advantage among voters who have already cast ballots by mail  namely white, well-educated voters in the suburbs  but that high turnout on primary day would lend itself to Kennedy.

Dont count him out. Were feeling good, Kaufman said. We see a lot of gas in our tank still. [Markeys] votes are mostly in. We have the opportunity, and now responsibility, to get our people out.

The congressmans focus in the final days of the race will be to turn out a diverse coalition of voters who will vote in person in cities like Lowell, Springfield and Worcester, among others.

Kennedy has also called in the cavalry  House colleagues are pulling out all the stops for him. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made an unexpected endorsement of Kennedy, and days later drew almost 600 of his supporters for a get-out-the-vote rally on Zoom. Reps. Al Green of Texas and Adriano Espaillat of New York traveled to Massachusetts to hit the campaign trail with Kennedy this week, hoping to spark turnout among voters of color.

Pelosi also provided a financial bump for the congressman. Kennedy raised $100,000 within a day of Pelosi's endorsement, according to his campaign. But Markey, whos assembled a potent small-dollar fundraising operation, says he raised four times that amount  $400,000  in the 24 hours after Pelosi weighed in, much of it from progressives frustrated with Pelosis decision to intervene.

While Kennedy shied away from discussing his famous political family for most of the campaign, the family is now out in force. Vicki Kennedy, the widow of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, is campaigning for her great-nephew over the weekend. Kennedy's grandmother, Ethel Kennedy, the widow of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, recently cut a video in support of her grandson.

"I hope with all my heart you'll vote for Joe. I'm so proud of him," Ethel Kennedy says in the video. "He reminds me of Bobby and Jack and Teddy.  He's so very special."

A pro-Kennedy super PAC is also leaning into the Kennedy nostalgia, sending campaign mail and airing television ads that feature famed members of the Kennedy family.

"For Joe Kennedy, this fight is in his blood," reads a piece of campaign mail that features side-by-side photos of the candidate and Robert Kennedy.

The New Leadership PAC, organized in part by Kennedy's twin brother and other family members, has spent over $4 million in support of the congressman and is airing ads attacking Markey. United for Massachusetts, a pro-Markey super PAC, is not far behind, dumping $3.3 million into the race on Markey's behalf.

Part of the reason Kennedy now finds himself the underdog, some supporters concede, is that he never articulated a reason for challenging the incumbent or told his personal story. Polls show Kennedy  who was once considered the favorite  has not lost support over the course of his campaign so much as Markey has gradually gained it.

Kennedy has now pivoted to a closing message that focuses on inequality, citing people he met on the campaign trail who are facing challenges, such as an undocumented mother and a struggling restaurant owner.

"Here is my message to those who have tried to make this Senate race about ideology. This race is not about that, it's about them," he said in a speech in East Boston on Friday.

"Not one person in those cities, not one, has asked me why I'm running for Senate," Kennedy said. "The only thing they ask is what can you do to make this better? And when I need you, will you be there?"


NAIROBI, Kenya  Hoping to put an end to nearly two decades of bloodshed that has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions more displaced, the transitional government of Sudan signed a peace agreement with an alliance of rebel groups on Monday to end fighting in Darfur and the southern regions of South Kordofan and the Blue Nile.

It was the first major breakthrough in a peace process that started soon after the ouster of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the longtime Sudanese dictator accused of atrocities in Darfur that earned him an indictment on genocide charges in an international court.

After Mr. al-Bashir was ousted in April 2019, a joint military-civilian government promised to bring both democracy and peace. But with violence and massacres in Darfur being reported as recently as July, there was concern that promises of peace would once again fall short and the nation would descend into a familiar cycle of bloodshed.

While observers cautioned that Mondays deal needed to be followed with concrete reforms, it was widely viewed as a critical first step to a more enduring peace. More than 300,000 people have been killed in years of fighting in Darfur, according to the United Nations. Another 2.7 million were forced from their homes. Thousands more have died in fighting in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile since fighting first broke out in the region in 2011.
Those hoping for a big wedding amid the coronavirus pandemic may still need to temper their expectations, but will be able to somewhat expand their guest list.

Gov. Phil Murphy, who announced steps on Monday to open up indoor dining and movie theaters, also increased the capacity limits for indoor gatherings for religious services and celebrations, weddings, funerals, memorial services, and political activities beginning this Friday.

Those will be capped at the lesser of either 25% capacity or 150 individuals  an increase from the current limit of 25% capacity with a cap of 100.

The governors office said Mondays opening of indoor dining will allow catering facilities and banquet halls to bring back brides and grooms.

That will mean that not only will capacities inside any banquet facility will be capped at 25%, or 150 people, but groups seated together will also be capped at eight individuals, excepting for immediate families.

Under those same protocols, all groups of guests will be required to be kept a minimum of six feet apart, all staff will be required to wear masks at all times, and guests will also be required to wear masks at all times when they are not in their seats.

They will be allowed to offer consumption of food and beverages, said Parimal Garg, the governors deputy chief counsel. They will be subject to the indoor gatherings limit, as well as the indoor dining protocols.

The issue of celebrating weddings, and especially marking the passing of loved ones, have been fraught as COVID-19 exploded, with large gatherings all but banned in the early days of the outbreak. Indeed, police reported breaking up a number of such celebrations, amid the much stricter rules the state put in place back when the infection rate in New Jersey was seemingly climbing out of control.

There were all too many emotional stories as well of loved ones passing and family members not allowed to gather and mourn.

Over time, those rules have been slowly eased as the states infection rate dropped, leading to a lifting of the ban on religious gatherings. Weddings were allowed, but severely limited in size, with some bridal groups going digital and holding their ceremonies on Zoom.

Still, weddings carry a health threat even as infection rates drop.

Early in August, a wedding party of 65 family and friends who gathered on Aug. 7 in an indoor lakeside venue just outside the town of Millinocket in Maine led more than 100 new cases of the coronavirus  including an outbreak at a nursing home more than 200 miles away.

Guests said few were wearing masks.

One person died.

Murphy urged caution with the new freedoms to dine and celebrate in New Jersey.

Because we are doing so does not mean, by any stretch, that we can let up on our vigilance even one bit, he told reporters at his regular briefing on Monday. We know this is a virus of opportunity.

Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter.

Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com.
Canadian Firm Says Shanghai Factory Under Chinese Control During Period Prison Labour Reportedly Used

Prison labour infects Chinese supply chain, raising issues for foreign companies using Chinese manufacturers, warns expert

News Analysis

A Canadian company that makes medical masks says Chinese authorities took control of its facility in Shanghai for two months this year, while a Chinese state media article from that period reported that prisoners were producing masks at that factory at the time.

China has long been reported to use forced prison labournot only performed by those imprisoned on criminal charges but also by prisoners of conscienceto produce products for distribution in the global supply chain.

According to a March 12 article by a media outlet controlled by Chinese state media Shanghai Daily, a special group of offenders in the Chinese prison labour system volunteered to make masks at a Canadian-owned AMD Medicom facility in Shanghai.

The Chinese article, which was first reported on by Blacklocks Reporter last week, has since been taken down, but The Epoch Times has seen an archived version of it.

Montreal-based AMD Medicom holds a sole-sourced contract from the federal government to make masks amid the pandemic.

Gayle Padvaiskas, vice-president of marketing with Medicom, told The Epoch Times that during the period of Jan. 26 to March 27, which spans the time that the Chinese article was published, Medicom wasnt under its own control.

The Shanghai facility in question was appropriated by Chinese authorities from January 26 to March 27, 2020, Padvaiskas said in an email.

The Chinese government controlled all production and operations. Every mask made in the facility during that period was appropriated for domestic use in China.

Padvaiskas added that none of the masks that were produced while the factory was under Chinese control were delivered to Canada.

Medicom received its contract, which a government memo values at $382 million, in April. A Globe and Mail report citing a source says the contract carries a firm $94 million value for the first three years, and the remainder would be negotiated in the future.

Chinas Prison Labour

The topic of Chinas use of prison labour has faced fresh scrutiny as it has come up recently in the House of Commons, as well as amid a clamp-down by U.S. officials on imports made with Chinese prison labour.

Officials from the Department of Public Services and Procurement told a House of Commons committee on July 23 that the government uses two steps to guard against the potential use of forced labour in imports coming to Canada.

One step is self-certification from the supplier, while the second step is reviewing the charges against the country, including reviewing as much as possible their ethical supply chain.

Conservative MP Kelly McCauley said he doesnt think the current approach works to ensure prison labour isnt used for imports to Canada from countries like China.

It seems that theres very little oversight, apart from trusting this despotic country to self-certify. Its not breaking any laws in China to have forced labour, McCauley said.

According to Fred Rocaforta former U.S. diplomat who has worked in China as a commercial lawyer and has conducted audits to see if factories there use forced labourforced labour is something that has infected the supply chain in China.

If youre a warden at a prison in China, you have access to labour, and you might be able to offer very competitive prices to  the China supplier, Rocafort said in a previous interview.

He said international firms face considerable hurdles in getting access to accurate information about the labour practices of their suppliers and their suppliers suppliers.

[A] lack of transparency runs across the supply chain, he said.

US Scrutiny

In June, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 13 tons of human hair products from the northwestern region of Xinjiang, an area notorious for the suppression of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, who according to human rights organizations are subjected to forced labour.

Mounting evidence suggests that detainees such as Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, and other prisoners of conscience are being exploited for forced labour in various detention facilities around China.

The conditions in these labour camps have received more attention in recent years with the phenomenon of SOS notesnotes hidden in products made by those labouring in the camps as a plea to the outside world for help.

One of the most well-known cases is a note found by Oregon woman Julie Keith in 2012 in Halloween decorations she had bought at Kmart. It was written by a Falun Gong practitioner named Sun Yi who was imprisoned for refusing to give up his faith, and his cry for help exposed the conditions of Masanjia Labour Campone of Chinas most infamous.

Sun described dyeing Halloween decorations for so many hours a day that his hands continued the repetitive motions in his sleep.

Torture at Masanjia was routine, he said. Sun endured an extended period of intense torture, including being hung up from a bunk bed day and night for over a year and regularly shocked with electric batons.

When Keith sent Suns letter to local media it ignited a firestorm and set off a chain of events that would shut down the entire labour camp system in China; the camps were officially abolished in 2013. However, human rights observers say the regime still uses prisons, detention centres, mental health centres, and unofficial black jails for the very same purposes.

With reporting by Eva Fu and Cathy He

Note: This article was updated to reflect what is known about the funding received by Medicom from the federal government.
Monday, 31 August 2020 15:34:26 (GMT+3) | Kolkata

Indias steel exports in the April-July period this year totaled 4.641 million mt, up 140 percent from 1.933 million mt in the corresponding period of the previous year, according to the data of the Joint Plant Committee (JPC) under the Ministry of Steel and the sole official compiler of industry data.

According to the JPC data, Vietnam was the biggest market for Indian steel exports in the given period, accounting for 1.37 million mt.

China was the second largest destination for India steel exports in the April-July period, accounting for 1.30 million mt.

Indias total steel imports in the April-July period this year amounted to 1.506 million mt, down 42 percent year on year, the JPC data showed.

Domestic steel production during the period totaled 21.152 million mt, down 40 percent, while local consumption was down 43 percent to 18.909 million mt, both year on year, the data showed.
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Linkedin Glenn Chapman (Agence France-Presse) San Francisco, United States  Mon, August 31, 2020 08:45 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c418ef99 2 World Donald-Trump,anti-racism-protests,black-lives-matter,racial-discrimination,racial-divide,racial-unrest,racial-violence,racial-justice Free

A man was shot dead in the US city of Portland, police said Sunday, the latest violence to upend anti-racism protests as President Donald Trump presses an election message characterizing his Democratic opponent Joe Biden as weak on violent crime.

Detectives said they had opened a homicide investigation after the man was hit in the chest as gunfire broke out Saturday in the Oregon city, an epicenter of near nightly demonstrations for three months.

The shooting followed a week of nationwide protest -- including the cancellation of numerous sporting events -- over the police shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin of African American Jacob Blake.

Officers answered reports of gunfire as violence erupted during a pro-Trump rally involving hundreds of vehicles "caravanning throughout downtown Portland."

"They responded and located a victim with a gunshot wound to the chest. Medical responded and determined that the victim was deceased," Portland Police said in a statement.

OregonLive reported "clashes" and "tense moments" between demonstrators and counter-protesters, although police did not say whether the shooting, around 8:45 pm (0445 GMT Sunday), was connected to the rally.

Photographs from the scene showed the victim wearing a hat with a logo for "Patriot Prayer," described by local media as a far-right group at the center of multiple Portland demonstrations that have ended in violence.

Police said they made 10 arrests, although they didn't specify whether those people were pro-Trump demonstrators or counter-protesters.

The Portland clashes followed unrest in Kenosha, where prosecutors accused 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse of shooting dead two men and wounding another who were protesting against Blake's shooting.

Trump is due to travel on Tuesday to the Midwestern city to meet law enforcement officials and view damage from unrest triggered by Blake's shooting last weekend.

'Law and order'

Violence connected to anti-racism protests has become a major issue in the campaign for November's presidential election, with Trump presenting himself as the "law and order" choice and arguing that a Biden presidency would allow left-wing mob rule.

Biden condemned the violence and argued that Trump had played a role in spurring the clashes.

"He [Trump] is recklessly encouraging violence," the Democratic nominee said in a statement.

"He may believe tweeting about law and order makes him strong  but his failure to call on his supporters to stop seeking conflict shows just how weak he is."

Trump spent Sunday morning tweeting and retweeting dozens of posts purporting to show violence in Democratic-run cities, and especially Portland.

The president has repeatedly threatened to send federal government forces into the west coast city if Mayor Ted Wheeler does not crack down.

Trump attacked Wheeler, a Democrat, for refusing help from the National Guard, which he said "could solve these problems in less than 1 hour."

"Wheeler is incompetent, much like Sleepy Joe Biden," Trump tweeted. "This is not what our great Country wants. They want Safety & Security, and do NOT want to Defund our Police!"

Wheeler had shared an open letter to Trump on Friday denouncing the president's "politics of division and demagoguery."

"Portlanders are onto you. We have already seen your reckless disregard for human life in your bumbling response to the COVID pandemic," he wrote.

"And we know you've reached the conclusion that images of violence or vandalism are your only ticket to re-election."

'Lives are lost'

Wheeler described protests as part of a "proud progressive tradition" in Portland but he also condemned violence and vandalism.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told ABC on Sunday that local and state officials were "not allowing law enforcement to do their job" to "bring this violent activity... to a close."

He added on CBS that the state of Oregon and the National Guard needed "to do their job."

"We need them to step up, and if they can't or they don't have the ability or the resources, ask the federal government, and we'll provide the resources, as we have done in Wisconsin and others, so we can address any violence," he said.

Asked if Trump was considering defying Wheeler's request not to get federal law enforcement involved, Wolf said that "all options continue to be on the table."

Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, said the violence and loss of life would not stop until law enforcement reasserted control.

"But... when you encourage the disdain for the police you encourage criminals," he told CNN.

"When you do little or nothing to stop rioting, you encourage anarchy. People's lives are lost."
The adoption of Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) simulation software, and High Performance Computing (HPC) have demonstrated explosive new growth during this decade. What was considered supercomputing ten years ago, is now available to anyone for rent on the cloud. And yet, we are only on the foothills compared to the mountain of new adoption that is about to occur. Growth achieved so far was driven by the compute-constrained nature of CAE, and the fact that modern compute power and price have met those constraints.

A GURU session, depicted in: https://vimeo.com/452700313

The next liftoff will come from addressing the expertise-barrier  the fact that months to years of training is needed to adopt one new simulation package, and that the manual time to set up a new simulation is longer than the time it takes to run it.

Presenting some of their latest efforts to minimize the human workload needed to translate engineering questions into computational workflows, Allan Grosvenor, CEO of MSBAI, said: "Today, simulations take longer to setup than they take to run. We think the number of engineers using engineering simulation software and HPC [High Performance Computing] is nothing compared to what it's about to become!"

MSBAI is a privately held small business located in Los Angeles, CA, developing the cognitive AI assistant for engineering: GURU.

SMC2020 is the Smoky Mountains Computational Sciences & Engineering Conference: Driving future science & engineering discoveries through the integration of experiment, big data, and modeling and simulation. Virtual Conference August 26-28, 2020, https://smc.ornl.gov/

Contact:

Allan Grosvenor, CEO

[email protected]

310-954-2049

SOURCE MSBAI

Related Links

http://msb.ai


Restoration of the finger-like architecture of the intestine upon tuft cell stimulation in Crohns disease model (left) untreated, (right) treated. Arrows point to green-labeled tuft cells. Credit: Ken Lau

Researchers at Vanderbilt University have, for the first time, been able to trigger the specific immune system response required to reverse the course of small intestinal inflammation by inducing production of tuft cells, very rare epithelial cells that sense and respond to parasites. The breakthrough has the potential to provide Crohn's disease and inflammatory bowel disease patients a safe alternative to what's known as helminthic therapy, wherein parasitic organisms are introduced to the body to stimulate an immune response and calm inflammation.

The article "Succinate Produced by Intestinal Microbes Promotes Specification of Tuft Cells to Suppress Ileal Inflammation" was published online in the journal Gastroenterology on Aug. 24.

During the past five years, there has been a flurry of scientific research around tuft cellsa cell type comprising less than 1 percent of all the cells forming the outer lining of the intestinal tractadding to widespread scientific knowledge of the cell's phenotype over the past half century. Despite five decades of study, this research, conducted by Ken Lau, associate professor of cell and developmental biology, and former graduate student Amrita Banerjee, is the first that looks into how tuft cells can specifically address symptoms of CD and IBD.

To determine the number of tuft cells needed to trigger an immune response to inflammation, the researchers first sought to understand the process that stimulates tuft cell generation. By deploying single-cell RNA sequencing and microbiome analysis, they determined that the microbiome can stimulate tuft cell generation in a positive feedback loop through specific molecules. When this strategy was applied to CD, increasing tuft cell numbers ultimately reversed the course of intestinal inflammation.

"We are in the era of single-cell biology, a time when we are able to more fully comprehend the importance of rare cell populations with respect to the body's overall health and have the tools to study them," Lau said. "We have seen evidence that administering this technique as a therapeutic strategy reverses the course of intestinal inflammation. Next we will be looking closely at the mechanisms that enable tuft cells' functionality and how it can be clinically applied."

Added Banerjee, "Without much known about this rare type of cell, we have been able to answer fundamental questions about how they are produced. Using this research to address human disease was a goal of mine as a student, and to realize it has been a highly rewarding experience. We have been able to apply a gamut of techniques to our research and then walk from the lab to the clinic to evaluate the human impact of our work. The Vanderbilt community has provided so many intentional and serendipitous contributions to this research."

The synergy between the collaborators has resulted in a provisional patent application that Lau worked on with the Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization.

During her time working in Lau's lab, Banerjee was a science policy and programming intern at Life Science Tennessee, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing the life science industry through advocacy and partnerships. Currently, she is serving as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Science and Technology Policy Fellow. Over the course of this fellowship for outstanding scientists, Banerjee will work with a member of Congress to develop firsthand knowledge of policy making and advocacy for science funding at the federal level.

"Working within the complexity of how a single cell functions within a system has always been exciting for me," said Banerjee. "To apply the same kind of thinking, how individuals can make broad policy impacts and improve human health, is an experience I am very much looking forward to."

Explore further Mysterious tuft cells found to play role in pancreatitis

More information: Amrita Banerjee et al. Succinate Produced by Intestinal Microbes Promotes Specification of Tuft Cells to Suppress Ileal Inflammation, Gastroenterology (2020). Journal information: Gastroenterology Amrita Banerjee et al. Succinate Produced by Intestinal Microbes Promotes Specification of Tuft Cells to Suppress Ileal Inflammation,(2020). DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2020.08.029
Lyubov Sobol was already among the most visible dissidents in Vladimir Putin's Russia. At 32, she has fronted a protest movement that called thousands to the streets when she and other opposition candidates were barred from standing in Moscow city elections last year.

She staged a hunger strike and a sit-in at the offices of the Moscow election commission, eventually being lifted out of the building on a sofa after she refused to stand for police officers. A laughing Ms Sobol broadcast the incident live from her mobile phone to her vast social media following.

She has been sued by one of the most powerful businessmen in the country, and her husband has survived a poisoning. In 2016 an unknown assailant jabbed a syringe into his leg and injected a psychotropic substance that left him convulsing and unconscious, an attack Ms Sobol believes was linked to her activism.

Read More

Now, with opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a coma in a German hospital after another suspected poisoning, the lawyer finds herself at the helm of his anti-Kremlin organisation.

Ms Sobol is part of a trio who have promised to keep up the pressure on the authorities in Mr Navalny's absence. She runs his YouTube channels - which have six million subscribers and produce regular reports of wrongdoing among the Russian elite - while lawyer Ivan Zhdanov heads Mr Navalny's anti-corruption foundation and top aide Leonid Volkov oversees political campaigning. Ms Sobol said the group had no intention of scaling back their broadcasts or corruption investigations.

They also plan to campaign against the ruling United Russia party in regional elections next month. Mr Navalny's group no longer fields candidates itself but encourages supporters to vote for whoever has the best chance of beating Vladimir Putin's United Russia, whether they be from communist or nationalist parties.

"I'm working 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Ms Sobol, who has worked with Mr Navalny for a decade. "Any injustice gives me more strength and motivates me to work harder.

"There are dozens of people in our organisation all across the country," Ms Sobol said, pointing to offices in 40 regions of Russia.

"These are people who are professional and they are idealistic - they don't need a boss to make sure they're in the office from nine to five."

She also argued Mr Navalny's poisoning had made an impression on the general public.

"People who were indifferent to the authorities and the opposition have come round to our side because they've seen the dirty methods the Kremlin uses."

Read More

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
By Ben Blanchard and Yew Lun Tian

TAIPEI/BEIJING (Reuters) - Czech Senate speaker Milos Vystrcil will "pay a heavy price" for making an official trip to Taiwan, the Chinese government's top diplomat said on Monday, prompting Prague to summon China's ambassador to explain comments it said "crossed the line".

Vystrcil arrived in Taipei on Sunday on a visit to promote business links with Taiwan, and said the Czech Republic would not bow to Beijing's objections. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province ineligible for state-to-state relations.

"The Chinese government and Chinese people won't take a laissez-faire attitude or sit idly by, and will make him (Vystrcil) pay a heavy price for his short-sighted behaviour and political opportunism," China's foreign ministry cited State Councillor Wang Yi as saying.

Wang, who was visiting Germany, gave no further details of how Beijing would respond.

Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek said that although the government did not support the trip, Wang's remarks were too strong and he summoned the Chinese ambassador to explain.

"Minister Wang's statement has crossed the line, such strong words don't belong in relations between two sovereign countries," Petricek said on Twitter, calling for cooperation "without emotions which don't belong in diplomacy."

Vystrcil said Wang's comments were an interference in Czech internal affairs and that his visit was not meant to "politically confront anyone".

"We are a free country seeking to have good relationships with all countries and I believe this will be the case in the future irrespective of the statement of the minister," he said in a statement.

Speaking later at a Taipei university, Vystrcil praised Taiwan and its democratic way of life.

Taiwan Economics Minister Wang Mei-hua, speaking before a business forum with Vystrcil, told reporters the Czech Republic and Taiwan were both "free and democratic countries which put great store on human rights".

Czech President Milos Zeman has sought closer business and political ties with China since taking office in 2013, but his efforts have been hit by failed investment plans and Czech wavering about allowing China's Huawei Technologies to play a role in developing next-generation telecoms networks.

(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian in Beijing and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Additional reporting by Robert Muller in Prague; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Lincoln Feast and Timothy Heritage)
A low-income family that is paid by the state for taking care of a mentally disabled child at home does not have to count that pay as income when seeking housing benefits, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday in a Bay Area case.

Families should not be penalized for spending time and scarce resources to care for a mentally ill child or have to choose between placing the child in a hospital or losing their home, the court majority said in a 4-3 ruling. Dissenters, led by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, said the ruling will come at the cost of assistance to other families in need by reallocating millions of dollars from the already-underfunded Section 8 housing program.

Justice Ming Chin wrote the majority opinion on his last day before his retirement after 24 years on the court. His successor, not yet announced, will be Gov. Gavin Newsoms first appointee.

Section 8, part of a 1937 housing law, provides federal subsidies to property owners whose tenants have low incomes. Tenants rent levels, and eligibility for assistance, are based on their income levels.

Mondays case involved Kerrie Reilly, who moved into an apartment in Novato with her two daughters in 1998 and qualified for Section 8 benefits. When she failed to tell housing officials that one of her daughters had moved out, and later failed to make multiple payments, the Marin Housing Authority, which administers Section 8 with federal funds, said in 2015 that Reilly no longer qualified for the subsidies based on her income.

But Reillys other daughter was severely mentally ill, and her annual income of $52,000 included $41,000 the state paid her for the costs of caring for her daughter at home. Represented by disability-rights lawyers, she argued that the $41,000 should not be counted as income to disqualify her from federal benefits. A trial judge and a state appeals court rejected her arguments but were overruled by the states high court.

Now families do not have to choose between preserving their housing subsidy and having their family member with a developmental disability live at home with them, said attorney Autumn Elliott of Disability Rights California, which represents Reilly.

Under the rules, Chin said, if the state provides an in-home caretaker for a mentally ill family member, those costs are not added to the income that determines the familys Section 8 eligibility. He said Reilly should not be penalized for providing 24-hour personal care that subjects her to emotional stress and could also cost her opportunities for outside employment.

Counting her reimbursements as family income may cause the family to lose its Section 8 housing altogether because it is unable to pay an increased portion of rent, Chin said. Without such housing, a family may face having to institutionalize a developmentally disabled member.

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.

Cantil-Sakauyes dissent, joined by Justices Carol Corrigan and Leondra Kruger, noted that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees Section 8, filed arguments saying Reillys caretaker payments must be treated as income, like any pay for employment.

The law allows caretaking deductions only to offset the cost of services and equipment, and not the reimbursements a parent claims for the costs of providing and caring for a child, Cantil-Sakauye said. She said the ruling will siphon scarce housing assistance from Californias other low-income families, inevitably reducing the number of families who will benefit.

The case is Reilly vs. Marin Housing Authority, S249593.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
New Delhi: Consumer electronics brand Samsung on Monday launched its new range of Wind-Free ACs, touted to be Indias first air conditioners with PM 1.0 filtration capability.

With this, the new ACs can filter dust particles up to 0.3 micron in size and also sterilize virus and bacteria using an electrostatic charger, providing the cleanest and purest air in your homes and offices, the company said in a statement.

The new Wind-Free ACs will be available in three models  1-Way Cassette, 4-Way Cassette and 360 Cassette with prices starting at Rs 90,000 (GST additional). These are available across offline retail and online channels.

The new line-up of Indoor Units are designed to provide clean and pure air to homes as well as hospitals, hotels, malls, restaurants and retail among other establishments, Samsung said.

Equipped with PM 1.0 Filter, the new range of Wi-Fi enabled ACs not only provide clean and breathable air but also come with Samsungs proprietary Wind-Free cooling technology that delivers cooler indoor climate and optimal energy efficiency without the discomfort of direct cold airflow. The new Wind-Free models leverage a sophisticated detection system with advanced sensors and a display that provides users with precise information about cooling and air quality conditions, the company said.

These ACs are equipped with a 4-step display, a PM 1.0 sensor and three different types of filters. The Pre-Filter tackles large dust particles, the Deodorization Filter eliminates unpleasant odors and the PM 1.0 Filter has an electrostatic charger to capture and sterilize ultra-fine dust up to 0.3 microns. The sterilization performance has been certified by British multinational assurance, inspection, product testing, and certification company Intertek.

The Wi-Fi enabled Wind-Free ACs allow users to operate their air conditioners remotely. The new range of ACs are available in three panel variants  1-way Cassette for unilateral air flow, 4-way Cassette for a synchronized air flow in four directions and 360 Cassette for omni-directional airflow. Delivering exceptional performance, the new range of Air Conditioners can reduce air pollution.
Australias stock market closed 0.2 per cent lower on Monday at 6060.5 points with financials, health stocks, and an ex-dividend Fortescue Metals dragging the index down.

Sentiment was subdued despite the ASX ending the month 2.2 per cent higher, the fifth straight month of growth.

The ASX 200 finished the session 0.2 per cent lower, though it added 2.2 per cent for the month. Credit:Louie Douvis

Trading volumes were weak with reporting season mostly done and dusted. The roadshow cycle was now well underway with companies meeting investors and analysts, albeit virtually this year.

Energy and real estate sector stocks outperformed, while healthcare and consumer discretionary dragged.

The June quarter business indicator report revealed business inventories were lower than expected at -3 per cent. This means Australias economy was now expected to have shrunk by 6 per cent in the June quarter, the biggest quarterly contraction since 1974. And would technically be in recession for the first time since 1991 when GDP figures come out on Wednesday.

Australia underperformed Asian markets, which closed higher, and futures markets were pointing to small gains on Wall Street tonight.

Shaw & Partners senior investment advisor, Craig Sydney, said he tuned into Santos and Fortescue investor briefings on Monday.

The market is becoming more confident with oil, it has been a beaten-up sector but as economies look to open up that will increase demand, he said.

The energy sector outperformed the rest of the market with gains of 2.5 per cent on Monday, the best one-day performance since 4 August. West Texas crude prices held above $US43 per barrel after Hurricane Laura skirted past the major production facilities in the United States without too much damage.

Woodside increased 2.3 per cent to $19.58, Santos jumped 3.6 per cent to $5.67, and Oil Search climbed 4.1 per cent to $3.27. Beach Energy was up 3.4 per cent and the ever-shrinking Whitehaven Coal improved for the first time in six-sessions to 93c.

Mr Sydney said there was likely a rotation out of iron ore stocks and into the energy sector as investors lock in profits from high iron ore prices.

People are starting to pick up over the longer-term stories, institutions are picking up on that, he said.

Fortescue Metals Group shares fell $1.4, or 7.7 per cent, to a three week low of $17.42 after it went ex-dividend by $1 on Monday. BHP was due to go ex-dividend by 76.6c this Thursday. Its shares gained 0.5 per cent to $37.91.

Rio Tinto shares gained 0.1 per cent from Fridays six-week low to close at $98.

Lithium miner Orocobre dropped 10.3 per cent to $2.60 after several analyst target price reductions on its half-year result.

Outside the miners, Costa Group gained 4.5 per cent to $3.46 after several analyst upgrades, and Harvey Norman shares improved by 4.3 per cent to a six-month high of $4.42 for the same reason.

Data centre operator NextDC reached an all-time high of $12.48 and Cleanaway reached an all-time high of $2.59.

Utilities company AGL hit a five-year low of $14.68 after announcing plans to buy Click Energy from Amaysim for $115 million.

NAB ended the day unchanged at $17.93 after announcing it was selling its wealth business to IOOF for $1.4 billion. The financials sector declined by 0.7 per cent.
Two decades ago, Itaru Tanimura ended a 12-year run at McKinsey & Co. to lead M3 Inc., an online provider of medical information and services backed by entertainment giant Sony Corp.

What followed was a flurry of acquisitions that turned the Tokyo-based company into a $39 billion global behemoth. M3 now has about 40 subsidiaries and affiliates, including MDLinx Inc. in the U.S. and Britains Doctors.net.uk Ltd.

M3 helps pharmaceutical companies, doctors and their patients access information online over its platforms, removing the need for in-person visits -- something that proved important in the time of Covid-19. Its shares have almost doubled this year, surging the most of any company in the Nikkei 225 Stock Average and taking the fortune of Tanimura to $1.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Online doctor capabilities are in the spotlight with Covid, as people are staying home," Jefferies Japan Ltd. analyst Hiroko Sato said in an interview. Its really a theme stock."

Inquiries Skyrocket

The shares climbed 1.2% by 9:44 a.m. in Tokyo Monday.

A rush by smaller pharma companies to digitalize marketing materials after the coronavirus outbreak helped boost sales, with inquiries skyrocketing. M3s operating profit climbed 26% in the quarter ended in June, beating the highest analyst estimate.

The companys name stands for the three Ms of Medicine, Media and Metamorphosis," and its goal is to change medicine by making full use of the power of the Internet," according to its website.

Its acquisition spree started in 2002, when M3 bought the Japanese unit of U.S. medical portal site WebMD. MDLinx was acquired in 2006 and Doctors.net.uk in 2011. M3, which gets about three-quarters of its revenue from Japan, also has units in China, India and France. One of its U.S. subsidiaries was selected to take part in Moderna Inc.s Covid-19 vaccine study.

Tanimura, 55, is president and holds a 2.9% stake in M3. Sony owns about a third of the company. M3 declined to comment for this story, while Sony didnt respond to phone calls and an email seeking comment.

Tech Wealth

The pandemic has produced vast wealth gains among both tech and pharma titans. Amazon.com Inc.s Jeff Bezos has amassed more than anyone else, with his fortune hitting $200 billion, while Tencent Holdings Ltd.s Pony Ma and Jiang Rensheng, the chairman of vaccine maker Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products Co., have added more than $11 billion each.

While M3 said in its earnings report that Covid-19 disrupted some of its business, it always has Sony to lean on. The entertainment giant unveiled a $100 million relief fund to help tackle the outbreak in April and funneled some of that cash toward M3.

Sony and M3 will be able to bring unprecedented ideas to the medical community," Tanimura said at the time. Our first priority will be the rapid development of contributive measures to the fight against Covid-19."

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US President Donald Trump has hailed Shinzo Abe as the "greatest" prime minister in Japan's history during a telephonic conversation between the two leaders.

Abe, 65, on Friday announced that he intends to step down because of poor health, his long-running battle with ulcerative colitis, ending a tenure as Japan's longest-serving prime minister.

President Trump on Sunday night telephoned Abe during which the two leaders spoke at length and reflected on the last four years.

"The two leaders remarked that their relationship is extraordinary; the President called Prime Minister Abe the greatest prime minister in Japan's history, the White House said in a readout of the call.

This was the first phone call between the two leaders after Abe's announcement to resign.

"The President said that Prime Minister Abe has done a fantastic job and that the relationship between the United States and Japan is better today than it has ever been," the White House said.

"Although Prime Minister Abe will be leaving his position soon, the President noted that he will undoubtedly keep playing a big role in the future of Japan," it said, adding that the leaders said they look forward to continuing their wonderful friendship for years to come.

Abe, whose term ends in September 2021, is expected to stay on until a new party leader is elected and formally approved by Parliament.

On Saturday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US deeply values the enduring contributions of Abe in making the US-Japan relationship the strongest it has ever been.

"He championed our alliance as a cornerstone of peace and security and he advanced a free and open Indo-Pacific by working with the United States to build a network of partnerships across the region," Pompeo said.

In a separate statement, Senator Ted Cruz said he is saddened to hear that Abe is resigning due to health reasons.

"In the last eight years, he has countered the Chinese Communist Party's expanding influence and has been the strongest Japanese prime minister to do so since 1946, the Texas Senator said.

"He has called for Taiwan's inclusion in international organizations and he has also rebuilt much of the Japanese military, which, thanks to his leadership, is now doing military exercises with our allies Australia and India. Prime Minister Abe has also met with the threat posed by North Korea with strength," Cruz said.

Abe became Japan's youngest prime minister in 2006, at age 52, but his first stint abruptly ended a year later because of his health. In December 2012, he returned to power. He is credited with bolstering Japan's defence role and capability and its security alliance with the US.

Abe on Monday last became Japan's longest serving prime minister by consecutive days in office, eclipsing the record of Eisaku Sato, his great-uncle, who served 2,798 days from 1964 to 1972.
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Former Muscatine County Attorney Alan Ostergren argued that the new evidence being presented would not have changed the result of Beemans trial. According to a reply to the motion for a new trial, Beeman made two incriminating statements during the original investigation, including a confession, which a motion to suppress was denied during the trial and affirmed on appeal. In addition to the confession, he also made an incriminating statement to a transport deputy. Deputy Maynard Eckhardt testified to a statement by Beeman as he was brought back from the courthouse after a pretrial hearing. Dep. Eckhardt testified On the way back as we were returning from the courthouse, we got just outside the door and the subject of escape came up; and I said I didnt think Mr. Beeman could escape; and he stated that he felt he could; and I said, again, I didnt really feel it was possible; and he said, Well, I could. Dep. Eckhardt then continued his answer, He said, The way I would do it is kick you in the head just the way I did her. And so I said, Well, I dont think you can outrun a bullet. And Mr. Beeman said, Well, if I kicked you in the head, youll be on the ground dead and you wont be able to use your gun.
Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) under the Government of India has released the guidelines for the Unlock 4.0, applicable from September 1 till September 30. Under the guidelines, government has decided to open up transport further by allowing Metro Trains to run from September 7. However, the international flights will continue to operate like before in a calibrated manner under the Under Bubble Pact with various countries and also Vande Bharat Mission.

Ministry of Civil Aviation banned international flights from March 23 and has been conducting one-of-its-kind repatriation drive to brink back stranded nationals from various countries under the Mission Vande Bharat as air travel across the globe, especially for international flights remains suspended.

However, last month, MoCA announced that it has established bilateral air bubbles with countries including the US, France, and Germany. Establishment of similar air corridors between India and countries including Canada, UK, other European and Gulf countries has also been completed. Passengers who wish to travel to the aforementioned countries can refer to the quick guide below to familiarise with the regulations.

What is an air bubble?

An air bubble is essentially a temporary arrangement between two countries to restart commercial flight services at a time when regular international flights are suspended due to COVID-19. Under the arrangement, airlines from both countries are allowed to operate, unlike Mission Vande Bharat where only Indian air carriers were allowed to operate flights.

Which International Airlines are Flying Right Now?

Under the new arrangements, airlines including Air India, United Airlines, Air France and Lufthansa among other air carriers will operate to and from from their respective countries.

Is Tourist Visa Applicable for Flights Under the Air Corridor?

Yes, certain countries like Dubai have allowed tourists to fly into country with certain restrictions. However, majority of flights are still bring out stranded Indian citizens, OCI card holders & diplomats. If the country has not allowed tourist visa, Indian nationals cannot fly to these countries.

Who Can Fly to the US from India?

Passengers who wish to travel to US-bound international flight from India must either be US citizens, diplomats, permanent residents, OCI cardholders, or Indian nationals with US visa of at least one-month validity.

Also Watch:

It is to be noted that the special arrangements have been aimed to repatriate stranded Indians, foreigners, green card holders, permanent legal residents, and those on employment and education visas with a minimum of one months validity. It is advisable to check the restrictions in your destination country before booking the tickets.
By Azernews





By Ayya Lmahamad

The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) is not currently considering buying the Israeli Ashdod Oil Refinery Plant, local media reported with reference to the companys Deputy Head of Public Relations Ibrahim Ahmadov.

Ahmadov stated that the company has received an offer for purchasing this oil refinery plant, however is not considering such investment now.

Earlier, Israeli media reported that SOCAR is interested in buying the Israeli Ashdod Oil Refinery Plant.

According to the report, SOCAR is required to have a local partner to be able to purchase the oil refinery and is negotiating with a number of Israeli companies for cooperation.

The main Israeli contenders for the purchase of the refinery are Shafir Andasa and Aspen.

It should be noted that the Ashdod Oil Refinery is the second largest oil refinery in Israel, which is currently responsible for 40 percent of Israel's oil consumption.

Its should be noted that Israel ranks fourth in terms of export of non-oil and gas products from Azerbaijan, accounting for 4.2 percent from the total value of Azerbaijan's exports.

Azerbaijan and Israel abolished double taxation between the countries back in April 2017.

The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic is involved in exploring oil and gas fields, producing, processing, and transporting oil, gas, and gas condensate, marketing petroleum and petrochemical products in domestic and international markets, and supplying natural gas to industry and the public in Azerbaijan. Moreover, SOCAR is the main supplier of oil to Israel. The company owns two refineries in Azerbaijan, one in Turkey, as well as networks of petrol stations in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Romania and Switzerland.
J oe Biden has accused Donald Trump of being a "weak" leader who has "fomented" violence at recent protests in the US.

The Democratic nominee for president at the November election dismissed his opponent as incapable of tackling the violence himself.

"He doesn't want to shed light, he wants to generate heat, and he's stoking violence in our cities," Mr Biden said during a campaign stop in Pittsburgh.

"He can't stop the violence because for years he's fomented it."

"It's you": Portland Mayor blames President Trump for creating 'hate and division'

Mr Biden went on to denounce rioting, looting and arson at recent protests.

"It's lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted," he said.

The speech marks a new phase of the campaign as Mr Biden steps up his travel after largely remaining near his home in Wilmington, Delaware, to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

And after centring his candidacy on President Trump's mishandling of the pandemic, Mr Biden is making a broader push to argue that Americans will not be safe if Mr Trump wins re-election.

That is an effort to blunt Mr Trump's "law and order" message, which the president is emphasising as some protests against racial injustice have become violent.

A sense has taken hold in the Trump campaign that the more the national discourse is about anything other than the virus, the better it is for the president.

Mr Trump tweeted on Monday: "The Radical Left Mayors & Governors of Cities where this crazy violence is taking place have lost control of their 'Movement.'

It wasn't supposed to be like this, but the Anarchists & Agitators got carried away and don't listen anymore - even forced Slow Joe out of basement!"

In Pittsburgh, Mr Biden said of Mr Trump: "He may believe mouthing the words law and order makes him strong.

But his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows you how weak he is."

Mr Biden is seeking to cast recent protests as the Trump administration's problem.

However, Mr Trump and Republicans are highlighting violence at protests as examples of what the country would look like under a Biden administration.

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, the National Guard was deployed to quell demonstrations in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man, that have resulted in some looting, vandalism.

Two demonstrators were also shot dead amid the protests

And this weekend, one of Mr Trump's supporters was shot at a demonstration in Portland, Oregon.

This prompted multiple tweets from Mr Trump himself, including one late on Sunday erroneously accusing Mr Biden of failing to criticise the "agitators" at the protests.

On Sunday, Mr Biden strongly denounced violent acts on any side.

"I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same," he said in a statement.

Mr Biden said in Pittsburgh: "We are facing multiple crises - crises that, under Donald Trump, keep multiplying. Covid. Economic devastation. Unwarranted police violence. Emboldened white nationalists. A reckoning on race. Declining faith in a bright American future.

The common thread? An incumbent president who makes things worse, not better."

Portland has seen nearly 100 consecutive nights of Black Lives Matter protests, and many have ended with vandalism to federal and city property.

Mr Trump and other speakers at last week's Republican National Convention frequently highlighted incidents of violence at protests that were sparked by the police killing of George Floyd last May, predicting that if Mr Biden is elected in November such incidents will become the norm.

However, Mr Biden accuses Mr Trump of viewing the violence as a "political benefit".

"He's rooting for more violence, not less. And it's clear about that," Mr Biden said last week.
A member of Aleksei Navalnys team said his vehicle was pursued by individuals on quadricycles in Tatarstan after filming an investigation in the region.

Georgi Alburov said in a post on Twitter that after filming a residence outside the regional capital of Kazan with the use of drones, guards protecting the property chased them on quadricycles.

The guards on the quadricycles blocked the road and damaged the vehicle he and his filming group were traveling in, Alburov said.

The guards contacted the police, who proceeded to seize the filming groups equipment, including camera, filter, and laptop, he said in a Twitter post.

Alburov did not disclose the object of his investigation.

Tatarstan is an oil-rich republic in central Russia.
Emergency medical technicians (EMTs), military medics, and emergency room physicians could one day be better able to treat victims of vehicular accidents, gunshot wounds, and battlefield injuries thanks to a new device under development that may more accurately assess the effects of blood loss due to hemorrhage.

A research team has now shown that it can accurately assess blood loss by measuring seismic vibrations in the chest cavity and by detecting changes in the timing of heartbeats. The knowledge, developed in the laboratory, could potentially lead to development of a smart wearable device that could be carried by ambulance crews and medics and made available in emergency rooms and surgical facilities.

We envision a wearable device that could be placed on a person's chest to measure the signs that we found are indicative of worsening cardiovascular system performance in response to bleeding. Based on information from the device, different interventions such as fluid resuscitation could be performed to help a victim of trauma." Omer Inan, Associate Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

The research, supported by the Office of Naval Research, was reported July 22 in the journal Science Advances. It included collaborators from the Translational Training and Testing Laboratories in Atlanta, an affiliate of Georgia Tech, and the University of Maryland.

Blood loss can result from many different kinds of trauma, but the hemorrhage can sometimes be hidden from first responders and doctors. Heart rates are normally elevated in people suffering from trauma, and blood pressure -- now the most commonly used measure of hemorrhage -- can remain stable until the blood loss reaches a life-threatening stage.

"It's very difficult because the vital signs you can measure easily are the ones that the body tries very hard to regulate," Inan said. "Yet you have to make decisions about how much fluid to give an injured person, how to treat them -- and when there are multiple people injured -- how to triage those with the most critical needs. We don't have a good medical indicator that we can measure noninvasively at an injury or battlefield scene to help make these decisions."

Using animal models, Inan and graduate students Jonathan Zia and Jacob Kimball carefully studied seismic vibrations from the chest cavity and electrical signals from the heart as blood volume was gradually reduced. The researchers wanted to evaluate externally measurable indicators of cardiovascular system performance and compare them to information provided by catheters making direct measurements of blood volume and pressure.

The key indicator turned out to be a seismocardiogram, a measure of the micro-vibrations produced by heart contractions and the ejection of blood from the heart into the body's vascular system. But the researchers also saw changes in the timing of the heart's activity as blood volume decreased, providing another measure of a weakening cardiovascular system.

"The most important lower-level feature we found to be important in blood volume status estimation were cardiac timing intervals: how long the heart spends in different phases of its operation," Inan said. "In the case of blood volume depletion, the interval is an important indicator that you could obtain using signals from a wearable device."

In such a device, these noninvasive mechanical and electrical measures could be combined to show just how critical a patient's blood loss was. Machine learning algorithms would use the measurements to generate a simple numerical score in which larger numbers indicate a more serious condition.

"We would give an indicator that is representative of the overall status of the cardiovascular system and how close it is to collapse," Inan said. "If one patient is rated 50 and another is 90, first responders could give priority to the patient with the higher number."

Beyond emergency situations, the new assessment technique could be helpful with many types of surgery in which quickly identifying unseen blood loss could improve the outcome for patients.

In future work, Inan and his collaborators expect to create a prototype device that could take the form of a patch just 10 millimeters square. Additional electrical engineering will be needed to filter out the kinds of background noise likely to be found in real-world trauma situations, and for successful operation when the patient is being transported.

"Long-term, we want to partner with clinicians to do studies in humans where we would use the wearable patch and be able to take measurements when people were coming into the trauma bay, or even while EMTs were still deployed," Inan said. "This could become a new way of monitoring hemorrhage that could be used outside of clinical settings."

The researchers also want to study the opposite problem -- how to determine when enough fluid has been provided to an injured patient. Too much fluid can cause edema, similar to the conditions of heart failure patients whose lungs fill with liquid.

This material is based on work supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under grant N000141812579. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ONR.
Actor Kangana Ranaut feels that she has been shadow-banned by Twitter, after noticing that she has been losing around 40,000-50,000 followers every day. She said that it was unfair but added that nationalists have to struggle everywhere.

It started when one of Kanganas followers claimed that her follower count is decreasing on Twitter and it went down from 992k to 988k in the span of an hour. She replied, I agree I notice pattern every day 40-50 thousand followers drop, I am very new to this place but how does this work? Why are they doing this any idea? @TwitterIndia @jack @TwitterSupport.

Another follower suggested that she has been shadow banned for promoting nationalistic sentiments. Shadow banning is a form of Twitter censorship in which the microblogging site hides or blocks your content from your followers and other Twitter users. This happens if one is in violation of Twitters policies.

Kangana seemed to agree with this explanation and said, Hmm I see Nationalists have to struggle every where, racket is so strong, I noticed because last night we were to very close to a million, anyway, sincere apologies to all those who are getting unfollows automatically, so unfair but arnt we used to this now?

Also see | Sushant Singh Rajputs sister Shweta shares happy pics of them dancing to Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast: Miss you bhai

For a while now, Kangana has been raising her voice against the movie mafia and practice of nepotism in the film industry. Recently, she talked about Bollywoods alleged drugs nexus and claimed that 99% of people in the industry are drug users.

On Sunday, Kangana likened herself to late actor Sushant Singh Rajput and said that she was also targetted and isolated by the heavyweights of Bollywood. I was also called bipolar, a sexual predator, I was sl*t shamed, they isolated and banned me, eventually entire media banned me n my films as well, and mafia openly declared my tragic end, and all this happened in full public glare, no one said anything #IAmSushant, she wrote on Twitter.

I was also called bipolar, a sexual predator, I was sl*t shamed, they isolated and banned me, eventually entire media banned me n my films as well, and mafia openly declared my tragic end, and all this happened in full public glare, no one said anything #IAmSushant  Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) August 30, 2020

Kangana has been seeking justice for Sushant. She has alleged that the movie mafia tried to destroy his career and used their connections in the media to plant fake blind articles about him.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Sophia Antipolis, France - 31 Aug 2020: Colchicine reduces the risk of major cardiovascular events in patients with chronic coronary disease, according to results of the LoDoCo2 trial presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 2020.1

"Over a decade, more than one in three heart patients will have another heart attack or stroke, or die from heart disease, despite taking preventive medication," said study author Dr. Mark Nidorf of GenesisCare, Australia. "Our study shows that this could be reduced to one in four with the addition of low-dose colchicine."

Colchicine, originally derived from the bulb of the crocus plant, has been used since ancient times to treat inflammation. Now synthetically made, it is a generic medication taken to treat gout. The drug also inhibits several inflammatory pathways known to be important in atherosclerosis. The LoDoCo (Low Dose Colchicine) pilot trial suggested that colchicine 0.5 mg once daily was safe and effective for preventing cardiovascular events in patients with coronary artery disease.

The LoDoCo2 trial randomised 5,552 patients who had chronic coronary disease, and were tolerant to colchicine during a 30-day open-label run-in phase, to colchicine 0.5 mg daily or matching placebo on a background of lipid lowering and antithrombotic therapy.2,3 The primary endpoint was a composite of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, ischaemic stroke, or ischaemia-driven coronary revascularisation.

During a median follow-up of almost 30 months, the primary endpoint occurred in 187 (6.8%) patients in the colchicine group and 264 (9.6%) patients in the placebo group (hazard ratio [HR] 0.69; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.57-0.83; p<0.001). When the components of the primary endpoint were analysed separately, a consistent trend was seen with all endpoints and myocardial infarction and ischaemia-driven coronary revascularisation were both significantly less frequent in the colchicine group.

More than 90% of patients were tolerant to open-label colchicine. Of those who were intolerant, most reported transient gastrointestinal symptoms. In patients randomised into the trial, low-dose colchicine was well tolerated over the longer term: the rate of permanent discontinuation was low (<10%) and similar to those taking placebo.

During a maximum follow-up of five years, low-dose colchicine was not associated with any serious adverse effects. Neutropenia and myotoxicity were rare and no more frequent with the drug than with placebo. No unfavourable effects were found to occur with combined statin therapy even at high doses of statins. The risk of infection leading to hospitalisation or death, or new or fatal cancer, was also no different to placebo.

Dr. Nidorf said: "The trial confirmed that low-dose colchicine was tolerated over the long-term and significantly reduced the risk of the primary endpoint by almost one-third. The benefits were seen soon after initiating therapy, continued to accrue over time, and were observed patients already receiving other effective prevention therapies."

He noted that the magnitude of colchicine's effect on cardiovascular outcomes was consistent with that found in the CANTOS and COLCOT trials.4,5 Dr. Nidorf said: "The results of the LoDoCo2 trial establish colchicine as a potential new option for long-term prevention of cardiovascular events in patients with chronic coronary disease. "

###

Notes to editors

Authors: ESC Press Office

Mobile: +33 (0)7 85 31 20 36

Email: press@escardio.org

The hashtag for ESC Congress 2020 is #ESCCongress.

Follow us on Twitter @ESCardioNews

Funding: National Health Medical Research Council of Australia, Sir Charles Gairdner Research Advisory Committee Grant, Withering Foundation, Netherlands Heart Foundation, Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development. The active and placebo tablets were supplied at no cost; Teva, Disphar, and Tiofarma from the Netherlands and Aspen Pharmacare in Australia.

Disclosures: None.

References and notes

1Abstract title: Low-dose colchicine in patients with stable coronary artery disease.

2The LoDoCo2 trial was a collaborative Australian-Dutch investigator-initiated trial conducted by doctors from GenesisCare and the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research in Perth Australia, and the Dutch Network for Cardiovascular Research (WCN) in the Netherlands.

3Nidorf SM, Fiolet ATL, Eikelboom JW, et al. The effect of low-dose colchicine in patients with stable coronary artery disease: The LoDoCo2 trial rationale, design, and baseline characteristics. Am Heart J. 2019;218:46-56.

4Ridker PM, Everett BM, Thuren T, et al. Antiinflammatory Therapy with Canakinumab for Atherosclerotic Disease. N Engl J Med. 2017;377:1119-1131.

5Tardif JC, Kouz S, Waters DD, et al. Efficacy and Safety of Low-Dose Colchicine after Myocardial Infarction. N Engl J Med. 2019;381:2497-2505.

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.

ESC Congress is the world's largest gathering of cardiovascular professionals contributing to global awareness of the latest clinical trials and breakthrough discoveries. ESC Congress 2020 takes place online from 29 August to 1 September. More information is available from the ESC Press Office at press@escardio.org.
Host Keke Palmer acknowledged the death of Chadwick Boseman during the MTV VMAs 2020 opening. Palmer called him 'an actor whose talent and passion is a true inspiration to all the fans he touched and everyone he encountered.'

This years MTV Video Music Awards ceremony, the first major live awards show to be staged during the COVID-19 age, was originally supposed to be held at Brooklyns Barclays Center, but due to coronavirus concerns, it ended up taking place outdoors on Sunday, with performances at secret locations scattered across New Yorks five boroughs.

From Miley Cyrus recreating her 'Wrecking Ball' moment to The Weekend's sombre tribute to Breonna Taylor, here are some of the highlights from Hollywood's biggest musical night.

Keke Palmer's tribute to Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman

Host Keke Palmer acknowledged the death of Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman during the show's opening. Palmer called him "an actor whose talent and passion is a true inspiration to all the fans he touched and everyone he encountered."

"We dedicate tonight's show to a man whose spirit touched so many," she said. "He is a true hero, not just onscreen, but in everything he did. His impact lives forever."

The world needs more superheroes, and we all deserve to see ourselves in them. Chadwick Boseman helped make that happen. Rest in power. pic.twitter.com/d05kkkQR6b  MTV (@MTV) August 31, 2020

The Weekend The Weeknd, the first performer of the night, paid tribute to Jacob Blake and Breonna Taylor  two Black people who were shot by police officers  after winning video of the year and best R&B for 'Blinding Lights'. Its really hard for me to celebrate right now and enjoy this moment, so Im just going to say: justice for Jacob Blake and justice for Breonna Taylor, he said. Lady Gaga's urge to wear a mask Gaga won five honours, most of them for her No. 1 hit with Ariana Grande, 'Rain on Me', which the pop stars performed live for the first time. Wear a mask. Its a sign of respect, Gaga said during one of her several appearances onstage as she accepted awards like artist of the year, song of the year and the MTV Tricon award. With an electronic mask, Gaga performed a medley of her songs, including Stupid Love, Chromatica II and 911. She and Grande were joined by a number of background dancers all wearing masks. BTS' debut performance at the VMAs

.@BTS_twt took home Best Pop for #ON at the 2020 #VMAs! During their acceptance speech, they talked about their new single #Dynamite, and the hopeful message they want to send to #ARMY, and the world at-large, during these hard times pic.twitter.com/koTrPXLKch  MTV NEWS (@MTVNEWS) August 31, 2020

Pop all-stars BTS, who won four awards including best pop and best group, performed from South Korea. They were top-notch during the pre-taped performance, which featured their signature, skilled choreography. The seven band members danced and sang in sharp suits, at some points with the backdrop of Times Square behind them.

Miley Cyrus harkens back to 'Wrecking Ball' days

Miley Cyrus presentation of new single Midnight Sky was relatively subtle-- until she ascended a staircase and hopped atop a giant, swinging disco ball, in an image that immediately recalled her iconic 'Wrecking Ball' music video.

DaBaby, backed by the dance crew Jabbawockeez, ran through several of his hits, including 'Rock Star'. During the latter track, he rapped while jumping on top of a police car, with a burning city as his backdrop. And Doja Cat, who was named Push best new artist, gave a futuristic performance of her hits 'Say So' and 'Like That'.

Megan Thee Stallion won best hip-hop for 'Savage' and Taylor Swift won best direction for 'The Man'.

This is the very first video that Ive ever directed on my own. And I just Im so grateful for this, Swift said. I wanted to take an opportunity to say thank to the team who believed in me as a first-time director and made this video with me.

(With inputs from The Associated Press)
Rush Transcript: Governor Cuomo Announces New Record High Number of COVID-19 Tests Reported to New York State

August 30, 2020

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning, everyone. Happy Sunday. I'm joined on the phone by Melissa DeRosa, Howard Zucker, Jim Malatras and Gareth Rhodes.

Let me give you some numbers to start. Today is day 183. Yesterday we did 100,000 tests. That's the most tests that we have ever done in a single day. On that number of tests, 100,000, the infection rate was .69. That is great, great news. That's the 23rd day we're under 1 percent so that is really great news, especially when you consider what's going on around the country and around the world which I'll get to in a minute.

Eight New Yorkers passed away yesterday. They're in our thoughts and prayers. 429 hospitalized - that's down by about 30. That number is a new low since March 16, the 429 New Yorkers hospitalized. 12 COVID patients in ICU - that's down a couple. 47 patients intubated, down 1, but the number of intubated is also a new low since mid-March so you have, the number of intubated are a new low, the number hospitalized are a new low, highest level of tests, 100,000, and the infection rate .69, 23 days under 1 percent.

So the state is doing extraordinarily well and again, kudos to all New Yorkers because there is no mystery as to how this happens. It's a social action. We talk about social action. This is social action. This is the community of the people of the State of New York acting out of mutuality and concern for one another - community action. Worked at it all my life but never seen it on this scale before and it's all good.

Western New York for those of you who are interested, we've been watching Western New York. It has been, we have a caution flag up on Western New York. The infection rate yesterday was 1.6 percent. That's still the highest in the state. Every other region was below 1 percent. We've started a focused testing effort with rapid turnaround. We set up eight sites. We did 1,000 people. Those numbers for 1 day show about a 3.4 percent infection rate for one day. That is a very high number but that is not a random number. These are people who decided to come in to be tested. Normally you get a high infection rate under those circumstances because these are people who think they may be infected, right? That tends to be the driving motivation for people who show up so 3.4 is high but again it's not random.

What is interesting is you do see different geographic variations. The City of Buffalo was at 5.5; the County of Erie, 1.5; County of Niagara, 2.9; Chautauqua, 1.5. So we're going to use that information and continue testing and start to focus on those geographic areas that are showing higher numbers.

In general, we have not hit what people talked about as the second wave. The second wave discussion was on the theory that the virus would mutate and come back and that was going to be the second wave parallel to the 1918 flu pandemic. We're still in the first wave but what we're seeing across the world and across the nation is a difficulty in the first wave. It's a rebounding of the first wave, right? And it's the one wave going back and forth and we're still struggling with that first wave. And it's troubling. You look at places in Europe, you have France, you have Spain, you have Germany that are seeing numbers tick up, parts in this country where you're seeing numbers tick up. New York is very much the exception to what's going on around the world with COVID and I'm very pleased with the progress. All New Yorkers should be but we have to protect that progress and what you see again going on around the country and around the world should keep us on high alert. We're especially seeing the challenges that will come in the fall when people start to go back to school.

Colleges are opening - colleges open sooner than K-12 and high schools. And colleges are having issues. There are already 25 colleges across the country that are having significant issues, over 250 cases. The 25 colleges are all around the country. It's Florida, it's Texas, it's North Carolina. It's also Michigan. It's also the state of Washington. So colleges to me are very much a canary in the coalmine. Colleges very much show what happens when you bring back a concentration of people. Even with all the precautions. Even with everything we know, because you still run into human behavior. I've spoken to a number of college presidents, private college presidents, and I've said to them, look, I get it, you go back to college, you want to see your friends, part of the college experience is socializing, I know many people who are on this phone call when they were in college, they socialized, I know many of them went to parties, many of them consumed alcohol and did all those things. I studied when I was in college but I know not everyone was in the library when I was there. I understand, and I understand that colleges want to have a good relationship with the student body, but if the students act irresponsibly or the precautions are not in place, then the virus will spread and more dramatic action is going to have to be taken and needs to be taken. And if there is an outbreak on a college it's a concern for the college but it's also a concern for that community, local community and for the state.

We have a new chancellor of the State University System of New York and he happens to be on the phone with us, Jim Malatras. SUNY, I think, is lucky because Jim has been involved with the entire COVID management system from day one so he gets it clearly. He's brought that orientation to SUNY - he's action today at Oneonta that I think is right and we have him on the phone and I'd like him to speak about the situation at Oneonta and the actions he's taking today. Chancellor Malatras?

Chancellor Malatras: Thank you, Governor. Thank you, everyone. We have had reports of several large parties of our students at Oneonta last week, and unfortunately because of those larger gatherings, there were several students who were symptomatic of COVID and upon testing we found that 20 were positive for the COVID virus. As a result, we deployed the SUNY Upstate Medical Team to down to SUNY Oneonta, one of our premier medical research facilities to test all students, the nearly 3,000 or so at Oneonta, which began on Friday and right now as of this morning we have 71 positive confirmed cases up from 20. And because of our efforts, we're confirming another 34 tests, so we're about 105 positive tests at SUNY Oneonta, which is about 3 percent of the total student and faculty population that are on campus at SUNY Oneonta this year. As a result of the increase of tests - the positive tests for COVID - we are going to be closing the SUNY Oneonta campus for two weeks for instruction and we will assess the situation working with the state and local health departments after two weeks. I want to thank the Governor and Commissioner Zucker; they've deployed case investigators and contact tracers to help with the situation and the state is deploying a SWAT team to come into the Oneonta community to set up three rapid results testing facilities so that any resident of the Oneonta community can be tested. It's a 15-minute test. The hotline will be, and the locations will be, released on Monday and we will start testing on Wednesday because many of the students, of course, live off-campus. There's a lot of interaction in the community. There's a private college nearby, so we want to manage the, any potential spread and address it immediately. But we're taking this action because we think it's necessary in order to show folks that this can spread quickly and we have to address it quickly - and the other piece that we wanted to mention, because the Governor mentioned it, we understand students are coming back, we understand people want to party. But individual responsibility plays into the collective good, so your individual actions have enormous consequences on everyone else in your college community. Five students in Oneonta have been suspended for holding parties against the college policy. Three organizations, campus organizations, have been suspended and that goes along - we're going to be tough not because we want to ruin their fun, but this is a different time and this goes to what other campuses have been doing. We had to suspend 43 students at SUNY Plattsburgh for similar things because we have to address this during the new-normal. So, we will be doing that today. We're going to be meeting with the local community leaders and the school to go discuss that at 1 p.m. today, so thank you, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you very much, Jim. And just to echo what Mr. Malatras discussed and this should be a message to the private colleges also. I understand college life. Jim said, "students like to party." I never used the expression "party;" I said "socialize," which I thought was a more appropriate term to use in the academic setting. But we understand that and I understand the tension between the school administration and the student population, but if you the lesson is always the same. If you are not prepared, if you don't have the right precautions, or if you don't enforce the precautions, then the virus spreads and then you have to take more dramatic action which is more disruptive and generates a more energy, a more negative energy. So private colleges, I think if you are slow to enforce the rules, then the virus will spread and then you will have to take more dramatic action. If a private college doesn't take the dramatic action, the local health department can make the college take close-down procedures. If the local community doesn't do it, the state can do it. A 3 percent infection rate, you know, that's a high infection rate in a congregate situation. Three percent is high in a dense environment, like a dense urban environment where you have people taking public transportation; it's a crowded environment. Three percent is high, so I think the Chancellor is doing the exact right thing at Oneonta and I think he's taking the right actions across SUNY, and I think the private colleges should really follow the example. As I said before, I think the colleges are the canary in the coal mine. I think what we're seeing at colleges we're going to see at the K-12 setting when those schools start to reopen. I know there's a lot of conversation in districts across the state. I speak to many school administrators, many parents about this. They have to have the right plan in place. Look at the colleges. Look at what's going on. Have the right plan and be in a position to actually implement the plan. Some school districts were having conversations about testing and what they'll do in terms of testing.

It's one thing to have a plan that says you're going to do X number of tests. It's another thing to actually have the capacity to do that number of tests. So it's not just the plan. It's the implementation of the plan, right? And bureaucracies are not the best change-oriented systems and this is a major change for a bureaucracy and this is a test that has to be completed quickly so it's an entirely new system, an entirely new task that has to be completed very quickly so a plan on paper is one thing. Being able to do it is a second question that has to be asked and my advice to the K-12 is the same - air on the side of caution. Air on the side of caution. If you go to in-person education and you are not prepared or you can't actually implement the plan and do it on day one, you will see the numbers go up and then you'll see more disruption. So air on the side of caution, smart plan you can implement, and if you're not ready, better you start when you are ready. You know? Everybody is anxious to get back to school. I get it. But everybody should be anxious to get back to a safe school, right? We're opening safe schools this year - that's what we're doing. Not just schools - we're opening safe schools. With that, Dr. Zucker has an announcement and then we'll take questions. Dr. Zucker?

Dr. Howard Zucker: Thank you, Governor. With flu season around the corner, the Department of Health will put out regulations tomorrow saying that all deaths involving respiratory illnesses need to be tested for COVID-19 and for the flu. This will maintain the integrity of our data. It will remove any reporting of presumed cases. This is very important information to have. I want to add that I urge everyone to get their flu shot unless there's a medical reason not to do so. Every year I urge people to get their flu shot and this year is no different, especially with the COVID-19 virus that's circulating the community, so we will have those regulations out tomorrow. Thank you, Governor.

Governor Cuomo: Thank you, Doctor. I'm ready for my flu shot whenever you're ready. I will take it without grimacing. Like I did that test with the nasal swab.

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Flames from the River fire crest a ridge as firefighters Ian Johnson, right, and Mike Campbell protect a home in Salinas, Calif., on Aug. 17. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)

Facing heavy opposition, California lawmakers have scrapped a last-minute bill to extend fees for utility customers and plan to replace it with a more modest call for $500 million in emergency fire response and mitigation efforts.

The new proposal requires Gov. Gavin Newsom to waive a state law that prevents legislators from amending bills in the final hours before the Legislature adjourns for the year.

The decision to abandon Assembly Bill 1659 came just five days after lawmakers introduced the measure. The legislation's reliance on a 10-year extension of fees on utility bills  at a cost of more than $3 billion to customers  to pay for wildfire mitigation and climate projects drew sharp criticism from ratepayer advocates and utilities.

The new plan, pushed by Democrats in the state Senate, would instead tap into proceeds from California's cap-and-trade program  which requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions  as well as state general fund revenues and a 2018 bond measure. The money would be spent on a variety of efforts aimed at addressing wildfires and climate change, including cooling centers, back-up solar power, emergency shelters, warning and detection systems, hardening projects, forest health and workforce training.

"We've had 1.7 million acres that have already burned this year and we haven't even gotten to the peak of wildfire season," said state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), who is among the Democrats pushing the proposal. "Either we're going to continue spending money to fight the fires and help communities rebuild and address the devastation after the fact, or we can try to act now to be more proactive."

But Allen and other proponents would have to overcome major hurdles to pass the proposal with less than two days left in the legislative year.

Proposition 54, a 2016 voter-approved amendment to the California Constitution, requires a bill to be in print for 72 hours before the Legislature passes it. With lawmakers required to adjourn for the year Monday night, the new proposal would require Newsom to submit a statement to the Legislature saying it's necessary to address a state of emergency.

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If Newsom takes action, legislators plan to make the bill a majority-vote proposal tied to the state budget, an easier threshold to clear than the two-thirds vote that would have been required to pass AB 1659.

Newsom probably wont intervene unless the Senate and Assembly reach an agreement to support the new proposal.

Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) said she was prepared to negotiate.

Atkins is not taking a position on any specific proposal, but is willing and ready to engage to get something done in the next 36 hours, her office said in a statement.

But Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) questioned whether the bill was necessary to address the states wildfire emergency.

Given the governors office has not yet engaged with us on this proposal, I dont believe it meets the bar for a waiver of the 72-hour rule, Rendon said in a statement. This rule is designed to provide transparency, and overturning it should be done sparingly. Wildfire prevention and climate change are important issues in California, and deserve thoughtful discussion to figure out potential funding proposals.

Assemblyman Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), the chair of the Assembly utilities and energy committee, strongly objected to the use of ratepayer-raised funds for AB 1659. Through a staff member, Holden declined to comment on the replacement proposal because he said he had not been able to review the bill's language.

Other key members of the Assembly, including Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), who introduced AB 1659, and Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg), did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A spokesman for Newsom declined to comment on the new proposal and whether he would waive the 72-hour rule.

The decision to pare back the original spending plan under AB 1659 comes after the bill faced fierce pushback from businesses and ratepayer advocates.

A coalition of business groups  including the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Farm Bureau Federation, the Western States Petroleum Assn. and other influential groups  sent a letter to the Senate last week opposing the bill for requiring customers of the state's three largest investor-owned utilities to pay for projects unrelated to their electrical service.

The business groups wrote that "choosing to fund bits and pieces of the states overall wildfire response and non-utility programs and projects solely on the backs of Californias ratepayers at a time when businesses are closing, unemployment is skyrocketing, and our economy is faltering is not an appropriate solution."

AB 1659 would have added 10 years to an existing utility fee, already extended last year by lawmakers to 2035 to pay for wildfire damages caused by utility equipment. The extension would have cost ratepayers 96 cents a month, or more than $3 billion over 10 years, for bonds used to pay for wildfire prevention work.

Newsom and the Legislature approved AB 1054 to establish the wildfire fund last summer amid pressure from Wall Street to reduce the utility industrys liability for damage linked to their electrical poles and equipment. The law made it easier for utilities to avoid being on the hook for wildfire damages through a new safety certification process and created a $21-billion fund as an additional shield against losses from blazes linked to their equipment.

Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric have opposed this year's proposal, AB 1659, saying their customers shouldn't "shoulder the financial burden for activities and public projects that benefit the entire state."

"AB 1659 would impose extra costs on IOU [investor-owned utility] customers, which would be viewed negatively by lenders, ratings agencies, and capital markets, further exacerbating the already challenged credit ratings of the states IOUs," the utilities wrote in the Aug. 27 letter. "AB 1659 therefore threatens to undermine the collaborative progress made to restore the financial health of the states IOUs, while imposing an additional, unnecessary burden on IOU customers."

The utilities are expected to remain neutral on the replacement proposal because it does not require an extension of the ratepayer fee.

Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network, ripped AB 1659 in a legislative hearing last week, saying the bill broke a promise the state made last year when it said ratepayer costs for wildfires would be capped at $10.5 billion  the cost of the 15-year fee increase for the wildfire fund.

"AB 1659 is nothing short of a last-minute backroom deal to loot ratepayers," Toney said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 02:42:05|Editor: huaxia

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ADEN, Yemen, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Some unidentified gunmen opened fire and killed a politician of Yemen's Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islah party in the country's southern port city of Aden on Sunday, a security official told Xinhua.

The local security source said on condition of anonymity that "a group unidentified gunmen assassinated Awad Fadaaq, a leading politician of the Islamic Islah party in Aden province."

He added that "the masked gunmen rained Fadaaq's body with a barrage of bullets while he was walking through a main street in Aden's neighborhood of Mansourah."

Local residents confirmed that Fadaaq was immediately taken to the nearest hospital but doctors there declared him dead.

Police forces arrived at the area and launched an investigation trying to ascertain if the attack was carried out by terror elements or it was a criminal incident.

Aden is considered Yemen's temporary capital where the Saudi-backed Yemeni government has been based since 2015.

The impoverished Arab country has been locked in a civil war since late 2014, when the Houthi rebels overran much of the country and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa. Enditem
" " Princess Diana sits on the steps of her home at Highgrove, Gloucestershire in 1986. Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images

From the first time she appeared on the scene as the beautiful "Shy Di," through her "fairytale" wedding to Prince Charles, their bitter divorce and her tragic death, Diana, Princess of Wales, fascinated the world. Here are five things that you may not know about her.

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1. She Had a Brother Who Died as a Baby

Diana was her parents' third daughter, born in 1961 into the aristocratic Spencer family. She told Andrew Morton for the book "Diana: Her True Story": "It was a very unhappy childhood ... I couldn't understand why I was perhaps a nuisance to have around, which in later years I've perceived as being part of the whole question of the child who died before me. It was a son (John, who died within ten hours of his birth in 1960) and both my parents were crazy to have a son and heir. 'What a bore, we're going to have to try again.' And then comes a third daughter." Her parents later had a son, called Charles, in 1964.

2. Her Handbag Trick Foiled the Paparazzi

" " Princess Diana steps out of various cars, clutching her purse to her cleavage when necessary. Tim Graham/Tim Graham/Getty Images

One of Diana's favorite accessories designers was Anya Hindmarch, who created a clutch purse that Diana strategically displayed. "She would pop into our first shop on Walton Street, without any bodyguards, and she was very lovely, very low key," Hindmarch recalled to The Telegraph. "She always used to refer to [the Anya clutch] as her 'cleavage bag,' because she would use it when she got out of the car to protect her modesty." Indeed, you'll see several pictures of Diana with her clutch purse up by her cleavage. Kate Middleton, the duchess of Cambridge, also only carries a clutch, but for different reasons.

3. She Was Initially Terrified Around Land Mines

In the last years of her life, Diana became involved in the cause of unexploded land mines left behind from wars, which caused civilians to lose limbs after unsuspectingly stepping on them. In February 1997, she made a highly publicized documentary with the BBC where she donned protective gear and walked through a field strewn with land mines in Angola. She was accompanied by Paul Heslop, who at the time worked for an organization that removed these land mines.

"She wasn't making eye contact, and I felt that initially she was disinterested," he told the BBC in 2017. "And then, when the whole mob of journalists came off the other planes I suddenly realized why she was so nervous. And this poor woman was about to go into a live minefield, a dangerous area, in front of however many hundreds of millions or billions of people on the news, and I thought back to the first time I went into a minefield, and I was petrified."

" " Princess Diana wears protective body armor while visiting a land mine field being cleared by the charity Halo in Huambo, Angola. Tim Graham/Getty Images

In the field, the princess was shown a dummy land mine and she pushed a button to detonate it, just as Heslop's team normally did. They took great care to keep her safe. "I did not want to be on the front page of the news the next day as the man who'd blown up Princess Diana," said Heslop. A year later, after Diana's death, the U.K. ratified the international convention banning land mines.

4. The Car She Died in Was Structurally Unsafe

Diana died in Paris Aug. 31, 1997, in a car crash that has been the source of controversy ever since. Conspiracy theorists believe that her death was orchestrated, but many of the mysteries surrounding it have been solved. One involved the whereabouts of a white Fiat Uno that was driving slowly in the tunnel that Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed raced through with driver Henri Paul at the wheel. Some people wondered if the vehicle had been put there to purposely to cause Paul to lose control of the car. Police never found the vehicle, but some French journalists discovered it belonged to a Frenchman of Vietnamese origin. The man was frightened by the commotion surrounding the crash, took off, and later repainted the car red.

An even bigger revelation from the journalists was that the Mercedes Paul had been driving had instability problems, and had been written off after being involved in a major accident two years earlier. Yet somehow, the car was rebuilt and sold to a limousine company who used it to ferry guests of the Ritz hotel. Paul, who died in the crash with Diana and Al-Fayed, had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit.

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5. A Musical of Her Life Is Headed to Broadway

The team behind the Tony-winning show "Memphis" has created a musical called "Diana" that has attracted attention from Broadway producers. The plot mainly centers around Diana's marriage to Prince Charles and will feature all the usual suspects  including Queen Elizabeth and Charles' mistress-turned-second wife Camilla Parker Bowles. Expect lots of '80s-style music courtesy of the team's composer-lyricist David Bryan, who is also the keyboardist for the band Bon Jovi. Its debut has been pushed back several times because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but is now expected to premiere in November 2021. But before that, it will air on Netflix in October, in a first-of-its-kind movie.

Now That's Interesting Diana expressed compassion toward people from an early age. At her boarding school, she visited the elderly in a home once a week. "I adored that. It was sort of an introduction for bigger things," she recalled in "Diana, Her True Story."

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Originally Published: Aug 31, 2020
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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.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Four men, including a juvenile, were arrested in connection with two robberies in Gerugampakkam and Nammazhvarpet, and 27 sovereigns of gold were seized from them. S Prabu (39), a resident of Chakkarabani street, Gerugampakkam, went to his hometown on August 11.

A week later, he returned to find his house broken into, and 20 sovereigns missing. Acting on his complaint, Mangadu police registered a case and retrieved footage from more than 100 CCTV cameras before zeroing in on the suspects.

The accused, V Surya (20) of Tiruvottiyur, E Vignesh (19) of Nerkundram and a 17-year-old juvenile, were picked up and the stolen jewels seized. Police said the trio were involved in mobile snatching and burglaries in Koyambedu, Rajamangalam and Maduravoyal areas.

The juvenile was sent to an observation home while the other two were remanded. In another incident on June 26, six sovereigns of gold were stolen from the house of one Bhuvaneshwari in Nammazhvarpet.

Based on fingerprints at the house, Secretariat Colony police arrested a 49-year-old man and seized seven sovereigns from him. The accused, S Chellappa of Egmore, has more than 10 cases pending against him and had been detained four times under Goondas Act, said police.
India said on Monday that it had pre-empted provocative military movements by China to change the status quo along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the southern bank of Pangong Lake, a development that widened the trust deficit between the two sides and dealt a blow to efforts to reduce tensions.

The incident followed the lack of forward movement in the disengagement and de-escalation process even after several rounds of diplomatic and military talks. India has insisted that China should deliver on agreed actions for redeploying troops towards their regular posts along the LAC. China has been obdurate about this.

Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) troops violated the consensus reached during military and diplomatic engagements and carried out provocative military movements to change the status quo on the night of August 29-30, Indian Army spokesperson Col Aman Anand said in a statement.

Indian troops pre-empted this PLA activity on the southern bank of Pangong Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground, he said, without elaborating on the nature of the Chinese provocation and how Indian soldiers blocked PLAs actions.

More than 200 Chinese soldiers were involved in the attempt to occupy Indian territory on the lakes southern bank but sufficient number of Indian troops  armed with accurate intelligence about PLA movements in the sector  were able to thwart the threat, officials familiar with the developments said on condition of anonymity.

The confrontation didnt escalate into a physical clash, they said. Until now, tensions in this sector were confined to the Finger Area on Pangong Lakes northern bank.

The movement of Chinese troops from their base towards Indian territory on the lakes southern bank was detected at around midnight on August 29, said one of the officials cited above. Indian troops at forward positions on the LAC have been in the highest state of alert since tensions erupted in early May to deal with any adventurism by PLA.

Inputs provided by intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms made it clear the Chinese troops were on their way to occupy strategic heights on our side of the LAC. We had no doubts about their intention and were fully prepared, said a second official.

As soon as the Chinese movement was detected, Indian commanders ordered their troops to deploy to the heights from where the Chinese soldiers were planning to make ingress into Indian territory.

We took the heights before the Chinese could reach them. Our presence there pre-empted the PLA from coming in. China is now claiming the heights are on their side of the LAC. We are still holding those heights, which are on our side of the LAC, the first official said.

The multiple heights that the army is now holding on the lakes southern bank will allow the army to dominate the area, officials said. Senior colonel Zhang Shuili, spokesperson of Chinas western theatre command, claimed in a statement that the Indian Army broke the consensus reached at talks and illegally crossed the line again near the south bank of Pangong Lake and Reqin Pass, making a blatant provocation and causing tension.

The Indian move violates Chinas territorial sovereignty, seriously undermines peace and stability in border areas, he said in the statement issued in Mandarin. We solemnly request the Indian side to immediately withdraw its illegal occupation and control forces, strictly control and restrain its frontline troops, earnestly abide by its commitments and avoid further escalation of the situation, he added.

In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a news briefing: Chinese border troops always strictly abide by the LAC. They never cross the line. Border troops on the two sides have been in close communication regarding the issues on the ground.

A flag meeting of brigade commanders was held at Chushul to resolve the issue but its outcome was not immediately known.

The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquillity through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity, Col Anand said.

People familiar with developments said PLAs latest action amounted to a serious transgression, especially in light of Indias repeated assertions that there should be no attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo along the LAC while the two countries worked on disengagement.

Our side was prepared and took care of things, but this is a serious development, said one of the people cited above.

Experts said the military and diplomatic talks or economic measures against China havent led to any change in PLAs behaviour in the Ladakh sector.

Vipin Narang, associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said: [This is] the new normal. The good news is Indian forces seem to be able to stop the bleeding with a deterrent force and manoeuvres. The bad news is the Chinese are still there and show no signs of leaving, and India still has few good options to reverse the initial faits accomplis.

The fact that China attempted to keep poking suggests that their long-term strategy may, in fact, be to force India to commit a large number of forces to the LAC to defend large swathes of land at all times, at great cost to the Indian Army.

But Hu Xijin, editor of state-run Global Times, contended on Twitter that Indian troops had again pulled a stunt at [the] border while thinking China will make concessions to provocative actions. He added, Dont misjudge the situation anymore. If there is a conflict in Pangong Lake, it will only end in new defeat of Indian Army.

In another tweet, he said, The south bank of Pangong Lake is under actual control of China. In 1962, the Chinese army beat the Indian Army there. This time it is the Indian Army that tried to break the status quo. I hope India will not make the same mistake.

In an interview to HT, chief of defence staff Gen Bipin Rawat said earlier this month that a military option to deal with PLAs transgressions was on the table, but it would be exercised only if diplomatic and military talks were unproductive.

The gap between the situation all along the LAC and a skirmish confined to Ladakh sector appears to be closing, said former Northern Army commander Lt Gen (retired) BS Jaswal. We need to stay prepared for an intense skirmish that could lead to a limited war. Chinas actions are a part of its strategy to retain escalation dominance, he said.

Former army vice chief Lt Gen (retired) AS Lamba said: Chinas intention to escalate the situation from denial to confrontation to attempting to change the status quo is unmissable.

While the army can work for peace on the border, a military option  as mentioned by Gen Rawat  may emerge as the plausible new strategy to guide future posturing in the Ladakh sector, Lamba said.

The sizeable Chinese troop presence at friction points, particularly Pangong Lake and Depsang, remains an area of key concern for the Indian Army. The Finger Area  a set of eight cliffs jutting out of Sirijap range overlooking Pangong  has emerged as the hardest part of the disengagement process.

Disengagement has progressed somewhat smoothly at friction points in Galwan Valley and Hot Springs, but its pace remains sluggish in Gogra area.

The overall ground situation remains unchanged in the Ladakh sector, where both armies have deployed almost 100,000 soldiers and weaponry in their forward and depth areas. Last week, India pulled out of a multilateral military exercise being hosted next month by Russia in which around 20 countries, including China, are expected to take part.
A Texel lamb named Double Diamond and described by many as genetically perfect recently became the worlds most expensive sheep, commanding a price of 350,000 guineas ($490,000) at a Scottish auction.

Texel sheep, originating from the tiny island of Texel, just off the coast of the Netherlands, routinely command five-figure prices at auctions, thanks to their lean meat and wool used for hosiery yarns, but a particularly special specimen just made other Texels look cheap. Double Diamond, am outstanding lamb featuring the best genetics, had sheep breeders in the whole of the UK up in arms trying to somehow get their hands on him. Even before the Scottish National Texel sale in Lanark had started, some breeders had already partnered up to bid a higher price for Double Diamond.

Photo: Catherine MacGregor/Texel Sheep Society

It was more nerve-racking than excitement, Jeff Aiken, one of three breeders who allied to bid for Double Diamond, said. We knew it was going to be something really special. He was just an outstanding animal, backed up by all the best genetics. There was about seven or eight people who really, really wanted him and thats what led to the price.

Before the auction, Aiken and another breeder had decided to bid for the lamb together, but as competition became stiffer, a third breeder joined the partnership. Thus the trio managed to outbid everyone else, offering a whopping 350,000 guineas ($490,000) for Double Diamond. The previous record for a sheep sold at auction stood at just over $307,000, set in 2009.



Dont get me wrong, it is an obscene amount of money to pay for a sheep, and it definitely should not be a reflection on the farming community, Aiken pointed out.

So whats next for Double Diamond, the new worlds most expensive sheep? Well, his three owners will be sharing him on their farms, pairing him off with dams for a premium price, and as he gets older, his sperm will be collected for artificial insemination, so he can continue passing on his exceptional genetics. One thing is for sure, Double Diamond will have a lot of work to do to justify his price tag
Union Minister Ramesh



Pokhriyal Nishank has requested Chief Minister to make elaborate security arrangements for conducting the medical and engineering entrance NEET and JEE in the coastal state.

The state has set up 17 centres where 6,939 students would be appearing for these exams, the minister said in a tweet on Sunday.

The opposition Congress in the state has demanded that NEET and JEE examinations be postponed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I had an extensive discussion with Chief Minister over holding of the prestigious NEET-JEE examinations in the state, Nishank tweeted.

"The state has setup 17 centres for 6939 students who would be taking these I have requested CM to have elaborate security arrangements and facilities at these centres," he said in another tweet.

Three leaders of the Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) were detained on Saturday after they sat on a hunger strike at the Azad Maidan in Panaji, demanding that JEE and NEET examinations be postponed.

On Friday, ministers of six non-BJP ruled states moved the Supreme Court against its August 17 order allowing the

The top court had refused to interfere with the conduct of the medical and engineering entrance exams, saying life must go on and students can't lose a precious year due to the pandemic.
Chandigarh, August 29: A Punjab-born restaurateur has been making waves in Norway for the past 40 years, serving Indian traditional dishes with authentic ingredients and winning hearts.

"Forty years ago Gurdial Singh from Kapurthala opened the first Indian restaurant in Norway. He taught me and other Norwegians to love Indian food," former UN Environment Executive Director Erik Solheim said in a tweet on Saturday.

"Now his family runs some of the world's best Indian restaurants. Enjoy tastes of incredible food," he added. Onam 2020 Sadhya Dishes: From Kerala Style Rasam to Pachadi, These Scrumptious Recipes Are a Must to Enjoy on Thiruonam at Home! (Watch Recipe Videos).

40 years ago Gurdial Singh from Kapurthala opened the first Indian  restaurant in Norway . He taught me and other Norwegians to love Indian food. Now his family runs some of the worlds best Indian restaurants. Enjoy tastes of incredible food:https://t.co/a8CpnDExef pic.twitter.com/ufcI1Yn7yq  Erik Solheim (@ErikSolheim) August 29, 2020

The former Norwegian diplomat, politician and environment minister, who says he is inspired by the life and thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi in the global fight against climate change, played a crucial role in 2018 as the UN Environment chief in convincing India to phase out single-use plastics by 2022, a major achievement in his crusade against plastic pollution.

Restaurateur Gurdial Singh came to Oslo in 1982, and began popularising Indian cuisine by founding the Maharaja Restaurant.

His son, Baljit Singh Padda, created 'Listen to Baljit' that donates meals to children in many countries.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 29, 2020 01:23 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Company accelerates global expansion with establishment of Hailo Japan G.K. in Tokyo, appoints former Sony executive Hiro Uchida as President

TOKYO and TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hailo, the leading AI chipmaker delivering unprecedented performance to edge devices, today announced its international expansion in Japan with the establishment of Hailo Japan G.K., a wholly owned subsidiary located in Tokyo. Hiro Uchida, a former Sony executive, has been appointed President to lead the operation.

The new subsidiary is part of Hailo's ongoing growth strategy, including strengthening partnerships and relationships with existing customers in Japan and expanding into Asia-Pacific markets. In response to growing demand from Japanese customers developing products requiring AI technology at the edge, the new subsidiary will allow Hailo to better serve current customers and continue to grow in market segments such as automotive, smart cities, smart retail, smart homes, industry 4.0, and beyond.

The expansion comes in the wake of Hailo's $60 million Series B funding round, in which Japanese Corporation NEC - a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies - joined as a strategic investor. Hailo also recently established key partnerships with Socionext, a major provider of advanced SoC solutions for video and imaging systems headquartered in Japan, and Foxconn, a global leader in smart manufacturing, to launch a next-generation AI processing solution for video analytics at the edge.

Hailo's specialized Hailo-8 Deep Learning Processor delivers unprecedented performance to edge devices. Featuring up to 26 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS), the chip is built with an innovative architecture that enables edge devices to run sophisticated deep learning applications that could previously only run on the cloud. Its advanced structure translates into higher performance, lower power, and minimal latency, enabling enhanced privacy and better reliability for smart devices operating at the edge.

"I am excited to be part of Hailo's team and am looking forward to building a strong foundation to lead our business development in this pivotal arena," said Hiro Uchida. "There is no doubt that deep learning at the edge will be embedded in almost all of the products and services we use on a daily basis, while providing us with improved safety and better quality of life. Hailo is spearheading the next generation of deep learning and I look forward to working closely with our customers and partners to innovate industries across the board."

Hiro Uchida brings 30+ years of experience as a technology and business leader, including helping build Sony's Corporate Venture Capital fund (Strategic Venture Investment) and investing in innovative startups worldwide. After serving in multiple management and operational positions at Sony, Hiro Uchida held key positions at innovative tech companies including as President of SiTime KK and President of Tessera Technologies Japan GK.

"We look forward to expanding Hailo's presence in the Asia-Pacific region, which continues to show significant growth in the AI sector," said Orr Danon, CEO of Hailo. "Our new subsidiary in Japan will enable us to strengthen relationships and collaborations with our Japanese-based customers and partners, and to create new opportunities together. Many of the world's leading companies integrating Artificial Intelligence into their edge devices are based in Japan, and we are excited to empower their products with our groundbreaking Hailo-8 Deep Learning chip. Hiro Uchida's leadership, rich experience, innovative spirit and in-depth knowledge of the business/technology ecosystem will allow us to enhance our presence in the Japanese market."

Boilerplate

Hailo, an AI-focused, Israel-based chipmaker, has developed a specialized Deep Learning processor that delivers the performance of a data center-class computer to edge devices. Hailo's AI processor is the product of a rethinking of traditional computer architecture, enabling smart devices to perform sophisticated Deep Learning tasks such as object detection and segmentation in real time, with minimal power consumption, size, and cost. The deep learning processor is designed to fit into a multitude of smart machines and devices, impacting a multitude of sectors including automotive, industry 4.0, smart cities, smart homes, and retail. The company was founded in 2017 by members of the Israel Defense Forces' elite technology unit.

Hailo Press Contact

Garrett Krivicich

Headline Media

garrett@headline.media

+1 786 233 7684
Senior French Military Officer Detained Over Reported Ties With Russian Secret Services

August 30, 2020

A senior French military officer is under investigation for "security breaches," the country's defense minister has said.

French radio Europe 1 reported that a lieutenant colonel serving on a NATO base in Italy is suspected of having transmitted "ultra-sensitive" documents to the Russian secret services.

Speaking on the radio station on August 30, French Defense Minister Florence Parly said a judicial procedure had been launched against a French senior military officer and that the country's military has taken "necessary protective measures" after the alleged breaches.

Parly or the Defense Ministry have not provided further details about the case.

Europe 1 reported that the man was detained by France's secret services about 10 days ago as he prepared to return to Italy after his vacations.

He remained in custody in Paris, it said.

Based on reporting by Europe 1

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/30811427.html

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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The state has paid the company $1.4 million a month since November for the program, which as of Feb. 1 began serving thousands of former foster children  those who have been adopted, are in a subsidized guardianship, or are at least 18 and still get DCFS services. Rates have not been finalized for this next phase, but state officials estimate the monthly total cost will be about $12 million to $15 million after Sept. 1.
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Impact Hub Houston, a tech accelerator focusing on socially conscious startups, is leading a partnership with sportswear maker Adidas and the global Impact Hub Network to mentor 30 entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities.

The program, called Close the Gap, will be coordinated in the United States by the Houston branch of the accelerator, said Grace Rodriguez, Impact Hub Houston executive director and CEO. The network has more than 100 locations around the world.

Close the Gap is looking for early-stage entrepreneurs who are from, or working with, underrepresented groups in the startup world with an idea that will have an impact on education or sports.

INNOVATION COMMUNITY: Most tech accelerators sticking with virtual programs for now

To attract and select these entrepreneurs, we will develop and launch a communications campaign, which will be run by Impact Hub global, but also shared across the network and especially by two markets in specific: US and Germany, Rodriguez said in a statement.

The program is looking for 10 participants from the United States, 10 from Germany and 10 from other nations.

Deadline to apply for the program is Sept. 17 at closethegap.impacthub.net.

Release Notes: Get Dwight Silvermans weekly tech newsletter in your inbox each Monday

Once the 30 companies are identified, each will be assigned to work with an Adidas employee who will provide virtual support, advice and networking opportunities within Adidas and the Impact Hub Network. The program will last three months.

dwight.silverman@chron.com

twitter.com/dsilverman

houstonchronicle.com/techburger
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

In my slow perambulation through the biosphere, I have finally arrived at the cryosphere, which I didnt even know was a word. Here is what it means:

There are places on Earth that are so cold that water is frozen solid. These areas of snow or ice, which are subject to temperatures below 32F for at least part of the year, compose the cryosphere. The term cryosphere comes from the Greek word, krios, which means cold. Ice and snow on land are one part of the cryosphere. This includes the largest parts of the cryosphere, the continental ice sheets found in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as ice caps, glaciers, and areas of snow and permafrost.

I considered Himalayan glaciers tangentially when writing about the Mekong here, but today Im going to focus on permafrost, my interest having been piqued by this enormous crater, which suddenly appeared in Siberia:

(The caption: Blocks of soil and ice thrown hundreds of metres from epicentre of the funnel at the Yamal peninsula.) The Siberian Times describes the crater:

Scientist Dr Evgeny Chuvilin, a leading researcher at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, said: What we saw today is striking in its size and grandeur. These are the colossal forces of nature that create such objects. The crater  these holes are called hydrolaccoliths or bulgunnyakhs by scientists  is given the number 17, and is seen as the most impressive of the large holes to suddenly appear in recent years as the permafrost thaws. The recently-formed new hole or funnel is the latest to be seen in northern Siberia since the phenomenon was first registered in 2014. It was initially spotted by chance from the air by a Vesti Yamal TV crew en route from an unrelated assignment. A group of scientists then made an expedition to examine the large cylindrical crater which has a depth of up to 50 metres. Such funnels are believed to be caused by the build up of methane gas in pockets of thawing permafrost under the surface.

I remember, from grade school, going to the school auditorium to see a slideshow  the projection technology then used  on permafrost, given by a scientist from the university. I was fascinated to see buildings whose foundations were set in permanently frozen ground, but it seems that permafrost was not so permanent after all! Here is a definition of permafrost from Global Crysophere Watch:

Permafrost, defined as sub-surface earth materials that remain at or below 0C continuously for two or more years, is widespread in the Arctic, sub-Arctic, and high-mountain regions, and in ice-free areas of the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic. An area can have continuous, discontinuous, sporadic, or isolated permafrost, but the only metric used to truly identify an area of permafrost is temperature.

They go on to explain:

Permafrost and its processes have a significant impact on the land it covers. In turn, the land covered by permafrost has a significant impact on the thickness and extent of permafrost. For example, in areas of the Arctic with permafrost and active layers, peat plays a vital role in the transfer of heat to and from the ground.

(I will disappoint the many soil fans in the readership, but I am going to blow past peat today.) The active layer  an example of permafrost zonation, another word I didnt know existed  will become important shortly. It is:

A layer of soil on top of permafrost does not stay frozen all year. This layer, called the active layer, thaws during the warm summer months and freezes again in the fall. In colder regions, the ground rarely thawseven in the summer. There, the active layer is very thinonly 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 centimeters). In warmer permafrost regions, the active layer can be several meters thick.

Here is a map of the areas of the globe covered by permafrost from the International Permafrost Association[1]:

(Other maps are here and here. I prefer this one because it includes the green and red dots for boreholes, which show that permafrost in Alaska is mostly shallow, but permafrost in Canada and Russia is mostly deep.)

The methodology used to develop such maps is important. From Science Direct, Northern Hemisphere permafrost map based on TTOP modelling for 20002016 at 1 km2 scale:

Terrestrial permafrost monitoring is coordinated within the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P; Biskaborn et al., 2015), where ground temperatures are measured in >1000 boreholes, but only at discrete points. Extrapolating these observations to larger regions is hampered by the considerable spatial variability of the ground thermal regime and an uneven distribution of sites that results in extensive unsampled areas (Biskaborn et al., 2015, Biskaborn et al., 2019). Despite its global significance, there is still no method to reliably detect the occurrence and extent of permafrost at medium to high spatial resolutions and at a global scale . While the occurrence of permafrost cannot be directly detected using remote sensing, satellite data can be used in characterizing permafrost extent and detecting changes indirectly using two different approaches (Westermann et al., 2015c): (1) remote identification and mapping of surface landforms that indicate the existence of permafrost, and (2) remote sensing of physical variables that relate to thermal subsurface conditions.

So, in essence, the maps conformity to the territory it represents is only as good as the model used, the sensors available, and proxies like landforms[2]. One particular landform, thermokarst, shows where permafrost has thawed, and hence rules out some areas from the map:

Thermokarst lakes form as a result of permafrost thaw in predominantly ice-rich yedoma [organic rich] deposits and are therefore an ecosystem that is rapidly expanding with the onset of climate change.

The difficulty  exemplified by Hydrolaccolith #17 on the Yamal peninsula  is that permafrost is thawing more rapidly than previously thought. From Geophysical Research Letters, Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic:

Permafrost in Arctic lowland regions is frequently characterized by large volumes of ground ice which, when it melts, causes the ground surface to collapse. As the Arctic warms, icerich permafrost degradation is expected to be widespread. Our data illustrate that very cold permafrost, which has a mean annual ground temperature of 10 C or lower, is experiencing a rapid increase in active layer thickness at annual time scales . At three permafrost monitoring sites in the Canadian Arctic we have observed that warmer than average summer air temperatures have caused the active layer to deepen, nearsurface ground ice to melt, and the overlying ground surface to subside, in some cases leading to the formation of small thaw ponds. Our results show that very cold permafrost terrain is responding rapidly to ongoing warming.

(Arctic wildfires are also a cause, besides global warming as such.) The scientists described their experience to the Guardian, in Scientists shocked by Arctic permafrost thawing 70 years sooner than predicted:

The team used a modified propeller plane to visit exceptionally remote sites, including an abandoned cold war-era radar base more than 300km from the nearest human settlement. Diving through a lucky break in the clouds, Romanovsky and his colleagues said they were confronted with a landscape that was unrecognisable from the pristine Arctic terrain they had encountered during initial visits a decade or so earlier. The vista had dissolved into an undulating sea of hummocks  waist-high depressions and ponds known as thermokarst. Vegetation, once sparse, had begun to flourish in the shelter provided from the constant wind.

Yikes! So what happens when permafrost thaws? Besides micro-organisms eating the nearly thawed organic matter, emitting methane and, at scale, causing craters to explode into being? Basically, things appear out of the ice. Birds, for example. (This is a specied of horned lark.)

Or puppies. From Science Alert, Puppy Preserved in Permafrost Ate a Chunk of One of Earths Last Woolly Rhinos:

Researchers made this discovery while doing a necropsy (an animal autopsy) on the mummified remains of the ice age puppy. After finding an undigested slab of skin with yellow fur in the puppys stomach, researchers initially thought the puppy had chewed off a hunk of cave lion meat for its last meal. But a DNA analysis of the slab revealed that it wasnt a cave lion (Panthera spelaea), but a woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis), which went extinct around 14,000 years ago, right about the time that this pup had its last meal. That means this puppy ate one of the last woolly rhinos to ever exist

However, other, more consequential things may happen. Ancient diseases may re-appear. The built environment becomes unstable. And, most importantly, carbon (CO2 and methane), previously fixed in ice, is released into the atmosphere. Let us briefly consider each of these effects in turn.

Ancient Diseases

The BBC has the following, rather histrionic headline: There are diseases hidden in ice, and they are waking up:

Frozen permafrost soil is the perfect place for bacteria to remain alive for very long periods of time, perhaps as long as a million years. That means melting ice could potentially open a Pandoras box of diseases. Permafrost is a very good preserver of microbes and viruses, because it is cold, there is no oxygen, and it is dark, says evolutionary biologist Jean-Michel Claverie at Aix-Marseille University in France. Pathogenic viruses that can infect humans or animals might be preserved in old permafrost layers, including some that have caused global epidemics in the past.

However, it seems we can rule out viruses, at least provisionally. From the New Republic, another histrionic headline: The Next Pandemic Could Be Hiding in the Arctic Permafrost. Nevertheless:

So far, few of the viruses recovered from the permafrost seem to be active or contagious. In the bodies from the 1890s smallpox outbreak, for example, researchers were able to find some viral material to confirm that the people had indeed died of the virus, but they did not find completely intact viruses that would have been contagious. Attempts to cultivate other permafrost viruses in laboratories have largely failed. Some hardy bacteria, on the other hand, seem to be just as potent as when they were buried. Not all bacteria can survive the harsh conditions of the Arctic for long periods of time, but a fewlike anthrax, tetanus, and the bacteria that causes botulismcan.

So thats good news!

The Built Environment

Much of Russias Siberian territory is built on the assumption that permafrost is permanent. From Young Pioneers Tours, The Road of Bones: the Kolyma Highway:

[T]his enormous road through the Russian Far East stretches an incredible 2,031 km (1,262 mi). Whilst work began in 1932; the road took over twenty years to complete and was built almost entirely through the forced labour of local gulags. The work was inherently gruelling and was undertaken in all weathers, from the bitter Siberian winter where temperatures would drop to Minus 50 degrees to the unforgiving, mosquito-infested summers. As a result, at least 25 prisoners died every day. Due to the road being built on permafrost, it was much more practical to bury the corpses in the fabric of the road than to keep digging graves. To this day, many report the bones of the dead workers rising to the surface of the road.

So, not just birds and puppies (or mammoths, whose appearing tusks are fueling an international black market). And then there is an entire city of 300,000: Yakutsk. From the Washington Post, Radical warming in Siberia leaves millions on unstable ground:

As the permafrost thaws and recedes, a handful of apartment buildings there are showing signs of structural problems. Sections of many older, wooden buildings already sag toward the ground  rendered uninhabitable by the unevenly thawing earth. New apartment blocks are being built on massive pylons extending ever deeper  more than 40 feet  below ground. The cold is our protection, Yakutsk Mayor Sardana Avksentyeva said. This isnt a man-made catastrophe yet, but itll be unavoidable if things continue at this pace. An international team of scientists, led by Dmitry A. Streletskiy at George Washington University, estimated in a study published this year that the value of buildings and infrastructure on Russian permafrost amounts to $300 billion  about 7.5 percent of the nations total annual economic output. They estimate the cost of mitigating the damage wrought by thawing permafrost will probably total more than $100 billion by 2050.

(This article also gives a vivid sensory portrait of what its like to live on, in, and around thawing permafrost.)

Finally, there is the effect on Russias oil drilling infrastructure. From Emerging Europe, Melting permafrost is a threat not just to the Arctic, but to the entire planet:

Thawing permafrost has both regional and global impacts. For northern countries, the risks are from ground collapse that occurs when ice rich permafrost thaws. This ground collapse can be quite severe, but even in less extreme situations, can place houses, community infrastructure, and gas and oil infrastructure at risk, [Dr Sue Natali from the Woodwell Climate Research Centre] explains. This kind of impact has already been witnessed across northern countries, where melting permafrost means the ground is no longer able to support structures built on it. For many, this raises particular concerns over the oil and gas industry, which is the primary economic sector in the Arctic Circle. Pipelines, processing plants and storage tanks on unstable and thawing ground become a serious threat to the natural environment. In some cases, accidents have already taken place. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report last September that found 45 per cent of oil and natural gas production fields in the Russian Arctic are located in the most hazardous and at-risk region . Moreover, areas of discontinuous permafrost could see a 50-75 per cent drop in load bearing capacity over the period from 2015-25 in comparison to 1975-85.

Carbon Release

Finally, there is carbon. From NASA, Arctic carbon cycle is speeding up

During Arctic summer, warmer temperatures thaw the uppermost [active] layers of permafrost, allowing microbes to break down previously frozen organic matter.This process releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Plant growth also increases during this period  and plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. But as temperatures increase, the amount of time carbon is stored in the Arctic soil decreases. The balance between these two dynamics will determine whether Arctic ecosystems will ultimately remove or add atmospheric carbon dioxide in the future climate. Our study finds that the latter is more likely, said lead author and former JPL postdoctoral researcher Sujong Jeong of Seoul National University.  We anticipate that residence time of Arctic carbon will lead to faster and more pronounced seasonal and long-term changes in global atmospheric carbon dioxide .

And theres rather a lot of carbon. From Global Cryosphere Watch:

Recent studies have begun to address the tons of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gasses that are buried within permafrost. The current estimate on the amount of carbon stored in permafrost is around 1,400 gigatonsalmost twice what is currently in the earths atmosphere (K. Schaefer, NSIDC). Yedoma, a type of permafrost that has existed since the Pleistocene period and is found mostly around Russia and Siberia, contains huge amounts of carbon that could be released into the atmosphere if it were to thaw.

Unfortunately, our current climate models do not incorporate carbon release from thawing permafrost. From Nature, Carbon release through abrupt permafrost thaw:

The permafrost zone is expected to be a substantial carbon source to the atmosphere, yet large-scale models currently only simulate gradual changes in seasonally thawed soil. Abrupt thaw will probably occur in <20% of the permafrost zone but could affect half of permafrost carbon through collapsing ground, rapid erosion and landslides.

Confirmation from Emerging Europe:

Internationally, the major challenge is from the potential for carbon emissions from permafrost once it thaws, continues Dr Natali. The permafrost region stores more than three times as much carbon as the worlds forest biomass, and when it thaws, that organic carbon can be decomposed by microbes and released into the atmosphere as greenhouse gasses, carbon dioxide and methane. This additional source of greenhouse gasses is generally not fully accounted for .

Now, abrupt thaw might not be a complete disaster[3], incomplete models or no[4]. From National Geographic, The Arctics thawing ground is releasing a shocking amount of dangerous gases:

[Abrupt thaw] will probably hit just 5 percent of Arctic permafrost. But that will likely be enough, conservatively, to double permafrosts overall contribution to the warming of the planet, the team of researchers led by Turetsky concluded in a study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience. Its a little change, but it can have a big punch, says Turetsky, director of the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado. Abrupt thaw is not a cause for alarm, the scientists say. Permafrost will still produce fewer emissions than our own burning of coal, oil and natural gas . David Lawrence, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said thatuntil now thawing permafrost had been expected to amplify human-caused climate change by about 10 percent. But doubling that figure is significant because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changethe global organization that estimates how quickly we need to stop burning fossil fuels to keep the worst warming at bayhas not taken permafrost fully into account.

The World Economic Forum summarizes, in The irreversible emissions of a permafrost tipping point

Arctic temperatures have been increasing more than twice as fast as the global average. This has caused permafrost thaw in many locations and triggered newly awakened microbes to decompose the organic material thereby releasing CO2 or methane into the atmosphere. Scientists estimate that there is about twice as much carbon stored in permafrost as circulating in the atmosphere. This is approximately 1460bn-1600bn tonnes of carbon. Most of it is currently frozen and preserved, but if even a small fraction is released into the atmosphere, the emissions would likely be large  potentially similar in magnitude to carbon release from other environmental fluxes, such as deforestation. This would still be about one order of magnitude smaller than emissions from fossil-fuel burning by the end of this century. Nevertheless, every additional molecule of CO2 or methane added to the atmosphere accelerates climate change and affects the whole planet and its climate.

Conclusion

So, what to do? Its hard to imagine that there are enough people on the thawing ground for their mobilization to have an effect. Therefore, solve global warming in other systems, and the active layer stops melting. Once again, the World Economic Forum:

Once the organic matter within permafrost decomposes and releases CO2 and methane, there is no getting it back. In this sense, permafrost thaw is irreversible  meeting one of the conditions of the definition of a tipping point. However, recent research suggests that if temperature rise were to slow and stop, permafrost thaw, too, would slow  and potentially stop, thus, preventing further emissions. This suggests that permafrost as a whole will not have shifted to a completely new state  as is the case with some tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. As a result, it would be possible to prevent further emissions were global warming to be halted.

However, there may also be a solution that would work, if applied on the thawing ground itself. From Horse Talk (!), Could horses be the saviour of swathes of permafrost? Researchers investigate:

Theoretically, 80 percent of all permafrost soils around the globe could be preserved until the year 2100 , as has now been demonstrated by Professor Christian Beer from the universitys Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability. Beer is an expert on the permanently frozen soils found throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The new study explores a somewhat unconventional countermeasure: resettling massive herds of large herbivores . The inspiration came from Pleistocene Park in Chersky, a city in northeast Russia. Russian scientists Sergey and Nikita Zimov resettled herds of bison, wisents, reindeer and horses there more than 20 years ago, and have been observing the effects on the soil ever since. In winter the permafrost in Chersky is around minus 10 degrees Celsius; at temperatures down to minus 40 degrees Celsius, the air is far colder. Thanks to ample snowfall, there is a thick layer of snow cover that insulates the ground from the frigid air, keeping it warm. When the snow cover is scattered and compressed thanks to the grazing animals stamping hooves, its insulating effect is dramatically reduced, intensifying the freezing of the permafrost. This type of natural manipulation in ecosystems that are especially relevant for the climate system has barely been researched to date  but holds tremendous potential, Beer says. The long-term experiments conducted in Russia show that, when 100 animals are resettled in an area of one square kilometre, they cut the mean snow cover height in half. For the purposes of his study, Beer used a special climate model that can simulate such temperature processes on the land surface over the course of an entire year. The results show that if emissions continue to rise unchecked, we can expect to see a 3.8-degree Celsius increase in permafrost temperatures, which would cause half of all permafrost to thaw. In contrast, with animal herds, the ground would warm only by around 2.1 degrees  44 percent less, which would be enough to preserve 80 percent of the current soils, as the model shows.

Big if true, and if true, The Large Herbivore Solution is something that, for all our sakes, we should want Russia (and Canada) to succeed at.

NOTES

[1] Not to be confused with Permafrost Today, which seems to be a Norwegian death metal site.

[2] Here is an image of permafrost on Mars, from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment at the University of Arizona:

[3] Happily, a methane hydrate debacle is not on the horizon.

[4] And what model is complete?
Rating: 3.5 /5 Star Cast: Tovino Thomas, India Jarvis, Sidhartha Siva, Basil Joseph, Joju George Director: Jeo Baby

Kilometers And Kilometers, the Tovino Thomas-starrer directed by newcomer Jeo Baby premiered on Asianet channel, on Thiruvonam day. The movie featuring American actress India Jarvis as the female lead, emerged as the first Malayalam film to have a direct television release. Kilometers And Kilometers, which is written by director Jeo Baby himself, also features Sidhartha Siva in a pivotal role.

Did the Tovino Thomas-starrer succeed in impressing the audiences? Read Kilometers And Kilometers movie review to know...

Plot

Josemon (Tovino Thomas) is a Kottayam-based youngster who struggles to make ends meet. He is forced to sell his favorite bullet bike, due to excessive financial issues. However, his friends get him a temporary job as a tour guide for an American woman named Cathy (India Jarvis), who helps him in getting back the bullet. The duo travels to Jaipur, and after a series of incidents, meets Sunny (Sidhartha Siva), a Malayali who is settled in a Rajasthani village. How the journey changes Josemon and Cathy's lives and their perspective towards life, forms the crux of the story.

Maniyarayile Ashokan Movie Review: A Simple, Relatable Tale Of Marriage!

Script & Direction

Newcomer Jeo Baby has made a decent debut with Kilometers And Kilometers, which is truly a heart-warming movie experience. The simple storyline, well-executed narration, and great casting have made this Tovino Thomas-starrer a great watch. Despite beginning on a somewhat slow note, the movie succeeded in keeping the audiences engaged throughout. Even though most of the supporting cast makes blink-and-miss appearances, the characters Josemon, Cathy, and Sunny are well flushed-out.

Along with the star cast, Josemon's bullet also plays a pivotal role in the narrative, which is makes it more interesting. The romance factor is handled effectively but is limited to very few portions, which is disappointing. But, the situational humour, conflicting ideas of Josemon and Cathy, and the emotional sequences featuring the pair, are very well-written and executed. The impactful dialogues deserve a special mention.

Performances

Tovino Thomas, who plays Josemon is the heart and soul of the movie. The actor has played the role of the innocent Malayali youngster to near perfection. India Jarvis makes a decent debut with the movie, and perfectly gets into the character Cathy. Sidhartha Siva has played Sunny quite well too. The rest of the star cast, including Joju George, Basil Joseph, Mala Parvathy, Sudheesh, Muthumani, and so on are good in their roles.

Technical Aspects

Sinu Sidharth, the cinematographer has done a great job with the beautiful visualisation of the movie. Rahman Mohammed Ali and Prejish Prakash's effective editing has made the movie an engaging watch.

Sooraj S Kurup once again proves his mettle with the great soundtrack of Kilometers And Kilometers. Sushin S Shyam, on the other hand, has done a brilliant job with the amazing background score.

Verdict

Kilometers And Kilometers is a beautiful journey of love and self-discovery. The amazing performances, breathtaking visuals, and great music make this film a highly enjoyable watch. Don't miss this one!

Also Read:

Onam 2020: Mammootty, Mohanlal, And Others Wish The Fans And Followers!

Onam 2020 Special: 5 Classic Malayalam Entertainers To Revisit This Festive Season!


She's been at the centre of drama in the Bachelor mansion ever since Zoe-Clare McDonald singled her out as a 'ranga hater' at the first cocktail party.

But a new report claims that Areeba Emmanuel was only interested in being the best 'villain' and wasn't remotely bothered about leading man Locky Gilbert.

A source told Woman's Day that the 25-year-old's 'boss lady' persona was all an act designed to make the producers happy and guarantee her plenty of screen time.

More Bachelor drama! A new report claims that Areeba Emmanuel was only interested in being the best 'villain' and wasn't remotely bothered about leading man Locky Gilbert

'From night one, Areeba was constantly seeking the approval of her producer, and wanted to know if she was doing well,' the insider claimed.

'She knew exactly what she was doing. She wasn't there for Locky, she was there for the cameras to cause drama, fight back and cause chaos on set.'

The source went on to claim that Areeba's fixation with stirring up trouble made it difficult for her to make any real friends on set.

Producer's pet! A source told Woman's Day that the 25-year-old's 'boss lady' persona was all an act designed to make the producers happy and guarantee her plenty of screen time

'She didn't really get along with many of the girls because they could see through her facade and how she was trying to steal the camera away from others,' they said.

It comes after viewers were left stunned by the drama that unfolded at last week's cocktail party.

Many fans compared the women to the characters from Mean Girls, a 2004 comedy film about a clique of high school bullies known as 'The Plastics'.

Divisive: The source went on to claim that Areeba's fixation with stirring up trouble made it difficult for her to make any real friends on set. Pictured with Rosemary Sawtell (left) and Zoe-Clare McDonald (centre) at the first cocktail party

Drama! 'She knew exactly what she was doing... she was there for the cameras to cause drama, fight back and cause chaos on set,' the insider claimed: Areeba is pictured at last week's cocktail party with Kristina Abramoff (centre) and Juliette Herrera (right)

'Areeba's so-called gang is the Plastics from Mean Girls... Roxi is like Cadie,' one viewer commented on Twitter.

'Time for another Mean Girls comparison... Juliette = Regina, Areeba = Gretchen, Kristina = Karen, Kaitlyn = Cadie,' another added.

A third wrote: 'Is this show about finding love or Mean Girls?'

The Bachelor continues Wednesday at 7.30pm on Channel 10

Backlash: It comes after viewers were left stunned by the drama that unfolded at last week's cocktail party. Many fans compared the women to the characters from Mean Girls, a 2004 comedy film about a clique of high school bullies known as 'The Plastics'
Ten people have been killed in the last two days in rain-related incidents across while 11,000 people have been evacuated from rain-hit districts to safer places with the Army, IAF and NDRF joining the rescue operations, officials said on Sunday.

In a respite, rains abated during the day in many areas that were earlier pounded by torrential showers over the last two days.

The rain casualties have been reported from Katni, Chhatarpur, Raisen and Sehore in the last 36 hours, officials said.

"11,000 have been evacuated to safer places across the state," said Manish Rastogi, principal secretary to chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

No one is stranded now due to flooding in the entire state, Rastogi, who is also MP Revenue Commissioner, told PTI.

He said a total of 257 people, including 193 from Sehore, 61 from Raisen and three from Balaghat, were airlifted to safer places with the help of IAF (Indian Air Force) choppers during the day.

He said personnel of the the Army and the Disaster Response Force (NDRF) joined massive rescue operations with boats and other gear.

"Those who remained stuck in water in various areas moved to safer places as water levels of rivers and nullahs started receding," he added.

On the second consecutive day, CM Chouhan conducted the aerial survey of flooded areas in Harda, Hoshangabad, Sehore, Raisen and Vidisha districts.

A newly-constructed bridge was washed away in raging waters of overflowing Wainganga river in Seoni district.

According to officials, the level various of water bodies has started receding in view of little or no in their catchment areas.

"However, the Narmada river is still flowing above its danger mark in Hoshangabad district," they added.

Earlier in the day, Chouhan told reporters that at least eight people had died in incidents of wall collapse and in swollen nullahs.

The CM said he had spoken with Prime Minister Narendra Modi this morning to inform him about the situation in the state.

A Bhopal municipal corporation officer said a man was killed when compound fell on his slum collapsed this evening under Kolar police station limits.

The wall could not withstand 112 mm in Bhopal in the last 24 hours ending 8.30 am on Sunday, he said.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued orange and yellow alerts in afternoon predicting very heavy and heavy rains in eight districts in

The alerts are valid till Monday morning.

For the first time in the last three days, the Met department didn't issue a red alert of extremely heavy in the state.

The orange alert warned of very heavy rainfall and thunderstorm with lightning strikes at isolated places in Barwani, Jhabua and Alirajpur districts.

The yellow alert warned of heavy rainfall and thunderstorm along with lightning at isolated places in Ratlam, Neemuch, Mandsaur, Dhar and Ujjain districts.

IMD Bhopal centre's meteorologist Hari Shankar Pandey said in evening the low-pressure area causing heavy rainfall lies over eastern Rajasthan, adjoining western MP.

Heavy rainfall is expected in Indore, Ujjain, Shajapur, Ratlam, Dewas, Jhabua, Alirajpur, Mandsaur and Neemuch in the next 24 hours.
By Express News Service

TIRUCHY: BJP has the ability to win at least 60 Assembly seats in Tamil Nadu, even if it contests on its own, asserted state party president L Murugan in Tiruchy on Monday.



Speaking to reporters ahead of the party's youth wing general body meeting, the Tamil Nadu BJP chief said that the partys efforts were focused on the 2021 Assembly elections.

"We are now strengthening our party at the booth level. The BJP has chances of victory in at least 60 constituencies even if it contests alone. Legislators from BJP will definitely enter the Assembly next year," he claimed.



Asked about the growing number of history sheeters joining the BJP, he said there was no restriction against anyone wanting to join the party.

However, responsibilities and party posts will only be given to deserving candidates after due consideration.



Murugan also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the New Education Policy, stating that it would make the education system world-class.



"As needed, the new policy provides a lot of importance to technical education. The policy also has the ability to create future job providers rather than job seekers," he added.



Responding to a query on the partys stance on 3 percent sub-quota for Arunthathiyars within the SC quota, he said: "In the all-party meeting held in 2009, Tamil Nadu BJP made its stand clear. We support the reservation to the Arunthathiyar community."



Murugan strongly criticised the DMKs stance against the three-language policy, but refused to comment on the position of the ruling AIADMK, a BJP ally, even after reporters pointed out that the state government had also rejected the three-language policy.



"Parents and students are welcoming the three-language policy. It is only the DMK which is taking away the opportunity for government school students to learn a third language. Even in the CBSE schools run by DMK functionaries, three languages are being taught. Why is this opportunity not being provided to the students from the weaker sections? We see this as a (form of) modern discrimination, he said, adding that the party would conduct campaigns to garner public support on this.



"If the situation permits, we are planning to stage protests in front the schools run by the DMK cadres. Our youth wing will be conducting signature campaigns," he said.
Photo: Jon Manchester

The RCMP says there's no truth to a rumour floating around Vernon that wanted man Robert Gordon Heltman has turned himself in.

Heltman was the subject of an hours-long police action outside a Vernon home on Aug. 19 that saw local police and the RCMP Emergency Response Team surround an Okanagan Landing home on Brooks Lane.

Police set off flash grenades and had guns drawn during the tense operation, but Heltman wasn't there.

After several hours, police entered the building, found it empty, and seized a loaded handgun.

Heltman, 30, is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for breach of his statutory release.

After the police drama, Vernon RCMP issued a plea for anyone with information on his whereabouts, but Cpl. Tania Finn says Heltman remains at large.

"There is still a warrant for his arrest, and police would like to locate him in order to execute the warrant. Unfortunately, we do not know his whereabouts and do not know if he even remains in the area," Finn said last week.

On Monday, she added there appears to be no truth to the rumour that Heltman has turned himself over to police.

Heltman, previously of Vernon, has a criminal record spanning back more than decade, including charges of assault, theft, and possession of a weapon dangerous to the public.

Anyone who sees Heltman is urged to contact Vernon RCMP at 250-545-7171 or CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
A man who was groomed as a 10-year-old by a ruthless 'Jekyll and Hyde' crime lord who forced him to peddle and take drugs, abused him and even 'raped' him has told how he still lives in fear of his life 16 years after helping send him to prison.

Father-of-two Joey O'Callaghan, now 35 with a new identity, was recruited by gangster Brian Kenny as a schoolboy in Blanchardstown, west Dublin, where he and his family lived near the infamous heroin gang The Westies.

Believing he'd found himself a job delivering milk to earn himself some pocket money, Joey soon found himself embroiled in a dark criminal underworld.

Kenny demanded he used his round to drop off bags of drugs - and Joey witnessed the horrifying punishments dealt out to customers who didn't pay their dues.

Father-of-two Joey O'Callaghan, now 35 with a new identity (pictured), was recruited by gangster Brian Kenny as a schoolboy in Blanchardstown, west Dublin, where he and his family lived near the infamous heroin gang The Westies

In 2004, after witnessing Kenny and his accomplice Thomas Hinchon murder 25-year-old Jonathan O'Reilly in cold blood, brave Joey betrayed his gangland cronies and went to the police, with his evidence leading to the conviction of both men.

At 19, Joey became the youngest person to enter Ireland's Witness Protection Programme - but while he doesn't regret 'doing the right thing' and coming forward, Joey claims a lack of support left him destitute and suicidal.

He details his experience in a new book, The Witness, penned by investigative journalist Nicola Tallant, and insists he too was condemned to a life sentence by speaking out.

'I could die any day now. There's probably a good chance I'm going to die with a bullet because of what I've done,' Joey told The Sun.

Believing he'd found himself a job delivering milk to earn himself some pocket money, Joey - pictured as a young teenager - soon found himself embroiled in a dark criminal underworld

'I've been in a room by myself for the last 16 years. I can go to the shop, but I have to wear a bulletproof vest, a mask, a hat, a scarf around my face.

'There's alarms all over my house, CCTV cameras everywhere. I have a panic alarm with me, all my windows are bulletproof. That's the way I live my life.

'I've done the sentence with them. The only difference between me and Kenny and Hinchon is I can open my door, they can't.'

Joey details his experience in a new book, The Witness, penned by investigative journalist Nicola Tallant

With Kenny recently being moved to an open prison and allowed out on day release to see his family, Joey said he is increasingly fearful - especially given he's heard the bounty on his head could be as much as 75,000 due to him being considered 'a rat'.

Speaking to the Irish Mirror, Joey said his childhood job on a milk float has resulted in a life sentence.

'I take 13 tablets a day and I suffer post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety and severe OCD checking the doors and looking at the windows,' he explained.

'I wake up and think [Kenny] is in the room or calling me. The night fears never go away but I have accepted my fate and come to terms with it.'

Speaking about Kenny, he added: 'He's been out 14 times since 2012, for his son's communion, for Easter, for Christmas. I haven't seen my daughter 14 times since 2004 or been to her Communion and Confirmation, where is the justice in that?'

Joey described his former boss as being 'like Jekyll and Hyde' - telling him he loved him like a son one minute and 'beating the s***' out of him and 'abusing' him the next.

He recalled being 'absolutely thrilled' when he thought he'd managed to secure a job to earn pocket money, with Kenny reassuring his mother it would keep him away from the local drugs gang.

Joey described his former boss Brian Kenny, pictured, as being ' like Jekyll and Hyde' - telling him he loved him like a son one minute and 'beating the s***' out of him and 'abusing' him the next

But after a few months, Joey witnessed his boss' violent side first hand when he beat up a young lad whom he believed had stolen from him with a hammer.

He recalled hearing the boy's screams and bones 'cracking' as Kenny 'smashed him all up' before using milk to wash his hands and warning Joey he'd meet the same fate if he ever robbed from him.

That same week Joey was forced to deliver his first batch of drugs, instructed to put bags of heroin through the letterbox. Within weeks he was tasked with offloading 300 bags a night, collecting 4,000 in payments and handing it to Kenny along with the milk money.

He recalled how, during one of his drug runs, a young girl collected the envelope full of heroin he'd deposited through the door and delivered it to her mother who lay sprawled on the couch.

Breaking point came for Joey (pictured) after he witnessed Kenny and Hinchon assassinate Jonathan O'Reilly as he sat in a car outside Cloverhill Prison

Thanks to Joey's evidence, Kenny, then 36, and Hinchon, pictured, then 25, were jailed for life for murder - as well as receiving a conviction for threatening to kill Joey

Joey felt trapped, made worse when he was forced to move into the mob's pad, where he was prevented from escaping by an electric fence. It is there that Joey alleges he was raped and sexually abused by Kenny - who nicknamed him Joey The Lips - in his 'man cave'.

He claims the gang fed him cocaine to rev him up for deliveries and Valium to counteract his comedowns - while he was threatened with death if he tried to leave.

'We went from little bags to ounces. We'd have jeeps coming from England and they'd be full of heroin,' Joey told The Sun.

'If I wasn't bagging it, I was delivering it. It was 24 hours, seven days a week. Christmas morning, I'd be out delivering heroin.'

Breaking point came for Joey after he witnessed Kenny and Hinchon assassinate Jonathan O'Reilly as he sat in a car outside Cloverhill Prison.

Afterwards Joey told how the murderous duo returned to the gangland house and ordered him to cut up their clothes and boil them on the stove, and hide the murder weapon in a field.

Joey, pictured, entered the Witness Protection Programme, meaning he had to move miles away from his family, and claims he still 'lives like a ghost' to this day

From then on, Joey grew increasingly worried for his own safety - made worse when Kenny ordered him to stand in a field and fired a gun above his head and either side of his body before thrusting the barrel in his mouth and threatening to 'blow his head off'.

He claims the rapes got worse, as did the abuse - recalling how Kenny would 'hit him with a sewer rod' rendering him unable to walk.

Unable to stop thinking about Jonathan's grieving family, he eventually made the brave decision to escape and report his bosses to the police - believing if he was going to die, at least it was for 'doing the right thing'.

Thanks to Joey's evidence, Kenny, then 36, and Hinchon, then 25, were jailed for life for murder - as well as receiving a conviction for threatening to kill Joey.

Joey entered the Witness Protection Programme, meaning he had to move miles away from his family, and claims he still 'lives like a ghost' to this day. He was eventually signed off the programme and claims he's now in a good place, with a job and regular medication for his mental health struggles.

Despite rarely being able to see his own family including his two children, the thought of Jonathan's getting the justice they deserved means he has no regrets.

The Witness by Nicola Tallant (RRP 12.99) is published by Mirror Books on September 3.
A paedophile is among the latest Kiwis convicted of serious criminal offences who have had their visas cancelled and sent packing back home.

The 30 men were deported from Australia last week on charter flights departing from Perth, Sydney and Brisbane.

The New Zealand citizens had been convicted of a range of serious criminal activities including sexual intercourse with a minor aged between 10 and 14, domestic violence against minors, assault and drug offences, aggravated robbery and stalk and intimidate, aggravated break and enter, assault and larceny.

Footage shows the men driven to the airport tarmacs by bus before being escorted on to the plane by Australian Border Force officials while handcuffed.

Another 30 New Zealand citizens were deported home last week. Pictured is a deportee being escorted by Australian Border Force officials onto a special charter flight

The latest deportees are in the addition to another 30 New Zealand criminals sent home in July.

They included a well known bikie convicted of assaulting a Queensland police officer.

Other charges included drug possession, breaching domestic violence orders, assault and kidnapping.

The latest deportation operation on August 25-26 highlights ABF's continued resolve to remove non-citizens who pose a threat to the Australian community.

'These non-citizens have been convicted of very serious crimes. Non-citizens who are found not to meet character requirements, and whose visas are cancelled, are not entitled to remain in Australia,' Field Operations Commander Ben Biddington said.

Almost 3,000 New Zealand citizens have been deported home in the last six years. Pictured is one of the latest deportees on Australian soil for the last time

'The Australian Government is responsible for protecting the community from the risk of harm arising from foreign nationals who choose to engage in criminal activity. The majority of those removed had their visas cancelled under s501 of the Migration Act.'

The deportees were sent to a managed isolation facility which opened in July, where they'll spend the next two weeks in quarantine.

Almost 3,000 New Zealand citizens have had their visas cancelled under s501 of the Migration Act in the last six years under provisions which allow the Home Affairs Minister to cancel a visa if a person is considered to not be of good character.

They include Joel Morehu-Barlow, a fake Tahitian prince fraudster who siphoned $16million from the Queensland government.

He was deported in February after his release from prison.

Ex-Rebels bikie president Shane Martin, the father of Richmond AFL superstar Dustin Martin was deported in 2016 over his criminal record, which included drug trafficking and assault charges.

He tried to re-enter Australia earlier this year but was denied entry.

The latest deportees (one pictured) had been convicted of a range of serious criminal activities including , domestic violence against minors, assault and drug offences, aggravated robbery and stalk and intimidate, aggravated break and enter, assault and larceny

The matter sparked tensions between Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Jacinda Ardern.

'Send back genuine Kiwis, do not deport your people and your problems,' she told her Australian counterpart and reporters during a tense conference in February.

'You have deported more than 2,000 individuals, and among them will be genuine Kiwis who do need to learn the consequences of their actions.'

'But among those 2,000 are individuals who are too young to become criminals on our watch, they were too young to become patched gang members, too young to be organised criminals.

'We will own our people. We ask that Australia stops exporting theirs.'
Billy Calzada, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

Three Texas soldiers  two stationed at Fort Hood and another at Fort Sam Houston were among the nine men arrested Saturday in a child prostitution sting, the Killeen Police Department said.

Spc. Anthony Xavier Antwon, 25, and Pfc. Timmy Jones Jr., 30, both stationed at Fort Hood, were arrested on suspicion of felony prostitution under the age of 18. Staff Sgt. Pierre Jean, 32, was arrested on suspicion of a misdemeanor prostitution charge. Jean is stationed at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, according to media reports.
Four men have been charged with murder, robbery, and conspiracy in the deaths of two men fatally shot in their Glassboro home this month during an attempt to steal money and marijuana from them, authorities said Monday.

Devon Conover and Abdelgadi Hassan, both 19 and of Trenton; Altaifjoe Hassan, 23, of Glassboro; and Daniel Hall, 23, of Teaneck, N.J., are in custody awaiting detention hearings, the Gloucester County Prosecutors Office said. The Hassans are brothers, Thomas Gilbert, spokesperson and chief of detectives for the Prosecutors Office, said Monday.

The four are accused of killing Manuel De La Rosa Jr., 26, and Shantal Farrow, 36, in their Warrick Avenue home. Glassboro police found the two shot to death while conducting a wellness check about 9:15 a.m. Aug. 19.

In a statement the day after, acting Gloucester County Prosecutor Christine A. Hoffman said authorities did not believe the killings were random and asked tipsters to contact investigators.

The defendants were identified as suspects through cellphone records that showed them on Warrick shortly before 2 a.m. Aug. 19, according to the affidavits of probable cause for their arrests. Conover later admitted to authorities that he had gone to the home with the intent to rob the victims of money and marijuana, his affidavit says.

Altaifjoe Hassan, a former Rowan University student, assisted in planning the robbery attempt, court documents say.

Farrow worked for Rowans food-service provider, a school spokesperson said. A GoFundMe page created for him said he was known for his goofiness and welcoming heart. Another GoFundMe page created for De La Rosa described him as someone who was so full of life and made us feel at home.

De La Rosa graduated from Rowan in 2017, university spokesperson Joe Cardona said. He said Altaifjoe Hassan was last a student at Rowan in fall 2019.

Surveillance footage showed Abdelgadi Hassans vehicle near the victims home around the time of the killings. A codefendant identified Hassan and Hall as being the shooters, the affidavits say.

Conover, Abdelgadi Hassan, and Hall are also charged with gun offenses. The four men are represented by the Public Defenders Office. Deputy Public Defender Jennifer Sellitti declined to comment Monday, but stressed that the men are innocent unless proven otherwise.

The Prosecutors Office said the investigation remains active and asked any witnesses to contact authorities.
Turkish businessmen have invested USD 3.6 billion in Ukrainian economy. According to this indicator, Turkey is in the top three players in the domestic market in at least 10 sectors of the economy.

President of the International Turkish Ukrainian Business Association (TUID) Burak Pehlivan said this to the Turkish daily newspaper Milliyet.

There are about 700 Turkish companies operating in Ukraine. Investments amount to USD 3.6 billion. Turkish investors are among the top three players in the market in at least 10 sectors, Pehlivan said during an online meeting on the topic Market and Investment and Trade Opportunities in Ukraine, which was organized by the Bursa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BTSO).

He expressed hope that in the coming years Turkey will have the opportunity to more actively invest in Ukraine. In the next five years, the Ukrainian government will invest USD 25 billion in infrastructure. This will open up opportunities to manufacturers and exporters of building materials and Turkish contractors, Pehlivan noted.

According to him, positive trends are observed in economic and political relations between Ukraine and Turkey, which provide for new opportunities for the business circles of both countries.

As Ukrinform reported, an online conference entitled "Ukraine-Turkey: New Opportunities for Cooperation" was held a week ago, during which Deputy Economy Minister Taras Kachka said that in 2019, Turkey ranked first among the countries of the Middle East region in terms of trade with Ukraine. The next meeting of the Ukraine-Turkey Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation is scheduled for September 2020 in Odesa.

In the first half of 2020, trade between the countries reached USD 2.27 billion, which is 1.7% more than in the same period last year. At the same time, Ukraine is interested in increasing the export of finished products. In addition, among the main directions for the development of bilateral cooperation are IT, innovation, industry, energy and energy efficiency, logistics, transport infrastructure, tourism and the like.

Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba allowed the possibility of signing a free trade agreement (FTA) with Turkey this year.

ish
Lukashenko, in office since 1994, has been defiant but beleaguered, unable to put down largest, most sustained wave of protests yet in this Eastern European nation of 9.5 million people. He has refused to rerun the election, which both the European Union and the United States have said was not free or fair, and also refused offers to help mediate the situation from Baltic nations.
NEW DELHI : Two days after Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) announced the takeover of the retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing business of Future Group, suppliers and vendors to the group raised concerns over pending dues, even as founder Kishore Biyani wrote to them assuaging their fears.

The RIL transaction considers the interest of Future Groups stakeholders, including supply partners, vendors, lenders, creditors, and employees, Biyani said in his letter to supply partners.

The transaction includes a specific amount that has been set aside to pay all the accounted dues owed to suppliers and creditors in the business," he said. We would like to assure you from our side that every business partner will be paid in full and everybody is assured of getting their dues. This was among the objectives of entering this transaction and we are committed to it. The transaction also ensures full continuity of all the businesses," he said in his letter.

On Saturday, Biyani sold his retail empire built over three decades to RIL for 24,713 crore because of mounting debt and a ratings downgrade. Post the deal, Mukesh Ambanis Reliance Retail Ventures (RRVL) will hold a 13.14% stake in Biyanis Future Enterprises Ltd (FEL) and will assume debt of 12,500 crore, Mint reported earlier. Meanwhile, the groupss marquee stores such as Big Bazaar, Central, Easyday and Nilgiris will continue functioning.

However, it becomes pertinent for the firm to clear dues, as several fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies have been tightening supplies to the company over fears of outstanding dues, leading to a shortage of inventory.

In a slump sale what happens is that the assets and liabilities for a lump sum value are getting transferred, invested and assumed by the relevant Reliance entity. As part of that process, they will assume the relevant liability, trade payables and thus, lenders and suppliers will have to wait for that process," said a person in the know who spoke on condition of anonymity.

On Monday, a group of FMCG distributors wrote to Biyani seeking clearance of dues. Outstanding of the distributor is ranging from 45 to 180 days and the amount is in hundreds of crore, which we believe to be at rust as there is news regarding the discount on the credit outstanding as the margin of distributors are very negligible and cannot sustain the loss," the All India Consumer Products Distribution Federation said in its letter.

Biyani said the impact of the lockdown and the subsequent dip in footfall led the company to lose potential business worth 6,500 crore. Our primary objective is to ensure that we can repay in full everyone we owed money to. We also want the business to continue to operate in the days and years ahead," Biyani said.

Shuchi Bansal contributed to this story.

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A far-right councillor has suggested that he wants his town to become 'whites only' as he launches a campaign against asylum seekers being housed in an Essex hotel.

Councillor Julian Leppert, alongside former BNP campaign chief Eddy Butler, of the For Britain party launched a campaign against the Home Office temporarily housing asylum seekers.

He was appearing on BBC radio and the Russian-state broadcaster Russia Today when he said: 'We don't want a Tower Hamlets out in Essex.

'It's difficult to put it that way without being called a racist, but we're entitled to our national identity as much as any other country.

Councillor Julian Leppert (pictured) of the For Britain party launched a campaign against the Home Office temporarily housing asylum seekers

'We shouldn't have dominant other cultures imposed on us to the point where you no longer feel at home.'

When asked if he was advocating a whites-only enclave on the edge of London, Leppert replied: 'Ideally, yeah.'

As part of their campaign against migrants, the party have posted YouTube videos claiming food is being diverted away from residents to feed asylum seekers.

In the video they also made unsubstantiated claims the hotel's residents caused an increase in petty crimes in the area - something the council and Essex Police have denied.

Last week the clip was reported to the police and other councillors urged those who opposed it to report it to YouTube.

It comes as another far-right group, Britain First headed by Paul Golding, also targeted those staying at the hotel in a video posted online.

Kremlin-backed Russia Today has joined in by posting a video making similar unsubstantiated claims about crime and confronted those staying at the hotel.

One of the claims Leppert made that food donated to the 3Food4U charity is being 'diverted' to asylum seekers at the hotel was branded 'fake news'.

Charity's director, Pesh Kapasiawala, labelled the remarks 'inaccurate and false' as none of the items donated goes to those at the hotel, he said.

He reported the video to Essex Police as a hate crime and the force confirmed 'enquiries are ongoing' into the matter.

Former BNP campaign chief Eddy Butler (pictured) campaigned against asylum seekers as the For Britain party posted YouTube videos claiming food is being diverted away from residents to feed them

Conservative councillor Holly Whitbread, who has led the council's response to Leppert's campaign, criticised the far-right party's claims.

The 27-year-old said: 'I was disgusted by the video, which I believe is deplorable. The video is factually incorrect and inflammatory.

'As asylum seekers, they are not illegal immigrants and are deserving of our sympathy, not false accusations to raise tension with local people.

'It is not affecting our council house allocations or being funded through our local housing budget, and it is not impacting local crime levels, with no increase in crime or crime linked to the hotel.

'All the people staying at the hotel receive Home Office-funded meals and daily support in the hotel. Many are likely to have come from war-torn or famine ravaged parts of the world.

'I am sure the vast majority are looking for a safe haven to restart their lives for themselves and their families.'

This comes as Britain First members have been going to hotels in London, Essex, Birmingham and Warrington to quiz migrants who have been given emergency housing.

They have been banging on doors and then filming where they are staying.

During one incident in Camden, north London, the right-wing 'activists' tried to get into a hotel that did not contain asylum seekers, but was instead housing homeless people.

The council had given them emergency accommodation to get them off the street during the pandemic.

Video footage of five confrontations have been posted on social media and shared by various accounts describing themselves as 'patriots'.

The first incident was in Birmingham last Friday and saw a group of at least eight people walk into the hotel and try to talk to a man entering his room.

As the man shut the door and refused to let them look around, the Britain First leader, Paul Golding, could be heard saying: 'It looks like a very nice room that I'm paying for.

'This is absolutely outrageous, every single one of these doors is housing asylum seekers.'

Britain First leader, Paul Golding (pictured), have been going to hotels to quiz migrants who have been given emergency housing

Golding, who was convicted of a terrorism offence in May, asked one man: 'Why should I, a British taxpayer, have to pay for your room when there are homeless veterans?'

The Britain First leader was convicted earlier this year after refusing to give police access to his mobile phone on his return to the UK from a political trip to Russia.

The next day Britain First targeted a hotel in Epping, Essex, then one in Camden, north London and another in Brent Cross, north west London.

In a clip posted online Golding followed a migrant who left the hotel in Epping and again tried to question where he was from.

Essex Police said the force received a report of a hate crime in the area after a video was posted on social media.

No arrests were made but a spokeswoman for the force said enquiries into the incident are still ongoing.

Councillor Georgia Gould, leader of Camden Council, denounced the protesters.

She said: 'We won't stand for intimidatory, hateful behaviour which seeks to target vulnerable people and sow division between us.'

He said: 'Harassing migrants who are being legally accommodated in hotels is despicable, and goes against all the values we hold as an open, welcoming city.'

Earlier this month, Home Secretary Priti Patel threatened to deploy the Navy to block the record number of migrants making the perilous journey across the English Channel in tiny boats and dinghies.

Responding to Britain First's latest campaign, a Home Office spokeswoman said: 'Any violence or abuse directed towards asylum seekers is completely unacceptable.

'We take the wellbeing of asylum seekers extremely seriously and we are taking all necessary and legal steps to protect the people in our care.'
Israel Engaged in 'Many More' Secret Talks With Arab Leaders on Establishing Ties, Netanyahu Says

Sputnik News

12:32 GMT 30.08.2020(updated 13:59 GMT 30.08.2020)

Earlier this month, Israel signed a landmark agreement brokered by the United States that paved the way for establishing diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates, making the Gulf monarchy the third Arab country to forge ties with Israel.

Israel is holding behind-closed-doors talks with Arab leaders on establishing bilateral ties, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, following talks with Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner and US National Security Adviser Robert O'Brian.

"Two years ago, I visited Oman, one year ago, I visited Chad, half a year ago I met with the leader of Sudan. And these are a few of the publicised steps. There are many more unpublicised meetings with Arab and Muslim leaders to normalise relations with the state of Israel", Netanyahu said.

Kushner and O'Brien arrived in Israel to discuss the country's normalisation of ties with the United Arab Emirates in the wake of the signing of an agreement earlier this month on the establishment of full diplomatic ties.

The deal, announced on 13 August by US President Donald Trump, also paves the way for an exchange of embassies and the conclusion of a number of treaties in various fields of cooperation. If concluded, it will make the UAE the third Arab country to have a full peace deal with Israel after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.

On Saturday, UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan issued a decree on abolishing the economic boycott of Israel, allowing companies and individual entrepreneurs in the UAE to conclude trade and financial agreements with Israeli businesses, while Israel can export any goods and products to the UAE.

Netanyahu applauded the United Arab Emirates for ending its boycott of the Jewish state, saying the move paved the way for economic cooperation between the two nations.



A Sputnik

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OCP Africa, a subsidiary of OCP Group, a leading global producer of phosphate and its derivatives, has supported the training of over 100 women farmers at the second edition of the annual Women in Food and Agric Leadership Training Forum & Expo (WOFAGRIC) in Kumasi.



WOFAGRIC serves as a platform for mentoring, networking and learning opportunities designed for the benefit of women in agriculture.



The programme, organized by Agrihouse Foundation under the theme: Transforming and Sustaining Women in Agriculture: The Role of Public, Private and Development Partners, brought together farmers, agripreneurs, key stakeholders, development partners, researchers, farmer groups, government agencies, businesses, civil society, investment and professional advisors, as well as corporate organizations.



Speaking on OCP Africas support and participation at the Women in Food and Agric Leadership Training Forum & Expo (WOFAGRIC), the Business Development Manager of OCP Africa Ghana, Eric Nesta Quarshie, said: OCP Africa has been a strong supporter and promoter of women involved in agriculture, especially small-holder farmers. Therefore, we see the partnership with Agrihouse as another opportunity to demonstrate our support to our hardworking women farmers in the country.



Our strong commitment to women farmers in Ghana led to the introduction of our Women in Agribooster program which will be launched very soon to support about 5,000 women small holder farmers cultivating maize and rice in Ghana. The program seeks to also supply 1,250 MT of fertilizers and provide training in Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and farming as a business through MoFA and other partners, he revealed.



He added that the Women in Agribooster program will lessen the negative effect of COVID-19 on women by improving their revenue, increase yield by 30% and add 15,000 metric tons of rice and maize to the food stock.



Facilitating one of the training sessions at the conference, Mr. Quarshie explained that participants were trained on the effective ways for women in agriculture to increase their ability to produce food at their communities.



The women farmers and other stakeholders at the conference have been equipped on the modern and effective ways of food production by the OCP team. We also exposed them to OCP Africas modern soil testing van to enlighten them on the various ways OCP Africa is advancing agriculture in Ghana and Africa, he disclosed.



The event also rewarded 45 nominee-women farmers at the Gold in the Soil Awards which climaxed the conference.

The 2020 edition of WOFAGRIC covered training, panel conversations, mentoring, and capacity building sessions that cover topics like finance, market accessibility, production, leadership, among others.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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It has always been said that a chicken that will grow into a cockerel is spotted the very day it hatched. It is against this backdrop that I chronicled this piece to carry home the bleak future of the now Nandom Municipal. This piece will serve as a projector that will magnify the lapses that need an urgent patch up in the municipality.

The then Nandom district was carved out from Lawra in 2012 under the leadership of late President Atta Mills and Prof. Benjamin Kunbuor who as of then were the president and Attorney General respectively.

It has increasingly been clear that Nandom District now Municipal is blessed with lots of brainy and levelheaded personalities who are highly and properly educated. These personalities occupy very sensitive positions in this country. The likes of Sir Dr Gyader, Prof. Kuupolle, Prof. Delle, commanders of the various security services, Lawyers, Rev. fathers, Rev. sisters and brothers, interalia, and the prolific and foresighted politicians who give a facelift to the Nandom we have today. They contribute immensely both nationally and internationally. They have also achieved significantly in both academics and social development.

Despite the rich human resource we have in the municipal, there seems not to be a succession plan for the municipal. Let me state it clear that this article is purely my opinion and hence does not call for a rejoinder of thoughtful negation. My personal observation in Nandom is that most of these great personalities do not explicitly and consciously beside their relatives, mentor the youth to take over from them. That is the deficiency we have as a people. But of course, I am not unaware of the fact that few people may be mentoring some of the young ones in the municipality to take over from them. I commend you for that visionary leadership quality.

It is crystal clear that the name of Nandom stands the chance of having its name lowered because we may not get the quality human resource we have today. I don't seem to suggest that there are no potentially capable youth who can deliver. There are a lot of us very capacitated but we luck the mentoring support to reach our full potentials. A small scaffolding will do the youth great service. I have invariably disagree with the school of thought that seeks to suggest that the youth are the future leaders when many of the youth are offering quality leadership in different spheres of life. It therefore can not be true that the youth are future leaders. If you are saying so, then which generational leadership should we categories the children of the youth and their younger brothers and sisters? Rather, I believe strongly that the youth are today's leaders and should be supported to perform better in the development of their respective areas. Anyway, that is another topic I shall chronicle on one day.

Another issue that is worthy of your attention a part from the lack of succession plan, is the speedily falling standard of education in the Nandom municipal. The level at which our education is falling is unprecedented. Nandom has enviably gained the notoriety of high academic laurals across the region and the country at large but that is fast eroding away.

The statistics of the 2018 Basic Certificate Examination Council results placed Nandom municipal last in the whole of Upper West Region. Nationally, the statistics placed Nandom municipal last but third in the whole of the country. Where lies the future of our younger brothers and sisters? Are we going or we are coming? These are the signals that paint the gloomy picture about Nandom in a not too distant future hence this write up. This article is a wake up call to all who matter to arresting and undoing this canker.

What are the ways forward? I suggest that the elite group and the most dignified and experienced personalities in the municipal should create a common platform devoid of political colour to ignite the spirit of hardwork and discipline among the youth.

The platform should also be used to address the over politicisation of issues by the youth of the municipality.

Also, the platform will serve as an enabling environment to peruse and delineate the research work conducted by Prof. Kuupolle as regard the fallen standard of education in the municipality and the way forward. I am of the view that if this platform is put into effective use, it will be the panacea to the poor academic performance in the municipality of recent times.

Again, mentoring should be given to willing and zealous young ones who are poised to give off their best for the development of others, the municipality, and the country at large.

[email protected]
Turkeys destabilizing policy and aggression pose a threat to all of its neighboring regions. This is what Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan told Interfax.

When asked if Turkeys support to Baku is pouring fuel on the fire and if Turkey is repressing the possibility of a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the minister stated that the international community has made several calls to put an end to the violence after the events of July 12, 2020.

Turkey was the only country that tried not to ease the tension and tried to destabilize the region. Turkeys destabilizing policy and aggression pose a threat to all of its neighboring regions. Today, Turkey is trying to lead its destabilizing policy in the South Caucasus, and this sparks serious concern. Turkey continues to pose a threat to Armenias security with its actions. In this regard, Armenia will work on strengthening its security, including through cooperation with its partners, Mnatsakanyan said.
Recap: While we love our PCs, the PlayStation has long boasted the kind of exclusives that rivals eye with envy. But that started to change recently as PS4 games including Death Stranding and Horizon Zero Dawn arrive on computers.

In Sony's 2020 corporate report published over the weekend, it reveals that the company intends to continue its strategy of releasing games on the PC. "We will explore expanding our first-party titles to the PC platform, in order to promote further growth in our profitability," reads the report.

Sony has previously said that it won't turn into Microsoft and release games on PC and the PlayStation simultaneously, nor will every exclusive end up on both platforms. What the report does suggest, however, is that older games such as God of War, Days Gone, and Spider-Man will join the PC party. We could even see the excellent Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us Part II losing their 'PlayStation exclusive' status.

As for titles slated to appear on the PS5 such as Horizon Forbidden West or Spider-Man: Miles Morales, they could take a lot longer to hit the PC. But with the Steam release of Horizon Zero Dawn boosting sales of the three-year-old game, despite its bugs, it's easy to see why Sony wants to continue down this path.

Elsewhere in the report, it's revealed that the PS4 has now reached 112.1 million unit sales across its lifetime as of June 30an increase of around 2 million since the end of March. There are currently 113 million active monthly PSN users, 45 million PS Plus paid subscribers, and PS Now has reached 2.2. million subscribers. And while the pandemic has boosted the gaming industry, Sony notes that its overall business lost 68.2 billion ($876.3 million) in operating income due to Covid-19.
Matter of shame: Congress slams Modi govt over GDP decline

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Aug 31: The Congress on Monday attacked the government over a sharp decline in the GDP numbers and alleged the NDA dispensation ignored the party's warnings and took no preventive steps to cushion the fall.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the government ignored his warnings in this regard six months ago, while his party colleague and former finance minister P Chidambaram stated it will take many months before the economy turns the corner and registers positive growth.

"GDP reduces by 24 percent. The worst in Independent India's history. Unfortunately, the Government ignored the warnings," Gandhi said on Twitter.

The country's economy suffered its worst slump on record in April-June, with the gross domestic product (GDP) contracting by 23.9 per cent as the coronavirus-related lockdowns weighed on the already-declining consumer demand and investment.

Chidambaram said all this had been anticipated and Congress had warned the government and urged it to take preventive and preemptive measures.

"Our pleas fell on deaf ears. The country, as a whole, is paying a heavy price, the poor and the vulnerable are in despair. It is only the Modi government that was nonchalant and uncaring. The government peddled a fake narrative, but that narrative has been exploded today by the CSO estimates," Chidambaram said.

GST compensation: States should reject options given by Centre, says Chidambaram

"Let me say with regret: it will take many months before the economy turns the corner and registers positive growth. The inaction and ineptitude of the government gives us no hope that we will see light at the end of the tunnel at any time soon," the former finance minister said.

He said the GDP in the first quarter has declined by a whopping 23.9 per cent, which means about one-quarter of the gross domestic output as on June 30, 2019 has been wiped out in the last 12 months or the gross domestic output has fallen by about 20 per cent since the end of 2019-20.

The Congress leader said the only sectors that have grown are Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing at 3.4 per cent, and the Finance Minister, who blamed an 'Act of God' for the economic decline, should be grateful to the farmers and the gods who blessed the farmers.

He said every other sector of the economy has declined sharply, some precipitously, and this does not come as a surprise to us.

"They should be a matter of surprise to the government that was seeing 'green shoots' on several days during the first quarter. They should also be a matter of shame to the government that did nothing -- literally nothing -- to cushion the fall by taking suitable fiscal and welfare measures, but we know that the Modi government has no shame and will not acknowledge its mistakes," he alleged.

Chidambaram said the economic tragedy was foretold by many close observers of the Indian economy, most recently by the RBI in its Annual Report released a few days ago.

Of the world's major and advanced economies, India's economy declined more than any other countries except the economy of the United States. What does that tell us? That Modi stands second only to Trump in terms of incompetent economic mismanagement," Chidambaram said in a tweet.

The GDP contraction of India, the world's fifth-largest economy, compared with 3.1 per cent growth in the preceding January-March quarter and 5.2 per cent expansion in the corresponding period a year back, according to official data released on Monday.

This is the sharpest contraction since quarterly figures started being published in 1996 and worse than what was expected by most analysts.
The University of North Georgia's (UNG) stand-alone Blue Ridge Campus opened its doors to students earlier this month. At 11 a.m. Sept. 16, UNG will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a limited number of guests, in accordance with social distancing guidelines and to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The university will broadcast the celebration on the UNG Facebook page.

Growing from 20 students when it opened in 2015 to 232 this fall, the Blue Ridge Campus continues to expand access to higher education close to home for these students.

"It's not just a UNG building. This campus is the community's, and they are equally excited about the opportunities and what's happening here," said Sandy Ott, director of UNG's Blue Ridge Campus. "Having the Blue Ridge Campus has opened so many doors and opportunities, especially for students in this region of north Georgia who weren't sure what to do after high school. It gives them the option to start close to home with the support of their family and friends."

The new building has some 3,500 square feet of classroom space. Classrooms include a computer lab and a full biology lab with the option of additional lab courses in the future as the campus grows.

Ott said the expanded space means UNG can offer more courses to students, which will allow students to spend more semesters at the Blue Ridge Campus. Previously, students could only spend two or three semesters there taking required core curriculum classes before they transferred to the Gainesville or Dahlonega campus. This fall, introductory courses in education will be the first ones to be offered in a major.

Emily Beavers, a sophomore pursuing a degree in elementary and special education, is grateful to take her first two education courses  "Foundations of Numbers and Math" and "Integrated Physical Science"  on the Blue Ridge Campus.

"On this campus, I can connect with students and professors easier and get that one-on-one experience," Beavers said. "It's super helpful."

Dr. Nathan Price, coordinator for the Blue Ridge Scholars and assistant professor of political science and international affairs, has been with the Blue Ridge Campus since the original location opened. Now, he is thrilled to help open the new campus, located off Ga. 515 about 3 miles from the previous 2,800-square-foot Dunbarton Road facility.

"It means everything to us. I've always worried we don't look the part of a university campus," Price said. "We know we're very connected to UNG's mission and have our own things we emphasize. To have a building symbolizes that we're here to stay and we offer a real college experience."

Dr. Michael Rogers, assistant vice president for Academic Affairs on the Blue Ridge Campus, said the opportunity to offer biology and anatomy and physiology courses will help students who want to enter UNG's Bachelor of Science in Nursing program.

The new location also offers an abundance of shared study spaces, which was an important factor that guided the design. A welcoming entry plaza plus a patio at the rear will be available for students to study or relax between classes. Five dual-occupancy offices are designated for faculty while five offices will be for administrative staff.

"This makes a statement to the Fannin County community that UNG is going to be here for the long haul," Rogers said. "When people see that building, they see the time and money invested."
The Free Movement on Sunday held a protest against Pakistan outside the official residence of UK Prime Minister here on the occasion of the Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

Several Baloch and other human rights activists joined the protest from different cities of the UK and expressed their support for the families of those who have been forcefully disappeared.

The protestors were carrying banners and raised slogans against Pakistan military's atrocities against Baloch people. They demanded the immediate release of previously abducted Baloch people and stopping of more enforced disappearances.

They also urged the community, including the UK, to stop supporting Pakistan as their support is allowing Pakistan to commit more crimes against humanity.The activists stated that thousands of innocent Baloch people have been arrested and later disappeared. Many of them have been killed in custody. They also strongly condemned the recent murder of Hayat Baloch, who was shot dead by Frontier Corps in front of his parents, in Turbat,

"On Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, we are staging a protest outside Boris Johnson's residence. Pakistani forces are committing human rights abuses against Baloch people. We appeal to the international community to take note of what is happening in Balochistan," said an activist.

"We saw how a woman named Malik Naz was killed in front of her four-year-old daughter Bramsh by the Pakistani military. A 12-year-old girl was also killed by the establishment. These things were not coming to light earlier due to blackout (in Pakistan). But now, the news on atrocities committed by Pakistani military is there on social media and people are coming to know about it," she added.

The activist appealed that there should be a fact-finding mission in this regard and said the UK Prime Minister should take cognisance of the human rights abuses in

(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.)
RICHARDSON, TX / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / Optex Systems Holdings, Inc. (OTCQB:OPXS), a leading manufacturer of precision optical sighting systems for domestic and worldwide military and commercial applications, announced today it is now offering mil-spec quality High Efficiency Anti-Reflective Coatings for Infrared applications in both the military and commercial markets. These coatings will be manufactured at the Applied Optics Center (AOC) Division of Optex Systems, Inc. in Dallas, Texas.

Applied Optics Center is a primary supplier to the U.S. Government and its Prime Contractors with very specialized optical coatings. AOC has a well-known legacy of producing critical optical components for programs such as the Abrams Tank, F35 Fighter Jet and numerous Night Vision Devices utilized by U.S. Military troops across all branches of the government.

Bill Bates, General Manager of AOC, commented: "I am very proud and pleased with the efforts of our engineering staff and the resulting high-quality, highly repetitive coating designs and processes developed over the last eighteen months. This robust and highly reliable suite of anti-reflective coatings are based on the latest techniques and materials in use today using our own proprietary deposition methods. Our intent is to become a trusted and reliable source for high quality infrared optics and optical coatings."

Applied Optics Center intends to continue developing and expanding offerings associated with the infrared market through investments in equipment and engineering support as required.

ABOUT OPTEX SYSTEMS

Optex, which was founded in 1987, is a Richardson, Texas based ISO 9001:2015 certified concern, which manufactures optical sighting systems and assemblies, primarily for Department of Defense (DOD) applications. Its products are installed on various types of U.S. military land vehicles, such as the Abrams and Bradley fighting vehicles, Light Armored and Armored Security Vehicles, and have been selected for installation on the Stryker family of vehicles. Optex also manufactures and delivers numerous periscope configurations, rifle and surveillance sights, and night vision optical assemblies. Optex delivers its products both directly to the military services and to prime contractors. For additional information, please visit the Company's website at www.optexsys.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including those relating to the products and services described herein. You can identify these statements by the use of the words "may," "will," "could," "should," "would," "plans," "expects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "project," "intend," "likely," "forecast," "probable," and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, continued funding of defense programs and military spending, the timing of such funding, general economic and business conditions, including unforeseen weakness in the Company's markets, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, delays in completing engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technological advances and delivering technological innovations, changes in the U.S. Government's interpretation of federal procurement rules and regulations, changes in spending due to policy changes in any new federal presidential administration, market acceptance of the Company's products, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, inability to fully realize the expected benefits from acquisitions and restructurings or delays in realizing such benefits, challenges in integrating acquired businesses and achieving anticipated synergies, changes to export regulations, increases in tax rates, changes to generally accepted accounting principles, difficulties in retaining key employees and customers, unanticipated costs under fixed-price service and system integration engagements, changes in the market for microcap stocks regardless of growth and value and various other factors beyond our control.

You must carefully consider any such statement and should understand that many factors could cause actual results to differ from the Company's forward-looking statements. These factors include inaccurate assumptions and a broad variety of other risks and uncertainties, including some that are known and some that are not. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual future results may vary materially. The Company does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement. You should carefully evaluate such statements in light of factors described in the Company's filings with the SEC, especially on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. In various filings the Company has identified important factors that could cause actual results to differ from expected or historic results. You should understand that it is not possible to predict or identify all such factors. Consequently, you should not consider any such list to be a complete list of all potential risks or uncertainties.

CONTACT:

IR@optexsys.com

(972) 764-5718

SOURCE: Optex Systems Holdings, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/604124/Optex-Systems-Announces-Anti-Reflective-Coatings-for-Infrared-Materials
The government has supplied farming inputs under the Planting for Food and Jobs (PfFJs) programme to 2,257 farmers within the first half of 2020 in the Dormaa Central Municipality.



Mr Drissa Ouattara, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) said in an address at the first ordinary meeting of the Municipal Assembly held at Dormaa Ahenkro in the Bono Region, that these interventions benefited the farmers during the major raining season.



Assembly Members, traditional rulers, staff of the Assembly, heads of departments and security officers, and representatives of trade associations attended the meeting.



Mr Ouattara noted, however, that the supply of the inputs such as improved seeds and fertilizers to the farmers recorded less than 50 percent supply partly due to the late arrival of the inputs and the external impact of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19).



He expressed satisfaction that the high demand for maize seeds indicated an increasing trend of maize cultivation in the Municipality due to huge demand from the poultry industry.



On extension services, he said under the Modernisation of Agriculture in Ghana (MAG) programme, the Municipal Directorate of Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) had received 13 motorbikes and a pick-up vehicle for extension services.



"Extension officers were adequately resourced to deliver quality agricultural technologies to farmers. There has been significant visibility of extension personnel in our communities, with constant updates on improved technologies and best practices," he added.



The MCE further indicated extension activities had included home and farm visits, field demonstrations and trials, formation and development of farmer-based organisations (FBOs), farmer trainings, and staff capacity building.



He said there had been many programmes and activities to boost agriculture in the Municipality, citing efficient veterinary and agro-input distribution services and Women in Agriculture Development (WIAD) activities that continued to build the capacity of women and marginalised groups to engage in livelihood projects.



Mr Ouattara added sustainable extension services delivery had encouraged the cultivation of food and cash crops, sustainable poultry business, and increasing livestock production.



"A lot of training has been carried out on processing, value addition, and nutritional improvement of local dishes.



Cumulatively, over 16,000 farmers and agribusiness actors have benefited from improved technologies and innovations from Agriculture Extension Agent" he added.

Source: GNA









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Troilus PEA Conference Call to Be Held Sept. 1, 2020 @9:00 AM EST (details below)

Figure 1 - Post-Tax Cash Flow and Cumulative Cash Flow (US$)

Post-Tax Cash Flow and Cumulative Cash Flow (US$)

Post-Tax Cash Flow and Cumulative Cash Flow (US$)

Figure 2 - Production Profile  Gold, Silver and Copper*

*Gold and Silver in Ounces (left axis), Copper in Pounds (right axis)

*Gold and Silver in Ounces (left axis), Copper in Pounds (right axis)

TORONTO, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Troilus Gold Corp. (TSX: TLG; OTCQB: CHXMF) (Troilus or the Company) is pleased to announce the positive results of a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) completed on its 100%-owned Troilus Gold Project (the Project) located in Quebec, Canada. The PEA supports a combined open pit/underground mining scenario with low initial capital costs and high rate of return for a 35,000 tonne per day (tpd) operation over a 22-year mine life.



Highlights include (all results are reported in U.S. Dollars*):

After-tax IRR of 22.9% and NPV 5% of $576 million based on $1,475/oz gold increasing to 32.2% and $915 million at $1,750/oz gold and 38.3% and $1,156 million at $1,950/oz spot gold prices (see Table 1)





Projected gold production of 220,000 oz average per year for the first 5 years and 246,000 oz average per year for the first 14 years





Open pit mine life of 14 years and total mine life of 22 years with future underground development





Initial capital of (CAPEX) of $333 million, including all mine pre-production costs, net of existing infrastructure (access road, power line, tailings facility, substation, camp, water treatment plant)





After-tax payback of 4.0 years at base case $1,475/oz gold





Average cash operating costs of $919/oz gold and all-in sustaining costs of $1,051/oz gold





Cumulative cashflow of $1.27 billion after tax and $2.04 billion pre-tax over 22 years on base case assumptions





Payable Gold of 3.8 million ounces, payable Copper of 265 million lbs and payable Silver of 1.5 million ounces





Average strip ratio for the open pit life of the mine estimated at 3.9:1

*Assuming a US$:C$ exchange of $0.74. All figures reported in US$ unless stated otherwise

Story continues

Justin Reid, CEO of Troilus Gold, commented The entire Troilus team is pleased to present the results of our PEA, clearly demonstrating the potential for our project to become a major contributor as a large North American gold producer. The PEA supports: a project with production spanning 22 years, robust potential economics at discounted and current gold prices, low CAPEX, low capital intensity, and a rapid payback. The first 14 years will target production in excess of 246,000 ounces gold per year peaking at in excess of 300,000 ounces in Year 5. The Troilus Geological team has demonstrated the ability to identify an abundance of untested targets and has a track record of adding significant ounces over a very short period of time. We believe the Troilus property has the potential to extend the mine life beyond the projected 22 years presented in the PEA and provide the opportunity to expand the scale in the future by continuing to seek increases to the mineral resource estimate with ongoing exploration and drilling. Our goal is to make this a cornerstone mining Project within both the Quebec and Canadian Gold landscapes.

We believe the Project provides a strong foundation for building and growing the company in a mining friendly jurisdiction. With a strong treasury to support next steps, we will now be commencing pre-feasibility work and working towards finalization of an Environmental Impact Study for the Project while continuing to explore the geological potential of the 107,000-hectare Troilus property. We look forward to working with our partners in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region including the Cree Nation of Mistissini, the Cree Nation Government, the local communities of Chibougamau and Chapais, and with the support of the Quebec and federal governments, to advance the Troilus Project.

Financial Analysis

At a Base Case US$1,475 per ounce gold price and a US$:C$ exchange of $0.74, the Project generates an after-tax Net Present Value (NPV) of US$576M, at a 5% discount rate and an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 22.9%. Payback on initial capital is 4 years. Before taxes, NPV at a 5% discount rate is US$971M, IRR is 29.6% and payback is 3.7 years.

Table 1: Summary of Troilus Gold Economic Results by Gold Price (US$)

Spot Price Consensus Base Case Low Case Gold Price (per oz) $1,950 $1,750 $1,475 $1,350 Pre-Tax NPV (5%) $1,951 million $1,538 million $971 million $713 million Pre-Tax IRR 50.1% 41.8% 29.6% 23.7% Post-Tax NPV (5%) $1,156 million $915 million $576 million $419 million Post-Tax IRR (%) 38.3% 32.2% 22.9% 18.2%

The Project generates cumulative cash flow of US$1.27 billion on a post-tax basis and US$2.04 billion pre-tax, at a Base Case of US$1,475 per ounce gold price based on a throughput of 35,000 tpd over 22 years. The PEA assumes an open pit operation for the first fourteen years with the underground operation coming online starting in year 8.

The PEA is preliminary in nature, includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the PEA will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

To view Figure 1: Post-Tax Cash Flow and Cumulative Cash Flow (US$) please click the following link:

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7fc58b1d-e99f-4095-a5e1-145becf22584

Capital and Operating Costs

The PEA capital and operating cost estimates for the Troilus Gold Project are summarized below. The Initial CAPEX (net of existing infrastructure) is US$333 million and Sustaining CAPEX over the life of the mine is an additional US$506 million. The underground mine will require US$240 million of underground development CAPEX in years 6 to 8 and US$175 million in sustaining capital to maintain the underground operation. The underground will start development with first mill feed projected to come online in Year 8. All in Sustaining Cost (AISC) is US$1,051 per ounce Au.

Table 2: Troilus Project Capital Expenditure Estimates Breakdown (US$)

Initial Capital Open Pit Mining $78 Million Process $172 Million Infrastructure $36 Million Owners Cost $11 Million Contingency $36 Million Total  Initial Capital $333 Million* Sustaining Capital Open Pit Mining $5 Million Underground Development CAPEX $240 Million Underground Sustaining CAPEX

(Life of underground) $175 Million Process $22 Million Infrastructure $19 Million Environmental $19 Million Contingency $26 Million Total  Sustaining Capital $506 Million

*net of existing infrastructure (access road, power line, substation, tailings facility, water treatment plant, site roads)

Table 3: Summary of Troilus Gold Project Operating Cost Estimates (US$)

Average Life-of-Mine Operating Cost Mining - Open Pit $9.35/tonne milled Mining - Underground $14.36/tonne milled Processing $4.99/tonne milled G&A $1.42/tonne milled Concentrate Transport $0.23/tonne milled Total Operating Cost $17.10/tonne milled Cash Operating Cost $919/oz Au All in Sustaining Cost $1,051/oz Au

Projected gold production averages 220,000 oz per year over the first 5 years, 246,000 oz per year for the first 14 years and 98,000 from year 15 onwards. Projected payable Gold is 3.8 million ounces, payable Copper 265 million lbs and payable Silver 1.5 million ounces over the 22-year mine life.

To view Figure 2: Production Profile  Gold, Silver and Copper* please click the following link:

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c0a4404c-039c-432f-9ae7-a8188ec614b2

Mining

The PEA considers an initial open pit mining using a 100% owner operated equipment fleet including 28- 181 tonne trucks, electric hydraulic shovels, wheel loaders and drills. The open pit will overlap mill feed production with the underground mine starting in year 8. The open pit will be complete in Year 14 and the underground mine will continue production until Year 22. The mine has been designed to deliver an initial 12.6 million tonnes per year (35,000 tonnes per day) of mill feed. The PEA contemplates a mine that will extract mill feed over a 22year period not including 12 months of pre-production stripping. The PEA delivers 192.5 million tonnes with average head grades of 0.71 gpt gold, 0.08% copper and 0.97 gpt silver. The process plant is expected to have three months of commissioning in the first year of production.

The project will mine three areas: 87 Zone, J Zone and the new Southwest (SW) Zone. The 87 Zone will have a single-phase open pit followed by underground mining. The J Zone has been designed with 3 phases of open pit only for this study. The SW Zone design is comprised of 2 open pit phases. Mining commences in the 87 Zone pit and SW Zone pit areas in the pre-production period. The J Zone pit area starts production in Year 2. The 87 Zone pit will be complete in Year 6 and the underground mine will continue beneath the open pit from that point onwards. The SW Zone pit will be finished in Year 12. The J Zone pit will finish in Year 14. Underground mining finishes in Year 22. Waste from the open pits will be backfilled in the 87 Zone pit once open pit mining is complete. This provides fill for the underground and short waste haulage for the J Zone pit phases, reducing the overall size of the waste storage facilities.

The average strip ratio for the open pit life of the mine is estimated at 3.9:1. Material movement averages 71 million tonnes (feed and waste) in the first 5 years with the peak at 74 million tonnes in Year 1. The open pit will provide 150.1 million tonnes of feed to the process plant for the first 14 years of the project. Open pit bench heights of 10 metres will be mined and ore hauled with 181-tonne haul trucks and matching loading equipment including electric hydraulic shovels. The open pit mining fleet will be leased. Best practice grade control drilling will be done with reverse circulation drilling and rock sampling on mine benches prior to blasting. This provides the greatest flexibility for grade control during operations while maintaining reasonable mine operating costs and production capability.

Underground mine development will commence in Year 6 and first mill feed to the plant from underground occurs in Year 8. The underground mine will be located beneath the 87 Zone pit and utilize sub-level caving along the edges of the open pit and slot and mass blast in the lower levels. The portal is located adjacent to the primary crusher. Mill feed material and waste will be brought to the surface initially with trucks but will transition to the RailVeyor system for the life of the mine. The underground mine will ramp up production from its initial levels to 9,000 tpd by Year 9 and maintain that rate until the end of the mine life.

During the mining operation a stockpile will be maintained adjacent to the primary crushing plant to be used as supplemental feed as required to meet production targets, weather events and as mill feed in the later years of the operation. Waste rock will be hauled to dedicated waste management facilities near the open pits, backfilled into the 87 Zone pit and also used for lifts of the tailings management facility. Concurrent reclamation of the waste management facilities is planned.

Metallurgy

Initial test work was completed by COREM and Kappes Cassidy as well the historical operating data, to develop the flow sheet. The process plant consists of primary crushing, SAG and ball milling with gravity gold concentration, copper flotation, concentrate filtration and tailings thickening and disposal. Copper concentrate, enriched with gold, will then be sent to a smelter for refining. Gold recovery is estimated to be 90%, with 30% produced onsite as gravity concentrate and the balance contained in the final copper concentrate. Copper recovery is expected to be 90%.

Infrastructure

The Troilus Gold Project is located in Quebec, approximately 120 kilometres north of Chibougamau, where Inmet Mining Corporation operated a large mine/concentrator complex from 1996  2010. Access to the mine site from Chibougamau is by the Route du Nord.

The Troilus project benefits greatly from the upgraded, and substantial infrastructure on site including:

Power line and 50MW substation sufficient for project power requirements,

All weather access road,

Tailings facility and water treatment plant,

Camp facilities,

Site roads,

Water supply,

Septic system.

The existing tailings management facility has the capacity to accommodate the life of mine production as described in this PEA. As part of the design it is proposed to develop the tailings dam into a centreline constructed containment from the existing upstream designed containment. The building of this containment wall will utilise waste rock from the mine operations.

A NI 43-101 technical report supporting the PEA to be prepared by AGP will be posted on Troilus Golds website at www.troilusgold.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com , within 45 days following this news release.

Mineral Resources Estimate

The total estimated indicated Mineral Resource Estimate upon which the PEA is based includes 4.96 Moz AuEq (177 Mt with an average grade of 0.87 g/t AuEq) and a total inferred Mineral Resource Estimate of 3.15 Moz AuEq (116.7 Mt with an average grade of 0.84 g/t AuEq).

Table 4 - Mineral Resource Estimate  Effective as of July 20, 2020

Classification Tonnage

(Mt) AuEq

(g/t) Au

(g/t) Cu

(%) Ag

(g/t) Contained

AuEQ

(Moz) Contained

Gold

(Moz) Contained

Copper

(Mlb) Contained

Silver

(Moz) Indicated 177.3 0.87 0.75 0.08 1.17 4.96 4.30 322.60 6.66 Inferred 116.7 0.84 0.73 0.07 1.04 3.15 2.76 189.73 3.91

Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability; Summation errors may occur due to rounding; Open pit mineral resources are reported within an optimized constraining shells.



Open pit cut-off grade is 0.3 gpt AuEQ where the metal equivalents were calculated as follows:

Z87 Zone: AuEq = Au grade + 1.2566 * Cu grade + 0.0103 * Ag grade

J4/J5 Zone: AuEq = Au grade + 1.2979 * Cu grade + 0.0108 * Ag grade

SW Zone: AuEq = Au grade + 1.2768 * Cu grade + 0.0106 * Ag grade

Metal prices for the AuEQ formulas are: $US 1,600/ oz Au; $3.25/lb Cu, and $20.00/ oz Ag; with an exchange rate of US$1.00:CAD$1.30;

Metal recoveries for the AuEQ formulas are:

Z87 Zone: 83% for Au recovery, 92% for Cu recovery and 76% for Ag recovery

J4/J5 Zone: 82% for Au recovery, 88% for Cu recovery and 76% for Ag recovery

SW Zone: 82.5% for Au recovery, 90% for Cu recovery and 76% for Ag recovery

The resource constraining shells were generated with:

Metal Prices: Gold $US 1600/oz, Copper $US 3.25/lb, Silver $US 20/oz

Mining Costs:

o J Zone and 87 Zone base cost $Cdn 1.71/t moved,

o SW Zone base cost $Cdn 1.66/t moved

o Incremental cost $Cdn 0.03/t waste moved, $Cdn 0.02/t feed moved

Process and G&A Costs: $Cdn 8.44/t processed

Wall slopes: varied between 49.5 to 60 degrees depending on pit area and slope sector

Metal Recoveries:

o Gold: 90% all zones except in lower grade (Au<1/2 g/t) portions of SW zone = 88%

o Copper: 90% all zones except in higher grade (Cu%>0.13%) portions of SW zone = 92%

o Silver: all zones 40%

Underground cut-off grade is 0.9 AuEQ at Z87 Zone and J4/J5 Zone

The Mineral Resource estimate used for the PEA is effective as of July 20, 2020 and unchanged since the previously reported Mineral Resource estimate in the technical report entitled Technical Report on the Troilus Gold-Copper Project Mineral Resource Estimate, Quebec, Canada which was prepared by Mr. Paul Daigle, geo., Senior Associate Resource Geologist with AGP Mining Consultants Inc. (AGP) and filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com on August 28, 2020 (the Resources Report). Mr. Daigle is an independent Qualified Person in accordance with the requirements of National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101).

PEA Review Conference Call & Webcast

Troilus will be hosting a conference call to review the results of the PEA at 9:00 am EST, on Tuesday September 1, 2020. Chief Executive Officer, Justin Reid, Senior Vice-President of Technical Services, Ian Pritchard, and other members of the Troilus leadership team will be on the call to discuss the PEA results and latest corporate developments. Please click the link below to join the webinar:



https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87934871258

Or iPhone one-tap:

US: +16699006833,87934871258# or +19292056099,87934871258#

Or Telephone:

Dial (for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location): US: +1 669 900 6833 or +1 929 205 6099 or +1 253 215 8782 or +1 301 715 8592 or +1 312 626 6799 or +1 346 248 7799

Webinar ID: 879 3487 1258

International numbers available: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc0gb6ZH13

Qualified Person

All technical information, not pertaining to the PEA, in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Bertrand Brassard, M.Sc., P.Geo., Chief Geologist, who is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Brassard has verified the technical data contained in this press release using industry accepted standards. Mr. Brassard is an employee of Troilus and is not independent of the Company under NI 43-101.

The mineral resource estimate disclosed in this press release was prepared by Mr. Paul Daigle, geo., Senior Associate Resource Geologist with AGP, and the supporting Resources Report was filed on SEDAR ( www.sedar.com ) under the Companys issuer profile on August 28, 2020. Mr. Paul Daigle, who is an independent Qualified Person as defined under NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the mineral resource estimate disclosed in this press release.

The PEA was prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101) of the Canadian Securities Administrators under the direction and supervision of Gord Zurowski, P. Eng Principal Mining Engineer with AGP, and the supporting Technical Report (the Technical Report) will be available on SEDAR ( www.sedar.com ) under the Companys issuer profile within 45 calendar days. Mr. Zurowski, who is an independent Qualified Person as defined under NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information pertaining to the PEA disclosed in this press release.



Non-IFRS Financial Measures

The Company has included certain non-IFRS financial measures in this news release, such as Initial Capital Cost, Cash Operating Costs ,Total Cash Cost, All-In Sustaining Cost, Expansion Capital and Capital Intensity, which are not measures recognized under IFRS and do not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. As a result, these measures may not be comparable to similar measures reported by other corporations. Each of these measures used are intended to provide additional information to the user and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures prepared in accordance with IFRS.



Non-IFRS financial measures used in this news release and common to the gold mining industry are defined below.



Total Cash Costs and Total Cash Costs per Ounce



Total Cash Costs are reflective of the cost of production. Total Cash Costs reported in the PEA include mining costs, processing & water treatment costs, general and administrative costs of the mine, off-site costs, refining costs, transportation costs and royalties. Total Cash Costs per Ounce is calculated as Total Cash Costs divided by payable gold ounces.



All-in Sustaining Costs (AISC) and AISC per Ounce



AISC is reflective of all of the expenditures that are required to produce an ounce of gold from operations. AISC reported in the PEAS includes total cash costs, sustaining capital, expansion capital and closure costs, but excludes corporate general and administrative costs and salvage. AISC per Ounce is calculated as AISC divided by payable gold ounces.



About Troilus Gold Corp.

Troilus is a Toronto-based, Quebec focused, advanced stage exploration and early-development company focused on the mineral expansion and potential mine re-start of the former gold and copper Troilus mine. The 107,326 hectare Troilus property is located within the Frotet-Evans Greenstone Belt in Quebec, Canada. From 1996 to 2010, Inmet Mining Corporation operated the Troilus project as an open pit mine, producing more than 2,000,000 ounces of gold and nearly 70,000 tonnes of copper.

For more information:

Justin Reid

Chief Executive Officer

+1 (647) 276-0050 x 1305

Justin.reid@troilusgold.com

Paul Pint

President

+1 (416) 602-1050

paul.pint@troilusgold.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements and Information



Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that the Indicated Mineral Resources will be converted to the Probable Mineral Reserve category, and there is no certainty that the updated Mineral Resource statement will be realized.



The mineral resource estimates contained herein may be subject to legal, political, environmental or other risks that could materially affect the potential development of such mineral resources. See the Resources Report, once filed, for more information with respect to the key assumptions, parameters, methods and risks of determination associated with the foregoing.



The PEA is preliminary in nature, includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the PEA will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The PEA is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. See below and the Technical Report, once filed, for more information with respect to the key assumptions, parameters, methods and risks of determination associated with the foregoing.



This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the results of the PEA, statements regarding the impact and implications of the economic statements related to the PEA, such as future projected production, costs, including without limitation, AISC, total cash costs, cash costs per ounce, capital costs and operating costs, statements with respect to Mineral Resource estimates, recovery rates, IRR, NPV, mine life, CAPEX, payback period, sensitivity analysis to gold prices, timing of future studies including the pre-feasibility study, environmental assessments (including the timing of an environmental impact study) and development plans, the Companys understanding of the project; the potential to extend mine life beyond the period contemplated in the PEA, opportunity to expand the scale of the project, the project becoming a cornerstone mining project in Quebec and Canada; the development potential and timetable of the project; the estimation of mineral resources; realization of mineral resource estimates;; the timing and amount of estimated future exploration; costs of future activities; capital and operating expenditures; success of exploration activities; the anticipated ability of investors to continue benefiting from the Companys low discovery costs, technical expertise and support from local communities; and the anticipated timing of filing the Technical Report. Generally, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as plans, expects or does not expect, is expected, budget, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, intends, contemplates, goal, continue, 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, will, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements are made based upon certain assumptions and other important facts that, if untrue, could cause the actual results, performances or achievements of Troilus to be materially different from future results, performances or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Such statements and information are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies and the environment in which Troilus will operate in the future. Certain important factors that could cause actual results, performances or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, amongst others, currency fluctuations, the global economic climate, dilution, share price volatility and competition. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Troilus to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: the impact the COVID 19 pandemic may have on the Companys activities (including without limitation on its employees and suppliers) and the economy in general; the impact of the recovery post COVID 19 pandemic and its impact on gold and other metals; there being no assurance that the exploration program or programs of the Company will result in expanded mineral resources; risks and uncertainties inherent to mineral resource estimates; the high degree of uncertainties inherent to preliminary economic assessments and other mining and economic studies which are based to a significant extent on various assumptions; variations in gold prices and other precious metals, exchange rate fluctuations; variations in cost of supplies and labour; receipt of necessary approvals; general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; future gold and other metal prices; accidents, labour disputes and shortages; environmental and other risks of the mining industry, including without limitation, risks and uncertainties discussed in the latest annual information form of the Company, in the Resources Report (and the Technical Report to be filed) and in other continuous disclosure documents of the Company available under the Companys profile at www.sedar.com. Although Troilus has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Troilus does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Cautionary Note to U.S. Investors Concerning Estimates of Mineral Resources

Mineral resource estimates have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of Canadian securities laws, which differ from the requirements of U.S. securities laws. The terms mineral resource, measured mineral resource, indicated mineral resource and inferred mineral resource are defined in NI 43-101 and recognized by Canadian securities laws but are not defined terms or recognized under U.S. securities laws. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of mineral deposits in these categories will ever be upgraded to mineral reserves. 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. Under Canadian securities laws, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of feasibility or pre-feasibility studies. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource exists or is economically or legally mineable. Accordingly, these mineral resource estimates and related information may not be comparable to similar information made public by U.S. companies subject to the reporting and disclosure requirements under the U.S. federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder.




Portland, Oregon, has had nightly protests since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

On Saturday night, a caravan of supporters of President Donald Trump traveled through the city, clashing with counterprotesters. A man was shot and killed during the unrest.

Here is what we know so far.

What happened in Portland?

Supporters of the president gathered Saturday at a shopping center a few miles southeast of Portland. The caravan of hundreds of trucks then traveled into the city. Most were flying Trump 2020 or thin blue line flags, which are commonly associated with support for the police and often seen as antithetical to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The caravan clashed with counterprotesters at times. People shot paintball guns from trucks and protesters threw objects at them. Some conflicts devolved into fistfights in the streets. A video showed a small group in the street, where gunfire erupts and a man collapses.

Portland police officers heard reports of gunfire shortly before 9 p.m. local time and found a man with a gunshot wound to the chest, police said.

Medical responders arrived at the scene and determined that the man was dead, police said.

Mason Trinca/NYT

Who was the man who died?

The mans identity has not been released.

He was wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group based in the Portland area. The group says it seeks to combat corruption, big government and tyranny, using God for strength and the power of love, according to its Facebook page, which has more than 40,000 followers.

A Patriot Prayer leader, Joey Gibson, said Sunday that the man was a good friend and a supporter of the group, but he did not offer further details.

Do we know who the gunman was?

Police have not released information about who fired the shots.

Police Chief Chuck Lovell said Sunday that we are working diligently to find and apprehend the individual or individuals responsible.

Police said Sunday that they had concluded an investigation of the shooting scene and asked witnesses or those with video of the episode to contact detectives.

What else has been happening in Portland?

Protests have occurred nightly in the city since the killing of Floyd in May.

In recent weeks, right- and left-wing groups have clashed. On Aug. 22, a demonstration outside the U.S. courthouse in Portland turned violent as right-wing demonstrators, including Proud Boys members, clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters. Objects were thrown, paintballs were fired and shouting turned to shoving and punching.

The city is no stranger to demonstrations that devolve into chaos, often stoked by conflicts with police or between opposing groups.

In 2016, protests over Trumps election were marred by vandalism and fires. The unrest was labeled a riot by police, who deployed pepper spray and rubber distraction devices against the crowd.

In August 2018, Gibson led a demonstration that drew hundreds of Patriot Prayer supporters, many from outside the state, The Oregonian reported. Counterprotesters were ordered by police to disperse before officers deployed flash-bang grenades and shoved counterprotesters out of the street.

Last month, camouflaged federal agents were sent to the city, against the wishes of local authorities.

What has Trump said about the situation?

Trump has not spoken specifically about the shooting death in Portland, but on Sunday morning he retweeted a message that said Portland needs to be federalized at this point.

Trump added to the message: The National Guard is Ready, Willing and Able. All the Governor has to do is call!

In another tweet, Trump said the big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected. He called Portlands mayor, Ted Wheeler, incompetent and a FOOL, adding that the people of Portland wont put up with no safety any longer.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
A furious passenger who was on board a TUI flight from Zante that has had sixteen coronavirus cases has claimed the 'inept' crew did nothing as flyers took of masks, amid fears the Greek resort is a coronavirus hotspot.

Stephanie Whitfield, who was on TUI flight 6215 to Cardiff from the Greek holiday resort, claimed the 'inept crew couldn't care less' after passengers took off their masks and mixed freely with friends and families on board.

The flight left all 193 people on board facing two weeks self-isolation and comes amid fears that Zante could be a new coronavirus hotspot.

Mrs Whitfield, from Cardiff, who was on the flight with her husband, told the BBC: 'This flight was a debacle. The chap next to me had his mask around his neck.

'Not only did the airline not pull him up on it, they gave him a free drink when he said he knew a member of the crew.

'Loads of people were taking their masks off and wandering up and down the aisles to talk to others.

'As soon as the flight landed, a load of people took their masks off immediately. The flight was full of selfish 'covidiots' and an inept crew who couldn't care less.'

Stephanie Whitfield, 39, had been travelling with her husband on the flight from Zante to Cardiff when she spotted fellow passengers walking around with no mask

There are fears that Zante could become a new hotspot for coronavirus cases after a surge in Greece

According to Dr Gwen Lowe, consultant in communicable disease control for Public Health Wales, there have been about 30 cases in the last week linked to Zante, and confirmed in people who were on different flights and staying in different locations.

Authorities impose new restrictions on the island of Zante as fears grow holiday destinations could become new covid hotspot Local restrictions have been put in place on the islands of Zante/Zakynthos amid fears of a rise in coronavirus cases. These include:

Suspension of any kind of live events and celebrations such as parties, trade fairs, religious ceremonies, open markets etc.

Prohibition of operation of all food/catering sector-related shops, services and facilities from midnight - 7am the next day.

A ban on gatherings of more than 9 people, either indoors or outdoors;

A limit of 4 people per table in any restaurant, except for cases where the party consists of family members, where the limit is 6 people;

Mandatory use of face masks in indoor and outdoor public spaces. Advertisement

She also admitted: 'These are confirmed positive cases and we're expecting that number to rise.'

The Foreign Commonwealth Office updated its advice for Britons travelling to Zante, or Zakynthos, after an increase in local restrictions to combat the virus.

TUI has defended itself over the claims and insisted that all passengers wore masks and complied with Covid protocols 'for the duration of their flight'.

A statement said: 'The health and safety of passengers is always our priority and we are concerned to hear of Mrs Whitfields claims.

'Our crew are trained to the highest standards and in line with European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) guidelines.

'Passengers are informed prior to travel and via PA announcements on the flight that they have to wear masks throughout and are not allowed to move around the cabin. Masks can only be removed when consuming food and drink.

'A full investigation is now underway as these concerns werent reported during the flight or before today.'

Tourists now face several restrictions on what they can do on the island, including the suspension of live events and celebrations such as parties, trade fairs, religious ceremonies and open markets, as well as the prohibition of all food and catering sector-related shops, services and facilities from midnight to 7am the next day.

There is also a ban on gatherings of more than nine people, either indoors or outdoors, a limit of four people per table in any restaurant, except for cases where the party consists of family members, where the limit is 6 people, and the mandatory use of face masks in indoor and outdoor public spaces.

Several Britons who visited Greece in recent weeks have reported cases of the virus.

Last week, 11 teenagers from Plymouth tested positive for the coronavirus, with up to 30 infected in total after returning from Zante.

Plymouth's director for public health Ruth Harrell said that some of the teenagers went gone on a 'night out in Plymouth's bars and restaurants' before they were aware of the risk.

Greece's current infection rate is 13.7 per 100,000 in the last seven days.

A seven-day rate of 20 Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people is the threshold above which the UK Government considers triggering quarantine conditions.

Parents have been in touch with MailOnline and shared their concerns about cases in Zante.

Phillipa Clarke told Mail Online: 'My daughter and 2 friends flew into Birmingham airport from Zante at midnight on Friday.

'Shes since heard on social media chat that of a group of 11 Cardiff lads they were friendly with, chatted in the evenings, same flights, transfer, hotel and pool, 3 have tested positive, so shes currently isolating. Ill be interested to see if/when we hear from Track & Trace.

'Clearly an issue with Zante, flights and Cardiff. Everything we feared.'

Another woman said: 'I was not on board but my daughter told me on Friday that a number of pupils from Cardiff High School had Covid 19 after returning from Greece. I took no notice of it as there was nothing on the news about it.

'There were at least two groups from this school - one were 18 year olds and the other 17 year olds. My daughter has also been told there was a third group from kids from other schools in Cardiff.

'All groups had been partying out in Zante, Greece and we've been told that some of their parents have caught it. I've heard more from people locally than has appeared in the media.'

Passengers who were on TUI flight 6215 on Tuesday are being considered as 'close contacts' of those who tested positive for COVID-19, forcing them all to quarantine for two weeks.

Seven of the passengers on the flight tested positive at the time of the journey, and a further nine since, taking the total to 16.

However, another passenger, Danielle Loughman, defended TUI and told MailOnline that cabin crew repeatedly stressed the importance of wearing masks and fellow passengers had done their best to maintain social distancing.

She added that Mrs Whitfield's complaints had surprised her and 'it was like we were on different flights'.

Mrs Whitfield said she and her husband had decided to isolate before learning about the positive cases

She hit out at TUI and claimed that the 'inept' crew did nothing to ensure social distancing was maintained on the flight

Mrs Whitfield said she and her husband had decided to isolate before learning about the positive cases and revealed that they have some symptoms of the virus.

She added she was 'more angry' than anything else.

Ms Loughman refuted her claims and said: 'I was on the flight mentioned above near the back of the plane and have family that were at the front of the plane and neither of us had any issues with people not wearing masks.

'The cabin crew repeated several Times throughout the flight that if anyone felt unwell or had Covid like symptoms to report them to the cabin crew as soon as possible.

Get in touch Are you in Zante and concerned about coronavirus? Let us know danny.hussain@mailonline.co.uk Advertisement

'We were told to not queue for the toilet which was adhered too and didnt see anyone chatting in the aisles (if they had I would have complained).

'Whilst I cannot comment about everyone wearing their masks (I was near back so couldnt see everyone) there was definitely not a mad rush to take them off and everyone still had them on as we went through customs as we all had to lower our masks when checking our passports.

'Yes the flight was full but Tui did all they could to advise people of the safety measures in place.

'We are now all self isolating as requested by track and trace. I would never normally email about a story like this but after reading what one passenger has said I cannot believe it. Its like we were on different flights.'

Passengers on board a TUI flight from Zante to Cardiff all have to self-isolate after seven tested positive for coronavirus

She said officials are in the process of reaching all 193 people on the Tui flight.

Another passenger on board, Victoria Webb, told the BBC she had received no communication from any health body since the flight.

Dr Lowe said it is 'very obvious' from the work carried out in Wales that the majority of people do not catch the virus from strangers.

'Yes, you can be unlucky, and you can get it from a random stranger or from a super spreader, but the vast majority of people get it from their workmates, their work buddies, their family, and their friends,' she said.

Asked about whether airlines should be more proactive about telling people to wear masks, Dr Lowe said wearing face coverings 'may help' but pointed out that they are an 'informal measure', adding that it is difficult for airlines to police.

'If somebody is determined not to wear a mask, people often don't know how to wear masks properly, they touch them a lot, they wear them below their nose, they take them off to eat.

'And if you've got Covid symptoms, that will spread Covid symptoms quite rapidly through a confined space such as aircraft,' she said.

Public Health Wales investigations have raised concerns that people in their 20s travelling abroad to destinations such as Zante, above, are showing a 'lack of social distancing'

Dr Giri Shankar, Public Health Wales director, said: 'These passengers will be contacted shortly, but meanwhile, they must self-isolate at home as they may become infectious, even without developing symptoms. Anyone with symptoms should book a test without delay.

'Our investigations into a number of cases of coronavirus have indicated that a lack of social distancing, in particular by a minority of the 20-30 year age group, has resulted in the spread of the virus to other groups of people.'

Dr Shankar added that passengers were being contacted but must quarantine at home in the meantime, as they could become infectious even without symptoms.

No new deaths related to Covid-19 were reported by the public health body in Wales on Sunday, while it said 56 cases had been confirmed.

Today is the third consecutive day that neither Wales or Northern Ireland recorded any Covid-19 fatalities.

Dr Shankar urged revellers enjoying the bank holiday weekend to remember the importance of social distancing.

He added: 'I would make a direct appeal to young people to remember that even if they feel that they would not be badly affected by Covid-19 if they were to test positive for it, if they were to pass it on to older or more vulnerable family members, friends or colleagues it could be extremely serious, even fatal.'

Earlier this week, shocking footage showed three workers in hazmats suits haul a passenger off a Ryanair flight, moments before it departed, after he received a text saying he had tested positive for coronavirus.

The passenger and his travel companion were taken off the plane minutes before it was due to take-off from London and moved to the airport's isolation area, where they were met by health authorities.

Their seats and the overhead cabin bins were then disinfected before the plane was allowed to fly to Pisa in Italy one hour and 40 minutes behind schedule, according to Flight Radar.

The passenger, who has not been named, breached coronavirus quarantine restrictions by leaving their home and boarding the flight.

Ryanair said in a statement that the passenger received a text message minutes before his departure that he had tested positive for Covid-19.

The spokesman said: 'The passenger and his travel companion were immediately offloaded and taken to a Stansted Airport isolation area where they were assisted by local public health authorities.

'Since this passenger and his companion had complied fully with Ryanair health regulations, they were both wearing masks at all times at Stansted Airport and for the very short period (less than 10 minutes) they were seated on the aircraft prior to departure.

'There was little if any risk of Covid-19 transmission to other passengers or crew members as all of whom were also wearing face masks at all times.

'The aircraft departed for Pisa following a delay of 1 hour and 20 mins to allow for the empty seats and overhead cabin bins to be disinfected to comply with all UK health authority guidance. Ryanair apologises to all passengers for this short delay'.

Instructions on NHS England's website warn those with symptoms to stay at home and avoid all travel.

Instructions on the Department of Health website read: 'If you are getting a coronavirus test because you have symptoms, you and anyone you live with must self-isolate until you get your result.

'This also applies to anyone in your support bubble (where someone who lives alone - or just with their children - can meet people from one other household).'

It can take up to 72 hours for tests to be completed to show whether someone has coronavirus.

***Are you in Zante and concerned about coronavirus? Let us know danny.hussain@mailonline.co.uk***
Opposition continues to mount to the unsafe resumption of in-person learning as outbreaks of COVID-19 cases hit schools and universities across the United States. The rush to reopen the schools by the Trump administration, as well as state and local governments controlled by both parties, takes place as infections in the United States surpassed 6.1 million on Sunday, with over 187,000 deaths.

The full scope of outbreaks on public school campuses is not known because state and school district officials have sought to conceal the number of cases and silence educators who have attempted to warn the public. According to tallies kept by educators based on news reports, however, well over 3,000 students and staff members have become infected at public schools that have opened over the last several weeks.

On Sunday night, CNN reported that more than 8,700 positive cases have been reported at colleges and universities in at least 36 states, including 1,200 students at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, more than 1,000 at Illinois State and Illinois Wesleyan universities, and 264 at the University of Dayton in Ohio.

Art teacher Cara Bailey protests the reopening of schools in Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

At Georgia College, with 500 cases and one of the highest COVID-19 rates in the country, students at the Milledgeville campus staged a die-in protest Friday to demand online classes, improved testing and rigorous contact tracing. On Sunday, Temple University in Philadelphia suspended in-person classes for two weeks after officials reported nearly 103 COVID-19 cases. Temple students and faculty members protested on the first day of classes, August 24, demanding a switch to online classes only.

The battle over the reopening of public schools for more than 50 million students has become the focal point of working class opposition to the homicidal back-to-work policy in the United States and around the world. As the Washington DC-based publication The Hill put it Sunday, The debate over in-person K-12 instruction planning is inseparably tied to the issues of child care needs and parents ability to return to the workforce to help revive the struggling economy.

In the nations largest school district, New York City, there is increasing sentiment for a strike to block Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasios plans to reopen schools for 1.1 million students and 135,000 school employees on September 10. The city, which has already had nearly 230,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 24,000 deaths from COVID-19, will open under a hybrid model, with some students taking classes online from home every day and up to 700,000 learning remotely part of the week and going to school buildings for up to three days a week.

Facing the possibility of a revolt from rank-and-file teachers, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is holding a meeting of its 100-member executive board tonight, where it could approve a proposal for a safety strike. If it passes, a Tuesday meeting of the unions delegate assembly, which includes a representative from each of the districts 1,700 school buildings, could vote to authorize UFT President Michael Mulgrew to call a strike of the unions 120,000 members if he deems it necessary.

The UFT and its parent union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), will not conduct any serious fight. Mulgrew and the UFT were instrumental in blocking teachers from shutting schools last March and worked hand-in-hand with de Blasio in downplaying the danger of the spread of the contagion on the very eve of its explosion in New York City. The delay in closing the schools cost the lives of at least 74 educators.

As in other locations where the unions have threatened strikes (Chicago, Detroit) or filed state lawsuits (Florida, Texas, Iowa), the UFT is seeking to dissipate anger and implement a more calibrated reopening of the schools overseen by labor-management bodies, which will supposedly ensure adherence to safety procedures and the provision of sufficient PPE and cleaning supplies.

But there is no such thing as a safe reopening of schools amid a raging pandemic. Because of their higher average age and related health conditions, an estimated 1.5 million teachersone in fourare considered high risk for serious illness if they contract the disease. Because of this, record numbers of veteran K-12 teachers are resigning and retiring, an outcome that is desirable for districts seeking to cut costs.

But hundreds of thousands of teachers, school employees, parents and students are seeking to fight regardless of what the unions are doing. Since the summer, over 100 Facebook groups opposing unsafe school openings have sprung up and organized protests in cities and towns, large and small. Last Wednesday, teachers and supporters in Summit, New Jersey, a city of 22,500, held a sit-in protest to demand online learning. Educators carried signs declaring, I can teach from a distance, but not from a coffin, What will you say when your childs friends and teachers die, and Viruses dont discriminate. Kids are not immune. Schools arent safe.

Last month, the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee was formed as a national network to unify the struggles of teachers, school employees, parents and students independently of the unions and to prepare for a national strike to halt the unsafe opening of schools. A local rank-and-file committee has been established in Duval County, Florida, and more are being set up in a growing number of states and districts across the country.

In a video, the Duval Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee outlined its demands, including transparency about infection outbreaks, protection from retaliation for educators who expose the truth, full resources for remote learning, the upgrading of all school ventilation systems, regular onsite testing, and no loss of income or positions for educators who stay virtual. The committee also rejects the efforts to economically blackmail parents into sending their children to school out of fear of losing their income or their jobs.

We ask for income protection while they stay home while their children learn remotely. Who is going to pay for that? We call for a surcharge on the 52 billionaires in Florida, which pay no income tax. The most ultra-wealthy people have to pay their way too. Through this surcharge there will be plenty of money to pay for income protection for parents, adequate technology for students, renovation of these decrepit schools and their ventilation systems. The money is there! And we demand that it be spent in the right places.

On Saturday, the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee held its second online call meeting, which was attended by teachers from New York, California, Michigan, Florida, Hawaii, Oklahoma and many other states. A report on the meeting will be published in the next few days.

Resistance to the opening of schools is growing throughout the world. In Germany on Sunday, the Socialist Equality Party, together with the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), organized an online rally titled, Stop the school openings! Prepare for a general strike! Hundreds of teachers, students and parents participated in the live-streamed event.

Afterwards, one commented: Schools and kindergartens are currently a breeding ground for this virus, therefore classroom teaching should be suspended during the corona pandemic or only in very small, manageable groups. Teachers should receive more money and also reasonable digital equipment, reasonable internet should be provided to everyone and parents/families should receive comprehensive financial support during this time.

Last week, students in Dortmund, Germany founded a committee at their school to take joint action against the school opening push and fight for safe teaching conditions. Speaking to the WSWS, the founders of the action committee in Dortmund, Jan and Berdan, appealed to teachers, students and parents to take part in the fight against school reopenings and to build a network of committees.

From a moral point of view, what is happening in schools at the moment is reprehensible, Berdan said. More schools and also companies and factories should form action committees to prevent worse things from happening. Jan added, Our committee is open to anyone who agrees that the reopening of schools, as it is happening now, must be stopped.
A teacher at a charter school in Los Angeles, California, said she faced harassment and was forced to flee her home after she wore a pro-Black Lives Matter t-shirt on the first day of classes, The Los Angeles Times reported.

The teacher, who remained anonymous in several news reports over fears of further harassment, said the incident began when a student's father shared a picture of her on his social media and worsened when a conservative personality amplified the post on Twitter.

The school's executive director told the LA Times that the teacher had not broken any school policies by wearing the shirt to class, which was conducted virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"I can't afford to go to a hotel and I can't go home," the teacher told CBS LA. "We can't stay in our home."

In an email to her students informing them of her absence from class, the teacher said she felt the school administration had "abandoned" her.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Students and community members protest in front of El Camino Charter High School to show support a teacher who wore an 'I can't breathe' shirt while teaching a class on Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2020 in Woodland Hills, CA. Brian van der Brug /Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

A high school teacher in Woodland Hills, California, said she was forced to flee from her home after she faced harassment for wearing a pro-Black Lives Matter t-shirt to class and planned to incorporate discussions about social justice movements in her teaching.

The teacher's t-shirt, which she wore on the first day of virtual school, read "I can't breathe," the phrase that has become synonymous with the Black Lives Matter movement against racism and police brutality. The phrase on multiple occasions has been uttered by Black Americans just before they have been killed while in police custody.

Related: Why the NYPD's actual price tag is $10 billion a year

The woman, who was not named in reports by several media outlets, citing fears of further harassment, is an English teacher at El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills, a city in Los Angeles County.

A parent of a student at the school had posted a picture of the teacher, alongside her email address, on his social media accounts because he had been unhappy his daughter was learning about social justice causes in her English class, according to a report from CBS Los Angeles.

Story continues

Then, on August 16, Elijah Schaffer, a podcast host and social media personality, tweeted the photo of the teacher wearing the "I can't breathe" shirt, which resulted in hundreds of threatening messages being sent to her inbox, the teacher said, according to CNN.

"A concerned father reached out to me because his daughter was not being taught English in her online English class," Schaffer, the host of the podcast Slightly Offens*ve, tweeted.

Schaffer did not immediately return Insider's request for comment on Sunday.

The local community has rallied behind the teacher, who said in an email to students she felt "abandoned" by school administrators

"The start of the school year with distance learning has been stressful and traumatic enough, but now this teacher has the stress and trauma of being attacked and harassed with hate speech and threats," Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of the United Teachers Los Angeles union, told CNN. "This is absolutely unacceptable."

According to the Los Angeles Times, the teacher had recently attended a school workshop about how to create an anti-racism curriculum.

"Please let other students know that the school has abandoned me, ironically after we had a whole day of professional development on how and why to create an anti-racist curriculum," the teacher had written in an email to students, according to the LA Times, informing students she wouldn't be in class.

David Hussey, the school's executive director, told the LA Times that the teacher had been employed by the school for more than a decade and that she hadn't broken any school policy by wearing the "I can't breathe" shirt to teach students, though he said the policy was ambiguous.

"We're going to have to reevaluate our policies," he told the newspaper. "We're in a new era now."

He said the school had reached out to the teacher in an attempt to "help her and support her as best as we can," the LA Times reported.

On Wednesday, around 100 students and community members showed up outside of the school to protest in support of the English teacher, according to the LA Times. Also Wednesday, hundreds of teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District wore Black Lives Matter shirts in solidarity with the teacher, the LA Times reported.

"Simply saying Black Lives Matter is not enough: educators and administrators must actively show it in their work in creating and promoting anti-racist curriculum," Myart-Cruz told CNN. "It is paramount that our educators are able to teach these subjects knowing they will have the support and protection of their administration."

The teacher and her teenage daughter left their home due to the nature of some of the threats she received, and after someone had shared her address online, CBS LA reported. She also filed three restraining orders, according to the report, including one against the parent who initially shared her image and against Schaffer, the social-media personality.

"I can't afford to go to a hotel and I can't go home," the teacher told the local CBS station. "My daughter's a ninth-grader starting at this school. She wears a mask. We can't stay in our home."

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Read the original article on Insider
KITCHENER  When Groh Public School students head back to class they will start their day outside.

After finding their teacher theyll each apply a generous spritz of hand sanitizer before classes are allowed to head indoors at staggered times.

Were encouraging families to come to school close to the bell time, said Principal Laura Griffin during a media tour of the school on Monday.

Then they would go straight to their designated area where theyll be met by their classroom teacher at the bell to bring them in.

When classes start it will be more than five months since COVID-19 forced the closure of schools. To prevent the spread of the virus some staff members have worked through the summer preparing for a school year that will look and feel very different.

Through the front doors of the Doon south Kitchener elementary school, large red arrows dot the hallways and stairways. The way-finding stickers create two laneways in the halls, directing students where to go.

Were trying to make sure wherever we can, were practising physical distancing, said Griffin, who is going into her second school year at Groh.

Groh, which opened is 2017, is one of the boards busiest elementary schools with up to 850 students enrolled each year. This year, only about 550 students will be returning for in-person learning, while the rest opted to learn remotely for at least the start of the year, said Griffin.

Were missing their laughter, she said. We cant wait to see their smiling eyes  thats what brings a building alive and thats what a schools all about, is the children.

In the hallways, water fountains have been turned into bottle filling stations and large floor stickers at the bathrooms ensure students maintain distance from one another while lining up outside.

Education staff will be working with elementary students throughout the day to emphasize proper hand hygiene.

The most important thing is that were using the soap and water and were making sure were washing our hands on a regular basis throughout the day, said Griffin.

Inside one of the schools kindergarten classrooms, tiny tables that each seat three are spaced apart. Hula hoops and stickers on the floor mark designated play areas.

Across the hallway, a classroom for older students has its desks spaced apart by two metres.

It has taken a summer of planning to make sure Ministry of Education and public health requirements are met and the school is ready to welcome back students.

It is complex, said Griffin. We have a lot of students but were able to meet the needs of all of those, even at a big school like this.

At Groh, students will get outdoor time at least twice a day, with zones outside to designate where each group of students will go.

Public elementary schools will give each student five reusable masks and additional disposable ones if they should need them, as everyone inside a school is required to wear a face covering.

And if during the day a student gets sick, they will be taken to a designated room and given additional personal protective equipment until a parent is able to pick them up.

Im calling it a waiting room at our school, said Griffin.

The end of the school day will be staggered just like the start of the day. Classes will head outside at different times, so by the time the bell rings all students will be outdoors and ready to leave.

There is no playbook for COVID-19, so were learning as we go and were making the best decisions we can based on the information we have at the time, said Griffin.

Cleaning schools

Over in Ayr, custodian Peter Pagliaro is making sure St. Brigid Catholic Elementary School is clean and ready for the first day of school.

Ive got like 3,000 masks, Ive got sanitizer, Ive got sterilizer, Ive got rubber gloves, Ive got gowns, Ive got face shields, he said last week of recent deliveries to Waterloo Catholic District School Board school.

With help of maintenance workers, sneeze guards are installed in the reception area and touchless hand sanitizers will be placed around the school.

The 59-year-old has been with the Catholic school board for about 12 years and works at St. Brigid as the daytime custodian. An afternoon custodian follows his shift to give the classrooms a clean after students leave for the day.

With classes just a week away, Pagliaro has been helping teachers space desks apart and move out any extra furniture to allow more room for physical distancing.

The teachers are now coming into the school in various times, he explained. We have information that was given to us about desk spacing, about extra furniture, about different things. Everybodys just trying to get oriented and figure out what their next step is in their classrooms.

Touch points such as door knobs and handrails will need extra cleaning. Custodians are also being asked to diligently keep track of their cleaning routines.

Its always, always, always about minimizing risk, he said.

The board has also purchased 10 electrostatic disinfecting units  allowing custodians to go into a classroom and spray it with disinfectant in about 10 to 20 minutes, explained Terri Pickett, senior manager of facility services with the Catholic school board.

The public board also has a number of these disinfecting units, which are meant to complement regular cleaning.

Prior to COVID when we had schools that had outbreaks ... we would sometimes call a company to come in or we would rent these machines, said Pickett.

The Catholic school board has hired 25 new custodians since May and is looking to hire another 20 in the future.

The public board is hiring 80 custodians for the upcoming school year.
Pangilinan to DoH: Honor our health heroes, release their daily COVID hazard pay

ON NATIONAL Heroes' Day, Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan calls on the Department of Health to ensure that our medical front-liners receive their P500 daily hazard pay.

"Let us honor and celebrate our everyday heroes against COVID by paying them their due, and releasing their daily hazard pay is the least we could do," Pangilinan said.

"Araw-araw nilang hinaharap ang COVID, nag-aalaga at nagpapagaling sa mga maysakit, tinitiis nila na hindi makasama ang pamilya, nahihirapan sa commute, at araw-araw ring nakikipagsapalaran sa posibilidad na mahawa ng COVID," he added.

National Heroes' Day commemorates the Cry of Pugad Lawin which kicked off the 1896 Philippine Revolution against the Spanish occupation and the struggle toward our independence.

"May mga nagsusumbong po sa amin na hindi naibibigay ang hazard pay ng mga nurses, medical technologists, at iba pang mga health worker sa ating mga public hospitals. Yung iba naman daw, hindi fixed o hindi buo, merong P150, merong P250, at meron ding P450," Pangilinan said.

"Yung iba, nagsisipag-resign na lang at pumapasok sa call center," he added.

Pangilinan said the law provides for a minimum P500 daily hazard pay for all front-liners, including health care workers like doctors, nurses, and medical technologists.

He cited Administrative Order 26, which pegs the minimum daily hazard pay at P500 and includes all government workers required to report for work, regardless of whether they are regular, contractual, or casual.

Pangilinan pointed out that Bayanihan 1, or Republic Act 11469, in Section 4(d) also provides for a "'COVID-19 special risk allowance' in addition to the hazard pay granted under the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers or Republic Act 7305."

He said the still unsigned P140-billion Bayanihan 2 allocates P13.5 billion for: hiring of emergency "human resources for health," augmentation for operations of hospitals, monthly special risk allowance, "actual hazard pay," life insurance, accommodation, transportation, and meals for health workers.

"Ang dami nang sakripisyo ng ating mga front-liner. Mano bang suklian natin ang kanilang serbisyo ng binibigay naman ng ating mga batas?" Pangilinan said.

"Let's honor our heroes not just with rhetoric but with substance," he added.

In earlier online hearings during the pandemic, senators questioned Health Secretary Francisco Duque for, among other things, overpriced PPEs, test kits, and other equipment, as well as the delay and/or non-payment of benefits to medical front-liners.
CLAM LAKE TWP, MI -- A woman is listed stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries after she was stabbed outside her home Monday morning. According to Up North Live, the 40-year-old victim was outside around 2:15 a.m. when the assailant attacked her from behind and stabbed her.

The woman was unable to identify the suspect who fled the scene in an unknown direction. The type of weapon used to stab the woman is also unknown at this time.

An investigation into the stabbing is ongoing, however police say they do not believe there is a threat to the public at this time.

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G-ray Switzerland, a Neuchatel, Switzerland-based medical imaging and industrial diagnosis startup, raised CHF 2.6m funding round.

The funding enabled the company to close out its Series A funding round at CHF 28m.

Founded in 2014 and led by newly appointed CEO Luis Pallares, G-ray Switzerland SA has filed a number of patents in the fields of radiographic imaging and new semiconductor assembly techniques. The company has developed core skills in monolithic detectors with integrated high-resolution CMOS circuits. These innovations cover a wide range of sectors, including automotive, aerospace and medicine.

Mr Pallares joins G-ray with a wealth of entrepreneurial and startup experience, having founded Spains first streaming service, Addhoc Streaming, Spanish-speaking health related content site Vivir Mejor, and Spains leading digital strategy firm, Nennisiwok.

Most recently Mr Pallares deep experience in technology development, artificial intelligence and digital advertising led him found Plyzer Technologies, a global leader of price comparison technology matched with business analytics and intelligence based on artificial intelligence.

FinSMEs

31/08/2020
Youre an incredible drummer, Grohl said on Saturday. And Im really flattered that youve picked some of my songs to do for your videos. And youve done them all perfectly. ... This is my response to your challenge. So now the ball is in your court.
As Donald Trump wrapped up the Republican convention with his speech accepting the partys nomination, the already intense criticism of his decision to hold the event at the White House reached a new pitch.

And even with the legality of the convention under scrutiny, many onlookers were shocked at just how openly the president referred to the presidential house as evidence of his own supremacy.

This November, we must turn the page forever on this failed political class, he said at one point. The fact is, Im here  he pointed behind him as the audience clapped and hooted  whats the name of that building? But Ill say it differently: the fact is, were here and theyre not.

The line brought him a standing ovation. To me, one of the most beautiful buildings in the world  and its not a building, its a home, as far as Im concerned. Not even a house, its a home.

Precisely what Mr Trump meant by distinguishing between house and home was unclear, but the sheer spectacle of a president delivering such a political address in front of the White House appalled and disgusted many of his viewers.

Trump rubs our noses in the fact hes using the White House as a political prop, wrote Vox journalist Aaron Rupar. He quoted a statement from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington that called the display terrifying, pointing out that history is littered with totalitarians who used their government as political props.

Walter Schaub, a former director of the Office of Government Ethics, said the White House speech "may be the most visible misuse of official position for private gain in Americas history".

Others were more glib. As Democratic senator and former presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar put it: Get off our lawn.

Besides the question of symbolism, the legality of the convention has been called into question. Many critics have pointed out that various of its events may have breached the Hatch Act  a law meant to prevent federal employees from participating in political events while supposedly at work.

Because many White House employees are paid by the federal government, there are questions about whether their participation in simply helping the convention go ahead could violate the acts terms.

After a convention event earlier this week that saw action homeland security Chad Wolf participate in a naturalisation ceremony alongside the president, CNN reported that the Department of Homeland Security itself issued a warning to employees that some of them are prohibited from participating in partisan activities  and that they must make sure to avoid doing so at a time of heightened scrutiny.

The political ritual of Mr Trumps speech, however, dominated the critical reaction to the convention on Thursday night.

Jane Recker, assistant editor of Washingtonian magazine, tweeted a series of pictures from protests outside the White House as Mr Trump spoke. As fireworks spelling out Trump and 2020 lit up the Washington Monument, she reported the reaction on the street: One woman commented it looks like the end of the world.
Shinhan Investment's headquarters on Yeouido, Seoul / Korea Times file



By Kim Bo-eun



Shinhan Investment's prospects of joining the five major brokerages in becoming a mega investment bank have been clouded by its involvement in a scandal involving Lime Asset Management.



Shinhan's brokerage unit not only distributed Lime's trade finance fund, but was also involved in designing the investment vehicle with Lime. Investors have been unable to redeem their investments based on Lime's mismanagement of funds. Lime has been disbanded after its executives were found to have been involved in multiple irregularities. The executives are currently on trial.



The Financial Supervisory Service alleged that Shinhan Investment drew investors for the fund despite being aware at the time of the possibility that investors may not be able to retrieve their investments.



Prosecutors have sought an eight-year prison term for a manager at the brokerage who headed its prime brokerage service division.



Shinhan Investment has denied the allegations raised against its prime brokerage division.



"We cannot accept the part of the FSS' dispute settlement document regarding the prime brokerage division," the brokerage said in a statement last week.



If the court rules that Shinhan teamed up with Lime in covering up mismanagement of funds, as the FSS contends, it will likely pay a heavy price.



The major distributors of Lime's trade finance fund, including Shinhan, have decided to adhere to the FSS' order to nullify contracts with investors of the funds and pay back their principal investments, considering the uproar from investors and to avoid an uncomfortable situation with financial authorities.



Meanwhile, the three other distributors of the Lime fund  Woori and Hana banks and the brokerage Mirae Asset Daewoo  contend that they were unaware of the situation regarding the fund. They are preparing to receive compensation from Shinhan Investment , which they claim shares primary responsibility with Lime for the situation.



Apart from having to compensate other distributors of Lime's funds, Shinhan Investment also faces FSS sanctions that will possibly bar the brokerage from being able to become a mega investment bank, as it had been planning.



The FSS will hold a meeting reviewing sanctions for Shinhan Investment next month.



In the case the authority decides to issue an institutional warning, order suspension of business activity, or revoke Shinhan's license, this will bar Shinhan Investment from receiving regulatory approval to become a mega investment bank for up to five years.



This also applies in the case executives or employees of the firm receive warnings, are suspended from work or advised to be dismissed.



Shinhan Financial Group in August last year issued 660 billion won in capital for Shinhan Investment, to help its brokerage unit raise its equity capital to 4 trillion won. Shinhan Investment also conducted an organizational overhaul in July last year to expand investment banking divisions.



Brokerages need to meet the equity capital requirement of 4 trillion won to apply for a license from the Financial Services Commission to operate as a mega investment bank.



Shinhan Investment had intended on applying for the license before the end of this year.



Shinhan had hoped to become the sixth brokerage to become a mega investment bank. The existing five are Mirae Asset Daewoo, NH Investment & Securities, Korea Investment & Securities, Samsung Securities and KB Securities. Hana Financial Investment and Meritz Securities are also vying for the position.


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As Venezuelas near-nothing oil industry slinks further into nothingness, a new commodity is taking shape in the crisis-stricken Latin American country sitting atop the worlds largest oil reserves: gold.

According to a new study, land in Venezuela is increasingly being used for mining. In fact, according to non-profit Wataniba cited by Bloomberg, land use for mining has tripled over the last 17 months in Venezuela, and that usage is set to increase after in April, the Maduro-led government pegged six rivers in Bolivar that could be used for more gold extraction.

Venezuela has, until recently, counted on its oil revenues to keep the country afloat, but a mismanaged oil industry, crippling oil sanctions, and the pandemic have rendered its once-lucrative industry nearly obsolete.

Gold mining is not new for Venezuela. It has a thriving illegal gold trade that has caught the eye of Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups as criminal elements, violent ones, control numerous illegal mines.

But now, Venezuela is looking to lend a bit of legitimacy to its gold mining business as the oil business becomes more and more difficult. However, this legitimacy has included, according to reports, killing off any opposition to the mining, including back in May the killing of as many as 13 indigenous people protesting the installation of new mining equipment in the Caura River.

In July, the Wall Street Journal reported that the private jet of Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army, had flown to Venezuela to pick up some of this illegal gold for the purposes of trading it for coveted and hard-to-get U.S. dollars, highlighting the likely desperation involved with any industry that could potentially take over for lost oil revenues.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Trump says 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse was trying to get away from protestors and probably would have been killed.

United States President Donald Trump declined an opportunity to condemn a 17-year-old who killed two people during a protest in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, at a White House press conference on Monday.

Kyle Rittenhouse fatally shot two men, Anthony Huber, 26, and Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and wounded a third, after attending the demonstration armed with a semiautomatic rifle last Tuesday. Rittenhouse had said he had come to the city to protect businesses from protesters, according to widely circulated mobile phone footage.

When asked if he would condemn Rittenhouse, Trump appeared to blame the victims for violently attacking the gunman.

He was trying to get away from them, Trump said, and Rittenhouse fell, and then they very violently attacked him.

Trump said the incident was something that were looking at right now and its under investigation but I guess he was in very big trouble he [Rittenhouse] would have been, he probably would have been killed.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany had said earlier of the incident: The president is not going to again weigh in on that.





The statement comes after Trump, on Saturday, dodged a reporters question about Rittenhouse, saying the incident was still under investigation.

Were looking at it very, very carefully, the president said.

There have been nightly protests in Kenosha since Blake was shot in the back by police seven times on August 23, leaving him paralysed.

Authorities have maintained he was reaching for a knife when police opened fire in front of Blakes three children.

Trump to visit Kenosha

Trump has increasingly seized on the country-wide demonstrations, which at times have devolved into violence, in the weeks following the death of George Floyd after a police officer kneeled on his neck on May 25 for nearly nine minutes.

On Sunday, Democratic candidate Joe Biden challenged Trump to condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right.

On Monday, Biden said Trump cant stop the violence, because for years hes fomented it.

His failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows how weak he is, Biden said while delivering a campaign address in Pennsylvania.





Trump is set to visit Kenosha, where the US National Guard has been deployed, on Tuesday, despite warnings from the states governor that the trip would only further agitate the situation.

Trump said he would not be meeting with the Blake family, because they wanted a lawyer involved and he did not think that was appropriate.
The Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Mr John Jabaah Benam, has advised Ghanaian youth not to allow themselves to be used by politicians to foment trouble during the 2020 general election.

He reminded them that Ghana was the only country we could all call home and be proud of, so they should not engage in any unlawful act that would disturb the peace currently being enjoyed.



"May I take this opportunity to advise politicians, especially the youth that we have only one country and that is the only country we have, we have no other country than Ghana; so during the 2020 elections lets think of Ghana first, he said.



Visit



Mr Benam was speaking during a visit by members of the Queen mothers Foundation Ghana, a subsidiary of the Queen mothers Association, who was on a working visit to the region.





Led by their National President, Nana Ama Serwaa Bonsu, the Queenmother for Offinso Kyeraa in the Ashanti Region, the queenmothers, dressed in colourful traditional attires, received a rousing welcome to the region.



Peace and stability



The deputy minister observed that during elections, politicians had the propensity to use the youth to perpetrate and incite violence, a situation which he said was a threat to national elections and democracy in general.



He said instead of allowing themselves to be used for electoral violence, the youth must rather channel that energy into ventures that would help in their personal development and the development of the country.





Also, he said the perception that the Northern Region was prone to violence was false, adding that the negative impressions you get especially on social media about the region is a thing of the past".



For her part, Nana Ama Serwaa Bonsu said the foundation was an arm of the Queenmothers Association, and their visit formed part of efforts by the foundation to promote peace and stability in the country.





She called on the youth not to engage in activities that would create violence before, during and after the elections.





Source: Graphiconline.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
With laptops, mobile phones and tablets as prizes, the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) is organising an online quiz competition next month across 75 districts of the state.

The event to commemorate the 76th birth anniversary of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi is being seen as an attempt to reach out to the states at least 18-lakh young voters, including those who would be voting for the first time in the next UP assembly elections scheduled in 2022.

Open for Uttar Pradesh residents in the age group of 16-22 years, the event  Rajiv Gandhi General Knowledge Competition to be held on September 13 and 14will test participants on their knowledge about freedom movement and schemes launched by Congress-led UPA regimes between 2009 and 2014 at the Centre.

The registrations have already begun through a website. The event will be organised in all 75 districts, Mohit Pandey, chairman social media UPCC, told MoneyControl over phone from Lucknow. The test will be conducted between 3 pm and 7 pm on both days and the results will be announced on September 24.

First prize in each district will be a laptop, second prize a mobile phone and third a tablet. Plus, there will be hundreds of consolation prizes," he said.

Last year in August when the test was conducted offline, as many as 4.5 Lakh youths registered out of which nearly 3.5 lakh participated, according to UPCC office bearers . This year, already 2 Lakh students have registered for the test to be held online. They said representatives from the partys frontal organisations such as National Students Union of India, Youth Congress, Womens wing, etc, have been given responsibilities to ensure maximum participation in the test.

The age-limit of 16-22 years has been chosen to target young voters. Youths who are 16 will be 18 in 2022 and eligible to vote for the first time when UP elections will be held, said a Congress party leader in Uttar Pradesh. In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, UP had 12 Lakh first-time voters. Congresss UP in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is believed to be behind the idea aimed at reaching out to the youth.

The test comprising 60 questions will be conducted for half an hour. The questions will be based on flagship schemes launched by UPA, Pandey said. Questions about freedom movement and leaders who participated in it will also be asked, he said.

Those who register on the website will be able to take the test using their mobile phones or laptops,

Political parties have a history of using modern-day gadgets to woo young voters in Uttar Pradesh. In 2012 assembly polls, Samajwadi Party (SP) defeated Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) riding on a pre-poll promise of distributing free laptops to students who had passed class 12th. Towards the end of its term in 2017, the SP government led by Akhilesh Yadav has distributed nearly 18 Lakh Samajwadi laptops to students. In the runup to 2017 Assembly polls, BJP also promised laptops and 1 GB free Internet data to college students.
Twitter on Monday labeled a tweet from the Trump campaign's "War Room" account "manipulated media" for posting a misleading clip of Joe Biden saying, "You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America!"

Reality check: More context would have shown that Biden was quoting President Trump and Vice President Pence as saying, "You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America," during a speech in which the Democratic nominee was condemning violent protests and Trump's response to social unrest.

Since they have no agenda or vision for a second term, Trump and Pence are running on this, and I find it fascinating. You wont be safe in Joe Bidens America. And whats their proof? The violence were seeing in Donald Trumps America, Biden said.

The big picture: This is not the first time a tweet associated with the president or his campaign has received the label. Twitter has taken a more direct stance in labeling political tweets as misinformation than other social media outlets, such as Facebook, ahead of the 2020 election.

What they're saying:

The Trump War Room later tweeted, "To all the triggered journalists who can't take a joke about their candidate, it's not our fault Joe Biden was dumb enough to say this on camera."

later tweeted, "To all the triggered journalists who can't take a joke about their candidate, it's not our fault Joe Biden was dumb enough to say this on camera." Symone Sanders, an adviser to the Biden campaign, responded to the tweet, "The Trump campaign manipulated a video from @JoeBidens speech today because they could not challenge the content of the speech. This is their game. They cannot and will not compete on the facts."

The state of play: This is the second tweet of the day associated with the president to receive the label.
Calvin Kunin, an emeritus professor of medicine at Ohio State University and a former president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America

Back in 1957, Calvin Kunin was a young doctor on the front lines of the devastating flu pandemic sweeping the nation.

Today, Kunin is a 91-year-old infectious disease expert who warns that doctors battling COVID-19 are making the same mistake that physicians made in the 1950s: over-prescribing antibiotics, which can lead to drug-resistant bacteria and expose patients to dangerous side effects.

In the fight against COVID-19, the antibiotic of choice has been azithromycin, used to treat a variety of infections, such as strep throat, ear infections and even flesh-eating disease  all of which can become resistant to the drug if overused.

Azithromycin is a very, very valuable drug, said Kunin, an emeritus professor of medicine at Ohio State University and a former president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. The excessive use of azithromycin is going to lead to widespread azithromycin resistance.

You remove azithromycin, and what do you have left? he said. I call this the road to medical hell.

President Donald Trump in April endorsed azithromycin as a medication that can clean out the lungs, especially when used with another drug, the anti-malaria hydroxychloroquine. After Trump made his announcement, use of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine  dubbed the corona cocktail  spiked.

Prescriptions of the drug combination increased dramatically  up 539% in one week alone  from mid-March to mid-April, according to IPM.ai, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, subsidiary of Swoop, which provides health care data and analytics.

About the same time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations adverse events reporting system saw an upswing in cases involving azithromycin, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analysis of the database.

For the first six months of 2020, the FDA recorded 415 serious adverse events, including 30 deaths, for azithromycin compared with 140 serious cases and seven deaths for the same period in 2019.

Story continues

In early August, a Journal Sentinel analysis found a 155% increase in reports of serious adverse events linked to hydroxychloroquine during the first six months of 2020. Reports of deaths nearly quadrupled.

Studies have shown no benefit from the combination of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of COVID-19 and have raised concerns about the potential for serious side effects.

Giving the combination to COVID-19 patients with heart problems can be especially dangerous, doctors say, because both drugs can increase the odds of developing a life-threatening arrhythmia.

The number of adverse events reported to the FDA likely represents a substantial undercount. For decades, the agencys reporting system has been criticized for the underreporting of adverse events. Only drug companies must report events; hospitals and doctors are encouraged to report but not required.

It was a rash of serious side effects and deaths caused by a popular antibiotic in the 1950s that finally led to the first efforts to create a drug safety system designed to better capture adverse events.

The drug, chloramphenicol, likely was responsible for more than 1,000 deaths in the 1950s and 1960s, many of them children, said Thomas Maeder, author of the 1994 book Adverse Reactions about the antibiotic.

Maeder said he is not confident at all that the FDAs system today is capable of capturing all of the adverse events linked to drugs such as azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine that have been repurposed to treat COVID-19.

FDA spokesman Jeremy Kahn said the agency continues to monitor drug safety data, including adverse event reports, involving drugs that have been used to treat COVID-19 for which there is heightened daily surveillance.

Azithromycin, introduced to the U.S. market in 1992, has been linked to side effects involving the heart as early as 2012.

A study that year in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at 348,000 Medicaid patients who received a five-day course of the drug, typically for infections of the ear, nose and throat or for bronchitis, and compared them to patients on no antibiotics or different ones. Those who took azithromycin were 2.9 times more likely to die of a cardiovascular cause than those not on an antibiotic. The risk also was substantially higher than in those who got other antibiotics.

The problem was most pronounced for those already at higher risk for heart problems. For them, there were an estimated 245 additional cardiovascular deaths per 1 million courses of the antibiotic, the study found.

Less than a year later, the FDA issued a warning that azithromycin can cause abnormal electrical activity in the heart that may lead to a potentially fatal heartbeat.

In April, the FDA said it was aware of serious heart rhythm problems linked to hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, a related anti-malaria drug, either alone or when combined with azithromycin.

For decades, Kunin has warned about the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria and the perils of giving antibiotics to flu patients. From 1970 to 1979, he served as a professor in the department of medicine at the University of Wisconsin and chief of the medical service at the VA Hospital in Madison.

During the 1957-58 pandemic, which killed 116,000 Americans, Kunin was treating patients at a public hospital in Boston and researching the flu and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The entire Harvard Medical Unit at the Boston City Hospital at the time of the outbreak of Asian Flu.

Flu cases at the hospital poured in, and, as with COVID-19, older patients were more likely to die. Pregnant women and children also were hit hard. A doctor at the hospital got the flu and died, he recalled.

Kunin, 29 at the time, also came down with the flu and was in bed for a week.

I was sick as a dog, he said. If you were living at the time, you were scared to death.

In early April, Kunin and Scott Podolsky, a professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, sent a letter to The New York Times warning of the consequences of the wanton administration of azithromycin.

In the letter, which was not published by the newspaper, they warned that azithromycin, widely known as Z-Pak, was a crucial drug for treating deadly pathogens such as bacterial pneumonia and group A streptococcus, the bacteria that can cause the so-called flesh-eating disease.

The letter was written in response to a feature story in the paper about a country doctor in a New York community of Hasidic Jews who claimed that he treated hundreds of people with COVID-19 and that 100% survived. The treatment, which included azithromycin, hydroxychloroquine and zinc, was quickly picked up and promoted by Trump and his supporters.

Until the combination shows proven benefit in treating COVID-19, Kunin and Podolsky wrote, the prospect of inducing unnecessary antibiotic resistance is yet another reason to temper the presidents unwarranted enthusiasm.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria and fungi cause more than 2.8 million infections every year in the U.S. and 35,000 deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In an interview, Podolsky, a Boston physician who wrote the book The Antibiotic Era, said that early in the pandemic doctors may have prescribed azithromycin because of uncertainty over whether a patient had COVID-19 or a bacterial infection.

We are clearly overprescribing antibiotics, he said.

A study published online July 24 of more than 5,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in New York City early in the pandemic found that 71% got antibiotics, including azithromycin, while less than 4% had the type of bacterial or fungal infection for which the drugs are effective.

The idea of using azithromycin for COVID-19 was based on preliminary French research suggesting a benefit that later was found to be flawed, said Ann Misch, an assistant professor of infectious disease at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Separately, laboratory research showed hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin reduced viral replication of cells infected by the virus, though not azithromycin alone. But, she said, theres a huge chasm between an effect in cell culture and in humans.

She said there is no evidence azithromycin is effective against COVID-19.

If people are using azithromycin, I am sorry to hear that, she said.

Follow John Fauber and Daphne Chen on Twitter: @fauber_mjs @DaphneChen_

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: COVID: Overuse of antibiotics in coronavirus crisis concerns experts
Along with her co-host Piers Morgan, she's been off TV screens since July, enjoying a well-earned rest.

And, on Monday, Susanna Reid shared a bare-faced selfie to Instagram as she prepared to return to Good Morning Britain after her summer break.

The presenter, 49, admitted she was looking forward to having her 'glam squad' back after weeks of going make-up free, as she displayed her natural beauty in the snap.

Barefaced beauty: On Monday, Susanna Reid, 49, shared a bare-faced selfie to Instagram as she prepared to return to Good Morning Britain after her summer break

Susanna, who looked stunning in the stripped back photograph, wrote alongside: 'Last bare-faced day of the summer!

'Tomorrow the Glam Squad is back... and I am SO looking forward to seeing them. See you tomorrow @GMB.'

It comes after Susanna and Holly Willoughby, 39, led the daytime hosts sharing snaps from their time in lockdown ahead of their return to work in September, since taking a step back from their respective shows in July.

ITV's leading ladies joined the likes of Piers Morgan, Phillip Schofield and Lorraine Kelly in a promotional video as they 'adjust to a new normal' before they make a comeback to screens on September 1 amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Glamorous: For her GMB co-hosting duties, Susanna keeps her make-up simple, but for red carpet events she ups the glamour with heavier make-up looks

 Slide me  Getting her glam back: The presenter admitted she was looking forward to having her 'glam squad' back after weeks of going make-up free, as she displayed her natural beauty in the snap

In the video, former Celebrity Juice panellist Holly looked focused as she blowdried her tresses, while brunette beauty Susanna enjoyed a sunny stroll in a protective face mask.

Teasing fans what they've been up to during the COVID-19 crisis, Loose Womens Christine Lampard, Andrea McLean, Nadia Sawalha, Brenda Edwards, Stacey Solomon and Judi Love also feature in social media posts.

'Weve had a hair cut', Susanna said, while Piers and Holly added: 'And a pint. We've been reunited with loved ones' as they detailed their time away from their work duties.

Lockdown fun: ITV's leading ladies joined their fellow presenters in a promotional video before they make a comeback to screens on September 1 amid the coronavirus pandemic

Safety comes first: In the video, GMB's Susanna, 49, enjoyed a sunny stroll in a protective face mask, while her co-star Piers Morgan and Kelle Bryan also donned shields in separate photos

Rounding off the clip, former BBC star Susanna said: 'In a world where everything is different', before her co-host Piers ended: 'Not everything needs to be a new normal.'

During the break, Good Morning Britain has been hosted by Kate Garraway, Ben Shephard, Adil Ray, Ranvir Singh, Charlotte Hawkins and Sean Fletcher, and Christine and Andi Peters filled in for Scottish presenter Lorraine's eponymous show.

Meanwhile, This Morning was fronted by Ruth Langsford, Eamonn Holmes, Rochelle Humes, Dermot O'Leary and Alison Hammond.
3 1 of 3 Courtesy of Zide Door Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Andrea Dawn/Getty Images Show More Show Less 3 of 3





Religion means different things to different people. For the members of the Zide Door Church of Entheogenic Plants in Oakland, it means communing with God through a fog of cannabis smoke and hallucinogenic mushrooms.



Dave Hodges leads the unconventional church, preaching in a pot leaf-patterned robe while his congregation of up to 100 parishioners gathers every Sunday at 4:20 p.m. and smokes communal joints. Hodges elaborates on the teachings of Terence McKenna and shares spiritual experiences hes had while taking up to 30 grams of mushrooms at once, 10 times a typical dose, and enough to make even the most fervent atheist see heavenly beings.



After only a year of existence, the church has swelled to include 20,000 members who come not only to hear Hodges speak, but purchase psychedelic mushrooms and cannabis from the church for home consumption.



That is, until the Oakland Police Department learned of the operation.



On Aug. 13, over two dozen police officers raided the church, with firefighters using a jackhammer to open their safe. VICE reported that they confiscated $200,000 worth of cash, cannabis and mushrooms, following a series of undercover purchases that included a warning from cannabis enforcement officer John Romero in April. According to VICE, the search warrant did not mention mushrooms, but rather identified the church as an unlicensed dispensary.



The district attorney has yet to file any charges, but Hodges is currently considering a lawsuit of his own. For him, the raid was not only a violation of his religious freedoms, but of the city of Oaklands resolution to deprioritize enforcing laws against psychedelic mushrooms.



We operate under a federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Thats what allows ayahuasca and peyote churches that provide plants as part of their religion, says Hodges. Were not different from that, thats what we do. In addition to that, the part of our agreement with members when you join is that you own everything that is part of the church. When youre a member, you are an owner. And under that scenario, how do we sell you anything that you already own?



He considers money exchanged for cannabis or mushrooms to be something akin to dues, which pay for expenses like rent and an armed security guard, which Hodges stated was necessary due to nearby illegal gambling operations and a history of sex work in the neighborhood.

RELATED: Why were dozens of Bay Area cannabis dispensaries recently robbed?



According to a statement given to SFGATE from the Oakland Police Department, the raid was a result of several factors. The Alameda County Health Department contacted OPD regarding an illegal business creating respiratory health issues for nearby children. There were also citizen complaints and increasing violent crimes in the immediate vicinity. When asked about the issue of deprioritizing enforcement of regulations against mushrooms, they responded that the Oakland Police Department does not consider any complaint from a citizen as a non priority.



OPD also takes issue with the churchs status as a for-profit organization.



This is the first for-profit religious establishment Ive seen in my 28 years as an Oakland cop, said Capt. Randell Wingate. I do think claiming religious grounds will draw the attention of the federal law enforcement which is something we do not advocate. The legal cannabis growers and sellers who pay taxes, work with the Oakland Police Department, maintain safety plans, and follow zoning guidelines to respect the community have not drawn attention from the federal law enforcement.



A spokesperson for Decriminalize California, an activist group thats campaigning to decriminalize mushrooms in the state, has somewhat unexpected opinions about the raid. Although they share in Zide Door's mission of normalizing psychedelics and believe mushrooms to be far less dangerous than legal substances like alcohol (if 30 grams won't kill you, no dose will), they don't think a religious defense will be effective.
K-drama becomes even more enticing if the lead Korean actor does a hot shower scene and shows off his amazing physique that truly make us half-open our eyes and squeal in delight. This is why viewers were so blessed to have seen these K-drama actors in their unforgettable shower scenes, as water drizzles and rolls down their muscular figure.

Here's a list of K-drama actors and may they be in your dreams tonight.

Lee Min Ho From "City Hunter"

Lee Min Ho plays Lee Yoon Sung who seeks revenge from politicians who are the reasons for his father's death. His scars show how he undergoes hard training and struggles being an assassin.

Gong Yoo From "Coffee Prince"

Choi Han Gyul, played by Gong Yoo, is a manager of a cafe shop in the classic rom-com "Coffee Prince". He pretends to have a gay lover to avoid being set up in any dating arrangements by his grandmother. This scene was taken right before Yoon Eun Hye's character stumbles into the room seeing his body and marked as their first meeting.

Song Joong Ki From "Descendants of The Sun"

Yoo Si Jin, played by Song Joong Ki, is the captain of the special forces in DOTS. He led his team in their military peacekeeping missions in Urk and left his loved one behind to fulfill his duties.

Song Joong Ki trained hard to maintain a great body in this drama and it shows off with his toned abs in this shower scene.

Kim Soo Hyun From "My Love From The Star"

Do Min Joon, played by Kim Soo Hyun, is an alien that landed on earth with a timeline before he returns to his planet. On earch, he meets a celebrity actress and fell in love with her.

Kim Soo Hyun's unforgettable shower scene shows his six-pack abs, and he looks hot in this one!

Ji Chang Wook From "The K2"

Kim Je Ha, played by Ji Chang Wook, is a fugitive after being accused as the murderer of his girlfriend after he returns from his military mission in Iraq.

Tattoos and great abs just make him steamy hot in this scene, not to mention that the actor can melt your heart in his bad boy aura.

Lee Dong Wook From "Scent of The Woman"

Kang Ji Wook, played by Lee Dong Wook, showers love and care for the woman who is suffering from terminal illness. Here, he truly is the man you want to be with the rest of your life. He is simply mesmerizing, has great body, and loves truly.

Song Seung Heon From "My Princess"

Park Hae Young, played by Song Seung Heon, is in charge of preparing a woman to learn the etiquette of becoming a princess.

Song Seung Heon here just exudes sexiness in this hot shower, too much that we can't handle it!
New Delhi

Against the backdrop of fresh tensions between India and China following a face-off between border troops over the weekend, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Monday it is important for the two sides to reach some kind of equilibrium.

Like every other country in the world, we are very cognisant of the rise of China. We are an immediate neighbour of China...so obviously...you are very directly impacted by the rise of China, he said during an online interaction at the US-India Strategic Partnership Forums (USISPF) annual leadership summit.

Given the long history and culture of the two countries and their population of more than a billion people each, he said: Its very important that they reach some kind of understanding or equilibrium between them.

The modus vivendi between India and China is consequential for both countries and the world, he added, while responding to a question on Chinas aggressive actions around the world and its ties with Pakistan.

The Pakistan-China ties go back to the early 1960s and aspects of it have been of concern to India, Jaishankar said. Obviously, that is something which we factor in in our relationship with both countries, he said.

Jaishankar participated in the online event hours after the Indian Army said it had pre-empted Chinas provocative military movements to change the status quo along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the southern bank of Pangong Lake.

However, he didnt directly refer to the fresh tensions.

During the event, Jaishankar also said Indias growth has to be a lifting tide for the entire region, and there is a need to invest in the countrys neighbourhood and build more connectivity projects. India is making a lot of regional investment for a better integrated and connected region, he said.

India also has an ambitious policy for Africa, where it is opening more missions, expanding projects and doing more business, he said. We need not just a diplomatic footprint, but an economic, technology and security footprint [in Africa], he added.

With the US, India sees a much stronger convergence of interests and much greater ability to work together in the realm of defence, Jaishankar said. This has progressed from joint military exercises to defence trade and procuring US military hardware for Indias armed forces, he said.

This cooperation is not tailored to a particular situation or focused on some country, and is more about the two countries working together to secure the world, he added.

India also sees the path to economic recovery in the post-Covid-19 era as very much focused on ease of doing business, Jaishankar said. The pandemic has also made everyone more digital and brought out importance of resilient and trusted supply chains, he added.

We need in the world today partners who can be depended on even in difficulties. Those are very important drivers of future business between us, he said. The goal of Indias Atmanirbhar Bharat programme is to increase national capacities, including in manufacturing, and this will lead to new business opportunities for the US as global value chains can use the countrys trusted and resilient production capacities, he said.
Given that the credit manager tends to think in the future, this is yet another signal that there may well be better times ahead.

The Credit Managers Index (CMI) from the National Association of Credit Management (NACM) has left pre-pandemic numbers in the dust. The August CMI reached a more than two-year high with a combined score of 56.5.just better than January 2020 and the highest reading since May 2018. This is also the fourth straight month of gains; however, the CMI was in the cellar during the spring months due to COVID-19 and has been climbing back steadily.

Given that the credit manager tends to think in the future, this is yet another signal that there may well be better times ahead, said NACM Economist Chris Kuehl, Ph.D.

All four favorable factors were back in the 60s, with sales leading the way at 65.8, a far cry from the 20 it posted in April. New credit applications and amount of credit extended also sat at 63.4 and 61.3, respectively. While still in the 60s at 61.2, dollar collections dropped more than a point in August. Overall, the favorables were at 62.9, the highest level since November 2018. The data is more than encouraging and seems to signal there is considerable confidence building as far as the end of the year, Kuehl noted.

Meanwhile, the combined unfavorables improved from 51.7 to 52.2, the same as it had been in February 2020. All but one factorfilings for bankruptcieswas in expansion territory, a score of 50 and better. Bankruptcies reverted back to its June level of 47.7 after a slight bump in July. This is not unexpected given the surge of businesses that had been forced out by the lockdown and the very slow process of restarting, said Kuehl. Rejections of credit applications improved a point and a half to 51.5, while accounts placed for collection and disputes sat nearby at 51.6 and 51.8, respectively. Dollar amount beyond terms improved just shy of one point to 58.2. Dollar amount of customer deductions dipped slightly to 52.2.

The manufacturing sector saw much improvement in the unfavorables, but it was the favorable factors that suppressed the indexs potential growth at 56. New credit applications dropped four points to 60.4 in August, while sales (67.2), dollar collections (61.3) and amount of credit extended (58.9) all improved slightly. The favorables altogether dipped modestly to 62. In the unfavorables, rejections of credit applications (52.5), accounts placed for collection (50.9) and disputes (51.7) each improved into expansion territory. Dollar amount beyond terms jumped from 53.7 to 57.8, and dollar amount of customer deductions dropped a tenth of a point to 51.9. Filings for bankruptcies declined one and a half points to 47.9. For the most part, there has been far more progress in manufacturing, construction and even transportation, noted Kuehl. The lockdown has not generally had the same impact on these sectors as has been the case with retail and the services in general.

New credit applications led the way in the service sector, increasing nearly six points to 66.3 in August. Sales improved to 64.3, and amount of credit extended jumped to 63.6. Dollar collections slipped almost three points to 61. The favorables as a whole improved more than two points to 63.8. The general sense is that there has been a balance of some good news on the retail front and less promising activity in other parts of the service sector, Kuehl said. The unfavorables did not have as great a showing in August, declining half a point to 52.2. Rejections of credit applications (50.6) and accounts placed for collection (52.3) improved slightly, but disputes (51.8), dollar amount beyond terms (58.5) and dollar amount of customer deductions (52.5) declined but stayed in expansion territory. Filings for bankruptcies dropped to 47.6.

There has certainly been a period of claw back in the last few months, and that has been more than welcome, Kuehl said. That trend had been expected to slow a little, but thus far, that has not been manifestingat least as far as the credit managers are asserting.

For a complete breakdown of the manufacturing and service sector data and graphics, view the August 2020 report at http://web.nacm.org/CMI/PDF/CMIcurrent.pdf. CMI archives may also be viewed on NACMs website at http://www.nacm.org/cmi/cmi-archive.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CREDIT MANAGEMENT

NACM, headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, supports approximately 11,000 business credit and financial professionals worldwide with premier industry services, tools and information. NACM and its network of affiliated associations are the leading resource for credit and financial management information, education, products and services designed to improve the management of business credit and accounts receivable. NACMs collective voice has influenced federal legislative policy results concerning commercial business and trade credit to our nations policy makers for more than 100 years and continues to play an active part in legislative issues pertaining to business credit and corporate bankruptcy. NACM's annual Credit Congress & Exposition conference is the largest gathering of credit professionals in the world.

Contact:

Michael Miller

Andrew Michaels

410-740-5560

Website: http://www.nacm.org

Source: National Association of Credit Management
25 years ago: French test nuclear bomb in Pacific, setting off protests in Tahiti

NASA image of Moruroa Atoll

On September 5, 1995, the French government launched the first in a series of nuclear tests at Moruroa Atoll in the Pacific. Rioting and protests erupted in the Tahitian capital of Papeete in response, where one-third of the population was unemployed.

The explosion underscored the determination of the Gaullist government of Jacques Chirac to proceed with the nuclear tests announced in June, in spite of large demonstrations on June 29 and July 14including internationallyin opposition.

The day after the explosion, a protest strike and blockade of the airport, called by leaders of the Asia I Mua trade union, was joined by 2,000 demonstrators, mainly youth from nearby shantytowns. Fierce clashes with heavily-armed police led to the stoning of aircraft and the burning of terminal buildings and vehicles. By the end of the next day, 14 buildings and 100 vehicles had been severely damaged following looting in downtown Papeete. The French High Commissioners official residence was attacked, as was the building of the token Territorial Assembly.

The hatred shown toward colonial authorities, wealthy shopkeepers and the police was rooted in the social conditions in Tahiti. The city and the airport were symbols of the opulent lifestyle provided by elite tourism for a small section of the population, both French and Polynesian, as well as Pariss $1 billion annual military budget in French Polynesia. In the slums surrounding the city, thousands lived in wooden shacks with mud floors, and were denied access to jobs, decent housing, schools and other basic facilities. Of a population of 100,000 in the Papeete urban zone, about 30,000 were unemployed.

The rioting was met with fierce police repression. More than 400 riot police and Foreign Legion troops were flown in from New Caledonia and France. They brought to 800 the number of black-shirted troops armed with tear gas, stun grenades, and water cannons. Twenty protesters were arrested and 13 were sentenced to prison terms within 24 hours of being detained.

50 years ago: Salvador Allende wins plurality in Chiles presidential election

Salvador Allende

Socialist Party leader Salvador Allende won a narrow plurality in Chiles national elections held on September 4, 1970, defeating right-wing candidate Jorge Alessandri, who had served as president from 1958 to 1964, and Radomiro Tomic of the conservative Christian Democratic Party.

After the votes had been totaled, Allende, who stood in the election for the left-wing Popular Unity coalition, had 36.6 percent of the vote. Alessandri took 35 percent, followed by Tomic with 28 percent. With no candidate having over 50 percent of the vote, the election was decided by the Chilean National Congress, which would select between the two candidates with the most votes, Allende and Alessandri.

The congressional vote was secured to Allende only after Popular Unity, which included both the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, made major concessions to the Christian Democrats. Allende agreed to sign a Statute of Constitutional Guarantees, promising he would not implement any measures that would undermine the Chilean constitution. This oath committed Allende to not challenging capitalist property relations, thereby betraying and demoralizing the workers and peasants who had voted for him.

Despite Allendes commitment to defend Chilean property and to undermine the revolutionary struggle brewing in the working class, the right wing, backed by the United States through the CIA, began their preparations to overthrow his administration. In fact, the CIA had paid for between $800,000 and $1 million in anti-Allende propaganda even before the election, a Senate committee later revealed.

Just days before Allendes swearing-in as president, Army Commander-in-Chief General Rene Schneider, who had opposed a military coup to oust the new government, was assassinated by right-wing elements in the military who were supported by the CIA. After this initial attempt at a coup failed, the political right and the CIA began preparations for the 1973 coup that would overthrow the government, kill Allende, and replace him with the notoriously brutal dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

Allendes victory in the election can be attributed to his calls for the nationalization of all foreign enterprises and widespread hostility to imperialist intervention in Chile among the working class. But his political role was to hold back the development of a socialist revolution in Chile. Allende called for the establishment of social peace which meant, in the end, the subordination of the interests of the working class to the capitalists and landowners.

Essential to Allendes election and the halt of working-class opposition was the support of the Stalinist Chilean Communist Party. Not only did the Stalinists back Allende as the Chilean road to socialism but they also promoted illusions in the military, which was dominated by the right wing and fascists such as Pinochet, as the people in uniform.

75 years ago: Vietnams independence declared after August Revolution

An image from the August Revolution. Hanoi, August 19, 1945.

On September 2, 1945, the Viet Minh declared Vietnams independence from French and Japanese occupiers, amid a wave of anti-colonial struggles at the conclusion of the Second World War.

The Viet Minh, or League for the Independence of Vietnam, was under the political leadership of Ho Chi Minh and the Indochinese Communist Party. In line with the class-collaborationism of the Stalinists, it included nationalist organizations of the nascent Vietnamese capitalist class.

The declaration followed the August Revolution, during which the Viet Minh had led mass struggles that secured control of a number of cities and rural areas throughout the country, including Hanoi. The independence fighters took advantage of Japans crushing defeat at the hands of the Allied powers the previous month.

Vietnam had been a colony of France since the late 19th century. After Frances capitulation to Nazi Germany in 1940, Japanese troops arrived in its strategically-critical colonial protectorate. For four years, the two imperialist powers would maintain an uneasy truce as they both occupied Vietnam. In March, 1945, Vietnamese Emperor Bao a annulled the agreement establishing French control, after he had reached an agreement with the Japanese.

Over the ensuing months of a period dubbed fake independence, under the dominance of Tokyo, the Viet Minh and other nationalist groupings, anticipating Japans defeat, began preparations for a decisive struggle. When Japan surrendered in August, they launched an insurrection, seizing control of Hanoi on August 19 and most of north Vietnam over the following days.

Ho Chi Minhs perspective, in line with his Stalinist politics, was to maneuver between the rival imperialist powers. He had established friendly connections with the US Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the CIA, prior to the independence declaration, on the basis of a fight against the Japanese. American imperialism was also anxious to prevent its French rival from regaining control of its colonial possessions at the conclusion of the war.

The Vietnamese Stalinists would go on to collaborate with the Allied powers, including the British and French imperialists. When these policies provoked substantial opposition from workers and peasants, they would launch a bloody crackdown, including a murderous campaign against the Vietnamese Trotskyist movement, which had won a substantial following for its program opposing all of the imperialist powers and fighting for the independent mobilization of the working class.

100 years ago: French imperialism creates state of Lebanon

General Gouraud proclaims the state of Greater Lebanon

On September 1, 1920, from the balcony of his official residence in Beirut, the French General Henri Gouraud proclaimed the state of Greater Lebanon under the terms of a League of Nations mandate that gave French imperialism authority over Syria and Lebanon.

The new colonial state was declared in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Arab Kingdom of Syria, the first independent Arab state in modern times, formed by Arab nationalists on March 8, 1920, with Faisal bin Hussein as its constitutional monarch. The territory of the Kingdom included the contemporary states of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and parts of Iraq.

The French, with British assistance, had suppressed the nationalist state by July, and the French army entered Damascus and reasserted imperialist authority.

Greater Lebanon was rigidly divided along communalist lines. The new government apportioned (as it does now) the main political offices to Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Greek Orthodox Christians, and Druze. The communal distinctions were underscored by the fact that Maronite Christian volunteers had fought alongside the French against the Arab nationalists. Nevertheless, as one historian notes, a large part of the population both rejected French control and saw themselves as a part of either Syria or of a wider Arab nation.

The boundaries of Greater Lebanon corresponded roughly to the area that had been promised for direct French rule by the secret Sykes-Picot agreement between the British and the French during World War I to divide up the Middle Eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
Accommodation & food and travel services were the hardest hit, falling by 14.7% and 61.8%, respectively, compared with July.

After more than three months without any domestic transmission of Covid-19, a new outbreak in late July has dealt a strong blow to the already weakened tourism industry, which was only just beginning to recover.

Overall, retail sales and consumer services in the first eight months fell by a slight 0.02% over the same period of 2019.

A breakdown shows retail sales rose by 4% from last year, primarily driven by revenue from food, but accommodation and food services shrank by 16.4%, mostly in Khanh Hoa, Quang Nam and Ba Ria-Vung Tau.

Travel suffered the biggest drop at 54.4% as tours and cultural events were cancelled and many tourist sites were closed due to the coronavirus.

The largest contraction in travel revenues was recorded in Khanh Hoa, Ho Chi Minh City, Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Quang Nam.
AMHERST  The Daily Collegian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has news to cover.

But these days there is no print publication and, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, hardly anyone on campus to pick up a paper even if it were in print. That means the Collegian isnt earning enough in advertising revenue to keep up with payments on an 11-year-old loan from the student government, said Morgan Reppert, the papers editor in chief.

Switching to digital media, you dont make as much as you do with print, she said.

The Collegian has missed payments on the $200,000 loan since February. There is only about $30,000 in debt left outstanding, and the Student Government Association wants it paid off by December 2022.

Last week the Student Government Association froze the Collegians accounts, endangering its continued access to its website, dailycollegian.com. Losing access to the website would leave the reporters without much of an outlet.

Currently, no one on the Collegian staff receives pay.

I think the I staff and I work I incredibly hard to put out a free press and give an outlet to voices that the university doesnt amplify, Reppert said. The coverage we provide is incredibly important.

Members of the student government didnt respond to emails Monday asking for comment.

The Collegian was founded in 1890 and was a daily newspaper from 1967-2018, when it switched to a weekly publication. It stopped printing the paper in March when the university shut down due to the pandemic.

And without a print product, the online experience is even more important as the Collegians staff explore new digital means of presenting its reporting, either with online experiences, social media or podcasts.

Collegian alumni  including the two most recently graduated editors in chief  have ridden to the rescue with a GoFundMe.com fundraising page that raised $5,8000 toward a $7,000 goal in just a few hours Monday.

We, as alumni of the Collegian, are starting this fundraiser to assist with paying down the SGA loan in the short term, so that the staff can focus on what is really important  editorial coverage and holding the University accountable at such an important time, wrote Hayley Johnson, a former editor in chief in the class of 2019 and Amin Touri, editor in chief in the class of 2020. As the University and the student body attempt to navigate back-to-school during a pandemic, the Collegian has continued to provide quality, independent journalism to the campus community.

The SGA at @UMassAmherst is threatening to freeze the accounts of my beloved @MDCollegian unless they make an onerous loan payment during a pandemic, while their entire print operation is suspended.



They need not very much money fast. Please help:https://t.co/fDQUC5VprW  S.P. Sullivan (@spsullivan) August 31, 2020

Reppert stressed that alumni, not current staffers, are behind the fundraiser.

We have seen an outpouring of support from alumni, she said. I think each person who has come through the Collegians doors has an infatuation with the paper and has a great loyalty to it, she said.

According to the GoFundMe page and social media posts associated with it, the issue of the loan keeps cropping up between the Collegian and the Student Government Association.

The issues predate the Collegians coverage of the College Democrats split with congressional candidate Alex Morse, according to the posts. The Collegian broke that story as it has others, including a revelation last year about an accounting lecturer showing students controversial videos.

Reppert said she doesnt know when the print edition will return. But it will not be before the spring 2021 semester, and only if more people are back on campus. I think when our university reaches its new normal, whenever that may be, she said.

Last month, UMass announced that only those enrolled in essential face-to-face classes, including laboratory, studio and capstone courses will be allowed to live on campus and have access to dining halls and other campus facilities. All other students will be learning remotely.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson is calling on fellow lawmakers to urgently act on a proposed legislation determining the line of succession beyond what's currently defined in the Constitution.

In a statement, Lacson lamented Congress's failure to pass a measure extending the line of succession beyond the House speaker, saying a "constitutional crisis is possible" if the president, vice president, Senate president and House speaker perish in any occasion wherein they're all present. He cited as an example a terrorist attack at the Batasang Pambansa while the President delivers his State of the Nation Address.

Lacson, also the principal sponsor and one of the authors of the controversial Anti-Terrorism Act, added "exceptional circumstances" like terrorism "illustrate the need to address soonest" the limitations to the succession line.

Under the 1987 Constitution, the vice president shall act as president should the chief executive die or suffer a permanent disability. If the vice president is unavailable, the Senate president will ascend to the presidency. If he is also unable to do so, the House speaker will.

RELATED: Anti-Terrorism Council won't be 'sole arbiter' in tagging, arresting suspected terrorists  Lacson

The senator's statement comes a day after Quezon City 2nd District Precious Hipolito withdrew the bill's counterpart in the House of Representatives, a move Lacson described as "unfortunate."

On Sunday, the congresswoman withdrew House Bill No. 4062, which aims to give the President authority to pick a successor who isn't part of the constitutional line of succession, after drawing the ire of netizens over the weekend.

"I hope the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes and Laws will immediately conduct a hearing on Senate Bill No. 982, which I filed in August last year - or appoint me as subcommittee chairman, as I am willing and ready to sponsor and defend such an important piece of legislation on the Senate floor," expressed Lacson.

SB 982 provides that in case all four officials are unable to assume the presidency, the following shall do so in this order:

- the most senior Senator, based on the length of service in the Senate;

- the most senior Representative based on the length of service in the House of Representatives;

- the member of the Cabinet designated by the President.

To date, Lacson's bill is pending in the committee, according to the Senate website.

In the United States, the administration appoints one Cabinet member to stay outside the Capitol while the president delivers his State of the Union (SOTU) should a disaster happen.

US Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt was the designated survivor during US President Donald Trump's SOTU this February. Bernhardt is eighth in the United States' presidential line of succession.

Constitutional law expert: Lacson bill allowed by Constitution but

Fr. Ranhilio Aquino, dean of San Beda Graduate School of Law, said the 1987 Constitution allows Congress to pass a law providing presidential line of succession after the House Speaker.

Aquino applied Article VII, Section 8 of the 1987 Constitution in this issue, which states the Congress shall, by law, provide who shall serve as President in case of death, permanent disability, or resignation of the Acting President.

However, Aquino discussed the sensitive nature of such proposal like Lacsons bill as he invoked Article VII, Section 10 of the 1987 Constitution that orders Congress to convene on the third day of the vacancy in the President and Vice President positions to enact a law calling for special elections for the said offices.

The need for the bill proposed by Lacson is that there can be no hiatus in the presidency, which is why we do need such a bill but it is really inconceivable for me, except if you watch television too much, that the President, Vice President, Senate President, and House Speaker all die at the same time, Aquino told CNN Philippines Rico Hizon on Monday.

The constitutional law expert questioned the timing of the Lacson and Castelo bills on presidential line of succession, saying there are more other pressing issues in the country that need to be solved amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Constitution has provided a line of succession. Follow the Constitution, advised Aquino.
The following are arrests the Danbury Police Department reported to have made last week:

A 30-year-old man from New Milford was charged with voyeurism.

A 28-year-old Westville Avenue man was charged with violation of a protective order.

A 31-year-old Orchard Street man was charged with driving under the influence, operating an unregistered motor vehicle, failure to meet minimum insurance coverage requirements, failure to drive upon right and operating a motor vehicle in violation of license classification.

Aug. 24

A 39-year-old man from Southbury was charged with threatening, third-degree criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.

An 18-year-old East Pembroke Road woman was charged with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct.

Aug. 25

A 71-year-old Mill Plain Road man was charged with third-degree criminal trespass, interfering with an officer and breach of peace.

A 56-year-old man from West Hartford was charged with cruelty to persons.

Aug. 26

A 40-year-old man from East Hartford was charged with first-degree criminal trespass and criminal violation of a protective order.

A 20-year-old woman from New Milford was charged with sixth-degree larceny.

A 29-year-old man from Bedford, N.Y., was charged with breach of peace.

Aug. 27

A 35-year-old man from Cold Spring, N.Y., was charged with disorderly conduct.

A 50-year-old Nabby Road woman was charged with failure to respond to infraction.

A 63-year-old Second Avenue man was charged with illegal sexual contact and fourth-degree sexual assault.

Aug. 28

A 43-year-old Staples Street woman was charged with third-degree criminal mischief and breach of peace.

A 51-year-old man from New Milford was charged with third-degree assault and breach of peace.

Aug. 29

A 24-year-old Comstock Street man was charged with breach of peace and failure to respond to payable violation.

A 40-year-old Tamarack Avenue man was charged with third-degree assault and breach of peace.

A 43-year-old Oldtown Road woman was charged with sixth-degree larceny.
T he rush for a coronavirus vaccine could make the pandemic worse if the first one rolled out around the world has low effectiveness, scientists have warned.

Politicians and companies are racing to be the first to license a vaccine.

But Professor Sir Richard Peto of Oxford University said it would be safer to wait for results showing a vaccine has at least 30-50 per cent effectiveness before widespread use.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) adviser told the Guardian that the first vaccine to be licenced would be bought and used all over the world even if it had low efficacy.

He told the publication that it would then be regarded as the standard by which other vaccines would be measured.

I think theres a big rush, a somewhat nationalistic rush and also somewhat capitalistic rush as well, to be absolutely first to register a vaccine, and it will actually make it more difficult to evaluate other vaccines, he said.

Coronavirus hits the UK - In pictures 1 /81 Coronavirus hits the UK - In pictures A deserted Westminster Bridge PA A man wearing a face mask or covering due to the COVID-19 pandemic, walks past customers sat outside a restaurant AFP via Getty Images Boris Johnson addresses the nation on the Coronavirus lockdown Andrew Parsons Runners pass cardboard cutouts of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William during the London Marathon in London AP An empty escalator at Charing Coss London Underground tube station Jeremy Selwyn Electronic bilboards displays a message warning people to stay home in Sheffield PA A sign is displayed in the window of a student accommodation building following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Mancheste Reuters People take part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square, organised by Stop New Normal, to protest against coronavirus restrictions, in Londo AP People sing and dance in Leicester Square on the eve on the 10PM curfew Reuters Hearts painted by a team of artists from Upfest are seen in the grass at Queen Square, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Bristol Reuters Graffiti reads 'good luck and stay safe', as the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases grow around the world, under a bridge in London Reuters A sign is pictured in Soho, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London Reuters Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures, during a coronavirus briefing in Downing Street, London AP A person runs past posters with a message of hope, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in Manchester REUTERS Riot police face protesters who took part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square, organised by Stop New Normal, to protest against coronavirus restrictions in London AP An image of The Queen eith quotes from her broadcast to the UK and the Commonwealth in relation to the Coronavirus epidemic are displayed on lights in London's Piccadilly Circus PA Military vehicles cross Westminster Bridge after members of the 101 Logistic Brigade delivered a consignment of medical masks to St Thomas' hospital Getty Images Durdle Door in Dorset Reuters Captain Tom Moore via Reuters Mia, aged 8, and Jack, aged 5, take part in "PE with Joe" a daily live workout with Joe Wicks on Youtube to help kids stay fit who have to stay indoors due to the Coronavirus outbreak PA An NHS worker reacts at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital during the Clap for our Carers campaign in support of the NHS Reuters Goats which have taken over the deserted streets of Llandudno @AndrewStuart via PA Tobias Weller PA Novikov restaurant in London with its shutters pulled down while the restaurant is closed London Landscapes: Hyde Park and the Serpentine, central London. Matt Writtle A newspaper vendor in Manchester city centre giving away free toilet rolls with every paper bought as shops run low on supplies due to fears over the spread of the coronavirus PA Theo Clay looks out of his window next to his hand-drawn picture of a rainbow in Liverpool, as the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continue Reuters A young man cuts another man's hair on top of a closed hairdresser in Oxford Reuters General view of the new NHS Nightingale Hospital, built to fight against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London via Reuters Jason Baird is seen dressed as Spiderman during his daily exercise to cheer up local children in Stockport, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues Reuters A woman wearing a face mask walks past Buckingham Palace Getty Images A man holds mobile phone displaying a text message alert sent by the government warning that new rules are in force across the UK and people must stay at home PA Medical staff on the Covid-19 ward at the Neath Port Talbot Hospital, in Wales, as the health services continue their response to the coronavirus outbreak. PA Prime Minister Boris Johnson taking part in a virtual Cabinet meeting with his top team of ministers PA A shopper walks past empty shelves in a Lidl store on in Wallington. After spates of "panic buying" cleared supermarket shelves of items like toilet paper and cleaning products, stores across the UK have introduced limits on purchases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have also created special time slots for the elderly and other shoppers vulnerable to the new coronavirus. Getty Images People on a busy tube train in London at rush hour PA Mia, aged 8 and her brother Jack, aged 5 from Essex, continue their school work at home, after being sent home due to the coronavirus PA Children are painting 'Chase the rainbows' artwork and springing up in windows across the country Reuters Social distancing in Primrose Hill Jeremy Selwyn A general view of a locked gate at Anfield, Liverpool as The Premier League has been suspended PA Homeless people in London AFP via Getty Images A piece of art by the artist, known as the Rebel Bear has appeared on a wall on Bank Street in Glasgow. The new addition to Glasgow's street art is capturing the global Coronavirus crisis. The piece features a woman and a man pulling back to give each other a kiss PA The Queen leaves Buckingham Palace, London, for Windsor Castle to socially distance herself amid the coronavirus pandemic PA A general view on Grey street, Newcastle as coronavirus cases grow around the world Reuters Matt Raw, a British national who returned from the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan in China, leaves quaratine at Arrowe Park Hospital on Merseyside PA Britain's Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty (L) and Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance look on as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks during a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) news conference inside 10 Downing Street Reuters The ticket-validation terminals at the tram stop on Edinburgh's Princes Street are cleaned following the coronavirus outbreak. PA Locked school gates at Rockcliffe First School in Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear PA A sign at a Sainsbury's supermarket informs customers that limits have been set on a small number of products as the number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases grow around the world Reuters Jawad Javed delivers coronavirus protection kits that he and his wife have put together to the vulnerable people of their community of Stenhousemuir, between Glasgow and Edinburgh AFP via Getty Images A sign advertising a book titled "How Will We Survive On Earth?" Getty Images A man who appears to be homeless sleeping wearing a mask today in Victoria Jeremy Selwyn A pedestrian walks past graffiti that reads "Diseases are in the City" in Edinburgh AFP via Getty Images Staff from The Lyric Theatre, London inform patrons, as it shuts its doors PA A quiet looking George IV Bridge in Edinburgh PA A quieter than usual British Museum Getty Images A racegoer attends Cheltenham in a fashionable face mask SplashNews.com A commuter wears a face mask at London Bridge Station Jeremy Selwyn A empty restaurant in the Bull Ring Shopping Centre Getty Images A deserted Trafalgar Square in London PA Passengers determined to avoid the coronavirus before leaving the UK arrive at Gatwick Airport Getty Images

We do need a vaccine that works and we need it soon, Mr Peto said, but added that we really do need quite strong evidence of efficacy.

It comes after the UK Government announced on Friday that it would take emergency powers to push any vaccine through the regulatory processes.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump said he wants to announce that the US has a vaccine before the November 3 presidential election.

The WHOs Solidarity Vaccines Trial Expert Group, of which Mr Peto is a member, said in the Lancet medical journal last week that a vaccine with low effectiveness would be worse than no vaccine.

This would partly be because people who had it would assume they were no longer at risk and stop social distancing.

They said: Deployment of a weakly effective vaccine could actually worsen the Covid-19 pandemic if authorities wrongly assume it causes a substantial reduction in risk, or if vaccinated individuals wrongly believe they are immune, hence reducing implementation of, or compliance with, other Covid-19 control measures."

They urged all regulators to stick to the WHOs guidance, which says that no vaccine that is less than 30 per cent effective should be approved.
Forty years ago, Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School in Viroqua was founded by a small group of families looking for a simpler life in the rural valleys and ridges that surround Viroqua and environs. Their vision was to build a child-centered educational community that reflected the values they held dear: reverence for life, for learning, and the children themselves.

From its humble beginnings as a one-room schoolhouse with three students and one teacher, Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School has grown to serve over 130 children in early childhood through eighth grade.

Pleasant Ridge Waldorf Schools milestone anniversary year coincides with the centennial celebration of Waldorf Education worldwide. Waldorf schools offer a developmentally appropriate, experiential, joyful, and academically rigorous approach to education, integrating the arts in all academic disciplines.

The first Waldorf school was founded in Stuttgart, Germany. Today there are Waldorf schools on every continent and over 1,100 Waldorf schools and almost 2,000 Waldorf kindergartens in some 80 countries around the globe.

Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School will culminate its yearlong festivities with a live, online dinner and celebration Saturday, Sept. 12, from 6 to 8 p.m. via Zoom. The celebration, initially planned for late March, was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The move to a virtual celebration was a relatively easy one, a unanimous decision made by the 40th anniversary planning committee co-chairs, Martha Karlstad, Jen Wade, Shelly Brenneman, and Robin Kottke.

We really couldnt fathom postponing the event yet again; we have so much to celebrate, said Robin Kottke, PRWS development director, and event co-chair. We are profoundly grateful for the many students, families, teachers, neighbors, and community partners that have helped build up this gem of a school and community. As lovely as it would be to gather together in person, our focus is on the celebration and joy this milestone deserves, as well as the beloved community that has made it possible. By moving to a live, virtual event, the celebration is now accessible to our entire community, near and far. And who doesnt need a little certainly right now, as well as some celebration and joy? Come what may, this party is on!

All are welcome, and celebrants may choose from two ticket options: without dinner (free) or with dinner ($50) All tickets must be reserved in advance and are available online at https://pleasantridgewaldorf.org/our-school/40th-anniversary/

Local chef Dani Lind of Rooted Spoon Culinary Kitchen has created a multi-course dinner menu of locally sourced, organic food. Meals will be individually boxed and available for curbside pick-up at the school on the day of the event.

Featured guest speakers include PRWS alumnus Maggie Welch (PRWS Class of 2000), PRWS Board President Joe Lenarz, and PRWS Faculty Chair Aaron Schmidt. A highlight of the evening will be a tribute to Mary Christenson, who will be honored for 25-plus years of service to PRWS. Mary served as development director from 1995 until her retirement in 2018 and continues to serve on the PRWS Board of Directors.

Participants will also enjoy live music, a video montage of scenes and memories from the last 40 years, as well as a virtual school tour.

Sponsors of the event include Organic Valley, Organic Prairie, and Wisco Pop!

Visit www.pleasantridgewaldorf.org or contact Robin Kottke, development director, at 637-8504 or robin@pleasantridgewaldorf.org for more information.

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New Delhi:

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned the use of disposal of plastics in Delhi and NCR on Friday to come to force from January 1st 2017.

The bench was headed by NGT Chairperson Swatanter Kumar gave directions for the enforcement of the ban.

A bench headed by NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar, however, refused to shut down the Okhla waste-to-energy plant and issued a slew of directions for its eco-friendly operation along with two other plants at Gazipur and Bhalswa.

"We direct that the Okhla plant shall continue to operate subject to the order of the tribunal... All the corporations, DDA and other public authorities including NCT of Delhi are directed to take immediate steps for reduction and utilisation of dumped waste," the bench said.

Also Read: NGT bans disposable plastic in Delhi-NCR, refuses to shut down Okhla plant

Referring to the three dumping sites in Delhi -- Okhla, Gazipur and Bhalswa, the tribunal said, "Each of these sites is a depiction of mess that can be created for environment and health of people of Delhi."

It said, "We direct that use of disposable plastic is prohibited in entire NCT of Delhi. The Delhi government shall take steps for storage and use of plastic materials with effect from January 1, 2017."

The bench also constituted a joint inspection team comprising member secretaries of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), A senior scientist of the ministry of environment and forests along with an IIT Delhi professor, be nominated by the IIT director, directing it to file its report within six weeks and supervise and visit the plants once in two months.

The directions came on a plea filed by Sukhdev Vihar Residents Welfare Association praying for closure of waste-to-energy plant alleging that it uses illegal mass burning technology which causes air pollution.

The bench, while directing the plants to "strictly follow" the prescribed norms provided in the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act and the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016, said they will be fined Rs five lakh for non-compliance of directions and each pollution incident.

It also said that an environment compensation of Rs 10,000 will be imposed on the vegetable vendors and slaughter houses for throwing garbage in public places.

It directed the Delhi government to make operational the Shastri Park Waste Disposal Plant in six weeks after DPCC said it required an environmental clearance.

The government has also been asked to include a condition in all tenders for construction work that they will use the waste materials released by the plants for road construction.

(With PTI Input)

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The Saudi-led coalition, fighting a multifaceted war in Yemen, reportedly intercepted and destroyed a remotely-controlled bomb-laden boat in the south of the Red Sea on August 30. Coalition spokesperson Colonel Turki al-Malki said that the Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) was launched by Iran-backed Houthis from Yemens port city of Hodeidah, according to Saudis state news agency SPA.

The spokesperson reportedly accused Houthi militants of blatant violation of the international humanitarian law and the Stockholm Agreements ceasefire provisions. According to the SPA, the Joint Forces Command of the coalition claimed that the Houthis are using the port city as a ballistic-missile, bomb-laden UAV, USV launch site, and a point of indiscriminate deployment of naval mines.

The Joint Forces Command of the Coalition will continue to implement all rigorous, deterrent measures against this terrorist militia, and neutralize, destroy such capabilities that pose a threat to regional and international security, the spokesperson was quoted as saying.

Read: United Nations, Huthi Rebels At Impasse Over Stranded Oil Tanker Off Yemen Coast

Read: UN Chief 'deeply Concerned' Over Environmental Threat Posed By Stricken Oil Tanker Off Yemen Coast

Civil war

Yemen has been marred with internal conflicts for years in which the factions are backed by external forces like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE intervened in the conflict on request of former Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and the continued fighting has caused disproportionate suffering for the civilians.

Over 100,000 people have lost their lives in the ongoing civil war and millions depend on international food aid, making it one of the biggest humanitarian crises. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had made an appeal for an immediate global ceasefire fearing a collapse of health systems in war-ravaged countries amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

On April 27, Yemens Southern Transitional Council (STC) declared a state of emergency in Aden and said that it would "self-govern" the key southern port city and other southern provinces. The tensions soared after authorities in five southern provinces rejected the group's claim to self-rule. Later in June, STC seized control of Socotra, a Yemeni island in the Arabian Sea, escalating the tensions between the rival groups.

Read: UNESCO-listed Old Sanaa Houses Collapse In Heavy Rainfall In Yemen

Read: Yemen Houthi Rebels Claim Fighters Shot Down A US-made Drone
A sign advertising up to 10 pounds off for food and non-alcohol drinks outside a pub, in London, Britain, on Aug. 3, 2020. (Lily Zhou/The Epoch Times)

Britons Urged to Keep Dining Out as Public-Funded Half-Price Meals Scheme Ends

As a popular taxpayer-funded scheme giving UK restaurant customers half-price meals comes to an end on Monday, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak urges Britons to keep dining out.

Launched on Aug. 3, Eat Out to Help Out is a government scheme to help struggling restaurants get back on their feet after the hospitality industry took a huge hit due to lockdown measures to curb the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

Throughout August, UK restaurant-goers enjoyed up to 10 pounds ($13) off per person on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays at participating venues.

A server carries food past a sign promoting the British governments Eat Out to Help Out scheme to get consumers spending again, outside a restaurant in Manchester, northwest England, on Aug. 3, 2020. (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

By Aug. 23, 64 million meals had been eaten under the scheme, claiming 336 million pounds ($450 million) in discounts from HM Treasury.

The chancellor thanked people in Britain for the success of the scheme.

I want to say thank you to the diners who have fallen back in love with their local, to the managers who have spent weeks ensuring their restaurants were safe and to the chefs, waiters, and waitresses across the country who have worked tirelessly, sometimes with more customers than theyve ever had beforeall helping to protect 1.8 million jobs in the hospitality sector, Sunak said in a statement.

He urged people to keep their patronage going in the future.

The scheme reminded us why we as a nation love dining out and I urge diners to maintain the momentum to help continue our economic recovery, Sunak said.

Selina, the manager at a West London branch of a popular Vietnamese food chain, Pho, told The Epoch Times that the number of their customers doubled or even tripled on the Eat Out to Help Out days.

Customers queuing outside a restaurant on the last day of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which pays for half of their restaurant bills, in London, on Aug. 31, 2020. (Sharon Hsu/The Epoch Times)

Initially when the scheme was launched, we didnt know what to expect really. So our first week of doing it, it was busier, and we were like, okay, this is actually helping, Selina said.

As the weeks progressed, it kept getting busier and busier. The last two weeks weve actually had our record sales for the week. So it definitely helped out massively.

Between the stimulus scheme winding down, children going back to school, and people having less money due to the economic impact of the CCP virus pandemic, Selina said she doesnt know if the momentum will sustain.

Its all a bit of a guessing game really at the moment.  I do expect it to be quieter, but I dont know by how much.

Honour Cann, an assistant manager at a city centre restaurant in Nottingham, said it was like Christmas on Mondays through Wednesdays, with the number of customers on an average day tripling what it was in July and people ordering more than what they would normally eat.

She, too, expects it to be quieter in September.

I think we will get quieter definitely.  people who wouldnt normally eat out are eating out to take advantage of the offer. I dont think they will continue to eat out, Cann told The Epoch Times.

Unlike Pho, Canns restaurant also does breakfast, which serves the needs of local students. Cann thinks this may compensate for some of the drop.

I think  with the students coming back, that will help the business, she said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed a national lockdown in March, and the Treasury said on Monday around 80 percent of hospitality firms stopped trading in April, with 1.4 million workers furloughed, the highest of any sector.

Sharon Hsu and Reuters contributed to this report.
CenturyLink, a US Internet service provider, experienced a significant technical breakdown on Sunday (Aug 30) following a network misconfiguration in one of its data centres.

The error spread outward from the company's network mainly because of the technical nature of the outage that involves both firewall and BGP routing. It even affected other Internet service providers, resulting in several more businesses experiencing communication issues.

OpenDNS, NameCheap, Imperva, Duo Security, Hulu, Reddit, Discord, Steam, Microsoft (Xbox Live), Blizzard, EA, Twitter, Amazon, and many more are on the list big names in the tech sector who had services going down today amid the CenturyLink outage.

Cloudflare, which has also been seriously affected today, said the CenturyLink Outage has resulted in a 3.5 per cent decrease in global Internet traffic, making this one of the largest internet outages ever reported.

"This was a significant global Internet outage," said Matthew Prince, co-founder & CEO of Cloudflare, in his analysis of the outage.

Outage Cause: Erroneous Flowspec Notification

The problem originated from CenturyLink's data centre in Mississauga, a town near Ontario, Canada, according to a status page on CenturyLink.

The company blames the incident on erroneous Flowspec notification. Flowspec is a BGP protocol extension that enables businesses to spread firewall rules across their network using BGP routes. Typically, flowspec notifications are applied to deal with security threats like DDoS Attacks or BGP hijacks or as it enables businesses to adjust their whole network in seconds to respond and prevent attacks.

Today, however, CenturyLink said its data centre at Mississauga has sent out an erroneous Flowspec notification that effectively mitigated rooting of their BGP routes.





The root cause of the @CenturyLink outage appears to be related to a Flowspec rule.

(flowspec is a way to quickly distribute network ACLs via BGP) pic.twitter.com/7jCRbcJN9r  Andree Toonk, Adelante! (@atoonk) August 30, 2020

BGP routes are a kind of message that internet companies transmit amongst themselves. They tell any internet provider which portion of IP addresses is on their network. They act like the glue which holds up the internet.

Unfortunately, as the erroneous Flowspec order from CenturyLink caused some of the routers within its network to break down, some of which even started announcing flawed BGP routes to other neighbouring internet service called "Tier 1."

Consequently, it brought a domino-like impact on other networks.

Outage status

By taking the unusual step of asking all other Tier 1 internet providers to de-peer, CenturyLink solved the problem and avoided all traffic from its network. Companies seldom make such decisions, since this leads to a complete loss of connection for every customer.

Overall, from about 12:13 UTC to 18:58 UTC, CenturyLink was forced to reset every equipment and begin with clean BGP routing tables. It took nearly seven hours to complete the process.





 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The coronavirus may cause men's testicles to swell and impair their ability to have children, doctors have warned.

More than a dozen symptoms of Covid-19 have been reported since the pandemic began, including a dry cough, fever and loss of taste or smell.

But medics in the US have told men to be extra vigilant of the virus after a 37-year-old patient was taken to A&E with swelling and 'discomfort' in his scrotum.

The patient had already been suffering from the more common signs of Covid, including a cough and fever, for a week prior to going to hospital.

Doctors from the San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium in Texas said the virus had damaged his spermatocytes, which keep sperm healthy.

They warned the damage caused by Covid-19 could have 'a future impact on male fertility'.

Similar reports of testicular pain in Covid-19 patients have been reported previously but there has been no real research into the link.

The coronavirus may cause men's testicles to swell and impair their ability to have children, doctors have warned

Doctors who treated him believe the virus entered the body using ACE2 receptors on Leydig cells, which are present in the testes.

Writing in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, they admit that such cases are rare.

Coronavirus may be spread by SEX: Study finds the killer virus in semen samples from men recovering from the illness Coronavirus could be spread through sex, experts now fear after they detected the infection in the semen of recovering men. Researchers in China analysed semen samples from 38 men who tested positive for COVID-19. Some had recovered while others were infectious. One in six had traces of the coronavirus in their semen - including those who were no longer sick. Top infectious disease experts admitted the findings were 'not surprising' because viruses such as Zika and Ebola are present in semen samples. The Chinese study did not prove that the virus could be transmitted through sex - it only suggested it was a possibility. But the finding prompted the team to warn that abstaining from sex while infected - and during recovery - would likely be a wise decision until the truth is uncovered. Advertisement

But they hope raising awareness about them will help other medics 'identify this disease at the earliest junction and trigger appropriate treatment, quarantine, and fertility follow-up.'

The patient spent a night in hospital before being discharged and prescribed antibiotics and painkillers.

His pain is said to have eased slightly but the case report did not say whether his condition improved in the weeks after.

It comes after a study by two US doctors in April suggested men were more likely to find it harder to fight off Covid-19 because of the way the virus enters their testes.

When Covid-19 enters the body it binds with cells expressing the ACE2 protein, or angiotensin converting enzyme 2.

These are found in the lungs, heart and intestines. In men the protein is also found in large quantities in the testes whereas, in women, very small amounts are found in ovarian tissue.

In the UK alone men are dying from the disease at twice the rate of women, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The study, carried out by researchers in New York and Mumbai, followed 48 men and 20 women living in Mumbai who had been infected by coronavirus.

While the women in the study took four days to clear the infection men took 50 per cent longer, needing six days.

In three families that took part in the study men also took longer than women to recover from coronavirus.

Dr Aditi Shastri, an oncologist at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, carried out the study with her mother Jayanthi Shastri, a microbiologist at the Kasturba Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Mumbai.

But British scientists have previously poured cold water on the theory.

Professor Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading, said the coronavirus would need to travel in the bloodstream to reach the testes, which is 'not generally' what the virus does.

'The main site of virus replication is the respiratory tract and to reach other sites the virus should have to travel in the bloodstream. This has been reported for the virus but it is not generally what coronaviruses do.

'Men generally do worse than women in immunological outcomes, possibly the result of only one X chromosome, and I think that this imbalance is more likely behind the differences seen.'

Professor of Molecular Virology at the University of Nottingham Jonathan Ball said that a separate study had found no coronavirus in the semen of sufferers, suggesting it wasn't an 'important reservoir' for coronavirus.

'In a different study, which again was a preprint and so not peer-reviewed, a small number of males had their semen tested for the presence of the coronavirus while they were recovering from the virus,' he said.

'There was also a sample of testes from another patient that had unfortunately died. None of the samples tested positive for the presence of the virus, suggesting that the male genital tract wasnt an important reservoir for the virus.'
Mayor Robert Vlaisavljevich in Eveleth, Minn., a small northern Minnesota mining town with a population of roughly 3,700, on Oct. 2, 2018. (Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)

6 Democratic Mayors in Minnesota Endorse Trump for Reelection

Six Democratic mayors in Minnesota on Aug. 28 announced that they will vote for President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 presidential election, stating that they believe Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has shown a lack of support for Americas working class.

The six mayors from the swing states Iron Range said in an Aug. 28 letter (pdf) that after decades of voting for Democrats, they now formally endorse the re-election of President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

The letter was signed by mayors Larry Cuffe of Virginia, Chris Swanson of Two Harbors, John Champa of Chisholm, Robert Vlaisavljevich of Eveleth, Chuck Novak of Ely, and Andrea Zupancich of Babbitt.

The group cited job losses in the thousands in their iron-mining region as one of the reasons they are now endorsing Trump in the upcoming election.

Generations of young people have left the Iron Range in order to provide for their families with good-paying jobs elsewhere, they said.

We have watched as our constituents jobs left not only the Iron Range, but our country. By putting tariffs on our products and supporting bad trade deals, politicians like Joe Biden did nothing to help the working class, the letter states.

The mayors claimed that the Democratic Party has been moved so far to the left to the point that it is unrecognizable.

It [the Democratic Party] can no longer claim to be advocates of the working class, the mayors continued. The hard-working Minnesotans that built their lives and supported their families here on the Range have been abandoned by radical Democrats.

We didnt choose to leave the Democratic Party, the party left us, they added.

The mayors went on to praise the progress the region has made since Trumps election in 2016, stating that he fought for the working class by implementing tax cuts and standing up to Beijing.

Now, four years later, the Iron Range is roaring back to life and for the first time in a very long time, locals are hopeful because of this Presidents policies and willingness to fight for us, they said.

They described Biden as out of touch with the working class, the nations needs, and with those of us here on the Iron Range and in small towns like ours across our nation.

President Trump delivered the best economy in our nations history, and President Trump will deliver for us again, they concluded. He will continue to fight for every American, regardless of party affiliation and continue to stand up for the working class.

Separately last week, two former GOP congressmen from North TexasRep. Steve Bartlett and Rep. Alan Steelmanendorsed Bidens election bid.

Its simply a matter of country over party, Bartlett said on Aug. 24. It comes down to character.

Joe Biden, Ive known him for years. He has a strong character. Hes a strong leader. Hes a decent human being, he continued. I dont agree with all of his policies. But I agree with more of Joe Bidens policies than Donald Trumps policies.

Steelman described Biden as a uniter in his endorsement of the Democratic presidential nominee. Thats what we need now.
Funeral of Jim Nesbitt at his Casltrock home in Co. Derry. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye

Actor James Nesbitt has told how the recent burial of his father reminded him of the deep and lasting pain felt by families of the so-called Disappeared.

He was speaking at a ceremony to mark the International Day of the Disappeared in Belfast on Sunday.

Held on August 30 each year, it highlights the fate of individuals around the world who have been killed and secretly buried or who are imprisoned at places unknown to their relatives or legal representatives.

During the Troubles, republicans killed and secretly buried 16 people  three have yet to be found.

More recently, Lisa Dorrian vanished after a party at a caravan site in Co Down in 2005. Police believe she was murdered.

Speaking at the Wave Trauma Centre, Mr Nesbitt, one of its patrons, said: The death of a deeply loved family member is always hard to take whatever the circumstances.

But to know that your loved met a violent end and not to know where they were buried for years and years brings almost unimaginable pain and anguish.

That is what the families of the Disappeared have had to endure.

For the families of Joe Lynskey, Columba McVeigh, Robert Nairac and Lisa Dorrian, that agony continues and will not begin to ease until they are brought home.

Someone somewhere must have information that could lead to their remains being found.

In the name of humanity they should give that information up.

Mr Nesbitts father Jim passed away earlier this month, aged 91.

Expand Close Jimmy Nesbitt with his father James Snr / Facebook

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At the ceremony four white doves were released to represent the disappearance of Mr Lynskey, Mr McVeigh, Mr Nairac and Ms Dorrian.

The fifth dove was released for those both home and abroad who believe their loved ones are dead and are secretly buried.

Artist Colin Davidson, a fellow Wave patron, recalled how Walter Simons, whose son Eugene disappeared, was among the 18 victims and survivors of the Troubles whose portraits he painted for Silent Testimony.

Eugene was 26 when he was abducted, murdered and secretly buried after leaving his home near Castlewellan, Co Down, on January 1 1981. His body was discovered in May 1984 in a bog near Dundalk, Co Louth.

Mr Davidson said: Walters quiet dignity was hugely impressive and it was clear that even though Eugenes remains had been returned and there was a grave to visit that feeling of profound loss had never left him.

How much more acute it must be for those still waiting for the day they can lay their loved ones to rest?

The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains (ICLVR) was established in 1999 to obtain information that may lead to where the bodies of the Disappeared are buried.

Geoff Knupfer, its lead investigator, said: We are down to three cases now from 16 and while Lisa Dorrians disappearance is outside the ICLVRs remit we hope that progress can be made there too.

Anyone with information can be absolutely assured that it will be treated in the strictest confidence. We can only help these families if people with information come forward.
A desperate woman leapt from a moving 18-wheeler truck onto a Texas highway, risking her life in order to escape kidnappers. She survived the fall but was seriously injured. It is believed that the womans captors were intending to coerce her into a sex-trafficking operation.

Another woman is alleged to have been inside the truck as well, but she did not jump; Texas authorities are concerned for her safety.

(Illustration  Real Window Creative/Shutterstock)

On Aug. 27, the Cisco Police Department posted a statement on Facebook, detailing the womans ordeal and asking the public to share any information that might help expedite their investigation. At approximately 9:00 p.m. last night  Cisco Police responded to a call of a female who had been seriously injured near the Flying J/Dennys on IH-20 in Cisco, they explained.

The female injured herself after jumping from an 18-wheeler and later stated that she had been kidnapped in El Paso, Texas  Cisco Fire Department, Cisco EMS, and DPS Troopers were also on scene, they confirmed, and the female was transported to a medical facility for treatment of her injuries.

Approaching the Flying J/Dennys on IH-20 in Cisco, Texas (Screenshot/Google Maps)

The vehicle that she leapt from, driven by three men, two Cubans, and a Caucasian, was described as a green truck tractor, emblazoned with a white stripe and pulling a white box trailer. The other woman alleged to have been inside the truck could be in grave danger, the police department said.

At the time of writing, the truck has not been located, while the victim who leapt for her life is receiving medical care and psychological support after her traumatic ordeal.

(Illustration  Yupa Watchanakit/Shutterstock)

Human trafficking, or modern slavery, remains a ubiquitous problem in the United StatesTexas being a hotspot. There were 1,080 reported cases of human trafficking in Texas alone in 2019a number second only to Californiasaccording to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. Women and children are at the highest risk of being trafficked.

In the same year, there were 11,500 reported cases of human trafficking across the entire United States. A case, the nonprofit says, can involve one or more potential victims, and sex trafficking accounted for the overwhelming majority, with fewer categorized as labor, sex and labor, or not specified.

Of the 11,500 total cases reported in 2019, 6,684 pertained to adults and 2,582 to minors.

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc
Bidens speech stirs up sense of deja vu

Same old lies disguised as new promises, little more than a wolf in sheeps clothing

One speech, well written and read well, does not a president make. At the end of the day, the Democrats are putting forward a wolf in sheeps clothes, who is peddling the same worn-out lies disguised as new promises.

Joe Biden delivered his acceptance speech as the nominee of the Democratic Party to face off against Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential election with all the pomp and circumstance that the COVID-19 pandemic would allow, speaking to a television audience from a podium set up on the stage of an empty theatre.

Gone forever is the adjective presumptive; by accepting the nomination, Joe is now officially the leader of his party through the first week in November and, should he prevail in that election, for at least four years, should his health and advancing years permit.

That last fact was the elephant in every living room in America that had tuned in to watch Biden deliver his speech. Over the course of his 47-year career in politics, Joe Biden has made more than his fair share of verbal gaffes. What was once chalked up to youthful exuberance, and later a quirky manifestation of a direct style, has recently been highlighted by his political opponents as the inevitable decline of a 77-year-old brain that might be better off being led off to pasture than saddled up for one more charge into the breach. Would he, or wouldnt he was the question on everyones mind, wondering if Joe would stumble in his delivery, ending his presidential bid before it even started.

He did not.

In fact, Joe Biden did much better than that, delivering a masterfully written address with the kind of energy and passion that should make those watching believe that he actually meant what he said, and was capable of following up his words with deeds. Every syllable uttered exuded the subliminal message, Vote for me. His loyal base  the same which secured Hillary Clinton the popular vote in the 2016 election  certainly loved the presentation, calling it the speech of his life.

But Joe has been alive for a long time, and American politics have an elephant-like tendency for remembering the past while considering the present and contemplating the future. Biden spent a considerable amount of time attacking the policies and character of the man he is seeking to unseat, going after President Trump by name and reputation.

Under normal circumstances, such a tactic would bode well, given the reality of Trumps record as a Chief Executive and a human being over the course of the past three-plus years. From Trumps muted response to the Charlestown marches of the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists, to the Trump administrations fumbled actions regarding the management of the national COVID-19 response, Bidens speech writers were given a plethora of material to work with, most if not all of which hit home to some degree.

If Joe Biden was living in a political vacuum, he might be able to throw stones at will when attacking the record of the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But when one resides in a large glass house forty-seven years in the making, throwing stones is not the wisest of strategies. For every policy that Biden claims he will improve on, the question must be asked why had he not acted on it in his previous life as a senior senator or as vice president of the United States?

For every dig he made about Trump and racism, Biden needs to escape the shadow of the 1994 Crime Bill he helped write. For every comment uttered ostensibly in support of the US military, Biden needs to deal with his vote in favour of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Bidens speech was long on rhetoric, and short on detail, especially when it came to defining the specific policies he would undertake to save America from the scourge of the Trump presidency. Instead, anyone watching Biden deliver his acceptance speech would soon be struck by a sense of deja vu, watching a tired old politician deliver the worn-out lies, the wolf disguised as a sheep.

Biden opened his speech referencing an icon of the American civil rights movement and closed by quoting an Irish poet. Given that this was the speech of Bidens political life, the greatest challenge for anyone who watched this speech is, once the platitudes have ceased flowing from the mouths of the partisan political talking heads on CNN, MSNBC and elsewhere, is to name either of the cited individuals, or to delineate at least five of the twenty policy initiatives Biden outlined in his speech.

The fact of the matter is that all but the most fanatic of Biden supporters would be challenged to do so, because the reality is that, for all the hoopla surrounding its flawless delivery and flowery prose, the speech itself was eminently forgettable  no one will be plucking quotes from this address to challenge the gravitas and meaning of the words carved on either the Lincoln or Jefferson memorials.

It was a decent speech, well delivered. But its greatest detriment was that it was Joe Biden delivering it, a man with a 47-year political history that cannot simply be swept under a rug while his political handlers seek to roll out a new and improved model. At the end of the day, it is the same old Joe. And, even though he did a good job of reading words written by someone else off of a teleprompter for a television audience, that simply may not be good enough come November.

Global Research
No comment on Pranab Mukherjee book before reading it: Former Union Minister

Pranab memoirs: PM Modi must speak more often in Parliament

Diplomatic missions, envoys of various countries condole Pranab Mukherjee's demise

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Aug 31: Several diplomatic missions here and envoys of various countries on Monday condoled the demise of former president Pranab Mukherjee and hailed his leadership.

Mukherjee, a statesman, scholar and one of India''s most respected leaders across the political spectrum, died on Monday evening, following a 21-day battle with multiple ailments. He was 84.

He was India''s 13th president, who served as the country''s first citizen from 2012 to 2017.

French Ambassador to India Emmanuel Lenain coveyed his deepest condolences to the family and friends of Mukherjee.

"A statesman deeply respected across the aisle, he was widely admired for his people-centric policies. Under his tenure, Indo-French relations scaled new heights," Lenain tweeted.

Australian High Commissioner to India Barry O''Farrell said, "On behalf of Australia, we pass on our condolences to the family of former President of India Shri Pranab Mukherjee. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family."

The Singaporean missions in India also extended deepest condolences on the passing of Mukherjee and said his dedication and passion to serving India over his long and sterling career is an inspiration to all.

Pranab Mukherjee was like a guide to RSS: Mohan Bhagwat

"He was also a good friend of Singapore and contributed immensely to strengthening relations. We will miss him," they said from their official Twitter handle.

Afghanistan Embassy'' Charge d''Affaires Tahir Qadiry expressed deep pain at the passing away of Mukherjee and hailed him as a venerable statesman, an eminent scholar and an exceptional leader.

"During his presidency, Indo-Afghan ties reached new heights because of his vision, vigour, & valiance. Sincere condolences to his family & the people of India," he said.

The Afghan Embassy here also retweeted President Ashraf Ghani''s condolence message.

"It is with profound sadness and deep sorrow that I learned of the passing away of Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, the former President of and a towering politician of India," Ghani said.

Nepal''s ambassador to India Nilamber Acharya also expressed sadness at the demise of the former president.

"We in Nepal knew him as a great political leader and statesman of India and a good friend of our country. My heartfelt condolences to India and to the bereaved family," he said.

Russian envoy to India Nikolay Kudashev said, "With a sense of sorrow I learned about passing away of Pranab Mukherjee, former President of India. He will be remembered as a wise statesman, a man of enormous knowledge and culture, and a true friend of Russia. Rest in peace."

Ambassador of Brazil to India Andre A. Correa do Lago said, "I am deeply saddened by the passing away of former President Pranab Mukherjee. A friend of Brazil, he helped strengthen the Strategic Partnership between our two countries. Heartfelt condolences to the Indian people and his family."

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, September 1, 2020, 0:14 [IST]
WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court in Washington declined to order the dismissal of the Michael Flynn prosecution, permitting a judge to scrutinize the Justice Departments request to dismiss its case against President Donald Trumps former national security adviser.

Mondays decision keeps the case at least temporarily alive and rebuffs efforts by both Flynns lawyers and the Justice Department to force the prosecution to be dropped without further inquiry from the judge, who has for months declined to dismiss it. The ruling is the latest development in a criminal case that has taken unusual twists and turns over the last year and prompted a separation of powers tussle involving a veteran federal judge and the Trump administration.

The Flynn conflict arose in May when the Justice Department moved to dismiss the prosecution despite Flynns own guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition period.

But U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who had upbraided Flynn for his behaviour at a 2018 court appearance, signalled his skepticism at the governments unusual motion. He refused to dismiss the case and instead scheduled a hearing and appointed a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Departments position. That former judge, John Gleeson, challenged the motives behind the departments dismissal request and called it a gross abuse of prosecutorial power.

Flynns lawyers sought to bypass Sullivan and obtain an appeals court order that would have required the cases immediate dismissal. They argued that Sullivan had overstepped his bounds by scrutinizing a dismissal request that both sides, the defence and the Justice Department, were in agreement about and that the case was effectively moot once prosecutors decided to abandon it.

At issue before the court was whether Sullivan could be forced to grant the Justice Departments dismissal request without even holding a hearing into the basis for the motion.

We have no trouble answering that question in the negative, the court wrote in an unsigned opinion for the eight judges in the majority.

The judges also rejected defence efforts to have the case reassigned to a different judge.

In response to the appeals court ruling, Sullivan on Tuesday directed the parties to file a joint status report by September 21 with a recommendation for future proceedings.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Thomas Griffith wrote that the courts opinion did not concern the merits of the Justice Departments prosecution of Flynn or even its decision to abandon the case. Rather, he said the question before the judges was a much more simple one.

Today we reach the unexceptional yet important conclusion that a court of appeals should stay its hand and allow the district court to finish its work rather than hear a challenge to a decision not yet made, Griffith said. That is a policy the federal courts have followed since the beginning of the Republic.

He said it was very possible that Sullivan could wind up granting the Justice Departments dismissal request and that it would in fact be highly unusual if it did not, given the Executives constitutional prerogative to direct and control prosecutions and the district courts limited discretion in cases prosecutors want dropped.

Two judges, Neomi Rao and Karen LeCraft Henderson, each wrote dissenting opinions arguing that Sullivan had usurped his authority by keeping alive a case the Justice Department sought to have dismissed. Both judges were part of a 2-1 ruling in June that ordered Sullivan to dismiss the case.

In Flynns case, the prosecution no longer has a prosecutor, Rao wrote. Yet the case continues with district court proceedings aimed at uncovering the internal deliberations of the Department. The majority gestures at the potential harms of such a judicial intrusion into the Executive Branch, but takes a wait-and-see approach, hoping and hinting that the district judge will not take the actions he clearly states he will take.

Flynn was questioned by the FBI just days after Trumps inauguration about his conversations with the then-Russian ambassador to the U.S. pertaining to sanctions that had just been imposed by the Obama administration for Russian election interference.

The private conversation alarmed law enforcement and intelligence officials who were already investigating whether the Trump campaign had co-ordinated with Russia to sway the presidential election in Trumps favour. Officials were also concerned by the White Houses public insistence that Flynn and the diplomat had not discussed sanctions.

Flynns guilty plea to lying to the FBI became a signature prosecution in special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. He also agreed to co-operate with the authorities in hopes of receiving a lighter sentence.

But as Flynn awaited sentencing, Attorney General William Barr appointed a U.S. attorney from St. Louis to investigate the handling of the Flynn case and later endorsed that prosecutors recommendation that the case be dismissed.

In May, the Justice Department said it had concluded that the FBI had an insufficient basis to question Flynn about his conversations with the diplomat, which Barr has said were appropriate for an incoming national security adviser to have had, and that statements made during the interview were not material to the FBIs underlying counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign.

Law enforcement officials who were involved in the investigation vehemently disagreed with that conclusion.

___

Associated Press writer Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
Why are the UAE and Israel in such a hurry to normalise relations?

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been so enamoured with Israel that even before formalising their new bilateral agreement, they had started normalising relations on many levels, including communications, transportation, and security among others.

What appeared to be a marriage of convenience has been in fact a full-fledged love affair. Unlike traditional marriages, the two fell in love and secretly consummated their relationship well before officially announcing the wedding date.

Indeed, the announcement had been a long time coming, considering the many hints and winks from both sides, but it was the Trump administration that was eager to break the news with much fanfare ahead of the US elections.

The Emirati attempt to spin its appeasement as a strategic calculation to stop Israels illegal annexation of Palestinian lands and promote Middle East peace was laughed at in Palestine and throughout the region.

As I wrote the morning after the announcement, the record shows the UAE has harboured more hostility than sympathy towards the Palestinians. If anything, the deal will further empower Israel and weaken the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

Moreover, the UAE was never at war, let alone a religious war, with Israel, to have to conclude a peace agreement dubbed rather dubiously the Abraham Agreement.

If anything, this is more of an alliance than an agreement  an alliance directed at the regional powers, Iran and Turkey; an alliance that threatens to further destabilise the region if US President Donald Trump is re-elected for four more years.

But what if the Democratic nominee Joe Biden is elected president? Surely, the Emirati leaders are reading the US press and know all too well the former vice president is ahead in the polls and remains committed to the Obama administrations nuclear deal with Iran.

Geopolitical partners

Since its birth out of sin  colonial sin  Israel has been all too eager for recognition and acceptance by its Arab and Muslim hinterland. To break out of its regional isolation, it is happy to normalise relations with any nation, regardless of size, rule, or geography.

And when a rich country like the UAE volunteers to normalise relations without any real conditions, it is normal that Israel would jump at the opportunity and try to speed up the process as much as possible.

Indeed, Israel considers Abu Dhabi and Dubai the gateway to Saudi Arabia, the way Hong Kong was the gateway to China.

But why has Abu Dhabi been so eager and in a rush to dash forward with the new relationship in these uncertain times?

Well, perhaps because it reckons the new relationship with Israel is particularly instrumental in times of uncertainty, no less if Biden wins.

After all, it believes Israels political clout in Washington will protect it, come what may.

Indeed, the UAE and Israel began their secret contacts in Washington in the chaotic years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq and elevated them to strategic coordination during the turbulent years of the Obama administration. (For full disclosure, I was senior political analyst for Abu Dhabi TV for three years during and after the Gulf war, where I was received graciously and was able to comment freely.)

Their leaders, along with those of Saudi Arabia, felt betrayed by then-President Barack Obamas initial support for the Arab Spring and his pressure on Arab autocrats to embrace democratic reforms, i.e. step aside or step down.

All three regimes went into a state of panic during the Arab upheavals, railing against Obama for his recognition of the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 2012 Egyptian elections.

These regimes consider democracy and Arab freedom of expression to be their number one enemy.

Obama did a full U-turn on Egypt, refusing to condemn or even acknowledge the 2013 military coup detat engineered by General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, but Emirati, Israeli and Saudi leaders decided that Washington is no longer dependable, and instead had to rely on each other to keep democracy out of the region.

This perception was reinforced two years later when, in 2015, the Obama administration reached a nuclear deal with Iran (the JCPOA), against the wishes of all three parties.

It did not help much that the Obama administration was committed to their military superiority and security and armed them, despite their war crimes in Palestine and Yemen.

Instead, the UAE took the relationship with Israel to a new strategic, security and intelligence level, later encouraged and supported by the Trump administration.

The first fruits of their covert intelligence cooperation allowed Abu Dhabi to use Israeli software to spy on its neighbours and on political and human rights activists throughout the region.

Neo-liberal bedfellows

Israel and the UAE may be two different countries, the former a colonial ethnocracy and the latter a repressive autocracy, but their close alliance with the West in general, and the US in particular, has allowed them to successfully liberalise, privatise and globalise their economies, albeit to different degrees.

Both have successfully transformed into security states and market states, becoming models for neoliberal development in the developing world.

Both created efficient bureaucracies dictated by business and commercial needs and effective security apparatuses dictated by unstable regional conditions.

Their capacity to integrate newcomers into their economies  Israel mainly from Jewish immigration and the UAE mainly from expat labour  has allowed them to expand and diversify their economies like no other.

Moreover, their cooperation in security and intelligence-gathering has solidified their clientelism as bedrocks of American influence in the region, regardless of who resides at the White House.

Their capacity to launch wars and project commercial and strategic power beyond their borders renders them important Western assets in a turbulent region.

Reckless ambition

An attraction has developed between the extroverted and rather articulate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the introverted and inarticulate Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed (MBZ), the de facto leader of the UAE.

Bibi is envious of the Emirati wealth and its projection of power throughout the region from Tunisia to Syria through Libya and Sudan, and MBZ is envious of Israels advanced economy and technology and its influence in Washington.

Netanyahu is also envious of MBZs authoritarian rule; he would never have to face trial for corruption, the way the Israeli prime minister is now.

Both are exploiting their status as American strategic assets in order to advance their national interests, regardless of the consequences to their neighbours.

In that way, the US sale of advanced fighter jets F-35 to the UAE will most certainly go through once Israel gets something in return from Washington. And it will be the people of the region who will suffer from Emirati aerial superiority, as they do from Israels.

The new bedfellows will try to expand their alliance with the likes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia in order to mount a united front against any new initiative from the US, the European Union or the region that is not to their liking.

They may be able to defeat the Palestinians and Yemenis militarily, and may weaken the Lebanese and the Libyans politically. But Iran and Turkey will prove hard, indeed dangerous, to contain or confront through strategic leverage.

And the same goes for their attempts at stifling democratisation anywhere in the region, which will lead to greater instability and violence.

In short, betting on the new peace agreement to advance the cause of peace and stability in the region will prove wishful if not outright cynical.
Georgia Fowler is enjoying a getaway in Byron Bay, staying at the upmarket Raes on Wategos.

The 28-year-old was joined by her businessman beau Nathan Dalah, taking a stroll in the sunshine on Monday.

The couple looked madly in love, walking arm in arm and giggling as they strolled along together.

Happy together: Georgia Fowler is enjoying a getaway in Byron Bay, staying at the upmarket Raes on Wategos. The 28-year-old was joined by her businessman beau Nathan Dalah, taking a stroll in the sunshine on Monday. Both pictured

Georgia had her model figure on display in a pair of skimpy, skin-tight shorts in neon orange.

She added a cropped black shirt which fit to her body, and added a simple, dainty necklace.

At one point, the beauty's neon green bra was visible as the fitted crop top rode up.

Sneak peak: The beauty's neon green bra was visible as her fitted crop top rode up

What a look: Georgia had her model figure on full display in a pair of skimpy, skin-tight shorts in neon orange

So happy: The couple looked madly in love, walking arm in arm and giggling

Looking good: Nathan wore a pale yellow Nike shirt with the word Pigalle across the front along with black shorts

Dressy: He added black Nike socks, a pair of red sneakers and a completed his look with an expensive silver watch

The brunette wore her hair back off her face in a loose and relaxed hairstyle with tendrils floating in the breeze.

She covered up her famous face in a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses and finished the ensemble with a pair of black sneakers.

Georgia carried her iPhone in her hand and appeared to go makeup free for the outing.

She also wore a number of gold and silver rings, including one on her wedding ring finger.

Easy breezy: The brunette wore her hair back off her face in a loose and relaxed hairstyle with tendrils floating in the breeze

Details: She added a dainty gold necklace and earrings and wore black sneakers. She also wore a number of gold and silver rings, including one on her wedding ring finger

Nathan wore a pale yellow Nike shirt with the word Pigalle across the front along with black shorts.

He added black Nike socks, a pair of red sneakers and a completed his look with an expensive silver watch.

Georgia confirmed her relationship with Nathan, the co-founder of salad chain Fishbowl, in February. Since then, they've made no secret of their romance.

Stunner! The model appeared to go makeup free for her local outing in the seaside town

That looks good! She picked up a frozen dessert and tucked her iPhone in the band of her pants

Romantic! The couple sat by the beach to enjoy their food and sweet treats

After their stroll, the pair picked up a delicious frozen dessert and sat by the beach to enjoy it.

The couple attended Paris Fashion Week together in March, before coronavirus lockdown restrictions were put in place.

They are also believed to have holidayed together in the Northern Territory earlier in the year.
Every Sunday throughout August 2020, a church in Narayi, a suburb on the south eastern edge of Kaduna City in Nigeria, is holding a prayer and protest event in response to violence ravaging southern Kaduna.

Background to terrorism in Nigeria

Despite being resource-rich and having the largest economy in Africa, Nigeria has more people living in poverty than any country on earth. This poverty is fertile ground for helplessness and vulnerability. Many disenfranchised people may join radical groups to fight against their situation, resorting to violence to assert themselves in a semblance of power in their hopelessness.

The name Boko Haram comes from the Hausa word boko, which means animist, Western or simply un-Islamic education and culture, and the Arabic word haram, which means forbidden. For Boko Haram, boko is fitna: i.e. something that can shake the faith of Muslims and lead to apostasy. For this reason, boko must be haram.

The group was founded in 2002 in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, by a religious leader named Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf. When Sheikh Yusuf died in police custody on 31 July 2009 Boko Haram declared jihad against the government of Nigeria. In mid-June 2010 Boko Haram formalised its links to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). AQIM is seeking to gain 'strategic depth' in sub-Saharan Africa and the solid foothold in Nigeria required for operations in West.

Essentially Boko Haram is pursuing an Islamic freedom -- i.e. freedom from fitna (anything that could shake the faith of a Muslim) -- a freedom that is essentially no freedom at all.

Since 2010 Boko Haram has had a turbulent history with splits and disagreements, but while the factions may differ on strategy, they have a common goal: Christians are the enemy and Christianity is a problem to be eliminated. Fulani herdsmen and bandits have been recruited to participate in the jihad.

Attacks on Christians

Nigerias Kaduna State is divided into a predominantly Hausa-Fulani Muslim north with mainly Christian ethnic groups in the south.

In July 2020, Fulani militant attacks on villages in southern Kaduna have increased significantly. Many Christian villagers were killed - shot, hacked or burnt to death, often in their beds and many more wounded.

Thousands of villagers have been displaced and are now being cared for in church-run camps. Despite the southern regions being under a 24-hour curfew, Fulani militants move freely, murdering, terrorising and ethnically cleansing at will; nobody is ever arrested! Neither the government nor the security services seem willing or able to provide security.

Cameroon's Centre for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (launched 2019, in Extreme North region) reports that growing numbers of mostly-Nigerian ex-militants, children and women (sex-slaves) are escaping, surrendering and seeking rehabilitation. The Centre needs help to meet the growing demand.

Corruption is rife

The poverty of the Nigerian people is directly connected to massive corruption at the highest level of Government and Defence. Corruption is also why the government does not send troops to come to the aid of villagers being attacked and killed by terrorists.

Corruption is prolonging conflict and perpetuating the Christian crisis in Nigeria's North and Middle Belt. Government and military elites exploit the conflict with Boko Haram to enrich themselves while depriving rank and file soldiers of basic resources, including food and ammunition!

One example is when the Borno state governor Babagana Zulum set out in a heavily-armed convoy towards the town of Baga, in Borno's far north-east, to visit a camp for internally displaced persons and distribute food relief there. But the governor's convoy was attacked on the edge of the town. An army garrison was only 5km down the road, but it was the Nigerian armed forces carrying out the attack, contrary to army reports.

A massive fraud has been revealed in military procurement, whereby government funds have been secured on the basis of fake contracts for resources which were never delivered - 'everything from food and ammunition to firearms, helicopters and Alpha jets, totaling as much as US$15 billion'.

Corruption explains why Nigerian soldiers are deployed into conflict zones with insufficient rations and malfunctioning weapons and why those who survive return defeated and demoralised.

Corruption explains why insecurity has escalated to crisis levels and why Boko Haram has not been defeated but has instead grown stronger. Corruption explains why a catastrophic Christian crisis involving ethnic cleansing and genocide persists throughout Nigeria's North and Middle Belt, bringing untold suffering to multitudes.

The Barnabas Fund reports that Nigerian Christians have called on the International Criminal Court to act against the genocide perpetrated by Boko Haran, Fulani militants and other extremists.

Southern Kaduna's imperiled and traumatised Christians need our prayers

Let us bring our own prayers and protests to the Lord on behalf of the grieving Nigerian church. Let us ask God to intervene  to bless, empower and protect the Christians and others who bear the brunt of these attacks, and to overturn every evil and selfish plot.

Let us join with Jobs prayer: 'As for me, I would seek God, and to God would I commit my cause, who does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number ... He frustrates the devices of the crafty, so that their hands achieve no success ... So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts her mouth' (From Job Chapter 5 verses 8-16 ESV).

Let us pray for God to protect Cameroon's Centre for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration and supply it with everything it needs to rehabilitate disillusioned and traumatised men, women and children who have risked their lives in search of new life.

Let us pray for blessing for all who risk their lives to share the Gospel with Muslims. And let us speak out in the name of Jesus, that violence and greed be replaced with peace, repentance and justice.
A Black Lives Matter protester yells at a supporter of President Donald Trump during a rally and car parade Saturday in Portland, Ore. Read more

PORTLAND, Ore.  Oregon state police will patrol Portlands nightly protests with help from officers from neighboring communities, seeking to tamp down on vandalism and violence following the fatal shooting of a right-wing Trump supporter as the city approaches 100 consecutive nights of Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

The plan, announced late Sunday by Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, also creates a group including Mayor Ted Wheeler and local Black leaders to help chart the path forward for Portland, a liberal city struggling to regain its footing under a national spotlight.

President Donald Trump has made Portland and its Democratic leadership a frequent target and the centerpiece of his law and order re-election campaign theme. He demanded that local and state leaders call in the National Guard after Saturdays fatal shooting.

A supporter of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer was killed amid skirmishes between Trump supporters who led a car caravan through the city and Black Lives Matter protesters who had gathered for another night of demonstrations.

Police have not made an arrest in the case. The victim was identified by the founder of Patriot Prayer as Aaron Jay Danielson of Portland. Police, who confirmed the identification Monday, said Danielson was 39 and died of a gunshot wound to the chest.

 READ MORE: Man fatally shot in Portland after Trump supporters, protesters clash

A small memorial for Danielson took shape Monday near where he died on a sidewalk in front of a parking structure.

Portland is a mess, and it has been for many years. If this joke of a mayor doesnt clean it up, we will go in and do it for them! Trump tweeted Monday, a day after tweeting that the mayor was a fool and a weak and pathetic Democrat mayor.

Brown has so far declined to send the National Guard to Portland but instead announced a coalition of multiple law enforcement agencies to handle the short-term crisis. In a statement, she said right-wing groups like Patriot Prayer had come to Portland looking for a fight and vowed to stop more bloodshed.

We all must come together  elected officials, community leaders, all of us  to stop the cycle of violence, she said. But this is only the first step. Real change will come from the hard work to achieve racial justice. And it starts with all of us listening to each other and working together.

Some Black community leaders were upset with the plan to put more officers on the streets. Portland police have come under fire for using tear gas against protesters and have been criticized for being overly aggressive.

If youre just there, the odds of getting arrested at this point are almost so high as to the point of being guaranteed, said Shanice Clarke, one of the founders of the Black Millennial Movement and a frequent protester.

Clarke also criticized a news conference held by Wheeler on Sunday, when he engaged directly with Trump in what she called political theater.

 READ MORE: A killing, chaos in Portland as Trumps reelection scheme of a civil war shifts into overdrive | Will Bunch

The mayor needs to do more than just showing up to a press conference and saying its Trumps fault for Black people to feel they are being listened to in Portland, she said.

The Portland police also drew criticism Monday for not doing more to keep the dueling groups apart and for letting the situation get out of control. Police Chief Chuck Lovell defended his officers, saying the clashes between protesters and Trump supporters were spread over many city blocks and the shooting took just seconds.

While its easy to cast blame on paramilitary and alt-right groups on the one side, or anti-fascist and Black Lives Matter groups on the other, the responsibility to safeguard communities rests with government, said Eric Ward, executive director of the nonprofit Western States Center, which helps marginalized communities organize social justice campaigns around the West.

In Portland, law enforcement has regularly failed to keep our citys streets safe.

Oregon state police were at protests Sunday night, supporting Portland police. Authorities arrested 29 people and declared an unlawful assembly.

State police also took over patrols in Portland in July following two weeks of massive demonstrations against the presence of federal agents in the city. This time, they will also provide local police with more than two dozen body cameras.

Local agencies that will be assisting Portland police will be indemnified from any legal liability by the city under the plan and will likely have their expenses covered by Portland, Brown said.

Police have released little information about Saturdays fatal shooting, and Chief Chuck Lovell said Sunday that investigators were still gathering evidence. Earlier, the agency made a plea for any information related to the killing, including videos, photos or eyewitness accounts.

Patriot Prayer is based in Washington state and was founded in 2016. Since early 2017, its supporters have periodically come to Portland to hold rallies for Trump, ratcheting up tensions long before the national outrage over the police killing of George Floyd.

Many of the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland have ended with vandalism to federal and city property, including the federal courthouse and City Hall. In July, Trump sent more than 100 federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security to safeguard federal property  a move that instead reinvigorated the protests.

Thousands of people clashed with the federal agents each night for two weeks.

Those agents withdrew July 31 but smaller nightly protests have continued in pockets of the city. More than 600 people have been arrested since late May.
The Nigeria Labour Congress has warned the National Assembly not to resurrect or cause to be passed into law the National Water Resources Bill because of the danger it portends to national unity.

In a statement signed by the NLC president, Ayuba Wabba, the group said although the National Assembly is constitutionally vested with law-making, they should not ambush Nigerians.

Information in the public domain has it that the National Assembly leadership is working surreptitiously with vested interests outside the Assembly anxious to pass the bill without due legislative process, read the statement dated August 28.

We equally warn against legislative abuse or betrayal of Nigerians as this is what it will amount to if the bill is passed or caused to be passed without public engagement and scrutiny. Already, the sentiments expressed against this bill are too grave to be brushed off.

The labour unions warning came just as Nigerias Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, criticised the attempt by both the executive and legislative arms to sneak the bill into law.

Civil society groups across the country have also criticised the bill, saying it would breach citizens right to water. Controversial parts of the law include the part that vests ownership of water bodies on the federal government and the part that mandates citizens to get federal permission to drill bore holes in their homes or businesses despite the inability of the government to provide potable water to majority of its citizens.

READ ALSO:

The National Water Resources Bill failed to secure a concurrent passage by both Houses in the Eighth Assembly. In the current Ninth Assembly, it has passed second reading in the House of Representatives and has been referred to a House committee.

Debate

In his lead debate in the Lower House, the speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, said the bill would trigger change.

But the NLC said the bill was rejected in 2018 with very good reasons.

Although there is no law against re-presentation of a killed or rejected bill, however, given the strong sentiments expressed against this bill from practically all sections of the country, then and now, we would strongly advise that this bill should not be resurrected.

We have in our hands at the moment enough challenges to court fresh and costly controversy.

Although legislation is one of the three constitutional functions of the National Assembly, it should not be a licence to dictatorship but a representation of the will, aspirations and sensitivities of the populace. In light of this, we state unambiguously that the National Assembly should listen to the voice of reason by resting this bill.

Best Regards,
The three Government leaders will meet today to decide if it is worth the gamble of ignoring the EU Commission President's request to send the name of a female and male nominee to replace Phil Hogan at the EU Commission.

The three Coalition leaders are pondering the prospect of sending just one name - that of Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney - and hoping his credentials are good enough to deliver a post with political influence.

But the high-risk move could lead to EU President Ursula von der Leyen giving the Irish nominee a very low-key portfolio, diminishing Ireland's influence in Brussels at a crucial time just as a major Brexit crisis looms.

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Senior sources in Brussels and Dublin have signalled there is very little chance of Ireland keeping the pivotal portfolio of trade commissioner held by Mr Hogan up to his resignation.

Sources in Dublin said the battle for Taoiseach Micheal Martin and his Coalition colleagues will be to secure a post of influence and political heft to maintain Ireland's influence in Brussels.

All 27 member states have a nominee on the Commission - but there are fewer than a dozen jobs of real significance with either a budget and/or direct powers in sectors over which the EU has jurisdiction.

Two senior political sources last night said the Taoiseach, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan had yet to decide whether to go with just one name. While there were contacts between the three over the weekend, it is understood the decision was deferred until a pre-cabinet meeting of the trio this evening.

"It is hoped a nomination can be made at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday to ensure an appointment can be made in Brussels as soon as possible," one source told the Irish Independent.

Mr Coveney has maintained a strict silence around the prospects of his move to Brussels and his officials did not return calls yesterday.

It is known that the former Tanaiste is interested and he has impressive EU credentials, being well known in Brussels as a former MEP, former successful chairman of farm budget talks, and since June 2017 as Foreign Affairs Minister dealing with Brexit.

But yesterday, another frontrunner for the post, Fine MEP Mairead McGuinness, pointed to significant comments from Ms von der Leyen last Thursday.

"As in the past, I will invite the Irish Government to propose a woman and a man," the EU president said.

Ms von der Leyen also reminded Ireland that ultimately it is her role to decide who gets what job.

"At a later stage, I will decide on the final allocation of portfolios in the college of commissioners," she added.

Ms McGuinness, an MEP since 2004 and now senior vice-president at the European Parliament, made it clear she is interested in the job. She also spoke of her previous contacts with Ms von der Leyen since the former German defence minister took over in Brussels in December.

But Government sources pointed out there was no obligation in EU law for Ireland to send two names - and absolutely no reason to insist Ireland nominate a woman.

Against that, Brussels diplomats argued that the EU Commission was already not impressed by Ireland being the focus of controversy last week, concerning one of the biggest challenges currently facing Europe.

The third contender is another former Tanaiste and - like Ms McGuinness - now also a member of the European Parliament, Frances Fitzgerald.
Chinas Peoples Liberation Army soldiers made provocative military movements on the southern bank of Pangong Tso on the night intervening 29 and 30 August, the Indian army said in a statement on Monday, accusing soldiers across the Line of Actual Control of trying to alter the status quo. The statement said Indian troops had been able to pre-empt the PLA from trying to change the facts on the ground.

A Brigade Commander level Flag Meeting is in progress at Chushul to resolve the issues.

The movement of Chinese troops in the East Ladakh sector is seen as an effort by the Chinese side to expand the border row to the southern bank of the lake. So far, much of the Chinese deployment around the lake has been concentrated around its southern bank. The two armies have been locked in a stand-off at multiple points in the East Ladakh sector for nearly four months.

Also Watch | Indian Army thwarts fresh Chinese attempt to change status quo in Ladakh

There have been several agreements between the two sides to disengage, particularly after scores of soldiers clashed in Galwan Valley on June 15 that led to casualties on both sides. But Chinese troops have been slow to step back, particularly around Pangong Tso, the saltwater glacial lake spread across 700 sq km.

Also Read: For peace along border, one must adhere to agreements, says S Jaishankar

In Mondays statement, the Indian army called the movement of troops a violation of previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements during the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh.

Indian troops preempted this PLA activity on the Southern Bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground. The Indian Army is committed to maintaining peace and tranquility through dialogue, but is also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity, army spokesman Colonel Aman Anand said in the statement.

The army statement did not spell out the nature of the Chinese provocation and how soldiers of the Indian army blocked the effort.

The Chinese effort to enlarge the border row came just two days after the defence ministry in Beijing told India that it should look at the big picture of bilateral ties and work with it and take concrete steps to bring the relationship back on the right track of normal development.

India has made it clear that China should work on complete disengagement, and then de-escalation of troops in eastern Ladakh, underlining that this can be achieved only through mutually agreed reciprocal actions. The message from New Delhi has been that the Indian army will stay firm on Chinese efforts to alter the status quo and has stressed that the PLA will have to return to their April 20 position.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava last week said complete disengagement requires re-deployment of troops by each side towards their regular posts on their respective sides of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and this can be done only through mutually agreed actions.
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Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low around 10F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph..

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Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low around 10F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph.
QI host Sandi Toksvig has opened up about nearly getting kicked out of Cambridge University for having her girlfriend to sleep over.

The comedian and presenter, 62, was eventually allowed to stay because of her 'excellent academic record', but she said the incident was 'extremely painful and distressing'.

She joked that the message she got from the college was 'if you are going to be gay, at least be clever'.

Presenter and comedia Sandi Toksvig, 62, revealed she was nearly kicked out of Cambridge University for having a girlfriend sleep over. Pictured at the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards 2020 at the Royal College Of Physicians in January

She spoke about her 'extremely painful and distressing' experience on BBC Radio 4's Loose Ends podcast. Pictured with wife Debbie Toksvig at The Royal Academy Of Arts Summer Exhibition preview party last year

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Loose Ends Podcast, she said: 'It seems sort of hard to believe that they would be so distressed.

'Especially when you look at the history of Girton College, which was almost certainly founded by a lesbian.

'But that is a bit they like to skate over. They were very distressed to find I had a woman staying with me.'

Girton college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge.

Toksvig, who read law, archaeology and anthropology at the college, added: 'Boys were staying all the time. They were part of the furniture. But yes, they decided that really I needed to go.

'But in the end, and this is very pleasing, they allowed me to stay because of my excellent academic record. So if you are going to be gay at least be clever.

During the podcast Sandi claimed Girton College - the first women's college at Cambridge University - was founded by a lesbian. Pictured for a TV appearance on Lorraine in 2018

'What [they] don't want is a gay stupid people. That is not something [they] want.'

The 62-year-old said that the college, and its current Mistress, has since apologised to her for the incident and hosted an LGBT dinner in her honour.

She continued: 'But the good story about this, because it was extremely painful and very distressing, is the present mistress of Girton College Susan J Smith, she had a ceremony where they made me a fellow.

'We had a big LGBT dinner in the hall at Girton and she apologised on behalf of the college.

'So what you have to believe is it will all come right in the end.'
Gov. Charlie Baker called 1,000 members of the Massachusetts National Guard into active duty Friday, but almost 72 hours later the administration will not say what, if anything, the activated Guardsmen have done since then or whether the Guard remains active Monday.

Though the governors order did not give a detailed reason for the activation and his administration said the order was given in the event that municipal leaders require their assistance, the call-up coincided with a weekend that saw violence crop up at and around demonstrations over-policing and racial justice in other parts of the country.

Governor Baker today signed an order activating up to 1,000 members of the Massachusetts National Guard in the event that municipal leaders require their assistance. National Guard personnel are deployed only at the request of, and in coordination with, the communities seeking support, a spokesman of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security said in a statement Friday evening.

The governors order says the Guard was being called upon to provide necessary assistance to State and local civilian authorities and/or special duty and emergency assistance for the preservation of life and property, preservation of order, and to afford protection to persons.

The order is to remain in effect until further notice from Adjutant General Gary Keefe.

The administrations announcement of the call-up suggested that the National Guard was being tapped to function in a law enforcement capacity. The administration noted that National Guard military police units go through federally-accredited police training and are trained to Massachusetts standards and that members of the National Guard assisted local law enforcement agencies throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was not immediately clear whether or where the Guard was actually deployed. On Sunday, one Boston-area reporter shared video that appeared to show about two dozen Guard personnel and rows of Guard vehicles in Boston. Another reporter posted a photo from a demonstration in Roxbury where attendees held signs critical of Bakers decision to call upon the National Guard.

Karyn Regal, a reporter for WBZ Newsradio, reported late Monday morning that Mass. State Police Col. Christopher Mason said there was no specific threat to Massachusetts but that the National Guard was called up as part of an abundance of caution to staff up and we prepare for all those contingencies.

I think the call-up of the National Guard was a nod to ensuring that we would have the capacity to continue to be able to facilitate those First Amendment gatherings and make sure people can be heard and make sure people can execute their right, or utilize their right, of public gathering, and they can deliver the message, Mason said at an unrelated press conference, according to Regal. We certainly have heard the message. And so we want to make sure we continue that people can peacefully gather, that they can voice their concerns, and that they can provide an opportunity for us to hear them.

A spokesman for EOPSS did not say Monday afternoon whether the Guard remained activated as of Monday, what the activated Guard members had done since being called up, or whether there had been any change in the limited details provided Friday.

Gov. Baker last held a public event on Thursday, in Springfield.
New Delhi: States such as Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Rajasthan will offer free travel to students appearing in the Joint Entrance Examination (Main), or JEE (Main), this week. Others such as Bihar and Odisha will deploy additional security forces outside examination centres to enforce social distancing norms.

JEE (Main), for admission to engineering colleges including the elite Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), is to be held over September 1-6. Its the first major nationwide entrance test being held since the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) started spreading wider in early March.

Although several opposition-ruled states have opposed the conduct of the exam at a time when the pandemic is still raging, all have made elaborate arrangements for the test.

Around a million students have enrolled for appearing in the exam across the country. The National Testing Agency (NTA), overseeing the test, has issued detailed guidelines for conducting the exam including sanitization of examination rooms, maintaining a minimum distance of two metres between two tables and mandatory temperature checks on each student.

Students, who for the first time they will give an examination with gloves on, should not panic; they need to be careful and read the guidelines in detail, said Ashish Arora, head of academics at Jaipur-based Allen Career Institute. All students have been asked to come to the examination centre at least an hour before scheduled start of the exam.

The children need to be calm at the centres as the movement inside the centres would be slow, Arora said.

Ajay Singh, manager of the Uniconcept examination centre in Patna, said the students should take care to maintain social distancing.

A Patna official said an adequate number of district magistrates and police personnel would be deployed to prevent gatherings outside exam halls. In Odisha, too, police reinforcements have been deployed at examination centres to help students and to prevent overcrowding.

Traffic police personnel would be posted at crucial places for smooth flow of traffic so that students reach on time, said Bhubaneswar municipal commissioner PC Chaudhry, adding that there would be no restrictions on inter-state traffic to help students reach their examination centres.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation released a list of hotels and lodges in the city to help students and their parents to find accommodation; in Ganjam district, buses have been provided to carry students to their examination centres. On Saturday, the state government announced a relaxation of weekend lockdowns until September 13.

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday said the state government has arranged free transport for students taking JEE (Main) and the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to medical and dental courses, due on September 13 .

The arrangement has been made to ensure that the students dont face any problem due to Covid situation. However, for this, they will have to contact the authorities on phone number 181 or get themselves registered on mapit.gov.in/covid-19, Chouhan said.

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday directed district collectors to ensure arrangements related to health protocols are in place at the examination centres; he also asked them to arrange transport and accommodation for students and their parents.

The governments of West Bengal, Kerala and Punjab, which had opposed holding the JEE and other Central entrance examinations, directed their transport departments to arrange buses for students to reach examination centres.

Private bus operators and taxi associations have been asked to operate all vehicles. State government buses will also be on the streets, a senior state West Bengal government official said on condition of anonymity.

He said at least 3,000 buses will run in and around Kolkata and auto-rickshaw unions have been asked to operate on routes on which examination centres are located.

(With inputs from state bureaus)
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Linkedin Rafael Damar (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 15:12 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c41a5da4 3 Opinion plastic-diet,plastic-producers,plastic-waste,industry Free

As consumers and industries continue to make changes in response to COVID -19, their adjustments trigger shifts throughout the market. This demand disruption will have layers of repercussions for the polymer industry, which contributed Rp 72 trillion (US$4.9 billion) to Indonesias gross domestic product (GDP).

Petrochemical companies also face pressure from price volatility of oil and gas, continued bans on single-use plastics, and growing concern for product safety. The pandemic has already driven some of the sharpest declines in demand for certain plastics, while promoting growth for others.

The impact has been more devastating for end markets as plant utilization in downstream petrochemicals have fallen to 30-40 percent, compared to 90-95 percent in upstream. In the above table, we examine the case of polypropylene plastic and explore how COVID-19 has influenced several areas of its application.

Despite an overall downtrend, the impact of the pandemic varies, depending on the companys product portfolio and key accounts. For instance, producers of lamination plastics are highly exposed to the crisis. This is observable from its usage for disposable cups and drinking water, which has been severely affected by the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) as tourism and social event became restrained, causing declines in food and beverage sales of up to 40 percent.

In contrast, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector has been able to hold up demand in some areas of flexible films. Uptake from instant noodle producers particularly stand out as it is a go-to product for convenient eaters and humanitarian aid during the pandemic. Furthermore, booming e-commerce shipments and online food delivery has been a significant driver for plastic bags.

Nonetheless, flexible film demand remains quite damaged as grocery shopping became limited, especially in traditional markets, which is still a staple of trade activity in Indonesia. Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) represent 99.99 percent of business units in the country and contribute to 60 percent of national GDP.

Injection molding players face several major threats; most notably, the automotive sector. Most factories have stopped production by the end of the first quarter and upcoming batches are aimed for export. Per May 2020, retail automotive sales have seen a drastic fall of 82 percent, while factory-to-dealer sales have dropped 96 percent.

This has been the worst decline in the sector since the start of the year. Moreover, homeware plastics is disrupted by the lockdown since household appliances rely heavily on store-based channels. Toy producers also face pressure from crippling demand and their increased exposure to the weakening rupiah as around 25 percent of toy parts are imported.

The government health protocol has sustained high demand for hygiene supplies and self-protective products. Polypropylene fiber producers benefit from demand in face masks and personal protective equipment (PPE), while producers in the blow molding portfolio are well-positioned with its uptake for hand sanitizer and disinfectant containers. Despite the transitional phase of the lockdown, which may look to continue the positive trend, players must be alert as an oversupply is on the horizon for this segment.

The Trade Ministry has lifted the export ban on PPE as a surplus has been identified until the end of the year. A saturated export market should also be anticipated, with China leading the way since the cost of fabric for masks in the country has slumped from a minimum of $56,000 per ton to less than $1,500 per ton due to domestic oversupply.

Road to recovery will vary as petrochemical players experience different impacts from the pandemic. As our recommendation, companies should take measures based on position of urgency and risk to shareholder value  not only for short-term survival, but also to position themselves for long-term success in the new normal.

Hence, we propose the following imperatives:

First, respond the now. Ensuring employee health and operational safety should be key priorities in the midst of COVID-19.

Operational permit (IOMKI) requires that factories comply with the health protocol set by the Ministry of Industry.

With the speed of new information, a designated crisis management task force can serve as the enterprises first line of response and information center related to the pandemic. Aside from risk mitigation, this function is well-suited to communicate and align stakeholders. Therefore, sound decisions can be taken in optimizing the companys operating model to ensure cost competitiveness and secure margins during the crisis.

As cost pressure escalates, managing cash flow becomes more crucial. With volatile prices in oil and gas, petrochemical players must actively monitor raw material rates. Current supply chain should be reviewed to identify disruptions and possible shortages caused by COVID-19. Once these key priorities have been addressed, companies can concentrate on consumer-focused moves.

Second, anticipate the next. Future-minded companies stay afloat on regulatory changes and new customer preferences to assure revenue growth. In addition to government stimulus, producers need to be alert for extended responsibilities and new product requirements.

Currently, priorities on product safety outweigh sustainability concerns. Jakarta, which recently imposed the ban of single-use plastics, has reported that the portion of plastics from municipal waste has increased from 16 percent to 34 percent.

COVID-19 has also decimated the demand for recycled plastics, reaching a 75 percent decline. Market assessment is important to help understand demand shifts during the pandemic. The new knowledge can allow companies to mitigate risks by adjusting value proposition, evaluating production flexibility or making changes in existing product portfolio.

A comeback should also be anticipated; hence, companies need to navigate segments that are rebounding in demand. Divestment of underperforming portfolio should also be considered, especially for less strategic assets in the long run.

Third, seize the new. Enterprises with financial and operational resilience during the crisis are well-positioned to be opportunity minded and further rethink their position in the future. With the new normal, it is imperative to develop new product design, specifications, and technology requirements based on updated policies and customer expectations.

Given the limitations in working environment and heightened hygiene concerns, COVID-19 has provided an added incentive to embrace digital transformation. The current automation level in upstream and downstream petrochemicals are at around 80 percent and 50 percent, respectively.

Players should also scan for untapped market opportunities; a potential value chain integration through mergers and acquisitions may be considered.

---

Business analyst at YCP Solidiance

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
CCP Scrubs State Media Report Raising Concerns Over COVID-19 Vaccine From Internet

Amid Chinas race to develop a vaccine for the CCP virus, specialists recently told Chinese state-run media about the risks of an adverse reaction known as antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), but within hours, the report was removed and reposts were scrubbed from the internet.

The human body generates antibodies after contracting a virus. Scientists have found that some viruses can manifest ADE, meaning antibodies triggered by the first infection could connect the second viral strain to receptors on immune cellsthereby allowing the virus to enter immune cells.

This could potentially trigger a patient who is infected by one strain of a virus to suffer a more serious recurrence of the disease if they are infected by a second strain later on.

As vaccines work by containing toxins or surface proteins of a bacteria or virus, which stimulate the bodys immune system to recognize the pathogen as a threat and produce antibodies to destroy it, the potential for ADE is often considered when designing vaccines.

Chinese Report

For an Aug. 30 report, the Yicai news service interviewed four Chinese specialists about the ADE risk from the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.

An unnamed specialist from the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center said, Our latest research found out that novel coronavirus has ADE phenomenon, and the percentage is not small.

A researcher working in a lab at the Yisheng Biopharma, a company that develops COVID-19 vaccines, in Shenyang, China, on June 10, 2020. (NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Virologist and professor at Hong Kong University Jin Dong-yan also told Yicai that the CCP virus might have ADE. He cited recent cases of recovered patients who later tested positive for COVID-19 again as proof of the phenomenon.

He cited one particular case in the United States. According to the Nevada Independent, a 25-year-old Nevada resident tested positive for COVID-19 again on June 6, 48 days after his first positive test. The two virus samples from the patient in April and June are different, and the patient had severe symptoms after the second infection.

The patient had antibodies when he was in severe condition [during the second infection], meaning the symptoms might be caused by his immune system. Theres the possibility of ADE, Jin said.

On Aug. 31, Chinas Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Gao Fu responded to Yicais report and said its still unclear whether the CCP virus manifested ADE.

A study published in the scientific journal Nature on June 5 concluded that whether SARS-CoV-2 can cause ADE effects remains an open question, but given that ADE has been observed with the closely related SARS-CoV, further studies need to be conducted on ADE effects. SARS-CoV-2 is the full scientific name for the virus that causes COVID-19, while SARS-CoV is the moniker for the virus that causes SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

The study also warned that as certain vaccine designs are more likely to induce ADE immune responses than others, researchers should proceed with caution in developing vaccines for COVID-19.

China Vaccines

Despite the lack of concrete research, the Chinese regime is moving ahead with COVID-19 vaccine trials. Chinese state-run media Xinhua reported on Aug. 28 that three Chinese companies were performing phase 3 clinical trials, with one manufacturer testing on more than 30,000 people in countries in the Middle East, South America, and Southeast Asia.

Chinese state-run companies and the army also mandated some employees and soldiers to take part in trials for the vaccine.

A researcher at Peking Universitys Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics conducting tests at their laboratory in Beijing, China on May 14, 2020. (WANG ZHAO/AFP via Getty Images)

U.S.-based China affairs commentator and former medical doctor Tang Jingyuan said the Chinese regimes push was irresponsible and akin to treating Chinese citizens as lab mice.

The Chinese regime is eager to be the first one to have an approved vaccine. It needs to use the vaccine as a political tool to win the support from developing countries, as well as to compete with the developed countries, Tang said.

The Yicai report triggered a heated online discussion in China before it was taken down.

The Chinese regime doesnt want public opinion to ruin its plan. This is likely the reason why authorities quickly removed the article, Tang added.
The head of the Food and Drug Administration says he is willing to fast-track a COVID-19 vaccine as quickly as possible,

Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA Commissioner, said his agency was prepared to authorize a vaccine before Phase Three clinical trials were complete, as long as officials are convinced that the benefits outweigh the risks, the Financial Times reports.

Without providing evidence, President Donald Trump last Saturday accused members of a so-called 'deep state' working within the FDA of complicating efforts to test COVID-19 vaccines in order to delay results until after the November 3 presidential election.

A day later, the FDA gave 'emergency use authorization' of a coronavirus treatment that uses blood plasma from recovered patients.

'Our emergency use authorization is not the same as a full approval,' Hahn told the FT, adding that his decisions will not be made because of political pressure.

'This is going to be a science, medicine, data decision. This is not going to be a political decision,' Hahn said, according to the report.

Dr. Stephen Hahn said the FDA was prepared to authorize a vaccine, as long as officials are convinced that the benefits outweigh the risks

Heather Lieberman, left, 28, receives a COVID-19 vaccination from Yaquelin De La Cruz at the Research Centers of America in Hollywood, Florida, on August 13

Hahn said the safest way for the vaccine to be available for use before the end of Phase Three trials, which involve thousands of patients and can take years, would be by issuing an emergency authorization for use by certain groups rather than a blanket approval, the FT reported.

Hahn was forced to apologize last week for overstating the life-saving benefits of treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma.

Scientists and medical experts had been pushing back against the claims about the treatment since President Trump's announcement that the FDA had decided to issue emergency authorization for convalescent plasma, taken from patients who have recovered from the coronavirus and rich in disease-fighting antibodies.

Trump hailed the decision as a historic breakthrough even though the treatment's value has not been established. The announcement on the eve of Trump's Republican National Convention raised suspicions that it was politically motivated to offset critics of the president's handling of the pandemic.

Hahn had echoed Trump in saying that 35 more people out of 100 would survive the coronavirus if they were treated with the plasma. That claim vastly overstated preliminary findings of Mayo Clinic observations.

The FDA commissioner then fired its spokesperson Emily Miller after 11 days on the job.

'I have been criticized for remarks I made Sunday night about the benefits of convalescent plasma. The criticism is entirely justified. What I should have said better is that the data show a relative risk reduction not an absolute risk reduction,' Hahn tweeted.

Hahn pushed back Tuesday morning against suggestions that the plasma announcement was timed to boost Trump ahead of the Republican convention.

Donald Trump listens as Dr. Stephen Hahn speaks during a media briefing. Trump last Saturday accused members of a so-called 'deep state' working within the FDA of complicating efforts to test COVID-19 vaccines

A health worker test a man for Covid-19 at a pop up testing location on the boardwalk at Revere Beach in Revere, Massachusetts on August 11. Hahn says his decisions will not be made because of political pressure

The administration has sunk vast resources into the race for a vaccine, and Trump aides have been hoping that swift progress could help the president ahead of November's election.

Former FDA officials said the political pressure and attacks against the FDA carry enormous risk of undermining trust in the agency just when it's needed most. A vaccine will only be effective against the virus if it is widely taken by the U.S. population.

Convalescent plasma is a century-old approach to treating the flu, measles and other viruses. But the evidence so far has not been conclusive about whether it works, when to administer it and what dose is needed.
Taking abortion pills at home could become a permanent option in parts of Britain after being temporarily allowed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Women up to 10 weeks pregnant have been able to get the necessary pills by only having a phone consultation, rather than attending a clinic, since March.

The temporary measure was set up to allow for women to still get the care they needed despite the lockdown, and it has reportedly been used almost 100,000 times.

Ministers are now set to hold a public consultation on whether to keep the new system in place in England, Wales and Scotland before the provision ends in 18 months' time, The Times reports.

Lord James Bethell, a member of the House of Lords and undersecretary at the Department of Health, said that there would be a public consultation 'on permanent home use of both pills for early medical abortion'.

Contraception clinics and doctors are in favour of the move and say it would greatly benefit those with childcare or work responsibilities, disabilities or women in domestic violence situations whose pregnancy could leave them in danger.

The easy access to the pills has slashed waiting times, allowing for abortions to take place earlier in the pregnancy, which is the safest way.

The pills in question are suitable for abortions up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy. The legal limit is 24 weeks and the procedure is different for late-stage terminations.

But there are concerns about the new rule and the possibility for people to pass the pills on to other people who haven't had a medical consultation, who may put their health in danger by taking pills prescribed for someone else.

Abortion pills taken at home may become permanent after being temporarily allowed during the Covid-19 pandemic (stock image)

The Government approved the use of phone consultations for early medical abortion care in the first trimester in March.

The Department of Health had already back-tracked on the policy once before, causing Health Secretary Matt Hancock to come under increasing pressure to continue with the published plans.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), The Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians were among the 13 organisations that convinced the Health Secretary to amend the law during the pandemic.

Clare Murphy, of the BPAS, said: 'All the evidence supports the continuation of this service as in the best interests of women.

WHAT CHANGED IN ABORTION RULES THIS YEAR? Organisations wrote to Health Secretary Matt Hancock in March urging him to temporarily amend the law so that just one doctor, nurse or midwife is needed to authorise the procedure, rather than the current two. Without this, the organisations warned that women may not be able to access care early, will be forced to present at later gestations, and will risk spreading the coronavirus to themselves or others. The current law requires that two doctors provide signatures to certify that the abortion being carried out does not breach the terms of the Abortion Act 1967. Some of the 13 signatories included representatives from the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. In normal circumstances, the need for two signatures means women can be asked to come to a clinic more than once, or to get a signature from their GP first. Alternatively, doctors may have to physically find another doctor to provide the second authorisation. The Department of Health (DHSC) had already backtracked on the policy once before. On Monday 23 March a document published on the DHSC website stated that women would no longer need to go to a hospital or clinic in order to have a medical abortion. But later that day a spokesperson told The Independent the changes were 'published in error' and not going ahead. It caused Health Secretary Matt Hancock to come under increasing pressure to continue with the published plans. On March 30, Mr Hancock approved two temporary measures in England: women and girls will be able to take both pills for early medical abortion up to 10 weeks in their own homes, without the need to first attend a hospital or clinic

registered medical practitioners (doctors) will be able to prescribe both pills for the treatment of early medical abortion up to 10 weeks from their own homes Women requiring a medical abortion in England, Scotland and Wales could access 'pills by post' during the lockdown, but not in Northern Ireland. Clare Murphy, of The British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said the move to temporary allow home abortions had slashed waiting times by up to two weeks and was one of 'the few healthcare success stories of the pandemic'. Women who want an abortion usually have to wait no more than two weeks from when they first contact an abortion provider. Most abortions in England, Wales and Scotland are carried out before 24 weeks of pregnancy. And abortions are safer the earlier they're carried out, so those two weeks could be crucial. In England and Wales, within the terms of the Abortion Act 1967, only a registered practitioner can terminate a pregnancy. In 2019, there were 207,384 abortions for women resident in England and Wales, the highest number since the Abortion Act was introduced, 99 per cent of which are funded by the NHS. Advertisement

'Womens ability to access early abortion care at home during lockdown has been one of the few healthcare success stories of the pandemic, and its clear it should continue after we emerge from it.

'This service has cut waiting times significantly and with it the average gestation at which an abortion takes place  while abortion is an extremely safe procedure the earlier it can be performed the better for womens physical and mental health.'

Under the temporary service, eligible patients are able to take both pills for medical abortion up to 10 weeks in their own homes, without attending a clinic. It relies on the honesty of women's self reports.

Normally, women wanting to end a pregnancy had to go to a registered clinic where they have a face-to-face consultation.

They then take the first pill there and the second one at home 24 to 48 hours later.

The first pill, mifepristone, stops the hormone that allows the pregnancy to continue.

The second, misoprostol, causes the body to expel the pregnancy from the womb by breaking down the lining and softening and opening of the cervix.

The Sunday Mirror reported that the at-home abortion service has been used around 90,000 times since it was set up.

BPAS says that the first visit is not necessary at all, and Ms Murphy said wait times had been reduced by as much as two weeks since appointments were done away with.

She said: 'Even before lockdown, there were many women who struggled to access in clinic care because of their own health problems, work or childcare commitments, and sometimes living considerable distances from a clinic which they relied on public transport to access.

'Women in abusive or coercive relationships can find travelling to a clinic particularly difficult when their every move is watched, and pregnancy is often used by abusive partners to tie a woman to him. This service has enabled women in these circumstances to access our help safely and discretely.'

She said women who had praised the service included an NHS worker on the frontline, a women in the process of leaving an abusive marriage whose every move is followed by her husband, and women who are cannot drive but struggle to afford extra public transport.

But the service will be challenged in a judicial review by evangelical advocacy group Christian Concern, which says that the change to policy is 'unlawful' and 'dangerous'.

The case argued that the government's 'DIY home abortion policy' goes against the purpose of the Abortion Act - to ensure abortions are safe and prevent backstreet procedures.

At the judicial review hearing, lawyers argued Mr Hancock had no power under the 1967 Abortion Act to authorise home abortions - only Parliament should be allowed.

The religious non-profit organisation submitted a witness statement from Kevin Duffy, former global clinics director at Marie Stopes International.

His statement included contents of an 'urgent' email sent by a chief midwife at NHS England and NHS Improvement to NHS staff said there was 'escalating risks' of the 'pills by post' service.

It claimed that 13 incidents were under investigation, including abortion pills being delivered to a woman 22 weeks over the limit for home abortion.

It also claimed there had been two deaths of women linked to the home pills. But it is not clear if the deaths are specifically caused by the pills and how they took them.

But last month a judge ruled that a witness statement could not be considered as part of the case.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, said: 'The leaked email is a sickening admission that those running abortion services in England have elevated ideology over women's safety.

'The email appears to suggest that pregnant women who have used the telemedicine service during UK lockdown have died or experienced serious life-changing complications.

'This further confirms the inherent danger of DIY abortions and shows how ideologues who show little concern for women  and no concern for babies  have captured NHS England as well as the providers and professional bodies.'

An investigation by Christian Concern also claims abortion clinics sent pills out to women on the phone, posing as pregnant patients, despite them giving fake names, dates of birth, GP registers and conception dates.

It raised fears the service could be used illegitimately by third parties such as for underage sexual abuse victim without any investigation.

But contraception and pregnancy services providers dispute claims the service is dangerous for women.

Jonathan Lord, medical director of abortion provider Marie Stopes, said: 'Thanks to telemedicine women have been able to access the timely high-quality care they deserve. Had this not been available the consequences could have been catastrophic.'

Lisa Hallgarten, of the sexual health charity Brook, added: 'Many will benefit from this permanent option, including those with childcare responsibilities, disabilities, who cannot travel or are in domestic violence situations.'

Last month the Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson tabled an amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill to provide women in abusive relationships with the ability to access 'safe, legal' abortion care without going to a clinic.

She said that if a doctor determined that a woman was in an abusive relationship and unable to attend a clinic she could obtain the care required.

The amendment was not selected by Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, however, after criticism from Maria Miller, a former minister for women, who said that the 'rushed nature' of the amendment had resulted in 'a clause which is open to a great deal of misinterpretation'.
Former President John Mahama's call for a debate with President Akufo-Addo has been heavily criticized by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).



Adding his voice to the discussion is Central Regional Minister, Kwamena Duncan.



In a panel discussion on Peace FM's morning show 'Kokrokoo', he said: "in all of this, you are also throwing a debate challenge...this is someone sinking if he has already not sunk. As an opposition leader, you threw the same challenge. If you were so focused you don't need this so-called debate...(but) Akufo-Addo is focused and will not be distracted"



Listen to him in the video below





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
Silver Price Forecast Overview:

Silver prices have started to resume their multi-month uptrend, commencing with the bullish breakout from the triangle that produced consolidated trading in August.

Elevated silver volatility in context of broader market conditions (strength in equity markets, weakness in the US Dollar ) may prove to be beneficial for silver prices.

Recent changes in sentiment suggests that silver prices have a mixed outlook in the short-term.

Silver Prices Resume Upward March

Gyrations in silver prices in August may have been the result of an overcrowded market, as previous iterations of this report have explained. Like with gold prices, that there was a deeper pullback in silver prices in August amid a more restrained rise in US Treasury yields relative to June suggests that the long silver trade was overcrowded.

But August is coming to an end, and with it, so too the summer doldrums. Market participation rates will be rising over the coming weeks, especially after next Mondays Labor Day holiday in the United States. Alongside more participation means more volume, which lends to the possibility of more volatility (note: October is the month that produces the highest average VIX, historically speaking).

That also means that attention will return to the bullish fundamental argument that has lifted silver prices for several months now. It has been and remains the case that the base case scenario of expansion fiscal and expansionary monetary policies will an environment for falling real yields, which historically has been beneficial to precious metals like silver prices. These factors should continue to enhance the negative real yield argument that has been fueling gold and silvers rallies in recent months.

Silver Prices and Silver Volatility Syncing Back Up

Silver volatility (as measured by the Cboes gold volatility ETF, VXSLV, which tracks the 1-month implied volatility of silver as derived from the SLV option chain) was trading at 59.65, sitting closer to the monthly low (52.83) than the monthly high (83.31), effectively carving out a doji candle on the monthly timeframe. The 5-day correlation between VXSLV and silver prices is 0.67 and the 20-day correlation is 0.24. One week ago on August 24, the 5-day correlation was 0.61 and the 20-day correlation was 0.55.

VXSLV (SILVER VOLATILITY) TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: DAILY PRICE CHART (MARCH 2011 TO August 2020) (CHART 1)

As weve explained previously, given the current environment, falling silver volatility is not necessarily a negative development for silver prices, whereas rising silver volatility has almost always proved bullish; in the same vein, silver volatility simply trending sideways is more positive than negative for silver prices.

Both gold and silver are precious metals that typically enjoy a safe haven appeal during times of uncertainty in financial markets. While other asset classes dont like increased volatility (signaling greater uncertainty around cash flows, dividends, coupon payments, etc.), precious metals tend to benefit from periods of higher volatility as uncertainty increases silvers safe haven appeal.

SILVER PRICE TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: WEEKLY CHART (JUNE 2013 TO AUGUST 2020) (CHART 2)

In the most recent silver price forecast, it was noted that silver prices rallied into the consolidation amid a long-term bottoming effort suggests that a bull flag has formed; a topside breakout above 29.8588 is favored. It appears that the bull flag morphed into a triangle consolidation, yielding a topside break last week with follow through on the final trading day of August. Silver prices have proven to be supported by the daily 21-EMA during recent selloffs, and now has the fully daily 5-, 8-, 13-, and 21-EMA in bullish sequential order. The bullish breakout attempt favors a return to the yearly high at 29.8588.

SILVER PRICE TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: DAILY CHART (AUGUST 2019 TO AUGUST 2020) (CHART 3)

Silver prices may be resuming their long-term bottoming effort. Silver prices have held above their weekly 4-, 13-, and 26-EMA envelope, with the weekly 4-EMA serving as critical support through August. But more notably, silver prices maintained their move above the 38.2% retracement of the 2011 high to 2020 low range at 26.2233, which also constitutes key support back from 2011 and 2012 on multiple occasions. Psychologically, holding above 26.2233 signal confidence in silvers longer-term bullish bottoming prospects.

IG Client Sentiment Index: Silver Price Forecast (August 31, 2020) (Chart 4)

Silver: Retail trader data shows 85.21% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders long to short at 5.76 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 5.44% higher than yesterday and 6.31% higher from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 8.57% higher than yesterday and 5.94% lower from last week.

We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-long suggests Silver prices may continue to fall.

Positioning is less net-long than yesterday but more net-long from last week. The combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a further mixed Silver trading bias.

--- Written by Christopher Vecchio, CFA, Senior Currency Strategist
Following her successful debut in X-rated content platform OnlyFans, Bella Thorne made a public apology after she was criticized for the policy changes made on the adult site.

The London-based platform is an explicit subscription-only site that allows creators to earn money in exchange for exclusive content, such as nude photos and other adult-only posts.

Thorne made headlines after joining the NSFW site earlier this month, as she reportedly raked in more than $2 million in a week.

In addition, she was also the first OnlyFans creator to earn $1 million in just 24 hours by charging her fans $20 a month for a subscription fee.

Bella Thorne Accused of Scamming Subscribers

Unfortunately, this sparked outrage with other content creators and sex workers after the adult platform set a new policy stating that no content creator can charge over $50 for pay-per-view content and that no subscriber can tip more than $100.

It came after a screenshot went viral suggesting that the 22-year old actress scammed its fans by offering $200 for a nude photo, but instead, the Thorne sent a non-nude content.

Bella Thorne Apologized to Sex Workers Affected by OnlyFans New Policy

Following the backlash, the "Midnight Sun" actress took to social media to address the issue.

In a series of tweets, the Florida native mentioned that she wanted to remove the stigma surrounding the porn industry and doesn't want to "hurt" anyone.

I wanted to bring attention to the site, the more people on the site the more likely of a chance to normalize the stigmas, And in trying to do this I hurt you. I have risked my career a few times to remove the stigma behind sex work, porn, and the natural hatred people spew...  BITCHIMBELLATHORNE (@bellathorne) August 29, 2020

"I wanted to bring attention to the site, the more people on the site the more likely of a chance to normalize the stigmas, [a]nd in trying to do this I hurt you. I have risked my career a few times to remove the stigma behind sex work, porn, and the natural hatred people spew behind anything sex-related," Thorne said.

The former Disney star continued and mentioned that she's "truly sorry" for the trouble that she might have caused.

"I am a mainstream face and when you have a voice, a platform, you try to use ... in helping others and advocate for something bigger than yourself. Again in this process, I hurt you, and for that, I'm truly sorry," she wrote.

However, fans are not convinced with her apology and demanded Thorne to "donate" her earnings to the sex workers.

"Bella Thorne has issued an apology" i dont give a fuck what she has to say. Donate your stolen millions to the sex workers that will be without rent/food/etc money because of you. God, i'm so tired," one user posted.

OnlyFans Defended Bella Thorne

On the other hand, OnlyFans mentioned in a statement to NBC News that their new policy was not based on one user alone, but the changes are made to allow subscribers to use the platform "safely."

"Transaction limits are set to help prevent overspending and to allow our users to continue to use the site safely. We value all of the feedback received since this change was implemented, and we will continue to review these limits."

READ MORE: Meme-Worthy! 3 Times Melania Trump Was Trolled Over Her RNC Speech
The government is backing away from suggestions of a mass return of workers to offices this week, with one cabinet minister acknowledging that employers will not have the capacity to accommodate all staff at their desks in a Covid-secure way.

Boris Johnson has been accused of bullying workers after a senior government source was quoted as saying that staff who continue to work from home may be vulnerable to the sack.

Senior Tory backbencher Robert Halfon insisted that it should be for employers not ministers to decide when it is safe for workers to return, warning that the Conservatives must not be seen to demand that everyone must march from the suburbs to the cities in some sort of forced collectivisation.

But environment secretary George Eustice this morning indicated that a back-to-work publicity drive expected to kick off at the end of this week will focus instead on reassurance that workplaces are safe. Downing Street sources said that a series of ads appearing in regional and national press from next weekend will highlight messages about making offices Covid-secure and encouraging safe means of travelling to and from work, rather than exhorting employees to return to their desks.

Mr Eustice said he had set no target for proportions of civil servants to be at their desks in his own Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and made clear he believed that the return to normal working conditions after five months is likely to be gradual.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 14 January 2022 Ecologist Emma Smart (left) and retired GP Dr Diana Warner outside HMP Bronzefield, in Surrey, following their release from the prison where Emma undertook a 26-day hunger strike during her incarceration. Ms Smart was sentenced in November, along with other members of Insulate Britain, to serve four months for breaking a High Court injunction by taking part in a blockade at junction 25 of the M25 motorway during the morning rush hour on 8 October last year PA UK news in pictures 13 January 2022 A TV presenter holds a copy of a newspaper outside 10 Downing Streetafter the Prime Minister apologised for attending a gathering of colleagues in the Number Ten garden in May 2020, while the UK was in strict lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic Getty UK news in pictures 12 January 2022 Fitness guru Derrick Evans after receiving an MBE during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 11 January 2022 A couple walk underneath an umbrella during wet weather on Westminster Bridge in central London PA UK news in pictures 10 January 2022 A jogger passes the Covid Memorial Wall in London AP UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 The sun rises over horses at Seaton Sluice in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 8 January 2022 Riders compete during the Veterans Men's race at the UK Cyclo-Cross National Championships 2022 in Ardingly, south of London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 7 January 2022 A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. Getty UK news in pictures 21 December 2021 People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year PA UK news in pictures 20 December 2021 An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton PA UK news in pictures 19 December 2021 Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux Getty Images UK news in pictures 18 December 2021 Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent PA UK news in pictures 17 December 2021 Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election PA UK news in pictures 16 December 2021 Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire PA UK news in pictures 15 December 2021 Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 14 December 2021 The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool PA UK news in pictures 13 December 2021 People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster Getty Images UK news in pictures 12 December 2021 People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 11 December 2021 People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds, PA 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 26 November 2021 A killer whale (orca in the fjord of Skjervoy, northern Norway AFP/Getty

You have to make sure people come back in a socially distanced way, he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme.

That means you may have not the capacity to have a full return for everyone to office. It may be that some people work from home some days and come in on some days, but we do want to start getting more people back into an office environment. Were working on how to do that, along with everybody else.

We don't have a target, other than to make sure that it's safe for people to return to work, even if that does require, for instance, fewer work-stations so you won't get a 100% return to work.

But we want to ensure that as many people as possible are able to return to work, even if it's for some days a week and you don't have an entire team in every day. That's the kind of approach we'll be taking and it's sort of approach many other businesses, I'm sure, will do too.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is known to be alarmed at the apparent reluctance of workers to return to offices, leaving the centres of cities like London eerily quiet on weekdays, with a damaging knock-on effect on businesses like cafes, sandwich shops and restaurants which rely on the presence of thousands of commuters for their financial viability.

Official figures show that on Monday last week, trains carried only 28 per cent of their normal passenger loads, while the proportion stood at 45 per cent for buses.

There are hopes that the return of students to schools in England and Wales this week will free up many parents to leave the home and go back to their workplaces.

But some major companies have signalled a more long-term shift towards home-working, raising fears about a collapse in the value of high-rent business premises in city centres and the future viability of commuter transport networks.

George Eustice (Getty)

But Downing Street is aware it must tread carefully, after the hostile response to last weeks suggestions that bosses may find it easier to hand out P45s to home-workers who they do not regularly see at their work-stations.

The briefing was denounced as an absolute disgrace by Labours shadow business secretary Lucy Powell, while the Scottish National Partys Westminster leader Ian Blackford told the PA news agency: "I think what is not the answer is a government trying to bully people and to see the kind of threats that we've had about people losing their jobs. The public recognise that this virus has not gone away, that there is a risk."

Mr Halfon, who has been an influential champion of ordinary workers' interests within the Tory party, told BBC Radio 4s Westminster Hour: It should be up to the employers to decide.

Obviously its great if youve got vibrant and bustling cities, but we shouldnt get ourselves into a position where were seen as Tories saying this is what an employer must do and everyone must march from the suburbs to the cities in some sort of forced collectivisation. I think that employers are best to know whether or not their employees can be in.

The TUC is calling for mandatory publication of health and safety risk assessments detailing measures companies are taking to make workplaces Covid-secure.

General secretary Frances O'Grady said that some companies were "playing fast and loose with the rules".

She told Times Radio there were "cowboys out there" and that companies should be required to release risk assessments "so staff and the whole community can see for ourselves whether employers are taking this seriously".

Mr Eustice stressed that some businesses, such as construction and food, had developed procedures allowing them to continue to work almost throughout the coronavirus lockdown.

He said: Our central message is it is safe to return to work and that employers should work with their employees to identify how they can do so safely.

There are lots of working environments that have managed to get people returning to work safely.

The advice previously has been on office work If you can work from home, do so. But we increasingly just need to keep the progress towards getting people back to something closer to normal.

That's why our message is, it is safe to return to work. And we hope that employers will work with their employees to try to get more people back into an office environment.
Washington:

The White House condemned the act of savagery of one gunman in Istanbul who killed at least 35 people and wounded 40 others as they celebrated the New Year, calling the attack horrific.

The gunman reportedly dressed as Santa Claus shot dead a policeman and a civilian at the entrance to the Reina nightclub, one of the citys most exclusive party venues, before going on a shooting rampage inside, according to the authorities.

NTV television said many party-goers threw themselves into the Bosphorus in panic after the attack and efforts were under way to rescue them from the waters.

The United States condemns in the strongest terms the horrific terrorist attack at a nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, which has left dozens dead and many more wounded, National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

That such an atrocity could be perpetrated upon innocent revellers, many of whom were celebrating New Years Eve, underscores the savagery of the attackers.

Price added: We reaffirm the support of the United States for Turkey, our NATO ally, in our shared determination to confront and defeat all forms of terrorism

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Queensland's Premier will set up a unit this week to field medical exemption requests for NSW residents needing treatment across the border.

The announcement follows a string of controversial cases, including an expectant Ballina mother who lost one of her unborn twins last week.

Annastacia Palaszczuk has confirmed the state's prison cluster is still growing.

Queensland Health have said the woman did not need an exemption to enter the state for emergency care, but the woman's father believed it would have taken too long to jump through the hoops to enter Queensland, and so his daughter was sent to Sydney instead.

A hotline will be set up to help co-ordinate medical transfers and reduce confusion about who can cross the border.
Successful implementation of the first COLIBRI National Online Training Course in Uruguay in July 2020 and two online training courses planned for Argentina and Colombia in September 2020

The COLIBRI Project is designed to improve coordination and information sharing in order to develop the capacities of Customs officials and their partners in the fight against organized crime and illicit trafficking, to strengthen the rule of law and, in so doing, to contribute towards sustainable development and peace.

This initiative emphasizes the importance of implementing modern risk analysis, targeting and control techniques.

The Projects planning and capacity building component has been affected by the current COVID-19 worldwide health crisis, and, as a result, any planned training courses were postponed whilst project activities were reshaped in order to minimize the effects of the pandemic and advance the implementation of the project and its training element.

The training course has been designed to be delivered in two phases: the first phase is provided online and focuses on theoretical aspects; the second practical phase will be conducted on-site as soon as the global situation allows. The theoretical part of the training includes, among other elements, the following modules: Introduction to General Aviation; Respect for Human Rights in Control Action; The International Normative Framework; General Aviation Infrastructures and Legal Requirements; General Aviation Activities; Communication Systems and Procedures in Air Operations; and Risk Indicators.

The online design of the theoretical part of the training, totalling 20 hours of teaching spread over two weeks, was completed in time for the delivery of the training to begin in July 2020. The trainers consist of a group of experts who are collaborating with COLIBRI and are actively involved in the publication of the General Aviation Surveillance and Control Pedagogical Manual.

The first national online training course was successfully delivered to Uruguay between 20 and 31 July 2020. The course brought together 37 Uruguayan officials from Customs, the Air Force, the National Police, DINACIA and the National Prefecture. The training course proved to be very productive, and, despite being held online, the forum allowed the expert trainers and participants to engage in discussions and debates that provided a greater understanding of the topics covered.

The first two-week course was only possible thanks to the commitment of the administrations, participants and expert trainers whose excellent work helped make this activity a resounding success.

The COLIBRI team hope to be able to resume face-to-face training very soon as a complement to the Projects training programme, but, for the time being and in the light of the ongoing global health crisis, online training is the only available means of disseminating the theoretical knowledge on which the practical part of the training will be based, both on the ground and in person.

The COLIBRI experts will gather again in September for two online training sessions: the first one for Argentina and the second for Colombia.
On Saturday, protests in Portland turned violent after a convoy of Trump supporters drove into the city, their pickup trucks filled with American flags and in some cases people carrying weapons (although supporters said many of them were paintball guns). Late Saturday night, police and independent journalists on the scene reported that a man was shot and killed after clashing with protesters. While his name has not been officially released, Trump supporters on Twitter identified him as a Trump loyalist, and witnesses reported he was wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group based in Washington that has disrupted Black Lives Matter protests and fought with anti-fascist groups in the past (the head of the group later confirmed to the New York Times that the man who died was a member of Patriot Prayer.) Hours later, Donald Trump posted a storm of tweets about the protests, in which he retweeted criticism of Portlands mayor, Ted Wheelera Democratincluding comments that suggested Wheeler was guilty of war crimes and had blood on his hands.

Trumps rhetoric on the Black Lives Matter protests, not just in Oregon but in other states as well, has been ramping up as the election draws closer, painting what he clearly hopes will be a frightening picture of them as ongoing orgies of violence orchestrated by the shadowy, malevolent group known as Antifa (despite the fact that no organization by that name exists). And he and his supportersboth inside the White House as well as outside ithave taken every opportunity to lay the blame for abetting that violence on Democratic politicians like Wheeler and Oregon governor Kate Brown, for what Trump claims is a lack of action against the protesters, including a failure to call in federal troops. The only way you will stop the violence in the high crime Democrat run cities is through strength! he tweeted on Sunday, in addition to retweeting a claim (untrue, as Vox has pointed out) that high crime rates only occur in cities or states run by Democrats.

While the president has not explicitly called for violence during the protests, he has made it clear whose side he is on: he invited a couple who brandished weapons during a protest to speak at the Republican convention, and following the death of the Patriot Prayer member in Portland, he retweeted a video clip of another convoy of his supporters heading into the city and called them GREAT PATRIOTS! Trump and his administration have also done their best to explicitly tie the violence to Joe Biden, whom they accuse of being soft on violence because of his support for Black Lives Matter protestsTrump followers have recently started using the hashtag #BidenRiots on Twitter, and the president has retweeted them enthusiastically and often. The worldview that Trump is clearly hoping to encourage in voters minds is that the violence in Portland and elsewhere is a) a result of the liberal sympathies and general weakness of the Democratic party and by extension the weakness of Joe Biden, and b) that only Trump can ensure that law and orderor LAW & ORDER! as he tweeted again on Sundayis maintained, thanks to the use of federal troops like the ones he sent into DC and Portland not long after the death of George Floyd.

ICYMI: Journalisms Gates keepers

This strategy would be fairly obvious to anyone who has been following the news and/or the presidents Twitter feed over the past few months, but as it turns out, we dont need to read between the lines, because departing White House adviser Kellyanne Conway spelled it out in so many words during an interview last week on Fox & Friends, in which she said the more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on whos best on public safety and law and order. And Trump seems determined to do whatever he can to make this connection clear: on Saturday night, the White House announced that he will visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, where 17-year-old Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse shot several peoplekilling two of themduring protests on Tuesday night. The president also liked a tweet commending Rittenhouse for being a hero. As Democratic Representative Karen Bass of California said during Sundays State of the Union on CNN, Trumps proposed visit to Kenosha has one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to agitate things and to make things worse. Wisconsins governor has asked him not to come.

When writing about Trumps Kenosha visit, or his remarks on Portland and its mayor, the media need to be explicit about the political calculations and violent arithmetic that lie behind them. As Edwin Rios put it in Mother Jones, the presidents comments serve to instigate the violence-riddled vision of American cities he thinks is true. He leverages his platform to decry anti-racist protesters, frustrated at the near-monthly injustices they are seeing as agitators to reinforce the misleading notion that American cities, specifically Democrat-led ones, are unruly and in shambles. Its a Nixonian message from a time long past thats meant to sow discontent, to create a chaotic view of American life months before his reelection and depict an unstable society that he believes he alone can fix.

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Heres more on Trump and the protests:

Intense barrage : The New York Times has a rundown of what the paper calls an intense barrage of Twitter messages posted by the president over the weekend, a series of tweets that embraced fringe conspiracy theories about the coronavirus death toll being exaggerated and repeated the idea that protests in Portland and elsewhere are actually part of an organized coup detat against him. In a concentrated predawn burst, the president posted or reposted 89 messages between 5:49 a.m. and 8:04 a.m. on Sunday on top of 18 the night before, the newspaper reports , many of them inflammatory comments or assertions about violent clashes in Portland, Oregon.

Stay the hell out : Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler reacted on Sunday to Trumps tweets attacking him and other Democratic officials in the wake of the fatal shooting Saturday night, saying at a news conference : Id appreciate that either the president support us or stay the hell out of the way. Wheeler went on to ask: Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence? Its you who have created the hate and division. He added to reporters : My response is as the president of the United States and somebody who has been perpetrating divisive and hateful language for four years  for him to now stand here and say that its unexpected and act as though he is shocked, is appalling to me.

Unacceptable : Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden pinned part of the blame for the violence in Portland and elsewhere on Trump , asking: What does President Trump think will happen when he continues to insist on fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters? He is recklessly encouraging violence. Biden called the shooting in Portland unacceptable, said he condemned violence unequivocally regardless of whether it came from the left or the right, and challenged Trump to do the same. He also warned of becoming a country at war with ourselves. A country that accepts the killing of fellow Americans who do not agree with you. A country that vows vengeance toward one another.

Other notable stories:

Ben Smith, New York Times media reporter, interviews former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan, who recently launched a subscription newsletter powered by Substack, and claims to have enough paying readers that he is now making around $500,000 a year. In the piece, titled  Im Still Reading Andrew Sullivan. But I Cant Defend Him , Smith says Sullivan is one of the most influential journalists of the last three decades, but hes shadowed by a 1994 magazine cover story that claimed to show a link between race and IQ. Sullivan insists that hes open-minded on the issue.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has sent an open letter signed by 397 writers , journalists, academics, press freedom advocates, and civil society members to the Indian government asking Prime Minister Narendra Modi to immediately release journalist Aasif Sultan, who has been imprisoned for two years. Sultan covers politics and human rights for the Kashmir Narrator , and has been unjustly detained since August 27, 2018, under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, for his alleged complicity in harboring known terrorists. The letter states that interviewing alleged militants or having sources who are critical of the government is within the scope of a journalists job and does not implicate them in any crime.

Jack Herrera writes for CJR about how San Quentin inmates have put together their own chronicle of dealing with COVID-19 in the form of a zine written and published by those incarcerated in the prison. When Adamu Chan, a forty-one-year-old poet, dictated his verse over the phone from San Quentin, the coronavirus had already begun to spread through the prison. By the end of that month, San Quentin, which stands imposingly on the northern rim of the San Francisco Bay, became the second-largest hot spot for covid-19 in the United States. Chan was afraid. His unit remained relatively unaffected, but his friends in other areas of the prison were rapidly coming down with the disease.

Some Black-owned bookstores are seeing sales increases of more than 400 percent, as white readers try to educate themselves about Black history and the Black Lives Matter movement, according to the New Yorker . Black-owned bookstores have played a vital role in Black neighborhoods, serving as venues for both education and activism, the magazine says, and theyve seen a surge in popularity in recent years amid the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Whats happening this summer is new, though. Stores have reported sales boosts as high as four hundred per cent. Owners are working around the clock to fill a crush of orders. Stores that were once community-gathering spaces for Black people are now centers of intellectual triage for white people.

Authorities in Belarus on Saturday launched a crackdown on international and local media, stripping accreditation from journalists and blocking several local media sites amid protests against authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, according to a report in the Washington Post . Authorities withdrew accreditation from 17 Belarusian journalists working for international media and blocked several local independent online media sites. These moves fueled fears that Lukashenko may be planning harsh new measures to crush the peaceful protests, touched off by the leaders declaration of a landslide victory in Aug. 9 elections. Opposition groups and Western governments have rejected the election results.

On last weeks episode of CJRs podcast The Kicker, editor and publisher Kyle Pope (and his 11-year-old son, Zack) talked with longtime school principal and COVID survivor Lisa Edmiston as she prepares to reopen her middle school in Astoria, and tries to manage the fear shared by her staff and students. She has also made arrangements for herself at a local funeral home. The podcast also features Michael Elsen-Rooney, an education reporter for the Daily News , talking about how to assess what city education officials say, New York Mayor Bill De Blasios dismissive attitude towards education unions, and the pandemics effect on the Department of Education.

Crikey, an independent news site in Australia, says that the proposed legislation that would force Google and Facebook to pay publishers for their content is a breach of the rule of law . The government is pursuing a policy that, in its rejection of the rule of law and its arbitrary market intervention at the expense of investors and corporations, is the perfect embodiment of the idea of sovereign risk, writes politics editor Bernard Keane . And exactly no one is pointing it out  because Australias media companies are the beneficiaries of it, and the targets of it are two of the most hated companies in the world.

Tina Vasquez writes for Nieman Reports about movement journalism, or journalism that meets the needs of communities directly affected by injustice, and the launch of Freedomways , a journalism fellowship prioritizing women of color and LGBTQ+ people rooted in the American South and committed to doing reporting that advances justice. It is named after the journal that published the work of Black freedom fighters, and is a program of Press On , a Southern media collective that supports movement journalism.

ICYMI: Jacob Blake, Breonna Taylor, and the arbitrariness of the police-shooting news cycle

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Mathew Ingram is CJRs chief digital writer. Previously, he was a senior writer with Fortune magazine. He has written about the intersection between media and technology since the earliest days of the commercial internet. His writing has been published in the Washington Post and the Financial Times as well as by Reuters and Bloomberg.
Lee University students wrote letters to residents at 14 Legacy Senior Living communities across the Southeast to let them know they have not been forgotten, even during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As classes moved online in the spring, leaders at Lee University came up with the idea of letter writing as a way to engage students in their service requirements for the year. When it came time to put the plan into action, Dr. Dewayne Thompson, dean of the School of Business, reached out to two Lee alumni, Barry Ray and Bryan Cook, co-founders of Legacy Senior Living.

Service is a core value that Lee University not only talks about, but practices, said Dr. Thompson. Since many of our service opportunities were restricted by the advent of COVID-19, it occurred to us that residents in long-term care were impacted as well. Realizing the potential loneliness for these residents, we knew the energy and compassion of our students would provide relief. It was incredible to see our students willingly embrace this project as if they were writing to their grandparents. This made me so very proud of our Lee students.

According to Dr. Thompson, all schools at the university engaged their students in the note writing campaign, which resulted in over 800 residents receiving encouraging notes. Students devoted their 10 required service hours per semester to the letter writing campaign.

We were thrilled about this partnership with Lee University to create an inter-generational opportunity between college students and our residents, many of whom represent the greatest generation, said Mr. Ray. During the COVID-19 restrictions, family visitations at all 14 Legacy Senior Living facilities were stopped, affecting all family-resident in-person interaction.

This void of family interaction has been tough on these residents, and they look forward to visitation and socialization, said Mr. Ray. The note writing campaign was a huge blessing to the residents during this tough season.

The letters, collected at the Legacy Senior Living corporate support center in Cleveland, were distributed to the residents who live in Legacy Senior Living memory care and assisted living communities in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia.

"When the team at Lee reached out to us, we knew the residents would love receiving these letters, said Mr. Cook. Notes like these always bring a smile to the residents faces, and we are grateful to the students who have taken the time and effort to encourage our residents in such a compassionate and loving way. We are thankful to them and the administration for coming up with this great idea!

The student letters form a new component of Legacy Senior Living's intentional steps to ensure its residents know they are not alone during the pandemic. Legacy Senior Living communities regularly keep their residents remotely connected with loved ones via FaceTime meetings, window-side visits, and Facebook posts.
Hyderabad, Aug 31 : The daily count of Covid-19 cases in Telangana declined to 1,873 on Monday with the slump in the number of tests while nine fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 827.

The state's tally of cases mounted to 1,24,963, out of which 31,299 are active cases.

The state had reported 2,924 cases the previous day while 61,148 samples were tested.

After conducting nearly 62,000 tests every day for the last seven days, the health authorities brought down the number to 37,791 during the last 24 hours ending 8 p.m. Sunday.

According to a media bulletin issued from the office of the Director of Public Health and Family Welfare, 17,006 primary contacts and 5,290 secondary contacts were tested. The results of 800 samples are awaited.

The total number of tests conducted so far rose to 13,65,582. Over 4.30 lakh of these samples were tested during the last seven days till Saturday.

A total of 17 government and 35 private laboratories are conducting these tests while the state has 1,076 rapid antigen tests centres. Unlike some other states, the authorities in Telangana have not been providing breakup of the type of tests conducted.

The officials claimed that with 36,782 samples tested per million population, the number of tests conducted in the state is much higher than the daily testing target of 5,600 per day as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 140 per million per day.

Out of total 1,24,963 positive cases detected so far, 69 per cent are asymptomatic while the rest are symptomatic.

The health officials said the case fatality rate of the state is low at 0.66 per cent against the national average of 1.78 per cent. Out of the total fatalities, 53.87 per cent had comorbidities.

Of the fresh cases recorded in the state, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for 360. Rangareddy and Medchal Malkajgiri districts abutting GHMC reported 129 and 41 cases respectively. Sangareddy, another district bordering the state capital, recorded 37 new cases.

With 180 cases, Karimnagar emerged as the second with the highest number of fresh infections after Greater Hyderabad. This is the first time that a district other than Rangareddy and Medchal Malkajgiri reported the second highest number.

Khammam reported 103 new cases. Five districts, which had reported over 100 new cases each previous day, saw the numbers dropping to below 100 each. Warangal Urban and Nizamabad reported 94 cases each. The numbers in Siddipet district surged by 85 while Nalgonda saw 79 new cases.

During the last 24 hours, 1,849 people recovered from Covid-19, taking the total number of recoveries to 92,837. The state's recovery rate stands at 73.3 per cent against the national average of 76.55 per cent.

The number of active cases in the state stands at 31,299 including 24,216 in home/institutional isolation.

Age wise Covid positive details show that 65.3 per cent of those tested positive were in the age group of 21-50 years. Terming this as a susceptible age group, authorities have urged them not to go out unless absolutely necessary. They were advised to strictly exercise precautions like wearing face masks and maintain physical distancing.

Among Covid positive cases, 24.71 per cent are above 51 years of age. About 10 per cent were aged below 20 years.

Officials said 64.41 per cent of those tested positive were male, while the remaining 35.59 per cent were female.

According to the media bulletin, out of 20,396 beds under the government, 17,691 beds are vacant including 1,512 ICU beds and 4,584 oxygen beds.

A total of 172 private hospitals treating Covid in the state have 9,200 beds, out of which 4,822 are vacant.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Chandigarhs Model Jail, also called Burail Jail, had more undertrials than convicts in 2019, calling for an urgent need to expedite trials.

Of 984 inmates in December 2019, 580 (59%) were undergoing trial while 404 were convicts, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)s Prison Statistics 2019 released recently.

Chandigarhs only jail has a capacity to hold 1,120 inmates (1,000 men and 120 women). However, its occupancy remained 88% at the end of 2019 as compared to 92% in 2018 and 86% in 2017. Of 984 inmates in December 2019, 935 were men and 49 women.

When it comes to foreigners, there are 18 such prisoners, 14 of whom are undergoing trial. While 11 are from Nigeria, four are from Nepal.

98 convicted for crimes against women

At 98, the maximum number of convicts are serving jail sentence for crimes against women, including 84 for rape. As many as 74 inmates are undergoing trial for crimes against women, including 66 for rape.

Meanwhile, 123 are undergoing trial for theft while 23 have been lodged here after conviction. Similarly, there are 82 murder convicts and 83 on trial for it. When it comes to drug cases, there are 45 convicts and 80 undertrials.

Most are school dropouts

When it comes to educational qualification, most inmates are school dropouts. Of 383 dropouts, 191 are illiterate. Meanwhile, 293 could not complete graduation, 80 are graduates, 21 are postgraduates and 16 hold a technical degree or diploma.

The demography is on the younger side with 212 convicts and 326 undertrials in age group of 18 to 30 years, and only 34 convicts and 27 undertrials above 50.

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Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government has chosen six recipients for its 2020 William S. Dixon First Amendment Freedom Awards, which honor people who have made significant contributions to government transparency in the state.

The winners will be honored at a virtual ceremony Oct. 1, NMFOG said in a news release.

They are Gallup citizens Teri Garcia and Stefanie Mortensen, state Rep. Jim Townsend, R-Artesia, Albuquerque City Clerk Ethan Watson, lawyer Adam Flores and freelance reporter Ryan Lowery.

Garcia and Mortensen are parents of children who attended a Gallup charter school. They filed a lawsuit for Inspection of Public Records Act violations against Gallup McKinley County Schools in July 2018 after the district would not produce records they requested about policy changes concerning charter school students.

In July 2019, the school district agreed to settle the lawsuit and pay Garcia and

Mortensen $14,000 and provide them with copies of the documents they requested, according to a news release from NMFOG.

Mortensen said she was grateful to win the award.

It really does have an effect on other people, Mortensen said in a phone interview. Other citizens might be encouraged to fight for truth and transparency, especially when it comes to our children.

Earlier this year Townsend sponsored three House rule changes to help make it easier for the public to access voting records, and he supported the establishment of the ethics commission.

Flores litigated and prevailed in a case against the Albuquerque Police Department in which the Supreme Court decided that law enforcement agencies could not withhold records because a matter is under investigation.

Lowery, working with the Las Vegas Optic, filed two IPRA complaints with the state Attorney Generals Office after the Las Vegas Police Department denied requests to release information about several homicides around the city. Lowerys work also highlighted how Las Vegas City Schools violated IPRA by charging unlawful fees for access to public documents.

Ethan Watson developed a centralized program for responding to IPRA requests and prioritized digitizing the most frequently requested documents and posting them on the citys website.

Im grateful to receive this award, and appreciate the recognition, Watson said in a statement. This administration and my office work every day to make the government more accessible, and I look forward to continuing this important work.
The first episode of Beauty in Diversity: Literary Recitals by Young Chinese and South Asians has gone online. It is one of a series of events of the 9th China-South Asia International Cultural Forum, co-organized by the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) and the People's Government of Yunnan Province. Amb. Lin Songtian, president of the CPAFFC, delivered his message to the event.

(message from Amb. Lin Songtian)

Lin Songtian was pleased to launch the online literary salon to share the beauty of poems and Asian cultures. He said that both being located in Asia and with similar cultural genes and historical experience, China and South Asia countries have common development missions, and are jointly committed to the peace and prosperity of the region.

He said the youth are the future and hope of a nation. The younger generation shoulders the responsibility and mission of furthering friendly relations among countries. The 21st century is the epoch of Asia. He hoped that young people would carry forward the spirit of the ancient Silk Road, appreciate other cultures as they do their own and create a harmonious world together. He called on young people to promote the exchange and mutual learning among Asian civilizations, and contribute to the regional common prosperity, friendship and cooperation between our peoples.

In the videos, young people from China and South Asia recited literary classics from other countries in the region, expressing their friendliness and care for each other, hoping to soothe painful souls and bolster confidence in defeating COVID-19.

The first episode saw the participation of students from Peking University (China), Visna-Bharati University (India) and University of Dhaka (Bangladesh). Young people from China, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and other countries will participate in the online recitals in following episodes.

Students from University of Dhaka and Visva-Bharati University recited in Chinese excerpts from Facing the Sea With Spring Blossoms (by Hai Zi), Moon (by Ba Jin), Mistake (by by Zheng Chouyu) and Snow (by Lu Xun).

Students from Peking University recited in Bengali the poems No.3 and No.71 of Gitanjali (by Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore) and verses When There Shall be Meeting ( by Bangladeshi poet Lalon Fakir)
NAIROBI - Paul Rusesabagina, whose heroism during the 1994 genocide in his native Rwanda was portrayed by Don Cheadle in the Hollywood film "Hotel Rwanda," was arrested on Monday and charged with terrorism, arson, kidnapping and murder, according to the state-run Rwanda Investigation Bureau.

In the story told by the 2004 film, Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, uses his influence and wealth to first shelter hundreds hiding from bloodthirsty mobs that ultimately killed nearly a million people. Then, he secures their safe haven by persuading military officials to arrange their escape.

A year later, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.

In the years following the film's release, Rusesabagina became more vocal in his criticism of Paul Kagame, the former commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which ended the genocide. Kagame became the country's de facto leader after the genocide and then became president in 2000. His government has stifled independent media and political opposition, often linking dissent with genocide denial, a deeply taboo topic in the country.

A statement issued by the Rwanda Investigation Bureau said that Rusesabagina, 66, was arrested in Kigali in cooperation with unidentified international law enforcement agencies. In tracking down dissidents, Rwanda has often taken its time and sought the help of other countries, such as South Africa.

According to the Investigation Bureau's announcement, Rusesabagina "is suspected to be the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits," including splinter groups of those who committed the genocide more than a quarter-century ago and now allegedly operate out of neighboring Burundi and Congo.

"No one can take the lives of Rwandans and get away with it," the bureau's spokesman, Thierry Murangira, said at a news conference Monday.

Similar allegations against Rusesabagina emerged in 2011, but he was not formally charged. He has lived in exile in both the United States and Belgium in recent years, citing the threat of arrest.

In a 2006 op-ed in The Washington Post, Terry George, director and producer of "Hotel Rwanda," wrote of Rusesabagina's rise and fall in the eyes of the Rwandan state.

"When the film was released, Rusesabagina was acknowledged as a hero not just by ordinary people across the United States and Europe but also by diplomats, politicians, journalists and Rwandan officials in diplomatic posts here," he wrote. After news began spreading that Rusesabagina intended to form a political party, however, a "smear campaign" began.

Just a few months after the film was screened in front of thousands in Kigali's biggest stadium, Kagame called Rusesabagina a "manufactured hero."

"He should try his talents elsewhere and not climb on the falsehood of being a hero, because it's totally false," he said.
A Derry man who claims he saw IRA gunmen on Bloody Sunday said he did not divulge the information to avoid taking away from the "cold-blooded murder" of the day, the inquiry heard today.

Charles McGill added that he believed that the new probe into the events of January 30, 1972, is a whitewash to a certain extent.
In the years following the films release, Rusesabagina became more vocal in his criticism of Paul Kagame, the former commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which ended the genocide. Kagame became the countrys de facto leader after the genocide and then president in 2000. His government has stifled independent media and political opposition, often linking dissent with genocide denial, a deeply taboo topic in the country.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Monday made his most aggressive rebuttal yet to President Trumps claims that Americans will be less safe if the former vice president is elected in the Nov. 3 election.

Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really? Biden said in a 20-minute speech in Pittsburgh.

I want a safe America: safe from COVID, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops, Biden said. He added: Let me be crystal clear: safe from four more years of Donald Trump.

Biden, who has condemned violence several times since protests began in earnest in late May in Minneapolis following the killing of George Floyd, went out of his way to clarify that he does not condone any lawlessness.

I want to make it absolutely clear: Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. Its lawlessness, plain and simple, and those who do it should be prosecuted, Biden said.

Violence will not bring change. It will only bring destruction. Its wrong in every way. It divides instead of unites. ... It makes things worse across the board, not better. Its not what Dr. King or John Lewis taught, and it must end.

Joe Biden at a campaign event in Pittsburgh on Monday. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

The former vice president and U.S. senator from Delaware made his speech after more than a week of renewed protest over police shootings of Black men, which was overshadowed by unrest and violence in Kenosha, Wis., and other cities over the past weekend, including Washington, D.C.

One person was shot and killed in Portland, Ore., on Saturday night, following the shooting deaths of two people on Tuesday night in Kenosha during protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, on Aug. 23.

Trump and the Republican Party, after floundering in the polls all summer, have found a message that seems to be resonating: Biden is weak on crime, they say, and Americans will have to fear emboldened criminals on their streets if hes elected.

Story continues

Certain violent crimes, such as murders and shootings, are up in major cities since the beginning of the summer. Other cities, meanwhile, have endured months of protests and riots, which have been exacerbated in some areas by the appearance of militant left- and right-wing groups.

Although these trends are not exclusive to cities run by Democratic officials, Republicans argue that progressive lawmakers in cities like Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis and Chicago have been unable or unwilling to stop the violence.

Recent riots in Kenosha appear to have marked a turning point on the issue. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, was criticized by conservatives for his remarks following the shooting of Blake, which they argue aggravated an already tense situation.

In the days that followed, Kenosha descended into chaos, and images of burning buildings and police and protesters battling in the small city were shown on nationwide news channels.

A flag over a Department of Corrections building that was on fire during protests on Aug. 24 in Kenosha, Wis. (Morry Gash/AP)

Biden said Trump is to blame for these problems because he seeks to divide Americans and does nothing to unite the country in the wake of violent incidents.

Fires are burning, and we have a president who fans the flames rather than fighting the flames. But we must not burn. We have to build, Biden said.

Trump is scheduled to go to Kenosha on Tuesday. He is expected to meet with law enforcement officials and tour damage inflicted by rioting during the last week. Evers has asked Trump not to come, saying that it would hinder our healing.

Bidens speech comes after Republicans used their convention last week to tie him to unrest and violence. Trump continued that line of attack on Twitter on Monday morning, ahead of Bidens speech.

The president claimed that Biden must always be weak on crime because he doesnt want to lose support from progressive voters. Trump also said that if he had not authorized additional National Guard troops for deployment to Kenosha, there would be no Kenosha right now.

Evers, however, had already mobilized 500 National Guardsmen from inside Wisconsin, and its not clear how many of the 2,000 additional guardsmen from outside the state that were authorized by the Trump administration have actually even arrived in Kenosha.

But Trumps strategy for reelection seems to be centered now around the proposition that only his brute-force approach to protests is guaranteed to restore order. The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who is best on public safety and law and order, outgoing Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said last week.

White House adviser Kellyanne Conway at the White House on Wednesday. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

In D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser pushed back against Trumps criticism over the weekend that she is another Democrat whos not believing in law and order.

Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, was surrounded by protesters after he left the White House on Thursday night, and there were clashes between protesters and police officers on the streets of D.C. on Saturday and Sunday nights.

But Bowser responded directly to Trumps law and order rhetoric. We are for law and order too, she said.

We will not tolerate violence of any kind in Washington, D.C., Bowser said. But she said that Trumps tweets about her were meant to distract from the failures of the last four years.

Biden sought to undermine Trumps reelection argument on Monday by saying that Trump is the cause of the disorder and chaos, not the solution.

Donald Trump failed to protect America, so now hes trying to scare America, he said.

Biden talked about what he would do if he were president. Id be looking to lower the temperature in this country, not raise it. Id be looking to unite the nation, he said.

Biden said hed bring racial justice activists together with police representatives, and went out of his way to praise law enforcement. I know most cops are good, decent people. They risk their lives every time they put that shield on and go out the door, he said.

Biden said he is angered by police brutality and injustice, but saddened by the violence that has occurred, while Trump sees it as a political lifeline.

He ended with a line from the Bible. I believe well be guided by the words of Pope John Paul II, words drawn from the Scriptures: Be not afraid. Be not afraid.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
Russian student and blogger Yegor Zhukov reacts outside Moscow's Kuntsevsky district court after getting his suspended sentence, in Moscow, on Dec. 6, 2019. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)

Moscow Police Open Criminal Case After Anti-Kremlin Blogger Badly Beaten

Warning: This article contains a graphic image.

MOSCOWMoscow police opened a criminal inquiry on Monday after anti-Kremlin opposition activist and political blogger Yegor Zhukov was beaten and left bloodied outside his home at the weekend.

The 22-year-old student, who was a leading figure in large anti-government protests last year, was taken to hospital late on Sunday after being assaulted by two people outside his apartment in western Moscow, his allies said on social media.

They published pictures of his bloodied face covered in bruises and gashes.

He was among more than 1,000 people detained in Moscow in July 2019 in one of the biggest crackdowns on anti-Kremlin demonstrators in recent years. He and other protesters had taken to the streets to call for free elections.

A Russian court last year found him guilty of inciting extremism on his YouTube channel and banned him from using the Internet for two years, a move he decried as politically motivated.

The Moscow police force said it was seeking to identify and detain Zhukovs assailants, who his allies said had fled the scene of the attack on scooters. If convicted of assault, Zhukovs attackers could face up to two years in jail.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he hoped Zhukovs attackers would be found and punished.

Peter Stano, a spokesman for the European Commission, condemned the attack on Zhukov at a news briefing in Brussels.

We wish him a speedy recovery and we expect that those responsible for this brutal and cowardly attack will be brought to justice as soon as possible, said Stano.

Opposition activist and political blogger Yegor Zhukov poses for a picture after he was assaulted by unknown people near his apartment in Moscow, on Aug. 30, 2020. (Zhukovs Team/Handout via Reuters)

He said it looked to be part of what he called a very negative trend on human rights in Russia and attacks on people who expressed dissenting views.

Zhukov said on Sunday that due to his Kremlin opposition activities he was expelled last week from the Moscow university where he had been studying.

Another Russian opposition activist, Alexei Navalny, remains in a medically induced coma in a German hospital after what his allies say was a poisoning.

By Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber and Gabriela Baczynska
Bengaluru, Aug 31 : Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yedyiurappa and scores of state leaders, including Siddaramaiah and D.K. Shivakumar of the Congress and Janata Dal-Secular leader H.D. Kumaraswamy mourned the death of former president Pranab Mukherjee on Monday.

"I am deeply saddened at the demise of former President Bharat Ratna Pranab Mukherjee. He will be remembered for his vast knowledge of politics, statecraft and policy making," said Yediyurappa in a statement.

Mukherjee (84) died at an army hospital in New Delhi on Monday evening after a few days of illness.

"In his political career spanning five decades, Pranabda held several key posts, including Defence, Finance, External Affairs and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission," recalled the chief minister.

Terming Mukherjee a visionary, Yediyurappa said Pranab was one of the best parliamentarians and statesmen of India.

"He will be remembered by all for his contribution to the development of the country," said the chief minister.

Opposition Congress leader Siddaramaiah said he was saddened by Mukherkee's demise and said the former president's contribution to the country would be remembered.

"My condolence to his bereaved family members," said Siddaramaiah in a statement here.

Noting that India lost a statesman whose knowledge of history, Constitution and laws was unparalleled, Shivakumar said he lost a mentor and guide with the passing away of Mukherjee.

"My deep condolences to his family and several followers," said Shivakumar.

State's former chief minister Kumaraswamy said Mukherjee was a veteran politician with a simple personality.

"The loss of such a great spirit is a huge loss to the country," said Kumarswamy here.
In an effort to raise awareness and reduce the stigma of the nationwide problem surrounding opioid overdoses, Gov. Ned Lamont named Aug. 31 as Overdose Awareness Day in Connecticut.

Lamont, in announcement made early Monday morning, said addiction is an illness that should be treated just as any other public health emergency.

We need to send the message that this disorder can no longer hide in the shadows and be treated like something that shouldnt be discussed. Resources are available for those seeking treatment, as well as for the families and loved ones who want to provide support. We need to spread this message of hope far and wide so that we can save lives or even prevent someone from going down the path of addiction altogether, Lamont said.

Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said the battle against addiction has been made harder by the severe stress and isolation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

People are hurting and are overburdened, and this has contributed to a spike in overdose deaths, Bysiewicz said. Today, we remember all of the lives that were lost to addiction and we recommit ourselves to reducing stigma, securing the funding needed to provide treatment and prevention, and ensuring everyone has access to telehealth.

Lamont will hold a press conference at an Overdose Awareness Day event at 10:30 a.m. Monday.

To connect with resources on opioid use disorder in Connecticut, visit www.liveloud.org or call 800-563-4086.
The head of Britain's top health and safety body today insisted there is 'no evidence' returning to the office is safe as he criticised the government for 'bullying' people to return.

Lawrence Waterman, chair of the British Safety Council, said 'large gatherings of people' could lead to outbreaks, and that the lack of inspections meant there was limited evidence to back up ministers claims offices were safe.

He accepted that there was a risk of city centres turning into 'ghost towns' if workers did not return, but insisted it was up to employers to negotiate with their staff about whether they were ready to return.

A No10 source today rebutted Mr Waterman's criticism and told MailOnline the government was trying to encourage these conversations between bosses and employees.

Boris Johnson has been urging staff to return to 'Covid-secure' offices to avoid a crippling economic downturn, with a plunge in footfall in towns and cities already causing a swathe of job cuts, including 2,800 roles being axed at Pret.

Lawrence Waterman, chair of the British Safety Council, said 'large gatherings of people' could lead to outbreaks

Mr Waterman pointed out that the government's own Health and Safety Executive still advises on its website that 'everyone who can work from home should do so'

When asked on the BBC's Today programme if there was evidence that returning to work was risk free, Mr Waterman said: 'I think that's one of the concerns that many of us have got about how the government are putting out the advice about returning to work being safe. We simply don't know.

'We believe from the evidence that large gatherings of people... leads to exactly the kind of indoor environments that seem to be prone to the transmission of coronavirus, and there isn't evidence that when you return large numbers of people you don't get outbreaks.

'I think many of us don't understand why there's such firm advice that workplaces are safe when there's no evidence for that. Indeed, there is an argument that workplaces are so rarely inspected that it's probably more likely that you'll win the lottery than be visited by an inspector, so we're bemused about where the evidence is.'

The government has repeatedly insisted that offices can be made 'Covid-secure' to allow workers to return safely and boost Britain's fledgling economic recovery.

But Mr Waterman pointed out that the government's own Health and Safety Executive still advises on its website that 'everyone who can work from home should do so'.

He added: 'We don't want ghost towns but it should be a matter for workers and employers to negotiate. Many do want to return to the office and many miss the camaraderie of working with colleagues. But it should be a choice that grown up workers and their employees should make.

'We're not in favour of the government bullying people. Schools are reopening this week in England, so many we should see how that settles down before forcing people back into offices.'

Boris Johnson has been urging staff to return to 'Covid-secure' offices to avoid a crippling economic downturn

A string of top firms last night revealed their staff were pouring back into the office, with others saying they are considering plans to lure workers from their homes - but a survey has shown more than half of senior managers continue to work from home.

In a significant boost to the campaign to entice more office workers into city centres, many companies said they had recorded an uptick in employees getting back to their desks.

The news comes in a new Daily Mail audit of 30 FTSE 100 and top firms, representing more than 150,000 employees.

High street chain Boots was among those recording a steady rise in attendance, with around a third of its office staff now back at their desks at least a few days a week. No cases of Covid-19 have been recorded among this cohort.

But a survey by the AA has found 54 per cent of senior or middle managers who normally drove to the office have continued to work from home either all or part of the time, according to The Times.

The AA's head of roads policy, Jack Cousens, told the paper said was 'a big irony' in politicians telling car commuters to get back to work while increasing pedestrian access by closing off roads - as has been seen in London.

The motoring association called for better transport options for commuters, while also criticising the decision to hike the central London congestion charge from 11.50 to 15.

The boss of recruitment giant Hays vowed there would be no 'turning our back on the office'.

Alistair Cox last night said full-time remote working was unlikely to become 'a permanent thing'.

But he also predicted offices will be closed as companies assess whether to switch permanently to a 'hybrid' model, where home and office working are balanced.

The news comes in a new Daily Mail audit of 30 FTSE 100 and top firms, representing more than 150,000 employees

Yesterday it emerged Capita, one of the UK's biggest employers, will become the first major British firm to pull out of city and town centres by closing nearly 100 offices. The Government contractor  which collects the BBC licence fee and runs the London congestion charge  is set to close more than a third of its 250 offices across Britain; its 45,000 UK staff will continue to work from home.

The news will be a major blow to Boris Johnson's back to work campaign.

Yesterday it also emerged that BP is planning to sell its central London headquarters as part of a permanent shift in working patterns.

The developments will heighten fears for city centre businesses, from sandwich shops and pubs to dry cleaners and hairdressers, which rely on footfall from offices.

Last week CBI boss Dame Carolyn Fairbairn said working from home had turned some commercial centres into 'ghost towns'. But in a glimmer of hope, several firms surveyed by the Mail said either workers were starting to trickle back or that plans were being drawn-up for bigger increases.

Many said numbers returning will rest on the Government's success at getting children back to school this week.

Auditing giant PricewaterhouseCoopers said around a third of its 24,700 office workers were now spending at least some time at their desks and that this was increasing. And insurance giant Aviva expects numbers at desks to double in the coming weeks.

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: 'The Government has to lead the way and tell civil servants and companies 'get back to work'.'

Derek Ray-Hill, from Cities Restart  a venture being launched next month to get people back to work, said: 'Business leaders need to put on a mask, wash their hands and get back to work. They can't keep waiting for someone else to take the lead.'

It comes after figures last week revealed only 17 per cent of staff have returned to work in the 63 biggest cities.

MailOnline has contacted the Business department for comment.
LEBANON, N.H. - One of three black bear cubs orphaned by the recent death of their famous mother was captured Monday morning and will be taken to a rehabilitation centre for the winter.

Officials have been searching for the cubs since Tuesday, when the mother bear known as Mink was found dead. She had gained fame when New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu spared her life in 2017 and when she travelled thousands of miles in a looping route through Vermont and New Hampshire to return to her home territory after being relocated to nearly the Canadian border.

Andrew Timmins, bear project leader for New Hampshires Fish and Game Department, said the male cub was captured near Route 10 in West Lebanon.

Were getting reports of the other two being in the area, he said. The reporting has been very helpful, and I think well continue to be successful.

Although officials initially thought Mink had been hit by a car, a necropsy performed Thursday at the Kilham Bear Center in Lyme suggested she died of natural causes. Ben Kilham told the Valley News the procedure also revealed that the bear, previously thought to be in her teens, was between 20 and 30 years old.

Kilham will care for the 8-month-old cub over the winter and release it in the spring. Its siblings were believed to have been spotted off Route 120 near the Hanover-Lebanon line Saturday, and authorities are hopeful they are travelling back to their den and stomping grounds near the Mink Brook Nature Preserve.

Mink had been set to be euthanized, along with three of her earlier offspring, in 2017 after repeated problems with them feeding from trash and bird feeders culminated in two bears entering a home in Hanover. Sununu instead ordered them to be moved to far northern New Hampshire. One of the yearlings was killed within weeks by a hunter in Quebec, Canada.

Mink wasnt captured then because she left town to mate and later returned with four cubs in 2018. She was fitted with a tracking collar in June of that year and moved about 120 miles (193 kilometres) north, but returned to the Hanover area in 2019.
President Donald Trumps lack of respect for people is one of the primary reasons I do not support him. As a Vietnam vet, I learned respect for people who earn it for various reasons. Four years ago, during the Republican candidate debates, Donald Trump showed no respect for any of the other candidates, even though several of them were elected officials, doctors and accomplished business people.

What surprised me then and now is that Republican Party officials allowed his behavior without reprimand or removal. It also is disappointing that many of those same 2016 candidates now cower in the presence of this spoiled rich kid from New York who hasnt done anything to deserve respect from them or the American people.

Are his supporters blind to his lack of respect for others, including women, black and brown people, veterans, immigrants and virtually anyone who doesnt support him? He is a draft dodger and an embarrassment to our country. Wake up, Republicans; you are being played by someone who doesnt care about you.

Jim Tharp,

Avon Lake
Many people around the globe rely on rice as a source of nutrition. Credit: Rachel Schutte

Rice is the most consumed staple food in the world. It is especially common in Asia, where hunger concerns are prevalent.

Rice is classified as an annual plant, which means it completes its life cycle within one growing season then dies. However, in some tropical areas, rice can continue to grow year after year when taken care of properly.

Just as grass grows back in a lawn after it is mowed, rice can be cut after it is harvested, and the plant will regrow. The farming practice of cutting the rice above ground and allowing it to regrow is called ratooning.

Although Rice ratooning allows farmers to harvest more rice from the same fields, it requires a longer growing season compared to traditional single-harvest rice farming.

In many areas of the world where rice is grown, a long growing season isn't a problem due to the tropical climates. But in Japan, cooler weather means rice ratooning has been a rare farming practice.

Hiroshi Nakano and a research team set out to learn more about the potential of ratooning to help Japanese rice farmers. Nakano is a researcher at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization.

Average temperatures in Japan have been higher in recent years. As climate change continues to affect the region, rice farmers may have a longer window for growing rice. "Rice seedlings will be able to be transplanted earlier in the spring, and farmers can harvest rice later into the year," explains Nakano.

Rice seeds are arranged on the plant in groups, called spikelets. This field of rice is ready for harvest. Credit: Hiroshi Nakano

"The goal of our research is to determine the effects of harvest time and cutting height of the first harvest on the yield of the first and second rice crops," says Nakano. "Ultimately, we want to propose new farming strategies to increase yield as farmers in southwestern Japan adjust to climate change."

During the study on rice ratooning, researchers compared two harvest times and two cutting heights of the first crop. After the first harvest, they collected the seeds from the cut off portions of the rice plants. Researchers measured the yield by counting and weighing the seeds. The second harvest of rice was done by hand and the yield was determined in the same way.

The total grain yield and the yields from the first and second crops were different depending on the harvest times and cutting heights. This wasn't too surprising, since the team already knew harvest time and height affected yield.

Rice plants harvested at the normal time for the first crop yielded more seed than the rice plants harvested earlier. "That's because the plants had more time to fill their spikelets with seed," explains Nakano.

Comparison of the two cut heights of rice five days after harvesting the first crop. Credit: Chiemi Nagamatsu

"At both harvest times, rice harvested at the high cutting height had a higher yield than the low cutting height," says Nakano. That's because the plants cut at a higher height had access to more energy and nutrients stored in their leaves and stems.

"Our results suggest that combining the normal harvest time with the high cutting height is important for increasing yield in rice ratooning in southwestern Japan and similar climate regions," says Nakano. "This technology will likely increase rice grain yield in new environments that arise through global climate change."

Explore further Breeding new rice varieties will help farmers in Asia

More information: Hiroshi Nakano et al. Breaking rice yield barrier with the ratooning method under changing climatic conditions: A paradigm shift in ricecropping systems in southwestern Japan, Agronomy Journal (2020). Journal information: Agronomy Journal Hiroshi Nakano et al. Breaking rice yield barrier with the ratooning method under changing climatic conditions: A paradigm shift in ricecropping systems in southwestern Japan,(2020). DOI: 10.1002/agj2.20309
By Denis Dumo

JUBA (Reuters) - Sudan's power-sharing government signed a peace agreement with key rebel groups on Monday, a step towards resolving deep-rooted conflicts from the long rule of ousted leader Omar al-Bashir.

Three major groups signed the deal, including factions from Darfur where more than 300,000 people are estimated to have been killed and 2.5 million displaced since 2003, and one from southern regions which say they were also marginalised.

But two factions with the biggest presence on the ground in Darfur and the south did not sign, and the cash-strapped transitional government will struggle to pay for the return of millions of displaced people and regional development promised in the deal.

"The main challenge facing us now is the implementation of the peace agreement, and finding donations to do that," Jibril Ibrahim, leader of Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said after he and the other rebel leaders signed the agreement.

Sudan has been riven by regional conflicts for decades. After the oil-rich south became independent in 2011, a gradual economic decline fuelled the protests which pushed Bashir from power last year.

Civilian and military leaders who have shared power since then say ending internal conflicts is a top priority in the path to democracy for the once-pariah state. Analysts said Monday's deal, signed in the South Sudanese capital Juba, was very important but left big gaps.

Jonas Horner, senior Sudan analyst from the International Crisis Group think tank, called it "a hugely significant sign of progress for Sudan's transition", paving the way for the delayed formation of a legislative council. But he said it was far from comprehensive and the prominent role of armed groups and the military in peace talks raised questions about its inclusiveness.

HOLD-OUT FACTIONS

The deal offers rebels political representation and devolved powers, integration into the security forces, economic and land rights and the chance of return for displaced people.

Story continues

Along with the JEM, it was signed by Minni Minawi's Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), also from Darfur, and by Malik Agar, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), from the South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions.

One major SPLM-N faction, and an SLA faction led by Abdel Wahed el-Nur, did not.

Yasir Saad Arman, deputy head of Agar's SPLM-N's faction, said hold-out factions might join later.

"This will open the door for those who didn't come," he said. "It is a great chance for civilian protection."

Abdelaziz Al-Hilu, leader of one of the hold-outs, wants Sudan, whose law is founded on Islam, to be a secular state.

Nationally, the rebel signatories will get three seats on the ruling council, five ministries, and a quarter of the 300 seats on the transitional legislative council between them, Sudanese officials said.

The rebels also get 40% of posts in their regional governments, which will receive 40% of locally raised revenues, and a new fund will pay $750 million a year for 10 years to impoverished southern and western regions.

The conflict in Darfur ignited in 2003 after fighters took up arms against the central government, triggering a scorched-earth campaign by government forces and allied Arab militias. The region has been calmer in the past few years, though violent attacks flared in recent weeks as peace talks neared their conclusion.

Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2009 and 2010 for crimes against humanity.

(Reporting by Denis Dumo in Juba; additional reporting by reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz in Khartoum and Aidan Lewis in Cairo; writing by Giulia Paravicini and Katharine Houreld; editing by Katharine Houreld, Philippa Fletcher and Giles Elgood)
ALBANY  Labor union leaders joined Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Monday to pen a letter to New York's congressional delegates urging them to provide $59 billion to the Empire State to avoid what the governor predicts will be devastating cuts on state and local services.

From labor unions to local government leaders, calls for federal funding for state and local governments whose revenues were decimated by the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic have continued for months. But Republican lawmakers in Congress have been steadfast in their refusal to provide fiscal aid to governments, arguing those funds should not be used to bail out "blue states" that have mismanaged their finances.

"It's unclear whether the White House and U.S. Senate is willing to be reasonable," Cuomo said during a conference call with reporters on Monday. "If they're not, I want them to understand the consequences."

New York has withheld roughly 20 percent from aid to school districts, various service providers, including resources for people with developmental disabilities to those struggling with addiction, and local governments. While state officials have emphasized that these are not cuts, the longer New York goes without additional federal aid the more likely they are to become permanent.

State agencies have also frozen many new hires and delayed pay raises for about 80,000 employees, while also limiting spending by departments.

The governor emphasized that no amount of savings or efficiencies can be found to fill the gap, including increasing taxes on wealthy New Yorkers.

"There is no combination of state efforts that will address this financial crisis without federal assistance," Cuomo and labor leaders wrote in the letter. "Even if state and local governments cut expenses, increase taxes, and reduced services, the revenue shortfall would still be in the billions of dollars."

The $59 billion would cover the state's shortfalls and also New York City's as well as the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The letter also calls on federal leaders to repeal the state and local tax (SALT) deduction reform, which they say collectively costs New Yorkers about $15 billion annually.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Without federal aid, planned infrastructure projects could be in jeopardy, including the rebuilding of JFK and LaGuardia airports and the East Side access and new Penn Station.

State officials say New York needs $30 billion to climb out of its fiscal crisis and avoid massive disruption to services next year. New York City requires $9 billion, communities outside the city require $4.5 billion, the MTA requires $12 billion and the Port Authority requires $3 billion, according to Cuomos office.

If the federal government does not pass an economic relief program, they will in effect be responsible for the consequences, and the consequences will be significant reductions across the board, Cuomo said. It is mathematics, my friend.






MALAGA, Spain  At midday on Sunday, there were 31 patients inside the main coronavirus treatment center in Malaga, the city with the fastest-rising infection rate in southern Spain. At 12:15 p.m., the 32nd arrived in an ambulance. Half an hour later came number 33.

The garbage can by the door overflowed with masks and blue surgical gloves. Relatives hovered in silence outside  one of them in tears, another feeling a pang of deja-vu.

My brother-in-law had the virus in the spring, said Julia Bautista, a 58-year-old retired office administrator waiting for news on Sunday of her 91-year-old father.

Here we go again, she added.

If Italy was the harbinger of the first wave of Europes coronavirus pandemic in February, Spain is the portent of its second.
On August 16, the Bishop of the Sierra Leone Area of The United Methodist Church passed away from a road accident outside Freetown. According to Phileas Jusu, the Bishop was on his way to attend a funeral service for Rev. Edward Kamara.

Bishop Yambasu, the founder of the Child Rescue Centre in Sierra Leone, was the president of the Africa College of Bishops and elected Chancellor of the University. He had endless love and passion for the church and focused mainly on Christian education and youth ministry.

Born in southern Sierra Leone, Bishop Yambasu studied at United Methodist mission schools. According to the Council of Bishops, he was elected a bishop of The United Methodist Church in 2008 and installed in 2009. He would have turned 64 on August 24.

The sudden departure of Bishop Yambasu has broken many hearts as many are yet devastated from the incident. Bishop Samuel Quire wishes upon healing for The United Methodist family and Bishop's family.

"Our hearts are broken, and we're devastated by this sudden departure of Bishop Yambasu. This is a great blow to the people called United Methodists! It is our hope and prayers that God will comfort the family in particular and The United Methodist family at large. May his soul rest in perfect peace."

It is reported that Bishop Yambasu is survived by his wife, Millicent, and their five children - Rebecca, Adima, John, Emmanuel, and Elizabeth.








ATLANTA, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Wilmington Trust, a leader in wealth management and corporate and institutional services, announces that Scott Wilkins has joined the firm as a senior wealth advisor, responsible for providing comprehensive wealth management advice to high-net-worth individuals and families, entrepreneurs, business owners, and foundations and endowments throughout the Southeast region. Based in Atlanta, Scott will work closely with clients and their advisors to develop financial strategies to help clients meet their current needs and plan for their long-term objectives. He will also coordinate the various services his clients require based on their unique needs, including investment management, planning, trust, private banking, and family office services.

Scott has more than three decades of experience in the financial services and consumer goods and services industries, during which time he worked with companies in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America. In 2007, Scott was the managing partner and owner of Cielo Partners, LLC, a private equity and advisory firm targeting small to middle market entities. Previously he served as a vice president in the Private Wealth Management division at Morgan Stanley, a senior securities analyst at SG Securities in Paris, France, and was a senior securities analyst at HSBC working out of their offices in London and Paris. Earlier in his career Scott held positions with Bank of America Securities in New York, Deutsche Bank/ING Barings in New York and Mexico City, and Royal Doulton in England.

Scott holds an MBA from the London Business School and a bachelor's degree (summa cum laude) in business administration from the University of Georgia. A multilingual professional, Scott is fluent in English, Spanish, and French and speaks basic Italian.

ABOUT WILMINGTON TRUST

Wilmington Trust's Wealth Management offers a wide array of personal trust, planning, fiduciary, asset management, private banking, and family office services designed to help high-net-worth individuals and families grow, preserve, and transfer wealth. Wilmington Trust focuses on serving families with whom it can build long-term relationships, many of which span multiple generations.

Wilmington Trust also provides Corporate and Institutional Services for clients around the world.

Wilmington Trust has clients in all 50 states and numerous countries, with offices throughout the United States and internationally in London, Dublin, Paris, and Frankfurt. For more information, visit www.wilmingtontrust.com.

MEDIA CONTACT: Maya Dillon, Head of Communications, Wilmington Trust.

Wilmington Trust is a registered service mark used in connection with various fiduciary and non-fiduciary services offered by certain subsidiaries of M&T Bank Corporation including, but not limited to, Manufacturers & Traders Trust Company (M&T Bank), Wilmington Trust Company (WTC) operating in Delaware only, Wilmington Trust, N.A. (WTNA), Wilmington Trust Investment Advisors, Inc. (WTIA), Wilmington Funds Management Corporation (WFMC), and Wilmington Trust Investment Management, LLC (WTIM). Such services include trustee, custodial, agency, investment management, and other services. International corporate and institutional services are offered through M&T Bank Corporation's international subsidiaries. Loans, credit cards, retail and business deposits, and other business and personal banking services and products are offered by M&T Bank, member FDIC.

This is for informational purposes only and is not intended as an offer, recommendation or solicitation for the sale of any financial profit or service or as a determination that any investment strategy is suitable for a specific investor. Investors should seek financial advice regarding the suitability of any investment strategy based on their objectives, financial situations, and particular needs. Investing involves risk and you may incur a profit or a loss. There is no assurance that any investment strategy will be successful.

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Whos protesting? How long has Portland seen the protests? Heres what you need to know about the demonstrations.

The fatal shooting of a protester in Portland on Saturday has brought increased scrutiny on demonstrations across the country in light of the deadly shootings in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Demonstrators in both cities are calling for criminal justice reform and an end to systemic racism. Kenoshas demonstrations began in earnest after the shooting of Jacob Blake last week. Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, is accused of opening fire and killing three Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters

The victim of the fatal shooting in Portland was reportedly a right-wing supporter of US President Donald Trump. Tensions look set to rise in Portland, already a pivotal city in the continuing nationwide protests. Critics are saying Trump is encouraging the violence.

This is what we know about the protests:

For how long have the demonstrations occurred?

Portland has seen almost 100 consecutive nights of demonstrations since May, following the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody, which set off nationwide protests.

The demonstrations have been both peaceful and violent. Protesters have vandalised police vehicles and Portlands Federal Courthouse. There have been reports of looting, too.





Portland police have responded with arrests, tear gas and so-called less-lethal munitions, such as stun and smoke grenades and plastic bullets. Federal troops faced serious criticism after reports and videos showed them kidnapping unarmed protesters and taking them away in unmarked vehicles.

They have also faced criticism for attacking legal observers and journalists, prompting lawsuits.

Under a deal between Trump and Oregon Governor Kate Brown at the end of July, federal troops withdrew from Portland to be replaced by local and state police.

Whos protesting?

Various groups of activists, organisers and unaffiliated people. Many of the groups are supportive of the BLM movement that has gained momentum since Floyds alleged murder.

The groups have reportedly included the Albina Ministers Alliance, Rose City Justice and the Portland Black Panthers, among others.

There have been complaints from local organisers that some are not there for the BLM movement or to support its goals, but simply for carnage.

Saturday saw right-wing group Patriot Prayer return to Portland. The group has faced allegations it is connected to the far-right and white nationalists, though its leader has denied the claims.

Is Antifa involved?

Antifa is a broad, loosely organised left-wing movement that includes self-described socialists, anarchists, communists and anti-capitalists. The group has faced accusations from President Donald Trump and others in the Republican Party of being a terrorist organisation.

While likely there are some people associated with Antifa at the protests, it is difficult to determine their level of involvement, given the loose nature of the organisation.

A protester carries an Antifascist Action flag at a rally following the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Boston, Massachusetts [Brian Snyder/Reuters]

Facebook purged numerous accounts it claimed are linked to violence at protests on August 19. One of these groups, the Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front (PNWYLF), has been alleged to have links to Antifa by some on the political right.

PNWYLF has denied it organises protests, saying it serves as an information outlet.

Are things calming down?

No. Following the death of a Patriot Prayer member, other right-wing Trump supporters posted videos on social media that appear to show they plan to go to Portland. This could cause increased tension.

Trump, who is gaining in the polls on a Law and Order campaign for president, appeared to be encouraging his supporters to move into Portland in the wake of the shooting.

After the shooting, the president shared a video of his supporters driving into Portland and called those in Saturdays caravan GREAT PATRIOTS!

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler asked those who wanted to come to Portland to seek retribution to stay away.

If youre from out of town and youre reading something on social media  if youre reading any facts on social media  theyre probably wrong because we dont have all the facts yet, Wheeler said. This is not the time to get hotheaded because you read something on Twitter that some guy made up in his mothers basement.
Vice President Mike Pence on Monday said that the relationship between the US and India has never been so strong as he lauded the role of President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in strengthening the bilateral ties.

Speaking about the rapport the two leaders share, Pence said that Trump and Modi are both larger than life figures."

The relationship between India and the US has never been so strong, but the best is yet to come, the vice president said during a virtual event hosted by the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), a non-profit organisation.

Pence said that when you think about the US and India, you think about two strongest democracies in the world, the shared values".

The relationship has grown dramatically in the past few years, he said. Pence also praised the role of the 4-million-strong Indian-Americans who have contributed to the prosperity of America.
SUZHOU, China, Aug. 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CStone Pharmaceuticals (SUZHOU) Co., Ltd. ("CStone", HKEX: 2616) today announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has completed their review of the Investigational New Drug (IND) application for anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody sugemalimab (CS1001) monotherapy in the relapsed or refractory extranodal natural killer (NK)/T-cell lymphoma (R/R ENKTL) with study may proceed (SMP) letter received.

Sugemalimab is an investigational fully human, full-length anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody developed by CStone. Compared with other drugs of the same class, sugemalimab has a lower risk of immunogenicity and potential toxicities in patients. CS1001-201 is a single-arm, multicenter pivotal Phase II clinical study designed to evaluate sugemalimab monotherapy in R/R ENKTL. The IND clearance indicates that the ongoing CS1001-201 study in China will be extended to the US.

ENKTL is a subtype of mature T cell and NK cell lymphoma. Epidemiology of the disease is characterized by higher incidence rates in Asia than in Europe or North America. In China, ENKTL accounts for approximately 6% of all lymphoma cases[1]. R/R ENKTL is highly malignant and aggressive, and has a poor prognosis. Patients with R/R ENKTL lack effective salvage treatments if standard L-asparaginase-based regimens fail, and do not respond well to traditional treatments. For these patients, clinicians almost run out of treatment choices because the disease progresses rapidly with an extremely short overall survival (OS) as indicated by historically reported 1-year OS rate <20%[2]. The currently approved targeted monotherapy in China has a complete response (CR) rate of approximately 6%[3],[4]. There are vast unmet medical needs in this patient population of which the first-line treatment has failed. Sugemalimab is expected to provide new treatment options for these patients.

Dr. Jason Yang, Chief Medical Officer of CStone, commented: "For the treatment of ENKTL, CR rate is a critical outcome measure. Data reported for CS1001-201 study on 2019 ASH meeting shows that sugemalimab demonstrated a CR rate of 33.3% with a durable response, an objective response rate (ORR) of 43.3%, and 1-year OS rate of 72.4%. These results represent a major breakthrough compared to current treatment options and support sugemalimab as a potential conditioning regimen for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. We will work closely with the US FDA and the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), to bring sugemalimab to R/R ENKTL patients worldwide soon."

Overview of the CS1001-201 trial

CS1001-201 is a single-arm, multicenter Phase II clinical study designed to evaluate sugemalimab monotherapy in R/R ENKTL. The primary endpoint of the trial is ORR assessed by an independent radiological review committee.

According to updated results reported at the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, as of October 8, 2019, a total of 32 patients with R/R ENKTL were enrolled in the study. All patients received sugemalimab 1200 mg intravenously every 3 weeks until disease progression or intolerable toxicity. The median duration of follow-up was 6.54 months (range, 0.7215.64).

Preliminary efficacy data

Sugemalimab demonstrated robust efficacy with a high CR rate and durable response in R/R ENKTL patients:

Among the 30 efficacy-evaluable patients, the investigator-assessed ORR was 43.3%

10 patients (33.3%) achieved CR and were still in remission

3 patients (10.0%) achieved partial response (PR), and 1 additional patient achieved PR after pseudo-progression

The median duration of response (DoR) was not reached, and the maximum DoR was 10.9+ months

The 1-year OS was 72.4% (95% CI: 52.0%85.2%)

Safety data

Sugemalimab was well tolerated in patients with R/R ENKTL:

30 patients (93.8%) reported treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs), 24 patients (75.0%) reported treatment-related adverse event (TRAEs), of which 3 (9.4%) had Grade >3 TRAEs

Grade 5 AEs were reported in 3 patients (9.4%), and none were assessed as related to sugemalimab

Immune-related AEs (irAEs) were reported in 5 patients (15.6%); except for one case of Grade 3 rash, all irAEs were Grade 1 in severity

TEAEs that led to permanent treatment discontinuation occurred in 4 patients (12.5%)

No deaths due to AEs were assessed as related to sugemalimab

About Sugemalimab

Sugemalimab is an investigational anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody discovered by CStone. Authorized by the U.S.-based Ligand Corporation, sugemalimab is developed by the OmniRat transgenic animal platform, which can generate fully human antibodies in one stop. As a fully human, full-length anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody, sugemalimab mirrors the natural G-type immunoglobulin 4 (IgG4) human antibody, which can reduce the risk of immunogenicity and potential toxicities in patients, a unique advantage over similar drugs.

Sugemalimab has completed a Phase I dose-escalation study in China. During Phase 1a and 1b stages of the study, sugemalimab showed good antitumor activity and good tolerability in multiple tumor types.

Currently, sugemalimab is being investigated in a number of ongoing clinical trials. In addition to a Phase I bridging study in the U.S., the clinical program in China includes one multi-arm Phase Ib study for several tumor types, one Phase II registrational study for lymphoma, and four Phase III registrational studies, respectively, for stage III/IV NSCLC, gastric cancer, and esophageal cancer.

About CStone

CStone Pharmaceuticals (HKEX: 2616) is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing innovative immuno-oncology and precision medicines to address the unmet medical needs of cancer patients in China and worldwide. Established in 2015, CStone has assembled a world-class management team with extensive experience in innovative drug development, clinical research, and commercialization. The company has built an oncology-focused pipeline of 15 drug candidates with a strategic emphasis on immuno-oncology combination therapies. Currently, 5 late-stage candidates are at pivotal trials. With an experienced team, a rich pipeline, a robust clinical development-driven business model and substantial funding, CStone's vision is to become globally recognized as a leading Chinese biopharmaceutical company by bringing innovative oncology therapies to cancer patients worldwide.

Forward-looking Statement

The forward-looking statements made in this article relate only to the events or information as of the date on which the statements are made in this article. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date on which the statements are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. You should read this article completely and with the understanding that our actual future results or performance may be materially different from what we expect. In this article, statements of, or references to, our intentions or those of any of our Directors or our Company are made as of the date of this article. Any of these intentions may alter in light of future development.

[1] , , , , . 10002. . 2012;11(2):111-115. [2] Bellei M, et al., The outcome of peripheral T-cell lymphoma patients failing first-line therapy: a report from the prospective, International T-Cell Project. Haematologica. 2018;103(7):1191-1197. [3] Shi Y, Dong M, Hong X, et al. Results from a multicenter, open-label, pivotal phase II study of chidamide in relapsed or refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma. Ann Oncol. 2015;26(8):1766-1771. [4] Shi Y, Jia B, Xu W, et al. Chidamide in relapsed or refractory peripheral T cell lymphoma: a multicenter real-world study in China. J Hematol Oncol. 2017;10(1):69.

SOURCE CStone Pharmaceuticals

Related Links

www.cstonepharma.com


STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With just a few weeks until the tentative first day of school on Sept. 10 amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, school leaders across Staten Island public schools have written a letter to be sent to Chancellor Richard Carranza explaining that they are unable to safely and effectively open school buildings due to the lack of guidance on operational and instructional protocols.

Students across New York City are expected to return to school under a blended learning model of in-person and remote instruction, while some students can choose full-time remote learning.
CHEYENNE, WY / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / Strategic Asset Leasing Inc. (OTC PINK:LEAS), the Company, is pleased to announce the Company has engaged VINSA Consulting, a leading cannabis sales and operations firm for the cannabis industry.

The cannabis technology market is a rapidly expanding sector which is projected to reach nearly $100 billion by 2026 according to Fortune Business Insights. As the industry grows, the technology gap is growing even wider and this is where Strategic sees growth opportunity.

Cannabis decriminalization has created new and attractive opportunities for companies looking to drive change. By partnering with industry veterans at VINSA Consulting, led by cannabis power couple Ian Daily and Deena Ridha, will provide insight, direction and immediate opportunity for the Company's venture into the cannabis technology space. With over 9 years experience in the regulated cannabis industry VINSA will assist Strategic to succeed in this rapidly evolving market. Offering a level of sales, marketing operations management, and professionalism that the Company believes is head and shoulders above the competition.

Strategic Asset Leasing CEO, Jason Tucker, stated: "I am thrilled to enter into this new and exciting space with VINSA Consulting's guidance. As the leading supply chain management agency in the sector, their deep industry experience and connections will be invaluable to LEAS going forward."

About Strategic Asset Leasing Inc.: LEAS is focused on leveraging technology assets with a focus on the FinTech Industry and Internet of Things (IoT). These are rapidly growing sectors where Strategic will be developing and licensing technologies that will help companies penetrate these markets, increasing shareholder value.

Contact: info@strategicassetleasing.net.

About VINSA Consulting: VINSA Consulting is the leading sales and operations consulting firm for the California cannabis industry. Focused on bringing forward-thinking, high-impact business strategies and practices to the cannabis supply chain.

Contact: ian@vinsa.group.

Forward Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements. The words "believe", "may", "estimate", "continue", "anticipate", "intend", "should", "plan", "could", "target", "potential", "likely", "will", "expect", and similar expressions, as they relate to us, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. The company has based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Some or all of these forward-looking statements may not be achieved. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except where required by law.

SOURCE: Strategic Asset Leasing Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/603999/Strategic-Asset-Leasing-Inc-Engages-Cannabis-Consulting-Firm
Pradesh Committee (GPCC) on Sunday demanded an apology from Chief Minister for his alleged statement that the number of COVID-19 cases had increased after Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations.

"It is unfortunate that the Chief Minister has blamed devotees for spreading in by participating in annual Chaturthi celebrations, and he must apologise for hurting their sentiments," Amarnath Panjikar, the general secretary of GPCC said in a statement.

He added that the Chief Minister has no right to blame anyone for the increase in COVID-19 cases in the state except for themselves.

As per media reports, Chief Minister on Saturday said that the state government has noticed that the number of COVID-19 cases has increased after Ganesh Chaturthi celebration.

A total of 451 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Goa on Saturday taking the total count of cases in the state to 17,004. The total count includes 3,635 active COVID-19 cases, 13,186 cases of recoveries from the viral infection, and 183 deaths due to

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A mass extinction not seen in 13,000 years may be on the horizon due to human activity and climate change, cautions a new study.

The warning comes as the resilience of North American's plant biomes is declining, suggesting present-day landscapes are 'primed to herald a major extinction event.'

Scientists analyzed over 14,000 fossil pollen samples from 358 sites across the continent in order to reconstruct the landscape resilience, which is a habitat's ability to persist or rebound after being disturbed.

The results show that it can take up to three centuries for landscapes to recover, but only 64 percent of biomes are restored to their original state.

The team found that landscapes today are experiencing resilience lower than what occurred at the end of the Pleistocene megafauna and animal extinctions some 12,700 years ago.

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Scientists analyzed over 14,000 fossil pollen samples from 358 sites across the continent in order to reconstruct the landscape resilience, which is a habitat's ability to persist or quickly rebound after being disturbed

The study was conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who analyzed 14,189 fossil pollen samples taken from different sites in North America.

The samples were used to determine landscape resilience, such as observing how long certain landscapes existed and how well they bounced back after disturbances such as natural disasters or human destruction.

According to the authors: 'Our work indicates that landscapes today are once again exhibiting low resilience, foreboding potential extinctions to come.'

'Conservation strategies focused on improving both landscape and ecosystem resilience by increasing local connectivity and targeting regions with high richness and diverse landforms can mitigate these extinction risks.'

The study was conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who analyzed 14,189 fossil pollen samples taken from different sites in North America. Some of the samples were from tundra locations (pictured is Denali National Park in Canada)

The fossil pollen samples told the team that over the past 20,000 years, forests (pictured is a forest in Vermont) were able to thrive longer than grassland habitats  700 years versus 360 years. However, when disturbed, their ability to re-establish to their previous state decreased to 360 years versus 260 years

The researchers studied 12 major plant biomes in North America that lived over the past 20,000 years using pollen data from the Neotoma Paleoecology Database.

The Neotoma Paleoecology Database contains fossil pollen and spores that are found in lake and mire sediments.

The study used pollen data from five forest types: forest-tundra, conifer/hardwood, boreal forest, deciduous forest, and coastal forest; five shrub/herb biome types  Arctic vegetation, desert, mountain vegetation, prairies, and Mediterranean vegetation; and two no-analog biome types  spruce parkland and mixed parkland.

Jenny McGuire, assistant professor at Georgia Tech, said: 'We find that the retreat of North American glaciers destabilized ecosystems, causing large herbivores  including mammoths, horses, and camels  to struggle for food supplies.'

'That destabilization combined with the arrival of humans in North America to land a one-two punch that resulted in the extinction of large terrestrial mammals on the continent.'

The fossil pollen samples told the team that over the past 20,000 years, forests were able to thrive longer than grassland habitats  700 years versus 360 years.

However, the team also found that not all biomes recover, as the study revealed just 64 percent are capable of regaining their original biome type - but the process can take up three centuries to complete. The study used samples from deserts in the study (pictured is a scene in Arizona)

However, when disturbed, their ability to re-establish to their previous state decreased to 360 years versus 260 years.

'These findings were somewhat surprising,' said McGuire.

'We had expected biomes to persist much longer, perhaps for thousands of years rather than hundreds.'

The analysis also revealed that forests and grasslands rapidly transition when temperatures are changing fast, and that the landscapes recover faster when the ecosystem contains high plant biodiversity.

However, the team also found that not all biomes recover, as the study revealed just 64 percent are capable of regaining their original biome type - but the process can take up three centuries to complete.

And it was Arctic systems that were least likely to recover, the study found.

'Identifying the tempo and mode of landscape transitions and the drivers of landscape resilience is critical to maintaining natural systems and preserving biodiversity given today's rapid climate and land use changes,' the authors wrote.

'However, resilient landscapes are difficult to recognize on short time scales, as perturbations are challenging to quantify and ecosystem transitions are rare.'
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  President Rodrigo Duterte announced on Monday that Metro Manila will retain its general community quarantine status, while Iligan City will tighten its lockdown restrictions from Sept. 1 to 30.

Duterte said the countrys capital will remain under GCQ as the government continues to carry out its enhanced strategies to help arrest the spread of the coronavirus.

Metro Manila so far has tallied over 122,000 cases of the viral disease or 55 percent of the national case count, based on the Department of Health data.

Along with four provinces, it eased back to GCQ on Aug. 19, after having been placed under a stricter lockdown status.

Over the past two weeks under relaxed rules, around 18,000 more Metro Manila residents have been infected with COVID-19, the DOH reported.

The region's daily figures consistently pushed it to the top of the list of areas nationwide with the most number of new cases.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III earlier said reverting to a higher quarantine status is no longer a viable option as doing so would "irreversibly injure, if not damage the economy beyond repair." Instead of tightening protocols again, Duque underlined the importance of more stringent implementation of contact tracing and other measures to prevent further viral transmission.

Even so, the government has decided to put Iligan City in Northern Mindanao under a stricter modified enhanced community quarantine after seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Meanwhile, Duterte also approved the Inter-Agency Task Force's recommendation to place the following areas under GCQ: Bulacan, Batangas, Tacloban City, and Bacolod City.

The rest of the country will be under a modified GCQ until September 30.

To date, the national COVID-19 tally has breached 220,000, of which nearly 60,000 are active cases or currently ill patients.

The University of the Philippines OCTA Research team projected that cases could surge to 375,000 by the end of September, while the virus's reproductive rate is seen to further decline. For Metro Manila alone, it said total infections could range from 180,000 to 215,000 by end-September.

The researchers also predicted that the country may be able to flatten the coronavirus curve by next month, but stressed that a downward trend must be sustained for several months to manage the pandemic.

Dr. Guido David, a member of the research group, reiterated that the flattening of the curve does not mean there will no longer be any active COVID-19 cases in the country. He said it only means that theres already a downward trend in infections, and that the country is able to slow transmission rate.

READ: Flattened curve must be sustained for several months to manage coronavirus pandemic - UP expert
Tens of thousands of Belarusians have rallied again in downtown Minsk for the 22nd day of protests against strongman President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The protesters, who contest the results of the August 9 presidential election, faced a strong police presence and a number of demonstrators were detained.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS. At the initiative of the Yerevan Prospects international music festival and the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Armenia, the concert performance of Verdis La traviata opera will take place in the park of the Armenian Parliament on September 4.

The event will be held with the support of the ministry of education, science, culture and sport.

With this concert the organizers will express their support to Beirut which was recently affected from a powerful explosion.

The entire proceeds will be provided for the restoration of cultural centers affected from the blast in Beirut. The proceeds will be doubled by AGBU.

Tickets are available online.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Revenues increased by 41%

Gross profit increased by 16%

LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / August 31, 2020 / CLS Holdings USA, Inc. (OTCQB:CLSH)(CSE:CLSH) ("CLS" or the 'Company'), a diversified cannabis company operating as Cannabis Life Sciences, today announced its financial results for the fiscal year ended May 31, 2020.

Key Fiscal Year End 2020 Financial Accomplishments and Operational Highlights:

Total revenues were $11,917,629 rising from $8,459,048 reported for fiscal year 2019

Gross margin expanded 16% to 50% as compared to 43% in fiscal year 2019

The total number of customers served increased 70.48% from 134,009 in fiscal year 2019 to 228,458

Our new production lab was completed and put into service in April 2020

"I am so proud of the achievements made over the course of our fiscal year. We have implemented some meaningful operational changes, added some terrific talent to the organization, completed two renovations and expansions of the dispensary and completed our state of the art production facility. In spite of the competitive landscape in Nevada we were able to grow revenue and increase our gross profit margins. Our "People Power Profits" mantra is paying dividends and I am proud that all our employees have been provided a safe working environment during these challenging times. We are a local company who will continue to provide our community with a robust menu of safe cannabis products at fair price points. I am also thrilled to see the momentum that has been built in the first quarter of our fiscal year and it is showing with some very impressive revenue growth.

Our marketing and production teams have worked tirelessly in the past 4 months revamping all aspects of the City Trees brand. The launch of this new environmentally friendly and sustainable line of packaged products will be available to the public beginning 9/1.

We are poised to experience another year of substantial growth from our platform and look forward to sharing our achievements."

Andrew Glashow - President/COO

"In my many years in various businesses I have never encountered such a challenging environment. To witness growth under conditions which forced us to change our business model twice in the course of a 3 month period and come out stronger is a testament to the 80+ people who work for this amazing company. I could not be more proud."

Jeff Binder - Chairman/CEO

Fiscal Year End 2020 Results

Total revenues were $11,917,629, a 41% increase compared to $8,459,048 reported in fiscal year 2019. This increase reflects record growth in sales at our Oasis dispensary despite a brief downturn in sales at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Implementation of robust health and safety measures and swift adaptation to expanded delivery and curbside sales contributed to our ability to achieve record net revenue growth in an otherwise uncertain environment. We also completed two renovations and expansions to the dispensary prior to this required adaptation that have improved customer experience in our storefront, and allowed us to remain agile in our ever-evolving marketplace. Our continued improvements in inventory purchasing and implementation of new processes also led to a 16% expansion in gross margin to 50% in fiscal year 2020 from 43% in the prior fiscal year. Improvements to our manufacturing division have also been successfully implemented, marked by the completion of an expansive innovation and extraction lab at City Trees in April 2020. Coupled with a shift to more sustainable packaging and new design criteria for the brand, these improvements have set up our Nevada subsidiaries for continued success going forward.

Selling, general and administrative expenses ("SG&A") totaled $8,776,876 as compared with $26,472,057 in the prior fiscal year. SG&A in fiscal year 2019 included $15,857,068 in one-time costs associated with the acquisition of our Oasis dispensary and City Trees production operation, which expenses were not incurred in fiscal year 2020. SG&A in fiscal year 2020 also declined as we successfully trimmed professional fees and other parent company costs, and in general streamlined our operations.

During the fiscal year 2020, we incurred a large non-cash impairment charge on goodwill as a result of the decline in our stock price. Because our stock price provides a basis for our enterprise value, this decline meant that we were required to write-down the value of this intangible asset by $25,185,003, a one-time write-down that has not occurred in prior fiscal years. This devaluation is not reflective of any tangible loss of assets, and our working capital remains sound. This decline in share price will not significantly impact our current or upcoming projects.

As a result of this large non-cash impairment charge in fiscal year 2020, our net loss was $30,657,973 compared to a net loss of $27,619,057 in the prior fiscal year. Excluding this one time non-cash impairment charge, our net loss for fiscal year 2020 would have been $5,472,970, an improvement of $22,146,087, or 80.18% compared to our fiscal year 2019 net loss.

Adjusted EBITDA totaled ($2,082,338) as compared to ($22,882,678) in the prior fiscal year. (Adjusted EBITDA excludes certain items as outlined in Table 1, Reconciliation of Net Income to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA.)

About CLS Holdings USA, Inc.

CLS Holdings USA, Inc. (CLSH) is a diversified cannabis company that acts as an integrated cannabis producer and retailer through its Oasis Cannabis subsidiaries in Nevada and plans to expand to other states. CLS stands for 'Cannabis Life Sciences,' in recognition of the Company's patented proprietary method of extracting various cannabinoids from the marijuana plant and converting them into products with a higher level of quality and consistency. The Company's business model includes licensing operations, processing operations, processing facilities, sale of products, brand creation and consulting services.

http://www.clsholdingsinc.com

Twitter: @CLSHusa

About Oasis Cannabis

Oasis Cannabis has operated a cannabis dispensary in the Las Vegas market since dispensaries first opened in Nevada in 2015 and has been recognized as one of the top marijuana retailers in the state. Its location within walking distance to the Las Vegas Strip and Downtown Las Vegas in combination with its delivery service to residents allows it to efficiently serve both locals and tourists in the Las Vegas area. In February 2019, it was named 'Best Dispensary for Pot Pros' by Desert Companion Magazine. In August 2017, the company commenced wholesale offerings of cannabis in Nevada with the launch of its City Trees brand of cannabis concentrates and cannabis-infused products.

http://oasiscannabis.com

About City Trees

Founded in 2017, City Trees is a Nevada-based cannabis cultivation, production and distribution company. Offering a wide variety of products with consistent results, City Trees is one the fastest growing wholesale companies in the industry. Its products are now available at 44 dispensaries.

https://citytrees.com

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains certain 'forward-looking information' within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and 'forward-looking statements' as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (collectively, the 'forward-looking statements'). These statements relate to anticipated future events, future results of operations or future financial performance, and anticipated growth. In some cases, you can identify forward looking statements by terminology such as 'may,' 'might,' 'will,' 'should,' 'intends,' 'expects,' 'plans,' 'goals,' 'projects,' 'anticipates,' 'believes,' 'estimates,' 'predicts,' 'potential,' or 'continue' or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. These forward-looking statements are only predictions, are uncertain and involve substantial known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, levels of activity or performance to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity or performance expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. We cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity or performance and we cannot guaranty that the proposed transactions described in this press release will occur. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date that they were made. These cautionary statements should be considered together with any written or oral forward-looking statements that we may issue in the future. Except as required by applicable law, we do not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements to conform these statements to reflect actual results, later events or circumstances or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. See CLS Holdings USA filings with the SEC and on its SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com for additional details.

Contact Information

Corporate:

Chairman/ CEO

Jeff Binder

President/COO

Andrew Glashow

info@clsholdingsinc.com

888-438-9132

TABLE 1

Reconciliation of Net Income to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA

In this earnings release, reference is made to Adjusted EBITDA as a non-GAAP financial measure.

CLS believes that this non-GAAP measure represents important internal measures of performance. Accordingly, where provided, it is to give investors the same financial data management uses with the belief that this information will assist the investment community in properly assessing the underlying performance of CLS, its financial condition, results of operations and cash flow.

CLS measures Adjusted EBITDA as net profit or loss before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and one-time charges ("Adjusted EBITDA"). The following table reconciles the most directly comparable GAAP measure of Net (Loss) Income to Adjusted EBITDA for the twelve months ended May 31, 2020 and 2019, respectively:

(in millions) FYE 2020 FYE 2019 $ Change % Change Net (Loss) Income $ -30.658 $ -27.619 $ -3.039 -11.0 % Depreciation and amortization 0.45 0.288 0.162 56.3 % Interest expense 2.941 4.448 -1.507 -33.9 % Income Taxes - - - - EBITDA -27.267 -22.883 -4.384 -19.2 % Impairment of Goodwill 25.185 - 25.185 100.0 % Adjusted EBITDA $ -2.082 $ -22.883 $ 20.801 90.9 %

SOURCE: CLS Holdings USA, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/604003/CLS-Holdings-Reports-Fiscal-Year-End-2020-Financial-Results
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 31)  The Philippines secured $10.94 billion (about 528 billion) in new foreign loans and grants for COVID-19 response, an amount worth more than half the official development assistance the country owed as of 2019, the National Economic and Development Authority said.

The agency released Monday its latest report on ODA which totaled $21.62 billion (about 1 trillion) as of last year, and reported the surge in financial aid it secured from foreign countries amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The country secured 16 fresh loans and three additional grants from abroad between January and August 5, a sum meant to fund local COVID-19 interventions.

These will enable us to provide more support to the people and will also help cover budget priorities in 2020 and 2021 to help address the health crisis, Acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said in a statement.

He clarified that the NEDA's tally differs from the $8.13 billion reported by the Department of Finance mainly due to foreign exchange conversion rates used.

Under the government's recovery spending plan, the DOF planned to borrow as much as $8.6 billion or 436.9 billion from foreign sources.

As of last year, the Japanese government remained the biggest ODA source, followed by the Asian Development Bank and World Bank. South Korea, China, the United States, and the United Nations followed, according to the report.

By sector, the biggest priority was infrastructure, especially big-ticket and high-impact projects meant to boost local connectivity and ease of doing business. Of these, 27 projects are supported by 1.61 trillion worth of loans and grants, the biggest of which are the 628.4-billion North-South Commuter Railway plan and the 357 billion Metro Manila Subway Project.

Spending for these loan-funded projects also improved, with NEDA reporting a 21 percent increase in fund releases and a 73 percent availment rate for ODA agreements. However, the country also had to settle $4.66 million in commitment fees for amounts which were left untouched due to delays in project rollout.

The government has been relying on foreign borrowings to support local growth, as the Philippines invests on its needs to scale up economic activity.
The US government announced today that it had seized three websites used by Iran to facilitate oil deals with Venezuela. The decision follows the US interception of Iranian oil tankers bound for Venezuela and increased pressure from Washington on both countries.

The Department of Justice assumed control of the websites for Mobin International, Sohar Fuel and Oman Fuel, which the department called front companies. The companies allegedly facilitated a fuel shipment by Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to Venezuela, according to a department press release.

Earlier this month, the United States seized more than a million barrels of fuel from Iran that was heading to Venezuela aboard four tankers. The discovery of these companies alleged connection to the shipment from Iran to Venezuela followed this maritime seizure, according to the Department of Justice.

The websites now show a Department of Justice notice reading, This domain has been seized. Department officials did not immediately respond to Al-Monitors request for information on how they came to control the websites. The department said it seized the websites following a warrant from the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

The United States opposes Iranian policy in the Middle East and believes Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, which Iran denies. Iran supports armed groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen that fight the United States and its allies  notably Israel and Saudi Arabia. The United States is currently trying to trigger the return of UN sanctions on Tehran related to the nuclear program.

The United States also supports an opposition government in Venezuela, and has long had poor relations with the socialist country.

Harsh US sanctions on both Iran and Venezuela have brought the two countries closer together politically and economically in the face of US criticism of their relations. Iran has completed several fuel and food deliveries to Venezuela this year. In July, the first Iranian supermarket opened in the South American country.

Turkey, which is a NATO ally of the United States, also sent medical aid to Venezuela recently.
31.08.2020 LISTEN

The Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AFAW) is deeply concerned about the recent statement by the founder of the Living Faith Chapel, David Oyedepo, that he could lay hands and pray for COVID19 patients. His claim has the potential of undermining efforts to tackle and defeat this vicious virus. Oyedepo has reportedly said during his sermon on Saturday, August 29: "Can you imagine anyone bringing a coronavirus patient to me and I wont lay hands on him? Will I wear gloves to lay hands on them?" Then he went further to state: I will lay hands on them; breathe into them; embrace them. What you carry is eternal life. Its not human life. You should know that. Unfortunately, Oyedepo has made similar reckless remarks in the past. For instance, in June, this pentecostal preacher and witchcraft exorcist said that his church had recorded over 114 COVID19 healing testimonies. These faith healing claims fly in the face of facts and figures regarding the management and containment of COVID19 in Nigeria and beyond. The Nigerian health authorities should call Oyedepo to order. They should sanction him because Oyedepo is a pastor with an academic background in architecture, not a public health expert. Living Faith Chapel is a church, not a health institution.

The coronavirus pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to the faith healing industry. And pentecostal pastors such as Bishop Oyedepo are desperate to get back into the business of mining the gullibility of Nigerians. The virus has succeeded in exposing the fakery and inefficacy of faith-healing practices. COVID19 is a global pandemic and a public health emergency that has no cure yet. There is no evidence that coronavirus patients could be healed through prayer or laying of hands. Instead, evidence abounds that such practices contribute to the spread of the infection. Some pastors reportedly contracted the virus and subsequently died after praying and laying hands on patients. So, Oyedepo's statement is a proposition that could lead to a spike in the infection, or death. AFAW urges members of the public to disregard this misleading and irresponsible proposition of Bishop Oyedepo and continue to follow the WHO evidence-based guidelines for the management of the pandemic.
A federal court in California has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Los Angeles restaurant seeking business interruption losses from Travelers Indemnity due to coronavirus-related restrictions on its business.

Judge Stephen Wilson of the U.S. District Court for Central California ruled that the insurance policy issued to 10E restaurant does not cover losses due to Mayor Eric Garcettis ban on in-person dining due to the coronavirus because 10E suffered no direct physical loss of or damage to property as required for civil authority coverage.

The judge also rejected the plaintiffs bid to remove the case to state court.

The ruling was another victory for insurers claiming most business policies do not cover coronavirus-related business losses.

The Travelers policy in this California case covers losses and expenses caused by action of civil authority that prohibits access to the described premises and further states that the civil authority action must be due to direct physical loss of or damage to property.

The policy also contains an endorsement, exclusion of loss due to virus or bacteria that applies to action of civil authority. The endorsement reads: We will not pay for loss or damage caused by or resulting from any virus, bacterium or other microorganism that induces or is capable of inducing physical distress, illness or disease.

The plaintiff argued that it is entitled to recover under the policy because public health restrictions prohibited access to its restaurant and the restrictions caused physical damage by labeling of the insured property as non-essential and prevent[ing] the ordinary intended use of the property.

Plaintiff also alleges that the virus exclusion does not include exclusion for a viral pandemic.

Travelers argued that 10E did not plausibly allege that it suffered direct physical loss of or damage to property as required for civil authority coverage.

Judge Wilson wrote, Under California law, losses from inability to use property do not amount to direct physical loss of or damage to property within the ordinary and popular meaning of that phrase. Physical loss or damage occurs only when property undergoes a distinct, demonstrable, physical alteration.

He added, An insured cannot recover by attempting to artfully plead impairment to economically valuable use of property as physical loss or damage to property.

The judge said the restaurant attempted to substitute impaired use or value for physical loss or damage, arguing that in-person dining restrictions interfered with the use or value of its property  not that the restrictions caused direct physical loss or damage. Plaintiff characterized in-person dining restrictions as labeling of the insured property as nonessential.

That labeling surely carries significant social, economic, and legal consequences. But it does not physically alter any of plaintiffs property, the judge wrote.

He further dismissed the plaintiffs claim that its business hardships resulted from the physical action of the novel coronavirus itself. He said that even if 10E could somehow recover for physical loss or damage to other property, such loss or damage could hardly qualify as direct as the policy requires.

Finally he rejected the plaintiffs attempts to circumvent the plain language of the policy by emphasizing its disjunctive phrasing  direct physical loss of or damage to property and insisting that loss, unlike damage, encompasses impaired use. While public health restrictions kept the restaurants customers at home, the restaurant remained in possession of its dining room, bar, flatware, and all of the accoutrements of its elegantly sophisticated surrounding, the ruling stated.

This is another in a string of cases where insurers have prevailed in coronavirus business loss cases. The pro-insurer rulings have come from a federal courts in Texas, New York and Florida, a District of Columbia court and a Michigan state court.
Its a cliche of Hollywood action movies: the ticking clock  preferably in blinking, angry, red lights  that makes the stakes clear to even the most distracted viewer: time is running out.

Suddenly, the hero wins the day, saving the world just under the wire, and everyone goes home happy.

Maybe they should install one of those LED clocks in Congress. The bigger the better. A hero will be harder to find.

So far, no one has emerged to persuade our duly elected representatives of the urgent need for action on a new stimulus bill to provide economic relief for Americans struggling against the invisible enemy of COVID-19.

Even if they act immediately upon reviving debate next week, it will be more than a month since millions of out-of-work Americans lost the $600 weekly unemployment supplement funded through the CARES Act, which expired July 31.

There are other pandemic needs that Congress must address through legislation  including funding for school safety and better distance learning, for testing and contact tracing, as well as aid for vulnerable nursing home residents and money for the U.S. Postal Service  but whats most urgent is direct help for besieged American households.

By the time Congress reconvenes after Labor Day, two months of rent will have been due, and the other bills didnt take a summer break, either. Millions of families are facing eviction, and while unemployment is down slightly, the outbreak and Congressional intransigence continue to make a timely economic recovery far from assured.

It is a shameful situation that must be resolved.

As Congress failed to act, President Donald Trump stepped in with a series of executive orders, including one that initially promised $400 extra per week for the unemployed, with $300 from the federal government and $100 from the state. Texas and other states balked, and the matching requirement was eliminated.

Some Texans began receiving the badly needed and most welcome additional federal aid last week. But with benefits slashed almost in half, many workers will struggle and Americans will have even less spending money to prop up struggling businesses.

Another shortcoming of Trumps order: almost 350,000 Texans who received aid under the first stimulus are ineligible for any help because they collected less than $100 per week in jobless benefits. This mostly includes part-time workers whose earnings qualified them to receive as little as $69 per week, based on the Texas Workforce Commissions benefits formula. Many of these people work and study or divide their time between a job and caring for a child or other family member.

Some may argue that these workers should not be making more from unemployment than they ever did from their job, but that ignores the monumental nature of COVID-19s threat to the economy and the role fiscal stimulus can play in staving off total economic collapse.

One of the larger sticking points in Congressional negotiations is the demand by some Senate Republicans to cut the $600 down to $200 under the misguided claim that the additional aid was keeping workers from returning to their jobs, but recent studies show that is not the case.

What analysts have found is that in an economy ravaged by the pandemic there are no jobs to turn to for many Americans. As long as that holds, federal benefits can keep families afloat and out of poverty  paying their bills, shopping for groceries, covering their mortgage or rent  which in turn helps keep others employed.

The presidents actions no doubt offered a lifeline to many but they were a Band-Aid on a Band-Aid and cannot take the place of legislation. As we have pointed out before, Congress abdication of responsibility is unconscionable and there is no excuse for allowing people to needlessly suffer.

As lawmakers return to Washington next week, they need to summon their inner heroes and do the right thing as quickly as possible.

For those needing other motivation: theres another ticking clock now, and its counting down to Nov. 3.
Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotosho, on Monday disclosed that the state Commissioner for Health, Akin Abayomi, has recovered from COVID-19.

BREAKINGTIMES had reported that Abayomi, on August 24 announced that he tested positive for the virus.

Announcing the Health Commissioners recovery, Omotosho tweeted:

It is with gratitude to God that I announce the recovery and subsequent negative test for COVID-19 of the Honorable Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi.

It is with gratitude to God that I announce the recovery and subsequent negative test for COVID-19 of the Honorable Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi.

Following the mandatory isolation, the Commissioner retook a COVID-19 PCR test which returned negative yesterday evening.

Governor Sanwo-Olu, the Incident Commander, is excited by the news and urges Lagosians to realise that COVID-19 is still with us; they should keep obeying the guidelines- watching their hands, wearing face masks and avoiding large gatherings, among others.

He will be returning to his full duties gradually and remains resolute in delivering the mandate of Mr. Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, whom he says stood by him steadfastly in these trying times and is very appreciative of.

Professor Abayomi is very grateful and humbled by the deep concern shown and expressed by Executive Council members, civil servants, Lagos residents, Nigerians, both locally and in the diaspora, through prayers, messages, phone calls, and gifts.
SPRINGFIELD  The number of new COVID-19 cases among city residents has remained in the single digits in recent days, but local officials on Monday called for continued vigilance as some colleges reopen and Labor Day weekend approaches.

City officials and representatives of Baystate Health and Mercy Medical Center, gathering at City Hall for their weekly update on the pandemic, said Springfield continues to do well in keeping new cases and hospitalizations low.

They praised the city moving from the states yellow to green designation for COVID-19 risk, meaning the city is seeing lower infection rates. The green designation is for communities with a daily rate of fewer than 4 new cases per 100,000 residents for a 14-day period, officials said.

Its a tremendous accomplishment, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno said, praising residents, businesses, health and city officials, and staff. Were getting there. We must stay ever vigilant.

The city recorded six new cases Friday, four cases Saturday and two cases Sunday, officials said.

Last week, there was one day with no new confirmed cases  the first time since late March  and Sarno said he wants to see a string of days when there are zero, zero, zero cases.

No new virus-related deaths of city residents were recorded last week. The pandemics death toll in the city stands at 131, including 57 who lived in long-term care facilities, officials said.

Helen Caulton-Harris, the citys commissioner of health and human services, said the city saw 31 new COVID-19 cases last week, compared to 35 new cases the week before and 53 cases three weeks ago.

As you can see, were trending in the right direction, Caulton-Harris said.

A total of 3,004 Springfield residents are known to have been infected with COVID-19 since March, according to city statistics.

Dr. Mark Keroack, president and CEO of Baystate Health, and Dr. Robert Roose, chief medical officer of Mercy Medical Center, urged people to continue taking precautions such as social distancing, wearing face coverings in public, washing hands regularly, and staying home if they feel sick.

At Baystate Medical Center, there are 17 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 including one in critical care. The number has held steady in recent weeks, Keroack said.

At Mercy Medical Center, there are three patients with the virus with none in intensive care, Roose said.

Of the trends in the city at large, Roose said he believes there has been a steady focus on following the science, listing to the medical experts, not always doing whats easy, but doing whats right.

The hospital officials and Caulton-Harris warned people, including college students, not to take part in large gatherings or parties.

We recognize that these events could be super spreaders, Caulton-Harris said.

The city has had conversations with local colleges and universities about the need to prevent and monitor for any parties or large student gatherings, Caulton_Harris said. The colleges plan to vigilant, including working with campus security and police to head off any issues, she said.

Sarno said students face possible suspensions and even expulsion for violations of COVID-19 regulations.

Roose said testing and contact tracing needs to expand. Let science continue to be our guide, Roose said.

Both Keroack and Roose said testing by their health systems is finding infection rates around 1.1%  continued good news, they said.

Overall the city is headed in the right direction, Keroack said, adding, we need to be on our guard.

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A drug cartel in Mexico is terrorizing its rivals by using weaponized drones equipped with fatal ammunition in the latest acts of violence of drug wars that have continued to ravage the Central American nation.

The new generation of the Jalisco Cartel, the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) has been using airborne attacks much more frequently. Authorities believe the drug cartel has control of one-third of the illegal drugs that are smuggled into the United States.

Deadly weaponized drones

Officials said that the drones are used to gain a larger hold of the country's illegal drug exports. The director of research and analysis at C/O Futures, Robert Bunker, said that the CJNG has been using weaponized drones to attack rivals since 2017, as reported by the New York Post.

Bunker added that the CJNG is getting closer to institutionalizing the brutal use of weaponized drones in the region. The official said that other cartels in the area have not even begun to experiment with the technology as part of their drug war.

A militia group that consisted of farmers in Michoacan reported earlier this month that they found two drones equipped with C4 explosives and ball bearings. They also reported hearing explosives they believed came from similar devices.

According to Forbes, in 2017, Bunker revealed that authorities arrested four members of the CJNG who were found to possess a drone equipped with a "papa bomba" (potato bomb) and had a hand grenade.

Also Read: Mom Tortures 3-Year-Old to Death, Mutilated Her Body Parts and Tried Dissolving Remains in Bleach

In 2018, an armed drone assaulted the home of a senior official in Baja, California. Although the target was not currently inside the residence, the bombardment seems to have been a warning to strike fear.

This year, three CNJG drones were recovered which were armed with explosives. Authorities believe the weaponized machine is part of a weapons arsenal used against the Rosa de Lima cartel, a rival gang to the CJNG.

Ease of access

Bunker said that consumer drones are easily purchasable these days but noted that weaponizing the technology is a much more difficult feat. He said that the reason for the challenge is not the availability of military-grade explosives but the knowledge an individual needs to create improvised explosive devices (IED).

Authorities found the weaponized drones to have been wired and capable of being detonated remotely to conduct kamikaze attacks on unsuspecting victims. The technology is similar to the previously used quadcopters that have been jury-rigged and used in the assassination attempt on Venezuelan President Maduro in 2018 that ended in failure.

Experts noted that the weaponized drones were much less sophisticated that bomber drones that terrorist groups in the Middle East including ISIS have been using since 2016. The advanced machines were capable of dropping modified 40mm grenades with high accuracy and caused devastating damage to Iraqi government forces, as reported by Asia Times.

The dangerously sophisticated drones have become much more prominent in the Middle East. Officials believe that the technology's absence in Mexico is a result of the cartels' lack of access to high-grade munitions.

Related Article: Cannibal Who Killed, Mutilated Girlfriend Found Sane to Stand Trial

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
New Delhi: The Indian Navy has reportedly deployed one of its frontline warships in the South China Sea, much to the displeasure of the Chinese, who raised objections during diplomatic talks between the two nations. The warship was reportedly deployed in the South China Sea after the June 15 clash with Chinese PLA troops in the Galwan Valley, where 20 Indian soldiers were killed.

China objected to the Indian Navys presence in the South China Sea, where the PLA Navy is trying to consolidate its position. The US Navy is also conducting exercises there to challenge the PLA Navys dominance.

US aircraft carriers USS Ronald Reagan and USS Nimitz, along with escorting cruisers and destroyers, held exercises in the South China Sea to challenge Chinese hegemony in the region.

According to reports, the Indian warship was continuously maintaining contact with the US Navy deployed there over secure communications systems. As part of routine drills, the Indian warship is constantly updated about the status of the movement of military vessels of other countries there. The entire mission was carried out in a very hush-hush manner to avoid any public glare on the Navys activities.

The Indian Navy also deployed its frontline vessels along the Malacca Straits near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the route from where the Chinese Navy enters the Indian Ocean Region to keep a check on any Chinese naval activity. It is a crucial sea trade route for China. The Navy also held exercises in the Andamans and has deployed MiG-29K fighters in the islands.

Last month Indian Navy warships and a US Navy carrier group held a passage exercise in the Indian Ocean Region.
Lee Universitys Department of Language and Literature will offer free English as a Second Language classes to the community through its Center for English Language and Literacy. Registration is now open for the courses beginning Thursday, Sept. 10.

The C.E.L.L. will offer five levels of classes for all levels of learners, ranging from beginners who have little to no prior English instruction to speakers who are advanced in their knowledge of the English language. The class size is limited to 15 students this fall, which allows teachers to tailor lessons to each students learning styles and goals.

To protect students against COVID-19, temperature checks, social distancing, and masks will be required. Hand sanitizer and masks will be provided.

The program is led by Dr. Chris Blake, Lee associate professor of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and linguistics; Andrew Crouch, student director of the C.E.L.L.; and Lee alumna Veronica Hodge, director of the new Tuesday night Literacy Center. The English classes are taught by Lee student instructors who have been professionally trained in the TESOL program.

In addition to the classes for adults, English instruction will be available for high school, middle school, and elementary school students. High school students will receive instruction through the C.E.L.L. Youth Program, directed by Dr. Betsy Poole, assistant professor of Spanish and linguistics at Lee.

For children ages 6-10, childcare will be provided by TESOL-trained students who will lead English lessons and activities suited for the young age group.

We are so excited that Lees community C.E.L.L. has been approved to host free ESL classes this fall with the continued support of the Athens Federal Foundation, said Dr. Blake. Due to the COVID-19 precautions, we will only be able to accept a limited number of students this semester, so it is important that students register early on our website.

English literacy classes will be held on Tuesday evenings and conversation classes will be held on Thursday evenings. All classes will take place from 6:30-8:30 p.m. in the Walker Memorial Building, with signs directing students to the building and room.

For more information about the classes, email englishlanguagecenterlee@gmail.com or call 614-8223.

For more information about the Center for English Language & Literacy, visit leecell.org.
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World Health Organization officials are holding a press conference on Thursday to update the public on the coronavirus outbreak that has infected more than 25.2 million people across the globe.

Last week, the United Nations health agency said that it's rare, but possible that people who have recovered from Covid-19 could be reinfected as more reports emerge from around the world of reinfection taking place. Though Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO's emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said that's not necessarily a surprise and added that it is unlikely to affect vaccine development.

"People think, 'Oh, this means a vaccine won't work.' That's not what this means," she said. "We're still developing vaccines, and there's incredible progress being made on this."

Earlier this month, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that while a vaccine will be a "vital tool" in the global fight against the virus, it won't end the pandemic on its own and there's no guarantee scientists will find one.

He added that countries and the public must find a way to bring their outbreaks under control and within a manageable level.

Read CNBC's live updates to see the latest news on the Covid -19 outbreak.

 CNBC's Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and Noah Higgins-Dunn contributed to this report.
She has established a career in designing after soaring to fame in the Spice Girls.

And Victoria Beckham was her own best advert on Monday as she celebrated the Bank Holiday weekend.

The star, 46, took to Instagram to show off one of her Victoria Beckham designs in a full-length mirror.

Work it: Victoria Beckham was her own best advert on Monday as she celebrated the Bank Holiday weekend

Victoria looked effortlessly chic in a bold blue midi dress with a figure-hugging silhouette and the brand's Dolman sleeves.

Adding another pop of colour, the star accessorised her ensemble with bright green heels.

Victoria styled her brunette locks into a blow-dried hairdo, she added a slick of glamorous make-up.

Sensational: The star, 46, took to Instagram to show off one of her Victoria Beckham designs in a full-length mirror

Chic: Victoria looked effortlessly chic in a bold blue midi dress with a figure-hugging silhouette and the brand's Dolman sleeves

The mother-of-four captioned the clip with: 'Blue for Bank Holiday Monday [heart emoji] Wearing one of the signature VB silhouettes, the Dolman sleeve midi x vb.'

It comes after her husband David Beckham was every inch the proud father as he posed with his three sons Brooklyn, 21, Romeo, 17, and Cruz, 15, in a series of adorable snaps taken in the Cotswolds.

The former England captain, 45, was joined by Brooklyn and Romeo in the first fun photo, shared by wife Victoria, 46, with the caption 'Love u boys x.'

Glamorous: Victoria styled her brunette locks into a blow-dried hairdo, she added a slick of glamorous make-up

The mother-of-four captioned the clip with: 'Blue for Bank Holiday Monday [heart emoji] Wearing one of the signature VB silhouettes, the Dolman sleeve midi x vb.'

David cut a casual figure in a white slogan print tee paired with black trousers as he held onto a glass of wine and embraced Romeo.

Romeo, who looked trendy in a white tee and tan jeans laughed as Brooklyn appeared to lip-sync beside him.

The good times continued to roll in the next photo captured by VB which showed David and eldest son Brooklyn cracking up with laughter as they relaxed on a sofa.

Fashion designer Victoria captioned the photo: 'My boys.'

Fun family: It comes after David Beckham was every inch the proud father as he posed with his three sons Brooklyn, 21, Romeo, 17, (pictured above) and Cruz, 15, in series of adorable snaps

Fun: The good times continued to roll in the next photo captured by VB which showed David and eldest son Brooklyn cracking up with laughter as they relaxed on a sofa

Youngest son Cruz joined the line-up for a sweet photo posted by David, which showed the star and his boys posing at sunset in the country.

David wrote: 'Nothing like a fathers bond with his sons love you boys @brooklynbeckham @romeobeckham @cruzbeckham

It comes after David, who is reportedly being lined up for a stint on Celebrity Bake Off, is said to have been experimenting with recipes during the lockdown.

According to reports, Victoria 'couldn't get enough' of David's homemade pizza after using various different toppings.

The lads: Youngest son Cruz joined the line-up for a sweet photo posted by David, which showed the star and his boys posing at sunset in the country

Although it has been claimed that the fashion designer who is known for her love of steamed fish and vegetables, is 'back to clean eating' now autumn is approaching.

A source told The Sun: 'Victoria hasn't touched a carb since 2001. But at the start of lockdown, David started experimenting with recipes  making the dough from scratch and trying various toppings.'

They added: 'Victoria eventually relented and had a small slice.

On-the-go: David revealed he was still on his fitness A game as he worked up a sweat on a topless run with his son Romeo on Sunday

'Things progressed and, basically, she couldn't get enough of David's delicious golden dough balls.'

MailOnline has contacted the Beckham's representative for comment.

David has been perfecting his recipes on their lavish Cotswold estate where he has been spending the lockdown with his wife and three children, Romeo, Cruz amd daughter Harper, nine.

Brooklyn, spent it in America with fiancee Nicola Peltz.
Srinagar: India is reporting that its soldiers thwarted provocative military movements carried out by Chinese troops near a disputed border in Ladakh region.

A statement by Indias defence ministry on Monday said Chinas Peoples Liberation Army carried out actions "to change the status quo and violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements in the cold-desert region.

The treacherous terrain of the Ladakh region. Credit:AP

The army is not disclosing what it means by "provocative military movements" or whether the PLA has breached the disputed territory at a fresh point.

It said Indian troops pre-empted the Chinese military activity on the southern bank of Pangong Lake. The glacial lake is divided by the de facto frontier between the rivals and is one of the three sites where the India-China faceoff began in early May.
African forest elephants, highly sociable animals, travel in small family groups to meet others at these muddy water sources, which are full of rich minerals they cant find in the forests. By clearing routes to these destinations, elephants have created a very complex network of roads that residents, tourists, scientists and loggers still use today. (Photo provided by Carolyn A. Jost Robinson)

Elephant trails may lead the way to better conservation approaches.

Think of elephants as engineers of the forests, said Melissa J. Remis, professor and head of anthropology at Purdue University, who is best known for her work in ecology and behavior of western gorillas and their ecosystems. Elephants shape the landscape in many ways that benefit humans. Were talking thousands of miles of trails. If we think about the loss of elephants over time, then we will see the forest structure change and human activities also would shift.

These massive creatures trample thick vegetation through dense forests in the Central African Republics Congo Basin as they move from the forests fruit trees to more open water sources where they hydrate, bathe and socialize. African forest elephants, highly sociable animals, travel in small family groups to meet others at these muddy water sources, which are full of rich minerals that they cant find in the forests. By clearing routes to these destinations, elephants have created a very complex network of roads that residents, tourists, scientists and loggers still use today. If elephant populations decline, the forest grows over the trails.

The fabric and way of life of local communities, and even for the industries and conservation organizations that exist in African forests, have largely been shaped by elephant landscape design, said Carolyn A. Jost Robinson, a former Purdue doctoral student and current visiting scholar who also is director of sociocultural research and engagement at the nonprofit Chengeta Wildlife. People rely on these elephant highways, and they also are invaluable at understanding and explaining the networks.

Remis and Jost Robinson focus on these massive trail networks and the ecosystem and local foraging community, called the BaAka, as they evaluate how biological anthropology plays a role in conservation. Their research is specific to the elephant trails leading to Dzanga Saline, a famous forest clearing with a large water source in the Congo area. Their findings are published online in American Anthropologist.

Anthropologists are very famous for critiquing conservation but not always for coming up with effective solutions, Remis said. The area of conservation is dominated by biological sciences, and you cant make change just tending to ecosystems. Conservation messages focus on flagship species, like elephants, and rarely do they consider the knowledge or needs of people relying on or living with those species. Attention on both could help further conservation and human rights issues.

Framing the big picture

More than 30 years ago, Purdue Universitys Melissa Remis visited the Dzanga-Sangha Protected Areas for the first time as a biological anthropologist to study gorillas. She became known as the gorilla lady as she visited the site dozens of times. Her fieldwork showed her that to know and study the gorillas, she had to learn about the forest and other wildlife from the local residents who share the land for food, shelter and medicines. Now Remis work focuses on the big picture  how the effects of conservation affect people, and what role biological anthropology can play.

Were broadening the conversation about conservation, said Jost Robinson, who became known as the child of the gorilla lady by local residents at their African research site. When you see a picture in a magazine story about ivory trafficking and elephant hunting, it is unlikely that the article will capture the entire experience of the community, as well as tourists, researchers and companies with local interests. As part of this change  whether you want to talk about climate change, forest access or wildlife protection  these relationships have evolved and taken on new shapes. We looked back on years of data and stories and realized there was a story to tell.

By focusing on the local BaAka community, especially the hunters known as tuma, the scientists capture information from local residents about interaction and living with elephants that is usually not a part of conservation plans.

We want this to be a model for showing how to get additional insights when addressing how to conserve forests in better collaboration with those people who rely on them for cultural and material sustenance, Remis said. Being able to tell their stories and share their deep knowledge about the area, and what closing off an elephant trail or part of the forest can due to cut off access to food, medicines or social networks, is usually not part of the conservation approach. We need to hear the BaAka in their own words.

This work was funded by the Clifford B. Kinley Trust and College of Liberal Arts.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to todays toughest challenges. Ranked the No. 6 Most Innovative University in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap at https://purdue.edu/.

Writer and media contact: Amy Patterson Neubert, 765-412-0864, apatterson@purdue.edu

Source: Melissa J. Remis, remis@purdue.edu

Journalists visiting campus : Journalists should follow Protect Purdue protocols and the following guidelines:

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To enable access, particularly to campus buildings, we recommend you contact the Purdue News Service media contact listed on the release to let them know the nature of the visit and where you will be visiting. A News Service representative can facilitate safe access and may escort you on campus.

Correctly wear face masks inside any campus building, and correctly wear face masks outdoors when social distancing of at least six feet is not possible.

ABSTRACT

Elephants Hunters and Others. Integrating Biological Anthropology and Multispecies Ethnography in a Conservation Zone

Melissa J. Remis and Carolyn A. Jost Robinson

DOI: 10.1111/aman.13414

Popular and scholarly accounts lament the demise of African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) and the loss of biodiversity across the Congo Basin, but there has been less appreciation of the consequences of restricted forest access for human communities in conservation contexts. We demonstrate the usefulness of biological anthropology in combination with multispecies ethnography for anchoring the futures of BaAka foragers and African forest elephants. Tuma elephant hunters have long negotiated their communities relationships with elephants and others who have relied on the BaAka to navigate the forest. Tracing multispecies interactions along a transnational network of elephant trails (bembo) helps us understand the ways that elephants have shaped forest structure and the fabric of existence for tuma and others. Bembo facilitate movement across watersheds and may prove a critical tool in the development of culturally relevant conversation practices.
Open source satellite imagery has captured what appears to be a heliport China is building in close proximity to two new air defence positions that cover sensitive stretches of the disputed border in Doklam and Sikkim sectors.

The imagery, shared by the open source intelligence analyst who uses the name @detresfa on Twitter, shows the suspected heliport under construction at the tri-junction of the borders of India, Bhutan and China, and at a distance of about 100 km from Doka La (Doka pass) and Naku La (Naku pass).

Suspected PLA heliport infrastructure spotted [as] part of an ongoing investigation near the #Doklam region of the #India #China #Bhutan tri junction, this support unit could sustain all weather & rapid troop deployments in the sector along with improving surveillance operations, the analyst tweeted.

Suspected PLA heliport infrastructure spotted part of an ongoing investigation near the #Doklam region of the #India #China #Bhutan tri junction, this support unit could sustain all weather & rapid troop deployments in the sector along with improving surveillance operations https://t.co/aOeZ3deGzI pic.twitter.com/ycS32tFxJe  d-atis (@detresfa_) August 31, 2020

The suspected heliport is located almost equidistant from the two sites at which the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) is developing surface-to-air missile facilities, according to imagery tweeted earlier by @detresfa. Both the missile facilities are near what have been described as suspected early warning radar sites opposite Sikkim state.

In a graphic posted on Twitter, @detresfa said the steady build-up of support infrastructure by the Peoples Liberation Army of China [near] areas with a history of clashes [and] disputed territorial claims demonstrates the long-term Chinese ambitions in these sectors.

ALSO READ | New satellite imagery suggests China developing missile bases to cover Doklam, Naku La

With the addition of a heliport along with area denial systems within 100 km from Doka La [and] Naku La, China would be able to sustain all weather operations in the disputed areas regardless of the harsh terrain [and] conditions, according to the graphic.

The new missile facilities are located roughly 50 km from Naku La (Naku pass), where troops from the two countries had clashed on May 9, and Doka La (Doka pass), close to the Doklam plateau that was the scene of a 73-day military standoff between India and China in 2017.

Four Indian and seven Chinese soldiers were injured in the clash at Naku La, the second such reported incident since the current standoff began in early May.

There was no immediate reaction from Indian officials to the reported development of the heliport and the missile sites by the Chinese.

After the end of the Doklam standoff in 2017 following several rounds of negotiations, there were reports the Chinese side hadnt fully pulled back its troops from the area. There were also reports that Chinese troops had built trenches, fortified positions and infrastructure to support operations by helicopters and aircraft in the area.

Last month, Hindustan Times had first reported that China had officially stated for the first time that it has a boundary dispute with Bhutan in the eastern sector, a development with significant implications for India as the region borders Arunachal Pradesh state, which is also claimed by Beijing.

Earlier this month, @detresfa had used open source satellite imagery to report that China had stepped up work on military infrastructure opposite Lipulekh region in Uttarakhand. The infrastructure included a surface-to-air missile site on the banks of Mansarovar Lake in Tibet.

The imagery showed what appeared to be two sites at which PLA is creating new infrastructure and accommodation. Both are not far from the Kalapani-Lipulekh region that is at the heart of a new border row between India and Nepal.

These developments come against the backdrop of the Indian Armys acknowledgement on Monday that its troops had pre-empted efforts by PLA to unilaterally change the status quo along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the southern bank of Pangong lake in the Ladakh sector.
An investor looks at stock prices on a smartphone at a brokerage in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

The VN-Index rose 0.3 percent to 881.65 points Monday, the highest level since it peaked at 900 points on June 10.

Although the benchmark index rose, the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), on which the VN-Index is based, saw just 159 tickers gain while 255 lost. Total transaction volume was VND6.33 trillion ($273.3 million), far higher than the August average to date of VND5 trillion.

The VN30-Index for the stock markets 30 largest caps gained 0.24 percent, with 14 stocks rising and 16 falling. Blue chips continued to account for less than 50 percent of total trading volume this session, with investors continuing to target mid- and small-caps with strong individual financials, analysts noted.

According to brokerage BIDV securities, HoSEs liquidity has been improving markedly in the last trading week, suggesting that investors are becoming more optimistic and that the VN-Index may hit 900 points at the end of this week, albeit with a few corrective sessions.

On the VN30, SAB of major brewer Sabeco topped gains with 5.2 percent, followed by CTG of state-owned banking giant VietinBank, and VJC of budget carrier Vietjet Air, both with 2.4 percent.

VNM of dairy giant Vinamilk followed with 1.4 percent, NVL of real estate developer Novaland with 1.3 percent, and BID of BIDV, Vietnams biggest state-owned bank by assets, with 1 percent.

Other major gainers included HPG of leading steelmaker Hoa Phat Group, up 1 percent, MSN of food giant Masan Group, 0.9 percent, and HDB of private lender HDBank, up 0.5 percent.

In the opposite direction, TCH of truck dealer Hoang Huy Group led losses with 2.6 percent, followed by SBT of agricultural firm TTC-Sugar, with 1.7 percent.

Private banks were some of the worst performing stocks this session, with TCB of Techcombank falling 1.4 percent, STB of Sacombank, 1.3 percent, VPB of VPBank and EIB of Eximbank both shedding 1.1 percent.

Other major losing tickers were SSI of top brokerage Saigon Securities Inc. and PNJ of jewelry retailer Phu Nhuan Jewelry, both down 1.3 percent, and ROS of construction firm FLC Faros, down 0.9 percent.

Meanwhile, the HNX-Index for the Hanoi Stock Exchange, home to mid- and small-capped stocks, shed 0.8 percent, and the UPCoM-Index for the Unlisted Public Companies Market slipped 0.86 percent after 10 consecutive gaining sessions.

Foreign investors continued to be net sellers to the tune of VND301 billion ($13 million) on all three bourses. The top three net sold tickers were VIC of private conglomerate Vingroup, VHM of its real estate arm Vinhomes and VRE of retail arm Vincom Retail.

Vingroup, Vietnams largest private conglomerate, had just last Friday published its consolidated financial statement, which showed a 36.6 percent year-on-year plunge in revenues as a result of Covid-19.

VIC shares edged up 0.1 percent, VHM slipped 0.1 percent and VRE shed 0.7 percent. VIC and VHM are the largest and third largest capped stocks on the HoSE.
Amid the buzz of hair clippers and sounds of old rhythm and blues songs, the call to defund police budgets doesnt come across as a single viewpoint at the Elite Styles barbershop in Schertz.

Current events are a frequent topic of conversation at this popular neighborhood spot, and the barbers and customers are regularly weighing in on the demand from protesters across the nation to drastically reduce funding for police departments after the deaths of Black men at the hands of white officers.

Local community activists also have called for the reallocation of dollars from the police budget to support community social programs, as have other cities, including Austin and Los Angeles.

To start, said barber Rian Ochasey Thompson, 40, defund is the wrong word.

Jerry Lara, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

You cant defund something that includes retirement and pensions of people who have already served, he said, and that involves contractual, legal obligations.

Youre not taking care of people who are for the people, said Thompson, a 10-year Army veteran, as he cut customer Anthony Munozs hair. That hurts their family and brings on another systemic issue. That doesnt make sense.

Munoz, one of 10 customers this hot day, said he has family members who are police officers.

You wouldnt want to defund the police because theyre here for us, said Munoz, 22. In this time that were going through, we need to come together and stop pointing the finger at one another.

Jerry Lara, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

For the past six years, Elite Styles has been a hub for Black, brown and white customers who gather not only for haircuts, but to discuss issues including racism, gentrification and socioeconomic problems.

Owner Hans Bejarano, 40, and fellow barbers and partners Thompson, Tony Jackson, 40, and Yusuf Muhammed, 25, encourage customers to stay informed about issues that affect their lives.

Staff and customers wear masks and observe social distancing. Theyre aware that the city of San Antonios proposed budget is set to increase police spending by $8 million, for a total of $487 million. City Manager Erik Walsh has said he doesnt want to cut police spending, much of which is bound to the police unions contract.

Jerry Lara, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

Plans by the city include applying for the Justice Departments Community-Oriented Policing grant. Activists called the move a slap in the face after repeated calls this summer for the city to cut back on police spending, initially sparked by the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed in May by a Minneapolis police officer.

Historically, Black barbershops have been safe havens where no topic is off limits and everyone can agree to disagree. Bejaranos clientele is as diverse as the discussions that take place inside of the gray-brick and red-walled shop on Schertz Parkway.

There are mothers and fathers with their sons. Grandparents arrive with grandsons, taking seats next to teenagers, military veterans who are longtime customers and young men accompanied by their girlfriends.

Jerry Lara, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

Some customers say they are upset by the election of President Donald Trump, but there are others who just as boldly support his policies.

You just have to articulate what youre saying, Thompson said, and what the facts are.

Bejarano recalled the words of a mentor who said a business will take on the personality of the owner  the shops history of engagement is in line with his identity. Since he opened the shop in 2015, hes invested in Northeast Side communities with annual school supply drives and toy drives for families in need of aid.

Hes also taken on young customers to mentor, such as 23-year-old Darrian Potts, who says answers to todays problems can be found in the past civil rights movement. He said boycott movements would be more effective than burning buildings, which just requires more tax dollars to rebuild the structures.

Well figure out a way to get by and do for ourselves, he said, which is what they truly have a problem with. A lot of this is being influenced by outside money. There actually is a motivated incentive of financing behind these type of problems and clashes.

Diversity of opinion

The diversity of opinion about whether to cut back funding from police departments continues away from the barbershops of the East Side.

Doug Heath, a businessman and disc jockey at KROV-FM radio, sees the solution as more and better community policing. He said there would be more safety if funds were reallocated to putting officers back in neighborhoods.

It would make police go back to doing their jobs instead of depending on high-powered weapons and vehicles, Heath said. They would have to go out and actually talk to people.

Nutritionist Annette Moore, 61, agrees with Heath. She says decreasing the police department budget would end up decreasing officers response times.

Moore, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, said cities should not reallocate funds from police budgets to other departments. Instead, she suggested using money from another city department budget to support cultural awareness training for police and mental health community clinics. Once those two programs are up and running, Moore said, city leaders could then assess whether changes in law enforcement funding should be addressed.

A lot of things happening with policemen are because theyre not familiar with the culture of the community, said Moore, who is originally from inner-city Chicago. Things are happening because they dont know the cultures of the low-income communities.

Milton Harris, executive director of 100 Black Men of San Antonio, said the group has met with local law enforcement and county leaders about reforms.

Were looking to raise our IQ around the collective bargaining process, Harris said, and how as a community organization we can play a role in that as far as helping to develop safeguards for the police, but at the same time developing safeguards for the community.

He said the group doesnt believe in outright immunity for police officers and wants the names of officers who commit crimes put into a database so they cant be hired at other police departments.

La Juana Chambers Lawson, 32, said that when the city livestreamed the last budget meeting, everyday people could look at how the police department is funded with grant and private dollars. A lot of expenditures, she said, do not have much to do with community needs. She said many people are hoping for a new day when police can be held accountable for any unlawful actions.

I think more people have been excited to see who will respond to the calls now, said Lawson, owner of Tacit Growth Strategies. I think theyre interested to see if they can get someone to pick up the call and will deal with them in a less adversarial way.

Being responsible

Back at Elite Styles, Joel Waldon, 34, listened to the conversation around him as he waited with his sons, Kyson, 8, and Carter, 4, for their turn in the barber chair.

Its trying to figure out the most successful way for them to do their job, while maintaining a responsibility, he said of law enforcement officers. Not necessarily defunding them or hampering what theyre doing, but defunding it to where they have to be responsible for what theyre using those funds for.

Barber Muhammed said the issue would require a combination of proposals mentioned in the shop.

Its not something that theyre going to allow, to begin with anyway, for it to be defunded, said Muhammed, 25. I think the best thing to do is restructure it, and the whole judicial system. That is a strong part of todays society. Its something that has to change.

Across the room, fellow barber Jackson said he wouldnt want to see the police budget cut.

Were always going to need police. Some are bad, some are good, he reasoned, as he trimmed a customers hair. They have families as well, and we all have to feed our families, but you still have to do whats right. Just because you wear that badge doesnt mean you can make up your own laws. Thats how I feel about it. Defunding isnt the answer.

Customer David Harris, 38, said its a difficult topic. He worries about his wife, who works in downtown neighborhoods, and hopes that police officers would be there in a time of need.

We have friends on both side of the fence, he said. The big thing is the community and working together.

Bejarano said volatile situations can be de-escalated beforehand with proper training, and that needs to start with cadets at the police academy.

Everything has to do with training, he said, and making sure the right people are in place. A lot of time, our police department is infiltrated by bad guys, and thats what causes the madness.

vtdavis@express-news.net
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday (August 31) said that the water of Narmada river is flowing about 8 feet above the danger mark in Hoshangabad and state government is making all efforts to help everyone. CM Chouhan added that five Indian Air Force helicopters were deployed in the district to rescue people stranded due to floods.

"I thank IAF, NDRF, SDRF & all officials for saving lives of the people amid floods. The floodwater is receding now and we are focussing on providing drinking water, controlling the spread of diseases, food, assessment of the damage caused, medicines etc," said Chouhan.

Heavy showers in several parts of Madhya Pradesh for the last few days has caused a severe flood-like situation in the state. CM Chouhan took an aerial survey of flood-affected areas on Sunday.

Heavy rains pounded nine districts of the state, including Hoshangabad, Sehore, Chhindwara and Narshinghpur, leading to a rise in the level of the Narmada river at some places in the last two days. Authorities in Indore, Ujjain, Shajapur, Ratlam, Dewas, Jhabua, Alirajpur, Mandsaur and Neemuch have been alerted.

On Sunday, CM Chouhan also talked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over phone and informed him about the flood situation in the state. "I explained the entire situation to PM Modi today morning. We are being given his support. I am happy that we continued the rescue operations overnight. The five people of Sehore district stranded in Narela village were rescued at 2:30 am," said CM Chouhan.
By Express News Service

GUWAHATI: The Assam government on Monday said it favoured 20% re-verification of the final list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the districts which share a border with Bangladesh and 10% re-verification elsewhere.

The statement comes amidst criticism of the government for its failure to begin an exercise where the over 19 lakh people left out of the final NRC can challenge their exclusion.

Speaking in the Assembly, government spokesman and Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary asserted the government stood for a correct NRC.

We have said the government favours 20% re-verification of NRC in the border districts and 10% re-verification in other districts. We all want a correct NRC; an NRC that doesnt include any foreigner or exclude any genuine Indian citizen, Patowary said.

ALSO READ | One year on, NRC in Assam goes into oblivion

The Assam Public Works, an NGO which had first moved the Supreme Court seeking the updation of NRC of 1951, is demanding 100% re-verification of the final NRC. It claimed that illegal Bangladeshis and Jihadis had made it to the list.

On this day last year, the final NRC list was published that saw over 19 lakh out of the over 3.3 crore applicants being left out. They can challenge their exclusion in the foreigners tribunals, which are quasi-judicial bodies, after the receipt of rejection slips, to be issued by the NRC authorities citing the reasons behind exclusion. The rejection slips have not been issued yet due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Patowary asserted that the government was committed to implementing all clauses of the historic Assam Accord that was signed in 1985 between then Rajiv Gandhi government and the All Assam Students Union at the end of a bloody agitation against illegal immigration. The NRC was updated in deference to the accord which says the illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, who entered Assam after March 24 (midnight), 1971, have to be detected and deported.

ALSO READ | Omission of eight crore people in Ayodhya speech worrying after CAA/NRC: Tharoor's dig at PM

The fear surrounding the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act in Assam is that it will encourage the influx of non-Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh. Patowary claimed not a single Bangladeshi minority citizen had migrated to any of Assams 26,000 villages.

Opposition Congress staged a protest outside the Assembly on Monday.

The government spent Rs 1,600 crore in the name of NRC. Over 100 people had died due to anxiety and shock surrounding the exercise. Even after all these, the process is still incomplete. The BJP should apologise to the people of Assam, Congress MLA Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha demanded.
Joe Biden will blame President Donald Trump for the race-fueled disorder in several cities during a speech Monday delivered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

'This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country,' Biden plans to say, according to pre-released remarks from his campaign. 'He can't stop the violence - because for years he has fomented it.'

Biden will point out that Trump didn't call on his own supporters to disengage, after truckloads of them descended on Portland, Oregon Saturday and shot left-wing protesters with pepper spray and paint balls.

Joe Biden is traveling to Pittsburgh Monday to deliver remarks about how President Donald Trump is contributing to the race-fueled disorder playing out in the streets of several American cities

Joe Biden greets reporters at the New Castle Airport in New Castle, Delaware, before heading to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to deliver a speech Monday

Joe Biden boards a charter plane bound for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Monday. Trump campaign officials said that Biden is 'clearly rattled,' which is why he moved up his swing state travel by a week

President Donald Trump used Twitter Monday to suggest that Democrats had 'lost control of their "movement,'" after there were escalations in violence over the weekend

President Donald Trump suggested that 'slow Joe' was coming out of his Delaware basement because 'Anarchists & Agitators got carried away'

'He may believe mouthing the words "law and order" makes him strong, but his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows you how weak he is,' Biden will say.

'Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is re-elected?' Biden will ask.

A Trump supporter was killed in Portland during the clashes Saturday night.

Biden condemned the escalation in a statement Sunday.

'I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same,' the former vice president said.

On Monday, Trump continued to place the blame of the continued clashes between protesters of different ideologies and the police on the 'Radical Left Mayors & Governors of Cities,' tweeting that they 'lost control of their "movement."'

'It wasn't supposed to be like this, but the Anarchists & Agitators got carried away and don't listen anymore - even forced Slow Joe out of the basement,' the president wrote.

Biden, who has been trying to show a clear distinction between how he views the coronavirus threat compared to the president, will fly to Pittsburgh in a charter and deliver remarks there.

It's unclear if there will be any audience members.

Biden only had a small 'pool' of reporters with him when he delivered his remarks to the Democratic National Convention earlier this month.

Trump, on the other hand, invited 1,500 people to the White House for his Republican National Convention speech last Thursday, where most didn't wear masks nor practice social distancing.

Biden said last week that he planned to start traveling to swing states after the Labor Day holiday.

Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller floated that Biden was 'clearly rattled' and 'panicking,' which is why he moved up his campaign travel a week.

Pennsylvania continues to be a key swing state in the November election.

On a Trump campaign call with reporters Monday, campaign officials had the sheriff of Butler County, Pennsylvania, Michael Slupe, deliver remarks, tying leftist protesters with Biden.

'They are Joe Biden supporters. They are ruining America!' Slupe yelled during the call. 'These are not peaceful protesters. They are criminals.'

Trump will also visit Western Pennsylvania on Thursday, appearing at the Latrobe airport for an evening campaign event.

While Pittsburgh votes heavily Democratic, the outskirts - including Butler and Westmoreland County, where Latrobe is located - tend to be more red, and could help decide Trump and Biden's fate in the state.

'We are facing multiple crisis - crisis that, under Donald Trump, keep multiplying: COVID, economic devastation, unwarranted police violence, emboldened white nationalists, a reckoning on race, declining faith in a bright American future,' Biden also plans to say in Pittsburgh.

'The common thread? An incumbent president who makes things worse, not better,' Biden will say. 'An incumbent president who sows chaos rather than providing order.'
The Congress on Monday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over Chinese aggression in the Ladakh sector along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) and asked when he would show his red eyes to Beijing.

Randeep Singh Surjewala, chief spokesperson, Congress, said the PM and defence minister Rajnath Singh should inform the nation about the situation on the borders with China.

There has been another brazen attempt at aggression by China in Pangong Tso lake. Everyday there is a Chinese intrusion ... Pangong Tso lake area, Gogra and Galwan Valley, Depsang plains, Lipulekh pass, Doka La and Naku La, he said.

Our armed forces are standing fearlessly to protect Mother India. But, when will Modiji show his red eyes to China? he asked.

In a fresh incident in Ladakh, Chinas Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) had carried out provocative military movements to unilaterally change the status quo on the southern bank of Pangong Tso lake in the intervening night of August 29 and 30, but the attempt was thwarted by Indian troops, army spokesperson Col Aman Anand said.

He said Chinese troops violated the previous consensus arrived at during military and diplomatic engagements in the ongoing standoff in eastern Ladakh.

Also Read: Chinese troops strictly abide by the LAC, never cross the line: Beijing

Surjewala claimed that the sovereignty of India is being attacked.

Our land is being captured. But where is the Modi government? The defence ministrys press release is shocking. Now, its no longer restricted to Ladakh, but has reached Lipulekh pass in Uttarakhand, he said.

Also Read: PLA building heliport at tri-junction of India, Bhutan and China, shows satellite imagery

Surjewala claimed that Chinese missiles have been installed in Doka La and Naku La.

It is a threat to India. Forces are protecting the border. But where is the PM? When will he give a befitting reply to China? Where is the defence minister? We demand that the PM and the defence minister should come forward and inform us about the situation. When will they remove Chinese transgression from our territory? he asked.

Also Read: Experts say fresh face-off reflects grim reality of LAC situation

Another Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said China remains consistent and persistent in indulging in misadventures along the LAC altering the status quo ante, but the BJP government remains hesitant in admitting the reality.

Also Read: Forget disengagement, China opens new front along LAC

Aatmanirbhar, toys and love for indigenous breed of dogs can divert attention, but should not be confused with strategy and scheme to evict China, he said while referring to the topic of PMs monthly radio broadcast Mann Ki Baat on Sunday.
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This is the moment an elephant's life was saved by vets after it was speared to drive it off land in Kenya.

Conservationists said the creature was attacked when it crossed over into land that used to be elephant territory.

The elephant, believed to be in its 50s, developed a nasty infection in its tail and rescuers discovered a horrific maggot-infested wound.

Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (SWT), a conservation charity in Kenya, flew by helicopter to the Mara Conservancy after visitors spotted the ailing animal.

Vets from the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust are pictured above administering medicine in a bid to clean the infected area

The elephant, believed to be in its fifties, was treated by vets after its injury was spotted by eagle-eyed visitors

Vets wearing face masks amid the coroanavirus pandemic treated the animal at the Mara Conservancy in Kenya

The team from the trust's mobile veterinary unit, in partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service, treated the elephant.

They cleaned its infected tail and administered antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs.

Eventually, the elephant was back on its feet and has been given a positive prognosis for his recovery.

Rob Brandford, executive director at the SWT, said: 'We suspect he was speared when he travelled across land that was once elephant territory, but has since been appropriated by man, built on for development and agriculture, blocking traditional routes of elephant migration.'

One ranger wedged a stick in his trunk to keep the elephant's airways open, while another flopped an ear over his eye to shield him from the sun.

They manoeuvred its tail to inspect the damage and found it was was heavily infected and infested with maggots.

Rescuers cleaned the animal's tail wound, believed to have been caused by mankind after it crossed into human territory

Rescuers flew by helicopter to reach the ailing elephant, whose injury had developed an infection and was infested with maggots

The elephant has been given a good prognosis for its recovery and was soon back on its feet after it was treated by vets

KWS vet Dr Limo has since given the elephant a good prognosis for recovery, rescuers said.

'Now he is deep in the Masai Mara National Reserve, where we hope he will remain to convalesce in safety.

'In the half-century this old boy has roamed this earth, he has bore witness to a shrinking habitat and a growing human footprint, which leads to inevitable conflict.

'Human-wildlife conflict is a growing threat facing elephants across the world - from animals being electrocuted by power lines to killings in retaliation to crop raiding.'
Find all of the most important pandemic education news on Educating N.J., a special resource guide created for parents, students and educators.

They wont be cramming into teeming cafeterias, waiting impatiently in line while a smiling cafeteria worker serves them trays sagging under the weight of rectangular pizza, cups of diced peaches and cartons of milk.

But, despite the coronavirus prompting restrictions and varied schedules across the state, kids still have to eat when school starts this fall.
U.S. The Daily Beast

A man and woman in New York have been both fired and arrested for verbally assaulting a family on a train in an incident that police have determined to be a hate crime.The Daily Voice reported that Justin Likerman and Kristin Digesaro, of Long Island, turned themselves in on Wednesday. They have been charged with aggravated harassment and endangering the welfare of a child. New Yorks Metropolitan Transit Authority said the charges were brought in conjunction with the Manhattan Distri
USC students on their way to attend a memorial service in Los Angeles, Calif., on April 18, 2012. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)

Beijing Seeks to Influence Overseas Talent Who Return to China

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a special department that keeps detailed information on and makes use of the Chinese researchers and scholars who return to China after studying abroad. It is called the Western Returned Scholars Association (WRSA), also known as Overseas-Educated Scholars Association of China.

A series of documents obtained by The Epoch Times gives a glimpse into how the association keeps track of returnees in the hopes of recruiting them to assist in Beijings economic pursuits.

According to its own website, the WRSA, founded in 1913, is a national association of Chinese who returned from overseas. It is overseen by the Secretariat of the CCPs Central Committee and under the guidance of the United Front Work Department, an agency tasked with influencing people domestic and abroad to support the Partys agenda.

The website also claims that the WRSA is a bridge between the Party and overseas students and scholars, an assistant in the work of the Party and government, and a warm home [for returnees].

Developing Party Members

There are WRSA branches at the provincial, city, and county levelswith associations set up in different locales for alumni of Western universities who currently work or reside there.

According to the WRSA website, it has 42 local organizations and 15 national chapters, with more than 220,000 individual members. It also keeps close contact with more than 100 associations for Chinese overseas scholars in top destination countries for Chinese students.

Recently, The Epoch Times obtained the opening remarks of a WRSA meeting in Nanyang city, Henan Province held on Oct. 27, 2019. The speech was delivered by Liu Shuhua, director of the Nanyang United Front Work Department.

Liu asked the Nanyang WRSA division to actively engage in developing Party members and to connect with overseas students, experts, scholars, entrepreneurs, and people from all walks of life, and attract returnees for business and development in Nanyang.

WRSAs Long History

The WRSA was founded in 1913, prior to the CCP takeover of China. After the CCP won the civil war in 1949, the United Front Work Department was established as a central department that directly reports to the Central Committee, made up of the Partys senior officials. Under the department, local bureaus and branches were set up in provinces and various business sectors.

During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, when intellectuals were branded anti-revolutionaries, many prominent Chinese scholars died from persecution or committed suicide. The WRSA laid low during this time.

In 1982, the WRSA resumed its operations and became part of Beijings United Front, just as the Chinese regime began to embrace economic reforms.

Internal Data on Chinese Returnees

Liu said in his speech at the 2019 meeting that implementing decisions by the central, provincial, and municipal party committees regarding those who studied abroad is the new focus of united front work.

This new focus was confirmed by another document in Oct. 2019 titled, Data on returnees who studied abroad who are currently in Nanyang city. A total of 343 returnees were listed in the document with detailed descriptions of their professions.

The document included detailed information for each individual: name; date of birth; work unit(s); job title(s); date(s) of employment; political outlook; educationcountries of study, length of study abroad, majors/degrees; date of return; home addresses; and contact information.

On May 12, 2016, the CCPs General Office of the Central Committee issued a directive called, opinions on strengthening the construction of the WRSA.

The directive pointed out WRSAs major roles: to establish a database of returnees and make use of these students situation in a timely manner; create a new type of think tank reflecting the characteristics of overseas scholars; and to use these people to carry out civilian diplomacy and serve the Belt and Road Initiative. Rolled out in 2013, the Belt and Road is the Chinese regimes infrastructure financing project to build a Beijing-centric trade network stretching across Southeast Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Officials and experts have criticized the Belt and Road for trapping developing countries under heavy debtwhich could pressure them into supporting Beijings policies.

Twitter Board Member With Ties to WRSA

Twitter board member and former Google AI chief Li Fei-Fei has ties to the CCP and the WRSA.

Controversy surrounding Twitter flared up when Li was appointed to the companys board of directors. On May 20, a petition was created on the White House website to call for a thorough investigation on Twitters violation of freedom of speech.

In 2017, Li was awarded the Top Ten Female Figures award by the CCP. The award was also given to the notorious Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam that year.

At the beginning of 2017, Li joined Google Cloud as chief scientist. And at the Google Developer Conference in Shanghai in December of the same year, she announced that Google would return to Beijing to establish the AI research lab. A subsequent announcement stated that a cooperative relationship would be established with Tsinghua University Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Tsinghua AI), funded by the Chinese military.

Li is closely connected with the Future Forum, a Beijing-based agency that states its mission is to transform the future through science. According to the Future Forums 2017 official website, Li was a member of the Science Committee.

Also on the Future Forum faculty and members list was the distinguished quantum physicist and Stanford University professor Zhang Shoucheng who was listed as a council member. Zhang is said to have committed suicide on Dec. 1, 2018 when his company, Digital Horizon Capital (DHVC), previously known as Danhua Capital, was identified as part of a major Chinese infiltration effort into Silicon Valley, according to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizers report on China, which was released just days before Zhangs death.

According to the Future Forum website, the agency was founded in 2015 under the guidance of the China Association for Science and Technology and the support from the Chaoyang district government of Beijing. State-run media sponsors of the agency included Peoples Daily, Xinhua News Agency, as well as Chinas three major web portals.

The 2017 Convention on Exchange of Overseas Talents and the 19th Guangzhou Convention of Overseas Chinese Scholars in Science and Technology was coordinated by the WRSA, along with the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council (OCAO). Zhang Shoucheng and Li were both present as part of the top 50 elected outstanding members in 2017.

Li was also an invited guest at an event called the Chinese Returned Scholars Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum to Review 40 Years of Reform and Opening-up Policy held on Aug. 19, 2018 in Beijing.

Must Support the Party

According to a document titled Preparations for Establishing the WRSA, Nanyang Division issued on Oct. 25, 2019, of the more than 340 returnee students in the city, 129 are CCP members.

These internal documents also show candidates for the WRSA director position must show that they toe the Party line.

For instance, Zhang Yin, vice president of the Henan University of Engineering, was a candidate. He is also a member of the standing committee that oversees a Party advisory body called the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference.

Once a visiting scholar at Louisiana State University, Zhang is described in the document as having a firm political stance, outstanding work performance, and strong ability to participate in and discuss politics.
<! Yahaya Bello: wins at Supreme Court >

By Ayorinde Oluokun/Abuja

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the petition of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and its candidate, Musa Wada against the declaration of Governor Yahaya Bello of All Progressives Congress, APC as the winner of November 16 Kogi election.

In the judgment delivered on their behalf by Justice Uwani Musa Abba Aji, the seven man panel of the court led by Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mohammed Tanko held that the appeal was devoid of merit.

It was accordingly dismissed in the unanimous judgement.

The panel held that the petitioners abandoned their pleadings on their written briefs that the election was marred with irregularities at the lower courts.

The panel therefore ruled the petitioners failed to prove their allegations with results from the election and failed to prove that the respondent did not win majority votes in the election.

It also ruled that the petitioner failed to prove its claim of electoral malpractices by calling polling unit agents as witnesses.

The panel held that the appellant only proved over-voting in 24 out of the 729 polling units where voting was conducted.

The apex court also ruled that the forensic expert called by the appellants was not a qualified fingerprint expert.

The judgment was prepared by Justice Iyang Okoro, Justice Abba Aji said before she began the delivery of the judgment

In the dismissed petition, the governorship candidate of the PDP Musa Wada and his party had asked the apex court to annul the victory of Bello over claims that his election was marred by irregularities

The Supreme Court panel had fixed today for the delivery of judgment after parties in the appeals adopted their various written briefs last Tuesday.

Governor Bellos victory had earlier been affirmed at the Kogi Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal on the grounds that Wada and his party failed to prove the allegations of electoral malpractices in their petition.

But Wada last Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to set aside the judgments of the tribunal and that of the court of Appeal and declare him the winner of the election or order a fresh poll.

While arguing his position, the PDP candidate, through his lawyers, told the panel of Supreme Court panel hearing his appeal last Tuesday that the judgments of the appellate court should be set aside on the grounds that the Court of Appeal discarded evidence of rigging and violence in seven local government areas of the state.

The PDP and Wada were also hopeful that the Supreme Court will uphold the minority judgment of Justice Ohimai Ovbiagele which annulled the November election and ordered a rerun at seven local government areas of the State over allegation of vote rigging at the tribunal level.

The tribunal, in a majority judgment delivered by Justice Kashim Kaigama had upheld the election of Bello, as it said the petitioners failed to prove their allegations of vote rigging.

But in her minority judgment, Justice Ovbiagele held that there was evidence of electoral malpractices in seven LGAs of the state.

She therefore annulled the APC candidates victory in the election while ordering a rerun in the seven local government areas of the state.

The Court has also begun reading the judgment in the petition filed by SDP and Natasha Akpoti against the ruling of the lower courts on her petition against the election of Yahaya Bello.
ATLANTIC CITY  A city police officer arrested three men, including one for attempted murder, and recovered two handguns and drugs during his shift on Saturday night.

Shortly after beginning his shift at 6:30 pm, Officer Aaron Jones spotted Randy Acosta, 32, of Philadelphia, walking near Texas and Pacific avenues, police said.

Acosta was wanted for his involvement in two shootings where he was charged with attempted murder and other related crimes.

Acosta was taken into custody without incident and found to be in possession of 14 grams of marijuana, police said.

Acostas charges stemmed from investigations conducted by the Violent Crimes Unit following two separate shootings that occurred on Aug. 24 and 26 where a man was wounded in each.

Acosta was charged with two counts each of of aggravated assault, unlawful possession of a weapon, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and single counts of attempted murder, conspiracy, and possession of CDS.

He is currently lodged in the Atlantic County Jail.


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PARMA, Ohio -- Now that the presidential political conventions are history, the focus is shifting to the election. And while every election is important, presidential contests tend to draw higher numbers of voters.

Although Election Day -- Nov. 3  is still two months away, its not too early for residents in Parma, Parma Heights, Brooklyn, Independence and Seven Hills to start planning to cast their ballots -- especially since the ongoing coronavirus pandemic will impact the election.

Its also wise to double-check your voter registration status to ensure that the information is accurate, especially if youve moved or had a name change. Oct. 5 is the deadline to register to vote or to update voter information for the Nov. 3 election.

If you are new to Ohio or are just turning old enough to vote -- 18 by Nov. 3 -- details on how to register are available from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, boe.cuyahogacounty.gov. Voters also can also go online to obtain detailed election information, including their polling place and what will appear on their ballot.

Election officials are anticipating a higher than normal number of requests for vote-by-mail ballots because of the pandemic, so they encourage voters to get their requests in as soon as possible. They said because of the pandemic, voting by mail is the safest option.

A ballot application can be obtained by calling 216-443-8683, by making an online request or by printing a ballot application form. The completed form must be returned in person to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, 2925 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, placed in the secure drop box -- which is accessible 24/7 in the parking lot behind the board office -- or mailed to the elections board, P.O. Box 89448, Cleveland, Ohio 44101-6448.

Completed ballot applications must be received by noon on Oct. 31, the last Saturday before Election Day. Election officials recommend delivering ballot applications in person or using the drop box as the deadline approaches in order to ensure that a ballot will be received in time to vote.

Once a voters status has been checked and approved, a ballot will be mailed -- beginning on Oct. 6. The voter must return the ballot by mail, in person or via the drop box so that it is received or postmarked by Nov. 2.

Ballots returned by U.S. mail require two postage stamps.

Voters can check the elections board website to track their ballot.

There is a need for poll workers on Election Day, also. Interested people can sign up online. Election officials said they are committed to ensuring the safety of those who vote in person on Election Day, as well as poll workers. They said protective equipment such as face masks, hand sanitizer and social distancing markings will be provided at polling locations.

Those who sign up to work at a polling place will be required to attend a two-hour organizational meeting on Nov. 2 and to work the full day on Election Day. Polls are open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and poll workers can earn up to $275 for the day.

New members welcome: American Legion Parma Heights Post 703, which will mark its 68th anniversary on Sept. 12, is seeking new members. All eligible veterans can join the post, and family members are encouraged to become active in the American Legion Auxiliary, Sons of the American Legion and American Legion Riders.

Post 703 meetings, which were suspended for several months by the coronavirus pandemic, will resume in September. Meetings take place at 7 p.m. the second Thursday of the month.

American Legion Post 703 is at 7667 York Road, Parma. For more information, call 440-842-0703 or visit the post website, alpost703.org.

Post 703 has a canteen/bar that is open from 11 a.m. to midnight Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and noon to 6 p.m. Sundays.

Kitchen hours are 6 to 9 pm. Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. There is a lunch special for $3 to $4 from noon to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.

The post also has a variety of other events, including card games, weekly drawings, a bowling machine and more.

Census reminder: Area residents also are reminded to complete the 2020 Census form before the Sept. 30 deadline.

Data collected in the census is used to determine how much funding communities will receive for infrastructure repairs, school funding, safety programs and other projects. Cuyahoga County continues to lag in its census response rate at just 64 percent.

Those who have not yet completed the form or who misplaced it can complete the 2020 Census online by visiting my2020census.gov.

Cancer support: Individuals and families coping with cancer are invited to take advantage of programs offered by The Gathering Place. Because of the pandemic, The Gathering Place is closed for onsite programming and all programs will be virtual. All programs require advance registration unless specified. Call 216-595-9546 for details.

September programs include:

 Meditation for individuals and families coping with cancer will be offered from 1:30 to 3:15 p.m. Sept. 21 with presenter Eileen Coan, MS, MLS/GoToMeeting.

 A virtual support group for young adults surviving cancer (ages 18-40) will meet from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Sept. 24 via Zoom. Contact Casey Durkin to register at 216-455- 1523 or durkin@touchedbycancer.org

 Support for a child or teen with cancer, including siblings and parents, will be offered from 10 to 11 a.m. Sept. 5 via GoToMeeting. Contact Casey Durkin to register at 215-455-1523 or durkin@touchedbycancer.org.

 Exercise classes for those coping with cancer will be offered from 7 to 7:30 a.m. Mondays and 6:30 to 7 p.m. Thursdays with instructor Michael Ciccarello via GoToMeeting, and from 12:30 to 1 p.m. Tuesdays with instructor Stephen Cerne via Zoom. Advance registration is required by calling 216-595-9546.

Information, please: Readers are invited to share information about themselves, their families and friends, organizations, church events, etc. in Brooklyn, Independence, Parma, Parma Heights and Seven Hills for the Sun Postings column, which I write on a freelance basis. Awards, honors, milestone birthdays or anniversaries and other items are welcome. Submit information at least 10 days before the requested publication date to carolkovach@hotmail.com.

Read more from the Parma Sun Post.
A British Sikh soldiers promotion within the UK Army ranks has become a social media sensation after the news posted by his proud wife attracted thousands of messages and comments.

Corporal Chamandeep Singh, a Punjab-born soldier in the Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) of the British Army, attended a military school in India for 12 years. During this period, he read about another Indian soldier, Havildar Major Rajinder Singh Dhatt, and his heroic involvement in the Burma campaign of World War II. The story of this Sikh war veteran, along with Singhs own father having served in the Indian Army, inspired him to move to the UK and join the British Army.

He is now a Twitter sensation after his wife, Ceese Kaur Seera, posted the news of his promotion earlier this month, which attracted over 7,300 likes and 500 retweets and comments.

The person who has supported me throughout my journey is my wife, Ceese, said Cpl Singh, who has been amazed by the worldwide response, including from India.

I just couldnt believe how many people from all around the world shared and commented on her tweet; it made me feel so proud to be a Sikh soldier and serve this country, he said.

His wife herself works in a challenging role, as a Forensic Science Investigations Officer, and is also the National Lead for the National Sikh Police Association.

We support each other by having a mutual understanding that is built on teamwork and trust. I am always incredibly proud of my husbands achievements and getting promoted is a huge deal to any soldier, but as a Sikh, its so wonderful for our community to see soldiers going up the ranks and achieving so much, said Ceese Kaur Seera.

I wanted to share this incredible news with my friends through social media; I didnt think for a second the tweet would do as well as it did  the number of messages we had was amazing, she said.

Her soldier husband was posted to 22 Signals Regiment in October 2017 where he now works as part of the Unit Spares Account providing first-line equipment support to the Light Aid Detachment, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a statement marking his promotion. Singh is part of 150 Sikhs serving in Britains Regular Army, amid soldiers famed for their fierce fighting ability, bravery and loyalty, the MoD said.

I have always been supported throughout my career in the Army, particularly by Staff Sergeant Rogers and Sergeant Adeboga from 22 Signals Regiment. These individuals, in particular, have shown me a huge amount of support, I cannot thank them enough; they are true examples of excellent Army leadership and mentoring, he said.
Delhi Metro has assured that it would strive to provide a safe commuting experience to travellers once it resumes operations on September 7, Metro officials said. As part of Unlock 4 guidelines, Centre allowed metro services to restart across the country.

Once metro services resume from September 7, the DMRC will strive to facilitate all necessary measures and precautions on its premises to provide a safe travelling experience to its commuters amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic," Executive Director, Corporate Communications, DMRC, Anuj Dayal said.

The Ministry of Home Affairs Saturday issued Unlock 4 guidelines, permitting metro rail operations from September 7 in a graded manner.

The Delhi government also issued a statement saying, services will resume with all safety precautions.

"For the time being, no tokens will be issued to passengers due to high risk of virus spreading through it. There will be a system of purchasing smart cards at every station and passengers will be able to travel only with smart cards," Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot was quoted as saying in the statement.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

Metro stations in containment zones will still not immediately open when Metro operations restart on September 7.

Not all Metro stations will be opened at once. Those in containment zones and few others will not be opened immediately from the first day. A list of stations where travel services are being restored will be made public soon, he said.

There are as many as 260 Metro stations in Delhi and there are more than 800 containment zones.

Further details on the Metro's functioning and its usage by the general public will be shared once the SOPs are finalised.

The SOPs already circulated will be discussed on September 1, 2020 through video conference by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) with all metro companies and finalised, the MoHUA said in a statement.

Limiting number of people in lifts and longer halting time for trains at stations to allow commuters to board and alight with social distancing norms, are among the measures the Delhi Metro intends to put in place to ensure safer travel for its passengers.

Wearing of masks will be mandatory and social distancing norms will be followed as per government guidelines inside the stations.

New smart cards with auto top-up facility and stickers on social distancing norms will be pasted on seats and platform floors.

Limiting the number of people in lifts, longer halting time for trains at stations to allow commuters to board and alight with social distancing norms are among the measures the Delhi Metro will take to ensure safer travel for its passengers.

A train on regular days, halts for 10 seconds to 30 seconds at a station, depending on the traffic flow and the nature of station. Now, trains will halt for longer duration than 10 seconds or 30 seconds

Also, 2-3 persons will be permissible inside a lift at any point of time against 8-9 on regular days, he said.

The lifeline of Delhi and its suburbs, which carries 1.8 million passengers a day, the Delhi Metro was shut down in late March as the country was put under a lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Shut for more than four months following the COVID-19 pandemic, the Delhi Metro, the lifeline of the National Capital Region, has lost approximately Rs 1,500 crore in revenue, sources have told Moneycontrol.

The DMRC (Delhi Metro Rail Corporation) normally earns Rs 300 crore every month, a source said.

Normally, the DMRC has 300 trains running on eight lines, making 5,000 trips a day and carrying around 1.8 million passengers. But with the trains halted in their tracks, it hasnt earned a penny in the past four months.

The transporters income from other sources, such as commercial and retail leases, has also dried up during the pandemic.
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Nationwide has partnered with the National Council on Aging (NCOA) to offer a free, self-service website to help consumers and financial professionals access the Medicare information they need to make informed decisions about their health care coverage.

The NCOA My Medicare Matters tool brought to you by Nationwide educates individuals about Medicare eligibility and walks them through the decisions they need to make. In addition to helping compare plan options and costs, the tool allows consumers to speak with a Medicare broker who will answer their questions and help them enroll in a Medicare plan.

"The array of Medicare options facing those about to turn 65 can be intimidating. One of the most important services financial professionals can provide when planning for retirement is offering Medicare guidance," said Kristi Rodriguez, leader of the Nationwide Retirement Institute. "It's important for financial professionals to talk with their clients about Medicare and the out-of-pocket costs they will likely face."

With approximately 3.65 million Americans becoming Medicare eligible every year through 2030*, clients working with financial professionals expect them to help with Medicare decisions.

"Financial professionals can add value to their relationships by addressing their clients' request for guidance without having to become a Medicare expert," Rodriguez added. Nationwide Retirement Institute's robust Medicare education toolset now includes a new NCOA My Medicare Matters portal that financial professionals can use to invite their clients to use My Medicare Matters and support their journey through the Medicare landscape. "This unbiased tool allows you to play a helpful role without walking your clients through every step of the enrollment process."

"Many people enter their later years unaware of how challenging health care costs can be as they age," said Ramsey Alwin, President and CEO of the National Council on Aging. "My Medicare Matters is designed to make it easier for people to make informed and confident choices about their Medicare coverage."

Financial Professionals can access the tool at: https://nationwidefinancial.com/nationwide-retirement-institute/medicare/my-medicare-matters-tool

About Nationwide

Nationwide, a Fortune 100 company based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest and strongest diversified insurance and financial services organizations in the United States. Nationwide is rated A+ by both A.M. Best and Standard & Poor's. An industry leader in driving customer-focused innovation, Nationwide provides a full range of insurance and financial services products including auto, business, homeowners, farm and life insurance; public and private sector retirement plans, annuities and mutual funds; excess & surplus, specialty and surety; pet, motorcycle and boat insurance. For more information, visit www.nationwide.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

* Census.gov, By 2030 all baby boomers will be age 65 or older. Dec. 2019

My Medicare Matters is a registered trademark of the National Council on Aging.

This material is not a recommendation to buy, sell, hold, or rollover any asset, adopt an investment strategy, retain a specific investment manager or use a particular account type. It does not take into account the specific investment objectives, tax and financial condition or particular needs of any specific person. Investors should work with their financial professional to discuss their specific situation.

This information is general in nature and is not intended to be tax, legal, accounting or other professional advice. The information provided is based on current laws, which are subject to change at any time, and has not been endorsed by any government agency.

Nationwide and the National Council on Aging are separate and non-affiliated companies.

Nationwide is not affiliated and does not endorse any of the Medicare Broker Partners that are used in this program.

Nationwide has a paid sponsorship agreement in place with the National Council on Aging (NCOA) to help promote financial wellness concepts for older consumers.

Nationwide Investment Services Corporation (NISC), member FINRA, Columbus, OH. Nationwide Retirement Institute is a division of NISC.

Nationwide, the Nationwide N and Eagle, Nationwide is on your side and Nationwide Retirement Institute are service marks of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company  Nationwide 2020

NFM-20074AO

Contact:

Charley Gillespie

[email protected]

SOURCE Nationwide

Related Links

http://www.nationwide.com


OToole paints target on our firearms laws, Opinion, Aug. 27

Thanks to contributor Blake Brown for detailing Erin OTooles position on gun regulation. Before I read his op-ed article, I was not aware that any major politician wanted to go back to the law before the Montreal Massacre, the mass shooting at Ecole Polytechnique on Dec. 6, 1989.

If OToole wants to introduce a simplified classification system, I suggest the best way to do this would be to pass a law banning the importation or sale of semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines. That would avoid the need for a long list of prohibited makes and models prescribed by regulation.

During the Second World War, the standard rifle for American soldiers was the M1 Garand. It was a semi-automatic rifle without a detachable magazine. Most Canadian and British troops used somewhat older manually operated bolt action rifles. If semi-automatic rifles without detachable magazines were effective against well-trained Axis troops, they should be more than adequate against deer and moose.
If you've ever wondered how much what we see on television influences the way we dress, we need only recall Carrie Bradshaw's name-plate necklace on Sex and the City.

Although different theories abound about the necklace's origin  black and hispanic communities in 1970s' New York to earlier iterations in the 1940s  the accessory has found its way into many a jewellery box over the past five decades. And yet when costume designer Patricia Field made the necklace synonymous with Carrie, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, suddenly they were everywhere.

Bringing '80s trends back ... Amanda Peet as Betty Broderick in series two of Dirty John.

The name-plate necklace is just one example of a fashion item that gained fresh life, and mainstream appeal, thanks to a TV moment.

The same can now be said for the "Mom" jeans, gold-buckled leather belts and padded headbands that are ubiquitous on the TV series Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story, which has been among the top-ranking Netflix shows in Australia since its release earlier this month.
At a company-wide meeting last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg criticized Apple opening in front of more than 50,000 employees. He said that Apple has a unique stranglehold as a gatekeeper on what gets on phones.

He also said that Apple is using the App Store to block innovation, competition, and it allows the company to charge monopoly rents. Zuckerberg made these statements when answering a question about Apple blocking gaming-related apps on the App Store. The Facebook CEO has previously criticized Apple for many of its policies in the past. The CEOs of both tech giants are not really fond of each other, with Tim Cook also openly calling out Facebook for its data collection practices.

Zuckerberg further noted that Apple could really improve peoples lives with its innovation but it is just balking at it. Zuckerbergs comments against Apple come after the App Store guidelines forced Facebook to launch its new Gaming app for iOS without instant games after it was rejected multiple times.

Mark Zuckerberg also noted how the upcoming changes in iOS 14 will affect its ad revenues by 50 percent and that Facebook could avoid all this by allowing users to sideload their apps on the iPhone. The social networking giant also called out Apple for hurting small businesses by charging a 30 percent transaction fees for paid live streaming events on Facebook. The company wanted to highlight this to users in the app itself, but Apple rejected the app updates thereby forcing Facebook to remove the message.

In the same meeting, Zuckerberg told employees that Apples decision to try and block the Unreal Engine in its ongoing fight with Epic Games was an extremely aggressive and problematic move.

We Want to Hear from You

Do you agree with Zuckerbergs criticism of Apple here? Or do you think Apple is doing the right thing here? Facebook itself has violated the App Store guidelines multiple times in the past to its advantage.

[Via BuzzFeed
Former PM Manmohan Singh to remain absent in Rajya Sabha for entire winter session on health grounds

Country has lost one of its greatest leaders: Congress pays rich tributes to Pranab Mukherjee

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Aug 31: Former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Monday expressed condolences on the demise of former president Pranab Mukherjee and said the country has lost one of its greatest leaders.

Singh said he had learned a lot from Mukherjee and depended on him a great deal for his wisdom, vast knowledge and experience of public affairs.

"I have learned with profound sorrow about the passing away of Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Former President of India," he said.

"In his death, our country has lost one of its greatest leaders of Independent India. He and I worked very closely in the government of India and I depended on him a great deal for his wisdom, vast knowledge and experience of public affairs," Singh said in his condolence message.

In a letter to Mukherjee's daughter Sharmishtha, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said though her father had been critically ill for some days, it still comes as a great shock to learn of his passing.

"Pranab Da had been such an integral and prominent part of national life, the Congress party and the central government for over five decades, it is hard to imagine how we can do without his wisdom, experience, sage advice and deep understanding of so many subjects," Sonia Gandhi said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also condoled Mukherjee's demise.

"With great sadness, the nation receives the news of the unfortunate demise of our former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee. I join the country in paying homage to him. My deepest condolences to the bereaved family and friends," he said.

Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra, Uttarakhand Governor Baby Rani Maurya and Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha expressed anguish over Mukherjee's death and called him an "extraordinary leader".

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, "Received the sad news of demise of former president Shri Pranab Mukherjee. May the almighty receive the departed soul and give courage to his family and loved ones to bear this sorrow."

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath described Mukherjee's death as an "irreparable loss". UP Deputy CMs Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma and Legislative Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dixit also expressed grief over his demise.

Punjab CM Amarinder Singh said Mukherjee always "gave ears to what others said irrespective of party affiliation".

Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar said apart from Mukherjee's services in the political arena to serving the society, he made significant contributions in the economic field as well.

Haryana Congress leaders Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Kumari Selja and state BJP president O P Dhankar also condoled Mukherjee's death.

Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Singh Rawat, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot expressed grief over Mukherjee's demise and hailed his contribution.

Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Govind Singh Dotasra, former deputy CM Sachin Pilot, former CM Vasundhara Raje and other leaders also condoled Mukherjee's death.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati described Mukherjee as a "true gem" who was of a "kind nature".

Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar said Mukherjee was an esteemed colleague, fellow parliamentarian and a dear friend.

Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and former EC Ashok Lavasa expressed condolences over Mukherjee's death, saying the nation has lost an accomplished scholar.

The former president died at the Army's Research and Referral Hospital here following a 21-day battle with multiple ailments. He was 84.

Mukherjee is survived by his two sons and daughter.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-31 17:40:38|Editor: huaxia

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Musicians take part in a performance during a celebration to mark Kyrgyzstan's 29th independence anniversary at the Ala-Too Square in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Aug. 31, 2020. Kyrgyzstan on Monday celebrated the 29th anniversary of its independence with restrictive measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Roman/Xinhua)

BISHKEK, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Kyrgyzstan on Monday celebrated the 29th anniversary of its independence with restrictive measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The main celebratory event, with the participation of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov and a limited number of officials, took place at the central Ala-Too Square in the capital Bishkek.

Speaking at the event, the president noted that independence is the most sacred value, the greatest source of pride and heritage passed down by their ancestors who had fought for centuries and sacrificed their lives for it.

"This year we celebrate the 29th anniversary of independence during a global pandemic," Jeenbekov said, adding that due to the current circumstances, the planned solemn events could not take place.

"But independence is a holiday that lives in the hearts of each of us," he noted.

He also stressed that Kyrgyzstan will develop good relations with neighboring countries, strengthen cooperation with allies and partners, and consolidate diplomatic relations with both Western and Eastern countries.

The festive events -- a concert and a theatrical performance -- were held online and broadcasted on the country's TV channels.

As of Sunday, Kyrgyzstan has reported 38,820 COVID-19 cases with 1,059 deaths.
Corporate America has a gender problem when it comes to parental leave, with a new study finding that Fortune 500 companies are far likelier to provide paid leave to mothers than fathers.

Ironically, thats a problem not only for men, but for women seeking equality in the workplace, experts say.

Among Fortune 500 companies, 72%offer some sort of paid parental leave, but fathers are generally considered secondary to mothers, according to the study from Ball State sociology professor Richard Petts, and Davidson College sociology professor Gayle Kaufman. For example, one-third of those companies offer twice as much leave to mothers as to fathers, their analysis found.

Paternity leave has long taken a back seat to the debate over paid maternity leave, a benefit thats mandated by the governments of all developed countries except the U.S.

Fatherly.com released a ranking of the 50 best places for new dads based on the number of weeks new fathers get for paternity leave.

But the pandemic is bringing a sharper focus to gender equality in the workplace as millions of mothers and fathers struggle with juggling working from home or continuing to commute to work while their children are remote schooling.

Moms are often bearing the brunt of that shift, with the Boston Consulting Group finding that women are shouldering an additional 15 hours of domestic work per week than men during the crisis.

Parents face another school year of remote work and learning: 'I don't know if I can do this': Parents brace for school year juggling jobs, remote learning amid COVID-19 pandemic

Why can't the U.S. implement paid family leave?: America's parents want paid family leave and affordable child care. Why can't they get it?

Paternity leave has a role to play in equalizing gender norms both at home and in the workplace, Petts says. Currently, the norm is for men to take a day or two off after the birth of a child, but anything longer than one or two weeks is uncommon, he adds.

If you give equal amount of time for both mothers and fathers, then you avoid emphasizing that women are different  that they will mostly do most of the childcare  and the consequences that come from that, Petts says.

Story continues

Petts says he was drawn to the topic of paternity leave after the birth of his child more than 7 years ago. When he asked to take time off, he says he was told he could take a couple days , but if he wanted more than that, hed need a doctors note to say that his wife was unable to care for their child.

I was floored, he recalls.

Fortune 500 companies, which represent the biggest businesses by revenue, are likely offering the most generous benefits available to American workers. Yet only about 17% of workers had access to paid family leave in 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Employees able to access such benefits reflect what Haley Swenson, the deputy director of the Better Life Lab at the think tank New America, calls the employer lottery.

In other words, workers at big companies tend to enjoy far better benefits than people who work for smaller businesses or who are gig economy workers.

These are the wealthiest, the most stable companies  and if they aren't getting it right in terms of gender equity, in terms of whose time matters, then that's obviously really upsetting, she says of the new study.

To be sure, many men can take unpaid time off to care for a baby or family member through the Family and Medical Leave Act. But Swensons research into paid leave for men found that many dont take caregiving leaves for financial reasons.

The dynamic we found is men tend to only take leave if it's a paid leave option, Swenson says. Over and over again, no matter how we asked question, the barriers to men taking leave was financial. It was that he probably can't afford it or his family needs him to stay in the workplace.

At the same time, cultural norms around men and caregiving is changing, with less than half of men saying caregiving leaves arent manly, her research found.

Payroll and benefits company Gusto says it offers paid leave for primary and secondary caregivers, rather than defining it by gender. Primary caregivers receive 16 weeks of paid leave, while secondary caregivers receive eight weeks.

The reason for avoiding the terms maternity and paternity leave is because families should be the ones to define themselves and designate who the primary and secondary caregivers are, says Danielle Brown, chief people officer at the company.

One of Gusto's co-founders, chief product officer Tomer London, took a paid leave when his daughter was born in 2016, with Brown recalling that he wanted employees, regardless of gender, to feel comfortable taking time off in a caregiving role.

Providing paid leave for fathers is not only good for the individual men and their families  they have better relationships with kids and partners when they take leave  but it's good for the work environment in general, Swenson adds. It sends the message that it's a universal norm.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lack of paternity leave is a problem for moms and dads, study finds
Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat and U.S. President's senior adviser Jared Kushner and U.S. National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien pose for a group photo upon arrival at Abu Dhabi International Airport, United Arab Emirates August 31, 2020. (Image: Reuters)

In a historic step towards peace in the Middle East, the first commercial direct flight between Israel and the UAE landed in Abu Dhabi on August 31 after both countries announced normalisation of relations. The flight carried a top level Israeli delegation led by National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat while the US delegation was headed by US President Donald Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and US National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien.

The delegation left aboard the commercial El Al flight 971 that took off from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv at 11.21am local time. The word peace was painted on it in Arabic, English and Hebrew above a cockpit window.

"We just completed a truly historic flight. This hopefully will be the first of many," Kushner said after disembarking from the flight. He thanked leadership on both sides on the occasion. Saudi Arabia granted permission for the use of its air space.

"Peace overwhelmingly desired by the people, except by those who exploit misery to remain in power. Future belongs to industrious people of the region," Kushner said.

Israel and the UAE announced on August 13 that they were establishing full diplomatic relations, in a US-brokered deal that required Israel to suspend its plan to annex parts of the West Bank. UAE is only the third Arab country to establish diplomatic ties with the Jewish state. Israel's neighbours, Egypt and Jordan, being the other two Arab states to recognise the Jewish state.

The development is being seen as a major breakthrough because the Israeli national carrier, El Al, flew over the Saudi airspace, which is being interpreted by analysts as acceptance of Israel by the Gulf countries in general, and a probable normalisation of ties with some of the other "friendly countries" in that region.

Kushner said that the message for Palestinians is full of hope and there is an economic and political plan ready that can revitalise their economy.

"The region is very excited to move them forward but they cannot remain stuck in the past. Peace and opportunity will be ready for them as soon as they are ready to embrace them," he said.

Netanyahu during a press conference on August 30 said the breakthrough signalled the end of a "Palestinian veto".

"I think for too long the Palestinians have had a veto on peace. Not only between Israel and the Palestinians but between Israel and the Arab world," the Israeli prime minister said.

"If we have to wait for the Palestinians, we would have to wait forever. No longer. The Palestinians, when they realise that their veto has dissipated, will be hard pressed to remain outside the community of peace," he added.

Speaking alongside Kushner and O'Brien, Netanyahu expressed hopes that the normalisation of Israel-UAE ties will pave the way for treaties with more Arab countries.

Most of the Arab countries over the years have linked normalisation of ties with Israel to a peace agreement and just settlement of Israel-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian leaders have condemned the UAE for agreeing to normalise relations with Israel, calling the move "despicable and a betrayal".

On being asked about the possible sale of F-35 stealth jets to the UAE, Kushner said, "Prime Minister Netanyahu and the president (Donald Trump) will discuss that at some point," the official WAM news agency reported. The news agency WAM said the delegation also comprised of representatives from the investment, finance, health, civil space and aviation, foreign policy, diplomacy, tourism, and culture sectors.

The visiting delegates are scheduled to meet with representatives of UAE government agencies to discuss ways to develop relations in related fields and promote opportunities for cooperation. This visit comes as part of trilateral efforts to initiate normalised relations with the aim of achieving peace, stability, and support for bilateral cooperation.

According to local reports, a return flight from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv is scheduled for September 1 afternoon.

"Another step toward regional peace. We are all excited and look forward to more historic flights that will take us to other capital cities in the region, advancing us all to a more prosperous future," Tal Becker, the pilot of the plane, was quoted as saying in the report.

The special plane, El Al 737-900, is equipped with a system to protect aircraft against aerial threats like ground-to-air missiles, the report said.

The Directed IR Countermeasures (DIRCM) manufactured by Elbit Systems defend aircraft by detecting, tracking and jamming incoming infrared threats like heat-seeking ground-to-air missiles and shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, also known as man-portable air defense systems (MANPADs), it said.

Earlier in Israel before take off, Ben-Shabbat said Israel's goals for the trip is to "reach a joint work plan to promote ties in a broad range of areas, including tourism, innovation, health and much more".

Many believe that the normalisation of ties with UAE could have come only with Saudi blessings but Riyadh is yet to establish formal diplomatic ties with Jerusalem but is believed to covertly cooperate closely with the Jewish state. Symbolic of direct connection between Israel and the UAE, the flight numbers have been marked LY971 on the way to Abu Dhabi and LY972 on the way back to Israel, using the telephone dialing code of the two countries.
A study analysing over 650,000 hip replacement patients across England and Wales over 14 years sought to investigate why one hospital has consistently been identified as having better than expected outcomes compared to other settings. The findings have shown that the outstanding hip implant survival results seen in one centre in the UK are associated with implant choice more than surgeon skill.

The study by researchers from the Musculoskeletal Research Unit at the University of Bristol, the NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre, and the University of Exeter, using data from the National Joint Registry has been published in PLOS Medicine.

Mr Jonathan Evans, Academic Clinical Lecturer at the Bristol Medical School; Translational Health Sciences (THS), based at Southmead Hospital, Bristol and lead author, said: "These findings are vitally important to making sure as many of our patients have a good outcome from their hip replacement as possible.

"We want patients across the country to feel empowered to ask their surgeon not only what implants they plan to use for their hip replacement but more importantly to ask for the long-term evidence that the implant works well. If they do not feel happy with the answer, then patients should feel confident asking for another opinion or even vote with their feet and go to a different hospital."

In 2017, there were over 822 different types of hip replacements implanted in England and Wales, but the Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust (RD&E) has used only three in the last 14 years. In the RD&E, only 1.7 per cent of hips needed to be re-done 14 years after the hip replacements were put in, but in the rest of the country this figure was 2.9 per cent. Given that about 100,000 people have a hip replacement every year, this difference could lead to many more patients needing further surgery.

The researchers considered age, sex and general health in their analyses and showed that when the patient's outcomes from the RD&E were compared to cases nationwide where the same implants had been used, there was no difference in how many of the hips lasted 14 years. This suggests that consistent use of a reliable hip replacement implant may be a more important determinant of success than the surgeon performing the operation.

It has long been seen that there is variation in success rates between hospitals (as seen in the National Joint Registry annual report) and it is a priority of the NHS to reduce this variation, ensuring best possible results for all patients. The Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) initiative in the UK seeks to reduce variation in outcomes between hospitals and learning from centres with statistically "better than expected" results is key to that.

A hip replacement principally consists of two components, one that replaces the ball and another that replaces the socket. There is variation in how these parts are fixed to the bone, as well as in the materials used to create the bearing (contact) surface.

Hip and knee replacements are two of the most common and effective forms of surgery. Yet even in the best-case scenarios, they will eventually fail due to processes such as infection, fracture, normal wear and tear or reaction to wear particles. In many of these cases, patients require revision surgery which is more prone to failure, associated with poorer function and more expensive than primary surgery. Making the first hip replacement last as long as possible is in the best interest of patients, surgeons and the NHS as a whole.

Mr Michael Whitehouse, Reader in Trauma and Orthopaedics at the Bristol Medical School: THS and joint senior author on the study feels this information is critical to help patients make the best decisions about their care. He explained: "It is important to recognise that this study is not about encouraging surgeons to use one particular implant but to use the information available to them in the National Joint Registry and other reliable sources to choose implants with a track record of long-term success.

"Our study shows that long-term survival of a hip replacement is primarily down to a surgeon's implant decisions rather than the particular way they perform the operation."

###

This study was funded by the National Joint Registry of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, the Royal College of Surgeons of England and supported by the NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre, a partnership between University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust (UHBW) and the University of Bristol.

Paper

'Factors associated with implant survival following total hip replacement surgery: A registry study of data from the National Joint Registry of England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Isle of Man' by Jonathan Evans, Michael Whitehouse et al in PLOS Medicine
If you can dream it, you can do it, once said American entrepreneur Walt Disney. Now, a young girl named Nandi Bushell from Britain is exemplifying that notion by fulfilling her dream of jamming with Dave Grohl from the famous rock band, Foo Fighters.

Bushell took to Twitter on August 17 to share a video of herself drumming Everlong, a track by the Foo Fighters. My dream is to one day jam with Dave Grohl, @taylorhawkins and all the @foofighters! Mr Grohl I would love to have a drum battle with you! I love Everlong its really hard to play as its so fast but so much FUN! read the caption shared alongside the clip.

Check out the recording, which has accumulated over 2.3 million views. Bushells tweet itself has over 1.1 lakh likes and more than 32,200 retweets.

My dream is to one day jam with Dave Grohl, @taylorhawkins and all the @foofighters! Mr Grohl I would love to have a drum battle with you! I LOVE Everlong its really hard to play as its so fast but so much FUN! #foofighters pic.twitter.com/Pmdhvl57uu  Nandi Bushell (@Nandi_Bushell) August 17, 2020

Many on the micro-blogging application appreciate the 10-year-olds talent. Among those was American musician Dave Grohl, the very person Bushell wanted to jam with in the first place.

On August 29, Foo Fighters official Twitter account posted this video of Grohl. The caption shared alongside the clip read, Hey @Nandi_Bushell! Challenge accepted. Havent played these songs in a long time.....thanks for the inspiration! Your move! Your friend in rock, Dave (Thanks to my daughter, Harper for letting me borrow her drum set).

Check out this wholesome drum-off that is making tweeple beam.

Hey @Nandi_Bushell!



Challenge accepted.



Havent played these songs in a loooooong time.....thanks for the inspiration!!!



Your move!!!



Your friend in rock,

Dave



(Thanks to my daughter, Harper for letting me borrow her drum set) pic.twitter.com/Ytq47CcZRC  Foo Fighters (@foofighters) August 29, 2020

Since being shared on Twitter, this post has received over 6,200 retweets and more than 750 comments.

Bushell, herself, saw the video posted by Grohl and shared her reaction.

Here is what netizens had to say about this sweet interaction. One person wrote, Yay! Congratulations! under Bushells original video starting the drum challenge. Another individual commented, Awesome, you rock it Dave! on Grohls response recording.

What are your thoughts on this share?

Also Read | Adele replies to fan with the sweetest message, bawling my eyes out, he tweets
Wedding gowns line the walls of Lovely Bride in Philadelphia, Pa. on Thursday, August 27, 2020. Read more

Once Alexandria Maurizzio and her fiance got engaged last November, they wanted to be married within a year. Even if a pandemic got in the way.

So this November, Maurizzio, 28, and Philip Thomas, 25, plan to go forth with their outdoor wedding in Bucks County, where they hope to see at least 150 of the 200 guests they invited.

People have their opinions, she said, but our immediate familys been incredibly supportive.

As the coronavirus strangled a flood of nuptials planned for the spring and summer  78% are usually scheduled between May and October, according to the Knot, an online wedding platform  many couples have chosen to downgrade and postpone their weddings to at least next year.

Right now, its a little Wild Westy, so to speak, said Susan Norcross, owner of the Styled Bride in Philadelphia. Weve never faced this as an industry before.

At her wedding, Maurizzio, of Aldan, said guests can decide whether they want to wear a mask and show the level of social distancing they want by wearing various colored wristbands.

One color of a wristband means theyre keeping their distance, she said. Another could say high-fives are fine.

Brides have said the pandemic disrupted virtually every step of wedding planning, ranging from vendors who canceled out of safety concerns to the logistics of hosting a socially distanced reception. Many have vented their frustrations in groups dedicated to COVID-19 weddings, such as Four Weddings and a VIRUS  Pennsylvania.

Yet, couples are still getting engaged.

Girls are still getting married, said Kathy Hart, the owner of the Philadelphia bridal shop the Wedding Factor, for which we are very, very grateful.

In early June, Hart and her business partner, Stacey Veeraraj, hadnt been sure how much business they would get when they reopened. Then, women began to call for dress appointments.

But at the shop  soon to move from a small spot with a leaking roof on South Street to a bigger space at 57 N. Third St. in Old City  the routine changed as a safety precaution. Just one bride was allowed in at a time, and she could bring only one guest.

If the pandemic was going to dash brides original dreams, Hart said, some would dress to meet the change.

A bride getting married next month changed her plans, she said. She got a jumpsuit for a City Hall wedding, and shes meeting with just family in a fabulous dress.

Despite flexibility from some couples, widespread delays and cancellations have unsettled the $74 billion U.S. wedding industry and its 1.2 million employees.

I think people were sort of waiting to see what happened, said Norcross, wedding director at the Styled Bride. She began rescheduling several brides weddings in July.

This year, Norcross and vendors at large have taken on an additional and novel responsibility for those who intend to go ahead with their original plans: Keep weddings as safe as possible from the coronavirus.

In addition to wearing masks and social distancing, Norcross recommended eliminating the dance floor except for parents and the couple in an effort to reduce the chance of spreading the virus through heavy breathing; seating fewer guests at a table; having ample hand sanitizer; and placing the tables at least six feet apart in a pod-like setup she likened to a box seat.

Sort of your home base, she said, so everyones distant and comfortable. Masks ought to be on at all times save for eating and drinking, she said, but she noticed they sometimes came off as guests danced and drank.

The majority of vendors she worked with performed temperature checks on employees, she said, and some signed waivers stating they had not traveled to other states or otherwise put themselves in situations where they could have contracted the coronavirus.

Other measures, she said, included collecting the names and email addresses of wedding guests in case vendors needed to perform contact tracing. As of late August, up to 25 people, including vendors, were allowed to be at an indoor social event in Philadelphia; 50 outdoors.

Despite safety precautions Norcross said she could put in place, 28 clients chose to reschedule, mostly for 2021.

The entire industry is being as accommodating as possible, she said, but a lot of deposits are nonrefundable for any reason. Even though were in unprecedented times, a cancellation is a cancellation.

A few, she said, decided to forgo a big celebration and have an intimate gathering.

A lot of people have been getting creative, she said. Use the deposit in lieu of another event  a birthday party or anniversary  instead of a wedding.

A dramatic change in plans didnt mean a bride had to change the vision of how she wanted to look, said Ivy Solomon, owner of Lovely Bride Philadelphia at 237 Market St.

I think a wedding gown is such a special piece of the wedding, she said, and girls still want to be able to wear a wedding gown and feel really special on their day. Venue doesnt matter as to what they wear.

Now three months out from her wedding, Maurizzio said she will soon have her dress after manufacturing and shipping delays caused by the pandemic.

And on the day of, her guests will go home with a coronavirus-era wedding favor: hand sanitizer.
In normal times it is, of course, in the nature of things for those in the public service to be careful in their public remarks, to say nothing that might offend and offer just that blend of bland that they will blandly blend into the background and be instantly forgotten.

Take it away, Sir Humphrey Appleby of Yes Minister fame, when his minister Jim Hacker asks him to give a straight answer on whether or not he will offer him support before a committee on a matter he has committed to. Well minister, Sir Humphrey replies, if you ask me for a straight answer, then I shall say that, as far as we can see, looking at it by and large, taking one thing with another in terms of the average of departments, then in the final analysis it is probably true to say, that at the end of the day, in general terms, you would probably find that, not to put too fine a point on it, there probably wasn't very much in it one way or the other as far as one can see, at this stage. Blah, blah, blah, on and on, into the hazy horizon.

Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius told it like it is last week. Credit:Justin McManus

Exceptions, however, are showing up in the midst of this plague. Time and again we are seeing public officials actually say memorable stuff, in clear language, simply because the stakes are so high. A classic case in point came up a couple of days ago when the Victorian Assistant Commissioner of Police Luke Cornelius was asked his views on the anti-lockdown protest that was being planned for next week.

The tinfoil-hat-wearing brigade is alive and well out there in our community, he said without hesitation, and they are taking every opportunity to leverage the current situation to serve their own ridiculous notions about so-called sovereign citizens, about constitutional issues about how 5G is going to kill your grandkids.
Since the last few months a lot has been spoken about Yash Raj Films golden jubilee. The banner marks its 50th year in 2002 and head honcho Aditya Chopra plans to have some big surprises and events planned around his father and late filmmaker Yash Chopras birth anniversary  September 27th.







Today a leading daily reports that the banner is planning a YRF Film Festival to be held in various countries like the UK, US, Australia, Russia, Malaysia. In these film festivals the banner will re-release its iconic films and celebrate the classic movies which have gone down the history of Indian cinema. A source revealed more to the leading daily saying, The festival will showcase iconic movies made under the banner, including Aditya's directorial debut Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), and Yashji's swan song Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2012). Since Yashji gave the industry some priceless songs, radio concerts are being planned where the original artists will revisit these gems. Now that sounds great.





On September 27the banner will have a special event where they will announce their big releases for the coming year. Akshay Kumars Prithviraj Chauhan, Ranbir Kapoor starrer Shamshera, Ranveer Singh starrer Jayeshbhai Jordaar are some of the projects which are official. The projects which are being waited to be announced with bated breath are Shah Rukh Khans next probably with Siddharth Anand, Salman Khan taking the Tiger franchise ahead with its third instalment along with Katrina Kaif, Ajay Devgns first ever YRF project and the union of Ajay Devgn and Aditya Chopra and Vicky Kaushal and Manushi Chillars comedy film. Now thats a big line up and we wonder what all is in store for us.
Smartphone production at Samsung Electronics Vietnam. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - Vietnam has become one of the worlds fastest growing economies since the country first opened up to foreign trade and investment more than three decades ago, with GDP last year being 12.5 times higher than in 2001 and growth averaging 7.26 percent from 2001 to 2010.

The countrys success has been largely attributed to the effective attraction and use of FDI, which has helped its economy create large numbers of jobs, boost State budget revenue, foster restructuring, and improve competitiveness.



Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said FDI attraction laid the foundation for the development of key industries such as telecommunications, oil and gas, electronics, chemicals, steel, automobiles, information technology, footwear, textiles and garments, and food processing.



It has also played a vital role in boosting productivity and exports, he said, adding that the foreign-invested sector contributes more than 70 percent of Vietnams total exports.



The country has so far attracted more than 370 billion USD in FDI, of which 58 percent has been disbursed, since the Law on Foreign Investment took effect in December 1987, paving the way for FDI attraction around the country.



FDI inflows exceeded 38 billion USD in 2019, the highest in 10 years and up 7.2 percent against 2018. FDI disbursement stood at 20.38 billion USD, up 6.7 percent year-on-year and a new record.



Due to COVID-19, FDI in the first eight months of this year stood at 19.54 billion USD, down 13.7 percent year-on-year, a report from the Ministry of Planning and Investments Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) revealed.



FDI committed to newly-licensed projects, meanwhile, rose nearly 7 percent to 9.73 billion USD. The FIA attributed the increase in fresh FDI commitments in the period to a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant project in the Mekong Delta province of Bac Lieu with capital of 4 billion USD, which accounted for 41.1 percent.



Additional capital to the tune of 4.87 billion USD went to 718 existing projects, up 22.2 percent in capital but down 21 percent in project numbers.



According to the FIA, additional investment of 1.38 billion USD to a petrochemical complex in southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province and 774 million USD to the West Lake urban area project in Hanoi contributed to the higher capital amount added to existing projects.



This is acceptable against a backdrop of sharply weakening global investment and economic de-growths in many countries induced by the pandemic, FIA Director Do Nhat Hoang said.



The report showed that, in the first eight months of the year, Singapore retained its position as Vietnam's largest foreign investor, with 6.54 billion USD, followed by the Republic of Korea (2.97 billion USD, or 15.2 percent) and China (1.75 billion USD, or nearly 9 percent).



A new wave of investment has emerged, bringing Vietnam fresh opportunities, Hoang continued, and the country must be fully prepared and have a comprehensive set of measures to translate these opportunities into reality.



Professor Nguyen Mai, Chairman of the Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises (VAFIE), said Vietnam must work even harder to improve its business climate and help enterprises weather the COVID-19 crisis. He also advised the country to accelerate promotional campaigns to attract FDI from internationally-renowned conglomerates, especially those with high-tech and financial strength from the US, the EU, and Japan.



Former FIA Director Phan Huu Thang suggested that, to attract FDI faster, Vietnam could promote foreign investment attraction via its network of diplomatic representative offices overseas. At the same time, the Government should streamline public administrative procedures for major projects and actively support foreign-invested enterprises by removing barriers to the capital disbursement process, he noted.



A working group on promoting foreign investment was founded in June under a decision from the Prime Minister, led by Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh.



It will be in charge of advising the Prime Minister on mechanisms, policies, and standards in investment cooperation as well as solutions to capture investment cooperation opportunities. It will act proactively in approaching and negotiating with large and hi-tech corporations for cooperative projects for mutual benefit.



Investment promotion activities will also be carried out to attract quality, large, hi-tech, and innovative projects that could create positive spillover effects and favourable conditions for Vietnamese companies to participate in value chains, increase added value, and improve human resources quality.
Residents in many Ho Chi Minh City neighborhoods have voiced their complaints as prolonged roadworks once again trigger serious congestion along multiple streets.

The roadworks have taken up large swathes of many streets in District 2, District 8, and Binh Thanh District, according to the observation of Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters.

Tran Thanh Nga, a resident in District 2, complained that a road construction project has been carried out on Nguyen Duy Trinh Street, where her house is located, for several months and is still not finished.

The construction site occupies two-thirds of the road width, making it extremely difficult for commuters to travel along this route," Nga elaborated.

"Frequent traffic jams are inevitable.

As of July, road renovation and water environment improvement projects were carried out at 123 locations on 60 streets across the southern metropolis, according to the municipal Department of Transport.

Within the first six months of 2020, inspectors booked 279 violations related to these roadworks and issued fines worth over VND1.7 billion (US$73,300), said Tran Quoc Khanh, chief inspector of the transport department.

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Fake monk arrested for soliciting donations in Phuket

PHUKET: A man impersonating a monk and three other people were arrested on Saturday (Aug 29) after they were caught soliciting donations in front of the main SuperCheap store on Thepkrasattri Rd in Rassada.

crimereligion

By The Phuket News

Monday 31 August 2020, 12:08PM

The four, pictured here standing directly behind the pickup, were taken to Phuket City Police Station and charged. Photo: PR Phuket

The four were taken to Phuket City Police Station and charged. Photo: PR Phuket

The four were arrested after complaints from the public had reached Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew, reported the Phuket office of the Public Relations Department (PR Phuket).

Territorial Defense Volunteers (OrSor, or Kong Asa Raksa Dindaen), led by Akkara Suwatthikul, arrived at the store on Saturday to find a man dressed as a monk and other three people sitting in the back of a Bangkok-registered pickup truck..

The group had a Buddha image and a bag full of money collected from donations by passers-by, said the report.

Officers took all four to Wat Mongkol Nimit on Dibuk Rd in Phuket Town, where Phra Khru Mettaphiron, the leading monk of Mueang Phuket District, questioned the man dressed as a monk, named in the report only as Mr Boonlong.

Boonlong was asked to show his certificate confirming that he was registered as a monk. Officers called the temple named on the certificate and were told that Mr Boonlong was not a monk at that temple.

To be sure of Boonlongs status, Phra Khru Mettaphiron asked Boonlong to pray, but he could not even start a standard prayer, even though he claimed that he had been a monk for eight years.

Only then did Boonlong confess that the certificate was fake, and that he had created it in order to ask for money as donations.

The PR Phuket report named the other three people arrested as Mr Kriangkrai, Mr Jamnong and Ms Patcharee, who explained that they were all from Lopburi province.

All four were taken to Phuket City Police Station and each charged for their role in the deception, the report noted.
The Partners of the Intercultural Leadership Institute announced today the launch of a $5 Million Crisis Relief Grants program funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The one-year funding will be distributed among the organizations Alternate ROOTS, First Peoples Fund, National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures, PAI Foundation and Sipp Culture to directly re-grant within the communities each non-profit organization supports.

The Crisis Relief Grants will be focused toward small arts organizations, cultural producers, and individual artists who typically fly beneath the national radar  and national arts funding, specifically seeking to support artists and arts & culture organizations of color and across diverse regions of the country.

The pandemics impact in our communities is amplified by entrenched systemic inequities that we can most effectively address collectively, said Maria Lopez De Leon, President and Chief Executive Director of the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC). The generous funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation permits an expansion of relief efforts to artists and organizations who continue to create and uplift communities in the face of this health and economic crisis.

The $5 Million resource will be distributed to each organization based on their individual reach and the communities they serve.

The ability to re-grant to the people we support as well as other folks in our region, who are the most impacted by the pandemic is critical right now, said Michelle Ramos, Executive Director of Alternate ROOTS. Since the COVID outbreak in March, weve prioritized supporting our communities above everything else we do. This support helps all of us extend the reach and sustainability of the people who will tell the story of these transformative times.

The Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) is a collaborative program established in 2015 between the five organizations that promotes an intercultural approach to change-making and leadership development within the arts and culture field. The effort grew out of direct experiences of the leaders of these long-standing and impactful founding cultural organizations. With early support from the Mellon Foundation as one of the first and ongoing funders, the intercultural idea links together the effective reach of NALACs dedication to amplifying the U.S. Latino arts & culture sector since 1989; Alternate ROOTS deep support of arts & culture bearers in the South working on social & economic justice for more than 44 years; First Peoples Funds honoring and supporting the Collective Spirit of Native artists & culture caretakers for over 20 years; PAI Foundations mission to preserve and perpetuate Native Hawaiian arts and cultural traditions for future generations; and Sipp Cultures groundbreaking work to connect cultural production with agriculture through storytelling and community connection.

We often found that many personal and professional leadership programs emphasized dominant cultural norms, modes of learning and social approaches that didnt match our commitment to cultural equity and change-making in our own communities, says the programs website weareili.org

The ILI program provides a year-long experience for a cohort of artists, culture bearers and other arts practitioners that includes immersive place-based convenings, along with ongoing group exploration and learning. Now in its third year, ILI has quickly pivoted to address the needs of cultural leaders in the face of the COVID pandemic and social isolation.

From the inception of the Intercultural Leadership Institute, said President Elizabeth Alexander, the Mellon Foundation has supported ILIs crucial mission to foster brilliantly inventive artists and cultural communities of color. The urgent need to address the profound distress that many of these exceptional individuals and organizations are experiencing as the pandemic continues impelled us to work quickly in partnership with ILI to fund the Crisis Relief Grants program. Were delighted that these grants will offer immediate financial relief to dynamic arts and culture leaders throughout the United States.

"Now more than ever, it is timely that the Mellon Foundation is trusting the ILI partners who are deeply rooted and remain steadfast in service to our communities, said Lori Pourier, President, First Peoples Fund. During this time of the pandemic, our organizations do not have the bandwidth to help educate mainstream arts organizations on how to best serve Indian country and rural communities."

In the midst of uncertainty and social transformation, arts and culture leaders are always part of the front-line of active change-making. During 2020 especially, these vantage points are helping shape the narrative of the moment and engage people in ways that go beyond news media.

Each of our organizations has a long legacy of direct experience, said Vicky Holt Takamine, Executive Director of PAI Foundation. Passed down from generation to generation, we continue to hold and practice our cultural traditions in the face of adversity that gives us collective strength and a very unique perspective. This is an important time for ILI, when we can pool together our strength and resources to collectively support and amplify these voices.

As the pandemic and economic crisis ripples throughout the U.S., rural areas are especially affected, said Carlton Turner, Director of Sipp Culture in Utica, Mississippi. The rural South, in particular, is an example of how racial inequity makes a crisis even worse for Black people and other people of color. This support has the potential to make a lasting effect on arts & culture in our state  and it models an approach that could impact far beyond our region as we all face the future.

People seeking more information about the Crisis Relief grants are encouraged to visit http://www.weareili.org/ and sign up for the e-mail list to receive notices of application openings at each organization.

ABOUT ILI

The Intercultural Leadership Institute is a year-long intensive leadership experience for artists, culture bearers and other arts practitioners.



ILI is a collaborative program of Alternate ROOTS, First Peoples Fund, National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures (NALAC) and PAI Foundation. The effort grew out of our direct experiences as leaders of these founding cultural organizations. We often found that many personal and professional leadership programs emphasized dominant cultural norms, modes of learning and social approaches that didnt match our commitment to cultural equity and change-making in our own communities.

ILIs intercultural approach emphasizes overlapping experiences, shared spaces and mutual accountability  and seeks to challenge dominant social norms while honoring differences of histories, traditions, vocabulary and more. We seek to develop leaders specifically within the arts & culture field to adeptly respond to significant changes that impact society, politics, environment and economy. As a peer cohort, ILI intercultural leaders hone personal and professional skills to affect local, national and global communities  and promote a shift toward greater awareness, resourcing and action in the broader field of arts & culture.

ALTERNATE ROOTS (https://alternateroots.org/)

Alternate ROOTS supports the creation and presentation of original art that is rooted in community, place, tradition or spirit. We are a group of artists and cultural organizers based in the South across 14 states creating a better world together. As Alternate ROOTS, we call for social and economic justice and are working to dismantle all forms of oppression  everywhere. Find out more information about Alternate ROOTS crisis funding program Solidarity Fund here. Find out more about Alternate ROOTS here.

FIRST PEOPLES FUND (https://www.firstpeoplesfund.org/)

First Peoples Fund (FPF) supports the Collective Spirit of artists and culture bearers. Rooted in the traditional values of generosity and respect, humility and fortitude, FPF uplifts the Indigenous Arts Ecology  relationship based ecosystems that strengthen Native arts and culture grounded in ancestral knowledge. We accomplish this by 1) supporting culture bearers and artist entrepreneurs as transformative community leaders, 2) deepening tribally based organizations capacity to serve artists and their families and 3) investing holistically into the next generation of resilient artists. Learn more about FPFs Resilience Fund https://www.firstpeoplesfund.org/coronavirus-response.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LATINO ARTS AND CULTURES (NALAC) (https://www.nalac.org/)

National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) is the nations premier nonprofit organization exclusively dedicated to the promotion, advancement, development and cultivation of the Latino arts field. In this capacity, NALAC stimulates and facilitates intergenerational dialogues among disciplines, languages and traditional and contemporary expressions. Find information about NALACs Actos de Confianza emergency grantmaking here.

PAI FOUNDATION (http://www.paifoundation.org)

Media Contact: marigaliher@gmail.com

vicky@paifoundation.org

PAI Foundation, organized in 2001, preserves and perpetuates Hawaiian cultural traditions for future generations. PAI Foundation is the non-profit organization of Pua Alii Ilima, a halau hula (school of Hawaiian dance) founded by kumu hula (master teacher of Hawaiian dance) Vicky Holt Takamine in 1977. While the organization is centered around and supported by halau members, the purpose of PA`I Foundation is to address and serve the needs of native Hawaiians and those who make Hawaii their home. Find more information about PAI Presents: E Hoi Ke Aloha (Return the Love) - A Covid Relief Project for the Arts Community at http://www.paifoundation.org.

SIPP CULTURE (http://sippculture.com/)

The Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture) is honoring the history and building the future of Utica, MS. Our work weaves together research, development, local agriculture, with contemporary media & storytelling to promote the legacy and vision of our hometown. Our place-based model program supports groups and individuals working to achieve social, economic, and cultural transformation toward long-term sustainability through the creation and presentation of arts, culture, and through using food (agriculture) and story to leverage community transformation and shift the material condition of Southern rural people.
Burma China's Top Foreign Policy Official to Visit Myanmar

Yang Jiechi in 2012. / Chinese Embassy, Georgia

YANGON  Chinas top diplomat is planning to visit Myanmar this week, according to the Chinese Embassy in Yangon.

The giant to Myanmars north appears to be planning a charm offensive as it looks to improve its access to the Indian Ocean.

Yang Jiechi of the Political Bureau of the Communist Partys Central Committee and the director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs will visit Myanmar, Spain and Greece from Sept. 1 to 4.

Yang accompanied President Xi Jinping on his trip to Naypyitaw in January. He also visited Singapore and South Korea in August. The Yusof Ishak Institute said Yang is senior to the foreign minister, Wang Yi. It said he usually carries out a specific task during his foreign trips.

Political analyst Dr. Yan Myo Thein told The Irrawaddy: He is the third most important person in the Foreign Affairs Commission after Xi and Li Keqiang, premier of the State Council of China. He is an adviser to Xi and the visit is an important step in bilateral relations.

He said the trip would aim to enhance cooperation on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), which is a part of Chinas ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.

During his trip in January, Xi called for concrete planning and implementation of bilateral projects like the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, the China-Myanmar Border Economic Cooperation Zone and New Yangon City as three pillars of the CMEC. Both sides signed 33 memorandums of understanding, agreements, exchange letters and protocols during the trip.

The reason behind the trip may be to take the upper hand in Myanmars economy after COIVD-19, Dr. Yan Myo Thein said.

In 2013, as a state councilor, Yang met then-president U Thein Sein in a trip to Naypyitaw which purportedly aimed to enable further high-level visits and enhance strategic communication, deepen practical cooperation and ensure the smooth implementation of major bilateral projects.

He also met then vice president U Nyan Tun, house speaker Thura U Shwe Mann and members of various political parties.

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Srinagar, Aug 31 : The Jammu and Kashmir police and army have busted an LeT terror module in the Reasi district of J&K on Monday and arrested three terrorist associates, police said.

According to a police statement on Monday district police Reasi and Army Rashtriya Rifles unit from Mahore with active support from army intelligence have busted a major LeT revival plan in Mahore area of Reasi District and arrested three persons who were in contact with Pakistani handler belonging to the LeT Mohd Qasim, a resident of Mahore who had exfiltrated to PoK in 2002.

"On 05-08-2020, an information was received through reliable sources at Police Station Mahore that some unknown persons (anti national elements) in the area are in touch with LeT terrorists based in Pakistan to revive the LeT in Mahore with the intention to wage a war against the country and to disturb the sovereignty and integrity of India," police said.

Police said based on this information an FIR was registered on August 5 in police station Mahore and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted to investigate the case.

"During the course of investigation, with the help of technical data analysis support from Army RR and intelligence units working in Mahore area and interrogation of suspects by the SIT it has emerged that Mohd Qasim who exfiltrated to PoK in the year 2002 (and some other youth of the area who are in PoK) working for LeT outfit across the border is the mastermind behind the module and that he is trying to establish an Over Ground Worker (OGW) network so that LeT can utilise this new potential either as guides in infiltration or to recruit new ones in militancy from Mahore and adjoining areas, providing logistics support and establishing LeT base, facilitate the crossing of militants via Various routes including but not limited to Rajouri belt, Mahore, Nikin Gali, Kashmir Valley (Kulgam area) which has been used earlier also by terror groups," police said.

Police said till date three suspects named Ghulam Hussain, Abdul Aziz and Ashfaq Ahmed have been arrested who are in touch with the said Mohd Qasim via different means.

"Some benami transactions in different accounts of these suspects has also been detected and some families of slain militants who have received financial aid from ISI have also been identified. During investigation the involvement of more suspects has been found in this module and investigation in this regard is in progress," police said.
Biocompatible TeSex nano-alloys for PT/PA/CT/PET imaging-guided NIR-II-photothermal therapy

Nanotheranostics, integrating diagnostic and therapeutic functions by nanoplatform, exhibits a great potential in precision and personalized medicine, and also raises the requirement on multifunctional nanomaterials in pursuit of both good biocompatibility and high theranostic performances. The emergence of diverse multifunctional nanomaterials and advanced nanotechnologies unprecedentedly simulates the evolution of nanotheranostics, and enables the integration of multimodal imaging and therapeutic functions in a single theranostic nanoparticle for high-efficacy theranostics of diseases. In engineering of theranostic nanoplatforms, biocompatibility and multifunction are two most important factors which need to be considered. Among various nanotheranostics, multimodal imaging-guided photothermal therapy has attracted intensive attention owing to its less invasiveness and lower side effects compared with conventional radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

In a new article published in the Beijing-based National Science Review, scientists in Shenzhen University, China, hypothesize that controllable incorporation of biocompatible Se element into the lattice of Te nanostructures for construction of TeSex nano-alloys could intrinsically tune the inherent cytotoxicity of Te nanomaterials, enhance the biocompatibility of Te nanomaterials and extend their functions for biomedical applications. In this work, a series of TeSex nano-alloys with different Se incorporating proportions are synthesized to investigate their biocompatibility and develop their theranostic functions. It is determined that the toxicity of Te nanomaterials mainly comes from irreversible oxidation stress and intracellular imbalance of organization and energy, which is exterminated by the nano-alloying by incorporating a moderate proportion of Se (x=0.43). The synthesized TeSex nano-alloy exhibits extraordinarily high NIR-II-photothermal conversion efficiency (77.2%), 64Cu coordination and CT contrast capabilities, enabling high-efficacy photothermal therapy of cancer under the guidance of multimodal PT/PA/PET/CT imaging.

Several main advances are achieved. (1) Advanced TeSex nano-alloys are facilely constructed to intrinsically eliminate the inherent toxicity of Te nanomaterials by the moderate incorporation of biocompatible Se. (2) Advanced mechanisms for Te nanomaterial toxification and TeSex alloying detoxification are uncovered. (3) Advanced theranostic performances with ordinarily high NIR-II-photothermal efficiency and multimodal PT/PA/CT/PET imaging capability are achieved by proposed nano-alloying strategy.

###

This research received financial support from the National Natural Science

Foundation of China, Special Funds for the Development of Strategic Emerging Industries in Shenzhen, Shenzhen Basic Research Program, Shenzhen Peacock Plan, Educational Commission of Guangdong Province, Guangdong Special Support Program and Pengcheng Scholar Program, the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and the National Institutes of Health.

See the article:

Xiang Ling, Zhaokui Jin, Qi Jiang, Xiaotao Wang, Bin Wei, Zhongchang Wang, Yangsen Xu, Tianye Cao, Jonathan W Engle, Weibo Cai, Chenliang Su, Qianjun He

Engineering biocompatible TeSex nano-alloys as a versatile theranostic nanoplatform

Natl Sci Rev doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwaa156

https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1093/ nsr/ nwaa156

The National Science Review is the first comprehensive scholarly journal released in English in China that is aimed at linking the country's rapidly advancing community of scientists with the global frontiers of science and technology. The journal also aims to shine a worldwide spotlight on scientific research advances across China.

This story has been published on: 2020-08-31. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
(CNN)  In the midst of his battle with colon cancer, Chadwick Boseman not only continued to work on films, but also made sure to keep inspiring children.

The "Black Panther" actor visited St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee in 2018, the hospital said on Instagram Saturday.

"We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of our friend Chadwick Boseman. Two years ago, Chadwick visited the St. Jude campus and brought with him not only toys for our patients but also joy, courage and inspiration," the hospital said in a tweet read.

Boseman was diagnosed with cancer in 2016, according to the announcement of his death posted to his official Twitter account on Friday.

"A true fighter, Chadwick persevered through it all, and brought you many of the films you have come to love so much," the tweet read. "All were filmed during and between countless surgeries and chemotherapy."

Also in 2018, Boseman told SiriusXM he had been in communication with two terminally ill boys throughout the filming of "Black Panther." The boys and their parents told Boseman they were trying to hold on until the film came out.

"I realized they anticipated something great," Boseman said during the emotional interview, adding that he remembers being a child and eagerly awaiting his birthday, Christmas, a toy or video game.

"It put me back in the mind of being a kid just to experience those two little boys' anticipation of this movie. ... It means a lot."

The interview was posted three days before "Black Panther" had its theatrical release nationwide.
ST. LOUIS, MissouriA St. Louis police officer who was a hero to his family died Sunday after being shot in the head by a barricaded gunman on the citys south side, authorities said.

Officer Tamarris L. Bohannon, 29, had been with the department for 3 1/2 years.

A second officer who was shot in the leg was treated and released after the shooting around 6 p.m. in the South Grand neighborhood near Tower Grove Park, St. Louis Police Department spokeswoman Officer Michelle Woodling said.

Woodling said the second officer is 30 and has been on the force about six months. The 43-year-old suspect was taken into custody Sunday morning, Woodling said.

Mayor Lyda Krewson said in a statement Sunday night that she was heartbroken at Bohannons death. Ive had the privilege of spending some time with his family under these extraordinarily challenging circumstances. Theyre wonderful people and immensely proud of the way he selflessly served and protected our community with distinction and honor for more than three years.

This is a horrific reminder of the dangers our brave men and women willingly face everyday to keep us safe  This is a terrible, senseless tragedy.

A photo of a note police said came from Bohannons family was posted on the departments Twitter page after the announcement of his death. He is a hero to many, but most importantly to his loving wife and three incredible children, read the note that referred to Bohannon as Bo and asked for prayers and support in the days ahead.

A letter from the family of Officer Tamarris L. Bohannon. https://t.co/wqk7LAQXMx pic.twitter.com/J902dj415w  St. Louis, MO Police (@SLMPD) August 31, 2020

St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Chief John Hayden said the gunman ordered a family out of their home at gunpoint and barricaded himself inside for almost 12 hours.

Officers were searching for another reported shooting victim when the gunman shot Bohannon in the head and the other officer in the leg, Hayden said.

The officers were trying to do their job, thats all theyre trying to do and theyre suffering under gunfire, Hayden said, adding that the incidents are part of a surge in violence this summer. He asked residents to pray for the officers.

Hayden said eight of his officers have been shot in the line of duty since June 1.

Were trying to cope through a very trying summer, and its very difficult. Its very difficult, he said.

While the man was barricaded inside, officers armed with rifles and a SWAT team assembled outside. Police closed surrounding streets and warned residents to stay inside. Police used a bullhorn to order the suspect out and fired tear gas into the house, but fired no gunshots, the department said.

The man was taken into custody around 5:30 a.m. Police have released no details about how the standoff came to an end.

Homeowners Mimi and Steve Haag said they were trying to call 911 to help another man who had been shot when the gunman just walked into their home.

I saw then he had a gun, Steve Haag told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He was very calm standing there with it in his hand and he just says to Mimi: Maam you need to get off the phone.

The Haags escaped through the back door and were unhurt in their encounter with the gunman. Police were unable to locate the other man who was apparently shot and wounded.

Krewson tweeted her condolences following the incident.

Please keep our injured officers and all the men and women of @SLMPD in your thoughts and prayers as this situation continues to develop. Their friends, family and loved ones, too, Krewson said.

Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner also issued a statement of support.

We extend our deepest concern and sadness surrounding todays unfortunate events, Gardner told KDSK-TV. I want to extend my prayers for the injured SLMPD officers and their families.
Brexit tensions escalated again today as France slammed Boris Johnson's 'intransigent and unrealistic' stance on trade talks.

Europe minister Jean-Yves Le Drian delivered a stinging rebuke to the PM in a speech amid fears that negotiations are on the verge of collapse.

The two sides are at odds over access to fishing waters and whether the UK should continue to obey EU rules, with the clock running down to get a deal in place for the end of the transition period in January.

Mr Johnson has insisted he is ready to walk away from the table within weeks rather than compromise sovereignty. Michel Barnier is expected to travel to London this week ahead of the next round of talks in a bid to find a way through the bitter standoff.

Speaking to French ambassadors in Paris alongside German counterpart Heiko Maas this morning, Mr Le Drian said: 'Negotiations are not advancing due to the intransigent and frankly unrealistic attitude of the United Kingdom.'

Europe minister Jean-Yves Le Drian delivered a stinging rebuke to the PM in a speech amid fears that negotiations are on the verge of collapse

Mr Le Drian was speaking to ambassadors in Paris alongside German counterpart Heiko Maas (left) this morning

There were claims last week that Michel Barnier had been ringing round EU leaders warning that the talks were near the 'end of the road'.

Mr Barnier is trying to heap pressure on Mr Johnson to compromise and has asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron for support.

However, Tory MPs have warned Brussels must realise the UK is 'under new management' and will not cave in.

Germany currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council and had intended to discuss Brexit during the meeting of envoys this week.

But it was dropped from the agenda due to a lack of progress in recent months in discussions between Brussels and the UK as they try to agree the terms of the future relationship.

EU officials accuse London of a 'wasted summer' and are said to be increasingly of the view Downing Street is prepared to walk away without a deal and blame the bloc.

However, Tory MPs believe Brussels is posturing to force Number 10 to make concessions.
BERLIN  It was shortly after 7 p.m. when a self-described healer got on stage outside the German Parliament and urged the jeering crowd of protesters to storm the building: There is no more police! she shouted. We have won!

What followed was a scene many Germans thought had been confined to their history books: Hundreds of far-right activists waving the black, white and red flag of the pre-1918 German Empire that once inspired the Nazis broke through a police barrier and tried to force their way into the building.

It took only a few tense minutes before the police, though vastly outnumbered, managed to push them back. But Saturdays events marked an alarming escalation of the protests against Germanys response to the pandemic that have grown steadily bigger and  on the fringes at least  angrier.

Strikingly, that outpouring of anger comes at a time when Chancellor Angela Merkels government is enjoying high levels of trust and popularity, and the great majority of Germans approve of its virus control measures. Germany has managed the pandemic well, keeping the number of deaths low, reopening schools and pumping billions of euros into welfare programs that so far have kept unemployment at bay.
China has demanded India withdraw troops that Beijing said had illegally crossed their shared border, its military spokesman said on Monday.

The Indian army said in a statement that Chinese troops carried out military movements over the weekend to change the status quo on their disputed border in a fresh flare-up between the two sides.

Also Read: India-China border tension: Here's what we know so far

The Chinese military spokesman said China is taking countermeasures and will safeguard its territorial sovereignty.
Nepal has exported electricity worth one billion Nepali rupees to India in the last fiscal year, according to a report published by the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).

In 2076-77 (2019-20) fiscal year, Nepal was able to export electricity worth 95 crores 70 lakhs Nepali rupees to India as per a power deal signed by the two countries.

Earlier, the Himalayan nation had set a target of selling nine crore units of electricity while it was able to send 10 crores and 70 lakh units last year, the NEA report said.

Also Read: Japan mulls picking new Prime Minister on September 17

"Nepal exported a total of two crores and 96 lakh units of electricity to India between mid-September and November, which was the highest flow of electricity during the fiscal year of 2076-77. The least was recorded between mid-April and May when 10,000 thousand units were only exported," Prabal Adhikari, spokesperson at NEA, said.

"It was transported to India via Kushwaha-Kataiya, Parwanipur-Raxaul, Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur and Ramnagar," he added.

In 2072-73 (2015-16) fiscal year, Nepal exported 31 lakh units of electricity, 26 lakhs 90 thousand units in 2073-74 (2016-17), 29 lakhs 40 thousand in 2074-75 (2017-18), three crores 47 lakh in 2075-76 (2018-19) and 10 crores 70 lakh units to India in 2076-77 (2019-20).

This has shown Nepal's increased income from power sector by selling it to India because of favourable terrain and interconnectivity. Nepal and India previously had a capacity to ferry 350 MW electricity using the trans-border connectivity line, which has been expanded to 1,500 MW.

Both countries are involved in a study over an additional cross-border connectivity line, which has been named as Butwal-Gorakhpur Mainhiya-Sampatiya, Inaruwa-Purniya, Lamki-Bareli and Kohalpur-Nanpara transmission lines.

(ANI)

Also Read: Bangladesh Flood: Death toll rises to 251
An Army drone previously used in Afghanistan is to fly over the English Channel to monitor migrant boats as the crisis continues.

The Watchkeeper drone will be used to help tackle the dangerous crossings, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

It is the first time the eye-in-the-sky war technology, which has been used by the Army in Afghanistan, will fly in the UK operationally.

It comes as migrants continue to risk the dangerous seas in the Dover Strait, though bad weather has limited crossings recently.

Other armed forces aircraft, including Atlas A-400M, Shadow R1 and P-8 Poseidon have also been authorised to help monitor Channel crossings.

A Watchkeeper unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan (MoD)

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy is considering deploying small patrol boats to the Channel to assist the Border Force.

More than 5,000 migrants have crossed to the UK in small boats so far in 2020, analysis by the PA news agency shows.

An MoD spokesperson said: The deployment of Watchkeeper provides further defence support to the Home Office in tackling the increasing number of small boats crossing the English Channel.

It will provide a leading surveillance and reconnaissance capability, feeding information back to the Border Force and allowing them to take appropriate action where necessary.

The unmanned air system (UAS) was used to support British armed forces in Afghanistan and was hailed as a battle-winning technology by then defence secretary Michael Fallon in 2014.

Now it is scheduled to fly from Lydd Airport and will be operated by 47th Regiment Royal Artillery.

The MoD says the unmanned aircraft hosts a range of sensors including Electro-Optic and Infra-red full motion video day and night camera, Synthetic Aperture Radar and a Moving Target Indicator radar.

The Watchkeeper programme has cost the UK more than 1 billion, figures released in 2017 showed.

However, the drones have been beset by issues in recent years.

Four Watchkeeper drones are known to have crashed, including two which plunged into the sea off the coast of Wales in early 2017.

The other two crashes happened in 2014 and 2015 whilst landing at West Wales Airport and MoD Boscombe Down respectively.
A Chhattisgarh police team from Bilaspur arrested five men from Warishliganj area in Bihars Nawada district Monday morning for allegedly duping a former scientific officer of DRDO of 14.5 lakh through a cyber fraud.

Police said the gang duped people by telling them they had won a lottery and needed to make a payment to claim the prize.

The conmen have been identified as Gautam Kumar, Sanjay Kumar Mahto, Birju Kumar Ram, Sudhansu Kumar (all from Nawada) and Niraj Kumar (Nalanda). The police seized 5.23 lakh cash besides two laptop computers, 20 ATM cards, bank pass books, two memory cards, 30 SIM cards and three motorcycles from their possession.

During initial scanning of bank passbooks, the police found transactions of over 1 crore between July 7 and July 30. Bilaspurs superintendent of police Prashant Agrawal said over phone that two of the five men are the main culprits and others were probably relatives of the accused.

During the investigation, the Cyber Crime team analysed the call data records (CDR), obtained bank account statements and account holder details. The team located the offenders at Nawada and apprehended them, Agarwal added.

According to a police report, the victim identified as C L Patel, 80, was lured into depositing a huge sum of money with a call saying Congratulations, you have won a luxury car.

According to police officials, such victims are generally told to keep the winning secret. No lottery can be won unless a ticket is purchased and normally the processing fees are deducted from the prize money, officials warn.

Patel, currently residing in Sakra police station area of Bilaspur, has lodged a complaint with concerned police station on July 30 that he had received a call from a noted automobile company informing him that he had been selected for a prize in a lucky draw due to a purchase from online marketplace Flipkart. Patel said he was contacted by a person and asked to deposit processing fee, taxes and other charges in an account number to release the luxury car.

He deposited 14.5 lakh in a bank account provided by the accused. The money was transferred through the branch of a nationalized bank based in Sakra. But after the money was deposited, they did not respond to his calls.

When he did not receive the car, he visited the showroom only to realise that he had been cheated.

Meanwhile, Pakribarama (in Nawada district) sub divisional police officer Mukesh Kumar Saha said following a tip-off provided by Chhattisgarh police, a joint team carried out a raid at Warshaliganj area and arrested five suspects involved in the fraud. Ahead of their arrest, the accused had been under mobile surveillance. They were taken to Chhattisgarh on a transit remand.

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A Chinese man and two Vietnamese women were sentenced to 5-8 years in prison on August 29 for organising illegal entry into Vietnam.

The defendants at a court (Photo: taichinhdoisong.vn)

Chinese national Chen Xian Fa, 27, was sentenced to eight years in jail, while Ho Thi Thu Trinh, 24, from the central province of Quang Nam, got a six-year term and Huynh Ngoc Diem, 41, from the central city of Dang, five-year. All were charged with "organising illegal entry into Vietnam," according to the People's Court of Da Nang.

Fa confessed that he illegally entered Vietnam for online advertising and goods selling. He asked Trinh and Diem to help him rent a house.

According to the indictment of the municipal Peoples Procuracy, between August 2019 and late June 2020, the three joined hands in bringing Chinese nationals to Vietnam illegally for several times.

Fa and many others Chinese people stayed in houses at 84 Tuy Ly Vuong Street and 39 Duong Tu Giang Street in Khue My ward, Ngu Hanh Son district, Da Nang city.

During a raid at 39 Duong Tu Giang on July 11, police found Fa and four other Chinese. All of them could not present passports, visas or any legal immigration information.

After completing his sentence, Fa will be deported from Vietnam, the court further heard./.VNA
I was elected in 1977 and met Pranab da within the first year of coming to Parliament. For 43 years, we were in touch constantly, and became especially close when I served as parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. That was an eventful time; Pranab da had started a new party in Bengal and then later became the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief. I was junior to him but hed always treat me like a colleague or even a younger brother.

As PCC chief of Bengal, he had to handle several agitations. I remember once we visited the hospital to see those who were injured in one. Suddenly, things became quite tense. The thing that I most clearly remember about that incident is that he didnt abandon me . He braved the stone-throwing to ensure that I sat in the car with him. He was known to be a tough person but whenever I called him for anything, he wouldnt just hear me out, but get it done. I think it was either in the Bangalore plenary session or in Faizabad one that one minister who was supposed to address the party said that he wouldnt be able to speak. I just asked Pranab da to give the speech ; with 10 minutes notice he spoke very well. He was always ready and never said no to the party.

We then worked together in the time of Sitaram Kesri. Whether it was on Kesris appointment as the Congress president or his resignation, we worked together.

Of course, he went on to play a major role in government. I remember during the vote on the Indo-US Nuclear deal (2008), we worked very closely to ensure that the vote of confidence went off very smoothly. Thats the reason we got exactly the kind of result that we wanted from it.

In core group meetings, where we again worked together, he would often be stern with some minister or member; if they said anything wrong, hed immediately respond. This was typical of him.

The unusual thing about our meetings was that they were mostly held at night. I was usually his last visitor, dropping in at 11:30 pm or midnight or even later at least twice or thrice a week. He would finish that meeting, then shower and eat his dinner. Late night was the best time to talk to him, and its these exchanges where I got the best kind of guidance from him. He was an encyclopaedia of Indian politics and was well aware of all that was happening across the world. So, youd always gain from these exchanges. Of course, I had a way of gauging his mood during these visits. If he said`Heralal, chai lao (Bring some tea), then Id know that he was in a good mood. If he simply said Baithiye (Sit) then Id know that he was busy. This continued even when he took up a constitutional role.

When he was chosen to become President, I was the one who went to inform him of the clearance of his name. He was very happy and immediately thanked Soniaji (Sonia Gandhi) and others. Yes, he had arguments with people and differences of opinion but when he was informed of the PMs decision or Soniajis, he would accept it. This despite the fact that he couldnt become the Prime Minister, and that regret stayed with him. He never said it openly and it wasnt that huge a source of bitterness for him. His goal didnt stop him from doing a stellar job as a cabinet minister or the other assignments that he was given. For instance, when the United Progressive Alliance came to power in 2004, he wanted to be home minister. However, that wasnt to be and he really worked hard at the defence portfolio.

My visits to him as President werent just official ones. When he was writing his book or even otherwise, if we didnt meet each other for a week or 10 days, hed call me and ask where I was and that I should drop in. When he was invited to visit the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarter in Nagpur, he took a long time to decide if he should go. He told me, If I dont go, then it will be a problem ; if I go, it will be a problem. Its better that I go there and give my message. And thats what he did.

He had a big heart. I remember that I wanted him to inaugurate a hospital in my constituency. It wasnt a big hospital at all but just because I asked him, he came all the way to Gujarat for its opening. I just think that Im very lucky to have had the opportunity to have worked with him so closely. He taught me all the things I couldnt learn from books-- history of the party, what happened when the Congress split twice.... He was very clear in his mind about what was right and he followed his principles. He said whatever was in his heart. He shared so much with me but some of them are things that I will never share with others. These are things that went with him and will also go with me to my grave.

(As told to Sunetra Choudhury)

Ahmed Patel is a senior Congress leader
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) has emphasised the need to issue a government order for the mandatory implementation of Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC).

The bureau has requested energy and municipal administration and urban developments (MAUD) to take immediate measures as per the policy of the Government of India regarding implementation of ECBC, one of the most cost effective tools to bring down the energy demand and deliver significant energy savings.

The Andhra Pradesh government had integrated the ECBC compliance into the online Development Permission Management System (DPMS) for building approvals in 2019. The MAUD department issued a circular as well. However, only 20 buildings in the State, most of which belong to the government, have incorporated the building code.

The ECBC Code is applicable to any commercial building or complex that has a plot area of 1,000 square meters or more. The buildings of certain type such as multiplexes, hospitals and hotels must comply with ECBC, irrespective of the built-up area.

BEE director general Abhay Bhakre, along with BEE secretary RK Rai and Director (ECBC) Saurabh Diddi, reviewed the progress and performance of ECBC implementation in all States and said that the Centre was keen on adoption of ECBC-2017 in commercial buildings, which would translate to energy savings of around 300 billion units by 2030 and peak demand reduction of over 15 GW a year in the country.

"The building sector in India consumes over 30 per cent of total electricity consumed in the country annually and the demand may grow in the coming years. We request the State governments to strictly implement the ECBC regulation in their respective States," the BEE said, according to Andhra Pradesh State Energy Conservation Missions (APSECM) statement on Sunday.

As per AP Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC), the energy demand in the building sector of the State is around 3,117 MUs.

Energy secretary Srikant Nagulapalli said that the State government was keen on implementing energy efficiency activities in the State which helps for the prime objective of the state government to achieve cost effective power.

ECBC demonstration was performed in around 12 buildings and the energy department has already empanelled 34 Third Party Assessors to review the designs of buildings in the first phase and certify the buildings after thorough inspection at the occupancy stage.
President Donald Trump defended the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin, saying the 17-year-old 'probably would have been killed' by an angry mob if he hadn't fired at them with the illegal gun he was carrying.

'He was trying to get away from them I guess, it looks like, and he fell on then they very violently attacked him,' Trump said in response to a question from DailyMail.com on Monday.

'It was something that we are looking at right now and it's under investigation, but I guess he was in very big trouble. He probably would've been killed. It's under investigation,' he added during his press briefing.

Rittenhouse is charged with two counts of 'intentional homicide,' a charge in Wisconsin state law which is the same as murder in most other states, for his actions in Kenosha that left two people dead and one wounded.

President Donald Trump heads to Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday as the city struggles with racial tension and is still operating under a curfew

President Trump defended the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse, saying the 17-year-old 'probably would have been killed' by an angry mob if he hadn't fired at them with the illegal gun he was carrying.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden condemned President Trump's words.

'The President declined to rebuke violence,' he said in a statement after Trump's press conference.

'He wouldn't even repudiate one of his supporters who is charged with murder because of his attacks on others. He is too weak, too scared of the hatred he has stirred to put an end to it. So once again, I urge the President to join me in saying that while peaceful protest is a right  a necessity  violence is wrong, period. No matter who does it, no matter what political affiliation they have. Period,' he added.

President Trump heads to Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday as the city remains a tinderhouse of tensions - those who want justice for Jacob Blake, those who want Rittenhouse prosecuted, and those defending the actions of the police when it comes to both men: one black, one white.

Trump visit with law enforcement officials after the shooting of Blake sparked riots throughout the city. Blake, a black man, was shot seven times in the back by a white cop in front of his three young children Sunday afternoon, leaving the father-of-six paralyzed from the waist down.

Kenosha remains under a 7 p.m. curfew with more than 1,500 National Guard members on the scene.

But the incident and ensuring demonstrations prompted self-styled militia men to take to the streets with their own weapons because they don't trust the police to keep the city safe.

Among those vigilantes on Tuesday night was 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenager who'd come from his home in Antioch, Illinois, to patrol the streets with an AR-15. It is illegal for someone under 18 to openly carry a weapon in Wisconsin.

Rittenhouse was part of a group of armed civilians protecting a service station in Kenosha. There was a scuffle between them and the protesters. Shots were fired and 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum falls to the ground with a gunshot wound to the head that would be fatal.

Video posted on social media shows a man whom police believe to be Rittenhouse make a call on a cellphone and say: 'I just shot someone.'

He flees and is pursued by many protesters, at least one of whom is armed with a handgun. Rittenhouse falls to the ground and the crowd rushes in to seize his weapon.

He was hit over the head by protester Anthony Huber, 26, who had a skateboard and wanted to disarm him.

Rittenhouse then starts firing into the group and ended up killing Huber and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz.

He was not arrested until the following day, back in Illinois, despite approaching police with his hands in the air while other protesters yelled that he'd just shot multiple people.

He is in custody in Illinois. A judge will decide at a hearing on Sept. 25 whether Rittenhouse will be extradited to Wisconsin, where he would be tried as an adult. He faces six felony charges that include first-degree intentional homicide and first-degree reckless homicide, and a misdemeanor charge for possession of a dangerous weapon by a minor.

Rittenhouse's attorney Lin Wood said the 17-year-old vigilante was 'attacked' with 'lethal force' and 'had the right to defend himself.'

Another one of his attorneys, John Pierce, praised the teen in an appearance on Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight, saying he was only defending himself against a mob trying to disarm and hurt him.

'This is 100 percent self defense,' Pierce said.

'The only individuals Kyle shot were the three individuals attacking him and putting him at risk. This is a 17-year-old kid, this is amazing what he did.'

Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, was patrolling the streets with an AR-15. He fell over, was hit with a skateboard by other protesters who tried to disarm him, and opened fire, wounding one person and killing two. He is now being held on murder charges

Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back in front of his three kids despite being unarmed

Rittenhouse, who lives in a nearby Illinois town, had traveled to Kenosha to help protect businesses from being torched or looted amid the Jacob Blake protests, according to his lawyer.

In addition to his AR-15-style rifle, Rittenhouse's lawyer said the teenager also had had a first aid kit with him to help treat injured protesters.

Pierce said the incident escalated when a shot was fired as Rittenhouse tried to retreat from a group of protesters who, he claims, became enraged that the teen was trying to put out fires.

'They began screaming that Kyle needed to be killed and they were going to kill him. They started relentlessly hunting him as prey as he ran down the street attempting to retreat,' Pierce said.

'Mr Rosenbaum, who was leading the attack on him, set upon him immediately... began to assault him from behind, attempted to take his weapon, take his firearm, and Kyle, when he turned, he instantaneously had no choice but to defend himself by firing because he was in imminent danger of serious bodily harm or death.'

Pierce denied that Rittenhouse brought the AR-15 across state lines from Illinois to Wisconsin.

'That firearm never crossed state lines. It is a legal firearm in Wisconsin,' Pierce said, adding they would be arguing it is within his second amendment rights.

The president also refused to condemn vigilantes when pressed on the self-styled militia by DailyMail.com.

'I think everything should be taken care of with law enforcement but we have to give our cops back, our police back their dignity,' he said.

He defended the actions of police, saying sometimes they make a mistake - 'they choke' - and that decision gets played over and over again on the evening news.

'You have bad cops - we have to take care of them. In other cases, they choke,' he said. 'They have a quarter of a second to make a decision and sometimes they make the wrong decision. They make the wrong decision, you know if they make a wrong decision and the other direction, they're probably dead so they choke and that goes on the evening news for weeks.'

'They are very tough on bad cops but sometimes, a cop or a police person who was a good police person, right? Good. But they choke,' he added. 'They have a quarter of a second to make some of these decisions and they make the wrong decision that is very devastating but I will say this, I honor law enforcement. We wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for law enforcement.'

Meanwhile, outrage has built nationwide over the different treatment by cops of Rittenhouse, the white armed teen compared to their treatment of black unarmed Blake.

Trump said he was going to Kenosha on Tuesday despite pleas from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin that he stay away. Evers warned it could heighten tensions and increase violence in the town of 100,000 which has seen its ranks swell with supporters of the Black Lives Matters movement and armed civilian vigilantes.

'It will also increase enthusiasm and it could increase love and respect for our country, and that's why I am going because they did a fantastic job,' Trump said at his press briefing on Monday.

Evers, a Democrat, said Sunday in a letter to President Trump that he is not welcome in Kenosha.

He urged him to reconsider his trip, writing: 'I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state.'

Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian, also a Democrat, also asked Trump not to come.

'While presidents are always welcome to come to this great city, this is not the best time for a visit,' Antaramian said in a statement Sunday. 'We are hurting today and we are focused on healing, coming together as a community and rebuilding. There is a lot of listening we need to do in Kenosha and I worry that a visit from the president will delay this important work.'

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers sent a letter Sunday to Trump claiming the president is not welcome in Kenosha after the White House announced plans Saturday for a visit to the city. 'I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state,' he wrote in the letter

'There is a lot of listening we need to do in Kenosha and I worry that a visit from the president will delay this important work,' Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian said in a statement Sunday

Trump, meanwhile, has insisted his actions 'saved' the city of Kenosha.

'If I didn't INSIST on having the National Guard activate and go into Kenosha, Wisconsin, there would be no Kenosha right now. Also, there would have been great death and injury. I want to thank Law Enforcement and the National Guard. I will see you on Tuesday!,' he tweeted on Monday morning.

But he will not meet with the family of Jacob Blake, saying he refused to speak to them after they wanted their lawyer involved. The Blakes are represented by attorney Ben Crump, who also represented the family of George Floyd.

Trump did say he's spoken with the Blake family pastor.

'I thought it would be better not to do anything where there are lawyers involved,' he said Monday at his press briefing. 'In they wanted to have lawyers involved and I thought that was inappropriate so I didn't do that, but I did speak with the pastor.'

Jacob Blake's uncle, Justin Blake, told CNN that the family didn't want to meet with the president because he's a 'racist.'

'President Trump is a racist who stokes racial tensions. He has been stirring racial tensions since he got in the White House. Why, as Jacob's uncle, would I want to talk to him? Our focus is on Jacob and healing the community,' he said.

He said Jacob Blake's father has told him he 'has no interest in speaking with President Trump.' His only interest at the moment is his son's well-being and getting justice.

He said he did not talk to Jacob Blake's mother on the subject.

Meanwhile, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he hoped to visit Wisconsin soon.

'I'm checking it out now. We hope to be able to do that,' he said during a stop in Pittsburgh on Monday.

In his speech earlier that day, Biden went after Trump calling him a 'toxic presence' and accused him of 'stoking violence in our cities' asking voters, 'Do you really feel safer under Trump?' Biden also condemned riots and looting and called on Americans to 'stand against violence - in every form it takes.'

Wisconsin is a crucial battleground state in November's election. Trump won it by less than 1 point in 2016 and both candidates want to see it in their column this fall.

Biden currently leads in state polling by 3.5 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

Democrats were originally scheduled to hold their national political convention in Wisconsin this summer - with Biden giving his acceptance speech for the presidential nomination there - but they turned the convention into a virtual event because of the coronavirus pandemic.
VPF says it has stopped paying rent for its temporary space at Kia Motors since April this year. Currently, the space is being used as an holding space for vehicles detained in road inspections
This spring, horrified Americans watched farmers dump milk and plow under vegetables, but the story of food waste and the novel coronavirus didn't end there.

While farm-level dumping caused outrage in the pandemic's early days, during normal times it was households that were responsible for a huge chunk of America's food waste - about 43% according to ReFED, a nonprofit focused on the issue. That waste happens in less dramatic ways, such as unloved veggies scraped off a plate or a take-no-prisoners fridge clean-out.

And that's exactly the kind of dumping that coronavirus-wary Americans seem less likely to do during the pandemic. Perhaps, hesitant to risk virus exposure at the store, you have improvised more meals from whatever the fridge offered. Or started doing inventories of your pantry and shopping with targeted lists. And, amid tightening finances, you may have eaten something past its "best by" date, or frozen vegetables before they turned to mush. Covid-19 has prompted many people to adopt new behaviors that groups such as ReFED have promoted for years. And those habits could have a real impact on food waste.

If enough of those habits stick, consumers might just cut into the 30% to 40% of food that the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates is wasted during normal times. Preventing some of that waste would save fuel, water and other resources used to produce the food. It would also send less food to landfills, where it is a significant source of climate-changing methane.

"I am certainly optimistic that a silver lining of this pandemic is that overall less food will go to waste," said Dana Gunders, executive director of ReFED.

While initial shocks to the food system certainly caused waste, the future could be different.

"Longer term, however, in almost every step of the supply chain, I'm seeing positive shifts that I think could lead to less waste," Gunders said. When it comes to consumers: "This moment has created a forced opportunity for people to really improve their food management habits."

Accenture, which polled consumers regularly from March to July, consistently found that 55% to 70% of Americans said they were more focused on limiting food waste and would keep it up in the future.

In a survey on specific behaviors, London-based environmental charity, Hubbub, found that nearly half of United Kingdom adults surveyed said they were throwing away less food, with some even reporting eating food past its printed date (which often can be done safely). In a separate report, British sustainability nonprofit WRAP also surveyed U.K residents and found that more people were deploying new, less wasteful food management practices, including making meals from random ingredients.

So, how much could these behavior shifts affect the volume of food waste? It's hard to predict, experts say, noting that collecting hard data is expensive, requiring households to keep detailed waste diaries or auditors to sift through garbage. But, for now, WRAP has found that, at least in the United Kingdom, people are self-reporting lower levels of waste. The group regularly asks households to estimate the percentages of their milk, bread, potatoes and chicken that get tossed. Between November and April, those estimates dropped by about a third.

Whether they will drop permanently remains to be seen: The waste estimates ticked up a bit in June, particularly among people going back to work, but they were still well below November levels. WRAP found that people said they wanted to maintain their new food habits post-shutdown, but they cited time and convenience among reasons they might not.

Similarly, researchers at The NPD Group found in June that 50% of Americans reported reducing food waste as they coped with the pandemic, a figure that was 9% lower than in April. The market research firm attributed the decline to restaurants reopening and outdoor dining.

Online behavior has also been telling: Readership on recipes and how-to guides on The Washington Post's Voraciously website surged in March, April and May, with stuck-at-home cooks and bakers drawn to topics such as stretching yeast resources and ingredient substitutions. On EatOrToss.com, which I maintain to help people assess "questionable-looking" food, traffic tripled between February and May and has loosely followed the pandemic's curve ever since, slipping a bit in June and climbing again in July.

Whether due to financial constraints, fear of interacting with virus-transmitting humans, or simply because being stuck at home means more time to chop vegetables and experiment, people are cultivating skills, from canning to baking bread, that could cut waste long after the pandemic.

Newfound kitchen skills may reduce day-to-day food waste even after the virus threat subsides, according to an Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy journal article set to publish in October. But the same analysis notes that variables, ranging from changes in shopping patterns to the tendency for people to waste food during transitional times, could cause more waste.

Quite possibly, the pandemic's impact on household food waste may be tied to its long-term impact on our lifestyles overall. For example, work-from-home policies - a trend that appears likely to continue post-pandemic - may play a role in whether some households can keep up their new habits. That pound of turkey in your fridge is simply more likely to get eaten if you're at home and there's little risk of a spontaneous lunch with co-workers. Or, as Madeline Keating, who leads food waste work in Denver for the Natural Resources Defense Council, points out, you can multitask: She once blanched and froze fading asparagus during a work call.

Pete Pearson, the senior director for food loss and waste at World Wildlife Fund, hopes consumers' increased comfort with ordering groceries in advance brings about more recurring deliveries of staples such as milk, bread and eggs.

"If we think of food more as a subscription, that could in turn lead to food waste reduction just because it's more predictable and you can match supply and demand better," he said.

Gunders said that more online grocery orders could also mean smaller produce displays at stores, meaning fruits and vegetables could spend more time in shelf-life-extending temperature-controlled storage.

Online grocery orders, however, aren't guaranteed to reduce waste. Among other factors, shoppers still have to avoid impulse buys and find uses for food that they discover isn't quite what they expected when delivered. Like, say, when you think you've ordered six bananas, but six bunches of bananas arrive on your doorstep, which definitely didn't happen to me.

The massive, shelf-clearing purchases common in March may have subsided, but Brian Roe, an agricultural economist at Ohio State University, worries the pandemic's legacy may include impractical stockpiles. Roe recently worked on a national survey, finding that just over 35% of consumers were stashing more food in their freezers because of the pandemic. Thoughtful freezing preserves food and reduces waste, but it's easy to lose track of items in a sea of icy containers.

Dining at home reduces waste in other ways: In a 2018 study published in PLOS ONE, Roe found that when people serve themselves, their plate waste is often less. And plenty of waste comes from over-ordering at restaurants and ignoring leftovers. Buffets, which may cease to exist as we knew them, are notoriously wasteful.

Since the start of the pandemic, people's concerns about food waste have intensified, said Laura Gurski, a consumer goods strategy consultant at Accenture who has been tracking consumers' attitudes during the pandemic.

"This conscious consumer has emerged," Gurski said, noting that Accenture's "research is showing sustainability, limiting food waste and thoughtful choices" are becoming more important.

Keating, with NRDC, said the pandemic made addressing food waste feel far more urgent.

"The thing about household food waste reduction is that it really starts with a mind-set change," she said. "It's about being intentional about your purchases, taking the time you need to make a list, following the list and then doing inventory management . . .

"That just takes a certain level of dedication, and a lot of people have time for that dedication right now."

- - -

Jackson is a D.C.-based writer and the founder of EatOrToss.com. Reach her at EatOrToss@gmail.com
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Hospitals in China's Xinjiang directed to perform late-term abortions to kill newborn babies a way to enforce the communist country's family planning rules.

According to RFA, the babies born alive were taken from their parents, killed, and discarded like trash. It was stated by workers that hospitals face a major punishment if they don't comply with the law.

"They wouldn't give the baby to the parents. They kill the babies when they are born. It is an order that has been given from above. It is an order that has been printed and distributed in official documents. Hospitals get fined if they don't comply, so of course, they carry this out."

"There were babies born at nine months who we killed after inducing labor."

Dr. Finley with Newcastle University in the U.K expressed the matter in China is 'genocide.'

"It is not an immediate, shocking, mass killing on the spot type genocide, but its a slow, painful, creeping genocide."

The Associated Press reported women were forced to have pregnancy checks, receive birth control, or have an abortion due to the communist population.

One of the incident experiencers, Bumeryem expressed her depressing moment with forced abortion to RFA as she states her baby was a boy and if he was alive, he would be 15 years old.

She added, "There were women in even worse situations than mine. I lay in my bed and cried."
Situated on the northern coast of Bali, the Tiing has been designed as a reward for the intrepid. Understanding that this project would need a point of differentiation to pull people out of the well-worn tourist paths of southern Bali, the Tiing is a boutique resort embedded into its local and cultural context.

Due to its remote location, the design deliberately leans on traditional materials and construction techniques, while providing a robust conceptual framework. Knowing that concrete is the preferred construction method of Bali, and that bamboo is plentiful, a series of bamboo formed concrete walls were erected on site to create in-between and inside conditions, framing the mountains and the sea.

The materiality of this project aims to work within the local context, construction techniques, resources, and climate; a rugged regionalism. Concrete and bamboo are abundant, so it was best to work with these materials throughout. In a tropical climate, a clean finish would require much maintenance, here, the material will weather in, enhancing the character of the architecture and place. Importantly, this also became the finishing. Expressing the texture and form of the bamboo as a negative impression in the patina of the concrete becomes this projects motif.

At each end, the walls become shear, referencing local Balinese gateways prevalent throughout the island. These gateways are highly decorated totems, shear-cut on the travel path to encourage the eye and the spirit to drift onwards.

Architecturally, these walls act as funnels, giving each room equal and opposing view of the mountain and the ocean, meaning that guests are always situated in the truth of the site. We thought it vitally important to draw attention to this dual condition as part of a locating and grounding travel experience.

Arriving at the Tiing is a process of 2.5hrs traversing winding roads through the lush Balinese landscape. We wanted something that would act as a distinct counterpoint to that all-consuming green-ness, so we created a red public bathing pool. It is partially hidden to the entry sequence, but acts as an energising arrival moment in high-contrast to the lush green jungle. Further, we paid attention to the height of the site and the way the water bodies of the pool and the ocean would layer against the horizon. Again, the working strategy for this project is a reward for the intrepid, and the central pool further serves to consolidate this.

Hidden centrally in the plan is the washing space. This is a rare moment of slick finish in an otherwise unadorned project. Each space has a light well, connecting the occupant back to the sky from the darkness of this isolated space. Protected, hidden, and central, this space becomes a welcome surprise, a place of refuge and delight. This is a place for unwinding reconnecting to the self and to nature.

World Architecture Festival Finalist 2019 - Best Hotel
As the last days of the longest summer in history mercifully wind down, we enter the teeth of the silly seasonthat time every 4 years when the thoughts of many are consumed by campaigns, debates, and elections.

And with the stakes being higher than ever before, the silliness has never been more ridiculous.

Case in point: Pundits from across the political spectrum are calling for Joe Biden to condemn the violence by peaceful protesters in cities like Portland

What's taking so long for Biden to condemn last night's murder at the Portland #BidenRiots? Waiting too long means you support violence. (I learned that from CNN, so it must be true.)  Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) August 30, 2020

thereby sending the message that both Trump and Biden are equally responsible for the unrest being seen in American cities this summer in response to the brutal shootings of several unarmed Black citizens.

Some commenters are even suggesting that the violencemost of which is being instigated and perpetuated by far right wing activists and militia groupswill wind up helpingTrump.

There is ZERO LEGITIMACY for arson, looting, and violence directed at police brutality. Protest and anger should be directed at law enforcement and political leadership. Use economic action. Go to the media. Go to the Feds. Trump will use these riots.  Barry R McCaffrey (@mccaffreyr3) August 27, 2020

The truth is that this kind of observation is nothing more than lazy thinking. These protests are the total complete responsibility of Donald Trump, who has encouraged his followers to incite violence and escalate tensionsand yet reasonable persons might not be aware of this based on the narrative of false equivalency being constructed by news reports and social media posts from political operatives.

For example

1. Even though theres a trope floating around online that Biden has been hiding this summer (see #WheresJoe and #HidenBiden), Joe Biden has repeatedly and visibly condemned all violence that has occurred at the protestshere, in Portland:

JUST IN: Biden condemns violence on all sides after deadly Portland shooting, calls on Trump to do the same. "We must not become a country at war with ourselves. A country that accepts the killing of fellow Americans who do not agree with you." https://t.co/p7XrXFHnZS  Axios (@axios) August 30, 2020

The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable. Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same. https://t.co/JRuI7ya2Wv  Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 30, 2020

and here, in Kenosha in the aftermath of the Jacob Blake shooting:

Because there seem to be people who did not see that @JoeBiden clearly condemned violence, Im reposting this. Please retweet to ensure word gets out: https://t.co/aRPSfXlx4R  Jennifer Granholm (@JenGranholm) August 27, 2020

2. At the same time, Trump has encouraged his supporters to swarm the protests in a show of bluster and aggression, calling them Great Patriots:

Trump, in true fashion, is praising his supremacist cultists in the street calling them Great Patriots as they attack and shoot to death protestors, Pouring gas on the fire, thats what we need. Targeting Dem run cities, so he can Blame it on Biden and the Dems.  tim russ (@timruss2) August 30, 2020

as they descended on Portland in an endless stream of pickup trucks festooned with all manner of Trump banners and Confederate flags

Portland started in the mall of a suburb, where armed Trump militia gathered and terrorized locals. They then rolled as a caravan to PDX, shot paintballs and pepper spray at passerbys from their pick up trucks. Now someone is dead. pic.twitter.com/e4CF40omZN  Amy Siskind  (@Amy_Siskind) August 30, 2020

later driving those trucks into crowds of protesters, and attacking bystanders with paint balls and pepper spray:

EARLIER TONIGHT: Trump supporters in trucks maced Portland protesters in the streets. #PortlandProtests pic.twitter.com/Oz07oWhOgd  Anoncat   (@anoncatanoncat) August 30, 2020

all this as Trump has yet to acknowledge the reasons for these proteststhe shootings of unarmed Black persons in Portland, Louisville, Kenosha, and many other American cities on a seemingly daily basis. Instead, he has doubled down on his support for the police and law enforcement

Trump doubles down on support for police, calls Black Lives Matter mural in NYC a 'symbol of hate' that would denigrate Fifth Avenue https://t.co/GGWnMNPeCH  Lois Levine Fishman (@FishmanLevine) July 1, 2020

3. While Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris immediately reached out to Jacob Blakes family after the shooting

BREAKING: Jacob Blakes father just said that Its too late for Trump to call. He should have called four days ago like Joe Biden.  Mrs. Krassenstein (@HKrassenstein) August 29, 2020

The father of Jacob Blake says that his hour-long conversation earlier this week with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris was akin to "speaking to my uncle and one of my sisters." https://t.co/iI1AeYj1bI  CNN (@CNN) August 28, 2020

and has mentioned Blake by name numerous times

Once again, a Black man  Jacob Blake  was shot by the police. In front of his children. It makes me sick. Is this the country we want to be? Needless violence wont heal us. We need to end the violence  and peacefully come together to demand justice. pic.twitter.com/WdNqrxA3PK  Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 26, 2020

We can't let George Floyd and Jacob Blake become just another pair of hashtags. This is a moment of action. It's long past time we reform policing, reverse systemic racism, and make our communities safer.  Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 28, 2020

4. Donald Trump rambled on for 70+ minutes on Thursday night, and still couldnt find time to mention Blakes name a single time

So @realDonaldTrump doesnt mention the murders of George Floyd and Jacob Blake by Police but talks about the rioting in Minneapolis and Kenosha as bad. This shows how little respect he has for Black people. pic.twitter.com/sAXFfbsEOu  Eldridge Recasner (@erecasner) August 28, 2020

Trump condemns rioting, doesn't mention Jacob Blake in convention address https://t.co/iBQRdZo2Zd  Mike Walker (@New_Narrative) August 28, 2020

If theres a silver lining here, it may be that more people are becoming aware of this false equivalency strategy, and are calling it out when they see it

The false equivalence between Trump and Biden is astounding to me. You can disagree with Biden's policies but I find it interesting that the left complains he will compromise everything away while simultaneously complaining he wont compromise enough on their issues.  Cam Fraser (@CamFraser17) August 30, 2020

Google is STILL FREE! The policies arent hidden even though to be realistic, its a false equivalence of pitting Trump v Biden in a bid to save Americas democracy Its deeply disingenuous & downright ignorant to ignore what this administration has done in 3.5 yrs but go off  Le Gateau Chocolat (@LeGateauChoc) August 30, 2020

Fascism is what well get in perpetuity if we dont vote for the neoliberalism. It sucks, the choice sucks, but these things are not equal. Saying that Trump and Biden are just as bad as each other is a false equivalence. At least with one well continue to have democracy.  Brad Haney (@Brad_H) August 28, 2020

Suggesting that violent protests are more dangerous and a bigger problem than police violence against unarmed Black persons

Attempting to silence those protests by suggesting that Trump will use these riotsas though Trump concerns himself with facts as he constructs his attacks

Expecting Biden to condemn that violence while giving Trump a pass, even though Trumps own words and actions have contributed to that violence

All of these are signs of a false equivalence strategy being deployed, and each of us has the responsibility to recognize it, and call it out for the silliness it represents.
Mulan will be made available to purchase for a one time fee of $30 starting September 4 on Disney+.

But the highly anticipated live-action film could appear on the streaming platform for free as early as December 4, according to a report by ScreenRant on Sunday.

Disney+ published the fee-free date to Mulan's official pre-order page, but it has since been removed.

Avoiding the fee: Mulan could appear on the Disney+ streaming platform for free as early as December 4, according to a report by ScreenRant on Sunday

Mulan was originally set to premiere in theaters worldwide on March 27, but the release ended up being delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent theater closures.

Disney rescheduled the release for July and then August, but, eventually, the company removed the title from their theatrical release calendar.

They then settled for a VOD release with a September 4 premiere. The film will also premiere theatrically where coronavirus guidelines allow.

Whoops: Disney+ published the fee-free date to Mulan's official pre-order page, but it has since been removed

If Mulan does appear on the streaming platform for free on December 4, it will be 'the fastest that a major film has gone from its theatrical release to being streamed (for free) on Disney+,' according to ScreenRant.

The film is a live-action remake of the beloved animated musical film of the same name, which premiered in 1998.

It is also the very first Disney film to feature an all-Asian cast.

Delays: Mulan was originally set to premiere in theaters worldwide on March 27, but the release ended up being delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent theater closures

Fastest: If Mulan does appear on the streaming platform for free on December 4, it will be 'the fastest that a major film has gone from its theatrical release to being streamed (for free) on Disney+,' according to ScreenRant

Though Disney+'s $30 fee was a shock to many subscribers, the one time fee adds the film to the subscriber's content library permanently. It is not a rental.

Subscribers - and theater owners - voiced their distaste towards Disney's Premier Access format and the implications it may have on the future of cinema.

If the film debuts successfully on Disney+, it could gravely affect how films premiere in the future.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-01 05:23:38|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Democratic 2020 presidential nominee Joe Biden and his Republican rival, sitting President Donald Trump, traded blame on Monday over violence in U.S. cities.

"He's supposed to be protecting this country. But instead he's rooting for chaos and violence," Bide said in a speech from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, referring to Trump. "He can't stop the violence - because for years he has fomented it."

The former U.S. vice president went on to criticize violence in cities like Portland in Oregon, and Kenosha in Wisconsin, which came amid protests against police brutality and racial injustice.

"I want to be clear about this: Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting," Biden stressed. "None of this is protesting - it's lawlessness - plain and simple."

"And those who do it should be prosecuted. Violence will not bring change, only destruction. It's wrong in every way. It divides instead of unites," he added.

Trump, in a tweet, said he has tuned in for Biden's remarks, while accusing him of "blaming the Police far more than he's blaming the Rioters, Anarchists, Agitators, and Looters."

Tim Murtaugh, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, issued a statement and claimed that people "won't be safe in Joe Biden's America."

The remarks came two days after a motorcade of Trump's supporters drove through downtown Portland, and confronted with people opposing racism and excessive use of force by police. Local police said they were investigating a deadly shooting of reportedly one of the pro-Trump protesters amid the skirmishes.

In Kenosha, protests have erupted after 29-year-old African American man Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back by a police officer during an arrest a week ago, which grew chaotic and violent at times when a teenager opened fire and killed two of the protesters.

Earlier this year, 46-year-old African American man George Floyd died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His death sparked nationwide protests as well as social unrest in some U.S. cities.

Trump has largely focused on violent aspects of the protests and sought to highlight his "law and order" message in days leading to the November election by blaming the chaos and violence on Democratic governors and mayors and doubling down on his support of police officers.

Biden, who has made improving race relations a pillar of his White House bid, has accused Trump of fanning the flames of hate and division and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters.

Trump will visit Kenosha on Tuesday "to meet with local law enforcement and survey damage from the recent riots." Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian said on Monday, adding he hoped the president could reconsider his trip because "the timing on this we felt was not good." Enditem
NORTHBROOK, Ill.

Aug. 31, 2020

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/PRNewswire-PRWeb/ --Vein Clinics, a national network of minimally-invasive vein treatment clinics, is pleased to announce today their continued expansion. Patients can receive services at eight new locations, and two new vein treatment specialists,, M.D. and, M.D., have joined the team. Dr. Perrott will be practicing throughout; Dr. Wilson offers services at the newlocation. Both physicians bring with them a wealth of related knowledge and experience."During my medical training and subsequent practice as a general surgeon, I began to recognize that venous disease was not well taught or widely treated, despite a number of patients complaining of significant symptoms. I decided to concentrate on the best, non-invasive therapies for these patients, hence my move to venous therapies throughVein Clinics," said Dr. Perrott.Dr. Wilson expressed similar sentiments: "I am delighted to join the team of experts atVein Clinics," he said. "As a board-certified diagnostic radiologist, I can help those with vein disease find some much-needed relief from pain and discomfort."The vein specialists atVein Clinics offer convenient, accessible, non-surgical treatment to patients across the country. New and upcoming clinic locations include:Clinic Locations: 7100 W 20th Ave, Ste 412: 29984 Telegraph Road, Ste A, NY: 5199 Broadway: 314 W 23rd Street: 1892 South Winton Road, Suite 190: 2350 Nesconset Highway, Ste 500: 1017 W. Randol Mill Road: 1010 Suncrest Town Centre DriveTo request a consultation at anyVein Clinics location, or to learn about a virtual visit, please fill out our online scheduling form at https://www.usaveinclinics.com/schedule-online/.About Vein Disease:Vein disease, also known as venous insufficiency, affects approximately 20 percent of the population. It is the underlying cause of painful, unsightly varicose veins. Most vein treatments, including state-of-the-art Endovenous Laser Treatment, can take only 15 to 30 minutes and allow patients to return immediately to normal activities.AboutVein Clinics:Vein Clinics is the largest network of vein treatment centers inwith over 80 clinics. Their team of experienced cardiovascular surgeons offer a variety of minimally-invasive treatments to meet individual patient needs, including endovenous laser therapy, Clarivein, and sclerotherapy treatments.Vein Clinics accepts most insurance plans including Medicare. Patients are encouraged to call 888.768.3467 to schedule an appointment or speak to an insurance specialist. For more information, visit http://www.usaveinclinics.comSOURCEVein Clinics
A daytime shooting in Brampton sent three men to hospital Monday, police say.

Shots rang out at 3:44 p.m. near Chinguacousy Road and Bovaird Drive West, where police located a man suffering from gunshot wounds.

A second man was found suffering from gunshot wounds near Hurontario Street and Steeles Avenue. Both men were transported to hospital by paramedics with serious and life-threatening injuries, paramedics say.

A third man made his own way to hospital, no information about the extent of his injuries is available.

Margaryta Ignatenko is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @MargarytaIgnat1

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A lot of men and women in their late forties and early fifties did stupid things in the 1980s of which they would rather not be reminded, so we need not be surprised if the strutting young class warriors who once sported the slogan Hang Nelson Mandela are now shy about coming forward.

A certain amount of mythology has grown up around this tale. It is not true, for example, that delegates turned out to conferences of the Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) in Hang Nelson Mandela T-shirts, though the truth is bad enough.

In the UK, no one apart from a hardy band of anti-apartheid campaigners was much interested in Nelson Mandelas fate until the early 1980s, when the white supremacist regime in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe collapsed and interest suddenly awakened in who would rule a post-apartheid South Africa.

Conservatives from Margaret Thatcher downwards did not like the look of the ANC, which they thought might be a communist front.

Their preferred choice was the Zulu politician Mangosuthu Buthelezi, but he did not have the political base, or the aura building up around the imprisoned Mandela, who was propelled to cult status among the young in Britain when the single [Free] Nelson Mandela by the Special AKA hit the charts in 1984. The infamous Hang Nelson Mandela stickers popped up a year later.

Harry Phibbs, a Hammersmith councillor who was then prominent in the FCS, says: A group of people at Warwick University made stickers that were a parody of the stickers people were wearing saying Free Nelson Mandela and all ANC prisoners, which said Hang Nelson Mandela and all ANC terrorists.

The motive was to disrupt the conference of the National Union of Students [NUS]. It was never proposed by the FCS officially. I suspect that it wasnt even a view really held by the people who produced that sticker. It was a rather immature way to stir things up.

By 1986, the FCS had attracted so much bad publicity that Norman Tebbit, the Thatcherite Conservative Party chairman, shut it down. The current Speaker, John Bercow, was the last ever FCS chairman.

He was never seen wearing a Hang Mandela sticker, but there is an old photograph of David Hoile, who was vice-chairman of the FCS in 1985, with a sticker on his tie. Dr Hoile, who is now Director of the European-Sudanese Public Affairs Council, did not return my call.

Proof politics is no place for a teenager

The Labour Party is so anxious to draw the young into active politics that two of the days at their annual conference last year were designated youth days. Further back, they were delighted to announce that three 18-years-olds, including Tony Benns granddaughter, Emily, had been selected as candidates for the 2010 general election.

What they and other political parties have yet to establish is why any normal 18-year-old would want to spend his or her time being an MP, or councillor. In 2011, Labour pulled off a sensational coup by getting an 18-year-old, Jake Morrison, elected to Liverpool Council, making him the youngest in the citys history.

That success has since turned to disaster. Councillor Morrison had a falling out with Luciana Berger, the MP for Liverpool Wavertree, who accused him of not being a team player. He took to social media to publicise the row. He was advised by Liverpools Mayor, Joe Anderson, to give it a rest, but carried on and was suspended from the party.

The latest twist is that he has decided to run for Parliament against Ms Berger, as an independent. Yesterday he tweeted: Some say Im naive, stupid, that Im having a tantrum, Im an idiot. Etc etc. I call it standing up for what is right. Later, he added: Ill say one thing  I wont lose any sleep because a few party careerists are licking arse. People want change and hope, Im offering it!

It is easy to see how this story will end. Either he will change his mind or he will get a derisory vote and quit politics. The moral of this story is that 18 is too young to cope with the tedium of being a councillor.

It was The Sun editor wot went to Columbia

David Dinsmore, the newly appointed Editor of The Sun, is a well-educated fellow, to judge by the CV on his LinkedIn page, where it says education  Columbia University, Columbia Business School, Strathallan. Columbia is one of the worlds most prestigious universities. To be one its graduates is a distinction indeed. Except hes not. The giveaway is further down the page where it says what and when he studied. The answer is general management, 2009. In 2009, Dinsmore was a long-standing Murdoch employee, and editor of the Scottish Sun. A general management course at Columbia lasts 10 days.

The lady wasnt for turning away gay people

One Tory who kept in touch with Margaret Thatcher to within weeks of her death was Conor Burns, MP for Bournemouth West, who is gay. What did the lady think? She was completely and utterly uncensorious, Burns said, when interviewed by Pink News. She was very naive about the issue of homosexuality, as someone who was born in 1920s Grantham would have been. She was always very surprised to learn that people are gay.

Burns was not the only gay in Thatchers circle. The journalist and former MP Matthew Parris worked for her in the early years. He got more of a negative reaction from her when she learnt that he had jumped into the Thames to rescue a dog than he ever did over his sexuality.

Stop press! Its National Frozen Yoghurt Day

An email arrives from a PR firm handling the Yoomoo frozen yoghurt account inviting me to a Girls Night Out at which I am promised a manicure and a glass of champagne. So begins the build-up to next months National Frozen Yoghurt Day. Don Draper, eat your heart out.

Twitter: @andymcsmith
Mayor Bill de Blasio has suggested that indoor dining won't be allowed to return to New York City until there is a COVID-19 vaccine - even though neighboring New Jersey restaurants can seat diners inside this week.

De Blasio signaled on Monday that indoor dining may still be months away from returning despite NYC recording a 0.59 percent COVID-19 infection rate - one of the lowest rates since March.

The dire outlook for already struggling restaurants came as reports emerged that de Blasio has delayed laying off 22,000 city workers in the hopes that the state government will provide funding.

'We do expect - and pray for and expect - a vaccine in the spring that will allow us to get more back to normal,' de Blasio said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio signaled on Monday that indoor dining may still be months away from returning despite NYC recording a 0.59 percent COVID-19 infection rate - one of the lowest rates since March

'But I will absolutely tell you, we're going to keep looking for that situation where we can push down the virus enough where we would have more ability to address indoor dining.

De Blasio, who is considering whether to extend outdoor dining beyond the October 31 expiry date, went on to say that he hoped to have more information in the coming days about the return indoor dining.

'Is there a way where we can do something safely with indoor dining? So far we have not had that moment, honestly,' he said.

'It would take a huge step forward to get to that point and that's the truth.'

Andrew Rigie, of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, questioned de Blasio's suggestion that the city hadn't worked out how to safely allow indoor dining.

'With indoor dining resuming soon in New Jersey, New York City will be surrounded by indoor dining but locked out from participating at significant economic peril,' he said.

The dire outlook for already struggling restaurants came as reports emerged that de Blasio has delayed laying off 22,000 city workers in the hopes that the state government will provide funding. Pictured above is a shuttered restaurant in 54th Street in Manhattan

De Blasio, who is considering whether to extend outdoor dining beyond the October 31 expiry date, went on to say that he hoped to have more information in the coming days about the return indoor dining

'The situation is at a boiling point and our government leaders must immediately develop a plan to reopen indoor dining across the five boroughs, like what's been provided to restaurants throughout the rest of the state.

'Otherwise, our city's economic crisis will reach a point it cannot come back from, with thousands of more restaurants permanently closing and likely more lawsuits filed against the government.

'The rest of New York State has been operating for months now at 50 percent reduced indoor occupancy using the same requirements that NYC was going to use starting July 6, until it was put on hold indefinitely.'

It comes as New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said that restaurants will be allowed to reopen for indoor dining on Friday.

The number of diners must be limited to 25 percent of the restaurant's capacity and tables must be spaced in accordance with social-distancing rules.

Masks will have to be worn except when eating or drinking.

Andrew Rigie, of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, questioned de Blasio's suggestion that the city hadn't worked out how to safely allow indoor dining

It comes as New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said that restaurants will be allowed to reopen for indoor dining on Friday

The announcement comes five months after the state shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Like neighboring New York City, restaurants and bars have only been allowed to offer outdoor seating after they could reopen in June.

Indoor dining has been prohibited in both New Jersey and New York since the coronavirus pandemic erupted in March.

Restaurants outside of NYC in other parts of the state have already been allowed to welcome back indoor diners.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday acknowledged the 'competitive disadvantage' New York City restaurants were going to face given New Jersey's loosened restrictions.

Meanwhile, de Blasio is delaying potential layoffs for 22,000 city workers in the hope that the state government will provide funding.

Those city workers were expected to be notified on Monday if they would still have jobs come October 1 after de Blasio announced the potential layoffs in June.
On Thursday afternoon, Laredo Animal Control got quite the surprise in the field.

After receiving a phone call about a loose alligator, an officer went out on the call and sure enough found what was described by Laredo Animal Care Services as a baby dwarf alligator.
Mumbai, Aug 31 : Actresses Taapsee Pannu and Lakshmi Manchu and slammed the media trails of Rhea Chakraborty, who has been accused of abetment to suicide in the death of late Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

Lakshmi took to Twitter, where she shared a post seeking justice for both Sushant and Rhea. She added that she would want her colleagues to stand up for her if she ever faced the situation that Rhea was currently going through.

In the note, Lakshmi discussed the recent interview Rhea gave, adding that "media trials" have made "monster out of a girl".

She wrote: "I watched the complete interview with Rhea Chakraborty and .... I thought a lot about if I should respond or not. I see so many people so silent because the media has made a monster out of a girl. I don't know the truth and I want to know the truth and I hope the truth will come out in the most honest way.

"I have complete trust in the judiciary system and all the agencies that are involved in bringing justice to Sushant," she added.

Laxmi said we need to "restrain ourselves from being evil and cruel and lynching of person and her entire family without knowing the facts".

"I can only imagine the pain the entire family is going through with these so-called media trials," she wrote.

Lakshmi shared that she would want her colleagues to stand up for her if something like this ever happened to her.

"If something like this happened to me I would want my colleagues to stand up for me at least the ones that know me to say back off hang on leave her alone and I ask all of you to do the same back off hang on leave her alone until the entire truth is officially released.

"I am pained by what we have become. How are we being authentic if we don't speak our heart when we have a voice to lend. I'm standing up for my colleague." Taapsee re-tweeted Lakshmi's post and agreed with her.

"I didn't know Sushant on a personal level nor do I know Rhea but what I know is, it only takes to be a human to understand how wrong it is to overtake judiciary to convict someone who isn't proven guilty. Trust the law of the land for your sanity and the deceased's sanctity," Taapsee wrote.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, August 31, 2020 08:48 507 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c418f58a 1 National discourse,Moeldoko,2045-vision,Jakpost-Up-Close Free

The 75th anniversary of independence is a good reminder of Indonesias vision to become a developed country with a per capita income of Rp 320 million (US$21,813) by 2045, when the country will turn 100. Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko spoke recently with The Jakarta Posts editor-in-chief Nezar Patria during a Jakpost Up Close webinar about the human capital development plans President Joko Jokowi Widodos government has laid out to achieve this vision.

Question: What are some of the things that we need to address in the next 25 years?

Answer: The basic thing that we need to focus on in the future, in my opinion, is that Indonesia must become a new force, a new sphere in Asia. We believe that Indonesia, with a projected population of roughly 318 million by 2045, is a tremendous force. We have our own large domestic market.

We are also now preparing a grand design for national talent management. I believe that this generation will become a core mover in Indonesia.

We face a number of issues regarding the development of our human resources, such as stunting and a lack of skills. How will we prepare for the next five years so that we can take full advantage of the upcoming demographic bonus?

When we talk about the human development index, the first thing we talk about is health. We are still experiencing high maternal mortality and child mortality rates. But we forecast that by 2024, we will move toward a lower child mortality rate of 21 per 1,000 [live births].

Next, if we look at the stunting rate, right now we are still at 24 percent, but President Jokowi said we have to push ahead to get to 17 percent. For this reason, stunting [prevention] has now become a national movement. Our approach is to find ways to increase protein consumption to help eliminate stunting.

Another program being run by the government is the Family Hope Program [PKH], which is aimed at improving nutrition. Initially, there were 9.4 million beneficiaries who received Rp 120,000 per month each, now there are 10 million who receive Rp 200,000 per month.

After six months of struggling to reduce the COVID-19 infection rate, can you tell us some of the noteworthy lessons we have learned and achievements we have made?

There has been an increase in social awareness, which can be used as social capital for the nation's development in the future. The first one is gotong royong [mutual cooperation]. Next, there is the struggle not to give in, which makes us independent. Then, the feeling of solidarity has also built up very well, which is an asset in uniting us around a common vision.

Post-COVID-19, there needs to be recovery, reform and transformation efforts. For the restoration of our economy, we need to recover quickly. Then, in the future, we must immediately carry out reforms in the health sector, as well as bureaucratic reform.

Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has required a transformation in education, from face-to-face to online learning. The transformation of the economic sector must also be pushed forward.

What critical points must we address to improve our national resilience, given current global political developments?

Strengthening the Pancasila ideology is a must amid todays global situation, in which there are no longer boundaries that prevent people from discussing certain things. The way I see it, a great nation cannot exist without a strong ideology.

Furthermore, from the political side, we are currently going through an extraordinary growth in democracy. However, in my opinion, the understanding of democracy needs to be put within the right context. You cant act arbitrarily in the name of democracy, or claim that you are the most righteous.

From a sociocultural perspective, we must not let ourselves be a culturally colonized nation.

Could you explain the governments contingency plan for handling the pandemic in the long-term? What do we need to salvage to keep us on track for the 2045 roadmap?

I think for the continuity of development in the future, the first of the five things Pak Jokowi has identified is human resources development. Everything is managed so that the human development index will increase properly.

Next, infrastructure development will continue. If we build highways now, then infrastructure development in the future will be more focused on developing new areas, including tourism areas, industrial areas and housing areas. Furthermore, infrastructure development not only includes land-based infrastructure but also seaports and airports.

We also need infrastructure development in agriculture, education and health. Cutting bureaucratic red tape is also a must as [regulatory certainty] is one of the prerequisites for attracting investment. Lastly, we must head toward economic transformation, as it's imperative that we catch up.
A successful return to both K-12 schools and colleges could lead to an easing of the targeted bar and restaurant restrictions in Pennsylvania.

Gov. Tom Wolf said as much on Monday, more than a month after he and Health Department Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine signed orders that limit indoor and outdoor occupancy, forbid bar service, and require prepared food to be purchased if a customer wants to also consume alcohol on the property because of the coronavirus pandemic.

I think our focus right now ought to be on getting our kids, and older students in higher education, back to school and back into a learning mode, Wolf said, And anything we do to take our eyes off that is going to be a problem.

I think one of the things Im going to be looking for is, how are we doing in back to school? This is the week, [and] next week, where the schools, most colleges are already back, and I think the next couple of weeks will tell the tale.

Bars and restaurant owners and industry associations have been clamoring for changes ever since Wolf reduced indoor capacity from 50 percent to 25 percent along with the other restrictions. For some time, though, it has been clear that they would be changed only if schools successfully returned to in-person instruction.

If we see real progress in terms of the two things that Im looking at, the case count per 100,000 and the [percent] positivity rate; that seems to be steady right now, Wolf said.

If that continues like that, that would be a good sign because I recognize we got to get back to, to a point where we live a life that is a lot more normal than the one we live in right now.
On August 23, 2020, Jacob Blake from Kenosha, Wisconsin, was shot several times in the back after he broke a fight between two women.

The whole encounter was recorded by using a cellphone. The 29-year-old victim was rushed to the hospital, and he is now left paralyzed from the waist down.

Nationwide protest

The shooting of Blake immediately sparked protests for three nights in Kenosha and other major U.S cities, adding to the already existing wave of protests over racial injustice and police brutality that followed the death of George Floyd, a black man who did in the hands of Minneapolis police in May 2020.

However, there are some netizens who tried to justify the shooting of Jacob Blake, saying that there is a reason behind it.

A rumor emerged days after the shooting that Blake had been charged with sexual assault offense that involved sexual penetration of a minor between 14 and 16 years old, labeling him as a "pedophile" and a "rapist."

Also Read: Man Disemboweled by Thugs in NYC Leaving His Intestines Hanging Out

There are social media posts that showed a graphic that comprised of what appeared to be a list of charges against Blake, including third-degree sexual assault.

The truth

The rumor about Blake being a rapist and a pedophile are false. He faced charges of sexually assaulting his ex-girlfriend, with whom he has three children with.

In July 2020, prosecutors in Kenosha County applied for an arrest warrant for Blake on charges of third-degree sexual assault, disorderly conduct, criminal trespass, and all were designated as acts of domestic abuse.

The warrant was issued on July 7. According to a criminal complaint that was filed by the Kenosha County District Attorney's office, Blake is accused of having entered the home of his ex-girlfriend in Kenosha, without her permission, on May 3, 2020, before sexually assaulting her, taking her car and debit card and making two withdrawals of $500 each.

In Wisconsin, third-degree sexual assault is not defined as involving sexual penetration of a minor. The definition included in the graphic shared on social media was taken from the laws of an entirely different state. It was taken from Section 11-37-6 of the Rhode Island General Laws.

Whoever created the graphic that has now spread online took a screenshot of an authentic list of charges against Blake, but juxtaposed it with an excerpt from the laws of a different state, in order to give readers the entirely false impression that Blake had been accused of committing an act of sexual penetration against a child.

Blake has never had a sexual encounter with a child. Claims that Blake is a rapist or a pedophile are all baseless.

Blake's name was searched in Wisconsin Circuit Court showed records revealing one child support disputes and a conviction in June 2018 in Racine County on a charge of operating a vehicle without a driver's license, which is not considered as a criminal offense.

In 2015, the Racine County Eye reported that Blake had been arrested after brandishing a gun at a bar in Racine and that officers require the assistance of a police dog when Blake allegedly refused to comply with the police orders.

Blake was charged with several offenses, including felony resisting arrest causing a soft tissue injury to a police officer, carrying a firearm while intoxicated, and endangering safety by the use of a dangerous weapon.

To recall, George Floyd also faced a similar issue when he was accused of assaulting a woman in a robbery back in 2007. A picture of Aracely Henriquez, the alleged victim, circulated online. However, the story was merely fabricated since Floyd did not injure Henriquez. Although the robbery case is true, he did not assault anyone. The image being shared online showing a woman with bruises is not that of Henriquez.

Related Article: Man Who Abducted, Killed 10-Year-Old Girl to Be Executed Via Lethal Injection

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Fresh from her impressive performance in the recent federal Conservative leadership race, Leslyn Lewis has announced shell be running in the next general election.

That move was only to be expected because while Lewis didnt become the new Tory leader, this charismatic, political neophyte was arguably the biggest surprise of the contest. She came out of nowhere and when the counting was done had captured not only the third highest number of ballots, but the imaginations of many in her party.

But while Lewis and her political aspirations hold out great hope for the Conservatives and their new leader, Erin OToole, she also presents an enormous challenge. Because of who she is, what shes done and what she hopes to do, Lewis could be a rising star that lifts sagging Tory fortunes into the stratosphere. At the same time, because of her staunch, outspoken social conservatism, she could instead become an anchor that drags the party down.

So which Leslyn Lewis will step forward? And how will OToole and his party respond?

Her curriculum vitae is chock full of positives. Shes a Black, immigrant woman in a party that is too often, and perhaps unfairly, seen as the domain of white men stuck in a time warp. Shes a Torontonian, in a party that has a tough time making any inroads whatsoever into Canadas largest metropolises.

Then, consider her professional experience. Not only is she a lawyer, she holds a masters degree in environmental studies. The main reason she didnt run for the Conservatives in the 2019 election was that she was completing her PhD on Canadian companies and the ways they can help developing countries sustainably develop their natural resources.

In addition, and this is admittedly a subjective opinion, she carries herself with the grace and assurance of a natural leader. If her resume stopped here, we can imagine some Canadians saying that if shes a Conservative, her partys certainly worth another look.

But theres a lot more to Lewis. For a start, she wants to ban sex-selected abortions. Whatever moral or ethical concerns many Canadians might have about ending a pregnancy based solely on the grounds of sex, the issue of abortion remains a third rail for Canadian political parties. Dont touch it or youll be shocked.

It was the failure of the previous Conservative leader, Andrew Scheer, to clarify his personal stand on abortion that helped ensure his defeat in last falls federal election. OToole, his replacement, has declared hes pro-choice. But OToole also says he wouldnt stop Conservative MPs from discussing reproductive issues.

And Lewis wants to re-open the abortion debate. That means, for now at least, the Conservatives have not put to rest the issue that has dogged them for years. And thats a problem for them.

So is Lewiss opposition to Liberal legislation that bans conversion therapy on LGBTQ people. That practice aims to suppress non-heterosexual behaviour and has been widely discredited.

OToole insists hes an advocate for LGBTQ rights. But how can he convince Canadians his party is also an advocate if Lewis fights legislation LGBTQ people consider essential?

The best-case scenario for OToole  and voters looking for new options in their choice of candidates  would be if Lewis could either renounce such socially conservative views or say that, if elected, shed keep them private.

But Lewis strikes us as a woman who wants to be true to her principles. And that leaves OToole with one of his first big management issues as party leader. How he responds will be telling.
The Lebanese government on Sunday, August 30 informed that the number of people killed in the Beirut blast earlier this month has climbed to 190 with more than 6,500 have been injured.

According to the reports, the authorities said that three people are still missing and nearly 300,00 others have been left homeless. In addition to that, more than 50,000 houses are reported to have been ravaged by the explosion in the port city.

READ: Lebanon To Impose Lockdown As Coronavirus Cases Surge After Beirut Explosion

30,000 people left homeless

The devastating explosion took place in the capital city of Lebanon on August 4 which destroyed dozens of buildings. The authorities claimed that the improper storage of 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate was the primary reason for the deadly blast.

Weeks after being hit by a series of explosions, Beirut port has become temporarily operational, a United Nations spokesperson said. In the aftermath of the explosion, the UN announced that it would be releasing an aid package worth $9 million for Lebanon. UN spokesperson Stephaney Dujjaric said that almost 9,000 containers of the UN aid were offloaded on the Beirut port earlier.

READ: Beirut Port 'temporarily Functional', Over 1,000 Tonnes Of Goods Offloaded: Spokesperson

According to an official estimate, 300,000 people were left homeless after the blast. Thousands of people are living in damaged buildings and some are shifted to shared shelters, with limited access to water and sanitation.

Meanwhile, Beirut is witnessing a surge in coronavirus cases weeks after the deadly explosion. To control the deteriorating situation Lebanons government imposed a lockdown from August 21 with markets, shopping centers, gyms, and other public places shutting closed. According to Lebanese officials, new cases of coronavirus are reported daily.

Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan is reported to have said that the situation is intolerable and also warned about hospitals are rapidly running out of beds for new patients. According to media reports, the reason behind a collapsed healthcare system is the explosion, which damaged six major hospitals and 20 clinics in the Lebanese capital.

(With ANI inputs; AP Image)

READ: 'End Of The World': Massive, Self-inflicted 'bomb' In Beirut

READ: WFP Ships Wheat Flour To Beirut After Explosion
In a new documentary, Tropicalia legend Caetano Veloso looks back at his 1968 arrest by Brazils military dictatorship and how the experience shaped his music. Narcissus Off Duty, directed by Renato Terra and Ricardo Calil, will premiere on September 7 at the Venice Film Festival. Watch a trailer below and check out an interview with Veloso about the film at Variety.

Check out the feature The Story of Tropicalia in 20 Albums.

Originally Appeared on Pitchfork
Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-30 22:48:17|Editor: huaxia

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) are seen during a press conference in Jerusalem on Aug. 24, 2020.(Amit Shabi/JINI via Xinhua)

The Arab nations U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently visited and hoped to follow the UAE's step remain cautious about normalizing ties with Israel.



by Xinhua writer Gao Yang

CAIRO, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's recent Middle East trip hit a snag as the Arab nations he visited remained cautious about normalizing ties with Israel following the United Arab Emirates' historic move, analysts say.

Pompeo has recently wrapped up a five-day trip to the Middle East, which took him to Israel, Sudan, Bahrain, the UAE and Oman, hoping to push more Arab nations to follow suit after a landmark U.S.-brokered normalization deal was reached between Israel and the UAE. Pompeo hoped to counter Iran's increasing influence in the region and support U.S. President Donald Trump's reelection campaign.

However, in Sudan, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok told the U.S. top diplomat that the Sudanese transitional government has "no mandate to normalize ties with Israel."

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets Chairman of Sudan's Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan(R) in Khartoum, Sudan, Aug. 25, 2020. (Xinhua photo)

Hamdok also urged the United States to separate the process of removing Sudan from the list of states sponsoring terrorism from the issue of normalizing Sudan's ties with Israel.

In Bahrain, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa told Pompeo that the kingdom is committed to the two-state solution and the Arab Peace Initiative to end the Israel-Palestine conflict, implying his rejection to push Arab countries to swiftly normalize ties with Israel.

Also, during Pompeo's visit, Oman made no reference to its relations with Israel.

Sudan, Bahrain and Oman declined to make any public commitments to recognize Israel, facing domestic challenges over the issue.

An Israeli sand sculptor builds a replica of the UAE Sheikh Zayed Mosque with sand at the beach of central Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Aug. 19, 2020.(Gideon Markowicz/JINI via Xinhua)

Niu Xinchun, a researcher with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing, told Xinhua that Arab nations are facing domestic pressure from the parties and citizens traditionally hostile to Israel.

Abdul-Rahim Al-Sunni, a political analyst at the Future Studies Center in Sudan, told Xinhua that Sudan has been trying to improve ties with the United States since the ouster of former President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, and normalizing ties with Israel could be a step for the government to achieve this.

However, he added that the Sudanese government is facing huge pressure from some hardline parties which believe that addressing internal conflicts should be top priority instead of seeking any diplomatic breakthrough, given the transitional status of the government.

The public remains an obstacle in Oman, experts said. Mohammad Al-Muqadam, former head of the History Department at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, said Oman's leader has to be cautious about normalizing ties with Israel as Omanis are traditionally hostile to Israel.

He believed that "it is not likely Oman will swiftly forge ties with Israel."

Meanwhile, warming ties with Israel will also challenge these Arab countries' decades-old allegiance to the Palestinian cause.

Following the announcement of the UAE-Israel peace deal, which made the UAE the third Arab country after Egypt and Jordan to normalize ties with Israel, criticism has mounted from some parts of the Arab world, with the Palestinians strongly condemning it as a "stab in the back."

Palestinians take part in a rally against UAE-Israeli peace deal, in front of the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), in Gaza City, on Aug. 19, 2020. (Xinhua photo/Rizek Abdeljawad)

A peace agreement with Israel would isolate the UAE from the Arab world, Azzam el-Ahmad, a member of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah central committee, told the Voice of Palestine. The UAE-Israel deal contradicts the 2002 Saudi Arabia-led Arab Peace Initiative, under which any Arab state's unilateral normalization with Israel is "rejected."

Saudi Arabia, while not condemning the UAE-Israel deal, said it will not follow the UAE's example until Israel signs a peace deal with the Palestinians.

In the Arab world, where the Palestinian issue is a major policy consideration, formal recognition of Israel could be seen by many as betrayal of the Palestinian cause.

In light of the cautious attitude adopted by Sudan, Bahrain and Oman towards recognition of Israel during Pompeo's trip, analysts predicted that it is unlikely that the Arab world will fall like dominoes to follow the UAE's footsteps, at least for now.
Louis DeNaples (left) at the Mount Airy Casino Resort during opening day ceremonies in October 2007. Read more

The Scranton-area bank directed by landfill magnate Louis A. DeNaples has handed out the biggest loan yet  for $50 million  from a taxpayer-backed program to help mid-sized businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.

The recipient: the Mount Airy Casino Resort, owned by trusts for DeNaples children and grandchildren. DeNaples had to relinquish his own ownership to resolve charges that hed concealed his ties to organized crime.

FNCB Banks loan to the casino could throw an unflattering light on the federal governments strategy of deputizing banks to write loans under its $600 billion Main Street Lending Program, which was authorized this spring over fears that lenders might cease supporting even thriving businesses.

Small banks such as Dunmore-based FNCB dont typically make such large loans and arent equipped to evaluate repayment risks and other potential perils that come with issuing the large amounts of debt permitted by the federal program, analysts said.

If borrowers default, its mostly the publics money  not the banks  that runs the risk of not being repaid.

This particular case could draw special scrutiny because of the family ties between FNCB and the Mount Airy casino, where revenue from gambling had flattened even before the coronavirus stopped its roulette wheels and slots and now threatens to upend the entire gaming industry.

DeNaples, 79, is chairman of FNCB and its biggest shareholder, with a 9.2% stake in the bank as of April 3, according to regulatory filings. His son Louis A. DeNaples Jr. is also on the board as the banks vice chairman with a 1.3% stake, and is the beneficiary of one of the seven trusts that share ownership of the Mount Airy casino.

Another board member is DeNaples nephew, Joseph L. DeNaples, while his brother Dominick L. DeNaples is a former chairman who continues to advise the company as director emeritus.

The loan may not even have been possible but for a decision by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department to exempt the Main Street program from longstanding rules barring banks from making taxpayer-backed loans to businesses owned by their directors.

But it may still trigger the federal restrictions on insider lending that cover all activity by regulated banks, known as Regulation O, said Braden Perry, a lawyer who specializes in banking compliance.

If you see a $50 million loan of your money going to an insider or a family member of an insider, it certainly raises some concerns, said Perry, who formerly tried cases for a federal financial regulatory agency.

Some critics of the Trump administrations response to the coronavirus, meanwhile, cast the loan as another case of rescue money being channeled away from those who need it most.

Less than a tenth of a percent of the cash available through the fund has been lent, while businesses throughout the country could not qualify under the programs relative narrow guidelines or are too beaten down to consider taking on more debt.

This money was meant to help Main Street businesses, not casinos owned by families with alleged mafia connections, said Kyle Herrig, president of left-of-center watchdog group Accountable.US.

The Federal Reserve, which runs the program with cash from the U.S. Treasury Department, said in a statement that it is unable to comment on specific transactions.

There are rules in place against making loans that favor businesses owned by bank officers or owners of a significant interest in the bank, it said. We expect banks making Main Street loans or any other loans to follow these rules.

FNCB president Jerry A. Champi said that the bank handles all insider transactions properly, but declined to discuss specific steps taken to ensure the Mount Airy loans compliance.

He also said his bank was fully capable of evaluating any risks associated with the large loan.

Not all of us have worked for community banks our whole careers, so we have a lot of exposure to the credit-underwriting process, he said. Credit is credit.

Casino officials declined to be interviewed, but said in a statement that the loan will be used to improve the strength of our business, which was deeply impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

These funds will be used to secure the jobs of nearly 1,000 Pennsylvanians employed by Mount Airy, it said.

A message left for DeNaples at his auto-parts business was not returned.

Mixing bank business with directors other ventures already led to trouble for the bank seven years ago, when it paid $5 million to shareholders and their lawyers to settle a lawsuit alleging that it tanked the companys stock price by lending millions of dollars to insiders who then defaulted on the loans.

One such insider was a bank director, Michael Conahan, the onetime Luzerne County president judge convicted in the Kids for Cash scheme during the early 2000s, under which the judges sent children to for-profit jails and received payoffs. Federal prosecutors said Conahan used the FNCB loan to purchase a Florida condominium used to launder the kickbacks.

Shareholders also faulted the bank in their complaint for abruptly refocusing its lending on land subdivisions and solid waste landfills  among the business of DeNaples and [brother] Dominick.

License granted

DeNaples, whose sprawling Northeastern Pennsylvania commercial empire also includes auto salvage yards, heavy-equipment sales, and towing services, moved to get into the casino business in 2005 by applying for one of the slot licenses that were newly being awarded in the state. He aimed to redevelop the Poconos storied Mount Airy Lodge into a gaming resort.

As a generous political donor and philanthropist with strong ties to business and governmental leaders across the state, DeNaples was seen as a likely licensee. Common Cause Pennsylvania, a good-government advocacy group, tallied his contributions to Pennsylvania office seekers at $403,125 from 2002 to 2007.

DeNaples did have on his record a 1978 no-contest plea to charges that he and three others bilked the federal government out of recovery funds following Tropical Storm Agnes. But that did not disqualify him, thanks to a provision that had been written into Pennsylvanias gaming regulations letting applicants off the hook for criminal convictions that occurred more than 15 years in the past

He was granted his casino license in late 2006 and opened his $412 million resort about a year later.

By early 2008, however, he had been indicted on perjury charges, in part for allegedly lying about his relationships to mobsters including William DElia, a former leader of the crime family of Northeastern Pennsylvania kingpin Russell Bufalino (played by Joe Pesci in the 2019 film The Irishman.)

Those charges were eventually dropped in a deal that required DeNaples to pass control of the casino to his adult daughter, Lisa DeNaples. But Louis DeNaples was allowed to continue advising the casino.

Ownership of the casinos parent company, Mount Airy #1 LLC, was later divided equally among seven trusts in the names of DeNaples children and grandchildren, records show.

Still, Louis DeNaples appears to have remained in the casinos orbit.

Last September, FNCB sold the casino 2.2 acres of land at the corner of state Route 611 and Woodland Road, about a mile southwest of the casino, for $375,000, county records show.

Over the years, DeNaples has also repeatedly petitioned state gaming regulators to allow businesses he owns to provide services such as waste disposal or vehicle repairs to the Mount Airy resort.

Those requests have been rejected under the argument that his deal to hand off the casino barred him from profiting in any way from the resort.

Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board spokesman Doug Harbach declined to address whether granting the loan might have also violated those terms, and what sanctions would apply if it did.

DeNaples also joined a ceremony at the casino last year to mark the completion of a $40 million expansion project there. The businessman, standing between his daughter Lisa and State Sen. Mario Scavello, a Republican whose district includes the casino, cut the ribbon at the event, seen in an online video by the Pocono Record newspaper.

A spokesperson for Scavello did not return a phone message.

While it was completing the renovations, Mount Airy had also been mapping out a now-lapsed plan to build and operate a separate mini-casino about 300 miles to the west in Beaver County under the states 2017 gambling-expansion law that allows gaming businesses to apply to open smaller satellite casinos.

Late last year, however, the gaming board declined to award Mount Airy a permit for what was to have been called Mount Airy Pittsburgh, ruling that the operator had utterly failed to produce any evidence that it can satisfy the financial fitness requirements for this project because no bank would back the $50 million-plus project.

As the gaming market in Pennsylvania matures, with revenues for Mount Airy and some other Pennsylvania casinos stabilizing, Mount Airys desire to establish a second casino in Western Pennsylvania is untenable in the eyes of financiers, gaming board chairman David M. Barasch wrote in the agencys denial notice.

Lending rules relaxed

The Main Street Lending Program was devised as part of financial rescue legislation in the spring to help businesses that are too big to qualify for the better known Paycheck Protection Program, but too small to benefit from the Feds big purchases of corporate debt.

Unlike the PPP programs forgivable loans, funds from the Main Street program must be repaid. Loan standards are also more selective, requiring participants to have been in solid financial shape with a manageable existing debt load before the pandemic.

Banks write loans under the program, but are then able to hand 95% of that debt off to the Fed, so they have fewer of their own assets at risk. The idea was to make banks less nervous about lending during what was expected to be a long period of tight credit.

Despite that opportunity to offload risk, few banks have so far signed up to participate in the program.

Nationwide, only $497 million in Main Street loans had been made as of Aug, 19, although details of only the first $92.2 million of that cash  accounting for 13 transactions  have so far been disclosed.

The Mount Airy loan is one of only two in the country that are for more than $5.5 million.

It appears in county property records as a mortgage on the Poconos property, against which an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group, the New York private equity firm owned by Japans SoftBank Group, already had a $170 million loan.

The Fortress loan was increased by $20 million on July 13, the same day the casino closed on the $50 million Main Street loan, giving the resort a total infusion of $70 million in new cash.

The Main Street loan is listed as a second lien, meaning that Fortress would have first dibs on casino assets should the resort be foreclosed on.

Chris Marinac, who analyzes banks as a research director with financial adviser Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, said it was extreme for a bank of FNCBs size to be making a $50 million loan, even if only $2.5 million of that was staying on its books.

Banks tend to make loans of no more than around 1.5% of their asset value, so only a little of their capital is tied up in any one venture, Marinac said. For FNCB, with $1.4 billion in assets, that works out to $21 million.

Another potential issue for regulators may be the relationship between the banks board and the casinos ownership, especially Louis DeNaples Jr.s overlapping ownership interests.

Small Business Administration regulations that have long governed loans made by banks using federal funds include a provision prohibiting banks from lending to other businesses owned by their directors, including ones such as DeNaples Jr. who are not also executives.

The government based its rules for disbursing coronavirus-relief funds on those SBA regulations, but the prohibition on bankers lending to their non-executive directors businesses was dropped for PPP. Since PPP loans are made under the same terms for all borrowers, there was no chance of favoring insiders, the agency reasoned.

When the Main Street loans started up, officials largely adopted the modified SBA rules for that program as well, including the relaxation of insider-lending rules designed around PPP.

The Mount Airy loan may, however, be covered by more general Regulation O banking rules regarding insiders, said Perry, the banking-compliance lawyer.

The rules set limits on how much a bank can lend to insiders including non-executive directors, or to their other businesses. The rules also require banks to document that loans to insiders dont include preferential terms, or are especially risky.

Having Louis Denaples Jr. as both a board member and beneficiary of one of the seven trusts that own the casino appears to be the sort of connection the rules would cover, Perry said.

It does not look good from an outsiders point of view and is a disservice to the taxpayer if the proper underwriting and vetting procedures were not followed, he said.
A delegation from the Czech Republic visiting Taiwan on Monday attended a trade and investment forum, with the president of the Czech Senate being the highest-ranking Czech official ever to visit the country.

Milos Vystrcil arrived in Taipei on Sunday with Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib and a business delegation for the six-day visit that has drawn sharp criticism from China.

Taiwan's Economics Minister Wang Mei-hua said Vystrcil's visit proves that nothing can stop Taiwan and the Czech Republic's determination on defending freedom, democracy and human rights.

Wang said the two sides will work closely to create mutual benefits through economic and trade exchanges.

Vystrcil said freedom and democracy are the basis of prosperity, and he believes that both can be fulfilled by free cooperation. He witnessed the signing of three documents on smart industry cooperation.

Government and business representatives from both sides have signed three memorandums of agreement involving cooperation in smart cities and the Artificial Intelligence of Things (AITO), start-up ecosystems and smart manufacturing.

(Image credit Pixabay)
Not only Sheikh Hasina but also the freedom-loving people of Bangladesh including the new generation have been fighting hard against anti-Bangladeshi forces for the last twelve years.





by Swadesh Roy





In conversation with an important person in the country on August 25, I said that the Chinese vaccine seems to be coming at the same time as the Russian vaccine. Will we get it? He immediately said, "Tell me how we will get it, the government is not permitting it under the pressure of India. As the Prime Minister used to balance India and China, now it seems she is not able to do that. Now India is putting a lot of pressure. 'I neither agreed with the gentleman, but nor argued about it. Because, I couldnt agree with him on two things. One, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, under pressure from another country, will decide for the people of her country which will be too late or we will not get the necessary vaccines. This is never possible by Sheikh Hasina. Two. It is unbelievable that Sheikh Hasina will deny the interests of the country under any pressure. Many people praise her in these cases saying she is the daughter of Bangabandhu. She never bows to anyone's pressure. I don't think there is any need to say she is Bangabandhu's daughter' to praise her deeds now. Because, Sheikh Hasina has established a state philosophy of her own in the meantime. The whole world knows about her philosophy. So, the people of her country also understand what Sheikh Hasina can and cannot do. Besides, other countries who negotiate with her on various issues also know how far Sheikh Hasina can go and how far she cannot go. So, in the case of the Chinese vaccine, I believed Sheikh Hasina will allow it to be tested in Bangladesh in the third stage so that Bangladesh can get that vaccine first.









And this idea is further strengthened when at the time of his unofficial visit of the Indian Foreign Secretary said,`India will prepare the vaccine and Bangladesh will get it first. An Indian company, which owns the largest vaccine manufacturing plant in the world, will jointly produce the vaccine discovered by Oxford and give it to Bangladesh first. After the Indian Foreign Secretary's remarks, it is clear that Sheikh Hasina is going to be hundred percent successful in vaccinating the people of her country. In other words, regardless the tensions in India-China relations, she is going to be successful in getting vaccinations for his people from both China and India. She has succeeded till the end. Even looking at the flow of events, it is clear that Sheikh Hasina will be able to put Bangladesh on the list of countries that will be vaccinated by Russia first. And this is Sheikh Hasina's state philosophy, she does everything for the people of her country.





Many may say that Sheikh Hasina does a lot for the people of her country but they do not get hundred percent of its benefits. Sheikh Hasina cannot be blamed for all this. Here our national character, the character of each of us is responsible. Besides, like all over the world, a `financial -force is working on many state institutions and decisions in Bangladesh. Thats why, a special group is ruining a lot. A special group is taking many benefits as their own. In today's world of autocratic states, less democratic states, more tolerant democracies and even more liberal democracies, this economic power is at work. This is happening even in countries where the state structure is much organized. The world needs to get out of it quickly. Bangladesh also needs to be brought out of this quickly. Otherwise, inequality in society will increase in all cases. Until the end, the people will not get the fullbenefits of the development not even the lion's share. That is why, Sheikh Hasina is collecting Covid-19 vaccine from all countries and she has to make arrangements for its distribution. She should also make an effective arrangement so that the poor people of her country can get this Covid-19 vaccine easily. It shouldnt be affected by any means following the facts of administrative corruption, businessmen who are extremely greedy for profits and any special group. Because, the world has realized this truth, without Covid-19 vaccine, the world cannot be taken back to its previous state. So, at this moment it is very important for Bangladesh to get these vaccines. Sheikh Hasina has succeeded there.





On the other hand, those who thought or were propagating in different ways, Sheikh Hasina is not giving Bangladesh the opportunity to test the third stage of Chinese vaccine underIndias pressure - they also got an answer through Sheikh Hasina's work. Even the intellectuals or professionals who have already started politics with this seem to have found a very straight answer. They should have understood; the Covid-19 vaccine is associated with the death or existence of our human life. The extent to which saving lives is related to the existence of a country can only be understood by loving the country and the people. Almost every day a known person, a friend, a relative is dying. Forty to forty-five people are dying every day. At such a time, it is impossible to say how important this vaccine is, how much it is involved in human existence.





It is understood that Sheikh Hasina has given utmost importance to the life of the people of her country. Because, Sheikh Hasina has approved the third phase test of Covid-19 vaccine of China on 28 August. Just twelve days ago, China attacked not only the existence of Sheikh Hasina but also the existence of pro-independence people of Bangladesh. Not only the people of Bangladesh, but all the people of the world who keep updates about Bangladesh, know the real secret of Begum Khaleda Zia's 15th August birthday. The only purpose of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia's false birthday celebration on August 15 is to turn the day of Bangabandhu's assassination into a celebration. Because, it is a day of celebration for the people who are pro-Pakistani and anti-Bangladeshi. On 15th August, they not only killed Bangabandhu; they also killed modern Bangladesh that was created through the war of liberation in 1971, all kinds of spirits of Bangladesh and its constitution. "This is a sensitive day for Sheikh Hasina," a Bangladeshi editor wrote on a portal. In fact, it is not just for Sheikh Hasina - it is sensitive for all those who want a modern Bangladesh which is achieved in 1971. Because, the celebration on this day without considering it as a day of national mourning is to deny the existence of Bangladesh. To celebrate the work, they did to create Pakistan branded Bangladesh by assassinating Bangabandhu on 15 August. That is what Khaleda Zia does. Because, she is the main representative of anti-Bangladesh and Pakistani forces in Bangladesh.





Not only Sheikh Hasina, but also the freedom-loving people of Bangladesh including the new generation have been fighting hard against this anti Bangladeshi forces for the last twelve years. And a new generation led by Sheikh Hasina has brought them to a decaying situation. It has now been possible to take the anti-Bangladesh forces to a much weaker position in Bangladesh. At a time when anti-Bangladesh forces are weak in the country, this time on August 15, China has given a different message after the last twelve years. Sending greetings and gifts to Begum Khaleda Zia, the representative of the Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh, on her conspiratorial birthday has basically hurt the very existence of the people of Bangladesh. Because, this truth must be accepted by all over the world, to conspire on the national day of mourning on August 15 means to conspire for the existence of Bangladesh and the Bengali nation. That is what Khaleda Zia is doing. This time on August 15, this greeting and gift from China recognized that conspiracy. As they first recognized Bangladesh 31st August in 1975. That was 15 days after the assassination of Bangabandhu.





However, even then Sheikh Hasina is a statesman. She knows that state power has to deal with conspiracies all the time. And the diplomatic success is the name of realizing the interests of the people of the country by confronting this conspiracy. Sheikh Hasina has shown that patience and courage in this case. Through this patience of Sheikh Hasina, China will surely get a message. Because, patience is always a sign of courage. At the same time, by recognizing the day of Begum Khaleda Zia's conspiracy, no pressure can be put on Sheikh Hasina. Again, no new conspiracy by Begum Khaleda Zia will be possible. Because, old shoe does not suit with new clothes.





Swadesh Roy, Senior Journalist, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is a highest state award winning journalist and can be reached at swadeshroy@gmail.com




The UAE has touted the deal as a tool to force Israel into halting its contentious plan to annex parts of the West Bank sought by the Palestinians for their future state. It also may help the Emirates acquire advanced U.S. weapons systems that have been previously unattainable, such as the F-35 fighter jet. Currently, Israel is the only country in the region with the stealth warplanes.
It is quite unbelievable that in this 21st century people are still talking about the repulsive and retrogressive act of killing other human beings for religious reasons. Yes, it is most unfortunate that when the rest of the world is moving on with massive infrastructural and human development, innovative and progressive laws that include expunging capital punishment from their laws, in Nigeria people are still thinking of decapitating a citizen just for singing against their religion. Is this not disgusting and shameful? The governor of Kano State of Nigeria Abdullahi Ganduje was recently reported as saying that he would not waste any time in signing the death warrant on citizen Shariff Yahaya Aminu Shariff, a misician who was recently sentenced to death by a Shariah court in Kano for alleged blasphemy against the Prophet. Shariff, 22, was arrested, tried and convicted for a song he circulated through WhatsApp in March. And shockingly, the Nigerian Bar Association Kano Branch, the Sharia Council and some other sect leaders in the state are reported to be supporting this. Well, thanks for running two different legal systems in one country - one conventional and the other religious.

In as much as we do not support people deliberately disparaging other peoples faith, we also want to say that it is high time we leave all these religious bigotry and correctness to face more serious challenges of development and prosperity for our people. Why should we always spend so much time, emotions and resources on things like these when we have not finished with the very important things that would better our society? Just listen to our governor, The judgement has taken place and the law of the land allows the person convicted to appeal further within 30 days to the High Court and to the Appeal Court and to the Supreme court as the case may be. Should at the end of it the warrant is presented before me, I will not waste time in signing it. On the second hand, if he does not appeal within the specified period, I will not spend a minute in signing the death warrant. My God! Look at the zeal, the energy Governor Ganduje is putting in assuring his readiness to see that citizen Shariffs head goes off. Is he putting the same level of passion and effort in developing his state? I doubt. Maybe this condemned guy also campaigned and voted for him to become governor, hoping for a better leadership.

Look at the decaying infrastructure in Kano, the level of extreme poverty, the dwindling of the once-flourishing famous international textile market, the millions of out of school children, the ever restive uncountable youths, the very high crime rate, the lack of clean water and proper waste management, etc. What has he done about all these since assuming power? Kano with all the resources and potentials for prosperity still remains one of the most restive states in Nigeria because of the level of poverty, illiteracy and mismanagement. Now, do you still wonder why it easily ignites at every little scratch? He should do well to get busy, tackle all these infrastructural challenges and not to excitedly, anxiously be waiting to cut short the life of one of his citizens for trivial reasons. He sure has plenty jobs to do before his tenure end. Please, he must see that this verdict is not carried out. Nigerians are really tired of wasting human and material resources in the name of religion. Religious bigotry and extremism are part of what has held the country down since independence. You are not expected to aspire to certain political offices, get certain appointments, head certain agencies, get to certain ranks or hold some military posts or get certain government patronages if you dont belong to the preferred religion of the powers that be. Religion that should ordinary be a blessing and a tool for positive development has unfortunately become a curse to Nigeria. As I write, the police is battling with the Shiite sect is Kaduna State. They are again demanding for the release of their leader who is being held by the authorities for some years now. Many lives have already been lost. And this Shiite problem is another bomb waiting to explode in the country. I am afraid Nigeria may not be able to survive additional insurgence on that level? The Northeast insurgence/war, herdsmen and kidnapping menaces are already bleeding and paralysing the country.

The federal government and the appeal courts must do the needful immediately by stopping these primitive actions that will terribly stain our image before the world, especially now that we are trying to woo investors. No sane investor or tourist will want to come where people are still being amputated or decapitated for religious reasons. We commend the human right groups that have so far mounted pressure on the Kano government to drop this charge. We also call on our legislators to wake up to their responsibilities. It is high time they make laws to stop all these barbaric actions. They must also see immediately that capital punishment is expunged from our laws. Nigeria is one the few countries that still practice this. Most countries have since discarded it. Look at the United Kingdom our former colonial masters and from where we borrowed most of our laws, they are today celebrating the 55th year of abolition of death penalty. The Abolition of Death Penalty Act was enacted in 1965 by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It replaced the penalty of death with a mandatory sentence of imprisonment for life. Then, the United Nations which Nigeria is a prominent member has also been pushing for this. It has variously adopted motions to totally abolish capital punishment globally.

Religion is simply believing and worshipping something that you believe exists somewhere. Most of the things we are taught in religion are history that we are all waiting to verify after this life. So, why should we fight and kill ourselves for them. Why should we kill and fight for God? Is it really worth it? There should be total religious freedom. One should be free to practice his faith the way feels and believes without hindrances except when it constitutes a nuisance to the society or impinges on other peoples rights and freedom. It is very wrong to force people to believe what you believe or punish them because they dont practice or worship your own way. Nigerians still remember and mourn the likes of Gidoen Akaluka and numerous others who have been gruesomely murdered or deprived of their sources of livelihood in all this senseless religious bigotry. Their blood still speaks against our land and the perpetrators. Their children and families still hope and demand for justice. Now, how do we expect prosperity and progress with all these on our hands? Please, we plead with our amiable Governor His Excellency Abdullahi Umar Ganduje and the good people of Kano not to waste another life in the name of religious or political correctness.

Gabriel Agbo is the author of the books: Never Again! Move Forward, Power of Midnight Prayer and others Tel: 08037113283 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.authorsden.com/pastorgabrielnagbo
New Delhi: Former president Pranab Mukherjee died on Monday in an army hospital at the age of 84. Mukherjee was admitted to hospital on August 10 and a health bulletin this morning said he was in a deep coma and on ventilator support.

"With a Heavy Heart, this is to inform you that my father Shri Pranab Mukherjee has just passed away in spite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital and prayers duas and prarthanas from people throughout India! I thank all of You Folded hands," his son Abhijit Mukherjee tweeted.

The former president was admitted to the hospital in Delhi Cantonment on August 10 and was operated the same day for removal of a clot in his brain. He later developed a lung infection.

A Congress stalwart before he was elected as India's 13th President, Mukherjee served from July 2012 to 2017 in the top post. A powerful orator and scholar, he made several revelations in this autobiography. He said that he had a vague impression that Congress may project Manmohan Singh as its presidential candidate, leaving him to be the partys prime ministerial nominee for the 2014 general election.

Excerpt: I thought that if she (Sonia Gandhi) selected (Manmohan) Singh for the presidential office, she may choose me as the prime minister. I had heard a rumour that she had given this formulation a serious thought while on a holiday in the Kaushambi Hills.

The fact was that I was reluctant to join the government (led by Manmohan Singh) and informed Sonia Gandhi accordingly. She, however, insisted that I should join the government since I would be vital to its functioning...

The Turbulent Years: 1980-1996 (On Sanjay Gandhi): In the second part of his memoir, Mukherjee heaped praises on late Congress leader Sanjay Gandhi, calling him the principal architect, along with his mother, of the partys victory in 1980 general elections.

Excerpt: "Sanjay Gandhi had played a crucial role in the elections. He had planned as well as executed a nationwide campaign and he worked hard to ensure the success of the party in the assembly elections. He revamped the organizational machinery in the states and, post the elections, hand-picked new chief ministers --- ensuring that those who had stood by Mrs Gandhi during her days of crisis were suitably rewarded..."

Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years (On Emergency): The Indira Gandhi Years, Pranab Mukherjee described the Emergency years, during which fundamental rights were suspended, the press was censored and political dissidents were arrested, as a misadventure.

Excerpt: While there is no doubt that it brought with it some major positive changesit was perhaps an avoidable event... some instances of the Emergency adversely affecting the interests of the people. Congress and Indira Gandhi had to pay a heavy price for this misadventure.

Rootless wanderer: Mukherjee was derisively called a "rootless wanderer" by some of his party colleagues as he had never won a Lok Sabha election till 2004. When he won from the Jangipur Lok Sabha constituency in West Bengal in 2004, he literally wept with joy. "For me this is a dream come true, a dream I have cherished and nourished all my life," he had said.

Jangipur Lok Sabha seat: Jangipur gave the Congress stalwart taste of winning a direct election for the first time in 2004 when he fought the seat on a Congress ticket. Never before 2004 parliamentary polls, Mukherjee won any direct election even though he had served the Congress-led governments in Delhi in various capacities. Mukherjee won several Rajya Sabha elections and it is Jangipur which gave him the honour to win a direct election.

After Indira Gandhi assassination: The story goes that on the day prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated  October 31, 1984  Mukherjee was accompanying Rajiv Gandhi on a flight back from West Bengal to New Delhi. In a discussion about her potential successor, Mukherjee apparently said the senior-most minister should become caretaker prime minister  a suggestion Rajiv Gandhis friends felt showed his own interest in the top executive office.

The rest is history. Rajiv Gandhi became prime minister and kept Mukherjee out of his cabinet. Mukherjee left the Congress party in 1986 and launched his own political outfit, which went nowhere.

Arrest of Jayendra Saraswati:

From his book The Coalition Years, 1996-2012

"Nothing exemplifies my temper more than the episode that involved the arrest of Jayendra Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of Kanchi, on 12 November 2004. It was a time when the entire country was celebrating Diwali. During the Cabinet meeting, I was extremely critical of the timing of the arrest and questioned if the basic tenets of secularism of the Indian state were confined only to Hindu monks and seers? Would the state machinery dare to arrest a Muslim cleric during Eid festivities? MK Narayanan, then Special Advisor to Prime Minister, also agreed with me. I immediately issued instructions for the Shankaracharya to be released on bail."

On Durga:

The range of Mukherjees interests and reading is stunning. Around five years ago, there was a flap in Parliament about textbooks that said that Hindu deities like Durga drank alcohol. Mukherjee got up to reply and said that this was true. Then he proceeded to quote the Chandi Mangal, Bengals traditional narrative of the battle between Durga and Mahishashura, reading out stanzas that described how Durga drank again and again in the midst of battle, her eyes red as the burning sun.

Mukherjee said that before the battle, all the gods kitted out Durga with weapons of their choice. It was Kuber, the god of wealth who handed her the drinking cup. In our part of the country, schoolboys know this. Why are you making such a fuss? he scolded.

Excerpts from Pranab Mukherjee's autobiographical account of the coalition era:

On joining the UPA government:

After the Congress victory in General Elections 2004, the prevalent expectation was that I would be the next choice for prime minister after Sonia Gandhi declined. This expectation was possibly based on the fact that I had extensive experience in government, while Singh's vast experience was as a civil servant with five years as a reformist finance minister. Some media commentators reported that I would not join the government because I could not work under Manmohan Singh, who had been my junior when I was the finance minister. The fact was that I was reluctant to join the government, and informed Sonia Gandhi accordingly.

She, however, insisted that I should join the government since I would be vital to its functioning, and also be of support to Dr Singh. As it turned out, Dr Singh would talk to me on all important issues and seemed to depend on me. We shared a good working relationship. Notwithstanding the debate regarding his appointment as prime minister, there could have been no one more experienced in economic policymaking than Manmohan Singh.

Why Pranab got defence

Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh discussed likely ministers from the Congress. In that context, Sonia called me and asked which of the four portfolios I would prefer to take. Her inclination was for me to take up finance. However, I told her that I would not like to be charged with finance due to my ideological differences on economic policy with the prime minister-designate. I also told her that I would prefer home over external affairs-I had worked as the chairman of the standing committee on home affairs for over six years and was conversant with the ministry-and that I had no experience in defence. She heard me out, making no commitment, nor indicating a decision other than saying that defence was a world in itself and the defence ministry would offer me maximum autonomy, taking into account my seniority. It was at the swearing-in that I got to know that I was to be the minister for defence.

Handling naval war room leaks

Unfortunately, one of the prime accused in the naval war room leak case was Ravi Shankaran, a former naval officer and a relative of the wife of the then Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Arun Prakash, a decorated naval aviator and a man known for his high integrity and professionalism. Shankaran owned a company called Shank Ocean Engineering and was involved in the business of naval supplies. He had allegedly used his relations with officers in the naval directorate to acquire information. Confronted with this revelation, Admiral Prakash, in the true tradition of a man in uniform, called on me and submitted his resignation in August 2006.

Though I appreciated his expression of propriety, I was unwilling to accept his resignation without there being any prima facie evidence against him. I was influenced in my decision by the dictum that every individual is responsible for his or her own action, and the relatives of an accused do not have to bear the burden of any criminal or improper act unless there is some evidence to the contrary. And to this day, I feel vindicated about the decision I took since nothing has even remotely surfaced so far, linking Admiral Prakash to any wrongdoings of his relative.

26/11: Tough words with Condoleezza Rice-

After the [26/11] incident, the first call was from Condoleezza Rice. She was concerned about the fallout. I told her, 'The situation is grave. I do not believe in romanticising relations or indulging in any sort of adventurism, but there is a limit to one's patience. We are truly concerned.'

I also insisted that the US exert pressure on Pakistan to stop cross-border terrorism. I took strong exception to the sale of sophisticated arms and equipment to Pakistan by the US. I refused to buy their argument that these weapons were supplied to Pakistan for limiting the threats from terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and Taliban, and pointed out that they were actually being used against India.